Month: February 2023

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake remains one of the most devastating in recorded history more than 250 years after it wreaked havoc on Portugal. According to Wikipedia, the death toll from that quake has been estimated at around 50,000. The city of Lisbon was basically flattened, as was the surrounding countryside and much of northern Morocco. Innumerable irreplaceable works of art, book collections and historic documents were consumed in the fires that followed.

I thought of the Lisbon quake while reading the news about the earthquake that recently hit Turkey and Syria. Last I read, the death toll from that quake exceeds 45,000, and will no doubt go higher. As with the Lisbon quake, the property damage is extensive, taking in such major locales as the Gaziantep and Kahramanmaraş Provinces in Turkey (home to approximately 3.4 million people). Historic buildings were leveled, and ancient artifacts destroyed. *

The level of the destruction caused by the Turkey earthquake was not what suggested the Lisbon quake. That came when I read a report about the Turkish rescue workers yelling “Allah Akbar”, generally translated as God is Great, whenever they pulled a survivor out of the rubble. Immediately my cynical western mind began to wonder whether those being rescued felt the same. While I sure they were happy to be alive, they were likely facing the loss of family and friends, not to mention most of their possessions. They may agree that God is “great”, as in powerful, but would they think God is “good” considering those losses?

The Lisbon quake sparked that very question. It has been cited as a catalyst for the enlightenment, especially it’s reevaluation of religious beliefs. Voltaire in particular was moved by the devastation of the quake to dispute accepted notions of God’s goodness. His searing satire, Candide, mercilessly skewered the notion that God was a benevolent creator who must have made this “the best of all possible worlds”, as posited by Gottfried Leibniz. He was branded an atheist and a heretic, but the question remained.

This question was dramatized in the 2008 movie “God on Trial”, based on an Elie Wiesel play. In that film internees at Auschwitz debate whether God has broken his covenant with the Jewish people in allowing the Germans to commit genocide. They first pose the generally accepted answer that God must allow people to choose actions that lead to horrible results because of the importance of human freedom of will, but ultimately reject that platitude as unsatisfactory. They continue the debate, ultimately concluding that no, God is not good. Faced with that conclusion, and the question of what to do next, they begin to pray. It is a powerful moment.   

More recently, the Oscar nominated movie “Women Talking”, raised the same issue. In this film, women in a Mennonite-like community have been subjected to horrendous sexual abuse from the men of the commune. They have been instructed by the male leaders that it is their religious duty to forgive the seemingly unforgivable. They debate whether to submit or leave. Though it is not stated as starkly as in God on Trial, underlying the entire discussion is the question of how this could happen in a supposed God-centered community. They are debating not only a pragmatic choice, but the core of their religious beliefs, and their concepts of God.

The ultimate discussion of this question is in the biblical book of Job, arguably the most powerful book in the Jewish and Christian canon. What distinguishes Job is that here God actually responds to the charges. Job is a prosperous farmer known for his piety. “The Adversary”, often translated as Satan, suggests that Job is pious only because he has significant material and personal assets. God gives Satan permission to strip away everything that Job has (family, wealth, health) to see if he still retains his faith.

Job’s neighbors suggest that Job must have done something to deserve the misery that God inflicted upon him, but Job will have none of that. He proclaims his innocence and piety, and we know from the earlier discussion between God and the Adversary that he speaks the truth. It is therefore left for God to speak in his own defense.

God’s answer to Job goes on for over 125 verses. It is hard to read without thinking that the deity doth protest too much. The diatribe is a testament to God’s power, which has not been questioned. It is not, however, a justification of the use of that power to injure an innocent man, unless you buy that might makes right.

Soren Kierkegaard tackled this dilemma by proclaiming the gap between the religious and ethical as a paradox. There is no rational reason that can bridge the gap. It is an absurdity that cannot be reconciled except by a leap of faith. Any search for an explanation is a waste of time, missing the point.    

Job certainly takes this leap of faith. In response to God’s litany Job repents, though it is unclear what he is repenting of, and returns to unquestioningly worshiping God**. This is, to some extent, also the response in “God on Trial” and “Women Talking”. The Jewish internees return to prayer, and the women continue to praise God, even though neither group can reconcile what has happened to them.

I think this attitude explains to a large extent the exultant cry of the Turkish rescuers. They may well understand the religious conundrum they face, just as Job did. However, they have elected to retain faith despite questions that cannot be answered. Most likely many of those pulled from the rubble adopted this same attitude and rejected the Voltairean cynicism as well.

As a child of the enlightenment, it is not so easy for me. The rational predominates. If I cannot explain it, I cannot accept it. I struggle to reconcile the response of Job. I struggle to see any greatness or goodness in these earthquakes, the holocaust or the fate of the women in “Women Talking”. And yet, I appreciate those who maintain a faith that can withstand the worst that can be thrown at them. I respect their steadfastness; I just don’t understand it.

This is just one of those never-ending questions that will plague man forever. There is no right answer, or right response. Maybe you react like the Jewish internees and continue to pray. Or maybe, like Voltaire, you deride the entire notion of goodness in the world. Each of us must decide on our own. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, “When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you”.

*Some accounts suggested that part of the reason that the devastation in Turkey was so extensive was because of Turkey’s notoriously lax building code enforcement. Just saying.

**Job’s wealth and family is restored in a way that seems to suggest that spouses (or at least wives) and children are as fungible as camels and sheep. Somewhat cringeworthy in my book.

Those dirty Commie bastards. They finally did it. They showed their true colors by launching an outrageous spy operation, violating our sacred space. What was surprising is how old school the operation was. Or maybe not. After all, Chairman Mao did say in his Little Red Book, Chapter 8, Quotation 6, “There’s no school like old school” (admittedly a loose translation).

The first Chinese spy balloon was first cited floating over Montana. Who knows what information it had gathered by the time it was spotted. The pinkos probably know the status of the new strip mall going up in Bozeman at West Oak Street and N. 7^th Avenue, near the Walmart Supercenter. They certainly would have seen the new well being dug at the Tail Waggin’ Ranch, just north of Holland. I wouldn’t even put it past them to have jettisoned something to poison that well (bye, bye Toto).

The sad thing is that this is certainly just the tip of the iceberg, not that we’ll hear anything about it from the lamestream media. For example, you probably did not know that the Three Percenters militia (named for the portion of their brains they use) captured banditos crossing the Mexican border while carting ten crates of Junior Birdmen decoder rings. The border guard dismissed it as a harmless prank, but we know better.

And then there was the shipment of disappearing ink that showed up at the Leon Trotsky Elementary School in Pocahontas, Arkansas. The ink was cleverly used to mask the 4^th grade writing assignment on the efficacy of critical race theory, wiping out all trace of this attack on American goodness before it could be revealed. Luckily, Governor Huckabee is on the case. You go girl!!!

It’s not just technology that has infiltrated our borders. Because what would technology be without the humans to operate it? Here too we have inconvertible proof. Strange characters have been seen in multiple locales (Zolfo Springs, Florida and Sulphur, Oklahoma, just to name a few) employing highly sophisticated communication devices. Deny these pictures, if you can.

OK, maybe I am dismissing this all too lightly. As of now, four floating aircraft have been shot down. I like to think that there is a real reason for this, and we are not just overreacting because we don’t want to seem weak (as if deflating a balloon with an F-22 jet is somehow a show of strength). It is just hard to imagine what vital information can be gathered in this quaint fashion.

Even if I could get over the innate silliness of this whole affair, it would strike me that, once again, we are focusing on the wrong things. On February 6, the FBI arrested two white supremacists, one of whom had started the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen, and accused them of plotting to attack multiple energy substations. According to the news reports, their goal was to inflict “maximum harm” on the power grid, so as to “completely destroy” Baltimore. That arrest barely caused a blip. Maybe if they had planned to attack with a catapult, we would have paid attention.  

Attacks on vulnerable power sources has apparently become a strategy adopted by radical groups in the United States. In December, shots fired at a substation caused 45,000 North Carolinians to lose power for several days. Power grids were also targeted in Oregon and Washington. These attacks go far beyond information gathering to very real attempts to inflict significant harm to people and property.

The threat of cyber-attacks is even more troubling. Unfortunately, the political wrangling over the 2016 election seems to have prevented any real response to the Russian cyber terrorists who hacked into Democratic National Committee systems, accessing e-mails and other private data. So, it wasn’t surprising that in 2020 the State Department, Treasury, Department of Homeland Security, and Pentagon were among the governmental entities breached. Per usual, we were so focused on laying, or avoiding, blame that there was little public furor, or clear organized effort to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Maybe it’s a function of the social media driven world we live in. These serious threats just don’t have visual allure of balloons. Try creating a funny meme out of an attack on a sub-station, or the theft of data. It can’t be done. Yet, the consequences of these attacks are potentially so much more profound. 

Of course, I am as guilty as anyone. You didn’t see a blog post on the substation arrests, or the cyber-attacks, did you? I waited until the balloon presented me with the chance to crack some goofy jokes and reference one of my all-time favorite TV shows, before I gave any real thought to the nature of the threats that exist.

You hope that those in the government agencies responsible for homeland security are looking at a broader picture. I like to think that there are directives flowing out of the oval office to employ any 16-year-old computer whiz kid able to hack Target to develop systems countering cyber-attacks. I like to think that there are plans being hurriedly drafted to protect our power supply. Sorry to say, I just don’t have the confidence that’s happening to the extent it should. It’s just not as cool as sending out jets to decimate the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. After all, that would be a great meme!!!

After the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl in 2009, sports pundits fell all over themselves to claim that this victory helped the New Orleans community heal from Hurricane Katrina, which occurred in August of 2005. The devastation from Katrina was such that even 2.5 years later many were dispossessed, neighborhoods were a shell of their pre-Katrina vibrancy and rebuilding had just started. Yet, all the city needed was a football win and it was back, baby.

Not surprisingly, politicos lined up to echo this scenario. They were happy to have residents, and the rest of the country, focus on the positive vibes of the Saints’ triumph rather than the slow response to the tragedy. Voices that pointed this out were drowned by the feel-good story of the Saints. People were once again dancing on Bourbon Street, and what else really mattered.

This was a quintessential example of sports claiming more than it can offer. The sports world is always trying to justify its existence beyond the playing fields by citing the business it generates, the good will it engenders and the role it plays as an integral part of a community. Something like the Saints win becomes a cure for all evil, and a tonic for civic pride.

It is no great revelation to say that pro sports is the epitome of hypocrisy. Listening to league execs, you would think that the fans are the most important item on their agenda. And yet, every decision is designed to enhance revenue, even if it is at the expense (literally) of the fans. The cost of tickets goes up. Legalized scalping (also known as Stub Hub) increases the expense even more. You can stay home and watch the game on TV, but television deals are cut to maximize commercials, making viewing interminable.

Players are no better. They love the fans when the cheers are pouring down. Who wouldn’t? But when bad play causes the fans turn on them, it’s another story. Time and again players react to fan displeasure through a universal one-finger symbol of disgust, if not worse. To many, the fans are there to idolize them, no matter what. All I can say is that those players better avoid Philly.

The odd thing is that despite all of that there is some truth to the hyperbole. There is an undeniable jolt of energy that passes through a community going through sports success. We are seeing it now here in Philly. It started with the Phillies improbable trip to the World Series and continued straight into Eagles run to the Super Bowl. It is invigorating to walk through the streets and see waves of Phillies red, or Eagles green.

The fan base exists in a world separate and apart from the execs and the players. They have seen ownership change, bonehead coaching, stars come and go, bad trades and bust draft picks. And still fans power on. Fans may say they have had enough, but they are one upset win or mega-signing from being back aboard the train they never really left.

Playoff runs are the payoff for that loyalty. It’s a validation for all of those wasted Sunday’s watching anther dispiriting loss to a hated rival. It makes worthwhile all those September nights watching your team blow a five-run lead and slide into oblivion. It rekindles the unbridled joy you felt as a kid watching your favorite player take the ball the length of the floor and dunk over some bum you can’t stand because of the uniform they wear. (You know who you are Larry Bird).

And yes, that joy is contagious. It pulls in people who could generally care less about sports. A green jersey, or a red hat (not MAGA) gets you a smile. Casual conversations with a stranger in line about the upcoming big game are the norm. The generally meaningless chatter with Lyft drivers become spirited debate about the keys to victory.

This era of good feelings doesn’t last long. Sports is too cyclical. Two years after winning a Super Bowl a team can struggle to go 8-9, and back into the playoffs because of others ineptitude, only to be blown out by a second-rate opponent (right Tom Brady?). But while it is going on it is really a breath of fresh air.

I must admit that I am not sure I would have it any other way. As fantastic as it is to win, I would not want to be robbed of the equally enjoyable ability to second-guess a Manager or boo an over-hyped athlete. And while the enthusiasm is fun, there is part of you that disdains all those jumping on the bandwagon. It’s all part of the long haul for the sports fan.

But for now, all that is put aside. The big game nears, and I am nervous. I want the reassurance of all those fair-weather fans. I want to bask in the green glow of the city’s buildings. I want to join into spontaneous outbursts of the Eagles fight song. I want to enjoy this while it lasts. So, I will bury the cynicism, ignore the naysayers, embrace the throngs and unite with my fellow Philadelphians in a loud “E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES!!!!”           

David Crosby is dead.

I never had any great love for Crosby as a person. By his own admission, he was often arrogant, abrasive and self-indulgent. He admitted that his former bandmates not only didn’t want to work with him anymore, they did not want anything to do with him. And yet there was that voice. Whether it was with CS&N, the Byrds or in his solo works, Crosby sang with an ethereal beauty that was both unique and unmistakable. Plus, oddly for someone who alienated those he worked with, his voice blended perfectly with his compatriots, generating a whole far greater than the sum of its parts.

But David Crosby was something more than his talent. He was also one of the last throwbacks to a lost era, the Sixties. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Crosby never seemed to change. He continued to let his freak flag fly long after he wrote Almost Cut My Hair in 1970. He was still the long-haired hippie freak at 80 that he was at 25. Even in his last interviews he brought to mind those days of rebellion and protest.

The term hippies came into use in the mid-1960’s. By 1967 it was a ubiquitous moniker for all that was white counterculture. It conjured up a longhaired boy, with ratty mismatched clothes, a headband and flowing beads, or a Twiggy like girl in bellbottoms with flowers in her hair. There was a chilled vibe to the hippie clan, ostensibly induced by significant drug use. An entire vocabulary came with the territory, with such phrases as “Far Out” and “Groovy” becoming hippie cliches. Woodstock, the event and the song, captured it all.

Almost from the start hippies were the subject of parody and caricature. The epitome of that ridicule was rendered by Dick Shawn as Lorenzo Saint DuBois (LSD to his friends) in the 1967 movie “The Producers”. LSD’s addlebrained rendition of Love Power at his audition for “Springtime for Hitler” captured perfectly the inane utopianism that was associated with hippies. They were out of touch dreamers who worshiped drugs, sex and rock and roll. Riding the Marrakesh Express, they weren’t to be taken seriously.

For me, growing up in the late 1960’s, hippies were a go to Halloween costume (along with Zorro). Just cut a hole in a blanket to wear like a poncho, put on a goofy wig, grab some flowers and you had an unbeatable disguise. Give me some candy, and I’ll flash you the peace sign.

Hippies were a convenient target for the silent majority backlash of the Nixon years. Reactionaries like Vice President Spiro Agnew could conveniently slander the lazy, smelly, atheistic, over privileged leaches-on-society who wanted nothing more than to lay on the grass in the park, floating Eight Miles High. They were a visible affront to all the God-fearing, hard-working Americans who pursued the American dream of a steady 9-to-5 job, a ranch home with a two-car garage and 3.2 kids playing in the yard.

Despite all the ridicule and the rhetoric, for many that came of age in the mid-1970’s, especially those of us with older siblings, the 60’s, and the hippie culture loomed large. There was so much change in that decade that it seemed to dwarf our middling time. The civil rights movement came to fruition and there was mass mobilization against the Vietnam war. More than that, there was a feeling that you could board Wooden Ships, throw off the strictures of a conforming society and develop your own personal style. It was a hard legacy to live up to.

Though a Long Time Gone, the sense that you do not have to accept society as given remains the legacy of the Sixties. The ubiquitous generational clashes often centered around the virtues of a steady job and a home centered existence. The hippies (and I am using that term broadly) demanded more. They wanted meaning more than they wanted stability. A regular income was not enough. You see this today in the current generation’s demand for work/life balance, and willingness to leave a job if they don’t think it can give them that.

The preeminence of youth remains with us as well. Advertising is either geared towards youth, or towards making us feel as if products can keep us young. Even many of the drug commercials, hawking some remedy for an age-related illness, will use young actors to convey the message that this miracle drug will not only is a cure, but a fountain of youth (as they spout off the litany of horrendous possible side effects).

Fashions also seem to recycle hippie chic. A sense of Déjà Vu, if you will. I laugh when I see someone heading into a club wearing jeans artfully ripped at the knees. More importantly, our entire notion of what is appropriate to wear when has changed. My mother would never have even thought of going to a restaurant without a nice dress, and my father always was in a coat and tie. Now, you are liable to see anything from hoodies to sports jerseys at any restaurant, and no one bats an eye.    

The social engagement of the young is also a legacy of the sixties. Aging hippies used to complain that today’s whippersnappers did not have the sense of protest they used to have (OK Boomer). That did seem to be the case through the 80’s and 90’s, but there were not prominent issues to coalesce around. Once those issues emerged, it was clear that the Sixties generation had made sure to Teach Your Children well. Whether it be abortion rights or police brutality, today’s youth are ready and willing to take to the streets. More importantly, they think it is their prerogative and obligation to do so.

Agitation by groups for civil rights has become prolific. Most notably the women’s rights and gay rights movements drew inspiration and power from the Afro-American struggles and have significantly changed the way our society views these groups. As much as some people want to roll back what these groups have secured, they are fighting against a tide that may briefly ebb but will come back stronger than ever. Mainly because the majority of today’s young people already see these rights as a given.

David Crosby was somehow able to encapsulate the feeling of the Sixties in his songs and in his public persona. While his death robs us of one of the most visible icons of that era, the impact of the Sixties will continue indefinitely. My guess is that will be true until someone can answer a question posed by Elvis Costello. “What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding”?