Rooting for Ahab

With its propensity to get everything wrong, Postmodern Relativism has inverted Ahab and Moby Dick; has made the hero a fiend, the monster majestic. That this fraud could be so easily and completely perpetrated on America’s “educated elites” is only understandable when one realizes that, of the thousands of professors and students dissecting Moby Dick, almost none have actually read the book. Of those who have, few are capable of placing the story in proper context. Couple the Relativist drive to call evil good and good evil with the new environmentalism which imagines any thing wild, from forest fires to malaria viruses, praiseworthy while despising all the works of man, and the elevation of Melville embodiment of evil, the white whale, into some kind of nature fetish was inevitable.



What a pity, we lose the power of the book, the magic of the poetry, and meanwhile Ahab, the personification of man’s nobility, is labeled depraved in the lectures that program lit students in the “blame the West, blame the man,” cultural of guilt. It is not my intention here to present all the proofs of my position. I admit that the references I will sight will be pulled out of context but I am confident that further discussion and deeper readings that revel the background to these quotes will only strengthen my claims.




















As a quick aside, I want to mention how pleasant it is to read Herman Melville, a man who wrote outside the influence of Ernest Hemingway and the high school English teachers who exalted him. It is so pleasant to share an idea with an author who credits you with the ability of following a thought through a sentence of more than eight words.



Proposition One, The Whale is Evil:






















Moby Dick – Malignant – “It was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels reported to have encountered, at such or such a time, or on such or such a meridian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity, which whale, after doing great mischief to his assailants, had completely escaped them,. To some minds it was not an unfair presumption I say, that the whale in question must have been no other than Moby Dick.” (Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 1994, pg 176) Moby Dick representative of the gliding demon in the seas of all life – “How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire – by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be -- what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life, -- all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go.” (pg 185)

Evil embodied in the hue, white – “. . . there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood. “This elusive quality it is, which cause the thought of whiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics; what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathsome than terrific, the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or shark.” (pg187) “What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin? It is that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name he bears, The Albino is as well made as other men – has no substantive deformity – and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him more strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this be so?” (pg 189)















Moby Dick maims Ahab, murders whale-men again and again, and kills the son of the Captain of the Rachel. Moby Dick is the unthinking force of nature which man must tame in order to become God’s steward on earth. Moby Dick is the fear that must be faced; the evil that must be mastered for man to manage his own soul.

Proposition Two – Ahab is the Hero:

Ahab is the Master - “What will the owners say, sir?’ Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and out yell the Typhoons. What cares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou are always prating to me, Starbuck, about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience. But look ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander; and hark ye, my conscience is in the ship’s keel. – On deck!” “Captain Ahab.” Said the reddening mate, moving further into the cabin, with a daring so strangely respectful and cautious that it almost seemed not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest outward manifestation of itself, but within also seemed more than half distrustful of itself; “A better man than I might well pas over in thee what he would quickly enough resent in a younger man; aye and in a happier, Captain Ahab.” “Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me? __ On deck!” “Nay, sir, not yet: I do entreat. And I do dare, sir – to be forbearing! Shall we not understand each other better than hitherto, Captain Ahab?” Ahab sized a loaded musket from the rack (Forming part of most South-Sea-men’s cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck, exclaimed; “Therein one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequot. __ On deck!” (pg 473)






















Ahab “defeats” the St. Elmo’s fire, and the fears of his crew - “The boat! the boat! cried Starbuck, “look at the boat, old man!” Ahab’s harpoon, the one forged at Perth’s fire, remained firmly lashed in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected beyond his whale-boat’s bow; but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused the loose leather sheath to droop off; and from the keen steel barb there now came a leveled flame of pale, forked fire. AS the silent harpoon burned there like a serpent’s tongue, Starbuck rasped Ahab by the arm –“God, God is against thee, old man; forbear! t’is an ill voyage! Ill began, ill continued; let me square the yards, while we may, old man, and make a fair wind of it homewards, to go on a better voyage than this.” “Over hearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken crew instantly ran to the braces – though not a sail was left aloft. For the moment all the aghast mate’s thoughts seemed theirs; they raised a half mutinous cry. But dashing the rattling lightning links to the deck, and snatching the burning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among them; swearing to transfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope’s end. Petrified the men fell back in dismay, and Ahab again spoke: -- “All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine; and heart, soul, and body, lungs ad life, old Ahab is bound. And that ye may now to what tune this heart beats; look ye here; thus I blow out the last fear!” And with one blast of his breath he extinguished the flame.” (pgs 503 – 504)



Ahab fixes the broken compass of the Pequot – “Men,” said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed him the things he had demanded, “My men, the thunder turned old Ahab’s needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own, that will point as true as any.” “Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as this was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic might follow. But Starbuck looked away. With a blow fro the top-mal Ahab knocked off the steel head of the lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, bade him hold it upright, without its touching the deck. Then, with the maul, after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, he hammered that, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before. Then going through some small strange motions with it – whether indispensable to the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to augment the awe of the crew, is uncertain – he called for linen thread; and moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there, and horizontally suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of the compass-cards. At first, the steel went round and round, quivering and vibrating at either end; but at last it settled to its place, when Ahab, who had been intently watching for this result, stepped frankly back from the binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it, exclaimed, --“Look ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level loadstone! The sun is East, and the compass swears it!” (pgs 512-513)























Ahab speaks before he finally defeats Moby Dick, albeit at the cost of his own life: “. . . Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! From all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! And since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!”

“The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the groove; --ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shout out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope’s final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths.” (pgs 566-567)






















Whether the stricken whale died or not is open to debate, Melville is, at the last, not clear. But that Ahab was not defeated, although destroyed, remains the powerful lesson of the book. As America faces a “Mission Impossible” we might well ask where we can find a hero like Ahab.


I was so disappointed in the mini-series of Moby Dick staring Patrick Stewart. It seemed that if anyone could fill Gregory Peck's boot – it seemed to me to be Picard. Surly he would portray Ahab as Ahab was meant to be. Instead they reduced Ahab to a cowardly crazy man. What was even more disappointing about the made for T.V. version is the racism that infused the plot line. In strict contrast to the book, where representatives of all races are deliberately given the positions of most importance, the movie made the crew into a mass of gibbering savages and their bigoted Quaker masters. I couldn’t stand to watch the program in one sitting. I did force it down in bites like bitter herbs, hoping for some satisfaction. It never came.

In the book, I also love the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg, that George Washington of cannibals. I enjoyed their marriage, surly a “merry” one, and how they knelt together to worship the God of the Universe manifest in a bit of burnt wood and their sacred friendship.

There are many manifestations of the Ahab style hero found throughout history. Often there are those who brand them monomaniacal, and mock them; only to find, that, in the end, they were the true heroes. Reagan’s great success by sticking with his attack on the evil empire till it sank and died, is a great example. Especially because many thought he could never win!


















To better understand Moby Dick, I recommend you read two other books written by whale-men. The best is called The Cruse of the Cachalot by Frank T. Bullen. It is easer reading than Moby Dick, and just a beautiful, perhaps even more exciting as far as the whaling goes. The second, though not on a par with the other two is Whale Hunt by Nelson Cole Haley.

Mashing America; the “Truth” on Television

I used to watch MASH. We got our first cable hookup back in 1981, when we were living in Jackson Hole Wyoming. I was excited to find out that I could watch MASH three times a day. I hadn’t started watching MASH until after Henry Blake died, but I’d seen it all in re-runs.

Now I can’t stand to listen to the program, the revulsion is actually physical. Wrapped in a saccharin coating this T.V. show has contributed to a mind set that lays the foundation for appeasement. I once heard Paul Harvey say that MASH had put war out of stile in America. In those days of comparative safety and peace, that didn’t seem so bad. Now in a world where an insidious enemy would hunt us all into extinction Appeasement is a very dangerous delusion. Because a generation of Americans has grown up force fed the anti-war agenda of the 4077th we are all in danger.

A quick examination of the characters reveals the subtle but powerful message of the program. The “good guys” are all in Korea under protest while the few who support America’s difficult but necessary mission are portrayed as fools, fiends, or psychopaths.

On one side we have Hawkeye, Trapper, B. J. and Klinger. Their contempt for America oozes from the script. Their resentment for those whom they blame for the war is pervasive. If you’re against the war, be you souse, a cross dresser, or philanderer – you’re the good guy.

At the other extreme are those who show any semblance of support for their country. Frank Burns, Hot Lips Hulahan, Colonel Flag, and a never ending stream of “Regular Army” guys who are in Korea only to kill and exploit. If you support the war, you’re a fool, a crook, or a killer.

In a recent conversation it was claimed that Frank Burns wasn’t representative of anything he was just a fool. This is the dangerous subtlety of the show. Of course Frank was an idiot, and as an idiot he didn’t like Communism. Colonel Flag is a joke, I was told while watching an episode in which Flag swaggered around the MASH unit threatening to execute a sixteen your old boy. Of course he’s a joke and made all the things connected with him a joke – including CIA and patriotism.

The Chinese and North Koreans only put in rare appearances. There is a lovable bomber pilot, Five o-clock Charlie, whom the wise Dr’s guide in to blow up an American ammo-dump while the “good guys” cheer the destruction of the arms that might have prevented the casualties they will lament in the next scene. There is the compassionate Chinese Dr. who magnanimously offers to hand over wounded prisoners and then lectures the Americans and America on the injustice of U. S. actions. Mean while Frank and Margaret pay the price of supporting the war by being presented as self serving idiots. In show after show the underlying theme is the same, sweet teenage American boys suffer and die, and for what? In the words of the MASHers, “for nothing.”

We are never presented the atrocities on the Communists, the evils of totalitarian dictators who mass murder and enslave. There is no mention of the Communist and Soviet goal of world domination. In episode after episode, America and its military are accused and debased. We have colonels who use black soldiers as cannon fodder; supply offices that steal and deal with the medical supplies needed to save the dying; an insane general who demands a black helicopter pilot dance for his entertainment; a statistician who revels in predicting the death of soldiers, a company commander who waists his soldiers lives to gain fame, an incompetent desk jockey sent to the battle front to gain points for retirement; and unremittingly, General Macarthur is made the butt of jokes and baseless accusations. I could go on and on – every episode brings forth another “ugly” America to contrast with the wise and knowing Dr’s of MASH 4077.

Pacifism is a narcotic. It brings on a seemingly pleasant euphoria, but one which is totally false, unreal; a stimulation of a co-opted mind. The only tool of the pacifists in a world where evil is a reality is appeasement.

I have a favorite Star Trek episode. (The old Star Trek with Kirk and Spock). Kirk and Spock follow Dr. McCoy into a time gate and find themselves in 1930’s America. Spock is passed off as a Chinese who got his ears caught in a rice picker. They meet a girl and McCoy saves her from being rundown by a truck. In that instant the *Enterprise* disappears, there is no future. Spock applies his logic and revels the cause. The woman McCoy saved would go on to maintain the pacifist movement in the U. S. long enough for Hitler to prefect the Atomic bomb and win the war. There would be no future.

The danger of appeasement is that it sounds so easy. Surely “they” want what we want. If we could just jump in a jeep and drive to the peace talks then it would all be over. Just ask Hawkeye.

Years ago I found a book in the University Library. It was full of political cartoons from before World War Two.

The first picture illustrates the words of FDR. There is now an unholy alliance to dominate and enslave the Human race, but MASHed Americans are not interested in hearing about it, are not willing to recognize it even exists. To them it is not as real as a T. V. show in its thirtieth year of re-runs.

The second visualizes the condition of the appeasers. War is hell; no one wants to deal with it. So they turn their backs while the world gets ready to blow.

The next step is presented by this graphic fantasy. The storm has already begun, and America cowers behind the umbrella of appeasement deceived by the false hope that we can stop the floods should they come on us.

Munich was the consummation of appeasement. Britain, the trained cat, was used by the “master of lies” to aiding and abetting the death of Czechoslovakia. Thus the Appeasers in the US would make the American people the allies of the terrorists in their quest for world dominance. They are already cracking the whip.

The guy with the sword represents the French; the chubby chap is Jon Bull, the personification of the British people. Uncle Sam was hunkered down on the beach. How long will the flesh and blood of the free people of Iraq sate the Muslim beast?

When Hitler turned on Poland, France and Britain thought they could put an end to evil. Boy, were they in for a shock. When we are at last forced to face the terrorist killers, how well will we do?

With a bit of bravado, this cartoon shows John Bull finally getting his courage up. But we all know it is too late to win. Only America saved the day. Will it soon be too late for us? This is Osama’s dream. Who will save us then?

And when Europe is gone, and the world in the hands of a nuclear powered Islamic super state how will we survive? Britain looks tough in this cartoon, the lion so fierce. But how could they have stood without our help, no longer than Iraq can if we abandon them to the terrorists. They will be turned from a rock of defiance to a stepping stone toward our destruction.

Pretending that the Islamic Radicals will be our friends if we give them power in “their part of the world” is as foolish as Chamberlain’s hope for "peace in our time". It is the false hallucination of the MASHed mind.

It is fitting that the MASH theme song, soaked into the American mind by the incessant re-running of that fantasy, intones, “Suicide is painless, it brings so many changes; suicide is painless after all.” This is the siren call of the Appeasers; this is the promise of the pacifists, this is the fate of a MASHed America.

Hanoi Jane: The Death’s Head Rises Once Again

In the very week that the U. S. Senate’s unanimously approved commander in Iraq, David Petraeus, and the Secretary of Defense, have pointed out that anti war efforts here in America give aid and comfort to our enemies in Iraq, Jane Fonda and John Kerry rush out to do just that.

John Kerry attacks America in foreign lands.

CBS/AP) Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry slammed the foreign policy of the Bush administration on Saturday, saying it has caused the United States to become "a sort of international pariah."


And in the very same week my friend, the hippie left over, classic liberal came by to visit my Greek and Roman History class. He was spoiling for a fight on the War in Iraq. As he was against the War in Vietnam, even so now – he is against the War in Iraq. He is indeed consistent, and has coined or borrowed all the catch phrases to attack the War and President Bush.

His arguments have pretty much come down to:

1. Bush lied - young men died. The lie was that Saddam had WMD’s when he didn’t.

2. If there is a War on Terror, we should be fighting it in Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden, the guy who attacked us, is still at large, and Bush diverted forces from fighting Al Qaeda in order to “fix” his father’s, Bush one’s, failure.

3. The Iraqis are not willing to fight for themselves, why should we spend any more American blood for their freedom.

4. We are not winning so it’s time to quit before any more Americans die.

5. If we would just set the proper example, if we would become that “City on the Hill”, then “they” would want to be like us, our example would change the world.

To theses specific challenges he inevitably utilized these three fall back arguments of the neo-libs whenever he could throughout the discussion:

1. U.S. is behaving evilly in Iraq

2. Democracy is not for every one; the Iraqi people would rather have, and would be better off if they were ruled by a dictator.

3. The war is creating more terrorists than it is destroying or dissuading.


Because of our ages the discussion inevitably came round to the Vietnam War. For some reason my friend pointed out to my students that Ho Chi Min was a nationalist who had come to the U. S., Britain, even the Pope for help in getting the French out of Vietnam, and only when all else failed did he go to the USSR. One of the outspoken seniors in the class pointed out that what they had always been taught was as my friend had said.
I said that this was not true, that Ho was not a nationalist; all Ho wanted was to rule Vietnam the way Mao ruled China and Stalin ruled the USSR.

The bell came and the class left, with things thus, up in the air.

It was my feeling that my students were confused, that perhaps “the hippie” had won them over, or at least brought them down his path a little further. How could I deal with this danger, this irrationality, when teaching them to think rationally takes so much time?

It would be necessary both to show them the trap into which they had been lead, and to help them see how to get out of it. Before attempting any kind of point by point refutation of the “talking points” with which they had been assailed, it would be necessary to review and reveal the deceptions.

This would necessitate a quick bash of the Seven Logical Fallacies. The next time we met I provided them with a list of the Seven Common Logical Fallacies. I have friends and former students who are “trained” philosophers, who will of course recognize my simplistic approach. I invite any criticism of my “check list”. I garnered these not from philosophy class but from the LSAT study guide I worked through one summer at camp. In spite of their extremely rudimentary level they have proven very helpful in getting students to think critically about the things they hear – including the things they hear from me.


SEVEN COMMON LOGICAL FALLACIES

1. Wrong cause or causal link.

Iraq has oil, therefore American attacked Iraq for oil.

2. False Analogy – conclusion drawn from one situation is applied to another, not analogous.

The French sent troops to Vietnam to establish a colonial empire, therefore American troops in Vietnam were imperialist conquerors.

3. Weak Generalization – Basing a conclusion on too little data, a small sample to a very large generalization.

a. Guards at Abu Grab prison humiliated prisoners, therefore the American military tortures prisoners.

b. Cindy Sheehan, a mother whose son was killed in Iraq, thinks the war is unjustified, therefore all mothers whose children have been killed in Iraq thing the war is wrong.

4. Ambiguous Terms – Shift in a term’s meaning, same word used in different ways within the same argument.

It is better to be killed than be corrupted; therefore it is acceptable to kill to prevent corruption.

5. Irrelevant Evidence – Irrelevant consideration – example: appeals to popularity of a position to prove its value.

65% of those polled disapprove of the War in ___________, therefore the war is wrong.

6. Circular Argument (begging the question) – Conclusion to be proved also appears as a premise.

a. Nationalists fight against foreign powers; Ho fought against the U.S., therefore Ho was a nationalist.

b. Mothers pay a particular price when their children go to war; Condoleezza Rice is not a mother, so she is not paying any price in the surge to save Iraq.

7. Ad hominem – A personal attack, perhaps directed against the source of the claim.

So- and- so never served in the military, therefore he cannot question John Murtha’s patriotism.


I explained to my students that, like any game, argumentation, logic, and reasoning are better “played” when one understands the rules well enough to realize when cheating is going on. I also pointed out that the debate over the War in Iraq is indeed a deadly game, our very existence may well be at hazard.

Having reviewed the basics of logic, we pressed on to consider the claims of my hippie friend. We heard them all again out of the mouths of Hanoi Jane and her friends in Washington Saturday morning. (Her conscience, dipped in the blood of millions, Fonda seems set on killing millions more.)

Here in the Agora I can only present the edges of the discussion, but it is my hope that it will stir even more thought and help us get a record of the discussion for careful examination and consideration.

Here, in part, is how I answered the claims my friend put forward.

1. Bush lied – young men died. The lie was that Saddam had WMD.

Point first: there is much evidence, however discounted in the liberal media, that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction. His own general, the one who would have been responsible for moving such weapons out of Iraq, said Saddam did and that he, the general, moved them to Syria. His claim has never been disproved.

Point second: Saddam did indeed have and use WMD against his own people, against Iran, and had a lot of it at the end of Gulf War I which he never accounted for.

Point three: The UN inspectors and the intelligence agencies of the World had evidence and believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

Pont four: It was not only President Bush but his advisors, ( for example - Collin Powell) and the leaders of the “loyal” opposition party, Kerry, Gore, Clinton, and on and on, that believed Saddam had weapons and called for their, and his destruction.

Pont five: Saddam had in place the know how, the money, and the will to develop nuclear weapons once he was able to end the U.N. inspections, and he was actively bribing the French, and Russians to gain their help in securing the chance to develop these weapons, if not actively developing them at the time of the liberation.


2. If there is a War on Terror, we should be fighting it in Afghanistan. Osama Bin Laden, the guy who attacked us is still at large, and Bush diverted forces from fighting Al Qaeda in order to “fix” his father’s, Bush one’s failure.

Point first: Saddam was involved in supporting terrorists. There is ample evidence that his people were meeting with Al Queda, he was supporting terrorist training in Iraq, and he was financing terrorist acts in Israel and against America.

Point second: The people we are now fighting in Iraq are terrorists.

Point three: We, with our NATO allies are fighting terrorists in Iraq.

Point four: Every reasonable indication is that Osama is already dead.

Point five: Terrorism was never confined to Afghanistan, and the liberation of Iraq has provided an opportunity to concentrate and destroy our enemies.

3. The Iraqis are not willing to fight for themselves, why should we spend any more American blood for their freedom.

Point first: The constitutional and freely elected government of Iraq is our ally in the war on terror. The people of Iraq braved almost unimaginable dangers and hardships just to set up their country, and now die by the thousands defending it.

Pont second: This claim, of lack of Iraqi commitment, is perhaps the biggest lie foisted by the left and their Media masters. I have even heard it from Bill O’Reilly. It is demonstrably not true. Far more Iraqi soldiers than American soldiers are dieing in this war, 14,000 Iraqi policemen have been killed in the last two years, yet brave and patriotic Iraqis continue to signup for these jobs in and effort to save their country.

Point three: The Iraqi army is growing every day, and taking on more and more responsibility, they are still lightly armed, and green, but they fight and die by the hundreds each week.

4. We are not winning, so it is time to quit.

Point first: When my hippie friend brought up this argument one of my students asked what if the folks who fought WWII had felt the same. The point she was making is that wars are often difficult, and those who give up first get beaten. Had we given up because the casualty levels were too high at Normandy, or at the Battle of the Bulge – the very thing Hitler wanted us to do, we would no doubt all be dead by now.

Point second: This is exactly what our enemies want; this was Osama’s plan from the beginning. Bill Clinton’s failure at Mogadishu and the Clinton administration’s weak and cowardly responses to Al Qaeda attacks throughout the world convinced Bin Laden that he could beat us in the first place. Wouldn’t it be painfully ironic if he was right?

Point three: It is impossible for the terrorists to defeat the U. S. military. The only way we can loose is if we give up and retreat.

To the fall back arguments:

1. U.S. is behaving evilly in Iraq.

Point first: The misbehavior of criminal individuals at Abu Grab and else where is not the behavior of the U. S. military. The criminals who humiliated men in prison or have murdered them in other places have been arrested, and punished by the United States for violation of the rules of war.

Point second: Have the terrorists been punished by their “leaders” for their crimes? Of course not, their conduct is all illegal, immoral, and evil; but how little they are condemned in the liberal press. Their murders and atrocities are almost counted as victories by the press in the West.

2. Democracy is not for every one; the Iraqi people would rather have, and would be better off, ruled by a dictator.

Point first: Democracy is more than majority rule, It is the rule of Law for the protection of all peoples. It is the Constitution and Bill of Rights, all the freedoms and privileges of free people.

Point second:: This claim of the neo-libs is in direct contradiction to the premise of the Declaration of Independence. The rights of Life, Liberty, and Property are wanted by all.

Point three: The Iraqi people wrote and voted on their own constitution. They courageously braved the terrorists and insurgents to bring about the foundation of a free government.

Point four: The Iraqi people are fighting for this freedom now – they are willing to pay the ultimate price for it.

One of the students commented that American’s revolution only took four years. I disagreed, the American Revolution did not end until 1865 at the earliest, and thousands and thousands of Americans killed each other to bring freedom to all Americans. 600,000 American soldiers killed each other in the Civil war and thousands of black Americans have been murdered in the century since as Americans have continued to fight among themselves to establish freedom and equality for all.


3. The war is creating more terrorists than it is destroying or dissuading.
Point first: There have been many terrorist attacks against America thwarted since 9/11, these attacks are only part of the great Jihad that Osama and his minions promised to wage against America. They declared this war, and fought all their victories before 9//11.

Point second: There is no way of knowing now many terrorists retreats would have bred. But that they would have killed many more Americans had we not fought, than they have since we decided to do so is certain. Their own threats and attempts prove this.

As to the Ho Chi Min was nationalist tripe. Ho’s goal was to become the Mao of
Vietnam. Like Mao he cared nothing for his people or their lives. He treated his own people far worse then the French ever did. He and the Communist murderers that rule Vietnam to this day, murdered their way into power and maintain their tyranny through the worst kind of terrorism.

As for Ho’s supposed overtures to the U. S. and other free nations, bunk – the same is often said of Castro. Even if either Castro or Ho actually did ask for U. S. help and were refused, that does not excuse their behavior toward the peoples of their countries. They mass murdered all their opposition, took away all civil and human rights, and forced the farce of communist economics on their impoverished and deprived peoples while they lived like kings in wealth and power. The excuse, that because the U. S. did not help them to villainy, what they did was the U. S’s fault, is illogical.

It would be so easy to be against “The War”. Who isn’t against war? But the peace of slavery or of the grave, the peace of Islamic “law and order” is not worth the price no matter how high. I am eager to be convinced otherwise, how easy it would be to join my hippie friend and the mobs that march in Washington D. C.
As the voices of the unreasoning threaten the cause of liberty, the voices of reason must be raised to counter them. The time has come for all good men to come to the aid of their country. If those whose lack of reason would destroy America are determined to speak out, then those who can reason must not remain silent.

"It" Does Not Come Easy

In Robert Beverly Hale’s lectures on Artistic Anatomy and Figure Drawing, that great master proves that there is art in teaching. His presentations are full of information and wit; he is the personification of wisdom as the knowledge of truth.

In his first lecture he explains the importance of understanding the underlying bone and muscle structure before an artist can successfully draw the human figure. He tells of an interesting conversation between James McNeill Whistler and a young would-be artist. Oozing the Postmodern Relativism of the time, the novice intoned, “I paint what I see.”

“Well,” replied Whistler, “you see what you paint.”

It is tragic indeed for an aspirant to art to be unable to recognize the forms before his eyes and thus incapable of portraying them. What is even more disheartening is knowing that adequate effort would allow the would-be to be. That effort is the rub, the sticking point, past which most are unwilling to go.

In Irving Stone’s, *The Agony and the Ecstasy*, we learn of the winter when Michelangelo learned the secrets of human anatomy. One passage is particularly beautiful and terrible.

“The following night he found a boy of about fifteen who showed no external evidence of disease. The pale skin, almost completely white, was soft to the touch. The eyes were blue when he raised the lids, deep in color, contrasting with the pale white of the eyelids. Even in death he was attractive.

”Surely he will wake up,” he murmured.

He saw that the boy was still without hair on his chest, and felt a pity deeper than he had known since he had viewed his first corpse.

He turned away; he’d wait until another night. Then, facing the corner of the whitewashed walls, he stopped. By the next morning this lad would be buried under four feet of earth in the Santo Spirito cemetery. He touched the boy, found him as cold as winter; beautiful, but as dead as all the others.

He made his incisions expertly now . . .”

Some years ago our school put on the musical *Working*. One line troubled me. A young man sings on the assembly line, “If Michelangelo had had to paint the Sistine Ceiling a thousand times; even his mind would have been destroyed.”

Do you see the flaw in that logic?














Michelangelo had of course done the figures on the Sistine ceiling thousands of times. Gathering the terrible knowledge that made his art possible in the frigid death house at Santo Spirito and drawing and redrawing, painting and repainting the forms that would make art, everyday of his life.

















In spite of the Postmodern rush to force it otherwise, the twentieth century produced some real artists; non greater than Norman Rockwell. Rockwell was called, even called himself, “just an illustrator”, but Rockwell knew better. One panting, The Connoisseur* says it all.



















Jackson Pollock was a fraud – incapable of art, he pushed his hoax. Rockwell knew it and in his painting proves that while Rockwell, and any “thing” that can slop paint, could paint like Pollock. Pollock had not paid the price and could not paint like Rockwell.

However, in the Relativist, postmodern world there are plenty who extol Pollock and deprecate Rockwell; many who insist that art is not the product of mastery, but simply the consensus of critics.

I watch with increasing dismay as postmodern relativists mislead the American people into defeat in the battle for their very survival. We can contrast President Bush's plan for Iraq with the book recently released by Jimmy Carter.

The President’s plan calls for hard work and for paying the real price for victory. It would seem easy to turn our back and walk away, save the struggle for another day, but like Michelangelo, the President knows that he must take up the tools and do what is difficult now to achieve real peace in the end.

Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, simply presents the easy way, and calls it truth. It would be so easy if only the whole mess was America and Israel’s fault. Then America could just dump Israel and all the evil would go away.

In his book, *A River Runs Through It*, Norman Maclean has his narrator explain, that to his father fly fishing is an art, "and art like eternal salvation, does not come easy.”

So it is with peace, peace comes only by victory, and victory – like art, does not come easy.


I add this picture as a statement of Rockwell’s opinion of himself. Note that he has pictures of Rembrandt, Durer, Van Gogh and Picasso in his own self-portrait. Some say Rockwell is claiming parity – I believe he is demonstrating something more profound. See the posts below.





















Picasso’s father was an art teacher. He knew the rules of art and taught them to many, he tried to teach them to his son, but Pablo was much more interested in prostitutes than in the elements, principals, and skills of art. This first drawing is by Picasso while in school. It is of the Torso Belvedere, and is copied from a high school drawing program by Jean-Leon Gerome. The practice pieces in this program were reproduced as lithographs by Charles Bargue. Bargue’s drawing is below. I have copied this picture, and did as well as Picasso; if I must say so myself. You can come and see my work on my classroom wall.







































The next three pictures are other class assignments by Picasso. No doubt his teacher stood over him, directing his hand, and correcting his mistakes. These student works are often sighted as proof that Picasso could do “real art” if he wanted. But to anyone who has studied art, they say just the opposite.
























































The work was too much for Picasso. His portrait of Gertrude Stine shows how well he could do without a trained artiest directing his hand. BUT HERE IS THE WONDER for Picasso. Relativists, desperate to validate their “what ever I say is, is” philosophy, saw in Picasso a chance to define art and manipulate the masses. Soon Picasso realizes that his paintings, pushed by the agenda of relativism, could sell no matter what they looked like. In fact they would sell even better if they looked worse. He proceeded to produce ridiculous farces like this next piece. Here you see his pretended application of “African” art. The Africans had every right to feel insulted.








































The next piece shows how far Picasso went to see if he could go too far, for the Relativists he could not.
















But then suddenly, after twenty years of hoaxing, Picasso tried to become a real artist. He literally went back to school and for over a year he tried desperately to master the principles he had shunned before.

The next three pieces are evidence of his best efforts. Overworked and clumsy, they attest to how miserably he failed. His discouragement and failure are represented in the atrocities that were produced throughout the rest of his life.



























































This last picture is an example, and this is not the worst of the best he could do.




















Now an interesting thing about Picasso; the man basked in fame and the accolades of the relativists, but was miserable all his life. He hated the women he bought to serve him, and they all came to hate him. He abandoned one wife to the asylum, and drove his children from him. He died famous, praised, and rich; he died a fraud, a millionaire who claimed to be a communist, (only a relativist could reason like that) a hoaxer that pretended to be an artist. What ruined his joy, what tainted his success into misery? The answer, he knew he was not what the relativists claimed, he know that for all the accolades he was not an artist.

It would be instructive to examine the life of Norman Rockwell, to compare a master who, although the critics shouted otherwise, knew he was what they said he was not, a great artist.

English, the First Language

It seemed like it should work, I’d go off to Hawaii for two months and then I’d know how to speak Japanese, and read it too, I figured. One just sits in class, the teacher talks, and then it’s over – that’s the way it had always worked.

Two months of sixteen hours a day studying, “Speak Out”, special blessings, endless prayers, memorize, memorize, memorize - nothing seemed to work. I took some cold comfort from the story going round the LTM, that Heber J. Grant, who had been President of the Mormon Church and the first Missionary to go to Japan, had, after three years in the Empire, given up having never learned the language. He returned to the valleys of the Mountains declaring that, “the only way to save the Japanese is to bomb um all and baptize um for the dead!”

Come December I was looking out the window of a jet plane on to the lights of Tokyo. Sure enough the neon signs that lit the sky really were in Kanji (Chinese Characters). I just wanted to die.

I have a kid in my 8th period World History class who can’t speak a word of English. Well, maybe ya and no; at least he can nod and shake his head in English. He can’t understand a thing said, written, or read. What this kid and many others need is a year long course on English; taught in Spanish by a teacher who has no other agenda than getting them fluent in the language. Then, once he can understand, speak, read and write in English, Leo can be successfully launched into “regular classes”, and taught all the other things he needs to know to succeed in his “new home”.

To immerse this boy, and thousands like him, in the shark tank of English speaking America without any help or aid is a sin, yet to do otherwise may well be a crime. The excuse I hear in the Small Learning Community (SLC) sessions where we discuss Leo’s fate and struggle; how to get students to sit by him to whisper, or how to get the already overloaded Spanish instructor to meet with him to explain his assignments; is that providing the basic training necessary for him to succeed is racism. How stupid is that?

I actually became a very successful Japanese speaker. My trainer was a genuine genius; my first District Leader a wise young man. Elder Lovell, my DL, sat me down my second night in Japan and explained that good missionaries get up at 6:00 AM (the handbook said up by 6:30) but that great missionaries get up at 5:00. I got up at five for the next year and a half. It took two months of intense training in Hawaii, the constant companionship of bilingual mentors, hours at the books every day, constant assignments and practice drills, several vocabulary notebooks worn to ribbons, and the memorization of fourteen, hour long dialogues (lessons plans, old and new), before I could tear through the language barrier.

What hope does Leo have? No one is teaching him English. All he gets is 90 minutes every other day in an English as a Second Language (ESL) class where the teaching of language is secondary to trying to get him through his math homework so he can get at least one passing grade. In his welding class he gets by, by aping his classmates at their projects. The rest of the time he speaks Spanish with his Spanish speaking friends, his Spanish speaking mother, or daydreams in Spanish while sitting “immersed” in classes taught in English where he may as well be deaf and dumb. As long as Political Correctness and bigotry dominate education in this country Leo has no hope at all.

Where Have All the Prophets Gone?

When Kish, the father of Saul lost his asses, he sent his son to look for them and Saul went to the Prophet Samuel to find out where the lost livestock was. In the process of telling Saul the asses were found, God took the trouble to tell Saul he would be king of Israel.
When Themistocles wanted to know how to save Athens from the Persians he sent to the Prophetess at Delphi and the God told him to defend his city behind a wall of wood.
When the sons of Traquin the Proud and their friend Brutus wanted to know who would rule Rome they asked Apiphia and she told them it would be the first to kiss his mother. Brutes tripped and kissed Mother Earth, the rest is history.
When Muhammad wanted to know which of all the religions taught the truth he asked God and God sent the angle Gabriel to tell him to proclaim Islam.
When Joseph Smith asked the same question as Muhammad, 1200 years later, God told him where to find the golden plates.
Where have all the prophets gone? Now we’re stuck with the likes of Pat Robertson.
“Associated Press
VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson predicted Tuesday a horrific terrorist act on the United States that will result in "mass killing" late in 2007.
"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network. "The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."
Robertson said God told him during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.
"I put these things out with humility," he said.
Robertson said God also told him that the U.S. only feigns friendship with Israel and that U.S. policies are pushing Israel toward "national suicide."
Robertson suggested in January 2006 that God punished then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a stroke for ceding Israeli-controlled land to the Palestinians.
Predicting events for the coming year is an annual tradition for Robertson.
He predicted in January 2004 that President George W. Bush would easily win re-election. Bush won 51 percent of the vote that fall, beating Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.
In 2005, Robertson predicted that Bush would have victory after victory in his second term. He said Social Security reform proposals would be approved and Bush would nominate conservative judges to federal courts.
Lawmakers confirmed Bush's 2005 nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. But the president's Social Security initiative was stalled by widespread opposition.
"I have a relatively good track record," he said. "Sometimes I miss."
In May, Robertson said God told him that storms and possibly a tsunami were to crash into America's coastline in 2006. Even though the U.S. was not hit with a tsunami, Robertson on Tuesday cited last spring's heavy rains and flooding in New England as partly fulfilling the prediction.” (End quote.)
How good a track record should a Prophet have? It seems to me that God should get it right every time. Any Prophet worth his salt ought to be able to tell us in which cave Ben Laden is hiding, and which cities to evacuate before the hurricanes or the nukes hit. If God can keep track of a bunch of donkeys, why would he neglect a nation’s innocent children?
As for Robertson, how misdirected can he be. How silly to be worried about how the U.S. treats Israel while American condones the murder of a million innocent babies every year. Since he can’t even recognize sin, it is ridiculous to think he can communicate with us for God. Robertson is no better at prophesying hurricanes than Al Gore, or terrorist attacks than Alzawahari. Where have all the prophets gone?

A Note in Passing - Compare and Contrast

Flags across the world’s most powerful nation fly at half mast; America celebrates the life of President Gerald Ford in the soft sadness of his passing. Again and again I have heard variation on the following theme from the talking heads that people the media. “We thought he was wrong at the time, but now we see how his great courage enabled right action.” Gerald Ford picked up the burden of a wounded America, not for self aggrandizement or to feed his ambitions, but out of a sense of duty to the people he had served all his life. Ford was a warrior, a scholar, a law giver, and an Eagle Scout. By pardoning Richard Nixon he gave the malicious media the means to spin the mindless against him, but he healed the nation. Shorn of power and office, President Ford spent thirty more years in the service of America and passed in peace, respected by all, having made the world better by his life.

The trap door fell away, foul mouthed and bitter to the end, Saddam Hussein, dropped into hell with a snap of his neck. Hussein lived a life motivated by selfishness and ravenous ambition. He murdered millions, and caused misery to many millions more. He leaves behind a legacy of hate and division that could well ruin a country. Only courage and much sorrow will heal the scares his life inflected on the world. He too, in the end, was shorn of office and power, his life reduced to a putrid blight on justice and peace, his deeds inspiring only suffering and hate.

There could be no more striking proof of the difference between good and evil than the lives and deaths of these two men. Compare and contrast their lives in these words:

Courage – rage

Service – selfishness

Unifier – divider

Heal - hurt

Sacrifice – sieze

Honor – disdain

Peace – torment

Forgiveness – bitterness

Save – destroy

Justice – tyranny

Freedom – slavery

Righteousness – wickedness.

Twas the Night before Christmas

“What was all the Genocide in Rwanda all about anyway?” my sweet daughter asked. The family was crowded into our cozy family room, the lights winking on the tree. It was a typical Christmas Eve at our house.

I was ready to explain colonialism, the exploitation of tribalism by manipulative Europeans, the collapse of Western dominance, the resurgence of ancient hatreds exaggerated by generations of European exploitation and rivalry.

But my son, majoring in anthropology and languages at the University, said he knew all about it. Ever ready to learn the truth I deferred to him. He prefaced his exposé by pointing out that he had the scoop right from Paul Rusesabagin, the heroic hotel manager on whose life the book and movie Hotel Rwanda was based. Rusesabagin had been visiting Weber State and told the story.

My son’s thumbnail synopsis ran something like this: There had been no distinction between Hutu and Tutsis before the arrival of the Belgians. All these people lived together in peace and spoke a common language. It was the Belgians who, by measuring noses and publishing racial identity cards, created the entire mess. According to our report, Rusesabagin had claimed that “Hutu” and “Tutsi” were even words invented by the Belgians.

I began to smell a rat, not my son, but hero with an agenda. I mentioned that it reminded me of that famous non-Indian American, Ward Churchill, who routinely portrays pre-Columbian America as a virtual paradise of peace until the white man arrived to murder and corrupt the innocence.

My skepticism about Rusesabagin was not received without challenge by the young idealist in the overstuffed chair. He was ready with a barrage of questions of his own. Where did I get my facts? How didI know it wasn't my old-fashioned history lectures that were flawed? Why should we doubt the testimony of a man who actually lived there and experienced the genocide in Rwanda and who had acted to save many by his courage?

A quick check of history reveals that the original people of what would become Rwanda were the Twa, the people I grew up calling pygmies. The Hutu arrived in the area some thousands of years ago and proceeded to all but annihilate the Twa; the few survivors fled to the deep forest to survive. As recently as the 15th century the Tutsis arrived in Rwanda to subjugate the Hutu in a sort of serfdom where the Tutsis remained herdsmen; dominant over their vegetable growing predecessors. A sort of replay of Cain and Able, with plenty of jealously and murder to come.

The Belgians arrived in the 19th century and found things divided. They chose to exploit the division to their advantage. Their alliance with the Tutsis assured the power and position of both against the more numerous Hutu people.

The unbelievable slaughter of the late twentieth century, observed but not interrupted by either the U. N. or the Clinton administration, can trace its origins to many roots; but Rusesabagin’s explanation, which seeks to place all the blame on the evils of Colonialism, is troubling. Which is more demeaning to the Hutu and the Tutsis; that they allowed their already existing hatred for each other to be manipulated by the Belgians and then, once turned lose by the collapse of Western paternalism, proceeded to hate and murder each other once again? Or what seems an even more demeaning scenario that Rusesabagin suggests? That the Belgians were able, in less than one hundred years of dominance, to create artificial lines of separation and train the "natives" to hate each other without reason or history, like so many trained apes, who sought to destroy each other once the trainers had abandoned them to their mindless monkey business.

“What was all the Genocide in Rwanda all about anyway?” It seems a fitting topic for Christmas Eve contemplation.

Apocalypto - A Movie Review

I went to Mel Gibson’s movie Apocalypto, on Saturday, and I am very glad I did. It took the long lonely ride home from Logan to sort it out, but I now declare it the best movie I’ve seen in a long, long time. Five stars – that’s on a scale of one to four! There was great violence, as there was in the world Gibson sought to portray, but none of it was gratuitous. Like the beauty of the jungle, man’s inhumanity to man, could only reveal its full potency if portrayed realistically.

What make’s Gibson’s movie a success?

First - he made us care about the characters. The first scenes of the film immerse us in a pre-Columbian world where family and friends bring happiness to each other and so to us; where success is measure by the care one gives one’s family. The ways are different but the goal is eternally the same. When the monster of religious insanity crashes down on Jaguar Paw and his beautiful family, it is as if they had come for our own. Though I have never been in a Central American Jungle, never experienced the life here depicted, and although I had to read all their words in the subtitles, I felt I knew, even was one of, the people in the story. Gibson did this within minutes; what a master.

Secondly - beauty; Gibson’s baroque masterpiece brings the struggles and terrors of a village of people in custom and dress so beyond our taste and experience that it is at first shocking, to the level of high art. Art that is moving as it crashes into one’s senses, art that is inspired by the power of its truth. As we get to know them, we are inspired by the physical appearance of the actors, the characters that people Gibson’s creation. And as we see their beauty the wonder of their humanity is overpowering. Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) is beautiful, as are his wife and son. The beautiful children shown throughout the movie give visual testimony of the link between the good, the beautiful and the true. Gibson understands the magic of the physically beautiful and is not afraid to conjure with it.

Thirdly, Gibson allows, or rather the history he portrays allows, a clear line to be drawn between good and evil. There is no justification of the irrational murder of tens of thousands of innocents to appease the mindless sun. In the Mayan/Aztec monster cultures Gibson reveals there is nothing redemptive. Gibson has finally found Hitler’s equal in the Jungles of Mezzo America. On the other hand, the primal drive of family love, to care for wife and child and honor parents are simply and powerfully presented and stand in redemptive contrast to the hollow and murderous ceremonies of false and unreasoning religion.

Finally, Gibson’s movie speaks to universal truth. The sacrifice of the sacred king abused to its most egregious and profane extent by the misled mindlessness of the murder cult of the Mayan religion. The sacrifice of the sacred king shown at its most true and beautiful as a father struggles for his family, as friend sacrifices all for friend, as love motivates the miracle. Gibson ties masterfully into great literature and portrays scenes from great books in ways movie makers attempting to present the entire stories have failed. When the little girl pronounces the doom of the Mayan corruption, one expects her description of “he who brings the jaguar” to end with her intoning, “Because he is the Kwisatz Haderach!” When Jaguar Paw runs out onto the beach, the savages with their sharpened sticks in hot pursuit; it is perfectly natural to find Golding’s “adults” at hand. The struggle of right against wrong, the even deeper story of the struggle between truth and falsehood drive this movie, this piece of art, set in an ancient culture, into the struggles of the 21st century, into the epoch struggle of all men.

As we left the theater I discussed the film with my son and a best friend. My son’s family is exactly like Jaguar Paw’s. He has a tiny son and a second about to be born. He was quiet and reflective, the parallel to his beloved family and lives the movie had portrayed too close for words. It was my other young friend, who also defends and cares for his family with all the love, devotion, and courage of Jaguar Paw, whose wise words brought out three powerful and universal truths. His first words were, “How wonderful to live in a land of law, a land where law protects us from the evil of others.”

He them went on to point out how the movie had instructed us that evil must be faced. We cannot run from it, it will always flood to the limits that it is allowed to flow. The folly of those who would distance themselves from the false religion driven mass murderers of today, who would run into the woods and hope that evil will pass them by, will in due time be forced to face it. It will come for their families.

Finally, my friend had seen most clearly a moment in the film that had not yet coalesced for me. He related the moment where Jaguar Paw realizes that he must fight, although the odds are terrible and he is weary and wounded; the words of his father come to him, and he resolves not to be afraid. He takes the war for the survival of his family and for his way of life to his enemy; he becomes the hero, a brown, tattooed, and bare chested Achilles in the Jungles of the Yucatan.

Get Out of Africa!

Last Saturday a week, I attended the African Dance program presented by my son and daughter’s USU African Dance Class. Scheduling challenges had relegated the performance to a few minutes duration before a Contra Dance in the converted gym of one of those old three story elementary schools, in Logan.

The first to enter were the drummers, it seems Africans have no other musical instruments. All were white skinned men, some old, some younger, with costumes reminiscent of Bill Cosby’s Afro centric period. Most had long hair done up in Rastafarian dreadlocks like the Jamaican witchdoctor from *Predator Two*. Their drums were hourglass shaped wooden tubes, larger but otherwise exactly like the Thai drum I had bought at the bazaar held at the Buddhist temple here in Layton; goat skin tied down with nylon cord.

The lead drummer addressed the audience; I couldn’t really call it a crowd, as at least half present were our family, or friends from camp. The drummer said some things about the drumming. I believe he previewed the upcoming dances and thanked all for attending. One comment did stick in my memory, he claimed that all music began in Africa, as did human life, and that Africa is the source of all culture.

“Ya like the Parthenon!’ I wanted to yell, but didn’t. I was playing with my grandsons.
The roar of the drums began.

After several false starts the beat enticed the dancers down the ramp from back stage to fill the floor, a small basketball court. One boy, my son, and three lines of young women, including the “professor”. My son assures me this instructor has actually been to Africa and learned the authentic dances.

As I watched the interesting gyrations, the room throbbing to the repetitive cadence of the drums, I was reminded of Elizabeth Taylor’s triumphant parade in the movie *Cleopatra*. I have never understood what possessed the director of that Hollywood marvel to insert the Watusi into the show. After ten minuets of very athletic and somewhat erotic bouncing, swaying, weaving, and jumping, the drums paused and we were invited to join in for a final shake and shimmy. I played with my grandson.

As the African Dance Class and its drummers beat a hurried retreat to make room for the violins and guitars of the Contra dance band, I kept thinking I’d seen it all before. Then it came to me; O.A. Indian dancing. Mahonri’s painted face – half black, half white -, Scott Hinrichs in full head dress, the Leaping Lemhi, David Maughan’s fire hoop, Paul Harris making balls, Doug Hopper’s bare chest, Jody in baggy leather pants, Trent’s Vigil Ceremony the night the bear came, tee pees in the mountains, Chingachgook and Uncas, secret ceremonies underneath the stars of Heaven.


When I was a boy and well into my young manhood, I was very active in the Order of the Arrow (O.A.), and honor fraternity within the Boy Scouts. One of the aims of the O. A. is the preservation of American Indian culture and traditions. A Point of interest, Boy Scouting – still the world’s largest youth organization – had its beginning in the emulation of American Indian culture. Baden Powell with his South African wood beads was a rather late joiner to the program.

When I was a boy, to enable me to join in the ceremonies, my mother made me an “Indian” costume out of burlap sacks. Other than putting the fringe on backward, so that it stuck up along the top of my arms rather than hanging down, I thought the outfit a right on stunner. Never much of a dancer, I couldn’t even master the box waltz back in MIA, I spent my Indian days building fires and reciting lines in the woods.

As a Professional Scouter my activities with the O.A. were second only to Camp in degree of pleasure obtained and commitment given. Many of the young men I worked with spent a great deal of money and endless hours of their time authenticating, constructing and decorating buckskin Indian shirts, loin cloths and leggings, and working on the even more elaborate feather covered “fancy dance” costumes. Along the way they learned about a noble culture and invested a good deal of heart and imagination, their souls, into becoming part of it. Imagine our frustration when the PC backlash began to build against white boys “playing” Indian.

There had been hints of this strange bigotry years earlier. Once on a field trip to the site of the Bear River Massacre, my USU Professor of American Indian History had thrown a little cold water on my love for Seton’s Indians when she said that Boy Scouts using Indian symbols, ceremonies, and costumes was considered inappropriate. It seemed too silly a prejudice to give credence to at the time. I had a staff member, blond with a handsome face and muscles; he looked like Peter Pan dancing with Tiger Lily’s band as high chief, or like Hiawatha’s friend Mondamin. However, as the years went by memos and directives began to come out from the National Council and the National Lodge recognizing, if not acquiescing to the mounting pressure of some on the BSA to curtail its usurpation of Indian traditions.

It had long bothered me that the Federal Government had restricted eagle feather ownership to “real” Indians, but to see even the BSA begin to draw a line between “whites” who admired and copied Indian traditions and “reds” who had a natural right to this culture.

I am not as connected to the O.A. as I once was, but I do not sense in their present activities the burning passion and pride in Indian culture that my young friends once possessed. The entire view point seems to have shifted from one of proud, even amorous immersion, to a somewhat embarrassed and uncomfortable observation from the side lines. Even more discouraging is the “You white people keep your hands off Indian customs, traditions, artifacts, and culture” attitude that has developed among some Indian and among many white University professors, such as erstwhile wanabe Indian and full time bigot, Ward Churchill.

I look back with some nostalgia to the day when the two most culturally immersed Indians I knew were Red Tail and Lone Wolf. Racially they were both white men; Red Tail with long blond braids wrapped in otter fur, Lone Wolf looking like Dustin Hoffman with a button nose. They both lived in teepees up Teton Canyon, and spent their time collecting and brain tanning hides off the road killed deer they gathered from the local highways and building authentic costumes, reading up on Indian traditions, and perfuming themselves with sage brush smoke.

Once, Red Tail convinced me to loan him my station wagon to take a bunch of white Indian camp staff members to the Sun Dance at Fort Hall Reservation. It was raining “cats and dogs” when they left camp; the clouds stretching unbroken to the western horizon. But they had faith. The rain at Treasure Mountain did not let up all day, but the Indian boys returned late that night. They had a miracle to tell. All swore that when it came time for the Sun Dance the clouds over Fort Hall opened and the sun shown till the ceremony was complete. It seems the Great Spirit doesn’t, or at least didn’t, check the skin color of his worshipers.

For generations, my camp crew has performed the Maori Hucka at the flag ceremonies. It was taught to me by a friend who had gone to New Zealand on a Mormon mission. It had never occurred to me that screaming and gesticulation to a South Pacific beat might be a culture crime, but recently I was told that the BYU football team was under onus for allowing white players to Hucka, and I was warned to be careful.

As I left the African dance program, walking through the playground turned parking lot, I looked up to the white topped towers of the Logan temple. They were bathed in electric light. Christmas music played on the CD in the car. I wondered at the roots of ceremony and music all around me and wondered how long it would be before the PC police would stop an athletic and rhythm driven, but painfully white, professor of African dance from contaminating African traditions by teaching dance to white kids in a snow covered Utah valley? I wondered when the drummers will be asked to shed their Nehru Jackets and multicolored Eisenhower caps and comb out the dreadlocks because the skin beneath them was not properly colored by some accident of DNA.

In the face of this silliness I feel to call for a new consciousness, a realization that all cultures past belong equally to all peoples of the present. Let’s recognize that pluralism and cosmopolitan lives are only feared by fanatics and fools. Let’s rejoice in our common humanity and choose our cultures by our interests, not our ancestors.

Frankenstein’s Lawyer

In justice’ battle against repression, Davis County’s high school boundaries fight is a small but instructive tussle. Years of planning, millions in expenses, ten weeks of dedicated and open consideration, produced fair and workable recommendations to be presented in open meetings to the School Board. This is a system, used many many times in many many school boundary changes in counties throughout the state for many many years, but now, Attorney Randy Edward’s claims that the process is against the law. His accusation is at best un-established in court, and in fact totally false. On a technical extrapolation of the Utah Open and Public Meetings Act, Edwards shopped judge Allphin to slap an injunction on the presentation of the boundary recommendations to the School Board. It is ironic that now the “technical” observance of the law allows a single consultant to make submissions to the School Board. Thus Randy Edwards and judge Allphin have created the very monster in fact they sought to slay in fiction. Of course Edwards is enraged by the School Board’s use of this technicality. (A typical neo-lib ploy - “we can cheat but you can’t!”) It is the pompous pretense of the “stop the boundary change” mob that makes Randy’s actions all the more monstrous. His pretended indignation and bogus accusations of lawlessness are repugnant. The simple fact is that he doesn’t want his daughter to go to Viewmont High School. He and his neighbors are school boundary bigots and they have sharked up a judge to “legally lynch” Davis County.

Clarence Thomas referred to the false and political charges stitched together to prevent his conformation as “Legal Lynching”. When the law turns to a fiend set on murdering justice, it becomes a terrible monster.

I have never read Mary Shelly’s book, (Mia Copa) but I don’t believe Dr. F intended to create a monster. The community’s stupidity and bigotry surely added to the disaster – but in the end the creature became a threat. For discussions sake I reference the child killing, master murdering, ugliness of the movies. In the image of that “Frankenstein” I reverence other rotting monstrosities that have been created by legalist fiend factories.

Consider the disaster of Utah’s Legacy Highway; held up for ten years and tens of millions of dollars to satisfy a lawyer’s monstrous hubris.

Consider the boundless resources of Alaska’s North Slope, monstrously withheld from our nation; while soaring energy prices deepen the suffering of poverty, stifle economic growth, and fills the war chests of terrorists.

In Bountiful Utah, a rotting lawyer calls for the release of a murder because policemen, responding to a request to check on the welfare of a woman, found her body stuffed in a freezer. Because the police found the corpse before they had a search warrant, the murderous son, who stuffed the body in his mother’s own freezer, may be freed to prey on society again.

Remember Al Gore’s putrid performance after the 2000 presidential election.

Now in a fiendish exhibition legal monstrosity, lawyers mob the Supreme Court, seeking to force the government to regulate C O2 emissions. We’re soon to be taxed for breathing!

And what about Ramsey Clark? Once the Attorney General of the United States, who has taken his perverse hatred of America to Baghdad seeking to question the legitimacy of the Constitution of Iraq in order to place a monster once more in power there.

When the law turns destructive of those people and institutions it was made to serve, when it begins to decay; our response probably should not be to march to the castle with torches and ropes but we should surely question the integrity of those who misapply their skills to make monsters.