New Orleans

A few quick thoughts on New Orleans:

First, my thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families and friends.

Second, since there's plenty of blame to spread around, for the moment I'll choose to blame Grover Norquist and the anti-tax lobby he leads for helping to make this "the worst natural disaster in American History." Norquist has boasted he wants to shrink the government to the size where he can "drown it in a bathtub." It's fitting that the failure of our government's "leaders" to authorize the funding to fortify the levees in recent years has helped to cause thousands to die in a giant sewage-infested "bathtub."

Third, we Americans ought to be ashamed of ourselves because we are the ones of have stood by and allowed our (s)elected leaders to spend $2 billion per F-22 fighter and hundreds of billions of dollars to make war in the Middle East. Imagine the levees Halliburton and Bechtel could have built in New Orleans for that kind of money. "Fiscal conservatism" indeed...

Welcome

In this blog the reader shall find such "durable foolishness," otherwise known as my rantings, ravings and pontifications about whatever strikes my fancy, but usually American History, politics and culture; the intersection of faith and culture; Chicago White Sox baseball and the mass media.

A note about the name "Frater Perdurabo:" I AM NOT A FAN OF ALEISTER CROWLEY. I am not a hedonist or atheist. I am a Christian (more on that later). Frater, of course, means "brother." Perdurabo generally could be translated as "enduring," "persevering," or "durable." Because I'm a reliably (durably) foolish (we're all fools but for the Grace of God) brother (genetically, metaphysically and spiritually), I've titled this blog "Durable Foolishness."

I initially came across the name "Frater Perdurabo" in a Crowley quote called "Onion-Peelings" in the liner notes of Killing Joke's 1986 album, "Brighter than a Thousand Suns."

Here's the quote:

"The Universe is the Practical Joke of the General at the Expense of the Particular, quoth Frater Perdurabo, and laughed.

But those disciples nearest him wept, seeing the Universal Sorrow. Those next to them laughed, seeing the Universal Joke.

Below these certain disciples wept. Then certain laughed. Others next wept. Others next laughed. Next others wept. Next others laughed.

Last came those that wept because they could not see the Joke, and those that laughed lest they should be thought not to see the Joke, and thought it safe to act like Frater Perdurabo.

But though Frater Perdurabo laughed openly, he also at the same time wept secretly; and in himself he neither laughed nor wept.

Nor did he mean what he said."

This sums up well how people act both on the web and in public life, don't you think?