Miscellany

1.  The current pope, Benedict XVI, is retiring.  That means, of course, a new election.  And among those voting will be two disgraced cardinals from the United States, Cardinal Law, former archbishop of Boston, and Cardinal Mahoney, former archbishop of Los Angeles. 

     Law fled the United States to escape being arrested for his role in the cover-up of the Boston archdiocesian sex-abuse scandals.  Benedict XVI's holy predecessor gave Law a cushy job in Rome, as archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major.  He was completely on his own; his only superior was the pope himself.  Now Law has resigned as archpriest of St. Mary Major.  But he is still a cardinal--and will get to vote on who the next pope will be.

     Mahoney has retired as the archbishop of Los Angeles, , but until last month still had unnamed "duties"--and a residence and an office.  He has been relieved of his "duties" but is still a cardinal.  He presided over the cover-up of clerical sex-abuse in his diocese--"all for the honor and glory of God."  He too will get to vote on who the next leader of the Roman Catholic church will be.

     Of course, Americans are accustomed to senior officials hiding from the law.  From Nixon to Kissinger to Rumsfeld to Bush II:  they are--or were--all stay-at-homes.  They can't travel abroad, because they could be arrested for crimes against humanity.  None of them are wanted for raping little boys, or covering up such crimes.  Their crimes were--if possible--even more serious.

2.  In the aftermath of Saturday's shootings on Bourbon Street in New Orleans--four people shot, one in critical condition--the Mardi Gras partying quickly returned to normal.  As one sensible and sensitive young woman was quoted as saying, "I'm not going to let something like that upset my partying."
 
     Americans must be the most sensitive and sensible people in the history of the world.

3.  Which brings me to drones.

     If Obama justifies the use of drones to hunt down and murder people suspected of either crimes against America or intentions of committing crimes against America, then surely "preventive defence" is something the rest of us can practice too.

    And if we accidentally kill somebody else?  Maybe even lots of people?  And what if we targeted the wrong people to start with? 

4.   What gives the United States the right to inforce its version of "justice" all over the world?
The United States has been doing that since August of 1945, when it bombed Hiroshima--and then, two days later, bombed Nagasaki just to prove that they could do it. 

       Since 1948, the United States has been at war somewhere in the world constantly.  Korea, Lebanon, Cuba, Vietnam--and Cambodia and Laos.  Gerald Ford sent gun-boats into North Korea.  Jimmy Carter tried to start World War III by invading Iran--to save 52 CIA operatives in Teheran; fortunately, American technology failed, and the invaders were grounded in the desert. 

      Then Lebanon again, Grenada, Iraq.   And Reagan bombed Libya--remember?  Nicaragua.  We even managed to bomb Mexico City.  Somalia.  That railway bridge Bill Clinton bombed in Bosnia, just as a passenger train was crossing it.

      Iraq again, then Afghanistan.  And Pakistan.

5.   And the nation is bankrupt.  Financially, morally, humanly.  But don't be critical.  The United States is the greatest place on earth.  God made it such.  America has never apologised for the genocidal massacre of Native Americans, or the brutal confiscation of their land.  And slavery?  Nineteen years after the end of World War II, seventeen years after the end of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, the United States finally outlawed racial segregation.  And even that didn't stop racism! 

6.    On a happier note:  Wendell Berry's 2012 National Endowment for the Humanities lecture, "It All Turns on Affection," is in print, from Counterpoint.  Donald Hall's beautiful 2012 "Christmas at Eagle Pond Farm" is available again.  Winesburg, Ohio is still as beautiful as it was fifty years ago, when I first read it.  Emily Dickinson is still so wonderfully good.  Faulkner and Ernest Gaines.  The Book of Nightmares.  Jane Kenyon's poems.