Soot Potpourri
December 23rd, 2006One of my favorite films is Bull Durham and one of my favorite scenes involves Crash Davis arguing with Annie Savoy over excess and a sense of propriety in life. Annie quotes William Blake in response to Crash’s criticisms, saying, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom” which causes the following exchange: “William Blake?” “William Blake!” “William Blake?!” “William Blake!” “What do you mean William Blake?” “I mean William Blake!”
Is it wrong that I read this article about a dozen states suing the FDA because there’s too much soot in their air and immediately thought of Blake’s The Chimney Sweeper and from there remembered the famous scene in Bull? Man, I am old. Why, I remember the days when quality teams won the World Series (2005!) and firms contracted by the government didn’t hire illegal immigrants to do their anti-immigration work. Didn’t you hear — Bush hired a firm to build a fence across the US and Mexico and they’ve been fined for having illegals on their payroll.
Such a strange world we live in where boys like me have free rein to write about politics on the Internet, remember the sweeper’s weep and wherein the United Nations sanctions a country, as they did with Iran, and it means absolutely nothing to the Iranians. Although it does give The West credibility with The Rest (of The World) if, and when, we have to engage Iran in battle.