Sergei Rachmaninov

Tomorrow is the 136th anniversary of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov’s day of birth. Radio WRTI is celebrating with a 12-hour marathon of the Rusky ex-pat’s crystal-clear texture and elegant yet strong phrasing.

Rachmaninov is best known for his Prelude in C-sharp minor, which he composed at age 19. He lost his land during the Bolshevik revolution and subsequently fled Russia for the United States, though he was consoled by an estate he managed to buy in Switzerland. He died in 1943, and his wish to be buried at his Swiss estate could never be fulfilled because of the ravages of the Second World War.

Rachmaninov on Rachmaninov, Prelude in C-sharp Minor.

Rachmaninov on Chopin, Nocturne in E-flat.

Mr. Rachmaninov's Neighborhood

Liner Notes: Corey Wilkes, Drop It

Liner notes, like the acknowledgements and preface sections of books, are rarely read but really one of the most important parts of a record. I finally got around to opening my Christmas present, Corey Wilke’s 2008 Drop It, and looked inside the cover. Today, I take inspiration from these words.

“There’s no need to be divorced from the current time and place in an effort to hearken back to bygone eras when there’s still such vital art to be made in the present…Don’t call an ambulance, there’s no need for resuscitation, because this music is alive and animated.”

Wall Street Journal Compares College Majors, Mid-Career Salaries

Turns out that by mid-career, Philosophy majors will be earning more than Architects, Biologists, Chemists, Geologists, IT guys, Marketers, and Political Scientists. Take that business school!

Classics conspicuously absent from this list. : (

Back in America, Back in Iraq

Today the Washington Post printed an opinion piece by an American officer in charge of interrogations in Iraq.

Matthew Alexander (a nom-de-plume for this homme-de-guerre) has conducted more than 300 and overseen more than 1,000 interrogations. His experience says: Abide by the U.S. Army Field Manual and the spirit of American freedom. Do not torture. We found Abu Musab al-Zarqawi this way, it works.

But his experience is falling on deaf ears and obstructive bureaucracy. Top brass at the Pentagon and in Baghdad is not in the mood for ’soft’ interrogation.

Why? Because they are neo-conservative Bush Doctrine supporters? I suppose we will find out once the Obama administration takes the reins. Because they have existed in and propagate a culture based on aggression and the ability to dole out violence? Perhaps, but Mr. Alexander  exists in the same culture and is not so bent on using torture. While we debate the morality and motivations for torture, we are losing ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sir Janus previously addressed Victor Davis Hanson’s opinion that the Western war machine works because democracy is responsive to the public. But now we see the inevitable discord between ideal and reality: we espouse freedom, we bring torture.  Should we despise and denegrate our nation and our ideals because we can not live up to them?

I think not. Our ideals are still intact. We will probably never fully live up to them. We probably never have. Of course, we have our beautiful and ugly aspects. The liberty of the Constitution, the inhumanity of the Three-Fifths Compromise. The success of western expansion, the blood of native Americans and Mexicans. The triumph of the Second World War, the black mark of Japanese detention camps.

But neither should the knowledge that we will always fail our highest principles lull us into complacency. Are our leaders, in Congress, in the Supreme Court, in the White House, in the Pentagon – are they responsive to cries for justice? Will they stop torture, not only because it is ineffective but because it is wrong? Can we culturally and ideologically triumph over terrorism if we indulge in barbaric and anti-American practices? This antithesis between American freedom and American torture can only co-exist for so long before it mars our memory of this war, and more immediately hinders our ability to defeat Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

An Election Note

Celebations are raging, quite literally, all over the world in the wake of the election of the new American President. Voters in the States are feeling a rushing high that they have enabled Change. Democracy, indeed, is designed to make one feel that his participation creates history.

And for all the symbolism of the 2008 election, and for all the historical import attributed to it, it might be helpful to remember: Nothing has happened yet. We have symbols, we have gestures. Will we fill them in with meaning?

The Bush Legacy

Anytime a President is about to do something you do not like, but you are not going to stop him from doing it, all you have to do is say that “history will regard him as the worst president ever.” Let us lay aside the fact that when people say this, they usually mean “public opinion” and not “history.” And by “public opinion” they mean their opinion, which is usually the only one that they care about anyway.

And we have repeated this process enough times from, say, John Adams onwards that the moniker has stuck at least once. To tell you the truth about it, I like the idea that history will take revenge on someone’s reputation after they have shed this mortal coil. But I am not naive enough to think that history always gets it right, or that it even matters who reigns supreme in the kingdom of worst presidents.

Yet, as we hurtle shakily towards the 20th of January, we may find ourselves with boiling blood and steam pumping out of our ears when we think about the past eight years of Bush administration. I need not remind you, faithful Dino-Readers, of our recent history in the Middle East, in New Orleans, in sub-prime mortgage regulation. Many of us feel secure, now, in the notion that finally the title will stick and Mr. Bush will become the worst president in all of history.

When lo and behold, rearing its ugly head into our airspace, comes this opinion piece by Prof. Stanley Fish, currently Professor of Humanities and Professor of Law at Florida International University, as well as Dean Emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Disregarding Prof. Fish’s critical lack of adherence to any logical system of thought in his postmodernist scholarship, could he be right that George W. Bush will wiggle his way into our hearts when we no longer feel obligated to hold him responsible (for the many things in which we were complicit)?

Unfortunately, I think the answer is yes. Consider it a reversal of what happened to Harry S. Truman and Winston Churchill. They, along with Franklin D. Roosevelt, are the greatest war-time politicians of the 20th century (and perhaps of all time – only being rivaled by Abraham Lincoln, at least on this side of the Atlantic). They enjoyed supreme unity amongst their fellow-citizens during the war, but once there was peace they quickly found themselves out of jobs. Come to think of it, the same thing happened to old Themistokles – he rose to prominence on his naval construction program platform, and after the navy won the Persian War he quickly fell from favor and eventually resettled in Persia itself (imagine if the old Bulldog bought a condo in Stalingrad!). They were good wartime leaders, and once their nations had used them for that, they were out the door before you could muster a “blood, sweat, and tears” speech.

Now George Bush will leave office in the wake of strong criticism during the entrenched battle that was his administration. Without any responsibility, and therefore no reason to blame him for anything, we may yet embrace him as that funny sounding Texan with the boyish swagger. Maybe Prof. Fish will be proven wrong and our disgust for Mr. Bush will remain. But the cogs of history are slow to work, slow to judge: the machinations of the courtroom of history click and whistle and belch up hot air for much time before a verdict, if ever, is handed down from the ivory tower jury.

Elegy

Not much needs to be said that the half-mast flags don’t already say.

I offer a selection from Archibald MacLeish’s 1948 poem, “Brave New World” for reflection and consideration.  In addition to a poet, MacLeish was a journalist, Assisstant Secretary of State, and Librarian of Congress.  He was not an ivory tower wordsmith.

But you, Thomas Jefferson,

You could not lie so still,

You could not bear the weight of stone

On the quiet hill,

You could not keep your green grown peace

Nor hold your folded hand

If you could see your new world now,

Your new sweet land.

There was a time, Tom Jefferson,

When freedom made free men.

The new found earth and the new freed mind

Were brothers then.

There was a time when tyrants feared

The new world of the free.

Now freedom is afraid and shrieks

At tyranny.

Words have not changed their sense so soon

Nor tyranny grown new.

The truths you held, Tom Jefferson,

Will still hold true.

What’s changed is freedom in this age.

What great men dared to choose

Sall men now dare neither win

Nor lose.

Freedom, when men fear freedom’s use

But love its useful name,

Has cause and cause enough for fear

And cause for shame.

We fought a war in freedom’s name

And won it in our own.

We fought to free a world and raised

A wall of stone.

Your countrymen who could have built

The hill fires of the free

To set the dry world all ablaze

With liberty–

Your countrymen who could have hurled

Their freedom like a brand

Have cupped it to a candle spark

In a frightened hand.

Freedom that was a thing to use

They’ve made a thing to save

And staked it in and fenced it round

Like a dead man’s grave.

You, Thomas Jefferson,

You could not lie so still,

You could not bear the weight of stone

On your green hill,

You could not hold your angry tongue

If you could see how bold

The old stale bitter world plays new–

And the new world old.

Dangerous Irony

Oh no!  A new, dangerous drug with a dumb name!  It made some kids throw up.  That is not at all why I’m posting this, however.  I want to draw attention to school official’s rigorous search for the truth behind Snurf:

“We did the Google and found out more than we needed to know about it,” [Superintendent] Klein said.

He said “the Google”!  What an old person!

***

Beware.  One day, saying, “the Google”, along with “the rap music” etc, will shift from ironic hilarity to accepted usage.

Rehtoric or “What I Want to Hear”

It’s that time of the year again.  Candidates solidified, conventions finished, and my father and I immediately begin debating the merits of various candidates.  We have civil debates and, as much as the adage insists that politics and religion don’t belong at the dinner table, they’ve never distracted from the taste of steak and wine for us.

As a nation, though, I’m not so sure civil debates are possible.  In The Atlantic this month, James Fallows has watched all the debates of the campaigning season, a staggering 47, in an effort to see if there is any value in a candidates rhetoric vis-a-vis his or her campaign and potentially competency. The result is more telling about the current standard we the people hold our moderators and the press to than any true insight into candidates perceived abilities.  CNN and ABC have a considerable amount to be ashamed of.

I don’t quite know how to express my disgust at hand-raising yes or no questions.  What does that tell me about what a candidate thinks?  Or, more importantly from what a debate reveals, how a candidate thinks.  We are, after all, looking at someone to lead us and make decisions.  I want to know how he or she will make these decisions, not how he or she will raise a hand so that lazy journalists can opine with simpler efficiency.  I picture this leading to a culturally vapid future where our great leaders are sculpted in marble with their heroic hands thrust high in the air indicating yes, or, gasp, no.

As sensationalist as that is, the true show stopper is the complete lack of consistency or reasoning from (who else) Fox News analysts.  No one makes a better argument for the perils of free speech than this station.  The humor of the Daily Show presents hypocrisy with hilarity, but after the laughs are over, we should grumble at the sad feeling in the pit of our stomachs.

There is asbolutely no desire here to be consistent in reasoning. What saddens me is that the viewership of this station, instead of being insulted by its disregard for their intelligence, is sated by the constant stream of exactly what they want to hear.

The true loser in this affair are actual conservatives who hold to the republican party’s root values of limited government and individual self-reliance.  More and more, the voice of that party is verbal morphine.  Why look for yourself, why hear for yourself, why think for yourself, when someone can tell you what you want to hear?  Is it an exact contradiction of what you wanted to hear 3 months ago?  So what.

The sad irony behind this is that it is just this kind of easy-answer rhetoric that is the root of the problems its perpetrators are attacking.  It serves to disrupt the flow of news.  This is not reporting, because that would require thinking for oneself.  Everything broadcast here is intended as thinking for everyone else.  Independent ideas are a product of freedom, it’s probably about time people seize on that.  I can’t help but recall a campfire conversation from Easy Rider.

Billy: What the hell is wrong with freedom?  That’s what it’s all about

George: Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s what’s it’s all about, all right. But talkin’ about it and bein’ it, that’s two different things. I mean, it’s real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don’t ever tell anybody that they’re not free, ’cause then they’re gonna get real busy killin’ and maimin’ to prove to you that they are. Oh, yeah, they’re gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom.

I Would Like a Keg for My 18th Birthday

Finally, a debate worth having.  Puritans beware, university presidents are mobolizing to ask the only sensible question that can be asked in the face of obscene binge drinking on campuses: shouldn’t we lower the drinking age?

Unequivocally, this writer thinks yes, and it’s long overdue.  I’ve never understood the logic behind the age of 21.   MADD can quote all the statistics they want, but numbers do not remotely tell the story.  Nor do they indicate the real problem.

The issue is education.  Most incoming college students have had to complete some form of an alcohol survey and education course, usually online, mandated by their schools.  This is half the battle.  However, telling kids what drinking is going to do to them and their reaction time is not going to educate them on the proper way to handle alcohol, how to consume in moderation, and plan ahead of time for responsible drinking.  Any educator knows that words and theory are at best half the battle, without experience, those words are worthless.

Contrary to what MADD, furious Puritans, and most likely, lawmakers, believe, this does not need to be a revolution.  I’d be happy with a compromise that at least allows people at the age of 18 to drink with the supervision of adults.  The idea here isn’t to let kids get drunk earlier, the idea is to bring a tabboo topic into the mainstream, to educate kids before they arrive at college and learn their limits the hard way.

On a cultural note, there is also incentive to open certain 21+ venues to younger people.  I think specifically of the many jazz and blues clubs in Chicago.  How are young musicians and fans supposed to identify with their music, a form that is uniquely American, I might add, when they can’t even hear it live?  Concerts are unfairly, not by their choice, exclusive and it should be no surprise that these music forms are shrinking when they can’t capitalize on younger fans.

It’s tough to imagine the statistics MADD fears really escalating if the drinking age is legally lowered.  The reality is that those who want alcohol already get it.  Stricter laws just earn more money for the middleman upperclassmen who can supply the freshmen on campus.

There are many creative ways one can work to enforce it as well.  As I mentioned, a stipulation involving adults in controlled environments could be one.  Also, a limit on the amount purchased at a time can also provide a buffer.  Would it be ridiculous to suggest a learner’s permit for young drinkers?  Perhaps a card that can be swiped that wouldn’t allow them to make more than one purchase a week, per se?

Are there ways to get around these?  Of course.  But students are getting around the rules now, with the drastic results deriving from the education they’re not getting.