Quietly, a few days before Christmas, a city unmoored from logic and reason; letting slip the ties of natural order, to be caught in the gusts and gales of chaos. All the while proclaiming that it is finally free and unhindered; that the dock hands who stubbornly call and toss mooring lines after it; that the young man racing to awaken the lighthouse; that those in the tugboat chugging to lay alongside and anchor her; that even those on her deck clambering to the lifeboats - they have no foundation for concern. No reason for seeking the firm assurance of solid ground. That she will be carried safely on the rising tide and brought to float on the ebb and flow of the times. Herman Melville, himself, could not so clearly depict the opening scenes as "human rights" commissions sharpen their harpoons. The white whale of tolerance and conformity spouts clearly on the horizon. The Pequod has set forth to fill its hull with the oil of the shattered lives and businesses of those who...
a counter-cultural pause