I received the following email from a friend of a friend on the day after the election:
10:00pm, Nov. 2nd, 2004
I'm getting a sinking feeling but I am nothing if not an optimist with a terrific sense of humor. Part of me wants to run off a few choice bumper stickers, such as, "Red States Suck", or "Liberal hell, I hate Republicans". Can this Fun Puppy bear another four years of this Country mired in muck, or mucked in mire? Forever I've had this feeling of us/we versus they/them. And they are again going to be in charge of us. Yuck! Truly half this country, we now know, is made up of them, the United States of Enron. So where is the silver lining? I suppose it comes from the State where I live. California, I am happy to announce, is BLUE. I don't have to think that my neighbors have no sense. If I lived in a red state right now, seriously, I would feel like a Jew living in the early stages of the Third Reich. Maybe I'll invest in Brown Shirts. We have just given Hitler the Chancellery and it's time to head for Switzerland. But I don't have to. I live in a Blue State where the Republican Governor votes against his party on certain issues and may actually vote his conscience. Of course, my governor is an Austrian muscleman who made his way by becoming an action hero of make believe cinema. How Californian is that? So what I might do instead of moving to Switzerland, is, stop reading so much about current events, shit who needs the forthcoming grief that's bound to come in our future. I've had enough of that already. Maybe the inhabitants of the Red States know something already. That ignorance IS bliss. Shit, why did we have to be so well educated? Why wasn't I a child left behind?
It’s been more than a week since the 2004 election, and the chattering classes continue to parse the results. The left-wing faction that controls the Democratic Party is now engaged in explaining to itself and its followers what went wrong, and it is doing so, in public, in all the usual media venues. It is a process that amazes me. In some ways, it’s every bit as interesting as the election itself, which fascinated me and which was practically supernatural in many respects.
What’s different now is that the losers are telling us, to a large extent, what they really believe. The outrageous charges and insults that are part of every political campaign, the electioneering blather---that’s gone now. No one ever believed there was a secret plan to reinstitute the draft or cut social security benefits or stop black people from voting, so you are not hearing those claims now. Instead, on Air America and in the New York Times and on CNN and CBS and MSNBC and in the Washington Post, we have had the movers and shakers of the Democratic Party telling us what they think and what their world looks like.
And here is what they are saying:
1) Those who are opposed to same-sex marriage are less tolerant toward gay people.
2) The notion that we are fighting to bring freedom to the Iraqi people is so corny and unsophisticated that anybody who believes it is a rube.
3) The Democrats were not rejected by the voters. Either they “didn’t get the message out” (i.e., let’s all blame Kerry), or Bush voters were too stupid or fearful to understand their own best interest.
4) The purpose of Bush’s program of tax cuts was to ensure the richest Americans pay less and the poorest Americans pay more.
5) Right-wingers control the news media.
6) The only reason anyone would worry about embryonic stem-cell research is because the Pope or Jerry Falwell told them to.
7) The jihadists think God is on their side and Bush thinks God is on our side, so like, what’s the difference?
8) Anyone who believes Roe v. Wade was a dark day for our democracy wants to ban abortion.
9) Opponents of affirmative action don’t really care whether black kids get an education.
10) Now that Republicans are in charge of the Senate, they will appoint judges with specific right-wing political views.
11) Opposition to minimum-wage laws arises from an indifference to the plight of the poor.
12) “Faith” is a code word for racism, misogyny and homophobia.
If you voted for Bush, you are probably chuckling at the idea that anyone could believe such things. But if you voted for Kerry, you almost certainly agree with one or more of these statements, because these are the explicit post-election opinions of those who supported him and ran his campaign. They are among the core beliefs of those who lost the election.
It is not for me to lecture Democrats on how to fix themselves, but I can tell you how those of us on the other side of the fence perceive the message of today’s Democratic Party. We see it as mean-spirited, snottily superior, and lacking respect for our democratic procedures and traditions. In addition, we are puzzled by the unquestioning, even ritualistic, nature of the abuse directed at us. Maybe you think that characterization is wrong or unfair, but all I’m telling you is the truth. That is what all us Neanderthals really think.
In short, lowbrows like me do not simply disagree with the leftists that now run the Democratic Party. We have been insulted by them, routinely, and that made it personal. November 2nd was, in large part, payback time. And it’s hard for me to see how these guys will ever win a national election until they change their tune.
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Monday, September 6, 2004
THE KUBACKI GASTRONOMIQUE
***Salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon juice are all you need to make any meat, fish, or vegetable delicious.
***In my experience, men consume 87% of all fruit.
***A couple years ago, I was making french fries when a drop of hot oil flew six feet across the kitchen directly into my eye. Always wear glasses when cooking with deep fat.
***Feeding Chicks I
Women are easy to feed as long as you observe a few simple rules.
First, women do not salt their food at the table. The reasons for this would take us deep---too deep---into the morass of beauty mythology and the peculiar confluence of traditional Calvinism with the pleasure-hating asceticism of postmodern leftist politics, but while a complete analysis of the psycho/medico/feminist underpinnings of the phenomenon is beyond the scope of this essay, the lesson for home cooks is a simple one: salt their food before you give it to them.
You will be astonished by the results. Many women live for decades in a gustatory wasteland of food so dreary and bland that when first they taste your properly-seasoned chow, they look up at you with eyes wide in wonder, like baby birds emerging from the shell. I have witnessed this reaction on more than one occasion to something as basic as a green salad. “Where did you get this lettuce?” I am asked. “Oh,” I say, “a man I know grows it for me special.”
***Grease makes things taste good.
***Fatty fish (like salmon) should be cooked as slowly as possible so the fat melts into the meat. Lean fish (like flounder or tilapia) should be fried quickly.
***If you are served spareribs at my house, you are likely to get a barbecue sauce I first started making thirty years ago. I have had quite a few more wives than barbecue sauces, statistically speaking.
***I have been making cornbread for twenty years, and I have never made one that satisfied me.
***Sophia Bryk, who took care of my mother during her last years, grew up in the Ukraine in very modest circumstances, and over the years had learned to produce delicious food when the larder was virtually empty. If you handed her a five-pound beef tenderloin, she wouldn’t know what to do with it, but she can take a handful of flour, a few carrots, a potato, and a small piece of fat-laden pork that most Americans would throw away, and produce (effortlessly) a dish I could never dream of creating.
Over the years, from sheer doggedness and study, I have learned how to make a few meals, but watching Sophia pull extraordinary food out of thin air has made me realize I know nothing about cooking.
***Feeding Chicks II
Chicks like shrimp. And chocolate.
***It is unforgivably rude to offer a guest pate and sweetbreads when you know in your heart that he would much prefer franks and beans.
***Large plates make food more appealing.
***Learn how to assess the doneness of meat by pressing a finger lightly into its surface.
***Goethe wrote: “A man who repeatedly examines the state of his health generally discovers that he is ill.” This is why it is not wise to read articles in popular magazines about the dangers of this food or that. Remember a few years ago when everyone you knew was lactose-intolerant? Now that they have regained their senses, aren’t you glad you thought twice before buying stock in the company that makes Lact-Aid?
It is possible to find scientific information about food and nutrition, but it never appears in Time, Elle, Cosmopolitan, magazines with the words “health” or “prevention” in the title, or books sold at airports.
***Always drizzle a couple drops of nice olive oil on meat or fish before serving.
***Meat stocks are so useful, so easy to make, so cheap, and require so little actual work, that the only acceptable excuse for not making them is lack of freezer space.
***Feeding Chicks III
Fat is every bit as tasty to women as it is to men, but a certain subtlety is required. Most women, for example, presented with a rack of ribs dripping pork fat and barbecue sauce, will politely consume two or three ribs, dabbing their mouths with napkins after every bite. Men, of course, will normally attack such a meal with loud sucking noises, the removal of several articles of clothing, and the use of body parts not often used for food consumption, and will then need to be thoroughly hosed down when the repast is complete.
Cream sauces have a similar, though less pronounced, effect. I have had little success in feeding them to women.
It is possible to conceal a half-pound of butter, however, in a few herbs and vegetables and a cup of wine. Hide another stick in the rice, throw a few shrimp on top, and you have achieved the perfect meal for the female palate. It is called Shrimp Diane.
If you are a man with pock-marked skin, a long and jagged facial scar, no discernable job prospects, and a lengthy criminal record, but you can make a really delicious Shrimp Diane, you can get married. If you also make a gooey chocolate dessert with a hint of raspberry to it, you can marry Catherine Zeta-Jones, or her equivalent.
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
***In my experience, men consume 87% of all fruit.
***A couple years ago, I was making french fries when a drop of hot oil flew six feet across the kitchen directly into my eye. Always wear glasses when cooking with deep fat.
***Feeding Chicks I
Women are easy to feed as long as you observe a few simple rules.
First, women do not salt their food at the table. The reasons for this would take us deep---too deep---into the morass of beauty mythology and the peculiar confluence of traditional Calvinism with the pleasure-hating asceticism of postmodern leftist politics, but while a complete analysis of the psycho/medico/feminist underpinnings of the phenomenon is beyond the scope of this essay, the lesson for home cooks is a simple one: salt their food before you give it to them.
You will be astonished by the results. Many women live for decades in a gustatory wasteland of food so dreary and bland that when first they taste your properly-seasoned chow, they look up at you with eyes wide in wonder, like baby birds emerging from the shell. I have witnessed this reaction on more than one occasion to something as basic as a green salad. “Where did you get this lettuce?” I am asked. “Oh,” I say, “a man I know grows it for me special.”
***Grease makes things taste good.
***Fatty fish (like salmon) should be cooked as slowly as possible so the fat melts into the meat. Lean fish (like flounder or tilapia) should be fried quickly.
***If you are served spareribs at my house, you are likely to get a barbecue sauce I first started making thirty years ago. I have had quite a few more wives than barbecue sauces, statistically speaking.
***I have been making cornbread for twenty years, and I have never made one that satisfied me.
***Sophia Bryk, who took care of my mother during her last years, grew up in the Ukraine in very modest circumstances, and over the years had learned to produce delicious food when the larder was virtually empty. If you handed her a five-pound beef tenderloin, she wouldn’t know what to do with it, but she can take a handful of flour, a few carrots, a potato, and a small piece of fat-laden pork that most Americans would throw away, and produce (effortlessly) a dish I could never dream of creating.
Over the years, from sheer doggedness and study, I have learned how to make a few meals, but watching Sophia pull extraordinary food out of thin air has made me realize I know nothing about cooking.
***Feeding Chicks II
Chicks like shrimp. And chocolate.
***It is unforgivably rude to offer a guest pate and sweetbreads when you know in your heart that he would much prefer franks and beans.
***Large plates make food more appealing.
***Learn how to assess the doneness of meat by pressing a finger lightly into its surface.
***Goethe wrote: “A man who repeatedly examines the state of his health generally discovers that he is ill.” This is why it is not wise to read articles in popular magazines about the dangers of this food or that. Remember a few years ago when everyone you knew was lactose-intolerant? Now that they have regained their senses, aren’t you glad you thought twice before buying stock in the company that makes Lact-Aid?
It is possible to find scientific information about food and nutrition, but it never appears in Time, Elle, Cosmopolitan, magazines with the words “health” or “prevention” in the title, or books sold at airports.
***Always drizzle a couple drops of nice olive oil on meat or fish before serving.
***Meat stocks are so useful, so easy to make, so cheap, and require so little actual work, that the only acceptable excuse for not making them is lack of freezer space.
***Feeding Chicks III
Fat is every bit as tasty to women as it is to men, but a certain subtlety is required. Most women, for example, presented with a rack of ribs dripping pork fat and barbecue sauce, will politely consume two or three ribs, dabbing their mouths with napkins after every bite. Men, of course, will normally attack such a meal with loud sucking noises, the removal of several articles of clothing, and the use of body parts not often used for food consumption, and will then need to be thoroughly hosed down when the repast is complete.
Cream sauces have a similar, though less pronounced, effect. I have had little success in feeding them to women.
It is possible to conceal a half-pound of butter, however, in a few herbs and vegetables and a cup of wine. Hide another stick in the rice, throw a few shrimp on top, and you have achieved the perfect meal for the female palate. It is called Shrimp Diane.
If you are a man with pock-marked skin, a long and jagged facial scar, no discernable job prospects, and a lengthy criminal record, but you can make a really delicious Shrimp Diane, you can get married. If you also make a gooey chocolate dessert with a hint of raspberry to it, you can marry Catherine Zeta-Jones, or her equivalent.
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
Monday, August 2, 2004
THE DATING SCENE
My son’s buddy’s mother’s boyfriend, Bob, asked me out the other day. I admit I was flattered. I don’t get asked out very often. In fact, I never really dated that much at all, and I wasn’t very good at it when I did. I tended to hit the wrong note at one point or another---too serious, too happy, too flippant, too sarcastic, too shy, too aggressive---and that would be the end of it. Eventually, though, I hit on a strategy: whenever a woman would laugh at my jokes, I would immediately ask her to marry me. It’s not a method I am recommending to anyone else, but it worked for me, because many of the women agreed.
But that’s not really what I want to tell you about. I want to tell you about my date with Bob.
Bob and I have seen each other at parties for a while now, either at my house or at my son’s buddy’s mother’s house. He’s a big old friendly-looking guy with a ready smile and a sincere expression. He generally has a twinkle in his eye. Now, don’t get me wrong here. For all I know, he could be a serial killer with a brace of bodies buried under his porch, but he seems a decent sort. He’s somebody you would walk up to and talk to at a party, which I have.
Since Bob is my son’s buddy’s mother’s boyfriend, most of our meetings have occurred at my son’s buddy’s mother’s house, where I have certainly been welcomed but where I am something of an outsider. I just don’t know the crowd very well. So I have been a relatively quiet and polite party guest, picking out this person or that and having a subdued conversation or two.
But you don’t have to attend a party at my son’s buddy’s mother’s house for very long before you realize you are in a very politically-minded crowd, specifically a very left-wing politically-minded crowd. Just sitting around having a hotdog or a beer, you will hear references to “The American Friends Service Committee,” and “Matthew Shepherd,” and “Guatemalan peasants” and “Abu Grahib” and “reproductive rights.” And everyone at the party seems to be pretty much in general agreement on these and related topics.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I mean, it’s not my house. So I talk about the Phillies, and movies, and I ask the kids about their plans for the summer, and I avoid the little clots of radicals discussing their plans to blow up embassies or line up empty boots somewhere or whatever the hell it is they’re all so earnest about. I behave myself.
And then one day, Bob sidled up to me at the end of one of these gatherings, and we happened to start chatting about the school my son goes to, and I casually opined that it was a darn good school aside from the fact that the entire 8th-grade curriculum contained no suggestion that white males had ever done anything in America other than kill minorities, oppress women and disabled people, and pollute the environment. And Bob’s eyes lit up like a biologist who had just found a new beetle in the rainforest. I fascinated him. He gave me the impression he had never seen a person like me before.
“Are you a Republican?” he inquired.
“No,” I said. “I’m actually a crank, but I’ll be voting for Bush.”
“You’re voting for BUSH???” he asked in an amazed voice. “Well, let me ask you this---what’s your position on gay marriage?”
I told him.
“And what about abortion? What’s your view on Roe v. Wade?”
And I told him that too.
It went on this way for a half-hour or so, with him asking and me answering, and everything I said elicited from him a look of astonished glee, and another question. He didn’t argue with me about anything, though it was clear he did not agree with a word I said. He simply could not get over his astonishment at having found ME in my son’s buddy’s mother’s backyard. It was as if he had absent-mindedly kicked over a stone and discovered---a wooly mammoth!
It was great fun for me, of course. For one thing, I never get to talk about politics because I live in Philadelphia and almost everyone I know, including the people I’m related to, is a leftist of one sort or another and would fit right in at a party in my son’s buddy’s mother’s backyard. My friends NEVER bring up politics because they know I will say something that will annoy them, and an argument will erupt. And for the same reason, I never bring it up either. So Bob’s grilling was a pleasure. He WANTED me to be a right-winger or a libertarian or a troglodyte or whatever it was he perceived me to be. He WANTED me to think Clinton belongs in jail. He WANTED me to be a member of the NRA. I never had to hold my tongue so as not to offend. He wanted to hear it all. He thought I was cute.
A few weeks later, Bob showed up at my house for a 4th of July party. It was a busy day for me since I had to do a lot of cooking, and I had to go to the emergency room to stop the blood spurting from my back, and I had to attend to a guest who got a shard of glass embedded in his leg, and I also had to play horseshoes, but Bob and I did get a chance to talk a bit as I was rushing here and there. And as luck would have it, he had just been to see “Fahrenheit 911,” and he thought it was great.
“You really ought to see it,” he told me.
“Bob, I really don’t want to.”
“Oh, I know you don’t agree with Michael Moore, but I think the movie would surprise you.”
“Honestly, Bob, I’ve read about it. I’ve read lots of articles and reviews. There are websites devoted to it. I just don’t think it’s the sort of movie anybody could take seriously.”
“Look. Let me take you. I’ll pay for your ticket.”
“Really, Bob….”
“I’m buying!”
“OK.”
And that’s how I wound up at the 6:45 show of “Fahrenheit 911” at the Clearview Bala Theater the following Tuesday for my date with Bob. He bought the tickets. I bought the popcorn because---well, I guess I didn’t want him to think I was a golddigger.
* * * *
The movie consists of three interwoven elements, and my guess is that each occupies about a third of the footage.
First, there was the “Bush-is-a-dope” stuff. This is the comic relief and acts as the glue to connect the narrative elements of the film. Bush mangling an aphorism. Bush getting made up for TV. Bush chopping wood. Bush hitting golf balls. Bush, through some cheesy special effects, as Pa on “Bonanza.”
All these scenes elicited a hearty Pavlovian laughter from the audience, which was full of folks who never tire of this brand of humor. At this point, I am so weary of this particular article of leftwing dogma that I want to scream every time I hear it. I mean, when you hear the same joke for fifty years, don’t you stop laughing at it after a while? Don’t you get tired of it, even if you’re a Democrat?
I am fifty-three years old, and I remember hearing this same stuff about Eisenhower! How could this doddering old man get more votes than that smart Mr. Stevenson, I wondered, mirroring the bewilderment of all the good Democrats who populated my five-year-old world at the time. It was only years later I learned he had commanded the allied forces in WW II. Oh, so that’s it, I thought. Well, maybe he did have half a brain after all.
I am assured by all my intelligent friends that there is no such thing as a “liberal media bias.” Some of them even insist there is a bias going the other way. But isn’t it puzzling that every four years, according to the TV networks and all the big-city newspapers, the Democrats nominate a smart guy for president and the Republicans pick an idiot, or a psychopath, or an Alzheimer’s case? What’s the matter with these Republicans anyway? Can’t they find one guy in the whole Republican Party who’s smart enough to be president? Why do they keep doing this?
Eisenhower---your dopey grandpa. Goldwater---a psychopath. Nixon---another psychopath (Spiro Agnew was the moron). Gerry Ford---too much football without a helmet. Reagan---stupid and senile. Bush I---a bumbler (again, his VP was the 68-IQ guy). Dole---senile (remember the Depends jokes?). Bush II---well, it’s hard to say where he ranks. I used to think Reagan was our stupidest president, according to all the people on TV who know about these things, but Bush II is coming up fast, isn’t he? I don’t think there’s much doubt in Michael Moore’s mind about who the dumbest president is, and there was no apparent dissent in the audience on my date with Bob.
On the other side, there’s the Democrats---brainiacs all. Occasionally, they are portrayed as crafty or “slick,” but neither of these adjectives implies the stupidity that was regularly imputed to the guy who won WWII or the fool who brought down the Soviet Union. Al Gore, the VP who flunked out of divinity school, was a genius, but even he wasn’t as smart as Bill Clinton, who tried to throw his presidency away for a 20-year-old with a thong. Don’t forget Jimmy Carter---he was a nuclear engineer! And then there was Lyndon Johnson---well, he was not our favorite, was he? But he was still a “political genius,” right? Even though he slogged through Vietnam without a clue as to what was happening.
The “Bush-is-a-dope” montage was a full third of the movie. I used this time to go to the bathroom, pee, wash up, take deep breaths, and long for the 70’s. It was a decade that holds few fond memories for me, but in the 70’s, there always seemed to be somebody in the bathroom selling drugs, and I realized during “Fahrenheit 911” that this was not an altogether bad thing.
Unfortunately, there are only so many bathroom breaks you can take when you’re on a date.
* * * *
Another third of “Fahrenheit 911” is the grisly footage. If you ever wanted to see soldiers whose arms have been amputated, children with their insides showing, burned corpses, flag-draped coffins, a beheading and grieving mothers, this is the movie for you. There’s plenty of it. It’s revolting. If you do not at some point close your eyes or look away from the screen, you are a profoundly sick person. If you watch these scenes in their entirety, I would like you to let me know because I will be crossing your name off my Christmas list.
What is the purpose of subjecting a paying audience to these scenes, you may ask. I wondered about this also, and I think there are two reasons.
First of all, they are designed to make you hate George Bush, because he is the only bad guy in the movie. Saddam Hussein is virtually absent from the film. (Osama bin Laden is a guy with a goofy smile and a funny beard.) Iraq itself is depicted as a quaint backwater where women shop and children play along the Tigris. It looks like fun---a simpler place in a simpler time, with kites and smiling families! There is not a hint of the torture chambers where men would have their fingers cut off one by one, or where ten-year-old girls would be brutally and repeatedly raped in order to punish their grandparents, who were forced to watch, or where an infant’s eyes might be gouged out to impress upon his parents the importance of loyalty to the regime. Forget the graves where many were buried alive. Forget the dead, gassed Kurdish towns. Look! What a nice café! I’ll bet that coffee tastes pretty damn good!
The horrific scenes throughout “Fahrenheit 911” are shown without narration, and since Bush is the only villain, the message is that they are all his fault. Moore somehow fails to remind us that the Baathists routinely used civilian Iraqis as shields and cannon fodder during the invasion. Rather, all the grisly images are laid, by implication, at Bush’s feet. That child? Well, that’s an American bullet that did that. That’s Bush’s bullet, right?
Moore never says any of this, of course, because to state it explicitly would be to reveal how one-sided and unfair it is, and invite an argument. All Bush’s fault, we might ask? Well, wait a minute. What about the horrors inflicted upon innocents by Saddam and his Baathists? Is it possible his regime is responsible for some of this? Maybe the bullet in that child wasn’t Bush’s after all.
Well, we can’t have anybody thinking that sort of thing, can we, Mr. Moore? No, that would make for a much more complicated and ambiguous picture, a picture that approaches---what’s the word I’m looking for---oh, yeah---REALITY. “Is it worth it?” is a reasonable question to ask about Iraq. In a democracy, it’s a question that should be asked, and we should argue about it, and I’ll participate in that argument. But unfortunately, this is an argument that the courageous Mr. Moore would not touch with a ten-foot hot poker.
The other element of the horrorshow, the other reason for it, is Moore’s dark core of pacifism, where the very concept of good and evil must be extinguished in pursuit of his notion of “peace.” Moore inhabits that peculiar pacifist moral universe where Winston Churchill cannot be distinguished from, say, Pol Pot. Both were killers. Both were monsters. And Moore’s job is to collect all the dead things and show them to us.
This is the other reason why, when he shows us “the horrors of war,” there can never be a context, an explanation, or a justification, because in his world such a thing is impossible. There is only pain and death and maiming, and there can never be a reason for it.
Well, there are millions of girls going to school now, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Does that mean anything? There are families who now know what happened to their disappeared loved ones, who have retrieved the mangled remains from one of the many mass graves, and who have buried them properly. Isn’t that worth something? There are people who will not be taken in the middle of the night, tortured for months, and then returned to their families and shot in the head at the front door. Is it possible there is some nobility in human beings risking their lives to stop the cruelty and sadism that was everyday life in Iraq?
Michael Moore’s answer to all these questions is “No.” But actually, his view is even more extreme. To him, the very question is somehow illegitimate. And so he takes the wounded soldiers and dead children and flag-draped coffins and burned bodies, and he treats them as roadkill.
You know the feeling, I think. You’re driving along and there’s a dead dog on the highway, its guts splayed along the road. You drive on. You’re sad. The image stays with you. Later, you may think about it and feel sad all over again. But ultimately, it’s meaningless, isn’t it? It’s one anonymous dead dog on the highway in a world full of anonymous deaths.
And that, for Michael Moore, is what those flag-draped coffins contain---roadkill. Sad, yes, but random, anonymous, and meaningless. And I thought: how dare he? How dare he belittle the sacrifice of these soldiers and their families?
If Michael Moore had his way, half the population of Afghanistan (the female half) would still be imprisoned in their own homes---poor, uneducated, unemployable, abused, and unprotected by law. Kuwait would still be a province of Iraq, with thousands of Kuwaitis still held in horrendous conditions. In Iraq, the rape-rooms would still be open for business and the mass-grave industry would be thriving. If Michael Moore had his way, Uday would still be feeding his “ex-girlfriends” to his pet lions.
Is all this worth nothing?
In the name of ending this madness, good men and women and children have died, and each of their deaths is a tragedy. But what the hell has Michael Moore ever done to give him the right to tell us nothing has been gained, that the deaths of our soldiers were pointless, and that their sacrifice was in vain? And that those of us who are grateful to the fallen, those of us who feel a debt which can never be repaid, are fools?
* * * *
The rest of the movie, the other third, is the explication of his conspiracy theories. It’s all about oil, you see, and Halliburton, and Cheney, and the Bush family’s secret alliance with the Saudis. And as I watched this confusing pastiche unfold, I was reminded of my late uncle.
My uncle was a friendly, funny, garrulous old guy who grew up in a large family of Italian immigrants in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania before it was even called Jim Thorpe. It was a rough world he was born into, a world of quarries and coal mines and hard work and no money. I don’t know whether he had any schooling at all, but if he did, it didn’t last long.
He had a life, though, and plenty of stories---of bar fights and nightclubs and New Orleans in the old days, and World War II, where he was awarded a Purple Heart. And horses. Always the horses. My uncle was a lifelong horseplayer, and though I was never as obsessed as he was, I’m a horseplayer too, and this brought us together.
I loved the guy, and we spent a fair amount of time together over the years. I would pick him up, we’d drive to the track, spend the day there, and I would drive him home. And always there were stories, and some of them were even true, though I was never sure which ones they were.
And he was also a racist, an utterly unrepentant and unreconstructed racist. Everyone in the family knew this, and if you ever got to know my uncle, you would eventually hear one of his rants. I don’t mean to imply I heard them every day or every month or even every year. Over the fifty years I knew him, I remember a half dozen or so. We’d be rolling along the Roosevelt Boulevard, for example, and an African-American gentleman in another car would commit an act of questionable driving etiquette, and a switch would flip on in my uncle’s head, and he would give me two minutes on the goddam niggers and how they behave and how they’re ruining the country.
Now, if you’ve ever been in my position, and had a friend or relative who was a virulent racist, I think you know what I was facing. There’s literally nothing you can do. I tried to argue with him once, but that effort was worse than pointless. Instead of a brief monologue, I got twenty minutes of him muttering and cursing, and our day was ruined. You can never persuade a racist to abandon his racism because there’s no rational element to it that you can ever reach. The truth is irrelevant to such people. I mean, I could have talked to my uncle for ten years about it and would not have moved him an inch. Anthropology, genetics, biology, SAT scores, jokes---none of it would have penetrated. As a result, on the rare occasions he would sing his song, I would just listen quietly, throw in an “un-huh” here and there, and wait for it to end.
But there is a problem with that strategy as well. Holding one’s tongue carries a psychic price, a small one perhaps, but a price nonetheless. Nodding and listening, it’s hard to avoid the feeling you are a willing participant in the conversation, that you are voluntarily visiting the little corner of hatred in the other person’s brain, and making no effort to leave. After a very short while, your silence makes you feel a bit dirty.
The argument portions of “Fahrenheit 911,” the “factual” bits about the Bush-Saudi-Talliban-oil conspiracy, brought this all back to me. For me, it was like sitting next to my uncle thirty years ago on our way to Garden State Park, listening to his views on Martin Luther Coon. Because the truth doesn’t matter to Michael Moore any more than it did to my uncle. There’s a spooky, irrational corner of his brain where only hatred lives and where reality can get no purchase. And sitting there in the theater, I was transported back behind the wheel of my old red Chevette, crossing the Tacony Bridge into Jersey, with a nagging sense that anyone with a shred of decency would stand up and object, or run away, or do SOMETHING, but instead waiting quietly for it all to end.
There are many articles and websites devoted to the outright lies and distortions of “Fahrenheit 911,” and I’m not going to recount them all here. I’m not an expert on recent history or foreign affairs anyway; I’m just a guy who reads the newspaper and is interested in politics. But I want to mention a few of them that were so absurd, so bald-faced, that they cannot be passed off as “spin” or “commentary” or even “mistakes.” They’re lies.
First, there’s the matter of the Taliban visit to Texas in 1997 to meet with officials of a company named Unocal about building a pipeline in northern Afghanistan. This event, and the machinations about the pipeline, are presented as the reason Bush decided to invade Afghanistan in 2001. I know. I don’t get it either, but maybe where there’s smoke, there’s fire, or something like that.
But here’s the problem. Though the piece is an attempt to link Bush and the Taliban and the pipeline and the invasion, Moore forgets to mention that Bush had nothing to do with the Taliban coming to Texas. Since he was not president in 1997, he had no authority to grant visas to representatives of an unrecognized government like the Taliban. It was the Clinton State Department that permitted this to happen, and George Bush could have had no official role in it. As for an unofficial role, Moore also forgets to mention that neither George nor any other Bush attended the meeting or had any business relationship with Unocal. In fact, the only relationship George Bush had with this deal was that he also was present in the state of Texas on the day the Taliban met with Unocal to discuss it. My cousin Joe was in Texas that day too. Why isn’t he in the movie?
The pipeline negotiations broke down in 1998, by the way. I don’t remember Moore mentioning that part either. But I suppose the fact THERE IS NO FREAKING PIPELINE would have undercut his assertion that it was the reason for the invasion that occurred three years after the pipeline deal fell apart.
Another piece of the Bush-Saudi-oil conspiracy is equally bogus. This concerns the Carlyle Group, which is apparently even more evil than Halliburton because nobody knows about it. Moore correctly informs us that the Carlyle Group did $1.4 billion worth of business with the Saudis in the 1990’s. He also notes that both the elder George Bush and the current president were on the board of Carlyle. This is the centerpiece of Moore’s conspiracy story. “See!! It’s all about oil; it’s all about the Bushes and the Saudis! The war in Iraq is a scam! It’s just a way for these guys in turbans and cowboy hats to line their pockets!”
Now, as many commentators have pointed out, this idea, which is the core of “Fahrenheit 911,” is absurd. If the Saudis and the Bushes are such good buddies, why didn’t they help us? Why weren’t they part of the coalition? I mean, if your pal goes to war, don’t you at least give him a few bucks and a pat on the butt? The Saudis, however, bitterly opposed the invasion of Iraq. No money, no soldiers, no airspace, no landing fields---nothing. Is this really how one chum treats another?
But that’s not all. For Moore, it’s not enough that the theory is laughable, he has to conceal the facts too. Remember the $1.4 billion? Almost all of it came in one deal, with a Carlyle subsidiary named BDM, to provide training and some equipment to the Saudi armed forces. BDM was sold by the Carlyle Group months before the elder George Bush joined the board of directors. The current president had served on the board in the 1980’s, and had resigned long before the deal was signed. So yes, there was a huge business deal between the Saudi government and the Carlyle Group, but no, neither Bush had anything to do with it.
At one point, Moore is standing on a street corner in Washington doing an interview, with the Saudi Embassy across the street as a backdrop, when a Secret Service agent walks over to ask what he’s doing. I imagine that since 9-11, this sort of thing happens quite a bit in D.C. They’re all a bit jumpy down there. Personally, I don’t blame them.
But you don’t do something like that to Michael Moore! This meaningless little vignette occupies two minutes of the movie, with a Moore voice-over at the end of it informing us that the Bush Administration actually provides security to Saudi diplomats and the Saudi Embassy! The gentle people at the Clearview Bala Theater lapped this up, of course, and snickered in all the right places.
But it’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that Moore is not aware (and never bothered to find out) that the Secret Service routinely provides security to all manner of foreign diplomats? A long time ago, it was decided this was preferable to having hundreds of foreign troops standing in front of embassies with machine guns.
Some big lies, some small ones. Again, I’m not trying to dissect the picture frame by frame. This exercise is purely idiosyncratic---I’m just noting a few of the points anybody who reads a newspaper would find offensive, and an insult to one’s intelligence. This is only the stuff that reminded me of my uncle.
Then there is Moore’s take on the Florida election in 2000. I will attempt to describe what I saw, though it’s not easy because this was one of the more incoherent segments. But it didn't have to make any sense. For Moore, who put this at the beginning of the movie, it was a sort of secret handshake with his audience, and a wink and a nod to the true believers of this particular item of faith. Bush stole the election, he's telling us. We all know that, right? So let’s get that out of the way and then I’ll tell you all the other evil things he’s done.
Some relative of George Bush, a cousin or a nephew or something, worked at Fox News, and this relative made Fox News award Florida to Bush at 2:30 in the morning on election night. And that, according to Michael Moore, was how Bush got elected president. Honestly, as Dave Barry likes to say, I’m not making this up. That’s Moore’s conclusion---Fox News said Bush won, so he did.
There are a few other tidbits, of course, because one of Moore’s techniques is to slap up half a dozen unrelated items in rapid-fire fashion and encourage his audience to fill in the conspiratorial blanks. Gore got more votes than Bush in Florida, he tells us. And he would have gotten a lot more votes than Bush if African-American voters had not been systematically kept from the polls. And, of course, all those Gore votes would have been counted if the US Supreme Court had not stopped the counting.
Let me tell you how naïve I am. I assumed that two years ago, when two separate teams of newspapers (including the New York Times, the Miami Herald, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, USA Today and others) completed their ballot-by-ballot recounts of the Florida election, and both groups concluded Bush had gotten more votes, that would be the end of it. I was wrong about that. Though there is no scenario, based on the facts, by which Gore could have won, this piece of left-wing mythology will not die. Much like the “all-Republicans-are-dopes” credo, the only thing that matters anymore about the Florida election is the hatred, which must be repeatedly nurtured and caressed, but never examined.
Moore’s statement that Fox News did not “call” the Florida election until 2:30 AM is a lie. Like all the other networks, Fox put Florida in the Gore column about 8:00 PM. (Unlike the others, they waited until the polls closed.) About six hours later, when the vote totals swung the other way, Fox admitted its error and proclaimed Bush the winner. All the other networks immediately followed suit.
What all this has to do with the actual outcome of the election is---well, you’ll have to ask Michael Moore about that. I can’t imagine. But again, it’s not enough for him that the theory makes no sense---he has to lie about the facts too.
Then there is the famous Supreme Court decision, which Moore races through in the hope we will not remember what really happened. Now, one can argue that the decision to stop the Florida recount was not the Supreme Court’s brightest moment, but what would have happened if that decision had not been issued? Well, the leaders of the Florida Legislature had indicated they would have stopped the recount themselves, and voted Florida’s electors for Bush. Under the Constitution, that was their right and duty. That is how it is supposed to work. There was simply no way, under our laws, for Gore to be awarded Florida. And considering that the recounts by America’s largest newspapers indicated Bush had gotten more votes, what is Moore’s problem with that?
Oh, yeah. I almost forgot the disenfranchisement of Florida’s African-American voters. As you may recall, though Moore would never remind you, The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (Clintonites all) held six months of hearings on these claims and concluded there was nothing to them. Sure, there were spoiled ballots that didn’t get counted. There always are. Every presidential election, 2% to 3% of ballots are improperly cast and have to be pitched. It happens everywhere, and there was nothing unusual in 2000 in Florida.
* * * * *
One further point about the “disenfranchisement” needs to be made. Moore’s frequently-asserted concern for his darker brothers and sisters wears exceedingly thin once you begin to understand that his own worldview contains a healthy dose of racism. For me, this realization occurred in that part of the film where Moore revisits Flint, Michigan to interview young black men about their plans to join the military.
Cutting to footage of abandoned houses in Flint, then back to the 18-year-olds, then back to the abandoned houses, Moore argues the Bush Administration has (intentionally) impoverished these boys so their only option in life is enlistment. (A question I wondered about during the movie: if every house in Flint is abandoned, where do people live?)
Now, I always figured there were as many different reasons for joining the armed forces as there are soldiers. Am I wrong about that? I mean, isn’t the decision always a complicated mixture of wanting to leave home, wanting to serve your country, wanting to start a career, wanting to be independent, wanting to make some money, wanting to test oneself against the rigors of military life, and fifty other considerations, all of which get filtered through an inexperienced 18-year-old mind? Isn’t that the way it is, and how it’s always been? After all, Bush didn’t invent the process. Napoleon didn’t invent it. Even Julius Caesar didn’t invent it.
But I guess that’s only how it works for white kids. The black ones in Flint, according to Moore, have none of these motivations or nuances of feeling. They’re just mindless dupes and victims of the Bush war machine.
And he’s not just talking about those kids from Flint, of course. The larger message is that no African-American would ever voluntarily serve the racist gulag that the United States has always been. He even trots out a black soldier (in uniform) who states that he won’t go to Iraq “to kill poor people.” Of the tens of thousands of black soldiers risking their lives and serving their country with honor, Moore finds this guy, and presents him as a spokesman for his race.
For me, this was the most offensive part of the movie. Michael Moore defames every African-American who ever served his country in the armed forces. Patriotism? Ha! The Colored Brigades who fought for the Union in the Civil War---fools! The black GI’s who gave their lives at Normandy---dopes! In Korea, in Vietnam, in Lebanon, in Iraq---suckers! They’re just a bunch of dumb niggers, don’t you see, and easily manipulated. Even an idiot like Bush (or is he now an evil genius?) can make them all sign up and get killed. And how kind it is of Mr. Moore to look out for them.
Moore will use anybody and anything in the service of his goofy theories---wounded soldiers, grieving mothers, dying babies. That much is clear. Using the young black guys in Flint for his blood libel upon their race, however, struck me as the act of a man without decency. I was disgusted by these scenes and the point he was making. This was where I first began to feel dirty for remaining in the theater.
It must drive Moore crazy that our military today is composed entirely of volunteers, of every color and ethnic background, many of whom signed up for the noblest of motives---to defend their country from the horrors of terrorism that 9-11 brought home to all of us. In his view, this CANNOT be, since it disproves his central thesis that we are all being marched along blindly to further Bush’s secret agenda of domestic fascism and oil profits. So he converts the black teens in his beloved Flint to drones. They don’t really have a choice, you see. No matter what they may think their motivations are, it’s all part of Bush’s Machiavellian scheme.
(This same twisted racism is behind the recent campaign by some Democrats in Congress to reinstate the draft, an oppressive system that has been anathema to the left as long as I can remember. They don’t want young men and women volunteering to serve their country, and they especially don’t want African-Americans to do it. They would rather have young people dragooned into service so they can later say, “Aha! Look at this poor bastard, scooped up by Bush against his will and sent to die in a foreign land! He never even knew what hit him, but Bush doesn’t care.”)
* * * *
And then finally, mercifully, with an out-of-context Condoleezza Rice quote and a last “Bush-is-dumb” clip to send us all home laughing, it ended. The lights went up. Bob and I stood and headed for the exit. He was juiced. I was---subdued.
“So what did you think?” he asked, as we reached the lobby. “I want to know! C’mon, there must have been some parts you thought were on target!”
I didn’t really know where to start. “Let’s go to that place down the street,” I suggested. “I’ll buy you a beer.”
Five minutes later, we had parked ourselves at the long oval bar in the Bala Inn, a nasty little place with a dirty linoleum floor, a pool table in the corner, tattooed patrons and a bartender without the full complement of teeth. The Phillies were on TV, and I had a firm grip on an ice-cold bottle of beer. It was heavenly. I felt like I had just been whisked from Graterford Prison to a four-course dinner at The Four Seasons.
“OK,” said Bob. “Now tell me. What did you think?”
“Well, Bob,” I said, “let me tell you about my uncle.”
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
But that’s not really what I want to tell you about. I want to tell you about my date with Bob.
Bob and I have seen each other at parties for a while now, either at my house or at my son’s buddy’s mother’s house. He’s a big old friendly-looking guy with a ready smile and a sincere expression. He generally has a twinkle in his eye. Now, don’t get me wrong here. For all I know, he could be a serial killer with a brace of bodies buried under his porch, but he seems a decent sort. He’s somebody you would walk up to and talk to at a party, which I have.
Since Bob is my son’s buddy’s mother’s boyfriend, most of our meetings have occurred at my son’s buddy’s mother’s house, where I have certainly been welcomed but where I am something of an outsider. I just don’t know the crowd very well. So I have been a relatively quiet and polite party guest, picking out this person or that and having a subdued conversation or two.
But you don’t have to attend a party at my son’s buddy’s mother’s house for very long before you realize you are in a very politically-minded crowd, specifically a very left-wing politically-minded crowd. Just sitting around having a hotdog or a beer, you will hear references to “The American Friends Service Committee,” and “Matthew Shepherd,” and “Guatemalan peasants” and “Abu Grahib” and “reproductive rights.” And everyone at the party seems to be pretty much in general agreement on these and related topics.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I mean, it’s not my house. So I talk about the Phillies, and movies, and I ask the kids about their plans for the summer, and I avoid the little clots of radicals discussing their plans to blow up embassies or line up empty boots somewhere or whatever the hell it is they’re all so earnest about. I behave myself.
And then one day, Bob sidled up to me at the end of one of these gatherings, and we happened to start chatting about the school my son goes to, and I casually opined that it was a darn good school aside from the fact that the entire 8th-grade curriculum contained no suggestion that white males had ever done anything in America other than kill minorities, oppress women and disabled people, and pollute the environment. And Bob’s eyes lit up like a biologist who had just found a new beetle in the rainforest. I fascinated him. He gave me the impression he had never seen a person like me before.
“Are you a Republican?” he inquired.
“No,” I said. “I’m actually a crank, but I’ll be voting for Bush.”
“You’re voting for BUSH???” he asked in an amazed voice. “Well, let me ask you this---what’s your position on gay marriage?”
I told him.
“And what about abortion? What’s your view on Roe v. Wade?”
And I told him that too.
It went on this way for a half-hour or so, with him asking and me answering, and everything I said elicited from him a look of astonished glee, and another question. He didn’t argue with me about anything, though it was clear he did not agree with a word I said. He simply could not get over his astonishment at having found ME in my son’s buddy’s mother’s backyard. It was as if he had absent-mindedly kicked over a stone and discovered---a wooly mammoth!
It was great fun for me, of course. For one thing, I never get to talk about politics because I live in Philadelphia and almost everyone I know, including the people I’m related to, is a leftist of one sort or another and would fit right in at a party in my son’s buddy’s mother’s backyard. My friends NEVER bring up politics because they know I will say something that will annoy them, and an argument will erupt. And for the same reason, I never bring it up either. So Bob’s grilling was a pleasure. He WANTED me to be a right-winger or a libertarian or a troglodyte or whatever it was he perceived me to be. He WANTED me to think Clinton belongs in jail. He WANTED me to be a member of the NRA. I never had to hold my tongue so as not to offend. He wanted to hear it all. He thought I was cute.
A few weeks later, Bob showed up at my house for a 4th of July party. It was a busy day for me since I had to do a lot of cooking, and I had to go to the emergency room to stop the blood spurting from my back, and I had to attend to a guest who got a shard of glass embedded in his leg, and I also had to play horseshoes, but Bob and I did get a chance to talk a bit as I was rushing here and there. And as luck would have it, he had just been to see “Fahrenheit 911,” and he thought it was great.
“You really ought to see it,” he told me.
“Bob, I really don’t want to.”
“Oh, I know you don’t agree with Michael Moore, but I think the movie would surprise you.”
“Honestly, Bob, I’ve read about it. I’ve read lots of articles and reviews. There are websites devoted to it. I just don’t think it’s the sort of movie anybody could take seriously.”
“Look. Let me take you. I’ll pay for your ticket.”
“Really, Bob….”
“I’m buying!”
“OK.”
And that’s how I wound up at the 6:45 show of “Fahrenheit 911” at the Clearview Bala Theater the following Tuesday for my date with Bob. He bought the tickets. I bought the popcorn because---well, I guess I didn’t want him to think I was a golddigger.
* * * *
The movie consists of three interwoven elements, and my guess is that each occupies about a third of the footage.
First, there was the “Bush-is-a-dope” stuff. This is the comic relief and acts as the glue to connect the narrative elements of the film. Bush mangling an aphorism. Bush getting made up for TV. Bush chopping wood. Bush hitting golf balls. Bush, through some cheesy special effects, as Pa on “Bonanza.”
All these scenes elicited a hearty Pavlovian laughter from the audience, which was full of folks who never tire of this brand of humor. At this point, I am so weary of this particular article of leftwing dogma that I want to scream every time I hear it. I mean, when you hear the same joke for fifty years, don’t you stop laughing at it after a while? Don’t you get tired of it, even if you’re a Democrat?
I am fifty-three years old, and I remember hearing this same stuff about Eisenhower! How could this doddering old man get more votes than that smart Mr. Stevenson, I wondered, mirroring the bewilderment of all the good Democrats who populated my five-year-old world at the time. It was only years later I learned he had commanded the allied forces in WW II. Oh, so that’s it, I thought. Well, maybe he did have half a brain after all.
I am assured by all my intelligent friends that there is no such thing as a “liberal media bias.” Some of them even insist there is a bias going the other way. But isn’t it puzzling that every four years, according to the TV networks and all the big-city newspapers, the Democrats nominate a smart guy for president and the Republicans pick an idiot, or a psychopath, or an Alzheimer’s case? What’s the matter with these Republicans anyway? Can’t they find one guy in the whole Republican Party who’s smart enough to be president? Why do they keep doing this?
Eisenhower---your dopey grandpa. Goldwater---a psychopath. Nixon---another psychopath (Spiro Agnew was the moron). Gerry Ford---too much football without a helmet. Reagan---stupid and senile. Bush I---a bumbler (again, his VP was the 68-IQ guy). Dole---senile (remember the Depends jokes?). Bush II---well, it’s hard to say where he ranks. I used to think Reagan was our stupidest president, according to all the people on TV who know about these things, but Bush II is coming up fast, isn’t he? I don’t think there’s much doubt in Michael Moore’s mind about who the dumbest president is, and there was no apparent dissent in the audience on my date with Bob.
On the other side, there’s the Democrats---brainiacs all. Occasionally, they are portrayed as crafty or “slick,” but neither of these adjectives implies the stupidity that was regularly imputed to the guy who won WWII or the fool who brought down the Soviet Union. Al Gore, the VP who flunked out of divinity school, was a genius, but even he wasn’t as smart as Bill Clinton, who tried to throw his presidency away for a 20-year-old with a thong. Don’t forget Jimmy Carter---he was a nuclear engineer! And then there was Lyndon Johnson---well, he was not our favorite, was he? But he was still a “political genius,” right? Even though he slogged through Vietnam without a clue as to what was happening.
The “Bush-is-a-dope” montage was a full third of the movie. I used this time to go to the bathroom, pee, wash up, take deep breaths, and long for the 70’s. It was a decade that holds few fond memories for me, but in the 70’s, there always seemed to be somebody in the bathroom selling drugs, and I realized during “Fahrenheit 911” that this was not an altogether bad thing.
Unfortunately, there are only so many bathroom breaks you can take when you’re on a date.
* * * *
Another third of “Fahrenheit 911” is the grisly footage. If you ever wanted to see soldiers whose arms have been amputated, children with their insides showing, burned corpses, flag-draped coffins, a beheading and grieving mothers, this is the movie for you. There’s plenty of it. It’s revolting. If you do not at some point close your eyes or look away from the screen, you are a profoundly sick person. If you watch these scenes in their entirety, I would like you to let me know because I will be crossing your name off my Christmas list.
What is the purpose of subjecting a paying audience to these scenes, you may ask. I wondered about this also, and I think there are two reasons.
First of all, they are designed to make you hate George Bush, because he is the only bad guy in the movie. Saddam Hussein is virtually absent from the film. (Osama bin Laden is a guy with a goofy smile and a funny beard.) Iraq itself is depicted as a quaint backwater where women shop and children play along the Tigris. It looks like fun---a simpler place in a simpler time, with kites and smiling families! There is not a hint of the torture chambers where men would have their fingers cut off one by one, or where ten-year-old girls would be brutally and repeatedly raped in order to punish their grandparents, who were forced to watch, or where an infant’s eyes might be gouged out to impress upon his parents the importance of loyalty to the regime. Forget the graves where many were buried alive. Forget the dead, gassed Kurdish towns. Look! What a nice café! I’ll bet that coffee tastes pretty damn good!
The horrific scenes throughout “Fahrenheit 911” are shown without narration, and since Bush is the only villain, the message is that they are all his fault. Moore somehow fails to remind us that the Baathists routinely used civilian Iraqis as shields and cannon fodder during the invasion. Rather, all the grisly images are laid, by implication, at Bush’s feet. That child? Well, that’s an American bullet that did that. That’s Bush’s bullet, right?
Moore never says any of this, of course, because to state it explicitly would be to reveal how one-sided and unfair it is, and invite an argument. All Bush’s fault, we might ask? Well, wait a minute. What about the horrors inflicted upon innocents by Saddam and his Baathists? Is it possible his regime is responsible for some of this? Maybe the bullet in that child wasn’t Bush’s after all.
Well, we can’t have anybody thinking that sort of thing, can we, Mr. Moore? No, that would make for a much more complicated and ambiguous picture, a picture that approaches---what’s the word I’m looking for---oh, yeah---REALITY. “Is it worth it?” is a reasonable question to ask about Iraq. In a democracy, it’s a question that should be asked, and we should argue about it, and I’ll participate in that argument. But unfortunately, this is an argument that the courageous Mr. Moore would not touch with a ten-foot hot poker.
The other element of the horrorshow, the other reason for it, is Moore’s dark core of pacifism, where the very concept of good and evil must be extinguished in pursuit of his notion of “peace.” Moore inhabits that peculiar pacifist moral universe where Winston Churchill cannot be distinguished from, say, Pol Pot. Both were killers. Both were monsters. And Moore’s job is to collect all the dead things and show them to us.
This is the other reason why, when he shows us “the horrors of war,” there can never be a context, an explanation, or a justification, because in his world such a thing is impossible. There is only pain and death and maiming, and there can never be a reason for it.
Well, there are millions of girls going to school now, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Does that mean anything? There are families who now know what happened to their disappeared loved ones, who have retrieved the mangled remains from one of the many mass graves, and who have buried them properly. Isn’t that worth something? There are people who will not be taken in the middle of the night, tortured for months, and then returned to their families and shot in the head at the front door. Is it possible there is some nobility in human beings risking their lives to stop the cruelty and sadism that was everyday life in Iraq?
Michael Moore’s answer to all these questions is “No.” But actually, his view is even more extreme. To him, the very question is somehow illegitimate. And so he takes the wounded soldiers and dead children and flag-draped coffins and burned bodies, and he treats them as roadkill.
You know the feeling, I think. You’re driving along and there’s a dead dog on the highway, its guts splayed along the road. You drive on. You’re sad. The image stays with you. Later, you may think about it and feel sad all over again. But ultimately, it’s meaningless, isn’t it? It’s one anonymous dead dog on the highway in a world full of anonymous deaths.
And that, for Michael Moore, is what those flag-draped coffins contain---roadkill. Sad, yes, but random, anonymous, and meaningless. And I thought: how dare he? How dare he belittle the sacrifice of these soldiers and their families?
If Michael Moore had his way, half the population of Afghanistan (the female half) would still be imprisoned in their own homes---poor, uneducated, unemployable, abused, and unprotected by law. Kuwait would still be a province of Iraq, with thousands of Kuwaitis still held in horrendous conditions. In Iraq, the rape-rooms would still be open for business and the mass-grave industry would be thriving. If Michael Moore had his way, Uday would still be feeding his “ex-girlfriends” to his pet lions.
Is all this worth nothing?
In the name of ending this madness, good men and women and children have died, and each of their deaths is a tragedy. But what the hell has Michael Moore ever done to give him the right to tell us nothing has been gained, that the deaths of our soldiers were pointless, and that their sacrifice was in vain? And that those of us who are grateful to the fallen, those of us who feel a debt which can never be repaid, are fools?
* * * *
The rest of the movie, the other third, is the explication of his conspiracy theories. It’s all about oil, you see, and Halliburton, and Cheney, and the Bush family’s secret alliance with the Saudis. And as I watched this confusing pastiche unfold, I was reminded of my late uncle.
My uncle was a friendly, funny, garrulous old guy who grew up in a large family of Italian immigrants in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania before it was even called Jim Thorpe. It was a rough world he was born into, a world of quarries and coal mines and hard work and no money. I don’t know whether he had any schooling at all, but if he did, it didn’t last long.
He had a life, though, and plenty of stories---of bar fights and nightclubs and New Orleans in the old days, and World War II, where he was awarded a Purple Heart. And horses. Always the horses. My uncle was a lifelong horseplayer, and though I was never as obsessed as he was, I’m a horseplayer too, and this brought us together.
I loved the guy, and we spent a fair amount of time together over the years. I would pick him up, we’d drive to the track, spend the day there, and I would drive him home. And always there were stories, and some of them were even true, though I was never sure which ones they were.
And he was also a racist, an utterly unrepentant and unreconstructed racist. Everyone in the family knew this, and if you ever got to know my uncle, you would eventually hear one of his rants. I don’t mean to imply I heard them every day or every month or even every year. Over the fifty years I knew him, I remember a half dozen or so. We’d be rolling along the Roosevelt Boulevard, for example, and an African-American gentleman in another car would commit an act of questionable driving etiquette, and a switch would flip on in my uncle’s head, and he would give me two minutes on the goddam niggers and how they behave and how they’re ruining the country.
Now, if you’ve ever been in my position, and had a friend or relative who was a virulent racist, I think you know what I was facing. There’s literally nothing you can do. I tried to argue with him once, but that effort was worse than pointless. Instead of a brief monologue, I got twenty minutes of him muttering and cursing, and our day was ruined. You can never persuade a racist to abandon his racism because there’s no rational element to it that you can ever reach. The truth is irrelevant to such people. I mean, I could have talked to my uncle for ten years about it and would not have moved him an inch. Anthropology, genetics, biology, SAT scores, jokes---none of it would have penetrated. As a result, on the rare occasions he would sing his song, I would just listen quietly, throw in an “un-huh” here and there, and wait for it to end.
But there is a problem with that strategy as well. Holding one’s tongue carries a psychic price, a small one perhaps, but a price nonetheless. Nodding and listening, it’s hard to avoid the feeling you are a willing participant in the conversation, that you are voluntarily visiting the little corner of hatred in the other person’s brain, and making no effort to leave. After a very short while, your silence makes you feel a bit dirty.
The argument portions of “Fahrenheit 911,” the “factual” bits about the Bush-Saudi-Talliban-oil conspiracy, brought this all back to me. For me, it was like sitting next to my uncle thirty years ago on our way to Garden State Park, listening to his views on Martin Luther Coon. Because the truth doesn’t matter to Michael Moore any more than it did to my uncle. There’s a spooky, irrational corner of his brain where only hatred lives and where reality can get no purchase. And sitting there in the theater, I was transported back behind the wheel of my old red Chevette, crossing the Tacony Bridge into Jersey, with a nagging sense that anyone with a shred of decency would stand up and object, or run away, or do SOMETHING, but instead waiting quietly for it all to end.
There are many articles and websites devoted to the outright lies and distortions of “Fahrenheit 911,” and I’m not going to recount them all here. I’m not an expert on recent history or foreign affairs anyway; I’m just a guy who reads the newspaper and is interested in politics. But I want to mention a few of them that were so absurd, so bald-faced, that they cannot be passed off as “spin” or “commentary” or even “mistakes.” They’re lies.
First, there’s the matter of the Taliban visit to Texas in 1997 to meet with officials of a company named Unocal about building a pipeline in northern Afghanistan. This event, and the machinations about the pipeline, are presented as the reason Bush decided to invade Afghanistan in 2001. I know. I don’t get it either, but maybe where there’s smoke, there’s fire, or something like that.
But here’s the problem. Though the piece is an attempt to link Bush and the Taliban and the pipeline and the invasion, Moore forgets to mention that Bush had nothing to do with the Taliban coming to Texas. Since he was not president in 1997, he had no authority to grant visas to representatives of an unrecognized government like the Taliban. It was the Clinton State Department that permitted this to happen, and George Bush could have had no official role in it. As for an unofficial role, Moore also forgets to mention that neither George nor any other Bush attended the meeting or had any business relationship with Unocal. In fact, the only relationship George Bush had with this deal was that he also was present in the state of Texas on the day the Taliban met with Unocal to discuss it. My cousin Joe was in Texas that day too. Why isn’t he in the movie?
The pipeline negotiations broke down in 1998, by the way. I don’t remember Moore mentioning that part either. But I suppose the fact THERE IS NO FREAKING PIPELINE would have undercut his assertion that it was the reason for the invasion that occurred three years after the pipeline deal fell apart.
Another piece of the Bush-Saudi-oil conspiracy is equally bogus. This concerns the Carlyle Group, which is apparently even more evil than Halliburton because nobody knows about it. Moore correctly informs us that the Carlyle Group did $1.4 billion worth of business with the Saudis in the 1990’s. He also notes that both the elder George Bush and the current president were on the board of Carlyle. This is the centerpiece of Moore’s conspiracy story. “See!! It’s all about oil; it’s all about the Bushes and the Saudis! The war in Iraq is a scam! It’s just a way for these guys in turbans and cowboy hats to line their pockets!”
Now, as many commentators have pointed out, this idea, which is the core of “Fahrenheit 911,” is absurd. If the Saudis and the Bushes are such good buddies, why didn’t they help us? Why weren’t they part of the coalition? I mean, if your pal goes to war, don’t you at least give him a few bucks and a pat on the butt? The Saudis, however, bitterly opposed the invasion of Iraq. No money, no soldiers, no airspace, no landing fields---nothing. Is this really how one chum treats another?
But that’s not all. For Moore, it’s not enough that the theory is laughable, he has to conceal the facts too. Remember the $1.4 billion? Almost all of it came in one deal, with a Carlyle subsidiary named BDM, to provide training and some equipment to the Saudi armed forces. BDM was sold by the Carlyle Group months before the elder George Bush joined the board of directors. The current president had served on the board in the 1980’s, and had resigned long before the deal was signed. So yes, there was a huge business deal between the Saudi government and the Carlyle Group, but no, neither Bush had anything to do with it.
At one point, Moore is standing on a street corner in Washington doing an interview, with the Saudi Embassy across the street as a backdrop, when a Secret Service agent walks over to ask what he’s doing. I imagine that since 9-11, this sort of thing happens quite a bit in D.C. They’re all a bit jumpy down there. Personally, I don’t blame them.
But you don’t do something like that to Michael Moore! This meaningless little vignette occupies two minutes of the movie, with a Moore voice-over at the end of it informing us that the Bush Administration actually provides security to Saudi diplomats and the Saudi Embassy! The gentle people at the Clearview Bala Theater lapped this up, of course, and snickered in all the right places.
But it’s hard to believe, isn’t it, that Moore is not aware (and never bothered to find out) that the Secret Service routinely provides security to all manner of foreign diplomats? A long time ago, it was decided this was preferable to having hundreds of foreign troops standing in front of embassies with machine guns.
Some big lies, some small ones. Again, I’m not trying to dissect the picture frame by frame. This exercise is purely idiosyncratic---I’m just noting a few of the points anybody who reads a newspaper would find offensive, and an insult to one’s intelligence. This is only the stuff that reminded me of my uncle.
Then there is Moore’s take on the Florida election in 2000. I will attempt to describe what I saw, though it’s not easy because this was one of the more incoherent segments. But it didn't have to make any sense. For Moore, who put this at the beginning of the movie, it was a sort of secret handshake with his audience, and a wink and a nod to the true believers of this particular item of faith. Bush stole the election, he's telling us. We all know that, right? So let’s get that out of the way and then I’ll tell you all the other evil things he’s done.
Some relative of George Bush, a cousin or a nephew or something, worked at Fox News, and this relative made Fox News award Florida to Bush at 2:30 in the morning on election night. And that, according to Michael Moore, was how Bush got elected president. Honestly, as Dave Barry likes to say, I’m not making this up. That’s Moore’s conclusion---Fox News said Bush won, so he did.
There are a few other tidbits, of course, because one of Moore’s techniques is to slap up half a dozen unrelated items in rapid-fire fashion and encourage his audience to fill in the conspiratorial blanks. Gore got more votes than Bush in Florida, he tells us. And he would have gotten a lot more votes than Bush if African-American voters had not been systematically kept from the polls. And, of course, all those Gore votes would have been counted if the US Supreme Court had not stopped the counting.
Let me tell you how naïve I am. I assumed that two years ago, when two separate teams of newspapers (including the New York Times, the Miami Herald, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, USA Today and others) completed their ballot-by-ballot recounts of the Florida election, and both groups concluded Bush had gotten more votes, that would be the end of it. I was wrong about that. Though there is no scenario, based on the facts, by which Gore could have won, this piece of left-wing mythology will not die. Much like the “all-Republicans-are-dopes” credo, the only thing that matters anymore about the Florida election is the hatred, which must be repeatedly nurtured and caressed, but never examined.
Moore’s statement that Fox News did not “call” the Florida election until 2:30 AM is a lie. Like all the other networks, Fox put Florida in the Gore column about 8:00 PM. (Unlike the others, they waited until the polls closed.) About six hours later, when the vote totals swung the other way, Fox admitted its error and proclaimed Bush the winner. All the other networks immediately followed suit.
What all this has to do with the actual outcome of the election is---well, you’ll have to ask Michael Moore about that. I can’t imagine. But again, it’s not enough for him that the theory makes no sense---he has to lie about the facts too.
Then there is the famous Supreme Court decision, which Moore races through in the hope we will not remember what really happened. Now, one can argue that the decision to stop the Florida recount was not the Supreme Court’s brightest moment, but what would have happened if that decision had not been issued? Well, the leaders of the Florida Legislature had indicated they would have stopped the recount themselves, and voted Florida’s electors for Bush. Under the Constitution, that was their right and duty. That is how it is supposed to work. There was simply no way, under our laws, for Gore to be awarded Florida. And considering that the recounts by America’s largest newspapers indicated Bush had gotten more votes, what is Moore’s problem with that?
Oh, yeah. I almost forgot the disenfranchisement of Florida’s African-American voters. As you may recall, though Moore would never remind you, The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (Clintonites all) held six months of hearings on these claims and concluded there was nothing to them. Sure, there were spoiled ballots that didn’t get counted. There always are. Every presidential election, 2% to 3% of ballots are improperly cast and have to be pitched. It happens everywhere, and there was nothing unusual in 2000 in Florida.
* * * * *
One further point about the “disenfranchisement” needs to be made. Moore’s frequently-asserted concern for his darker brothers and sisters wears exceedingly thin once you begin to understand that his own worldview contains a healthy dose of racism. For me, this realization occurred in that part of the film where Moore revisits Flint, Michigan to interview young black men about their plans to join the military.
Cutting to footage of abandoned houses in Flint, then back to the 18-year-olds, then back to the abandoned houses, Moore argues the Bush Administration has (intentionally) impoverished these boys so their only option in life is enlistment. (A question I wondered about during the movie: if every house in Flint is abandoned, where do people live?)
Now, I always figured there were as many different reasons for joining the armed forces as there are soldiers. Am I wrong about that? I mean, isn’t the decision always a complicated mixture of wanting to leave home, wanting to serve your country, wanting to start a career, wanting to be independent, wanting to make some money, wanting to test oneself against the rigors of military life, and fifty other considerations, all of which get filtered through an inexperienced 18-year-old mind? Isn’t that the way it is, and how it’s always been? After all, Bush didn’t invent the process. Napoleon didn’t invent it. Even Julius Caesar didn’t invent it.
But I guess that’s only how it works for white kids. The black ones in Flint, according to Moore, have none of these motivations or nuances of feeling. They’re just mindless dupes and victims of the Bush war machine.
And he’s not just talking about those kids from Flint, of course. The larger message is that no African-American would ever voluntarily serve the racist gulag that the United States has always been. He even trots out a black soldier (in uniform) who states that he won’t go to Iraq “to kill poor people.” Of the tens of thousands of black soldiers risking their lives and serving their country with honor, Moore finds this guy, and presents him as a spokesman for his race.
For me, this was the most offensive part of the movie. Michael Moore defames every African-American who ever served his country in the armed forces. Patriotism? Ha! The Colored Brigades who fought for the Union in the Civil War---fools! The black GI’s who gave their lives at Normandy---dopes! In Korea, in Vietnam, in Lebanon, in Iraq---suckers! They’re just a bunch of dumb niggers, don’t you see, and easily manipulated. Even an idiot like Bush (or is he now an evil genius?) can make them all sign up and get killed. And how kind it is of Mr. Moore to look out for them.
Moore will use anybody and anything in the service of his goofy theories---wounded soldiers, grieving mothers, dying babies. That much is clear. Using the young black guys in Flint for his blood libel upon their race, however, struck me as the act of a man without decency. I was disgusted by these scenes and the point he was making. This was where I first began to feel dirty for remaining in the theater.
It must drive Moore crazy that our military today is composed entirely of volunteers, of every color and ethnic background, many of whom signed up for the noblest of motives---to defend their country from the horrors of terrorism that 9-11 brought home to all of us. In his view, this CANNOT be, since it disproves his central thesis that we are all being marched along blindly to further Bush’s secret agenda of domestic fascism and oil profits. So he converts the black teens in his beloved Flint to drones. They don’t really have a choice, you see. No matter what they may think their motivations are, it’s all part of Bush’s Machiavellian scheme.
(This same twisted racism is behind the recent campaign by some Democrats in Congress to reinstate the draft, an oppressive system that has been anathema to the left as long as I can remember. They don’t want young men and women volunteering to serve their country, and they especially don’t want African-Americans to do it. They would rather have young people dragooned into service so they can later say, “Aha! Look at this poor bastard, scooped up by Bush against his will and sent to die in a foreign land! He never even knew what hit him, but Bush doesn’t care.”)
* * * *
And then finally, mercifully, with an out-of-context Condoleezza Rice quote and a last “Bush-is-dumb” clip to send us all home laughing, it ended. The lights went up. Bob and I stood and headed for the exit. He was juiced. I was---subdued.
“So what did you think?” he asked, as we reached the lobby. “I want to know! C’mon, there must have been some parts you thought were on target!”
I didn’t really know where to start. “Let’s go to that place down the street,” I suggested. “I’ll buy you a beer.”
Five minutes later, we had parked ourselves at the long oval bar in the Bala Inn, a nasty little place with a dirty linoleum floor, a pool table in the corner, tattooed patrons and a bartender without the full complement of teeth. The Phillies were on TV, and I had a firm grip on an ice-cold bottle of beer. It was heavenly. I felt like I had just been whisked from Graterford Prison to a four-course dinner at The Four Seasons.
“OK,” said Bob. “Now tell me. What did you think?”
“Well, Bob,” I said, “let me tell you about my uncle.”
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
Friday, June 18, 2004
GRIEF COUNSELING
(A letter to the editor concerning an article on the ten thousand grief and stress counselors that showed up in NYC following 9-11)
In 1985, my parents were among the American hostages aboard the hijacked Achille Lauro cruise ship. Following the ordeal, families gathered at Newark Airport to greet the hostages on their return.
While we waited, a Navy psychologist spoke to us about symptoms of post-trauma stress we might observe---bad dreams, sleeplessness, and so on---but assured us that lingering effects were unlikely. “No matter how horrible it was,” he said, “most people will be fine after a week or two. Psychologically, we can recover from anything. If that weren’t true, our species would never have survived.”
A few minutes later, my parents emerged, and the family rushed to embrace them. My 70-year-old father had not slept for 48 hours. A few days before, facing imminent death, a rifle barrel pointed at him, he had whispered “Goodbye” to my mother. He had been through hell, and he looked it.
Nevertheless, when our hug ended, he put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a long look. “You know,” he said, “I never thought I’d see you again. But now that I do, isn’t it time you got a haircut?”
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
In 1985, my parents were among the American hostages aboard the hijacked Achille Lauro cruise ship. Following the ordeal, families gathered at Newark Airport to greet the hostages on their return.
While we waited, a Navy psychologist spoke to us about symptoms of post-trauma stress we might observe---bad dreams, sleeplessness, and so on---but assured us that lingering effects were unlikely. “No matter how horrible it was,” he said, “most people will be fine after a week or two. Psychologically, we can recover from anything. If that weren’t true, our species would never have survived.”
A few minutes later, my parents emerged, and the family rushed to embrace them. My 70-year-old father had not slept for 48 hours. A few days before, facing imminent death, a rifle barrel pointed at him, he had whispered “Goodbye” to my mother. He had been through hell, and he looked it.
Nevertheless, when our hug ended, he put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a long look. “You know,” he said, “I never thought I’d see you again. But now that I do, isn’t it time you got a haircut?”
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
Thursday, May 6, 2004
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AROUND THE WORLD
- by Thomas Sowell - A Book Review
Some years ago, Thomas Sowell, an economist at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, published a book entitled “The Vision of the Anointed,” in which he examined various social movements and government programs which are never evaluated on their merits, even though there may be years of data indicating abject failure in achieving a program’s stated goals. The policy argument that takes place regarding such programs, to the extent there is such an argument, concerns only the original rationale. The actual evidence of the program’s performance, even decades later, is not relevant. It’s impolite, politically, to present such evidence, so no one does.
Affirmative action, in its various guises, is one such program. Is it a good thing, we ask, to give the disadvantaged a leg up? Yes, of course. And that is the extent of the discussion.
It is surprising, in this vacuum, that there is enough evidence to fill a book, but there is, partly because affirmative action programs have a much longer history in countries other than the United States. Most of the book is a detailed history of these programs in India, Malaysia, Nigeria and Sri Lanka, and what is startling is the extent to which affirmative action programs around the world foster the same politics, experience the same problems, and progress along the same evolutionary path. If you happen to think that Indians or Nigerians are different from us in some fundamental way, this book will disabuse you of that notion.
In fact, the “uniqueness” of the American situation, with our history of slavery, is the first myth to fall by the wayside. Everybody, it turns out, is “unique,” and this uniqueness is invariably the centerpiece of the initial push for affirmative action programs, whether it involves the Maoris in New Zealand, the untouchables in India, or blacks in the U.S.
(Discrimination against untouchables, which has existed for millennia, is among the worst against any group in any society. Although they achieved legal equality in 1947, violence against untouchables [including lynching] persists to this day. And there are rural areas in India where the wearing of shoes by untouchables remains a sensitive issue.)
These programs are also touted as “temporary” and “limited,” though there is no affirmative action program in any country that has ever come to an end, or failed to expand beyond its original parameters. In India, for example, affirmative action for untouchables applied only to university admissions (at the insistence of the untouchables themselves!), but quickly led to “affirmative grading,” which has also appeared in the United States. Invariably, once group identity is politicized, political leaders emerge, and these leaders cannot rest on past achievements. They must continually seek new concessions from the majority. In India and Sri Lanka, these escalating demands have led to riots, murder, and atrocities. Sri Lanka, a peaceful multicultural society in the 1940’s and 1950’s, has been in a state of civil war for two decades because of ethnic wars that began with affirmative action and the politicizing of ethnicity. Though the United States has escaped the horrific ethnic violence that has plagued other countries, the goals here have continually progressed, from equality to preferences to quotas to demands for reparations. And it is difficult to argue that racial harmony has been achieved in the process.
Every country in which affirmative action programs are started also experiences a “redesignation” phenomenon. In Australia, for example, there was a 42% increase in aboriginals between 1981 and 1986, a demographic impossibility. In the U.S., there were 50,000 American Indians in the 15-19 age cohort in 1960. In 1980, when these same individuals would be in the 35-39 group, there were 80,000 of them. While it is not surprising that fraud occurs in procuring of government benefits, the increase in people who benefit from these programs adds to the difficulty in reforming or ending them, or even in assessing their results, since the constituency for affirmative action is always growing.
As the constituencies expand, and as new groups are designated as worthy of preferences, programs grow in ways that could never have been anticipated at the outset, and sometimes make little sense when considering the original purpose of the programs. There is no obvious social benefit in granting preferences to black millionaires in the awarding of cable TV monopolies, for example. Similarly, there is nothing in the “the legacy of slavery” that can explain why white children should receive preferences over Chinese-American children in San Francisco’s public schools. This morphing of affirmative action into entitlement programs for the politically-active occurs everywhere.
Historically, affirmative action programs emerge a century or more after the worst subjugation, peonage or slavery has ended. The subjugated group then endures a long period of second-class citizenship and poverty. When a sufficient number of the subjugated group manage to pull themselves up into the mainstream, the group becomes worthy of political notice, and civil rights legislation of one sort or another is passed.
Once legal equality is achieved, if affirmative action programs follow, the beneficiaries are those members of the subjugated group that have already joined the mainstream. In Malaysia, for example, the richest 10% of ethnic Malays have seen their incomes increase significantly, though the mass of Malays have made no progress at all. Since the awarding of preferences under affirmative action programs is a zero-sum game, there are also victims, and these tend to be the poorest members of the “dominant” group. In India, those who have benefited are the most politically-savvy (and educated) untouchables, at the expense of the lowest echelons of the Brahman caste. In the U.S., upper-middle-class black families are the primary beneficiaries, while the poorest and least-educated whites fall further behind. The evidence suggests that affirmative action does very little to help the poorest Malays, the poorest untouchables in India, or the poorest blacks in America.
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
Some years ago, Thomas Sowell, an economist at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, published a book entitled “The Vision of the Anointed,” in which he examined various social movements and government programs which are never evaluated on their merits, even though there may be years of data indicating abject failure in achieving a program’s stated goals. The policy argument that takes place regarding such programs, to the extent there is such an argument, concerns only the original rationale. The actual evidence of the program’s performance, even decades later, is not relevant. It’s impolite, politically, to present such evidence, so no one does.
Affirmative action, in its various guises, is one such program. Is it a good thing, we ask, to give the disadvantaged a leg up? Yes, of course. And that is the extent of the discussion.
It is surprising, in this vacuum, that there is enough evidence to fill a book, but there is, partly because affirmative action programs have a much longer history in countries other than the United States. Most of the book is a detailed history of these programs in India, Malaysia, Nigeria and Sri Lanka, and what is startling is the extent to which affirmative action programs around the world foster the same politics, experience the same problems, and progress along the same evolutionary path. If you happen to think that Indians or Nigerians are different from us in some fundamental way, this book will disabuse you of that notion.
In fact, the “uniqueness” of the American situation, with our history of slavery, is the first myth to fall by the wayside. Everybody, it turns out, is “unique,” and this uniqueness is invariably the centerpiece of the initial push for affirmative action programs, whether it involves the Maoris in New Zealand, the untouchables in India, or blacks in the U.S.
(Discrimination against untouchables, which has existed for millennia, is among the worst against any group in any society. Although they achieved legal equality in 1947, violence against untouchables [including lynching] persists to this day. And there are rural areas in India where the wearing of shoes by untouchables remains a sensitive issue.)
These programs are also touted as “temporary” and “limited,” though there is no affirmative action program in any country that has ever come to an end, or failed to expand beyond its original parameters. In India, for example, affirmative action for untouchables applied only to university admissions (at the insistence of the untouchables themselves!), but quickly led to “affirmative grading,” which has also appeared in the United States. Invariably, once group identity is politicized, political leaders emerge, and these leaders cannot rest on past achievements. They must continually seek new concessions from the majority. In India and Sri Lanka, these escalating demands have led to riots, murder, and atrocities. Sri Lanka, a peaceful multicultural society in the 1940’s and 1950’s, has been in a state of civil war for two decades because of ethnic wars that began with affirmative action and the politicizing of ethnicity. Though the United States has escaped the horrific ethnic violence that has plagued other countries, the goals here have continually progressed, from equality to preferences to quotas to demands for reparations. And it is difficult to argue that racial harmony has been achieved in the process.
Every country in which affirmative action programs are started also experiences a “redesignation” phenomenon. In Australia, for example, there was a 42% increase in aboriginals between 1981 and 1986, a demographic impossibility. In the U.S., there were 50,000 American Indians in the 15-19 age cohort in 1960. In 1980, when these same individuals would be in the 35-39 group, there were 80,000 of them. While it is not surprising that fraud occurs in procuring of government benefits, the increase in people who benefit from these programs adds to the difficulty in reforming or ending them, or even in assessing their results, since the constituency for affirmative action is always growing.
As the constituencies expand, and as new groups are designated as worthy of preferences, programs grow in ways that could never have been anticipated at the outset, and sometimes make little sense when considering the original purpose of the programs. There is no obvious social benefit in granting preferences to black millionaires in the awarding of cable TV monopolies, for example. Similarly, there is nothing in the “the legacy of slavery” that can explain why white children should receive preferences over Chinese-American children in San Francisco’s public schools. This morphing of affirmative action into entitlement programs for the politically-active occurs everywhere.
Historically, affirmative action programs emerge a century or more after the worst subjugation, peonage or slavery has ended. The subjugated group then endures a long period of second-class citizenship and poverty. When a sufficient number of the subjugated group manage to pull themselves up into the mainstream, the group becomes worthy of political notice, and civil rights legislation of one sort or another is passed.
Once legal equality is achieved, if affirmative action programs follow, the beneficiaries are those members of the subjugated group that have already joined the mainstream. In Malaysia, for example, the richest 10% of ethnic Malays have seen their incomes increase significantly, though the mass of Malays have made no progress at all. Since the awarding of preferences under affirmative action programs is a zero-sum game, there are also victims, and these tend to be the poorest members of the “dominant” group. In India, those who have benefited are the most politically-savvy (and educated) untouchables, at the expense of the lowest echelons of the Brahman caste. In the U.S., upper-middle-class black families are the primary beneficiaries, while the poorest and least-educated whites fall further behind. The evidence suggests that affirmative action does very little to help the poorest Malays, the poorest untouchables in India, or the poorest blacks in America.
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
DICK MEDICINE
Did you know Rafael Palmiero has hit 528 home runs? I didn't. I follow baseball, and I know he's a star for the (invisible) Texas Rangers, but 528 homeruns? Who knew? I mean, that's a hall of fame number. More than that, it's a first-ballot-walk-right-in number. It's a don't-even-bother-to-show-us-your-driver's-license number. It's a Mike Schmidt number.
And yet---well---I don't know what you thought the first time you saw Rafael Palmiero in a Viagra commercial, but personally, it gave me the creeps. And the 528 dingers somehow make it worse. I mean, here's a guy in his 30's, a pro athlete, a home run hitter, good-looking, a guy who has 22-year-old porn-star-wannabes waiting for him outside the locker room every night, and HE can't get it up? What the hell is wrong with him?
Speaking as a guy, on behalf of all guys everywhere, Rafael Palmiero is wrong for the product. I understand what the advertising people were thinking, but they were wrong, because most guys are not going to identify with him. I'm sure the advertising people thought the message was: "Viagra, man---if Palmiero can take that stuff, it must be cool" or "Take Viagra and you'll knock them out of the park too." No. Un-unh. Nothing like that. Speaking for all men, everywhere, here is what guys think when they see Rafael Palmiero pitching Viagra. They think: "Poor bastard. His dick is broke."
The typical customer for dick medicine, the 60-year-old guy who can't throw the football through the swinging tire like he used to, does not think his dick is broke. No guy ever thinks his dick is broke, even if the organ in question is sitting in a jar of formadehyde in a medical museum at Harvard. There's always a rational explanation for limpness that has nothing to do with a broken dick. ("So I'm sitting there, and there's 3 seconds left in overtime, and the Lakers are down one, and Shaq is at the line shooting two, and the bitch puts her hand on my thigh! And this is AFTER she burned the goddamn macaroni and cheese!!")
Needless to say, since no guy ever thinks his dick is broke, the last thing he wants to see is a commercial telling him it is. That's just not what he thinks. He thinks: "I am every inch the tough SOB I was forty years ago, but now I'm tired at the end of the day. And OK, I'm getting older. Everything still works, but I need a boost sometimes, like vitamins or something. I'm not some 30-year-old pretty boy who can't get it up; I'm more like---Ditka!"
I haven't seen Rafael Palmiero selling Viagra since the debut of the Ditka/Levitra spots, and I don't think that's an accident. Next to Ditka, Palmiero will always look like PeeWee Herman, no matter how many home runs he hits. I mean, if you want to sell dick medicine to the masses, who's better than Ditka? Clint Eastwood maybe? Well, OK, but he doesn't do commercials. Billy Dee Williams? Maybe, but he would never do a commercial suggesting he is actually 67 years old rather than, say, 25.
Most guys are not pretty, and neither is Ditka. But with his fireplug physique, and his psychopathic twinkle, he's still a tough guy after all these years. The hair still looks like he cut it himself with an Insinkerator, and is there any doubt that, in a pile of large, biting, kicking men with bad attitudes, he would still somehow emerge with the football? And yeah, he takes Levitra. YOU GOT A FREAKIN PROBLEM WITH THAT?? This is an attitude that the wimpiest, flabbiest, cubicle-bound, chicken-legged, bald, impotent 60-year-old guy can admire because he too is certain (certain!) that with the game on the line, he would also emerge with the football. I know I would.
The latest entrant in the sweepstakes, Cialis, seems to understand they have already lost the celebrity endorsement battle, because they don't even use a celebrity in their commercials. Instead, they use "life-style" scenes of loving elderly folks driving sports cars and looking out at the ocean together. It's possible to watch these spots and not even know Cialis is a dick medicine. OK, you think---happy geezers---now what the hell does this thing cure? Liver spots? Shingles? Cat-hair allergies?
Again, this message is wrong. Even if you can figure out what Cialis is for, it is not something guys are going to rush out and buy. Geezer romance? Is this something guys long for? Even old guys? I don't think so. Again speaking for all guys everywhere, I have nothing against romance. But let's face it, romance has NOTHING to do with boners. To the extent there is any link between the two in the public imagination (i.e., what chicks think), it's the product of a decades-long propaganda campaign financed by the Hallmark Card Company. Halliburton probably had their hand in there somewhere too. Geezer romance? Spare me. Bob Dole, in the darkest hour of his erectile despair, did not dream of holding hands with his elderly wife in a hot tub. Trust me on this.
Which brings us back to Ditka.
The problem presented by these products, for advertisers, is that they have to tell us what the product does (or at least strongly imply it), without grossing us out. Viagra succeeds on the first count, but the image of a 528-homer guy with a broke dick is way too distressing. Cialis fails on both counts---it's hard to figure out what it does, and even if you do, the payoff (in senior muskrat love) just isn't worth the trouble.
Using Ditka, on the other hand, makes all the problems go away. At a stroke, he eliminates the gross-out issue because it is impossible for anyone who does not live in an institution to look at him and think of sex. Though I do not claim to understand women, I cannot believe that any woman, ever, looked at Mike Ditka and said to herself, "Wow. That guy is hot!" It just never happened, even at the height of his athletic career, and his fame, and his wealth.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm sure Mike has his loving, cuddly side (though, throughout his 50-year career in the public eye, no mention has ever been made of it). But the point is that when he throws a football through a swinging tire, our minds won't take it any further. The metaphor never gets extended.
I mean, who would want to? The thought of Mike Ditka climbing into the sack with some pitiful creature---well, decent people just don't think of these things, do they? There are special neurons or something in the brain that prevent that kind of thought from forming. Because we're not talking Playboy Channel here, are we? No. We're talking Animal Planet. We're talking "The Miracle of Life on the Serengeti: Large Herbivores," right? I think it's fair to say that any human being with a shred of decency would rather witness a bloody, eight-car pile-up on the Schuylkill Expressway, complete with severed heads rolling across the median strip, than spend one second visualizing Mike Ditka "making love."
Mike Ditka is the rare person who can sell dick medicine on TV without anyone ever thinking about him having sex. For a man of his singular talents, this is perhaps the most unusual.
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
And yet---well---I don't know what you thought the first time you saw Rafael Palmiero in a Viagra commercial, but personally, it gave me the creeps. And the 528 dingers somehow make it worse. I mean, here's a guy in his 30's, a pro athlete, a home run hitter, good-looking, a guy who has 22-year-old porn-star-wannabes waiting for him outside the locker room every night, and HE can't get it up? What the hell is wrong with him?
Speaking as a guy, on behalf of all guys everywhere, Rafael Palmiero is wrong for the product. I understand what the advertising people were thinking, but they were wrong, because most guys are not going to identify with him. I'm sure the advertising people thought the message was: "Viagra, man---if Palmiero can take that stuff, it must be cool" or "Take Viagra and you'll knock them out of the park too." No. Un-unh. Nothing like that. Speaking for all men, everywhere, here is what guys think when they see Rafael Palmiero pitching Viagra. They think: "Poor bastard. His dick is broke."
The typical customer for dick medicine, the 60-year-old guy who can't throw the football through the swinging tire like he used to, does not think his dick is broke. No guy ever thinks his dick is broke, even if the organ in question is sitting in a jar of formadehyde in a medical museum at Harvard. There's always a rational explanation for limpness that has nothing to do with a broken dick. ("So I'm sitting there, and there's 3 seconds left in overtime, and the Lakers are down one, and Shaq is at the line shooting two, and the bitch puts her hand on my thigh! And this is AFTER she burned the goddamn macaroni and cheese!!")
Needless to say, since no guy ever thinks his dick is broke, the last thing he wants to see is a commercial telling him it is. That's just not what he thinks. He thinks: "I am every inch the tough SOB I was forty years ago, but now I'm tired at the end of the day. And OK, I'm getting older. Everything still works, but I need a boost sometimes, like vitamins or something. I'm not some 30-year-old pretty boy who can't get it up; I'm more like---Ditka!"
I haven't seen Rafael Palmiero selling Viagra since the debut of the Ditka/Levitra spots, and I don't think that's an accident. Next to Ditka, Palmiero will always look like PeeWee Herman, no matter how many home runs he hits. I mean, if you want to sell dick medicine to the masses, who's better than Ditka? Clint Eastwood maybe? Well, OK, but he doesn't do commercials. Billy Dee Williams? Maybe, but he would never do a commercial suggesting he is actually 67 years old rather than, say, 25.
Most guys are not pretty, and neither is Ditka. But with his fireplug physique, and his psychopathic twinkle, he's still a tough guy after all these years. The hair still looks like he cut it himself with an Insinkerator, and is there any doubt that, in a pile of large, biting, kicking men with bad attitudes, he would still somehow emerge with the football? And yeah, he takes Levitra. YOU GOT A FREAKIN PROBLEM WITH THAT?? This is an attitude that the wimpiest, flabbiest, cubicle-bound, chicken-legged, bald, impotent 60-year-old guy can admire because he too is certain (certain!) that with the game on the line, he would also emerge with the football. I know I would.
The latest entrant in the sweepstakes, Cialis, seems to understand they have already lost the celebrity endorsement battle, because they don't even use a celebrity in their commercials. Instead, they use "life-style" scenes of loving elderly folks driving sports cars and looking out at the ocean together. It's possible to watch these spots and not even know Cialis is a dick medicine. OK, you think---happy geezers---now what the hell does this thing cure? Liver spots? Shingles? Cat-hair allergies?
Again, this message is wrong. Even if you can figure out what Cialis is for, it is not something guys are going to rush out and buy. Geezer romance? Is this something guys long for? Even old guys? I don't think so. Again speaking for all guys everywhere, I have nothing against romance. But let's face it, romance has NOTHING to do with boners. To the extent there is any link between the two in the public imagination (i.e., what chicks think), it's the product of a decades-long propaganda campaign financed by the Hallmark Card Company. Halliburton probably had their hand in there somewhere too. Geezer romance? Spare me. Bob Dole, in the darkest hour of his erectile despair, did not dream of holding hands with his elderly wife in a hot tub. Trust me on this.
Which brings us back to Ditka.
The problem presented by these products, for advertisers, is that they have to tell us what the product does (or at least strongly imply it), without grossing us out. Viagra succeeds on the first count, but the image of a 528-homer guy with a broke dick is way too distressing. Cialis fails on both counts---it's hard to figure out what it does, and even if you do, the payoff (in senior muskrat love) just isn't worth the trouble.
Using Ditka, on the other hand, makes all the problems go away. At a stroke, he eliminates the gross-out issue because it is impossible for anyone who does not live in an institution to look at him and think of sex. Though I do not claim to understand women, I cannot believe that any woman, ever, looked at Mike Ditka and said to herself, "Wow. That guy is hot!" It just never happened, even at the height of his athletic career, and his fame, and his wealth.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm sure Mike has his loving, cuddly side (though, throughout his 50-year career in the public eye, no mention has ever been made of it). But the point is that when he throws a football through a swinging tire, our minds won't take it any further. The metaphor never gets extended.
I mean, who would want to? The thought of Mike Ditka climbing into the sack with some pitiful creature---well, decent people just don't think of these things, do they? There are special neurons or something in the brain that prevent that kind of thought from forming. Because we're not talking Playboy Channel here, are we? No. We're talking Animal Planet. We're talking "The Miracle of Life on the Serengeti: Large Herbivores," right? I think it's fair to say that any human being with a shred of decency would rather witness a bloody, eight-car pile-up on the Schuylkill Expressway, complete with severed heads rolling across the median strip, than spend one second visualizing Mike Ditka "making love."
Mike Ditka is the rare person who can sell dick medicine on TV without anyone ever thinking about him having sex. For a man of his singular talents, this is perhaps the most unusual.
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
THE TRAVELER
I am occasionally asked why we named our son Tex.
In the hallway of my sister’s house hangs a formal portrait (circa 1900) of my mother’s great-great granduncle, Artur Maciejewski. This is his story.
Artur Maciejewski was born on a farm outside of Gdansk, Poland in 1830, the first of eight children conceived by Sofia and Federik Maciejewski.
From his earliest years, Artur’s personality was characterized by a wanderlust verging on madness. At the age of fourteen months, shortly after he had learned to walk, Artur was discovered in a rainstorm, alone and half-drowned, in a drainage ditch some eighteen kilometers from his home. The farmer who found him, a dour yet loving man named Andrzej Movacek, with fourteen children of his own, rescued Artur and nurtured him back to life, searched vainly for the boy’s parents, and ultimately decided to raise him as his own.
Seven years later, Artur’s mother was selling pierogies at a fair in the region when a boy approached her table. Sofia, a mother’s love suffusing every fiber of her being, recognized him instantly, and followed him as he retreated, pierogies in hand, from her table.
At last, when Artur encountered a man who spoke to him in a way suggesting a parental relationship, Sofia pounced. Introducing herself, she told her tale and demanded the particulars of the lad’s provenance. Andrzej, in a trembling voice, his heart breaking, related the events of the stormy night seven years prior.
A discussion ensued and both families gathered, as did a number of townspeople. As darkness fell, Father Jok Doriecki, the village priest, wandered by and was recruited as arbitrator. Prayers were said. Vendors gathered, hawking “Death By Potato,” the local vodka.
Sofia spoke, as did Andrzej and each of his children. At last, Fr. Doriecki, swaying a bit and fueled by the spirit, pronounced his verdict in a single sentence still celebrated by every student of Polish jurisprudence.
“A mother is a mother,” he declared.
And there was silence. Many fell to their knees, dumbstruck at the simple wisdom of this parish priest, their eyes raised heavenward where, as if by providence, a shooting star flashed, fell, and disappeared into the darkness. Thus was the case decided. Artur returned home that night with Sofia and Federik.
The next morning, as dawn broke, Sofia arose and went to gaze upon her sleeping son. He was gone, of course, already halfway to the seaport where he would sign on as a cabin boy aboard a tramp freighter that would ultimately deposit the young man, ten years old, at the foot of Manhattan Island. The year was 1840, and Artur Maciejewski was now an American.
Artur spoke Polish and the patois of a hundred nations, yet not a word of English. But in a new country full of immigrants, for a boy already accustomed to earning his supper through the sweat of his brow, New York was a dream come true. For him, there was always work, always food, and always adventure. He hauled fish, shined shoes, and sold coffins. For several years, he worked as cook and laundryman for a bawdyhouse on Wall Street. It was there he learned to read and write English, with the King James Bible as his textbook.
But not even the Big Apple could keep Artur in its thrall for long. At sixteen, with twelve dollars in his pocket and new shoes on his feet, he set out for a place he had heard about only in the stories of drunken men at the cathouse bar. It was a land with a big sky and vast deserts and grasslands a thousand miles across, a wild place where riches were waiting for any man with a strong back, a brain in his head and a gun on his hip. He didn’t know exactly where it was, but he knew it was called Texas, and he knew he could not rest until he had seen it. It would take him eleven years to get there.
He worked the farms and orchards of southern Ohio, and tarried a bit. There was a girl named Polly, a girl with wide hips and apple cheeks and a ready smile, the only child of a prosperous widower with a big spread. He liked the farmer and he liked Polly, but she was not Texas, and when Spring arrived, he was gone again, through the hills and hollows of Kentucky to the Mississippi River, and St. Louis, Missouri.
There was always work at the docks for a man who wanted it, and that is where he went. His experience at sea got him a job on a paddle-wheeler as a laborer, then as a seaman, then as a faro dealer, then as manager of the bar and card-room. At age 22, Artur was wearing tailored suits and had acquired a taste for expensive cigars. He was a gentleman of sorts, a man of some means, and he was known in every port along the river.
On June 10, 1857, Artur was cutting into a steak at his favorite restaurant in New Orleans when his attention was drawn to an altercation at a table across the restaurant. An elderly gentleman was being accosted by two rough-looking men standing over him and shouting. The source of their pique was unclear, but as the their language grew foul and threatening, Artur rose and strode purposefully across the room. Grasping a shoulder, he spun one of the men around and flattened him with a right hand to the jaw. The other turned and swung wildly at Artur, who countered with a solid left. As waiters dragged the two assailants to the street, the elderly man spoke to Artur.
“Young man, my name is Sam Houston, and if you return with me to Texas, you will never regret it.”
“I am dining with friends, sir,” Artur replied. “May I finish my supper before we leave?”
And thus did Artur come to serve Sam Houston as factotum, bodyguard and friend at Houston’s home in Huntsville. Two years later, when Houston was elected Governor, the pair moved to Austin, where Artur quickly became “a good man to know” if you wanted the governor’s ear. Houston was forced to resign in 1861 over his staunch opposition to secession, and the men returned to Huntsville, where Artur attended the old man until his death in 1863.
Still a young man, Artur (now known as Tex) was well-situated financially and known throughout the state. Some of Sam Houston’s cronies wanted to launch him into Texas politics. Others came forward with various business opportunities.
But such a life of sedentary privilege was not for Tex. Instead, he took a low-paying, dangerous job with a group of men he respected above all others. Tex Maciejewski became a Texas Ranger. For the next 25 years, Tex would see every inch of the land he had come to love, bringing law to the lawless, and keeping the peace for the innocent.
In 1888, after three dusty weeks on the road, Tex returned to his headquarters to find a letter waiting for him, addressed simply to “Artur Maciejewski, Texas.” Sofia had found him again. Now in her late 70’s, she had immigrated to America with two of her sons and was living in Philadelphia.
Three weeks later, Tex knocked at the door of a nondescript tenement in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia, and was reunited with his mother, with whom he would live for the rest of her life.
Tex himself became a popular figure in the taprooms and clubhouses of Port Richmond, and his stories of cowboys and Indians, outlaws and range wars, all rendered in fluent Polish with a Texas drawl, captivated both young and old for years.
Toward the end of his days, he was once asked if he had any regrets in his long and colorful life. “Well,” he said, “I never married, never had a son. Ha! Maybe somebody will name a kid after me.”
Tex died quietly in 1907. His services were attended by five Texas Rangers who stood at attention throughout the memorial, then returned to Texas with his ashes, which were scattered along the Rio Grande. Among the Polish families in Port Richmond, and now among their descendants, the name “Tex” endures as a popular name for a first-born son.
THE TRAVELER
I am occasionally asked why we named our son Tex.
In the hallway of my sister’s house hangs a formal portrait (circa 1900) of my mother’s great-great granduncle, Artur Maciejewski. This is his story.
Artur Maciejewski was born on a farm outside of Gdansk, Poland in 1830, the first of eight children conceived by Sofia and Federik Maciejewski.
From his earliest years, Artur’s personality was characterized by a wanderlust verging on madness. At the age of fourteen months, shortly after he had learned to walk, Artur was discovered in a rainstorm, alone and half-drowned, in a drainage ditch some eighteen kilometers from his home. The farmer who found him, a dour yet loving man named Andrzej Movacek, with fourteen children of his own, rescued Artur and nurtured him back to life, searched vainly for the boy’s parents, and ultimately decided to raise him as his own.
Seven years later, Artur’s mother was selling pierogies at a fair in the region when a boy approached her table. Sofia, a mother’s love suffusing every fiber of her being, recognized him instantly, and followed him as he retreated, pierogies in hand, from her table.
At last, when Artur encountered a man who spoke to him in a way suggesting a parental relationship, Sofia pounced. Introducing herself, she told her tale and demanded the particulars of the lad’s provenance. Andrzej, in a trembling voice, his heart breaking, related the events of the stormy night seven years prior.
A discussion ensued and both families gathered, as did a number of townspeople. As darkness fell, Father Jok Doriecki, the village priest, wandered by and was recruited as arbitrator. Prayers were said. Vendors gathered, hawking “Death By Potato,” the local vodka.
Sofia spoke, as did Andrzej and each of his children. At last, Fr. Doriecki, swaying a bit and fueled by the spirit, pronounced his verdict in a single sentence still celebrated by every student of Polish jurisprudence.
“A mother is a mother,” he declared.
And there was silence. Many fell to their knees, dumbstruck at the simple wisdom of this parish priest, their eyes raised heavenward where, as if by providence, a shooting star flashed, fell, and disappeared into the darkness. Thus was the case decided. Artur returned home that night with Sofia and Federik.
The next morning, as dawn broke, Sofia arose and went to gaze upon her sleeping son. He was gone, of course, already halfway to the seaport where he would sign on as a cabin boy aboard a tramp freighter that would ultimately deposit the young man, ten years old, at the foot of Manhattan Island. The year was 1840, and Artur Maciejewski was now an American.
Artur spoke Polish and the patois of a hundred nations, yet not a word of English. But in a new country full of immigrants, for a boy already accustomed to earning his supper through the sweat of his brow, New York was a dream come true. For him, there was always work, always food, and always adventure. He hauled fish, shined shoes, and sold coffins. For several years, he worked as cook and laundryman for a bawdyhouse on Wall Street. It was there he learned to read and write English, with the King James Bible as his textbook.
But not even the Big Apple could keep Artur in its thrall for long. At sixteen, with twelve dollars in his pocket and new shoes on his feet, he set out for a place he had heard about only in the stories of drunken men at the cathouse bar. It was a land with a big sky and vast deserts and grasslands a thousand miles across, a wild place where riches were waiting for any man with a strong back, a brain in his head and a gun on his hip. He didn’t know exactly where it was, but he knew it was called Texas, and he knew he could not rest until he had seen it. It would take him eleven years to get there.
He worked the farms and orchards of southern Ohio, and tarried a bit. There was a girl named Polly, a girl with wide hips and apple cheeks and a ready smile, the only child of a prosperous widower with a big spread. He liked the farmer and he liked Polly, but she was not Texas, and when Spring arrived, he was gone again, through the hills and hollows of Kentucky to the Mississippi River, and St. Louis, Missouri.
There was always work at the docks for a man who wanted it, and that is where he went. His experience at sea got him a job on a paddle-wheeler as a laborer, then as a seaman, then as a faro dealer, then as manager of the bar and card-room. At age 22, Artur was wearing tailored suits and had acquired a taste for expensive cigars. He was a gentleman of sorts, a man of some means, and he was known in every port along the river.
On June 10, 1857, Artur was cutting into a steak at his favorite restaurant in New Orleans when his attention was drawn to an altercation at a table across the restaurant. An elderly gentleman was being accosted by two rough-looking men standing over him and shouting. The source of their pique was unclear, but as the their language grew foul and threatening, Artur rose and strode purposefully across the room. Grasping a shoulder, he spun one of the men around and flattened him with a right hand to the jaw. The other turned and swung wildly at Artur, who countered with a solid left. As waiters dragged the two assailants to the street, the elderly man spoke to Artur.
“Young man, my name is Sam Houston, and if you return with me to Texas, you will never regret it.”
“I am dining with friends, sir,” Artur replied. “May I finish my supper before we leave?”
And thus did Artur come to serve Sam Houston as factotum, bodyguard and friend at Houston’s home in Huntsville. Two years later, when Houston was elected Governor, the pair moved to Austin, where Artur quickly became “a good man to know” if you wanted the governor’s ear. Houston was forced to resign in 1861 over his staunch opposition to secession, and the men returned to Huntsville, where Artur attended the old man until his death in 1863.
Still a young man, Artur (now known as Tex) was well-situated financially and known throughout the state. Some of Sam Houston’s cronies wanted to launch him into Texas politics. Others came forward with various business opportunities.
But such a life of sedentary privilege was not for Tex. Instead, he took a low-paying, dangerous job with a group of men he respected above all others. Tex Maciejewski became a Texas Ranger. For the next 25 years, Tex would see every inch of the land he had come to love, bringing law to the lawless, and keeping the peace for the innocent.
In 1888, after three dusty weeks on the road, Tex returned to his headquarters to find a letter waiting for him, addressed simply to “Artur Maciejewski, Texas.” Sofia had found him again. Now in her late 70’s, she had immigrated to America with two of her sons and was living in Philadelphia.
Three weeks later, Tex knocked at the door of a nondescript tenement in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia, and was reunited with his mother, with whom he would live for the rest of her life.
Tex himself became a popular figure in the taprooms and clubhouses of Port Richmond, and his stories of cowboys and Indians, outlaws and range wars, all rendered in fluent Polish with a Texas drawl, captivated both young and old for years.
Toward the end of his days, he was once asked if he had any regrets in his long and colorful life. “Well,” he said, “I never married, never had a son. Ha! Maybe somebody will name a kid after me.”
Tex died quietly in 1907. His services were attended by five Texas Rangers who stood at attention throughout the memorial, then returned to Texas with his ashes, which were scattered along the Rio Grande. Among the Polish families in Port Richmond, and now among their descendants, the name “Tex” endures as a popular name for a first-born son.
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
In the hallway of my sister’s house hangs a formal portrait (circa 1900) of my mother’s great-great granduncle, Artur Maciejewski. This is his story.
Artur Maciejewski was born on a farm outside of Gdansk, Poland in 1830, the first of eight children conceived by Sofia and Federik Maciejewski.
From his earliest years, Artur’s personality was characterized by a wanderlust verging on madness. At the age of fourteen months, shortly after he had learned to walk, Artur was discovered in a rainstorm, alone and half-drowned, in a drainage ditch some eighteen kilometers from his home. The farmer who found him, a dour yet loving man named Andrzej Movacek, with fourteen children of his own, rescued Artur and nurtured him back to life, searched vainly for the boy’s parents, and ultimately decided to raise him as his own.
Seven years later, Artur’s mother was selling pierogies at a fair in the region when a boy approached her table. Sofia, a mother’s love suffusing every fiber of her being, recognized him instantly, and followed him as he retreated, pierogies in hand, from her table.
At last, when Artur encountered a man who spoke to him in a way suggesting a parental relationship, Sofia pounced. Introducing herself, she told her tale and demanded the particulars of the lad’s provenance. Andrzej, in a trembling voice, his heart breaking, related the events of the stormy night seven years prior.
A discussion ensued and both families gathered, as did a number of townspeople. As darkness fell, Father Jok Doriecki, the village priest, wandered by and was recruited as arbitrator. Prayers were said. Vendors gathered, hawking “Death By Potato,” the local vodka.
Sofia spoke, as did Andrzej and each of his children. At last, Fr. Doriecki, swaying a bit and fueled by the spirit, pronounced his verdict in a single sentence still celebrated by every student of Polish jurisprudence.
“A mother is a mother,” he declared.
And there was silence. Many fell to their knees, dumbstruck at the simple wisdom of this parish priest, their eyes raised heavenward where, as if by providence, a shooting star flashed, fell, and disappeared into the darkness. Thus was the case decided. Artur returned home that night with Sofia and Federik.
The next morning, as dawn broke, Sofia arose and went to gaze upon her sleeping son. He was gone, of course, already halfway to the seaport where he would sign on as a cabin boy aboard a tramp freighter that would ultimately deposit the young man, ten years old, at the foot of Manhattan Island. The year was 1840, and Artur Maciejewski was now an American.
Artur spoke Polish and the patois of a hundred nations, yet not a word of English. But in a new country full of immigrants, for a boy already accustomed to earning his supper through the sweat of his brow, New York was a dream come true. For him, there was always work, always food, and always adventure. He hauled fish, shined shoes, and sold coffins. For several years, he worked as cook and laundryman for a bawdyhouse on Wall Street. It was there he learned to read and write English, with the King James Bible as his textbook.
But not even the Big Apple could keep Artur in its thrall for long. At sixteen, with twelve dollars in his pocket and new shoes on his feet, he set out for a place he had heard about only in the stories of drunken men at the cathouse bar. It was a land with a big sky and vast deserts and grasslands a thousand miles across, a wild place where riches were waiting for any man with a strong back, a brain in his head and a gun on his hip. He didn’t know exactly where it was, but he knew it was called Texas, and he knew he could not rest until he had seen it. It would take him eleven years to get there.
He worked the farms and orchards of southern Ohio, and tarried a bit. There was a girl named Polly, a girl with wide hips and apple cheeks and a ready smile, the only child of a prosperous widower with a big spread. He liked the farmer and he liked Polly, but she was not Texas, and when Spring arrived, he was gone again, through the hills and hollows of Kentucky to the Mississippi River, and St. Louis, Missouri.
There was always work at the docks for a man who wanted it, and that is where he went. His experience at sea got him a job on a paddle-wheeler as a laborer, then as a seaman, then as a faro dealer, then as manager of the bar and card-room. At age 22, Artur was wearing tailored suits and had acquired a taste for expensive cigars. He was a gentleman of sorts, a man of some means, and he was known in every port along the river.
On June 10, 1857, Artur was cutting into a steak at his favorite restaurant in New Orleans when his attention was drawn to an altercation at a table across the restaurant. An elderly gentleman was being accosted by two rough-looking men standing over him and shouting. The source of their pique was unclear, but as the their language grew foul and threatening, Artur rose and strode purposefully across the room. Grasping a shoulder, he spun one of the men around and flattened him with a right hand to the jaw. The other turned and swung wildly at Artur, who countered with a solid left. As waiters dragged the two assailants to the street, the elderly man spoke to Artur.
“Young man, my name is Sam Houston, and if you return with me to Texas, you will never regret it.”
“I am dining with friends, sir,” Artur replied. “May I finish my supper before we leave?”
And thus did Artur come to serve Sam Houston as factotum, bodyguard and friend at Houston’s home in Huntsville. Two years later, when Houston was elected Governor, the pair moved to Austin, where Artur quickly became “a good man to know” if you wanted the governor’s ear. Houston was forced to resign in 1861 over his staunch opposition to secession, and the men returned to Huntsville, where Artur attended the old man until his death in 1863.
Still a young man, Artur (now known as Tex) was well-situated financially and known throughout the state. Some of Sam Houston’s cronies wanted to launch him into Texas politics. Others came forward with various business opportunities.
But such a life of sedentary privilege was not for Tex. Instead, he took a low-paying, dangerous job with a group of men he respected above all others. Tex Maciejewski became a Texas Ranger. For the next 25 years, Tex would see every inch of the land he had come to love, bringing law to the lawless, and keeping the peace for the innocent.
In 1888, after three dusty weeks on the road, Tex returned to his headquarters to find a letter waiting for him, addressed simply to “Artur Maciejewski, Texas.” Sofia had found him again. Now in her late 70’s, she had immigrated to America with two of her sons and was living in Philadelphia.
Three weeks later, Tex knocked at the door of a nondescript tenement in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia, and was reunited with his mother, with whom he would live for the rest of her life.
Tex himself became a popular figure in the taprooms and clubhouses of Port Richmond, and his stories of cowboys and Indians, outlaws and range wars, all rendered in fluent Polish with a Texas drawl, captivated both young and old for years.
Toward the end of his days, he was once asked if he had any regrets in his long and colorful life. “Well,” he said, “I never married, never had a son. Ha! Maybe somebody will name a kid after me.”
Tex died quietly in 1907. His services were attended by five Texas Rangers who stood at attention throughout the memorial, then returned to Texas with his ashes, which were scattered along the Rio Grande. Among the Polish families in Port Richmond, and now among their descendants, the name “Tex” endures as a popular name for a first-born son.
THE TRAVELER
I am occasionally asked why we named our son Tex.
In the hallway of my sister’s house hangs a formal portrait (circa 1900) of my mother’s great-great granduncle, Artur Maciejewski. This is his story.
Artur Maciejewski was born on a farm outside of Gdansk, Poland in 1830, the first of eight children conceived by Sofia and Federik Maciejewski.
From his earliest years, Artur’s personality was characterized by a wanderlust verging on madness. At the age of fourteen months, shortly after he had learned to walk, Artur was discovered in a rainstorm, alone and half-drowned, in a drainage ditch some eighteen kilometers from his home. The farmer who found him, a dour yet loving man named Andrzej Movacek, with fourteen children of his own, rescued Artur and nurtured him back to life, searched vainly for the boy’s parents, and ultimately decided to raise him as his own.
Seven years later, Artur’s mother was selling pierogies at a fair in the region when a boy approached her table. Sofia, a mother’s love suffusing every fiber of her being, recognized him instantly, and followed him as he retreated, pierogies in hand, from her table.
At last, when Artur encountered a man who spoke to him in a way suggesting a parental relationship, Sofia pounced. Introducing herself, she told her tale and demanded the particulars of the lad’s provenance. Andrzej, in a trembling voice, his heart breaking, related the events of the stormy night seven years prior.
A discussion ensued and both families gathered, as did a number of townspeople. As darkness fell, Father Jok Doriecki, the village priest, wandered by and was recruited as arbitrator. Prayers were said. Vendors gathered, hawking “Death By Potato,” the local vodka.
Sofia spoke, as did Andrzej and each of his children. At last, Fr. Doriecki, swaying a bit and fueled by the spirit, pronounced his verdict in a single sentence still celebrated by every student of Polish jurisprudence.
“A mother is a mother,” he declared.
And there was silence. Many fell to their knees, dumbstruck at the simple wisdom of this parish priest, their eyes raised heavenward where, as if by providence, a shooting star flashed, fell, and disappeared into the darkness. Thus was the case decided. Artur returned home that night with Sofia and Federik.
The next morning, as dawn broke, Sofia arose and went to gaze upon her sleeping son. He was gone, of course, already halfway to the seaport where he would sign on as a cabin boy aboard a tramp freighter that would ultimately deposit the young man, ten years old, at the foot of Manhattan Island. The year was 1840, and Artur Maciejewski was now an American.
Artur spoke Polish and the patois of a hundred nations, yet not a word of English. But in a new country full of immigrants, for a boy already accustomed to earning his supper through the sweat of his brow, New York was a dream come true. For him, there was always work, always food, and always adventure. He hauled fish, shined shoes, and sold coffins. For several years, he worked as cook and laundryman for a bawdyhouse on Wall Street. It was there he learned to read and write English, with the King James Bible as his textbook.
But not even the Big Apple could keep Artur in its thrall for long. At sixteen, with twelve dollars in his pocket and new shoes on his feet, he set out for a place he had heard about only in the stories of drunken men at the cathouse bar. It was a land with a big sky and vast deserts and grasslands a thousand miles across, a wild place where riches were waiting for any man with a strong back, a brain in his head and a gun on his hip. He didn’t know exactly where it was, but he knew it was called Texas, and he knew he could not rest until he had seen it. It would take him eleven years to get there.
He worked the farms and orchards of southern Ohio, and tarried a bit. There was a girl named Polly, a girl with wide hips and apple cheeks and a ready smile, the only child of a prosperous widower with a big spread. He liked the farmer and he liked Polly, but she was not Texas, and when Spring arrived, he was gone again, through the hills and hollows of Kentucky to the Mississippi River, and St. Louis, Missouri.
There was always work at the docks for a man who wanted it, and that is where he went. His experience at sea got him a job on a paddle-wheeler as a laborer, then as a seaman, then as a faro dealer, then as manager of the bar and card-room. At age 22, Artur was wearing tailored suits and had acquired a taste for expensive cigars. He was a gentleman of sorts, a man of some means, and he was known in every port along the river.
On June 10, 1857, Artur was cutting into a steak at his favorite restaurant in New Orleans when his attention was drawn to an altercation at a table across the restaurant. An elderly gentleman was being accosted by two rough-looking men standing over him and shouting. The source of their pique was unclear, but as the their language grew foul and threatening, Artur rose and strode purposefully across the room. Grasping a shoulder, he spun one of the men around and flattened him with a right hand to the jaw. The other turned and swung wildly at Artur, who countered with a solid left. As waiters dragged the two assailants to the street, the elderly man spoke to Artur.
“Young man, my name is Sam Houston, and if you return with me to Texas, you will never regret it.”
“I am dining with friends, sir,” Artur replied. “May I finish my supper before we leave?”
And thus did Artur come to serve Sam Houston as factotum, bodyguard and friend at Houston’s home in Huntsville. Two years later, when Houston was elected Governor, the pair moved to Austin, where Artur quickly became “a good man to know” if you wanted the governor’s ear. Houston was forced to resign in 1861 over his staunch opposition to secession, and the men returned to Huntsville, where Artur attended the old man until his death in 1863.
Still a young man, Artur (now known as Tex) was well-situated financially and known throughout the state. Some of Sam Houston’s cronies wanted to launch him into Texas politics. Others came forward with various business opportunities.
But such a life of sedentary privilege was not for Tex. Instead, he took a low-paying, dangerous job with a group of men he respected above all others. Tex Maciejewski became a Texas Ranger. For the next 25 years, Tex would see every inch of the land he had come to love, bringing law to the lawless, and keeping the peace for the innocent.
In 1888, after three dusty weeks on the road, Tex returned to his headquarters to find a letter waiting for him, addressed simply to “Artur Maciejewski, Texas.” Sofia had found him again. Now in her late 70’s, she had immigrated to America with two of her sons and was living in Philadelphia.
Three weeks later, Tex knocked at the door of a nondescript tenement in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia, and was reunited with his mother, with whom he would live for the rest of her life.
Tex himself became a popular figure in the taprooms and clubhouses of Port Richmond, and his stories of cowboys and Indians, outlaws and range wars, all rendered in fluent Polish with a Texas drawl, captivated both young and old for years.
Toward the end of his days, he was once asked if he had any regrets in his long and colorful life. “Well,” he said, “I never married, never had a son. Ha! Maybe somebody will name a kid after me.”
Tex died quietly in 1907. His services were attended by five Texas Rangers who stood at attention throughout the memorial, then returned to Texas with his ashes, which were scattered along the Rio Grande. Among the Polish families in Port Richmond, and now among their descendants, the name “Tex” endures as a popular name for a first-born son.
Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki
Wednesday, December 3, 2003
WINGED MIGRATION---A Review
I don’t think I’m giving too much away by telling you “Winged Migration,” a G-rated documentary now playing at art houses throughout the land, is about birds. And when I say it’s ”about birds,” I don’t mean this in the way one might say, for example, that “Dr. Zhivago” is “about Russia,” or that “Kingpin” is “about bowling.” No. Rather, I mean it in the way you might describe “Deep Throat” as being “about fellatio” because there is literally NOTHING ELSE IN THE ENTIRE FREAKING MOVIE!
The point I'm trying to make, or belabor, here is that there's nothing but birds in the movie. They fly (a lot), they swim, they hop on rocks, they stick worms in their baby's mouths, and then they fly some more and hop on some more rocks, and then they do some of their preening dances and crap like that. And then they fly some more. And finally, for a sort of encore, they fly. There's no characters, there's no story, there's no talking birds or singing birds or birds that comment wryly on human foibles, there's no bird that belongs to some cute kid and the bird flies off to the sheriff and scratches out a message on his desk and then the sheriff goes and rescues the kid from a well. There's nothing like that.
It's critically acclaimed. "Breathtaking!" say the critics, and "Exhilarating!" and "Astounding!" And really, you can't argue with them. I mean, the pictures are amazing. The movie follows birds migrating, and it follows these birds like the movie is flying right next to them, over oceans and under bridges. And I mean THE SAME BIRDS!!! It follows THE SAME BIRDS flying from, like, Tierra del Fuego to North Dakota, and not only does it follow them in the air, but the camera is WAITING for them when they land in some swamp or something to take a break and have a snack. And you see them do all that, and then they take off again and the camera goes with them again.
OK. Maybe sometimes it's actually different birds that just look like the same birds, and it's just edited to make you think it's the same birds, but at times it is literally the same birds because some of them are distinctive in one way or another and you can tell. It's astounding (and breathtaking! and exhilarating!) You spend most of the movie thinking, "How the hell could they possibly get that shot?" Did they have cameras attached to other little birdies? Did the flocks call ahead to some pond for reservations or something so the crew would know they were coming? This reaction will be universal---you can't see "Winged Migration" and NOT wonder how the hell they did it.
And yet...well, here's the deal. I'll lay it out for you up front. The movie is profoundly, even transcendentally, lame.
Here's the question I was asking myself when I came out of the theater: if I had that amazing footage, would it be possible for me to make a worse movie than those idiots did? And I honestly don't think I could. In fact, I'll go this far---if my cat Glob (our dimmest) could be given an opposable thumb and infused with the technical knowledge needed to edit film, lay down a music track and compose narration, and you gave him that footage, he would make a better movie than "Winged Migration."
At this point in my review, it is necessary (for reasons that will become apparent), to pause and inform you that I do not hate French people. Some people hate the French these days, but I do not. It is true they can be parochial and smug and arrogant, and they have many silly political ideas, but in my house, I still make french fries and call them french fries and I would drink a glass of French champagne if somebody gave me one and I still shave a truffle onto a plate of noodles when I'm feeling unusually sporty. I've been to France and I enjoyed myself, and I had no problems with the French people I have encountered. I mean, honestly, they don't spend ALL their spare time organizing national strikes and blowing up MacDonalds and trashing synagogues. When I was there, for the most part, it seemed the French were doing exactly what I was doing, which was sitting in cafes and drinking and smoking, or laying on a beach wondering if the chick three blankets away was about to take her top off. That's pretty much all they ever did, that I saw. That, and ride buses. They ride buses a lot.
I had to go into this, obviously, because "Winged Migration" is a French movie. It's a really, really, really French movie. Everybody who worked on it, every name in the credits, is French. All the ornithologists were French, all the cameramen were French, all the grips, all the sound people, all the assistants to everybody, all the caterers, all the porters, all the electricians---French, French, French, French, French. Even in the long list of Thank Yous, everyone who was thanked by name had a French name; non-French were thanked by title only. So they thanked "Jacques Bourbon, Third Undersecretary to the Second Assistant to the French Ambassador to Senegal" and then on the next line, they would thank "The Mayor of Boston." And the credits went on for weeks, of course, so after a while you sort of got the impression that EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD was named Guy or Monique or Pierre or Yvette or something, and if your name happened to be, for example, Michael, well then, there was almost certainly something seriously wrong with you.
But it went beyond that. (And here's the hard part, the part that's difficult to explain.) It's not that the movie was bad because it was French, it's that all the silly elements that went into making it a ridiculous movie were peculiarly French silly elements. It's as if they sat down and made a list entitled "All The Things We Could Put In The Movie To Make Others Think French People Are Dolts," and then they checked off the items one by one in the editing room. It occurred to me at one point that if the footage had been given to Monty Python, they might have made it this way as a sort of extended joke about the French.
Let's start with the music. Now remember, this is a nature movie, and nature is a struggle. The birds are flying thousands of miles to survive, and some of them get wounded and eaten by crabs, and some of them get stuck in storms, and some can't find food. I mean, migration is no picnic. So what kind of music do they stick in the middle of this majestic and beautiful life-and-death struggle? Well, one tune I remember was a kind of Moulin Rouge, smoky, barroom chanteuse-type song, sung with appropriate French languor by some chick who's obviously no better than even money to make it to the end of the song before she commits suicide. The other one that stuck in my head was a tinkly little cabaret number, sung by a languid guy this time, that played over a scene where this huge freaking walrus was about to chow down on half a dozen cute little penguins. The lyrics were in French, of course, and I couldn't understand them, so I found myself wondering what the hell this whining, sneering little twit could possibly be moaning about that might shed some light on the scene before me. Love? Betrayal? Walruses? Running out of cigarettes?
"Les Oiseaus"
I sit in my cafe without you.
Monique, you little birdie,
I am a big fat walrus.
I drink my vin rouge and think of you.
I need more Gauloises.
Your love is ice,
Like the ice I waddle across
To eat you and your penguin love
And drink more wine.
Anybody got a smoke?
---Music & Lyrics by Jean-Paul Tete-de-Merde
(translated by M. Kubacki)
No one on earth other than an extremely silly French person would score that movie with this music. I wouldn't do it, you wouldn't do it, even Glob wouldn't do it. I found myself waiting for the next bit of absurd music and stifling chuckles out of fear the blue-haired Audubon Society members in the audience (i.e., everyone) would beat me to death with their binoculars if I were to laugh out loud.
And then there was the narration, and the graphics. Now you might think that if you sat through a 98-minute movie about birds, migrating birds, a movie that contained nothing but birds, you would come out of there knowing a little something about birds, at least more than you knew when you walked in. You would be wrong about that. The only actual information they saw fit to impart to the audience were things you already knew or things you could not possibly care about.
The complete narration, for example, consisted of a French guy with a Pepe LePew accent butchering five or six English sentences, in one-sentence increments, every 18 minutes or so. Here’s an example. I'm watching a flock of geese and they're flying through a snowstorm, but they're flying, man, they're migrating, and nothing's gonna stop them, and they got snow on their heads and they're not real happy about it, and you can't help but root for the poor bastards---yeah, come on, geese, you can do it---and the guy says, "Sterms can be a beeg problem forrrr me-grrrating berrrrds." And that's it. That's all he says, until like twenty minutes later when you're watching some other birds that have just flown 300 miles over water and they finally find a patch of land where they can rest and eat some cockroaches, and Pepe returns to tell us, "Me-grrrating berrrds need food forrr theirrr journey," and then he has to go eat another plate of snails and drink a half-bottle of Bordeaux before he thinks of something else to say. Maybe it's some kind of French union thing where he gets paid overtime if he says two sentences at once and there are mandatory vacations built right into the movie.
And the guy really couldn't speak English. I mean, the titles and credits and graphics were in English, and they clearly went to some trouble to make their movie distributable in English-speaking places, and then they use Pepe for the five sentences of actual narration so you can only make out about twenty of the thirty words he says. How tough would it have been to grab some American tourist off the streets of Paris for five minutes? ("Hey, mon ami, you wanna be in the movies? Read this.")
The rest of the information was in the graphics, the silliest, dopey French element of all.
Each time they showed a new bunch of birds flying (and there were ten or twelve different species they followed), they would flash a sentence on the screen telling you how far this particular bird migrates. "The grey goose migrates 650 miles from Ethiopia to Barcelona" or "The banded grebe migrates 1250 miles from Guatemala to Wyoming." Then, with the next bunch: "The common greckle migrates 825 miles from Thailand to Western China." I'm making these up because I intentionally did not memorize the actual places and distances, suspecting (paranoia was now setting in) that when the movie ended there would be a bunch of French ornithologists in the lobby handing out papers and No. 2 pencils and giving us all a fun little quiz, or as they would call it, a "queeze," and I was goddamned if I was going to give them the satisfaction of having educated me.
There are two sorts of people in the world who consider this sort of information "knowledge." The first is six-year-old boys. If you give a six-year-old boy a book about bird migration, and he really gets interested in it, you are condemned to two weeks of bird migration conversations with that boy, all of which will follow the same general lines:
BOY: Do you know how many miles the common greckle migrates?
YOU: No. 1000 miles?
BOY: No. It's 825 miles. Do you know where the grey goose flies from and where it flies to? YOU: Not really, no.
BOY: It flies from Ethiopia and it flies 650 miles. Guess where it goes to.
YOU: Uh…Lambeau Field?
BOY: Nope. Wrong again. Barcelona. You don't know much about migrating birds, do you?
The only other people who view this sort of thing as "educational" are the French, with their tedious Encyclopedies on every possible arcane topic, and their wine appellations and chateaux rankings and Guide Michelins and nationally-televised grammar tests. For long car trips, I often take along the Larousse Gastronomique and read from it to the wife and child. "Oh, here's a good one," I'll say, "the 83 uses for lard! Or would you rather I read you the 26 distinct ways to prepare kidneys?" They think about this, debate it a bit. "No, Daddy," they decide eventually, "tell us all the ways to fatten a goose, just one more time. Please."
Viva la France!
Copyright 2003 Michael Kubacki
The point I'm trying to make, or belabor, here is that there's nothing but birds in the movie. They fly (a lot), they swim, they hop on rocks, they stick worms in their baby's mouths, and then they fly some more and hop on some more rocks, and then they do some of their preening dances and crap like that. And then they fly some more. And finally, for a sort of encore, they fly. There's no characters, there's no story, there's no talking birds or singing birds or birds that comment wryly on human foibles, there's no bird that belongs to some cute kid and the bird flies off to the sheriff and scratches out a message on his desk and then the sheriff goes and rescues the kid from a well. There's nothing like that.
It's critically acclaimed. "Breathtaking!" say the critics, and "Exhilarating!" and "Astounding!" And really, you can't argue with them. I mean, the pictures are amazing. The movie follows birds migrating, and it follows these birds like the movie is flying right next to them, over oceans and under bridges. And I mean THE SAME BIRDS!!! It follows THE SAME BIRDS flying from, like, Tierra del Fuego to North Dakota, and not only does it follow them in the air, but the camera is WAITING for them when they land in some swamp or something to take a break and have a snack. And you see them do all that, and then they take off again and the camera goes with them again.
OK. Maybe sometimes it's actually different birds that just look like the same birds, and it's just edited to make you think it's the same birds, but at times it is literally the same birds because some of them are distinctive in one way or another and you can tell. It's astounding (and breathtaking! and exhilarating!) You spend most of the movie thinking, "How the hell could they possibly get that shot?" Did they have cameras attached to other little birdies? Did the flocks call ahead to some pond for reservations or something so the crew would know they were coming? This reaction will be universal---you can't see "Winged Migration" and NOT wonder how the hell they did it.
And yet...well, here's the deal. I'll lay it out for you up front. The movie is profoundly, even transcendentally, lame.
Here's the question I was asking myself when I came out of the theater: if I had that amazing footage, would it be possible for me to make a worse movie than those idiots did? And I honestly don't think I could. In fact, I'll go this far---if my cat Glob (our dimmest) could be given an opposable thumb and infused with the technical knowledge needed to edit film, lay down a music track and compose narration, and you gave him that footage, he would make a better movie than "Winged Migration."
At this point in my review, it is necessary (for reasons that will become apparent), to pause and inform you that I do not hate French people. Some people hate the French these days, but I do not. It is true they can be parochial and smug and arrogant, and they have many silly political ideas, but in my house, I still make french fries and call them french fries and I would drink a glass of French champagne if somebody gave me one and I still shave a truffle onto a plate of noodles when I'm feeling unusually sporty. I've been to France and I enjoyed myself, and I had no problems with the French people I have encountered. I mean, honestly, they don't spend ALL their spare time organizing national strikes and blowing up MacDonalds and trashing synagogues. When I was there, for the most part, it seemed the French were doing exactly what I was doing, which was sitting in cafes and drinking and smoking, or laying on a beach wondering if the chick three blankets away was about to take her top off. That's pretty much all they ever did, that I saw. That, and ride buses. They ride buses a lot.
I had to go into this, obviously, because "Winged Migration" is a French movie. It's a really, really, really French movie. Everybody who worked on it, every name in the credits, is French. All the ornithologists were French, all the cameramen were French, all the grips, all the sound people, all the assistants to everybody, all the caterers, all the porters, all the electricians---French, French, French, French, French. Even in the long list of Thank Yous, everyone who was thanked by name had a French name; non-French were thanked by title only. So they thanked "Jacques Bourbon, Third Undersecretary to the Second Assistant to the French Ambassador to Senegal" and then on the next line, they would thank "The Mayor of Boston." And the credits went on for weeks, of course, so after a while you sort of got the impression that EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD was named Guy or Monique or Pierre or Yvette or something, and if your name happened to be, for example, Michael, well then, there was almost certainly something seriously wrong with you.
But it went beyond that. (And here's the hard part, the part that's difficult to explain.) It's not that the movie was bad because it was French, it's that all the silly elements that went into making it a ridiculous movie were peculiarly French silly elements. It's as if they sat down and made a list entitled "All The Things We Could Put In The Movie To Make Others Think French People Are Dolts," and then they checked off the items one by one in the editing room. It occurred to me at one point that if the footage had been given to Monty Python, they might have made it this way as a sort of extended joke about the French.
Let's start with the music. Now remember, this is a nature movie, and nature is a struggle. The birds are flying thousands of miles to survive, and some of them get wounded and eaten by crabs, and some of them get stuck in storms, and some can't find food. I mean, migration is no picnic. So what kind of music do they stick in the middle of this majestic and beautiful life-and-death struggle? Well, one tune I remember was a kind of Moulin Rouge, smoky, barroom chanteuse-type song, sung with appropriate French languor by some chick who's obviously no better than even money to make it to the end of the song before she commits suicide. The other one that stuck in my head was a tinkly little cabaret number, sung by a languid guy this time, that played over a scene where this huge freaking walrus was about to chow down on half a dozen cute little penguins. The lyrics were in French, of course, and I couldn't understand them, so I found myself wondering what the hell this whining, sneering little twit could possibly be moaning about that might shed some light on the scene before me. Love? Betrayal? Walruses? Running out of cigarettes?
"Les Oiseaus"
I sit in my cafe without you.
Monique, you little birdie,
I am a big fat walrus.
I drink my vin rouge and think of you.
I need more Gauloises.
Your love is ice,
Like the ice I waddle across
To eat you and your penguin love
And drink more wine.
Anybody got a smoke?
---Music & Lyrics by Jean-Paul Tete-de-Merde
(translated by M. Kubacki)
No one on earth other than an extremely silly French person would score that movie with this music. I wouldn't do it, you wouldn't do it, even Glob wouldn't do it. I found myself waiting for the next bit of absurd music and stifling chuckles out of fear the blue-haired Audubon Society members in the audience (i.e., everyone) would beat me to death with their binoculars if I were to laugh out loud.
And then there was the narration, and the graphics. Now you might think that if you sat through a 98-minute movie about birds, migrating birds, a movie that contained nothing but birds, you would come out of there knowing a little something about birds, at least more than you knew when you walked in. You would be wrong about that. The only actual information they saw fit to impart to the audience were things you already knew or things you could not possibly care about.
The complete narration, for example, consisted of a French guy with a Pepe LePew accent butchering five or six English sentences, in one-sentence increments, every 18 minutes or so. Here’s an example. I'm watching a flock of geese and they're flying through a snowstorm, but they're flying, man, they're migrating, and nothing's gonna stop them, and they got snow on their heads and they're not real happy about it, and you can't help but root for the poor bastards---yeah, come on, geese, you can do it---and the guy says, "Sterms can be a beeg problem forrrr me-grrrating berrrrds." And that's it. That's all he says, until like twenty minutes later when you're watching some other birds that have just flown 300 miles over water and they finally find a patch of land where they can rest and eat some cockroaches, and Pepe returns to tell us, "Me-grrrating berrrds need food forrr theirrr journey," and then he has to go eat another plate of snails and drink a half-bottle of Bordeaux before he thinks of something else to say. Maybe it's some kind of French union thing where he gets paid overtime if he says two sentences at once and there are mandatory vacations built right into the movie.
And the guy really couldn't speak English. I mean, the titles and credits and graphics were in English, and they clearly went to some trouble to make their movie distributable in English-speaking places, and then they use Pepe for the five sentences of actual narration so you can only make out about twenty of the thirty words he says. How tough would it have been to grab some American tourist off the streets of Paris for five minutes? ("Hey, mon ami, you wanna be in the movies? Read this.")
The rest of the information was in the graphics, the silliest, dopey French element of all.
Each time they showed a new bunch of birds flying (and there were ten or twelve different species they followed), they would flash a sentence on the screen telling you how far this particular bird migrates. "The grey goose migrates 650 miles from Ethiopia to Barcelona" or "The banded grebe migrates 1250 miles from Guatemala to Wyoming." Then, with the next bunch: "The common greckle migrates 825 miles from Thailand to Western China." I'm making these up because I intentionally did not memorize the actual places and distances, suspecting (paranoia was now setting in) that when the movie ended there would be a bunch of French ornithologists in the lobby handing out papers and No. 2 pencils and giving us all a fun little quiz, or as they would call it, a "queeze," and I was goddamned if I was going to give them the satisfaction of having educated me.
There are two sorts of people in the world who consider this sort of information "knowledge." The first is six-year-old boys. If you give a six-year-old boy a book about bird migration, and he really gets interested in it, you are condemned to two weeks of bird migration conversations with that boy, all of which will follow the same general lines:
BOY: Do you know how many miles the common greckle migrates?
YOU: No. 1000 miles?
BOY: No. It's 825 miles. Do you know where the grey goose flies from and where it flies to? YOU: Not really, no.
BOY: It flies from Ethiopia and it flies 650 miles. Guess where it goes to.
YOU: Uh…Lambeau Field?
BOY: Nope. Wrong again. Barcelona. You don't know much about migrating birds, do you?
The only other people who view this sort of thing as "educational" are the French, with their tedious Encyclopedies on every possible arcane topic, and their wine appellations and chateaux rankings and Guide Michelins and nationally-televised grammar tests. For long car trips, I often take along the Larousse Gastronomique and read from it to the wife and child. "Oh, here's a good one," I'll say, "the 83 uses for lard! Or would you rather I read you the 26 distinct ways to prepare kidneys?" They think about this, debate it a bit. "No, Daddy," they decide eventually, "tell us all the ways to fatten a goose, just one more time. Please."
Viva la France!
Copyright 2003 Michael Kubacki
Thursday, November 6, 2003
SPOILED-ROTTEN IRISH-CATHOLIC PROSECUTORS
A friend of mine ascribes many of the evils in the world to a group he calls “spoiled-rotten Irish-Catholic prosecutors.” Over time, I have come to see the wisdom in his rage. At the moment, there seem to be an unusual number of defendants who excite my passionate support.
There’s Martha Stewart, of course, who is accused of fraud for publicly denying she was guilty of a crime the feds decided not to charge her with. Get it? She denied she had traded on inside information, and the feds later agreed, but her statement she didn’t do it is “fraud.” There’s Witch Hunt No. 1.
Then there’s Michael Jackson. Now, I frankly don’t know what the deal is with him, but when the prosecutors hold a press conference for the purpose of comparing him to Charles Manson, and then they actually charge him with “improper touching” (which, in the NFL, is only a 10-yard penalty), and then it turns out the kid’s mother has a lengthy rap sheet…. Well, let’s just say that what sounded like war crimes at first now sounds like 98% pure horseshit. Numero 2.
Next is Kobe. And let me ask the guys out there a question. I assume that maybe once or twice or fifty times in your life, a woman told you, “No.” It happens to the best of us. Well, here’s the question: did it ever mean “No”? Ever? Didn’t it mean, “not here,” or “I have to ask my girlfriend about you,” or “I need three more dacquiris first”? I mean, suddenly it’s “rape” because at some point in the eternal tug-of-war of the mating dance, a woman says “No”? Is this still America we live in? And that’s Number 3, for those of you scoring at home.
Which brings us to Rush Limbaugh. And didn’t it sound really bad at first? The “money-laundering,” for example. What ever happened to the money-laundering? And the “drug ring”? And the drug dealing? What happened to that stuff? The initial stories, which all came from leaks in the prosecutor’s office, made it sound like he was some kind of Columbian drug lord, didn’t they? And now, if they ever charge him with anything, it will be for something called “doctor shopping,” a crime I never heard of, by the way.
So here’s the story with Limbaugh. He suffered years of constant pain from back problems and failed back operations, and he wound up addicted to pain-killers. He tried to kick it himself, couldn’t do it, was publicly exposed, and then went to rehab and got clean. And now, apparently because he’s opposed to abortion on demand, or because he doesn’t believe Dick Cheney is the anti-Christ, any sense of compassion is simply out of the question. And then there’s the whole Donovan McNabb thing! We’ve gotta fry him. Somehow. For something. Has anyone in the history of this grand republic ever been prosecuted for doing what Rush Limbaugh did? I seriously doubt it.
Martha, Michael, Kobe, Rush---all four are in the crosshairs at the moment, largely because there are powerful people who hate them for reasons that have little to do with anything in our criminal statutes. Martha’s too rich, you know, and she has a lot of rich friends, too. Let’s string her up and make an example of her. You know---for the little guy. Michael? Well, he’s just too weird, right? And we know he’s doing something wrong because---well, just look at him! Kobe, of course, is the latest target for the “all-women-are-victims” philosophy that feminism has become. And Rush? People who disagree with his politics are trying to use the law against him simply because of their hatred.
Those targeted by witch-hunts and witch-hunters deserve our sympathy and support because the witch-hunters are a danger to all of us. The rule of law, the presumption of innocence---these are not just legal technicalities. They are part of the contract that we all make with each other on how we are going to live together. There may come a time when your health or happiness or even your life will depend upon that contract, and if you only stand up to the spoiled-rotten Irish-Catholic prosecutors when they are going after someone you like, who’s going to stand up when they come after you?
Copyright 2003 Michael Kubacki
There’s Martha Stewart, of course, who is accused of fraud for publicly denying she was guilty of a crime the feds decided not to charge her with. Get it? She denied she had traded on inside information, and the feds later agreed, but her statement she didn’t do it is “fraud.” There’s Witch Hunt No. 1.
Then there’s Michael Jackson. Now, I frankly don’t know what the deal is with him, but when the prosecutors hold a press conference for the purpose of comparing him to Charles Manson, and then they actually charge him with “improper touching” (which, in the NFL, is only a 10-yard penalty), and then it turns out the kid’s mother has a lengthy rap sheet…. Well, let’s just say that what sounded like war crimes at first now sounds like 98% pure horseshit. Numero 2.
Next is Kobe. And let me ask the guys out there a question. I assume that maybe once or twice or fifty times in your life, a woman told you, “No.” It happens to the best of us. Well, here’s the question: did it ever mean “No”? Ever? Didn’t it mean, “not here,” or “I have to ask my girlfriend about you,” or “I need three more dacquiris first”? I mean, suddenly it’s “rape” because at some point in the eternal tug-of-war of the mating dance, a woman says “No”? Is this still America we live in? And that’s Number 3, for those of you scoring at home.
Which brings us to Rush Limbaugh. And didn’t it sound really bad at first? The “money-laundering,” for example. What ever happened to the money-laundering? And the “drug ring”? And the drug dealing? What happened to that stuff? The initial stories, which all came from leaks in the prosecutor’s office, made it sound like he was some kind of Columbian drug lord, didn’t they? And now, if they ever charge him with anything, it will be for something called “doctor shopping,” a crime I never heard of, by the way.
So here’s the story with Limbaugh. He suffered years of constant pain from back problems and failed back operations, and he wound up addicted to pain-killers. He tried to kick it himself, couldn’t do it, was publicly exposed, and then went to rehab and got clean. And now, apparently because he’s opposed to abortion on demand, or because he doesn’t believe Dick Cheney is the anti-Christ, any sense of compassion is simply out of the question. And then there’s the whole Donovan McNabb thing! We’ve gotta fry him. Somehow. For something. Has anyone in the history of this grand republic ever been prosecuted for doing what Rush Limbaugh did? I seriously doubt it.
Martha, Michael, Kobe, Rush---all four are in the crosshairs at the moment, largely because there are powerful people who hate them for reasons that have little to do with anything in our criminal statutes. Martha’s too rich, you know, and she has a lot of rich friends, too. Let’s string her up and make an example of her. You know---for the little guy. Michael? Well, he’s just too weird, right? And we know he’s doing something wrong because---well, just look at him! Kobe, of course, is the latest target for the “all-women-are-victims” philosophy that feminism has become. And Rush? People who disagree with his politics are trying to use the law against him simply because of their hatred.
Those targeted by witch-hunts and witch-hunters deserve our sympathy and support because the witch-hunters are a danger to all of us. The rule of law, the presumption of innocence---these are not just legal technicalities. They are part of the contract that we all make with each other on how we are going to live together. There may come a time when your health or happiness or even your life will depend upon that contract, and if you only stand up to the spoiled-rotten Irish-Catholic prosecutors when they are going after someone you like, who’s going to stand up when they come after you?
Copyright 2003 Michael Kubacki
Monday, October 6, 2003
DIVERSITY DRINKING FOUNTAINS
I know many of you thought “diversity” was a sort of in-crowd, pop-culture buzzword like “girl power” or “the hip-hop nation,” but now that Justice O’Connor has found it in the Constitution (see Grutter v. Bollinger), I think it’s our job as Americans to embrace the idea, not only in our finer universities, but in public accommodations in general.
As we have learned from the halls of academe, setting different standards for different people is only a small part of what “diversity” means. Even more important, for maintaining self-esteem, is the celebration of group identity through, for example, black-only (or woman-only) faculty meetings, separate student orientation programs for Hispanic students, gay graduation ceremonies, and segregated dormitories. All these things can be found at our elite, and even not-so-elite, institutions of higher learning. It is our duty to import these lessons into our daily lives.
As a first step, I propose federal legislation, affecting all states and municipalities, requiring the replacement of public drinking fountains with “Diversity Fountains” intended to celebrate the unique richness of America’s ethnic, racial and sexual-orientation minorities. Where there is one fountain, there would now be five, each clearly labeled: “White,” “Black,” “Hispanic,” “Women,” and “Gay.”
Copyright 2003 Michael Kubacki
As we have learned from the halls of academe, setting different standards for different people is only a small part of what “diversity” means. Even more important, for maintaining self-esteem, is the celebration of group identity through, for example, black-only (or woman-only) faculty meetings, separate student orientation programs for Hispanic students, gay graduation ceremonies, and segregated dormitories. All these things can be found at our elite, and even not-so-elite, institutions of higher learning. It is our duty to import these lessons into our daily lives.
As a first step, I propose federal legislation, affecting all states and municipalities, requiring the replacement of public drinking fountains with “Diversity Fountains” intended to celebrate the unique richness of America’s ethnic, racial and sexual-orientation minorities. Where there is one fountain, there would now be five, each clearly labeled: “White,” “Black,” “Hispanic,” “Women,” and “Gay.”
Copyright 2003 Michael Kubacki
Wednesday, September 4, 2002
LADDER COMPANY #37 AND THE STRIPPER
Press coverage of the exotic dancer and the lads from Ladder #37 continues, relentlessly, in the Philadelphia area. The saga has eclipsed all other items of local interest, including the state takeover of the public schools, the resignation of Senator Torricelli, and even Donovan McNabb’s $115 million contract.
On Sunday, September 22, the Rolling Stones performed at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Local police and firemen were present outside the theater, during and after the concert. Among this security contingent were the volunteer firemen of Ladder #37, complete with fire truck. They didn’t really have an assignment, and they didn’t see the concert. They were simply on-call, hanging around.
When the show ended, one of the music-lovers to emerge from the venue was Angela (no last name), an exotic dancer employed by a Philadelphia club named Cheerleaders. As luck would have it, Angela had rushed to the show from the club and was still dressed in her work clothes. These consisted of a scoop-necked halter-top, five-inch platform heels, thigh-length black leggings, and what used to be called hot pants. Perhaps they still are.
The colloquy that ensued as Angela walked past the fire truck and the idle contingent of Upper Darby’s finest was not recorded, but since I once took a psychology course in college, I can confidently report that the conversation went substantially as follows:
One of the Boys: "Yo, Babe. How were the Stones?"
Angela: "Awesome. They let me go backstage."
OOTB: "Cool. You a model?"
Angela: "Yeah. Sort of."
OOTB: "Can we take your picture?"
Americans everywhere will be shocked to learn that Angela was amenable to this suggestion, and in a trice, had donned a fire helmet and was posing seductively on and beside the truck. One of the boys (let’s call him Jimmy), snapped merrily away.
As luck would have it, the photo session continued and the conversation turned, as it sometimes does, to the subject of thong underwear. "They were like ‘Do you have a thong on? Can we see your thong?’" Angela reported. "I was like, ‘OK’." This exchange led quite naturally to another series of photographs and ultimately to a crisis involving the zipper on her shorts.
Here, at last, was an opportunity for the bored firemen to draw upon their well of experience in emergency situations. Passing the camera, Jimmy leapt to Angela’s aid and fixed the stubborn zipper while his comrade recorded the rescue in a photograph Angela later described as "misleading."
"He was the perfect gentleman. He didn’t try to touch me in any perverted way at all. He was just trying to help me with my zipper."
As luck would have it, other cameras were present that evening in Upper Darby, and two of them belonged to professional photographers Tom Kelly III and Tom Kelly IV. (There’s still a lot of numbered people in Philadelphia.) Exiting the concert, the Kelly’s, pere et fils, captured the entire tableau on film and rushed their prints to the Philadelphia Daily News, our local tabloid.
And yet…. And yet….
Where was the news? Where was the "hook?" The Daily News is, alas, a newspaper, and while any fool could see that the lovely Angela, with her helmet and her high heels and her firemen, belonged on the front page, some journalistic justification for putting her there had to be found. It didn’t have to be big or important news. It might even be silly news. But if it weren’t news at all---well, then, she might wind up on page 12.
One can only speculate on how the Kelly/Daily News pictures came to the attention of Upper Darby Chief Administrative Officer Thomas J. Judge Jr. and Fire Chief Ed Cubler, but as luck would have it, they did.
"That’s conduct unbecoming [a firefighter]," said Chief Cubler.
"We are extremely disappointed," said Thomas J. Judge Jr.
Bingo!
Across this great land, Philadelphia may be viewed as a parochial little burg of cheese-steaks and drunken football fans, but Philadelphians are, by and large, a thoughtful people. Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison---these men walked our streets, pondered the inalienable rights of man, and founded a country. The Declaration of Independence was written here.
Thus, it should surprise no one that the story of Angela and the firemen would seize the imagination of the populace. In the streets and by-ways, from the Main Line to the Italian Market, Philadelphians examined the seven Kelly photos (especially the cover shot), dissected the comments of the principals, and formed their opinions, which were then expressed everywhere, including editorial pages and radio talk shows. The story had everything---a long-legged dancer, firemen, a thong, and even a philosophical question. To wit: when a stripper wants to borrow a helmet and pose for photographs on your fire truck, what precisely does "conduct unbecoming a fireman" consist of?
Ultimately, there arose two schools of thought on the question, and predictably, both camps invoked the memory of 9-11 to support their positions.
"Their behavior disgraced the memory of the brave firefighters who gave their lives last September," said one radio caller (it might have been "Jim from Haverford"). John McNally, a letter-writer to the Daily News, saw it differently: "The men under investigation are the same ones who will run into burning buildings to rescue Upper Darby residents…. Leave them alone."
The thong/zipper incident in particular was the focus of much commentary, and became a sort of flash point, and a dividing line between the pro-decency and pro-testosterone forces. Letting her put on the helmet---OK. Taking her picture on the fire truck---OK. But asking to see her thong? Many pundits felt this crossed the line, though the prevailing view appeared to be that of a caller ("Joe from Kensington"?) I heard on the radio one afternoon: "So they’re firemen and she’s a stripper and they ask to see her thong. What are they supposed to ask her about---Iraq?"
The investigation continues, according to Upper Darby officials. The boys of Ladder #37 are not talking to the press. And the young lady? Well, she has been extremely generous with her time for the local media, and while we still don’t know her last name, we know she thinks Upper Darby officials should "lighten up." This would seem to put her in the mainstream of contemporary thought here in the City of Brotherly Love. Finally, her tips at the club are up---way up. Recently, it was reported that firemen from the entire area are flocking to Cheerleaders, and they only have eyes for Angela.
Copyright 2002 Michael Kubacki
On Sunday, September 22, the Rolling Stones performed at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Local police and firemen were present outside the theater, during and after the concert. Among this security contingent were the volunteer firemen of Ladder #37, complete with fire truck. They didn’t really have an assignment, and they didn’t see the concert. They were simply on-call, hanging around.
When the show ended, one of the music-lovers to emerge from the venue was Angela (no last name), an exotic dancer employed by a Philadelphia club named Cheerleaders. As luck would have it, Angela had rushed to the show from the club and was still dressed in her work clothes. These consisted of a scoop-necked halter-top, five-inch platform heels, thigh-length black leggings, and what used to be called hot pants. Perhaps they still are.
The colloquy that ensued as Angela walked past the fire truck and the idle contingent of Upper Darby’s finest was not recorded, but since I once took a psychology course in college, I can confidently report that the conversation went substantially as follows:
One of the Boys: "Yo, Babe. How were the Stones?"
Angela: "Awesome. They let me go backstage."
OOTB: "Cool. You a model?"
Angela: "Yeah. Sort of."
OOTB: "Can we take your picture?"
Americans everywhere will be shocked to learn that Angela was amenable to this suggestion, and in a trice, had donned a fire helmet and was posing seductively on and beside the truck. One of the boys (let’s call him Jimmy), snapped merrily away.
As luck would have it, the photo session continued and the conversation turned, as it sometimes does, to the subject of thong underwear. "They were like ‘Do you have a thong on? Can we see your thong?’" Angela reported. "I was like, ‘OK’." This exchange led quite naturally to another series of photographs and ultimately to a crisis involving the zipper on her shorts.
Here, at last, was an opportunity for the bored firemen to draw upon their well of experience in emergency situations. Passing the camera, Jimmy leapt to Angela’s aid and fixed the stubborn zipper while his comrade recorded the rescue in a photograph Angela later described as "misleading."
"He was the perfect gentleman. He didn’t try to touch me in any perverted way at all. He was just trying to help me with my zipper."
As luck would have it, other cameras were present that evening in Upper Darby, and two of them belonged to professional photographers Tom Kelly III and Tom Kelly IV. (There’s still a lot of numbered people in Philadelphia.) Exiting the concert, the Kelly’s, pere et fils, captured the entire tableau on film and rushed their prints to the Philadelphia Daily News, our local tabloid.
And yet…. And yet….
Where was the news? Where was the "hook?" The Daily News is, alas, a newspaper, and while any fool could see that the lovely Angela, with her helmet and her high heels and her firemen, belonged on the front page, some journalistic justification for putting her there had to be found. It didn’t have to be big or important news. It might even be silly news. But if it weren’t news at all---well, then, she might wind up on page 12.
One can only speculate on how the Kelly/Daily News pictures came to the attention of Upper Darby Chief Administrative Officer Thomas J. Judge Jr. and Fire Chief Ed Cubler, but as luck would have it, they did.
"That’s conduct unbecoming [a firefighter]," said Chief Cubler.
"We are extremely disappointed," said Thomas J. Judge Jr.
Bingo!
Across this great land, Philadelphia may be viewed as a parochial little burg of cheese-steaks and drunken football fans, but Philadelphians are, by and large, a thoughtful people. Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison---these men walked our streets, pondered the inalienable rights of man, and founded a country. The Declaration of Independence was written here.
Thus, it should surprise no one that the story of Angela and the firemen would seize the imagination of the populace. In the streets and by-ways, from the Main Line to the Italian Market, Philadelphians examined the seven Kelly photos (especially the cover shot), dissected the comments of the principals, and formed their opinions, which were then expressed everywhere, including editorial pages and radio talk shows. The story had everything---a long-legged dancer, firemen, a thong, and even a philosophical question. To wit: when a stripper wants to borrow a helmet and pose for photographs on your fire truck, what precisely does "conduct unbecoming a fireman" consist of?
Ultimately, there arose two schools of thought on the question, and predictably, both camps invoked the memory of 9-11 to support their positions.
"Their behavior disgraced the memory of the brave firefighters who gave their lives last September," said one radio caller (it might have been "Jim from Haverford"). John McNally, a letter-writer to the Daily News, saw it differently: "The men under investigation are the same ones who will run into burning buildings to rescue Upper Darby residents…. Leave them alone."
The thong/zipper incident in particular was the focus of much commentary, and became a sort of flash point, and a dividing line between the pro-decency and pro-testosterone forces. Letting her put on the helmet---OK. Taking her picture on the fire truck---OK. But asking to see her thong? Many pundits felt this crossed the line, though the prevailing view appeared to be that of a caller ("Joe from Kensington"?) I heard on the radio one afternoon: "So they’re firemen and she’s a stripper and they ask to see her thong. What are they supposed to ask her about---Iraq?"
The investigation continues, according to Upper Darby officials. The boys of Ladder #37 are not talking to the press. And the young lady? Well, she has been extremely generous with her time for the local media, and while we still don’t know her last name, we know she thinks Upper Darby officials should "lighten up." This would seem to put her in the mainstream of contemporary thought here in the City of Brotherly Love. Finally, her tips at the club are up---way up. Recently, it was reported that firemen from the entire area are flocking to Cheerleaders, and they only have eyes for Angela.
Copyright 2002 Michael Kubacki
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