Get the cobwebs out

Need to cruise and brood, get the cobwebs out of the brain, get into the present tense mode, the work mode, and try not to let the world around me (both political and professional) become too depressing. Tend my own garden, as Voltaire recommended. I do quite well when I'm focused in my interior world, not so well when certain aspects of the outside world get my attention. Focus on the many things in my life going well, not the few not going so well. Sometimes easier said than done. Classes beginning will help because then I'll have a routine, students, concrete responsibilities and deadlines, all of which are good for me and keep me busy, and the busier I am, the less I fret about the mess swirling around me. May you live in interesting times.

I've been thinking about my dad. He would be 94 if alive. He died at 72. He was a career sailor, going for 30 years when he thought himself treated unfairly and so got out at 22 years. But he remained a sailor all his life. What happened is this: after the war, he was captain of a small supply ship in Guam, delivering to the various islands. One time he came across a native ship on fire and successfully rescued everyone. He was reprimanded for putting his crew in danger! In other words, putting white sailors in danger to rescue non-white natives, is the way he took it. He put in his resignation papers as soon as he could after that. My dad did not fit the popular model of the lifer. He once told me that, from his experiences in China in the 1920s, if he were a Chinese, he'd be a communist. My dad was a great free thinker.

He would be rolling over in his grave to listen to another lifer, John McCain speak. My dad had very fundamental values that he took very seriously. You don't lie. Your handshake is your word. To hear McCain lie about Palin's executive jet, saying she sold it on ebay for a profit when in fact she sold it through a broker for a loss, would have upset him greatly. No lie was too small not to take seriously. He would have considered this behavior unbecoming to a naval officer. He would not call John McCain an officer and a gentleman, despite the heroics of his prisoner years.

But no one cares about lying any more. If they do, where's the evidence? Hillary Clinton lied about being under fire and nobody cared. Palin lied about certain actions as mayor and governor and nobody cares. McCain stretched a good true story to a more dramatic lie and nobody cares. It's all theater. It's all image. It's all Wag the Dog.