It’s an old chestnut, but still worth hauling out and dusting off…now and then.
Actually, I never tire of it. Truly great writing is timeless, don’t you think?
I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong–Mother Nature’s fist of fury, Gaia’s stern rebuke.
Considering the havoc mankind has wreaked upon nature with deforesting, stripmining, and the destruction of animal habitat, it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own.
Sure, a hearty volcano can be enjoyable. Burning rivers of lava: so picturesque. But a volcano is stationary, like Dennis Hastert after a big lunch. It doesn’t offer the same dramatic suspense.
Hurricanes are in unpredictable flux. They move, change direction, strengthen, weaken, lose an eyewall, repair an eyewall; they seem to have volition and opera-diva personalities.
So there’s something disappointing when a hurricane doesn’t make landfall, or peters out into a puny Category One…
That’s by James Wolcott, a probable ascot wearer who speaks on behalf of nature, and I’ll bet he was just kidding! Okay? Get over it already!
It’s still “Rose Wilder Lane Week” here at C.V. (only one day left!) so I’ll just get out of the way and let her offer an observation…
The energy of heat, cold, storms, floods, drought, is the deadly enemy of every human being. His second enemy is the living energy of other creatures, the animals, the plants, that kill him and that he kills for his food and other uses.
Everyone must constantly be defended against these enemies. Farmers and sailors and doctors always know this. Linemen know it, and engineers, chemists, truck drivers and railroad men and oil drillers and sand-hogs and construction workers and airplane pilots and weather forecasters?all the fighters who protect human lives in modern civilization, and keep this civilization in existence.
These men, who know the human situation on this earth and stand the brunt of it, enable others to forget it.
The thinkers?scholars, teachers, writers, politicians?fed and warmed and lulled like babies, can forget their real situation. But their acts recognize it…
Tomorrow, we go shopping in Paris. Perhaps to a charcuterie?
Au revoir!
Comments
3 responses to “One Day Left”
We should remember where the whole Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame story started:
* * *
“Valerie Plame should be ‘frog-marched’ out of Washington”
“… Joe Wilson’s wife is not a foreign spy – she’s a desk jockey at Langley (with a cushy place in Georgetown) who’s responsible for … wait for it … tracking down WMD for our country!”
“Why on earth did someone with that very important responsbility pre-judge the Niger-Iraq-yellowcake story as “this crazy story”? I mean, its only our national security and stuff – no biggie.”
“Someone let Val Plame know: the Niger-Iraq-yellowcake “crazy story” turned out to be true.”
“How many other WMD leads has Ms. Plame given short shrift? Do you know about any more “crazy” WMD leads, Val? Maybe you should go look at those files again. Does her high security clearance prevent her from getting fired for not giving a whit about national security risks for which she’s the responsbile agent?”
“Not only did Ms. Plame dismiss one of the key pieces of intelligence regarding Iraq potentially creating the Arab bomb – she successfuly recommended her gadfly husband to be the sole investigator to go check out the lead! How many millions of dollars go to the CIA for intelligence gathering each year? And yet the only person we have to send to Niger to see if Saddam is building a nuke is … the house husband of an agent at Langley?”
“What’s next? Will Valerie Plame send the family golden retriever to look for missle silos in North Korea?”
“This is the real story that the mainstream press won’t touch with a ten-foot-pole. What heads should roll at Langley for entrusting our national security to the whims of the Wilson-Plame family travelogue?”
* * *
Unbelievable. Shameful. Putting nepotism above national security.
Fire Valerie Plame now. She’s a very real risk to our national security.
-nikita demosthenes
Don’t know how Valerie Plame got into this, but James Wolcott deserves to see a hurricane up close and personal, as they say. Or maybe a tornado. That’s even more dramatic. Maybe he’d change his tune. Rose Wilder Lane was right. He and his kind get to play with words only because real men, the men (and women) he sneers at, do the real work of protecting his worthless hide from hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, famines, fires, terrorists, etc..
[…] vile Fred Phelps is allowed to insult American soldiers who gave their lives for the country, and rooting for lethal hurricanes (anyone remember?) is protected by the First […]