Sunday, January 27, 2013

Trompe L'oeil or Mud in Your Eye


I was a child of radio. I listened to the  Lone Ranger, Captain Midnight, The Inner Sanctum (with its squeaky door), Gangbusters and, when I was very little, Let's Pretend.

Interspersed with, and punctuating all my childish entertainment, were the voices of men like Gabriel Heatter, Hans Von Kaltenborn and Edward R. Murrow.

It was an eclectic lineup for a kid and the selection was not always my choice.  However, by osmosis, the tenor and timbre - and unquestioned honesty - of radio voices became a yardstick by which I came to measure and treasure verbal intercourse.

I knew that if I heard it on the radio, it was right....at least the pronunciation and enunciation were right. In all likelihood, so was the information. (Barring, of course, commercial claims. And, even those bore a stamp of veracity greater than those of today.)

The same can be said of newspapers. At home, The New York Herald Tribune and The New York Times were daily bread. Starting in my early teens, I knew that whatever word or phrase was used by these paragons, it was correct....or it was corrected in a small box the next day, or the next edition. 

Just so were the words issuing from the mouths of the men (mostly) whose voices set the standard for correct grammar and diction to die for.

And here we are today. Instead of  riding an upward moving trajectory of excellence, the educational and informational  standards for radio and television and, alas, the written word, have collapsed like a tower of Babel beneath the weight of ignorance and declining standards.

But now, even more distressing, we are surfeited on a daily diet of lies from semi-respected news sources (sources Murrow would have squashed with his cigarette butt), parodies of news that seem real and are often quoted, and, heaven forfend, something  called photo shopping.

This last may be the ultimate sacking of truth and trust. While you can establish the truth of a piece of news, if you care about probity, by mounting your own research, when your eye has been fooled, leaving no clues, you have been taken in a way that smacks of lots and lots of trouble.

It's fun to see improbable things. And I like to believe in improbable things. But reality is a healthier, if not happier, place to reside.

Beware the Jabberwocky, my friends. Entropy lurks. The Shadow knows!

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Friday, January 18, 2013

The Blanky Needs a Bath


This morning my daughter asked me what the Third Amendment to the Constitution promised citizens of the United States of America.

I didn't know. Does anyone know?

There appear to be only two Amendments that have any claim to our collective memory.
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1.  Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion and Petition

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;  or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, etc.

2. Right to keep and bear arms.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

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The first Amendment is generally misinterpreted by the Religious Right. They gloss over the part about Congress not making a law respecting the establishment of religion and have instead made it mandatory by word and deed, not by law, that everyone elected to office must believe in Jesus Christ, the bible, heaven and hell and Satan, or they are not qualified to hold any governmental office.

Further, the second part of the first Amendment is equally misinterpreted by these folks, as well as by other creepy tentacles of the Conservative Party. The part about freedom of the press is a part they prefer to ignore unless it's Fox, Clear Channel or divers other outrageously biased sources on whom they rely to bolster their positions, which seldom bear a relationship to truth and/or accuracy.

However, it is the third Amendment that should hold our attention here because it is as obsolete, as many of us believe the second Amendment is. And it alone should make the case for argument that it, and the second Amendment, are anachronisms. It should also suggest that the Constitution - held as a living, breathing and sacred document that can never be tampered with - could use a little modernization to accommodate a reality that the Founding Fathers could never have imagined.

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3. Conditions for quarters of soldiers

No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

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Now tell me that the founders ever imagined what this country would look like and how it would be populated in the 21st Century. Can anyone conceive of a need to quarter soldiers in any house in this country when we have millions and millions of acres of public buildings and millions of acres of military bases and VA Hospitals?

Taking over someone's bungalow, or third floor walk-up, in order to bed down and feed a couple  of enlisted men, or even a gaggle of generals, does not sound like anything anyone would ever contemplate in 2013.  

Yet there it is. Enshrined in our Constitution. along with the Second Amendment

It's obvious to me - and must be to anyone who has a closet full of hoop skirts or wimples or wooden shoes - we could use a little refreshing.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013

Coming Undone In the Digital Age



One of the very best things about using a computer is its offer to undo anything you've done. At least on the keyboard.

Yes, there are instances when you don't catch an error or an unpolitic remark in time, and then, poof! - it's published or it has vanished, against your will or better judgment.

But, if you are paying attention, this is a cool tool that - were it available in "real" life - could eliminate so much pain and misunderstanding and some of those terrible entanglements that proceed from a hasty or too-loose tongue.

While life in the digital array does give you a chance to reconsider, this can be a dangerous crutch to rely on. We have to live in the real world and we still are held accountable for our errors in the foot-in-mouth disease department.

As much as social networking has convinced us that we are talking to real people whom we really know, we don't really know them and we have no physical clues as to what makes them tick or how they will react to a variety of things. That makes "undo" even more important. But we have to remember that key does not exist in the world where we breathe air.

On Face Book, where we interact as a community, this key probably isn't used as much as it could be.....but I have to admit that I find that refreshing. I like the spontaneity of the interchange and I am often amused to find things revealed that you would never have believed of a person....good and bad.

And there, for the "bad" department, our thoughtful digital vehicle has provided an application. It's called the "unfriend" button.

I have to say I like making friends more than I do un-friending them, but still....when life can be so full of irritants that can't be neutralized, a flick of a switch is a very satisfying solution.Too bad we can't do that with whole years that are full of devastation and frustration, pain and heartache. 

Since we can't, our only option appears to be to try hard to make as few errors as possible.

Let's hope 2013 is one of the years we can look back on and say: "That's a keeper."

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Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Basking Shark


Considering the amount and richness of the vittles I have been  hoovering up since last I blogged, and knowing that a basking shark is the second largest fish in the world, I thought  the title here would fairly describe my present state.  

While I know I am still possessed of a big mouth and sharp teeth,  I figured my tone would be tempered by the ennui resulting from the rank depression that follows reacquired fat!

But, lo and behold, while I still have my shark teeth credentials, I appear to have not gained an ounce. How can that be? I must be in a state of grace. By whose authorization, I cannot guess, but I'm not going to look a gift "thin" in the mouth.

Therefore, here is my contribution to the babel of the day:

We enlightened liberals always criticize the troglodytes for living  in an echo chamber and not attempting to broaden their horizons to include other - (read: correct) - points of view.

However, when I open my Face Book page early in the morning, I am so comforted to find my friends - all, or most, of whom react and comment in compatibly similar exclamations of disdain or joy at the reports of events since the night before. A cheery way to start the day.

Being of sound mind and, apparently, even sounder body, my initial reaction to this was a fleeting thought: "Maybe I should doubt my knee-jerk reactions to the loads of fecal substance that daily issue from the other side."

But then I recall that those who inhabit the other side are: Sean Hannity, who appears to have lost half his audience; Rush Limbaugh, who was said to have lost half his sponsors; Michelle Malkin who has, I know, only half a mind; and, of course, Ann Coulter who is, I am convinced, only half  a female.

There! I have recovered my "mean" and also re-established my belief that I should do nothing by half measures

It's all or nothing at all....and what I want above all is to change the world. Come with me for another year. 

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