So endeth our national nightmare

BREAKING >>> This just in from St. Sarah Palin of Wasilla: "After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for president of the United States." In short, there is a God (thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!) and our long national nightmare is over. Toldja. I have a bit more to say and will pull together an obituary ― just as soon as I finish backflipping with unadulterated joy.

Lest you had any doubts

In a rare interview (outside of Fox News), Fox News president Roger Ailes told the Associated Press why he hired Sarah Palin: “Because she was hot and got ratings.” (Hat tip: TPM)

Open the pod bay doors, Siri

I'm looking forward to buying Apple's new iPhone 4S. It'll be my first venture into smartphoneland. The feature everyone is gushing about is Siri, the intelligent digital "assistant." Siri apparently understands natural language and you can ask it to do stuff. (If you ask Siri "Who are you?" it will respond: "I am a humble personal assistant." Nice touch.) Per the Apple press release, "Siri helps you make calls, send text messages or email, schedule meetings and reminders, make notes, search the Internet, find local businesses, get directions and more. You can also get answers, find facts and even perform complex calculations just by asking." Cool. Then again, Slate's tech writer Farhad Manjoo wonders if this might too much of a good thing. Siri can "set contextual reminders based on your location or people in your contacts. For instance, you can say, 'Remind me to call my wife when I leave work,' and the phone—which has learned the GPS coordinates of your office and has deduced, based on previous correspondence, the identity of your wife—will offer to make the call once it notices your location has changed," wrote Manjoo. This is fine in theory, but will it work in real life? What happens, Manjoo asked, if it calls your mistress instead of your wife? Hmm. Good point. (Memo to self: important—don't input "little black book" numbers, esp. those with 3 stars.) Once I've had a chance to field test Siri on life's battlefront, I'll check back in with a report. With luck, my bachelor life won't get more complicated than it already is. Of course if one day Siri tells me, "EJ, I've just picked up a fault in the AE35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure in 72 hours," then I'll know I'm in real trouble. That's how Dave wound up outside asking HAL to open the pod bay doors. We know how that worked out.

Did you know ...?

I thought that by now, everyone and their sister in America owned an Apple or Android smartphone but moi. Man, was I wrong. According to comScore, the outfit that tracks this stuff, only a third of cell phone owners (about 234 million Americans) own a smartphone. Who knew? I had been waiting for the iPhone 5 before taking the plunge, but Apple's new 4S version, unveiled today, will have to do. I'll be queuing up with the multitudes to buy one soon. So, move one more American to the smartphone column.

Pining for Palin under marmalade skies

The most potent, most hallucinogenic, most addictive drug ever invented is Palin Crack. One hit and you're a junkie for life. Political reporters are especially susceptible to its clutches. Now that Chris Christie has bid adieu to the GOP race (again), TNR political writer Ed Kilgore predictably asked, "Could This Be Sarah Palin’s Moment?" After all, he declared, "Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum." Actually, purple haze aside, it is political pundits who abhor a vacuum. Lest we forget, upon tiring of Rick Perry after 30 days, they are the ones who really created the Christie boomlet (who never had more than 32% actual support among Republicans). When the Jersey Shore governor said "forgetaboutit" today, few should have been surprised. But now, the pundits have no one left to pine for -- except Palin, the girl with kaleidoscope eyes. "Yes, this could be Sarah Palin’s moment to confound her critics, to send the GOP establishment types she hates even more than liberals into frantic hysteria, and most of all, to gain the attention she craves," Kilgore writes as he lounges amid cellophane flowers of yellow and green. And since "grassroots conservatives" -- the hardcore voters who will decide matters -- are (a) fundamentally crazy, and (b) utterly unconcerned about Palin's “electability” issue, Kilgore asserted, they could sweep "St. Joan of the Tundra" to the GOP nomination. All of this makes perfect sense -- along with plasticine porters with looking glass ties -- but only if you're strung-out on Palin Crack. Even if the GOP went insane and truly embraced Saint Sarah, nominating "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" would guarantee a 50-state landslide for President Obama. So, despite a trippy political landscape filled with tangerine trees and marmalade skies: It. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

'Niggerhead' Revisited

There is no escaping history. As Andrew Sullivan put it, "we asked for it," given our ugly racial past. The brouhaha over the name of Rick Perry's hunting camp (formerly called "Niggerhead") in West Texas is prompting some interesting discussions across the web. Here are some observations from two of Sullivan's readers:

One reader:

"When I was growing up in southern Mississippi in the 1950s, most grocery stores carried Niggerhead brand shrimp, which was canned in southern Louisiana. The label featured a drawing of a old black man with a lined face and nappy hair."

Another:

"In my twenties, while living in the Pacific NW in the early '90s, I worked as a deckhand on a tugboat, a salmon tender (off the coast of BC) and an intercoastal freighter in the north Pacific and Bering Sea. The term "niggerhead" was used frequently by some of the older salmon fishermen to refer to the main hydraulic windlasses on the decks of fishing vessels, which were often coated in a thick black marine-grade paint. I cringed when I heard the term. It seemed such a discordant and stupid thing to hear on lonely pitching waters or in the fog or rain or in the unusual light found only at sea - far from the mainland of the US, which I took to be the unhappy home of that term. But nautical terminology changes very slowly, and I realize now how intrinsic maritime trade was to the history of racial othering."

Click here for more. "Miles to go before I sleep ..."

Ready the parachutes?

To quote myself in an earlier post, "It's possible that Rick Perry, an ex-Air Force pilot, has flown one sortie too many. And yes, campaign-wise, he's now struggling at the controls of a nose-diving plane that's clearly on fire. But don't write him off just yet." That remains the case, but now the flames are licking at the cockpit, he's taken another hit to the wing, his remaining engine is sputtering, and the crew is eyeing their parachutes. In the latest Washington Post poll, Mitt Romney has regained his lead among Republicans (25%) while Perry is tied with *Herman Cain* at 16%. This is the first tangible evidence that this Star of Texas is indeed fading. That said, there's still time for Perry to pull out of this nosedive and stage a comeback. McCain did it 2008. Still, the ground is coming up fast for Sky Captain Perry.

What part of no don't you get? - Ctd

This morning, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie *finally* put the rumors to rest -- again. No, he's not running for president in 2012. "Now is not my time," he said, serving up a perfect quote for the headlines. Staying in character, Sopranos-style, Christie added, “So, New Jersey, whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with me.” And Republicans, whether they like it or not, are stuck with the lame field of candidates that brung 'em to the prom. So, for the 98th time, toldja.

Assassinio, She Wrote

I have zero interest in Amanda Knox and went out of my way to avoid her media-driven court "drama." Salon's Nathaniel Rich nicely summed up why I did so: "Now Knox will be whisked into a uniquely American ritual: a private jet back to Seattle; a press tour; book and film contracts; engulfing paparazzi; an adoring fan base and death threats. Then the cameras will disappear and a nation will wait, bereft, until the next beautiful young woman is accused of murder." Exactly.

An old skeleton in the closet

THERE WAS a large boulder adjacent to the entrance of a hunting camp that Rick Perry leased back in the 80s. The rock once sported the camp's name -- "Niggerhead" -- before it was painted over at some point. It's unclear when it occurred to the Perry clan to remove the epithet, but apparently it took awhile, maybe even a few years. Needless to say, the controversy has blown up in Perry's face. His peeps are now busy issuing denials that their boss is a closet racist. Does Perry's evident racial insensitivity as a young man shock me? Nope. There was bound to be a skeleton or three in his West Texas closet given Perry's "traditional" orientation. That said, none of this means Perry is a racist, at least not in the Jefferson Davis sense. Wallar Overton, the son of Mr. Perry's old scoutmaster, told the NY Times, "It's just what it was called from Day One. I personally am not offended by the name, and I don't like the word. That's just what people call it." I actually believe Mr. Overton. Perry was probably of like mind. But you know, I know and they know that it is highly unlikely that any African American coming across "Niggerhead" would find it as inoffensive or "quaint" as, say, Camp Granada. So let's not go skipping off into la-la land here. The fact that the N-word as a place name is still harmless in the minds of some whites means there's still a deep-seated racial problem, even if it is mainly borne of ignorance or thoughtlessness. This episode is yet another example of racism's insidious legacy in America.

After the Washington Post broke the story, Herman Cain remarked Sunday, "Since Governor Perry has been going there for years to hunt, I think that it shows a lack of sensitivity for a long time of not taking that word off of that rock and renaming the place." Cain quickly drew flak from his fellow Republicans. Some white dude named Will Spencer tweeted: "I was liking Cain more and more ... until these idiotic attacks on Perry. Now I'm leaning back towards Rick." In a similar vein, David Hubbard tweeted: "Now an EX-Herman Cain supporter after his racial remarks about Governor Perry. It is all about the race card with those People. Perry 2012." Notice Hubbard's oblivious use of the phrase "those people." Kinda says it all. These ridiculous reactions remind me of a famous quip by Winston Churchill: “The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.” These tweeters certainly qualify as Exhibits A and B. Why Cain ever thought he had a ghost of chance with these scary folks is beyond me. Not that Cain is a tower of integrity, mind you. Feeling the heat, he is Moonwalking his comments back today and is all "I-didn't-really-mean-it," honest. The Perry matter "doesn't bother me at all," Cain said, adding, "I'm not playing the race card. I am not attacking Gov. Perry." Pathetic. He and his fair-weather fans deserve each other.

Why I hate birthdays

Because, as philosopher Henri Frederic Amiel said, "I'm not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You're as old as you feel."

Cassandra in a trench coat

The Showtime series “Homeland,” premiering tonight, stars Claire Danes as a C.I.A. officer who suspects a returning Marine P.O.W. of espionage, per the NY Times. Danes evidently plays a modern-day Cassandra, this time in a trench coat. Intriguingly, the espionage thriller is said to be more Hitchcock than John Le Carré. Times critic Alessandra Stanley wrote: "This series is not particularly high-tech, and it doesn’t have a real-time ticking clock conceit, spectacular special effects or preposterous red herrings. 'Homeland' is '24' for grown-ups." Finally. I can watch something on TV tonight without losing any brain cells (I hope).

Department of Pet Peeves

Like a typical Seinfeld episode, this is mostly a post about nothing. But humor me. Internet memes, especially those with the smell of studied cynicism, drive me crazy. The disease is particularly virulent among the writing class. The latest oh so clever phrase to go viral is: "I threw up a little in my mouth when I [read/saw/heard] that." Lovely imagery, huh? (Not to pick on him, but this author's use of it here was the tripwire that triggered my rant.) As we all know from life, regurgitation -- in any form -- isn't nice. The word "yuck" invariably leaps to mind when one contemplates the involuntary experience of blowing chunks. But literary references to upchucking a little in one's mouth is now de rigueur. The purveyors of this meme think they're building their H.L. Mencken street cred. In fact, they're swimming in the lamestream of Palinist babytalk. Mencken, who said, "man is a beautiful machine that works very badly," is no doubt spinning in his grave. Going to the heart of the matter, Nabokov once quipped that "nothing is more exhilarating than philistine vulgarity." Maybe that explains the presence of this latest garlic clove in the salad of writing.

And speaking of the devil ...

"I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it." (Mae West)

The Devil and Mr. Christie

UNTIL THIS MORNING, I held a grudging respect for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. On levels too numerous to count, the fat man is not my cup of tea politically. But I admired his obstinate refusal to be a party to the three-ring circus that is the GOP presidential race. I liked his above-the-fray approach to public office: Maximally exploit the vagaries of politics, yes, but don't let it consume your soul (see Perry, McCain, Palin, etc). And above all, to thine own self be true. Some six months ago, Christie boldly declared, "I am not ready to be president." Such an admission could only come from a helluva actor with a Ph.D in Cynicism -- or a man of innate integrity. I chose to believe the latter. Then I read this in the NY Times: "Chris Christie’s political advisers are working to determine whether they could move fast enough to set up effective political operations in Iowa and New Hampshire in the wake of a relentless courtship aimed at persuading Mr. Christie ... to plunge into the race for the Republican presidential nomination." Um, what? That sound you hear could be the cracking halo I placed above the governor's head. I still doubt that Christie will run. Too much of this flies in the face of common sense. Besides being a reality-based rationalist, Christie is a political moderate (more or less) and certainly out of step with the Tea Party GOP. You do the math. Moreover, Christie, who's only 49, has plenty of time to pursue the presidency post-Obama. And yet, the governor has seemingly left the door ajar. As much as I hate to quote evangelist Billy Sunday, the bible-thumping, pro-Prohibition preacher presaged this moment when he said, "Temptation is the devil looking through the keyhole. Yielding is opening the door and inviting him in." If I were Christie, I'd pour myself a large whiskey and ponder those words.

Babbling like a 6th grader, minus the grammar

Is there a correlation between grammar usage and intelligence? Yes and no. It's possible to be quite bright but inarticulate in the usual sense. More often, though, intelligent people develop a capacity for competent if not elegant expression. Apart from being naturally adept at learning stuff, smart folks tend to be voracious readers. Consume Shakespeare, Hemingway or even the witticisms of a favorite sports writer long enough, and you're bound to improve your own spoken or written prose through simple osmosis. But then there are odd ducks like Sarah Palin. I'll skip judging the quality of the gray matter that allegedly resides in her head. There's no profit in it, as the Ferengi of Star Trek might say. But today Palin walked back a negative-sounding comment she made about Herman Cain (she called him the "flavor of the week"). Doing so violated GOP rule #1: Thou shalt not publicly diss a fellow Republican. For her penance, she performed this soliloquy on Fox News: "I’m saying in this fast, 24/7 news cycle that is our world today that the media does have to gin up some controversy and intrigue so viewers tune in and there’s a lot of competition in the media world in this quasi-reality show it seems that’s being created in the GOP primary." Spoken like a true 6th grader, minus any discernible grammar. In English, Palin's run-on sentence roughly translates to this: The "lamestream" media tend to make mountains out of molehills (which is true). As George W. Bush famously said: "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" Evidently, little Sarah Heath never did. Too busy shooting moose, I guess. But that doesn't mean she's stupid. Palin is no doubt following the Ferengi Rule Of Acquisition #15: "Acting stupid is often smart." And it has been undeniably profitable for her.

The Lady Doth Protest too Much?

Inscribed on the 30-foot-tall Martin Luther King Memorial statue are these words: "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness." Poet and author Maya Angelou is harrumphing loudly over them. “The quote makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit,” Angelou told the Washington Post. “He was anything but that. He was far too profound a man for that four-letter word to apply. He had no arrogance at all. He had a humility that comes from deep inside. The ‘if’ clause that is left out is salient. Leaving it out changes the meaning completely.” Hmm. Really? During the powerful sermon from which the inscription was drawn, Dr. King said: "If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.” Technically, I see Angelou's point. The inscription's wording is inelegant. It would better read: "If I was a drum major, say that I was so for justice, peace and righteousness." Would that fit on the statue? I dunno. But does the current wording scream "arrogant" to visitors paying homage to this world-renown peacemaker? I think not. As far as I know, there have been no complaints until Angelou raised her voice. Methinks the overprotective poet doth protest too much.

Alabama 'Yellowhammers' its own (again)

In the 1998 movie version of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, Inspector Javert (Geoffrey Rush) coldly says to a wretched victim, "It's a pity the law doesn't allow me to be merciful." A federal judge in Alabama seems to have adopted a similar attitude. Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn of Federal District Court in Birmingham has "upheld most of Alabama’s new immigration law, the nation’s harshest and most radical attempt to harness a state’s power to find and punish illegal immigrants," according to the New York Times. One particularly noxious section requires schools to collect data about the immigration status of incoming students and their parents for State "assessment" of criminal activity. It's a page right out of the KGB manual. The idea of course is to scare away the kids of illegal immigrants and/or entrap their parents. The trouble (among other things) is that most of these children were born here. Therefore, Alabama is potentially threatening lawful, American citizens (i.e., innocent kids). It's almost as if Alabama, the Yellowhammer State, has become a far-flung province of the old the USSR, complete with state-sanctioned "informers." With states like Utah, Georgia, Indiana and South Carolina jumping on the "papers, please" bandwagon with similar laws, this is becoming truly dystopian in scope. The Obama administration plans to appeal the Alabama decision and the matter will ultimately go to the US Supreme Court. The sooner, the better.

Gayphobia in the flesh

Evidently, they can't help themselves. Behold the "insights" of president wannabe Newt Gingrich on same-sex marriage: “I believe that marriage is between a man and woman. It has been for all of recorded history and I think this is a temporary aberration that will dissipate. I think that it is just fundamentally goes against everything we know.” Incredible. Why, oh why, are these people so terrified of gays? Why must America be relentlessly subjected to their medieval dogma about homosexuality? For all of ancient Rome's shortcomings (and, beginning with slavery, there were too many to count), how is it that nearly 3,000 years ago the average Roman was more sophisticated about and accepting of homosexuality than some present day Republicans? It staggers the mind. In classical antiquity, there wasn't even a single Latin or Greek word for what we now define as gay. "In the ancient world so few people cared to categorize their contemporaries on the basis of the gender to which they were erotically attracted that no dichotomy to express this distinction was in common use", wrote the late James Boswell, a prominent Yale historian. Newt and his paranoid compatriots truly need to get a life. They can start by just shutting up about gays and leaving them (and the rest of us) alone.

Pacifism in a box

L'Hote's Freddie deBoer is a self-declared, unapologetic, uncompromising pacifist. On yesterday's killing of Al Qaeda figure Anwar Al-Awlaki he writes: "For a society of law, the killing of Al-Awlaki should be even more disturbing than the killing of Troy Davis. Davis at least enjoyed some kind of due process, although it was the flawed, biased due process of a hideously racist system and one that is massively bent towards maintaining guilt and punishment. Al-Awlaki, an American citizen, was given no trial, no representation, no appeal, no opportunity to defend himself legally at all. None. He was declared a terrorist by the government, again with no due process, and assassinated. ... The character of someone killed is utterly and permanently irrelevant to the moral status of that killing. It is as wrong to kill Hitler as it was wrong to kill his victims. ... Please, tell all the keyboard warriors you know, and let them flame on. I really don't give a shit." Well, now. If nothing else, deBoer is no coward. He is commendably sticking to his convictions at the risk of being labeled a terrorist sympathizer (he isn't), and his views warrant respect.

But I wish I could penetrate and comprehend the world deBoer inhabits. To me, it is a purely intellectual or philosophical construct that is beautiful but tragically untethered to human life as it exists. If you or I could magically eliminate all the killing in the world tomorrow (along with the dark sins in which it is rooted), who among us would hesitate to do so? Yes, we have a moral responsibility to condemn violence in all of its ugly forms. And, to paraphrase Aeschylus, it is good that humanity's house is shaken when the gods, or the dreamers, make us reckon with moral guilt. And though it is the sad story of mankind, history has shown over and over again that war begets war and ultimately solves nothing. On the other hand, the idealism of simply turning the other cheek in the face of aggression is plainly suicidal in a world humanity has remade in its own flawed image. It is at this intersection with reality that pacifism, in all of its moral nobility, falls short. It is true, to paraphrase Einstein, that nothing will end the killing unless the people themselves refuse to engage in it. Thus far, we have shown ourselves to be utterly incapable of doing so. I wish deBoer would at least acknowledge that inconvenient truth.

That said, the National Review's Kevin Williamson, playing Aeschylus in modern guise, made an observation that is indeed worth pondering: "The prospect of putting American citizens [like Al-Awlaki] on a government hit list should give us pause as conservatives: not for what this administration might do with such power, but for what an administration 50 years down the road might do with it."

Les Misérables of a sort?

THIS is a strange one. In 1962, nearly half a century ago, 19-year-old George Wright apparently shot and killed the owner of a New Jersey gas station during an armed robbery. After his arrest, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison. Eight years later, he escaped and subsequently joined the Black Liberation Army, a militant nationalist-Marxist group. Between plots to implement regime change, Wright, a handsome man, worked part-time as a model. But somewhere along the way, he tired of fighting "the racial onslaught of the pig who wishes to brutalize our black leaders, rape our women, and destroy our black communities," as the Black Panther militant in Forrest Gump put it by rote, perfectly capturing the racial paranoia of those times.

In 1972, Wright (dressed as a priest and packing heat in a hollowed-out Bible) and two BLA associates hijacked Delta Air Lines Flight 841. They demanded and received $1 million dollars, and ultimately escaped to Algiers. No one was hurt in the hijacking (the passengers reportedly said they were "polite"). From there, Wright essentially disappeared into the ether -- without the money; it was confiscated by the Algerians and returned to the US. There's little doubt in my mind that Wright was one bad motherfucker, a deluded radical who had gotten away and beaten justice. In time, he was forgotten -- and the world moved on.

Fast forward 39 years. On a cobbled street in the scenic seaside hamlet of Almocageme, Portugal, sits a "small whitewashed house with terracotta roof tiles, a yellow door and a small front garden." It is the home of one Jorge Santos and his wife, Maria do Rosario Valente, 55, the daughter of a retired Portuguese army officer. Neighbors said the couple, who raised two children (now in their 20s), lived quietly in the village for over 20 years. Santos, it seems, had bought a "pennyworth of paradise," as novelist Victor Hugo might describe it. The locals knew Santos as "a friendly man they thought was from Africa, who spoke good Portuguese and did odd jobs. Over the years, he worked as a nightclub bouncer, a beach stall salesman and ran a barbecue chicken restaurant," according to the AP. Years earlier, Santos had even worked translation projects for the U.S. Embassy in Guinea-Bissau. John Blacken, then the U.S. ambassador, recalled him as a swell guy, "an ordinary person."

Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos is of course George Wright. At some point in the 90s, Wright allowed himself to be fingerprinted for his national ID card. Luck and online database forensics conducted by a federal Fugitive Task Force ultimately led to Wright's surprise arrest as he walked to a local cafe. "Can you imagine?" a U.S. Marshals Service spokesman told the LA Times. He could picture the scene: Game over, buddy. You lose.

Wright, now 68, is being detained without bail in Lisbon pending extradition. Good. Case closed. Justice will finally be served. The family of the murder victim will get the closure it rightfully deserves. The long arm of the law is not fiction, and Wright's case is a classic reminder to all would-be criminals: You can run but you can't hide. Or as Hugo would put it, "Liberation is not deliverance. A convict may leave prison behind but not his sentence." Those are all the proper reactions to the epilogue of this saga, a story seemingly ripped from the pages of an Elmore Leonard crime novel. The news of this successful manhunt may even call for a toast over champagne.

But why do I feel a bit, well, queasy? It's not like I want this feeling. As I said, Wright was one bad motherfucker. He is easy to despise for good reasons. He put himself into this box, and now he's about to pay the price. Still, it's hard to deny that this decades-long manhunt has a whiff of Les Misérables to it. After chipping away the hard-packed ice encasing this cold case, the tenaciousness of the federal G-Men would impress even Inspector Javert. To be sure, Wright is no Jean Valjean, a fictional character guilty only of stealing bread for his starving family. Wright is all too real, a convicted killer who largely avoided paying for his multiple crimes.

But that said, should we reject out of hand any thought of redemption, as uncomfortable as this might be in this case? Is it possible that Wright -- a convict on the lam for over four decades -- has rehabilitated himself? These questions are not easy to contemplate given his principal crime (murder). After all, his cruelty left two little girls fatherless. In the name of justice, we will re-imprison Wright to serve out his time. And the law, as Inspector Javert correctly observed, doesn't allow us be merciful. In 1962, Wright was sentenced to 15 to 30 years for murder (of which he served 8 years). To this must be added charges for escaping prison, hijacking, kidnapping and extortion. It adds up to the death penalty in slow motion since Wright, 68, will never live long enough to repay his overdue debt to society. But is the old man we're about to lock up (forever) the same man who committed these crimes? I don't know.

Yet I am uneasy with the thought that Wright may be a changed man. What we know of the circumstantial evidence seems to suggest it. And if he is rehabilitated, then what does justice mean in his case? Does the presumed punishment still fit the crime? Has reform really become "a discarded fantasy," as Javert coldly observed? Are we so consumed with vengeance and self-righteousness that notions of redemption and, yes, forgiveness, are utter impossibilities? Yes, Wright is guilty. But are we truly incapable of pondering Hugo's truism that "if the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness?" I possess no answers for any of this. Maybe there aren't any.

I leave you with this memorable scene from The Shawshank Redemption. Morgan Freeman, who plays a convicted killer named "Red" serving a life sentence, is before an annual parole board:

Parole officer: "Ellis Boyd Redding, your files say you've served 40 years of a life sentence. Do you feel you've been rehabilitated?"
Red: "Rehabilitated? Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means."
Parole officer: "Well, it means that you're ready to rejoin society ..."
Red: [cutting him off] "I know what *you* think it means, sonny. To me it's just a made up word. A politician's word, so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?"
Parole officer: "Well, are you?"
Red: "There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit."

Red is given his freedom by the parole board.

No good news goes unpunished

Ever notice how most news orgs and blogs ignore the doings on Wall Street unless the stock market has a bad day? Then there's no escaping the headlines that scream "Dow craters, down 100 points!" But good luck finding the story about how the Dow rose 150 points the next day. In a similar vein, we insist upon lashing ourselves with bad news about the unemployment rate each week, even when the news is good. Today, Market Watch reported, "New applications for unemployment benefits sank by 37,000 last week to 391,000 to mark the lowest level since April." Great. Now cue Gloomy Eeyore of Winnie-the-Pooh fame: "But a government official suggested the surprising drop may have stemmed from a variety of 'technical' issues not captured by normal seasonal adjustments," the report said (echoing what the downcast donkey would undoubtedly say). Gee, thanks for brightening my day. Cue Captain Bligh: "You may resume the lashings, Mr. Christian, and put yer back into it man!" Like I said, no good news goes unpunished.

Are 'We the People' our own worst enemy?

As we approach another national election, Professor Louis René Beres notes that each aspirant wants to be the "people's president." To say otherwise would be foolish if not blasphemous. So it is ironic, he writes, that the Framers of the Constitution did not believe in democracy. The fact that the famous Philadelphia convention was held in secret speaks volumes. Beres observes: "Today, we try to forget that the Founding Fathers displayed a very deep distrust of ordinary folk, and, as corollary, an abundant fear of democratic governance. With no more than a half-dozen exceptions, the men of the Philadelphia Convention were scions of wealth and privilege, utterly disdaining the people as a vile and contemptible 'mob.' Any serious thought by the general population was something that always had to be vigorously discouraged. ... Even Benjamin Franklin, whose faith in the people was discernibly stronger than that of his colleagues, remarked candidly that any capacity for purposeful citizenship remained undemonstrated."

Would democratic governance give rise to the barbaric Hobbesian mob as the Founders feared? In America, it did not. Instead, a more benign but equally dangerous mob arose, one Beres characterized as bearing the "far-reaching absence of any individuality, courage, or serious thought." We have become a people who have made a virtue of "fitting in" and not rocking the proverbial boat. Gone are the rugged individualists "motivated by industry, meaning and self-reliance," as Ralph Waldo Emerson once described the nation. Instead, Beres writes, America today is what Emerson dreaded most: a people marked by conformance, mimicry, and "trembling.” Beres laments that demos is no longer "a preferred path to virtue, but an endlessly deep valley of imitation, mediocrity and eventual despair." In this sense, the fears of the Founding Fathers have indeed manifested themselves. Can we matriculate beyond the crowd? Perhaps. America's best days may still lie ahead.

But as Beres rightly notes, "Before this intolerable condition can change, and before the assorted [presidential] aspirants can ever make good on their ritualistic adorations [about 'We the People'], it will first be necessary for us to take our Selves seriously. Soon, unless we finally start to honor the American people as individuals, the coming presidential election will miss the point."

On being piggish

"I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals." (Winston Churchill)

'Ch-ch-ch-Changes'

Granted, Mitt Romney is a walking, talking target-of-opportunity for mocking. He can't help being endearingly goofy. But sometimes the high school derision goes a tad too far. Yesterday, Romney told a New Hampshire Town Hall audience that he's often tagged as being a flip-flopper. "Well, in the private sector, if you don't change your view when the facts change, well you'll get fired for being stubborn and stupid." Romney said in his own defense. "Winston Churchill said, 'When the facts change, I change too, Madam.'" Good line. Except Churchill never said it, as MSNBC's First Read and other lefty blogs were only too happy to point out. The quote, most scholars believe, actually belongs to Churchill compatriot John Maynard Keynes, the famed British economist whose theories are "loathed by many conservatives." Oh-the-irony, First Read mocked gleefully, Romney is such a clueless dolt. Romney, a Harvard law (cum laude) grad and certainly no dummy, probably had this Churchill quote in mind before his brain-wiring crossed: "To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." Yes, as Churchill quipped, "we are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out." And yes, Romney mucked it up and, as David Bowie sung in "Changes," he's obliged to "turn and face the strain." But on this score, Romney could take his tormentors down a notch by citing another Churchillian witticism: "A fanatic [or a lefty blogger] is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject."