I never had the privilege of meeting William Vacchiano, although he’s responsible for one of my fondest trumpet memories. He was a profound influence on several people who have similarly influenced me, and so I was as saddened by his passing this week as I have ever been for someone I didn’t know.
The name William Vacchiano probably doesn’t mean anything to most of you, certainly not to those of you without some close involvement to classical music. That was probably all right with him. Bill Vacchiano enjoyed what I would consider to be the perfect measure of fame: he could go wherever he wanted without being disturbed by the public at large, while his peers and aspirants parted like the Red Sea to make way for him.
Vacchiano became one of the small handful of truly great orchestral trumpeters by accident. His father sent him to the music store to get a clarinet. Young Bill had a little trouble deciphering the instructions (given in Italian), and came home with a cornet. It worked out well for everyone.
He made his first mark in 1935, fresh out of Juilliard, where he had studied with Max Schlossberg, the father of American trumpet teaching. Auditioning for the Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic on the same day, Vacchiano won both auditions. True, audition procedures were much more relaxed then than they are today; he wasn’t subject to the modern cattle calls of two hundred players that often show up for a single position. Still, playing for Simone Mantia and Arturo Toscanini on the same day was a tough gig; being hired by both is the stuff of legend.
Vacchiano chose the Philharmonic, where he served as associate principal until being promoted to principal trumpet in 1942. He held that position until his retirement in 1973, becoming probably the most visible orchestral trumpeter ever. For those of you old enough to remember, it was Bill Vacchiano playing first trumpet when Leonard Bernstein was televising his Young People’s Concerts and other programs that established Bernstein as the pre-eminent American musician of his time.
It’s only appropriate that Vacchiano was succeeded as principal trumpet by two of his students, Gerard Schwarz and Phil Smith. Vacchiano will be remembered as a player for as long as his recordings exist; his influence as a teacher will never end. He taught at Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music for sixty-seven years, from 1935–2002. He also found time to work in some teaching at the Mannes School from 1937–1983.
It would be fair to say that every major American orchestra has had at least one of his students in the trumpet section at some time. I’d be surprised if any major orchestra didn’t have at least one player today who either studied with him or one of his students. There was no template to his teaching, no “one size fits all” approach. His students cover the gamut of playing styles, and encompass more than orchestral careers: Wynton Marsalis studied with Vacchiano at Juilliard.
I never met William Vacchiano, and haven’t played in anything like a serious ensemble in over ten years, yet one of the most cherished memories of my trumpet career involves him. It was the 1990 International Trumpet Guild Conference. I had helped a manufacturer in his display booth, and took advantage of the end of the day to sneak in a little testing of my own. I played the trumpet solo from Stravinsky’s Song of the Nightingale to what I thought was an empty room. Played it pretty well, I thought.
I finished with the feeling someone else was still there. I looked up and saw Bill Vacchiano about twenty feet away at the Stork mouthpiece display, getting ready to leave. We made eye contact for just a few seconds, then he nodded once, smiling only with his eyes. I can still see him; I don’t think anyone ever said anything about my playing that made me feel better than that glance.
If that’s how Bill Vacchiano could make a stranger feel at a random meeting, it’s no wonder his students, friends, and intimates, many of whom fill all three roles, feel his loss so strongly today. The rest of us can only imagine what it must have been like to get some of that every week, and be grateful that he has achieved a measure of true immortality. Not only will he be remembered well beyond his time here, but he continues to influence his art, and the lives of those who practice it.
Thank you, Bill.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Saturday, September 17, 2005
What's in a Name?
Ref·u·gee. (ref´ · ū · jē) noun
One who flees in search of refuge.
[French réfugié, from past participle of réfugier, to take refuge; from Old French, from refuge, refuge.]
Americans love to label things; thinking of a good acronym sends some (typically computer types or government workers) in a state resembling sexual ecstasy, or what computer types and government workers think sexual ecstasy might be like if they ever came across any. Many labels, once attached, take on lives of their own, sometimes wildly divergent from the original meaning.
It’s one thing to re-define slang, or words intended to be derogatory. The much-vilified N word, or the famous twelve-letter epithet denoting highly developed Oedipal tendencies come to mind. Sometimes a word is invented for a specific purpose, or shoehorned into a euphemism to keep from saying something is a duck, no matter how it walks or quacks. When our military crossed the border from Vietnam into Cambodia in large numbers, it was called an “incursion.” There was already an appropriate and well-accepted word available; “invasion” was apparently too war-like. (Since we didn’t invade, did we incurse? Where’s George Carlin when you need him?)
Now Jesse Jackson is up in arms because the media has referred to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina as “refugees.” I don’t know what term Jesse prefers, mainly because I don’t care. He’s not upset over the accuracy of the word, which is a good thing for someone who’s supposed to be well-educated. He says the word is racist.
It’s comments like this that have relegated Jesse to the status of Al Sharpton with better hair. Remember when Jesse was considered a role model and inspirational speaker, the most visible disciple of Martin Luther King? Probably not, if you’re under thirty or thirty-five. Now he’s reduced himself to arriving at media events with his entourage to give a sound bite, probably something rhyming or otherwise catchy to better ensure his appearance on the news.
The war in Iraq – pardon me, the peacekeeping in Iraq – has shifted most attention usually paid to civil rights away from the racial issues characterized by the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantees, and back to the Bill of Rights. This means Jesse (and Al, and Lou) are scrambling for time on the news and coming out behind Scot Peterson, Natalee Holloway, and whether or not Jennifer Anniston can be happy with Vince Vaughn since Brad dumped her for that tattooed skank Angelina Jolie.
The sad truth here is that it’s Jesse who’s being the racist. I have no knowledge of him decrying the use of the term when applied to Iraqis, or those fleeing the genocide at Darfur. For him to imply that “refugee” confers an inferior status on those so called, he must therefore imply the same for these others, displaced through no more fault of their own than those in Louisiana.
This should be good news. It’s nice to know Jesse clearly feels race relations in this country have come so far that he can spend his valuable time quibbling over a dictionary definition. Instead of continuing the abstract discussion over how many racists can dance on the head of a pin, his time might have been better spent by using some of his pull with Operation Push to help the Red Cross and Salvation Army. Maybe he could ditch the expensive suit and get down in the dirt with some of the not-refugees he claims to care so much about and actually do something for them.
No matter how anyone feels about who should have done what and when, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is a tragedy in the true sense of the word. (Sorry, Jen, no matter how bad Brad the bastard behaved, you don’t qualify.) Of the millions of words of invective and finger-pointing, Jesse’s choice of argument has probably trivialized the situation as much as anything else, coming as it has from an ostensibly responsible and respected leader. Except maybe for Shrub’s comment about what a nice new house Trent Lott is going to have.
Those are examples of what passes for leadership in Twenty-first Century America. They are prosecution exhibits A and B in making the case for why so much of New Orleans isn’t there any more.
(Does anyone else see the irony? The word that means “one who flees in search of refuge” is French in origin?)
One who flees in search of refuge.
[French réfugié, from past participle of réfugier, to take refuge; from Old French, from refuge, refuge.]
Americans love to label things; thinking of a good acronym sends some (typically computer types or government workers) in a state resembling sexual ecstasy, or what computer types and government workers think sexual ecstasy might be like if they ever came across any. Many labels, once attached, take on lives of their own, sometimes wildly divergent from the original meaning.
It’s one thing to re-define slang, or words intended to be derogatory. The much-vilified N word, or the famous twelve-letter epithet denoting highly developed Oedipal tendencies come to mind. Sometimes a word is invented for a specific purpose, or shoehorned into a euphemism to keep from saying something is a duck, no matter how it walks or quacks. When our military crossed the border from Vietnam into Cambodia in large numbers, it was called an “incursion.” There was already an appropriate and well-accepted word available; “invasion” was apparently too war-like. (Since we didn’t invade, did we incurse? Where’s George Carlin when you need him?)
Now Jesse Jackson is up in arms because the media has referred to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina as “refugees.” I don’t know what term Jesse prefers, mainly because I don’t care. He’s not upset over the accuracy of the word, which is a good thing for someone who’s supposed to be well-educated. He says the word is racist.
It’s comments like this that have relegated Jesse to the status of Al Sharpton with better hair. Remember when Jesse was considered a role model and inspirational speaker, the most visible disciple of Martin Luther King? Probably not, if you’re under thirty or thirty-five. Now he’s reduced himself to arriving at media events with his entourage to give a sound bite, probably something rhyming or otherwise catchy to better ensure his appearance on the news.
The war in Iraq – pardon me, the peacekeeping in Iraq – has shifted most attention usually paid to civil rights away from the racial issues characterized by the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantees, and back to the Bill of Rights. This means Jesse (and Al, and Lou) are scrambling for time on the news and coming out behind Scot Peterson, Natalee Holloway, and whether or not Jennifer Anniston can be happy with Vince Vaughn since Brad dumped her for that tattooed skank Angelina Jolie.
The sad truth here is that it’s Jesse who’s being the racist. I have no knowledge of him decrying the use of the term when applied to Iraqis, or those fleeing the genocide at Darfur. For him to imply that “refugee” confers an inferior status on those so called, he must therefore imply the same for these others, displaced through no more fault of their own than those in Louisiana.
This should be good news. It’s nice to know Jesse clearly feels race relations in this country have come so far that he can spend his valuable time quibbling over a dictionary definition. Instead of continuing the abstract discussion over how many racists can dance on the head of a pin, his time might have been better spent by using some of his pull with Operation Push to help the Red Cross and Salvation Army. Maybe he could ditch the expensive suit and get down in the dirt with some of the not-refugees he claims to care so much about and actually do something for them.
No matter how anyone feels about who should have done what and when, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is a tragedy in the true sense of the word. (Sorry, Jen, no matter how bad Brad the bastard behaved, you don’t qualify.) Of the millions of words of invective and finger-pointing, Jesse’s choice of argument has probably trivialized the situation as much as anything else, coming as it has from an ostensibly responsible and respected leader. Except maybe for Shrub’s comment about what a nice new house Trent Lott is going to have.
Those are examples of what passes for leadership in Twenty-first Century America. They are prosecution exhibits A and B in making the case for why so much of New Orleans isn’t there any more.
(Does anyone else see the irony? The word that means “one who flees in search of refuge” is French in origin?)
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Don't Let the Door Hit You in the Ass on Your Way Out
The Gulf Coast may have turned the corner in its recovery efforts: Mike Brown has gone back to Washington. His onsite post will be assumed by a Coast Guard officer who has seen disasters other than his own performance up close before.
Brown said through a spokesman that he was planning to leave FEMA after the hurricane season, anyway. Did the Prince of Darkness think leaving Brown to serve his nefarious purposes at FEMA any longer would be too obvious? A few weeks ago, this blog commented on how the Nineties and the Aughts were beginning to resemble the Fifties and the Sixties, partly due to government’s inability to be trusted, or to do anything right. While not absolving state and local officials in New Orleans, Brown had become the face that represented the government’s lack of initiative, compassion, and having a clue. Whether Brown really had planned to leave, or if that’s a last-minute cover story, Friday’s move can only be viewed as holding the door open for him.
Brown’s accomplishments as FEMA Administrator were defined when he said he was unaware people were stranded in the Superdome and Convention Center. Camel drivers in East Al-Boumfukk, Libya, knew thousands of people were living under conditions so bad that Sudan was taking up a collection to help them. Even staunchly conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer suggested in Friday’s column that Brown should have hired a few twenty year-old interns to watch CNN and keep him posted on developments as they occurred.
It might have been a coincidence, but Brown’s reassignment came within a day of the Mexican Army entering the United States for the first time since 1846, bringing water treatment plants and mobile kitchens. Is that depressing to anyone else? No insult intended toward Mexico’s generous and humanitarian gesture, but don’t we have any of that stuff? How can any American government official look himself in the eye the next time he criticizes Mexicans for illegally crossing the border? “We saved your pale asses, gringo. Now you see why we going in through Arizona and California. New Orleans makes Tijuana look like Monte Carlo. We won’t even drink the water there. Gives us Napoleon’s Revenge.”
FEMA did their best to keep out the Mexicans, along with the Canadians, Swedes, Germans, and probably several other countries. The Swedes had a state of the art emergency communications system loaded up and ready to fly in; they were told to hold for over three days because FEMA wasn’t ready to receive it. Mike Brown doesn’t know thousands of people are dying in the Dome and the Convention Center, and we don’t need an emergency communications system.
Better aid has begun to flow in. Thanks again to the Mexicans, who used their years of experience to show the rest of the world how to evade American government officials trying to deny them access to this country. And before I get chastised for once again being too hard on France, let’s appreciate their contribution. An elite French commando team snuck into New Orleans late last week to share their centuries of experience in mass evacuations.
For those of you who consider me to be a persistent bleeding heart liberal pussy, here’s the link to Krauthammer’s excellent op-ed piece of September 9. I have little argument with anything in there.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090801667.html
Brown said through a spokesman that he was planning to leave FEMA after the hurricane season, anyway. Did the Prince of Darkness think leaving Brown to serve his nefarious purposes at FEMA any longer would be too obvious? A few weeks ago, this blog commented on how the Nineties and the Aughts were beginning to resemble the Fifties and the Sixties, partly due to government’s inability to be trusted, or to do anything right. While not absolving state and local officials in New Orleans, Brown had become the face that represented the government’s lack of initiative, compassion, and having a clue. Whether Brown really had planned to leave, or if that’s a last-minute cover story, Friday’s move can only be viewed as holding the door open for him.
Brown’s accomplishments as FEMA Administrator were defined when he said he was unaware people were stranded in the Superdome and Convention Center. Camel drivers in East Al-Boumfukk, Libya, knew thousands of people were living under conditions so bad that Sudan was taking up a collection to help them. Even staunchly conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer suggested in Friday’s column that Brown should have hired a few twenty year-old interns to watch CNN and keep him posted on developments as they occurred.
It might have been a coincidence, but Brown’s reassignment came within a day of the Mexican Army entering the United States for the first time since 1846, bringing water treatment plants and mobile kitchens. Is that depressing to anyone else? No insult intended toward Mexico’s generous and humanitarian gesture, but don’t we have any of that stuff? How can any American government official look himself in the eye the next time he criticizes Mexicans for illegally crossing the border? “We saved your pale asses, gringo. Now you see why we going in through Arizona and California. New Orleans makes Tijuana look like Monte Carlo. We won’t even drink the water there. Gives us Napoleon’s Revenge.”
FEMA did their best to keep out the Mexicans, along with the Canadians, Swedes, Germans, and probably several other countries. The Swedes had a state of the art emergency communications system loaded up and ready to fly in; they were told to hold for over three days because FEMA wasn’t ready to receive it. Mike Brown doesn’t know thousands of people are dying in the Dome and the Convention Center, and we don’t need an emergency communications system.
Better aid has begun to flow in. Thanks again to the Mexicans, who used their years of experience to show the rest of the world how to evade American government officials trying to deny them access to this country. And before I get chastised for once again being too hard on France, let’s appreciate their contribution. An elite French commando team snuck into New Orleans late last week to share their centuries of experience in mass evacuations.
For those of you who consider me to be a persistent bleeding heart liberal pussy, here’s the link to Krauthammer’s excellent op-ed piece of September 9. I have little argument with anything in there.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090801667.html
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
What is Hip?
What’s it called when ten musicians, ranging in age from thirty to sixty, play a consistent repertoire of tunes, none of which have hit the charts for the last twenty years? If the musicians are known as Tower of Power, you have as good an evening of musical entertainment as can be had.
TOP started in 1968 and had a decent run on the charts. “Don’t Change Horses” and “You Ought to be Having Fun” were probably their two biggest hits. Their current show fits both of these into a medley including a few of their more generally popular songs. It’s nice they acknowledge their past; what they’re about now is pleasing their fans.
They don’t play a lot of gigs anymore. You’re not going to catch them trying to drum up some nostalgia business on a bill with Black Sabbath or Motley Crue. TOP plays fifty or so concerts a year, mostly to true aficionados, and no one has more fun than they do.
They’re a throwback to the days when live performances were more than promotional appearances for the new album. They’ve only made two recordings in the last seven years. Their cult status is secure.
It’ll stay secure, too, since so much of the cult is populated by other musicians, or knowledgeable laymen. There’s nothing new at a TOP gig, no special effects, no whoring to bring in new listeners. They’re happy with the crowds they draw, which overflow the venues they play. They play for themselves, and for their long-time fans. They’re not averse to new believers; my fourteen year-old has seen them twice and loved it both times. TOP just wants to make sure the true believers get taken care of. They’re like the Grateful Dead for people with jobs.
Every concert is an hour and a half of balls to the wall soul, rhythm and blues, soul, and acknowledgements of the greatness of James Brown. The Godfather of Soul can’t be duplicated, so they don’t try. Every tune pays homage without being a rip-off. Brown’s influences are everywhere, but no one sounds like Tower of Power.
They are the coolest act in show business. What makes these pre-geriatric farts so cool? They do what they do better than anyone else, and make no pretense to be anything but what they are. A TOP performance lacks the arrogance of some popular “artists” who treat their audiences like dirt because no one else understands their brilliance. Quite the opposite; TOP makes sure to give their audience what it wants: an evening of flawlessly played, tightly arranged, energetically performed music that can’t be heard anywhere else.
Emilio Castillo, Steven Kupka, and Dave Garibaldi have known what is hip from the get-go. Lucky for all of us they choose to keep sharing it. Everyone should get on down to the nightclub for a soul vaccination once in a while, even when it’s souled out. To paraphrase one of their tunes, wherever I go, whatever I do, one thing remains the same: I’ll still be diggin’ on TOP.
TOP started in 1968 and had a decent run on the charts. “Don’t Change Horses” and “You Ought to be Having Fun” were probably their two biggest hits. Their current show fits both of these into a medley including a few of their more generally popular songs. It’s nice they acknowledge their past; what they’re about now is pleasing their fans.
They don’t play a lot of gigs anymore. You’re not going to catch them trying to drum up some nostalgia business on a bill with Black Sabbath or Motley Crue. TOP plays fifty or so concerts a year, mostly to true aficionados, and no one has more fun than they do.
They’re a throwback to the days when live performances were more than promotional appearances for the new album. They’ve only made two recordings in the last seven years. Their cult status is secure.
It’ll stay secure, too, since so much of the cult is populated by other musicians, or knowledgeable laymen. There’s nothing new at a TOP gig, no special effects, no whoring to bring in new listeners. They’re happy with the crowds they draw, which overflow the venues they play. They play for themselves, and for their long-time fans. They’re not averse to new believers; my fourteen year-old has seen them twice and loved it both times. TOP just wants to make sure the true believers get taken care of. They’re like the Grateful Dead for people with jobs.
Every concert is an hour and a half of balls to the wall soul, rhythm and blues, soul, and acknowledgements of the greatness of James Brown. The Godfather of Soul can’t be duplicated, so they don’t try. Every tune pays homage without being a rip-off. Brown’s influences are everywhere, but no one sounds like Tower of Power.
They are the coolest act in show business. What makes these pre-geriatric farts so cool? They do what they do better than anyone else, and make no pretense to be anything but what they are. A TOP performance lacks the arrogance of some popular “artists” who treat their audiences like dirt because no one else understands their brilliance. Quite the opposite; TOP makes sure to give their audience what it wants: an evening of flawlessly played, tightly arranged, energetically performed music that can’t be heard anywhere else.
Emilio Castillo, Steven Kupka, and Dave Garibaldi have known what is hip from the get-go. Lucky for all of us they choose to keep sharing it. Everyone should get on down to the nightclub for a soul vaccination once in a while, even when it’s souled out. To paraphrase one of their tunes, wherever I go, whatever I do, one thing remains the same: I’ll still be diggin’ on TOP.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Opportunity is Where You Find It
The people of New Orleans can rest easy, their nightmare is over. George Bush flew over yesterday.
He didn’t land, but the pilot got as low as 1700 feet and flew around for half an hour so Shrub could look out the window like a kid discovering an ant farm. No time to stop, he’d only been on vacation for a month, his busy schedule of dissing Gold Star mothers didn’t leave any time for pressing the flesh, maybe ask how some of these people were doing. No point. He’s not running for anything, he has a mandate.
This is our president, the man who personifies compassionate conservatism. Like so many under that umbrella, the only thing he’s conservative with is his compassion. Certainly not with money; no one ever spent it like he has.
Now it’s time to see if we got what we paid for. Shrub has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to “protect” us from the ravages of terrorism. How can we best evacuate entire cities in the event of a nucular attack? Protect the water supply from contaminants? Maintain order in the face of crisis?
Here’s his big chance. Throwing out the first pitch at a World Series game, then turning out the lights in two countries half a world away is easy. All this time he’s been worrying about towel-headed fanatics living in caves, and who puts the big hit on him? The same God whose Agent on Earth Shrub considers himself to be.
This is his chance to be a hero. With the Iraq situation going to hell in a handbasket, his primary historical legacies will be having the world’s worst terrorist attack take place in his country, on his watch, and leaving the Middle East a bigger mess than he found it, no mean feat.
He said he was devastated, looking out the window as he flew over. “Those people down there must be doubly devastated.” Devastated twice as much as him? People who have lost everything, and have no idea when they can go back to clean up so they can start over? Twice as much as he’s devastated after his month-long vacation at his private ranch, off to spend the weekend at Camp David, unless he rolls up his sleeves and stays in the sweatshop called the White House?
It’s one thing not to be a good president; this clueless bastard isn’t even a good person. Shame on us, shame on us all for letting him happen.
He didn’t land, but the pilot got as low as 1700 feet and flew around for half an hour so Shrub could look out the window like a kid discovering an ant farm. No time to stop, he’d only been on vacation for a month, his busy schedule of dissing Gold Star mothers didn’t leave any time for pressing the flesh, maybe ask how some of these people were doing. No point. He’s not running for anything, he has a mandate.
This is our president, the man who personifies compassionate conservatism. Like so many under that umbrella, the only thing he’s conservative with is his compassion. Certainly not with money; no one ever spent it like he has.
Now it’s time to see if we got what we paid for. Shrub has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to “protect” us from the ravages of terrorism. How can we best evacuate entire cities in the event of a nucular attack? Protect the water supply from contaminants? Maintain order in the face of crisis?
Here’s his big chance. Throwing out the first pitch at a World Series game, then turning out the lights in two countries half a world away is easy. All this time he’s been worrying about towel-headed fanatics living in caves, and who puts the big hit on him? The same God whose Agent on Earth Shrub considers himself to be.
This is his chance to be a hero. With the Iraq situation going to hell in a handbasket, his primary historical legacies will be having the world’s worst terrorist attack take place in his country, on his watch, and leaving the Middle East a bigger mess than he found it, no mean feat.
He said he was devastated, looking out the window as he flew over. “Those people down there must be doubly devastated.” Devastated twice as much as him? People who have lost everything, and have no idea when they can go back to clean up so they can start over? Twice as much as he’s devastated after his month-long vacation at his private ranch, off to spend the weekend at Camp David, unless he rolls up his sleeves and stays in the sweatshop called the White House?
It’s one thing not to be a good president; this clueless bastard isn’t even a good person. Shame on us, shame on us all for letting him happen.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Sibling Ambition
I am fortunate to have friends eager to assuage my divorced father guilt by telling me what a good father I am: responsible adult, role model, all the usual stuff. I’m grateful for that, and to them for seeing those qualities in me, even if I occasionally disagree about how much of each is present.
My recent vacation showed me the real thing (again). Someone who never misses one of his kids’ school or personal events. He’s up early to get them off for school, picks them up from day care when necessary, and more often than not makes supper after work. He’s remodeled the house and installed an above-ground pool and deck for them. There is no task too large to undertake on their behalf, and no detail so small it is overlooked.
He was gracious enough to point out to a friend the many alleged sacrifices I make to be a good father, while acknowledging none of his own. Our “sacrifices” have much in common: I never feel as though I have sacrificed anything for the Sole Heir, I look forward to spending time and doing things with, and for, her. Watch him for a few days and it’s easy to see the same is true.
The difference is that when I found myself in a marital situation I didn’t understand and failed to grasp well, I left. I didn’t disappear (my responsibilities as a father were never too far from my mind and I could always be rounded up with a phone call), but I wasn’t home and certainly wasn’t as close as I should have been for a few years. Say what you want about making the effort, no absentee father can be as good as one who is home and makes the effort.
And that’s what he does. I’m not implying any superhuman endurance for his staying married; he and his wife get along as well, or better, as any couple I know. Still, they’ve been married almost fifteen years, human nature tells us there has been some friction. I’m sure he dealt with it as he deals with everything else: patiently, willing to see both sides, and to place the greater benefit ahead of his own.
This is an impressive guy, there’s no one I respect more. I’m may be four years older, but I want to be just like my brother when I grow up.
My recent vacation showed me the real thing (again). Someone who never misses one of his kids’ school or personal events. He’s up early to get them off for school, picks them up from day care when necessary, and more often than not makes supper after work. He’s remodeled the house and installed an above-ground pool and deck for them. There is no task too large to undertake on their behalf, and no detail so small it is overlooked.
He was gracious enough to point out to a friend the many alleged sacrifices I make to be a good father, while acknowledging none of his own. Our “sacrifices” have much in common: I never feel as though I have sacrificed anything for the Sole Heir, I look forward to spending time and doing things with, and for, her. Watch him for a few days and it’s easy to see the same is true.
The difference is that when I found myself in a marital situation I didn’t understand and failed to grasp well, I left. I didn’t disappear (my responsibilities as a father were never too far from my mind and I could always be rounded up with a phone call), but I wasn’t home and certainly wasn’t as close as I should have been for a few years. Say what you want about making the effort, no absentee father can be as good as one who is home and makes the effort.
And that’s what he does. I’m not implying any superhuman endurance for his staying married; he and his wife get along as well, or better, as any couple I know. Still, they’ve been married almost fifteen years, human nature tells us there has been some friction. I’m sure he dealt with it as he deals with everything else: patiently, willing to see both sides, and to place the greater benefit ahead of his own.
This is an impressive guy, there’s no one I respect more. I’m may be four years older, but I want to be just like my brother when I grow up.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
On the Road Again
It’s even money you know someone who has something they’ve always wanted to do. It may even be the person who lives in your mirror. They might want a trip, learn a new skill, or do something they already know but never get around to, whatever. Not to sound too much like I don’t despise Nike anymore, here are two words of advice.
Do it.
I’m not talking about anything destructive, or that might imperil one’s financial security. This isn’t advocating investing all your money in penny stocks or dabbling in recreational heroin use. Nor should this be used as an argument for doing something conspicuous just for the sake of showing off, like spending the food money on a yellow Hummer so everyone can see you driving three blocks to the store. I’m talking about feeding your soul.
This soul food will be different for everyone. For me it’s a vacation. Not too expensive, not exotic at all. It’s a simple matter of packing up my car and daughter and driving to Colorado to visit my brother and his family. It’s a little over 4,000 miles the way we do it (4,069.3 this year, to be precise), and not trying to save too many miles is the secret.
This year’s trip was the southern route. We drove into Virginia, through the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky to Nashville, then across I-40 through Memphis and Oklahoma City to angle north in Amarillo, catching I-25 in New Mexico to come at Denver from the south. Coming home was more or less a straight shot on I-70.
We saw the Kentucky Horse Park, crossed the Mississippi (too late to go to Mud Island), made a slight detour to Toad Suck Park, Arkansas. (No kidding, you can look it up.) Found a great Italian place in Oklahoma City and had lunch at a steak ranch in Amarillo where the 72-oz. steak was free if you could eat it in an hour. (We each had a 16 ouncer and it held us for lunch and supper.) Saw dinosaur footprints in New Mexico and drove through country that probably looks just as it did three hundred years ago. Coming home we rode to the top of the Gateway Arch and watched a Cardinals’ game in St. Louis.
It would be easy to get all Zen about it and say it was the journey that mattered, not the destination. The journey was spectacular, every mile a pleasure, and was still overshadowed by five days in Colorado with my brother’s family. A Rockies’ game, Water World, cookouts, pool time, trips to Boulder and Golden, and just remembering what it feels like to spend time with the most genetically similar person in the world to yourself, remembering you like him and would spend a lot more time like this if you weren’t separated by half a continent.
The cousins, my daughter (14) and his two girls (12 and 10), have been together maybe ten times in their lives, and couldn’t be closer if they were triplets. They were virtually joined at the hip from 3:00 PM Wednesday until 7:00 AM Tuesday. If there was a cross word between them, the adults missed it.
Now we’re home. The Sole Heir is preparing for her vacation with her mother, I’m back to work. Last weekend barely existed for me, as I slept 4,000 miles of driving out of my system and sinuses. Seems hard to imagine all the stuff we did, so far removed it all was from our normal time together. That’s why we’ll move heaven and earth to do it again in two years, then two more, until she’s of an age where adult responsibility overtakes even her father’s ability to keep her a child as long as practical, then a week more.
Such a trip might not be for everyone, but everyone has its equivalent in them somewhere, looking for a chance to break the mold, one seemingly out of character activity that helps to define the rest of your life by what it is not. Not particularly responsible, though great responsibility is required to carry it off safely. Not particularly expensive, though penury is no way to have fun and the budget was gleefully adjusted on the fly. Not difficult, even if being the sole driver for that long is no picnic. Just something you can enjoy without guilt or second thought, your adult responsibilities leavened by childlike release.
I can’t wait for next time. More of a northern route, maybe including Yellowstone…
Do it.
I’m not talking about anything destructive, or that might imperil one’s financial security. This isn’t advocating investing all your money in penny stocks or dabbling in recreational heroin use. Nor should this be used as an argument for doing something conspicuous just for the sake of showing off, like spending the food money on a yellow Hummer so everyone can see you driving three blocks to the store. I’m talking about feeding your soul.
This soul food will be different for everyone. For me it’s a vacation. Not too expensive, not exotic at all. It’s a simple matter of packing up my car and daughter and driving to Colorado to visit my brother and his family. It’s a little over 4,000 miles the way we do it (4,069.3 this year, to be precise), and not trying to save too many miles is the secret.
This year’s trip was the southern route. We drove into Virginia, through the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky to Nashville, then across I-40 through Memphis and Oklahoma City to angle north in Amarillo, catching I-25 in New Mexico to come at Denver from the south. Coming home was more or less a straight shot on I-70.
We saw the Kentucky Horse Park, crossed the Mississippi (too late to go to Mud Island), made a slight detour to Toad Suck Park, Arkansas. (No kidding, you can look it up.) Found a great Italian place in Oklahoma City and had lunch at a steak ranch in Amarillo where the 72-oz. steak was free if you could eat it in an hour. (We each had a 16 ouncer and it held us for lunch and supper.) Saw dinosaur footprints in New Mexico and drove through country that probably looks just as it did three hundred years ago. Coming home we rode to the top of the Gateway Arch and watched a Cardinals’ game in St. Louis.
It would be easy to get all Zen about it and say it was the journey that mattered, not the destination. The journey was spectacular, every mile a pleasure, and was still overshadowed by five days in Colorado with my brother’s family. A Rockies’ game, Water World, cookouts, pool time, trips to Boulder and Golden, and just remembering what it feels like to spend time with the most genetically similar person in the world to yourself, remembering you like him and would spend a lot more time like this if you weren’t separated by half a continent.
The cousins, my daughter (14) and his two girls (12 and 10), have been together maybe ten times in their lives, and couldn’t be closer if they were triplets. They were virtually joined at the hip from 3:00 PM Wednesday until 7:00 AM Tuesday. If there was a cross word between them, the adults missed it.
Now we’re home. The Sole Heir is preparing for her vacation with her mother, I’m back to work. Last weekend barely existed for me, as I slept 4,000 miles of driving out of my system and sinuses. Seems hard to imagine all the stuff we did, so far removed it all was from our normal time together. That’s why we’ll move heaven and earth to do it again in two years, then two more, until she’s of an age where adult responsibility overtakes even her father’s ability to keep her a child as long as practical, then a week more.
Such a trip might not be for everyone, but everyone has its equivalent in them somewhere, looking for a chance to break the mold, one seemingly out of character activity that helps to define the rest of your life by what it is not. Not particularly responsible, though great responsibility is required to carry it off safely. Not particularly expensive, though penury is no way to have fun and the budget was gleefully adjusted on the fly. Not difficult, even if being the sole driver for that long is no picnic. Just something you can enjoy without guilt or second thought, your adult responsibilities leavened by childlike release.
I can’t wait for next time. More of a northern route, maybe including Yellowstone…
Friday, July 15, 2005
Not a Helpful Solution
The Literary Correspondent recently forwarded to The Home Office a disturbing e-mail she had received. It should be pointed out that the Literary Correspondent and I have a tendency to look at events from different sides of the political spectrum.
A friend of hers (fortunately for me, I don’t know that I have any “friends” of this ilk, and don’t want to find out) is soliciting support for an anti-terrorist letter to be sent to “Senators, Congressmen and all political figures who need to act now to protect us from the Muslim terrorists.” The accompanying letter is better described as a screed. It begins:
To date, and to the best of my knowledge, we have not heard from any Muslim leaders in our country denouncing the Muslim attacks on us and on our allies. Why do we not expect these people, in our country, to stand with us and loudly denounce the insurgent terrorists?
And concludes:
What can we do about the Muslim invasion in our country?
Some ideas:
Do not allow Muslim schools in this country.
Do not allow Muslim mosques in this country.
Stop all Muslims from entering this country.
Do not support Muslim owned businesses; many are fundraisers for the insurgents.
Do not believe that any Muslims are peaceful, read their doctrines and beliefs.
AND, the ACLU be damned!
First, the personal note. As a card-carrying member of the ACLU, I have issues with her presumption of the authority to damn anyone, let alone me. Based on her letter, she’s in way over her head in making those kinds of judgments. She should stick to things more in line with her talents. Coloring between the lines. Not stepping on sidewalk cracks.
You’d think Americans would have learned their lessons from the forced internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II, or the McCarthy-era blacklistings. As much as some Americans claim to love freedom, and are willing to see every Iraqi citizen blown to tiny bits so those tiny bits can be free, we’re willing to deny that freedom to others at the drop of a casualty.
The event that must have triggered this outburst (based on its date) didn’t even happen here. We could learn a lot from the British response to last week’s bombings. The affected areas were cordoned off as crime scenes for a few days; it was business as usual elsewhere. London lost as many as 500 people a night during the Blitz and basically told Hitler to go fuck himself. A lot Brits who grew up then are still around. I don't think half a dozen backpack charges placed at the behest of a guy who lives in a cave is going to faze them much.
The mayor made a speech to that effect the other day. “London has been the target of a cowardly terrorist attack…This was indiscriminate slaughter irrespective of age, class, religion, whatever…That isn’t an ideology. It isn’t even a perverted faith. It is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder…I urge Londoners from all of this city’s diverse communities and faiths to support one another and stand together against terrorism…Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.” (Emphasis not in original.)
That about sums it up, somewhat more eloquently than I would have. I looked through the speech, “and the camel you rode in on” isn’t in the text. It doesn’t have to be; it sits between the lines, holding the speech together like the mortar between bricks.
What might be the most important aspect of his speech is his appeal to all faiths to support each other and stand together. Any overt attempts to marginalize an entire religion even more than it is will only increase the alienation and rancor. Our best way out of this is to establish better rapport with mainstream Muslims. They are best suited to communicate rationally with anyone on the fence about the long-term benefits of working peacefully, and best positioned to provide information on who might be prepared to do us wrong.
Before we do anything we can’t undo and could be ashamed to explain to our children, let’s make sure we aren’t panicking over this. Among my first memories as I became aware of the world around me were the annual summer race riots during the mid to late sixties. I was surprised when they stopped; I assumed black people routinely burned down cities every summer. Time passed, conditions changed, and discontent over civil rights (or the lack thereof) became expressed differently.
Terrorism as we see it now may well be a phase that will pass. That’s not to say we should sit back and do nothing and take our casualties; that's wrong-headed and will only delay the end of the phase. Let’s treat the perpetrators as they criminals they are, and treat law-abiding citizens as the fully functional members of a free society that they are until proven otherwise. If we don't believe the system we claim to have loved so much for 229 years can handle this, then we're even more hypocritical than I have been suspecting.
Walking away from what we are supposed to stand for in the name of nominally increased security is handing the terrorists a greater victory than they could ever hope to achieve by blowing up every building in the country. Their supposed purpose is to undermine our freedoms and way of life. They can’t do that unless we let them. The sentiments in our anonymous letter do exactly that.
The terrorists who blew up London and the World Trade Center are no more Muslims than Timothy McVeigh was a good Christian boy. I doubt the writer of the above letter ever contemplated rounding up all the Christians (or even just the Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, whatever McVeigh was) and shipping them off somewhere. What’s that? They’re citizens, and were already here? So are a lot of Muslims, some of whom probably have a much better understanding of the Bill of Rights than does our letter writer.
Terrorists are an abomination in the sight of decent people everywhere, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, or national origin. If we want to stop them, let’s make it easier for their unwilling “peers” to speak out against their atrocities. The terrorist mantra is that they’re being ignored, their convictions trampled by a Western world intent on destroying them. Iraq is their greatest recruiting poster. Maybe it’s time to invest in making friends in addition to killing enemies. Just killing enemies doesn’t seem to be making us any safer.
A friend of hers (fortunately for me, I don’t know that I have any “friends” of this ilk, and don’t want to find out) is soliciting support for an anti-terrorist letter to be sent to “Senators, Congressmen and all political figures who need to act now to protect us from the Muslim terrorists.” The accompanying letter is better described as a screed. It begins:
To date, and to the best of my knowledge, we have not heard from any Muslim leaders in our country denouncing the Muslim attacks on us and on our allies. Why do we not expect these people, in our country, to stand with us and loudly denounce the insurgent terrorists?
And concludes:
What can we do about the Muslim invasion in our country?
Some ideas:
Do not allow Muslim schools in this country.
Do not allow Muslim mosques in this country.
Stop all Muslims from entering this country.
Do not support Muslim owned businesses; many are fundraisers for the insurgents.
Do not believe that any Muslims are peaceful, read their doctrines and beliefs.
AND, the ACLU be damned!
First, the personal note. As a card-carrying member of the ACLU, I have issues with her presumption of the authority to damn anyone, let alone me. Based on her letter, she’s in way over her head in making those kinds of judgments. She should stick to things more in line with her talents. Coloring between the lines. Not stepping on sidewalk cracks.
You’d think Americans would have learned their lessons from the forced internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II, or the McCarthy-era blacklistings. As much as some Americans claim to love freedom, and are willing to see every Iraqi citizen blown to tiny bits so those tiny bits can be free, we’re willing to deny that freedom to others at the drop of a casualty.
The event that must have triggered this outburst (based on its date) didn’t even happen here. We could learn a lot from the British response to last week’s bombings. The affected areas were cordoned off as crime scenes for a few days; it was business as usual elsewhere. London lost as many as 500 people a night during the Blitz and basically told Hitler to go fuck himself. A lot Brits who grew up then are still around. I don't think half a dozen backpack charges placed at the behest of a guy who lives in a cave is going to faze them much.
The mayor made a speech to that effect the other day. “London has been the target of a cowardly terrorist attack…This was indiscriminate slaughter irrespective of age, class, religion, whatever…That isn’t an ideology. It isn’t even a perverted faith. It is just an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder…I urge Londoners from all of this city’s diverse communities and faiths to support one another and stand together against terrorism…Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.” (Emphasis not in original.)
That about sums it up, somewhat more eloquently than I would have. I looked through the speech, “and the camel you rode in on” isn’t in the text. It doesn’t have to be; it sits between the lines, holding the speech together like the mortar between bricks.
What might be the most important aspect of his speech is his appeal to all faiths to support each other and stand together. Any overt attempts to marginalize an entire religion even more than it is will only increase the alienation and rancor. Our best way out of this is to establish better rapport with mainstream Muslims. They are best suited to communicate rationally with anyone on the fence about the long-term benefits of working peacefully, and best positioned to provide information on who might be prepared to do us wrong.
Before we do anything we can’t undo and could be ashamed to explain to our children, let’s make sure we aren’t panicking over this. Among my first memories as I became aware of the world around me were the annual summer race riots during the mid to late sixties. I was surprised when they stopped; I assumed black people routinely burned down cities every summer. Time passed, conditions changed, and discontent over civil rights (or the lack thereof) became expressed differently.
Terrorism as we see it now may well be a phase that will pass. That’s not to say we should sit back and do nothing and take our casualties; that's wrong-headed and will only delay the end of the phase. Let’s treat the perpetrators as they criminals they are, and treat law-abiding citizens as the fully functional members of a free society that they are until proven otherwise. If we don't believe the system we claim to have loved so much for 229 years can handle this, then we're even more hypocritical than I have been suspecting.
Walking away from what we are supposed to stand for in the name of nominally increased security is handing the terrorists a greater victory than they could ever hope to achieve by blowing up every building in the country. Their supposed purpose is to undermine our freedoms and way of life. They can’t do that unless we let them. The sentiments in our anonymous letter do exactly that.
The terrorists who blew up London and the World Trade Center are no more Muslims than Timothy McVeigh was a good Christian boy. I doubt the writer of the above letter ever contemplated rounding up all the Christians (or even just the Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, whatever McVeigh was) and shipping them off somewhere. What’s that? They’re citizens, and were already here? So are a lot of Muslims, some of whom probably have a much better understanding of the Bill of Rights than does our letter writer.
Terrorists are an abomination in the sight of decent people everywhere, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference, or national origin. If we want to stop them, let’s make it easier for their unwilling “peers” to speak out against their atrocities. The terrorist mantra is that they’re being ignored, their convictions trampled by a Western world intent on destroying them. Iraq is their greatest recruiting poster. Maybe it’s time to invest in making friends in addition to killing enemies. Just killing enemies doesn’t seem to be making us any safer.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
An Appreciation
The lights are about to go out at the 87th Precinct.
Salvatore Lombino, aka Evan Hunter, even better known to crime fiction readers as Ed McBain, died of throat cancer last week at the age of 78. McBain wrote his first 87th Precinct novel, Cop Hater, in 1956. He wrote over fifty more, fitting them in around the time required to write another good series about attorney Matthew Hope, more “serious” work as Evan Hunter, movie and television scripts (including Hitchcock’s classic The Birds), and even more books under so many names he claimed not to be able to remember them all.
It’s no disparagement of his other work to say that he’ll be remembered best for the 87th Precinct. Aside from virtually inventing what is now called the police procedural, McBain gave us an assembly of characters that presaged what is now known as the ensemble cast. If his detectives had been actors, none would have cause to feel cheated.
Hill Street Blues is credited with revolutionizing police drama, folding multiple stories over the lives of real people who happen to be cops. Not a police or crime show, but a drama about cops. There would be no Hill Street in its imaginary city that looks a lot like New York had there been no 87th Precinct in an imaginary city that resembled New York more than a little. Not crime or mystery books, books about people who happen to be cops.
And what people they are. Not were, the Eight-Seven’s detective squad will live long past its creator’s demise. Steve Carella, as human a cop as ever put on paper, and his deaf mute wife, Teddy, regularly showing an intimacy that went beyond sexual; Bert Kling, Artie Brown, Meyer Meyer, even fat Ollie Weeks from the Eight-Eight, another half dozen slightly less prominent. All flawed, some more than others, all with enough redemptive qualities to make the reader comfortable with wanting them to succeed. (Even if you have to look pretty hard to find those qualities in Fat Ollie, m’dear.)
McBain wrote with a stark eloquence, evoking the darkness without letting the gruesome become grotesque. His detectives’ professional mixture of distance and compassion make them successful without making their success inevitable, or universal. Some bad guys get away; the Deaf Man eludes them still. Some relationships succeed, others fail for all the reasons to which flesh is heir. Witnessing the detectives’ occasional fallibility makes their continuing efforts more noble.
What may have been the best part of McBain’s writing is also now the greatest disappointment: he was still getting better. Money, Money, Money (2001) was as good as any, with 2002’s Fat Ollie’s Book a noble sequel, picking up a story line from its predecessor and running with it. His plots stayed current, the writing tight. His recent books read as though written by someone forty years younger, on the cutting edge of contemporary criminal evolution. His laurels would have made a comfortable bed on which to rest: Mystery Writers of America Grand Master (1986), the only American recipient of the British Crime Writers Association’s Cartier Golden Dagger (1998).
Ed McBain could have phoned it in for the last ten years and sales would have stayed high enough to keep getting him published. He need not have written a word in the past twenty years to be universally and forever recognized as among the handful of greatest crime writers. It is our great good fortune he chose neither course, continuously honing his craft, producing electric fiction that will be read for generations to come.
And he left us a present: Slate’s obituary says the next (and, sadly, last) 87th Precinct novel will be out in October. Thanks, Ed. Wherever you are, let’s be careful out there.
Salvatore Lombino, aka Evan Hunter, even better known to crime fiction readers as Ed McBain, died of throat cancer last week at the age of 78. McBain wrote his first 87th Precinct novel, Cop Hater, in 1956. He wrote over fifty more, fitting them in around the time required to write another good series about attorney Matthew Hope, more “serious” work as Evan Hunter, movie and television scripts (including Hitchcock’s classic The Birds), and even more books under so many names he claimed not to be able to remember them all.
It’s no disparagement of his other work to say that he’ll be remembered best for the 87th Precinct. Aside from virtually inventing what is now called the police procedural, McBain gave us an assembly of characters that presaged what is now known as the ensemble cast. If his detectives had been actors, none would have cause to feel cheated.
Hill Street Blues is credited with revolutionizing police drama, folding multiple stories over the lives of real people who happen to be cops. Not a police or crime show, but a drama about cops. There would be no Hill Street in its imaginary city that looks a lot like New York had there been no 87th Precinct in an imaginary city that resembled New York more than a little. Not crime or mystery books, books about people who happen to be cops.
And what people they are. Not were, the Eight-Seven’s detective squad will live long past its creator’s demise. Steve Carella, as human a cop as ever put on paper, and his deaf mute wife, Teddy, regularly showing an intimacy that went beyond sexual; Bert Kling, Artie Brown, Meyer Meyer, even fat Ollie Weeks from the Eight-Eight, another half dozen slightly less prominent. All flawed, some more than others, all with enough redemptive qualities to make the reader comfortable with wanting them to succeed. (Even if you have to look pretty hard to find those qualities in Fat Ollie, m’dear.)
McBain wrote with a stark eloquence, evoking the darkness without letting the gruesome become grotesque. His detectives’ professional mixture of distance and compassion make them successful without making their success inevitable, or universal. Some bad guys get away; the Deaf Man eludes them still. Some relationships succeed, others fail for all the reasons to which flesh is heir. Witnessing the detectives’ occasional fallibility makes their continuing efforts more noble.
What may have been the best part of McBain’s writing is also now the greatest disappointment: he was still getting better. Money, Money, Money (2001) was as good as any, with 2002’s Fat Ollie’s Book a noble sequel, picking up a story line from its predecessor and running with it. His plots stayed current, the writing tight. His recent books read as though written by someone forty years younger, on the cutting edge of contemporary criminal evolution. His laurels would have made a comfortable bed on which to rest: Mystery Writers of America Grand Master (1986), the only American recipient of the British Crime Writers Association’s Cartier Golden Dagger (1998).
Ed McBain could have phoned it in for the last ten years and sales would have stayed high enough to keep getting him published. He need not have written a word in the past twenty years to be universally and forever recognized as among the handful of greatest crime writers. It is our great good fortune he chose neither course, continuously honing his craft, producing electric fiction that will be read for generations to come.
And he left us a present: Slate’s obituary says the next (and, sadly, last) 87th Precinct novel will be out in October. Thanks, Ed. Wherever you are, let’s be careful out there.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Happy Birthday
If you believe in this sort of thing, on July 7, 1927, God decided to make a trumpet player.
Happy 78th birthday, Doc Severinsen.
Happy 78th birthday, Doc Severinsen.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Press Release From The Home Office
The Home Office is pleased to announce the publication of the short story “Hail Mary” by New Mystery Reader as July’s Story of the Month.
Stop by the NMR site (www.newmysteryreader.com) to read “Hail Mary,” as well as the other excellent stories and book reviews posted. Yours truly has contributed reviews of new hardcovers (The Living Room of the Dead), new paperbacks (Men From Boys) and June’s Spotlight Review (The Black Angel).
Many thanks to Stephanie Padilla at New Mystery Reader for her enthusiastic support.
Stop by the NMR site (www.newmysteryreader.com) to read “Hail Mary,” as well as the other excellent stories and book reviews posted. Yours truly has contributed reviews of new hardcovers (The Living Room of the Dead), new paperbacks (Men From Boys) and June’s Spotlight Review (The Black Angel).
Many thanks to Stephanie Padilla at New Mystery Reader for her enthusiastic support.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
A Chance to Do Right
Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement from the Supreme Court (probably so she can “loosen up” with John Riggins) reinvigorates the Senate’s recent bi-partisan agreement not to filibuster judicial nominees. “Extraordinary circumstances” will be parsed and debated, with all other Senate business hanging in the balance, while the acceptability of Shrub’s nominee is debated.
Democrats will line up with a list of unacceptable and ill-informed decisions and writings; Republicans will counter with their own brilliant and morally insightful list, with “So what?” thrown in for good measure. The crux will come down to whether a president is entitled to get whoever he wants on the Court. The answer is, obviously, “No.”
It is difficult to believe the Founding Fathers wanted a rubber stamp for anyone a president wants to nominate, or they would not have required the Senate’s advice and consent for confirmation. Advice is in the eye of the beholder. The Senate can tell the president whatever it wants, whereupon he is free to ignore them. The consent piece is supposed to act as a guarantee against the repayment of a political favor, or the appointment of a justice well outside the mainstream of American thought, since justices can only be impeached for misconduct, not recalled for being an idiot.
The hypocrisy of the current majority’s penchant for referring to themselves as “strict constructionists” of the Constitution is rarely more evident than it is here. (The Terri Schiavo case may be one case, when both houses of Congress turned over every rock they could find, looking for judges to interpret the law the way Congress wanted, then threatened changes in the court system when their own parochial idea were ignored.) The framers of the Constitution were deeply concerned about the potential for a tyranny of the majority; the tradition of filibusters is the best example of this. While not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, filibusters go back about that far. Senators were expected to conduct themselves as gentlemen and use it only when the rights and perspectives of the minority were in danger of being abused or ignored.
Republicans should be well aware of this, if any of them could be bother to read the history they espouse to honor and protect. Franklin Roosevelt was unhappy when the Supreme Court’s overturned some of his New Deal legislation. (The Court has often lagged well behind the prevailing political sentiment of the day, and thank God for that.) Roosevelt’s attempt to stack the court by enlarging it, thereby adding sufficient justices to ensure a sympathetic majority, was soundly and properly defeated, on the ground that the Supreme Court is not an ideological sanctuary, where presidents may park disciples of whatever half-baked political idea is currently in vogue.
Whatever the Democrats do, they are not denying Shrub his Constitutionally-protected right to put whoever he wants on the Supreme Court. It is the responsibility of the President and the Senate to agree on a justice who can speak responsibly for all Americans. Not that everyone will agree with him or her all the time; that’s not possible, regardless of who is selected. Fringe groups on the left and right will disagree with a good choice; that’s as it should be.
The President’s responsibility as the head of government is to find a nominee agreeable to him that will not so offend the loyal opposition as to prompt a filibuster. The Senate’s responsibility is to grant him quite a bit of leeway. Both sides’ willingness to do these things has been well-evidenced by the high percentage of Shrub’s federal court judges that have been approved, even though the filibustered few got all the attention.
There’s one last argument against letting Shrub automatically have whoever he wants. We had an opportunity in the country to have a King George I over two hundred years ago. Mr. Washington turned it down. We don’t need one now, and that’s what we’ll be inching toward if the Senate abdicates its responsibility. What freedoms that have survived since 1787 are due, in large part, to the ability of the executive and legislative branches to appoint informed and non-partisan consciences to the federal courts. Presidents don’t send edicts to Congress; they send requests. Let us not start down a slippery slope toward one-man rule. One-party rule is bad enough.
Democrats will line up with a list of unacceptable and ill-informed decisions and writings; Republicans will counter with their own brilliant and morally insightful list, with “So what?” thrown in for good measure. The crux will come down to whether a president is entitled to get whoever he wants on the Court. The answer is, obviously, “No.”
It is difficult to believe the Founding Fathers wanted a rubber stamp for anyone a president wants to nominate, or they would not have required the Senate’s advice and consent for confirmation. Advice is in the eye of the beholder. The Senate can tell the president whatever it wants, whereupon he is free to ignore them. The consent piece is supposed to act as a guarantee against the repayment of a political favor, or the appointment of a justice well outside the mainstream of American thought, since justices can only be impeached for misconduct, not recalled for being an idiot.
The hypocrisy of the current majority’s penchant for referring to themselves as “strict constructionists” of the Constitution is rarely more evident than it is here. (The Terri Schiavo case may be one case, when both houses of Congress turned over every rock they could find, looking for judges to interpret the law the way Congress wanted, then threatened changes in the court system when their own parochial idea were ignored.) The framers of the Constitution were deeply concerned about the potential for a tyranny of the majority; the tradition of filibusters is the best example of this. While not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, filibusters go back about that far. Senators were expected to conduct themselves as gentlemen and use it only when the rights and perspectives of the minority were in danger of being abused or ignored.
Republicans should be well aware of this, if any of them could be bother to read the history they espouse to honor and protect. Franklin Roosevelt was unhappy when the Supreme Court’s overturned some of his New Deal legislation. (The Court has often lagged well behind the prevailing political sentiment of the day, and thank God for that.) Roosevelt’s attempt to stack the court by enlarging it, thereby adding sufficient justices to ensure a sympathetic majority, was soundly and properly defeated, on the ground that the Supreme Court is not an ideological sanctuary, where presidents may park disciples of whatever half-baked political idea is currently in vogue.
Whatever the Democrats do, they are not denying Shrub his Constitutionally-protected right to put whoever he wants on the Supreme Court. It is the responsibility of the President and the Senate to agree on a justice who can speak responsibly for all Americans. Not that everyone will agree with him or her all the time; that’s not possible, regardless of who is selected. Fringe groups on the left and right will disagree with a good choice; that’s as it should be.
The President’s responsibility as the head of government is to find a nominee agreeable to him that will not so offend the loyal opposition as to prompt a filibuster. The Senate’s responsibility is to grant him quite a bit of leeway. Both sides’ willingness to do these things has been well-evidenced by the high percentage of Shrub’s federal court judges that have been approved, even though the filibustered few got all the attention.
There’s one last argument against letting Shrub automatically have whoever he wants. We had an opportunity in the country to have a King George I over two hundred years ago. Mr. Washington turned it down. We don’t need one now, and that’s what we’ll be inching toward if the Senate abdicates its responsibility. What freedoms that have survived since 1787 are due, in large part, to the ability of the executive and legislative branches to appoint informed and non-partisan consciences to the federal courts. Presidents don’t send edicts to Congress; they send requests. Let us not start down a slippery slope toward one-man rule. One-party rule is bad enough.
Friday, July 01, 2005
More Ignorant Crackers
This will probably piss off Runs With Scissors again; I’ll get over it. I’m still trying to figure out how he can write his replies in crayon and get them transmitted through the Internet. Scanner, maybe.
Southern “gentlemen” have been making news the past few weeks for being anything but gentlemen. The next time anyone wonders whether the hubris of modern conservatism is founded on the ignorance of crackerhood, let them look no farther than this quartet.
You all know Jesse Helms. He’s the poster child for not living in North Carolina despite its temperate weather and scenic charms: the state is more than half full of people who elected this inbred troglodyte to the Senate for thirty years.
Jesse recently published his autobiography, meaning he has now written more books than he has read. While he admitted being wrong about AIDS funding, he stands by his segregation record. Integration would have come in its own time, he says. All the trouble was because we rushed things before people were ready.
Ya think!? It had only been a hundred years since the end of the civil war and the Fourteenth Amendment gave everyone, lily-white and Nigruhs alike, equal protection under the law. So what if they couldn’t vote? Southern white folk would take care of their childlike wards, just like they did in the good old days. Look how far we’ve come, Jesse would say. They don’t even have to call us Massa no more. They all had schools, nice separate but equal ones, if by equal you mean no indoor plumbing and books with pages missing. Not that white Southerners got such a hot education. Jesse was taught there.
Virginia Representative Tom Davis’s trespass is at the same time more trivial and more disturbing. Davis heads the committee currently looking into baseball’s steroid problem, Congress having nothing better to do now that the troops are home from Iraq, the budget s balanced, and Social Security is solvent for another hundred years. This week he contributed to the current political climate by saying baseball would do well not to consider favorably the bid put forth by a group containing wack job billionaire George Soros to purchase the Washington Nationals.
Soros’s primary offense appears to be that he’s a liberal wack job. I doubt Rep. Davis would have any issues with Fox News’ Rupert Murdoch getting back into baseball if he wanted to, and he’s as big a rich wack as there is. Say what you want about Democratic abuses when they were the semi-permanent majority, throwing political weight around to this degree is unheard of. Davis gets easily re-elected, as good a reason as any to invoke the Helms Rule and not live in his district. It’s at least half full of people with no more sense and decency than him.
(Davis had an aide backtrack from his statement yesterday, saying the Congressman was speaking as a private citizen and not in his official capacity. The statement, aside from showing the heroic Congressman’s unwillingness to face the music himself, had all the sincerity of a mobster running the protection racket, when he says to the candy store owner, “it would be shame if a fire was to break out in here.”)
Then there’s Bill Frist, who claimed his look at some family videotape convinced him that at least a dozen neuro-specialists were wrong and Terri Schiavo was just some prayers and a good massage away from starring in a revival of 42nd Street. Last week’s autopsy results showed she’s barely deader now than she was then. What about Bill’s “diagnosis?” He swears up and down he never said that.
All of the above are candidates as Billy Graham’s heir when compared to Jeb Bush. It wasn’t enough that he seriously considered having the state police “rescue” Terri Schiavo, backing down when a local police official with an understanding of his oath of office said he would uphold the law, even if violence was required to do so. Bush bided his time, waiting for the autopsy results. When Terri was proven to be brain dead beyond redemption, Bush asked for an investigation into how quickly Michael Schiavo called 911. No one mentioned this, not even her parents, for fifteen years. Now it’s a burning issue to be investigated in Florida, since their immigration and drug problems are history. Can there be any doubt Bush would ask for a homicide investigation if the autopsy had come out differently?
I’m sure all of these “gentlemen” would tell you they’re good Christians. Why should they be any more honest about that than anything else? They can wrap themselves in the flag and Bible all they want; they’re shameless whores who wouldn’t know the right thing to do if Moses handed it to them carved in a rock.
Good Christians understand humility and the benefits of turning the other cheek. These four are out for what they can get by appealing to the basest and most vindictive elements of their constituency. Jesse’s gone, for all intents and purposes, and hallelujah for that. Let’s hope the rest of them are in the process of overplaying their hands and overestimating the venality of the American people. If they’re not, and can continue to get away with this for too long, then maybe America isn’t destined to be the shining house on the hill we supposedly all aspire to. If it isn’t, we have only ourselves to blame.
Southern “gentlemen” have been making news the past few weeks for being anything but gentlemen. The next time anyone wonders whether the hubris of modern conservatism is founded on the ignorance of crackerhood, let them look no farther than this quartet.
You all know Jesse Helms. He’s the poster child for not living in North Carolina despite its temperate weather and scenic charms: the state is more than half full of people who elected this inbred troglodyte to the Senate for thirty years.
Jesse recently published his autobiography, meaning he has now written more books than he has read. While he admitted being wrong about AIDS funding, he stands by his segregation record. Integration would have come in its own time, he says. All the trouble was because we rushed things before people were ready.
Ya think!? It had only been a hundred years since the end of the civil war and the Fourteenth Amendment gave everyone, lily-white and Nigruhs alike, equal protection under the law. So what if they couldn’t vote? Southern white folk would take care of their childlike wards, just like they did in the good old days. Look how far we’ve come, Jesse would say. They don’t even have to call us Massa no more. They all had schools, nice separate but equal ones, if by equal you mean no indoor plumbing and books with pages missing. Not that white Southerners got such a hot education. Jesse was taught there.
Virginia Representative Tom Davis’s trespass is at the same time more trivial and more disturbing. Davis heads the committee currently looking into baseball’s steroid problem, Congress having nothing better to do now that the troops are home from Iraq, the budget s balanced, and Social Security is solvent for another hundred years. This week he contributed to the current political climate by saying baseball would do well not to consider favorably the bid put forth by a group containing wack job billionaire George Soros to purchase the Washington Nationals.
Soros’s primary offense appears to be that he’s a liberal wack job. I doubt Rep. Davis would have any issues with Fox News’ Rupert Murdoch getting back into baseball if he wanted to, and he’s as big a rich wack as there is. Say what you want about Democratic abuses when they were the semi-permanent majority, throwing political weight around to this degree is unheard of. Davis gets easily re-elected, as good a reason as any to invoke the Helms Rule and not live in his district. It’s at least half full of people with no more sense and decency than him.
(Davis had an aide backtrack from his statement yesterday, saying the Congressman was speaking as a private citizen and not in his official capacity. The statement, aside from showing the heroic Congressman’s unwillingness to face the music himself, had all the sincerity of a mobster running the protection racket, when he says to the candy store owner, “it would be shame if a fire was to break out in here.”)
Then there’s Bill Frist, who claimed his look at some family videotape convinced him that at least a dozen neuro-specialists were wrong and Terri Schiavo was just some prayers and a good massage away from starring in a revival of 42nd Street. Last week’s autopsy results showed she’s barely deader now than she was then. What about Bill’s “diagnosis?” He swears up and down he never said that.
All of the above are candidates as Billy Graham’s heir when compared to Jeb Bush. It wasn’t enough that he seriously considered having the state police “rescue” Terri Schiavo, backing down when a local police official with an understanding of his oath of office said he would uphold the law, even if violence was required to do so. Bush bided his time, waiting for the autopsy results. When Terri was proven to be brain dead beyond redemption, Bush asked for an investigation into how quickly Michael Schiavo called 911. No one mentioned this, not even her parents, for fifteen years. Now it’s a burning issue to be investigated in Florida, since their immigration and drug problems are history. Can there be any doubt Bush would ask for a homicide investigation if the autopsy had come out differently?
I’m sure all of these “gentlemen” would tell you they’re good Christians. Why should they be any more honest about that than anything else? They can wrap themselves in the flag and Bible all they want; they’re shameless whores who wouldn’t know the right thing to do if Moses handed it to them carved in a rock.
Good Christians understand humility and the benefits of turning the other cheek. These four are out for what they can get by appealing to the basest and most vindictive elements of their constituency. Jesse’s gone, for all intents and purposes, and hallelujah for that. Let’s hope the rest of them are in the process of overplaying their hands and overestimating the venality of the American people. If they’re not, and can continue to get away with this for too long, then maybe America isn’t destined to be the shining house on the hill we supposedly all aspire to. If it isn’t, we have only ourselves to blame.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
News from the Web
The Home Office is pleased to announce its status as a regular reviewer for New Mystery Reader (www.newmysteryreader.com) . June's Spotlight Review of John Connelly's The Black Angel is our handiwork. Recent reviews have included novels by Elmore Leonard (almost perfect), Michael Lawson (excellent first novel), Simon Kernick (very good), Roland Jefferson (not so good), and Robin Cook (ecch!). To read the reviews, go to the website and scroll through the hardcover reviews for the above authors.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Busy, Busy, Busy
The Home Office apologizes for the lack of recent activity. (If "apologize" is the right word for granting you a reprieve from the rantings and "humor" contained herein.) Things have been busy, most productively with New Mystery Reader. We are now a regular reviewer; check the site (www.newmysteryreader.com) for the short story "Food Noir" and reviews of books by Elmore Leonard, Robin Cook, Simon Kernick, Roland S. Jefferson, and Michael Lawson, with more to follow.
Remember, the best way to support The Home Office is to support those who support us. (You can wait until after you've decoded that last sentence.) Lots of good stuff at New Mystery Reader; check it out.
Remember, the best way to support The Home Office is to support those who support us. (You can wait until after you've decoded that last sentence.) Lots of good stuff at New Mystery Reader; check it out.
Back to the Future
Remember the Sixties? (For any readers of a certain age and disposition, flashbacks count.) Not the tie-dyed, peace and love, don’t drop the brown acid, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida Sixties. I’m talking about the civil rights violating, credibility gap, labor strife, military-industrial complex, up against the wall motherfucker Sixties.
Well, they’re back.
Similarities are everywhere. I know, I found tons of similarities between our current situation and the Civil War, and was taken to task for it by Running With Scissors. (We’ll get to him in the near future.) This is why, in the immortal words etched into the statue on the ground of Faber College in the seminal film Animal House, “knowledge is good.”
We have the Patriot Act; the Sixties had J. Edgar Hoover keeping dossiers on everyone who ever said “good morning” on May Day.
The Sixties had the labor strike of the week; we have underfunded pension plans (if they’re funded at all) and GM laying off 25,000 workers because the Japs are killing them and GM is losing $2,500 on every car it sells. (That parallel runs closer to the Seventies; remember, history doesn’t repeat, it rhymes.)
The Sixties had the Credibility Gap; the best way to tell if Dubya is dissembling is to see if his lips move. (Personal note to Fearless Leader: that’s the word, moron, not “disassembling.”)
The Sixties had the Silent Majority; the Aughts have the Moral Majority.
The Sixties had an increasingly unpopular war becoming less likely daily to achieve what it was intended to do, even if anyone could remember what that was; sound familiar, especially if you think back to the “rationale du jour” of the winter of 2003?
Let’s hope someone as yet unseen comes along and does more than re-arrange the deck chairs. We all remember what followed the Sixties: the Seventies. And they were even worse.
Well, they’re back.
Similarities are everywhere. I know, I found tons of similarities between our current situation and the Civil War, and was taken to task for it by Running With Scissors. (We’ll get to him in the near future.) This is why, in the immortal words etched into the statue on the ground of Faber College in the seminal film Animal House, “knowledge is good.”
We have the Patriot Act; the Sixties had J. Edgar Hoover keeping dossiers on everyone who ever said “good morning” on May Day.
The Sixties had the labor strike of the week; we have underfunded pension plans (if they’re funded at all) and GM laying off 25,000 workers because the Japs are killing them and GM is losing $2,500 on every car it sells. (That parallel runs closer to the Seventies; remember, history doesn’t repeat, it rhymes.)
The Sixties had the Credibility Gap; the best way to tell if Dubya is dissembling is to see if his lips move. (Personal note to Fearless Leader: that’s the word, moron, not “disassembling.”)
The Sixties had the Silent Majority; the Aughts have the Moral Majority.
The Sixties had an increasingly unpopular war becoming less likely daily to achieve what it was intended to do, even if anyone could remember what that was; sound familiar, especially if you think back to the “rationale du jour” of the winter of 2003?
Let’s hope someone as yet unseen comes along and does more than re-arrange the deck chairs. We all remember what followed the Sixties: the Seventies. And they were even worse.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Emperor of the North
The Hollywood Correspondent writes a monthly email critiquing movies, past and present. It’s always eagerly anticipated at The Home Office: well-written, thought provoking, and entertaining. (I’ve been after him to start a blog; maybe this will get him thinking about it more seriously.)
This month he took a look back at a favorite movie of mine, 1973’s Emperor of the North, starring Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine. Here’s what he had to say, in its entirety; nothing I can do makes this any better.
I can just imagine a filmmaker taking the idea for this movie to a Hollywood executive today:
Filmmaker: "It's about a couple of Depression-era hobos who are determined to ride a train patrolled by a vicious conductor. You really get the sense of what life was like during the Depression and it features three great roles."
Executive: "When you say Depression-era, you're talking about the 1800s?
Filmmaker: "No, that would be the 1930s. Food lines, unemployment, FDR, you've read about that, right?"
Executive: "We don't really like period pieces here....except when there's a romance involved. Is there a role for Gwyneth Paltrow?"
Filmmaker: "Sorry, no roles for women, but it's filled scenes of these men beating on each other."
Executive: "Well, that's a start. What kind of special effects budget are you thinking about?"
Filmmaker: "Actually there aren't any special effects. The actors will ride on the train and interact on the moving train."
Executive: "Hmmm, I'll check with our lawyers on that. OK, so who do you see in the main roles?"
Filmmaker: "For the conductor, we need a real physical presence, someone who can scare the crap out of the audience-maybe De Niro?"
Executive: "Bobby's no longer hot. How about Jude Law? Wasn't "Cold Mountain" set in the Depression?"
Filmmaker: "Not exactly what I was imagining and he's a bit young for the role."
Executive: "Maybe Oprah Winfrey? But we'd need bigger stars in the other roles."
Filmmaker: "I don't really see Oprah working in the role, but the real star of the picture is the older hobo. He's the Emperor of the North who must fight off the young upstart."
Executive: "How about Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick?-they're just finishing up "The Producers."
Filmmaker: "Well, it's not exactly a comedy."
Executive: "But you have funny lines in it, right? This is an action film, right?"
Filmmaker: "Maybe it's a little more serious than most action films."
Executive: "We can fix that in rewrite. How about Bruce Willis and Ashton Kutcher? Now that's a publicist's dream, eh?"
Filmmaker: "Maybe I should try another studio....."
Executive: "I was just joking! What if we made the younger hobo a girl? Pitt and Paltrow! I think we have it! And instead of Oprah we can cast Dr. Phil as the conductor. He can bring them together. I'll have my secretary get their agents on the line."
Filmmaker: "I really didn't see the film as a romance....."
Executive: "Don't worry, I do. Maybe the train they ride is going through the south of France?"
Filmmaker: "In the Depression?"
Executive: "I've already forgotten about the Depression. I see this as a great contemporary romantic adventure between two down-on-their-luck Americans who end up getting married at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Son, I think you have a huge hit on your hands!"
Filmmaker: "Really?...."
Just be thankful it was made in 1973 when director Robert Aldrich was allowed to cast Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and Keith Caradine and make a film that's both entertaining and a serious look at the life of homeless men in the 1930s. If you haven't seen it, rent it now before someone remakes it.
This month he took a look back at a favorite movie of mine, 1973’s Emperor of the North, starring Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine. Here’s what he had to say, in its entirety; nothing I can do makes this any better.
I can just imagine a filmmaker taking the idea for this movie to a Hollywood executive today:
Filmmaker: "It's about a couple of Depression-era hobos who are determined to ride a train patrolled by a vicious conductor. You really get the sense of what life was like during the Depression and it features three great roles."
Executive: "When you say Depression-era, you're talking about the 1800s?
Filmmaker: "No, that would be the 1930s. Food lines, unemployment, FDR, you've read about that, right?"
Executive: "We don't really like period pieces here....except when there's a romance involved. Is there a role for Gwyneth Paltrow?"
Filmmaker: "Sorry, no roles for women, but it's filled scenes of these men beating on each other."
Executive: "Well, that's a start. What kind of special effects budget are you thinking about?"
Filmmaker: "Actually there aren't any special effects. The actors will ride on the train and interact on the moving train."
Executive: "Hmmm, I'll check with our lawyers on that. OK, so who do you see in the main roles?"
Filmmaker: "For the conductor, we need a real physical presence, someone who can scare the crap out of the audience-maybe De Niro?"
Executive: "Bobby's no longer hot. How about Jude Law? Wasn't "Cold Mountain" set in the Depression?"
Filmmaker: "Not exactly what I was imagining and he's a bit young for the role."
Executive: "Maybe Oprah Winfrey? But we'd need bigger stars in the other roles."
Filmmaker: "I don't really see Oprah working in the role, but the real star of the picture is the older hobo. He's the Emperor of the North who must fight off the young upstart."
Executive: "How about Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick?-they're just finishing up "The Producers."
Filmmaker: "Well, it's not exactly a comedy."
Executive: "But you have funny lines in it, right? This is an action film, right?"
Filmmaker: "Maybe it's a little more serious than most action films."
Executive: "We can fix that in rewrite. How about Bruce Willis and Ashton Kutcher? Now that's a publicist's dream, eh?"
Filmmaker: "Maybe I should try another studio....."
Executive: "I was just joking! What if we made the younger hobo a girl? Pitt and Paltrow! I think we have it! And instead of Oprah we can cast Dr. Phil as the conductor. He can bring them together. I'll have my secretary get their agents on the line."
Filmmaker: "I really didn't see the film as a romance....."
Executive: "Don't worry, I do. Maybe the train they ride is going through the south of France?"
Filmmaker: "In the Depression?"
Executive: "I've already forgotten about the Depression. I see this as a great contemporary romantic adventure between two down-on-their-luck Americans who end up getting married at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Son, I think you have a huge hit on your hands!"
Filmmaker: "Really?...."
Just be thankful it was made in 1973 when director Robert Aldrich was allowed to cast Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and Keith Caradine and make a film that's both entertaining and a serious look at the life of homeless men in the 1930s. If you haven't seen it, rent it now before someone remakes it.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Press Release
The Home Office is pleased to announce that New Mystery Reader has published two items from the addled keyboard of yours truly in May’s edition. A short story, “Food Noir,” can be found on the home page (www.newmysteryreader.com).
In addition, my review of Elmore Leonard’s upcoming novel The Hot Kid can be read by clicking on the link to “New Hardcover” reviews and scrolling down a ways.
Thanks to Stephanie Padilla and everyone at New Mystery Reader for their support; no less appreciation is due to all of you, who have read and encouraged my efforts for longer than anyone should have to put up with me.
I hope you enjoy not just my efforts, but all of New Mystery Reader. It’s a site worth checking out. (Yes, I’d say that even if Ms. Padilla didn’t publish me. I might say it a little louder now. Okay, I’m a self-promoter; so sue me.)
In addition, my review of Elmore Leonard’s upcoming novel The Hot Kid can be read by clicking on the link to “New Hardcover” reviews and scrolling down a ways.
Thanks to Stephanie Padilla and everyone at New Mystery Reader for their support; no less appreciation is due to all of you, who have read and encouraged my efforts for longer than anyone should have to put up with me.
I hope you enjoy not just my efforts, but all of New Mystery Reader. It’s a site worth checking out. (Yes, I’d say that even if Ms. Padilla didn’t publish me. I might say it a little louder now. Okay, I’m a self-promoter; so sue me.)
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Scratching My Head
Runs with Scissors commented on our posting of April 28 about Dubya kssing various parts of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah's anatomy and converting military bases to oil refineries with the following:
And your solution would be?
Conservation comes to mind. No one really wants to conserve energy, we have too many uses for it. Leadership, as Harry Truman once said, is the ability to get people to do something they don't want to do, and have them think it was their idea. That's what's needed now, not a bunch of feel-good ideas about how we can fix problems that involve finite resources without giving up anything.
Sometimes I think people have to have these things read to them so they can dictate a response.
And your solution would be?
Conservation comes to mind. No one really wants to conserve energy, we have too many uses for it. Leadership, as Harry Truman once said, is the ability to get people to do something they don't want to do, and have them think it was their idea. That's what's needed now, not a bunch of feel-good ideas about how we can fix problems that involve finite resources without giving up anything.
Sometimes I think people have to have these things read to them so they can dictate a response.
The South has Risen Again
I’m about halfway through Bruce Catton’s trilogy on the Civil War. The Confederacy’s largely unfounded hope for success has several parallels with contemporary politics.
The South seceded from the Union with no real understanding of what it was getting itself into. Had the North rolled over and let them go, gallantry and their strangely Southern type of honor would have been enough. Things got out of hand when the North decided it was willing to go to war to enforce its interpretation of the Constitution.
The South had virtually no manufacturing capability, many fewer able bodies to fight (even fewer than they thought, since some were required to keep certain sapient property in line), grave transportation issues, no navy, and absolutely no sense of irony. The firebrands’ talk of secession was largely in anticipation of the North severely restricting freedoms southerners held to be divine truths; primary among these was the freedom to own other humans.
The rich plantation owners who drummed up the most sentiment for secession were consistent in some ways. They didn’t care much if those bearing the greatest burdens to maintain their way of life would gain the least from its continuance. Most southerners were small subsistence farmers, owned few, if any slaves, and could have got by without them if necessary. Slavery was already on the wane in most of what would become the Confederacy; the war was provoked by the Cotton States. Those who followed would never have gone first. Kentucky and Missouri didn’t go at all. Western Virginia went so far as to secede from the secession.
Four years later much of the South was in ruins, and institutions that went far beyond slavery were rent beyond repair. Moral certitude and arrogance gave men license to ignore facts, and the results were as might have been expected in the hard, cold light of common sense.
Move to today. Modern neo-cons are convinced they are morally superior to, well, everyone. (Editor’s Note: “Neo-con” is an inelegant phrase. It appears today for two reasons: “neo,” meaning “new,” to distinguish these conservatives from those who put forth their principles with honor and dignity for many decades; and “con,” since so many of them are con men of the highest (lowest) order.) The neo-con needs not the international community, except to support our economy, either through cheap labor, markets for our goods, and plentiful oil. The United Nations and international law are institutions to be vilified at will, unless we want something from them. Sacrifice is for someone else, either so we can use as much oil as we feel like, or so someone else’s child can go to Iraq.
The common thread is a failure to consider consequences. With God on their side, neo-cons do what they want with impunity. Look at Iraq. Shock and awe worked well for a war, but once the “mission” was “accomplished,” shock and awe were found to be much less productive in winning hearts and minds.
The biggest shock in this is why this surprises anyone. The purpose of a shock and awe offensive is to inspire fear and hopelessness in the enemy, excellent objectives in time of war. Now it’s three weeks later, and people who just watched us blow their friends and relatives to tiny bits are supposed to see us as saviors. Donald Rumsfeld expected throngs of joyous Iraqis to dance in the streets, celebrating us as liberators like the French did in 1944. The difference was the French were already a harshly occupied country; we removed the yoke of their oppression. The closer parallel is with Germany in 1945. Most Germans were happy to be rid of Hitler by then, but they weren’t delirious with joy at being conquered.
Neo-cons insist on a strict adherence to the Constitution, except when it’s inconvenient for them. Witness Terry Schiavo. Not only did Congress run a bill through in the dark of night, trying to intimidate federal courts into intervening, they made thinly-veiled threats when the courts didn’t see things their way. Their strict interpretation doesn’t seem to extend as far as the principle of separation of powers.
The current fiasco a-brewing is an attempt to make the Senate, formerly known as the world’s greatest deliberative body, a rubber stamp for presidential judicial appointments. No where (I looked) does it say in the Constitution that a President is supposed to get any judges he wants. The requirement for all judges to be confirmed with the advice and consent of the Senate argues just the opposite: judges should be palatable to a cross-section of the population. Not necessarily middle-of-the-road bland, not somewhere out past the cotton field, either.
I’ve wondered about these parallels lately, and how they have come to be after so many years have passed. (People with my commute have lots of time for such reflection.) The single thread, aside from a short-sighted, selfish, pigheadedness, seems to be that the vast majority of neo-cons come from the same states that seceded from the Union lo, these seven score and four years ago. I have assessed my hypothesis from several angles, and feel as comfortable as any reasonable person can be with my analysis of the common trait between secessionists and neo-cons.
They’re ignorant crackers.
One thought creeps into my mind at least once a day as I read Catton’s books. Every time I see a description of another carnage, or lives ruined and institutions destroyed, I wonder if we should have just let them go? I’d feel a lot more comfortable with Dubya, Tom DeLay, and Bill Frist running the Confederacy instead of the United States.
The South seceded from the Union with no real understanding of what it was getting itself into. Had the North rolled over and let them go, gallantry and their strangely Southern type of honor would have been enough. Things got out of hand when the North decided it was willing to go to war to enforce its interpretation of the Constitution.
The South had virtually no manufacturing capability, many fewer able bodies to fight (even fewer than they thought, since some were required to keep certain sapient property in line), grave transportation issues, no navy, and absolutely no sense of irony. The firebrands’ talk of secession was largely in anticipation of the North severely restricting freedoms southerners held to be divine truths; primary among these was the freedom to own other humans.
The rich plantation owners who drummed up the most sentiment for secession were consistent in some ways. They didn’t care much if those bearing the greatest burdens to maintain their way of life would gain the least from its continuance. Most southerners were small subsistence farmers, owned few, if any slaves, and could have got by without them if necessary. Slavery was already on the wane in most of what would become the Confederacy; the war was provoked by the Cotton States. Those who followed would never have gone first. Kentucky and Missouri didn’t go at all. Western Virginia went so far as to secede from the secession.
Four years later much of the South was in ruins, and institutions that went far beyond slavery were rent beyond repair. Moral certitude and arrogance gave men license to ignore facts, and the results were as might have been expected in the hard, cold light of common sense.
Move to today. Modern neo-cons are convinced they are morally superior to, well, everyone. (Editor’s Note: “Neo-con” is an inelegant phrase. It appears today for two reasons: “neo,” meaning “new,” to distinguish these conservatives from those who put forth their principles with honor and dignity for many decades; and “con,” since so many of them are con men of the highest (lowest) order.) The neo-con needs not the international community, except to support our economy, either through cheap labor, markets for our goods, and plentiful oil. The United Nations and international law are institutions to be vilified at will, unless we want something from them. Sacrifice is for someone else, either so we can use as much oil as we feel like, or so someone else’s child can go to Iraq.
The common thread is a failure to consider consequences. With God on their side, neo-cons do what they want with impunity. Look at Iraq. Shock and awe worked well for a war, but once the “mission” was “accomplished,” shock and awe were found to be much less productive in winning hearts and minds.
The biggest shock in this is why this surprises anyone. The purpose of a shock and awe offensive is to inspire fear and hopelessness in the enemy, excellent objectives in time of war. Now it’s three weeks later, and people who just watched us blow their friends and relatives to tiny bits are supposed to see us as saviors. Donald Rumsfeld expected throngs of joyous Iraqis to dance in the streets, celebrating us as liberators like the French did in 1944. The difference was the French were already a harshly occupied country; we removed the yoke of their oppression. The closer parallel is with Germany in 1945. Most Germans were happy to be rid of Hitler by then, but they weren’t delirious with joy at being conquered.
Neo-cons insist on a strict adherence to the Constitution, except when it’s inconvenient for them. Witness Terry Schiavo. Not only did Congress run a bill through in the dark of night, trying to intimidate federal courts into intervening, they made thinly-veiled threats when the courts didn’t see things their way. Their strict interpretation doesn’t seem to extend as far as the principle of separation of powers.
The current fiasco a-brewing is an attempt to make the Senate, formerly known as the world’s greatest deliberative body, a rubber stamp for presidential judicial appointments. No where (I looked) does it say in the Constitution that a President is supposed to get any judges he wants. The requirement for all judges to be confirmed with the advice and consent of the Senate argues just the opposite: judges should be palatable to a cross-section of the population. Not necessarily middle-of-the-road bland, not somewhere out past the cotton field, either.
I’ve wondered about these parallels lately, and how they have come to be after so many years have passed. (People with my commute have lots of time for such reflection.) The single thread, aside from a short-sighted, selfish, pigheadedness, seems to be that the vast majority of neo-cons come from the same states that seceded from the Union lo, these seven score and four years ago. I have assessed my hypothesis from several angles, and feel as comfortable as any reasonable person can be with my analysis of the common trait between secessionists and neo-cons.
They’re ignorant crackers.
One thought creeps into my mind at least once a day as I read Catton’s books. Every time I see a description of another carnage, or lives ruined and institutions destroyed, I wonder if we should have just let them go? I’d feel a lot more comfortable with Dubya, Tom DeLay, and Bill Frist running the Confederacy instead of the United States.
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