Nobody Asked Me, But...

Ed Koch, the quintessential NYC political hack, has died after suffering a decades-long illness whose beginnings afflicted the entire city with his third term.

 

Edward I. Koch, the master showman of City Hall, who parlayed shrewd political instincts and plenty of chutzpah into three tumultuous terms as mayor of New York with all the tenacity, zest and combativeness that personified his city of golden dreams, died Friday morning at age 88.

Mr. Koch’s spokesman, George Arzt, said the former mayor died at 2 a.m. from congestive heart failure. He was being treated at New York-Presbyterian Columbia Hospital.

Mr. Koch had experienced coronary and other medical problems since leaving office in 1989. But he had been in relatively good health despite — or perhaps because of — his whirlwind life as a television judge, radio talk-show host, author, law partner, newspaper columnist, movie reviewer, professor, commercial pitchman and political gadfly.

Congressman Koch, as I prefer to remember him, was a feisty liberal in an era and district where liberalism was heralded as the new best way to govern. It's hard to think of him as a man who championed the little guy and the underdog, who fought for racial equality and human rights both here and abroad.

Hard to believe for a man who later in his life hated racial quotas and integration, believing that a separation of the races would achieve racial harmony. Idiot.

Personally, I think his heart had given way long before he let on. He's the first person I've ever known to become dumber as he got older.

Ed Koch was my Congressman while I was growing up. I recall an assembly at my junior high school he spoke at, and when he opened the floor to questions (this would have been about 1973,) yours truly piped up: "So when you running for mayor, Mistah Koch?"

My political instincts were honed at a very young age, you see. Five years later saw him taking the oath of office for Mayor.

Koch made the mistake of serving three terms as mayor. Three term mayors end up tarnishing whatever legacy they had and replacing it with one of brutishness and evil. For Koch, who is generally acknowledged to have saved the city from bankruptcy -- he didn't. We can truly credit his predecessor Abe Beame and Felix Royhaton, who held the city's purse strings -- his legacy became embroiled in racial hatred and unrest, culminating in the suicide of corrupt Queens politico and Koch ally Donald Manes ahead of a Parking Violations Bureau scam that saw people lining up, hands out.

And the final death blows to Koch's legacy were the deaths of Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Griffith, and Yussuf Hawkins, all black. All killed by white men. Too, Koch's failure to even nominally address either the crack cocaine epidemic or the outbreak of homelessness on city streets indicated a man mired in deep racial hatred, something he would return to time and again as he swung farther and farther to the right.

I had lunch with Hizzoner a few years ago, accidentally. We happened to be in the same restaurant and Koch would talk an ear off if you let him. So I did. He was too old and too infirm for me to let my anger out, but I did ask him what changed him, why did he go from an idealistic young progressive to (altho I didn't term it this way, he took my meaning I'm sure) an embittered old fool.

Altho he claims it was the attempts by John Lindsay to build a housing project smack dab in a middle class neighborhood of Queens, that was in 1973, long before he ran for mayor. I know that's not the truth. The truth is, he moved deliberately and purposefully because he knew he could not win the mayoralty as a liberal from Manhattan -- worse, a gay liberal -- since he'd need Queens and Staten Island and Brooklyn.

So his "turn" came in 1978 when he tossed his hat into the ring.

The problem is, he was successful at it, and started believing his own press.

Which is what makes him the quintessential NYC political hack.

I miss Congressman Koch.

Mayor Koch? Eh. Not so much!

 

Art For Art's Sake

(image courtesy)

 

I mean that title literally.

 

There's an interesting thread over at WhiskeyFire dealing with a rightwing pundit, Michael Moynihan, who posits that political correctness is destroying art of all stripes.

 

In other words, because art should not be politicized, and if it's controversial, should be viewed through an artistic lens rather than a political one, we get crappy art.

 

Bullshit. As Thers points out at WF, long legal and political battles have been fought over "art for art's sake," from the Bovary trial, all the way down to our own Serrano and Mapplethorpe controversies.

 

For me, art is an exaggerated reality that provides the artist's perspective on what he sees (or imagines).

 

Take that Hopper .jpg at the top of this post. It's a fairly mundane scene: a couple, a single man, all sitting at a coffee shop counter while the counter guy tries to engage anyone in conversation. For me, there's a sense of tension and mystery in the picture. For instance, the man with his back facing us: what's he up to? He seems lost in thought. It's late. The place is empty. What happened to him? The couple. Lovers? Is she a hooker? She's dressed kind of trampy and looks bored. Married?

We're all familiar with the concept of interpretation. We can all look at the same event, the same real event, and based on the sum total of our experiences and knowledge, view it through our own particular lens.

The really good artists are the ones who get us to see their perspective and realize things we missed. That's art, and it doesn't matter if the artist is five or Edward Hopper. What makes Hopper Hopper is his art affect us on an emotional level enough that someone wants to buy it.

But there's a larger point I'm missing, and that is for the culture at large. As JohnR in comments put it:

I've used a simple definition of "art" for most of my life, reinforced by a recent visit to our local MoA with the wife: Art is anything that someone thinks is art. Do something; think it's art? Then it's art. It helps if you can convince somebody else that it's art, which can be surprisingly easy, but that's optional.

It occurs to me that art is a communication, as I pointed out above, but like all communications, it is subject to individual accents and understandings. A rock is a communication to someone, somewhere.

And I mean before it's even thrown at your head. It provides information, for one thing: there are likely other rocks nearby, which could mean there's a large rock either under the ground or up on a hillside.

Or it could mean that there's a riot nearby and you'd better duck.

 

I have thousands of photos I've taken over the course of my life and I've discarded thousands more. All of them mean something to me, so all of them are art for me. They remind me of times and places and faces. I have an emotional reaction to each photo, even if that reaction is so subtle that it cannot be measured easily.

 

But for the rest of the argument...

 

Politics is emotional. It has to be. Laws are created in order to govern behavior under agreed-upon standards. Politics establishes those standards of behavior. Behavior is emotionally-driven.

 

All of us have emotional impulses, most good, some evil. After all, who among us hasn't at least glimmered on the feeling of punching someone in the nose? This is what determines our humanity: can we feel?

 

Most of us can feel anger, which is really just fear incorporating itself into our psyche. Most of us can feel happiness, which is really just love incorporating itself into our psyche. We can feel compassion, guilt, greed, envy, shame...the list is pretty extensive, but I think they all boil down to components of either love or fear in various compositions.

 

Art is emotional. It has to be. The combinations of colours or sounds, actions or words, shapes or people, all conspire to draw an emotional reaction from us. We all interpret them differently, distinctly. Effective artists, and here's where my viewpoint has altered slightly from the discussion at WhiskeyFire, make the emotional reaction so compelling that we want to live it, over and over again. We want to live with it and let it beat within our breasts.

 

What determines our society is how many of us act upon those impulses and how. Which brings us full circle to politics.

 

Politics is emotional. Art is emotional. Art is politics. It's impossible not to polticize art.

Scout's Honor

 

(image courtesy)

 

I was a Scout. Of course, back then it was called Boy Scouts, but Scouts, nonetheless.

 

Growing up in Manhattan, it was easy to be bored with the world around you. The change of seasons was hardly noticeable...a few more clothes, a little snow...and with all the paranoia -- some of it warranted, as careful readers of my blog know -- about this pervert and that hoodlum, it was easy to fall into a routine where you had few goals and fewer structures to support your behavior and character.

 

Enter the Scouts. I joined the Cub Scouts early on and progressed into the Boy Scouts where, I am proud to say, I earned the Life Scout badge.

 

I would have made Eagle, but college beckoned at 16, and I had to choose between scouting and making pocket money. In addition, I was selected for the prestigious Order of the Arrow society, which was de rigeur for any Scout who wanted to be an Eagle.

 

The Scouts were a grand old time: we backpacked the Adirondacks, camped out in New Jersey, ran one of the nation's first paper and metal recycling facilities (I was most proud of that) and generally came together the way boys of that pre-teen, pre-pubescent age can. We played games. We chose up teams. We roughoused. We bonded over bugs and campfires, latrines and lanterns.

 

We performed community service (you know, the "good deed for the day"?) and I'm pleased to count the Scouts as a major influence towards my liberal thinking.

 

Homosexuality never came into it, not because gays were forbidden (indeed, my first Senior Patrol Leader came out as an adult, and several of my charges when I was SPL are also out now) but because none of the kids understood what sex meant, much less loving another man was.

 

If the adults met and discussed it, we never knew. Or cared. None of the kids had any whisper campaigns about little Johnny or Mark. If we teased anyone...remember, it was a different era...it was goodnaturedly. I was teased, you were teased, he was teased, we were all teased. It wasn't any different, or anymore wrong or right, than calling Phillip or Michael "fat."

 

It was disillusioning, also disheartening then, when I was an adult to read the BSA had not only banned gay Scoutmasters, but gay Boy Scouts themselves. Somethingsomething pedophilia, somethingsomething victims, somethingsomething morals clause.

 

Now, it's true, the Boy Scout oath says something about "keeping myself morally straight," but somehow, in adolescence, "straight" takes on a different meaning: I won't lie, I won't cheat, I won't steal. I'll treat people honestly and fairly.

 

So it seemed to me that the only way to be honest with people is to let me have the opportunity to interact with them honestly. Hiding someone away because they're different is dishonesty, and the Scouts really ought to be ashamed of themselves for that.

 

No matter. I was ashamed for them. I wrote my local Council and asked to be removed from the roster of the OofA, because (as I had learned by my 30s) the man who inducted me in was never welcome, therefore I had not earned my place in the society.

 

Mind you, the NY Council disagreed vehemently with the national's decision, which is why I never surrendered my sash or insignia. I was willing to support them in their fight, but not willing to accept an elite honor from an organization that was willing to abnegate around ten percent of my friends who were also members.

 

We did what we could. It's taken twenty years...more like forty if you go back to the original proclamations of the national board, but I was too young to notice then...but we may finally prevail. And while the new proposal is more like "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" than an outright affirmation of the rights of gays to serve and be served in the Scouts, it's better than we had, and better than I would have hoped for.

 

But here's the tragic part, for my point of view:

About 50 local United Way groups and several corporations and charities have concluded that the ban violates their non-discrimination requirements and have ceased providing financial aid to the Boy Scouts. An official of The Human Rights Campaign, an advocate for gay rights, said HRC planned to downgrade its non-discrimination ratings for corporations that continue to give the BSA financial support.

“It’s an extremely complex issue,” said one Boy Scouts of America official, who explained that other organizations have threatened to withdraw their financial support if the BSA drops the ban.

So, like the Komen controversy, it wasn't until it hit the pocketbook that things got clear.

So much for "morally straight."

 

When DAs Attack

An interesting little legal factoid came out over the weekend: a grand jury that sat in 1999 in the Jon Benet Ramsey murder had handed up an indictment against the parents, but the DA refused to pursue the case:

On a brilliantly clear autumn day more than 13 years ago, Boulder District Attorney Alex Hunter stepped to the podium before an anxious media horde to announce that the grand jury investigation into the death of JonBenet Ramsey had come to an end.

"I and my prosecution task force believe we do not have sufficient evidence to warrant a filing of charges against anyone who has been investigated at this time," Hunter told the reporters assembled outside the Boulder County Justice Center on Oct. 13, 1999.

Yet multiple sources, including members of the grand jury, have now confirmed to the Daily Camera what Hunter did not say that day: The grand jury voted to indict both John and Patsy Ramsey on charges of child abuse resulting

The Daily Camera has confirmed that the grand jury investigating the death of JonBenet Ramsey voted to indict John and Patsy Ramsey on charges of child abuse resulting in death but then-District Attorney Alex Hunter refused to sign the indictment and prosecute the case, believing he could not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

This story has been confirmed by others in the DA's office from that era.

 

It's a conundrum. The typical way a prosecutor will handle a situation like this is to file the indictment with the court, then asked the charges be dismissed, but I'm not sure Hunter's way in this particular case was not the better one.

 

As has been famously asserted elsewhere, a good prosecutor can get a ham sandwich indicted. The grand jury process is about leading a group of people down a primrose path and then asking whether they agree with the evidence as presented. And it only takes a majority vote. The trouble is, in popular canon a grand jury indictment is -- like an arrest -- an automatic presumption that the now-defendant must have done something wrong, else why would he or she be on trial?

 

True, conviction still requires a jury trial (or one in front of a judge), but so many people assume that anyone who makes it that far who is found innocent, barring another indictment or confession, somehow got off.

 

It's a warped society we live in where the law states innocent until proven guilty, but society says "Nope. Guilty."

 

As it turns out, subsequent DNA analysis more than a decade after the murder suggests that no one in the Ramsey family had any direct involvement in Jon Benet's death. In other words, handing up the indictment to the court would have essentially convicted, in society's mind, people who had no direct evidence linking them to the crime and indeed, were exonerated by later evidence (altho there's some question about even that evidence.)

 

Too, the charges the jury handed up were kind of "catch-all" in that they charged the Ramseys with basically fatally endangering the welfare of a child, which in practice could cover anything from actually participating in her murder to having knowledge of it but not stopping it.

 

Had Hunter taken it to a judge and then dismissed it, several possible bad outcomes occur to me, from vigilantes trying to "take out" the Ramseys to their fleeing the country to new evidence being found that would implicate them, but a defense of double jeopardy could be raised.

 

Hunter may have been smart to let them walk at that time, in the hopes they'd slip up later.

 

Which they apparently haven't.

 

Sadly, I doubt this is the last we'll hear of this case.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Wisdom comes from knowledge. Knowledge comes from experience. Experience comes from getting out in diverse situations and learning new things. So, Bobby? If you're concerned that your party is in danger of becoming the party of the stoopid, take a look around. When you have the single most diverse name in the party and even THAT'S Americanized from Piyush, you're in deep shit, buddy.

2) You get the sense that even China is growing weary of the Team America clownishness of the Kim regime. It's one thing to develop nukes, it's another thing to rattle your sabre when your scabbard is empty, and antagonize people, particularly when your main ally is already in hot water with an ally of the US.

3) You might recall that a few years ago, two groups of scientists voluntarily stopped working on weaponizing the avian H1N1 flu virus after a worldwide outcry, and opted to wait until security measures could be put into place. Well, they've started up again. Not that the bird flu needed much help, apparently.

4) And more in health news: the norovirus.

5) The least surprising news of the week.

6) Harry Reid screwed us. No other way to put it. Yes, he reformed the filibuster and yes, it will be a little harder to filibuster, but...

7) THIS. SHALL. NOT. STAND!

8) Here's a twist: the Catholic Church is in a position to argue that foetuses are not people.

9) JJ Abrams, the same guy who brought us such stellar films as Cloverfield and Armageddon will direct the seventh installment in the Star Wars nonology. For Disney, who bought the rights from George Lucas last year. Expect to see furry forest creatures eighty feet tall lobbing planet destroying asteroids. And I thought Hayden Christensen destroyed the franchise.

10) Oh, Florida. Where would Nobody Asked Me, But... be without you?

Women Embattled

A curious nexus of two stories occured yesterday, each of which reinforces the other.

 

First, it was let slip that today, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta would authorize women to serve in combat.

 

Hardly earthshattering, I know. Women have served on the front lines for a decade or more in Afghanistan and Iraq...just ask Tammy Duckworth how she lost her legs. Still, a de jure codification of what is de facto is a welcome development.  

 

Many objections can and have been raised against women in combat. Most, if not all, have the ring of bigotry about them: how will women handle the death of a comrade? Can women handle the same physical and emotional stresses as a man? and so on.

 

Echoes of the arguments made when blacks were allowed to serve in the military under Truman.

 

First off, it's still a volunteer army, which means that women will have to undergo the same training and conditioning the men do. If they can pass that, they can serve on the front lines. It's as simple as that.

 

As to the question whether women can handle the emotional rigors of service, one need only go into any veteran's hospital to see the men whose minds have been shattered because of the death and destruction they survived. None of us is exempt from emotional triggers and the death of people close to us is a strong one.

 

I think it's safe to say that, if anyone is to be excluded based on the possibility of an emotional breakdown, then we should all beat our swords into plowshares.

 

Which would be my preference, but I digress...

 

But if anyone needs proof of the resilience of women, let's move onto story number two:

When Hillary Clinton went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Republicans opened their bags of overly ripe conspiracy theories and moldering fruitcake ideas and tossed everything at her. Every shot missed.

Republican senators and congressmen on the foreign affairs committees of both houses had insisted that the departing secretary of State come in for a full day of hearings about the deadly terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Some of them must have thought this was a great chance to do preemptive damage to the most popular choice for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. Instead, she made them look like the clumsy bad guys in an Aaron Sorkin political drama. 

The State Department's own independent investigative board has already answered most of the serious questions about the Benghazi tragedy in which four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The panel cited the failures of mid-level officials and suggested 29 ways to improve the system. Clinton said implementation of those steps was already 85% complete.

If there is ANYONE, and I mean, anyone, who had a right to blow up into a complete emotional collapse yesterday, it was Hillary Clinton. For twenty years now, she has been pilloried, excoriated, demonized, belittled, cursed at and spat upon, and yet, in front of the most hostile questioning I've seen coming from Capitol Hill since Anita Hill tried to warn America about Clarence Thomas (Another woman. Interesting.) she maintained her composure, breaking her equanimity only when talking about standing beside the President as the caskets of four brave Americans -- Americans dishonored in life by the very men now verbally abusing their boss and now dishonored in death by these same men who ghoulishly use them as political props -- and comforting their families.

She got angry, too. She got angry because these morons would rather score political points against her than get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi and accept a heaping dole of responsibility as they and there party defunded embassy security, all in the name of...what, exactly? Tax cuts for the rich, is what.

In short, Congressmen and Senators of the right, the truism the rest of the planet lives by, "you get what you pay for," was writ large in Benghazi and you guys tried to stiff the waiter. Shame on you.

She called you on it, and now you're angry. Let me sum up her testimony for you: we're on it, I'm out of here, get over it.

If you need further explanation, I'm sure Senator Kerry would gladly give you a briefing. Even tho you don't deserve one.

 

Someone Please Hand Wayne La Pierre A Bigger Shovel

Because he clearly doesn't believe he has hit the bottom of his self-dug grave yet:

WASHINGTON — Wayne LaPierre, the executive director of the National Rifle Association, angrily accused President Obama on Tuesday of demonizing law-abiding gun owners and of wanting to put “every private personal firearms transaction right under the thumb of the federal government.”

In a fiery speech at a hunting conference in Nevada, Mr. LaPierre criticized Mr. Obama’s Inaugural Address on Monday when the president said Americans should not “mistake absolutism for principle.”

That reference, Mr. LaPierre said, was intended as an attack on the N.R.A. and gun owners who believe that the Second Amendment to the Constitution provides an absolute right to bear arms.

What gun nuts won't tell you is that the Second Amendment is the only one, the only one, that places a condition on a Constitutional right. They'll ignore the language of the first part about a "well-regulated militia" -- and if the Founders were alive to address this, I think they'd acknowledge local police forces as constituting said militiae -- but woe betide anyone who interprets the rest of the Amendment to read as anything but "all the guns we want, all the time."

But then La Pierre doubled down on teh stoopit:

“I urge our president to use caution when attacking clearly defined absolutes in favor of his principles,” Mr. LaPierre said. “When absolutes are abandoned for principles, the U.S. Constitution becomes a blank slate for anyone’s graffiti.”

In effect, La Pierre is demanding absolutism on his relative terms. For instance, the gun that Founders referred to is a muzzle loader, a musket. At best, you might have a flintlock pistol. Why doesn't he mention that in his "principle"? After all, colonists had to defend their farms against varmints both human and animal, and they seemed to do a pretty good job of surviving. If the purpose of owning a gun is to defend yourself and your family, then it seems to me that mission accomplished there.

Having seen the failure of his "only a good guy with a gun can protect us from a bad guy with a gun" meme, La Pierre has quickly branched out into terrorism. Not that he was above terrorism before this, but it seems pretty clear that he's trying to broaden the scope of his argument past the Second Amendment advocacy of the NRA to include Teabaggers and other "l"ibertarians by scaring them about free speech, or freedom of religion, for example.

The "absolutist" argument is stupid. The Constitution has long been viewed as a malleable document. Indeed, the reason the Founders made amending the document so damned difficult is that it was intended to be interpreted to fit the times, and not make the times fit the document. They knew the world was changing rapidly and that if their intent was to concretize the Constitution and to stultify any debate about its meaning, they would have included amendments indicating that it would never be changed, could never be changed, and would have more specifically outlined the rights it endowed, instead of taking what is essentially the lazy way out and leaving it up to the People.

 

In other words, leave it to the wise men and women selected by the People, who would in turn select the men who oversaw the document's meaning, to let the Constitution play in the fields of the future. Up until now, that's been a widely accepted view of our democracy.

 

Until now. I mean, it's still widely accepted, but there's a significant if small minority of people who are home-schooled and attend "colleges" like Liberty University who have been brainwashed into believing in "original intent."

 

When it's clear that "original intent" was to let the document breathe the air of a free people who may choose to view the document as a mirror, not a granite slab.

Mali Factor

Remnants of European imperialism are on display this year in Africa, as France (and eventually NATO) draws itself deeper into the morass of Mali:

SEGOU, Mali — Malian and French forces were reported in control of two important central Malian towns on Tuesday after the French Defense Ministry said they recaptured them on Monday, pushing back an advance by Islamist militants who have overrun the country’s northern half.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the defense minister, hailed the advance on Monday as “a clear military success for the government in Bamako and for French forces intervening in support of these operations.”

The developments in Diabaly, about 275 miles north of Bamako, and Douentza, on the eastern bank of the Niger River, some 300 miles to the north-east of the Malian capital, represented a reassertion of government control in areas where a lightning strike by Islamist forces last week prompted France to intervene, initially with air strikes to halt the rebel advance.

Wherefore Mali? It's an interesting situation: Mali offers no obvious strategic advantage to anyone, in truth. It's landlocked, and while it does offer access to both the Niger and Senegal rivers, there's not much to be done there in terms of trade or commerce. Mali's economy relies largely on agriculture and fishing and its two largest mineral exports are gold and salt.

Not to short shrift gold, of course.

This whole mess started when a separatist movement, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, occupied a presidential palace in the capital city of Bamako. Shortly after, Islamist forces supposedly aligned with Al Qaeda (there's some dispute there) overpowered the NMLA and while they allowed the president to resume his office, they have not relinquished power.

The Azawadians are a faction of the Tuareg tribe, who last made the news when they allied with Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, and then were driven out of their homes as the rebellion flourished. Amadou Sanogo, the general at the head of the Azawadian forces, requested the French intervene in the conflict.

The effect of this was seen in next-door Algeria, as Islamists seized a gas field and captured dozens of hostages. At last report, 37 died in the government's successful attempt to retake the facility.

This entire incident, Mali and Algeria, speak to the formation of Africa's fate for the century: a struggle between nativist Africans and the North Africa Muslims. This seems to be spreading into the interior of the continent now, having been fought along the north and east coasts already with neither side having a clear victory.

Strategically, this is subtly important: Niger and Burkina Faso also have deposits of gold, and Niger famously has yellowcake uranium. They are also two countries in Africa who do not do the plurality of their trading with China.

(*koffkoff*)

 

Pride

Early morning, April 4
A shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

 

It is fitting and appropriate that this week sees the re-inauguration of President Barack Obama and the celebration of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Dr. King would have turned 84 last Tuesday. I have little doubt that, had he lived this long, he would have proudly stood next to the President yesterday and today as he spoke those words Dr. King so longed to hear spoken to a black man: "I do solemnly swear..."

 

I can imagine a tear or two would have formed at the corner of his eyes. I know it did when I watched it.

 

Dr. King could not have failed to notice a subtle shift in America. In 2008, electing Barack Obama was an act of insurrection, a vote to change Washington, to change America, to embrace progress. In 2012, it was an affirmation of that change.

 

And the 2012 vote was nearly as overwhelming as the 2008 insurrection. The guy's doing a good job.

 

We re-elected Barack Obama not on the colour of his skin, but on the content of his character. We have seen him at work, and judged him good. Had Dr. King spoken today at the celebration, I have little doubt he would remark on this point.

 

Too, he likely would have pointed out that, while we have not seen the mountaintop, where men live in peace with other men of all races, colours, creeds and, yes, genders (sorry ladies, the allegory just works better sui generis), we have taken one giant leap for mankind.

 

Perhaps, too, he would note, as he did in opposing the war in Vietnam, "When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered." How true these words have become in the past decades, as fear and terror replace courage and thinking.

 

No doubt, he would cast an askance eye at the NRA and gun owners across America, in the wake of the Sandy Hill shootings and the tragic deaths of black men, black women, and black children all across the nation, from Illinois to Alabama, from Massachussetts to California, and recalled that he, too, owned guns but was denied a permit in Alabama to carry them because he was black.

 

And would undoubtedly note the lopsidedness of gun violence falling on minorities disproportionately, and children doubly so, and note that more guns is not more safety: "Finally, I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be the son of the Living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. And because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come today to speak for them."

 

There is a deeper theme to this day, the nexus of the second inauguration of Barack Obama and the celebration of the birth of Dr. King.

 

Men of peace have short lives on this planet. King acknowledged this during his life: "Now it isn’t easy to stand up for truth and for justice. Sometimes it means being frustrated. When you tell the truth and take a stand, sometimes it means that you will walk the streets with a burdened heart. Sometimes it means losing a job…means being abused and scorned. It may mean having a seven, eight year old child asking a daddy, “Why do you have to go to jail so much?” And I’ve long since learned that to be a follower to the Jesus Christ means taking up the cross. And my bible tells me that Good Friday comes before Easter. Before the crown we wear, there is the cross that we must bear."

 

As Bono so brilliantly put it in the lyrics I quoted above, "They asked of your life, but they could not take your pride."

 

It is that pride that endures. It is that unforgettable fire that burns inside you and I. Our nation has become concretized. Where once we were supple and adept, America has become brutish and musclebound. Where once we were tolerant and accepting, we have become fearful and ignorant. Where once we could all share a dream, we have awoken to find a bleak and icy landscape.

 

We have slipped into a morass of violence and hatred, strewn amidst a rubble of what could have been. But I tell you, that within that rubble, among the bullets and bodies and bloodstained snows, lay the seeds of change.

 

The Spring will come, and perhaps early morning, one April 4, shouts of joy, not shots of death, will ring out heralding a new nation, conceived in true liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that we all are created equal.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

Special Mythed It By That Much Edition

 

 We've got a nexus of disillusionment to examine this week in the form of two stories out of sport that rocked America.

 

The question, of course, has to be asked: why?

 

In one case, it's pretty obvious. Lance Armstrong won seven Tour de France championships in a row. The greatest single athletic endeavour in the history of the planet, meaning he was the greatest athlete who ever lived.

 

 

If you believe the myth, of course. I've delved at great length into that myth here, so there's no point in reiterating it.

 

The other case involves the private embarassment of a college athlete thrust into a spotlight partly of his own making. Manti Te'o was a linebacker for the Notre Dame University football team, and was arguably the best player on that team (the parenthetical question has to be asked, "Were PEDs involved?")

 

He was runner-up in the voting for the Heismann Trophy, emblematic of the best college football player of the year. He led ND to an undefeated season and a shot at the national title. This alone would have been enough to make him a topic of national dialogue (again, why? But that's a meta-issue for now)

 

But the compelling aspect of Te'o's mythology is that he lost both his grandmother and his girlfriend on the same day, coming into this season. It was inspiring, the difficulties that he played through, the emotional strain, the dedication he showed.

 

Except at least half the story was not true. Oh, it might have been true enough, from the perspective of Te'o. After all, if you believe the stories (and personally I do), Te'o was hoodwinked -- "catfished", as the kids call it -- he was hillbilly handfished into a relationship with a girl he'd never met, but was the creation of an alleged "friend". Never existed.

 

So her death was less of an actual event and more an inevitable twist in the romance.

 

He believed her mythology, in other words. Just as we believe so many mythologies around us. Which brings us to Armstrong.

 

Last night, part one of his interview with Oprah Winfrey was aired. In it, he exposed his fraudulence. He was forthright about it when he limited himself to yes or no answers, I give him that much credit.

 

But in watching it, I realized two things.

 

First, he hasn't really thought through precisely what he's done (or he refuses to think it through, take your pick.) I don't think the magnitude of his scam has been made plain to him. Perhaps Oprah delves into that in part 2.

 

He admits he's hurt people around him, and that let his fans down as he pursued the very myth he created for the world. I think that's when mythology becomes the most dangerous. You know the old expression, "never believe your own press."

 

But here's what I think will be his ultimate self-revelation and he made need a therapist to get there: by creating this fantastic myth surrounding his cancer, his recovery and triumphs, Armstrong inspired millions. A week didn't go buy over the past few years when I wouldn't get an email from Armstrong, documenting the work of his LiveStrong foundation, replete with testimonials from cancer survivors -- and can we now believe all of those? -- thanking Lance for his inspiring story, which pushed them to take control of their cancer and beat it.

 

I fell into that trap too. I bought a bike and started riding in anticipation of his return to cycling. If he could do it at forty, I could do it at 40-something, right? The man was an animal. I, merely a beast. Perhaps I could become the oldest man to ride the Tour?

 

OK, probably not by a factor of 99.9999 to .0001 (that .0001 was to account for an act of God that demolished every cyclist better than I), but in setting a high bar for myself, it guaranteed that I'd accomplish more than merely saying "I'm overweight, out of shape, and need an adrenaline fix."

 

I'm a better man for the myth, but as I suspect many cancer survivors like me are saying, it was all built on sand and fog and the tide is coming in.

 

That's the aftermath of the myth and its exposure that Lance will have to deal with in some way if he truly wants to rehabilitate himself.

 

His appearance on Oprah's show so far has been about rehabbing his image, which speaks to me that his ego is still out of control. He was at times over the top obeisant, admitting at one point that the interview was only the second time in his life he felt he had no control over anything (unless he meant the whole revelation of his doping, which would be an evolution in his thinking, to be sure.) The first time was when he developed testicular cancer which had metastasized to his brain and lungs.

 

I'd like to see him rehabilitate himself, which means he should go into hiding and really contemplate what he's done, then come back and give back to the community, his fans and to the cancer community, too. Once he's humbled by the damage he's wrought, then I think America will forgive and forget.

 

After all, it would just be another mythology we can cling to: bad guy makes good.

 

What is it about America that we need our myths, whether they be good or bad? Guns protect us, but they do jsut the opposite, making the nation a more dangerous place. The past was better, except by nearly any measure at all, it was not. We're a nation of rugged individuals, yet we claim to also be a nation who cares about our neighbors, and both, BOTH, are patently untrue.

 

Similarly, why do we even talk about Manti Te'o? Yes, he's a great football player, but he clearly has some deep character flaws. He's human, not superhuman, but he's about to be lavished with both enormous sums of money (he's turning pro) and enormous heaps of ridicule and contempt. Why do we care so much that we would do either of those things?

 

His mythology, both self-created and a construct of some cruel forces around him, including his university (do you know no one bothered to send flowers to the girlfriend?) makes him out to be a bigger figure than he should be in a just and fair society.

 

Similarly with Armstrong: I swallowed his myth whole, despite the nagging suspicion that a guy who barely survives cancer ought not to be able to win one, much less seven, of the hardest athletic events ever devised by man. So I have to reflect on my own need for a mythology to hang onto.

 

So should you. We all have them.

Denial Nondenials

 

Here's a pretty interesting twist on the long-standing policy of governments everywhere to deny stories without denying them: confirming a story by denying it:

The State Department is publicly discounting claims made by its own diplomats about a chemical weapons attack in Syria.

On Tuesday, Foreign Policy detailed a secret and previously unknown cable from the U.S. consulate in Istanbul which came to the explosive conclusion that Syrian government forces dropped a hallucinogen known as "Agent 15″ on rebels in the town of Homs on December 23.

But less than a day later, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland has denied the report, saying that the Foreign Policy story "did not accurately convey the anecdotal information that we had received from a third party regarding an alleged incident in Syria in December."

"At the time we looked into the allegations that were made and the information that we had received, and we found no credible evidence to corroborate or to confirm that chemical weapons were used," she added. That's a major deal, because the international community has repeatedly told the Assad Regime in Syria that the use of chemical weapons is beyond unacceptable. The White House issued a statement along similar lines.

Let's dig a little deeper into this story and click on that "dropped a hallucinogen" link...

The Syrian military used an exotic chemical weapon on rebels during an attack in the city of Homs, some U.S. diplomats now believe.

That conclusion — first reported by Foreign Policy's Josh Rogin and laid out in a secret cable from the U.S. consul general in Istanbul — contradicts preliminary estimates made by American officials in the hours after the December 23 strike. But after interviews with Syrian activists, doctors, and defectors, American diplomats in Turkey have apparently rendered a different verdict. It's important to note, however, that this was the conclusion of a single consulate within the State Department, and there is still wide disagreement within the U.S. government over whether the Homs attack should be characterized as a chemical weapons incident.

"We can't definitely say 100 percent, but Syrian contacts made a compelling case that Agent 15 was used in Homs on Dec. 23," an unnamed U.S. official tells Rogin.

Said "compelling case" was made by a contractor who monitors rebel communications and discovered some YouTube videos.

What has been confirmed is that Syria used some sort of tactical weapon on its own citizens on December 23, and said weapon consisted of a "riot control agent."

In other words, it could be tear gas, it could just be smoke, or it could be Agent 15, which is employed in such a fashion and is roughly as dangerous as tear gas, in that with normal use, it's an irritant; in concentrated doses, it can be fatal.

CNN investigated the story and uncovered that doctors who treated those rebels employed atropine, which would actually enhance the effects of a hallucinogen. Those who were closest to the weapons strikes had more severe reactions to the agent than those farther away.

Atropine is used to treat sarin gas exposure. Hence, a denial nondenial.

 

 

The Broad Strokes

I don't forsee this passing in toto, but it's a good place to start to shape a new policy, one that fits a nation catching up with the 21st century:

President Barack Obama will propose an assault weapons ban and better background checks for gun buyers on Wednesday as part of a package of proposals to curb gun violence one month after the Newtown school massacre.

The proposals will include executive and legislative measures, with the latter sure to face an uphill battle in Congress, where appetite for renewing an assault weapons ban is low.

By the by, as a side note, a masterful stroke including children at the press conference. We're already seeing rumbles from the right about grandstanding...from the usual suspects, of course. But it will inoculate the President from really harsh criticisms about the proposals, since you'd basically be calling schoolchildren liars.

 

Of course, that wouldn't stop the zagnuts from doing precisely that.

 

The more and more I read and talk to conservatives, the more convinced I am that they see a handwriting on the wall that's telling them time's up, and they're fighting tooth and nail to hold onto an illusory past where they actually mattered. Even Ed Meese thinks he's still relevant, even tho his old dead boss would probably side with President Obama on this issue because, you know, he was shot.

 

We've treated them like our kid brother who tagged along on a guy's night out long enough. Time to put them to bed and get on with things.

 

The assault weapons ban will be a tough sell in the House, of course. Here's where "We, the People" come in. We have to get on the horn to our legislators. The NRA, the Gun Owners of America, and all the other crackpot rightwing jackboots will have their troops lined up, ready to threaten and intimidate their lawmakers. We have to make it clear that the 4 million (yea, right) members of the NRA are shouted down by the whispers of the other 326 million of us.

 

Make your kids write. Make your cat write (I know mine is already drafting a letter). This is important. We spoke up when the first bailout package was proposed in the Bush administration and beat that back. We can beat this crowd, too. They don't have nearly the influence banks did.

 

From what I've read and heard, the bill as proposed is a good one, if incomplete. But it's hella better than letting terrorists run our nation.

BREAKING: Michele Bachmann Had "Unnatural Relations" With Her Couch...Wait...What?

Oh. COACH!

FreeLance

I'm in a quandry.

 

See, I like Lance Armstrong. I admire his accomplishments (wait for it) and his charity work in keeping a spotlight focused on cancer has been even more admirable.

 

But it's all been built on a house of cards, and I'm a little angry about that.

 

Let's get the climax of the Armstrong story out of the way so I can focus on the real issue as I see it: No matter what, Lance Armstrong won seven Tour De France titles, the most grueling athletic competition in the world. A man (or woman, as they do race a woman's race too) rides for three full weeks with precisely two days off, circumnavigating an entire nation and then some, covering roughly the distance from New York to Salt Lake City.

 

Steroids don't help all that much in the grand scheme of things, but even a half a percent boost is enough to propel you a lot further faster over 21 race days.

 

Armstrong beat at least six riders who themselves were found guilty of doping contemporaneously to these Tours. That the UCI (the governing body ofr professional cycling) and Tour de France officials have not seen fit to award any of the forfeit jerseys speaks to me that they have doubts about even the seventh.

 

He beat cheaters at their own game. Indeed, he cheated better than they did since he was never caught but they all were. In fact, the one race he actually lost, his "unretirement' in 2009, saw him place behind two other riders who themselves have either been proven or accused of doping.

 

In short, I can hold the notion in my head that Armstrong is a great athlete and that on any level playing field, he wins seven titles.

 

Also, I can hold the notion that he's a shit of a person. After all, this is a man who abandoned his wife and kids, shacked up with Sheryl Crowe and then dumped her just after she revealed her breast cancer (ironic, right?) By all accounts, he's a pretty mean motherfucker and a terrible teammate, as has been documented in the thousands of pages of testimony the USADA has released from former teammates who talk of being bullied and extorted into silence about doping.

 

That Lance Armstrong is willing to fess up now and come clean is about one thing, and one thing only: Lance Armstrong. His ego got way ahead of his common sense. After all, he wasn't born an "Armstrong." This is a guy who has a very...I'll be polite...healthy self-image. Confessing to the High Priestess of Confessional Television is one of the first steps in rehabbing a shattered and shabby image.

 

To what ends? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...that's the right question!

 

Let's talk about the underlying issue here: money.

 

Steroids in sports. Ponzi schemes. Subprime lending. What two things do they all have in common?

 

Blatant illegality and money.

 

Armstrong's entire cycling legend focuses on his accomplishments on the bike, but its the rewards he got off the bike that speak louder.

 

Armstrong took a sport that was barely a blip on most Americans' radar and turned it into a phenomenon, through a combination of compelling story (cancer survivor comes back to LiveStronger) and accomplishment. Either would have had little impact on driving the sport of bicycling in the country (can you even name the last American before Armstrong to win the Tour? HINT: He was the first and won it three times in some of the most exciting Tours ever staged.)

 

The combination of the two would rocket cycling into the nation's psyche. Suddenly, the Tour went from something for geeks, with fifteen minutes of summary coverage on ABC's Wide World Of Sports, to live coverage of actual stages. Cycling became a sport one could regularly find on cable.

 

In tandem with this, Armstrong formed a national dialogue on cancer and healthcare through his LiveStrong Foundation. Those ubiquitous yellow wristbands started showing up everywhere. I still wear mine proudly as a cancer survivor. I can still be proud of Lance for that work.

 

In return, Armstrong was lionized around the world (mostly...remember, he's still a prick.) In an age when superheroes stopped existing, Armstrong towered above us all, like the Colossus of Rhodes. Those of us who biked reverted to our childhood tropes of playing in the pros, and we'd ride against or alongside Lance in our imaginations. He drove us farther, higher, faster, stronger.

 

In return, the Armstrong brand -- LiveStrong -- became a commodity. Clothing, equipment, the websites, endorsement deals abounded, and Lance raked it in. Maybe he was not as greedy as Madoff, but he made a nice living.

 

Fame, fortune, titles, beautiful women...I've actually "spoken" to Lance (online, a brief discussion when he was making his comeback) and you could sense his giddiness at it all. When you're ego is being fed well, you can't help but be happy.

 

See, here's the thing: there's a flipside to all this acquisitive behavior. You end up destroying people and lives. For instance, Armstrong sued a British tabloid for a story they published about his then-alleged doping, and won a substantial judgement. The reporter who wrote that suffered professional consequences that no amount of rehabbing by Armstrong will restore.

 

Frankie Andreu, a former teammate of Armstrong, and his wife Betty have been pariahs in the cycling community for years for suggesting that Andreu knew Lance doped.

 

Life can be a zero sum game if you play it badly. What you win, be it money or power or fame or fortune, comes out of someone else's pocket. It's rarely a collaborative, cooperative triumph.

 

Armstrong will have to do much more than publicly confess his sins against cycling, against the cycling community, and against the American people and people of the world who followed him, if he wants to even begin to restore balance to the world, if he truly wants redemption.

 

For instance, he can name names. Armstrong was the greatest athlete of his generation, in any sport, but he's still small potatoes on the totem pole of sport. There's officials and owners and promoters, the people who made real money off his exploits, and turned a blind eye or even encouraged his cheating.

 

He can volunteer to help form new doping guidelines and protocols that will catch other people cheating. To this day, Lance has still not ever tested positive for PEDs. How he got around those tests is important knowledge for the governing body of all sports to have. With the kind of money teams and sponsors throw into sports...I'll get to that in a minute...they can easily stay ahead of the doping cops.

 

And he can talk frankly about the pressures we put on athletes to cheat. He can talk about how sport is so glamourized worldwide, that games played by children have mutated into competitions where sums of money the size of the GDP of a small nation are at stake, that there is a clear "win at any cost" mentality.

 

And how we can mitigate this. Like politics, so long as their is big money to be made, there is big money to be spent trying to get an edge.

 

And maybe in the course of that discussion, you and I can look at ourselves and realize we are the problem. And we have it within ourselves to fix it, and easily.