A line of hieroglyphics, the heqa-crook

Nefertiti and a sphinx with Tutankhamen’s head
The sphinx, the sphinx

The riddle of the sphinx
Not a very clever riddle
Except for the third leg

Does the riddle have anything to do with it?

NO!

The old man with a staff
Brain partially exposed
Drooling
Hair missing
Eyes falling out

Try to make him move forward, so difficult
No, don’t try
Just watch

He suddenly turns to bones that collapse and clatter on the floor

I walk over and grab his staff
Then beat his bones to powder with it
I walk away with his stick
Humming a tune

There should be an Internet Law (“law” as in “description of the inevitable”, rather than “imposition of the will of the state”), similar to Godwin’s Law, that says that whoever lets their emotions get the better of them and resorts to argumentum ad hominem automatically loses the debate. Perhaps there already is such a rule, but the trouble is that people have a hard time recognizing argumentum ad hominem. How many times have you seen a discussion like this?:

1337dood: Your idiotic ad hominem attacks carry no weight with me.

ieatbrainz: Ad hominem?!! Look who’s talking, calling me an idiot. I wasn’t attacking you personally, it’s what you *SAID* that I called stupid.

1337dood: Obviously you know nothing about logical argument. You’re just a sad and angry troll.

ieatbrainz: Well you’re just a self-important douchebag.

Both of our conversationalists have descended into personal attacks, while accusing each other of that offense. Obviously, we need a simpler guideline. I propose the URA Rule:

Any statement containing the phrase “you are a” (or its equivalent) marks the end of reasonable discussion.

If what follows “you are a” is less than complimentary, then we have an argumentum ad hominem. If it is neutral, then it is still a distraction from reasonable argument — perhaps it’s seeking to analyze the reasons why someone might pursue a line of thought, but it’s focusing on the speaker rather than the ideas under discussion. Even if it’s praise (e.g. “you are a god of philosophy”), we have left the debate hall and entered the temple of personality.

I call it the URA Rule instead of the “You Are A” Rule, for three reasons:

1. It’s more concise, memorable, and easier to type
2. It uses textese, so it fits the milieu of the phenomenon it describes
3. It’s a TLA
4. If you don’t like it, you’re just a pedant.

EDIT: Chad Perrin pointed out that personal attacks per se do not constitute argumentum ad hominem, but only if they are used as part of the argument. He’s right, but I still think they’re a distraction from reasonable argument.

The other side of the coin is when someone thinks you’re attacking them, when in fact you’re really attacking their argument. You can use this rule conversely in that case: you didn’t say “you are a” (or the equivalent).

I was born with Amblyopia, and had only blurry vision in my right eye. My parents took me to one of the best eye surgeons available, and I underwent surgery at age 3. I still remember the nurse putting the anesthetic mask over my mouth, and the bright lights and pungent odor of ethyl alcohol in the room right before they knocked me out. After the surgery, my right eye was kept shut until it healed. An old 8MM home movie shows my sister sitting beside me on the couch trying to wink like I could.

After my eye healed, I often had to wear a patch over the left eye to force me to use the right eye, and strengthen it. I hated that patch. It wasn’t a cool, black pirate patch with a rakish strap. No, it had all the charm of a big band-aid, with the same odor and stickiness. The feeling of it sticking to my face engendered a visceral loathing for sticky things that still bothers me.

My right eye did become strong enough to see clearly. But I still suffered from a strabismus, or misalignment, which prevented me from coordinating the pictures from both eyes into a three-dimensional composite. I quickly found that I could switch pictures at will, though, so I learned to compensate by rapidly switching the two pictures to eliminate illusions of flatness. However, I never used that technique to judge distance. Rather, I would observe the geometry of my two-dimensional image — for instance, how much floor was visible between me and the chair. That doesn’t work well for baseballs and other flying objects. My inability to catch and hit became a tiresome joke.

In the dorm room that night, Ben prayed for my eye, the other guys joining him. I opened my eyes, and I was looking out of both of them at the same time, but seeing one picture.

At first, I couldn’t believe it. “Uh, guys,” I said. “I can see out of both eyes!” They looked up at me, and they could see that my eyes were aligned. I could look into their eyes with both of mine, for the first time. Our prayer session ended with much thanksgiving, and generated quite a bit of excitement in our dorm and across the campus.

The next day when I awoke, I went to the mirror. My eyes were still aligned. I felt a sense of relief that it really was true.

Living with this new visual experience proved to be more difficult than I would have imagined. I was not used to a three-dimensional image, which was far more complex and imprecise (so it seemed to me) than a flat image. Reading was particularly hampered by the noise.

Months later, I began to notice that my eye would drift out of alignment again when I wasn’t thinking about it, and I would go back to seeing out of just one eye. But I could easily bring them back into alignment and stereoscopic vision if I thought about it. I didn’t tell my friends about this. They had been so edified by the event, that I didn’t want to bring them down at all by making it anything less than a complete healing. I realize now that I thereby did them (and me) a disservice.

I’ve found that I’m generally more comfortable seeing out of only one eye at a time. But I can still bring them together, with an effort. I do sometimes, just to remind myself what that’s like.

What actually happened to me on that night? I had never been able to coordinate my eyes before. We prayed about that, and then I could. Those are facts, as far as I’m concerned. But the causes are not so easily nailed down. It could be that my inability to align my eyes before was due simply to my strongly held belief that I couldn’t. Believing in a god who heals provided a “reasonable” (and highly emotional) basis for overcoming that mental hurdle. In the words of Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” That hypothesis aligns (excuse the pun) with my subsequent observations that visual coordination required an effort — an effort I didn’t even notice until the initial excitement wore off.

I’m not dogmatic, though. I’ve been through enough changes to know that how I view things today may seem ridiculously obsolete tomorrow. I don’t completely rule out the idea of a divine agent in this story, although in my current view of things that’s more of a choice of metaphor than a substantive difference.

At the time of this event, I called myself a Charismatic Christian. I believed that the Bible was the Word of God, and I studied it assiduously. I read up to thirty chapters a day in multiple translations. I majored in Biblical Literature, and studied Hebrew and Greek in order to be able to get at what the text “really” said. That’s how I found out several things. There is no “true” text. The Bible is highly fallible. Its writers didn’t think the way we do, and certainly not the way modern Christians do. The Bible is a human document that describes a human journey through an evolving mixture of religious beliefs. If there is truth behind it, it isn’t in the words themselves, despite the Hebrew penchant for confusing the two.

Thus, I now call myself a radical agnostic. Agnostic, to me, is different than Atheist in important ways. I’m not just a non-committal atheist. I don’t say “there is no god.” I think that question probably ends up being about definitions, which are after all metaphors (no matter how technically precise). Rather, I say, “I don’t know.” I prefix “radical” to that, because I don’t view this agnosis as a disability. Rather, I think it’s a key facility for remaining open to whatever knowledge and experience may come my way. It’s also a humble recognition that the three-pound meat computer in my head may not even be capable of the accurate representation of trivial things, let alone questions on the order of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

My Dad always trained me to come when he called, without delay and without asking any questions. He drilled it into my head that if I hesitated and it turned out to be an emergency, someone could lose their life. The only legitimate response would be “Yes, sir!” uttered while complying. So one day when he said to me, “Come on, Son,” I followed him up the cinderblock steps from our house to our driveway at the top of the hill. He kept a large stack of lumber there, with which he had originally intended to fulfill my mother’s dream of a wrap-around deck for our house. But the deck never materialized. Instead, we stole pieces of this lumber for various projects over the years — a chicken coop here, rebuilding a staircase there — and I expected this day to begin with yet another such project.

As I reached the top of the stairs, I saw something in the driveway. Confusion and disbelief made it almost invisible — I had to blink twice to see it properly: a “Lil Indian” minibike, much like the one pictured at the bottom of this post. My face must have faithfully reproduced my shock and joy, because Dad laughed so hard that his cigarette fell out of his mouth.

I imagine that Dad got the bike for a good price. He knew everyone in our little town, and he knew how to call old favors to remembrance. But it meant a lot to me, much more than the bike itself, that Dad had gone to that trouble just to fulfill my wish.

Dad often supervised when my sister and I took turns riding the bike, especially at first. He’d take his turn, too. His 6’2″ lanky frame looked comical perched on the tiny bike, with his long legs sticking out on either side like a grasshopper. He’d reach underneath the seat and open the governor (a simple device on top of the engine that prevented the throttle from being opened past a certain point) so the little bike could exceed its usual top speed of about 40 MPH, and he taught us how to do the same. Dad seemed to enjoy this thwarting of authority. He despised all measures designed to protect people from their own behavior. Of course, we never wore a helmet or pads of any sort, and nobody got killed or even seriously maimed.

Our riding opportunities opened up when the Highway Department began building the US 29 bypass around the town of Gretna. The bypass began about a half mile before our house. They demolished the bridge and culvert over White Thorn Creek on the original highway just below our house, but they left about a quarter mile of pavement leading down to it intact for weeks before they began to lay the new grade. A couple of the neighbor kids would come over and we’d all take turns riding up and down that stretch.

The bridge demolition left so much debris that my sister and I could write things in it, and being pre-teens meant that we felt compelled to do so as impolitely as we dared. One day, I wrote something about my sister, then called her over to see. I planned to escape on the minibike as soon as her anger erupted. This seemed to work perfectly. She called out something offensive after me, and I looked over my shoulder to see her face while racing up the hill at full throttle. I hit a piece of debris in the old roadway and found myself under the bike. It wasn’t very heavy, but the muffler burned a nice patch on my thigh (I was wearing shorts), and a good chunk of meat was missing from my knee. I still have the scar on my knee, although it’s hard to make it out now forty years later. The Lil Indian sustained no damage.

After the Highway Department laid the grade and before they started paving, we could ride the minibike for miles on the grade all the way around Gretna and back. And after they built an access road for us, we could ride that for half a mile in each direction. I don’t remember in what manner we retired the Lil Indian from service. I only remember all the fun we had riding it, and that Dad enjoyed it as much as anyone.

Parts of this military town are falling apart through neglect, where businesses have closed and none have taken their place, or property owners have allowed their houses and rental properties to age naturally. Others, though, are defiantly well-maintained — new paint or fence, a lawn you could putt on. They’re the retaining wall of their neighborhood.

When I needed a haircut, I decided to try out the barber shop that’s within easy walking distance of my apartment — but only if it wasn’t too pricey. I stepped in the door. The only person there, a small oriental woman, put down her paper and rose from the barber chair to greet me.

“How much for a haircut?” I blurted out rather suddenly. It echoed in the empty room.

“Uh, ‘leben.”

“Eleven dollars?” I said.

“Yeh.”

“You take plastic?”

“Wha?”

“Um… do you take debit cards?”

“No. No debit car.”

“OK, I’ll go get some cash and come back.”

As I strolled over to the local grocery store to use the ATM, I reflected that I had been too abrupt and maybe even a bit scary to this small woman all alone in an isolated building. I decided to be more polite on my return. I engaged her in conversation, which she eagerly picked up. I found her English difficult to understand, and she punctuated every other phrase with “know what I mean?” — to which I felt obliged to respond with a “yes,” a nod, or at least an approving grunt. In her pronunciation, “know what I mean?” came out “noah mean?” I couldn’t help but imagine myself responding, “Actually, by all accounts Noah was a pretty nice guy — apart from getting drunk and cursing his grandson.” But I kept those thoughts to myself.

She told me how much she liked the neighborhood and the people in it. They’re private people, she said, but they’re good. She told me that even though she rents the space for her business, she likes to take care of the landscaping herself, to make it look nice. She even takes care of the adjacent property, where a bank closed long ago and nothing replaced it. I had noticed this property before — the bank building is all boarded up, but the grounds are beautiful. The local police found her working on it one day and asked her what she was doing. She explained that she wanted the neighborhood to look nice. Later, she said, the same policeman told her after seeing the result that now he understood her motivation.

I thanked her, gave her a good tip, and told her I’d be back next time.

Despite the housing market, some inexpensive new homes are going up just down the hill. It was in that area that I first saw another of my neighbors. She was yelling at the construction workers. I don’t know what about, but I heard her say, “I just can’t take it!” several times as she walked away from them. The workers mostly ignored her, so I assumed she suffered from some sort of mental illness. Her voice trembled, yet she walked with a strong and steady pace. She headed in my same direction, so I crossed to the other side of the street and stayed well ahead of her.

I’ve crossed paths with her several times since then on my walks, in various parts of the neighborhood. I always nod politely and say “Good morning,” and quickly move along. Once she seemed slightly afraid of me. Another time, confused. Poor woman, I thought.

Today, she stopped and spoke to me. “Did you see the young eagle?”

“No, I didn’t,” I responded, smiling intentionally. “Where is it?”

“It was in that tree over there. It flew off a few days ago,” she said. “We get one every few years. The last one fell from the nest and died, but this one made it and left with its parents. Pardon my voice,” she said, touching her throat. “I have polio. It took away half my voice.”

“It’s fine,” I said.

“My husband wishes it had taken the other half, too.”

I laughed out loud.

She continued, “Well, that’s what happens after 57 years of marriage,” and she smiled and left.

“Take care,” I called after her.

Let me offer you some things to think about. These have bothered me since the destruction of the World Trade Center and though I’d prefer to ignore them they keep coming back. I like things clear cut, simple and direct, and this situation isn’t. I think, in the final analysis, it is these paradoxes that define the problem, if not the solution to it.

First let’s establish some generally accepted facts:

Osama bin Laden is a fanatic, prepared to die for his so-called jihad, but he isn’t stupid. The attacks we know he has planned, or that someone close to him planned, worked and worked well. They showed estensive knowledge and understanding of our operations and remarkable care and simplicity in their planning and implementation.

Afghanistan is a primitive nation full of ignorant people cut off from the rest of the world. These same primitive people fought the armed might of Russia to a standstill while their villages were bombed to rubble and any social amenities or order they had was destroyed.

Afghanistan is governed, if you want to call it that, by the Taliban Militia, a collection of bloody fanatics who are determined to hold on to power by any means necessary, and who keep the whole agonized country virtually closed to the rest of the world to ensure the continuation of that domination.

It is generally accepted too that neither the Taliban Militia or the Afghani people had anything driectly to do with the WTC bombing. Their only sin seems to be their refusal to surrender ben Laden and perhaps their paranoid hatred of anything western that goes back centuries.

Another chilling fact is that it is becoming more obvious each day that we are preparing to go to war with Afghanistan using a military designed to fight another military machine, to destroy a civilized, industralized country’s productive capability and power grids, to sever communications and transportation lines, break up its government infrastructure and induce chaos as these systems fail. None of which exists to any degree in Afghanistan.

Now, lets ask and perhaps answer some questions:

Are we deliberately closing our eyes to the fact that the Afghanis are not our enemy? If so, why? They are gnorant, stupid, vicious fanatics, yes, but they’ve always been that. Why are they now, suddenly, our enemines? They just can’t bite that high up, not unless we go to them anyway. They’ve became the focus of our anger and frustration, the focus of our paranoid tunnel vision, only because bin Laden has saught and received sanctuary there.

You ever wonder why bin Laden picked this benighted country to hide in and why he remains there even today? Possibly because he fought there and feels welcome there, but perhaps for other reasons as well. You ever for one moment wonder if we are being sucker baited? The Afghanis will fight anyone, anytime who invades their country. They won’t even need the Taliban’s orders to do that. It is instinctive and has been since Alexander visited years ago. They have a collection of barren rocks that nobody wants, except as a possible land road to India, and they will fight to the death for each sun baked stone. That’s all they know. Afghanis remind me of hydophobic Apaches. They weren’t a very effective fighting force either until the US Cavalry made them one. The Afghanis were well taught by first the British, then the Russians.

The Pakistanis are our friends. Yeah? For how long? Sure they hate the Afghanis, and the Iranians hate the Iraqis, the Syrians hate the Egyptians too, but they all hate the infidel. The Saudis are totally dependent on us for survival, but they hate us too. Can it be that most Moslems actually distrust and generally dislike all westerners? Is it because our religions are diametrically opposed. The Quran teaches that the “people of the book” are to be tolerated. Then why? Perhaps because too long has the western world, which we represent, denied them their rightful place in history. We are the usurpers, the dirty, defiling, infidel pigs who pervert and profane everything we touch. We defile women and welter in pornography, poison our bodies and minds with alchohol and we seduce their youth to our ways. We brought the Jews back and support them against the children of Allah. Worst of all we deny the one true God, Allah, praise be his name. We are a dispicable, terrible people, children of evil who all just men must hate. What’s so hard to understand about this? If you can’t understand it then we should just accept it.

Christianity and Islam are the two great competing civilizations and religions of the earth. We won and they lost, but only for the time being because Allah put a joker in the deck and gave them the oil. Gradually the tide has begun to change. Neither side is at all happy with the situation. Osama bin Laden just wants the tide to flow faster, that’s all. Will destruction of Afghistan reverse the flow? I doubt it. In fact, the damage we incur “teaching the Afghanis a lesson” will undoubtedly accellerate the flow considerably.

But isn’t all Europe with us in this crusade against terrorism? When has Europe ever really been with us? Take a look at the last cursades in this area, against the same basic people. First, they failed. Second, they were disorganized messes, basically profit motivated, if managed by fanatical Christians. In fact the situation was virtually reversed with brutal Christain armies raping and pillaging across relatiely peaceful Moslem kingdoms. We don’t have the long term motivation the Crusaders had, guaranteed salvation and all the loot they could carry, but we may well achieve the same long term result. I believe our luke warm allies will comdemn us in the UN before for autrocities against the Afghani people within a year. I believe that long before any meaningful victory, if such a thing is possible, is achieved the enthusiasm of our staunchest allies will have faded away like the monring dew. How about the enthusiasm and bloodlust of the American people? President Bush says we are in it for the long haul. Well, it is going to be a long and brutal haul with our western allies dropping away and other Moslem nations weighing in on the side of the Afghanis. Are we ready to fight the whole Moslem world? If we do have to, are we ready to fight to win? They obviously don’t think so and neither do I. Do we, all by ourselves, have the testular fortitude to engage in a scorched earth, genocidal war with the Afghanis and their eventual allies? I doubt it. Our anger is fierce now, but how high will it burn a year or two from now as the body bags start to fill. Oh, yes, the flags fly now outside every house, but where will they be then, over the long haul. You see, I remember Vietnam. Most don’t, or don’t seem to, but I do.

Does anybody really expect Russia and China not to provide the opposition, no matter who, with weaponry? Wouldn’t we, under the same circumstances? We did. We poured weapons and aid into Afghaistan when the USSR invaded. I’m sure they’d just love to return the favor. How long do you think that the Afghanis can resist us with an inflow of Russian and Chinese weapons? They fought the Russians for ten years, and then they had something to lose. How long today with virtually nothing to loose?

Has it ever occurred to anyone why, with $5,000,000 on bin Laden’s head, there has been no takers, not even any attempts or offers? Ossama bin Laden is the santified bait. He is a willing sacrifice. He isn’t a patriot to these people, he’s a saint. Christ was bought for thirty pieces of silver, but we can’t buy bin Laden for five million. Think about it, people.

Do the people of the United States really think that the whole Moslem terrorist world is going to sit on its hands watching calmly while we hammer the Aghanis? What is going to happen back here, on the home front? Bush and the government have obviously considered it, but nobody in the suburbs has. What will happen to our freedoms? Travel will be restricted, and I don’t just mean air travel either, and perhaps firearms ownership. There will be military and police checkpoints on our streets, a national ID card and an economy as flat as stale beer. We may not exactly resemble wartime Britian under the blitz, but then again we might. Every day you and I will have to prove we are Americans and on ligitimate business. How about gas rationing? All the good things associated with fought a war fought here, on our own turf, will be ours. Oh, I know that the terrorists won’t equate to lions in the street, more like swarms of biting flies, but lions might be
easier to cope with.

This is my conclusion:

Afghanistan is a huge mouse trap found, if not built, by Osama bin Laden. He means to lure us into it using himself as bait. It is almost perfect for combat against a modern, industrialized nation. It has no real government, and no military, production, communication or supply systems to destroy. The whole population is capable of using most basic military hardware such as shoulder launched anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, and mines. Every Afghan male seems to come equiped with an AK-47. It will be a war of ambushes and traps, a war of unspeakable and sadistic brutality fought in a harsh, mountain desert environment. Words like autrocity and collateral damage will eventually lose their meanings and should be expurged before we even go in. If we are not prepared to conduct a genocidal war we’d better not invite ourselves to one.

I don’t know how the military intends to conduct the war in Afghistan, but if it is the same military that gave us Bosnia and Kosevo then we will probably suffer a pathetic rout Even the declaration of victory and followed by immediate retreat won’t save us this time. They’ll just follow us home, along with the numerous friends. This isn’t even the military that fought its heart out in Vietnam. This is the new, politically correct military and it will soon find it has little stomach for facing Afghani tribesmen and slaughtering Afghani women and children, but it could learn in time. Question is do we want it to.

I think the destruction of the WTC towers was a mistake for the terrorists. I think attacking Afghanistan will be a mistake for us, but I also think it could be a massive mistake for the rest of the world too. In the unlikely event we went into Afghanistan and stayed the course the monster that came out the other side might be something somewhat other than the terrorists and so-called neutral observers hoped for. I don’t think this country will be destroyed, but I think it could irreversably changed. God help us all.

Yes, I’d like to do something about the atrocity at the World Trade Center, but first I’d like to see this country accept partial responsiblity for the slaughter. If you go about on your hands and knees wearing a sign that says “Kick Me” you probably going to be treated with something less than respect, even if you are a 600 pound gorilla. Here we are, a country that can’t even secure its own borders, preparing to take on a bunch of hard core fanatics who just broke the only other military machine on the planet. Figure Afghnistan to be supported by the whole Moslem world, plus, under the table, China and perhaps Russia and us to have qualified support from perhaps England and Canada. You think you’ve seen terroism now? Think again. This is only the beginning. When the slaughter starts in Afghanistan it will start here. Kiss your freedoms goodbye. The United Sates will become an armed camp, under siege.

I’ve been expecting some other nightmare to be visited upon us anyway, a not so subtle nudge from Uncle Osama to keep us motivated, so that we don’t stop and think our way through this. If it is a trap then we need some more motivation.

Do I think we can pretend it is business as usual, that nothing happened in Manhattan? No, but I do think that men wiser than me had better sit down and think this one out before we make an emotional commitment to suicide. Would I use nukes? You damned right. We will be forced to eventually with our economy in ruins, or people disheartened and disorganized, our sons butchered in Afghanistan to no purpose and facing virtually the whole Moslem world with our so-called allies disclaiming all responsibility for our brutal acts. There’s probably nothing much to nuke in Afghanistan, but a few towering mushrooms straight off might give the rest of the world something to think about. Not everybody lives in caves and mud huts. Why not open the game by putting everything in the middle of the table? We’ll eventually be comdemned in the UN by the whole world anyway. Oh, they are great sympathizers now when we are doing the dying by the thousands, but when we start the killing they will only remember that we are the frightening Giant of the West.

Americans refuse to believe or understand the amount of envy they generate in even the nations of modern Europe just by being Americans. We want to be loved too much and can’t understand why we aren’t. This cannot and will not ever happen. Even in England, in 1943, we were often barely tolerated and sometimes outright disliked. Just another invading force, if by invitation. Not their sort, you know, but these were our closest friends and allies. In our perpetual persuit of international love we demand entirely too little respect. We are the most powerful nation on the Earth and we are spit on in public. In the absence of either love or respect we must settle for, even hope for, tolerant comtempt, or we can teach the world to fear us as a foundation for the respect it had better learn. If the Moslems knew that nuclear weapons were even a possibility they wouldn’t be jerking our chain now. Why do you think it was an airliner instead of a suitcase nuke? We have more and bigger ones, that’s why. Even bin Laden knows not to go there, or does he? Is that the next step, if we don’t lurch into attack mode on command?

So, now we are pointed directly at Afghistan, bombers in the air, fuses lit on our missiles. The Taliban Milita will not accomodate our demands. I doubt if they could if they wanted to. The confrontation is now, the result is inevitable. You see anything wrong with this scenario? Who benefits? Not the Afghanis and not us. They do the dying because that is the only thing they do well, that and killing. We are sucked into a timeless killing field where we can pour out our blood and energy in them barren mountains and deserts until we are empty. Someone, perhaps Osama bin Laden, perhaps not, has put us exactly where he wants us. All our blustering about “Now you’ve really made us mad,” is rediculous. That’s is exactly what this whole affair was intended to do. This wasn’t just an isolated exercise in escalating international terrorism. It was part of an overall plan, but do we have to follow their scenario? It seems, like a blind bull, that we do.

I’m getting old, an unavoidable circumstance. I’m getting tired too, tired of apology and weakness, and now tired of stupidity. These little people can’t destroy us, but they can give us an opportunity to destroy ourselves and goad us into accepting this gift of self destruction. I think that “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad,” was a mistranslation. Better it reads, “Whom the gods would destroy they first permit to become stupid, or ignorant and apathetic.” End. Walt

This second email apparently follows some harsh criticism from other recipients:

Alright, so maybe I’m totally wrong, unfeeling, unpatriotic even. Then again maybe I’m not. At least my hypothesis makes sense and nothing else offered so far does. There is just too much emphasis plased on bin Laden, entirely too much, and most of it by bin Laden. Illogical for a man who is deadly logical. He wants us to come for him and he has a damned good reasons.

Permit me to be more specific, if possible:

I believe we’ve been suckered in. I believe we have walked into a trap. I believe we are utterly butt-fucked. I believe we are utterly outclassed and won’t admit it.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope that GW is just running with the bloodthirsty, idiot pack, actually leading it, until such a time as he can get enough data together in order to draw sound conclusions and formulate a good plan to do what has to be done. I hope and pray that at that time all the hysteria will stop and the American people will stand behind him for that “long haul.”. I hope the CIA is out there with the Moussad (?) pulling out all the stops, cutting throats, roasting balls, etc., in order to find out who, besides bin Laden, was behind this. I hope that then there is a overwhelming, deliberate and public effort to eliminate every person of any importance in all the governments of all the middle-eastern countries who knew and validated this atrocity on the USA. I’d suggest targeting each individual with a smart bomb and video the result, to hell with any collateral damage. I don’t care if he hides in an orphanage or hospital. I want payback big time, but I don’t want us tied up in a war of attrition with the vicious village idot of the Moslem world, namely Afghanistan. Hell, they aren’t even involved. Can you imagine any thinking terrorist trusting an Afghani to function in a plot this complex? We could be butchering them (and them butchering us) for another decade or two and they would enjoy the whole thing. Killing infidels gives purpose to their otherwise useless lives and dying in the process is probably the only way they’ll ever get out of Afghanistan. And go straight to heaven, yet? Can you believe it? They do. If it didn’t destroy us utterly it might make us stronger, but would you want to bet the future of our country on that? Look how much stronger Vietnam left us.

But I don’t think I am wrong. I expect the cruise missiles to start to fly any time, followed by the bombers. And what good will it do? None, absolutely none. And when the Army generals see that they’ll want to send in the elite ground troops, totally ignoring what happened to SPETSNAV forces there. Now if we retargeted and got rid of some of our old nuclear tipped ICBMs that would be another thing entirely, but we won’t. We don’t have the balls even if we still had the missiles. But if we did you’d hear assholes slam shut all over the middle east and, north, south and west. No, we are the masters of hesitation, of doing a job half way then quiting after declaring that it is finished, of premature ejectulation. We are going to be a full partner in a total disaster, we and the Afghanis, from which it may take years to extricate ouselves. Oh shit, oh dear. Vietnam didn’t teach us much, did it?

But we are dragging our feet somewhat and I think right now, in some major American city (Los Angeles comes to mind, probably wishful thinking) there is another well planned scenario playing out involving a weapon of mass destruction, possibly not another airliner, though they do work so well, but perhaps at a nuclear power generator or major hydro electrical dam. Something big and spashy (not a play on words). All the other strikes were flashy, attention getters and point makers. If they took two years to set up the WTC and the Pentagon, they had two years for Step Two, and don’t think there isn’t a Step Two and possibly Three unless the FBI has muddled their plans. They could have killed more people, but they wanted to make a point and they succeeded. This one will will have to be even bigger and better, made in Hollywood, and it will kick us the rest of the way up the chute like a prime steer and onto the killing floor of Afghanistan.

I really doubt they want to force us into anything nuclear. Like I said, we have more and bigger ones, but I still wouldn’t rule out a suitcase nuke of some sort. This one has to be big and dirty with heavy casualties to really get our attention and freeze what little reasoning power we have left. It has to send us charging over the edge screaming for blood. They can’t wait until we get past our rage and hysteria, and start to think. Bush is taking too long. He is talking hot and acting cool. A bad combination for the ragheads. He has to be pushed and it has to be now. Osama is playing his part and the Afghanis are playing theirs, only we hesitate in our frantic search for justification before we act. I think we might be just about to get that justification. The world’s TV eyes are on us. The play, as written by Osama bin Laden or his ghost writer, must go on. The curtain is going up. Allah wills it.

Hey, I got this great idea. We need to find somebody to produce about 500,000 little enameled crosses, Crusader crosses, and bumper stickers. “Join the Crusade for Justice” and “God Wills It” and “I’m a Crusader for Christ.” I think they would sell like hotcakes. Nothing too flashy. Just about 1″ by 1/2″, red enameled over gold fill plate, a clip in back. Maybe put some on rings or pegs for those with pierced noses, tongues, nipples, etc. I tell you there are thousands to be made there. Hit the market early before we get copied. You can’t copyright a crucifix you know. The guy who designed the sew on Crusader crosses, (Wasn’t his name Peter the Hermit?), you think he ever made a penny out of it? No, he let it get away from him or the Church go it all. Well, it was just a thought. Can’t you patriots take a joke? End. Walt

Well, I’m thankful that Wally’s prediction of another successful major attack hasn’t proven true. Yet.

As it turns out, the 1955 postage rate was only 3 cents per ounce, and I can remember from my childhood in the sixties mailing letters for a nickel. These ruminations led to other memories of the days when pocket change counted for more than tiddlywinks.

Some Coca-Cola drink machines charged 10 cents for a large (12 ounce) bottle, or 6 cents for a small (6.5 ounce) bottle. I recall when most of them jumped to 15 cents for the large bottle, and I remember being shocked and appalled at having to pay 25 cents for a Coke at a summer camp I attended. It was a hot day — my thirst overcame my financial prudence and I ponied up a whole quarter, feeling completely ripped off and wondering what my mother would think of my profligacy.

In my first grade class, we were given the opportunity to buy ice cream at a specific period of each day: popsicles, ice cream sandwiches, Brown Mules, or (my favorite) Nutty Buddies for five cents each. I begged my parents to give me a nickel a day out of their budget for this frivolous expense. It was more about status and belonging than it was about sugar or calories, because during that period which was set aside for the consumption of dairy treats, those who partook not had nothing more to do than enviously observe those who did. My parents reluctantly agreed, and placed a nickel in my wallet each night for that purpose.

One day, for some reason I can no longer recall, I didn’t buy any ice cream. When my father discovered the nickel still in my wallet from the previous night, he added another nickel. The next morning he congratulated me on my self-discipline and frugality, which I accepted without revealing that fiscal virtue had played no part in my abstinence.

“Whenever I find the money still in your wallet,” Dad said, “I’ll reward you by adding the same amount to what’s there.”

Even at that tender age, my math skills were sharp enough to realize that I had struck a gold mine. Some of the other kids at school always seemed to have money, and now I would become one of those kids. I quit eating ice cream altogether.

At an interest rate of 100% per day, compounded daily, within a week my father (who only made $64 a week at that time) could no longer afford to keep his promise. I had to settle for a five dollar bill when I should have had $6.40. I kept that portrait of Mr. Lincoln in my wallet for weeks, and I walked the halls of the school feeling as if I owned the place.

I think my mother eventually convinced me to commit that five dollars to my savings account at the local bank, increasing my balance from $25 to $30. Several years later that balance had grown to around $125 through deposits of birthday gifts and compounded interest at 4.5%. I withdrew the original $25 with which my mother had opened the account, took it to the local jewelry store, and bought her a silver pitcher for Mother’s Day. She still has that pitcher.

Several years ago, while going through an intense Nietzsche phase (from which I still haven’t fully recovered) the thought occurred to me to go back and reread the Bible with more open eyes than those I employed in my earlier readings when I considered myself a devout Christian. I never acted on that impulse, but it recurred to me (how Nietzschesque) as I recently read H.G. Wells’ The Outline of History. By now, my religiously-inclined readers are probably grunting in disapproval of my perspective, but bear with me. After finishing Wells’ somewhat outdated but still worthy Outline, I nearly picked up my Oxford Annotated RSV — but having read through the Bible several times already I knew what a large project that is (1189 chapters plus Apocrypha), and I wanted to read some other things on my shelf, so I put it off.

My son John, who is now teaching English in Korea, corresponds with me by email. Not knowing of my half-baked intentions, he suggested out of the blue that we read the Bible together. John recently discovered a more meaningful connection with Christianity, and if that were all I knew about John I probably would have politely declined. But I also know that John has explored Buddhism and other alternatives, and that he’s intelligent and has a great sense of humor. I enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to spend more time conversing with my son, as well as to revisit an old passion of mine with someone who is likely to contribute to a most interesting discussion.

I don’t think that either of us intends to convert the other. We’re probably both expecting that the text itself will do that. It will be interesting to observe the results. Although I take a critical perspective on the text and I’m a tenacious agnostic, I don’t rule out the idea that I can be changed by this experience. In fact, I embrace it. If Fitzgerald and Henry James can transform me, then it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I might find some personal benefit in the collection of human insights and inspirations known as the Bible as well.

John chose the New Internation Version for his reading. That’s a fine translation, despite it’s somewhat conservative associations — two of my college professors contributed to it. But I chose to use the Oxford Annotated RSV instead, because unlike the NIV I’ve never read through the entire RSV, and I appreciate the notes in the Oxford Annotated volume. Besides, I always think it’s a good idea to compare translations, if for no other reason than to avoid projecting too much into the translator’s choice of specific English words. The RSV is a more literal translation than the NIV, but the latter often conveys the original sense better — so comparing and contrasting them yields food for thought.

Additionally, I dug up my Hebrew text of the Old Testament and my Hebrew lexicon so I could dig deeper whenever questions arose about the text.

John and I began corresponding, and so far our discussion has not disappointed me — although I’ve probably been doing too much of the talking. John has a busy life, so we’ve had to take it very slowly. We’re just through chapter 14 of Genesis now (a fascinating chapter, that). But I don’t mind taking my time. In fact, I decided (after catching myself in a couple of mistaken assumptions about the Hebrew text) to use the opportunity afforded by John’s preferred pace to fulfill a desire from more than thirty years ago: I will simultaneously read the entire Hebrew text in parallel with the RSV.

Last night it occurred to me that while I’m at it I might as well also make use of another volume that’s been collecting dust on my shelf for the last thirty years. As the oldest known translation of the Old Testament into any other language, and because of its influence on the New Testament and later Christianity, I will also read the Septuagint in Greek at the same time. I have already observed many interesting details of this translation — both extremes of cases in which the Greek has been bent into a literalist Hebraism on the one hand, and cases in which the Greek obliterates the Hebrew meaning on the other.

For an example of the former, in Genesis 2 when Yahweh (or Kurios in Greek) instructs Adam not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge for “on the day you eat it, you shall surely die,” the Hebrew for “surely die” is mot tamut, literally “die by dying” — the reiteration is for intensive effect. The Greek translates this literally as thanato apothaneisthe.

On the other hand, the word play of that same chapter becomes lost in the Greek. “Adam” is Hebrew for man, so the term is used interchangeably in the chapter as a name and as a noun. The Greek chooses to render it as “anthropos” exclusively until the injunction against eating the fruit, in which it is translated as “Adam,” then switches between the two afterwards. The whole pun on dust (adamah in Hebrew) is also lost in the Greek chous.

Even more striking, and rather funny, is the phrase “she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.” In Hebrew, woman is ishah and man is ish. The -ah suffix can be used for a feminine as it is here, or it can mean “towards” or “from” — thus the pun. It almost works in English, if you can invent some suitable meaning for “wo-” (it actually comes from the Old English wif “wife, or woman”), but the Greek murders it: she shall be called gune because she was taken out of andros. That must have left a lot of Greek readers scratching their heads.

By reading the Greek also, I’ll make a smooth transition into the New Testament when we get there. At the rate we’re going, that should be in about the year 2017.

That’s perfect for Father’s Day, because my father taught me how to make it. It’s not too difficult, you just throw everything you can think of consuming into the pot and cook it a good long while. That’s why it’s called “No recipe.”

I browned some ground beef, along with more onions, garlic, and jalapeno peppers, then I threw that into the pot, along with some diced turnips, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, and romaine lettuce. I brought this to a boil then turned it down and added spices (just about every spice in the rack). I’ll let that simmer for a few hours and have it for dinner.

This is my first Father’s Day alone in many a year. I’ll sit down to my stew, crack open a beer, and commune with my father who art in heaven (if there is such a place that deserves the name). If there was a recipe for him, God tore it up after he saw what he’d made. Miss you, Dad.

My car has been in the shop ever since I moved in, so I’ve been going everywhere on foot or by public transportation. The transfer station is about a mile from my apartment and the busses leave there every hour, so with a little planning I don’t waste too much time. The bus-riding populace has an alarmingly high percentage of missing teeth, but otherwise they’re mostly good and friendly folks. Not friendly on purpose like on Bainbridge, just genuinely friendly when the need to interact arises.

I walk to the market frequently and buy just what I can carry. Early this morning I went to buy coffee and some vegetables. As I was looking over the Romaine lettuce, I suddenly noticed that they had fresh turnip greens! I hadn’t seen fresh turnip greens since I grew them myself abouit 25 years ago in the back yard. Some stores here carry them canned, but the sodium content is too high for my blood pressure.

Turnip greens are my favorite vegetable. I couldn’t stand them when I was a small child, but between the ages of 10 and 13 my tastes shifted dramatically. Perhaps I had finally overdosed on sugar, but I acquired a taste for many foods that I had detested earlier: olives, butterbeans, squash, and turnip greens. I like them with ketchup, but when my grandmother served them with vinegar and onions that wasn’t bad either.

My father told the story of when his father was a young man, back in the early 1930s. Although my grandfather, his father, my father, me, and my first son are all named Sterling Wyatt Camden, we’ve all gone by different names at different times to keep it all straight. My grandfather went by Sterling, and his father was known as Wyatt. Wyatt had bought a WWI surplus Jenny in a crate for Sterling to go barnstorming. On one such journey around the country, Sterling had been repairing his Jenny while standing on some old crates to reach the engine. The crates slipped, Sterling fell, and slit his wrist on the cowling of the Jenny. The wound, not helped by his poor barnstorming diet, nearly bled him to death. But he survived, and made his way back home to recuperate.

On his first evening back at home, Sterling sat at the big diningroom table, while his mother prepared for dinner. She came from the kitchen with a large serving bowl full of turnip greens and set them on the table, then returned to the kitchen to get something else. Sterling had never liked turnip greens, but when she returned they were all gone. Apparently, his body cried out irresistibly for the iron and Vitamin K.

Tonight, I washed the greens and put them in a big pot full of water. I sliced up some bacon and onions and added them to the water. Just as it was beginning to smell wonderful, I remembered: I need ketchup! So, I turned the greens down low and got ready to walk back to the store.

When I opened my front door, I found that the postman had left a package outside. I took it inside and opened it, and what do you suppose it contained? Honey buns! My good friend Justin James had read my earlier post, and shipped them all the way from South Carolina. I sat down and ate one right away. It tasted just as good — maybe better — than when I was a kid. Thanks, Justin!

When we moved in, we were short one bedroom. Dad decided that I should build out my own room out of part of the unfinished basement, under his supervision. We began by putting in joists over blocks on the concrete floor, and then I started nailing the tongue-and-groove pine flooring over the joists. I tried to be careful not to miss the nail and scar the flooring. Nailing at an angle just above the tongue so the nail heads wouldn’t show, I kept on glancing off the nail and sending it flying across the room, or bending the nail after it was half-way in.

Dad tried to give me helpful advice while he sat on the exposed part of the joists and sipped his beer, but occasionally he couldn’t help chuckling at my frustration. I wanted so badly to do a good job on this project, and with each wasted nail or scarred plank, I felt the tears welling up in my eyes.

Finally, I lost my composure. I began blubbering uncontrollably, and at the same time in my anger I grabbed nail after nail and pounded them in as hard and fast as I could go.

They all went in perfectly.

I stopped and caught my breath and wiped my eyes. Dad was laughing so hard he had to hold his sides. “You could always do it,” he said. “You just had to get mad enough!”

I don’t know that the anger was essential, but doing without over-thinking was the key in that case.

I’ve seen that at other times. For instance, when playing pool, it’s easy to over-engineer a difficult shot. Sometimes you just need to shoot, almost without looking.

In programming, too, you can easily think yourself right out of solving the problem at all. Yet, if you take the “cowboy coding” approach all the time, you end up with an unintelligible mess.

When we do well without forethought, we are following the way.
Yet never employing forethought is not following the way.

To say that there is one true way is not the way.
Yet to say there is no true way is also not the way,
Though it may be for a while.

I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time. After miserably awkward failures to entice several subjects of my fantasies to accompany me — I suppose in retrospect that an invitation to a fancy company function might scare off a high school girl, especially one whom I had never had the courage to speak to before — I finally secured an acceptance from Dixie. I picked her up at her house in my old Chrysler, and we drove the long highway to Martinsville while Chopin played on my 8-track.

Mom and Dad brought Roger along with them. Roger hadn’t been able to convince his girlfriend’s parents that allowing their daughter, who was a couple of years younger, to accompany him so far from home would be prudent. Perhaps had they known the favors which she had already bestowed upon him, they might have considered a nice dinner the least he could do in return.

The five of us sat around one of the big, round tables that bore all manner of condiments, an open bottle of wine, and a basket of bread in the center. The chef must have confused our menu with the one for an NFL team: a huge Porterhouse steak, baked potato wrapped in foil, vegetables, and of course a dessert designed to produce instant sucrose shock. By Franklin Auto Parts standards, it was downright elegant.

Unsurprisingly, Dad had already partaken of alcohol on the way there, but he reached for the wine and began pouring. Roger and I were each eighteen, and at this private function nobody would bother us so Dad filled our glasses. Dixie refused, so I did my best to moderate my consumption. Roger, being the fifth wheel, drank more freely in order to have something to do with his hands.

Dixie, who was always quiet anyway, didn’t have much to say in this venue either. I couldn’t tell whether she was enjoying or enduring this event. The rest of us laughed and joked while we ate our dinner. Jack Martin, one of the owners, got up and gave a humorous speech — the question of whether or not it was intended to be humorous being a regular feature of his communications. Dad continued to pour the wine, draining a third bottle. I had to refuse a time or two, but he and Roger worked at it as if they were being paid by the glass.

After we had all finished eating, Dad glanced over at Roger’s plate, which was completely clean — not a scrap of food, not a smear of butter, not even the foil from the baked potato.

“Damn!” said Dad, “You weren’t hungry, were you?”

Roger cast a sly glance in my direction, then he leaned back in his chair and patted his belly. “That was a pretty good meal,” he said, “but the best part of all was that chrome potato.”

To this day I’m unsure whether or not my father believed that Roger had really consumed the foil. Roger had crumpled it up and tossed it among the sundries in the middle of the table while Dad wasn’t looking.

I decided to try a new route, and I discovered to my delight that a bakery outlet store stands less than a mile away from my front door. I’m still discovering this neighborhood. After all, I’ve only lived here a couple of weeks. My family hasn’t moved, but I have. My move wasn’t particularly joyous, but neither was it tragic. My wife helped me to find the apartment and even to move. We’re leaving the future open-ended.

Immediately, I began walking my new neighborhood, the streets of which traverse lots of hills. Once as I reached the crest of a steep one and turned around to catch my breath, I caught my breath again at the view. Though I was miles away, I could see the point of land where we lived years ago, in much happier days. From that elevation and distance, I might have been looking back on my past life from the hereafter.

But today I discovered the bakery outlet. When I was a child, my mother and grandmother often took my sisters and me shopping in Danville, Virginia. Country bumpkins that we were, we children felt that this was a Big City Excursion. We walked in awe down Main Street flanked by department stores with more than one floor. While the womenfolk (that is, everyone but me) tried on clothes, I busied myself in fascination with the escalators or the pneumatic tubes that the clerks used to transfer payments to their back-office. And of course the big treat: we’d eat lunch at Woolworth’s — one of the few restaurants I ever visited at that age.

On the way back home, we’d often stop at the Sunbeam bakery outlet on Piney Forest Road. The adults would stock up on white bread at a discount, but my sisters and I looked forward to a treat that had been held over our heads all day, “If you behave!”: Honey-Buns. It was so hard to remain pleasant all day (especially through the endless fittings), but the Honey-Bun provided a powerful motivation to do so. This wasn’t the Little Debbie pastry in a box that currently blasphemes the name. It was a sticky-sweet monstrosity that was so large it was individually wrapped. We’d each get a whole one if we were good.

I’ve never seen Sunbeam bread in this part of the country. My newfound bakery outlet sells Franz products instead. It sports a long ramp instead of stairs at the front door, just like the bakery outlet of my youth. And as I opened the door, the scent of baked goods seemed to transport me back to that same place.

Serendipitously, I needed a loaf of Rye Bread, which I found along the back wall and carried to the counter. I noticed various persuasions of Danishes in a display cabinet, but nothing that resembled a Honey-Bun. As the portly young woman rang up my purchase, I said, “It’s nice to have this store within walking distance of my new home.”

She smiled and acknowledged my good fortune.

“Say, you wouldn’t have any ‘Honey-Buns’ would you? A large, individually-wrapped pastry that my sisters and I used to devour when we were children, which I can almost taste right now and which would, if I could but have one, seem like a kiss from Providence, a divine reassurance that despite everything that has happened in my life since those early days of innocence and especially recently, there is still love, there is still hope, there is still joy in the world?”

“No, I’m sorry, we don’t.”

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