Just Do It!

"A house divided against itself cannot stand," are not worrisome words to this Kamikaze Kongress; they would rather go flaming down in defeat next year than rankle the feathers of those Tea Party hate-mongers who locked and loaded themselves to send up these debt-defying clowns in November, 2010. The prime mission of this 'patriotic' fighter group is to remove any trace of Obama from the American DNA.

The folks who showed up to vote in 2008: the hopeful, the young, the tired, the poor, had better drag their sorry keysters to the polls next year, because so help them, this motley crew of lame-blame Representatives inspires only pity.

The Conscience of a Conservative by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare might as well have been writing about Obama vs. the Republican stonewallers when he penned the following:

What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted!
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

Death's Got Game

Proud missiles soar on wings of cheer
To claim the peace once claimed was dear

Seeds are sown that soon shall reap
Such grim that lurks so low, so deep

Earth's blood floods so black, so thick
Man's blood runs so red, so slick

Fortune's wheel starts and spins so
What chance death forever wins?

M. de Lesdiguières, the Roturier and The Robe

In the chapter entitled, fortuitously, "The Robe", Rafael Sabatini in his novel, Scaramouche, describes in detail the difficulty and the hazard befalling a person of lowly rank finding it necessary to appeal for justice from one whose inflated station in life has rendered him arrogant and ridiculous:

"André-Louis found him ridiculous. He knew pretentiousness for the mask of worthlessness and weakness. And here he beheld pretentiousness incarnate. It was to be read in that arrogant poise of the head, that scowling brow, the inflexion of that reverberating voice. Even more difficult than it is for a man to be a hero to his valet--who has witnessed the dispersal of the parts that make up the imposing whole--is it for a man to be a hero to the student of Man who has witnessed the same in a different sense."

bin Laden: A Hit and a Myth

If it be true, as Camus wrote, that "There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn," and if it be equally true as the Algerian then concluded, that "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart," then the demise of Osama bin Laden ought to make men of all faiths, or none, happy.

April is the 'Cruellest' Month

From his collection, Nothing But Praise, POW Henry G. Lee's painful memory of April, 1942:

Prisoner's March

(Death of a Friend)

So you are dead. The easy words contain

No sense of loss, no sorrow, no despair.

Thus hunger, thirst, fatigue, combine to drain

All feeling from our hearts. The endless glare,

The brutal heat, anesthetize the mind.

I cannot mourn you now. I lift my load,

The suffering column moves. I leave behind

Only another corpse, beside the road.

Days of Reckoning: Entry No. '51, Play Ball!

"Little Weasel" ca. July 1951

You see, my old man, "Big Monte", was a Giants fan. He grew up in Harlem in the 20's and 30's.

By the 50's he'd sit on worn-cushioned iron high stools in joints like the Crossroads Bar & Grill and proselytize for Willie Mays as the "Best Ever Ballplayer" to any Dodgers or Yankees fan that dared breathe or hint otherwise. Myself, not far flung from the family tree, was dubbed "Little Monte" or more often "Little Weasel" by red-nosed imbibers like Crazy Mike, Timmy the Mop, Big and Little Milkshakes, the McKenzie Brothers, the O'Connor Boys, the Refugee, and Frank Bastogne. This was because I likewise campaigned for the canonization of No. 24 while I perched on the steaming stoops of the South Bronx or pranced around the teeming schoolyards of my youth.

It took me a long stretch of time to figure out why nobody's opinion ever nudged over so much as a fraction of an iota after one of those thousands, millions maybe, of lengthy and impassioned arguments over who was the best ballplayer, no matter how abundant or overwhelming was your presentation; no matter how glaring were your selected truths. The fact was plainly that Baseball was your religion, your Team was your faith, your Ballyard was your church, and your Hero was your, well you know, your God. Be he Willie, Mickey, or the Duke.

Play Ball!