Friday, September 12, 2003

 
Parasol Penumbra
Or: Markov meets his Waterloo
Or: Bulgarian Fingerprintz
Or: Sting like a schmetterling?

WARNING THE BELOW IS NOT PROOF READ AND IS PROBABLY UNREADABLE AND WILL PROBABLY BE EDITED OUT COMPLETELY AND THE READER IS ADVISED TO SKIP AHEAD

Let a couple of days slide after starting wot’s below, and didn’t wish to post anything too frivolous on 9-11. NRO posted some fine pieces yesterday , although one wishes that it included the oldie that noted that within a couple of years or so after 12-7-41 we had something like 11 million guys under arms.-
Wasted another day, but it coulda’ been worse if I had watched the traitor debators tonight. An association that has, not to my knowledge, endeared itself to the Democrat Party by, say, suing the PGA, is holding its tournament in Chaska Minnesota this week. Something like 165 participants from eight countries have come here (Minnesota) for the annual Amputee Golf Association competition where “no quarter is asked or given.” Televised clips suggest skills much greater than that of Monty Pythons “Long John Silver Impersonators Soccer Team.” One wishes them well and wonders if someday a golfer dressed as a pirate will have a bionic parrot (more advanced than the “artificial” owl or snake of “Blade Runner”) observing, “Yo Ho Ho, that green looks slow.”
For reasons that have been forgotten, I sent off an email within the past year or so to a Cornerite about having seen the Brit band, “Fingerprintz” perform “Wet Job” at Duffy’s many years ago in Minneapolis. That song was about what was arguably a manly use of an umbrella (a parasol falls under the penumbra of that term) to jab a tiny spherule, probably filled with the deadly toxin, ricin, into the leg of Georgi Markov, an outspoken foe of the government of his native Bulgaria, while he crossed the Waterloo Bridge. The er, shadowy secret service of that progressive country was, of course, also suspected of having a role in the assassination attempt on the Pope.
There could be some big, hairy, robust, genetically grounded kozmic trooth sort of basis for suspicions that present day conservatives in the West are well, wimpy, in some senses of the word. Strategies or preferences for trading of goods, services, obligations, grooming etc. could have competed with a penchant for the use of force in obtaining those goodies and reproductive success in the small groups in which humans evolved. I should give the Western Wimpiness proposition the treatment that it deserves at another time, but will drone and bore on for a bit: It seems a good evolutionary strategy to compensate for the drawbacks of some inherited or learned behaviors. For example if one is deeply in favor of aggression, taking stuff (hunks o’ meat, furs, and much later, money), clubbing folks on the head(later the totalitarian state or at least “speech codes”) to puntuate a verbal disagreement and so on, one might be wise to screech loudly about “peace,” and “freedom.” And furthermore, to insist that one’s nasty characteristics are actually those of one’s rivals. And here, kids are some insights which we conservatives will have a tendency to reject: Leftist assertions about conservative brutality and aggression are to some extent not only reassuring to the self and other-deceiving Leftist, but also, to some degree *flattering* to present-day conservatives -who have their own largely unconscious compensating strategies and deceptions. Again, this is being very badly written (and even if well written, probably rejected by both Right and Left) and I greatly regret not having read any of the books on sociobiology. (The book, (as slender as “Airplane’s” “Book of Jewish Sports Heroes”) 'A Darwinian Left" by Peter Singer is awfully insubstantial) If recollections of reviews of sociobiology in conservative magazines are accurate, there is the general proposition that socialism failed because it did not acknowledge Man’s gene-programmed proclivity for greed and aggression. Well, the value of acknowledging one’s motives to others and oneself may be overrated and socialism, at least in the forms of Russian and Chinese communism did rather well by some measurements (gosh, they *almost* put a man on the moon, and often fought rather well) and came not far from covering the planet. Outside of some old posts of Yours Truly, I never saw such catchy titles as “Socialist Darwinsim” or “Socialism, Red in Tooth and Claw,” in spite of socialism’s appeals to the greed of the “proletariat” and others and its very bloody, if not genocidal history. Most of the above is utterly unoriginal, and it should be acknowledged that there has been a lot written about the Left’s appeal to Man’s innate greediness (be it genetic or “Original Sin” in nature), but propositions that socialism is not perfectly incongruent with our genetic heritage and that capitalism is not perfectly in sync with it either, and that those propositions are, at least, arguably “under represented" in conservative lit. --And for good evolutionary reasons as argued above. Too much rationality and honest introspection might not have always served the cavemen well. Andworld views of Right and Wrong are in some ways more satisfying to the Soul or what have you than looking at problems as ones of avoiding extremes. For example, an inherited tendency to be too casual about death could lead to deletion from the ol’ gene pool, as would a tendency to fixate too much on the inevitability of death with resultant paralysis, despair etc. And a strategy of inviting in outsiders to gain allies against intra clan rivals made some sense at times for said cavemen and, it would seem, for present day Lefties. Such a strategy for the West amounts, for good or ill, to one of genocide -and perhaps, ultimately for melanin challenged Leftists as well. However bogus the charges of “racism” (and the real “racism” is that of those who believe that those of predominantly European-American ancestry have no right to defend their territories) leveled against those who oppose this transparently dishonest and genocidal strategy (not always transparent of course to the self-deceptive), it should be granted that *too much* opposition to foreign ideas, technologies, and genes isn’t good for the survival of one’s genes or nemes- otherwise you pass up tips on edible and medicinal plants, hunting strategies, gun powder and have too high of a likelihood of marrying your first cousin, or as noted in somebody’s definition of a “redneck,” “go to family reunions looking for dates.” Now, like many I hope and sort of believe that democratic capitalism is the best system out there and over here, given Man’s mix of greed, aggression, competitiveness, compassion, and altruism.
Ahem, wretched writing indeed. Back to conservatives and parasols. And conservative self-esteem. Time to quote an SNL character, when Al Franken was sometimes funny (even then his “Some day you’ll all be Communists” seemed creepy)? “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough….”? Or Muhammed Ali, after winning one of his bouts, “I’m still pretty.” Or, “I’m gonna ‘ float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.” Hmmm…nah, “butterfly” seems too insubstantial for us Manly Conservatives. (Many of whom, lurching back to the above, prefer to call Leftists “mushy,” “wooly-headed,” “cowardly,” enemies of boys’ innate competitiveness and so on, while dreading that their wimmins are being taken by rappers, foreigners, and “bad boys” such as Slick Willie.) No, not “butterfly”; *schmetterling*, perhaps. Nah, hard to imagine something with that name actually flying, unless you think of it like a name for some obscure, heavier than air war machine developed during the waning of WWII by the Nazis -perhaps as shown on “The History Channel.” Nope, again; that brings up the ol’ “Hitler was a conservative” -”No, National Socialism arose in part out of the Left and Adolph’s spirit lives on primarily there, especially among ‘People of Color”” arguments.
Finally: Whether to upgrade to BlogSpotPlus or whathaveyou so as to be able to upload graphics- An old Gary Larson cartoon popped into mind after reading Klo’s threat to send Derbyshire to inflict many math problems on non-subscribers. Titled, I think, something like “Libraries in Hell” (-think it’s in a book buried in the basement somewhere around here) the shelves were filled with titles like “Word Problems,” and “More Word Problems.” And Jonah Goldberg wisely rethought about the prospect of sitting next to the Derpolymath on an airplane, probably soon thereafter flashing back to the scene of a passenger (passengers?) being driven to, or to the point of, suicide by sitting next to a bore. Actually, depending upon the subject matter, the experience could be either Spock-level fascinating or, er, not, although, if this here blogpiece were inflicted on JD, one suspects that *he* would pine for a seat next to an emergency exit.
Time for noddyblinkers (jeepers, does that sound too wimpy?) before the weekend shifts again.