“Marxism is the opium of the intellectuals.”

- Edmund Wilson

In My Father's House
My father's father died on Christmas Eve, 1973. His heart attacked him. My father and I were working at his gas station in Indianapolis when the call came. It was almost closing time, and we were the only ones left. I was out on the drive, and had just finished waiting on a customer and wishing him a Merry Christmas when my father came out.

I had a strange feeling standing there on the drive as my father's voice, in a thin tone I'd never heard before, or since, said simply, "Pappy's died." The grief in his face made me look away, though he wasn't crying. For a time, I wondered if he ever did cry. I felt sad, a little confused. I had hardly known the man who had died, and standing there in the gathering darkness, I suddenly wondered how well I knew the man that was standing before me.

We closed up then and drove home. Sentences were short. "How?" "When?" I repeated the answers as if to make it official, looking at my father out of the corner of my eye, wondering how I would react when he died, wondering if there was something to be learned here.

There's a line in the Bible that starts, "In my father's house...," and to me those four words have a very special meaning and feel. A meaning of strength and a feeling of hope and bittersweet memories. In my father's house, I have learned many things. One thing I have learned is that it is very hard to define the relationship between a father and son. There's a common bond that connects each life. Sometimes it's as thin as a wire, other times it's as big as the whole world.

On one level the relationship is almost primal. The prehistoric allegiance to your protector. This man gave me life. I have this man's name. One day I, too, will be a man. He will teach me, as I must one day teach. What it means to be a man is passed on, and the value of your life is based on how well you have learned your lessons.

This does not mean absorbing some macho ethic. Being masculine is having the basic sense of who and what you are; no apologies needed or supplied.

You develop this sense as your grow up, as nature and society shape your life and your relationships. The love between you and your father that comes naturally, the distance that is imposed by society. A man seldom says I love you, and it is even more rare for him to say it to another male.

There's the conflict. Subconsciously, you know the love is there, yet subconsciously you are also always seeking ways to prove it. Testing. There's challenge and there's fear. I would rather have taken three whippings from my mother using the Air Force belt than have my father spank me once with his hand.

There's learning. The importance of a firm handshake, of personal grooming, the confidence to look someone in the eye and to live by your word. There's the learning of the so-called facts of life, and not only learning what a man does, but what a gentleman does. These things were never officially set down as lessons. We did not sit down every night for 18 years and discuss what it means to be a man. Even if we had, those lessons could never have been as effective as the ones that did occur.

And yet there's always got to be the conflict. Testing, challenging. For as you learn to be a man, you learn that a man must also have independence. I've talked with friends, and all of us left home under good conditions and with good relations, but all of us had also had at least one battle, one challenge sometime before we left. I think the making of a man requires this fire, like the fine tempering that strengthens the metal, preparing you for your first uncertain steps on your own.

Have you ever listened to other guys talk about their fathers? You hear things like, "My old man was one tough so and so, I remember he used to..." Or, "There was hardly a day where my old man didn't cuss me or work 16 hours a day." There's a mutual feeling of having accomplished something, a pride that comes from sitting there and being able to say, "My old man."

As I prepared to finish college I was depressed and uncertain. I wondered how my abilities would stack up in the outside world. Wondering, at such a young age, if I had wasted three years. Three weeks before I graduated, my father and I were driving back from a job where we had anchored a mobile home. As usual there was little conversation. Then, out of the blue he just said, "No matter what you do, your mother and I are proud of what you've done and who you've become."

I could have cried right there. I knew, and I still know, that there is nothing more important in my life than to be sure that that pride is well-founded and never abused.

And now, after all these years, I think I know something about life, or at least enough to know that there's more to learn. I know my old man did his best while he could and then set me loose hoping that it would be enough.

In my father's house I have learned many things, and I know that wherever I have my house, part of his house will always be there. And I've learned about him, and I think he did cry the night his father died, even if there was no one around to see or hear. I know that I will.

—She was held in a cellar that was 13' x 6', and only 5' high, along with as many as a dozen other hostages. The cellar was totally dark. There was no light in the cellar. There was no window, and the cellar had no ventilation.

— She was bound and blindfolded all the time she was there.

— The hostages were not allowed to speak. If they spoke, they were beaten. Ms Aubenas states she was beaten twice for having been accused of speaking.

— Other punishments included having their hands painfully bound behind their back, and the withholding of meals and water.

— Aubenas said that her captors imposed a daily limit of 80 spoken words and 24 paces to go to the bathroom.

— She realised only towards the end of her captivity that she had been kept in the same basement as Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi, her Iraqi guide.

— Which brings me to my next point: imagine being a woman, held in a cell with men, during your menses. For five months.

— She spent her days sitting cross-legged on her mattress. She ate with her hands bound.

— Several times she was beaten by her guards because she had moved or because they thought that she had whispered to another hostage taken into the basement.

According to Time Mag,
Now the interrogators could use stress strategies like standing for prolonged periods, isolation for as long as 30 days, removal of clothing, forced shaving of facial hair, playing on "individual phobias" (such as dogs) and "mild, non-injurious physical contact such as grabbing, poking in the chest with the finger and light pushing."
When things got rough, "interrogators poured bottles of water on al-Qahtani’s head when he refused to drink", and made him listen to Christina Aguilera's music, or watch a puppet show. When he became dehydrated because of refusing to drink water, he given an IV drip, given an EKG, transferred to a hospital, a CT scan is performed, and hooked up to a heart monitor, which, as Lileks said,
This guy got more medical care than anyone in non-Gitmo Cuba.

That's what Amnesty International's calling the "gulag of our time"?

Now, think of all the things that happened afer 9/11. Think of that pitch that The President threw in Shea Stadium just a few days after the Massacre. Think of when we all wondered if we would ever see planes in the sky again. Think of the fear we had for the Winter Olympics in 2002. Think of every event, every parade, every gathering, every opportunity that could have and probalby should have been attacked or destroyed since then.

Ponder that for a bit. Do your own math on the number of times you've flown since 9/11, the number of concerts youve been to, the amount of raw unrefined freedom that you've tasted since 9/11. Remember that for a few days after that utterly horrible day we all thought it would end. Remember how politics as gone on as normal since then, that elections have been held, the President has been accused of the very worst crimes by people around the world, large and small,rich and poor none of which have served a moment in jail for their seditious and sometimes treasonous acts. Not once, not nowhere. Its not even been suggested.

Think of the Rose Parades, Thanksgiving Day parades, St. Patricks day parades, and so on.

Think of the Olympics.

And remember, Without Guantanamo, Without the ability to gather information and to literally chase the terrorists from one end of the globe to the other, shut down their funding, find the safe houses, shut down their cells, none of that would have occured.

"Right now employers or the government determine which health benefits are included in an insurance policy, and it may not be what the patient needs or wants," Price, a third generation physician, said on the House floor, according to a copy of his remarks that appears in the Congressional Record. "When patients voice their concerns, insurance companies respond with a deaf ear because the patient cannot change the policy. They are excluded from that decision."

Nearly 90% of companies with fewer than 200 employees offer only 1 health plan, Price said.

"What this means is that the person most affected by health care, the patient, has little or no input into the type of coverage they have," Price said. "Patients should be able to control their health care."