Month: October 2004

Just Another Republican Lie, or a Sure Sign of Senility?

As someone who was sometimes know for his sarcasm, I thought it was a pretty good line when Cheny said to Edwards, “The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight,” implying, of course, that Edwards never showed up in the Senate, a charge he later elaborated on.

Turns out, unfortunately for Cheney, that the statement was a falsehood, either a deliberate lie or another line planted in Cheney’s head by the Bush Administration’s speech writers. One that Cheney should have caught, of course, when he studied his lines.

As harry pointed out at The Kudzu Files, even the Fox network was forced to point out that it wasn’t true, pointing out several times where they had met. Other organizations like MoveOn.org included a photograph of the two standing next to each other at a prayer breakfast.

Perhaps Cheney is just getting older, as Ronald Reagan, Jr suggested just before the debates when he argued that it would have been unfair to make a man of Cheney’s age with a pacemaker in his heart stand on stage for ninety minutes. Russert was quick to point out that Cheney was only 62, to which Ron, Jr could only reply “whoops.”

Neither is it particularly reassuring that Cheney directed viewers of the debate to factcheck.com, not factcheck.org as he meant to do. I’m sure some Republican voters were surprised to be redirected to George Soro’s web site instead of the Annenberg cite I’ve referred to here several times before.

Personally, I was shocked to find out that Cheney was only 62. He’s been around so long and his political views are so dated that I’d always assumed he was part of my father’s generation, not mine.

When Edwards pointed out that as a member of the House that Cheney, “was one of 10 to vote against Head Start, one of four to vote against banning plastic weapons that can pass through metal detectors. He voted against the Department of Education. He voted against funding for Meals on Wheels for seniors. He voted against a holiday for Martin Luther King. He voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela in South Africa,” I was absolutely convinced Cheney could not possibly have been part of my generation.

Though Edwards did little to convince me that he is someone I would want to take over the presidency, the thought of Cheney becoming president absolutely terrifies me. Given this choice, it seems like another clear reason to vote for Kerry.

Robert Frost’s “Reluctance”

I’ve started re-reading, or perhaps reading for the first time, The Complete Poems of Robert Frost, 1949, and will admit that I am finding it harder to read his poems than I expected. Although I’m sure I had to read many of Frost’s poems in classes I took, I’m not sure I ever really sat down and read his poems in a systematic way. (Since there’s very few marks in the volume I’m reading, I doubt I’ve ever read the book from front to back in any systemetic way.) So, I’m coming to the poems with some preconceptions based on specific poems that I remember but without a real understanding of Frost’s underlying philosophy.

Nor is it easy to suddenly put yourself in the same frame of mind that Frost must have had when he wrote these poems. After all, the earliest of these poems was written nearly a hundred years ago, and that generation saw the world rather differently than we did, even if they are commonly referred to as “modern poets.”

And, there’s no denying that “formal” lyrics impose some unique demands of their own, no matter how polished or modern they may be. Which, of course, is not to say that what has been gained may not outweigh what has been lost by employing such techniques.

Truthfully, I found very few poems in the first section, A Boy’s Will, that impressed me. Still, when I reached “Reluctance” on the last page of this section, it reminded me why “great” poets are considered “great,” and why they remain relevant to our lives.:

RELUCTANCE

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

At my age this poem rings true in so many ways it’s impossible ” and far too boring ” to list them all. But as a I walk through the old-growth forest in Pt Defiance every day I’m more and more aware that another summer has passed us by, and winter can’t be far behind.

Is it really possible that I went another summer without a single long backpack in the mountains? Is it possible that I never did get out on the Sound in my kayak the whole summer? Is it really true that I will have to wait another five months to see flowers in bloom again?

I know, I know, it’s not like I sat around doing nothing all summer, feeling sorry for myself. Still, Frost is right that I’m reluctant to let this summer pass by, trying to squeeze one more activity in before the fall rains begin.

Who can go through life without regrets? Who would even want to go through life without regrets? To do so would be to deny the very dreams and aspirations that give life so much of its depth and meaning.

Martin Espada’s “My Native Costume”

Here’s a final poem from Martin Espada’s Imagine the Angels of Bread, one that, while perhaps not as shocking as the previous poem, almost seems to suggest that the prejudice against minorities is deeper than the previous poem suggested.

Despite the fact that the narrator has managed to become successful enough to become a lawyer the “teacher from the suburban school” can’t quite manage to see him as anything but a Puerto Rican:

My NATIVE COSTUME

When you come to visit,
said a teacher
from the suburban school,
don’t forget to wear
your native costume.

But I’m a lawyer,
I said.
My native costume
is a pinstriped suit.

You know, the teacher said,
a Puerto Rican costume.

Like a guayabera?
The shirt? I said.
But it’s February.

The children want to see
a native costume,
the teacher said.

So I went
to the suburban school,
embroidered guayabera
short sleeved shirt
over a turtleneck,
and said, Look kids,
cultural adaptation.

Now, I’ll have to admit that I’m so culturally unaware that I had to Google guayabera to find out what it was. Turns out the only costumes I’ve seen a Puerto Rican in is a Mariner uniform, the one Edgar wore for eighteen years.

As a former teacher, I’m as embarrassed to hear this teacher make such a ridiculous request as I was by the racist teacher in To Kill a Mockingbird. So, I guess I shouldn’t really have been surprised that having an “education” doesn’t inoculate people against stupidity and prejudice; it’s just that it’s easy far too easy to forget the truth when you haven’t been confronted by it recently.

Perhaps what I like most about this poem, though, can be found in the last two lines, “Look kids/ cultural adaptation.” There’s something uplifting in the poet’s ability to still find such prejudice humorous and be able to find an effective way of countering such prejudice.

We Have Nothing to Fear, but Fear Itself?

This may well be what we really have to fear, as the Republicans continue to dumb down the presidential campaign to a level that even their candidate can understand.

This way, at least, the issues become vaguely familiar and reassuring, knowing that at least we don’t have to do any thinking for ourselves. Right?

Wonder why I had to find this link through an English blog? Thanks, Euan.