I heard on NPR this morning that Barack was thanking Illinois voters via selected newspapers, for our support and got the (wrong) impression those thanks would be a full-page advert. Instead, it was an editorial page “affectionate letter of thanks” which appeared right above Garrison Keillor’s weakly muse, this one entitled “America is cool again — and doesn’t it feel great!”
(BTW, I believe our highly-esteemed president-elect will not have truly arrived until my spell checker stops underlining the word every time I type “Barack.” THERE! Did it again!)
What’s not to love about Barack’s mention of Springfield, my home town in his thank you tome? (the word “tome” rhymes with “home” but it could rhyme with “to me.” I voted for him after all. I voted for him when he ran for US Senate.
Garrison is something else. He has a gift for writing for radio, the way I have a face for radio. I believe his zeal for celebration is premature in this Sunday’s column. Here’s why.
We’re not cool yet. We won’t be cool until the last pencil and note pad touched by our nation’s “Master of War” is removed from DC and placed in a climate-controlled museum ably administerated by Sarah Palin, don’t cha know. I used to sing a song by Bob Dylan entitled “Masters of War.” It was about the military-industrial complex (Min Comp).
“You’ve hurled the worst fear that can ever be hurled:
Fear to bring children into the world.
For threatening my baby, unborn and un-named,
You ain’t worth the blood that runs in your veins.”
The final verse begins with a hope that I cannot repeat here in the land of free speech because I might have my phone tapped (or worserly) if I did. You can look it up. The final two lines of that verse, I can share:
“And I’ll watch while you’re lowered into your death bed,
And I’ll stand over your grave ’til I’m sure that you’re dead.”
In her recording of that fab Dylan masterpiece, Judy Collins (MacMurray College, Jacksonville, Illinois student before I attended — GO TARTANS! –) didn’t sing the last verse because she didn’t wish death on anyone. Neither do I, but the larger point was that Dylan was not going to concede his hoped-for victory over the rapaciousness of the Min Comp until he was sure it was delivered to another dimension.
I have news for Garrison and others who feel we can celebrate quitissential coolness now: Let’s wait for the great Master of War, a/k/a #43, to exit the office he has sullied for too long before we break out the really good bubbly. Let our president-elect become president before we really REALLY celebrate his arrival. In the meantime, let’s focus our attention, our energy and our prayers toward the days between now and January 20. We have seen how the fortunes of our country can turn on a dime with #43 at the wheel. He still has time galore to make many turns on dimes, though with the whole world now “in on his lethal proclivities” he will have a harder time getting whatever he throws at us to stick. I for one, wish our current president the best of luck and nothing but good fortune until he slithers out of the White House and the courts can get their hands on him.
In the meantime, I’m not ordering Champagne, and don’t intend to drink any either. Not while #43 is president.
Live long . . . . . and proper.
