No Subject

[Douglas <dougwils@moscow.com>]

Dear visionaries,

Before I left town, someone here hoped that the travel experience would
broaden my horizons, and make me realize what beautiful and aesthetically
satisfying civilization we have going here as a result of the whole
Enlightenment project, which, in the minds of some, still does not exist.
But I went to various places and want to report back that modernity is
still hollow like a jug, and as ugly as Fred Phelp's nightgown.

Having arrived back, I just wanted to respond to one gross
misrepresentation of Nate's post on a husband and wife
"possessing" one another. Possessing one another is a distinct
thing entirely from one person possessing another. But suppose the
misrepresentation is correct for a moment. What is wrong with it? Isn't
it an alternative lifestyle? Aren't you all in favor of alternative
lifestyles? Or just some of them? If just some, what criteria do you use
to accept and reject? I am not being a gnat-strangler here -- this is a
reasonable question.

What you visionaries are blissfully unaware of is what a group of prim
and humorless fundamentalists you have allowed yourselves to become.
Someone says something you disagree with and you start condemning left,
right and center. Moral indignation is never lacking, whether you are
talking about Sylvia Plath's "Daddy," mudbogging, or rerouted
highways. But what standard are you appealing to, and why is that
standard binding on anyone else? I have asked this question repeatedly,
and not having received an answer yet, I will charitably assume that it
is because I have been placing it in the middle of paragraphs and stuff.
The tangle of argumentation can made many assume they are in an
unreasonable rain forest -- so that they haul out the machete of the
ad hominem and start whacking their way out. So here the question
is, all by itself.

What standard are you appealing to, and why is that standard binding on
anyone else?

We think that Sylvia Plath's Daddy sounds like a jerk, or, if she
is slandering him, she does. But we have a standard to appeal to in such
things. Why do you think he is a vile man, and what reason could we offer
to make him want to listen to you? Why should he?

On a different subject, and for your general edification, I have included
below a letter to the editor that I sent this morning.


Editor,

Coming into town last night, I noticed that some friend of the republic
had altered the "Welcome to Moscow" sign on the Pullman
highway. The sign now said (quite strikingly I might add), "Welcome
to Hooters." Driving back out a few minutes later with family
members who wanted to see it, we were disappointed to find that the
plywood substitute had already been taken down.

I have two theories. Maybe the police took it down, in which case they
have an ordinance to restrict topless protesting, but not toplessness as
such. So what's with that? My second theory is that the some members of
the UI English Department took the sign because they wanted to hang it on
their building.

Actually, make that three theories. Perhaps our liberal friends object to
the connotations of this particular name, and want something more liberal
and progressive like Jugtown, or Cantaloupe Meadows. But in any of the
three scenarios, it appears that our local devotees of free expression do
have their limits. Women can take off their shirts without restriction,
but protesters of that fact can be shut down immediately.

But that's all right. We're used to it.


Douglas Wilson