Archive for January, 2011

IT’S THE PITS

Sunday, January 30th, 2011

Often in life it is some unexpected event that exposes the true colors of an individual.  Talk is cheap, action is King.  There are many of us, including myself, who love to opine on our politicians and who leap, like wolverines on a gazelle carcass, when we see an opening.  On the other hand…what other sub-culture provides more of those openings than our politicians.

Let me bow to political correctness by stating the obvious ( a chore that is now on every writer’s checklist), that not all politicians are bad people.  Maybe it’s easier to pick on their faults because they are in the limelight and under media scrutiny.
I find no shortage of people who are lacking in morality in my everyday life, but then again, I can pick and choose with them.  They are not writing laws, they have not campaigned for my support and in general, what they do and where they do it has no effect on me.

Nor am I surprised, in particular, when a politician reveals his or her self to be a scurvy spider.  Volumes could be written.  Where would one begin? Nixon? Spitzer? Edwards? Clinton?  How about Senator Kerry…that bluest of blue bloods who would have all of us donate at least half of our paychecks to support the disenfranchised.  Yet…when he had an opportunity to dump a hefty sum into that same kitty, he balked.  He hid his 7 million-dollar yacht in Rhode Island hoping to avoid a quarter million-dollar tax that Massachusetts would have levied.  C’mon, John…you should be anxious to write that check.

Still, just when you think you’ve heard it all…when you think to yourself…”nobody could top that one…”, someone comes along and elevates “sleaze” to an entirely new level.  That elevation was performed most recently by Dennis Kucinich, former Presidential candidate and current Congressman, I believe.  You remember Dennis, right?  He was still in the chrysalis stage when he ran for President, looking like he would turn into a butterfly at any moment and leave the stage in search of a warm light bulb.  It seems, though, that the butterfly thing never happened and instead he morphed into…simply…a worm.

Kucinich, apparently, suffered the unbearable pain and indignity of biting into an olive pit while eating a sandwich purchased at some White House cafe.  Who among us, at some point in our lives, has not bitten into something that was not supposed to be there?  Not fun, but generally an event from which you dust yourself off and keep moving.  Not Dennis Kucinich.

He is suing a small list of people for the dental work, oral surgery and “loss of enjoyment” he has suffered.  The price tag? A cool hundred and fifty grand.  I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not.  You could smell the wet weasel fur on this guy from a mile away, and now he his proving the point.

Like all folks who partake in frivolous lawsuits, he will convince himself that he deserves compensation.  He’ll convince himself that the money comes from some magic place.  The rest of us know that “magic place” is the premiums that the rest of us pay.  Imagine, too, suing these people that run a deli or catering service, and that you see everyday.  Imagine, also, that you’ve already got a job that pays you a hundred times more than your worth and comes with a Health Plan(including dental) that is literally fit for a King.

The strangest thing about the entire story may be that a guy who is married to an 8′ tall Redhead who is drop-dead gorgeous got taken out by an olive pit.  When I first heard that Kucinich had suffered an ‘oral injury”, I can tell you that an olive pit was the last thing that came to mind.

Thanks, Dennis, for reminding me how correct my instincts about you were.  I hope the money helps you find, once again, that “enjoyment” that you’ve been temporarily deprived of by…of all things…an olive.

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SHOUTING “FIRE”

Saturday, January 22nd, 2011

More and more, every day, we find ourselves confronted with the difficulties of applying our beloved “Freedom of Speech”, as defined by our Forefathers, to modern life.  Personally, I find it pretty black and white most of the time, but that’s because I almost always agree with myself.  More and more, every day, we find how deep the disagreement is over exactly what that provision provides.

There is the caveat that free speech does not include the right to yell “fire” in a crowded theater.  I have met people who actually take that literally, that is to say that the only thing you can’t say in this country…is the word “fire”, at an elevated volume, in a crowded theater.  I take the exclusion as an analogy, particularly given the time period in which it was written.
Our Forefathers wanted, most importantly, that the voice of the people not be squashed by their government, that the freedom to voice dissent should never be tamped down, and that to do so would be the beginning of tyranny.

We are a long, long way from anyone not being able to voice a dissenting opinion about their government.  Even the McCain-Feingold effort to rein in corruption in political campaigns, which enraged many Republicans who saw it as limiting Free Speech, was no danger to our Freedom, in my opinion.  Preventing companies from dumping huge amounts of money into political campaigns in exchange for future government contracts and payoffs, does not limit the ability of any single American to stand on his front porch and express his disdain for the government…or disdain for anything for that matter.  It would surely have slowed down the dirty money, though.

Moreover, a “Free” country must have some common sense.  With the increasing absence of manners, judgment and boundaries, we find ourselves in the constitutionally uncomfortable position of having to create new laws to…in essence…legislate manners, judgment and boundaries.  Anyone who has read my stuff or listened to my radio show knows that I am loathe to create more laws, because more laws invariably means more government.  Yet every now and then, along will come an idiot…or group of idiots…that forces the rest of us to do the uncomfortable.

It happened in the wake of the horrific Tucson, Arizona shooting of six innocent people attending a political event.  Among the dead, a beautiful nine year-old girl.  If you can imagine, threatening to “protest” at her funeral was the equally horrific Westboro Baptist Church.  The WBC is a small group of fanatics who have made it their moniker to protest, mostly, at military funerals.  They post themselves at close range and hold signs and yell things, mostly epithets against homosexuals, but language that none of us would tolerate hearing from across a parking lot at the Mall. It is so vile, I could not even consider printing it here,

For some reason, though, we are expected to endure it.  The Supreme Court is considering a case from a father whose son, a Marine killed in action, was buried against the backdrop of the WBC soundtrack.  These people, if I may exercise my right for a moment, are some of the most deranged, disgusting and narcissistic human beings I have ever seen.  Bad enough, the funeral for a Marine.  Bad enough…ANY funeral, but  the funeral for a young girl innocently shot?  I was beside myself, as were many, after hearing that these morons were planning to set up their circus tent at this heartbreaking event.

Then…a miracle of sorts happened.  The Arizona Legislature…and this is one of the reasons I love Arizona, in their usual no-nonsense style, drafted a law preventing the protest from happening, and passed it overnight. One of the legislators involved, State Rep. Daniel Patterson(D) said simply “we’re going to try and protect the families from undue harassment”.  Thank you, sir.  The Chair of the Pima County GOP however, Brian Miller, was not as thrilled, saying the law is a dangerous infringement on free speech laws.  Nonsense.

Is there anyone who thinks that our Forefathers, if able to time-travel to 2011, after picking their jaws up off the ground, would not be applauding the Arizona lawmakers?  Preventing the WBC from protesting in the very cemetery that a funeral is taking place is not quelling their right to an opinion.  They can go 400 yards down the street and express their opinion.  A family ought to have the expectation of, and right to, privacy as they bury their nine year-old girl.  Nobody is telling the “Church” not to express their opinion.  Simply…in the absence of common human decency, judgment, self-discipline and respect for others, we had to make a new law.  The Greater Good is served by that action.

Finally, I am not blind to the story nobody noticed here.  Next week’s column may be titled “Greased Lightning”, to describe the astonishing speed and grace with which a government agency was able to move when duly motivated.  If only Washington could follow this lead.  I always wondered why it took years and hundreds of meetings to pass any meaningful legislation, and if there was a reason it had to be that way.  Now I know…there isn’t.  Thanks for that, too, Arizona.

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GRIEF: AMERICAN STYLE

Monday, January 17th, 2011

When I was young, I vaguely remember a television show called “Love:American Style”.  It was one of the first of a new breed of tacky and somewhat callous television programming, though it wouldn’t even be salacious enough for Nick, Jr. by today’s standards.  Indeed, in contrast to the world we live in now, it was as pure as the driven snow.

There isn’t a breathing sole who has not heard, at length, about the horrific murders in Tucson, Arizona this past week.  A young man, clearly deranged, opened fire at close range during a political meet and greet, and the rest is now history.  Among the dead, a nine year-old girl who had taken an interest in politics at school.  Her date of birth? September 11th, 2001.  How crushing that her young life, begun on a day that brought the term “senseless violence” to a new level…ended too soon on similar terms.

The event has oddly chronicled many of our cultural weak links.

First, as we learn more about the shooter, there were more “red flags” than one might see at a demolition derby at the Helen Keller School.  Nearly everyone that this young man came in contact with in recent years had chills go up their spine, and yet we live in an era that finds people loathe to intervene.  What are we afraid of?  Hurting someone’s feelings or bothering law enforcement with seemingly silly phone calls?  “I saw a guy that looks weird to me…”.  On the other hand, if you watched a Wooly Mammoth walk up your street, I bet you’d drop a dime.

Conversely, consider Dominic Cinelli in Massachusetts, paroled in the midst of a three-consecutive-life-term sentence, who ends up fatally wounding a police officer.  So…we can’t even keep the criminally insane off the street AFTER we catch them, so what are the chances of intervention ever being a practical means towards preventing scenes like we saw in Tucson before they happen?  Slim to none.

Second…the knee-jerk pontification that seems to follow every remotely political act of violence.  Almost immediately, even from the Pima County Sherriff in charge, allegations that somehow Sarah Palin or Sharon Angle were to blame…or the entire Tea Party for that matter.  Even our President learned the hard way, remember the incident with the Cambridge Police Department and the Harvard Professor, to season commentary until at least a handful of facts are on the table.  In the end, the shooter, Jared Loughner, was apolitical…simply insane, and planning, as it turns out, a massacre of some sort for possibly as long as years.  Yet by indicting innocent people and drawing them and their families into the fray, more harm is done, and the grieving process for the families of victims, for Tucson, for the country…is further tainted.

Third…absolute Freedom comes with a price.  We are a country in excess of 300 million people.  We move about freely, express ourselves in any number of mediums, have ready access to firearms, booze and drugs, behave in such myriad ways that it is hard to imagine any behavior, in public or otherwise, that would land you involuntarily in a psychiatrists office.  That can make for a dangerous world at times. Unless we make a serious effort to locate and diagnose the severely mentally ill, and house and help them, then there is no reason not to expect similar acts of abject violence with no grounding.

Finally, the grand finale had to be the Memorial Service held at the University of Arizona last Wednesday night.  Attended by President Obama and the First Lady, there was also a host of other speakers, including Janet Napolitano,and a Tucson native who offered a Native American prayer, the President of the University, and others.  Until I heard some news reports in the days following, I thought I might be the only one who was squirming throughout the entire event.  In fact, I couldn’t watch it all.  It had a strange, celebratory air.  The crowd was cheering too much…at the wrong times, at least.  There were T-shirts and at times I was expecting a CitiBank endorsement.  It had the feel of a corporate retirement party.

It was, oddly enough, President Obama who managed to reel in the exuberance and bring back a more somber and solemn tone to the evening.  Odd, I say, because I have found him to usually be the one who is disjointed socially, smiling at the wrong times and not always appearing sincere.  I thought his speech Wednesday was excellent and resonated with the proper emotion and timbre.  It just seemed strange to me, after 6 innocent people had been murdered, including a young girl, that a “memorial service” would be orchestrated that more resembled a giant tailgate party.

I watched Mark Kelly, astronaut and husband of Gabrielle Giffords, the Congresswoman struggling to survive a gunshot would to the brain, as he appeared visibly uncomfortable with the entire event.  There were a handful of people, at least, who looked as though they were expecting Rod Serling to be the next speaker at the podium.  Yes…it was that uncomfortable.

Maybe this is part of the New America.  Maybe “somber” and “demure” are words, and postures, that are slowly being eradicated from the landscape.  I know this much…had I lost a loved one at that event, the last place I would have been on Wednesday night was the University of Arizona.

My thoughts and prayers to all of those who lost those dear to them on that day, and to Tucson, the iconic city in a State that has already endured it’s share of heartache.

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EXCESSIVE EXCESS

Sunday, January 9th, 2011

One of my favorite writers, George Will, discusses in his most recent column a book by novelist Daniel Akst titled “We Have Met The Enemy:Self-Control in an Age of Excess”.  Not the first opinion merchant to tackle the subject, Akst nevertheless does it in a unique way, offering different perspectives on the “good” or “bad” of it.  He is also fun to read, giving such memorable phrases, in describing our culture, as expounding upon the “collapse of delay between impulse and action”.  I would pose that we are well past having a “delay” between impulse and action, and that any gap between the two must travel faster than light in our current culture.

It’s interesting to ponder our journey to excess.  I have written many times about the difference in our culture, even from, say, the 1950′s through to 2011.  I have had many brisk discussions with friends about what may have brought us here, but one point that remains beyond argument is that something certainly changed.  Will speaks about the “repudiation of restraint” of the 1960′s when restraint was equated with repression.  I remember vividly my parents wrangling with my older brother and sisters who were right smack, dab in the middle of the “revolution” of the 60′s.  I would hear my father issue dire warnings about the social and personal cost of casting restraint and self-control to the wind.  Naturally, and not just in our home, those forecasts were met with snickers and head-shaking.  We all went through that magic age when we were so much smarter than our old, fuddy-duddy parents.  As Mark Twain pointed out, at eighteen he couldn’t believe how stupid his father was, but by the age of twenty-one he couldn’t believe how much his father had learned in three years.  Beautiful.

Alas, though, there was great truth and wisdom in those predictions.  In many ways it was the first loose thread in the unraveling of morality which continues today with increasing voracity and speed.  We live in a world of 24/7 instant-gratification with  stores that are open virtually constantly and a menu for decadence that is unrivaled anywhere in the world.

Traditional values seem to get harder and harder to instill, and once instilled, to uphold.  Look at the many technological elements that work against marriage.  The advent of Facebook and other social networking sites are, more and more, cited as factors in the breakup of marriages.  Whether they served as vehicles for people “hooking up” or simply became substitutes for interaction between husband and wife, they have collectively become a factor in disintegrating marriages.  There are websites, think Ashley Madison, that are exclusively designed and implemented as tools for married folks who want to cheat.  A sad commentary on our culture, no matter how you cut it, and don’t think for a moment that our children do not witness all of this, process it, and inherit some meaning to it into their being.  Again, sad, and there is very little discussion about it.

Akst writes about “managing desire in a landscape rich with temptation” and there is no question that our landscape is rich in that regard.  More important than ever, then, to have dialogue with our children about the dangers of self indulgence and the differences in their world from ours, in terms of growing up.  Will points out the notion of “Free Will” and recalls Isaac Bashevis Singer who famously pointed out that “of course I believe in free will…I have no choice.”  We have always had free will, though.  What is most important now is teaching our children, and ourselves for that matter, the importance of self-discipline and that despite the increased menu at the grand buffet of life, the end of result of allowing oneself any and all pleasures almost always ends on the same sad note.

There is a reason that a generation or two ago we denied ourselves so much more than we do today.  There was an innate understanding that to drink from that cup would most likely result in a desire for more trips to the cup.  Without mores, society crumbles and chaos ensues.  Can anyone argue that we are seeing it happen before our eyes?  Even in our own home, I see what George Will described as “families dispersed within the home”.  Generations ago, families huddled around a lone radio.  Now, everyone is in their own corner with a laptop or some electronic device.  I complain regularly, but I believe I am being increasingly dismissed as paranoid or someone who simply “doesn’t get it”.

But I do get it.  It’s not for me.  I would sooner lay on the lawn and stargaze at night then to sit on Facebook posting information about my lunch with “friends”.  That kind of anonymous back and forth, I must admit, holds no interest for me.  I also have little doubt that it is damaging “us” and that there will be a price, yet determined, to be paid somewhere down the road.  Look at that…I’m sounding more and more like my father.  I hope I’m not as right as he turned out to be.

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STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

I wish I had a nickel for every time our criminal justice system has left me shaking my head in wonderment.  I could retire early, or at least retire.  Still crazy after all these years, we still insist on returning violent people from prison to neighborhoods and expecting a different result.  The notion of the “Greater Good” left the equation a long time ago in favor of saving money.

Every New Hampshire resident knows the name Michael Briggs.  He was the Manchester Police Officer killed…shot to death…by Michael Addison, a young but violent career criminal.  No deeper irony, and no stronger message, could ever be authored greater than the facts themselves.  Officer Briggs, just years earlier, had administered life-saving measures to the young Addison who had just been shot himself in a melee.  In a heartbreaking twist of fate, the same young man would fatally shoot that same Policeman years later.

“Still crazy after all these years” could apply to the parole boards and the criminal justice system that insists on returning predators and violent criminals back to the streets.  New Hampshire just passed legislation that would shorten the prison terms of many violent criminals and send them to a parole board which is mandated to approve the parole.  Cool, huh?

Our Ostrich approach to violent criminals yielded more bad fruit on December 26th when Woburn, Mass. Police Officer John Maguire was called to a robbery in progress at a Kohl’s Department Store.  Women were being held as well during the hold up and it was quickly turning into a hostage situation.  During the fracas, Officer Maguire was killed by Dominic Cinelli, a recently paroled career criminal.  Recently paroled, somehow, from the midst of a three-consecutive life-term sentence!  How does that happen?  The parole board had voted 6-0 to grant parole based on his “strident improvement” during incarceration.

So…a “Life Term” really means “life” until a daffy parole board crosses your path.  Cinelli had a criminal record dating back to 1976 which included armed and unarmed robbery, aggravated assault and battery. and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, among others.  Now…while I appreciate those “strident improvements”, because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but is there a point…ANY point…where, as a society, we can collectively agree when we have a “throw-the-key-away” situation.  This would be one of them.  Cinelli should have served at least one of those three life sentences, and John Maguire would be alive today.  Our Courts have become worthy of a Monty Python trademark as we continue to get played like a “blind man playing Scrabble with Gypsies”, as Dennis Miller would say.

Is there a point where we have lost enough innocent victims to repeat offenders that average citizens will band together and demand…yes, demand, that our judicial system actually begin to play a role in the effort to keep citizens safe.  It has become silly, absurd even, the dance between law enforcement trying to keep criminals off of the street, and a court and prison system that seem determined to counter that effort.  And naturally, we, the taxpayers foot the bill.

It is to the legal world what Ethanol subsidies are to Energy…still crazy after all these years.   Happy New Year.

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