Seventy-one years ago this month, WWII began when Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. A friend of mine was a child in Germany at that time. His father was a member of the elite SS, and Hitler's mistress Eva Braun was living next door to them. To him as a child, they were simply Auntie Eva and Uncle Adolf.
Another friend of mine was in the US 8th Air Force which dropped 640,000 tons of bombs on Auntie and Uncle by war's end in May 1945. The issue then was whether the world could stop the Teutonic Nazi God. The issue today seems to be whether the world should stop believing in any God. Uber-physicist Stephen Hawking now says in his new book that it shouldn't...!
Hawking is not using bombs, simply laws. He argues in part: "Because there is a law such as gravity, then the universe can and will create itself from nothing." A bold assertion (different than his earlier views) which slams in the face of the Medieval premise: "Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit (from nothing comes nothing)."
I haven't yet asked my German friend, but I did my Air Force friend how he reacts to the idea of a post-war world without a God. Trained in physics himself, he said: "What's funny is that people say that asserting a God takes a leap-of-faith; yet asserting the universe just popped into being is considered to be rationally compelling. I don't get it!"
Apparently neither did a cross-section of seniors in a recent AARP poll. The question was: If a genetic test showed that you could live to be 100, what would you do?
* 8% said start another romance
* 15% said live a wilder life
* 38% said they wouldn't change a thing
* 45% said take better care of myself
No one mentioned God. Either way. Was this because they agree with what Hawking says? Was it because they don't care what Hawking says? Assuming most of us AARP-ers won't make it to 100, it's too bad Hawking's assertion wasn't on the survey. After all, God's season is coming up soon for Jews, Muslims and Christians alike....
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
JACK IN THE WONDERLAND OF WOE
I fell asleep reading the latest Harris International poll of the world's most popular leaders. The top three were Barack Obama, Dalai Lama, and Hillary Clinton; the bottom three were Ahmadinejad, Gadhafi, and Hu Jintao. When I awoke, I realized I had slipped down through a rabbit hole and into the Wonderland of Woe.
Wandering through the dark, misty streets of its capitol city I first came upon a loud angry group of drinkers in a loud angry pub. As I listened, it seemed they were angry because they -- mostly a portly middle-aged lot -- were yelling at a football game on the TV set, insisting "they don't make 'em like they used to!" It was puzzling, for if "they" referred to them, it was probably a good thing!
Later I found myself in a hospital waiting room where angry family members were in bitter discussion about the test results the doctors had presented them concerning their mother. The report was not good, but amid the tears of concern was the rage of condemnation. "What the hell good is it to go to doctors who can't cure!"
Nearby stood a house of worship. Stunning building but totally empty. Outside its doors were a group of protesters with signs shouting: "God is dead!" I asked one of them how did he know this. He was a tall, reedy fellow whose eyes burned into mine: "Hell, if you don't know, I'm not the one to tell you!"
A little way further stood a high school building. The students -- smoking and laughing in their grungy tattooed worst -- were leaving at the end of their day. I took it upon myself to ask the one who seemed in charge: "What did you learn today?" He took a deep angry drag on his cigarette and hissed back: "Hey, man, going in there is just what we do between deals out here. Teachers -- they got nothing!"
As I turned the street corner I saw a large court house. Busy place with people and police and lawyers moving in and out through metal detectors. I simply had to ask one of the better dressed lawyers: "What's it like in your country today?" The answer was chilling: "It's not my country anymore. It's pretty much owned by the bankers, the generals, and that mealy-mouthed, pretend-leader in the White House. Me, I'm just going through the motions!"
It was only a brief misty visit, but it was perfectly clear. In this Wonderland of Woe, everyone agreed on one thing. Things were bad and the only proper cause for their woes was whoever was in charge. Meaning the fingers of guilt and responsibility never pointed to them; only to the imperfect persons in charge, who were probably still the only people still trying.
Wandering through the dark, misty streets of its capitol city I first came upon a loud angry group of drinkers in a loud angry pub. As I listened, it seemed they were angry because they -- mostly a portly middle-aged lot -- were yelling at a football game on the TV set, insisting "they don't make 'em like they used to!" It was puzzling, for if "they" referred to them, it was probably a good thing!
Later I found myself in a hospital waiting room where angry family members were in bitter discussion about the test results the doctors had presented them concerning their mother. The report was not good, but amid the tears of concern was the rage of condemnation. "What the hell good is it to go to doctors who can't cure!"
Nearby stood a house of worship. Stunning building but totally empty. Outside its doors were a group of protesters with signs shouting: "God is dead!" I asked one of them how did he know this. He was a tall, reedy fellow whose eyes burned into mine: "Hell, if you don't know, I'm not the one to tell you!"
A little way further stood a high school building. The students -- smoking and laughing in their grungy tattooed worst -- were leaving at the end of their day. I took it upon myself to ask the one who seemed in charge: "What did you learn today?" He took a deep angry drag on his cigarette and hissed back: "Hey, man, going in there is just what we do between deals out here. Teachers -- they got nothing!"
As I turned the street corner I saw a large court house. Busy place with people and police and lawyers moving in and out through metal detectors. I simply had to ask one of the better dressed lawyers: "What's it like in your country today?" The answer was chilling: "It's not my country anymore. It's pretty much owned by the bankers, the generals, and that mealy-mouthed, pretend-leader in the White House. Me, I'm just going through the motions!"
It was only a brief misty visit, but it was perfectly clear. In this Wonderland of Woe, everyone agreed on one thing. Things were bad and the only proper cause for their woes was whoever was in charge. Meaning the fingers of guilt and responsibility never pointed to them; only to the imperfect persons in charge, who were probably still the only people still trying.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
BEFORE & AFTER I MET DUSTIN HOFFMAN
The day I met Dustin Hoffman was in early 1968, just after the release of his breakout film "The Graduate." It was over lunch in New York City. At the time neither of us could realize his film was to become symbolic of the enormous seismic shift taking place in America.
Before -- it was the so-called golden ages of radio, movies and television (recently marred by the horrific but unlikely assassination of a president). After -- came the explosive ages of civil rights, war protests, presidential cover ups, and culture wars between still-feuding Right and Left. Consider some of the contrasting facts (or, more correctly, impressions):
BEFORE
* Throughout the 30s, 40s, 50s Americans were listening to post-Victorian soap operas on radio where even the comedians were tightly censored. Network radio was the first and one of the last times in which entire families nationwide gathered at one time for one collective experience. Programs like Jack Benny, Bob Hope, the Lux Radio Theatre, and FDR's fireside chats
* Movies too were still in their Hays Office era in which love, marriage, sex and violence were tightly restricted. Heroes like Clark Gable, Van Johnson and even Marlon Brando were held to careful script standards. Along with sparkly clean heroines like Ginger Rogers, Maureen O'Hara and Doris Day who were clearly women in the classic tradition of Victorian right-and-wrong. It was said, and arguably true, that Hollywood was produced by Jews, censored by Catholics, and watched by Protestants
* Television tended to feature what was considered to be the best-of-America. And so these were the years of holiday specials by Bing Crosby and Perry Como; variety shows with guiltless humor by Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, and Ed Sullivan (who showed the new rebel Elvis only from the waistline up); and morality-purified series like "Father Knows Best," "Leave it to Beaver," and "Bonanza" where good and good guys always prevailed
AFTER
It is cool today to look back and find the flaws in this tapestry of American entertainment. We are reminded of the hypocrisy of those years in which African Americans, women, and gays were denied their rights. In which American capitalism after WWII was riding high at the expense of the rest of the world's depressed economies. In which purity was really no more than a hustle to get audiences, while producers and casts rang up record-sized rates of adultery, divorce and mayhem.
To the credit of the AFTER generations, America today is a far less restricted and far more candid culture. One in which everyone is perfectly and proudly willing to say "Your Golden Age was really a fraud, and now we can each go our own individual way!" While that's remarkably true, it may harbor a remarkable truth. Namely this. The gravitational forces of the 30s, 40s,and 50s tended to draw our diverse society together onto common grounds... while today's centrifugal forces tend to pull our society further and further apart.
Yes, apart into self-respecting distinctions (by gender, nationality, race and culture). But alas, apart into assertively different Americas in which these different Americas stand proud and tall, yet totally out of touch with the other Americas. Some see this as the historic demise of our national greatness; others see it as the historic challenge to our national greatness.
The score here is not yet in. A lot is riding on it...
Before -- it was the so-called golden ages of radio, movies and television (recently marred by the horrific but unlikely assassination of a president). After -- came the explosive ages of civil rights, war protests, presidential cover ups, and culture wars between still-feuding Right and Left. Consider some of the contrasting facts (or, more correctly, impressions):
BEFORE
* Throughout the 30s, 40s, 50s Americans were listening to post-Victorian soap operas on radio where even the comedians were tightly censored. Network radio was the first and one of the last times in which entire families nationwide gathered at one time for one collective experience. Programs like Jack Benny, Bob Hope, the Lux Radio Theatre, and FDR's fireside chats
* Movies too were still in their Hays Office era in which love, marriage, sex and violence were tightly restricted. Heroes like Clark Gable, Van Johnson and even Marlon Brando were held to careful script standards. Along with sparkly clean heroines like Ginger Rogers, Maureen O'Hara and Doris Day who were clearly women in the classic tradition of Victorian right-and-wrong. It was said, and arguably true, that Hollywood was produced by Jews, censored by Catholics, and watched by Protestants
* Television tended to feature what was considered to be the best-of-America. And so these were the years of holiday specials by Bing Crosby and Perry Como; variety shows with guiltless humor by Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, and Ed Sullivan (who showed the new rebel Elvis only from the waistline up); and morality-purified series like "Father Knows Best," "Leave it to Beaver," and "Bonanza" where good and good guys always prevailed
AFTER
It is cool today to look back and find the flaws in this tapestry of American entertainment. We are reminded of the hypocrisy of those years in which African Americans, women, and gays were denied their rights. In which American capitalism after WWII was riding high at the expense of the rest of the world's depressed economies. In which purity was really no more than a hustle to get audiences, while producers and casts rang up record-sized rates of adultery, divorce and mayhem.
To the credit of the AFTER generations, America today is a far less restricted and far more candid culture. One in which everyone is perfectly and proudly willing to say "Your Golden Age was really a fraud, and now we can each go our own individual way!" While that's remarkably true, it may harbor a remarkable truth. Namely this. The gravitational forces of the 30s, 40s,and 50s tended to draw our diverse society together onto common grounds... while today's centrifugal forces tend to pull our society further and further apart.
Yes, apart into self-respecting distinctions (by gender, nationality, race and culture). But alas, apart into assertively different Americas in which these different Americas stand proud and tall, yet totally out of touch with the other Americas. Some see this as the historic demise of our national greatness; others see it as the historic challenge to our national greatness.
The score here is not yet in. A lot is riding on it...
Saturday, September 4, 2010
WE'RE LIVING IN THE BEST OF TIMES, MR DICKENS
There are scholars who argue we are living in the best of times. Say what...? It's true, they reply. Despite wars, terrors, environmental disasters and financial collapses, they have the facts and statistics to argue that this decade has been humanity's finest.
Why then doesn't it seem that way...? It's the media, they reply. Global media brings us every trauma every hour of every day, giving a truly golden era a gloomy look
Taken raw, the facts and statistics are on their side. As Charles Kenney of Foreign Policy writes: "The planet's 6 billion residents lived better, longer, more peaceful and prosperous lives than ever before in recorded history." He points to birth/longevity/literacy/poverty rates to lock in his case.
His stubbornly cheery report makes a good read. And offers some reason to pause in our daily despair. Charles Dickens may have said it best: "It was he best of time, it was the worst of times." To personalize all this >>
* The free enterprise system is the best of systems in the hands of proud individual enterprisers; it's the worst system when enterprisers like Blackwater have been found guilty of malfeasance in the Middle East, and still get 30 new billion-dollar contracts from the government!
* The college football season was always the best of times for those of us who grew up with the get-one-for-the-Gipper mythology wrapped around Notre Dame; now begins another worst-of-times season whose grim history seems peculiarly to have begun that September my youth ended!
* The black beverage coffee is the world's most exotic drink and its second most traded commodity; yet it is still the worst of times every morning as I once more take bean and pot in hand seeking the perfect brew!
* Joan has been the joy of my life for 60 years; but every birthday is the worst of times, for it is a reminder that there is a clock somewhere ticking!
As in Dickens' classic story, it is time to remember the world must be embraced just as it is, not as we wish it to be. By doing that, we can then honestly say: "It is a far far better thing I do than I have ever done before..."
Why then doesn't it seem that way...? It's the media, they reply. Global media brings us every trauma every hour of every day, giving a truly golden era a gloomy look
Taken raw, the facts and statistics are on their side. As Charles Kenney of Foreign Policy writes: "The planet's 6 billion residents lived better, longer, more peaceful and prosperous lives than ever before in recorded history." He points to birth/longevity/literacy/poverty rates to lock in his case.
His stubbornly cheery report makes a good read. And offers some reason to pause in our daily despair. Charles Dickens may have said it best: "It was he best of time, it was the worst of times." To personalize all this >>
* The free enterprise system is the best of systems in the hands of proud individual enterprisers; it's the worst system when enterprisers like Blackwater have been found guilty of malfeasance in the Middle East, and still get 30 new billion-dollar contracts from the government!
* The college football season was always the best of times for those of us who grew up with the get-one-for-the-Gipper mythology wrapped around Notre Dame; now begins another worst-of-times season whose grim history seems peculiarly to have begun that September my youth ended!
* The black beverage coffee is the world's most exotic drink and its second most traded commodity; yet it is still the worst of times every morning as I once more take bean and pot in hand seeking the perfect brew!
* Joan has been the joy of my life for 60 years; but every birthday is the worst of times, for it is a reminder that there is a clock somewhere ticking!
As in Dickens' classic story, it is time to remember the world must be embraced just as it is, not as we wish it to be. By doing that, we can then honestly say: "It is a far far better thing I do than I have ever done before..."
Friday, September 3, 2010
ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE ME OR YOUR OWN EYES!
Three classic statements that put an exclamation mark to an argument: (1) "Check the record!" (2) "Look at the facts!" (3) "Read the statistics!"
In an age when records, facts and statistics wash across our sensorium from a thousand thousand digital/print sources every day, it should be easy to locate what these argument-breakers are referring to. Aha, but modern humanity is learning that having access to such vast warehouses of data hardly ends any argument. Simply shifts it into higher and hotter gear.
If truth is the purpose of an argument [it rarely is], why won't the records/facts/statistics confidently take us there? The answer is wretchedly obvious:
* RECORDS ~ Compare any story on any day as covered by the New York Times vs Wall Street Journal; Fox News vs MSNBC; the Congressional Record vs White House news conference. Each source a legitimate public record, but a record gathered and packaged by sharply different perspectives on the same reality!
* FACTS ~ Compare the way an approaching hurricane is covered by the print media (where it can only be documented) and by network television (where it can be purposely dramatized ). Or compare how a recent sit-down between Chicago's Top Cop and local gang leaders is understood by some as a "smart move" while others call it "a city sellout." Each fact the very same fact, but perceived and acted upon in totally different ways!
* STATISTICS ~ Compare the ratio of 50:1 describing the relationship between American executive vs assembly line salaries. We are told that statistics don't lie. So what is this statistic telling us, us the seekers after the truth to settle the argument? For the executive class, it is an honest reflection of how the free enterprise system rewards the best with more; to the assembly line class, it is out & out rape. Same stat, passionately different conclusions!
The fact of the matter is that modern society needs record/facts/stats to work with. Like the bricks to a building, they are indispensable. And yet, in the hands and visions of different architects, those assembled bricks can result in either a Gothic cathedral, a condo tower, or a whore house.
When those who take righteous pride in the authenticity of their bricks, first ask them what kind of structure are they trying to build. Their answer may not give you the truth you're looking for, but it may give you the pause you need when looking at that raw pile of bricks...
In an age when records, facts and statistics wash across our sensorium from a thousand thousand digital/print sources every day, it should be easy to locate what these argument-breakers are referring to. Aha, but modern humanity is learning that having access to such vast warehouses of data hardly ends any argument. Simply shifts it into higher and hotter gear.
If truth is the purpose of an argument [it rarely is], why won't the records/facts/statistics confidently take us there? The answer is wretchedly obvious:
* RECORDS ~ Compare any story on any day as covered by the New York Times vs Wall Street Journal; Fox News vs MSNBC; the Congressional Record vs White House news conference. Each source a legitimate public record, but a record gathered and packaged by sharply different perspectives on the same reality!
* FACTS ~ Compare the way an approaching hurricane is covered by the print media (where it can only be documented) and by network television (where it can be purposely dramatized ). Or compare how a recent sit-down between Chicago's Top Cop and local gang leaders is understood by some as a "smart move" while others call it "a city sellout." Each fact the very same fact, but perceived and acted upon in totally different ways!
* STATISTICS ~ Compare the ratio of 50:1 describing the relationship between American executive vs assembly line salaries. We are told that statistics don't lie. So what is this statistic telling us, us the seekers after the truth to settle the argument? For the executive class, it is an honest reflection of how the free enterprise system rewards the best with more; to the assembly line class, it is out & out rape. Same stat, passionately different conclusions!
The fact of the matter is that modern society needs record/facts/stats to work with. Like the bricks to a building, they are indispensable. And yet, in the hands and visions of different architects, those assembled bricks can result in either a Gothic cathedral, a condo tower, or a whore house.
When those who take righteous pride in the authenticity of their bricks, first ask them what kind of structure are they trying to build. Their answer may not give you the truth you're looking for, but it may give you the pause you need when looking at that raw pile of bricks...
Thursday, September 2, 2010
MEET DICK CONFIDENCE!
Meet Dick Confidence...!
He believes in God (especially a blue-eyed one)...Country (especially his understanding of it)....Mom (especially when she was a stay-at-home guardian of hearth & home)....neat neighborhoods (especially without too many noisy kids)....cops (especially when they arrest other people not him)....Flag, Church and the local Rotary....most particularly he believes in the destiny of a better tomorrow.
Dick sounds like a nice guy. Maybe a little like you and me at one time. Back in the roaring 1920s and again in the robust 1990s, the mantra of all the Dick Confidences was: "Becoming better every day in every way."
But now that Dick has seen the future -- same boom-and-bust cycles, brutal job-sucking competition of global economics, re-surging enemies and receding resources -- Dick often hears another mantra: "I guess I'm adult now, but the question is how did this happen and how do we make it stop?"
As adults we start learning some of the answers, but the future keeps changing all the questions. Maybe Currie & Ives and Norman Rockwell had the right idea about America -- keep it safely as it was! Freeze those sweet, imagined moments inside eternal artwork! That once-upon-a-time was touchable, manageable. On the other hand, this ready-or-not future sneaked up on us without warning. Worst of all, without a user manual.
Dick is caught as if on an ice floe which has split in half. One leg stands on what was...the other on what is becoming... in between and below is the black ocean. Dick has to make his choice. Quickly. As the old school readers would say: "See Dick, See Dick Run." But there was always a Jane in those stories. What one wonders will be the choice of today's Janes and yesterday's Dicks.
Come to think of it -- do they even have a choice?
He believes in God (especially a blue-eyed one)...Country (especially his understanding of it)....Mom (especially when she was a stay-at-home guardian of hearth & home)....neat neighborhoods (especially without too many noisy kids)....cops (especially when they arrest other people not him)....Flag, Church and the local Rotary....most particularly he believes in the destiny of a better tomorrow.
Dick sounds like a nice guy. Maybe a little like you and me at one time. Back in the roaring 1920s and again in the robust 1990s, the mantra of all the Dick Confidences was: "Becoming better every day in every way."
But now that Dick has seen the future -- same boom-and-bust cycles, brutal job-sucking competition of global economics, re-surging enemies and receding resources -- Dick often hears another mantra: "I guess I'm adult now, but the question is how did this happen and how do we make it stop?"
As adults we start learning some of the answers, but the future keeps changing all the questions. Maybe Currie & Ives and Norman Rockwell had the right idea about America -- keep it safely as it was! Freeze those sweet, imagined moments inside eternal artwork! That once-upon-a-time was touchable, manageable. On the other hand, this ready-or-not future sneaked up on us without warning. Worst of all, without a user manual.
Dick is caught as if on an ice floe which has split in half. One leg stands on what was...the other on what is becoming... in between and below is the black ocean. Dick has to make his choice. Quickly. As the old school readers would say: "See Dick, See Dick Run." But there was always a Jane in those stories. What one wonders will be the choice of today's Janes and yesterday's Dicks.
Come to think of it -- do they even have a choice?
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
WHAT THE GREAT ATE? SOME SURPRISES!
Do you eat to live or live to eat...? I'm Italian, so my answer is a given. But what about famous people, not only famous but not Italian?
Matthew and Mark Jacob have published a new and detailed answer in their book "What The Great Ate." Some surprising morsels in here.
For instance, did you know the fleshy-looking Buddha was actually very thin because of his many fasts. Clearly, he ate to live. Although according to legend, he "ate his way to enlightenment by consuming rice balls." Confucius was writing about his favorite fruit, peaches, 500 years before it appeares in western history. Then there is Jesus who used 5 fishes for one of his greatest miracles. Missing the point of the miracle, some anthropologists have decided they were talapia (eaten in the Middle East for millennia, but only on chi chi American menus recently).
Thomas Jefferson was a masterful horticulturist who introduced the colonies to eggplant and tomatoes. George Washington was said to be a rather dour dinner host who blamed his dental problems on years of cracking walnut shells with his teeth.
Lincoln is reported to have been as down-home in his eating habits as was his general persona. A hearty eater, he once claimed, "I can eat corn cakes as fast as any two women could make them."
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was troubled with recurring indigestion. He experimented with diets like vegetarianism, then later, milk and eggs only. Nothing much worked, perhaps explaining some of his darker conclusions about life. As for Thomas Edison, he was a simple but ravenous steak eater.
What is one to make of the Jacobs new book? Hard to find a message in there. Kafka was a vegetarian...Raymond Chandler a would-be master chef...Ernest Hemingway big on chocolate cake...Jean-Paul Sartre insistent on "unraveling the existential significance" of the foods he ate. Which may make him the least interesting eater in the entire book!
President Eisenhower found batches of vegetable soup a cathartic ritual when the pressures built up...President Reagan loved jelly beans, hated tomatoes....and today's Tea Partiers, well judging from their piously contradictory oratory, they have a hankering for fruitcake!
Matthew and Mark Jacob have published a new and detailed answer in their book "What The Great Ate." Some surprising morsels in here.
For instance, did you know the fleshy-looking Buddha was actually very thin because of his many fasts. Clearly, he ate to live. Although according to legend, he "ate his way to enlightenment by consuming rice balls." Confucius was writing about his favorite fruit, peaches, 500 years before it appeares in western history. Then there is Jesus who used 5 fishes for one of his greatest miracles. Missing the point of the miracle, some anthropologists have decided they were talapia (eaten in the Middle East for millennia, but only on chi chi American menus recently).
Thomas Jefferson was a masterful horticulturist who introduced the colonies to eggplant and tomatoes. George Washington was said to be a rather dour dinner host who blamed his dental problems on years of cracking walnut shells with his teeth.
Lincoln is reported to have been as down-home in his eating habits as was his general persona. A hearty eater, he once claimed, "I can eat corn cakes as fast as any two women could make them."
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was troubled with recurring indigestion. He experimented with diets like vegetarianism, then later, milk and eggs only. Nothing much worked, perhaps explaining some of his darker conclusions about life. As for Thomas Edison, he was a simple but ravenous steak eater.
What is one to make of the Jacobs new book? Hard to find a message in there. Kafka was a vegetarian...Raymond Chandler a would-be master chef...Ernest Hemingway big on chocolate cake...Jean-Paul Sartre insistent on "unraveling the existential significance" of the foods he ate. Which may make him the least interesting eater in the entire book!
President Eisenhower found batches of vegetable soup a cathartic ritual when the pressures built up...President Reagan loved jelly beans, hated tomatoes....and today's Tea Partiers, well judging from their piously contradictory oratory, they have a hankering for fruitcake!
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