Monday
Here I am out in Malibu. I came out last night to check on
things at our house. Right after I got here, a monsoon-like rain
began to pour down. Just horrific. Scary. Luckily, I was happy as a
clam inside my warm, toasty home.
But I could not stop thinking about the U.S., New Zealand,
Australian, and British soldiers fighting in Burma during World War
II. They were in real monsoons, day after day, leeches all over
them, Japanese soldiers preparing to kill them, sick with dengue
fever, malaria, dysentery, exhausted, hungry. Yet they fought on
and on and on.
I could not stop thinking about U.S. forces in Vietnam in the
jungle. Stepping on pongee sticks designed to poison them and kill
them, mortared, sniped at, exhausted, shunned by the country that
sent them there. Yet they fought magnificently and fought the
Communists to a victory that Congress then snatched away from
them.
They did not have a toasty home to return to. They did not have
clean pajamas and shrimp. They had nothing but courage.
Well, I know I am a broken record on this subject, but I am
enraged that Mr. Obama is proposing steep cuts in military benefits
in terms of retirement health care and family health care. That is
the last thing we should be cutting.
This has all become even more of an obsession with me than usual
upon watching The World at War over and over again. I
respectfully tell you that while the series has a distinct
left-wing slant, and insanely includes Alger Hiss as an expert on
U.S. defense policy without identifying him as a spy, The World
at War is a work of genius. You must watch it.
I tried to read a long article by a woman with a beautiful Irish
name in the Atlantic. I could not finish it for all of the
self-reference, but then I thought, “Well, we writers are
self-referential. What the heck.” It was a fine article.
Then I read a long, long, long, long article in another issue of
the Atlantic by a simply beautiful woman named Kate
Bolick, editor of Veranda magazine, about why she is
single at the old age of 36. I really had to laugh. Kate, 36 is
not old. It is very, very young, and you are a stunning
and brilliant woman, and if you want to get married, you will. She
goes into all kinds of strange history and economics and sociology
to explain why she’s not married. It reminds me of Marx writing
Das Kapital just as a way of venting his envy of his rich
relatives who were kapitalists. What a lot of damage that horrible
man did.
Kate, let yourself off the hook. You have a great career. You
are gorgeous. You are young. Do not work so hard trying to
prove a simple point: it is hard to find a good man. It is
especially hard when you have been raised by a feminist, confused
mother; she apparently was. Kate, be happy. You are a triumph as a
human being. A genuine triumph.
By the way, the author tells of her ex-boyfriend asking her to
help pick out his clothes for his wedding to another woman. How
strange that is. I wonder if Ms. Bolick realizes how much that
tells about him.
Then she really upset me by talking about how young people now
have something called “the hook up” where they get roaring drunk,
then go home and have sex with someone they hardly know and then
talk about how inadequate their “partner” was. How horrible. What a
cruel world this has become. “The hook up” sounds thoroughly awful.
I greatly would prefer time with Julie Good Girl.
Anyway, I had (as noted) shrimp for dinner, then decided I was
too tired to drive back to Beverly Hills, so I slept out here in
Malibu next to my wonderful German short-haired pointer, the
aforementioned Julie Good Girl.
I awakened this morning to hear on the radio about that Obama
gaffe when he was talking to Mr. Medvedev of Russia. Apparently
Medvedev was complaining that the U.S. was still seeking to defend
itself with a missile shield. Obama promised that once he had won
the upcoming election, he would disarm at a pace the Russians would
like.
It is terrifying that he’s President.
Reagan had the totally right idea: use our scientific prowess to
defend the nation and our allies from ballistic missile attack. Of
course, the Soviets didn’t like it. That was the whole point. But
why throw away a good chance to keep the nation and the West alive?
I never saw the rationale in that. Never. I guess Mr. Obama is just
doing his whole plan: betray Israel, spend us into bankruptcy,
enlarge the welfare rolls to include the whole country, make us all
wards of the state, disarm us, demoralize the military. Speaking of
Marx…
But I don’t think he’s a Marxist. He likes money a lot. So does
Mr. Axelrod. He’s no Commie. He is a full-scale capitalist. They’re
all socialists for everyone else and kapitalists for
themselves.
I am not feeling very well. I think I have the flu. Everyone I
know has it, so I guess I have it, also. Plus, I am sad that my
wifey is not here with me. She stayed in town to go to a panel on
the Holocaust, but it turned out to be a panel on Women’s Image in
the Media. She must have stayed a long time because that is a big,
big subject. Women have pretty much gained at least equality with
men in the media.
Lots of women anchors, newscasters, stars, spokespersons. (I
love that woman on the Progressive ads. Flo. Really funny.) Also
lots of channels devoted to women’s issues.
I am fascinated over and over again when I read about how Mr.
Obama appeals to women and the GOP doesn’t. I guess Mr. Obama
appeals to women who like abortion and the GOP appeals to women who
like babies. It doesn’t seem as if the divide is sex. It’s
ideology. I know I have said it before. By the way, I am endlessly
fascinated with the efforts that we Americans go to in order to
save a life that’s stranded at the bottom of a well or in a cavern.
I am amazed at how we prod our health care system to take better
care of us so we can save lives. And I agree with those goals.
But we could save about one million lives a year if we did not
have abortion on demand. That would be the single largest
life-saving step we could take. But we don’t, because we don’t
recognize babies as being human beings until they’ve been born for
a few hours. They can be killed as they are being born, but not
long after being born. This strikes me as wickedness. Plus, it’s
extremely anti-life. Health nuts, and Obamacare supporters: Want to
save lives? Stop aborting 4,000 babies each day.
As you can tell, I am now officially “anti-party” and I guess
this will come back to haunt me. The Thought Police are already
after me because I think God had something to do with creating
life. Now I am really in trouble. Reagan had all of this so
totally, completely right.
I lay down in my bed, covered with dog hair, Julie next to me,
and looked at the perfect blue Malibu sky and ocean. An immense
hawk with a fork in its tail glided by completely on a 180 degree
horizontal. It was immense. Maybe a three-foot wingspan. Maybe
more. It looked intense. I only saw its eyes for an instant, but
they were blood curdling. Birds of prey. There are a lot of mice
out in the woods next to our house. A banquet for hawks. To the
Thought Police birds of prey, I am a mouse. Thoughtcrime does not
“entail” death. Thoughtcrime is death. Orwell.
But those birds are simply magnificent. They have not tasted of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, unlike man.
Tuesday
I felt terrible last night, but I also felt like a change. So I
had my messengerette, Helen, drive me down to the desert. It was a
stressful experience. She is not a great driver, and she veers
madly from lane to lane. Plus, her car is too small. I hate this
feeling of vulnerability. But we have to get used to it. Soon, the
government has ruled, we will all have to have cars that get 56
miles per gallon. How will they do that? Won’t the cars have to be
terribly light? Won’t that put the drivers and passengers of those
cars at risk?
I very much agree with the goal of reducing air pollution, and I
do not want global warming from cars if that’s where it comes from.
But I also do not want anyone I love getting killed in a car
crash.
I think I am giving the wrong impression here, though. I read
this and I see that I complain too much. I actually like my life a
lot. I got here last night, watched and listened to a panel talking
about the Supreme Court argument on Obamacare, then watched The
Untouchables, then swam in the moonlight.
This morning, I awakened and swam. A man with a tractor/lawn
mower was mowing the golf course and a hummingbird was flying a few
feet from where I swam. Hummingbirds are the only birds that can
fly backward. My Julie Good Girl was lying nearby looking at me.
Overhead, big jet liners glided onto the landing path for Palm
Springs International Airport. Much higher up, there were half a
dozen contrails from high-flying jets framing the azure sky above
the Santa Rosa Mountains. Bougainvillea bloomed at one end of the
pool and the scent of grapefruit trees was everywhere. Like
perfume, only better.
My endless thought is, “How long can this keep going on?”
I must stop thinking like that. Instead, I will concentrate on
gratitude for every instant and every person and every dog in my
life. And for this blessed America, the sum of man’s desires.
