“A Canopy of Vapor”

Whalejunkokimuragetty

A reader sends in this quote from Moby Dick, in the chapter called "The Fountain." He said the Harris blogalogue prompted him to email it to me. It’s a reminder of what prose can be at its best:

"And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor – as you will sometimes see it – glorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts. For d’ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye."

(Photo: Junko Kimura/Getty.)

Camille’s Heroine

La Paglia has found one in ancient Egypt:

Perhaps because a movie has yet to be made about her, Hatshepsut (as her name is generally spelled) remains little known. A Los Angeles psychic did tell singer Tina Turner, according to the latter’s autobiography, that in a previous incarnation she had been Hatshepsut. The queen’s grandly terraced mortuary temple, nestled beneath a cliff across the Nile from Luxor, was the scene in 1997 of a horrific massacre of 58 tourists by Islamic terrorists.

Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt for two decades (circa 1473-1458 B.C.), was a member of the New Kingdom’s illustrious 18th dynasty. The daughter of a pharaoh, Thutmose I, she married her half-brother, Thutmose II, with whom she had a daughter. (Incest was the modus vivendi of Egyptian royalty, who were viewed as living gods.) When her brother’s young son by another wife succeeded him as Thutmose III, Hatshepsut stepped in as regent and wielded power aggressively on her own.

She insisted she was not just queen, but pharaoh – the only example of this curiosity of gender in 3,000 years of Egyptian history. Her sculptures show her sporting female breasts yet wearing the masculine royal kilt, striped head cloth and even the pharaoh’s ceremonial tie-on beard. She became "His Majesty."

“Survival As What?”

"Janning, to be sure, is a tragic figure. We believe he loathed the evil he did. But compassion for the present torture of his soul must not beget forgetfulness of the torture and death of millions by the government of which he was a part. Janning’s record and his fate illuminate the most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial. If he and the other defendants were all depraved perverts – if the leaders of the Third Reich were sadistic monsters and maniacs – these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake or other natural catastrophes.

But this trial has shown that under the stress of a national crisis, men – even able and extraordinary men – can delude themselves into the commission of crimes and atrocities so vast and heinous as to stagger the imagination. No one who has sat through this trial can ever forget. The sterilization of men because of their political beliefs… The murder of children… How easily that can happen! There are those in our country today, too, who speak of the "protection" of the country. Of "survival". The answer to that is: survival as what? A country isn’t a rock. And it isn’t an extension of one’s self. It’s what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult! Before the people of the world – let it now be noted in our decision here that this is what we stand for: justice, truth… and the value of a single human being!" – Chief Judge Dan Haywood, played by Spencer Tracy in "Judgment at Nuremberg," 1961.

Goodling’s Plea

A legal reader offers an explanation and a suggestion for the Dems:

1) The 5th amendment gives protection against having to testify in any situation where truthful answers might incriminate.

2) Monica Goodling cannot possibly have substantive guilt here; she is 33 and was working in a subordinate role for aggressive bosses. If she needs protection, it can only be from a technical guilt whose moral weight rightly falls on her superiors. Most likely, she and her lawyers fear that any perceived problems with her prep session for McNulty’s testimony could be construed as indirect "misleading" of Congress, and – by a stretch no one would be likely to make – charged as such.

3) The solution is therefore to offer her immunity from prosecution for any actions her testimony might disclose, and then compel that testimony through subpoena. This is fair, because even if she could be found participating in a conspiracy to mislead Congress, what we already know of the situation makes it extremely unlikely that she was the originator of any such conspiracy.  It is also effective, because while it would immunize her from jeopardy for anything she has done already, it would NOT immunize her from perjury charges should she fail, now, to tell the truth. And she is likely to have knowledge of some pretty central truths.