POST-BIRTHDAY RAMBLINGS
Lenny Palmer
7/7/07

I spent a fantastic day yesterday with my four children (now mostly grown) eating too much, talking too much, and watching the movie “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which they had vociferously demanded I order on pay-per-view. I realized that their mother and I had raised a great bunch of kids, who were maturing into solid and responsible adults, and there is no greater achievement in life than that. It also got me to thinking, hence the reason for this new column.

Save the world, or save your son?
Our friend and almost-President Albert Gore, Junior has made the news this morning, but not for global warming or an announcement of another run for the White House. His son, Albert Gore III, was arrested in California after being pulled over for reaching speeds of 100 mph. According to the Chicago Tribune sheriff’s deputies smelled marijuana emanating from inside the car and searched it, allegedly discovering marijuana as well as Xanax, Vicadin, Valium and Adderall, the latter drug being one of the wonder substances being pushed on young boys in classrooms across America as a way to help them “focus and do better in class.” I wonder if young Gore was prescribed this dangerous prescription medication when he was a child in the classroom. If he was, and his parents didn’t object, they fell asleep at the parenting switch.

But this begs the larger question of which is more important; saving the world from the dangers of a looming global warming crisis, or saving your son? While you were busy jet-setting around the world in your polluting fuel-hog jet and enlarging the hole in the ozone layer to attend global warming events with diamond-encrusted cognoscenti, or hobnobbing with Hollywood elites as their new darling, your son was allegedly noshing dangerous prescription drugs like Good n’ Plenty. Nice going, Al.

Here’s a bit of parental advice: it’s a tough job being a dad, a lot tougher than being the self-appointed spokesman for nebulous science and the latest reincarnation of the save-the-planet crowd. Can all of your important appointments and take your son fishing. Forget about the adoring pecks on the cheek from the likes of Cameron, Katie, Nicole, and the limp handshakes from Sean, Tim, Danny and Mike Moore. Get out in a boat on a lonely lake, just you and your boy, and beat the water into a frothy meringue in the search for the Great White Musky. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going; you don’t need your press agent putting a spin on this one. This isn’t about your image, or your Presidential or media aspirations; it’s about your son.

Oh, and by the way; Mr. and Mrs. Hilton? For all of your billions and your power and privilege, you probably should have let Paris play Barbies with the cleaning lady’s daughters instead of spoiling her and condoning her horrendous behavior and creating a female version of Richie Rich. Poor little rich girl; so sad.

Physician, heal thyself
Michael Moore’s new film, Sicko, an expose of America’s health care “crisis,” is making waves, as everyone expected it to do. In his film Moore postulates that he’d rather be sick in Cuba than in the United States, because the Cuban health care system is superior to ours.

You’ve got to be kidding, right? If he were a Cuban citizen, Moore wouldn’t have to worry about getting sick, as Castro would have had him shot at the first mention of any documentary exposing the faults of Cuban communism. I lost all respect for Moore when I saw him at the Oscars, railing against the establishment while holding the establishment’s highest award in his fat fist.

Speaking of Moore’s fat fist: if the millions of overweight Americans like Moore would exercise a little self-discipline and lose some of that extra adipose tissue perhaps our hospitals wouldn’t be clogged with diabetics, coronary victims, stomach-staplers, gout sufferers, morose fatties and those who can’t lift their fat kiesters out of the La-Z-Boy, and thereby allowing our overworked medical establishment to actually serve the people who get sick through no fault of their own, I believe our health care crisis would disappear. So, lose some weight, tubby, and quit preaching to me about a crisis that slobs like you helped to create.

The Trent Affair and the true meaning of courage
At the very beginning of our Great Civil War the San Jacinto, an American warship, stopped the British mail packet Trent, and forcibly removed two Confederate commissioners, James M. Mason and John Slidell, who were immediately interned in Boston’s Fort Warren. Mason and Slidell were charged by the Confederate government as representatives to Paris and London, and as President Abraham Lincoln’s administration did not recognize (nor ever would) the legitimacy of the Confederacy, the action on the high seas was wildly hailed in the North. In Britain, however, it was viewed as naked piracy. The British government drafted a sharply-worded ultimatum demanding the release of the commissioners or risk Britain’s recognition of the Confederacy and war with the world’ greatest power, placing a seven day limit on their demands. Lincoln could have bent to popular opinion, held onto the Confederates and allowed events to dictate his policy, but he didn’t. “One war at a time,” was his famous response. Working through diplomatic channels he placated the British, allowing the furor to dissipate and quietly released Mason and Slidell a month later, after the furor had died down.

Perhaps if our current administration, or those who now hunger for the power of the White House, would only ignore the polls and exhibit the quiet common sense and singular resolve of Abraham Lincoln we wouldn’t find ourselves mired in today’s gung-ho military adventurism. We could vaporize the entire Middle East in a matter of minutes, and reduce it to a smoking ash heap. Everyone knows that, but it takes a greater courage to ignore the braying jackasses demanding greater military intervention and belay your basest instincts to aspire to what Lincoln, our greatest American, advised: to listen to “the better angels of our nature.”

Or, “one war at a time.”



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