The New Doctor Who

Will you all join with me in welcoming the new Doctor Who, who is seen above in... wait a minute! Is he wearing a dress?? Apparently yes!

This is him in more traditional gear, above.

Seasons Greetings To All Republicans Everywhere

Shortly after the news aired that the Republican Party had re-animated the corpse ("using blood from psychotic rabbits") of Reagan and made him party leader, The Onion also reported that Mitt Romney made a leadership challenge against Reagan by eating a small child live on TV.

Robert Downey Jr. As Sherlock Holmes

"[Holmes] had no breakfast for himself, for it was one of his peculiarities that in his more intense moments he would permit himself no food, and I have known him to presume upon his iron strength until he has fainted from pure inanition."

-- from The Adventure of the Norwood Builder, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

Robert Downey Jr. playing Sherlock Holmes in the eponymous movie, which opens on Christmas Day, above.

I know that a movie about Holmes made today would have to be 'relevant' and more appealing to a mass audience, but the appeal of Sherlock Holmes was that he was not a muscular stud, he was more nerd or weirdo, a man who always appeared to be made entirely of tweed.

Do I disapprove of Downey Jr. doing a Holmes who struts and punches and bleeds like a man (!) -- like Brad Pitt in Fight Club? Of course not, but he is not the always-odd, remote, detached and cerebral, Victorian, Sherlock Holmes whom I grew up reading.

Holmes' appeal in part was because you were aware that he existed as a successful and accepted eccentric against the grey world of Victorian London. He was an outsider, the Other, in a tacit sense he might well have been gay. I guess (and I say this having not even seen the movie!) it's another example of the book-to-movie transfer that rarely seems to please those who know the characters from the book first.

Chic, Ago

Granta's summer 2009 edition was about Chicago.

Incidentally, I am feeling especially anti-Christmas this year. Yes, Christmas, I hate you! It's a train wreck with glitter.

The Queer Old Dean

That stooped lady in striking peach is Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. The photo was taken by my friend Nick, from his window at King's College, Cambridge, as the Queen arrived for an event. That is of course her husband, Prince Philip, waiting for her to walk forward. Someone is bowing deeply to her in the doorway.

I am struck by what she symbolizes, even in this quick snap. In her name and the name of her antecedents, evil and dreadful deeds have been done with vigor by men who thought that their love of country and of her, was moral purpose enough. They should have looked deeper within themselves.

When in radical mode during the 17th century, the English Parliament decided to execute King Charles I, and did so on January 30th, 1649, it was not until the morning of the King's execution that the Parliamentarians remembered to pass a law banning any of his heirs from succeeding him: as soon as his head was off, his eldest son would become King under the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings.

And On And On They Bang On Their Empty Drum

Robert P. George with fellow pillar of the Church, George P. Dush

"With friends like these, who needs enemies?" muttered Almighty God as the photo was taken.

The Times profiles another vitally-important Conservative Concerned Christian Christly Conservative, Robert P. George. He's Very Important, the piece tells us. It seems that having ruled the nation with Bush in the White House for nearly a decade, the Christian Right continues to rule the attention of the New York Times.

Perhaps a posse of Elmer Gantrys catched a hold of them worldly, wine-bibbing Times' editors in a dark, sinful, lust-strewn alleyway or back street and whispered words of warning and Godly concern in their ears: "Without SALVATION AND CHRIST and decent press coverage for our backward, feudalistic mumbo-jumbo, you're going to BURN in HELL for ALL-CAPITALIZED ETERNITY, SINNERS!"

Because it is mumbo-jumbo. In the profile of George, the writer ably assists his subject in dressing up 'conservative' opinion as modern yet philosophically-grounded thinking, and relevant to these times. A central plank of George's raison d'etre is his opposition to same-sex marriage. On that, more than continuing the losing fight against a woman's right to choose whether she may abort a foetus or not, George says the Christian Right must take its stand. As its predecessors took their stand... against women voting, interracial marriage, civil rights for blacks... Against gravity. Against Galileo.

But same sex marriage will not bring about the end of the world, it will not cause Western civilization to collapse, it is not some wild, crazy, sheep-and-dog-fuck-circus moving in as your next door neighbors. It is about civil rights, and a very modest extension of them. It is not even close to (for example) the 'insanity' opposed by the Christian Right's forefathers, such as permitting women or black people to vote. In another decade, same sex marriage will be another boring norm, and your neighbors, if gay, will be a conventional pair of dullards who met at the office party. They'll water your plants when you go away. And you'll keep an eye on their cats when they are weekending out of town.

And Robert P. George and his pals will be banging another big empty drum about something else. Because we let them. If they claim to be the followers of Jesus and God, how come they are always slinking along so close to money and riches that you can hear the coins' clink among rustle of dollars? Jesus warns often of the dangers of wealth, riches, of money and the love of it; it is primary, at the core of the Christian message. If you object to my saying this, just skim the New York Times article on George. Opening sentence:

On a September afternoon, about 60 prominent Christians assembled in the library of the Metropolitan Club on the east side of Central Park. It was a gathering of unusual diversity and power...

I would like to ask this, however: the Christian Right is made up of a rainbow spectrum of boneheads, from deeply weird Catholics (like George) through to bible-thumpin' hicks of the lowest-of-low church Protestants. I cannot see how such a crowd can long hang together. Like trying to blend Evensong and Old Spice!

Seasons Greetings -- Here's What I Want From S*nta

...amongst other things...

So That's Why They Do It

"When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."

(Lots of places have blogged this already, so forgive me for being deeply unoriginal today).

Why do American 'gangsta-style gangsters' fire hand guns with a 'side grip' as demonstrated above by soap-suds-soaked Eli Wallach in "The Good The Bad and The Ugly"?

The question arose afresh after last week's momentary shooting in Times Square. Over to Slate:

As police chased Raymond "Ready" Martinez through Times Square on Thursday, the street hustler and aspiring rapper fired two shots, holding the gun sideways "like a character out of a rap video." According to the New York Post, Martinez's side grip caused the gun to jam, enabling police to shoot and kill the suspect. What's the point of holding a gun sideways?

Well, dear reader:

During the first half of the 20th century, soldiers used the side grip for the express purpose of endangering throngs of people. Some automatic weapons from this era—like the Mauser C96 or the grease gun—fired so quickly or with such dramatic recoil that soldiers found it impossible to aim anything but the first shot. Soldiers began tilting the weapons, so that the recoil sent the gun reeling in a horizontal rather than vertical arc, enabling them to spray bullets into an onrushing enemy battalion instead of over their heads.

Nowadays, the only time professionals use the side grip is while holding riot shields, which limit their field of vision. Turning the gun and raising it up make the sight slightly more visible.

Well, indeed. But I still shake my head when I think of how naive Raymond Martinez must have been, and how breathtaking was his youthful arrogance. That he carried an illegally-owned UZI-style gun is stupid enough. But that he thought to open fire in Times Square... against a man whom he could not have conceived was a trained professional with vastly superior skills.

But I bet that a 360-degree glance around Times Square that same morning would have offered at least one or two examples of the pop culture nonsense that probably influenced Martinez: effortless, beautiful violence, where each 'gangsta' triumphs over every cop, and puts a barely-aimed bullet into his brain from a handgun held, of course, with that sexy 'side grip.'

How many times had Martinez 'seen' the scenario he thought he was in, on TV, in computer games? How many thousands of times had the police officer who shot him, stood at an NYPD firing range and practiced, and practiced, and practiced?

But there's more: in Martinez' wallet was found a business card from a gun dealer in Virginia. On the back of which was written, presumably by Martinez, these words:

I just finished watching ‘The Last Dragon.’ I feel sorry for a cop if he think I’m getting into his paddy wagon.

That is what made a tragic young man's dying almost Shakespearean.

For A Good Clean Feeling...

For a Good Clean Feeling, No Matter What... rinse regularly with fresh, minty Oral Roberts... who has just died aged 91. Roberts was another of those whacko American televangelists, about which the the New York Times says:

At the height of his influence, Mr. Roberts sat at the head of a religious, educational and communications enterprise based in Tulsa, Okla., that managed a university, conducted healing "crusades" on five continents, preached the gospel on prime-time national television and published dozens of books and magazines.

And despite all that influence, still no one would help him to his feet. By the 1990s, the obituary continues:

Mr. Roberts' ass was so painful from sitting that he

BOOKED MALE PERP, EARLY THIRTIES, RED SUIT, CLAIMS HE IS SANTA

Astor Place and Lafayette Street, NYC

Claus and Jesus Christ...over...KKKKKRRRRRKKKKK....roger, go ahead...uh....BRRRREEEEPP.........KKKKKRKKKKKBethIsrael?"

Photo by Jez Coulson

Police Shoot and Kill Man Outside Hotel in Times Square

NEW YORK TIMES -- A plainclothes police sergeant fatally shot a 25-year-old man on Thursday morning outside the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square after confronting the man, who he believed had been a part of a scam to use CDs to intimidate tourists, the authorities said. The slain man was armed with a loaded Mac-10 semiautomatic machine pistol and had fired first, the police said.

On the man’s body, police found a business card for a Virginia gun dealer, Gary A. Lewis, who runs Gary’s Guns & Transfers in Manakin-Sabot, a pair of villages northwest of Richmond.*

Hand-written on the back of the card, the police said, were these words: “I just finished watching ‘The Last Dragon.’ I feel sorry for a cop if he think I’m getting into his paddy wagon.” The gun had been reported stolen in Richmond on Oct. 28, the police said.

And that, as they say, was that. A delusional young man... *This will give leverage to Mayor Bloomberg's law suit seeking to sue gun dealers in southern states who casually supply guns which end up on NYC streets.

Checking in With 1666

From Samuel Pepys' Diary, this day, December 7th, 1666, a Friday; I like Pepys' sentences, which run on, and on, and then on... and I imagine him writing his entries at night, quite tired, perhaps even quite drunk)

Up, and by water to the Exchequer, where I got my tallys finished for the last quarter for Tangier, and having paid all my fees I to the Swan, whither I sent for some oysters, and thither comes Mr. Falconbridge and Spicer and many more clerks; and there we eat and drank, and a great deal of their sorry discourse, and so parted, and I by coach home, meeting Balty in the streete about Charing Crosse walking, which I am glad to see and spoke to him about his mustering business, I being now to give an account how the several muster-masters have behaved themselves, and so home to dinner, where finding the cloth laid and much crumpled but clean, I grew angry and flung the trenchers about the room, and in a mighty heat I was: so a clean cloth was laid, and my poor wife very patient, and so to dinner, and in comes Mrs. Barbara Sheldon, now Mrs. Wood, and dined with us, she mighty fine, and lives, I perceive, mighty happily, which I am glad [of] for her sake, but hate her husband for a block-head in his choice.

So away after dinner, leaving my wife and her, and by water to the Strand, and so to the King’s playhouse, where two acts were almost done when I come in; and there I sat with my cloak about my face, and saw the remainder of “The Mayd’s Tragedy;” a good play, and well acted, especially by the younger Marshall, who is become a pretty good actor, and is the first play I have seen in either of the houses since before the great plague, they having acted now about fourteen days publickly. But I was in mighty pain lest I should be seen by any body to be at a play.

Soon as done I home, and then to my office awhile, and then home and spent the night evening my Tangier accounts, much to my satisfaction, and then to supper, and mighty good friends with my poor wife, and so to bed.

"For Continuous Shite"

... check your Spam. A peculiar, not-quite-right visual metaphor for fake / bargain / bogus Cialis.

Did Somebody Say 'Hall of Fame'?

No sooner did I mention the desolate Hall of Fame for Great Americans languishing in the Bronx, than the New York Times also has a go.

So Very Not Dead

At the original Hall of Fame.

Vast, Relentless Roaring River

What are you doing right now? I hope you aren't trying to watch the news.

A vast, relentless roaring river of moronic, predictable, paint-by-numbers pretend news: that is what the mainstream media in America feels like if you 'watch' or 'listen' to 'the news.' Flail and scream in the ever-rolling stream of tat!

Tiger Woods' infidelity, shopping, rain storms, shopping! oh look! a cute cat stuck up/down a drain in New Jersey and Now, Over To Shopping Susan, Who Has The Weather For Shoppers: Susan? Well Jim, It's Raining! Taha-haha-ha! Better Mind Those Tulip Pants Are So Expensive That One Bronx Man Has Inked A Deal To Sue That Was Then, This... Is Now:

Newspapers are dying everywhere in America, and if ever — if ever — real news needs reporting, it's now, when hatred of Obama is reaching only the simmer point. But who cares who hates who, in a country this big, where we all hate the government?

Listen: that couple who crashed the White House? That was a dry run for an assassination attempt, even if the dopey gate-crashers or the media, or the authorities, don't seem to realize. Did you hear the quiet sound of a mind somewhere in America shifting up a gear, realizing what is possible? And a carload of killers turn from a dirt road on to a main road.

Take time to note these days of December, to note down on paper, just how insouciant and carefree, care-less, all of America is, and how carefree YOU are, right now. Yes, there's the recession. Yes, there are no jobs. Yes, times are tough, but Obama's battling away in there, there's a lot on his plate, there's Christmas, just mere old Christmas again, right around the corner, another tranche of turkey breast, and the ball drops and it's, yeeeaaaahhh! 2010, jokes and drunks in Times Square, and I bet something awful is driving along a highway right now, some absolute monster of a human being is going to see his or her vial of poison season the whole stew, the pot is going to boil. "There is Death in the pot"! (— 2 Kings 4:38-41).

I have no greater intuition than anyone else I know. But I have an awful feeling. Something horrible is just ahead: "now you're really in the total animal soup of time..."

My Great Uncle Ira's Passport

J. Ira S. Trimble. The 'S' is for Sankey: my Great-Uncle was named after the beloved American hymn-writer, Ira Sankey.

Some family trivia: one day years after Ira was dead and buried, an agitated woman came into my father's toy shop in Dungannon and said she had been in the local Drumglass Graveyard. She had seen the Trimble family plot, she whispered, and it was kept most neatly and properly, as it should be. She remembered the Trimbles. Lovely, lovely men. (In fact, Ira's eldest brother Andrew, was a doctor and chief tuberculosis officer of Northern Ireland).

"But," she whispered, "I... was... shocked... to see... that they were associated with the I.R.A.!"

From how my late father described Ira, I imagine he would have roared with laughter inside his head but would have responded, deadpan: "The Trimble family. Has always Sought. To violently overthrow. The six county military statelet. Of Norn Iron."

And some other trivia: an allograph may be the opposite of an autograph; that is, a person's words or name (signature) written by someone else.

My Great-Uncle Ira

This is my Great-Uncle, Ira Trimble, who was born and raised in the Dungannistan (Dungannon) area where he lived for his entire life, making a living as a photographer and travel agent. He was a photographer when photography involved cameras such as this brute (below), which in fact belonged to him.

Ira Trimble is remembered for being an eccentric character: the local newspaper, the (hysterical laughter*) Tyrone Courier reported many years ago on an incident that landed him in court, but also reaffirmed his reputation for being a (small d) democrat, a believer in equality and a person of great kindness.

The Courier reported that a vagrant had walked into Dungannon one day and a local police constable spotted him, and assaulted him: the tramp ended up in the gutter, where his already-filthy clothes got even dirtier.

Watching this scene, Great-Uncle Ira intervened on the behalf of the tramp, and - according to the Courier - he threw the constable's coat or overcoat, into the gutter as well. Great-Uncle Ira at the scene and in court later, attested to the police officer's lack of manners towards the man who, though homeless, was - I am paraphrasing - 'no less a human being than the cop was.' The Judge that day sided with Ira.

And now for something new even to me: as I searched for his name online tonight, in the faint hope of finding some more information about him, the Internet churned up the nugget below (I took this below as a screen shot).

It seems Great-Uncle Ira wrote a book or pamphlet about our home town. This image above is from a web site which represents an organization which aggregates old books and scans them so that they can be republished on demand... (as such, that is merely a sample mock-up book cover, but that does not take away from the fact that Great-Uncle Ira wrote a book).

I have the faintest of memories of my father telling me that Ira (who died in the early 1940s if not before) wrote such a book. More soon...!

* The Tyrone Courier is a sure bet in the Worst Newspaper In The World Contest, 20010.

Thanksgiving is Meaningless to Me

Traffic is moving at a glacial pace today thanks to Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was not part of my growing up, and so it is virtually meaningless to me. I'd happily spend it as any other normal day, except America unhelpfully screeches to a halt and asks me if (head to one side, concerned voice) I am going to be alone?

What I usually do is risky: I dress in a turkey costume two or three nights before Thanksgiving, and I break into a turkey farm. Then I read Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and some Mao to the turkeys, and gradually awaken their class consciousness. Then Sarah McLachlan (also dressed as a turkey) sings to the turkeys about PETA and other animal rights actions on their behalf. The turkeys are unionized two nights before Thanksgiving. Absolutely nothing is achieved by this, though we get drunk in a gutter afterwards. What a waste of time! But one year, guess what? One of the turkeys wrote to me the next January, and sent me a prayer she had penned with duck fat after a narrow escape from the Capitalists. I reprint it here with her permission.

And thanks also, be to God, for it was He, who, in His infinite wisdom, sent the Europeans to what we now know as America, and -- thieves! robbers! -- fucking up the entire continent for the original inhabitants; it must also have been God who permitted the importing of slaves and poisoning this land's already dubious provenance further, down to the present day.

And so it is that today's Americans, uncertain of their identity and (at best) ever-wary of each other, hate themselves secretly and cling to the certainties of greed and extremism. In their haste to find virtue in themselves, they point out endlessly that Thanksgiving is a non-commercial holiday and no presents need be bought or given. But the following day, they more than make up for the brief hiatus in buying, spending, selling, grubbing, for Friday is a vast river of spending, annually.

For such a people, only a truly grotesque parody of a holiday will do: the turkey's ass of Thanksgiving. For such a people, the God in whom they trust is a devil, is a demon, is Mamon. A-men.

Unseason me, you damned picklers.

The Colossus

The Colossus by Goya
(actually now believed to be by his assistant).

Some imagine the giant to be Napoleon, who dashed out of the French Revolution, dazzling all with his charisma and then disappointed and derailed by proclaiming himself Emperor of France. So the Colossus has trampled yet another small community (foreground) — cattle and people flee in every direction in obvious confusion and terror.

Whatever one's opinion of Napoleon, he brought one certainty to Europe and that was war. The new French republic after 1792, with its "liberté, égalité, fraternité," presented a deadly challenge to all the other European (usually) monarchies by its very existence...

And when this suddenly-modern nation state went to war, it was with a radically re-organized army, one formed from volunteers who came from across France, nationalistic zealots eager to serve her. Opposing France's new model zealots, the old European powers reached once more for their armies composed of unreliable mercenaries, who hoped to not die and get paid...

So what about The Colossus? Is it the implacable new France, from Spaniard Goya's perspective, callously stomping out traditional rural life? The revolutionaries in Paris went on prolonged massacres through parts of rural France, de-christianizing, as they called it. ['What do you do for a living, sir?' "Who, me? I'm a De-Christianizer."] Or is it the giant force of refute, rebuttal, reaction, Europe rising to meet the French challenge?

I Loved The Gates...

...and was sorry to hear that Jeanne-Claude, Cristo's partner and, I hope not inaccurately, Muse, has died. But Jeez, she looked like somewhere between a witch from Macbeth and a zombie-Margaret Thatcher as drawn by Steve Bell.

Judge Kennedy Strung Up Down By Daltonistas

Not Justice Kennedy, recently

Wall Street Journal, Friday, November 20, 2009 -- "Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said he was frustrated by criticism of his response to a school newspaper's coverage and called it a misunderstanding that spiraled out of control. Justice Kennedy went to New York's Dalton School on Oct. 28 to speak to students about civics.

Shortly after, the student newspaper ran a note saying "numerous publication constraints" had delayed its article on his talk. The New York Times then reported that Justice Kennedy's office had barred the student paper from publishing an article without its approval.

The story flashed across the Internet, prompting editorial writers and bloggers to brand Justice Kennedy, for years one of the court's strongest free-speech advocates, a hypocrite."

We Can Always Run Like F@*&%$

Above, a chart showing ways in which other animals of our Earth far exceed human abilities, even if we continue to lazily assume that we are, excuse me, top dog, cat's whiskers... Only in one challenge does the human beat all others: nothing on dry land can outrun us over distances.

I add the chart below, just because it is as hilarious as the above chart is teacher-y.

He's Gonna Get To Us All Twice Over

There is something almost "Hollywood Blockbuster Sequel Extravaganza!" about the decision to bring alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to trial in a civilian court in lower Manhattan -- not a mile or two from the twin towers, not even ten city blocks from ground zero, but in fact a distance of perhaps six minutes' brisk walk from where bodies and glass and concrete rained down eight years ago.

My feelings about this are conflicted. It seems almost affording the man a privilege, to be brought to the scene of the 'crime of the century,' though of course there will almost certainly be other, worse, examples of man's inhumanity to man. And speaking of privilege: if the U.S. waterboarded KSM 183 times, according to reports, does he have the right to counter-sue for ill treatment in custody?

If this is to be a fair trial, and, remember, the chief law enforcement officer of the U.S. is Harvard Law Professor Obama, there has to be somewhere the slim possibility that KSM could be acquitted on a technicality, and therefore, he'd get to walk. A technicality like, "They waterboarded me 183 times! I'd have confessed to sinking the Titanic after that." A fair trial includes pre-trial motions for disclosure: what might KSM's defense attorney ask for? One (presumably biased) right-wing American suggested at very least that KSM would want to air information about: "interrogations, renditions, secret prisons, undercover operations targeting Muslims and mosques..." Maybe KSM could take a racial profiling suit all the way to the Supreme Court?

Now of course I know that KSM has boasted of carrying out the planning of the attacks of 9/11 many times, which, in spite of the waterboarding, may make the prosecution's task much easier, but let us also consider an example from the recent past.

There are enormous differences in degree, magnitude -- but not much else different -- between the activities of the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland and the works of al Qaeda. It was the vigorous intent of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to treat the IRA as criminals, men and women who hid in ditches and hedges, houses and barns, so as to ambush police officers, soldiers, civilians with bullets and bombs, because, Thatcher said, the attackers were no different from pickpockets, car thieves, drug dealers and rapists. IRA members were tried -- sort of -- as if they murdered people the same way as Al Capone murdered people.

But of course they did not commit murder for the same reasons: as was often argued in and out of court, these people were motivated by political ideals which, no matter how repugnant, how disgusting their outworkings, were of a vastly different order from common criminality. In fact, a 'common criminal' might hope to keep the body count to a minimum, in order to stay ahead of the law. The whole point of political murder is to draw attention to your politics.

Thatcher herself said famously: "There is no such thing as political murder, political bombing or political violence. There is only criminal murder, criminal bombing and criminal violence." But hadn't she heard of George Washington? Of Michael Collins?(From County Cork!) Of the Stern Gang? Of any or all the successful 20th century 'freedom fighters' whose failure would have meant spending history in the column titled 'terrorists'?

If you are staring down the gun barrels of an imperial power against whom you have no legal redress in a court or at a ballot box, what would you do next? If that imperial power has already invaded your lands, arrested and tortured your neighbors, ask yourself how low would you go? I would not ever dare equate KSM with George Washington (KSM has already made that comparison himself*). Washington fought for liberty of some kind; KSM presumably would want to successfully impose some form of Islamic legal bullshit on everyone. But at some point someone has to ask why KSM and his pals were motivated to do what they did. And in an ordinary court of law, no prosecutor can conclude his or her remarks with a George W. Bush form of words such as: "and so I call for the death penalty because we think the defendant is pure evil."

Through all of the recent talk about post-George Bush America no longer torturing there runs as usual a strange naivete. "We don't torture," is the mantra I've read and heard, here and there. Of course I want to live in a world where no one is waterboarded. Of course I want to live in an America where no one is tortured, least of all tortured by having to read my blog. But extending to KSM a trial in, of all places, the scene of his greatest triumph, seems guaranteed to torture all of us, from the families of victims to the average commuter. If war is the continuation of politics by other means, can't justice be done by quietly dropping KSM on his head?

*From a Verbatim Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal, KSM's own words: Same language you use, I use. When you are invading two- thirds of Mexican, you call your war manifest destiny. It up to you to call it what you want. But other side are calling you oppressors. If now George Washington. If now we were living in the Revolutionary War and George Washington he being arrested through Britain. For sure he, they would consider him enemy combatant. But American they consider him as hero. This right the any Revolutionary War they will be as George Washington or Britain. So we are considered American Army bases which we have from seventies in Iraq. Also, in the Saudi Arabian, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. This is kind of invasion, but I'm not here to convince you.

This is Stephen McKinley

Another one (courtesy of FacePuke). If there are more than one of me, does that reduce my value by 50 percent?

He says many things, but this especially touched me:

"Give a man a match and he'll be warm for a minute. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

So true.

Wisdom is clearly a trait we share.

U.K. woman loses appeal over ban on 'unnatural' lovemaking

LONDON - A British woman lost her appeal yesterday against a ban on her noisy sex sessions, after a court in Newcastle heard how her marathon romps that kept neighbours awake sounded like someone being murdered.

Caroline and Steve Cartwright's 'howling' lovemaking sounded 'unnatural,' 'hysterical' and 'like they are both in considerable pain.' (Neither of them are pictured above, however this image represents "a typical English couple," according to the 2010 Paul Newman Zimbabwean Recipe Guide).

Neighbours at their home in Washington, northeastern England, complained about the noise -- as did passers-by and the mailman.

The couple were banned from 'shouting, screaming or vocalization at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance.'

Ms. Cartwright, 48, appealed under human rights laws against her conviction for breaching the ban.

"It's just not fair," moaned Ms. Cartwright afterwards. "This... just... aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh..... isn't just," she groaned, while Mr. Cartwright gasped, then howled: "We. ALWAYS! Speak... likethis!!! Hnnnnnggh!"

We Sat For A Long Time, Confused in Central Park

The view was nice, though.

Dissident Mourns Fall of Wall

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall brought to an end Soviet hegemony over half the world, a well-known expert on walls tearfully wrote on his blog:

"That Wall was the ONLY HOME I EVER KNEW!"

Elsewhere, a young French philosopher wondered if Capitalism's triumph as Communism fell -- described popularly in the 1990s as "The End of History" -- was not in fact the beginning of a far more invidious dark night of the soul. His bleak thoughts resonate throughout his book, Coming of Age At the End of History:

Camille de Toledo burst onto Paris’ intellectual scene in 2008 with his brilliantly incisive manifesto, examining present-day counterculture from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the present. He asks what it is, exactly, his generation is protesting against and contemplates how revolt against western capitalistic values has been neutralized since the time of Francis Fukuyama’s landmark 1989 article “The End of History.” Providing historical context from The Surrealists to Jean-Luc Godard; Guy Debord to Johnny Rotten, Gilles Deleuze to Kurt Cobain, he reveals how the diffusion of political power as well as media co-option have robbed all forms of cultural dissent of their critical potential, leaving behind a new generation of rebels unsure of their cause.

This is more important than you, dear reader, may think, more important than I can express. I can only say, with humor, that we are more doomed than ever before. And if proof is required, just look at the latest news:

"'Bobbitt' Case: I Cut Off Dad's Penis and Burned It, but I Didn't Want Him to Die, Queens Woman Says"--headline, Daily News (New York), Nov. 5
"Woman Forced to Wear Diapers to Work"--headline, Philadelphia Daily News, Nov. 5
"Adopt Me: Prince Charles Looking for Someone to Love"--headline, El Paso Times, Nov. 6

From the Fall of the Wall to the Fall of the Towers is just over a decade, but the 1990s will be one of the most significant era in recent history. In the end, we all fall down.

Ignorance is Bliss

"I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit... For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." -- Ecclesiastes 1, 17-18.

"The Doc said he would inoculate me with a vaccine, then I'd be immunized"

With Swine 'Flu (don't forget that apostrophe, folks!) and regular 'flu stalking the land, conversation this Fall has often turned to the subject of the 'flu shot. Or indeed shots, plural, because regular influenza requires a different (... uh... vaccine? inoculation?) shot from the more scary H1N1 virus, also known as Swine 'Flu.

What is the difference, I wonder, between these verbs, which we all use interchangeably? To vaccinate; to immunize; to inoculate?

Inoculation, strictly speaking, means putting something into another organism where it will grow or reproduce. It is used most commonly to refer to putting serum, vaccine, or antigenic substance into the body of a human or animal, especially to produce or boost immunity to a specific disease.

Vaccination: the word originates with the work of Edward Jenner, sometimes known as the Father of Immunology, because he figured out that milkmaids did not seem to catch Smallpox (and had fair, unmarked skin), because their work with cows (French: la vache, from Latin: vacca), caused them to catch a milder variety of the disease, Cowpox, which produced an immune response. Ergo: they could not catch Smallpox.

Immunization means the process by which an individual's immune system becomes fortified against a disease or pathogen.

After all that, I sort of see how each word differs in its definition, but also how they overlap. It's time for a joke: last winter, a man says to his friend, "I said that Americans would never elect a black man as President, never in a million years, pigs will fly before that ever happens! And the next thing that happens? Swine 'Flu!"

[Adding a final word or three to this post: a fairly common expression at home in Ireland, aimed at anyone who talks a lot, is: "Where you inoculated with a gramophone needle when you where a child?" It seems to be a common expression across the English-speaking world].

Like a slow sledge hammer!

"You are a terrible woman; but I love your pulse!"

I recently watched — and loved — The Millionairess, a play by George Bernard Shaw, in a 1972 BBC production starring Maggie Smith as a monstrous English woman in the title role. Tom Baker hilariously plays an Egyptian Muslim doctor, who is her polar opposite.

She is stinking rich; he gives every penny he earns away to the poor. Shaw uses the play as a vehicle for his Socialist ideals, ramming home point after point about the evils of the wealthy accumulating their money/power while the poor starve, fall sick, suffer and die. He is acute on every point, and though almost too didactic, he is far more subtle than say, Arthur Miller, whose plays are blunderbusses to Shaw's scalpel (and with none of Shaw's humor).

Tom Baker (yes, Doctor Who!) is seen above after discovering that stinking rich Epifania, the Millionairess of the title (Maggie Smith), has kicked someone down a hotel staircase, then pretends it is she who is in need of medical attention. He checks her pulse, and gasps. For she has a pulse "like a slow sledge hammer..."

I love Baker's voice when he delivers this beautifully alliterative line. Of course, the doctor falls in love with her:

THE DOCTOR [coming to her and feeling her pulse]: Something wrong with your blood pressure, eh? [Amazed] Ooooh!! I have never felt such a pulse. It is like a slow sledge hammer.

EPIFANIA: Well, is my pulse my fault?

THE DOCTOR: No. It is the will of Allah. All our pulses are part of the will of Allah.

ALASTAIR: Look here, you know, Doc: that wont go down in this country. We dont believe in Allah.

THE DOCTOR: That does not disconcert Allah in the least, my friend. The pulse beats still, slow, strong. [To Epifania] You are a terrible woman; but I love your pulse. I have never felt anything like it before.

PATRICIA: Well, just fancy that! He loves her pulse.

THE DOCTOR: I am a doctor. Women as you fancy them are nothing to me but bundles of ailments. But the life! the pulse! is the heartbeat of Allah, save in Whom there is no majesty and no might... One, two, three: it is irresistible: it is a pulse in a hundred thousand. I love it: I cannot give it up.

BLENDERBLAND (whom she had kicked downstairs): You will regret it to the last day of your life!

Clint Eastwood and Issues of American Masculinity

My friend Drucilla Cornell has written a new book: Clint Eastwood and Issues of American Masculinity.

Briefly: Professor Cornell, a former union organizer and professor of feminist jurisprudence is the presently occupant of the national research foundation chair in customary law, indigenous values and the dignity jurisprudence (that's a mouthful) at the Law Faculty at the University of Cape Town.

She has been interested in the transition of Eastwood (below, with his wife) from his Dirty Harry days to the introspective, even ineffectual men of his more recent movies, grappling (she says) with the classic male American stereotypes — cowboy, cop, soldier, boxer — and, she argues, he has helped sink these images as they were already foundering.

There Are Some Things Money Can't Buy

There are so many reasons to vote that little shit Bloomberg out of office tomorrow, as he attempts to buy a third term (should we say steal a third term?), but here I present two. The first one is the above photo; need I say more?

The second is this fact: at a time when 'ordinary' people are struggling with hard times, poverty, lay-offs, no cash or not enough cash to go around, "Bloomberg is spending $35,000 an hour out of his own pocket on his campaign." [NY1]

Riverside Church Labyrinth

Riverside Church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan is the tallest church in the U.S. and also — to my fascination when I first discovered it years ago — has a labyrinth or maze outlined on the floor of the nave.

The labyrinth is designed to be walked by those of faith while pondering and meditating. In the largest sense, it represents the twists and turns of the road of life, those times of confusion or moments of uncertainty, when, in reprising them by walking the labyrinth, one gains at very least perspective on one's problems. Two images of the actual Riverside Church labyinth, below.

From the Past, and Thoughts of the Future

Dear readers, here are a few random images from the past, ending with a book recommendation for the future.

Keith Haring's "Ten Commandments" was exhibited in the U.S. for the first time ever (at the Deitch Gallery in Long Island City, on loan from Nice, in France).

Remember when the world was ruled by folks who looked like those ones (above)? Don't worry, it soon will be again. That's if people like him (below) keep on putzing around (it seems to me) with the delusion that bipartisanship is possible with the radical clerics of the Republican Party of Hatred, Bigotry and No.

Meanwhile, for what it matters (a lot, actually), the New York Times Magazine presents a big article on the Obamas' Marriage.

All of this, and none of it will matter soon enough. For the future, I recommend a read of the book below. An excerpt from the preface follows.

Saint-Pierre and Miquelon

I never heard of these islands before: Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, "where France meets North America!" as the islands' excited web site says. The islands lie just south of Newfoundland, and 800 miles north-east of Boston, in the North Atlantic (see map below). Being close to French-speaking Canada, of course the islands are francophone, but they are also still French territorial possessions! In other words, Americans and Canadians have to pass through French (E.U.) passport control to visit the islands.

Tiny islands indeed. But size matters, and while in fact there are more than two of these petit morceaux, they are collectively known by the names of the two largest islands, naturally. Do not forget that after St Pierre and Miquelon there's also Ile aux Marins, Langlade,and many other little spits of rock.