There are other, often better, ways to measure time than clocks and calendars.
One of my favorites is the green chile harvest. When you see those bushels of green heading for the roasting sites you know that the autumnal equinox is just around the corner. With the harvest comes one of the most pleasurable food aromas in the world, that of flame-roasting green chiles. Advocates of fresh-baked bread aroma have a point, but their favorite lacks the subtle pungency of the roasting chile.
At this time of year I like to take the back roads and linger near the chile roasters, savoring the scent and dreaming up new ideas for using green chile in cooking.
The aroma sharpens other senses as well. Yesterday I spotted half a dozen "new" sandbars in the Rio Grande. I think the water-release guys at the upriver dams ration the flow a bit more cautiously at this time of year. When winter arrives, of course, they turn it off completely. This year it was mid-May before they turned it on again. Everyone dependent on that river hopes and prays for more snowfall on the southern San Juan Mountains in Colorado in the coming winter.
Hoping and praying for water is a year-round sport in the parched southwest, one that so far hasn't affected the record drought. Hope and prayer are impotent weapons against the ignorance of man, who manages the precious resources of his home planet with reckless abandon.
But our Mesilla Valley is fortunate. It still has enough water to get by. On yesterday's meander I passed a field where it seems that only yesterday fresh rows of pecan seedlings had been planted. They're trees now, soon to mature into crop-yielders. One more season, perhaps. That field is an important landmark.
Across the road, when one generation passed the land on to a younger one, the heirs sold out to developers. Times were good when they sold but the Bush depression came and Obama did nothing to end it, so nobody's building these days. Two or three nondescript homes sit rather desolately in the far reaches of the plot, but the ground closer to the road is just another place for the late-night drink-and-drive cowboys to pitch their empties, used condoms and dirty sweat socks.
The heirs to the land where the pecans are growing decided to plant trees that provide an annual yield, rather than rotating three or four crops a year as their forebears did. Probably not as sustainable, long-term, but better than selling out to a developer who would plant little boxes made of ticky-tacky that all look just the same.
My back-road meander doesn't take me all the way home. I have to travel a mile or so on a main thoroughfare. It's littered these days with political signs. "Keep Judge Hoozit." "Elect Sam Friendly!" The World's Worst Congressman, who represents our district, has more signs than anyone. He's a drilling multimillionaire and his even richer pals in the awl and gez bidness keep him rolling in campaign funds.
A neighbor whom I know well, a good lawyer who will be a fine judge if she's elected, has a lot of signs, too. Hers somehow seem less offensive than the congressman's. Well, she's prettier for one thing. Smarter, for another. And a lot more honest, I believe.
On the last lap homeward I noticed that the sun is taking on its autumnal angle, creating beautiful late-afternoon light.
Where the heck did I put the camera gear?
"Don't tell Momma I'm a journalist; say I play the piano in a whorehouse."
Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Our National Pastime: The Lying Game
This is how low we have sunk.
Right. His big ideas include the notion that rape is just one more "form of conception." That if we let children go without education, sick people go without treatment, hungry people starve to death and aged people die quickly, and continue to spend trillions on imperial wars that violate international law and our own Constitution, we will, in 28 years, have a balanced budget. That we must not collect taxes from the very wealthy or from the richest corporations in the history of the world because then they will only cut a few hundred thousand jobs a year rather than, say, millions. That we must put up with millions of cases of disease and death from pollution of our air, water and soil because restrictions on what corporations can or cannot do are, well, a nuisance and a burden to the free market economy. That guns are every citizen's right, even children, and the occasional mass slaying in schools, synagogues, churches and mosques are the price of being free. That planetary climate change is a myth dreamed up by overpaid scientists whose jobs ought to be outsourced, maybe to Mars. And that's just a sampler.
Tonight, as I recall, is the night that Mr. Ryan's running mate, Mitt Romney, will address the nation with still more lies.
Ah, but this is an equal opportunity country! Next week the Democrats seeking to retain the offices to which Messrs. Romney and Ryan aspire will have their turn to lie to the nation on national TV. Being wont to temper their untruths with soupcons of veracity, they will admit that everything isn't entirely hunky-dory in the U.S. of A., but insist that we're making progress because Barack and Joe are in office and not those nasty Republicans. They will say they have tried and tried to compromise and will try and try again but, you know, Republicans just don't play fair.
Mainstream media performers will continue to treat everything that's said as worthy of serious consideration by voters.
But in fact, the game metaphor implicit in "play fair" is apt. All of this is a game, a giant charade permitted for our amusement by the rich and powerful few who actually run things.
The better the show the more likely it is to perpetuate the myth that we are a free people, exceptional in our national virtue and blessed with the quadrennial opportunity to choose our own leadership. Love it or leave it!
As long as we're playing fast and loose with truth, I'll let you in on a little secret: I never did commit journalism for a living. I really did play the piano in a whorehouse. I and Harry Truman.
You could look it up.
- A candidate for vice-president tells the nation so many lies that even Fox "News" acknowledges some of them.
- Truth doesn't matter, says the head of Mitt Romney's campaign for the presidency. "We're not going to let fact-checkers run our campaign."
- Never mind the peccadillos, writes a so-called journalist for a once-reputable newspaper, Paul Ryan's speech last night was about "big ideas."
Right. His big ideas include the notion that rape is just one more "form of conception." That if we let children go without education, sick people go without treatment, hungry people starve to death and aged people die quickly, and continue to spend trillions on imperial wars that violate international law and our own Constitution, we will, in 28 years, have a balanced budget. That we must not collect taxes from the very wealthy or from the richest corporations in the history of the world because then they will only cut a few hundred thousand jobs a year rather than, say, millions. That we must put up with millions of cases of disease and death from pollution of our air, water and soil because restrictions on what corporations can or cannot do are, well, a nuisance and a burden to the free market economy. That guns are every citizen's right, even children, and the occasional mass slaying in schools, synagogues, churches and mosques are the price of being free. That planetary climate change is a myth dreamed up by overpaid scientists whose jobs ought to be outsourced, maybe to Mars. And that's just a sampler.
Tonight, as I recall, is the night that Mr. Ryan's running mate, Mitt Romney, will address the nation with still more lies.
Ah, but this is an equal opportunity country! Next week the Democrats seeking to retain the offices to which Messrs. Romney and Ryan aspire will have their turn to lie to the nation on national TV. Being wont to temper their untruths with soupcons of veracity, they will admit that everything isn't entirely hunky-dory in the U.S. of A., but insist that we're making progress because Barack and Joe are in office and not those nasty Republicans. They will say they have tried and tried to compromise and will try and try again but, you know, Republicans just don't play fair.
Mainstream media performers will continue to treat everything that's said as worthy of serious consideration by voters.
But in fact, the game metaphor implicit in "play fair" is apt. All of this is a game, a giant charade permitted for our amusement by the rich and powerful few who actually run things.
The better the show the more likely it is to perpetuate the myth that we are a free people, exceptional in our national virtue and blessed with the quadrennial opportunity to choose our own leadership. Love it or leave it!
As long as we're playing fast and loose with truth, I'll let you in on a little secret: I never did commit journalism for a living. I really did play the piano in a whorehouse. I and Harry Truman.
You could look it up.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Three Voices Voters Should Hear, But Won't
Most Americans will go the polls about nine weeks from now without having read or heard a word from the only three presidential candidates who are truthfully addressing all or many of the most important issues in the republic today.
Our great quadrennial Silly Season, during which candidates for high office and their giddy advocates perform childish hijinks and applaud saccharine entertainments, is, the Associated Press soberly tells me, "in full swing" in Tampa.
More of the same will ensue in Charlotte, NC.
And then we will endure the so-called "presidential debates."
At no point in all of this will we be exposed to the positions of Jill Stein, the Green candidate for the presidency; Ross Carl (everyone calls him "Rocky") Anderson, the Justice Party candidate; or Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate.
That's because they aren't "serious" candidates. Before the 2008 primaries had run their course, a television performer masquerading as a journalist dismissed Dennis Kucinich, the Ohio congressman, for wasting time in the Democratic presidential nominating debates because he wasn't a "serious" candidate. The TV clown said Kucinich's lack of "seriousness" was evident because he wanted to talk about the illegal wars that were killing hundreds of young Americans and thousands of Iraqi and Pakistani civilians rather than answering questions about whether he and Shirley MacLaine had actually seen a flying saucer.
Despite fierce opposition from the Romney campaign, Johnson will be on the ballot in all 50 states and, on that ground, still hopes to take part in the so-called presidential debates. He would hold both main party candidates' feet to the fire:
Democrats: "The notion of ending the wars, the notion of ending the drug war, repealing the Patriot Act, marriage equality [all of which Johnson favors] -- wow! These are traditionally Democrat issues that they're not doing so well on."
Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan: "This guy's supported the wars, this guy's proposed a balanced budget in 28 years, assuming growth, this guy voted for the Patriot Act, this guy voted for the National Defense Authorization Act, this guy proposed legislation in line with Virginia's ultrasound legislation regarding women . . .and the irony to me is that (he's) supposed to be the boldest Republican on the budget, but if he's the boldest the Republicans have then the Republicans are really a third party, they've abandoned what's historically supposed to be Republican."
Romney's position on immigration: "I'm speaking as a former border state [New Mexico] governor. There's a total disconnect between his rhetoric regarding immigration and the reality. (The language in the GOP) platform is anti-immigration; it borders on racist."
Put this guy on the stage with Romney, Ryan, Obama and Biden and we'd have the beginnings of a genuine debate. Add Anderson and Stein there might even be a smidgen of hope of restoring our democratic republic some day.
Anderson, the former mayor of Salt Lake City, wants to talk about why a Democratic administration wants to crush dissent (the Occupy movement, for example) and why government hasn't investigated what really happened on Sept,. 11, 2001. He, too, opposes NDAA and wants to debate why it should be repealed.
He told an interviewer: "The rule of law has been utterly eviscerated during the Bush and Obama administrations. We've engaged in wars of aggression, wars for which there has been no coherent explanation. Our debt is completely out of control. We have a military-industrial complex with a stranglehold on our government. And at the core of almost every public policy failure, all we have to do to find an explanation is follow the money, because our Congress and the White House have been purchased lock, stock and barrel by wealthy corporate interests. The Republican and Democratic Parties have colluded in creating the corrupt, perverse system that has led our nation to this point today. And there is now no question in my mind that we need a major new alternative.
"This isn't only about the American people. This is about the future of our world. Climate change poses, by far, the greatest risk to humanity. And the failure of essential US leadership in the international community will end up having devastating consequences.
"If we allow the fear-driven argument that the lesser of two evils may be defeated by the greater of two evils, then we're simply conceding to the status quo. Then we'll never see a change. In fact, we'll see things continue to get worse, with the ratcheting up of an imperial presidency, with the undermining of the rule of law and our constitutional values, and a continued destruction of our democracy, as well as a worsening economic disparity - which is already worse than at any time since the 1920s and during the Great Depression.
"We can either choose to simply move the players - Republicans and Democrats - around and sustain the corrupt system in which those with the money call all the shots, or we can finally organize and take action together to choose a very different way."
Stein likes to jump into the economic issues by saying government must "make the banks do what they're supposed to do, which is negotiate to keep homeowners in their homes." She says, "The playing field is tilted against everyday people trying to get jobs, trying to have decent wages, trying to get affordable health care, trying to have affordable higher education for their kids."
She speaks out bluntly against "this president negotiating a new Free Trade agreement that is like NAFTA on steroids." She wants to talk about "the attack on our civil liberties in which President Obama codified all the violations of George W. Bush and then took it further to where he can throw anybody in jail for whatever his pleasure is."
She has lots more to say, about the real problems that have dragged this country down, and about the bogus "lesser of two evils" argument.
Gary Johnson and Rocky Anderson have lots more to say, as well. But most Americans, when they vote for president in November, will not have heard them. Many will not even know their names.
And so they'll cast their ballots in ignorance, like sheep fattened on the sophistry of the Great Quadrennial American Silly Season.
No wonder the country is such a mess.
Our great quadrennial Silly Season, during which candidates for high office and their giddy advocates perform childish hijinks and applaud saccharine entertainments, is, the Associated Press soberly tells me, "in full swing" in Tampa.
More of the same will ensue in Charlotte, NC.
And then we will endure the so-called "presidential debates."
At no point in all of this will we be exposed to the positions of Jill Stein, the Green candidate for the presidency; Ross Carl (everyone calls him "Rocky") Anderson, the Justice Party candidate; or Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate.
That's because they aren't "serious" candidates. Before the 2008 primaries had run their course, a television performer masquerading as a journalist dismissed Dennis Kucinich, the Ohio congressman, for wasting time in the Democratic presidential nominating debates because he wasn't a "serious" candidate. The TV clown said Kucinich's lack of "seriousness" was evident because he wanted to talk about the illegal wars that were killing hundreds of young Americans and thousands of Iraqi and Pakistani civilians rather than answering questions about whether he and Shirley MacLaine had actually seen a flying saucer.
Despite fierce opposition from the Romney campaign, Johnson will be on the ballot in all 50 states and, on that ground, still hopes to take part in the so-called presidential debates. He would hold both main party candidates' feet to the fire:
Democrats: "The notion of ending the wars, the notion of ending the drug war, repealing the Patriot Act, marriage equality [all of which Johnson favors] -- wow! These are traditionally Democrat issues that they're not doing so well on."
Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan: "This guy's supported the wars, this guy's proposed a balanced budget in 28 years, assuming growth, this guy voted for the Patriot Act, this guy voted for the National Defense Authorization Act, this guy proposed legislation in line with Virginia's ultrasound legislation regarding women . . .and the irony to me is that (he's) supposed to be the boldest Republican on the budget, but if he's the boldest the Republicans have then the Republicans are really a third party, they've abandoned what's historically supposed to be Republican."
Romney's position on immigration: "I'm speaking as a former border state [New Mexico] governor. There's a total disconnect between his rhetoric regarding immigration and the reality. (The language in the GOP) platform is anti-immigration; it borders on racist."
Put this guy on the stage with Romney, Ryan, Obama and Biden and we'd have the beginnings of a genuine debate. Add Anderson and Stein there might even be a smidgen of hope of restoring our democratic republic some day.
Anderson, the former mayor of Salt Lake City, wants to talk about why a Democratic administration wants to crush dissent (the Occupy movement, for example) and why government hasn't investigated what really happened on Sept,. 11, 2001. He, too, opposes NDAA and wants to debate why it should be repealed.
He told an interviewer: "The rule of law has been utterly eviscerated during the Bush and Obama administrations. We've engaged in wars of aggression, wars for which there has been no coherent explanation. Our debt is completely out of control. We have a military-industrial complex with a stranglehold on our government. And at the core of almost every public policy failure, all we have to do to find an explanation is follow the money, because our Congress and the White House have been purchased lock, stock and barrel by wealthy corporate interests. The Republican and Democratic Parties have colluded in creating the corrupt, perverse system that has led our nation to this point today. And there is now no question in my mind that we need a major new alternative.
"This isn't only about the American people. This is about the future of our world. Climate change poses, by far, the greatest risk to humanity. And the failure of essential US leadership in the international community will end up having devastating consequences.
"If we allow the fear-driven argument that the lesser of two evils may be defeated by the greater of two evils, then we're simply conceding to the status quo. Then we'll never see a change. In fact, we'll see things continue to get worse, with the ratcheting up of an imperial presidency, with the undermining of the rule of law and our constitutional values, and a continued destruction of our democracy, as well as a worsening economic disparity - which is already worse than at any time since the 1920s and during the Great Depression.
"We can either choose to simply move the players - Republicans and Democrats - around and sustain the corrupt system in which those with the money call all the shots, or we can finally organize and take action together to choose a very different way."
Stein likes to jump into the economic issues by saying government must "make the banks do what they're supposed to do, which is negotiate to keep homeowners in their homes." She says, "The playing field is tilted against everyday people trying to get jobs, trying to have decent wages, trying to get affordable health care, trying to have affordable higher education for their kids."
She speaks out bluntly against "this president negotiating a new Free Trade agreement that is like NAFTA on steroids." She wants to talk about "the attack on our civil liberties in which President Obama codified all the violations of George W. Bush and then took it further to where he can throw anybody in jail for whatever his pleasure is."
She has lots more to say, about the real problems that have dragged this country down, and about the bogus "lesser of two evils" argument.
Gary Johnson and Rocky Anderson have lots more to say, as well. But most Americans, when they vote for president in November, will not have heard them. Many will not even know their names.
And so they'll cast their ballots in ignorance, like sheep fattened on the sophistry of the Great Quadrennial American Silly Season.
No wonder the country is such a mess.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Don't Let 'Livestrong' Become a Victim
Today I feel like the mythical little boy who waited outside the baseball commissioner's office in some long-ago sportswriter's fable, then confronted Shoeless Joe Jackson when he emerged from the hearing that banned him for life because he deliberately lost games in cahoots with gamblers.
"Say it ain't so," the tearful boy said in the fable. "Say it ain't so, Joe."
Lance Armstrong said it ain't so over and over and over again as he won an unprecedented seven Tours de France and countless other major bicycling competitions while being constantly accused of using banned substances or other performance-enhancing devices.
How, after all, could a man who had recovered from not one but two killer cancers perform so remarkably in this brutally challenging competition and still be clean? With all the accusations he became the most tested athlete in sports, yet throughout his racing career no testing agency ever purported to have found evidence that he cheated.
Now, saying he is sick and tired of all the accusations, he has chosen not to fight the latest and most serious ones, which emerged from a grand jury investigation of evidence collected by the U.S. sports anti-doping people. For most people, this amounts to a tacit admission of guilt. Armstrong has been stripped of his seven Tour titles and banned from cycling for life.
I don't feel sorry for Lance. He has a lot of money, his health, and a lot of memories. He really did overcome first testicular and then brain cancer, fierce maladies that almost always kill. And as he did so he put himself through a training regimen the likes of which few athletes, even world class athletes, have but considered, let alone taken on. And, regardless of what he did or ingested between races or stages of races, he really did climb all those mountains in the Alps and Pyrenees, he really did ride all those torturesome time trails, he really did outride everyone else in the field. Given how rife his sport is with cheating, given how many of his rivals have been tested and found to have used banned substances, it is reasonable to wonder just how much of an unfair advantage Armstrong might have gained from his alleged transgressions.
Unlike Shoeless Joe, Floyd Landis, Roger Clemens or the legion of other sports cheaters, caught or uncaught, Armstrong did one particularly admirable thing: He founded. funded and promoted the Livestrong foundation.
As a cancer survivor myself, I admire the fact that he put a considerable portion of his wealth and all of his prestige and influence into this agency for research in quest of a cancer cure, education of the public about healthy lifestyles than can reduce cancer risk, and aid and comfort to the victims of the disease and their families. In an age when our government can find trillions for wars that kill and maim innocent men, women and children, but not even pittances for life-saving research and science, Livestrong is a critically important force in the effort to improve the human condition around the world.
I hope Armstrong's decision yesterday and the ensuing widespread assumption that he is guilty do not result in the death or diminution of Livestrong. Armstrong once asked why anyone could think he would risk everything he had put into his foundation just to cheat in bicycle racing. Now, he says, ``I will commit myself to the work I began before ever winning a single Tour de France title: serving people and families affected by cancer, especially those in underserved communities.''
I will continue to support Livestrong because the question of its founder's guilt or innocence is immaterial in the context of the good the organization does, having raised more than $500 million for cancer causes since its foundation.
On the great gray scale of human merit, I still think that makes Lance Armstrong a far better man than his accusers.
"Say it ain't so," the tearful boy said in the fable. "Say it ain't so, Joe."
Lance Armstrong said it ain't so over and over and over again as he won an unprecedented seven Tours de France and countless other major bicycling competitions while being constantly accused of using banned substances or other performance-enhancing devices.
How, after all, could a man who had recovered from not one but two killer cancers perform so remarkably in this brutally challenging competition and still be clean? With all the accusations he became the most tested athlete in sports, yet throughout his racing career no testing agency ever purported to have found evidence that he cheated.
Now, saying he is sick and tired of all the accusations, he has chosen not to fight the latest and most serious ones, which emerged from a grand jury investigation of evidence collected by the U.S. sports anti-doping people. For most people, this amounts to a tacit admission of guilt. Armstrong has been stripped of his seven Tour titles and banned from cycling for life.
I don't feel sorry for Lance. He has a lot of money, his health, and a lot of memories. He really did overcome first testicular and then brain cancer, fierce maladies that almost always kill. And as he did so he put himself through a training regimen the likes of which few athletes, even world class athletes, have but considered, let alone taken on. And, regardless of what he did or ingested between races or stages of races, he really did climb all those mountains in the Alps and Pyrenees, he really did ride all those torturesome time trails, he really did outride everyone else in the field. Given how rife his sport is with cheating, given how many of his rivals have been tested and found to have used banned substances, it is reasonable to wonder just how much of an unfair advantage Armstrong might have gained from his alleged transgressions.
Unlike Shoeless Joe, Floyd Landis, Roger Clemens or the legion of other sports cheaters, caught or uncaught, Armstrong did one particularly admirable thing: He founded. funded and promoted the Livestrong foundation.
As a cancer survivor myself, I admire the fact that he put a considerable portion of his wealth and all of his prestige and influence into this agency for research in quest of a cancer cure, education of the public about healthy lifestyles than can reduce cancer risk, and aid and comfort to the victims of the disease and their families. In an age when our government can find trillions for wars that kill and maim innocent men, women and children, but not even pittances for life-saving research and science, Livestrong is a critically important force in the effort to improve the human condition around the world.
I hope Armstrong's decision yesterday and the ensuing widespread assumption that he is guilty do not result in the death or diminution of Livestrong. Armstrong once asked why anyone could think he would risk everything he had put into his foundation just to cheat in bicycle racing. Now, he says, ``I will commit myself to the work I began before ever winning a single Tour de France title: serving people and families affected by cancer, especially those in underserved communities.''
I will continue to support Livestrong because the question of its founder's guilt or innocence is immaterial in the context of the good the organization does, having raised more than $500 million for cancer causes since its foundation.
On the great gray scale of human merit, I still think that makes Lance Armstrong a far better man than his accusers.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
No Point? Listen Again to the Music of Revolution
I forgive the brashness of youth but that doesn't mean I allow its impertinences to stand unchallenged.
Michael Barthel has written about popular music for a number of print outlets and his work appears widely online. It was on the website Salon that I read his essay triggered by the conviction of the three Pussy Riot women on hooliganism charges in Russia.
The headline -- "Protest Songs Are Pointless" -- only sort of captures what Barthel has to say. He takes issue -- sort of -- with those who recall the music of the1960s and wonder "what happened to protest songs." Their yearning, he writes, "feeds listeners' fantasies of music as a revolutionary tool, even though its actual pleasures are far more complex than that." Huh?
Oh, well, toward the end of his essay Barthel does recognize, sort of, something about the "spirit" of music as a motivating force, but he quotes another, unnamed critic when he does so: "One critic got it right when he said that Pussy Riot shows 'the punk rock spirit . . . can be a force that incites fear.' Indeed, the spirit can, but the actual music still mostly incites pogoing." Huh?
Oh, well, Barthel also makes the point, sort of, that it's OK for Paul Ryan to like the music of Rage Against the Machine even though Rage's leader, Tom Morello, publicly scolded Ryan for being part of the very machine he rages against: "Perhaps Paul Ryan was moshing when he should have been listening." Never mind, writes Barthel: "The politically important stuff about music isn't the 'content' of the lyrics; it's the symbolic gestures made by the people performing them." Huh?
Oh, well, if Barthel really is saying that protest music is pointless so quit longing for the good old '60s when you fantasized that it actually motivated people to, well, protest, and besides, Paul Ryan can listen to Rage Against the Machine if he wants to because it's a free country, isn't it? -- if that's what he's saying, he's right, sort of, about Ryan.
As for the rest of it, though, he needs to bone up on history. He probably wasn't even alive when people, white and black, suffered and died to advance the Civil Rights Movement. He needs to see the grainy film footage of some of those people marching down the dusty road to Selma, singing the simple melody and simple lyrics of We Shall Overcome as they risked mistreatment in prison or even death for their actions. He needs to learn about how the wives of battered warriors for workers' rights sang Song of the Union Maid as they marched to support their men in the bloody struggle against thugs and corrupt lawmen in the battles of the coal fields, the auto plants and the rail yards. The underdog has always marched to the music of the troubadours of protest in the unending struggle to right the wrongs of history.
Even before Beethoven tore up the title page of his third symphony to protest Napoleon and renamed it Eroica, the music of protest stirred a great peoples' revolution in France. Marchers from Marseille paraded into Paris in July of 1792 singing DeLisle's Chant de Guerre pour l'Armee du Rhine and the gathering insurrectionists were so bestirred that they dubbed it La Marseillaise and made it the rallying cry of their revolution. It remains the country's national anthem and was adapted by the leaders of three Latin American uprisings as the anthems of their own revolutions.
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man ?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand ?
Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned ?
And how many young Americans were moved to defy their own country's government by Bob Dylan's anthem?
It's probably too late to do much about the deplorable state of this country, but a new generation of Dylans, Guthries, Seegers and their ilk might at least stir up some action.
Michael Barthel has written about popular music for a number of print outlets and his work appears widely online. It was on the website Salon that I read his essay triggered by the conviction of the three Pussy Riot women on hooliganism charges in Russia.
The headline -- "Protest Songs Are Pointless" -- only sort of captures what Barthel has to say. He takes issue -- sort of -- with those who recall the music of the1960s and wonder "what happened to protest songs." Their yearning, he writes, "feeds listeners' fantasies of music as a revolutionary tool, even though its actual pleasures are far more complex than that." Huh?
Oh, well, toward the end of his essay Barthel does recognize, sort of, something about the "spirit" of music as a motivating force, but he quotes another, unnamed critic when he does so: "One critic got it right when he said that Pussy Riot shows 'the punk rock spirit . . . can be a force that incites fear.' Indeed, the spirit can, but the actual music still mostly incites pogoing." Huh?
Oh, well, Barthel also makes the point, sort of, that it's OK for Paul Ryan to like the music of Rage Against the Machine even though Rage's leader, Tom Morello, publicly scolded Ryan for being part of the very machine he rages against: "Perhaps Paul Ryan was moshing when he should have been listening." Never mind, writes Barthel: "The politically important stuff about music isn't the 'content' of the lyrics; it's the symbolic gestures made by the people performing them." Huh?
Oh, well, if Barthel really is saying that protest music is pointless so quit longing for the good old '60s when you fantasized that it actually motivated people to, well, protest, and besides, Paul Ryan can listen to Rage Against the Machine if he wants to because it's a free country, isn't it? -- if that's what he's saying, he's right, sort of, about Ryan.
As for the rest of it, though, he needs to bone up on history. He probably wasn't even alive when people, white and black, suffered and died to advance the Civil Rights Movement. He needs to see the grainy film footage of some of those people marching down the dusty road to Selma, singing the simple melody and simple lyrics of We Shall Overcome as they risked mistreatment in prison or even death for their actions. He needs to learn about how the wives of battered warriors for workers' rights sang Song of the Union Maid as they marched to support their men in the bloody struggle against thugs and corrupt lawmen in the battles of the coal fields, the auto plants and the rail yards. The underdog has always marched to the music of the troubadours of protest in the unending struggle to right the wrongs of history.
Even before Beethoven tore up the title page of his third symphony to protest Napoleon and renamed it Eroica, the music of protest stirred a great peoples' revolution in France. Marchers from Marseille paraded into Paris in July of 1792 singing DeLisle's Chant de Guerre pour l'Armee du Rhine and the gathering insurrectionists were so bestirred that they dubbed it La Marseillaise and made it the rallying cry of their revolution. It remains the country's national anthem and was adapted by the leaders of three Latin American uprisings as the anthems of their own revolutions.
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man ?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand ?
Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned ?
And how many young Americans were moved to defy their own country's government by Bob Dylan's anthem?
It's probably too late to do much about the deplorable state of this country, but a new generation of Dylans, Guthries, Seegers and their ilk might at least stir up some action.
Monday, August 20, 2012
It Was Published. It Was Not Fact-Checked.
Never mind whose side you're on in the fuss between Paul Krugman and a host of other reputable economists on one side, and Nial Ferguson, a cockamamie Harvard professor of history on the other, about Ferguson's maniacal cover story in Newsweek.
Well, on second thought, do mind. If you side with Ferguson, move to Missouri and vote for Todd Akin.
Otherwise, consider this little item buried in the exchange of broadsides: Newsweek did not repeat not fact-check the article! According to Dylan Byers of Politico, a Newsweek spokesman said the magazine does not have a fact-checking department, and that "we, like other news organizations today, rely on our writers to submit factually accurate material."
Mein Gott!!!!!
I hope the magazine's mouthpiece is wrong that "other news organizations today" don't check the facts before publishing. I hope the New York Times, where I once worked, not only holds editors accountable for the veracity of every word in every story they vet, but also still backs them up with the superb research department we were able to consult back then. I hope the Philadelphia Inquirer, where I once worked, hasn't lost the lesson it learned when it was zapped with the biggest libel judgement in history for failing adequately to check the work of a writer who was a known drunk and had a widely known jihad against one of the subjects of his article. I hope the Detroit Free Press, where I once worked, despite its economic troubles, has not ceased to hold editors accountable for the accuracy of the stories they edit. (I once got hauled up to the office of Lee Hills, then the Free Press publisher, to explain why I allowed a a sentence with a subtle double-meaning -- not an error, mind you, but something that readers might misconstrue -- slip into a complex story.)
The very first thing we learned in journalism class, the very first thing we drummed into the skulls of rookie reporters, was, "Get it right!" And we -- the editors -- were, by God, there to make damned sure they learned that lesson.
Because, truth to tell, that's all we had: getting it right. The scandalously low pay, the ridiculously long hours, the shabby newsrooms -- badges of honor, because day after day, when the presses rolled we could pick up the first-offs and read our stories -- the ones we had reported, edited, checked, and checked again -- and know that we got it right. We owed that to our readers because they trusted us to get it right.
If we could get it right in fine language -- "Literature in a hurry," as one great editor used to say -- all the better. If we could get it first and get it right, better still. If we could get it right and get it exclusively, best of all.
But always, always, first and foremost, get it right.
Nial Ferguson reported demonstrable economic fallacies, not facts, on several matters of key importance in his Newsweek screed. That is to his discredit.
That it got into print is to the magazine's everlasting shame. No fact-checkers?
Get the hell out of business.
? !
Just when you think right wing ignorance has reached unplumbed depths and can't go any deeper, along comes someone like Rep. Todd Akin (R-Missouri) to prove that American fascist depravity has no limits.
Aikin has long been one of the most outspoken opponents of women's reproductive health, always seeking to enslave them in draconian laws against complete ob-gyn care.
He was asked Sunday by an interviewer if he thought abortion should be legal for victims of rape.
"From what I understand from doctors, that (pregnancy) is really rare," he said. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
Legitimate rape? Legitimate rape? Legitimate rape? Legitimate rape? LEGITIMATE RAPE?
This guy gets to vote on the laws that govern us. No wonder we have constitutional abominations like the so-called Patriot Act!
Somewhere in the female anatomy, somewhere in the uterus, according to Akin, lies the power to distinguish among, say, a "legitimate" rapist's sperm, an illegitimate rapist's sperm, and spousal or other "friendly" sperm!
And this guy is running for the United States Senate.
Aikin has long been one of the most outspoken opponents of women's reproductive health, always seeking to enslave them in draconian laws against complete ob-gyn care.
He was asked Sunday by an interviewer if he thought abortion should be legal for victims of rape.
"From what I understand from doctors, that (pregnancy) is really rare," he said. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
Legitimate rape? Legitimate rape? Legitimate rape? Legitimate rape? LEGITIMATE RAPE?
This guy gets to vote on the laws that govern us. No wonder we have constitutional abominations like the so-called Patriot Act!
Somewhere in the female anatomy, somewhere in the uterus, according to Akin, lies the power to distinguish among, say, a "legitimate" rapist's sperm, an illegitimate rapist's sperm, and spousal or other "friendly" sperm!
And this guy is running for the United States Senate.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Correa and Ecuador Are in the Right
Once again and infamously, Britannia waives the rules.
The U.K. government's letter to Quito threatening to storm Ecuador's embassy building in London to seize Julian Assange was radical cheek even by the uppity standards of the the British ruling class. It also spat spoiled bangers and sour mash on international law and diplomatic accords.
Now in the fallout everyone with a dog in the fight is pulling the predictable punches.
I have no doubt (without, I confess, any hard evidence -- yet) that Washington is pulling the strings of the Swedish and British governments in all of this.
Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, sought asylum in Ecuador to prevent his extradition to Sweden to face "questioning" over allegations of sexual improprieties with two women during a visit with supporters there. Specifically, he is alleged to have failed to accede to the women's request that he wear condoms during consensual sex. By some stretch of the imagination, a Swedish prosecutor decided that, if true, this would constitute rape.
Assange's lawyers -- rightly, I believe -- argued that if he were extradited to Sweden he'd be tossed in the clink until the United States of Police and Torture could grab him and bring him over here for treatment that would make Bradley Manning's year and a half of torture, and ensuing kangaroo court proceedings, look like love-making.
The government of Ecuador first proposed that the Swedes conduct their questioning in their London embassy, where presumably the interrogators could be relieved of rubber hoses, cattle prods and water boards before the the questioning began. No, said Sweden.
Well then, Ecuador countered, what about an iron-clad guarantee that you won't turn him over to the U.S. if we allow Britain to send him to Sweden to answer your questions? Neither the Brits nor the Swedes bought that one.
At last, President Rafael Correa and his advisers in the government of Ecuador rightly concluded that Assange's human rights would in all probability be violated if he were not granted sanctuary.
Sweden went bonkers. Who is this guy Correa, the Swedes are saying, to preach about rights when he oppresses the noble, free press in his very own country. He's a bloody dictator who orders his police to fire on hospitals! Similar charges are flying around the United Kingdom, as well.
Now, I urge you, ask any of the millions of Americans whose homes have been foreclosed just how free might be a press that is largely owned by bankers -- as are most of the private media in Ecuador?
Oscar Wilde -- or was it Martin Amis? or an ancient Arab philosopher? -- once noted that the character of a man can be judged by the character of his enemies. President Correa's enemies, in addition to the banker-owned media, include foreign oil investors, local banks, telecommunications companies, the U.S. government and the Catholic Church. This, in my book, makes him a candidate for sainthood.
Then there's the matter of Articles 71 through 74 of the Constitution of Ecuador, largely shaped by Correa and adopted in 2008, the first such document in the history of man to recognize as a matter of law the Rights of Nature. It mandates that ecosystems have an inalienable right to exist and flourish, that citizens have the right to petition on behalf of nature, and that government must intervene against violations of these rights. Powerful stuff on a planet whose other governments -- especially the United States -- give benign and tacit support to those who degrade our environment.
The constitution of Ecuador also takes pains to recognize the influence of indigenous people, who, in the puppetmaster U.S. or Assange's native Australia, still get short shrift from their governors. Now, with the brave humanitarian act of protecting Julian Assange from those who would persecute him, President Correa and the people of Ecuador are once again on the side of the angels. The better angels of human nature.
The U.K. government's letter to Quito threatening to storm Ecuador's embassy building in London to seize Julian Assange was radical cheek even by the uppity standards of the the British ruling class. It also spat spoiled bangers and sour mash on international law and diplomatic accords.
Now in the fallout everyone with a dog in the fight is pulling the predictable punches.
I have no doubt (without, I confess, any hard evidence -- yet) that Washington is pulling the strings of the Swedish and British governments in all of this.
Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, sought asylum in Ecuador to prevent his extradition to Sweden to face "questioning" over allegations of sexual improprieties with two women during a visit with supporters there. Specifically, he is alleged to have failed to accede to the women's request that he wear condoms during consensual sex. By some stretch of the imagination, a Swedish prosecutor decided that, if true, this would constitute rape.
Assange's lawyers -- rightly, I believe -- argued that if he were extradited to Sweden he'd be tossed in the clink until the United States of Police and Torture could grab him and bring him over here for treatment that would make Bradley Manning's year and a half of torture, and ensuing kangaroo court proceedings, look like love-making.
The government of Ecuador first proposed that the Swedes conduct their questioning in their London embassy, where presumably the interrogators could be relieved of rubber hoses, cattle prods and water boards before the the questioning began. No, said Sweden.
Well then, Ecuador countered, what about an iron-clad guarantee that you won't turn him over to the U.S. if we allow Britain to send him to Sweden to answer your questions? Neither the Brits nor the Swedes bought that one.
At last, President Rafael Correa and his advisers in the government of Ecuador rightly concluded that Assange's human rights would in all probability be violated if he were not granted sanctuary.
Sweden went bonkers. Who is this guy Correa, the Swedes are saying, to preach about rights when he oppresses the noble, free press in his very own country. He's a bloody dictator who orders his police to fire on hospitals! Similar charges are flying around the United Kingdom, as well.
Now, I urge you, ask any of the millions of Americans whose homes have been foreclosed just how free might be a press that is largely owned by bankers -- as are most of the private media in Ecuador?
Oscar Wilde -- or was it Martin Amis? or an ancient Arab philosopher? -- once noted that the character of a man can be judged by the character of his enemies. President Correa's enemies, in addition to the banker-owned media, include foreign oil investors, local banks, telecommunications companies, the U.S. government and the Catholic Church. This, in my book, makes him a candidate for sainthood.
Then there's the matter of Articles 71 through 74 of the Constitution of Ecuador, largely shaped by Correa and adopted in 2008, the first such document in the history of man to recognize as a matter of law the Rights of Nature. It mandates that ecosystems have an inalienable right to exist and flourish, that citizens have the right to petition on behalf of nature, and that government must intervene against violations of these rights. Powerful stuff on a planet whose other governments -- especially the United States -- give benign and tacit support to those who degrade our environment.
The constitution of Ecuador also takes pains to recognize the influence of indigenous people, who, in the puppetmaster U.S. or Assange's native Australia, still get short shrift from their governors. Now, with the brave humanitarian act of protecting Julian Assange from those who would persecute him, President Correa and the people of Ecuador are once again on the side of the angels. The better angels of human nature.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Nature News and Other Misgivings
Even the animal kingdom reverberates with bad news these days.
Airplanes will spray Dallas with mosquito-killing chemicals tonight in the first wave of an emergency program to fight West Nile disease. Mayor Mike Rawlings declared the state of emergency and authorized the first aerial spraying of insecticide in the city in more than 45 years because more than 200 cases of West Nile and 10 deaths linked to the virus have been reported across Dallas County.
"The number of cases, the number of deaths are remarkable, and we need to sit up and take notice," Rawlings said. "We do have a serious problem right now."
Some Dallas City Council members worried that spraying might have bad health effects on humans and animals. But State health commissioner Dr. David Lakey supported the measure, saying half of all West Nile cases in the United States so far this year are in Texas.
In the Florida Everglades, wildlife officers captured a 17-foot, 7-inch Burmese python and discovered 87 eggs inside the beast. Researchers say this means the pythons are reproducing at an even more alarming rate than they had realized. Burmese pythons in the wild in Asia are known to reach 20 to 25 feet in length, so researchers fully expect that eventually someone will find a 20-foot Burmese python in Florida.
The great reptiles are not native to the state, which has the worst invasive species problems of any of the contiguous 48. No wonder Willard Romney recently canceled his scheduled campaign appearances there!
Unlike the Florida snakes, the wolves of Wyoming are in fact an indigenous species. But that makes no difference to the Department of the Interior, which plans to approve the mass slaughter of wolves in the state later this month.
Ken Salazar, the department secretary who wears goofy hats and an even goofier smile, is rushing the approval to ensure Wyoming's wolf kill plan will be carried out this fall even though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rejected a similar plan by Wyoming last year.
Wyoming's shoot-on-sight plan will promote the killing of at least 170 wolves and likely many more before the carnage is over. Wolves play an important, positive role in the biodiversity of the state, according to signs placed at various sites by Wyoming's own wildlife officials. Will the signs be removed now?
They're still killing wolves in New Mexico, too. These are Mexican gray cousins of the Rocky Mountain wolves in Wyoming, reintroduced to the southwestern United States after once being extinguished by hunting.
Like Salazar, southern New Mexico's multimillionaire Congressman Stevan Pearce is all for wolf eradication.
Skeeters that cause fatal disease in humans, non-native snakes that have no predators, and wolves that were here before we were -- they're all the same to Ken and Steve.
Like the Shrub that grew in the White House for eight years, they don't do nuance.
Airplanes will spray Dallas with mosquito-killing chemicals tonight in the first wave of an emergency program to fight West Nile disease. Mayor Mike Rawlings declared the state of emergency and authorized the first aerial spraying of insecticide in the city in more than 45 years because more than 200 cases of West Nile and 10 deaths linked to the virus have been reported across Dallas County.
"The number of cases, the number of deaths are remarkable, and we need to sit up and take notice," Rawlings said. "We do have a serious problem right now."
Some Dallas City Council members worried that spraying might have bad health effects on humans and animals. But State health commissioner Dr. David Lakey supported the measure, saying half of all West Nile cases in the United States so far this year are in Texas.
In the Florida Everglades, wildlife officers captured a 17-foot, 7-inch Burmese python and discovered 87 eggs inside the beast. Researchers say this means the pythons are reproducing at an even more alarming rate than they had realized. Burmese pythons in the wild in Asia are known to reach 20 to 25 feet in length, so researchers fully expect that eventually someone will find a 20-foot Burmese python in Florida.
The great reptiles are not native to the state, which has the worst invasive species problems of any of the contiguous 48. No wonder Willard Romney recently canceled his scheduled campaign appearances there!
Unlike the Florida snakes, the wolves of Wyoming are in fact an indigenous species. But that makes no difference to the Department of the Interior, which plans to approve the mass slaughter of wolves in the state later this month.
Ken Salazar, the department secretary who wears goofy hats and an even goofier smile, is rushing the approval to ensure Wyoming's wolf kill plan will be carried out this fall even though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rejected a similar plan by Wyoming last year.
Wyoming's shoot-on-sight plan will promote the killing of at least 170 wolves and likely many more before the carnage is over. Wolves play an important, positive role in the biodiversity of the state, according to signs placed at various sites by Wyoming's own wildlife officials. Will the signs be removed now?
They're still killing wolves in New Mexico, too. These are Mexican gray cousins of the Rocky Mountain wolves in Wyoming, reintroduced to the southwestern United States after once being extinguished by hunting.
Like Salazar, southern New Mexico's multimillionaire Congressman Stevan Pearce is all for wolf eradication.
Skeeters that cause fatal disease in humans, non-native snakes that have no predators, and wolves that were here before we were -- they're all the same to Ken and Steve.
Like the Shrub that grew in the White House for eight years, they don't do nuance.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Will They or Won't They: Israel and Iran
Sifting through recent reports from Israel, I apprehend a foregone conclusion that the Israelis will attack Iran within the next 12 months. A flurry of recent visits to Israel by senior U.S. diplomatic and defense officials seems to have failed to dissuade the Netanyahu government from its determination to do this. One commentator even wrote that "the rest of the world" now accepts this as inevitable.
This pot was stirred by Israeli officials, primarily Defense Minister Ehud Barak, through a series of leaks suggesting that President Obama had received a new national security estimate on Iran. The Israeli leakers said the report disclosed "alarming" and "significant" progress by Iran toward the development of nuclear weapons. The American intelligence, the Israeli sources said, was now "closer" to Israel's long-held view that Iran is perilously close to becoming a nuclear military power.
An unnamed official (probably Barak) told the newspaper Haaretz: "If Israel forgoes the chance to act and it becomes clear that it no longer has the power to act, the likelihood of an American action will decrease. So we cannot wait a year to find out who was right: the one who said that the likelihood of an American action is high or the one who said the likelihood of an American action is low."
But after the attack-Iran stew had simmered a while, an unnamed official in the White House put the kibosh on it. He told Reuters news service that the United States still believes that Iran is not on the verge of having a nuclear weapon and that Tehran has not made a decision to pursue one. This official said the U.S. intelligence assessment of Iran's nuclear activities had not changed since intelligence officials delivered testimony to Congress on the issue earlier this year.
He was referring to the January testimony by James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence,that "we assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons,(but) we do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons." Then as now, to be perfectly clear, there was absolutely no credible evidence that Iran was on the brink of becoming a nuclear threat to Israel or anyone else in the Middle East.
Whatever "the rest of the world" seems to believe at the moment, the reports out of Israel probably amount to saber-rattling, an effort to nudge both sides of the American presidential election debate closer to the Israeli government's hawkish position on Iran.
Even some Israeli cheerleaders in this country think that a unilateral series of air strikes on Iran by Israel would be a bad thing.
The Athlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who in 2002 saw WMDs under every fold of Saddam Hussein's thawb, and who two years ago was "better than 50 percent" certain that there would be an Israeli attack in 2010 on Iran's "nuclear facilities," now says that the probability of such an attack this year is no better than 38 per cent, and offers seven reasons why Israel should not do the dire deed.
Even in arguing against a unilateral strike, however, Goldberg clings to the belief that Iran is pursuing nuclear weaponry. "What I worry about, at bottom," he writes, "is that an Israeli attack would inadvertently create conditions for an acceleration of the Iranian nuclear program."
But the most telling of his seven points is the very first one: "Innocent people will die. It is quite possible that even a limited Israeli strike could kill innocent Iranians, and it is an almost-sure thing that Iranian retaliation will kill innocent Israels."
Until governments renounce policies that will lead to the killing of "innocent people," there is no real hope for peace in the Middle East, or any other international trouble spot.
If the United States really wants to be "the leader of the free world," it can begin by more forcefully insisting that its ally in Jerusalem refrain from acts of war against neighboring nations. And then it can put its money where its mouth is and begin to reverse its own policy of endless war around the globe.
Fat chance.
This pot was stirred by Israeli officials, primarily Defense Minister Ehud Barak, through a series of leaks suggesting that President Obama had received a new national security estimate on Iran. The Israeli leakers said the report disclosed "alarming" and "significant" progress by Iran toward the development of nuclear weapons. The American intelligence, the Israeli sources said, was now "closer" to Israel's long-held view that Iran is perilously close to becoming a nuclear military power.
An unnamed official (probably Barak) told the newspaper Haaretz: "If Israel forgoes the chance to act and it becomes clear that it no longer has the power to act, the likelihood of an American action will decrease. So we cannot wait a year to find out who was right: the one who said that the likelihood of an American action is high or the one who said the likelihood of an American action is low."
But after the attack-Iran stew had simmered a while, an unnamed official in the White House put the kibosh on it. He told Reuters news service that the United States still believes that Iran is not on the verge of having a nuclear weapon and that Tehran has not made a decision to pursue one. This official said the U.S. intelligence assessment of Iran's nuclear activities had not changed since intelligence officials delivered testimony to Congress on the issue earlier this year.
He was referring to the January testimony by James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence,that "we assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons,(but) we do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons." Then as now, to be perfectly clear, there was absolutely no credible evidence that Iran was on the brink of becoming a nuclear threat to Israel or anyone else in the Middle East.
Whatever "the rest of the world" seems to believe at the moment, the reports out of Israel probably amount to saber-rattling, an effort to nudge both sides of the American presidential election debate closer to the Israeli government's hawkish position on Iran.
Even some Israeli cheerleaders in this country think that a unilateral series of air strikes on Iran by Israel would be a bad thing.
The Athlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, who in 2002 saw WMDs under every fold of Saddam Hussein's thawb, and who two years ago was "better than 50 percent" certain that there would be an Israeli attack in 2010 on Iran's "nuclear facilities," now says that the probability of such an attack this year is no better than 38 per cent, and offers seven reasons why Israel should not do the dire deed.
Even in arguing against a unilateral strike, however, Goldberg clings to the belief that Iran is pursuing nuclear weaponry. "What I worry about, at bottom," he writes, "is that an Israeli attack would inadvertently create conditions for an acceleration of the Iranian nuclear program."
But the most telling of his seven points is the very first one: "Innocent people will die. It is quite possible that even a limited Israeli strike could kill innocent Iranians, and it is an almost-sure thing that Iranian retaliation will kill innocent Israels."
Until governments renounce policies that will lead to the killing of "innocent people," there is no real hope for peace in the Middle East, or any other international trouble spot.
If the United States really wants to be "the leader of the free world," it can begin by more forcefully insisting that its ally in Jerusalem refrain from acts of war against neighboring nations. And then it can put its money where its mouth is and begin to reverse its own policy of endless war around the globe.
Fat chance.
Monday, August 13, 2012
We, the Peeple of the United States. . . .
This is Amerika in 2012:
Portales, NM -- Median income in this windswept, woebegone, weatherbeaten town in eastern New Mexico's high plains is a scintilla above poverty level.
Lori Teel houses and feeds five children ages 1 to 10 in this economic climate.
She doesn't have a library card but someone sent a tort claim notice to the city clerk alleging that she owes $35.98 in unpaid library fees.
The clerk's office sent dunning notices to a children's shelter where Teel hasn't lived for 20 years. When there was no response, a warrant was issued for her arrest. While her children wept in fear, Teel was handcuffed and jailed.
It cost her $610 for bail the next day after her terrified kids spent the night with utter strangers.
* * *
Easton, PA -- David C. Gorczynski, 22, joined an "Occupy" protest at the Wells Fargo bank in this town of 27,000 about 60 miles outside of Philadelphia. He carried signs that read, “You’re being robbed” and “Give a man a gun, he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob a country.”
Inside the bank, a nervous teller triggered an alarm when the protest started.
The police came.
They arrested Gorczynski on felony charges of attempted bank robbery and terroristic threatening, as well as one misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct.
Easton Police Chief Carl Scalzo said, "People have to understand if they want to protest, there's a line."
* * *
In New Mexico, a university graduate writes to the local paper -- apparently he's dead serious -- that Obama is at once a socialist and a fascist. He "proves" his case by misquoting both Marx and Hitler. The same publication regularly gives editorial page space to the county Republican chairman, enabling him to insist over and over again that only Christian believers have citizenship standing under the U.S. Constitution. Any government policy to the contrary violates his First Amendment rights!
* * *
Meddling by elected idiots, lack of funding and overt religiosity have so degraded American education -- public and private -- that the ignorant are leading the blind. Case in point: On BBC 4 in the U.K. the other day, an interviewer talked with a surviving member of a U.S. Air Force crew that bombed Japan in the waning days of the second World War, remarking upon how little today's generations remember about that terrible conflict.
It prompted the flier to recall the recent occasion when he was asked to speak to a junior high school class in Texas, and was introduced by the teacher as a "veteran of World War eleven."
* * *
In Iowa, a journalism student working the night news shift at the college radio station was making his routine last-minute calls to official sources in case there was late-breaking news. When he contacted the sheriff's office, the deputy on duty said, "We got a s'pected B an' E." The student asked, "Read me the report." The sheriff said, "It's a lot of pages." The student said, "Well, then, just tell me the gist of it."
"Jist what?" replied the officer of the law.
* * *
This is Amerika in 2012.
Portales, NM -- Median income in this windswept, woebegone, weatherbeaten town in eastern New Mexico's high plains is a scintilla above poverty level.
Lori Teel houses and feeds five children ages 1 to 10 in this economic climate.
She doesn't have a library card but someone sent a tort claim notice to the city clerk alleging that she owes $35.98 in unpaid library fees.
The clerk's office sent dunning notices to a children's shelter where Teel hasn't lived for 20 years. When there was no response, a warrant was issued for her arrest. While her children wept in fear, Teel was handcuffed and jailed.
It cost her $610 for bail the next day after her terrified kids spent the night with utter strangers.
* * *
Easton, PA -- David C. Gorczynski, 22, joined an "Occupy" protest at the Wells Fargo bank in this town of 27,000 about 60 miles outside of Philadelphia. He carried signs that read, “You’re being robbed” and “Give a man a gun, he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank, and he can rob a country.”
Inside the bank, a nervous teller triggered an alarm when the protest started.
The police came.
They arrested Gorczynski on felony charges of attempted bank robbery and terroristic threatening, as well as one misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct.
Easton Police Chief Carl Scalzo said, "People have to understand if they want to protest, there's a line."
* * *
In New Mexico, a university graduate writes to the local paper -- apparently he's dead serious -- that Obama is at once a socialist and a fascist. He "proves" his case by misquoting both Marx and Hitler. The same publication regularly gives editorial page space to the county Republican chairman, enabling him to insist over and over again that only Christian believers have citizenship standing under the U.S. Constitution. Any government policy to the contrary violates his First Amendment rights!
* * *
Meddling by elected idiots, lack of funding and overt religiosity have so degraded American education -- public and private -- that the ignorant are leading the blind. Case in point: On BBC 4 in the U.K. the other day, an interviewer talked with a surviving member of a U.S. Air Force crew that bombed Japan in the waning days of the second World War, remarking upon how little today's generations remember about that terrible conflict.
It prompted the flier to recall the recent occasion when he was asked to speak to a junior high school class in Texas, and was introduced by the teacher as a "veteran of World War eleven."
* * *
In Iowa, a journalism student working the night news shift at the college radio station was making his routine last-minute calls to official sources in case there was late-breaking news. When he contacted the sheriff's office, the deputy on duty said, "We got a s'pected B an' E." The student asked, "Read me the report." The sheriff said, "It's a lot of pages." The student said, "Well, then, just tell me the gist of it."
"Jist what?" replied the officer of the law.
* * *
This is Amerika in 2012.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Are We Really 'Better Than This?'
How much will this cost?” he asks. It’s the question at the heart
of any business transaction: Is this new car, this plane ticket, this
iPad worth the asking price?
But the man sitting before me is not a customer in an automobile showroom or an electronics store. He is my patient in the emergency department, and he is weighing whether to undergo the chest CT scan I have just recommended.
“I’m uninsured,” he says. “I lost my health coverage when I got laid off from my job three years ago. This is all coming out of my pocket.”
An ex-smoker in his late 40s, he has been coughing up increasing amounts of bloody sputum over the past month. What began as occasional, tiny red flecks has progressed to thick crimson streaks he can no longer ignore.
“I can only give you an estimate,” I say, “but I’m guessing a chest CT scan plus the radiologist’s fee will run in the neighborhood of $2,000.”
“I was afraid you’d say something like that,” he says. “I figured CT scans don’t come cheap.” He sighs quietly. “I’m raising my 8-year-old daughter on a pretty lean budget.” He looks thin in his hospital gown and a shade pale, a few days of graying stubble on his chin.
“But I’ve been worried about this for too long,” he says. “I know I need to have it.”
An hour later, I am seated at my computer scrolling through digital CT images while the radiologist on the phone describes the findings.
“In the hilum of the left lung there is a 4.5 centimeter lesion very likely to represent malignancy,” she says. My gaze falls on the irregularly shaped white mass, its tiny tentacles invading the delicate latticework of the surrounding lung tissue.
“Unfortunately, it gets worse,” the radiologist says. “There are also multiple scattered smaller lesions throughout both lungs, highly suspicious for metastases.”
There was a time during medical school and residency when I regarded abnormal clinical and radiographic findings with intrigue. I remember the excitement of hearing my first heart murmur. Of palpating a thyroid nodule. Of visualizing an ovarian mass on pelvic ultrasound.
But after years of clinical practice and countless patient encounters, I now find it difficult to view abnormal findings separately from the human lives they affect. I see an elderly woman’s hip X-ray, knowing that the fracture line coursing through the femoral neck likely spells the end of her days of independent living. A peculiar bright patch lighting up in the brain’s left hemisphere on an MRI scan signifies that a man will no longer be able to grasp a pen or a coffee mug in his right hand, will never again be able to speak a meaningful word to his family.
I hang up the phone, my eyes lingering on the CT images, the sinister white lung mass and its small-but-ominous satellites. And I am aware of their significance—that a middle-aged man will not live to see his daughter’s wedding.
I return to the patient’s room and sit down on the bedside stool. Before I speak, I feel his gaze upon me, anxiously searching my face for any subtle indication of the words to come.
“I’m sorry to have to give you this news,” I say, “but your CT scan shows findings concerning for lung cancer. It’s possibly spread to both lungs.”
He stares ahead, unblinking, his facial pallor seemingly more apparent. After a few moments, he speaks.
“On some level, I was expecting something really bad like this,” he says. “But, of course, you always hope that everything will turn out fine.”
My mouth, having grown dry, lacks the appropriate words to console him in this moment of utter sorrow. So I put a hand on his arm.
“I’ll talk to our on-call oncologist,” I tell him. “We’ll figure out a plan for you.”
He waits patiently until I return to his room once more, armed with an action plan. “The oncologist is going to admit you to the hospital and start the workup,” I explain. “He’ll order a PET scan to see if there’s been spread to other parts of the body. Then they’ll do a biopsy of that main lesion in your lung to determine the best treatment options—whether it be radiation, chemotherapy or some combination of the two.”
A long period of silence follows, time for my patient to process the information I have conveyed. I anticipate forthcoming questions.
“I suspected that you’d want to do all those things,” he says, finally. “But I’ve already been thinking this through, and I’ve decided that I’m going to have to pass on your recommendations.”
It is not a reply I was expecting. “Why is that?” I ask.
“As I said before, I’ve got no health insurance,” he says. “But there’s one thing I do have—my house. And it’s fully paid for. I guess I’m not willing to mortgage it—and ultimately lose it—to pay off endless medical bills. My house is the only thing…” His voice trails off. After a pause, he continues. “My house is the only thing I’ll have to leave my daughter when I’m gone.”
Tears have gathered in the corners of his eyes. I offer him a box of tissues, and he takes one.
We sit together in a room in a modern emergency department in a rich country, a land where highly trained specialists confidently wield the newest technologies and expensive pharmaceuticals. But these treasures are not accessible to all, for ours is also a land where private health insurance is bought and sold as a commodity. Ours is a system known to shake down sick people for money they don’t have. Ours is the only wealthy democracy that fails to guarantee health coverage to all of its citizens.
Just as it is failing now.
He looks down at his watch. “Thanks for all you’ve done. I really appreciate it. But I’ve gotta leave now,” he says. “I have to go pick her up from school.”
As I watch him reach behind his neck to untie his hospital gown, I can’t help but feel that we owe him so much more. I can’t help but feel that we—health care providers, hospital administrators, insurance company executives, politicians, all those who strenuously fight the changes that our system desperately needs—we all have failed him.
I can’t help but feel that we are better than this.
This article first appeared in the July 2012 issue of Minnesota Medicine.
But the man sitting before me is not a customer in an automobile showroom or an electronics store. He is my patient in the emergency department, and he is weighing whether to undergo the chest CT scan I have just recommended.
“I’m uninsured,” he says. “I lost my health coverage when I got laid off from my job three years ago. This is all coming out of my pocket.”
An ex-smoker in his late 40s, he has been coughing up increasing amounts of bloody sputum over the past month. What began as occasional, tiny red flecks has progressed to thick crimson streaks he can no longer ignore.
“I can only give you an estimate,” I say, “but I’m guessing a chest CT scan plus the radiologist’s fee will run in the neighborhood of $2,000.”
“I was afraid you’d say something like that,” he says. “I figured CT scans don’t come cheap.” He sighs quietly. “I’m raising my 8-year-old daughter on a pretty lean budget.” He looks thin in his hospital gown and a shade pale, a few days of graying stubble on his chin.
“But I’ve been worried about this for too long,” he says. “I know I need to have it.”
An hour later, I am seated at my computer scrolling through digital CT images while the radiologist on the phone describes the findings.
“In the hilum of the left lung there is a 4.5 centimeter lesion very likely to represent malignancy,” she says. My gaze falls on the irregularly shaped white mass, its tiny tentacles invading the delicate latticework of the surrounding lung tissue.
“Unfortunately, it gets worse,” the radiologist says. “There are also multiple scattered smaller lesions throughout both lungs, highly suspicious for metastases.”
There was a time during medical school and residency when I regarded abnormal clinical and radiographic findings with intrigue. I remember the excitement of hearing my first heart murmur. Of palpating a thyroid nodule. Of visualizing an ovarian mass on pelvic ultrasound.
But after years of clinical practice and countless patient encounters, I now find it difficult to view abnormal findings separately from the human lives they affect. I see an elderly woman’s hip X-ray, knowing that the fracture line coursing through the femoral neck likely spells the end of her days of independent living. A peculiar bright patch lighting up in the brain’s left hemisphere on an MRI scan signifies that a man will no longer be able to grasp a pen or a coffee mug in his right hand, will never again be able to speak a meaningful word to his family.
I hang up the phone, my eyes lingering on the CT images, the sinister white lung mass and its small-but-ominous satellites. And I am aware of their significance—that a middle-aged man will not live to see his daughter’s wedding.
I return to the patient’s room and sit down on the bedside stool. Before I speak, I feel his gaze upon me, anxiously searching my face for any subtle indication of the words to come.
“I’m sorry to have to give you this news,” I say, “but your CT scan shows findings concerning for lung cancer. It’s possibly spread to both lungs.”
He stares ahead, unblinking, his facial pallor seemingly more apparent. After a few moments, he speaks.
“On some level, I was expecting something really bad like this,” he says. “But, of course, you always hope that everything will turn out fine.”
My mouth, having grown dry, lacks the appropriate words to console him in this moment of utter sorrow. So I put a hand on his arm.
“I’ll talk to our on-call oncologist,” I tell him. “We’ll figure out a plan for you.”
He waits patiently until I return to his room once more, armed with an action plan. “The oncologist is going to admit you to the hospital and start the workup,” I explain. “He’ll order a PET scan to see if there’s been spread to other parts of the body. Then they’ll do a biopsy of that main lesion in your lung to determine the best treatment options—whether it be radiation, chemotherapy or some combination of the two.”
A long period of silence follows, time for my patient to process the information I have conveyed. I anticipate forthcoming questions.
“I suspected that you’d want to do all those things,” he says, finally. “But I’ve already been thinking this through, and I’ve decided that I’m going to have to pass on your recommendations.”
It is not a reply I was expecting. “Why is that?” I ask.
“As I said before, I’ve got no health insurance,” he says. “But there’s one thing I do have—my house. And it’s fully paid for. I guess I’m not willing to mortgage it—and ultimately lose it—to pay off endless medical bills. My house is the only thing…” His voice trails off. After a pause, he continues. “My house is the only thing I’ll have to leave my daughter when I’m gone.”
Tears have gathered in the corners of his eyes. I offer him a box of tissues, and he takes one.
We sit together in a room in a modern emergency department in a rich country, a land where highly trained specialists confidently wield the newest technologies and expensive pharmaceuticals. But these treasures are not accessible to all, for ours is also a land where private health insurance is bought and sold as a commodity. Ours is a system known to shake down sick people for money they don’t have. Ours is the only wealthy democracy that fails to guarantee health coverage to all of its citizens.
Just as it is failing now.
He looks down at his watch. “Thanks for all you’ve done. I really appreciate it. But I’ve gotta leave now,” he says. “I have to go pick her up from school.”
As I watch him reach behind his neck to untie his hospital gown, I can’t help but feel that we owe him so much more. I can’t help but feel that we—health care providers, hospital administrators, insurance company executives, politicians, all those who strenuously fight the changes that our system desperately needs—we all have failed him.
I can’t help but feel that we are better than this.
This article first appeared in the July 2012 issue of Minnesota Medicine.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Once Again: Why Not to Vote for Obama
Why is it so difficult for so many Democrats to understand why so many who eagerly supported him in 2008 will not vote for Barack Obama in 2012?
I'm told that if I "allow" Mitt Romney to become president because I "waste" my vote on a third party or independent candidate, or do not cast a presidential ballot at all, I will be to blame for a diminished, dysfunctional non-democratic America that will ensue.
Bovine excrement.
The fact is that by voting for Obama in 2008 I am complicit in a diminished, dysfunctional, non-democratic United States that has existed ever since Bush II took office.
Obama has continued to pursue some of the worst, actually criminal, policies of his predecessor. I cannot condone that by voting for him again. Why is that so difficult to understand?
But Obama is, some Democrats will say, the lesser of two evils.
Nonsense.
One cannot restore a sick nation to health by continually voting for the lesser of two evils. This country has been mis-governed so badly for so long that it probably can never be made into the democratic republic its founders envisioned. Many of those who crafted this infant nation shared Franklin's famous skepticism in handing us "a republic -- if you can keep it." We have made their worst fears come true.
Our pathetic propensity for hero worship, manufacturing heroes if none exist, has placed those very founders on far too high a pedestal. Although they shared many praiseworthy democratic ideals, these were far from perfect humans -- vainglorious, privileged, wealthy, many of them slaveholders. Enough of them recognized the faults of their original Constitution to hand down the ten amendments now called the Bill of Rights.
Presidents and Congresses have done their best over the ensuing two centuries to undo the wisdom of those amendments, crowning their hubris with the so-called USA Patriot Act, probably the most unpatriotic act of cowardice in the history of the wronged republic.
Barack Obama, as senator and as president, has been in the thick of this high treason, this betrayal of whatever noble ideals our founders left us.
As Commander in Chief, he is as guilty of crimes against humanity in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and the United States of America as Adolph Hitler was in Poland, France, Russia and Germany. Killing innocent people is murder, whether the weapon is lethal gas or a CIA controlled drone.
I would not entrust the care of my dear companion, Brandi, to a man who shoots dogs.
I cannot consent to condemning my homeland to the continuing care of a man who kills innocent people.
Barack Obama is guilty of lying to the voters who elected him; of repeatedly selling out to corporate interests rather than protecting those of the common man; of toadying to the military-industrial profiteers rather than seeking peace; of political cowardice, ethical emptiness and moral blindness.
The Democratic party is telling me Mitt Romney would be worse.
If that is so, then neither candidate is worthy of my vote. And neither will get it.
I'm told that if I "allow" Mitt Romney to become president because I "waste" my vote on a third party or independent candidate, or do not cast a presidential ballot at all, I will be to blame for a diminished, dysfunctional non-democratic America that will ensue.
Bovine excrement.
The fact is that by voting for Obama in 2008 I am complicit in a diminished, dysfunctional, non-democratic United States that has existed ever since Bush II took office.
Obama has continued to pursue some of the worst, actually criminal, policies of his predecessor. I cannot condone that by voting for him again. Why is that so difficult to understand?
But Obama is, some Democrats will say, the lesser of two evils.
Nonsense.
One cannot restore a sick nation to health by continually voting for the lesser of two evils. This country has been mis-governed so badly for so long that it probably can never be made into the democratic republic its founders envisioned. Many of those who crafted this infant nation shared Franklin's famous skepticism in handing us "a republic -- if you can keep it." We have made their worst fears come true.
Our pathetic propensity for hero worship, manufacturing heroes if none exist, has placed those very founders on far too high a pedestal. Although they shared many praiseworthy democratic ideals, these were far from perfect humans -- vainglorious, privileged, wealthy, many of them slaveholders. Enough of them recognized the faults of their original Constitution to hand down the ten amendments now called the Bill of Rights.
Presidents and Congresses have done their best over the ensuing two centuries to undo the wisdom of those amendments, crowning their hubris with the so-called USA Patriot Act, probably the most unpatriotic act of cowardice in the history of the wronged republic.
Barack Obama, as senator and as president, has been in the thick of this high treason, this betrayal of whatever noble ideals our founders left us.
As Commander in Chief, he is as guilty of crimes against humanity in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and the United States of America as Adolph Hitler was in Poland, France, Russia and Germany. Killing innocent people is murder, whether the weapon is lethal gas or a CIA controlled drone.
I would not entrust the care of my dear companion, Brandi, to a man who shoots dogs.
I cannot consent to condemning my homeland to the continuing care of a man who kills innocent people.
Barack Obama is guilty of lying to the voters who elected him; of repeatedly selling out to corporate interests rather than protecting those of the common man; of toadying to the military-industrial profiteers rather than seeking peace; of political cowardice, ethical emptiness and moral blindness.
The Democratic party is telling me Mitt Romney would be worse.
If that is so, then neither candidate is worthy of my vote. And neither will get it.
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