independence day

this is the summer of my discontent. all around me the flag is flying. red, white and blue adorns my favorite pub. a neighbor put a huge "old glory," in her main window. my city is decked to the hilt for the festive holiday bash complete with concert and fireworks on july 4th evening. and me? i feel like i can't even speak my mind. disparage america, (or god,) and watch how quickly countrymen turn on you.

why? is it from reciting the pledge of allegiance as children? is it just that our world is scary enough without having to question our nation and our leaders, past and present?

america, you lied to me. you said you were great but everyday you play small. you are the sum of your people: 4% evil, 25% good and 71% lazy. you talk about american exceptionalism as if american imperialism was a myth, as if hegemony was a false notion, as if to claim a moral high ground?

how in the world could you ever claim moral high ground dwelling in the gutter as you do. if your government was by the people and for the people what the hell is citizen's united?

when i was a child i was taught that america only engaged in war when it was on the side of righteousness. when i grew up and opened my eyes i learned that our leaders told us lies to gain a semblance of support for the war in vietnam. i learned that america lied and bombed laos and cambodia. i learned that vietnam, like iraq and afghanistan was fought to create wealth in the military industrial complex, (at the expense of taxpayers.)

in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

we must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. we should take nothing for granted. only an
alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

- president dwight d. eisenhowser, farewell address, 1961

i learned that america supported despots such as pinochet or suharto for our own financial well being, (which of course really only means the financial well being of our wealthy, ruling class.) america was friends with and educated: noriega, hussein, bin laden's family members, bautista, and so on, but easily turned on them when their demise was secured.

what happened to you america? what happened to the america of jefferson, washington, lincoln and franklin roosevelt? (hell, what happened to the america of eisenhower?)

who killed fred hampton? it was you; america.

who jailed geronimo pratt? it was you; america.

who feared che guevara? it was you; america.

in my adolescence i considered america the greatest country on earth, and myself of the lucky few for being an american. i slept well at night knowing we had a public safety net. if i should become crippled or otherwise unable to support myself, welfare and disability would help me to survive. when i reached retirement, social security and medicaid would help me to survive. today there is a gathering roar to dismantle these programs within you, america. even as you cut taxes on the wealthiest, even as you protect loopholes for mega-corporations, even as the wealthy and the corporations prepare to move to china and beyond for the next great wave of production, sans occupational safety and health, sans environmental protections, sans a living wage, the growing faction within you plots to disassemble these programs by any means necessary. your mean spiritedness dismays me, america.

your capitalism has run amok, america. your people, lazy and listless,repose beneath the false notions of the past, believing your leaders are not bought and sold, teaching your children to discount so many murdered citizens of other countries or worse, to disregard the unknown and unimagined living in those places, questioning nothing. questioning nothing. america, you are a people who question nothing.

i am sad this independence day at the pomp and circumstance about me. i saw a flag unfurl atop a building this morning down on main street and i recalled the feelings of pride and patriotism i once knew. i remembered how good it felt to learn about fdr's new deal in school, or to read about our involvement in world war II and how we ended hitler's reign of terror. i remember a teacher explaining to me the writers of the constitution knew there were some bad laws in place when it was written and so they made it malleable. and so it changed to abolish slavery and allow women to vote and so on.

how do we celebrate america when america, the idea, is so ill it is nearly dead? how do we celebrate america when 'bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,' has turned to 'get your immigrant-looking ass out of my country?' how do we celebrate america when common sense medical reform is demonized in the face of overwhelming statistics illustrating how truly horrible our for profit system is? how do we celebrate an america that tortures? how do we celebrate america?

how is angelo mozilo not in jail? how do corporations get away with murder in america? why does america care so much about eliot spitzer and anthony weiner but hold no one accountable for credit default swaps or the abolition of the glass steagall act? how did america become the land of manufacturing consent?

i am not feeling it. i am not feeling like celebrating my country because i love my country and the ideals it once represented. i love my friends and family and countrymen too, but i don't want to celebrate with them especially if they think nothing is wrong. decry, decry, the 4th of july...

lebron james

i can't really understand how anyone doesn't get the antipathy directed at lebron james. how could one not see his quote after the heat's unexpected failure as at worst deplorable and at least in poor taste. i wouldn't rank him down there with milosevic or qadaffi. he's just an entertainer. but in his realm he is a villain for a reason. the root cause of his vilification is his poor judgment.

to be fair i recognize that i probably would have had every bit as poor of judgment as lebron had i been given so much at such a young and tender age. (see born rich for a poignant illustration of this phenomenon.) lebron was a celebrity in the 8th grade. consequently he never even felt the need to consider how to woo the public. he did not think he needed to do that. after all, when you have millions of dollars, are in the physical prime of your life and widely accepted as an athletic marvel, and have no idea what you don't know, what else is there? no one tells lebron know. he even has a posse around him as a constant reminder of how truly wonderful and omnipotent he is.

"he is," is a perfect phrase for describing lebron. he is an amazing talent, markedly more naturally gifted than those he is currently failing by comparison to, (i.e. michael jordan, magic johnson, et. al.) he is the embodiment of youth, even relative to his basketball career. he is a major celebrity with all the accoutrement of that fabled status. he is beloved and reviled, which is exactly the opposite of the worst humans are capable of feeling for one another, not feeling at all. to this point in his career lebron james has been the jehovah of the hardwood in as much as he has been expected to exceed everything heretofore known in the basketball world. however, something odd happened along the way.

in the year he should have won a championship, in the inaugural year of the new paradigm for winning, the age of not just two "superstars," per team, but three, an idea he can easily be credited with inventing, (for lack of a better word,) lebron james failed. this should be nothing new in the world of sports. failure is germane to sport. failure is the other 29 teams. failure is the best hitter 62% of the time. failure is the boston bruins or vancouver canucks tomorrow night. failure is michael jordan with the wizards. failure is the chicago cubs. lebron was not supposed to fail. he might have won a championship a couple of years ago with cleveland but this year, with dwayne wade and chris bosh, (and a complement of solid talent betting fractions of their salaries on lebron to take them to the glorified landscape of champions,) he was supposed to win it, all the more once the heat had traversed the rigors of the eastern conference to meet the third seeded dallas mavericks in the nba finals, (with home court advantage no less.)

why did lebron fail? the reasons are myriad. first and foremost, in a word, his game. lebron's game is made for the regular season. when that horse of a man barrels down court towards the basket on a tuesday night in philly or toronto, who wants to get their body in front of him and take the contact in hopes of getting the charge call or at least thwarting the two-point effort in favor of a possible miss or two at the foul line? no one. some will. occasionally. most won't unless they see a clear advantage or they are for some reason desperate. the playoffs and certainly the finals are different.

lebron is so physically gifted to date in his nba career he has not been challenged. he is an above average shooter and he is simply a monster when attacking the basket especially on the break or in transition. relative to his size his ball-handling skills and agility are freakish. so where is lebron deficient? he not only has no idea how to beat those teams in the playoffs who are utterly committed to stopping him, he has no idea he needs to have an idea or that such an idea even exists. he is fucking clueless.

other than kareem abdul jabar's sky hook, there is and has only been one weapon ever for overcoming that level of commitment the mavericks recently displayed. the mid-range, pull-up jumper. that shot in the hands of a master in unstoppable. when you think about jordan in his early career with doug collins scoring 63 on the celtics, the basketball prowess he displayed was more than remarkable. however, it failed. jordan, like lebron and so many others, was in love with his own athleticism. at about that point in his career jordan recognized he needed to get others involved to succeed, and he needed to score easier. he couldn't make a move on two defenders, slash to the basket and creatively score a basket every time down the floor. even kobe figured this out at some point. a gifted basketball player, by the very nature of the game, has a huge advantage on the pull-up jumper and from mid-range it is the easiest pickin's there is in the nba game. in fact dirk nowitzki's range of mid-range shots are just variations on the theme. karl malone was a great player because his mid-range shot was deadly, moreso as his career progressed. the same can be said of charles barkley. in his best year, when jordan's bulls defeated his suns in the finals, his ability to score from mid-range complemented his other, power game oriented skills, to such a point he nearly led his team to a championship against all odds. scoring without expending maximum energy is the hallmark of the greats. reggie miller was great because he succeeded at the long ball like it was a mid range jumper.kevin durant is great because of his shot. all the rest, all the stuff lebron has in spades is substantial and effective, but that uncanny shot, that ability to score using less energy, is the difference maker. lebron simply hasn't had to develop it and hasn't had any idea he has a need to develop it. in fact he likely acted from instinct and the sub conscience in choosing to partner with dwayne wade. wade is his perfect complement in as much as he possesses what lebron lacks to the hilt but does not have the body to endure his own style of play night after night over 82 games per regular season plus playoffs year in and year out.

as complementary as lebron and wade are and were to one another, in the finals their team did not have the game plan to beat dallas. their aggressive rotation became an achilles heel against a patient team willing to keep passing until they beat the rotation and take only open shots, (as much as possible.) had the heat been able to shift styles back and forth between what they did and living with a basic man defense, they could have kept the mavs off balance and likely lowered their shooting percentage. it's hard to blame the heat coaching staff however-who could have imagined them losing?

so back to why lebron's comments were so inane. they were angry. as a privileged millionaire, the point of his comment was to mock the average schmuck who pays his hard earned money to lebron's brand and the nba's brand. essentially he said eff you to all of the "haters," who do not live to his standard of living, (you know, the standard where you live in a castle, have everything you want, [except a championship, the true badge of greatness,] including a posse of employees at your bidding,) who had to wake up the next day and go to the office or the yard or the truck or wherever they earned their meager, sub par living. it is not offensive that lebron lives the lifestyle he lives. it is offensive that he is so offended by the regular guy's sensibilities. lebron feels entitled to his lifestyle. his greatness is, in his estimation and therefore, he sees himself as a gift to humankind and the basketball world. (he doesn't feel lucky or fortunate at all.) he thinks he earned all that he has. in fact he deserves a great deal of credit and a portion of his success can be attributed to luck, (in short.)

lebron reminds me of mary baker eddy who believed she could live forever if she purged negative thoughts from her consciousness and psyche. as her end approached she attributed her demise to the negativity of others being projected on her. in some ways eddy was a loon. in other ways, she was a revelation. she did live a remarkably healthy life after all.

this may sound like some sort of psychobabble but humankind is connected. you can see it in riot mentality just as you can see it in cases of extreme isolation. lebron's decision showed an utter disregard for the human sensibility that is loyalty. it would have been one thing to disdain cleveland in favor of miami. that would have been digestible to the masses even though it represented a change that was essentially an nba paradigm shift. the decision however, rubbed his sense entitlement in the faces of those who valued loyalty, or who believed in working class values, values in which it would be anathema to take the easy way out (of cleveland,) instead of persevering. so the masses turned on lebron, (excepting those in miami largely, who heralded his arrival as the beginning of a season of plenty.)

in the end it was a perfect storm. lebron's inability to score easy, (essentially his inability to take two hard dribbles in a direction, stop on a dime and hurl himself into the air while steadying himself for a mid range jumper, which is essentially in itself the inability to study and/or recognize, which again is a byproduct of having so much come so easily,) manifesting at the biggest moment in a system completely unprepared for the unfathomable failure that came about and was exploited by the little basketball engine that could, (aka rick carlisle's team oriented game, that is the dallas mavericks.)

i have rooted against lebron and the heat all season but lebron's comments did not bother me. i had to get up the next day and go work at a job i don't love. i did not feel bitter or jealous that lebron got to wake up in the opulence he has grown accustomed to. i do not begrudge the man his materials. i do find it disappointing he has not become a better lebron yet and he has not used hardship to improve. (once upon a time i could not stand mike tyson but then i came to favor him. to me tyson seemed to improve himself and he gained an air of humility i found refreshing and honest.) i am open to lebron becoming a better man and a better basketball player. his cause could be helped by having more of the masses on his side, too. he could woo the general public by gaining a measure of humility and becoming somehow genuine, (as opposed to writing checks to boys and girls clubs or some corporate charity.) if i were advising lebron i would start by having him apologize for being obtuse. (first, of course, i would try to get him to genuinely see how his behavior has been wrong-headed.) next i would tell him to focus on basketball and work particularly on his mid-range jumper. by improving that one aspect of his game i see no reason, (assuming dwayne wade's health,) why the heat should not win the championship next season. planning for that outcome i would advise lebron to be ready to accept that championship gracefully, by reacting honestly to it when it comes and by heaping praise on teammates and coaches and accepting laurels by pointing to his hard work and determination. over the top praise should be scoffed at. after all one team wins a championship every year. it really is not that big of a deal.

on selflessness

selflessness moves me in such a way i feel like a human heart muscle bleeding out all over everything i conceive. i read a news story today about a group of 200 senior citizens in japan who call themselves 'the skilled veterans corps.' they have volunteered to go into the fukushima nuclear power plant to work on repairs to the reactor that was damaged severely by tsunami and represents certain illness and death for those who approach it.

the selflessness of this act impresses me. it simultaneously makes me want to jump for joy and sob like a little baby. i felt connected when i read this story, connected to humanity.

these japanese seniors are aware of, concerned with and invested in, the bigger picture. they want to replace younger employees and work in a place few are willing to work due to the precipitous likelihood of harm. they have cited a couple reasons why they should do this work: slower cell division makes a slower cancer, and the time is right for the nuclear generation to take real responsibility for their decisions. they also make clear that none of the members of the skilled veterans corps has a death wish.

what's more is this group of 250 recognize their place in the scope of our species. they’re pragmatic. they care. this quality more than any other touches me.

thinking of them...imagining them as as retired bankers and auto workers, doctors and garbage collectors, conjuring their thought processes, seeing them reflecting on these 60-80 years they have had thus far, fat with all the joys and pain of being human, childhood and adolescence, familiarity with the amazing capabilities of their physical beings but also tasting the bitter reality of the body's frailty...

knowing they will have focused on the specifics of grown children, grandchildren embarking on their great adventure, and some even contemplating the planned obsolescence that is great grandparenthood...

knowing how their hearts must swell at the idea of being able to make such a sacrifice for their kind. i think of them so bravely signing up for the group then having a quiet moment of solitude later at home, alone. i know they are resolute and i know they are afraid though i think their fear is more like a sadness in knowing their fear of death has diminished with age which must feel like surrender. i know they also feel a peace, a humble gratitude and a full knowledge they have not ceased to rage against the dying of the light, rather they have chosen to help the species rage all the more vibrantly and effectively.

the skilled veterans corps embodies all that it should mean to be elderly. they are wise and generous. their selflessness is legendary. we do not see this much in our lives-it is what attracts me to men like bobby sands and che guevara, ghandi and martin luther king jr. these men of various causes displayed the similar trait of recognizing the greater good and being willing to act even at their own peril. that touches me perhaps because i live in a society that seems to pooh pooh that behavior valuing instead the culture of gordon gecko and celebrity investors and respect for winning even if you cheated.

the reward for selfless behavior is clear and undeniable. it ranges from being able to sleep at night to the inner sunshine of bestowing a gift on the brotherhood of man to immortality, (such as immortality is.) still, in my society perhaps a majority of people with a choice of a material windfall and more time on earth versus the opportunity to commit an ultimate act of love and goodness would choose the former and smirk, "suckah..." all the way to the bank.

i read the story in a sandwich shop on my iphone at lunch today and i barely composed myself. i sat alone in a room of populated lunch tables eating my sandwich and reading and suddenly i felt like choking. my face flushed and i felt tears well up in my eyes. real tears-tears such as i typically know only at funerals or the like. i grabbed a hold of myself fiercely and pushed the emotion from my consciousness. i soldiered on through the story but at the end when the group's leader announces his expectation the power company will accept the offer from the elderly group to work on site, because, "they need us," i felt it again. it was a sudden jerking of my emotions right to the brink of overflowing.

i checked them again and wondered to myself why such a strong reaction to a news story. this was when i thought of che guevara and how his life story affected me in such a similar fashion, (so much so his visage adorns my calf.) i am slightly chagrined by the idea of having a man's face tattooed on my body, men being so fallible and prone to err. but guevara, like king and ghandi and sands, for me is selflessness incarnate. selflessness, when i see it, the selflessness of those who would advance the envelope of human understanding and evolution, those who actively work to hammer away at the veil of our time, who are discontented by the plodding advance of our age, it moves me in every way. it restores my conviction that goodness is winning, understanding is conquering ignorance, life is meaningful.

and to mr. yasuteru yamada of the skilled veteran's corps i say, "yes sir. you are right. we do need you."

sometimes

sometimes i feel like tom cruise in minority report. remember how he would watch the film footage of his son over and over and replay the day he went missing and all its events again and again in his mind? remember how agonizing it was for him and even for you as the viewer, how you felt for him?

sometimes i see pictures of my kids and i feel like that. i feel like tom cruise, viewing the pictures as if separated from mark and terra, (as i am by work and obligation and school and a day’s activities, and any physical distance.) i long for them and i fear for them.

i don’t fear some horrific thing happening to them. (i merely rely on odds and karma to hope that stuff away, along with some vigilance.) i fear the world and all its cruelties, all its rude awakenings, all its unkind moments, its puppy love and encounters with policemen, its realizations about the system and money and how things work.

it’s funny, too, my little creatures could hardly be more selfish. it seems seeking one’s own is definitely a natural state and so i am helping them to learn the value of considering others. they fight amongst themselves and it is always the one against the other and of course, my six-year-old is more cunning than my four-year-old although he has some tricks of his own. it is interesting though because generally speaking they both are highly attuned to possessions and materials. they want stuff and they want to declare ownership of that stuff even if it’s not theirs but is merely in their possession in a given moment.

it is a complex dynamic this need to want or want to need and i think the buddha and jesus and perhaps even allah would agree with me on this one, (though i am not well versed on the tenets of the koran,) it is worth trying to overcome it. you see, when one is able to set that stuff aside, the petty wanting of a child, it seems to me they are free to become great and by great I mean, wholly kind, beautifully productive, givers and creators.

i look at those pictures of my children. i see mark grimacing over his mother’s shoulder dismayed at the sight of a camera staring at him and i can see what he wants more than any other thing. he wants to be loved. and, he wants to love. he wants to be considered and he wants harmony with his surroundings. he has zero malice in him. zero, in spite of the times when he may hit at school or refuse to share. those are the meanderings of a child trying to find his place, trying to know his boundaries and learn where his wants and needs should end and where the wants and needs of others, perhaps, should begin.

it is as true with terra too. i have a picture of her from the same day, when we visited the snow. she did not want to be bothered to pose for the picture but graciously she turned to me and made the best smile she could which ended up being super cute actually. it was different. it was accommodating, a sly tilt of the head accompanied by pursed lips turned up slightly at the corner and terra’s wide, curious eyes. she could not be more graceful if her name was audrey hepburn.


and that picture too, hurts. it is a reminder of all i have, all that could be lost if tragedy struck or i screwed up. it is a healthy reminder of everything i need to live up to on a daily basis. if it makes me cry it is from joy and pressure and a will to be as perfect a dad as i can possibly be, (knowing i have fallen far short of perfection so many times.)

terra, too, is angelic by nature. while she does seek her own it is because she is a child and lacks experience. i have no doubt when she grows into the woman she will become she will be a wonderful citizen of the world. unlike mark she is not prone to say “i love you.” she says it but with her actions. she is fluent in chinese and so I know the gobs of money I am spending on her private schooling is not for naught. she works hard at her homework. when she is scolded she takes it personally and feels genuinely bad for her shortcoming.

we were on a trip recently and found ourselves sharing a bed and at 5am mark popped awake like an early bird ready for a worm. he went to the bathroom and when he returned i asked him to snuggle up with me and try to rest a bit longer. as he put his head in the crook of my arm and looked indiscriminately up at the ceiling he had this comment for me; “daddy, when you are mad at me it feels like you don’t love me.” (is that heartbreaking or what?)

i know that question was a product of my imperfection. i know there have been times when my patience was in short supply and mark was being, well, four, and i expressed anger and frustration and in my eyes he saw utter disregard, (which in this gray world and that split second was 100% accurate.) i told him i always love him and that i was angry but i am just trying to help him be the best mark he can be. he seemed to accept that.

the thing is i am different than john anderton, (tom cruise's character.) i have not lost my children. i have them and i want to cherish them everyday. but i can relate to that feeling cruise's character represents. it's not something i dwell on but when they are not around and i look at a picture, i long to have them near me, which just feels more natural than whatever i am doing, more right. the pictures are bittersweet. they are memories. i love them even though they injure me ever so slightly.

9-year-old christina taylor green-rip

tragedy is a word that fails to inform the death of christina taylor green today in tucson, arizona. this is one of those events that prompts anger, fear and pessimism.

this event is a sign and says something about america. in america we refuse to scold ourselves.

the fucking creep who went on a shooting rampage today in arizona killing christina taylor green, (among others,) blasting congresswoman gabrielle giffords in the cranium at point blank range-19 shot, six dead. fuck.

who was this killer? what group did he belong to that found gabrielle giffords so threatening or hideous as to shoot her in cold blood and indiscriminately spray bullets in a crowded area even killing a 9-year-old innocent? was it the gun people?

was it a group of small-dicked men who saw giffords as a threat to their right to bear arms? man i hate these fucks more today than ever. can you imagine how truly small they are, frightened to shivers over the idea their god-given, american, right to bear arms might somehow be in jeopardy. this is how dumb that group is; while some gun control efforts have been pushed and certainly there are people like myself who would not mind if there were no guns, there is hardly a discernible voice against guns being heard in the media or the public realm and yet, this group is easily riled and afraid. what a bunch of whiny, little, bitches.

was it the tea party?

in america we don't get together and call dumb; dumb. we never conclude. we value two or more opinions and we tend to act as if one opinion is as good as the next.

so if the murderer was a tea partier, it is high time we recognize that group for what it is. did you ever notice that the people who drank the kool-aid never admit or even know they drank the kool-aid? but they did and if we can't identify that out loud we're lost.

(you can click on the header to read the story as early facts came out...)

it has been 10 days since i wrote this angry opening to a blog post. since then funerals were held, speeches have been uttered and healing has begun, (most notably for representative giffords.) and politics went on as usual. the left, (certainly the progressive left,) sounded as i did initially. i did not think jared loughner was told to murder directly by sarah palin or glenn beck. i did not think palin or beck or any of the other right wing commentators were responsible for this shooting rampage. that said there are certainly lunatics of every political stripe. the point for those who decried palin's "targeting," of giffords and others on her website was to take the opportunity to state the obvious. it is ugly and irresponsible to use imagery such as cross hairs and verbiage such as, "don't retreat, reload."

and this is when we call a spade a spade. when national news happens we talk about it. what did the right want you to hear? don't politicize this tragedy. how convenient was that message? it wasn't keith olbermann or rachel maddow or bill press out there telling ardent gun lovers to fear so many bogeymen who would outlaw their guns or that the way to protect their second amendment rights would be to, "take aim," at progressive and liberal candidates.

nope. fuck that. on behalf of christina taylor green i say now is just the time to point out that palin and others have been irresponsible, (at least,) by using the rhetoric that would incite. there will always be unstable people and there will always be public figures of influence. it is up to us as individuals and collectively to recognize what is simply wrong.

wiki leaks

Secrecy is the cornerstone of all tyranny. Not force, but
secrecy...censorship. When any government, or any church, for that matter,
undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not
see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression,
no matter how holy the motives. Mightily little force is needed to control a man
who has been hoodwinked; Contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free
man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not
anything. You cannot conquer a free man; The most you can do is kill him.--
Robert A. Heinlein, Revolt in 2100

i am having trouble believing the cacophony of voices i am hearing complaining about the latest revelations from wikileaks. from hillary clinton, (who let's face it is just doing barack obama's bidding,) to a hack of a cornell law professor; william a. jacobson, myriad commenter's have been decrying wikileaks for making public so much secret or classified information.

this is a fundamental issue because as heinlein so aptly pointed out, secrecy is part and parcel to tyranny. in america too often we are told we cannot know certain information. if you have seen 'loose change,' you have an idea about the conspiracy theories around the 9/11 attacks on new york city, the pentagon and united airlines. what we can absolutely know about those theories is that they serve as a reminder there is too much secrecy in our government.

did america stage thee events of 9/11? i doubt it. is there a good reason america could not see the video footage from the shell station across the street from the pentagon? i doubt that, too.

are there things in the wikileaks documents that could damage our national security? perhaps. does that possibility outweigh whatever good could come from the wikileaks documents? no. given the level of secrecy currently practiced in our government, (to say nothing of the tacit permission granted by our press,) and in order to avoid the fate heinlein implies wikileaks is absolutely necessary.

so don't let anyone tell you wikileaks is somehow bad or harming america. that is crap. at this point wikileaks is covering for the poor journalism in this country. wikileaks is real news getting out in spite of the public's watchdog being paid to sleep in.

because we still can't know parts of the warren report, because the united states army tried to give us a completely fabricated version of pat tillman's death, because of the downing street memo, because of judith miller and scooter libby, because of 16 words in a presidential address, and so on and so on and so on, wikileaks is important and needs to be defended.

mark, olivia...and pam

did i tell you the one about mark and olivia and pam? (it's kind of classic.)

one day mark let me know that he wanted to change his name. i objected of course.

"why would you want to change your name, buddy," i said? "your mother and i picked that name out. "it's your grandfather's name, too, you know."

he just insisted that he wanted to change his name. so i asked what he wanted to change his name to and to my horror he replied, "pam."

pam? what the hell is pam?! since when do gender crises begin at three?

a few days later my wife tells me mark wants to change his name to pam. she was as puzzled as me. jokes followed about my son being gay and i'll tell you, i really considered it. i thought about all it would mean. i imagined his life, (and my life in relation.) my grandchildren disappeared before my eyes.

in a way i suppose it was a healthy consideration for me. i know i am going to love my son for the rest of my life no matter what. and while i do not consider myself homophobic i do recognize that some aspects of that lifestyle can be difficult, more difficult than perhaps a straight lifestyle, (as it were.) so there is a part of me that sincerely hopes mark is not gay.

several days later mark again insisted he wanted to change his name to pam.

"damn," i thought. (this thing is not going away.)

so on friday i had some pizza and salad brought in for my team at work for lunch and as we sat around a big table in the warehouse chatting it up i told my story. i was sharing about how i was a little bit worried but mostly just thought it was funny that my son had been asking to change his name to pam.

"pam," i highlighted? not just a girl name but an out-of-fashion, girl name.

just then a girl sitting across the table who i had just hired and who was spending her first day with us chimed in. "does he watch olivia?" she said.

i answered in the affirmative and the new girl went on to tell us how her little guy also watches olivia and on a recent episode a new girl had joined olivia's class named olivia. at first the new girl was known as olivia 2 but it was all too confusing for olivia and so, she decided she wanted to change her name to, (you guessed it,) pam. (in the back of my mind i actually recalled the episode ever so slightly.)

everyone at the table began giggling including me. and in a way i was also relieved. yes, mark had gotten this idea from olivia, (and latched onto it.) 20 minutes later i emailed my wife to let her know where mark had gotten that "pam," thing, so she could also be relieved.

gender crisis averted, (for now.)

where men win glory

i just read 'where men win glory,' jon krakauer's biography of pat tillman, and i came away impressed at what an honest man tillman was and what an incredible journalist krakauer is.


for his part krakauer kicks ass. is this guy the single best journalist in the world today? his construction of time lines, his knack for making valid connections and drawing relevant, insightful conclusions is par excellence. in an age of faux news journalism, in a time when what sells passes for news, when the institutions of journalism suffer from a dearth of credibility, krakauer treats his subjects objectively, thoroughly and with true journalistic integrity. his work reminds me of garcia-marquez's 'news of a kidnapping.'

tillman the man came through in krakauer's biography as a study in contradictions, a beautiful, artful, determined, motivated man of action.

i love this gray world i live in. i love the fact that the stories we used to tell have given way to complexity: truthful, black and white, white and black, sun dried, gemstone complexity. gray is the new hero. gray is who we are and what we do. (gray is the way we are feeling.) pat tillman was gloriously gray and deserves the adoration of a hero as few other in our day and age.

when tillman was a high school football stud in northern california he went out for pizza one evening after a big game and became in involved in an altercation between his circle of friends and another group from across town. tillman arrived late to the violent action but interpreted what he saw as an injury to a friend and so he set out to the right that wrong by pummeling someone who had zero involvement in the fisticuffs tillman had missed. he brutalized that person and administered severe injury.

as a reader i did not care for pat tillman at that point in his story. he was a prototypical, cro-magnon jock. however, tillman's parents, to their real credit, parented pat in such a way as they took him to the hospital to and made him apologize to the boy he injured and his family. they made him face his consequences in the criminal justice system and they loved him through the entire ordeal. this event seems to have colored tillman's life to a large degree.

there are other moments in 'where men win glory,' wherein the dark pat tillman can be seen, such as when he is vacationing in france and he gets drunk and tells some locals about we saved their asses in world war II then goes back to his hotel room and pukes all over the place.

krakauer also shows the determined pat tillman who was drawn to severe challenges and seemed to need to push himself to achieve in those situations. on vacation in sedona he dared leap from treetop to treetop, risking life on limb, for no other reason than to challenge himself and sharpen himself. on the gridiron tillman overcame and achieved. in spite of his diminutive size he lead his high school football team to glory. in turn he lead his college football team to over achievement and ultimately he became an arizona cardinal and lead the team to elusive success and established a reputation as one of the best players at his position in the national football league.

the rest of the story you know up to the tragic end. pat tillman was so affected by the 9/11 tragedy he decided to halt his nfl career from a sense of altruism to enlist, (despite his undergraduate degree from arizona state university which would have allowed him to enter the army as an officer.) he wanted to fight the enemy who wreaked such damage on the united states in real combat.

in this way tillman was simply naive. to think he could enlist and somehow end up across the field from the real enemy, the real perpetrators of those planes flying into those skyscrapers, defending all our honor in violent confrontation, was an idealistic notion that showed itself as such to tillman gradually throughout the course of his tenure in the us army, according to his journal entries.

in fact after having served in iraq and actually been near to the jessica lynch rescue farce, tillman returned stateside and through a friend made contact with noam chomsky for the purpose of arranging a meeting tillman wanted to occur only after his enlistment expired.

'where men win glory,' is, of course, a tragedy. pat tillman was shot down by ssgt trevor alders at relatively close range. the army and the bush administration tried desperately to lie to the american public, (again,) and tell us tillman died fighting heroically against a real enemy to be reckoned with, for the purpose of increasing support for an ugly, hate-filled, warmongering agenda. in the age of information however, lies like this are beyond difficult to sustain.

krakauer ruminates on the idea and consequences of friendly fire. he studies the complexities and contradictions of tillman's life. he puts the reader in the mind of tillman's wife and family as news trickles back home of his death. the sorrow is paralyzing.

on the other hand the light of coming to know some of pat tillman is edifying and enlightening on myriad levels.

don't criticize it

this election season californians are considering the idea of legalizing it. proposition 19 is currently showing 42%-49% support statewide in polling and represents the state's best chance of jump-starting the economy. those entities opposed to legalizing it in november can't seem to come up with any good reasons for maintaining the status quo. instead they are resorting to the old standby of suggesting this particular law is poorly written and contains any number of bugaboos all californians should fear.

i'll leave it to the pros. click on the header to read jon walker's refutation of all the prop 19 opposing views.

mad men

amc's 'mad men,' (which began its fourth season on july 25th,) is a fascinating look back at who we were. "mad men," is set in the early '60s and revolves around a group of people who are employed in or connected to the advertising industry on madison avenue in new york city. the show sheds copious light on the age, who we were and how we lived, and the nature, (and history,) of advertising. it is an amazing thing to behold.

the main character is don draper, (played by jon hamm,) a man to whom advertising is simply an extension of human nature. if a man is only as sick as his secrets, draper is unwell. he is a study in contrasts and perhaps the single most complex character ever seen on television. on one hand his secrets are of the largest variety. through every plot line draper's hidden past lays in wait as a potential catastrophe. by turns these secrets have threatened his marriage, his career and his credibility. they have been used against him by his closest associates and have haunted him in his loneliest moments.

at the same time don draper is an everyman who acts on a set of principles that have been slowly revealed and defined over the course of mad men's run thus far. when a foolish playboy shows up at the ad agency intent on spending his inheritance on promoting the sports business of jai alai, as if the american public will lap it up and multiply the young man's fortune, draper sees a moral dilemma and refuses to take the rube's money. (in true to form fashion the agency finds a way to overrule draper and capitalize on the job.)

on the other hand when draper's brother finds him in new york city, wanting only to be near his family and to have a relationship with him, draper throws money at him and orders him to get out of, and stay out of, his life, which ultimately sends his brother to an early demise. this moral black mark, however, can just as easily be seen as a virtue. draper's dilemma revolves around a choice he made, a choice from which there was no return. so when his brother appears draper's secrets, facts wholly hidden from his wife and three children, (and just about everyone else who knows him,) threaten the fragile structure of a life he has built against all odds and with careful precision. he has a trophy wife, children, a fantastic career, a suburban mini-mansion and the matching cadillac, and a certain freedom of movement common to career men in the '50s and early '60s.

in some ways draper is that typical poor, farm kid who grew up certain only of the fact he would not live this destitute life his "family," has given him forever. moreover for draper the need to climb is a moral imperative. he regards his father, (visited by don draper flashback,) with disdain for his life choices and his lowly station.

draper's morality guides his action but it is a subjective morality. he is unfazed by any moral implications of his extramarital affairs. it is as if he believes his behavior is his business and that so long as he provides for his family at a high level, compartmentalizes his life so that his wife is protected from the knowledge that would hurt, and otherwise chooses right action he is moral. (who is to say don draper is wrong on this?) for him it is as if his choices are in harmony with his persona or his personal zeitgeist. they seem to work for him. so when he apologizes to an underling or helps another subordinate who once tried to blackmail him or makes a kind gesture to a secretary, (all actions which contrast with so many of the others characters in the offices of sterling cooper,) draper is the hero of mad men. he is true to himself and consistent within his own boundaries.

mad men marks the end of the age when fictional characters had to be drawn in bold shades of good and bad. remember how pure and white and virtuous the characters of yesteryear were? could fred macmurray of, 'my three sons,' ever have acted badly much less made a mistake? could mike brady have had an affair unbeknownst to carol? would phylicia rashad, (as clair huxtable,) ever have sat down in a motel room with a couple of hitchhikers to smoke some dope? (don draper did.)

mad men is setting a new television standard. as we the viewers come to demand higher quality programming, soon we will no longer accept cardboard cutout characters the likes of cosbys or bradys or even the simpsons. by contrast mad men gives us complexity and nuance. whereas 'happy days,' and 'the six million dollar man,' or 'beverly hills 90210,' gave us black and white characters, mad men offers gray ones. the lives of these characters prompt us to think about our own lives and decisions and judgments.

more, as a historical drama, mad men is set in the early '60s and makes clever use of the real historical events of those days. just as we remember where we were when the twin towers fell, people who were alive on november 22 of 1963 recall exactly where they were when the president was shot. in mad men we see people agonizing over personal crises, getting at the work of day, and engaging in furtive encounters in hotel rooms, (as kennedy was felled in dallas.) similarly the drama that was the civil rights movement is seen coloring the lives of these everyday characters. this historical context adds a layer to mad men so that when marilyn monroe is found dead and every feminine eye at sterling cooper is wet with tears of profound sadness, we are informed about a certain innocence or ignorance of the day. afterall, mass media was a baby.

the business of sterling cooper is manipulating people, persuading them to buy things some of which have great value, others of which have no value. the advertising industry was in its infancy in the late '50s and early '60s but the basic mission is unchanged; represent clients by targeting demographic groups to persuade to buy something.

in those days marketing and advertising were new concepts just beginning to penetrate the american psyche. in mad men we can see businesses refusing to advertise or refusing to advertise in a certain way, (e.g. bible belt purveyors of bikinis who consider the two piece wholesome and refuse any hint of sexuality in their ad campaign,) and we know with certainty they are businesses who will fail. similarly we see tycoons, (based on real, historical figures,) embracing the new and we implicitly understand why they succeeded.

today the american society is under an intense pressure from advertising. it is in many ways a blight on our lifestyles. it is at once ubiquitous, malignant and benign. advertising is so powerful it dictates large swaths of our lives. not only do we elect public officials who most successfully advertise to us but it could be said our form of government itself is heavily influenced by how advertising makes us feel about certain issues thereby changing our attitudes. perhaps one day soon marijuana will be a legal substance. in that scenario advertising will have played a major role. likewise americans do not value liberty and some of the basic tenets of the constitution as we once did and advertising has played a role in that too, convincing us that fearing criminals and terrorists, (for example,) is more important than protecting our own rights to privacy.

'mad men,' serves as a study in how advertising came to be, what it represents and how it affects us. some of us advocate, (or merely pine away,) for responsible legislation regulating carbon emissions, but we think nothing of a truck polluting the atmosphere, (as trucks do,) for the sole purpose of pulling a facade up and down beach boulevard with an advertising message on it.

upon reviewing the commercial above we can see clearly how ridiculous the claim lucky strike cigarettes made was and yet, that commercial was successful. people bought it, which is to say they bought the cigarettes. our ads today are more complex but they work in just the same way, (only with greater precision i would assert.) in any 'mad men,' episode one can find insights such as might be gleaned from the lucky strike commercial some 50 years after it was made. what will be effective advertising for an airline? in 'mad men,' it is a little girl asking her father what he brought her home from distant lands. how advertising was sold in those days is also interesting in as much as it depicts the early days of schmoozing, taking the clients out and getting them drunk and showing them a good time in order to win the desired outcome. moreover it is important to think about these things if we are to immunize ourselves against advertising or what ails us.

televison shows which illuminate and educate are special. in this way 'mad men,' is the second best television show i have ever seen. it is both thoughtful and thought-provoking. the writers, (mathew weiner chief among them,) achieve on such a high level the little screen has become art. as viewers we can watch 'mad men,' and be entertained while simultaneously observing human behavior in a way that actually provokes insight. as a side note, january jones and christina hendricks make yet another reason to watch 'mad men;' eye candy. (if hendricks does not singlehandedly destroy the waifish supermodel, she may be invincible. hendricks has won me over.)

welcome to dodger stadium!

i took the family to dodger stadium on thursday night.

yes, we got the matt kemp action figures and the manny ramirez figures too. my kids played with the kemp dolls throughout the game since i liberated two of them from their boxes. at the end of the evening matt kemp and mark raced back to the car with the loser having to ride home in the bed of the truck. luckily mark edged kemp at the last second and touched the truck first. at that very moment kemp hit a solo homer in the bottom of the 6th. yes, we left early. our tix sucked and the kids got antsy, (read: faith got antsy,) and so we took off but heard the roar of the crowd. i jumped in the car and flipped on the radio to discover it was matt's big night all the way around, (save for the lonely ride home in the trunk.)

to be completely honest, the game was a mixed bag. i kept thinking about how much i would like to tell frank mccourt about my experience with horrible seats, terribly designed seating, a bad usher, no straws, a ridiculously long line to get the free action figures, (it did move fast however,) confusing tickets, (again, just poorly designed seating,) more bad seating as the dust of my cracked peanuts kept flying into the hair of the people in front of me because of a breeze that passed through a wire, mesh fence underneath and behind my seat that should have been a solid fence...and then there was the really bad part. parking at dodger stadium used to be a breeze. (didn't frank mccourt formerly own parking lots? you would think he'd be better at this.) one knew there were two loops going opposite directions. one had choices. i came in at stadium way off the 110 and was funneled right into a lot to the right. i had to walk all the way up 3-4 flights of stairs, (with a 3-year-old in my arms,) to will call at right field reserved only to enter and walk all the way around to my seats in left field reserved.

because i was watching a game on the weekend and saw a commercial for $17 reserved seats for matt kemp action figure night and thought, "gee, bad seats but cheap. "my kids are little. "it'll be fun." (what a moron.) i felt penalized for not sticking to my usual standard of just not really going to baseball games in person unless i have some kind of a line on decent seats, typically on the field level, occasionally loge or club. the $17 ticket price became $22.75 per by the time the ticketmaster surcharges were paid. (it is both collusion and a monopoly-i am pretty sure. i am not a lawyer but i feel certain.) what sounded like $68 on the commercial bounced right up to $91. okay, big deal i can handle giving away an extra $23. fuck it. but to then have to deal with a parking situation that used to be par excellence but now is strictly a convenience for the organization? (i believe it must result in getting people off the property more quickly than in the past. that is the only rationale I can come up with. geezus chrimus i miss the o'malleys.)

from our seats in left field, (the first seats in the top row of the reserved section, my wife and myself along with my 3 & 5-year-old kids,) we could see my car on the opposite side of the ravine. "look kids, it's the bug truck! See it?!" "yep."

with lapfuls of hot dogs, cokes, licorice, action figures, and peanuts on our persons, we were booted from those really bad seats. a lady approached from my right and said to me, "you're in my seats."

"wtf," i thought?! "you mean these effed up seats, the single worst location i have ever sat in at any event ever are not even the right seats?!??"

how could that be possible. it was reserved. it was section 17. it was row jj. why there was an 'm,' in front of the seat number '10,' i had no idea but i thought i was in the right place. well, i guessed we were probably slightly further down the left field line in the same last or top, row, but a section over so like a reasonable person i took my family down a few rows and plopped down in the first available seats i found. they were better than that crowded, inaccessible back row.

for the next two innings we enjoyed the game, playing with our matt kemps, eating peanuts, posting pix to facebook, you know, all that night at the game kind of stuff. then came the couple who were supposed to be in the seats we were in. i asked them if we were in their seats before they could tell me and they confirmed my suspicion. i asked faith if we should move down a row and she asked them if they wanted to sit in the seats in front of us to which they agreed. cool. we would spend another inning right there as takahashi and kuroda battled like two samurai on a diamond-shaped war ground.

next came a mysterious kid with a ticket. he approached the couple in front of us, ticket in hand, (matt kemp in his other hand,) and said, "you're in my seat. "i'm only one." he was only one?! he was 11. how is he only one? despite 3 or 4 empty seats further in next to the couple they turned and looked at me. i looked at faith who could not have been more inconvenienced said, (matter of factly,) "we have to move."

i grabbed my 3-year-old and his sprite, put a matt kemp in my pocket and urged faith and terra to get out of the row we were in. they did and down we went. at the exit faith turned as if to
leave the stadium. i grabbed terra and pulled her back in my direction and went down to better seats, to a huge section of 30 or 40 seats that had been empty all night. i went down four rows, turned and went out into the middle of that mass of unoccupied seats where i sat myself and my kids down. faith joined us but notified me if it happened again we would be leaving. we were still in the 4th inning.

at that point the cotton candy guy arrived and i shelled out $3 for about 10-cents worth of sugar and pink food coloring. james loney got thrown out attempting to steal 2nd base and i booed heartily after which terra and mark booed too. with bases loaded in the top of the 5th and two outs kuroda faced his counterpart and I yelled out, "strike out the bumb!" (i think they heard me down in the loge section.) mark mimicked me and repeated the phrase. now this was why i came to the park. i told terra matt kemp's licorice was in fact a freeze ray and just one of many
superpowers kemp had in addition to hitting baseballs out of the park and throwing runners out from miles away.

all went well for a couple of innings. the dodgers held their slight advantage and the family maintained our grip on our latest seats of choice. unfortunately, a bad odor soon became noticeable. no, it wasn't dodger stadium sewage. it was mark. my three-year-old had gas, which of course means only one thing, he would soon need to go number two. i had to do something and fast. briefly i imagined the dodger stadium restroom. i imagined getting mark into a stall and having to wipe down all manner of disgusting human byproduct. i turned to faith and informed her mark had passed gas no less than 10 times in about the last 90 seconds and suggested we leave, which we did.

we made our way from left field to right field, exited the stadium, walked down three or four flights of stairs, traversed the parking lot from the right field bleachers nearly to the exit, at which point mark won his race against the matt kemp action figure. as soon as we got home mark went directly to the restroom to do his business. mission accomplished. i turned on the game and saw kuo get the last three outs of the dodger victory. (goodbye six game losing streak.) i am just not going to bother with those bad seats in the future.

the smiths

you know who was better than that band you really like? the smiths.

make no mistake. your band is good, way up there, but they're not better than smiths.

to this day the smiths feels like a favorite t-shirt. their music is familiar and comfortable and i wonder about the sensibilities which drew me to the smiths so many years ago.

"it was the lyrics," is what comes to mind first. but i know the rhythm section fit the rest of the band like a glove, imbuing the music with a light, sometimes jaunty, sometimes comedic touch. then i think it was johnny marr's style, his running, bouncing, moody guitars and his dark, forward leaning into technology. but then i think it could just be the divine voice and whimsy of steven patrick morrissey.