While I have the rare energy, some random observations…
...Blame it all on Wall Street or Government regulators or on the criminal gang that ran our government for the last 8 years-- up until about 3 weeks ago…
The marauding Bush monster may have had its various heads chopped off, but a great deal of the huge, toxic body remains---embedded deep in the roots of the vast government bureaucracy, the court system, and the very philosophical and cultural assumptions and mechanisms of America.
The great tidal wave of corruption, greed, violence, imperious arrogance and contempt of everything decent can’t just sweep over a country and when its gone, leave that country clean as a whistle, ready to sprout clean new flowers… Such a tsunami of everything petty and vicious and insensate in human beings leaves nothing but a dripping, devastated ruin—i.e., the current financial plight of our country; reflected in abandoned houses, closed government offices, depleted food banks, endless unemployment insurance lines, sick hospitals and failing schools…
Yes, you could blame it all on the congressional oversight (now there’s a perfect word) committees, government regulators; the Bush administration, and the Wall Streeters… But we, and by we, I mean the larger American population and culture, are not hapless, innocent victims—mugged by criminals or run over by an out-of-control car… The bad actors at the top stood much too often on the ignorant and even willing shoulders of the American public…
Did Bush and Geithner, Paulson and Madoff, Cheney and Rove, Robert Rubin and all the rest, just stick a gun in faces and hold us up for our hard-earned money? Partially, yes—but a lot of Americans went out of their way to empty their own wallets, and not a bad guy in sight.
We have charged, spent, and consumed like a pack of ravening, insensate carnivores—Our houses and apartments are piled to the ceiling with shit and no one mysteriously dumped it there. It was feverishly acquired by a couple of hundred million people who are now holding their noses and wondering where the smell is coming from and why they don’t have any money to pay someone to clean up the mess...
…At this point, I’ll turn down the volume a little, because I’m raising my blood pressure and disturbing my sensitive stomach… But the point is, obviously, that, though we were headed in that direction for a while, America is still not a dictatorship where we were all forced at gunpoint to overspend and give control of our government to thieves and fools. Sure we were duped-- people betrayed our trust, but a great deal of our difficulties have to chalked up to our own lack of vigilance…
Of course, OF COURSE its hard just to live—just to get by in our own difficult daily lives—For that reason we elect people who are paid to protect our interests—to “oversee” the criminals who are always with us—to appoint people to regulate the systems that so easily can get out of control. We have to earn our livings and take care of ourselves and our families—just stay one step ahead of mortality.
Staying sane and safe and sometimes just getting by is a full-time job so we pay most of our taxes and we elect our mayors and governors and legislators— and pay the cops and the firefighters and sanitation workers to keep us safe and healthy. Same goes for the Federal Government—The executive branch, the courts, the congress—the armed Forces and the myriad agencies that are supposed to keep us from safe from the endless negligence and abuses the civil flesh is heir to.
But a lot of Americans forgot that the system requires us to be ever watchful, not to just elect people and let them run everything without checking to see if they’re doing their jobs…Its easy when the malefactors are so patently, clearly aggressive and deserve to be violently opposed… Bush, Cheney and Co. made it simple to see who the bad guys were—but we trusted too much in our Congress to do their jobs—to protect us against one branch of government when it metastasized… We trusted too much in Congress and they proved, if not venal themselves, hopelessly inadequate to the task of watching out for our rights.
From now on we have to watch them all very closely…take nothing for granted—not just cast our votes and turn our backs on our “leaders.” And this includes Mr. Obama. Just as one instance…. What has possessed this man—almost on a daily basis—to appoint to the highest positions of governmental power (especially financial power), some of the VERY SAME people who were responsible for the disasters we are facing now? Mr. Obama has already taken some wonderful steps to get our system back into democratic balance, but he’s also been very disappointing in many of his most important appointments to high office. And his positions on rendition, government secrecy and allowing banks to still act without real control are extremely disappointing—in some cases not differing much from the previous administration! Not to mention his disastrous policy of committing tens of thousands of more troops to Afghanistan—our possible next Vietnam.
I’m glad Mr. Obama is president—there was only one choice, obviously… But he needs to be less cautious, less trusting of the advice of people who got us into this money mess to begin with. And he needs to be less compromising toward Republicans in Congress who haven’t the slightest intention of helping him, or the country, or even their own constituents, pull out of the deep hole we’re in. One of the President’s great virtues is his forgiving and cooperative nature, but there is a time and place for everything—Now is not the time for so much reaching a hand across the aisle. When a dog keeps trying to bit your hand off, you need to stop petting it and keep moving. Even saintliness can lead to harm—if it doesn’t take the reality of people and place into account.
Let the Republicans filibluster. Let them jump up and down and yell till they’re hoarse—give childish sound-bite interviews on cable television… They will only succeed in making themselves look more worthless and ridiculous then they are now. These empty, self-aggrandizing opportunists only want one thing—to stay in power and keep getting elected by their sadly ignorant constituents. They are betting all they have left (and that’s not much) that Mr. Obama will fail and that they will pick up the electoral pieces after he does. They don’t care if even people in their own states and districts have no houses or jobs or medical care.
The lifeboat is out in a stormy sea and they refuse to pull together with others toward the safety of shore. They are a dead weight and need to be ignored, or maybe tossed overboard—not pampered and reasoned with while the boat is swamped and sinks beneath the waves…
And, finally, Mr. Obama needs to remember that he was elected by people who want to reverse the crimes and poisoned precedents of the Bush gang. To that end, he really needs to, for the sake of healing, seek out and prosecute the people who almost destroyed our constitution. He needs to get his attorney general to investigate Rove and Cheney and Bush and prove in court how they lied and stole and twisted our laws completely out-of-shape. If he doesn’t prosecute these people, he will be setting a precedent; its alright for the leaders of our government to destroy it from inside—the worst that will happen to them is that they will get to pout on their estates or luxury hotel rooms in Dubai.
Its as old as literature, religion and psychology: When you are lost in a dark wood in the middle of your life, you have to descend to the bottom circles of hell to see what has gone wrong, then make your way back up the light…And in all these things, there has to be a guide. In this case, Mr. Obama is our chosen guide… But he can’t lead us out of this wilderness without first cleaning the civic body of illness and parasites.
To end with a small, but related side-trip…
...So our entire society is dysfunctional—as if it were lying on a gurney in a hospital emergency room with all our organs almost collapsed. We need a complete review and a complete repair of our entire system—while taking a few serious emergency steps (The Stimulus plan—pale as it is) to keep us on life support while we try to rebuild the body and soul of our country.
Among the many things terribly misshapen in American life—that have caused this current sad state of affairs is the culture of celebrity—the Star System. From Alex Rodriguez to Obama (yes, you have to include him, despite his great assets. After all, you have to admit it was his star quality that helped get him elected); from Sarah Palin to Oprah...and all the high power Wall Street bonus babies in-between… All of this addiction to empty achievement and hollow values is powered by the tens of millions of people who buy ridiculous magazines about what movie stars buy on shopping sprees, and who watch TV shows where “news” anchors scream at guests during two minute interviews on major issues—or stare at shows where people eat worms or kill each other to win money or swap wives or whatever the fuck they’re doing this week).
Everything that happens in this country seems to be laid on top of a deep bed of mindless acquisitiveness and superficial striving; being the best at all costs... Last Survivor, Top Model, Best Chef, Best Politician, Sexiest, Strongest, Meanest, Richest—any humanly redeeming content on the way to the top being merely incidental—even considered an impediment to success.
“Nice guys finish last” has become the national motto.If you're not on the red carpet, you're in the gutter—there is no in-between anymore.
It was telling what happened in the Super bowl. An astounding, game-winning catch was made in the end-zone (sorry, I forgot the player's name)… When, later, they asked for his reaction, he said—to paraphrase him: "I always wanted to be a super-star and now I am..." His team winning came 2nd or 3rd in his list of achievements for the day... I know, I know— I'm beginning to sound like what I very well may be—an old fart reminiscing about the good old days when there were "real" values... Maybe I'm a conservative Republican at heart. But here's a question for you. Has any society or culture ever gone in reverse—returned to place where certain accepted norms and values worked better for the whole and not for some small group of stronger, faster, richer, flashier people?
America, with most of the rest of the world hooked on to it like a stuck barnacle, is on the Decrease, as the I Ching would probably point out...
Maybe, like they say in twelve-step programs (and I know this to be true in my own life) you have to hit bottom before you can start to live a clean life again.We were crazy in the Twenties, and then crashed in the Thirties. Ultimately, it took ten years of immense suffering, semi-socialism (which is fine with me) and, unfortunately, a world war, to get us out of that place... So we are heading toward a terrible bottom—and we can only pray that we don’t get destroyed when we hit the ground—that there is enough energy and enough resources left to restore the heart and mind and body of America…
As a last observation…
I see now, and it was entirely predictable, that the army is recruiting very heavily—immigrants, and shortly, no doubt, the already existing army of the unemployed...
Just a short glimpse at history will show us that in this behavior we are following in the boot steps of Rome and Nazi Germany. We might soon have an armed service that is 2 or 3 times the size it is now—and its already too large. The question is, what will we use if for? I hope its to build alternative energy plants, fix schools and highways and dams; clean up toxic waste dumps and abandoned parts of American cities—and not used to invade and occupy the rest of the world. We have a choice here—not to be Rome, not to be Germany in the Thirties and Forties… but to be, as Lincoln said, the better angels of our nature.
All comments are welcome…mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Veteran's Day--2008
So who pays any attention to Veteran's Day anymore? A hell of a lot of people, I'm guessing, in certain places in the country. But in Manhattan the other day, there weren’t many.
As in all things involving this giant beehive, "not many" is a relative term. The newspaper estimated that there were about 20,000 people at the parade, but didn't specify if that was the crowd, the marchers or both together.
In any case, I was on the East Side, hurrying as fast as my aged body would carry me, to the West side, to do a fill-in show for Lynn Samuels at Sirius… And I was worried that I'd be held up by the parade.
No worry. It was a sparse, not too lively crowd that lined Fifth Avenue—at least in the Forties where I was crossing. And the actual parade was thin, ragged and pathetic-looking.
To be fair, the largest and most enthusiastic crowds are usually higher up on Fifth Avenue where people come into the city specifically to see the parades... The area where I was is more filled with people on their way to appointments, or hurrying to or from lunch breaks from their jobs... But still, crowd analysis aside, the parade was the parade—and there just wasn't much going on there to cheer or ignore (or possibly frown on, if that's your feeling about it). I must have missed the high-school bands and the usual large contingents of cops and the firemen—not to mention the Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, and Airmen turned out to march. What I got a glimpse of was a couple of large rolling floats—partied-up trucks with some blind veterans from various wars and some men in their 80's—obviously from WW2.
I've seen a few parades since Vietnam and, depending on the mood of the country—and maybe the distance from the last war—they grow or shrink according to the complex feelings of the times. I remember the lowest, saddest ebb of the parade was probably a couple of years after Vietnam—in the mid-to-late Seventies, when the entire military was dismissed or at least disregarded, if not seen with outright disdain, by a huge number of citizens. I guess it was Reagan's fake movie-set "Morning in America" that re-pumped the country full of hot patriotic air. Then the parades beefed up and the crowds were bigger and noisier. I suppose, during the time that Bush has been in, and especially early in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq—bogus and futile as they these wars have turned out to be—that there was again that crazy, mindless swelling of "patriotism" and, probably, the parades and the crowds were bigger and had more swagger—just like Mr. Mission-Accomplished himself.
Of course, the enduring, disgusting irony of the whole situation is that The Swaggerer-in Chief and his vicious Vice-President both went out of their way or used illegal influence to avoid serving in Vietnam. Some patriots.
But, no matter... After 9/11, a fever gripped the country. And though it has left us debilitated and prostrate after all this time, for a couple of years after that awful day—"patriotism" (with a good dose of fear at its core) was crashing and stomping through the country again.
But, as usual, I digress...
When I was in my early-to-late twenties and the Vietnam War was in full, terrible bloom, I hated those parades. But even then, and certainly before and after that time, I’ve always had deeply bittersweet feelings about Veteran's and Memorial Day—and the parades.
First of all (until recently when I've gotten aged and crimped in my soul and can't stand any kind of loud noise), I always loved parades, especially the marching bands and martial music. I was crazy about the drums and the bagpipes; that thrilling sound and feeling of thumping big drums, the gut-rumbling, the heart-twisting vibrations of bagpipes, and the glinting blare of trumpets and rising trill of flutes...
I always wondered if women were moved the same way men were by these military bands and tunes... I doubt it. Women are, I think, more grounded, not easily led into some romantic and mindlessly violent enterprise by the sight and sound of military might.
Think of the movies where you see great armies crash into each other, accompanied by tribal shouts and screams, pounding drums and trumpets and pipes playing… A lot of men, me included, get heated up—there is a kind of elemental testosterone throb seeing and hearing all that stuff. Women generally know better—passing through the living-room with either a frown or a genial pat on the shoulder as they head toward some much more important task, like actually making sure there is food to eat or that the children haven't fallen out a window.
But... as I said, my feelings, since the horror and shame of Vietnam, have been bittersweet.
What's the “sweet” part? Well, I grew up in the Forties and Fifties (and the early Sixties before Vietnam)… Grew up, like almost every American I knew, in awe of the veterans from the World War 2. My neighborhood was filled with vets from the war and a lot of them combat veterans—like, for instance, my uncle who lived next door to me. He was on destroyer escort for 3 and 1/2 years—sailed all over the world. My neighbor on the other side, Mr. Schmidt, had been in the infantry in Europe—fought from D-day to the Battle of the Bulge—straight through to the end. On the Fourth of July, he'd take out his trusty M-1, oiled and polished, go into his backyard and fire off a few rounds for old-time's sake.Once he even let me fire the rifle. I was about 12 years old and even though he warned me to rest the butt up against my shoulder, I didn't— and the recoil practically knocked my skinny self down. I had a serious ache and a bruise all over my shoulder for two weeks after that. But I was so thrilled proud I got to fire the rifle—even got “wounded.” Those men were idolized by boys like me—all over the country, in every town and city (Yes, Governor Palin, even in the cities, we were patriotic!).
This awe, respect and outright idolization of these men and the country's proud accomplishments in saving the world in WW2 were part of the reason so many boys my age felt a burning need to fight the evil communists... And most of the real men of our fathers' generation said it was our duty to fight and defeat our country's enemies, just like they had defeated the Nazi's and the Japes twenty years before. Of course, times had changed (The Sixties had arrived) and a lot of us weren't so sure about fighting these strange little people in this little country on the other side of the world. Vietnam didn't seem very much like the third Reich or the Imperial Japanese Empire... Still, there was so much moral and familial pressure at the time to join up and, in a lot of cases, despite the need for a draft, to put on that uniform and fight for "freedom."
About a year or two into the war, everything began to turn—and then got worse as the war went on. And it wasn't just the draft. There was a draft in WW2 as well, but there you didn't have hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against the war or trying to evade the draft en masse. It was impossible, after a short while and with the simplest observation, not to notice the plain fact that we were more the Imperial Tyrants, and the Viet-Cong and North-Vietnamese were more the true revolutionaries defending their country (I put aside, for the sake of this essay, the brutal behavior of the Viet-Cong— Anyway, who am I to judge?).The Vietnam War was one of the most shameful times in America's history, and we’re talking about a history filled with (despite the country's great and shining moments) many great and shameful behaviors—both domestic and foreign.After that war the morale in the military and the whole country hit bottom. So many professional officers and non-commissioned officers had quit the Army and Navy that they were actually forced to advertise in newspaper's jobs sections for men to enroll.
And since that time, with only a couple of exceptions here and there—our military and tangent military ops-agencies like the CIA have shamed us even more… The great culmination being this horrible doomed war in Iraq, which has lasted longer than our involvement in WW2.
I was raised to love the country and even the flag itself as the symbol of our great freedom-loving Democracy. When I was eleven years old and a Boy Scout, I was even given the incredible honor of carrying the flag at the head of Laurelton's Memorial Day parade. I was a skinny little guy and they gave me this big leather strap with a thick leather cup to hold the flagpole. The cup hung right on top of my genitals and though I was bursting with pride at carrying the flag and being at the head of the parade, I was fearing mightily for the state of my privates... Yes, I was a coward and possibly possessed of traitorous sentiments even back then.
But here's the point... They didn't teach real history in school back in those days. We knew little about the horrors of slavery or what had happened to the American Indians. We knew next to nothing about America's raping and stealing overseas, especially in Central and South America and the Philippines... It wasn't till we got to college that we learned these things. And while our eyes and brains were being opened by the complexity of our history, new history of the worst sort was happening in our streets and in Vietnam.
As I say, from time to time, because we've stopped teaching history in this country and because Americans can be shallow, grandiose fools, "Patriotism" has risen up and the country has plunged into war again— with little thought to what we were doing to ourselves or to the poor victims of our Democratic fantasies.Now we are in Iraq and Afghanistan… Well, there are people in Afghanistan that need to be wiped out—they are zealots and murderers and are to be feared by most people in the world, not just the USA. But we may never actually catch them. If we do, we should kill them and get the hell out. Certainly in Iraq, we were wrong, are wrong and continue to be wrong every minute we are in that country. We need to get out—I'd say six months would be the upper limit of how long we should stay.
But still, there are veterans who joined up, left their families and risked their lives for something they were told was right (or, in some cases, because there was little else they were able to do because of personal problems, or they couldn’t find other work.) Whatever the reason, they were and are even now over in other countries risking their lives and putting other people’s lives at risk.
There will always be Veterans Day and Memorial Day— And marching bands; and drums and trumpets and flutes.. And flags flying.
What ought we to feel now? What do we owe these men—and now women—who have been tricked into going to war for us—or have gone into the military for some other reason not involving a false fantasy of patriotism?
We owe them medical and mental-health care— We owe them time and patience and understanding, and jobs, if there are any to be found to give them. But I think the parades should be, and, of a right, ought to be, thin and sparse and sad for a long time.
Its time to retreat from lording it over the rest of the world—time to repair ourselves at home. We are diminished now and we need to understand that. What's needed is a time of reflection and healing—within the borders of our own country. We still have plenty of awful weapons and a big enough army, navy and air force to defend ourselves if need be. But its time to have our men and women come back home...
They say home is where the heart is... If we're lucky, we haven't permanently wrecked our heart (and our home) by our greedy and violent behavior these past decades.
It's time to take off the ridiculous flag-pins, and roll up the giant flags at the sporting events—most of them are made in an Asian dictatorship anyway! It’s time to try to remember what our first, original war for freedom was all about—an aspiration to decency and equality—to allowing the best in all of us the space and freedom to grow.
We have elected a Black man President of the United States. The entire world, at least for the moment, seems to be dazzled by the possibilities and reality of our Democracy. It would our final shame, here and abroad, to waste this glorious shedding of God’s grace.
- Mike Feder (New York City - November 13, 2008
As in all things involving this giant beehive, "not many" is a relative term. The newspaper estimated that there were about 20,000 people at the parade, but didn't specify if that was the crowd, the marchers or both together.
In any case, I was on the East Side, hurrying as fast as my aged body would carry me, to the West side, to do a fill-in show for Lynn Samuels at Sirius… And I was worried that I'd be held up by the parade.
No worry. It was a sparse, not too lively crowd that lined Fifth Avenue—at least in the Forties where I was crossing. And the actual parade was thin, ragged and pathetic-looking.
To be fair, the largest and most enthusiastic crowds are usually higher up on Fifth Avenue where people come into the city specifically to see the parades... The area where I was is more filled with people on their way to appointments, or hurrying to or from lunch breaks from their jobs... But still, crowd analysis aside, the parade was the parade—and there just wasn't much going on there to cheer or ignore (or possibly frown on, if that's your feeling about it). I must have missed the high-school bands and the usual large contingents of cops and the firemen—not to mention the Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, and Airmen turned out to march. What I got a glimpse of was a couple of large rolling floats—partied-up trucks with some blind veterans from various wars and some men in their 80's—obviously from WW2.
I've seen a few parades since Vietnam and, depending on the mood of the country—and maybe the distance from the last war—they grow or shrink according to the complex feelings of the times. I remember the lowest, saddest ebb of the parade was probably a couple of years after Vietnam—in the mid-to-late Seventies, when the entire military was dismissed or at least disregarded, if not seen with outright disdain, by a huge number of citizens. I guess it was Reagan's fake movie-set "Morning in America" that re-pumped the country full of hot patriotic air. Then the parades beefed up and the crowds were bigger and noisier. I suppose, during the time that Bush has been in, and especially early in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq—bogus and futile as they these wars have turned out to be—that there was again that crazy, mindless swelling of "patriotism" and, probably, the parades and the crowds were bigger and had more swagger—just like Mr. Mission-Accomplished himself.
Of course, the enduring, disgusting irony of the whole situation is that The Swaggerer-in Chief and his vicious Vice-President both went out of their way or used illegal influence to avoid serving in Vietnam. Some patriots.
But, no matter... After 9/11, a fever gripped the country. And though it has left us debilitated and prostrate after all this time, for a couple of years after that awful day—"patriotism" (with a good dose of fear at its core) was crashing and stomping through the country again.
But, as usual, I digress...
When I was in my early-to-late twenties and the Vietnam War was in full, terrible bloom, I hated those parades. But even then, and certainly before and after that time, I’ve always had deeply bittersweet feelings about Veteran's and Memorial Day—and the parades.
First of all (until recently when I've gotten aged and crimped in my soul and can't stand any kind of loud noise), I always loved parades, especially the marching bands and martial music. I was crazy about the drums and the bagpipes; that thrilling sound and feeling of thumping big drums, the gut-rumbling, the heart-twisting vibrations of bagpipes, and the glinting blare of trumpets and rising trill of flutes...
I always wondered if women were moved the same way men were by these military bands and tunes... I doubt it. Women are, I think, more grounded, not easily led into some romantic and mindlessly violent enterprise by the sight and sound of military might.
Think of the movies where you see great armies crash into each other, accompanied by tribal shouts and screams, pounding drums and trumpets and pipes playing… A lot of men, me included, get heated up—there is a kind of elemental testosterone throb seeing and hearing all that stuff. Women generally know better—passing through the living-room with either a frown or a genial pat on the shoulder as they head toward some much more important task, like actually making sure there is food to eat or that the children haven't fallen out a window.
But... as I said, my feelings, since the horror and shame of Vietnam, have been bittersweet.
What's the “sweet” part? Well, I grew up in the Forties and Fifties (and the early Sixties before Vietnam)… Grew up, like almost every American I knew, in awe of the veterans from the World War 2. My neighborhood was filled with vets from the war and a lot of them combat veterans—like, for instance, my uncle who lived next door to me. He was on destroyer escort for 3 and 1/2 years—sailed all over the world. My neighbor on the other side, Mr. Schmidt, had been in the infantry in Europe—fought from D-day to the Battle of the Bulge—straight through to the end. On the Fourth of July, he'd take out his trusty M-1, oiled and polished, go into his backyard and fire off a few rounds for old-time's sake.Once he even let me fire the rifle. I was about 12 years old and even though he warned me to rest the butt up against my shoulder, I didn't— and the recoil practically knocked my skinny self down. I had a serious ache and a bruise all over my shoulder for two weeks after that. But I was so thrilled proud I got to fire the rifle—even got “wounded.” Those men were idolized by boys like me—all over the country, in every town and city (Yes, Governor Palin, even in the cities, we were patriotic!).
This awe, respect and outright idolization of these men and the country's proud accomplishments in saving the world in WW2 were part of the reason so many boys my age felt a burning need to fight the evil communists... And most of the real men of our fathers' generation said it was our duty to fight and defeat our country's enemies, just like they had defeated the Nazi's and the Japes twenty years before. Of course, times had changed (The Sixties had arrived) and a lot of us weren't so sure about fighting these strange little people in this little country on the other side of the world. Vietnam didn't seem very much like the third Reich or the Imperial Japanese Empire... Still, there was so much moral and familial pressure at the time to join up and, in a lot of cases, despite the need for a draft, to put on that uniform and fight for "freedom."
About a year or two into the war, everything began to turn—and then got worse as the war went on. And it wasn't just the draft. There was a draft in WW2 as well, but there you didn't have hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against the war or trying to evade the draft en masse. It was impossible, after a short while and with the simplest observation, not to notice the plain fact that we were more the Imperial Tyrants, and the Viet-Cong and North-Vietnamese were more the true revolutionaries defending their country (I put aside, for the sake of this essay, the brutal behavior of the Viet-Cong— Anyway, who am I to judge?).The Vietnam War was one of the most shameful times in America's history, and we’re talking about a history filled with (despite the country's great and shining moments) many great and shameful behaviors—both domestic and foreign.After that war the morale in the military and the whole country hit bottom. So many professional officers and non-commissioned officers had quit the Army and Navy that they were actually forced to advertise in newspaper's jobs sections for men to enroll.
And since that time, with only a couple of exceptions here and there—our military and tangent military ops-agencies like the CIA have shamed us even more… The great culmination being this horrible doomed war in Iraq, which has lasted longer than our involvement in WW2.
I was raised to love the country and even the flag itself as the symbol of our great freedom-loving Democracy. When I was eleven years old and a Boy Scout, I was even given the incredible honor of carrying the flag at the head of Laurelton's Memorial Day parade. I was a skinny little guy and they gave me this big leather strap with a thick leather cup to hold the flagpole. The cup hung right on top of my genitals and though I was bursting with pride at carrying the flag and being at the head of the parade, I was fearing mightily for the state of my privates... Yes, I was a coward and possibly possessed of traitorous sentiments even back then.
But here's the point... They didn't teach real history in school back in those days. We knew little about the horrors of slavery or what had happened to the American Indians. We knew next to nothing about America's raping and stealing overseas, especially in Central and South America and the Philippines... It wasn't till we got to college that we learned these things. And while our eyes and brains were being opened by the complexity of our history, new history of the worst sort was happening in our streets and in Vietnam.
As I say, from time to time, because we've stopped teaching history in this country and because Americans can be shallow, grandiose fools, "Patriotism" has risen up and the country has plunged into war again— with little thought to what we were doing to ourselves or to the poor victims of our Democratic fantasies.Now we are in Iraq and Afghanistan… Well, there are people in Afghanistan that need to be wiped out—they are zealots and murderers and are to be feared by most people in the world, not just the USA. But we may never actually catch them. If we do, we should kill them and get the hell out. Certainly in Iraq, we were wrong, are wrong and continue to be wrong every minute we are in that country. We need to get out—I'd say six months would be the upper limit of how long we should stay.
But still, there are veterans who joined up, left their families and risked their lives for something they were told was right (or, in some cases, because there was little else they were able to do because of personal problems, or they couldn’t find other work.) Whatever the reason, they were and are even now over in other countries risking their lives and putting other people’s lives at risk.
There will always be Veterans Day and Memorial Day— And marching bands; and drums and trumpets and flutes.. And flags flying.
What ought we to feel now? What do we owe these men—and now women—who have been tricked into going to war for us—or have gone into the military for some other reason not involving a false fantasy of patriotism?
We owe them medical and mental-health care— We owe them time and patience and understanding, and jobs, if there are any to be found to give them. But I think the parades should be, and, of a right, ought to be, thin and sparse and sad for a long time.
Its time to retreat from lording it over the rest of the world—time to repair ourselves at home. We are diminished now and we need to understand that. What's needed is a time of reflection and healing—within the borders of our own country. We still have plenty of awful weapons and a big enough army, navy and air force to defend ourselves if need be. But its time to have our men and women come back home...
They say home is where the heart is... If we're lucky, we haven't permanently wrecked our heart (and our home) by our greedy and violent behavior these past decades.
It's time to take off the ridiculous flag-pins, and roll up the giant flags at the sporting events—most of them are made in an Asian dictatorship anyway! It’s time to try to remember what our first, original war for freedom was all about—an aspiration to decency and equality—to allowing the best in all of us the space and freedom to grow.
We have elected a Black man President of the United States. The entire world, at least for the moment, seems to be dazzled by the possibilities and reality of our Democracy. It would our final shame, here and abroad, to waste this glorious shedding of God’s grace.
- Mike Feder (New York City - November 13, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Great and Sober Joy
Hello, Friends,
It is a historical moment, almost beyond comprehension, that Barack Obama is President elect and that he and his family will soon be living in the White House... A black man and his family presiding and residing in the "White" house.
What is in the minds and hearts of black Americans now, especially older black Americans, is beyond my white person's comprehension. However, from my point of view--having been born in the forties and grown up in the fifties, etc., this story, if it would have been written then, could have been published only in a fantasy and science fiction magazine; maybe Ray Bradbury would have written it.
I remember a great scene in Bradbury's Martian Chronicles-- a beautiful book-- that--once Mars had been found to be safe and relatively easy to get to for residents of Earth-- All the black people in the American South just packed up and left... They all left, quietly and calmly-- leaving amazed whites lined up alongside the roads, just staring at them in disbelief and an odd kind of bereavement. If, during the time Bradbury was writing, if you were an American black and you wanted to find someplace to go to escape racist misery, you had to go to Mars to find it--obviously Detroit and New York and Chicago weren't really far enough...
Anyway, here we are now... What comes next, who can tell? Mr. Obama, as seems only fitting for a minority (minority for now--in about three or four decades, whites will be the American minority), finally gets the top job in the country-- but he has to shoulder the heaviest Presidential burden in almost a hundred years-- What he is inheriting is right up there with Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Its not a precise historical comparison-- no two moments in history could be. We've never been in a Depression and two wars at the same time before... But its just as about as bad as it can be-- and will take not just the President-elect's great skills and endurance to pull us out of it, but massive amounts of luck, international change and maybe even God's grace...
Does Mr. Obama have the intellectual gifts and perseverance of Lincoln and Roosevelt to do what he has to do? It certaintly seems like he does. Now he will need as much help as a President has ever gotten from his country. Can he count on that? Well, we'll see. You can only hope that those who are enraged or at the very least disaffiliated by the the reality of this man as President, will finally see that it is in their own vital interest to cooperate with what he has to do to save this country.
And-- a smaller consideration... Now what happens to all the news and talk and political shows? They must, inevitably (and naturally) take a huge dip in audience. Its a funny thing-- being on the radio and having a political talk show--I can feel everybody out there taking a vacation-- maybe one that lasts a long time... And shows like Jon Stewart's-- it will be like Court TV after the O.J. Simpson trial.
There is a kind of empty feeling that accompanies the joy and hope that goes along with this finaly achievement of this great event .. The anti-climax-- like the dropping off people often feel after sex or a huge undertaking has been accomplished. But there is, along with the worry and doubt and fear, also a great feeling of relief that the criminals, murderers and theives who have almost ruined this country during the last 8 years are soon to be gone. If there is any justice, many of them should be indicted and convicted for crimes against America. But retribution does not seem to be in Mr. Obama's nature and I guess its right we try to follow suit...
A moment of joy-- sober joy, but amazed joy, that such a thing should happen in this country.
Mike
mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
It is a historical moment, almost beyond comprehension, that Barack Obama is President elect and that he and his family will soon be living in the White House... A black man and his family presiding and residing in the "White" house.
What is in the minds and hearts of black Americans now, especially older black Americans, is beyond my white person's comprehension. However, from my point of view--having been born in the forties and grown up in the fifties, etc., this story, if it would have been written then, could have been published only in a fantasy and science fiction magazine; maybe Ray Bradbury would have written it.
I remember a great scene in Bradbury's Martian Chronicles-- a beautiful book-- that--once Mars had been found to be safe and relatively easy to get to for residents of Earth-- All the black people in the American South just packed up and left... They all left, quietly and calmly-- leaving amazed whites lined up alongside the roads, just staring at them in disbelief and an odd kind of bereavement. If, during the time Bradbury was writing, if you were an American black and you wanted to find someplace to go to escape racist misery, you had to go to Mars to find it--obviously Detroit and New York and Chicago weren't really far enough...
Anyway, here we are now... What comes next, who can tell? Mr. Obama, as seems only fitting for a minority (minority for now--in about three or four decades, whites will be the American minority), finally gets the top job in the country-- but he has to shoulder the heaviest Presidential burden in almost a hundred years-- What he is inheriting is right up there with Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Its not a precise historical comparison-- no two moments in history could be. We've never been in a Depression and two wars at the same time before... But its just as about as bad as it can be-- and will take not just the President-elect's great skills and endurance to pull us out of it, but massive amounts of luck, international change and maybe even God's grace...
Does Mr. Obama have the intellectual gifts and perseverance of Lincoln and Roosevelt to do what he has to do? It certaintly seems like he does. Now he will need as much help as a President has ever gotten from his country. Can he count on that? Well, we'll see. You can only hope that those who are enraged or at the very least disaffiliated by the the reality of this man as President, will finally see that it is in their own vital interest to cooperate with what he has to do to save this country.
And-- a smaller consideration... Now what happens to all the news and talk and political shows? They must, inevitably (and naturally) take a huge dip in audience. Its a funny thing-- being on the radio and having a political talk show--I can feel everybody out there taking a vacation-- maybe one that lasts a long time... And shows like Jon Stewart's-- it will be like Court TV after the O.J. Simpson trial.
There is a kind of empty feeling that accompanies the joy and hope that goes along with this finaly achievement of this great event .. The anti-climax-- like the dropping off people often feel after sex or a huge undertaking has been accomplished. But there is, along with the worry and doubt and fear, also a great feeling of relief that the criminals, murderers and theives who have almost ruined this country during the last 8 years are soon to be gone. If there is any justice, many of them should be indicted and convicted for crimes against America. But retribution does not seem to be in Mr. Obama's nature and I guess its right we try to follow suit...
A moment of joy-- sober joy, but amazed joy, that such a thing should happen in this country.
Mike
mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
Friday, October 31, 2008
Boo!
I'd say "Happy Halloween" but that would be, according to strict religious teaching, blasphemous... so, with that in mind... "Happy Halloween!"
When I was growing up I used to feel (with substanial reasons to back up my feelings), that demons and witches et. al., were real-- they posed an imminent threat to my life. This was partially due to the fact that my mother often looked and acted like a crazed, evil witch right out of the worst fairy-tale or ghost story. And this unfortunate circumstance was re-enforced by growing up next to a good sized cemetery...
Day and night--especially night--from my second-story bedroom window in the back of my house, I'd have a panoramic view of hundreds of graves, headstones, numerous dark starlings, crows, and various other creatures that inhabited the cemetery. And, no more than hundred yards or so away, directly in my line of sight, there was a very large, very dark tree, that never seemed to have any leaves on it--even in the spring and summer. I could easily be mis-remembering this, but that's how it seemed to me at the time. So, even though this great old tree could have been flourishing; replete with big green, then, later, red, orange and yellow leaves, I only remember the tree as black and leaf-less, with several big black crows eternally perched in its branches; or landing or taking off on some carrion mission.
So... scary--very scary-- Because of her words and deeds, my poor, demented mother inside, and the cemetery outside. The fear I absorbed from those endless days and nights is still in my bones...
But, when I got older--14, 15 and so on, the cemetery, during the day-time, especially when it was warm and sunny, often filled me with a kind of peace and tranquility. The less I believed in the reality of demons, ghosts and witches, the more harmless and even benevolent the light-gray granite headstones seemed to be-- Beloved Uncle, Beloved Father, Mother...
The sun glinted off the tombstones, the grass waved in the breeze and the old tree seemed protective and sheltering--guarding everything and everyone with its huge, strong prescence. I saw cardinals, bluejays, sparrows, robins, starlings... Even the crows seemed to lose their nefarious aura... There were white and brown rabbits aplenty in the cemetery and I watched them browsing or hopping around...
Sometimes, to escape the lunacy of my mother (and the danger of my own extreme feelings about her--talk about demons!), I'd actually go into the cemetery-- through a hole I'd cut in the high chain-link fence that separated the cemetery from our yard.. I'd walk around there, enjoying the silence and quiet-- I remember one time, escaping from the yelling and threats in house-- going into the cemetery one Sunday mid-afternoon, finding a fairly new grave and lying down, my head propped up against the stone--which was warm from the sun... I believe is was Beloved Uncle--don't remember the man's name... I drifted off into the most peaceful doze; only waking when I heard the engine of the cemetery maintainence truck headed my way... Didn't want to be arrested for frequenting a graveyard without a license, so I headed back, under the hole in the fence, into my own backyard...
Now, older; even, alas, OLD, and facing the realness of my own (and other people's) mortality, I realize, as I have for a long time now-- that the real demons are, of course, in my own head... Well, not all in there of course-- There's always Dick Cheney, Osama Bin-Laden, Sarah Palin and the like--they are scarier than any Grimm's witch or devil could ever be. So, if there's an excorsism, it has to be of what lurks and threatens your own, inner landscape... and, of course, trying to eliminate or at least subdue the actual demons (see above) by voting this coming Tuesday.
Jesus said, "The poor are always with us." True, and so are the witches and the demons... The war is eternal--the ways of combat are many-- from awareness to acceptance, to forgiveness-- and the occasional religious ritual for really stubborn entities... And, of course, using our vote.
Its supposed to be a positive expression of Democracy-- the right to vote; choosing the candidate of your choice. But so often, in the last few decades, its seemed to be the lesser of two evils. Anyway, there are a great many external demons to be dealt with now-- I hope that by Wednesday, absent all the various Republican attempts to steal the election, we will have excorsized at at least few demons...
I know-- this was a strange mix of personal and political ramblings; but that's what happens when you're possessed-- your reason wobbles...
Anyway, Happy Halloween and lets pray to the more benevolent spirits in the Universe that, come next Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, we can sleep a little sounder in our beds-- knowing we have a few of the worst haunters on the run...
Mike
mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
When I was growing up I used to feel (with substanial reasons to back up my feelings), that demons and witches et. al., were real-- they posed an imminent threat to my life. This was partially due to the fact that my mother often looked and acted like a crazed, evil witch right out of the worst fairy-tale or ghost story. And this unfortunate circumstance was re-enforced by growing up next to a good sized cemetery...
Day and night--especially night--from my second-story bedroom window in the back of my house, I'd have a panoramic view of hundreds of graves, headstones, numerous dark starlings, crows, and various other creatures that inhabited the cemetery. And, no more than hundred yards or so away, directly in my line of sight, there was a very large, very dark tree, that never seemed to have any leaves on it--even in the spring and summer. I could easily be mis-remembering this, but that's how it seemed to me at the time. So, even though this great old tree could have been flourishing; replete with big green, then, later, red, orange and yellow leaves, I only remember the tree as black and leaf-less, with several big black crows eternally perched in its branches; or landing or taking off on some carrion mission.
So... scary--very scary-- Because of her words and deeds, my poor, demented mother inside, and the cemetery outside. The fear I absorbed from those endless days and nights is still in my bones...
But, when I got older--14, 15 and so on, the cemetery, during the day-time, especially when it was warm and sunny, often filled me with a kind of peace and tranquility. The less I believed in the reality of demons, ghosts and witches, the more harmless and even benevolent the light-gray granite headstones seemed to be-- Beloved Uncle, Beloved Father, Mother...
The sun glinted off the tombstones, the grass waved in the breeze and the old tree seemed protective and sheltering--guarding everything and everyone with its huge, strong prescence. I saw cardinals, bluejays, sparrows, robins, starlings... Even the crows seemed to lose their nefarious aura... There were white and brown rabbits aplenty in the cemetery and I watched them browsing or hopping around...
Sometimes, to escape the lunacy of my mother (and the danger of my own extreme feelings about her--talk about demons!), I'd actually go into the cemetery-- through a hole I'd cut in the high chain-link fence that separated the cemetery from our yard.. I'd walk around there, enjoying the silence and quiet-- I remember one time, escaping from the yelling and threats in house-- going into the cemetery one Sunday mid-afternoon, finding a fairly new grave and lying down, my head propped up against the stone--which was warm from the sun... I believe is was Beloved Uncle--don't remember the man's name... I drifted off into the most peaceful doze; only waking when I heard the engine of the cemetery maintainence truck headed my way... Didn't want to be arrested for frequenting a graveyard without a license, so I headed back, under the hole in the fence, into my own backyard...
Now, older; even, alas, OLD, and facing the realness of my own (and other people's) mortality, I realize, as I have for a long time now-- that the real demons are, of course, in my own head... Well, not all in there of course-- There's always Dick Cheney, Osama Bin-Laden, Sarah Palin and the like--they are scarier than any Grimm's witch or devil could ever be. So, if there's an excorsism, it has to be of what lurks and threatens your own, inner landscape... and, of course, trying to eliminate or at least subdue the actual demons (see above) by voting this coming Tuesday.
Jesus said, "The poor are always with us." True, and so are the witches and the demons... The war is eternal--the ways of combat are many-- from awareness to acceptance, to forgiveness-- and the occasional religious ritual for really stubborn entities... And, of course, using our vote.
Its supposed to be a positive expression of Democracy-- the right to vote; choosing the candidate of your choice. But so often, in the last few decades, its seemed to be the lesser of two evils. Anyway, there are a great many external demons to be dealt with now-- I hope that by Wednesday, absent all the various Republican attempts to steal the election, we will have excorsized at at least few demons...
I know-- this was a strange mix of personal and political ramblings; but that's what happens when you're possessed-- your reason wobbles...
Anyway, Happy Halloween and lets pray to the more benevolent spirits in the Universe that, come next Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, we can sleep a little sounder in our beds-- knowing we have a few of the worst haunters on the run...
Mike
mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
Monday, October 27, 2008
LiberalLand
My Friends (as John McCain might--and does--say over and over again)...
The area I live in (The Upper West Side of Manhattan) is so famously liberal that its nickname for a long time, was "The Upper Left Side". If McCain and his partner received one percent of the vote here it would either be machine malfunction or voter fraud.
That said, there are two very small groups up in my area that might vote for McCain...One is comprised of a couple of hundred older (average age about 80) Jews for whom Israel is everything. They just don't believe John McCain will interfere with social security or medicare etc. (though they are dead wrong) and they do believe that Obama is soft on the Palestinians and the Arabs. As far as they are concerned, the only good Arab (especially Palestinians) is one that is either gone entirely, or relocated to the moon.
These are people who lived through the Holocaust--some of them literally--some of them seeing their entire European extended families murdered... To them, Israel is everything. As I said, they don't see that McCain will ruin what little is left of their benefits and the laws that support them. And they are convinced that Obama wants to actually SPEAK these Muslim lunatics who want to have their own country! ...I guess they're right. Obama probably would speak to them. Thank God, somebody will start talking and not just shoot anybody who disagrees with this country--or its allies.
But even these people, and I know them pretty well, are wobbling on McCain because of... You Betcha! Sarah Palin. Even these old folks, with their prejudices, cannot stand that woman. She is the demented, ranting Christian of their old nightmares (and their all too real memories).
When this group considers Obama, that means that tens of thousands more like them in Florida might also be considering Obama too--and maybe for the same reason.
The other small group up where I live that might throw a thousand or so votes to McCain are the young bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers and real estate developers that have, in the last 10 years, more or less destroyed many old neighborhoods that used to thrive on The Upper West Side...
Despite all the crashing of markets, a lot of these people are still well off--even wealthy. And they smell higher taxes with Obama--maybe even (GASP!) REGULATIONS on their businesses!!!
But, aside from these two groups, thats about it for any election contemplation where I live. Its a pretty done deal. This neighborhood is the opposite of battleground state.
Mike mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
The area I live in (The Upper West Side of Manhattan) is so famously liberal that its nickname for a long time, was "The Upper Left Side". If McCain and his partner received one percent of the vote here it would either be machine malfunction or voter fraud.
That said, there are two very small groups up in my area that might vote for McCain...One is comprised of a couple of hundred older (average age about 80) Jews for whom Israel is everything. They just don't believe John McCain will interfere with social security or medicare etc. (though they are dead wrong) and they do believe that Obama is soft on the Palestinians and the Arabs. As far as they are concerned, the only good Arab (especially Palestinians) is one that is either gone entirely, or relocated to the moon.
These are people who lived through the Holocaust--some of them literally--some of them seeing their entire European extended families murdered... To them, Israel is everything. As I said, they don't see that McCain will ruin what little is left of their benefits and the laws that support them. And they are convinced that Obama wants to actually SPEAK these Muslim lunatics who want to have their own country! ...I guess they're right. Obama probably would speak to them. Thank God, somebody will start talking and not just shoot anybody who disagrees with this country--or its allies.
But even these people, and I know them pretty well, are wobbling on McCain because of... You Betcha! Sarah Palin. Even these old folks, with their prejudices, cannot stand that woman. She is the demented, ranting Christian of their old nightmares (and their all too real memories).
When this group considers Obama, that means that tens of thousands more like them in Florida might also be considering Obama too--and maybe for the same reason.
The other small group up where I live that might throw a thousand or so votes to McCain are the young bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers and real estate developers that have, in the last 10 years, more or less destroyed many old neighborhoods that used to thrive on The Upper West Side...
Despite all the crashing of markets, a lot of these people are still well off--even wealthy. And they smell higher taxes with Obama--maybe even (GASP!) REGULATIONS on their businesses!!!
But, aside from these two groups, thats about it for any election contemplation where I live. Its a pretty done deal. This neighborhood is the opposite of battleground state.
Mike mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The Empress's New Clothes
I wanted you know that, in order to keep up with the current political campaigns--especially the Republican campaign-- I have persuaded Sirius Radio to set up a $150,000 dollar tab at Neiman Marcus and Brooks Brothers... The great rigors and variables of this long, hard campaign require clothes that are stylish, well-made and suited to every part of the country where campaigning takes place... True, I only sit in a radio studio in mid-town Manhattan and nobody ever sees me when I talk except my engineer. But these are minor details--the kind, in fact, with which only anti-Americans would find fault.
With my new wardrobe (which I will donate to charity after the election), I feel much better equipped to handle anything the campaign might throw at me...
Now that I've had my joke, I actually don't find it so terribly outrageous that Sarah Palin (and, probably, her husband and baby) were given all that money for new clothes by the Republican National Committee. She is, by far, (certainly compared to McCain) the least wealthy one in the President/VP race. The other guys all have a lot of expensive coats, suits, ties, shirts and shoes. So, let poor little hockey mom get dressed up already! In the context of obscence amounts of money "required" these days for campaigning and the real fact that she comes from a relatively frozen place, she probably should have a whole lot of new clothes.
If she had a few heavy coats, ski-jackets, boots, a couple of governor-type suits... well, that is definitely not going to work in Florida, New Mexico, etc. etc. Also, America is sodden to the bone with the culture of celebrity and mere looks. Haven't the Republicans pointed that out about their opponent, Mr. GQ Hussein Obama? Its simply intelligent and culture- appropriate for the Repubs. to buy her a lot of fancy, well-tailored stuff... Obviously the amount is probably about $75,000 too high (that's judging by my middle-class standards) And, of course, the real hypocrisy--in a Republican campaign that has scaled the highest peaks of hypocrisy-- is that Ms. Palin never shuts up about "the little guy", the small-town kinda folks--the ones who shop in Walmart and can hardly dress their kids for the cold weather-- REAL Americans.... So, she makes these phony, faux-emotional speeches about her understanding and being one of the great mass of small-town, struggling voters while she is now wearing $3,000 dollars suits and $600 dollar tailored leather jackets.
And I say, let her keep the clothes. She's really only playing a game show called: "Maybe You Can Be Vice-President!" On other game shows, if you get close and don't win, at least you get to keep some of the other prizes...
Mike mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
With my new wardrobe (which I will donate to charity after the election), I feel much better equipped to handle anything the campaign might throw at me...
Now that I've had my joke, I actually don't find it so terribly outrageous that Sarah Palin (and, probably, her husband and baby) were given all that money for new clothes by the Republican National Committee. She is, by far, (certainly compared to McCain) the least wealthy one in the President/VP race. The other guys all have a lot of expensive coats, suits, ties, shirts and shoes. So, let poor little hockey mom get dressed up already! In the context of obscence amounts of money "required" these days for campaigning and the real fact that she comes from a relatively frozen place, she probably should have a whole lot of new clothes.
If she had a few heavy coats, ski-jackets, boots, a couple of governor-type suits... well, that is definitely not going to work in Florida, New Mexico, etc. etc. Also, America is sodden to the bone with the culture of celebrity and mere looks. Haven't the Republicans pointed that out about their opponent, Mr. GQ Hussein Obama? Its simply intelligent and culture- appropriate for the Repubs. to buy her a lot of fancy, well-tailored stuff... Obviously the amount is probably about $75,000 too high (that's judging by my middle-class standards) And, of course, the real hypocrisy--in a Republican campaign that has scaled the highest peaks of hypocrisy-- is that Ms. Palin never shuts up about "the little guy", the small-town kinda folks--the ones who shop in Walmart and can hardly dress their kids for the cold weather-- REAL Americans.... So, she makes these phony, faux-emotional speeches about her understanding and being one of the great mass of small-town, struggling voters while she is now wearing $3,000 dollars suits and $600 dollar tailored leather jackets.
And I say, let her keep the clothes. She's really only playing a game show called: "Maybe You Can Be Vice-President!" On other game shows, if you get close and don't win, at least you get to keep some of the other prizes...
Mike mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Building Blog
Hi,
I wanted to ask everyone if they could, if they have the interest, to refer other people to this blog.. I'm trying to figure out ways to build it...
Also, don't forget to check out my last post on America's light-speed cultural devolution...
Thanks,
Mike
I wanted to ask everyone if they could, if they have the interest, to refer other people to this blog.. I'm trying to figure out ways to build it...
Also, don't forget to check out my last post on America's light-speed cultural devolution...
Thanks,
Mike
Friday, October 17, 2008
No-Brainer
So, the last debate has come and gone. And like all things that go now, it goes fast... hurtling rapidly into to the forgotten archives of the past... That it, after its replayed a thousand times the next day until you could die of boredom watching the news... But after a day goes by, an event or a speech, no matter how shocking or momentous, is OLD...
There are 20 million blogs, fifty million instant messages--flying text and graphics appearing every second everywhere... Not to mention a thousand interviews and moving ribbons and split screens. Twenty-four/Seven news channels eat human emotion, thought and experience like a gang of starving sharks...
Breaking News!!
What happened?
Oh, did you miss it?
Yeah, what happened?
I don't know anymore--it happened two minutes ago...
Oh..
Wait!! More Breaking News!!
What? Where? I looked away for a second.
Too bad, it’s gone now.
What's gone?
I don't know, but it was REALLY IMPORTANT.
This insane pace of experience and information--and the electronic reporting of it--has corrupted the very structure of discussions and the delivery of information. That's why I regret so much the dying of newspapers... The information just sits there and you can regulate the way you take it in... You can actually lay the paper down, or pause to reflect on the meaning of something you read… Perhaps it will set off a series of feelings, thoughts and images; something original, creative and inspiring occurring in your brain...
The speed and the style of delivery has completely taken over the content of the information delivered.
News and information has to have moving pictures and be really short. Otherwise the modern brain, fragmented and hopped up on constant adrenaline couldn't even understand it. You could get rich as a pitcher in baseball if you could figure out a way to throw fifty miles an hour... The hitters would go nuts, swing at each pitch twelve times, then either have a breakdown or fall asleep.
Every news or interview show (I guess there are a couple of exceptions and of course there are commercials that cut into the time) is chopped up into little quick bites of speech... When you listen to even intelligent, well educated and/or reflective individuals, they talk--and are required to talk by their fast-talking hosts--as if someone had pressed a fast-forward button in their brains--set their mouths to moving at twice normal speed.
And what goes along with all this crazy speed and chopped, superficial talk, is the pitch of people's voices...
Everybody on TV YELLS! All the time, as if they were all outside on the street, trying to talk above traffic, rather than sitting in a closed studio.
I regret this too-- because with fewer guests, less speed and quieter voices, you would probably hear something that you could really digest and form a group of thoughts and feelings around...
Listening to news and interview shows on TV and reading stuff on the Net (Posted 12 minutes ago!) is like being on greased slide-- You feel a crazy urgency to gulp it down without even knowing half the time what you're eating...
I know, all of this is partially because I'm just old... Things always go "too fast" if you're old... But it’s not all that-- There really is a clear speeding up of all information everywhere... and anything that is sped up sacrifices nuance, depth and width...
I remember my father coming over for one his rare visits when I was little… I was very disturbed kid--anxious and jumpy all the time; I couldn't concentrate on my homework.
So my mother tells my father: "He can't do his homework right or learn things in school because he goes to fast and is too jumpy."
My father comes upstairs to my room in the finished attic... He takes a sheet of lined paper from my school notebook, draws a small solid circle in the center of the paper and hands me the pencil...
He takes the paper and puts it up with a thumbtack on the opposite wall...
"OK," he says, handing me the sharpened pencil, "Run across the room and stick the pencil in the circle."
Looking at him as the total crazy stranger that he was to me, I did as he said-- Jumped up, ran across the room and jabbed for the circle... Naturally I missed it by about three inches.
"OK, now," he says, "Get up, walk slowly across the room, and stick the pencil point in the circle." So I do—I walk slowly over to the paper and, sure enough, was able to stick the point right in the circle.
"You see," he says, "That's how you need to do your school-work, just slow down and you'll get it right."
Great advice (never-mind it was his fault and my mother's that I was nervous wreck to begin with-- that's another story).
…But that was an old tale from an old man... You read it over one minute ago and probably forgot it already...
I remember--and this was around twenty years ago… A friend of mine on a major commercial talk station in NYC persuaded her program director to listen to a tape of one of my shows (that I did on a non-commercial station); the idea being maybe getting a show on the commercial station.
The Program director listened to it, said I was great but had two faults that disqualified me from getting the job. One was that I was too concerned with presenting a balanced view of issues and the other was that I let the callers talk too long (more than a minute per call).
I remember in one of Spalding Gray's monologues… He didn't get a job on a sit-com because, after doing several takes, the director said--shaking his head ruefully-- "Looking through the camera, Spalding, I see a problem... You seem to have a quality of.. thinking..."
Yeah, the world, even the electronic news world, is full of brilliant people and complex and ironic thinkers-- I watch Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow and I admire their thoughts and opinions... I just wish everyone on TV and, often, on the radio, would just slow down and speak more softly...
This was just posted 1 minute ago...
Mike
mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
There are 20 million blogs, fifty million instant messages--flying text and graphics appearing every second everywhere... Not to mention a thousand interviews and moving ribbons and split screens. Twenty-four/Seven news channels eat human emotion, thought and experience like a gang of starving sharks...
Breaking News!!
What happened?
Oh, did you miss it?
Yeah, what happened?
I don't know anymore--it happened two minutes ago...
Oh..
Wait!! More Breaking News!!
What? Where? I looked away for a second.
Too bad, it’s gone now.
What's gone?
I don't know, but it was REALLY IMPORTANT.
This insane pace of experience and information--and the electronic reporting of it--has corrupted the very structure of discussions and the delivery of information. That's why I regret so much the dying of newspapers... The information just sits there and you can regulate the way you take it in... You can actually lay the paper down, or pause to reflect on the meaning of something you read… Perhaps it will set off a series of feelings, thoughts and images; something original, creative and inspiring occurring in your brain...
The speed and the style of delivery has completely taken over the content of the information delivered.
News and information has to have moving pictures and be really short. Otherwise the modern brain, fragmented and hopped up on constant adrenaline couldn't even understand it. You could get rich as a pitcher in baseball if you could figure out a way to throw fifty miles an hour... The hitters would go nuts, swing at each pitch twelve times, then either have a breakdown or fall asleep.
Every news or interview show (I guess there are a couple of exceptions and of course there are commercials that cut into the time) is chopped up into little quick bites of speech... When you listen to even intelligent, well educated and/or reflective individuals, they talk--and are required to talk by their fast-talking hosts--as if someone had pressed a fast-forward button in their brains--set their mouths to moving at twice normal speed.
And what goes along with all this crazy speed and chopped, superficial talk, is the pitch of people's voices...
Everybody on TV YELLS! All the time, as if they were all outside on the street, trying to talk above traffic, rather than sitting in a closed studio.
I regret this too-- because with fewer guests, less speed and quieter voices, you would probably hear something that you could really digest and form a group of thoughts and feelings around...
Listening to news and interview shows on TV and reading stuff on the Net (Posted 12 minutes ago!) is like being on greased slide-- You feel a crazy urgency to gulp it down without even knowing half the time what you're eating...
I know, all of this is partially because I'm just old... Things always go "too fast" if you're old... But it’s not all that-- There really is a clear speeding up of all information everywhere... and anything that is sped up sacrifices nuance, depth and width...
I remember my father coming over for one his rare visits when I was little… I was very disturbed kid--anxious and jumpy all the time; I couldn't concentrate on my homework.
So my mother tells my father: "He can't do his homework right or learn things in school because he goes to fast and is too jumpy."
My father comes upstairs to my room in the finished attic... He takes a sheet of lined paper from my school notebook, draws a small solid circle in the center of the paper and hands me the pencil...
He takes the paper and puts it up with a thumbtack on the opposite wall...
"OK," he says, handing me the sharpened pencil, "Run across the room and stick the pencil in the circle."
Looking at him as the total crazy stranger that he was to me, I did as he said-- Jumped up, ran across the room and jabbed for the circle... Naturally I missed it by about three inches.
"OK, now," he says, "Get up, walk slowly across the room, and stick the pencil point in the circle." So I do—I walk slowly over to the paper and, sure enough, was able to stick the point right in the circle.
"You see," he says, "That's how you need to do your school-work, just slow down and you'll get it right."
Great advice (never-mind it was his fault and my mother's that I was nervous wreck to begin with-- that's another story).
…But that was an old tale from an old man... You read it over one minute ago and probably forgot it already...
I remember--and this was around twenty years ago… A friend of mine on a major commercial talk station in NYC persuaded her program director to listen to a tape of one of my shows (that I did on a non-commercial station); the idea being maybe getting a show on the commercial station.
The Program director listened to it, said I was great but had two faults that disqualified me from getting the job. One was that I was too concerned with presenting a balanced view of issues and the other was that I let the callers talk too long (more than a minute per call).
I remember in one of Spalding Gray's monologues… He didn't get a job on a sit-com because, after doing several takes, the director said--shaking his head ruefully-- "Looking through the camera, Spalding, I see a problem... You seem to have a quality of.. thinking..."
Yeah, the world, even the electronic news world, is full of brilliant people and complex and ironic thinkers-- I watch Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow and I admire their thoughts and opinions... I just wish everyone on TV and, often, on the radio, would just slow down and speak more softly...
This was just posted 1 minute ago...
Mike
mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Radio Show 10/11
Taking calls from listeners (as usual) and I get a call from a man...
On the phone-call monitor in front of me, my engineer, who took the call, has typed in that the caller has identified himself as Bob and that he's calling from Idaho--but he could be Anybody from Anywhere... A lot of the callers are truckers or people in cars so they will sometimes identify themselves by their home state but might be anywhere in the country when they're calling on their cell phones. I often get calls from some trucker who is listed as calling from Texas but is currently rolling through Indiana hauling a load of appliances or dog food or plastic bags...They don't much care what they're pulling--its just something that gets picked up, hauled across half the country and delivered.
Some calls I can recognize by the area code (whenever someone calls any radio show these days their phone appears on the screen by area code and phone number-- Once people became aware of this, it cut down quite a bit on prank and outright bigoted, cursing phone calls).
But I digress... So, there I have on the phone, Bob from Idaho-- and not to be doing a kind of racial profiling here-- I can tell right away from his accent and tone and the rhythym of his speech, that I am dealing with someone very dense and probalby very conservative...
Used to be, when I first got to Sirius and took calls from all over the country, that I had to adjust my classic New York City bigoted attitude toward anybody with pronounced Southern or Southwestern accent.
Prior to going on Sirius, I had spent 25 years on a local New York City station--WBAI-FM-- where almost every caller had been from New York City, with a few from Jersey and Long Island... Not that I didn't get my share of idiotic callers and outright loons but, on the whole, the calls I got were mostly from people where pretty well educated or least knowledgable about the subject they were calling on... Growing up in New York City and having traveled a bit around the country (including down South and out West) I had gotten and retained a definite contempt for the intelligence and knowledge of Southerners and Southwesterners... But looking back on it all now, I can safely say that, having done more traveling, especially up to the NorthEast, and recalling my days in New York among all sorts of religious, ethnic and racial groups, that stupidity and bigotry is pretty evenly spread out across the country...
Hoever, having said that, I will say, that in a city like New York, with about fifty different languages and dialects spoken and every different color and religion and sect is represented, that people tend to make room for each other-- They get along pretty well--plain civilization and simple spatial accomadation require it.
You even tend, being so constantly exposed to so many different kinds of people, to develope acquaintances, friendships among otherwise very different groups of people, or, at the very least, there developes in many New Yorkers, a certain wearing away of bigotry...
Its really when you go to place where the population is almostly completely homogeneous that you run into a kind of mental (if not actual) inbreeding.
Lately we've seen this most markedly and frighteningly represented at the rallies for Sarah Palin and John McCain... When you show up at a place where everyone is white, and either lower-middle or middle-class; very conservative and, more likely than not, less educated/informed than the average American, you're going to get more outright bigotry expressed than at a typical Obama-Biden rally--where you get a much broader deeper mix of people...
Of course, you also have to fan the flames with outright demagogic rhetorick Like "Obama pals around with terrorists!" or have a fully uniformed white Florida sherrif, who, while introducing Palin, talk about Barack HUSSEIN Obama.. So, in the end, what you get is what you got this past Saturday--where some poor, frightened, deeply ignorant woman in Minnesota got up from the audience for McCain, took the hand-held microphone and said she was afraid because he (Obama) was an Arab... (an Arab! Oh God and Jesus defend us--call the 101st Airborne!).
McCain, after spending a couple of weeks (along with his scary sidekick, Palin, telling everyone who listened to him, that Obama was, in essence, a terrorist, finally had to take the microphone out this woman's hands and say: "No M'am, he's not an Arab-- he's an American and decent family man..."
Poor old John McCain, his sense of honor and his ambition have met in a head-on crash inside his heart and brain and caused him to fragment completely...
So he himself, and his pit-bull assistant and his campaign managers and the Republican National Committee have been calling Obama a terrorist and foreigner etc. etc. for a couple of weeks now---And then, when stupid, vicious mobs at rallies start calling for Obama to be killed and, incidentally, booing the press and using the word "nigger" when referring to a black camera-man for one of the TV networks, McCain has to backpeddle and tell the crowd (who booed him for saying it!) that Obama needs to be respected...
First you stand up in a crowded theater and scream fire, then condemn everyone for running out and trampling innocent people...
The very next day, Saturday, both McCain and Palin have switched to issues, like abortion, etc. (lying completely of course, but what else can you expect)--and taking a break-who knows for how long--from Bill Ayers and this shameful stuff about terrorism...
But wait! I digressed again...
So, Bob from Idaho calls and he has this thick, slow, dumb tone to his voice and he proceeds to tell me how scary Obama was because he's not an American and he's a Muslim and he's a terrorist and his ex-pastor, Reverend Wright, hates America, etc. etc.-- One dumb piece of drivel after another... (Being tired after 2 and 1/2 hours on the air, I didn't even think to call the guy on the most obvious stupidity in his little deck of cards-- That Obama was "a Muslim" and his pastor, Reverend Wright hated America... How could Obama be a Muslim and have a Christian pastor... Oh well, who care?
Anyway, I tried to very calm and factual and patient with Bob-- Telling, with each wrong fact he utttered, that it WAS wrong, and the opposite was the case--
I asked where he heard this stuff-- He said: "Its all over TV". I told him that wasn't the case and asked him which TV channel... He just repeated: "TV."
You have to assume it was a local Fox affiliate somewhere...
If its not that, its some right-wing local or national radio show--
This really gets to me. I've met Rush Limbaugh and I know that he and the clowns on Fox TV, are not stupid people. They really are, with a couple of exceptions (Sean Hannity being the most prominent) at least average or above average intelligence. They are deliberately and cynically pouring this stupid inflammatory poison into people's minds... And because they seem to be or pretend, by the surrounding graphics and their serious tone to be, "reporters" or "hosts" like at a legitimate news channel, the mass of frightened and ignorant people in this country, and there are tens of millions of them apparently-- these people take this nonsense for the gospel truth...
I've listend occasionally to the hosts and callers on right-wing radio and you always tend to get (in response to the loud and angry drivel being issued by the host) much stupider, more bigoted people calling into these shows..
Its an old rule of talk radio--maybe the most fundamental rule--that on radio, you always gets back what you put out.
If you talk in a reasonable, balanced, mature and intelligent way about something (which I manage to do maybe 80% of the time with the occasional spectactular lapse), then that's the kind of caller you will get when you pick up the phone....
There are millions of Bobs from Idaho and there wouldn't be half as many if the people they look up to (their political leaders) and the people they get their information from (TV and radio mostly) attempted to be honest, respectful and more factual than opinionated...
But what am I saying?! How can you win an election or swindle or lie to millions of people on a daily basis unless you keep than as ignorant and scared as possible?
Mike Feder
mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
On the phone-call monitor in front of me, my engineer, who took the call, has typed in that the caller has identified himself as Bob and that he's calling from Idaho--but he could be Anybody from Anywhere... A lot of the callers are truckers or people in cars so they will sometimes identify themselves by their home state but might be anywhere in the country when they're calling on their cell phones. I often get calls from some trucker who is listed as calling from Texas but is currently rolling through Indiana hauling a load of appliances or dog food or plastic bags...They don't much care what they're pulling--its just something that gets picked up, hauled across half the country and delivered.
Some calls I can recognize by the area code (whenever someone calls any radio show these days their phone appears on the screen by area code and phone number-- Once people became aware of this, it cut down quite a bit on prank and outright bigoted, cursing phone calls).
But I digress... So, there I have on the phone, Bob from Idaho-- and not to be doing a kind of racial profiling here-- I can tell right away from his accent and tone and the rhythym of his speech, that I am dealing with someone very dense and probalby very conservative...
Used to be, when I first got to Sirius and took calls from all over the country, that I had to adjust my classic New York City bigoted attitude toward anybody with pronounced Southern or Southwestern accent.
Prior to going on Sirius, I had spent 25 years on a local New York City station--WBAI-FM-- where almost every caller had been from New York City, with a few from Jersey and Long Island... Not that I didn't get my share of idiotic callers and outright loons but, on the whole, the calls I got were mostly from people where pretty well educated or least knowledgable about the subject they were calling on... Growing up in New York City and having traveled a bit around the country (including down South and out West) I had gotten and retained a definite contempt for the intelligence and knowledge of Southerners and Southwesterners... But looking back on it all now, I can safely say that, having done more traveling, especially up to the NorthEast, and recalling my days in New York among all sorts of religious, ethnic and racial groups, that stupidity and bigotry is pretty evenly spread out across the country...
Hoever, having said that, I will say, that in a city like New York, with about fifty different languages and dialects spoken and every different color and religion and sect is represented, that people tend to make room for each other-- They get along pretty well--plain civilization and simple spatial accomadation require it.
You even tend, being so constantly exposed to so many different kinds of people, to develope acquaintances, friendships among otherwise very different groups of people, or, at the very least, there developes in many New Yorkers, a certain wearing away of bigotry...
Its really when you go to place where the population is almostly completely homogeneous that you run into a kind of mental (if not actual) inbreeding.
Lately we've seen this most markedly and frighteningly represented at the rallies for Sarah Palin and John McCain... When you show up at a place where everyone is white, and either lower-middle or middle-class; very conservative and, more likely than not, less educated/informed than the average American, you're going to get more outright bigotry expressed than at a typical Obama-Biden rally--where you get a much broader deeper mix of people...
Of course, you also have to fan the flames with outright demagogic rhetorick Like "Obama pals around with terrorists!" or have a fully uniformed white Florida sherrif, who, while introducing Palin, talk about Barack HUSSEIN Obama.. So, in the end, what you get is what you got this past Saturday--where some poor, frightened, deeply ignorant woman in Minnesota got up from the audience for McCain, took the hand-held microphone and said she was afraid because he (Obama) was an Arab... (an Arab! Oh God and Jesus defend us--call the 101st Airborne!).
McCain, after spending a couple of weeks (along with his scary sidekick, Palin, telling everyone who listened to him, that Obama was, in essence, a terrorist, finally had to take the microphone out this woman's hands and say: "No M'am, he's not an Arab-- he's an American and decent family man..."
Poor old John McCain, his sense of honor and his ambition have met in a head-on crash inside his heart and brain and caused him to fragment completely...
So he himself, and his pit-bull assistant and his campaign managers and the Republican National Committee have been calling Obama a terrorist and foreigner etc. etc. for a couple of weeks now---And then, when stupid, vicious mobs at rallies start calling for Obama to be killed and, incidentally, booing the press and using the word "nigger" when referring to a black camera-man for one of the TV networks, McCain has to backpeddle and tell the crowd (who booed him for saying it!) that Obama needs to be respected...
First you stand up in a crowded theater and scream fire, then condemn everyone for running out and trampling innocent people...
The very next day, Saturday, both McCain and Palin have switched to issues, like abortion, etc. (lying completely of course, but what else can you expect)--and taking a break-who knows for how long--from Bill Ayers and this shameful stuff about terrorism...
But wait! I digressed again...
So, Bob from Idaho calls and he has this thick, slow, dumb tone to his voice and he proceeds to tell me how scary Obama was because he's not an American and he's a Muslim and he's a terrorist and his ex-pastor, Reverend Wright, hates America, etc. etc.-- One dumb piece of drivel after another... (Being tired after 2 and 1/2 hours on the air, I didn't even think to call the guy on the most obvious stupidity in his little deck of cards-- That Obama was "a Muslim" and his pastor, Reverend Wright hated America... How could Obama be a Muslim and have a Christian pastor... Oh well, who care?
Anyway, I tried to very calm and factual and patient with Bob-- Telling, with each wrong fact he utttered, that it WAS wrong, and the opposite was the case--
I asked where he heard this stuff-- He said: "Its all over TV". I told him that wasn't the case and asked him which TV channel... He just repeated: "TV."
You have to assume it was a local Fox affiliate somewhere...
If its not that, its some right-wing local or national radio show--
This really gets to me. I've met Rush Limbaugh and I know that he and the clowns on Fox TV, are not stupid people. They really are, with a couple of exceptions (Sean Hannity being the most prominent) at least average or above average intelligence. They are deliberately and cynically pouring this stupid inflammatory poison into people's minds... And because they seem to be or pretend, by the surrounding graphics and their serious tone to be, "reporters" or "hosts" like at a legitimate news channel, the mass of frightened and ignorant people in this country, and there are tens of millions of them apparently-- these people take this nonsense for the gospel truth...
I've listend occasionally to the hosts and callers on right-wing radio and you always tend to get (in response to the loud and angry drivel being issued by the host) much stupider, more bigoted people calling into these shows..
Its an old rule of talk radio--maybe the most fundamental rule--that on radio, you always gets back what you put out.
If you talk in a reasonable, balanced, mature and intelligent way about something (which I manage to do maybe 80% of the time with the occasional spectactular lapse), then that's the kind of caller you will get when you pick up the phone....
There are millions of Bobs from Idaho and there wouldn't be half as many if the people they look up to (their political leaders) and the people they get their information from (TV and radio mostly) attempted to be honest, respectful and more factual than opinionated...
But what am I saying?! How can you win an election or swindle or lie to millions of people on a daily basis unless you keep than as ignorant and scared as possible?
Mike Feder
mikefeder@nyc.rr.com
Friday, October 10, 2008
Political Babble
Am I the only one who's sick of hearing all these ridiculous numbers from the candidates? 300 billion in new taxes! 800 Billion in new spending!
5 million jobs! 18 billion in pork spending!
Who could possibly understand or even care anymore about all these numbers? They are all wishful fantasies or outright lies--- Abstract numbers that reflect nothing of reality and are merely spouted to the point of meaninglessness to scare off or attract voters.
I'm bored to tears by this entire campaign-- Even Ms. Wolf-killer is getting to be less entertaining.
I wish it was election day tomorrow and we could just get it over with-- Hopefully send McCain back to Las Vegas and Palin back to Alaska to deal with impeachment by her own state legislature.
Also, the sooner the election, the less chance the desparate criminals in the current administration and their surrogates (McCain, et. al.) have a chance to set up some really awful occurrence to throw things their way.
Mike
(mikefeder@nyc.rr.com)
5 million jobs! 18 billion in pork spending!
Who could possibly understand or even care anymore about all these numbers? They are all wishful fantasies or outright lies--- Abstract numbers that reflect nothing of reality and are merely spouted to the point of meaninglessness to scare off or attract voters.
I'm bored to tears by this entire campaign-- Even Ms. Wolf-killer is getting to be less entertaining.
I wish it was election day tomorrow and we could just get it over with-- Hopefully send McCain back to Las Vegas and Palin back to Alaska to deal with impeachment by her own state legislature.
Also, the sooner the election, the less chance the desparate criminals in the current administration and their surrogates (McCain, et. al.) have a chance to set up some really awful occurrence to throw things their way.
Mike
(mikefeder@nyc.rr.com)
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Yom Kippur
Walking around Manhattan today I was struck with a great feeling of exclusion and alienation... In this case, particulary from my own "Tribe"--Jews.
And, I hasten to add, its not that any one person or group is excluding me-- I have only myself to blame for this outsider state I'm in.
I have never been a religious Jew and I don't belong to any Synagogue or congregation. Yet, on these days, known to Jews as The High Holidays-- I feel an ache, a nostalgia and feeling of apartness more than any other time of the year.
Part of it is, I'm sure, that universal feeling one gets (no matter what group or religion or "tribe" you were born into) when certain holy or important times of the year come around. Its really family more than anything else.
If you're lucky, you still have your family and its still a close and basically caring situation... If you're not lucky, or you're merely older and people have died off or moved away, you are seized with a great longing for that warm feeling you once had...
Even in my Olympic-class dysfunctional family, I recall some religious celebrations and dinners, some organized (especially when my Grandmother was alive) attendance at the local Synagogue we belonged to.
I remember a warm, sunny October day, when we fasted all day long, didn't listen to the radio or ride in a car... The neighborhood was about half Jewish so there were people, dressed up and feeling the great signifigance of the holiday, walking on the street, greeting each other.
I guess part of this whole bittersweet experience for me is also the feeling of, not just family, but belonging to a coherent group of some sort--a group that shares beliefs and values and even a good deal of DNA...
And then, of course, there is always God... Religious or not, there is, for most people (and especially as mortality approaches) that incomprehensible but deep vibration in your soul-- some feeling that there is a greater and deeper connection-- Most of the time you are apart from it and, even if its not conscious, you feel the apartness. So, we have Yom Kippur-- The day of Atonement-- of At-one-ment; the day when you re-coonect with that great spirit or force or whatever you might want to call it.
As I walked around Manhattan today and saw families going to and from Synagogue, I was pulled again by deep old, nostalgic feelings...
With that preamble, I'm posting an essay I wrote about Yom Kippur four years ago on my website: http://www.federfiles.com....
Yom Kippur is here—The Day of Atonement for Jews who observe (and for most who don’t think they observe but really do). It is a day—and I’m always open to correction on subjects I know little about—when Jews reconcile themselves with their God.One tends to drift away from God during the course of a year—how could we not—being only poor defective human creations of an all-perfect being. Where does it say—in which part of the bible—that God made man “in his image.”? Well, if that’s the case, it seems like a pretty lousy deal for poor “man”—humankind. You get the form but not the substance. You get the resemblance to the father/mother/parent who created you, but not their strength, their will, and their infinite mercy—among other qualities.Well, anyway, we drift away from God and we are given, each year, this brief time to realize our departure from God, and attempt, by sacrifice, fasting, prayer and repentance to reunite—to Atone. Atonement being, in fact, At-one-ment—to be, once again, “at one” with God.
But speaking of Godlike qualities, the one that comes into play on Yom Kippur—more than the others—is infinite mercy. Because it is not just God with whom one has to reconcile themselves, it is also, one’s fellow creatures.
God is supposed to be infinitely forgiving; and, called upon with a sincere and repentant heart, will certainly forgive—whoever and whatever. The German poet Heine, when asked on his deathbed whether he should ask God forgiveness for his sins, is reputed to have said: “God will forgive, that’s his business.” Well that’s a little flip, and maybe Heine didn’t get forgiven, but you know what, I’m guessing he did… What parent, seeing the suffering of his child, no matter how unrepentant or disrespectful, would not forgive?
But much, much harder than securing the forgiveness and blessing of God the Father/Mother is securing the blessing and forgiveness of other people.We are not possessed of eternal wisdom and infinite mercy. We are, or can often be, petty, selfish and unforgiving (I know I am). We imagine that all our woes are caused by others. Indeed, some of us (and I know whereof I speak here) spend our lives demanding retribution for the crimes, real or perceived, that were committed against us.
On Yom Kippur, according to my source, a very well educated orthodox Rabbi, one goes about asking for forgiveness in the following manner: Truly repenting of the sin/crime you have committed against a fellow creature, you go to them and ask them to forgive you. If you are lucky and they are in a forgiving mood, you are forgiven (to what extent, only the forgiver knows in their heart). If they don’t forgive you, you go and ask again. If still turned away, you try one more time.If, after the third attempt at receiving forgiveness, you are spurned, then you have done all you can do and are free of the bond, of the debt (this is presuming its something intangible we are talking about here—but such things are generally, or can be, the worst and most enduring of crimes).
And, conversely, if someone comes to you and asks your forgiveness truly, you have three chances to unharden your heart and forgive them—and thus, you are free of your burden too—the burden of anger, hatred, vengeance, hurt pride.
It seems to me that I have carried both of these burdens—that I have been the unforgiving and the unforgiven for most of my life; in fact—right up until this very minute.Without going into great detail, I got a very raw deal from my parents when I was a kid—and even right up until the moment of both of their untimely deaths, I kept getting a raw deal.And one of the worst parts of this crummy deal was being told that I was the cause, the reason, for all the bad treatment I received as a child and young adult. I was given to understand, sometimes subtly, sometimes directly, that I was responsible for the mass of grief and suffering my parents had to go through. I still believe this.But, such an irrational situation is absurd. Part of me knows that I was essentially blameless for the sufferings of my parents. However, down deep, I really don’t understand this—and still feel—at bottom, an overwhelming sense of guilt about my parents. So I have both, a great sense—no matter how undeserved—of guilt and need to be forgiven, AND a deep, abiding and massive rage against such unfair treatment—including, of course, being made to feel guilty about my alleged crimes.
I have—to the absolute detriment of every other part of my life—nourished and cherished this hatred, vengeance and unforgiving implacability against my parents for almost sixty years—just as I have carried the false guilt all this time.
In fact, I have two burdens to carry—and to try to set down—this Yom Kippur (and every other day in the calendar): How do I forgive myself and how do I forgive my parents—after all this time? Because, though it seems a sort of self-help truism by now, I know in my heart that if I don’t set these burdens down, life will just be a pale imitation of what it could really be.So, that’s my question for myself, and, perhaps, if it seems familiar, to you, on this day of atonement. You can reconcile yourself with God, and you can try to reconcile yourself with other people, but how do you reconcile yourself with and to yourself?Because, to live, to actually exist and have life mean anything, you must forgive yourself and you must forgive others. Vengeance, hatred, rage, the enduring hurt of unjust behavior… is a fire that keeps re-igniting itself until it consumes you.The only real things remaining are sadness and forgiveness. Sadness and forgiveness— And we pray for them to come into our hearts.
And, I hasten to add, its not that any one person or group is excluding me-- I have only myself to blame for this outsider state I'm in.
I have never been a religious Jew and I don't belong to any Synagogue or congregation. Yet, on these days, known to Jews as The High Holidays-- I feel an ache, a nostalgia and feeling of apartness more than any other time of the year.
Part of it is, I'm sure, that universal feeling one gets (no matter what group or religion or "tribe" you were born into) when certain holy or important times of the year come around. Its really family more than anything else.
If you're lucky, you still have your family and its still a close and basically caring situation... If you're not lucky, or you're merely older and people have died off or moved away, you are seized with a great longing for that warm feeling you once had...
Even in my Olympic-class dysfunctional family, I recall some religious celebrations and dinners, some organized (especially when my Grandmother was alive) attendance at the local Synagogue we belonged to.
I remember a warm, sunny October day, when we fasted all day long, didn't listen to the radio or ride in a car... The neighborhood was about half Jewish so there were people, dressed up and feeling the great signifigance of the holiday, walking on the street, greeting each other.
I guess part of this whole bittersweet experience for me is also the feeling of, not just family, but belonging to a coherent group of some sort--a group that shares beliefs and values and even a good deal of DNA...
And then, of course, there is always God... Religious or not, there is, for most people (and especially as mortality approaches) that incomprehensible but deep vibration in your soul-- some feeling that there is a greater and deeper connection-- Most of the time you are apart from it and, even if its not conscious, you feel the apartness. So, we have Yom Kippur-- The day of Atonement-- of At-one-ment; the day when you re-coonect with that great spirit or force or whatever you might want to call it.
As I walked around Manhattan today and saw families going to and from Synagogue, I was pulled again by deep old, nostalgic feelings...
With that preamble, I'm posting an essay I wrote about Yom Kippur four years ago on my website: http://www.federfiles.com....
Yom Kippur is here—The Day of Atonement for Jews who observe (and for most who don’t think they observe but really do). It is a day—and I’m always open to correction on subjects I know little about—when Jews reconcile themselves with their God.One tends to drift away from God during the course of a year—how could we not—being only poor defective human creations of an all-perfect being. Where does it say—in which part of the bible—that God made man “in his image.”? Well, if that’s the case, it seems like a pretty lousy deal for poor “man”—humankind. You get the form but not the substance. You get the resemblance to the father/mother/parent who created you, but not their strength, their will, and their infinite mercy—among other qualities.Well, anyway, we drift away from God and we are given, each year, this brief time to realize our departure from God, and attempt, by sacrifice, fasting, prayer and repentance to reunite—to Atone. Atonement being, in fact, At-one-ment—to be, once again, “at one” with God.
But speaking of Godlike qualities, the one that comes into play on Yom Kippur—more than the others—is infinite mercy. Because it is not just God with whom one has to reconcile themselves, it is also, one’s fellow creatures.
God is supposed to be infinitely forgiving; and, called upon with a sincere and repentant heart, will certainly forgive—whoever and whatever. The German poet Heine, when asked on his deathbed whether he should ask God forgiveness for his sins, is reputed to have said: “God will forgive, that’s his business.” Well that’s a little flip, and maybe Heine didn’t get forgiven, but you know what, I’m guessing he did… What parent, seeing the suffering of his child, no matter how unrepentant or disrespectful, would not forgive?
But much, much harder than securing the forgiveness and blessing of God the Father/Mother is securing the blessing and forgiveness of other people.We are not possessed of eternal wisdom and infinite mercy. We are, or can often be, petty, selfish and unforgiving (I know I am). We imagine that all our woes are caused by others. Indeed, some of us (and I know whereof I speak here) spend our lives demanding retribution for the crimes, real or perceived, that were committed against us.
On Yom Kippur, according to my source, a very well educated orthodox Rabbi, one goes about asking for forgiveness in the following manner: Truly repenting of the sin/crime you have committed against a fellow creature, you go to them and ask them to forgive you. If you are lucky and they are in a forgiving mood, you are forgiven (to what extent, only the forgiver knows in their heart). If they don’t forgive you, you go and ask again. If still turned away, you try one more time.If, after the third attempt at receiving forgiveness, you are spurned, then you have done all you can do and are free of the bond, of the debt (this is presuming its something intangible we are talking about here—but such things are generally, or can be, the worst and most enduring of crimes).
And, conversely, if someone comes to you and asks your forgiveness truly, you have three chances to unharden your heart and forgive them—and thus, you are free of your burden too—the burden of anger, hatred, vengeance, hurt pride.
It seems to me that I have carried both of these burdens—that I have been the unforgiving and the unforgiven for most of my life; in fact—right up until this very minute.Without going into great detail, I got a very raw deal from my parents when I was a kid—and even right up until the moment of both of their untimely deaths, I kept getting a raw deal.And one of the worst parts of this crummy deal was being told that I was the cause, the reason, for all the bad treatment I received as a child and young adult. I was given to understand, sometimes subtly, sometimes directly, that I was responsible for the mass of grief and suffering my parents had to go through. I still believe this.But, such an irrational situation is absurd. Part of me knows that I was essentially blameless for the sufferings of my parents. However, down deep, I really don’t understand this—and still feel—at bottom, an overwhelming sense of guilt about my parents. So I have both, a great sense—no matter how undeserved—of guilt and need to be forgiven, AND a deep, abiding and massive rage against such unfair treatment—including, of course, being made to feel guilty about my alleged crimes.
I have—to the absolute detriment of every other part of my life—nourished and cherished this hatred, vengeance and unforgiving implacability against my parents for almost sixty years—just as I have carried the false guilt all this time.
In fact, I have two burdens to carry—and to try to set down—this Yom Kippur (and every other day in the calendar): How do I forgive myself and how do I forgive my parents—after all this time? Because, though it seems a sort of self-help truism by now, I know in my heart that if I don’t set these burdens down, life will just be a pale imitation of what it could really be.So, that’s my question for myself, and, perhaps, if it seems familiar, to you, on this day of atonement. You can reconcile yourself with God, and you can try to reconcile yourself with other people, but how do you reconcile yourself with and to yourself?Because, to live, to actually exist and have life mean anything, you must forgive yourself and you must forgive others. Vengeance, hatred, rage, the enduring hurt of unjust behavior… is a fire that keeps re-igniting itself until it consumes you.The only real things remaining are sadness and forgiveness. Sadness and forgiveness— And we pray for them to come into our hearts.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Presidential Debate
Well, I'd have to give it to Barack Obama on points..
It was a kind of lifeless, robotic affair--both of the candidates playing it pretty safe. Even McCain, with his barely controlled temper, was relatively subdued and mature-seeming--maybe he does have that in him when he needs it-- maybe he took a little something before the debate to calm him down a bit...
Even the frame of this dull, predictable, slowly-moving picture, was lifeless.
A real town-hall meeting might have people speaking passionately... frowning, laughing, making sounds of approval or disapproval, asking follow-up questions if they didn't get a real answer the first time around.
This group--supposedly screened by the Gallup poll to be independents (how that can really be determined so clearly is hard to know)--sat there like cardboard cut-outs. After getting to ask their one question, their microphone was apparently shut off (or removed). They were clearly instructed by the TV producers of the debate to sit still and shut up, like good little citizens should.
God forbid they got irritated or interrupted the candidate to require a little specificity or plain truth.
With only one or two exceptions, and those were short and without real punch, both the candidates were predictable, repetitive and boring... And, in a race where Obama is ahead (Thank God) a dull, predictable debate was all he needed to stay ahead.
It doesn't matter so much that McCain is a liar about his record and his sleazy associations--and about some of Obama's plans and programs--- Or that that he (McCain) seems very unstable and deluded; twisted by the horrible things that happened to him in Vietnam and suffering all sorts of humiliations and defeats before (at the hands of the very Reuplican lizards who now run his campaign!)
And it doesn't matter if both candidates exaggerate or twist things around or ignore uncomfortable facts about their voting records or backgrounds...
What really mattered last night--again, with Obama ahead in the polls in most places-- is that he seemed calm, collected, authoritative; in short, "Presdidential." That much, despite his usual talking points, Obama certainly achieved.
As I said, McCain, crazy and angry as he clearly is most of the time--came off pretty controlled and somewhat Presidential himself.
What you have to look for is those little odd, jerky, disconnected flares that suddenly come out of him... Standing, suddenly, a little too close to audience members, telling strange, disconnected jokes that nobody gets (in order to be a funny, joe-six-pack kinda dude)-- that nutty twinkle he gets in his eye sometimes and that bizarre, scary smile that appears out of nowhere--especially when he's really angry.
Last night, McCain did his best-- And he didn't do what some people thought he might do-- And, incidentally, what I fervently hoped he might do-- Bring up Bill Ayers and Obama "palling around" with terrorists.
I wish McCain had brought that up-- It would have sunk him irretrievably. Maybe, if he keeps slipping in the polls, he'll bring it up at next week's debate.
I guess we just have to expect Sarah Barracuda to keep bringing all that up--until her adoring mobs go from cries of "He's a terrorist! (about Obama) or even, at one of her recent rallies, "Kill him!" (Obama) to actually doing something violent (God forbid).
This woman gets to be a nazi thug urging the masses to hate and commit violence while old Uncle John gets to be the kind, honest, decent old man.
Dishonest of course, and also very dishonorable....
Country first... what utter bullshit!
Anyway, I'm really tired of hearing all the same old words, phrases, plans and figures (5 million jobs! 300 million in tax cuts, blah blah blah) that don't seem to mean anything anymore--from both the candidates.
It would be nice if we had a Franklin Roosevelt now-- seems like the only man who could bring us through this horrible crisis we're in... Obama, whatever his strong points and whatever his hidden depths of ability and strength is still too much the party politician for me... Too much a man who plays it safe.
Who knows-- maybe he will surprise us all-- Maybe he has a Roosevelt in him and it will emerge once he wins the election. After all, Roosevelt was the consumate party politician but, after taking office, saw that the regular fixes and slogans wouldn't work--and set about saving America.
I hope that next week's debate is livelier and has elements of passion and anger and demands from the moderator (though it seems unlikely) and that the candidates stop spouting either robotic phrases and figures or plain lies.
But that's just because I want to be inspired and even feel some real hope in this dire time.
On the other hand, if Obama is still gaining in the polls, let him be boring and Presidential again-- that will be good enough.
Maybe a desparate McCain will accuse Obama of being a terrorist-- Then Obama could wrap it all up with a couple of sentences.
It was a kind of lifeless, robotic affair--both of the candidates playing it pretty safe. Even McCain, with his barely controlled temper, was relatively subdued and mature-seeming--maybe he does have that in him when he needs it-- maybe he took a little something before the debate to calm him down a bit...
Even the frame of this dull, predictable, slowly-moving picture, was lifeless.
A real town-hall meeting might have people speaking passionately... frowning, laughing, making sounds of approval or disapproval, asking follow-up questions if they didn't get a real answer the first time around.
This group--supposedly screened by the Gallup poll to be independents (how that can really be determined so clearly is hard to know)--sat there like cardboard cut-outs. After getting to ask their one question, their microphone was apparently shut off (or removed). They were clearly instructed by the TV producers of the debate to sit still and shut up, like good little citizens should.
God forbid they got irritated or interrupted the candidate to require a little specificity or plain truth.
With only one or two exceptions, and those were short and without real punch, both the candidates were predictable, repetitive and boring... And, in a race where Obama is ahead (Thank God) a dull, predictable debate was all he needed to stay ahead.
It doesn't matter so much that McCain is a liar about his record and his sleazy associations--and about some of Obama's plans and programs--- Or that that he (McCain) seems very unstable and deluded; twisted by the horrible things that happened to him in Vietnam and suffering all sorts of humiliations and defeats before (at the hands of the very Reuplican lizards who now run his campaign!)
And it doesn't matter if both candidates exaggerate or twist things around or ignore uncomfortable facts about their voting records or backgrounds...
What really mattered last night--again, with Obama ahead in the polls in most places-- is that he seemed calm, collected, authoritative; in short, "Presdidential." That much, despite his usual talking points, Obama certainly achieved.
As I said, McCain, crazy and angry as he clearly is most of the time--came off pretty controlled and somewhat Presidential himself.
What you have to look for is those little odd, jerky, disconnected flares that suddenly come out of him... Standing, suddenly, a little too close to audience members, telling strange, disconnected jokes that nobody gets (in order to be a funny, joe-six-pack kinda dude)-- that nutty twinkle he gets in his eye sometimes and that bizarre, scary smile that appears out of nowhere--especially when he's really angry.
Last night, McCain did his best-- And he didn't do what some people thought he might do-- And, incidentally, what I fervently hoped he might do-- Bring up Bill Ayers and Obama "palling around" with terrorists.
I wish McCain had brought that up-- It would have sunk him irretrievably. Maybe, if he keeps slipping in the polls, he'll bring it up at next week's debate.
I guess we just have to expect Sarah Barracuda to keep bringing all that up--until her adoring mobs go from cries of "He's a terrorist! (about Obama) or even, at one of her recent rallies, "Kill him!" (Obama) to actually doing something violent (God forbid).
This woman gets to be a nazi thug urging the masses to hate and commit violence while old Uncle John gets to be the kind, honest, decent old man.
Dishonest of course, and also very dishonorable....
Country first... what utter bullshit!
Anyway, I'm really tired of hearing all the same old words, phrases, plans and figures (5 million jobs! 300 million in tax cuts, blah blah blah) that don't seem to mean anything anymore--from both the candidates.
It would be nice if we had a Franklin Roosevelt now-- seems like the only man who could bring us through this horrible crisis we're in... Obama, whatever his strong points and whatever his hidden depths of ability and strength is still too much the party politician for me... Too much a man who plays it safe.
Who knows-- maybe he will surprise us all-- Maybe he has a Roosevelt in him and it will emerge once he wins the election. After all, Roosevelt was the consumate party politician but, after taking office, saw that the regular fixes and slogans wouldn't work--and set about saving America.
I hope that next week's debate is livelier and has elements of passion and anger and demands from the moderator (though it seems unlikely) and that the candidates stop spouting either robotic phrases and figures or plain lies.
But that's just because I want to be inspired and even feel some real hope in this dire time.
On the other hand, if Obama is still gaining in the polls, let him be boring and Presidential again-- that will be good enough.
Maybe a desparate McCain will accuse Obama of being a terrorist-- Then Obama could wrap it all up with a couple of sentences.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The Vice Presidential Debate
Well, not much more to say that hasn't been said since Joe Biden and The Governess debated on Thursday.
Some observations...
Gwen Ifills (whom people I trust say is usually very sharp) seemed oddly vague and out-of-it. Some of her questions were like slow motion pitches that little leaguer (Like Ms. Palin) could hit out of the park. Other questions were vague and seemed to provide such wide latitude for answering that it enabled (esp. Ms. Palin) to wander all over the place. Of course she never intended to answer even hard questions-- just to make speeches and false charges against her opponent's campaign.
But still, a little more sharpness and follow-up on the part of the moderator would have been nice.
Perhaps the problem was that Ms. Ifills broke her ankle only a couple of days before the debate, and was either in pain--which threw her off her game-- or, she was taking pain killers, which certainly can dull the mind.
The other reason for her lack of sharpness and control over the debate could have been that she fell for a kind of sleazy but masterful chess move the Republicans pulled a few days before the debate.
Ms. Ifills has written a book (to be published in January) entitled: The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.
Both Parties knew about this book back in July but only a few days before the debate the Republicans (and their wholly-owned corporate subsidiary, Fox News) made a big deal about how such a book (which none of them has read) obviously meant that Ms. Ifills was leaning toward Obama and would probably be a prejudiced moderator--favoring Mr. Biden.
So, perhaps in reaction to maybe being seen as a favoring the Democratic side, Ms. Ifills fell back into a less intense and controlling mode of asking questions and follow-ups--so that she couldn't be accused of being prejudiced.
I suppose, as is the case in almost everything the Republicans do with Obama, that they were also sending a coded message that, along with the title of the book, and Ms. Ifills being black and all--that there was no chance she was going to be fair to The Great wolf-slayer from Alaska.
(Just a note here… If I were in charge of the debates, and I found out about this book, I would, in the interests of fairness—and, more, important, the appearance of fairness—asked Ms. Ifills to bow out and I would have replaced her with someone else).
Maybe Ms. Ifills did pull some punches or be less than insistent at moments-- In the end; she is the only one who would know that.
And maybe none of that matters at all... Since Ms. Palin made very clear--even stating it at one point-- that she had no intention of answering the questions that were being put to her. She said she wasn't going to supply answers that "the moderator and others might want."
Amazing-- She is proud of her contempt for civil discourse, facts, respect for the press and even for voters who might actually want to hear straight answers with real content.
Maybe she also meant, again, in a coded way, to imply that since Ms. Ifills had written that book and is black besides, that she (Ms. Palin) wasn't going to play the moderator’s supposed prejudiced game.
In any case... Sarah cleared the one-foot bar in the high jump-- Did the best she will ever do in such a forum. My guess is that that is probably the last any of us will ever see of her.
She clearly cannot handle herself in one-on-one interviews where she can't just make memorized speeches or stare at her notes every two seconds.
She is an ignorant woman (maybe smart or shrewd) but abysmally ignorant. There is no way the Republicans will let her face a single interviewer again--unless its just to reel off non-responsive, memorized answers to expected questions. She reached her high point--why screw it up by letting her actually show her ignorance, bigotry and nastiness any more?
From now on, she will probably just speak at cheerleading rallies for her ticket and rally the bozo base she was brought in to represent on Mr. pretend maverick's ticket.
If there was ever a candidate in modern history that could be accused of being a celebrity with nothing else of value to them, it is Sarah Palin. But Doggone it! Joe Six-Pack (actually adjusted for inflation and record unemployment, its really Joe Three-Pack now) is gonna be deprived of her celebrity catwalks and high-school cheerleading winks.
Some observations...
Gwen Ifills (whom people I trust say is usually very sharp) seemed oddly vague and out-of-it. Some of her questions were like slow motion pitches that little leaguer (Like Ms. Palin) could hit out of the park. Other questions were vague and seemed to provide such wide latitude for answering that it enabled (esp. Ms. Palin) to wander all over the place. Of course she never intended to answer even hard questions-- just to make speeches and false charges against her opponent's campaign.
But still, a little more sharpness and follow-up on the part of the moderator would have been nice.
Perhaps the problem was that Ms. Ifills broke her ankle only a couple of days before the debate, and was either in pain--which threw her off her game-- or, she was taking pain killers, which certainly can dull the mind.
The other reason for her lack of sharpness and control over the debate could have been that she fell for a kind of sleazy but masterful chess move the Republicans pulled a few days before the debate.
Ms. Ifills has written a book (to be published in January) entitled: The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.
Both Parties knew about this book back in July but only a few days before the debate the Republicans (and their wholly-owned corporate subsidiary, Fox News) made a big deal about how such a book (which none of them has read) obviously meant that Ms. Ifills was leaning toward Obama and would probably be a prejudiced moderator--favoring Mr. Biden.
So, perhaps in reaction to maybe being seen as a favoring the Democratic side, Ms. Ifills fell back into a less intense and controlling mode of asking questions and follow-ups--so that she couldn't be accused of being prejudiced.
I suppose, as is the case in almost everything the Republicans do with Obama, that they were also sending a coded message that, along with the title of the book, and Ms. Ifills being black and all--that there was no chance she was going to be fair to The Great wolf-slayer from Alaska.
(Just a note here… If I were in charge of the debates, and I found out about this book, I would, in the interests of fairness—and, more, important, the appearance of fairness—asked Ms. Ifills to bow out and I would have replaced her with someone else).
Maybe Ms. Ifills did pull some punches or be less than insistent at moments-- In the end; she is the only one who would know that.
And maybe none of that matters at all... Since Ms. Palin made very clear--even stating it at one point-- that she had no intention of answering the questions that were being put to her. She said she wasn't going to supply answers that "the moderator and others might want."
Amazing-- She is proud of her contempt for civil discourse, facts, respect for the press and even for voters who might actually want to hear straight answers with real content.
Maybe she also meant, again, in a coded way, to imply that since Ms. Ifills had written that book and is black besides, that she (Ms. Palin) wasn't going to play the moderator’s supposed prejudiced game.
In any case... Sarah cleared the one-foot bar in the high jump-- Did the best she will ever do in such a forum. My guess is that that is probably the last any of us will ever see of her.
She clearly cannot handle herself in one-on-one interviews where she can't just make memorized speeches or stare at her notes every two seconds.
She is an ignorant woman (maybe smart or shrewd) but abysmally ignorant. There is no way the Republicans will let her face a single interviewer again--unless its just to reel off non-responsive, memorized answers to expected questions. She reached her high point--why screw it up by letting her actually show her ignorance, bigotry and nastiness any more?
From now on, she will probably just speak at cheerleading rallies for her ticket and rally the bozo base she was brought in to represent on Mr. pretend maverick's ticket.
If there was ever a candidate in modern history that could be accused of being a celebrity with nothing else of value to them, it is Sarah Palin. But Doggone it! Joe Six-Pack (actually adjusted for inflation and record unemployment, its really Joe Three-Pack now) is gonna be deprived of her celebrity catwalks and high-school cheerleading winks.
Test/Mike Feder's Blog
Testing first Blog for Mike Feder--
If it works out-- will have stories, political and cultural commentary, book and movie reviews, rants, and various other sentimental outbursts.
Anybody out there?
If it works out-- will have stories, political and cultural commentary, book and movie reviews, rants, and various other sentimental outbursts.
Anybody out there?
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