A "Fair and Balanced" Ruling

Once again, Calvin Trillin’s (Harry) Golden rule is proven. For those of you who are not familiar with Trillin's work, the (Harry) Golden Rule is as follows:

"In modern America, anyone who attempts to write satirically about the events of the day finds it difficult to concoct a situation so bizarre that it may not actually come to pass while his article is still on the presses."

This past Friday, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin denied Fox News’ request for an injunction against comedian Al Franken and his publisher to halt the release of his new book, “Lies and the Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.” Judge Chin dismissed the network’s argument with a bit of humor himself; “There are hard cases and there are easy cases. This is an easy case. The case is wholly without merit both factually and legally…It is ironic that a media company that should seek to protect the First Amendment is instead seeking to undermine it.”
The crux of the case rests on what Fox News Network describes as a violation of their trademark “Fair and Balanced”. Fox’s lawyers contend that the public could be confused about Franken’s relationship with the network and that he is deliberately exploiting that confusion in order to make money.

According to Michelle Goldburg writing for Salon.com Fox also contends that the network’s brand, which they say they have spent $61 million promoting would be “tarnished”. In an exchange between Fox attorney Dori Ann Hanswirth and Chin, Chin was shown to have little patience with their logic:

"Is it really likely someone is going to be confused as to whether Fox News or Bill O'Reilly is endorsing this book?" asked the judge.

"It is likely consumers could believe that," replied Hanswirth. Later she added, "There's no real message that this is a book of humor or political satire. It's a deadly serious cover and it's using the Fox News trademark" to sell itself.
In response, the judge pointed out that one of O'Reilly's own books is titled "The O'Reilly Factor: The Good, the Bad, and the Completely Ridiculous in American Life." "Is that not a play on "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly?'" Chin asked, noting that the movie title is also trademarked.

"I don't know," replied Hanswirth.

"You don't know?" asked the judge.

"I don't know," she repeated, before arguing, once again, that Franken is "intending to use the trademark to sell the product."

Hanswirth went on to argue that Franken has diluted Fox's trademark by using it "to ridicule Fox's No. 1 talent, Mr. O'Reilly." She then suggested that, because Coulter is on the cover, "somebody looking at this could determine Ms. Coulter has some kind of official relationship with Fox."

"The president and vice president are also on the cover, are they not?" asked Chin. "Are consumers likely to believe they are associated with Fox News?"

Can we say hubris, boys and girls?

In Search of a Decent Meal

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a brief article about my concern for the declining incomes of some our CEO's of major corporations. My heartfelt compassion for those who have been forced to live on as little as $1.9 million a year has at last been justified. Of course my pleas to form some sort of fundraising effort to alleviate their plight has fallen on the deaf ears of my heartless readers.

In the August 20th edition of the New York Post has a story by Bridget Harrison entitled "Naked Lunch – There's a Naked Woman in My Sushi" about how some of these struggling corporate bigwigs are forking over as much as $700 a head for dinner parties where guests are served sushi off a naked woman. According to the article, a caterer named Gary Arabia is bilking these desperate men for something he calls "body sushi."

Needless to say, I was appalled. Has anyone considered the sanitation aspect of this? That fish is not even cooked!

"You don't mess around with this. It's got to be done right," said Arabia, who personally works next to the naked woman, replenishing the sushi supply with a team of six chefs.

"It needs to be done with the handling and care of professionals."

Arabia uses trained body models who know how to lie still for up to three hours. "It takes a lot of concentration and muscle control," he said.

I would certainly hope that he uses trained models at $700.00 a pop. Do you know how many manufacturing jobs have to be shipped out of this country in order that these men can get a decent lunch? One in seven in the last 30 months alone! I'm sure that some glass worker in Muncie, Indiana is more than happy to see his 20 year job end in order that struggling CEO's can pluck truffles out of a woman's bellybutton, but this kind of price gouging simply must not be allowed to continue.

Have we as a nation become so callous as to allow the top one percent of our income brackets to be humiliated time and time again? And besides, has Mr. Arabia considered a more economical approach to these affairs. You know, something for the budget-minded journalist. Perhaps a nice spread of cold cuts and potato salad?

In Search of a Decent Meal

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a brief article about my concern for the declining incomes of some our CEO's of major corporations. My heartfelt compassion for those who have been forced to live on as little as $1.9 million a year has at last been justified. Of course my pleas to form some sort of fundraising effort to alleviate their plight has fallen on the deaf ears of my heartless readers.

In the August 20th edition of the New York Post has a story by Bridget Harrison entitled "Naked Lunch – There's a Naked Woman in My Sushi" about how some of these struggling corporate bigwigs are forking over as much as $700 a head for dinner parties where guests are served sushi off a naked woman. According to the article, a caterer named Gary Arabia is bilking these desperate men for something he calls "body sushi."

Needless to say, I was appalled. Has anyone considered the sanitation aspect of this? That fish is not even cooked!

"You don't mess around with this. It's got to be done right," said Arabia, who personally works next to the naked woman, replenishing the sushi supply with a team of six chefs.

"It needs to be done with the handling and care of professionals."
Arabia uses trained body models who know how to lie still for up to three hours. "It takes a lot of concentration and muscle control," he said.
I would certainly hope that he uses trained models at $700.00 a pop. Do you know how many manufacturing jobs have to be shipped out of this country in order that these men can get a decent lunch? One in seven in the last 30 months alone! I'm sure that some glass worker in Muncie, Indiana is more than happy to see his 20 year job end in order that struggling CEO's can pluck truffles out of a woman's bellybutton, but this kind of price gouging simply must not be allowed to continue.

Have we as a nation become so callous as to allow the top one percent of our income brackets to be humiliated time and time again? And besides, has Mr. Arabia considered a more economical approach to these affairs. You know, something for the budget-minded journalist. Perhaps a nice spread of cold cuts and potato salad?

Searching for a Quiet Familiar Place and the Death of Conversation

Last evening, a woman I recently met joined me for a drink at a local restaurant. Still being in the "getting to know you" stage, we were not seeking entertainment beyond our conversation. While sitting in the booth we both found it distracting to have "ambient" pop music competing for one another's attention. It is as though the concept of sitting quietly and enjoying one another's company and discourse has become anathema to America's restaurant and bar owners. Or, are we so afraid of being alone with that most human of endeavors – conversation – that we demand to be aurally anesthetized by music that can only be described as "The Wedding March of the Automatons"?

There is hardly anyplace left that one can walk into that allows you to entertain yourself. Sure, the neighborhood bar still exists in some cities with its idiosyncratic regulars and multi-generational "local color" but, regretfully, it is going the way of the Sumatran tiger and the white rhino.

Jared Carter's New Website

Like many aspiring writers, Jared Carter followed a path that led from the small town to the bright lights of New York, San Francisco, and Paris. But his writing brought him back to the Midwestern landscape that he knew best.

Jared Carter's poems seek to discover the potential for tragedy and transcendence in everyday life. They begin with a place called Mississinewa County, but they reach beyond that world, and search for an understanding common to us all. Carter is the author of three collections of poetry; Work for the Night is Coming (the winner of the 1980 Walt Whitman Award), After the Rain, and Les Barricades Mystérieuses: 32 Villanelles.

Connect with additional poems and essays by Jared Carter, and with reviews and articles about his work currently available on other web sites.

See his website at:http://www.jaredcarter.com/

Jared Carter's New Website

Like many aspiring writers, Jared Carter followed a path that led from the small town to the bright lights of New York, San Francisco, and Paris. But his writing brought him back to the Midwestern landscape that he knew best.

Jared Carter's poems seek to discover the potential for tragedy and transcendence in everyday life. They begin with a place called Mississinewa County, but they reach beyond that world, and search for an understanding common to us all. Carter is the author of three collections of poetry; Work for the Night is Coming (the winner of the 1980 Walt Whitman Award), After the Rain, and Les Barricades Mystérieuses: 32 Villanelles.

Connect with additional poems and essays by Jared Carter, and with reviews and articles about his work currently available on other web sites.

See his site at:http://www.jaredcarter.com/

George W's Resume

A writer named Kelly Kramer recently compiled a resume' for George
W. Bush. In it, she listed his central accomplishments. Among them are:

Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history;

Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any
12 month period;

Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the
stock market;

First year in office set the all-time record for most days on
vacation by any president in US history;

After taking the entire month of August off for vacation,
presided over the worst security failure in US history;

In his first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost
their jobs;

Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than
any president in US history;

Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions
than any president in US history;

Signed more laws and executive orders amending the
Constitution than any president in US history;

Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and
refused to intervene when corruption was revealed;

Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans;

Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to
simultaneously take to the streets to protest a sitting
American President, shattering the record for protest against
any person in the history of mankind;

Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US
history;

First president in US history to have all 50 states of the
Union simultaneously go bankrupt;

Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any
market in any country in the history of the world;

First president in US history to order a US attack and
military occupation of a sovereign nation;

Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the
history of the United States;

Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending
increases, more than any president in US history;

First president in US history to have the United Nations
remove the US from the human rights commission;

First president in US history to have the United Nations
remove the US from the elections monitoring board;

All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate
campaign donations;

Biggest life-time campaign contributor presided over one of
the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history
(Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation);

Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president
in US history;

First president to run and hide when the US came under attack
(and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1);

Took the biggest world sympathy for the US after 911, and in
less than a year made the US the most resented country in the
world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world
history);

With a policy of 'disengagement' created the most hostile
Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years;

Fist US president in history to have a majority of the people
of Europe (71%) view his presidency as the biggest threat to
world peace and stability;

First US president in history to have the people of South
Korea more threatened by the US than their immediate neighbor,
North Korea;

Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded
government contracts;

Set all-time record for number of administration appointees
who violated US law by not selling huge investments in
corporations bidding for government contracts;

Failed to fulfill his pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or
alive';

Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the
leaders of our country at the United States Capitol building.
After 18 months he has no leads and zero suspects;

In the 18 months following the 911 attacks he successfully
prevented any public investigation into the biggest security
failure in the history of the United States;

Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than
any other president in US history;

Entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in
less than two years turned every single economic category
straight down.

If you can believe it, this is an edited list

Sticks and stones…

Some time ago, while sitting in my favorite pub with a poet friend, I made a remark to the bartender (we'd normally use the term 'barman' but we are much too advanced for that now) that caused a rather perplexing reaction. I had never seen Brigid with her hair pulled back and commented on it by saying that it made her look "quite fetching." She threw me a look that would cause children to weep and marched off in a huff. I then asked Bob if I had done something wrong. He assured me I hadn't and we ordered new pints.

When she'd returned her demeanor would have chilled the pints without the aid of refrigeration. In hopes of diffusing the tension, I asked her what was wrong to which she replied, "You know damn good and well what it wrong." Apparently, the dumfounded look on my face impressed her that perhaps I did not know what was wrong. "Why did you call me 'fetching'?" I replied, "It is a compliment. You are quite fetching." It was right there that I realized she had misunderstood the term 'fetching'.

A dictionary was produced (if you are asking what a dictionary is doing in a pub, well, they also have the collected works of William B. Yeats – the Irish!) and the definition found – "attractive; pleasing". She had taken it as a pejorative on her status as a server. I then made a joke about the serving wench being fetching, with the point being that "fetching" would mean the same in either context. Perhaps it was a little archaic, but a fitting sobriquet nonetheless.

This led to a great deal of thought about the misappropriation of language. In my last post I used the title, "Calling the Kettle Black" to which I received a couple of puzzling comments (and several kind compliments, thank you) regarding the use of this aphorism or cliché. Being new to this forum, I searched around a bit to find the subject in "Random Thoughts and Pointless Conclusions" (which, by the way, I highly recommend) dated August 4th. It concerned using the phrase "Look who's calling the kettle black" or "That's the pot calling the kettle black" and its possible racial overtones.

I have been on this planet nearly fifty years and in all that time I have never heard this particular phrase used in a racial context. Believe me, I've heard plenty of racially motivated speech in my time, Black as the ace of spades leaps to mind. (Although I must confess, I thought being called a spade was, in a way, kind of cool, implying something hip and dangerous.)

The pot-kettle issue is another matter. It has more or less kept its original meaning and that being someone being hypocritical about a behavior that reflected their own. In fact, I would be hard pressed to even think of a way that it could be used racially. It wouldn't surprise me that the phrase probably predates racial issues. It has the feel of being a very, very old folk saying. (Perhaps some enterprising etymologist or folklorist could enlighten us on this matter.)

In fairness, Dreah dismisses the idea that every time the word "black" is used it is used in a racial context, but that sometimes it is and that we might give some thought to what might be hurtful and what may not.

In closing I have one more story to tell about the misunderstandings that can
arise from language. When I first attended a public school at age seventeen, it was the first time I had African-American classmates in any number. One day, one of them called me a "honky" which wasn't a term I was familiar with at that time. I knew the ethnic slur for Hungarians was "hunky" and thought I hadn't heard properly. I then replied, "No, I'm Irish." I'm sure to this day, he thinks I am the dumbest white man he ever met.

Calling the Kettle Black


Mark Starr of Newsweek this week gives his opinion of blogging and the "new media" in an article entitled "My Kobe Confession":

"When I was growing up in this business, our collective notion of what constituted the media was pretty uniform and certainly finite. It sure as hell didn’t include every clown with a Web site and a grudge, every blogger convinced that his daily diary contains deathless prose, every shockjock with toilet tastes and even baser values.
All those now claim to be part of the “media.” And maybe they are. But too many practitioners of new media are working relentlessly to drag everyone else down to their subterranean levels. It is increasingly hard for the mainstream to cling to well-established principles when so many others are out to degrade and titillate—all under the pretense of informing. And, frankly, there are way too many folks in the mainstream who are happy, make that thrilled, to follow them down the low road."

As if we malignant purveyors of blogging trash had to lead the "professional" media down the low road. Over the past thirty years, they done a pretty good job of redefining what "in the gutter" really means. I would be the first to agree that many websites are downright loopy and some blogs give idiocy a bad name, but it seems a little rich to be criticized by those who, of course, write only in "deathless prose." Please! During the O.J. Simpson trial the internet (the source of all this evil) was still in its infancy and only reached a fraction of the people it does today, and what a splendid display of professionalism we were treated to then.

Could it be that the "mainstream media" has suddenly developed a conscience and remembered that their reason for existence was to advance the debates in a democratic society, rather than provide the mindless pabulum of infotainment?

Yeah, I didn't think so either.

Faux Gates

"It's a wonderful feel (sic) when you drive up to a community and it's gated,"[Ray] Neverovich said. "There's a sense of community."

This quote comes from an article about the new "gated" communities springing up in the Cincinnati area. Aside from Mr. Neverovich's garbled syntax (It's a wonderful feel?) and delightful Dostoevskian name, there is something troubling about the statement. Perhaps it's just me, but does anyone have a "wonderful feel[ing]" when they see a gate? And is this a community?

A gate, to my mind, only means that you want to keep something in or out. Gates on prisons, stockyards, etc., keep things in, often involuntarily. I hardly think "Wetherington" (no plebian "Bluebird Lane" for these folks) residents are constrained by their gates. No, the gates are there to keep YOU out. (Yes, you…you know who you are!) We can't very well have the hoi polloi just driving through Wetherington any time they like. Why, they might get ideas, like, "why can't I have a house like this?" and then remember that their job was just shipped off to Mexico, China, or India, very often by the same people who live here. It is really rather thoughtful of them to spare our feelings by not allowing us to amplify our already growing feeling of inadequacy.

Also, in the same spirit of community, they call the security guard (a decidedly militant term, conjuring up unpleasant visions of "Checkpoint Charlie) a "gate greeter." It's nice to know that when I pull up in my rusty '89 Dodge, that I will be greeted rather than merely told to hit the bricks. I wonder where they have the $8.75 an hour greeter park his rusty Dodge?

One of the more interesting subplots to this is the rise of "faux gates" communities. Yes, faux gates! It seems that those who aspire to live in gated enclaves, but can't afford the cost of road maintenance that private roads entail, put gates at the entrances of their subdivisions. This sort of aping of the haves by the only slightly have-nots is not only pathetic, but just begging for a satirical roasting. "Yeah, Harry, we really fooled those burglars with those fake gates."

If I might, I would like to make a modest proposal; perhaps we could all have gates on our communities? Think of the boost to our self-esteem. "I work at a dead end job and can't afford to send my children to college and my health insurance just lapsed, but we have gates just like the folks out in Wetherington."

At last, a low-cost effective way to curb the downward spiral of our urban neighborhoods.

Letter to a Conservative Friend

'A Donnochadha,

Thank you for the kind compliments. Yes, I think it is a sad state of affairs that the current political debate has degenerated to essentially name-calling and ideological purity witch hunts – of which neither bodes well for the state of democracy. In fact, I am increasingly dismayed with the postmodernist Left. The complete abrogation of responsibility and the embracing of "moral" relativism is as pernicious a disease as I might dare imagine.

Eugene V. Debs, one of the founders of the Socialist Party and man I still admire, once told an audience that if he could lead them into the Garden of Eden, he wouldn't; because if he could do that, someone else could just as easily lead them out. "You must take yourselves there!" Hmmm…personal responsibility anyone?

As for the death of right and wrong, which the moral relativists of the Left seem only too happy to extol, is for me, contrary to the very basis of my being involved in Leftist politics. I joined it precisely because it offered moral clarity; i.e., it was wrong to exploit people, it was the right thing to do when you supported the civil rights of people denied them for no other reason than the color of their skin, etc., etc.

George Orwell, another socialist, while writing of the general public's perception of the Left in 1930's said:

“In addition to this there is the horrible – the really disquieting – prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words “Socialism” and “Communism” draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, “Nature Cure” quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.”

Thirty odd years ago when I first read those lines, I chuckled. It doesn't seem so funny to me anymore.

As a former military officer, you might be surprised to learn that I, the man you fondly describe as left of Ted Kennedy, advocated going after the Taliban a full six months before September 11th! They were (and I suppose, still are), as Christopher Hitchens described them, "Islamofascists" who have no respect for even the most fundamental of human rights. Good riddance to the bearded vermin.

And, although I might have some serious questions about how we were sold on the entire Iraq issue and, even more importantly, what exactly are we go to do now that we are there, only a crank could believe that the world isn't a little better place sans Saddam Hussein & Sons.

Yes, D - , you and I might disagree on a good many things, but the concept of E Pluribus Unum still means something to both of us, that democracy and the rights of individuals and equal protection under the law are worth arguing about and fighting, and possibly, dying for.

Then again, perhaps we have gone through the looking glass and that the idea of ordinary men, not those of privilege, might control their destiny for the benefit of the common good has become a cornball fantasy. For everyone's sake, let's hope not.

Slán go foill,

Baírnín MacGiollaFhaolain

By Any Other Name

There is a sense of serendipity that two articles fell into my hands on the same day – the first, a news article about a masturbation marathon in San Francisco and the other appeared in the conservative cultural journal "The New Criterion" concerning a conference of literary and social theorist. It would appear on the surface there is little to link what appear to be two random news pieces, but looks can be deceiving.

More than one hundred men and women took part in what was billed as the city of San Francisco’s second annual “Masturbate-a-thon.” Organizers said they gave individuals “the opportunity to overcome their inhibitions” in a safe public environment and raise money for charity. The proceeds from this bout of exhibitionism are donated to the local Center for Sex and Culture, a non-profit organization that provides sex education. It is exactly this sort of thing that leads many people in my part of the country to say that the only good thing to come (no pun intended) out of California is an empty bus.

“This is an effort to counter centuries of censure, to make masturbation more fun and to make it more accessible,” says Thomas E. Laqueur, a professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley and author of the recent “Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation. Even though I live in the sexually inhibited Midwest, I was surprised to find there was a problem with accessibility.

Onanism of another variety held its own conference a few weeks earlier at the University of Chicago. The editors of Critical Inquiry, academe’s prestigious theory journal, convened a “loya jirga” of scholarly elite. The New York Times article the New Criterion’s is based states:

“These are uncertain times for literary scholars. The era of big theory is over. The grand paradigms that swept through humanities departments in the 20th century – psychoanalysis, structuralism, Marxism, deconstruction, post-colonialism – have lost favor or been abandoned. Money is tight. And the leftist politics with which literary theorists have traditionally been associated have taken a beating.”

I have my own views about the literary theories of the past quarter century which I summed up in a parody of haikus written in Scots:


Cam Ye O’er Frae France?

(in admiration of the French Postmodernists)

Jock Lackin’ an’ wee
kirkie Derridoo, ay cannae ken
‘a word o’ wha’ they do!


These days, English departments everywhere have deconstructed themselves to the level of nonsense. Literary theory has become the new literature, and no scholar worthy of his French influences believes in the objective reality of any text. The traditional canon no longer exists, nor do traditional standards. Everything is suitable for study because no one is privileged to judge one work better than the other. Good and bad are regarded as relative terms, making it difficult for anyone to protest when “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is bumped from the curriculum by the “Vagina Monologues.”

Leftist thinkers of the new symbolic type would appear to believe that the way to do leftist politics is use words in a subversive way, in academic publications of lofty obscurity and disdainful abstractions. These symbolic gestures, it is believed are themselves are a form of political resistance; and so one need not engage with messy things such as legislatures, movements, and unions in order to act daringly. The new (or should I say, newer) Leftism, instructs its members that there is little room for large-scale social change, and maybe no room at all. We are all, more or less, prisoners of the structures of power that have defined our identity as oppressed; we can never change those structures in a large scale way and we can never escape from them.

All that we can hope to do is find spaces within the structure of in which to parody them, to poke fun at them, to transgress them in speech. And so symbolic verbal politics, in addition to being offered as a type of real politics, is held to be the only politics this is really possible.

These developments owe much to the recent prominence of French postmodernist thought. Many young leftists, whatever their concrete affiliations with this or that French Thinker, have been influenced by the extremely French idea that the intellectual does politics by speaking in a seditious manner, and this is a significant type of political action. Many have also derived from the writings of Michel Foucault, rightly or wrongly, the fatalistic idea that we are all prisoners in an all-enveloping structure of power, and that real-life reform movements usually end up serving power in new and insidious ways. Such leftists therefore find comfort in the idea that the subversive use of words is still available to left-leaning intellectuals. Deprived of the hope of larger or more lasting changes, we can still perform our resistance by the reworking of verbal categories, and thus, of the selves who are constituted by them.

This implied audience is imagined as remarkably docile. Subservient to the oracular voice of Gauloise-puffing frogs and dazzled by its patina of high-concept abstractness, the imagined reader poses few questions, requests no arguments and no clear definition of terms.

Increasingly, the academic and cultural trend is toward the pessimistic flirtatiousness represented by Messrs Foucault, Derrida, Lacan and Co. Postmodern leftism is in many ways so much easier than the old leftism. It tells scores of talented young people that they need not work on changing the law, or feeding the hungry, or assailing power through theories harnessed to material politics. They can do politics in the safety of their campuses, remaining on the symbolic level, making subversive gestures at power through speech and gesture. This, the theory says, is pretty much all that is available to us anyway, by the way of political action, and isn’t it exciting and sexy?

Doubleplusungood!

"And if all the others accepted the lie which the party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

- George Orwell
1984


I was once told by my daughter’s teacher that she wasn’t so sure I should let her read Jonathan Swift’s satiric masterpiece, “A Modest Proposal.” Her argument was that the subject matter was too "dark" and that it might be disturbing to young children. Apparently, this teacher had never watched prime time television or wandered past a video arcade where many of her delicate charges spent their time.

Katie was ten at the time. She had recently danced with her Irish dance school at the unveiling of a commemorative plaque honoring the victims of the Irish Famine or An Gorta Mor – The Great Hunger. Between the various performances of musicians, dancers and poets, speeches were given, accounts and letters read of the harrowing event that nearly brought the Irish people and their culture to the brink of extinction and changed the course of our two countries' histories forever. What better time to introduce a descendent of the survivors of that cataclysmic period of history to a great work of literature that foresaw the tragedy and argued forcibly for that people’s humanity?

Little did I know I was encountering what has become the norm in our schools – the dumbing down of America. I had of course encountered censorship in its older more familiar form, usually launched by those fundamentalist sentries of morality on the fringes of the Christian right – where Beatles records were burned because John Lennon had declared they were 'more popular than Jesus' or “Catcher in the Rye” couldn’t be taught in schools since its protagonist persisted in taking the lord ‘s name in vain.

Of course, in other parts of the world in different times there were the book burnings of Hitler's Third Reich and Stalin’s purges of heretical writers and poets in the Soviet Union. My personal experience of having lived in Northern Ireland where under the “Offences Against the State Act” a person in possession of “seditious materials” could land in an internment camp for six months. But, this is America, where we have the First Amendment and the Enlightenment ideal of the free exchange of ideas.

Things have changed. In what appears as a time of unbridled license – unlimited access to pornography, celebrities tweaking the noses of censors on the airwaves – something else has been going on, something more pernicious than the knock on the door in the middle of the night.

"All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and re-inscribed exactly as often as was necessary."

I've recently read Diane Ravitch's new book, "The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn." Although the term "Orwellian" has virtually become a cliché, I can think of no other word to describe what Ms. Ravitch details.

X

See my work on Artspike:

http://www.artspike.org/publish/public_html/search.php?type=stories&author=barneymac17&sortby=birthdate&orderby=DESC

The Poor Dears…How Ever Will They Manage?

In a recent Business Week article by Louis Lavelle on the plummeting salaries of CEO's we learn of the tragic plight of Edward W. Barnholt, CEO of Agilent Technologies Inc. It seems that his company's sales in 2002 were down 28%, the stock was off 35%, and the company posted a $1 billion dollar loss.

"So when it came time for the board to decide Barnholt's pay, he paid dearly, with a 10% cut in his base salary, to $925,000, and no bonus or restricted-stock grant for the second consecutive year!"

Can you imagine the indignity of it? I can just imagine poor Ed calling home and telling the wife that it's Spam and potatoes on the table tonight. And while she's at it, call the cable company and have the service discontinued. After all, how is one to scrape by on less than a million a year? I shudder to think.

But, Barnholt is not the only one suffering:

"Of course, averages can be deceptive. What has really been wrung out of the system is the excess at the very top of the scale. In last year's ranking, Oracle Corp CEO Lawrence J. Ellison set a record with a $706.1 million payday after he exercised a big stash of options. This year, the highest-paid exec clocked in at just $194.9 million. Last year, the top seven execs on our pay scoreboard broke the $100 million barrier; this year, only two did. The numbers were also skewed by a handful of CEOs who, in light of weak performance and a backlash against obscene pay, elected to work for nominal sums or who gave back part of their take. So while average exec pay plunged by a third, the median pay for our 365 CEOs actually rose by 5.9%, to $3.7 million. Yes, it's an increase, but not to a level that's apt to provoke investor outrage."

I know the more mean-spirited among you think a mere $195 million is enough for anyone, but have you considered the shattered egos of these now disadvantaged men? While meeting at the country club they can no longer brag their salaries are larger than the GNP's of several African countries. Surely, they must feel they have to hide their faces for the shame of it!

Another pernicious trend has been the "pay for performance" demands of the stockholders. This outrageous scheme actually wants Chief Executive Officers to be held accountable for the well-being of the companies they are in charge of! What are these people? Communists? Only the heartless would not be appalled by the wretched behavior that follows:

"Although Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steven P. Jobs earns a salary of just $1 a year, he did get quite a bonus when the Apple board agreed on Mar. 19 to exchange 27.5 million of his underwater options for 5 million shares of restricted stock worth $72 million -- in effect rewarding him for the 80% slide in Apple shares over the past three years."

Is such shabby treatment of multi-millionaire ever justified? I think not. How long can we stand by and watch what amounts to a national disgrace? I, for one, think that if we are to call ourselves a compassionate country and concerned with the welfare of all individuals, we must petition Congress to give the wealthiest one percent among us drastic and immediate tax cuts and generous incentives to restore the prestige and dignity of these shattered men.

The Poor Dears…How Ever Will They Manage?

In a recent Business Week article by Louis Lavelle on the plummeting salaries of CEO's we learn of the tragic plight of Edward W. Barnholt, CEO of Agilent Technologies Inc. It seems that his company's sales in 2002 were down 28%, the stock was off 35%, and the company posted a $1 billion dollar loss.

"So when it came time for the board to decide Barnholt's pay, he paid dearly, with a 10% cut in his base salary, to $925,000, and no bonus or restricted-stock grant for the second consecutive year!"

Can you imagine the indignity of it? I can just imagine poor Ed calling home and telling the wife that it's Spam and potatoes on the table tonight. And while she's at it, call the cable company and have the service discontinued. After all, how is one to scrape by on less than a million a year? I shudder to think.

But, Barnholt is not the only one suffering:

"Of course, averages can be deceptive. What has really been wrung out of the system is the excess at the very top of the scale. In last year's ranking, Oracle Corp CEO Lawrence J. Ellison set a record with a $706.1 million payday after he exercised a big stash of options. This year, the highest-paid exec clocked in at just $194.9 million. Last year, the top seven execs on our pay scoreboard broke the $100 million barrier; this year, only two did. The numbers were also skewed by a handful of CEOs who, in light of weak performance and a backlash against obscene pay, elected to work for nominal sums or who gave back part of their take. So while average exec pay plunged by a third, the median pay for our 365 CEOs actually rose by 5.9%, to $3.7 million. Yes, it's an increase, but not to a level that's apt to provoke investor outrage."

I know the more mean-spirited among you think a mere $195 million is enough for anyone, but have you considered the shattered egos of these now disadvantaged men? While meeting at the country club they can no longer brag their salaries are larger than the GNP's of several African countries. Surely, they must feel they have to hide their faces for the shame of it!

Another pernicious trend has been the "pay for performance" demands of the stockholders. This outrageous scheme actually wants Chief Executive Officers to be held accountable for the well-being of the companies they are in charge of! What are these people? Communists? Only the heartless could not be appalled by wretched behavior that follows:

"Although Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steven P. Jobs earns a salary of just $1 a year, he did get quite a bonus when the Apple board agreed on Mar. 19 to exchange 27.5 million of his underwater options for 5 million shares of restricted stock worth $72 million -- in effect rewarding him for the 80% slide in Apple shares over the past three years."

How long can we stand by and watch what amounts to a national disgrace? I, for one, think that if we are to call ourselves a compassionate country and concerned with the welfare of all individuals, we must petition Congress to give the wealthiest one percent among us drastic and immediate tax cuts and generous incentives to restore the prestige and dignity of these shattered men.