Okay, so everyone knows America is changing. It's always changing. And we right along with it. But some changes are harder to define than others. Perhaps the best way to sense today's changes is to open your front door. Stand there and look back. Then look in front. You'll find an inside America and an outside America.....!
In most cases, inside is the new America. Today's highly technical and cocooning America with its TVs, PCs, iPhones, Ipods, faxes, and of course your very own www. One click and you're in instant connection with family, friends, stock markets, news headlines, gossip blogs, retail outlets, food deliveries, Congress, and a nifty choice of personal sex experiences. All this without ever leaving your room.
And that's only during the first hour.
Outside is something of the old America. Sky, grass, mail carriers, home delivered newspapers, baby-strollers, joggers, chatting neighbors, kids loafing on their way to school, toddlers giggling on tricycles, and puppies barking at everything that passes. No, this is not a Norman Rockwell or Thomas Kincaid illustration, but out here the pace is slower, the focus is less intense, the information is less impersonal, and the distance between people much shorter and more touchable.
Lets not get confused here. Most of us are pretty happy with home comforts that are a few eons beyond the cold caves our ancestors used. We like indoor plumbing, and we love our everywhere gadgets. However, in our transition from outdoor living to indoor living, we've lost a few things along the evolutionary way.
For instance, our senses.
Cocooned inside our splendiferous homes and condos, our sense of sight has lost its 360 degree alertness...our sense of sound is confined to this acoustically controlled venue....our sense of touch is often limited to switches and keypads...and our sense of smell, well forget it, because the smells of the green earth have little chance inside climate-controlled living rooms.
This isn't a plea to return to nature and the noble savage. Rousseau and Gauguin got that wrong. Cities and city life are in many ways the pinnacle of human achievement. Its boulevards and parks and great buildings and fine arts aren't to be found either in the land of Amish or the world of nostalgia. On the other hand, the Amish and the nostalgics may have a case when they pose this challenge before the jury of history: Is the new always better than the old?
Perhaps they answer their own question. They have no problem embracing some of yesterday's finer values while at the same time using today's indoor plumbing! As to the rest of us using indoor plumbing, might we have a problem with yesterday's values?
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
WHAT DOES THE FACE OF EVIL LOOK LIKE?
Evil has worn a face ever since the world's religions have pictured it for us. In some cases it's been a bull, a goat, a scorpion and a vulture. The three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have agreed upon a serpent. There must be something to their choice, for to this day snakes are almost universally looked upon with palpable revulsion. However, there's more than one way to stare one down...!
Four years ago Mel Brooks did it not with loathing but with laughter, featuring two cast members from here in Chicago. I spent opening night with them at the Cadillac Palace where they jauntily chose the most evil face in our times -- Adolf Hitler -- to laugh at for two scandalously uproarious acts titled The Producers. Now the Broadway hit has just opened in the heartland of the fatherland itself -- Berlin. What's more, the show is playing for the next two months in the Admiralspalast where Hitler himself attended plays in between conquering countries.
This is of course more than a theatrical issue for my friends. It's a moral issue. Can a nation which has lived for three generations in expressed shame for its Hitlerian evils now shift from shuddering to snickering? According to the critic's early reviews, the answer is yes. Perhaps enough time has passed and enough victims have died to clear the way for a treatment that a few years ago would have itself been called evil.
We can analyze this a dozen different ways. From the argument we have matured enough to turn fear into ridicule, to the claim we have coarsened enough to take evil too lightly. Either way, there are larger questions hidden in here. What do we mean by evil? Is evil something to fight or to accommodate? And who decides what's evil in the first place?
To pose the questions is easy; to answer them is complicated. Here's an audience member's guess:
* Evil is more than simply the actions of evil-doers. It is a cosmic force which exists in our midst the same way the force of Love, Goodness, Beauty and Truth exist. Evil is always out there, shrouding itself inside various people at various points in time and place. All part of the inexpressible combat between yin and yang, between our demons and our angels
* In times past, societies have believed evil an enemy so great it called for its death and destruction. Too often in ugly self-righteous forms, yet always rooted in the presumption that what is out of harmony with our cosmos needs to be plucked
* Who, though, is to decide? That's the trillion-dollar question. To illustrate how difficult it is, consider the historical fact that Hitler himself was once hailed as "good" by a majority of the 60 million Germans of the 1930's
The two cast members from that opening night are not in Berlin this week. But if they were, I ask myself would they find their original roles now played by young post-Hitler Germans as funny as they did back here in Chicago? It occurs to me the two of them might already be talking to Mr Brooks about a new study in evil that has also damaged millions of lives. Featuring Wall Street Bankers!
And musically suggesting that there actually is an enduring force of evil in our midst. Only it keeps changing faces, inviting us to keep changing the way we stare it down.
:
Four years ago Mel Brooks did it not with loathing but with laughter, featuring two cast members from here in Chicago. I spent opening night with them at the Cadillac Palace where they jauntily chose the most evil face in our times -- Adolf Hitler -- to laugh at for two scandalously uproarious acts titled The Producers. Now the Broadway hit has just opened in the heartland of the fatherland itself -- Berlin. What's more, the show is playing for the next two months in the Admiralspalast where Hitler himself attended plays in between conquering countries.
This is of course more than a theatrical issue for my friends. It's a moral issue. Can a nation which has lived for three generations in expressed shame for its Hitlerian evils now shift from shuddering to snickering? According to the critic's early reviews, the answer is yes. Perhaps enough time has passed and enough victims have died to clear the way for a treatment that a few years ago would have itself been called evil.
We can analyze this a dozen different ways. From the argument we have matured enough to turn fear into ridicule, to the claim we have coarsened enough to take evil too lightly. Either way, there are larger questions hidden in here. What do we mean by evil? Is evil something to fight or to accommodate? And who decides what's evil in the first place?
To pose the questions is easy; to answer them is complicated. Here's an audience member's guess:
* Evil is more than simply the actions of evil-doers. It is a cosmic force which exists in our midst the same way the force of Love, Goodness, Beauty and Truth exist. Evil is always out there, shrouding itself inside various people at various points in time and place. All part of the inexpressible combat between yin and yang, between our demons and our angels
* In times past, societies have believed evil an enemy so great it called for its death and destruction. Too often in ugly self-righteous forms, yet always rooted in the presumption that what is out of harmony with our cosmos needs to be plucked
* Who, though, is to decide? That's the trillion-dollar question. To illustrate how difficult it is, consider the historical fact that Hitler himself was once hailed as "good" by a majority of the 60 million Germans of the 1930's
The two cast members from that opening night are not in Berlin this week. But if they were, I ask myself would they find their original roles now played by young post-Hitler Germans as funny as they did back here in Chicago? It occurs to me the two of them might already be talking to Mr Brooks about a new study in evil that has also damaged millions of lives. Featuring Wall Street Bankers!
And musically suggesting that there actually is an enduring force of evil in our midst. Only it keeps changing faces, inviting us to keep changing the way we stare it down.
:
Monday, May 18, 2009
I GOT RHYTHM
I was quietly sitting there in the church pew when I noticed her toes tapping next to me. As the choir sang out, so were other toes around me. Including mine. Hmm, I guess it's true. In this life we all got rhythm....!
The sound of music will almost always energize our bodies to respond to its rhythm. Fast or slow, adagio to vivace, the music around us has its way with us whether we're conscious of it or not. So do the emotions within us, for from impatience to irritation our body-signals are hard to guard and even harder to miss.
It's equally true with the people around us. Those we love like the infant in our arms coax out of us gentle swaying and cuddling motions. Just as those we dislike generate automatic stiffening and withdrawing motions. You see, whether we can dance or not, we really do have rhythm.
There are other rhythms too, congenital to our very being. Consider that softening feeling that slips over us when we're communing with nature on a sparkling spring morning. Or that inexpressible yielding sensation that washes over us when we're in deep prayer. I suppose there are some biological research studies on some college campuses right now trying to isolate the exact brain lobe or gene pool that can explain all this. But do we actually need to dissect this...? Isn't experiencing it sufficient unto itself....?
To be sure, there are other rhythms that we respond to in this life. Say the metallic marching beat of a military band calling out from us the pride and fury of patriotism, Or the plodding dirge of a funeral mass to which our every muscle resonates. Or what about the roaring ecstasy of a rock 'n roll concert or the sweaty joy of a dixieland band? Or the sacred quietude of a close family unit? None of these rhythms are out there as much as they are quite literally in here.
Press the premise further and you can see and sense the rhythms of a nation as a whole. When Franklin Roosevelt looked out at a nation on its economic knees, he himself a cripple beckoned from out of us a revived rhythm of hope. When Ronald Reagan looked out on a nation adrift, his rhythm of national pride helped re-charge that same rhythm in us. And now a new president has rendered a spirit-broken people a pair of addresses (first at Georgetown and now Notre Dame) that to many sound like the symphonies of a wiser tomorrow.
Now lets see how many toes tap to the rhythm of his words...
The sound of music will almost always energize our bodies to respond to its rhythm. Fast or slow, adagio to vivace, the music around us has its way with us whether we're conscious of it or not. So do the emotions within us, for from impatience to irritation our body-signals are hard to guard and even harder to miss.
It's equally true with the people around us. Those we love like the infant in our arms coax out of us gentle swaying and cuddling motions. Just as those we dislike generate automatic stiffening and withdrawing motions. You see, whether we can dance or not, we really do have rhythm.
There are other rhythms too, congenital to our very being. Consider that softening feeling that slips over us when we're communing with nature on a sparkling spring morning. Or that inexpressible yielding sensation that washes over us when we're in deep prayer. I suppose there are some biological research studies on some college campuses right now trying to isolate the exact brain lobe or gene pool that can explain all this. But do we actually need to dissect this...? Isn't experiencing it sufficient unto itself....?
To be sure, there are other rhythms that we respond to in this life. Say the metallic marching beat of a military band calling out from us the pride and fury of patriotism, Or the plodding dirge of a funeral mass to which our every muscle resonates. Or what about the roaring ecstasy of a rock 'n roll concert or the sweaty joy of a dixieland band? Or the sacred quietude of a close family unit? None of these rhythms are out there as much as they are quite literally in here.
Press the premise further and you can see and sense the rhythms of a nation as a whole. When Franklin Roosevelt looked out at a nation on its economic knees, he himself a cripple beckoned from out of us a revived rhythm of hope. When Ronald Reagan looked out on a nation adrift, his rhythm of national pride helped re-charge that same rhythm in us. And now a new president has rendered a spirit-broken people a pair of addresses (first at Georgetown and now Notre Dame) that to many sound like the symphonies of a wiser tomorrow.
Now lets see how many toes tap to the rhythm of his words...
Sunday, May 17, 2009
MAKING PEACE THE SEXY WAY
The American bedroom is way behind the times.....!
Thousands of years ago the Greeks portrayed how their women could stay the hand of war by staying their conjugal pleasures from their husbands (see Trojan Women for all the gory theatrical details), Fair maidens in medieval times often tried the same thing. And as recently as last month a Kenyan husband sued the organizers of a national sex boycott in his politically stalemated nation (he charged this caused him "mental anguish, stress, backaches, and a lack of concentration").
One can only fantasize how his lawyer introduced evidence and used witnesses.
But just think of the possibilities. American wives -- shoulder to shoulder and genitalia to genitalia -- denying their testosterone-driven husbands their bed until they grow up and stop spending all their time at war. And not just the big bring- 'em-on kind, but all their warrior compulsions to bellow in government, scream on cable, defame on blogs, butt heads on the gridiron, and battle one another on every expressway.
The mind swirls. A world without battles...streets without bloodshed...courtrooms without rancor....football games without concussions....movies without fireballs...colleges without food fights. Well, the mind mustn't swirl quite that much. But still the idea surely invites some delicious dreams of peace on earth and good will to man. One is surprised the women's movement has not officially taken this up. Or the churches and temples and mosques.
I don't know the Kenyan husband in question or what he's doing with his nights lately. But I do suspect his judicial actions tell us his wife made her point. And a rather good point at that
.
Whether I've just blown my chances for membership in the local country club remains to be seen. But I have a lawyer too....!
Thousands of years ago the Greeks portrayed how their women could stay the hand of war by staying their conjugal pleasures from their husbands (see Trojan Women for all the gory theatrical details), Fair maidens in medieval times often tried the same thing. And as recently as last month a Kenyan husband sued the organizers of a national sex boycott in his politically stalemated nation (he charged this caused him "mental anguish, stress, backaches, and a lack of concentration").
One can only fantasize how his lawyer introduced evidence and used witnesses.
But just think of the possibilities. American wives -- shoulder to shoulder and genitalia to genitalia -- denying their testosterone-driven husbands their bed until they grow up and stop spending all their time at war. And not just the big bring- 'em-on kind, but all their warrior compulsions to bellow in government, scream on cable, defame on blogs, butt heads on the gridiron, and battle one another on every expressway.
The mind swirls. A world without battles...streets without bloodshed...courtrooms without rancor....football games without concussions....movies without fireballs...colleges without food fights. Well, the mind mustn't swirl quite that much. But still the idea surely invites some delicious dreams of peace on earth and good will to man. One is surprised the women's movement has not officially taken this up. Or the churches and temples and mosques.
I don't know the Kenyan husband in question or what he's doing with his nights lately. But I do suspect his judicial actions tell us his wife made her point. And a rather good point at that
.
Whether I've just blown my chances for membership in the local country club remains to be seen. But I have a lawyer too....!
Saturday, May 16, 2009
THE MOST TERRIFYING TERROR IS.....
Kurt Vonnegut explained that, "True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country!"
For those of us in Park Ridge, Illinois, this thought struck particularly close to home when one of our own Main South HS grads almost became president last year. That's right, Hillary, who grew up only a few blocks north of me. (She's still helping to run the country as Secretary of State). Such a sudden paradigm shift can be staggering. And, for any of us well over 50, common place.
Now when you think about it, all your life all the adult roles -- policemen, doctors, professors, news anchors, athletes -- are now being filled by folks as young or younger than you. That can really be terrifying. All your life you were looking up to these power players. You know, big, strong, imposing and obviously in sacred possession of the answers. But now upon closer examination these towering, faraway figures are -- well, gee, many of them are just kids, and you're the adult.
How did this happen?
Okay, we understand our Darwin. Life just keeps evolving. But totally without our permission...? The terror in this is that if they're suddenly younger than us, somehow that must mean we can no longer intuitively count on "things being taken care of." A little reluctantly, but inevitably, we've become caretakers too.
The bittersweet irony is that while we were being taken care of all those years, we couldn't wait to grow up. Being grown-up meant owning all that adult power unto ourselves. But a funny thing happened on the way to adulthood. Adulthood...! Back then, those imposing policemen, doctors, professors, news anchors and athletes never told us that with their power came responsibility.
There it is -- that irritating chink in the grown-up's armor. Having to be responsible with the power, the authority, the impact on others. No official manufacturers guidebook comes with adulthood. It's one of those passages -- like through a dark woods or up a misty peak -- where the traveler has to feel and find their way. Those who do becomes leaders...those who don't become losers. Either way, there's no turning back on the road. Or on the clock.
So here we are my fellow AARPers. Ready or not, now we're the adults. In a world much in need of authentic adults. But in case you notice many of the adults around you are often younger than you -- well, hey, this is the trip you've been waiting to take. The travel-brochures just never explained you had to take it as it comes...
For those of us in Park Ridge, Illinois, this thought struck particularly close to home when one of our own Main South HS grads almost became president last year. That's right, Hillary, who grew up only a few blocks north of me. (She's still helping to run the country as Secretary of State). Such a sudden paradigm shift can be staggering. And, for any of us well over 50, common place.
Now when you think about it, all your life all the adult roles -- policemen, doctors, professors, news anchors, athletes -- are now being filled by folks as young or younger than you. That can really be terrifying. All your life you were looking up to these power players. You know, big, strong, imposing and obviously in sacred possession of the answers. But now upon closer examination these towering, faraway figures are -- well, gee, many of them are just kids, and you're the adult.
How did this happen?
Okay, we understand our Darwin. Life just keeps evolving. But totally without our permission...? The terror in this is that if they're suddenly younger than us, somehow that must mean we can no longer intuitively count on "things being taken care of." A little reluctantly, but inevitably, we've become caretakers too.
The bittersweet irony is that while we were being taken care of all those years, we couldn't wait to grow up. Being grown-up meant owning all that adult power unto ourselves. But a funny thing happened on the way to adulthood. Adulthood...! Back then, those imposing policemen, doctors, professors, news anchors and athletes never told us that with their power came responsibility.
There it is -- that irritating chink in the grown-up's armor. Having to be responsible with the power, the authority, the impact on others. No official manufacturers guidebook comes with adulthood. It's one of those passages -- like through a dark woods or up a misty peak -- where the traveler has to feel and find their way. Those who do becomes leaders...those who don't become losers. Either way, there's no turning back on the road. Or on the clock.
So here we are my fellow AARPers. Ready or not, now we're the adults. In a world much in need of authentic adults. But in case you notice many of the adults around you are often younger than you -- well, hey, this is the trip you've been waiting to take. The travel-brochures just never explained you had to take it as it comes...
Friday, May 15, 2009
SOME QUESTIONS HAVE NO ANSWERS
Here's a question without an answer for the Sun Times. Actually for all the news media. You regularly feature pictures and stories of the tragic civilian deaths in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but you rarely did in Italy and France when the toll was far greater during World War II. Why the difference....?
The irony grows when you realize the WWII GIs who caused these deaths are still honored in military cemeteries over there, whereas today we sneak them out of countries who have no wish to honor a single one of them. And all this despite the fact that in both these wars we saw ourselves as fighting and dying for these very civilians.
Some thoughts come to mind, but none exactly an answer. Maybe our mission is less morally clear now...or our media is more willing to feature ugly stories...or our allies are not really willing allies...or our soldiers are less tolerant. More likely it's a mix of all the above, leaving us with a recipe of American exceptionalism that's no longer as easy to swallow as when we were saving the world from Hitler back in the 1940s.
May is the month we honor our military dead -- buried here or over there. The honor is desperately well deserved. But as we remember them and their sacrifice, this disturbing question should be rattling around at your news rooms. At the networks. At the Pentagon. Everyone can agree with Sherman that "war is hell," but the question remains: Why is the hell so different and so less fulfilling than it was 70 years ago..
The irony grows when you realize the WWII GIs who caused these deaths are still honored in military cemeteries over there, whereas today we sneak them out of countries who have no wish to honor a single one of them. And all this despite the fact that in both these wars we saw ourselves as fighting and dying for these very civilians.
Some thoughts come to mind, but none exactly an answer. Maybe our mission is less morally clear now...or our media is more willing to feature ugly stories...or our allies are not really willing allies...or our soldiers are less tolerant. More likely it's a mix of all the above, leaving us with a recipe of American exceptionalism that's no longer as easy to swallow as when we were saving the world from Hitler back in the 1940s.
May is the month we honor our military dead -- buried here or over there. The honor is desperately well deserved. But as we remember them and their sacrifice, this disturbing question should be rattling around at your news rooms. At the networks. At the Pentagon. Everyone can agree with Sherman that "war is hell," but the question remains: Why is the hell so different and so less fulfilling than it was 70 years ago..
THE FUNNIES ARE MORE THAN FUNNY
The Sun Times rightly boasts the best sports coverage in town. And with columnists like Steinberg and Hitchens, you've also got the market covered on idea-crackling bravado. But maybe you're taking your comics too much for granted. Most of us readers aren't.
Any good newspaper aficionado knows these three pages are a 75-cents-a-day entrance fee into more enduring little wisdoms about life than anywhere else this side of the Emerald City. Garfield, The Wizard of Id, Dennis the Menace, Real Life Adventures, Drabble and Family Circus are among those homiletic laughs that not only tickle your heart, but stir your head. So while the daily din of news fills your first 20 pages, your comics come just in time to make life seem worth living after all. At least till the next edition.
Cartoonists are among your least valued artists, but artists they are. With a few strokes of the pen, they not only get us to laugh, but to laugh at things worth laughing at. Put it this way. Crying over bad news doesn't contribute much to the world. Laughing over our ridiculous ways can sometimes remind us how to be just a little less ridiculous.
Keep us laughing....!
Any good newspaper aficionado knows these three pages are a 75-cents-a-day entrance fee into more enduring little wisdoms about life than anywhere else this side of the Emerald City. Garfield, The Wizard of Id, Dennis the Menace, Real Life Adventures, Drabble and Family Circus are among those homiletic laughs that not only tickle your heart, but stir your head. So while the daily din of news fills your first 20 pages, your comics come just in time to make life seem worth living after all. At least till the next edition.
Cartoonists are among your least valued artists, but artists they are. With a few strokes of the pen, they not only get us to laugh, but to laugh at things worth laughing at. Put it this way. Crying over bad news doesn't contribute much to the world. Laughing over our ridiculous ways can sometimes remind us how to be just a little less ridiculous.
Keep us laughing....!
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