Fly Me To The Past

July 21, 2023 ~ thoughtsatlarge ~ Leave a comment

On an unseasonably warm night in February 2018, as the rain fell gently outside the beautiful Providence Performing Arts Center, I saw thousands of people travel back in time.

I was sitting in the back of the theater next to my mother. The audience was mainly older people, some with canes and wheelchairs. They were all there to see a legend. Tony Bennett took the stage, and the crowd roared. He was 91 at the time. His voice was thinner, but the emotion with which he always sang was still there. He knew what he wanted to do with his voice even if the vocal cords could no longer deliver. He gave prominent time to his band to shine and for him to rest. His daughter was there and sang her own songs and duets with him. None of us knew it at the time, but he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease two years earlier. Several times during the concert, he sang the same song during medleys of hits, but no one minded. He was 91 years old on stage in front of an audience of fans – and a magician.

Because I was seated in the very back of the theater, I had the benefit of being able to watch the audience. I can’t tell you how many watery eyes I saw, how many elderly couples held hands, and how many smiles I saw as each one traveled back to when each song was first released. In their minds, every man with a cane became a youthful stud, and every woman in a wheelchair became a beautiful young dancer. Sitting beside my mother, I could feel the void she felt, missing my father. Couples rocked back and forth, smiling and reliving their youth. It was indeed magical to watch.

Tony Bennett died today at 96. I have no idea how many in the audience that night preceded him. The wonder of memory is recalling events long past with others who were there. The curse is being the last and having no one to share it with. I will remember that night as long as I draw breath. If I’m the last, the bittersweet recollections will soothe me with memories of a beautiful evening with a magician who enabled an audience to time travel.

Today

October 26, 2018October 26, 2018 ~ thoughtsatlarge ~ Leave a comment

We are divided. We are angry. Regardless of what side of the political chasm you stand on, we each scream at ears that cannot hear. Each side can site their own origin for our condition, but increasingly, our cold civil war is getting hot.

And now we have lunatic sending bombs to critics of the president while the president continues to pour gasoline on the growing firestorm.

Words are my religion. They are far more important to me than physical persuasion. Books are portals. Carl Sagan wrote as part of his incredible Cosmos series,

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

And yet, in our hurry-up world of 280 character pontifications, arguments and debates are reduced to ad hominem attacks and ad reductio gotchas. We are a heavily armed society with hair-trigger sensitivities and no sense of personal responsibility. That’s a terrible combination.

Cicero wrote, “He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason” and I understand the sentiment. As of right now, three bombs have been sent to New York City. My son lives in New York City. This individual has subjected everyone handling these packages (whether politically likeminded or not) and everyone around them to harm from within a potential blast radius. I look at Google Maps to identify where the newest bomb has been located and then see where my son should be at that moment. I am a civilized man, but also a father. I do not own a gun, and I treasure words. However, as a father, should I encounter the individual sending these bombs, I would not hesitate to punch them in the face.

Perhaps that makes me part of the problem, maybe I’m merely a parent, regardless, we all must do better. And it starts at the top. And it begins with the individual. The president leads, and we are responsible for ourselves. I’ll do my part. Mr. President? #Vote

Rules

October 14, 2018October 14, 2018 ~ thoughtsatlarge ~ Leave a comment

Following the news that the Trump family cheated us out of over $497.80 million in estate taxes comes news that son-in-law and senior White House advisor Jared Kushner paid little or no federal income taxes between 2009 and 2016. Couple that with the “still being audited” bullshit being run by Trump as the reason why he “can’t” release his tax returns and we can only guess whether we, as taxpayers, are subsidizing the current kleptocracy at an over or under $1 billion price tag.

And yet, at this point, we have been conditioned by the daily shitstorm of Tweets, rants, insults, and societal oversteps that we simply yawn. Shame on us. Our gag reflex at the absurd and unacceptable has been blunted by repetition and callused by social media. But Viktor Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” That is the freedom we should be seeking, that is the independence we should be searching for and celebrating, not whether our president weirdly hugs a flag or misrepresents a football player for kneeling before a game.

My life is extremely important to me and me alone. My story will appear in no history book, my children my only legacy. I get up, go to work, do my best and I pay my taxes. We are all the result of our circumstances and our decisions based on those circumstances. I have raised children the best I could while making mistakes for which I will forever be ashamed. That said, they are the best thing that has ever happened to me and the best thing I will ever leave this world. I have willingly sacrificed a career to be a caregiver. I have buried my wife and tried to find happiness in a world I hardly understand. In other words, there is absolutely nothing remarkable about me. And I pay my taxes. I am happy to do so. I enjoy driving on paved roads. I complain about potholes. I enjoy living in the United States. I complain about military spending. I enjoy pizza. I complain about being too heavy. I still think I can hit a fastball and I see wrinkles in my neck.

But I am tired of playing by the rules when the rulers do not. I doubt Donald Trump has paid any taxes in the past 20 years. None. And he claims to be worth $10 billion. Jared Kushner paid little or no taxes over an 8-year period. And he’s worth $324 million. How many potholes would that have filled? How many schools would that have built? How many teachers would not have to buy their own supplies with that influx of taxes? Not to mention the $497.80 million Donald’s Daddy bilked us out of over the years by funneling money to his children. How many veterans, that the president claims to adore, could he have been personally treated or outfitted?

Having been raised Roman Catholic, and hard-wired with intrinsic guilt, the old saying, “How can you sleep at night?” always played in my head. That was always the guilt trip for past transgressions. Too late for future improvements. I always liked to play it in advance with the opportunistic, “What would I do in that situation?” This has afforded me the chance to make decisions, not always the correct ones, that I could defend to my children at a future date. “What did you do about gun violence after the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School, dad?” I can answer that.

But kleptocrats answer to neither guilt nor history. To the question, “How can you sleep at night?” Trump answers, “Fine, either in the White House or in one of my gold palaces.” To the question, “What did you do about climate change?” Trump will answer, “Got us out of the Paris Climate Accord, watched the icebergs melt and the polar bears starve to death (before poor Don Jr. and Eric could shoot them to death), watched Florida sink into the Atlantic, and spent my gazillion, tax-free dollars golfing and eating KFC. I’ll be dead before the air is too toxic to breathe and burns you to ashes. Now go pay your taxes, suckers.”

#FreePress

August 16, 2018 ~ thoughtsatlarge ~ Leave a comment

Free Press

In May of 2016, a research article was published showing the rising level of partisanship in Congress from the 81^st Congress (1949-1951) through the 112^th Congress (2011-2013). The video, posted by Business Insider in 2016, looks like some bizarre red/blue organism’s mitosis except the resulting two cells have nothing to do with the original host cell. It is less mitosis and more segregation.

But that was in 2BT, a time which only seems like 2,000,000 years ago on the geologic time scale. A time we now call Before Trump (BT). Now in 2ST (Since Trump), we live in the “post-fact” world, a world of “alternative” facts. A world where, according to the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, as of August 1, 2018, in 558 days of the Trump presidency, Mr. Trump has made 4,229 false or misleading statements (an increase of 978 in two months). For those wearing neither their 1970’s calculator watch nor wanting to do a quick calculation on their smartphone, that works out to an average of 7.58 false or misleading statements per day.

And while no president thinks the press treats them with the deference they feel they deserve, the Founding Fathers felt so sure that a free press was necessary as a check on power they acknowledged it in the First Amendment.

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; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Edmund Burke’s “Fourth Estate” was thus protected.

But now in 2ST, the president considers the press “an enemy of the people.” Although, let’s be clear, only those institutions who disagree with his positions. Today, over 350 papers across the country printed editorials restating their mission and discrediting Trump’s outlandish statements. Of the several places my family or I have lived and/or the newspapers to which I subscribe I give you a sampling of these editorials:

The Boston Globe

The New York Times

The Houston Chronicle

The Providence Journal

The Cape Cod Times

The Hartford Courant

The Austin Statesman

And before anyone rebuts with an argument of “well, if you’re such a fan of the First Amendment” how can you want every media outlet to remove Alex Jones?” Alex Jones, the InfoWars clown who once interviewed Donald Trump on his show and on which Trump said of Jones, “”Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”

Simple, the press is responsible for reporting facts. As longtime New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” In response to a different assault on reason, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson also once said, “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”

When newspapers get the facts wrong, they print retractions and corrections. The Wild West world of social media has no such disciplinary mechanism other than the individual organization’s self-government. However, as private companies, users of these social media platforms are subject to the organization’s guidelines. I find what Alex Jones has said and instigated, specifically to the families of the children and educators murdered in Newtown, CT, beyond abhorrent. Oscar Wilde’s once commented,

“I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself,”

Private social media companies owe Jones no such freedom. He remains free to spew whatever hateful, disgusting lies he chooses (in order to continue selling snake oil tinctures to tin foil wearing well-armed survivalists awaiting some impending race/religious/political philosophy/government Civil War redux), it’s merely that no platform is forced to publish it.

So today I stand with news outlets across the country to call out a delusional president living in his own, self-created echo chamber determined to silence critics of his “agenda.” And I sleep confidently that the First Amendment can withstand calling out the president while private companies exile Alex Jones.

Celebrate Knowledge

March 14, 2018 ~ thoughtsatlarge ~ 1 Comment

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”

Earth has lost one of its great thinkers. Stephen Hawking died at age 76.

Consider this: Professor Hawking was born 300 years to the day after Galileo died and died on Albert Einstein’s birthday. If he stood on the shoulders of other intellectual giants, perhaps his most significant achievement lies in the number of scientists who have followed him into science. He sought answers from the cosmos and conveyed it to the masses.

In an age where we celebrate celebrity, where fame is counted in magazine covers and computer clicks, Professor Hawking was famous for his mind! Today that seems as fundamentally difficult to grasp as Hawking radiation. And yet, in an America whose president conveys policy and fires cabinet secretaries in 280 characters or less, Professor Hawking, along with Jacob Bekenstein, was able to describe the thermodynamic entropy of a black hole in eleven characters.

Celebrate Professor Hawking’s life today and contemplate what we value. Consider valuing health over drama, love over money, and intellect over fame. Idolatry is not the answer, knowledge is.

Happy Pi day.

Groundhog Day, Again

February 15, 2018 ~ thoughtsatlarge ~ Leave a comment

I’m pissed, and I’m tired, again. We’ve had another mass shooting in America. Surprise!

Our Founding Fathers (capitalized for respect!) were human, both flawed and determined. Their intellect and debate resulted in the living breathing document we call the Constitution. It, like them, is flawed and determined. It, like them, should not be considered sacrosanct. As a living, breathing document, created by humans, not gods, it is malleable to time. It is time we repeal the Second Amendment and confiscate the guns.

Sorry, Mr. President, sorry Congress, the United States is not burdened with higher levels of mental health issues than other countries. It is merely awash in guns. That is the problem. And until we face it, “active shooter” training in schools, emergency direction notices before movies, “thoughts and prayers” after every shooting from gutless politicians led by Republican intransigence at the direction of their NRA marionette masters will result in a continuing momentary sense or shock followed by a pandemic ennui throughout the public.

We now consider mass shootings and daily gun violence the new normal in America. The rest of the world also sees it as the new normal in America, and wonders why. We don’t even bother to wonder why anymore. This is not normal and should not ever be considered normal. Gun violence is a scourge injected into our society by flooding our lives with guns. Guns or drugs, it’s the business model. Flood the streets with them, deposit the cash, sit back and watch the inevitable, ensuing death metastasize. And the solution? More guns! Guns as the answer to fear caused by guns. Good marketing technique! A terrible shift in our collective consciousness.

We wring our hands and lament the “impossible,” multifaceted response required to address gun violence. No! The answer is simple. Remove the guns. No guns, no gun violence. That is my position. Call me a Democrat, call me a liberal, call me an asshole. I don’t care. No guns, no gun deaths. The Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth, ending prohibition. Write a new Amendment abolishing the Second. And then have a big bonfire for the 300 million plus guns in an America with a new normal.

MLK, Jr. Today

January 15, 2018 ~ thoughtsatlarge ~ Leave a comment

MLK Monument Today we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in America. We mark it under a racial cloud because of what our president said recently about African and Caribbean nations. “Shithole/Shithouse nations” according to our, at best, racially obtuse president, and at worst, racist president.

Solomon Northup, in Twelve Years a Slave, wrote, “There’s a sin, a fearful sin, resting on this nation, that will not go unpunished forever. There will be a reckoning yet… it may be sooner or it may be later, but it’s coming as sure as the Lord is just.”

Northup wrote that in 1853, eight years before the outbreak of the American Civil War, 10 years before the Emancipation Proclamation, 12 years before the ratification of the 13^th Amendment, 76 years before Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birth, 111 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and 115 years before King’s murder. And today, 50 years after King’s assassination and 165 years after Northup’s account, we are still paying the price of what President Obama termed “America’s original sin.”

There are epochs in history, categories into which we place significant events. We may consider ancient history to encompass the construction of the great pyramids or the rise and fall of Rome. And we may believe the American Civil War to be “ancient” within the framework of the United States’ existence. Too quickly we relegate events to history and therefore outside an era upon which our brains must examine events contemporaneously. If we think of an event as being “history,” we can, to a certain extent, dismiss it as being old and no longer relevant.

Consider this, then: Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 89 years old today. Conceivably still living, had he not been murdered in 1968. His contemporaries, those also born in 1929 and still among us include journalist Barbara Walters, actor Christopher Plummer, actor/comedian Bob Newhart, actor Ed Asner, author Eric Carle, and actor Max von Sydow. Dr. King was only 39 years old when he was murdered. This April 4^th will mark 50 years since his slaying. By 2008, King had been dead longer than he had ever lived. Imagine what he might have achieved, where we might have been as a nation concerning race relations, had he lived these past 50 years.

Martin Luther King, Jr. is not the monument in the photo above that I captured in Washington, D.C. last summer touring the city with my children. Do not let the black and white pictures you have seen or grainy, less than 1080p online video fool you. He is a contemporary man who was trying to make the world a better place, not an ancient figure no longer relevant. He words still give rise to voices now because we still have work to do.

Perhaps the rise of nationalism and xenophobic tendencies we see, not only in America (Trump) but all around the globe, is cyclical. At its worst, we devolve into world wars. I hope that what we see today is a venting, a voice being periodically given to those otherwise so staggeringly ignorant we usually must drag them kicking and screaming toward a better future for all creatures living on this small blue dot careening through the universe. I hope that this is only a venting and authoritarian plutocracies do not get a foothold. I hope that we will again celebrate President Kennedy’s (via Ted Sorensen) aphorism “a rising tide lifts all boats” and we are not moving toward a future resembling 1853 or some other cataclysmic date in our collective “ancient” history.