Wartime Notes
Now that "Phase One" of the United States' war against terrorism has commenced, I'm glad last week's unfortunate exchange of heated words between the Bush administration and Israel has subsided. Ariel Sharon blundered badly by evoking Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler in reaction to the necessarily troublesome coalition the U.S. has cobbled together to attain its goal. The White House was also guilty in this brief skirmish between staunch allies: declaring that a Palestinian state was a "vision" of President Bush was yet another statement that didn't need to be aired in public.
As the war progresses, I'm sure that that policy will be reaffirmed consistently; if not, Sharon needn't apologize for further World War II analogies.
1. Does the ACLU Have Too Much Time on Its Hands? Advocacy organizations?not to mention most Americans?of every political ideology are becoming more jittery with each passing day. A report in last Saturday's Sacramento Bee described a controversy at Breen Elementary School in Rocklin, CA, in which angry parents squared off against the ACLU. The message "God Bless America" is currently displayed on the school's outside marquee, which prompted local ACLU officials to mobilize into full thought-police mode. According to a letter sent to the school from Margaret Crosby, the sign "must be replaced immediately" because it symbolizes "a hurtful, divisive message."
In the Bee, Mark Forbes, president of the school district's board of trustees, said he was "disgusted" by the ACLU rebuke. That makes two of us.
Crosby's letter continued: "By displaying a religious message, the Breen Elementary School is dividing its young students along religious lines. School officials are hurting and isolating their schoolchildren of minority faiths when they should be supporting them and the values of pluralism and tolerance."
This is unnecessary hysteria in wartime. I suppose in a more tranquil era, ACLU members could distract themselves from reality by reading the collected works of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore, and not cause such a ruckus. But this is absurd: "God Bless America" signs are ubiquitous across the country and probably will be for a long time. Why hasn't the ACLU attempted to silence celebrities who sing the Irving Berlin song at telethons? Or the sports franchises that've added the song to pregame ceremonies? (It's my hope that when Junior and I attend the Yanks-A's playoff opener on Wednesday at the Stadium, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" will be added to "The Star Spangled Banner.") Maybe a lawsuit against President Bush and other politicians, of both parties, who end speeches with the words "God bless America"?
I suggest Crosby visit New York City, the most culturally diverse city in the world, and take a look at the thousands of "God Bless America" stickers, hand-drawn signs and posters on display in Korean and Pakistani bodegas and newsstands, restaurant windows and cabs. She could lecture the displaced residents of Battery Park City about why the ACLU's doctrinaire views, in this time of peril, are more important than Manhattanites attempting to recover from an unprecedented disaster. She ought to tour all the local retail shops and restaurants that are now bankrupt.
On Sunday, as reported in the Oct. 8 Daily News: "Ironworkers pumped their fists. Guys on the pile inside Ground Zero slapped each other on the back. The perimeter of the area where the World Trade Center's twin towers once stood crackled with two-way radios, informing their colleagues inside Ground Zero that the United States and its allies had struck Afghanistan."
And if that isn't enough, perhaps Crosby could observe one of the daily funerals for those who were murdered on Sept. 11. Maybe that would shake her, and the ACLU, out of their touchy-feely 90s frame of mind.
2. My Sweet Lord. Last Saturday was another odd, not to say dispiriting, calendar page in the post-9/11 New World. It was raining hard in the morning, which at least temporarily snuffed out the omnipresent stench of Lower Manhattan, and for the first time in three weeks the streets of Tribeca were almost empty. I shook loose the cobwebs of news reports the night before of congressional leaders warning that another terrorist attack in the United States?maybe in Los Angeles this go around, although it's hard to believe that a subsequent strike wouldn't actually occur in the area codes of 212, 202 or 703?was a 100-percent certainty, and took the boys to Midtown for a round of low-key shopping.
I don't know what the upcoming event was, but the line at Madison Square Garden snaked around the block, just as about 1000 people withstood the elements to buy cheapo tickets for Broadway shows at the Times Square kiosk. Our North Indian cabbie, bravely wearing his turban, immediately gave me a flier describing his background: "The followers of Sikh religion live in every corner of the world. They are noticeable by their colorful turbans and unshorn beards... We Sikhs strongly condemn terrorist attack in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Let us all stand united and join hands in praying. Let us ask the Almighty God to give us strength and courage to endure. We are a resilient nation that will come out stronger from this tragedy. GOD BLESS AMERICA!"
What a mangled society we now live in that a taxi driver has to present his resume to customers, as if every Tom, Jose and Rufus he picks up is a potential CIA agent trying to ferret out "sleeper" members of a murderous "cell."
I'd like to report that the stores we patronized were jammed, but that wouldn't be truthful. At the Virgin Megastore inTimes Square, we had the run of the joint: Junior picked CDs by Sum 41 and Alien Ant Farm?very alien to my aging ears?while MUGGER III perused DragonBallZ videos and I purchased a Todd Rundgren disc that included his early-70s hit "I Saw the Light." It was a nostalgia buy, perhaps a vain attempt to revisit a time when both my parents were alive and the Vietnam War protests had evaporated?nearly overnight, once the draft was no longer a serious threat?giving way to the strange decade of the 70s.
It was also the death of my Uncle Joe last week that stirred up such emotions. Joe, one of my mother's two brothers, was 85 and thankful for such a long, full life. In fact, just three days before he passed on, I spoke to him and he rasped about the horror of Sept. 11 and how tragic it was that so many people died at such a premature age. We spoke about two of my cousins, one a cop, the other a fireman, and all the funerals they've already attended and will attend in the near future.
Joe (along with his wife of 60 years, Aunt Winnie) was a solid, honest citizen. My enduring image of him, aside from a picture from the 40s where he's standing, movie-star handsome, with my parents and Winnie, at an uptown nightclub?is from the pre-assassination 60s when my immediate family of seven would visit for the holidays. Joe, not yet 50 at the time, with hair that had turned not gray but silver, would lead singalongs at the player piano in the basement, while the kids would drink Cokes and eat too many deviled eggs and chips with onion dip. Just before we'd leave, Joe or Winnie would escort my younger cousins and me up to their mysterious attic, with memorabilia-stuffed trunks and clothes hanging in corners with the smell of mothballs. I'd always leave with an "I Like Ike" or "Dewey for President" campaign button for my collection.
Even as he advanced in age, Joe remained a sturdy and alert fellow, exercising daily and often sending me handwritten critiques of this column. I recall one event, a wedding I think, where we sat next to each other, and while egging him on to tell me about life in the earlier part of the century?he grew up in the Bronx, not far from Yankee Stadium, and saw all the great ballplayers of the time?a rude young woman horned in with a totally inappropriate third-degree. I wanted to crawl under the table as she asked him about sex during the Great Depression, firing explicit questions about promiscuity and abortion. To my astonishment, Joe didn't miss a beat, and although clearly annoyed by her impertinence, answered with humor and candor.
I felt like spitting my cocktail in the wench's face, but Joe wouldn't have approved. He was a gentleman and I was always proud to be one of his nephews.
3. Capitalism Gone Amok. The New York Post, on Oct. 3, came up with its best front-page headline of the new century. It read "ASH-HOLES," and the accompanying story began: "Heartless, greedy ghouls are peddling phony soil and ash from the World Trade Center to families mourning loved ones still buried in the rubble, Mayor Giuliani warned yesterday."
Although not as blatant as the grifters in NYC taking advantage of human misery, I don't think it's hypersensitive to point out a fairly offensive two-page advertisement by Ralph Lauren in the Oct. 8 issue of Time. A canny businessman, Lauren's made a fortune trading on a faux-WASP illusion in his line of clothing: although his ruse is betrayed by the irritating Polo symbol that adorns the chain's shirts?no Princeton alum of a certain age would be caught dead wearing an oxford shirt sullied by an advertisement?the bald exploitation of F. Scott Fitzgerald Americana is pretty disgusting marketing.
But the above-mentioned ad raises the bar on Lauren's knack for making lemonade out of lemons. On the left-hand page, there's a picture of a smiling Lauren, wearing a jean jacket and his signature American flag sweater. The opposite page, with no image, has a message from the rag merchant, which reads: "I have always been inspired by America and its heroes?the cowboy, the soldier and now the firefighters, police officers and rescue workers. There is one common thread in every hero. They are ordinary Americans, they come from nowhere, make their mark, get knocked down and rise up again. America has been stunned. We have been knocked down. America is going to stand together and be stronger than ever."
He goes on to say that Polo Ralph Lauren has established an "American Heroes Fund," which has already received commitments totaling $4 million from his corporation, employees and friends. Here's the kicker: "We invite our customers to share in this effort. During the month of October, 10% of your purchases from our Ralph Lauren stores and Polo.com will be donated to support the fund."
Despite the blather you read in the press, cynicism and irony have not been suspended as of Sept. 11. So, I ask: Why does Lauren have to even mention that a portion of his sales will be earmarked for the "American Heroes Fund"? The WASP that Lauren uses to symbolize his brand would spearhead a charity effort like this in silence. The whole idea is as smelly as Lauren's smarmy grin in the advertisement. The economy's in freefall right now, and Lauren is smart to entice customers to his stores, but why not just announce a 10 percent sale on all merchandise, without the self-aggrandizing come-on of contributing to a charity? It's unseemly, but then Lauren's entire career has never attained the "class" he so grossly tries to convey.
Lauren's pitch, however, is mild compared to some of the junk e-mail I've received recently. An "independent marketing company," on behalf of an unnamed 25-year-old firm boasting "[W]e are truly Energy Market Specialists. We KNOW the Energy Markets," sent the following missive: "We all USE ENERGY... Everyone NEEDS IT! Did you know YOU can make BIG PROFITS from Energy? With winter coming and trouble brewing in the Middle East too...ENERGY PRICES ARE SURE TO RISE SOON!"
Delete.
4. When Will Wenner Visit Ground Zero? It's the Hottest Ticket in Town! Just Ask Tina Brown! Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner is in the same league as Lauren, although he's even more crass about his thirst for celebrity and power. The Oct. 25 issue of his flagship magazine is better than usual, although the numerous accounts from musicians like Mick Jagger, Yoko Ono and Alanis Morissette are pretty stale by now. The cover is stark, with the date 9.11.01 atop an American flag. However, its elegance is cheapened when you turn to page 15 and read: "Cover: Jann S. Wenner's flag pin...photographed by Davies + Starr."
But who needs to read General Lou Reed's analysis that "We're paying a price for what some of our political leaders have done in the name of oil. This is not just out of the blue. It's not just for nothing."
Wenner's "Letter from the Editor" is more simplistic, and even quotes the now-infamous New Yorker essay of anti-American Susan Sontag. The ultimate baby boomer, known for his bonding first with rock stars, then movie celebrities and finally like-minded me-me-me politicians such as Bill Clinton, Wenner echoes the initial comments of Bill Maher about the terrorists. Luckily for Wenner, he owns Rolling Stone.
He writes, with a stunning lack of complexity: "It make us feel better to refer to these people as 'madmen' and 'cowards,' but as horrific as their actions are, this is what they most assuredly are not. They are not cave-dwelling animals. These are people who sacrifice their lives for what they think is righteous (which is generally how we might define courage). They are on a long-term mission and have grievances that we ignore at our own risk."
I can hardly wait for the Kabul edition of Rolling Stone.
5. Ferrer for Dog-Catcher. In Sunday's New York Times magazine, James Traub, in a piece called "The Candidate," has a stomach-turning passage in his first paragraph. "And so when I went to speak to the remaining Democratic contenders for mayor the week before last, I learned that Fernando Ferrer had lost many friends. On the other hand, Mark Green, the city's public advocate and currently the slight favorite to succeed Rudolph W. Giuliani as New York's next mayor, said that no one close to him perished. I couldn't help feeling bad for Green, for in recent weeks proximity to grief has become a strange sort of currency. Green must have felt this as well, for he quickly added that he had been attending a steady stream of funerals."
Traub felt "bad" for Green because the perennial candidate lost "no one close to him" in the WTC/Pentagon attacks? I shudder at the thought of Green occupying City Hall?although Ferrer would be a nightmare?but reducing the thousands of victims to mere political pawns, as Traub does, is sick, even by New York Times standards. I'm happy for Green that no one dear to him died on Sept. 11; and I'm sure he'd agree.
The mayoral election, now that Giuliani won't be an emergency candidate after all, is truly depressing. So much so that I can only hope that Michael Bloomberg, the liberal-Democrat-turned Republican, will defeat either Green or Ferrer. I haven't much confidence in Bloomberg?his campaign was an expensive joke?but at least he has a business background and won't kowtow to Al Sharpton, the teachers' union and all the other special-interest groups that'll have their hands out for city dollars when rebuilding the financial district is priority number one.
On that subject, I'm firmly on the side of those who want to resurrect the Trade Center. Not a replication of the Twin Towers, of course, but maybe a cluster of buildings that'll both restore the skyline and prove to the world that madmen terrorists can't prevail in New York City. Near the new complex, I also favor a park, perhaps with a monument similar to the Vietnam Memorial in DC, which lists the name of every single victim of Sept. 11.
6. A Suggested Sedative. The American Prospect is a very boring magazine: proudly liberal, it doesn't deviate one iota from its Big Government agenda; unions are good, tax cuts are bad... You get the idea. Unlike The Nation, which can provoke an inadvertent chuckle or two, or The New Republic, a mostly Democratic organ that in the last six months has become far more engaging, TAP is as predictable as an Arthur Schlesinger Jr. op-piece in the Times.
Founder/co-editor Robert Kuttner, in the Oct. 22 issue, demonstrates the publication's unwavering sense of superiority in his "Comment" column on page 2. He writes: "As a national spasm of righteous rage, war is a bad time for liberal intellectuals. In war, domestic reform gets sidetracked; dissent gets confused with treason. Liberals themselves tend to divide into realists and idealists. The intellectual who agonizes over war's moral complexities risks getting punched out in a bar."
Give me strength.
First, I doubt that "intellectuals" like the Bostonian Kuttner go to many bars where they'd be "punched out." Second, it's typical of self-absorbed left-wingers to believe they've got a monopoly on intellectual discourse. For example, what does Kuttner think is going on in the current debate between hawks like Bill Kristol?who fears Colin Powell won't pursue Saddam Hussein for the second time in a decade?and equally brainy Republicans who believe Kristol's extreme rhetoric is counterproductive? Newt Gingrich was a crummy speaker of the House?his personal hypocrisy was bad enough, and caving in to Bill Clinton was downright "wobbly," to use the media's favorite term of the season?but he's an intellectual of the first order.
Kuttner rambles on: "This war, I fear, will be the most frustrating in our history. For all of the popular outrage and national unity, even our best-informed leaders literally don't know what to do." Says who? Obviously, the current international crisis is a jumble of certainties, contradictions and double-dealing, but does Kuttner actually believe the administration has no plan of action? And that they'd broadcast a military strategy to the public and "intellectuals" like him?
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