May Day, May Day

As if to prove the rule from yesterday’s post, today’s headlines included “U.S. airstrike kills top Qaeda agent in Somalia” and “Car bomb kills at least 9 in Baghdad; U.S. troops kill 18 militants.” How smart our bombs—how intelligent their design!—must be to only kill “militants” and “insurgents” but never a single “civilian” or “freedom fighter.” Or even a single American soldier. (You have to love the grafted-together nature of the second headline, as if to call further attention to the us vs. them nature of the illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq.) Yet the dangerous statistics remains: over half of all war fatalities are women and children. Perhaps we need a new math to go along with our new language and new logic. And new extra-judicial killings in the name of justice.

On a more “peaceful” note, the tit-for-tat political posturing between DC and Minsk has escalated: the US has closed its embassy in Minsk and has ordered Belarus to close its embassy and all consulates here. Everyone sing along: There’s no diplomacy like no diplomacy, like the no diplomacy I know.

I wonder how many questions on the standardized (yet altogether lacking standards) TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge & Skills) test this week will deal with such issues. How many will even concern the topic of May Day, a day that commemorates the benefits of labor? One glorious benefit from this less-than-glorious revolution in education: the golden opportunity to read such priceless statements like this from my college-level philosophy course essays: “This makes me wonder what will we enlighten our people on next?” It does make one wonder, no?

I (modestly, of course) propose enlightening “our people” on patriotism:

“What, then, is patriotism? ‘Patriotism, sir is the last resort of scoundrels,’ said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman.” [from Emma Goldman’s essay “Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty”]

On this note, I bid all working peoples of the world a blessed day of rest. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” And God bless Saint Emma.

Skin Deep

There are already so many things wrong with the story about the French woman who received the first face transplant. Like how did she “lose” her face to begin with? Well, she took an overdose of sleeping pills in a botched suicide attempt. She didn’t wake up when her pet Labrador retriever started chewing on her face. But she did wake up after it had already gnawed off her lips, chin and most of her nose. Note to self: feed the dog before killing yourself. Or better yet, kill the dog first!

I’m thinking this would’ve been a ripe time for another suicide attempt, but no: instead medical science in all of its vast uselessness decided to cut the face off a brain-dead woman and transplant it on our heroine. After a couple of near rejections of the face—we could be here all night if I was going to pursue this line of thought!—it seems the face was there to stay. Now she has regained nearly full use of her facial muscles. Or the facial muscles of the other woman. I’m not sure exactly where one woman ends and the other begins! Our heroine is currently “satisfied with the aesthetic result,” according to her surgeon.

Of course, none of what I’ve written or thought about thus far concerns the real problem at hand. The most disturbing aspect of the article I read in the New York Times is the final two sentences:

Ms. Dinoire’s [face] is a bit crooked, with one side slightly higher and one eye more open. But it is not unlike that of a typical Frenchwoman trying to convey a vaguely insouciant sarcasm, with hints of mordant wit and a certain je ne sais quoi.

I have lost all respect for the New York Times for publishing such an offensive, misogynistic and xenophobic article. I have lost all respect for modern science for thinking it was within acceptable ethical bounds to perform such a surgery in those circumstances. And I have lost all respect for Labrador retrievers, or as I shall henceforth refer to them: “face eaters.”

It all reminds me of something my mother used to say when I was a kid: “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugliness goes clear to the bone.” (She would know.)