The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us), which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die.
I am undone
Cast upon an ocean spun
with filaments of foam
And drawing in great gasps of sea
Sinking to my watery home
Sung to by a wailing banshee
Sea nymphs knit my hair
in seaweed round and round
And form a chorus singing
as I drown
Entombed in soundless sea
The cool, dark silence
an epiphany
I took her picture as she walked towards me
I remember the half smile on her face
And when she reached me
Wanting to kiss her
“Not here”
Quickly, I took another picture
Just the empty street
“It will look as if you disappeared”
It’s that second photograph that haunts me
Looking up from that empty lens
When I tell someone that I’m an American I am conveying not just where I’m from, but in a larger sense, who I am. Today, I’m no longer sure who that is.
I served in the United States Air Force from 1961 to 1981 and during that time I served in a number of different countries. Most people I met in these places invariably admired Americans. They always wanted to shake my hand. It may be that they idealized us. I know they thought everyone in America was rich. But more than that, I believe that they saw America as a model to which other countries could aspire; that “shining city on a hill” that former President Ronald Reagan spoke of when he said that we Americans are “the last best hope of man on earth.”
I was proud to be a person thought to reflect the grand idea of America. I knew that America was not perfect, nor was I -- we were never perfect -- but never have we been so imperfect.
At one time admired and respected for our sense of decency and fair play, we are today justifiably reviled for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, the abomination that is Guantanamo, the injustice of extraordinary rendition, and the evil and hypocrisy of enhanced interrogation.
Envied for the freedoms we enjoyed and admired for the physical and intellectual courage we demonstrated in earning those freedoms, we are looked upon today as a country, gripped by fear, meekly acquiescing to spying on our fellow citizens, and teetering on the edge of a police state.
And where so many other countries struggled valiantly to light the torch of democracy, and we were looked to as a beacon in the surrounding darkness, now that beacon flickers and dims as our elected representatives sell their votes, gerrymander congressional districts to favor their party, and deny the vote to minorities and the poor.
As for being rich, America, once the world’s biggest creditor nation is now the world’s biggest debtor nation. We have for more than 3 decades failed to address our energy future and now find ourselves held hostage to exponentially rising energy costs. We are spending borrowed money to pursue an ill-conceived and executed military strategy of preemptive war, and prioritizing military spending over education, healthcare, science, and economic opportunity programs for the growing proportion of Americans (some 13%) living in poverty – today, 37 million.
I want an America with a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and a people unwilling to permit the erosion of human rights that is a legacy of that government. I want an America that has faith in its leaders, its institutions and its self. And an America whose faith in a higher being is an individual choice that manifests itself in acts of compassion and generosity towards its citizens and its neighbors. I want an America that values not material wealth per se, but the wealth of talent, ingenuity, and spirit that create the quality of life that we all work to afford. I want an America that abrogates to no nation leadership in exploring the frontiers of knowledge. I want an America whose conquests are of hunger, disease, poverty, ignorance, deceit, and hate, at home and abroad.
I want my America back, my last best hope.
On the night of Thursday, Aug. 7, forces of the Republic of Georgia drove across the border of South Ossetia, a secessionist region of Georgia that has functioned as an independent entity since the fall of the Soviet Union. The forces drove on to the capital, Tskhinvali, which is close to the border. Georgian forces got bogged down while trying to take the city. In spite of heavy fighting, they never fully secured the city, nor the rest of South Ossetia. On the morning of Aug. 8, Russian forces entered South Ossetia, using armored and motorized infantry forces along with air power.
The Russians were ready. Was the United States?
See the analysis at the STRATFOR web site.
Had I known then what I later discovered about the castle we were about to explore, and the former inhabitants of the caves beneath the Burren, I would never have brought Mattie to the accursed place.
County Clare was our last stop before returning to Dublin for our return flight to the States. Madeleine, “Mattie,” and I had been in Ireland almost two weeks and I was ready for the vacation to be over. Two weeks of overcast, damp, chilly weather was enough for me, to say nothing of navigating the goat paths the Irish called roads. I hadn’t been enthusiastic about vacationing in Ireland in the first place, but Mattie had been going through a bit of a rough spell emotionally, and when she expressed a desire to visit her ancestral home, I acquiesced.
We had just come from the Burren, a geological anomaly in the northwest corner of County Clare.
It was 300 square kilometers of karstic limestone slabs denuded of soil by ice age glaciations -- a bleak place dotted by the remains of megalithic habitations and burial sites, Celtic crosses, and a ruined Cistercian Abbey from the 12th century, and more recent remains of villages abandoned during the famine. The area was popular with archaeologists, as well as occasional tourists, like us. It was also popular with spelunkers, who had discovered that the crevices between the stone slabs often led down to extensive tunnels and caves.
Artifacts discovered in the Burren had been traced to a Mesolithic people that first came to Ireland about seven thousand years before Christ. Some artifacts recently discovered in caves under the Burren were puzzling to archaeologists, because they seemed to predate the earliest archaeologically accepted human habitations of Ireland, and because some of the items discovered appeared to be associated with witchcraft.
The average price of a gallon of gas in the US last week was over four dollars a gallon. It’s hard to know what’s causing the steep rise. Some say hedge fund speculators. I suspect it’s God, angry with us for being fat and lazy. It makes sense. Jack up the price of gas we’ll have to walk more. The price of food is also going up drastically. Clearly, God’s doing that to make us eat less (too bad about the starving Africans). Now that I think about it, God’s probably behind global warming, as well – make us sweat off those extra pounds. I’m less sure about these wild fluctuations in the stock market, but I’m sure there’s a supernatural intelligence of some kind behind what’s happening in our economy (the Devil, you say?).
Yes, these and other developments in our world may be troubling, but it’s comforting to realize that one doesn’t have to work at understanding them, any more than we have to puzzle about how we evolved, if indeed, we have. The answer is in God’s intelligent design. You have to admit though, that as intelligent as God most assuredly is, she sure has a peculiar sense of humor.
