Opinion

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Dry Bones MODERN TIMES

Editorial

Cracking The Will To Fight

T

here is some evidence, small but
encouraging, that the so-called
European elites finally are catch-
ing on to Hamas' game.
The BBC, usually not Israel's warmest
admirer, ran a broadcast segment ridicul-
ing the Hamas claims of victory in Gaza.
"In the past, Hamas could easily call
tens of thousands into the streets, but
this time only party stalwarts could look
around the devastation and believe this
could be victory;' said the report. "But that
raises another question. If so few Hamas
fighters died, were they really out there
fighting?"
Similarly, a senior official of the
European Union said that Hamas bore
overwhelming responsibility" for the
destruction and that there could be no
dialogue with this "terrorist" movement.
At least they are giving llamas its right-
ful label. But there are still some who
cling to the asinine theory of "dispropor-
tionate response" as a reason for blaming
Israel.
A court in Spain has threatened to try
Israeli military and political leaders in
absentia for this presumed war crime,

((

and other European leftist organizations
threaten the same sort of response.
What does it take to get through to
these blockheads?
There is so much that is absurd about
this theory. The aggressor will always have
the choice of weapons. So if llamas fires
random rockets into Israeli cities, all Israel
can do in response is lob a few back into
Gaza. Presumably, the Israeli firing crew
would have to be blindfolded to prevent
them from gaining an advantage through
superior training and accuracy.
Since neither side is permitted to have
a tactical advantage in weapons, any war
would drag on and on, with a greater
toll in human life as a result. Instead of a
short, crushing campaign, you would have
endless battle instead.
One commentator observed that if
America had been bound by dispropor-
tionate response, all it could have done
after Pearl Harbor was to try to send
bombers to destroy one naval base in
Japan.
The cry of disproportionate response
can be traced back to Union Gen. William
T. Sherman's march through Georgia in

THE PRESIDENT OF
TURKEY EXPLODED
IN RAGE OVER
ISRAEL'S GAZA
OPERATION!

(

BUT WE DON'T
KNOW IF HIS
PRO-HAMAS
RANTING IS
SINCERE . . .

the fall of 1864
in the Civil
War. Sherman
understood that
victory in war is
not defined by
capturing terri-
OR BECAUSE RE'S
tory or troops. It
is by ending the
TRYING TO
enemy's will to
ENDEAR HIMSELF
fight, which he
TO . . .
accomplished.
Any measure
that brings a war
to a rapid close
is only dispro-
portionate in the
minds of ideo-
logues, who cheer
on the carnage
from a safe dis-
DryBonesBlog.com
tance.
On the eve of
World War II, poet W. H Auden wrote:
Ridiculous doctrines such as dispropor-
"In the nightmare of the dark all the
tionate response simply enable Europe to
dogs of Europe bark,
continue its ancient enmity towards the
"And the living nations wait, each
Jewish people under another guise. And
sequestered in its hate!"
they are barking still. 0

Reality Check

Literary Lapses

T

he best book ever written about
baseball is The Glory of Their
Times, by Lawrence Ritter.
It is more like a photograph of America
as it was during the first two decades of
the 20th century as seen through the rec-
ollections of men who played in the big
leagues.
Ritter, who was an economics professor
at Columbia University; traveled around
the country in the 1960s with a tape
recorder, tracking down as many of these
old-time players as he could find and let-
ting them talk. It is an incredible oral his-
tory, and I can't tell you how many times
I've reread it since its publication in 1966.
I don't think it would have a chance of
being published today.
Unless it involves a star with addiction
problems or a tell-all tome called Bad Stuff
About the Yankees or something, it has
little chance. The major publishing houses
have made up their minds that the mar-
ket won't support" a book like Ritter's. It
has to be down-and-dirty and right-now.

A34

February 12 . 2009

What the market will support,
apparently, is a book by this
California woman who just gave
birth to octuplets, who will join
her six other kids. According to
an Associated Press story, she
is being "deluged with offers for
book deals."
"She's the most sought after
mom in the world right now;'
said the head of a public rela-
tions company representing her.
Yeah, there's a must-read book
for you. A woman who obviously
has some deep psychological
problems tells you all about how she
brings 14 kids into the world without a
husband or a means of support.
If someone wrote a book about the irre-
sponsibility of fertility clinics, the neces-
sity to regulate them and how the doctor
who did this should get his license pulled,
I might want to read that. Instead, we get
the celebrity treatment for this pathetic
woman.

As a writer, I find this
worse than depressing. My
agent tells me it is getting
harder to sell a book of any
kind, unless it involves a
celebrity or someone who
already has written a best
seller. (Note: If you totaled up
the sales of my previous 20
books, I think maybe I'd have
a bestseller.)
I feel even worse for an
old friend. He has written
a beautiful memoir about
growing up in Detroit and
how a serial killer tore apart his family.
Everyone who has seen it thinks it is a
wonderful story.
Here is an excerpt from a response his
agent received from an editor at a major
publishing house:
"This is a compelling, heart-wrenching
story told with honesty, sensitivity and
extraordinary intelligence. I really, really
admire what he's done here and almost

WISH I'd found a flaw in the manuscript
so it wasn't as hard to turn down ...
"I hate that we can't just publish the
good stuff and the hell with the rest, but it
doesn't do anyone any favors ... to put out
a book that the market will prevent from
living up to its potential!"
And I wish I had a degree in double talk
so I could figure out the meaning of what
I just quoted. But that's the way it is these
days.
So let's have I Dismember Mama, ghost-
written in a two-week hack job, so we can
get it out there before the next sensation
comes along.
Sensitivity and intelligence are all
very nice, but where's the audience for
that when 14 babies are waiting to be
exploited?
Does that make me sound bitter? Guess
what? O

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor614@aol.com.

