Garbanzo Toons: Writing About not Writing

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Writing About not Writing - sort of

I don't post much during the school year. I've got too much work to do. I do write letters though, lots of them - to newspapers - mostly my two hometown rags, The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press. The News is the more conservative of the two, but they run the same biased-against-Israel type articles that the Free Press does. And they give space to Hezbollah supporting Imam Mohammed Ali Elahi. The only place their conservatism shows is when editor, Nolan Finley writes the occasional piece demanding that Palestinians take responsibility for the violence they promote.

Over the past two days I wrote four letters. And since they're for publication (happens about 10% of the time) I work a lot harder polishing than I do on blog posts. Some nights I'm up way past my bedtime to finish a letter or two. I don't want to be up on these nights. It makes my head hurt. But I know that I must write or the rising bile will never go down, and it will eat away at me until I write. I will be angry the next day if I don't get the letter out before I go to bed. It will be what I think about all day. I will be angry and I might take it out on my students. From what I understand about teaching, that is a bad thing. The headache disappears as soon as I hit the "send" key.

Obama made his speech to the Muslim world. My local papers ran stories, editorial, and analyses. They were exactly what I expected. Write, I must. And I did. And now I'm tired. So I am sitting around reading for most of today even though it is a beautiful day for being outside and working in the yard (and if saw my yard, you would agree that I really should be out there working).

I got it all out though, and I think I did it in an intelligent, well-reasoned manner. Sometimes when I write, I have to remove the anger and sarcasm, but I didn't have a problem this time. Maybe it was because I knew in advance that I was going to have to write.

And now Obama made his D-Day speech. I could have watched it or read a transcript. I don't want to. I know it will be praised by liberal progressives, and actually analyzed and critiqued by conservatives. I don't think Mr. Obama has any respect for our military or understands the role of the military in keeping us free and safe from attack by our enemies. Had Obama led the Spartans, he would have marched 300 negotiators to meet the Persians. After Pearl Harbor, he would have gone to Tokyo to let the Japanese know that we were not at war with them, and apologize for the American arrogance and anti-Japanese policies that made them angry at the United States in the first place. He would have taken an "even-handed" approach to the Holocaust.

So rather than write any more about Obama and his speech, I'm going to steal a bit from Vanderleun,

Today your job is straightforward. First you must load 40 to 50 pounds on your back. Then you need to climb down a net of rope that is banging on the steel side of a ship and jump into a steel rectangle bobbing on the surface of the ocean below you. Others are already inside the steel boat shouting and urging you to hurry up.

Once in the boat you stand with hundreds of others as the boat is driven towards distant beaches and cliffs through a hot hailstorm of bullets and explosions. Boats moving nearby are, from time to time, hit with a high explosive shell and disintegrate in a red rain of bullets and body parts. The smell of men fouling themselves near you as the fear bites into their necks and they hunch lower into the boat mingles with the smell of cordite and seaweed.

And here is Ramirez,