When the Levee Breaks (I’ll have no place to stay)
I guess the point of these two shabby essays, is for your humble (Ex) Cowboy to explore the thin line between realistic concern and angry fearful complaining. There is no shortage of either in America. A recent article about how people in Idaho are grabbing their guns and heading for their bunkers hit a nerve. Sure, let’s be weary - but let’s have some perspective as well.
Someone commented on Part I (The Dirty Bomb Martini) that my optimism and faith in humanity must make me a Bush supporter. That is typical behavior for a “sayer”. Sayers know what is right, or more typically, what is wrong with America. They think talking about great big things excuses them from doing good little things. It is an epidemic, and neither party has a monopoly on sayers.
As far as the Bush thing, you will have to dig around here in my blog for the truth about my leanings. Until you have done so, please don’t waste time by blathering your assumptions about the Cowboy's views.
The sayers are all about greatness. They are full of spittle about the greatness of their America, the greatness of their church, the greatness of their political leaders, the greatness of their home places. Then, of course, they are obsessed with the wrongness, the stupidity and the sinfulness of everyone who disagrees with them when it comes to any specific concern. Everything is either Greatness or Doom for the sayers.
Before you develop certainty about what I am so wrongheaded about, let’s agree that there really is frightening change in the fabric of our entire socio-economic stability now. Let’s reconsider a few well known recent circumstances:
• Malfeasance by The Corps of Engineers facilitated a flood event that displaced 700,000 - 1,000,000 people. Most of the hardest hit were impoverished African Americans who were abandoned during the flood in survival conditions by a moral and practical collapse of government response.
• Mideast conflicts and fears of wider war and terrorism centered in Iran and Iraq, along with greed-driven speculation, caused a major spike in oil and gas prices. The price of oil doubled in a few short months causing a great shock of inflation, and contributing to an ongoing real estate downturn.
• No other administration in history has faded in such paralysis and discredit. The President is without credible policy impetus at home or abroad, openly shunned by the international community, and stymied by loss of majority control of the congress. Popular support for a sitting President has never been worse. In the upcoming election the incumbent party can only appeal for votes on the implicit ground that the next administration will be totally unlike the one in office. In a year of deepening economic downturn the nation suffers a crisis of confidence unmatched in our history.
• Pushing against the barriers of prejudice, a woman and a Black Man share the liberal party’s nomination for Presidency to run against the Republican. The tensions caused by moral prejudice have never been more delicate.
Are times worse for us, or are we softer as we face them? The (Ex) Cowboy just doesn’t claim to know. The (ex) Cowboy is not certain about very much. We do know that twenty million people live in a world where a plastic sheet between their children and the sun, or rain is a luxury. So this (Ex)-cowboy is just gonna keep trying to do good things, instead of say great ones. We are not doomed, but we are going to have some long days.
The center is strong, quiet and mighty in America. The center is not great - but it is very good. America is good, churches are good, political discussion is good, our home place is good, our faith in ourselves is good. The center is doing good little things, instead of arguing about great big ones. In this (Ex) Cowboy’s humble view, America is no more, (or less) great then ever, and no more (or less) doomed. The opportunity to choose between saying great and doing good has never been larger.
While you are seething at my shortcomings you can go over to wikipedia and look up the events I listed above. By and large they are forgotten stories, but the people involved seem fascinating. They must have wondered if the country would survive. After each of these cycles a new wave of entrepreneurs, respected political leaders and self made doers raised human goodness from the dust of failed greatness. Good triumphed over great.
The Great Mississippi flood of 1927.
The second Great Oil Crisis (1978)
President Grant (1869-1877)
Victoria Woodhull and Frederick Douglass (1872)
Thanks for Playing
The (Ex) Cowboy
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The Coming Doom Part I
The Wake Up Call
There is this swelling sentiment in America that we almost need a little Armageddon times – just to prove Armageddon times are really coming. There are a few variations, but they all contain the phrase “Wake Up”. As in: we need to “wake up” to the coming doom. The specific peril itself is usually terrorism, but it can also be economic ruin, political collapse, race war, something vague about Mexico. Bird flu is in there occasionally.
My favorite variation is what I have come to call the Dirty Martini Bomb…
This is when you give an otherwise reasonable, sane wealthy white American man two Martinis and let the conversation drift towards politics. This eventually slips out: “Well, We need another attack to wake us up.” Or, as Rumsfeld was quoted just last week:
“This President's pretty much a victim of success….The correction.., I suppose, is an attack."
Yes Professor, I think a modest dose of terror just now would do wonders for us.
I’ve personally heard at least four millionaires ape this same line after a martini or two in the past six months. Always Martinis and always a dirty nuke. It is tempting righteousness, but it just doesn’t pass this Ex-Cowboy’s offal-detector.
You wanna talk Armageddon times? Let’s go back to our roots, and our religious lore. Let’s talk floods Jed. Whatever tribulating doom-blast you favor is easy to prepare for. Just replace the word “flood” below, with your disaster of choice, and you will be among those who survive to re-populate a more righteous democratic utopia.
America might not need anything really, but if we do it is something like a “Go Right Now Bag” for the soul. This is what should be in it:
• A Prescribed Dose of reality, Jack. The Dirty Martini Bomb premise is as brain-fouled as you could ever hope to become, and still have a college degree. I mean think about it: Do we need another flood to prepare us for the next big flood?
• A sense of driving hope and optimism that life has enough value to justify half an hour a year to awkwardly discuss with your family and plan realistic options for the flood that will probably never happen. Teach your kids the science of weather, so they know what a flood is. (And plan on the phones not working at all.)
• Swimming Lessons. Seriously, you live in New Orleans? It’s sixteen feet below sea level, the ocean is rising, and you don’t know how to swim? Your Armageddon experience will be easier on you and your overworked rescuers if you spend a few hours a week shaping up your body and getting some basic awareness of the surroundings you will be hunkered in. Nobody shot their way through their roof after New Orleans: Sell the pistol - buy an axe.
• A Hero Story. Ex-cowboy grandfather-in-law was everything good about an American man, in one shirt. He dammed a western river, shot it out with cowboys, even played minor league ball with Jackie Robinson. He was elected sheriff and got a killer to surrender, confess and ask him to walk him to the chair. (I never knew of him to drink a martini.) He often said; “you can tell a hero story or you can tell a victim story.” Are you a millionaire who worries about the coming flood? Maybe you could put something else where your mouth is. Some carefully thought-out advertising for flood awareness might help more than a "wake-up" flood. Look what that skinny bicycle guy did for cancer...
• Love for thy Neighbor. Seriously now, who are you going to shoot with that pistol? An anonymous black man who manages to swim from fifty blocks away, or the gangly Shimfield boy whose parents never made it home from work? Put the things on this list in your “go “ bag and then make sure the neighbors see it as often as possible. Don't talk small about big things - act big about small ones. Can you cook for the neighborhood, perform emergency medicine, build a shelter from busted stuff, or grow food in a hurry? Any two of these skills will get you appointed the first new mayor rubbleville. That pistol will only make you the lonely dictator of your own attic.
This ran long, so I’ll break it up. Stay tuned for another way to think about how bad it could get before it’s as bad as it could get….
Thanks for playing
The (Ex) Cowboy
www.blogspot.blogofacowboy.com
There is this swelling sentiment in America that we almost need a little Armageddon times – just to prove Armageddon times are really coming. There are a few variations, but they all contain the phrase “Wake Up”. As in: we need to “wake up” to the coming doom. The specific peril itself is usually terrorism, but it can also be economic ruin, political collapse, race war, something vague about Mexico. Bird flu is in there occasionally.
My favorite variation is what I have come to call the Dirty Martini Bomb…
This is when you give an otherwise reasonable, sane wealthy white American man two Martinis and let the conversation drift towards politics. This eventually slips out: “Well, We need another attack to wake us up.” Or, as Rumsfeld was quoted just last week:
“This President's pretty much a victim of success….The correction.., I suppose, is an attack."
Yes Professor, I think a modest dose of terror just now would do wonders for us.
I’ve personally heard at least four millionaires ape this same line after a martini or two in the past six months. Always Martinis and always a dirty nuke. It is tempting righteousness, but it just doesn’t pass this Ex-Cowboy’s offal-detector.
You wanna talk Armageddon times? Let’s go back to our roots, and our religious lore. Let’s talk floods Jed. Whatever tribulating doom-blast you favor is easy to prepare for. Just replace the word “flood” below, with your disaster of choice, and you will be among those who survive to re-populate a more righteous democratic utopia.
America might not need anything really, but if we do it is something like a “Go Right Now Bag” for the soul. This is what should be in it:
• A Prescribed Dose of reality, Jack. The Dirty Martini Bomb premise is as brain-fouled as you could ever hope to become, and still have a college degree. I mean think about it: Do we need another flood to prepare us for the next big flood?
• A sense of driving hope and optimism that life has enough value to justify half an hour a year to awkwardly discuss with your family and plan realistic options for the flood that will probably never happen. Teach your kids the science of weather, so they know what a flood is. (And plan on the phones not working at all.)
• Swimming Lessons. Seriously, you live in New Orleans? It’s sixteen feet below sea level, the ocean is rising, and you don’t know how to swim? Your Armageddon experience will be easier on you and your overworked rescuers if you spend a few hours a week shaping up your body and getting some basic awareness of the surroundings you will be hunkered in. Nobody shot their way through their roof after New Orleans: Sell the pistol - buy an axe.
• A Hero Story. Ex-cowboy grandfather-in-law was everything good about an American man, in one shirt. He dammed a western river, shot it out with cowboys, even played minor league ball with Jackie Robinson. He was elected sheriff and got a killer to surrender, confess and ask him to walk him to the chair. (I never knew of him to drink a martini.) He often said; “you can tell a hero story or you can tell a victim story.” Are you a millionaire who worries about the coming flood? Maybe you could put something else where your mouth is. Some carefully thought-out advertising for flood awareness might help more than a "wake-up" flood. Look what that skinny bicycle guy did for cancer...
• Love for thy Neighbor. Seriously now, who are you going to shoot with that pistol? An anonymous black man who manages to swim from fifty blocks away, or the gangly Shimfield boy whose parents never made it home from work? Put the things on this list in your “go “ bag and then make sure the neighbors see it as often as possible. Don't talk small about big things - act big about small ones. Can you cook for the neighborhood, perform emergency medicine, build a shelter from busted stuff, or grow food in a hurry? Any two of these skills will get you appointed the first new mayor rubbleville. That pistol will only make you the lonely dictator of your own attic.
This ran long, so I’ll break it up. Stay tuned for another way to think about how bad it could get before it’s as bad as it could get….
Thanks for playing
The (Ex) Cowboy
www.blogspot.blogofacowboy.com
Friday, May 23, 2008
Word of the Day at the Addictionary!
The Cowboy is pleased to announce that his entry was chosen as a prestigious "Word of The Day"
at the Political Addictionary:
Read all about it:
Pissenfranchised:
(noun)Democratic voters who threaten to cross party lines to cast their ballot if the candidate they support does not win the nomination
http://political.addictionary.org/
at the Political Addictionary:
Read all about it:
Pissenfranchised:
(noun)Democratic voters who threaten to cross party lines to cast their ballot if the candidate they support does not win the nomination
http://political.addictionary.org/
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