Nicholson Baker writes in "Human Smoke" of pacifism in WWII. He quotes Christopher Isherwood, who -- along with Auden -- abandoned London during wartime.
"If I fear anything," he said, "I fear the atmosphere of the war, the power which it gives to all the things I hate -- the newspapers, the politicians, the puritans, the scoutmasters, the middle-aged merciless spinsters." Isherwood shrank, he said, from the duty of opposition: "I am afraid I should be reduced to a chattering, enraged monkey, screaming back hate at their hate." That's why he'd left. It was January 20, 1940.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Lake of Fire
I engaged in an old-fashioned Internet argument today on somebody's blog comments page. Righteous indignation. Nothing quite like it.
On the other hand, even engaging with those who invariably believe only what they want to believe seems futile. Maybe that's why I've given up joining the chorus of idiots on the News-Gazette letters page. Why encourage them? (See Nicholas Kristoff's recent essay on anti-intellectualism in America. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/opinion/30kristof.html)
And then again, on the OTHER other hand, I watched the abortion documentary "Lake of Fire" this morning, one of the most astounding, even-handed, two-and-a-half hour movies this side of Frederick Wiseman. This is how dialog and debate were meant to be done. It is not a film always easy to watch. It is also impossible to turn away, it is so well-made and consistently enriching and challenging, even (or especially) for a subject that you would think was well-played out, with both sides firmly dug into their trenches. Lake of Fire could shake up what you think you believe.
Smart people -- from Nat Hentoff to Noam Chomsky -- speak intelligently and persuasively from many different points of view. The movie does not take sides. The Religious Right is fully and fairly represented. One of them argues as to why abortion doctors (and blasphemers and gay people) should be executed. Later he is convicted of the murder of a doctor and is given the death penalty. That's disturbing, too. When is killing justified?
Fundamentalists are likely to walk out during a female punk rock singer performing nearly naked, jamming a clothes hanger into her G-string. However, the all-male singing group of Promise Keepers, led by Randall Terry, is almost more disturbing. I don't know which performance has the higher ick factor.
Near the end of the film, the entire process of an abortion is shown. I'm not talking about medical procedure only, but the woman's decision making, her intake interview (extensive), the care she receives during the procedure, and her emotional state following the procedure. That section of the film in itself may make you think about abortion in a new way than you ever have before.
Ultimately, Lake of Fire does seem clearly to be on the side of tolerance, convincingly revealing that no one can state with certainty or ultimate authority how to resolve something that is almost never done thoughtlessly or recklessly. I think my favorite analysis came from Noam Chomsky, who posited a line of actions, from a woman washing her hands (thus destroying potentially useful skin cells) to the killing of a three-year old baby. Somewhere within that continuum of extremes, it would seem clear that the taking of life is wrong. But no one can say where that point is.
Lake of Fire made me confront my own attitudes. It's a rare movie that actually helps one clarify one's position and yet feel empathy for almost everyone involved (certain Bible-thumpers excepted). I came away thinking I could call myself pro-life AND pro-choice.
I just looked up Ebert's review. It deserves to be read. He says, "This is a brave, unflinching... documentary that makes such an effective case for both pro-choice and pro-life that it is impossible to determine which side the filmmaker stands on."
British director Tony Kaye spent 17 years on and off making this film. It has been his life's work.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Regarding travel with a mission
Rufus Jones, the Haverford professor, went to Germany with two other men; Robert Yarnall, a Quaker businessman, and George Walton, a principal of a Quaker boarding school. They hoped to talk to someone in authority, perhaps Hitler, about the suffering of the Jews. Before he left, Jones wrote some names and addresses in his notebook, and he wrote: "We need the note of adventure, of the heroic and costly, not the twittering of birds over a volcano." He was seventy-five years old.
From Nicholson Baker's remarkable new history book, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization.
From Nicholson Baker's remarkable new history book, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Travel
Some of my friends -- Dan, Wilmer, and Ken -- recently came back from a two-week fact-finding trip to Colombia. They visited Bucaramanga, a town where I lived for a month on my third trip to the South American country, and I followed their exploits carefully (on Dan's blog at danschreiber.blogspot.com).
Someday, I expect to move and live permanently in Latin America. But travel itself has changed since the years when I backpacked and ventured into places not quite on the map.
There's hardly anything left to discover. I never wanted to be a tourist. Even when my wife Lee and I explored Yugoslavia (back when there still was a Yugoslavia), we ate the omnipresent bean soup and spoke what Serbo-Croatian we could manage to figure out. We went to Sarajevo, despite the warnings against it from the train agent.
"You don't want to go there," she told us. "Go somewhere else."
No, I told her. We do want to go there.
And we did. And I'm glad we did. I recently watched the movie "The Hunting Party" with Richard Gere and Terrence Howard and recognized sights and places and even the feelings associated with that country. If we had stayed in the best hotels or used a travel agent or tour, we would have missed everything.
The last time I drove through Mexico, exploring for two weeks with my son Henry, we revisited some of the regional cities where I had lived while attending college there. Everything had changed. Xalapa, once a lush and rustic city of endless beauty and charm, had become a bustling metropolis. Veracruz, once a port city with a wicked and wonderful night life, was pocked with highrise hotels and crowded parking places. (Hurricanes still threatened; some things don't change.) When we went to Teotihuacan, the Pyramid of the Sun, outside Mexico City, there were tour buses of Asian visitors and school groups battling to perch on the top. The magic of the place remained, but you had to concentrate to absorb it, to recognize it, to feel it under the rumble of others shooting videos and talking on cell phones. A Wal-Mart looms in the near distance.
Twenty years ago, I sought out and explored the Mayan ruins in the rain forest at Palenque. I understand that now the place is inundated with tourists, the nearby water paradise of Aguas Azules trodden down with crowds. Oaxaca has changed from the most indigenous and beautiful market culture to a refuge for American artists and tourists with expense accounts.
I had always wanted to visit Machu Picchu in Peru and had filed it away for a future exploration and meditation. Now I'm not sure I even want to go, it has become such a well-known tourist destination.
In Chuck Thompson's book "Smile When You Are Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer," he includes a chapter called "Why Latin America Isn't the World's Number One Tourist Destination and Probably Never Will Be." (From his words to God's ears.) He claims estadounidenses are afraid of Latin America. Mostly when I hear someone tell me they "love Mexico," they've been to Cancun and took a tour bus to a nearby ruin before returning to their luxury hotel or cruise ship. They know nothing about Mexico, but I'm not about to discourage them from keeping away from the interior, the heart of the place or the people.
Dan had written in his blog his uneasiness about going to Colombia, the fear of kidnapping and stories of rebels in the jungles. Someone commented on learning of his impending trip, "You're crazy." Indeed, the U.S. State Department discourages travel to the country.
But Thompson indicates that "while middle-class Americans (tremble) through the territory of narco-terrorist blood feuds... (Colombia is) second only to the Himalayas for mountain dramas, the turbulent beauty of the Andes.. a backdrop of overwhelming grandeur." He walked through the city streets at night and enjoyed coffee with strangers.
On my last visit to Colombia, I found it still possible to explore, to feel the adventure of being surrounded by a real Latin American culture without all the trappings of tourism. I went for weeks without seeing another American. Certainly, Colombia might be able to use the income that a tourist industry would provide. Maybe they'll find a way to end the violence in that country without succumbing to the devastation that tourism and the tourist mindset brings.
It is still possible to travel. But you have to work at it. Some things money just can't buy.
Someday, I expect to move and live permanently in Latin America. But travel itself has changed since the years when I backpacked and ventured into places not quite on the map.
There's hardly anything left to discover. I never wanted to be a tourist. Even when my wife Lee and I explored Yugoslavia (back when there still was a Yugoslavia), we ate the omnipresent bean soup and spoke what Serbo-Croatian we could manage to figure out. We went to Sarajevo, despite the warnings against it from the train agent.
"You don't want to go there," she told us. "Go somewhere else."
No, I told her. We do want to go there.
And we did. And I'm glad we did. I recently watched the movie "The Hunting Party" with Richard Gere and Terrence Howard and recognized sights and places and even the feelings associated with that country. If we had stayed in the best hotels or used a travel agent or tour, we would have missed everything.
The last time I drove through Mexico, exploring for two weeks with my son Henry, we revisited some of the regional cities where I had lived while attending college there. Everything had changed. Xalapa, once a lush and rustic city of endless beauty and charm, had become a bustling metropolis. Veracruz, once a port city with a wicked and wonderful night life, was pocked with highrise hotels and crowded parking places. (Hurricanes still threatened; some things don't change.) When we went to Teotihuacan, the Pyramid of the Sun, outside Mexico City, there were tour buses of Asian visitors and school groups battling to perch on the top. The magic of the place remained, but you had to concentrate to absorb it, to recognize it, to feel it under the rumble of others shooting videos and talking on cell phones. A Wal-Mart looms in the near distance.
Twenty years ago, I sought out and explored the Mayan ruins in the rain forest at Palenque. I understand that now the place is inundated with tourists, the nearby water paradise of Aguas Azules trodden down with crowds. Oaxaca has changed from the most indigenous and beautiful market culture to a refuge for American artists and tourists with expense accounts.
I had always wanted to visit Machu Picchu in Peru and had filed it away for a future exploration and meditation. Now I'm not sure I even want to go, it has become such a well-known tourist destination.
In Chuck Thompson's book "Smile When You Are Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer," he includes a chapter called "Why Latin America Isn't the World's Number One Tourist Destination and Probably Never Will Be." (From his words to God's ears.) He claims estadounidenses are afraid of Latin America. Mostly when I hear someone tell me they "love Mexico," they've been to Cancun and took a tour bus to a nearby ruin before returning to their luxury hotel or cruise ship. They know nothing about Mexico, but I'm not about to discourage them from keeping away from the interior, the heart of the place or the people.
Dan had written in his blog his uneasiness about going to Colombia, the fear of kidnapping and stories of rebels in the jungles. Someone commented on learning of his impending trip, "You're crazy." Indeed, the U.S. State Department discourages travel to the country.
But Thompson indicates that "while middle-class Americans (tremble) through the territory of narco-terrorist blood feuds... (Colombia is) second only to the Himalayas for mountain dramas, the turbulent beauty of the Andes.. a backdrop of overwhelming grandeur." He walked through the city streets at night and enjoyed coffee with strangers.
On my last visit to Colombia, I found it still possible to explore, to feel the adventure of being surrounded by a real Latin American culture without all the trappings of tourism. I went for weeks without seeing another American. Certainly, Colombia might be able to use the income that a tourist industry would provide. Maybe they'll find a way to end the violence in that country without succumbing to the devastation that tourism and the tourist mindset brings.
It is still possible to travel. But you have to work at it. Some things money just can't buy.
Friday, March 21, 2008
The Lieutenant of Inishmore
I had read Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant of Inishmore a while back and found myself laughing and grimacing at his twisty, perverse look at family, violence, and politics.
It was with a little trepidation that I attended opening night, since often the actualization of a play fails to live up to a perfectionist's imagination.
At opening night at the Station, Rick Orr directed a handsome cast in this latest production and I'm pleased and relieved to say, it pretty much rocks.
The cast of eight is eminently watchable. Principle players Coy Wentworth and Gary Ambler -- as a duo attempting to disguise the death of a cat -- play off each other in ways that frequently caused me to emit unexpected spurts of laughter; the Irish insurgent duo Mathew Green and Colleen Klein gave off palpable sexual sparks, particularly when lavishing a lubricant of blood over one another.
The final scene's coup de theatre is extreme, combining the coldness of a blood bath with the fuzzy warmth of kittens. The audience did not know whether to moan or coo. Actually, they did both. Loudly. While laughing.
Even so, one can't mistake the political overtones. It's not just about Ireland. It's about a world where violence erupts over trifles, a world where we have learned to shrug off distant wars as just more television.
Oddly, seeing The Lieutenant of Inishmore may re-sensitize the viewer, rather than desensitize, to the violence all around us. But it's not a lecture. It's not spinach. You'll have a good time and then ask yourself, did I just have a good time watching that?
It was with a little trepidation that I attended opening night, since often the actualization of a play fails to live up to a perfectionist's imagination.
At opening night at the Station, Rick Orr directed a handsome cast in this latest production and I'm pleased and relieved to say, it pretty much rocks.
The cast of eight is eminently watchable. Principle players Coy Wentworth and Gary Ambler -- as a duo attempting to disguise the death of a cat -- play off each other in ways that frequently caused me to emit unexpected spurts of laughter; the Irish insurgent duo Mathew Green and Colleen Klein gave off palpable sexual sparks, particularly when lavishing a lubricant of blood over one another.
The final scene's coup de theatre is extreme, combining the coldness of a blood bath with the fuzzy warmth of kittens. The audience did not know whether to moan or coo. Actually, they did both. Loudly. While laughing.
Even so, one can't mistake the political overtones. It's not just about Ireland. It's about a world where violence erupts over trifles, a world where we have learned to shrug off distant wars as just more television.
Oddly, seeing The Lieutenant of Inishmore may re-sensitize the viewer, rather than desensitize, to the violence all around us. But it's not a lecture. It's not spinach. You'll have a good time and then ask yourself, did I just have a good time watching that?
Thursday, March 20, 2008
GOING BACK (segment from "The Ocean in Illinois," 1972)
JERRY AND BILL
Toward the taco redundancy of theft, we are sleazo inputs*, two months after Denver and everything, let us not waste any time, is purple. Her breasts were not small enough to be interesting, and she lay there like this was THE EX-PEER-E-ENCE and for one hour the record played on. I knew, wanting to gobble her hips in bellyflops, that leaving Denver would be a change.
A Solid Gold Cock, when not erect, sags on harmoniously with adjacent testicles ringing lost chords to sunrise. We biked out in late afternoon. Here and there I was beginning to see moments of loss, but for the most I was not aware of leaving any more than shared moments, and they are left behind regardless. Scenery, drudgery of Kansas, passing clouds and traffic, filled me. Mostly trucks looking for their homes wherever they were, mostly finding the road again. Screaming engines. We couldn't say much, the wind. There were a lot of stops for gas.
Getting back to where we were evicted, country again. It was fresh.
Dear Bill,
I flunked haircut. Middle america has me in its long grasp, after lassoing the west in my mind, I returned to these heartlands, our home, hoping to find -- well, what? what did I expect? I suppose the status of alien cowboy I enjoyed out there. But no, this was familiar country. I didn't have a chance. I'm still here but beaten. And worse, alone. No one to bitch, pardon my lip, shoot it over with, and baby, that's COWBOY.
I have to make a story here. You're conquering the east now (no small task) and best of luck. I feel however, that Illinois will eventually suck into her again. Actually I hope so. Shit.
So, what am I doing? And what have I done to deserve to be progressing to Phase Two of doing? Or could it all still be beginning? After the farms folded, I faded into the dreams of man. If anyone, he was a master magician, an earthly centering. I somehow fear to even write this. I couldn't speak his name. Living with him, he began to take on a light of having always been, of being truly timeless, the passing stranger recycling the dreams of man in a bead game that he had been given to call his own.
I've tried before to write of the Indiana days, but the subjectivity and unreasonable events that occurred never seemed palatable on paper. Days would fluctuate between the utter physicality of surroundings and the illusion of matter. Unexplainable (?), the oddly dressed south side community walked in light that knew the patterns of mind and they righteously played within that light.
The outcome of the Indiana triad, Jerry, Be, and myself, ended oddly. Reunited in Venice, California, well, we seemed people together again, but actually it was a breaking point. The fruits have not always been pleasant...
Toward the taco redundancy of theft, we are sleazo inputs*, two months after Denver and everything, let us not waste any time, is purple. Her breasts were not small enough to be interesting, and she lay there like this was THE EX-PEER-E-ENCE and for one hour the record played on. I knew, wanting to gobble her hips in bellyflops, that leaving Denver would be a change.
A Solid Gold Cock, when not erect, sags on harmoniously with adjacent testicles ringing lost chords to sunrise. We biked out in late afternoon. Here and there I was beginning to see moments of loss, but for the most I was not aware of leaving any more than shared moments, and they are left behind regardless. Scenery, drudgery of Kansas, passing clouds and traffic, filled me. Mostly trucks looking for their homes wherever they were, mostly finding the road again. Screaming engines. We couldn't say much, the wind. There were a lot of stops for gas.
Getting back to where we were evicted, country again. It was fresh.
Dear Bill,
I flunked haircut. Middle america has me in its long grasp, after lassoing the west in my mind, I returned to these heartlands, our home, hoping to find -- well, what? what did I expect? I suppose the status of alien cowboy I enjoyed out there. But no, this was familiar country. I didn't have a chance. I'm still here but beaten. And worse, alone. No one to bitch, pardon my lip, shoot it over with, and baby, that's COWBOY.
I have to make a story here. You're conquering the east now (no small task) and best of luck. I feel however, that Illinois will eventually suck into her again. Actually I hope so. Shit.
So, what am I doing? And what have I done to deserve to be progressing to Phase Two of doing? Or could it all still be beginning? After the farms folded, I faded into the dreams of man. If anyone, he was a master magician, an earthly centering. I somehow fear to even write this. I couldn't speak his name. Living with him, he began to take on a light of having always been, of being truly timeless, the passing stranger recycling the dreams of man in a bead game that he had been given to call his own.
I've tried before to write of the Indiana days, but the subjectivity and unreasonable events that occurred never seemed palatable on paper. Days would fluctuate between the utter physicality of surroundings and the illusion of matter. Unexplainable (?), the oddly dressed south side community walked in light that knew the patterns of mind and they righteously played within that light.
The outcome of the Indiana triad, Jerry, Be, and myself, ended oddly. Reunited in Venice, California, well, we seemed people together again, but actually it was a breaking point. The fruits have not always been pleasant...
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
East Bend Sunday School class, 1962
Standing up, in the middle, skinny, with the glaring glasses, the only one facing the camera, even then an alien.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Son, thirty years later
Reinacting the Pyramid of the Sun, the sunburst, the Sol beer bottle cap in the eye.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Zen Yawn
Pretend to hope
War is going on, going to go on, past the start
On to the next
Naught to do
I am focusing on the next film festival
I clocked a meditation
I will get a tattoo with my sons
I will go to Mexico with my sons
Too late to "re-litigate" they say
Let's see if the other party can do any better, they say
They wore us down
One can't even write a letter
No sense to engage
I will be a non-atheist
I will never travel on The Darjeeling Limited
I will be free of money
I will read every restaurant review and art show reviews and follow each theater opening in the New York Times
I don't have to go
I don't have to go to India
The three rich sons pretending
Not to be envied, respected, or scorned
Peter, Francis, Jack
Seeking all the spiritual places they can buy
They will find them in spite of their money
I will find them in spite of
or because of
lack of
the same
Bush isn't seeking
The money hides the forest
Seeking more or keeping more money
Travel gives material
Writing comes from travel
The futility of letters to the editor
The futility of ignoring the war
Helplessness
The sense that they want us to give up, to relent, to relax
That was their plan all along
Two 20 minute TMs per day
Dreams
Crossword puzzles
Poems
Dreams: Lee moved the washing machine
If you want to make God laugh, make a plan
Outline a book
Film festivals are the answer
Pray for Colombia
How can we help?
Other than give money, how can we help?
Take
Take from them
Take from them, spirit
Bush, trapped by the system of Mammon, takes
Takes the wrong thing
Takes not spirit
Replenishes forever, drowns, never knows
Blindness keeps him
On the surface
But drowning just the same
Water torture
Someone else shops for him
What could be worse?
War is going on, going to go on, past the start
On to the next
Naught to do
I am focusing on the next film festival
I clocked a meditation
I will get a tattoo with my sons
I will go to Mexico with my sons
Too late to "re-litigate" they say
Let's see if the other party can do any better, they say
They wore us down
One can't even write a letter
No sense to engage
I will be a non-atheist
I will never travel on The Darjeeling Limited
I will be free of money
I will read every restaurant review and art show reviews and follow each theater opening in the New York Times
I don't have to go
I don't have to go to India
The three rich sons pretending
Not to be envied, respected, or scorned
Peter, Francis, Jack
Seeking all the spiritual places they can buy
They will find them in spite of their money
I will find them in spite of
or because of
lack of
the same
Bush isn't seeking
The money hides the forest
Seeking more or keeping more money
Travel gives material
Writing comes from travel
The futility of letters to the editor
The futility of ignoring the war
Helplessness
The sense that they want us to give up, to relent, to relax
That was their plan all along
Two 20 minute TMs per day
Dreams
Crossword puzzles
Poems
Dreams: Lee moved the washing machine
If you want to make God laugh, make a plan
Outline a book
Film festivals are the answer
Pray for Colombia
How can we help?
Other than give money, how can we help?
Take
Take from them
Take from them, spirit
Bush, trapped by the system of Mammon, takes
Takes the wrong thing
Takes not spirit
Replenishes forever, drowns, never knows
Blindness keeps him
On the surface
But drowning just the same
Water torture
Someone else shops for him
What could be worse?
sigh
Op-Ed Columnist
George Speaks, Badly
Watching George W. Bush address the New York financial community Friday brought back many memories. Unfortunately, they were about his speech right after Hurricane Katrina, the one when he said: "America will be a stronger place for it."
"You've helped make our country really in many ways the economic envy of the world," he told the Economic Club of New York.
You could almost see the thought-bubble forming over the audience: Not this week, kiddo.
The president squinched his face and bit his lip and seemed too antsy to stand still. As he searched for the name of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia ("the king, uh, the king of Saudi") and made guy-fun of one of the questioners ("Who picked Gigot?"), you had to wonder what the international financial community makes of a country whose president could show up to talk economics in the middle of a liquidity crisis and kind of flop around the stage as if he was emcee at the Iowa Republican Pig Roast.
We're really past expecting anything much, but in times of crisis you would like to at least believe your leader has the capacity to pretend he's in control. Suddenly, I recalled a day long ago when my husband worked for a struggling paper full of worried employees and the publisher walked into the newsroom wearing a gorilla suit.
The country that elected George Bush — sort of — because he seemed like he'd be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance. Our credit markets are foundering, and all we've got is a guy who looks like he's ready to kick back and start the weekend.
This is not the first time Bush's attempts to calm our fears redoubled our nightmares. His first speech after 9/11 — that two-minute job on the Air Force base — was so stilted that the entire country felt like heading for the nearest fallout shelter. After Katrina, of course, it took forever to pry him out of Crawford, and then he more or less read a laundry list of Goods Being Shipped to the Flood Zone and delivered some brief assurances that things would work out.
O.K., so he's not good at first-day response. Or second. Third can be a problem, too. But this economic crisis has been going on for months, and all the president could come up with sounded as if it had been composed for a Rotary Club and then delivered by a guy who had never read it before. "One thing is certain that Congress will do is waste some of your money," he said. "So I've challenged members of Congress to cut the number of cost of earmarks in half."
Besides being incoherent, this is a perfect sign of an utterly phony speech. Earmarks are one of those easy-to-attack Congressional weaknesses, and in a perfect world, they would not exist. But they cost approximately two cents in the grand budgetary scheme of things. Saying you're going to fix the economy or balance the budget by cutting out earmarks is like saying you're going to end global warming by banning bathroom nightlights.
Bush pointed out — as if the entire economic world didn't already know — that Congress has already passed an economic incentive package that will send tax rebate checks to more than 130 million households. "A lot of them are a little skeptical about this 'checks in the mail' stuff," he jibed. Jokejoke. Winkwink.
Then, after a run through of "ideas I strongly reject," Bush finally got around to announcing that he was going to "talk about what we're for. We're obviously for sending out over $150 billion into the marketplace in the form of checks that will be reaching the mailboxes by the second week of May.
"We're for that," he added.
Once the markets had that really, really clear, Bush felt free to go on to the other things he was for, which very much resembled that laundry list for Katrina ("400 trucks containing 5.4 million Meals Ready to Eat — or M.R.E.'s ... 3.4 million pounds of ice ...") This time the rundown included a six-month-old F.H.A. refinancing program, and an industry group called Hope Now that offers advice to people with mortgage problems.
And then, finally, the nub of the housing crisis: "Problem we have is, a lot of folks aren't responding to over a million letters sent out to offer them assistance and mortgage counseling," the president of the United States told the world.
But wait — more positive news! The secretary of Housing and Urban Development is proposing that lenders supply an easy-to-read summary with mortgage agreements. "You know, these mortgages can be pretty frightening to people. I mean, there's a lot of tiny print," the president said.
Really, if he can't fix the economy, the least he could do is rehearse the speech.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
our future thriftiness
Published on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 by The Nation
The Fall of the American Consumer
by Barbara Ehrenreich
How much lower can consumer spending go? The malls are like mausoleums, retail clerks are getting laid off and AOL recently featured on its welcome page the story of a man so cheap that he recycles his dental floss–hanging it from a nail in his garage until it dries out.
It could go a lot lower of course. This guy could start saving the little morsels he flosses out and boil them up to augment the children's breakfast gruel. Already, as the recession or whatever it is closes in, people have stopped buying homes and cars and cut way back on restaurant meals. They don't have the money; they don't have the credit; and increasingly they're finding that no one wants their money anyway. NPR reported on February 28 that more and more Manhattan stores are accepting Euros and at least one has gone Euros-only.
The Sharper Image has declared bankruptcy and is closing ninety-six US stores. (To think I missed my chance to buy those headphones that treat you to forest sounds while massaging your temples!) Victoria's Secret is so desperate that it's adding fabric to its undergarments. Starbucks had no sooner taken time off to teach its baristas how to make coffee than it started laying them off.
While Americans search for interview outfits in consignment stores and switch from Whole Foods to Wal-Mart for sustenance, the world watches tremulously. The Australian Courier-Mail, for example, warns of an economic "pandemic" if Americans cut back any further, since we are responsible for $9 trillion a year in spending, compared to a puny $1 trillion for the one billion-strong Chinese. Yes, we have been the world's designated shoppers, and, if we fall down on the job, we take the global economy with us.
"Shop till you drop," was our motto, by which we didn't mean to say we were more compassion-worthy than a woman fainting at her work station in some Honduran sweatshop. It was just our proper role in the scheme of things. Some people make stuff; other people have to buy it. And when we gave up making stuff, starting in the 1980s, we were left with the unique role of buying. Remember Bush telling us, shortly after 9/11, to get out there and shop? It may have seemed ludicrous at the time, but what he meant was get back to work.
We took pride in our role in the global economy. No doubt it takes some skill to make things, but what about all the craft that goes into buying them–finding a convenient parking space at the mall, navigating our way through department stores laid out for maximum consumer confusion, determining which of our credit cards still has a smidgeon of credit in it? Not everyone could do this, especially not people whose only experience was stitching, assembling, wiring and packaging the stuff that we bought.
But if we thought we were special, they thought we were marks. They could make anything, and we would dutifully buy it. I once found, in a party store, a baseball cap with a plastic turd affixed to its top and the words "shit head" on the visor. The label said "made in the Philippines" and the makers must have been convulsed as they made it. If those dumb Yanks will buy this…
There's talk already of emergency measures, like making Christmas a weekly holiday, although this would require a level of deforestation that could leave Cheney with no quail to hunt.
More likely, there'll be a move to outsource shopping, just as we've already outsourced manufacturing, customer service, X-ray reading and R&D. But to whom? The Indians are clever enough, but right now they only account for $600 million in consumer spending a year. And could they really be trusted to put a flat screen TV in every child's room, distinguish Guess jeans from a knock-off and replace their kitchen counters on an annual basis?
And what happens to us, the world's erstwhile shoppers? The President recently observed, in one of his more sentient moments, that unemployment is "painful." But if a pink slip hurts, what about a letter from Citicard announcing that you've been laid off as a shopper? Will we fill our vacant hours twisting recycled dental floss onto spools or will we decide that, if we can't shop, we're going to have to shoplift?
Because we've shopped till we dropped alright, face down on the floor.
Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed (Owl), is the winner of the 2004 Puffin/Nation Prize.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Regarding Colombia
To the Editor:
The March 6 editorial "Take a Deep Breath" cites "meddling and manipulation" in the Colombia-Ecuador clash by President Hugo Chávez, missing the point of why Venezuela is affected.
The Venezuela-Colombia border is three-quarters the length of the United States-Mexico frontier, making it one of the longest common borders in the hemisphere.
Venezuela has already suffered because of the Colombian conflict, receiving tens of thousands of refugees, and has attempted to stop the spread of violence through a humanitarian mediation.
Colombia's deadly raid in Ecuador killed Raúl Reyes, the chief negotiator for both Venezuela and France in hostage talks with the guerrillas.
President Chávez is not, as you write, trying to win popularity by getting involved. Instead, he has put peace in Colombia on the regional agenda, a cause taken up again over the weekend during the Rio group meeting, resulting in reconciliation between the three Andean nations.
Olivia B. Goumbri
Executive Director, Venezuela Information Office
Washington, March 10, 2008
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Typing practice
I can't believe Christian won Project Runway last night. Nobody would wear his clothes, except Victoria Beckham. I wasn't sure he even knew how to drive when Tim gave him the car.
Everything is suspended for me all week anyway, waiting for Sunday's series finale of The Wire.
I am still in a daze over last week's penultimate episode.
I ordered Richard Price's new book, Lush Life, yesterday after reading a review and hearing him on Fresh Air. His book, Clockers, was -- in part -- inspiration for The Wire and he wrote several episodes of The Wire.
There are something like fifty story lines in The Wire.
I wonder how much sense any one episode would make to someone just watching for the first time.
I haven't heard anything about Colombia this morning.
They called me to teach, but I didn't answer the phone. I'm going to help Lee redecorate her office. I'm supposed to get a massage in the bargain.
I keep thinking about what Norman Mailer said about sex, that it wasn't any good unless it was sinful. That without guilt, something was missing.
There seems to be something unspoken in this, especially as relates to same sex relations, that I have never been able to fashion into a declarative sentence.
In college, when we were tripping in John Nelson's basement apartment, he showed me an orange upon which he had written something. He was an artist, married, really into Captain Beefhart and other chaotica. I tried to read the writing. It said, I thought, "In the end, you find out you love men." He grabbed the orange out of my hand, laughed his bizarre cackle, and read aloud, "You know, Las Vegas is where it is at, baby."
Then he ate the orange. And we never discussed it.
Don't mind me. This is morning typing practice.
Everything is suspended for me all week anyway, waiting for Sunday's series finale of The Wire.
I am still in a daze over last week's penultimate episode.
I ordered Richard Price's new book, Lush Life, yesterday after reading a review and hearing him on Fresh Air. His book, Clockers, was -- in part -- inspiration for The Wire and he wrote several episodes of The Wire.
There are something like fifty story lines in The Wire.
I wonder how much sense any one episode would make to someone just watching for the first time.
I haven't heard anything about Colombia this morning.
They called me to teach, but I didn't answer the phone. I'm going to help Lee redecorate her office. I'm supposed to get a massage in the bargain.
I keep thinking about what Norman Mailer said about sex, that it wasn't any good unless it was sinful. That without guilt, something was missing.
There seems to be something unspoken in this, especially as relates to same sex relations, that I have never been able to fashion into a declarative sentence.
In college, when we were tripping in John Nelson's basement apartment, he showed me an orange upon which he had written something. He was an artist, married, really into Captain Beefhart and other chaotica. I tried to read the writing. It said, I thought, "In the end, you find out you love men." He grabbed the orange out of my hand, laughed his bizarre cackle, and read aloud, "You know, Las Vegas is where it is at, baby."
Then he ate the orange. And we never discussed it.
Don't mind me. This is morning typing practice.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
The Paucity of Hope
Given that we are facing more months of bickering between Hillary and Obama, that neither one is likely to do all that much about the war in Iraq, and that both responded very badly to the recent situation in Colombia, I think that more than a week ago I started with a very meager audacity of hope and melted into a complete paucity of hope.
That was awfully ungrammatical. I can't be bothered to fix it right now as I wallow in my paucity of hope.
I'm working on an iMac in the middle school during a Spanish class I'm subbing for. Also, ungrammatical.
I give up, I have such a paucity of hope.
Read Robert Naiman's commentary at the link below on the Colombia situation.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/05/7482/
That was awfully ungrammatical. I can't be bothered to fix it right now as I wallow in my paucity of hope.
I'm working on an iMac in the middle school during a Spanish class I'm subbing for. Also, ungrammatical.
I give up, I have such a paucity of hope.
Read Robert Naiman's commentary at the link below on the Colombia situation.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/05/7482/
Smile Politely
It has been hard to accept that my freelance writing days (for paid publication) are over.
My job was outsourced to cyberspace.
I haven't even tried to sell anything for years. Even the local print alternative weeklies dried up. Now, everything is available online for no pay.
I still enjoy writing. But I have no paying audience. This state of things has given me the luxury of stretching, writing in new forms and new experiments of prose, squirreling away the pages for years, finishing a book, not finishing a book, not working on deadline, luxuriating in infinity.
William Buckley could go to Switzerland for a month and write a book every year, in between hitting the slopes. Good for him. I've never read any of his books and he never read any of mine.
More and more, I feel like Herman Melville, fading into anonymity as he did. But at least he lived in New York. And wrote Moby Dick.
My job was outsourced to cyberspace.
I haven't even tried to sell anything for years. Even the local print alternative weeklies dried up. Now, everything is available online for no pay.
I still enjoy writing. But I have no paying audience. This state of things has given me the luxury of stretching, writing in new forms and new experiments of prose, squirreling away the pages for years, finishing a book, not finishing a book, not working on deadline, luxuriating in infinity.
William Buckley could go to Switzerland for a month and write a book every year, in between hitting the slopes. Good for him. I've never read any of his books and he never read any of mine.
More and more, I feel like Herman Melville, fading into anonymity as he did. But at least he lived in New York. And wrote Moby Dick.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
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