vicious cycle

There are those who argue that a murder must be tried where it was committed by the people who suffered the injury. So the 911 terrorists must be tried in the US by Americans. That makes sense, it is almost irrefutable.  Then there is Robert Bales who murdered 16 innocent Afghans, mostly children.  Shouldn’t he then be tried in Afghanistan by the Afghan people? If it’s good for the goose, it should be good for the gander.  But instead he was quickly whisked back to the US to face possible charges in an American court. The victims in the case have no say.  You walk away with the sense of double standards that if a crime is committed against Americans, it is tried by the US and if a crime is committed by Americans it too is tried by the US.

I understand the difference in both those cases and the flaw in the reasoning of that argument.   The difference is that the soldier was placed in that situation by his government, in the service of that same government, and is therefore owed some sort of government protection. While the terrorists were acting of their own volition, not backed by any official government and therefore not entitled to any such protection.  The government is in the situation to protect the country’s interests, the terrorist is just a murderer with no higher ideal.   I understand it, but I wonder if the Afghan father who had to bury his children does.  I wonder if he is now so incensed that he would be willing to fly an airplane into a building, but mostly I wonder where it ends.

An unnamed teenage ability

Ok, when I was a teenager I had a thing for Neil Diamond. [Waits for the laughter to subside before continuing.] There is a sort of fanaticism, a sort of compulsion, a radical attraction that you only experience as a teenager.  It’s short lived, by the time you’re in your twenties it’s faded, by the time you’re thirty it’s just a memory, and by the time you’re forty it’s a youthful folly that you can’t really explain. For my cousin it was Elvis, for my mother it was Rock Hudson, for you it was someone else.  But for me it was Neil Diamond, he could do no wrong, in my mind he was perfect. When his album Primitive came out in 1984 I cried myself to sleep because it was obvious in that album he had lost his rather fragile voice and adapted his songwriting to suit his new diminished vocal abilities.  And I still loved him.  Why? Because I was a child and in my mind he was perfect.

What is that? Where does that come from? What is that ability to worship we have when we are very young and why do we lose it over time? I would have had words with anyone who questioned his unquestionable talent, or found fault in his flawless character.  What ability did my brain posses then to completely deceive itself, and why do I lack that same ability now?  Today, of course, I question his very questionable talent and I fault his very faulty character. But where did that unreasonable fanaticism go? How did that overwhelming talent for blind adoration simply dissolve into air? It was real, of that I am certain, and it was mine. 

Think of the hoards of teenage fans trampling each other for a glimpse of the airplane that brought the Beatles to America. The unexplainable phenomenon of teen idols like Bieber and David Cassidy, they are not talented people, they are a product of this unnamed ability of the teenage brain.  And their careers often fade in the time it takes our brains to lose that same ability.   Teen idols owe their stardom to a talent our brains possess for a very short time: the power of voluntary self delusion culminating in blind adoration.  It’s a condition that generates billions of dollars in profits every year, it launches questionable talents into stardom every decade.  Shouldn’t it have a name? Shouldn’t music executives be able to measure it? Chart it on a graph? Determine how much it’s worth each year?

And there is one more aspect of this unnamed ability that should be widely discussed and is not:  is it a good thing or a bad thing?

What name would you give it?

How would your dog introduce you?

When I had to board my dog I used to call up my vet and say to the receptionist “Hi, this is Titus’ human, he was wondering if he could stay with you a few days next week.”  She thought I was silly. But think about it, how would your dog introduce you to another dog? Wouldn't you be his human?  Titus was a min-pin, so he was 10 pounds of fierce independence with a Rottweiler glint in his eye.  He would have said “Hi, my name is Titus.  This is MY human, you may sniff her but none of that tail wagging, ‘pet me I’m so cute’ act ‘cause I will bite you! She’s mine.”  He was 18 when his body finally gave out, and I miss him everyday.


Now, Saskia is a mutt.  She was destined for a miserable, very short life in the streets of São Paulo, except that she was much too nice and friendly when I said hi to her.  So, now I'm her human.  Living in the streets made her afraid of other dogs.  If she had to introduce me she would say. “Hi, please don’t bite me.  I have a human, and I’m hiding behind her because she’ll bite you if you try to bite me. You can act all cute if you want, and she can pet you if she likes, ‘cause I’m the one going home with her, so there!”
 
If you think you ‘own’ your dog, if your dog is your property, you shouldn’t have a dog.

I'll have the gnocchi please

Low season, after lunch and before dinner, in modern Pompeii is characterized by deserted streets and closed restaurants. Two disheartened, wet, tired and frozen people wandered out of the scavi in search of food and warmth. We were desperate as we felt life drain from our cold, wet bodies. When we thought we couldn’t take another step we came across a McDonald's. The outrage and the subsequent vociferous and vigorous bitching about the fact that there was a McDonald's in front of the ruins revitalized us and we were able to continue.

Everything looked closed, except for one tavern next to the church, the door was half open and there were people sitting at a table having a meal. We tentatively pushed our way into the darkened space and out of the rain, fully expecting to be chased back outside by someone gesturing wildly and announcing loudly ‘Chiuso! Chiuso!’ We looked around for a host or waiter and saw that the only people in the place were sitting around a table next to an area heater having a meal. An old Italian woman left the table and came to greet us with a smile, while at the same time indicating a table near the wall. I couldn’t determine her age, she could have been forty or perhaps ninety five. As we gratefully settled into our seats the woman dragged the area heater away from the group’s table and placed it next to us. I looked over my shoulder expecting the other patrons to complain and gesture half obscenities toward the woman for removing the heater. Nothing! They continued their conversations and meals as if the only source of life giving heat in the world hadn’t just been snatched away from them. I was in awe of the woman’s power, from my perspective she had just snatched a prime rib out of the snarling teeth of a hungry lion and walked away unscathed. She wore her power with ease, she was accustomed to great power, to telling people what to do and never be questioned. A creature of such power could only be an Italian mother, and a progenitor of the other patrons in the restaurant.

 I perused the menu, found a gnocchi dish and was happy. My mother, knowing that I would order the gnocchi, focused on a lasagna. The matron came to take our order and smiled at my choice, informing me in Italian that the gnocchi is very good today and that I had made a good choice. She turned to my mom and tisked her tongue and shook her head from side to side at her choice informing her that the lasagna is not good today. Mom selected a string of different dishes while the matron shook her head at the selections and informed her, one by one, that those dishes weren’t any good today either. Mom gathered up some of her Italian and asked the woman what she would recommend today. She was told "Gli gnocchi, signora, è buono oggi."

We were already enjoying our gnocchi when another patron arrived at the door. The new arrival was seated at a table on the opposite side of the restaurant. My first concern was that the old woman would take the heater away from us and give it to the new arrival and that I would be powerless to object. She didn’t, because we were cold and she was an Italian mother. Instead she stood next to the young woman to take her order. We watched as the young arrival made her first selection from the menu and recognized the familiar head shaking and tongue tisking. We both agreed that though we couldn’t hear the details of the conversation, the new arrival would eventually get the gnocchi. The young woman made several other selections, each was politely declined by the proprietress. We couldn’t hear the final arrangement, but a few minutes later the young woman was served a lovely plate of gnocchi.

When we were all happily eating our gnocchi, the old woman sat down in a chair next to the half open door looking outside at the dismal, cold, gloomy rain and started to talk. She wasn’t talking to us directly because she was still gazing out of the door, but we were the only ones able to hear her. “February.” She said in Italian. “February is always like this… March is better.” She kept looking out of the half open wooden door. “You should come back in March, it’s much better then.” My guess was that in March the other choices on the menu were available too.

I just love Italy.

The hand that rocks the cradle

There seems to be an ever increasing number of Muslim countries and communities favoring the implementation of Sharia law. I’m not going to judge any religious aspect of people’s choices, but I think no good has ever come out of mixing church and state.  However, there is something particularly nefarious about implementing Sharia in these places where social inequality is ramped and the poverty of the lower classes seems endemic and perpetual; where poverty is a legacy of despair from generation to generation.

It is a proven fact that the most effective method of pulling a community out of poverty is to empower women.  Women who have a minimum education, the power to make choices, earn a living, value her children’s education and to decide how many children she will bear, raise healthier children, who grow up to be better educated and more able to rise out of poverty. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world! And when that hand is empowered to plan for her children’s future, there is nothing that can hold it back. However when that hand is restricted by law, there is little hope for the future of her children.

That Sharia law divests women of all power, education and choice is a fact. That communities whose women are divested of power, education and choice are less likely to rise out of poverty is a fact.  

Draw whatever conclusions you like.

Brazil: the emerging economy! (unless it rains)

 Rain has fallen from the sky since before human beings evolved on the planet.  Rain has always been there, in any given day in human history it has rained somewhere on the planet.  You may argue that human activity on the planet has changed rain patterns and that it now rains more or less in specific regions. But the fact remains that it rains, and that it has always rained, and that it will always rain.  We have built our civilization around the fact that it rains, no one ever designed a building around the notion that henceforth it shall never rain again.  That would be stupid.

Every year in the rainy season the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo experience floods, landslides, death and destruction, massive power outages, disease riddled drinking water, overcrowded hospitals and shelters, and general despair.  Everyone is quick to point out that the catastrophe is caused by the rain, or the excessive rain, or the continuous rain.  All of the victims interviewed say that god willing, the rains will stop and they will be able to return home.  To this I would like to say one word: Bullshit!

It’s not the rain people!!! The rain has always been there.  The rain will always be there!!  It’s the complete lack of remotely adequate infrastructure that is to blame! Not the rain!  The government spends no money on infrastructure maintenance.  Construction on hillsides is unregulated.  Massive amounts of trash clog the sewer and runoff systems, in those few instances where a runoff system is in place. The rivers and waterways are completely stagnant from tons of debris that are freely dumped by the population whose government offers no other alternative for trash disposal.  No sewer or runoff system is ever cleared before the rains come.

If you force a person into a vacuum chamber and he dies, you might say that the cause of death was ‘lack of oxygen to the brain’.  You would be right.  However, any court of law would argue that the cause of death was the placement of the person inside a vacuum chamber in the first place, and that it was in fact murder.  The corrupt city, state and federal governments pocket public funds and force people to live with completely inadequate, life threatening infrastructure.  The cause of death in this case is not the excessive rain, it’s the subjugation of people to inadequate living conditions by a corrupt and broken system of government.

An astounding, shameful 49.1% of the Brazilian population has no access to a sewer system and the evening news on Globo television has the unmitigated temerity of blaming the problem on the ‘rain’ and then turn around and call itself ‘unbiased’.  A people who demands no accountability from its government, who believes the news when told that the rain is the problem and is happy to leave the solution in the hands of god, deserves next year’s rain.  Harsh? Perhaps, but I’m sick and tired of all of the hype and advertising around Brazil as the country to watch, the emerging power of today, the economic powerhouse in a dwindling world economy, while all of the very real problems are swept under the rug.  Stop advertizing and start solving the problems.   But by all means world, come to Brazil, come for the Olympics, come for the World Cup, come see all of the splendors of this magnificent country. Unless it rains.

an innocuous decision by an unimportant individual

An unsung, unknown art professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts was given the thankless task of grading entrance exams.  Hopeful students had sat for the two day examination for a chance to change their lives and prospects, for the chance of becoming a great artist and being remembered for their art.  The unknown professor was having a bad day, perhaps he had had a fight with his wife, perhaps he himself was a frustrated artist and longed for the opportunity that only youth provides, the sort of opportunity that was being wasted on these students.  Whatever the reason, he denied admission to several students that day.  Perhaps some were better than others, perhaps some came from better families who were able to afford tuition and support a struggling artist, perhaps some had families that would contribute to the school’s coffers.  There were countless reasons for his decisions that day, most seem insignificant now. An insignificant decision by an insignificant man.  The year was 1907 and the professor’s decision to deny a life-altering admission to the prestigious school determined the fate and direction of none other than Adolf Hitler.  Hitler never made it into the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts because a person made the decision to turn down his application.  An innocuous decision by an unimportant individual…

you in oil

Look around yourself.  If you live in a city and are currently sitting in a man-made structure, there is nothing around you that did not profit an oil company. Not the clothes you are wearing or any item inside your house, nothing. Select an item in your environment.  From the power used to run the equipment to manufacture that item, to the plastic used in its components there is oil.  What, there is no plastic in the item you selected? How rare.  How was it transported from the place of manufacture to the store where you bought it? Did the store put it in a plastic bag for you? Did the store clerk ring up the item on a heavy duty plastic cash register while wearing a plastic name tag saying “Hi, my name is Underpaid"? Did you put the item in your gas powered car and drive it to your house?  Or did you bypass the store entirely and have the item delivered to you by a UPS truck? Was it packaged when you got it, what sort of packaging and where did it come from? Was it or any of its components made in, and shipped from, another country?  I defy you to find a single item in your house that did not directly or indirectly generate profit for an oil company. If you find one, let me know. And if you find one think about this:  have you ever moved and carried the item to your new house in a moving van?

So you tell me “I went to the cherry orchard on Sunnyvale-Saratoga road and walked home with – not a plastic bag of cherries, not a crate of cherries that would have used power saws and logging trucks, but a hand full of cherries! There!”  And I’ll ask you did you pay cash with manufactured currency or did you charge them to your plastic credit card?  You might tell me they were free, and I would then ask you how the workers who tended to the orchard get to work each day and what tools did they use? Hoses, water pumps, shears, fertilizer?

So you tell me that you picked them off a wild cherry tree in a vacant lot, and I will ask you - did you walk home on your tennis shoes on a paved road?  So you tell me you walked home on homemade shoes on a dirt road your grandfather cleared with his bare hands. And I will ask you – did you wash the cherries under some PVC piped tap water when you got home? Well water you tell me.  Did you draw the water in a plastic bucket from the well using a nylon rope or was it pumped by a power pump? Did you dry them on a manufactured paper towel? Did you put them in a manufactured bowl? On your linoleum counter-top?  There is nothing, not-a-thing, zip, zilch, nada, in your life that did not profit an oil company. Not your hair, freshly washed in plastic bottled shampoo, not your teeth, recently bushed with a plastic tooth brush, and certainly not your recently polished nails.

That’s not the scary part.  The scary part is that 100 years ago you would have been hard pressed to find an item in your house that did profit an oil company. You know, back when there was no hole in the ozone layer, the oceans weren’t dying out and every other species on the planet wasn’t going extinct… but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

don't flatter yourself, you're not that great, or that stupid

Vincent Van Gogh stumbled back to the Auberge Rvoux clutching his stomach and when asked if he had tried to commit suicide he said "I believe so" and then requested that no one be charged in the incident. The theory presented in the video below is that he was shot, intentionally or accidentally, by some neighborhood kids who were in the habit of taunting him. Why would Van Gogh protect his murderers? Simply because he thought the world would be a better place without him and that these kids were doing him a favor by killing him.




So on one hand we have Van Gogh, arguably the greatest artist of modern times, whose self worth was so low that he regarded his own murder as a favor to himself, his family and the world. In his mind his existence was a waste of resources, there was no lower creature on the face of the earth and he welcomed death. On the other hand we have George W. Bush, arguably the worst president in the history of the world, who single handedly destroyed the world economy and hundreds of thousands of lives in two wars based on lies. A below average student who was never able to construct a coherent sentence or formulate an intelligent thought. His self worth, on the other hand, is estimated in the highest possible terms. This incoherent moron feels so superior to the rest of humanity that, when forced to touch an inferior being, he feels the need to wipe his hand on the shirt of another inferior being.


Bush regards himself as god’s gift to humanity.

So the next time you are feeling completely worthless or perhaps like god's gift to humanity, don’t flatter yourself, you are not that great, or that stupid. No-one is.

No tea then, dears?

Mark sat across the table as she began to talk. Her speech was paused, but there was kindness in her voice. “I’ve lived in this house my entire life and I’ve never strayed far, this is my place in the world. I belong here. My parents were the first to go, then my husband and since we never had any children, I’ve been left alone to tend to the place. Well, not completely alone, there are the ghosts too. But they are harmless enough. I wouldn’t mind them as much if they would at least help with some of the chores.” There was amusement in her voice at the idea of having ghosts help with the daily chores. Mark narrows his eyes and tilts his head as if physically straining to hear her.

She continues “My name is Agatha and I’m an old woman now, too old to mind these ghosts and things that go bump in the night. When I was younger I would have called in a priest to get rid of these ghosts, but at my age I just can’t be bothered. They talk and they move things around, but they don’t bother me none. Some years ago they wanted to turn my house into a bed and breakfast, the notion of these young people, can you imagine guests in a hose where the curtain won’t stay open and you hear voices in the hallway? It’s my house and these are my ghosts, we are happy here.” She looks directly at Mark and adds “Aren’t we dear?”

Agatha hadn’t noticed the young woman sitting next to Mark until she said “I smell bread baking.” Agatha looked over her shoulder into the kitchen and said “yes, dear, I’m baking some bread. I like fresh bread, my late husband, God rest his soul, couldn’t get enough of my banana bread. I bake every day. You young ghosts can always smell the bread.” The young woman looks around a bit startled and says “did I hear her say she bakes every day?” Mark takes a hold of the young woman’s hand and soothes her with some words of reassurance. Agatha is a bit annoyed, the ghosts are getting younger and younger, these two couldn’t be more than 20.

Suddenly the drapes fly open and daylight streams into the room. Agatha looks over and there is no one by the window. The curtain had been flung open so violently that they were left swinging in place and one of the hooks came loose. Slowly Agatha stands up and continues her story as she walks towards the window. “These ghosts, I don’t really mind you, but if I open the curtains you close them, if I close the curtains, you open them. It never ends, you need an old woman’s patience to put up with you. When I was a young woman ghosts never came around, now they never go away. Like you young man, I haven’t seen you before” Agatha glances at Mark, tisks her tongue a few times, reaches for the drapes and closes them, slowly because of her rheumatism.

As Agatha closes the second drape the young woman next to Mark runs out of the room screaming. Mark raises his voice, there is urgency in his tone “Mother get away from the window! Come here with me!” Agatha looks back at her young ghost and there is a frightened middle aged woman standing next to him. She hadn’t been there before. Agatha is encouraged by the new presence, someone closer to her own age. Agatha likes this new ghost “Will you stay for some warm bread and tea dears?” As she offers her guests tea, Agatha moves the tea-set from one end of the table to the other so it's closer to the kitchen door, walks into the kitchen and opens the tap to fill the kettle for the tea.

When she returns to the drawing room the middle aged woman is screaming something about refusing to stay in this house another minute; the young man is screaming something about wanting his money back and having this abomination of a hotel shut down by the authorities.

Agatha stands in the doorway watching them and sweetly asks “No tea then, dears?”

Sex object or hormone addled morons?

On Tuesday September 27 the Secretariat for Women’s Policies of the Brazilian government requested the censorship of a lingerie commercial staring world famous super model Gisele Bundchen. The claim is that the commercial portrays women as sex objects. I’m usually very sensitive, and easily angered by the portrayal of women as sex objects, and yet this commercial didn’t raise any red flags until the news came out today. You see, instead I had always assumed the commercial portrayed men as brain damaged, hormone addled morons. Here is the commercial, you decide. And if you have an opinion, leave a comment.

it's not the easy way out

Three days ago a woman requested a key from a real-estate agency to examine and consider a vacant office space on the 14th floor of a downtown building. The night before last the same woman cooked her boyfriend his favorite meal. She invited his brother to have dinner with them and made sure everything, from the wine to the shrimp dish, was absolutely perfect. She said goodbye to her guests at the door and retreated to the privacy of her final hours. By the morning she had laid out her precious belongings on her bed with specific instructions for their disposal. By mid morning she had jumped out of the window of the vacant office on the 14th floor, leaving instructions that the key be returned to the realtor.

I sat on a windowsill once. I didn’t jump because the suffering I would cause to people I loved would be so much greater than any suffering I could be experiencing. The balance of pain in the equation simply didn’t work for me. So, to jump, a person has to believe that those she leaves behind are better off without her. Even if she never asked, she has to be certain.

People do, in fact, get tired of living. Personally I don’t think anyone should die before they have gotten tired of living. But that entails a state of hopelessness and disinterest in anything that may happen tomorrow. There is no TV show you want to watch, there is no seasonal food you want to eat, there is no place you want to visit, or revisit, there is nothing broken that you’ve been meaning to fix, there is no project, no book, no movie, no play, no birthday party, no skinny jeans to get into, no restaurant you want to try, no wine you want to open, there is nothing you want tomorrow, nothing at all. So, to jump, a person has to believe that the world of tomorrow holds nothing of interest, and what’s worse, the world of yesterday holds nothing worth remembering.

I read somewhere that people who survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge said they had changed their minds half way down. Their reasons for jumping seemed less significant in the void. You can’t take it back, there is no rewind, no pause button, there is no arguing with the void. So a person has to believe that her resolve is steadfast and right, right beyond a shadow of a doubt, immovable and unchangeable.

I half understand these reasons, except for the resolve required, I have never experienced such absolute, unwavering resolve. Once you step off the ledge time must stand still, fourteen floors and an eternity to consider the quality of your resolve and the quality of your existence. I hope her resolve remained steadfast to the very end, and that she found the peace she concealed so well she lacked. But most of all I admire her brave foolhardiness in choosing the quality and the exact duration of her life.

Barcelos, Portugal

Apparently my great grandmother’s father was from Barcelos, Portugal and my great grandmother was an avid collector of mementos. So among her belongings are some fantastic family photos, a post card collection from the early 1900s, and a set of postcards with views of Barcelos at the turn of the last century. The latter I share with you in this post. Blogger will not display the slideshow, please click on the image to see the Picasa album.



Here is an excerpt from wiki about the city [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelos,_Portugal]. Originally a Roman settlement, it expanded and became the seat of the First Duke of Bragança in the 15th century. The palace of the Dukes of Bragança was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755 and is now an open-air museum. The town's famous symbol is a rooster, in Portuguese called o galo de Barcelos ("the Rooster of Barcelos").

One of the many versions of this legend goes that a rich man threw a big party. When the party was over, the rich man noticed that his sterling cutlery was stolen by a guest. He accused a pilgrim and let him go to court. He protested his innocence, but the judge didn't believe him. The judge was about to eat a roasted rooster when the pilgrim said: "If I am innocent, this rooster will crow three times." When the pilgrim was about to be lynched, the rooster crowed. The judge released the pilgrim. The story ends a few years later when the pilgrim returned and made a statue over the event.

The art connoisseur

My dog’s name is Saskia. Just now I was walking her across the street, and a woman who was crossing with me asked her name.  I told her "her name is Saskia" expecting the usual blank stare followed by "what?" But instead the woman had a quick retort, she said "that's not a suitable name for a dog. She should be named ‘happy’ or ‘joy’". So I told the woman that the original Saskia was the wife of a famous painter named Rembrandt, while at the same time considering that Saskia's life had probably not been all that happy or joyous.

As we continued on the sidewalk, the woman looked down at Saskia and told me she looked like one of his paintings. I was delighted at that, I think she's beautiful and that may be the highest praise she ever received from a stranger. I smiled and thanked the woman. - In retrospect I should have walked away at that moment in the conversation. -  The woman then looked at Saskia and said that her fur looked like his brush strokes. In my mind’s eye I tried unsuccessfully to picture Rembrandt’s brush strokes and conjured words like, precise, exact and flawless; then I looked at Saskia’s wispy, disheveled,  two-tone fur, then I looked back at the woman.  She might have noticed my confusion because when she continued she explained “picture his self portrait, the brush strokes are just like that”.  I thought of the Rembrandt portrait hanging in the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and just as I was concluding that it wasn’t a self portrait, the woman continued.  “But not the one where he cut off his ear, I don’t like that one, it’s not happy”.




I shit you not! That actually happened to me today.

The Gettysburg address in 2011

Lincoln walks up to the podium, standing before a congregation of civilians, military personnel and the international press, he begins:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and”, but he’s interrupted. A youth in the front row calls out:  “Dude! What’s that score you started talking about, did you score four times? Was it like, four different girls or four times with the same one?” Lincoln is taken aback, he’s not certain he understands the question, but explains that score simply means twenty.  The youth huffs, accuses him of lying and walks away, but not before adjoining “There’s no way your skinny ass scored 20 times dude! You couldn't score twenty if you were the last man on earth!  You’re full of it!”

Lincoln clears his throat, looks at his notes on the back of the envelope and continues.  “Well, where was I? Yes – conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”  At this a rather robust woman in fatigues and boots, who had been leaning against a tank whittling a stick with her army issue survival knife spoke up. “Hey! You in the funny hat! What’s that about men being created equal? Aren’t you forgetting something? What about women you sexist pig?” She never stops whittling the stick, but now she looks up and stares at Lincoln. “You come over here and I’ll make us equal!” She emphasizes her last statement by slicing the stick in half with a forceful diagonal swipe of the knife. 

Lincoln swallows hard. “I assure you madam, that will be quite unnecessary.” He continues, “er, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men” he pauses to look at the woman who has lowered her eyes to her handiwork and is listening intently. “AND women are created equal.”  He smiles nervously and scans the crowd.  A few are still listening to him, but most have started talking amongst themselves.

Lincoln continues “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”  He looks up from his envelope.  There are a few more people listening to him.  He chooses to ignore the two in the front row who are now discussing which two generals should have sex with each other in order to conceive a nation and just how long they would endure. He eyes the whittling woman nervously.

He continues.  “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground.” And he is once again interrupted by a private in the back who stands up and protests “Damn right we can’t hollow this ground! If you want trenches you dig ‘em yourself.  This is not WWI dude! We don’t go around hollowing ground anymore!”  Lincoln explains that he said hallow with an “a” and not hollow with an “o” and the man sits back down complaining that if the lecture was going to be tricky he should have had some overheads or something. 

“The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.” At which the whittling woman stands up straight and asks “Brave men? Men? Really? What have I been doing here then? ‘Cause I got the power to detract right here in my hand mister!”

And so it stands that in our juvenile, gender equal, politically correct, free speech times, Lincoln would have had to walk away for some fresh underwear and would, in fact,  never have finished his historic speech.