Rain strobe

Cherry blossoms on top of Tabor

Living this close to the Pacific Ocean, here in this land of temperate rainforests and plush, green valleys (a lot like valleys in Ireland, by the way) one learns never to trust a spring day.

Pacifica rules all the earth between here and Tokyo, and Zeus' Queen Hera had nothing on that one for raging, full-blown bitchery.  Today, her restless, indomitable will shed a strobe --sun, rain, sun, rain --upon the city.  When I went out to walk, I took the jacket with the hood.

West side Portland, behind the rain curtain

At the reservoir, I paused to have a look across toward the West Hills.  A rainy partition, a gauzy haze of drizzle, divided the city roughly along the river.  West Side was getting wet.

It was easy to imagine the rain curtain to be the smoke of combat, and I, standing on Tabor's west slope, some general or staff officer watching a battle unfold.  A jogger had paused beside me to watch.  "It'll be here in five minutes," he said, grinning.  "Yep," I said.

Similar words surely passed between Harold and his housecarls as they watched the Normans advancing on their Anglo-Saxon shield wall. 

Dogwood-azalea

As it turned out we were wrong. The rain wavered and fell away northward.  The sun grew prideful and scattered the clouds like truant children.

Up on top, the birds of Tabor --chick-a-dee, jay, warbler, thrush --performed a mad, frantic symphony.  In their rests, echoes of human music drifted up from the city.  Auditory fragments of a Cinco de Mayo celebration on Hawthorne.

"What's all the fuss about Cinco de Mayo?" a middle-aged woman nearby asked.  Well-kempt and alert, she seemed pleasant enough.  "Cinco de Mayo is taking over, if you ask me," she said.  She was from Chicago.  She and her husband were in Portland visiting their son.  He was a young man, not yet jaded.  He shrugged.  "What else do we have going on in early May?"  She cast a sharp look at him, but said nothing.  Her husband raised his eyebrows, then brightened and chimed in, "It's another excuse to have a party." 

Hawthorne Boulevard:  Home, sweet home

Walking back down toward Hawthorne, jacket tied around my waist now that the day had grown warm, I was grateful to this City of Roses for having taken me into its arms and kept me for these 23 years.  Happy and grateful.  And I wished I wasn't so mean sometimes.

Your happiness offends them

Cardinal Altamirano, calling 'em like he sees 'em

Quick digression:  If you have not seen The Mission, starring Jeremy Irons and Robert DeNiro (with a young Liam Neeson in a supporting role) by all means, rent it today!  The cinematography, the score (by Ennio Moricone, who also wrote the score for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), the acting, the direction, and most especially, the writing are superb.  A must see for movie lovers!

This seeking to create a paradise on earth... how easily it offends.
Your Holiness is offended... because it may distract from that paradise which comes hereafter.
The Spanish and Portuguese kings are offended... because a paradise of the poor is seldom pleasing to those who rule.
And the settlers here are offended for the same reason.  --Cardinal Altamirano, The Mission

Thus dictates Cardinal Altamirano, the Holy Father's personal envoy, in the opening scenes of the 1986 Roland Joffé classic, The Mission.

And don't those words ring true?

(The name Altamirano, of course, is a play on words in Spanish.  Roughly:  "far-seeing." )

Well, I've got a theory...

I believe that there are people who are unhappy with their stations in life.  This unhappiness seems to stem not so much from the conditions that surround such people --many of them are financially well-off and living in comfort --but more from some unhappiness deep within their psyches.

To these people, society is a ladder.  One's position higher or lower on the ladder determines the rights and privileges one should expect.  Kowtow to those higher on the ladder; spurn and scorn those who are lower.

So, for people who hold this mindset, stories of corporate corruption or financial scams are not overly troubling.  After all, the perpetrators of those crimes are "higher" on the ladder, and therefore not to be judged by those "below."

But it is offensive in the extreme when they see people "below" them who are content, who care not one wit about the all-important hierarchy, who have achieved some version of Cardinal Altamirano's "paradise of the poor." It vexes them to no end.  After all, they bitterly envy those whom they deem to be "above" them.  They bow and scrape on cue and readily.  Why are they not afforded the same deference and submission from those "below" them?

I think many (but certainly not all, let me hurry to stipulate) of the people who supported Junior Bush and conservative policy hold such views.  To them, programs that attempt to address the needs of those lower on the ladder blur distinctions, make the hierarchy less pronounced.  Universal health care, for example, diminishes their stature:  it removes one more advantage they have over the "lower" people.  It gives life to "paradises of the poor." 

As Cardinal Altamirano observes, it offends these people when they see others who are not caught up in their game and seem to be getting away with it.  By not sharing in their misery.  By daring to be happy.

Tough life, that.

Two big defeats for the GOP

"It seemed like such a good idea at the time..."

Two big surrenders by the GOP on the domestic front.  According to the New York Times, top Republican aides, quoted anonymously have a pretty bleak assessment of the current political climate.  "It is a big problem,” one aide said. “Things are unraveling."

Health care repeal is dead

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) said Thursday that repeal of the 2010 health care legislation is "dead." 

Quoting Mr. Camp:  "Obviously, I voted to repeal the bill and you pretty much know where I am on replacement because I put out a bill last year on that. Is the repeal dead? I don’t think the Senate is going to do it, so I guess, yes."

Sour news for Tea Party folks. All that sturm und drang that the GOP stirred up with their talk about "death panels" and "socialized" medicine may have helped them win control of the House, but in the end it comes to nothing.

But there is more...

Paul Ryan budget is dead

Now that GOP representatives have had a little taste of some down-home grass-roots fury at their town halls, they can't run from the Paul Ryan budget plan fast enough.  Check what Speaker Boehner had to say: “It’s Paul’s idea. Other people have other ideas. I’m not wedded to one single idea, but I think it’s — we have a plan. Where’s the president’s plan to deal with the nightmare that’s facing Americans?”

That, my friends, is called "throwing Paul Ryan under the bus."  So much for all that Ayn Rand claptrap.

But there is still a problem, Republicans.  Remember that vote you took back on April 15th?  When all but 4 of you said "yea" to the Ryan budget?  Now you must explain to your constituents (Tea Party folks and everyone else) why you voted to end Medicare as we know it.

It will be interesting to see how Senate Republicans vote when Harry Reid brings the Ryan budget to the floor in the upper body.  One can practically hear Mitch McConnell's sour lament:   "Why, thank you so very much, Mr. Boehner."

But, of course, we all knew it would come to this. 

They got nothin', folks.  Nothin'.

Bin Laden death exemplifies Obama's courage, Junior's cowardice

Mission accomplished

The successful military operation that culminated in the death of Osama bin Laden is a crystal clear example of the superiority of our current president, Barack Obama, over his imbecilic predecessor, Junior Bush.

President Obama faced huge political risk when he authorized the operation.  (And, isn't it telling that there has been no snazzy, poll-tested name given to it?  No "Operation Iraqi Freedom" hoohaw?)  If the mission had somehow ended in disaster, the President's already shaky approval numbers would most likely have fallen through the floor.  (Remember President Carter's Operation Eagle Claw?)  But Obama did something that today seems almost unbelievable.  He put the interests of his country ahead of his own political interests!

Junior, when faced with a similar opportunity in December 2001, chose to protect his political capital  According to a definitive account by Peter Bergen (senior fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of The Osama bin Laden I Know), even as US military forces and their allies had Osama bin Laden cornered in Tora Bora, "the Bush administration’s attention was distracted by the planning process for Iraq."  The last thing Junior and Cheney wanted, going in to the new year, was to have significant military casualties broadcast across the airwaves, dampening public appetite for war.  Their goal was Iraq and nothing must interfere with that.  Osama bin Laden escaped Tora Bora in mid-December.

Hoo boy...

Further, contrast how the two men, Obama and Junior, portrayed their various successes.  President Obama made a brief factual statement on the evening of the conclusion of the operation.  Junior, on the other hand, in May 2003 played dress up just like a real soldier and gave a premature victory speech in front of a banner on an aircraft carrier.  (By the way, the mission Junior was celebrating went on to last another seven years.)

Today, President Obama graciously invited Junior to join him in placing a wreath at Ground Zero in memory of the victims of 911, but Junior declined.  A spokesman said Bush appreciated the invitation, but "has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight."

Just serves to confirm what I already knew:  There's no contempt like self-contempt, eh, Junior?  Sucks to be you.

Book review: Peace

A complicated web of eerie, subtly related stories, the reminiscences of a confused old man named Alden Dennis Weer. This is Gene Wolfe's Peace.

Alden doesn't sleep well. He wanders through the rooms of his "house," reliving significant episodes from his life in the small town of Cassionsville on the Kanakessee River in the American Midwest.  All his people have passed.  There is only Alden left to remember them.  As he puzzles through the mysteries of his life, he remembers stories.  There is a colloquial Irish story about a banshee, related by a young nanny.  There is a Shogun-era glimpse at infinity, told at a contentious dinner party.  There are oddly-written letters, penned by carnival freaks.  There are weighted conversations fraught with hints and clues.  Taken together, the array of stories within the larger story conveys themes of disinterment, fraud, and the ambiguity of truth.

To get the full value of Peace, read with care.  The book is chock full of details, facts and allusions that have subtle significance.  For example, early on in the novel, Alden remarks that his secretary at the orange juice plant has gained weight.  Later, as certain facts come to light, this seemingly casual remark takes on real significance and provides a clue to a mystery that develops over the course of the narrative. 

Wolfe uses cleverly-concealed hints and obscure clues to sketch out a larger story that occurs in the background, as it were.  Wolfe's disdain for clear-cut, fully-resolved endings can, at times be frustrating.  But, in addition to the delight provided by the stories themselves, the work in its entirety is fascinating and difficult to fully penetrate.  It demands examination.  Peace might be a ghost story.  Or, it might be the confused ramblings of an old man. 

Wolfe is a great writer.  His narrative descriptions are first rate.  His ability to keep track of the multitude of threads that run through the novel is impressive.  His characters, while perhaps not as finely drawn as those of --say David Mitchell or Ernest Hemingway --are real enough.  And, while I'm still not certain that the book offers any discernible moral postulate, there is definitely a common thread that runs throughout.

I'll be reading more of Gene Wolf.  To quote one of his admirers, "Wolfe is a total mindf*ck."

Death revelry

Spontaneous celebration at the news of Osama bin Laden's death

I suppose I'm portraying myself as a joyless scold, but whatever.

I'm uncomfortable with all the revelry on display in reaction to the news about Osama bin Laden's death. Chants of "USA!  USA!" and cacophonous public renditions of "The Star Spangled Banner" strike me as unseemly, even crass.

I grant that bin Laden's death was necessary.  Just like a grizzly bear that has taken to raiding human garbage pits, some people are simply too dangerous to live.  I certainly think Osama bin Laden fit the bill on that score.

But when society determines that it must take a life, I believe it should be done soberly and purposefully and without passion.

The death of bin Laden evokes emotion.  I understand that.  I can understand relief.  I can understand satisfaction.  But this is not a sporting event.  It is death. 

New York Times financial writer Diana Henriques said of  Bernie Madoff  "...he is not inhumanly monstrous; he is monstrously human."  It was thus with Osama bin Laden as well.  

So, I'm not going to be joining the triumphant, chest-thumping conversations springing up in offices and schools all over the country today.  Instead, I'll quote Nietzsche:  "If you stare into the Abyss long enough the Abyss stares back at you."

Take a good look, America.  What are we staring at?

A dangerous man is no more

Scratched.

Strange news.  You will have heard it before you read this.

A dangerous man is dead. What does it mean?

There is a story I've heard repeated about John Lennon.  Perhaps you've heard it.  (Osama bin Laden to John Lennon... how's that for a jarring segue?)

The story takes place in that period when John was living as a recluse, in an apartment in New York, where he kept little company and mostly stayed hidden with Yoko and their son.  The legend goes that one day as he was wandering around Manhattan, taking advantage, perhaps, of one of the last places on Earth that afforded him any anonymity, he happened upon a hotel or a convention hall (the story is not specific) where was being held a Beatles convention.  On a lark, he went inside.  Among the activities, and the vendors selling Beatles memorabilia, someone was organizing a John Lennon Lookalike contest.  According to the story, John entered the contest... and in a sublimely ironic twist, was awarded third place!

Seems plausible, doesn't it?  Would you have recognized the authentic John Lennon?  Or would the myth of John Lennon overwhelm the man?  Although John Lennon the man has been dead for over 30 years, John Lennon the legend lives on.  Has grown, in fact. 

Now, about Osama bin Laden...