Breasts

That got your attention, didn't it? Much more so than if I'd typed "Paul Gauguin" or "Post-Impressionism."

Breasts, three of them, to be exact, are shown in Two Tahitian Women, one of the French painter's most famous works. The island poitrines were recently the subject of an attack by Susan Burns, an apparently demented woman who went to Washington's National Gallery and tried to destroy the painting. Ms. Burns felt the breasts portrayed were the evil work of an evil man. No harm was done, luckily, and Two Tahitian Women, which is on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is back on exhibit. We don't know the status of Ms. Burns' own breasts, but hope she treats them with more tolerance. 

There's nothing really new about crazy people attacking works of art. In 1972 Michelangelo's La Pieta was injured by Laszlo Toth, an irate geologist wielding a mallet. In a 2008 article, the UK's Observer listed 13 works of art that had been damaged by viewers. These included a Picasso (elbowed), a cast of Rodin's Thinker (dynamited) , a Mondrian (vomited upon) and a Monet (punched). There is even another breast case:  ex-soldier Robert Cambridge drew a 12-bore shotgun from under his coat and fired at the Virgin's breast in Da Vinci's Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist at London's National Gallery.  Breasts are obviously popular with the mad.
But breasts are not what I'm really interested in writing about today. Rather, I am fascinated by the electronic media's reaction to the assault.

The same people who give us Jersey Shore, Real Housewives of  Wherever and a host of other truly repugnant programs decided that their viewers should not be subjected to the sight of the Gauguin maidens' torsos and used all sorts of ingenious methods to pretend nipples don't exist.

Fox blurred the nipples, making the two Tahitian beauties look as if they'd been maimed by Torquemada. ABC affiliates used the news banner to cover the breasts while NBC merely cropped the image of the painting so it resembled a driver license photo.

According to today's Washington Post,  Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction during the 2004 Superbowl might be to blame. Or (and I shudder to think this might be the case) complaints were voiced by a few viewers forced to see naked statues during the last Olympic's opening ceremonies. Or maybe the same people who a while back shrouded the statue of a clothes-less Justice in a government building have finally come to power.

It would be funny if it weren't sort of sad, this love-hate thing with breasts. Half the population has them, and (let's face it) the other half worships them. Personally, I think we should focus our attention on knees, or spleens, or maybe even tracheas. No one would attack them, and no one would be bothered if they were displayed.

This Way To the Camps

Neil Gaiman, the British author perhaps most famous in this country for his amazing graphic novels, has a recurring character who likes to question the existence of words. Is there, for example, a word for the sound pollen makes as it is being harvested? Or for the feel of moving planets? What
about the unwanted concurrence of events? Why are there missing words in a language as rich and English? Lately, I have wondered whether there is a word for unfortunate things happening to situations that should not exist. 

Let me explain. For the past many years as the economy has taken its toll on those most at risk, many of the homeless and jobless, those struck by misfortune or lacking even a modicum of useful education, have returned to the soil. They establish makeshift camps in outlying areas, in woods, culverts, and under bridges. They erect tarpaulin tents, cook on discarded barbecues, create small and tight-knit societies. Some are alcoholics and addicts, others have serious mental issues, and others still just got a bad roll of the dice. There are few dentists or doctors out there. Many of the campers are construction workers, whose companies shut down, seasonal employees of places like nurseries and landscaping concerns that are no longer hiring, veterans of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

They are not particularly attractive—living outdoors through a winter is not beneficial to the skin or other organs—and wary of outsiders, for good reason. In many ways, these folks are the reincarnation of the Dust Bowl survivors, and their attempts try to carry on often create great discomfiture among more able citizens.

Point in case, last week saw the eviction of 80 people who have been living for almost a decade near Dale  City, Virginia. The Virginia Department of Transportation, responding to a complaint call from

State Delegate Scott Lingamfelter (R) that the homeless were “walking back to their tents in the dark and crossing the ramp where cars speed around the blind curve,” gave the wood dwellers 48 hours to pack up and leave, destination unknown. When county workers came in to do a clean up, they found about 55 tents as well as sofas, beds, heaters, and a pool table.  In other areas where small populations live outdoors, there are lean-tos, televisions and radios and generators.

That such camps exist is an insult to all that is America. That they exist in one of the most affluent section of the country is a sin. That these communities are destroyed, rendering homeless people even more so, is beyond comprehension.

These are not people accused of any crime other than trespassing on public land. They are not thieves or rapists; they have not stolen your IRA or pillaged your life savings. Their transgression is being

destitute. Ours, on a community, state, and national level, is allowing such poverty to exist and, worse, to believe that putting it out of sight will put it out of mind as well.

I wonder if  Representative Lingamfelter has a handy word to describe all this. And I hope he sleeps well tonight.

Bad Things

Last February I wrote about the horrendous murder of Genevieve Orange who lived not far away from me. She was beaten to death and raped by Mark E. Lawlor, a pretty sorry excuse for a human being who had no reason to kill the young woman other than he was high on crack and the opportunity
presented itself. The State of Virginia here Lawlor was tried sentenced him to death. I don’t know if this is good or not.  One of the concepts I have tried to live by most of my life is not to take away anything I can’t return or, for that fact, break anything I can’t fix. If the state executes Lawlor, it is
doing the irreparable.

More recently, two articles in my morning newspaper caught my attention.  One dealt with a young woman who had been victimized by crime not once but twice. Fifteen years ago Mia Ramos was working in New York City and preparing herself for the university life. She was one of those thousands of people who take small jobs to pay for their education. In her case, it was at a Footlocker store in Manhattan.

One day, five minutes after the store’s closing time, Ramos noticed three men were still in the store. Nothing unusual there, she thought, but then one of the men pulled a gun. Then he took her to the store bathroom and raped her.  Eventually the guy was caught. His name is Norman Thompson and he still in prison, though he will probably be paroled soon.

Last summer, Ramos came to nearby Montgomery County in Maryland with plans to enroll in law school.She got a job a few miles from where I live at a Blockbuster store where I was a member. At closing time one night, two men rushed into the store and the nightmare happened again. Ramos was not raped this time, but she was held captive and relived every moment of the earlier terror. There again, the men were caught. Xavion Butler and Chancellor Dowden are presently out on bail. I
don’t understand this but suppose there is some reason for their not being in jail or prison.  Mia Ramos’s story was on the front page of today’s newspaper.

The second incident, in some ways, is worst. It tells of a Domino Pizza delivery driver who was killed because the three freaks who had ordered the pizza and wings decided they didn’t want to pay for it. So they shot Paul Bennett in the head, took the pizza and wings, ate most of their loot and tried to sell the rest on the street. The three guys were caught and are not out on bail, which is a small mercy.

This sad tale made the back of the Metro section, and I don’t know which editor decided on story placement. It shares the page with a piece telling us Washington  DC’s former mayor, Marion Barry,
was caught driving a car with inactive tags.

Mia Ramos’s most recent assailants may or may not show up for their trial. If they do, they will more than likely get a light sentence because their crime, by modern standards, is not that serious. Paul Bennett’s killers will undoubtedly plead a horrible childhood and other mitigating circumstances.

I’ll try to follow both stories, which have left me shocked, bereft and uncomprehending. Stuff like this bolsters the right-wing demon in me. I want to become Bronson or a comic book hero who does not treat criminals with any degree of kindness. I want to crush, cripple and maim; I want a
semi-automatic and I want to tattoo these peoples’ guilt across their foreheads.  I want revenge for the crimes committed on others by others.

Luckily I am the age that I am, have no experience with guns, and would make a piss-poor vigilante, which, I suppose, is a very good thing. For everyone involved.

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire!

Is lying against the law?

Technically, yes, if you are under oath, but what of other lies, the small and great ones we tell every day?  At stake is a Constitutional issue worth exploring.

We all lie. Recently, a judge in San Francisco defended the right to lie as a basic free-speech issue, explaining in some 35 easons why we avoid telling the truth. He cited among others protecting our rivacy (No, I really don’t live here); making others feel good (Have you been
going to the gym?); avoiding recriminations (Really, it only cost $20); and voiding hurting the feelings of others (It’s not you, it’s me.)  His last reason—and a sweet one it is—was
protecting innocence (The tooth fairy will come tonight.)

Now take an inveterate liar ike Xavier (or Javier) Alvarez. He told big ones. Alvarez lied about serving n Vietnam and being decorated. There are laws against this, namely the Stolen Valor Act which specifically targets those who would falsely claim military heroism.  Alvarez did just that: After winning a seat on the board of directors of a California water district, he claimed to be a retired Marine who was wounded in combat and subsequently awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Bussssted.

Alvarez was charged and convicted, but a district judge overturned the conviction citing freedom of speech issues. In 1964, a landmark free-speech case found that “false speech is
not subject to a blanket exemption from constitutional protection.” According to the Washington Post, “as recently as last year… the court’s list of ‘well-defined’ unprotected speech included only ‘obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, and speech integral to criminal conduct.”  Dissenting judges disagree, claiming that false statements of fact are not
protected by the First Amendment.

Here’s what I think is interesting. Laws, quite often, are enacted precisely to exonerate the
truth-teller and punish the liar.  As a matter of fact, aren’t most legal issues matters of he-said/she-said? Granted, it’s not often that simple and the line dividing truth from false can be a very faint one.  But think of most serious crimes—murder, assault, robbery, rape. Isn’t it the word of one against that of another? 

It’s hard to imagine a world where day-to-day lying might be really punished. Relationships would end before starting, and even the simplest of promise would become a contractual quagmire.  Intent, rather than actual statements would then be at the heart of any legal argument. Did the defendant really mean what he said, or was he lying through his teeth? If the former—he thought he was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—he’s innocent. If he was embroidering or knowingly misleading others, off to the pokey with
him.

I could go either way. I recall reading a while back about a turn-of-the-century situation where a man became in intimate with a woman after promising marriage. After the act, though, he reneged. He was found guilty of breach of promise and, if I remember correctly, forced to wed the lady, perhaps not the best outcome for either party.

 

Goethe, Dominos, and Black Swans

It’s been a good year for disasters. Three months into 2011, the planet has already undergone 76earthquakes ranging from six to 9.9 magnitudes on the Richter scale. The death
toll in Japan alone from the recent quakes and subsequent tsunami will certainly surpass 100,000.The number continues to grow as affected coastal villages dig out.

In Japan, a secondary, very real fear comes from the failure and breakdown of affected nuclear plants which could spew radioactive material into the atmosphere. Prevailing winds would then carry this deadly dust to the rest of the world.

The Japanese have always been victimized by earthquakes and tsunamis and so have largely adjusted their lives to the whims of a capricious Mother Nature. Their architecture is designed to accept tremors and does so hundreds of times a year—lesser tremors, of course,
that those generated by the latest shift of the planer’s plates. What they did not anticipate, or perhaps chose to overlook, was the potential effects of natural disasters on something that, once unleashed, cannot be controlled again.

All nations using nuclear power to generate electricity have made a deal with the devil. Think Faust on a national level—we trade our souls for a cheap power source and in doing so we
believe we exert some form of control. Actually, we control nuclear power much as we control sunlight, that is to say not at all. We pretend that by drawing the shades we exert some sort of power over a star. With nuclear power, we have  done much the same by surrounding the beast with concrete, water, valves and cooling ponds, all of which are fallible. We do not know how to really tame the core of a runaway reactor though we should have learned a lesson or two from Chernobyl, and the next nuclear tragedy is not a probability, it is a certainty.

Such things have a domino effect. Natural tragedies wreak havoc with commerce. The aftershocks are felt worldwide as markets reflect uneasiness and fear, and nations weaken.

A new term has recentlyentered the vocabulary. Scientists speak of ‘black swans’ when referring to a wide array of possible destructive events. The phrase was coined and
popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a New York University professor of risk engineering and author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Black swans include
any number of tragedies that could have been foreseen. The September 11 attack comes to mind, as does the ravage of New   Orleans by Katrina, the eruption of Mt. St. Helen, and the possibility of solar flares that would knock out a good percentage of the planet’s power grids. Here’s a simple, very real example: a fault runs through Charleston,  South Carolina. It has devastated that area before, in 1886, with a quake estimated at a magnitude of 7.3, that
killed 60 people and was felt as far away as Wisconsin. The area has a very real seismic
history, scientists believe, yet the population at large does not believe Eastern Americans cities are vulnerable.

Such events reverberate. We should be prepared for them but seldom are. As go individuals, so do nations. We forget pain, we take little stock in history, and we are amazed when it
repeats itself. Perhaps we’re getting what we deserve.

Twenty Years

Last week I celebrated 20 years of not putting any addictive substances—alcohol, marijuana, pills, ec.—into my body. It’s been an interesting two decades. On the one hand,
sobriety has kept me alive, of this I’m persuaded. Twenty years ago I was
actively addicted to any substance that would change my outlook, allay my panic
attacks, and give me some relief from the terrible angst that beset me daily.
On the other hand, I often wonder whether, with discipline, I could have led a
life allowing me to partake from time to time without due consequences.

On two separate occasions snce 1991, I accidentally drank some alcohol. It was my fault both times; in he first instance, I left my drink—a glass of iced tea—unattended at a party
and picked up someone else’s. It was an iced tea as well, but it had a generous
amount of vodka in it. The second occurrence happened when a hostess served me
what she thought was sparkling cider. It was champagne. Both times I made my
way to the kitchen and, as discreetly as possible, spit the liquids out.

Three years ago, following sme minor surgery, I was prescribed painkillers known to be addictive. I took tem for four days then switched to Tylenol.

Here’s the thing, though: I am never very far from a drink, or from some psychoactive substance that would alter my consciousness. Recently, I hurt my back, and the doctor prescribed Flexeril, also known as cyclobenzaprine. Flexeril is a muscle relaxant; it
relieves the discomfort caused by muscle injuries and, taken just before I went
to bed, it helped me get to sleep when no supine position was pain-free. In no
time at all I started obsessing about what I would do if I ran out of the drug.
Would I ever be able to sleep again? Surely the wise thing would be to get
another prescription filled quickly—I might lose the first one, and at any
rate, wouldn’t it be sensible to have some extra pills in case I hurt myself
again? If I didn’t need the Flexeril, I could always throw it away or pass it
on to ailing friends.

This is called addictive thinking. It never, ever goes away. There is a part of me that has not
forgotten the first few times I drank or did drugs, and the pleasures derived
from such experiences. I will put aside the memories of the much more frequent
miserable times, the aching, trembling and vomitous feelings that came with
over-indulgence. I will forget the pain, the embarrassments, the costs in both
money and emotions.

Its rare now for me to undergo the treacherous and euphoric recall of earlier years, but the
remembrance is there, just under the surface. I suspect it will always be there.

But twenty years… Imagine that…

We're Number 10!! We're Number 10!!

Somehow the fist-waving chant of “We’re Number 10” simply doesn’t make it. In the nation that originated 20^th-century concept of “We’re-the-best-just-watch-us-go,” the calamitous drop from number one to something far less is a better pill to swallow, but there it is, it’s true, my beloved adopted country is no longer the place to be. It’s tenth. It is tenth after a slew of European countries and, yes, Canada. Even the hosers have hosed us. 

This revelation took into consideration life expectancy (Japan is first); perception that working hard will get you ahead (Cambodia); satisfaction with living standards (Denmark); higher education enrollment (South Korea), and a slew of other inputs.  Number one, if you’re interested, is Norway, closely followed by Sweden and Finland. Who would have thought there was really something in Finland to be happy about? Australia and New Zealand are next, followed by Switzerland and The Netherlands, two tiny European countries almost no one ever thinks about.

According to Newsweek, the problem is that the United States has been too successful in its pursuit of freedom and democracy for all. In politics, the elect are listening to the citizenry too well, and what does the citizenry want? Well, mostly it’s focused on the past or immediate present. It doesn’t want change. It figures we’ve done well by pursuing programs that have worked, so in the eyes of the great unwashed, there is no real reason to alter anything. That includes subsidies, government (federal, state and local) programs that cost too much and simply don’t work that well, and tax breaks. We have told our representatives that what we want is more of the same, and they’ve listened.

Right now, the US government spends about four dollars on the elderly for every one dollar it spends on youths under the age of 18. We are, in other words, far more focused on backing a dying horse than on training a promising colt. Fund reductions have weakened the furthering of education, scientific research, NASA, and infrastructure. We are doing this at the precise moment when countries like Germany, Korea and China are committing to the exact opposite by funding research into alternative energy sources and other future-oriented endeavors while even as they cut the subsidies that cost their respective countries the most and offer the least.

Our national lack of initiative has already cost us dearly. America is no longer a true mover and shaker—though we still think we are—but is becoming increasingly insular. Exports only account for 10% of our economy as compared to 50% in many European nations.  Such statistics inspire hidebound behaviors in the US and entrepreneurial ones overseas. Your television, cell phone, washer and dryer, your clothing and shoes, the flowers in your vase, even the prescriptions you take daily, all come from overseas. In fact,  you would be hard-pressed to find much anymore that is American-made in a European household.

Here’s another problem. We are not even optimistic about the future. In fact, on that scale, we’re 86^th. That’s sad.