Where The Mountain Stands Alone -- And Writers Are In Fine Company

     Walt Whitman used to write his own reviews of Leaves of Grass, anonymously praising his own transcendent, vigorous style as proof that we had an "American bard at last."
     And what can we do but praise such a splendidly American scam? Unabashed in self-praise, stupendous in style, Whitman's auto-reviews also possess two exculpatory virtues: They're arguably necessary (America needed some help accepting its own poetic genius) and they're not claiming anything that the poems can't back up. If Whitman's poetry belongs to the first age of American literary modernism, his unsigned self-advertisements belong to the heroic age of American humbug: Like the fabulous publicity stunts of his contemporary, P.T. Barnum, Whitman offered hype with real heft behind it. However a Barnum poster might exagerrate, there was no arguing with Tom Thumb's tinyness or Jenny Lind's trill. And who can say that Whitman sang untruly of himself?
                         * * *
     All of which is just to say that I am trying not to be embarassed by the urge to self-advertise--- and calling, as ever, on Epimetheus for wisdom, or at least for a plausible precedent.
The object being to inform preemptivehindsight.com readers of the publication of Where The Mountain Stands Alone, a simply beautiful new release from the University Press of New England. The title refers to the First Nations name for Mount Monadnock, “the mountain that stands alone” in New Hampshire's southwest corner. The book's brilliant editor, Howard Mansfield, writes that “the elusive feel of one place exists in that intersection of political and family history, landscape, destiny, expectations, weather and time.”
     Where The Mountain Stands Alone is a handsomely designed and illustrated anthology of essays, historical texts and excerpts from oral histories ranging "from the formation of the region's distinctive landscape to the lives and customs of its first inhabitants, from the industrialization of the antebellum period to the collapse of both farms and mills, from the region's influence on writers and artists to the rewilding and repopulating of the twentieth century." Its contributors include Sy Montgomery, Ernest Hebert, Janisse Ray, Tom Wessels, Richard Ober, Jim Collins, Jane Brox --- and your humble HistoryBuff, who is honored to be in such company.
     I'll play Walt no more boldly than to assure you that Where The Mountain Stands Alone is a terrific read for any New Englander, Yankee-in-exile or faraway white-clapboard fan; for any lover of nature, and epecially those concerned by our interaction with the environment; and for history buffs in general and especially those with interests in First Nations' fates, New England civic traditions and the region's literary legacy. And as a good look at any one place often teaches us something about all places, so I can recommend Where The Mountain Stands Alone to all who take a Whitmanesque interest in the world, who appreciate the universal applications of any well-drawn map of the particular.
    

--- HistoryBuff

Immigrants to Bush: Learn English, U.S. Values

    By William Craig
    The Aggravated Press
OMAHA, Neb. (June 7, 2006) - New arrivals to this country urged President Bush to learn English and adopt American values, a spokesman for immigrant workers said yesterday.
     The president touted his immigration reform plan at a community center that offers immigrants English classes and business start-up help. However, many in the "illegal" community said he needs those services more than they do.
     "Most of us learn fast, by necessity," said community leader Angel Maria Morales, "as immigrants to the U.S. have always done. We learn English to understand our bosses here, or to negotiate with customers, since many of us start our own service or construction businesses. The president, on the other hand, has never had a job or a business that wasn't bought for him, and he can't say 'nuclear' or 'terrorists.' He definitely needs help."
     President Bush wants to offer citizenship to long-resident "illegals," but is feeling political pressure from constituents worried about costs sometimes associated with immigration, including increased expenditures for schools, police and health care. In response, the president has pandered to fear by sending National Guard troops to the border and talking tough.
     "You got to repay a debt to society," Bush told immigrants yesterday, "and learn the skills necessary to assimilate into our society. Show us you've been working hard."
     "'Show us you've been working hard'? Is he kidding?" asked Teresa Gutierrez, a frequent visitor to the community center, where she is drawing up a plan for an office-cleaning business. "What's he think we're doing here? Illegal immigration has always been about jobs. The only welfare queens left in America sit on the boards of Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil and GM."

Let Dubai Do It: Dubya Ports Plan Is Brilliant

     I think it's too bad that Dubya is in such trouble on so many fronts that no one recognizes the potential brilliance of his Administration's hand-the-ports-over-to-the-Arabs gambit.
     I mean, think about it: Actually securing all our ports and stuff would require the expenditure of real money here at home, where it wouldn't be anywhere near as easy for it to be something-for-nothing diverted to the arms-and-oil magnates Dubya proudly calls his "base." That's why it hasn't been done. Feeding-your-friendswise, it's been much more efficient to pour kabillions into the phony war and phony reconstruction in Iraq, a rathole beyond the reach of rational accounting practices.
     (F'rinstance, even after receiving news that virtually none of the money spent on "reconstruction" has benefited anyone but arms manufacturers, mercenaries. outright grafters and well-connected US contractors, Congress is still so terrified of looking unpatriotic that it keeps writing blank checks for $80-120 billion "special" war approprations ever few months. Yet, here at home, we inspect fewer than 5 percent of incoming shipping containers -- alleged prime habitat for nukes, bioweapons and anti-aircaft missiles -- for lack of less than $200 million.)
     Now, perhaps it was just sheer, absentminded greed: "What? Families of Arab oil sheiks wanna buy our port contracts? Hey, they know who their friends are..." Never stopping to think that Wild West, anything-goes boomtown Dubai -- and in particular, Dubai's shipping industry -- is (according to the CIA Factbook and other reputable sources) a major "drug transshipment point," a hotbed for "money laundering," a major racketeering center, etc.. Just the kind of place terrorists find so useful! And so convenient for exceedingly angry, Saudi-connected Wahhabi Muslims who hate sin-rich Dubai almost as much as they hate the Great Satan. The kind of non-Iraqi guys who were on those 9/11 planes.
     All this might seem problematical, if you thought about, it and perhaps the Bush folk just didn't think.
     But then, maybe they
     Maybe, being nominally Americans, as opposed to sole-loyalty citizens of My Capital 'Tis of Thee, they've actually worried a little about how to provide better homeland security -- without, of course, using up money they want to spend way over in Iraq, where we can't actually watch it being wasted.
     And finally, somebody on Rove's staff got an idea: GIVE THE PORT BUSINESS TO THE ARABS! Make 'em think twice about killing a cash cow! Who wants to sacrifice anything as cushy as port shipping revenues (can you say "skim"?) by allowing their bin Laden cousins to blow off a little anti-infidel steam?
     Yessir, next time Osama writes home for more cash and some suicide boyos to deliver a container full of radioactive botox to the Miami Port Authority terminal, our vigilant port contract holders in Dubai will suggest he do something useful, like dynamite a Swiss Yoplait factory or slip Pervez Musharaff a whopee cushion. Talk about pre-emption! This could be the greatest thing to happen to America's sense of security since Al Haig reassured us that he was "in charge." Whew!
     And hey, if the Arab radicals just really, really need to blow us up again, and/or if there's unaccountable resistance to the election of Uncle Dick in 2008, well, at least the right people will be in the right places to ensure an efficient incident...
     Yours in peace through superior fraud,

--- HistoryBuff