Orwell Award Nominees, August 2005

Poor George Orwell; to have his name forever connected with what he hated most.

THE WHIRLIGIG AWARD, for STATEMENT MOST LIKELY TO MAKE ERIC BLAIR SPIN IN HIS GRAVE: Donald Rumsfeld, finding a new way to describe dead American soldiers: "The lethality, however, is up." (Aug. 19, 2005)

THE JOSEPH GOEBBELS AWARD, given for attempts to ALTER INCONVENIENT FACTS BY SMEARING THE TRUTH TELLER goes to the Rove/Libby/Plame/Wilson affair, the best summary of which can be found in the Lost Angeles Times. And why isn't Robert Novak in jail yet?

EVIL MASQUERADING AS VIRTUE, ANTICHRIST DIVISION: Pat Robertson, nominally a Christian: ""You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with." (Monday)

BALD FACE CHUTZPAH AWARD: Wednesday: nominal "Christian" Robertson denies having called for Chavez to be killed and said The AP misinterpreted his remarks. "I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out.' 'Take him out' could be a number of things including kidnapping."

Perhaps 'take him out for dinner'; a Last Supper might be nice.

'GOD CAN'T STRIKE THEM DEAD, BECAUSE PAT ROBERTSON HAS KIDNAPPED JESUS' AWARD: Tombstones for American war dead may include the name of the war they served in, as in "WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam". Now instead of place names like "Iraq" or "Afghanistan", the Pentagon names operations with phrases like "Enduring Freedom" that will inspire or imply public support for conflicts.

These nominees have invited themselves into our homes and posed as experts, while receiving vast sums of money for swimming pools and second homes. They have to expect a bit of impertinence from the Flyover states.

Finally, our equivalent of the Jean hirscholt Humanitarian Award, BEST DEFENSE from DOUBLESPEAK:The gentleman in this photo, Bill Moyer, served in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. Here he is shown listening to President Bush address the VFW in Salt Lake City.

Real Music for Imaginary People

Any excuse to mix and burn CDs for friends (Lewis owes me a few-- his taste is now so rarified he's afraid any mix he makes will cause a rift in the space time fabric.) A couple of Christmases ago, Marte gave me a book of recipes from the Napoleonic Wars, "Lobscouse and Spotted Dog: Which It's a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels of Patrick O'Brian". Chefs Anne Chotzinoff Grossman and Lisa Grossman Thomas researched the book not for profit but out of love for the novels,
The Iron Chef panel might make smacking noises over "sea urchin roe like mother used to make", but some of these recipes might give them pause. It's wonderful to read through, especially if you wanted to know how those underfed midshipmen actually prepared "millers" (rats) for dinner.
In the same spirit, Essay Recordings has several albums of music performed in the novels by Jack Aubrey on violin and Stephen Maturin on cello.
Hear Some

So why not create playlists for imaginary characters or historical persons we admire, to try and evoke their personalities for friends? (Nudge: ALWAYS WITH MUSIC THAT WE PAID FOR, ahem.) Pat Hanavan has never watched an episode of "Buffy" or "Angel", so Darling Violetta's theme from "Angel" and Bill Kennedy's Stiff Records collection (Costello and Pogues) turned into a mix called "Blues for Wesley Wyndham Price". (The less said about my mental state and Wesley's near the end, the better.)
BLUES FOR WESLEY WYNDHAM PRICE; playlist:
1. "Allison", Elvis Costello
2. "Watching the Detectives", Elvis Costello
3. "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself", Elvis Costello (Oh, Fred...)
4. "The Sick Bed of Cuchulain", The Pogues (Wes finds his balls again)
5. "Dark Streets of London", The Pogues
6. "Sally MacLennane", The Pogues
7. "Words that We Couldn't Say", Yoko Kannon and the Seatbelts (Cowboy Bebop)
8. "Call Me", Yoko Kannon and the Seatbelts (Gunn: "What happened to you, man?" Wes:"My throat was cut and my friends abandoned me.")
9. "The Real Folk Blues" alternate version, Yoko Kannon and the Seatbelts
10. "Space Lion", Yoko Kannon and the Seatbelts
11. "Bela Lugosi's Dead", Bauhaus (goes without saying)
12. "Call Me", Blondie (Wes's relationship with Lilah)
13. "Dreaming", Blondie (Lilah's relationship with Wes)
14. "Tank!" Yoko Kannon and the Seatbelts (Wes going Chow Yun Fat on your ass)
15. "Good Morning Heartache", Billie Holliday (goes without saying)
16. "Bye Bye Blackbird" (any version with all the lyrics)
17. "Oh Sinner Man", Nina Simone
18. "Angel Opening Title Theme", Darling Violetta

RIPPER aka RUPERT; playlist for Giles
1. "Me and the Devil", Robert Johnson
2. "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", Tears for Fears
3. "Cemet'ry Gates", The Smiths
4. "Behind Blue Eyes", The Who (Anthony Head sings this himself in one episode)
5. "Standing" (Giles' lament from "Once More With Feeling")
6. "I've Got a Theory" ("It must be bunnies, bunnies, bunnies, BUN-NIIEEES..")
7. "Frankly, Mr, Shankly", The Smiths
8. "Me and My Big Ideas", Tears for Fears
9. "Walk Through the Fire" (Buffy cast again)
10. "Falling Down", Tears for Fears
11. "What You Feel" (Reprise) Hinton Battle, "Once More With Feeling"
12. "Where Do We Go From Here?", Buffy Cast, "Once More With Feeling"
13. "West End Girls", Pet Shop Boys
14. "Hounds of Love", Kate Bush

None of these are cast in stone, and Suggestions/additions/deletions from these are welcome. As time wasting and impulse allow, I'm thinking about mixes for Travis McGee (Buena Vista Social Club, La Pistola y el Corazon, Paul Desmond, etc.), Albert Camus (Django Reinhardt, Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel, but which songs? and what else?) Frida Kahlo, Harlan Ellison...

Writer Reginald Hudlin has been asking readers for playlists to go with the new "Black Panther" comic. HIGHLY recommended and issue 6 has some good tips on afro-pop titles. Let's see some lists and links.

Scylla and Charybdis in Iraq: Bush Broke It, We Bought It, Let's Fix It

I went down to the demonstration
To get my fair share of abuse
... but there wasn't much abuse to be had. Here in Kalamazoo "more than 300 people" (local news estimate) showed up at the federal building last night to stand vigil regarding the war in Iraq.

Back when this invasion began, support and verbal abuse ran about half and half. Last night, only one driver suggested we "get a life". "Fair enough," was the response on the line. No fingers were furled, except as peace signs. This is an unscientific sampling, taken by a intuitive extrovert (me) on a street corner in Kalamazoo. Next door in Portage, where they never saw a parking lot they didn't like, I'm sure support for the current president is solid.

Most of the gentle souls at the vigil want the troops out of Iraq yesterday. I cannnot pretend to be a pacifist; I was there as a person in favor of occasional violence, but against the management of the war in Iraq. They let me hang out with them anyway. (I try to avoid the political "Spanish disease" of being too particular to make common cause with people who share some, but not all, of my beliefs. "Hold your nose and vote fer the Democrat," because the alternative will be more Bushites elected by default. Somebody kick Nader one more time.)

I seem to recall someone saying to the president, "If You Break it, You Own It". I am offering the following slogan to all: "Bush Broke It, We Bought It, Let's Fix It". It lacks nuance, but this is a crowd that doesn't "do" nuance.

Maureen Dowd describes our unpleasant reality: "Americans can't get out, or they risk turning the country into a terrorist haven that will make the old Afghanistan look like Cipriani's. Yet his war, which has not accomplished any of its purposes, swallows ever more American lives and inflames ever more Muslim hearts as W. reads a book about the history of salt and looks forward to his biking date with Lance Armstrong on Saturday."

Bush is the best poster boy Al Quaeda ever had. Our soldiers, and the families who express their love by unquestioning loyalty, will be slow to recognize this. "To die for love is one thing; but to die for nonsense is the Very Devil."

In the same issue, Bob Herbert wonders Whose War Is This, Anyway:
"If Mr. Bush were willing to do something he has refused to do so far - speak plainly and honestly to the American people about this war - he might be able to explain why U.S. troops should continue with an effort that is, in large part at least, benefiting Iraqi factions that are murderous, corrupt and terminally hostile to women. If by some chance he could make that case, the next appropriate step would be to ask all Americans to do their part for the war effort.... College kids in the U.S. are playing video games and looking forward to frat parties while their less fortunate peers are rattling around like moving targets in Baghdad and Mosul, trying to dodge improvised explosive devices and rocket-propelled grenades.... If the war in Iraq is worth fighting - if it's a noble venture, as the hawks insist it is - then it's worth fighting with the children of the privileged classes. They should be added to the combat mix. If it's not worth their blood, then we should bring the other troops home."

My students-- "9/11 babies", I'm calling them in my head-- went in to fight terrorism, not to make a breeding ground for more terrorists. They are being badly used.

The right is working overtime to turn this into a referendum on the character of Cindy Sheehan; this is because they cannot defend Bush's conduct of the war. We want a better war from our leaders; I would settle for more honesty.

Ibrahim Ferrar 1927-2005

"¡Oígame compay!
No deje el camino por coger la vereda.
Usted por enamorado ..."

Truth is the Daughter of Time: Popular American Delusions

"The Daughter of Time" is a famous short novel by Josephine Tey. A streetwise policeman is laid up in a hospital bed with a broken leg. Proud of his ability to "read" human faces, he starts playing a game with himself to pass the time. Flipping through a book of historical portraits, he tries to guess what kind of person is shown in each portrait before looking at their name.
The cop's faith in his ability is broken by a portrait of Richard the Third. He then uses his skills to investigate an old mystery: was Richard really the "bunchbacked" monster who murdered the little princes in the Tower and murdered his way to the throne?

In the western film, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", everyone KNOWS that Jimmy Stewart killed the outlaw and he rides to the US Senate on the basis of his heroism. When Stewart tries to expose the truth, he is told, "When choosing between the Truth and the Legend, print the Legend."

People believe what they want to believe in spite of all evidence to the contrary. They WANT Richard the Third to be a villain, though evidence suggests that the family of Henry VII framed Richard to support their own prestige. In the film, they WANT Jimmy Stewart to be a pistol packing tough guy, and not just a lawyer who abhors violence. (Neil Gaiman suggests in "1602" that any cure for Ben Grimm will always be temporary, since "Story" finds him more interesting with his affliction).

The theme in these stories speaks to the media-saturated culture of the 21st century. The common myths, superstitions and political beliefs of a society can have terrible effects on the material world. We are all too familiar with what can happen: the Salem Witch Trials, the McMartin preschool case, the Weapons of Mass Destruction that overpaid fools all KNEW were there REGARDLESS of the objective facts presented by their intelligence services. Witness the numbers who STILL perceive Bush and Cheney as warriors, in spite of their proving themselves as "chickenhawks": they themselves have admitted that both had "other priorities" when called on to fight.

The effects of mass delusion can be ridiculous as well as dangerous. Witness the time wasted in Kansas over the mechanism of evolution. When I behold a magazine cover showing the Flavor-of-the-Month Pinup boy or girl, there is a consensus on the part of New York and Los Angeles that he or she is indeed the Sexiest Thing Alive. There is no objective fact behind this assertion; they do not excrete more pheromones than others, they do not match the favored hip-to waist ratio. The masklike perfection of their features are the result of surgery or lucky genes. We ourselves might not find them attractive, but the idea that they ARE sexy is so pervasive that comedians can use their name as a shorthand phrase meaning "erotic". This is manipulating the archetype. What happens to a culture that does this over and over again?

Edward Bernays, the father of advertising and mass manipulation, changed the Victorian taboo against female smoking by distributing photographs of women of fashion and trend setters puffing away on cigarettes.

I am currently revising PANDORA'S BASEMENT, a novel that uses these themes in a "dark urban fantasy" context (ah, the market that cannot perceive a thing until we impose categories on them).

This is a space for readers of this blog-- both of you-- to post your own examples of gross distortions between popular belief and objective fact. For example:

"Everyone KNOWS That": Social Security will run out of money because people live longer than they did during the Roosevelt administration. "The number of older Americans living now is greater than anyone could have imagined in 1935." (souce: Jo Anne Barhart, current commissioner of Social Security.)

Inconvenient Facts: "The 1934 report of F.D.R.'s Commission on Economic Security, which laid the groundwork for the Social Security Act, projected that 12.7 percent of Americans would be 65 or older by the year 2000. The actual number was 12.4 percent." (sources: Social Security's official website and The New York Times 8/15/05.)

A seminal book describing these phenomena before the days of Bernays and Goebbels is "Extraordinary Popular Delusions, or, The Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay. Heinlein says somewhere that in the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed man is in for a hell of a rough ride.
And Gary Larson has a cartoon somewhere called "Lemming Philosopher", with one little rodent asking as the crowd plunges over a cliff: "Hey! Wait a minute! Can we talk about this first?"

Perception-- rather than truth-- has changed the course of recent history, but harsh reality will have the last laugh.

“(You) believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
--Unnamed senior adviser to President G.W Bush, summer of 2002, reported by Ron Suskind