Forethought

I’m listening to a German violinist, Lisa Batiashvili, perform the a violin concerto as I work on an overdue project. I stopped to watch her for a moment and a thought struck me. We tend to become lost in a musical piece, listening to the melody, the flow, the tempo, the phrasing and all the senses that music evokes. We can’t help ourselves. Notes performed without flaw captivate us and take us wherever our emotions will follow.

The composer, though—in this case Brahms—wrote each individual note after what may have been a great deal of thought, agony, and anguish. Before he put pen to paper, he had given much consideration to what he was about to do. In doing so, he employed all his talent as well as the knowledge, compassion, restraint, enthusiasm, and knowledge accumulated throughout his life (45 years at this point).

His care in presenting his thoughts allows someone to understand and translate his notes with a sublime and coherent presentation. The audience receives a gift of pure unalloyed joy. The world becomes a better place from the shared experience.

What, I wondered, would happen if we put only a smattering of thought into the words we say and write. What if we put each word on trial? Will it fit the situation? Will it not offend unintentionally? Will it add to, or detract from, the grandeur of life? Will it bring comfort to the afflicted? Will it teach us and not diminish us? Most of all, have we followed the teaching of writer Francine Prose and put “every word on trial for its life?”

It might be better if we did so, don’t you think?

Courage

If you want to see how low we’ve allowed social media to take us, don’t look at Facebook. That’s what it’s there for: to bring out the worst in us. Twitter? I don’t know since I avoid it. It sure seems not only to lower the standards of its users, but to monopolize the press in doing so. It may end up being the single most telling artifact that the aliens find among the rusted ruins of our civilization.

No, if you want to see the epitome of lowlife, the pire que tout of the proof of our social and intellectual downfall, go to YouTube. Once there, find a wondrous Mozart piano sonata. I’m fond of the 21^st, but choose your favorite. Find a good, but not legendary performer. Young ones seem to bring out the worst in us. It is quite possible that, if you start down the comment string, you find an untoward comment. It may have to do with the music. More likely it will address the type of instrument, the performer’s sexual appeal, the conductor, or even the lighting.

The next comment will be directed at the previous commenter. From there it may descend into the type of verbal exchange that, if made face-to-face in my hometown, would have caused a “shootin’ scrape.”

This for a Mozart sonata. Here’s an actual exchange from a Schumann concerto featuring a female in somewhat modern attire.

First comment: “Who else wants to put their hand down the back of that dress?”

Second comment: “The woman can wear whatever she god damn [sic] want to.”

This all makes me recall that a writer or interviewee will on occasion, make a statement that I envy immensely. (My favorite described Oliver North when he ran for the Senate. A national journalist observed, “I have nothing against Mr. North. It’s just that there is a faint smell of sulfur about him.”) But, back to our point here, someone on NPR once commented about a tirade by someone that, “It had all the sophistication of a YouTube comment thread.”

They say that anonymity and/or distance are the keys. Social media allows us to say things we would never say either in polite society or a small-town saloon.

What is odd to me is the transition that I see in old and dear friends. I attribute it to a combination of social media and political organizations that operate beyond the “pale” of human decency. I see posts by people, some who claim to be, and some I know to be, ministers of some Christian group or another. I knew them once as kind, generous, loving people, literally brimming with the “milk of human kindness.” Now there’s no Russian-made meme viciously attacking an innocent person or family that they won’t post for, literally, the world to see.

That world includes old friends, grandmothers, associates, colleagues, parishioners, and young, impressionable minds. It sure confuses me. Myself? I stop with “grandmother.” Even though she attained only a third-grade education before her father, a Civil War veteran died, I just wouldn’t want her to read some things. That being said, she was a bit of a character, so I feel empowered to push the boundaries at times.

That’s why I don’t mind sharing my third-favorite journalist quip. I thought of it last night when a supporter claimed something awful that the president of the United States of America said was intended as just a joke. The quip was by the late William F. Buckley, Jr. He responded to some argument by an adversary with, “That’s a bit like getting a charge of sodomy changed to following too closely.”

Feel free to share your favorite, but remember Grand-mamma Rodgers may be watching.

A Warning

Jester Dines

By Jimmie von Tungeln

           

It started when Jester was a pup. He would curl near the table while the family ate dinner. One night—the family never recalled who is was, but somebody—threw him a scrap of bread.

            After that he came every night.

            As he got a little older, he would sit up and look with large, expressive eyes, and use them to communicate attention. Sometimes he won a tidbit. Sometimes not. B. F. Skinner said once that periodic reinforcement produces a stronger response level than reliable reinforcement.

            When he was nearly full grown, he began to produce a soft whining sound that everyone found precious. One of the boys posted a video of it on social media. Jester's sigh went viral.

            Not long after that, the sigh transcended into what nearly resemble a growl.

            Then one night it happened. There was a distinct snarl to gain attention. The whole family laughed.

            No one could have even imagined the nightmare that was to follow.

What was I thinking?
Or was I?

Dialogue ....

 Checked on Facebook today. Too much hate. So, I’ve been listening to it rain and thinking about how so many phrases there are that so many people wouldn’t understand these days. Maybe if we softened our dialogue, it might calm our whole country a bit. How many still understand the following?

“Don’t stand there with that ice-box door open.”

“I’m gonna cut me switch.”

“It’s about time we gave you another permanent.”

“It runs like a sanger sewing machine.”

“They just drove by and was sackin’ air.”

“This place is in bad need of some hooverin.’

“That man is puredee mean.”

“He wouldn’t pay a nickel to see a piss-ant eat a bale of hay.”

“It’s so cold it’ll cut your water off.”

“Rich as five feet up a bull’s [hind end].”

“… like a jackass eatin’ briars.”

“Just a hop, skip, and a jump … .”

“Fit to be tied.”

“Your face is gonna freeze like that.”

“Were you raised in a barn?’

And that’s how the hog ate the cabbage.

The Russians love this.

Marching To Oblivium: March 22, 2018

It’s like finding out that your favorite malt shop is really making its money by selling heroin to teenagers outside the back door.

It’s like finding out the quaint bookstore on the town square is connected to a large building where the same owners who would sell you the works of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. also offer teenaged prostitutes to wealthy old men.

It’s like finding that a charming small-venue music hall puts on dog-fights out back for selected customers.

I’m talking of course about what we’re finding out about Facebook. Sad and scary don’t begin to describe the feelings. How can something that has offered so many wonderful opportunities to make contact with, and maintain contact with, old friends and forgotten acquaintances be actively engaged in offering help and succor to those who hate and would destroy our country?

It’s like finding out that Mr. Rogers was buying opium from Afghanistan and reselling it in the neighborhood.

In a sense, America just struck the tip of the terrible iceberg called “Citizens United.” President Barack Obama tried to warn us. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito mocked him on national TV for his warning. “Corporations are people,” he said. “Get used to it, boy!”

Now we see one of the world’s richest computer nerds evading the issue of how Facebook enabled foreign governments and domestic terrorists to poison an American presidential election. He says maybe we will do something about it. Maybe we won’t. Maybe after the next election. Maybe not.

Get used to it, he implies, strutting around like El Duce. Corporations, he suggests, cannot make decisions, they are too complex and multifaceted. Besides, we haven’t the technology yet to create a fully operational soul within a corporation.

But they are supposed to be human, we say. The Supreme Court of the United States of American said so. Where is their soul?

Unrestrained greed is their soul.

What to do? I seriously don’t know. Should we give up something that has given us so much pleasure?

It’s like finding out that having sex can make you die.

Oh wait, never mind.

I’ll curtail my FB use while I think about it. Meanwhile, I sure as hell won’t buy anything advertised on it. I'm becoming a celibate capitalist and, I’m changing my metaphor.

Meet the new me, a 21-year old home-schooled libertarian who believes that a no-government model of administration, similar to that in effect in Somalia, is the ideal form as envisioned by my Guiding Goddess Ayn Rand.

I’m deeply religious and I tithe to my church, the NRA.

My greatest dream in life is to shoot to death the last surviving member of a vanishing species.

I want our country to have the world’s largest military machine and the world’s most elaborate transportation system (for the delivery of internet sales only). I will never support a politician who believes in exacting taxes for the support of government. I’m with the “no taxes, no time, nowhere, for no purpose” crowd. If we need money, borrow it from the Chinese until we get ready to “nuke” them.

I think the Galilean was a little squishy and don’t care much for him, but I like what Paul (of Paul and Timothy) said about queers. And I worry about killing them babies before they are old enough to join the military.

I don’t like anyone who isn’t a white Christian. Kill them all, I say, maybe keep all the young girls.

I don’t read, and my entire knowledge base derives from Fox News, can’t you tell?

Now, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg, sell that information to Vladimir Putin with my blessings and enjoy your profits.

It’ll be like finding out your favorite target has just voted to get rid of your best pals’ sorry asses.

I'm this rich.
I'll sell stuff to
anyone I wish.

A man told me once that you could get by well in life if you would talk 20 percent of the time and listen 80 percent of the time. Those who know me can attest to the fact that I am the poster-child violator of this advice.

What makes it worse is that I’ve been real lucky with friends throughout most of my life. I now pal around with some of the brightest, most well-educated, and competent people you might ever want to know, recognized experts in their fields. There even some PhDs in there, believe it or not.

So, what do I do when we have lunch, or share a libation? I run my damn yap. Can’t help it.

When I visit with my friend who’s a high-ranking Army officer, you’d think I wrote a bunch of field manuals or something.

When I’m with my contractor friend, I can build anything.

To a professor who teaches public administration, well, hell, I’m Max Weber’s third cousin.

I have my journalism friend convinced, or at least he’s polite enough to spare me rebukes, that I’m the best thing since H.L. Mencken passed. (Partially in my defense, at least I don’t say, “It’s a secret between you and I,” and I haven’t used the word “awesome” in a sentence since Barbara Jane Stubblefield quit wearing those bullet bras back in high school).

I even tried “experting” with my wife. That didn’t work out too well, so I quit.

With all that having been said and done, in the world of BS artistry, there’s only one person on earth who can hold a candle to these folks who offer advice on social media. It seems like, these days, that the basic threshold that must be passed to join the wonderful world of punditry and prediction is to know absolutely nothing about a topic other than how to find a nutcase website that can provide catchy sound-bites.

Simplify? Lord, but these folks can simplify. A nuclear war with a country full of psychopaths? No big deal. We’ll just bomb them in their strategic places.

A two-front war? As the Facebook pundit would say, “We pulled it off in World War Eleven, didn’t we?”

Financial solvency through spending more on less? As the Enron boys used to say, “The only reason it’s never worked is because we weren’t the ones doing it.”

Obviously, I’m an expert on such things and I could go on and on. Must go, though. Gonna contact my good friend for a lunch date, the one who can play a guitar like ringing a bell. Must be prepared to lecture him about Eddie Lang’s influence on Les Paul. It might enlighten him and me.

Just thinkin'