Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving the giant television window stood open in the parlor with relatives peering through it anticipating a football game to be played thousands of miles hither. But miles mean nothing these days, all events capable of happening right in front of us. Our distance vision puts the eagle’s to shame.

Eagerly awaiting the main course, I became transfixed by what must have been the most atrocious variation ever performed on The Star Spangled Banner. She was not so much singing a song as gargling with it. Based on this trend it shouldn’t be long before we can hear the whole thing yodeled. I always have enjoyed the melody to America’s war song and I wonder if more faithful renditions still support drunken lyrics in the English Pubs of its birth.

This got me to thinking. Ever since the Twin Towers and Pentagon were attacked by the Infidels, the more lyrical God Bless America has supplanted the Anthem at the less bellicose baseball games. And always it is belted out by one lone Christian soldier metaphorically about to march off to war. It seems like no patriotic songs at all are drummed into our heads at basketball games. Perhaps bouncing a rubber ball lacks the requisite gravity. What ever happened to My Country ‘Tis of Thee? Why didn’t that make the cut? Hmm. In the first verse, at least, it evokes neither God nor explosions. Only liberty. This could be its weakness. America the Beautiful, too, seems to have fallen by the wayside. Too green, I suppose.

With today’s technology it is silly for the government to continue depending on mass gatherings of citizens to remind us who we are and what may be expected of us. I suggest here a few ways to increase efficiency:

• patriotic toaster: why can’t we hear some inspiring words from Valley Forge as we press down the bread followed by a bugle call when it pops?
• patriotic refrigerator: How about a few bars of the national anthem to show the world what it means when the door opens on an American fridge and the light of democracy comes on to show us where the goods are.
• Patriot Act fart whistle: you get the idea.

Personally, I just need more. In spite of a lifetime of allegiance pledges and rousing songs, I’m still not ready to go shoot people just because they’re on the other team. How about a little Lee Greenwood on my doorbell? Or maybe we just have the wrong national anthem. We should try the German one. It worked pretty well for them.

Thoughts fer the day

It has recently come to my attention that nobody is the wiser.

Many things can be said but many others can be said. This is in the ocean.

If a rooster crows half the time, where does a cow?

There is no bizness like show bizness

Don't try to claim anything of the kind. It will only bring you menopause.

There is a certain beauty to all this.

The United States replaced George bush with Barack obama. Well, i guess we're done for now.

Humans sending our artifacts into outer space for the gratification of such beings as might find and enjoy them seems like a child reaching into his diaper and holding out his prize to impress his parents.

There are more things in heaven and earth than you used to think I thought you knew about.

Ahh, thank you. I feel a lot more like i do now than i did before.

Poor Al Gore

Al Gore is the most tragic figure in the history of American politics. Who knows what it’s been like for him to watch from his personal Purgatory as George Bush stomped through his presidency like a hobgoblin through goodness. But Gore recently was granted a chance at redemption and he failed to take it. It was a huge letdown for me.

Recently Al Gore and Bush met alone for forty-five minutes. Here is my fantasy: Imagine Al Gore walking out of the room, dusting off his hands against each other, straightening his tie and looking with a new-found serenity to the future, George Bush lying in a crumpled lump on the floor. No, not dead, but forty-five minutes was more than enough time for Gore to beat the snot out of him, as he has every right to do and as every American has the right to expect of him. Now imagine the cheering around the world, the chanting of “Al Gore” from every righteous mouth. Forget about all the other Democrats. Here would be the nominee by acclaim, redefining quick, economical campaign. And here would be a cherished place for Gore in history.

It is, in fact, the only way I can imagine Gore ever coming truly right. And as we all squander or fail to recognize opportunity, he missed this one. Darn shame.

-- Tom Levine

If Mark Twain Could See Us Now

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If Mark Twain Could See Us Now

by Tom Levine

I apologize for my previous view of the human race. I see now I have been something of a Pollyanna; but what pessimist could have imagined twenty- first century man? Cruelty, greed and sloth have enjoyed a race with each other this hundred years and government met them at the finish line. The ground they sped across is sprouting horrors at a pace to give this young century the edge for history's worst before a tenth of the crop is in.

I thought we stood on the precipice of enlightenment. Instead mankind's higher aspirations were gunned down in the street as they stretched and yawned before a morning stroll to the flower shop. Jesus, too, has been wounded - in the leg and is unsuitably employed trying to heal himself. I am told an ambulance is on the way. Nations, tribes, races - they've all outlived the dubious utility of their distinctions. If once they were an irresistible excuse for the dispatching of one's fellow man, in my day it was only retail.

Every modern household features an electrified box which displays atrocities from around the world. At last the dark recesses of evil have been exposed by an amazing light for all to see and rise up against them. However, with fame these corruptions have become entertainment and are used to sell product; so they will endure. The happy chatter of their audience is interrupted only by the assassination of food. By multiplying the staggering death rate by the even more impressive total of such appliances, the entire human population can be wiped out at least once a week, and twice during holidays. Modern man lives with the grief of millions and it has made him numb to all but his own.

Pygmies shall inherit the earth. No one bothers to kill them in American households. Perhaps they are too small and it has been deemed a waste of artillery.

I have met the twenty-first century American president but I believe someone is playing me a joke. They have gone out and fetched the least likely man for the job and masqueraded him before me. I think it a bit cruel as this bumpkin must know how he is being used. I do hope to meet the real president. To guide this country as it is today, he must be of a more remarkable breed of man than any I have known.

The way medicine was bounding out of the dark ages in my lifetime, I expected this day's physician to cure a rock of its hardness. Instead medicine seems to have bounded into a wall. And stuck there. Little more is repaired now than before. The modern doctor makes his mark dispensing pills to ease the sufferer's case for a time, but which will cure him of life down the line. Government agencies exist to test these drugs but often their data is collected in the marketplace.

I have seen images from the Hubble telescope. They seem almost a grander hoax than the president but I am assured they are the real article. So this is how space looks viewed from beyond the blur of our atmosphere. What Galileo would have given for my eyes! If one must take the bad along with the good, if men can look upon such star clusters and then turn back to the more natural business of slaughtering each other for the god whose heaven they have yet to locate in that cosmos, then I suppose it is worth it. In the twenty-first century cave men look through time to the dawn of the universe. And are unmoved.

Questions I'd like someone to ask Barak Obama

Questions I'd like someone to ask Barak Obama, as he is claiming candor as his mantle:

• Do you consider George Bush and his accomplices criminals?
• As President, would you block international attempts to prosecute them as war criminals?