That Broken Record Called History

I read the following bit – the concluding paragraph of the chapter “Bargaining with an Empty Wallet” in Max Hastings’ “Winston’s War,” an in-depth look at the work, successes, and follies of Winston Churchill during the war years, and thought it has a message that modern politicians ought to examine:

But the British people had by now hardened their hearts towards their rulers, even the greatest. Many felt less gratitude to those presiding over victory in the most terrible conflict in history than implacable resentment against the politicians whom they held responsible for getting them into it in the first place. Even if Churchill had not himself been among the guilty men of the 1930s, he was now their political standard-bearer. And for all his giant stature as Britain’s war leader, millions of voters sensed that his interest in the humdrum domestic troubles of peace was perfunctory. An anonymous officer of the Second Army, fighting in Holland, wrote in the Spectator about the mood of the British soldier under his command: “[He] is fighting for the future of the world and does not believe in that future . . . He asks a lot of the future, but he doesn’t expect to get any of it.” The writer perceived his men as chronically mistrustful of all authority, institutions and politicians, but Tories most of all: “It is, perhaps, encouraging that Tommy, 1944, will not be foozled by facile talk of a land fit for heroes. He wants deeds, not words.” Few among such men perceived Winston Churchill as the national leader likely to fulfil such hopes once victory came.

Page 421, “Bargaining with an Empty Wallet,” In “Winston’s War.”

This kind of weariness is, I think, pretty common today. We saw it with Bill Clinton – the man who could do no wrong now boiled down to the man who monkeyed around with an intern, if we’re to believe everything said by the folks at JibJab. We saw it with George W. Bush, who went from the rallying hero of 9/11 to Monkey Boy, to continue the monkey theme. And we’re seeing it with Barack Obama whom we’re apparently not allowed to compare to a monkey but we can kinda make fun of the whole “hopey-changey” thing because, well, just go back and read what that anonymous officer said of Churchill in that quoted paragraph, especially the part about fighting for a future that he does not believe will arrive, or, if it does, that he will be able to “get any of it.”

Maybe this is why I like reading history after it’s all over, not the instantaneous history most journalists produce. They say journalism is the first draft of history, but given the many changing facts we’ve seen with, for instance, the bin Laden raid, that first draft is nothing but a first draft, in need of serious revision by those who can look at the situation with cool, dispassionate eyes.

Just Wait . . . Someone Will Blame This on Industrialization

Jupiter, it seems, is popping out with new red spots like a teenager whipping through puberty.

As reported in this heavily copyrighted story (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,358704,00.html) Jupter has sprouted a third red spot as its second red spot (dubbed Great Red Spot Jr.) achieves winds as brisk as its larger counterpart.

One of the theories is that Jupiter's climate is changing -- getting warmer -- a pheonomenon which is causing these greater-that-hurricane-force storms. You can bet there are environmentalists out there right now plotting how they can pin the blame for this on western Terran civilization, or at least the Bush presidency.

Here are a few examples:

1. Broadcasts of Bush speeches, policy announcements, et cetera, from Earth have been striking the Jovian atmosphere for years, generally increasing temperatures due to the interaction of Jupiter's hydrocarbon atmosphere with bombast, lies, and quotations such as "I'm the decider."
2. Dick Cheney found the secure, undisclosed location on Jupiter to be a bit nippy, so NASA has been heating the atmosphere up with giant laser beams shot at the planet from its orbiting probes.
3. So much carbon has leaked out of Earth's atmosphere that a gigantic Carbon Cloud is now enveloping the entire solar system.

These are only a few examples. I'm sure you can come up with better ones.

Paranoia

Thursday, sweet Thursday.

Stumbled across a memory from the past (as opposed to those pesky memories from the future) yesterday: The Conet Project. For the uninitiated, the project is a collection of "numbers stations" recordings made in the UK by a shortwave radio enthusiast. It's basically like the recording John Travolta's character in Phenomenon decodes, getting his farmer buddy in deep, deep trouble. I heard a NPR report on the release of a four-disc set of the recordings, and was fascinated.

The individual who recorded the transmissions is obviously a paranoiac. Now, I work as a subcontractor to a contractor doing work for the federal government, so the idea that the government is up to shady shenanigans isn't a mystery to me. They shouldn't be sneaking about, planting evidence of transvestisism into the governments of other nations. But what ya gonna do? Listen to The Conet Project, get jumpy when you get caught in the beam of those traffic cams and look over your shoulder a lot. Because The Man* is going to do what he wants to do, whether or not a helpless rabble of citizens is up in arms about it or not. I may start up my own numbers station just to make everybody go completely bonkers.

So what else is going on in my life? It is Thursday, sweet Thursday. We had a late blizzard this morning that closed roads and schools, but it only happened in the valley; out here in the Lost River Desert, we've got the wind and the cold, but the moisture stayed away from us.

What I enjoy about these kinds of things (including aliens, bigfoot, the Kennedy assasination, et cetera) is how ordinary people like myself pore over the evidence -- and by that I mean we limit our research to Wikipedia, quotes from Dale from King of the Hill and videos from YouTube -- and, poof, transform ourselves into Instant Experts (TM). We've got it covered. We know what happened at Dealey Plaza, what exactly is tromping around in the Cascades, who really shot J.R. and we know, for a fact, despite we've only seen a tiny, tiny picture of the parachute those kids in Oregon dug up last week that it HAS to be the one used by D.B. Cooper because it looks exactly like the period parachute they used in that episode of the X Files. I guess what I'm saying is that 99.99999999 percent of these so-called Internet experts ought to stick to pounding sand. (I'm not comparing The Conet Project to this; as those guys have obviously worked hard to uncover what little bit they have uncovered, by which I mean they haven't uncovered enough.)

Ahh, how I wish Dick Cheney would shoot some other hunting partner, just so I could have something to chuckle about.

Speaking of chuckling: WHo does Hillary Rodham Clinton think she is? Oh yeah. She thinks she's Hillary Rodham Clinton. Since I live in one of the "unimportant" states that Barack Obama won, I'm a little leery at her attitude of wanting to win the Democratic nomination at all costs. She seems determined that it's the delegate count, rather than the voice of the people, which ought to decide elections. Those who side with her on this ought to remember that's the argument (cue lugubrious organ music) George W. Bush used in 2000 when he lost the popular vote to Al Gore but won the electoral college. (Claim apples and oranges on me if you will, but I believe there are enough parallels between the delegate/superdelegate nomination system and the Electoral College system, neither of which makes much sense to me.)

I now descend from my soapbox.

*If you don't know who/what "The Man" is, I'm truly sorry for the limits of your knowledge.