I glanced over at the obituary section of the Washington Post a couple of days ago to see that Viktor Sukhodrev, the long-time Russian-English interpreter for the Kremlin, had died. He was the one who in 1956 spontaneously translated Kruschev's famous threat to the US: "we will bury you." Now I was familiar with these words, and knew that Kruschev banged his shoe on the desk while uttering them. What I did not know was what he had said just before. Putting the previous sentence back in, we get: "Whether you like it or not, we are on the right side of history. We will bury you." Now I had not realized that "the right side of history" had such pedigree. And find it ironic, given how it gets flung around these days, and by whom. Was Kruschev the one who coined it? That I don't know...
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Sometimes a screed is just the thing. Sometimes it’s nice to simply reach for a book that you know won’t provoke you, challenge you or cost you much exertion. One that seeks more to express solidarity than to instruct. One that, when it does instruct, does so in merely uncovering yet more reasons for thinking the way you already do, and—making it all the sweeter—in pioneering ways to practice uncharity towards the enemy, mostly in the form of rhetorical barbs. Ann Coulter’s success, I suggest, can be largely traced back to this psychological need. Her writing is so indulgently one-sided that, if you’re disposed to agree with her, you’ll find yourself as one shadow boxing before the TV screen, cutting and thrusting as she lands blow after artful blow on her dazed opponent. Never mind that the opponent is a straw man of her own construction. This is a sport, and must be appreciated on its own terms. Now, for my tastes, Coulter goes too far and ruins the fun. That was my sense at any rate last summer when I went through her Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America. For her the French Revolution, with its radical and naive utopianism, is the prototype of everything that has gone wrong since then, from Lenin to MSNBC. And that simply asks too much. Yet, I must say I really did enjoy her tour through the French Revolution, as she recounted in great detail just how turbulent and savage it was. It served as a nice corrective to my sophomore year survey of European history, which presented the Revolution as a generally benign and rational dawning of egalitarianism. Having done some sporadic reading on the subject since then, I find myself more inclined to side with Coulter. (I must add that without my Kindle I would have been denied the pleasure of her writing entirely, as I would be loathe to visibly tote her trademark décolleté from playground to playground. But there’s a downside to this, too. How many conversations have I not entered into because my Kindle’s anonymous leather cover has hidden my purpose?) So says my 7 year old, eyeing the seedlings. You see, all they want is to get closer and closer to the sun, but if they were to actually reach it they would burn up and die. Contrast this with his novel designs for the Space Shuttle, which would look like a 747, carry as many passengers as the 747, but have its jets on top of the elevators and carry three space-capable F-35 fighter jets. Like his triangular space station, which would be half the size of earth, all of these vehicles would be solar powered and capable of hyperspace. If fact, a single photon would suffice to charge all of them for 50 years, generating food, oxygen and materials. And one more thing: the space station would carry about 10,000 people and have a billion rooms, separated from each other by a mile of open space. Passengers/inhabitants could choose between gravity and gravity-free modes. They would have controls for adjusting gravitational pull. And don't forget the fleet of space-capable F-35's on the space station itself, 1000 in all, each armed with lasers powerful enough to destroy Mars (which would serve as good defense against asteroids and meteor showers). Force-fields surrounding each F-35 and an arsenal of special rockets would defend it against flame-attacks. An array of probes could be deployed at any time to explore meteors, asteroids, planets, etc., and retrieve whatever they find. Any life they would encounter they could assess for possible coexistence with people. Naturally, the probes would also assess all environments for human habitability. Monday – The old War Horse (a certain 1991 Camry, soon to be an Antique) left at service station for inspection. Missing strut mount and other smaller issues. Quoted 400 something. Charged 700 something. Confrontation, smiling, but in that strained sort of way. The main thing: the Toyota has once again defied death and passed state inspection. Feelings of satisfaction, virtue and judicious thrift.
Tuesday – Traffic jam on the Beltway. All crept along at no more than 2 miles per hour, for an entire hour. And then, in the middle of five lanes of traffic, two on the left and two on the right, the War Horse stalls. The battery is empty, so empty that I can’t even turn on the hazard lights. I have to pop the hood to show those behind me that I am not going anywhere. Weeks ago my cell phone had given out and I was rather enjoying the silence, so I hadn’t bothered replacing it. It’s actually next to me in a bag, and possibly capable of an emergency call, but alas its battery is drained, too. Tablet: no Wi-Fi signal, except a secured one from the Washington Post building off to the right. Kindle: has 3G, but refuses to use it for anything aside from buying more Kindle books at the Kindle store. Its so-called "Experimental Browser" is experimental indeed. Now, on to the faces. Behind me one car comes, waits, realizes I’m suck. The lady gives a look of exasperation. As does the next. Rolling eyes, mouthed obscenities. One guy pounded on his door and hooted as he passed. Another yelled at me to pull it over to the side. If only I could. I felt better – I physically felt better – resting my head in my hand to hide my eyes. It was still pretty jammed from the accident ahead, so I was able to ask the passenger in a car briefly idling next to me to call for help…and maybe she was the one who did. Meanwhile I sat. Recited the Sorrowful Mysteries on my fingers (it was Tuesday after all). And to think! Yesterday, only yesterday!, I had passed inspection! 5/15, right there on the windshield! One hundred and so years ago I would have been the one flogging that horse quite beyond measure by now, sending the syphilitic across the way to the asylum, once and for all… Now the traffic jam was letting up. Cars starting to whir by. What’s worse is that it was starting to get dark. I had no hazard lights, right? And there was no telling whether everyone would see me on time. By now all feelings of shame were long departed. I could no longer walk across the two lanes of traffic to the shoulder – I had waited too long. I stood right up against the car and, for the first time in my entire life, oh gentle reader, extended my thumb. I could not prevent someone from plowing into my car. But I could prevent myself from being in or around the car when it happened. After a few minutes a cop pulled up behind and pushed me over the shoulder. I got a tow. A jump would have sufficed, I insisted, but the mumbles I received indicated otherwise. I was towed to a service station. A friend came, jumped me, and off I went. And the next day I picked up a Highlander, because I pretty much need that third row of seats to accommodate the darlings. It had been getting awfully tight in that majestic old Camry. And it was so, so fortunate that they had not been along for that fatal mission. Plus I didn't even have to pee, really. And the weather was very nice. Just a lone man, in his prime, standing next to his defunct vehicle, thumb outstretched. Or maybe I am an idiot. |
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