constitutional allegiance, pledge for

Every so often, I succumb to a temptation that reasonable people are only right to consider pretentious, if not inanely flamboyant. Of course, that is only to be expected of a wild-eyed iconoclast cum "this gun for hire". Let's consider the
For a second there, I was thinking of "bagatelles pour nihilistes" for this very piece, which you dear Reader are now enjoying. But then, I determined that way too many readers such as yourself would consider it, well, irksome. Besides, it would take an excessive amount of time and space to justify.

Nonetheless, I think a brief hint as to the essence of nihilism is appropriate. Nihilism favors the immediate destruction of established cultural norms as the most powerful expedient to both ensure and propel communal resuscitation. In simpler terms, tossing out the old "tried and true" to make room for the new and necessary.

In this case, I hope the above chosen title for this title reminds readers of what school children recite at the beginning of their day. Here and now, I now propose a new recitation, specifically:

.... Before the flag of the United States of America, I freely pledge allegiance to that republic's Constitution, and to the democracy enshrined within our nation, one with valour, indivisible, and with liberty and justice for all. ....

The time for replacing the old Pledge of Allegiance with the above proposed Pledge for Constitutional Allegiance has come. Quite frankly, we owe this happenstance to our current president. True enough, he never had any intention to bring this about. But he did. By the way, the piece titled "'old glory' lost" deals in large measure with this happenstance.

toodles
.....\
.he who is known as sefton


. . . to enlarge for better legibility, just click on the graphic . . .

that bridge for Joey, part two

The way I figure it, if I'm going to get a certain bridge re-named, however unofficially so, I gotta go to extremes. As for the kicker, look just below.







Appearing right next to this block
of text, is my sketch for a
proposed sculpture to
commemorate the events of
9/11.

By the way, I'm hoping
the reader will try to
imagine the lemony yellow as metallic gold. By way of reference to popular lore, gold is considered a symbol for commerce. Just so happens, that's the purpose, for which the Twin Towers were erected.


The green color of the arms is meant to recall the color of the copper clad Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. One arm is meant to evoke masculinity, and the other with the red-coated thumbnail is meant to evoke femininity. By way of metaphor, both arms are upholding the symbol for the dawn of enlightenment. Incidentally, the Aztecs referred to the element gold as "tears of the sun".

So, by way of metaphor, metallic gold refers to the purpose for the Twin Towers, the sun of enlightenment, and the tears of grief, shed for so much personal loss. If I may, I should like to refer to another piece in this blog, titled "cute enough". Some of its text describes a memorial, erected with the help of a community by a woman for her only child.

I would like to dwell a bit on the topic of masculinity and femininity. Just happens, those who hi-jacked and then crashed those four airliners were misogynists. Evidently, the major share for their motivation was incited by their dismay over women coming into their own. For that reason, I dearly wish our broadcast and print media would pin the epithet "bedbug" on those misogynists.

In other essay in this blog, I mention what had been envisioned for the Middle East by the most thoroughly spiritual man I ever met. Oh, well, maybe in the grand scheme of our reality, the liberation of women in the Islamic world mattered enough to justify Islam's blowing off a once-in-a-millennium opportunity.

As for how I'm hoping to use the above graphics to realize the re-naming of a certain bridge, well, I know I'm going to need cash ... lots of that filthy lucre.

Here's a bit of the typography of Susquehanna Depot. A part of that municipality's Main Street is bracketed by Route 92 and the post office. In a sense, those two features and the establishments in between are on a shelf. And that shelf abuts a wall that dips down into, what I call, the "hole". In the hole, one finds other establishments, both commercial and municipal.

What I would like to see happen is that wall becoming covered with murals. I have in mind the two above graphics, along with my proposed Pledge for Constitutional Allegiance. Oh, what the heck, I'll even toss in my "corleone manifesto".

On one section of the wall, I'll have this text in bold gold text, specifically,

... people enjoy the view from atop the "unofficially" U G and Joey's bridge ...

eYep, that'll be one way to get that bridge re-named.

Of course, to get all that accomplished, I'll need permission from the people, who own the wall. Here's the thing. Even to my layman's eye, that wall is in need of repair. And it ain't gonna be cheap.

Somehow, I'm hoping that the "flag" graphic will be adopted by a t-shirt company for one of their lines. With the consequent royalties, I'll make an offer to the people, who own the wall. My footing the bill for repairing the wall, in return for the right to have my murals painted on same.

toodles
.......\
.he who is known as sefton

evolution rules, thank God, in Dover

The Love of the Lord has been spurned! So, claimed televangelist Pat Robertson on a broadcast of the Christian Broadcast Network's "700 Club". Not content with solely that claim, the good reverend topped it off with another. And it's a doozie. Ostensibly entitled by this latter claim, he scolded the rural Pennsylvania town of Dover for expurgating their high school science curricula of "intelligent design" ... at bottom, creationism in tailored clothing.

Oh, alright (!) already, so, maybe it would be nice of me to re-iterate here the details, regarding the election that replaced an entire school board with a religious bent with one with a scientific bent. But I won't. For a couple days, our 24/7 cable news channels have been harping on just such details. The way I figure it, why (?) tell people, who are truly interested in reading this piece, with stuff they already know ... aaaay, c'mon, whoever (?) said I'm nice, anyway!

Oh, just for the heck of it, I'm going to quote from a missive I recently e.mailed to the editor of PIPE DREAM,
a student bi-weekly that's published on the campus of Binghamton University. So, here goes.


Nearly two hundred years ago, the great philosopher Immanuel "Manny" Kant opened the way for faith by showing reason its constraints. And that does have a momentous implication for people of reason. Specifically, it behooves them to respect the constraints on reason. If that's taken just a bit further, one can assert something like so:

... Just as people of reason should respect the constraints on reason, so should people of faith respect the constraints on faith. ...

Oh well, I can easily conjecture that readers expect me to elucidate that immediately preceding statement. But I won't. I'm leaving that for another time and place. Who knows? Maybe, it behooves me to leave that as a task for some other "wild-eyed iconoclast". Here in the meanwhile, I'm going to jump onto a related topic.

Just as I learned the details about the good reverend's scolding an entire town from a 24/7 cable channel, I also learned something interesting about my colleague Americans.

Some fifty-one percent (51%) of same concur, in the essential details, with the good reverend about how human beings came into existence. In short, it boils down to the answer to the very first question in the Roman Catholic Baltimore Cathecism. The question is very easy to remember, and it was "Who made you?". The answer was short and snappy, and it was "God made me.".

Only some fifteen percent (15%) hold with the view, for whose sake the voters of Dover incurred the wrath of the televangelist.

This raises an interesting question. What (?) on earth could've motivated the supporters for evolution to go through the trouble, involved in replacing an entire school board.

I do believe that yours truly has a reasonable answer to that question. Here I go, quoting myself again ... with some revision.

"It is only reasonable for us to desire the benefits that we hope can be provided by medical research. Here on this earth and in our time, we necessarily pin our hopes on modern-day medical research. Eventually, so we hope, people afflicted with diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's et cetera will be provided with successful treatment in our medical facilities. Certainly, we for our very selves or for loved ones, who are in the grip of such misfortune, would welcome, in our own time, more efficacious treatment of such diseases.

"Therefore, it is only reasonable for us to reject the hampering of such research. Taking this one step further, we object to compelling high school students to study creationism, or in somewhat fancier duds "intelligent design", as if that notion were scientifically valid.

"That it is not, we have on the authority of those scientists, whom we have entrusted to purse legitimate medical research. In truth, it is upon the shoulders of these people that our hopes for medical advancement rest. So far as those scientists are concerned, evolution is absolutely indispensable for their endeavours. So far as sheer human intellect is concerned, nothing else will do.

"As such, evolution has been elevated far above and beyond mere theory. Evolution as fundamentum lights the path to advancement of medical science."

toodles
.....\
.he who is known as sefton


Appendix -

ooo-rah for Dover

Incidentially, as best as I can recall what I think I heard on P.B.S's NEWS HOUR, there was dissent by science teachers in Dover's high schools. They balked at the obtrusion of "intelligent design" ... truth be told, creationism in fancier duds.

Those laudable people may, or may not, have aware that they were in accord with another great philosopher, namely, Friedrich "Fritz" Nietzsche. Fritz claimed that the foundation of science is moral. In that, every conscientious scientist complies with the dictum,

.... I will not deceive, not even myself ....

"old glory" lost

"The cover-up worked," so vociferated some talking head on, I think it was, COUNTDOWN, a 24/7 cable channel broadcast for reporting news, and disseminating political commentary. Anyway, the talk head was referring to the stratagem he claims had been adopted by the Republican Party to safeguard their victory in the 2004 Presidential Election.

As an aside, I gotta admit. When I saw that one ad that featured partisan endorsements for the Republican candidate by bearers of the Congressional Medal of Honor, my heart sank. Even though election day was months away, I had a dreadful hunch that the candidate, for whom I was going to vote in opposition to "dum'ya botch", would lose. Oh, well, stick a fork in Kerry, the ostensibly Catholic scion of Jewish forbearers.

Here's a bit of history. Gotta hand it to Republican strategists, when they saw the opportunity to seize ownership of the American Flag, they grabbed it with a vengeance. The opening for them came in the last century's 60s, courtesy of the peaceniks' burning the flag for the benefit of the evening news. Exploiting the horror and disgust evoked by flag burning, Republican politicians fabricated a "wedge issue".

In a spectacle of patriotic devotion and fervor, those politicians advocated amending this nation's Constitution to make the "desecration" of the American flag a criminal offense. True enough, they failed to get the Constitution, the bedrock of our country's existence as a nation of laws, amended. But that wasn't their true goal, which they achieved.

At bottom, their goal was wrenching the ownership of the American Flag from our common cultural heritage. Prior to that, very few people considered "old glory" as belonging to any particular partisan political party.

Well, after the ostensible failure to amend the Constitution, the American Flag became the emotional property of the Republican Party. By the way, I should like to emphasize the word "emotional". Let's remember that, for several generations, American school children have been beginning their day with the Pledge of Allegiance ... "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America ... " et cetera.

That continual repetition, so I've been informed by trustworthy authorities, has been impressing onto our common American gestalt, au Jung, a deeply embedded reverence for the flag. The way American patriotic emotions work, whoever owns the flag is owed the benefit of the doubt, whenever the flag's owners enact measures that are deleterious to the general American public.

Okay, the foregoing said, let's now animadvert to that "Bingo!" yell of the aforementioned talking head on COUNTDOWN. What follows is pretty much, oh, let's say, expedient narrative. I'm writing the way I'm now writing for the sake of ready intelligibility, plus economy of time and space.

By now, I'm known around my home town of Susquehanna Depot in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a cantankerous cuss, who has a lot of "measurable smarts" and stubbornly thinks for himself. Here's what's little known about me. I'm very amenable to comporting myself like "this gun for hire" ... "have laptop, will travel". Sometimes, when I look in the mirror during my morning shave, I see myself wearing a black Stetson with silver trim, like Paladin of that old teevee Western series ... swear by the vultures.

Now, let's suppose that a month or so, before the advent of the unholy mess that thus far has gotten a top White House aide indicted for lying to that grand jury, conducted by Special Prosecutor Patrick "Cap'n Ahab" Fitzgerald, there happens something wild. I mean. I get retained as as a "hired gun" by the Republican Party and for the Republican Party ... aaay, c'mon, whyz.ache.err, stranger things have happened, ya'known.

Maybe, a former classmate of mine from Broome Community College has connections with that political party's topmost echelon, and took pity on me.

For my part, as I'm conducting negotiations over my fee with some authorized representative, I figure this has got to be a joke. Why (?) would anybody in the Republican Party ever need to try on for size whatever sagacious pearls of wisdom I'm capable of stringing together!

So, what (?) do I go, and do. I decide to bring the joke to a conclusion by demanding monetary compensation that I'm sure will ignite outrage. Of course, I'm careful to keep my demands within constraints, established by other more, say, prestigious consultants. To my surprise, I get the check. So, I figure the joke extends to my discovering it's a rubber check ... aaay, I like practical jokes as much as the next guy. So, I cash the check, I almost swallow my cigarette, the sucker clears!

Now, please recall what I wrote earlier about "expedient narrative" ... ready intelligibility, plus economy of time and space.

Does anybody (?) care to guess what I do with this unexpected windfall, which I believe in my heart of hearts I completely and absolutely deserve. Well, much like Paladin of that old teevee Western series, I enjoy earthly pleasures. As hard as I work for my money, I work equally hard at spending it. And so, I spend every dime of that outrageous retainer on lap dances in the champagne room of my favorite gentleman's club ... aaaay, it's free money, nobody in the Republican Party will ever demand my honoring my commitment. That's the way, I'm seeing things at the moment.

So, what (?) happens a couple weeks later. What's his name, Robert "prince of darkness" Novak outs a covert intelligence operative.

For the moment, let's put the best possible face on the unholy mess that the prince of darkness has kicked off. The outing was
. . . . ."INADVERTENT"
plus it was done with the best of intentions. Although it's reasonable to believe that all the foregoing about what brought about the outing, it's still politically embarrassing. In fact, it's so embarrassing that, should those satanically vociferous Democrats succeed in tying it to the White House, wherein resides "dum'ya botch", the Republican Party would most likely lose the 2004 Presidential Election.

And the day I was sure would never come comes.

An agent, representing the interests of the topmost echelon of the Republican Party, demands that I honor my commitment. I don't have a dime to my name, so I'm completely incapable of slipping out of my commitment by returning the money.

Here's the situation, in which that aforementioned echelon find themselves. Thanks to the outing of a covert intelligence operative, albeit inadvertent but strictly with the best of intentions. they're facing a horrible choice, and it's lose-lose. Oh, for the sake of brevity, here it is, in the starkest terms.

The Republican Party can win the 2004 Presidential Election by means of a cover-up. Unfortunately, in so doing, they will run the risk that the cover-up will in time be exposed. And that exposure entails losing their party's emotional and ever so profitable ownership of the American Flag. A bit of history being repeated here, it came into their possession some forty years ago, when peaceniks were burning the flag for the benefit of the evening news.

The political party in question can retain this ownership but at a price. That being, "dum'ya botch" must then acknowledge the involvement of White House staff in the outing, albeit inadvertent but with the best of intentions, of a covert intelligence operative. After the acknowledgement, the President had better fire all the people involved. Likely enough, the President will have to go before the teevee cameras, and demand the resignation of his Vice President. After all that gets done, the Republican Party will then, most likely, lose the 2004 Presidential Election.

The way things work out. The Republican Party must sacrifice either their ownership of the American Flag or victory in the 2004 Presidential Election.

And this is what I hear on that dreaded day, dies irae,

"Mister Stella, Mister 'he who is known as sefton', the people, who forked over the retainer you demanded, are calling upon you to deliver. They want to know what you believe how the fate of the Republican Party will be affected by either of the above scenarios."

And here's the delivery, for which they paid the retainer, which I then spent on lap dances in the champagne room of my favorite gentleman's club. Why, oh, why (?) do I do such stupid things! Enough whining, here's where I honor my commitment.

"Let's suppose your political party loses the 2004 Presidential Election, but retains the ownership of the American Flag. Come the Presidential Election of 2008, 2012 tops, your political party will have recovered well enough to re-establish your current grip on power.

"Now, let's suppose your political party loses the ownership of the American Flag, but emerges victorious in the 2004 Presidential Election. Talk about Pyrrhic Victory! I'd love to offer you a wager of my five doughnuts to your three. But I doubt I'll be around to collect. By the end of this century, with any luck, the Republican Party will have recovered enough to vie for power, equivalent to that of their opposition.

"Oh, by the way, here's something that's on the house. I suspect it'll take about twenty years for your party's hierarchy to understand the import of this Pygmy 'bon mot', specifically, 'better a smart enemy than a stupid friend'. Here's what it means in the starkest terms. The damage that can be wrought by a smart enemy can be horrendous, but the damage that can be wrought by a stupid friend can be mind-boggling.

toodles
.....\
.he who is known as sefton

APPENDIX

In the manner reasonable people should expect of a wild-eyed iconoclast cum "hired gun" such as yours truly am reputed to be, I'm contemplating something wild. By the entrance to Independence Hall in the City of Brotherly Love, id est, Philadelphia, I may expurgate "Old Glory", specifically, the American Flag.

Here's the plan. First off, the fabric of whatever flag I purchase shall be a blend of nylon and cotton. I'm going to make damn good and sure that the flag can be washed to be as whistle clean as the proverbial "hound pup's tooth". After I purchase the flag, I'll then inscribe on it the word "TREASON" in easily washable crayon.

Shortly thereafter, I will unfold this specific flag, somewhere by the entrance to Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Of course, I'll make sure the gathered crowd and whatever news media in attendance gets a gander of that "desecrated" flag. As swiftly as I can, before the cops get there, I will then wash the flag clean.

By so doing, I believe I will have restored the flag to our common American heritage, whence it had been wrenched, only to be mis-used for pernicious purpose. As the cops are talking me off to headquarters, I hope I'll be to shout something like so,

"Never again, shall our American Flag ever be the emotional property of any political party, nor even of a praise-worthy social movement. The flag belongs to all of us, whatever our individual merit. It is our common American heritage, our common legacy."