I've been doing some reading lately.

Actually two books at once. Well not really at once. I mean I'm not literally reading them each at the same time... Oh heck, you know what I mean, right?

O.K. then.

The first book is "A Pirate Looks at Fifty" by Jimmy Buffett. For me, this had its genesis while we were vacationing on the gulf coast. As we drove the new six-disc-CD-changer-equipped uber-vehicle though the sun-washed, palm-lined streets, Stacie commented that she'd like to have some Buffett CD's to play. I went and bought the 'Live in Hawaii' 3 disc set figuring they'd get tossed in some drawer with the Beach Boys CD's until the next summer vacation. But since coming back home, Stacie has played Buffett almost non-stop. I think she may be turning into some kind of Parrothead hippie-chick or something. She then mentioned that she'd also like to read some of Buffett's books. Hey, I didn't even know the guy could read! Anyway, when I took the kids to the library last week, I snagged "A Pirate Looks at Fifty" for Stacie and, of course, I've been reading it too. It's pretty good. So far.

The second 'book' is actually a collection of essays by Henry David Thoreau. It's one I own. I dug it out after experiencing the hurricane-like 'flag amendment' debate debacle. I've found that when a political and civil debate turns into something a little more political than civil, reading the classics is a good way to gauge one's own thoughts and reactions. You can't get much more classic than "Civil Disobedience" or "Life Without Principle". I think both of these essays should be required reading before getting a speaking license in this country. I know we don't have that here, but sometimes I think maybe we should.

To the average person though, there could probably not be two more different people than Henry David Thoreau and Jimmy Buffett. The interesting thing is that, as I read their respective words, Buffett and Thoreau have started to seem like very similar thinkers. Sure, there are obvious differences, but in terms of their ideas and approaches to things like society, government, personal responsibility and life in general, they seem to be cast from very similar molds.

One quote from Thoreau's "Life Without Principle" particularly struck a chord with me this time around: "Politics is... the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are it's two opposite halves... which grind on each other. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but... a remembering of that which we should never have been conscious of..."
Thoreau meant this, I think, in a rather negative way. But what is implied in his metaphor, however unintentionally, is that the 'gizzard' is a requirement. After all, a bird can't live without its gizzard.

And this bird we call the good ol' U. S. of A. needs it political gizzard more so now than ever, however unpleasant it may be. But perhaps, as Thoreau also said, the 'gizzard' needs to be "... sometimes split into quarters" instead of halves.

I think I would agree and so would Jimmy Buffett.