The Voice of Treason

benchmark:
1. a measurement or standard that serves as a point of reference
2. a standard by which others may be compared, measured, or judged

Why do we take events in history and make them our personal benchmarks? Do you ever wonder if cavemen asked each other: “Say, where were you when Og created fire?” I’m trying to think of the standard questions during my lifetime and, off the top of my head, they are:

Where were you when Kennedy was shot?

Technically, Chicago. What I remember was watching the funeral on a black and white TV and my mother crying. (This led my sister to forever wonder if my mother had lied when she said she voted for Nixon.)

Where were you when The Beatles were on The Ed Sullivan Show?

I was still four years old and sitting in front of, again, a black and white TV.

Where were you when Apollo 11 landed on the moon?

I was nine and watching, finally, on a color TV because we had begged my mother to buy a new set just so we could watch the ’69 Cubs in color. I recall drinking a lot of Tang and eating a lot of Space Food Sticks.

Where were you when you heard Elvis had died?

I was 17, sitting on a university campus talking to someone during freshman orientation, and a person walked up and announced the news. I’d always liked Elvis, but was really too young to have experienced the initial craze. I was more a part of the British Invasion, so it always amazed me that my elementary school friend, who was five or six, was such an Elvis fanatic. I didn’t appreciate Elvis fully until 1972. Before Burning Love had even hit the charts, I had a vivid dream about the man that made me look at him in an entirely different way. The anniversary of his death serves as a reminder that I started college 30 years ago… which makes me a relic.

Where were you when you heard John Lennon had been shot?

I was sitting on a bed, sketching bones and muscles for a Drawing course, and had the news on.

Where were you when you heard Princess Diana had been in a car accident?

I’d just come home and T mentioned she’d been in a car wreck, making it sound like it had been a minor fender bender. Details were muddled, stories conflicted, and soon I was suspicious. I stayed up through the night until I got confirmation of her death.

This seemed to me to be the turning point. I remember watching the funeral because I really liked the sound of those bells. And I watched the Pope’s funeral because I liked hearing the Litany of the Saints. Again, I’m not a Catholic but I come from a long line of them, so any time I have an opportunity to hear Latin I’m all over it.

I remember T in the other room, pleading: “Make it stop! Please, just make it stop!”

Finally he sat down and asked me why I was watching the coverage and why I pay such close attention to televised funerals.

“I mean, who cares? You don’t know this person. You’ve never met. This person is not a relative. How does this affect your life in any way?”

I explained that there’s historical significance and I look at it as a study of our culture. I will tune into the news, I will watch, but I don’t see myself ever tying a stuffed toy to a chain link fence with ribbon and attaching a personal note. That’s a behavior I still haven’t been able to sort out. If this is some new cultural thing I’d like to know where it came from.

What’s odd is that there are questions I don’t hear. No one ever asks: Where were you when the Berlin Wall came down? Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked: Where were you on September 11, 2001?

Today I tuned in for the hats.

“These animals are mad, vicious and a threat to society and should either be put down or kept permanently in cages to protect the public. I refer of course to the human animals who keep, breed and fight these dogs.”

That from “Rory,” commenting on a post at Slugger O’Toole – one of several blogs I scanned for reaction to the news that a footballer has been exposed as the leader of an international dogfighting ring. No, not Michael Vick. This footballer – or should I say soccer player? – and star of Ireland’s Gaelic football – er, soccer – league is Gerard Cavlan.

The blogs of Ireland are interesting to read: It appears the Irish, like the Americans, are debating this dogfighting case and some are defining it as a cultural issue, downplaying the criminality and sadism, and calling it a sport.

No, baseball is a sport. Dogfighting is an abomination. In any country, in any culture. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, defending cruelty to dogs isn’t all that different from defending sex with children. Here in Nuevo Mexico, where animal and child abuse might as well be classified as professional sports, we have the story of Baby Brianna in the news… again.

She died five years ago, but we’re still being treated to the details of her case because convictions that had been overturned were just reinstated. Brianna’s father and her uncle, you see, spent an entire evening entertaining themselves by throwing the little girl around, stopping occasionally to sink their teeth into her and rape her. She was five months old.

I’m waiting for someone to tell me I’m overreacting to all these abuse stories. See, you just don’t understand. It’s not a criminal thing – it’s a cultural thing.

“Here is the key fact in the ugly saga of football player Michael Vick: Thanks to him, dogs fatally were hanged, drowned, shot, and electrocuted. The summer airwaves have been choked with breathless talk about when Vick might resume his NFL career, when he gets a second chance, and how soon America can accept his apology for what he calls ‘a mistake.’ Amid all this ceaseless chatter lie the cadavers of canines butchered as part of Vick’s criminal enterprise.

Highly maddening has been the baffling effort by prominent black Americans to trivialize the acts to which Vick pleaded guilty Monday, to excuse them, or place them into some all-forgiving historical and social context.

‘It’s a cultural thing, I think,’ Academy Award-winner Jamie Foxx told Access Hollywood’s Shaun Robinson. ‘Most brothers didn’t know that, you know. I used to see dogs fighting in the neighborhood all the time. I didn’t know that was Fed time. So, Mike probably just didn’t read his handbook on what not to do as a black star.’

So, it’s not about dog killing, it’s about (what else?) lingering white racism.”

– Deroy Murdock, NRO

One would think, after listening to the debate over Vick and Katrina, that there has been no progress in race relations whatsoever. In fact, the issue has been complicated even more because it’s not just a matter of race, of simply black and white, it’s a matter of culture. In other words, you may think you understand skin color, but there ain’t no way in hell you’ll ever understand culture. So don’t even try.

To add to the confusion: There’s been a steady stream of culture experts in the media berating us for our lack of understanding. So you only just noticed this problem? Why, this has been going on for centuries!

“Lassie was on the air for 20 years, but Nat King Cole was canceled after six months.”

– Michael Eric Dyson

What? If this remark makes no sense to you, then it’s obvious you just don’t understand the problem. You’re the problem. What’s disturbing here is that the dog, a.k.a. man’s best friend, is suddenly becoming a symbol of something else, much like a Confederate flag or hijab.

So, if I’m to fully understand the outcome of this whole dogfighting case and of levees breaking and flooding a city, I’m left to deal with some “basic truths.” White people treat dogs better than they treat blacks. Blacks treat dogs like dogs. Dogfighting is a sport. Blacks are better at sports than white people. Mississippi has received more help than Louisiana because George Bush hates black people. If Michael Vick was white, this wouldn’t be an issue. If Brett Favre killed pit bulls it would be okay.

Uh, no, it wouldn’t. Favre, like Vick, would be a soulless criminal and there would be just as much outrage. Maybe even more because Favre would have absolutely no excuse. Why? Because despite all the evidence of both white and brown participation in this inhumane activity, this crime, we are being told – by blacks mostly – is exclusively a black thing.

From this argument one can surmise the following:

1. White people like dogs.
2. White people don’t like black people.
3. Black people don’t like dogs.
4. Black people don’t like white people.
5. It’s just a cultural thang.

As Deroy Murdock, who just so happens to be black, points out:

“Slaughtering dogs is as much a part of black culture as kabuki theater. Anyone who says otherwise is howling at the moon.”

Two years ago – and even today – we are being told that blacks aren’t capable of rebuilding a community. Of coping with disaster. Of picking themselves up, dusting themselves off, and starting all over again. They are not self-sufficient. They are dependent. Like dogs.

Why exactly do blacks want so much for us to believe this?

“When it comes to sex scandals, we’ve already gone from a slippery slope to a toboggan ride to hell, and it’s only a matter of time before the base urges of that many assembled politicians makes C-SPAN 2 indistinguishable from the Spice Network.”

– Mark Hemingway, NRO

When I was in high school I was one of the most well-behaved teenagers on the planet. Don’t misunderstand: I wanted to misbehave, but I couldn’t. My stepfather had married my mother the previous year and had gone from bachelor to family man faster than you can say “I do,” and I owed him. He and his mother (who had passed away barely two years before he met my mother) had spent decades in this particular town, he had graduated from the same school I was attending, and he had a job with the city. He wasn’t a public person, but he had established a certain reputation – retired Air Force officer, the quiet bachelor, a good son – and I wasn’t about to tarnish that. As much as I wanted to participate in some of the things my peers were experiencing – uh, adolescence – I had to consider how it would affect someone I respected. Someone who had been kind enough to take on the responsibility of raising a teenager and provide some stability. So… I kept a fairly low profile and remained discreet.

decorum:
1. appropriateness of behavior or conduct; propriety
2. conformity to recognized standards, as of conduct or appearance
3. socially correct behavior

“I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously.”

– Senator Larry Craig, R-Idaho

T has pointed out that Senator Craig could have avoided this scandal if he had simply handled himself quickly and expeditiously. What can I say? I bristle when I hear someone insist that you can’t believe in traditional values and be gay. Whether it comes from the Left or the Right, I just don’t think it’s a valid statement. I’ve known some conservative homosexuals who blush at any hint of flamboyance, yet still feel they have to relegate themselves to the Democrat Party because of that perception of Republicans not being “inclusive.” That somehow they’d be betraying “their people” if they sided with a party deemed homophobic. Poppycock.

So Senator Craig has a Joe Orton moment in an airport restroom and then blames it on his “wide stance.” He has explained that he is not and never has been gay, despite years of rumors to the contrary.

This has got to be terribly frustrating for the Log Cabins who have been trying to convince the world that a person really can be gay and Republican. But that’s almost like saying you can be gay and monogamous. Obviously the Log Cabins have their work cut out for them.

The problem with the Senator is not that he’s gay, the problem is that he’s a liar. This deception has made him look ridiculous and he has humiliated his family. It reflects poorly on his Party, his colleagues, and his constituents. It appears he has forgotten that he owes these people. It doesn’t matter what he wants – his responsibility is to put others ahead of himself. And he’s failed to do that.

Every profession has its own code of ethics. If the Senator has violated this code, then it is time for him to consider a career change.

“Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It’s the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here’s a happy one for you.

Happy trails to you,
Until we meet again.
Happy trails to you,
Keep smilin’ until then…”

On the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales? Two words: Ted Olson. I realize he’s probably busy with the Giuliani campaign right now, so I would understand if he passed up this opportunity if it were offered.

Truth be told, I would hope that a President Giuliani would nominate Olson for AG… or, if there’s an opening, a spot on the Supreme Court. (Whoa — I just felt a weird twinge back there. I think if I had a tail it would be wagging right now.)

Whenever there’s a job opening in D.C. the first name that pops into my head is Ted Olson. Sure, sometimes it sounds like John Bolton or a combination of the two: Ted Bolton! John Olson!

But for now, Solicitor General Paul Clement – who served as deputy to his predecessor, Ted Olson – should be just fine. I tell you, this flutter of recent activity in the administration is just exhilarating. One gets the feeling that this Lame Duck isn’t really all that lame, after all.

Oh — and there’s that twinge again.

“I trust in God
I love my country
And will respect its laws
I will play fair
And strive to win
But win or lose
I will always do my best”

– The Little League Pledge

What I appreciated most about the last few days, watching the Little League World Series, is that I felt that a bit of my faith in humanity had been restored. Every time I hear some politician talk about “the children” and how “the children” are our future, I want to gag. But next time I hear that dreck, I’ll take a moment to remember what I saw in Williamsport.

These kids, the sportscasters said, played their little hearts out. Little? Only the name of the league, my friends. These kids exhibited more heart and soul than I’ve seen in a long, long time.

Sportsmanship, commitment, decency, grace under pressure, a sense of fair play – all those archaic expressions that invite snickering these days. These kids were young, on this earth for barely more than a decade, yet they conducted themselves like true gentlemen. They were poised, composed, mature.

So when I heard Michael Vick “talking from the heart,” mine sank. “I want to apologize to all the young kids out there for my immature acts.” Immature? Like this is some youthful indiscretion? “Everybody makes mistakes.” Yes, that’s probably true, but this despicable behavior is only a mistake because he was caught.

I’m not a football fan – never have been, never will be – so I don’t know if the NFL has a pledge like they do in Little League baseball. If not, perhaps Commissioner Roger Goodell should consider implementing one before the next round of indictments.

Q: What does a female bear on the Pill and the World Series have in common?

A: No Cubs.

As I’ve said, T and I have pretty much written off watching baseball this year, so I was a little surprised to find him tuned into the Little League World Series. T and his brother had played in the League when they were kids, and their mother had been an umpire. Our beef with baseball isn’t with the game – it’s with the handful of miscreants who have contracts with the American and National Leagues.

I didn’t want to get involved with the games – I resisted — but once I saw the quality of these kids I was hooked. I came into the Series late: the team from Curacao was playing the team from Venezuela and the Curacao team was just one strike away from defeat. No crying in baseball? Tell that to the Venezuelan kids.

It was late on Thursday afternoon and I was watching another game when the sky opened up — not in Williamsport, but here in Albuquerque. Monsoon season had arrived and we had it all in a matter of hours. After scrambling outside to redirect water and keep our sandy backyard slope from sliding into the house, I ran inside so I could save the container plants in front of the house from the hail that had begun to slam into us. My mistake was pausing to look at the game, Taipei versus Japan. I was riveted once more, my knees frozen solid. Again, it was the bottom of the sixth, two outs, two strikes, and… I heard T off in the distance yelling something, but I couldn’t take my eyes off these Little Leaguers.

“Che the skawah!”

Huh?

“Che the skawah!!!”

Skawah? OH! Check the skylight! But it was too late. I’d just brought my new issue of National Review in from the mailbox that morning and set it on top of the previous three issues. Under the skylight. OH! My marigolds!

By the time I pulled myself away from the game and addressed the magazines and container plants, there’d been casualties. That’s it, I thought to myself. There are only a handful of games left, but I’m recording them. I’m not going to allow an act of God to disrupt baseball again.

The skill of these kids, the drama on and off the field! There were plenty of reasons for tears in this Series, but the tears made sense. I mean, as a Cubs fan I know all about crying in baseball, but this was different. For the first time, I think that I felt I knew what it must be like to shed tears of pride.

Congratulations to all the players, the coaches, and the parents. And thanks for the gentle reminder of what baseball should be. And, yes, Cubs or no Cubs, I’ll be tuned in this October.

I remember when my sister’s girlfriend was driving her old VW, her cat curled up in the backseat. She rolled down her window and tossed a lit cigarette out, but didn’t realize it had blown back into her car and landed on the rear seat where her cat was sleeping.

Had she taken a moment during her trip to turn and check on her passenger, she could have discovered the fire and extinguished it before the backseat of the car burst into flames.

I, too, had a friend with a similar tale. His mother, busy driving, had pressed a button to close the passenger seat window behind her, not realizing that the passenger, the family’s Boxer, had put his head out to get a little air.

I am reminded of these stories every time I drive with a pet in my car.

It may sound odd, but I’ve discovered just recently what motivates me. My raison d’être. What gets me up and moving in the morning. It’s responsibility. Not for myself, mind you, but for whatever creature is dependent upon me. There are mornings when I’m exhausted and I toy with the idea of sleeping another hour, but then a warm tongue brushes my eyelids. Once the dog is awake, I snap to attention. There are things to be done.

She’s been holding her urine for hours and must go outside. And it’s time for her to patrol her yard and sniff for signs of trespassers. Sniff. Pause. Sniff. A cat was here. Sniff, sniff. A rabbit was there. Ears forward: What is that behind the rosemary? This gives me time to assess the plants, check seed levels in the bird feeders, and change out the water in the birdbath. Then it’s back to the house, a washing of the dog’s bowls, brewing of coffee, and administration of canine medication and breakfast.

When T and I were both corporate and living out our weird yuppie, dual income/no kids, just dogs fantasy, we would take them to doggie daycare before going to work. Most of those mornings were spent prepping the dogs and getting them into the car, then out of the car, and into the daycare facility. Sometimes in heels. (Uh, me — not the dogs.)

Neither of us ever drove to work and discovered that we’d forgotten to drop the dogs off. Neither of us ever drove home after work, then asked the other: Did you remember to pick the dogs up from daycare?

Why? Because both our lives were and still are designed around a canine schedule. When she wakes up, our day begins. And we’re off. If the dog is going out in the car, she needs her water bottle and dog bed for back-of-the-wagon padding. We need her leash and a supply of plastic bags. Once she’s situated, we are at all times aware that the dog is in the car. Whoever is at the wheel drives more cautiously, applies even pressure to the brakes and eases to a stop at intersections. Periodic checks: what is the dog doing? She’s up on the backseat, she’s smiling. Oh – here comes another dog, get ready for a drive-by barking!

She is never left in the car alone. If it’s warm, the trips are short and there is always air flow. Our social lives are limited: we have a special someone at home who deserves our attention, so we must decline your invitation, cut the evening short, postpone that vacation. Someday I imagine we will be able to go to Italy. Until then, my big trips are to PetSmart.

So when I hear that yet another infant has been left in a car because busy Mom or busy Dad simply overlooked the fact, I have to wonder: How is it that you don’t know there’s a small child in the car with you?

Similarly, how does someone leave more than a dozen dogs for over two months without proper supervision? Did it not occur to DMX, née Earl Simmons – rapper, actor, criminal, and serial animal abuser — to check up on his property or ask about the well-being of the canine residents?

Dead, cooked children. Dead, starved pit bulls. I cannot call for a ban on children or irresponsible parents, and I’m not in favor of outlawing particular breeds of dogs. Since we cannot hang, beat to death, starve to death, or electrocute the dog abusers of the world, can we at least begin to address the issue by asking companies to lend a hand?

I hesitate to endorse censorship, but until artists are capable of censoring themselves, corporations might just have to step up. Why don’t MTV, VH1, and BET ban any music videos that feature pit bulls in a gangster environment? Keep images of the dogs off CD covers, out of films, and off T-shirts. We have measures to control child pornography and the abuse of defenseless children – why can’t we stop the exploitation of these dogs?

“Even in these times, an August dimmed with miners trapped in Utah and China, Mexico’s hurricane and the final body pulled from below the Minnesota bridge, the story of two New York firemen dying in a dead building was just too much.

Since September 11, when so many died across the street from the Deutsche Bank building in lower Manhattan, a great deal of effort has been made to ensure that no more people die in the U.S. from anything remotely connected to that day. Nearly six years after, we in New York have become used on any given morning to finding additional police on subway platforms (as yesterday) or seeing fleets of police cars in front of large commercial buildings. The purpose is to show presence, and deter terror.

So when it emerged that all the sirens one was hearing last Saturday afternoon in Manhattan were because the empty building known as 130 Liberty Street had caught fire, and that two firemen had died on the 14th floor when their bottled air ran out, one was dumbstruck. Then angry.”

– Daniel Henninger, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page

When I was little, we moved catty-corner, across Sheridan Road, from one apartment building to another. The first building was a typical Chicago tenement, perhaps a hundred years old, and there was a plan to tear it down and replace it with a high-rise – the type that was so popular in urban areas during the 1960s.

We moved out, carrying our belongings across Sheridan Road and walking them up several flights of stairs into our new residence. From our windows that stretched from the livingroom, across a sun porch, to my sister’s bedroom, we could see our old building. It stood empty, except for the few items residents had abandoned, like those my mother had decided to leave behind. One of those things was my beloved stuffed bear. It was large, with coarse brown hair, and I liked it precisely because it looked like a real bear. According to my mother, it smelled like one, too. She hated it, so it stayed behind.

One day the building caught fire. Chicago’s finest arrived and extinguished the flames, but the building remained standing. I saw it every day from our apartment and had to walk past it twice each day on my way to and from school. I noticed my bear, singed from the flames and wet from the fire hose, stretched on the lawn near a broken window where our old home had been. Forty years have passed and I can still see my bear and the shell of that burnt out old building.

One morning I heard a crash and ran to the window. It was barely light outside but I could see the wrecking ball swinging into the side of the structure where our apartment had been. The yellow bricks toppled, the dust rose, and within a few hours there was nothing left but rubble. I watched as the building was demolished, but as horrible as that was, it was also a relief. I just didn’t have to look at the corpse anymore.

Just this week I went online looking for some information about my high school. It had been built in the 1920s and my stepfather had graduated with the class of ’37. I think he was tickled that forty years later, I graduated from the school he had attended. But four years later, my stepfather was dead and the city had torn down the school buildings and ripped out the landscaping, replacing what had been there with shops, offices, and apartments.

I was home, visiting from college, and my sister warned: “Trust me. You don’t want to see it.” But I drove past it one day and saw the façade still standing, only sky behind it.

I found a lot of information this week about former classmates, and discovered that some of them, like our alma mater, are gone. Two of my classmates who married are still together; their adult son has created a website about the old school.

I was tentative at first, but I found the site and looked at the photographs. There was something sickening about seeing the chain link fence around the campus and buildings, once so majestic, crumbling, in ruins. A decision had been made quickly and there had been no effort to save or even preserve part of what had been. Years have passed and many have come to realize that the city had been too hasty. A mistake had been made.

Today, New Yorkers and tourists alike are forced to look at a corpse towering over what had been. A dead bank building that serves to remind them of the horror of that September morning and the weeks and months which followed. But the dead bank remains for the reasons Henninger describes in his article: safety reasons. The debate and litigation over the removal of this black mark continue, and the stain remains on the landscape.

After two firefighters died during a blaze last week, there was another accident a few days later and two more firefighters were injured. Unlike my high school, this isn’t a piece of architectural beauty that needs to be saved. It’s a moldy, asbestos-filled monstrosity that serves only one purpose.

The imposing black tower at 130 Liberty Street. It is time to stop the litigation and careful dissection. Conclude this autopsy: liberate this corpse and those who are forced to live with it. That building will come down one day, but I swear to you that forty years from now those who have been subjected to it all this time will still have its image branded into them.

“Misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, may be prolonged to that point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation.”

– Dorothy Parker

I once worked with a woman who systematically lost each of her friends because of a defect in her personality. I started noticing coworkers were jumping the “friend ship” when it became more difficult to organize periodic evenings out.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to go to dinner with the group this week. I just have so much going on right now.”

“And the real reason is?”

“Okay, okay. It’s Carol. I just don’t want to be around her. She’s really starting to bring me down, you know?”

“How so?”

“She’s just so negative.”

“I like negative.”

“I used to, too, but there’s a limit. I spend five minutes with that woman and I’m depressed. I mean, I have to think of my mental health, right? I have my own troubles – I don’t need to deal with hers, too.”

The problem was that the rest of us could look at Carol’s life and see what was positive and she couldn’t. Eventually it became apparent that the only negative thing about her situation was her. If there were issues, she created them.

Time passed and the group disbanded. People left the company and some even left the state. One of the “problems” Carol had was her job, yet even after the rest of us had moved on, she stayed. She spent more than she made, she and her teenage kids lived at the mall and ate out too often, and her husband’s salary couldn’t support their expensive hobby: raising and showing Siberian Huskies.

She was bitter because her dogs never won anything and she blamed it on dog show politics. I suspected the real reason might have been her “defect” and the simple fact that her dogs just weren’t champion material. I’m no Chet Collier, but even I can tell when a dog falls short of its standard. But despite the expense, Carol continued to crate them up and travel all over the country in search of the elusive ribbon.

One day I heard that the bank had foreclosed on their house. We hadn’t been in touch in ages, but I thought about contacting her. I didn’t. By that point I’d learned a valuable lesson: One really can be too negative. I’d confused cynicism with negativism, thinking they were synonymous. They aren’t. Carol wasn’t at all cynical; she was just mortally negative.

She was like the evening news. And now I’m starting to suspect that this is why so many people seem to be so unaware of what’s going on in the world. I mention something that’s been in the news and people look at me as if I’m speaking Shona.

“It’s been in the news for a couple weeks now. The ‘big’ story.”

“Well, I don’t watch the news anymore.”

“It was in the paper… all over the radio – ”

“I don’t listen to the radio. I get those books-on-tape things now. And I stopped reading the paper. Cancelled it because they just piled up so fast. Never even got the rubber bands off them.”

“Where do you get your news then?”

“I don’t. I just decided I don’t want to know anymore. It’s too depressing. I can’t be bothered – I just have so much going on right now.”

I have the opposite problem. I want to know and I go looking for it. Yet I’m finding that there’s a certain resentment welling up in me. I see the news on TV, I read it in the paper and online, and I listen to it on the radio. But I’m noticing lately that I’m becoming angry for being subjected to information that if it weren’t called “news” I’d — for the sake of my mental health — be avoiding.