A to Z

From antelope to zebra, all herbivorous quadrupeds. The only thing I know about antelopes is that they rhyme with cantaloupes.  And here’s another thing. The word is an umbrella term for a group which include gazelle, impala, and even wildebeest. If you should find yourself in a telephone booth with either of the first two antelopes but don’t know which, both males have horns, of differing shapes, and a gazelle sports a black stripe on its side.  If you were not in a phone booth it might be hard to notice because they are a most jittery animal and very difficult to approach. Wildebeest, aka gnu, are far bulkier and live up to their name.

As any basketball fan can tell you the game is all about gazelles against impalas with zebras as refs blowing whistles. The two antelopes run tirelessly and with grace up and down the court. Occasionally the zebras get chewed out but in the wild zebras do the chewing. They all live and munch in either the grasslands, woodlands or savannas of Africa and none of them ever called a foul. They’re too busy running from cheetahs.

Detroit looks toward four-legged creatures to sell their cars. Neither the Ford Bronco, Chevy Impala nor Dodge Ram could ever compete with the Ford Mustang. The less said about the Pinto the better….and then there’s the Jaguar. But horsepower is still the unit of measure which is an endearing way of honoring the past.

Creationists may argue that zebras got their stripes from the American flag or that God was watching a Laker game but everyone knows God is really a baseball fan and was fixated on the Yankee pinstripe uniform. It has long been noted that zebras are social animals. When they congregate, their stripes form what looks to lions as a huge blob and too much to take on. Another more compelling reason for the stripes is that they evolved over millennia as a protection from the tsetse and horseflies.

Horses, which lack horse sense didn’t think of it and rely on their tail to shoo the flies.  Zebras, with their striped skin, are deemed less inviting to blood-sucking insects. The flies are attracted to solid surfaces because the light waves emitted resemble the light reflected from pools of water where they breed. Survival wins out just like in basketball tournaments. One might think the horsefly would also evolve to get around this striped defense but that is probably too much to ask of these pests. From their POV the system is rigged

Zebras, stripes and all, don’t have what it takes for domestication. Horses were feral once also but opted for a barn and steady meal instead. In exchange they had to pull loads of men with whips. A few took to breeding and racing. They are a thing of beauty especially when they come in as fifty to one shots. 

Zebras should be credited as the first to come up with bar codes. They may all look the same to us but each carries a signature on its hide which singles them out to other zebras. For a long time we thought that was the only reason for their stripes. But now we know better. It is not a form of Z-Harmony in which lonely zebras get to meet their match. Scientists have noted that the biting insects congregate most in certain areas of zebra’s bodies where their hair is shortest and these are the very spots with the most active stripe-lines. One can almost sympathize with flies driven berserk by the refracted light coming off the display of patterns.

In case you are asked what color zebras are the answer is black with white stripes.      

Whether antelopes eat cantaloupe has yet to be studied.

All life forms evolve to give them the best chance of survival. We have neither the speed of antelopes or stripes of zebras. But man possesses both the creative and destructive power never before seen. Our most fearsome predator is ourselves. Four-legged creatures know better than to make such a mess of their habitat.

The Art Of Constraint

Calvin Coolidge, one of our least eminent presidents once said, The business of this country is business. He might also have said that our chief occupation is busyness. It is our habit to do, to act and react. With Power on a national level and empowerment as a personal creed we have a hard time with constraint.

Sometimes the best course is to not just do something but stand there. When the Lakers are imploding on the court Zen Master, Phil Jackson, does not call time out. He makes then figure it out for themselves. When the pitcher can't find home plate the manager may not pull him out of the game but show confidence and let him regain his rhythm. Inaction is also a choice and a difficult one sure to invite criticism.

President Obama is in one of those situations. The rebels in Libya are on the brink of defeat. Without foreign intervention we may be witness to a terrible massacre. Our impulse is to send the marines to the shores of Tripoli or at least Benghazi. The administration's refusal to do so, unilaterally, can be a defining moment. Unless the effort is sanctioned and staffed by the United Nations we must not deploy our combat forces.

For too long we’ve practiced a muscular foreign policy, policing the world and not necessarily for moral reasons. Our forces are more often an agency of our national (business) interests. Our thirst for that black stuff under the sand is never quenched. If cars ran on piss we’d be invading urinals.

The time has come to turn the ship of state and come home. There are limits to power and we have already exceeded that point. Our weaponry in the Libyan desert might save lives but at the same time create a backlash in the Arab world and mobilize them against us. We have earned the mistrust of those people having lent support for the regimes now under siege.

We need only ask, what would the previous administration do in this scenario.......and then do the opposite. Obama has pledged support for the insurgency in every way possible except committing our armed forces; freezing assets, embargo and accountability in the world court. Let us offer humanitarian aid with open hearts and hands, not with our fists.

In 1956 Pres. Eisenhower faced a crisis when Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. Britain and France sought a military resolution. We broke with our allies and stayed home. Constraint took courage and proved to be the wise option in constrast to four years later when we took up the military mission of the French in Southeast Asia.

Upheaval In North Africa

The sweep of history is such that it is almost imperceptible living inside it. We need to step back to lift the blur and step way back to bring it into full focus.

The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt can be seen as part of the same movement that led to the American and French revolution. We got Washington and Jefferson, the French landed Robespierre and Napoleon. Ironically our Revolutionary War succeeded, in large part, due to French assistance. We benefited from the century-old conflict then being played out by Hanover George and Bourbon Louis.

Revolutions create vacuums and we know how nature feels about them. Our founders were at the ready to bind the colonies into a nation in an experiment born of the Enlightenment. It didn't happen overnight however. The separate states resisted for years, to move from a loose confederation to a federal constitutional government.

Today's reports out of the Middle East talk about new democracies emerging after years of dictatorship, oligarchy or monarchy. That word Democracy gave me some pause. The term would have made our early patriots tremble because democracy meant majority rule with no safeguards for the minority. And many of the early colonists were those very minorities who fled European tyranny.

Remember the pledge of allegiance we recited in elementary school? ....... and to the republic for which it stands....... I can recall mumbling those big words, and to the republic for Richard Stands... I had no idea what I was pledging or even what allegiance meant or indivisible It is worth looking back at that word republic which is a representational government that guarantees the Bill of Rights for all including the few.

The French traded a monarch for an emperor but Europe convulsed and again in mid-century when workers took to the barricades in Italy, France and Germany ultimately leading to fuller suffrage and the formation of Republics.

These words Democracy and Republic do not translate well into the Democratic and Republican parties. The rights of the under-served minorities have long been defended by the Democrats.

We don't hear the word Republic very much in current usage. It seems that Democracy has come to mean self-determination as applied to the regime changes underway in the developing world. As they move toward modernity I would hope that the emerging governments extend protection to dissenters and support inclusion for all citizens. The sound and fury I'm witnessing in North Africa does not look or sound like a people settling for anything less than a non-theocratic participatory government.