Chautauqua

In his book, The Life of Reason, George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfill it.” Eight years after September 11, 2001, the matter is not whether we remember our past — but what we do with the memory.

The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon marked the end of our innocence — or at least our insular naïveté — at least for a little while. We became citizens of the world’s vulnerability for the first time in nearly 60 years. We found grief and hope in the stories of loss and survival, happenstance and heroism, frailty and courage. We were served notice to take care of our own, while we can — at home, in the workplace, and in the world. We were taught the brutal actuality of a terrorist attack that claimed thousands of lives, destroyed billions of dollars in property, and wreaked havoc with our systems of transportation and communication, expectation and faith. Though it’s popular for us to think and be told otherwise, we continue to face a realization equally brutal, disarmingly real, and politically contentious: The continuing conflicts in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan notwithstanding — with nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran looming — such an attack could happen again. It can happen here. It did happen here.

Should this be cause for morbid apprehension or constant alarm? Clearly not. We won’t permit it. Even if the threat of another 9/11 warranted such edgy anticipation, we will not abide long-term interruption of our traditional distractions. We will not relinquish our gullibility for political promises. We will not be kept from the comfort of our daily routines, from the trivialities of our partisan quibbling, from our preoccupations with celebrity, notoriety, and the pursuit of things material and superficial. We’re Americans. We’ve earned the right to indulge ourselves in any way we see fit, thank you very much. Because we’re pragmatists, we’ll keep an eye on CNN, the newspaper headlines, and our RSS feeds. Because we’re idealists, we won’t do so at the expense of American Idol, Real Housewives, Survivor, and Dancing With The Stars.

In remembering the past, two seemingly unrelated but beautifully American questions obtain. The first was asked on Monday, September 10, 2001. At a benefit performance by the jazz pianist Marcus Roberts, a questioner asked, “What is jazz?” Marcus answered readily and succinctly, “Jazz is the history of a people expressing itself through adversity. It’s about living on the edge and maintaining sure footing.”

The second question has been asked repeatedly since the day that followed. America was attacked by religious fundamentalist terrorists (of course, we can’t call them that anymore). In the aftermath of that attack — especially in light of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the controversies they perpetuates — we continue to ask, “What do we do now?” The second answer is the same as the first, as ready and succinct: We express ourselves through adversity. We live on the edge and maintain our footing.

We do this by recognizing the luxury to which we’ve become accustomed in the United States:

• Recognizing that our right to be opinionated sarcastic, cynical, petty, superficial, materialistic, and unreflective — and to manifest all other evidence of our philosophical ennui — is an absolute luxury.
• Recognizing that our right to fritter our attention on form over substance, on the peccadilloes and proselytizing of entertainers, on the purchasing patterns of consumers, on the past weekend’s box-office receipts, and on all other evidence of our societal boredom is an absolute luxury.
• Recognizing that our right to create the demand that begets the supply of infomercials for Bowflexes, Butt Blasters, Thigh Rockers, Ab Rollers, and all other evidence of our capacity for self-absorption is an absolute luxury.
• Recognizing that our right to agonize over the isms that appear to divide us is an absolute luxury.
• Recognizing that the right to have a country free and open enough to make the attack of 9/11 possible is an absolute luxury.

Eight years after that attack — in between the latest political side-swipes and stock-market reports, as politicians dither and dodge over Gitmo, the CIA, and interrogation tactics — we maintain our footing through faith in the resolve that never leaves Americans. As we exercise our luxurious indulgences, we remain watchful over those with whom we work and share life every day.

Mindful of the past, we combine our idealistic conviction — as Americans, we believe we will prevail — with our pragmatic understanding that even idealism needs a Plan B. With neither morbid apprehension nor undue alarm, we maintain our footing through the shared though unstated conviction that — should the need arise again, as it did on 9/11 — we will do what otherwise opinionated, sarcastic, cynical, petty, superficial, gullible, materialistic, unreflective, bored, self-absorbed, divided, and free Americans do:

• We will come together in strength and determination to protect those rights and that freedom.
• We will instantly abandon our self-absorption to extend every healing hand to every hand harmed in any way by this consequence of our determination to live freely.
• We will instantly forget our boredom, reflecting only on those who need whatever help we can give, literally — be it blood, sweat, cash, comfort, or hope.
• We will instantly swap materialism for materials, sending equipment, food, clothing, and whatever else is needed on the front lines of the most immediate battle in this newly declared war.
• We will drop our luxurious pettiness to stand united and prepare ourselves for the sacrifices we will be asked to make in protecting our rights and our freedom.
• We will turn on our televisions and see citizens of every stripe, age, persuasion, and profession calling themselves Americans.
• We will save the energy it takes to be sarcastic and cynical because we know it will be needed later. While the illusions of peace might incline us to squander that energy on ourselves, we dare not cheat our fellow Americans should they need it.

L.P. Hartley said famously, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” September 11, 2001, proved the future will be equally foreign. They do things differently, quite unpredictably, and sometimes brutally there. They did something equally unpredictable and brutal here. Though politicians bid us to forget, we will remember. But we will remember in our own way.

Go ahead and call us opinionated, sarcastic, cynical, petty, superficial, gullible, materialistic, unreflective, bored, self-absorbed, divided. We are. We’ve earned every one of the absolute rights we have to be so — and to work out our problems in our own way and time. We’re free. As a free people, we express ourselves through adversity, just as we expressed ourselves through the adversity visited on us from the skies on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. And we will maintain our footing. We will. We do. We’re Americans.

If you doubt, test us.

The events of the August Congressional recess provided so much fertile fodder for the Chautauqua Center for Political Poetry, we decided to extend the Summer Workshop (at taxpayer expense, of course). As a result, we’re proud to present this paean to profligacy:

Ode to Obamacare

If Congresswoman Jackson-Lee can lobby for a bill,
But not respond to questions from constituents until
She calls her Help Line just to find out what the hell is in it,
Why should we entrust her as our proxy for a minute?

And when she goes on CNN to sidestep and evade,
Why should we, as voters, brook her negligent charade?
Rick Sanchez ain’t conservative. His viewers all agree
That he’s not part of any vast, right-wing conspiracy.

But this will be okay with us. We’ll settle right back down,
Content to float while clowns in Congress try to help us drown
In complication, obfuscation, sophistry, and tax,
While tending to their union pals, entitlements, and PACs.

That’s how it’s done in Washington: they lie, and we all love it.
And if we don’t, too bad, my friends. They’ll tell us all to shove it.
‘Cause they know best, and they’re prescribing economic ruin.
So take the pills we voted for. It’s our own juice we stew in.

As we were wrapping up the Chautauqua Summer Arts Weekend, the participants in the Chautauqua Workshop for Political Poetry seemed to be working feverishly to complete a group project. Since we’re so proud of our members’ work, we present here the fruits of the Political Poetry group’s labors, a piece they’ve chosen to call, “Rhetorical Robbery”.  Please join me in extending thanks and congratulations to this industrious group for giving us this rhapsodic rune to ruin.

And so, without further ado:

Rhetorical Robbery

If Cash for Clunkers weren’t so foolish,
We’d be driving Ramblers.
Since rationed healthcare is so ghoulish,
Sick folks would be gamblers.

From auto parts to body parts,
Barack has all the answers.
Until it comes to wheels and hearts,
To brakes and common cancers.

“We’ll give you cars and cure your ills.
And this I guarantee:
We’ll run GM, prescribe your pills,
And do it all for free.”

Obamanomics draws the loop
But don’t a circle call it.
It panders to each int’rest group
While stealing from each wallet.

The loop that’s drawn will only close
When we’re all queued for service.
We’ll all hold hands, while lackeys doze,
And we become more nervous.

So, keep your car and keep your doc,
To lose them is a crime.
And wake up now. It’s not too late.
But we don’t have much time.

The Chautauqua Center for Musical Activism recently concluded a project, inspired by the contemporary political climate. We undertook to revise “America the Beautiful”, amending the lyrics  initially composed by Katharine Lee Bates, while retaining the original score by Samuel A. Ward. We imagine this new composition will be performed unless and until it is deemed free speech, fishy, or otherwise in opposition to the present administration’s totalitarian agendas of any stripe. Then it will disappear like an anti-Stalinist dissident.

All together now:

Obamica the Beautiful

O beautiful for specious lies,
Audacious hope in vain,
For purple prose and promises
Deceitful and insane!

Obmica! Obamica!
God shed His grace on we
Who now endure your fatal cure
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for union fraud
Whose rife corruptions spread
From auto plants to public schools
To bleed incentive dead.

Obamica! Obamica!
You revel in self-awe.
In your new role you now extol
A mockery of law.

O beautiful for healthcare schemes
That tax the nation blind,
That leave us sick and doctorless,
But leave your pockets lined.

Obamica! Obamica!
You have us by the cubes.
But don’t expect us to accede
While we go down the tubes.

O beautiful for patriot dreams,
For cherishing what’s ours,
For challenging your senseless schemes,
Foreshortening your powers.

Obamica! Obamica!
Be careful where you delve,
Or you’ll be outside looking in
By year two-thousand-twelve.

An old adage says, “Those who can’t do, teach.” The Chautauqua Center for Entrepreneurial Initiative espouses a corollary dictum: those who can’t make a living doing something constructive gripe about those who are making a living doing something constructive. Some jamoke named Glenn Greenwald is the latest in a rash of whiny nincompoops and public nuisances to whom that dictum applies. One could hardly catalog Goofy Glenn’s myriad delusions — nor would any constructive person spend the time — but here’s a beauty: he’s the author of a book called, How Would a Patriot Act? which is billed as a “critique” of the Bush administration’s use of executive power. What in the world would Gutless Glenn know about patriotism?

Pop Quiz #1: For fifty percent of your grade, do you imagine this clown will write a critique of the Obama administration, even though the topic is rife enough to require multiple volumes to cover the abuses of executive power in just the first six months of Obama the Omnipotent’s reign?

• Hint #1: Groveling Glenn’s a lawyer, too, just his like his buddy, Barack the Blameless.
• Hint #2: Not on your life.

The latest bug up Galled Glenn’s balmy bum is the fact that General Electric, which owns MSNBC, wants to muzzle Keith “The Crank” Olbermann. Who wouldn’t? The Crank hasn’t had a coherent articulation since he left ESPN. It seems MSNBC wants Olbermann to tone down his demented diatribes against Bill O’Reilly. Love O’Reilly or hate him, The O’Reilly Factor is the most-watched program in all of cable news. Why? Because O’Reilly makes sense to more people than does the lunatic Olbermann. Why wouldn’t GE want to keep the feathers of millions of prospective customers unruffled? But that logic escapes Gloomy Glenn. His beef is that he sees The Crank’s ranting and NBC’s corporate interests as being “unrelated”. Here’s a slice of his peculiar naivete:

[Olbermann's muzzling] was motivated by the belief that such criticism was hurting the unrelated corporate interests of GE [then Glenn abandons logical connections to write] … A G.E. shareholders’ meeting, for instance, was overrun by critics of MSNBC (and one of Mr. O’Reilly’s producers) last April [if the meeting was overrun by GE shareholders, how did MSNBC get unrelated to GE's corporate interests?] … So here we have yet another example — perhaps the most glaring yet — of the corporations that own our largest media outlets controlling and censoring the content of their news organizations based on the unrelated interests of the parent corporation.

Whew! I guess I feel better about the fact that Groping Glenn is clutching at straws to write incongruous gibberish for Salon, rather than trying to interpret the law for a corporation, the profit motives and employment potential of which he’d never understand. And I know I feel better for every poor schmoe he’s not representing in court. But come on. The dude’s 42 years old, and he’s this clueless?

Pop Quiz #2: For the remaining fifty percent of your grade, of which of the following concepts is Green Glenn utterly unaware:

1. Corporate policy
2. Organizational codes of conduct
3. Employees having to abide by 1 and 2
4. Any cerebral phenomena other than his feelings
5. All of the above.

Okay. So, I took it easy on you. You’re welcome.

One last question, which isn’t part of any exam but should have been part of Guarded Glenn’s education: How does a guy like this manage to remain so sheltered? I was introduced to the ways of the world and the reality of obeying rules at the age of three:

My family was going to the shore for a vacation. My father told me to stand on the sidewalk, which rose a foot or so above the curb, while he put my younger brother in the car. That was the rule. He always put my brother in first, then he lifted me in. Not this time. As soon as he turned his back, I took a step toward the embankment. I lost my balance, fell forward like a tree, went forehead first onto the edge of the door sill, and my noggin was as broken as the rule. We detoured to the emergency room on the way to the shore; and I received my first stitches, my first lesson in trial and error, and my first painful taste of breaking the rules. But that error didn’t keep me from trying again. And the breaking of rules neither eliminated them nor made me unfailingly heed them; although, the pain of that first break did teach me to respect them and to know them before I broke them.

Creating requires rule-breaking now and then. If you’re not creating, you’re waiting. If you’re not making, you’re taking. I have no idea what people like Gun-shy Glenn are waiting for. I have no idea why he doesn’t realize the buck Jeff Immelt is making for GE trumps the buck The Crank is taking from Jeff Imelt. But he doesn’t.

So, like all of the whiny waiters and takers we study here at the Chautauqua Center, he exercises his last resort: he blames it on the buck.

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

E.B. White

If you don’t think the world’s become a giant soap opera — in large part due to the indiscriminate nature of electronic media, which, while ubiquitous and unending, still relies on the old stand-by of sensationalism to draw attention — you’re not really paying attention. Ironic, isn’t it? With the help of electronic media, the world’s become a soap opera because, along with sensationalism, modernity now operates on two abiding doctrines: popularity and celebrity. Those doctrines have replaced two others: the rule of law and minding our now business. As a result, we’d rather be saved than to save. And we’d rather savor sensationalism than do anything else. Witness the evanescent evolution of The New World Superman.

In our last episode, Gary “Area 51” McKinnon was fighting extradition to these here United States. Area 51 was hoping not to face the music for having hacked into 97 U.S. government computers in the altruistically humanitarian effort to steal the formula for environmentally pure UFO fuel. Because the circumstances of that episode were nowhere near absurd enough to satisify the lust for inanity and the existential ennui of our viewers, our writers have upped the ante by extending this story into one of U.S. politics as world theater. This serves to expand our story line and its subsequent plot possibilities ad infinitum. At the same time, it creates burlesque on a global scale — giving the charade of U.S. politics a global sweep and indicating the length of the strides our hero, Barack the Beknighted (BTB), is willing to take to save the world, as long as the world will continue to adulate him and let him do whatever he wants.

You may remember that, in a back story introduced during the Area 51 episode, BTB deigned to invite a beat cop, a Harvard law scholar, and Joe the Blowhard (JTB) to the White House to settle a matter of local ordinance and racial ignorance over a glass of suds. The gesture wasn’t intended to demonstrate BTB’s ego, his deference to a fellow Harvard law professor, his lack of a sense of prioritization suitable for the President of the United States, or that he’d gladly let his domestic and foreign duties go to Hell in favor of a Rose Garden photo opp. Rather, it was meant to be evidence of the fact that BTB can be all things to all people all the time.

BTB is the New Superhero for the New World. He’s the President of the United States as executive agent, sole agent, supreme agent. Yes, he’s Super Agent: faster than a creeping legislature, more powerful than the Constitution imagined, able to leap tall tales at a single bound. He’s Super Pol! Yes, it’s Super Pol, strange visitor from another … oh, no you don’t. We’re not touching that one with a ten-foot pole.

Anyway, in today’s exciting continuation, the mother of Area 51 appealed to our hero to save her son from the evils of  … well … the law. Speaking outside the British High Court, Area 51’s mum, Janis Sharp, said:

[Gary was] naive enough to admit to computer misuse without having a lawyer and without one being present. [Editor's note: It's only a good idea to tell the truth sometimes -- and sometimes only with a lawyer present -- especially if you know the law, have broken the law, and don't like the law.] We are heartbroken. If the law says it’s fair to destroy someone’s life in this way then it’s a bad law … He’s very ill, he’s got really bad chest pains, it’s affected him emotionally, mentally, every way, he’s terrified … Obama wouldn’t have this … He doesn’t want the first guy extradited for computer misuse to be … a UFO guy … I’m just praying, please hear us, Obama, because I know you would do the right thing.

That’s right. Janis Sharp, a woman who is not a U.S. citizen and, so, not a (legally) loyal subject of BTB, knows the former law professor has enough disdain for the law that he will simply ignore it to do the emotionally popular thing (see Wagoner, Rick). She knows BTB is above (well, of course he’s above it, he can fly) and bigger than the law. She knows that if it will curry favor, win votes, distract attention from his mathematically impossible and consequentially disastrous economic fiascoes, and pump up the ego that is the source of his super powers, he’ll do it.

Most important, she knows viewers will ignore his flouting the rule of law because … well … because he’s going to save us, darn it.

Stay tuned.

Think it not thy business, this of knowing thyself; thou are an an unknowable individual; know what thou canst work at; and work at it, like a Hercules!  That will be thy better plan.

(Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, 1843)

If Live! marked Leslie’s long-overdue coming out, Dodgin’ The Dirt marked his coming of age. This is vintage Leslie, harnessing the strengths of his youth with the assured self-confidence of hard-won adult maturity. With a steadfastness matched among his peers only by Eric Clapton and Robin Trower, Leslie has remained faithful to his sonic vision and his gifts, while accommodating the growing perspectives of age, the advantages of improved recording and instrumental technology, and the maturing of his song-craft. The print ads for this disc, and its liner notes, claimed this was Leslie’s best work (up to the time of its release). I’d been sure that was behind him. I didn’t thinks so after hearing Dodgin’ the Dirt.

Among the highlights of Dodgin’ The Dirt: First, the weakness of some of the vocal performances on Live! are redeemed here. This is the primal, cat-screaming Leslie of old – full, confident, tortured, and celebratory. Second, his song selection (those both covered and self-penned) showed a new and remarkable breadth and diversity. As an example, his cover of Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” is a surprising take on a tune that Frank Sinatra once murdered, that I wouldn’t have cared to hear die at anyone else’s hands (or larynx). Leslie’s version is a singularly powerful treat.

But I don’t want to single anything out. This disc contains no ringers or filler. Among the highlights, “Sambuca” is a spirited run through Leslie’s riff-bag, featuring flights of melody, while joyously scraping the bottom of gut-bucket nasty. “One Last Lick” is an instrumental excursion over a standard (though menacing) blues progression – with some tasty surprises. “Cross Cut Saw” is a blues standard, given agile new treatment here. “Wasted Years”, by Van Morrison, is as much a biographical confession and a celebration of being alive as it is a beautiful cover of a touching song. In it – lyrically, vocally, and in his lead-guitar playing – Leslie acknowledges his own wasted years and touchingly celebrates his survival and arrival. And if “Wasted Years” is the pronouncement of that arrival, “Thunderbird” may be the proof.  This is as thoughtful and expressive as anything Leslie’s done post-Felix. He owns it; and he knows it. This just may be self-discovery as art.

Dodgin’ The Dirt’s final track, taped during the European tour from which Live! was compiled, is Leslie’s cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House”, which begins as a seeming knock-off of Live’s “Third Degree”. But the inclusion of this tune here is no afterthought. Despite forgetting the lyrics (again), Leslie uses everything from squealing bends to symphonic volume swells – from hair-raising single-note runs to chorused harmonics – to show why he’s always been the heavyweight champ of electric guitar: Anybody can plug one in. Only Leslie West is capable of this.

If the wait for this kind of work from Leslie was any indication, it had been a long road down the Mountain. If these two discs are any indication, it was worth every mile. The master had returned; and he’d never been better. It appears true from Live! and Dodgin’ the Dirt, just as Leslie sang in “Thunderbird” – “I’m stickin’ to my plan/I’ll be a happy man/While I can” – that he’d finally figured out what he canst work at. It’s clear now that his happy plan is to bring us much more music.

Long live the champ.

Saturday’s post about Bill Chinnock got me thinking about my old guitar heroes. So, I trotted out two sort of comeback discs from the early ’90s by Leslie West, one of the three guitarists who helped shape my young life. B.B. King and Johnny Winter are the other two. The listening inspired these notes.

Leslie West is the Larry Holmes of rock guitar. The heavyweight king since his early days in Mountain, Leslie remained uncrowned for having reigned in the shadow of others (Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton in the blues/rock arena; Richie Blackmore [in Deep Purple's heyday] and Tony Iommi [with Black Sabbath] in early conceptions of “metal”). But with the release of two discs, more than ten years after the death of his Mountain bandmate and creative protagonist, Felix Pappalardi, the pretenders abdicated; and Leslie assumed his rightful place among rock’s guitar royalty.

Because of the power and sheer volume of his playing, Leslie’s artistry was seldom acknowledged, let alone heralded. And Mountain’s work is seldom weighed on the relative scale of rock’s accomplishments and milestones. But consider: The release of Climbing in 1970 marked, not only an inimitable achievement, but the realization of the talent hinted at on Leslie West: Mountain (a solo album, which preceded Climbing) and the creative potential of Leslie’s collaboration with Felix Pappalardi (which began with that earlier album).

Even as the mutually affectionate, sympathetic spontaneity of Leslie’s concert performances with Felix were both emotionally touching and aurally breathtaking, Mountain’s subsequent albums continued to fulfill the potential of their first: As isolated examples (and at the risk of seeming to slight anything else), Leslie’s impassioned vocals and lyrical fills on “Flowers of Evil” (the title track from the album) have been perennially overlooked; and the narrative mastery of his solo in the live version of “Dreams of Milk and Honey” from that same album remains spellbindingly unmatched. Even Mountain’s post-West, Bruce, and Laing album, 1974’s Avalanche, is an under-valued gem, expanding, as it did, the sophistication of Mountain’s song craft (”Sister Justice” and “Last Of The Sunshine Days” are exemplary) and adding the interaction of David Perry’s rhythm guitar with Leslie’s, in place of Steve Knight’s keyboards.

In addition to the bewitching brew of power and poise Leslie’s playing always comprised, there’s evidence here that Leslie had finally stepped out of Felix’s shadow and filled the creative void left by Felix’s death (shot through the neck by his wife, graphic artist and Mountain album-cover illustrator, Gail Collins). The first of the discs, Live!, is culled from a series of European dates. Leslie’s band, Richie “The Bat” Scarlet on bass and “The Right Reverend” Paul Beretta on bass, serve as the immovable object for the irresistible force of Leslie’s singing and playing, providing ample room for his commanding improvisations. Live! lacks inspiration in some of its execution (ironically, the Mountain classics “Mississippi Queen” and “Nantucket Sleighride” satisfy least – probably because they’ve been done better elsewhere); and Leslie borders amnesia in his retention of lyrics (this has always been true of him). Nonetheless, this disc marked a return to unabashed form for the champ.

No one’s ever used an amp’s power any more fully than Leslie. There are ways in which he seems to use volume as an instrument, playing it with equal parts overwhelming abandon, deft touch, and poetic finesse. (When he digs into “Third Degree”, a grinding blues he also covered with West, Bruce, and Laing, the dizzying thrill of his bass-note harmonics and the visceral glide of his power chords suggest he alone knows how nasty and forbidding Eddie Boyd intended this song to be.) And no one has ever matched the economy of Leslie’s lead lines: no blazing runs or speed-metal tapping here. This is musical story-telling – mega-watt vignettes, in which Leslie never loses a sense of narrative to the seductions of flash and trickery.

Live! also began to manifest an interpretive conviction Leslie hadn’t shown before. That may be attributable to nothing more than age, maturity, and contemplation; but it’s a strength that carries through both discs. On Live!, Leslie’s poetic re-creation of “Theme For An Imaginary Western” is a fitting tribute to Felix, whose inimitable vocal interpretation of this song Leslie wisely refrains from imitating or suggesting. His alternating between the delicate picking of some chords (embellished by the artful dips and vibrato of his whammy-bar) and the brutal crashing of others adds to the dramatic majesty of his reading. Likewise, in Live!’s Hendrix/Beck tribute, Leslie does justice to vintage renditions of “Voodoo Chile” and “Goin’ Down” while making them unmistakably his own.

Notes on the second disc, Dodgin’ the Dirt, tomorrow.

A writer for The Hartford Courant, Helen Ubiñas, has attracted considerable feedback from readers about a recent column, questioning whether redemption (I suspect she meant atonement or forgiveness) was possible for two suspects in a horrific rape/murder/arson in Cheshire, Connecticut, two years ago. That column appears here. The column seemed largely misunderstood, chiefly because it seemed largely not to have a point. (Ms. Ubiñas muddied the waters by seeming to advocate an eye for an eye, while invoking the prospect of redemption and the “limits” of her God. Her God was unavailable for comment.) She followed that up by generating still more feedback with today’s column, a kind of apologia/backtracking/paean to peace for the victims families that appears to have gotten her deeper in the soup than Campbell’s.

But there is a point being lost in the all the emotion of this discussion. Yes, we all have personal reactions to capital punishment – the taking of a life by the law, under the law. But it’s not a personal decision. It’s a legal/societal one. Capital punishment, beyond the actual punishment, was intended to be a deterrent to capital crime. In countries in which it is enacted swiftly and decisively, it is. But it’s not an effective deterrent in the U.S. because perpetrators have more “rights” than victims. That’s not a judgment. It’s an observation of fact. Check our murder rates.

We’ve abandoned the purpose of capital punishment, just as we have so many other fundaments of our ostensible social “order”. It’s another conservative/liberal dichotomy. Conservatives believe our imperfections must be subject to the rule of law to keep the order and maintain equal opportunity. The logic and rule of law stand above all. Liberals believe our imperfections can be pandered to by inventing every individual “right” imaginable to monopolize power under the government through the promise of equality. The emotions and “rights” of the individual stand above all. Chaos be damned.

It’s harder to serve the rule of law (social order) than it is to claim our individual “rights” (equality, rather than equal opportunity). So, we are where we are. If Ms. Ubiñas’s God is involved at all – or anyone elses’s for that matter – it’s clear he has an endless imagination and brutally keen senses of humor and irony.

If he’s waiting for us to help ourselves, it’s a good thing his calendar is eternity.

I’ve noticed an alarming narrowing in the gap between realism and alarmism. Or is that a realistic narrowing? It’s hard to tell. Given our increasing psychological perversity – and our increasingly indiscriminate senses of entitlement – we’re all but destroying our capacity for semantic nuance. For example, as a matter of engaging in discussion, you used to be able to tell people the truth, even if they didn’t like it. If you tell people a truth they don’t like today, they’ll say you’re being sarcastic. If you tell people a truth they really don’t like, they’ll say you’re being mean. If you tell people a truth that has to do with taking responsibility for themselves – or engaging in something constructive – they’ll say you’re being (forgive my language) conservative. You’re better off lying through your teeth, especially if you’re promising them something for nothing. (See Obama, Barack.)

Along with abdicating responsibility for any kind of semantic maturity, we’ve developed a corollary knack for overlooking empirical evidence and ignoring our senses. We used to think that if it looks, walks, swims, flies, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Likewise, if we saw something that had all the hallmarks of a disaster in the making, we’d brace for the ensuing disaster – or work to prevent it. But we don’t think that way anymore. We’re too enamored of our entitlements to be preoccupied by discernment. That’s how and why, in an effort to institute his own power-mongering agenda, Barack the Betrayer is attempting to railroad through as much specious legislation as possible. And to get that specious legislation enacted before we wake up, he’s resorting to strong-arm tactics in government extortion. What? You mean that handsome guy who makes all those pretty speeches? Yes. Him. An excerpted example:

After Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., declared the Obama administration’s stimulus spending plan ineffective and urged a halt to further stimulus spending, the White House dispatched four Cabinet secretaries – Transportation’s Ray LaHood, Agriculture’s Tom Vilsack, Housing and Urban Development’s Shaun Donovan, Interior’s Ken Salazar – to write letters to Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer enumerating every dime of federal monies that would no longer flow to her state if Sen. Kyl had his way. As LaHood snarkily put it to Gov. Brewer, “If you prefer to forfeit the money we are making available to your state, as Senator Kyl suggests, please let me know.” What did the White House expect the governor to do next? Make Sen. Kyl an offer he couldn’t refuse? Or, as Mark Steyn, detecting the whiff of extortion in the air, asked: “Why not just break his (Kyl’s) legs in the Senate parking lot?”

To put what follows in context, please find a copy of Stephen Fox’s book, Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth Century America, referenced here. Since it’s out of print, you’ll have to do some Internet digging – or some serious rummaging through used-book stores. While you’re looking, here are the kinds of naivete-shattering realities you’ll find teed up in the book. There are no accidents or coincidences. Politicians like Barack the Bandit are supported by unions. Politicians and unions are corrupted by organized crime. That’s why:

• Labor unions typically and historically foster violence. The Center for Union Facts compiles evidence about the political and criminal activities of the labor movement in the United States.
• The National Institute for Labor Relations Research has maintained a catalog of union violence since 1975.
• The Heritage Foundation conducted exhaustive research on the effect of unions on business, industry, and the economy.

Well, that’s all a bunch of exaggerated hooey, right? Wrong. It’s a duck. We need to call it one.

Speaking of fowl, while Barack the Banty was crowing about saving General Motors, he was handing the fox the keys to the chicken coop. As a result, GM will now be managing to UAW demands, not to market demands and certainly not to consumer demands. Because Barack the Brazen knows the effectiveness of strong-arm tactics (see Politics, Chicago), we’re now enjoying thuggish coercion on healthcare. We’re celebrating criminal misrepresentation of the stimulus. We’re a few short steps from bringing home the kind of organized violence that’s doing a world of good for this U.S. plant in France. And we’re so determined not to say this thing that looks, walks, swims, flies, and quacks like a duck is a duck that our prospective perils have to be pointed out to us by our friends north of the border.

If you don’t think you’re about to lose something valuable — and if you don’t think that loss will be all but irretrievable — ask yourself this: does the bully tell you what he’s going to do as he’s approaching — and before he swipes your ice cream cone? Here’s a hint: HELL NO!

Big Brother Barack’s keeping it real. But that’s not the same as keeping it realistic. And it’s definitely alarming.

We ignore it at our own peril.