In a post on December 21st at her vanity website, Jane Fonda declares that, to combat a recent episode of ennui, she has decided to build a shrine to herself.  The decision was made on her birthday, during her one-hour meditation period.

The shrine is to be nothing especially monumental she says, just “a small place where I can put things that remind me, conjure up in me, the qualities that represent my best self.  I will spend the new year collecting objects and symbols that will do that.  One will be from my 4th grade school report.  Things that remind me that I’m brave.  I’ve been forgetting that.  I will put a special candle on the shrine and burn sandalwood and put some special Native American artifacts that I’ve treasured over the years in honor of the Mohawk Nation where my Fonda ancestors built their homestead.”

Since Fonda now seems to have developed the patina of a national treasure, with an impressive resume as an actress, political agitator, Black Panthers supporter, aerobics guru, broadcaster for Hanoi Radio, Palestinian supporter, and all-around American traitor, we should all help to restore her self-esteem if we can.  For my part, I have mailed her a memento from her past, something she may still believe is representative of her “best self”, and something which perfectly illustrates her bravery.  It is a 1972 photograph, above at right, of her sitting on and looking through the gunsight of a piece of North Vietnamese anti-aircraft artillery, the same type that mortally wounded so many U.S. aircraft over the North’s capital city.  If they survived the shootdown, of course, the pilots went into the North Vietnamese prisoner of war system, exemplified by the infamous Hanoi Hilton.

Happy birthday, Janey.