Andrew Lloyd Webber

Source: NY Times 6/30 "Lloyd Webber's Benevolent Period B27 Weekend Arts Section

FM-FM Comment:
Andrew Lloyd Webber joins Warren Buffet and Bill Gates in this week's high rollers charity news. Webber the composer of the musicals "Evita," "Cats," and "Phantom of the Opera is offering a Picassso for auction at Christies in Novemeber. He bought "Angel Fernandez de Soto, a portrait of Picasso's friend painted in 1903 for 29.1 million 11 years ago and expects to see $40 to $60 million at auction. He plans to donate the proceeds towards the training and education of young performers.
Millions of dollars seems to be denominations we must get used to hearing and reading about. Million dollar homes once a very newsworthy item are now just real estate. Salaries of CEO's, prizes in contests, settlements in courts for damages that used to be in the tens of thousands are now millions. And yet, the rest of us muddle along watching the middle class shrink as the rich folks get richer and become millionaires. The poor, of course are forever hoping to win a million dollar lottery. This is not to suggest that Lloyd, Warren and Bill are not noble fellows. They truly are and we can be proud of their "give back" world view. They tell me that my gifts are no less welcome to causes I help. It's just the idea that millions of dollars don't seem to be creating a healthy and peaceful planet. Could it be that money is not a substitute for human kindness, compassion, caring, respect, peace and love? We non millionaires surely have an unlimited abundance we can share with people to make them feel like a million dollars.

George Bush - American Malaise

George Bush with his feet up on desk in a small office in Texas. George Bush engaged in a college game cramming himself into a telephone both at Yale along with his fraternity friends. A future president of the United States? These images linger as does his landing on an aircraft carrier in a pilot's outfit declaring victory in Iraq.

This Presidency has disheartened us and made life stale. We are tired of polls, corruption, incompetence, crime, and the exercise of power by a few men and women who claim to be serving America. Both political parties are bluffing and stumbling into the future. It seems that our national and international interests have become Washington's and the White Houses's private game while Americans watch.

The sons and daughters of Americans lost in a manufactured war are forever missed.
The joy and pain of families should be private. It has now become public. Many accept the loss as necessary to preserve a way of life they believe in. Many of their sons and daughters believed it was the right thing to do. To serve their country.

Are the leaders of this country as certain of the correctness of the war in Iraq and against terrorism as these families? It would seem not. There seems to be a disconnect from our ideals as a nation and government. Getting re-elected, posturing, and staying in power seems to be the work of our leaders.

We seem to be rolling from event to event and story to story. The aftermath of natural and man made news falls into a black hole as each new news cycle gets our attention. We are a nation traumatised by 9/11. It does not compare with the trauma of Hiroshima or Dresden or Bhagdad. And yet we justify our aggression as a war on terrorism in response to 9/11.

So we watch and wait. Is that enough? Is that called malaise? Indeed it is.

Bill Gates and Warren E. Buffet

Bill and Warren are probably doing the right thing, but uniformed as I am about the impact their charity will have on world health and world education, it could be that some of our nation's needs could be addressed by these two American success stories. The veterans who return from Iraq with physical and mental problems, urban issues in our major cities, education for the disadvantaged, and many more not to hard to imagine benefiting from their foundation. If they set the standard for corporate giving, we may see more money leaving our shores withoutlooking back at the landscape in which it was produced. It's true that we probably lack the will to address our nation's problems as citizens and it is easier to select another nation or world health than choose amongst the competing needs stateside. Board of director's meetings without a national agenda might be more comfortable for the rich
to attend.

Donald Rumsfeld & Dick Cheney & George Bush

Donald and Dick and George, are household names. We are sure to hear about them at least once a day. Yet, who are they? Are they scholars, princes, kings, or clergy?
Is their authority indisputable? Where did they come from? Donald and Dick are where they are from hanging around Washington and corporations. George is where he is by hanging around oil people and his father's friends. Do you think that they are looking out for our real interests? Do you think a copy of the United States Constitition and the Declaration of Independence is regular reading for these three men? When a military establishment is taken apart by a civilian who decides that "shock and awe" with high technology is the modern way to fight and win wars, is that what we have decided as a people? When the son of a rich oil man and an ex-president decides to fight a war out of some mesianic conviction encouraged by evangelical politics, is that what we have decided as a people? When daily strategies are created to deceive the American People and undermine our constitutional safeguards, is that democracy? When public relations persons wage a war against a political party, and a president of the United States stands by and watches the truth manipulated, is that the American way? Is the war in Iraq about oil and arms? Do we as a people feel the grief and loss of the Iraqi people? Do we care about the low opinion the world has of out imperial bullying? Have we lost our government to lobbyists and politicians whose day is spent avoiding saying things that might hurt her in an election year. Where is the truth? Where is idealism?
Where is compassion? Where is honesty? Where is courage? Donald and Dick and George must look in the mirror each morning. What do you think they see?

Donald Hall, Poet Laureate

Source: NY Times 5/14 The Arts p.B1 " Outspoken Poet Is Named Laureate" by Dinitia Smith

FM-FM Comment:
Poetry is always present, we just don't notice it. It turns up every day in small ways such as slips of the tongue, being sassy, being cute, writing a thank you note, saying goodbye. It is in the moment. Of course, a poet laureate is a good job to duck. All jobs have some level of expectations. Writing poetry isn't a job, but it is work. So Donald Hall,77, now has a job. Is it advancing the cause of poetry? The public awareness of poetry? Just to be a poet laureate seems enough to me. Our poet laureate sitting on a folding chair on his porch in New Hampshire next to a broom suggests that our new poet laureate is good pick. Not the Today Show (yet), but where he makes poetry. With 18 books of poetry, 20 books of prose and 12 children's books, one could say that he is working at advancing the cause of poetry and increasing the public's awarness of poetry. In fact, I just made a poem while writing this. He is already having an effect.

Corn Cob

The fresh corn snapped from the rigid prideful stalk
It's silky beard shining in the mid-day sun
Quickly changes from gold to bronze to brown
Falling into a bakers dozen bag
Headed for husking, boiling, buttering, and biting
Devoured in seconds, now an empty cob
Waiting to fall into the dark forgotten place
Tossed away from all that was once green, golden, and connected to life.
Done.

You see, for some reason as I was writing a corn cob came to mind.
I thought about aging and toothlessness and 'The End' all in about 30 seconds.
It may have been New Hampshire or Donald Hall's porch..who knows? It just arrived.
So, you see, you can just watch for an image and when it turns up become a poet without the job of being a laureate. Thanks Mr. Hall!

Twinkling Stars : Joan Baez, Danny Glover, Daryl Hannah, Alicia Silverstone, Martin Sheen, Willie Nelson

Source: NY Times 6/14 Page A14 "Antidevelopment Protesters Are Arrested at Farm Site in Los Angeles" by Cindy Chang

FM-FM: Comment:
A glimmer of hope that causes have not been usurped by blogs and internet exponential events,however important they are to causes. People must 'show up' sometimes and use their name recognition to call attention to matters that are local. When a developer wants to build a warehouse on land currently being used by 350 Los Angeles Latino squatters, and celebrities turn up to protest, that is what the electronic protest can't do. The blogs can take up the issue and help it enormously in a way no other medium can, but it is people willing to lend their bodies and voices to injustice that inspires us. Celebrities don't need publicity and least of all publicity that could hurt them. When a celebrity brings her 'brand name' to a cause, it lifts our heads and makes us look at the the stars twinkling.

Ann Coulter

Source: NY Times Business Day Section P.C1 6/12/06 :"Deadly Intent: Ann Coulter, Word Warrior" by David Carr

FM-FM Comment:
It is astonishing that Ann Coulter attracts as much attention as she does. She may be an archetypal figure arriving at a time when there is much ambiguity and deception in our culture. Ambiguity and deception opens the way for someone to make extreme statements. When the media, especially television and radio, becomes infested with viperous tongues, it is to be expected that a propagandist/writer could also garner an audience as well. This audience should concern us since propaganda feeds on the twisted truth about our lives and beliefs. Not all readers will take it seriously. It is propaganda. A nation that will listen to and read this hyperbole and take it seriously is a nation at risk. Ms. Coulter has written five books and sold more than a million hard cover copies. Each book has become a best seller. She appears on the electronic media and offers her boiling fury to viewers again, and her book sales grow with each encounter with a well-intentioned interviewer who still remembers civil society. What is more worrisome is the machinery in our culture and in the media that promotes these following virulent views: "...most recently labeled the widows of 9/11 "harpies"...a book title: "Godless: The Church of Liberalism"..." that Tomothy McVeigh should have parked his truck in front ot the New York Times"..."joked that a Supreme Court Justice should be poisoned"..."that America should invade Muslim countries and kill their leaders"..."she recently admitted that she is "no big fan" of the First Ammendment that allowed her to say all of that." Ms. Coulter is a lawyer. Does she truly believe all that she writes and speaks? It matters less what she believes than the fact that she has the attention of a millions of Americans through newspapers, radio, televison and book publishers. These tools of mass persuasion are used by propagandists. Who is behind this poisonous campaign? Is Ms. Coulter motivated by money or an ideology or both? If she is nothing more than a stand up comic whose black humor earns her a paycheck, well, she lives in a democracy where her right to say and write what she wishes is protected no matter how bad a taste it leaves in our national psyche.

Troubling Times

As a nation we have not often been so at odds with each other and with the world. Iraq, Iran, gay marriage, civil liberities, the blue states and the red states, corruption in government and in corporations, the economy, social security, post 9/11 trauma, terrorism, and a decline in civil society. It does add up to a weakened society and vulnerable to those who are opportunists. We may see even more or worse in such a climate. A paragraph in the latest New Yorker magazine in a story "In Kislovodsk by Vasily Grossman writing about World War II caught my attention as applicable to our present moral climate, "When life is under threat, everything cracks and splits apart, everything turns upside down, sometimes slowly, sometimes with obstinate resistance,sometimes yielding with an ease that makes you want to laugh. But the results is always the same and exceptions may only prove the law."
We seem to be at a loss having given to others some of the matters we used to manage ourselves. A feeling of being cheated and unsafe grows day by day. Our political parties don't seem to be ours anymore. Our voices are silent and we shuffle back and forth between the opinion of others. Cruelty and loss have become routine.
Are we a broken society? Are we in decline?

Misery Factor

The suffering of people at home and abroad must not be ignored. The blood of innocent people spilled each day must be stopped. How? It is not impossible to imagine peace. We just don't believe in it. As a nation we have blood on our hands spilled in just causes and as an expediency in World War II. Wrongly in Vietnam. Now in the name of democracy in Iraq. The causes of global strife cannot be simplified. The origins lie within the human psyche. It is men and women who decide to bomb, kill, destroy life. We then have means to stop the bloodshed. The individual can do something. Take the suffering of others into you heart.Do not deny this suffering. Do not try to explain it as a necessary sacrifice against something or to prevent something. Think of the grieving of mothers and fathers. Think of the suffering in our own country from natural disasters, economic circumstances, and personal tragedies. Do not let misery become ordinary, everyday, acceptable. You know it is not. Your higher self says, "This is not right." Carry the thought of peace and compassion in your heart every waking minute of your life. You will be surprised at the result personally, and will have released into the conscious world an energy that heals. This kind of activisim is no substitute for other kinds of activisim. We are a world, after all, of action and words. But you are a powerful being and must see that your higher self is a force no less effective than words and actions, if not more.

John Updike's "Terrorist"

Source: NY Times 5/6 " A Homegrown Threat To Homeland Security" by Michiko Kakutani

FM-FM Comment:
I have never taken to John Updike's work. He did speak to me as "the bard of middle-class mundane, the chronicler of suburban adultry and angst," Exactly why I could put his work down and never return. His interests are not my interests. He is overloaded with prizes, awards, and honorary degrees. His honorary degrees are so numerous that they have recently turned up in an Ipswich, MA bookstore for sale. It was not explained how they arrived there. And now Mr. Updike has chosen to walk in the shoes of a teenage boy who becomes a terrorist. Yesterday an NPR commentator said that his latest novel was being described as a masterpiece. Well, Michiko Kakutani in the NY Times begs to differ with " Unfortunately, the would-be terrorist in this novel turns out ot be a completely unbelievable individual more robot than human being and such a cliche that the reader cannot help suspecting that Mr. Updike found the idea of such a person so incomprehensible that at some point he abandoned any earnest attempt to depict his inner life and settled instead for giving us a static, one-dimensional sterotype." Henry Roth's new novel was also panned first by an early review and then later people fell over themselves to praise it in the same paper. We'll see if Mr. Upike recovers from this early review. Surely I will not read the book to find out if it's that bad. Too bad for Mr. Updike with all of his awards and stuff.

" Gotcha"

Civilized life may mean different things to different people. Eating in a restaurant used to be a public event in a semi-private setting. One chose to be with people eating instead of eating at home. It did not mean an opportunity to let your table neighbors in on the family secrets. It sometimes meant a business meeting as well. One did not share business secrets with the entire room. One rarely saw the office desk moved to the restaurant table. The library was once a shhhhh! kind of place. One could consider reading without the distractions of others because the others sought quiet as well. Bathroom stalls were not telephone booths. Well, all that has changed now. Divorce discussions at the next table on a cellphone, the laptop office and the cellphone as dining partners , the laughter and chat in libraries, jokes and weekend plans in hospitals wards. Technology and impoliteness rules the roads, public places, and has eliminated privacy for the individual and the group. "Gotcha!"

Paulson and Hayden - New act In White House

Source: NY Times

The last two day's front page of the NY Times shows photographs of two nearly bald replacements to George Bush's administration. Henry Paulson as the new Treasury Secretary and General Michael Hayden to head up the C.I.A. Both are almost bald with sidecars of white short hair. Now I can't make anything of this, but it is an observation. There is something about those bony skulls that does suggest a no-nonense kind of person. It's a globe rather than a head. One feels that hair has abandoned the head so that the head can rule the person. Now, we can't call them egg heads because that is reserved for intellectuals. No one has said that either of these men is an intellectual. Smart, tough, capable, might work. That does concern me. JFK brought in academics and Bush brings in a millionaire and a general who might be mistaken for egg heads....(to head up).. .but aren't really. Trying to put one over on us George?