Posted: Keep Out

Rant: Let the Reader be Anathema

All the world holds its breath in wait for the wisdom and word of the grand vizier.

On Iraq et al.

+Time is no political blog but anyone with any sense has political opinions. Mine are studiously not party-oriented and I deeply resent being pigeonholed as red or blue, and most especially as lib or con. Once at church coffee hour someone said, “I understand you are somewhat left of center.” With a bristle that now keeps me, with narrowed eyes, thin lips and sharp tongue when crossed, steering clear of polite chit-chat that might go off rancidly political, I retorted more sharply than politic for a clergyman, “Oh, really? On what subject?” But politics is/are about polis, an assembly of citizens, which are people, and any person with any sense has views. I find that mine are different to most. With dismay. Not at self; at the wrong views of others. Which is why I refrain. Politically right of Genghis Khan on some topics, left of the ACLU on some, straddling the fence on some, I would have been an effective despot, but no smarmy congressman. 

Our government’s course on Iraq is appalling, pushing, for doubtful motives, to force "unity" in a region that is neither unified nor desires unity. Worse, worst is the tack of the opposition, especially the war criminal who in a morally just society would have been silenced at the end of a rope. This is a sensible view: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/06/23/the-insiders-on-iraq-the-gop-should-sound-more-like-rand-paul-less-like-dick-cheney/  Tens or hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are dead because of the man and anyone who listens to him anymore is raca. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. 

And now Military.com reports that “advisors” headed to Iraq will not receive danger pay, as they will not be in a combat role. If this is so, it is outrageous, infuriating, because they will be specific targets of the sectarian barbarians who hate us almost as much as they hate each other. 

In Florida, a pop-tart law against suspending little kiddiewinks at school who chew their pop-tarts into the shape of a gun. Was there ever a little American boy who did not make a gun with his pointing finger and go “bang!”? God help us, a pop-tart law is necessary in a gun-crazed society where morons in the public school system criminalize little children for playing what all adults around them do. Pop-tart guns are now legal in Florida but give a child a criminal record up north? Will the Supreme Court hear the case? A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, a child’s right to chew a pop-tart into a gun shape shall not be infringed. 

Florida law that makes it now legal under “stand your ground” to fire a warning shot instead of shooting to kill; necessary after an overzealous prosecutor convicts and obtains a lengthy prison sentence for a wife who warns off her abusive husband instead of killing him. Overturned. But when we see the prosecutor’s name on the ballot for higher political office, we will know that we have gone completely insane.

Sit down funerals. I can love a New Orleans funeral procession

but a sit down funeral? Cadaver at a table enjoying a beer, 

or in a rocking chair waiting for visitors.

Okay, we have gone mad.

anonymous