www.thornwalker.com/ditch/fieldscontents.htm


 

Henry Gallagher Fields

Henry Gallagher Fields occasionally contributed to the print version of TLD during its final couple of years. His articles have always reached us through an intermediary sworn to secrecy. We were never able to find out much about him in the old print days, and we still aren't, except that he takes special pleasure in puncturing lies, hypocrisy, propaganda, and historical taboos. With Mr. Fields, we must rely on the ancient rule: the proof is in the pudding.
 

• Alas, we have heard once again from our erratic and peripatetic correspondent, Mr. Fields, who has induced me to offer you this parlous dispatch:

"Humanoid Action: A mini-treatise on economics and things like that"

(Posted March 23, 2013.)

• Ron Paul may have finished only third in Iowa, but in light of what all the respectable ladies and gentlemen are saying about the man, Mr. Fields is convinced that he still deserves the utmost vigilance and the closest scrutiny:

"Ron Paul's America —
Orwell's Oceania a paradise in contrast"

(Posted January 4, 2012.)

• We've gotten a few "Stop and think" installments from the intrepid Mr. Fields over the past few years, scribbled on scraps of tent fabric under unimaginably adverse conditions, but I am pleased as punch to reveal that he has now returned safely from his six years in Tibet, put down his Yeti gun, and taken up the keyboard to record in the longer form his impressions of current goings-on here in the multicultural imperial socialist utopia: "Debt-ceiling Armageddon!" (Posted July 23, 2011.)

• Braaak! Braaak! I'm raising the TLD Satire Alert Status to Code Red, for Mr. Fields is back: "Neocons 'out' Cindy Sheehan as Communist Peace-Nazi hatemongering subversive." (Posted August 16, 2005.)

There's an interesting aspect to the genesis of this piece. Mr. Fields and I were talking about Mrs. Sheehan and some of the things she's said recently, and we began tossing predictions back and forth about just how she was going to be chastised. Mr. Fields then checked the Website he names in his article, and sure enough it was confirmed again, and at a startling level of detail, that he and I really know our neocons.

• If "Ignorance Is Strength," as Big Brother told the Oceanians, what awesome power can drooling idiocy convey? A radio speech on June 18 by our own Dumb Little Brother has inspired Mr. Fields to pen some gentle meditations on that subject: "'We'uns wuz attakked!' / Stupidity and political success." (June 29)

• If you think pro sports in our time are hopelessly degraded, I won't say you're wrong, but you may benefit from a wider perspective, offered here by TLD's answer to Grantland Rice: "'Cowardly' pugilists and 'courageous' statesmen." (June 16)

• Mr. Fields seeks to explicate for us a high-toned disquisition on Truth and its absence delivered on the grounds of the Presidential Palace: "Disassemblin' them goolags with Dubya and the goof-doctors." (June 7)

• An intrepid British explorer dared venture into the Dark Continent of Bushdom, whereupon something terribly embarrassing befell an entire bloat of bellicose hippopotami. Who better to offer us an account of the tragedy than our always mordant Mr. Fields? — "Charged with peace crime: George Galloway and the congressional inquisitors." (May 26)

• The rebarbative, rambunctious, rumbustious Mr. Fields returns, with "George Washington: The dark side." Mr. Fields has invited me to declare to TLD readers that these observations, posted on Presidents' Day 2005, are unbalanced, unnuanced, and altogether unreflective of the natural sentiments of ordinary Americans. Still, they had to be written; they had to be posted; and, I insist, they have to be read; and let whatever fur fly that is moved to take wing. (February 21, 2005)

Sidelight. Were you aware that the third Monday in February isn't really Presidents' Day? Not by law, it isn't. The federal holiday was so denominated in a ukase of the Emperor Nixon in 1971. Mr. Fields tipped me to this official government Web page that explains it all: www.usemb.se/Holidays/celebrate/presiden.html.

• Having done his best to watch the first presidential "debate," Mr. Fields submits a report tinctured with all the compassion, sensitivity, and forbearance that we have grown to expect from him: "Encounter in Fantasyland: Mr. Chimp and Dr. Win-the-War." (October 4, 2004)

• Mr. Fields has had some experience with the Hate Crime Police, and he hopes that a responsible, compassionate, civic-minded, humanitarian, diversity-sensitive attempt to understand a recent love-motivated event in Palestine may earn him some points with the World Authorities: "At least we know what is not a hate crime." (March 26)

• In December 2003 and January 2004 we had another encounter with a reader — this time from Germany — on the ultimate taboo of the modern West, and this time Mr. Fields took the lead. (January 23, 2004)

• WorldNetDaily's Miss Ilana Mercer has done it again, according to Mr. Fields, and he can't help but use a bad word (in a bad, bad language) to describe it: "More merde from Mercer." (October 9, 2003)

• In the wake of Mr. Fields's piece on P.C. libertarianism (see next item) and the response it provoked, a reader says he'd like to see TLD make some stipulations about anti-Semitism. Speaking only for himself, Mr. Fields produces a few observations, in "Anti-Semitism, truth, and skepticism: A reply to a reader." (September 19)

• Ilana Mercer's column at WorldNetDaily about libertarians' loathing Israel has stirred up a frenzy of comment, and our own Mr. Fields hits the issue head on in "P.C. libertarianism and the Jewish taboo." Run, rabbits, run! (August 28)

• Those with especially long memories, extending as far back as the misty, legendary era of mid-March 2003, may remember having heard something about Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction. As it turns out, Your Government has just remembered them itself! But Mr. Fields seems to be having trouble grasping the new story: "'They're going to attack! Quick, let's destroy our weapons!'" (April 25)

• On the eve of St. Paddy's Day and a minute before the midnight of World War III, Mr. Fields delivers two cheers for the tongue-loosening power of Irish whiskey, in "The genie is out of the bottle, or, Who can't see the elephant in the room?" (March 16)

• The descent accelerates at The American Conservative, and even our prescient Mr. Fields is taken aback, as he writes in "The Vyshinsky of the philo-Semites." (March 3)

• Mr. Fields applies the insights of Randolph Bourne to our current plight and comes up with a double diagnosis in "Healthy State, moribund people." (February 26)

• A highly touted paleo publication has come down with some pretty painful knee trouble, writes Mr. Fields in "Paleocon pusillanimity." (February 22)

• Once again flying in the face of the Orange Meanies, Mr. Fields asks, "Was that democracy speaking?" (February 18)

• The irrepressible Mr. Fields assesses the recent performance of the Hon. Mr. Colin Powell in "Visions of war propaganda past." I keep telling Fields that his obsession with history isn't healthy and probably isn't even legal anymore, but he just won't listen. (February 13, 2003)

• A visitor to TLD declines to donate to The Cause after spotting our link to the Institute for Historical Review, and commentary ensues from both Mr. Fields and Nicholas Strakon. (September 2, 2002)

• Mr. Fields offers a brief but bright observation about the dimness at Kmart. (January 21, 2002)