Sunday, December 17, 2006

Porthos Deletes

I have deleted my previous two posts on account of having unpleasant feelings about the tone of my posting, and on account of not wanting to place any onus on my other two Massketeers.

In general, I think I will stick to art and music posts and comment box quips.

For me, re: the Internet and perhaps life in general, I've begun to feel that the rule should be, talk less, pray more.

Porthos

6 comments:

Athos said...

Hey! So, I go on retreat and miss two firebrand blogs by Porthos.

Then, before I can read them, he pulls them. Now I'm REALLY curious!

Athos said...

Come on, Porthos. Not even a peek? an eensie weensie one?

David Nybakke said...

I saw the posts and liked it; however I weighed my sanity and thought better to wait on a response. I am sorry for giving Porthos, my brother any doubts as to our ALL 4 1 and 1 4 ALL commitment with the blog.

There were so many levels to the post that I could only throw my arms up in defeat as my attempts to meet all the frenzy of the season, … well I feel so... so bah-humbug.

Let me just throw this out: you wrote, first quoting Mark:

"Now, it is dawning on even some of these folks that Arab Muslims will never, ever be Jeffersonian democrats, and that trying to make them so is like handing “The Joy of Cooking” to a monkey. Oh, he’ll take it from you, all right. He may even turn it over, sniff it and have some fun ripping out the pages. But he’ll never make Gratinee de Coquille St. Jacques."

...and then you adding...

Well, I think, no. These "monkeys" have, several times, demonstrated their commitment to Democracy, going out to vote in the millions, and at grave personal risk.


Well, I am in agreement with you here. And a side, I am not sure we want to hold up "our" Jeffersonian democrats, now 230 years running, as something to really mimic.

I guess my belief is that after we (as the democracy that we are) made the decision to go to Iraq we then need to make it a full commitment and not some half-baked idea, as if we could, yawning and not prepared for the test go into it and achieve our outcome. This is war. This is about the inevitable death that many are going to experience and not some trivial pursuit. And I am afraid that pulling out now will only bring about an outcome of what you, Porthos, write on in the post. The horrible feeling I have is that we will not get ourselves up to the task, and at current luke-warm level of effort, we will cause more and more death.

A strong democracy asks only one thing from its constituents, total commitment and dedication and I am afraid we in the US are no longer willing to give that of ourselves, to ourselves, let along to others of the world. We have grown fat in our prosperity, if you will. Many of us feel that an alternative to staying the course would be to simply create jobs there and, like Athos says in a previous post, I don’t think that is realistic.

I am ending on that for today…

Wishing all a blessed 3rd Sunday of Advent.

Porthos said...

Thanks fellas. The first post I saved as a draft (in case discussion about it would arise and interlocutors would have nothing to refer to). You can see it saved on the cue if you go to "edit posts." The second was just a link to an article on Our Lady of Guadalupe processions, which was OK in itself but was motivated by a kind of "cover my butt" feeling after the first one.

I like your St. Benedict statue, Ath, and especially the scripture that goes with it. Enjoyed your comments, Aramis. You two are doing fine up there. I'm just not ready for political/cultural commentary. People get paid to do that stuff, and others do it for enjoyment. I get neither enjoyment nor moolah, and always worry about who I might have offended. I'd rather read your posts!

Porthos said...

PS: Did you two see Gil's "Rubicon" post?

Rubicon. I've rolled it around on my tongue a bit and I test drove the concept around the block a few times. Yeah. I like it.

Can I be a rubicon, too?

Athos said...

I suggested a couple songs for rubicons", and if Gil has a lick of sense, he'll quickly delete both:

"Oh Rubi ... don't take your love to town."

"Goodbye, Rubi Tuesday. Who can hang a name on you?"