I should have known better—George Clooney is in it.  But I liked the goats; I’ve always had a soft spot for them.

Queen2 apparently has an oyster somewhere in her ancestry, and she has suffered from several kidney stones in the past few months.  She says the pain is not as bad as unmedicated childbirth (to which I say, who wants to find out?), but still, it hurts.  Nonetheless, she has texted me from the ER, Dilaudid on board, to say she thinks she is going to survive the experience again.  I am sorry for her and happy that so far and knock wood, I haven’t had the pleasure of kidney stones.  Opiates don’t seem to work on me, at least the more modest ones I’ve had prescribed for me. 

But for those of you who have experienced the outer edges of acute or chronic pain, remember to say a prayer of thanksgiving for those big, evil pharmaceutical companies.  They are constantly on the alert, living up to the motto:  Better living through pharmceuticals.

Despite inescapable evidence that socialism is intrinsically defective, the Left in this country seeks to impose a redistributionist system here.  Seduced either by the Utopian rhetoric of Marx or cynically aware of the power to be had for the bureaucracy in a socialist system, they ignore history and deny human nature.  Because most of us have an altruistic streak, and because we have been steeped in the language of “fairness” and “equality” for the past 60 years, we have a difficult time countering their assertions that we must provide for everyone’s needs and that it is our fault that some have less than others.  And because we have pushed the Divine out of our public conversation, we are unable to proffer a meaningful philosophy of living other than materialism’s insistence on the supreme value of consumption.

Indeed, American-style soft socialism is perhaps more disposed to failure than elsewhere because underneath the group-rights rhetoric persists a stubborn insistence on the individual.  Socialism’s only chance of success lies in the extinction of the urge to individuate.  With its mythical identity of rugged individualism, America does not incline itself to subsuming the one into the many.  Whether this self-understanding will be enough for us to push off the collectivist politics being forced upon us by the current administration remains to be seen.  Certainly, those now trying to grow a Leviathan state and starve the market economy understand well that many humans have a tendency to prefer to take from others rather than produce for themselves—and they are diabolically clever in designing a system that incentivizes dependence and demonizes resistance to collectivization.

Ironically, a society conforming to a divinely-inspired ethic would probably become more socialistic, but in an organic fashion that built in natural incentives to be a productive member of the community. Indeed, one can make a forceful argument that a Christian society by nature is not one that emphasizes individual rights, but rather one that insists on collective responsibility.  Love thy neighbor as thyself is a simple command with clear ramifications for how individuals are to care for one another’s needs.

I have given this much thought since an Orthodox friend of mine pointed out to me that Christianity is not really a celebration of the individual, and the early Christians would have been incapable of understanding our insistence on personal liberty.  My rebuttal to him lies in the fact that we do not live in a liturgical community governed by scripture and tradition and given life by the Holy Spirit.  In such a community the individual willingly sacrifices his self-interest for the sake of the whole body of Christ, knowing that the body cannot consist of a single part, but is made up of many parts.  The crucial characteristic of such a community, however, is that every member sacrifices his interest so that no one takes advantage of the charity that permeates the society.  Because humans are not perfect, conflict is inevitable—but the liturgical community not only has shared values, but also the ability to sanction those who repeatedly refuse to conform to those values.  That is what we lack in a materialist society where God is a dirty word.  Everyone claims the privilege of charity while eschewing the responsibility that comes with accepting it; and those who sacrifice self-interest have no means of protecting themselves from being manipulated.  What is voluntary in a liturgical community becomes coercive in a secular society. 

Robert Bork has written that the path back to a healthy America lies in a re-Christianization of the society.  I don’t think that is possible; we have too far down the path of materialism.  We will have to find a public and political language that encompasses not just the mandate to be charitable, but the duty to receive charity humbly and graciously.  Conservatism used to have the words to express this, before most of them were reconstrued as code words for bigotry by the Left and a complicit media.  I don’t think we have a public figure brave enough to reframe our creeping statist policies and the taxation that accompanies them as coerced charity.  Perhaps by giving up our insistent focus on “rights” we could also shuck off the pernicious talk of entitlement.

Albert is enjoying an excursion out of his cage.  Well, I am not exactly sure that enjoyment is the emotion he is feeling; these things can be hard to tell with a mouse.  At any rate, he is rambling around on the couch, whiskers twitching and ears perked, depositing mouse poops hither and yon.  Horus has taken to sitting by Albert’s cage, peering inside intently and with a concerned expression on his face.  Bring him nose-to-nose with Mr. Mouse, however, and he backs away with a look of cat-horror.  But just the other day, his brother Tiger snacked on a field mouse for lunch. 

I think the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard anyone say came from the lips of that ditz Valerie Jarrett at the White House:  “We’re going to speak truth to power.”  Her mouth must be on a reflex loop to her spinal cord, not engaging her cerebral cortex.  She just has tired Lefty cliches that spill from her and she doesn’t have enough imagination or insight to understand how utterly ignorant and fatuous she sounds.  I can’t believe these people are allowed to drive, let alone try to run the government.

Max is having a hard time with that one right now.  He isn’t his brother, and he can’t get by with some of the things his brother can.  He has to adhere to a strict sleep schedule (chronic insomnia plagues him otherwise), and he can’t eat anything he wants (his dad’s metabolism, not his mother’s).  He wants the rules for living to be exactly the same for him and Tobie (and for some reason, for Charlie, who is four years older); and he is struggling ferociously against the inequities he perceives.  I’ve chosen not to shield him from this particular horrible life lesson by force-fitting all three boys to one regimen; he will have to come to terms with life since he can’t make life come to terms with him.

Washington is filled with people who refuse to accept that life isn’t fair—or more precisely, they know it isn’t (and they don’t really care, not deep down, because they came out on the up side), but they have discovered all the power to be had by pretending to the less fortunate that they can force life to be fair, if they just have a little more money and a little more control.  We call people who refuse to accept the basic unfairness of life victims and our politicians have declared victimhood a spiritual calling, one which all too many are ready to follow.  Now we have an administration run by ex-patriates of various Angry Studies departments busying themselves with activities designed to make life equally unfair for everyone—themselves excepted, of course. 

The rhetoric issuing from the Obama administration is practically indistinguishable from the dribble one can find in just about every liberal arts department in any university in the country—predictable, banal and warmed-over mush about social justice and capitalist hegemony.  None of the Obamists have lived long enough in the real world to learn that none of that stuff actually works, in the sense of producing a world that sane people want to inhabit.  They share the fatal flaw of every other Utopian—they think that the only thing missing every other time someone else tried to enforce fairness was their particular genius.  That’s the only explanation for someone actually coming up with the solipsistic babble of “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” 

I say this, but I think that at least Obama—and probably quite a few of his closest cronies—really do know that life isn’t fair, isn’t meant to be fair, and can’t be made fair (not in this world).  They’re just the ultimate cynics, manipulating the naifs who buy the dreamy equality bullshit and ruthlessly suppressing the realists who don’t want to be controlled by the state.  Obama and his ilk are simply taking advantage of the adolescent angst of millions of people who never came to grips with the fact that life isn’t fair.

In our quest to share living space with every genus of animal on the planet, we have acquired a mouse.  Seems the mild-mannered critter was left in a box on our across-the-street-neighbor’s front porch, apparently as a practical joke.  She is not a mouse-admirer and was happy to off-load said rodent on her all-too-willing neighbors.  He (she? it?) is an inoffensive little beast, latte-colored, and currently hiding in the sleeve of my shirt, up by my elbow.  The cats, interestingly, were blase about having Mus musculus paraded in front of them, perhaps planning a sneak offensive for a time when Mus is unguarded.  At any rate, we’ve named it Albert, which I guess means it will be living with us for the time being.  After snakes, lizards and psycho-rabbits, a mouse is no trouble at all.

Re:  The afore-mentioned quest.  No birds.

Who watches fishing shows on TV?  Is there really q wide audience for them?  I don’t have the imagination to know how desperate I would have to be to sit on the couch and watch two men in a boat periodically drawl about a large-mouth bass.  Pretty damn bored is my guess.

I have a film short I run in my mind every so often.  It plays, for instance, whenever someone with whom I am visiting (or a random stranger who falls within my ambit) shows a preference for bits and bytes over being polite and courteous to those actually taking the form of flesh and blood in front of them.  In my fantasy, I remove the cell phone from the user’s hand, throw it on the ground and smash it to bits with my feet.  Then I look up, smile apologetically, and say, “Oh dear.  Your phone just lost its signal.  Can you hear me now?” 

I don’t carry my phone with me most of the time.  I never take it into offices.  I don’t keep it with me in movies or at dinner.  I don’t sleep with it on.  Thus, I never have the opportunity to check my email or answer a text when I am supposed to be giving my time and attention to a real human.  I figure whatever someone not with me has to say and/or whatever event of moment occurs, I will have time for it later.  After all, homo sapiens sapiens has flourished over the course of millennia without instantaneous digital communication.  I presume I can make it a few minutes in the same fashion.  I find people who have formed an almost organic link to their phones to be not only irritating but, dare I say it, self-important.  No one is indispensable.  Although most of Washington thinks it is. 

I just began a book by Mark Helprin that covers some of this ground.  Aptly titled Digital Barbarism, he makes the argument that individual liberty is at risk from the technological strides we are making—not from their intrinsic evilness, but because we are not acting deliberately as we use our new machines.  He uses the idea of the copyright to make his argument, precisely because it embodies both the idea of information management and personal property.  That much I know from the preface and the reviews of the book.  I plan to enjoy reading it, without my cell phone anywhere near me.

Just saw “Inglourious Basterds” and thought it was a cogent presentation of one of my dad’s favorite aphorisms from my childhood:  “If a bullfrog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its butt every time it hopped along the ground.”  If only.  Not that I didn’t enjoy the movie; I liked it tremendously and even thought Brad Pitt got his southern accent down just about right.  (And his redneck Eye-talian was pretty funny.)  But I couldn’t NOT notice the irony of the Jewish film industry (the Weinsteins ARE Jewish, are they not?) making a vengeance gore-fest about a bunch of Jews slaughtering Nazis.  With a little torture and permanent scarring thrown in.  And of course, the producers, director and actors in the film knew it would find a receptive audience here in the U.S.  Who among us doesn’t loathe the Nazis?  Who among us, knowing what we know, wouldn’t have gladly cut Hitler’s throat ourselves, given the chance?  Just so.

So are these the same people—and not only those who made the movie, but those watching and acclaiming it—decrying our use of forced insomnia and simulated drowning to persuade modern day monsters to divulge information crucial to our well-being?  That was a rhetorical question.  Just so.  I guess for Jewish liberals, at least regarding the Nazis, it’s still a little personal.  Regarding the Islamist beasts who would gladly slice open their veins, not so much.  I guess I am too damn dumb to understand the distinction.  But I’m kind of black and white like that.

Except to note that we are being subjected to late September weather in mid-August, so by October we should have a foot of snow on the ground.  From what I understand though, a mild El Nino is developing in the Pacific, which bodes for a mild, wet winter for us.  Just what I was looking forward to:  cold, rainy weather from October to April. 

Are teenagers missing a synapse that allows them to understand the link between actions and consequences?  Charlie is on a “banking” system for free time during the school year, wherein he earns play time (including time for extracurricular choir activities) by depositing homework and study time.  If he fails to make a deposit, he can make no withdrawals—and this includes not being able to attend choir rehearsals and shows outside of school hours.  This last regulation led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth, with the inescapable, concomitant “Why are you doing this to me?”  I just looked at him owlishly and blinked. 

Our ornithological entitlement program proceeds apace.  I hung a feeder not three feet from the kitchen window, and the freeloaders were in a frenzy within an hour.  Still mostly brown birds, but an occasional goldfinch appears.  I also hung suet and peanut butter in the oak tree in the middle of the yard, hoping to get more visits from the pileated woodpecker we’ve seen a couple of times.  We don’t have any blue jays, which disappoints me; they are my favorite bird (if I were a bird, I’d be a blue jay or a mockingbird!).

Imagine my surprise when, on my run today and a good half-mile from home, I (literally) almost ran over Tiger.  He ranges far afield for a small domestic animal.  He stopped to let me greet him (I hope he doesn’t take candy from strangers), then jumped to the top of a six-foot fence and was gone.  He’d better be looking both ways before he crosses the street.