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Ed wrote: It may be
that people who are in a perpetual state of waiting for the other shoe to drop
don't really feel like singing. I sing rather badly in a very good little
choir, but lately I've had to drag myself to do it, as have other choir
members. The sense of elation and joy that is needed for singing just
isn't there. The best that the US and the rest of us can now hope for, short of no
war, is a short and snappy little war that gets things over in a week or so and
allows us to breathe again. If, as Keith predicts, the war will go
on, and perhaps in one form or another on and on beyond that, we shouldn't
expect Americans or anyone else to be in a mood to buy or sing for a long time
to come. May I suggest
that what the American public needs right now is not choral music, but the Blues. The Blues
acknowledges that bad and stupid things happen, and you don’t always get what
you want. The Blues let
you sing about lost love, wrong choices and making mistakes, even learning from
them. The Blues
plays in those ranges with rhythms that are not inspirational, but mournful, occasionally
angry and sometimes that is exactly what you have to admit you are doing - grieving. So I’m
listening to Grover Washington, Ramsey Lewis and an old Ben Webster meets Oscar Patterson. Not
straight Blues, but much more appropriate right now than anything else for me. Grover is wailing Inner City Blues (Make
me wanna holler) and next is Knucklehead.
Is that loaded commentary or what? Here’s Friday’s
Saletan and tomorrow’s Friedman, both singing the blues. – Karen Gray Matter EXCERPTs: If you tuned in to President Bush's
Thursday night press
conference
to understand his point of view on Iraq, you got what you came for. If you tuned in to find out whether he
understood yours, tough luck. That
was the deal when we traded in Bill Clinton for Bush. We got a president who understood the difference between
truth and lying. We gave up one who understood everything in between. The upside is that our president is
doing the right thing in Iraq. The
downside is that he can't talk anyone else into going along. Clinton was famous for
seeing three sides of a two-sided issue.
There was the time he agreed with the congressional majority on the
Persian Gulf war but said he shared the concerns of the minority. There was the time he lamented having
raised people's taxes too much.
And of course, there was the time he pondered the meanings of
"is." Bush suffers no such
ambivalence. Everything he knows about foreign policy,
he learned in kindergarten:
Love your neighbor, stand by your friends, honor your word. Thursday night, a reporter asked
whether Bush held a grudge against Saddam Hussein. "I swore to protect and defend the Constitution,"
said Bush. "I put my hand on
the Bible and took that oath. And
that's exactly what I am going to do." He described the United Nations the same way: "The
fundamental question facing the Security Council is, will its words mean
anything? … But sometimes,
things aren't black and white.
Sometimes they're gray.
When the governments of France, China, or Mexico don't see things your
way, you have to start the process of persuasion by understanding where they're
coming from. That's where Clinton
was at his best and Bush is at his worst.
Four times at his press conference, Bush was asked why other countries
weren't seeing things our way.
Four times, he had no idea.” Fire, Ready, Aim
By Thomas L. Friedman, NYT, 030903 @ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/opinion/09FRIE.html EXCERPTs:
I went to President Bush's White House news conference on Thursday to see how
he was wrestling with the momentous issue of Iraq. One line he uttered captured
all the things that are troubling me about his approach. It was when he said: "When it comes to our security, we
really don't need anybody's permission." The first thing that bothered me was the phrase, "When
it comes to our security..." Fact: The invasion of Iraq today is not vital to American security.
Saddam Hussein has neither the intention nor the capability to threaten
America, and is easily deterrable if he did. This
is not a war of necessity.
That was Afghanistan. Iraq is a war of choice — a legitimate choice to preserve
the credibility of the U.N., which Saddam has defied for 12 years, and to
destroy his tyranny and replace it with a decent regime that could drive reform
in the Arab/Muslim world. That's the real case. The problem that Mr. Bush is having with the legitimate
critics of this war stems from his consistent exaggeration on this point. When Mr. Bush takes a war of choice and
turns it into a war of necessity, people naturally ask, "Hey, what's going
on here? We're being hustled. The real reason must be his father, or oil, or
some right-wing ideology." And that brings us to the second phrase: "We really
don't need anybody's permission." Again, for a war of no choice against
the 9/11 terrorists in Kabul, we didn't need anyone's permission. But for a war of choice in Iraq, we need
the world's permission — because of what it would take to rebuild Iraq. Mr. Bush talks only about why it's right to dismantle the
bad Iraq, not what it will take to rebuild a decent Iraq — a distant land, the
size of California, divided like Yugoslavia. I believe we can help build a decent Iraq, but not alone. If we're alone, it will turn into a U.S.
occupation and make us the target for everyone's frustration. And alone, Americans will not have the
patience, manpower and energy for nation-building, which is not a sprint but a
marathon. … That's still the most important question for U.S. national
security. The world does not want
to be led by transparent cynics like the French foreign minister and his boss. But it also does not want to be led by
an America whose Congress is so traumatized by 9/11 that it can't think
straight and by a president ideologically committed to war in Iraq no matter
what the costs, the support, or the prospects for a decent aftermath. But, France aside, the world is still ready to be led by an
America that's a little more humble, a little better listener and a little more
ready to say to its allies: how can we work this out? How much time do we need to give you to
see if inspections can work for you to endorse the use of force if they don't? Think about F.D.R. He had just won World War II. America was at the apex of its
power. It didn't need anyone's permission for anything. Yet, on his way home
from Yalta, confined to a wheelchair, F.D.R. traveled to the Mideast to meet
and show respect for the leaders of Ethiopia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Why?
Because he knew he needed them not to win the war, but to win the peace.” Outgoing mail scanned by NAV 2002 |
