Waxing Poetically: News and Lifestyle with a Twist of Poetry

Note: The video below is an interview with author Irwin Tang on his book, Gook: John McCain’s History of Racism and Why It Matters. Tang shows evidence of John McCain’s tendency to dehumanize “the other” in times of war. Also, note that all known sources confirm that McCain was tortured in a P.O.W. camp for five years under the Vietcong Army in Vietnam, so you may not be surprised that McCain would use the term “gook” so loosely in a non-war and public context.

However, Tang points out that McCain with military background, he tends to make dehumanizing comments across all areas in which McCain sees an enemy. Tang points to the fact that after McCain was told that cigarettes were a major U.S. export to Iran, McCain replied, “Good, maybe we can kill ‘them’” and cites to McCain’s rendition of “Bomb, bomb, bomb– Bomb, bomb Iran” ala The Beach Boys.

While I always try to give a look at all sides of an issue, this ones irks me. I’m afraid McCain’s personal vendetta may take Americans to places they don’t want to go in wartime or peacetime… or dinnertime for that matter; and while I understand his hatred toward those who tortured him, he should know better than to use a racist term like that in a public forum. It’s now a blanket term used on all Asian types to dehumanize them. Think of it this way, if he has said, “I hate those Ni****’s and I’ll always hate them,” no matter to whom he meant it, his career would be OVER!

For me it’s personally troubling because of my many Asian friends and extended family. I even had an Iranian pediatrician for my entire childhood and guess what? I’m still healthy! Keep waxin’!

Link: For more on racism in politics, read my review of the classic novel, The Ugly American.

The following piece is a full chapter of the 1923 book The Prophet by Lebanese-American author, poet, artist and theologian Khalil Gibran. He speaks on the truth of religion and how it cannot be separated from daily life. All should be one according to the speaker in this chapter. I first read this piece at a time when I was falling away from organized religion and though I’ve since returned to my Catholic roots, the piece still resonates fully in the depths of my being. Leave a comment and tell me your thoughts.

Keep it waxin’!

“Religion”

And an old priest said, “Speak to us of Religion.”

And he said:

Have I spoken this day of aught else?

Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,

And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom?

Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?

Who can spread his hours before him, saying, “This for God and this for myself; This for my soul, and this other for my body?”

All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.

He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.

The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.

And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.

The freest song comes not through bars and wires.

And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion.

Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.

Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,

The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.

For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.

And take with you all men:

For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.

And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.

Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.

And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.

You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.