My torreon

Somewhere back around medieval times, there sprung up a number of communities which lived behind the protection of walls. At least I think it was back around then because I confess to a historical memory draught between the colonial America and the seventh day when God rested.

But somewhere between then and then, a bunch of castle like kindgoms sprung up, inside of which whole little neighborhoods of tribal communities existed in security behind fortress-like walls. Some had moats as added security, making access to uninvited guests more difficult if the drawbridge were drawn.

Digressing for a moment, I heard recently that Iran was removing the UN seals from their nuclear project. My mind drifted to herds of these aquatic mammals, barking nervously, peering over the backs of trucks carting them off from the moat around their castle to their new homes in zoos across Europe and Asia. Drawing up the bridge and emptying the moat of these seals placed there by the United Nations forebode of bad things to come I thought.

Well the security provided by castles evolved into a form of their 20th Century offspring called bomb shelters. Sure, there were secret hidden underground fortress-like facilities beneath our leadership in Washington and inside a mountain in Colorado for their nuclear command center, but citizens frightened enough could have their own backyard castle, underground. These, in the new century, we have entrusted to our agency of Homeland Security.

Somewhere in between castles, bomb shelters and Michael Chertoff, in the 18th and 19th centuries, there existed the new world Spanish equivalent in the form of a small turret shaped structure constructed of thick adobe walls. These were called torreons. One such example exists in Taos, NM today. It's small with no windows, just peepholes, safe from slings and arrows yet capable of firing bullets from inside.

That's kind of where I was last night when I hastily posted my unedited, unfinished blog that had been sitting out all day getting stale. It contained nothing more than the usual daily news, but somehow I felt particularly disheartened and vulnerable.

Tomorrow was Friday (again!). Would I go downtown and stand outside the federal courthouse with a sign that would ire Bushheads to respond angrily? Yeh, probably. I'd give it one more try as slogans for the message I would stand beneath scrolled across my mind. Stuff like, "PEACE or else, you bastards!"

But what I really wanted was a respite from the daily assaults. The seige I was feeling oppressively under. I wanted my "torreon". And so I posted my unfinished blog and sought the security therein.

But thanks to Enigma and the encouragement of others to her through their comments over on her site, I realized this is no time to retreat. We may be under assault, but as El Torreon--that place of cramped freedoms and austere surroundings--reminds me and Ben Franklin's old saw warned, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety, for they are the Chicken Little dimwits who have bought the fearmonger Bush's intimidations at the cost of their freedom." (Er, or something like that--that was off the top of my head.)