...When We Talk About War

It was just a week ago that we found ourselves at each other’s throat. Our country at the brink of war left a lot of thinking to do. It started innocently enough as an invitation to a peace march, and one vicious replay later, became an increasingly interesting document on the benefits of war and peace. Over the period of about three days emails flew back and forth, and for the first time in a long time we were having a discussion about this country and this world and where we see our place in it.

I saved all the emails, patched them up and compiled them here.

I have no idea what else to do with them but put them up on my site. Hope you enjoy the read.

Lamb Chop

In his controversial autobiography, Fisted Full of Dollars, (Harper and Row) Lambchop, the lovable children’s character-turned-activist, talked a lot about the constant threat of being replaced. There were always rumors of cats and bears being called in to read and at the end of the sixties there was even talk that Snoopy had been offered the job. In the end Lambchop and the show died it’s normal death like all children’s TV shows do, living for a while in that hazy land of syndication and Christmas specials before dropping of the radar, appearing only in the occasional PBS fundraising special and strip-mall openings.

I bring this up because in Volume II chapter 13 he kind of goes off on a tangent about Shari Lewis spitting all of her lines, and how, especially near the end of their run, when the crew wrapped, he would have to be toweled off before being put down for the night. You can really tell he’s in a lot of pain recalling those days, there’s a lot of anger, hurt and humiliation he’s working through, and you kind of get the feeling that he’s revisiting old, old wounds, opening up after all those years at a time when he thought that his life would be finally settling down.

The last things I’ve heard is that he’s been pulled out of mothballs once again I guess only time will tell what will come of this new incarnation. I’ve got a feeling that this time things are gonna be a little different as I’ve also heard he’s decided that he can live the best of both worlds by opening up his very own website. A site where he can be true to his own nature and that of his fan’s as well.

I really wish him all the best.

Valentine Pink

I’m done with pink. Finished with the little hearts that trail every word, and cover every boarder. This Sunday’s paper had more reds and pinks this year than any other year I can remember. Don’t get me wrong I have no real issues with Valentines Day. I have no trouble with this marketed holiday anymore than I have trouble with any other holiday. Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, I do just fine with them thank you.

But I am sick to death of this pink.

This year for some reason it’s that Barbie-pink color that’s everywhere. Yahoo has covered its home page with it. The sports section in this morning’s paper even had pink advertising. It’s like The Cat In The Hat has comeback more out of control than ever. Pink ring in the tub? Childs play. Pink snow? Amateur’s work. This year I’ll do that and even turn all Lingerie pink. All clothes, candy, storefronts and busses. I tell you one thing, I know of no quicker way to get smacked upside the head then by trying to dress up Sweetie in some cotton candy colored taffeta. It’d be a WWF smack-down Itellyouwhat.

Best bet is to find some chocolate. Godiva comes in little gold boxes and Sweetie likes those just fine, though I’ve found you can never be too careful. Last year I took a bite of one and the inside was some sort of pink-cream cherries jubilee sauce. The soft insides poring out of that chocolate shell like it was calling out doomsday. Foretelling a future of dark red seas, chartreuse skies, and sand the color of blood.

Fruit

It’s kinda quiet here today. The copiers are going off down the hall and though there is still the intermittent humming of the florescent ballasts no one seems to hear but me, overall I’d say it’s gonna be a slow sort of day.

I tried to eat an orange this morning. I say I tried because I was unsuccessful and wound up throwing all but one slice away. If I have but one flaw (which would be a lie, I know I have many far worse than this) it’s my intolerance for lousy fruit. I have no patience for a dry orange or a mushy apple, no hunger for a green banana or a hard pear. For the most part fruit and I get along like my cats get along with my kids. We co-habitate and at times find each other’s company beneficial, but most of the time we just avoid each other.

When I was younger, it used to be that it was only the deceptive fruits and vegetables I disliked. You know, the raisins that hide in chocolate-chip cookies pretending to be a toll-house morsel, or the jalapeno pepper hiding as a common bell pepper: the ones who rely on trickery to get you to eat them. In those days I would choke down bite after bite of hard cantaloupe or dry melon, figuring that since I already bought, peeled, sliced, chopped, etc., I was already too heavily invested in the produce to not eat it all.

I have since changed my mind. These days I take a bite and if it’s no good, I throw it away: the whole thing. Some times all I have to do is sink my teeth into a mushy apple and I throw it away, I don’t even take a bite. I can tell just by the way my teeth break through the skin whether or not it’s an apple I’m going to eat. The same way you know how it’s going to taste the moment the spoon sinks into the cantaloupe; all hard and watery.

Where I sometimes run into a problem lately is with obligation fruit. Fruit that requires a particular time commitment to eat, fruit, like say, an orange. Oranges are dangerous fruit in that the more time spent peeling it and getting rid of the tasteless white chunky stuff, the more obligated one feels to eat it. Because oranges can take a considerable time investment, even when they’re lousy, which almost all oranges here in Washington are, I will usually choke down a few slices in the fervent illusion that the next segment will contain the required amount of juice/taste needed to finish. In the end, I wind up with a big pulpy ball of orange matter in my stomach and the feeling that I wished I had stuck to my guns and thrown it all away after the first bite.

These days I don’t eat many oranges anymore, best just to avoid the whole hassle.

Gladys just brought an unused fruit platter from this morning management meeting into the break room. I think I’ll head on down there and see if there’s anything good. I gotta say I like fruit platters though. No investment = obligation, no peeling or coring, just small squares of fruit that if I don’t like, I can turn my head, aim for the garbage and spit it right out.