World Views

A piece on NPR this evening discussed the State Department's reticence in providing evidence of the Iran government's claimed provision of arms to [whoever the enemy is]. The commentator stated that the administration believes Iran must be behind attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq because the increasing sophistication, coordination and effectiveness of the attacks could only happen with the backing of a government.

I was struck by the parallel between this assertion and the intelligent design school of creationism. The model is the same: no complex pattern of behavior can be exhibited without an identifiable governing intelligence as cause.

We have here a structural foundation for the administrations's repeated inability to understand and effectively deal with real situations, be they domestic or foreign - the need to have an immutable doctrine and an identifiable unitary other who governs events. In the recent hurricane, local governments were the other. In Iraq, Hussein, and now Iran have been selected for the role.

In reality, Mr. Bush and his chosen advisers are facing and cannot recognize a form of free market activity. A set of individuals or groups who incrementally improve improvised explosive devices and their delivery do not require more than roughly common goals and the means to share information on what worked and what didn't. The innovative, the lucky, the experienced survive and thus evolve. No politbureau is required.

There can be no reasonable expectation that, given its background, the Bush administration will learn the art of pragmatism. Without eyes, one can not see.

Mandolin

My uncle Tommy used to play the mandolin, old songs like Lily Marlene, and a long time after he died I got up the courage to ask my last remaining aunt for it. She gave it to me last fall, maybe, and it's a cheap Harmony Monterey.

The soundboard was separating from the body, the tailpiece was 1/4" off center as originally delivered, the bridge was way too high...

I got a luthier friend to reglue the soundboard, took the rest of the bits apart and cleaned them, and ordered a new set of strings. The instrument then sat in my study for months.

Today I drilled new holes and remounted the tailpiece, and strung it up.I sort of remember from racial memory or something that you coil the extra length of each string to keep it out of the way.

Now I am looking at it and wondering if I have the courage and persistence to learn to play some Holy Modal Rounders songs.

The Calibration Storm

Each year as winter closes in we get the calibration storm. It does not require a whole bunch of snow or ice, but it's the event that sorts out those that subscribe to certain myths like "my [pick your four wheel drive vehicle] is invincible", "I don't really need studded snow tires", "Snow tires are only required on two wheels", "whee, I'm sliding, this is fun" and so forth.

Last night was this year's event. In the thirty miles from Colchester to New Haven I observed about 50 sites with a vehicle off the road or clear signs where one had been. The conditions? Some wet snow, falling temperature and a north wind and traffic on unsalted roads to turn the snow into black ice.

As the winter goes on, most learn to drive and to equip their vehicles suitably; they appear to forget by the following year.

Amy Connellan, encountered in an antique store in Vermont, reports on her father, Leo Connellan, ex-poet laureate of Connecticut, ex-travelling salesman, ex-college English professor, buried in Franklin, Connecticut, which is southeast of Hartford.

A recording of his reading of his poem Crossing America is available at http://www.hoobellatoo.org/. Actually, it's available from http://www.skuntry.com/, which has a whole order process which asks you to FAX the order, then mail a check to Wayne, New Jersey. The site emails you back before you send the FAX. All very interesting, well worth going through the process. The hoobellatoo ("beautiful people") site seems well worth wandering through in and of itself.

Crossing All Sorts of Lines

Markup language tags are making their way into common written discourse. In transcribing schizophrenic writings found on a file card, a friend uses <strikeout>again</strikeout>and <crescent>to convey graphic content otherwise awkward to convey in text.

This usage is commonly understood and accepted by at least the cross section of people who spend time in internet forums and who use email. It is distinctly separate from h4ckrz usage, but those who recognize or use one are generally fluent in the other.

A third usage replaces smilies: :puzzled frown: serves if one can't find its obnoxious graphic representation.

What Was I Thinking?

Titles should never be assigned before content has found its own shape. The best thoughts happen to pop up from a generally unnoticed roiling cauldron which lurks just out of view but hints at itself through unexpected emanations. Thus is prose born, most of it bad.

It is claimed that sodden sullen work transforms these wisps and that through such pain fine literature is produced. Maybe. Does it matter?

This is a notebook, perhaps. The paper can't get wet, but it can evaporate; all paper gets eater by worms or flames or mold, so evaporation is no new threat, just word death in another form.

Onward, I think.