Tomser's Blog

I just finished Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. I first read this novel almost 30 years ago, and, not surprisingly, had little or no recollection of it. I recalled that I thought Stranger middling, but it is considered a classic of science fiction, and was on my shelf for some reason, so I thought that I would dive back in. After finishing it, I realized that Stranger is an exemplar for everything that makes classic science fiction so interesting and so exasperating.

The plot of Stranger is typical sci-fi. Michael Valentine Smith is the sole survivor of an earth expedition to Mars, where he was stranded as a baby and raised by Martians. He is discovered by a subsequent expedition 20 years later and brought back to earth. Over the course of the novel, he learns the ways of us earthlings, and contrasts it to Martian teachings, not in a good way.

Smith intuits that we Earth dwellers fail to grok (the Martian word for understand, that means so much more) the basic Martian principal that each of us is God. Once we come to accept that tenet we can live in peace and harmony. Apparently, we can also acquire telepathic powers, as well as the ability to make things (and people) disappear. Smith also reveals that death is not the end, allowing us to accept our transformation into a new type of existence. And, oh yes, grokking this axiom removes all sexual inhibitions.

The idea of Stranger is interesting. The thought of a human raised with non-human beliefs having to adapt and understand earthly ways opens doors for an examination of human institutions and mores. Heinlein focuses mainly on religious practices, and the inbred contradictions and hypocrisy they engender. Not surprisingly, Smith’s message that we are all God does not go over well with the established churches.

An engrossing story could have emerged out of this premise if the book was not so badly written. I was shocked at the incompetence of the writing from someone who is so revered. After all, Heinlein won four Hugo awards, four Nebula awards and was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. Yet, his writing style would be embarrassing for a college Freshman in a Creative Writing 101 course.

For example, any time a character wants to emphasize a point, they use “ain’t”. As when patriarch, lawyer and doctor Jubal Harshaw is interrupted in one of his lectures to Mike, he bellows back, “I ain’t through”. I guess that’s supposed to tell us that this is important, but it just sounds silly. Worse are the caricatures masquerading as characters, like the two male aides to Harshaw who talk as if they just escaped from a Bowery Boys movie (“I’ll murdalize you Sach”).

Then there is the way the way ideal relationships between men and women are depicted. I know that Stranger was published in 1961, but even in that pre-women’s lib era it should have been embarrassing to conjure what is little more than a male high school freshman fantasy. Women are smart and capable, but submissive. They revel in being ogled by men and are quick to hop into bed with any Martian trained male, once they too have been enlightened. One woman even goes so far as to say, “If you hear my scream, and reach into my mind and I’m in real trouble, [feel free to intervene]. But I was coping with wolves when you were still on Mars. Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it’s partly her fault. So don’t be hasty”. Oy vey.

The fact that this book is praised as a classic, says much about the world of sci-fi. For so long it was the domain of white male geeks. People who were intrigued by offbeat ideas but viewed the world through a prism of their own unfulfilled desires. These were the guys who would corner you near the beer keg at a party to regale you with the significance of some obscure space opera that “you just have to read”.

I say this as a lifelong science fiction fan. Yes, I immersed myself in Asimov, Clarke, etc. Yes, I thrilled at the concepts of interstellar travel, cyberworlds, and alternative dimensions. Yes, I cared whether Star Trek was more highly praised than Star Wars (which it should be). I like to think that most of the works I gobbled up were not as cringeworthy as Stranger in a Strange Land, but I can’t bet on it. Many of these writers had a scientific background, but were literary hacks who had a decent idea they spun out into a novel. Not a bad way to make a living.

The promise of sci-fi is its ability to create a surrogate world, and then use that world to comment on our own. It is both useful and thought-provoking. It can be a vehicle to introduce a different viewpoint, and new uses of technology. Science Fiction can capture the imagination in ways other literature cannot. Stranger did that, and I am sure that is why it was so highly thought of.

As science fiction has matured it has grown out of the world of the Fantastic or Weird Worlds magazines. Today’s sci-fi authors are just as inventive but apparently care more about logical structure and literary quality. Plus, a lot more women seem to have entered the field, which can only broaden its perspectives. There is still plenty of dross, but that’s true in every genre.

I don’t read as much science fiction as I once did. The ideas are can be mundane and repetitive. Plus, many sci-fi writers seem to think anything under 400 pages is not worth the while. Still, when sci-fi clicks it is as intriguing as anything out there. A platform for creative minds with a slight bent that should not be overlooked, despite its weaknesses.

P.S. Some sci-fi I can recommend – Anything by Douglas Adams; Atwood, Oryx and Crake; Bester, The Demolished Man; Fforde, Early Riser; Le Guin, the Dispossessed; Melville, The City and the City; Mitchell, The Bone Clocks; St. John Mandell, Station Eleven (sorry Peter); Vandermeer, Annihilation; Zemiatan, We.    

It was nice to get away over the end of year holidays. Even though I am retired, it still seemed like a break from routine, and that is always welcome. Of course, time does not stop, and there are inevitable surprises. Some personal (a broken pipe) and some general. I would not have guessed that two of the more interesting surprises would involve the corporate world. (Of course, if I could have guessed they would not have been surprises).

First there was the meltdown of Southwest Airlines. This one hit close to home since my mother-in-law was supposed to fly back to Indianapolis via Southwest on December 27. That flight, along with thousands of others, were cancelled, with no prospect of a rebooking for close to a week. For her it was not a major inconvenience since she had no pressing need to get home, and was staying with her daughter, my sister-in-law. However, for many others – stuck at airports, needing to get back to work, staying in hotels – it was a fiasco.

The other corporate news was the continuing saga of the collapse of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange platform, along with arrest of its chief executive, Sam Bankman-Fried, who has been charged with multiple counts of fraud. Two former FTX executives have already plead guilty, and are cooperating with authorities, so there is not a lot of doubt where Bankman-Fried will end up. Too bad Bernie Madoff has left us. They could have shared a cell.

Having spent most of my career working in corporate America, these events fascinate me, though for different reasons. The Southwest debacle appears to have been caused by the airline’s failure to invest in an updated scheduling system, leaving it unable to react to the massive storm that spread across the northern part of the country. The FTX meltdown seemingly arose from a lack of oversight which opened the door for malfeasance. 

Southwest was a classic corporate failure, generally emanating from the conflicting goals of planning for long term success – which requires the outlay of significant cash – and providing investors with the immediate returns they demand. CEO’s cringe at the prospect of standing in front of investors trying to justify low quarterly earnings, knowing that explanations of expensive technological upgrades will not go down well. It is easier to live with old systems, which generally work, and hope that a snowmageddon, literal or metaphorical, doesn’t hit. It appears that Southwest lost that bet.

No one who has done time in a corporation can be shocked at Southwest’s actions or inactions, as the case may be. We know that while corporations want to appear to the world as Stark Industries, innovators with endless creative drive, they are more in the realm of Scrooge McDuck, hoarding wealth while expending as little as humanly possible, except for executive compensation. Good times or bad, budgets will have to be cut and employee bonus pools limited for the common good. Is it any wonder that in such an atmosphere major expenditures are perennially delayed?

Corporate veterans also know that airline CEOs around the country are letting out a long sigh of relief, because this could have happened to any one of them. When, in 2008, ACE competitor AIG tanked due to investments in subprime mortgages, we all knew that we had dodged that bullet not because of C-Suite insight, but because management had not thought of going that route. Similarly, I have no doubt that all airlines cut corners, delay upgrades and pander to short term gains, just like Southwest. The question is can they stay one step ahead of disaster. Only time will tell.

FTX is a different animal. By all accounts the Bahama based company had little oversight. The current FTX administrator, John Ray III, who supervised the liquidation of Enron, described FTX as having an unprecedented failure of corporate controls, resulting in a complete absence of trustworthy financial information. It’s many investors were, in essence, flying blind.

It would be easy here to jump on the bandwagon claiming that I knew Bitcoin was rotten from the start, patting myself on the back for my wise investment strategies, but that would be disingenuous. I am the first to admit that I have never understood cryptocurrency. I like to believe that I could have grasped it by perusing the inevitable “Bitcoin for Dummies”, but it never seemed worth the time. Laziness saved me from ever seriously considering diving in.

Even if I had, the lack of oversight would hopefully have scared me off. Throughout my career, I have listened to business people decrying regulation, intimating that if only government would get out of their way they could really shine. Yet time and time again we have seen deregulation lead to corporate collapse, requiring significant pubic bailouts. It is not a coincidence that the Saving and Loan scandals of the 1980’s and the sub-prime mortgage recession of the 1980’s both came after a significant decrease in government supervision of the impacted sectors.

There is no doubt a balance that needs to be struck between governmental oversight and business operations. But it is foolish to think that businesses will properly govern themselves absent big brother. It’s not that companies are inherently evil. It’s just that there are so many opportunities to compromise on sound governance that the temptations are too great. Not only are the corporate earnings at stake, but so are individual careers. It is just too easy to rationalize cutting a corner here or rounding a number there.

Business oriented media does nothing to make up for a lack of oversight. Everyone thinks of business journals as hard hitting and practical, but often they are just People for the corporate set. Magazines and news shows did piece after piece on Bankman-Fried, lauding his entrepreneurial spirit and bold innovations, all without researching whether there was beef in the burger. As Paul Krugman said, discussing Enron, “Whom the gods destroy, they first put on the cover of Businessweek”.

Unfortunately, there are no great lessons to be learned from Southwest or FTX. Even if you devote all your spare time to researching companies you are unlikely to foresee snowmageddons or fiscal fraud, while branding yourself as someone no one wants to talk to at parties. It is just a risk we all take living in a world where we must rely on so much that is beyond our control or comprehension. Welcome to the modern world.

The British magazine Sight & Sound has published its 9^th decennary list for the “Best Films of All Time”. https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/sight-and-sound-100-best-films-all-time-2022. This decade’s list was derived from a poll of over 1,600 film critics around the world, almost doubling the participants from the 2012 poll. The result is a more diverse array of movies than in prior years, and far different from most such lists you will see.

This being 2022, that diversity has sparked significant backlash. Director Paul Schrader (Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, American Gigolo, Cat People), has branded the poll “a politically correct rejiggering”. He was outraged by the leap of “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” from 36^th to 1^st in this year’s poll, calling the leap “a landmark of distorted woke reappraisal”.

By their very nature “all-time” lists are questionable at best. However, as Shrader recognized, with its poll starting in 1952 S&S had managed to carve itself a niche as a “reliable if somewhat incremental measure of critical consensus and priorities”. Shrader believes that in 2022 S&S abrogated that role because voters selected films for their political content rather than their cinematic worth.

Schrader and his ilk ignore the fact that the content of the poll has always been a function of the evaluating panel. The 1952 poll, which only picked a top 10, had 85 critics, all from 9 European countries and the United States. Not surprisingly, there were no films on the list outside of Europe and the United States. I could not find the breakdown of the 1952 critics by gender or ethnicity, though I could pretty much guess.

In 2022, S&S specifically sought to be more inclusive, making clear that it was reaching out for more international input. I have no doubt that they also sought more gender and racial diversity as well. In other words, the 2022 poll reflects who was asked, just as the 1952 poll did.

Much of the criticism focused on the rise of Jeanne Dielman. As I considered the poll, I was embarrassed by the fact that I had not seen this film. So, on a rainy Tuesday, I sat down to absorb all of its three hours and 21 minutes.

Jeanne Dielman is, in many ways, anti-cinema. Director Chantelle Ackerman lingers on long static shots depicting the main character going through daily household tasks, making the bed, preparing supper, eating a sandwich. The camera does not zoom in or provide context. It just observes, and thereby forces the viewer to do the same. There is little dialogue, and what dialogue exists is mostly banal. This film lacks everything I have been brought up to expect in a movie.

Yet, it is gripping in its audacity. Ackerman establishes the unaltering daily routine of Jeanne to such an extent that any deviation from that routine – a dropped brush, a light left on, unkempt hair, a vigorous potato peeling session – seems to carry great significance. As these anomalies, small as they are, mount an explosion seems inevitable. Even though Ackerman flaunts every tenet of exciting movie-watching, the three hours goes fast.

And yet, I cannot generally recommend Jeanne Dielman. You must have extraordinary patience, willing to sit through hours of nothing happening. If you do, it is rewarding, but most viewers will probably never make it that far. I know why this movie is held in such high esteem by critics and filmmakers alike. However, it is not a film that will satisfy most movie-goers.

This reflects my problem with the list generally. Audience satisfaction is apparently not a criterion. Not that there are not some taut thrillers on this list – North by Northwest, The Battle of Algiers, The Night of the Hunter, Get Out – but they are few and far between. There is only one true musical, Singing in the Rain, no grand spectacles (ala Lawrence of Arabia) and no film noir.

It also seems that movie critics lack a sense of humor. I count 11 films that could be classified as comedies, though even that is generous. (Are Daises and The Apartment there because they are laugh riots?). Other than Do the Right Thing and two Miyzaki animated films, there are no comedies (if those films can be classified as comedies) on the list that were made after 1967. No Spinal Tap or Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Nothing by Mel Brooks (The Producers), Woody Allen (Annie Hall), the Coen Brothers (Raising Arizona) or Wes Anderson (Grand Budapest Hotel). These are huge omissions.

And yet, I sympathize with the critics. They do not compile a list of the 100 greatest films, but only submit their top 10. Try it. If you are any kind of moviegoer, it is incredibly hard to winnow the great films down to that level. Anyone conscientiously compiling such a list must feel incredible angst at leaving out masterworks that you know belong in the top 100, but you don’t have room to include.

With that limitation it is inevitable that voters are going to do everything they can to make sure their favorites are recognized. Those favorites may reflect films from a country, or continent (Africa) that has been overlooked. They may reflect topics (racism, feminism) that have been neglected. They may reflect categories of directors (women, people of color) that have not been as celebrated as they should be. I have no problem with that.

The prior S&S polls may have been a “reliable if somewhat incremental measure of critical consensus and priorities”, but that was only possible by keeping those defining that consensus and setting those priorities as narrow as possible. Opening the doors to other views may make accord impossible, but it also shines light on films that deserve to be seen. And at the end of the day shouldn’t that be what these lists are all about?

P.S. It would be duplicitous of me to carp on a poll without providing my own best ever list. As you will see, this reflects my own biases as much as any other voter. These are films that I can watch over and over, which is one of my criteria. I was going to include an honorable mention list (it kills me not to have a Hitchcock, or Truffaut, or screwball comedy, or film noir, etc., etc.), but it got way too long. Let the second guessing begin.

1. Seven Samurai – Kurosawa

2. In the Mood for Love – Wong Kar-wei

3. Seventh Seal – Bergman

4. Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb – Kubrick (not on the S&S list???????)

5. Apocalypse Now – Coppola

6. Stalker – Tarkovsky

7. Modern Times – Chaplin

8. Cabaret – Fosse

9. The Third Man – Reed

10. La Strada – Fellini

You know that feeling when something hits you like a bolt of lightning? When you hear a theory that sounds so right that you really don’t have to look too deeply into it to know that it’s valid? That happened over the Thanksgiving weekend, and no, it wasn’t the Qanon heresy that Thanksgiving was a Canadian holiday before liberals coopted it as a celebration of Indian largess.

One of our Thanksgiving guests was telling me about a podcast she heard on the drive to our house which posited that reading is contrary to our evolutionary development, and that this disconnect is a why so many people do not read beyond the extent needed, even in this age of mass literacy. It is also why so many students struggle with reading at a young age. It is just not something that comes naturally.

I had never considered this. From pouring over Curious George books at the Bethlehem Public Library, to struggling with a book my son Max recommended to me, reading has seemed a close second to breathing in importance in my life. The thought that I have been bucking the conditioning of generations never occurred to me. And yet, it makes so much sense.

Writing in even its earliest form did not begin until approximately 5000 years ago. If we start human history with the making of tools, humanity was pre-literate for 3 million years before we ever had to interpret squiggles on a stone tablet, or engraved stile. Our strategies for interacting with the world were hardwired during that time, and they did not include perusing otherwise meaningless jottings.

Throughout this time, we compiled information by what we saw and heard. It was limited in scope, and could be deceptive, but it was immediately accessible. The ability to “read” the world around us was essential for survival. We had to be able to react quickly and instinctively to the the visual and aural clues presented. Sitting on a rock staring intently at a piece of bark is hardly an effective strategy to enhance well-being.

Even once humanity started reading, it was primarily an elitist activity. Most people got along fine without it, thank you very much. Estimates suggest that no more than 10% of the world’s population was literate in ancient times. As of 1820, when the data is much better, that rate had soared to 12%. Though the rates in Europe were much higher, literacy there still was less than 50% (why would women need to read?). Even by the 1930’s only 70% of the U.S. population was literate. In other words, mass literacy is a very recent phenomenon (by 2015 it was up to 86%). 

Is it any wonder that people adapted to the visual arts revolution so quickly? Movies and television are perfect mediums for our primordial conditioning. The flow of moving images matches the world our ancestors inhabited. We instinctively know how to read the cues, and digest the information presented.

Sad as I am to say it, my friend Mark Megaw was correct. Teaching through visuals is the most compatible with this conditioning. At ACE legal conferences, Mark’s presentations, which incorporated eye-catching images and audience participation, were always the most memorable. I will note that since he was generally competing with such topics as bitcoin in the world of insurance and accounting for intercompany transfers, that’s faint praise indeed.      

I have always rebelled against the visual learning construct because I retain information better when I read it. But even I must admit that reading often does not result in long term retention. Though reading served me well as a student, and remains my primary leisure activity, it cannot compete with the images imprinted on my brain cells by movies (the frozen still at the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or Bogie in the rain in Casablanca, immediately jump to mind).

I cannot help but believe that in the span of human history, the reign of reading as the primary means of communicating ideas will be a short one. Reading has already shifted to an auxiliary of the presentation of news, not to mention social media. People still need to read, but it is more often as a header across the screen, or the clever (I use that word loosely) punchline of a meme.

The problem is that it is hard to get much depth into a Facebook post, at least depth that anyone will truly consider, and TV news lends itself much more to the polemical than it does to the factual. The reading of books, newspapers, magazine articles (and yes, even a lowly blog) remain the primary way to take a deep dive into any subject. I do not see that changing soon.

The flip side is that so many more people can be reached through TV and social media. I often forget how new these tools are. As we become more comfortable, we hopefully will get better at sifting the wheat from the chaff. That ability to discern needs to be incorporated into our educational system in much the same way that reading is.

Reading will reman an essential skill for a long time to come. However, denying our hardwiring for the visual is counterproductive. We need to embrace the techniques our ancestors used and adapt them to the world we live in today. Fighting those tendencies, as I have been prone to do, just isn’t going to cut it. I can see that now.    

While I tend not to write about politics, the recent mid-term election was so fascinating, and seems to auger so many significant developments, that I cannot resist. In doing so, I am aware that I am probably saying nothing that is particularly novel or hasn’t been said by others. (My apologies if it is somewhat Pennsylvania centric).

To recap for those of you who dozed off last Tuesday afternoon, and are just waking up, pundits predicted that this year’s midterm election would result in a significant shift toward Republican officeholders, with both the Senate and House trending red, as well as state elections. Instead, the Democrats retained control of the Senate, shifting one seat in their favor, and probably holding onto all others (assuming Warnock wins the runoff in Georgia). And while the Republicans did take the majority in the House, it was by a slim margin, much less than expected. State results seem to be similar.

A shift would have been no surprise. In the 21 midterm elections held since 1934, only twice has the president’s party gained seats in both the Senate and the House. In 19 of those 21 elections, the President’s party lost seats in the House, often dramatically (for example, there was a 71-member shift against Roosevelt in 1938, and a 48-member shift against Eisenhower in 1958).

With inflation trends over the last year, and the relentless pounding by Republican candidates on crime, it was natural to assume that 2022 would conform with this trend. If ever a President’s party looked poised to lose big, this year was it. That is why the results seem to carry more import than they usually do.

So, what are the takeaways? First, election denial seems to have died on the vine. While many people still believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 Presidential election, this assertion did not sway voters. Even if some people are skeptical about 2020, they want to put that election behind them. And for many voters the boasts of candidates like Mastriano, who suggested that as Governor he would, in essence, pick the state’s Presidential winner, regardless of vote tallies, were a distinct turn-off.

An important consequence of the denial flop is that there is unlikely to be any significant changes in voting laws. After 2020 there was a lot of calls for “reforms” that would cut back on some of the electoral provisions that made voting easier, such as drop off boxes and wider access to mail-in voting. While these proposed changes were supposed to eliminate fraud, they really were designed to restrict access. With the death of the election denial issue, these changes are unlikely to occur, which means that the 2024 election will be conducted under basically the same rules that governed the 2020 election.

Conversely, access to abortion was a big issue, and will likely remain as one. Abortion rights were on the ballot in 5 states, and in each of those states the right to access was affirmed, and it generally was not close. That included Kentucky and Montana, states that are thought of as conservative, joining Kansas in rejecting bans on abortion. In other states, such as Pennsylvania, abortion rights seemed to drive more turnout than you normally see in midterms.

Republican candidates will have to come to terms with abortion, especially in swing states. A call for outright bans, such as that made by Doug Mastriano, simply will not sell. Nor will weaselly responses like that by Mehmet Oz, calling for oversight by “local politicians”. There is still strong anti-abortion sentiment out there, but politicians inclined to cater to that base will have to figure out how to tap that sentiment without provoking a significant backlash. Good luck.

Perhaps realizing the limited reach of anti-abortion rhetoric and election denial, Republicans chose to make law and order central to their election theme. This issue should have had more of an impact than it did. It has been a successful ploy in years gone by, and violent crime has risen over the last few years. Yet, while many polls confirmed that crime was a concern, it did not seem to sway many voters.

Part of the problem was the Purge-like commercials that Republicans chose to highlight crime. For many, those videos reinforced their view of the cities that they avoid, but those people were going to vote Republican anyway. For those who live or work in cities, the videos were caricatures of a much more intractable problem. It is simplistic to suggest that the increase in crime is the fault of one party, or that the other could eliminate lawlessness. Voters may have been concerned about crime but were not impressed by such hyperbole. Crime will remain a viable issue in elections to come, but more locally than nationally.

All of this confirms a trend that will undoubtedly continue, which is that the center will be hard to hold. In the final weeks of the campaign, Dr. Oz tried desperately to paint himself as a centrist, running adds that claimed he would bring balance back to Washington. The problem was that he could not run away from the perception that he was Trump’s man, and that undermined any confidence in his posture as someone who would reach across the aisle.

The primary system will continue reward the more partisan politicians. Winning a nomination for a national office will require voicing positions on key issues, like abortion, that will be difficult to backtrack on in a general election. Unless the electorate in both parties move back to the center, candidates reluctant to be strident in their stances are unlikely to prevail with their party. I just don’t see that happening soon.    

Finally, there is the elephant on the room – Donald J. Trump. Candidates backed by the ex-President and touting his favorite issue – election denial – did not fare well. I am sure he envisioned the announcement of his 2024 Presidential bid as coming on the crest of a red tide that would allow him to say, “See, I really did win in 2020”. His inability to make that claim, leaves him with little new to say.

There is no doubt that most Republican politicians would love to see him go away, but it will not be that easy. He will be difficult to beat in the primaries. Trump still has a massive and rabid following. Republicans shun him at their peril. He is egomaniacal and vindictive and will use his popularity as long and as aggressively as he can.

However, it is hard to picture Trump winning in 2024. He is a lightening rod, and if he runs, he will be the issue. The turnout against him will be huge. Other potential Republican talking points will not matter. People will vote, and vote in droves, so that he does not become President again, maybe even more so than in 2020.

That does not mean the Democrats should be complacent. The midterms cannot be seen as an endorsement of Joe Biden. People are concerned about inflation and crime. They will expect to see progress on these and other issues over the next two years, even with a Republican-majority House. Failure to move forward on their agenda could jeopardize the support of the younger voters the Democrats need.

Well, that is that, for what it is worth. Like more prognosticators, I probably am reading too much into the tea leaves. American politics will take its twists and turns, and heaven knows where we will end up. But 2024 will be on us before we know it, and one thing is for sure – it will be interesting.       

I was walking on the Schuylkill Trail recently, enjoying a beautiful spring day in November, when I noticed a woman with a T-shirt emblazoned with the Trenton New Jersey slogan, “Trenton Makes – The World Takes”. I have often seen this slogan displayed proudly on a railroad trestle while crossing the bridge headed toward the Trenton Amtrak Station. Every time I do, I wonder what could have possessed the city leaders to choose and then so blatantly promote a town motto that sounds so peevish. The woman’s T-shirt prompted me to answer that question.

Not surprisingly, the Trenton motto came out of a slogan contest sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce looking to spread the city’s industrial achievements. Such contests are generally a bad idea, though they can produce some interesting entries. John Oliver highlighted the contest to design a refashioned New Zealand flag, which prompted some wonderfully quirky designs, to say the least. Not that you would actually want to adopt any of them.

Considering the slogan Trenton embraced, there must have been some intriguing runners-up. Like, “We do all the work, but you take all the credit”. Or maybe, “You’re just jealous because we’re great”. Or “I do all my chores, you don’t, but mommy still likes you best”. Anticipating the placement of the motto on the bridge, there might have been an entry for “Our slogan is bigger than your slogan”.

In 1910, when the slogan was adopted, Trenton’s biggest industries were pottery and rubber. You would think that might have prompted slogans like, “Trenton – we always bounce back.” I also like, “Trenton – shaping the world, one jug at a time.” Those are slogans that a city can build on.

Trenton is not alone in having a less than ideal city motto. Mount Horab, Wisconsin sells itself as “The Troll Capital.” That might have been OK when trolls conjured up weird little guys with wild hair and big feet, but in today’s world of social media, it is a bit off-putting. Utica, New York, showing a negative self-worth that would make Trentonians proud, bills itself as “The City that God Forgot”.* Considering the hurricanes, flooding and earthquakes elsewhere, that might not be as bad as it sounds.

Lest you think that odd city slogans are solely an American phenomenon, Tisdale, Canada bills itself as “The Land of Rape and Honey”, rape apparently (hopefully) referring to the rapeseed grown in that area (those crazy Canadians). It seems that Dunedin, New Zealand doesn’t want to get your hopes too high with “It’s all right here.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement. While I don’t think it was an official slogan, Toronto wits commemorated a bad time a few years back by erecting an entry sign that said “Welcome to Ontario’s Capital. Our hockey team sucks and our mayor smokes crack.”

Promoting a city is just not that simple. Here in Philadelphia, we got lucky. Our name lends itself to the catchy slogan of “The City of Brotherly Love”. We really don’t have to live up to that moniker. It isn’t as if it was adopted because we are all such wonderful, welcoming folk. In fact, we often rank as one of the rudest cities in the U.S., but no matter. It’s like calling Los Angeles the “City of Angels”. If it wasn’t literal, it would be ironic.

New York is big enough, it doesn’t have to worry about promotion, and can adopt a slogan as meaningless and vague as “The Big Apple”. I have no idea where that came from, or what it is supposed to mean, and while I could look it up, I don’t want to. It’s better to just repeat it as if it’s somehow profound, nod your head knowingly, and move on.

Cities like Trenton and Utica don’t have that luxury. If they want people to take notice, they have to come up with something original and catchy. Some cities just settle for the bland and uninspiring, like Rockville, Maryland’s “Get into it”, or Rochester, New York’s “I’d Rather Be in Rochester – It’s Got It”. My guess is that these cities spent big bucks to come up with and promote these witty bon mots, but since no one will ever be inspired, or even remember them, a slogan contest may have been the way to go.

While it’s easy to deride city slogans, it’s much harder to come up with one. I’ve tried with Trenton, but all I could come up with is “Trenton – We’re Kind of Midway Between New York and Philly.” Or, “Trenton – The New Jersey State Capital, For What That’s Worth”. They could update the current slogan with “Trenton Used to Make, But the World Took it All, and Now We have Nothing!!” I admit, none of these are bridge worthy.

Maybe the bottom line is that city legislators should focus on things other than slogans if they want people to remember their city. They should highlight the attractions that make them worth an exit off the highway. Let’s face it, no one comes to Philadelphia for hugs. They come for the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall (and the cheesesteaks). Similarly, people don’t go to Trenton to relive past manufacturing glory, but for the Yankees AAA team, a couple of decent museums and access to places like Princeton. And yes, to see the “Trenton Makes – The World Takes” bridge. Not earthshaking, but it’s a start.

*I must admit, all of these slogans may not be official. That doesn’t make them less fun.

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.