On this date in 1897 a man was born who has provided inestimable assistance in making the Bush Administration what it is today.
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda, gave his name to “The Goebbels Technique,” the policy of repeating a lie until it is assumed to be the truth. I’ll bet Shrub doesn’t even give him credit for it.
(Note that the Nazis were at least honest enough to call propaganda what it was.)
This article appeared in Slate magazine on Friday, October 27.
When the Justice Department Played Defense.I defy anyone to find any legitimate justification for passing a law that defies not only the letter of the Constitution, but the spirit of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.
They’re only coming for terrorists? Who gets to decide whether you’re a terrorist or not? What if they’re wrong? (Even the most well-intention will be wrong from time to time, and it’s a long, uphill fight to declare Shrub or Darth Cheney “well-intentioned.”)
Most of us know at least part of this poem. It was never more relevant in
When the Nazis came for the communists
I remained silent;
after all I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats
I remained silent;
after all I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists
I did not speak out;
after all I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
The Military Commissions Act of
It’s not just American media who have strange sensibilities. The recent contretemps over comments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin shows the international media can be just as shallow.
Here’s Reuters’ description of the incident:
The Kremlin said on Friday President Vladimir Putin was joking and not condoning rape when he commented about the virility of Israeli President Moshev Katsav, whom police suspect of raping female employees.
Unaware a microphone was switched on during talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Putin called Katsav a "mighty guy" and said: "Raped 10 women! I would never have expected that from him. He surprised us all. We all envy him."
I’m fifty years old and twenty-five pounds overweight, so giving Vladimir Putin the benefit of the doubt could take more bending over backward than my back can stand. (All right. Thirty pounds, damn it! Are you happy now?) I’m still willing to try, in the name of journalistic excellence. (Even I’m laughing at that.)
Have you ever said anything sarcastic, intended for a select audience you assumed would get the joke? Ever felt embarrassed when it leaked out? Ever had it leak out in an international forum, where a thousand journalists hang on your every word because catching you saying something dumb allows them to get credit for a day’s work without having done any?
Putin said something he shouldn’t have said, in a situation where he shouldn’t have said it. It’s the resulting outrage that’s disturbing. Forget these comments; Vladimir Putin’s record speaks for him. His mission in life is to reunite the
Nothing Putin says can disgrace his actions. The same pundits now debating how many rapists can dance on the head of a pin spend most of their editorial time painting around his neo-Stalinist actions.
It’s bad enough we live in an era where people like Putin, Dubya, Ahmadinejad, and Hu Jintao run things. (Forget Kim Jong Il. He gives ruthless dictators a bad name. They make him sit at the kids’ table at the annual Evil Tyrant’s Dinner.) Media, self-proclaimed watchdogs of a political correctness they alone define, have reduced even the most serious news to sound bites. Their apologists say it’s the only news their readers or viewers want to hear. They smirk when they say it, because they mean it’s the only news their audience can understand. That may be true. But at least some of us recognize bullshit when we see it, which is more than can be said for many of those who have “recognizing bullshit” as part of their job description.
A recent
Need-based financial assistance is shamefully neglected in our educational system. Omitting platitudes about The American Dream, everyone suffers when any deserving student is denied the opportunity to be a doctor, teacher, nurse, or other professional, merely because they can’t afford to go to college. It is society’s loss when talent goes unrecognized. For it to happen in a nation with our resources is unconscionable.
That being said, the existing system does a questionable job of determining who is “in need.” Families who have conscientiously saved for their children’s education may have their sacrifices held against them, as they have money available. Financial aid decision-makers wield influence well beyond college assistance, as they have the ability to help to determine how much a family has left over for retirement, future medical expenses, or the proverbial “rainy day.” After college has been paid for, of course.
Picture two families, with the same number of children and the same income, living across the street from each other. Family A limits their vacations to an annual week of day trips, maybe a weekend in
Family B flies to
Family A had money in the bank for education; Family B does not. Who gets more financial aid? Family B, of course.
Also at issue is
If merit scholarships are to be eliminated, athletic free rides must also go. (In its current usage, “athletic scholarship” is an oxymoron.) The elimination of legacies would also be a reasonable step, as it would make available more spots for deserving students.
What’s needed is a sliding scale that considers both merit and financial circumstance, and defines financial circumstance as income, not savings. People who make more money have more flexibility in how they dispose of their resources. Let’s not reward their bad choices at the expense of others.
There is, obviously, an income level above which financial aid should not be considered. I think anyone absorbing the
I feel like Steven van Zandt playing Silvio Dante impersonating Al Pacino as Michael Corleone: Every time I think I’m out, they pull me in again.
For several months I have made a conscientious effort to avoid overtly political posts. There’s already too much ill-conceived, unproven garbage accepted as Truth on the Internet, creating enough heat to melt Barbara Bush’s heart, but not enough light to see Dubya’s frat boy smirk from three feet away.
The Crazy Like Me Correspondent has goaded me in covert, deniable ways for several weeks. Others have wondered recently what I thought about certain news items. Blame them the next time I piss you off. I was willing to let things go along as they were.
What pushed me off the fence (with some coaxing from the Low Brass Correspondent) was word that Ken “Kenny Boy” Lay had his convictions set aside because he’s dead. There’s no conspiracy or back washing here. His appeals had been filed, and your day in court extends until all actions have been resolved. The presumption of innocence remains in effect while the appeal process moves forward. Since Lay’s death rendered his appeal moot, the court action could not be completed, and, since he’s not a Presidentially-declared enemy combatant, he must be presumed to be innocent. Let’s just say “not guilty.” Ken Lay’s innocent like Britany Spears is a natural blonde.
The primary effect of the ruling will be to make it a lot harder for those Lay screwed out of their life savings to get any of it back. The reimbursements were going to be spread pretty thin in the first place, with anyone getting ten cents on the dollar looking like a lottery winner. Now extra hoops will have to be navigated, as the civil plaintiffs will not be able to use Lay’s conviction as proof of his culpability.
The real winners are the lawyers. (Now there’s a shocker for you.) Extra hoops to means bigger fees. Plaintiffs who receive three cents on the dollar now should consider themselves luckier than Paris Hilton was in her choice of parents.
It’s only a matter of time before we start to hear anew that Lay isn’t really dead. With $44 million he can afford to make Howard Hughes look like Donald Trump in the publicity department. Maybe Lay can bunk with Elvis and Princess Anastasia for a while, keeping an eye on Kennedy’s brain.
Get over it folks. The term is “screwed” for a reason. Once your cherry’s gone, all that’s left is the pit. And that’s what you’re going to get for your trust in Enron.
The Washington Post is running an editorial today titled, "Blowing the Easy Ones." It's about the failure of authories to screen the mail of incarcerated terrorist suspects.
Congress has approved the construction of a 700 mile long fence to keep people from sneaking across our 2300 mile border with
Does this remind anyone of the movie Blazing Saddles? Remember the scene where Slim Pickens and his posse are riding toward Rock Ridge, and Cleavon Little needs more time to set up his trap? Little sends Gene Wilder and Alex Karras out to set up a toll booth. Pickens stops everyone, right in the middle of about fifteen gazillion square miles of open prairie, and sends one guy back to town for a “shitload of dimes.” Everyone then goes through, one at a time, thus buying the sheriff enough time to save the town.
I’ll bet they won’t even give Mel brooks credit for the idea. They should at least name it the William J. LePetomiane Memorial Boondoggle, or something like that.
A lot of cool and interesting stuff has happened on September 24. For example, in 622, Mohamed began his hegira, thus effectively marking the point from which the Muslim religion begins. (Both the violent and non-violent sects.)
The first Supreme Court convened on
The first Model T was finished in 1908. Jim Henson was born in 1936. I Love Lucy went off the air in 1961. The Warren Commission Report was delivered to President Johnson in 1964, naming Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin and starting a cottage industry that thrives to this day. Hurricane Inez beat up on the
All were noteworthy in their way. Another event, of somewhat less historical significance but very important to me, also took place on September 24: the birth of the Desert Flower Correspondent. I don’t have the year handy, but I do have this recent picture, so I’m guessing early to middle 70’s. Somewhere in there.
Happy belated birthday, BDF.
Convenience store chain 7–11 has announced it will no longer sell Citgo gasoline, as Citgo’s primary source of oil is
I’ve been a fan of Bob Newhart since I heard the Abraham Lincoln routine when I was about ten. He’s had two successful television shows since then, made several movies, was a regular guest of Johnny Carson’s, a headliner at Vegas, and the teller of the funniest golf joke I ever heard, as recounted in Rick Reilly’s outstanding book, Who’s Your Caddy?
Newhart appeared at a local Borders Bookstore last Friday, flogging his memoir, I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This. About four hundred people overflowed the store to hear him speak before the business of book signing began.
Some suit from the American Film Institute asked questions that were, unfortunately, both too long and obsequious. Newhart replied with stories, invariably funny, delivered in the style anyone familiar with him would instantly recognize. The stories were often forty years old, delivered in a style Newhart perfected that long ago. And they still killed.
Watching Newhart in person for the first time confirmed something I suspected about his longevity. His delivery hasn’t been “perfected;” that’s how the man talks. His body language and demeanor are unassuming, but confident. He’s been doing this too long to be surprised by a warm reception, but humble enough to still be delighted.
Newhart remains popular because there are few people as likable. The affection was palpable in the room. (Not adoration as for a rock star or athlete; affection wears much better.) Newhart sat in a comfortable chair and conversed with us, never mind that only he spoke. It was a relaxing pleasure at the end of a work week.
Bob Newhart is 77 years old and hasn’t lost an inch off the old fastball. True, his act is low-energy. It’s also high endurance. He wears on you like a favorite sweater you’ve had forever and can’t bear to part with. It’s too bad he doesn’t do stand-up anymore. There’s no higher compliment than to say I’d pay money to listen to this man talk.
I spent Friday evening watching a high school football game, a benefit of spending the weekend as the Official Limousine Service to The Sole Heir. The plays aren’t real sharp, the stands have maybe a thousand people total, but it’s a relaxing, small-town way to spend an evening while waiting for the Sole Heir to conclude her social obligations.
This week’s game, between
The kids’ foibles are nothing compared to watching the adults muck things up. Friday’s game contained two record-setting gaffs.
We’ll start with the zebras. SHHS, well into their only sustained drive of the evening, had fourth and less than a yard on the OHS 37. (I know this to be true, since it was right in front of me.) The SHHS coach eschewed a measurement and went for it. The referee signaled first down and the head linesman had the chain gang move the sticks up the field.
But wait! The OHS coach thinks they’re short and demands a measurement. As Nick
I’m not a big fan of the SHHS coach, but he gets props for restraint. I would have had light streaming out of my eyes like the climactic scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark if that call had gone against me.
No big deal; SHHS scored on their next two possessions and took a 21-14 lead. The game played out until SHHS punted the ball out of bounds at the OHS 15 yard line with about two minutes to play.
A penalty, an incomplete pass, a sack, and a short scramble by the quarterback left OHS with fourth down and 16 yards to go, inside their own 10 yard line, 1:30 left on the clock, and no time outs.
What do you call? Sixteen yards is fur piece. Throw deep? A trick play, maybe a hook-and-ladder to try to eat up a large chunk of ground? Possibly a screen pass to take advantage of what figures to be an aggressive pass rush and a spread-out secondary.
The OHS coach’s answer: punt. Honest to God. Of course, the SHHS players avoided the ball like it was smeared with the AIDS virus, then took a knee three times and the game was over. This not only gives the OHS coach The
Coaching is teaching. I don’t know if the OHS coach meant to teach his kids how to lose gracefully, but he’s sure teaching them new and exciting ways to lose.
Has anyone else seen the irony in the recent bizarre death of crocodile hunter Steve Irwin? I mean, one time in his life he’s not fucking with a potentially dangerous animal, it kills him. He messed with crocodiles, sharks, poisonous snakes, lawyers, you name it; not a scratch. Then one day he’s minding his own business and a stingray gives him one right through the pump.
I don’t think it’s an accident. Somewhere some crocs and snakes got together, used a shark as a cut-out. They had to find someome – er, something – Irwin would trust, but could still push the button on him. Stingrays are so rarely fatal to humans, there aren’t even good statistics on how many humans are killed by them. You have a greater chance of being killed by the French military than of having a stingray take you out.
The stinger probably got free squid for a year. All over
The conclusion of this Tanglewood season coincides with the retirement of
I first heard
My first thought when I heard the final movement of Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra was that I had forgotten to check the channel. I continued with whatever I was doing until the trumpet parts started winding up for the finale. I noted the second trumpet’s entrance, then stood flatfooted when the first trumpet came in.
It was as close to a religious epiphany as I had ever come. (Seeing my daughter born has since eclipsed it, but barely.) I’d had what I considered to be the perfect trumpet sound in my head for years. Until that second, that’s the only place I’d ever heard it. To paraphrase Marlon Brando’s in Apocalypse Now, it was like being struck between the eyes by a diamond bullet.
I ran to the living room and found only an unrecognizable orchestra. Younger readers should make note that it was not unusual to see symphony orchestras on public television in the early 1980s; the New York Philharmonic was actually on live several times a year. I cut my teeth on orchestral trumpet styles in large part by watching Armando Ghitalla on the BSO’s weekly Evening at Symphony broadcasts. Just seeing an orchestra on television didn’t automatically tell me who it was.
I finally recognized Seiji Ozawa, then Symphony Hall in
After that I started looking for Boston Symphony broadcasts on the radio. (Yes, in those days out-of-town orchestras had regular, tape-delayed, radio broadcasts of their concerts.) Those led me to apply to graduate school at New England Conservatory, so I could study with the one man I thought could make me sound like that.
He couldn’t. The man is a great player, possibly even a better teacher, but he’s not God. He did what he could with someone who scraped through the entrance audition and helped craft a better player out of my tools than anyone would have reason to expect. I was too intimidated to learn much for the first month or so, but I walked out of my first lesson feeling that I was about to learn things I never knew existed about the trumpet. I would have laughed at anyone who told me I was selling the experience short.
Charlie worked on my breathing, and my tonguing. Taught me (along with Ben Zander) how to find the music in any phrase. I realized after a year or so that his method of teaching was far more insidious than I suspected. Charlie taught me to give myself permission to miss a note, thus ensuring I wouldn’t miss it. To play broader instead of louder, enhancing the breadth of the tone so the volume would come without effort and not sound forced. To shape the ends of notes as much as the beginnings. To hear all the notes passed over in a slur to ensure the slur itself remained connected to its beginning and end.
Every technique listed reminds me of another, and we’re not halfway through. Somewhere in my second year I realized Charlie was teaching me about a lot more than trumpet playing. Through his personal interest in my life, he was helping me to place, and to keep, trumpet in its proper role, so that I could allow myself to become a better player, rather than trying to will it.
I haven’t played serious trumpet in fifteen years; not at all (worth mentioning) in over four. Still, there’s not a day goes by I don’t do something because of what
I’ve thought a lot about this as his retirement approached, and can safely say that my father is the only man to have greater influence on the person I have become than
He’s not perfect; his battles with Ozawa are legendary. (It should be pointed out that the characteristics in Charlie’s playing and personality that Ozawa found fault with were exactly the things Ozawa bypassed the audition process for to hire Charlie in the first place. Why Seiji hasn’t done the honorable thing and throw himself on his baton to die for the Emperor is beyond me.) Imperfect is always better in a role model; I was lucky to be close enough to know that what he told me had been tested, and worked, if I maintained enough confidence in the final outcome.
Congratulations, Charlie. Your retirement is well-earned. I’ll miss the opportunities to come to Symphony Hall and Tanglewood to hear you play. (Not that I’d been to either in over ten years. Everyone has schedules.) I’ll never miss the friendship, good will, and lessons you taught me; I still have them every day. I hope your new free time will allow us to get together more. You’ve taught me enough to know that I still have more to learn.
I first heard Maynard Ferguson play in person in 1972 at Springdale (PA) High School. Maynard and his band gave a clinic before the concert for local high school musicians, who hung on every word like Moses listening to the burning bush. The last time I saw him was a couple of years ago, when his band shared a gig with Glenelg (MD) High School’s excellent jazz band. In between were more good times than I can recite here, even though I think I can remember every one, given a little time to think about it.
I remember sitting in line at 5:00 one cold morning in February, 1974 so I’d have enough gas to get to the Holiday Inn in
Ron Melani and I got stuck in traffic and were almost late for the gig at the Grand Ballroom of the Duquesne University Student Union. The students wrecked the joint every time Duquesne graduate Randy Purcell soloed. Maynard made sure it was often.
The whole trumpet section came down front to play the opening to “Be-Bop Buffet” up an octave at the Moonshadow bar in
Another Holiday Inn, this one in
And my favorite: the Casino Theater in
That’s not all I have to thank him for. Maynard Ferguson was one of the two people most responsible for me trying to make a career out of music. My lack of success is not held against him; far from it. I went places, met people, and did things I would never have done otherwise, in part because Maynard (and Doc Severinsen) got a high school kid so jazzed about his instrument.
I’m not here to get maudlin and start whining like John Lennon or Elvis died again. What I’ll remember most about Maynard, more than the shock at hearing him play unimaginable things (even though I’d heard him do something similar just a few weeks before), was the fun. More than the fun I had; the fun he had. No one ever had a better time at their work than Maynard Ferguson. He was still touring eight months a year at age seventy-eight. His last musical act was to record a new CD just a couple of weeks before taking ill for the last time.
Maynard played first trumpet on the soundtrack of The Ten Commandments. (In a trumpeter’s irony, Herb Alpert played drums.) I saw it noted somewhere on the web that Gabriel has now been bumped down to second trumpet.
Maynard was a big deal before I was born, so as far as I’m concerned, he’s always been there. His passing severs one more connection to my youth. (Careful now, you’re teetering on the edge of the
What I think most of when I listen to Maynard is how much fun it must have been to be able to do what he did every night. Not just playing for a living; I did that for a while. I mean to know that every night he might do something that would amaze not just the audience, but the guys on the bandstand. The looks that were exchanged when Maynard would catch an eye on a night when he was really feeling it and give an expression as if to say, “listen to this.”
Fun’s fun; there’s a lot more to being a pro. Check out a video on YouTube and see the concentration on his face, the physical effort. James Brown is called The Hardest
(For another, even better, take, read David Von Drehle's tribute from Saturday’s Washington Post.)
I know this because I have been privileged these last five years to be her friend and occasional confidant. We met during difficult times for both of us, and moving through things that could have become crises without the right person to listen and make constructive suggestions. Or not. I knew she’d be a great counselor because she has an innate ability to know when to talk and when to shut up, qualities I have yet to master.
Our sole contact has been through the Internet, with occasional phone calls. We could quite possibly be in the same room some time and not know it unless we knew to look. That’s okay, because we’ve seen things in each other that people who only deal with corporeal presence would never think of.
So if you need help getting over a hump, or know a kid who is about to make some bad decisions because some parents make it their life’s work to set kids up to do so, get yourself to Tucson. I know someone there.
LYG, BDF. (Don’t bother asking; this is like Carol Burnett tugging on her ear. If you don’t know what it means, I’m not going to tell you.)
4. Dehydrated from strict training regimen of binge drinking.
3. High levels of artificial testosterone run in his family.
2. Mennonites use testosterone for Communion instead of wine.
1. Shook hands with Barry Bonds right before giving the sample.
Why only seven and not ten, you ask? You get what you pay for.
Mel Gibson asked Jewish leaders to help him to heal the rift caused by his allegedly anti-Semitic comments because, “it’s the Christian thing to do.” Gibson went on to say that he is “not a bigot. Hatred of any kind is against my faith, the one true faith,” and that he bears no ill will to any other faith, as he believes that eternal damnation and burning in hell are sufficient punishment.
