“A robin red breast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.”
-- William Blake 1757-1827: “Auguries of Innocence” (c.1803)
Funny how something like terrorism slips under the radar when something really bad happens, like the earthquake in Haiti. Irony is that the terrorists are probably feeling like Gary Condit after 9/11. Well, not really, since Mr. Condit (he’s since been exonerated for the murder of Chandra Levy) had to be relieved that the klieg light moved on, while the terrorists are bristling that Mother Nature dare steal their thunder. Make no mistake about it, these miserable thugs definitely see Mother Nature as a puppet of Allah. But that’s not unusual, since we Christians see amoral events and cruel coincidences as something dictated by a Supreme Being. So let’s assume the earthquake is God’s rod. What might we do to stay his hand? But Randy, you say, “That would be questioning his motives.” Hmmm…duh…isn’t that what we do when we pray for someone’s health, good fortune, and happiness. I mean, Gods will be done! It’s not a joke folks, what possibly could we puny sinners in the hands of an angry God do? Anyway, he’s got bigger fish to fry. Like providing a pretext for executing queers in Africa.
(The painting above is taken from the wall of a gas chamber at Auschwitz)
It’s hard to comment on the behavior of the American media concerning Haiti. Until recently, it seemed that there was an ever so slight restraint left, in terms of the media’s insatiable need to pander to our most base interests. Over my time of getting old, the media that presented disgusting non-fictional images were typically documentary films concerned with the Holocaust and other genocidal atrocities that took place the twentieth century, the age of cinematic reportage. In military footage and obscure documentaries -- the best of which is Alain Resnais’, “Night and Fog”(1956) – we saw bodies, tangled, emaciated, anonymous, being bulldozed into mass graves.
Now comes 2010, and a 7 magnitude earthquake in a country so desperate, ignored, and corrupt as to be less a nation than population in chaos -- despairing, angry, and barbaric. “The Comedians” (1966), Graham Green’s fictional treatment of Haitian politics in the 1950s is set under the rule of Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his ruthless secret police, the “Tonton Macoute.” Suffice it to say the leaders following since have led gangster regimes swollen by plundered wealth and natural resources while the destitute populace has deforested the island in senseless desperation.
It’s no accident then, that without a government presence to ensure a modicum of decency, the media has zoomed in with close ups of front end loaders scooping up piles of bodies, loading them into dump trucks, and depositing them in heaps outside the city, where pits await their being bulldozed into their final resting place. R.I.P. & PRAISE GOD!
(Click on this)
Speaking of gross, grotesque, and disgusting stuff, we watched a new HBO documentary on PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), “I Am An Animal: The Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA” (2007, Dir. Matthew Galkin). Too much. The image that sticks in my head over and above the cat, dog, and monkey experiments, is the machine that de-beaks the chickens. Wow!
I guess I’m just your typical left wing hypocrite. I wear leather and love rib-eyes; but if I had to kill the animals myself; and I had access to a local people’s co-op that could provide me a vegetarian complete protein diet; and a convenient sushi bar that only served wild caught fish certified to have been caught on barbless hooks in pollution free waters; and there was a nearby fowl sanctuary where I could buy cage-free goose, duck, chicken and Ostrich eggs; then I might consider not eating meat. Shadow agrees, she was sad, however, in seeing the mistreatment of her Pit Bull brethren.
Speaking of Shadow (nice transition, eh?), she loves nothing better than chasing the waves and acting bad around the Bystrom compound. So I wasn’t surprised when she asked me when we were going north this year. Fact is, we're heading up for an entire month this year. Which reminds me, I’ve gotta call Beamer and set up a gig at the Lumberjack.
See ya later -- Randy
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