What Said the Man in the Storm

I’m literally as proud as it is possible to be.  Yesterday was a triumph of the American spirit over its darker demons.  One hundred and fifty years ago, one half of the country destroyed the other.  Fifty years ago the US was shattered by ideals above its own reach, and it convulsed in race riots for the distance that remained.  My parents in their youth witnessed a flowering, an effervescence, a ray of hope – and then Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr were assassinated, and the curtain descended.

So many struggled and suffered to bring this about, and it was thrilling to see that the civil rights movement that gave me my values marches on.  It reaffirmed my faith in America; for any country in the world to transfer its power so peacefully is a miracle in itself – especially when that power could destroy the world.  It reaffirms the American dream – that anyone can become anything.

We were attacked by radical Muslims, and warred with a Hussein; the slumbering conscience of American eventually responded by electing a Hussein.  

If that isn’t goodness, I do not know what is.  And in the speech he drew those good things to me, and made me remember my own history:  my grandfathers both gave their life in service, and one of them lays in the ground just across the Potomac from the Washington Monument and the Mall, in Arlington National Cemetery.  If I had been standing at his grave, I would have heard Obama’s words, and they would have honoured him.

I don’t know what else I can say.  There are moments when I am sceptical, of course, but yesterday was not a day for scepticism.  Yesterday was a day for appreciating the real magnitude of what we do in life, and being grateful for those who died to let us do it.

Women and War

O Bravery in blood, for war and women to

Keep him under arms, to keep him under my arms,

He told me it was not to be,

And the letter speaks of the Somme, so I’ll

Carry him weeping to the cairn, so I

Laid him low and laid him

deep below.

Hypoqcrisy Buckles Belts

In an entirely unsuprising development, the leaders of the G8 have decided to treat themselves to a 14-course meal on their first day in Hokkaido, which highlights one of the essential skills of diplomacy:  a large stomach.   Given that the talks today were focused on the world food shortage (and Gordon Brown’s new ‘waste not, want not’ philosophy), some considered the unnecessary luxury to be in …poor taste.

Hypoqrisy

Ever since old Joe McCarthy cast his dark shadow over American politics, it has been a favourite game in American politics to single out one’s enemies as unpatriotic.   Attacking an opponent’s patriotism was a signature tactic for Karl Rove, for example, who drove the country to war in 2002 under the shroud of the flag; the Stars and the Stripes were used to silence critics in the House and Senate, and American politics was the worse for it.  The ploy was used again to smear John Kerry, in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2008.

In politics, nothing ever changes.  Michelle Obama has faced an array of recent attacks along these lines, most famously with her quote in Febuary 2008:  “for the first time in my life,” she said, “I am proud of my country.”  Those who wear their country on their sleeve immediately unleashed the attack-dogs and began burrowing in.

Now a new firestorm is brewing over John McCain’s words:  “I never really loved America until I was deprived of her”, and his opponents are preparing to dance the same old weary waltz.

poq does not doubt that these attacks have revealed a hypoqrisy; that much was obvious. But what the critics may have missed in all the mud-slinging is that both John McCain and Michelle Obama are right.  Loyalty to a country cannot come from birth or blood alone:  it must be earned.  America must with each new generation prove again by deeds the values it holds, and it must give all its citizens a stake in its prosperity.  For the black woman educated at Harvard, but marginalized by the colour of her skin, or the soldier abandoned and tortured in a place he never should have been sent to, patriotism is by no means a no-brainer.

Blood was spilled over ‘the land of our fathers’, but no lines on a map deserve unquestioning loyalty.  If our public figures are less American, less patriotic than we wish, well, it only demonstrates all the more the need for change.

So goes Ape, so goes Man

poq has heard many attacks on the theory of evolution:  some fair, some far, some simply bizarre.

One persistent offender is the specimen known as ‘your ancestor was an ape’ – just like a school boy insult, the intent of the criticism is to imply that anybody who believes in evolution has particularly smelly parents.

poq will be to the point.  Apes are not your ancestors.  They are your distant cousins.

Get it?  You share a common ancestor with apes, but they are not your ancestors.

Please Obliterate Quixotic pets to avoid CATastrophe

A pawful tale of woe:

poq relates to you the story of Hemingway’s cat, a six-toed libertine called Snowball.  This smug bohemian beast left a terrible legacy for the Hemingway estate to take care of: around 50 six-toed descendants, which now live in and around his old mansion in Key West.

This is clearly a danger to the public.  The government agrees that this unsightly manifestation must go, and entered two years ago into a legal battle with the museum (which wants to keep them because they draw hordes of cat-loving yokels), but the case has stalled over the post-Hurricane Katrina debaucheries of some of the tomcats, who are apparently even more uncontrollable than their old pater familias.  The pinecone does not fall far from the tree.

Let this be a lesson to us all:  quixotic cats can become a public nuisance.  poq himself has experienced a series of cauterwailed sonnets and duets at night from the fence outside his bedroom window, and although the first row seat might make some afficiondos jealous, poq is nevertheless filled with a general hatred of the whole kingdom of catdom, and of rogue rapscallion cats especially.  In this case, poq would like the government to extend its court battles.  Of course, poq is no communist, and does not believe the government has any purrfect solutions – leave that to the markets, right?

But please, Boris, remove the nuisance cats, before its too late.