Tomser's Blog

I am sure many of you have been asking yourself over the last month, “Where’s Tomser’s Blog?”. “Has he deserted us?” “Are we going to be left to grope through this crazy mixed-up world without his pithy insights and razor like wit?” Or, more likely, none of you even noticed that I had stopped posting and are somewhat surprised to see me reappear. Whichever way it is, like MacArthur, I am back.  

The truth of the matter is that I decided to take a summer break. I had trips planned for late July, and late August, so I was going to be out of pocket some anyway. Plus, as I thought about the time away, memories flooded back of that feeling when school let out for the year, and an expanse of free time appeared to stretch out indefinitely. I thought that I would try and recapture that a bit of feeling. 

To be honest, I am never sure whether that is a feeling I truly ever had. Let’s face it, memories of growing up are hazy at best, and memories of specific feelings at specific times even more suspect. Does it just seem like I must have had that feeling and did I thereby implant the “memory” of that euphoria into the nether reaches of my brain? 

Frankly, I don’t care. Whether it’s a real memory or a manufactured one, it is as visceral as anything from childhood. I can picture myself walking away from Asa Packer Elementary, or East Hills Junior High, or Freedom High and letting out a whoop of release from the daily grind of school. I can see myself looking forward to sleeping in, aimlessly rolling out of bed, turning on the TV to watch late morning cartoons and feeling as blissfully free as I ever would.  

The summers, of course, never played out that simply. There were things to be done, and even I got bored of the Flintstones after a while (unless it was the episode where Barney and Fred build a pool to share, and Fred ends up using a fake cop to try and scare his bosom buddy and lifelong pal). Yet, neighborhood friends were always around, as were above-ground, non-Flintstone, swimming pools to lounge in. Pretty idyllic. 

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The feeling lingered on through my working years, even though there was no summer break, per se. Our office closed at 3:00 before the Memorial Day weekend (corporate employers are soooo generous) and it felt like the beginning of summer. I was exhilarated leaving the building, even though I knew I would be back four days later.  

I also lived vicariously through my children (don’t we all). I could sense their excitement as the school year wound down. I knew they were anxious to put aside the perceived drudgery of school, even if they liked their teachers and classes. We always marked the passing of the school year and anticipation of the summer fun ahead by going out for dinner or ice cream. I enjoyed that as much as the kids did. 

So, did talking a month off from this blog match the intoxication of an endless summer? Yes and no. It was nice to get away from the self-imposed discipline of sitting down to write every morning. It was somewhat liberating to have no scheduled tasks, even if the schedule was my own and not one imposed by work or school. And it did seem a bit more like an endless summer having the open days of August stretching out ahead. 

On the other hand, the perception of unlimited possibility as the summer break started can’t be duplicated. The feeling that possibilities are endless is one of those things that dwindles over time. There is so much of life that is inevitable (apart from Thanos) and that becomes clearer as we get older. 

Part of the trick of retirement is getting back a taste of those wide horizons. It will never be the same, because obligations remain that just weren’t there growing up, not to mention the physical limitations. Yet, the horizons are wider than they have been for 40 years, and that is nothing to sneeze at. 

While it might have only been a pale reminder of the euphoria of youth, taking August to regroup was undoubtedly a plus. Even a glimmer of unbounded free days ahead is a good thing. Oddly enough, that’s true even though there is no imposed structure on my time. I can’t explain it, but that’s the way it is.   

Golf has always been the “gentlemanly” game, for better or worse. Even at the pro level, fans have been well-behaved, staying quiet as the player stands interminably over the ball, mutely surrounding any ball hit into the crowd, as if it was about to explode, cheering politely no matter if a shot was terrific or off the mark. Yet, over the last month or so golf has had two instances of fan intrusion that, along with incursions in other sports, has got me thinking about the relationship between fan and athlete.   

In case you missed it, fans swarmed onto the fairway on the 18^th hole of the PGA Championship, overly excited by Phil Mickelson’s impending victory, jostling his playing partner Brooks Koepka, and making it difficult for him to make it to the green to finish the round. Then, in Scotland, a fan came out of the crowd while Rory McElroy was waiting to hit, calmly took a club out of McElroy’s bag and started to swing it as if he was going to tee off. I’d never seen anything like it.   

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They were just two incidents in a slew of recent bad fan behavior. You had the woman waiving a sign saying hello to her grandparents stepping in front of bikers at the Tour de France, causing massive pile up which, injured numerous riders. A Yankee fan hitting Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo in the back with a baseball in the midst of a game. An English “football’ fan shining a laser onto the face of the Denmark goalie during a key penalty shot in the European Cup semi-final. Islander fans throwing beer cans, et al., onto the ice after their team won game 6 of their recent series with the Lightening. A Knick fan spitting on Trae Young in Madison Square Garden. And what would any litany of bad fan behavior be without an entry from Philly, where a Sixers fan dumped popcorn on injured Russell Westbrook as he was exiting the court. 

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While this litany all occurred in a short time span, bad fan behavior has been with us a long time. The English soccer hooligans of the 80’s and 90’s make the laser incident look tame. (Bill Buford’s “Among the Thugs” is a classic on hooligan culture). There was the father and son in-game attack on Royals first base coach, Tom Gamboa. And my personal favorites, the fan riots on Death to Disco night in Detroit and 10 cent beer night in Cleveland.  

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Yet, it seems as if things may be heading to a different level. Maybe it’s some post-pandemic (if we are post-pandemic) expiration of pent-up steam. Maybe is an outgrowth of an on-line culture that lets people anonymously vent hatred. Maybe it’s another symptom of a society where moderation is becoming increasingly out of style. Or maybe its gotten no worse, and I’ve just become another old fogey who remembers the past through a rose-tinted haze.      

For most of my life I have been a very vocal fan. I remember leaning far over the second balcony at the old Spectrum berating Rick Mahorn during a time out in an era when blaring music did not invade every moment of every break in the game. (He later came to the Sixers and became one of my favorite players). There was also the time I took advantage of rare good seats at a Phillies game to scream continuously at Bill Russell from the time he appeared in the on-deck circle as a pinch-hitter until he grounded out (thank you very much), calling him a bum and a Lasorda charity case, among other things. I’m such a mild-mannered sort. I’m not sure what possessed me. 

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That, of course, is the point. We get ourselves so worked up for these sports spectacles that it’s easy to become someone else, or at least let a side of ourselves usually hidden emerge. After all, these contests are often couched by the players and media in the language of war, with victory being the only alternative, all else being humiliating defeat. So much is supposedly on the line, when in fact little is.  

The good thing is that this euphoria can be truly cathartic. There is no doubt that it is a great feeling to get caught up in the emotion of a sporting event. To feel your heart pounding as a playoff game comes down to the final minutes, victory or defeat hanging in the balance. To let out a primal roar after a key basket, goal, touchdown or home run. And it is impossible to avoid the devastation when the shot goes off the rim, the puck off the post, the ball is dropped in the end zone or the home run dies on the warning track. It is the life of a sports fan (especially a Philly sports fan). 

The thing about strong emotions, like those engendered by sports, is that it is very hard to keep them in check. By their very nature these emotions are at the boiling point, and it is all too easy to blur the line between avid fan and mindless jerk. To go from leaning over the railing screaming to throwing the drink that just happens to be in your hand. From having your heart pound like your life depended on the outcome of the game, to truly believing that it does. For some that line blurs to non-existence.  

As long as we invest so much into sport, we are going to have these explosions. Whether the current state of society makes it worse remains to be seen. We can only hope that people keep their hate on-line, as obnoxious as that is, rather than bring it to the stadiums and arenas. As for me, I am a lot less vocal than I once was. Part of that is age, and part of that is not wanting to contribute to a potentially toxic atmosphere. And yet, the urge is still there. There’s plenty of bums out there to be booed. Just so we leave it at that. 

Bill is back in the Hood. Seems like old times. I have no doubt that soon he’ll be hosting a barbecue, mixing the drinks himself, of course, with Jello Pops for dessert. Making us all laugh with his stories of his time in the pen. Drawing indelible verbal pictures of his new crew, Skinny C.K., Weird Harvey, Irish Billy O, the Spaceman, “Mushmouth” Rose and Dumb Donald. Hey, Hey, Hey!!!! I see a new show coming down the pike, maybe entitled “Women Say the Darndest Things”. 

I’ve been friends with Bill my whole life. We go way back to his days as Alexander Scott in the groundbreaking show “I Spy”. Even more, his comedy albums were some of my earliest companions. We laughed together over Noah (God: I want you to build an ark. Noah: Right … What’s an ark?). The first time I got on a subway all I could think of was “A Nut in Every Car”. I never looked at The Lone Ranger the same way after Bill mimed his confrontations with Tonto and Silver. (“The bandits have an eight mile lead! …” “Don’t worry about a thing! … Hi Yo Silver!” “WAIT A MINUTE!! Are you crazy?! Get off my back!”). 

I was pretty much done with sitcoms by the time The Cosby Show came along, but I could certainly appreciate its impact. And I remember sitting with my mom laughing at Kids Say the Darndest Things (not to be confused with his proposed new show). There was no doubt that Bill Cosby Was a Very Funny Fellow Right! Unfortunately he was so much more.  

Bill is home in large part due to the efforts of the newest member of his crew, Braindead Bruce. Good Ole Braindead testified that he agreed to forego prosecution of Bill for sexual assault, so that Bill could not avoid testifying in a civil case arising from the same assault. In a press release at the time Braindead said that he “declines to authorize the filing of criminal charges in connection with this matter”. This was found by the Court to be an “unconditional promise of non-prosecution”, which Bill relied on in testifying in the civil case. It therefore threw out his conviction, and also found that the record was so tainted that Bill could not be retired.  

There are real problems with this finding. There is no record outside of the press release for this agreement. As pointed out by the lower courts and in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Braindead has been inconsistent about what exactly he agreed to. When Bruce was running for office in 2015, he was “wrestling in my mind on ways to try to figure out how to use the new info about the deposition to create a favorable atmosphere for a prosecution”. He never mentioned that Cosby was forever shielded from prosecution. He also specifically pointed to a line in the press release where he said that “he will reconsider this decision should the need arise”.  

I really think that Braindead was a convenient excuse for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to dismiss this case without establishing troubling precedent, or bringing criticism down on themselves. The Court was clearly concerned that the pretrial publicity surrounding Bill made it impossible to have a fair trial. Montgomery County brought jurors in from the other side of the state, but surely they knew of the many allegations from other women about Bill (Of course they knew. And don’t call me Shirley). However, a ruling on that basis would have called into question the ability to hold a trial in any high-profile case. 

They were also undoubtedly troubled by admission of the testimony from other women asserting that Bill had drugged and then forced himself upon them. As a general rule, courts are reluctant to admit evidence of other criminal conduct at a trial. The question is whether the defendant committed the crime for which they are charged, not any others. There are exceptions to this general rule, and the trial and lower appellate court relied on those exceptions to uphold the conviction. My guess is that the Supreme Court, but did not want to take heat by deciding that this testimony should have been excluded.   

Luckily for the Supremes, Braindead Bruce came to their rescue. They could be fairly certain that they were not setting any precedent, because no other Prosecutor could be so incompetent and buffoonish as to agree to full immunity without a carefully written statement as to what he is granting, as well as a written agreement to the deal from the both the victim and the accused. They had to be giggling at the thought of someone using a press release to document something that important, without documenting the buy-in he allegedly secured. 

What is perhaps most astounding, and vile, is that after the ruling came out Braindead said that he was “vindicated” by the Supreme Court ruling. What a disgustingly amoral scumbag (not douchebag – thanks Anne) he must be to gloat over the release of a convicted sexual predator, holding it up as some sort of personal triumph. Even if he truly believes that he absolved Bill of prosecution for all time, it takes unmitigated gall to celebrate his release. He clearly could care less about the women involved.   

Upon reflection, I think that I will skip the welcome back barbecue. Let Bill and his new buds yuk it up. We are done. If the crew gets too loud, I might call the police, though my guess is that will do little good. Bill is who he is, and while the Supremes could throw out his conviction, and Braindead Bruce could crow at his repatriation, they cannot mask or dispel the stench that wafts over the neighborhood emanating from his abode. 

P.S. I thought it would be inappropriate to add pictures to this post.        

I have long had a Love/Hate relationship with college sports. I grew up in a Penn State household, looking up to Joe Paterno as an avatar for doing things the right way (oy vey!!!). I went to the University of South Carolina, where they had big time football, basketball and baseball programs with a fevered following, regardless of how the teams performed (which usually wasn’t too good). I watched the NCAA basketball tournament religiously, enthused by every upset (even going out to play basketball at midnight after NC State beat Houston). As a sports fan, I saw college sports as an unpredictable roller coaster that usually delivered. 

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On the other hand, I never had any doubts about the “integrity” of the NCAA, which has acts as if it stands for the purity of amateur athletics, while raking in millions of dollars off the achievements of teenagers. Despite declaring that “educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount”, everything done by the NCAA makes clear that it views the kids involved as fodder to justify multi-million-dollar salaries, appease well-heeled alumni and fund over-priced facilities that have more to do with ego than necessity. Their real goal is to generate as much money for the member schools as they can, and make sure that those schools maintain as much control over the athletes as possible. 

My reaction to the recent unanimous Supreme Court ruling that the NCAA could not bar payments and other benefits to student-athletes related to education made clear to me which side of Love/Hate is stronger. I gave a faux high-five to the Court for the decision, glad to see the duplicitous, sanctimonious, hypocrites who run the NCAA taken down a peg. I was so happy with this ruling that I even (forgive me) raised a virtual toast (beer, of course) to Brett Kavanaugh for his damning concurrence where he wrote, “The N.C.A.A. couches its arguments for not paying student-athletes in innocuous labels. But the labels cannot disguise the reality: The N.C.A.A.’s business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America.” 

While this ruling is, on its face, narrow, limited as it is to benefits related to education, it undoubtedly opens the door to the wider compensation for student-athletes. Already the NCAA has agreed that student-athletes can earn money from autograph signings, personal appearances, endorsements and social media platforms. With this, the floodgates are open. 

As much as I think that allowing these payments has to happen, I know that there will be downsides (I am thinking of renaming this blog Ambivilance.com, because I rarely face an issue where I cannot see both sides. Damn liberal arts education!!!!) Undoubtedly, only a few will benefit. It is unlikely that we are going to see money flowing to second-stringers, or even most starters. And, of course, we are only talking about the big-time sports, basketball, football and maybe baseball. There is little to be gained by athletes in all of the other NCAA sports that don’t have national exposure. 

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There are also bound to be other downsides. Schools will undoubtedly figure out a way to get a portion of this revenue, which only increases the money coming into the already cash rich programs. Plus, schools that can effectively market their players will be better placed to attract top recruits. You know that will be the Alabamas and Michigans of the world. The imbalance we already see will likely only increase (mirroring, perhaps, the wealth gap in the country generally). 

The NCAA probably could have headed this off years ago if it had established reasonable and equitable rules for compensating all athletes for the extra time and effort they put in representing their schools. Since at least 2010, some NCAA Athletic Directors advocated providing scholarships beyond the traditional cost of an education — tuition, books, and room and board – to include money to cover other cost-of-living expenses. But the NCAA has fought any such compromise tooth and nail. 

Even worse, the NCAA has continually came down hard on any player caught pocketing even minimal assistance, such as, heaven forbid, an illegal phone jack. Just this last year UMass tennis received two years’ probation, self-imposed a $5,000 fine and had the records and matches from two seasons expunged because two players received “improper benefits” of $252, namely a phone jack in the players’ off-campus apartment. All this towards making the student-athlete “paramount.” 

On the other hand, schools get a slap on the wrist for egregious conduct. For example, the eunuchs at the NCAA decided they had no jurisdiction to punish the University of North Carolina for pushing athletes into fraudulent, no-show classes to keep players eligible. If that doesn’t go to the heart of the supposed bargain where athletes are to get an education in exchange for providing their talents, I don’t know what does.  

I could go on, but I need to keep my blood pressure under control. Suffice it to say that the next few years will be very interesting indeed. We will undoubtedly hear of ridiculous deals, and massive rip-offs, which will have us shaking our heads. Hopefully, someone will come up with some equitable way to fairly fund all athletes, but with the amount of money involved I would not hold my breath. Like it or not, my Love/Hate relationship is here to stay.   

I’m taking an on-line course on World Cinema through a very pandemic start-up called BuzzClub where we watch a movie before “class” and then discuss it in a Zoom session. Right up my alley. Recently we watched and the discussed the Danish movie, Another Round, starring Mads Mikkelson, which won the 2020 Oscar for Best International Feature Film. I recommend it. It has great characters, an interesting story line, and is both funny and poignant. It also made me think, and what better can you say about a movie. 

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The story centers on four high school teachers who are, to put it mildly, in a rut. They decide to try an experiment based on a theory by a Norwegian psychiatrist, Finn Skårderud, maintaining that a steady level of alcohol in your system (about two glasses of wine’s worth) brings people up to optimum performance, maximizing personal and professional happiness. Initially things work out pretty well, though, not surprisingly, it’s not that simple. 

This film made me think about my lifelong relationship with potent potables. My parents did not drink, and were adamant about the hazards of liquor. Which meant, of course, that as soon as I got out of the house (and a bit before as well) I began indulging. Like most young, stupid kids (that’s redundant, isn’t it?), I overindulged a bit too often, and pretty much kept that up until I got married and had children. Now I’m a comparative teetotaler.  

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I am fully aware of the dangers of firewater, and the devastation that it can leave in its wake. Yet, I’d be a liar if I said that I regret all that drinking. It was, and still is to a lesser extent, a way to ease social anxiety, bond quickly with new people and take chances that I might otherwise have backed away from. Many close friendships were forged over a beer, or two, etc., etc. Many memorable conversations were interrupted only by another shot of tequila.  

In a recent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal referenced by Phil Donahue in our class (no, not that Phil Donahue) Edward Slingerland, a Canadian Professor of Philosophy, opines that the desire to consume spirits is part of our evolutionary journey. [I can’t avoid noting the great names I encountered writing this post. Mads Mikkelson. Finn Skårderud. Edward Slingerland. They remind me of the great Eddie Izzard routine where he ponders the meeting where singer Jerry Dorsey, soon to be Engelbert Humperdinck, brainstorms stage names with his handlers, coming up with suggestions like “Zingelbert Bembledack, Tringelbert Wangledack, Slut Bunwalla, Klingybun Fistelvase, Dindlebert Zindledack, Jerry Dorsey, Zengelbert Bingledack, Engelbert Humperdinck, Vingelbert Wingledanck.”] 

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 Anyway, Slingerland’s theory is that since hooch has so many potentially negative consequences, there must be some compensatory evolutionary benefit that makes it so pervasive in human history. He believes that it is alcohol’s enhancement of certain qualities, including those noted above – artistic inspiration, deepened ability to build trust, the willingness to think outside the box – that led us to, almost universally across societies, develop drinking as a social norm. In other words, according to Slingerland, these positive byproducts of booze have been central to the development of civilization.  

This is an interesting and unique way to look at the urge to indulge. Maybe drinking is not just a brainless excuse to get out of the humdrum of everyday life, but is also a way to assure that as a species we build alliances we may otherwise have strayed away from, create art that might not have penetrated our thick skulls and take unpredictable chances with significant payoff. It kind of makes imbibing the noble endeavor we wish it was. 

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That being said, there is a reason why drinking is sometimes referred to as getting stupid. Maybe some moderate consumption enhances certain admirable traits, but anyone who has descended that path knows that before too long alliances that look good can take you down some dark alleys, that creativity becomes sloppy and chaotic, and that there is a thin line between a foolish gamble and a downright boneheaded one. As a wise man once said “Responsible Drinking? Now that’s an Oxymoron”. 

General theories, like those of Skårderud and Slingerland, can be very helpful to view the world on a macro level, but they are pretty much useless on an individual basis. Even if Skårderud is right and a consistently low level of alcohol in the system does enhance certain constructive traits (And I do question this. I know that when I did indulge in a drink at lunch all it ever enhanced was my desire to take a nap at my desk), few of us have the self-control to maintain that kind of discipline.  

In the same way, even if, as Slingerland argues, we owe some of history’s innovations to a bunch of bombed Babylonians, heavy drinking hardly seems a recipe for the technological and system recasting that we need to survive in an ever more complex and challenged world. I’ve had too many drinks with too many people to put my trust in some engineer who is mapping out the software systems for a Mars launch between shots of bourbon.  

I am certainly not going to end this by hypocritically setting out the dangers of drinking. My standing to do that sailed on the Good Ship Guiness long ago. Plus, I never met anyone who wasn’t aware of the problems over-consumption could bring, even if they were on their fourth or fifth gin and tonic. Drinking is not going anywhere. Whether through evolution or not, it is part of who we are, for better or worse. So, enjoy Another Round, with a libation at your elbow if you like, and maybe ponder the above drinking theories. Just don’t take them too seriously.   

How did this get by me? How did I miss what may be the biggest news story of 2021? How did I fail to note confirmation of the massive conspiracy that has been going on since at least the 1950’s? Why wasn’t every paper and website in the country leading with the issuance of the Defense Department Report on UFO’s? Why wasn’t every other Facebook post showing the Naval footage of unexplained flying objects? Does the cover-up go that deep? 

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It could be that the Report was a bust. Yes, the Report confirms that there have been more than 120 incidents over the past two decades of soaring aircraft sightings that did not originate from any American military or other U.S. government technology. The Report also dismisses the notion that these sightings were weather or research balloons. It would go no further.  

The bottom line is that government refused to say whether the unexplained phenomena were extra-terrestrial. They did not dismiss the possibility that we have been visited by alien spacecraft, but speculate that perhaps instead these indeterminable flying machines were experimental technology from a rival power, like China or Russia. Hardly satisfying. 

There are one of two conclusions we can glean from this Report. We can take the government at its word, accept that there are things swooping around in our skies that we can’t explain, and wait for further information. Or, (cue X-Files’ theme), we can see this as further evidence of the decade-long efforts to hide from the American people that aliens do exist, that they are visiting our planet, and that it’s only a matter of time before we will have to confront them, one way or the other. In other words, do we take the boring measured approach or indulge in incredibly enjoyable speculation without any firm facts to back us up? I think the question answers itself.    

I am generally not a fan of government conspiracy theories. They tend to be so elaborate and far reaching that they, by their very nature, have to involve hundreds, if not thousands, of people. These theories assume that those in charge are able to direct their followers, keep secret their manipulations and muzzle any leaks that may occur. That is certainly not the government I know.  

Those who propound these theories are generally the same people who want us to believe that our government is wholly incompetent, arguing against any Washington run program as a waste of money. Yet these same bureaucratic buffoons are apparently able to pull off incredibly complex, wide-ranging schemes, that extend across years, and sometimes decades. If I truly believed that our leaders were capable of that kind of planning and execution, I would feel better about the future of our country than I do. 

We also know that whenever our government has tried to keep uncomfortable truths from the public the truth has eventually emerged. Our biggest “secret project” was development of the atom bomb. We even exiled key scientists to the middle of nowhere to protect the A-Bomb discoveries. And yet, the results were leaked almost immediately. We know about the clandestine CIA experiments with LSD. We know about the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. We know about the illegal sale of arms to Iran to fund the Nicaraguan contras. We know about the FBI’s Cointelpro program (though Hoover kept that hidden for quite some time). We know about the government’s massive collection of personal data. Let’s face it. Our government cannot keep a secret if its (or our) lives depended on it. 

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Does that mean that UFOs are a sham? Absolutely not. Something is flying around in our airspace, and has been for some time. I find it hard to believe that both the Russians and the Chinese are so far ahead us in military technology that they have developed these supersonic aircraft without our knowledge. Heck, China can’t even run a marathon without killing a bunch of people. If we eliminate secret US weapons development, there are not a whole lot of other explanations. 

But if that’s true, what the heck are these aliens waiting for? Why not just come down and say howdy? If some species has the capability of flying massive distances through space, they certainly can quicky determine that we are no threat to them. Or is it just a matter of a more advanced species studying primitive beings for scientific knowledge, and having no incentive to actually interact with them? The way we might study nematodes.  

Frankly, I have no good explanation for these phenomena, and that is the frustration. I believe that there have been unexplained sightings, but every scenario I consider to make sense of what is being seen seems outlandish. It just appears to be a big game of hide and seek where someone’s found the ultimate hiding spot – in plain view (the letters of transit are in Sam’s piano). 

So, as unsatisfying as it is, I have to go back and accept our government at its word (a shocking thought). They have no idea what is going on, as much as we have no idea what is going on. Until more information is available all speculation, while enjoyable, is futile. As the wisest alien I have ever known, Mr. Spock, said, “Insufficient facts always invite danger.”  Klaatu Barada Nikto.     

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I did it. For the first time since seeing Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights on Tuesday, March 10, 2020 at the Ambler Theater, I went into a movie house to see a film. Appropriately, it was a classic, the 1940 screwball comedy, His Girl Friday, with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. Also, appropriately, I saw it at the HiWay Theater, a Main Street independent movie house in the grand tradition of old time Hollywood.  

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The movie did not disappoint, even though I had seen it countless times. The fast-paced dialogue. The spot-on performances by the stars. The great character actors filling out the supporting roles. I knew what was coming and I still laughed out loud. Even though there were very few people in the theater (basically the five of us who went together, and one other couple) it was still wonderful to be sitting in the dark, laughing with those around me. 

Someone asked me if I had ever seen this movie in a theater before, and it really sent me on a nostalgic trip of the venues that I have loved. It’s unlikely I ever saw it in a theater while growing up in Bethlehem. There were no theaters there that showed old movies that I knew of, though I do remember going to a Marx Brothers double feature at a local multi-plex (At the Circus and A Night at the Opera) where I literally (and I do mean literally) fell out of my seat I was laughing so hard (the stateroom scene). 

Maybe it was at the theater in the student union at the University of South Carolina. They showed a different movie every night, either a foreign art film (that was where I discovered Bergman and Truffaut) or old Hollywood. Weekends were recently released films for $1.00. I certainly saw enough movies there, especially during my first two years when I lived in the dorms. I know that is where I first saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail (the second time I literally fell out of my seat with laughter) and Rocky Horror Picture Show (before we started throwing things at the screen). 

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Or could it have been the Pittsburgh Playhouse, which was two blocks from where I lived my first year of Law School? This is something they definitely would have shown. It was where I saw Casablanca, and A Clockwork Orange (Singing in the Rain has never been the same). A couple years ago, I snuck into the Playhouse building, which was being used by the University for film studies. It looked totally different, but I was still so glad to visit it once again. I read that since then they tore it down (Noooooo!!!!!)

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There is no doubt that His Girl Friday would have been part of a double-feature at the TLA on South Street when I first moved to Philly (now its just music). Probably paired with screwball comedies like Bringing up Baby or My Man Godfrey. I would have been sitting towards the front on the left-hand side. I’ve been back for concerts at the TLA since, and by instinct gravitate to that spot. 

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If I hadn’t seen it at any of those theaters, I would have probably seen it as part of the Summer Nights series at the Ambler Theater once I moved out to the burbs. That series was big on James Bond films, and I know I saw the Godfather there, but there was plenty of old Tinsel Town masterpieces as well. I loved going there with my kids to see these films.

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What does it say about me that some of the places I remember best in every city I lived are movie houses? They’re all of a style. Small, independent, willing to go beyond the most recent blockbuster. I can still feel the sensation of walking into these venues and seeing the big screen waiting to be lit up. Sinking into a well-worn seat and anxiously anticipating the dimming of the lights. There is nothing like it. 

I was once accused of never having seen a movie I didn’t like. With very few exceptions (don’t get me started on Happy Feet or No Country for Old Men) I stand guilty as charged!!!!!  

Have you always wanted an ocean view? If so, Psychic Nikki has good news for you. By the end of 2021 cities will begin to form underwater. You can indulge your love of the sea to the fullest extent possible. Of course, this does put an entire new level of peril to the phrase, “We sprung a leak.” 

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Underwater cities may be our only refuge in light of Nikki’s prediction that penguins will be invading a metropolis near you. If underwater living doesn’t excite you, and you aren’t thrilled at having penguins for neighbors (and who is), you could sign up for the inevitable expedition to track the giant gorilla that will be found on a remote island sometime this year. Though I would caution you, such expeditions have not always worked out so well. 

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Looking at psychic predictions for the year ahead is one life’s great guilty pleasures. Publication of the annual prediction issue of the Weekly World News creates one of the few times that I don’t mind standing in line at the grocery store, though I do get some odd looks when I keep letting people go ahead of me. After all, who can resist knowing what Bat Boy has planned next. (To my conservative friends, no, Joe Biden is not Bat Boy).  

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 There have been other recent, more serious predictions, for the years ahead. According to a recent New York Times article world demographers are predicting that the global population is expected to reach its peak by mid-Century, and then decline precipitously from there. China’s population is slated to fall from its current 1.4 billion to 730 million by 2100. The vast majority of countries will have fertility rates below replacement level by that time, including the good ole U.S of A.  

For those of us who grew up in the wake of the Population Bomb this is a real shocker. Through the 1970’s and 1980’s the prediction was that the global population would continue to grow exponentially until we found ourselves in a Malthusian nightmare where resources were scarce, leading to a Darwinian struggle for existence. (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist using some of the academic speak of the time). Since the global population increased from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 6 billion in 2000 this seemed not only possible, but inevitable. 

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If the decline in population comes to pass, it will not necessarily be good or bad, it will just mean that there will be significant changes in how we live. Countries will have to allocate their resources to account for an older mean population (mean, as in as in average, not temperament, though we know how cantankerous old people can be). People may have to work longer (heaven forbid!!). However, there could be less strain on the environment and natural resources (though let’s not forget we will still be the same voracious species we have always been).   

The seeming fact that the prior predictions about population are not playing out as expected does not mean that those predications were frivolous. They were soundly based on realities at the time, but did not, and could not, take into account subsequent shifts in societal norms, such as the significantly higher number of women in the workforce, and the increase in the cost of living, both of which have acted to reduce the number of children being born. The prognosticators also could not foresee China’s one child policy, and its far-reaching impact.  

We also should not discount the influence such predictions had on the world’s view of population, regardless of whether they were ultimately accurate. Such concerns may have driven misguided policies, such as China’s, but they also made us ask hard questions about resource use and allocation. They sparked a critical examination of how humans are tied closely to the well-bring of the planet, which dovetailed into a broader environmental movement, and today’s concerns about climate change.   

The difficulty in predicting exactly how issues like population and climate change will play out over decades has led many to wholly dismiss these concerns as chimerical. I have seen a number of recent articles scoffing at predictions made around the first Earth Day in 1970, many of which were apocalyptic and contradictory, as a means of dismissing the concerns of climate scientists today. But that is missing the point. 

There is a general consensus, at least within the scientific community, that there has been a significant shift in the earth’s atmosphere, with the vast majority of scientists believing the shift has been caused by the activities of mankind. There is also a general consensus that this shift could result in extremely serious consequences over the next 50 years if it is not slowed down significantly or reversed. However, scientists differ as to the exact nature of those consequences, opening the door to those who want to scoff at these predictions, and thereby dismiss the problem. 

The truth of the matter is that most of the scientists’ predictions will probably not come true as stated. I don’t mean to get all Professor Malcolm on you (or Werner Heisenberg if you prefer), but there are just too many variables and unknowns to accurately predict exactly what will happen a year from now, let alone 50 years from now (unless, of course, you are the reincarnation of Nostradamus).  

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Even if we accept that the current estimates of future harm are likely to change, it would be ludicrous to ignore the scientists’ warnings. The predictions are based on what is happening to the Earth today. The planet is warming. The ice caps are melting. The makeup of the atmosphere is changing, and not for the better. And while the planet has had similar climactic shifts before, they have never occurred in as short a time span. These are facts, and they must be dealt with. 

So, while we are contemplating the coming fire that will destroy Graceland, or wondering which movie star will be eaten by a crocodile (my money is on Shia LaBeouf), let’s not conflate scientific predictions with psychic prognostications. The hit rate may be similar (after all, Psychic Nikki was right in predicting that there would be flooding in Venice in 2020), but the basis of the predictions, and the consequences for ignoring them could not be more different.  

Last week I thought that I would write a blog post on India as soon as I finished the one I was writing on WWI (which I struggled with). After all, India was all over the news because of its COVID crisis, and I have always been captivated by the country. Its culture. It’s history. Its religions. It was very distressing to see this wonderful, crazy, beautiful, outrageous country go through a very predictable, yet horrific health emergency. 

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However, by the time I turned my attention to this new post I had to search through the New York Times to find out what was currently going on in India. Did the crisis end as soon as it began? Were the 1.4 billion citizens of India vaccinated overnight? Did I just dream it all? The answer to each of those questions in no (though I have been having some weird dreams lately). India is still getting about 300,000 new cases a day, and suffering through over 4,000 daily deaths. The emergency has not moved on, but we have. 

Of course, there was reason to move on. The Israeli Palestinian conflict had flared up again. Palestinian rockets. Israeli airstrikes. So many questions about the cause and nature of the Palestinian attacks, and the scope of the Israeli response. On the one hand this seems like a never-ending story, and, yet, on the other hand, there is no doubt that it too will retreat to the back pages now that a ceasefire has been agreed to and, hopefully, we have a period of relative calm (relative being the operative word). 

We consider ourselves the most informed people in the history of the world. After all, the daily goings on globally are at our fingertips. We are immediately informed of a coup in Myanmar, or China landing on Mars (and probably claiming it as a historic territory of the Ming dynasty), not to mention the myriad insanities around the United States, from a police shooting in Elizabeth City, North Carolina to Representative Chaney being cancelled by the GOP (pardon me if I don’t shed tears for Liz).  And yet I wonder.  

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The more I try and pay attention to what is going on in the world, the more I am convinced that I know very little. I feel like Jon Snow in Game of Thrones. As much as I think I may be aware of the forces at play, I cannot escape the taunts of that voice which says “You know nothing Tom Wamser”. (I just learned Ygritte and Jon are a couple in real life. It warmed the cockles of my heart!! Though don’t ask me why they got married in a cemetery).

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There is no doubt that we hear more of what’s going on than at any time in human history, and we hear about it in as close to real time as possible. But the truth is that I don’t have the time, or, admittedly, the inclination, to delve deeply into any one news item, and I doubt if many people do. Plus, I am just as susceptible as anyone else to forgetting the important story of yesterday as soon as I am presented with the crucial news story of today. In many ways it seems that more news is less news. 

I think that this information overload is one reason blind loyalty to certain news channels is prevalent. It is a pragmatic way to filter what is going on. Let someone you trust decide which of the myriad of stories is worth your attention. The trouble, of course, is that you are then beholden not only to their view of what is important, but also the slant put on the news you do hear. Consistency can be reassuring, but it’s rarely enlightening. 

If you are ambitious, you can try and take in a variety of sources, with multiple viewpoints. Yeah, right. And you can also write the great American novel, or discover the secret of cold fusion in your spare time. There are too many stories, too many slants, too many people willing to craft any narrative to achieve their own ends.  

Sometimes I fear that I am caught in the Pink Floyd approach to the news. Every now and then something happens that acts as a pinprick to wake me from my stupor, whether it be renewed violence in Syria, or the Supreme Court confronting Roe v Wade. I read a few articles in my favorite sources, catch a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. Then I turn to look and it’s gone. Once again, I have become comfortably numb.  

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I must admit that I see little way around this dilemma. There is too much in life to bury oneself in every news story. More importantly, even if I could I am not sure that it would be worth doing so. News items come and go, and usually it takes time to truly evaluate what is important and what is a blip (Will this health crisis in India abate, or is it a harbinger of larger societal issues? Will this current conflict between Israelis and Palestinians lead to any change in the status quo?). Often it makes more sense to read some history to gain context than to focus on the ins and outs of today’s headlines. 

I guess I will just continue to gather what surface knowledge I can about what is happening in the world, and wait for those occasional pinpricks of importance to delve deeper. Like the bombshell dropped by Luis Elizondo, former Department of Defense intelligence officer, backed by Harry Reid (who is looking a bit like an alien himself these days), that there are UFOs and they have been officially documented by our government. Now that is a story worth pursuing. I want to believe!!!!  

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In the summer after Law School my friend Mike and I spent a month wandering around Europe. One of the stops we made, at Mike’s urging, was Verdun. I probably would not have considered stopping there if he hadn’t suggested it. Battlefields are interesting to a certain extent, but I had never been to Europe before and there was so much to see. However, that stop started an obsession that continues to this day. 

Verdun just knocked me out. There was the sea of French graves, all of unknown soldiers. There were markers showing where villages had been before the war, but were no more. There was the town itself, which had been destroyed in 1870, 1914 and 1940. More than anything else, however, there was the pervasive sense of insanity. In the four years this area was contested, the front moved a less than ½ a football field at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. Oy vey!!  

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World War I has largely faded from memory in the United States. It just doesn’t have the pizzaz of World War II. Our involvement was much shorter. We weren’t directly attacked. The venality of the enemy was not as obvious. It wasn’t fought by the “Greatest Generation” (whatever that means). Plus, and maybe most importantly, WWII played much better in the movies.   

Hollywood churned out a seemingly endless string of compelling, taut dramas covering all aspects of WWII, both during the war and after, that deftly combined a sympathetic view of the men (and occasionally of the women) fighting, tales of personal heroism, and a sense of the global conflict. Hollywood also had a ready-made bad guy in the Nazis, that it could fully exploit. In some way, albeit through tinted glasses, the home front lived this war with the soldiers.  

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The movie business was in its infancy during WWI, and not in a position to dramatize the war. It was left to writers to try and bring to life the reality of WWI to the American people. That wasn’t possible during the war because of censorship. Plus, Americans did not really experience the reality of the trenches the way the Europeans did.  

For Europeans WWI was much more immediate. From the euphoria of August 1914, through the grind of four years of unrelenting warfare, to an unstable peace. The endless clamor of the artillery. The self-defeating lunacy of gas attacks. The desolation of no-mans-land. For much of the war, on the Western front at least, the two sides were sitting a soccer pitch away from each other. Battles were an exercise in mass slaughter (British forces suffered more than 57,000 casualties—including more than 19,000 soldiers killed—on the first day of the five-month Somme offensive alone). Between battles was the looming possibility of sudden death through snipers, shelling, or small raids, all while living like moles.        

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But WWI also embraces an incredible heroism. I cannot envision what it took to clamor over a rampart and run full tilt across a muddy field through a hail of machine gun fire as your mates fell all around you. Or to volunteer as a nurse in a field hospital close to the line, facing a never-ending stream of wounded and dying, all looking for help. Incredibly, the memoirs make clear that even those who left with injuries were inexorably drawn back to the front, as if by a psychological magnet.  

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The war was integrated into the European home front as well. After all, the war was right on the doorstep, even for the Brits. The Somme battlefield was only 150 miles from London, approximately the same distance as between Abington, where I live, and Washington, D.C. Those on the coast of England could hear the guns. More importantly, soldiers could come home on a regular basis, either for leave or because they had been injured, constantly reminding those left behind of the nightmare in France, even if they couldn’t really understand it.   

After the war, writers like Erich Maria Remarque, Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, Henri Barbusse and Ford Madox Ford (what a great name!!) took readers into the trenches, depicting the war from the perspective of the individual soldier. Grand strategies were less important than the experience on the front line. More than that, the WWI writers expressed the absurdity of war in a way that had never been done before, forever changing our view of war generally. You can’t read Robert Graves “Goodbye to All That” (which I recently did prompting this post), or Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front”, without wondering what the point of all this was. 

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When the movies caught up, they were generally as cynical as the literature. The film version of “All Quiet at the Western Front”, “Paths of Glory” and “Grand Illusion” painted a grim picture of the conflict, and through that of war in general. (There were exceptions, like Wings and Sargeant York, both quintessentially American movies). War was not something to be celebrated, but a vehicle to look at the absurdity of man.     

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Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to WWI. It strikes me as the turning point in our view of the rationality of humans. Before the conflict people could believe that we Sapiens were inexorably moving forward to a better world. Progress was inevitable. War was a positive, necessary test of the metal of a nation. Afterwards, that just wasn’t possible. The modern became the postmodern. Truth was up for grabs. 

I admit that’s overly dramatic. The world does not turn on a dime that neatly. Plus, of course, it’s a very Western-centric view of history, which I find hard to escape. Yet I can’t envision anything like Picasso’s “Guernica”, Ginsberg’s “Howl”, Godard’s “Alphaville” or Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse 5” without WWI, and the literature that followed. 

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I continue to find in WWI an endless treasure trove of mass psychology, delusional judgment, individual bravery, disconnected leadership, and so much more. It remains, for me, a touchstone for the era we live in. A fascinating fulcrum when things could have gone differently, were it not for notions like national honor and the glorification of power. A trove of lessons that I am afraid we still have not learned.