The following pictures are not remotely my favorites or "bes.t" But, fortuitously, they are all available from my property and that makes them special to me. They are accompanied by words from Thoreau, who adorns my dining room table and often gets read paragraph by paragraph as I pass by .

I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground, for in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for an equable temperature. Under the most splendid house in the city is still to be found the cellar where they store their roots as of old, and long after the superstructure has disappeared posterity remark its dent in the earth. The house is still but a sort of porch at the entrance of a burrow.

It is darker in the woods, even on common nights, than most suppose. I frequently had to look up at the opening between the trees above the path in order to learn my route, and, where there was no carte-path, to feel with my feet the faint track which I had worn, or steer by the known relation of particular trees which I felt with my hands, passing between two pines for instance, not more than eighteen inches apart, in the midst of the woods, invariably in the darkest night.

See those clouds; how they hang! That's the greatest thing I have seen to-day. There's nothing like it in the old paintings, nothing like it in foreign lands - unless when we were off the coast of Spain.

It is a soothing employment, on one of those fine days in the fall when all the warmth of the sun is fully appreciated, to sit on a stump as such a height as this, overlooking the pond, and study the dimpling circles which are incessantly inscribed on its otherwise invisible surface amid the reflected skies and trees.

Whichever way we turned, it seemed that the heavens and the earth had met together, since he enhanced the beauty of the landscape. A blue-robed man, whose fittest roof is the overarching sky which reflects his serenity

A simple and independent mind does not does not toil at the bidding of any prince. Genius is not a retainer to any emperor, nor is its material silver, or gold, or marble, except to a trifling extent.

The change from storm and winter to serene and mild weather, from dark and sluggish hours to bright and elastic ones, is a memorable crisis which all things claim.

Some would find fault with the morning-red, if they ever got up early enough.

Greece, who am I that should remember thee,

Thy Marathon and thy Thermopylae?

Is my life vulgar, my fate mean,

Which on these golden memories can lean?

 

The shadows chased one another over wood and meadow, and their alternation harmonized with our mood. We could distinguish the clouds which cast each one, though never so high in the heavens.

My most serene and irresponsible neighbors, let us see that we have the whole advantage of each other; we will be useful at least, if not admirable, to one another. I know that the mountains which separate each other are high, and covered with perpetual snow, but despair not.

The sun was just setting behind the edge of a wooded hill, so rich a sunset as would never have ended but for some reason unknow to men, and to be marked with brighter colors than ordinary in the scroll of time.

Still less do we imagine the sun shining on hill and valley during Philip's war, on the war-path of Church or Philip, or later of Lovewell or Paugus, with serene summer weather, but they must have lived and fought in a dim twilight or night.

[I]t is so much pleasanter and wholesomer to be warmed by the sun while you can be, than by an artificial fire. I thus warmed myself by the still glowing embers which the summer, like a departed hunter, had left.

Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay out doors, even in wet and cold.

The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

The night is the winter, the morning and the evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer. 

The Mayans are coming - run for your life!

I’m writing this blog thing for something like three years and a half years now, and looking back, I find it hard to believe it still exists. Every week (almost without fail) I write about something that is interesting me at the moment. I’d guess it’s mostly split among politics, history, culture and miscellaneous. It’s never been a struggle, although sometimes when I have to goddamn work that gets in the way. My sole policy is to stick to what I’m thinking about, and only to try and please my audience in trifling matters.

Naturally, since it’s my blog, I think the topics are interesting and varied. Most weeks I have between two and ten readers. Even if it were two, that’s about twice what the average blog has, so, yeah for me. If it was about getting readers or making money for me, I would have stopped three and a quarter years ago.

And, I admit, my blogs are far longer than the average blog, which, is the most frequent comment I get (never, shockingly, as a compliment). Still, when I want to say something I want to say what I think and that takes me time. When I’ve written the handful of op-eds the local paper has published, I’ve never felt I could say all that I wanted in the just 700 word limit. That was work.

This is just an outlet for me to talk about things I want to talk about but don’t get a lot of opportunity. A few years ago my friends, middle aged, started having kids and buying houses. Suddenly, and naturally, the conversations with many of them started coalescing around kids and kitchen cabinets. Now, I don’t mind talking about kids and kitchen cabinets. BUT NOT ALL THE TIME, OKAY? I waited a few years before expressing my feelings about it, and then casually let it be known – can we sometimes talk about something else? The men, honestly, were all for it, but it was nigh impossible to get the mother’s to talk about anything else in a public arena. And, we know who wins these things, no? Perhaps this is also why my child bearing female friends find me so much less important these days. Y’think?

For me, this change represented the end of one era and the start of another. So, no doubt it was one of the reasons I started this blog – another era - because I find Nikolai Tesla and the origins of Santa Claus and mountain men and George Patton and the presidential campaign and ancient kings and Tolkien and so on, much more interesting than babies and kitchen tiles (and I actually have a kid).

So, you can imagine my disgust when I read a New York Times article about the HUGE SUCCESS of mommy bloggers who WRITE ABOUT THEIR KIDS! They were invading my territory, the one I escaped to so I could blather on about stuff I find interesting and they can blather all they want about bottles and diapers and wall paper.

Here’s roughly half an article from one of these mommy blogs (found at www.hipasiwannabe.com):

“There is an emerging trend in my household and I am not sure how to feel about it. Part of me is amused. Part of me is sad. Part of me is frightened to death.

My sons have discovered GIRLS.

A couple of weeks ago I mused about how iCarly had stolen Young Jedi’s heart. At that moment it was funny because he had never had an interest before. In fact, he had repeatedly told me how gross they were. She wasn’t really a threat.

But the mommy gloves are now off. Selena Gomez is now in the picture and he is OBSESSED. Compounded with that is the fact that Tiny Ninja (who is 10) has claimed his long time friend (who shall not be named) is his true love and he is going to marry her.

Both boys are discussing kissing. . . .”

I only gave you half her article because a few lines in I started shaking and three quarters the way through I went into a 20 minute coma. I could get all smug and laugh at her, except, she gets about THIRTY SIX THOUSAND HITS A MONTH. And that’s just one of these blogs. There are apparently lots of them and lots of mommies (God, I hope it’s just mommies) reading them.

Let me put this in mathematical terms. That means I get, taking the largest number of possible hit I get a month, somewhere in the range of 1/3600 of the hits this MOMMY WRITING ABOUT HER SONS LOOKING AT GIRLS GETS!!!!

So, basically, any mother can sit down and write the stuff that makes all non-parents and parents of older kids and people too young to be parents – stifle a yawn if it goes on too long, and plenty of people read her. And I can stand on my head and write all stuff you see on the sidebar to this blog and almost no one reads it.

Oh, well. Maybe if I thoroughly proofed these posts before I published them I’d get more hits. Sure, maybe that’s it. And maybe Shakira is going to knock on my door in three, two, one – nope.

Actually all it really does is confirm my view that I was not meant for this world.

So, you might be asking yourself exactly where I’m going with this diatribe, because I still mean to write about something that I find interesting and if you look at the title of this post, it has nothing to do with cradles or pacifiers or even kitchen tiles.

I’m going to talk about the END OF THE WORLD, which is apparently coming quite soon. So, I’m told.

Someone mentioned to me recently that according to the Mayans, the world was going to end in 2012. Because I’m an arrogant know-it-all, I couldn’t let them have their fun and immediately said – no, not the end, but the completion of the turn of the wheel. And then we start again. Nothing more.

It’s been years since I’ve studied the Mayans at all, maybe 20 to 30 years. It’s been probably 15 years or more since I visited Chichén Itzá in Mexico, climbed the temple there and walked through the ancient ball courts. But, I remember some stuff about them. Much of it is difficult, as is all history, but due to lack of evidence, Meso-American history is particularly so.

The Mayans were actually not the first of my Meso-American interests. First were the Incas, then the Olmecs, and then the Toltecs and then the Mayans and last the Aztecs. The Olmecs probably preceded the others, but it is very difficult to tell who got what from whom. For example, modern scholarship seems to indicate a belief that the Mexicans or Aztecs took much from the Mayans and even more from the Toltecs and were their inferiors in it all, not including warfare. But, each group no doubt contributed, just as, for example, in Europe. In fact, due to invasions and migrations and the like, no one can quite clearly say where the dividing lines actually were.

No doubt the main interest for me about these groups was their developed civilizations complete with complex governments, monumental buildings, roads, highly ornamental art, engineering and agriculture, written language, complicated math and various inventions, taxes, rubber products, medicine, raised and incredibly straight roadways, blah, blah, blah (what’s my motto? – this isn’t Wikipedia – look it up yourself).

And, of course, there was their astonishing calendars, which required a deep knowledge of astronomy as well as math. The Mayans took the calendars to a higher level, as they did writing and art, of all the groups, and they often get the most attention. However, that is also possibly because the left a true written record – their system, although comprised of pictographs, was partially syllabic.

There really wasn’t just one Mayan calendar; there were many. Thanks to Bishop Landa, a Spaniard, we will never know as he destroyed much of the Mayan records. Ironically, scholars were able to finally decipher the Mayan writing system starting with the highly flawed writings of Landa himself.

We use calendars to keep track of time, but for them the calendar provided religious, spiritual, predictive, astrological, and other purposes – even things like predicting the gender of a child. Among them they had a calendar synchronized to the human gestation period. Another was a 52 year cycle, five of those being the 260 year cycle and a thousand of those being the 26,000 year cycle (you might or might not want to know that the Mayans used 13 and 20 as their most significant numbers – 13 x 20 = 260). But, 26,000 years was nothing to them. There is evidence of their calculating dates into the hundreds of millions of years (for all the good it did them).

Not to get too deep into the mythology, which along with their writing, was my main focus in my youth, but in traditional Mayan belief, humans come from four races and the Mayans from the red race. There were apparently many gods, but there was possibly a Godlike god as well, known as Hunab K’u. Actually, he may not have been personalized, but more like a creative force, and there is some belief he is a post-Christian creation modeled after the Western God and even the puppet-God of Catholic missionaries whom they associated with another high godm Itzamná (but sometimes he was Hunab K’u’s son). Scholars can’t find reference to HK before the Spanish came, but then again, so much was destroyed, it is not possible to say with certainty. As I said, it is all rather confusing.

The Mayans also measured the days (“k’in,” that is, the sun) and 20 days made a month and 18 days made a year (360 – not quite). They did know the year was actually 365 days and had a separate calendar. Indeed, they apparently understood that there was a quarter day in there too and calculated it almost exactly – 365.2420 to our 365.2422 – off by seconds (I have some doubts about their 365 day calendar, although it is popularly believed and need to read some scholarly articles to satisfy my cynicism).

Actually, to make matters more confusing – they used that calendar for secular purposes and the 360 day year for the long count described below and a 260 day long calendar for religious purposes. It is interesting, to say the least, that the 360 days of a calendar, usually circular in design (typical of Meso-America since around 500 b.c.), would so exactly correspond to our mathematical degrees – 360 degrees in a circle. They also calculated Venus’ year to within a day. It is possible they did the same with Jupiter, Mars, Mercury and Saturn.

One of the Mayan calendars is known as “the long count” and goes for a period of 144,000 days or roughly 394 years. The initial year in our Gregorian calendar was in 3114 B.C., although we do not have historical evidence about the Mayans that far back. The end of the 13th B’ak’tun (that’s the roughly 394 years) should occur about December 21, 2012, give or take a day or so. Eventually, somewhere around the 16th century or thereafter, they discontinued the long count and began the short count. Scholars have never been able to quite figure out just how the short count fit into the long count.

There is no doubt, that all of the end of the world hoopla is a modern day creation patterned after the Y2K nonsense at the beginning of 2000 (a date upon which I won a bet with a friend who thought cataclysmic events would occur). There is no evidence whatsoever that the Mayans thought the end of any of their calendars cycles resulted in the end of the world (leaving aside that the thought that a man created measuring system could end the world is just absurd to begin with) although there is some evidence of a belief in the world ending and being reborn on more than one occasion. In fact, Mayan predictions certainly go farther into the future than the end of 2012. Besides, quite frequently there have been ends to the 52 year period calendar. Nothing happened. Our calendar just went through its millennium and again, nothing happened. The Russians apparently thought the world was ending in 1492. Why in the world would just one of the Mayan calendars coming to the end of its cycle mean anything different?

If you have any interest in this stuff, I have to warn you about the Mayanism, which is sort of a mystical new age version of Mayan history and mythology. Hunbatz Men, who I’ve read, just to see how credible it was, is probably the leader in this field. He did not pass my intuitive tests. However, he would claim that he is the descendant of a long line of Mayan holy men, and he knows better than the white scholars, who he often derides. Even if he is genuine, he is not scholarly, and takes the traditions he likes as substituting for it. At least, this is in my opinion.

Those of you who religiously watched the X-Files may have noted that the long awaited day of the alien invasion is set for December 22, 2012, one day after the end/beginning of the B’ak’tun. What date could be more appropriate?

But, you knew all this and were probably really hoping I’d tell you stories about my kid when she was growing up. Well, once, and this was really cute . . . .

Kvetching Sunday

Stranded in NY for work purposes, I am far from my beloved library from which I fact check, get my quotes or just get inspired for whatever post I'm writing. Left only to my own mind and the puny resources of the internet and its few billion pages, I decided (I have decided . . .? I am deciding . . .? my decision is. . .?) to just kvetch for a bit, because, one, I want to and it's my %$@#* blog and two, it is Sunday, and that is the best day of all to kvetch. Whether I've written about these things before, they are the ones that bug me these days.

Child raising

Got to say something about child raising because sometimes it is all I can do not to explode. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe it's okay to let your child sleep in bed with you no matter how old they are. Maybe it's okay to have them always miserable because you always give them a choice in what they do; maybe we should teach them that if they can't curse, then we can't either; maybe we should always let them win; maybe we should keep them in a crib until they are four; maybe we should let them know that we have no lives except to please them; maybe we should teach them that it's okay to pout and sulk and we will then give way; maybe their ability to cry should outweigh our patience to listen to it and we should give way about that; maybe if they ask enough times we should buy them whatever they want; maybe we should never let them know about our failures in life so they think if they fail - it's all over; maybe we should let them play video games 6 hours a day even when they are together; maybe we should let them dominate everything when we have guests over; maybe we should let them be physical with us but we can never hit them back; maybe 15 minutes of punishment is too much for them; maybe they should get to disobey us with impunity; maybe no other adult should ever be allowed to discipline them; maybe club leaders and teachers shouldn't be allowed to be alone with them; maybe we should never let them play outside of our sight; maybe we should teach them that the world is a terrifying place and everyone wants to hurt, rob or molest them; maybe we should teach them that screaming discrimination or abuse is the best way to get what you want.

Maybe I'm wrong even though everything I've experienced in my life tells me all these things will produce weak, lazy, frightened and unhappy children. Then again, my parents were not exactly child-raising geniuses- perhaps idiots - and I felt I did okay. I look at my daughter's friends, many who were raised with some of the above and they all seem to be out there working hard, educating themselves, being anything but lazy.

We know, of course, that every generation that comes along fears for the ones coming behind it. Maybe we should. But, maybe technology cures all the problems this style of child raising causes. Maybe it really is 80 or 90 percent genetic and we are who we have to be.

That would be great for me actually. The reason I can't control my weight, work on one thing without getting up every few minutes, can't get motivated about earning money, am terribly awkward on social occasions, feel weird about belonging to groups, can't sit quietly while people proffer urban legends ("Actually," he said in a bored distracted way as if correcting an idiot who couldn't possibly know better, "that's not true . . ."), can't tolerate wasteful meetings (I swear if I hear "best practices" one more time I'm buying a gun) is because I'm genetically programmed that way.

Good. No need to work on myself.

Maybe all these are true things. But, I don't think so.

facebook

I just don't get it. Why do I care what my virtual "friends" "friends" are doing. I'm pretty sure I don't. I love my daughter, but I don't care whether her profile says she's in a relationship or it's complicated or single (by the way, my "girlfriend's" profile says she is single). I don't care what she (back to the daughter) has to post. If she wants to tell me something she'll tell me. If I want to know, I'll ask.

Recently, someone I know - a terrific guy who I'm very fond of - can't even think of a character flaw in him - wrote me to say it's hard to keep up with everyone and he knows it's strange, but here's his facebook page. I wrote back that it was great to hear from him and I look forward to talking to him but I just don't do the facebook thing. The truth was, I realized, that despite that it was a nice thing for him to do, I felt a little insulted. I'm so unimportant that I can only contact you through a public medium.

The truth is - I do have a facebook account. I had to go through the pain of telling real friends and family who wanted to be my "friend" (because they are normal people and that's what you do) that I don't have any "friends". I don't have my own kid as a "friend". Worse, she actually "friended" me on my own computer and I had to de-friend her. I have an account for two reasons. One, it is a phenomenal people search tool that has already borne fruit for me. Two, sometimes businesses and people only communicate through facebook (that hasn't happened to me yet - well, sort of once - but I hear from other people it has happened to them).

More than anything, I don't want to have to turn anyone down who doesn't know me and I can't explain to them why I don't want to be "friends" (my real friends know I'm strange and understand). Maybe even worse, I don't want to have to play digital games with people when I don't really want to (I do know some people who feel trapped in games with others).

Of course, as I've said here many times, there is no avoiding technology. In a few years, tv's and computers and radios will be one, and networks like facebook will be so institutionalized we have no choice but to play along. I know that because I HATE texting too, yet I believe I have received or sent out between ten and twenty texts this year.

The media

I am staying at my friend's house in New York. He reads Newsday, a paper I haven't really enjoyed in many years. At this point, it's just ridiculous. For example, they had an article about Jim Bunning, the Kentucky Senator who refused to go along with unanimous consent on a bill that spent money just a few weeks after it passed into law a bill which requires them to pay with spending cuts elsewhere for whatever they spend in that bill.

I don't care what you think of his actions, but Newsday gave a completely Foxnews/MSNBC type treatment of it - one sided. They left out the fact that he was actually in favor of the expenditure, that he was only protesting the violation of a law that was just passed and that he said he would vote for it when they paid for it. And, they also forgot to mention that he won - they finally paid for it.

There really is almost no place to go for news anymore. C-Span is impartial, but they really don't do the news per se. Jim Lehrer has his public tv show, but, I'm going to be honest - they manage to make it deadly dull. The NY Times is fairly criticized for being biased - has admitted it in fact, but various sections of the paper are still unparalleled in my opinion - science, books, Travel, foreign affairs in particular. I've rarely ever read an editorial in any paper that I recall so I can't speak much to that. But, my thought has always been - if you don't know who is writing an opinion piece and their perspective - what good is it? The Wall Street Journal has some credibility but, they don't really cover things that interest me all that much.

So, I pretty much ignore the news. When something is real enough and important enough, it will come to light eventually. But, for now, not many places to look for a fair report.

But, there is a flip side - there are so many different sources that if you work hard and are cynical about where you get information from, you can sometimes piece it together yourself.

Fashion

Thank God for blue jeans or I'd never have been in fashion my whole life. Not entirely true, now that I think about it. There were a couple of years in the 80s where the dorky clothes my mother still bought me were in fashion. But, mostly blue jeans.

Asked what bothered her about me the most, the woman I refer to as my "insignificant other" (we are now battling over who created the phrase- I've got to learn to memorialize and copywrite every damn thing I say) will tell you that I dress poorly.

Guilty. If I live to be 100 (very unlikely unless they put me in a coma when I'm 66) I will never understand why people care how they dress. I would be perfectly happy if the president of the United States wore shorts and sneakers to work. The idea that someone will be more professional if they are in a suit and tie is just so much hooey.

I realized a long time ago that my "heroes (and they are fairly conventional) were often men who didn't dress very well. Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, John Marshall . . . no reason to go into the list. I have no idea if that figured into my liking them and doubt I even knew it when I first became enchanted with them. But, it's there.

If I never have to wear a suit again it will be too soon, although, probably before the year is out I will have to don the monkey suits a few times again.

It's funny how it works, but just as many are impressed by the suit and tie I admit I have an immediate bias against it. Show me a podium with 5 people dressed to the nines (I've read articles on the etymology of that phrase - and whatever you've heard, no one knows where it came from) and one guy in jeans and a sweater and my bias will be for that guy to be more sincere and genuine. But, I'm probably in the minority. Thought about it some more - definately in the minority.

Often I find fashion just means ugly but popular. Probably the clothing item to suffer the most from fashion is the lady's shoe. While the truly graceful and attractive models seem to survive all fashion and continue unabated, every little while we have to survive a run on big clunky ugly shoes that only a mother gorilla could love. Men, of course, don't have the courage to tell women when they look terrible, and really, women dress for each other's approval, so there is nothing lowly men can do about it.

We just wait and one day, they look at those shoes and go - ugh, and put on the pumps.

I have a letter from a little girl from . . .

No, not my usual rant about extreme partisanship.

I was watching the tea party convention a few weeks ago while I was trying to fall asleep. Glenn Beck was talking. Sometimes he is just plain ridiculous (we are no longer a capitalist country - Obama hates all white people, etc.) but I liked his talk because he mostly addressed some things we agree on.

I don't have the exact quote, but, at one thing he said I just sat up in bed and said, "Yes!!!". He started talking about a generic politician who is making a speech and starts saying something like, "I met a man in Laredo, Texas, who came up to me and said, Senator . . . Oh, Shut up."

Yes, shut up. Of course, the difference between Glenn Beck and I is I don't want to hear either side do it. The meeting between libs and cons with President Obama two weeks ago was replete with these whiny messages which somehow all seem the same.

The first person I ever remember hearing anyone use this was President Reagan, who was speaking for the first time after getting shot. He read a letter (I think it was a letter) from a little boy who said to him . . . and all I could think was, Oh, shut up! Who cares?

I'm sure there are a lot of horrid stories out there (the worst at the presidential health care meeting was the story about the women who was using her sisters dentures - oh, shut up) and it's not that I don't feel sympathy, but, the argument really goes something like this -

You and I disagree about some policy.
We each want people to sympathize with our own position.
Everyone knows the policy arguments and no one really cares.
So, if I can tug a heart string about some person which would seem in the abstract to support my side, well, I win, don't I?

No, because you have a nation full of people out there who are listening and saying - oh, shut up - if we don't actually hit the mute button the second you say - "I met an old woman from . . . "

But, in case anyone is feeling that way about me right now, I'm just going to shut up.

Political update for March, 2010

This is a partisan free zone dedicated to the destruction of the partisan instinct in our countrymen.

Tea, everyone?

I reserve judgment on the Tea Party movement, but it is a cautious reserve. There seemed to be two wings. I am attracted to the wing that is dedicated to a capitalistic system of success and failure, consistent rule of law, limited government and local control, and against insane crazy spending. I am not attracted to the God and birthers side, the side that which feels threatened by gays who want to marry or serve the country without going through a charade.

I have frequently goofed on my liberal friends who thought that once Obama was elected that the end of the Republican Party was in sight. Not surprising to me, the Republicans have managed to convince themselves that recent electoral successes means they are guaranteed to taking over congress in 2010. I can’t say what that election will bring, but, I can say that already I see signs that the partisan elements, the angry and the distorted, the “we are always right about everything and everyone knows it” crowd is going to blow it, at least to some degree. The conservative PAC, C-PAC, held a convention this weekend. Like the Tea Partiers, they went from serious speaker to clowns.

As always, I enjoyed listening to Newt Gingrich (who I would probably never vote for – too partisan) as he is a human idea machine. I particularly liked his 2 + 2 = 4 idea for t-shirts and the like, and I hope people do start wearing them (if only I had an entrepreneurial bone in my body, I’d make my own and sell them on the beach in Hawaii). The idea stems from Camus’ The Plague and Orwell’s 1984, both of which wrote about government convincing or insisting that 2 + 2 does not equal 4.

The problem is, Mr. Gingrich, people often don’t want to believe basic arithmetic, whether in buying securities they don’t understand or houses for sub prime rates or birthers or anti-evolutionists (yes, I know it’s a theory, but it’s a good theory). They are convinced of their irrational ideas because they want to believe them. As simple as that. I’ve quoted more than once the Amazing Randi from his icon-busting book which demolishes the whole Nostrodamus myth, that it didn’t matter what he wrote because people will believe in Nostrodamus because it’s more fun for them to do so.

Getting back from my diversion, some Tea Partiers recognize that for them to be on the ballot likely means Democratic victory in some jurisdictions. In fact, there is no doubt that in Nevada, the Tea Party candidate is pulling votes from the Republican candidate and Senator Harry Reid is actually catching up. A Tea Partier is hardly an independent. In fact, Tea Partying in some aspects is just the institutionalization of the conservative wing of the Republican Party – so conservative, they have felt it necessary to distance themselves from their own party. But, we will see. Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the presidency. Someone at a Tea party rally should say that every time if they are smart.

The established rule is that independents can’t win the presidency in America. They haven’t yet. Ross Perot had a shot. John McCain might have been the first independent president in 2000 in my opinion had he gone that route (alas). I despair that a successful independent candidate is not possible until a sufficient number of people understand that the Democrats and the Republicans are the problem, as they so dominate Congress through archaic rules, that any member must be grouped together (“caucus with”) with at least one party or the other. Only the majority leader guided by a leadership committee decides what comes to the floor. I’m not sure how I would replace that, but I have some ideas. Another time.

I will tell you this. I am coming closer and closer to not voting for anyone with a D or R before their name on the ballot this year although I doubt I’ll be voting for a tea-partier, Liberal, Conservative or similar parties either.

WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT THE FILIBUSTER?

The party in power always hates the filibuster because it keeps them from exercising their majority will. They hate it with every fiber of their being until they are the minority party, and, then the magical thing happens which partisans somehow don’t see as hypocrisy – the majority and minority switch positions. The one that hated it loves it and the one that loved it hates t.

They senate could get rid of the filibuster easily, if they would just agree to do it in 2016, when we don’t know what party will win and there is no incumbent. If they refused to get rid of it completely they might consider getting rid of it with respect to presidential appointments. However, they don’t really need to do that either. They could have a rule that presidential appointments are automatically confirmed if not voted on within 60 days.

Filibusters don’t really mean that you need 60 votes to pass anything. It means you need 60 votes to end debate. Debate in congress is antiquated and meaningless. Nerds like me watch C-Span, but that is a very small group. Usually the senators and congress persons are speaking to an empty or near empty room. They never convince each other on controversial votes (Ben Franklin said that it was futile to try and convince people of anything in public discourse). The other day I heard Mayor Ed Koch, a former congressman, explain that when you were called in for a vote, you just looked for someone who was involved in the legislation on your side and ask him how to vote. No one reads anything.

It is not 1804 anyway. If congresspersons want to communicate with each other or the public, then they can blog, communicate through other websites, go on tv or radio or write an op-ed. They don’t need to speak to an empty room. They could still have a congressional record, which, thanks to the fact that you can always amend and revise remarks for days, and put anything written in the record on unanimous consent, is also meaningless.

I DECLARE WAR, BUT FIRST, LUNCH

I liked this paragraph from a post by Linda Chavez on February 20th:

“Now, I am all for going after terrorists and killing them, if we can, before they hit us. But it is sheer hypocrisy to say that we have the right to kill a terror suspect, even a U.S. citizen, so long as we do it thousands of miles away; but if we happen to capture someone red-handed -- or should I say red-underweared, in the case of would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab? -- we have to read them their Miranda rights or at least make sure they're not handled too roughly.”
It really is hypocritical. Wouldn’t you say that the warrior/terrorist/jihadist who comes to your homeland out of uniform and kills civilians deserves less protection than the innocent civilian who is bombed into dust due to a mistake?

That has, in fact, always been the rule. Spies and commandos were regularly just hung, and were lucky if they even got a military trial. John Adams wrote that any nation can take as prisoner any “subject” of a country we were at war with and hold them for the duration. Some refuse to substitute NGOs for country, but, if you don’t, you leave us defenseless. They are the only ones who will fight with us openly any more.

Civilian trials for foreign commandos, spies or terrorists who we catch are a mistake. Most of the country recognizes that. I don’t care if civilian trials have a better success rate than military tribunals. It is not really comparing apples and apples because many of the military tribunals they speak of are really just to decide if the people involved are enemy combatants. We don’t want them to have positive findings if it isn’t true.

The terrorists aren’t citizens. That doesn’t mean they have no rights. But, when they are non-uniformed foreigners who are caught red handed trying to blow up a plane – that means they have almost no rights. To give them constitutional rights other than basic due process (the right to know what they are charged with and a meaningful opportunity to defend themselves) and protection against torture is a mistake. This is akin to the modern premise that you can’t fight a war to win to anymore. It would be great if the human race was ready to eradicate war, but its not.

We are not likely going to be invaded by an army any time soon. Attacks against America are going to be made in the most effective way – by terrorist attacks against civilians for the most part, and by spies and commandos, and the weakening of our system from the inside. While I do not want us to just sweep up anyone we want for no reason, generally speaking prisoners of war should be treated like prisoners of war instead of suspects, particularly when they are caught with a bomb in their underwear.

Speaking of Afghanistan (weren’t we? At some point I’m sure we were) yesterday I watched a hearing on C-Span on Afghanistan. When it was over a man stood up and loudly kept repeating - we are at war and people are dying and only FIVE of you thought this was important enough to show up (I’m paraphrasing, of course). I hate it when people do that – what’s the point? Everyone present just cringes and walks away. And remember, the few congress members hearing him were the ones who actually showed up for the hearing. But, of course, he is right. No one cares much.

THANK GOODNESS THEY HAVE FINALLY REPEALED THOSE PESKY LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS

The other day a highly educated person asked me what I thought about the new free energy machine some major distributors are marketing. The product was showcased on 60 Minutes. He suggested I look into it. I told him I don’t need to but had already made up my mind. Although it supposedly requires no energy to produce energy, for some reason the offices the company runs from uses natural gas to supplement their contraption. Hmmm? And, it can be hooked up to a solar panel? Now, why would it need that? Some engineers who watched 60 Minutes have written on blogs that it is just a fuel cell, like all other fuel cells. Fuel cells, of course, require fuel.

Einstein said that the only physical laws he was sure would not be overturned were the classical laws of thermodynamics, which rule out perpetual motion machines. Which is also why I will spend no more time on this. There are no free lunches, and no free energy machines.

BIG BROTHER REALLY IS WATCHING

Big Brother isn’t just coming; he’s here. In Britain activity on all roads are now recorded and at least temporarily stored. A number of other European countries follow suite. Many people don’t like this. I don’t. But, it is inevitable. Technology will make it available, and fear will make it necessary. We have a lot of technology. A lot of fear too.

How long before we have this in America? Don't blink. Those who believe there are serial killers on every corner ready to eat their children will demand it.

WE GET IT GOVERNOR – YOU DON’T LIKE GAYS

Got an email recently concerning Virginia Gov. McConnell issuing a new executive order on discrimination, protecting the very same groups as did his predecessor, except he yanked out of it protection for those discriminated against for reasons of sexual orientation. It’s why I could not vote for McConnell although I thought him the superior candidate in most other ways to Creigh Deeds. Here’s the troublesome paragraph:

“This order is in furtherance of the stated policy enacted by the General Assembly, and specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, (sexual orientation) age, political affiliation, or against otherwise qualified persons with disabilities. . . .”

If you are a private person, generally speaking you should get to discriminate in your private life (not discussing the ’64 civil rights acts here – but I do believe that the provisions preventing private discrimination in places of business was good for America even if I severely question the constitutionality of it - that's for another day). But, this is the State administration which the executive order effects, not the private sector we are talking about.

So, now, in Virginia, and some other states, they can apparently discriminate against someone who has once had a same sex partner, but not against someone who is a member of the American Nazi Party. I wonder. Suppose you are a man and have a good male friend you travel with or even live with. Is discrimination allowed on the suspicion of homosexuality, or do they have to have pictures. So, Hitler and Richard Simmons both apply for a state job and both are turned down. Hitler because he's a Nazi and Simmons because of his shorts and his lifestyle. Only Hitler has a law suit. Somehow that doesn't work for me.

BECAUSE WE CAN DO BETTER – OH, SHUT UP

What reason did most Republicans in congress have for voting against the job bill. Yes, they were prevented for offering amendments. Yes, the Democrats said they'd listen to them and didn't. But, my ears are closed to Republicans who did the same thing when they were in power just as they will be shut against the Democrats when they are whining some day about their fate.

The ideas in the jobs bill are not only non-partisan, if anything, they are Republican or conservative in nature. Tax credit and incentives for hiring the unemployed and keeping workers on is not your basic liberal philosophy. I haven’t heard policy reasons against it from Republicans, just whining that Republicans wanted more. The R’s are squandering their Scott Brown bounce.

LIBERALS SAY UNCLE ON GLOBAL WARNING!

Just kidding, but isn’t it about time they say – okay, we shouldn’t cost the economy billions of dollars on something which is at best unproven and at worst a scientific hoax. Phil Jones, the dean of global warming experts who is the basis for much of the global warming philosophy has now admitted that the globe hasn’t warmed for at least 15 years and claims he doesn’t have data anymore to back up his hockey stick graph showing that the climate is going to warm increasingly fast very soon.

Don’t have the data? He claims it’s because he is a mess. So, basically then, he must not have shared it with any other scientists so they could verify it? Hmm. Ever hear of email? Hmmm.

You know, there is going to come a sad day for liberals when they have to say to Rush Limbaugh and others like him – okay, maybe it was a hoax.

The sudden rush to argue – it’s not global warming – its climate change is not going to fly either. There is a real theory backed by data or there isn’t. If the temperature is staying stagnant or is even cooling – where is the evidence of change?

Besides, the climate does change. Always has, always will. We already know that. In fact, Professor Jones even acknowledged it might have been warmer in medieval times. Isn’t that one of the reasons that evolution happens?

Moreover, the so called climate is really an average, or series of averages. The fact that it snowed the hell out of the Eastern U.S. this winter is no more proof against global warming than the fact that the northern. U.S. has been rather warm.

I stick to my position. I don’t know if there is going to be substantial global climate change in the near future or not. I am not even convinced we are capable of amassing the data whch might tell us a global temperature. Right now there is no real good evidence of it or that man is somehow contributing to it. And that means, we shouldn't be revising our economy to confront a probably imaginary problem. Let China lead. They need to clean their rivers and their air first before we listen to them.

You would think that Professor Jones’ admissions would hit the liberal sector hard, but it hasn’t. The media and politicians just ignore it and continue to talk about global warming or climate change as if it were an established fact.

ON THE OTHER HANDS, WHAT WON’T CONSERVATIVES JUST ACCEPT

Why can’t conservatives admit the administration is doing a good job in Afghanistan? Are they afraid if they admit ANYTHING Obama does is right, they will lose the next ten elections? Of course, they do, because as never tire of telling you, partisanship makes everyone just a little bit crazy.

We have a plan in Afghanistan. We are executing it. By we, of course, I mean the military. Often I am against announcing our plans, but it appears that announcing the attack on Marja resulted in many tribal leaders signing up with the government side once they were convinced it will be take and hold. The military success in Afghanistan and also in Pakistan has to be approved by conservatives unless they want to claim they are now anti-military. That, of course, would not surprise me at all. Today’s conservative champions of the armed forces, intelligence agency and police used to refer to the FBI as “jack booted thugs” during the Clinton years and suggested that Clinton was a war criminal because Serbia was bombed. I have already heard similar refrains from conservative friends now – if a liberal is in charge – you can’t trust any one under their control anymore – so they claim. And what will they do with much of the highest military leadership wanting to end don’t ask, don’t tell? Disown them?

Somehow I’m pretty sure the prediction I’ve heard from some conservatives that all of the homosexuals in the military will be murdered, isn’t going to come true.

LAST HURRAH

Bob Barr used to really irritate me when he was front and center in the war against Bill Clinton. But now that he is out of congress and has emphasized his libertarian principles, I like him a lot more. I especially liked his comment on a panel at the CPAC conference when he said “Waterboarding is torture, plain and simple.” He got a lot of cheers too. I have never understood the argunment of those who say it is not. How can making someone think they are drowning in order to elicit information from them not torture. We all seemed to think it was torture when Iranian troops put guns to the heads of hostages, even though they didn’t shoot. We all seem to think it is torture to sit through an hour long meeting run by someone from the human resources department. Of course, it’s torture.

I wonder if Mr. Barr will run for president again. Let me help him out by suggesting that he doesn’t. He doesn’t have the career or the popularity or the personality for it. But, some politicians are slow learners.

Which, by the way means, we are getting close to the time when I start making predictions for the 2012 campaigns and elections. Give me until the end of the year though, and I will lay out for you the winners and losers with penetrating accuracy usually only known to zen archers and Olympic curlers.

AND SPEAKING OF THE OLYMPICS

Best event - I loved the short track skating which keeps me on the edge of my seat. How they manage not to constantly plow into each other amazes me, particularly in the relays. Apollo Ohno is not the best, but he is the most exciting. The biathlon is pretty cool too. Ski, shoot, ski, shoot. It's like a James Bond movie. Best moment - Shaun White's last "just for fun" run on the half pipe. He is the Michael Jordan of the sport. The last move he did on the run seemed as impossible as when Jordan or Julius Erving would just float in the air and then twist again when everyone else was being affected by gravity. Best looking - tough call, but I'd say American skiier Julia Mancuso. Feel free to disagree.

Would you just finish it already, JRRT?

When I was a strapping young man I heard a sexologist say on the radio that a man thinks about sex three times an hour. I thought, that’s fairly accurate for me, if she means for twenty minutes each time. I wonder how many times I think of other things – literature, philosophy, physical pain, money, family, old friends? Who knows? Someday they will be able to attach a fMRI to our heads and see on a tv screen what we are thinking about, and even tabulate it. Now that will be scary and the end of the fantasy of privacy. Or, worse, at some point the chip recording our thoughts will be implanted in kids' heads when they are born and it will just be recorded on a government server like the keystrokes I’m typing now probably are being recorded on the NSA super-computer in Fort Meade, Md.

But, that’s the future. Right now, I can tell you myself I am thinking about The Lord of the Rings, and how many times a day it crosses my mind. It might not help that I just counted my Tolkien or Tolkien related books in the house at over 20, and I look at them all the time, but I would estimate that I think about his work five to ten times a day. That may be a little obsessive considering that I first read the LOTR 25 to 30 years ago. Yes, I like it that much. That's more than I think about Miracle on 34th Street, Seinfeld episodes, and whatever books I AM currently reading all put together.

I’ve written on Tolkien before here, about once a year. There was a piece concerning who or what was Tom Bombadil (7/17/07) and another concerning the movies (4/10/08). There was one last year about how, IMHO, The Lord of the Rings was the greatest book of the 20th century (5/14/09). I guess I have more to say.

I consider here his progress of writing LOTR, solely taken from his own letters (of which, thanks to Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien’s authorized biographer, I have now read twice and taken notes the second time around - I swear I enjoyed every second of it). I'm hoping it is more interesting than it might sound to you. But, just in case, I decided to narrate the journey myself as if I were the Master's muse. As always with Tolkien posts, if you aren’t into his work, go elsewhere.

We start, dear reader (Tolkien addressed his audience all the time, he just didn't write "Dear reader") in December, 1937, when the not yet too old philology professor, surprisingly successful with his children's tale published only a few months earlier, The Hobbit, is considering at his publisher's instigation, a sequel.

I think it is plain that quite apart from it, a sequel or successor to The Hobbit is called for. I promise to give this thought and attention. But I am sure you will sympathize when I say that the construction of elaborate and consistent mythology (and two languages) rather occupies the mind, and the Silmarils are in my heart. So that goodness knows what will happen. Mr Baggins began as a comic tale among conventional and inconsistent Grimm’s fairy-tale dwarves, and got drawn into the edge of it – so that even Sauron the terrible peeped over the edge. And what more can hobbits do? They can be comic, but their comedy is suburban unless it is set against things more elemental. But the real fun about orcs and dragons (to my mind) was before their time. Perhaps a new (if similar) line? Do you think Tom Bombadil, the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Beerkshire countryside, could be made into the hero of a story? Or is he, as I suspect, fully enshrined in the enclosed verses? Still, I could enlarge the portrait.

Yes, dear reader, Tom Bombadil was among his first considerations for a hero. Imagine, no Frodo and Sam, or perhaps just a small role for them? Now that would have been a very different tale, indeed. Before LOTR made Tom the phenomenally powerful spirit/being he was, he was merely a character Tolkien had created for his children – a doll actually, and he had written some verses about him which were eventually quietly published to no notoriety. But, to get to my task, at least he is going to start LOTR, anyway - as of December 16, 1937, the date of that letter. How long could it take? After all, Tolkien's proved that he was an engaging and powerful writer. The Hobbit had taken roughly a year or two (it's unclear) to write, though much longer to publish and now he has done it once all ready, so it should be easier. But, to be fair, let's give him two years or so to finish because LOTR is more intense than The Hobbit.

I have written the first chapter of a new story about Hobbits – ‘A long expected party’. (February, 1938)

You just finished the first chapter? Clearly, LOTR will take longer than I thought and a muse's job is never done. But, it's only been a little more than a month, so perhaps I am being a little pesky.

At the same time I find it only too easy to write opening chapters – and for the moment the story is not unfolding. (February, 1938)

Hmmm.

The sequel to The Hobbit has now progressed as far as the end of the third chapter. But stories tend to get out of hand, and this has taken an unpremeditated turn. (March, 1938)

But, then . . .

The sequel to The Hobbit has remained where it stopped. It has lost my favour, and I have no idea what to do with it. For one thing the original Hobbit was never intended to have a sequel – ‘Bilbo remained very happy to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long’ . . . (July, 1938)

That does not sound promising. Maybe I could be C. S. Lewis's muse.

In the last two or three days, after the benefit of idleness and open air, and the sanctioned neglect of duty, I have begun again on the sequel to the ‘Hobbit’ – The Lord of the Ring. It is now flowing along, and getting quite out of hand It has reached about Chapter VII and progresses towards quite unforeseen goals. I must say I think it is a good deal better in places and some ways than the predecessor; but that does not say that I think it either more suitable or more adapted for its audience . . . If the weather is wet in the next fortnight we may have got still further on. But it is no bed-time story . . . . (August, 1938)

Yes, so flash ahead a half year when it is probably almost done. Got to be.

I think The Lord of the Rings is in itself a good deal better than The Hobbit, but it may not prove a very good sequel. It is more grown up – but the audience for which The Hobbit was written has done that also. The readers young and old who clamoured for ‘more about the Necromancer’ are to blame, for the N is not child’s play . . . The writing of The Lord of the Rings is laborious, because I have been doing it as well as I know how, and considering every word. The story, too, has (I fondly imagine) some significance. (February, 1939)

Some significance, you silly little genius; Now, please, WWII is about to start, so you've got to finish soon. So, fly with me to the very end of the same year.

I have never quite ceased work on the sequel. It has reached Chapter XVI. I fear it has grown too large. (December, 1939)

Don’t worry. I'm sure it will all work out. Ummm, except 1940 and 1941 are passing. Alas, maybe it will never be finished. I am apparently no more successful at musing than anything else.

I have for some time intended to write and enquire whether in the present situation it was of any use, other than private and family amusement, to endeavour to complete the sequel to The Hobbit. I have worked on it at intervals since 1938, all such intervals in fact as trebled official work, quadrupled domestic work, and ‘Civil Defense’ have left. It is now approaching completion. I hope to get a little free time this vacation, and might hope to finish it off early next year My heart rather misgives me, all the same. I ought to warm you that it is very long, in places more alarming than ‘The Hobbit’, and in fact nor really a ‘juvenile’ a all. It has reached Chapter XXXI and will require at least six more to finish (these are already sketched). (December, 1942)

Fantastic – the end of 1942. For God sakes, even Pearl Harbor was a year ago. I have faith thought that it will be published soon enough. So, let’s take a big jump – say, over a year from then . . .

I saw the two Lewis bros. yesterday, & lunched with C.S.L.: quite an outing for me. The indefatigable man read me part of a new story! But he is putting the screw on me to finish mine. I needed some pressure, & shall probably respond; but the ‘vac.’ is already half over & the exam. Wood only just cleared. (March, 1944)

Are you kidding me? Are you sure you want to write this? I bet Raymond Chandler could have written 12 novels by now. How is it you have time for lunch?

Yesterday morning I managed to get an hour or two writing, & have brought Frodo nearly to the gates of Mordor. (April, 1944)

Frodo? Mordor? Why that’s the very end, isn’t it? Yeah. Of course, it would help if you wrote more than a couple of hours at a time.

We shall soon be in the shadows of Mordor at last. (May, 1944)

Did I miss something? Weren’t you at the gates of Mordor just a month ago? Did they go back?

A new character has come on the scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the brother of Boromir – and he is holding up the ‘catastrophe’ by a lot of stuff about the history of Gondor and Rohan (with some very sound reflections no doubt on martial glory and true glory): but if he goes on much more a lot of him will have to be removed to the appendices – where already some fascinating material on the hobbit Tobacco industry and the Languages of the West have gone. There has been a battle – with a monstrous Oliphaunt (the Mamuk of Harad) included – and after a short while in a cave behind a waterfall, I think I shall get Sam and Frodo at last into Kirith Ungol and the webs of the Spiders. Then the Great Offensive will burst out. And so with the death of Theoden (by a Nazgul) and the arrival of the hosts of the White Rider before the Gates of Mordor we shall reach the denouement and the swift unraveling. (May, 1944)

That’s more like it. I don’t mind pausing for Faramir. I like him too. So, at worst another couple of months. Phew!

Spent the morning writing and we are now in sight of Minas Morghul. (May, 1944)

The whole morning? Well, yeah for you. For crying out loud, it was easier to plan D-Day.

I am afraid I have not written for some time. . . . I have taken advantage of a bitter cold grey week (in which the lawns have not grown in spite of a little rain) to write: but struck a sticky patch. All that I had sketched or written before proved of little use, as times, motives, etc., have all changed. . . .I worked very hard at my chapter – it is most exhausting work; especially as the climax approaches and one has to keep the pitch up: no easy level will do; and there are all sorts of minor problems of plot and mechanism. I wrote and tore up and rewrote most of it a good many times; but I was rewarded this morning . . . and the latest chapters the best so far. Gollum continues to develop into a most intriguing character. (May, 1944)

What do you mean you haven't written for some time? Are you, depressed? Get some exercise. Chase your wife around and GET BACK TO WORK! I knew I'd never be a good muse. Now, the Tooth Fairy - I would have just killed that.

I was not frightfully bright at lecture on Tuesday, as a result. Chief reason, however, is absorption in Frodo, which now has a great grip and takes a lot out of me: chapter on Shelob and the disaster in Kirith Ungol has been written several times. Whole thing comes out of the wash quite different to any preliminary sketch! . . . Yes, I think the orcs as real a creation as anything in ‘realistic’ fiction: . . . . (May, 1944)

Good for you - orcs are real. So are writing deadlines. You started this 6 years ago. Please stop re-writing everything. Maybe it was better the first time. How would you know?

Here is a little more of ‘The Ring’ for your delectation (I hope), and criticism, but not for return. Two more chapters to complete the ‘Fourth Book’ & and then I hope to finish the ‘Fifth’ and last of the ‘Ring’. (October, 1944)

See, now I’m getting a little pissed off. We were at the end two years ago. It only took two years for the action in the whole damn book to occur.

Book Five and Last opens with . . . the destruction of the Ring, the exact manner of which is not certain . . . Barradur crashes, and the forces of Gandalf sweep into Mordor. Frodo and Sam, fighting with the last Nazgul on an island of rock surrounded by the fire of the erupting Mount Doom, are rescued by Gandalf’s eagle . . . But the final scene will be the passage of Bilbo and Elrond and Gladriel through the woods of the Shire on their way to their way to the Grey Havens. . . It will probably work out very differently from this plan when it really gets written, as the thing seems to write itself once I get going, as if the truth comes out then, only imperfectl glimpsed in the preliminary sketch . . . (November, 1944)

Yes, it will end up very differently, John. Trust me, I'm from the future. But, it is fun to watch the creative process at work and to see how things could have gone differently. Now, you all heard him. Almost done. Seven years gone by!

I am v. glad that you enjoyed the next three ch. of the Ring. The 3rd consignment shd. Reach you about Dec. 10 and the last on 14 Jan. I shall be eager for more comments when you have time. Cert. Sam is the most closely drawn character, the successor to Bilbo of the first book, the genuine hobbit. Frodo is not so interesting, because he has to be highminded, and has (as it were) a vocation. The book will prob. end up with Sam. Frodo will naturally become too ennobled and rarefied by the achievement of the great Quest, and will pass West with all the great figures; but S. will settle down to the Shire and gardens and inns.(December, 1944)

Yes, that’s right. That’s right. You have it all. I give you one more month to put the wraps on it.

Still there is the great ‘Hobbit’ sequel – I use ‘great’, I fear, only in quantitative sense. It is much to ‘great’ for the present situation in that sense. But it cannot be docked or abbreviated. I cannot do better than I have done in this, unless (as is possible enough) I am no judge. But, it is not finished. I made an effort last year to finish it and I failed. Three weeks with nothing else to do – and a little rest and sleep first – would probably be sufficient. (Circa March,1945)

Oh, you son of a . . . Three weeks? Not that I believe you anymore. Well, get some sleep and then to work. It's okay. It's okay. Shhh.

I managed to go into ‘retreat’ in the Summer, and am happy to announce that I succeeded at last in bringing the ‘Lord of the Ring’ to a successful conclusion. . . I think there is a chance of it being published though it will be a massive book far too large to make any money for the publisher (let alone the author); it must run to 1200 pages. (October, 1948)

Wait a second. You said three weeks, WEEKS, not three YEARS. Seriously, what is the matter with you? It’s been an entire decade and you are still not done. Don’t you want to finish it? Okay, a decade is long enough. We’re done, right?

I now suggest as titles of the volumes, under the over-all title The Lord of the Rings: Vol I The Fellowship of the Ring. Vol. II The Two Towers. Vol. III The War of the Ring (or, if you still prefer that: The Return of the King). . . The Two Towers gets as near as possible to finding a title to cover the widely divergent Books 3 and 4; and can be left ambiguous – it might refer to Isengard and Barad-dur, or to Minas Tirith and B; or Isengard and Cirith Ungol. On reflection I prefer for Vol. III The War of the Ring, since it gets in the Ring again; and also is more non-commital, and gives less hint about the turn of the story: the chapter titles have been chosen also to give away as little as possible in advance. But I am not set in my choice. (August, 1953)

So, we were in 1948 and it’s been a decade since you started, and now it’s NINETEEN . . . FIFTY . . . THREE. You are kidding me? What, were you abjucted? However, screwing around with the titles means you are done, right? We're just fluffing the pillows, no?

I am not at all happy about the title ‘the Two Towers’. It must if there is any real reference in it to Vol II refer to Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. But since there is so much made of the basic opposition of the Dark Tower and Minas Tirith, that seems very misleading. There is, of course, actually no real connecting link between Books III and IV, when cut off and presented separately as a volume. (January, 1954)

Sigh. That doesn’t sound like you are finished. They could have fought WWII twice and you still wouldn't have been done. I just got a letter from muse school saying I have to start repaying my loans.

The third volume was of course completed years ago, as far as the tale goes. I have finished such revision, as seemed necessary, and it will go to be set up almost at once. (April, 1954)

Really? I think I heard that one before. Let me guess, more revision? Some 16 years after we started. That's s-i-x-t-e-e-n years after we started. No one believes you anymore, John. I have an idea. Stick with the teaching. At least you won't starve.

But, yes dear reader, it's true, with some more drama and switching publishers, then going back to the one who had published "The Hobbit" – LOTR was published in July, 1954, over 16 years after he decided to start writing a sequel to The Hobbit which very well could have had Tom Bombadil as its hero. You know, looking back, it was worth the wait (actually, I wasn't even born yet).

Who said it II

Last April we played Who said it?, and I couldn't wait a whole year to play it again. My rules are, as almost always with trivia or the like, that I have to find it in my own library. It is hoped that they are "interesting" (see below as to the reasons for the quotations). At least they are to me. This really isn't a trivia contest (although you might want to take a guess), because it would be very odd indeed if you knew many if any of these quotes. What it really is, what most of these trivia like posts are, is just my personal celebration of the only material things I own that I have a personal connection with - my books. I love to peruse through them, finding stickies in them, notes I took or just things I loved and have forgotten. I put the answer right below them, so you don't have to jump back and forth.

1. Again and again the angry monsters made fierce attacks. I served them well with my noble blade, as was only fitting. Small pleasure they had in such a sword-feast, dark things in the sea that meant to eat me, sit round their banquet on the deep sea-floor. Instead, in the morning, they lay on the beach, asleep from my sword, the tide-marks bloodied from their deep gashes, and never again did they trouble the passage of seafaring men across the ocean. (Hint, this one is the only quote from literature, but, historically, a very important work).

This is from Beowulf, the oldest epic poem, still existing, which we have in some form of Old English (I tried to read it. Few words are recognizable in modern English), and certainly near the top of my list of favorite of pre-modern epics or sagas, if not the top. This is from a scene much less famous than the battles with Grendel, his mother or the dragon. The mighty Beowulf is simply engaged in a friendly swimming contest that went on for days. He lost, but only because he was rather busy fighting monsters along the way.

2. At present every coachman and every waiter argues about whether or not the relativity theory is correct. A person's conviction on this point depends on the political party he belongs to.

This is from Albert Einstein's pen. It reminds me much of the current debate over global warming. What you read, who you give credence to, etc., seems so much to depend on whether one is more or less on the right or the left. Apparently, this is nothing new. Of course, now we know that relativity theory is correct as, without it, the gps in your cell phone and other devices would not work.

3. I find the public passion for justice quite boring and artificial, for neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done or not.

This is from the snarly mystery writer, Patricia Highsmith, creator of Ripley. If nothing else, she said what she thought.

4. According to the reports sent to me, it appears that, thanks to the firmness of decision and courage which you showed, exposing your own person, the attempted high treason was crushed. You have saved the German people from grave danger, I am obliged to express to you my profound thanks and recognition.

From the president of Germany, Paul von Hindenberg, to Adolph Hitler, after the Night of the Long Knives. The hero of WWI, his role in Hitler's rise is disappointing to say the least, but he was already lapsing in and out of senility, and mistook Hitler on the day he died for the Kaiser.

5. These men could shave a horse's main (sic), paint, disfigure and offer for him for sale to the owner in the very act of inquiring for his own horse . . . they could hoop up in a hogshead a drunken man, they themselves being drunk, put in and nail down the head, and roll the man down New Salem Hill a hundred feet or more. They could run down a lean, hungry wild pig, catch it, heat a ten-plate stove furnace hot, and putting in the pig, could cook it, they dancing the while a merry jig.

A description by Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, of the men of the West. He was complimenting them.

6. The course that we have chosen will require wisdom and endurance. But let no one doubt for a moment that we have the resources and we have the will to follow this course as long as it may take. No one should think for a moment that we will be worn down, nor will we be driven out, and we will not be provoked into rashness. But we will continue to meet aggression with firmness and unprovoked attack with measured reply.

Or not. This was a speech by LBJ on the Vietnam conflict. At least, for his part, he meant it, and we were there long after he left office.

7. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not violated but with his wrath.

A curious conflicting statement by Thomas Jefferson, who's greatest credit was his championing of religious freedom.

8. The inhabitants live upon flesh, rice, and milk. They have no wine made from grapes, but prepare it from rice and a mixture of spices. Both men and women have their bodies entirely decorated with needle markings, in figures of beasts and birds; and there are among them specialists whose sole employment is to execute these ornaments upon the hands, legs and breast. When a black coloring stuff has been rubbed into these punctures, it is impossible to efface the marks by water or otherwise. The man or woman who exhibits the greatest profusion of these figures is esteemed the most attractive.

Would you believe Marco Polo on tatooing in old China? There is, indeed, nothing new under the sun.

9. I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now I would go to that man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet spot and kill him.

Mark Twain ranks number 2 to me as the greatest American writer, and number 1 as a true author. I imagine many scholars would agree with me. I find in perusing his gems, you can find the answers to many of life's problems.

10.The more I see of the Czar, the Kaiser, and the Mikado the better I am content with democracy, even if we have to include the American newspaper as one of its assets.

Not bad for a president. That's Teddy Roosevelt, frustrated in his role as a peace maker. I hope and think he was joking.

11. I'd heard about what series are like, but I really didn't know how it would be. It was quite a shock. In this medium, you perform, everyone performs. There's no such thing as a real moment, an honest reaction, because the show is like a cartoon. You're not acting. Not the way I studied it.

From the mouth of the enchanting Ginger, aka, Tina Louise, the bathing beauty of Gilligan's Island. She wasn't much liked on the show and refused to participate in Returns to . . . As to the question, Ginger or Mary Ann, MA wins hands down.

12. I shall stand or fall in this struggle. I shall never survive the defeat of my people. There will be no capitulation to the powers outside, no revolution by the forces within.

Hitler himself, as the end neared. For a second, he sounded a little Churchillian, didn't he?

13. And what of our children, noble testament to our sacred union, fruit of our deep and enduring love; what manner of mercy is it that would slay their adored father, and deliver up their devoted mother to everlasting emptiness? Know then, you warped, gross, eaters of dust, you abominations upon this beauteous earth, I should rather embrace my husband in death than live on ingloriously upon your execrable bounty.

Ethel Rosenberg, possibly a Soviet spy (her husband Julius was certainly) reacting to hints that she might be spared (as were the other atomic spies in her circle) and that only her husband would be slayed. Betrayed by her own family, her story is still moving, even if you deem her a villain, and it is a touching love story at that.

14. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. Their is grandeur in this rule of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

So ends Darwin's The Origin of Species. He would be greatly surprised at criticism of his theory as a form of atheism.

15. Interesting. An unconvincing word; avoid it as a means of introduction. Instead of announcing that what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so.

I love Strunk and White's Elements of Style. It doesn't take long to read and is probably a good idea every once in a while. It certainly is interesting.

16. Among the Jews there are three schools of thought, whose adherents are called Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes respectively. The Essenes profess a severer discipline: they are Jews by birth and are peculiarly attached to each other. They escew pleasure-seeking as a vice and regard temperance and mastery of the passions as virtue. Scorning wedlock, they select other men's children while still pliable and teachable, and fashion them after their own pattern - not that they wish to do away with marriage as a means of continuing the race, but they are afraid of the promiscuity of women and convinced that none of the sex remains faithful to one man.

The works of Josephus are just riveting. Perhaps we owe more to him for our knowledge of the first century than anyone else. Certainly, his offhand mention of James, brother of Jesus who is called Messiah (which I believe was a genuine reference, unlike some other later insertions) is our best evidence of Jesus' existence.

17. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlorien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horse-lords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fangorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystified as Frodo at Gandalf’s failure to appear on September 22. . . .

If you can't figure that one out, you are just an idiot. But, it's from one of Tolkien's letters, which are the best guide as to how he created his own little imaginary middle-earth.

18. My heart skipped within me, thinking they had been English men at the first sight of them, for they were dressed in English apparel, with hats, white neckcloths, and sashes about their waists, and ribbons upon their shoulders.: but when they came near, there was a vast difference between the lovely faces of Christians, and the foul looks of these heathens.

Mary Rowlandson was taken by Indians during King Philip's War (17th century) and saw her own daughter die. She was finally ransomed and restored to her husband. Her tale of captivity (short and you can find it online) was a huge best seller in its day. It is hard not to feel her disappointment in thinking she is about to be rescued by friends only to be quickly dragged back to reality.

19. My understanding is covered with sores. There is no physician to heal me. I have waited for someone to pity me, but found no comforters. from Adam to this day I have surpassed all sinners. Bestial and corrupt, I have defiled my mind by a liking for unworthy things, my mouth by words of murder, lewdness and otehr foul acts, my tongue by self-praise, my throat and chest by pride and arrogance, my hands by indecent contacts, by theft and assassination, my loins by monstrous lechery, girding them up for every possible evil deeed, and my feet by hastening to commit murder and plunder.

From the self drawn will of Ivan the Terrible. If you don't find that interesting (sorry, Mssrs. Strunk and White) we have little in common.

20. We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before setting, after a cold, gray day, teached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon and on the leaves of the shrub oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched long over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air alsso was so warm and serene that nothing was wanting to make a paradis of that meadow. When we reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenom, never to happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever, and infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure the latest child that walked there, it was more glorious still.

Oh, to have a fraction of Henry David Thoreau's talent . . . that would be something. He is perhaps tied for second on my list of great American writers and tied for number 2 or number 3 among actual authors. You could open a collection of his works at random and come up on any page, almost every paragraph with as evocative a drawing. I can't read a line of his without thinking "wow".

A rose by another name is just not nice

So, there I was standing on line at Mount Vernon (or was it Monticello?) with Bear and Mrs. Bear, waiting for the tour to begin. Casually, I used the word “retard,” and received some looks from those around me.

“What,” I said, “is that one of the words we are no longer supposed to use?”

“Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.” "Yes."

I pondered that a bit there. It seemed a little silly to me that a word I had grown up with was somehow now verboten, couldn’t be used at all, while awkward synonyms for it were okay. Later, in the souvenir shop I was standing by Mrs. Bear when I spotted a father and son who had been sitting on a bench when I uttered the unpopular word.

“Oh, no. Oh, no. Look over there. Please don’t tell me that that kid over there is the one who was sitting on the bench near us when I said ‘retard’.”

“I think so.”

“Oh, sh*t.”

Yes, I had said “retard” right in front of a kid who was a - I'm actually still not sure of the politically correct word – I’m told “special” isn’t right anymore either, maybe “special needs” is still okay, but I still feel strongly that if we are going to have metaphors for improper words, they shouldn't be multiple words, so I’m going to leave it as “r____d” for at least this post.

Worse, his father (I presume) was with him and it probably was more hurtful to him than to his son. I got the same feeling you'd get if you'd asked Mr. Jones how his son was and he replied, “Why Johnnie’s dead.” My apparent lack of vocabulary no doubt gave them a good reason to think me the lowest of idiots (wait – can you even say idiots anymore? If you can, why? How is “idiot” or “cretin” any less insulting than “r____d”? I’m going to get ahead of the curb and just write “i___t” before I get in trouble.) Anyway, even if I didn’t know that “r___d” was a politically incorrect word, I did know not to say it in front of someone who is, you know, r______d.

So, I felt kind of bad for Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, for getting in trouble for calling liberals in congress “f*cking r____ds” when they were being difficult over health care. First, I'm glad to see we've at least grown up enough that he didn't get in trouble for the expletive. And, not that anyone really thought he meant that they were literally r____ed, just that they were acting like i___ts by insisting on controversial provisions in a bill he wanted to see passed.

Not that I like Emanuel that much, as he was hired to be the tough guy for the administration based on an agressive type of partisanship of which I don’t think too highly. But, this is silly. Even Rush Limbaugh defended him, but probably because he likes to call opponents “r____ds” too.

Still, it gets increasingly difficult in this day and age to avoid the mind field of politically incorrect words. I’m not even talking about the dreaded “N” word, a word I have become so uncomfortable with that I can’t even write it here without feeling funny. Now, I admit that it is a word that I used to use only in the telling of jokes. I always found ethnic humor funny. I used a lot of slurs in jokes, including for my own ethnic group. In my mind the joke was always on the bigot, or the sheer ridiculousness of the prejudice. Yet, I found it funny then and don’t apologize for it. Much humor can be ugly if not meant in jest. It is only because of the extreme emotional angst it causes not only blacks, but at this point many whites, that I won’t even tell a joke using that word anymore, and only use it reluctantly if discussing the topic itself.

A few years ago I was teaching my first constitutional law class where race was an issue. I remember the first time I used the word “black” in class, a word the Supreme Court still uses. I was looking at the class and I was a little nervous lest I was told by a group of angry students that “black” is offensive. As we know, colleges are hotbeds of political correctness. I was not accosted but I think I saw a few involuntary grimaces. Most of the students used "African-American," a designation I neither think is accurate (does it include North Africans of Arabic descent, white South Africans and Rhodesians, and exclude blacks from the West Indies?), nor mellifluous,** nor fair – why don’t we say European-American for whites, etc.?

Color is of course, a ridiculous way to refer to people too, in some senses. None of us are white, black, red or yellow, just different shades of brown.

In the same class I mentioned earlier, I was once reading a paragraph to a case out loud. The opinion was written by a judge who was a leader in anti-race discrimination. When he came to refer to a Chinese person, he referred to them as a “yellow man”. I felt compelled to stop and explain to the class of youngsters that for the judge, who was writing in the late 19th century, that was not a slur, and was not so even in my youth. I'm not sure when it became politically incorrect, but it certainly is now.

Yet, how strange is it that no one would think to refer to someone as a yellow anymore, but we still use black and white? What could the rationale for the difference possibly be? Obviously, rationale is the wrong word, as these things are cultural preferences, and rational thought has little to do with it.

Of course, even stranger is that we don't use “colored person” or just “colored” anymore - that's now a slur - but “people of color” is just fine, in fact preferred by some. Then again, the NCAAP still uses “colored people” and get away with it, no doubt because being mostly “people of color” themselves, no one takes offense. Plus, there is historical significance.

I stick with black and white, because it is easy to say, everyone knows what it means, and so far, it is not considered offensive, or at least terribly offensive, by the large majority of the country.

Yellow, though, as I’ve said, well, that’s out of the question, though no one can say why. As strange, it is now considered incorrect to call someone an “oriental,” but not offensive to say that you are going to the the orient or an antique is oriental.

Of course, being the schizophrenic country we are when it comes to ethnicity, there are a number of places in America that have “devil” in it, which was a direct reference to the American Indians who lived there. Actually, there is a movement to change those names, and many have been.

I still use “Indian,” the word I grew up with. "Indigenous people" or "Native American" is just too long for me. It shouldn’t matter that Indian was a misnomer from the start. Native American is a misnomer too. They were simply here before the Europeans, but they didn’t start off here either. Apparently, and the geneticists seem convinced of this, they are descended from Africans like everyone else in the entire world.

Jew is an interesting word. It’s the only ethnic group I know of which also describes the religion. And, although many words can take on a different context from the way they are said, Jew easily becomes a slur when the J is emphasized or said with a grimace, but why I can’t explain. How come it doesn’t work with Christian?

In fact, I have at least one friend, a Jew, who doesn’t like it when non-Jews use the word Jew, even if meant as in “he is a Jew”. No one I know agrees with that, but he’s a rational person and feels it deeply.

Which raises that issue of “Well, if they use it, why can’t we?” This most often has to do with the dreaded “N” word, which some whites feel they should have the right to use as long as blacks do. While I understand the sentiment behind that, I think it’s a fallacious argument. Not all blacks use it, probably the percentage isn’t that high (although I really don’t know). Let’s use an analogy. If one white guy beats up other white guys, is it okay for a black guy to do so. If you need me to answer the question, you aren’t thinking.

One time I did get into a bit of a mess with that issue in the same con law class I spoke of before. While discussing racism, one black student used the “N” word appropriately. Then, a white student asked a question about it, also appropriately. He was, unfortunately, the class wise guy, but he had meant and said it seriously. Didn’t matter. Many, maybe all (it happened so fast) of my black students were furious and one raised her hand and said someone has to tell “him” to shut up. Now what do I do? I had no idea as I wasn’t prepared for it. So, I said that I can’t solve the problem of who can say it and who can’t, but it just shows how painful fighting words can be and why there was an exception for it in first amendment law (the subject we were discussing).

After the class, the white kid who had said it came up to me sheepishly and asked “What did I do wrong?” I could tell he felt awful. All I could think to say was that I wasn’t going to suggest he did anything wrong, but this is the culture we live in now and if you use the word, just be prepared for consequences. A year later a student in that class who was a little older (and white) told me I had handled it well. I sure didn’t feel like it. Still doesn't. The next week a few of the black students who were always present boycotted the class (or, it sure was a coincidence). I’m guessing they didn’t think I handled it so well.

On a political note, something strange has happened between the two ideologies. It used to be that conservatives were against political correctness. Perhaps having to many points scored against them by liberal word police, many now are, or at least pretend to be, just as sensitive to words as their opposites. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I guess.

So, what’s the moral here? I’m not sure. Obviously this is a cultural matter, and there is no cosmic right or wrong. It's not much different than saying "bless you" when someone sneezes but not when they cough. But, I try and not hurt peoples feelings if there is no principle at stake, so, I’ll try not to say r____d in public if it’s going to upset some people (but, among close friends and family, I may have to resort to it) but if it slips out, I didn’t mean it personally, you i___ts.


** Ah “mellifluous,” my favorite word. May it never become politically incorrect.