Bent Notes

It’s early afternoon.  There’s still this resolve to see things optimistically on the part of my people, both personal friends with whom I’m in touch as well as the boggers I’m reading and the talk-radio hosts I’m listening to.

The situation in Philadelphia - Black Panthers blocking a polling place - is getting a lot of attention right now.

Part of me is emotionally exhausted and part of me is on fire.  It’s weird to be host creature to both states simultaneously.

I only knew one person in the line at my polling place, an artist buddy of mine whom I know to be a consistent FHer voter.  It was so weird to make small talk with him about what’s going on around town musically, and then watch him get behind the machine, knowing full well what he was doing, what buttons he was pushing.

At the risk of sounding like some therapist’s patient, I am wondering what I do with this thought I harbor whenever I come in contact with someone who I know full well voted the FHer ticket.  There’s a lot of someones in that category - social friends, professional associates, relatives.  The inescapable fact is that there is some level on which they are the enemy.  These are people who have taken a concrete action which jeopardizes my freedom and my future.  So, as I say, wht do I do?  I can’t jettison the lot of them and re-people my life. Plus, most of them are nice, even wonderful, if horrifyingly misguided, folks.

I know one thing.  Whether Mr. Reasonable Gentleman can squeak through, or whether the Chicago Marxist emerges victorious, there must be a from-the-ground-up reassessment of how to get conservatism to flourish again.

The first principle by which we must be guided is zero tolerance for anything less than total clarity. No McCain-esque distractions and vacuous platitudes about “fighting the status quo in Washington” or “fighting for what’s right for America” or “putting country first.”  Such crap means nothing.  An FHer could utter the same phrases.  Indeed, the Chicago Marxist does employ very similar rhetoric.  No, what we talk about are the specific principles for which we’re willing to fight to the death: the original intent of the Constitution’s framers, free-market economics, American exceptionalism, an America that does not hesitate to respond fiercely and ruthlessly to its enemies’ provocations, and America that demonstrates unwavering loyalty to nations that share these principles, the primacy of family as the basic unit of human organization, and a culture characterized by dignity, depth, decency and real inspiration.

We must expect loud arguments amongst ourselves, finger-pointing and bitterness.  Obviously, the wheels came off our movement and we must find out why.  This is why we’d all be well-advised to enter into this foundational examination with as much prayerfulness and mindfulness of our common aims as possible.  Eventually, the the useless sand of confusion will get sifted out and the nuggets of what we were seeking will be all that remains on the fine-mesh screen.

I look back at this year - my personal successes, some episodes of illness in our household and family, memorable times with friends, the spring’s tornadoes and floods, the spike in gas prices, the financial meltdown, the embrace by a frighteningly large segment of the population of socialism - and ask myself what it all has taught me.  I’d say that the biggest lesson at this point is that, in human life, the visceral and the spiritual are inextricably intertwined.  In fact, I’m sort of considering the possibility that the more one progresses on the spiritual journey, the more reality’s upside-the-head aspect becomes impossible to avoid.

The mixed bag that is our current juncture is very mixed indeed.  Just as Iraq is looking like a stable, unified country ready to take its place as a player in its region and in the struggle against jihadism, the danger from its neighbor to the east, Iran, looks like it’s reaching critical mass.  Domestically, productivity and employment remain high, while bank failures blemish the landscape and inflation, a negligible factor for years, has come roaring back.

America is screaming for clarity and leadership.  Or maybe the problem is that it’s not screaming for clarity and leadership,at least en masse in sufficient numbers.  There is nothing plaguing us that adherence to the time-honored principles that have paved our way out of every similar past situation wouldn’t cure.

You do see little glimpses of it here and there.  Thank God W finally said that we need to drill for oil.  If the man who hopes to succeed him as a GOP president can find a graceful way to put his previous pristine-ANWR statements behind him (I guess I am calling for McCain to flip-flop, which isn’t per se a bad thing, if your previous position was stupid) and point out the stark difference between the corporation-bashing of the Freedom-Haters and the overwhelming obvious good sense of turning loose oil companies anywhere it seems likely that there’s oil, he and the congressional candidates of his pary may have a chance.

There are hopeful signs that the public is likewise beginning to see that the core of the banking and mortgage mess is likewise fairly simple: easy credit and shaky responsibility met head-on and shareholders, depositors and taxpayers were left holding the bag.  A little of that is sufficient to make the vast majority of timely bill-payers say, “Now hold on, here.  Why am I taking a whuppin’ for someone else’s failure to live up to his obligations?”

What I do not understand is this sudden overture the W administration is making to Iran.  Sending Under-Secretary of State William Burns to meet with his theocratic counterpart?  How does that jibe with the recent stories about W giving Israel an “amber light” to take care of business regarding a nuke program?  It may be that there is some highly sensitive factor at play here, some consideration that must be kept tightly under wraps for the time being, but I feel that W owes the American people at least some kind of statement along the lines of “I know this looks like an abrupt turnabout, but if it leads to the favorable changes we anticipate, I will explain it thoroughly in due course.”

Yes, it’s a complicated world.  That’s all the more reason to have a consistent set of bedrock principles that guide us as we encounter all manner of wacky twists and turns and some real threats.  In a sense, it’s like having a chart in front of you when you’re playing music.  If you get lost in the tune, you can’t blame the piece of paper on the stand.

Finally got the high-speed Internet I’d been assuming I was on the road to.  With the exception of the NYC trip, the last two weeks have been a nightmare.  I do believe it is behind me now.

It all got started because Mrs. BN and I decided to join the 21st century and get cell phones.  I met with a Verizon rep over coffee one morning and told her that if we were givign up our land line, I’d like to go ahead and be done with the company that had been providing our phone service altogether.  That company had been providing us with DSL Internet access as well.  She said, “No problem.  We’ll fix you up with wireless access that you get with an air card that you stick into your USB port.”

Seemed simple enough.  Alas, I spent hours in tech support hell, usually winding up the interlude with the tech support person saying, “Hmmm, I can’t tell you what’s going on.  You probably should call the tech support department at the manufacturer of your computer.”  (More than once, it involved said person saying, “Mr. Quick, please stop yelling.”)  This, after I’d made it clear I had two computers, a desktop and a laptop, both of which were accessing the Net at a crawl.

This morning, I finally busted a move.  Took the air card and installation disc back to the Verizon store and said, “We dig the phones, but the Net access ain’t making it.”  Then I went to our Comcast office, with which we already deal for our cable TV, and said “Sign me up for the high-speed stuff.”  The front-counter gal was nice, but she just basically handed me an installation kit.  I explained that I had two computers and she said I’d need to go to Circuit City and buy a router.  Did that, came home and started in.  The Comcast manual said that I’d need to get a screwdriver and take the cover off my desktop and do something with something called DCI slots or something like that.

I called a buddy of mine who is an IT whiz for a big multinational company and he came by after work.  He got it all figured out and I’m doing fine now.

But the whole computer / software industry is in need of massive streamlining.  I have to believe that there are a whole herd of folks like me who feel like they’ve been dumped by the raodside in the middle of the desert with a barely readable map and no compass. 

 I know a lot of bloggers have a lot of skills in that whole area; Little Green Footballs comes to mind as one blog that routinely makes improvements in technical things and explains what has been done for readers.

Me, I’d rather have a syringe full of kerosene injected into my left testicle than deal with that stuff.

Anyway, I have my writing deadlines met for the month, I have good Net access again, I have three gigs this weekend and I’m able to see the possibility of sanity again.