This Is Not News

So I turned 30 last week. And around the same time, I’ve started seeing ads and trailers for the movie version of Rent. Now, I was in college in New York City in the summer of ’96, when the show premiered on Broadway. And back then, the show had a policy of reserving the front two rows of the theater for sale the day of the performance for 20 bucks. So if you were willing to wait in the line, you could see the show for cheap. Well, that summer and fall, you could not get away from Rent. One of my roommates was head of the campus theater group, and I think he saw it around half a dozen times (possibly more). He even dragged me to see it once, the only time I’ve seen a Broadway show. Many of my colleagues on the school paper had the cast album, and blared it on production nights. Well, now most of the original cast is back for the movie version, and it is just so freakin’ weird to see this attempt to recapture a particular moment of cultural history. (I don’t know if the story of the movie has been updated to take place now or if it’s still set in the 90s.)

And the more I’ve thought about that, the more I realize that there is a part of my pop culture brain that is permanently stuck about ten years in the past. I was grocery shopping the other day and found myself singing along to a Gin Blossoms song from 1993. Heck, even when I listen to alternative radio these days, it’s WXPN, the adult alternative station. I use an episode of Babylon 5 called “Passing Through Gethsemane” in some of my classes at Temple to talk about the thorny issues of personal identity. And it hit me the other day that the episode is about ten years old, so that there’s a very high likelihood that today’s 18- and 19-year olds will find it dated. But these things don’t feel old to me. My memories of encountering them for the first time are still vivid enough that they feel fresh It’s interesting that, much as I try and keep up with how technology and other things are changing the world we live in, there’s still some part of my self-understanding that includes the not-really-recent-anymore past as part of its image of the present..

I guess it has now been my turn to be in on the latest craze, Some Stupid Guy Going Nuts And Grabbing A Gun To Solve All His Problems. I had a doctor’s appointment on a Wednesday morning in March 2001, for which I needed to wear shorts. I planned to go back to my apartment around lunchtime and change clothes so I could go to work.

I couldn’t get into the north entrance of my apartment complex, as the driveway I have to take to get home was blocked off by lots of cars, including some police cruisers. I went the long way around to the south entrance, and found my way blocked there too. I tried to reach my apartment on foot, and met up with a police officer who told me in no uncertain terms to stay away, that there was an armed nut on the loose somewhere in the apartments.

This alarmed me. My wife was at work, but it was common for me to raise the blinds on a couple of windows in our apartment so our three cats could curl up in the window sill and catch the sights and sounds of the outside world, which we didn’t really allow them to see otherwise. If someone was looking for targets, or worse yet a hiding place to break into, that might have made an inviting sight for him. Read the remainder of this entry »

Once upon a time, I wrote a humor column for my college newspaper. I eventually appropriated the title of that column for this very site. As my sister graduated from high school this month, I got to thinking about one column I wrote back in March 1995. I thought I’d share it on today’s Not News as a tribute to her and as a glimpse at this site’s roots. Also, subsequent events have served to make the column funnier in retrospect than it ever was at the time.

When I was about 10 years old and, like all 10-year-old males, found the opposite gender utterly confusing (actually, this is not that different from all 20-year-old males, now that I think about it), I made a vow that I would never, ever so much as look at a female in a romantic light, let alone start a family. The onset of adolescence rendered this vow moot rather quickly; however, I recently renewed it, for vastly different reasons. I had a preview of the Parents’ Curse.

You know what I’m talking about, I’m sure. At the point where our parents’ frustration reaches the point where they’re looking like Warner Bros. cartoons, they pull out the Curse and say, “When you grow up I hope you have children just like you.�

We shrug this off as kids; we figure, hey, we’re such great individuals that raising carbon copies would be a breeze. It’s not our fault our parents are so out of touch, right?

Hah. Read the remainder of this entry »

If you, for some reason, have found yourself wondering about the state of my gardening skills, let me try and sum it up for you:

I am such a rotten gardener that the plants I try and kill end up thriving.

A little stage setting is perhaps in order. When we moved into this house last year, the front walk had a small garden to the side of it, in which numerous plants were converting carbon dioxide to oxygen and generally having a merry old time. These plants didn’t totally appeal to Pattie and me, and quite frankly we weren’t sure exactly how each one was supposed to be maintained, but as new homeowners we had many, many other fish to fry – not least of which was that the back yard contained some truly tenacious plant forms that I am still unconvinced did not originate from another planet. (I’ve been checking the Mars Rover pictures very closely to see if I can find any of these things’ forebears, let me tell you.) So we neglected that front yard for a month or two.

This was exactly the opportunity a battalion of weeds had been waiting for. They started sprouting, and pretty soon they were starting to crowd us off that front walk. Another week or two, I think they would have evolved legs, crawled out of the dirt, and body-blocked us from getting into the house. So one morning I dutifully went out and yanked every piece of greenery I could find. I pulled, I dug, I yanked, and when I was done I sprayed that dirt repeatedly with Super Duper Weed and Plant Killer. Then, and only then, I replanted the ground with grass seed.

And not any grass seed, mind you. No, I consulted experts like my parents. Now, the house I grew up in had, and I am being totally honest here, one of the nicest back yards on my block. It damned well better, since my mom kicked us out of the nice air-conditioned house on many a summer day to cut grass or pull weeds or prune hedges or whatever the heck one does in a garden. So I thought I was on pretty safe ground getting a recommendation from them. “Get ryegrass,â€? they said. What the heck, I said, if the lawn doesn’t work out, I can toss the leftover seed in my bread machine. Read the remainder of this entry »

(In light of the current focus on international arms races and disarmament efforts, it may be worthwhile to look for some historical perspective on the competing forces that drive these efforts and the often unintended consequences of well-meaning decisions.)

After World War I the United States, Great Britain and Japan were the world’s leading naval powers, and each country continued a rapid buildup of forces in order to maintain dominance over their local sea waters and protect their overseas interests. America was particularly concerned with maintaining the Open Door policy in China and in defending – as much as possible – its possessions in the Philippines while maintaining coastal defenses. In 1918, the Navy General Board set as its goal the establishment of a navy superior or equal to every other navy on Earth – a departure from its previous policy, which was content to be second to Great Britain. The Wilson Administration presented a naval building plan to Congress that would result in the United States’ possessing a fleet of 39 battleships and 12 battle cruisers, a force that would far exceed Great Britain’s. The high costs of such construction, along with the growing spirit of pacifism and isolationism in Congress and the American public, eventually led President Harding to call the 1920 Washington Naval Conference, which established a number of treaties to govern the conduct of nations in the Pacific. The Washington Treaty, probably the most significant of these agreements, established limits on the total tonnage of ships each nation could build, along with limits on particular classes of ships such as heavy cruisers and battleships. These limits were set according to a ratio of 5/5/3 among the United States, Great Britain, and Japan, respectively, a compromise which formed the basis of American naval policy for over a decade and had the seemingly-beneficial effect of pleasing no one, as no side achieved the clear advantage it sought. Read the remainder of this entry »

When Dr. Laura Schlessinger made comments that many claimed denigrated and disrespected homosexuals, offended individuals quickly boycotted the show and its advertisers.

When Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines made comments that many claimed denigrated and disrespected President George W. Bush, offended individuals quickly boycotted the band, its albums and its concerts.

These and other boycotts just as quickly spawned a backlash of their own. By threatening media figures with a loss of income, boycotters attempt to stifle the expression of certain unpopular ideas, and thus deprive these figures of their right to free speech. Author Peter David, for example, has repeatedly criticized such efforts on his blog, including one entry where he writes: “I’m talking about pure, simple, appropriate, proportional response. If you disagree with someone, say it with words, because saying it with punitive, retaliatory measures proves nothing except that you are petty and intolerant.”

I applaud the sentiment behind David’s position, but as I have thought about it, I can’t help but feel he’s not quite on the right track here. In certain situations in a market-based economy, boycotts and economic pressure are a wholly legitimate method of political and social discourse. Read the remainder of this entry »

I am trying to sit very, very straight as I type this. If I do not, trained posture commandos might rappel in through the window and shove a plank down the back of my shirt, which I am heartily opposed to not simply because I fear splinters in my back, but because I like this shirt. You may ask why I am in such a state of heightened posture awareness. For one thing, I am genuinely trying to take better care of myself. More importantly, I am now convinced that my mother has posture control agents stationed throughout the city, and I don’t want to run afoul of any of them.

You may find it unreasonable that I, a 28-year-old husband, father, homeowner, and otherwise responsible adult, would fear my mother and her hawkish pro-posture stance. The problem is, as much as our parents might be looking out for us and proud of our accomplishments and whatever else they stick on those ‘For You, Son, On Your First Gray Hair’ greetings cards, some crucial sector of brain cells fails to let go of the fact that we’re the same individuals who would once choose Crayola over Sherwin Williams as a wall covering any day of the week. And no matter how hard we try to play that responsible adult, eventually, we will slip up and give them ammunition. Read the remainder of this entry »

In 1910, Harvard philosopher William James tried to justify his pacifism with an essay called “The Moral Equivalent of War.� Horrified by the destructiveness of war, James nonetheless recognized that there were strengths to be found in a military environment. Dedication, strength of purpose, the feeling of being bound together into a common effort greater than one’s individual needs . . . all of these have very tangible benefits, which unfortunately are often overwhelmed by the death and destruction of actual war. James argued that while he firmly believed in pacifism, a peaceful society would not be built easily, and would probably not be built at all if those virtues could not be harnessed in a non-violent way. Thus, he said:

If now . . . there were, instead of military conscription a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature, the injustice [that some struggle in life while others have lives of leisure] would tend to be evened out, and numerous other goods to the commonwealth would follow. The military ideals of hardihood and discipline would be wrought into the growing fibre of the people; no one would remain blind as the luxurious classes now are blind, to man’s relations to the globe he lives on, and to the permanently sour and hard foundations of his higher life.

America has recognized the value of community service for years, and has tried to encourage it through a number of government initiatives such as the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps, which President George W. Bush recently consolidated under the umbrella of the USA Freedom Corps. Retired General Wesley Clark, now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, has proposed the creation of a Civilian Reserve which would seek to emulate the structure of the military reserves, in which volunteers with special skills could be called upon to utilize those skills in emergency situations in exchange for a stipend, health benefits, and a guarantee that they could return to their former jobs when their service was complete. In his speech to introduce the proposal, Clark explicitly placed his own military service in the broader context of the service performed by police, fire and emergency workers and by community activists and volunteers: Read the remainder of this entry »

Rather than try and be funny in this particular essay, I decided to try and turn my keen analytical mind to a certain type of humor, namely the kind that helps restore my sanity when my keen analytical mind can no longer cope with trying to make sense of this mixed-up world. Satire can be cruel, vicious and mean, but it can be penetratingly insightful and even cathartic; I think it’s the form of humor that’s most likely to make you laugh until you cry.

Just for my own sense of clarity, I checked with the American Heritage Dictionary for a definition of satire, and I especially like the second: “Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.â€? Satire too often gets lumped in with parody – deliberate imitation of an existing work or style for comic effect – because parody can be a very effective means of satire; imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it can also undermine the imitated by bringing its absurdities closer to the surface. But as much as I might enjoy, say, “Weird Alâ€? Yankovic retelling the plot of The Phantom Menace to the tune of “American Pie,â€? nothing’s really being attacked or exposed there. It’s all in good fun, and there’s no underlying message beyond having some good fun. And that’s great; by no means do I think that all wit should be caustic. Read the remainder of this entry »

Many of my single friends complain about the constant nagging they get from their friends and family to “find someone” and “settle down”. While I don’t doubt that that such nagging can get rather irksome after a while, I challenge any of these bachelors and bachelorettes to put up with the constant pressure Dave and I endured about our choice of dwelling unit.

“Why are you still renting?”

“You’re throwing money away!”

“When are you going to look for a house?”

“You need to start building some equity!”

“You guys are still in that apartment? How many years is that now?”

This pressure only intensified after Alexandra was born and people began to imply that it was nothing short of child abuse to live in a two-bedroom apartment with an infant.

While I will admit that towards the end, the apartment did get a bit cramped, Dave and I have several good reasons for waiting to buy a house. (Well, we think they’re good and since we’re the ones who are in the hole for thirty years to the mortgage company, we’re going stick with our opinion for now.) Read the remainder of this entry »