First Person Personal

Thinking about Iraq

2006-04-27T17:10:00.000-05:00

I believe that President Bush will be most remembered for the Iraqi War and its disasterous aftermath. I was against the war at the time for various reasons, but I completely failed to predict this slide into Hell. What makes this mess bearable to the American citizenry is that we usually just get "the big picture": over thirty thousand Iraqis and over two thousand Americans dead for no discernible benefit to our nation or to the Iraqi people as a whole (indeed it can be argued that this war has considerably worsened our situation and it is undeniable that the current situation in Iraq is very bad indeed).

Thirty two thousand dead is just a number. Human beings cannot accept that many deaths as real. Those of us with my particular mindset realize that this number is a very bad indicator of what is going on in Iraq but even we cannot effectivly relate this number to the human suffering it represents. So we react the way we react to a major hardware failure in our computer system: annoyance, a desire to fix the problem, serious irritation directed towards the manufacturer, but no real emotional involvement.

A few weeks ago NPR aired an interview with a virologist who specializes in the Spanish Flu outbreak of the early twentieth century which killed over two million people. The doctor discovered that some people were buried in lead coffins which preserved the lethal virus. He used newspaper obituaries to find people who died of the Flu and how they were buried. Then, something unexpected happened.

Two million dead is just another number, something that has no emotional impact. But consider reading about a couple who married and started their new life together. Before their first anniversary, the husband became ill from the Flu. Recognizing the risk of contagion, the wife refused to leave her husband and tried to nurse him back to health. Both died, both were buried in a way that preserved their killer for the doctor to extract almost a century later.

The virologist keeps a copy of their wedding picture on his wall. You see, you can't mourn two million dead, but you can mourn two people.

Individuals make things real.

Riverbend, creator of the blog Baghdad Burning is the person who makes the Iraqi experience real for me.

Riverbend is a young Iraqi woman who has been posting her blog about life in Baghdad for several years. For obvious reasons, she has kept her real name a secret. Early portions of her blog have been published as a paperback under the title Baghdad Burning with Riverbend listed as the author and both the book and her blog are up for or have won several awards, a fact of which she is justly proud.

As I read her blog, I become more and more aware of the human toll that our government's tragic blunder has imposed upon the people of Iraq. Over the months since we invaded Iraq, things went from hard to bad to the current threat of civil war. Riverbend's posts document the deterioration of Iraq with amazing clarity and humanity. I doubt that I would have had the emotional strength to continue posting if I was in her situation: courage is not facing down a tiger with a broken pocketknife, courage is getting out of bed and dealing with your world getting worse every day. By this standard, I think that Riverbend is considerably braver than I am.

One of her most compelling posts is devoted to mourning her friend Alan Enwiya, who was the translator for Jill Carroll when she was abducted. As they normally do with Iraqis accompanying their main target, the kidnappers shot and killed Alan. Alan left behind his family: a much-cherished wife, two small children and the rest of his immediate family, including his parents. Riverbend makes me appreciate how great a loss Alan's death was not just to his immediate circle of friends but to his city and nation. Another Iraqi blogger, Ms. Fayrouz of - Iraqi In America kept a pay-pal link on her site until the Christian Science Monitor took over the fund-raising. Alan's family has left Iraq and hopes to come to America. Christian Science Monitor had an article about Alan where I got much of the more recent information and quotes extensively from Baghdad Burning, who in turn is quoting Pink Floyd.

More recent posts document the increasingly bad situation in Baghdad. Prior posts concentrated on physical discomforts: massive (and increasingly common) power and water outages. Current posts are about the increasingly violent situation in Iraq: she describes people lined up outside a morgue to try to find the corpse of a missing relative and mentions how almost every morning corpses are found in the streets of Baghdad, often showing signs of torture.

Riverbend regularly goes for days without posting: no power, no internet, no posting. At such times, I find myself worrying about her. Odd, to be concerned about a person who I will never meet in the flesh when I am often indifferent to the problems of people I see on the street.

Still, you care about the people you care about. In keeping with this concern and with the full knowledge that nobody on the planet is really interested in my opinion, I would like to devote my next few blog entries to the situation in Iraq and possible solutions that suggest themselves to me. I am also going to apply some programming techniques to my blog entries. I intend at this time to have four or five main postings under the general heading "Unsolicited Advice: Iraq". Each post will be devoted to a separate subject such as: personal survival; community safety; nation building; possibly useful parables; who's who. I will modify the blog entries as I go, starting with fairly simple posts and then expanding them as I have the time and resources. I will start off by labeling them in the traditional way: Alpha 1, Alpha 2, then Beta 1, Beta 2 and, if I can get that far, actual release versions 1.0, 1.1, etc. If you are interested in the process, feel free to copy the earlier versions and compare them with the later versions. As for me, this is a work in progress and I am working on each new version as it arrives in my head.

Poem: My Guitar Version 1.0

2006-03-20T18:03:00.000-05:00

MY GUITAR

She’s got scratches, dents and nicks.
The neck’s been broke a time or two.
The strings are silver,
Stained with age and wear.
The pegs loosen up sometimes
In the middle of a song.
Maybe should get a new guitar,
One’a those electrical things . . .
Hell, I can’t play this guitar
The way she should be played.

Guitar’s damned flexible, she can cry and sing.
Self-taught, the fingers fumble on the strings.
Never went to school, maybe played the fool
But always had to make new mistakes,
Always had to trip and stumble into joy.
So don’t, can’t play like Dylan;
But he never touched the songs
That this guitar can play.

Don’t play for someone else
Nor to hear the people cheer –
Play ‘cause there’s something inside
That has to come out,
Either in the song
Or snarling, bloody-clawed,
Carve it’s own birth canal.
No, don’t play no pretty songs
Like McKuen and the boys;
Nor yet the heavy metal sound
That gets you high on noise.
The score ain’t right for none’a these.

Maybe should’a got a different Muse,
One that don’t wear combat boots;
But no one else could teach me
The songs I have to play.
So I sit here and fumble with the strings,
Watch the Muse’s face, an old road map of Hell;
The eyes alive with fire, like blood on a lover’s skin;
The hands, the claws that hold the score
A hairsbreadth out of reach.
The lips that kind’a smile, that sometimes allow
That when the fingers dance, the strings are tight
The music ain’t half bad.

Brer Wolf, copyright 2006.

IN FAVOR OF TORTURE

2006-03-08T17:16:00.000-05:00

I am starting this post off with some useful reference material.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

AMENDMENT XIV
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Friedrich_Nietzsche/

As I said in my last post, I do not believe that torture is an acceptable option. However, not everyone agrees with me.

To my mind, Alan Dershowitz presents a compelling argument for legalizing torture in Chapter 4 of his book WHY TERRORISM WORKS (R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co., Inc, 2002) which I will summarize below and give reference pages:

Firstly, Dershowitz makes the point that the word “torture” covers a vast range of activities which “can range from the most unmitigated cruelty as a prelude to death to the most antiseptic, nonlethal and even nonphysical mind games” (Dershowitz, 124). He then goes on to argue that in extreme cases torture can be used by a democracy against a suspect in order to attempt to prevent one or more innocent people from coming to harm.

Dershowitz also discusses the implications if torture was incorporated into our legal system. For example he argues that the Fifth Amendment prohibits compelled self- incrimination so evidence obtained by torture could not be used against the person who was tortured. However, if a subject is given immunity and then tortured, anything he says could be used but only against others. This torture does not count as cruel and unusual punishment: the subject is not being punished, he is being interrogated. The only constitutional bars to legalized torture, Dershowitz continues, are the due process provisions of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which, he argues, can be gotten around by requiring the torturers to be able to prove probable cause to a judge (Dershowitz, 135).

Dershowitz believes the fact that we are signatories to the Geneva Convention Against Torture is a far more significant bar to legalized torture than the Constitution is. However, there is a loophole: we agreed to be bound by the Convention only as long as it was consistent with the Eighth Amendment. And various courts in our country have already suggested that the Eighth Amendment would not stand in the way of using torture to save lives, especially if the torture left no lasting injuries. For instance, our courts according to Dershowitz already routinely overlook psychological torture in many cases. Thus we could use torture and still technically be in accord with the Geneva Convention (Dershowitz, 135-136).

Now, as regards the accuracy of information obtained by torture: Dershowitz does not deny that much of the information obtained by torture is invalid; he contends instead that sometimes torture works and that it can and has saved lives (Dershowitz, 137). This, he says, is why torture continues to exist everywhere in the world. Even our own country farms out suspected terrorists to friendly countries such as Egypt and Jordan who torture them and pass the information back to us in violation of the Geneva Convention. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/04/60minutes/main678155.shtml ). Dershowitz (138) maintains that we would be far better served by directly confronting this fact and either eliminating torture altogether or by placing it inside our legal structure as an extreme option reserved for extreme circumstances and requiring judicial approval. This would, he believes, reduce torture to the irreducible minimum, a level that he believes would be considerably under what we now actually practice (as opposed to what we admit to) (Dershowitz, 141).

Dershowitz (146-149) then addresses the issue of the “slippery slope”. This is the argument that once torture is legalized for any reason, it will inevitably be legalized for much less serious cases. He cites two major classes: case utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. With case utilitarianism, the argument is that in a particular case, the benefits of torture outweigh its costs. Rule utilitarianism takes a more strategic viewpoint: it considers the implications of establishing a precedent that would inevitably be expanded, i.e. the “slippery slope” mentioned above. As Dershowitz says, you can justify any excess provided that the ultimate results outweigh the costs. Such a belief in ultimate good results led the Soviets to kill millions of people, mass murder that they justified as necessary to benefit all future generations (finite cost versus infinite gains: a no-brainer). Dershowitz seems to believe that the solution to this problem is to build in a “principled break” into the legal structure, that, say, only convicted terrorists who had knowledge of future terrorist activities and who refused to provide information even after being granted immunity should be tortured. Unfortunately, he does not make clear how this “principled break” should be maintained in the future and I personally see no way that it would endure.

He makes several good logical arguments in his attempt to justify legalizing torture:
· Comparing torture to imprisonment (imprisonment can be used to coerce testimony: prison is unpleasant, often physically painful and potentially life threatening, so why not use careful, non-lethal torture to produce a positive goal?)
· The execution of murderers (if you kill someone (permanent, extreme damage) who can’t reasonably be expected to harm anyone ever again, why not torture someone (temporary pain, no permanent physical damage) to prevent mass murders?)
· We endorse the use of lethal force against suspects fleeing the scene of a major crime. They are not currently a threat to the officer, they have not been convicted of any crime, they are, in fact, only suspects. So why not use nonlethal force against people who are already convicted to prevent future crimes?
· Our own government has attempted to coerce other nations through the use of saturation bombing, or trade blockades that cause immense suffering to the general population of a country while not greatly affecting their leaders. Recently, we have practiced simple invasion and occupation that produces considerable collateral damage for very little gain. Why is the suffering of one guilty person worse than the suffering of a thousand innocents who live far, far away? Dershowitz says that it is because we are aware of the one person suffering while the thousand innocents are hidden from our view

Dershowitz (150) says that there are four basic approaches to the use of torture by various security or police organizations:
1. Consider such things to be in a “gray area”, outside of normal law.
2. Ignore the practice of torture and publicly proclaim our virtuous stance on the subject of torture (see, for instance Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of State Rice’s recent statements on the subject. Dershowitz quotes an Israeli commission on torture as calling this “the way of the hypocrites,” which is certainly an apt description.).
3. Bring torture inside the legal structure and regulate it carefully.
4. Completely forbid torture under any circumstances whatsoever.

As best I can determine, Dershowitz considers the first two options to be too dangerous – in both options, torture can be conducted essentially on whim, and that the greater populace of the nation (indeed, the government itself) has no way of restraining the inevitable excesses. Thus, the only real options are three and four. He believes (I think correctly) that the fourth option would immediately be overruled in a democracy such as our own after any sort of September 11th attack and so the only truly practical option is option three.

Dershowitz goes on (151-154) to describe the values at war on the question of torture. Firstly, there is the need to keep the citizens of your country as safe as possible, to prevent them from being harmed by extremists. This value argues that no matter what, the population must be kept safe. Secondly, the question of preserving civil liberties and human rights cannot be neglected. This value argues that no matter what, torture cannot be permitted. Thirdly, no matter what, we must have open accountability and visibility. If we do not know of an action, we can neither approve nor disapprove of it and such unmonitored actions can go horribly out of control.

So: which no matter what is the most important? The safety of our citizens? Civil liberties and human rights? The open oversight of our government’s activities? No matter what we do, it appears inevitable that at least one of these values must be violated.

Dershowitz argues that the practice of torture should be put into law, that it should require judicial oversight, that torture be reserved for the most extreme cases of public safety and, I believe, that the records of torture be available for later review. He presents the argument that we are doing it anyway, “under the radar” and that public oversight can only serve to reduce the amount of torture committed below the levels that we currently sanction.

I don’t pretend to be as smart as Dershowitz. I am most certainly not one of the foremost defense attorneys currently alive. I do have a good enough education that I can appreciate his logic that it is better that one guilty man suffer pain and humiliation than any innocents should perish.

However, like Senator McCain, I am very uncomfortable with the idea of accepting torture, even as carefully regulated a form of torture as Dershowitz proposes. It is, I think, not just wrong, it is actively un-American. I see it as a betrayal of our ideals, an admission that everything comes down to brute force, that logic, reason, justice (as opposed to law) and morality should be discarded whenever the price becomes too high. It would mean that we Americans would have to abandon or at least seriously modify our belief that we are “the good guys”. There are some things that “good guys” just do not do, and torture is one of them.

How many lives is too high a price for maintaining our moral superiority? I don’t know, and I must admit that I am glad that I am not one of those who have to decide that question. If the choice was up to me, I think that I would have to reluctantly opt to legalize torture only under the extreme circumstances that Dershowitz cites. I would also argue for even more strict controls than Dershowitz suggests. For example, perhaps we should require that the authorization of torture should be subject to later review and that if the torture is shown to be unjustified the official requesting the torture should be sentenced to 5 to 10 years in a federal prison. Or possibly we should require that the official requesting the torture should be tortured in tandem with the prisoner. After all, it is better that two people suffer than that we should allow many people to die.

I want everyone involved to be sure that there is no other way.

Dershowitz makes a very compelling case for legalizing torture. But that is what lawyers do: make compelling cases. Just because something is logically argued does not make it right. You can make a good case for:

· legalizing incest (the royal families of Europe and a couple of the old Egyptian dynasties come to mind: it concentrated power and wealth in certain families)
· exterminating or sterilizing the mentally ill (not just a Nazi practice: they had legal forcible sterilizing of mentally retarded people here in the U.S of A as well)
· contributing to the ecosystem by converting dead humans into animal (or even people) food (it seems to work fine for ants)
· torturing, imprisoning and killing people because of their beliefs (such as happened during the Inquisition as well as during McCarthy’s Red Scare and the purges in the early Soviet Union)

As a species, we are not truly logical creatures. For most of us, logic is a tool, not a driving force. We must be very careful when examining a logical argument, for such arguments almost always serve someone else’s agenda. Instinct matters for a lot, especially to semi-intelligent apes like us.

In the martial arts, we are trained to listen to our instincts, to override them only if we know what rang our alarms.

And the idea of legalizing torture sets off my alarms big time.

I have spent some time thinking about why this should alarm me so, and I think that Dershowitz glosses over a lot of the details: how, for instance, will we train our torturers? These specialists are supposed to be able to inflict excruciating pain without inflicting permanent damage: how are they to learn these skills without practicing on humans? Conceivably, they will practice on each other. Perhaps they should use pre-law students instead. However, this is a practical objection, and doubtless can be overcome in some way, perhaps by using computer-controlled manikins such as are used in some first aid classes; this cannot be the core reason for my uneasiness. More important would be the effect on the torturers. How many of them would take their work home with them, perhaps growing to enjoy torturing people more than they wish to get useful information? Would we be training the next generation of serial killers?

Dershowitz seems to believe that pain is temporary, that once the body heals, the mind heals as well. I must disagree: I have endured considerable pain in my life and my mind was distorted by the experience long after the pain itself stopped (see Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Still, this is a quibble: the entire point of Dershowitz’s argument is that it is better for one person to suffer than for many to die; the fact that the subject’s mind may be distorted by his suffering seems to be largely irrelevant.

What happens to the rest of the world if we incorporate torture into our legal system? It certainly seems likely that human rights everywhere would take a huge step backwards and that many countries would follow our lead and incorporate torture into their own culture as both interrogation and punishment. Further, many countries would use torture in ways that we would find to be distasteful: to crush political dissent, to intimidate religious or political minorities or just for fun. Still, that is not our problem. Our problem is how to keep our people safe. If torture does this, perhaps we should consider incorporating it into our system, regardless of how other nations are influenced by our choices.

But if we choose to incorporate torture into our system, there will be a terrible cost: not just the physical suffering of the people being tortured but to our view of ourselves and the world’s view of us. The cultural cost to us would be enormous and one that we cannot exactly predict. This is a question that needs serious debate before the next major terrorist assault drives us to legalize torture without any safeguards whatsoever: and we are, with the exception of Dershowitz and a few others, not talking about it seriously. We are instead either saying nothing or posturing for the cameras.

Business as usual.

Other references

LRB | Slavoj Zizek : Are we in a war? Do we have an enemy? - A detailed argument against torture
Pentagon Report Set Framework For Use of Torture - Published on Monday, June 7, 2004 by the Wall Street Journal

Torture, Part One - I'm against it.

2005-11-23T14:33:00.000-05:00

I, personally, am of the old school on torture.

I do not believe that torture works well enough to justify the costs involved.

Now, let’s say that you are in an interrogation room and the interrogator is breaking your fingers until you tell him what he wants to know. Do you tell him the truth, no matter how unpleasant or unbelievable he might find it, or do you come up with a plausible lie? Remember that Galileo told the Inquisition what they wanted to hear. You’d be surprised at how good you can be at sucking up to someone who can run an electric current through your genitals.

What if you don’t know the answers to the questions the torturer is asking you? The torturer obviously thinks you know something, so if you say “I don’t know”, he’s only going to think that you’re resisting, so he will step up the pressure. Eventually, you come up with an acceptable lie. Senator John McCain, a man who was actually tortured during the Vietnam war confirms this.

Let’s say you do know something and tell it to the torturer. Many torturers assume that you know more than you are telling and try to get more information out of you by continuing the torture. Sooner or later, you run out of things to tell him and you have to start feeding him plausible lies. The French used continuing torture in Vietnam and this was cited by Robert McNamara in his book ARGUMENT WITHOUT END as a reason why Vietnamese prisoners uniformly refused to talk while in custody, regardless of whether or not they had ties to the Viet Minh.

Suppose that they ask you for your collaborators, your fellow conspirators. Perhaps you give them up, perhaps you simply throw out names, more or less at random. Very likely there are at least a few people that you’d pay to have tortured, just to settle some old scores. So the torturers drag in the people you have named and work them over. Some of them know things that the torturer wants to know, some do not. Quite a lot of what the torturers get from these people are lies.

So torture produces quite a lot of bad information, possibly enough to actually interfere with the information gathering process. Crosschecking with other sources can eliminate bad information, which is a time consuming and manpower intensive process. Still, this is part of the normal verification process, so in and of itself, this is not a problem. But what if the person you are torturing is the only source you have? Is he lying or is he giving you vital information? This is, of course, a general problem with intelligence gathering, but I contend that information obtained through torture only exacerbates the problem.

Further, torture produces other bad effects.

Firstly, whom do you torture?

Do you torture only terrorists who are believed to have vital information? How about torturing anyone who is a terrorist and hoping that some of them know something important? How about torturing people who might be terrorists? How about the friends and relatives of suspected terrorists? How about foreign nationals who are not actively harming anyone but instead organizing mass protests against your country’s polices? How about torturing citizens of your own country, obviously traitors or fellow travelers, who are likewise protesting your country’s policies to see what links, if any, exist between them and various terror organizations? How about people you or someone in a position of power just don’t like very much? As a little bit of thought will reveal, once you start torturing someone, it is a very small step to torturing anyone.

And even if “proper” targets are selected for interrogation by torture, there are other side effects. Let’s say that you have Achmed in custody and are persuading him to talk with a bit of light torture. Nothing too serious, just interfering with his sleep, preventing him from bathing, causing him to miss his religious observances, giving him food he finds to be unclean, perhaps a bit of sexual humiliation by a female guard.

You know: head games.

Let’s further assume that you run the first absolutely leak proof operation in human history, that no one outside your authorized circle knows who you have, where they are or what you are doing with them.

But Achmed and his fellow prisoners did not come out of a vacuum. They have friends, family, neighbors and comrades who are wondering what happened to them. Human nature being what it is, if they do not know what has happened to Achmed, they start making things up. Probably they end up by accusing you of doing worse things than you are actually doing. Further, since you are running a leak proof operation, any missing person is considered to be in your prison, regardless of whether they are or not.

So the foreign populace becomes increasingly upset with you. People who had neutral or friendly attitudes towards you become hostile. They may not decide to take up arms against you, but they do become increasingly willing to work against you and your cause and increasingly unwilling to cooperate with you. Those who already are hostile to you become increasingly fanatical and desperate to strike back in revenge or they fight to the death to avoid being taken to your camps. Suicide attacks become more common.

You are now faced with some very unpleasant alternatives. You can stonewall and watch as enemy propaganda accuses you of everything up to and including running death camps. You can parade a select group of prisoners in front of the camera, tell them what to say and hope that they look more convincing than the American POWs in Vietnam looked when they were talking about how well they were being treated in the Hanoi Hilton. Or you can open up your prisons and interrogation procedures to the scrutiny of some impartial third party such as the Red Cross or Amnesty International and deal with the political fallout involved by promising – and delivering – major reforms. Or you can blame all of this on people low in the chain of command exceeding their authority and making them into scapegoats. Military morale and initiative plummet. Or you can kill everyone in the prisons, destroy the corpses, and deny that you ever had anyone there. This last would be particularly bad for military morale as the guards and staff would probably consider themselves to be next on the list to be disappeared as possible embarrassments to the State. Further, you have established a government policy of mass murder, a policy that is almost certain to be eventually revealed.

Such things would be very bad for us domestically. Earlier civilizations could shrug off human rights violations as part of the cost of empire and not worry about them very much. We, however, like to think of ourselves as “the good guys”. As a matter of definition, good guys do not resort to torture and mass murder. If we torture prisoners, it becomes increasingly difficult to think of ourselves as being the heroes. This could make our government increasingly unpopular as happened during the Vietnam era. I very seriously doubt that we would find ourselves in open revolt over such matters. However, I would anticipate an increase in cynicism along with an overall reduction in morale.

I don’t want to be a citizen of the new Evil Empire.

I don’t think that many Americans do.

With My Back Against the Wall

2005-11-17T16:50:00.000-05:00

“You are overdrawn by $2,800.”

About the only good thing about this announcement was that I was talking to an automated system. I find this to be considerably less humiliating than dealing with a human being.

Strangely enough, there are fairly obvious similarities between a sword fight and a financial meltdown. First off, you set up your priorities: what must be protected? In a sword fight, you protect your vital organs, your sword arm and, if you can, your legs. Flesh wounds can be ignored; even major wounds that will not kill you or stop you from fighting in the next fifteen minutes or so can be tolerated. You are concerned with what will keep you alive right now. You look for every advantage, fair or foul. This is a fight for survival, not an Olympic match.

Likewise, the financial injuries must be prioritized. A lot of the $2800 temporarily disappeared as some checks bounced. The account was still negative, but only by about $800. The checks will come back with added fees later, but I was only trying to get through the week or possibly the day. The bank is willing to cover SOME checks as I have automatic deposit on my paycheck, but I don’t get paid that much every check.

Some debts must be paid immediately: Utilities, such as power and water must be paid or some arrangements must be made or they will shut you off. Modern homes require power to be livable. Once they turned off our electricity, twice our water and our garbage collection service has been interrupted twice as well. I was reduced to stealing water from a nearby construction site and dumping our trash in the construction site Dumpster.

Communications are also important: if you are involved in a job hunt, there must be some way for an employer to find you, so the phone must stay on. However, luxuries such as a second line or a cell phone can be dispensed with until things improve. If you are broke and people are looking to get money out of you, a call identifier and voicemail is not a luxury, it is a necessary medical expense: I find that I must duck calls from bill collectors if I am to be able to function during the day. Likewise, I need to keep the computer line up to be able to check jobs online. In our case, the computer line is a package deal with our cable company, and my wife wants to keep the TV as well as the computers.

Transport is likewise important: unless you can walk to your job, or can take a bus, you must have enough money to keep your car on the road. Some maintenance can be postponed, but critical repairs (brakes and steering, for instance) must be paid for somehow. Right now, my brakes are making the metal on metal sound and I hope they will last until I can afford to buy new pads and have them installed. Likewise, your car will not accept IOUs for gas or oil. Insurance and registration can be skimped on, but depending on your area you could face serious legal charges if they catch you. You must understand the law in order to break it with minimum risk. Further, if you do not own your car outright, you must keep up the payments or they will take it back. Right now, my wife has to pay $125 a month on her car, money we could use for other items. If we can double up a few payments, this obligation could disappear by spring. You may decide that your best option is to get rid of all except one car to save on money. As for me, carpooling with my wife comes very close to my definition of eternal damnation. If you live in the right neighborhood, you might decide to walk or bicycle to work; in my area, this seems to be a synonym for suicide, not because the neighbors are scary, but because the drivers are. I like to have a lot of steel between the Driver’s Ed dropouts and me.

Then we have the expenses of living: food, both for family and pets, basic supplies such as toilet paper and soap, clothing, grooming (if looking for work or working, neither of these last two can be totally eliminated, although they can be reduced somewhat). I have friends who can shop off the rack at Goodwill or some other thrift store. I, unfortunately, am a bit too oddly built for that. If at all possible, budget something for morale: perhaps a matinee at a local movie and eating before you go: the movie is not that expensive, but popcorn and drinks are: for a few bucks more you can get a good meal. Some people smuggle in drinks and munchies, but I prefer not to. It strikes me as rude. Other morale builders can be quite inexpensive: picnics at public camp grounds, hikes through national parks, some videos and music are available through your local library as well as books, another good morale builder. My wife enjoys a good, long hot bath with scented candles. Pets, also, cannot be neglected as morale builders. There is nothing like a pet to make you feel better about yourself when everything else in your environment is turning to crap. Our dogs Y and Z as well as our late cat C were well worth every penny we spent on them.

But battles are not survived by being on the defensive. One must also attempt to damage the enemy, kill the enemy. In a financial meltdown, this means that one must somehow bring in more money. The best way of doing this is by looking for a new or a second job. For no particularly good reason, I have decided to look for jobs with a twenty-percent higher salary and/or some sort of health benefits. Just getting a new job is no guarantee of being able to keep it, so one must factor in the risk of being fired in a few weeks. Increased reward must balance increased risk. So far, I have had three interviews and no strong nibbles. My wife is currently up for a job that will bring in three times what my current job does. If she gets it, she will have to temporally relocate to another state, coming home only on days off until she gains enough seniority to be transferred back to this area. This will be a major sacrifice for both of us: I cannot seem to really relax without her being around and she has similar issues. Costs and benefits, again.

After actual short-term survival, one must deal with major injuries.

Most important are the injuries that will kill you in the near term. At the very top are the bad checks or other items with serious legal consequences such as IRS or government fines and fees. Failing to honor bad checks can put you in jail eventually. Fortunately, most places would rather have their money than have you in jail and are willing to work with you for quite a long while, but not forever. I have been arrested several times for bad checks in the past and it seems very likely that I will be arrested again as a result of this meltdown. So far, I have not done any jail time, but it sure screws any chance I might have had of getting a security clearance. As far as taxes, or other government debts, these expenses must be paid eventually. Cheating the government is a bad plan; however, the government tends to move very slowly, perhaps giving you time to cut a deal with them.

One must also somehow stop blood loss if one is to survive. To survive in the short term, one often is forced to take extremely disadvantageous loans, pawn valuable possessions for a fraction of their worth and max out your credit cards. Pay off high interest loans ASAP. It is horrifying how much of these loans go to interest and how little towards the principal. Each small decrease in the principal reduces the horrific interest that one must pay each and every month and thus makes it possible to cut into the principal even more. Even very small bites out of the principal add up surprisingly quickly. Some folks recommend hitting the smallest loans first and wiping them out as a morale builder. However, at the moment I am trying to keep attacking the largest interest loans first. It may not be smart, but it seems like a good idea to me. Every month I debate with myself about simply abandoning the items we have in pawn, but so far I keep paying the ruinous interest and buy down the principal as I can.

Messages from people who you don’t know who refuse to say why they are calling should be ignored until the money comes back: these people are bill collectors and are NOT nice people. They will not have pity on you and they do not have noticeable amounts of mercy in their dispositions. Their job doesn’t pay all that much, they just like doing it. You don’t have the money to pay them or you would be paying them and all any conversation with them will do is confirm this and tell them that they should take you to court and get what they can out of you. Even when you have money again, these people should be approached cautiously; lawyers might be a good investment here. Also remember that there are several reverse switchboard sites that can tell you who a particular number belongs to.

Then, one must begin to heal injuries. Perhaps most important are the debts of honor, monies owed to friends and relatives who probably do not ever expect to see the money again. Remember that you are not giving the money back to them as much as you are buying back your self-respect. Next, the devastated credit record must be carefully examined, corrected and each item must be dealt with one at a time. This allows you to hopefully build up some sort of security against future catastrophe. If you don’t really need it, you can get a loan at an amazingly low rate of interest. If you really need it, you have to pay with jugs full of your life’s blood. In particular, I have borrowed over five thousand dollars from my widowed mother. I cannot tell you how much it upsets me to do this, but I could see no alternative. If the situation gets worse, I hope that I can muster the courage to go down by myself and not take my mother with me.

Finally, we must look towards the future somehow; without hope for the future, we might as well give up and die now. I must bring in more money somehow; I must devote some effort towards being more employable. So I am going back to school to try to join the modern workforce. In a peculiar sort of way, our current financial situation is beneficial: if we were just getting by, the expenses involved in going back to school could not be defended. As things are, a few thousand dollars more due and payable after I finish my classes won’t make much difference. My wife and I discussed this and I asked my sister to cosign a loan so that I could go back to school and upgrade my computer skills. She agreed and I started classes in September of 2005 while continuing to work full time. So far, it is a big morale builder; I feel like I am accomplishing something worthwhile. Considering everything, it seems like a very good investment. Again, this is a debt I must cover, and a task that I cannot allow myself to fail at. So far, seven weeks into the quarter, I have a straight A average. On the other hand, this is just review with a few new things for me to soak up. When I get to the new stuff in a quarter or so, things could change dramatically for the worse.

Still, I am usually pretty optimistic about the future these days. As some old Chinese general once wrote: “This situation is desperate, the prospects are excellent.”

Note: while I was writing this, one of the Blogs I follow (Whatever at Scalzi.com) posted Being Poor – some of his stuff really hit a chord with me. For me, being poor in the sense of going without luxuries or even missing the occasional meal does not bother me very much. What bothers me is feeling that I am a drain, a burden that others must carry rather than being able to help others. It bothers me that I owe my mother money and have no idea of when I can pay her back. It bothers me that my sister had to cosign my loan. It bothers me that I cannot be sure that I can pay for my wife’s medications each month. It bothers me that I cannot even donate ten dollars to a worthy cause such as the recent hurricane relief or for books and materials for poor children to go to school.

Back where I came from, we have a saying: “A hand full of nothing and a mouth full of ‘gimme’.”

I really hate having to apply that phrase to myself.

And my dog died

2005-11-10T17:04:00.000-05:00

One of my dogs died over the Labor Day weekend. Y was a miniature schnauzer and weighed about twenty-five pounds. He was very affectionate and loving, always ready to cuddle. Like most of his breed, he was very powerfully built and energetic. We inherited Y when his previous owner D died of complications from AIDS. My wife was D’s primary caregiver and I helped out some, mostly by taking care of Y and doing some muscle work. D left him to me in the will with the understanding that Y would be buried with him when the time came.

I first met Y before S and I got married; he was about nine weeks old at the time and S was babysitting him while his owners were elsewhere. S’s cat C immediately started to stalk Y.

Y was very (and justifiably) wary of C. While he was a bit bigger and his bite was worse, he did not have claws and was always more of a lover than a fighter. I warned S against leaving Y alone with C. S, as per usual, ignored me.

When we got back to S’s apartment, C had backed Y into the corner next to the outside door. Y had made a heroic effort to dig under the door to get away. The linoleum had to be replaced because of this.

Y lived a very full life for a little dog: he was part of at least five households, with ours being the last. D, before his final illness, was deeply involved with care giving for other AIDS sufferers. I think that D, a natural scholar, was studying how to face his own death. Y was by D’s side throughout all this and I believe that he was a great comfort to the people that D was taking care of and I know that he was a great comfort to D.

I don’t know if Y ever understood what was going on around him. I mean, I know that he knew that a lot of people were sick, but I don’t know if he knew that most of the people in his various households died and that the other dogs died or were relocated when their owner’s died. I think he just thought that people and other dogs kept abandoning him. He didn’t mind being left with new people, but it seemed to make him nervous to be left alone for extended periods of time.

Y had an amazing talent for getting along with other dogs. One day Y got away from me and ran up to three Rotties that were being walked by their owner. I knew the dogs were guard dogs and each one was at least a hundred pounds of solid muscle and bone. I thought that I was going to have to bring Y home in a plastic bag and spend the rest of my life apologizing to S for letting Y commit suicide.

All three Rotties sniffed Y and their tails started wagging in unison, as if to say, “Aren’t you the cutest little dog!”

I have only run into two dogs that weren’t at least willing to tolerate Y, and I think that both of those dogs were dangerous and should have been put down for public safety reasons. Even if the other dog was much smaller than Y, Y would befriend it rather than try to be the “big dog”.

About a year ago, Y had to have major surgery because of problems with his pancreas. Strangely enough, Knoxville has a vet who specializes in pancreatic surgery, and we were able to fix Y up with her. It cost a lot of money, a major contributing factor towards our current financial mess, but we hoped that it, along with switching Y to a prescription diet, would buy him another five or ten years.

It did not.

In late July, Y started to refuse food. We thought that it might be his teeth and switched him over to soft food. This worked OK for about a week, and then he started to refuse it and began to occasionally vomit. My wife is, among other things, a very skilled professional cook and she started to cook his food from scratch. This worked for another couple of weeks, and then he started to refuse these meals as well as vomiting what little he ate. We scraped together enough money to get Y to his vet.

I believe that Y realized that he was at the end of his life because of the expression on his face when I took him to the vet. He normally enjoyed his visits there, but this time he seemed to be very unhappy to be left.

The vet kept Y for two days and ran several tests, rehydrated him with an IV, diagnosed liver problems and attempted to treat him with various medications, all to no avail. Y was more alert, in less discomfort, but was still dying of liver failure.

The vet called and told us it was time.

My wife and I went to the vet’s office and they brought Y in. He was very glad to see us and we played with him for perhaps a half-hour and took a few pictures. Y was almost his old self, except that his skin had taken on a yellowish color indicative of liver failure. The vet told us that we could take Y home and let nature take its course or we could end Y’s life immediately.

We decided to have him put to sleep while my wife was holding him and I was stroking his head. We did this because we did not want Y to suffer and perhaps die alone, with neither my wife nor myself around.

We were impressed with how quickly the drugs worked. Y apparently felt no pain and was dead between one second and the next. I think he was a little surprised, but not afraid when he died. S told me afterwards that if she knew she was dying, this was how she wanted to go, surrounded by loved ones and quickly, with no pain.

Just in case some parts of his central nervous system were still sending in reports, I held Y in my arms for about twenty minutes while S was preparing the coffin and his shroud. S cut Y’s sleeping blanket to fit and we wrapped it around his little body with strapping tape, then we put him in a cardboard box that I had picked up for the occasion.

S had wanted to bury Y’s bowl with him, but we forgot to bring it. Later, S had me break it with a hammer and scatter the pieces above Y’s grave. It is amazingly satisfying to pulverize a ceramic bowl when you are feeling sad. Maybe this is why so many of the Ancients buried broken utensils with their dead.

We got a plant for cover, just in case anyone should ask why we were digging in the graveyard and then fulfilled D’s request, burying Y in between D and his lifemate’s graves. Y liked to sleep in between two people he loved; I hope he is happy there.

Poem: DRINKING WITH TOM

2005-10-22T16:09:00.000-05:00

Here, cat.
Have a drink.
Bleedin’s thirsty work.
Tough luck.
You’ll remember tonight
Every time it rains.
And it don’t bear rememberin’:
To have a rival down,
The prize won
‘Til she half claws out yer eye.
The rules say “Winner take all”,
But rules come from books,
Actions from the heart;
And who knows another’s heart
‘Til hear actions make things plain?
Old cat, new wounds . . .
I wonder, do your scars pain you
As much as mine pain me?
Do your unseen wounds hurt
Worse than any open sore?
Desire’s a funny thing:
You can feel it,
Strong enough to kill for,
To die for,
For someone who don’t feel for you at all.
Or you can feel for,
Feel with a passing stranger
Who wears upon his naked face
Clothing you have worn.
So we sit, the cat and me,
Drinking cold water
And wearing fellowship
Instead’a bloody linen.

Brer Wolf, copyright 2005.

Bearing Arms

2005-10-11T18:22:00.000-05:00

When they found her body, they got every policeman that they could find to the site ASAP. When we got there, they told us that they had found the body of a woman, dead only for an hour, perhaps two.

She had been butchered with a knife.

Killing someone with a knife is one of the most intimate methods of murder imaginable. To kill a woman with a knife, you have to be standing close enough to her to feel the heat from her body. You smell the stink as her bowels empty, maybe spilling out through the gash in her belly. She will try to choke out a scream, or perhaps words. You see the expression of horrified disbelief on her face slowly fade into blankness. Perhaps, if you are clumsy or inexperienced or overly enthusiastic, you can taste her blood as it sprays from her body and coats your face, your chest, your arms, your legs, the entire front of your body. Sometimes you have to grab her, to hold her still until you can finish her off, and you can feel the life leave her.

To kill someone with a knife a person has to be extremely motivated or extremely angry or extremely warped mentally, or, more likely, some combination of the above.

Just the sort of person you don’t want to go looking for.

Just the sort of person it was my job to find.

They sent me up the railroad tracks, more to look for clues or, God forbid, another victim than in any expectation that the killer had lingered.

I went around a clump of scraggly brush and found him.

He was a white guy, blonde, in his mid twenties. He was wearing a pair of jeans, a hat and a work shirt. It seemed like he had been camping out here for a day or so. He looked up from where he was crouching, saw me, stood and started walking towards me.

"Police. Stay where you are."

He kept walking towards me. He was maybe thirty feet away now. I drew my gun, but kept it pointed to one side, towards the ground. "Police! Freeze!"

If anything, he sped up a bit, perhaps half-running towards me. The day was cool, but suddenly I was covered with sweat. I leveled my gun at him and screamed, I mean screamed "Police!!! Don't move!!!"

He kept coming towards me, quite a bit faster now.

He was maybe two steps away from me as he reached behind himself for something. A lot of guys keep their knives in a scabbard next to their spine, especially if they are hiding them. I wasn't thinking about that consciously, I wasn't thinking much of anything at the time, except "He's too damn close!!!"

So I shot him.

Three times.

In the chest.

pampampam.

Turns out he was reaching for a laminated card:

"I am a deaf mute."

==========================================================

The preceding was a slightly fictionalized account of one of the scenarios in a police shoot/don't shoot video I viewed/interacted with some years ago. It is amazing how totally submerged you can become in the action on the screen. To me, and I think to most people, the experience was terribly real.

I have no doubt that had I been holding a real gun, in a real situation, I would have shot the guy without hesitation the moment I considered him to be a threat, just as I did in the test.

It takes a very special sort of person to carry a gun and not use it under stress. I am not that sort of person, so I neither carry nor own a gun. This is not to say that I am a pacifist - I have stated elsewhere that I am not - but it is to say that I have chosen to bear weapons that allow both defensive and offensive options.

Let me define my terms - all weapons are somewhere between two extremes: harming the enemy and protecting the user. A shield, for instance, is primarily defensive. True, you can punch someone in the face with it and ruin his day, but it is mostly for making sure that you don’t get hurt. Most martial arts allow the experienced practitioner to avoid injury or to immobilize a foe without harming him while retaining the option to inflict damage. A stick in the hands of a skilled user is far more effective than just bare hands but is only slightly more inherently lethal and is my weapon of choice. A sword is considerably more offensive in design, but, like a stick, it can be used to parry or block incoming blows without harming anyone. A gun, especially a handgun, is almost useless for preventing a foe from harming the gunman unless the gunman shoots his foe first. A bomb or a weapon of mass destruction is totally useless for self-defense in the strict sense of the word.

Weapons such as guns, nuclear bombs and weapons of mass destruction thus place a huge premium on being used first. This means that anyone who has a gun or a nuke is enormously tempted to use his weapon against an enemy before the enemy can use his weapons. Thus, if I am the leader of a country with nuclear devices and a hostile country is developing such devices, I would at least consider using my weapons in a surprise attack before my enemy could attack me.

For cultural reasons, Americans could not bring themselves to launch preemptive strikes against other countries that were about to join the so-called Nuclear Club. Thus, first Russia, then other countries developed nuclear bombs. As is the human tradition, they then divided up into two sides, one side led by the United States, the other by the Soviet Union. One of the reasons that we still have civilization here on the third rock from the sun is that both major powers bought into the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD as it is called. Basically, each country attempted to develop its systems so that no first strike from the enemy could prevent a counterstrike that would exterminate the enemy country and, as it happens, possibly human civilization as a whole by side effects such as fallout or nuclear winter. As both sides wished very much not to die, war was averted.

However, this logic only works when both foes have a desire to survive that outweighs their hatred and xenophobia.

Do you doubt that Osama bin Lauden would use nuclear devices against us if he had them? Do you think that MAD would deter an organization that regularly practices suicide attacks?

So what do we do? Shoot first? Kill every Muslim on the planet? Turn the entire Middle East into a smoking graveyard, Israel included? And then exterminate anyone who could threaten a Pax Americana?

Would George W. Bush refuse to carry a gun if he thought he would use it without need?

Is Condalesa Rice’s smoking gun to be held by an American hand?

Is it necessary to destroy the world in order to preserve it?

I don’t think so. I don’t believe that our culture will allow us to do such things to eliminate a potential threat. For us, and for our leaders, I think that we would not just think, “That’s wrong,” but “That’s un-American”. It’s just not the sort of thing that Americans do.

There is an old Japanese saying that comes to mind: “The best sword is the sword in the scabbard.” I think that we need to keep our swords sheathed no matter how badly we are scared. I think that we need to use only the level of force that is required in a given situation. But just what is the appropriate level of force? Who is it to be directed against? How is all of this to be determined and by who? All of these are difficult questions in a society such as ours where the answers a leader provides need to be more than just correct; they need to be popular as well.

I have, as always, a lot of questions and very few answers. I really hope that someone has more answers and better ones, and that he or she is in a position to implement them.

And I really, really hope that President Bush and his advisors are a lot smarter and wiser than I am giving them credit for.

The Parable of the Towers

2005-09-27T18:31:00.000-05:00

Let me tell you a story.

There once was a great and mighty country. This country had built many wonderful things, not the least being their enormous buildings, two of which were the tallest ever made. People called these the Twin Towers and every day thousands of people came there to conduct their labors in comfort and safety.

It happened that there were those who believed that the people of this great nation were evil and were spreading their evil across the world. Some of these men took over by force a few of the great airplanes whereby people traveled from place to place. Now, such things had happened before and had always been done in such a way as to allow the terrorists to take hostages for ransom or to trade for prisoners or simply to gain attention for their causes.

This time was different.

This time, the planes were used as weapons.

Two of the planes stabbed into the Towers, and all those on board both planes were slain in a heartbeat, along with those folk who chanced to be where the planes struck.

But the Towers had been built well, and most of those who labored in the Towers were not slain, nor even greatly injured.

And those workers argued amongst themselves, some saying: "Come, let us take the elevators and swiftly descend to the streets and hurry home to tell our friends and our families that we are well and have not been slain."

Others spoke against this, saying, "Even though the Towers are mighty and well built, no one knows how badly they are damaged. It may be that the elevators might fail, leaving us trapped in the heart of the building. We should take the stairs which were prepared against such an hour of need and go down in safety."

Yet others said, "Yes, but that way is long, and many of us are too weak or crippled to travel it. Further, there is smoke and dust and we know not whether the way down is blocked. We should take the stairs indeed, but travel up instead of down, and go to the roof where helicopters will surely come and carry us to safety."

Finally, some said, "Truly, this is a terrible day, but our leaders will tell us what to do if we are in real danger. We should return to our labors until we are told otherwise."

And outside the Towers, there were brave men and women who spoke amongst themselves, saying, "Behold, the Twin Towers have been sorely stricken. Our kindred inside them will need help and guidance to reach safety. Let us go into the Towers and labor to save those who yet live."

And as they said, so they did.

And on that day many died according to their choices, yes, even those who piloted the planes to their doom and many of those who rushed into the Towers to save others.

But many were likewise saved.

And no man knew in advance whether his choices led him to safety or to death.

Likewise, no man knows for sure which road will lead him to Heaven, and which to Hell. Indeed, those who stole the great planes apparently believed that that was their road to Paradise. Each man and woman must listen to his or her innermost self and decide his or her actions accordingly. For there comes a time when no book, be it the Bible or the Quoran or the Torah or the Marine Corps Handbook can be used as a map to lead one through life. The only maps that matter are engraved in our souls, and each one is unique.

Sermons are meaningless noise. Church doctrine is mindless custom. Laws may coerce, but cannot lead. Each one of us must decide what to do and how to live and, insofar as our choices harm no one else, no one should speak against another's choices. None of us, none of us know which is the best road to take; we can only do as our hearts and souls tell us to.

And we can hope that, given enough choices, some of us will be saved.

People who were convinced that they had the one, true way to live have given many great horrors to the world. The Inquisition comes to mind - rather than mindless torture and slaughter, many of the people involved were trying desperately to save those that they killed. Consider - if there is only one right way and if you know what it is, are you not obligated to lead others to it? Are you not required to do anything you can, up to and including torture, to persuade others of their error? Is it not better to sacrifice the flesh, which must perish in any event, to save the immortal soul?

Can you understand how terribly tempting the desire to do good to others regardless of whether they want good done to them or not can be?

In many ways a tyrant concerned only with his own comfort, wealth and power can be considerably less harmful than a charismatic leader determined to destroy evil wherever it resides and however it appears.

For evil, like good, exists in every human heart.

Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, Mamoinides: each led by example and gave simple rules for their followers.

So did Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and Pol Pot.

And each of these men had many followers, for many believed that these were the leaders who would lead them to a better place. In hindsight, the choice is clear; at the time each person had to make his own choice, ignorant of what his choice might lead to.

So I will not speak against the terrorists for following their beliefs, even though they slew thousands, for they surely died for what they believed.

But I will say that I do not believe as they believe.

Indeed, I believe that what they did is sin in its purest form, harming all and helping none, not even themselves.

I believe that, as a Christian, my duty is to understand what is going on in the world and share my understanding with others. If someone is wrong, I need to speak up and point out his errors. If I am wrong, I trust that those who recognize my error will strive to correct me. All of us make mistakes; all of us need to be corrected from time to time. Only madness and evil come from a belief that any idea we embrace is flawless and is to be applied to everyone regardless of the cost in human suffering.

One size most certainly does not fit all.

Review of Tides of War by Steven Pressfield

2005-08-04T17:13:00.000-05:00

Tides of War by Steven Pressfield – Bantam Books, Sept 2001.

“A novel of Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War” is the subtitle and it is a very good description of the book. True, there are very interesting sidebars, such as the Spartan critique of democracy’s strengths and weaknesses, chillingly apt even today, or Socrates’ discussion of why he chose to follow the law, even though it condemned him to death. Still, no one can doubt that Pressfield believes that Alcibiades of Athens overwhelmingly dominated the military and political landscape of the twenty-seven year long Peloponnesian War. Even Socrates was better known at the time as Alcibiades’ former teacher and comrade in arms rather than for his own achievements. Alcibiades was perhaps unique in human history by being at one time or another either a military commander or a senior advisor for every major faction involved in the war. He was universally recognized as the finest general and the most insightful politician of his time.

He was also the least trusted public figure of the period, known as a man who would do anything to anyone in order to attain his goals.

Alcibiades was virtually superhuman: a wealthy Athenian noble of the best family, arguably Socrates’ finest student, who also possessed amazing physical beauty, incredible physical stamina, peerless courage and an unquenchable drive to succeed. He was also a brilliant practical politician who, thanks to his unmatched charisma and cunning, was able to repeatedly change sides in the middle of a war without being killed on the spot as well as being a military leader who never lost a battle in a twenty-seven year long career.

And, as a superhuman, it is impossible for a mere mortal such as Mr. Pressfield to write about Alcibiades directly with any hope of success.

So Mr. Pressfield writes about him and the war itself in the most indirect way imaginable: as the reminiscences of Jason, the son of Alexices about the simultaneous trials of Socrates, who was both Alcibiades teacher and friend, and Polemides, the one-time captain of Alcibiades’ bodyguard and the man who eventually killed him. Jason, as Polemides’ lawyer and Socrates’ student as well as being a veteran of the war and a survivor of the even more murderous political frenzies that plagued Athens throughout the war and its aftermath is the perfect narrator. Jason’s conversations with Polemides and Socrates, together with his own terse memories serve to illuminate the war and Alcibiades’ part in it to perfection. One particularly interesting point is made: Socrates is on trial for his life largely because Alcibiades was his student and many feared that he could produce another Alcibiades; Polemides is on trial for his life because he killed Alcibiades and thus removed the greatest Athenian of his generation from the world. As Socrates pointed out in the book, logically if one defendant was convicted, the other must be acquitted. Logic, however, had very little to do with Athens and its politics at this time.

One may well ask just how interesting a novel about events in 399 BC depicting people who wear sheets, fight with swords and spears and who talk about events two or three levels removed from the framing narration?

The answer is – it is very interesting indeed.

Admittedly, this book starts very slowly. It took me ten to twenty pages to really get into the story, and to understand what was going on. Once I did, I found this to be Mr. Pressfield’s finest book to date. In addition to being a fascinating story about an extremely obscure but pivotal episode in Classical history, I believe it to be a cautionary parable about the excesses of a democracy that turns to a path of conquest and imperialism. In many ways, Athens used the very principles that made it great to destroy itself.

Or, as Lysander of Sparta says in this book: “Democracy devours its young”.

Highly recommended, as are most books by Mr. Pressfield

Doubting Thomas

2005-07-15T14:31:00.000-05:00

24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Did'ymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing.

28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

John 20:24-29 Holy Bible, King James version.

A lot of people look down on “doubting Thomas”, but I am saving up to buy an icon of him to keep at my workstation. For me, Thomas is the patron of scientists everywhere: he had to be shown the truth, he did not take unsubstantiated claims from anyone, not even Jesus Himself.

I think that faith is a bit overvalued. Faith without a certain leavening portion of reason allows hypocrites to rule fools with impunity. Worse things than simple exploitation can happen as well. If you are absolutely convinced that you understand God’s will and are acting in accord with it, any excess can be justified. Consider the Inquisition or the events of September 11th. Note that faith does not necessarily mean religious belief in the conventional sense – it means that you have a very strong belief in something that cannot be proven to be true or false. If you take that interpretation of faith, the people who created the Soviet Union acted on the faith that their actions would eventually make the world a better place for everyone, or at least for everyone who was still alive when the Paradise of the Working Class became a reality. For an examination of these people and how the road to Hell can be paved with the best of intentions, read Dimitri Volkganakov’s book on Lenin.

Faith is something that needs to be approached with more caution than a pile of nuclear bombs. Faith can lead you to lie down in front of tanks to try to stop an advancing army. Faith can lead you to spend your life trying to make the world a better place for everyone. Faith can also lead you to strap on a bomb and blow yourself up in the middle of a group of total strangers.

Still, faith is a vital part of life. Even the most devoted skeptic has to take something on faith, whether the love of his family and friends or whether the bulk of the information in his reference books is correct. People simply do not live long enough to carefully examine every element of their environment and must rely on the findings of those who came before us. However, a certain level of caution must be observed and if a source proves to be unreliable in one instance, everything else from that source must be either independently confirmed or treated with suspicion.

On the other hand, pure logic and rationality has its limits. Logic is a tool, not a prime mover. Computers built on pure logic will simply stop if something unanticipated occurs; it is desire that inspires us to try to work through things, to improvise some sort of cure for our problems. There is no logical reason to get out of bed in the morning. There is no logical reason to value another person’s wellbeing above our own. There is no logical reason for most of the things that humans do. Emotion provides the fuel and hopefully logic steers, but faith has its uses as well. Faith keeps the gas pedal pressed to the floor. We keep working because we have faith that there is some solution to our problems, that there is some cure for our pain and that there is some way to make things better for ourselves and for our loved ones. Faith can also have its negative side, despair. When faith becomes despair, we loose the ability to slog forward through obstacles and instead simply give up. This is not necessarily bad: sometimes the best way to deal with a problem is just to walk away from it.

I spend, like most Americans do, a lot of time in traffic. Often I see various bumper stickers based on the Christian fish logo. In the early days of the Christian religion, Christians identified each other by the use of a simple fish logo rather than the cross logo. About fifteen years ago Christians started putting the fish logo in various forms on their bumpers. Shortly after that, other people started putting the Darwin Fish logo, a fish with feet, on their bumpers, perhaps to demonstrate their belief in science over faith, perhaps simply to rattle some Christian chains. A bit later some Christians started displaying a logo of a big fish, often labeled “faith”, swallowing the Darwin Fish whole.

I would like to suggest a new bumper sticker.

Consider the oriental Tao symbol, a circle split into two commas, one white with a black spot, one black with a white spot. This symbol represents the union of opposites to create a whole and also represents the fact that even the opposites contain elements of their partner. Make a Tao symbol out of a Faith Fish and a Darwin Fish and put it on your bumper. You need both faith and knowledge to be whole.

Poem: Shadetree Mechanic Release 1.1

2005-06-28T17:36:00.000-05:00

Some don’t go to school.
It’s make do or do without,
Root hog or die.
You learn what you can from others
And from whatever books you find:
“A student of all things with no master”.
Some become jackleg carpenters,
While some are ministers, self-ordained.
Me, I’m a shade-tree mechanic
Of the quantum kind.

Science started out tryin’ to understand God
Through examinin’ Creation.
And some took to explainin’ Creation
By how they understood God.
“As it was in the beginning,
“So shall it be at the end.”
So let’s pop the hood
And see if we can figure out
What makes this fucker go!

Now let’s examine God by his works:
It’s plain to see that pain and sufferin’,
Evil, madness, and plain stupidity
Are not in short supply.

Now is God bad?
Then how to explain a sunlit day
Or the smell of a baby’s hair?
And if He is good,
Then why is there so much bad?

Are we being punished
Or being trained?
Is Satan so strong that God must yield?
Or does God simply not care
About a planet full of sinners?

I reckon not.

A few hundred years ago a Sufi said
“I am God,” meanin’
“I am God, You are God
“That Tree over there is God
“As is the Sun above Us all
“And the Earth beneath Our feet.”
I think he was onto something.
According to the Bible
We are made in His image.
Maybe everything is in His image,
Maybe Everything is God.

The Buddhist calls the world an illusion,
And holds that sensation traps us,
Keeps us from true freedom.
What if he is partly right
And also partly wrong?

What if God made the Universe
Of Himself,
By Himself,
For Himself,
For fun.

What if there is no reward,
No punishment.
What if He just wants to see how good it gets,
And how bad it gets
And He don’t care who gets the bad
And who gets the good
‘Cause Both are Him.

What if all of human experience
Is just God calibrating the Engine?

What if we are God’s test drivers
Takin’ Creation for a spin?

What if the world is not a trap or a snare
But the finest toy that ever was
That ever could be?

Is “Do as ye will” then the whole of the Law?

Maybe, from God’s point of view.
But we’re at best sparks from the Fire.
For us I think the Law is:
“Do as ye will – but be ready to pay for it”.
Jump off a skyscraper if you will
But expect to splatter.
Do unto others as you will
And see what they do unto you.

As best I can follow my Chilton’s
With both shoes on,
One interpretation of the specs
Says that there are many Universes,
Not just one.
What if Everything happens Somewhere?
What if we actually do it all,
Live and die in every possible way?

And what if every person,
Every critter, every thing that ever was
Or ever could have been
Was doin’ the same?

And what if the Laws of Nature
Are only local ordinances.
Suppose that there is a place where pi is 3
Just like the legislature wanted.
Or where there ain’t a light-speed barrier
Holding us to one end of Creation?
Or what if Middle Earth really exists
Along with Krypton
And Atlantis.
Somewhere, Elsewhere.

Now wouldn’t that be a show?

We know we’re just a speck in Eternity.

Suppose Eternity is just a Page,
One of many in a Book,
That is one of many in a Library.
Each Book a continuin’ saga
Written by an infinite horde of monkeys.
No editing required, ‘cause anything goes.
And each Book published and read by God Hisself.

So from God’s point of view
We ain’t lightning,
Jagged lines across the sky,
Finally fadin’ into darkness,
But fireballs,
Sprayin’ sparks every which way.
Some sparks fade as soon as they’re born;
Some go on, branchin’ and dancin’
‘Til the sky is filled with light
Forever and ever, Amen.

Entropy as a joy ride.

A pretty idea for sure,
But being pretty don’t make it right.
Science teaches us to test our ideas,
To see if we can bring something out of them,
Something we can test to prove what’s truth
And what’s just pipedreams.
How can we test this idea?

Beats me.

There may be a Hell of a great universe next door
But you cain’t get there from here
Or even peek through the windows
To see if anyone’s to home.

So this pretty idea
Is just so much pipe smoke.
Still, a pipe can be right comforting
On a cold winter night.

04/27/2005

Poem: In The Mall Release 1.1

2005-06-28T17:31:00.000-05:00

In the Mall, you can go into the John.
No one in there talks to you,
Nor tells you the truths what kill.
You can walk into a stall, lock the door
And huddle against the cold wall.
You can shut all the bad shit out.
You can be alone in there.
And feel what George and Jimmy felt
Just afore they shot themselves.

But I’m not one of those what dies of their own accord.
I’m one of those what has to be killed.
It’s in the blood and bone,
There’s no gettin’ shut of it.
My life is nailed to my spine
And I hain’t got a crowbar
To rip that fucker free.

Sometimes the only thing that keeps me going
Is the certainty of dying.
Sometimes, when things are really bad,
I think about cancer, heart attacks and strokes,
Car wrecks, fires, airplane crashes, drive-bys,
Muggings, murder, riots, wars,
Famine, plague, earthquakes, tornadoes,
Poison, wrist-slashing, hanging, belly-slitting,
Nuclear bombs, designer disease and home-grown genocide
Until I start to smile.
I’m only in this shit for life.
It’s not like it was permanent.

Smiley, he’s the Mall manager.
He’s Old Money, New Money, No Money A’tall,
A rich boy, a farm boy, a homeboy,
Corn fed with a silver spoon,
Off the streets in a Rolls,
Came on the Mayflower and was here when it came.
Smiley’s at home wherever he goes.
Smiley keeps the Mall runnin’,
Passin’ out seed money,
Collectin’ the loans
Plus interest and penalties
Then passing everything on
To someone new.
And whatever is bought or sold,
Taken or given, won or lost,
The Mall – and Smiley - gets a cut.
That’s one reason they call him Smiley.
So no matter how much you come in with,
Or how well you do Inside,
Sooner or later, the Mall, Smiley, has it all
And you have to leave – or be throwed out.
Everything else is just detail:
Whether you’re bound for the Taj Mahal
Or a stewpot in Uganda
Your toe-tag reads the same.

Outside the Mall?
Well, opinions differ.
Some say the Mall is everything,
Some say it is nothing at all,
Some say they’ve been Outside
And come back in again.
But if’n you ever want to see an old cop laugh
Ask him about eyewitness testimony.
The only sure thing is that you’re in the Mall now
And that you won’t be here forever.
And when you go, you cain’t take nothing with you
Exceptin’, maybe, memories.

This bein’ so, folks try to leave their mark behind ‘em.
Some spray paint on walls, some start stores,
Some write poems, some pass laws.
You know how it is:
“Look upon my works ye mighty and tremble”.
Other folks submerge themselves in something bigger,
Something that will go on when they’re gone:
Families, governments, businesses, tribes.
Me, I’m in a gang.
The Wise Guys.
We’re the baddest of the bad.
We’ve drove other gangs clean out of the Mall:
The German Valley Guys, the Upright Guys, the Robust Fellows
And ten thousand lesser gangs like the Terrible Wolves and the Saber Teeth.
The surviving gangs pay us tribute
Or work for us outright
Or cower in the furthest corners of the Mall
And hope we won’t come for ‘em.
But what goes around comes around
Or “When the perfect cometh, the imperfect shall pass away”.
The Mall’s just too big to handle
The way the Wise Guys do.
So maybe someone else’ll take us down:
Maybe the Superior Guys,
Maybe the Cyber Cowboys,
Maybe the Silicon Brigade.
Me, my money’s on the Silicon Brigade:
You can only hold so much of the world in one skull,
No matter how big you make it.
And even if you splice hardware to the wetware,
After awhile, it’ll be the tail waggin’ the dog.
So in the long run, the Silicon Brigade is the one to watch,
‘Cause they can build themselves into whatever they want
Iff’n they should ever chance to want anything.
But whoever, whatever the next gang is,
When they make their move, they’d best remember:
He Who made the Lamb made me.
And He didn’t make me to go quiet
Nor yet alone into the Night.

But maybe none of this is ever comin’ down.

Consider the ant.
An ant is stupidity OD’ing on speed.
They don’t think much,
Don’t need to.
Five or ten billion ants runnin’ at top speed
Every wakin’ minute,
Hell, one of ‘em is sure to stumble across something good.
And what one ant finds, the rest can follow him to.
Hyperactivity can be handy.
A hive of ants can act smart
Just by being really dumb
Really fast.
Five or ten billion Wise Guys hustling and scheming
Every wakin’ minute,
Hell, one of us is sure to stumble across something good.
And what one Wise Guy finds
A million Wise Guys can figure how to get more of, easier.
So maybe,
Maybe enough of us, runnin’ as fast as we can,
Might bring in enough to save our asses.
Hell, we might run things forever
Unless’n we stumble across neighbors
What don’t cotton to fire ants.

Or things could be different yet.
The Mall has little ponds here and there,
Stocked with Koi and Frogs and whatnot.
Sometimes the Frogs have little lily-pad orgies
Leavin’ frog-scum floatin’ on top of the water.
Most times, the frog scum gets et.
But sometimes it lasts long enough for tadpoles
To grow, to wriggle free, to hide
To maybe grow into Frogs.
You can feel right superior, lookin’ at frog scum,
Bein’ as we invented romantic love
And rape.
Some folks get so full of themselves
That they start spoutin’ off stuff like:
“We are as Gods so we might as well be good at it”.
As Gods? Maybe so.
But gods of the old timey Greek sort:
Who’d screw anything that stood still for it
And blast anything that didn’t.
We’ve got power, all right.
But we’re sorely lackin’ in wisdom.
Me, I reckon we’re just upgraded chimps:
A mite bigger memory, a bit more RAM,
Higher speed, better speakers
‘N’ more sophisticated programs.
Just jumped-up apes with good posture
Bad attitudes
And access to nukes.
Apes.
Who know how to punch buttons
But have only a glimmer of why.
Human folk are limited
And might just have outlived their usefulness.

Or maybe not.

Maybe we don’t know what we’re good for.

I used to think that we were baby Gods,
That in the fullness of time
We would become more than we are:
Wiser, kinder, smarter.
You know: better.
But as I get older, I see our limitations:
We don’t live long enough to learn;
Nor do we have the wit
Were we to seize the time.
But I still have faith and hope
That one day two or more of us will gather together
And Something Wonderful will happen.
Something we can no more imagine
Than sperm imagines babies.
In the meantime, we remain as we are:
Frog scum floatin’ on top of a pond
Waitin’ for Genesis.

4/13/2005

For All The Girls I've Loved Before - In Retrospect

2005-06-18T15:40:00.000-05:00

“Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” – Frederick Nietchze

This is a very classic Germanic viewpoint and also inaccurate. Some things don’t kill you outright but damage you so badly that you are non-functional. Still, there is a certain rhetorical truth to it: things that threaten you very badly cause you to attempt to grow in an attempt to deal with the threat or prevent its recurrence.

This phrase comes to mind a lot when I think about my experiences with women.

Every relationship I have had with a woman has damaged me in one way or another, but has also caused me to grow and develop in an attempt to deal with the problem of the Other. I think that this is true to a greater or lesser extent with every human being. I am reminded that pearls are how an oyster attempts to deal with an intrusion into itself – covering the original damage with layer after layer of increasing beauty.

In each one of my relationships, I have brought away valuable and useful things. From L I learned that it was necessary to get off of my butt in a relationship. From M I learned that sometimes a relationship isn’t worth continuing. From C I learned that I was better than I thought I was. From E I learned that I could lose everything that I loved without warning and that I should love and cherish what I had while I had it.

And from S I learned how much better a person I could be. As Jack Nicholson’s character says in As Good As It Gets, she makes me want to be a better man.

S is the mirror in which I view myself and constantly find myself to need serious improvement. I am admirably suited for living in a cave two thirds of the way up a mountain and pronouncing cryptic utterances to my students.

I am extremely poorly suited for any closer relationship with humanity than this.

I am so bad at social situations that I did not realize until recently just how non-functional I am as a social creature. With rare exceptions, my personal relationships are superficial, my social skills are vestigial and I do not really care most of the time that this is so. My impulse is to live inside of my head with ideas instead of in the world with people. While some of my actions may be interpreted as altruistic, the fact of the matter is that I do “good” things as a matter of general maintenance: if the people around me are happy, then my environment is more comfortable. Thus it is to my benefit to make sure that the people around me are happy insofar as I can do this with minimal effort.

S, E and C all seemed to want to do good to those around them for its own sake, not for any benefit to them. In addition, each of them put in a Hell of a lot more effort into good works that I do. I have assisted each of these ladies in various ways, but doing good for the sake of doing good is not a thought that comes naturally to me.

In short, I learn about what I should be by examining examples of what I am not.

And, given my shortcomings, this is extremely painful for me at times. While I do not care about good manners or networking very much, I want, as all humans do, to be appreciated and valued. And I have spent almost fifty years doing this in almost exactly the wrong way. I have concentrated on knowledge rather than social skills only to discover that nobody wants a person who only has knowledge but they are willing to work with someone who fits in and can develop the knowledge skills they desire.

Five years ago I thought of myself as a fairly decent human being who has had some bad breaks. Now I think of myself as a failed social animal and believe that the vast bulk of my failures are due to this flaw. On the social level, I tend not to carry my own weight in any relationship.

On the other hand, while I am not everything I thought I was, I am also not as bad as I feared I was and I am getting better. Producing this blog is one of my steps towards sanity. I am of the opinion that the more accurately I model reality in my mind, the better I will be able to live in reality. That is to say that the more honest I am about what is going on with me and the world, the better off I will be. I find that honesty requires an audience, preferably a skeptical one. In this blog, I attempt to be honest with the serial numbers filed off, that is to say that I am minimizing the risk involved in honesty by making it difficult for the average reader to find out who I am. I think that the honesty is more important than making my identity public, but this could be just another example of my moral cowardice. Time will tell.

Time will also tell how my relationship with S progresses and concludes. While both of us believe in the “Until Death do us part” portion of the oath, S occasionally fears that she will get to the point where she can no longer deal with my shortcomings. “If I had wanted a five-year old, I would have had one,” is probably a fair paraphrase of how she feels about me on a bad day.

If she ever gets to that point, I will leave as completely as possible. Without her, there is no really good reason to remain in this state or even in the nation itself. There would also be no particularly good reason to be deeply concerned about my life expectancy, so I could take a fairly high-risk gig in Iraq and rebuild my finances quickly.

I don’t think that it will come to this, for S knows that I am trying very, very hard and we both love each other deeply.

Still, S is mortal.

C. S. Lewis wrote A Grief Observed after his wife died. In it, he makes the point that couples are particularly uncomfortable around a widow or a widower because on some level everyone knows that one partner is likely to outlive the other and the closer the relationship, the more one fears the reminder that it must end.

One of the trials that S has faced and overcome in our time together is cancer. She was diagnosed with “Stage 4 non-Hodgkins small B-cell lymphoma”. Stage 4 is as bad as it gets; the next stage is the funeral. Dr H, the doctor in charge of S’s treatment, later told us that he had not expected S to live through the first round of treatments. Her particular type of cancer has a 5% survival rate.

Sometimes I just know things without having any verifiable proof.

I knew that this cancer would not kill S. However, I did not realize how painful staying alive would prove to be for her. The basic concept of chemotherapy is that the cancer is killing you anyway, so the doctors might as well poison both you and the cancer and hope that you are a bit tougher than the cancer. S went through a very, very bad time of it, but the cancer died first. Still, she did not just walk away from chemo and start her life again. Her energy levels are far lower than previously and she has bouts of insomnia. Also, S has frequent leg cramps, she has some problems with walking due to the death of some of the nerves in her legs, her “female organs” have been excised and she has to take a handful of pills every day in order to function. S has sometimes debated with herself, and with me, what she should do if the cancer comes back.

I cannot ask her to go through that Hell again just to keep me happy.

S is regularly monitored. One thing they have been watching very closely is a spot on her lung.

It is growing.

After talking it over with me, S decided to try to continue to live.

Fortunately, chemotherapy is only one of the current options. S has elected to start with radiation therapy and the results are pretty much “so far, so good”. I have a certain guarded optimism about this and VERY STRONGLY hope that chemo will not become the only real alternative to death.

However, I know that I will outlive S. This is backed up by S’s medical history: she has already taken very serious damage from the chemotherapy and another major illness could easily prove fatal.

On the bright side, I do not know by how much I will outlive S. It could be that both of us will die in the same accident and that I would only survive her by a matter of seconds, if that. Given my nature, I find this to be an extremely cheering thought. I have no real fear of death per se, possibly due to the fact that I have only a very abbreviated experience of living. I do fear very much the loss of the life I have with S and strongly prefer actual death to that loss.

Should we divorce or should she die, I don’t know what my emotional state would be. Probably worse than after E died, for our relationship existed more in potential than in reality while S and I have lived together for over fifteen years. Further, I think that once S is gone, I would have not have the moral courage to seek out another mate; sometimes, life is too painful to face.

However, I do not believe that I would kill myself over this. I do believe that I would do as I did after E died, which is to say that I would not really be too concerned about the prospect of death.

I don’t think that I will outlive S by any great period of time unless I find some other reason to continue.

One of the things that I am working on is this blog. In fact, it is the only thing that I really have hope for at the moment. I cannot seem to get the education that I would need to change careers. It is very likely that I am too old to get the retraining that I need in order to compete with recent grads for a programming gig. All of the other things that I might try are currently just not doable due to my poor finances, my bad work record and my basically abnormal personality.

As pathetic as it might seem, writing to even an imaginary audience gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

And I will need a reason to keep going. S is deeply concerned about what will happen to me when she dies. She fears that I will go back to inertia and sloth and spend whatever time I have left doing nothing at all.

She fears that for me, it will be as though she never lived.

I have failed in so many other things in my life that I cannot afford to fail in this. I must keep going, I must accomplish something with what remains of my life, even if it is only in my mind.

I owe S one Hell of a lot more than this, but this seems to be the best that I can do.

For All The GirlsI've Loved Before - Marital Blitz

2005-05-26T17:57:00.000-05:00

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”

Our wedding was one of the most fun events imaginable. S the overachiever had determined that we could save thousands of dollars if she catered her own wedding. So she drafted various associates and friends, mostly female, and put out a fantastic spread. A few things, like the wedding cake (Appalachian Stack Cake as I recall) had to be farmed out, but mostly everything was done by her and our friends at cost.

We had the wedding at a friend’s house with the friend’s three dogs in attendance. The dress ranged from historical re-creationist garb to drag queens in full array through blue jeans up to rich Republicans in three-piece suits. One of S’s old friends is a priest, so we had him perform the ceremony. As S is half-Greek, she selected a version of a Byzantine marriage rite and the priest and his assistants were wearing Byzantine ceremonial robes. She had carefully edited the ritual to avoid some of the more restrictive oaths.

I will never forget the look of absolute horror on the priest’s face as he suddenly realized two things: that he had by reflex gone to the original rite and that S was between him and the only door.

Unlike many grooms are reputed to be, I was very happy to be there and completely relaxed, even by little glitches such as the use of the old ritual or small faux pas such as S’s mother swiping one of the spare wedding cakes for later or by the men in the wedding party coming up short one set of studs for the vests (everyone donated one stud and left the bottom hole empty).

We went to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home, for our honeymoon. S has admired President Jefferson since she was quite young and I came to share her respect for him. I took the chance to introduce S to my family in Virginia. My sister and S hit it off very well. There was and is a certain ambiguity between my mother and S – I honestly think that if I had snagged Princess Di on the rebound, Mom would have thought I could have done better.

I was aware of similarities in my father and S’s personalities, and anticipated a very strong reaction. I just didn’t know whether it would be positive or negative.

To my great relief, they took to each other instantly. On his deathbed some years later, Dad referred to S and my brother in law R as his other two children. S, on her part, has always referred to my father with great respect and affection.

After the honeymoon, we had some major problems.

The first year is a getting to know each other process. In our case, we discovered each other’s character flaws.

First off, although one of the most intelligent women I have ever known, S has absolutely no sense of fiscal responsibility. If she feels that she needs something, she buys it, even if there is no money in the account. S does not balance the checkbook and usually ignores me if I ask her not to write checks. Thus, our financial situation is usually right on the edge of disaster. As a math freak, this drives me absolutely crazy.

In addition, S does not know how to win an argument. Once she has won an argument, she continues to argue, apparently carried on by some sort of emotional momentum. If she runs out of material on the current problem, she recaps the problem before that and the problem before that and – well, you get the idea. When I was a child, my idea of Eternal Damnation involved lakes of fire and demons. Now it involves being stuck in a car with S in a bad mood going over my flaws, shortcomings and weaknesses forever.

S further insists on blaming me for not pursing my education. I could not and can not see any way of going back to school AND paying our bills; S says not to worry, she can get the money, a statement that I can only view with the deepest mistrust. I am also uncertain as to the utility of an advanced degree in the current job market. While a Doctorate or a Masters was a ticket to easy street thirty years ago, Microsoft Certifications (which tend to require constant ongoing study AND become obsolete every three or four years) seem to be far superior these days. None of the local schools teach any of the classes that I would like to take and which could provide me with the jobs I desire. Further, I am competing with people young enough to be my children, possibly even my grandchildren. The younger people simply do not need as much money and are far more desirable in today’s job market than an old computer programmer whose last steady gig was as a COBOL programmer for the Y2K mess. This is on a par with trying to get a job with the military making flint arrowheads.

In my time with S, I have come to realize that I have been coasting along for most of my life, working really hard only when I had to or if something, usually something not work related, really drew my interest. The same is true of my life in general: most things I viewed as being too much trouble to really bother with: housekeeping, pets, job hunting, moving, etc. I have been trying to put my back into my work more and I think that recently it has been showing some results. However, currently I am working temp gigs at $9 to $10 an hour, which is OK for someone in their twenties, not so OK for someone in their fifties with a wife and two dogs. I’m working on it, and hope that S will put up with the situation for awhile longer.

S also blames a lot of my current work situation on my grievous lack of social and work skills. I do not network well, am often a few minutes late for any assignment and until recently did not dress properly for work. S brought home the fact that t-shirts and jeans do not cut it in the modern workplace, especially on a 52-year-old guy. Further, my table manners are often substandard although rarely disgusting. As much of the job she had before we met involved training people to work in a three-star restaurant, S found my shortcomings to be very annoying. Further, S has convinced me that the only way to progress in a job is to hang with the bosses at some event that usually involves eating. If you make a bad impression there, they tend to want to file and forget you come promotion time. I try to do better, but often fail. I tend to be able to only concentrate on one thing at a time. If I am involved in the conversation, my table manners go to Hell. If I concentrate on my table manners, I do not present a good social presence. It seems as though my best option is to just push the food around on my plate while being charming.

As far as tardiness issue goes, in ten years I have gone from being usually late to being usually on time. Being early is still past me – I seem to get so focused on doing THIS job right that I neglect to provide enough time to get to the NEXT job. Still, when she is not in a bad mood, my wife will admit that I have made progress. Both of us will admit that there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Part of the progress is due to my being diagnosed through S’s efforts as having Adult Attention Deficit Disorder as well as sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome. This was made worse by the fact that I was overweight earlier in our marriage. Now that I am in much better physical shape and sleep at nights with a breathing mask, I am less tired and more able to control my AADD. I still have an unfortunate fondness for stacking things up and forgetting them and concentrating on the trees while forgetting the forest, but I am far more functional than I used to be. I help with the housework and do a lot of the yard work and most of the care for both dogs.

S has also made considerable progress in fiscal responsibility, aided in large part by modern banking methods and debit cards. If she does not carry around a checkbook, she must use the card and, thanks to the Internet, she cannot spend more money than we actually have. She has also learned to control her temper better, but when she gets angry with me, I would still rather be in a biker bar being beaten up by six or seven ex-cons.

I guess a lot of marriage is about learning to work around your partner’s flaws and then learning how to deal with the flaws you never knew you had.

Still, no matter how frustrating life with S can be, it is still life, a life I thought I would never have after E. And for S, life with me is also life itself. While she can get very angry with me and I with her, I very seriously doubt that we will ever divorce.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh eventually finds the Fruit of Life, which is described as a melon covered with incredibly sharp thorns. It was impossible to pick up the Fruit of Life without pain, without bleeding.

I find this to be quite reminiscent of life in general and marriage in particular.

For All The GirlsI've Loved Before - Resurection

2005-05-05T17:33:00.000-05:00

When S walked into the room, it was like a drawn sword glinting in the sunlight.
Yeah, I know it doesn’t sound like the most romantic image imaginable, but it was how I felt the first time I saw her. And it was the first strong positive emotion I had felt since E’s surgery went bad years earlier.
I came alive again when S was in the room.
We had been set up for a blind date by mutual friends. As it happened, we had known a lot of the same people for almost twenty years, but had never met each other. S tended to hang out with the artists and the party crowd while I hung with the crazies and the people who were too smart for their own good. These groups tended to overlap quite a bit. S had even dated one of my roommates for a few months back in my grad school days, but R was way too smart to bring a girl home to meet the crew he lived with – I honestly think that I was the most normal of the bunch.
S and I were not the instant click that E and I had been: both of us had a lot of baggage. S had been married to an artist, then divorced, then had a long-term relationship that had ended shortly before we met. S, despite her own strong attraction to me, was not about to get into anything resembling a steady relationship anytime soon. S’s background was in Anthropology by education and Restaurant Management by career. It’s not as odd a mix as one might think: the rituals of dining are one of the central elements of any culture and S had put herself through school by working food service since she was a teenager. S had a much, much more powerful work ethic than I did.
S, like myself, had been raised in a small town, was an eldest child, highly intelligent, extremely independent and used to making her own decisions. She was physically the largest of the women I had been seriously involved with, being an ex-basketball player and just about six feet tall, so the size problem was not an issue.
However, as I said, we had a lot of emotional baggage.
Looking back on it, our courtship was very like the mating dance of scorpions: extremely graceful, extremely cautious, and extremely slow. Each of us had been badly hurt by significant others earlier in our lives and had no desire to repeat the experience.
Still, we were powerfully attracted to each other. I proposed to S five or six times before she finally accepted. She said that it was one particular instance that tipped the scales. S had many close friends in the local gay community and we met just before the AIDS epidemic was discovered. In the first five years we were together, we went to about fifteen funerals and one wedding. S spent a lot of her spare time as an assistant caregiver and catering people’s funerals.
So, sometimes I helped her or one of her friends out.
One day S and I were hanging out at my apartment and one of her friends called us and asked us to bring some food to a hospital room where he and his lifemate were acting as caregivers for a man dying from AIDS.
By the time we got there, they were trying with limited success to change the dying man’s bedsheets. He was delirious and was flailing his arms and legs wildly and singing show tunes.
I examined the situation. Even then, AIDS was known to not be particularly contagious, requiring large amounts of fluid to be transferred from the infected victim to the bloodstream of a new host. He was not bleeding, his diapers had been freshly changed, and he was not violent, just jumping around. Even though he was taller than I was, perhaps about six and a half feet tall, he weighed about ninety pounds.
So I said, "OK guys, change the sheets quickly," picked the dying man up and held him while the sheets were changed. Being held seemed to calm him down enormously, so this was not any great problem for me.
For some reason, this impressed S and her friends enormously.
It was not any great display of bravery or compassion on my part. I had calculated the risks as not being significant. In addition, I had spent about two years in a charity hospital in Richmond recovering from football injuries, and we had been expected to take care of each other and ourselves to help keep manpower expenses down.
It was just business as usual.
Still, S later told me that it was because of this that she decided to marry me.
For me, I needed S in my life. Without her, I had no motivation to do anything at all. With her, I hoped to be able to accomplish great things.

For All the Girls I've Loved Before - Remedial Humanity

2005-04-27T17:12:00.000-05:00

I was on a group camping trip during my remedial humanity period when I met E. About midnight the skies opened up and my tent flooded. I was outside with an entrenching tool in my soaking wet underwear digging a trench around my tent when J came up and introduced his kid sister E to me.

As best I can figure, J thought that it was a good joke on both of us.

The funny thing is that E and I really hit it off.

E was very possibly the smartest person that I have ever met. I have remarked before that I am extremely intelligent. I would have to describe E as being unbelievably intelligent. In addition, she was interested in a lot of the same things that interested me at the time: computers, science, science fiction, fantasy fiction, comic books, animated films, regular films, role playing games, etc, etc. Finally, E was the younger sister of J while I was the older brother to my own sister: we instinctively fit into the same cultural dynamic.

Mentally, emotionally, socially and spiritually, we were a perfect match.

But.

Physically, we had some problems. Firstly, I was about eight years older than E. Really, this was all to the good because I needed eight extra years of experience to keep up with her fantastic mind. More importantly, E was, like C, five foot nothing with her shoes on and weighed in at perhaps one hundred and ten pounds. This alone would have caused some serious problems in my head.

However, C looked like a woman, admittedly a small woman, but still an adult.

E looked like she was about thirteen.

Pedophilia is not one of my perversions.

If E hadn’t liked me a lot and been very persistent, our relationship would have gone nowhere.
As things stood, by the time E graduated from college we were somewhere between being engaged and going steady. I would have to call it being pre-engaged. After being with her for five minutes, I preferred her company to that of any other woman. However, if we were separated for any great length of time, I would be sometimes be attracted to women of more mature physical characteristics and would occasionally make passes at them.

This last bothered me a lot. I did not want to marry someone and then cheat on her. Most particularly, I did not wish to hurt E in any way, shape or form.

So I had a considerable amount of ambiguity about our relationship when E left to join the Navy. E came from a military family and it seemed only reasonable to all of them that she pay for college by agreeing to serve in the Navy upon graduation.

If I had had the brains God gave a guppy, I would have followed her and married her. I thought that we had time to make sure that we were right for each other. After all, a failed relationship is better than a failed marriage.

So we agreed to postpone the subject until she was out of the Navy and back in the South.

One of the high points of my life during that period was picking up the phone and calling her, spending hours talking about everything and nothing. I considered it to be quite possible that she would meet someone else and dump me, but in the meantime I was content, even happy.

E was posted in Monterey, California for the bulk of her service. About a year into her hitch we decided to get together a crew and go to the World Science Fiction Convention, which would be held in Anaheim, California in a year or so. This would be the first time we had seen each other in about two years, although we talked very regularly. E put off some surgery until after the Con, loaned me three hundred bucks and I got a membership to the World Con and made my travel arrangements. About ten of us, E and her mother and myself included, crammed into the most expensive hotel room I had ever been in. To say that we were well chaperoned does not even come close to it. We spent the bulk of the Convention together, but I was very uncertain about my feelings. I even went so far as to make a pass at another woman at the Con.

E herself was very cranky, and was a bit under the weather. I desperately wanted her to go to a civilian doctor, but she felt that the free medical care she got through the military was sufficient for this problem. I argued that military doctors were great for people who had gotten shot, blown up, stabbed, etc, but had some noticeable defects as regards more ordinary care. She disagreed and we parted on that note.

On the trip home, I decided to move to Atlanta to be with E when she got out of the Navy, always assuming that she would have me.

We had a few more phone calls before the surgery. E’s mother M promised to call me the moment E came out of surgery and she did.

The news was a devastating surprise: someone had screwed up in the recovery room and E’s heart had been stopped for over six minutes. E was now in an irreversible coma, a state she remained in until her death about two years later.

While I had accepted the possibility that E might dump me, I had never considered the possibility that I would outlive her. She was, after all, female, of a long-lived family and nearly eight years younger: all of the odds said that she would bury me, and it just seemed so unfair that I was going to bury her instead. She was one of perhaps a half-dozen people that I considered more worthy of continued life than myself. If I could have swapped myself for her, I would have done it.

But she was gone and I was here and there was not a damned thing I could do about it.

It was as if some sort of circuit breaker popped in my head. For the next few years, I simply stopped giving a damn about anything. I wasn’t suicidal, exactly. I just didn’t care whether I lived or died. The only thing I could think of was to amuse myself with matters of no significance whatsoever until the Reaper came for me as well.

I was dead in my heart and soul while she was dead in her brain and, eventually, her body.

Overall, I would have to consider this to be the greatest loss of my life to date; but even in this, there were lessons that would serve me well in later life.

For All The Girls I've Loved Before - Graduate School

2005-04-20T16:35:00.000-05:00

I met C while I was flunking out of graduate school.

It was quite the opposite of my normal reaction to attractive women. I really, really liked her as a person and considered her to be a wonderful friend.

But.

But she was five feet tall, weighed perhaps a hundred pounds soaking wet and looked just like an adult version of the girl on the Wendy’s logo. I was six foot three, weighed about two hundred and eighty pounds and looked like an extra on America’s Most Wanted. Further, she remains the only truly sane human being I have ever met in my life while “a bit too tightly wound” would have been a generous description of my post-M mental state.

I think the huge difference in our bodies bothered both of us.

I know it bothered me: I already had issues about hurting people because of my relationships going sour. I was terrified of accidentally hurting someone I cared about because our relationship was going well. Think about King Kong and Faye Raye consummating their relationship and you’ll get some idea of how I felt about this.

Although I eventually managed to approach her, I think that subconsciously I sabotaged myself because of my fears. In any event, while she was unfailingly kind, caring and courteous, her heart was elsewhere. She eventually married S.

When they married, I went to my living room and meditated on the situation. It came to me that even if S should meet an unfortunate accident, C would only choose someone else.

S was not the problem.

I was.

Whatever C wanted in a man, I did not have it. And I would never have it.

And all I could do is accept that and wish her well, or be an even bigger jerk than I usually am.

As I had earlier recognized, I am a monster: a member of the population who is substantially different from the bulk of the population. And that there was not one thing I could do about it.

But I realized then that I did not have to be an evil monster. And that it would be a very poor thank you for C’s many kind gestures to spoil her happiness by essentially sulking and throwing a temper tantrum.

So I wished S and C well and tried, with varying degrees of success, to keep myself on the path towards being a good monster. This was when I started to heal from the damage I had inflicted upon myself through my obsession with M.

I also had a lot to digest, mentally speaking. The contrast between M and C was striking. While M was by far the better-looking woman, C was the better person. M could give the appearance of caring about people, but I suspect that the only person M really cared about was M. C, however, really cared about people and tried to help the people in her life in so far as she could.

I am reminded of a quote from Tuesdays with Morrie ( the movie )where Morrie says that love is the only rational response. I believe that C and Morrie were sane, something that is quite rare in this world. Like the mythical philosopher’s stone, their touch transformed the lead of other people’s lives into gold.

I suspect that many of the people considered to be saints were actually sane human beings ministering to the inmates of the lunatic asylum here on the third rock from the Sun.

Some years ago I tracked C down to thank her for what she had done for me. She graciously accepted my thanks, mentioned how much she had learned from me and chatted for about thirty minutes before saying goodbye and gently discouraging future contact. In the course of our conversation, she told me that she has two daughters. I am happy to know that she has reproduced and that my line, good monster or not, ends with me.

The world is a better place with her sort of human being in it.

Overall, I’d have to call this a moral victory.

To All The Girls I've Loved Before - College

2005-04-11T16:32:00.000-05:00

It was the damnedest thing: in the middle of the college snack bar, surrounded by dozens of witnesses, my body tried to kill D.

I believed at the time that the major part of why this happened was that D was sleeping with M and I was obsessed with M. Mature reflection over a period of decades tells me that this was, at most, a contributing factor, not the main reason. The main reason was that I had, without proper guidance, reached the level of an intermediate student of violence. It was widely known in medieval Japanese martial arts texts that an intermediate student had achieved sufficient skills to be dangerous without the control which a more advanced student or a master possessed. Indeed, much of the training a beginning student receives is intended to erode whatever controls he already possesses in order to allow the student to survive a life and death struggle. And, as a self-taught student of violence, I had managed to erode the controls my parents and society had instilled in me without providing new controls which would allow me to function as a member of society rather than a solitary killer.

So when a man who I disliked anyway (partially for sleeping with M, partly on his own merits) gestured with a knife to make a conversational point, my body reacted as though he had attempted to attack me with that knife. My body tried to drive the bones of his nose through his brain. In the meantime, my mind was screaming: NO!!!! and trying to override my reflexes while simultaneously planning an escape route. I had absolutely no intention of spending a single day in jail for killing D.

The punch landed and I waited for him to drop: he shook his head and stared at me. I had misapplied the blow and pulled it.

He did not die and I did not go to jail.

Indeed, the effects were far worse on me than on D. I believed that this attack was due to my irrational obsession with M. I believed that this obsession alone made me willing to kill. I lost all faith in myself as a decent human being.

It got worse.

I had fantasies about saving M from one or more large brutes, and having her see me in a new light. One day in the snack bar, I walked up to her and various other members of our student group, including M and D and made a stupid joke. D told me to back off, because M was suffering from a migraine.

D had taken over my fantasy, with himself in the hero’s role, relegating me to the role of the large brute. I suddenly realized that that was exactly where I fit: I was a monster, a brute and a thug, not a hero at all. I realized that I would always be the monster, never the hero, always the creature which women needed to be protected from, never the protector which women loved.I do not recall ever hating anyone half as much as I hated D at that instant.

So I made a snide comment and walked off.

I did not realize at the time that this was actually a positive thing: although trembling with rage, as upset as I have ever been, I did not physically harm anyone, did not kill anybody. I just shot my mouth off and acted like a jerk. At the time, I considered this the final nail in my coffin. It was actually a sign that I was beginning to develop the controls that someone like me must have in order to live in human society.

The only good thing about this whole mess was that one morning I woke up and no longer loved M. I did not hate her, did not like her, did not want to have sex with her. I was absolutely indifferent to her. I spent almost an hour just lying there, enjoying not caring anymore.

It was very like a fever breaking.

This was my college dating experience: a mitigated disaster.

To all the girls I've loved before - grade school

2005-03-19T14:58:00.000-05:00

“To all the girls I've loved before
Who traveled in and out my door
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the girls I've loved before
To all the girls I once caressed
And may I say I've held the best
For helping me to grow
I owe a lot I know
To all the girls I've loved before.”

“FOR ALL THE GIRLS I’VE LOVED BEFORE” – Willie Nelson
Courtesy of http://www.seeklyrics.com

In some ways, I verge on the superhuman. I am extremely intelligent, well educated, widely read with a very powerful body, good reflexes and a talent for violence. That is to say, I am a superior individual.

However, I am substandard as a member of a social structure. I am often on a different page from everyone else. Whether or not my page is superior to their page is irrelevant: I fail badly at being part of a larger organization.

The most telling and most painful of my social failures involve my relations with the opposite sex, or, rather, my attempts at relationships with the opposite sex.

I will follow tradition by blaming as much of this on my parents as possible. Both of my parents were extremely solitary people, so solitary that I often consider it miraculous that they not only stayed together long enough to produce my sister and me but actually lived together for over forty years. As far as I can remember, our social life was non-existent except for visits to and from relatives. In addition, we lived in a fairly isolated area and there were very few children of my age within walking distance. Things did not improve when I entered school. As I have said before, I am extremely intelligent with a talent for violence. This quickly promoted me to the position of class bully. Further, my interests tend to be solitary: reading and writing. Thus, none of my interactions with other children was on anything approaching equality. I never learned how to interact with a peer group because I did not have a peer group.

This is where I can no longer blame my failures on my parents. The fault lies not in my parents but in my self. While physically brave, I am lacking in moral courage. I am very reluctant to this day to open myself up to another human being, a reluctance that approached abject terror in adolescence. I do not greatly fear pain or death. I am terrified of humiliation and disgrace.

Much of early sexual interaction involves the risk of humiliation and disgrace.

Thus, I was afraid to approach girls. Further, most girls did not interest me very much, or, it would be more fair to say that most girls interested me and repulsed me at the same time. There were very few girls around who interested me both sexually and personally.

I met L in first grade and from very early on we were both in the advanced classes, she with considerably better results than I achieved. By middle school, L was a gymnast and eventually became our class valedictorian. As far as I know, she is an English professor on the West Coast today. She was in many ways the perfect girl for me from my point of view.

And I could not bring myself to approach her.

Hormones might have eventually overcome my moral cowardice, but fate and my stupidity intervened.

I was twelve and wanted to impress girls, particularly L, without sticking my neck out. L was every bit as smart as me and considerably more socially sophisticated, so both brainwork and charm were out. Further, I was looking for an outlet for my aggressive impulses. So I fell back on a cliché: I tried out for the football team.

I have always been larger than most people my age and am fairly powerfully built. So instead of playing on the middle school team with other twelve and thirteen year olds, they put me with kids of my own size: the sixteen and seventeen year old high school football players. However, even though a twelve year old might be as large as a sixteen year old, he is not as strong and as solidly built as a boy four years older.

So I played with a group of young men while I was still a boy and broke my ankle: a compound fracture of my left ankle, both ends of the bones digging into the dirt of the playing field. I spent almost a year in the hospital getting my ankle rebuilt. When I broke my ankle, we were just at the edge of dating, when I got back, on crutches, everyone else was playing the dating game, a game I could not even get a rulebook for.

L was dating J, a guy who transferred into our school from another state. Not unsurprisingly, I detested him. I thought he was a conceited jerk who was not particularly intelligent or even very good-looking. However, he was very well dressed, had money, social skills and charm, all of which I lacked. Ultimately, they married only to divorce three or four years later.

My sister once commented to me that she considered herself fortunate to have an older brother because she felt that girls who did not were unduly impressed by guys simply because they were guys. L did not have a brother. I doubt that I would ever have married or even seriously become involved with L, since she had been exposed to my shortcomings as a human being ever since I was a particularly unpleasant five-year old. However, I feel that I failed both her and myself by not making the attempt to date her. My strengths and my weaknesses were not J’s strengths and weaknesses, and by failing to bring myself to her attention as a potential mate, I failed to provide a contrast to J, and thus denied her an opportunity to make better choices in her life. I also failed myself. I failed to do anything to build my courage, my ability to face my fears about dealing with my own emotional issues.

So, this was my social adolescence: a failure that I was at least able to recognize as a failure. It would be many years before I could begin to apply the lessons which that failure taught me.

Vietnam and Iraq

2005-01-23T22:00:00.000-05:00

"We are tired of fighting. We don't want to kill anymore. But the others are treacherous and cannot be trusted." - Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature

Some historians studying the Vietnam War have come to the conclusion that the entire war can be based on massive misunderstanding by both sides; each side had their idea of what the other side was like and what their goals were. Neither bothered to actually find out what the other side was like and what they wanted and what they would be willing to trade to get what they wanted. Thus, the Americans launched a massive bombing of North Vietnam (by my definition, an act of terrorism as its only purpose was to intimidate the North Vietnamese into surrender) while the Vietnamese engaged in an increasingly fierce "people's war" in the South (terrorism on the cheap). While both sides were increasingly desirous of a negotiated peace, neither side was able to present a peace proposal that the other side considered more than pure propaganda because, even after years of war, neither side understood the other. Millions died.

As has been pointed out, this current mess in Iraq shows every sign of becoming another Vietnam, except worse. And it is very likely because they do not know us and we do not know them.

James Mill, in "An Essay on Government" - first published as a supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, 5th edition - argued that there are two basic methods for a government (or, in a broader interpretation, for any organization) to insure that the labor which the nation needs is provided. That is, there are two ways to get people to do what you want them to do: one is force, the other is allurement.

Force is the easiest to implement: do what I say when I say or I will beat you, kill you, imprison you, confiscate your possessions or harm your family and friends. Terrorism is an attempt to control by fear, by the threat of force. As James Mill recognized, under the rule of force, the citizens become slaves.

While in the short term this may be useful, in the long term it is disastrous: a slave does what he is told to do, when he is told to do it and provides the minimal effort he can get away with: after all, why should he break his back? What is in it for him as a reward? Another day of working for Master and singing happy songs in the field? Slave economies tend to be economic failures in the long term: see the Old South, the Soviet Union and Japan under the Shogunate. Likewise, political structures which rely on terror tend to only control what they can directly supervise and collapse when the number of people to be controlled grows to be too much greater than those who can be trusted to monitor them.

With allure, on the other hand, the organization provides something in exchange for the worker's labor, (usually money, in a capitalist system, but other rewards can be used such as increased prestige, promotion within the organization, a favored position in the afterlife, etc.). This makes the citizen a partner in the enterprise, allowing him a voice in changing things so that whatever work he is put to prospers and, from simple self interest, encouraging him to work harder and smarter to gain the rewards promised.

However, to use allure one must know what the other person wants. It is futile to try to bribe Eskimos with ice cubes or a rich man with a bright, shiny penny. We Americans are woefully ignorant of what other cultures value and we have a tendency to consider foreigners to either be just like us except in funny clothes or aliens with no point of contact with us.

We also tend to buy into the "Good guy/Bad guy" myth. We forget that there are good and bad people on both sides of every conflict, World War II included, and that in any extended conflict, the good guys become more and more like bad guys and that the bad guys get even worse. As far as diplomacy and war goes, "talk, talk", while less exciting, is certainly less costly than "fight, fight".

Let me discuss the American political scene for a bit: we are essentially a two party system. We have elections for president every four years with term limits on the office of, I believe, ten years. As a result, unless there is a strong belief on the part of the candidate or his party on a particular subject, a new president has two mutually exclusive default options: if the prior president was of the same party, the new president does the same as the old except more so. If, as was the case with our current President Bush, he takes over from the opposing party, the default is to do the exact opposite of what his predecessor did. Clinton was deeply worried about the Middle East, bin Laden, al Queda and various other radical groups and believed that carefully considered action was vital. Therefore, having no prior experience with the Middle East himself except with the various Saudi oil magnates, Bush decided to totally ignore the Middle East and anything to do with it. As most senior advisors are political appointees here, there was no one around to argue against this decision until September 11 rolled around.

Then, of course, our government reacted most strongly indeed. Our assault on Afghanistan was arguably a legitimate counter attack against a threat to our country.

But then we invaded Iraq.

I have no idea why we did so.

The Bushies, as we call them, feebly point to the Weapons of Mass Destruction which they claim as the pretext for this invasion and, somewhat more forcefully, argue that Saddam Hussein was a Very, Very Bad Man. Before the war, I agreed with both points: i.e. that it was very likely that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction and that he was (and is) a Very, Very Bad Man indeed. And I still considered the invasion of Iraq to be an incredibly bad idea. A lot of people have WMD, a lot of governments are ruled by very, very bad people, and, barring a strong link between Iraq and any attack on America, there was no better reason to invade Iraq than to invade North Korea. You will notice that we have not invaded North Korea and, barring them (or us) doing something incredibly stupid, we are very unlikely to do so. In fact, at least while we remain in Iraq, we may be incapable of invading them. Our commitment in Iraq prevents us from using our military in other, perhaps more vital, areas.

Some people claim that this was armed robbery writ large, that this was a direct attempt to control the Iraqi oil supplies indefinitely. I disagree with this because I see no evidence of profit being garnered by anyone from the captured oil, nor that there was any reasonable expectation of profit. On the other hand, one can argue that Bush and his advisors are not reasonable people . . .

(7/15/05-Later note regarding the profit motive for invading Iraq: It recently occured to me that it is not necessary for the profits to come from oil, or even from Iraq itself. War profiteering may be quite attractive to organizations supplying our military in Iraq, and the money would actually come from the United States instead of Iraq.)

I tend to lean towards the "family feud" theory, that our current President Bush looked upon this whole Iraqi War mess as a chance to settle scores with Saddam Hussein as his father had not been able to do. There is evidence that Bush was planning this war long before September 11 gave him the excuse to actually execute it (See the Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's allegations at CNN - INSIDE POLITICS - O'Neill: Bush planned Iraq invasion before 9/11 or the book based on his statements: The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill by Ron Suskind ).

No serious military mind on the planet doubted before the invasion that the American military would crush the Iraqi military with minimal American casualties, and, in fact, the war phase was extremely successful.

But there was absolutely no plan for after the war had been won.

In an amazing display of naiveté, our government apparently expected peace to break out immediately and for the Iraqi populace to compete in throwing rose petals onto our advancing troops and to rubber stamp anything the Great Army of Liberation did. We completely neglected the fact that only Saddam Hussein and his political allies made it possible for Iraq to exist as a single state rather than three or more feuding ethnic groups. We are now faced with three unpleasant alternatives:
1.) Creating a new Saddam Hussein, who is very probably going to be worse than his predecessor, in order to maintain the nation of Iraq as a counterbalance to Iran and, to a lesser extent, Syria.
2.) Staying in Iraq until the sun goes out to keep Iran and Syria from dividing it up between them.
3.) Allowing Iraq to fragment more or less gracefully into several smaller nations and discretely withdrawing, in the hope that Iran and Syria will not immediately devour the smaller states and become even more powerful and more scary to us than was the case before all of this mess came down.

A great weakness of our (American) culture is that we seem to pay no attention to history, acting as if our desires and intent are all that are needed to accomplish any goal. We do not concern ourselves with earlier attempts that succeeded, much less with earlier attempts that failed. Thus, often things become worse rather than better when we act unilaterally as we did in Iraq. We need our allies, not just for their resources, but for the fact that they often have a better grasp on what is doable and what is not than we do.

As it is, we seem to be running out of feet to shoot ourselves in.

An Introduction:

2005-01-20T09:41:00.000-05:00

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword," Matthew 10:34

As the title suggests, these columns consist entirely of my opinions, some of which are actually grounded in careful thought, some are the result of research and reading, some are simply gut feelings and some are totally unreasoned prejudices.

You might find this amusing, boring, fascinating, annoying or horrifying.

Me, too.

As human beings, we each carry around our fair share of baggage, or, as the saying goes: "Wherever you go, there you are". I have no choice except to relate to the world as myself. No matter how much we try for "objectivity", we never find it (if, indeed, it exists). An honest writer should admit to bias, not obscure his agenda. I will try for honesty with you and with myself.

In keeping with this, I am a white Southerner, raised in Western Civilization, a follower of dead (mostly) white guys. I don't apologize for my nation's history nor do I brag of it. I believe in logic, rationality and science. I also believe in irrational things such as love, loyalty and the existence of God.

Secondly, I have a very peculiar sense of humor. It doesn't bother me a bit to screw up in front of a room full of total strangers, to play the clown or the fool. I intend to goof gloriously in the great tradition of Western Civilization, to screw up in ways undreamed of by the courts and by the scholars of our culture. If you don't make mistakes, you're not trying hard enough. If you don't make mistakes, you never encounter something you didn't expect - and God never intended the Universe to fit inside of any human head (mine most particularly).

Thirdly, I come at a lot of this from a Christian direction. Try not to let it throw you. This is part of me, part of where I come from. I also will throw in the occasional Taoist or Buddhist or Sufi thought on a subject. A lot of the time I will approach a problem from a scientific or "techie" point of view, but sometimes I will approach it from a poet's point of view. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.”--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fourthly, I am not a "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" sort of Christian. I am not a pacifist and do not believe that He was either. I do believe that violence is the first resort of the incompetent and the last of the person who actually knows what he's doing. The reason why Jesus so seldom resorted to violence was because He knew what He was doing, and thus was able to find considerably more effective ways of getting things done than by killing people who didn't like Him.

Fifthly, I am not at all like you in some ways. I am very much like you in other ways. If I was identical to you, I couldn't say anything that you don't already know. If we had nothing in common, communication would be impossible. I hope to be both educational and comprehensible.

Lastly, "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." Meditation XVII - John Donne But some of us are not from the heartland of the continent, some of us are peninsulas connected only partially to the rest of humanity. Science teaches us that extreme cases can teach us things that more normal circumstances would obscure or omit from our attention. I hope that my admitedly odd and extreme existence will at least provide a cautionary example to you, my readers.

All this being said, let me tell you a story.

Saint Francis of Assisi was staying in the town of Gubbio and heard that a wolf was terrorizing the town, killing and devouring not only animals but people as well, leaving the surviving citizens afraid to venture outside of the city walls. Francis decided to go out and confront the wolf himself. After much futile pleading with the saint, a friar and a few of the local citizenry accompanied him outside the town. Suddenly, the wolf appeared, jaws open, fangs glistening and rushed the crowd. Doubtless, without the saint, everyone would have scattered to be attacked individually at the wolf's pleasure.

Francis did not run. He made the Sign of the Cross towards the wolf. The wolf, naturally confused, slowed down to examine the new situation. Then Francis started to preach to the wolf.

“Come to me, Brother Wolf. In the name of Christ, I order you not to hurt anyone.” The wolf stopped, then lay down at Francis's feet as he explained to the wolf that it had been doing wrong, killing not only domestic animals but people as well. “Brother Wolf,” said Francis, “I want to make peace between you and the people of Gubbio. They will harm you no more and you must no longer harm them. All past crimes are to be forgiven.”

The wolf nodded its head in agreement. Then Francis asked the wolf to make a pledge that if the townsfolk would feed the wolf, the wolf would no longer harm them or their livestock. St. Francis extended his hand and the wolf placed its front paw into the saint’s hand. Then Francis commanded the wolf to follow him into town to make a peace pact with the townspeople. The wolf followed the saint into town where the deal was sealed after a rousing sermon by Saint Francis.

For two years the wolf lived amongst the townsfolk, going from door to door for its meals, harming no one and no thing and being harmed by no one. Finally, it died of old age and its passing was mourned by all of the village of Gubbio.

There can be little doubt that the wolf accepted Francis' (and thus Christ's) teachings in so far as it was able - but a wolf's understanding is not a human understanding. Nor is it the viewpoint of a Lamb. Nor is my viewpoint a standard Christian viewpoint. Nor do I claim it to be Christ's viewpoint.

Think of these columns as my testimony, my statement of the truth as I, limited as I am, understand it.

Think of this as the Gospel According to Brother Wolf.