More Embargo Speak

As I posted over on Babalu, this week's New York Times Magazine carries a beautiful article on the end of the revolution by Roger Cohen. Of course, some of the material is objectionable, most notably the call for a new approach to US/Cuban relations. It is a call echoed by the author of Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba when pressed for his views in an NPR interview.

The calls for the lifting of the embargo et al are reaching a critical mass. Misled by ill-informed and/or ideologically motivated academics and "journalists" the American public wants to make money(Ha) and benefit from a cheap vacation in the land time forgot like the rest of the world. Labeled as a "hard-line,""intransigent" "Mafia" of would be "Ahmed Chalabis," those of us who have witnessed or felt the impact of the evil of the Castro regime seem to be losing the PR war.

Thus, my crystal ball says there will be an attempt made to normalize relations. I write attempt because every time the US has attempted to thaw relations the Cuban regime has thrown a spike in the works. Ask Jimmy Carter. The truth is that the thugocracy needs the embargo, because it needs an excuse for the decimation of an country. In any case, it behooves us to regroup, to frame the discussion on our terms if we are to avoid handing murders, thieves and liars a blank check to continue looting and oppressing. And I am not exaggerating when I use those words.

The Embargo and the Enablers du Jour

The calls to end the embargo multiply daily. One might almost think they were orchestrated. In today’s installment a number of business organizations, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, Business Roundtable, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Retail Federation and Grocery Manufacturers Association, urged the President to be to lift the embargo, as these commercial potentates feel qualified to make foreign policy judgments. Lifting the remittances is fine by them, but could you please scoot over and leave a bit more room for that persistent camel.

Their motivation, only partially cloaked by altruism, is greed. Now greed is not necessarily a bad thing, but stupidity is always. If I’ve got this correctly, they wish to be free to do business with a government that has made an avocation of not paying its debts to the tune of 60 billion and five decades with a citizenry so impoverished that it can not afford American goods. (After all there are limits to even Tia Lola’s largess.) Maybe the thinking is that the ability to sell cigars, rum, and quack remedies to the American public will enrich the coffers of the Havana Dons thereby releasing rivulets of Cuban Class B currency to the populace, enabling a citizen to buy, say, one Nike sneaker a year. If these are our great business minds, it is not surprising that the heads of the big 3 are in DC on bended knee.

Of course, they could be positioning themselves for the day when Cuba once again rejoins the world of functioning economies, a prospect set back that much further by supplying an economic lifeline now. They seem to have forgotten the little matter of the unpaid millions, 2 billion approx, owed American companies and private citizens for expropriated property. I won’t mention the poor, benighted political prisoners. No one else does.

Mark my words; by the time this lunacy runs its course, Obama will be lifting the embargo by public acclaim. But then, heck, what do I know?

Cuban Music and Change

As I'm reading Time magazine, I come across it. "The Sound of Change: Can Music Save Cuba" blares the headline. Of course, the accompanying article devotes little to that topic. Actually, here a few of the more notable observations made by Thornburgh:

1. Music in Cuba, as well as the island itself, is changing. Movements from outside the country like reggaeton and techno are infiltrating. Musicians are fleeing the country.

2. People are feverishly hopeful of change, pinning their hopes on the Obama administration.

3. There are a number of "Ahmed Chalabis" in Miami waiting to take over should the government fall.

4. The big, bad United States lures with the "murderous enticement" of Wet Foot/Dry Foot.

5. Younger generations of Cubans on both sides of the Gulf are more willing to forgive and forget.

The value of the article is in the slice of life about Cuba. Mr. Thornburgh to his credit goes beyond the facade of the socialist paradise and writes about real people. He demonstrates a certain familiarity with the reality of life in Cuba. Unfortunately, he presents a one-sided view of the United States' role, and there really is no need to guess which side. Yet more evidence the regime has trashed a nation but won the propaganda wars.

The Blogger and the Bad Man

In the past two days, Cuban Blogger Yoani Sanchez of Generación Y was summoned to the Police Station in Vedado where she was read the riot act and told in no uncertain terms that a proposed blogger meet up was to be cancelled. She was further threatened that she had transgressed all limits. With incredible courage and characteristic insouciance, Yoani asked for it all in writing, laughingly calling her wouldbe intimidators "cowards" at their failure to do so.

Her situation, however, is no laughing matter. The Cuban government's apparatus of intimidation is putting her on notice. They are watching and will act. Publicity provides her only protection, such as it is. In the interest of providing as much information as possible, I've translated her last two entries. Read them and spread the word as much as possible.

A Fowl Story

One of the rituals at holiday family gatherings invariably involves the “do you remember the time that…?” It was in this context that my father-in-law raised a European trip we took in the early 80’s. We met up in Rome and traveled to Yugoslavia. Even as we argued about the city: was it Split? Srebenica? Zadar? I knew where he was heading.

“Yes,” I replied. It was Split, I think. We arrived in the city, and there was literally no room at the inn. A visit to the local tourist bureau procured us lodgings in private homes. My father-in-law drew the 50’s vintage ranch house on the outskirts of the city. My husband, sister-in-law, and I found ourselves in front of the massive wooden door to a townhouse in the starigrad, or old city, read that medieval walled city. I swear that door swung, whisper silent, of its own accord. Standing there awaiting us, beckoning us in with a red manicured digit was a tall, spare, austere-looking, middle-aged woman who spoke English hesitantly and with an accent like that of a female Boris Karloff. Her jet black hair was drawn back in a bun; her thin lips, outlined in bright red. There was something terribly witchlike about her.

Despite our initial misgivings, she turned out to be a very nice, if unnerving, woman. We were renting a room in her apartment which consisted of the top floor of the building and a rooftop/garret/pigeon coop. At some point during our brief stay, she told me, “This was all ours once. It was one house. It belonged to my father. But they took it away and left me with this,” indicating the flat crammed with family heirlooms. This I understood. Suddenly, I had visions of that scene in Doctor Zhivago when Omar Sharif returns to find the rabble inhabiting the old homestead and his family barricaded in a few rooms.

“She got that back, now, you know.” My father-in-law interrupted. “They all got that back.” Apparently, the property that had been appropriated by the government was returned when Yugoslavia broke up and the resulting Republic opted for democracy. How wonderful, I thought. The balance of that woman’s universe had been restored. It made me sad, too, because I couldn’t foresee such an ending for Cuba. It’s not about property, as much as it’s about the acknowledgement that a wrong had been committed, a patrimony stolen. As Anita Snow revels in her opinion that Obama is free to collaborate with the Havana Dons, I wonder whether it's an acknowledgment we’ll ever get or whether we are expected to collude in the denial of our own reality.

Not Quite Sunday Not Quite Information

Storing it. A long, long time ago when I was in college, I was taught a few things like the answer to energy needs was nuclear fusion which was just around the corner in the next twenty years. That's what they're still saying. Ditto for batteries. The discussion of the limitations of same in this Newsweek article by Keith Naughton seem awfully familiar. Lots of "green" technologies depend on batteries- from alternative fuel cars to solar collection. Good news, they're working on it.

Selling it. For the first time ever, online shopping seems primed to drop this holiday season, according to this Wall Street Journal article. If online business follows the brick and mortar variety, I suspicion it may yet show a resurgence. Call me an optimist.

Stealing it. From Silicon.com comes "The Spam Report" in which Will Sturgeon answers the perennial question of what would happen if it you bit into one of those Nigerian-come-into-money scams. The story of his correspondence with Mr. Madu Frank is an amusing one. Not amusing are the poor unfortunates who fall for it. Read it here.

Losing it. The emasculation of our society may be more than figurative. Came across an article, which I lost, that the number of males is declining. Suspected are toxins in the environment. Seems the Canadians are going to run a documentary on "The Disappearing Male" this month. The rest of us will have to wait with bated breath for more info.

Leaving it. Burt Prelutsky waxes eloquent on the topic of public libraries, singling out Andrew Carnegie for endowing them. Given that the guy was not only a philanthropist but saved the economy on at least one occasion, he must've been a pretty nice guy for a robber baron. As to libraries, Prelutsky mentions his own experience as a boy; Colin Powell has shared his. There are numerous testimonials to their value. So why are they the first cut when budget shortfalls threaten?

Road Trip! Road Trip!

Haven't been posting much, getting ready for one of my favorite undertakings. Unfortunately, two things have been getting in the way. I'm tired. Blame it all on Ms. Calabaza, or maybe some of it, for posting an absolutely beautiful picture of a Pumpkin Flan. "A Pumpkin Flan?" I asked myself. Somewhere in the dim mists of time, I had a vague recollection that such a thing existed. What a great metaphor for the joining of my Cuban roots and my American life, I thought. But why stop there? Seized by an paroxysm of domesticity, I decided to make...Pecan Tassies. Yes, the sinful, ever tasty tassies. Mine are like little Pecan Pies, although I confess that they are the only good cookies I know how to make.

So I enlist Mama's aid in making four dozen dough cups for the filling, although I miscalculate and wind up with three dozen, a third of them rather fat. Still they pass the taste test. Not content to rest upon my laurels, I take on the Pumpkin Flan. By the way, the recipe is divine, kinda like a spice cake with a flan consistency. Of course, never having made a flan in my life, I had a syrup malfunction.

Next came the mad scramble for laundry, ironing, packing, and liberation. After 30 years of marriage, I forced the hubster to get his own clothes ready. That's right, that's right. The man had to decide what he was going to wear for the next few days and set it aside. In the interests of sartorial safety, I did the packing. My clothes are in there, too.

So as I set off for work to be followed by a marathon drive, I'll wish you all a happy holiday in case. If I'm lucky, there will be some tassies left and I'll remember to pull the flan out of the fridge. But only if I'm lucky.

In-friggin-credible Expanded and Expounded Twice

This abomination, ostensibly a statue of a mime pretending to be Che, is in New York's Central Park. Can you imagine a statue of Hitler, or Stalin, or even a Grand Wizard of the KKK in the same location? Of course not. Yet this statue to a racist, homophobic, mass murderer is gracing New York's signature park. Babalu has contact information here.

H/T Maggie at PatDollard.com

Updates: There will be more.

Thanks to Jack Kemp, not the politician, on The American Thinker for what is inscribed on the base of the idol:

The base of the Che statue has some interesting things written on 3 sides. One side has a website address www.elchevive.org ("the Che lives" in Spanish) which is no longer accessible via the internet. Another side says "viva la re-revolution," i.e., long live the re (or new) revolution, in Spanish. The third side says "Seamos Realistes Exijamos Lo impossible." This translates as "We are realistic. We demand the impossible."

As he points out, the two other statues in the exhibit bear no such legends.

Then Jose Reyes over at Cubanology has responded via an essay which includes a chilling video. Watch it and see if it sounds familiar. Thank you, Jose.

And at the American Thinker, Humberto Fontova points out that had it been up to their immortalized idol, Central Park would now be working on its half life, devoid of any of the human kind.

Sunday Hobby Horses and More

Roly Poly. From Coop's Corner, an article about Rupert Murdoch's take on the news biz. Basically, he says that the days of a handful of editors deciding what was news from their perch on high are gone. He is still optimistic about newspapers, though, as long as readers feel that it is news they can "trust." Personally, I think he overrates the intelligence of the public.

Red Light, Green Light. On Fox Business, Neil Cavuto raises the big problem with the bailouts, past and proposed: "we neither demanded banks lend, nor auto companies account." It's more business as usual, including the screwing of the taxpayer.

Old Maid. Living in an nanny state is no fun at all. Gregory Katz in a My Way article informs us Britain is contemplating doing away with happy hour. Too many stiff upper lips and diseased livers. Poor blighters can't smoke, eat, and now drink. Look in the mirror, oh, my brothers.

War. Well, the Brits got one thing right. According to a doctor who treated Herr Hitler for a WWI injury, der Furher was testicularly impaired, didn't have a matched set. Somehow that falls under TMI.

Go Fish. If you want to see a National Geographic video marking Cuba's selection by the World Wildlife Federation as an example of sustainable development click here. I kid you not. Anyway, the video is really pretty, as is the rosy picture they paint of a country where the overriding concern every morning is where to get your daily bread. I only wish such sustainable development on each and every one of these eco-idiots. Clueless.

Telephone. Amazingly, according to this, a movie with no sex, violence or stars had a massive opening. The movie in question is based of Lisa Meyers' bestselling Twilight, a pretty cool read better suited to adolescents. Based on the trailer, I don't have high hopes for the treatment. Besides, as I remember the book, there was violence galore. Night, night.

Meanderings: Spittin' Image

Whenever I'm feeling assailed as a Cuban American I think back to something that happened when I was 13 years old. My earlier years had been spent in working class South Brooklyn, where the very air breathed contempt for Hispanics. In that poor, working class neighborhood where men wore uniforms to work and swilled inordinate amounts of Schlitz, or Pabst, or even Seagram's Seven at home and let loose public diatribes on the failings of Spics, no one had ever uttered a mean word to me. Until I moved to suburban Staten Island, I had never met the monster discrimination face to face. It had never been directed at me personally.

Only in the more upscale Staten Island, the neighborhood boys began to stalk me, chanting "Mira, Mira" in unison as I walked by, following me down the street. They made my young life miserable. Once and only once, they even chanted it at the family car, which led to my father's taking an abrupt detour and their thinking better of it in the future. It was in this environment that I received my acceptance from Notre Dame High School. Perched on a tree covered hill with a long history of teaching intelligent young women, it was a refuge.

Every Wednesday, the entire school would stop, change clothes in the hallways and go on all sorts of outings, from Broadway to bicycling. One Wednesday early in my freshman year, I was on my way home from the bowling alley. A few stops down, the local hoodlums got on my bus. There were at least six or seven of them. I can remember cringing, attempting to meld into my seat, imploring all the saints that they not spot me. Almost immediately, it began. They began chanting, making a spectacle. All this time, I said not a word. Not a single adult, not the bus driver, no one stopped them. Finally, one of them spit on me.

I cannot convey the shame, the mortification of that public humiliation on a young teenage girl. Meek and mild-mannered, I had never ever done anything to them. I remember running down the block from the bus stop to my house hysterical. For once, I let loose, sobbing the story to my mother. That evening, when my father came home, he had barely put down his briefcase when he grabbed me by the arm, and we set off to the homes of the malefactors. At the first household, the father was most gracious and horrified by his son's behavior. And so it went. But when we got to the home of the spitter, we were greeted at the door by a rather mild-mannered, harried-looking man. From the hallway came the drunken tones of a woman. She came to the door in her jet black bouffant, demanding of my father what I had done to her misshapen son to cause him to spit upon me. Dad sized up the situation and said, "This time, I have come to see you. The next time, you will have to look for me because if your son ever goes near my daughter again, I am going to beat the shit out of him."

This was my father, the man who was afraid of the world out there even as he climbed up the rungs of its ladder; my father who had never stood up for me, instead leaving me to solve my own problems or at the very least endure. But when it really counted, he was there. And he would have kept his word, I'm sure. So were they. The wouldbe toughs never even looked in
my direction again. In time, they became the nothings they were.

And I? I learned two things that night. My mild-mannered, sometime explosive father, would protect me. I also learned that the only way to stop abuse is to stand up to it. Funny how these things stay with you.

"Tis the Season...

...for soupy heartwarming holiday shows. Here's a heads up. Both Monk and Psych will have their holiday episodes on Friday, November 28. I love the Christmas season. I try to follow the one movie a day for the 25 days of Christmas, myself.

To The Left of Civility: Corrected and Expanded

By now I'm used to Bush bashing, but I would think that having scored the trifecta, the left would give it a break. Alas, they can not be gracious, even in victory. I was stricken today when I saw the cover of the December Harper's magazine. The cover blared some new installment in the seeming endless parade, accompanied by a vile caricature of the President, made most rodentlike, peering through prison bars.

The article, written by their legal expert, envisions the prosecution of the President for a whole host of real and imagined human rights infractions. Whatever the legalities, the de facto effect of such an undertaking would be to send a chill through those entrusted with safeguarding the homeland from terrorists. It is exactly because the administration, despite its many failings, has managed to stave off further attacks that people like the author have the luxury of contemplating keel hauling its officials. If we extend the same zeal for legal proceedings that seems to typify our society, we can expect the same inhibition and paralysis. Remember the "Chinese wall"?

Beyond the immediate article is the editorial staff. Why did they feel the need, not only to publish this, but to make it their cover article? What it is about the President that evokes such a response from so many of the intelligentsia is fertile ground for research. Judging by the vitriol and the virulence, there is something pathological at work here. They cannot let it go, because they are angry people, and Bush is a convenient and politically correct scapegoat.

If nothing else, for the past eight years those in the chattering classes have demonstrated their immaturity, their willfulness, and their lack of respect for their profession, their readers, and their country. They have made shreds of their credibility, disrespected at least half of the population which does not agree with their politics, given away State secrets, and provided propaganda for terrorists. All in the name of what? A vendetta?

Instead of expanding horizons, provoking debate by providing differing view points, they choose to preach to the converted. I guess they only want card-carrying liberals to buy their magazine.

The article is subscription only, but the website has some relevant information here.

Congrats to the Emerging Cuban American Demographic

The purportedly 35% of Cuban Americans who voted for Mr. Obama should pat themselves on the back. Their choice has not only appointed Greg Craig, lawyer for Fidelite cause in the Elian case, as a Special Counsel; but word is that he has asked Eric Holder, implicated in the forcible seizure of Elian by armed agents as well as the infamous Marc Rich pardon, to be Attorney General. I'd hazard to say that Mr. Obama does not give a flying fig for the sensibilities of Cuban Americans.

To these I say "That's why we vote Republican."

The Horns of a Dilemma

The bailout du jour discussion centers on the automakers- not an easy call. Does the government let these companies founder and possibly go bankrupt with all of the ramifications doing so entails? It is sad, but these are perhaps the largest remnants of our industrial base, since we let the Japanese sink our electronics and the Chinese siphon off our textiles. The loss of American carmakers, in addition to the widespread devastation in unemployment and ancillary businesses, is a potential national security concern.

Still, it is very difficult to help an industry that will not help itself. The automakers earned a reprieve with the advent of the increased popularity of SUV's and trucks. They should have realized, even at the height of the craze, that the trend could not last. The handwriting was on the wall, yet they seem to have been caught unprepared.

Then there is the Union question. Can you explain to me what other industry pays an average wage of $72 dollars an hour? Include what they call the "legacy" costs. The nifty pensions. The health benefits for pensioners. Did you know that these last constitute $1500 dollars of the price of every GM car? Did you know that you can't quite lay off a worker? You have to pay him not to work. So how does the Union respond? Over the weekend, they made clear there'll be no concessions coming from them.

Of course, they are expecting to get paid back for their political support. Unfortunately that means asking, say, retail workers who make about a tenth of the salary, retirees who have to make do with Medicare, people the state of whose 401K's have put retirement off indefinitely to subsidize with their taxes what is an untenable system in the present reality.

After the debacle of the mortgage bailout, which became a bank bailout, which is morphing into an auto bailout with cities and states like New York, San Francisco, California next in line with hands and hats extended in order to fund services that many other solvent places can not offer, it is not surprising that there is little confidence in oversight and little enthusiasm to bail out a seemingly endless queue of supplicants.

It's a good thing President Elect Obama is the "One." He's going to need some Solomonic wisdom to split this baby.

*Hood Ornament in picture is available at ElPasoRugs.com. A truly excellent book about Detroit and SUV's is High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV by Keith Bradsher.

Struck a Chord

From the Nichols' column (see below):

...Election Day 2008 was not only an historic event from the perspective of race relations in America, but also a shocking affirmation that a new generation of power-hungry socialists have surfaced from within that Trojan Horse called the The Democratic Party. These neo-socialists have already begun the process of turning this country into a nation of hand-out seekers, Wall Street whiners and corporate derrière smoochers seeking bail from the very people who contributed to their economic imprisonment

Only on Sunday Mournings

Damn the torpedos. In the political corner this week is this column from Nick Nichols on Townhall which portrays the election as the triumph of the neo socialists who "emerged from the Trojan Horse" of the Democratic party. Coming in for a lambasting are socially conscious CEO's who according to the author inadvertently fed the monster. I do agree with him on one point. Crazy as it sounds, I really do sense an intelligent design, and it's not God's. On a lighter political note, Calvin posts this marvelous Italianate Opera sure to delight conservatives and mavens alike. You gotta read the rise and travails of Barraco. Have a chuckle. We're going to need it.

No more mashed potatoes. You can read our future in this Ben Quinn article in the Christian Science Monitor. In a new roll on Big Brother, Manchester residents and those in other towns will be carrying chips that track their exercise. Coupons and even days off will be awarded to the virtuous, all in the name of reducing obesity. It is part Britain's response to a soon-to-be obesity "epidemic."

Enough to make Jesus weep. Picture Israeli policemen intervening in a brawl between Armenian and Greek Orthodox monks and you've got the outlines of what happened at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It's not the first time either. Read the article which includes some of the past pettinesses. Amazing.

Too late to seek a newer world. It's official, NASA's Phoenix lander on Mars has died. The story of its life is, however, fascinating. Done in by a dust storm and winter, the lander exceeded its anticipated life span by years, if I remember correctly from a documentary I recently watched. Article here.

Come back, Shane. John Barry in an essay at Newswe[a]k pleads for the return of Ian Fleming's Bond. As a Fleming fan who long ago gave up looking for traces of his agent in the movies, I feel his pain. A few years ago I started rereading the novels, only to find them dated, racist, and sexist, yet still magical. I suspect that the new Bond mirrors our times, when refinement is frowned upon and affectation is the province of the young attempting to imitate gangsta rappers.

Mind-Boggling

What were people thinking? I've already seen that people were mad about the economy, so they elected someone most likely to trash it. The best, however, is this little tidbit I ran across. This poor family from Bangladesh exercised their first vote to vote for Obama, because he will "restore the American Dream." I guess that depends on what you construe the American Dream to be. But since they are here and the son is studying, one would have to assume that said dream is alive and well. The other day, I heard a pundit on the radio ask why anyone would who comes to the United States would want to turn it into the country they felt forced to leave.

What's striking about the article is how Obama is all things to all people. Shortly after the family is a woman talking about Obama and social programs. What exactly an Obama presidency will entail remains to be seen. What is easily discernible is the thought processes of the electorate. Mayhap, I shouldn't be so harsh. After all, my first vote went to McGovern.

More Sherwood Anderson

There is a haunting lyrical quality to Anderson when at his best. Try some of these from Winesburg, Ohio. If I remember rightly, he wrote most of it in a single burst of creative zeal. Perhaps that accounts for it. They are many more I could have chosen, yet they are more easily understood in context. I think, though, there is enough here to give a taste.

from "Paper Pills"-
The story of Doctor Reefy and his courtship of the tall dark girl who became his wife and left her money to him is a very curious story. It is delicious, like the twisted little apples that grow in the orchards of Winesburg. In the fall one walks in the orchards and the ground is hard with frost underfoot. The apples have been taken from the trees by the pickers. They have been put in barrels and shipped to the cities where they will be eaten in apartments that are filled with books, magazines, furniture, and people. On the trees are only a few gnarled apples that the pickers have rejected. They look like the knuckles of Doctor Reefy's hands. One nibbles at them and they are delicious. Into a little round place at the side of the apple has been gathered all of its sweetness. One runs from tree to tree over the frosted ground picking the gnarled, twisted apples and filling his pockets with them. Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples.

from "Tandy"-
The stranger became silent and seemed overcome with sadness, but another blast from the whistle of the passenger engine aroused him. "I have not lost faith. I proclaim that. I have only been brought to the place where I know my faith will not be realized," he declared hoarsely. He looked hard at the child and began to address her, paying no more attention to the father. "There is a woman coming," he said, and his voice was now sharp and earnest. "I have missed her, you see. She did not come in my time. You may be the woman. It would be like fate to let me stand in her presence once, on such an evening as this, when I have destroyed myself with drink and she is as yet only a child."

from "Departure"-
The young man's mind was carried away by his growing passion for dreams. One looking at him would not have thought him particularly sharp. With the recollection of little things occupying his mind he closed his eyes and leaned back in the car seat. He stayed that way for a long time and when he aroused himself and again looked out of the car window the town of Winesburg had disappeared and his life there had become but a background on which to paint the dreams of his manhood.

Literary Interlude: from "Sophistication"

I've been ruminating about growing older lately, and the Sherwood Anderson story popped into my mind. It's about growing up, and I'm growing old.

There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood. The boy is walking through the street of his town. He is thinking of the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets awake within him. Suddenly something happens; he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name. Ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is tom open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy. With a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing destined like corn to wilt in the sun. He shivers and looks eagerly about. The eighteen years he has lived seem but a moment, a breathing space in the long march of humanity. Already he hears death calling. With all his heart he wants to come close to some other human, touch someone with his hands, be touched by the hand of another. If he prefers that the other be a woman, that is because he believes that a woman will be gentle, that she will understand. He wants, most of all, understanding.

Yes, there is a difference. More about that later. The short story in its entirety is available here.

"Boogeymen" and Bias

They don't have too much of an agenda at ABC News. In their article about the GMA interview with superannuated radical William Ayers, they repeatedly use the term "boogeyman." I would have written "bogeyman," that is if my intent was to convey that the gentleman in question, no threat to anyone, was used to scare people. The impression is heightened by the assertion in the article that the "distinguished" professor was used as a "political piñata" by McCain and Palin during the campaign. See, there's nothing threatening here, the article implies. It was only those nasty, fear-mongering Republicans.

Unfortunately, the unrepentant Ayers is actually more of a danger now than he ever was playing with his chemistry set. Firmly ensconced in academia, training the teachers of tomorrow, his influence is more pervasive and insidious. Worse, people like Ayers are hypocrites. Living the good life, calling the police to protect him from O'Reilly's people, and preaching revolution. Just who is playing with a piñata? Read it and barf. How many times do I find myself writing "words matter."