From: James Floyd [mailto:jfloyd@airnet.net] Sent: Friday, January 08, 1999 9:18 AM To: jfloyd@airnet.net Subject: Wolves, Horses, Sons and Whores
.He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf,
a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.
Shakespeare, King Lear.
In the year of our Lord, 1998, I met thousands of trusting children dressed in neat little red outfits skipping down dark, wooded paths. And to all the message was the same: "No, no, Miss Hood," me said, "that is not your grandmother, that's a damn wolf! Can't you see his long snout, his snarling, sharp teeth and his evil eyes?"
Wolves A few would pause, briefly, and admire the way I carved such clear and detailed images of wolves. "How do you do it?" they ask. "I just cut away everything that don't look like a wolf," me said.
And so it goes, even after stripping away the disguise of these ravenous predators our self-destructive folk still dance with carnivores. This fairy tale year ended with Miss Hood in bed with wolves whom she believes to be nice, kind, loving people and old Jim remains just another canine- hater crying wolf.
This past year, decade, and century was truly the 'era of the wolf'' and it became even more obvious that our fight was not with these beasts but a life and death struggle against the 'invincible ignorance' of our own people. Silly, trusting, suicidal people who keep forgetting who it was that ate their grandma.
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Ah, but as the beasts like to say, "not to worry," we have healthy horses ready to ride to the rescue and save us all. Quixotic characters of every description are mounted at the edge of the forest, fighting each other for the honorable position of maximum leader and they all promise that they will charge through the wolf pack and save the innocent.
Horses Oh, Sir Lance-o-Lott, respected, venerated Senator, how did you become so disoriented? You took a left turn at those last forty intersections, wrong Sir, wrong! And you, Battling Buchannan, you are living happily in their lire. Why should we ever believe that you will slay your room mates or bite the hand of your host? In yo ear, Gingrich! You and your 'lovelier' wife were suckled by the wolves and have always carried their repugnant odor.
Enough! We have no healthy horses nor healthy warriors in this battle. There are no national champions at-the-ready. There are only a few marginalized Don Quixotes riding broken-down nags and armed with sling-shots and pebbles. Come quickly sweet champion.
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Oh Epsilon, Epsilon my son! (He always thinks I'm saying Absalom) How could you? How dare you! We forgave you when you brought cockroaches home with your laundry from college. But your latest so- called gift, satellite television, shows a contempt that will forever remain beyond the pale of human forgiveness.
The Love of a Boy We killed those dirty, beastly, little bugs but this new 'pestilence in our parlor' appears to be indestructible.
Did you really think that your mother and I would be entertained by hearing the same moanings and feigned groanings of ecstasy while watching the same, apparently generic, sex scene? Dear Epsilon, do you watch the same rerun of football plays over and over again?
Perhaps, you gave us all these channels so we could learn history via the Hitler/Holocaust/History channel? Maybe you thought we would join, and delight in, such propagandist as Marion Wallack (Mike Wallace) in search of history, or that we would readily applaud his revisionist interruptions of 'our' century? So, we are expected to trust men whose whole lives are lies -- beginning with their names? We love you boy but we will never trust your judgment nor their veracity.
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Oh, Shaky Baby, things sho' was much simpler when you wrote about "whores" and "oaths." These words have suffered innumerable, convoluted definings. You would have branded a lass who had illicit sex with a carriage driver as a whore, not so today; her reputation would be harmed only if a "pattern" of promiscuity could be established where she took-on the driver, and say, the first four rows of passengers in one of those London double decker buses, anything between that and a fully occupied airport shuttle van would signify something approaching prudishness and restraint.
A Whores Oath Of course, Mr. Shake, you know nothing of this nor would you understand the way our libertine leaders 'counsel' with confused young ladies or the ambiguity which shrouds the breaking of oaths.
A lie is no longer just a lie; we started with "white" and "black" lies and now we have "honorable lies," something called "presidential imprecisions, " lies that "are not lies because the nabob emperor believes them," and then there is a 'time element' where all is well if the liar confesses within an undefined time limit. So, me dear bard of bards, your admonitions regarding "trust" have little import, today. What we require is divine intervention:
.May those that love us never lie to us and
those who don't love us and lie to us, may
God turn their hearts. And if He can't turn
their hearts may He turn their ankles so we
will know them by their limp.
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