Titanic Post

A review of The Intellectuals and the Flag, by Todd Gitlin

This article appeared in the Summer 2007 issue of the Claremont Review of Books.

This short, loosely organized collection of occasional essays makes for a surprisingly interesting and valuable book, well worth reading and pondering. Sociologist and radical activist Todd Gitlin, who has been a figure in the American Left since his Vietnam-era days in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), has made a serious effort to reflect on the failures of the American Left since the 1960s. The criticisms he puts forward here, which are inevitably self-criticisms in part, are unsparing and penetrating, made all the more memorable by his unacademic, direct, and often epigrammatic style.

(more…)

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. - Out of Solitude

Lately, I’ve been working on my much neglected KLR650 and am now neglecting the V-Strom. Although having two motorcycles in the garage sounds enticing, polygamy is not as easy as you may think. The V-Strom, the newest addition to my family, has been the focus of most of my attention as far as material things go.

I have never thought much about polygamy, at least in the sense of how problematic it could be in practice. In theory, according to the scientific viewpoint, when you are with one, you are not with the other. Metaphysically, I suppose you could be with both at the same time. I do know that you can’t ride two motorcycles at once. Hmmm, I wonder where this metaphor is taking me? (more…)

This weekend, I spent some time in the mountains. It was cool (literally) and peaceful and it smelled good, too. I need to go there periodically to keep my head straight and to put myself in a proper perspective regarding the rest of the universe.

Did you realize that planet earth is already in outer space and that we don’t really need space ships to explore space? This weekend my theme was materialism and how it makes me unhappy and dissatisfied and worry about money and things. I came to the conclusion that most people don’t really enjoy the material things they have collected, as they are too busy working and earning money for their future security to have much pleasure in anything.

I do buy things that give me pleasure. I enjoy my motorcycles. The things I do on a motorcycle give me pleasure. A bank account does not. Eating a slice of fresh mozzarella with a home-grown tomato, basil, and garlic sprinkled with freshly ground black pepper and live virgin olive oil gives me pleasure. Life insurance does not. Technically this makes me a materialist, but not a very secure one.

There is an interesting correlation between security and freedom. Actually they are inveresly correlated. It appears that the more security you have, the less freedom and vice-versus. Makes you wonder what our Department of Homeland Security is all about, doesn’t it? It makes me wonder, too, why we allowed them to do it to us again. By ‘them,’ I mean our political leaders, although I don’t really have a need to be led by anyone. I don’t follow other peoples goals well. I don’t even follow my own goals well.

In the mountains, walking along a pine covered trail, I realized that the trick with living is to live artistically, to be able to love, and be loved, while at the same time avoiding narcissistic loneliness, crippling addictions, or fanatical allegiance to some grand overlying goal.  I have just discovered a philosophy of life that allows me to go ride anytime I want.  And how easy it was!

What does it say about a man who has Garrison Keillor for a hero? How dorkey can you get? None the less, he is my hero and speaks my heart most of the time. And I would give much to be able to write as well as he does. An old teacher of mine once said that we should always include at least one pretty sentence in anything we write. Keillor paints beautiful flowing pictures with every pretty sentence. Here is his latest painting.

Published April 5, 2006 in the Chicago Tribune.

April is here, time to cut loose of politics

by Garrison Keillor

Columnists should not write about politics. Take it from me, it’s a bad idea. You pick up your bright sword to harass the heathen Republican and your prose style goes limp, your verbs droop, and words such as “comprehensive” and “funding” creep in and you become thin-lipped and hissy, like Miss Whipple in study hall telling the boys in the back of the room to shape up or be sorry. Well, they aren’t going to shape up. What will shape them up is the day of reckoning and it’s not here yet.

It’s spring in Minnesota, the snow is gone except behind the garage, so it’s time to turn over a new leaf and let other people rag on the president. He is who he is, and anybody who hasn’t formed an opinion of him is not paying attention. I am going to sit and read poetry and wait for the enormous old crab apple tree beside our driveway to bud and then blossom, a mass of brilliant purplish flowers like a Mardi Gras float parked beside the house–you can almost hear the brass band playing “Just a Little While to Stay Here.” Or maybe it’s a funeral and the purple flowers are from the deceased’s old pals who are shuffling along beside the coffin, hankies in hand, on their way to the graveyard and then to O’Gara’s for a commemorative bump of whiskey. You can get all this just by looking at a crab apple tree. Visions of the vast grandeur of the sensuous world, intimations of mortality.

What vast grandeur do you find in Washington these days? The Jack Abramoff-Tom DeLay saga is the story of weasels. Men wheedling favors and skimming money off the top. Nobody in the Republican majority could be shocked by any of this, so why should you and I?

The people who are getting reamed by this administration are people under 30, and they are, like, OK with that. They walk around with little wires coming out of their ears and 10,000 tunes on their iPods, and if you go, like, global warming, they are, like, whatever. And you go, government deficit, and they are, like, duuuuuuuuuuuude.

Our country has been entered into a 30-year war against Islam, and I will not be fighting it. I am, like, 63. In fact, I am not only like 63, I am 63 and will soon be 64 when I hope you will still need me and feed me. I am sitting pretty. If the polar ice cap melts, it’s no problem here in Minnesota: The ocean isn’t going to wash up on our doorsteps. No hurricanes on our horizon. None of my friends are penguins. If the Iranian government gets the bomb, is it going to fly all the way to Minnesota to drop it?

Politics is a slough, and maybe we should let the weasels have it for now. Even if two more Republicans follow the Current Occupant into office, this country will still be around in some form or other. Cities may crumble and we may be forced to reside in walled compounds and hire security men to escort us to Wal-Mart and back, but much will remain, such as love, for example, and the quickening one feels in the spring. Flowers will bloom in whatever wreckage we make. Somewhere, someone will sing the old songs about love walking in and driving the shadows away.

People have been falling in love through every dismal era of history and through every war ever fought. Enormous black headlines in the newspapers and agitated talk in the cafes and yet she waited for him on the corner by the hotel where they had agreed to meet, and as traffic streamed past she watched the buses pulling up to the curb, looking for his familiar shape, his beautiful face, his slight smile. Under her arm, a newspaper, and inside it a columnist shaking his tiny fist at corruption, but it isn’t worth 2 cents compared to what’s in her heart. When her lover steps down, the air will be filled with bright purple blossoms and they will embrace and turn and go into the hotel, and on this, the future of the world depends.

Take the day off, dear reader, and ignore the world and let the president play his fiddle. Find the one who means the most to you and make yourselves happy. If that be ignorance, make the most of it.

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

Given the pathetic state of politics, I find solace in little jokes like the one below. They sum up our situation quite well. If any of the Administration had a sense of humor, they could just as well come up with one on the Democrats. Alas, all our politicians are too full of their self-righteous selves to find either humor or humanity within themselves.

If there was real representation from either of our sorry excuses for political parties, I might, with reservations, vote for one of them. However, they are less than useless. And, besides, I don’t really need anyone to rule me.

Of course, I can’t declare war on anyone, although I might like to someday. However, since I’m not beholden to the war industry, I have little need to do so. Offhand I can’t think of anything else we the people need a government to do for us that we couldn’t do for ourselves. Since they don’t protect us from the excesses of industry or nature and are, with their insane policies, contributing to our poverty, I think I could get along better without their help. Without their foreign policies, I don’t think other people would get that mad at us and if they did, we would just have to take care of ourselves. Security is just an illusion, remember?

Private people don’t buy many nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. And if we didn’t piss so many people off with our impirical manifest destiny, why would they even want to. Do you remember that little book that came out about 25 years ago–All I Really Need to Know, I learned in Kindergarten? I think it was written by Robert Fulghum. The main points go something like this:

• Share everything
• Play fair
• Don’t hit people
• Put things back where you found them
• Clean up your own mess
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours
• Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody
• Wash your hands before you eat
• Flush
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you
• Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some
• Take a nap every afternoon
• When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together
• Be aware of wonder

Most ordinary everyday citizens are pretty good at this.

Now for the stupid, but relevant joke:Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to replace a burned-out light bulb?
A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb. Its condition is improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?