Joe Biden says Darth Vader is not a dictator

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When Joe Biden, on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, said that Mubarak is not a dictator, it just pissed me off. Then  – in the turmoil of Egypt – that stupid comment seemed to disappeared. But according to Chase Madar over at the london Review of Books, Biden has made the same sort of stupid comment about Darth Vadar, among others.

Look, I know Darth fairly well, and Jim, I just want to mention that Darth has overcome asthma, some serious, serious asthma, and it’s just a really inspiring story, he’s written a children’s book about it, I gave a signed copy to my granddaughter for Christmas. Anyway our position is that before Darth blows up the planet Alderaan with his so-called Death Star, which is really just a large weather satellite with a few dual-use components, Darth should, you know, take some of that planet’s concerns into account. He should take their concerns seriously, and it should be a peaceful process. They have a right to protest against their planet getting blown up. But Jim, it’s a two-way street, and Alderaan shouldn’t be vandalising the Death Star’s weapon systems, which, of course, not that they exist. There’s been a concern that some of the more radical elements, you know, the Wookie Street, might try to do this. So no, we don’t think Darth Vader should resign. But if he does – if he does – we can find the recent appointment of Darth Maul as his acolyte Dark Lord of the Sith to be really, really encouraging from a human rights perspective. Just remember, the Empire is a fragile beacon of democracy in a turbulent universe.

 

Spring has sprung….or, at least, is springing

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A couple of days ago, I saw a satellite photo of the US covered in snow.  Except when I was in the Army, I have never lived in an area that got really cold in the winter. Snow is a drive to the mountains for the weekend sort of thing. Or a drive across Nevada to get to southern Utah sort of thing.

Sat image snow covered US

Here it is spring with the fruit trees in full blossom.

Spring (1 of 1)

In another couple of weeks, if the weather forecast is right, the almond trees in the Central Valley will be so full of flowers  that even the ground will be covered. It will look like snow.

Central Valley Spring (1 of 1)

The power and joy of a book

Americana, General U.S. Grant, Psychological Musings, War, What's a man?

One of the nice things about being in the hospital is having time to read. Several weeks ago, Richard Taylor sent me a list of books – he had run into – on the Civil War and that started me reading A Stillness at Appomattox.

Civil War blog

Reading this book has been painful at times, but – mostly – a joy. It is painful because it is paragraph after paragraph and page after page of General U. S. Grant sending men into the meat grinder of battle and a joy because it shows the slow change – with so many acts of grace and horror – of Grant’s Army transforming into a winner.

But the book is primarily a joy because of the power and beauty of the words. It is almost 400 pages of poetry. Here is a paragraph from page 213:

…There had been that dance for officers of the II Army Corps, in the raw pine pavilion above the Rapidan on Washington’s Birthday, and it had been a fine thing to see; and it had been a long good-by and a dreamy good night for the young men in bright uniforms and the women who tied their lives to them. Most of the men who danced at that ball were dead, now; dead or dragging themselves about hometown streets on crutches, or tapping their way along with a hickery cane to find the way instead of bright youthful eyes, or in hospitals where doctors with imperfect knowledge tried to patch them up enough to enable them to hope to get out of bed some day and sit in a chair by the window. There had been a romance to war once, or atleast some people said there was, and each one of these men had seen it, and they had touched the edge of it while the music played and the stacked flags swayed in the candlelight, and it all came down to this, with the drifting dust of the battlefields blowing from the imperfect mounds of hastily dug graves. 

 

 

 

Home, home at last

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This whole hospital thing was a bigger deal than I expected. I kept thinking I would be leaving the hospital in a couple of hours, then in the morning, then tomorrow.  But, now I am home and will be sleeping in my own beddie-bye tonight. After a nice home made – very soft – dinner and a relaxing watch of Jon Stewart.