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The "V" for Victory: The Ultimate Floating Signifier
Putting woof and warp back into the weft of my existence.
All things have a beginning, and this began while I was musing about D-Day and my father's presence aboard a troop ship that June morning in 1944, when, logically, (for me, logic has always had a quantum aspect to it) my thoughts turned to Winston Churchill and his "V" for Victory symbol which became his imprimatur during World War II. One can hardly think of wartime Winnie without evincing an image of him flashing two fingers, the index and middle fingers. The "V" for victory: N'est-ce pas? By the way, the two in Classical Latin are called the "Digitus Indicus" and the "Digitus Medius," the latter, during the Roman epoch, was often referred to as the "Digitus Infamis" (more about where I am going, here).
Between 1337 and 1453, Britain and France waged three wars known collectively as the "100-years War." It was during this period that the knight in shining armor disappeared off the stage. One could seriously question if these characters ever did shine, but that's ho-hum for another time. Continuing: It was the English bowman, more precisely, the Welsh bowman with his longbow that laid waste to French chivalry. In one battle alone (Poitiers, 1356), 25,000 French knights lost their nobility to the ignoble armor-piercing arrows of the Welsh longbow.
That fact was not lost on the French who, when they next captured a bowman, cut off those offending two fingers, index and middle, which the Welshmen used to pull back the bow string. The next time, however, when the two armies faced each other again, the Welsh (okay English, Edward the I's caprice, notwithstanding), would raise up their collective two fingers to indicate to the French that they still had their devastatingly powerful bow fingers. Do you follow me? They, also, meant to indicate something else. Can you figure out what?
As the centuries rolled by, Welsh and Englishmen, too, I presume, would flash those two fingers to any French person (or anyone else, I would imagine) who managed to transgress in some manner, i.e., on the motorway. Obviously, when they do that, they are not indicating a prowess in archery.
Okay, back to Mr. Churchill. When, Winnie raised his two fingers at the Nazi juggernaut, it was something every Brit could plainly understand. It had appeared as a symbol for victory during the First World War, whether it was Winnie who initiated it back then, too, I can't be sure, but he seems a likely candidate. The "V" for victory illusion could even bring a smile to the lips of the stodgy British monarchy and nobility, who were able to flash a socially leveling symbol that the common Englishman well understood to mean, dare I say it: **** ***!
For Americans, the historic and cultural symbolism was lost. It became simply, "V" for victory until the 1960s. During the Vietnam War, it was used, initially, by peace activists to mean victory in the struggle for peace, only after a few years did the "V" sign, then evolve to mean peace. You could pin the change in meaning, on the media. Who else? Sic transit gloria mundi.
"...Out out brief candle, life's but a walking shadow; a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," Macbeth Act: V; Scene: V.
Szia From Budapest
Showing posts with label Political satire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Political satire. Show all posts
Thursday, December 04, 2008
5. Conspiracy Was On My Mind ©2011
Conspiracy was on my mind, that afternoon in late November 1963, as I crouched down behind the grassy knoll across from Dealey Plaza in Dallas.
I was headed for the Texas Book Depository to meet a young fellow with whom I had recently made an acquaintance. I peeked over the bushes to see if I could make a run to the buiding, when the sound of police sirens forced me to keep my head down. I looked up to the sixth floor window and thought I saw him looking for me. I was about to wave to show him that I was there, but quickly changed my mind: I didn't want to attract attention. I guess he felt the same way, because he put his head down low on the window sill.
As the sound of the sirens grew louder, I started to get a little nervous and began to recount the events that had led up to this day. After weeks of planning, only a few seconds and a few feet separated me from achieving a goal that seemed improbable just a month earlier. If my Eastern Air Lines flight from New York City, which had begun the day before as a direct flight to Dallas, hadn't developed engine problems and, consequently, forced to land in Atlanta, everything would have worked out perfectly.
The four-engine Electra turboprop had a spotty flight maintenance history. It was a temperamental aircraft and it decided early Thursday afternoon over Georgia, to have one of its fits of pique. "Relax," I remember the Eastern representative saying to me, "we'll have you on the next plane to Dallas," The next plane to Dallas, it turned out, wasn't until 08:30, the following morning. I tried, desperately, to call the book warehouse where he worked, but I had waited too long and, by the time I had decided to call, it was already late in the day and they must have been closed. I didn't try calling him in the morning because the plane started boarding at 07:30, and I figured that he wouldn't be there at that hour.
By the time I arrived in Dallas, it was shortly after 10 AM. I didn't bother to call him; at that point, I was too much in a hurry. The taxi ride to Dealey Plaza seemed interminable. Traffic was stopped all around the area and my driver had to drop me off five blocks from Dealey. When I finally got there, there was a police line blocking anyone from crossing the street. I saw the Depository right in front of me and looked around to see if I could skirt around the police. I saw a grassy knoll and figured if I could get around to the back of it, I would be just a hop, skip and a jump from my meeting with Lee. But as I maneuvered toward a spot in which I reasoned, I could still go over the police barricade and get to the other side of the street; I nearly knocked down a man holding up a black umbrella which I thought to be a little odd because it was sunny and there were only a few clouds in the sky. I apologized to him and made sure he was alright, but that incident cost me almost 30 critical seconds, although, I did manage to make it to the other side!
The sounds of sirens and the approach of a motorcade stopped me from sprinting the few yards to the building. I rued my luck, but reasoned that they would soon pass. I sat down, nearly collapsing on my back from exhaustion. I had my eyes closed because the sun was directly over me, but immediately reopened them when I heard a car or police motorcycle backfire two or three times: maybe it was four or five. I can't be clear about that because I was startled. Then, all hell broke loose. People were screaming. Instantly, there were many more sirens wailing creating an incredible cacophony. I looked up but couldn’t see Lee.
I saw what looked like a wave of police heading in my direction; I rolled over, got up, ducked down and ran for cover. I was going to wait to see what was going on so that I could finish my business but a crush of people and police carried me away from the grassy knoll. I stopped running a few blocks away and was instantly knocked down by a man who was running in back of me. At first, he didn't stop, then, when he did, he must have noticed that I was bleeding (I landed squarely on my nose) he came back and helped me stand up. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's all very exciting."
"What's so exciting? "I asked, looking at my bloody handkerchief.
"You know, you know," he repeated, excitedly.
I looked around at the throng of people still running in every direction. Everywhere police cars with sirens screaming were racing up and down the street. I nodded my head, believing that the surrounding chaos was what he meant.
"Look," he said, "I feel really bad about knocking you down. Why don't you come over to my place and we can fix you up?"
I didn't like the sound of the invitation. I hesitated. He must have read my mind or seen the unease in my eyes because he immediately followed up with, "Hey it's okay. It's a public place. I own a club, the Carousel...”
He hesitated for a few seconds, then, stood back to give me some distance.
"Look," he said, "You can call me Jack; you can come to my place, clean up, have a drink and watch the news. It's on me. I feel really bad for what I did." Then, turning aside, he said, There's my ride," indicating a black Cadillac which was pulling up alongside of us. The driver rolled down his window and, in a gruff Spanish accented voice, asked, "Who's he?" I could tell that he was clearly displeased to see me.
"He's all right," said Jack. "I knocked him down and I'm taking him to the club to clean up."
"Aren't you supposed to go to the movies?” Replied the driver.
"Yeah, I know, I know" said Jack, "But, it'll be good for him to sit and cool his heals there for a while."
"Oh, by the way, this is my colleague, Macho," said Jack pointing to the driver. "We go way back to Cu…” Jack never finished his sentence, because Macho quickly interrupted him and said, "You remember what the Empress said?" Jack paused to think about what Macho had just told him and said, "Yeah, yeah you're right." Then, quickly turned to me and said, "I never got your name."
"Quelle, Sir." Somehow, by the tenor of his voice, I felt compelled to say, "Sir."
The Carousel was a small one story establishment with pictures of half clothed strippers, posted in front. A small awning in front did nothing to enhance its appearance. My first impression was that it was the type of tacky place that I normally avoided. Inside the lounge, the bar was crowded with patrons watching the TV. I saw Walter Cronkite and an image of the Book Depository. Walter was pointing to a window on the sixth floor. A sense of gloom suddenly overwhelmed me. I got the unmistakable feeling that, after all I had gone through and all the expectation, I was never going to see Lee or complete my business with him. I was devastated.
I was overpowered by disgust and exasperation, and lay my head down on the bar. My host came over to me putting his hand on my shoulder. "If the news is hurting you that badly, I'll turn off the TV." He asked me where I came from. I told him, New York City. At which point, he said that he was, originally from up north,” My brothers and I are originally from Chicago," he said as he offered me a beer. "It's on the house." I was about to tell him what I was doing in Dallas, when I noticed a picture above the bar. Jack was standing in the middle of a group of men. I recognized Macho. "You and Macho go back a long time?", I asked.
Jack stopped for a minute, looked up at the picture and seemed to be thinking, when I interrupted "Is the Sans Souci a hotel in Miami?", I asked pointing to the picture. "Naw," he said, "it's in Havana. It used to belong to the guy who has his arm around me, Meyer, err, Enrique Chacon", he corrected himself. "That's Macho, the guy standing next to him is Chuck, and the guy next to him is Raoul. On the other side of Enrique is Rafael. We all go way back down there in Havana, before that bastard Castro came in and messed up our business."
I was about to ask him if they were friends or business partners when the phone rang. Jack went down to the other end of the bar and carried on a very animated conversation in a hushed voice. He came back and stood across the bar from me. "Listen kid, that was a business partner of mine, the Empress Wu, I have to go downtown. You need a lift?" I was a little relieved because I was about to confess my woes. I thanked him for the beer and decided to walk around, maybe take in a movie. I said that I had heard him mention to Macho that he was going to take in a movie and I wondered what was playing, maybe I would join him.
"Naw, kid," he stuttered, "I'm just going to meet someone about some business. Anyway," he added, "You wouldn't like the movie that's playing at the Texas Theater."
"How do you know," I replied, already resigned to finding another movie but a little curious to know what film was showing. "Anyhow what's playing?"
Jack looked at me as if he were having difficulty remembering the name of the movie, "Our American Cousin." he finally blurted out, "it's a comedy about this guy's cousin who's American. He must have realized that I was still a little confused because he immediately followed up by offering to give me a lift downtown.
Outside, the wail of police sirens hadn't abated and they only became louder as we approached the movie house. To my absolute astonishment, the entire area was sealed off by police cars and ambulances. Jack looked upset and told me that I had to get out of the car. I thanked him, again. He made a U turn and sped off without uttering another word, not even a "Good-bye," leaving me alone on the sidewalk.
I turned around and began to rue the entire experience, walking to nowhere in particular: in frustration, kicking an empty beer can in front of me. Several times a police cruiser passed by me slowly. I could tell that they were checking me out. Frankly, I didn't care what they thought as I continued kicking the can. No one had ever had a worse day in their lives than I had that day. At 20-years-old, I knew that I had suffered what would be the worst day of my entire life.
II.
So, you can fully understand what I had gone through. I should tell you what I was doing in Dallas on that mournful day. First, however, I should tell you a little about myself.
For several years, I had been a member of a college fraternity founded in 1754, as the "Regis Nervo Aptare Sagittas." In 1783, the name was formally changed to the "Societas Nervi," or, as it is known to the Fellows, "The Bow String Society." Unlike similar college associations, we didn't stand over a poor slave's disinterred bones muttering meaningless and arcane Latin chants or wile away our meals in elite dining rooms. Au contraire, we had a mission, call it a "Duty" under the Law of History: to solving ancient conspiracies. To that end, we dedicated our college years -- and, often a great portion of our entire adult life, to the exclusive purpose of solving metahistoric conspiracies.
Fellows of the Bow String are nominated in secret and are asked if they would wish to be members. To my knowledge, no one nominated has ever refused. Since our founding, we have been the very antithesis of the Free Mandelbaums, whom we believe have been around, in many incarnations, as far back as 330 BC. Our original mission, sometimes successful, other times not, has been to expose Mandelbaum conspiracies that have disrupted and derailed the normal course of human history and civilization since the death of Alexander Magnus to the present.
Each new member is assigned an unsolved conspiracy, which one is expected to devote much of their free time, to the nearly total exclusion of any form of collegiate social life, investigating. Meetings of the Bow String resemble academic seminars where members report the problems and progress they are having with their individual file. No one ever expects to solve their assigned cases within their lifetime. However, one is expected to pass on the body of their work in a timely fashion to the Society's Curia, so it can be passed on to a new generation.
My project was to investigate the conspiracy surrounding the murder of Alexander Magnus and to determine what had been the depth of involvement of his one-time tutor, Aristotle, in the plot.
That's the backdrop in which my misadventure began. I was in my room translating Cicero's "Pro M. Caelio," and had just gotten to the part where Cicero was describing, Clodia as the reigning demimonde of contemporary Roman society. I was chuckling to myself saying, "Go Tulli," when, I was distracted by the sound of laughter coming from the apartment's Common Room, dubbed the "Chaos Room."
When I asked Niebuhr, one of my roommates, what all the commotion was about, he told me that a letter addressed to one of our roommates, Vico, had arrived from New Orleans. It had come from a person that none of us knew, nor had ever heard of, inquiring about the organization, Fair Play For Cuba, of which Vico was the sole administrative entity. I remember him walking through the seven-bedroom apartment we shared on West 105th Street and Broadway, laughing and saying, "Look at this letter," speculating that it had to have come from the CIA or the FBI, "he is asking for our entire membership list for New Orleans." General laughter greeted his remarks. Vico mentioned that he was going to write back and tell him that, for five dollars, he could get a membership card for Fair Play that would entitle him to absolutely nothing but continual harassment from the authorities.
Precisely at that moment, our neighbor just below our apartment, Madam Rozali, knocked on our door. She asked us to lower our voices because she was conducting a very important séance. Rather than quell the uproar, her appearance only helped to further the contagious hilarity.
The incident was almost forgotten. Then, one day in late October, the phone rang. It was the same fellow who had written the strange letter. He was upset because he had sent his five dollars from New Orleans, but in the interim had gone to Mexico and had never received his membership card. He wanted me to give Vico his new address in Dallas. Well, one thing led to another and he told me a little about himself. I was impressed with his knowledge of the Russian language, but, I became a little troubled when he told me that he had lived in Minsk, for a few years. I mean we were right then smack dead in the middle of the Cold War.
Vico's words rushed back to me and I started thinking, "Uh, oh.... agent." I was about to hang up, when he changed the topic by saying that he worked at a book warehouse in Dallas. "Really," I thought, and just for a lark, I asked him if he had ever come across the work "Aristotle, and the Plot Against Alexander Magnus," written by Avicenna with a preface by Rhazes translated and published in Toledo, Spain, in 1456, by Alphonso Colon de Matamoros. I had been searching for it as part of my investigation; however, I was beginning to believe it had been lost to research historians. I cautioned the voice at the other end of the line, whose name I learned was Lee, not to kill himself looking for it. "The people who told me about it," I said, "also told me that all copies of that work had probably been destroyed centuries earlier or, if they existed at all, were squirreled away in private libraries."
He told me that he would look around anyway, and if I could, would I please give Vico his new address in Dallas. I assured him that I would and hung up the phone thinking that I would never hear from him again. However, I did pass on his address to Vico.
III.
So, knowing all this, you can imagine my surprise when, a few weeks later, sometime in the middle of November, the phone rang and, when I picked it up, it was Lee: "Hi Quelle, this is Lee, do you remember me?" I assured him that I did.
"Did you get your membership card?" I asked, wondering for a moment if I had forgotten to tell Vico.
"Yes, I did, thanks a lot." he said, "But that's not why I'm calling you." Then, in a rather excited voice, he went on. "I found your book!" To say that I was struck dumb is to put it mildly.
"Not the original edition?" I asked, trying to conceal my own surprise and excitement.
"The original, 1456 edition," he said, nearly blurting out the words. I was struck speechless; I was in such a state of amazement, that I almost didn't hear the rest of what he was trying to tell me.
"It's not in the best condition, however, it is written on parchment but it's readable," he drawled. "It was wrapped in a portfolio containing papers that belonged to Allan Pinkerton." He paused to see if I knew who Allan Pinkerton was, but went on without waiting for me to respond, "You know, the famous cop? I found it at the bottom of a box, along with another book: Aaron Burr's, 'The Secret Military Diaries of Major (later, Col.) George Washington, 1754-1763, published in January 1805, by the Essex Junto Press, in Albany, NY. I thought that maybe you would be interested in that one, too," he said.
Then, pausing for a moment so that I understood the full weight of what he had just said to me, he continued. "Since I began working at the Depository, I have been told almost every day to be on the lookout for papers belonging to Pinkerton. Several people call regularly, inquiring about them. My boss thinks that they were lost at auction sometime back."
"So how did you get your hands on them?" I asked, feigning curiosity, in reality I didn't care how he had gotten hold of them, I was just interested in getting my hands on Avicenna's tome, myself.
"Look Lee," I began to say that I didn't have the money for them right then anticipating that he was going to give me a figure that was going to be well out of my reach, but he cut me off. "Naw, don't worry about money, I can give them to you for free. I found them under a pile of books that were covered with dust. Nobody at the Depository knows that they were ever here."
I wanted to say, "I could hug you, Lee." However, my mind was now racing ahead trying to calculate when I could come up with the round-trip airplane fare to Dallas.
'Well," he said, "You had better get up here before the 22nd, because I will have a new assignment after that."
I was a little confused, "Assignment?" I asked.
"No, I didn't mean to say assignment," he corrected himself, "I meant that I will be going on to another job. My friend Jake bought a nightclub in Buenos Aires and has asked me to run it."
He may have said something else, but I was near desperation. "Okay, Lee," making a quick calculation after checking the calendar and my checkbook, "It will take me a few days to get things together, but I can get down there by the 21st, it’s a Thursday.”
There was a short pause, "Fine," he said, "but no later."
Then my worries turned towards insuring the books, themselves, would still be available. "Can you take care of them for me until I get there?" I realized that I was nearly pleading with him.
"Don't worry Q; I'll guard them with my life. In fact, I will carry them with me at all times," he said with a flamboyant sense of self confidence. I remember asking him if he thought that they would be safe with him. "Hey Q," he responded, with that insouciance one always associates with ex Marines, "Don't worry your little head off, I'll guard them with my life."
Immediately, I canvassed my roommates for the $500 I needed for my round trip air fare and miscellaneous expenses. A few days, later, I was on my way to Dallas.
Well, who killed Alexander Magnus? The "Who" part is actually a pretty simple question to answer, although without some historical documentation, can never be really proven. The plot, as far as I can put it together, was hatched in the warrens of the Lyceum in 324 BC. The main conspirators included Aristotle, Demosthenes the Athenian orator and its most outspoken citizen and Antipater, Alexander's Regent, without whose support no plot against Alexander would have been thinkable let alone, possible.
The Why(s) are just as evident. For Aristotle, it was a long seething revenge: first, for the action taken by Philip, Alexander's father, to coerce the unwilling Aristotle to train young Alexander into becoming the "Philosopher King." Aristotle had been exposed to that Platonic concept during his years at the Academy and the theories about the way forms of government characteristically succeed each other in the state, however, he despised the concept of kings in any avatar. When Aristotle refused Philip's offer, the latter ordered the destruction of Aristotle's home village, Stagira, in Thrace and the dispersal of its population to the four corners of the Macedonian Kingdom. Aristotle got the message and agreed.
The second cause, which only added salt to the wound and increased his ire for revenge, was the execution of, Aristotle's nephew, Callisthenes, on Alexander's orders, on the charge that he was plotting to kill him. Alexander made it clear by this action that he, also, suspected Aristotle was in on it, too.
For Demosthenes, the why is historically evident: he, alone among the Athenians, publicly called for opposition against Alexander. (Diogenes, also, spoke out against Alex, but he was from Corinth.) Demosthenes saw the Macedonians as Barbarians and Macedonia's hegemony over the Greek states as a bizarre hallucination in the extreme.
Unrivaled political power was Antipater's motive. With Alexander gone, Antipater saw himself as the boss. It didn't work out that way, but hey, he tried. After Alexander's death in 323, Aristotle beat it out of town saying, that he didn't want the "Athenians to sin twice against philosophy." That was a not-too-veiled allusion to the execution of Socrates, by the Athenians, in 399. Both Aristotle and Demosthenes died, or may have been murdered, a year later, in 322.
The followers of Aristotle quickly went underground taking all his works and cult symbols with them where they stayed hidden for more than 167 year. (The eye on top of a pyramid that you can find on a dollar bill was and still is a Free Mandelbaums symbol, but was originally designed by Callisthenes.)
Since their reemergence under a variety of names, the Aristotelians have gone to great lengths to refute the allegation against Aristotle, including the destruction of evidence and documentation that implicated Aristotle with involvement in Alexander's death: even, as they continue their malefactions against the World Spirit. To understand them (call them Casuists, Scholasticists or Free Mandelbaums), you have to understand that their basic premises are founded on expediency, but especially the Lie. Aristotle was often accused of atheism and preaching evil beliefs during his own life time justifying his perversities and prevarications by saying, "One can only come to a conclusion if an act is good or evil after having examined the cause." Here is one example of the double talk which he was fond of using in his Posterior Analytics, "We have (scientific) knowledge when we know the cause."
I'm afraid that I have to split Platonic hairs, here, and say that "Reason" and not "Cause" leads us to the Truth or Goodness in all instances. Often times, what we believe to be Knowledge has been purposely and falsely manipulated.
The Avicenna and Rhazes treatise would, I believe -- philosophy be damned -- have painted a truer picture of the demonic figure whose influence has been responsible for much of the havoc in the world over the last two thousand years.
Since November 22, 1963, I have continued my investigation; however, with the disappearance of Lee, I have not been able to add anything new to the material that I originally inherited. I have heard rumors that placed him in a Cadillac showroom in Memphis, Tenn., where he bought a Cadillac for a stranger who was merely window shopping and obviously in no financial position to buy one. I traveled to Buenos Aires in the early 70's and was told that, "Yes," he had been there, but had mysteriously disappeared after attending a political meeting. One rumor even had Lee altering his appearance with the aid of plastic surgery, becoming a rock star, and dying of a drug overdose in Paris where he was buried in the Cimetière Père Lachaise. However, when forensic specialists opened the casket, in 1984, it was empty. Recently, someone told me that they heard that he was back in Texas, and had been the leader of a religious cult somewhere around Waco, in the middle 80's; others say they had spotted him, just a few years, ago, as a hired hand on a ranch in Crawford, Texas.
In any case, I haven't given up the search, nor can I become too demoralized. Long ago, I dedicated my life to the sole purpose of uncovering the truth no matter how long it takes me--even if it were to take my whole life. You see, I know that I was not the only person who lost out that day in November. All the American people were the losers: and, in a larger sense, all of Western Civilization lost, too. Ultimately, Truth was the biggest loser of all, and, for the time being, Conspiracy, the big winner.
-END IT-
I was headed for the Texas Book Depository to meet a young fellow with whom I had recently made an acquaintance. I peeked over the bushes to see if I could make a run to the buiding, when the sound of police sirens forced me to keep my head down. I looked up to the sixth floor window and thought I saw him looking for me. I was about to wave to show him that I was there, but quickly changed my mind: I didn't want to attract attention. I guess he felt the same way, because he put his head down low on the window sill.
As the sound of the sirens grew louder, I started to get a little nervous and began to recount the events that had led up to this day. After weeks of planning, only a few seconds and a few feet separated me from achieving a goal that seemed improbable just a month earlier. If my Eastern Air Lines flight from New York City, which had begun the day before as a direct flight to Dallas, hadn't developed engine problems and, consequently, forced to land in Atlanta, everything would have worked out perfectly.
The four-engine Electra turboprop had a spotty flight maintenance history. It was a temperamental aircraft and it decided early Thursday afternoon over Georgia, to have one of its fits of pique. "Relax," I remember the Eastern representative saying to me, "we'll have you on the next plane to Dallas," The next plane to Dallas, it turned out, wasn't until 08:30, the following morning. I tried, desperately, to call the book warehouse where he worked, but I had waited too long and, by the time I had decided to call, it was already late in the day and they must have been closed. I didn't try calling him in the morning because the plane started boarding at 07:30, and I figured that he wouldn't be there at that hour.
By the time I arrived in Dallas, it was shortly after 10 AM. I didn't bother to call him; at that point, I was too much in a hurry. The taxi ride to Dealey Plaza seemed interminable. Traffic was stopped all around the area and my driver had to drop me off five blocks from Dealey. When I finally got there, there was a police line blocking anyone from crossing the street. I saw the Depository right in front of me and looked around to see if I could skirt around the police. I saw a grassy knoll and figured if I could get around to the back of it, I would be just a hop, skip and a jump from my meeting with Lee. But as I maneuvered toward a spot in which I reasoned, I could still go over the police barricade and get to the other side of the street; I nearly knocked down a man holding up a black umbrella which I thought to be a little odd because it was sunny and there were only a few clouds in the sky. I apologized to him and made sure he was alright, but that incident cost me almost 30 critical seconds, although, I did manage to make it to the other side!
The sounds of sirens and the approach of a motorcade stopped me from sprinting the few yards to the building. I rued my luck, but reasoned that they would soon pass. I sat down, nearly collapsing on my back from exhaustion. I had my eyes closed because the sun was directly over me, but immediately reopened them when I heard a car or police motorcycle backfire two or three times: maybe it was four or five. I can't be clear about that because I was startled. Then, all hell broke loose. People were screaming. Instantly, there were many more sirens wailing creating an incredible cacophony. I looked up but couldn’t see Lee.
I saw what looked like a wave of police heading in my direction; I rolled over, got up, ducked down and ran for cover. I was going to wait to see what was going on so that I could finish my business but a crush of people and police carried me away from the grassy knoll. I stopped running a few blocks away and was instantly knocked down by a man who was running in back of me. At first, he didn't stop, then, when he did, he must have noticed that I was bleeding (I landed squarely on my nose) he came back and helped me stand up. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's all very exciting."
"What's so exciting? "I asked, looking at my bloody handkerchief.
"You know, you know," he repeated, excitedly.
I looked around at the throng of people still running in every direction. Everywhere police cars with sirens screaming were racing up and down the street. I nodded my head, believing that the surrounding chaos was what he meant.
"Look," he said, "I feel really bad about knocking you down. Why don't you come over to my place and we can fix you up?"
I didn't like the sound of the invitation. I hesitated. He must have read my mind or seen the unease in my eyes because he immediately followed up with, "Hey it's okay. It's a public place. I own a club, the Carousel...”
He hesitated for a few seconds, then, stood back to give me some distance.
"Look," he said, "You can call me Jack; you can come to my place, clean up, have a drink and watch the news. It's on me. I feel really bad for what I did." Then, turning aside, he said, There's my ride," indicating a black Cadillac which was pulling up alongside of us. The driver rolled down his window and, in a gruff Spanish accented voice, asked, "Who's he?" I could tell that he was clearly displeased to see me.
"He's all right," said Jack. "I knocked him down and I'm taking him to the club to clean up."
"Aren't you supposed to go to the movies?” Replied the driver.
"Yeah, I know, I know" said Jack, "But, it'll be good for him to sit and cool his heals there for a while."
"Oh, by the way, this is my colleague, Macho," said Jack pointing to the driver. "We go way back to Cu…” Jack never finished his sentence, because Macho quickly interrupted him and said, "You remember what the Empress said?" Jack paused to think about what Macho had just told him and said, "Yeah, yeah you're right." Then, quickly turned to me and said, "I never got your name."
"Quelle, Sir." Somehow, by the tenor of his voice, I felt compelled to say, "Sir."
The Carousel was a small one story establishment with pictures of half clothed strippers, posted in front. A small awning in front did nothing to enhance its appearance. My first impression was that it was the type of tacky place that I normally avoided. Inside the lounge, the bar was crowded with patrons watching the TV. I saw Walter Cronkite and an image of the Book Depository. Walter was pointing to a window on the sixth floor. A sense of gloom suddenly overwhelmed me. I got the unmistakable feeling that, after all I had gone through and all the expectation, I was never going to see Lee or complete my business with him. I was devastated.
I was overpowered by disgust and exasperation, and lay my head down on the bar. My host came over to me putting his hand on my shoulder. "If the news is hurting you that badly, I'll turn off the TV." He asked me where I came from. I told him, New York City. At which point, he said that he was, originally from up north,” My brothers and I are originally from Chicago," he said as he offered me a beer. "It's on the house." I was about to tell him what I was doing in Dallas, when I noticed a picture above the bar. Jack was standing in the middle of a group of men. I recognized Macho. "You and Macho go back a long time?", I asked.
Jack stopped for a minute, looked up at the picture and seemed to be thinking, when I interrupted "Is the Sans Souci a hotel in Miami?", I asked pointing to the picture. "Naw," he said, "it's in Havana. It used to belong to the guy who has his arm around me, Meyer, err, Enrique Chacon", he corrected himself. "That's Macho, the guy standing next to him is Chuck, and the guy next to him is Raoul. On the other side of Enrique is Rafael. We all go way back down there in Havana, before that bastard Castro came in and messed up our business."
I was about to ask him if they were friends or business partners when the phone rang. Jack went down to the other end of the bar and carried on a very animated conversation in a hushed voice. He came back and stood across the bar from me. "Listen kid, that was a business partner of mine, the Empress Wu, I have to go downtown. You need a lift?" I was a little relieved because I was about to confess my woes. I thanked him for the beer and decided to walk around, maybe take in a movie. I said that I had heard him mention to Macho that he was going to take in a movie and I wondered what was playing, maybe I would join him.
"Naw, kid," he stuttered, "I'm just going to meet someone about some business. Anyway," he added, "You wouldn't like the movie that's playing at the Texas Theater."
"How do you know," I replied, already resigned to finding another movie but a little curious to know what film was showing. "Anyhow what's playing?"
Jack looked at me as if he were having difficulty remembering the name of the movie, "Our American Cousin." he finally blurted out, "it's a comedy about this guy's cousin who's American. He must have realized that I was still a little confused because he immediately followed up by offering to give me a lift downtown.
Outside, the wail of police sirens hadn't abated and they only became louder as we approached the movie house. To my absolute astonishment, the entire area was sealed off by police cars and ambulances. Jack looked upset and told me that I had to get out of the car. I thanked him, again. He made a U turn and sped off without uttering another word, not even a "Good-bye," leaving me alone on the sidewalk.
I turned around and began to rue the entire experience, walking to nowhere in particular: in frustration, kicking an empty beer can in front of me. Several times a police cruiser passed by me slowly. I could tell that they were checking me out. Frankly, I didn't care what they thought as I continued kicking the can. No one had ever had a worse day in their lives than I had that day. At 20-years-old, I knew that I had suffered what would be the worst day of my entire life.
II.
So, you can fully understand what I had gone through. I should tell you what I was doing in Dallas on that mournful day. First, however, I should tell you a little about myself.
For several years, I had been a member of a college fraternity founded in 1754, as the "Regis Nervo Aptare Sagittas." In 1783, the name was formally changed to the "Societas Nervi," or, as it is known to the Fellows, "The Bow String Society." Unlike similar college associations, we didn't stand over a poor slave's disinterred bones muttering meaningless and arcane Latin chants or wile away our meals in elite dining rooms. Au contraire, we had a mission, call it a "Duty" under the Law of History: to solving ancient conspiracies. To that end, we dedicated our college years -- and, often a great portion of our entire adult life, to the exclusive purpose of solving metahistoric conspiracies.
Fellows of the Bow String are nominated in secret and are asked if they would wish to be members. To my knowledge, no one nominated has ever refused. Since our founding, we have been the very antithesis of the Free Mandelbaums, whom we believe have been around, in many incarnations, as far back as 330 BC. Our original mission, sometimes successful, other times not, has been to expose Mandelbaum conspiracies that have disrupted and derailed the normal course of human history and civilization since the death of Alexander Magnus to the present.
Each new member is assigned an unsolved conspiracy, which one is expected to devote much of their free time, to the nearly total exclusion of any form of collegiate social life, investigating. Meetings of the Bow String resemble academic seminars where members report the problems and progress they are having with their individual file. No one ever expects to solve their assigned cases within their lifetime. However, one is expected to pass on the body of their work in a timely fashion to the Society's Curia, so it can be passed on to a new generation.
My project was to investigate the conspiracy surrounding the murder of Alexander Magnus and to determine what had been the depth of involvement of his one-time tutor, Aristotle, in the plot.
That's the backdrop in which my misadventure began. I was in my room translating Cicero's "Pro M. Caelio," and had just gotten to the part where Cicero was describing, Clodia as the reigning demimonde of contemporary Roman society. I was chuckling to myself saying, "Go Tulli," when, I was distracted by the sound of laughter coming from the apartment's Common Room, dubbed the "Chaos Room."
When I asked Niebuhr, one of my roommates, what all the commotion was about, he told me that a letter addressed to one of our roommates, Vico, had arrived from New Orleans. It had come from a person that none of us knew, nor had ever heard of, inquiring about the organization, Fair Play For Cuba, of which Vico was the sole administrative entity. I remember him walking through the seven-bedroom apartment we shared on West 105th Street and Broadway, laughing and saying, "Look at this letter," speculating that it had to have come from the CIA or the FBI, "he is asking for our entire membership list for New Orleans." General laughter greeted his remarks. Vico mentioned that he was going to write back and tell him that, for five dollars, he could get a membership card for Fair Play that would entitle him to absolutely nothing but continual harassment from the authorities.
Precisely at that moment, our neighbor just below our apartment, Madam Rozali, knocked on our door. She asked us to lower our voices because she was conducting a very important séance. Rather than quell the uproar, her appearance only helped to further the contagious hilarity.
The incident was almost forgotten. Then, one day in late October, the phone rang. It was the same fellow who had written the strange letter. He was upset because he had sent his five dollars from New Orleans, but in the interim had gone to Mexico and had never received his membership card. He wanted me to give Vico his new address in Dallas. Well, one thing led to another and he told me a little about himself. I was impressed with his knowledge of the Russian language, but, I became a little troubled when he told me that he had lived in Minsk, for a few years. I mean we were right then smack dead in the middle of the Cold War.
Vico's words rushed back to me and I started thinking, "Uh, oh.... agent." I was about to hang up, when he changed the topic by saying that he worked at a book warehouse in Dallas. "Really," I thought, and just for a lark, I asked him if he had ever come across the work "Aristotle, and the Plot Against Alexander Magnus," written by Avicenna with a preface by Rhazes translated and published in Toledo, Spain, in 1456, by Alphonso Colon de Matamoros. I had been searching for it as part of my investigation; however, I was beginning to believe it had been lost to research historians. I cautioned the voice at the other end of the line, whose name I learned was Lee, not to kill himself looking for it. "The people who told me about it," I said, "also told me that all copies of that work had probably been destroyed centuries earlier or, if they existed at all, were squirreled away in private libraries."
He told me that he would look around anyway, and if I could, would I please give Vico his new address in Dallas. I assured him that I would and hung up the phone thinking that I would never hear from him again. However, I did pass on his address to Vico.
III.
So, knowing all this, you can imagine my surprise when, a few weeks later, sometime in the middle of November, the phone rang and, when I picked it up, it was Lee: "Hi Quelle, this is Lee, do you remember me?" I assured him that I did.
"Did you get your membership card?" I asked, wondering for a moment if I had forgotten to tell Vico.
"Yes, I did, thanks a lot." he said, "But that's not why I'm calling you." Then, in a rather excited voice, he went on. "I found your book!" To say that I was struck dumb is to put it mildly.
"Not the original edition?" I asked, trying to conceal my own surprise and excitement.
"The original, 1456 edition," he said, nearly blurting out the words. I was struck speechless; I was in such a state of amazement, that I almost didn't hear the rest of what he was trying to tell me.
"It's not in the best condition, however, it is written on parchment but it's readable," he drawled. "It was wrapped in a portfolio containing papers that belonged to Allan Pinkerton." He paused to see if I knew who Allan Pinkerton was, but went on without waiting for me to respond, "You know, the famous cop? I found it at the bottom of a box, along with another book: Aaron Burr's, 'The Secret Military Diaries of Major (later, Col.) George Washington, 1754-1763, published in January 1805, by the Essex Junto Press, in Albany, NY. I thought that maybe you would be interested in that one, too," he said.
Then, pausing for a moment so that I understood the full weight of what he had just said to me, he continued. "Since I began working at the Depository, I have been told almost every day to be on the lookout for papers belonging to Pinkerton. Several people call regularly, inquiring about them. My boss thinks that they were lost at auction sometime back."
"So how did you get your hands on them?" I asked, feigning curiosity, in reality I didn't care how he had gotten hold of them, I was just interested in getting my hands on Avicenna's tome, myself.
"Look Lee," I began to say that I didn't have the money for them right then anticipating that he was going to give me a figure that was going to be well out of my reach, but he cut me off. "Naw, don't worry about money, I can give them to you for free. I found them under a pile of books that were covered with dust. Nobody at the Depository knows that they were ever here."
I wanted to say, "I could hug you, Lee." However, my mind was now racing ahead trying to calculate when I could come up with the round-trip airplane fare to Dallas.
'Well," he said, "You had better get up here before the 22nd, because I will have a new assignment after that."
I was a little confused, "Assignment?" I asked.
"No, I didn't mean to say assignment," he corrected himself, "I meant that I will be going on to another job. My friend Jake bought a nightclub in Buenos Aires and has asked me to run it."
He may have said something else, but I was near desperation. "Okay, Lee," making a quick calculation after checking the calendar and my checkbook, "It will take me a few days to get things together, but I can get down there by the 21st, it’s a Thursday.”
There was a short pause, "Fine," he said, "but no later."
Then my worries turned towards insuring the books, themselves, would still be available. "Can you take care of them for me until I get there?" I realized that I was nearly pleading with him.
"Don't worry Q; I'll guard them with my life. In fact, I will carry them with me at all times," he said with a flamboyant sense of self confidence. I remember asking him if he thought that they would be safe with him. "Hey Q," he responded, with that insouciance one always associates with ex Marines, "Don't worry your little head off, I'll guard them with my life."
Immediately, I canvassed my roommates for the $500 I needed for my round trip air fare and miscellaneous expenses. A few days, later, I was on my way to Dallas.
Well, who killed Alexander Magnus? The "Who" part is actually a pretty simple question to answer, although without some historical documentation, can never be really proven. The plot, as far as I can put it together, was hatched in the warrens of the Lyceum in 324 BC. The main conspirators included Aristotle, Demosthenes the Athenian orator and its most outspoken citizen and Antipater, Alexander's Regent, without whose support no plot against Alexander would have been thinkable let alone, possible.
The Why(s) are just as evident. For Aristotle, it was a long seething revenge: first, for the action taken by Philip, Alexander's father, to coerce the unwilling Aristotle to train young Alexander into becoming the "Philosopher King." Aristotle had been exposed to that Platonic concept during his years at the Academy and the theories about the way forms of government characteristically succeed each other in the state, however, he despised the concept of kings in any avatar. When Aristotle refused Philip's offer, the latter ordered the destruction of Aristotle's home village, Stagira, in Thrace and the dispersal of its population to the four corners of the Macedonian Kingdom. Aristotle got the message and agreed.
The second cause, which only added salt to the wound and increased his ire for revenge, was the execution of, Aristotle's nephew, Callisthenes, on Alexander's orders, on the charge that he was plotting to kill him. Alexander made it clear by this action that he, also, suspected Aristotle was in on it, too.
For Demosthenes, the why is historically evident: he, alone among the Athenians, publicly called for opposition against Alexander. (Diogenes, also, spoke out against Alex, but he was from Corinth.) Demosthenes saw the Macedonians as Barbarians and Macedonia's hegemony over the Greek states as a bizarre hallucination in the extreme.
Unrivaled political power was Antipater's motive. With Alexander gone, Antipater saw himself as the boss. It didn't work out that way, but hey, he tried. After Alexander's death in 323, Aristotle beat it out of town saying, that he didn't want the "Athenians to sin twice against philosophy." That was a not-too-veiled allusion to the execution of Socrates, by the Athenians, in 399. Both Aristotle and Demosthenes died, or may have been murdered, a year later, in 322.
The followers of Aristotle quickly went underground taking all his works and cult symbols with them where they stayed hidden for more than 167 year. (The eye on top of a pyramid that you can find on a dollar bill was and still is a Free Mandelbaums symbol, but was originally designed by Callisthenes.)
Since their reemergence under a variety of names, the Aristotelians have gone to great lengths to refute the allegation against Aristotle, including the destruction of evidence and documentation that implicated Aristotle with involvement in Alexander's death: even, as they continue their malefactions against the World Spirit. To understand them (call them Casuists, Scholasticists or Free Mandelbaums), you have to understand that their basic premises are founded on expediency, but especially the Lie. Aristotle was often accused of atheism and preaching evil beliefs during his own life time justifying his perversities and prevarications by saying, "One can only come to a conclusion if an act is good or evil after having examined the cause." Here is one example of the double talk which he was fond of using in his Posterior Analytics, "We have (scientific) knowledge when we know the cause."
I'm afraid that I have to split Platonic hairs, here, and say that "Reason" and not "Cause" leads us to the Truth or Goodness in all instances. Often times, what we believe to be Knowledge has been purposely and falsely manipulated.
The Avicenna and Rhazes treatise would, I believe -- philosophy be damned -- have painted a truer picture of the demonic figure whose influence has been responsible for much of the havoc in the world over the last two thousand years.
Since November 22, 1963, I have continued my investigation; however, with the disappearance of Lee, I have not been able to add anything new to the material that I originally inherited. I have heard rumors that placed him in a Cadillac showroom in Memphis, Tenn., where he bought a Cadillac for a stranger who was merely window shopping and obviously in no financial position to buy one. I traveled to Buenos Aires in the early 70's and was told that, "Yes," he had been there, but had mysteriously disappeared after attending a political meeting. One rumor even had Lee altering his appearance with the aid of plastic surgery, becoming a rock star, and dying of a drug overdose in Paris where he was buried in the Cimetière Père Lachaise. However, when forensic specialists opened the casket, in 1984, it was empty. Recently, someone told me that they heard that he was back in Texas, and had been the leader of a religious cult somewhere around Waco, in the middle 80's; others say they had spotted him, just a few years, ago, as a hired hand on a ranch in Crawford, Texas.
In any case, I haven't given up the search, nor can I become too demoralized. Long ago, I dedicated my life to the sole purpose of uncovering the truth no matter how long it takes me--even if it were to take my whole life. You see, I know that I was not the only person who lost out that day in November. All the American people were the losers: and, in a larger sense, all of Western Civilization lost, too. Ultimately, Truth was the biggest loser of all, and, for the time being, Conspiracy, the big winner.
-END IT-
8. The Fox And The Hedgehog: A Discourse on Liberties and Deaths, versus "Serving "In A Rack." A Musing on Staying Alive.
"The Fox knows many things; the Hedgehog knows one big thing."
Hesiod, according to the 20th Century philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, said that there are two concepts of liberty, one complicated, the other simple. The former, which Berlin termed "Negative," begins with deep roots, emerges into the light with a hardened trunk, branches out in every direction, sends off twigs that eventually sprout countless leaves. The leaves are expendable,: they die, they fall, become compost and are forgotten.
Such a leaf was U.S. Army Pfc. Luis A. Perez.
Perez died in August 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq from injuries sustained when his truck was destroyed by an I.E.D. Perez came from a small upstate New York Hamlet, near Lake Ontario, close to Fort Drum. He was in Iraq as a member of the Army Reserves (223d Transportation Co., Norristown, PA) He was 19-years-old.
Perez left a young wife and a family that loved him. That year, he missed the Labor Day weekend, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Valentine's Day, Easter, his 20th Birthday, the July Fourth weekend, and, now, the cycle will go on forever.
We were namesakes. We lived close by, but we weren't related, at least I don't think so in any way other than we were brother human beings. So, what's my beef? There have been 4000+ other combat deaths with, perhaps, 100,000 more injured, in Iraq, since, former president, George le Fou, a member in good standing of the Laccopluti, declared War and Victory almost eight years ago. Pfc. Perez is only a 1/4000th part of the catastrophe. Like the others, he was a hero in death, but had he planned on being a hero before he was killed? That's a stretch. When one plans to be a hero, they join the active Army's Infantry, Armor and Artillery corps. They volunteer to go Airborne. Volunteer again to go to Ranger School, and then volunteer once more for the Special Forces, Delta Team...the Daisy Chain and the Grave (The last six words were lifted from Alan Ginsberg's "Howl").
My point? I don't think, at 19, he had any intention of being a dead hero which is not meant to disparage his contribution to the war effort or on a greater level to America. At 19, a young man is thinking about his future, a job, college, girls and more girls and, then, the right girl. One enlists in the reserves to serve the Country, get a little extra pocket cash, respect from the community in which he lives and money for college. I don't think that he expected to die.
We, my family of Pérezes, have been an Army family since the first World War. I've often stated it, but I don't mind repeating it, my father was a real "V" for Valor hero. I was in the Army, too, heh heh. Like I said my Dad was a bona fide hero and while, geneticists will tell you, that kind of stuff skips a generation, cynicism, we all know is an acquired trait.
"I serve the Lord of Battle and the Muses too;
for I recognize the beauty of their gift."(Ibid)
Many a day (and night) I got to hear my father--and others-- relate their war experiences, while I sat on the foot rail under the bars of countless VFW saloons, wiping off the beer from my head that spilled over. So, I can attest to his courage and valor. One footnote: in the town square of Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, there is a statue commemorating one of my granduncles for his service in World War I. Seeing as the U.S. Congress had just passed the "Jones Act" in 1917, making Puerto Ricans U.S. Citizens, therefore eligible to fight in all U.S. Wars, my uncle must have felt strongly about the need of stopping young Kaiser Wilhelm II. It boggles the imagination.
One of my sons served in the Army Reserves, neatly, between Persian Gulf Lunacy I and Persian Gulf Lunacy II.. There was no war going on, so, for the both of us, there was no problem. Had there been a war, however, there would have been a lot of tension. Skipping to Canada would have been out of the question. Neither of us likes the cold. Eh? Most importantly, we believe in the inviolability and sacredness of the "Contract." Further, neither of us could ever reconcile the thought of desertion, maybe a little late for Reveille because of too much Revelry the night before, but never desertion. Fortunately, I never had to come up with an alternative Patriotic Plan.
It's odd how that word "Patriot" comes up a lot these days. Before 9/11 and our not-too-well thought out reaction, Patriots had been those guys that huddled together for warmth from 1776 -to-1783. More recently, and I like the name application a lot better, it's the name of a football team from Foxboro, MA.
Okay, I'll say it once more: Plc. Luis A. Perez died in Fallujah, August 2004, and I don't think he should have. Because of that, I will always feel a little guilty when I eat a piece of apple pie, drink a fine Bordeaux or kiss my kids.
"No one in the city honors the dead or even
mentions them. Alive we prefer to court the living.
Nothing good can be said for being dead." (Ibid)
A Few Thoughts about "SERVING "IN A RACK!"
The second concept of liberty, which Berlin called "Positive" is simple and goes directly to the core of what is historically inevitable, albeit, the truth..
I have been thinking about sedition, recently. Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning to be seditious: I love my country and its people too much for that. It's true that, sometimes, I become very exasperated with my countrymen, especially when they behave like children who, after having been warned not to lean out of an open window for the 50th time, do it again, anyway.
I hate dragging out old horses like the Spanish-American philosopher, George Santayana, who warned all of us that if we do not learn from the mistakes in history, "We are doomed to repeat its failures."
My mind has been wandering toward the Espionage and Sedition Act of 2001. Scratch that. I meant "Patriot" Act of 2001. Old Woody Wilson would have mused that an Espionage and Sedition Act by any other name smells as pungent as cow manure in the July noon-day sun. I searched around: he didn't say it. So, I Wood-y.
Had I been around in 1912, I would have voted for Teddy Roosevelt, hands down. He was a man who understood the nuances of Realpolitik and a staunch conservationist who gave the Nation the National Park System.
The problem with the Espionage and Sedition Acts (1917) for me, however, is that they essentially eviscerated the First Amendment. One could receive 20 years for saying, writing (woops), or printing anything "disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive" about the American form of government, the Constitution or the armed forces.
The producer who made the film, "The Spirit of Seventy-six," received a ten-year sentence because his film risked stirring sentiment against the British.
It was against the law to say that war went against the teachings of Christ. (The Administration and the Congress of 2001 missed this one... or, did they?) I may be in trouble there, too. I have to go back and reread the Act.
When September 11th happened, I was in Europe. I learned almost simultaneously with the rest of the country what had just occurred. First, from the internet page of the NYT that seemed like a faux version of itself, then, from the Poughkeepsie Journal which was not subject to the same power and communications outages. It was surreal. I cannot claim to have suffered more of a psychological blow than other New Yorkers (Americans), but from my window on West 12th Street, as I am wont to tell people, I watched, daily, as the towers were being built. My son, Jake, his mother and I would bike down to the building site and check it out up close. When finished, we used to go up to the top, regularly, and scan the horizon. It was all a very personal experience for me as a denizen of Greenwich Village and as a New Yorker. So, I took it very personally, when a bunch of psychopathic zealots took them down.
My reaction was similar to most other Americans: anger and rage, and what followed, a desire for revenge. I wanted those responsible for the misdeeds of September 11th, dead and buried--not just once, but 3,000 times for as many of us who perished that day. That feeling remained until the Twits started coming out of the cellar waving the flag. It was a signal for me that it was a good time to tredwater and think
I am old enough to have remembered when the two American destroyers, the Maddox and the Turner Joy were reported to have been attacked by the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2nd and 4th, 1964. I was enraged by the thought that peaceful American sailors at sea, going about their regular duties, would be attacked by a sneaky foe. It smelled of Pearl Harbor all over again.
By August 7th, however, while the U.S. Senate was falling over itself to rush out the "Gulf of Tonkin" Resolution (98-2), I was already having misgivings. I began asking myself what kind of fanatical superpower, which I knew the government of North Vietnam was not, would attack two American warships with err, gun boats? Something was beginning to smell rotten and, as we learned much later, what was stewing in the noon-day-sun, was not the truth.
That patriotic rush of 7 August 1964, absurd as it now seems, led to over 55,000 American servicemen and women losing their lives and another 250,000 becoming casualties in what became the longest military conflict--until now--in which America had been involved, YET!. There are many "YETS" in our lives as a friend used to tell me. Further, there were twits in the George W. Bush administration who had already called this war on terror wherever it might sprout its ugly head, the "Long War."
I take all the lies that flowed out of the White House from 1964 through 1975, very personally. For me, it was an outright breach of faith.
So, in the Fall of 2001, when our elected leaders became indistinguishable from the ever present and always reactionary, people's militia types, and wrapped themselves in the flag while holding aloft the cross, I reached for my Boswell's, "Life of Samuel Johnson." Now, there was a man who had no problem defining his mother tongue nor expressing himself in it. "Patriotism is that last refuge of a scoundrel,." said Johnson. Boswell goes on to explain that Johnson did not mean, a real and generous love of country, "but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest." (April 7, 1775)
As I peruse my notes of September 11th and the weeks and months that followed, I found one letter that I wrote to my former faculty colleagues at an upstate New York college, an institution as liberal as any one might find anywhere in the U.S.
In that letter, I invoked the specter of Vietnam. I suggested that if we went into Afghanistan, we should send in the gun wackos, lunatics, homicidal maniacs and other social miscreants who would never be missed. Failing that, we should hire one of the Mafia's. The Colombian and the Russian Mafia seem to know how to get the job done. Further, I suggested that our heroic President should distinguish himself by leading the "Corps of the Wild."
"At least," I argued, "it would spare the flower of our youth from the vagaries of an adult world caught up in its own self-interest" I said that, "I had come to one unalterable belief: that there is no such thing as a ‘Just’ or ‘Unjust’ war, ... just war.” It follows, then, that trained killers, not politicians should lead, plan and execute wars." It was obvious to me even then, that to follow the Russian failed example and try to bomb the bad guys to Hell wasn't going to work. I likened it to hitting mercury with a hammer.
You cannot imagine the level of vituperation in the responses I received. I was so taken aback that I, probably wrongly, stopped writing to them. I was accused of: being intellectually deficient, mentally looped, a Muslim lover, having sexual disorientation problems, anti-God, anti-Christ, unchristian, unpatriotic, speaking to the voices in the corners of my ceiling (Now, that one was right on the mark. My problem has always been, however, that the voices never seem to want to speak back to me).
I was crushed... for a second or two. But, I have always known not to put too much faith in Liberals, or anyone frozen in that dialectical interesse of the two sides of the coin, because they can never make a decision. In this group, I include pensioners and especially, the Beemer set. Both of these groups are caught in their invested self-interest. But what shook me for a while was that the common folks, those who drive Chevys, Fords and VWs were just as much caught up in the war fever. "My God," I thought to myself, "it's like Vietnam never happened."
Josef Goebbels was a being, who I understand plied his craft in Europe during the 1930's and 40's. It is Goebbels who is quoted as having said, "If you tell the people a lie long enough, they will eventually come to believe it." Enough said.
But, how many times do we have to be told the same lie before we realize it's a lie?
Recently, an article in a local New York daily, reported that over 5,000 American men (presumably women, too) who were over 50-years-old, were serving in the military theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan. Of that number, more than 50 had been killed. Of those, one was, 59, a few years younger than I.
I tried to put myself in his boots.
All I can tell you is that once the temperature climbs higher than 95 degrees, no power on Earth could make me move off my rack by the window, where the only thing approximating a breeze in my billet could be felt. In Iraq, where the temperature hovers around 115 degrees in the summer, war goes on as usual. Men and women in Tee shirts (bras), fatigues and bullet proof vests walk, work--wait to kill or be killed.
Maybe it is my age, or just my natural insubordinate nature, in either case, had I been serving in Iraq and my Commanding officer had told me to get up, I would have said, "Sir, until the temperature cools down, here, and in Washington, I'm staying in my bunk. Remember, Sir, They, too, serve who lay In A Rack and wait.'
"Some Thracian is waving the shield I reluctantly left by a Bush, a flawless piece. So what? I saved myself. Forget the shield. I will get another, no worse." (Ibid)
Szia From Budapest
Hesiod, according to the 20th Century philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, said that there are two concepts of liberty, one complicated, the other simple. The former, which Berlin termed "Negative," begins with deep roots, emerges into the light with a hardened trunk, branches out in every direction, sends off twigs that eventually sprout countless leaves. The leaves are expendable,: they die, they fall, become compost and are forgotten.
Such a leaf was U.S. Army Pfc. Luis A. Perez.
Perez died in August 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq from injuries sustained when his truck was destroyed by an I.E.D. Perez came from a small upstate New York Hamlet, near Lake Ontario, close to Fort Drum. He was in Iraq as a member of the Army Reserves (223d Transportation Co., Norristown, PA) He was 19-years-old.
Perez left a young wife and a family that loved him. That year, he missed the Labor Day weekend, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Valentine's Day, Easter, his 20th Birthday, the July Fourth weekend, and, now, the cycle will go on forever.
We were namesakes. We lived close by, but we weren't related, at least I don't think so in any way other than we were brother human beings. So, what's my beef? There have been 4000+ other combat deaths with, perhaps, 100,000 more injured, in Iraq, since, former president, George le Fou, a member in good standing of the Laccopluti, declared War and Victory almost eight years ago. Pfc. Perez is only a 1/4000th part of the catastrophe. Like the others, he was a hero in death, but had he planned on being a hero before he was killed? That's a stretch. When one plans to be a hero, they join the active Army's Infantry, Armor and Artillery corps. They volunteer to go Airborne. Volunteer again to go to Ranger School, and then volunteer once more for the Special Forces, Delta Team...the Daisy Chain and the Grave (The last six words were lifted from Alan Ginsberg's "Howl").
My point? I don't think, at 19, he had any intention of being a dead hero which is not meant to disparage his contribution to the war effort or on a greater level to America. At 19, a young man is thinking about his future, a job, college, girls and more girls and, then, the right girl. One enlists in the reserves to serve the Country, get a little extra pocket cash, respect from the community in which he lives and money for college. I don't think that he expected to die.
We, my family of Pérezes, have been an Army family since the first World War. I've often stated it, but I don't mind repeating it, my father was a real "V" for Valor hero. I was in the Army, too, heh heh. Like I said my Dad was a bona fide hero and while, geneticists will tell you, that kind of stuff skips a generation, cynicism, we all know is an acquired trait.
"I serve the Lord of Battle and the Muses too;
for I recognize the beauty of their gift."(Ibid)
Many a day (and night) I got to hear my father--and others-- relate their war experiences, while I sat on the foot rail under the bars of countless VFW saloons, wiping off the beer from my head that spilled over. So, I can attest to his courage and valor. One footnote: in the town square of Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, there is a statue commemorating one of my granduncles for his service in World War I. Seeing as the U.S. Congress had just passed the "Jones Act" in 1917, making Puerto Ricans U.S. Citizens, therefore eligible to fight in all U.S. Wars, my uncle must have felt strongly about the need of stopping young Kaiser Wilhelm II. It boggles the imagination.
One of my sons served in the Army Reserves, neatly, between Persian Gulf Lunacy I and Persian Gulf Lunacy II.. There was no war going on, so, for the both of us, there was no problem. Had there been a war, however, there would have been a lot of tension. Skipping to Canada would have been out of the question. Neither of us likes the cold. Eh? Most importantly, we believe in the inviolability and sacredness of the "Contract." Further, neither of us could ever reconcile the thought of desertion, maybe a little late for Reveille because of too much Revelry the night before, but never desertion. Fortunately, I never had to come up with an alternative Patriotic Plan.
It's odd how that word "Patriot" comes up a lot these days. Before 9/11 and our not-too-well thought out reaction, Patriots had been those guys that huddled together for warmth from 1776 -to-1783. More recently, and I like the name application a lot better, it's the name of a football team from Foxboro, MA.
Okay, I'll say it once more: Plc. Luis A. Perez died in Fallujah, August 2004, and I don't think he should have. Because of that, I will always feel a little guilty when I eat a piece of apple pie, drink a fine Bordeaux or kiss my kids.
"No one in the city honors the dead or even
mentions them. Alive we prefer to court the living.
Nothing good can be said for being dead." (Ibid)
A Few Thoughts about "SERVING "IN A RACK!"
The second concept of liberty, which Berlin called "Positive" is simple and goes directly to the core of what is historically inevitable, albeit, the truth..
I have been thinking about sedition, recently. Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning to be seditious: I love my country and its people too much for that. It's true that, sometimes, I become very exasperated with my countrymen, especially when they behave like children who, after having been warned not to lean out of an open window for the 50th time, do it again, anyway.
I hate dragging out old horses like the Spanish-American philosopher, George Santayana, who warned all of us that if we do not learn from the mistakes in history, "We are doomed to repeat its failures."
My mind has been wandering toward the Espionage and Sedition Act of 2001. Scratch that. I meant "Patriot" Act of 2001. Old Woody Wilson would have mused that an Espionage and Sedition Act by any other name smells as pungent as cow manure in the July noon-day sun. I searched around: he didn't say it. So, I Wood-y.
Had I been around in 1912, I would have voted for Teddy Roosevelt, hands down. He was a man who understood the nuances of Realpolitik and a staunch conservationist who gave the Nation the National Park System.
The problem with the Espionage and Sedition Acts (1917) for me, however, is that they essentially eviscerated the First Amendment. One could receive 20 years for saying, writing (woops), or printing anything "disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive" about the American form of government, the Constitution or the armed forces.
The producer who made the film, "The Spirit of Seventy-six," received a ten-year sentence because his film risked stirring sentiment against the British.
It was against the law to say that war went against the teachings of Christ. (The Administration and the Congress of 2001 missed this one... or, did they?) I may be in trouble there, too. I have to go back and reread the Act.
When September 11th happened, I was in Europe. I learned almost simultaneously with the rest of the country what had just occurred. First, from the internet page of the NYT that seemed like a faux version of itself, then, from the Poughkeepsie Journal which was not subject to the same power and communications outages. It was surreal. I cannot claim to have suffered more of a psychological blow than other New Yorkers (Americans), but from my window on West 12th Street, as I am wont to tell people, I watched, daily, as the towers were being built. My son, Jake, his mother and I would bike down to the building site and check it out up close. When finished, we used to go up to the top, regularly, and scan the horizon. It was all a very personal experience for me as a denizen of Greenwich Village and as a New Yorker. So, I took it very personally, when a bunch of psychopathic zealots took them down.
My reaction was similar to most other Americans: anger and rage, and what followed, a desire for revenge. I wanted those responsible for the misdeeds of September 11th, dead and buried--not just once, but 3,000 times for as many of us who perished that day. That feeling remained until the Twits started coming out of the cellar waving the flag. It was a signal for me that it was a good time to tredwater and think
I am old enough to have remembered when the two American destroyers, the Maddox and the Turner Joy were reported to have been attacked by the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2nd and 4th, 1964. I was enraged by the thought that peaceful American sailors at sea, going about their regular duties, would be attacked by a sneaky foe. It smelled of Pearl Harbor all over again.
By August 7th, however, while the U.S. Senate was falling over itself to rush out the "Gulf of Tonkin" Resolution (98-2), I was already having misgivings. I began asking myself what kind of fanatical superpower, which I knew the government of North Vietnam was not, would attack two American warships with err, gun boats? Something was beginning to smell rotten and, as we learned much later, what was stewing in the noon-day-sun, was not the truth.
That patriotic rush of 7 August 1964, absurd as it now seems, led to over 55,000 American servicemen and women losing their lives and another 250,000 becoming casualties in what became the longest military conflict--until now--in which America had been involved, YET!. There are many "YETS" in our lives as a friend used to tell me. Further, there were twits in the George W. Bush administration who had already called this war on terror wherever it might sprout its ugly head, the "Long War."
I take all the lies that flowed out of the White House from 1964 through 1975, very personally. For me, it was an outright breach of faith.
So, in the Fall of 2001, when our elected leaders became indistinguishable from the ever present and always reactionary, people's militia types, and wrapped themselves in the flag while holding aloft the cross, I reached for my Boswell's, "Life of Samuel Johnson." Now, there was a man who had no problem defining his mother tongue nor expressing himself in it. "Patriotism is that last refuge of a scoundrel,." said Johnson. Boswell goes on to explain that Johnson did not mean, a real and generous love of country, "but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest." (April 7, 1775)
As I peruse my notes of September 11th and the weeks and months that followed, I found one letter that I wrote to my former faculty colleagues at an upstate New York college, an institution as liberal as any one might find anywhere in the U.S.
In that letter, I invoked the specter of Vietnam. I suggested that if we went into Afghanistan, we should send in the gun wackos, lunatics, homicidal maniacs and other social miscreants who would never be missed. Failing that, we should hire one of the Mafia's. The Colombian and the Russian Mafia seem to know how to get the job done. Further, I suggested that our heroic President should distinguish himself by leading the "Corps of the Wild."
"At least," I argued, "it would spare the flower of our youth from the vagaries of an adult world caught up in its own self-interest" I said that, "I had come to one unalterable belief: that there is no such thing as a ‘Just’ or ‘Unjust’ war, ... just war.” It follows, then, that trained killers, not politicians should lead, plan and execute wars." It was obvious to me even then, that to follow the Russian failed example and try to bomb the bad guys to Hell wasn't going to work. I likened it to hitting mercury with a hammer.
You cannot imagine the level of vituperation in the responses I received. I was so taken aback that I, probably wrongly, stopped writing to them. I was accused of: being intellectually deficient, mentally looped, a Muslim lover, having sexual disorientation problems, anti-God, anti-Christ, unchristian, unpatriotic, speaking to the voices in the corners of my ceiling (Now, that one was right on the mark. My problem has always been, however, that the voices never seem to want to speak back to me).
I was crushed... for a second or two. But, I have always known not to put too much faith in Liberals, or anyone frozen in that dialectical interesse of the two sides of the coin, because they can never make a decision. In this group, I include pensioners and especially, the Beemer set. Both of these groups are caught in their invested self-interest. But what shook me for a while was that the common folks, those who drive Chevys, Fords and VWs were just as much caught up in the war fever. "My God," I thought to myself, "it's like Vietnam never happened."
Josef Goebbels was a being, who I understand plied his craft in Europe during the 1930's and 40's. It is Goebbels who is quoted as having said, "If you tell the people a lie long enough, they will eventually come to believe it." Enough said.
But, how many times do we have to be told the same lie before we realize it's a lie?
Recently, an article in a local New York daily, reported that over 5,000 American men (presumably women, too) who were over 50-years-old, were serving in the military theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan. Of that number, more than 50 had been killed. Of those, one was, 59, a few years younger than I.
I tried to put myself in his boots.
All I can tell you is that once the temperature climbs higher than 95 degrees, no power on Earth could make me move off my rack by the window, where the only thing approximating a breeze in my billet could be felt. In Iraq, where the temperature hovers around 115 degrees in the summer, war goes on as usual. Men and women in Tee shirts (bras), fatigues and bullet proof vests walk, work--wait to kill or be killed.
Maybe it is my age, or just my natural insubordinate nature, in either case, had I been serving in Iraq and my Commanding officer had told me to get up, I would have said, "Sir, until the temperature cools down, here, and in Washington, I'm staying in my bunk. Remember, Sir, They, too, serve who lay In A Rack and wait.'
"Some Thracian is waving the shield I reluctantly left by a Bush, a flawless piece. So what? I saved myself. Forget the shield. I will get another, no worse." (Ibid)
Szia From Budapest
9. Cross v. Crescent
Cross V. Crescent
The name, Roland, popped into my mind a week ago and has not left me for more than a few minutes, since. The trigger was rather benign, it was the name of a waiter in a French restaurant, far from the central heroic character in the Chanson de Geste, "Song of Roland," which we all should have read in our youth about the French hero, Roland.
However, there are a few points that we may have forgotten in the ensuing decades. The epic is credited to the enigmatic figure, Turoldus, similar to Homer, in the sense that no one knows if he wrote, narrated or simply copied out the "Chanson de Roland.”
The underlying theme revolves around treason and revenge, and is as much about Charlemagne as it is about Roland (in the epic, the beloved and trusted nephew of Charlemagne).
Charlemagne, although not the founder of the Carolingian Dynasty (that credit goes to his grandfather, Charles Martel, "Charles the Hammer") - stands out as the most prominent character of medieval French and European history. Charlemagne (c.739-814) was reputed to have been born in Aix-la-Chapelle, modern Aachen, and was, subsequently, buried there. Not until the creation of the European Union, has Europe been as politically united as it was during his reign. He was the conqueror and unifier of most of Europe: crowned the first "Holy Roman Emperor" on Christmas Day, 800. He stood over six feet tall, had five legitimate wives, however, he left only one legitimate son, Louis the Pious. Even today, he seems larger than life. To the French he was Achilles, Odysseus and Agamemnon, wrapped up into one, and the Chanson de Roland, is only one of many Heroic Carolingian Chansons.
About Roland, we know very little. There is a one line reference in the Codex Emiliense of a Roland, Duke of the Marches of Brittany, which attests to a Roland Legend about the time of the writing of the Chanson that bears his name. There is no indication anywhere of a blood connection to Charlemagne. And, that's not the only problem with the Epic: the history is all wrong.
The story, incorrectly, depicts Charlemagne as a Christian hero fighting the Saracen infidel. The historical truth is that Charlemagne was asked to come to Spain by a Muslim king to help him fight off a Muslim contender. The Chanson was written sometime after the First Crusade, c.1095-99, but the historic battle, immortalized in the Chanson, actually took place on August 15, 778. The villains of the Chanson who slaughtered Roland and the rest of Charlemagne's rear guard at the Gate of Spain, "Roncevaux," were in reality Basque brigands who saw their moment of opportunity by snatching the lightly guarded baggage train, and not the Saracens (Muslims). Here, the author took poetic and historical license and skewed the facts to conform with France's contemporary enemy 300 years later. The world was a little different in those days. People couldn't just google their facts.
Still, today, we find people who can access the truth if they wanted, but prefer to forego their intellect for the pleasure (I think that's what it is) of simply hating. It's an oft repeated human interposition: emotion over intellect. When we look around, we find that people haven't changed much over the 5000+ years of recorded history. Okay Perez, what's your point? I was afraid that I would have to come to this. The Chanson de Roland is an epic tale about a private war, set within a national war and the national war, again, within the World War of Cross v. Crescent. That was a thousand years ago. Now, I don't want to push the point of troubled and unresolved history repeating itself, but aren't there some
modern parallels, here? If we take George W.'s statement at the beginning of March 2003, that he held a very private hatred for the, then Iraqi, President, So Damn Insane (I think it had a little to do with So Damn trying to kill Papa George), we have had the private war. The Iraq War is the national war, and, The War on Terrorism: the continuing World War between the Cross and the Crescent.
Am I the only person on the planet that feels that something is very wrong, somewhere? Ever since 1991, when I began to speak out on what I thought was a dangerous trend vis-à-vis our relations with the Muslim world, through three successive, presidential administrations, I have felt like the lone voice in the wilderness or, better stated in the Chanson: "Dieu! Que le son du cor est triste au fond des bois!"
As I see the problem, there are two possible solutions: the first, unreasonable to me, but not to many, is to sterilize the world of the Muslim menace: to annihilate Islam once and for all, never mind that it's unthinkable, it's stupid. Even, to continue affairs, in this way for another thousand years is impractical and unrealistic.
The other possible solution is to introduce the Koran and Islamic culture to students at an early age; thus depriving them of the ignorance that has plagued their progenitors. Not a bad idea, n’est-ce pas? The problem is that too many folks in the West believe that if our children study Islam, they might become infected with it. God forbid, they might even think it superior to our Christian/Judaic culture.
I heard of a case not too far back about some freshman students in either Virginia or North Carolina sued their college because the core curriculum required that they study Islamic Culture and religion and, I think they won their case. Those brilliant lights are destined to be the political leaders of tomorrow…God forbid!
I've tried to look at the basic rules of Islam to see what makes it such an insidious religion and with all respect this is what I have found.
1. To be honest and modest in all dealings and behaviors. (That finishes me at the jump).
2. To be unquestionably loyal to the Islamic community. (Well, I can be loyal, but I always need to ask the questions: Why? And, do I really have to?)
3. To abstain from pork and alcohol at all times. (I see real problems, here. I can stop eating pig, but what about all those poor people who would lose their jobs in the Wine and Spirits industry? Thought that I was going to say something else?)
4. To wash and pray facing Mecca five times a day. (Gee, would I have to really do that? The washing part, I think I can do, however, sometimes I don't even know which way is the Bronx).
5. To contribute to the support of the poor and needy. (Really? All of them? Can't they just all go to work, by Jove?).
6. To fast during daylight hours for one month each year. (Again, I'm finished. Question: can you cheat a little?)
7. To make a pilgrimage to Mecca and visit the Ka'ba at least once in a lifetime. (Okay, that's really it. I'm really out of this deal. I'm a Senior Citizen, and so far I've managed not to visit Disneyland and Disney World, forget the Washington Monument. I'm just not the traveling type.
You've read the Koran, and you have found it littered with anti-Jewish rantings? Listen, I've lived in, or visited 49 States; in those States in every school, college, university, occupation and social gathering, I have heard anti-Semitic rantings and ravings. Recently, it has become more fashionable to disparage the Semitic cousins of the Jews, the Arabs. So, who are the true hypocrites?
I never, except for once, ever heard an anti-Puerto Rican epithet... to my face... while I was still in the room, that is. No one has ever said that we are not all in need of some spiritual healing This applies to Arab as well as non-Arab. The solution, as I see it, begins with the factor of one: ourselves.The most perplexing thing, to me, however, is that I haven't seen one word in the Koran about oil. So, please someone take the time and explain to me: What exactly does Islam have to do with OIL?
Szia, From Budapest
The name, Roland, popped into my mind a week ago and has not left me for more than a few minutes, since. The trigger was rather benign, it was the name of a waiter in a French restaurant, far from the central heroic character in the Chanson de Geste, "Song of Roland," which we all should have read in our youth about the French hero, Roland.
However, there are a few points that we may have forgotten in the ensuing decades. The epic is credited to the enigmatic figure, Turoldus, similar to Homer, in the sense that no one knows if he wrote, narrated or simply copied out the "Chanson de Roland.”
The underlying theme revolves around treason and revenge, and is as much about Charlemagne as it is about Roland (in the epic, the beloved and trusted nephew of Charlemagne).
Charlemagne, although not the founder of the Carolingian Dynasty (that credit goes to his grandfather, Charles Martel, "Charles the Hammer") - stands out as the most prominent character of medieval French and European history. Charlemagne (c.739-814) was reputed to have been born in Aix-la-Chapelle, modern Aachen, and was, subsequently, buried there. Not until the creation of the European Union, has Europe been as politically united as it was during his reign. He was the conqueror and unifier of most of Europe: crowned the first "Holy Roman Emperor" on Christmas Day, 800. He stood over six feet tall, had five legitimate wives, however, he left only one legitimate son, Louis the Pious. Even today, he seems larger than life. To the French he was Achilles, Odysseus and Agamemnon, wrapped up into one, and the Chanson de Roland, is only one of many Heroic Carolingian Chansons.
About Roland, we know very little. There is a one line reference in the Codex Emiliense of a Roland, Duke of the Marches of Brittany, which attests to a Roland Legend about the time of the writing of the Chanson that bears his name. There is no indication anywhere of a blood connection to Charlemagne. And, that's not the only problem with the Epic: the history is all wrong.
The story, incorrectly, depicts Charlemagne as a Christian hero fighting the Saracen infidel. The historical truth is that Charlemagne was asked to come to Spain by a Muslim king to help him fight off a Muslim contender. The Chanson was written sometime after the First Crusade, c.1095-99, but the historic battle, immortalized in the Chanson, actually took place on August 15, 778. The villains of the Chanson who slaughtered Roland and the rest of Charlemagne's rear guard at the Gate of Spain, "Roncevaux," were in reality Basque brigands who saw their moment of opportunity by snatching the lightly guarded baggage train, and not the Saracens (Muslims). Here, the author took poetic and historical license and skewed the facts to conform with France's contemporary enemy 300 years later. The world was a little different in those days. People couldn't just google their facts.
Still, today, we find people who can access the truth if they wanted, but prefer to forego their intellect for the pleasure (I think that's what it is) of simply hating. It's an oft repeated human interposition: emotion over intellect. When we look around, we find that people haven't changed much over the 5000+ years of recorded history. Okay Perez, what's your point? I was afraid that I would have to come to this. The Chanson de Roland is an epic tale about a private war, set within a national war and the national war, again, within the World War of Cross v. Crescent. That was a thousand years ago. Now, I don't want to push the point of troubled and unresolved history repeating itself, but aren't there some
modern parallels, here? If we take George W.'s statement at the beginning of March 2003, that he held a very private hatred for the, then Iraqi, President, So Damn Insane (I think it had a little to do with So Damn trying to kill Papa George), we have had the private war. The Iraq War is the national war, and, The War on Terrorism: the continuing World War between the Cross and the Crescent.
Am I the only person on the planet that feels that something is very wrong, somewhere? Ever since 1991, when I began to speak out on what I thought was a dangerous trend vis-à-vis our relations with the Muslim world, through three successive, presidential administrations, I have felt like the lone voice in the wilderness or, better stated in the Chanson: "Dieu! Que le son du cor est triste au fond des bois!"
As I see the problem, there are two possible solutions: the first, unreasonable to me, but not to many, is to sterilize the world of the Muslim menace: to annihilate Islam once and for all, never mind that it's unthinkable, it's stupid. Even, to continue affairs, in this way for another thousand years is impractical and unrealistic.
The other possible solution is to introduce the Koran and Islamic culture to students at an early age; thus depriving them of the ignorance that has plagued their progenitors. Not a bad idea, n’est-ce pas? The problem is that too many folks in the West believe that if our children study Islam, they might become infected with it. God forbid, they might even think it superior to our Christian/Judaic culture.
I heard of a case not too far back about some freshman students in either Virginia or North Carolina sued their college because the core curriculum required that they study Islamic Culture and religion and, I think they won their case. Those brilliant lights are destined to be the political leaders of tomorrow…God forbid!
I've tried to look at the basic rules of Islam to see what makes it such an insidious religion and with all respect this is what I have found.
1. To be honest and modest in all dealings and behaviors. (That finishes me at the jump).
2. To be unquestionably loyal to the Islamic community. (Well, I can be loyal, but I always need to ask the questions: Why? And, do I really have to?)
3. To abstain from pork and alcohol at all times. (I see real problems, here. I can stop eating pig, but what about all those poor people who would lose their jobs in the Wine and Spirits industry? Thought that I was going to say something else?)
4. To wash and pray facing Mecca five times a day. (Gee, would I have to really do that? The washing part, I think I can do, however, sometimes I don't even know which way is the Bronx).
5. To contribute to the support of the poor and needy. (Really? All of them? Can't they just all go to work, by Jove?).
6. To fast during daylight hours for one month each year. (Again, I'm finished. Question: can you cheat a little?)
7. To make a pilgrimage to Mecca and visit the Ka'ba at least once in a lifetime. (Okay, that's really it. I'm really out of this deal. I'm a Senior Citizen, and so far I've managed not to visit Disneyland and Disney World, forget the Washington Monument. I'm just not the traveling type.
You've read the Koran, and you have found it littered with anti-Jewish rantings? Listen, I've lived in, or visited 49 States; in those States in every school, college, university, occupation and social gathering, I have heard anti-Semitic rantings and ravings. Recently, it has become more fashionable to disparage the Semitic cousins of the Jews, the Arabs. So, who are the true hypocrites?
I never, except for once, ever heard an anti-Puerto Rican epithet... to my face... while I was still in the room, that is. No one has ever said that we are not all in need of some spiritual healing This applies to Arab as well as non-Arab. The solution, as I see it, begins with the factor of one: ourselves.The most perplexing thing, to me, however, is that I haven't seen one word in the Koran about oil. So, please someone take the time and explain to me: What exactly does Islam have to do with OIL?
Szia, From Budapest
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
10. Screaming From The Pyre, Capter VI. Running Amok
Running Amok
Egads and Little Fishes1 Recently, I was accused of "Running Amok." Okay, perhaps I was acting a little bit odd. I was under a lot of pressure to complete something in my personal life: however, I didn't think I was running amok: "Berserk," maybe?
The Berserks were a late Viking group whose tribal customs included a tradition of working themselves up into a frenzy before going into battle, throwing down their weapons and ripping off their shirts ("Ber"= without, and "serk" = shirt) when they charged the enemy. That scared the hell out of their foes. So, when someone tells you that so and so went berserk, the operative question should be: "Did he rip off his shirt?").
However, to be absolutely sure, I ran over to my Websters. It defined "Running Amok," as flying about in a murderous rage. Nope, that wasn't the case at all. Satisfied that I had been socially misdiagnosed, I was ready to close the dictionary when, as is my wont, I continued to read the etymology.
Yiiiiii, it happened again.
The dictionary was absolutely, and unapologetically, wrong. It attributed the phrase to Malay: Any dummy who has read the "Travels of Marco Polo," knows that the term is from India. In fact it is a Sanskrit word with, generally, the same meaning, but, as M. Polo pointed out, with a completely different and interesting twist, which I intend to get into, later. To make this as painless as possible, let me point out that the Malays acquired the term from the Indians with whom they were, from a very early period, involved in commercial trade: and, we got it from the Portuguese who traded with both of them.
I'm accustomed to accepting from those very erudite scholarly-boards, which lend expertise to smart and sundry lexicons, sometimes misleading clues to word origins, albeit, from ignorance or arrogance. They sit back on their scholarly laurels in similarly well-appointed research rooms with comfortable chairs, long tables, antique lamps, no telephones, maybe a computer terminal in some discreet corner but best of all, they have, at their disposal, tons and tons of old MSS. and lexicons (Do I sound jealous? Well, yes I am.). So why can't they do a better job?
Something, my friends, stinks in those well-appointed reading rooms. (I can hear the ghost of the venerable, however unhygienic, Dr. Johnson, protesting the misuse of an intransitive verb by a woman with whom he was sharing a carriage and who had criticized his strong odor by saying that he "smelled.": "'Smell' Madam? I STINK! You smell.")
In the "CompleteYule-Cordier's Edition of 'The Travels of Marco Polo'" Vol. II, p. 347 and footnote #5, M. Polo and Y & C. talk about the Amuki of Malabar, India, who, "were bound not only to defend the king's life with their own, but, if he fell, to sacrifice themselves by dashing among the enemy and slaying until slain." Compare that with the Sanskrit, "Amokhya; Indissoluble" or "Amukta: not free bound." Satisfied, at least about the origins of the term?
Speaking of Running Amok, I saw my first American film the other day on video. I was so unnerved by the amount of nonsense that passes for historical accuracy that I vowed not to see another Classic for the next five years.
However, did someone say "trash?" I understand that the film "Troy," is out on tape. When I have the stomach for it, I'll hook up the VCR and take a peak. There's no hurry. The longer it sits in the Video stores, the cheaper it gets,. Anyway, I know the story and I know how it ends. Timeo Danaos et donas gerentis.
Unlike the Amuki, Alexander the Great's personal bodyguards, the Companions, were not expected to die with him. They were called the "Companions" because they were with Alex 24/7. They ate (cum + pan = 'with bread") with him, partied with him, slept (errr) with him and stayed next to him in battle, but, as I said, were not expected to follow him into Paradise
I read a review of "Troy" as I was spreading out some old newspaper to do a little bit of painting. It said that Scholars (who ever they are) were in agreement that the film fulfills the Poet's vision. I would say anything for money, too. Wherefore not? Alas and Alack, no one made me an offer like that..
"Sing Goddess the wrath of Peleus' son Achilleus and its devastation...."
Frankly, with product placement becoming increasingly more important to the movie business because of the anemic return in ticket sales, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Nike swoosh (is that how it is spelt?) on Achilleus' headband, or the Gucci label on his sandals.As far as kids are concerned (kids of all ages), Nike and Gucci may have been around in 1225 B.C. Now, wouldn't that have been nice?
I really meant "nice" in its original meaning. "Nice," of course, means "stupid" as I have noted, before. We still use it when someone drops a cup of coffee on our brand new clothes at a party: "Nice going!" I have two editions of "Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary," printed a decade apart. In the oldest Edition, it carries that meaning. In the more recent, it does not. Sigh, who makes these decisions?
Speaking of Troy: It was reported a few years, back, that the fabled and nearly forgotten Treasure of Troy, did not get melted down for gold during World War II as many art historians had feared, but ended up in St. Petersburg's, Hermitage, for "safekeeping." That fact doesn't surprise me one twit. Most of the art, books and historical treasures of eastern Europe ended up in Russia for the same reason, "safekeeping."
You can't tell me that history is not entertaining by itself. Think of recent history. What if Hollyweed decided to make a movie of former President Clinton, would it be more entertaining if the Pizza delivery girl, (whatshername?), was really a pizza delivery rent-boy named Mike and instead of a black dress it was a pair of torn black Levis? Would that make the movie more entertaining than the real thing?
We are used to movies running amok with the truth because, from an early age, we are fed that kind of stew. George Washington was a great man for many reasons. The Constitution, after all was his idea, not Madison's or Jefferson's. But did he really chop down his father's cherry tree and then say, "Father, I can not tell a lie, I chopped down your cherry tree"?
Well, let's investigate: how old was George when this incident took place? Cherry is hard wood. So, he didn't do it (at least not alone) when he was a toddler. Maybe, he did it when he was a teenager and was testing out his brand new birthday present, a dropped-forge ax not-made in China, on his father's cherry sapling and he was caught red-handed with the ax in his hand. That, I believe. "Yo' Dad, I'm sorry you busted me, but this new ax is so neat, I really couldn't wait to try it out and Mama has been complaining, for a long time, over dinner, how this tree would one day block her view of the Potomac and the White House which will, one day, be the home of the President of the United States when there is a United States and whose first occupant will be that sniveling corrupt neo-renaissance teenage delinquent who lives nearby. What's his name, Tommy Jefferson?"
In journalism, is "Piping," the same as running amok with the truth? Within the profession, are editors more responsible than reporters for maintaining a moral balance; that is, being truthful? Something else for me to think about.
I understand that Alexander Stone has made a new movie, "Oliver The Great." I can't wait. Really. No Really
Szia From Budapest
Egads and Little Fishes1 Recently, I was accused of "Running Amok." Okay, perhaps I was acting a little bit odd. I was under a lot of pressure to complete something in my personal life: however, I didn't think I was running amok: "Berserk," maybe?
The Berserks were a late Viking group whose tribal customs included a tradition of working themselves up into a frenzy before going into battle, throwing down their weapons and ripping off their shirts ("Ber"= without, and "serk" = shirt) when they charged the enemy. That scared the hell out of their foes. So, when someone tells you that so and so went berserk, the operative question should be: "Did he rip off his shirt?").
However, to be absolutely sure, I ran over to my Websters. It defined "Running Amok," as flying about in a murderous rage. Nope, that wasn't the case at all. Satisfied that I had been socially misdiagnosed, I was ready to close the dictionary when, as is my wont, I continued to read the etymology.
Yiiiiii, it happened again.
The dictionary was absolutely, and unapologetically, wrong. It attributed the phrase to Malay: Any dummy who has read the "Travels of Marco Polo," knows that the term is from India. In fact it is a Sanskrit word with, generally, the same meaning, but, as M. Polo pointed out, with a completely different and interesting twist, which I intend to get into, later. To make this as painless as possible, let me point out that the Malays acquired the term from the Indians with whom they were, from a very early period, involved in commercial trade: and, we got it from the Portuguese who traded with both of them.
I'm accustomed to accepting from those very erudite scholarly-boards, which lend expertise to smart and sundry lexicons, sometimes misleading clues to word origins, albeit, from ignorance or arrogance. They sit back on their scholarly laurels in similarly well-appointed research rooms with comfortable chairs, long tables, antique lamps, no telephones, maybe a computer terminal in some discreet corner but best of all, they have, at their disposal, tons and tons of old MSS. and lexicons (Do I sound jealous? Well, yes I am.). So why can't they do a better job?
Something, my friends, stinks in those well-appointed reading rooms. (I can hear the ghost of the venerable, however unhygienic, Dr. Johnson, protesting the misuse of an intransitive verb by a woman with whom he was sharing a carriage and who had criticized his strong odor by saying that he "smelled.": "'Smell' Madam? I STINK! You smell.")
In the "CompleteYule-Cordier's Edition of 'The Travels of Marco Polo'" Vol. II, p. 347 and footnote #5, M. Polo and Y & C. talk about the Amuki of Malabar, India, who, "were bound not only to defend the king's life with their own, but, if he fell, to sacrifice themselves by dashing among the enemy and slaying until slain." Compare that with the Sanskrit, "Amokhya; Indissoluble" or "Amukta: not free bound." Satisfied, at least about the origins of the term?
Speaking of Running Amok, I saw my first American film the other day on video. I was so unnerved by the amount of nonsense that passes for historical accuracy that I vowed not to see another Classic for the next five years.
However, did someone say "trash?" I understand that the film "Troy," is out on tape. When I have the stomach for it, I'll hook up the VCR and take a peak. There's no hurry. The longer it sits in the Video stores, the cheaper it gets,. Anyway, I know the story and I know how it ends. Timeo Danaos et donas gerentis.
Unlike the Amuki, Alexander the Great's personal bodyguards, the Companions, were not expected to die with him. They were called the "Companions" because they were with Alex 24/7. They ate (cum + pan = 'with bread") with him, partied with him, slept (errr) with him and stayed next to him in battle, but, as I said, were not expected to follow him into Paradise
I read a review of "Troy" as I was spreading out some old newspaper to do a little bit of painting. It said that Scholars (who ever they are) were in agreement that the film fulfills the Poet's vision. I would say anything for money, too. Wherefore not? Alas and Alack, no one made me an offer like that..
"Sing Goddess the wrath of Peleus' son Achilleus and its devastation...."
Frankly, with product placement becoming increasingly more important to the movie business because of the anemic return in ticket sales, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Nike swoosh (is that how it is spelt?) on Achilleus' headband, or the Gucci label on his sandals.As far as kids are concerned (kids of all ages), Nike and Gucci may have been around in 1225 B.C. Now, wouldn't that have been nice?
I really meant "nice" in its original meaning. "Nice," of course, means "stupid" as I have noted, before. We still use it when someone drops a cup of coffee on our brand new clothes at a party: "Nice going!" I have two editions of "Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary," printed a decade apart. In the oldest Edition, it carries that meaning. In the more recent, it does not. Sigh, who makes these decisions?
Speaking of Troy: It was reported a few years, back, that the fabled and nearly forgotten Treasure of Troy, did not get melted down for gold during World War II as many art historians had feared, but ended up in St. Petersburg's, Hermitage, for "safekeeping." That fact doesn't surprise me one twit. Most of the art, books and historical treasures of eastern Europe ended up in Russia for the same reason, "safekeeping."
You can't tell me that history is not entertaining by itself. Think of recent history. What if Hollyweed decided to make a movie of former President Clinton, would it be more entertaining if the Pizza delivery girl, (whatshername?), was really a pizza delivery rent-boy named Mike and instead of a black dress it was a pair of torn black Levis? Would that make the movie more entertaining than the real thing?
We are used to movies running amok with the truth because, from an early age, we are fed that kind of stew. George Washington was a great man for many reasons. The Constitution, after all was his idea, not Madison's or Jefferson's. But did he really chop down his father's cherry tree and then say, "Father, I can not tell a lie, I chopped down your cherry tree"?
Well, let's investigate: how old was George when this incident took place? Cherry is hard wood. So, he didn't do it (at least not alone) when he was a toddler. Maybe, he did it when he was a teenager and was testing out his brand new birthday present, a dropped-forge ax not-made in China, on his father's cherry sapling and he was caught red-handed with the ax in his hand. That, I believe. "Yo' Dad, I'm sorry you busted me, but this new ax is so neat, I really couldn't wait to try it out and Mama has been complaining, for a long time, over dinner, how this tree would one day block her view of the Potomac and the White House which will, one day, be the home of the President of the United States when there is a United States and whose first occupant will be that sniveling corrupt neo-renaissance teenage delinquent who lives nearby. What's his name, Tommy Jefferson?"
In journalism, is "Piping," the same as running amok with the truth? Within the profession, are editors more responsible than reporters for maintaining a moral balance; that is, being truthful? Something else for me to think about.
I understand that Alexander Stone has made a new movie, "Oliver The Great." I can't wait. Really. No Really
Szia From Budapest
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