January 23, 2018--The Statuette Please . . .

At last night's Screen Actors Guild awards ceremony, after an evening of political correctness by an all female corps of presenters and thank-you speeches by winners, when receiving SAG's lifetime achievement award, Morgan Freeman commented about the statuette given to recipients--

"I wasn't going to do this," Freeman said at the end of his remarks, "I'm going to tell you what's wrong with this statue. It works from the back; but from the front it's gender-specific."

The audience laughed and cheered.

The SAG statuette, known as "The Actor," depicts a nude male figure holding two masks--one of comedy, the other of tragedy.

The gender specificness, however, isn't all that specific. The male genitalia is more a PG-13 sort of a lump than anything full-frontal R-rated.

Not all that unlike the Oscar whose maleness is less apparent since all the specifics appear to have been surgically removed. He does, though, hold a nearly body-length Crusader sword that also serves as a fig leaf. The symbolism speaks for itself.

The Golden Globe statuette, on the other hand, is totally non-gendered. Unless one wants to view the spherical "globe" as somehow female.

But there is a simple solution when it comes to Oscar and The Actor--give winners a choice of statues.

There should be male and female versions. And while we're at it, African American as well as Caucasian ones. Maybe even an Asian  choice. Clothed and unclothed. And thinking ahead to the possibility of a Muslim winner, the Islamic female statuette should of course veiled. On the other hand that won't work since Muslims do not permit paintings and sculpture that represent humans.

So maybe my solution isn't so simple after all.

Left to right: Oscar, Golden Globe, "The Actor"

August 29, 2017--Trump's Trap

Democratic strategist and CNN contributor Paul Begala got it right--President Trump set a political trap and Democrats stepped right into it.

The ugly demonstration in Charlottesville more than two weeks ago was about plans to remove statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson  The white supremacist thugs rallied there to protest plans for their relocation. 

Sensing this would be an effective wedge issue that would pander to his alt-right base, Trump generalized efforts to move, even teardown forcefully, what he referred to as "our beautiful statues and monuments."

Trump's call to keep in place these statues were dog-whistle references to those memorials primarily honoring leaders of the Confederacy. All supporters of slavery. This Trump knew would be red meat for his core constituency, including the  K.K.K. and neo-Nazis. 

Trump tweaked the situation by mocking those in favor of removing these memorials by speculating that to be consistent liberals should also call for the removal of statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson since they were slave holders.

Good point, many on the left felt, not noticing the trap set for them. 

On the right, Trump supporters, tongue-in-cheek, suggested that perhaps while we're busy taking down memorials we should also give serious consideration to, say, getting rid of the statue of Christopher Columbus that graces New York City's Columbus Circle. 

As preposterous as this may sound--though Columbus' "discovery" of America ultimately meant that European settlers would over a few centuries "remove" "Indians" from their ancestral lands--as extreme as this might seem, it is reported that NYC mayor Bill de Blasio is giving this idea serious consideration.

Columbus Circle, you may also know, is also the location of Donald Trump's tasteless International Hotel and Tower. A blight on the Central Park landscape, which, in a better world, would be what we would be thinking about taking down.

So we are descending into a paroxysm of political correctness, this time about statues. 

Thus the wedge issue calculated to deepen the division between Trump's people and the rest of Americans, thus the trap to which Begala alerted Democrats.

In Philadelphia there are moves to remove the statue of Frank Rizzo, who in the late 60s was the tough-cop mayor. He was best known, as was Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio who was just pardoned by President Trump, for his heavy-handed, even brutal treatment of the city's minority population.

Instead of talking about Trump's racist comments after the Charlottesville riots and murder, those on the left are in a swivet about all memorials to the Confederacy and anything in any way associated with racism and slavery. 

There were failed attempts to rename buildings and academic programs at Princeton University because Woodrow Wilson was a white supremacist and there is a movement afoot to rename Faneuil Hall in Boston since Peter Faneuil was a slave owner.

George W. Bush's brain, Karl Rove was a genius at thrusting wedge issues into political contests. Rather than talking about the state of the economy or the hollowing out of the middle class, he got Americans to fight with each other about same-sex marriage, support for Planned Parenthood, prayer in school, and evolution.

Trump is employing the same strategy. When he senses political trouble as after Charlottesville or revelations about his possible complicity in encouraging Russians to intervene in the 2016 election, he riles folks up by bashing the media, inflaming feelings about immigrants, and more recently raising the issue of transgender members of the military.

But most effective, surprisingly, is the hot-button ability to get Americans agitated about statuary. 

Trump already figured out that millions of Americans--his base and many more--are affronted by the political correctness and identity politics they feel Democrats promulgate, particularly on college and university campuses.

Things such as costume codes for on-campus Halloween parties and forbidding people from referring to brown paper bags as brown paper bags since that might offend some people of color. Knowing that pointing to faux issues of this kind quickly enflames people who feel looked down upon and directly affected by the self-righteousness of coastal elites, the president keeps picking away at them in an attempt to make things more contentious and distracting.

While struggling to make ends meet, they see spoiled college kids imposing speech codes and driving conservative speakers such as Ann Coulter off campus, as they did recently in Berkeley.

To some this feels like good citizenship. To me it sounds a little too much like the Taliban.

Columbus Circle

January 27, 2017--Phone Call From Jack

"They gave me free access to your favorite website."

I hadn't spoken to Maine friend, Jack, for almost two months.

I was happy to hear from him though I was a little concerned. He had been having some health issues and wasn't much of a caller. He preferred face-to-face conversations. In the hope that all was well and to avoid hearing bad news, I said, "It looks like the winter weather up there hasn't been too bad."

Ignoring that, he said, "Aren't you going to ask me which one?"

Happy to sense he was OK, I said, "I was about to get to that. Which one?"

"For a month. The New York Times. For free. I never turn down anything that's free."

"You? The New York Times? I would have thought that . . ."

"As I said it's for free. Need I say more?"

"This is what you called to tell me?"

"But this couldn't wait until you guys get here in May."

"What's the 'this'?"

"You know I'm a Trump guy?"

"Do I ever. You're the first person I know who backed him and predicted more than a year and a half ago, while no one was taking him seriously, that he would not only win the nomination but also the general election."

I could feel him puffing up with pride at that acknowledgement.

"But back to the Times. Are you telling me you're actually reading it? I think of you as more of a New York Post and Fox News guy."

"That's me. Meat and potatoes. But I've been reading it. Not everything, but their stuff about Trump. It's so biased. For every positive story there are half a dozen negative ones."

"Did it maybe occur to you that Trump deserves this? Forget his policies--I know, elections have consequences--but all the stuff he makes up and doesn't tell the truth about. Like about how there were millions of illegal votes in November. Isn't that a legitimate story to cover?"

"Of course. And Trump is stupid to be pursuing it. It only distracts from all the good things he's doing."

Feeling feisty, I asked, "Give me a few examples of those."

"Obamacare, the wall, not allowing unvetted refugees to enter the country. These are a pretty good week's work."

I had spent the summer fighting with him about immigration and Obamacare and didn't want to relitigate any of that, so again I asked, "What's the story with you and the New York Times?"

"As I said, I hate the paper but, in spite of myself, took a look at the website. The first story that jumped out was about how the mayor of London, though he's not gay, likes to brag about participating in gay and transgender events. The article from a few days ago was titled, 'The London of London's Mayor.' I needed to know about what he does with his evenings? Some London."

"I saw that piece too and thought it was interesting and another example of how far we've come when it comes to LGBT rights."

"You and your liberal friends are so stupid." I had heard this from Jack many times, "I should let you wallow in self-involvement and identity politics. That way, Democrats will never again win the White House. Which is fine by me. But if you ever want to, you need to move on from some of these issues. Minimally, stop being so obsessed about them."

"I'm not obsessed about them but think they're important."

"Let me ask you this. With my access to the Times website I also had access to their search engine. So I entered 'transgender' and searched for articles that appeared in the Times during the past year. When I got to 50, though I was only about halfway through the year I stopped and took a look at how many stories there were just this January. Take a guess at how many? You read the paper every day so you should come close to the number."

"I don't know where you're going with this," I said, "But I'll play along."

"So, how many?"

"I'll say four."

"Wrong. As of two days ago there were already eight."

"That surprises me."

"Check it out. I don't want to be accused of using 'alternative facts.'"

We both chuckled at that.

"And now, how many transgender people are there in America to justify all this coverage?"

"I have no idea. Maybe 5.0 million."

"Wrong again. According to Google, there are maybe 1.4 million. Which represents 0.6 percent of the U.S. population." He paused to let that sink in, "More than 50 stories for half-of-one percent of Americans? You think that makes sense?" Before I could try to answer, he added, "Forget that it is to say the least tough to be transgender--and remember I'm Libertarian--but do you think paying so much attention to them is smart politics?"

"Maybe not, but it still could be a good thing to pay attention to."

"But shouldn't that paying attention be more proportionate to the numbers? How about maybe six stories during the year? Wouldn't that be enough to let readers know about transgender issues?"

"I'm still not comfortable that you feel everything, every social issues, has to be viewed through a political lens."

"Dream on, my friend," Jack said sounding exasperated. "It's paying so much attention to things of this kind that helped my boy get elected. You and your people just don't get it. You're so out of touch with what most of America cares about. You're trying to figure out why you lost. Well I can tell you--how many months did you and your friends and your New York Times spend on North Carolina refusing to allow kids in schools to use whatever bathroom they 'identified' with. If you're a girl and think about yourself, identify as a guy you can use the boys' bathroom. While you spent months obsessing about that, Donald was rolling up the votes. And thanks to you, more than me and my kind, he now sits in the Oval Office."

November 2, 2015--Hallowgreen

The boys at the U.S. Department of Energy have been having some fun.

It's pretty grim business having responsibility for our nation's nuclear arsenal so who can blame them for fooling around come Halloween time.

On their official website last week, they posted ideas for what they considered some pretty hip costumes for (groan) Energy-ween.

While folks you know dressed up like pirates, zombies, and Donald TRUMP, DOE staff suggested going trick-or-treating as the Energy Vampire, who "drains the power of the unwary; a Particle Accelerator (all your nuclear-physics-minded friends will know about that); Ernest Moniz (the "classically coifed" Secretary of Energy, last seen negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran. To get his hair right they recommended buying a "Founding Father wig").

If you have even one friend who could recognize Moniz or Thomas Jefferson, consider yourself fortunate, though I worry that you might be leading a boring life.

I have a young friend who went to an early Halloween party as Annie Hall and was not entirely surprised that none of the partygoers knew who that was. As she explained with a sigh, "The party after all was in New Jersey."

Also, the Energy Department  pushed hard to get kids to dress up as Solar Panels. To make that seem cool, they suggested wearing sunglasses for "added sustainable swagger." But called for "resisting the urge to climb on rooftops." I assume their liability lawyers weighed in on that one.

This wouldn't have been more amusing, I assume, if they had called this Hallow-green?

Even less amusing was what was happening last week on campuses around the country--directives to students about how to dress up politically correctly.

This all came to the fore when James Ramsey, the president of the University of Louisville, was severely criticized for appearing in a Mariachi outfit. He's not Mexican American and so it was considered insensitive and even offensive to do something so stereotypical. By implication I suppose it would have been all right for him to do so if he was a Chicano.

Making it worse to the campus PC Police was the fact that he had his staff dress accordingly since Mariachi musicians typically perform in groups.

Check out the picture below and come to your own conclusion. He appears at the lower right.

According to an article in the New York Times, many colleges struggled with where to draw the line between costuming free speech and not wanting to upset anyone.

I, on the other hand, think one aspect of free speech is the freedom to offend. That may not always be pretty, but it is one of our cherished freedoms.

And I'm not even sure it is one essential aspect of a college education to "teach" sensitivity and tolerance. Shouldn't that be one of the hoped-for consequences of a good, well-rounded education rather than something built into the curriculum much less the extra curriculum?

People sensitive about their identity need to figure out how to struggle with and overcome that, not be overly protected from offense.

If someone wants to dress up like Pocahontas or Pancho Villa or Caitlyn Jenner should't they be allowed to make fools of themselves?

As my young "Annie Hall" friend also said when asked about personal happiness, "I don't want to be happy. I want to be uncomfortable." This suggested to me that a good education was not wasted on her.

July 24, 2014--Groves of Academe

I came to Francine Prose late in life. I have been aware of her but mainly through her essays and book reviews. After hearing her at the recent PEN conference in New York, I thought it was time to take a look at her novels.

From her other writing, I was anticipating that they might be a bit thick and too politically correct for my taste, but the two I've read thus far are anything but. I am only sad I did not begin reading her sooner, but it is exciting to know that there are about a dozen novels altogether and thus I have many months of pleasurable reading awaiting.

Her A Changed Man is about identity and the possibility of self-transformation, even if one has been a neo-Nazi; while Blue Angel is an acerbic satire set on a backwater New England campus where the frustrations of long-term faculty and the self-involvment of their students erupt into a full-scale witch hunt to root out and punish political incorrectness.

While gobbling up Blue Angel I wondered why so many significant authors have set one of more of their novels on college campuses and why most of them are wicked satires, often descending into sarcasm.

The ones I remember from years ago are Mary McCarthy's Groves of Academe and John William's Stoner. Later, I enjoyed Bernard Malamud's New Life, Philip Roth's Human Stain, and Alison Lurie's The War Between the Tates, also Richard Russo's Straight Man and, among the initiators of the genre, Randall Jarrell's 1954 Pictures from an Institution. Biting jeremiads all.

Most of these authors, and many of the dozens of others who have set novels on campuses (David Lodge, Donna Tartt, Jane Smiley), have taught literature and creative writing and, it would seem, for the most part, had miserable experiences among, what to them must have seemed, insecure, petty hypocritical colleagues. Often in settings where male professors pray on the erotic vulnerability of worshipful, cum vindictive, coeds, usually finding themselves hauled before campus vigilante committees seeking to stamp out all signs of transgressive and sexist (and even, often, by distinction, sexual) behavior.

The typical protagonist is a middle-age tenured professor well aware of his declining powers--physical and creative, saddled with debt, culturally isolated, stuck in an unfulfilling marriage, and almost always estranged from his children, children who nearly always include a 20-something daughter just about the age of the students he seduces or allows to seduce him. These obsessive relationships are often presented in parallax perspective--first from the Humbert-Humbert side or, in other cases, Blue Angel among them, with the relationship also viewed by the Lolita-like seductress.

In virtually all the novels, the transgressor has a hard, life-altering fall that is both deserved and, to the transgressor, welcomed since, no matter the public disgrace--often because of it--it is liberating. He shakes off or abandons the comforts that have defined and confined him and this allows him to remake his life, no matter how mean it may seem. In some instances the meaner the better as there is a strong element of expiation required, a fierce price to pay for this liberation.

Again, thinking about why so many meaningful novels are set on college campuses, beyond the obvious--from experiences with which novelists are intimately familiar--they are metaphor-rich environments in which youth and age coexist and clash, where decline is starkly measurable, where things are widely sexualized, where cultural collisions play out naturally and often viscously, and where human nature across its full range is on full flagrant display.

Thus these places are perfect venues to find things to satirize and titilate. All of which writers are incapable of resisting.