Burt Prelutsky can be counted on for both trenchant and humorous columns. His latest article posted on his Website directs such qualities at the hub-bub over Muhammad Ali passing. Excerpted here, but read the entire column A Tale of Two Obituaries
I assumed I would have to wait until Jimmy Carter, 91, died before the outpouring of love and respect over the passing of a public figure would make me quite this nauseous, but, then, I hadn’t counted on Muhammad Ali passing at the age of 74.
(snip)
It amazes me that a man who refused to serve in the military could be regarded by so many as courageous. This is a guy who explained he wouldn’t serve because “No Viet Cong ever called me a nigger.” Well, no Viet Cong ever paid his way to the Olympics so he could win a gold medal, either.
Furthermore, as excuses for not serving his country go, not having been called a name by the enemy is pretty pathetic. At least so far as I’m aware, not a single Polish American, Italian American or Jewish American, ever bugged out of WWII simply because no German had ever called him a wop, a Polack or a kike.
(snip)
Although he was born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., in honor of his father, whose own grandfather had been a slave, at the age of 23, Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali and converted to Islam. One might regard that as peculiar, seeing as how it was Arabs who had been the major slave traders in Africa, the very folks who had put his ancestors in chains. But, then, I suppose irony is lost on people with 78 IQs.
(snip)
Although a few people had already let me know how offended they were by the amount of attention that was paid to the death of a gorilla and how little was paid to the crash death of Blue Angel pilot, Marine Capt. Jeff Kuss, I have decided that I would focus on the difference between the public send-off that Muhammad Ali, a draft-dodging braggart, received and the one given Air Force Col. Thomas E. Schaefer (ret.), who recently died in Arizona, at the age of 85.
(snip)
Schaefer had been the military attaché at the U.S. embassy in Tehran when Islamists seized the compound on Nov. 4, 1979, and 66 people were taken hostage, all because Jimmy Carter had betrayed the Shah of Iran, ushering in the Ayatollah Khomeini and four decades of world-wide Islamic terrorism.
From the beginning, Col. Schaefer was singled out for special attention. As the ranking military officer in the embassy, he was accused of running “a nest of spies” and treated or, rather, mistreated, accordingly. He was paraded blindfolded in front of TV cameras and threatened constantly with immediate execution. He would eventually spend 150 days in solitary confinement in a freezing cell, with damp floors and only a thin blanket for warmth.
Timely trenchant comments by Prelutsky on other events and revelations are available here. Thanks to Hugh Pries for the forward bringing the article to our attention.
R Mall
