War By Other Means

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by SiDiusBexter

I once had an abrasive, nasty little student tell me that comparing modern America to the Roman Empire was “propaganda promulgated by a liberal academic elite.” By merely asking the question, she assured me, I was part of the problem. When I gave her a C for a final grade she told the Dean that I had a small arsenal stashed away in my apartment and was planning to murder half the student body. Then she vanished off the face of the globe. Of course, that’s neither here nor there.

Although she was obviously unstable and her reasoning was completely wrong she did have a point: comparing America to the Roman Empire didn’t work. The old doctrine of unlimited expansion may have been applicable to the United States a hundred years ago, but today it seemed worn. Sure there are parallels, especially culturally, and some comparison is justified, even worthwhile, but the politically/militarily, we diverge.

This weekend NATO comes to Chicago. One of the perks (if you like traffic jams, terrorist threats and protestors) of being the President’s hometown.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Founded in 1949 as a mutual defense pact against Soviet Communism. Galvanized by the Korean conflict and stiffened by a hundred regional wars over the last sixty years, today the combined military spending of NATO accounts for over 70% of all that on the globe. Some have called it the most successful military alliance in human history, others have called it the modern Delian League, the United States at its center.

America as Athens. Headstrong, stubborn, arrogant. A pack of hypocrites, brilliant, boastful and flawed. With the defeat of Persia, Athens rose to command the Mediterranean through a political-military alliance designed, ostensibly, to counter any Persian threat. In reality, Athens used its defense network as an apparatus of control. A funnel for cash and regional influence that ultimately led to abuse, war and collapse.

Even here the parallels aren’t exact. America carries most of the NATO burden. Many in the U.S. are calling for the alliance to be disbanded. Nothing comparable to a Spartan or Persian threat exists.

Still, it’s an interesting idea.

Europeans complain about American militarism constantly, but what they don’t like to admit is that the American military keeps them safe and free to spend their hard earned Euros on things like universal healthcare and government pension plans. In light of the financial crisis now deconstructing the Eurozone they need us even more than ever. America is very much the protector of the old world and for that we can make them pay.

So maybe there is a bit of that Athenian imperialism alive and well in American exceptionalism. Maybe we’re not that far removed from the Delian League. Let’s only hope that by the end our paths diverge.

Creation

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In the beginning, according to the later Mesopotamians, the universe began as a watery chaos from which the gods were born. The soil and the horizon gave way to Anu, the god of Heaven and from him the sweet waters of the Earth. Peace among the first gods didn’t last long. Out of conflict and murder new gods were born, chief among them Marduk who out of the corpse of Tiamat, the goddess of the sea, created the sun, the moon and the stars. Marduk let flow the Tigris and Euphrates, created celestial order and in the end created man from mud.

The Egyptians too held that the world began as an infinite watery chaos, called Nu. Out of the waters a mound of earth rose to the surface and from there the sun. With it came life and celestial order. Details varied from place to place, but just as in the ancient near east it was the destruction of the old gods that set the conditions for the ascent of man.

For children to reach their full potential their parents must first die.

In Greek mythology the gods came out of an infinite chaos. Their children, the Titans, destroyed these first gods, who gave order to the universe. The Titans in turn were destroyed by their children, the Olympians, who then created human beings. Humans became the playthings of their creators until Prometheus brought fire to the Earth. From there Greek mythology is the struggle of mortals against immortals. Children against their parents.

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw how good the light was. God then separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” Thus evening came, and morning followed–the first day.

According to the book of Genesis, the founding document for the Judeo-Christian faith, God created the world out of watery chaos. He created plants and animals, formed stars and planets and in the end created man, in his own image. Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Paradise. But even these children must defy their parent. Propelled by a serpent, Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and were expelled from Eden to toil in shame. The cycle of creation and destruction followed, by the wrath of God, repeated over and over till the end of time.

Stories of a great flood can be found in the Sumerian creation myth, in The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Old Testament, the mythology of Ancient Greece, the Celts, the Fins, the Hindus, the Andaman, the ancient Chinese, the peoples of Indochina, and Polynesia.

The idea of the world’s destruction, by flood especially, is a major theme in Mesoamerican mythology. The Aztec, just as the Maya before them, believed that multiple worlds existed before this one, each destroyed by catastrophe. The world previous to this one wiped clean in a deluge that lasted fifty-two years. The present world was the fifth incarnation, doomed to be destroyed in a great earthquake. The universe was unstable and only by offering sacrifice in the form of blood could the Aztec hope to stave off destruction.

Blood for the salvation of the world. Sounds familiar…

Meeting God

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Whatever else it is, this story is true.

When I was twenty-two I had a long commute to a publishing house in Glenview, a north shore berg of Chicago. It was a forty-minute drive on a good day and I always ran late. I think mainly because I spent every morning arguing with my dysfunctional domestic partnership.

On one particular Monday at the height of summer as I stopped for gas a few blocks from my apartment I was approached by an old, feeble looking man with glasses, matted white hair in a dirty brown trench coat.

“Can you give me a ride?” he asked, his voice straining, his breathing shallow. “It’s five miles north. I have a heart condition. I need tests.”

I was of the city and my natural reaction was to say no. I shook my head and said that I wouldn’t give him a ride. I told him that I was late for work. I told him that the clinic was out of my way.

He was of the city too and didn’t protest. He knew better. He nodded absently and ambled away to beg a ride from someone else. A hotshot tanking up his BMW.

Not my problem. I jumped into my car and hit the accelerator. I was barely on my way when God decided to intervene. He told me by way of my conscience to go back for the old man. He told me that I should take him to the clinic. He told me that it was the right thing to do.

I protested. I fought back. I told God that I didn’t know that old man from Adam. That he might be crazy, dangerous, that now I really would be late for work. God wasn’t buying it. He insisted. He knew better.

“Fine,” I said, still speeding north. “If you want me to go back, if you want me to go look for the old man I need a sign. A real fucking sign. Not a bird flying through the air or a bump in the road, or a ray of light, but a real, straight, miraculous, ironclad sign.”

Suddenly the radio I hadn’t been listening to went out. Dead air. I kept driving but the silence got my attention. It was a few solid heartbeats before the DJ came on.

“Sorry folks, not sure what happened there,” he said through my speaker. “Technical difficulties. While we try to figure out what happened here’s Joan Osborne with her hit single, WHAT IF GOD WAS ONE OF US?”

“Fuck,” I said, and turned the car around.

It took me ten minutes but I found the old man, slowly making his way up Sheridan Avenue. I pulled up next to him, flung open the passenger door with a forceful irritation and barked, “Get in!”

He didn’t question me. His hands trembling he slowly fell into the passenger seat and asked if I had found him all right. I didn’t think about what his words meant. I told him to buckle up and soon as he had sped back up north toward the clinic.

I don’t remember our conversation. I’m not sure what he might have said to me during the drive. I was irritated the whole way. Swearing under my breath at every traffic light. When we got to the clinic fifteen minutes later the old man patted me on the arm and asked me not to speed away. He needed a minute to get out.

I waited impatiently as he struggled out of the passenger seat.

When he did finally stand up straight, just before he swung the door shut, the old man leaned in to me and said, “God told me you’d be back.”

Breathe

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by Burt Glinn

I saw a girl on the train today with the word “breathe” tattooed on her wrist. I guess we all need a reminder. Because we race without looking. Because the world booms and bursts and threatens to consume us daily. Because we forget to stop and take stock of what we have.

So what do we have exactly?

It’s easy enough to come up with a whole laundry list of problems. Political polarization, inequality, bigotry, poverty, environmental degradation, economic stagnation, and on and on. Blah, blah, blah. Nothing new. Same old Americana. The daily machinations of a new Gilded Age. But what do we have? Life? Liberty? Happiness? Maybe these things are illusions. Maybe it’ll be better in another hundred years. Or maybe we need to stop doing the things that are easy and try doing the things that are hard?

Out of this world and into the next. The view out the window makes the shoulders stoop. And yet I believe in the slow climax. The long game always wins.

Yesterday the president was against gay marriage, by midnight there might be a female pope. The trick is to stop just short of the curb. To let the herds sprint past. To breathe. There’s only today. Only this moment. Take it. Cherish it. Tomorrow will never come.

 

Cloche Encounters

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by William Klein

All right, all right, enough of that.

We’ve laughed it off as pop. But it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. Designers, to fashion houses, to retailers and commentators. The Vogue September issue is close to being past the million page mark and in the digital age it may go to infinity. Glossy pinups splashed across a retina display.

We struggle so damned hard to be like everyone else only to painstakingly tailor individuality. Distinction of self, of tribe. To destroy, to out individual all other individuals. But projected backward we see only uniformity. Black suits and black fedoras. Cowboy getups. Togas. History seems bland. Shadows lost in shadows.

What we’re missing is humanity. We’ve forgotten the most basic tenet: people haven’t changed in the last 10,000 years. As we want to express ourselves they wanted to express themselves. As we want to be heard, they wanted to be heard. Project some humor, grace, maybe attitude. A bit of color, a loosened tie, a cocked hat.

The clothes make the man, or so I was told. And in this maybe fashion is, if not the highest, then maybe the most personal form of art. Everyday is a new creation. The creases, the lines, the texture never again to be reproduced in exactly the same way. A momentary installation. Singular.

So what is fashion? Frivolous or profound? And what does it mean when we give up? If we disregard what we wear are we abandoning our most basic form of expression? Expression equal to voice. Voice to independence. To dress off the rack as the death of spirit.

Scenes from a Funeral

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Funny thing, this thing called death. In one minute out the next. Lots of talk of Jesus, of God, of better worlds. So much wishful thinking. So much hope against hope.

The light turns grey and a crowd of heavy people in dark clothes shuffle past a wood paneled casket with linen lining on the inside. That costs extra. As did the crosses and the flowers. Just positioning the coffin was eighty bucks. After that are the psalms and songs and talk of memories. Tears. Hugs. Vicious family gossip.

I look at a line of aunts or other such relations. Trapped in their bodies. Hating living. Waiting on death. “So tragic,” they wheeze, short of breath, judgment in their black, sunken eyes. And suddenly I don’t miss having a family not of my own choosing. I step outside into the cold night and the largest full moon in three generations. I gather my experience and think about my life through that of my children. More wishful thinking. Hope against hope.

Eventually the priest finds me and asks me if I’m all right. I tell him that I am to which he asks if I’ve ever been witness to death. I’ve been to funerals before, I respond, but I doubt anyone but the dying have ever witnessed death. He looks at me with a sort of irritation. I’m being self-absorbed. I’m being selfish. Arrogant. I don’t say any of this, even though it’s what we’re both thinking. Eventually he pats me on the shoulder and moves on.

The food is served. The tables cleared. People go home and move onto their old troubles. The next day I board a train back home, moved on to my old troubles. Michigan slipping into the past. Chicago off in the future. Thoughts of death lingering in between.