Lefty Snarkiness, continued

By Mitchell

I don't want to put too fine a point on this because, frankly, I have better things to do. But I wanted to add a couple of thoughts to what Drew and I have said earlier on this subject. The first has to do with Drew's point about childishness.

Drew sent me a link to this review by Susie Currie from The Weekly Standard of Christopher Noxon's book, Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grownup. The "rejuvenile" - someone who cultivates the tastes and mindsets of a much younger person - is the coming thing: according to Noxon, "[t]he most watched cable station among 18-to-34 year olds isn't CNN--it's CN, as in Cartoon Network." Skateboards, stickball, video games; they're all trademarks of behavior by those of whom we once would have said, "they're old enough to know better."

Remember when you used to tell someone to "act their age"? They used to get mad at you, it being considered an insult to accuse a person of childishness. Now, I suppose they'd laugh about it - they might even be proud. So I guess we shouldn't be surprised when we read juvenile tripe from writers like William K. Wolfrum. (I've read some of Wolfrum's other columns by the way, like the one wondering who was more dominating - Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, or a woman who's apparently a known dominatrix. I'd guess his column on Limbaugh is pretty typical of what he's capable of.) As I've said before, I'm sure these guys think they're being very clever.

And now a thought of my own. We had dinner with some friends over the weekend and I asked the husband, who's a pretty knowledgeable guy about these sorts of things, why it was that so many people, especially on the left, seemed to be obsessed with writing such vituperative stuff, even when it was self-defeating to their own cause. He thought there were a couple of reasons; first, that they're mostly preaching to the lefty choir, who feeds on this kind of thing like sharks at a blood bank. They love this red meat talk, and they just pass it around among themseves, to keep their spirits up I suppose. They're almost cannibals of civility.

For the rest of the explanation he cited Arthur Brooks' new book, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism. Brooks' thesis is that social conservatives really do give more than liberals. According to Brooks, in this review by Frank Brieaddy of Religion News Service,

The book's basic findings are that conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure.

Conversely, secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity. They want everyone's tax dollars to support charitable causes and are reluctant to write checks to those causes, even when governments don't provide them with enough money.

My friend's conclusion: it's just possible that liberals write and talk the way they do simply because they're nastier people, and this kind of thing comes more naturally to them. Without the moral foundation that grounds social conservatives, liberals have fewer restraints, less of a sense of civility or charity towards others.

I should add here, in the interests of full disclosure, that I know some very liberal people who are the nicest, most generous people you could imagine; I also know some conservatives, religious people even, who can be very uncharitable. (Read the combox at any major Catholic blog site for evidence of that.) But as a broad generalization I think there's a lot to what my friend is saying.

And so perhaps we know more about why things are they way they are, even if we're not sure what to do about it. It may be wrong to stereotype, but we can only know someone by what they show us in public. As the old saying goes, "if the shoe fits,"...

The lefty bloggers like Wolfrum have a chance to prove us wrong, if they can. If they're not too busy being oh so hip and cool to care, that is.

The Art of Cruelty

By Drew

I’ve had some time to think about about Mitchell’s piece last week on the Limbaugh flap and how nastiness seems to be an accepted way of business in the blogosphere. It made Mitchell made, and it made me mad, too. Mitchell talks about its counterproductively in terms of how it alienates the reader, but I’d like to look at it from another angle, another type of alienation.

I got to thinking about it from the second reading in yesterday's mass, Paul's familiar First Letter to the Corinthians. Depending on how many weddings you go to, it might be a little too familiar, but worth pondering anyway:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I was prompted toward this train of thought by Terry Teachout's recent excerpted quote from Marta Zahaykevich's “Critical Perspectives on Adult Women’s Development”:

"Love and work are viewed and experienced as totally separate activities motivated by separate needs. Yet, when we think about it, our common sense tells us that our most inspired, creative acts are deeply tied to our need to love and that, when we lack love, we find it difficult to work creatively; that work without love is dead, mechanical, sheer competence without vitality, that love without work grows boring, monotonous, lacks depth and passion."

So here we see the intimate connection between work and love. And it shouldn't be a surprise; we often admire those who have a passion for their work, and we seem too often today to connect the words passion and love. But even though I'm taking Zahaykevich's words slightly out of context, the point is still clear. "[w]ork without love is dead, mechanical, sheer competence without vitality."

Much of the snarkiness on the internet, and life in general, comes masked in the guise of humor. Sometimes it's actually presented as "humor"; most of the time it's usually the speaker or writer who fancies himself humorous, or at the very least as clever as clever can be. And one of my favorite forms of humor is satire (always a favorite on this blog). Satire is a difficult form of humor, though; more difficult than most people think. And so what one person cleverly thinks of as biting satire is most often heavy-handed witlessness; cruelty rather than subtlety. But to consider humor is to continue with the train of thought I've started.

Why is it that so many comedians are applauded for their jokes, rather than greeted with laughter? So often nowadays ideology has replaced humor as the benchmark of a comedian’s success. The audience applauds to indicate agreement with the comic’s expression, but they don’t laugh.

Now, it’s been my experience that most people can’t keep themselves from laughing at something that is truly funny. Try as they might, it’s going to slip out somehow. Conversely, the ordinary person has a really hard time forcing a laugh at something that isn’t funny. They might master the polite chuckle, the hearty guffaw that seems just a little too forced, but it’s rare to perfect a truly convincing fake laugh. Laughter is one of our most genuine, and least forced, emotions.

So it’s not that the audience tries to suppress their laughter in favor of a more respectful expression of their approval. They applaud the comic because they agree with his ideological point of view, but they don’t laugh because it isn’t funny. And therefore it becomes ever easier for the would-be comedian to sacrifice genuine humor in the search for the easier goal of approval. When you're speaking to a group of like-minded thinkers, approval is a whole lot easier to get.

"When I was a child I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man I gave up childish ways."

As Joseph Epstein remarks in the most recent issue of The Weekly Standard,

I also grew up at a time when the goal was to be adult as soon as possible, while today - the late 1960s is the watershed moment here - the goal has become to stay as young as possible for as long as possible. The consequences of this for the culture are enormous. That people live longer only means that they fee they can remain kids longer: uncommitted to marriages, serious work, life itself. Adolescence has been stretched out, at least, into one's 30s, perhaps one's early 40s.

Back before the word “childish” got such a bad rap, it had a more practical application. Until early Christianity softened the attitude, children tended to be seen as miniature adults, measured in terms of the potential they suggested, the utility they could provide to the family and the society at large. To accuse one of being “childish,” therefore, was a practical judgment, suggesting a waste of that potential, a failure to live up to the hopes that one might have carried for that person.

And it is such a waste of potential – an immaturity in that gift – to squander it with excesses, with cruelty and derision, with that wanton craving to inflict pain and scorn. Snarkiness is the snack food that eventually starves creativity. Only when invested with love – love for God, love for fellow man, love even for the very act of writing – can the art that is implied in the talent of the writer truly come to a mature fruition.

This doesn’t mean that there is no room for satire, for sarcasm, for the hard truths that sometimes can only be expressed through the absurd. This blog often specializes in that kind of thing. But it does mean that we have to examine our motivations, the development of our thought, the way in which we use our gifts. Do we use them to educate, to enlighten, to help others? Or do we use them to score the cheap shot, the rapier that draws a thin bead of blood across the cheek of our dueling opponent? As clichéd as Paul's letter may be, there's another saying that's just as clichéd, and just as true: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." Writers like William K. Wolfrum and Mike Freeman (and yes, even Limbaugh at times) contribute mightily to the problem, but not so much as I see it to the solution.

And so I think this brings us back around to the beginning.

Can art truly ever reach its potential without love? Can a work that is filled with hate, scorn, the impulse and desire to dehumanize – can it ever rise above the status of mere infatuation? A dalliance, a trifling, junk food that temporarily sates the senses, but leaves one hungrier than ever in the long run.

The freedoms that we profess to cherish (unless they’re exercised by someone who disagrees with us) – freedom of speech, of thought, of action – are not entitlements but rights given to us by a God Who created us with free will, rights which beget responsibilities.

The ability to write, or paint, or sculpt or make movies or any of the other talents and skills which fall generally under the category of “art” is a gift. And therefore we have the responsibility, to God and to everyone, to exercise those rights in a reasonable manner. We have responsibilities to ourselves as well, however: the responsibility to be a good steward of those gifts which we have been given.

To the extent that we ignore those responsiblities, squander those gifts, we sink deeper into an alienation from God, an alienation from common decency, an alienation from our very humanity. That presents us with the problem and the solution. Which one do you choose?

Opera Thursday

By Drew

Happy New Year, everyone. Sorry for my absence recently; hopefully I'll be a little more consistent in the new year. Let's start it off with some opera.

Staging an opera is a tricky thing. The easiest way to get attention for it is by doing it poorly, and doing it poorly is easy enough. (If you need further evidence, check out this.) Which is why I found Robert Reilly's recent Crisis article so interesting.

Back when I subscribed to Crisis (or crisis, as they put it), Reilly's monthly music column was one of the highlights of the magazine (along with Terry Teachout's movie reviews). Reilly's criticism was lively, educational, and usually took into consideration the world outside of art. And this is evident in his December review of productions of two operas, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Shostakovich. Both operas received unconventional staging, and in both operas Reilly found something more to the story, something that told a far different story on a far larger stage. His opening paragraphs set the tone:

However, my first destination was Ljubljana, Slovenia, for a non-musical conference. There, I was told that 13 Slovenes die each day, while only nine are born. With a population of fewer than 2 million, Slovenia—the most prosperous region of the former Yugoslavia—is disappearing. Of course, the rest of Europe, old as well as new, is going with it. Why?

This is not a question I thought I would be addressing in an opera review. However, I saw the two operas mentioned with this question subliminally haunting me. As it turns out, they provided some insights into possible answers, because both dealt with disordered passions. Both featured heroines bathed in blood from the murder of their husbands, with whom they had fruitless unions. There are, so to speak, incipient population crises in both Lucia and Lady Macbeth if one extrapolates from their central premises. While this is hardly the point of either opera, it is nonetheless the result.

First up is Lucia, Donizetti's ttory of young love gone awry, with one of the truly great mad scenes in the annals of opera. Donizetti set it in the 17th century, but this production is transferred to a 19th century gymnasium. What were they thinking? you might ask. Well, whether it worked or not, they were at least thinking of something:

The military gym was festooned with ropes hanging from the ceiling, benches, and pommel horses. When Lucia entered with her maid, she began playing with these in a frolicsome, highly athletic way. One bench was placed over another and used as a teeter-totter. The ropes were made into a swing in which Lucia, played by French soprano Natalie Dessay, swung out over the orchestra pit. How distracting, I thought at first. However, the precariousness of what she was doing, while singing some very difficult arias, was clearly meant to convey Lucia’s immaturity. The same perspective was provided for Edgardo. The lesson was that extremes of passion are a product of immaturity and cannot provide the foundation for a future.

I can respect that, although to me it seems a little too precious. I understand that opera stories are often ridiculous enough, especially in bel canto. Sometimes you have to provide an explanation that makes the story more palatable for contemporary audiences who might have trouble enough following the mercurial mood swings that often appear in opera libretti. But at some point enough is enough, and you have to let the music tell the story. Did this production cross the line? Reilly thought not, but in reading his review I'm still not quite sure.

Of the two, I suspect I would have found the staging in Lady Macbeth more convincing. Shostakovich wrote the opera in 1936, setting it in 1860s Russia. For this production, originated in 2004 by Robert Jones, the setting has been transferred to the 1950s. Unlike some stagings where the producer takes liberties with the original setting, this seems less a gimmick, more an attempt to draw out an underlying theme of the story. As Reilly puts it,

Jones used the 1950s as a setting to reinforce the banality, the falseness, the disposability of everything. It also raised the interesting question as to whether Shostakovich himself would have set it in this era if he could have gotten away with it. Would he have shown it taking place in the Soviet Union rather than Nikolai Leskov’s short-story setting of 1860s Russia?

Even as it was, Shostakovich was taking a chance in telling this story, which he claimed was a “tragic portrayal of the destiny of a talented, smart and outstanding woman, dying in the nightmarish atmosphere of pre-Revolutionary Russia.” Reilly points out that the setting could easily have been different:

Change that to: the destiny of a country, Russia, dying in the nightmarish atmosphere of the Soviet Union, and we get closer to what we are shown. In 1936, it is lucky that the offended Stalin left the opera early and that all he heard was “noise instead of music,” as announced in Pravda several days later. Otherwise, had he seen it to the end, he would have probably killed Shostakovich for this subversive work.

There's more to this story, as there is to Lucia - rampant animal passions, betrayal, suicide and death. The stuff of operas. Ordinarily I'm pretty much a stickler for "original intent," whether we're talking about the U.S. Constitution or the stage instructions of a composer. However, in this case the changes seem less capricious and more an attempt to address the issues intended by the composer, to perhaps bring out an aspect that the composer himself was unable to clearly define at the time.

Ultimately the performance is the thing, and the question is whether the staging enhances the performance or distracts from it. In the case of Lucia, I suspect I would have been more distracted than Reilly was. It seems to me a little too much like Mitchell's experience with Orazi; you shouldn't have to close your eyes to visualize how the opera should have been staged. And I'm not sure I'm ready for the soprano swinging on a rope over the pit. I understand the statement the producer was trying to make - the immaturity of young love - but it seems as if there could have been less showy ways of doing it. I wasn't there, though, and Reilly was.

Lady Macbeth may be a different story, one more to my liking. Far from a distraction, the staging seems to have brought out the underlying tensions in Shostakovich's story, much as heat drains the poisions from a body. It acted as an augmentation, an accessory, designed to enhance the story rather than detract from it. It was, in short, the kind of innovation that more producers should emulate - drawing attention to the story, rather than themselves.

But in the end this piece is perhaps about Reilly's column more than anything. And in that, let's go back to his opening premise - the relationship of these two operas to the dwindling birth rate in Europe.

Disordered sexual passions make for great operas, which can make explicitly clear that the price for these passions is death. But in life, these passions lead to something slightly less macabre—declining birth rates. In today’s Europe, the fruitlessness of sexual disorder is not blood-soaked drama, but the slow-motion disappearance of entire nations. In the United States, someone dies every 13 seconds, while a child is born every seven. [And I might add, although Reilly does not, the many children in the United States who die before they are given a chance to live outside the womb.] This does not mean that our passions are in good order. It does mean, however, that we are not going to disappear any time soon, and that there is hope that America, in the early 21st century, will not serve as a convincing setting for future productions of Lucia di Lammermoor or Lady Macbeth of Mtsenk.

Art can entertain, and should. It can also cause the mind to ask questions, to explore great issues, to enhance a life as well as keep it amused. Great entertainment entertains, but entertainment itself is fleeting. Art is, or at least should be, something more permanent.

In this piece Reilly asks the big questions, and he asks them well. It leaves the reader knowing more, and wanting to know more. It puts the works in perspective, not only as they relate to the performance, but to the world beyond, to life. (And let us hope that the conclusions he draws about America do, indeed, come to pass.) It is what art criticism should be.

The Same Old Snark From the Left

By Mitchell

Well, Rush Limbaugh’s at it again. I didn’t hear the show; I’ll admit right upfront that I haven’t listened to Rush (or any political talk radio, for that matter) for nearly ten years. But here’s what he said.

There is a cultural problem in the NFL that has resulted in a total lack of class on the part of professional players… "I love the game of football, but after every sack players are acting like they've won the Super Bowl; they're prancing around with these idiotic dances… "Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.

Now, of course Rush is a polarizing figure. That’s part of his gig, why people listen to him, even the ones who don’t agree with him. Make that “especially” the ones who don’t agree with him, since so many of them have to resort to attacking Limbaugh in order to get any loving. Take William K. Wolfrum over at WorldGolf.com, who had this to say about the whole thing:

Just something to remember from Limbaugh: If you get hooked on pills, can't stay married to save your life, and like to pump your penis full of Viagra prior to trips to the Dominican Republic, you're cool. Wear a doo rag and taunt opponents during a game of professional football, well, you're representing a gang and are part of the decay of modern society.

Yeah, right. First of all, if you can figure out what any of this has to do with the central issue, you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din.

It’s not only Wilfrum, of course. Tony Kornhiser and Mike Wilbon of ESPN’s PTI pulled out the race card yesterday in their 15-second discussion. Rush was obviously in error. So obvious to them, in fact, that it reminded me of Pauline Kael’s famous (and possibly apocryphal) remark expressing surprise at Nixon’s 1972 win because “nobody I know voted for him.” It’s easier to dismiss the hard question that Limbaugh implicitly raises with a matter-of-fact smirk than to ask if there’s really anything to it. But what can you expect from a show that replaces insight with soundbites? Anyway, they’re both part of the MSM, so what do you expect?

And there’s Mike Freeman at CBS Sportsline, who says, “Please, Rush Limbaugh, do not let any discussion of sports ever leave your lips again. Each time you do, you sound like a moron.” Tell you what, Mike – if you make the same deal about politics, I’m all for it. Freeman says that nobody equated (the white) Mark Gastineau’s 1980s “sack dance” with the end of civilization. Of course, a lot of people did think it was the beginning of crassness on the gridiron, but perhaps Freeman’s just a young pup, too wet behind the ears to remember back that far.

(Note to all you guys: it isn’t really that hard to talk about sports for a living. Quit acting as if you’ve been gifted with some special insight the rest of us don’t have.)

I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. (First of all, I don’t get what any of this has to do with golf.) But, as I get older, there are apparently a lot of things I don’t get anymore. And yet, it used to be that the reason for having a discussion was to offer an opinion with the goal of converting others to your point of view, or at least for them to respect that opinion.

Nowadays has devolved into a verbal boxing match, with each side trying to score points by drawing blood, not even trying to persuade others, mindless of the damage their discourse is doing. Political punditry is one of those “don’t-try-this-at-home” things, where it’s extremely difficult to sound informed but really easy to sound stupid.

But I continue to be intrigued by this whole issue. Why is it that people seem so eager to jump to such juvenile snarkiness at the first opportunity? They are cruel with an almost unrestrained glee, pausing only to sit back in self-satisfaction and contemplate the blood their words have drawn.

I suppose it’s part of human nature to show off, but I really don’t know why they feel it’s so necessary to do it outside their area of expertise. Maybe writing about things like golf isn’t “important” enough for them – they have to prove something to their readers, and perhaps even themselves, that they can be “profound” about the “vital issues of the day.”

But what they don’t get – and they really don’t seem to get it, the gentle lummoxes – is that most of the time people don’t want to hear them spout off about politics. Whether you’re a movie star, an athlete, what have you – even an Internet golf columnist – people get pissed off when you start pontificating like that, flaunting your ideology for one and all to see. It’s not just that they have to spout off on the issues, it’s that they seem to go out of their way to use the most inflammatory, personally crude language available, guaranteed to irritate as many people as they possibly can. As hard as it may be for them to believe, the public doesn’t really want to hear Tom Cruise talk about post-partum depression, or Barbra Streisand talk about politics, or Rosie O’Donnell talk about anything.

And so these “pundits” usually wind up doing themselves and their causes far more harm than good. As I said earlier, I haven’t listened to Limbaugh in years. It’s not so much that I disagree with his POV, it’s just that he’s been saying the same thing for year after year. Nothing changes with Rush; a show from 1992 might be interchangeable from yesterday’s program, save changing a few names here and there. And most of the time he’s preaching to the choir, one I left a long time ago.

But you read something from guys like Wolfrum and suddenly your sense of justice gets riled up and you find yourself actively taking Rush’s side. This isn’t anything new; liberals seem to have a unique gift for taking the infamous and turning them into underdogs by not knowing when to stop piling on. Remember Ollie North, anyone? (To be honest, the Republicans certainly accomplished the same thing with Bill Clinton by releasing that videotape of his testimony. Like a good horror movie, the unseen is usually far more ominous and frightening than the seen. But we don’t live in a subtle age anymore.)

Not only do you not win your readers over to your particular ideological POV, you wind up antagonizing them so that even when you do write in your “specialty,” you don’t have any credibility. Again, why would you want to do that? I don’t much like it when someone like Chris Matthews displays his ignorance, but at least that’s what he’s paid to do. I guess someone like Wolfrum throws it in for free.

So what gives? Well, the only thing I can think of is that William K. Wolfrum needed readers, and he figured the best way to get them was to attack someone bigger and stronger than he was, and get people to notice him that way. No surprise, I guess – Al Franken does the same thing. (Birds of a feather, eh?) But it works! Last night I Googled “Rush Limbaugh football gangs,” and Wolfrum popped up as number three. Well, good for him; he’d probably have to take even more potent drugs than Limbaugh in order to get that high some other way.

You know, the sad thing about this is that we wind up exchanging so many insults with each other that we don’t even start to ask the question as to whether or not there’s any merit in what Rush says.

Well, let’s see. Here’s a story that popped up this week. The lede: "Bengals cornerback Johnathan Joseph was arrested early Monday and charged with possession of marijuana, the ninth Cincinnati player arrested in the last nine months."

Nine players from one team in nine months: at that rate, Cincy could have the home-field advantage in the next remake of The Longest Yard.

I don’t know what kind of world Wolfrum and his buddies live in, but for a lot of ordinary people that kind of behavior sounds a lot like criminal activity. It’s the kind of behavior they don’t want to encourage in their kids, the kind that makes them afraid to go out after dark. And don’t think that Cincinnati is the only team with this kind of problem; we had a little issue like that here in Minnesota last year. Something about a bunch of football players and a pleasure boat, I think.

It’s too bad we’re so busy slinging mud that we can’t really talk honestly about the problem. We see the evidence of it every day, wherever we look – the wanton crime in urban areas , the “projects” that almost every big city has, the establishment of an almost permanent underclass when it’s so unnecessary.

As someone who works for a nonprofit in an urban area, I see what’s happening out there. I see a lot of young people that want to get out of it, escape it before it’s too late. So many of the odds are against them, but the biggest obstacle to making it isn’t the economy, the government, the “racist” white society that in fact wants desperately to see blacks make it in America. So often it’s their own peer group, a group that fears losing its influence. Where would “spokesmen” like Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton be if they weren’t continually able to stress the “victimization” of blacks in America?. No, it’s not perfect out there. I don’t think anyone looks at these problems through rose-colored glasses. But there’s a sickness out there, and we’d damn well better do something about it before it’s too late.

You know what? Rush Limbaugh is hardly the first person to suggest a comparison between athletes and criminals. How many times have you heard someone wonder how many jocks would be in prison if they weren’t on the playing field? Or refer to the NBA and NFL as “work-release programs”? A lot of people are sick of that kind of behavior. Are all these people guilty of race-baiting? Or do they just believe what their eyes tell them?

A lot of people – not just Limbaugh – think the gangs are the key to understanding the whole thing. Gangs like the ones Limbaugh talks about. Get kids away from the gangs and their subculture, they say, and you might have a chance. Traditionally, sports was one of those alternatives – but do we really want kids copying the behavior of thugs like Terrell Owens, Latrell Sprewell and Ron Artest? Do we really want some youth football team deciding that the nickname isn’t the only thing they want to copy from the Bengals?

I have a friend who’s convinced that the ghetto culture – or rather, “culture” – is destroying America. And I don’t mean to suggest by that comment that he’s a racist. In fact, most of the athletes he most admires personally – Walter Payton, Julius Erving, Arthur Ashe, Tiger Woods, many of the 1960s Green Bay Packers – are black. These, and many others, were and are great role models. So what happened? Well, you can make a pretty compelling case that the whole ghetto culture – drugs, promiscuity, teen pregnancy, rampant hedonism, lawlessness, willful ignorance, this whole “disrespect” thing – well, it hasn’t done a whole lot for the fabric of our country, has it? This culture has acted like a virus, infecting everything and everyone with which it comes in contact. Maybe we talk in clichés, but most clichés get that way because they’re true.

No, it’s not really a racial issue. But when whites bring it up, they’re accused of race baiting. When blacks like Bill Cosby take the ghetto culture to task, they’re called “oreos.” Naturally; it’s much easier to engage in namecalling than to provide comments of substance.

But I suppose none of this is as harmful to society as using Viagra, is it?

Now, I’ve said a lot here about civil discourse in America, or the lack of it. Could the same be said of Limbaugh? Presumably, and yet he seldom says anything that’s even remotely as cruel personal as the comments made by so many of his detractors. Furthermore (in a point that, I suspect drives his critics crazy), he’s often able to make his points with style, humor, and passion – trademarks his opponents frequently lack.

This whole question is one I’ve been pondering a great deal lately, especially as it relates to the blogosphere, but in regard to our culture in general. Could it be that the counterculture we’ve talked about has had something to do with the coarsening of America? And what other factors have been in play in this steady deterioration of the civil society? (Granted, coarse expression is nothing new in our political dialogue, but as the ordinary American gains access to wider audiences and easier communication, he seems also to be less willing to contribute restraint, practicality, a necessary set of internal checks-and-balances.)

These are all big issues and fascinating questions, ones that are not at all confined to academics and intellectuals. They can and should be discussed by everyone, and they can produce a lively, civilized debate.

But perhaps it’s asking too much of people like Wolfrum, people who find it much easier to engage in another round of old-fashioned name-calling, people who mistake snarkiness for style, cattiness for profundity, crudity and coarseness for populism. People who are only too eager to throw out words like “hate” with the barest conception of how deep and powerful a word that really is. They’re little men with little dreams, whose only chance at making the big time is to attack others and cut them down to their size. Maybe William K. Wolfrum is a good writer – maybe he even knows something about golf - but I certainly couldn’t tell it from this.

The Film Meme

By Mitchell

Well, it's been awhile since we've done a meme here. Not because we haven't been asked, we'll add, but because we haven't had the time or the energy (more's the pity). But we recently got the movie meme from our friend Cathy of Alex, and this one looked too intriguing to pass up. With my Hadleybloggers caught between vacations and work, it seems this one is up to me. I can't guarantee I won't change my mind, but here goes (complete with links):

Your Favorite Film? Depending on what kind of mood I'm in, either This Sporting Life, Apocalypse Now or 2001: A Space Odyssey

Your Favorite Film Priest? Bing Crosby in Going My Way

Your Favorite Film Nun? Loretta Young and Celeste Holm in Come to the Stable

Your Favorite Religious Movie? Beckett

Your Favorite Comedy? The Producers (the original)

Your Favorite Action Film? Bullitt

Your Favorite Thriller? The Manchurian Candidate (the original)

Your Favorite Foreign Film? The Seventh Seal

Favorite "Alternative" Lifestyle Film? Mulholland Dr. (also a candidate for the most confusing)

Your Favorite Animal Film? March of the Penguins

Your Favorite Animated Film? Bugs Bunny in Rabbit of Seville

Your Favorite "B" Movie? Planet of the Apes (the original)

Your Favorite "Newer" "B" Movie? Gone in 60 Seconds

Your Favorite Black Comedy Film? (As In Humor) The Hospital

Your favorite Period Film? 1776

Your Favorite Biblical Film? Ben Hur

In your opinion, the most important film in Cinematic history? Birth of a Nation. The start of modern motion pictures.

Well, that was easy. Anyone else out there want to offer ideas?

Name That Tune

By Mitchell

How about some music?

*****

The atmosphere at the Regal 20 in Brooklyn Park on Saturday morning was undoubtedly electric. When was the last time, after all, you saw a group of adults standing in line waiting to get into a movie theater? Or, at least, adults not dressed in some kind of sci-fi costume? And, to top it off, they weren’t even waiting to see a movie.

It was the debut of the Metropolitan Opera’s live HD broadcast of the Saturday matinee, with a performance of Bellini's I Puritani (The Puritans). (Yes, I know the actual debut was last Saturday, but the bastardized – I mean, abridged – one-act English-language version of The Magic Flute doesn’t really count, at least if you’re talking about the full operatic experience.) And it had the feel of an opening night performance, the buzz of excitement from those waiting for the door to open. There were representatives on-hand from MPR, who were really forced to embrace the new technology even though it might eventually mean the death-knell of classical music on public radio. And nobody really knew what to expect from the whole thing – would it be like watching the opera on TV? Would the sound and picture be any good? Would the telecast itself move, or remain more or less static. What about the intermission features? And what of the opera itself?

First things first, and we might as well start with the star, Anna Netrebko. She was, in a word, terrific. As someone behind us said, watching Netrebko offer a thumbs-up to the cameraman backstage after act one, “she loves the camera, and the camera loves her.” Both very true. I hadn’t really heard Netrebko before, much less see her, and she really is something. True, there was a sour note near the end of act three, and some have critiqued her style as lacking warmth, but for the most part she was on her A game Saturday afternoon. She conveyed the impression of one who knows the camera is there, but doesn’t pander to it – she performed for those in the house, but at the same time framed herself perfectly within the screen.

Aside from Netrebko, the performances were steady, if unspectacular. But that is to be expected, in an opera that is centered around the soprano, who actually gets two mad scenes (although, as guest commentator Beverly Sills pointed out, the first one was actually only a little mad). The Met orchestra, led this day by bel canto expert Patrick Summers, was good as usual – the horns made an uneven entrance to the overture, but that was about it. One could quibble about the pacing here and there, but there is no question that the Met orchestra remains one of the best around.

Netrebko notwithstanding, I think the real star of the day was the telecast itself. After years of listening to the matinee broadcasts on radio, it was great fun to actually see what goes on at the Met, such as the very small broadcast booth from which Margaret Juntwait provides her commentary (although, as with baseball, it’s true that words can often paint a picture much more vivid than that provided by the naked eye).

Renee Fleming’s dressing-room interviews with Netrebko between acts were also fun – not necessarily breaking news, but quite interesting to actually see behind the scenes. (As was Beverly Sills’ comment that she personally preferred a lot of chaos and movement around her when she was in the dressing room, rather than simply being alone.) I think many would have enjoyed seeing the famed intermission opera quiz, but perhaps that’s for another show.

And speaking of Sills, it was delightful listening to her commentary before the opera and during the intermissions, talking about what it had been like to play the very role that Netrebko was now taking on, that of Elvira, the different approaches to mad scenes, and so on. (Not for nothing is her nickname Bubbles.) She was also charmingly blunt as to the shortcomings of Bellini’s plot, which was ridiculous even by operatic standards - a story about the battle between the Stuarts and the Puritans in Cromwell's England - but then, one doesn't particularly go to bel canto to enjoy the plot, after all. It's a showcase for the singers. (It was also fun to watch Juntwait, with one eye on the clock, trying to rein in Sills in time to return to the stage for the next act.

The telecast itself was anything but static, offering a variety of angles that gave the theater audience a view unlike any that could be had within the Met itself. (One source reported ten cameras were in use, including a hand-held one in the pit itself.) Shots of the musicians were so tight you could practically see the notes on the scores in front of them. The stage was seen at various times looking down from the top, looking up from the pit, from the wings – and yet seldom, I thought, in a way that was distracting, calling attention to itself.

Provocatively, the most interesting camera angle was also the most curious, a shot from the rear of stage left that encompassed not only the singer, but also the conductor and the darkened theater beyond. It was a stunning shot, at least the first couple of times it was used (especially during the second act mad scene with Netrebko lying on her back, literally hanging over the edge into the orchestra pit), not least because it offered the viewer a sight that nobody in the house itself would ever have seen. You could simultaneously study the conductor, keeping one eye on his orchestra and the other on the stage; get the sense of the performer, looking into the invisible audience beyond the footlights; even get a glimpse of the stage rigging, the spotlights, the small monitors that can only be seen by the singers onstage. It was fascinating.

But it was also disconcerting in a way. After all, opera, like other forms of theater, is about enveloping the audience with the magic of illusion, introducing them to exotic and foreign lands where people communicate in songs rather than regular speech. The high-def picture and terrific sound provides that, in spades – you could see every blemish, every rivulet of perspiration. But being able to see the man behind the curtain, so to speak, sort of changes the perspective. Perhaps the Met figured since the audience was already one step removed, sitting in a theater watching a performance in another theater, the need for illusion wasn’t so important.

At any rate, it was a remarkable telecast, the kind of live theater that you usually only see in the theater nowadays. Bravo to the Met for putting this together, and high hopes for the remainder of the telecasts in the series.

*****

Sunday was the feast of the Epiphany and at Holy Childhood in St. Paul the musical accompaniment to the Mass was Alfred Pilot’s Messe Des Rois Mages (Mass of the Three Magi). Now, I don’t know much about Alfred Pilot – Google searches doen’t come up with anything on him, and there don’t appear to be any recordings of his work. (So if you know anything about him, please let us know!) And this is a pity, for let it be known that the Messe Des Rois Mages is a wonderful piece of seasonal liturgical music that reminds us not only that we’re still in the Christmas season, but also of the joyous good news that is Epiphany. As near as I can tell, Pilot seems to be something of a French Vaughan Williams, incorporating familiar French melodies into the body of his Mass text (which is rendered entirely in Latin). This is most evident in two parts of the Mass, the Gloria and Sanctus.

The Gloria opens with the very recognizable “Gloria in excelsis Deo” refrain from “Angels We Have Heard on High,” a melody which is repeated several times throughout the first part of the hymn. Later on one can, if listening closely, detect a line, picked up by both solo clarinet and violin, which is strongly suggestive of the opening from “The First Noel.” The Gloria concludes with an adaptation of the happy melody from the lilting carol, “Il est ne le divine enfant” (“Now Is Born the Divine Christ Child”).

Likewise, the Sanctus opens with very familiar music – Bizet’s rousing Marcho dei Rei, the “March of the Magi” from the L’Arlesienne Suite No. 1. And march, it does – trust me, you’d recognize this music in an instant if you heard it; it’s found on most discs of classical Christmas music. For some reason, a march seems to me to be the perfect accompaniment of the words, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

This music is charming – the first time I heard it, I broke into several surprised, delighted smiles at hearing such familiar themes being used in a liturgical setting. In the years since, it has never failed to produce that same smile.

Which leads one to wonder just how well-known this piece is? Over at Amy Welborn’s blog, several commentators reported hearing a Gloria in the Christmas Mass of their respective parishes that used the same “Angels We Have Heard on High” theme. Was it Pilot’s Messe they heard? Hard to tell, since some also expressed the opinion that the words weren’t a very good fit for the music. Now, I don’t share that opinion myself, so there could be a couple of differences. Perhaps it isn’t Pilot’s music at all or, if it is, maybe it’s been translated into the vernacular. (Heaven alone knows what happens if you give people too much Latin, after all.) It points out, at any rate, how nice it is when the music director provides the name and composer of the settings of the Ordinary.

Alfred Pilot’s Messe Des Rois Mages proves that liturgical music need not be dolorous to be dignified, and also that it need not be Haugen-Haas to be joyful. Yes, Virginia, classical music does not have to be boring. And may we have more of it in the years to come, especially with the coming changes in the Mass.

Life Imitates Art

By Mitchell

There are few simple pleasures more satisfying than running across some ironic little bit of news that means something only (or primarily) to you. Take, for example, this wonderful tidbit from Jay Nordlinger's New York Sun review of a New York Philharmonic performance of Handel's Messiah:

As Ms. Blythe was about to sing a recitative, a cell phone played the "Ode to Joy," loudly. Right spirit, wrong composer.

Steve, all I can say is that you should have copywrited this post.

This Just In

By Hadleyblogger Steve

Will U of Phoenix Byte the Bullet Against Capella?
Cycon Systems Cyber Bowl, 7pm EST Saturday, G4 Network

(Silicon Valley , CA) When the nation’s two top-rated on-line college football teams face off Saturday in the first-ever Cycon Systems Cyber Bowl, they'll be facing some unique challenges.

"Well, for starters, none of us have ever actually met each other in person," says Biff (“Byte”) Barwell, head coach of the top-rated University of Phoenix E-Falcons. "I mean we email a lot and share our plays in our weekly chat rooms, but it's going to be a little different actually doing them on a field. We frankly don't know how that will come off."

Their opponents in the e-contest from number-two ranked Capella University CyberRaiders agree. "It's going to be a crap shoot all right," says Capella coach Hubie (“Hard Drive”) Douglass. "Most of our guys are great gamers, they love playing the on-line stuff. We've even got one sophomore who’s done programming for Madden 2007. But I'm not sure he knows what a real football looks like."

Douglass was frank regarding some of the difficulties he faces in assembling his cyber-team for the first time. “Our middle linebacker, Otis ("Firewall") McCloskey, says on his MySpace profile that he’s 6’7” and weighs 350, and it turns out he’s really 5’8” and maybe 140 dripping wet. When I was [coaching] at Middle Valley Polytechnical I used to send my assistants out to scout the other team – this time I had to install spywear just to find out what my own players looked like.”

ESPN college football analyst Lee Corso discounted speculation that other schools, such as the DeVry University ROMs, were more deserving than Capella of the title shot against the E-Falcons. “This matchup might look one-sided on your monitor,” said Corso, sporting a large paper-mache-head replica of the CyberRaiders’ mascot, “Hacker,” but let me tell you this, my friend – everyone knows the real game is played down there on the field, not out somewhere in cyberspace. And on that field, where you replace chips and RAM with real flesh and blood, anything can happen.”

Although visits to the game’s website have been brisk, those hits have so far failed to translate to ticket sales, with fewer than 800 tickets having been sold for the game, to be played in 36,000-seat Spartan Stadium at San Jose State University. Game organizers admit that if demand doesn’t pick up soon, this year’s game may be the last. “Start-up bowl games always take some time to find their niche in the college sports landscape,” Cyber Bowl chairman Vic Miles said. “But we think we have a unique product to offer the viewing public. Maybe next year we’ll take a look at using virtual reality technology. That would give people a show!”

Preparation for the big game was disrupted for both teams yesterday when a main server went down in the middle of key strategy meetings. "My computer froze up for nearly an hour," said Coach Barwell, "By the time it came back up most of the guys had lost interest and were off surfing porn sites. Their attention spans are pretty short, actually."

Gerald Ford, R.I.P.

By Mitchell

I used to joke that when Gerald Ford died, it would probably appear in the obituary section of the paper under "Briefly Noted," with the headline, "Gerald Ford, was former President of the United States." And in truth, having heard the news before leaving for work yesterday, I admit that by the time I had gotten to the office I'd already forgotten it had happened - it was only seeing the bold headlines in the paper that reminded me. But he was president, after all, no matter how unusual the circumstances of his having gotten there, and he deserves all the trappings that go with the title, even in death.

For me, Gerald Ford exists primarily as the man who made us wait four more years for Ronald Reagan. It is telling that 1976 was the last year in which the identity of the presidential nominee was still unknown when the convention started. The idea that a challenger might deny the nomination to an incumbent - even an accidental incumbent such as Ford - was almost absurd, and yet Ronald Reagan almost pulled it off. In the end Ford may have won the delegates' votes, but as became apparent on the final night of the convention it was Reagan who won their hearts. The rap against Reagan was that he was too extremist, too conservative, too unelectable. Not only was Ford the safe choice, he also represented what was then the mainstream of the Republican Party (pro-choice, pro-Equal Rights Amendment) - the party whose grass roots still resembled the putting green at the country club.

And perhaps they were right - maybe it took four years of the most incompetent presidency in the 20th Century for Americans to understand that they were ready for Ronald Reagan. It is possible that Jimmy Carter would still have won that election, delegating Reagan to the historical dustbin along with so many other losing candidates of the past and future. Possible, perhaps, and I guess we'll have to leave it at that.

But we must remember that Carter barely won against an incumbent who hadn't been elected either president or vice president, representing a party that had just gone through the biggest political scandal in history, and having pardoned the man most Americans held responsible for the whole thing. Under those circumstances, is it really too much to believe that Ronald Reagan would have somehow won?

And what would have been the result of that? Would the Shah of Iran have fallen, would Khomeini have risen to power? Would the Iran-Iraq war have happened, would Saddam have remained in charge? Would the Soviets have invaded Afghanistan, would the Taliban have received American weapons? It's tempting to say that some of it, or none of it, would have happened - that the Shah would have remained in power, that the Wall would have fallen sooner, that things somehow would have changed for the better. Unprovable, but tempting.

The right thing would have been for Ford to step aside, to recognize that he was too closely tied to the problems the Republicans faced, that it was time for someone from outside the Beltway to lead the party in a new direction. Ronald Reagan was that man, and four years later the rest of the nation realized it as well.

I suppored Ford, staunchly if unenthusiastically, in his race against Jimmy Carter. Even though I wasn't yet old enough to vote - that would have to wait another four years, when my first presidential vote went to the Gipper - I was already in the thick of my political life. I sat next to Rudy Boschwitz (who in two years would be elected to the U.S. Senate) at a Republican meeting the night of the first Ford-Carter debate, and we watched the power outage that knocked out the audio feed of the debate. (Never again would presidential debates be quite as appealing to us as they were for those few minutes when nobody could hear the candidates.) I defended Ford, even in the aftermath of his seemingly absurd misstatement in which he declared emphatically that Eastern Europe was not under the domination of the Soviet Union. I displayed the proper amount of regret the morning after the election when I found that Carter had pulled it out. And four years later, when rumors swept the convention hall in Detroit that Reagan was going to choose Ford as his running mate, creating a sort of co-presidency, I gnashed my teeth and nearly rent my garment, wondering if this man was never going to go away.

Eventually he did fade from the public spotlight, appearing mostly at celebrity pro-am golf tournaments and in his ceremonial role at the funerals of former presidents. He became the nation's oldest former president, and lived for almost thirty years after leaving office - time enough to become, if not a legend, a sort of elder statesman. If we look at Ford and find him lacking in comparison to Reagan, we also have to compare him to Carter and Clinton, and admit that those comparisons are to his credit.

Gerald Ford didn't really make history, but in a way he made it possible for history to happen. He was, probably, the right man for the nation in the wake of the Watergate scandal. I always agreed with his pardon of Nixon - aside from the humanitarian gesture, it was time for the nation to get on with it. And although he'd never be aware of it, he played a role in my history as well, for in politics everyone needs someone not only to campaign for, but to campaign against. I campaigned for Reagan against Ford, and for Ford against Carter. By the time that election year of 1976 was over, I was hooked.

Perhaps most important, he was a good and decent man serving his country as best he could. And while it's true that goodness and decency do not excuse incompetency, they do count for something. This week the nation will recognize that, in a fitting and appropriate way. And so we bury our disagreements, we honor the office, and in doing so we recognize the man who held it, however briefly, but with dignity.

Merry Christmas!

On behalf of Mitchell & Judie, Steve, Bobby and Drew, thank you for your support and readership over the past year, and our wishes to you and yours for the happiest and merriest of Christmases, and a Happy New Year!

Listening to Christmas

By Hadleyblogger Drew

Almost every area I know has at least one or two radio stations that have been playing nonstop Christmas music since Thanksgiving (if not before). On most of these stations it's the only time you'll ever hear them play Bing Crosby, Andy Williams or Ray Coniff. You could be forgiven for thinking these guys never did anything but Christmas music (although they did). And yet if you listen to any of these stations for any length of time you'll be amazed at all the dreck they play. I used to think it was impossible to ruin a Christmas carol; now I know better.

Terry Teachout has a wonderful list of his favorite Christmas records. I've heard most of them, agree with many of them (although I still prefer Bing's version of White Christmas), need to check out some of them (especially Laud to the Nativity by Respighi), and am glad to see some of my underrated favorites recognized by others (particularly the stunning O magnum mysterium by Morten Lauridsen). You could do a whole lot worse than making this one of your Christmas playlists.

Over at First Things, Michael Linton has a nice piece on the many versions of that Christmas favorite, Handel's Messiah (minus the distractions Steve mentioned). (Of course, we all know that Handel actually wrote this piece for Easter, but in this case the popular will rules.) Hard to argue with any of Linton's picks (I'm always partial toward Robert Shaw, even though the copy in this house is by Sir Georg Solti, no piker he), but I really am curious to hear Thomas Beecham’s 1959 recording of Eugene Goossens’ orchestration. Listen to the description:

It’s a pure nightmare. Goossens adds trombones, tubas, harp, expanded winds, and full percussion. Beecham quickens and stretches tempi in ways that give musicologists hives. Many people hate it (and hate folks who like it!), but it’s somehow splendidly Handelian, and to hear Jon Vickers sing the tenor arias is a revelation.

Sounds like a glorious mess, doesn't it? As he says, buy the others, but buy this one too.

So wherever you are tonight or tomorrow, I hope the choir sings like angels, Der Bingle lives on your stereo, and the music of this beautiful season never stops ringing in your ears. And on this Christmas Eve let's all say a prayer for peace on earth, peace in our own hearts, and blessings to all.

This Just In

By Hadleyblogger Steve

“Frank Barone: Really Home for the Holidays” to Air Sunday Night

HOLLYWOOD, CA – In what’s expected to be a ratings blockbuster, CBS-TV announced yesterday that a three-hour special on the life of the late Frank Barone, patriarch of the hit sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, will air this Sunday evening, which is Christmas Eve.

Barone, in the person of actor Peter Boyle, passed away last week from cancer and heart disease at the age of 71.

(Left) Frank Barone, star of the hit sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond," seen here in the guise of actor "Peter Boyle".

“Frank Barone: Really Home for the Holidays” will focus on the life and family relationships of Frank Barone. “He was an irascible character that everybody really did love, even though he could be a little cranky and rough-edged,” said show producer Harvey Peterman. “He epitomized what a lot of us wanted our fathers to be.”

Cast members of the show, speaking at a hastily arranged news conference in the lobby of the building where the Boyles lived in New York City , said they are pleased the project is being rushed into production and expect it to do well.

“Peter, I mean Frank, I mean Dad would be really happy with this,” said series star and co-producer Ray Romano. “Besides, adding this to our current syndication package is a no-brainer. We’re talking mega-millions.”

Doris Roberts, who played Frank’s wife on the show, struggled through tears to express her support. “My husband was a wonderful man. Losing him so suddenly like this has left a huge hole in my life, and made for a difficult week. This show – on Sunday night at 9 p.m., 8 p.m. Central, check your local listings – will help all of us handle our grief a little easier. It will provide the closure that all final episodes should have.”

Meanwhile, lawyers for the Boyle family, including the wife and children of the late actor, have filed a lawsuit for civil damages in the wake of the family being barred from attending the Barone funeral, which was held earlier this week in a small chapel on Larry King’s estate in west Hollywood.

“We’re sensitive to that,” said CBS executive Marvin Goldblast. “We know that the ‘Peter Boyle’ aspect of Frank Barone’s life meant a great deal to them. There will be a time and place for them to grieve. But it isn’t now. We felt their presence would have been confusing to the American public that has invited the Barones into their living room every Monday night for the last nine years – never mind the syndication schedule, which is pretty much set up for eternity.”

The announcement that the show will be re-broadcast later Sunday night directly opposite the live telecast of Pope Benedict’s Midnight Mass from St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve, has drawn some criticism. “Sure the Pope is the Pope and a lot of people and shut-ins look forward to that telecast,” said Goldblast. “But, frankly, we expect the Barone special to blow it out of the water.”

Jacoby: Atheists' bleak alternative

By Hadleyblogger Bobby

A longtime personal policy requires religious messages/imagery on any Christmas cards I purchase. I have been taking advantage of the Southern Baptist Convention's LifeWay store sale (buy one, get one free) on either Hallmark or Lawson Falle cards (I chose Lawson Falle's Sandi Patty collection this year), which I purchase after the buy one, get one free deal, for an average of 47 cents a card.

After participating in a Messiah singalong Monday night, and after being aguest choral member at another church for the production a week earlier (I couldn't sing it at my home church, since our music "leader" is too obsessed with the choir singing karaoke pop and having teen dancers, not singers, as the centre of the church music department), and last month attending the South Carolina Philharmonic's production of the full piece, with the soprano soloist being none other than my voice teacher, you can understand where I can get not enough of the masterpiece!"

This article from the Boston Globe, however, was one which had me pondering what was next.

Atheists' bleak alternative

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist December 13, 2006

FROM THE land that produced "A Christmas Carol" and Handel's "Messiah," more evidence that Christianity is fading in Western Europe: Nearly 99 percent of Christmas cards sold in Great Britain contain no religious message or imagery."

Traditional pictures such as angels blowing trumpets over a stable, Jesus in his manger, the shepherds and three wise men following the star to Bethlehem are dying out," the Daily Mail reports. A review of some 5,500 Christmas cards turns up fewer than 70 that make any reference to the birth of Jesus. "Hundreds . . . avoided any image linked to Christmas at all" -- even those with no spiritual significance, such as Christmas trees or Santa Claus.

Presumably the greeting-card industry is only supplying what the market demands; if Christian belief and practice weren't vanishing from the British scene, Christian-themed cards wouldn't be, either. But some Britons, not all of them devout, are resisting the tide. Writing in the Telegraph, editor-at-large Jeff Randall -- who describes himself as "somewhere between an agnostic and a mild believer" -- announces that any Christmas card he receives that doesn't at least mention the word "Christmas" goes straight into the trash. "Jettisoning Christmas-less cards is my tiny, almost certainly futile, gesture against the dark forces of political correctness," he writes. "It's a swipe at those who would prefer to abolish Christmas altogether, in case it offends 'minorities.' Someone should tell them that, with only one in 15 Britons going to church on Sundays, Christians are a minority."

Meanwhile, the employment law firm Peninsula says that 75 percent of British companies have banned Christmas decorations for fear of being sued by someone who finds the holiday offensive. And it isn't only in December that this anti-Christian animus rears its head. British Airways triggered a furor when it ordered an employee to hide the tiny cross she wears around her neck. At the BBC, senior executives agreed that they would not air a program showing a Koran being thrown in the garbage -- but that the trashing of a Bible would be acceptable.

"It's extraordinary," remarks Randall. "In an increasingly godless age, there is a rising tide of hatred against those who adhere to biblical values." A "tyrannical minority" of intolerant secularists is openly contemptuous of traditional moral norms. "The teachings and guidance of old-fashioned Christianity offend them, so they seek to remove all traces of it from public life."

You don't have to be especially pious to find this atheist zealotry alarming. Nor do you have to live in Europe. Though religion remains important in American life, antireligious passion is surging here, too.

Examples abound: In two recent best sellers , Sam Harris heaps scorn on religious believers, whose faith he derides as "a few products of ancient ignorance and derangement." A study in the Journal of Religion and Society claims that belief in God correlates with higher rates of homicide, sexual promiscuity, and other social ills, and that when compared with relatively secular democracies, the churchgoing United States "is almost always the most dysfunctional." Secular absolutists demand that schools and government venues be cleansed of any hint of religious expression -- be it a cross on the Los Angeles county seal, a courthouse display of the Ten Commandments, or the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

What is at stake in all this isn't just angels on Christmas cards. What society loses when it discards Judeo-Christian faith and belief in God is something far more difficult to replace: the value system most likely to promote ethical behavior and sustain a decent society. That is because without God, the difference between good and evil becomes purely subjective. What makes murder inherently wrong is not that it feels wrong,but that a transcendent Creator to whom we are answerable commands: "Thou shalt not murder." What makes kindness to others inherently right is not that human reason says so, but that God does: "Love thy neighbor as thyself; I am the Lord."

Obviously this doesn't mean that religious people are always good, or that religion itself cannot lead to cruelty. Nor does it mean that atheists cannot be beautiful, ethical human beings. Belief in God alone does not guarantee goodness. But belief tethered to clear ethical values -- Judeo-Christian monotheism -- is society's best bet for restraining our worst moral impulses and encouraging our best ones.

The atheist alternative is a world in which right and wrong are ultimately matters of opinion, and in which we are finally accountable to no one but ourselves. That is anything but a tiding of comfort and joy.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.

P. S. The South Carolina Philharmonic's production of Handel's Messiah, complete with my voice teacher as the soprano soloist, airs Christmas night at 8 PM EST on SC Education Radio.

More on Alagna at La Scala

Appropos of Mitchell's post the other day, here's the video of Alagna storming off the stage last week at La Scala.



I have no idea what the commentators are saying, but the footage itself is worth it.

The Secret Life of Frosty the Snowman

Classic Our Word

Last night we had our friends Badda Blogger, the D&B, and The Boy over for dinner. It was a pleasant evening of good food, good conversation and fellowship. In the course of the night the talk turned to esoteric things like Christmas television (Badda had never seen the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol, nor the Mr. Magoo rendition), and it reminded me of this piece from a couple of years ago, when my friend Hadleyblogger Peter analyzed the true meaning of the Rankin-Bass classic Frosty the Snowman. It was one of my favorite posts then, and remains so today.

An added note: the same writer who penned Frosty, Romeo Muller, also wrote Rankin-Bass' Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, and if Frosty parallels the New Testament Resurrection, Santa Claus suggests the Old Testament story of Moses, with the young Claus child of the cartoon left in a basket at the door of the despotic Burgermeister Meisterburger, the baby (renamed Kris) being raised in the home of Tanta Kringle and the toy-making elves, and the eventual exodus of Kris, his wife, and the elves out of the Burgermeister's influence to the safety of the North Pole. I don't know if anyone has ever seriously analyzed the religious undertones of these cartoons, but I think it might make for an interesting venture.

*****

My friend Peter DePalma is a pretty bright guy, so when he told me about the allegorical implications of Frosty the Snowman, I had to sit up and take notice.

I’d always enjoyed the cartoon in something of a nostalgic way, as part of the memories of Christmases past. At that, I thought the plot was kind of thin. I mean, a kid thinking they can take a train to the North Pole on Christmas Eve? Without bringing any money? And then there’s the phony magician, the talking rabbit, and – well, you get the picture. You didn’t watch Frosty for the drama, you simply basked in its warm sepia glow.

But then Peter asked me if I’d ever noticed how the story of Frosty was an allegory for the life of Christ.

“What?” I think I said.

“Sure,” he replied, and proceeded to document the ways:

• His birth occurs in the dead of winter, much as Christ's birth is symbolized with the evergreen in winter (and obviously suggests miraculous life from a dead or virginal womb).
• Frosty always says, "Happy Birthday!" when he comes to life...strongly suggesting a birth... and the tradition of birthdays probably comes from the celebration of Christ's birth.
• Frosty’s self-sacrifice, going into the greenhouse to save Karen’s life even though he risks melting in the heat, much as Christ the Savior suffers and dies on the Cross.
• The resurrection – Santa opens the door to the greenhouse and the winter winds sweep into the room, bringing Frosty to life, in the same way that the Holy Spirit (often portrayed in the Bible as a wind) enters the Tomb.
• Frosty goes to the North Pole with Santa in his sleigh, as Christ Ascends into Heaven.
• Frosty returns every year with Santa (“I’ll be back again some day,” he sings in the song.) Christ, having been seated at the right hand of the Father, will come again in glory.

Interesting, hm? Of course, Peter added, “some folks will read that and think I'm making too much out of a tenuous connection. Those people may be right, but I only say that to be polite. It would be too much of a coincidence, otherwise. It's obviously magicked-up (or kid-story-ified) to make into a neat little story for children, but the inspiration is obvious. The producers might not have wanted to make a Christian story, and that's certainly possible... however, they clearly used the Christ story as inspiration."

All of a sudden, the story starts to make sense, and what until then had been a fairly one-dimensional cartoon (literally, given that the rest of the Rankin-Bass cartoons were done in that three-dimensional animation) has become, in fact, a much deeper and more complex parable. Now, maybe this is like Pink Floyd and the Wizard of Oz in that everyone in the world already knew about this and I’m just finding out. I’d be interested to hear if anyone out there has noticed a similar religious vein to the story. And I’d love to be able to ask Arthur Rankin, Jr., the producer, if either he or Romeo Muller, the writer of the story, had any intentions of this.If not, of course, it’s just another example of how the Lord works through even the most common and ordinary means.

P.S. Here's a pretty neat website!

This Just In

By Steve

“Ode to Joy” Spells Doom for Woman Murdered at “Messiah”
Cell Phone Chime Causes “Oratorio Rage” in Fellow Concertgoer

FORT LAUDERDALE , FL – A woman strangled at Thursday night’s performance of Handel’s “Messiah” was the victim of a rare but increasing phenomenon known as “Oratorio Rage,” according to a classical music scholar.

Jocelyn Beaumont, 47, of Lauderhill , died shortly after being choked by fellow concertgoer Stanley Decanter. According to witnesses, Decanter apparently flew into an uncontrollable rage when Beaumont’s cell phone rang during a particularly affecting moment of the famed Christmas oratorio. At least one bystander reported that the ringtone was playing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” at the time of the attack.

(Left) Composer Georg Frederich Handel, whose Messiah was the source of consternation Thursday night when a concertgoer couldn't keep a handel [sic] on his emotions.

Decanter, 53, of Sunrise, was free on $10,000 bail following his arrest Thursday.

Florida Atlantic University professor and classical musicologist Dr. Leopold Batonne said such events could be expected to increase in the future.

“A number of circumstances combined to produce Mr. Decanter’s ‘Oratorio Rage,’ Batonne said. “If initial accounts are accurate, the cell phone rang during the ‘Pastoral Symphony’ portion of ‘Messiah.’ This is one of the most peaceful, spiritual moments of the entire oratorio, and would be an unconscionable interruption for the classical aficionado.

“Then, there was Ms. Beaumont’s unfortunate ringtone selection. In the first place, the Classical dynamism of Beethoven clashes badly with the Baroque sensibilities of Handel. Add to that Beethoven’s reputation as a composer who speaks to, let us say, the more ‘casual’ classical music fan. It takes real discernment to appreciate, say, Palestrina or Berlioz, but any fool off the street can identify ‘Ode to Joy.’ For a man of Mr. Decanter’s taste – I’m told he’s a season ticket subscriber to the Fort Lauderdale Philharmonic – that ringtone was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. Or the woman’s neck, in this case.”

Batonne’s final statement sounded an ominous warning. “The true classical music lover looks at the cannon as a sacred trust, to be protected from desecration at any cost. As the sense of ownership grows and ferments, we can expect more and more incidents of this kind to occur - clashes with people who think Andre Rieu or Andrea Bocelli epitomize 'classical' music. Frankly, if my enjoyment of Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’ was interrupted by someone’s cell phone blurting out the ‘William Tell Overture,’ I don’t know what I’d do myself.”

Beaumont has so far refused all comment, other than to shout, “No jury in the world will convict me!” as he was led away in handcuffs.

The Boos Have It

By Mitchell

Phil Taylor of SI.com had an interesting column last week on "Boo-Bird Nation" - the increasing amount of booing going on at sporting events. No longer the specialty of Philadelphia, "[b]ooing has become almost a hobby for the American sports fan, no longer just a way of expressing displeasure, but a form of pleasure in and of itself."

People used to boo because they were mad -- at their team, at the opponent, at the refs. Now you get the feeling that many of them boo just because they like it.

Perhaps that's what opera star Roberto Alagna had in mind when he stormed off the stage at La Scala Sunday night after being booed by a portion of the audience. His stunned co-star was left to sing alone; the understudy, dressed in jeans and a black shirt, was hastily thrust onto the stage to fill the role. The managers at La Scala say Alagna's finished there; he says he'll sue to be allowed to return. I'm not sure whether this act - many of us might consider it unprofessional - will hurt Alagna in the long run; in the opera world, such are the makings of legends.

It does conjure up some wonderful images, though. Imagine Allan Iverson stomping off the court the next time he gets booed by the hometown fans (wherever his new hometown may be), or Rex Grossman throwing his hands up and leaving the stadium when the Bears fans get on him after he throws his next pick. Try to picture Barry Bonds saying, "Screw you! I don't need to take this," the first time people start yelling at him about steroids next season. (Actually, that's something I would like to see.) If Alagna's gesture catches on in the sporting world, we could be treated to entertaining clips on SportsCenter for years to come.

At least Placido Domingo didn't walk out when he was booed at the Met earlier this month. Of course, in this case it was for his conducting, rather than his singing. And I suppose there are some musicians out there who would have welcomed the opportunity to show the audience that the conductor's role has always been overrated, anyway. Still, Domingo, the consummate pro, kept his cool and his baton, and the show went on. And if I had to guess, I'd say that Alagna's probably a better role model for the modern professional athlete, anyway.

On second thought, perhaps it's the pro athlete who should be the role model for opera. After all, the arrest last week of the Cincinnati Bengals' Deltha O'Neal (for DUI) marked the eighth time a Bengals player had been busted this season, and it doesn't seem to have hurt the NFL's popularity one bit. Opera, like all of classical music, continues to struggle to increase its audience. Maybe Alagna's on to something at that.

The Office "Holiday" Party

Classic Our Word

During this exciting time of year, who has time to blog? So over the next couple of weeks, we'll be augmenting our new material with some of our Christmas posts of the past.

Many of you are probably getting ready for your office "holiday" parties about now, so it seems like a good time to revisit this piece of Mitchell's from 2004. Try not to read it on a full stomach.

*****

Hang on, here comes another rant against Corporate America!

This time it’s the corporate “Holiday Luncheon.” Of course, we ought to be used to that kind of terminology by now, but here’s what makes this one interesting, and perhaps even more irritating – the subtitle, “A Celebration of Diversity.” The events being commemorated are Ramadan (Islam), Diwali (Hinduism), Christmas (Christian), Hanukkah (Jewish), and Kwanzaa (African American). A short description of each is included in the flyer handed out to employees announcing the luncheon. Not surprisingly, the description of Christmas is accorded less space than any of the others.

What are we to make of this? Let’s start with Hanukkah. For many years, it has been celebrated alongside Christmas as if it were the Jewish equivalent, despite the fact that it is a minor holiday in the Jewish calendar. Last year, John Derbyshire at National Review Online shared these insightful comments (page down to December 22) from a correspondent: “[O]ne of the main reasons Christmas has been marginalized and even the word 'Christmas' is disappearing from public discourse is because Hanukkah has been elevated to a position out of all proportion to its traditionally minor significance. And the success Hanukkah has enjoyed in gaining public recognition has inspired the more recent success of Kwanzaa, Ramadan, and other winter festivals in gaining prominence in America, all at the expense of Christmas.”

While it’s customary to include Hanukkah in “Happy Holidays,” what about Ramadan? That was October 15, which seems to be really stretching it to include it in a December celebration. Diwali commemorates the “triumph of righteousness, knowledge and enlightenment over ignorance, sorrow and spiritual darkness.” One can’t help but think that for Hindus, belief in any of the other faiths included in the celebration is a sure sign of “ignorance, sorrow and spiritual darkness.” Then, of course, there’s a prime competitor to Christmas - Kwanzaa, an event celebrating not diversity but divisiveness, which as Derbyshire describes, "was invented out of whole cloth by a violent 1960s criminal-radical thug, employs a language spoken by the ancestors of practically no black Americans at all (and a language which owed its own prominence to its use as a lingua france for Arab slave traders), celebrates the fruits of harvest at a time of year when nobody in the world is harvesting anything, [and] promotes communistic values." Read this devistating review by Richard Rosendall for more details.

Well, it certainly is a diverse group, but it’s hard to see how honoring these five dates amounts to a celebration of diversity. In fact, most of these events commemorate a lack of diversity – Kwanzaa is an exclusionary event, limited to African Americans, and Diwali and Ramadan celebrate revelations that would seem to put believers at spiritual odds with non-believers. What we have here is a mini-United Nations of faith celebrations. It’s also like the UN in that it attempts to force these five into some kind of common ground. It’s like trying to mix oil and water.

There is one exception, of course. One event that is diverse, inclusive, meant for everyone, both inside and outside its given group.

The event, of course, is Christmas.

In the words of the “Holiday Luncheon,” Christmas “[c]elebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.” As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Savior was born for all, not just for a select group. While Christians understand that acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is essential for salvation, we don’t believe this message is only for Christians. It’s for the whole world, for anyone who wants to hear and believe. While the Jews were originally to be the initial beneficiaries, the ultimate plan was to extent the benefits to all, regardless of race, creed, sex, or national origin, and it becomes the duty of every Christian to spread the word, to make sure as many people as possible can hear it. The sacrifice to which this birth inevitably led was all-encompassing, the Blood “shed for you and for all (pro multis, for the multitudes) for the forgiveness of sins.”

A truly diverse group, in other words, and if this event alone doesn’t qualify as “A Celebration of Diversity,” I’m not sure what does.

And yet, the sole rationale for a “holiday” event, the only reason for its existence, is to deny the very mention of the word Christmas and to minimize, if not completely eliminate, its meaning. Ironic, isn’t it?

Some will point out that Muslims, for example, also believe in one God. But they see that God as Allah – Master. Jesus referred to God as Abba – Father. And there’s a fundamental difference right there, between compelling belief and inviting it. Ah, but we could spend days discussing the implications of this. I’ll try to stick to the point.

I guess what really gets me is this continuing attempt to lump these events together and give them some kind of moral equivalence. They take such obvious pains to minimize Christmas to the point where it’s only considered an equal with the others (if that), as if they have the same meaning and significance, not only within each individual group but for all groups.

If individuals belonging to other groups or faiths want to celebrate particular events, well and good. There should be no attempt to prevent them – this country does believe in religious freedom (at least for non-Christians). But can we really, in good conscience, look at the numbers of adherents and their contributions to American culture and say that these days deserve equal billing with Christmas? As Derbyshire’s correspondent put it, “Neither Hanukkah nor the other winter festivals have anything to match even this very tiny portion of all the great art inspired by or associated with Christmas. However, once we admit that Hanukkah should be treated as the equal of Christmas, despite the fact that its significance in Western culture is close to zero and its significance in traditional Judaism is minor, we really cannot complain about Kwanzaa or Ramadan.”

I know what you're thinking. “It's only religious tolerance,” some will respond. No it isn’t. Tolerance doesn’t mean the same thing as equality. This is political correctness.

Compare this to a political convention, where the party has to make sure every faction has their say at the podium. The party may say they’re all “important.” But there’s no misunderstanding the pecking order – smaller, less significant groups get stuck on C-SPAN and go up against Regis Philbin, while the big names – Clinton, Ahnold, Kerry and Bush – they get the prime-time network coverage.

But imagine the Republicans had Bush speak at 3 a.m., while giving the prime-time network coverage to some obscure county commissioner running for re-election. See what I mean? When push comes to shove, political parties don’t try to pretend all groups have the same importance, carry the same weight and significance. And neither should we.

I know these rants of mine against Corporate America might strike some as odd, coming as they do from a conservative. Believe me, I’ve never forgotten that, as a friend of mine put it, “corporate America does produce jobs, after all.” And I still prefer capitalism to the other kinds of –isms out there.

But you notice that I always capitalize the word Corporate. I’m talking about an ideology unto itself, a way of group thought and group speak that I believe is extremely damaging to this country. It’s companies that don’t care about using pornography to advertise their products as along as people buy them, and television networks that don’t care what they show as long as people watch. It’s calling deviant behavior normal in order to court favor from special interest groups and make a buck off them, using corporate funds to support the abortion industry, and providing benefits to “domestic partners.” It’s all this and a hundred things more that call to mind the words from the Book of Wisdom, “But he considered our existence an idle game, and life a festival held for profit, for he says one must get money however one can, even by base means. For this man, more than all others, knows that he sins when he makes from earthy matter fragile vessels and graven images.” (Wisdom 15:12-13) And recall also the words of our Lord Himself, Who said, “Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the man by whom the temptation comes!” (Matthew 18:7)

There are a lot of them out there, and they are the worst enemies that capitalism has, because they turn people against them, and the people start to wonder if there’s a better way. They force governments to regulate them because they can’t or won’t regulate themselves. And for all of us who do believe in a Christian form of capitalism, who think it’s better than the alternative, it’s up to us to do something. That’s why we speak up, we boycott, we call attention to the fact that something is not right. We run the risk of being mocked – called old-fashioned, fundamentalist, intolerant, mean-spirited. We may not be able to do much, but we do what we can – do it with love and charity in our hearts and words – and leave the rest in God’s hands.

It’s also why sometimes we don’t go to “free” lunches. We know the price of a free lunch can be too high a price to pay.

Saturday Matinees

By Hadleyblogger Drew

Tomorrow marks the start of the Metropolitan Opera's 76th radio broadcast season with Mozart's Idomeneo. (Not, I trust, the production offered by the Berlin Opera.) As it does, one might wonder whether it is the last season for the Met on broadcast radio.

The Saturday matinee broadcasts of the Met have been an institution for generations. Many, including yours truly, got their first taste of big-time opera listening to the Met on Saturday afternoons. For years Texaco was the title sponsor of the broadcasts, until (after their merger with Chevron) their bottom-line mentality, in the best tradition of modern Corporate America, got the better of them and they dropped their sponsorship. Things looked bleak then, but the Met was able to find new funding, and the broadcasts continued.

Where, then, is the threat coming from this time? Oddly enough, from the Met itself. This year the Met introduced two revolutionary additions to their broadcast schedule: the introduction on Sirius of Met Opera radio (four live broadcasts a week plus historic performances), and, later this month, the debut of live HD broadcasts in movie theaters nationwide.

So on one hand this is good news indeed, as Met broadcasts are now more available than ever before. (Whether the Met itself merits the title of America's opera company is a question for another day.) The downside, then, would appear to be the potential loss of free, over-the-air, broadcasts - the Sirius channel requires a monthly subscription, and tickets for the theater simulcasts will run about $15 a pop.

But let's not kid ourselves - classical music itself has been marginalized in our crass modern culture, and opera is perhaps the most marginalized within that genre. It's getting harder and harder to find classical music on the radio (even on public radio, which always falls back on the "you can only get it here" mantra whenever it tries to extort more taxpayer money). The free market, the law of supply-and-demand, suggests that the entrepreneur will always find ways to meet the need, and from that standpoint the Met seems to have done pretty well. One could argue that by going the pay-access route, the Met is giving its fans what they want - more (and better) live broadcasts, not to mention access to its vast archives. Terry Teachout, in a piece I can't put my hands on at the moment, forecast such a possibility years ago. So in that sense, we could be about to enter the golden era of Met broadcasting.

(And, speaking of public radio and the law of unintended consequences, one wonders if the loss of the Met on broadcast radio would have an impact on NPR's fundraising, since public radio accounts for most of the stations carrying the broadcasts. Will the opera listeners who used to pony up during the pledge breaks now save their money for a Sirius subscription? The thought almost makes it all worthwhile.)

But if that's the case, I'll still mourn the loss of the Saturday matinees. Not for myself, because I'll probably wind up doing whatever I have to do in order to the the level of access I want. But I do wonder how many people receive a fleeting, casual introduction to opera by surfing the radio dial and happening upon one of the broadcasts? It might not stick with them right then and there, that first time - maybe it's the second or third time, when they leave the station on just a little bit longer, enough to hear Domingo nail that final note, to thrill to the cheers of a live audience, to catch the sense of drama that even a radio broadcast of an opera can provide. There is, after all, a big difference between fulfillment and education. The Met on satellite and HD may cater to the opera fan, but will it still ensnare the accidental listener? As is so often the case, I suppose time will tell.