MY RANT OF THE DAY.
I read the following AP report online this morning: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080520/ts_nm/iraq_bush_apology_dc
reporting that President Bush has apologized to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki because a copy of the Koran filled with bullet holes was found at a shooting base near Baghdad. Apparently the soldier responsible had already been disciplined by his superiors. But, shooting a book in Baghdad apparently is a big deal. The Koran as everyone knows is the Muslim version of the Bible - a book professed to have been written by men inspired directly by God, the same as the Bible in that respect, and the Book of Mormon, and Torah.
Seems that (mere) discipline for shooting up the Koran for this particular soldier wasn't enough. In Bush's direct apology, he promised al-Maliki that he (Bush) would see that the soldier was presented to the courts and expressed his deep concern over the "completely unacceptable conduct of an American soldier."
I guess shooting a book is right up there with rape and murder if they're going to put this soldier on trial. Let's hope that if he is found guilty, he'll be given 90 days of solitary confinement and forced to read Slow Waltz At Cedar Bend (Waller's follow-up to Bridges of Madison County.) Then he'll really become a book-hater and probably spend the rest of his civilian life stalking the woods of Wisconsin looking for poorly written books to slaughter.
If all this weren't so weird and ironic it would be laughable. Since when have we begun to prosecute anyone for shooting up a book? Again, I'd suggest that a book is nothing more than two covers with pages in between on which are written words inspired by the writer's imagination. A book does not shoot back, nor trigger IED's, nor blow up a cafe of innocents. But apparently the book's words can inspire others to do such acts, and so logically it would seem if you kill the book, you basically kill the inspiration?
Not logical you say? I'd like to know what in this shaggy dog tale of the Iraqi War, in which we honor some men for shooting other men and prosecute some men for shooting books, is logical? Like everything else about our involvement in this strange country with its dozens of competing, and often criminal factions, everyday some news comes out of Iraq to cause one to think this is Alice In Wonderland, where everything is upside down. What I think is really weird is that Iraqi's all worship the same god - Allah - even as they murder each other and each other's families. American presence has only given Iraqis more targets to shoot at (God forbid - quite literally - they should shoot each other's books). As for our side, the Iraqis not only all look the same, they all believe the same, to varying degrees of fanaticism. Bush's apology and vow to bring to justice this book-shooting soldier is reflective of how fearful and intolerant we've become of political incorrectness.
Which only supports the arguments laid forth by the writers Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great) in that they are spot on about the poisonous aspects of religion and its silly fanaticism.
Meanwhile, I hope the book is recovering, and if not, I hope it was given a decent burial with full honors.
END OF RANT
Now, for some stuff that happened this day in History!
Christopher Columbus died (1506) and some white guy living in Ohio named a town after him.
Writer Mary Lamb died (1847). I can only imagine the standard line the boys who dated her used: "I had a little Lamb," or, "I had a little of Mary's little Lamb." Oh, never mind, if I have to explain it, what's the point?
53 year old Mavis Hutchinson became the first woman to run across the United States - 3,000 miles, (1978) a feat which she accomplished in 69 days - something my old man equaled in his 1948 Packard Clipper with his wife and kids in the car 25 years earlier. I don't mean to brag, but...
Okay, since I bought Big Sal a bag of crinkly potato chips at the grocery yesterday she let me sneak a poem out of the vault. Blame her, not me.
Crossing Bridges
The High Level bridge suspended over the
Maumee River like an arched eyebrow.
From up there you can see the city’s skyline,
The place where Gypsies once ruled
Cherry Street and Pretty Boy Floyd
Escaped from jail. You can almost see where the
Burlesque House once stood and where Casey
Stengel played for the Mud Hens.
I crossed that bridge as a teen in the cold
Winter months of January and February trying to
Escape our little apartment over Drifty’s Bar
Where the nightly music was muted laughter and
Sometimes the sounds of a good fistfight among the
Patrons who found refuge from
Their otherwise mundane lives.
My old man drove truck and my mother
Worked at the glass factory. Sometimes
My old man would go down to have a beer
After supper and stay a couple of hours. My mother
Read romance magazines and looked wistful.
My sister was always running with her
Friends: the ugly girl and the one who stuttered.
They were their own gang and beat up boys
And I sometimes wondered
Where they got their money because I never
Had any. She had a boyfriend
Who wore a leather jacket with
Zippers and never said
More than two words to me all that summer they dated.
I would be nearly frozen by the time I walked across
That bridge, the water below the ice a muted mud, and
All of it just waiting for me to jump, like others already had.
Once or twice a year someone would jump (not that
I never thought about it, I did) and kill themselves – the
Fall alone would do it. I’d read somewhere that when
You jumped from that high up it was like hitting
Cement (even without the ice). I wasn’t that desperate yet.
I was still a virgin that year, and the next one after that.
Then I met a girl my age who would become my
Eventual, and first wife and mother to two of my children.
And ours became a marriage as loveless and cold as any
Winter – and just as long when you stop to count the minutes.
The cold up on that bridge is something I remember
Even more clearly than the first time I had sex
And I still can’t ever think about Toledo
Without remembering crossing the High Level in winter.
The goddamn cold that will led somehow to my ultimate
Demise. But I have never lost my reason
For crossing bridges, in the winter, or otherwise.
The High Level bridge suspended over the
Maumee River like an arched eyebrow.
From up there you can see the city’s skyline,
The place where Gypsies once ruled
Cherry Street and Pretty Boy Floyd
Escaped from jail. You can almost see where the
Burlesque House once stood and where Casey
Stengel played for the Mud Hens.
I crossed that bridge as a teen in the cold
Winter months of January and February trying to
Escape our little apartment over Drifty’s Bar
Where the nightly music was muted laughter and
Sometimes the sounds of a good fistfight among the
Patrons who found refuge from
Their otherwise mundane lives.
My old man drove truck and my mother
Worked at the glass factory. Sometimes
My old man would go down to have a beer
After supper and stay a couple of hours. My mother
Read romance magazines and looked wistful.
My sister was always running with her
Friends: the ugly girl and the one who stuttered.
They were their own gang and beat up boys
And I sometimes wondered
Where they got their money because I never
Had any. She had a boyfriend
Who wore a leather jacket with
Zippers and never said
More than two words to me all that summer they dated.
I would be nearly frozen by the time I walked across
That bridge, the water below the ice a muted mud, and
All of it just waiting for me to jump, like others already had.
Once or twice a year someone would jump (not that
I never thought about it, I did) and kill themselves – the
Fall alone would do it. I’d read somewhere that when
You jumped from that high up it was like hitting
Cement (even without the ice). I wasn’t that desperate yet.
I was still a virgin that year, and the next one after that.
Then I met a girl my age who would become my
Eventual, and first wife and mother to two of my children.
And ours became a marriage as loveless and cold as any
Winter – and just as long when you stop to count the minutes.
The cold up on that bridge is something I remember
Even more clearly than the first time I had sex
And I still can’t ever think about Toledo
Without remembering crossing the High Level in winter.
The goddamn cold that will led somehow to my ultimate
Demise. But I have never lost my reason
For crossing bridges, in the winter, or otherwise.
do well, shine your shoes, don't dance in the rain unless you're naked...
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