The UnTexan

I'M WITH BRUCE or HOW MUCH GOOD COULD A DO-GOODER DO IF A DO-GOODER COULD DO GOOD?

It was a prairie dog drive-by in Santa Fe involving a retired guy named Bruce (who obviously couldn't shoot straight), his pickup truck, a snazzy pellet gun with a telescopic sight, and a do-gooder named Steve, who said, according to the local newspaper, that "he had been sitting in his own car near Galisteo Street, using binoculars to conduct surveillance" on a prairie dog village where he claimed 14 prairie dogs have died from pellet gun wounds in the past few weeks.

Even though Santa Fe has many more of the rodents than it needs, dead prairie dogs upset Steve in the worst way. But prairie dog surveillance? The very idea boggles the mind, but Steve is nothing if not a rodent-loving mind-boggler (Santa Fe is full of mind-boggling lovers of one thing or another, but I keep away from them). So he's sitting in his car conducting surveillance when (eureka!) he sees a pellet gun barrel poke out of a pickup truck window. And. Bang! A shot rings out (It is a pellet rifle. So, I suppose it was, Pooft! A shot etc., etc.). First Steve runs to check on the prairie dogs (because he is a man who has his priorities straight), but finds no rodent carnage. I'm sure that disappointed him just a little (I am also sure that Steve, being Steve, would he have administered CPR or applied teeny-tiny rodent bandages or lamented the dead, whatever was necessary). No deaths or injuries. Whew! But Steve (again, being Steve) then rats out Bruce (rodent habits are as contagious as are some of the diseases their fleas carry) and the police cite Bruce for animal cruelty. Bruce claims he didn't kill the other 14 rodents, says he has nothing against prairie dogs "per se" (but knows Santa Fe has too many of them and they carry diseases like plague) and that, while he admits he fired the errant shot, he is "not a terminator" of prairie dogs and will man-up and accept whatever punishment is handed down. Steve no doubt is somewhere giggling in delight.

And then the story ends up on the front page of the Santa Fe New Mexican. Who, what, when, where and why did that happen? There are reasons. But this isn't about newspapers. It's about do-gooders and the silliness of prairie dog surveillance.

I don't particularly like do-gooders, but I really don't like do-gooders who aren't doing all that much good about anything that matters. At the top of my list are the fearless prairie dog protectors of Santa Fe - the most self-righteous bunch of handwringers in a city full of self-righteous handwringers.

They call themselves People for Native Ecosystems (sounds grand,doesn't it?) though their stated single purpose is to save prairie dogs, specifically Gunnison prairie dogs. That's it. And they are volunteers who work only for what they advertise as that "warm feeling of knowing you are assisting someone or something who/which really needs your help." Of course a prairie dog is a "something" not a "someone" and a "which" not a "who," but these people don't care. They prefer helping rodents to helping people (I wonder if they ever ask themselves why?) and will go to great lengths to do their "job" - for nothing more than what they advertise as that "warm feeling" that do-gooders strive to achieve. It sounds positively orgasmic the way they say it. So the prairie dog protectors must feel so warm and good about the story of Bruce, Steve and the prairie dog drive-by on the front page of the daily newspaper that they want to roll over and smoke a cigarette in the afterglow.

Another do-gooder really believes he's done something good. And I suspect Steve believes in his heart he is saving the world one cute little prairie dog as a time. But what good has he actually done?

I know prairie dogs are cute as all get out - and some people think cute doesn't deserve to die (ask any aging, formerly "cute" person - but I'm with Bruce on this one (and with the guy who suggested that if Steve and his bunch are really interested in Native Ecosystems, they will introduce rattlesnakes and other prairie dog predators - maybe even a wolf - to take care of the problem the old fashioned way. Steve can conduct surveillance and watch it happen. He might even hear the hiss, the rattle, the growl).

Years ago I had a friend named Bruce, a quiet and peaceful fellow from Tennessee pursuing a ph.d. in literature, who ended up with a skunk in the wall of the farmhouse he was renting outside Iowa City. He tried trapping it and when that didn't work he borrowed my shotgun. He hadn't fired a gun in years and didn't know if he could actually shoot the skunk, but a few days later he returned the shotgun and said with a shy grin, "I had forgotten how much fun it is to kill small, helpless creatures." He's right. It produces a warm feeling. A tingle. Thrilling. Almost orgasmic. I know the feeling. Steve would recognize it. But I'm sticking with Bruce.

PURPLE MAJESTIES, FRUITY PLANES AND THE MEANING OF AMERICA

It took me a long time to understand what we were singing about when we sang "America the Beautiful" back in the Boys Choir. What in the hell are "purple mountain majesties" anyway? Piecing together the meanings of "purple" and "mountain" and "majesties" back then, I figured we were singing about America being king of the hill. That seemed logical enough. Hadn't America almost single-handedly saved the world from the Germans and the Japs (we thought so back then). But "fruited plain?" What is a "fruited plain?" I thought the words were "fruited plane" and decided it had something to do with Chiquita Banana flying DC-3s packed with golden bunches my way from somewhere in Central America. Naughtier friends in the Boys Choir speculated that the words were actually "fruity plains" and had something to do with "queers" (as we called gay people in those days) in the "plains" where all of those "amber waves of grain" grew. Frightened, homophobic, mostly pre-pubescent boys sabotaged the song and sang "fruity plains" and giggled as if we understood what we were saying. It was our only defense against the mystery and thrill of it all (and against the homosexual farmers waving and tending all of that amber grain). We must have learned other verses, but like most Americans I only remember the purple mountains and fruity planes parts.

It turns out there are seven more "O Beautifuls" after that. And for what?

• "...for pilgrim feet" (and the pilgrims' "stern impassioned stress"), wherein God is invoked to stitch up some flaws and "America, America" is asked to "confrim thy soul in self-control..." (those damned stern pilgrims and their big-footed self-control!).

• "...for heroes proved," wherein God is once more invoked (this time as some sort of gold smelter) touching "America, America" with "divine" gains (I suppose this verse has something to do with the cost of freedom, God, and the bargains at Wal-Mart).

• "...for patriot dream..." which includes "alabaster cities" (more on this later) and entreats "America, America" to practice more "good and brotherhood" and rhymes "dream" and "gleam" (those alabaster cities gleam) and "years" and "tears." And God's grace and "crowning" (Americans are crown-haunted people, apparently in fear of becoming Canadians) are in there too.

• "...for halcyon skies" with more "amber" grain and "purple mountain majesties," (repitition already) only this time the plains are "enameled." Enameled? Why? Maybe God knows how to smelt gold AND enamel plains, but how can enamel plains grow amber grain? Maybe it's a trick those homosexual farmers know. There is more of God's grace "on thee" followed by the lines, "Til souls wax fair as earth and air/And music-hearted sea!" Waxed souls, Earth, Wind and Fire (and musical seas)? Come on. I think the writer needed a word to rhyme with "thee" and somehow misplaced her thesaurus.

• And again "...for pilgims' feet..." (and more "impassioned stress" of course) only this time thought control is thrown into the mix as "paths are wrought through/wilds of thought" by those pilgrim feet (actually "By pilgrim foot and knee?"). Apparently those stomping, kneeing pilgrims play dirty when it comes to mind control in the name of God and America. Pilgrims sound like Scientologists.

• Then we come to "...for glory-tale.." which introduces American self-justification but also the notion that "selfish gain" just might be a "stain" on the "banner of the free" and that there might be some evil lurking in the comingling of God, democracy and capitalism (But who believes that? Wal-Mart isn't in the stain remover business).

• And finally we return to that "...of patriot dream" of "alabaster cities gleam" (those alabaster cities gleaming again), only this time the dream looks to a future when "nobler men keep once again/Thy whiter jubilee." This seems to be a clear reference to the powerful desire among Tea Partiers and other white people (the ones who always deny that they are racists) to dump Obama, put the crown back on the white guy's head where it belongs, knee the homosexual farmers right in their fruity, enameled plains, restore some good old-fashioned pilgrim self control (and thought control while we're at it), wax some souls, play some Earth, Wind and Fire, shop at Wal-Mart, pretend there are no greedy stains on the banner of freedom, and stomp the shit out of Katie Holmes. America! Beautiful! Hallelujah!

That's it. Everything we are.

But how was a pre-pubescent choirboy supposed to understand all of that "America, America" stuff was leading up to a big white jubilee (not only white, but "whiter"). Who knew? Let's boogie children.

THE TEA PARTY, THE N-WORD AND TIPTOEING THROUGH THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

They read the Constitution on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday the same way Ann Coulter colors her hair -- making sure the dark roots don't show.

They left out the part about how one slave = three-fifths of a man (it was called the "three-fifths compromise," an article of the Constitution, not and amendment), which gave slave-holding southerners congressional clout by allowing them to count people they didn't really consider to be people, three-fifths or otherwise, as people for the purposes of setting up congressional districts. Slaves were property, which white southerners argued well into the 20th century was the reason they couldn't treat black people as their equals (or even as human beings) long after the 13th amendment set them free. The other amendment House members chose not to read ordered that slaves, even those who escaped to free states, had to be returned to their rightful owners. Both were crucial to the ratification of the Constitution. Leave out slavery? As we begin to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, no time seems more approapriate for including it.

The tea partiers (and their brethren the "birther" blowhards) -- who were meant to be appeased by the reading -- apparently like their United States uncomplicated by the messy realities of history (and the messiness of the Constitution). And my guess is that African Americans are a reality lots of tea partiers wish would retreat quietly back across the tracks to what southerners routinely called (offensive word warning) "niggertown" when I was growing up. It is a word I always hated, a place I always wanted to go as a child, but I was raised around white people who remained terrified of those freed three-fifths people living over there 100 years after the Civil War. Happily my southern family has become more integrated and colorful in recent years, becoming more and more a family I could be proud to belong to (I fled the south and the family a long time ago. I had my reasons but interestingly not one relative has asked me why. Ever.)

Which brings us to the N-word. And the upcoming publication of versions of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer without it. The books are being bowdlerized in pretty much the same way the Constitution was bowdlerized yesterday in Washington. I suppose everything becomes easier to understand with the dark parts left out. The N-word will be replaced in many instances in the books with the word "slave" (which ignores the message of "Oh, Freedom," the old spiritual that says: "Before I'd be a slave I'd be buried in my grave").

I don't use the N-word. Never use it in convsersation. Never have used it in conversation. Never was allowed to use it (my grandmother used it with impunity). Cringe when I hear people say it. But there is using it and then there is using it. When Mark Twain used it he had his reasons and they were good ones. I am not Mark Twain, but I am a writer and, as a writer, I would use it (and have used it) in my writing if the situation calls for it. I will use any word the situation calls for. That is what writers do, use the word that's called for, even the uncomfortable words. And they should not be removed, not even for children, especially not from Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Huckleberry Finn is not a book for children and it should not be taught to children or anyone else not prepared to deal with its darkness and complexities -- and its language, all of it. It is an adult book, an important book. Every word of it. How important? Ernest Hemingway said, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." Why mess with a good thing?

RICK PERRY, THE PRIDE OF TEXAS, SAYS: KILL HIM! KILL HIM! KILL HIM!

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is killing for votes again. What else will he do to be re-elected? Did some guy laugh at Rick's penis and humiliate him in some dank, damp schoolboy locker room? If not that, what? He must be compensating for something. And then there's this: "The case bore similarities to the only case in which Perry commuted a death sentence. In August 2007 he spared the life of Kenneth Foster, who had been convicted of capital murder in a law of parties case stemming from a deadly San Antonio robbery. As with Thompson, Foster, who had been the getaway driver in a series of robberies, did not fire the lethal bullet." He's inconsistent! He's arbitrary! He'll do anything for votes. He's the kind of guy who makes lots of Texans proud. They are likely to re-elect him. Why? Why not?

OBAMA AND THE HEART OF DARKNESS IN THE HEART OF THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY

I just spent a few days on a ranch near Del Norte in southern Colorado. It is a beautiful place. There was snow on the mountains and there were fish in the river and the locals don't seem to like Barack Obama very much. But there is a real affinity for Sarah Palin. You get the idea that these are the people - just plain old middlin', hardworking white folks with guns - for whom Obama will never be the president (therefore they have every right to denigrate both the man and the office; in fact, they seem for all the world like folks who would deniggerate the presidency if they got the chance, just like lots of those people who show up at Fox/Bill O'Reilly/Glenn Beck-induced rallies and tea parties, people who prefer their African Americans in the woodpile not the White House and always will). But for them Palin always will be the chance America missed. I found this sign in the middle of town. The drawing is better than the spelling.

Meanwhile, read In the Heart of the Heart of the Country by William H. Gass and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and keep reading the good stuff. Understanding the boogeyman helps keep him at bay.

SARAH PALIN RESIGNING BECAUSE SHE'S A GUY?

From Alaska, the relative of a friend emails that the rumor among some folks on Sarah Palin's frozen  home turf is that Gov. Hockey Mom is resigning because she is having an affair with Texas Gov. Rick Perry. All well and good (and in line with recent Republican tradition). But in Texas there is a persistent rumor that Rick Perry is a "man's man," but not in the way Texans usually understand it. Not saying any of this is true, but, if we add one rumor plus one rumor, we come up with the answer to why Sarah Palin is resigning:

She is a guy.

In love with Rick Perry.

Face it. This as good an explanation as any Palin has come up with so far. More fun too. Besides, these are strange days, indeed, for Republican governors (the party of family values). As James Brown said, "This is a man's world."

HOW DO THEY SPELL 'APPALACHIAN' IN SOUTH CAROLINA? 'A-R-G-E-N-T-I-N-A'

It was bad enough when North Carolina politician John Edwards messed around on the famously cancer-stricken Mrs. Edwards. Now South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford decides to leave the wife and kids at home and chase his piece of Argentinian ass all the way to Buenos Aires ON FATHER'S DAY. Sanford is one of those scripture-quoting Republican true believers, a self-described "person of faith" who said he believes in "moral absolutes" (and I'll bet he believes in all of the "Thou shalts" and "Thou shalt nots" in the convenient way most of those wealthy and overbred Low Country South Carolina types do). He set out saying he was taking a hike on the Appalachian Trail, but ended up in Argentina because he said he wanted to "do something exotic." A psychologist I know said lots of muddling middle-aged guys confuse sex with something exotic and never make it to the bottom of figuring out what their real problem is (probably something to do with age, work, their boss, their unresolved and -- suddenly, frighteningly rejuvenated on some deep dark level -- relationship with their mothers. It's not that these guys want to fuck their mothers, but they feel like they want to do something to somebody and it feels like wanting to fuck somebody in the worst sort of way). Who do you fuck when you can't fuck your mother? Somebody strange (as in "get some strange"). Somebody "exotic."  So Sanford's exotic Argentinian was another version of Edwards' exotic video artiste. In both cases the poor bastards confused sex with something exotic and look where it got them. (Bill Clinton doesn't figure into this discussion because he had his own somewhat-puzzling-but-mostly-unexotic-Dixie-fratboy-if-it-moves-fuck-it-Lewinsky-esque interpretation of what it means to "get some strange"). I bet Gov. Sanford could have bought a lot of therapy for what this is going to cost him and he would have ended up in a better place than Buenos Aires. Instead, he did go to Buenos Aires and could only say when he returned, "I spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina" and a bunch of other crap. (Do these dumbasses ever think about what they are saying?) Well, cry me a river, but don't expect any tears from anyone else. Then go shove Evita into your dvd player, drop your drawers, do what you apparently do best and shut up about it.

Oh, yeah. Farrah Fawcett finally died.

Can you believe The New York Times actually put this crap on page 1?

CHRISTMAS IN JULY: JESSE HELMS FINALLY DIED

Jesse Helms died July 4 -- and not a minute too soon. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died July 4, 1826, and some obit writer tried to put Helms in their company. Jefferson, Adams and Helms? I had to laugh. It seems far more appropriate that Jesse Helms and Bozo the Clown died within hours of each other. But that's not fair to Bozo. There are Bozos and there are bozos. Losing Bozo made me a little sad; losing Jesse didn't. In fact, a Fourth of July without Jesse Helms was a July 4th worth celebrating.

A few of us held a bit of an email celebration.

One old North Carolina friend recalled returning to work "seething" after hearing lunch-hour Jesse Helms "editorial" diatribes on television "...against:communists, liberal higher education, hippies, disrespect for the American flag and anything pro civil rights" in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Before he was a senator Helms was just another redneck bozo, a sort of infuriating television joke for most of the people I knew, nothing more than a target for our jeering laughter. When he was elected to the senate in 1973 (as Gomer Pyle would say, "Surprise! Surprise") it wasn't funny, and I am sure some of my friends who had remained in North Carolina after I left were more than a little uncomfortable when they realized the joke was on them and they were actually living among people who had elected the old bigot. What probably made things even creepier was knowing that their neighbors, relatives, co-workers and other fellow Tar Heels kept re-electing the sorry son of a bitch.

The same friend who remembered "seething," said his sister had called him July 4 "troubled because she could not find in her heart one shred of regret at his passing." He let her know she shouldn't fret about it. "I assured her that her feelings are natural, and healthy and show that she IS a good person." I agree. There is nothing to regret.

I did not leave North Carolina because of Jesse Helms - he was still the infuriating joke on television when I left in the late 1960s - but I did leave because I suspected I was surrounded by -- or related to -- far too many people who thought the same way Jesse did: hateful, small-minded, racist, white-trashy, Dixie-whistling, etc., and even worse, proud of it. They didn't talk about it on tv like Jesse did, but I knew it was there. So, I didn't trust them. And I never wanted to be mistaken for one of them. I left. A few years later, when they elected Jesse Helms, I knew I had been right all along: Jesse was the ugly thing that had been living inside them all that time. After he was elected in 1973, he became the walking, talking manifestation and confimation of my suspicions about too many of my fellow North Carolinians (lots of them my closest  relatives) before I left N.C. for good in 1969. Jesse Helms made it embarrassing to be from North Carolina, and he made it feel good to be living someplace else, no matter where that might be. And I have spent my adult life being someplace else.

The only good news I ever heard about Jesse Helms was that he had died.