Dog stories from around the world part one
The fuhrer
loved his Blondie. As to whether he loved his dog better then his girlfriend
Maria, it is difficult to tell. She has been described as somewhat naive as to the
actions of the BF but she stayed by her man; she stood by him until the very
end. Then she ate the cyanide.
The BF
put a pistol barrel in his mouth and then pulled the trigger. “This is the way
the Romans did it, right? They fell on their swords,” he said prior to his
suicide. Actually Cicero set the standard, the gold standard, he retired to the
villa, drew a bath and then slit his wrists.
I don’t recal the method Blondie choose,
if any at all. Probably gunshot. They were in a hurry you see.
Was the
dog a war criminal, or just an innocent bystander? I’ve spent many an evening
pondering this question. Move forward twenty years and there is a tremendous, sometimes violent
resist to the VietNam war. In California the Bank of America was bombed
numerous times(usually at night when the building was empty) In the great Midwestern universities cities
like Ann arbor michigan were closed down. In the east groups like the SDS were
taking over school buildings and shutting down classes. Brooklyn had the TS or transcendental
Students, which somewhat belying their names displayed abilities with num-chucks
(Oriental fighting blocks)
And how can we characterize the
paths of history? Do they meander chaotically, or do they spiral in repetitive
patterns? Is it a pendulum, which moves from favor of the meek to that of the
strong relentlessly. Could these fluctuations be measured and then as McKenna
has said charted into the Pentagrams of
the I-Ching?
Move
back twenty years and there is virtually o resistance to ”The big One WWII”.
When it was over it begat a generation of novelists most of whom were cynical
as to just how good power and authority made a person. One of these fellows,
Norman Mailer, as a prank against authority
decided to run for Mayor in NYC.
Norman
was not generally thought to be morally challenged. HE was a tough guy when he
was drunk and he was a tough guy when he was around women and when he was drunk
and around women he was double tough, but he wore his pennies on his sleeve and
what you saw is what you got. Like many writers past , present and future, he
was in the game for his own benefit. The more he saw his name in the newspaper the happier he was and
conversely a day without the words Norman Mailer in the newspaper was a day hardly worth living.
(Oe might add that
Gracie Allen of the comedy team Burns and Allen
ran for President in the forties and also the early fifties saw the candidacy
of Howdy Doody for the same office.)
In any event
to promote the legitimacy of his faux campaign for mayor Mailer would meet with
any group large enough to get him in the paper. The black groups saw him as
just another publicity hungry cracker so
the candidate called a meeting with the SDS. They talk. Mr Mailer says he’s absolutely
opposed to the atrocities in VietNam. One of the students says “Well are you
aware of napalm, burning entire villages including women and children?”
We may
assume Mailer says “Yeah, that’s bad”
“We
agree," said the students,' so we thought that at your next press conference, to illustrate how much
bad you feel we want to take a dog, douse it in gasoline, and then you throw
a match on it and burn it to death. “
Mr Mailer,
professional tough guy, declined the offer.
.
Venus de Jersey(photo by Bruce Davidson)
