Yes, it is very edifying that who the monsters are may very well depend on whose eyes you are looking through.  Which is why it is so important that we maintain our ability to empathize. This is so easily lost when looking at the world through the lens of a particular ideology, whether it is conscious and well defined or not. Also it is important not to let fear cloud our vision of those we consider our enemies.  Sometimes a little understanding of the fears motivating the other side can go a long way to resolving our differences. I am reminded of when McNamara talked to the North Vietnamese 20 years after the war.  McNamara said we were trying to prevent Vietnam from becoming a communist Chinese satellite. The Vietnamese ambassador said “We had been fighting the Chinese to remain free for 400 years. Don’t you know anything about our history?”

In order to disarm the envious, we must take to the street on crutches.  Only the sight of our collapse can humanize.”  Cioran

While Mr. Fish’s reminiscence is delightful for what it is,
but seeing the Mummy with a different mindscape, in the
movie of the same name the Mummy, who prowls the
world leaving death and destruction in his quest to find
the means of reincarnation for his equally ancient lover,
a princess, it depicts a resurrected ancient Egyptian priest
who was mummified alive but who becomes a metaphor
for the indestructible monster marauder that lays waste to
whatever stands in its way or intentions.

The ancient dramatized tale of immortality is provided by
sacred (magic) tana leaves that when brewed can provide
eternal uninterrupted existence).  This is vividly remindful
of modern alchemical Tea Bags and the obstinance of the
current political Tea Partiers.  It is my opinion that
Republicans are Mummified one-time humans whose only
intention is to dominate the American population for their
own clannish self-serving corporatocratic purposes. 

The Republican Mummies are only stoppable by a ray of
light that in the original story…from a stone goddess, will
burn the rules of Republican conduct, that in turn will crumble
the Party into a heap of babble (that might now describe them
but becomes intensified beyond their salvation).  Translation
of what that ray of light means in the context of today’s reality
is the re-animation of the Democrats to unite themselves as
liberals whose primary concern is and always has been the
common welfare of the American people.  Unrelenting ugly
Republican Mummies speak in choral unison to destroy the
democratic process of the Constitution of the United States by
destroying the Constitution itself, its Amendments and Bill of
Rights in their attempt among several lethal objectives to
decimate the voting rights of millions upon millions of
Americans.  It is going to take a concerted effort of
Democratic factions:  the poor, the middle income wage
earners, supporters of unions, teachers, small farmers, the
returning military, the law enforcement, the firefighters, and
others slated to be disenfranchised such as women and their
right to their own bodies, all non-Christians, non-whites
(brown, black, red, and yellow), gays and lesbians, immigrants,
college students, etc., to consolidate and find the means to
stop them.  The Republican Party is the Party Against the
People.

Jack Kerouac? no no no no..  There was truly something pathetic about that guy,
despite the eternal genius of his words, wordsaying.

I’d say Allen Ginsberg, instead.

What beautiful children you and Dawn were, Mr. Fish! And that dog on the bed in back of you with his eye on the picture taker. I bet you miss him/her.

I was in New Jersey at the same time you were just a kid, giving birth to my daughter (at Mt. Holly) who is now 40 years old with twins of her own. Small world.

May I just say that your writing is wonderful. Right up there with Steinbeck and Dickens.

No,  my dear.  Chomsky is very much alive.  The tribute was to all those mentioned—alive in the spirit if not in the flesh. I frequently run across him on Amy Goodman.

I’m thinking here of one polio kid I very much knew who is still very much alive.  There was no Salk or Sabin for him, unfortunately.  I remember rushing my three kids to get injected with something which wasn’t a vaccine, but it was all there was at the time.  Then waiting in fear and trembling for three weeks or so.  Three kids on the block were afflicted. The next year the first vaccines became available. It was a sad time. That generation deserves memorializing.

No,  my dear.  Chomsky is very much alive.  The tribute was to all those mentioned—alive in the spirit if not in the flesh. I frequently run across him on Amy Goodman.

I’m thinking here of one polio kid I very much knew who is still very much alive.  There was no Salk or Sabin for him, unfortunately.  I remember rushing my three kids to get injected with something which wasn’t a vaccine, but it was all there was at the time.  Then waiting in fear and trembling for three weeks or so.  Three kids on the block were afflicted. The next year the first vaccines became available. It was a sad time. That generation deserves memorializing.

@ Gerard

CHOMSKY ISN’T DEAD YET!!!

Here is a link to one of my favorite recent lectures….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iebK7VVDayY

It is from April 20, 2011 (420 dude… Hitler’s B-day) which I suppose might qualify it as old-timey, but I am fervent in my unqualified insistence that it is worth viewing anyway.

Addition suggested for the sake of unity and heart:

“And Jack Kerouac and Mario Savio. And Kate Millett and Geronimo. And Bugs Bunny and Noam Chomsky.”  Add:  ... and all the little polio-crippled kids screaming in the corners of dance floors all over that once-upon-a-time America.”

(in memory of and tribute to the “polio-generation” before Salk and the Russian guy)

Doesn’t mesh all that well (in my mind) with Allende’s “Jump if you aren’t a mummy” (mummy=facist), but a fine article nonetheless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YUx5Zp0Z9A

I am quite fond of Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo.