How the Democrats Can Win It

By Drew

As Jim Geraghty points out at NRO, there is one thing that the Democrats can do that will improve their chances of victory in November more than anything else:

Avoid antagonizing people.

I mean it. A number of us have talked about this in the past, how we’re all tired of having voted against candidates instead of voting for them. And when you keep doing negatives rather than positives, it does tend to wear you down.

This is something that liberals have often overlooked. You’ve heard the joke about comparing the Democrats to a firing squad standing in a circle with the guns pointed inward? Well, that's the Democrats in a nutshell. This party, even more than the Republicans, seems to have perfected the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Think about what Geraghty says. How many times can you remember the in-your-face attitude of so many liberals who literally drive you to vote for someone, anyone, besides their candidate? It happened (as Geraghty reminded us) with Cameron Diaz suggested that Bush would legalize rape in his second term, with Paul Wellstone’s memorial/pep rally, after convention speeches by Ann Richards and Ted Kennedy and any number of Democratic stalwarts, after appearances by race-baiters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. It happens after you read the cruel, crude, relentless, conspiracy-laden, over-the-top hype from sites like the Huffington Post and MoveOn.org, and it happens every time you see Rosie O’Donnell or Whoopi Goldberg or Barbra (I’ll move to Europe if the Republicans win) Streisand or any number of smug, self-satisfying Hollywood types. They remind good, decent people everywhere of why this culture seems to be in such lousy shape, and who's responsible for it. You might find yourself getting angry about it all over again just reading this.

In fact, you’re probably starting to recall the number of times you weren’t planning to vote at all until someone pushed you just too far, walked into your wheelhouse and dared you to go into the booth and mark that ballot. Which is what you did, and their candidate wound up losing. You remember those times, don't you? The wonder is that the Democrats don't. At least, perhaps, until now.

Looking back at Mitchell’s piece from earlier this week, I'm struck by a couple of things. First, that the Democrats might take his advice, look into their own echo chamber of history, and learn the lessons that come from the school of hard knocks. Second, it seems as if the most likely way that conservatives will rally around McCain (and thus give him any chance of victory) is if the Democrats make this mistake again. But if they can just play it cool, if they can keep their supporters under control and avoid what a friend of mine would call “walking into the crosshairs of a stationary cannon” (i.e. one that can hurt you only if you stand right in front of it and wave your arms), if they can just let sleeping dogs (and conservatives) lie, then they improve their chances dramatically.

It’s always dangerous trying to predict the future, especially a future that’s nearly nine months away. (Just ask yourself how accurate your TV weather guy has been lately.) But barring the unforeseen (note to aspiring pundits: always leave yourselves wiggle room, or, as we say in the political game, "plausible deniability"), you have to think that having these liberals revert to type is just about the best chance John McCain has. If, as Geraghty suggests, they’ve actually figured this out – if, in other words, they don’t blow it – then McCain might want to forget about wooing conservatives, and start writing his concession speech instead.

What a New Left Would Offer

By Bobby

The dangers of a Presidency of the Left is one that we must be aware as we continue the Chase to the Presidency. Sadly, too many people do not understand the point of history we are facing, and do not understand what a vote on the Left would mean:

Energy Policy:

A federal speed limit of 55 MPH, similar to 1974 policy misguided by a Democratic supermajority, is almost assured as one of the “save the earth” mantras that fit with the “save fuel” mantra that together, will easily be part of a liberal agenda to regulate automobiles to fit with standards in Europe.

A federal energy policy banning drilling in ANWR, and all new drilling of oil in all areas of this country, including waters. This policy will be accompanied by new “National Monuments” imposed near areas where coal, shale, and other oil developments are found to ban energy independence. Under the Clinton administration, the Grand Staircase Escalante monument in Utah was added to prevent American clean coal from being mined, and instead force us to buy Chinese Communist coal.

Continuing federal light bulb regulations that will ban anything that does not fit within the mantra of made-in-ChiCom, mercury-poisoning lightbulbs.

Continuing automotive regulations to force Americans into 2-seat, 2 or 3-cylinder minicars, including bans on large automobiles.

Continuing the purchase of Japanese hybrid small cars as federal policy.

Mandatory alcohol fuel in cars.

A windfall profits tax to charge 100% taxation of all profits on oil companies. All profits to government mean oil companies would have to leave the country or quit the business. The taxes would go to fund what liberals request, including numerous pork (think of “peace parks” in highway bills).

Health Care:

Socialised medicine that would effectively create bans on health research except for baby-killing research (which is protected by liberal mantra).

To cut costs, clinics such as Mayo and other massive cancer centres would be closed, and their medical research will be banned. This will prevent life-saving cures from being considered, since they are considered to be a harm.

Long lines in single-payer clinics where even basic health care will be rationed. People with even the flu will not be permitted to be treated for such.

Federal windfall profits tax on health care. Profits to government social control.

Federal controls of the health care system where no new doctors will be created, and no new innovations will happen because of policies designed to destroy the market.

Taxation:

A 50% tax rate (or higher) will be imposed on income taxes. This not only repeals the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, but adds to the Clinton-era tax rates.

A Capital Gains tax rate of 50% (or higher) will be imposed to discourage investing. Add the anti-investing mantra to the windfall profits tax and onerous government regulation to kill industries will create a country where investing will be discouraged and instead people will be asked to spend.

New consumption taxes on gasoline.

New taxes on internet usage.

New environmental taxes to ensure everyone drives the minicars.

More taxes for the government to take land away from people they wish to strip property (speedway owners, churches) so they can create more earth-worship parks.

The destruction of Wall Street, especially the stock market, when Reagan-era policies encouraging investing are repealed for a New Left-era policy discouraging investing and creating more dependence on government.

Media Regulations:

New onerous media regulations include the re-implementation of the Fairness Doctrine. In the 1960's, the Johnson administration used the Doctrine to get their way to have laws passed when opposition rose.

New media regulations will dictate the political slant of radio. Bans on conservative talk radio will be added with mandatory “public service” announcements to force-feed listeners to participate in rallies to support same-sex “marriage”, declaring the Bible as hate speech, and to push people to support higher taxes, government regulations, and anti-business tax codes.

Media controls of Hugo Chávez-style proportions, similar to what he did with RCTV.

The federal government will control the airwaves by banning anything that does not fit with the new liberal speech codes.

A ban on Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and even Fox News, because they do not fit the agenda of the media control bureau.

Speech codes that even Congress will regulate. My Congressman, Joe Wilson, cannot even speak in the House because of onerous regulations on who can speak.

The Family:

Declaring the Bible as hate speech as part of a homosexual agenda.

The homosexual agenda will become the law; even declaring it is a sin will be a crime, and laws will be written to mandate where child molesters can work in schools will be required.

Education standards will be rewritten to redefine family.

Abortion on demand will become federal regulation, and the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban will be voided.

New laws will be created to allow criminals to have rights, while victims will not have any.

Refugees of Communist nations and other despots will be forced to return to the land of the dictator they came, as the Elián Gonzáles case was one where the US under a pro-Communist leadership forced a kid who escaped the dictator back as part of a Lenin's Birthday celebration.

Lenin's Birthday will usurp Washington's Birthday as a major celebration in the United States; currently, kids are more aware of Lenin's Birthday (through a veiled “Earth Day” celebration) than of Washington's, because the philosophy of the Soviet dictator is celebrated on Earth Day.

Our Courts:

The courts of the new liberal Presidency will declare laws passed in Europe usurp the laws of the United States, hereby moving the capital of the United States to Bruxelles, Belgique.

The Law of the Sea, which surrenders sovreignity of the seas of our country, will become law and third-rate dictators control this nation's resources.

Rogue Nations and the War on Terror:

Usama bin Laden and his Henchmen will start invading Iraq and winning the minute the United States leaves under liberal requests.

To conform to the Leftist World, the United States will leave Iraq, making it a more dangerous area where terrorists will use to create the next major attack. The Left has made it clear conforming to what their fellow liberals want, and not going full-on to attack terrorists is priority #1. They would rather be praised by the world for losing than to go all-in for the win, and we learn in the Bible to not be of the world, and liberals prefer to be of the dangerous world that does not believe in going for the win, but keeping their self-esteem.

Iraq will become a more dangerous nation without support from the Free World because of the Leader's decision to leave to please the MOVEON.ORG organisation.

The People's Republic of China will have the right to invade, and destroy, Taiwan with the blessing of the new Administration.

Other Things of Danger:

MOVEON.ORG will become the massive think tank that will effectively rent more space, and force the Heritage Foundation, TOWNHALL.COM, the Cato Institute, and other major organisations leaning conservative to leave town under orders that only one side of political thought would be allowed.

Is this the type of government we want to elect? Such is the dangers of the New Left and their attempt to take back America for the sake of turning this nation into a totalitarian dictatorship of the extremists. After studying this, I know this is not the world I want to have after November 2008.

The Echo Chamber of History

By Mitchell

I’ve got this whole political thing figured out.

It’s not 2008. It’s 1964. And John McCain is Barry Goldwater.

Think about it for a moment. The similarities are there, and they’re more than the fact that McCain and Goldwater both come from Arizona and have white hair. And if you understand these similarities, if you understand the way history repeats itself, you’ll understand what just might happen in the next four years.

• McCain, like Goldwater, pictures himself as a “straight shooter.” (Remember Goldwater’s campaign theme, “A Choice, not an Echo.”) His opponents, as did Goldwater’s, think of him more as a “loose cannon.”

• McCain, like Goldwater, faces enormous opposition from one wing of his party. Just as the liberals accused Goldwater of seeking to destroy the Republican Party, the conservatives now make the same claim against McCain.

• And McCain, like Goldwater, seems determined to do everything he can to antagonize his intra-party opponents, to the point that one has to ask whether John McCain really wants to be elected president, or just wants the chance to lord it over the other side.

How else can one explain the almost pathological urge McCain has to poke his finger in the other fellow’s eye, to speak with the most inflammatory language possible, to disregard any chance that might presently exist to make a conciliatory statement toward the conservative wing of the party? Quite frankly, I can’t come up with another rational explanation for his behavior.

John McCain is not, dare I say, a stupid man. He’s seen the polls; he knows the GOP faces an uphill fight in November. Undoubtedly, he counts on Clinton Derangement Syndrome as a party unifier. But he has to know that Hillary’s victory in the Democratic race is no sure thing, and that the smart thing to do would be to start building those bridges just in case Barack Obama wins the nomination. Obama has, let’s face it, a lot of advantages that Hillary lacks; his lean, confident visage appearing opposite McCain’s scowling, snarling, nasty, brutish and short appearance at a debate would be like revisiting the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960. If McCain doesn’t know better than that, I’m afraid I’ve given him credit for being smarter politically than he really is.

Barry Goldwater had also seen the polls, had known even in 1963, when he had planned to run against John F. Kennedy, that it would be an uphill fight. Following Kennedy’s death he briefly considered giving up the race altogether, knowing it was unlikely the American people would go for the idea of three presidents within 14 months. When he did jump in, it was with the fatalism of a man who knows his victory is destined to be a pyrrhic one. He ran a crusade, rather than a campaign, seeking to purge the Republican Party of its liberal elements and create a movement that was pure to its cause, welcoming those who agreed with him and inviting the rest to go to hell. You’re either with me or against me, he told Republicans. Many opted for the later. Sound familiar?

Lyndon Johnson jumped all over Goldwater and what was left of the Republican Party after its disastrously fractious convention in San Francisco. The Daisy ad was only shown once, to devastating effect, but in the end even that might have been overkill, using a howitzer to destroy a gnat. Goldwater won only 38.5% percent of the vote, and carried but six states – five from the Deep South, rabidly against Johnson’s civil rights legislation, and his own Arizona. The Republican Party was left in an absolute shambles: Democrats controlled the Senate by 68-32, and the House 295-140 – both veto-proof margins.

Now, while I’m not predicting this kind of disaster for the Republicans in November 2008, I don’t think you can rule it out, either. So, with this bleak outlook, where does this leave the GOP entering 2009? In the same place it was in 1965 – with work to do.

And work, they did. In the 1966 midterm elections they staged a remarkable comeback, gaining 47 seats in the House and three in the Senate. It is true that the party in power generally loses seats in the midterms, and the increasing unpopularity of the Vietnam War also played a role. However, a large share of the credit has to go to one man who spent 1966 tirelessly campaigning for Republican candidates through the country, building up a storehouse of support and IOUs along the way: Richard Nixon.

Nixon emerged from the 1964 debacle as the elder statesman of the GOP. He introduced Goldwater at the convention and campaigned for him that fall, earning goodwill from conservatives while maintaining respect from liberals. Although Goldwater remained the titular head of the party following the election, this was all but meaningless; he’d given up his Senate seat in Arizona, his choice for national party chairman was ousted, and the party itself was deeply divided.

Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Into that vacuum stepped Nixon – still immensely popular with many, well-versed in the issues, tireless in his support for the party and its candidates. He remained, as he had always been, controversial, with the reputation of being a loser (having lost not only the presidency in 1960 but the gubernatorial race in California in 1962), polarizing (the liberals never did forgive him for the Alger Hiss affair), shifty (“Tricky Dick” didn’t start during Watergate, after all). Yet, despite these perceived drawbacks, the GOP coalesced around Dick Nixon. He entered the 1968 race with a base of support no other candidate could match; thanks to his efforts the South held firm for him, when they might naturally have been expected to side with his conservative rival, Ronald Reagan. He fended off the challenges of Reagan and Nelson Rockefeller and won the nomination on the first ballot, then defeated Hubert Humphrey in November.

Can the Republicans hope for a similar turnaround in 2012? Well, as we all know, history is nothing so much as an echo chamber, and the one who looks to the past in order to glean clues about the future is often far ahead of the game. A great deal of this will depend on the Democrat in the White House, of course. Should Clinton emerge with the victory, we could see more parallels to the 60s; for all her anti-war rhetoric, she appears to be the Democrat most likely to continue prosecution of the war in Iraq, and with her cahunas (and ego) it’s hard to see her allowing the Iranians to push her around. Should things go well, she’ll be hard to beat in four years, and deservedly so. Anything less than that, however, and the anti-war liberals completely take over the Democratic Party, leaving the outlook not dissimilar to 1968.

If Obama wins, there’s an even more recent parallel: although many compare him, in terms of youth and magnetism, to Bobby Kennedy in 1968, there are others who compare him, in potential, to a different candidate – Jimmy Carter. You’ll recall that after four years of Carter, the Republicans didn’t do too badly.

Either way, history suggests a reason for the Republicans to remain optimistic about the future, despite the current dismal outlook. To truly have a chance in 2012, however, they desperately require one thing above all: a leader. Someone to speak for the party in the media, to energize the base and rally the troops, to campaign for Republicans nationwide and hold the administration’s feet to the fire.

Who might this be? McCain’s running mate might fit the bill, depending on who it is and whether or not this person had come through the campaign without being tainted by defeat or antagonizing activists in either wing of the party. A tall order, but parties have traditions of looking at former running mates as potential candidates, so anything’s possible.

Also possible is that McCain’s rivals, particularly Mitt Romney, might come to the fore. Romney is, after all, available, and a few more years of proving his bona fides to suspicious conservatives wouldn’t hurt. Mike Huckabee, having been tarred somewhat by the same brush that has gone after McCain, is less likely, although he may emerge as an evangelical leader. Rudy Guiliani, having wasted his political capital, may well be reduced to a campaigner for others – a spear-carrier, but no longer a general.

It’s more likely, however, that we need to look elsewhere for the one who will ultimately unify the Republican Party. Following our model, we should be looking for someone who continues to maintain a large base of support, can articulate the issues important to the Republican faithful, is respected by a sizeable number of people within the party, is an effective and energetic campaigner for candidates around the nation, and is not seen as being part of a 2008 fiasco. As was the case with Nixon, the apparent drawbacks – a polarizing, occasionally brash personality, personal foibles, a retreat after embarrassing election defeat – are not necessarily the obstacles that one might think on first blush.

And so we are left with the man to whom history would suggest the Republicans can and must turn, the man who in 2010 will emerge as the leader of the minority party and in 2012 will be their presidential nominee.

I give you Newt Gingrich.

This Just In

By Kristin

Anderson Projected to Win Local Elemtary School Election

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) -- In a surprising development, CNN political correspondent Wolf Blitzer has projected the results of the 2008 Herbert Hoover Elementary School Class Election in the small town of Barnes, Wisconsin. “I am confident in the strategies by the campaign team surrounding sixth grader, Timmy Anderson,” said Blitzer. “Strong advertising in the hot lunch line and picketing around the tether ball poles has left a real impression on these 4th, 5th and 6th graders. And even those who are in the lower grades are getting real exposure to the complex elementary school election process”.

Supporters of Anderson bank on his previous experience as Milk Line Officer in the fifth grade to over power his opponent, fellow 6th grader, Matt Quinby who is new to the Elementary school. Anderson is best remembered for his strict policies against line cutting and place holding, while Quinby has taken a more relaxed stance on the controversial issue, promising stability, but flexibility. “People go to the milk line for many reasons,” stated Quinby. “ I feel it would be the responsibility of the next president to create a cohesive plan of maintaining line stability while not restricting the rights of the students”.

Milk line policies are not the only issue on the table this election season. Quinby will have an up hill struggle against Anderson who is running on a strong Anti-Weggie platform, a key issue among the 4th graders and also new students. Quinby has yet to take a stance on the extreme chafing caused by this traditional playground activity, which may hurt him in the long run.

Coverage of this election will be broadcast on network stations beginning this Thursday at 6pm with pre-coverage starting at 2pm and pre-coverate coverage starting at 11am.

That's Right - It Is Super Tuesday, Isn't it?

By Mitchell

Good grief. I’m sitting here at work, minding my own business, and my business cell phone buzzes. I look down at it – it’s a text message. Now, I don’t get that many calls on my work cell, at least not when I’m actually in the office, let alone text messages. After all, there aren't any teenagers (that I'm aware of) who have this number. At any rate, I take a look at the text:

Ron Paul: the only Republican 4 low taxes, less spending, gun rights, no amnesty, and no UN. RonPaul2008.com.

Unbelievable. Now, I have nothing against Ron Paul myself; I actually think he's got some pretty good ideas. Maybe not the guy I'd vote for, but, whatever.

But what gets me is that this came in on my business cell. I don't make personal calls on this number, and it's not as if the company I work for is crawling with Paul supporters. Who on earth would have gotten the idea to target this number?

Nothing sinister about it, I suppose. Just one more piece of evidence that you can't go anywhere and get away from it. Even anonymity is no refuge. There is no escape...

It's Why We Watch

By Mitchell

There is a method to the madness, the need that a cultural archaeologist has to collect old television shows and peruse vintage TV Guides. As with any other archaeologist, it is the desire to find the hidden treasure. It may be a story, a show, an offhand remark that attracts no attention at the time, that gives no indication that it will have any value in the future; in fact, it is likely forgotten as soon as it is uttered, digested and discarded immediately after it is read. They are the seemingly innocuous items that only attain their significance at a later date.

We found one of those moments the other day, watching one of the I’ve Got a Secret reruns that GSN shows in the middle of the night. The broadcast was from September 17, 1962. An older couple comes on, looking a little uncomfortable. They identify themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Armstrong of Wapakoneta, Ohio. Their secret flashes on the screen for the audience to see: “Our son became an ASTRONAUT today.” That's right – they were the parents of Neil Armstrong. And you have to ask yourself, what are the odds of that?

There were nine astronauts chosen in that class of September 1962, known as the “Next Nine” (having followed the more famous “Original Seven”). They could have had the parents of, say, Elliott See, who was killed in a plane crash before ever flying in space. But no – it just happened to be the parents of the first man to walk on the Moon. Who could possibly have imagined that this unknown astronaut, just one among nine, will wind up as one of the most famous men in history?

Now, you have to figure that this alone makes the broadcast a cultural archaeologist’s dream. But wait – it gets better. In the polite chit-chat just before the Armstrongs leave (Betsy Palmer figured it out, by the way), Garry Moore says, “Now, how would you feel, Mrs. Armstrong, if it turned out – and of course, nobody knows, but it turns out – that your son is the first man to land on the Moon? How would you feel?”

Can you believe it? It was a jaw-dropping moment for anyone watching in retrospect who wasn’t prepared for it – at least your jaw would have been dropping if you hadn’t covered it in shock. While you’re already marveling about the coincidence that this astronaut in question happens to be Neil Armstrong, and you’re thinking that nobody watching the show has any idea what the future has in store, you hear Garry ask, quite off-handedly – oh, by the way, what if your son is the first man on the Moon?

It reminds me of John Glenn’s appearance on Name that Tune back in 1957, when he was a Marine Corps pilot known only for having set the record for the fastest transcontinental flight from California to New York. Often enough you see a star plugging a movie or show you wind up never having heard of, or seeing an appearance from someone who’s being touted as “the next big thing,” only to fade into anonymity. It’s rare that you find a moment that fulfills the hopes, let alone one that throws a double-shock they way this one does. It’s a wonderful moment, one that reminds you why you watch.

Afterward, Judie asked me if Garry Moore was still alive at the time of the Moon landing. He was; he died in 1993. I wonder if he remembered that show of September 17, 1962, and what he said to the parents of the first man to walk on the Moon?

*****
As if that wasn’t enough, right after that the very next show (we record them nightly and then watch them in a batch) had a moment almost as good. It’s from September 24, 1962, and the first guest is an elderly looking Indian chief dressed in ceremonial garb, right to the headdress. He identifies himself as Chief John Big Tree, of Syracuse, New York. His secret: “I posed for the Indian Head nickel.” Again, living history. He stumps the panel, and as he turns to Garry Moore to revel his secret, the panel sees him in profile and Betsy exclaims, “You’re on the nickel!” Garry explains that federal law prohibits one man from serving as the model for currency, so the Chief was one of three who served as the model; his profile can be seen from the forehead to the top of the mouth. I mean, how often do you actually see, live in front of you, the person on a coin? (And, as it turns out, the famed sculptor James Earle Fraser, who designed the nickel, also used John Big Tree for his renowned sculpture “End of the Trail.”) John Big Tree was born in 1865, two months after Abraham Lincoln’s death. He lived until 1967, long enough to have appeared on television, and two years shy of being able to see Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon.

Wish I'd Written That

By Mitchell

Howard Beale [Peter Finch]: "I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'

Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. "You've got to say, 'I'm a human being, Goddamnit! My life has value!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!'

I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: [Screaming at the top of his lungs] 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' "

Paddy Chayefsky, dialog for Network

Or is it Lou Dobbs? You be the judge...

The Wound That Would Not Heal

By Drew

In the first chapter of his book Wagner: The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art, Fr. M. Owen Lee relates the story of the Greek hero Philoctetes. As told by Sophocles, Philoctetes is the model of the tragic hero: a warrior blessed with a bow that would always shoot straight and true to the mark (a gift to him by the god Heracles). Considering how much warfare there was in the time of ancient Greece, one can see how indispensible a man with such a weapon would be.

So far, so good. But now tragedy sets in. On the way to the siege of Troy, Philoctetes suffers a grievous wound to the heel, a wound that will not heal. (No pun intended.) The wound festers and emits a stench so horrible that, combined with Philoctetes' cries of agony, the Greeks can no longer put up with him. Led by the ship's captain, Odysseus, the Greeks strand Philoctetes on the isle of Lemnos and sail on, abandoning him to a future of utter isolation and loneliness. Philoctetes, understandably, is a bit put off by all this, and for the next ten years he remains alone on Lemnos, his hatred of the Greeks who betrayed him welling up inside him and festering every bit as much as his wound. Philoctetes, once the great hero of Greece, is now an embittered and wounded man, consumed by his hatred.

Finally, after ten years, the Greeks return to Lemnos. It's not from any new-found sense of shame, though; rather, they've discovered through a prophesy that they will not win the Trojan War without Philoctetes and his bow. No problem, says Odysseus; we'll just go back and get him. Granted, after ten years it might be hard to convince him to come and fight for the people who abandoned him, but Odysseus has a plan for this as well. He proposes to use a young, idealistic soldier, Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. Neoptolemus is to approach Philoctetes and gain his confidence, telling him that the ship has come to take him home. Once Philoctetes is safely on board, the ship will sail instead for Troy, where Philoctetes can apply his trade.

When Philoctetes discovers the deceit he is outraged and aims his bow straight at Odysseus. Given the track record of the bow, we pretty much know this is more than just a threat. But just when all seems to be lost, the god Heracles intervenes. He tells Philoctetes that "his hatred is self-defeating, that his suffering has had a purpose, that if he goes with his fellow Greeks to Troy, he will be cured of his wound and win imperishable glory."

For Wagner, a student of the Greek classics, the effect of this story is clear; we can see it most obviously in Parsifal, with the ruler Amfortas who bears a spear wound that will not heal. Other artists were influenced by it as well; André Gide, in his 1899 novel Philoctète, provides an autobiographical Philoctetes, a writer who suffers in in an island exile. In Gide's story it is the writer Philoctète himself who speaks the words of Heracles, telling the solider who comes to take him home that "his suffering there has taught him more of the secrets of life than he could possibly have learned had he been a normal man functioning in and accepted by society.

And now you can see the direction in which this is heading, what Sophocles and Gide might call "self-improvement through suffering." Christians would think of it as the redemptive power of suffering, but the message remains the same. It's a message that Sophocles gets, and there is an implicit Christian subtext in the words he gives Heracles: suffering has a purpose. The man who accepts his suffering and allows it to shape his character without resentment or bitterness will emerge from it a different - and better - man. There is in this a prefigurement of the opening words of James: "Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. [James 1:2-4]"

To understand and apprciate Wagner, one must appreciate the extent to which he he saw himself as Philoctetes, the artist suffering for the sake of his art and the truth it conveyed. However, as Christians, let's take this one step further - to our understanding of the purpose of suffering. In Parsifal, for example. The aforementioned Amfortas is not made strong and steadfast by his unhealing wound; rather, he is rendered weak, ineffective, willing to let the Knights of the Grail fade to obsecurity through his lack of leadership, until Parsifal himself returns (having received the grace of Good Friday) to heal Amfortas and assume leadership of the Knights.

In Rienzi, Wagner tells the story of the rise and fall of Rienzi, a populist leader who is at first hailed by the masses as a savior, but who eventually becomes a victim of the fickle nature of popular opinion. He is betrayed by those who helped him come to power, turned upon by the very masses for whom he fought in ending the oppression of the nobles. In the end the people violently rise up against him and the mobs burn the capitol; Rienzi, defiant to the last, dies in the fire, refusing to compromise his principles, seeing himself as a martyr for the truth. There is, one might suggest, more than a suggestion of self-pity in Rienzi's defiance, that of one who wears the cloak of the "prophet without honor," suffering for the truth that the masses refuse to appreciate. The analogy is that not of the humble man who suffers for the sake of Christ; it is, rather, the suffering of Christ Himself. It should come as no surprise, then, that Wagner saw himself as Rienzi - the misunderstood genius, the suffering artist, the intellect not fully appreciated.

As one might suggest, there is a dramatic difference in the two types of suffering, the difference coming in the perception of the ego, the contrast between the selfless, humbling sacrifice that comes from a clensing suffering, and the essentially ego-driven suffering of the great man who simply isn't appreciated by the public - a suffering that, frankly, carries more than a hint of the "you'll all be sorry!" attitude about it. (We speak, of course, excluding the entirely selfless suffering of Christ.) If one can draw conclusions from this at all, it might be that in Wagner's self-portrayal of Philoctetes we see as an end result of the suffering not self-improvement, but the improvement of society through the wisdom of the artist.

And so where does that leave us, on the eve of Lent? Perhaps in a mood to consider the mystery, and the purpose, of suffering. Perhaps to understand the role it has played in our own lives, and to look for the beneficial ways in which it has shaped our character. In learning to accept suffering in this manner (as in, for example, the manner of a man who suffers through constant temptations of one sort or another and, through it, learns compassion and patience for others who face the same suffering) we come to understand more fully the mystery of God Himself, Who constantly reassures us that with Him, nothing is impossible.

It is something for us to contemplate, and the right time of the year for us to do so. There is much more in Wagner's life and music that will allow us to examine the relationships between art and truth, between the artist and his creation; it's a discussion we've had often in this space, and will continue to have in the future.

Poetry Wednesday

By Judith

The hallmark of a lyric poem is its inherent musicality. Whether it was written to be set to music or not, the lyric sounds as if it should be sung. A lyric poem such as Jonson's "Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes" (which we mentioned during our poetry quiz a few weeks ago) or Burns' "Auld Lang Syne" are examples of words that sing just by saying them out loud, although they are associated with music that makes them soar when sung.

Lyricists in the genre of the American Popular Song or American Standards (High Standards to XM radio - and I agree) wrote poems that sang even on paper. George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers may have written music without their famous counterparts (Ira and Lorenz Hart, respectively) but, oh, those lyrics. Cole Porter did both jobs and did them brilliantly. The line "When they begin the beguine" had people swaying to the rhythm, even though nobody knew what a "beguine" was. (Defined as a "spirited ballroom dance", although I've heard the story that Porter made up the word and the dance was created after that.)

From the romantic (Night and day you are the one/Only you beneath the moon or under the sun) to the slightly naughty (Some Argentines without means do it/I hear in Boston even beans do it/Let's do it, let's fall in love), Porter was clever, witty and even sentimental, without being saccharine.

This lyric is again full of one of my favorite poetic devices, internal rhyme. Like several of Porter's songs the tune has a slightly Latin beat that emerges even when the lyric is recited. In just a few short lines, a picture is painted and the universal emotion that a good poet can capture evokes the feeling that makes you want to draw your wrap around you a little tighter because of the "still, chill of the night."

In the Still of the Night

In the still of the night
As I gaze from my window
At the moon in its flight
My thoughts all stray to you

In the still of the night
While the world is in slumber
All the times without number
Darling when I say to you

Do you love me, as I love you
Are you my life to be, my dream come true
Or will this dream of mine fade out of sight
Like the moon growing dim,
On the rim of the hill
In the chill, still, of the night

Is Perfection Perfect?

By Kristin

A fantastic bit of programming on MN Public Radio are the broadcasts of live opera performances aired on Sunday afternoons. Unfortunately, it is not often that I find myself in a place listening to the radio on a Sunday afternoon. This past Sunday, however, I found myself driving down Highway 55 listening to a beautiful opera. Which opera was it? I do not know. Who was the singer? I can not remember. Composer? Not a clue. What I do remember occurred about ten minutes into my drive; the sound of a cough echoing over the quiet song. I smiled. Not because it was funny, but because I could picture in my head a middle aged man sitting about 10 rows back, trying to hold in a cough and in a moment of weakens, allowing the disturbance to fly out. Why was I so taken by this imperfection in the recording? It has taken a few days, but I believe I have come to a semi-satisfactory explanation. I believe it was in the imperfection that I found a deep connection listening to the music, not in the perfect pitch of the singers.

This realization brought back a similar memory from my childhood. In seventh grade a friend copied for me a recording of the musical Les Miserables. As an adult, I remember one bit of the recording so vividly, as if I am listening to it now. The tape was made from a CD of a live performance of the original cast. During one of the songs sung by the young Cosette, there is a loud crash, as if a large 2x4 fell from the rafters onto the stage. The young singer wavered, but only for a moment then continued singing. Moments later, a member of the audience coughs a few times and is silenced by what I can only assume would be a cough drop. After nearly 13 years, these mistakes are the sounds I remember most clearly.

What is it about these mishaps that creates the lasting memories? For that split second when the error occurs, I felt the recording had new life. It was not a radio station number, or a bit of plastic tape but a three dimensional being with. In music, we all strive towards perfection. Few of us ever reach virtuoso status. But when we hear something slightly off, I feel that it makes the performance more human, establishes a bond between the music and the listener, more accurately reflecting life with all its imperfections. These disturbances in the musical world are what I will now be looking for a little more closely. Not to point out errors and assert my own superiority, but to find the human element in the live performance.

In closing I challance you to listen for the sneeze, watch for the wrong bowing and find the perfection in the imperfect.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

By Drew

There are many things that drive me crazy. This doesn't exactly come as a revelation to those who know me, but there you have it. Some things just defy explanation - you get so exasperated by them, words fail you. I'd like to think that's one reason why so many ridiculous statements go unchallenged - they're so breathtakingly insipid, it's not possible to articulate an argument against them. At least one that's cogent, that doesn't consist of words spelled like retching sounds.

At any rate, I repeat that there are a lot of things that drive me crazy. One of them is P.C.-thought. For me, this surpasses adequate description - it falls into one of those as-yet unnamed categories. At least, until today. For today I found an article that has come up with the word that almost perfectly describes my feelings for Political Correctness.

And that word is: stupid.

Not just that Political Correctness itself is stupid, although it is. Not just that the things the P.C. Police obsess over are stupid, although they are. No, it's that the people who fall for this garbage are, themselves, stupid.

Writing last week at Armavirumque, the blog of the excellent New Criterion, Kenneth Minogue describes the same feelings that come over me every time I read in the paper or hear on the tube about one of these insane cases:

They are generally about the extreme cases, known in the trade as “political correctness gone mad.” The question raised is thus: when was it ever sane? These cases constitute a large and fascinating body of data making the case that we are in modern societies surrounded by a great deal of alarming stupidity, especially at lower levels of responsibility.

Don't you love that? We're "surrounded by a great deal of alarming stupidity." Yes! The old joke in one unnamed Southern state was that voters had turned against a candidate because his sister had gone to New York and become a "thespian." We laugh at that because it sounds ridiculous - as, indeed, it is. And yet Minogue speaks of a case in Britain where "a paediatrician was nearly run out of town because a vigilante mob thought a paediatrician was a paedophile." He goes on to cite a disgusting incident at Barclay’s Bank that I'm not even going to try and describe, mostly because I don't want to break my fingers pounding them on the keyboard. Just read about it in his article. Suffice it to say that Barclay's, and their smug management, don't come out of it very well. (And if this quote: "We have a robust approach to equality and diversity and do not tolerate discrimination" doesn't make you wretch, you've a stronger stomach than I, Gunga Din.) As Minogue says in conclusion,

This is a stupidity story, not a victimisation one. The executive in question was making a lot of money and can no doubt look after himself. But it is I think important that we should all know about corporate cowardice and about the companies who indulge in it.

Corporate cowardice, indeed. (Although this description could be extended to cover places like schools, which are really just government-run corporations anyway.)

And Minogue is absolutely spot-on in saying that these exercises in irresponsibility by people who choose of their own free will to be offended need to be held up to the light and exposed for what they are. It is not that the comments that offend them are insensitive (although, undoubtedly, a few of them are); it is rather that these people, in demonstrating their outrage over such comments, show themselves for what they are: stupid. (This is not to say, by the way, that the people making these supposedly offensive comments in the first place aren't stupid as well, since stupidity doesn't appear to be a zero-sum game. But stupidity, as we all know, isn't automatically the same thing as insensitivity. It also isn't a crime, for which we can all be grateful.)

Take the Tiger Woods flap, for instance. Now, Al Sharpton, whatever else he might be, is not stupid. He's a rabble-rouser and a demagogue and a number of other things, but he's definitely not stupid; he knows exactly what he's doing. It's the people who fall for his shtick who are stupid. What is particularly despicible about the whole thing is that there are things that are offensive and need to be condemned. (Piss Christ, for example) And yet people like Sharpton agitate on things that are completely unimportant, purely for their own gain. Their cast of hangers-on enable them, and the stupid legions out there fall right into line, parroting Sharpton's blather - just as he knew they would. So words become crimes, thoughts become suspect, anyone with a mind to think and a mouth with which to express those thoughts becomes a potential fugitive from the Thought Police. Think that's an exaggeration? Ask Mark Steyn.

Minogue entitled his article, "Freedom's Collapse," and I agree. As much as I worry about hte loss of freedom, however, I'm equally concerned about the loss of the ability to think. There are plenty of people out there with whom I disagree, but I respect their intelligence and enjoy their company because they're smart people (who just happen to be wrong). But there's just no way you can respect the kind of stupidity that emerges from this morass. It signals an end not only to freedom of speech, but intelligent discourse as well.

We should take Minogue's advice and point out these incidents whenever and wherever they occur, and do it fearlessly. You know, it might even be fun - just think of it as a game, like Pin the Tail on the Donkey. And why not? There is, after all, no shortage of asses out there.

Wish I'd Written That

By Mitchell

"Mrs. Rollins, I wouldn't be usin' that word 'why' quite so often if I was you. . . 'Why' is a nasty little Protestant word. We Catholics say Credo - 'I believe' - to whatever the Pope says. If you have to ask why, then I think you should go along to the Anglican vicar and let him instruct you in unbelief. He'll let you 'why, why, why' to your heart's content."

Peter De Rosa, dialog from Bless Me, Father

Back in the Day

By Mitchell

It's been awhile since we've taken a look back through the pages of TV Guide, and since there's not much else going on right now why don't we open one up and see what's inside?

The latest addition to the Hadley collection is this issue from December 28, 1963, covering New Year's Day, 1964. On the cover you see the 17-year-old Patty Duke, star of The Patty Duke Show, in which she plays twin cousins Patty and Cathy Lane. This show was a modest success, running for three seasons and producing a memorable theme song. The article itself (written by an unbylined author) wasn't particularly flattering, commenting on Duke's lack of personality; one might say, as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, that there was no there there. Of course, given what we know about Duke's difficult childhood, it probably shouldn't come as a surprise that she came across as little more than a programmed robot with no independent thoughts of her own.

It's interesting, however, to see the different attitude TV Guide had about it's subjects. Back in the day, TV Guide wasn't merely a shill for the stars' publicity machines; at the same time, the writers often appeared to go out of their way to take shots at those whom they profiled, either outright or through snide insinuation.

Take, for instance, Richard Gehman's piece on Joey Bishop, whose sitcom was entering its third season. Bishop had by that time garnered a reputation as being difficult to work with, a trait which Gehman is eagar to analyze. Speaking of the two major influences on Bishop's career - Frank Sinatra and Jack Paar - Gehman comments, "Some of their arrogance - the necesary cockiness of deep insecurity - has rubbed off on him." I'm sure Bishop appreciated the free psychoanalysis. Again, while Gehman may be making an astute observation on Bishop, with comments such as this peppered throughout the article, it appears as if he takes particular pleasure in doing so.

Here's another article on an actress named Katherine Crawford. Only 19, her television career has just started, with appearances on programs such as Kraft Suspense Theatre and Alfred Hitchcock. She's cute enough, and apparently had talent, but her major advantage was that she was the daughter of Roy Huggins, creator of The Fugitive, The Invaders, and other TV hits. In the title of the article (also anonymously authoried), Crawford proclaims, "I'll be acting till I'm 70." As you can see from her IMDB profile, her last credit was in the series Gemini Man in 1976. Well, she made it to 32, anyway. And by the way, I don't mean for that comment to be snarky - she could well have gone on to a life more productive and more fulfilling than most of us. It's just that it never ceases to be fascinating how short the lifespan of "the next big thing" can sometimes be.

There is, for example, a program ABC broadcast on Saturday, December 28 entitled "Hollywood Deb Star Ball 1964," in which we meet "the lovely Deb [for debutante] Stars, slated for future stardom by major Hollywood studios." Well, let's take a look. There's Meredith MacRae, daughter of Gordon and Sheila MacRae, who just happened to be the hosts of the show. She did pretty well for herself. There's the aforementioned Katherine Crawford. There's Susan Seaforth, who as Susan Seaforth Hayes became a huge soap opera star. One of her Days of Our Lives co-stars, Brenda Benet, who was perhaps as well known for being Bill Bixby's ex-wife, was there as well. Linda Evans, star of Dynasty, was one of the Deb Stars, as was Chris Noel, whose remarkable life led her from a modest Hollywood career to her vocation as a radio host and entertainer stationed in Vietnam for the Armed Forces Network, travelling to locations considered too dangerous for Bob Hope and other celebrities. Claudia Martin, Deano's daughter, was one of the ten starlets, and I think it's safe to say that her bloodlines were her biggest claim to Hollywood fame. And then there were Shelly Ames, Anna Capri and Amadee Chabot, who scored minor successes at best. Why do some careers take off while others flounder? Who knows.

Remember Guy Lombardo? He was on hand, as usual, on New Year's Eve, entertaining with his Royal Canadians from Grand Central Station in New York City. Remember when football bowl games were all played in the daytime? Back in 1964 they were, as the Orange (Auburn vs. Nebraska), Sugar (Alabama vs. Mississippi) and Cotton (#1 Texas vs. #2 Navy) were all played at the same time, acting as joint opening acts for the Rose (Illinois vs. Washington), which started at 3:45 Central time and ended the college football season. And what about all those other bowl games that came before New Year's Day? Well, during this week there was only one - the Gator (Air Force vs. North Carolina), on Saturday afternoon. As you can see, service academy football was still big back in the early 60s.

On Sunday, December 29, it's the television premiere on ABC of the documentary "The Making of the President 1960," based on the Pulitzer winner by Theodore White. And speaking of which, it was only a little more than a month since JFK's assassination, and a letter writer notes her appreciation for the television industry's "finest hour" of broadcasting coverage. I would imagine the holiday season might have been a little more somber that year than in years past.

As I have said often, TV Guide is - or was - one of the prime cultural indicators of the past. For the cultural archaeologist, it's like opening a treasure chest. It reminds us not only of days gone by, the things that were, but, as in the case of the Deb Ball, some of the things - or careers - that never were. And it is nice, isn't it, to sometimes be able to look to the future in blissful ignorance of what we know is to come? A pity that we can't be more optimistic like that all the time, but then, times have changed. And not always for the best.

The Rest of the Story

By Drew

Appropos of Mitchell's post yesterday, it is impossible to talk about abortion without bringing up the subject of eugenics. Just as Cormac McCarthy's quote shows that the discussion of abortion invariably brings you to euthenasia, Ron Radosh's New York Sun review of Jonah Goldberg's new book Liberal Fascism demonstrates that no analysis of abortion can be complete without understanding the barbaric - and essentially racist - topic of eugenics. Here's an excerpt of Radosh's review:

Turning to what he calls liberal racism, Mr. Goldberg offers readers his finest chapter. It is a devastating picture of how liberals adopted eugenics — a basic part of Nazi doctrine — which was not, as some liberal intellectuals have argued, an outgrowth of conservative thought. Fans of Margaret Sanger, perhaps the single most important feminist hero of the 20th century, will never be able to think of her in the same way. Mr. Goldberg dissects her hidden views of eugenics. A socialist and birth-control martyr, she favored banning reproduction of the "unfit" and regulation of everyone else's reproduction. She wrote, "More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief issue of birth control." She opposed the birth of "ill-bred, ill-trained swarms of inferior citizens." Her words reveal her motive in advocacy of birth control. She sought to remove "inferior" people from being born to poor people, whose mothers by definition were "unfit." Sanger's partisans in Planned Parenthood, the group that stemmed from her work, will be shocked to learn that her publication endorsed the Nazi eugenics program, and that Sanger herself "proudly gave a speech to a KKK rally." That was not surprising, since she clearly viewed blacks as inferior. Hence her "Negro Project," in which she sought to urge blacks to adopt birth control.

This isn't a secret, mind you. Or, rather, it's the dirty little secret of the "pro-choice" movement. But Santayana once pointed out what happened to those who don't remember history, so it might be a good thing to remind people of it. Remind them the next time someone refers to Planned Parenthood as a "women's health clinic." Remind them when the breast cancer Race for the Cure comes around in May, sponsored by the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and remember that the Komen Foundation contributes to Planned Parenthood. Remind the supporters of Planned Parenthood and the Komen Foundation (and other organizations supporting PP) of this inconvenient little truth, and ask them to defend it.

If they can.

Poetry Wednesday

By Judith

Many people think of Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) as a small, quiet, reclusive lady who sat at home all her life and wrote nice little poems about daisies and bees. Well, sort of.

She may have been small of stature (she described herself as "small, like the wren"), but there was nothing little about her imagination or her favorite themes of life, death and eternity. She wrote 1,775 poems, approximately 2/3 of them before 1866. Less than a dozen were published during her lifetime. It wasn't exactly for want of trying. In 1862 she sent four poems to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, an essayist and reformer, to see whether he deemed them worthy of publication (although she had been previously published, albeit anonymously). He advised her to wait.

Most people who read her work didn't know what to make of it, for it didn't follow conventions of the day. Her use of unorthodox punctuation, capitalization and rhyming scheme was so unlike most other poets of her day (except, perhaps for that free spirit, Whitman). The poems didn't have titles, being known by their first lines. A rhyme scheme she often used was "slant rhyme", meaning that words might have different vowel or different consonant sounds, but still had a nearly-close rhyme sound. The sound was more jarring than pleasing, but this dissonance was a useful tool in conveying her thoughts on death and the hereafter. (A further force of life/Developed from within - /When Death lit all the shortness up/It made the hurry plain- )

After Emily Dickinson's death her sister found her vast store of poems and worked at getting them published. The first volume came out in 1890. In 1955 Thomas Johnson edited a complete edition of her poetry, numbered the poems, and, most importantly, presented them as the author had written them, without reformatting them with conventional rhyme and punctuation. His numbers are shown here.

1540 - written @ 1865

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away -
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy -
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon -
The Dusk drew earlier in -
The Morning foreign shone -
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that would be gone -
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.

1176 - written @ 1870

We never know how high we are
Till we are asked to rise
And then if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies -

The Heroism we recite
Would be a normal thing
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp
For fear to be a King -

Thought for the Day

By Mitchell

"Here a year or two back me and Loretta went to a conference in Corpus Christi and I got set next to this woman, she was the wife of somebody or other. And she kept talking about the right wing this and the right wing that. I ain't even sure what she meant by it. The people I know are mostly just common people. Common as dirt, as the sayin goes. I told her that and she looked at me funny. She thought I was sayin somethin bad about em, but of course that's a high compliment in my part of the world. She kept on, kept on. Finally told me, said: I don't like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I don't think you got any worries about the way the country is headed. The way I see it goin I don't have much doubt but what she'll be able to have an abortion. I'm going to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she'll be able to have you put to sleep. Which pretty much ended the conversation."

Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

R.I.P.

By Mitchell

Don Wittman

Don Wittman was Canada's Curt Gowdy, Jim McKay, Chris Schenkel, Keith Jackson. For over 40 years, he was "the soundtrack of Canadian sports" - the CFL, the NHL, the Olympics, golf, curling, and everything in-between. I've written often of the "big-game announcer" - the moment you heard his voice, you knew it was a big game. Don Wittman, who died Saturday of cancer at age 71, had that kind of voice, and was that kind of announcer.

To every event he broadcast, he lent a note of authority, a dash of gravitas, and more than a hint of drama. He called 37 Grey Cups 28 Stanley Cups, 18 Olympic Games, always underplaying the event, letting the action on television speak for itself. It wasn't easy to hear him here in the States, but invariably when you caught the broadcast of a Canadian sporting event - the Grey Cup, the Stanley Cup - you heard Wittman's voice, without the self-hype and malarky that typifies most of what passes for sports broadcasting today. He was a member of the CBC Hall of Fame, to be sure, but also the CFL Hall of Fame, and once drank from the Grey Cup in a memorable post-game broadcast. With his death and that of Don Chevrier in December, Canada has now lost two of its great announcers, and great gentlemen.

Suzanne Pleshette

Suzanne Pleshette was the perfect TV wife. She was smart, sexy, sassy, but also genuine. In her most famous role, that of Bob Newhart's wife Emily on the original Bob Newhart Show, she gave us that television rarety - someone who was a real character, not just a caricature of one.

One of the reasons for the show's success was that it dared to portray its leads as adults rather than children (they even slept in the same bed!) - and that was something, in a medium in which husbands are often shown to be clueless fools and weaklings, the wives empty-headed sexpots or shrews. What made her character so real was the chemistry with her TV husband, a formula consisting in equal parts of love, respect, passion, exasperation, and resignation - in other words, the stuff of all successful marriages. She may have been Bob's foil, as one obit described her, but she was not a fool, nor did she suffer them gladly. But you could see how a man with a sense of humor would appeal to her, how a babe like her could fall for a nerd like Bob and stay together for so many years. Her surprise cameo at the end of Newhart's 80s sitcom, reprising Emily in a scene revealing that the entire series had been a dream and Bob was in fact still in his old show, was one of the great moments in TV history.

It would be a mistake to think that the show was all there was to Suzanne Pleshette - she appeared on the big screen and was a staple in television dramas of the 60s, and appeared in more recent sitcoms such as Will & Grace and 8 Simple Rules - but it was as Emily Hartley that we knew and loved her best; and that, it would seem, is not a bad way to be remembered, on the day she died of cancer at 70.

Bobby Fischer, R.I.P.

By Mitchell

Back in the day, when I was in school, the chess players were the nerds, the bookworms, the boys wearing the horn-rimmed glasses. There was something about them that was, well, a little different.

But there was a time in the early 70s when chess became kind of cool, even sexy. It was a time when chess even became a televised sport. (Don't laugh - if people will actually watch poker on TV, then anything's possible.) Chess was another weapon of the Cold War, wedged somewhere in between the space race and the Olympic hockey team; and chess players were the new scientists or classical musicians, so square they were hip. One man was primarily responsible for that transformation: Bobby Fischer.

When he defeated the evil Boris Spassky (he was a Russian, after all; he had to be evil, if not a Commie) in 1972 to become world chess championship, he also became an American hero, albeit for a very short time. About the time it took to go from an eccentric chess master to a full-blown nutjob.

He was an American champion at 14, a grand master at 15, and world champion at 29. He was tall, youthful and good-looking, the latest matinee idol. His magnetism positioned him to capture the sports spotlight. But, like those chess players we knew in school, Fischer was always a bit odd, seeing conspiracies behind every tree, under every bed. He was always storming out of matches, seeing photographers, journalists, foreign officials (he once referred to the Soviets as "Commie cheats," which endeared him even more to America) and even the lighting guy as potential adversaries. Was it gamesmanship or were we seeing the "idiosyncrasies" of a true paranoid? Were the symptoms there in the young Fischer; was there something in his drive for chess success at such a young age that left him scarred forever? We may never know, although his life should be a harsh lesson for any parents who have seen their children come to great success (athletic or otherwise) at an early stage of life, a time when it is far better to be just a kid.

Fischer gave up his title without ever having defended it, refusing to play Anatoly Karpov. As his grew, his star faded, a comet flaring out, until he was a mostly forgotten champion. He became a ravenous anti-American and anti-Semite - he said 9/11 was a good thing and that America should be "wiped out," and called Jews "thieving, lying bastards." Not only had his elevator ceased going to the top floors, it seldom seemed to emerge from the basement. He renounced his American citizenship and spent the last years of his life in Iceland, where he was still remembered for what he had been, rather than what he had become.

Garry Kasparov, the great Russian champion and anti-Communist, was quoted today as saying, "The tragedy is that he left this world too early, and his extravagant life and scandalous statements did not contribute to the popularity of chess." And that is probably about the best way to put it. Bobby Fischer, who died today of kidney failure at 64, was an icon of the 70s, a mad genius, a great chess player who threw it all away, a victim of his own mind, and he died a mere characture of his former greatness.

The Writers' Strike and the Month of Money

By Bobby

In a form of automobile racing held primarily in the Midwest known as sprint cars (not to be confused with NASCAR Sprint Cup), a series of races in July and August collectively have the title of the Month of Money. These races, which include the King's Royal (where the winner of the Eldora Speedway (Rossburg, OH) event receives a lavish coronation ceremony, complete with crown, a royal seat, and a robe) and the Super Clean Knoxville Nationals in Iowa, are regarded as the highest-paying races on the schedule and are regarded as the most prestigious races on the schedule.

Television traditionally has its "Month of Money," where networks and affiliates usually aim for the biggest events on television in a span of six to seven weeks, when most major events air during that span. The Month of Money events on television are the Golden Globe Awards (NBC), Super Bowl (Fox, NBC, CBS rotation), Grammy Awards (CBS), Daytona 500 (Fox), and Academy Awards (ABC), all of which air on Sunday nights during the Month of Money. These five events are regarded as highly-rated events that bring in huge revenues for the networks fortunate to air them; all four major networks have at least one Month of Money event, and three (NBC, CBS, Fox) of them can have two if the rotation allows them to have two. Advertising revenues for the networks and their affiliates could make or break the year if they perform well during the Month of Money; a network without a major event could be down millions, and lose precious affiliates. Such was the case after CBS was relegated to minor network status in 1994 following the loss of the NFL, and prestigious affiliates, a situation from which they have never recovered, as they were pushed into lower-power minor stations in major markets (Detroit, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Austin), which have cost them ratings power nationally.

With the Writers Guild of America strike, Fox is sitting pretty in the catbird's seat for winning the Month of Money as NBC lost the Golden Globe Awards to the strike, and ABC may be on the verge of losing the Academy Awards because of the strike, as the support of the Screen Actors Guild of the strike (note United Artists (Tom Cruise) and Worldwide Pants (David Letterman) have made independent collective bargaining agreements with the WGA) leads to boycotts of both entertainment-themed awards shows. CBS has the Grammy Awards, and the status of that awards show is currently in the fate of the union (it will go up against the Pro Bowl two out of every three years; during CBS' turn at the Pro Bowl, they will have the game moved to Saturday). Fox has the Super Bowl and Daytona 500, and both events are live sporting events, so neither event can be stopped by the strike.

The fact the Super Bowl traditionally wins that network the week is important; only a bad game with low appeal will cost the network the week. The Daytona 500 is growing into that level, as the final laps of the race are now held in prime-time, as the 2007 race ended after 7 PM.

Does the announcement of the cancellation of the Golden Globes and potential loss of the Grammys and Oscars mean Fox is home-free in the Month of Money with the Super Bowl and the Daytona 500?

Wish I'd Written That

By Mitchell

To the Frenchman, nothing counts, by and large, except what is French. No other culture, language, or heritage isas fine. This narrow patriotism fuses into fierce national pride and, to a great extent, excludes interest in any other culture, language, or heritage.

If France loses, the French tend to belittle the winner, put forth a dozen alibis for their own defeat, and intimate that the prize wasn't worth winning anyway.

If France wins, the instrument of victory is likely to be applauded beyond all proportion, to be hoisted to giddy heights in the popular imagination - and to be a flop all the rest of his life as a result.

Robert Daley, Cars at Speed

Poetry Wednesday

By Judith

The two song lyrics we're going to look at today were written by different people, but what brings them together is the composer, Bert Kaempfert, who recorded these and many other songs he wrote with his orchestra in the 1960s. And - this one's for you Badda - I'm going to tie him in to Frank Sinatra (of course) at the end.

I find these lyrics interesting because of their internal rhythm and rhyme scheme. Even without the music they move along with an infectious beat. The first, written by Kaempfert with Milt Gabler, was penned for Nat King Cole's last album in 1965. Notice the device of using the same word at the end of one line and the beginning of the next that provides emphasis and a strong push-off for the following line ("..game for two, two in love...") and the repeated, internal rhyme of "...make it, Take my heart and please don't break it". Not to mention the correct usage of "me and you", not "I and you" or "myself and you" as is so often used by people who have been scared into never using "me". (Actually, you and me flows better, but then doesn't rhyme. Oh well. Poetic license.)

L O V E

L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore.

Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please don't break it
Love was made for me and you

The second song was written by Kurt Schwabach (with additional lyric by Milt Gabler) with Kaempfert and recorded in 1962. As with many of Kaempfert's songs, someone else made it famous. Remember 1963 when Wayne Newton was just a kid? Now the interesting thing about this is the mispronunciation of the German word "Schoen" (sounds like shern, not shane) in order to force the rhyme for "pain", "explain", "lane" and "again". To be fair, this isn't the first time it was done; the Andrews Sisters recorded a song called "Bei Mir Bist du Schoen" and also rhymed the last word with "explain".

This one is chock-full of internal rhyme and gives the impression that the singer (or speaker) is trotting down a staircase or skipping a stone on water. You want to move, even while reading it sitting down.

Danke Schoen

Danke Schoen, Darling, Danke Schoen.
Thank you for all the joy and pain.
Picture shows, second balcony, was the place we'd meet,
Second seat, go Dutch treat, you were sweet.

Danke Schoen, Darling, Danke Schoen.
Save those lies, Darling don't explain.
I recall, Central Park in fall.
How you tore your dress, what a mess, I confess. That's not all.

Danke Schoen, Darling, Danke Schoen.
Thank you for walks down Lover's Lane.
I can see, hearts carved on a tree.
Letters inter-twined, for all time, yours and mine, that was fine.

Danke Schoen, Darling, Danke Schoen.
Thank you for seeing me again.
Though we go on our seperate ways,
Still the memory stays, for always, my heart says, Danke Schoen.

Danke Schoen, Oh Darling, Danke Schoen.
I said, Thank you for seeing me again.
Though we go- on our seperate ways,
Still the memory stays, for always, my heart says, Danke Schoen.
Danke Schoen, Auf Wiedersehen, Danke Schoen.

Kaempfert wrote a number of other songs that ended up big hits for other people. "Moon Over Naples" became "Spanish Eyes", recorded by Al Martino and "A Swingin' Safari" reached # 13 on the charts as recorded by Billy Vaughn in 1962. Later that year the song gained even more fame when it became the theme for the game show "The Match Game". When the Beatles were performing and recording in Hamburg in the early 60s, a Croat singer named Ivo Robic convinced Kaempfert to hire them to be back-up for a singer named Tony Sheridan in a recording session. Ivo Robic also co-authored a famous song to be used as part of the score Kaempfert wrote for a movie in 1965 A Man Could Get Killed.

So where does Frank Sinatra come in? That song in the film was "Strangers in the Night", a # 1 hit for ol' blue eyes.

When Men Were Men - and Conventions Were Conventions

By Mitchell

Donald at 2Blowhards has a nicely evocative article on a time for which all political junkies hearken: the era of the contested political convention.

There hasn’t really been one since the 1976 Republican convention, in which neither Gerald Ford, the incumbent, nor Ronald Reagan, the challenger, arrived in Kansas City with enough committed delegates to capture the nomination. Ford had the lead going into the convention, however, and barring a procedural vote going in Reagan’s favor (it didn’t, and in the process indicated to the convention the relative delegate strength of each candidate), he was still the solid favorite to win – which he did, on the first ballot.

The Democrats almost had one, in 1980. Again it was the case of a challenger taking on an incumbent. In this case, the challenger was Ted Kennedy, making his one and only run at the presidency; the incumbent was Jimmy Carter. Again there was a procedural vote, on which Kennedy had laid all his chips; again the party machine, arrayed (for better or worse) behind Carter, held the line; again the challenger fell. Carter won the nomination only, as had Ford four years earlier, to lose the general election. (However, for Kennedy, unlike Reagan, there would be no second act on the presidential stage.) And with that, for better or worse. the last excitement that anyone would ever see at a political convention had come to an end.

(And, by the way, doesn’t it really say something about the uselessness of Kennedy’s political career that he wasn’t even able to wrest the nomination away from Carter, perhaps the weakest president of the latter part of the 20th Century? If this doesn’t prove the power of the incumbency, nothing does.)

As Donald points out, 1952 was the last time either national party had a presidential nominating battle go to multiple ballots. (A slight correction on Donald’s post: while the Democrats did indeed go to three ballots before nominating Adlai Stevenson, the GOP convention liked Ike on the first ballot – with Eisenhower only five votes short of the nomination after initial voting, a series of switches in state voting wound up giving him a decisive victory. Then, as now, everyone wants to be seen going with the winner.) In fact, the last time there was a multiple-ballot vote on anything was, of all things, the 1956 Democratic vice-presidential contest. Stevenson, having once again won the presidential nomination, decided to allow the convention to choose his running mate. Stevenson’s rival, Estes Kefauver, bested the young John F. Kennedy on the second ballot to capture the nomination.

Back in those days, political conventions were once the occasion for excitement, anticipation, drama. They represented the climax of a campaign season that wasn't dominated by "Super Tuesday," a time when most candidates didn't announce until early in the same year of the election, when the New Hampshire primary wasn't held until March, for heaven's sake. Take a look at TV Guide in July of 1964 for example, when the Republicans were preparing for one of the most tumultuous conventions they'd had in years. NBC provided live daily coverage of platform and credentials committee hearings. CBS aired a one-hour documentary showing highlights of "Great Conventions" of the past. Both networks provided gavel-to-gavel coverage than ran well past midnight. They actually expected people would want to watch this kind of coverage. And many did.

Today, of course, the national political conventions have less excitement than a cow-milking contest. Why is that? For one thing, as far as political conventions go, excitement usually means controversy, dissention, fighting. All of it in front of the cameras. (Recall 1976, when Vice President Nelson Rockefeller became involved in a brawl on the convention floor that resulted in him ripping out a telephone that connected one of the delegations to the podium.) And while all that makes for riviting TV, it doesn't always translate into effective politics, especially for the party in question. Heck, the role call of the states - the "Mr. Chairman" moment about which Donald writes fondly - is now spread over two or three days. Nobody even bothers to watch it.

2Blowhards commentor Annette mentions the 1972 Democratic convention as a turning point, with George McGovern delivering his acceptance speech at around 3:00 in the morning. She's correct, because after that debacle things do change. But to understand the nature of the change, it's necessary to go back to the tumultuous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. You could write a book about that one, but the image one should keep in mind is that of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (no, not the current one - his legendary father), his iron-fisted response to anti-war demonstrators, and his role in delivering the old-line establishment machine behind Hubert Humphrey. The reformers didn't forget that in 1972, and at the Miami Beach convention they sought to break the hold of the establishment, beginning with their successful challenge that ousted the Daley-controlled Illinois delegation. The result of all this reform was a tyranny of the minority.

Now, I don't use that phrase perjoratively, for in fact we're talking about factions that in and of themselves were true minorities in the political system prior to that time - blacks and women, abortion rights advocates, anti-war protestors, along with the anti-establishment reformers. Put together they made a majority of the delegates in Miami, enough to get George McGovern the presidential nominaiton, but their collective power was somewhat diminished because of their factionalism. Theodore White's The Making of the President 1972 provides a marvelous description of the pinnacle of this disorganization - the chaos surrouding the choice of McGovern's running mate Thomas Eagleton, and the subsequent floor fight over his nomination. It was the voting on that nomination - three other candidates were nominated, and over 70 received votes (including 30 votes for the unknown Georgia governor Jimmy Carter) that pushed McGovern's acceptance speech out of prime time and into a political Twilight Zone.

It must be said that the Democrats learned well from that lesson. Watching the fiasco in Miami Beach - and remembering it four years later - was the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Robert Strauss. Strauss was determined not to repeat the mistakes of 1972, and created an ironclad agenda written months in advance of the convention, which included a prime-time acceptance speech. He even specified the exact time, to the minute. The model has been followed ever since.

There's another byproduct of that 1972 convention however, one that tells us a great deal more about our modern politics. Having ruefully discovered the inherent drawbacks to the populist, power-to-the-people movement spearheaded by the McGovern reformers, the Dems took a step back. Oh, the minority - some might say fringe - elements continued to control the party machinery, as they do to this day. But whereas the message of 1972 was "Let Everyone Speak," the message of 2008 has become "Speak Only If You Agree With Us." By allowing the tyranny of the minority to become an ideological dictatorship, the Democrats have essentially stamped out any form of dramatic dissent from the party line, at least at the national level. Pro-life Democrats? Not on the podium at the national convention. Pro-war Democrats? Ask Joe Lieberman. The voiceless elements do indeed have a voice in the Democratic party - the only voice, as it happens, that counts. Even some traditional elements of the Democratic coalition made the switch - unions, which had been staunchly anti-Communist throughout the Cold War, moved steadily to the left. Catholics, long a staple of the party, no longer cast their votes reflexively for the Democrats - and those Catholics left in the Democratic Party tended to be liberal, heterodox ones, now challenging the Church's leadership rather than the party's.

This is only a theory, I admit, but I think it's a useful one. Anyone reading the evolution of the Democratic Party, from Kennedy's 1960 victory through the chaos of 1968 and 1972, to the Strauss-mandated order of 1976, to the monochromatic liberalism of today, would share at least some of these conclusions.

What about the Republicans, you say? Well, they've had their own hierarchical pattern throughout the years, usually bestowing their presidential nomination on candidates who've "earned" it through long years of service. For further examples, see "Nixon, Richard," (although in that case they were right), "Ford, Gerald," "Dole, Robert," and "Bush, George W." The best you can say about them is that the winner usually bears the establishment seal of approval, which puts the same kind of damper on genuine debate and disagreement at the convention as the one-note politics of the Democrats. There's some hope that this year's GOP covention, to be held across the river from us in St. Paul, might be different. I share that hope, but not the optimism that it will actually happen.

At any rate, we didn't set out to discuss ideology or current politics as much as to cast an appreciative, nostalgic eye back in time, to an era when political conventions really meant something, when the smoke-filled rooms and the backstage deals and the packed galleries created their own share of drama and helped write the history of America. It was messy, often unfair, autocratic, splattered with mud - and I miss it tremendously.

What Music Means

By Drew

I meant to write about this a while ago, back when it was more topical. I suppose other things got in the way, and now I'm just coming back to it. I'm glad I waited though, because I've come up with another angle to it.

It starts with this comment by Ray from MN on a previous post. In respose to one of Mitchell's pieces on opera, Ray wrote:

You write on opera and music in a way that stings in that I have ignored it for most of my life. I've missed out on a lot of what it is to be human. [Emphasis added]

Undeniably, there is something in music that touches us in that way, that issues a subtle comment on "what it is to be human."

And so we come to the death, early in December, of the contemporary classical composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in Germany. Alex Ross describes Stockhausen as 'a giant of late-twentieth-century music," a composer who "released sounds of mind-opening and mind-bending power." Andrew Clements, writing in the Guardian, says that Stockhausen "was part of the generation of composers who had seen the old order in Europe come to catastrophe in the chaos of the second world war, and had determined that artistically they had to begin again." Ivan Hewett, also in the Guardian, says that Stockhausen "was one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music." The conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen called Stockhausen "the rock star of my youth." Stockhausen's influence was said to stretch from the Beatles to the avant-garde composer and conductor Pierre Boulez.

Amidst all this praise for Stockhausen, David Pryce-Jones, writing at NRO, comes to a completely different conclusion:

[Stockhausen] preferred not to communicate, to ignore melody and rhythm, and simply to ambush his audience with strangeness and discord. His work is a gigantic gimmick. Much of it is electronic, or consists of the abuse of instruments and people. Players are often left free to begin or to stop, interpreting as they choose. Players are advised in one instance to “Live completely alone for four days, without food in complete silence.” One of his pieces lasts for an hour with six vocalists “meditating” on a single note. In another piece, the members of a string quartet played from an airborne helicopter, their sounds relayed through screens and loudspeakers. It is the musical equivalent of conceptual art. The degradation of the man’s character was shown when he described 9/11 as “a work of art.”

[...]

Egomaniacs like Stockhausen are meat and drink to promoters and sensation-mongers, and nothing much can be done about it except to endure and wait for them to be gone. Unfortunately he and so many like him pass as “artists,” when they are nothing of the kind, but only destroyers of the culture they inherited.

So which is it? The weight of truth seems, to me, to side with Pryce-Jones. I say this not only because of Stockhausen's excreble comments on 9/11, but because so much of Pryce-Jones' charges against Stockhausen's legacy speak to my own opinion on the meaning of music. As Pyrce-Jones says, music "is perhaps the most direct and beautiful of the possible means of communication. Pretty well all of us recognise melody and rhythm, and these correspond to something deep in our common humanity."

In that sense, Stockhausen's music appears to fly in the face of the relationship between music and nature. Rather than harmonizing with our natural rhythms, it would seem to contradict it, and with that our humanity as well. It is destructive, driving apart rather than synthesizing. Hewett himself, in his obit of Stockhausen, is completed to mention "the accusation levelled at Stockhausen's music as a whole, that the vast ideas it contains often sound chaotic or merely ugly."

And there, I think, are the key words: chaos and ugly. Does it not say much about the way we view humanity, and life? There is our constant struggle against the order of natural law, the order given us by God. In place of that order we seek to insert chaos - or, if you will, relativity. Chaos, as seen through its struggle against nature, is not a good thing.

Nor can it be said that there is anything naturally ugly about humanity, although many aspects of it may be thought ugly; just as there is nothing ugly about human beings, even though many of them appear to us that way. In fact, nothing which is created in the image of God can be said to be ugly, except through self-choice. Choices, perhaps, that Stockhausen reflects through his music, fighting the natural instinct toward beauty that exists in the human soul and manifests itself through human creativity.

I don't want to go too far down that road however, because I don't want to fully pass that kind of personal judgement on Stockhausen. He was said to be a man of God, who said that God gave birth to him and called him home. And so perhaps, in his own way, Stockhausen meant to explore some of that mystical relationship through his music. But there have certainly been many ugly explorations of religion in contemporary art; we are constantly exposed to the ugly: ugly churches, ugly religious music, ugly theology.

And so we're left with a continuing plea to remember the relatonship that is supposed to exist between art and beauty. For if, as we've written before, there is an element of truth essential to art, then also there must be that relationship between truth and beauty. Stockhausen's music has been called many things; I'm not aware that beautiful was one of them. And, as Ray reminded us in the quote that began this peace, true beauty is a lot of what it is to be human.