Now that the Republican National Convention has come and gone, a defiant "NO" rings out on the subject of America's future. Our electorate rejected Dr. Ron Paul —
defender of liberty, the constitution, potions and specie, deliverer of over 4,000 babies, beloved fan of Martin Luther King — and in the process threw away any chance of pulling back from the terrible precipice of
FIAT money, socialism and global enslavement at the hands of David Rockefeller, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, and their chilling armies of
human-computer hybrids. As it turns out, first they laugh at you, then they ignore you, then they fight you, then you win only five delegates.
The question on the metallic lips of so many Paul supporters is, "What now?—what future is there for Ron Paul (R-Vagina)?" Like Ron Paul, to answer this question, we must look backward. Educated over 480 years ago at the feet of
Paracelsus in the ways of the
elixir of life and the
philosopher's stone, Paul has spent several centuries amassing contemporary knowledge to complement the wisdom of transmuting lead into gold. What does the future hold? Perhaps a return to scrimshaw (1810-1845), thief-taking (1690-1720) or his singular work which garnered recognition in the popular literature of the period: a
valet, i.e. a gentleman's personal gentleman.
Since he could not do it in politics, let Ron Paul and literature bear you ceaselessly back into the past:
Ron Paul Sees It Through by A.G. Goldhouse, 1929
The morning after Chuffy Sarbanes-Oxley's big farewell before he embarked for richer pastures in the United States found yours truly,
Bertram Wooster, suffering what many might consider the true deterrent to a carefree life. Namely, a headache one would feel after being struck on the head with a lead pipe during a midnight burglary. At one point some years ago, I had started thinking that this was well and truly a deterrent to be reckoned with, but my man
Jeeves introduced to me a restorative concoction that reinvigorated the ganglions and made a man think of sprints to and from Marathon. Imagine, then, my difficulty in explaining the contents of this aqua vitae, which I had never seen prepared, to my new man, Ron Paul.
But wait, Bertie, I can imagine you, dear reader, saying. What happened to your man Jeeves? Recently Jeeves began to bristle about a set of paisley handkerchiefs I'd purchased. Coming off conflicts over the lavender socks and the banjolele, this as they say, was the last straw. When it came to a matter of "either they go, or I'm off like a sure thing at 2-to-1," the courage of generations of Woosters rose up in my chest and said run, man, run, and I shall put a tenner on you to place at Hurst Park. And that was that.
This brings you round to the scene you see before you —
viz. yours truly gesticulating fervidly and with pallid brow to the new man, Ron Paul, trying to convey a sense of egg, perhaps worcestershire, pepper and heavens knows what else, all on the chap's third day. Though even after so little time, I could tell that conflict and misunderstanding might carry the day like routing knights borne off by the footfalls of warhorses — all of which, currently, I could hear in my head.
This new fellow, Paul, was a rum cove. Where Jeeves glided into a room, he thundered as if his feet were crying havoc and letting slippers be the clogs of war — which didn't help matters at all at this moment. Where Jeeves took an active interest in my health and rallied round in time of need, this new fellow seemed to believe that certain elements of my toilette should remain entirely private.
"No, dash it, see here," I implored. "It's at least an egg, of that I can be absolutely firm. The egg, however, should not be. It should be beaten and flayed as if it were responsible for the condition of my head, what?"
Paul did not raise an eyebrow.
"I beg your forgiveness, sir, but I am afraid no physician can help you. Even if I could, your condition lies at the wrong end of my expertise. Moreover—"
"I say!"
"Moreover," he continued firmly, "the ailment you suffer arises from both personal liberty and a natural biological threshold. Your cells react to the acts you choose to commit, and my interference would inhibit the correction your physiology undertakes presently. Were you not free to indulge in drink, you would not find your brain as naturally afflicted and self-corrected as you do now."
"It's pressing so hard against my skull, it's any wonder it doesn't cross that threshold by popping out and leaving me to find it in the street being kicked about by urchins."
"Just so, sir," he continued, "it is a matter of personal responsibility. You chose your revelry; only you and your body can rescue yourself from its after-effects."
As I said, this Paul was a bit of a rum cove, and this is precisely what was so rum about him. Just when you'd expect him to pour forth with the milk of human kindness, he'd begin to rattle on about the virtues of rational whoosits and personal responsibility whatsits leading to liberty summits or golden digits. After three days, I still couldn't make head or tail of it.
Yet just as Jeeves had a prodigious brain and could be found with a volume of Spinoza, so too did this Paul rest at the kitchen table with a copy of the American Constitution and that Independence thingummy and finally a volume called
Common Sense — which, when I asked if it was so common why a chappie couldn't just search his brain and imagine the contents himself and save the few bob, Paul lowered just enough to look over the cover and fix me a cold stare.
"But dash it, Paul! You must do something about this! Have you nothing that can bring me present relief?" At this moment, he withdrew from his side coat pocket a pair of strands of what appeared to be black spaghetti. "Look, my good man, it's going to do neither of us any good if you're going to persist in hanging dead pasta at me."
"They are not dead pasta, sir," he replied.
"Then what are they?"
"I thought you might not recognize them, sir. They are bootstraps."
It was here that my brain began to catch on. You see, with Jeeves, often times he presented solutions to me before it seemed that solutions had presented themselves at all. Which is to say, that with a brain such as his, his slice through the gordian knot took rather less time than my working at it required. Given time, I could understand what he meant perfectly. It seemed to be the same with this fellow, Paul. He'd presented me with shoestrings which appeared initially to be a marl of nooses and some sort of jack-tar's necktie, when all along they were actually hanging freely there, waiting for me to hit upon their meaning. Simply put: that I should find my shoes and
walk to my club for a bit of the old hair of the dog that had bitten me and then gone on to maul the better part of a country village.
"Say no more, Paul! I understand perfectly. I shall dress and go to the Drones Club, as you've suggested."
"If that's what you believe to be the course of action, sir, I will get your walking stick and hat."
"Right-ho."
____________________
I was taking refuge in a second gin and tonic like the hart that pants for the cooling stream and generally finding that the world was indeed a place of birdsong and sunny pleasantry when my old chum
Bingo Little sat down at my table.
"Hullo, Bertie," he exhaled.
"Cheerio, ugly! You seem fatigued and careworn. The blood of the Littles, it seems to me, flows in your veins like gelatin. Were it to be commissioned now, the artist would make the Little escutcheon but a picture of a dilapidated yurt and one of those sodden dogs you see in the streetscape in umbrella advertisements. I am concerned. Tell me all."
"I'm in love, Bertie."
This was, as things go, not at all unexpected. Bingo was a stout fellow, but he fell in love at least once a year. Unfortunately for Bingo, his uncle Lord Bittlesham kept a tight leash on his allowance, which kept him from pitching the woo to the latest
objet d'art he'd discovered. This latest woe was thus like many others, and thus I'll spare you the latest descriptions of earthbound angels in diaphanous veils meeting his eyes from across the room, if only because all the angels start to sound like puddings after a while.
"As you might have imagined, my uncle objects," Bingo began. "He won't loosen the strings unless the girl meets with his approval. And how can I marry any girl I can't bring comfort to and throw open the door with a cheerful hello and present her with the whacking great dead bird I bought for the stovetop?"
"It is," I said, "a tricky business. But perhaps your uncle knows all in these cases."
"I will insist that you refrain from agreeing with any opinion that does not describe Miss Madeline Fanshawe — for that is her name — in the fondest light. It doesn't matter what my uncle thinks anyway, Bertie, because I've hit on the most cunning scheme that will make him gush up torrents of lucre. It's like this: I've been reading him books."
"I thought you wanted him to take a shine to you. This sounds like a way of making the man's head hurt."
"Shut up, will you, Bertie? It's like this. There's a whole series of books by Carolyn van der Meere, with titles like,
Her Family Came from the Coal Mines and
Only a Shopkeeper's Girl. They're all about young pretty things from poor families marrying Dukes and Baronets and holding their heads high when the other women talk rot about them while playing whist. Supposedly these books change people's minds."
"They probably turn them to mush. I read a book once, and that's exactly what happened to me. I got to the second chapter of one of the things Jeeves left lying around and I had to have a lie down for twenty minutes and even then wasn't sure what room I was in."
"Listen, Bertie. These books are absolutely the stuff." Here he took a small notebook out of his breast pocket. "I wrote this down because I didn't understand it, but here's what they say: 'Carolyn van der Meere's books use charming character sketches and gripping stories of love and manners to subvert the claims to power of the current aristocracy by demonstrating the fundamental nobility of all men as they transcend boundaries of class.'"
"Ugh. What a horrid review. Personally, I can't trust a single one of them longer than, 'ABSOLUTE BIFF, WOULD SEE AGAIN.'"
"The review was important! If I couldn't prove to my uncle this was the stuff the smart set were reading, he'd never give them a chance."
"It's a rum thing about the smart set. Knew a fellow in it. To hear the name you'd think they'd spend all evening cogitating at each other and rubbing their temples, but apparently half of them spend the time arguing with the other half over what the smart set is and whether any one of them deserves to be a member."
"Hang your smart set, Bertie, it worked! I read that review to his Lordship, then read him book after book until his head was swimming with visions of goodhearted city girls who needed only a chance to show that they were the thing for the Lord of Elmsberry or the Viscount of Whatall."
"Outstanding work, old gargoyle!"
"Then of course, I hit a snag," he said, looking suddenly focused, which was a singular feat at the Drones, especially when any rapt expression typically soon found itself the target of lobbed sticky buns. "Now my uncle wants to meet Carolyn van der Meere. Only, she's an American and apparently lives in California, which is something the size of half the United States, if I remember correctly."
"It appears you're out of luck then."
"Not so, Bertie. That's why I told the uncle that Carolyn van der Meere was the pen-name of an Englishman! It works better that way. That talk about young clever women being just as good as a chap like me?—it works better coming from a chap just like me! I merely have to get some fellow I know to say, 'I swear before you that I wrote those fantastic books, and Bingo's girl is the bee's knees, the spots of the leopard and the solid wicket. Marry them off straightaway, and you won't go wrong!'"
"That is a CORKER of an idea, Bingo! Where on earth did you come up with it?"
"I didn't. I read it in a book of short stories someone left at my aunt Isabel's house. It was the only one on the shelf without flowers on the spine."
"Genius! All you have to do is find the poor chump ready to be an impersonator, and you're as good as on the honeymoon."
"That," he said, smoothing his waistcoat, "is why you're going to help me, Bertie."
"I have no intention of moving from this chair until my head no longer feels like a gong someone fired cannons at."
"Well, it needn't be right away."
"I'm afraid, Bingo, my addled hedgehog, that many a winter shall pass ere I rise to this duty."
"Bertie! We were at school together."
"An enrollment error for which I bear no responsibility."
This was, as they say, getting a bit thick. You can ask my closest friends, and they will tell you, Bertie is the best sort around, but he is not a championship-caliber mind. Ask Bertie to lead you to a cocktail, and you cannot go wrong. But Bertram Wooster has not one whit of what they call generalship. Tactics he knows not, beyond the proper launching of a buttered roll from a spoon and toward the offending nose of a fellow Drone. But of the movements of armies or minds, he neither affects understanding nor achieves it. He is, in short, not the man for the job.
This I attempted to convey to Bingo in the briefest manner possible, but he would hear none of it.
"Bertie, Bertie, it's the simplest thing. I invite you to Rutherfordeby Hall, tell my uncle that you are Ms. van der Meere made flesh. You pour the oil into mine uncle's ear, and he claps me on the shoulder and both wishes all the best and gives me a stack of the same for my new life with Madeline! What could be simpler?"
"BERTIE!" came a shout from across the room. "Gentleman, inebriate, groom!"
The booming voice belonged to my friend Pongo Helms-Burton, who was striding toward me and whom I'd last seen the night before. The vision he presented now was considerably clearer than the one I remembered shimmering amongst uncountable bottles of champagne.
"So what finds you here arming yourself against sobriety, Bertie? What's this?" he said, picking up Bingo's notebook, glancing at it and throwing it sidelong into a planter, sending Bingo diving after it. "Banging your heads together to figure out the announcement for the Times? 'Bertram Wooster, utter wastrel, and young lady of trade class proudly announce flight to Gretna Green to marry against wishes of Woosters, friends of Wooster, good sense, those who know girl and Laws of Nature?' That will serve, I wager."
I sputtered immediately on my g. and t., which in defiance of sputtering seemed to crawl upward through my throat, lodge there and construct a small makeshift cottage against which the old epiglottis repeatedly flung itself in despair.
"It's no good saying '
cthcccchhhhhhhhhcct' at me, Bertie. I was there in the flesh to see you squire the young
mademoiselle and get on the knee. Today, I imagine, is the day to figure out what the bishop will say when he reads out the banns and sends scurrying the vergers and altar boys who'll prevent you from fleeing the church like a disgraced weasel. I say, Bertie, you look a bit green about the gills."
Elements of the night came rushing back in a torrent. It was, I imagine, like seeing some cheery old beclogged dutchman smile and wave at you, then shell the dyke holding back the North Sea before flying off and leaving you to a windmill borne on a frozen wave and windmilling right at your head. There is a secret power to the lyrics of Cole Porter and the chemical contents of pre-war Taittinger that somehow is only evinced when the two are in each other's presence, and during the previous evening the two had been in full
entente cordiale. Birds do it, and bees do it, and young Bertram did it too, dancing with a petite curly-haired blonde named Vivian and, at one point, showering her with burning kisses.
"I say!"
"I should think you'd said enough!" Pongo howled. "Some girl tells you she works in a country house, and suddenly you're one of those socialists who hang around Clapham Common looking like one bad trip to the barber scared them off razors forever and boring people until they start riots to relieve the torpor." Here he struck a pose and extended one hand. "'I'll be dashed! Dashed' he says, 'if anyone tells me whom I cannot marry!'"
"I don't suppose you'd care to re-enact the rest of the evening," I said. This was pretty clever, if you don't mind my saying, since I could no more have told you the tale of the rest of the evening than read that Confucius chap in the original Mandarin. "We haven't even ordered tomatoes, so I've nothing to throw at you."
"The rest of it's not nearly so much fun. You found her a cab by walking into one, and sent her safely to her hotel with promises that you'd call on her as soon as you'd biffed every one of your aunts on the nose for speaking ill of your betrothal."
"Hallo!" I said, rising from my seat, "I still have time!"
"Ah, you're going to run this by your man, Jeeves, are you?" Bingo said, rising with me. "I'd like to speak to him."
"Then a lifetime of heartbreak awaits you. Jeeves found another, as have I. But you may speak to my man, Ron Paul. And now, we must push off, Pongo!"
Some of the very personal and often uncharitable criticism of vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin and her family may have a relationship to the collective grief, shame, and guilt from personal involvement in the abortion of an unborn child.
But on the other hand, she's got that natural rackage going on up there, and it fills me with regret. 
I remember one summer day ages ago, idly thumbing through magazines and books in what passed for the Literature Aisle of a K&B Drugstore. I had 20 minutes to kill and had already smoked a cigarette, negating using the "I'll smoke a cigarette to pass the time" option again and thought I'd give reading anything a shot.
isn't much different.
The question on the metallic lips of so many Paul supporters is, "What now?—what future is there for Ron Paul (R-Vagina)?" Like Ron Paul, to answer this question, we must look backward. Educated over 480 years ago at the feet of Paracelsus in the ways of the elixir of life and the philosopher's stone, Paul has spent several centuries amassing contemporary knowledge to complement the wisdom of transmuting lead into gold. What does the future hold? Perhaps a return to scrimshaw (1810-1845), thief-taking (1690-1720) or his singular work which garnered recognition in the popular literature of the period: a valet, i.e. a gentleman's personal gentleman.
