The enemy is like a woman, weak in face of opposition, but correspondingly strong when not opposed. In a quarrel with a man, it is natural for a woman to lose heart and run away when he faces up to her; on the other hand, if the man begins to be afraid and to give ground, her rage, vindictiveness and fury overflow and know no limit.-St. Ignatius Of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, no. 325 (1548).
And so it goes.
I was informed last night by my eldest daughter that I had lost my perspective; that I was becoming paranoid about the monsters under the bed; that I was extreme in my vision of history; that I was wrong and over-exercised about the threats facing western civilization; that the answers to the current mess can be had by meaningful dialog and a pull-back from hard-line rhetoric. In a word: I had become "unhinged."
I think I responded. No, I know that I responded, vorciferously. But the sound of my voice fell victim to the deadening aspects of the vast media forest within which we wander. I am crying "fire," and yet modern totems drown me out, even while they themselves burn.
And so this where we are in history.
Maybe.
She is, after all, a redhead.
And I am a Leo.
8 comments:
Courage? I'm thinking of Dan Rather...nothing good, mind you.
My last wife was a redhead, or at least sometimes she was, anyway.
(Like when I met her...)
Kids!!!
Your daughter looks like Bert Lahr?
Egads, Mr. rdr, you have my sympathy.
I remember Mark Twain saying something like "I couldn't believe what an idiot my old man was when I was eighteen, and how much smarter he got by the time I was twenty-seven."
Give her a few years out in the 'real world'. The apple falls not far from the tree.
-Don Brouhaha
What Don said.
I started to answer this yesterday and decided to shut up.
I look at my oldest boy and just cannot believe, sometimes, how much he has changed just in the past two years.
He will be 27 in a few short days. My first baby. How do they get so big? I still remember when they first laid him in my arms. I don't think I will ever get over that feeling of wonder.
I remember when I didn't want to let the nurses take him back to the station to take his vitals and they laughed at me because I would follow with my IV and wait outside the window until they were done with him so I could snatch him back from those evil nurses who I was sure didn't know how to care for him properly.
Now he is busting crackheads. Kids :) They do turn out OK, eventually. I still think he is going to be a writer, someday. I hope so.
She is just enjoying all that heady knowledge from that fancy edumacation you just paid for, mr rdr. Be proud of her, as I know you are. The experience will come in its own time.
Would you please post something else so I do not have to look at that lion?
He is making me nervous. He's almost worse than that half-nude young man you put up there, and I didn't know where to look.
*Honestly* :)
He looks strong, doesn't he?
He looks....
*Exasperation* :)
Yes, that is precisely the work I was looking for counselor. How do you know these things instinctively?
oh. I am still tired.
word
I even read that twice and didn't see the typo. Not a good sign...
*sigh*
How old is she? And is she still in school? That would explain a LOT of things!
Given enough time, she'll see the light.
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