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There is a scene in Tim Burton’s 1989 movie “Batman” where Jack Nicholson as the Joker leads his band of merry men on a rampage through the Fluegelheim Art Museum in Gotham City. Suggesting that his henchman broaden their minds, Nicholson orchestrates a parade defacing and destroying the artwork, accompanied by a Prince jam called Partyman. The scene ends with the Joker’s minions throwing buckets of paint onto a series of recognizable masterpieces, including works by Rembrandt and Degas.

I have read several articles calling this one of the best in all the Batman movies. They may be right, because it is the one that stuck with me even after most of this Batman film blended into all the others. I always found the pure random chaos of this sequence extremely disturbing.

This scene came to mind recently when climate activists Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland threw a can of tomato soup across Vincent van Gogh’s iconic “Sunflowers” painting inside the National Gallery in London. Plummer and Holland justified their act as bringing attention to their campaign to obtain a government commitment to end the issuance of licenses and consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK.

A climate change protest also occurred here in Philadelphia at the halftime of the Penn/Yale game. Roughly 75 students overran Franklin Field protesting their school’s inaction on climate change. The protesters, a campus advocacy group called Fossil Free Penn, wants Penn to divest its holdings in the fossil fuel industry, as well as invest in Philadelphia public schools, and provide aid for families in affordable housing. 

The Penn protestors were apparently channeling another pop culture stalwart, Don McLean’s “American Pie”. Like the marching band in that song, when the players tried to take the field for the second half, the protestors refused to yield. McLean never tells us what happened when the players and band clashed, though having been a band nerd for many years, I would guess it wasn’t pretty. At Penn, the protesters were cuffed, led away and charged with defiant trespass (as opposed to amenable trespass).

To me there is a world of difference between these protests. While both were peaceful, the London defacing of the Van Gogh was a direct attack upon the artistic legacy that helped reframe how we look at the world. The protestors swear that the painting was not permanently damaged, which the museum confirmed. I wish that I could be so confident, but I have had enough cheap tomato soup to think that it could eat through anything (hopefully it wasn’t Campbells, though considering Warhol’s Soup Cans, that may have been fitting).

The London attack echoed not only Batman, but the destruction by the Taliban and ISIS of irreplaceable relics of our past. The obliteration of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in 2001 and the ransacking of the Mesopotamian antiquities in the Mosul Museum were designed to eliminate rivals to the hard line philosophies of these organizations, real or imagined. Presumably, the Sunflowers protestors had no such intent. Yet, in their desire for publicity they risked a similar result.

This goes back to the age-old question of whether the ends justify the means. I am sympathetic to the aims of Plummer and Holland in a way that I could never be to the ugly, narrow religious visions of the Taliban and ISIS, but still my inclination is to turn away in disgust. The message behind their actions was lost in the revulsion engendered by seeing a masterwork defaced.

In contrast, the Penn protest welcomed reflection on the issues raised. Penn is a huge, incredibly wealthy institution in Philadelphia that is exempt from real estate taxes. That is all well and good, but with great benefit comes great responsibility. They should find ways to support the struggling Philadelphia schools that could sorely use the revenue that would be generated by a tax on the Penn holdings. They also need to be cognizant of the implications of expansion on their neighbors. The Penn protest highlighted these issues.

It also brought to the fore institutional complicity in climate change. Since many Penn Professors, such as recently hired Michael Mann, are leaders in the fight on environmental issues, Penn should look at whether its investment policies are contrary to its own faculty research. The football protest raised this issue without causing any damage persons or property. The protestors did not pillage the Penn Museum of Anthropology and Archeology or throw hummus on Andrew Wyeth’s Early Morning in the Penn art collection to make their point. To me, it made their protest that much more effective.

I admit that it’s unfair to compare Plummer and Holland to the Taliban and ISIS. They are unlikely to chop off any heads or ban girls from schools. Yet, it’s unclear where they go from here if their National Gallery stunt does not get them the attention they desire. Will they decide that an ultimately harmless act is not enough and actually cause damage? Will they topple Stonehenge or decapitate the Peter Pan statute in Kensington Gardens? Maybe that’s unlikely, but so was the thought of someone throwing Creamy Tomato at Van Gogh.

So, what is my rule for terrorists? Don’t do anything that would convince the rest of us that we would not want to live in a world where you are in charge. I do not trust the judgement of Plummer and Holland, no matter what their intent. On the other hand, the issues raised by Fossil Free Penn deserve consideration, not handcuffs, even if they did delay the second half. I know that looking for rationality from terrorists is absurd, but if the whole point is making a point, then they should step back and think about the message they are sending.       

The University of Pennsylvania added a new wrinkle to their undergraduate admissions this year. Prospective students are to write a thank-you note to someone they would like to acknowledge. They are then encouraged to share that note with the person being thanked. This is in addition to the usual prompts, such as “If you could choose to be raised by robots, dinosaurs or aliens, who would you pick? Why?”, and “Tell us about spiders.” (Actual college prompts, though not from Penn).

These prompts are supposed to give the school a sense of the student outside of the raw GPA numbers and their chosen extra-curricular activities. According to Whitney Soule, Dean of Admissions at Penn, the gratitude prompt was “an opportunity that benefits the applicants and those of us who get to read their answers”. In other words, Penn was including this as a public service to the prospective student, and a morale builder for its employees. As the Church Lady would say, “Isn’t that special”.

To be clear, I am not anti-gratitude. I think that gratitude is a wonderful quality to possess, and that everyone should recognize those that have helped them along the way. Too often we are inclined to attribute success to our own efforts, when the truth of the matter is that achievement is rarely individual. It takes support, encouragement, and a good bit of luck to thrive.

Nor do I underestimate the task college admissions officials have before them. According to Ms. Soule, Penn receives 55,000 applications each year, for a freshman class of 2,400. Even if half of the submissions can be dismissed out of hand, that leaves an incredible pool to assess, especially now that SAT/ACT scores have become less important, and admissions offices look to implement important university goals, like diversity and community engagement.

I also acknowledge that prompts have a place in this system. There must be some mechanism whereby a student can try to shine outside of the cold academic numbers, whether they be GPA’s or test scores. Extra-curricular activities help, but they are easily exaggerated. Knowing that a high schooler was the founder of a quidditch club, donated time to save the nematodes, and was on a team that placed first in the regional Odyssey of the Mind competition may make for interesting conversation, but does it tell you anything about the student? Not really.

That being said, including an extra prompt to “benefit the applicants, and those who get to read the submissions” stops just short of cruel and unusual punishment. Any kid that has a legitimate shot at getting into Penn is probably applying to another 6 – 12 schools of comparable quality, since there is no way to assure acceptance regardless of your academic record. Each of these schools is going to have its own set of prompts (“What advice would a wisdom tooth have?”, or “Which Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor (real or imagined) best describes you?”). The admissions staff has thousands of prompts to review while making difficult decisions that will inevitably knock out numerous worthy applicants. Are either really benefited by this additional task?

And task it is. I have no doubt that more than 95% of those applying will look at this prompt as just one more box they need to tick to complete a long and arduous process, and miss the benefit being conferred. Can you blame them? The common app may make the basic application easier than it once was, but with all the prompts, the need to secure recommendations, and the other hoops involved in seeking acceptance at top schools, the stress is significant. What 17-year-old needs more?

And let’s not forget that these kids are still in school. They need to study for the next test, write the next paper, and complete the next lab report. Then there are those pesky extra-curricular activities they committed to, which the colleges so love, and which give them so much more than an application prompt ever could. All that needs to be handled while filling out these applications. One thing is for sure, their gratitude note won’t be written to the admissions department for making them jump through this extra hoop (though that may be a good ploy).

This minor bit of social engineering points to a larger problem with higher education. It all too often seems designed not for the students, but for other constituencies, most usually alumni and donors. Schools are more worried about questionable rankings (No. 1 Mid-Atlantic Phys-Ed program at a medium sized school in a rural setting) and inflated placement statistics (Bob is an Assistant Manager at Popeye’s!!) than they are about producing adults ready for the world beyond academia.

I am probably overstating my point. Colleges are filled with faculty and administrators that care deeply about the students. They are ready, willing and able to provide support, encouragement and advice so the students can succeed. However, that attitude seems to get lost at an institutional level where the current undergrads seem low on the priority list, unless, of course, mommy and daddy are major donors.

So, I will write my thank you note to all of those in the University system who fight that trend, embrace the students, and see them as the center of the college mission. In the meantime, good luck to those applicants going through the process. See it not as a lesson in gratitude, but another opportunity to show patience with your elders who mean so well.   

*No pictures today. I couldn’t find anything useful that was not copyrighted. Bummer.

I am reading a book about Lincoln. Though not a Lincolnphile, I find myself being drawn back to him time and again. Part of it is the plethora of great books written about him, from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals to George Saunders Lincoln in the Bardo. Part of it is that for all the iconography around Lincoln, he still comes off as a real human being, with significant faults to go with his many virtues. But mostly it’s because you can go back to his own writings and speeches, without interpretation, and find nugget after nugget of wisdom and common sense that still rings true today.

One of the greatest speeches Lincoln gave was the Second Inaugural Address, in March of 1865. After four years of incredibly bloody war, all of which was painfully felt by Lincoln, the outcome was finally in sight. There was no doubt that the North was going to win. Sherman’s march to the sea was over, leaving a wake of devastation behind him. Grant was about to launch his relentless and brutal final push through Virginia. If there was ever a time to crow, this was it.

But Lincoln was not one for Mission Accomplished speeches. Instead, he gave one of the most thoughtful and reflective orations of this, or any other war. Lincoln avoided the undoubted temptation to proclaim the righteousness of the northern cause and invoke God as sanctioning the victory. Instead, he pondered the war and concluded: “Both [the North and the South] read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered ~ that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes”.   

As I read this again, I was struck by the humility evident in this passage. We all have the tendency to impart our beliefs with a sacrosanct sense of rightness. Too often we leave out the inevitable ifs, ands or buts that make any pronouncement suspect. Yet here was a man with the weight of countless deaths upon his shoulders avoiding the temptation to assuage his conscience by proclaiming the sanctity of his cause when it would be easy to do so. If any acts of Lincoln were super-human, this was it.

I contrast this with the seemingly accelerated tendency of politicians today to not only cite their religious beliefs as driving policy positions, but intimate, or actually assert, that God has personally directed them to adopt those positions, or, even worse, that they speak for God. For example, in 2015 Texas Governor Rick Perry suggested that God had instructed him to run for the Presidency. Considering how pathetic and futile Perry’s campaign was, if that were true it was probably because God wanted to whack him upside the head to rid him of his arrogant self-righteousness. If so, I am afraid it likely failed.

Which brings us to Doug Mastriano, current candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania. He has run an odd campaign Eschewing broad based support, he has focused his efforts on energizing his core constituents. This strategy won him the Republican nomination, but time will tell if it can succeed on a state-wide basis.

Part of this strategy are livestream Facebook chats. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Mastriano uses these chats to frame himself as knowing God’s will. He asserts that he and his followers are the on the side of righteousness while his opponents are not. At a recent rally Mastriano was quoted as saying “God called us to run for office…. You get the call of God, you got to do it…. We have the power of God with us…. We have Jesus Christ that we’re serving here. He’s guiding and directing our steps.”

Ultimately, Mastriano wants us to believe that when he speaks, he is channeling God. He knows God’s will, and God’s will is a match for his own. He knows God’s views on climate change, same-sex marriage, and the legitimacy of the 2016 Presidential election, and, amazingly, they are his views as well. There is, seemingly, no difference between Mastriano and God.

I am probably the last person who should comment on anyone’s religious beliefs. I have never been able to fully excise my Baptist upbringing, though I long ago rejected the literalism and sanctimoniousness of those early lessons. I have, at various times, leaned toward deism, embracing a humanist Jesus without all the doctrinal trappings. I have found great solace in Buddhist teachings, especially the concepts of Maya, and the need to curb desire, though to me it is more of a philosophy than a religion. I have identified myself as an agnostic and an atheist, and everything in between.

For all that, I do feel qualified to say that if there is such a thing as blasphemy, it is being unable to conceive a difference between God’s will and your own. Maybe my own religious travails have sensitized me to such claims of omnipotence. Be that as it may, to the extent there is religious truth the contours and depths of that truth is a mystery. Someone can legitimately say that they believe X or Y doctrine, but to claim full assurance of that doctrine, and to assert that you know it is true because God, however conceived, has told you that it is true, is heresy of the grossest kind.

I am willing to forgive this doctrinal arrogance in priests, imams and other religious leaders. It is their job to impart the parameters of their denominations, and they would not last long if they stood before their congregations and said the equivalent of “Gee, I kind of think this is true”. I am also willing to overlook this presumptiveness by those in the proverbial pews. Most are looking more for solace and some sense of meaning in life. Few really are interested in putting their beliefs under a microscope. There is nothing wrong with that.

However, I cannot absolve this pretention in those that want to govern. Someone who does not recognize the difference between their pronouncements and those of whatever God they worship will act with an imperiousness that is antithetical to any notion of democratic, or even human, ideals. After all, if you and God are simpatico, of what import are us mere mortals.

I return to Lincoln, and one of his less celebrated pronouncements. Amid the war, Lincoln was challenged by Horace Greeley, a prominent journalist, for not doing enough to end slavery. In response, Lincoln said: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not to either save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by feeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that”.

Lincoln was roundly criticized at the time for his seeming ambivalence about slavery. Even now, such willingness to acquiesce to human bondage seems callous, at best. There is no doubt that Lincoln abhorred slavery, and wished it gone. However, he saw his duty as upholding the Constitution, and the Constitution embraced slavery. When there was a conflict between the Constitution and his personal beliefs, the Constitution prevailed, rightly or wrongly.

There is little doubt in my mind that those who cannot differentiate between their own intentions and God’s will quickly jettison the Constitution, duly passed laws and any and other constraints if they clash with their personal beliefs. After all, what are such man-made decrees compared to God’s, and how convenient that God sees it my way.           

One of my college compatriots passed away this week. During the three years that we overlapped at the University of South Carolina John Eargle, affectionally known as Ogre, became one of my closest friends. He was a fellow sousaphone player, introduced me to the Clariosophic Literary and Debating Society, a collection of hippies and misfits who took over an institution more than 170 years old, was a founder of The Motley Corner, our underground tuba newspaper, and shared an apartment with me for a semester.

More than all the intersections, John was someone I could sit down and talk to for hours on end. We didn’t have cell phones and the internet to distract us, so instead time was spent listening to album after album (who’s turn was it to flip the record?) and endlessly pontificating with absolute certainty on any topic that came to mind, as only college students can do. (Illicit substances might have helped the process. My mind is fuzzy on that).

John was an iconoclast, in the true sense of the word. He brought a sideways view to almost everything he did. His unwillingness to simply accept norms helped open the world to a sheltered punk from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, far from home. More importantly, he always approached everything with a heart as big as the state of South Carolina.          

I met up with John last October for the first time in probably 30 years. After a few moments of an awkward feeling out (are you still the same person?), we settled into a comfort zone that can only be reached between people who know each other well. Whenever that happens it is incredibly rewarding. It’s a reminder that even with all the curves life throws at you there is a continuing thread, and that is reassuring.

The course of the conversation was not surprising. What have you been doing with yourself? Tell me about your family. Where has life taken you? Those are not topics I delve into with just anyone, at least not deeply. But with John it was not only easy – it was natural to lay out the twists and turns life had dealt, both good and bad. Like a continuation of a conversation that we began years ago. I hope that John felt the same way.

There was also the requisite reminiscing. The trips to the trestle, a railroad bridge over the Congaree River, to watch Amtrak trains whiz by at 70 miles an hour, one of those incredibly stupid things you do when you’re 19 and think yourself invincible. The band trips to place like Atlanta and New Orleans, where John ended up settling after college. Hanging out at the Golden Spur, or Don’s Music and Marching Society.

And John told me about his cancer. While I didn’t fully understand the ins and outs of his illness, it was clear that it was serious. Yet, he seemed so optimistic and upbeat that I couldn’t help but walk away feeling that he would beat it, and that I would have the chance to see him again. Of course, that was the easy and convenient way to feel. You would think that by now I would know that life is just not that simple.

I do not want this to be an outlet for my inner Sammy Maudlin. John would hate that. After all, most of what we did was filled with unrestrained and continuous laughter. (Maybe illicit substances helped there as well. Again, I cannot recall). I don’t know for sure what John thought about his impending death, but from what I saw last October, my guess is that he faced it with all the equanimity and positivity he could muster.

The loss of old friends is one of the most painful inevitabilities of life. It is always filled with a sense of regret. Could I really say that someone was a close friend if I hadn’t seen them in forever? Why wasn’t I better about staying in touch? How many opportunities did I miss to reconnect and expand on the bonds that held over so many years?

While all those questions are haunting, we must face another inevitability of life. We are going to drift away from many who mean so much to us. Just living on a day-to-day basis is so consuming that few of us have the energy to continually reach out, as much as we would like to. While I hate it, I have had to accept that as a given. I wish it were different. I take baby steps now and then to ameliorate that reality, but it will never be enough.

The trick is to savor the connections you can maintain, even if they are not everything you would want. While Facebook can be maddening, and rife with the potential for abuse, at least it is a thin line to people who might otherwise be forgotten. Zoom calls, like the one begun with my law school friends during the pandemic, are a pale reflection of sitting down face to face but are also a solid bridge to people I would be lucky to see once in a blue moon. Text messages during a Carolina game may be a poor way to communicate, but they can also be a way to recreate the inane non-stop banter that can be so much fun.

So, here’s to you Ogre. It should have been more, but it’s just not that easy. You are gone, but by no means forgotten.

The news of the Indonesian soccer deaths has been horrible. Police cars overturned and set afire. People beaten by police with sticks and shields. Countless others teargassed, seemingly indiscriminately. 125 people dead. Another red-letter day in the annals of sports.

The interesting thing is that supporters of the opposing team, which won the contest, had already been banned from the stadium pre-match, so the conflagration was not caused by fights between rival fans. Nor was it caused by controversial calls. Instead, it was the anger of the home team fans at losing a game, the first loss against this rival on the home pitch in 23 years. Fans flooded the field after the game ended to demand of team management an explanation for the loss. Things deteriorated from there.

I have attested already to my love of sports in this blog numerous times. I am an addict. I turn to the sports page first thing every morning, even though I generally know the outcomes of the games already. I can’t turn off the Phillies, Flyers, Sixers or Eagles, no matter how bad it gets. But I often wonder whether it wouldn’t be for the good of humanity if we just scrapped the whole mess.

For way too many people the success of their favorite sports team becomes a substitute for success in their own life. It’s not just a matter of living and dying with each interception, or goal, but of investing the games with a mystical quality that transcends the players. It becomes a validation, or refutation, of their own existence.

I don’t want to overstate this. Hundreds of contests go forward every day without incident. Fans generally restrain themselves and save their anger for talk radio and social media. However, you get this sense that a more vociferous outbreak is brewing with every loss and disappointment.

The players feed this win at all costs mentality, but with them it makes sense. They would not have gotten where they are unless they had a burning competitiveness. We fans revel in the plays on the field, many of which look effortless, but often forget the hours of practice necessary to make those plays. Those who are unwilling to invest those hours rarely make it, no matter how naturally talented they might be. That drive is what makes them what they are. And yet, we still often see incredible graciousness in loss from them.        

Sports broadcasting takes its cues from the players and perpetuates this win or die attitude. Too many pundits give the impression that unless a team or player prevails in the Super Bowl, or the World Series, they are failures to be derided and mocked. I cringe whenever some talking head quotes Vince Lombardi saying that “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”. No Vinnie, you’re wrong.  

Accepting a loss is one of the most important lessons sports teaches. We do not live in a world where anyone wins all the time. And though it may be banal and cliché, it is also true that the true judge of character is how you bounce back from those losses. There is no shame in fuming about a loss, or throwing a quick tantrum in frustration, but if petulance is all you learn from the experience, then you have trapped yourself in an adolescent world that defies reality.

I don’t think that there is any surprise that the incident in Indonesia was sparked by fans who had not lost on the home pitch in 23 years. Just like a child allowed to win every game, these fans became spoiled. A win wasn’t something to celebrate, but their due in life. The game itself became superfluous, as long as it did not end in a loss. When the inevitable happened, they could not take it.

My favorite moment in my kids long and inglorious sports careers came at a little league game. Ny son’s team was up big early, but blew the lead because they were, you know, kids. After the game their coach gathered them for a talk and asked them how it felt being up by that many runs, then lose the game. One kid, God bless his soul, responded “I feel pretty good”. The coach turned red in the face, gritted his teeth and spit out, “This should be tearing you apart inside.” The kids looked at him like he was out of his mind. Me? I gained faith in the younger generation.

Being a Philadelphia sports fan, I have had more than my share of losing. And while we like to think of ourselves as unique in that respect, we aren’t. The sports world is littered with losers. Ask your friends in Cleveland or Buffalo (or two dozen other cities) about that. The nice thing is that when the wins do come, they taste that much sweeter (like when your team scores 6 runs in the 9^th inning of a playoff game).

The actions of the police in Indonesia were criminal. The actions of the fans that stormed the field looking for a scapegoat to assuage their lost identity were pathetic. Maybe they were used to winning, but, in life, they were losers just the same. Maybe a strong dose of disappointment would force them to finally grow up.     

P.S. Another sports story caught my eye this weekend, one not as tragic, but just as maddening in its own way. Two professional fishermen apparently cheated in the Lake Erie Walleye Trail fishing tournament by loading their catch with lead weights, hidden by frozen fish filets. While fishing lends itself to whoppers about the one that got away, it’s just not a sport you expect this kind of chicanery. Then again, the two cheaters might just throw up their hands and quote Vince – “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”.

After a brief interlude communing with the Queen, it is time to return to the trauma of moving. I have not yet reached the point of catharsis. I want to rid my psyche of the angst which was my constant companion for four months. (I have tried primal scream therapy, usually while watching the Phillies, but it just doesn’t cut it). So on to phase two.

Once we made the decision to move, we were hit over the head with the realization that we had too much stuff. Our friendly neighborhood realtor spent two minutes complementing us on our house, before making clear that we had to get rid of at least a third of what we owned before we could even think of showing it to any prospective buyer. There was a whiff of condescension that led me to wonder how we ever had the boldness to let anyone into our home.

Looking with new minimalist eyes, I began to wonder whether I had thrown out anything over the last 26 years. I remember taking the trash cans to the curb every week, but were they empty? Did I just throw our accumulated detritus into the garage? How else can you explain my inability to walk from one side of a two-car garage to the other without taking a detour outside?

Frankly, if it was just rubbish it would not be a problem. Pile it up and toss it!!!! However, as I started to tunnel through the rubble, I realized that it wouldn’t be that simple. Could I admit that my softball days were over and give away my equipment? I know that I pulled two hamstrings last time I tried to play, but what if I find a senior’s league that will let me walk around the bases? Aren’t we going to need that ice bucket we used three or four times in the last 20 years? Decisions, decisions.

Of course, that was the easy stuff. After a moment of misplaced nostalgia, I realized that I was unlikely to ever swing a bat again. If caution is thrown to the wind, and I do play, someone else will have a bat I can use (my hamstrings ache just thinking about it). And who uses ice buckets anymore anyway?

After concluding that 90% of the garage was expendable, I waded into the house itself. I immediately realized that we had been living in clutter for years. There were odd pieces of furniture that we took for granted, that did nothing more than take up space. There were holiday decorations stuffed in closets. There was shelf after shelf of pre-school art projects, 3^rd grade report cards, class pictures (ten copies each), faded college souvenirs and mementos from trips I can hardly remember. I realized that I had to go room by room, closet by closet, nook by nook, cranny by cranny (can a cranny exist without a nook?). I told myself that I had to be willing to purge. I told myself that I had to be ruthless. And then I had to admit that I am nothing more than a softie.  

That admission was freeing. I didn’t have to toss the Scottie dog ashtray my father had in his office (heaven knows why), or the back issues of my underground tuba newspaper, or the Sunshine Award given to one son in his only year of football (granted, not an award that evokes hard-nosed gridiron play). I just had to sort and organize these treasures. Oh, joy!!!!

Going through the accumulation of 26 years opened doors to a flood of memories. Most of them good, some not so. I would find myself sitting in the middle of a room surrounded by postcards, random pictures and assorted souvenirs for hours on end. At some point I had to say enough was enough and put things into boxes for later ruminating.

And then there were the books. Hundreds of them piled on bookshelves in almost every room. I love books. The thought of disposing of these old friends was almost unthinkable. Yet I knew that many of these books had to go. Not out of a Marie Kondo conviction that books are useless clutter, but out of a (in retrospect misplaced) notion that the books would not fit in our new place. With every box that went to Green Drop a little bit of me died (I know that’s hyperbole of the grossest kind, but if Kondo can hate on books, I can revere them).  

Slowly, but surely, we uncluttered, or so I thought. What I came to realize is that it’s never enough. The prevailing wisdom is that people want to project themselves in a house, so no evidence of the current owners should be seen. No pictures. No mementos. As little on walls as possible. In other words, sterility.

I just don’t get it. Who wants to live in a sterile home? Don’t people want to see evidence of life? Don’t they want to see how others made this box a home, even if their choices would be different? I know that I do, but then maybe I just don’t have enough imagination to put myself into a blank space. So round 2 (or was it 3, or 4) of the clean-up commenced.

Finally, it is time to put out the For Sale sign, and I will leave things there, for now. I can’t say the angst has been eradicated, but I do feel better. And that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Isn’t it?      

Watching the responses to the death of Queen Elizabeth, I realized that the Sex Pistols had it right. More than anyone else that I can think of, it is hard to envision Elizabeth as a real person. Unlike us, she ain’t no human being. *

I assume that Liz was a real person to those who actually knew her – her family and friends, if she had any. To the rest of us, she was nothing more than a symbol, and a shifting one at that. It’s not her fault that this is true. In fact, in many ways it’s to her credit. She was born to a role and played it to its hilt. That role was to be a figurehead perched precariously on the front of a floundering ship – The H.M.S. Monarchy. By the time she came along, that ship had no real part to play, except as a museum piece. If she wanted to keep it afloat, she was going to have to let others use her to reflect their own reality. And that’s what she did.

Elizabeth kept herself above the antics of the other Royals. Prince Phillip would utter ignorant, misogynist and racist bon mots, but not Elizabeth (My favorite Phillip gem was his congratulations to a British hiker in Papua New Guinea for not having been eaten). Princess Anne had steamy love letters stolen. Prince Andrew will forever be linked to Jeffery Epstein. Elizabeth’s reaction to these shenanigans (which is much too mild a word for Andrew’s perverse behavior) always stayed behind closed doors.

Maybe the Brits have a better idea as to Elizabeth’s quirks and foibles. I know that much has leaked out about her, but it’s all been rumor and suppositions, or portrayals in movies like the Queen, or the TV show Elizabeth. My guess is that to the majority of those on the British Isles Paul McCartney summed it up nicely when he sang that she was a pretty nice girl, but she doesn’t have a lot to say.     

Her ability to keep her personality hidden from public view enabled her to be different things to different people. To an aging World War II generation, she could be a symbol of the nation that stood tall against the Nazis, second only to Churchill, but without his baggage. She wasn’t Queen during the war, but her stoicism was sufficient to suggest the sacrifice and strength that saw the nation through. She could not be flustered, and neither could they.

It’s harder to get a sense of what younger Brits feel about Elizabeth. My sense is that to many she has been an institution they have known all their lives and are therefore comfortable with. Maybe there’s some real affection there of the type you might have for a long-standing neighbor that you said hello to once a week, or a childhood stuffed animal (where have you gone Monkerscope???). I do not get a sense of anything much deeper than that.

To many of those that lived in former British colonies she was a symbol of the exploitation and degradation they felt. When Carnegie Mellon professor Uju Anya of Nigeria wished Elizabeth “excruciating pain” in death, she was not reflecting on any one thing Elizabeth had done, but on her position as a symbol of the seizure of lands and minerals from that country, and all that went with it.

My guess is that more than anything Elizabeth represented a stability that we all yearn for. There is so much change to deal with in life that it’s comforting to have something that exudes permanence, even if that something is remote and inaccessible. It’s a big part of the allure of old buildings, and antiquated ceremonies. The Queen was a walking, sometimes talking, monument.

I also think that’s why there were so many outpourings of sympathy from those of us across the pond. Few of us want a monarchy, but we still long for a greater continuity than democracy gives us. Many want a strong leader, and while Elizabeth was not that, her longevity, as well as the trappings of her position, gave her an aura of power. For some, that apparently created a bond.

For many years people, both in the UK and here, debated whether the monarchy should be abolished, but, for better or worse, that was not going to happen while Elizabeth sat on the throne. She was not going to give any openings that spurred a movement in that direction. She sat with the fixedness of a rock. There was no crowbar big enough to oust her.

It will be very interesting to see if her death sparks a movement to finally exile British royalty to the dump heap of history with the other European monarchs. King Charles is not his mother. Even calling him “King” Charles sounds off, as if a child adopted a nickname that doesn’t suit him (“From now on call me Buzz”).

Plus, it is too late for Charles to eschew a personality the way Elizabeth did. He will always be the guy who cheated on his beautiful wife in the most public way possible. That is what everyone will think of when his name is mentioned. Especially because that beautiful wife died a horrible death that immediately granted her public sainthood.

My guess is that the monarchy will survive Charles, but it’s relevance, nominal as it currently is, will dwindle. Neither Charles nor his children will ever be a symbol of anything to anyone, unlike Elizabeth. He will just be that guy in the ermine robes with the funny hat on his head. The Queen is dead, ho hum to the King.     

*All photos used in this post are in the public domain (Take that Shutterstock!!!!)

As I am sure few of you have noticed, I have not posted anything in the last three or four months. Like the Blues Brothers, I have been on a mission from God, though it has not involved crashing any cars, or producing second rate versions of old R&B tunes. Instead, I have been engaged in moving. Anyone who has undertaken this process knows what a traumatic bear it can be (if there is such a thing as a traumatic bear).*

We lived in our house in Abington for 26 years. That is longer, by far, then any other place I have lived. Initially, I thought that this couldn’t be true, since the house I grew up in is so etched in my memory, but it is, and it’s not even close. We moved into my childhood home when I was three, and my parents moved out 20 years later. Do the math (I did, though I admit it took me awhile).

We bought this house when our second child was on the way. We owned a row home in the Art Museum area of Philadelphia, but it was not suited to four of us, especially with two kids under three years old. (The child’s bedroom without a lock at the top of the stairs was a dead giveaway.)

We sold our row home while the blizzard of 1996, the single biggest snowstorm on record in Philadelphia with a total of30.7 inches of snow, raged. We thought maybe we would stay in the city, but we could not find anything we liked, so we started the suburban search. Even though I had lived in Philly for over 10 years by that point, I didn’t know the suburbs well, so it was something of a crap shoot.

We looked at a house in Ambler that seemed perfect. The previous owners had added on a master (now “primary” in the PC of house hunting) bedroom, so it had plenty of room. It also had a pool, which was enticing. We were looking at it with my in-laws when my father-in-law took me aside and said, “Come with me”. Bill was a very nice, soft-spoken man, and an engineer to boot. He walked me down to the end of the driveway, where we turned around to look at the house. He didn’t have to say anything. Even to me the sag in the roof between the old portion of the house and the add-on was clear. We gathered up Julie and her mom and left.   

The owners of the house we bought had already vacated when we did our walk through. That made it difficult for the imagination impaired, like me. How would furniture fit into this place? Was the basement a total loss, or could it be converted to a room for the kids? Did the kitchen have enough countertop space, and was the pass through a good, or bad, idea? Luckily, I had a wife with better vision, who saw the potential where I saw only questions.

In 26 years, you learn the plusses and minuses of a home. Having a 95-year-old house is pretty cool, but it means plaster walls, porous windows, asbestos on cellar pipes, and weird, unusable nooks and crannies. It also means huge old tees that look great but are rotting on the inside and can come crashing down on your home (or a neighbors) if you’re not careful.

The bottom line, however, is that it is your home. You know the spots that get the morning sun and are therefore the best for reading. You have redone the kitchen so it’s a place where people want to hang. Yes, certain things are awkward (what’s that pipe doing jutting out from the wall), but you have developed your work arounds. Entering the house truly feels like entering your home.     

More importantly, there are so many memories, both good and bad, tied up within those four walls. You watched your kids grow in that space, filling it up and making it their own. You felt yourself age, taking the stairs you bounded up when you first moved in much slower as the years went by. The ghosts of game nights, Halloween parties and Thanksgiving dinners lingered. The past co-existed with the present in a very visceral way.

But none of those are reasons to linger past the expiration date. There were way too many rooms. The stairs were creaky, and so are our knees. If we were going to stay, money needed to be invested, and it was unlikely we would ever see that back. The market was hot, and all signs suggested this was a propitious time to go. So, we dove in.

Frankly, if I knew the angst that decision would cause, I am not sure that I wouldn’t have stayed perched on the end of the diving board (just like in junior high – a memory I wish I could forget). It would have been the wrong decision, but I would have been saved the never-ending list of things that had to be done, the 2:00 a.m. reruns of Perry Mason (which was a much better show before I knew anything about the law), the endless worries about financing, and the time deadlines that seemed both far off, and immanent at the same time.   

Hopefully, you will indulge me while I revisit those months in the next few entries. I just need to get it out of my system. Luckily, I think it all comes to a happy ending.

*Since my last posting I realized that many of the images I was uploading may be copywrited. As such, I have now gone to artists renderings, for better or worse.

The Ukrainian war is nearing its two-month anniversary. It is still too early to predict how this will play out. Russia is unlikely to simply throw up its hands, withdraw behind its borders, and say, “Never mind.” On the other hand, the Ukrainians will not go quietly into the night. While there have been negotiations, it is hard to fathom what is being discussed, since Zelenskyy has been clear that he will accept only complete withdrawal, and Putin is unlikely to accede to that embarrassment.  

What we learned to date has been confirmation about the nature of war. This conflict has been a microcosm of the inevitabilities of armed confrontations. As mundane as these lessons seem to be, it is worth going over them again because, as often as they have been confirmed, humans still don’t seem to grasp them.  

There has been a lot of talk recently about whether the Russian forces have committed war crimes in the midst of their invasion, but that focus misses the point. The invasion itself is a crime. When the first boot stepped over the proverbial line, there was a violation of the canons which govern human beings, or, at least, should. I don’t care whether there is a statute that can be identified, or a common law doctrine that can be cited. By undertaking to kill people, and that is what war is, with no overt provocation, the Russians deviated from what is justifiable. No ifs, ands, or buts. 

The Russians will no doubt counter that the invasion was permissible under some version of the preventative war doctrine, so recently espoused by the Bush administration to justify its invasion of Iraq. But reliance on that doctrine and that war is misplaced, because the Iraqi war was a similar crime, even if no one was ever held accountable. There can be no rationalization for initiating a war against a country that has not undertaken specific, substantial acts of violence against the invading country. Being afraid that they might do so is no excuse for murder.  

Once a war starts, atrocities will happen. They will be committed by the aggressors, and they will be committed by the defenders. Atrocities are endemic to war. The stress of the situation, the rhetoric that surrounds war, and the chaos of the battlefield make them inevitable. History gives prominence to the atrocities of the losers, but that doesn’t erase the actions of the victors. Atrocities occur on both sides of a conflict.  

A corollary of the inevitability of atrocities is that non-combatants will get hurt, badly. Today’s military strategists like to boast that precision weapons will allow them to limit civilian casualties. Maybe they’re right, in that they could kill a lot more ordinary people if they targeted them. But it doesn’t mean that civilians won’t be directly, and devastatingly, impacted.   

There is even more of a chance of civilian deaths as plans go awry. Frustration will mount. The military will be subject to increased pressure from the politicians. The only alternative will be to escalate attacks, which means increased disregard for anything but destruction of people and property. The civilian deaths that have occurred, and will continue to occur, are wholly and absolutely predictable.  

This certainty of escalation is especially troubling in the Ukraine. The politician pressuring the military is Putin, who has put his entire legacy on line with this invasion. It is clearly very personal to him. I am sure that he does not see failure as an option. There is no telling what that will prompt him to authorize.  

While atrocities and escalation may be predictable, nothing more about the war will be. The best laid plans might as well be shredded paper thrown to the winds. Tolstoy, in War and Peace, breathtakingly depicts the chaos and confusion that is war. He overtly mocks historians who clean it up afterwards and make it seem as if everything that happened was part of a grand strategy by Generals. What was true in the 19^th Century is true today. 

The events in Ukraine are a striking example of the uncertainty of the course of a war. We can view maps showing the battle lines, and the movement of troops, but they really do not reflect the incredibly fluid situation on the ground, especially as troops move into cities and neighborhoods. The Generals will make their plans, and the soldiers will go where they are told, but what happens from there is anyone’s guess. 

Finally, as uncertain as the outcome and progress of war may be, the ramifications are even harder to predict. We are still living with the aftermath of WWII, which arose from the unintended consequences of WWI. Did anyone discuss the possibility of ISIS in the lead-up to the Iraqi war? Were people attuned to the emergence of the Taliban when Russia invaded Afghanistan, and we decided to arm the Afghan rebels?  

It is impossible to know the long-term effects of the Ukraine war. Even if the war ended today, how would we move forward in a world where the leader of the 3^rd most powerful nation has been branded a war criminal? What are the economic consequences of the on-going disruption to the flow of Russian energy resources to Europe? Is this invasion going to embolden China in its territorial aspirations? What other scenarios exist that we can’t even envisage?  

I wonder whether Putin thought he could control the direction and impact of this war. Could he be that blind to the lessons that history has taught again and again? Apparently so. I guess that the final confirmation of the nature of war is that many will die due to his blindness. Vlad the Impaler indeed.

One of the few fun things to emerge out of the pandemic has been a virtual film discussion series sponsored by my local non-profit movie theater. Each month a new movie is chosen, and a discussion led by Hannah Jack, who writes those pithy movie introductions for the Turner Classic Movie hosts. The movies have been an array of Hollywood fare, with everything from westerns, to dramas to screwball comedies.   

A recurring theme has emerged within these discussions. Not surprisingly, many of the old Hollywood films are misogynistic and/or racist by today’s standards. These movies arguably reflect the prevailing attitudes at the time they were made, but would not pass muster in today’s cultural climate. The question becomes how do you approach those concerns in viewing these movies today. 

Often the discussion will split between those that express their discomfort with the tropes they are seeing, impacting their enjoyment of the film. Others argue that you have to view the movie through the lens of the era in which it was made, and not be concerned with how the attitudes expressed look today. They purport to possess the ability to transport themselves back in time, and seem not to understand why others cannot do the same.      

This all came to a head with, believe it or not, Pillow Talk, starring Doris Day (who does nothing for me) and Rock Hudson (a pretty face, if ever there was one). This is a typical 1950’s Hollywood rom-com, with Rock adopting a persona so that he can lure an unsuspecting Doris into his bed. Of course, it all blows up in his face, and he realizes that he is helplessly smitten by Doris’ charms. Along the way there is an attempted date rape, a planned weekend abduction and other assorted chicanery. 

In the ensuing discussion, a number of people said that they were turned off by the unabashedly misogynistic nature of the film (including me). Some, who consider Pillow Talk one of their favorites (heaven knows why), were seemingly morally offended by those comments. They saw the misogyny as all in good fun, and seemed to consider those turned off by the nature of the antics portrayed hopeless prudes.   

This debate is nothing new. The question of how we view historical figures, especially American historical figures, comes up all the time. However, unless your goal is to enshrine those figures, you can note their strengths and accomplishments, while at the same time condemning their troublesome blind spots. To use just one example, you can laud Jefferson for his contributions to the rhetoric of liberty, while at the same time castigating his hypocrisy, which saw that rhetoric as applying to white males only.   

Entertainment, or art, is something different. A film, a book, or a sculpture, stands on its own, outside of its maker. We absorb what it has to say within the confines of its presentation. We can talk about the artist separately, but it is the piece itself that we are reacting to.  

That reaction is governed by who we are at that moment. Our beliefs, our values and our tastes. It is impossible, at least for me, to shut those values off, and try to absorb whatever I am viewing as if they do not exist. Not only can’t I do that, I do not want to.  

Much of the reluctance to apply personal standards of taste comes from our disdain for critics. A critic is rarely appreciated. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to create something, and here comes someone else intent on doing nothing but ripping it down. Plus, critics have an annoying tendency to disparage in such harsh, condescending terms that the criticism often seems designed more show of the critic’s wit than it does to assess the piece being deprecated. 

Social media has further deflated our respect for critical judgement. Appraisers on social media seem to care less about justifying their opinion, instead trying to be as nasty they can be. Any attempt to question the morality of a film or show is just going to get you a knee-jerk accusation of political correctness, and a ton of abuse.    

And yet, it is a dangerous thing to shut down one’s values in assessing art, or entertainment. A critical eye is essential to appreciating and understanding what is being presented. It also enhances the experience. We are not just taking something in at a surface level, but truly engaging with it. If we aren’t doing that, we are wasting our time.  

The only way to engage with something is to use what we have. We are not engaging if we try and approach it with eyes that are not our own. We cannot place ourselves in another’s shoes, or truly assess their intent. In trying to do so we are simply ceding betraying everything we are. We all need to be critics.  

That doesn’t mean that we should not try and understand the motivation behind a creation. In fact, that’s part of the critical process. But understanding it, and accepting it as legitimate, are two different things. We can understand that a filmmaker in 1958 might find that it acceptable to use a full, frontal, sexual assault for comic relief, but that doesn’t mean that we have to accept it, and just laugh along. 

Critical judgement is the essence of appreciation. Burying that judgment, or trying to put it aside, is just a means of vegetation. And that judgment must include an assessment of the attitudes being expressed. That’s true whether what your viewing is 2, 10 or 50 years old. So, commence the commentary!!