A writer thinks about Ken Lay's death...

From a writer:

I'm not the type to wish ill for others. They can take care of their own ill wishes. And under the tutelage of my father, who said, when I wished for something, "Well, wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one gets full the fastest," I tend not to wish.

As a boy, I knew what he was getting at, but his little bit there didn't work for me for the longest time -- I always figured I could fill a hand with wishes much faster than with anything else. But when I got a little older, what he meant hit me, and it all made sense. That's one of the times my father got smarter as I got older. It worked the other way, too.

All that by way of saying I don't believe much in wishes, so I'm not inclined to make wishes for a stranger like Ken Lay. I never wished him well, either. I guess what I wished for most is that the people from whom he stole would get their money back. That's a hand empty of wish-results, whether he's dead or alive. He stole it fair and square. It's not likely to go anywhere.

At least the Carnegies, Buffetts, and Gates of the world, who also stole it fair and square, have given and are giving it back. They're better people than Ken Lay, and that's a toot hard to fathom. Imagine how hard it is to be a worse human being than Andrew Carnegie. Or J.D. Rockefeller, whose exploits I recently read.

And now to my point. Our executive branch holders today are going to walk away with a staggering fortune, and while the Dick hasn't the stones to think about philanthropy, the George will likely be forced into it because of that silver spoon Molly Ivins talks about. Silver spoons tend to give, once they're stolen more than they can count.

It will be important to remember in whose blood the largess is soaked -- 2500 dead brothers, wives, and grandchildren; several tens of thousands of the same without minds, faces, and legs; two generations, and counting, of Americans paying the bill; and a Herculean struggle to reassemble our constitutional republic from the wreckage left when they leave office.

Let's be vigilant about the collective memory when people who do not remember decide to heap plaudits for a piece of the tens of millions the George stole in the course of running his war.

Leif

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