The League of Nations
The genocide in Darfur continues. Gee, I'm glad President Bush decided to work through the UN, aren't you? I mean, if the hegemonic US monster had gone ahead and acted unilaterally, we might have saved tens of thousands of lives. Bog forbid. Here's to you, Kofi Annan, for being man enough to stand by and do nothing.

Also, Sudan continues to sit on the UN's Human Rights Commission.

Things About Me
The latest issue of The Newsletter, after a relatively major production crisis, went out in today's mail. Woot! That means the next issue is The (unofficial) Election Issue! Boy oh boy! So, if anyone is going to write in supporting Senator Kerry, please have your submission to me by the close of play on Friday, October 15: sonofthenewsletter@yahoo.com.

The new reviews feature, "Less Artsy, More Fartsy," is going really well. We're already run two "Hollywoodland" movie reviews and a "Book Report" book review, with another movie review and book review in the archives for use as needed. Again, woot! Even with the demise of "Best Damn D.P. in Hollywood" and the Professor not having the time to contribute "Ask the Professor," I'm feeling very good about how things are going. The staff columnists are all doing new and interesting things; guest submissions are, on a relative basis, flooding in; I am deeply honored that we continue to receive "Pledge Drive" donations from our readers; and there hasn't been a bomb threat in months. Everything's comint up Newsletter!

A new The Newsletter Online is in the works. Third times' the charm, right?

It's amazing how many people are under the mistaken impression that their opinion matters. Just today, someone told me it is unfortunate I have placed spite at the center of my moral code. I was about to probe the reasoning behind this preposterous observation when I suddenly recalled that I had never solicited his opinion in the first place. If I deemed his opinons worth my consideration, surely I would have sought his opinion, no? But I did not. Instead, he decided to foist it upon me, as if it was a soiled old couch and I was the curb. I tell you, I am beset upon all sides by monumental stupidity.

Once again, Kipling sheds valuable light on the situation, from "If":
"If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;"

Curse my parents for raising me to believe in civil society, for even if I had a brick handy I would think better of smashing a man's face with it.

These days, I often think of Kipling's poem "The White Man's Burden." Too many people cannot get past the title and denounce the whole work as racist; I allow that Kipling was not for nothing called the "Poet of the Empire" and today his attitudes seem... old-fashioned at best. But if you look beyond those trappings, realy look at the heart of it, it's not about empire or Anglo-Saxon superiority, it's about civilization and the burden of civilization. What is the obligation of civilization? To sit back in idle comforts, or to bring those comforts to the benighted and the poor? To treat all moralities as equal, or to topple petty kings so that all men might be free? If you look at the heart of it, it is about our world as much as it is about Kipling's.

"The White Man's Burden"
by Rudyard Kipling

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain.
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with yout dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proffered laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhod
Through all the thankless years,
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!