Tonight's Painting - House on Rua Timor, Estoril

One of the pleasures of morning walks with Bica is seeing the rising sunlight, and the shadows it casts in my neighborhood. I rarely finish a walk without having a new topic in mind for a painting.

This house is just about a block from mine, but I never met the owner until a couple weeks ago, when he stopped to pet Bica.  We started talking, and I think he was a little alarmed at first, when I told him I'd been wanting to paint his house, but after we spoke a few minutes he understood what I meant. I'll send him a photo of this painting, now that it's finished.  Hopefully he'll think I did his house justice.

No, I Don't Want a Hat.

When you've got hair like this, fellas, you don't want a hat getting in the way.  Know what I'm sayin'?

Profiling - It's Bad, Right?

I'm confused on this.  Profiling is bad unless the IRS does it?  Is that how it works?

The UN: Oh the Irony

Are they trying to be funny?  Naming Iran to chair this month's UN Arms Control Forum - that's a joke, right?  If so, it's almost as good as the one where they named Libya to the UN Human Rights Council.  That one worked so well that it became kind of a standby bit.  Sort of like an old Vaudeville joke that's no longer surprising, but is funny just because it's been around so long.  It took until March of 2011 to take that one out of rotation.

I wonder how long we'll be laughing at the notion of Iran - long embroiled in illegal arms shipments to Libya, Yemen, HAMAS, Hisballah, and probably tied to North Korea and Pakistan, too, chairing - now think about this for a moment, not just a member, but CHAIRING the Arms Control Forum.  What will that look like?  Will the Iranian delegate (excuse me - Chairman) of the Forum speak from the heart, and recommend methods by which corrupt, oppressive third world nations can avoid UN conventions and spread destabilizing weapons around the world?   Good comedy is always audacious, and in that respect this certainly qualifies.

Good comedy also draws on traditions, and this little gem works in that respect, too, because the UN, as I've mentioned before has quite a tradition of decisions that make no sense whatsoever, outside the fact that they appeal to our sense of irony.

How many millions do we contribute to this farce?  Sigh.  It appears the real joke is on us.

Today's Question:

Q:  What do you call it when half the staff of the LA Times threatens to quit?

A:  A good start.

Stupid Has a New Name.

Call me rude.  Call me unchivalrous, uncharitable and boorish, but this, my friends, is stupid.  Professor Ruth O'Brien writes to tell the world that the poor brothers Tsarnaev were mistreated during the course of their apprehension.  The authorities violated their rights, she says, and gave the rest of us a black eye in the process.

Now we have captured the two terrorists from Chechnya who come from the troubled region that is Muslim, but we cannot understand their motives, not yet.  And Obama encourages us to refrain.

This said, the mortuary pictures of the older brother of the two are extremely disturbing, raising questions as to whether the Boston Police Department captured him with too much force. I understand the explanation offered ... Yet, it does not ring true.  A picture is worth a thousand words that will keep our ears ringing as we recoil from this photo.  Images have a way of searing themselves into our memory in a way that can't be undone. We have an emotional memory, not just a rational one that is exemplified by words.

First of all, this is just plain lousy writing.  "...who come from the troubled region that is Muslim..." How's that?  My old editing professor would have adorned that with a lovely red "Awk" for awkward, and that would have been a kindness.    How about, "the older brother of the two?"  Using the comparative, "older" implies that there are two.  Had there been more than two, the superlative, "oldest" would have been appropriate (Eldest, for the real sticklers, and you know who you are.)

Am I being too much of a grammar fascist?  Even for those who hold grammar in lower esteem than I, this gem of a mixed metaphor should cause some consternation. "...A picture is worth a thousand words that will keep our ears ringing..." Go ahead; read it again.  That's priceless.

The assertion that, "we cannot understand their motives, not yet," is grammatically sound, but factually deficient.  Anyone who cannot understand the motives of Muslim terrorists is just not paying attention.  And they're working pretty hard at it, too.

But what really bothers me is the author's claim that undue force was used to subdue the bomb brothers. How, exactly, does one subdue gently those who have killed innocents on a street corner, murdered one policeman and thrown bombs at others?  How does one inveigle surrender from those whose goal is to die in  jihad?   Professor O'Brien worries that  the United States, in defending itself against people who blow up children, is "uncouth." and might be "judged harshly by the international community." A reminder for those who've been distracted - the international community consists of nations like Syria, North Korea, and Iran.  The only thing objectionable about being judged harshly by such a community is the notion that its members might ever be in a position to judge us in the first place - a notion, incidentally, that the author seems to accept as a basic premise.

The worst part about fatuous nonsense like this is that it betrays a complete lack of understanding, not only of human nature and its capacity for evil, but also of justice, which demands that evil be addressed, and that innocence be protected.  The professor's concern is misplaced.  Like some schoolgirl with a perverse crush on bad boys, she frets about the injuries to Tamerlan, the gravest of which were inflicted by his own brother, not the police, and disregards the blood of innocents that only a week ago was still pooling on the sidewalks of Boston.

Alternative Endings for Boston

I just bought a movie on DVD that offers an interesting extra feature – alternative endings.  I think it’s a cheesy gimmick when it comes to fiction, but when it comes to current events, the idea has real merit.  Imagine how great it would be, for instance, if we could apply the concept to the Bombing of the Boston Marathon.

Depending on how you did it, you could change the story completely.  Take the case of the FBI’s interview with big-brother-bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  We could change the ending so that somebody in the Bureau had a clue, and realized years ago that the guy they were dealing with (The name Tamerlan should have been regarded as a hint.) shouldn’t have been allowed to stay in the country.

Or you could alter the part of the story where the FBI failed because of a misspelling, (See kids, proper spelling saves lives.) to detect that Tamerlan had left the country for six months. Had they noted his extended absence while he was awaiting US citizenship, his application would have been denied.

Or you could change the part where officials, aware of Tamerlan’s history of domestic violence,  dithered over his citizenship application, instead of sending him packing.

Of course, you could go back even further and revisit the decision to let the Tsarnaev family immigrate to the US in the first place.   What, exactly, made someone in the State Department decide that these were people equipped to contribute to American society?  Once they got here, what about their behavior made the case for their being allowed to remain?  Was it their mom’s facility for larceny that recommended them as good citizens?

  

And what about the guy who got himself carjacked by the brothers Tsarnaev?  What if, instead of being a sheep with a “Coexist” bumper sticker, he had been a holder of concealed carry permit?  What if he had acted in his own defense, and as is so often the case, defended all of civilization in the process?  If we could change that chapter of the story, maybe Boston could once again be famous for the kind of men who “fired the shot heard round the world,” instead of the kind of men who, “shelter in place.”

Well, we can’t change the story.  Countless bureaucrats, the same kind of people who will soon be in charge of our healthcare, made a series of decisions that brought us where we are today.  I may be joking about it, but make no mistake.  I’m sickened by the tragedy.  I’m disgusted that, despite a hundred warning signs, these savages were not prevented from harming innocent people, and I’m disheartened that Americans have become the kind of people who ignore an obvious threat because they lack the fortitude to confront it.  If I could change anything about this story, that is where I’d begin.