alias Bruce.

What happened on the first Columbus Day.

Most of us know that the Christopher Columbus for which the celebrations and holiday are named is nothing like the man who actually lived.

But do you know any of the actual details of what happened on Columbus's landing in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492 – and in the weeks, months, and years that immediately followed?

If you're prepared for this information, read the following excerpt from the late historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. A caveat: this excerpt covers just the beginning of what was done by Columbus's hand.

Chapter One

Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress

Arawak men and women... emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:

"They . . . brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells, They willingly traded everything they owned . . . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features . . . They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane . . . They would make fine servants . . . With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."

These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable (European observers were to say again and again) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. These traits did not stand out in the Europe of the Renaissance, dominated as it was by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked Western civilization and its first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus.

Columbus wrote: "As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts."

The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the gold? He had persuaded the king and queen of Spain to finance an expedition to the lands, the wealth, he expected would be on the other side of the Atlantic--the Indies and Asia, gold and spices. For, like other informed people of his time, he knew the world was round and he could sail west in order to get to the Far East.

Spain was recently unified, one of the new modern nation-states, like France, England, and Portugal. Its population, mostly poor peasants, worked for the nobility, who were 2 percent of the population and owned 95 percent of the land. Spain had tied itself to the, Catholic Church, expelled all the Jews, driven out the Moors. Like other states of the modern world, Spain sought gold, which was becoming the new mark of wealth, more useful than land because it could buy anything.

There was gold in Asia, it was thought, and certainly silks and spices, for Marco Polo and others had brought back marvelous things from their overland expeditions centuries before. Now that the Turks had conquered Constantinople and the eastern Mediterranean, and controlled the land routes to Asia, a sea route was needed. Portuguese sailors were working their way around the southern tip of Africa. Spain decided to gamble on a long sail across an unknown ocean.
In return for bringing back gold and spices, they promised Columbus 10 percent of the profits, governorship over new-found lands, and the fame that would go with a new title: Admiral of the Ocean Sea. He was a merchant's clerk from the Italian city of Genoa, part-time weaver (the son of a skilled weaver), and expert sailor. He set out with three sailing ships, the largest of which was the Santa Maria, perhaps 100 feet long, and thirty-nine crew members.

Columbus would never have made it to Asia, which was thousands of miles farther away than he had calculated, imagining a smaller world. He would have been doomed by that great expanse of sea. But he was lucky. One-fourth of the way there he came upon an unknown, uncharted land that lay between Europe and Asia--the Americas. It was early October 1492, and thirty-three days since he and his crew had left the Canary Islands, off the Atlantic coast of Africa. Now they saw branches and sticks floating in the water. They saw flocks of birds. These were signs of land. Then, on October 12, a sailor called Rodrigo saw the early morning moon shining on white sands, and cried out. It was an island in the Bahamas, the Caribbean sea. The first man to sight land was supposed to get a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis for life, but Rodrigo never got it. Columbus claimed he had seen a light the evening before. He got the reward.

So, approaching land, they were met by the Arawak Indians, who swam out to greet them. The Arawaks lived in village communes, had a developed agriculture of corn, yams, cassava. They could spin and weave, but they had no horses or work animals. They had no iron, but they wore tiny gold ornaments in their ears.

This was to have enormous consequences: it led Columbus to take some of them aboard ship as prisoners because he insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold. He then sailed to what is now Cuba, then to Hispaniola (the island which today consists of Haiti and the Dominican Republic). There, bits of visible gold in the rivers, and a gold mask presented to Columbus by a local Indian chief, led to wild visions of gold fields.

On Hispaniola, out of timbers from the Santa Maria, which had run aground, Columbus built a fort, the first European military base in the Western Hemisphere. He called it Navidad (Christmas) and left thirty-nine crewmembers there, with instructions to find and store the gold. He took more Indian prisoners and put them aboard his two remaining ships. At one part of the island he got into a fight with Indians who refused to trade as many bows and arrows as he and his men wanted. Two were run through with swords and bled to death. Then the Nina and the Pinta set sail for the Azores and Spain. When the weather turned cold, the Indian prisoners began to die...

– from A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present. Copyright © by Howard Zinn. Published by HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Here's a celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy

worthy of the holiday, as opposed to the gelded tributes that trot out a clip of King's "I Have a Dream" speech like a Hallmark card every year. Skip the corporate-sponsored King Moments and watch this video:

 

Thanks to The Agonist for the tip.

As you know, "The Star-Spangled Banner" is based on a drinking song,

so, in the spirit of the holiday, I have posted those original lyrics, and their story, here on my "A Poem for Tuesday" blog at The Agonist. Nice to read (and sing, if you like) the six verses of raucous tribute to wine and lust from which our national anthem derives its melody.

I hope you had a fun Fourth of July.

Is this photo of Obama at his rained-out

Memorial Day speech in Illinois a poetic symbol of his presidency so far, or what?

AP photo

Martin Luther King, Dreams, and Obamania.

Every year on MLK Day, I go "ugh" as the news organs act in unison to trot out Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech. I'll admit it: I have gotten so jaded about the once-a-year "Dream" broadcast that I avoid it or even turn it off. Not because of the speech itself -- I think there is no question that it is one of the most powerful orations in  American history -- but because of the way it has been officially commandeered as a literally dreamy stand-in for King's real-life actions.

This is a man who buoyed popular resistance to the Vietnam war on the grounds of its imperialism and racism; who criticized American capitalism as an international merchant of dominance and death; who led a Poor People's Campaign demanding economic change; who was considered an Enemy of the State by the FBI; and who died supporting the labor rights of sanitation workers in Memphis.

And yet, what schoolchildren and commuters digest of King's legacy is an annual replaying of a dream, a reverie, the friendly utopian vision of a black man who tragically died but who sure could bring tears to your eyes while he was alive.

Last night, The Speech came on the radio, again. But this time I sat. And listened. All the way to the end.

And what I heard this time, with Barack Obama in the White House, was:

- Rhetoric can be transformative if it is backed by action. King's sermons from the pulpit sent pilgrims streaming into the streets to risk shotguns and jail and rabid mobs because he himself risked shotguns and jail and rabid mobs; because he himself was willing to stand on a moral foundation and resist the national bosses of the day.

- Rhetoric will backfire into bitterness if its conviction is abandoned under fire. Obama brilliantly played a man of conviction on television and on the campaign trail on his way to the White House. He has since revealed himself to be -- I'll say it -- a coward. A man who does not believe in the self he projected to the voting electorate, but who instead yielded preemptively to his belief that the bosses would prevail over the potentials of public momentum. Citizens, no matter what their political inclination, can smell a coward. They smell one now. Obama's opponents are moving in for the kill. His erstwhile supporters are withdrawing in disillusionment.

- Poetic skill means nothing if its meaning is not demonstrably lived. A beautifully-languaged poem about heartbreak or bloodily stubborn hope is nothing but a nursery rhyme, a lying confection, if the poet does not show us that he or she has experienced the message. King lived his sermon. Obama does not; he skillfully preaches to the deeper and higher hopes of Americans and then cowers behind expediency under the pretext of making friends and influencing people. The outcome, because he does not act in accordance with who he claims to be, is neither friends nor influence. Again, both Obama's would-be allies and his enemies see this plainly.

So we now have, basically, a seductive faker in the White House, a lying suitor who has shacked up with us on the strength of promises that he may have believed but does not have the will to fight to fulfill. Here we are, with the ring on our fingers, as our shrugging fiancé backs away mouthing pretty excuses. And you know the saying about how hell hath no fury.

It comes down to the difference between a man with a true dream and a man with an escape plan.

So How Are Your Holidays?

What I love about holidays is that they can be rituals for celebrating the things that really matter to us. The rituals can be handed down or they can be ours to make, and of course they can celebrate anything: birth, religion, kin, love, sacrifice, the life of someone who has died, giving gifts, paying tribute, the fiery rush of igniting starry little flash-rockets in your back yard in July.

What I don't love about holidays is what I think a lot of us could do without: the pressure to feel good and to act happy when we are not, and when in fact holidays can bring up the very stuff about which we are saddest. And then there is the hard fact of the way some holidays plaster smiles and giddy anthems over human outrages: brutal conquest, land grabs, genocide, bloody crusades for assorted Gods, broken treaties, store stampedes in pursuit of plastic junk.

But to me that is no excuse for Grinchdom. For me, part of a soul's job is to rip the wrapping from a gift to receive core truths -- instead of allowing someone else's packaging to rule what you receive and what you do with it. Even though I do not believe Jesus was the son of God, I celebrate the qualities of Christmas that have to do with generosity and family and love. Even though I will fight all of my life against the legacy of the theft and ruin of this land by lying, genocidal self-deluders, I celebrate the aspects of Thanksgiving that provide a ritual in my extended family for our feasting on shared ancestry and crazy fun and caring toward others and lots and lots of corn pudding. I recently traded emails with a friend who has seen some well-meaning people strip their lives of most holidays for the sake of alleged political beliefs, and we both agreed that such single-minded excavation strikes us as fruitless and joyless.

So I hope that this season, whatever it means for you, brings you baskets of fruit and big handfuls of joy alongside whatever honest sadness comes up. And I hope that the holidays help to fire you up for making the world better -- by warming the parts of you that feel what is good and right.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Our nation's annual November dinner sermon about being thankful for the yummy spoils of conquest can give appetite a bad reputation. Not only that, its habits of mind can push the outrageous pleasures of unhurried sensual ritual -- the deliciously slow riot of food or sex or song or whatever is on your menu -- off the table for the remaining 364 days of our year, starting with the morning after Thanksgiving, when crowds of shoving shoppers converge at dawn at the barred gates of big-box stores.

Pablo Neruda is a great treatment for this appetite disorder. Here is his "Ode to Conger Chowder." Happy Thanksgiving.

Ode To Conger Chowder

In the storm-tossed
Chilean
sea
lives the rosy conger,
giant eel
of snowy flesh.
And in Chilean
stewpots,
along the coast,
was born the chowder,
thick and succulent,
a boon to man.
You bring the conger, skinned,
to the kitchen
(its mottled skin slips off
like a glove,
leaving the
grape of the sea
exposed to the world),
naked,
the tender eel
glistens,
prepared
to serve our appetites.
Now
you take
garlic,
first, caress
that precious
ivory,
smell
its irate fragrance,
then
blend the minced garlic
with onion
and tomato
until the onion
is the color of gold.
Meanwhile steam
our regal
ocean prawns,
and when
they are
tender,
when the savor is
set in a sauce
combining the liquors
of the ocean
and the clear water
released from the light of the onion,
then
you add the eel
that it may be immersed in glory,
that it may steep in the oils
of the pot,
shrink and be saturated.
Now all that remains is to
drop a dollop of cream
into the concoction,
a heavy rose,
then slowly
deliver
the treasure to the flame,
until in the chowder
are warmed
the essences of Chile,
and to the table
come, newly wed,
the savors
of land and sea,
that in this dish
you may know heaven.

The Declaration of Independence [ANNOTATED].

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people [THE ARISTOCRATS AMONG EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS WHO WISHED TO RULE THEIR OWN REPUBLIC IN THE NEW WORLD RATHER THAN SERVE THE BRITISH MONARCHY] to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God [NOTE THE NONDENOMINATIONAL MENTION OF GOD AND THE EXPRESSED PRIMACY OF NATURE AS AN AUTHORITY] entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [i.e., WHITE MEN, AS OPPOSED TO WOMEN AND NONWHITES] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness [WOULD TODAY'S DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES SIGN OFF ON THIS CLAUSE?]. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed [SOUNDS CYNICAL, BUT IT WAS TRUE THEN AND IS TRUE NOW, NO?]. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism [SUBSTITUTE THE CORPORATE SECTOR FOR THE KING, AND IT IS INTERESTING HOW WELL THE TERM "DESPOTISM" FITS AS A DESCRIPTION FOR DICTATING THE UNDERLYING RULES OF MODERN LIFE AND GOVERNMENT], it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government [A NICE EUPHEMISM FOR REVOLUTION]. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good [THINK UNIVERSAL GOVERNMENT-SUPPORTED HEALTH CARE, LONG PREFERRED IN VOTER OPINION POLLS].

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them [THINK THE UNFUNDED MANDATE STRAITJACKET OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND INTO WHICH CASH-DRAINED STATES HAVE BEEN FORCED, AND THE FEDERAL NULLIFYING OF GUN CONTROL LEGISLATION VOTED INTO PLACE BY RESIDENTS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FOR THEIR OWN VIOLENCE-RAVAGED JURISDICTION].

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. [THINK ELECTORAL REPRESENTATION FOR THE MOSTLY-BLACK, HEAVILY-POOR DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA].

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures [FROM A PUBLIC POINT OF VIEW, THINK CLOSED-DOOR WHITE HOUSE MEETINGS WITH INDUSTRY TO DRAFT POLICY THAT CITIZENS WILL TIREDLY RESIGN THEMSELVES TO ACCEPTING].

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. [THINK AGGRESSIVE CORPORATE LOBBYING, IMPLICIT BLACKMAIL VIA THE DANGLING OF CORPORATE CAMPAIGN DONATIONS, AND EXPLICIT LOBBYIST AUTHORING OF THE ACTUAL TEXT OF LEGISLATIVE BILLS, ALL OF WHICH EFFECTIVELY DISSOLVE THE MEANING OF REPRESENTATION].

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected [THINK THE 2000 ELECTION], whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise [THINK THE ANGER IN 2000 AND 2004, AND THE CYNICISM OF AN ELECTORATE THAT HAS LONG VOTED AT A 50% RATE, HAVING ACCEPTED THE BITTER REALITY OF LARGELY NON-REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT]; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within [THINK THE SQUANDERING OF AMERICAN MILITARY RESOURCES IN FOOLISH WAR, AND THE NEGLECT OF OUR UNDER-REGULATED ECONOMY UNTIL IT CRUMBLED].

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands [THINK ANTI-IMMIGRATION POLITICS AND FEAR OF THE NEW NONWHITE MAJORITY].

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers [THINK RESISTANCE TO COURT AUTHORITY OVER MATTERS OF TORTURE].

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. [THINK CHANNELING FEDERAL JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS TO JUDGES WHO DRINK THE IDEOLOGICAL KOOL-AID].

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. [THINK THE COERCIVE POLITICAL THEATER OF "HOMELAND SECURITY" AND THE SECRET PERMISSION TO SPY ON AMERICANS, TO INTIMIDATE COMPANIES TO INVADE THE PRIVACY OF CUSTOMERS' PERSONAL DATA, AND TO DETAIN AND "EXTRAORDINARILY RENDER" PERSONS TO OTHER NATIONS TO BE TORTURED].

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures [THINK SECRET DOMESTIC DETENTIONS AND SECRET PRISONS ABROAD].

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. [THINK SECRET PRISONS AND ATTEMPTED MILITARY AND SECURITY TRUMPING OF CIVIL LIBERTIES].

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation [THINK PRESUMED EXECUTIVE RIGHT TO VIOLATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS]:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us [THINK THE "WAR ON DRUGS," THE GENERAL MILITARIZATION OF URBAN POLICE ACTIONS AND ATTITUDES, AND THE UBIQUITOUS DOMESTIC PRESENCE OF ARMED SOLDIERS BOUND FOR ILL-CONCEIVED WAR OR SERVING A DUBIOUS OPERATION OF "HOMELAND SECURITY"]:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States [THINK AMERICAN REJECTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL AUTHORITY OF THE WORLD COURT OVER ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY AMERICAN SOLDIERS. THINK AMERICAN VOIDING OF HABEUS CORPUS FOR THOSE DEFINED WITHOUT EXPLANATION AS ENEMIES OF THE STATE]:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world [THINK CUBA AND OTHER POTENTIAL TRADE PARTNERS CUT OFF FOR POLITICAL REASONS THAT ARE OFTEN HYPOCRITICAL, e.g., CLAIMS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN CUBA WHILE THE UNITED STATES CONTINUALLY DOES BUSINESS WITH PROVEN HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS SUCH AS CHINA, COLOMBIA, ISRAEL AND OTHERS]:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent [THINK WHAT YOU PERSONALLY PAID THIS YEAR FOR THE IRAQ WAR]:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury [THINK DRASTICALLY UNDERFUNDED PUBLIC DEFENDERS' OFFICES, AND DEATH PENALTY TRIALS WITHOUT COMPETENT DEFENSE COUNSEL]:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences [THINK INTERNATIONAL KIDNAPPINGS, SECRET PRISONS ABROAD, AND EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION]:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies [THINK THE SPREADING STATE-BY-STATE HEGEMONY OF CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS]

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments [THINK SIGNING STATEMENTS, PROTECTING EXECUTIVE BRANCH SECRECY, AND IGNORING SUBPOENAS]:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever [THINK EXPANSION OF THE POWERS OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH].

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us [THINK HEALTH CARE AND THE POWER OF PROFIT-DRIVEN PRIVATE INSURERS TO DICTATE LIFE AND DEATH] .

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people [THINK ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND THE LACK THEREOF].

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation [THINK BLACKWATER, AND HALLIBURTON'S NO-BID IRAQ CONTRACT].

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands [THINK RECKLESSLY DESPERATE "INFORMERS" AND COERCED "CONFESSIONS" IN THE "WAR ON TERROR."].

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. [THINK WHITE MAINSTREAM HYSTERICALLY RACIST FEARS AND COMMON PROFILING AND ATTEMPTED CONTAINMENT OF POOR PEOPLES OF COLOR].

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. [THINK POPULAR FRUSTRATION REFLECTED IN DECLINING VOTING RATES OVER THE DECADES]. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. [FOR BLACK AMERICANS, THINK THE RIOTS OF THE 1960s]. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. [THINK REPARATIONS FOR THE SLAUGHTER, OUTRIGHT THEFT OF LAND, AND BETRAYAL OF TREATIES REGARDING NATIVE AMERICANS; AND FOR THE CARNAGE AND MASSIVE WEALTH GENERATED BY BLACK SLAVERY]. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. [THINK THE CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENTS OF NATIVE AMERICANS, BLACKS, WOMEN, AND GAYS]. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. [THINK WHAT IT MIGHT REQUIRE TO GAIN A GOVERNMENT RESPONSIVE TO THE EXPRESSED NEEDS AND INTERESTS OF THE PUBLIC IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2009 AND BEYOND].

Bad Taste, Example #1,217.

Hey, I'm all for bikes that make a statement. My ruby-red chrome-laden '85 Yamaha Virago 700 (a glitzy Harley imitator for sure) gave me major kicks. But get a load of this furry provocation on wheels, seen in southern Pennsylvania. It's sure to be a hit with deer along the roadside. Not to mention seriously bad karma for its rider. (And note the red nose.)

Thanks to Cathleen for passing along the photo.

Unhappy Holidays.

Don't get me wrong. I have had and am having a wonderful holiday.

But I am noticing something that I'm sure you have seen as well at this time of year: how much meaner some people seem to be, or how much sadder, as the decorations and the lights and the holiday music take over.

This Christmas Eve on the expressway, somebody just ahead of me in an SUV deliberately drove me out of my lane. They signaled a turn while I was coming up immediately on their left and, with me in full view (I was beyond their blind spot) while I disbelievingly leaned on the horn, they kept coming and pulled directly into my path, cutting me off and forcing me into the next lane. I know they saw me. Like you, I deal with hostile drivers all the time. But this was easily the meanest, most reckless move any driver pulled on me in all of 2008. And it was on Christmas Eve.

Then, at a late-night diner two days after Christmas, I asked the waitress how she was doing and she told me, bluntly, Not Well. I tried to gently feel her out and she said she was going to go outside and have a cigarette and try to feel better. I didn't pry. But every time she came back to the table she looked two blinks short of tears.

So what is it?

You and I both know this question is not new. People have been plunging into depression and lashing out at one another and occasionally going postal during the holidays for as long as we can remember. This year, for instance, it was the California man who donned a Santa suit and shot up and firebombed his estranged wife's family's Christmas party (that's not him in the photo above).

But what is it about this time of year that gets to people?

Again, I think you and I both know. We have heard it from media psychologists and we have seen it and maybe felt it ourselves: This annual tinsel season of manufactured happiness and blanket-advertised joy is just too much for certain honestly pissed-off or unhappy people to take. For some folks the theme-park experience that American consumer cheer has made of the holidays is like a thumb in the eye or a spike to the eardrum, mocking what is real, chuckling in the face of the unbearable.

And this year it is bound to be even worse than usual. Holiday cheer while you lose your house? Good will toward men while your marriage explodes amid financial ruin? Joy to the world while your retirement fund disappears? God bless ye merry while you lose your job?

The price of mass-produced experience is always a rebellion of personal experience. And so one of the costs of the mass-produced holiday expectation of glee and companionship and gratitude is the inevitable personal rebellion of actual dismay, loneliness and bitterness. Not to mention the run-of-the-mill frenzy of gotta-get-to-the-mall gotta-get-home gotta-find-that-gift gotta-make-it-to-the-relatives'.

For me, I love the sense of family and love and simple appreciation that this time of year makes possible. But I hate the shrink-wrapped marketing of frantic celebration that leaves no room for what people actually feel. I want to slash the huge inflated plastic Santas in the malls, derail the denial fests that so often pass for holiday get-togethers, and short-circuit the programmed loops of chirpy carols on store PA systems. Instead, I want to put up billboards with messages like, "Yes, some things still suck. But enjoy what's happy about the holidays" and "Okay, so maybe joy is a little tough. But hang in there."

Whatever your faith or non-faith, I'm betting you'll agree that the American commercial fetish of purchasable happiness between Halloween and New Year's Day is about as genuine as a wax apple. We can and ought to do better.

So how about a little truth in advertising?