"Hey, pal, you gotta great future behind you...!" That was how my pal Joe Conti used to put down hecklers during his standup routine. Joe was big in Chicagoland clubs for years, but never big in the big time. Too bad, because Joe was not only a good comic, but a pretty good philosopher too.
Philosophically speaking, one of the few things liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, agree on is that very same sentiment. That our nation's past is where we start to re-build our nation's future. Call it a sense of community and progress, or label it family values and free enterprise, either party is drawing from our rich heritage. Our dazzling accomplishments. In other words, our enduring national myths.
Myths are not lies, they are those stories we tell about ourselves -- who we are and where we came from -- that energize us into making the myths come true. And who are our greatest mythmakers...? Hollywood, whose silver screens millions of us share, and which continually remind us of how strong and good and giving and loving we can be.
What's that you say? "Not many of the movies I've seen lately!" You'd be right. A hefty crop of current films are a study in sex, violence, and conspiracy. The films Joe and I are referring to are more the classics from the old studios like MGM and Warner Brothers. And the old directors like Capra, McCarey, Wilder, Hitchcock and Houston. Not that these guys were any more gifted than today's Speilbergs, Howards and Coppolas, but the stories they told usually created nobler American myths. Perhaps inspiring nobler Americans.
Which is why today's Oscar Ceremonies are always paying them such tribute. Not that today's studios and directors couldn't tell the same stories, but today's audiences are often less willing to buy into them. "Corny," "out-of-touch," "dishonest" are the usual epithets from today's 12-to-30 audiences. To really excavate those old national myths about ourselves, you have to check the old-movie channels. You know, where stuff like tall-in-the-saddle cowboys, work-with-their-own-hands fathers, stay-at-home mothers, kids playing all day without drugs or supervision, and admired cops & clergy were all fairly common fare at the neighborhood theatre.
Sure those movies had wars and crime and adultery, but somehow by the last reel the good side of the plotline seemed to prevail. Corny...? You betcha! But so is helping your neighbor in a storm, crying at your daughter's wedding, getting a testimonial dinner after retiring. You see, the corn is not really gone. And neither are the old myths. Maybe they've just been lying fallow too long.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
MUSING ABOUT LIFE
When you were 12 maybe you were asking yourself some of the same questions I was. "Why does big Burt always bully me...?" "Why does Mr. Rooney next door always come home drunk...?" "And why in God's name won't Rosie ever smile at me...?" I didn't realize it, but I was pondering some of life's great mysteries: Evil! Tragedy! Love!
Now I don't know if you've come up with any answers. I'm still trying.
Burt was my metaphor for the eternal how-can-a-good-Creator-create-evil conundrum that theologians and my Aunt Rose always talk about. The classic example -- the innocent child suddenly struck down by a cruel disease. Theologians tend to say God doesn't create only allows evil in his world. But why? As Job learned, the answer belongs to God alone. As some theologians put it, evil in life can serendipitously lead to a greater good. As Aunt Rose said at the wake when people wept for her loss, "Oh I didn't lose her; she's waiting for me at home."
Somewhere within the trinity of those ideas is the answer I live with.
As for Mr. Rooney, he was a happy-go-lucky metaphor for the Greek tragedy that lurks in everyone's life. The ancient Athenians staged plays in which a great protagonist experienced a great disaster all tracing back to a great flaw within their own character. Shakespeare carried the tragedian torch into modern times with his Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear. In our own times the world bulges with brooding examples from protagonists like Hitler and Stalin to Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon right down to our latest headliners Bernie Madoff and John Edwards.
In looking for an answer to the tragedy question, we owe a great debt to playwrights like Arthur Miller. In his celebrated Death of a Salesman, Miller show us that even everyday small figures like Willie Loman (and Mr Rooney) are capable of the same tragedies of great figures. If I had known this answer back then, I believe Mr Rooney's bizarre rages would not so much have frightened me, as they might have saddened me into reflecting on the character-flaw hiding in all of us.
Then the ultimate life-mystery -- love. The poets say it well when they say we humans can't live with it or without it. Artists capture the magic in their facial expressions. Composers in their chords and cadenzas. Hollywood in the way 98% of the screenplays end in some version of the proverbial clinch. In the case of Rosie and me, well, her Celtic red hair flashed three rows from me in class. The deed was done at that first sighting, but alas it was never reciprocal.
All through adolescence I reflected on the great unrequited mystery that love can be. Then, lending tragedy to mystery, I met Rosie at our 50th class reunion where we made a date for lunch. A lunch we never had, for she died two weeks later.
At this age and stage, I think to myself: Evil exists side by side with joy, so best to enjoy the second rather than dwell on the first...tragedy is as close to us as us, something to remember when we reach for those stones...love will forever be God's greatest mystery, but having found my beloved Joan I can better let go of all the Rosie's in my life,
Now I don't know if you've come up with any answers. I'm still trying.
Burt was my metaphor for the eternal how-can-a-good-Creator-create-evil conundrum that theologians and my Aunt Rose always talk about. The classic example -- the innocent child suddenly struck down by a cruel disease. Theologians tend to say God doesn't create only allows evil in his world. But why? As Job learned, the answer belongs to God alone. As some theologians put it, evil in life can serendipitously lead to a greater good. As Aunt Rose said at the wake when people wept for her loss, "Oh I didn't lose her; she's waiting for me at home."
Somewhere within the trinity of those ideas is the answer I live with.
As for Mr. Rooney, he was a happy-go-lucky metaphor for the Greek tragedy that lurks in everyone's life. The ancient Athenians staged plays in which a great protagonist experienced a great disaster all tracing back to a great flaw within their own character. Shakespeare carried the tragedian torch into modern times with his Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear. In our own times the world bulges with brooding examples from protagonists like Hitler and Stalin to Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon right down to our latest headliners Bernie Madoff and John Edwards.
In looking for an answer to the tragedy question, we owe a great debt to playwrights like Arthur Miller. In his celebrated Death of a Salesman, Miller show us that even everyday small figures like Willie Loman (and Mr Rooney) are capable of the same tragedies of great figures. If I had known this answer back then, I believe Mr Rooney's bizarre rages would not so much have frightened me, as they might have saddened me into reflecting on the character-flaw hiding in all of us.
Then the ultimate life-mystery -- love. The poets say it well when they say we humans can't live with it or without it. Artists capture the magic in their facial expressions. Composers in their chords and cadenzas. Hollywood in the way 98% of the screenplays end in some version of the proverbial clinch. In the case of Rosie and me, well, her Celtic red hair flashed three rows from me in class. The deed was done at that first sighting, but alas it was never reciprocal.
All through adolescence I reflected on the great unrequited mystery that love can be. Then, lending tragedy to mystery, I met Rosie at our 50th class reunion where we made a date for lunch. A lunch we never had, for she died two weeks later.
At this age and stage, I think to myself: Evil exists side by side with joy, so best to enjoy the second rather than dwell on the first...tragedy is as close to us as us, something to remember when we reach for those stones...love will forever be God's greatest mystery, but having found my beloved Joan I can better let go of all the Rosie's in my life,
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
BEING A CLOWN ISN'T ALWAYS FUNNY
When someone tells us "You're such a clown," that's either a compliment or an insult. I never much thought about clowns after my last circus many years ago. But then I met Jeff, and many of my ideas about being-a-clown changed....!
Jeff is Florida director of Barnum & Bailey's clown school. My actress-wife worked with Jeff in professional theatre before he, as they say, ran off and joined the circus. I learned from him just how much work and rehearsal it takes to be a good clown. But I have to say he learned from me just how easy all that is for politicians back here in Illinois. What's more, our guys do it without costume and makeup.
Now look, there's nothing unique about calling politicians clowns. It started with Washington being called a "funny excuse for a king" to Jackson being labeled "a laughable killer of Indians" to Lincoln being considered "nature's biggest joke on America." However, those critics never met an Illinois pol.
Jeff and I both agreed that politics is an honorable profession. These are men and women entrusted with the power to serve the general welfare, and most times they start off with the best of intentions. It's just that funny things seem to happen to them along the way. And while the details are different for each story, the plot is often the same
* Most start off as council members at local or city levels. After the first few months of slogging through dull documents and meetings, they try to break the monotony with some flashes of humor. If the media happens to pick up on this, it feeds the ego enough to eventually produce a Fast Eddie Vrydolyak or a Hat-Flourishing Dorothy Tillman. As I pointed out to Jeff, no amount of training can make pols like these funny. You either have it or you don't. The ones who have it usually bring it with them all the way to prison where they get jobs like MC of the annual prisoner talent show!
* Mayor tends to be the next step up. Whether it's a local suburb or all the way up to the funniest political city in America, Chicago, this office has the opportunity to keep voters laughing all the way to the tax-sponsored poor house. The political laugh meter spikes especially when mayors speak in public, but I was able to tell Jeff Mayor Richard Daley not only spikes but breaks the meter. That's because he speaks a language mastered by only the few great ones: Chicagoese legalese!
* The post of governor in Illinois is, as I told Jeff, the biggest clown-prize in our state. It's known far and wide as the Henny Youngman award, because no job in American politics has proven to be so funny. I mean guys like Kerner, Ryan and now Blagoevich have had audiences rolling in the aisles for years. All at the very same time they've been rolling the suckers in that same audience. Lets see any Barnum & Bailey clown pull that off!
* The big drumroll of course goes to anyone from Illinois who gets to Congress. In the highly competitive world of political humor, playing Congress is playing the big time. Over the years we've had too many clowns to count. But if you don't mind counting backward, start with our latest Senator, Roland Burris. He may not be funny himself, but he does owe his career to the funnest clown in sight: the big Blago himself!
When I got through, Jeff was so impressed, he says he's changed his plans. Instead of bringing the circus to Illinois, he'd like to bring Illinois to the circus!
Jeff is Florida director of Barnum & Bailey's clown school. My actress-wife worked with Jeff in professional theatre before he, as they say, ran off and joined the circus. I learned from him just how much work and rehearsal it takes to be a good clown. But I have to say he learned from me just how easy all that is for politicians back here in Illinois. What's more, our guys do it without costume and makeup.
Now look, there's nothing unique about calling politicians clowns. It started with Washington being called a "funny excuse for a king" to Jackson being labeled "a laughable killer of Indians" to Lincoln being considered "nature's biggest joke on America." However, those critics never met an Illinois pol.
Jeff and I both agreed that politics is an honorable profession. These are men and women entrusted with the power to serve the general welfare, and most times they start off with the best of intentions. It's just that funny things seem to happen to them along the way. And while the details are different for each story, the plot is often the same
* Most start off as council members at local or city levels. After the first few months of slogging through dull documents and meetings, they try to break the monotony with some flashes of humor. If the media happens to pick up on this, it feeds the ego enough to eventually produce a Fast Eddie Vrydolyak or a Hat-Flourishing Dorothy Tillman. As I pointed out to Jeff, no amount of training can make pols like these funny. You either have it or you don't. The ones who have it usually bring it with them all the way to prison where they get jobs like MC of the annual prisoner talent show!
* Mayor tends to be the next step up. Whether it's a local suburb or all the way up to the funniest political city in America, Chicago, this office has the opportunity to keep voters laughing all the way to the tax-sponsored poor house. The political laugh meter spikes especially when mayors speak in public, but I was able to tell Jeff Mayor Richard Daley not only spikes but breaks the meter. That's because he speaks a language mastered by only the few great ones: Chicagoese legalese!
* The post of governor in Illinois is, as I told Jeff, the biggest clown-prize in our state. It's known far and wide as the Henny Youngman award, because no job in American politics has proven to be so funny. I mean guys like Kerner, Ryan and now Blagoevich have had audiences rolling in the aisles for years. All at the very same time they've been rolling the suckers in that same audience. Lets see any Barnum & Bailey clown pull that off!
* The big drumroll of course goes to anyone from Illinois who gets to Congress. In the highly competitive world of political humor, playing Congress is playing the big time. Over the years we've had too many clowns to count. But if you don't mind counting backward, start with our latest Senator, Roland Burris. He may not be funny himself, but he does owe his career to the funnest clown in sight: the big Blago himself!
When I got through, Jeff was so impressed, he says he's changed his plans. Instead of bringing the circus to Illinois, he'd like to bring Illinois to the circus!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
A 21st C. VIA DELOROSSA
The 6 billion people on our planet share at least one cross in common: Daily unpredictability. From the most powerful of leaders to the weakest of losers, we all travel this same Via Delarossa wearing this same crown of thorns. Frankly, it can bleed the very confidence out of us. So we may sometimes ask ourselves, are there no predictables left in life...?
Take heart fellow traveler. My research found seven. Seven you can count on every single step of the way --
1. Health: Count on every new report on eggs, coffee and red meat to be reversed within exactly 26 weeks by new reports on eggs, coffee and red meat. Evidence suggests this will have less to do with lab tests, and more to do with who in the labs like eggs, coffee and red meat. Either way, the absolute regularity of these reports is like the much needed port in a storm
2. Hollywood: Count on the same career choreography for every new child star. A cutesy movie; a shot on Leno or Letterman; a nationwide tour; a benediction on Oprah; a scandal in "The Enquirer;" child out of wedlock, month in rehab, apology on "Larry King." It's a crazy world out there, but it's guarantees like these which make it all make sense
3: Heroes: Count on a minimum of two heroes a year to go down in flames right before your eyes. Sports, government, clergy; makes no difference. There's always a secret drug bust, nanny fraud or abuse case to reassure you that it's really true -- there's nothing new under the sun. Especially a California or DC sun
4. Hierarchies: Count on one or more of our institutional hierarchies to make hypocrites of themselves. Take for example Major League Baseball buying ads calling baseball "everyone's game" the same season they double the price of grandstand seats and halve the cheese on the pizzas. Consistent hypocrisy, my friends, isn't as easy as it looks. But bank on it, these guys come through every time
5. Harbingers: Count on a whole bunch of these every year. Wild-eyed harbingers of doom from amateurs carrying signs on the streets to televangelists wearing tears on the closeups to the occasional guru who moves his message from cave to PBS. Just when everything seems to be falling apart in your life, take comfort. You can always count on these Cassandras to give your fears a name right along with a mailing address for your tax-free donations
6. Has-Beens: Count on these former celebrities to show up with a kind of cosmic dependability. This sub-set can usually be found in summer stock theatres, singing songs from the Sixties on that same PBS, doing periodic gigs on the Food Network, and of course smiling on the front cover of AARP Magazine. Gives you renewed confidence when you realize -- gee they're not dead after all
7. Historians: Count on these guys to understand that history isn't written, its re-written. Re-written according to what we'd like the past to be. When my parents suffered in the Depression and World War II, they never realized they were "the greatest generation" until Tom Brokaw decided they were. And when I was struggling for a career in the fifties, I didn't realize these were "the happy days" until the television show said they were. Well, you get the idea. Undependable lives need something they can depend on, and very often that's our dependable best-selling pop historians
See, and you thought life was undependable. It's really not, and you can depend on that....!
Take heart fellow traveler. My research found seven. Seven you can count on every single step of the way --
1. Health: Count on every new report on eggs, coffee and red meat to be reversed within exactly 26 weeks by new reports on eggs, coffee and red meat. Evidence suggests this will have less to do with lab tests, and more to do with who in the labs like eggs, coffee and red meat. Either way, the absolute regularity of these reports is like the much needed port in a storm
2. Hollywood: Count on the same career choreography for every new child star. A cutesy movie; a shot on Leno or Letterman; a nationwide tour; a benediction on Oprah; a scandal in "The Enquirer;" child out of wedlock, month in rehab, apology on "Larry King." It's a crazy world out there, but it's guarantees like these which make it all make sense
3: Heroes: Count on a minimum of two heroes a year to go down in flames right before your eyes. Sports, government, clergy; makes no difference. There's always a secret drug bust, nanny fraud or abuse case to reassure you that it's really true -- there's nothing new under the sun. Especially a California or DC sun
4. Hierarchies: Count on one or more of our institutional hierarchies to make hypocrites of themselves. Take for example Major League Baseball buying ads calling baseball "everyone's game" the same season they double the price of grandstand seats and halve the cheese on the pizzas. Consistent hypocrisy, my friends, isn't as easy as it looks. But bank on it, these guys come through every time
5. Harbingers: Count on a whole bunch of these every year. Wild-eyed harbingers of doom from amateurs carrying signs on the streets to televangelists wearing tears on the closeups to the occasional guru who moves his message from cave to PBS. Just when everything seems to be falling apart in your life, take comfort. You can always count on these Cassandras to give your fears a name right along with a mailing address for your tax-free donations
6. Has-Beens: Count on these former celebrities to show up with a kind of cosmic dependability. This sub-set can usually be found in summer stock theatres, singing songs from the Sixties on that same PBS, doing periodic gigs on the Food Network, and of course smiling on the front cover of AARP Magazine. Gives you renewed confidence when you realize -- gee they're not dead after all
7. Historians: Count on these guys to understand that history isn't written, its re-written. Re-written according to what we'd like the past to be. When my parents suffered in the Depression and World War II, they never realized they were "the greatest generation" until Tom Brokaw decided they were. And when I was struggling for a career in the fifties, I didn't realize these were "the happy days" until the television show said they were. Well, you get the idea. Undependable lives need something they can depend on, and very often that's our dependable best-selling pop historians
See, and you thought life was undependable. It's really not, and you can depend on that....!
LOVE -- POETRY OR GENETICS?
Well, I think your long run is over, fellows! All you poets of either pen or piano who have for generations been waxing eloquent about human love! I don't care if it's a Shakespeare sonnet or a Mozart minuet, you've had it all wrong all along!
Now I hesitate to report this in this the lyrical season of spring, love and marriage, but scientific facts are facts my dear outdated friends. Today's breakthrough hypotheses by our neuro-scientists and evolutionary-biologists have once and for all stuck the finger of irrefutable fact into the eye of this love stuff. You and I fall in love because we have to.
All you Hallmark and red-roses devotees must now and forevermore understand that the reason we love -- our date, our mate, our parent, our god -- is largely because evolution has hard-wired us to do so. What we have traditionally felt was our heart skipping a beat has in fact been our brain lobes and gene pools skipping to the pre-ordained rhythms of evolution. A blind planetary compulsion for every form of life to mate, breed, and re-produce itself.
I've often wondered what these researchers say at the end of the day to their spouses and children. Maybe something like, "OK, time for a DNA assessment to see how well our love-drives are performing today." And does this mean that old fashioned miracles like the loaves-and-fishes now have competition from new miracles like the lobes-and-genes?
I'm not being disrespectful to the legitimate discoveries of modern science. The dogged pursuit of truth is what science is all about, and many of us wouldn't be here today without its discoveries and cures. However, the problem some of us have is not with the laws-of-science. It's with the laws-of-unintended-consequences. The unintended conclusions many lay people reading these reports may arrive at.
This comes into especially sharp relief when you hear defense attorneys arguing their case according the compulsion of some brains to "kill for love." Or kids caught in the act saying something like "Gee, mom, my genes made me do it!"
I asked my therapist if I'm carrying my concerns too far. His answer concerned me: "Re-read your Darwin, take two serotonin tablets, then call me in the morning...."
Now I hesitate to report this in this the lyrical season of spring, love and marriage, but scientific facts are facts my dear outdated friends. Today's breakthrough hypotheses by our neuro-scientists and evolutionary-biologists have once and for all stuck the finger of irrefutable fact into the eye of this love stuff. You and I fall in love because we have to.
All you Hallmark and red-roses devotees must now and forevermore understand that the reason we love -- our date, our mate, our parent, our god -- is largely because evolution has hard-wired us to do so. What we have traditionally felt was our heart skipping a beat has in fact been our brain lobes and gene pools skipping to the pre-ordained rhythms of evolution. A blind planetary compulsion for every form of life to mate, breed, and re-produce itself.
I've often wondered what these researchers say at the end of the day to their spouses and children. Maybe something like, "OK, time for a DNA assessment to see how well our love-drives are performing today." And does this mean that old fashioned miracles like the loaves-and-fishes now have competition from new miracles like the lobes-and-genes?
I'm not being disrespectful to the legitimate discoveries of modern science. The dogged pursuit of truth is what science is all about, and many of us wouldn't be here today without its discoveries and cures. However, the problem some of us have is not with the laws-of-science. It's with the laws-of-unintended-consequences. The unintended conclusions many lay people reading these reports may arrive at.
This comes into especially sharp relief when you hear defense attorneys arguing their case according the compulsion of some brains to "kill for love." Or kids caught in the act saying something like "Gee, mom, my genes made me do it!"
I asked my therapist if I'm carrying my concerns too far. His answer concerned me: "Re-read your Darwin, take two serotonin tablets, then call me in the morning...."
Monday, May 4, 2009
THE SECRET TO WHY WE'RE NOT MOVING
The US Census Bureau just reported another record. This time a half-century record low in the number of Americans who are moving. Only 35 million of us changed residences last year, the lowest tally since 1962....!
Now I happen to remember 1962. It was a lovely year, before the tragedy of Dallas, the quagmire of Vietnam, and the street protests. Doris Day movies still sold, and music by Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee still had trans-generational appeal. And, on a personal note, the students in my US History classes were still proud to be Americans and America was still proud of them.
With that sort of easy national ethos, why move? Things generally seemed to be perfectly nice right where we were!
But of course nothing -- nice or nasty -- ever stays the same. The sixties soon changed. Crises mounted, angers flared, even the nice kids in my classes began asking angry questions about their country. Anger, of course, is a secondary emotion so you have to ask what's triggering it? For those of us who were there trying to mollify it, the best explanation is: Doubt. Something I assume Chicago's new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan understands very well.
There's a striking parallel between American then and America now .Youth in both periods begin doubting many of those things they once took (or were taught to take) for granted. The government, police and military. Churches, parents, oh yes and US History teachers. Suddenly it wasn't -- and isn't now -- as easy to pitch America to your high school students. Students who are watching their parents lose their jobs and their pensions, banks and stockbrokers lose their credibility, leaders and heroes lose their shine. Doubts like these make anyone angry. And should.
Now I have no way of testing my modest hypothesis. After all, people aren't moving as much today for many many different reasons. However, there is something running through classrooms today very symptomatic of the sixties: Doubts-driven angers that must surely suck up some of the air of confidence that usually motivates families to move around.
US History teachers who've been around for both these decades-of-doubt have an institutional instinct for this sort of thing. We can feel the dangers that doubt and anger can mean for our classrooms. And for Secretary Duncan 's reform agenda. However, we can't fundamentally alter this dynamic. Neither can Duncan. The one man best equipped for this is the President himself.
His steady, pragmatic confidence in our country can help ease the doubts and thereby ease the angers. So far he strikes most US History teachers as beginning to do that. If so, I predict it will be a lot easier for us to start teaching upbeat American history again, and for our kids' families to start moving up and on again.
Now I happen to remember 1962. It was a lovely year, before the tragedy of Dallas, the quagmire of Vietnam, and the street protests. Doris Day movies still sold, and music by Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee still had trans-generational appeal. And, on a personal note, the students in my US History classes were still proud to be Americans and America was still proud of them.
With that sort of easy national ethos, why move? Things generally seemed to be perfectly nice right where we were!
But of course nothing -- nice or nasty -- ever stays the same. The sixties soon changed. Crises mounted, angers flared, even the nice kids in my classes began asking angry questions about their country. Anger, of course, is a secondary emotion so you have to ask what's triggering it? For those of us who were there trying to mollify it, the best explanation is: Doubt. Something I assume Chicago's new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan understands very well.
There's a striking parallel between American then and America now .Youth in both periods begin doubting many of those things they once took (or were taught to take) for granted. The government, police and military. Churches, parents, oh yes and US History teachers. Suddenly it wasn't -- and isn't now -- as easy to pitch America to your high school students. Students who are watching their parents lose their jobs and their pensions, banks and stockbrokers lose their credibility, leaders and heroes lose their shine. Doubts like these make anyone angry. And should.
Now I have no way of testing my modest hypothesis. After all, people aren't moving as much today for many many different reasons. However, there is something running through classrooms today very symptomatic of the sixties: Doubts-driven angers that must surely suck up some of the air of confidence that usually motivates families to move around.
US History teachers who've been around for both these decades-of-doubt have an institutional instinct for this sort of thing. We can feel the dangers that doubt and anger can mean for our classrooms. And for Secretary Duncan 's reform agenda. However, we can't fundamentally alter this dynamic. Neither can Duncan. The one man best equipped for this is the President himself.
His steady, pragmatic confidence in our country can help ease the doubts and thereby ease the angers. So far he strikes most US History teachers as beginning to do that. If so, I predict it will be a lot easier for us to start teaching upbeat American history again, and for our kids' families to start moving up and on again.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
WHO NEEDS SARAH, WE'VE GOT JOE!
For those culture warriors who miss Sarah Palin, not to worry. We've got Joe Biden. A more down-home, press-the-flesh natural you won't find this side of the Alaskan reef...!
I say that with non-ideological conviction, because Joe personifies those solid, old-time family values that you gotta like no matter what your party. (Well maybe that doesn't include the Paris Hilton brand of post-moderns, but then that's their loss). Joe -- just like Sarah but with brains -- embraces those basic, blue collar virtues like hard work, strong fidelity, and deep faith. The ideal vice-president. Where Obama is cool, Joe is hot...while the president appeals to our heads, Joe touches our hearts....and if Barack rarely stumbles, we can feel right at home when Joe does.
In music, they call this counter-point. The ancient Chinese speak of yin and the yang. In Hollywood they talk about the buddy-movie formula. Whatever the descriptor, this kind of delicate balance exists all throughout our lives. Frankly, without it, our lives would be far less rich. Consider....
Today we have the instant power of email. Fortunately counter-balancing that is the old through-rain-and-snow post office.I call it fortunate, because while email is faster, snail-mail has a face. And a smile. And a steadiness plodding down my block every morning that makes we feel human communication is still human.
Today we also have the Internet. Super powerful, super fast, super everything. Luckily, though, we still have the counter-balance of the daily newspaper. Unlike the Niagara of instantaneous but unedited information on my screen, my newspaper has a local address, a local staff and a local mission that makes it feel like a good neighbor.
Today we have researchers and statisticians. They have this habit of advising us what we think, how we do our thinking, and what it all means to our lives. Fortunately we still have the counter-balance of our churches and temples where a very different breed of wise ones speak to us. Less in terms of antiseptic hypotheses, more in terms of divine hopes. While I admire the researchers and statisticians, when life suddenly blows apart they really don't have what it takes for me to put the pieces back together.
Today we have a booming young generation, and youth is terrific. I know, because I was once. And yet would it betray my gray to say it is always fortunate that youth has with its sails the rudders of age. Each generation needs the other if that desired delicate balance is to be realized.
Oh and one more counter-point. Science and nature. Both are indispensable to our lives, the first providing us with answers, the second with questions. Science comes from people, nature from God; and while answers are always essential, questions are always more thrilling. I reflect on this every time night I look at the moon and realize how the work of science helped us reach it, but how the inspiration of nature is what asked us to try....
I say that with non-ideological conviction, because Joe personifies those solid, old-time family values that you gotta like no matter what your party. (Well maybe that doesn't include the Paris Hilton brand of post-moderns, but then that's their loss). Joe -- just like Sarah but with brains -- embraces those basic, blue collar virtues like hard work, strong fidelity, and deep faith. The ideal vice-president. Where Obama is cool, Joe is hot...while the president appeals to our heads, Joe touches our hearts....and if Barack rarely stumbles, we can feel right at home when Joe does.
In music, they call this counter-point. The ancient Chinese speak of yin and the yang. In Hollywood they talk about the buddy-movie formula. Whatever the descriptor, this kind of delicate balance exists all throughout our lives. Frankly, without it, our lives would be far less rich. Consider....
Today we have the instant power of email. Fortunately counter-balancing that is the old through-rain-and-snow post office.I call it fortunate, because while email is faster, snail-mail has a face. And a smile. And a steadiness plodding down my block every morning that makes we feel human communication is still human.
Today we also have the Internet. Super powerful, super fast, super everything. Luckily, though, we still have the counter-balance of the daily newspaper. Unlike the Niagara of instantaneous but unedited information on my screen, my newspaper has a local address, a local staff and a local mission that makes it feel like a good neighbor.
Today we have researchers and statisticians. They have this habit of advising us what we think, how we do our thinking, and what it all means to our lives. Fortunately we still have the counter-balance of our churches and temples where a very different breed of wise ones speak to us. Less in terms of antiseptic hypotheses, more in terms of divine hopes. While I admire the researchers and statisticians, when life suddenly blows apart they really don't have what it takes for me to put the pieces back together.
Today we have a booming young generation, and youth is terrific. I know, because I was once. And yet would it betray my gray to say it is always fortunate that youth has with its sails the rudders of age. Each generation needs the other if that desired delicate balance is to be realized.
Oh and one more counter-point. Science and nature. Both are indispensable to our lives, the first providing us with answers, the second with questions. Science comes from people, nature from God; and while answers are always essential, questions are always more thrilling. I reflect on this every time night I look at the moon and realize how the work of science helped us reach it, but how the inspiration of nature is what asked us to try....
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