super flumina Babylonis — Babylon

Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Marten Jacobsz Heemskerk †1574. Haarlem.
30 March 2003

We follow a liturgical cycle. Eventually psalm (136)137, super flumina Babylonis, turns up. "Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept: when we remembered Sion:", I have heard the Melodians, Linda Ronstadt and Don McLean sing recorded versions. I enjoyed them all greatly. I always sing along and I enjoin at mass when it is the responsorial.

The ninth and last verse, "Blessed be he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock.", is never sung by a Christian minstrel. War being war, we shall see the ninth ... eh, we will have the ninth, for in the first U.S. Iraqui War only censured views were presented and this group we have are more censorious than the last. I am not in this choir.

The waters of Babylon will be displaced. Today there exists in the penumbra of power an absurdly influential cadre of academic bureaucrats that favor a continuing war with a menu of destinations. A similar cadre brought us the domino policy in southeast asia, well this new bunch has gotten America into another asian war with a nebulous quest that substitutes the curtailing of the spread of the bogeyman -- communism, with the spread of the bogeyman -- terrorism. For those who read and think, see Greene's, "The Quiet American" and George Orwell's, "1984".