This week, when Arthur Bremer was released after 35 years in prison, it barely made the news, another irony in his long, fruitless search for fame by killing someone famous.
If he is of any interest at all, Bremer signifies what happened to insane fame in the television age. Before him, assassins of public figures, from John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, had some political motive, however twisted.
Bremer, totally apolitical, wanted only to be seen on TV. In 1972, he dogged Richard Nixon for days, but the President was well-protected by the Secret Service and Vietnam war protesters got in Bremer's way when he tried to approach him at a rally.
So he settled for white supremacist George Wallace, a former Alabama governor who had run for president as an independent in 1968, even though he, as Bremer noted in his diary, would not be "worth more than 3 minutes on network news."
But even after lowering his sights, Bremer was so inept he was almost caught after accidentally firing a gun in his hotel room and somehow managing to wedge another weapon so deep into his car that it was only recovered after he shot Wallace four times on May 15, 1972, severing his spinal cord and paralyzing him.
As police arrested him, Bremer asked, "How much do you think I'll get for my memoirs?"
What the former busboy got was a sentence of 53 years and total obscurity. He missed one accidental chance for notoriety when Nixon's dirty tricksters tried but failed to plant campaign literature for the 1972 Democratic candidate George McGovern in Bremer's apartment.
Doomed to anonymity, he nonetheless paved the way for Mark David Chapman, who killed John Lennon, and John Hinckley, who shot Ronald Reagan in 1980, as well as providing inspiration for the weird assassin, Travis Bickle, in the movie, "Taxi Driver."
Copycats got semi-famous for doing what he tried to do, and now Arthur Bremer is back out in the world once again, where nobody will know who he is.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
The Nation as Head Case
Joe Lieberman and Frank Rich agree about something: America is mentally ill.
"We are a people in clinical depression," Rich writes in his New York Times column today. Sen. Lieberman dissents slightly, saying it is only Democrats who are “politically paranoid.”
Depressed or paranoid, according to the good doctors, we have to pull up our socks and get our heads straight.
But our mood disorder may be more like the "national malaise" Jimmy Carter diagnosed, which lifted as soon as he left the Oval Office.
After seven years of Bush-Cheney syndrome, who wouldn't be more than a little crazed? At Johns Hopkins University the other day, Dr. Lieberman presented “a case study in the distrust and partisan polarization that now poisons our body politic on even the most sensitive issues of national security.”
The Bush-Cheney quack cites "wild conspiracy theories" of left-winger bloggers that the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment was an excuse to attack Iran. After Iraq, he contends, only mad people could suspect that.
More evidence of political derangement, from the other direction, is Rich's equating the Democrats' confirmation of Martin Mukasey as Attorney General with what Pervez Musharraf is doing in Pakistan.
Rich, normally a voice of reason, goes off the rails today asserting that Sens. Schumer and Feinstein were "willing to sacrifice principles to head off the next ticking bomb" in approving Mukasey without his condemnation of waterboarding in a way somehow parallel to Musharraf's power grab in Pakistan.
Metaphors can stretch only so far without getting nutty. The Administration's madness should not become a contagion that keeps critics from making the distinction between the repression of a dictator and a political compromise over starting to undo some of Bush's damage to the US Justice Department.
That way lies madness.
"We are a people in clinical depression," Rich writes in his New York Times column today. Sen. Lieberman dissents slightly, saying it is only Democrats who are “politically paranoid.”
Depressed or paranoid, according to the good doctors, we have to pull up our socks and get our heads straight.
But our mood disorder may be more like the "national malaise" Jimmy Carter diagnosed, which lifted as soon as he left the Oval Office.
After seven years of Bush-Cheney syndrome, who wouldn't be more than a little crazed? At Johns Hopkins University the other day, Dr. Lieberman presented “a case study in the distrust and partisan polarization that now poisons our body politic on even the most sensitive issues of national security.”
The Bush-Cheney quack cites "wild conspiracy theories" of left-winger bloggers that the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment was an excuse to attack Iran. After Iraq, he contends, only mad people could suspect that.
More evidence of political derangement, from the other direction, is Rich's equating the Democrats' confirmation of Martin Mukasey as Attorney General with what Pervez Musharraf is doing in Pakistan.
Rich, normally a voice of reason, goes off the rails today asserting that Sens. Schumer and Feinstein were "willing to sacrifice principles to head off the next ticking bomb" in approving Mukasey without his condemnation of waterboarding in a way somehow parallel to Musharraf's power grab in Pakistan.
Metaphors can stretch only so far without getting nutty. The Administration's madness should not become a contagion that keeps critics from making the distinction between the repression of a dictator and a political compromise over starting to undo some of Bush's damage to the US Justice Department.
That way lies madness.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Mailer
He wanted to write The Great American Novel but changed the face of journalism instead. He died today at 84, leaving behind a torrent of words and an outsized public persona.
Norman Mailer was the opposite of shy. At a cocktail party, drink in hand, in front of a TV camera and, above all, on the printed page, he poured out opinions and indelible impressions for half a century. An early collection of essays was aptly titled, "Advertisements for Myself."
His World War II novel, "The Naked and the Dead," made him famous but he will be remembered, along with Tom Wolfe, for the New Journalism of the 1960s. Coming to it from opposite directions, Wolfe, a reporter by trade, and Mailer the novelist created something as different from traditional journalism as "Moby Dick" is from a tract on whaling.
In 1968, Harper's turned over a full issue to Mailer's account of the Vietnam protest march on the Pentagon, which later as a book titled "Armies of the Dead" won both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
The next year, after a beery lunch and boozy dinner with a few New Journalist friends, Mailer decided to run for Mayor of New York and, in a put-on campaign, drew over 40,000 votes.
A decade later, he won another Pulitzer for "The Executioner's Song," about the last year in the life of Gary Gilmore, a remorseless killer. In between and afterward, he wrote ambitious novels, feuded with Feminists, stabbed one of his wives and fathered nine children.
A contemporary of mine, he was the ultimate opposite in temperament. A year ago, on a documentary about Marilyn Monroe, I was interviewed about my experiences in working with and getting to know her in the 1950s, but much more of PBS' time was devoted to Mailer who never met her but whose fantasies had filled a book and were vividly fascinating.
He never wrote The Great American Novel, but he did change the way several generations of us see the world.
Norman Mailer was the opposite of shy. At a cocktail party, drink in hand, in front of a TV camera and, above all, on the printed page, he poured out opinions and indelible impressions for half a century. An early collection of essays was aptly titled, "Advertisements for Myself."
His World War II novel, "The Naked and the Dead," made him famous but he will be remembered, along with Tom Wolfe, for the New Journalism of the 1960s. Coming to it from opposite directions, Wolfe, a reporter by trade, and Mailer the novelist created something as different from traditional journalism as "Moby Dick" is from a tract on whaling.
In 1968, Harper's turned over a full issue to Mailer's account of the Vietnam protest march on the Pentagon, which later as a book titled "Armies of the Dead" won both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
The next year, after a beery lunch and boozy dinner with a few New Journalist friends, Mailer decided to run for Mayor of New York and, in a put-on campaign, drew over 40,000 votes.
A decade later, he won another Pulitzer for "The Executioner's Song," about the last year in the life of Gary Gilmore, a remorseless killer. In between and afterward, he wrote ambitious novels, feuded with Feminists, stabbed one of his wives and fathered nine children.
A contemporary of mine, he was the ultimate opposite in temperament. A year ago, on a documentary about Marilyn Monroe, I was interviewed about my experiences in working with and getting to know her in the 1950s, but much more of PBS' time was devoted to Mailer who never met her but whose fantasies had filled a book and were vividly fascinating.
He never wrote The Great American Novel, but he did change the way several generations of us see the world.
Front Runners Hear Footsteps
Weeks before primary voting in The Election That Looked Like It Would Never Come, front runners in both parties are losing some of their luster.
Yesterday's indictment of Bernard Kerik may finally slow down Giuliani's broken-field running toward the Republican nomination. He won't swivel-hip away as effortlessly from the corruption of his post-9/11 business partner as he has from abortion, gun control, gay rights and multiple marriages. Conservatives, burned by so many crooks in Congress, may balk at iffy integrity in the White House.
In Iowa, Rudy's woes give new hope to Mitt and his money, Fred Thompson's sleepy stumping, John ("I was right about Iraq") McCain, and there could a perfect storm brewing for Mike Huckabee, moving up in the polls and fund-raising, who's getting praise from Bush's former favorite speech writer and is about to reel in his first Religious Right whale, James Dobson.
To the left, Barack Obama has finally found his campaign voice, competitive if not combative, and Hillary Clinton's national lead is narrowing. New Hampshire polls next week will show a closer race and in Iowa, it's a tight three-way with John Edwards, who could now claim residence there, not far behind.
Signs of Clinton concern abound: being caught planting questions, setting up still another web site to counter attacks, the former President trying to deflect blame for the 1993 health fiasco away from his First Lady.
His emergence was prompted by Obama's needle that "part of the record she’s running on is having worked on health care" while also suggesting "that somehow she doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that it didn’t work.”
Not exactly brass knuckles, but Obama is beginning to blend the politics of hope with some nimble in-fighting, pointing out that "to say there are no disagreements and that we’re all holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ is obviously not what I had in mind and not how I function. And anybody who thinks I have hasn’t been paying attention.”
Voters are beginning to pay attention. Stay tuned.
Yesterday's indictment of Bernard Kerik may finally slow down Giuliani's broken-field running toward the Republican nomination. He won't swivel-hip away as effortlessly from the corruption of his post-9/11 business partner as he has from abortion, gun control, gay rights and multiple marriages. Conservatives, burned by so many crooks in Congress, may balk at iffy integrity in the White House.
In Iowa, Rudy's woes give new hope to Mitt and his money, Fred Thompson's sleepy stumping, John ("I was right about Iraq") McCain, and there could a perfect storm brewing for Mike Huckabee, moving up in the polls and fund-raising, who's getting praise from Bush's former favorite speech writer and is about to reel in his first Religious Right whale, James Dobson.
To the left, Barack Obama has finally found his campaign voice, competitive if not combative, and Hillary Clinton's national lead is narrowing. New Hampshire polls next week will show a closer race and in Iowa, it's a tight three-way with John Edwards, who could now claim residence there, not far behind.
Signs of Clinton concern abound: being caught planting questions, setting up still another web site to counter attacks, the former President trying to deflect blame for the 1993 health fiasco away from his First Lady.
His emergence was prompted by Obama's needle that "part of the record she’s running on is having worked on health care" while also suggesting "that somehow she doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that it didn’t work.”
Not exactly brass knuckles, but Obama is beginning to blend the politics of hope with some nimble in-fighting, pointing out that "to say there are no disagreements and that we’re all holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ is obviously not what I had in mind and not how I function. And anybody who thinks I have hasn’t been paying attention.”
Voters are beginning to pay attention. Stay tuned.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Rudy's Albatross
The indictment today of Bernard Kerik promises to be much more than a case of a politically incorrect crony that Rudy Giuliani can fob off as easily as he has shed so much of the past in his campaign.
America's Mayor has already admitted a "mistake" in recommending his old friend for the Bush Cabinet position of Director of Homeland Security, but there are booby traps galore in the history of their post-9/11 partnership, Giuliani-Kerik, which was paid millions of dollars for advising companies, doing federal work and consulting with clients overseas.
In 2006, Giuliani's former Police Commissioner pled guilty to ethics violations after an investigation by the Bronx District Attorney's Office and was ordered to pay $221,000. Today's announcement will be, according to the New York Times, that a grand jury has voted to indict Kerik "on conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, and substantive counts of wire and mail fraud, under a statute often used in corruption cases, according to people briefed on the vote."
The unveiling of Kerik's history promises a pattern of corruption, and Giuliani is going to have to do a lot better than throwing his former partner and best friend off the bus with a political shrug.
It has opened a garbage can of worms about Giuliani's amassing of millions from his 9/11 aura with such intensity that he couldn't find time to serve on the Iraq Study Commission.
Voters are going to be asking who will protect them from the man who is promising to protect America from foreign terrorists.
America's Mayor has already admitted a "mistake" in recommending his old friend for the Bush Cabinet position of Director of Homeland Security, but there are booby traps galore in the history of their post-9/11 partnership, Giuliani-Kerik, which was paid millions of dollars for advising companies, doing federal work and consulting with clients overseas.
In 2006, Giuliani's former Police Commissioner pled guilty to ethics violations after an investigation by the Bronx District Attorney's Office and was ordered to pay $221,000. Today's announcement will be, according to the New York Times, that a grand jury has voted to indict Kerik "on conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, and substantive counts of wire and mail fraud, under a statute often used in corruption cases, according to people briefed on the vote."
The unveiling of Kerik's history promises a pattern of corruption, and Giuliani is going to have to do a lot better than throwing his former partner and best friend off the bus with a political shrug.
It has opened a garbage can of worms about Giuliani's amassing of millions from his 9/11 aura with such intensity that he couldn't find time to serve on the Iraq Study Commission.
Voters are going to be asking who will protect them from the man who is promising to protect America from foreign terrorists.
Mixed Feelings About the Sixties
Suddenly we are back in the 1960s with Hillary Clinton citing virtues for what she did back then, Barack Obama claiming he is of a new generation above the divisiveness of those days and Tom Brokaw, as usual, writing a book to explain it all.
At her alma mater, Wellesley, this week, Clinton said, "I need your help to make the calls and knock on the doors and talk to your friends and family. That's what I did back in 1968 when a group of my dear friends and I jumped in a car…and would drive from Wellesley to Manchester, New Hampshire, stuffing envelopes and walking precincts for Eugene McCarthy. He was running for president on a platform of ending the Vietnam War. I am running for president on part of a platform of ending the war in Iraq."
In Iowa, Obama is telling voters, "Senator Clinton and others have been fighting some of the same fights since the '60s. It makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done. And I think that's what people hunger for."
Politicians hype everything about themselves, including the accident of when they were born, but the 1960s were formative years for today's America, exposing fault lines in our national life that still divide us.
From my ancient perspective, what happened back then goes too deep for glib generalizations and political pandering.
On the one hand, the first generation of Americans not entirely driven to outdo their parents materially turned to moral superiority--about war, race, gender. In the 1950s movie, "The Wild One," biker Marlon Brando, asked what he's rebelling against, answers, "What have you got?"
There was awakening from complacency to challenge injustice and try to create a better society. But there was also self-righteous and self-serving acting out by draft-card burners, culminating in the chaos of the 1968 Democratic convention where anti-war protesters and delegates, including me, were tear-gassed.
We started the decade with JFK's "Ask what you can do for your country" and ended up with Richard Nixon and his dirty tricksters in the White House.
The culture wars began. People Nixon called "The Silent Majority" were appalled by privileged kids publicly trashing their traditional values at Woodstock and elsewhere, paving the way for Reagan's revival a decade later of the fictional feel-good America he lived in as an actor in 1940s movies.
In looking ahead to 2008, it would be a mistake to overuse the 1960s as a template. America was going through social and political growing pains back then that are not quite parallel to what we face now, but at the same time, there is no virtue in dismissing all that and assuming we can just turn to a blank new page in our history.
If Republicans are living in a nostalgic past, Democrats can't just push ahead to a fantasy future. There are enough questions to answer about what we do now in today's world.
At her alma mater, Wellesley, this week, Clinton said, "I need your help to make the calls and knock on the doors and talk to your friends and family. That's what I did back in 1968 when a group of my dear friends and I jumped in a car…and would drive from Wellesley to Manchester, New Hampshire, stuffing envelopes and walking precincts for Eugene McCarthy. He was running for president on a platform of ending the Vietnam War. I am running for president on part of a platform of ending the war in Iraq."
In Iowa, Obama is telling voters, "Senator Clinton and others have been fighting some of the same fights since the '60s. It makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done. And I think that's what people hunger for."
Politicians hype everything about themselves, including the accident of when they were born, but the 1960s were formative years for today's America, exposing fault lines in our national life that still divide us.
From my ancient perspective, what happened back then goes too deep for glib generalizations and political pandering.
On the one hand, the first generation of Americans not entirely driven to outdo their parents materially turned to moral superiority--about war, race, gender. In the 1950s movie, "The Wild One," biker Marlon Brando, asked what he's rebelling against, answers, "What have you got?"
There was awakening from complacency to challenge injustice and try to create a better society. But there was also self-righteous and self-serving acting out by draft-card burners, culminating in the chaos of the 1968 Democratic convention where anti-war protesters and delegates, including me, were tear-gassed.
We started the decade with JFK's "Ask what you can do for your country" and ended up with Richard Nixon and his dirty tricksters in the White House.
The culture wars began. People Nixon called "The Silent Majority" were appalled by privileged kids publicly trashing their traditional values at Woodstock and elsewhere, paving the way for Reagan's revival a decade later of the fictional feel-good America he lived in as an actor in 1940s movies.
In looking ahead to 2008, it would be a mistake to overuse the 1960s as a template. America was going through social and political growing pains back then that are not quite parallel to what we face now, but at the same time, there is no virtue in dismissing all that and assuming we can just turn to a blank new page in our history.
If Republicans are living in a nostalgic past, Democrats can't just push ahead to a fantasy future. There are enough questions to answer about what we do now in today's world.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Good and Bad News About Iraq
Iraqis are going home in Baghdad, and veterans of the war are starting to live on the streets back here.
Another day of weird news dramatizes the Bush-Cheneying of America as the Commander of US forces in Baghdad tells a New York Times reporter over a Green Zone lunch of egg rolls and lo mein that hundreds, if not thousands, of displaced families are back in their homes.
“The Iraqi people have just decided that they’ve had it up to here with violence,” according to Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., noting that their demands for electricity, water and jobs have intensified.
From Washington comes another Times report: "More than 400 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have turned up homeless, and the Veterans Affairs Department and aid groups say they are bracing for a new surge in homeless veterans in the years ahead."
Former soldiers are ending up on the streets sooner than Vietnam vets did, and some of them are women. Roughly 40 percent of female veterans say they were sexually assaulted by American soldiers while in the military. “Sexual abuse is a risk factor for homelessness,” according to Pete Dougherty, the VA’s director of homeless programs.
As Congress ponders the Administration's request for $200 billion to pay for another year of promoting democracy in Iraq, they may want to consider setting some of that aside for the Surge of young men and women we sent there who are now psychologically and physically homeless back here.
Another day of weird news dramatizes the Bush-Cheneying of America as the Commander of US forces in Baghdad tells a New York Times reporter over a Green Zone lunch of egg rolls and lo mein that hundreds, if not thousands, of displaced families are back in their homes.
“The Iraqi people have just decided that they’ve had it up to here with violence,” according to Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., noting that their demands for electricity, water and jobs have intensified.
From Washington comes another Times report: "More than 400 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have turned up homeless, and the Veterans Affairs Department and aid groups say they are bracing for a new surge in homeless veterans in the years ahead."
Former soldiers are ending up on the streets sooner than Vietnam vets did, and some of them are women. Roughly 40 percent of female veterans say they were sexually assaulted by American soldiers while in the military. “Sexual abuse is a risk factor for homelessness,” according to Pete Dougherty, the VA’s director of homeless programs.
As Congress ponders the Administration's request for $200 billion to pay for another year of promoting democracy in Iraq, they may want to consider setting some of that aside for the Surge of young men and women we sent there who are now psychologically and physically homeless back here.
Haters for Hillary
Barack Obama is the devil. If you doubt it, there is a highly professional web site updated daily to provide chapter, verse and venom on the subject.
The spewings of "Hillary Is 44" (44th President, that is) make Bill Clinton's remarks about other Democrats ganging up to vilify his wife look a tad hypocritical. The deceptively mild-looking blog with a pink background makes Rove's raiders look like pussycats.
A few recent samples:
"After all the many lies and denials concerning internal struggles with chaos, confusion, and complaints, Obama is not to be believed."
"Like a common street hustler ripping off tourists in a streetside shell game, Obama skips from issue to issue."
"Barack Cheney Obama, fresh from his Slime Hillary Clinton gig on the Tonight Show, today proudly continues his Slime Hillary Clinton tour."
"Obama is convicted, using his own standards of behavior and leadership, of being unfit to be president."
"This is typical Obama behavior. When Obama does something dirty he tries to disguise the dirt with flowery language."
The latest: "Obama made sure (Stephen) Colbert would not get on the (South Carolina) ballot. Obama, of course, denied he had anything to do with the Colbert Chicago style drive-by shooting."
Recent headings include: "The Obama Delusion," "Obama the Clown," "Obama's Iran Lie(s)" and "Obama's Macaca Weekend."
The Clinton campaign has been reaching out to voters online in a big away, not only cultivating Matt Drudge but hosting a Drudgelike site of their own, HillaryHub. "Hillary Is 44" claims to have no affiliation with the campaign but is raising money by selling Hillary t-shirts and buttons.
Identity of the operators is a Washington mystery, but it is professionally put together by more than one person, and the tone, Peggy Noonan has written, is "very Tokyo Rose."
Complaints about ganging up on Clinton should be accompanied by a clarification about the activities of her own attack dogs. Their barking may not have much bite, but they undermine her claims of being victimized.
The spewings of "Hillary Is 44" (44th President, that is) make Bill Clinton's remarks about other Democrats ganging up to vilify his wife look a tad hypocritical. The deceptively mild-looking blog with a pink background makes Rove's raiders look like pussycats.
A few recent samples:
"After all the many lies and denials concerning internal struggles with chaos, confusion, and complaints, Obama is not to be believed."
"Like a common street hustler ripping off tourists in a streetside shell game, Obama skips from issue to issue."
"Barack Cheney Obama, fresh from his Slime Hillary Clinton gig on the Tonight Show, today proudly continues his Slime Hillary Clinton tour."
"Obama is convicted, using his own standards of behavior and leadership, of being unfit to be president."
"This is typical Obama behavior. When Obama does something dirty he tries to disguise the dirt with flowery language."
The latest: "Obama made sure (Stephen) Colbert would not get on the (South Carolina) ballot. Obama, of course, denied he had anything to do with the Colbert Chicago style drive-by shooting."
Recent headings include: "The Obama Delusion," "Obama the Clown," "Obama's Iran Lie(s)" and "Obama's Macaca Weekend."
The Clinton campaign has been reaching out to voters online in a big away, not only cultivating Matt Drudge but hosting a Drudgelike site of their own, HillaryHub. "Hillary Is 44" claims to have no affiliation with the campaign but is raising money by selling Hillary t-shirts and buttons.
Identity of the operators is a Washington mystery, but it is professionally put together by more than one person, and the tone, Peggy Noonan has written, is "very Tokyo Rose."
Complaints about ganging up on Clinton should be accompanied by a clarification about the activities of her own attack dogs. Their barking may not have much bite, but they undermine her claims of being victimized.
Fast Shuffle for Swift Boaters
Saving America is hard work, and the pay can be rotten, at least if you're doing it for the nation's leading conservative publisher.
In a lawsuit, authors of books that exposed Bill Clinton and John Kerry and extolled George Bush are claiming they were scammed and short-changed on their best sellers by Eagle Publishing, which owns the Regnery imprint.
The plaintiffs produced such epic works as “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry,” “Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security” and “Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror” and received, they allege, only a fraction of the royalties due them.
If they had been paid by the word for their titles alone, they should have become wealthy, but their publisher sold or gave away copies of their books to self-owned book clubs, newsletters and other organizations “to avoid or substantially reduce royalty payments to authors.”
Instead of getting $4 or more a copy for books sold in a bookstore or through online retailers, they earned only 10 cents or so on sales through the Conservative Book Club and other such entities of the publisher.
“It suddenly occurred to us," one of them told reporters, "that Regnery is making collectively jillions of dollars off of us and paying us a pittance." Why, he asked, are they "acting like a Marxist cartoon of a capitalist company?”
In a brief career as a book publisher, I found that authors are chronic malcontents who fail to understand the risks involved in underwriting freedom of expression, but these patriots seem to have a point.
In a lawsuit, authors of books that exposed Bill Clinton and John Kerry and extolled George Bush are claiming they were scammed and short-changed on their best sellers by Eagle Publishing, which owns the Regnery imprint.
The plaintiffs produced such epic works as “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry,” “Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security” and “Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror” and received, they allege, only a fraction of the royalties due them.
If they had been paid by the word for their titles alone, they should have become wealthy, but their publisher sold or gave away copies of their books to self-owned book clubs, newsletters and other organizations “to avoid or substantially reduce royalty payments to authors.”
Instead of getting $4 or more a copy for books sold in a bookstore or through online retailers, they earned only 10 cents or so on sales through the Conservative Book Club and other such entities of the publisher.
“It suddenly occurred to us," one of them told reporters, "that Regnery is making collectively jillions of dollars off of us and paying us a pittance." Why, he asked, are they "acting like a Marxist cartoon of a capitalist company?”
In a brief career as a book publisher, I found that authors are chronic malcontents who fail to understand the risks involved in underwriting freedom of expression, but these patriots seem to have a point.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Racial Preferences: Obama/Thomas
In 1974, a future Supreme Court Justice graduated from Yale Law School. In 1991, a future US Senator and Presidential candidate received his law degree from Harvard.
But there is more than a generation gap between two men of color who went on to live out success stories in American public life. Aside from differences in temperament, there is a sharp contrast in how they overcame racial prejudice and at what emotional cost.
Reviewing Thomas' recent memoirs, Jeffrey Toobin notes in the New Yorker, "The young law student quickly came to resent the fact that he had benefitted from preferential admissions.'As much as it stung to be told that I’d done well in the seminary despite my race, it was far worse to feel that I was now at Yale because of it,' he writes...
"Thomas never explains what Yale did to him that was so terrible. When he didn’t receive the job offers he wanted from law firms, he interpreted the slight as reflecting what 'a law degree from Yale was worth when it bore the taint of racial preference...' Later, Thomas peeled a fifteen-cent sticker off a package of cigars and put it on the frame of his law degree. 'I never did change my mind about its value,' he writes."
There is a sharp contrast between Clarence Thomas' seething resentment and Barack Obama's law school experience, as described today by Dean Barnett in the conservative Daily Standard:
"Regardless of his classmates' politics, they all said pretty much the same thing. They adored him. The only thing that varied was the intensity with which they adored him. Some spoke like they were eager to bear his children. And those were the guys. Others merely professed a profound fondness and respect for their former classmate."
Barnett goes on to add: "Barack Obama graduated right near the top of his law school class. That fact, along with his presidency of the Law Review, makes his uniform popularity all the more impressive. Law schools are intensely competitive places. People who thrive to an unseemly extent, as Obama did, are usually subject to an array of resentments...
"The people that Obama so thoroughly charmed generally weren't the charm-prone types."
As newly minted lawyers, they took different paths, Thomas into Washington politics, Obama into working as a community organizer in Chicago. If he becomes the first African-American president, he is not likely to find a sympathetic racial compatriot on the Supreme Court.
But there is more than a generation gap between two men of color who went on to live out success stories in American public life. Aside from differences in temperament, there is a sharp contrast in how they overcame racial prejudice and at what emotional cost.
Reviewing Thomas' recent memoirs, Jeffrey Toobin notes in the New Yorker, "The young law student quickly came to resent the fact that he had benefitted from preferential admissions.'As much as it stung to be told that I’d done well in the seminary despite my race, it was far worse to feel that I was now at Yale because of it,' he writes...
"Thomas never explains what Yale did to him that was so terrible. When he didn’t receive the job offers he wanted from law firms, he interpreted the slight as reflecting what 'a law degree from Yale was worth when it bore the taint of racial preference...' Later, Thomas peeled a fifteen-cent sticker off a package of cigars and put it on the frame of his law degree. 'I never did change my mind about its value,' he writes."
There is a sharp contrast between Clarence Thomas' seething resentment and Barack Obama's law school experience, as described today by Dean Barnett in the conservative Daily Standard:
"Regardless of his classmates' politics, they all said pretty much the same thing. They adored him. The only thing that varied was the intensity with which they adored him. Some spoke like they were eager to bear his children. And those were the guys. Others merely professed a profound fondness and respect for their former classmate."
Barnett goes on to add: "Barack Obama graduated right near the top of his law school class. That fact, along with his presidency of the Law Review, makes his uniform popularity all the more impressive. Law schools are intensely competitive places. People who thrive to an unseemly extent, as Obama did, are usually subject to an array of resentments...
"The people that Obama so thoroughly charmed generally weren't the charm-prone types."
As newly minted lawyers, they took different paths, Thomas into Washington politics, Obama into working as a community organizer in Chicago. If he becomes the first African-American president, he is not likely to find a sympathetic racial compatriot on the Supreme Court.
Strangest Bedfellows
Pat Robertson, icon of the Religious Right, today endorsed a thrice-married, cross-dressing, pro-choice Catholic for President in 2008.
"I thought it was important for me to make it clear that Rudy Giuliani is more than acceptable to people of faith," said Robertson. "Given the fractured nature of the process, I thought it was time to solidify around one candidate."
The move was foreshadowed in June when Giuliani addressed a leadership conference at Robertson's Regent University and, according to its web site, the founder "reflected on the Mayor’s legendary performance after the tragic events of September 11th, citing the world’s recognition of his extraordinary leadership in a time of unthinkable crisis. With his trademark good humor, Dr. Robertson related the story of their shared prior cancer diagnoses, and his hospital-room call from the Mayor to offer words of encouragement."
The Robertson endorsement will go a long way to consummate Giuliani's courtship of the Religious Right and fend off the challenges on that front from Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
"I thought it was important for me to make it clear that Rudy Giuliani is more than acceptable to people of faith," said Robertson. "Given the fractured nature of the process, I thought it was time to solidify around one candidate."
The move was foreshadowed in June when Giuliani addressed a leadership conference at Robertson's Regent University and, according to its web site, the founder "reflected on the Mayor’s legendary performance after the tragic events of September 11th, citing the world’s recognition of his extraordinary leadership in a time of unthinkable crisis. With his trademark good humor, Dr. Robertson related the story of their shared prior cancer diagnoses, and his hospital-room call from the Mayor to offer words of encouragement."
The Robertson endorsement will go a long way to consummate Giuliani's courtship of the Religious Right and fend off the challenges on that front from Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
Ron Paul and Ross Perot
There is an eerie déjà vu to the sight of another Texan with the same initials crossing a Clinton's path to the White House as Ross Perot did in 1992.
News that Ron Paul raised more than $4million on the Internet the other day recalls Perot's surge in the polls back then, at one point running ahead of both the first George Bush and Bill Clinton.
Perot's erratic on-again off-again campaign as an Independent faltered but still drew over 19 million votes, reflecting unhappiness with the two major parties and politics as usual.
Four Presidential elections later, after Clinton and another Bush in the Oval Office, that disaffection has led to the odd sight of another maverick Texan drawing support, this time in the race for the Republican nomination.
Paul's surge reflects a mixed bag of discontent--with the plastic Republican front runners and their failure to call for getting out of Iraq, as he does; with politicians of both parties who hem, haw and hedge about issues, as he does not; with the linear nature of political discourse, which Paul's digital supporters have rejected and imaginatively left behind and, according to some, distorted.
All this makes good political theater to enliven the long, boring slog of an overheated campaign, but older observers may be put off by Paul's oversimplifications and nostalgia for an America-that-never was and troubled by his roots in the conspiracy theories of the John Birch Society.
Perot turned out to be an egotistical clown without staying power, but Ron Paul has been around for a long time and is not likely to fade away. It's time to stop finding him refreshing and take a closer look at what he is really offering.
News that Ron Paul raised more than $4million on the Internet the other day recalls Perot's surge in the polls back then, at one point running ahead of both the first George Bush and Bill Clinton.
Perot's erratic on-again off-again campaign as an Independent faltered but still drew over 19 million votes, reflecting unhappiness with the two major parties and politics as usual.
Four Presidential elections later, after Clinton and another Bush in the Oval Office, that disaffection has led to the odd sight of another maverick Texan drawing support, this time in the race for the Republican nomination.
Paul's surge reflects a mixed bag of discontent--with the plastic Republican front runners and their failure to call for getting out of Iraq, as he does; with politicians of both parties who hem, haw and hedge about issues, as he does not; with the linear nature of political discourse, which Paul's digital supporters have rejected and imaginatively left behind and, according to some, distorted.
All this makes good political theater to enliven the long, boring slog of an overheated campaign, but older observers may be put off by Paul's oversimplifications and nostalgia for an America-that-never was and troubled by his roots in the conspiracy theories of the John Birch Society.
Perot turned out to be an egotistical clown without staying power, but Ron Paul has been around for a long time and is not likely to fade away. It's time to stop finding him refreshing and take a closer look at what he is really offering.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Making Do With Mukasey
An old saying, "The perfect is the worst enemy of the good enough," comes to mind in the Senate struggle over the nomination of Michael Mukasey to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.
As the best choice we are likely to get from the Bush thugs who trashed the Justice Department, his confirmation would make more sense than holding it up with a prolonged debate over the legality of torture. That question can be settled by a Congressional vote to ban it.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, in a New York Times Op Ed today, points out, "There is virtually universal agreement, even from those who oppose Judge Mukasey, that he would do a good job in turning the department around."
Schumer adds: "Judge Mukasey’s refusal to state that waterboarding is illegal was unsatisfactory to me and many other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Congress is now considering--and I hope we will soon pass-- a law that would explicitly ban the use of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques. And I am confident that Judge Mukasey would enforce that law."
As compromises go, this is far from the worst in recent memory. At the risk of re-opening old wounds, we might recall the purists who voted for Ralph Nader over Al Gore in 2000 and gave us George Bush and this mess, among so many others.
As the best choice we are likely to get from the Bush thugs who trashed the Justice Department, his confirmation would make more sense than holding it up with a prolonged debate over the legality of torture. That question can be settled by a Congressional vote to ban it.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, in a New York Times Op Ed today, points out, "There is virtually universal agreement, even from those who oppose Judge Mukasey, that he would do a good job in turning the department around."
Schumer adds: "Judge Mukasey’s refusal to state that waterboarding is illegal was unsatisfactory to me and many other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Congress is now considering--and I hope we will soon pass-- a law that would explicitly ban the use of waterboarding and other abusive interrogation techniques. And I am confident that Judge Mukasey would enforce that law."
As compromises go, this is far from the worst in recent memory. At the risk of re-opening old wounds, we might recall the purists who voted for Ralph Nader over Al Gore in 2000 and gave us George Bush and this mess, among so many others.
Governing by Tantrum
"I veto, therefore I am" is the new theme of the Bush Administration.
In 1948, Harry Truman got to stay in the White House by railing against a Republican "do-nothing" Congress, and George W. Bush is now using the tactic in an effort to remain "relevant" as he prepares to leave the Oval Office.
"Congress has little to show for all the time that has gone by," he complained at his last press conference, a bizarre charge for a President who has vetoed Iraq appropriations bills, S-CHIP health insurance and this week is threatening to send back a water projects bill with enough bipartisan support to override his veto.
There is a kind of spoiled-rich-kid intransigence to the new Bush that is consistent with his behavior for six years when Republicans controlled both Houses and rubber-stamped whatever he wanted. Now, in the face of opposition, he is stamping his feet and threatening to hold his breath if he doesn't get his way.
"He may decide that all he wants to do is veto and stop progress," says Rep. Rahm Emanuel, head of the House Democratic Caucus. "But everybody will know who wants to change things, and who wants to keep them just the way they are."
But if Congressional Democrats are confident that voters will make that distinction next year, they should look closely at their approval ratings, which are lower than the President's.
To dramatize his claims about a do-nothing Congress, Harry Truman had called a special session on what was known as "Turnip Planting Day" in Missouri. His opponents obliged with inaction and made his point.
If today's Democrats want to avoid looking like turnips in '08, they had better start moving now.
In 1948, Harry Truman got to stay in the White House by railing against a Republican "do-nothing" Congress, and George W. Bush is now using the tactic in an effort to remain "relevant" as he prepares to leave the Oval Office.
"Congress has little to show for all the time that has gone by," he complained at his last press conference, a bizarre charge for a President who has vetoed Iraq appropriations bills, S-CHIP health insurance and this week is threatening to send back a water projects bill with enough bipartisan support to override his veto.
There is a kind of spoiled-rich-kid intransigence to the new Bush that is consistent with his behavior for six years when Republicans controlled both Houses and rubber-stamped whatever he wanted. Now, in the face of opposition, he is stamping his feet and threatening to hold his breath if he doesn't get his way.
"He may decide that all he wants to do is veto and stop progress," says Rep. Rahm Emanuel, head of the House Democratic Caucus. "But everybody will know who wants to change things, and who wants to keep them just the way they are."
But if Congressional Democrats are confident that voters will make that distinction next year, they should look closely at their approval ratings, which are lower than the President's.
To dramatize his claims about a do-nothing Congress, Harry Truman had called a special session on what was known as "Turnip Planting Day" in Missouri. His opponents obliged with inaction and made his point.
If today's Democrats want to avoid looking like turnips in '08, they had better start moving now.
Monday, November 05, 2007
"No Money, No Funny"
Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jay Leno and David Letterman won't be doing monologues about today's news tonight because their brains are on strike. More than 12,000 TV and movie writers are walking picket lines in New York and Los Angeles, carrying signs like "No Money, No Funny."
The Writers Guilds want a bigger share for their members of revenue from DVD and Internet sales of movies and TV shows, producers are balking and pickets are out chanting digital age slogans, "No downloads!"
But instead of hard hats and work boots, the New York Times reports, today's Norma Raes are sporting arty glasses and fancy scarves.
Ever since the early days of Hollywood, writers have had to fight for respect and money. Producers called them "gag men" back then and treated them like the flunkies who brought the doughnuts and coffee to the set.
The network series and movie distributors have a backlog of new offerings to keep them going but, for a generation that gets most of its news from the Daily Show and other late-night programs, it's going to be re-run city for a while.
MSM and bloggers will have to take up the slack.
The Writers Guilds want a bigger share for their members of revenue from DVD and Internet sales of movies and TV shows, producers are balking and pickets are out chanting digital age slogans, "No downloads!"
But instead of hard hats and work boots, the New York Times reports, today's Norma Raes are sporting arty glasses and fancy scarves.
Ever since the early days of Hollywood, writers have had to fight for respect and money. Producers called them "gag men" back then and treated them like the flunkies who brought the doughnuts and coffee to the set.
The network series and movie distributors have a backlog of new offerings to keep them going but, for a generation that gets most of its news from the Daily Show and other late-night programs, it's going to be re-run city for a while.
MSM and bloggers will have to take up the slack.
Media Sellouts
From right and left, critics accuse the nation's media of selling out the American people but, while the debate rages, the real selling is not by the media but of them.
On PBS last night, Bill Moyers highlighted the latest attempt to consolidate television, radio, newspapers and magazines even further into the hands of half a dozen conglomerates, Rupert Murdoch's among them.
This time the effort is being rushed along by FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin, who as a 33-year-old lawyer worked on the Bush legal team for the 2000 Florida vote recount and, with no media background, was appointed to the commission less than six months later.
In 2003, an attempt to concentrate media ownership was beaten back after a public outcry by interest groups ranging from the National Organization for Women and Common Cause to the National Rifle Association and the pro-life Family Research Council.
Now, in the waning days of Bush's Administration, his 3-2 majority on the FCC is trying to rush through similar relaxing of cross-ownership rules by next month, but again the public and Congress are trying to head them off at the pass.
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" was a slogan in the mid-nineteenth century when Americans were trying to abolish slavery. It's still applies now when a radical White House seems determined to enslave our minds.
On PBS last night, Bill Moyers highlighted the latest attempt to consolidate television, radio, newspapers and magazines even further into the hands of half a dozen conglomerates, Rupert Murdoch's among them.
This time the effort is being rushed along by FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin, who as a 33-year-old lawyer worked on the Bush legal team for the 2000 Florida vote recount and, with no media background, was appointed to the commission less than six months later.
In 2003, an attempt to concentrate media ownership was beaten back after a public outcry by interest groups ranging from the National Organization for Women and Common Cause to the National Rifle Association and the pro-life Family Research Council.
Now, in the waning days of Bush's Administration, his 3-2 majority on the FCC is trying to rush through similar relaxing of cross-ownership rules by next month, but again the public and Congress are trying to head them off at the pass.
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" was a slogan in the mid-nineteenth century when Americans were trying to abolish slavery. It's still applies now when a radical White House seems determined to enslave our minds.
From MAD to Madness
Pakistan could make Iran look like small potatoes. President Musharraf's move to seize emergency powers and crack down on opposition has opened a Pandora's box of potential nuclear threats in the Middle East too numerous and ugly to be covered by Joe Biden's characterization as "complicated stuff" in last week's Democratic debate.
"The United States has given Pakistan more than $10 billion in aid, mostly to the military, since 2001," the New York Times notes. "Now, if the state of emergency drags on, the administration will be faced with the difficult decision of whether to cut off that aid and risk undermining Pakistan’s efforts to pursue terrorists--a move the White House believes could endanger the security of the United States."
Even worse is the prospect, however remote, of Pakistan imploding from the dueling corruption and incompetence of Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto to be replaced by Muslim extremists who would then control the nation's nuclear weapons. Is that something the US, India or Israel could live with?
We never got a straight story about Pakistan’s leading nuclear scientist selling technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya even while Musharraf's hold on power was firm. Can we be sure that terrorists won't be able to get what they want in a shaky Pakistan?
In the last century, nuclear conflict was averted by the MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) Doctrine that deterred two superpowers from using such weapons without annihilating each other. But in a world where they may become available to groups of suicidal zealots who believe they will be rewarded in an afterlife for destroying those who don't share their beliefs, MAD could rapidly give way to madness.
In World War III or IV, depending on which Neo-Con is doing the numbering, what do we do about that?
"The United States has given Pakistan more than $10 billion in aid, mostly to the military, since 2001," the New York Times notes. "Now, if the state of emergency drags on, the administration will be faced with the difficult decision of whether to cut off that aid and risk undermining Pakistan’s efforts to pursue terrorists--a move the White House believes could endanger the security of the United States."
Even worse is the prospect, however remote, of Pakistan imploding from the dueling corruption and incompetence of Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto to be replaced by Muslim extremists who would then control the nation's nuclear weapons. Is that something the US, India or Israel could live with?
We never got a straight story about Pakistan’s leading nuclear scientist selling technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya even while Musharraf's hold on power was firm. Can we be sure that terrorists won't be able to get what they want in a shaky Pakistan?
In the last century, nuclear conflict was averted by the MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) Doctrine that deterred two superpowers from using such weapons without annihilating each other. But in a world where they may become available to groups of suicidal zealots who believe they will be rewarded in an afterlife for destroying those who don't share their beliefs, MAD could rapidly give way to madness.
In World War III or IV, depending on which Neo-Con is doing the numbering, what do we do about that?
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Conservative Crush on Obama
If upscale Republicans and Independents decide the '08 election, Barack Obama might well be our next President, judging from new love letters to the candidate from Andrew Sullivan in the Atlantic and Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal.
Sullivan argues that Obama is beyond the toxic quarrels of the Baby Boomers over Vietnam, Nixon and cultural issues, an alternative to a Giuliani-Clinton contest that would be "a classic intra-generational struggle--with two deeply divisive and ruthless personalities ready to go to the brink."
Obama, according to Sullivan, opposed the Iraq war "for the right reasons" and is therefore "the potential president with the most flexibility in dealing with it." His face would be "a re-branding of the United States" to the rest of the world, particularly Muslims. He might even, Sullivan argues, bridge the religious divide in America:
"(H)e is not born-again. His faith...lives at the center of the American religious experience. It is a modern, intellectual Christianity. 'I didn’t have an epiphany,' he explained to me. 'What I really did was to take a set of values and ideals that were first instilled in me from my mother, who was, as I have called her in my book, the last of the secular humanists—you know, belief in kindness and empathy and discipline, responsibility—those kinds of values. And I found in the Church a vessel or a repository for those values and a way to connect those values to a larger community and a belief in God and a belief in redemption and mercy and justice … I guess the point is, it continues to be both a spiritual, but also intellectual, journey for me, this issue of faith.'"
Peggy Noonan's crush on Obama is less global but just as clear. In a column on Hillary-bashing in last week's debate, she writes:
"Barack Obama, with his elegance and verbal fluency really did seem like that great and famous political figure from his home state of Illinois--Adlai Stevenson, who was not at all hungry, not at all mean, and operated at a step removed from the grubby game."
Last month Noonan observed: “Barack Obama has a great thinking look. I mean the look he gets on his face when he's thinking, not the look he presents in debate, where they all control their faces knowing they may be in the reaction shot and fearing they'll look shrewd and clever, as opposed to open and strong...
“You get the impression Mr. Obama trusts himself to think, as if something good might happen if he does. What a concept. Anyway, I've started to lean forward a little when he talks.”
Compare this to her take on John Edwards' attack on Clinton "like a furry animal on a wheel, trying so hard, to the point he's getting a facial tic, and getting nowhere, failing to get his little furry paws on his prey, not knowing you have to get off the wheel to get to the prey. You have to stop the rounded, rote, bromidic phrases, and use a normal language that cannot be ignored."
Andrew Sullivan and Peggy Noonan may not represent much of a constituency but, if the Democratic nomination becomes a battle over electability, their attitudes may foreshadow Obama's advantage on that issue.
Sullivan argues that Obama is beyond the toxic quarrels of the Baby Boomers over Vietnam, Nixon and cultural issues, an alternative to a Giuliani-Clinton contest that would be "a classic intra-generational struggle--with two deeply divisive and ruthless personalities ready to go to the brink."
Obama, according to Sullivan, opposed the Iraq war "for the right reasons" and is therefore "the potential president with the most flexibility in dealing with it." His face would be "a re-branding of the United States" to the rest of the world, particularly Muslims. He might even, Sullivan argues, bridge the religious divide in America:
"(H)e is not born-again. His faith...lives at the center of the American religious experience. It is a modern, intellectual Christianity. 'I didn’t have an epiphany,' he explained to me. 'What I really did was to take a set of values and ideals that were first instilled in me from my mother, who was, as I have called her in my book, the last of the secular humanists—you know, belief in kindness and empathy and discipline, responsibility—those kinds of values. And I found in the Church a vessel or a repository for those values and a way to connect those values to a larger community and a belief in God and a belief in redemption and mercy and justice … I guess the point is, it continues to be both a spiritual, but also intellectual, journey for me, this issue of faith.'"
Peggy Noonan's crush on Obama is less global but just as clear. In a column on Hillary-bashing in last week's debate, she writes:
"Barack Obama, with his elegance and verbal fluency really did seem like that great and famous political figure from his home state of Illinois--Adlai Stevenson, who was not at all hungry, not at all mean, and operated at a step removed from the grubby game."
Last month Noonan observed: “Barack Obama has a great thinking look. I mean the look he gets on his face when he's thinking, not the look he presents in debate, where they all control their faces knowing they may be in the reaction shot and fearing they'll look shrewd and clever, as opposed to open and strong...
“You get the impression Mr. Obama trusts himself to think, as if something good might happen if he does. What a concept. Anyway, I've started to lean forward a little when he talks.”
Compare this to her take on John Edwards' attack on Clinton "like a furry animal on a wheel, trying so hard, to the point he's getting a facial tic, and getting nowhere, failing to get his little furry paws on his prey, not knowing you have to get off the wheel to get to the prey. You have to stop the rounded, rote, bromidic phrases, and use a normal language that cannot be ignored."
Andrew Sullivan and Peggy Noonan may not represent much of a constituency but, if the Democratic nomination becomes a battle over electability, their attitudes may foreshadow Obama's advantage on that issue.
Marathons
In the 1977 New York City Marathon, a friend and former colleague of mine was disappointed by his worst performance in five years. But there was an excuse. He had spent a sedentary year gaining stomach flab and losing cardiovascular fitness, writing a book that was to be published that day.
His name was James Fixx, and the book, "The Complete Book of Running," was to become one of the best sellers of all time. Less than seven years later, he would die at age 52 of a massive heart attack after his daily run on a rural road in Vermont.
The pang that comes with each year's running of that race is more acute today after news of the collapse and death of a 28-year-old marathoner, Ryan Hall, during the Olympic Trials in New York's Central Park yesterday.
When Jim Fixx and I were atop the McCall's Magazine masthead in 1967, he was an easy-going man who weighed 214 pounds and smoked two packs a day. A decade later and 60 pounds lighter, he became rich and famous for The Book that, along with its sequel, sold more than a million copies.
One of the smartest people I ever knew (a Mensa member who had written books of games for the "super-intelligent"), Jim was also far from being or becoming a driven type-A. After the running books, he wrote a memoir mocking his sudden success and fame.
But in an age that insists of an explanation for everything, deaths such as those of Jim Fixx and Ryan Hall are jolting reminders of how thin the crust of earth on which we walk, or run, every day really is and how easily any of us, even the most highly conditioned, can fall through and disappear.
As we admire the winners and marvel at the grit of all those who run the course, the Marathon can be a moment for forgetting differences and savoring our fragile common humanity.
His name was James Fixx, and the book, "The Complete Book of Running," was to become one of the best sellers of all time. Less than seven years later, he would die at age 52 of a massive heart attack after his daily run on a rural road in Vermont.
The pang that comes with each year's running of that race is more acute today after news of the collapse and death of a 28-year-old marathoner, Ryan Hall, during the Olympic Trials in New York's Central Park yesterday.
When Jim Fixx and I were atop the McCall's Magazine masthead in 1967, he was an easy-going man who weighed 214 pounds and smoked two packs a day. A decade later and 60 pounds lighter, he became rich and famous for The Book that, along with its sequel, sold more than a million copies.
One of the smartest people I ever knew (a Mensa member who had written books of games for the "super-intelligent"), Jim was also far from being or becoming a driven type-A. After the running books, he wrote a memoir mocking his sudden success and fame.
But in an age that insists of an explanation for everything, deaths such as those of Jim Fixx and Ryan Hall are jolting reminders of how thin the crust of earth on which we walk, or run, every day really is and how easily any of us, even the most highly conditioned, can fall through and disappear.
As we admire the winners and marvel at the grit of all those who run the course, the Marathon can be a moment for forgetting differences and savoring our fragile common humanity.
Friday, November 02, 2007
The Unhealthy Body Politic
While Rudy Giuliani peddles fake survival statistics about his prostate cancer to lambaste "socialized medicine," George Bush and his Congressional loyalists are still blocking health insurance for children.
For those who care about Giuliani's glitch, Paul Krugman explains it in his New York Times column today, but that's only a minor symptom of the GOP war on health care compared to the ongoing epidemic of SCHIP-bashing by the Bush Administration.
Senate Democrats and Republican allies were working on a House-passed compromise yesterday of the bill Bush vetoed when faithful Mitch McConnell, whose office savaged 12-year-old Graeme Frost for advocating coverage for other kids, stepped in to stop it by forcing a vote on the bill.
But the issue is far from dead, as evidenced by an editorial in Maine's Bangor Daily News:
"The president’s arguments against SCHIP have put him in a corner. He opposes the program, he says, because he doesn’t want the government making decisions for doctors and customers. Patients don't have their medical decisions made by government under SCHIP; they use private insurers and private doctors, who presumably make their decisions based on their medical expertise. He has also painted the program as a Democratic scheme.
"To get out of that corner, he should consult with 'Democrats' like Sens. Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley to understand why they are such strong supporters of the program.
"Maybe if they explain the program allows 'customers'-— children, in this case--who now have no relationship with a doctor because they have no insurance, to start one, he'll better understand and support the program."
Meanwhile, advocates are running up to $2.5 million worth of ads against House members supporting the White House to help them understand the threat to their political well-being if they persist in such unhealthy behavior.
For those who care about Giuliani's glitch, Paul Krugman explains it in his New York Times column today, but that's only a minor symptom of the GOP war on health care compared to the ongoing epidemic of SCHIP-bashing by the Bush Administration.
Senate Democrats and Republican allies were working on a House-passed compromise yesterday of the bill Bush vetoed when faithful Mitch McConnell, whose office savaged 12-year-old Graeme Frost for advocating coverage for other kids, stepped in to stop it by forcing a vote on the bill.
But the issue is far from dead, as evidenced by an editorial in Maine's Bangor Daily News:
"The president’s arguments against SCHIP have put him in a corner. He opposes the program, he says, because he doesn’t want the government making decisions for doctors and customers. Patients don't have their medical decisions made by government under SCHIP; they use private insurers and private doctors, who presumably make their decisions based on their medical expertise. He has also painted the program as a Democratic scheme.
"To get out of that corner, he should consult with 'Democrats' like Sens. Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley to understand why they are such strong supporters of the program.
"Maybe if they explain the program allows 'customers'-— children, in this case--who now have no relationship with a doctor because they have no insurance, to start one, he'll better understand and support the program."
Meanwhile, advocates are running up to $2.5 million worth of ads against House members supporting the White House to help them understand the threat to their political well-being if they persist in such unhealthy behavior.
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