Friday, May 16, 2003 :::
 
We Lose A Great One, and The World is a Sadder Place.

This morning brings the sad news of the unexpected passing of June Carter Cash, wife, of course, to Johnny Cash, and the most talented heir to the Carter Family musical tradition.

When I say "unexpected," I mean before the announcements started coming last week about complications following heart surgery.They reassure you that heart surgery is now routine, but as Dana Carvey can tell you, this is not true.

I mean, before that, the family must have know she was ailing, and we did not. That seems only natural, because in person she was gracious and unassuming, despite having once been one of the most popular singers in the United States. More than that, her husband's famed addictions and consequent health problems have been, as is everything about him, much larger than life and drew attention away from her heart troubles. That was probably the way she wanted it.

She was certainly loyal to him, the Man in Black, and the ride cannot have been easy. She had her own career when they got married, but Johnny and June were a combination that Americans simply fell in love with. In the late 1960's, and in the early 1970's, there was no one bigger in country music. They once drew 200,000 people or more to a free concert at the end of an Evangelical youth gathering in 1972.

But if there was anyone with whom you had to take the rough with the smooth, it is certainly John R. Cash. His recurrent problems with addiction to various things, and an erratic musical output, led their career together to sink down until they were almost forgotten. It's not like she didn't know what she was getting: he had already been temporarily banned from the Grand Ol' Opry for kicking out the stage lights at the Ryman Auditorium. Indeed, she wrote the lines, "I fell into a Burning Ring of Fire. I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher," exactly about falling in love with him, five years before they married. But she proved more than equal to the task. He wrote the line, "You make it very, very easy to be true...Because your mine, I walk the line" before they met, but he told her he knew they would marry the first time he saw her on-stage. He credits her determination with saving him from his ampthetimine addiction.

Their talent took them to the very top, but they didn't stay there. That's typical of musical stars, but in this case it was a great loss for us. Country music probably would not have zigged and zagged so close to irrelevance over the last 25 years if Johnny and June had been the anchor on the traditional end of things.

She was quite accepting and clear-headed about the reality of life. You can say, "She had to be," but most of us are not, and she was. The first time I saw them together live, in the early 1990's, they were at the bottom of their popularity. In truth, they were playing what was little more than a glorified corner bar. June joked that someone had run into her on the street and called her "Loretta." She corrected the lady, "No, I'm June Cash. I used to be famous, I used to be somebody."

"Used to be." Right then, that was true, in the sense she meant, but, oh, was that a wonderful show.

Not all of it, to be honest. It took Johnny a while to join the rest of us. He didn't look out of it, just not that interested, and neither did the band. June had this "squaw dance" thing she would do, bending over and pulling up one leg when she was about to let loose, and by the time I saw her do it live, she had put on a few pounds. For about half a second, I thought, "oh-oh," but then she delivered that first snarl and I thought, "This is what I came for."

In this, she was like her mother, the great Mother Maybelle Carter. Maybelle played a decisive role in creating the Carter sound in the late 1920's and early 1930's, through her guitar work. She invented something called the "Carter Family Scratch." You'd recognize it if your heard it, and you've heard it in a lot of country songs. When she got too old to play the guitar, she switched to the auto-harp, the last person, perhaps, to be famous for playing it. And then one night she made one mistake during a song on her son-in-law's TV show, and she retired. Carters do not make mistakes on stage.

At this concert, Johnny woke up in time for the small set they did together. "Jackson," "If I Were A Carpenter," a handful of others. That was when she joked about having been famous, and about how age had brought on what "the old folks used to call 'fluid build-up.'" (That's an old euphemism for extra poundage.) And together they joked about their daughters' famous marital problems. ("We've got six daughters and 14 ex-sons-in-law," or something like that--I don't really know the statistics, but I remember the joke.) I have rarely seen an older couple look so completely at ease with each other.

The Carter Family was famous for their religious music as much as anything else, but June never hid the fact that their private lives were a little out there, just like Johnny's. Her aunt and uncle, A.P and Sarah, divorced in the late 1930's or early '40's, though they and Maybelle would sporadically go out on tour after that. They never really caught on again until the folk revival, when they found a career playing college campuses and folk festivals in the 1950's.

But they didn't really get along all that well. No, sir, they didn't get on that well at all. And the tension seems to have affected their children. Certainly, publicly, the two branches of the First Family of Country Music have stayed far apart. In fact, June and her cousin Janette did not perform together until just last year, on Kindred Spirits,the wonderful tribute to Johnny organized by one of those ex-sons-in-law, Marty Stuart. (Give it a listen at the website, or, better yet, buy it.)

She did perform with her own sisters, with Mother Maybelle beginning in 1942, and later also as a separate group, the Carter Sisters. Their own stuff in the 1960's bowed toward the modern, "country-politan" sound which has plagued Nashville since the late 1950's, but with their mother it was stictly the old stuff. At the show I saw, the Carter Sisters were reunited, and they did what they did best, the old stuff.

They also still obviously didn't get along that well. Helen, a spare, upright woman, seemed like a nervous type who was very concerned about the Carter family legacy. In fact, she had a second career giving lectures on college campuses. The results of Anita's fondness for love, fried foods, and other delectables was on, shall we say, ample display, and she had an air of not caring what anyone thought. Gentle, tough June was clearly the glue. Helen, for her part, was a master of the Carter Family Scratch and Anita was quite a singer, and the songs that they had learned literally at their mother's knee never sounded so achingly beautiful. Helen passed away in 1998, Anita in 1999, and now June is gone.

Shortly after that show, of course, many of the most influential members of rock's pantheon, including U2 and Rick Rubin, gave Johnny a leg up, and he went from barely remembered cult figure to dominance once again in a few short years. The voice is failing, but he has done much of his best work in the last decade, culminating in a chilling cover of the Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," about regrets. The video is a masterpiece, and it features June, who saw him through all his regrets.

She also lived to see him named the "Greatest Man in Country Music" by Country Music Television. That was a few months ago.

We have all marveled at his endurance and his new triumphs, given his health problems. We didn't know about hers.

Johnny's resurgence did bring her back to the limelight, and to the love of the public. She even won a Grammy for her own Rick Rubin-sponsored album, Press On. And it has a song called, "I Used To Be Somebody."

I saw them together three times, and, honestly, June was the better performer at the end of their careers. Johnny has that mythic something, true enough, but June was better overall. After that first show, I could hardly wait to see her. My enthusiasm led, as enthusiasm can, to one mortifying moment. At the Warner Theatre in Washington, she did a brief set, and then she announced that she was leaving after one more song. I clapped, but was too shy to shout "Stay, June," which is what I meant. She hesitated, because it clearly came across that someone was wanted her to go. I was crushed. She was a trooper. There's no question she heard me, but the last song she did was great. I shouted "June, June," as loudly as I could when she left, and when she came back for the end of the show, and so did everyone else. Maybe she got the impression that one person's rudeness had inspired everyone else to show their affection, maybe I inspired her to prove her lone critic wrong by wowing them with the last song, but I felt terrible.

I always meant to write her a note explaining it, but I am truly irresponsible in that way. Another opportunity came my way, and I laid a plan to make amends. I was front and center at DC's legendary 9:30 Club, in its new, less grungy home. I knew that Johnny always gives out harmonicas after singing the "Rock Island Line," and I intended to get one. I got two, because this drunk guy spent the first half of the concert trying to climb over me to get to Johnny, and Johnny took pity on me and gave me both of the ones he uses. (I gave one to my friend behind me, who had been slapped in the face by the drunk guy's long, dirty hair.)

The other moment I had been waiting for came during June's solo set, when she bent over to pick up some flowers someone had laid there. I said, just loud enough for her to hear, "Love you, June. You're the best." I don't know if she actually blushed, but she glanced down, smiled sweetly, and said, "Thank you." A healing word, but oh, how I wish I had sent that note.

The news this morning reminded me that an old acquaintance has just been diagnosed with cancer so advanced that little can be done. She had watched her health and gone in for regular check ups, but this grew fast. We have had our disagreements, in which I have almost always felt wronged, but I have to get her a note in the next week.

I am sure that dear June had worse things happen to her in her professional career, and I am sure that I have wronged other people more seriously and let them pass away without reconciling to them. But it is such a waste to leave things lying like that. Make peace with others while you can, because life is too short.

There is another moment I remember from that last concert at the 9:30 Club. She said she wanted to close with her favorite of their songs together. She and Johnny held hands as they sang about what would happen if one of them went first. "I'll meet you on the far banks of the Jordan. I'll be sitting drawing pictures in the sand." The end of the chorus escaped me until Kathy Cash ended her post to the on-line fan forum: "And when I see you coming, I will rise up with a shout, and come running through the shallow waters...reaching for your hand."

June Carter Cash--Valerie June Carter Cash, as Johnny's website reminds us this morning--lived a very long life, and left us a wonderful legacy of music. She was a loving, gracious person, and I got to sit about 10 feet from the Carter Sisters on their last tour, and I got to tell June I loved her, and how sad the world seems this rainy morning.

amindthatsuits@yahoo.com


from the blog A Mind That Suits (http://amindthatsuits.blogspot.com)

Copyright, 2003, Kenneth A. Killiany, All Rights Reserved.


::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 10:59 AM



Thursday, May 15, 2003 :::
 
Visitors from Search Engines. Please use the "search" or "find" command to locate the item you are looking for. Thanks. Or scroll down and enjoy the many other fine offerings on A Mind That Suits.

::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 1:35 PM


 
Americans: Dumb About Languages...Ray Bradbury's Future is Now...Washington Reporters Stare At Their Own Navels, Yet Again...

It's Not That Hard, Folks. A Mind That Suits has been reminded recently of that truly odd feature of American culture: our inability to function in other languages. As it happens, A Mind That Suits is perfectly content reading three foreign languages and one dead one, and has never shared in that aspect of American-ness. This is partly due to family influence, and partly due to natural inclination. But he knows that one can indeed learn another language, and most Americans find it beyond imagining. (For an excellent article on a related topic, why American leftists seem to know so little about other cultures, see this great article by Michael Totten in today's OpinionJournal.)

The easiest explanation is probably the proper one: we are an isolated nation. We do not have to speak another language, and most other groups of people live too close to someone else to have that luxury. The Swiss are the obvious example: they have four languages. Apparently, it is quite common for each person to speak his own language in a meeting and get a response in another language. They understand each other, but cannot speak all four languages. Moroccans seem to function the same way: just to live, they have to speak their own local Arabic, the classic Arabic of the Qur'an, and French. And I am surrounded by native Spanish speakers who fully understand what the Gringos are saying but cannot themselves speak English. (My own Spanish is close to the reverse of that.)

Until recently, Americans have not been presented with the necessity of speaking another tongue, and learning another language is hard, no question. A Mind That Suits teaches English to foreigners, and they do not find it easy. Yet they persevere, and achieve some level of fluency. A Mind That Suits even taught himself Italian a few years ago, and is now quite comfortable communicating freely in that language. It helps that Italians are almost uniformly amazed that anyone has learned Italian. The French are not so forgiving.

(A Mind That Suits should note that he is convinced the moment when Spanish should have been the part of any young person's education may be passing: as always happens to immigrants to any country, the dominant culture is winning and the children of Latin American immigrants tend to speak English better than they speak Spanish. This is entirely natural, but those students should be encouraged to study their parents' beautiful language as a foreign language. How much better we would be at dealing with the world if our grandparents and great-grandparents had ensured that their own languages were preserved within their families.)

Americans have somehow turned isolation into an insurmountable psychological block. It's not just that they don't know any foreign languages, it is that they think it is an amazing thing that anyone speaks any other language. But it isn't. For many years, America was represented in many of the world's troublespots by a remarkable man named Vernon Walters. He had, as he himself once recounted to an annoying congressmen, left home at 13 because his family could not support him, learned 7 languages, and risen to be a general in "the mightiest army the world has ever known." His last government job was as US Ambassador to the UN. During his confirmation hearing, Sen. Joe Biden greeted him warmly, and frankly stood in awe of his ability with languages. Gen.Walters responded, with typical self-deprecation, "In Europe, that could get you a job as concierge in a hotel." He was right.

What makes this all so funny is that English is itself one of the hardest languages human beings have ever come up with. On the recognized scale of difficulty used by linguists, English is at the highest level. All languages pose their difficulties for foreigners, but we go over the top. We have a vocabulary that is twice the size of the next largest, difficult syntax, and a mind-numbingly complicated verb system. One word can function freely as a noun or a verb, which in most languages is an impossibility, and some can even be used as adjectives and adverbs as well. And we prize clarity above all else in writing, so there is precious little room for error.

Professors capitalize on their students' fear and awe of foreign languages, frankly, by lying, and saying that such-and-such a language "says it so much better." It makes them feel superior, and prevents the kids from getting restless and asking questions. One wants to draw students into a feeling of joy and mystery as they learn, but there are better ways. As Americans really do stink at learning languages, it would probably be better if professors started by extolling the beauty and difficulty of English, so that the students are attracted to learning, and recognize the wealth in their own culture, as well.

But There Are Enemies of Learning Anything, Not Just Languages. The Journal yesterday ran an appreciation of Ray Bradbury, the fantasy writer best know for his one piece of science fiction, Fehrenheit 451. The name, of course, is the termperature at which paper burns, and it describes a society in which reading has been banned. He said he did not write it to predict the future, but to prevent it. He also feels he may have failed, pointing to the disaster of American education. One of the major issues that no one wishes to confront squarely is that the schools are dominated by people who think any kind of real learning is "irrelevant," leaving students trapped with an inability to function in the real world. And our universities are dominated by philosophies such as deconstructionism and phony multiculturalism, which reduce real cultural difference to trivia.

The French have been real pioneers in this kind of education, and it is worth looking at the consequences for French society. When Chirac first came to power, the French rioted--as they have this week--over Chirac's feeble attempts to lessen the cost of government. Fishermen in Northwestern France torched an ancient city hall, burning documents from as far back as 600 years ago. So much for the European reverence for history. About the same time, it was revealed, through comparative testing, that the bottom 40% of French society was the worst educated in the entire developed world, as opposed to their upper classes, which are the most educated. That was because the French upper classes want the French lower classes to be slaves.

Why People Find Reporters Annoying. In a worthwhile discussion of the Jayson Blair scandal at the New York Times, longtime WSJ Washington Bureau Chief Al Hunt recounts the story of how Woodward and Bernstein worked the Watergate story and "brilliantly turned this second-rate burglary into the story of the century." Story of the century? A Mind That Suits disagrees, rather strongly. Nearly all of the mass murder committed by the totalitarian socialist regimes of the 20th Century was conducted behind closed doors, and it took determined and brave reporters like Malcolm Muggeridge and William Shawcross to reveal the horror of these crimes. Watergate isn't even on the charts.



::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 12:11 PM



Wednesday, May 14, 2003 :::
 
Visitors from Search Engines. Please use the "search" or "find" command to locate the item you are looking for. Thanks. Or scroll down and enjoy the many other fine offerings on A Mind That Suits.

::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 10:54 AM


 
Republicans Block Bush Judges...Osama bin-Laden's Real Motive...Foreign Aid, A Bad Idea

It's the Republicans' Fault!!!! A lot of spleen is being vented over the way Senate Democrats are acting. They are using "filibusters" to block votes on judicial nominees Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owens, which means they are going around the nomination process written into the Constitution. True enough, they are. But the real problem is that the solution is in the hands of the Republicans, and they don't have the will to use it.

It used to be a filibuster was a filibuster. Senators would talk and talk over a course of days trying to prevent the Senate from taking up a bill. It was the primary weapon with which Southerners tried, first, to preserve slavery and then to prevent meaningful civil rights legislation from being passed. With typical bluntness, the name was coined by John C. Calhoun, and he openly took it from an old naval term meaning "piracy used for military purposes."

You may have noticed these recent "filibusters" have been dragging on for months. That was because of a "compromise" change in the rules in the mid-1970's. Technically, it still means one Senator or a group of Senators keeps talking to prevent action, but since the change, someone can offer a motion to shift topics. The debate on the filibustered topic stops, and when the topic is taken up again, the Senator who was talking last can start up again. Strom Thurmond, in his hateful days (when he was a Democrat), had to speak for 24 hours to try and stop passage of a civil rights bill. When he stopped, the vote was taken anyway. The whole filibuster, involving other senators, lasted only a few days. Now, members of a minority can speak for 6 or 8 hours, and when they are tired, somebody moves to go on to a different subject and everyone takes a break.

A Mind That Suits' Intro to Poli Sci teacher, a raving leftist, was apoplectic when this change was passed. He realized that it meant a filibuster could be extended for months, not days. It was a "compromise" with "states' rights" forces in the Senate, and that is what drove him nuts. What he did not foresee was that the left--very soon thereafter-- would move so far out of the mainstream that they would have to steal this old racist tactic. And they have been shameless in doing so since the 1980 election, when the new mainstream's first great triumph shocked them to their very core.

For judicial nominees, technically, the Senate goes into "Executive Session." With a filibuster going on, the filibuster is put on hold when they "go out of" Executive Session, and the filibuster resumes when they "go back in."

So, if the Republicans are serious about these judicial nominees, why don't they just prevent the Senate from going out of Executive Session? It actually would take just one Senator, because they usually move from topic to topic by "unanimous consent," and any member can object. The Democrats would then have to talk non-stop round the clock to prevent a vote, as they had to in the old days, and they would be the only ones on camera.

With one or even two Supreme Court nominations coming up, Republicans had better learn to fight back. Fast.

amindthatsuits@yahoo.com



It's Not Israel. Those who do not read what Osama bin-Laden says assume that Israel is bin-Laden's main complaint. It isn't. It is Western Civilization, and, even more, Muslims who make concessions in order to deal with the West. The attacks against Western targets in Saudi Arabia should have made that clear. Much of Saudi Arabia is the "Hijaz," the area where the Prophet Mohammed lived and fought. The current king styles himself as "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques," and bin-Laden does not think he is doing a good job.


amindthatsuits@yahoo.com



"Over funded, over staffed, and over here." Thus did a Senator famously describe foreign aid. President Bush's bold initiative to combat AIDS worldwide, especially in Africa, is gaining a lot of good press, but it is also inspiring the traditional complaint that the US gives such a small portion of its budget to foreign aid. The problem is, foreign aid is probably the root cause of so much misery in the world. What is left over after the elites in recipient countries steal it is given over to deeply flawed economic plans. Much of it is inspired by frankly Swedish notions of economic development, meaning that power is concentrated in the hands of the elites instead of given to the average person, as it would be under more capitalist efforts. Many of the most disastrous governments had their elites educated in Paris, where they learned Marxism and used it to ruin their countries. The most notorious example in US history is the Food for Peace program, whose main beneficiaries were farmers in Minnesota, which was represented by the man who thought up the program, Hubert Humphrey. Its supposed beneficiaries in the Third World saw their farm economies battered by competition from free food. The EU is dumping extra crops produced by their subsidized farms, a contributing factor to economic devastation in several poor countries. The AIDS program, together with the campaign for free trade around the world, is exactly the kind of foreign aid that should be offered, and socialist critics should just be ignored.

Have a great Wednesday.


::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 10:41 AM



Tuesday, May 13, 2003 :::
 
VISITORS FROM SEARCH ENGINES. Please use "search" or "find" in the tool bar to find what you are looking for. Thanks.

::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 3:28 PM


 
A Mind That Suits Runs His First Clarification...A Sombre Anniversary...Therapeutic High School Plays and Bad Education...Our Failed War Policy...New York Times: Soviet-style Egalitarian State?

A Sombre Anniversary. A Mind That Suits has discovered that he made something of an error in describing the functions of the Swiss Guard. According to what seems to be the most reliable website on them, the Swiss Guard are not only charming young men in brightly colored togs, but they are also the ubiquitous Vatican security people in blue. (Thanks to friend Stephen for finding the site.) The notable difference in age between the guys in blue and the guys who flirt may simply indicate that the younger guys are given the ceremonial jobs, while their more experienced and better trained elders do the real work. The Renaissance p.j.'s are actually quite billowy, so real weapons can easily be hidden. The men in business suits that actually tag along with His Holiness may therefore also be Swiss Guard, although this American assumed the lack of uniform signified a separate status, the way that the US Secret Service is distinguished by their lack of uniform.

The Swiss Guard were therefore the people you see helping John Paul II on the darkest day of his pontificate, when he was shot by Mehmet Ali Agca, 22 years ago today. In the US, this was taken as a major event, of course, but the Pope's already towering reputation behind the Iron Curtain and in the Third World could be seen in the horror of the reaction throughout the rest of the world. In Krakow, where he had done so much for the oppressed as their Archbishop, 1 million people showed up dressed in white (the papal color, of course) to stand in vigil as they awaited news.

The Swiss Guard were there to protect the Pope, and obviously they failed spectacularly at this moment, but this was also the first serious indication that the "low-level" war of terrorism was going to grow beyond regional conflicts. No one expected this kind of attack, and the Guard was in fact there, next to the Pope, willing to lay down their lives. Agca was just a very good shot, and the level of security then considered acceptable for a public figure allowed him to get too close. Without their clear thinking and well-laid-out plans for papal medical emergencies, the Pope clearly would have died.

The Guard was actually on their way back up in importance, and they have since risen remarkably in skill. Their nadir in having real functions to perform probably came during the 70 or so years that the Vatican ceased to be a country and was absorbed into the Italian state. In keeping with this Pope's fondness for using the most modern methods of communication, the security at the Vatican is now as high tech as it can go and still allow the Pontiff the contact he wants with normal people. The kids in the bright yellow togs are charming, which should not detract from the fact that the whole Guard performs admirably and tirelessly.

Today should also be a day to remember what we learned about this Pope from that incident, most notably his physical stamina, his determination, his firm belief in the efficacy of prayer, and his willingness to forgive. He famously went to visit Agca in prison as soon as he recovered from his wounds, and during his trip to Bulgaria last year he assured the Bulgarian people that he never thought they themselves would have allowed someone to use their country as a staging area for an attack on him.

It is interesting that, in all the wave of documents and revelations that have come out, no conclusive evidence or personal confessions have told us how Agca, who gave ample signs of mental instability, was able to operate. This may be something we never know. But the Pope's personal conduct after the shooting, and the Guard's great role in saving him, should not be forgotten.

How Not To Teach Kids About Life. An admiring story in yesterday's Post told of how such topical, therapeutic plays as Bang, Bang, You're Dead are crowding out such hardy perennials as Bye, Bye, Birdie and Arsenic and Old Lace in high school productions. A Mind That Suits' reaction might be described as exasperated awe: he has seen it before, and yet he is still amazed at the imcomprehension of some "educators." If one assumes that all children are alike and are concerned about the same things, you relieve yourself of a huge part of your responsibilities, and you miss seeing the actual human beings you are teaching. In this instance, you are also ignoring a huge body of evidence from psychology that reinforces the common sense notion that the best way to get through some traumas is to focus beyond them.

"Beyond." That is the magic word. Teenagers need no one to encourage them to blow their problems out of proportion. Indeed, if you expose them to other times, other literature, if you give them the chance to play someone other than an American high schooler, you give them the opportunity to choose for themselves how they will get through these problems. You also draw them out of themselves. They will not remain 16-years-old forever,much as the more therapeutic kind of teacher wants them to. Educators must speak to the adult who is forming inside the child.

A Mind That Suits saw a production of Arsenic and Old Lace last year put on by the legendary drama program at DC's Gonzaga College High School. As the audience was filing in, the adults were reminiscing about the parts they had played when they were in High School. (A Mind That Suits himself played Dr. Einstein, apparently effecting a killer imitation of Peter Lorre, whom he had at that point never seen.) What struck A Mind That Suits this time was the incredible range of urban life and old-fashioned psychoses that were crammed into one of the funniest plots ever devised. The production was superb, and will no doubt be remembered as a highpoint by the kids involved. One doubts that Bang, Bang, You're Dead will provide such memories.

The one notable thing was that one of the minor characters, a police officer of limited intelligence, was played by a Southern boy, who looked exactly like the Southern kid who played the same character in the production where A Mind That Suits performed so admirably. Why do Northerners equate being Southern with stupidity?

A Failed War Plan. The administration has replaced its top two officials in Iraq, because of continued lawlessness in Baghdad. When will someone big enough say loudly that our "lean army" war plan was seriously flawed? We quickly dispatched a paper enemy, no doubt, but our boys were needlessly exposed to serious danger and they have been unable to restore order. The only other organized force in the country has been the Islamic fundamentalists, as we should have expected, and they have rushed in to fill the void. Money is no doubt pouring to them from throughout the Muslim world. We should have gone in with our traditional massive army, closely folllwed by a massive army of trucks bearing relief supplies. We proved our point, but did we learn our lesson?

We're Hierarchically Egalitarian. Many words, probably too many, have been spilled over the latest scandal at the New York Times. It's not that this is the first time this has happened. Karl Marx was, at one point, a European correspondent for the Journal of Record, and it hasn't always been uphill from there.

Often journalistic spats pass beyond the trivial to the utterly irrelevant, but this is serious. In case you had missed it, a young journalist, Jayson Blair, was discovered to have faked facts and quotes throughout his meteoric rise, but somehow senior editors did not care that he was a singularly sloppy reporter. They had to run, on average, something like one correction to his work a month . It's not that they didn't notice; it's that they didn't care. Many lower in the ranks complained loud and long, one editor going so far as to say that he should be stopped from reporting for the Times "now." Yet the upper ranks did nothing.

One things has been noticeable at the Times since Howell Raines took over as Executive Editor, and that is its drift toward the loony left, their lonely page-one campaign against male only Augusta National golf course being only the most obvious example. Apparently, people also complain that the place has gotten more hierarchical since he took over, making it hard for those "in the lower ranks" to be heard, and those in the upper ranks to hear. Shouldn't an organization that styles itself a vanguard for radical social change be more...what's the word...transparent?

And what was it that the Times accused Bernard Cardinal Law of being? It escapes me at the moment.

Have a great Tuesday.

::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 10:07 AM



Monday, May 12, 2003 :::
 
A Mind That Suits Has Experienced some serious technical problems--all at the local end, not with Blogspot...and so will return, refreshed and renewed, on Tuesday, May 13. Have a great day!

::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 12:24 PM

What doesn't kill me, makes me laugh... usually.