The initial post for this blog on September 11, 2007 attempts to set the stage for the general approach that subsequent posts will take. To the point, while there are some facts and solid objects out there, they tend to be beheld through a wide variety of eyes, ears, noses, mouths, skin surfaces, experiences, beliefs, values and an array of other influences. Even more to the point, when we listen to or read someone's opinion on something, we usually learn a lot more about the opinionator than about the object of his or her attention.
Case in point: some readers read that last sentence, and thought, "Well, du-uh," and others thought, "Wow! I never realized that before. Cool!" Actually neither of these is completely true, since I'm not sure enough people read this to validate my use of the phrase "some readers."
Be all that as it may, Barack Obama spoke about race last Tuesday, and if you haven't listened to or read his speech, you can do so, respectively through the appropriate linked words in this sentence. Much has been written and spoken about the senator's speech over the past week, and my Catholic elementary school side feels a bit of guilt about adding to the cyber talk, but as I mature, I'm letting more and more of that guilt go, so here goes.
Most columnists and pundits that I've read or listened to have spoken as if the speech were a fact or a solid object--they seem to know what it means and what it is. I believe it's safe to say that Senator Obama, after lengthy preparation, vibrated his vocal cords in specific patterns, and his vibrations found our inner ears, which also vibrated, and we interpreted those vibrations according to a set of criteria that most of us don't understand ourselves. Okay, that's an oversimplification, and it ignores the transcript, but it's more-or-less true in its attempt to summarize the speaking-listening-interpreting process.
Disclaimer: I subscribe to and read the New York Times. Because lots of people think it's a prime example of "the liberal press," and lots of others think it has become too moderate--even conservative, it seems to be balanced in that it annoys people across the political spectrum. I'm going to limit my comments here to recent columns in the Times and one other source, not because the Times covers the whole spectrum (which is not my goal), but because they essentially prove that Barack Obama delivered not one, but many, many speeches on March 18.
William Kristol, whom some readers (there I go again, ever the optimist) may recall is a leading neo-conservative, architect of the Iraq War, and Chairman of the Project for the New American Century, commented on one of these March 18 speeches in his March 24 Times column. He delivered a Marc-Antony-riles-the-Plebians-against-Brutus-and-Cassius-while-seeming-to-praise-both-men type column, poking Obama with praise as "accomplished orator," "able politician," and "ambitious man," before "shuddering" at the prospect of a "heated national conversation about race," when what the country needs "are sober, results-oriented debates about economics, social mobility, education, family policy and the like — focused especially on how to help those who are struggling." As a reader, I assume that Mr. Kristol includes the Iraq debacle under "economics [how else we might spend our money], social mobility [who goes to war and who sends them], education [how, who, and to do what for whom], and family policy [especially with regard to the families of the 4,000 dead and over 20,000 maimed Americans, who served in Iraq]."
Contrast this with the speech that Maureen Dowd heard and commented on in her March 19 Times column. She begins by calling the speech she heard "[i]n many ways...momentous and edifying," but after pointing out her evidence for those adjectives, Dowd uses other modifiers--"naïve and willful," in reference to Obama's refusal at first to address the issues around Reverend Wright and Tony Rezko. She suggests that in the face of "ambivalence, ambiguity and complexity," the senator stepped down from the pedestal amid a talk on black and white, and recognized the gray area--a recognition that will, in her estimation, strengthen him as a candidate.
But strengthen him in whose hearts, eyes, and ears? While I haven't read their blogs and columns, I sense that those colorful characters featured in the Southern Poverty Law Center's Spring 2008 Intelligence Report might have heard or read a speech other than what Ms. Dowd or Mr. Kristol commented on, but as Mr. Kristol notes in his column, "Over the last several decades, we’ve done pretty well in overcoming racial barriers and prejudice. Problems remain." If I had more time, I'd spend it with those two sentences, as they come from a wealthy, powerful white guy. Suffice it to say that I'm sure the 888 active hate groups identified in the SPLC report would agree with him.
Finally, Times columnist Bob Herbert, in his March 25 Times column, calls the speech he heard "Powerful..." and suggested that it "should be required reading in classrooms across the country — and in as many other venues as possible." Herbert acknowledges that the speech was political, but also "legitmate and powerful," and that "it ought to resonate with fair-minded Americans, regardless of whether they support Mr. Obama for president," where it seems that "fair-minded" refers to Americans who heard the same speech as Mr. Herbert (as opposed to what Mr. Kristol heard, or even Ms. Dowd).
What speech did you hear or read?
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Dance Band on the Titanic
I thought this posting would emerge from an almost-finished draft that deals with the gender and race issues in the Democratic presidential campaign, and the gender issue concerning the "proper" role of the spouse (i.e. wife) in the latest edition of the powerful-politician-goes-sexually-astray story.
As important as these issues are, however, and I believe they are very important, this post will address money and how we spend it (or how it is spent by others for us).
More to the point, the Iraq war's inevitably costing American taxpayers more than $2 trillion, and the federal government's bailout of the financial world's private sector, beginning with Bear Stearns and ending...who know knows where, when or with whom, are coming out of my (our collective) pocket. I'm almost embarrassed to add those now trivially obvious and tedious tidbits: our peerless leaders choose to spend our money as they do and not on the 40+ million Americans who don't have access to affordable, competent health care and the continuing third-rate public education that is available to many children in these United States.
To paraphrase the late Harry Chapin, the president and legislators from both parties comprise an off-tune dance band on the Titanic, and most of us are content to dance along or watch as wallflowers as the band plays on. Who do we think we are and what in the world are we doing?
Two years ago I published This Open Eye, a collection of poems that marked the third anniversary of the bombing of Baghdad. The longest poem in the book, "Common Thread," provides five perspectives on America. To mark the 5th anniversary of the hit tune, "Operation Iraqi Freedom," I've posted the poem below--one perspective for each year. The blog formatting doesn't allow some of the indents and line breaks that the poem should have, but I'll live with that:
Common Thread
1. Gulf War Vet
I deploy to Iraq in ’91 to get that
bastard Hussein out of Kuwait and we
rain hell on Baghdad forty days and
forty nights nonstop though we never
do get him. A desert
storm for sure.
A dozen years later and
I’m dyin’, and find out I got killed over there—
Reagan says Hussein is cool, sells him
choppers, bombs and dual-use hardware,
Rumsfeld shakes his hand, and in ’84, my
CIA pals help him gas Iranians. Commerce
okays 21 batches of anthrax,
and in ’86 only my country refuses
to condemn Iraq’s chemical warfare.
Now
I’m dyin’, creatin’ half-orphans and a widow, and
can’t get a straight answer about
depleted uranium in my own ammo.
My country—
‘tis of thee, I sing.
2. Baghdad Doctor
I was 28 when Saddam purged the Baaths
and Communists in 1979. I healed people,
protected my family. When
Saddam attacked Iran in 1980, the
Americans removed us from their list
of terrorists—even opened
diplomatic relations, gave us loans,
subsidies and military intelligence. When
Saddam slaughtered the Kurds between
1987 and 1989, the presidents,
Reagan and Bush, barely blinked.
When they finally chased Saddam’s
army from Kuwait, the Americans bombed
my city day and night for more than a month—
targeted our water, electrical plants, hospitals
and roadways—
killed two of my children.
Their sanctions killed individual Iraqis over
half a million times with starvation, malnutrition
dirty water and lack of medical supplies.
American
and British planes bombed my country almost
every week for the next decade. Clinton’s
missiles killed Layla al-Attar, our beloved
artist, and her husband, creating wounded
orphans.
The world envies America’s six- and
seven-figure incomes, while American taxes
bring Iraq the need for six- and seven-figure
body bags.
Never satisfied with what
they’ve created or destroyed, the Americans
attacked my country again in 2003, killing more
thousands of civilians—my wife this time. The
American general says they don’t do body counts.
Since they captured Saddam my country
remains a war zone—
if this quarter century
is a taste of freedom and American democracy,
I’d prefer to have my children and wife back
under the dictator. I hate him, but at least
we were safe. At least there was order. In
the 1960s, an American Army veteran wrote
that freedom really means nothing
left to lose. I guess my country
and I are just about free. Americans
slaughtered each other almost a century
after their own independence—an independence
they had fought for freely. How can they think
they can force democracy here—
even if some
of us do want it?
3. Teheran Teacher
The American cowboy president says
my country turns on the axis of evil. Twenty
years ago his father sold Saddam Hussein
mustard gas and anthrax, which he
used against my people and his own.
His father sold Saddam helicopters and
cannons, and the presidents before him
protected our corrupt Shah, and
now the Americans look at the mess they’ve
made in Iraq—and they say the Iraqi people
must clean it up themselves. I pray
the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites in Iraq
live in peace. My anger is with Saddam and
Reagan and the Shah and the Bushes—people
like them—who are these men and women
who order killing so easily?
4. Kurdish Rebel
From 1973 through 1975, America, Israel and Iran
supported our fight against Iraq, but when Saddam and
the Iranian Shah agreed to close their borders against
us, the Americans cut off their aid, and watched as
Saddam destroyed villages and slaughtered 100,000
of my people with chemicals. After the Americans
removed him from Kuwait, they encouraged us to rise
up against him, but denied us access to captured
weapons. U.S. warplanes circled above as Saddam’s
helicopters slaughtered my brothers. Why
did the Americans do this?
5. Vietnam Vet
Somehow, Charlie’s rounds missed me—
I survived Tet in ’68 and two tours with
Agent Orange.
Lost eight years on my discharge
to Jack, José, and Mary Jane, but
got lucky with a consolation named
philosophy and a woman named
Sophia and brought JoAnn, Nick
and Chris into the world.
Actually—
into New York. When Y2K
fizzled, JoAnn was a semester from
her MSW, Nick and Chris were a
year apart at St. John’s, and
Sophia and I immersed ourselves
in good fortune.
Actually—she
immersed herself. I couldn’t believe
it, but I soaked up what I could
until
the second jet hit the south tower
and cremation by fireball left
nothing of Sophia to put in an urn
or a coffin or the ground, and left
three half-orphans and a hole in
my heart that I’ll never fill or
close
but through which I’ve
seen for the first time the millions
of holes that I helped leave in
the hearts and landscape of
Vietnam, and the holes in the
hearts and landscape of Iraq,
and the holes in the hearts of
young Americans and their
families
and I want to disinter
Johnson, Nixon and Reagan,
grab McNamara, Clinton, Cheney,
bin Laden, the Bushes, Hussein,
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, Rice
and the rest by their throats, and drag
each one through every heart that’s ever
been stopped or broken by their
distant orders to kill in the name of
freedom, royalty, democracy, oil, or a
God they have never known despite
their claims to the contrary.
Fightin’ infidelity.
Fightin’ Communism. Fightin’
terrorism.
Let me tell you—
I’ve been there and never once
held a concept in my crosshairs—
never once saw a soldier’s or
civilian’s body broken by a 60-
millimeter idea, rocket-propelled
precept or bunker-busting belief.
Yeah, I survived Charlie and Dow
Chemical, got lucky with Sophia’s
love and my heart broken open with
her incineration, and now I live with
knowing it took a hole in my own heart to
see the holes in the hearts of others,
and what I wish for my kids—for
JoAnn, Nick and Chris—what I wish for
what survives of Sophia on this earth—
rather than endorse more slaughter
in their anger and fear, in their loss
and despair—what I wish for my
kids and your kids and all kids—
is that they can take
their own broken hearts and help
open the hearts of others—
before they’re broken
or stopped by
those of us who kill
so easily.
As important as these issues are, however, and I believe they are very important, this post will address money and how we spend it (or how it is spent by others for us).
More to the point, the Iraq war's inevitably costing American taxpayers more than $2 trillion, and the federal government's bailout of the financial world's private sector, beginning with Bear Stearns and ending...who know knows where, when or with whom, are coming out of my (our collective) pocket. I'm almost embarrassed to add those now trivially obvious and tedious tidbits: our peerless leaders choose to spend our money as they do and not on the 40+ million Americans who don't have access to affordable, competent health care and the continuing third-rate public education that is available to many children in these United States.
To paraphrase the late Harry Chapin, the president and legislators from both parties comprise an off-tune dance band on the Titanic, and most of us are content to dance along or watch as wallflowers as the band plays on. Who do we think we are and what in the world are we doing?
Two years ago I published This Open Eye, a collection of poems that marked the third anniversary of the bombing of Baghdad. The longest poem in the book, "Common Thread," provides five perspectives on America. To mark the 5th anniversary of the hit tune, "Operation Iraqi Freedom," I've posted the poem below--one perspective for each year. The blog formatting doesn't allow some of the indents and line breaks that the poem should have, but I'll live with that:
Common Thread
1. Gulf War Vet
I deploy to Iraq in ’91 to get that
bastard Hussein out of Kuwait and we
rain hell on Baghdad forty days and
forty nights nonstop though we never
do get him. A desert
storm for sure.
A dozen years later and
I’m dyin’, and find out I got killed over there—
Reagan says Hussein is cool, sells him
choppers, bombs and dual-use hardware,
Rumsfeld shakes his hand, and in ’84, my
CIA pals help him gas Iranians. Commerce
okays 21 batches of anthrax,
and in ’86 only my country refuses
to condemn Iraq’s chemical warfare.
Now
I’m dyin’, creatin’ half-orphans and a widow, and
can’t get a straight answer about
depleted uranium in my own ammo.
My country—
‘tis of thee, I sing.
2. Baghdad Doctor
I was 28 when Saddam purged the Baaths
and Communists in 1979. I healed people,
protected my family. When
Saddam attacked Iran in 1980, the
Americans removed us from their list
of terrorists—even opened
diplomatic relations, gave us loans,
subsidies and military intelligence. When
Saddam slaughtered the Kurds between
1987 and 1989, the presidents,
Reagan and Bush, barely blinked.
When they finally chased Saddam’s
army from Kuwait, the Americans bombed
my city day and night for more than a month—
targeted our water, electrical plants, hospitals
and roadways—
killed two of my children.
Their sanctions killed individual Iraqis over
half a million times with starvation, malnutrition
dirty water and lack of medical supplies.
American
and British planes bombed my country almost
every week for the next decade. Clinton’s
missiles killed Layla al-Attar, our beloved
artist, and her husband, creating wounded
orphans.
The world envies America’s six- and
seven-figure incomes, while American taxes
bring Iraq the need for six- and seven-figure
body bags.
Never satisfied with what
they’ve created or destroyed, the Americans
attacked my country again in 2003, killing more
thousands of civilians—my wife this time. The
American general says they don’t do body counts.
Since they captured Saddam my country
remains a war zone—
if this quarter century
is a taste of freedom and American democracy,
I’d prefer to have my children and wife back
under the dictator. I hate him, but at least
we were safe. At least there was order. In
the 1960s, an American Army veteran wrote
that freedom really means nothing
left to lose. I guess my country
and I are just about free. Americans
slaughtered each other almost a century
after their own independence—an independence
they had fought for freely. How can they think
they can force democracy here—
even if some
of us do want it?
3. Teheran Teacher
The American cowboy president says
my country turns on the axis of evil. Twenty
years ago his father sold Saddam Hussein
mustard gas and anthrax, which he
used against my people and his own.
His father sold Saddam helicopters and
cannons, and the presidents before him
protected our corrupt Shah, and
now the Americans look at the mess they’ve
made in Iraq—and they say the Iraqi people
must clean it up themselves. I pray
the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites in Iraq
live in peace. My anger is with Saddam and
Reagan and the Shah and the Bushes—people
like them—who are these men and women
who order killing so easily?
4. Kurdish Rebel
From 1973 through 1975, America, Israel and Iran
supported our fight against Iraq, but when Saddam and
the Iranian Shah agreed to close their borders against
us, the Americans cut off their aid, and watched as
Saddam destroyed villages and slaughtered 100,000
of my people with chemicals. After the Americans
removed him from Kuwait, they encouraged us to rise
up against him, but denied us access to captured
weapons. U.S. warplanes circled above as Saddam’s
helicopters slaughtered my brothers. Why
did the Americans do this?
5. Vietnam Vet
Somehow, Charlie’s rounds missed me—
I survived Tet in ’68 and two tours with
Agent Orange.
Lost eight years on my discharge
to Jack, José, and Mary Jane, but
got lucky with a consolation named
philosophy and a woman named
Sophia and brought JoAnn, Nick
and Chris into the world.
Actually—
into New York. When Y2K
fizzled, JoAnn was a semester from
her MSW, Nick and Chris were a
year apart at St. John’s, and
Sophia and I immersed ourselves
in good fortune.
Actually—she
immersed herself. I couldn’t believe
it, but I soaked up what I could
until
the second jet hit the south tower
and cremation by fireball left
nothing of Sophia to put in an urn
or a coffin or the ground, and left
three half-orphans and a hole in
my heart that I’ll never fill or
close
but through which I’ve
seen for the first time the millions
of holes that I helped leave in
the hearts and landscape of
Vietnam, and the holes in the
hearts and landscape of Iraq,
and the holes in the hearts of
young Americans and their
families
and I want to disinter
Johnson, Nixon and Reagan,
grab McNamara, Clinton, Cheney,
bin Laden, the Bushes, Hussein,
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, Rice
and the rest by their throats, and drag
each one through every heart that’s ever
been stopped or broken by their
distant orders to kill in the name of
freedom, royalty, democracy, oil, or a
God they have never known despite
their claims to the contrary.
Fightin’ infidelity.
Fightin’ Communism. Fightin’
terrorism.
Let me tell you—
I’ve been there and never once
held a concept in my crosshairs—
never once saw a soldier’s or
civilian’s body broken by a 60-
millimeter idea, rocket-propelled
precept or bunker-busting belief.
Yeah, I survived Charlie and Dow
Chemical, got lucky with Sophia’s
love and my heart broken open with
her incineration, and now I live with
knowing it took a hole in my own heart to
see the holes in the hearts of others,
and what I wish for my kids—for
JoAnn, Nick and Chris—what I wish for
what survives of Sophia on this earth—
rather than endorse more slaughter
in their anger and fear, in their loss
and despair—what I wish for my
kids and your kids and all kids—
is that they can take
their own broken hearts and help
open the hearts of others—
before they’re broken
or stopped by
those of us who kill
so easily.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Clinton, Spitzer, McGreevey & Rowland, LLC
Now that Eliot Spitzer has submitted his application for partnership with Clinton, McGreevey & Rowland, LLC, his book deal and lecture tour won't be far behind. While much has been made of Mr. Spitzer's falling from grace around the same time that the Vatican validated new ways to fall for the 21st century, evidence seems to indicate that the revised Catholic sin catalog will have little impact on his secular, albeit Jewish, worldview.
The New York governor's application to the firm has led some to believe that should he be accepted, the partnership's name would become Clinton, Spitzer, McGreevey & Rowland, LLC, moving the newest member ahead of two of the three established partners. Unnamed partnership sources have attributed this likelihood to "the absence of both sexual misconduct and a graduate degree on former Connecticut governor Rowland's resume" and "you know, that whole gay thing with the Jersey boy, who should feel lucky just to be here."
Mr. McGreevey's agent, however, contends that the former New Jersey governor's name should remain second even if Spitzer makes the cut, citing McGreevey's two graduate degrees (to Spitzer's one) and pointing out that "it takes quite a bit more courage and chutzpa to masquerade as a heterosexual husband, father and public servant while having a homosexual affair with a political appointee than it does to simply sneak around with high-priced call girls."
While Mr. Rowland had no comment and the Spitzer entourage was still engaged in damage control, Rowland's agent referred to the prospective change as a typical Democratic political move. When asked if he had any advice for New York's falling leader, Mr. Clinton smiled and suggested that he knew all too well what "waiting to exhale" feels like, perhaps inadvertantly citing Terry McMillan's novel in his attempt to depict his common experience with Mr. Spitzer.
Elsewhere, both the Big East and the Ivy League merchandising departments were positioning themselves to reap the inevitable profits from this latest limited liability culprit. On the undergraduate level, the two leagues are tied: Rowland and Clinton graduated from Villanova and Georgetown, respectively, while Spitzer and McGreevey earned their degrees from Princeton and Columbia. On the graduate level, Spitzer graced Harvard Law, McGreevey both Georgetown Law and he earned a degree in Education from Harvard, and Clinton attended Oxford and received his J.D. from Yale--giving the Ivies a 3 to 1 edge over the Big East.
University College at Oxford has not commented.
The prevalent rumor that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are considering seceding from the United States in order to form the Tri-State Democratic Republic has not been corroborated.
The New York governor's application to the firm has led some to believe that should he be accepted, the partnership's name would become Clinton, Spitzer, McGreevey & Rowland, LLC, moving the newest member ahead of two of the three established partners. Unnamed partnership sources have attributed this likelihood to "the absence of both sexual misconduct and a graduate degree on former Connecticut governor Rowland's resume" and "you know, that whole gay thing with the Jersey boy, who should feel lucky just to be here."
Mr. McGreevey's agent, however, contends that the former New Jersey governor's name should remain second even if Spitzer makes the cut, citing McGreevey's two graduate degrees (to Spitzer's one) and pointing out that "it takes quite a bit more courage and chutzpa to masquerade as a heterosexual husband, father and public servant while having a homosexual affair with a political appointee than it does to simply sneak around with high-priced call girls."
While Mr. Rowland had no comment and the Spitzer entourage was still engaged in damage control, Rowland's agent referred to the prospective change as a typical Democratic political move. When asked if he had any advice for New York's falling leader, Mr. Clinton smiled and suggested that he knew all too well what "waiting to exhale" feels like, perhaps inadvertantly citing Terry McMillan's novel in his attempt to depict his common experience with Mr. Spitzer.
Elsewhere, both the Big East and the Ivy League merchandising departments were positioning themselves to reap the inevitable profits from this latest limited liability culprit. On the undergraduate level, the two leagues are tied: Rowland and Clinton graduated from Villanova and Georgetown, respectively, while Spitzer and McGreevey earned their degrees from Princeton and Columbia. On the graduate level, Spitzer graced Harvard Law, McGreevey both Georgetown Law and he earned a degree in Education from Harvard, and Clinton attended Oxford and received his J.D. from Yale--giving the Ivies a 3 to 1 edge over the Big East.
University College at Oxford has not commented.
The prevalent rumor that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are considering seceding from the United States in order to form the Tri-State Democratic Republic has not been corroborated.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Prince Harry Parallels in America
Prince Harry is leaving Afghanistan.
BBC and the New York Times reports agree that the 23-year-old who is third in line for the British throne, requested active duty, was turned down for Iraq by the British military because it was too dangerous, and was sent to Afghanistan under the condition that the British press, which knew of his deployment, would not publicize it.
When The Drudge Report released the information this week, the British military determined that knowledge of the prince's whereabouts might encourage direct attempts on his life by the Taliban, further endangering him and the men and women with whom he serves under already dangerous conditions.
The strong parallel between this story and the ongoing, similar sagas of the children of the American President, Senators and Congressional Representatives is remarkable. I've lost count of how many sons and daughters of the U.S. elected officials who fund the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq currently serve in those war zones. It's a credit to the Department of Defense, the politicians, and to the American press that no one knows the whereabouts of the progeny of the American ruling class during this fight against terror.
May they continue their willingness to serve, and like Prince Harry, understand that their very presence--should it be widely known--could jeopardize the lives of those less-privileged souls alongside whom they battle the enemy. May they be willing to depart the front lines for their own safety and for the greater good.
BBC and the New York Times reports agree that the 23-year-old who is third in line for the British throne, requested active duty, was turned down for Iraq by the British military because it was too dangerous, and was sent to Afghanistan under the condition that the British press, which knew of his deployment, would not publicize it.
When The Drudge Report released the information this week, the British military determined that knowledge of the prince's whereabouts might encourage direct attempts on his life by the Taliban, further endangering him and the men and women with whom he serves under already dangerous conditions.
The strong parallel between this story and the ongoing, similar sagas of the children of the American President, Senators and Congressional Representatives is remarkable. I've lost count of how many sons and daughters of the U.S. elected officials who fund the military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq currently serve in those war zones. It's a credit to the Department of Defense, the politicians, and to the American press that no one knows the whereabouts of the progeny of the American ruling class during this fight against terror.
May they continue their willingness to serve, and like Prince Harry, understand that their very presence--should it be widely known--could jeopardize the lives of those less-privileged souls alongside whom they battle the enemy. May they be willing to depart the front lines for their own safety and for the greater good.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Say It Ain't So
Behind the truth around Mr. Clemens' having or not having used steroids and/or HGH remains the learned, polarizing biases that many of us, unknowingly or deliberately, embrace.
One bias is the hero-worship that surrounds our sports and entertainment stars. How many others called to testify in a Congressional hearing spend a few days visiting with legislators and signing autographs before giving their testimony? Another bias is just the opposite--here's another case of a mega-rich superstar (in this case, sports, but the bias works with entertainers and corporate officers just as well) who thinks he or she is above the law, and who walks through life with an arrogance based on professional success.
The most disturbing aspect of this case from my perspective is not the alleged use of performance-enhancing substances. This is a problem, has been for years--in professional, collegiate and high school sports--and it's not going away soon. The cultural (i.e. American rugged individualist, win-at-all-costs whether in sport, business or war) forces at work here are immense, need to be addressed, and are not the focus of this posting.
The most disturbing aspect of this case is that the disagreement between McNamee and Clemens is not a nuanced, self-serving interpretation of different points of view on a given set of facts. Beyond questions of how much or when, is did they or didn't they. One of these two men is lying. Period. For whatever reasons, either the trainer is making this all up or the pitcher is denying behavior in which he engaged--which brings us to another bias: conventional wisdom says that the pitcher has more to lose and therefore, reason to lie. What's a more-or-less honest person to do?
If McNamee is telling the truth, he is in far over his head financially and in terms of public status, and will be hated by many (and respected by some) for bringing Clemens down. If Clemens is telling the truth, to the extent that he is vindicated, he will still always have that asterisk next to his name in many people's minds. Again, one of these two men is lying.
While it's not my intention here to place a higher-than-normal standard for honesty and trust on a former-police-officer-turned-athletic-trainer or on an athlete-turned-star-role-model-philanthropist, I would like them to qualify for at least the normal standard.
I am reminded of the character, Red, played by Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption, who reminds us that in prison, everyone is innocent--nobody did what he was sent away for. Every inmate has been wrongfully accused and convicted, framed, unjustly prosecuted.
If the trainer's accusatons are true, Clemens and McNamee are inmates in a prison that they built together: winning at all costs, preserving what they already have--including reputation, shifting blame, and denying accountability. If Clemens' denials are true, he's sharing a cell in a prison he didn't build.
And finally, the architects of this prison are Major League Baseball, led by Bud Selig's hands-off approach, all of the owners, and every player, trainer and supplier who played a role in dispensing performance-enhancing drugs.
One bias is the hero-worship that surrounds our sports and entertainment stars. How many others called to testify in a Congressional hearing spend a few days visiting with legislators and signing autographs before giving their testimony? Another bias is just the opposite--here's another case of a mega-rich superstar (in this case, sports, but the bias works with entertainers and corporate officers just as well) who thinks he or she is above the law, and who walks through life with an arrogance based on professional success.
The most disturbing aspect of this case from my perspective is not the alleged use of performance-enhancing substances. This is a problem, has been for years--in professional, collegiate and high school sports--and it's not going away soon. The cultural (i.e. American rugged individualist, win-at-all-costs whether in sport, business or war) forces at work here are immense, need to be addressed, and are not the focus of this posting.
The most disturbing aspect of this case is that the disagreement between McNamee and Clemens is not a nuanced, self-serving interpretation of different points of view on a given set of facts. Beyond questions of how much or when, is did they or didn't they. One of these two men is lying. Period. For whatever reasons, either the trainer is making this all up or the pitcher is denying behavior in which he engaged--which brings us to another bias: conventional wisdom says that the pitcher has more to lose and therefore, reason to lie. What's a more-or-less honest person to do?
If McNamee is telling the truth, he is in far over his head financially and in terms of public status, and will be hated by many (and respected by some) for bringing Clemens down. If Clemens is telling the truth, to the extent that he is vindicated, he will still always have that asterisk next to his name in many people's minds. Again, one of these two men is lying.
While it's not my intention here to place a higher-than-normal standard for honesty and trust on a former-police-officer-turned-athletic-trainer or on an athlete-turned-star-role-model-philanthropist, I would like them to qualify for at least the normal standard.
I am reminded of the character, Red, played by Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption, who reminds us that in prison, everyone is innocent--nobody did what he was sent away for. Every inmate has been wrongfully accused and convicted, framed, unjustly prosecuted.
If the trainer's accusatons are true, Clemens and McNamee are inmates in a prison that they built together: winning at all costs, preserving what they already have--including reputation, shifting blame, and denying accountability. If Clemens' denials are true, he's sharing a cell in a prison he didn't build.
And finally, the architects of this prison are Major League Baseball, led by Bud Selig's hands-off approach, all of the owners, and every player, trainer and supplier who played a role in dispensing performance-enhancing drugs.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Qualified to Succeed W and Bill?
The home page of today's New York Times online includes an article entitled, "Friends Say Drugs Played Bit Part in Obama's Young Life." The essence of the piece seems to conclude that at worst, Senator Obama may have slightly exaggerated the role of pot, alcohol and cocaine in his early life (it is obligatory for any candidate to have the "obstacles-overcome" plank in his or her personal platform), and at best, he simply told the truth about his adolescence to the best of his memory.
This posting could turn into a a treatise on hermeneutics--specifically exploring content and context of authorial intent and reader interpretation through layers and layers of contexts within contexts within worldviews within worldviews--of both the above article and Senator Obama's Dreams From My Father, but such is not my authorial intent for this post (within the respective contexts of the article and my worldview--I've not read the book). What do he and his close friends remember, how accurately do they remember it, what is their intention in speaking out (tell the truth? support the candidate? avenge some real or imagined adolescent slight?)?
Who cares?
If the above comes off as a bit abstract and borderline scholarly, fans of crass concreteness take heart: the current Decider-in-Chief has admitted to addressing his own adult addictions (as opposed to the Senator's alleged school-age indiscretions) through faith and fitness--Jesus and the gym; his predecessor engaged in Cigar-based-Cunnilingual-Nonsex in the Oral-Orifice-Oval Office (that doesn't quite work, I know, but that's the point).
Even if the Senator from the great state of Illinois spent most of his adolescence stoned--and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that he did--that behavior would seem to confirm, rather than call into question, his fitness for the Presidency in light of the behavioral standards set by the two most recent individuals to have held the job.
What's good for the two white guys is good for the black guy, at least in this particular instance. W's substance abuse and Bill's early-onset sexual indiscretions preceded each of their respective ascendencies to Leader of the Free World (although by January 2009 Mr. Bush may have devolved that moniker to Co-Leader, Also-Ran, or Honorable-Mention). Senator Obama's winning or losing the Democratic candidacy should have nothing to do with his adolescent behavior--even if he was just a really good kid who's now trying to gain some street cred.*
I look forward to voting for either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton in November. I have not hitched my wagon to either campaign yet. Neither his skin pigmentation and ethnicity nor her chromosone arrangement will determine my vote.
*Relevant nonsequitur: an excerpt from the currently-being-revised edition of The Quality of Effort (expected availability, November 2008) regarding the impact of my own adolescent "non-history" with drugs and alcohol:
"...I did not smoke, drink, use drugs ...during my high school days. I had my first drink when I was of legal age, and I’ve never smoked or used recreational or performance-enhancing drugs.
"I realize that some readers will respond to the above with respect, some with doubt, and some, especially those with a somewhat more adventurous adolescence than I had, with pity for such a naïve, conventional, even puritan experience, but I share this to neither brag nor complain, but to preface the contents of this chapter. As a kid I believed that my chances for success were better without tobacco, alcohol and drugs, and admittedly, I felt it was 'unfair' when some of my friends, who did smoke or drink, enjoyed significantly more athletic success in adolescence than I did. Still, I believed I was doing what served me best.
"Funny then, that years later, when some parents challenged our school’s policies on smoking, drinking and drugs during my tenure as athletic director... and they asked me to try to view the policy through the lens of my own behavior as an adolescent, they simply refused to believe me when I told them the truth. One father asked where the no-smoking policy left his children since he gave them smoking privileges when they turned sixteen. I tactlessly responded that perhaps he could find a privilege that didn’t carry an illness-and-death warning from the Surgeon General on its packaging. Only when a good friend on the coaching staff, who was a three-sport local legend with a reputation for partying as hard as he played, stood up and endorsed the policy, were these parents willing to accept it.
"My words then and my writing now were and are not intended as snide swipes at these parents. As were the parents who supported the policies...these were good people who loved their kids, and were exploring that wonderful owner’s-manual-less experience of parenting" (pp. 77-78).
This posting could turn into a a treatise on hermeneutics--specifically exploring content and context of authorial intent and reader interpretation through layers and layers of contexts within contexts within worldviews within worldviews--of both the above article and Senator Obama's Dreams From My Father, but such is not my authorial intent for this post (within the respective contexts of the article and my worldview--I've not read the book). What do he and his close friends remember, how accurately do they remember it, what is their intention in speaking out (tell the truth? support the candidate? avenge some real or imagined adolescent slight?)?
Who cares?
If the above comes off as a bit abstract and borderline scholarly, fans of crass concreteness take heart: the current Decider-in-Chief has admitted to addressing his own adult addictions (as opposed to the Senator's alleged school-age indiscretions) through faith and fitness--Jesus and the gym; his predecessor engaged in Cigar-based-Cunnilingual-Nonsex in the Oral-Orifice-Oval Office (that doesn't quite work, I know, but that's the point).
Even if the Senator from the great state of Illinois spent most of his adolescence stoned--and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that he did--that behavior would seem to confirm, rather than call into question, his fitness for the Presidency in light of the behavioral standards set by the two most recent individuals to have held the job.
What's good for the two white guys is good for the black guy, at least in this particular instance. W's substance abuse and Bill's early-onset sexual indiscretions preceded each of their respective ascendencies to Leader of the Free World (although by January 2009 Mr. Bush may have devolved that moniker to Co-Leader, Also-Ran, or Honorable-Mention). Senator Obama's winning or losing the Democratic candidacy should have nothing to do with his adolescent behavior--even if he was just a really good kid who's now trying to gain some street cred.*
I look forward to voting for either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton in November. I have not hitched my wagon to either campaign yet. Neither his skin pigmentation and ethnicity nor her chromosone arrangement will determine my vote.
*Relevant nonsequitur: an excerpt from the currently-being-revised edition of The Quality of Effort (expected availability, November 2008) regarding the impact of my own adolescent "non-history" with drugs and alcohol:
"...I did not smoke, drink, use drugs ...during my high school days. I had my first drink when I was of legal age, and I’ve never smoked or used recreational or performance-enhancing drugs.
"I realize that some readers will respond to the above with respect, some with doubt, and some, especially those with a somewhat more adventurous adolescence than I had, with pity for such a naïve, conventional, even puritan experience, but I share this to neither brag nor complain, but to preface the contents of this chapter. As a kid I believed that my chances for success were better without tobacco, alcohol and drugs, and admittedly, I felt it was 'unfair' when some of my friends, who did smoke or drink, enjoyed significantly more athletic success in adolescence than I did. Still, I believed I was doing what served me best.
"Funny then, that years later, when some parents challenged our school’s policies on smoking, drinking and drugs during my tenure as athletic director... and they asked me to try to view the policy through the lens of my own behavior as an adolescent, they simply refused to believe me when I told them the truth. One father asked where the no-smoking policy left his children since he gave them smoking privileges when they turned sixteen. I tactlessly responded that perhaps he could find a privilege that didn’t carry an illness-and-death warning from the Surgeon General on its packaging. Only when a good friend on the coaching staff, who was a three-sport local legend with a reputation for partying as hard as he played, stood up and endorsed the policy, were these parents willing to accept it.
"My words then and my writing now were and are not intended as snide swipes at these parents. As were the parents who supported the policies...these were good people who loved their kids, and were exploring that wonderful owner’s-manual-less experience of parenting" (pp. 77-78).
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Nine Months: New Birth or Slow Death?
While it makes sense at one level to identify the Democratic party in the United States with a more liberal perspective and the Republican party with a more conservative view, a more nuanced exploration finds that (any) one can hold a conservative, moderate or liberal perspective within either party--e.g. the current battle among the four remaining Republican candidates concerning who is the "real" or "most" conservative, and the less dramatic, but nonetheless engaged debate between the two Democrats regarding who owns the most progressive or liberal agenda.
Pundits from both parties have more or less agreed in recent days that there are greater differences of real substance among the four Republicans than between the two Democrats.
We can further nuance the candidates' stances on specific issues--e.g. one can be a fiscal conservative and social moderate or liberal: more and more citizens and even an occasionally courageous candidate are willing to break from traditional party stereotypes and distance themselves from their tribe on specific issues. It's worth noting that whether one claims a liberal or conservative worldview, the breaking (liberating oneself) from the party of choice is by definition, a liberal move.
Conservatism attempts to conserve--to keep safe what we have, to embrace tradition, what we know, and what brings us comfort. Liberalism attempts to liberate--to break our ties with the past, and venture forth into new ways of being. Healthy forms of both are essential; unhealthy forms of both are dangerous, regardless of the political party in which they emerge.
Another way to say this is that the liberal breakthroughs of the past become the conservative treasures of the future. Prior to February 1870, conservative views prevented black males who were former slaves from voting, but the 15th Amendment liberated us from that view. Prior to August 1920, conservative views prevented women of any color or previous condition of servitude from voting, and the 19th Amendment liberated us from that view. Here's the fun part: while liberalism made those two amendents possible in 1870 and 1920, respectively, conservatism, in the least ideological and most basic meaning of that word, is the power that in 2008 embraces, protects and honors the right to vote for all American citizens eighteen and older.
When Senators Clinton and Obama had their moment of warm, fuzzy mutual admiration in their first one-on-one debate last week, just their appearance on the stage--regardless of what each of them might say as the debate began in earnest, was an image of liberalism: a black man, who 138 years ago, would not have been allowed to vote, and a woman, who 88 years ago lacked that same right, now running for the highest office in the land. That same week the four Republican candidates looked and behaved like the white guys who have traditionally held that job.
Having written that, however, I believe it's important to move beyond the easy equation of "white guy" and "conservatism" (or "minority" and "liberalism"--note Clarence Thomas and Condoleeza Rice). Senators Clinton and Obama could relax a bit because those other two white guys, John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich, had dropped out of the race, and had taken with them some views that were even more liberating than any that the two senators proffered.
Reminders abound that values, ideology and perspective are neither skin-pigmentation nor chromosome-based. Among the important questions that every voter needs to ask--as the primaries continue and as November 4 looms almost exactly 9 months, a human gestation period, away, is this: What gives you more reason to believe in the best of what this country has to offer: a sharp departure from, or a subtle continuation of, the America we've been for the past eight years?
Do you prefer the labor required to nurture a new birth or the engaged apathy involved in continuing to abet an already emerging slow death?
Vote early and often!
Pundits from both parties have more or less agreed in recent days that there are greater differences of real substance among the four Republicans than between the two Democrats.
We can further nuance the candidates' stances on specific issues--e.g. one can be a fiscal conservative and social moderate or liberal: more and more citizens and even an occasionally courageous candidate are willing to break from traditional party stereotypes and distance themselves from their tribe on specific issues. It's worth noting that whether one claims a liberal or conservative worldview, the breaking (liberating oneself) from the party of choice is by definition, a liberal move.
Conservatism attempts to conserve--to keep safe what we have, to embrace tradition, what we know, and what brings us comfort. Liberalism attempts to liberate--to break our ties with the past, and venture forth into new ways of being. Healthy forms of both are essential; unhealthy forms of both are dangerous, regardless of the political party in which they emerge.
Another way to say this is that the liberal breakthroughs of the past become the conservative treasures of the future. Prior to February 1870, conservative views prevented black males who were former slaves from voting, but the 15th Amendment liberated us from that view. Prior to August 1920, conservative views prevented women of any color or previous condition of servitude from voting, and the 19th Amendment liberated us from that view. Here's the fun part: while liberalism made those two amendents possible in 1870 and 1920, respectively, conservatism, in the least ideological and most basic meaning of that word, is the power that in 2008 embraces, protects and honors the right to vote for all American citizens eighteen and older.
When Senators Clinton and Obama had their moment of warm, fuzzy mutual admiration in their first one-on-one debate last week, just their appearance on the stage--regardless of what each of them might say as the debate began in earnest, was an image of liberalism: a black man, who 138 years ago, would not have been allowed to vote, and a woman, who 88 years ago lacked that same right, now running for the highest office in the land. That same week the four Republican candidates looked and behaved like the white guys who have traditionally held that job.
Having written that, however, I believe it's important to move beyond the easy equation of "white guy" and "conservatism" (or "minority" and "liberalism"--note Clarence Thomas and Condoleeza Rice). Senators Clinton and Obama could relax a bit because those other two white guys, John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich, had dropped out of the race, and had taken with them some views that were even more liberating than any that the two senators proffered.
Reminders abound that values, ideology and perspective are neither skin-pigmentation nor chromosome-based. Among the important questions that every voter needs to ask--as the primaries continue and as November 4 looms almost exactly 9 months, a human gestation period, away, is this: What gives you more reason to believe in the best of what this country has to offer: a sharp departure from, or a subtle continuation of, the America we've been for the past eight years?
Do you prefer the labor required to nurture a new birth or the engaged apathy involved in continuing to abet an already emerging slow death?
Vote early and often!
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