Once your name's in print, pop the cork

Let me utter a few words in defence of Eric Bahrt. True, his letters are obsessive and repetitive. But when have you ever found them to be actually wrong? I find myself disagreeing with him only when he attacks Israel. The Israelis are the only sane people in the Middle East, and when they behave badly it is only because the rest of the people in the Middle East, who vastly outnumber them and are bent on annihilating them, have goaded them into it.

 Long-time readers of The Nation might be bored with Eric, but there’s a whole generation of young whippersnappers out there who have never heard his message, and they deserve to be enlightened.

 Besides that, which of the habitual letter-writers to The Nation does not like to see his name in print? You, Charles Frederickson, and you, Richard Bowler, and you, JC Wilcox,  and you, Vint Chavala and Somsak Pola and the other Thai guys whose names I’m not even going to try to spell. Not to mention my lovely wife and I. Let’s not be hypocrites, guys. We’re all in it for the fame, however tenuous and illusory that deceptive phenomenon may be.

I wish everyone a happy New Year and wish to announce that I am celebrating both the Western New Year (January 1) and the Chinese New Year (February 19) by remaining continually drunk during the entire period of time that separates them. Thus I aspire to bridge the two cultures and achieve a serendipitous synthesis of East and West. I also hope to set a new record for continuous drunkenness – a spiritually auspicious number of 50 days. (Actually, that’s 51, because I started on December 31.) I urge the world to join me in this noble venture. It would result in less killing, because you can’t shoot straight when you’re drunk. And hey, it’s okay to start late. Somewhere in the boozosphere, 

Horace Beasley