The Strange Man

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't."
--Hamlet (II, ii, 206)

There is a memory I have that I would like to share with old friends, and this is one that I have never spoken of before although it stands out starkly and foremost among all the memories of Mexico for me.

My family had arrived in the Summer of `63 from Buenos Aires, and we were, each of us, trying to get used to the new life and the new routines. My mom learning the ins and outs of how to maneuver a Mercedes 180-D up and down the hills of Lomas, my Dad on the road constantly to the far flung corners of his business world, and we three kids trying our best to fit in, meet new friends and not stand out like proud nails, as new kids on the block always will.

The first weeks of November of that year were cool—and wasn't that a surprise to a newcomer? I had never thought that Mexico would be cold...It was always a pleasantly surprising thing, after the first snow of the winter up in the mountains, to see the first cars coming down from Toluca up above the snowline with the little snowmen on the hoods. The skies were purple at night and on clear days, those two gorgeous snowcapped ladies clearly visible from my house.

This particular November night, a schoolnight, I was in the bedroom that I shared with my little brother. Very late, I was awakened by the unmistakeable sound of a car coming up the driveway into the courtyard. The flagstones made a good sounding board and the sound was quite clear in the cool mountain air. I heard a door slam and
muted voices below. I got out of bed and crossed to the window just in time to hear the doorbell ring downstairs. In the courtyard was a taxi and the driver was waiting. He'd cut the engine and was sitting there in the darkness smoking. From time to time, a dim red glow would light his face as he took another drag on his cigarette and the smoke curled out the open window.

As I stood at the top of the stairs I could hear my father speaking to the visitor in perfunctory tones to which the replies were indistinct but excited. Fully awake now and unable to check my curiosity, I began to creep down the circular wrought iron stairway taking care to avoid the steps that creaked and not to awaken our
Scotty dog, Shadrack asleep under the stairs and chasing rats in dog dreams.

When I got to the bottom, I sat in the dark on the bottom step and was able to look into the living room at the two men sitting next to the fireplace. My father with his back to me and a slightly disheveled young man with a receding hairline who was facing him. My father still in his suit from work but with the jacket off and the
young man wearing a black nylon windbreaker with a white t shirt under it. My father was speaking calmly and in measured tones and occasionally he would be interrupted by the young man who would wave his hands urgently and smack his fist into his palm by way of emphasis.

Suddenly the young man stopped speaking in mid-sentence and looked straight at me as if he could see me through the cover of darkness huddled there at the bottom of the stairwell in the cold. My heart pounded and leaped into my mouth and only by clenching my teeth could I keep it from falling out onto the floor. He was an
unexceptional looking man but as he stared towards me for a full five seconds, his face was burned into my mind. I would never forget him, as unremarkable as he was that night, and who could blame me as the events of that month unfolded. Two weeks after my 14th birthday, this young man's face appeared on the front pages of every
newspaper in the world. Bruised and swollen and unkempt he appeared in the news photos, and on the grainy black and white television films, but there was no mistaking the face of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Hardball

"I am not bound to please thee with my answers."

--The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I.


I support Congressman Tom Tancredo's suggestion that we bomb Mecca if the islamic primitives manage to sneak a nuke in over here. A really big, clear message is what is needed. The primitive mind seems unable to elevate to consciousness the incremental messages. The first strike should probably be a neutron weapon and if that doesn't do it, a nice juicy hydrogen hardball to keep both Mecca and Medina
uninhabitable for a couple of thousand years or until the return of the
expected Mahdi.

Putas Del Fuego

"I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!

--The Merchant of Venice, 1. 1

Austin's own Rollerderby team is unable to get its name published in the paper. Whenever we defeat Lubbock or Fort Worth or some other team, it always gets reported something like this, "AUSTIN [expletive deleted] DEFEAT DALLAS 66-13".

We deserve better than this. A better newspaper, I mean.

I'm Sorry, So Sorry

"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once."

--Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37)


Everybody wants somebody to apologize for something these days. The moslems want us to apologize for advancing civilization past the 15th Century and also for everything that happened following the second siege of Vienna. First they want us to apologize for it and then they would like us to die.

Every 'journalist' has to precede his `question' at the White House with a request for an apology. If they don't follow this protocol, Newsweek or CBS will withdraw their press credentials and it's back to working the unfinished lumber aisle at Home Depot.

The Euroweenies want us to apologize for not offering a palette cleanser following the entrée to our guests at Guantanamo and Klansman Robert Byrd wants Trent Lott to apologize for wishing Strom Thurmond a Happy 120th Birthday.

Henry Waxman wants Halliburton to apologize for rebuilding Iraq and for losing more than one hundred men and women (so far) in the process. He seems particularly steamed that Tommy Hammill escaped from his abductors there and managed to avoid being beheaded thereby depriving Waxman of another video clip for his collection. It's galling to him and Hammill owes Waxman big time for that.

The barking moonbats want President Bush to apologize for liberating 55 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq. The negros want the non-negros to apologize on account of our people forced their people to give up a rich cultural life in Africa, abandon cannibalism, stop wearing plants for clothing and come over here to this place. They want us to apologize and then to give them money.

`Native Americans' the length and breadth of these Western continents want something similar in addition to apologies. So far they've been mollified. Some with casinos and some with not having to put up with border formalities upon entry. OK. Fair guys? No harm, no foul?

So joining in the spirit of things, I want my fair share of apologies too.

For starters, I'd like an apology from Mrs. Hartman for making me move to another desk on another side of the room from Mary Seay in Kindergarten because I was talking too much. I think, no I KNOW, that something beautiful was cut down then.

I want a big, fat, tearful apology from Anna Nicole Kerry for lying to us about his military record and thinking that the American people were dumb enough to let him get away with it. And while he's at it, I think we all deserve an apology from Anna Nicole for inflicting his loony tune wife on us. I still cringe.

I'd like a hearty apology from the Veteran's Administration for not making me sign up for any benefits.

I'd like seven apologies from seven RINOS who thought they could make nice with the dumbs and avoid the nucuelar option. They just delayed it. It coulda been a done deal by now.

I'd like an apology from my college for not having invited me to speak at a commencement yet. And speaking of college, I'd like an apology from Glen Wade for not having the common civility to tell me back then when she was plump and juicy that her name was really Glen Close. I'd have been a lot nicer to her then and I'd go see a lot more of her movies now. And in theatres too, not on pirated DVDs like some people I know. Marielena, you know who I'm talking about.

And lastly (for now), I'd like an apology from everyone who voted for a Democrat in the last couple of elections. You were wrong, so apologize now. And do it like you mean it.

There's more, but this will do for a start.

Freeze Dried Political Correctness

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,--
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."

--Macbeth (IV, i, 14-15)

Guidance from the Canadian Broadcast Company to its reporters and
staff in the proper and politically correct use of the language:

"Avoid labelling any specific bombing or other assault as
a 'terrorist act' unless it's attributed. For instance, we should
refer to the deadly blast at that nightclub in Bali in October 2002
as an 'attack,' not as a 'terrorist attack.' The same applies to the
Madrid train attacks in March 2004, the London bombings in July 2005
and the attacks against the United States in 2001, which the CBC
prefers to call 'the Sept. 11 attacks' or some similar expression.
(The BBC, Reuters and many others follow similar policies.)

"By restricting outselves to neutral language, we aren't faced with
the problem of calling one incident a `terrorist act' (e.g., the
destruction of the World Trade Center) while classifying another as,
say, a mere `bombing' (e.g., the destruction of a crowded shopping
mall in the Middle East)."

So goes the guidance from the confused hanky twisters north of the
border.

In the off chance that I might be able to provide a simple ray of
light to illumine this difficult topic for them, might I suggest the
following definition of terrorist: ONE WHO WILFULLY TARGETS
NONCOMBATANTS.

It is understood that the moonbat contingent will be unable to get
over the preliminary hypothesis that American soldiers, sailors,
marines and airmen do not wilfully murder schoolchildren, teenagers
in discotheques or aging pensioners sitting at sidewalk cafes but the
moonbat's punishment, ultimately, is that he has to be himself and
who really cares what he's braying about anyway?

Expectations

"Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits."

--All's Well That Ends Well (II, i, 145-147)