The Voice of Treason

And I wonder, I wa-wa-wa-wa-wonder
Why, Ah-why-why-why-why-why she ran away
And I wonder where she will stay
My little runaway, run-run-run-run-runaway….

Okay. There was a moment - maybe fifteen seconds - when I thought I could give the runaway bride a pass. After days of watching her friends and family testifying before the cameras that “Jennifer is just so perfect” and her fiance “John is just so perfect” and that “together they’re just so perfect!” - I tell ya, I was getting more than just a little nauseous. This group of people - well-meaning they might be - were suffocating this poor girl. The normal response would be to hop on a bus and leave town as quickly as possible. But then you look at the facts. Who was holding a gun on her to have the wedding of the century? She’s not an eighteen year-old innocent; the woman is in her early thirties and should have a little more sense. It’s difficult to feel sympathetic towards a person who has invited 600 people to her wedding, has had eight bridal showers in four weeks (criminy - how many food processors does one woman need?), and has forced fourteen groomsmen and bridesmaids to participate in the ceremony.

I thought the story stunk the minute it broke. But after watching her fiance, I couldn’t help think that he just wasn’t sharp enough to kill his bride-to-be. Sure, her photographs were unsettling - her eyes were wide open and a bit manic (reminding me a lot of Sharon Stone, who is also a tad off her rocker) - but not everyone knows how to take a good picture. And maybe it’s because of my mother and her criminal mind. A news story would break and she’d have the crime solved in minutes. When Susan Smith cried that some black man had taken her car and her “bay-bays,” my mother knew instantly that she’d murdered her own boys. When Charles Stuart called the police to report that someone had just shot his pregnant wife, my mother leapt from the couch and shouted: “He did it! He killed her!” How did she know? Simple. When he reported the crime, he told the police that he’d been injured, too, and that he…ugh…was…aaarrrggghh…blacking out….. Well, you don’t know when you’re blacking out - what a load of crap.

But when I woke up from a sound sleep in the middle of the night to hear FOX News reporting that she was found alive in New Mexico, I knew something was just not right. She was kidnapped, she said, by a Hispanic male and a white female who cut her hair and pushed her into a van, just so they could drive her all the way to Albuquerque and drop her off. Considering the price of gas, what idiot is going to go through the trouble of abducting someone, then chauffeuring her across the country for absolutely no reason? I would have made her pay for the gas.

But then, there was that unmistakable stench. The minute she said it was a Hispanic who grabbed her, I immediately thought of Susan Smith and her bay-bays - and the fictitious black guy who took off with them in the back of her car. And I’m more than familiar with the part of Albuquerque where she stopped to call and report her kidnapping, so she should be grateful to have survived her excursion on south Central Avenue.

I am a woman who was born without a wedding gene. I knew little girls who had a clear idea of what their fantasy wedding would be and they’d already picked out all their kids’ names. The only names I come up with are for dogs and new colors. I’ve never fantasized about a wedding. To me, weddings are usually tasteless and unnecessary. That the average woman would wear white is appalling enough, but to throw away that much money on a few hours instead of investing in real estate is just damned stupid. The wedding that appealed to me was the one that Cyndi Lauper had a few years back. Little Richard performed the ceremony, then the bride and groom climbed onto a rented bus with a bunch of friends and drove to a neighborhood dive for pizza.

Now that’s a wedding! Treason number fourteen: Elope. And use the cash you’d blow on a wedding for something more important. Like life.

During the presidential debates last year, I think it was Dick Morris who pointed out that a red tie on camera was much more flattering than any other color. Why then, I asked myself, does George Bush always reach for blue? Could it be because of the 1980s? The Reagans had red tied up - Nancy was often seen wearing “Reagan red.” For contrast, Barbara Bush generally wore blue. “Bush blue.” Actually, I’d like to think that when the president reaches for a tie, it isn’t calculated. I truly believe that he goes for the blue tie because he just likes that blue tie. So I was a little surprised when I watched the press conference and saw red. (I’m sure many other Americans saw red, too, but it had nothing to do with the tie.) But it made sense. That suit called for a red tie.

I like watching Dubya during these press conferences. His confidence is appealing. I like that he’s addressed the problem of Social Security. I appreciate that he can get fired up about a topic and become much more articulate when he’s talking about an issue that he feels strongly about. He went off on education and he was riveting. I like that he’s addressed the problem of public education. (One day I’ll address this myself, and explain why I have an unused teaching credential somewhere in a drawer.) I like that he’s addressed the need for an energy plan. I like that he supports John Bolton. I like that he says he’ll share credit, echoing Ronald Reagan’s famous quote: “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”

I like the idea of personal savings accounts. But what I’m not too sure about is this idea that Social Security needs to be “fair.” Fair means that the poor deserve more than the rich. Never mind that the rich have been paying into the system just as long as the poor, but now when it comes time to collect on their payments, they don’t get them? This smells like redistribution of wealth. Welfare, even. I won’t even go into the discussion of those who pay into the system all their lives, then die before they can collect a dime. Is it fair that many African-American males croak before retirement and white women live on to collect payment after payment? The system stinks. Kill it. Replace it with a system that actually works. Treason number thirteen: Get off the stick and start dealing with Social Security now to create a program that’s actually effective. Chances are reform won’t happen during the Bush administration, but at least the president deserves credit for trying. Years from now when Social Security implodes, I hope someone remembers that it was a Republican who tried to fix it in 2005.

Part 3! I should have stopped after Part 2, but then Coppola didn’t, so why should I? It’s Thursday, and Silvio Berlusconi has won a second and final vote of confidence in parliament. He’ll face voters in 2006, having kept his promises: tax cuts for businesses and a new push to lift Italy’s poorer south. Italy, for the most part, is okay with Silvio, but the people are a little grumbly over the war in Iraq, the shooting by U.S. troops of intelligence agent Nicola Calipari at a U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad, and the sagging Italian economy. Italians, too, are concerned that their numbers are dwindling. How do you think I feel? I’ve noticed for years that Italian neighborhoods in America are shrinking. Just look at Little Italy in New York, the North End in Boston, North Beach in San Francisco — and my mother’s family. She’s the only one of ten (or was it twelve?) brothers and sisters who’s still kicking. And in Italy it’s even worse. Italian women aren’t having babies. Does this mean that Italian women are getting smarter? Who knows, but no matter the reason, the Italian government is concerned and has been talking about incentive programs.

But I digress. Berlusconi, as a conservative, supports cutting taxes and that can boost the economy. The southern regions are another story. To Southerners, Northern Italians are Germans. They consider the areas south of Rome to be the true Italy. And Northern Italians…well, let me just repeat a common Italian saying. “Italy is Europe, Sicily is Africa.” My grandfather practically disowned my aunt Emma for marrying a Neopolitan. My mother, whose mother died before she could teach her to cook, learned to cook from the Tuscan lady next door. Growing up, we only knew white cream sauces because my mother was always heavy with cream and butter. There was never a bottle of olive oil in the house. Fifty pounds of butter in the fridge, yes, but no olio. Northern Italians thumb their noses at the Southerners and accuse them of burning their garlic when they fry their spaghetti. Southerners say the Northerners are complaining about the garlic because only they can smell it - with their big noses. It’s not pretty.

As for me, I want to visit southern Italy. I like southern Italian cooking, and I do have olive oil in the house. After watching Big Night, I started cooking my eggs in oil instead of butter (see the movie and you might do it, too). And let’s face it: the southern Italians, or more specifically, the Sicilians (I hear my grandfather turning in his grave, but too bad) are much better at making desserts. One day I’ll spend some time discussing pizzelles. Making them one at a time with a pizzelle iron held over the stove — oy! Admit it. Italian cookies taste like…well, Milk-Bone. So I need to go to the South. When I hear that someone traveled there and was offended by the number of dogs in Naples or that they were horrified when they boarded a train and had to sit next to a goat, I get a warm feeling all over. That’s the Italy I want to experience! Sure the museums in the North are a must-see, but I’m not going to Italy to shop for overpriced handbags. I want to see it all and taste it all - North and South. So many people have told me that everything they brought with them to the southern regions was stolen before they left. I’ll just travel light and won’t bring anything but a few snacks for the goats.

But until I can break away and spend some time there, I’ll just continue to support the Italian economy while I’m here. Treason number twelve: Boycott French and Chinese products and buy American and Italian! Look at it this way: the Italians are just not that big on war (WW II was an anomaly). You think they’d ever try to wipe us out? Think about that next time you’re buying Chinese shoes at Wal-Mart. Hey, it’s great that China’s economy is growing…but is that really good news for us? And now I must crack open that bottle of Pinot Grigio….

A toddler was in the backyard this week, playing with the family’s three dogs. All of a sudden the dogs - pit bulls who had been part of the family since they were puppies - turned on the two year-old girl and attacked her. Her neck was bitten, her lung was punctured, and she was partially disemboweled. Her mother tried to pull the dogs off her daughter and was also injured. The little girl was rushed to the hospital for treatment; the three dogs were seized by authorities and destroyed.

Now local talk radio is abuzz with callers who feel that the parents should be charged with a crime. Their pets are dead, their daughter’s disfigured. Isn’t this punishment enough?

I hate these stories because every time a dog attacks, someone starts talking about banning aggressive dogs. What exactly is an aggressive dog? The usual suspects come to mind: pit bulls and anything that looks like a pit bull. A dog with a brindle coat could be mistaken for an aggressive dog, seized, and destroyed. In my time I’ve owned many dogs, including a Doberman, a Boxer, and an Am Staff. All three breeds could have been designated as aggressive - whether or not they actually were aggressive. Again, our politicians feel the need to create legislation to protect citizens from themselves, when education would be a better solution.

I don’t know if I’ll live long enough to see the day when people stop choosing mates, shoes, cars, and dogs based on looks. I won’t go into my breed experiences today, but I can tell you that I’ve learned that there are breeds I love, and breeds I can live with. Treason number eleven: A dog is not an accessory. A dog is family. In life, you don’t get to choose your family members, but when you adopt a dog, you do finally get to pick who you want to be related to. Choose wisely. Choose carefully. Do the research, and adopt a pet that fits into your situation. Pick the dog that you can live with - not the one you want to live with. You can always go to dog shows and admire the ones you love to look at. But to come home to the one that’s right is just so much better.

I notice that FOX News Channel is still consistently referring to those who strap bombs to themselves, then blow up everyone around them, as “homicide bombers.” Some on the left attribute this to biased reporting, in that FOX is an arm of the vast right wing conspiracy. Pshaw. FOX is merely attempting to be as accurate as possible. If these people were truly suicide bombers, wouldn’t they be the only ones dead after the bomb explodes? If suicide is their primary goal, why not do it quietly in a bathtub with a razor blade? Well, because it’s obvious to some of us that suicide is not the goal. So, treason number ten: Let’s call it what it is, shall we? Homicide. And shame on those who don’t.

Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi resigned last Wednesday, vowing that he wouldn’t be gone very long. On Saturday (let’s count: mercoledì, giovedì, venerdì, sabato!), Silvio was sworn in as premier after naming a team of ministers that looks very much like the one he led when he stepped down on mercoledì. With a little bit of rearranging, he came back on sabato with a “new” government and went back to work. This is interesting because it’s virtually the same group of people, but between mercoledì and sabato, they became a whole new government. If you’re counting, that’s officially the 60th government since the end of WW II. In Italy, it takes longer to cook linguine than it does to form a new government. Conservatives in the U.S. should pay attention. Treason number nine: Be bold, and don’t take any crap. If you’re down, don’t stay down. Do what needs to be done and get back to work. Worried about what the press might say? Remember the words of JP 2: Be not afraid. Congratulazioni, Silvio. Face it, the man has some big garbanzos.

I go to bed with the FOX News Channel on. Some people I know think it’s because it’s the vast right wing conspiracy’s way of getting all those subliminal messages into my head while I sleep. Not at all. We have far better methods, but I won’t go into them here. When I think of subliminal messages, I think of advertising. Remember when people were looking for images of naked women in ice cubes featured in bourbon ads? And then there was the jingle:

“When it says Libby’s, Libby’s, Libby’s on the label, label, label…”
“In the Valley of the Jolly - ho, ho, ho! - Green Giant!”
“You deserve a break today…”
“Plop, plop, fizz, fizz…”
“My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R…”
“Meow, meow, meow, meow….”

Well, now they’re all gone - replaced by old Who songs of all things. Did Pete Townshend realize when he wrote “Pinball Wizard” that someday it would be used to sell Swedish cars? Well, I could go on forever about this, but I won’t. I miss the jingles, but there is one ad where I’ll overlook the lack of an original tune. And it’s not just because I love Gershwin. One reason I sleep with FOX is because I can catch breaking news as soon as it happens (”a plane has just flown into The World Trade Center…”) or a historical event (last night it was the inaugural mass of the new pope - I hear Latin and I’m awake). The other reason is for the United Airlines ads. Sometimes there can be two or three before I even get up to get a cup of coffee. The second I hear “Rhapsody In Blue” I’m conscious, wondering which commercial it is. The guy with one brown shoe at the job interview? The successful son bringing his mother the perfect rose? The woman with the amazing idea? The retiree who realizes that he finally has the time to see the world? I love them all. They’re beautiful to watch and to listen to. In a word, they’re just classy. I did catch one the other day that was still using the Gershwin music, but the look was different. I urge them to drop that one before anyone else sees it. Don’t tamper with what works, and don’t cheapen your product. As long as United Airlines runs these ads, if I need to fly, I’m flying the friendly skies.

I appreciate the urban pigeon. There are few of us who do. True, it’s a small group, and I’m not really sure why we exist. Again, it must be to provide some balance to those who refer to pigeons as “sky rats.” Or maybe it’s because of my childhood. Back in the days of Joyce Kilmer School, there lived a crossing guard named Louise. She and her husband lived in a basement apartment and I imagine that they probably had a modest income. Yet Louise - uniformed, energetic, and wise - stood at the street corner every day with the largest leather satchel I’d ever seen. I’m not talking Gucci. It was almost like a mailbag; or more accurately, like the sack Santa had in the back of his sleigh. It was enormous. And I truly believed it was magical. How Louise managed to fit everything in the world of necessity into that bag fascinated me. Needed a band-aid? It was in the bag. Candy? In the bag. Nuts for the squirrels? They were there. Biscuits for dogs? In there - every flavor. Bird food. Indubitably. There was something in that sack for everyone. It was clear to me that Louise had a heart the size of Wrigley Field. If one of us kids spotted a wounded bird, sick cat, or stray dog on the way to school, all we had to do is mention it to Louise and the problem was addressed. We could go to class, assured that the dog would be back in a warm home, the cat would be cured, and the bird would be healed by the time the final bell rang. The woman was a problem solver. Dependable, stable, and kind.

During those years my mother worked on Morse Avenue and walked the same route I took to school. She had to cover the morning shift then, so she left that day before I did. It was still very early, so she might have been one of the first to see the horror. Some piece of human debris had scattered poison throughout the neighborhood in order to assassinate the local dogs. The pigeons got to it first. When I arrived at the first viaduct on my way to school, I noticed that the pigeons who were usually there were gone. As I left the shadows of the viaduct and came into the light, I saw them. Hundreds of birds, lying on the ground, still, lifeless. They were everywhere. In the street, on the sidewalks, in the grass, in doorways. And all I could think is that it was just so quiet. By that time my mother had already alerted Louise, knowing that she would address the situation. But I don’t think even Louise was prepared for what she was about to see.

I don’t know if that’s why, many years later, I sat in Manhattan surrounded by pigeons who shared a Carnegie Deli bagel with me. Or why when my current employer said that it was time to eliminate the pigeon problem on the top of our building I warned that hundreds of dead pigeons littering the sidewalk around the structure would be perfect fodder for the nearby university’s journalism department. They have cameras, I said, and would love the story. Think: Pigeon Holocaust. The birds were then left to their own devices and are still crapping happily on passers-by.

Is it some romantic fantasy of mine? Do I associate these birds with vibrant metropolitan areas like New York, Boston, Venice, and Rome? Do they represent some sort of old world charm? Or is it something more rural? Does their presence scratch that itch for the country life and a yard full of chickens pecking the ground around my feet? Or do I admire them for their resourcefulness and dogged persistence? All I know, is that once I built my wild bird oasis in my backyard - multiple feeders with every variety of seed, bird baths and drip systems, plants to attract then protect them from predators like Mr. Hawk - I started to attract the pigeons from the apartments down the street. First it was two or three, then nine or twelve. One morning I went out to fill the feeders, and I stopped counting pigeons when I got to seventy. I wanted to make sure they were getting a healthy diet, but I also had fantasies about someday being able to retire. Bird food ain’t cheap. It wasn’t so bad that the pigeons were there, but then they started congregating outside my bedroom window in the morning to wake me up so I’d get out and fill the feeders. What were the neighbors thinking when they watched dozens of pigeons flying up the hill to sit on my roof? Worse, what did the owner of the house next door think when they set up housekeeping on his? He was trying to sell the property…would you buy a house that had sixty pigeons on the roof?

But how was I to discourage the pigeons and not penalize the smaller birds who had become so dependent on me as a food source? And now that I’d introduced a huge problem into my life: pigeon droppings, the risk of disease affecting my dogs (yes, once in a while they’d snatch one), and - worse - the occasional injured bird that had to be taken care of. Have you ever driven a pigeon to the vet during rush hour traffic? I have! So, desperate, I asked the experts but nothing worked. It’s been almost two years, and now I’ve reduced the amount of feeders in the yard. I still get pigeons. The problem is, there’s one I’m particularly fond of.

She’s a real charmer, what can I say? She has markings that I’ve never seen on a pigeon. She’s black and white - an all white face over what looks like a tuxedo. She’s always formally dressed for visits and she loves to bring company with her. Each day it’s a new group of birds that she’s introducing to my feeders. But this is not to say that the others are any less spectacular. Pigeons, up close, are truly beautiful creatures. The shades of blue, pink, green, and rose brown are breathtaking in the sunlight. I could go on, but I won’t. Let’s just say that not everyone in the house is as enamored as I am. And it’s become an issue that needs to be resolved…quickly.

It’s Louise’s fault, I tell you, that my life has come to this. At work, I keep an enormous jar of candy on my desk and bags of dog biscuits on my file cabinet. Every Halloween I live in fear that I’ll run out of candy for the trick-or-treaters, so I fill a shopping cart with candy that ends up taking up space in the cupboards for a year. Why? Because no matter what your circumstances or financial situation, you need to make sure of one thing. Treason number eight: Always have treats. Be practical, yes, and make sure you’re taking care of necessities first; but no matter how bad things get, be sure to have the treats. Not only for others, but something really wonderful for yourself. It can be books, cologne, imported truffles, trinkets, scented shower gel, cheesecake, designer ice cream, a good pen, stationery, or a great bottle of Scotch. Whatever it is, make sure you have it on hand at all times. It’s that special treat, when things seem hopeless, that will remind you that being alive to enjoy it makes all the other crap worthwhile.

I love trees. Not just because I attended Joyce Kilmer Elementary School, either. Allow me to tell you the story of our Bradford pear. Part of the landscaping package when this house was built was the choice of four shrubs and a tree. I looked at the choices and thought I made the smart one. Bradford pears were hardy, had an attractive shape, blossomed profusely in the spring, and displayed lovely color in the fall. Every Bradford pear except this one. From the start, I knew it was a sickly specimen. After the first year, we should have bid it a fond adieu and planted something that, today, would look like a tree. But, deluded Cubs fan that I am, I thought if we could just give it another chance it would be the season: the year the leaves wouldn’t turn yellow, curl up, and turn black. So for eight years we watered and fed it, and tried every potion recommended by the nursery. And for eight years, its leaves turned yellow, curled up, and turned black. I had to face facts. Not only was the tree bringing down the neighborhood, it was bringing me down. Finally, we made the difficult decision to remove it. And then a robin decided to build its nest in it. It was a sign. The robin could have built its nest in any tree in the subdivision, but it chose our pathetic little pear. A reprieve. We would have to wait, then off the tree after the little robins learned to fly and left home. But then I went online and researched robins. Did you know that a robin, once its offspring have grown and flown, will return to the nest and lay more eggs? Not surprising: this nest was the eighth wonder of the world. A veritable masterpiece of engineering. So we waited…and waited for the robin to return and start another family. It didn’t. We reluctantly removed the tree.

I know that nature, left to its own devices, can get ugly. When I put something in the ground I feel obligated to keep it there. On some level I know that pruning, like trimming your hair, is a good thing. Yet I tend not to cut things back or keep a manicured garden until the situation gets completely out of hand. I imagine that this is the way it is with environmentalists. They must believe that nature should be left to its own devices, and that humans shouldn’t intervene.

I suppose I thought of myself as an environmentalist when, at 17, I went off to a liberal arts university in a part of the country where fishing and lumber were the only industries supporting the local economy. I wanted to save the whales, so to help the poor dolphins, I stopped eating tuna. (To this day, I continue to cut those plastic soda six pack holders into little pieces so that no creature gets entangled and dies an agonizing death. I realize I probably don’t need to do this, but some habits die harder than others. I do eat tuna.) Anyway, I discovered that I was attending a liberal college in an otherwise conservative part of the state. People owned homes, had businesses, raised families. They had invested in that community. I was merely visiting. Yet every election, my college buddies and I would show up to vote and influence which way legislation would go. Eventually, the lumber companies disappeared and the economy collapsed. People lost their homes, couples divorced, rates of depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicide rose. Yet the student body remained unscathed. Once they graduated, they returned to wherever they’d come from — places where there were jobs — and left a horrible mess behind. I’d had conversations with the people in the community and I heard their stories and saw the devastation. But I attributed the situation to a changing economy and didn’t make the connection to the university or the changing demographics. I didn’t make the connection until several years after graduation when I returned to the area on a road trip. I made my way up the highway, as I’d done a hundred times before, anticipating the majestic splendor of redwood trees. But what I saw instead was a dying forest. Sick trees, diseased trees, dying trees. The moist green that I’d remembered was now a washed out color — a grayish, brownish, muddy tone. The trees looked tired. Ill. And I felt ill. The forest had been left to its own devices, and now it was dying. When the lumber companies had been allowed to operate in those forests, they removed the sick and diseased plants and cultivated new ones to replace the ones that were harvested. And it was then that I learned a couple things. One must prune to maintain a healthy garden (or forest), and… Treason number seven: Environmentalism is a good thing — to a point. And then it becomes ridiculous and even dangerous.

I do not support environmental groups; instead, I monitor my own consumption of resources and I don’t feel that I use more than my share. I recycle, but I’m not a fanatic. I do tend to recycle paper more than any other items. But I feel I have a solution that, to me, provides a better long term plan for the health of the planet than if I were to just collect aluminum cans and buy recycled toilet paper. I am pruning the family tree. I don’t have children, I won’t have children. When I assume room temperature and my organs are harvested and whatever’s leftover is incinerated, my consumption of resources is complete. Let someone else’s children wring their hands over the health of the planet, for all I care.

The older I get, the more I realize I dislike spring. I wait all winter for green to appear, and for that feeling of renewal and hope to return. It’s life starting all over again. Little buds appear on trees and shrubs, birds and bugs soon follow. That happy feeling, knowing that the days are longer and staying lighter later. Then something terrible happens. And then the bad news keeps coming. What starts out as annoyance and inconvenience soon turns to disaster and catastrophe. It happens every spring. More and more you find yourself comparing tragedies. I should be grateful, you tell yourself, because so-and-so has it even worse. Nine year-old Jessica Lunsford was kidnapped, raped, bound, wrapped in two plastic bags, and buried alive. When the authorities discovered her body, she was clutching a stuffed toy. A purple dolphin. Exactly how does a parent of a murdered child go on? I live in a state where sometimes I think animal and child abuse are the official state hobbies. I listen to the radio on the way to work and have to quickly turn it off to avoid the ghastly details of some new abuse case. Life is unpleasant and often horrific. You age, you get ill, your body and mind betray you, but you still have to get up in the morning and muddle through. I admire John Paul II for so powerfully illustrating how to keep getting up in the morning. He was hit by a car, but still got up in the morning. Was nearly assassinated, but still got up in the morning. Lost his brother and his parents, grew up under both Nazis and Communists, lived with Parkinson’s, then suffered through multiple surgeries and constant pain. Still got up in the morning. How could anyone watch that struggle and not be inspired to do the same? Treason number six: No matter how badly life sucks, you still have to get up in the morning. After all, it’s spring, and those birds are depending on you to fill their feeders.