Dec 30 2008
As we are still technically in the season of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, let us pluck out one of these chestnuts and examine it more closely.
Herewith is an e-mail I received after my Dec. 17 column titled "The Baghdad Shoes Fly in Our Face, Too."
It illustrates a popular and recurring point made by those many right wingers who live in a permanent state of disgust. The writer of this one, with his lower-case preference, is apparently a Texas version of e.e. cummings without the poetic sense):
"it is ironic that in the same paper as your column appeared was an article about newspapers all across the country losing readers to the point that they are having to merge or simply go out of business. as I pondered this I turned to the op-ed page where you were making another attempt to be funny. I failed, I failed you wrote, the truth, the truth I thought. hmm hmm could these opinionated scribes be the downfall of the newspapers? disgusted in texas!!"
Ah yes, that old chestnut .. if only we opinionated scribes would not bash George W. Bush, the newspaper industry would be doing fine.
No, it wouldn't. The Internet is the problem - the whole industry is in the soup, both liberal newspapers and conservatives ones have declining circulations.
The fact is that many people don't depend on newspapers anymore for their news - they find it more convenient to go on the Web. (In frustration, I put the curse of the Aussies upon them: Let all their chickens turn into emus and kick over their patio furniture.)
People know you have to pay for a newspaper subscription but you can read this Web site and others like it for free.
To be sure, you have to buy a computer and you probably have to subscribe to a server but the news comes to you virtually free in the same sense that radio is free for anyone who buys a radio.
That is the problem for newspapers. It is the same problem faced by the world's oldest profession: How's a working girl going to make a living when everybody is giving it away?
If George W. Bush had never been bashed by an opinionated writer, the basic problem would remain.
Of course, it is true that some - OK, many - Bush lovers do give up newspapers because they can't stand criticism of the alleged great one. No surprise there - they are not famous for their open-minds. In fact, a more angry, vengeful group you would be hard-pressed to find, at least judging by my e-mail.
Just this week I saw a postcard from a couple of disgusted readers who had cancelled their subscriptions because they did not like the PG's cartoons, which, they said, were meant to brainwash people into thinking Bush and Cheney are evil. (Actually, it's only Cheney.)
So are we supposed to give up all cartoons? What a business model! Last time I looked Bush's approval rating was about 27 to 29 percent, depending on the poll, at historic low levels. If we cut the criticism of Bush, we would offend the 70 percent or so of Americans who think he is a failure.
My guess is that newspapers will fade away and transform themselves into brand-name Web sites. If you can't beat them, join them.
Sorry, boys. George W. Bush has little to do with it.
Dec 26 2008
I have been busier than a one-armed paper hanger this week because several of my colleagues, being smarter than I am, took days off (I was only off yesterday). The blog is always the first to suffer in such a situation.
It's a slow time of the year in any event and a time of seasonal good cheer, which puts a strain on those of us who tend to the cynical.
My children came home from New York City for Christmas and we spent a quiet day. The time-honored holiday routine unfolded in its usual leisurely way, the nice breakfast followed by the opening of presents and a long dog walk. As we had our dinner in the early evening, it occurred to us that this might be the last occasion when we would be sitting down together as a family of four for any holiday or indeed any future occasion.
In March, our daughter Allison is getting married and if she comes home next Christmas, which is far from certain, we might then be a family of five. There's nothing wrong with that - it is how life is supposed to unfold and really it's cause for celebration - but with that knowledge a little note of sadness sounds. We are moving on. The way we were will not be the way we will be, even if love abides always.
Tonight, more sadness. Along with many of my co-workers here at the PG, I will be going to pay my respects to Joe Fahy, the Post-Gazette reporter who died last Wednesday. The sub-heading on his obituary last Friday called him "Beloved, Award-Winning Post-Gazette Reporter."
Fellow cynics might have read that and doubted it - that's the problem with cynicism, it makes you doubt the real deal. I might have doubted it too had I not known the man.
Joe Fahy was the real deal. To meet him was to have the feeling of being in the presence of goodness. Rest in peace, Joe, as I have no doubt you will. Although your life was far from simple and uncomplicated, you exuded peace while you were among us. You were the gentlest of gentleman. Not for nothing were you called beloved in your obituary.
To all ye other merry gentlemen (and women), Happy New Year. Surely better times are coming.
Dec 19 2008
I am proud to have written a number of columns in support of gays being allowed to marry. I am also no supporter of conservative evangelical ministers, who strike me as posing a greater threat to the freedom of Americans to live their lives as see fit than almost any other group in the country.
Yet I find the controversy about Barack Obama's choice of the Rev. Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration to be without merit.
According to the story in this morning's PG, the Human Rights Group - a group advocating for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered people - have lodged a protest. The group believes the minister should not have been invited because he supported Proposition 8, the heartless amendment that stripped gays of the right to marry in California.
But suppose Rick Warren, who is anti-abortion, should refuse the invitation because of Obama's pro-choice position? I think it is a fair bet that the same people condemning his selection for the inauguration would be screaming bloody murder. How dare he tie this to a single issue!
Yes, but that's just other side of the coin to the current complaint: How dare Obama invite this minister and ignore a single issue?
He did so because he believes in establishing a dialogue, believes in breaking down barriers, believes in finding common ground. And that is entirely wise and proper.
Liberals who are not liberal should shut up already and leave the single-minded obsessions to the conservatives.
Dec 17 2008
What the heck is wrong with Sen. Arlen Specter? Why would anyone tell ethnic jokes in this day and age? Anybody not living in a cave - and Capitol Hill is not exactly a cave, although it has its share of moonbats - knows that the age of ethnic jokes, particularly of the Polish variety, has come and gone and its passing is not lamented.
Yet telling Polish jokes is what Pennsylvania's senior Republican senator did at an event for the Pennsylvania Society in New York City last Friday, even though he reportedly knew that some in the audience were of Polish descent. As my colleague Jim O'Toole wrote in a story on this morning's front page ("Specter's Ethnic Jokes Lay an Egg"), he has been apologizing ever since. So he should. He should say sorry for the dual offenses of insensitivity and stupidity, a pair that often hang out together.
Which brings me to the subject of political correctness, the most threadbare expression and concept in the language. You can just bet that some goof somewhere will defend Sen. Specter by lamenting about what the world has come to when you can't tease people because PC thought has squeezed all the fun and humor out of life.
At that time, and I know I am attacking a straw man until it happens, I will point out that in most cases Political Correctness is, in fact, nothing more than Practical Courtesy.
Dec 16 2008
Back between 1988 and 1993, when I was the editor of The Monterey County Herald in Monterey, California, a place so beautiful that I would not have been surprised if the Almighty Himself was a subscriber and read the paper on the porch of heaven, we put out the paper seven days a week with a staff of 52 full-time equivalents.
The circulation wasn't large (about 37,000 on Sundays), the paper wasn't thick and the coverage area was only about half a dozen communities, not a whole metropolitan area.
Still, that experience led me to believe that an editor could still put out a fairly decent paper with a modestly sized staff.
That has been an encouragement to me amid the general buyouts and layoffs now epidemic in the newspaper business (the Post-Gazette said goodbye last week to more than 20 journalists, some of them my old friends, who accepted voluntary buyouts).
Shrinking doesn't have to be fatal - or so I have believed. But then comes news like this today from the Associated Press, which reports that Detroit's two daily newspapers will publish only three days a week while urging readers to go to their Web sites.
Three days a week! Newspaper readership is a habit. Break the habit and you risk breaking the industry. I hope the PG never comes to that.
Dec 15 2008
Crikey! I went to the movie "Australia" on Saturday night, as you might have guessed I would eventually. I think it ran longer than the time I actually lived in Australia. A man had to have the bladder of a bull just to get to the end of it.
Why, it was so long that for the first time in my memory the movie started at the advertised time - no trailers or anything. I reckon the cinema owners knew they would have to pay the projectionist overtime if they kept people in their seats any longer.
The movie had mixed reviews, so here's mine: It was ridiculous and entertaining, in fact, irresistibly so, even at 2 hours and 35 minutes of stereotypes and cliches.
One part of the ridiculous element was that you knew everything that was going to happen before it happened. You just knew the English aristocratic lady - Nicole Kidman - who takes over the cattle ranch (station, in the Australian vernacular) was going to fall in love with the rugged cowboy - Hugh Jackman.
You just knew a cattle stampede was going to occur and, of course, the good guys would bring it under control. And so on and so on, every happening utterly predictable.
In fairness, the movie is one long homage to the grand old Westerns, films like "Red River" - except that "Australia" starts in the days before World War II and takes the action up to the Japanese bombing of Darwin.
The Hugh Jackman character goes by the name of Drover, which is a profession, not a name. A drover is someone who takes part in cattle drives. If professions are going to be people's names, I suppose we should be grateful that the English lady didn't fall in love with a proctologist or an aluminum siding salesman.
The film is pretty much stolen by the little Aboriginal boy Nulla (Brandon Walters), who is engagingly cute as a half-caste lad of about 7 or 8 caught between two cultures. Of course, it is easy to be cute at that age - the real trick in this life is to be cute at age 60.
Still, it's a great performance. To get to know the boy, the English lady teaches him a song out of "The Wizard of Oz" and later he goes to a movie house in Darwin and sees the flick for himself.
This would seem to provide a nice little inside joke, because Australians often call their country "Oz" and the boy's grandfather is an Aboriginal shaman and the boy himself claims some magical powers. In short, the grandfather, a haunting presence in the film, is a Wizard of Oz in his own way.
As it happens, my mother spent part of her childhood in Darwin, where my grandfather was a federal magistrate. She would have been a young woman about the time the movie was set, probably going to balls like the one portrayed in the movie (although she married my dad in 1939 and was in Singapore by the time the Japanese struck there and elsewhere. She escaped by ship back to Australia and spent the duration of the war in Sydney).
Mum fondly remembered the Aboriginals she got to know in Darwin. They indeed would go on walkabout, as the boy wanted to do in the movie. She also had a respect for Aboriginal magic. As a young trainee nurse in a hospital, she met Aboriginal men who had been cursed by having a bone pointed at them. Inevitably, they would lose all interest in life and die.
So, go see it by all means, but avoid bone pointers and don't have a drink beforehand.
Dec 12 2008
The wonderful thing about sports is that you don't have to be an expert to have an opinion. When it comes to Steelers football, everybody with a Terrible Towel thinks they are an expert.
As I have one of those, I believe I am more than qualified to have my own view of Willie Parker's self-interested opinion that in getting away from the running game, the Steelers have gotten away from Steelers football.
Coach Mike Tomlin yesterday responded to Parker's comments by saying that Steelers football was about winning. He suggested that he would rather have Super Bowl trophies than rushing titles.
It was well said. But even in taking Parker to task for his undiplomatic comments, Coach Tomlin was being diplomatic. He could have said the obvious - or at least what is obvious to me and Little Nelly and her dog, whom I also consulted (they have Terrible Towels too) .
The obvious reason the Steelers pass more is that Willie Parker, though marvelously fast when he breaks free, is not the big, punishing back that established the sort of Steelers football of yesteryear that he fondly remembers. In short, we are now one Bus short of a load.
The Steelers could run Jerome Bettis time after time in the confident expectation of getting three hard-earned yards every time. If they did the same with Willie Parker, he might break free now and again but mostly the punter would be a-punting. You go with what you've got, and for the Steelers that means passing more.
Willie Parker's criticism of team tactics was unintentionally a critique of himself.
But I think it's just wonderful that we have nothing else in the world to worry about.
Dec 10 2008
Today I rise in defense of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has been under attack from all quarters because of a joking comment he made suggesting that tourists to the Capitol sometimes smell.
During the opening ceremony for the new Capitol Visitor Center last week, he said: "In the summertime, because of the high humidity and how hot it gets here, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol."
According to an Associated Press story, Reid sought to explain himself in a letter to the editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal today.
"Much has been made of my comments at the opening of the Capitol Visitors Center," Reid wrote. "Anyone who took the time to watch my statement or read it in full knows the point I was making: I'm always pleased when the Capitol is filled with citizens eager to learn about our country's great history and the work we do in that historic building."
No need to make a (non) apology or (sort of) clarification. Tourists do smell, Harry. It's a well-known fact.
The reason that tourists are malodorous is that they tend to be overweight and they insist on wearing shirts made from perspiration-encouraging fibers. Moreover, given airline limits on baggage, today's tourists do not carry much spare clothing and therefore do not get to launder items as much as personal hygiene requires.
So they roam the world's capitals like a herd of buffaloes in Hawaiian shirts, emitting a great cloud of BO fumes. It is disgusting, yes, but at least they are soaking up history.
When I am finally put out to pasture by the newspaper industry, I intend to market an effective under-tourist deodorant. The current range of products do not do the job, perhaps because tourists regularly drop mustard all over themselves every time they stop at a hot dog cart, thus clogging their pores and fermenting their bodily vapors until such time as these erupt outside the Lincoln Memorial or in the National Gallery.
Until my product is perfected, the only thing residents of D.C. can do is carry a nosegay (uptight visitors may be assured that a nosegay doesn't mean that the rest of your body isn't heterosexual).
What really stinks here is that a politician can't surprise us by telling the truth without critics getting on his case.
Dec 09 2008
The story of the hour concerns the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on charges he conspired to sell or trade Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. This "political corruption crime spree" - as federal prosecutors described it - seems to be a good news/bad news occasion for those who reflexively oppose the president elect.
On one hand, it is another high-ranking Democrat behaving badly, or so the evidence suggests. It also underscores what a political swamp Chicago is - and provides an unsavory reminder that Obama came from this place, as if that makes him culpable in some way.
But the bad news for right-wingers is that Obama is not accused of anything. In fact, Blagojevich was caught on tape referring to Obama's aides in a highly unflattering way.
There is another tidbit that speaks to what a flagrant idiot Blagojevich must be. He is charged with illegally threatening to withhold state assistance to Tribune Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune, in an attempt to make the newspaper fire editorial writers who had criticized him.
Heck, in today's newspaper business climate, perhaps all he had to do was be patient. The Tribune Co. just this week declared bankruptcy and the offending scribes could end up leaving without any help from stupid bullying. Even with that uncertainty hanging over their heads, I'd be flattered if I were one of them.
Dec 08 2008
I apologize for this break in blog service, but I spent three days last week in New York City visiting my two grown-up children who live there.
I had a great time, visiting art museums (the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney and the Frick Collection), eating and drinking to merry excess, going to a Rangers game against the Pens at Madison Square Garden (our boys lost in a shoot-out), studying the passing parade of strange people and visiting my daughter's second grade classroom on the Upper East Side.
Of the art expeditions, I was most pleasantly surprised by the special Alexander Calder exhibition at the Whitney, "The Paris Years 1926-1933."
I knew only that Calder was famous for his mobiles, a large example of which is in the airside terminal at Greater Pittsburgh International Airport. Unfortunately, this is not the best space for the piece, because the eye is immediately drawn to lifelike figures of the Big Two in local history - Franco Harris and George Washington - standing at the top of the escalators. The Mona Lisa couldn't compete with Franco making the Immaculate Reception. Old George himself looks merely a bemused bystander to this event.
There is an only-in-Pittsburgh quality to the treatment here of Calder now and in the past (if they had an exhibition called Alexander Calder "The Allegheny County Years," it would not be pretty. The airport mobile was once welded and repainted by county maintenance officials, an act of folly since corrected.)
In this context, the Whitney exhibition was an eye-opener for me and I came away with a newfound respect for the sculptor. His small portraits of people and animals rendered in wire were ingenious.
While the Met was great, its sheer size is overwhelming and it put me in the mood for the personal and intimate surroundings of the Frick Collection, which is a real feast for the senses.
In my daughter's classroom, I read the boys "The Polar Express" (only boys in this private school). The book had been my daughter's favorite but the boys immediately greeted it by saying: "We have the DVD at home." Oh well, I did the best I could, and I suppose it's hard to find an audience of 7-year-olds who aren't jaded.
The culmination of the eating and drinking came Friday night at a tiny Austrian restaurant on Orchard Street in the Bowery called Cafe Katja, which I heartily recommend. The food was delicious but the little room looked even smaller when they brought out the giant beers served in glass boots.
The real fun of New York is the people. I saw intriguing little scenarios and dramas playing out almost everywhere I looked. Whether is was the cop talking to the armless beggar in Spanish, the older man putting the traffic warden lady in a cab with a kiss, I kept wondering - what is the backstory here, what is this juxtaposition of odd characters all about?
Nice place to visit. I don't know if I could live there. I would be in a constant state of puzzlement.
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