New year, yeah, wha-ever. The seasons are cyclical and that's enough for me. My neighbor said she was going to lay low due to people shooting their guns off- seems it isn't just a tradition among the tribes of Iraq.

A bunch of robins descended on me garden today, that marks something. But here is the obligatory year-end roundup: Frist, Delay, Haggard, Santorum, Rumsfeld- finally rid of ye! Like a bout of food sickness, I feel like I've been vomiting for ages and I can't believe how good I feel that the corner has finally been turned. To hear Bush say we aren't winning (even if qualified by we aren't losing) is on the one hand simply spin, but on the other the left hook of reality connecting with the chin of a bully.

Bombs over Bangkok, that's a shitty way to ring it in. They immediately say the Muslims weren't involved, to lower tensions, but I'll be watching. Nobody dead, anyway. Speaking of which, let's bring out our dead.

President Ford, Saddam Hussein, James Brown. Don't know anything about the first, nobody will miss the second much- well, ok some Sunni Arabs are still convinced he was their man, and he did decently by the economy and education if you didn't cross him, plus he wasn't a messianic towelhead- did I say that? But then, most folks miss the stability he enforced. The last, however, the Godfather of Soul, is a real loss. Say what you will about the PCP and domestic violence, the man was a poet, a true student of the school of hard knocks, a pioneer of Black Power and, need I say it, a Sex Machine. His grooves infected my white father, re-infected Africa, from whence they derived their roots, and it's a shame. Rumor in a local barber shop was that Al Sharpton was going to cut his hair to mark the passing of one of the great Geri-curl pompadours of all-time.

For reasons relating to the vital originality of black (or brown if you prefer America, I will also report that other talk of the barbershop included a swapping of local slang, still in its seminal stage- "hoonin", the action of driving on a freeway, derived from the onomatopeia of wheels at high speed...which was answered with "get hat", the act of leaving a gathering which is, of course, marked by getting and donning one's hat. Neither of these, too my knowledge, has yet caught fire- perhaps mention among high rollers could place such coinage in a key rap tune, but you heard it here first.

For no reason at all, I also recall months ago talking to a friend whose granddad lived in a sod house in S. Dakota. When deep snow buried them- and, I hear this works during dust storms- they would tie a rope to themselves so that they could find their way back from the outhouse. She mentioned that and I asked whereabouts, having seen the Badlands and the Black Hills, and I said something I am apt to like, wasn't that Lakota land? And the look that crossed her face was like the sound of a Marine locking and loading, or the howl of a drunk crowd of Okies at a Merle Haggard concert. White pride hackles full mast. And I don't get it!

It does no violence to the memory of our forebears to acknowledge that they could have done better. History is ostensibly useful in that we can examine and avoid some things we look back on and see were wrong- Trail of Tears, smallpox blankets are good examples. I refuse, incidentally to eat at a restaurant calling itself CLAIM JUMPER. Anyway, to say that our ancestors were the products of their culture, of their era, and to admit that in those times and places legislated racism was part of the landscape, and one which they benefitted from, this does them no dishonor. We are not saying they should have known better, they should have done differently. Even I, whose Quaker ancestors dealt fairly with natives under Willy Penn and then helped slaves escape in the Underground Railroad- I could walk off guilt free, even compared to some of my black neighbors whose free black ancestors had slaves themselves. But I acknowledge the social construction of race and the benefits my family derived/s. I know the whole Republican shtick: my ancestors worked hard, they suffered, it was tough to be a pioneer, they risked their lives for the betterment of their families in a lawless and dangerous land (all statements that, incidentally, remind me of the situation of undocumented Mexicans). But all the same, the land they were able to claim was not available to blacks. It came from natives. The mortgages that were opened up after WWII instituted redlining by the Federal government and created the suburb/ghetto split we all recognize- the 'wrong side of the tracks'. These laws and patterns were unfair, and our ancestors benefitted from this, did they not? The irritation caused by mentioning facts, by rounding out the historical account of our brave grandfathers with a bit of the dark underbelly, this is the least we can do. Those who want to live with unblemished heroes are in denial of our humanity- that which makes us all less tha perfect, prone to err, and products of our time and culture. It is why you can sit with senior citizens from England, who are ostensibly speaking English, and not have a clue what they are on about half the time. They drop a reference, you don't relate. You drop one, they haven't the foggiest. Our myopia is forgivable...and we need not be apologetic in accepting the facts. But to see them buried in period re-enactments that glorify the petticoat with a token savage on the side, I'd rather not buy a ticket to that museum at all. But the tension of that moment, when I insulted her granddad, haunts me- I intended no harm yet I am stuck dodging the guiltof our collective historical white man's burden. Not it!

I'd rather stay home and stew in a broth of beer and my own bile, trying to discern if the nearby explosions are fireworks, firearms, or pissed-off Muslims.