Cerebral Yakking Moments

I posted a link to the Nation Magazine’s blog entry about Alan Grayson’s outburst regarding health care reform.

Read it here.

There is some question and difference of opinion about whether Facebook is the place for serious political discussion. I don’t really have an opinion except to say that “what’s on my mind” a good bit of the time is stuff like this and not so much on what I had for breakfast. I understand completely the value of staying up with friends on that level. Its nice to be in touch with the daily stuff of people you like. Posts such as this one generate some gentle and some not so gentle responses, and to my eye, that does seem out of place in a setting in which people are generally informing each other about their daily and very personal successes, failures and commonplace events.

The heart of the issue and controversy seems to revolve around the use of the word, “holocaust,” to refer to the systemic failures that allow many unnecessary serious illnesses and deaths to occur in a country that spends far more and has far lesser results than many other countries. The outrage is coming largely from the right, but the left-middle is certainly queasy about the use of the word. We live in memory of an occurrence which forever elevated the meaning of “holocaust” to such an unbearable level that no other use of the word seems possible.

I’ll discount for the moment the protestations of the branch of the right wing which has no problem with calling Obama a Nazi, and I’ll assume, however gullibly, that the horror of the rest of the spectrum is based genuinely in the opinion that inserting the word,”holocaust,” into a discussion of anything but the most massive attempts to extinguish a people cheapens the word and renders it meaningless.

My immediate impulse to cheer Grayson on rises from the intense frustration that most Democrats feel at the seemingly passive responses to outrageous assertions and downright lying from the right. A Democrat who responds with the same passion and doesn’t hesitate to use inflammatory rhetoric to ratchet up the heat can seem like a hero to some. I admire swinging for the fences when necessary.

As a practicing Jew, Grayson has some credibility on the issue. I don’t know if that’s an excuse or a true reason to use the word. The “h word.” Sigh… We know what the word means, and the use of it is intended to define what’s happening here as monstrous.

On balance, my present feeling is that he’s done a service which outweighs the negatives. When the indignation dies down, it will have been helpful to define the extremes on both sides of an issue for once. Finding the middle is easier if you know where the tails of the curve are.

I was just thinking about how it would be to live in a place in which society took the fundamental right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” seriously. Idly comparing societies that are focused on the people that make it up rather than the institutions that govern..that buy and sell…that fight wars, just or unjust. Nothing serious here…just musing.

Listening to Robert Sher go on about what he sees as the problem with how we are approaching the climb out of economic doldrums makes you think. Its all trickle down, really.

Anyway….this evening this came in The Nation e-mail edition. Kind of topped it off. I like utopian thinking.

We’ve recently returned from Chattanooga. The occasion was a reunion put on the by the music department at UTC. It was actually pretty cool, I have to admit. There was a concert on Friday, 2/22, in which my clarinet quartet was played..extremely well…by my old student, Niky Tejero, another student of mine, Traci Lamb, a grad student, Nick Hartline and my old compadre in the symphony, Jay Craven. It was a nice occasion, followed by a reception at the Bessie Smith Hall at the African - American Museum. Ordinarily, the word, “reception,” gives me a sudden urge to run like hell, but we were shown the open bar upon arriving, which made us feel better. It was fun, really…saw a lot of people we hadn’t seen for a long time. The days before the reunion were full of visits to old friends from the university days. All of that was really lovely…we enjoyed ourselves very much. (Have to give a huge thanks out loud to Chuck and Ardian Totten who put us up on Signal Mountain for 6 days during all this!)

The next day there was a luncheon to honor retired faculty, of which I was one. This is the reason I’m writing, I guess. Little speeches were given by present administrators for each retiree. I’d seen the person who was to speak about me the previous day and was asked what should be said. I just said, “whatever,” without thinking about it much. I assumed it would be fine whatever was said, knowing  that the administrator has known me very well for a long time. It was fine, actually. With any sort of sense of perspective it was fine. But I found myself chewing on it a bit afterward, and I’m getting it off my chest here. Forgive the grousing…seems the place for it.

After 25 years at UTC, what was said about me was that I was assiduous about making sure my students performed frequently, and that my composition students got their pieces performed….sort of like saying I fit the job description. I was also described as a sort of “Joe Cool,” and also that I used to drink a concoction for lunch that the secretary called “swill.” And that was about it. It was all very nice, and I made my little acceptance speech, saying that going to UTC was one of the luckiest things I’d done, and that was true enough.

But…I got to thinking in the middle of the night following…mumbling about various things that came back to me. In no particular order: I was department head for a while, assistant dean for a while, teacher of the year. Only faculty member to publish a textbook or a piece of music…true to this day, I think. I was responsible for moving the department into the computer age…getting grants to outfit the place with computers…setting up a computer lab, teaching the students the use of software for notation an ear training. All this was pretty early in the game. With the support of Leonard and Ben (obviously!)  I designed the web sites for the department and Cadek Conservatory. I was using e-mail and putting assignments for students on line long before most faculty did. All of this stuff is commonplace now, of course.I played a lot of chamber music and wrote a bunch of music that was performed frequently…was TN composer of the year..played with the Chattanooga Symphony for years…yadayada. There’s a bunch of stuff I didn’t do…I know that. Looking back over 25 years, it doesn’t seem like that much, maybe.

Sigh…I know this is stupid. I did what I was hired to do…to write and play and teach. It was a great life in music, and I’m grateful that I had the opportunity. It was a rare thing to find a job like that, and the fact that there was little compensation really doesn’t matter in the long run. Many of my students remain in touch with me, and that’s important to me. The teaching was the best of it, and maybe the administrator nailed it right. It isn’t graceful to complain about a little speech that someone gave that made me sound like an interchangeable corduroy cog in a mediocre machine. And blowing off steam like this might not be the right thing to do. I’ll probably remove this soon.

Thanks for listening…

We found out yesterday that Wanda is going to be fired in a few weeks. The story is tawdry, right over the border of criminally insane. We’ll post full details later, but now we’re headed to see the Met Opera Dr. Atomic show at the theater (ironically sponsored by WABE), then we hit the road to Rossville for my 20 year high school reunion. I’ll call all you guys when we hit the road, somewhere around 4 of the clock.

I didn’t allow myself to hope for this. I’m still doubtful and somewhat fearful. But…this country has elected an African-American with an exotic name as our president. It is life-changing for many of us that grew up in a segregated country, witnessed a civil rights movement that seemed to promise but not deliver, and lived through what seemed to be an eternity of the exaltation of mediocrity.

John McCain’s concession speech was one of the most moving speeches I’ve ever heard. Where was this in the campaign?

The coming months will be interesting..finally in a good way.

A new CNN poll released Friday suggests that 3 out of 10 people, or 30%, say race will be a factor in their vote this election.  The new numbers point to the uphill battle facing the Obama campaign as it continues its fight against latent racism in the election.

If he is elected, it will have taken 219 years for an African American to be elected president of the United States.

Perhaps more troubling for the campaign, CNN’s poll director points out Obama’s continued weakness among republicans who have shown significant resistance to Obama’s outreach efforts.  These republican “noBama” votes will likely offset any gains Obama may receive by those who will vote for him because of his heritage.

The poll also reveals that half the Country appears to be concerend about age. If elected McCain, who is 72, will be the most age-advanced and age-experienced candidate ever to be elected president. Further, the sum of the numbers in McCain’s age is 9, which is the year (2009) the candidate will assume the office of the presidency.  55% of respondents believe this is more than coincidence, which coincidentally is the same percentage of Americans who believe that God created humans in our present form.

Special thanks to Ben for the title

Barack Obama for President
New York Times Editorial
Friday, October 24 2008

Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation’s future truly hangs in the balance.

President Bush is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens — whether they are fleeing a hurricane , searching for health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs and savings in the midst of a financial crisis.

As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling campaign, Sen. Barack Obama has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president.
Read the rest of this entry »

Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama was huge.  But, as Matt Bai reported in the NYT Magazine this weekend, the endorsement of Obama by Ralph Stanley^W, the 81 year old bluegrass legend, is perhaps more telling.  Hell may be a few degrees cooler as a result of this election.

With respect to the role that racism might play in the election, Bai says this about the current discourse:

Perhaps the problem with this entire discussion about race is that it begins with the wrong question. Most polls focus on determining the prevalence of racial bias among white voters and whether it will affect their choices on Election Day. This may be the best way we have to measure the impact of race, but it is hardly revelatory; no one should be surprised to learn that racial stereotypes exist, particularly among lower-income and less-educated white men, or that such stereotypes affect the way voters see Obama. The more important question is not whether race is a factor in people’s votes but whether it is a determinative factor — that is, whether Obama’s being black is the disqualifying fact for white voters that it might have been 20 years ago or whether it has now been reduced to one of those surmountable obstacles that any candidate has to overcome.

This is an excellent point. Bai has argued consistently that Obama’s electoral weaknesses are more dynamic and complex than pure racism and I have argued the same point less eloquently here and here.  The proof of the pudding is in the eating…Obama is polling as well or better than Gore or Kerry with white, male, less educated voters. And for this white, male, more-educated voter Obama has closed the deal.  In the course of three debates and this seemingly endless campaign, I have come to the conclusion that Obama is a truly gifted indiividual who possesses the right approach, intellect, and poise that is fundamentally necessary for the presidency at this time. I believe that a majority of Americans, of all colors, will see it this way too when they enter the voting booth.

This morning we read that the Tampa Tribune endorsed McCain. Of course the St. Pete Times endorsed Obama.

We realized that we’ve come to yet another crossroads in our relations with people with whom we differ…or rather refined our boundaries somewhat. It is fair to say that we have strenuous differences with the policies, and more importantly, the beliefs and world view that produce them, of John McCain, George W. Bush, neo-conservatives, the religious right and many Republicans and conservatives in general. Yet, as exasperated or even angry as we become in thinking about these things, they remain topics for debate or argument. As heated as we become, there is a sense that, if one engages the mind of someone who believes as “they” do, one would find that the raw ingredients of the decision-making process are recognizable and valid. We can understand on some level the bases upon which conclusions are reached.

Even on the most important issue of this present campaign, the future composition of the Supreme Court, it is possible to believe (perhaps wrongly) that the coterie of justices most feared by liberals, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia, have hard - won intellectual principles upon which they base their opinions, and that their reinforcement by appointments by McCain as president would be tragic in some ways, but inside the bounds of the American experience, and thus amenable to change over time. (I’ve heard Scalia speak at some length…he’s crude, arrogant and stubbornly insensitive on many issues, but he’s not stupid, nor can I invalidate in all cases his logic or view of the Constitution.)

What, then, has changed so that we can more clearly define where we must take leave of any sense of kinship with another human being, and can assume for all practical purposes that the fundamental makeup of another person is so alien to ours that understanding, let alone empathy, is impossible and discourse useless? We really had no answer to that question until the obvious dawned on us this morning.

The answer…obvious, but elusive for us: Sarah Palin.

No…not Sarah Palin herself, necessarily, though I imagine that her thought processes would confound us to the point that it would be difficult to find common ground on anything of substance. What we mean is that the choice of Sarah Palin as a vice-president and potential president crosses a line that we didn’t quite realize exists for us. The upside? We are forced in the exercise to agree to include in the universe of items possible to begin to understand many things that we had no patience for earlier.

We’re not sure that we can even identify the components of thought that resulted in her selection. Desperation and cynicism? Suppose so, but desperation is an emotional state and cynicism is as much a product of profound detachment as it is the result of engagement in thought. Our only conclusion is that her choice was not made by humans, but by the confluence of suggestions by many people, all of whom have plausible deniability except McCain himself. He owns it now, and can never escape responsibility for the implications of her choice, or from the very real effects of her presence on the ticket, which now include the overturning of rocks in the American culture from which crawl the lowest and most dangerous ideas possible.

We can only hope that the sort of cynical manipulation of hatred that produced the assassinations of two Kennedys, Martin Luther King,and Malcolm X hasn’t emerged again at a time in which many people are frightened….of terrorism…of economic devastation…of anything different…of change, even.

The kind of man who would do such a thing is beyond our comprehension. I’m not sure what to think about people who will vote for him, and a huge percentage of our population will do just that. There will be many reasons, many of them legitimate, and we’ll have to assume that those reasons obscure for many people the profound flaws that exist in their choice. There’s no point in bemoaning that. For us, however, though we were never close to considering McCain as a choice, the thought proves suddenly incomprehensible, and profoundly frightening.

THIS is clever…