I'm beginning this post just prior to preparing myself to head to the dentist where I will have a tooth prepared for a crown. I already had a crown on the tooth but, during my trip to the Jersey Shore, we headed south to a beachside carnival where, while chewing chicken fingers, I crunched on something not necessarily chicken, pulled it out of my mouth and, yes, it was half my porcelain tooth.
If you ever visit the Jersey Shore, stay away from the chicken fingers.
I am painting my old house. This is the second time in eighteen years that I've pulled out the thirty-two foot ladder and reached into the highest recesses and touched every square paintable inch of our 1893 Victorian painted lady. It is both a scary -- I have a problem with heights -- and rewarding -- it looks so good after I'm done -- experience.
Yesterday, while my efforts were concentrated on the front porch, I cranked up CSPAN and listened to the opening of the Republican National Convention.
Were all Republican adults valedictorians at their high school graduations? Do they all believe the art of speechifying is next to godliness which is certainly next to a fabulous naivete about the world around us? Have no Republicans visited the streets of Detroit or Watts? Have no Republicans ever considered the content (social commentary) of rap or the message of people of color from every large city in this country? Or, indeed, have no Republicans ever spent time in the San Fernando Valley, in the malls of the San Fernando Valley or in the malls of any American city where middle class youth act out their truths which, certainly, were not, in any way, reflected by the good, decent, plastic souls who took the microphone at the Republic National Convention?
The little speeches from the Republican anointed are absolutely scary. Where do these people live? Where do they do what they do? Where do they experience the American Experience which is not apple pie and motherhood; which is not the flag and Dubya's bullshit about jobs and the economy and the promise of America?
If Dubya remains in the White House the promise of America -- which was once so noble, so inclusive -- the incidiousness of his assault on multiculturalism, on gay and lesbian rights, on same-sex marriage, on the separation of church and state, on the First Amendment, yes, and on the middle class to accelerate exponentially.
Oh, let me tell you that the rift is so complete; the division in this country is so pervasive that to listen to these good people; these well-intentioned Republicans who haven't a fucking clue about what the essence of this election is about, spew their particular God and country naivete is to become a little frightened; is to become a little concerned about the future of America; is to become a little concerned about what used to be the greatest country on the face of the earth.
I told my eighty-six year old aunt that the beginning of the decline of the American Republic was when Dubya made the decision to invade Iraq. Actually, I think the beginning of the decline came much earlier.
Gore Vidal, writes in his book, Imperial America, that, "As early as 1950, Albert Einstein understood the nature of the rip-off. He said, 'The men who possess real power in the country have no intention of ending the cold war.' Thirty-five years later they are still at it, making money while the nation itself declines to eleventh place in world per-capita income, to forty-sixth place in literacy and so on, until last summer (not suddenly, I fear) we found ourselves close to $2 trillion in debt. Then, in the fall, the money power shifted from New York to Tokyo, and that looked to be the end of our empire. Now the long-feared Asiatic colossus takes its turn as the world leader, and we -- the white race -- have become the yellow man's burden."
Oh, God bless America.
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