Valediction

Thanks to everyone who has visited this site over the past near-year. Writing these pieces has been a great joy, and the positive response to them has been very gratifying. But writing each one takes a significant amount of time and mental energy, both of which are (as much as I like to think they aren’t) limited. I now need to devote the bulk of those resources to the project of keeping our three growing boys in shoes and braces and books.

There was a lot I wanted—needed—to say after 9/11, and this turned out to be a better venue than I could have hoped for. Your readership and comments and the opportunity to join in this great conversation with friends from around the nation and the world has been one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

McDerMutt and the Bonbon Man

(With apologies to Lewis Carroll)





McDerMutt and the Bonbon Man
     Were riding round the town.
"Why, sir, it’s odd," McDerMutt said,
     "My smile feels like a frown!"
But this was not so odd, for they
     Were riding upside down.

"Perhaps the folks will think it strange
     To see us riding so,"
The Bonbon Man asserted, as
     He fastened his chapeau.
McDerMutt struck a thoughtful pose
     And gravely answered, "No."

"The folks are well accustomed now
     To seeing men of clout
Regard each solemn law as just
     A trifle meant to flout.
Why should the law of gravity
     Be any different, Scout?"

"How wise you are!" the Bonbon Man
     Responded to his chum.
"Your logic is so hard and fast,
     I simply must succumb."
"Quite so," McDerMutt answered back.
     "How thrilling I’ve become!"

"I’d like to have some sport, dear friend,"
     The Bonbon Man said then.
"You think the Bushkins are awake
     And playing in their den?"
A look of glee then passed between
     The Congressory men.

"Oh, Bushkins, little Bushkins!" called
     The now-arighted pair
When they at last had parked before
     The Bushkinicious lair.
"Come out, come out! Let’s have some fun!
     We know you’re all in there!"

"Go ‘way!" cried out a voice within,
     "Vamoose, and don’t come back.
We have no time to play with you—
     We’re planning our attack
On Axis Evil Number One,
     Sadammy of Iraqqq."

"Oh, what a foolish course!" McDer-
     Mutt cried. "You’re all quite dim!"
"The folks will not be happy with
     Your latest warlike whim.
Sadammy will not bother us
     If we don’t bother him."

"And what of our delightful plans?"
     The Bonbon Man chimed in.
"Like festive hats for all the folks—
     On that we must begin—
And lessons in the modern dance:
     A noble discipline."

But as some moments ticked away,
     And then some moments more,
No sound was heard, no one emerged
     Through Bushkins’ oaken door.
"My friend," McDerMutt said, "these are
     Not Bushkins like before."

"Perhaps we could preempt them," said
     The Bonbon Man, in thought.
"I know that look!" McDerMutt whooped,
     "You’ve hatched a jolly plot!
The brilliance of the Bonbon Man
     Will bring their plans to naught!"

So then to Bag-a-Dad did fly
     The legislative mates.
"Just look at us!" McDerMutt roared,
     "A pair of heavyweights!"
And soon the two were skipping through
     Sadammy’s palace gates.

"Heigh-ho, Sadammy, noble sir!"
     The pair exclaimed with glee,
"Are you aware that Bushkins think
     You’re plotting nastily?
Pray demonstrate to us your sheer
     Innocuousity."

"How kind of you to come, dear friends—
     Please join me on a tour,
And I will show you everything,
     And everyone assure
That any thought of violence
     I solemnly abjure."

"Is that a stack of bombs I see,
     Or do I miss my guess?"
The Bonbon Man inquired before
     They’d gone a mile or less.
"Why, yes, you’re right," Sadammy said.
     "My, don’t they make a mess?"

"My predecessor put them there—
     He was a silly goose.
My plan is soon to turn them in-
     To flower pots profuse.
‘Til then, they stay securely locked,
     To guard against their use."

"How splendid!" cried the Bonbon Man.
     "If only Bushkins could
Express such sentiments as yours,
     And do it half as good!"
"It warms my heart," Sadammy said,
     "To be so understood."

"Oh, say, what is that building huge
     My eyes have now espied?"
"An agriculture project, that:
     It makes insecticide.
We need to feed the children," choked
     Sadammy, dewy-eyed.

"The children! Oh, the children!" sobbed
     The much-affected two,
Their eyes becoming redder still
     With every boo and hoo,
Made worse, perhaps, by desert sands
     That now engulfed the crew.

"That building just beyond it makes
     Our smallpox ... uh, vaccine."
McDerMutt sniffled, "That’s the grand-
     Est sight I’ve ever seen,"
While handkerchief held o’er his eyes
     Enhanced his solemn mien.

"We’ve seen enough!" bawled Bonbon Man,
     Still dabbing at his eyes,
"We’ve seen enough to make a hash
     Of Bushkinicious lies!
That they should so distort your rule—
     It simply horrifies!"

"Quite so, dear friend," McDerMutt trilled,
     "We’ve seen enough to tell
Our countrymen of Bushkins’ lies!"
     Sadammy said, "That’s swell.
The studio is over there:
     Godspeed and fare thee well."

Torchy

(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling)




The party boys all come to see me, faces glum and gray:
"The party needs you now, old friend—it needs you far away.
Now, Torch, we hate to say it, but there's so much damn bad
     ink—
Italian suits are pretty, but they make an awful stink."

     O it’s Torchy this, and Torchy that, and "Torchy, pack it in."
     It was "Robert, you’re a wizard" when the money helped
          ‘em win—
     The money helped ‘em win, my boys, the money helped
          ‘em win,
     It was "Robert, you’re a wizard" when the money helped
          ‘em win.

They didn’t mind my ethics when I ran DSCC,
My ethics didn’t matter when I shook the money tree,
Applause and smiles were mine as long as I was at the top,
But ethics start to matter when the polls begin to drop.

     Now it’s Torchy this, and Torchy that, and "Torch, you’ll
          lose, no doubt."
     It was "Thank you, Mister Chairman" when the checks
          were flying out—
     The checks were flying out, my boys, the checks were
          flying out,
     It was "Thank you, Mister Chairman" when the checks
          were flying out.

"The senator will see you now," my secretary said.
You bet he’ll see you—raise you, too: he must be amply fed.
"What’s in the bag? A gift for me? You shouldn’t—what a
     guy!"
I didn't twist their arms, you know—they all lined up to buy.

     Now it’s Torchy this, and Torchy that, and "Torch, they’re
          on your tail."
     It was "Please accept this gift, sir" when the favors went
          on sale—
     The favors went on sale, my boys, the favors went on
          sale,
     O it’s "Please accept this gift, sir" when the favors go on
          sale.

Bomb Dogs

"Navy personnel had to be evacuated, a major road in town was shut down, and military personnel went into their highest state of alert since Sept. 11 on Wednesday after bomb-sniffing dogs reacted to a tanker truck that was loaded with jet fuel and bound for the Brunswick Naval Air Station.

...

Since Sept. 11, the base has been in a heightened state of alert. Public access is restricted, and cars are checked at the main gate. When two bomb-sniffing dogs started to bark and claw at the fuel truck at 1:15 p.m., Navy officials shut down the main gate and alerted the Brunswick Fire Department and local law enforcement authorities. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation also were called in because of the potential terrorist threat.

...

Bomb crews found no evidence of explosives on any of the fuel trucks.

[Base spokesman Bob] Conn said he has no idea what triggered the bomb-sniffing dogs, which are trained to detect explosive devices and substances such as gunpowder."
  — "Bomb-Sniffing Dogs Create Terror Alert in Brunswick," Portland (Maine) Press Herald, 7/25/02





"A flight to Washington, D.C., was delayed for two hours Monday afternoon after bomb-sniffing dogs detected something in the overhead storage bins of a plane.

All bin panels were removed but nothing was found, said Omaha Airport Authority Executive Director Don Smithey."
  — "Bomb Dogs Detect Hit on Airplane," Associated Press, 7/30/02




"While the suspects were taken for questioning, the remaining 90 passengers on the flight were deplaned and taken to the new airport terminal, which is not yet open to the public, while law enforcement agencies searched the aircraft and a bomb-sniffing dog checked luggage.

Investigator John Miller of the ASP bomb squad said the dog alerted on two items, a box belonging to one of the suspects and a laptop computer.

Miller said the ASP used a remote-entry device to open the box, which contained no explosives. He said the dog apparently alerted on the laptop because the passenger who owned it had used it to check sports scores while he was using fertilizer in his garden. The laptop was returned to its owner."
  — "Flight Diverted; Three Arrested," Fort Smith (Ark.) Times Record, 9/12/02




"Law enforcement officials told Fox News that the detained men had no known terrorist connection and that medical equipment in the cars may have caused bomb-sniffing dogs to detect suspicious materials.

...

The Georgia agency issued an advisory for the men's cars, and the cars were pulled over in Florida early Friday after one ran a toll booth on Interstate 75, said Lt. John Bagnardi of the Florida Highway Patrol.

He said the three people were initially uncooperative and refused to allow a search, so authorities brought in the bomb-sniffing dogs.

The dogs alerted authorities to material in both cars, but no explosives were immediately found, said E.J. Picolo of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement."
  — "Police: Florida Threat May Be Hoax," Fox News, 9/13/02




"With dogs, the main concern isn't that they'll miss something, but that they'll alert too easily, respond to something—a welding rod, fax toner—that smells like an explosive but isn't."
  — Amy Standen, "On the Prowl with the Secret Bomb Dogs," Salon, 3/4/02





Are the dogs a good idea? I suppose.
But a chap who does his thinking with his nose
Does not in me much confidence inspire:
It’s brains, not keen olfaction, I admire.
It seems a trifle odd to just hand over
The dicey judgment calls to Pal and Rover.

When bomb dogs catch a scent, they come "alert":
That is, in bomb-dog language they assert
They’ve found a bomb!—or else a welding rod,
Or fertilizer, or some rotting cod.
We’re really not quite sure just what that scent meant,
But, hey—it satisfies the Fourth Amendment.

When gentlemen of Middle East descent
Are overheard remarking that they’re bent
On "bringing down" a certain "it" afar,
Should that not be enough to search their car?
Not so for the indignant Shoney’s Three:
We had to get our pooches to agree.

Malignity

On that day we awoke to malignity,
The ferocious intent to do us harm,
That day of rage and sorrow, of smoke and alarm,
Of souls lost in the fires of iniquity.
We felt the familiar world distort,
As when one sees his pathology report:

Examination reveals a profusion
of poorly differentiated cells
that compose an abnormal mass, which swells
against nearby structures. Intrusion
into adjacent structures is found;
the margin of the mass shows infiltration
of the surrounding tissues. Aberration
of function is pronounced. Necrosis around
the primary site and other nearby
tissues is seen. Evidence of metastatic
spread to distant locations is emphatic.
Indicated aggressiveness is high,
as the cells’ primitive form is apparent.
Diagnosis: neoplasm, malignant.

Yet what we have is not a cancer that kills
By insensate grasp, but one that thrills
In its spread, that rejoices in its sign:
Not malignancy, but malignity.
Its hosts feed and water it like a treasured tree,
In love with malice, rapturous for the malign.

Why do they hate us so? some still ask.
Is this so hard? Don't psychology
And Occam’s razor agree with history?
Because they are haters. They love to bask
In falsehood's glow. They regard the others
As Others, not as ones who might be brothers.

On that day we awoke, and this we know:
The man of malice poses the greatest threat.
If his way be clear, our doom, and his, are met.
Our best will block his way, and each will go
As a surgeon, not exchanging eye for eye:
Excising malignity, dispatching the lie.

Merci for Not Expiring

"The mayor of a French Mediterranean town, faced with a cemetery ‘full to bursting,’ has banned local residents from dying until he can find somewhere else to bury them.

Gil Bernardi, mayor of Le Lavandou on the coast 15 miles west of Saint Tropez, introduced the ban after a court rejected his plans to build a cemetery in a tranquil setting by the sea.

Bernardi said most locals had obeyed the edict so far, but he was desperately trying to find a resting place for a homeless man who had recently passed away in the town.

‘Initially, the decree has been remarkably well followed,’ the mayor said."
  — "French Mayor Bans Residents from Dying," Reuters, 8/22/02




If you want to skip a jailing
when your body takes to ailing
     And the doctor starts to shake his head and sigh,
Just don’t find yourself a-dwellin’
in the town that makes a felon
     Out of any citoyen who tries to die.

If your chest hurts something awful,
go and do it where it’s lawful:
     The boneyard’s full in fair Le Lavandou.
All the signs they’re now requiring
say "Merci for not expiring!"—
     Find somewhere else to bid your last adieu.

When your breathing turns to wheezing,
Mayor Gil you’ll be displeasing,
     And he’ll cut you with his fearsome Gallic scowl:
"Not in this town—it’s illicit.
Could we make it more explicit?
     Get up, get out, allez," he’ll fairly growl.

When you’re nearly nonexistent,
Mayor Gil is most insistent:
     "Just hit the road—you might try St. Tropez."
If you’re soon to be deceasing,
say bonjour to French policing
     When you pick Le Lavandou to pass away.

The Safest Depository

"Curtis Rush used to be a Cynthia McKinney supporter. But Rush, like a lot of DeKalb County voters, helped cast McKinney out of Congress on Tuesday.

Rush, an African-American contractor from Stone Mountain, voted for first-time challenger Denise Majette even though he has had some positive experiences with McKinney.

‘She's highly accessible. She's as close as your phone is. But I think she doesn't fully understand her constituency at this point,’ Rush said, referring to McKinney's well-publicized affinity toward Arab groups critical of U.S. policy. ‘I was really annoyed by that letter to the Saudi prince. That did not represent me.’"
  — "How Denise Majette Beat Cynthia McKinney," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 8/22/02
  (via Reid Stott’s excellent coverage of the Majette-McKinney contest)




Waves of force from towers’ fall,
Spreading outward, topple all
     Who sense them least.

Those embracing raiders’ coin,
Spurning kinsmen’s cause to join,
     Are now decreased.

Gerrymander won’t protect
Those who terror’s friends respect
     At victims’ bier.

Safe seat fails: no perch so high
Insulates from sirens’ cry
     We still can hear.

Rhyming Haiku

     At an Airport

Grannies and geezers
in vexation formation:
"Are those your tweezers?"



     At Homeland Security

Still: sunbeamed dust flits.
Bare wall echoes unheard call.
At a desk, Ridge sits.



     At a Hearing

Dull and cunning eyes,
rictus smile fronts third-rate guile:
Biden, televise.



     The Science behind Global Warming

People become rich
via marts, hard work, and smarts:
There must be a hitch.



     Among the Depletionists

The sun’s gold surrounds,
but their topic’s entropic—
bosh alone abounds.



     Bear Bottom?

Investors, crying
post massacre, start to stir:
Buffett is buying.

Goodbye to All That Low Fat

"If the members of the American medical establishment were to have a collective find-yourself-standing-naked-in-Times-Square-type nightmare, this might be it. They spend 30 years ridiculing Robert Atkins, author of the phenomenally-best-selling ‘Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution’ and ‘Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution,’ accusing the Manhattan doctor of quackery and fraud, only to discover that the unrepentant Atkins was right all along. Or maybe it's this: they find that their very own dietary recommendations -- eat less fat and more carbohydrates -- are the cause of the rampaging epidemic of obesity in America. Or, just possibly this: they find out both of the above are true."
  — Gary Taubes, "What If It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?" New York Times Magazine, 7/7/02




I shall eat no more of rice cakes,
Vermicelli, pretzels, corn flakes,
And those snacks with clever fat fakes
     That I crave:
Now the studies seem to show that
Diets high in extra low fat
Only serve to throw a "Yo!" at
     Early grave.

All that low-fat talk was prattle:
Seems a diet high in fat’ll
Be an ally in the battle
     Of the bulge.
High-carb diet now displeases,
Appetite it ne’er appeases,
We should all choose meats and cheeses
     To indulge.

Now I’ll order rafts of bacon
That I’d long ago forsaken
For to save my heart from achin’
     Who knows when.
In the meat aisle I’ll be rangin’,
Carbs for fats I’ll be exchangin’,
‘Til the doctors’ minds are changin’
     Once again.

Celebration

     Freedom of Speech

Born to thinking, feeling, speaking,
     Each contains a universe;
Larger still the realm they’re seeking,
     Forged from sparks of minds diverse.



     Freedom of Conscience

All are born to own their sinning,
     Born to raise their highest prayers,
Errors large or progress winning,
     Most importantly, it’s theirs.



     The Rule of Law

Search in vain for unchecked power
     Bringing forth a lasting peace,
Freedom grows in law’s sweet bower,
     Fencing out a king’s caprice.



     Equal Justice

Not the strength of high position,
     Not the weak man’s tearful tales,
All alike in free submission
     Stand upon the lady’s scales.



     Freedom of Labor

None is born with yoke or saddle,
     None is born for anthill life,
Those who strive to make them chattel
     Summon only endless strife.



     Private Property

Always will the poorest peasant
     Dream of plot to call his own,
Never is an hour more pleasant
     Than the hour it’s his alone.



     Human Dignity

Let the happy and the careworn
     Peacefully their ends pursue;
At the cry of every newborn,
     Universe is born anew.

Noted

“The signers of this statement call on the people of the US to
resist the policies and overall political direction that have
emerged since September 11, 2001, and which pose grave
dangers to the people of the world.

...

We believe that people of conscience must take responsibility
for what their own governments do—we must first of all
oppose the injustice that is done in our own name. Thus we
call on all Americans to resist the war and repression that
has been loosed on the world by the Bush administration. It
is unjust, immoral, and illegitimate. We choose to make
common cause with the people of the world.

...

President Bush has declared: ‘You're either with us or against
us.’ Here is our answer: We refuse to allow you to speak for
all the American people. We will not give up our right to
question. We will not hand over our consciences in return for
a hollow promise of safety. We say not in our name. We
refuse to be party to these wars and we repudiate any
inference that they are being waged in our name or for our
welfare. We extend a hand to those around the world
suffering from these policies; we will show our solidarity in
word and deed.”
  — “We Won’t Deny Our Consciences,” a statement signed by 70 “prominent Americans,” Guardian, 6/14/02




Good ladies, sirs, fear not: your names will stand
Forever where you choose: amid the band
That shy away from this, your nation’s fight:
Your hands are clean, your consciences are light.

Dear sirs and ladies, consciences like yours
Should not be marred by nasty things like wars,
But polished and preserved above the fray,
Forever just as spotless as today.

You mark your course with certainty and pride,
You trumpet setting base concerns aside,
You see your moral duty clear: to flee
The messy work that keeps your nation free.

The raids prevented, bombers caught or killed,
Will not be in your names, as you have willed.
Your names will not be carved on honored wall,
But lie forever in some different hall.

How strong of you, whose views are so complex,
To uphold standards certain to perplex
All countrymen of yours who lack direction
Of moral compass tuned to such perfection.

How piercingly you parse the claims of those
Who craft the shallow, sentimental prose
Proclaiming cause with claim on our devotion:
How splendid to rebuff such rude emotion.

How thrilling to extend your hands pristine
(Attended by those consciences serene)
To all who seek your countrymen’s demise:
Was ever there such selfless enterprise?

If only generations past had done
What you now do, the peace would long be won.
And if it were a peace of thuggish sway,
Your names would say, “A modest price to pay.”

The Yorktown Was There

“If intelligence gave the Americans prior warning of the
Japanese plan of attack [at Midway], the amazing
restoration of the damaged aircraft carrier Yorktown
ensured that there would be three, not two, American
carriers to meet Admiral Nagumo’s four. Without the vital
role of the Yorktown’s air squadrons in sinking the Japanese
carriers, and the carrier’s drawing the entire Japanese
counteroffensive away from the Enterprise and Hornet, the
battle could easily have been lost.”
                  — Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture



“In the days before Midway, 1,400 welders and pipe fitters
at Pearl Harbor worked fiendishly to repair Yorktown—heavily
damaged weeks earlier at the Battle of the Coral Sea—in a
mere 72 hours; this ensured her vital presence at the battle.”
  — Victor Davis Hanson, “Midway & Today,” New York Post, 6/6/02





Steaming eastward, headed for Midway,
   in June of ‘42,
This much the Japanese admirals
   were confident they knew:
The U.S. Navy was hobbled,
   demoralized by defeat;
It couldn’t stop the progress
   of their fearsome Pacific fleet;
Against their four heavy carriers,
   with experienced pilots and crew,
The U.S. fleet was outnumbered,
   with carriers down to two,
For last month, in the Coral Sea,
   they’d seen the Lexington sink,
And the Yorktown burn so fiercely
   they had every reason to think
That she must have sunk in the night,
   and they needn’t give her a care:
When they made their assault on Midway,
   the Yorktown wouldn’t be there.

At least three bombs had ripped her,
   that day in the Coral Sea,
But none of them had sunk her,
   nor dimmed her crew’s esprit:
They called her the “Fighting Lady,”
   and they wanted another lick;
Two weeks later she limped into Pearl,
   trailing a ten-mile slick.
She slipped into a dry dock,
   and before it was fully drained,
Men in boots were wading around her,
   to note what she’d sustained.
The Yardmaster gave his opinion:
   She’d need a three-month stay.
Admiral Nimitz shook his head:
   She had to be underway
And able to fight in three days—
   that’s all they had for repair.
The Japanese were coming,
   and the Yorktown had to be there.

Some fourteen hundred workmen
   came into the Yorktown then,
Some barely more than boys,
   others grizzled old men,
Each knew what he had to do,
   and each brought a willing heart:
Machinists, welders, and shipwrights,
   each practiced in his art,
Electricians, fitters, and planners,
   they swarmed throughout the decks;
With no written plans or orders,
   they patched the bombs’ effects.
They fought against fatigue,
   eyes aching, muscles sore,
They worked a shift, then slept,
   then arose and worked some more.
They’d seen the carnage at Pearl
   when the foe had struck from the air:
If the Japanese were coming,
   the Yorktown had to be there.

Three days they repaired the Yorktown,
   then she sailed again to war;
She rushed to join her two sisters,
   who had sailed two days before.
As the Yorktown left the harbor,
   she carried some extra crew:
Some Yard men still were inside her,
   still working to make her run true.
The battle was fast and deadly.
   When its roar was heard no more,
All four of the Japanese carriers
   lay entombed on the ocean floor.
Only one of the U.S. carriers
   shared their final estate:
After giving more than she got,
   the Yorktown met her fate.
Dying, she gave full payment
   to those who gave her care
And to all who did their part
   so the Yorktown would be there.

The Mice and the Cat

Once upon an autumn day,
     The sky a cloudless blue,
A happy young mouse was making his way,
     As happy young mice will do,
When all of a sudden, to his dismay:
     “There’s a mouse body—no, there are two!”

The bodies were lifeless, their fur was torn
     And speckled a bloody red.
The mouse knew he couldn’t pause long to mourn,
     Though he briefly bowed his head—
The other mice he had to warn
     Or they’d quickly all be dead.

He ran to the barn, where the other mice were,
     And loudly spread the alarm:
“Two mice are dead! In the yard! And their fur
     Is torn! There’s a cat on the farm!
I saw an orange blur! And heard a low purr!
     We’re all in danger! To arms!”

Then all of the mice—there were nine—gathered round
     The mouse, who spoke his concern:
“We must kill that cat! We must catch! We must pound!
     We must batter, or drown, or burn!”
The other mice listened, then thought—some frowned—
     Then they all spoke their minds in their turn.

An erudite mouse spoke first, with a sigh:
     “Pray temper your artless zeal.
Relations with cats are complex—they defy
     Your all-too-simplistic appeal.
A subtle hand, a sophisticate’s eye:
     I assure you, that’s the ideal.

A peace-loving mouse then gently said,
     “Your eagerness gives me a fright.
You lust after storm and strife, which I dread:
     You’ll bring on a terrible blight.
If we fight that cat, much blood will be shed:
     The worst thing of all is a fight.”

A jittery mouse then gave out a toot:
     “But why does the cat hate us so?
We must have done something to start this dispute:
     It’s that we must hasten to know.
The causes that matter are those that are root:
     Let’s learn them, and battle forgo.”

A comfortable mouse piped up from his seat,
     “Hey, why are you rocking the boat?
I’ve got a nice house, and plenty to eat
     And drink (though I don’t mean to gloat),
And I’ll soon have a pension that can’t be beat:
     Please put down a ‘No’ as my vote.”

A clinical mouse then came to the fore:
     “Are you ill? Are you right in your brain?
No healthy mouse would seek such a war,
     Would welcome such gore and such pain.
You seem to want conflict forevermore:
     Dear sir, you are clearly insane.”

An elderly mouse then softly spoke:
     “My friend, you are very young,
And youth always looks for foes to provoke,
     And youth is always high-strung.
Pray let me the wisdom of age invoke:
     Call for peace, or hold your tongue.”

A timid young mouse then had his say:
     “To fighting I’m quite averse.
Perhaps we could all keep out of his way—
     He won’t find us if we disperse.
Attacking will anger him, then we’ll all pay:
     I fear it would make it worse.”

Then a skeptical mouse said, “You haven’t yet
     Set forth any evidence hard
That the cat killed those mice—perhaps they just met
     With an accident in the yard.
Against the creation of phantom threat
     We always should stand on guard.”

A cooperative mouse was the last: “I suspect
     That much wisdom has here been shown.
We expect that you’ll show the proper respect
     For the group, and not act on your own.
It wouldn’t be fitting for you to elect
     To mount an attack alone.”

Then the mouse who had started it all said, “Friends,
     Your words have held me in thrall,
But I fear that doom for us all impends
     If I heed your gentle call.
Though it’s peace I crave, the cat contends—
     I must fight, for the sake of us all.”

The Dean’s Box

“By the time I moved to Calcutta [in the late Seventies], a
communist government had come to power in Bengal. One
of its first acts was to name the street on which the US
Consulate stood after Ho Chi Minh. Otherwise too the
intellectual climate was suffused with hostility to America.
Our heroes were Marx and Mao, and, moving on, writers
who had taken our side in the Cold War, such as Jean Paul
Sartre and Gabriel García Márquez.

I became a member of the local British Council, but would
not enter the library of the United States Information Service.
Then my wife got a scholarship to Yale, and I reluctantly
followed. I reached New Haven on a Friday, and was
introduced to the Dean of the School where I was to teach.
On Sunday I was taking a walk through the campus when I
saw the Dean park his car, take a large carton out of the
boot, and carry it across the road to the School and up
three flights to his office.

That sight of the boss as his own coolie was a body blow to
my anti-Americanism. My father and grandfather had both
been heads of Indian research laboratories; any material
they took to work or back—even a slim file with a single
piece of paper in it—would be placed in the car by one
flunkey and carried inside by another. (Doubtless the
Warden of an Oxford College can likewise call upon a willing
porter.) Over the years, I have often been struck by the
dignity of labour in America, by the ease with which high-
ranking Americans carry their own loads, fix their own
fences, and mow their own lawns. This, it seems to me, is
part of a wider absence of caste or class distinctions.
Indian intellectuals have tended to downplay these
American achievements: the respect for the individual, the
remarkable social mobility, the searching scrutiny to which
public officials and state agencies are subjected. They see
only the imperial power, the exploiter and the bully, the
invader of faraway lands and the manipulator of international
organizations to serve the interests of the American
economy. The Gulf War, as one friend of mine put it, was
undertaken ‘in defence of the American way of driving’.”
   — Ramachandra Guha, “What We Think of America,” Granta 77, 3/28/02




A dean totes his box up the stairs,
Confounding an onlooker’s code:
In what land does an eminent chair
Serve as coolie, disgraced by his load?

A people who seek subjugation—
Inveterate bullies, the lot—
Who plunder to fatten their nation
And would rather be cruel than not,

With a lust for power demonic
And a fondness for robbing the poor,
Hellbent on a world hegemonic,
Just itching to start up a war?

Or a country concerned with essentials,
Tired of customs with no useful part,
Where hard work is perceived quintessential
And the practical raised to an art,

Where careers are thrown open to talents,
Where caste has been left behind,
Where mobility generates balance
And competence stands enshrined?

Is it bullies in search of new servants
Or a people too busy for airs?
Let seekers of truth be observant
Of that dean with his box on the stairs.

Song of an Animal Lover

"Police charged a 32-year-old animal rights activist with the
first political assassination in modern Dutch history
yesterday ....

Volkert van der Graaf is accused of firing five shots from close
range into the chest and head of the far-right [sic] leader Pim
Fortuyn, and, if convicted, faces a maximum 20-year [sic] jail
sentence. ...

[van der Graaf’s] ... work for an environmental campaign
group, Milieu Offensief (Environment Offensive), made him
well known to farmers in the Netherlands' conservative
'Bible belt.'

Each time they sought to change their farming permits, they
would come up against Mr van der Graaf, first in their local
council, then in the national courts. Peter Olofson, a farmer
with 800 cattle on his land just outside Harderwijk, said the
murder suspect 'was like a dog: he would not let go. ... He
was a fanatic, he was out to destroy all the farmers in the
area. It was animals, animals, animals—he didn't care about
people.'

The two men met three or four times and Mr van der Graaf
revealed how strict his eating habits were. 'He tried to cut
off eating all meat. He's a super-vegan—no milk, no honey,'
said Mr Olofson.
...
Police are investigating potential links between Mr van der
Graaf and an unsolved murder in 1996 in nearby Nunspeet,
when a council farming advisor was shot dead at close range
while jogging.

... Mr Fortuyn ... was not outspoken on the environment. [He]
was a dog lover and had also criticised factory farming
methods.

But he had also attacked the green movement and suggested
loosening of controls on farmers, particularly those in the fur
trade. That may have been a particular challenge to Mr van
der Graaf, who was an expert in deploying the minutiae of
the law against the factory farming he despised."
                           — Stephen Castle, Independent, 5/9/02




Through gently rolling countryside
     I often take my strolls;
I love to watch the tender mares
     Attending to their foals,
I love the woodland creatures wild,
     The squirrels, rabbits, voles—
And if you do not love them too,
     I’ll drill you full of holes.

I love to see them frolic in
     Bucolic pastures spread;
I love to see them led inside
     Of rustic barn or shed.
The threat of farming factories
     O'erflows my soul with dread—
And if you don’t agree with me,
     I’ll fill you full of lead.

If only everyone would learn
     My lesson all humane:
To shy away from causing fel-
     Low creatures any pain,
And know that any harm to them
     Is evil or insane—
And if you say that is not so,
     Then say auf Wiedersehen.

How Nice for the British!

“It is one of those silent, brooding mornings in a small Dixie
town: already hot and humid just after breakfast-time. There
is hardly anything here: just a shop, a filling station and a
building with a sign saying Total Fitness, though judging by
the rusty chain holding the padlock, that has been closed for
a long time. There is hardly anyone about either, and they all
move slowly: partly because of the heat, partly because they
cannot do otherwise. The average weight of the population
appears to be around 20 stone. The name of the place,
without a word of a lie, is Chunky, Mississippi.

...

Obesity is now said to be responsible for 300,000 American
deaths every year—that's 100 times the number killed on
September 11 ..."
      — Matthew Engel, “Land of the Fat,” Guardian, 5/2/02




How nice for the British! Their chronicler of Dixie
Is still on the move, still chasing after hicks: he,
Like some Anglo Rocky, like those old Timex watches,
Takes a Lileksing and keeps on ticking out botches.

Chunky, Mississippi! How many hours with gazetteer,
Sweaty, bleary-eyed, to find perfect target for his sneer!
Was Obese, Oklahoma, not to be found? No Lardass,
Louisiana? (Look out, yankees: next stop, Athol, Mass.)

Eager not only to point out rotundity,
He does math too, and shows, with air of profundity,
How much more destructive are sweet, fatty snacks
Than militant Islamic terror attacks.

Thanks for kindness extended to strangers? Such chumps.
Glimpses of steel that stands against tyrants? Just schlumps.
Fellow feeling toward dauntless allies? Too fat.
How nice for the British! A reporter like that.

Worse Than the French

“What the French election revealed is that in France, as in
the United States, there are a lot of angry people. ...

What are the angry people angry about? Not economics;
peace and prosperity did not reconcile them to Bill Clinton
or to Mr. Jospin. Instead, it seems to be about traditional
values. Our angry right rails against godless liberals;
France's targets immigrants. In both cases, what really
seems to bother them is the loss of certainty; they want to
return to a simpler time, one without that disturbing modern
mix of people and ideas.

...

Now for the important difference. Mr. Le Pen is a political
outsider; his showing in Sunday's election puts him into the
second-round runoff, but he won't actually become France's
president. So his hard-right ideas won't be put into practice
anytime soon. In the United States, by contrast, the hard
right has essentially been co-opted by the Republican
Party—or maybe it's the other way around. In this country
people with views that are, in their way, as extreme as Mr.
Le Pen's are in a position to put those views into practice.

Consider, for example, the case of Representative Tom
DeLay. Last week Mr. DeLay told a group that he was on
a mission from God to promote a ‘biblical worldview,’ and
that he had pursued the impeachment of Bill Clinton in
part because Mr. Clinton held ‘the wrong worldview.’ Well,
there are strange politicians everywhere. But Mr. DeLay
is the House majority whip—and, in the view of most
observers, the real power behind Speaker Dennis Hastert.

And then there's John Ashcroft.

What France's election revealed is that we and the French
have more in common than either country would like to
admit. There as here, there turns out to be a lot of
irrational anger lurking just below the surface of politics
as usual. The difference is that here the angry people are
already running the country.”
                    — Paul Krugman, New York Times, 4/23/02




See the people, dull and dim, pull
Voting levers for the simple,
Like some dreadful, pussy pimple
     On the body politic.
Angry at the loss of certain,
With the rightists they are flirtin’
When they step inside the curtain:
     It’s enough to make you sick.

Skeptical about the Euro?
Dubious of EU bureau-
Crats who seem to make a thorough
     Hash of everything they do?
Tired of hearing Muslims boast of
How they’d like to make French toast of
All and sundry of their host, of
     Whom they have a jaundiced view?

No, there can’t be reasons for it;
Lightly stir and gently pour it
Into vessels used before: it
     Sure beats thinking twice a week.
Bad as was the French election,
U.S.A.’s on worse direction,
Prompting thoughtful, sage reflection:
     Tom DeLay and Ashcroft: Eek!

Now Courage Call, and Dark Concerns Dispel

“We can all remember when the Mideast was not a crisis
but rather an unanswered question: How will they find
peace? It was a place that in our lifetimes had not achieved
amity and accord but was not always at war, at least not
always in full, hot war.

But now everyone—literally everyone you read, hear, speak
to—has the sense that events are accelerating toward
some unknown outcome. And no one—no one—believes the
outcome will be good. We are out of optimists and optimism.
The scenarios floated are dire. ‘Watch Lebanon,’ says the
ahead-of-the-pack Charles Krauthammer. Hezbollah in
southern Lebanon has 8,000 Katyusha rockets; they have
already threatened to hit Haifa. If they do, Israel will
answer, and not only in Lebanon but possibly in Syria,
where the Hezbollah receives support. Syria would likely
strike back with chemical weapons. Israel would answer
unconventionally. And Armageddon is launched.

Tuesday night I bumped into a celebrated foreign-policy
genius at a birthday party for a friend. He told me he
thought that President Bush is doing well, has not yet
made any serious mistakes. I said I agreed, and that I
thought any effort that buys us time is good. By ‘us’ I meant
the world. He surprised me with his vehemence. ‘There is
no “land for peace,” ’ he said. ‘There is only land for time.’

‘This is not solvable,’ he added. And he had spent his life
trying to solve international problems.

...

It is easier to fight than to pray. In fact it's much easier to
fight than to pray. It's one of the reasons we do more of
the former than the latter.

...

Prayer is the hardest thing. And no one congratulates you
for doing it because no one knows you're doing it, and if
things turn out well they likely won't thank God in any
case. But I have a feeling that the hardest thing is what
we all better be doing now, and that it's not only the best
answer but the only one.”
                — Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, 4/12/02




Now courage call, and dark concerns dispel:
The closed racecourse of fear is better quelled
Than let to run. The shadow has been there
A time; we slept in comfort, unaware.
When now we wake, it casts a fearsome form
That seems a portent of some dreadful storm.
Fear not: the light does it, not us, offend:
It is our waking that will make its end.

Great lands are not brought down by such as these:
The lost and damned, whose god they seek to please
With godless hate; this swarm of all that fails;
This lie-fed multitude; this tribe that wails
About their plight, while dreaming of a day
When cheap and easy greatness comes their way;
This ignorant and falsely guided crew,
Who would be great, but know not what to do.

Our land has geniuses you do not know:
Its ways grow bumper crops as apples grow
In autumns crisp. Trust the land of your birth,
The land where freedom’s power blooms, in mirth
And in righteous wrath. It will do no harm
To pray, but put your faith as well in arms
Of power greater than despots’ ambition:
Free people, by the millions, with a mission.

The Marvelous Lie-Detecting Machine

“In the wake of the FBI's embarrassment at having one
of its own caught spying for the Russians, ... FBI Director
Robert Mueller announced that the FBI will dramatically
increase the use of lie detectors, beginning with more
than 1,000 of its employees. Such a move would be a
substantial mistake. ... [N]o scientific evidence exists
demonstrating that polygraph screening tests, whether
administered during the application process or as part of
a routine security reinvestigation, have any validity.
Studies undertaken for the Department of Defense's
Polygraph Institute, which trains FBI polygraphers, reveal
that screening tests fail time after time. In fact, the
polygraph determines whether a person is lying with
accuracy only slightly greater than chance. Moreover,
studies have repeatedly shown that the polygraph is more
likely to find innocent people guilty than vice versa.”
               — Mark S. Zaid, Washington Post, 4/16/02




Wouldn’t it be marvelous if there were a machine
By which the moral nature of a person could be seen?
          To see pens making squiggles,
          And markings dancing wriggles,
          And needles doing jiggles,
          And pixels drawing wiggles,
And by such means a person’s state of virtue quickly glean?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that machine could tell
The lying from the truthful ones, and do it very well?
          By readings pulmonary,
          Constrictions capillary,
          Dilations pupillary,
          Recordings coronary,
Could shine a brilliant light that made the fog of lies dispel?

Wouldn’t it be curious if such machine could be?
If everyone betrayed the same when under third-degree?
          If every fabrication,
          Fallacious formulation,
          Deceitful declaration,
          Evasive explanation,
Would cause the same response inside of him and her and
   me?

Wouldn’t it be requisite, for us to think it works,
To treat the deeper twists within as unimportant quirks?
          A conscience untormenting,
          Reality resenting,
          Taxonomies inventing,
          Excuses all fermenting:
Ignore the sly deceivers that in hidden chambers lurk?

Woe Is Mo

“At the opening of ‘The Sweet Smell of Success’ last month,
a successful New York guy I know took me aside for a
lecture that was anything but sweet. He said he had wanted
to ask me out on a date when he was between marriages,
but nixed the idea because my job made me too intimidating.
Men, he told me, prefer women who seem malleable and
overawed. He said I would never find a mate, because if
there's one thing men fear, it's a woman who uses her
critical faculties. ...

[Sylvia Ann] Hewlett, the author of ‘Creating a Life:
Professional Women and the Quest for Children,’ observes,
yet again, that men have an unfair advantage. ‘Nowadays,’
she says, ‘the rule of thumb seems to be that the more
successful the woman, the less likely it is she will find a
husband or bear a child. For men, the reverse is true.’ ...

So the moral of the story is, the more women accomplish,
the more they have to sacrifice? The problem here is not
only that women are procrastinating too long; it is that men
veer away from ‘challenging’ women because they have an
atavistic desire to be the superior force in a relationship. ...

If men would only give up their silly desire for world
dominance, the world would be a much finer place. Look at
the Taliban. Look at the Vatican. Now, look at the bonobo.
Bonobos, or pygmy chimpanzees, live in the equatorial rain
forests of Congo, and have an extraordinarily happy
existence. And why? Because in bonobo society, the
females are dominant. Just light dominance, so that it is
more like a co-dominance, or equality between the sexes. ...

There's no battle of the sexes in bonoboland.”
               — Maureen Dowd, New York Times, 4/10/02





     No man will have her:
She’s far too challenging to know.
     Fifty’s not nifty
With no hubby, no kids in tow.
     It’s all so unfair:
Men should be more like bonobo.

     Those smart pygmy chimps
Know how to run a proper show:
     The gal chimps on top,
The happy fellas down below.
     Life would be just fine
If men were more like bonobo.

     She-chimp rule is light:
It’s a dominance more like co-;
     Equality, really.
How happy if men would forgo
     Their Taliban urges
And be more like the bonobo.

     And how sharp, that Mo,
Critical faculties aglow:
     Only simpletons
Think we tend to reap what we sow;
     Boldly she dares dream
Of men transformed to bonobo.

The New Sophists

“Members of the Norwegian committee that awards the
annual Nobel Peace Prize have launched an unprecedented
verbal assault on Israeli Foreign Minister and Nobel peace
laureate Shimon Peres. ... In an interview with a Norwegian
newspaper, committee members said they regretted that
Mr Peres' prize could not be recalled because, as a member
of the Israeli cabinet, he had not acted to prevent Israel's
re-occupation of Palestinian territory. One member said Mr
Peres had not lived up to the ideals he expressed when he
accepted the prize. ‘What is happening today in Palestine is
grotesque and unbelievable,’ said Hanna Kvanmo. ... Oslo
Bishop Gunnar Stalsett, a committee member for the past
eight years, describes as ‘absurd’ what he sees as the
involvement of a Nobel laureate in human rights abuses.
Other committee members argue that the Israeli
government's actions in general and Mr Peres' involvement
in particular are threatening to bring the prize into
disrepute.”
                                          — BBC News, 4/5/02




The Sophist Thrasymachus said: Might makes right,
In Plato’s Republic’s first book;
That justice belongs to the strong in a fight;
No rebuke need the mighty brook.

Then Socrates told of his doubts (at great length)
That justice inheres in the strong,
As he showed (one would think) that weakness and strength
Aren’t related to right and wrong.

In these vastly enlightened times, there are those
Who agree with the Sophist Greek,
With a minor inversion: the side he chose—
They think justice belongs to the weak.

The wretched and poor can't do wrong—don't you see?—
The successful can do no right;
The downcast are blameless, new Sophists agree:
All is justified by their plight.

Set off nail bombs in pizzerias? That’s fine:
The losers can never do wrong.
Blow up a Passover Seder? It’s benign:
How else can the weak fight the strong?

The problem with Hitler was power, it seems:
Impoverished Hitlers are fine;
We ought to indulge them in their noisy dreams
Of a Judenrein Palestine.

And when Israelis decline to play their role
In this happy, bloody dream,
And fight as they must, with survival the goal?
“It’s grotesque,” invert-Sophists scream.

They tell us it’s justice and peace they proffer,
That it’s peace and justice they crave.
To Israelis, the only justice they offer
Is the wasteland peace of the grave.

Like a Four-Car Pileup from Which
the Sensitive Avert Their Eyes

“Virginia, I am thinking of writing, uncharitably, about
Blogistan in general, although I have followed your work
for some time and would pick a nit, much less a quarrel,
with you only against my better judgment. But really—
what is the signal-to-noise ratio here? You, Kaus, keep
the coherence level high day by day, but ... after that,
le blog-uge.”
          — Alex Beam to Virginia Postrel, 3/31/02



“James, weren't you once a talented humor writer? Why
are you churning out this web dreck? I can't tell if these
bleats about Rod Serling or the Palestinians are diluting
your humor work, because I can't claim to know it well
enough, but I certainly have my suspicions.”
          — Alex Beam to James Lileks, 3/31/02



“The Web loggers' main shortcoming is their compunction
[sic] to ‘say’ something several times a day, consequences
be damned. ... Another cloying attribute of bloggers is
their intense admiration for other bloggers. Many of their
Web sites link to one another's, which serves to build
collective audience. But clicking beyond the above-
mentioned writers, or the likes of Virginia Postrel and
Mickey Kaus (both too smart to write every day), lands
you in the remote wilds of Lower Blogovia very quickly.
Over the weekend, for instance, Postrel posted a link to
Norwegian revolutionary (!) Bjorn Staerk's bizarre
recommitment to left-wing raving: ‘This new blog is
dedicated to the coming revolution, and the age of peace
and equality it heralds.’ (More Staerk: ‘Noam Chomsky
is a brave man, and how he escapes imprisonment in
that horrible police state he lives in is beyond me.’)”
          — Alex Beam, Boston Globe, 4/2/02



“Conspicuous flaming idiocy .... [I]ts hilarious misreading
of Bjorn’s April Fools page was delicious. A masterpiece
of the genre.”
          — James Lileks, 4/3/02




He’s the ‘62 Mets of the features page,
The de Havilland Comet of the modern age.
As solid as the Tacoma Narrows Bridge,
As sure as the Exxon Valdez, or Tom Ridge.
He’s the fourth Stooge, Charlie Brown without the nice,
The Titanic steaming madly toward the ice,
The Ottoman Empire of the copy desk,
With head so marbleized it’s quite statuesque.
Of prose pros in Beantown, he’s the shoddiest,
Of all Hub nimrods, he’s the nimroddiest.
He’s the ornament of the All-Schlump team:
Hail King Alex, news crap-out supreme!

Not This Time

“There will be no second Holocaust.”
          — The great Victor Davis Hanson, 3/18/02




No more little girls hiding in attics,
No human ash chimneys working round the clock,
No more death dreams from eager fanatics,
No ferret-faced bureaucrats in the dock.

Other horrors may come, but not that one.
No Islamic Hitler will get his cue.
There will be no genocidal rerun;
We’ve been there before, and it’s through.

Stifle your yearning for pre-’48,
Put into-the-sea dreams with the fairy tales.
Your troubles will find no balm in hate:
No Holocaust allowed to soothe what ails.

Not concerned with what Allah wants or doesn’t,
Don’t care what it says in your holy text,
Doesn’t matter if your sad story was or wasn’t.
Don’t try it: you won’t like what comes next.

As the Appliances Drone and Hiccup

“The Madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming
through. You could feel it: something terrible was going
to happen. The sun low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling
star. Gust after gust of disorder. Trees restless,
temperatures falling, the whole northern religion of
things coming to an end. No children in the yards here.
Shadows lengthened on yellowing zoysia. Red oaks
and pin oaks and swamp white oaks rained acorns on
houses with no mortgage. Storm windows shuddered
in the empty bedrooms. And the drone and hiccup of a
clothes dryer, the nasal contention of a leaf blower, the
ripening of local apples in a paper bag, the smell of the
gasoline with which Alfred Lambert had cleaned the
paintbrush from his morning painting of the wicker love
seat.”
— First paragraph of The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen




The first sentence grabs you like a crazy, toothless crone
Who won’t let go: meteorological madness!
Delphic gusts of chaos blow fear in the bone.
This is no ordinary midwestern wind, that’s for sure,
The kind into which an ordinary midwesterner might bend
And think no more than “Stiff wind—a real blaster.”
No, this Franzen wind carries not weather but disaster:
The whole northern religion of things is coming to an end.
(Not sure what that means; don’t quite comprehend:
Never heard of a wind blowing down a whole religion,
Let alone a whole religion of things.
But I will be patient: all will come clear in the end.)

“Shadows lengthened on yellowing zoysia”:
Note the masterstroke: zoysia.
Nothing so mundane in FranzenLand as grass.
You can hear the men talking in that northern clime:
“Hey, Clem: your zoysia’s gettin’ a mite long, friend.”
“I know, Bob, I’m gonna have to mow that zoysia soon.
Not today, though; I don’t have time;
The missus has Gallus domesticus for evening repast.
Maybe tomorrow afternoon,
After our whole northern religion of things comes to an end.”
“Yeah, you should have plenty of free time then.”

Such an eerie otherness—such a refreshing gloom!—
This would-be American scene has:
This shuddering, childless, mortgage-free, doomed
America with its rude personified appliances,
Dying in the light of a dying star.
What lies behind those shuddering windows?
What unspeakable crimes have been done, and still are,
By the soulless creatures who paid off those mortgages?
What torments did those affluent midwesterners inflict
On a certain young novelist-to-be?
Sing to me, O Franzen! Tell me yet more:
Of the catarrhous croup of a lawn mower,
The angry dissonant burping of a bee,
And the sibilant whisperings of a car
With only three more payments left on it.

If Gray Davis Wrote a Villanelle

(On March 9, 2002, the San Diego Union-Tribune published
an interview with California’s Democratic governor and
gubernatorial candidate, Gray Davis, conducted by the
Union-Tribune’s editorial board. What follows are some of
Davis’s comments, edited and arranged into the form of a
villanelle. All the words are Davis’s, except that the
sentences ending in question marks are paraphrases of
interviewers’ questions, and the phrase “as it ought” has
been added in the fourth stanza for the rhyme.)




I didn’t moan and groan. I didn’t say “Woe is me.”
I kept the lights on. I should get applause. I don’t get squat.
This is like a war. This is a full-out war against me.

I didn’t deserve the mess I inherited in energy.
People say I blew the contracts? They don’t know squat.
I didn’t moan and groan. I didn’t say “Woe is me.”

I’m delighted that people are now seeing the duplicity
That Enron practiced because Enron was the best of the lot.
This is like a war. This is a full-out war against me.

I explained time and again, we shouldn’t be slaves to a
     theory.
I said this is a theory, it is not working as it ought.
I didn’t moan and groan. I didn’t say “Woe is me.”

Simon’s win due to me? I don’t vote in the Republican primary.
Do I have qualms about all the money I’m raising? Absolutely
     not.
This is like a war. This is a full-out war against me.

I got the job done. People just roundly criticize me.
I rolled up my sleeves. I kept the lights on. I don’t get squat.
I didn’t moan and groan. I didn’t say “Woe is me.”
This is like a war. This is a full-out war against me.