We had every intention of blogging at least once or twice while away in Europe last month and this, but we really had more than enough to do just experiencing things without tackling more writing than we normally do, which is actually quite a lot since we always keep a daily journal (we call it "the bullshit book") and write a couple thousand words about each piece of theatre we see. So the description and reflection have had to wait until now.
We shifted our annual trip abroad by a couple months this year to celebrate our newfound freedom to travel outside the peak tourist season and also to see what difference it would make to experience familiar locations at a different time of year.
The result? London is pretty much the same all year round, except for average temperatures being somewhat lower or higher. Rain is a constant. The crowds, the congestion, the pollution, the malfunctioning services, and the brilliant cultural attractions are steady factors year round.
But the French countryside in October is...well, seriously transformed compared to August. Rural France is a seasonal affair attuned to the eternal cycle of planting and harvest, not to mention the cycle of teaming vacationers drawn to the many remarkable tourist sites, such as picturesque medieval villages, walled cities, grottoes, and prehistoric cave art-- overrun in summer, charmingly deserted in the fall.
Along these lines, we had two distinct sorts of experiences this year: very rich theatre and museum going taken at breakneck pace in London, and very relaxed and inspirational participation in the rural activities of the Dordogne region of southwest France.
I know no one really wants to read more than superficially about someone else's vacation. Even bloggers mustn't be arrogant enough to think otherwise, so let's just take one sample of each of those experiences and call it done.
In our opinion the most significant theatrical event of the current season is David Hare's new play "Stuff Happens" at the National Theatre. Hare sets himself the task of depicting in full detail how America and Britain came to be entangled in the Iraq mess that we seem to share. It is an even-handed, but powerful examination of history that's so recent that it's still bleeding. Alex Jennings, one of England's most exciting classical actors, is a slack-jawed, but not dim-witted George W. Bush; the comic genius Des Barrit is a VERY SCARY Dick Cheney; Nicholas Farrell the deeply betrayed but ever-stalwart Tony Blair, and the American actor Joe Morton is the closest we have to a hero here as the cautious, loyal, sensible, diplomatic, and ultimately frustrated Colin Powell. All your other favorites are there as well, Rummy, Condi, Wolfy and many more speaking lines taken from the public record and, then, when necessary, remarkably scripted by Hare to fit as well as possible with what is known about private meetings and conversations.
"Stuff Happens" is about as timely as theatre gets, and Hare has crafted a work that could, if it were seen by enough people, change attitudes and affect elections more than any debate or stump speech. Of course, the problem is that maybe three or four thousand people see it in a week, and very few of those are American voters. But it will run for awhile, and I'd not be surprised if it becomes a film one day soon.
Our most memorable day in France, though, was timely only in the sense that mid-October is harvest time for the local vineyards, and when it's time to pick grapes they can use all the hands they can get. We stay with friends who are just retired from teaching like ourselves, and their neighboring village commune invited us all to lend a hand last Saturday with the vendange of a relatively small vineyard--the size that about 20 people can rip through in one day. So there we are amidst all these very friendly, loquacious French men and woman--many of them considerably older than we are--stooping over the vines with our secateurs and snipping off all those little bunches of wine grapes and filling our paniers time after time. It's the kind of healthy labor that must at least in part account for the longevity of these folks, and it was the kind of experience that many California urbanites would pay for.
We, of course, didn't have to pay, nor were we paid except by inclusion in the most incredible communal mid-day meal. There's no need to detail the seven courses, except to say it wasn't anything like having dinner at some trendy French restaurant in, say, San Francisco. It was simple peasant fare prepared with love and gratitude, served to all hands at one long table in the landowner's--Jean-Claude and Claudette's-- living room which for the day had been converted into a dining room. Indeed, our hostess talked assertively about preferring the term "peasant" to describe her station in life. She sees nothing to be ashamed of, and neither do we.
Needless to say the meal was received and consumed with authentic appreciation and enthusiasm over a period of two hours before we all trekked back out to the vineyard to finish off the harvest. Absolutely unforgettable!
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Real Reading
I have been riding on Charlie's coattails of summer reading, but I have had time to reflect on the sort of books we have been choosing lately. And I have noticed an interesting pattern to my reading choices--each book included at the end an acknowledgment, or bibliography or appendix or the author's research. All are firmly grounded in historical fact. "The Dante Club," "The Road to Wellville," and most recently, British novelist Ian McEwan's 1997 novel, "Enduring Love," are all the creations of gifted novelists who have grounded their stories in deep and meticulous research.
Matthew Pearl is, himself, a Dante scholar, but it is clear that he is equally an expert in the New England poets who are the reluctant detectives of this literary murder mystery. The story is alive with the details of post-Civil War Boston and Cambridge; you can smell and feel the crowds on the horse trolleys, the closeness of Longfellow's study, and the iciness of winter. But more griping is the psychological underpinnings of Longfellow, James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes and the dynamics between them. Clearly Pearl has done his homework.
T.C.Boyle's "The Road to Wellville" like "The Dante Club" has a number of characters that are purely the author's invention, but they swirl around the very real Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and the historic phenomenon of the cereal wars of Battle Creek, Michigan. The story is chocked full of bizarre cures, and a reader might be tempted to dismiss them as Boyle's satiric fancy if it weren't for the fact that the novel is peppered with authentic photos of some of these therapies from Dr. Kellogg's sanitarium. Couple that with the serious bibliography and you can tell you are firmly grounded in the world of historical fact.
"Enduring Love," an apt pun for a book about a man putting up with an obsessive and unwanted fixation, is McEwan's 1997 novel. The object of the attention is a science writer, who eventually pinpoints the problem as de Clerambault's syndrome. Yes, that is an authentic psychotic disorder, and not only does McEwan have the appendix at the back of the novel to prove, it, he also includes the case history that was the basis for his novel. McEwan has transformed the case study into a work of literature; nevertheless, the characters and plot have a real life existence.
Although each of these novelists has a unique style, and each book is as different from the other as it is possible to be, what Pearl, Boyle and McEwan have in common are stories grounded in real life events. They are all delving deep into libraries, archives and studies for the bones of their characters and plots, but then crafting their research into works of literary art. Rather than taking their readers on flights of fancy or trips of magical reality, these writers find meaningful themes in the complex and subtle behavior of folks who have walked among us.
At moments I have paused to think about these figures in a way I haven't in other novels. I have really wondered at man's complexity, and infinite variety.
Matthew Pearl is, himself, a Dante scholar, but it is clear that he is equally an expert in the New England poets who are the reluctant detectives of this literary murder mystery. The story is alive with the details of post-Civil War Boston and Cambridge; you can smell and feel the crowds on the horse trolleys, the closeness of Longfellow's study, and the iciness of winter. But more griping is the psychological underpinnings of Longfellow, James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes and the dynamics between them. Clearly Pearl has done his homework.
T.C.Boyle's "The Road to Wellville" like "The Dante Club" has a number of characters that are purely the author's invention, but they swirl around the very real Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and the historic phenomenon of the cereal wars of Battle Creek, Michigan. The story is chocked full of bizarre cures, and a reader might be tempted to dismiss them as Boyle's satiric fancy if it weren't for the fact that the novel is peppered with authentic photos of some of these therapies from Dr. Kellogg's sanitarium. Couple that with the serious bibliography and you can tell you are firmly grounded in the world of historical fact.
"Enduring Love," an apt pun for a book about a man putting up with an obsessive and unwanted fixation, is McEwan's 1997 novel. The object of the attention is a science writer, who eventually pinpoints the problem as de Clerambault's syndrome. Yes, that is an authentic psychotic disorder, and not only does McEwan have the appendix at the back of the novel to prove, it, he also includes the case history that was the basis for his novel. McEwan has transformed the case study into a work of literature; nevertheless, the characters and plot have a real life existence.
Although each of these novelists has a unique style, and each book is as different from the other as it is possible to be, what Pearl, Boyle and McEwan have in common are stories grounded in real life events. They are all delving deep into libraries, archives and studies for the bones of their characters and plots, but then crafting their research into works of literary art. Rather than taking their readers on flights of fancy or trips of magical reality, these writers find meaningful themes in the complex and subtle behavior of folks who have walked among us.
At moments I have paused to think about these figures in a way I haven't in other novels. I have really wondered at man's complexity, and infinite variety.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Leisure. What a concept!
So, you may ask, what's it like to be retired from teaching? After the sudden hot spell that hit over Labor Day weekend, clearly it's much cooler than the alternative. We remarked between us several times last week how glad we were not to be spending our days in those stifling classrooms, but that's not the only way that retirement appeals to us.
It's the pace of life that changes: the true relaxation that comes when you're not under constant pressure to accomplish some teaching-related task--short-term preparation, long-range planning, correcting student writing, writing college recommendations, going to meetings, analyzing test data, and dealing with school politics. It's all draining and stressful, and it lasts throughout the school year. In the brave new world of immutable standards and accountability, it really carries on through the summer as well.
Yeah, I know, everybody's job is stressful, everybody has more to do than is possible to accomplish in a day, but a fully-engaged teacher has it in spades: You are paid to teach students, which most of us relish doing, but the actual classroom contact time somehow becomes time subtracted from the hours in the day that must be used to do all the other behind the scenes tasks that are piled on. You teach all day, but it's only after the students take off, late in the afternoon, that the job begins. And that part of the job never finishes; you just have to decide on your own appropriate quitting time. For us, that was about usually 10 p.m., if we were lucky.
It's escaping that desperate, hopeless pace that makes retirement so attractive. Suddenly there's time commensurate with what's on the agenda for the day. And when that sinks in, it's glorious. Summer acts as a sort of buffer zone that seems familiar, but now that school has started again, we can't help reciting all the routines of launching the academic year that aren't playing out this year: that first set of writing samples from ninth graders that you need to mark meticulously--preferably this first weekend--to give students an idea of what high school writing standards are going to be, or laying the ground work for the first reflective essay from a 10 GATE class, or working through our English Lit. overview unit tying together writers ranging from the Anglo-Saxons, Wordsworth, and Shakespeare to Kipling and the Clash. And then there's always the department's writing format to plough through.
Part of the relief is not having to repeat one's own brilliant lessons another time, but even better is the sense that you don't have to keep beating your head against that wall anymore. The enterprise is generally one of continually trying your best to give something very valuable to someone who doesn't want it. The energy involved in perfecting the gift and making it useful to each individual student is inexorably drained away in the mere process of handing it over to unwilling recipients--convincing them simply to accept the gift for what it is.
Leisure, then, becomes this refreshing feeling of using one's time effectively, even selfishly, having space to fill rather than infinite obligations to cram into limited space. It's taking one thing at a time rather than everything at once.
And having the opportunity to reflect on the events of our life and times.
It's the pace of life that changes: the true relaxation that comes when you're not under constant pressure to accomplish some teaching-related task--short-term preparation, long-range planning, correcting student writing, writing college recommendations, going to meetings, analyzing test data, and dealing with school politics. It's all draining and stressful, and it lasts throughout the school year. In the brave new world of immutable standards and accountability, it really carries on through the summer as well.
Yeah, I know, everybody's job is stressful, everybody has more to do than is possible to accomplish in a day, but a fully-engaged teacher has it in spades: You are paid to teach students, which most of us relish doing, but the actual classroom contact time somehow becomes time subtracted from the hours in the day that must be used to do all the other behind the scenes tasks that are piled on. You teach all day, but it's only after the students take off, late in the afternoon, that the job begins. And that part of the job never finishes; you just have to decide on your own appropriate quitting time. For us, that was about usually 10 p.m., if we were lucky.
It's escaping that desperate, hopeless pace that makes retirement so attractive. Suddenly there's time commensurate with what's on the agenda for the day. And when that sinks in, it's glorious. Summer acts as a sort of buffer zone that seems familiar, but now that school has started again, we can't help reciting all the routines of launching the academic year that aren't playing out this year: that first set of writing samples from ninth graders that you need to mark meticulously--preferably this first weekend--to give students an idea of what high school writing standards are going to be, or laying the ground work for the first reflective essay from a 10 GATE class, or working through our English Lit. overview unit tying together writers ranging from the Anglo-Saxons, Wordsworth, and Shakespeare to Kipling and the Clash. And then there's always the department's writing format to plough through.
Part of the relief is not having to repeat one's own brilliant lessons another time, but even better is the sense that you don't have to keep beating your head against that wall anymore. The enterprise is generally one of continually trying your best to give something very valuable to someone who doesn't want it. The energy involved in perfecting the gift and making it useful to each individual student is inexorably drained away in the mere process of handing it over to unwilling recipients--convincing them simply to accept the gift for what it is.
Leisure, then, becomes this refreshing feeling of using one's time effectively, even selfishly, having space to fill rather than infinite obligations to cram into limited space. It's taking one thing at a time rather than everything at once.
And having the opportunity to reflect on the events of our life and times.
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Garrison Keillor on the Republican Party
This piece by Garrison Keillor arrived in today's email as a sort of chain letter, and deserves being passed on by one means or the other. I suspect it comes from his just-published book Homegrown Democrat. It's hard to find fault with this analysis:
WE'RE NOT IN LAKE WOBEGON ANYMORE
How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty transmogrify into the party of Newt Gingrich’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk?
By Garrison Keillor
Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned—and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.
In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. “Bipartisanship is another term of date rape,” says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.
The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.
Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace.
Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy—the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president’s personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.
The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good.
Our beloved land has been fogged with fear—fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich.
There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn’t the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it’s 9/11 that we keep coming back to. It wasn’t the “end of innocence,” or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn’t prevent people from asking hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.
Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term.
This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.
The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.
This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger.
Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It’s a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning.
WE'RE NOT IN LAKE WOBEGON ANYMORE
How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty transmogrify into the party of Newt Gingrich’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk?
By Garrison Keillor
Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned—and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.
In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. “Bipartisanship is another term of date rape,” says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.
The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.
Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace.
Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy—the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president’s personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.
The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good.
Our beloved land has been fogged with fear—fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich.
There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn’t the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it’s 9/11 that we keep coming back to. It wasn’t the “end of innocence,” or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn’t prevent people from asking hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.
Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term.
This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.
The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.
This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger.
Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It’s a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning.
Summer Reading
One of the great things about summer vacation has always been the unstructured time that allows reading for personal pleasure. The school year was always like a dark tunnel that allowed almost no time to read other than keeping up with a few essential periodicals and, of course, reading student essays. This is a pathetic position for an English teacher to find himself in, but the predictable pattern was that any novel I started after Labor Day was not likely to be finished until Christmas vacation, and if I dared to start something else at that time, it would not be finished until spring break. At that point I was likely to give up entirely until summer started. I could usually read a half dozen sizable novels during that glorious span, choosing and consuming books even more quickly while traveling abroad when there wasn't even household projects or gardening to get in the way.
Now, summer reading can extend year 'round, but I thought I'd use this blog space to record--perhaps seasonally--comments and reactions to what I'm reading. Jan used to ask Englophile readers to recount and review their summer reading in her first or second edition of the year, so naturally, anyone reading this (either of you!) is encouraged to add your own book picks or comment on whatever I've said here. Just click that "comments" link below and you're ready to blog.
THE DANTE CLUB/Matthew Pearl: A literary mystery set in post Civil War Boston/Cambridge. The sleuths here are the American poets Longfellow, Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr., not Jr. the jurist., who does, though, figure here peripherally), their publisher and the historian George Washington Greene. Together they form the "Dante Club," whose devotion is the first American translation of Dante's Comedy. Before Longfellow, the mastermind of the project, and his helpers can even get through The Inferno, Boston's civic elite start falling one-by-one to a serial killer with a penchant for copying Dante's hellish designs. Our club realizes that America's cultural advancement depends on finding and taking out the killer without letting on their understanding of the pattern at work. A first novel; brilliant combination of detective fiction conventions with literary history. Wonderfully researched, buoyant writing.
VERNON GOD LITTLE/DBS Pierre: The quirkiest, most outrageous novel I read this summer. The stylistic homage to Catcher in the Rye is unmistakable, but Pierre makes Salinger seem a little timid and restrained in all directions. Teenage protagonist Vernon G. Little (middle name varies with context) takes us on an insightfully guided tour of trailer trash Texas in the grips of a school shooting hysteria. Black comedy with a silver lining. This is an invigorating must-read for teachers who have plowed though Catcher time and again.
THE LIFE OF PI/Yann Martel: I'd "conferenced" this with several students last year when it was Santa Barbara Reads' novel of the season, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much more there is to the book that I'd previously thought. This is great reading no matter how popular it gets. Martel starts with an authentic sounding "author's note," which blends logically and immediately into the novel so as to smoothly blur the distinction between fact and fiction. Perhaps I'm just gullible, but I got thinking this really happened. There's powerful commentary here about Man's relationship with animals and the essential nature of living creatures. Controlled, precise prose that deserves the accolades heaped on it.
THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE/T.C. Boyle: Boyle writes 'em faster than I can read 'em, but it's hard not to get caught up in his characters and their lives. This one takes us to Battle Creek, Michigan in the days of the charismatic health nut Dr. John Kellogg and the breakfast cereal boom, sharing a good deal of territory with Boyle's other tale of American health fads for the pre-income tax monied class. It becomes clear just how much ground vegetarianism and alternative medicine has had to make up to reach modern-day acceptance.
PASADENA/David Ebershoff: A big, sprawling, melodramatic novel, consciously retreading ground first covered by the Bronte sisters and Thomas Hardy. In fact, the opening chapters welcome readers with a brilliant evocation of Wuthering Heights re-set in Southern California in the waning months of World War II. Having grown up in Pasadena, it is particularly easy to follow Ebershoff's meticulously detailed narrative and descriptions, but the story is about interesting people as well as interesting times. It's an intricately built love story of grand scope that makes you want to tell someone "the story," just as it's being set out in the novel by a real estate agent providing what amounts to "full disclosure" for an important piece of property she's trying to move. Jan hates it when I do that, so it has been difficult keeping it to myself. The writing takes us back to an earlier era when people felt things deeper but talked less than we do now--or at least than contemporary authors portray. It's satisfying reading, but takes a little getting used to if you're coming off something spare, understated, or persistently ironic-- John Updike or Phillip Roth, for instance--but give it a chance to grow on you.
Happy reading,
Chas.
Now, summer reading can extend year 'round, but I thought I'd use this blog space to record--perhaps seasonally--comments and reactions to what I'm reading. Jan used to ask Englophile readers to recount and review their summer reading in her first or second edition of the year, so naturally, anyone reading this (either of you!) is encouraged to add your own book picks or comment on whatever I've said here. Just click that "comments" link below and you're ready to blog.
THE DANTE CLUB/Matthew Pearl: A literary mystery set in post Civil War Boston/Cambridge. The sleuths here are the American poets Longfellow, Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr., not Jr. the jurist., who does, though, figure here peripherally), their publisher and the historian George Washington Greene. Together they form the "Dante Club," whose devotion is the first American translation of Dante's Comedy. Before Longfellow, the mastermind of the project, and his helpers can even get through The Inferno, Boston's civic elite start falling one-by-one to a serial killer with a penchant for copying Dante's hellish designs. Our club realizes that America's cultural advancement depends on finding and taking out the killer without letting on their understanding of the pattern at work. A first novel; brilliant combination of detective fiction conventions with literary history. Wonderfully researched, buoyant writing.
VERNON GOD LITTLE/DBS Pierre: The quirkiest, most outrageous novel I read this summer. The stylistic homage to Catcher in the Rye is unmistakable, but Pierre makes Salinger seem a little timid and restrained in all directions. Teenage protagonist Vernon G. Little (middle name varies with context) takes us on an insightfully guided tour of trailer trash Texas in the grips of a school shooting hysteria. Black comedy with a silver lining. This is an invigorating must-read for teachers who have plowed though Catcher time and again.
THE LIFE OF PI/Yann Martel: I'd "conferenced" this with several students last year when it was Santa Barbara Reads' novel of the season, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much more there is to the book that I'd previously thought. This is great reading no matter how popular it gets. Martel starts with an authentic sounding "author's note," which blends logically and immediately into the novel so as to smoothly blur the distinction between fact and fiction. Perhaps I'm just gullible, but I got thinking this really happened. There's powerful commentary here about Man's relationship with animals and the essential nature of living creatures. Controlled, precise prose that deserves the accolades heaped on it.
THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE/T.C. Boyle: Boyle writes 'em faster than I can read 'em, but it's hard not to get caught up in his characters and their lives. This one takes us to Battle Creek, Michigan in the days of the charismatic health nut Dr. John Kellogg and the breakfast cereal boom, sharing a good deal of territory with Boyle's other tale of American health fads for the pre-income tax monied class. It becomes clear just how much ground vegetarianism and alternative medicine has had to make up to reach modern-day acceptance.
PASADENA/David Ebershoff: A big, sprawling, melodramatic novel, consciously retreading ground first covered by the Bronte sisters and Thomas Hardy. In fact, the opening chapters welcome readers with a brilliant evocation of Wuthering Heights re-set in Southern California in the waning months of World War II. Having grown up in Pasadena, it is particularly easy to follow Ebershoff's meticulously detailed narrative and descriptions, but the story is about interesting people as well as interesting times. It's an intricately built love story of grand scope that makes you want to tell someone "the story," just as it's being set out in the novel by a real estate agent providing what amounts to "full disclosure" for an important piece of property she's trying to move. Jan hates it when I do that, so it has been difficult keeping it to myself. The writing takes us back to an earlier era when people felt things deeper but talked less than we do now--or at least than contemporary authors portray. It's satisfying reading, but takes a little getting used to if you're coming off something spare, understated, or persistently ironic-- John Updike or Phillip Roth, for instance--but give it a chance to grow on you.
Happy reading,
Chas.
Monday, August 30, 2004
Gone But Not Forgotten
A newly retired colleague asked me recently, "If I recycle/burn all evidence of my teaching past, does that mean it is gone forever?"
My initial reaction was that she was asking about larger issues. As King Lear says, "it smells of mortality."
I guess what retirement makes us contemplate is whether we have vanished or not. At a practical level, it is nearly impossible to obliterate all evidence of a lifetime career; there are always little scraps left behind. I recall a fellow teacher telling me how she kept running across little treasures, of the teacher whose room she inherited when he retired. She regarded them as clues as to who he was.
I have liquidated nearly all of my files, at least in hard copy; I have, in fact, bequeathed whole drawerfuls of lessons and materials to younger colleagues who might find them useful. There are still folders full in my computer. But there are plenty more stored in my mind, as well. And memory is a powerful force. I believe that my "teaching past" and my influence continues to exist in both my mind and in the minds and lives of students I taught and touched.
Of course, you can't make a difference in every student's life, but I always tried to work at "my personal best." I always felt that what I was doing was a noble calling, and looking back, I feel I spent my life in a worthwhile fashion. If I moved a student to think or feel more deeply or differently about the world and people around him, then I had really accomplished something. Those successes didn't come every day, but they occurred often enough.
As long as those students love reading and discussing literature and pondering the human condition, then I leave a legacy behind that exists wholly apart from my lesson plans and teaching tenure. The human touch outlasts the tangible evidence.
In addition, there are a number of my students who decided to be English majors, and even teachers. So even if I could eradicate every shred of lessons, or other paper trail detritus, there are students out there, keeping my "teaching past" burning bright.
Jan
My initial reaction was that she was asking about larger issues. As King Lear says, "it smells of mortality."
I guess what retirement makes us contemplate is whether we have vanished or not. At a practical level, it is nearly impossible to obliterate all evidence of a lifetime career; there are always little scraps left behind. I recall a fellow teacher telling me how she kept running across little treasures, of the teacher whose room she inherited when he retired. She regarded them as clues as to who he was.
I have liquidated nearly all of my files, at least in hard copy; I have, in fact, bequeathed whole drawerfuls of lessons and materials to younger colleagues who might find them useful. There are still folders full in my computer. But there are plenty more stored in my mind, as well. And memory is a powerful force. I believe that my "teaching past" and my influence continues to exist in both my mind and in the minds and lives of students I taught and touched.
Of course, you can't make a difference in every student's life, but I always tried to work at "my personal best." I always felt that what I was doing was a noble calling, and looking back, I feel I spent my life in a worthwhile fashion. If I moved a student to think or feel more deeply or differently about the world and people around him, then I had really accomplished something. Those successes didn't come every day, but they occurred often enough.
As long as those students love reading and discussing literature and pondering the human condition, then I leave a legacy behind that exists wholly apart from my lesson plans and teaching tenure. The human touch outlasts the tangible evidence.
In addition, there are a number of my students who decided to be English majors, and even teachers. So even if I could eradicate every shred of lessons, or other paper trail detritus, there are students out there, keeping my "teaching past" burning bright.
Jan
Saturday, August 21, 2004
Lying Veterans and the Lies They Tell
"[I]n the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts." -Sherwood Anderson, "Winesburg, Ohio"
Does it come as a surprise to anyone that this presidential campaign has turned nasty? Not just nasty, but REALLY NAAAASTY! We are seeing Navy veterans in their late 50s and 60s who have stored up resentments for over 30 years viciously leap at the opportunity to vent their spleens now that someone may listen to them spew. Typical of this sort of bitterness gone rancid is that its purveyors want to pass it off as "truth." What a loaded, ironic, and ultimately useless word for political passions born amidst our ill-fated military exploits in Vietnam.
The muck these days is being brewed and stirred by a small collection of former naval officers who built very successful careers in the military, in business and in corporate law over the past three decades. Part of their comfortable lives has, of course, been founded in their allegiance to the party of ever-growing military budgets and substantial tax cuts for the wealthy. Like sleeping dogs, though, they were recently prodded as if kicked in the ribs by a pointy boot--in this case a Kerry biography published this spring titled "Tour of Duty" by Douglas Brinkley. On top of that, the Democrats have had the audacity to tout the uncontested military heroism of their candidate.
So the "truth" has to come out. In service of that truth, though, all manner of lies, deceptions, distortions, and disgraceful behavior is justified. The origin of the current vitriol is doubtlessly in the guts of these disgruntled veterans who never adjusted to our nation's obvious defeat in a protracted, unpopular war. John Kerry had the courage to both do his duty as a naval officer, but then when mustered out, also do his duty to his conscience and to the larger citizenry in whose name so much damage had been done.
The second ad from the Lying Swift Bush Hatchetmen gets a lot closer than the first to what has really been gnawing at these until now disorganized and disaffected veterans: Kerry's 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The "script" here is the message of outrage these veterans feel toward Kerry's description of "atrocities" committed by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. What the script doesn't tell the audience is that Kerry is not making accusations, is not spreading stories about his former comrades, nor is he making assertions that all soldiers fit those descriptions. What he is doing at that point in his testimony is reviewing for the senators information and anecdotes that came to light during the "Winter Soldier Investigation" in Detroit earlier in 1971, where more than 150 honorably discharged veterans talked openly about war crimes they had committed in South East Asia. He was essentially passing on the confessions of soldiers who were still in the process of unburdening their souls.
If it's Truth, this current group wants to stand for, then why are they so willing to lie and distort?
The answer is that for years these guys have lived with images of Kerry in his camouflage fatigue jacket mixing with the scruffy combat vets protesting what they'd witnessed in the rice fields and hamlets of Vietnam; they'd had to suffer quietly while figures such as Ron Kovic held the spotlight from his wheelchair chained to the White House fence; and until now they've had to content themselves with targets the size of Jane Fonda.
Now, following the Democratic National Convention, they've finally found a chance to howl. So they whip out these ads, which, of course, the nation has to at least cock an ear to and dig back for a few facts to evaluate.
But the facts are there, and I think this country still has a taste for truth if they have time to find it. To begin with, we could check out exactly what John Kerry said in his Senate testimony
Chas.
Does it come as a surprise to anyone that this presidential campaign has turned nasty? Not just nasty, but REALLY NAAAASTY! We are seeing Navy veterans in their late 50s and 60s who have stored up resentments for over 30 years viciously leap at the opportunity to vent their spleens now that someone may listen to them spew. Typical of this sort of bitterness gone rancid is that its purveyors want to pass it off as "truth." What a loaded, ironic, and ultimately useless word for political passions born amidst our ill-fated military exploits in Vietnam.
The muck these days is being brewed and stirred by a small collection of former naval officers who built very successful careers in the military, in business and in corporate law over the past three decades. Part of their comfortable lives has, of course, been founded in their allegiance to the party of ever-growing military budgets and substantial tax cuts for the wealthy. Like sleeping dogs, though, they were recently prodded as if kicked in the ribs by a pointy boot--in this case a Kerry biography published this spring titled "Tour of Duty" by Douglas Brinkley. On top of that, the Democrats have had the audacity to tout the uncontested military heroism of their candidate.
So the "truth" has to come out. In service of that truth, though, all manner of lies, deceptions, distortions, and disgraceful behavior is justified. The origin of the current vitriol is doubtlessly in the guts of these disgruntled veterans who never adjusted to our nation's obvious defeat in a protracted, unpopular war. John Kerry had the courage to both do his duty as a naval officer, but then when mustered out, also do his duty to his conscience and to the larger citizenry in whose name so much damage had been done.
The second ad from the Lying Swift Bush Hatchetmen gets a lot closer than the first to what has really been gnawing at these until now disorganized and disaffected veterans: Kerry's 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The "script" here is the message of outrage these veterans feel toward Kerry's description of "atrocities" committed by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. What the script doesn't tell the audience is that Kerry is not making accusations, is not spreading stories about his former comrades, nor is he making assertions that all soldiers fit those descriptions. What he is doing at that point in his testimony is reviewing for the senators information and anecdotes that came to light during the "Winter Soldier Investigation" in Detroit earlier in 1971, where more than 150 honorably discharged veterans talked openly about war crimes they had committed in South East Asia. He was essentially passing on the confessions of soldiers who were still in the process of unburdening their souls.
If it's Truth, this current group wants to stand for, then why are they so willing to lie and distort?
The answer is that for years these guys have lived with images of Kerry in his camouflage fatigue jacket mixing with the scruffy combat vets protesting what they'd witnessed in the rice fields and hamlets of Vietnam; they'd had to suffer quietly while figures such as Ron Kovic held the spotlight from his wheelchair chained to the White House fence; and until now they've had to content themselves with targets the size of Jane Fonda.
Now, following the Democratic National Convention, they've finally found a chance to howl. So they whip out these ads, which, of course, the nation has to at least cock an ear to and dig back for a few facts to evaluate.
But the facts are there, and I think this country still has a taste for truth if they have time to find it. To begin with, we could check out exactly what John Kerry said in his Senate testimony
Chas.
Sunday, August 15, 2004
Child's Play
Several years ago, when I was cleaning up and clearing out my kitchen bookshelves, I realized that the biggest space-wasters were Julia Child's two volumes of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." So, despite the fact that they were personally inscribed and autographed copies, and had the added sentimental value of being a gift from my dear mother-in-law, I decided they were headed for the discard box in the attic.
Sitting there on the kitchen floor that particular June day, I faced the fact that I didn't really use the books to cook from. To tell the truth, I think I had really only made three recipes out of them over the two decades I had had them. I had kept them primarily for their sentimental worth, and their iconic value.
In the last two days, the newspapers have been full of testimonials to Julia Child. Just today our local paper printed fond reminiscences of people at the farmer's market and local restaurants. I have always found her rather irascible, and some of her pronouncements about food were downright annoying. And French cooking is not particularly appealing, if you ask me.
But we can thank Julia Child for fostering a revolution in food and eating that has taken place in the last thirty years. When Julia came into American homes over the airwaves of PBS, she was the first to make cooking a fine art. It wasn't another tuna casserole, she was making. She was empowering American women in what had heretofore been the domain of European men. Her show and books signaled the start of a revolution in dining and entertaining at home . . . and in American restaurants, too. She taught us to be eclectic and undaunted in the kitchen. And it is the legions of accomplished home chefs who are Julia's children, happily at play in our kitchens.
Many of us have realized that mastering the art of French cooking isn't the highest aim. Personally I like a recipe with ingredients that you can count on the fingers of one hand. I don't generally like a multipage recipe with twenty ingredients, but that is an informed preference. I prefer the simplicity of Italian cuicina. Julia's books left my bookshelf to make way for Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray, and Jamie Oliver.
Julia's real power play was opening the door to possibilities.
Jan
Sitting there on the kitchen floor that particular June day, I faced the fact that I didn't really use the books to cook from. To tell the truth, I think I had really only made three recipes out of them over the two decades I had had them. I had kept them primarily for their sentimental worth, and their iconic value.
In the last two days, the newspapers have been full of testimonials to Julia Child. Just today our local paper printed fond reminiscences of people at the farmer's market and local restaurants. I have always found her rather irascible, and some of her pronouncements about food were downright annoying. And French cooking is not particularly appealing, if you ask me.
But we can thank Julia Child for fostering a revolution in food and eating that has taken place in the last thirty years. When Julia came into American homes over the airwaves of PBS, she was the first to make cooking a fine art. It wasn't another tuna casserole, she was making. She was empowering American women in what had heretofore been the domain of European men. Her show and books signaled the start of a revolution in dining and entertaining at home . . . and in American restaurants, too. She taught us to be eclectic and undaunted in the kitchen. And it is the legions of accomplished home chefs who are Julia's children, happily at play in our kitchens.
Many of us have realized that mastering the art of French cooking isn't the highest aim. Personally I like a recipe with ingredients that you can count on the fingers of one hand. I don't generally like a multipage recipe with twenty ingredients, but that is an informed preference. I prefer the simplicity of Italian cuicina. Julia's books left my bookshelf to make way for Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray, and Jamie Oliver.
Julia's real power play was opening the door to possibilities.
Jan
Friday, August 06, 2004
Why Is It Even Close?
Perhaps the most amazing and depressing aspect of the current presidential election campaign is the fact that all the polls tell us that at this point it is going to be a close race. How can that be?
Barely six weeks ago a group of 26 highly respected former American diplomats and military leaders came out against the Bush administration's conduct of foreign policy as "unilateral" and damaging to U.S. interest and prestige abroad. Their group, "Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change," includes former ambassadors appointed by presidents from both major U.S. political parties and retired career military leaders. Some members are quoted in newspapers as saying Bush's policies have undone the diplomatic results they and their colleagues have worked hard to achieve during their careers.
But still it's an extremely close election.
Piling on this week were 200 business leaders endorsing Kerry/Edwards. These individuals join the growing ranks of prominent business leaders like Warren Buffett, Lee Iacocca, Steve Jobs, Jim Sinegal, John Thompson and Barry Diller who are supporting change in Washington. The newest group includes Owsley Brown, Chairman and Chief Executive Brown-Forman; Peter Cheering, President and Chief Operating Officer News Corporation; Charles Gifford, Chairman of Bank of America Corporation; Charles Phillips, President of Oracle Corporation; and Penny Pritzker, President of Pritzker Realty Group.
But still it's an extremely close election.
And the next day, a broad range of America's most respected recording artists announced a six-pronged, eight-day concert blitz of key battleground states under the banner of a "Vote for Change Tour." How directly or passionately the artists may speak up on stage for John Kerry will vary among the individuals, but they all feel deeply that America is in danger at this point in history and the Bush/Cheney ticket must be turned away in November.
But still it's an extremely close election.
Equally noteworthy, to say the least, in mid-July more than 4,000 scientists — including 48 Nobel Prize winners and 127 members of the National Academy of Sciences — accused the Bush administration of distorting and suppressing science to suit its political goals. "Across a broad range of policy areas, the administration has undermined the quality and independence of the scientific advisory system and the morale of the government's outstanding scientific personnel," the Union of Concerned Scientists said in their letter.
But still it's an extremely close election.
Let's point out the obvious here: We are not hearing this message from a fringe of predictable political partisans. Set aside the vocal left in Hollywood--though they represent thoughtful analysis from some of our culture's most creative individuals. And ignore for the moment the not insignificant impact that Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is having nationwide. The outcry this year is coming from highly responsible, moderate, generally cautious leaders from every corner of American society. It makes one wonder, just who is left to support the Republican cause and its leadership.
How can this race be neck-and neck? And why would anyone at this point respond with "undecided" when ask for a choice? This week's New Yorker's lead commentary in The Talk of the Town asserts that "George W. Bush is the worst President the country has endured since Richard Nixon, and even mediocrity would be an improvement."
Yet, we are told, the contest will be a squeaker. How can it be?
This may sound dumb, but one has to wonder where all the bright-eyed, thoughtful, informed, logical, progressive-minded people who register as Democrats early-on in their adult lives go over the years. It's clear that youth leans left. When MTV celebrities urge their fans to Rock the Vote, or P-Diddy warns that it's a Vote or Die situation this year, they're not thinking of sending that vital 18-24 demographic to the polls to support the Republican agenda.
It's not universal, of course; there are plenty of Young Republican enclaves on college campuses across the nation, and there is no shortage of Democrats over 50, but stand back and look for broad political trends and it's clear that if all those young Democrats kept faith with their ideals as they aged and sorted themselves out into careers and personal pursuits, a presidential race with this degree of stark contrast between candidates would never be a close call. A lot of leopards, it would seem, are changing their stripes.
So what's happening?
First, let's dispense with those useless labels "liberal" and "conservative." They have become so laden with inaccurate connotations that they condemn any discussion of the American political spectrum to endless tail-chasing. I prefer the universal markers, left and right.
For various reasons, people move to the right as they experience more, compete for advancement, work toward lifetime goals, and start to feel successful. Selfishness, cynicism, stubbornness, and callousness all have a tendency to evince themselves in our behavior as we move from youth to middle-age. When we enter adulthood we have high ideals but little stake in the society that we'd like to reform. We have a natural urge to share and not to worry about where or when those shared resources will be replenished or repaid. As we take partners in life's enterprise, then become heads of families, we find there is territory to defend, careers to advance, wealth to guard, and even descendants to provide for.
We become evermore scornful and impatient with those who aren't keeping up. Why should we want to tie our fate to elements of society that aren't as competitive as we are, or who seem to always remain on the margin. Catch phrases like social justice, equality of opportunity, due process, civil liberties may ring clear when we are sitting in college seminars or when we first become aware that poverty and discrimination have human faces and historical consequences, but something tells us that no matter how we try, we won't be the breakthrough generation that cures this disease.
All this generates momentum toward the right. Those who don't make such great strides toward the American Dream are likely to remain firmly, even actively, on the left. Call it the Ma Joad effect, if you like, but ingrained humility goes a long way toward opening one's heart to fellow citizens.
Our Calvinist heritage, on the other hand, leads others to believe that success in life is a matter of divine pre-election. Our wealth, our stature, our popularity is a matter of personal virtue. This is precisely where that smarmy, almost lubricious smirk on George Bush's face and that Beavis and Butthead cackle in his voice comes from whenever he tries to defend the indefensible. He is the wealthy scion of an important family, not because of native intelligence or charisma, but because such people are pre-ordained to power and influence. Money, in this view of things, is not the result of virtue, but rather its worldly emblem.
And one other process seems to be a work as well. Voters tend to simplify their thinking and let their opinions calcify as they live through election after election. They long to be done with critical thinking, get over the need to follow issues in depth, or listen to lively debate. It's the "been there, done that" approach to politics. Life is messy enough without having to keep listening to diplomats, scientists, entrpreneurs, and artists, much more so reading broadly on one's own.
Does that explain the drift? Perhaps not, but something's going on here. This is clearly not a contest between differing but equally credible viewpoints, If we were a rational nation that fully understood its place in the world, there would be no contest at all.
Four years ago we made a huge mistake, the sort that a true democracy--even one as crippled by special interest influence as ours is--is entitled to make now and then. But the facts are now in plain sight, the record is public, the investigations have been conducted, the informed parties have made their public statements, the news media have done their job; there are no acceptable reasons to repeat the blunder.
Chas.
Barely six weeks ago a group of 26 highly respected former American diplomats and military leaders came out against the Bush administration's conduct of foreign policy as "unilateral" and damaging to U.S. interest and prestige abroad. Their group, "Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change," includes former ambassadors appointed by presidents from both major U.S. political parties and retired career military leaders. Some members are quoted in newspapers as saying Bush's policies have undone the diplomatic results they and their colleagues have worked hard to achieve during their careers.
But still it's an extremely close election.
Piling on this week were 200 business leaders endorsing Kerry/Edwards. These individuals join the growing ranks of prominent business leaders like Warren Buffett, Lee Iacocca, Steve Jobs, Jim Sinegal, John Thompson and Barry Diller who are supporting change in Washington. The newest group includes Owsley Brown, Chairman and Chief Executive Brown-Forman; Peter Cheering, President and Chief Operating Officer News Corporation; Charles Gifford, Chairman of Bank of America Corporation; Charles Phillips, President of Oracle Corporation; and Penny Pritzker, President of Pritzker Realty Group.
But still it's an extremely close election.
And the next day, a broad range of America's most respected recording artists announced a six-pronged, eight-day concert blitz of key battleground states under the banner of a "Vote for Change Tour." How directly or passionately the artists may speak up on stage for John Kerry will vary among the individuals, but they all feel deeply that America is in danger at this point in history and the Bush/Cheney ticket must be turned away in November.
But still it's an extremely close election.
Equally noteworthy, to say the least, in mid-July more than 4,000 scientists — including 48 Nobel Prize winners and 127 members of the National Academy of Sciences — accused the Bush administration of distorting and suppressing science to suit its political goals. "Across a broad range of policy areas, the administration has undermined the quality and independence of the scientific advisory system and the morale of the government's outstanding scientific personnel," the Union of Concerned Scientists said in their letter.
But still it's an extremely close election.
Let's point out the obvious here: We are not hearing this message from a fringe of predictable political partisans. Set aside the vocal left in Hollywood--though they represent thoughtful analysis from some of our culture's most creative individuals. And ignore for the moment the not insignificant impact that Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is having nationwide. The outcry this year is coming from highly responsible, moderate, generally cautious leaders from every corner of American society. It makes one wonder, just who is left to support the Republican cause and its leadership.
How can this race be neck-and neck? And why would anyone at this point respond with "undecided" when ask for a choice? This week's New Yorker's lead commentary in The Talk of the Town asserts that "George W. Bush is the worst President the country has endured since Richard Nixon, and even mediocrity would be an improvement."
Yet, we are told, the contest will be a squeaker. How can it be?
This may sound dumb, but one has to wonder where all the bright-eyed, thoughtful, informed, logical, progressive-minded people who register as Democrats early-on in their adult lives go over the years. It's clear that youth leans left. When MTV celebrities urge their fans to Rock the Vote, or P-Diddy warns that it's a Vote or Die situation this year, they're not thinking of sending that vital 18-24 demographic to the polls to support the Republican agenda.
It's not universal, of course; there are plenty of Young Republican enclaves on college campuses across the nation, and there is no shortage of Democrats over 50, but stand back and look for broad political trends and it's clear that if all those young Democrats kept faith with their ideals as they aged and sorted themselves out into careers and personal pursuits, a presidential race with this degree of stark contrast between candidates would never be a close call. A lot of leopards, it would seem, are changing their stripes.
So what's happening?
First, let's dispense with those useless labels "liberal" and "conservative." They have become so laden with inaccurate connotations that they condemn any discussion of the American political spectrum to endless tail-chasing. I prefer the universal markers, left and right.
For various reasons, people move to the right as they experience more, compete for advancement, work toward lifetime goals, and start to feel successful. Selfishness, cynicism, stubbornness, and callousness all have a tendency to evince themselves in our behavior as we move from youth to middle-age. When we enter adulthood we have high ideals but little stake in the society that we'd like to reform. We have a natural urge to share and not to worry about where or when those shared resources will be replenished or repaid. As we take partners in life's enterprise, then become heads of families, we find there is territory to defend, careers to advance, wealth to guard, and even descendants to provide for.
We become evermore scornful and impatient with those who aren't keeping up. Why should we want to tie our fate to elements of society that aren't as competitive as we are, or who seem to always remain on the margin. Catch phrases like social justice, equality of opportunity, due process, civil liberties may ring clear when we are sitting in college seminars or when we first become aware that poverty and discrimination have human faces and historical consequences, but something tells us that no matter how we try, we won't be the breakthrough generation that cures this disease.
All this generates momentum toward the right. Those who don't make such great strides toward the American Dream are likely to remain firmly, even actively, on the left. Call it the Ma Joad effect, if you like, but ingrained humility goes a long way toward opening one's heart to fellow citizens.
Our Calvinist heritage, on the other hand, leads others to believe that success in life is a matter of divine pre-election. Our wealth, our stature, our popularity is a matter of personal virtue. This is precisely where that smarmy, almost lubricious smirk on George Bush's face and that Beavis and Butthead cackle in his voice comes from whenever he tries to defend the indefensible. He is the wealthy scion of an important family, not because of native intelligence or charisma, but because such people are pre-ordained to power and influence. Money, in this view of things, is not the result of virtue, but rather its worldly emblem.
And one other process seems to be a work as well. Voters tend to simplify their thinking and let their opinions calcify as they live through election after election. They long to be done with critical thinking, get over the need to follow issues in depth, or listen to lively debate. It's the "been there, done that" approach to politics. Life is messy enough without having to keep listening to diplomats, scientists, entrpreneurs, and artists, much more so reading broadly on one's own.
Does that explain the drift? Perhaps not, but something's going on here. This is clearly not a contest between differing but equally credible viewpoints, If we were a rational nation that fully understood its place in the world, there would be no contest at all.
Four years ago we made a huge mistake, the sort that a true democracy--even one as crippled by special interest influence as ours is--is entitled to make now and then. But the facts are now in plain sight, the record is public, the investigations have been conducted, the informed parties have made their public statements, the news media have done their job; there are no acceptable reasons to repeat the blunder.
Chas.
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Chords for Change--Springsteen letter
Today's New York Times carried this letter from Bruce Springsteen on its Op-Ed page. Though he has voiced his opinions on national and international issues for years, this is his first step into overtly partisan politics. It is an extremely careful and thoughtful statement about the state of affairs in this election season:
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Chords for Change
By BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Published: August 5, 2004
A nation's artists and musicians have a particular place in its social and political life. Over the years I've tried to think long and hard about what it means to be American: about the distinctive identity and position we have in the world, and how that position is best carried. I've tried to write songs that speak to our pride and criticize our failures.
These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out.
Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?
I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.
People have different notions of these values, and they live them out in different ways. I've tried to sing about some of them in my songs. But I have my own ideas about what they mean, too. That is why I plan to join with many fellow artists, including the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Jurassic 5, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, in touring the country this October. We will be performing under the umbrella of a new group called Vote for Change. Our goal is to change the direction of the government and change the current administration come November.
Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."
It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Chords for Change
By BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Published: August 5, 2004
A nation's artists and musicians have a particular place in its social and political life. Over the years I've tried to think long and hard about what it means to be American: about the distinctive identity and position we have in the world, and how that position is best carried. I've tried to write songs that speak to our pride and criticize our failures.
These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out.
Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?
I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.
People have different notions of these values, and they live them out in different ways. I've tried to sing about some of them in my songs. But I have my own ideas about what they mean, too. That is why I plan to join with many fellow artists, including the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Jurassic 5, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, in touring the country this October. We will be performing under the umbrella of a new group called Vote for Change. Our goal is to change the direction of the government and change the current administration come November.
Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."
It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
MoveOn PAC
Big news this week about musicians getting together to encourage voter registration and to sway voters in the direction of positive change in our nation's political scene. Bruce Springsteen is just one of many taking part. "I felt like I couldn't have written the music I've written, and been on stage singing about the things that I've sung about for the last twenty five years and not take part in this particular election," said Springsteen.
For the full story check this site: MoveOn PAC
For the full story check this site: MoveOn PAC
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Happy Anniversary
We spent much of today--our 36th wedding anniversary--opening this blog. As simple as Blogspot.com makes it, it still takes awhile to make all those decisions and settings. But here we are. Probably not your typical blog. Research indicates that 92.4% of bloggers are under 30 years old. That's not us. That big picture below will gradually be buried among other postings, and ideas will dominate here. But for today...Happy Anniversary to us.
Monday, August 02, 2004
No Surrender
Considering where we are in time, how can we not turn first to presidential politics? Talking about issues at a grass roots level now could save a lot of misery later as the votes are counted--and obviously afterwards.
My point of departure, not surprisingly, is the musical soundtrack of the Democratic campaign. If you just watched the evening news highlights of John Kerry's acceptance speech last week, you missed his entrance and reception in the arena: As soon as Max Cleland finished his very powerful introduction (Kerry might do well to get some public speaking tips from the former Georgia senator), the house started rocking to the sound of Bruce Springsteen's anthem to youthful bonding, "No Surrender."
Kerry had arrived in Boston by boat the day before with the same soundtrack and had already picked up the theme as a kind of alternative slogan for the campaign in general. It is an interesting choice, since it is not one of The Boss's signature pieces such as "Born to Run," "Thunder Road," or (God help us) "Born in the U.S.A."
"No Surrender" does come from that mid-80s mega-seller album that Ronald Reagan misappropriated so egregiously on his own behalf--a move that Bruce has been wrathfully denouncing for years now--but it is a minor track that shows up only sporadically in concerts. For Kerry to decide that this song encapsulates what he wants to communicate indicates that either the candidate or someone close to him follows the artist and listens to the music.
And we can't help but feel confident that Bruce wholly approves of the association. Just go to the official Springsteen Web Site and check out what's on top of the news page--a reprint of an entire speech given by Al Gore at N.Y.U at the end of May. It's a powerful indictment of our current leadership and not at all in the toned-down, jokey mode that Al was compelled to deliver in Boston on the first night of the convention.
But "No Surrender" is essentially apolitical. It contains eloquent, personalized assertions of youthful camaraderie, and much to the chagrin of high school teachers, opens with a pithy put down of the formal education system that doesn't (or at least didn't in Springteen's experience) seem to ignite the passions of its customers.
That element of alienation giving way to a deeper river of personal connections between people in the same boat may be exactly the point that Kerry is tuning into as he tries to project the relevance of his experiences now 35 years or so in the past. It is a song that captures two layers in the singer's lifetime--late adolescence and that moment of discovery that adolescence is past.
The world is going to be in the hands of one baby boomer or the other. It's time to make a choice.
With all the hoopla of the introduction at the Fleet Center, it's unlikely that many in the audience actually could discern the words to what seems to be the new John Kerry theme song. So here's what you missed:
No Surrender -Bruce Springsteen
We busted out of class, had to get away from those fools
We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school.
Tonight I hear the neighborhood drummer sound
I can feel my heart begin to pound
You say you're tired and you just want to close your eyes and follow your dreams down.
We made a promise we swore we'd always remember
No retreat, no surrender.
Like soldiers in the winter's night with a vow to defend
No retreat, no surrender.
Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind,
I'm ready to grow young again
And hear your sister's voice calling us home across the open yards
Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars.
Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat,no surrender
Now on the street tonight the lights grow dim
The walls of my room are closing in.
There's a war outside still raging
you say it ain't ours anymore to win
I want to sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover's bed
with a wide open country in my eyes
and these romantic dreams in my head.
Copyright © Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)
It beats the heck out of Fleetwood Mac.
Chas.
My point of departure, not surprisingly, is the musical soundtrack of the Democratic campaign. If you just watched the evening news highlights of John Kerry's acceptance speech last week, you missed his entrance and reception in the arena: As soon as Max Cleland finished his very powerful introduction (Kerry might do well to get some public speaking tips from the former Georgia senator), the house started rocking to the sound of Bruce Springsteen's anthem to youthful bonding, "No Surrender."
Kerry had arrived in Boston by boat the day before with the same soundtrack and had already picked up the theme as a kind of alternative slogan for the campaign in general. It is an interesting choice, since it is not one of The Boss's signature pieces such as "Born to Run," "Thunder Road," or (God help us) "Born in the U.S.A."
"No Surrender" does come from that mid-80s mega-seller album that Ronald Reagan misappropriated so egregiously on his own behalf--a move that Bruce has been wrathfully denouncing for years now--but it is a minor track that shows up only sporadically in concerts. For Kerry to decide that this song encapsulates what he wants to communicate indicates that either the candidate or someone close to him follows the artist and listens to the music.
And we can't help but feel confident that Bruce wholly approves of the association. Just go to the official Springsteen Web Site and check out what's on top of the news page--a reprint of an entire speech given by Al Gore at N.Y.U at the end of May. It's a powerful indictment of our current leadership and not at all in the toned-down, jokey mode that Al was compelled to deliver in Boston on the first night of the convention.
But "No Surrender" is essentially apolitical. It contains eloquent, personalized assertions of youthful camaraderie, and much to the chagrin of high school teachers, opens with a pithy put down of the formal education system that doesn't (or at least didn't in Springteen's experience) seem to ignite the passions of its customers.
That element of alienation giving way to a deeper river of personal connections between people in the same boat may be exactly the point that Kerry is tuning into as he tries to project the relevance of his experiences now 35 years or so in the past. It is a song that captures two layers in the singer's lifetime--late adolescence and that moment of discovery that adolescence is past.
The world is going to be in the hands of one baby boomer or the other. It's time to make a choice.
With all the hoopla of the introduction at the Fleet Center, it's unlikely that many in the audience actually could discern the words to what seems to be the new John Kerry theme song. So here's what you missed:
No Surrender -Bruce Springsteen
We busted out of class, had to get away from those fools
We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school.
Tonight I hear the neighborhood drummer sound
I can feel my heart begin to pound
You say you're tired and you just want to close your eyes and follow your dreams down.
We made a promise we swore we'd always remember
No retreat, no surrender.
Like soldiers in the winter's night with a vow to defend
No retreat, no surrender.
Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind,
I'm ready to grow young again
And hear your sister's voice calling us home across the open yards
Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars.
Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat,no surrender
Now on the street tonight the lights grow dim
The walls of my room are closing in.
There's a war outside still raging
you say it ain't ours anymore to win
I want to sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover's bed
with a wide open country in my eyes
and these romantic dreams in my head.
Copyright © Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)
It beats the heck out of Fleetwood Mac.
Chas.
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