Under the Rhodesian Sun
Casting an eye toward the South African-negotiated agreement between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tvangirai, I cannot help but look askance: power-sharinglink. And in this I am far from alone: skepticallink. To foster the hope that there is hope, I believe I shall prevail upon the wisdom of President Reagan: "Trust, but verify." (Though he was not the first to use the phrase, I was introduced to it through his oratory.) Chalk the post-electoral chaos in Zimbabwe up as yet another issue on which I have been shamefully silent, making no mention of it since April of this year: Wayback Machinelink. (Again, to my shame, this was also the last time I commented on our ally Georgia's troubles with the Russian bear.)

And please do not misconstrue the title "Under the Rhodesian Sun" as a fondness for the white-minority government that ruled Rhodesia under the U.D.I. I am caught between an appreciation for the word "Zimbabwe" (note to self: the Great Zimbabwe is tailor-made for "The Explorers Club") and a fascination with both the etymology of the word "Rhodesia" and the history of European, and later white African*, settlement of southern Africa. I use Rhodesian in the title as that is likely the only time many of you will encounter the word, whereas Zimbabwe and Zimbabwean justifiably have more widespread currency**.

*The Boers and Cape Dutch have as good a claim on being African as my countrymen and I have on being American.

**An inadvertent pun about Zimbabwe's hyperinflation.

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
Reel Big Fish, "Hate You" from Monkeys for Nothin' and the Chimps for Free (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"I'm not really bitter,
I'm not really mad,
I love to see other people get
Everything I ever wanted to have."

Of the thirteen songs I own with "hate" in the title, six of them belong to Reel Big Fish, with no other band having more than one. Though, to be fair, even R.B.F. only has five, as two are renditions of the same song, today's R.B.D.S.O.T.D. "Hate You."

Donnerstag, 11 September
Aaron Tippin, "Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly" from Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: By my silence yesterday and the resulting failure to mark the anniversary of the horror of 9/11, I meant disrespect to neither those who perished on that day that shall live in infamy nor to those who have died in the intervening years as we and our allies have sought to eliminate the root causes of jihadist terrorism, a blasphemy against the name of Islam. I was simply so fatigued that I had gone to bed and fallen asleep by 9:30 P.M.

Too little is done to remember 9/11, too easily have we set aside the memory of the terror, trauma, and tragedy. And yet in this seeming failure lies the great strength of the Americans: we cannot help but look to the future, to the bright and shining world of tomorrow. A people of such missionary zeal, who so confidently and relentlessly pursue the dawn, can be distracted and disheartened but can never be defeated.