He writes the way Mailer and Hemingway wrote, with verve and masculinity–and I’m not being sexist about that; it’s just a kind of hard polish in his outlook–hard and grizzled and with enough Weltschmerz to sink a battleship. Along the way, as he gazes intently, probing the scale of human character, he casts a sideward-glance, notes the three tall, African beauties passing inscrutably on the dirt road.

Now Bageant has joined the tradition of our best expatriate writers. Henry James, Hemingway, Richard Wright, Henry Miller and others–did good time abroad in order to contemplate America’s “air-conditioned nightmare” from the comparable sanity of another land.

I’ve one small quarrel with you here, good Joe. Given all you know, and all you’ve written above, why bother to vote? Why continue the charade? The bastards are spreading their swag and bling here, too–in the form of pay-outs to the media, to corporate heads, to lobbyists, military brass and defense contractors, and countless other insiders and top-siders. So, why continue to play their game now that you’ve succeeded in removing yourself so far away you can see the big game even better?

Thanks for the truth-telling and the hard-gazing and those side-glances at beauty.