1963

Tom Brokaw, In his 2007 History Channel documentary, “1968”, starts off by reminding us that to understand what happened in that epochal year, you have to know what came before.

What came before was 1963.

As we observe the 50th Anniversary of The March on Washington, we vividly recall that 1963 spawned events that not only set the stage for 1968, but for pretty much everything that’s happened since.

Many of us news-media veterans of that era cut our professional teeth on the journalistic and related technological challenges of 1963, and “The Atlantic” takes us back to that initiation via this evocative photo gallery.

Incongruous Occupations

Ran into my friend the Old Curmudgeon the other day, occupying his regular bar stool at The Pub and looking even more peevish than usual.

Rashly, I inquired as to his well-being.

“Dog-tired”, he snarled. “Can’t sleep-in anymore. Guy who delivers my morning newspaper has a [expletive] hole in his [expletive] muffler.”

“How” he asked, “could they possibly have hired this clown?  Probably ran an ad reading: WANTED--reliable go-getter to deliver newspapers in residential area early in morning; must have car with ear-splittingly defective muffler. Congenital sociopaths will receive preference.”

“Next thing you know, they’ll be advertising for  agoraphobic mimes, squeamish vivisectionists, butterfingered wide-receivers, ingenuous politicians, and Lord knows what other [expletive] misfits this [expletive] society is producing nowadays!”

As he paused for breath, I hastily bade my adieux, slid off my stool and headed for the parking lot, where the surly attendant grudgingly brought around my car, hurling a string of colorful invectives after me as I drove away without tipping him.

Climatic ClipArt

Gravity exists

The earth is round

Climate Change is happening

 

Time is running out!

                                    

Ichthyological Ruminations

Has anyone else noticed how the Great White is gradually replacing the codfish as the graphic emblem of Cape Cod?

Not sure if this is an unwitting social commentary or a reflection of the effects of global climate change.

Shouldn’t be too many years before we have to change our name to Cape Shark, unless we sink back into the Atlantic first.

The Arms Treaty, the NRA, and a little Common Sense

On April 2, the AP reported that “the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved an arms [trade] Treaty [ATT] intended to keep weapons out of the hands of ‘terrorists, insurgents, organized crime figures, and human rights violators.’”

Three countries voted against the Treaty (are you ready?): Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Uncounted was a fourth hegemony, the NRA, whose EVP, Wayne LaPierre, had addressed the Assembly’s drafting committee in July of 2011 in an attempt to abort the Treaty in utero.

The U.S. signed on to the Treaty after ensuring that -- among other things -- it would not be binding on any domestic arms trade, or in any way contravene the provisions of the Second Amendment. Now, it must go to the Senate for ratification, and the ether is already abuzz with negative static from the NRA and its abettors which will no doubt at some point devolve into sowing fear among conspiracy theorists about jackbooted U.N. mercenaries in black helicopters coming to take our guns away from us, like the British tried to do in 1775.

I write this as a lifetime long-gun owner, target shooter, hunter, and former member of the NRA, who hopes to persuade his fellow enthusiasts that the NRA is in thrall to constituencies other than its general membership, e.g., powerful economic interests like the National Shooting Sports Federation, a trade association that fronts for the firearms industry. How else to account for the fact that Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, found – in July of last year – that “most NRA members and gun owners support more restrictive measures on gun ownership,” including 74% of NRA members who support (among other “common sense” issues) background checks, a measure that the NRA leadership is currently fighting tooth and nail on Capitol Hill.

I wish I had more confidence that the background check issue about to be debated by the Senate will survive (undiluted) its passage through Congress, but one always hopes that common sense will in fact prevail, even against such formidable odds.

UPDATE: The Senate ratified my lack of confidence in its rationality by voting down enhanced background checks.

Fail of Biblical Proportions: Leviticus vs. Psalm 23

Arriving in good time to make it onto my  personal “Best Parodies of the 20th Century” list, came Ian Frazier’s incomparable 1997 Atlantic Monthly essay, “Lamentations of the Father”.

As Atlantic editor, Robert Vare, wrote, it is “a comedic tour de force -- a pitch-perfect application of the fire-and-brimstone injunctions of the Pentateuch to the mundane travails of middle-class parenting”.

One parodies the Bible at one’s peril. Any such effort had not only better be better than good, but must circumspectly navigate the narrow path between satire and sacrilege.  

Frazier aced those hurdles.

In stark contrast, we come to Mark Helprin’s jape in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, an attempt at biblical parody that gives new meaning to the phrase, heavy-handed.

Helprin is a gifted author whose arresting novelette, “Ellis Island”, and his luminous novel, “Winter’s Tale”, did much to inform my perception of the heights to which imaginative literature could aspire. But neither imagination nor gift for pasquinade is to be found in his op-ed piece, “Psalm 23, Newly Revised According to to Modern Principles”, an aimless hodgepodge of formulaic Obama bashing awkwardly interlaced with biblical locutions.

Helprin’s present-tense reference to Hillary Rodham [stet] as a member of “his [Obama’s] staff” leaves us wondering whether he’s been reading the papers or -- more likely -- whether his piece had been spiked by the editors awaiting a slow Saturday to foist it upon a less captious weekend readership. Furthermore, shoehorning the Amalekites between “the President” and “the EPA” as presumed fiscal profligates, fatally challenges one’s willingness to suspend belief for the sake of a good story.

I would respectfully remind Mr. Helprin and the editors that skewering the powerful is a skill best practiced with a rapier, not a cleaver.

Second Amendment Under Fire

The self-proclaimed “American Military’s Most-Trusted News Source”, The Duffle Blog, has scooped the MSM with its chilling revelation that the military has been drawing up plans for nation-wide gun confiscation.

Prominent Democratic gun-control opponents, senators Harry Reid, Joe Manchin and Mark Warner, issued a terse, but puissant, press release consisting of only three words: “We warned you!”, leaving the reader to guess whether they were referring to sequestration, jack-booted U.N. mercenaries, or global climate change.

NRA stalwart, Wayne LaPierre, had no comment, having gone into catatonic shock upon reading today’s (actual) story in the The New York Times that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit has ruled that “permits allowing people to carry concealed weapons are not protected by the Second Amendment”.

And the beat goes on…