Nobody 848

(Portrait of the author as a young man)

Sunday, January 11, 2011

Nobody # 848

Nobody Asked Me But:

Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik lashed out at what he called a “climate of "vitriol that has permeated the political scene and left elected officials facing constant threats. And unfortunately Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

“The tyranny of the perpetually open mind” – I read this phrase last week and was moved by the truth and lie within it. I believe that a mind too open leads to a person without a center. I was for my lifetime touched by a line from an Ingmar Bergman film I saw very many years ago, when a character explained another’s mental illness with these words: “She thinks too much and feels too much.” To live in a world of gray, a world without convictions, is to be cursed with confusion.

However, the other side of the story, the closed mind, is, if anything, worse. Much of the evil that plagues humankind comes from a commitment to absolutes.

As for me, I'll take the middle lane. I will close around a few certainties, very few - love is good, cruelty is bad or evil, depending on the degree or circumstance, justice is good, God is a human invention, good tacos are a holy experience. For most everything else I will, at the very least, consider the possibilities.<<<

I wrote the above last Wednesday, and then yesterday it, once again, proved all too true. The cult of “I’m right” struck again, and Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is in critical condition. Oh, and thanks, Sarah P. for taking down your website that showed Rep. Giffords in the crosshairs of your rifle scope – AFTER SHE HAD BEEN SHOT!

So am I joining the collective blame group on this tragedy? You’re damn right, I am! The true believers of the Far Right have won elections and rating points by stirring up the mobs with their feebly disguised hate rhetoric and then trying to buy themselves absolution with “We didn’t mean for them to take us literally or go that far.”

(with apologies to William Cosmo)

So many Repubs, they did dare

To grin as they rode Tea-Pot bear

But when they got to D.C.

They were finished, you see

And licking her chops was the bear

or

Republicans grinned when they won

As they rode to success on the gun

But when they got to D.C.

They were finished you see

The one that really won was the gun.<<<

In a letter to the Times commenting on a recent piece about Otto Penzler in which he mentions his atheism, a reader asks how the mystery book icon can look at the wonders of nature and not see God? I guess my response would be that how can we see God in wonders without also seeing him in natural disasters and human evil? A God that would permits these hideous happenings is no God at all, but merely chance, nature and human perfidy.<<<

Vital question of the week – will LA temperatures ever reach as high as 70 again?<<<

JIMMYLEAKS

David Cole, who teaches constitutional law at Georgetown has discovered the top-secret Conservative Constitution and has generously given me permission to reprint it here in small doses. Here then is the Preamble to the Conservative Constitution:

We, the Real Americans, in order to form a more God-Fearing Union, establish Justice as we see it, Defeat Health-Care Reform, and Preserve and Protect our Property, our Guns and our Right Not to Pay Taxes, do ordain and establish this Conservative Constitution for the United States of Real America.<<<

News Item – Witchcraft now legally a profession in Romania.

Reaction - Christine O'Donnell just announced that she is moving to Bucharest for a spell.<<<

Speaking of language – is a “real” good position the opposite of a phony good position?

WISHES FOR 11

I wish the heck I could make up my mind between Hawaii and NYC for my vacation choice this year – or do I want a European tour? Or the southeast?

If the world is really going to end on May 21, I wish Barbara would make tacos twice a week and Lake Champlain Chocolates would open an ice cream store on our block of Minnehaha.<<<

Hello, my name is Jim Turner and I am fast becoming an addict – A Kindle addict that is. What’s not cool about downloading “Dead Zero” in about 30 seconds while at Pauley waiting for tip-off?<<<

Are there any more consistent film makers working today than the Coen Brothers?<<<

Here is a huge Nobody salute to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gilland for her non-politically correct stance on immigration. Here are two quotes to give you a sample of her thinking:

“Immigrants, not Australians, must adapt. Take it or leave it."

“We speak mainly English, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!”

As Herod so aptly sung in Jesus Christ, Superstar, “Don’t ya’ get me wrong.” I am pro-immigrant. But I am also pro-assimilation.<<<

Those (Republicans) who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. President Obama and his party lost favor with the voters when they spent their 2008 capital on programs, not jobs. Now it seems that the Republicans are about to spend their 2010 capital on repealing programs, not expanding job opportunities.<<<

Did you know that in Cleopatra’s Egypt a remedy for painful teething was to feed the babies fried mouse?<<<

I still want the Lakers, who are playing more like chumps than champs, to win, but if they don’t here are my hopes and nightmares:

Hopes, in order – Oklahoma City, Dallas, Orlando.

Nightmares, in order – Miami, Boston, San Antonio.<<<

The Star lead line read – “Point guard critical in PAC-10.” I think the truth/fiction here depends on whether you mean within the PAC or for a PAC team to be successful in the post season. If the writer means within the PAC, he or she is wrong for the simple reason that there is no excellent point in the PAC this year. Therefore the teams that are successful will do it without a top pg.<<<

Action: Bachmann considering White House bid.

Reaction: What, she wants to buy the place?

Reaction # 2: Michelle is a legion in her own mind.<<<

The Republican-controlled Arizona State Legislature passed a bill denying transplant coverage to about 100 patients who had already been approved on the grounds that they had a lower possible success rate than others. And I thought Republicans were against death panels.

Will I ever get it through my thick skull that hypocrisy has no conscience?<<<

DAVID CARR - YOU KNOW NOTHING OF THE WOODMAN

In his review in today’s NY Times of a new short biography of Marshall McLuhan, David Carr comments on the book’s subtitle, “You Know Nothing of My Work,” calling it strange. Not strange at all if you are a Woody Allen fan. In his AA winning “Anne Hall,” Allen has a scene where he and Diane Keaton are standing in a movie line where an obnoxious man is (wrongly) pontificating on the meaning of McLuhan’s commentaries on the media. At that point, the Woodman has the real McLuhan step forward, introduce himself and tell the know-it-all, “You know nothing of my work.”