This is already up at the Knoxville Voice Web site. You should go check it out over there too. I see Jack Rentro's writing a column there now, and Jack's always worth a read.
Presidential Widgets
Now, 30 percent brighter!
by Scott McNutt
America thrives on commerce. We purchase all sorts of manufactured widgets in the marketplace --heavily researched, enticingly packaged, carefully marketed widgets -- such as toilet paper. Corporate giants like Kimberly-Clark and Proctor and Gamble spend millions of dollars determining what surface texture and what degree of softness will appeal to you, the consumer, then fight titanic marketing wars featuring animated bears or giggly children to convince you that theirs is the superior product. They spend big bucks to persuade you to wipe your ass with them.
Sometimes, as with the adult wet wipe toilet paper fad of 2001, a manufactured widget goes splat. You don’t remember the adult wet wipe fad of 2001? Both Kimberly-Clark and Proctor and Gamble introduced adult versions of wet wipes that year, then waged total corporate warfare on one another, each trying to convince us that their wipe could make our asses moister than their competitor. We said, "Yech," and ignored them.
Like toilet paper or any other manufactured widget, presidential candidates are researched, packaged and marketed. And like any widget, sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes, we take a chance on something different and are pleasantly surprised, like in 1884 when we bought into a widget named "Grover," and he worked out pretty well. Other times, we go with something standard and comfortable, like in 1856 when we went with a widget named James, and the result was a slow drift into civil war. So selecting a presidential product is like any other marketplace decision. Sometimes we go with the familiar and it’s a disaster. Sometimes we go with our gut and it’s heavenly.
In presidents and in widgets, America has made mistakes of great magnitude. We bit on presidential candidate Warren Harding’s 1920 malaprop campaign promise of "a return to normalcy" and gave him the election; he gave us the Teapot Dome scandal. Then we bought into the Hoover brand name and those Wall Street stock market shysters, which earned us the Crash of ’29 and the Great Depression. So we turned to the trusted Roosevelt brand to fix things.
In America’s marketplace, we’re never finished making mistakes. We proudly drove home the Edsel in 1958. In 1962, Richard Nixon said, "You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore," and we believed him. In the ’70s, we bought 8-track tapes by the truckload while suffering through the Carter malaise. We also thought the Pinto was a neat-o keen car. We gave the Captain and Tennille their own variety show in 1976 and rewarded Rupert Holmes with a #1 hit for "Escape (the Pina Colada Song)" in 1979. And sure, when the colossal struggle between cassettes and 8-tracks broke out, some citizens (such as me) were on the wrong side of it. And again when the cassette fought the CD. And again when the CD fought the iPod.
But haven’t we’ve always quickly rectified these mistakes and emerged stronger from our missteps, gaining wisdom from our trials? Well, except in the case of Rupert Holmes. He got another top ten hit with "Him" early in 1980. Yeah, yeah, we also elected Reagan. And papa Bush. Read my lips: Better marketing. I digress. The point is, don’t we eventually recognize and recover from the error of our ways?
We’ve weathered VHS vs. Betamax, Cricket vs. Bic, laser disk vs. DVD, Apple vs. Microsoft, PCjr versus Commodore, extra-large vs. biggie fries and paper vs. plastic. Hell, we made it through Van Halen vs. Van Hagar. We survived all these marketing campaigns and became more selective consumers. Right? Wrong.
Maybe now that America’s finances, military, infrastructure, transportation systems and reputation are in the toilet, buyers’ remorse will finally set in with even the most stubborn of Bush brand users. George W. Bush is the adult wet wipes toilet paper disaster of the presidential set – except he had a successful marketing campaign. So we elected him twice.
Bush is all the failed product fads and get-rich-quick cons we’ve fallen for. He is every Ponsi scheme and Nigerian yellow cake scam America ever bought into. He’s every used-car salesman who sold us a lemon and every $10 trollop dolled up like a $1,000 courtesan who picked our pocket while giving us a ride. (Metaphorically, of course -- America would never resort to hookers.)
He’s New Coke, Crystal Pepsi, the Arch Deluxe, Polaroid Instant Home Movies, the Delorean, Apple’s Newton, Harley Davidson perfume, Campbell’s Souper Combo, Clairol’s ‘Touch of Yogurt’ shampoo, RJ Reynolds’ Smokeless Cigarettes, and Milli Vanilli all rolled into one.
But all his marketers had to do was position him as the kind of widget it’d be fun to drink a beer with, and we allowed the Bush brand to wipe its ass with us.
None of which says anything about whether the Republican "Lipstick-on-a-field-dressed-moose-oh-we-have-the-old-guy-too" pitch or the Democratic "Plus-ça-change-plus-c'est-la-même-chose" schtick will work next month. All I know is, I’m glad you people can’t buy the Bush product line again. Now excuse me while I crack open this brewski and decide which presidential widget I’d prefer to share it with.
Busy, busy. This column has already come and gone from the Knoxville Voice Web site. Well, not really gone, just rotated back, behind Julie Auer gettin' schooled. So you can always go check it out there.
And I need to get busy withe another column. Busy, busy,busier...
Illegal Motions
IT'S POLITICAL FOOTBALL TIME IN TENNESSEE!
by Scott McNutt
This is John Ward with Bill Anderson. We’re seconds away from the kickoff of a new political season here in Big Orange Jumpsuit Country. A special called meeting of the Knox County Commission is about to get underway. Today’s struggle will be between Team Against Ragsdale Never Answering for Things; It’s Obviously Nefarious (TARNATIONs) and Team: Ragsdale Always Is Trying to Oblige Requests (TRAITORs) over the county grants program audit. Five true freshman commissioners and three redshirt commissioners are starting this year. And there they go…they’re saying their prayers…they’re reciting the Pledge of Allegiance…and…there’s the coin toss…there’s a mad scramble for the coin…IT'S POLITICAL FOOTBALL TIME IN TENNESSEE! What do we know about these eight youngsters, Bill Anderson, and how they’ll play today?
Bill: Well, John, I expect there’ll be a lot of strategy used in today’s game, but I reckon the teams’ll let their political ploys do the talking. The TARNATIONs haven’t been talking any trash, not wanting to give the TRAITORs any bulletin board material. About the players, well, John, they’re so green, I reckon you’d as soon mow ’em as play politics with them.
John: Greg "Lumpy" Lambert has emerged from the pile with the coin, so the TARNATIONs will start on offense first, as Lumpy calls a play…Three of the eight freshman did get significant playing time at the end of the last political season, didn’t they, Bill?
Bill: That’s right, John. Sam McKenzie, Richard Briggs and Dave Wright came in as subs for some other substitutes who went down with a severe case of sunburn from Sunshine Law exposure.
John: Lambert’s trying to make something happen for the TARNATIONs! …He’s got the play in…well, Bill, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a formulation like this before. It’s a call to censor Mayor Mike Ragsdale and prevent him from using the terms "move the county forward," "look after the county’s business," "look to the future," "read to children," "showboat," and "cleared of all charges."
Bill: Ohhh, that would cripple the TRAITORs! If he can’t use those six phrases, they’d lose about half their playbook!
John: Lumpy’s going in motion…he’s looking for help…he’s trying to pass the motion…oh, and freshman Commissioner Ed Shouse intercepts! What a "motion" of his own!
Bill: Yep, Lumpy never saw him coming. Shouse’s quiet, but he’s got some nifty moves in him, John!
John: Wait! The play’s not over! Is Lumpy…it appears…is he giving Shouse a one-fingered salute? Yes! ONE finger…in…his...face! That stopped Shouse in his tracks. Now Lumpy is aiming a foot at Shouse’s goal post! The kick is up….and…it’s…goo-DAH! Oh, what a hit! That rocked Shouse so much he, oh my goodness, he stumbled and fumbled!
Bill: You read that right, John! That finger really flew up in Shouse’s face. Lumpy’s a big boy, but he’s quick and he’s got a head on them shoulders. It’s put the TRAITORs right back on the defensive!
John: And that will cost the TRAITORs. They’re backed up in their own end with little time left. The TARNATIONs will have the ball when play is resumed. While there’s a time out on the field, Bill Anderson, let’s talk about the trio of freshman who already have playing time. Would you describe any as impact players?
Bill: Well, in the P-card audit tussle, Briggs used a trick play called the "Reasonable Man" standard, which pretty much stifled commission’s attack. Makes you wonder if he’s, ha ha, playing for the TRAITORs. In politics, it’s hard to tell one team from the other sometimes.
John: Now, play has resumed. Scott "Scoobie" Moore is going with a motion play for the TARNATIONs, but he’s having trouble getting the play off…he seems to have gotten his signals mixed up…the other players are obviously having trouble understanding him…there’s considerable confusion down there. He needs to pay attention to the play clock, Bill Anderson, he’s running out of time, wait, wait, he pulls it down and tries to run ahead with it, but he’s swarmed down by a host of TRAITORs.
Bill: He knew he was running out of time, John, so he just took off on his own, even though he was in the middle of a motion.
John: So here comes referee Thomas "Tank" Anderson gaveling him for illegal motion. Oh, will you look at that! Scoobie launched a fusillade against Tank. I don’t know what he said, but it costs the TARNATIONs possession. While we’re waiting for play to resume,of the other freshman players, Finbarr Saunders, Brad Anders, Amy Broyles, and Mike Brown, which will be lining up for the TRAITORs, Bill?
Bill: We may not get the chance to find out today, John. Time’s running out, and the man himself has decided to enter the game.
John: Yes, Mayor Mike Ragsdale is taking the podium! He’s not wasting any time, Bill. He really knows how to play this game! He fakes a handoff to Commissioner Mike Hammond and tucks it in! He’s calling his own number! He’s off and running! His tongue’s twisting, it’s turning…the TARNATIONs are trying to hit him with 50 interruptions, 40…he’s diving, spinning, driving, fighting! …He’s knifing through their defenses…yes, sir, ladies and gentlemen…he wishes he was running all the way to the state capital, but instead he's at the 20, the 15, the 10...GIVE...HIM...SIX!!! He keeps all six of his pet phrases! What is it? It’s a LETDOWN, TENNESSEE! The TRAITORs win again, Bill Anderson!
Bill: That they do, John. But it’s a long political season.
John: For Bill Anderson, this is John Ward, signing off.
This is up on the Knoxville Voice Web site with, as always, many other excellent and informative pieces. Go check it out at:
All Soles Day
Walk a mile in someone else’s less-comfy shoes
by Scott McNutt
Here’s a useful exercise: If a problem needs solving but your brain lobes feel like two lodestones, don’t try to generate a creative spark by banging them together. Instead, approach the problem obliquely. Burst your creative logjam by changing your daily routine.
Take a different route to work and park in a different spot (but not the boss’ space; you’re trying to nurse ideas, not draw unemployment). Drink tea instead of coffee, crawl under your desk and briefly survey the view from down there, and for lunch order a fruit plate instead of that unhealthy crap you generally get. In afternoon meetings, sit in a different place (but be careful in whose lap you end up), and when you get home, bring flowers, kiss your significant other, and say "I love you," instead of your customary, "Hi, what’s for dinner," you lout.
Just kidding with the lout remark. But anyway, jumpstart your creativity by doing things differently to get your brain looking at stuff in new ways. For instance, I’ve varied my routine recently by walking and jogging backwards with our dog, Cody. To be clear, I’ve walked and jogged backwards while Cody and my wife Dana have proceeded forward. Cody jogging backward, now that would be a creative breakthrough.
Dana declined to walk backward. "You should try it, dear," I said to her. "Walking backward will orient you to new perspectives in your head."
"It will orient my butt to the pavement," she replied. "No way."
OK, walking backwards may not be for everyone. But it did help me creatively. It inspired me to write this column. Because walking backward got me thinking about how I am a backward-looking person. The future, to me, is always grim and unpleasant. I hold the future with nothing but foreboding and finality. To move forward is to come to the end, sooner or later.
Going forward walking backward while looking back, back, back into the misty recesses of prehistory in my head, I wondered: How many people have come and gone on our small orb? I looked it up later. According to one estimate, the number of people born on Earth between 50,000 BCE and 2002 CE is one hundred-six billion, four hundred-fifty-six million, three hundred-sixty-seven thousand, six hundred-sixty-nine (106,456,367,669 – yes, the precision slays me too; couldn’t they round up?). Maybe half of those died in infancy or early childhood. (See the article at www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx.)
Still moving forward walking backward while looking into the past and pondering my own pessimism, I wondered: If you could ask every person who’d ever been born on Earth, would they be forward-looking or backward-gazing about life? Would living have been worth it to them?
I think if you ask the fifty billion children who never made it out of childhood what they thought about life, they’d all say the same thing: "WAAAAAAH!" Or possibly, "Feed me."
But I know I’m a gloomy soul, so I’m open to other interpretations of what all those dead babies might say. So I was thinking about how optimistic people might be able to find a positive perspective in those brief lives, some hope or inspiration that I simply can’t see. And that’s when I stumbled and almost landed on my ass. That’s also when the idea for All Soles Day kicked me in the seat of the pants.
What if each of us could walk in the shoes of every other of the 106,456,367,669 people born onto our blue world? Don’t you think we might all have a little more empathy for each other? Just trying on 106,456,367,669 pairs of shoes ought to generate a little sympathy. Fitting into all those baby shoes, men going through pair after pair of high heels, women forced to wear ugly work boots – why, I dare say we’d at least all be nicer to shoe salesclerks from now on.
Imagine yourself in the ballet slippers of the little match girl, shivering in the cold, expiring from hunger. All right, she’s a fictional character, but if anyone could draw some sympathy, she could, real or not. But anyway: Try to picture yourself standing in the tattered foot wrappings of some forgotten English peasant woman as she jerked and shuddered, dying of the plague; or in the rotten shoe leather of one of Washington’s soldiers in wintry Valley Forge; or in Jesse Owens’ running shoes as he crushed Hitler’s boasts of racial superiority at the Berlin Olympics – or even in Bozo’s clown shoes for his first telecast. Taking a day to contemplate all the soles of all the souls who have walked or crawled ’round this old ball might do us all some good.
If a day were set aside to imagine how other people have lived through the ages, perhaps we’d each strive to live a little more humbly. If we took the opportunity to experience someone else’s life first-hand (or first-foot), maybe we’d all be a little more respectful of other lives.
And perhaps we’d all be less wrapped up in our own little lives. Because ours are little lives. An average life-span of 75 years is maybe 1/700 of the total time modern humans have existed. Ours is only a tiny flicker of time. Then phht! We’re out. It would behoove us occasionally to pay homage to all those who went before in the other 699/700s.
So maybe All Soles Day would make us appreciate our 1/700 of time here a little more. But if an All Soles Day wouldn’t work for you, then walk backward in your own life until you find something that does. Just remember this lesson I learned: When walking backward, you’re leading with your ass.
This is already up at www.knoxvoice.com/arts/funny-ha-ha/ but you should check out the other stories there too, particularly the lengthy series of profiles of folks running in county races by Lisa Slade.
Communication Saps
The Mary something something factor
by Scott McNutt
Somewhere I still have an old B.C. cartoon I clipped from the newspaper decades ago. It’s a simple gag. Two cavemen are sitting on opposite sides of a boulder. One is examining a jagged mark on the back of his hand.
First panel: "I got a scratch!" he proclaims.
Second panel: "So scratch!" retorts the other.
Third panel: With a bemused expression, the first caveman gazes out of the panel and thinks, "Language is a stupid form of communication."
I refer to this comic exchange because my wife Dana and I share a very special form of communication. It’s not quite stupid, but it has severe quirks. "Oblique," you might call it. Or "obtuse."
The other night we were watching a rerun of Law & Order: SVU. Dana recognized a guest star, and I swear this re-creation of the ensuing conversation is not exaggerated.
"Who’s that actress?" Dana said.
"I can’t quite remember. Her name’s Mary something something," I replied. "Let’s see, Mary something something was in The Big Chill…"
Dana: "You think this actress was in The Big Chill?"
Me: "No, no. I’m just trying to run through actresses named Mary something something. Mary Beth Hurt?"
Dana: "You think that’s Mary Beth Hurt?"
Me: "No, I think Mary Beth Hurt was in The Big Chill."
Dana: "Mary Beth Hurt was Garp’s wife."
Me: "Is that her?"
Dana: "The Mary in The Big Chill?"
Me: "No, no, no. Is Mary Beth Hurt that actress there?"
Dana: "What? No, not her. Mary something something was on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman."
Me: "The actress on TV was on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman?"
Dana: "No, Mary Kay Place was on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. There was a Mary something something in a movie with an actor, he’s done a lot of things, he does, he does…"
Me: "That’s not Mary Kay Place."
Dana: "No, Mary Kay Place was the Mary something something in The Big Chill, and she was on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. Oh!Those Lowe’s commercials, he does the voiceovers for them-"
Me: "You think Mary Kay Place does the voiceovers for Lowe’s?"
Dana: "No, he’s-"
Me: "He who? Are we still talking about that actress?"
Dana: "Yes, I’m trying to remember Mary something something actresses. He does the voiceovers for Lowe’s, and she was his daughter-"
Me: "She’s the daughter of the guy who does the Lowe’s commercials?"
Dana: "No, she played his daughter in a lawyer movie. And she was in that pool movie with that other actor and the young actor. She was the young actor’s girlfriend and the older actor’s daughter or something."
Me: "Well, that was Gene Hackman in the lawyer movie."
Dana: "Yes! Gene Hackman! She was in that movie with him."
Me, scoffing: "Yes, and she was in The Color of Money. But that actress on TV was not in those movies. That was-"
Dana: "Yes, I know the actress on TV wasn’t in them, I’m trying to remember the actress in those movies because she’s a Mary something something."
Me: "-that was Mary Elizabeth Muh- muh-"
Dana: "-Mastrantonio. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio!"
Me: "OK, I know she was in the movie with the young guy who was Cher’s kid in that other movie."
Dana: "Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was in a movie with Cher’s kid?"
Me: "No…Mask! It was Mask."
Dana: "Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was not in Mask."
Me: "No, he was in Mask. She was in Some Kind of Wonderful with him."
Dana: "Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was in Some Kind of Wonderful?"
Me: "No, that Mary something something was."
Dana: "Which Mary something something are we talking about?"
Me: "The Mary something something on TV.
Dana: "What about her?"
Me: "She was the Mary something something in the movie."
Dana: "Which movie are we talking about?"
Me: "Some Kind of Wonderful."
Dana, picking up our movie review book: "Oh. Why didn’t you say so?"
Me: "I only remembered by going through the Mary something somethings."
Now, you could parse this exchange to very finite instances of miscommunication, pointing out, for instance, that using a proper name in place of the frequently used pronoun "she" would have cleared up much of the misunderstanding. Or you might simply conclude that we are both pretty stupid, with bad memories to boot. Nonetheless, I bring this up to make an obvious point, that communication is tricky business, but also to serve, however elliptically, as a cautionary note, because the stupid communication season is upon us.
The presidential election campaign is ratcheting up. The candidates will be making 10-cent promises spiffed up in 99-cent words. Candidates for local political offices will be doing the same, albeit at a discounted rate. Soon, all the politicians and all the talking TV babbleheads and all the celebrities and everybody you know, your spouse, your family, your friends, your coworkers, your minister, your son’s little league coach, that annoyingly loud lady who’s always at the salon, that odd little guy who’s always in the grocery store at the same time as you, and even you, will be saying things about these campaigns in stupid ways that can easily be misunderstood.
Dana and I may be slightly less coherent than other average citizens, but I don’t think there’s a huge gap between us. If Dana and I can’t talk clearly about some actress on TV that we don’t even care about, then I can only imagine how badly we’ll communicate when the stupidity of political fervor grips us.
So in this season of overheated political rhetoric, when you’re trying to distinguish between fact and fiction, truth and falsehood, realism and hyperbole, and when emotions are running hot and the chance of your words being taken wrong is high – in essence, when you’re trying to identify and communicate the Mary something something of your political passion – bear this lesson in mind: It was Mary Stuart Masterson.
The new Hellbender is out, and an edited version of this "Toxic Fumes" is in it. (I recommend picking up the print version too; the edits add some funny to it).
Why Don’t We Do It in the Road
Traffic laws are made to be broken. Like bones
by Scott McNutt
So this guy comes zipping down our street on some souped-up mountain bike. He’s barreling along, he’s flying, he’s breezing, he’s free as the wind, right? He’s moving like he’s Mad BMX, the Road Warrior of the bicycling set.
He blows through the stop sign at the bottom of the hill, loses control as he veers onto the intersecting street, brakes, slides sideways, pops the curb, skids five feet forward on the sidewalk, then – bang! – the brakes finally lock. The bicycle owner shoots past the bike’s handle bars, and he skids along another ten feet of pavement on his bare limbs.
This is called "environmentally friendly transportation."
Or maybe it’s called "recreational exercise." Whatever you call it, it’s pronounced the same way: "AAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!"
I went over and offered to help the fellow, but he shrugged me aside and trudged off, pushing his bike toward Broadway. I suppose he was obeying the unspoken code of "Be strong and silent and show no pain as you ride (or trudge) off into the sunset" shared by steed-riders, be the steeds flesh or steel. But in this case, there trudged a whole different order of brokeback cowboy.
On another occasion, I was in my car stopped at the same stop sign. I noticed a cyclist zooming down the hill toward me. I proceeded through the stop sign, turning left. Checking the rearview, I panicked because the biker was nowhere in sight. Could he have slid under my car or slammed into and sailed over the fence across the street?
On the verge of turning back to investigate, I slowed and craned my head around, looking for some evidence of his passing. And there he was, right in my blind spot, grinning like a bicycle-riding circus bear that’s just eaten its trainer. Not trifling with so trivial a thing as traffic laws, he had run the stop sign and drifted along beside my car. In cycling circles, I think it’s called "drafting."
Parts of him would have been feeling a draft after he smacked into the side of my car if I had acted on my impulse to wheel it around. Then again, it’s a Saturn, so he probably would have caromed off unhurt and proceeded on his way, leaving a major dent in the door (and my pride) to mark his passing. At any rate, so rattled was I that I slowed and let him waft past me.
No, this is not an all-bicyclists-suck-and-shouldn't-be-allowed-on-the-road rant. Bicycles have as much right to our roads as any other vehicle, and many bicyclists are far more observant of traffic regulations than are vehicleans. (Vehiclean: One whose lifestyle is vehicle-oriented. Wish I could claim to have coined it, but some wacky West Knox guy who wanted to build a vehiclean Mecca at the corner of Kingston Pike and Cedar Bluff Road a few years back owns that distinction.) Vehicleans suck too.
For example, probably one in five of the cars moving along Gay Street downtown fails to stop at at least one of its many lights. Some of the drivers are obviously out-of-towners, busily gawking at the wonders of our fair city ("Look, Ma! A three-story building! It's the littlest skyscraper I ever saw!"). Some, revving their engines and racing the minute distances between each signal, seem more concerned with showing off than obeying the law ("Look at me! I’m running the light! I’m defying authority! I’m ubercool! I’m superbadass! I’m- I’m running into the car ahead of me-!"). And some seem merely oblivious ("Is this my beautiful car? Is this my beautiful wife? Am I wearing pants?")
No, I’m not driving a glass car and throwing rods, either. I’m not a good driver. I have rolled through stop signs, turned right at red lights without coming to a full stop, pulled out in front of cars I didn't see coming and so forth. Just the other night I was driving down State Street and, glancing in my rearview mirror, saw an SUV zip in the "Out" ramp of the Promenade parking deck. Busy smirking at what a jerk the driver was, I failed to notice that I was drifting into the parking lane. I didn’t wreck - because someone had the foresight to not be parked right there right then. I can’t cast aspersions, much less rocks or rods.
But at least I know I’m guilty of bad driving. Others don’t seem aware. I have friends who boast of what bad drivers they are. That is, they explain how they have such superior road skills that they can ignore speed limits and other rules of the road, and it’s everybody else that’s the problem. Such talk proclaims "I AM A BAD DRIVER" as plainly as if they had stapled a sign reading "I cause traffic accidents" to their foreheads. But they are friends, so I don’t point this out.
And don’t even get me started on people who talk on their cell phones while driving. Enough has already been written about it. You can argue how great a driver you are until you’re Bluetooth in the face, but if you’re talking on a cell phone, you’re four times more likely than cell-phone-free drivers to become Mr. or Ms. Chatty-Chatty-Bang-Bang (according to a 2005 study: ww.msnbc.msn.com/id/8545779/).
But lately, it’s the Redflex cameras at intersections about town my bad-driving friends bemoan. "I know better than some stupid camera whether I ran a red light!" they bellow. "And if I did run it, it was because it needed running!" These diatribes generally peter out with vague rumblings about fascism, totalitarianism and "sticking it to Big Brother."
But if the cameras represent our Orwellian present, then the dystopia got the green light long ago, the first time somebody stuck a stop sign at a four-way intersection. And, as my friend Michael likes to say, "We started down this road when we let robots run intersections with their red, yellow, and green commands." Automated devices have directed our driving behavior for practically a century. So, the cameras aren’t the problem. Rather, it’s our inclination to put our own judgment above our agreed-upon social contract of traffic laws.
George Carlin accurately observed that we feel anybody driving slower than us is an idiot and anyone going faster is a maniac. He’s right. As drivers, we’re all a little crazy-stupid. If you don’t recognize that, well, you’re either crazy or stupid. The upshot is, whether a driver or biker, the more sure you are of your driving prowess, the more likely it is your driving isn’t as good as you think. To put it another way, the gap between our assumed and our actual driving capabilities is probably wide enough to drive a Mack truck through. And even then we’d probably still manage to dent the fender. In other words, we all suck.
So, whether bicyclean or vehiclean, we can all improve our driving, and one way to do that is to stop thinking we’re so great at it. We must use discretion and exercise caution. We must be respectful and careful of other drivers. We’d all be better off if, instead of road warriors, we were road worriers.
Hey the column below is already up at Knoxville Voice (http://www.knoxvoice.com/)!
It's not on the front page, but search around, you'll find it. And while you're searching you can check out KV's local music issue -- there's a roundtable discussion with scene vets, Jack Rentfro's blogging from Bonneroo, and much, much more. Check it out.
My Body, Your Soul
Looking back at a one-song songwriting career
by Scott McNutt
I’m out of touch with the music scene now, but in the ’80s and ’90s, I knew folks in local groups. I was a fan of Smokin’ Dave & the Premo Dopes, the Homeboys, Sea 7 States, RB Morris, the JudyBats, the Swamis, Scott Miller, the Viceroys, the V-Roys and many more. And I made one contribution to the scene myself.
The band I followed most closely was a late ’80s group, the Taoist Cowboys. I gravitated to them because I fondly remembered the old Homeboys song, “Looking Back,” a wistful, bouncy reminisce on love lost, written and sung by Scott Carpenter, public defender by day, country-rocker by night. Scott became a guitarist and sometime singer in the Taoist Cowboys, and the Cowboy sound somewhat echoed the Homeboys.
The other Cowboys were Brad Deaton on bass and Jeff Bills on drums, scene vets both, and Bob McCluskey, lead guitarist and main singer/songwriter. Bob was a head-scratcher. He looked to be 12 and not yet shaving, but he wrote songs as if looking back on eight decades of a twisted, yet romantic life.
The Cowboys played infectious pop. You liked it whether you were afflicted with the rockin’ pneumonia or the boogie-woogie flu ‑ or the punk runs or the garage cooties for that matter.
I envied those guys their talent and skill – and the adulation that engulfed them when they were up on stage. That was the only side of being in a band I saw. I didn’t consider the years of hard work, dedication, and practice leading up to those few hours performing.
I tried guitar lessons. I learned that I hold a beat like a broken metronome, I keep time like a stopped watch. Once or twice in a session, I might get it only to quickly lose it. You must have rhythm to play guitar. I quit after six months. I would never do what the Taoist Cowboys did.
Except, I wrote song lyrics. I wrote lyrics in high school and continued to throughout my twenties. Most were like my song “Past Imperfect, Present Tense.” An extended metaphor juxtaposing romantic entanglement and verb conjugation, the song was past imperfect. It was very, very bad. But at the time, I didn’t know.
Many Taoist Cowboy shows later, I decided, circa 1989, to ask Scott Carpenter if he’d care to peruse my songs. He agreed, and one night he and his guitar graced my Fort Sanders apartment. He thumbed through the sheaf of lyrics and quickly selected one song: “Body and Soul,” a collection of metaphors about unrequited love built on a could/would construction, as in “If I could give you…/Would it be enough to…?”
To my everlasting delight, Scott whipped out his guitar and strummed a jangly mid-tempo countryish tune while singing the lyrics – my lyrics. I loved it. After running through it a couple more times, he pocketed the lyrics, and we went down to the Longbranch to celebrate.
Half an anxious year passed before Scott told me that, in the Cowboys’ next show at Planet Earth, they would perform “Body and Soul.” I went. I heard. I barely recognized it. The jangly country tune I’d adored in my apartment had morphed on stage into a hard-driving rocker filled with lyrics I didn’t write.
When Scott asked after the show what I thought of it, I said something like, “It sure changed a lot.” I don’t try to be ungracious. I just have a knack.
Despite my initial surprise, I quickly warmed to the finished song. The faster tune was catchy, and the words were still substantially mine, just vastly improved by Scott’s contributions. For example, he transformed my ungainly line, “If I could give you the hands from my arms” into the sweet “If I could give you the embrace of my arms.” Plus, he added a bridge that anchored the lyrics’ stylized sentiments to real feelings. Listen and decide for yourself: Free MP3s of “Body and Soul” and all the songs on the Taoist Cowboy’s swan-song album, Punt, are available from Jeff Bill’s Lynn Point Records at www.lynnpoint.com/taoist_cowboys/index.htm
When the Cowboys performed “Body and Soul,” I’d count how many people danced to it, secretly dreaming it would become the hit that propelled them (and me) to the Big Time – or barring that outcome, that at least some of the fan adulation might get deflected to the song cowriter. Ha! Sometimes Scott generously gave me a shout-out in the song’s intro, but no one cared. No woman ever presented herself to me declaring that, yes, if I could give her the blood from my veins, then that would be enough to appease her.
For some time after that, about the next ten years after that, I fancied myself a songwriter. Talking with songwriting friends, I would inevitably suggest collaborating on a song. Scott’s bandmate, Bob McCluskey, Scott Miller, Todd Steed, RB Morris and others heard the whine of my songwriting wheedle. I recall RB’s laconic response to my self-important suggestion that we should write a song together: “We should, huh?”
Returning to the metaphor from my lone local music contribution, nowadays I realize that most everything I wrote, when it wasn’t simply bad, was all head, no heart. While I supplied a body for “Body and Soul,” Scott gave it soul. I may have brought the song’s skeleton, but Scott’s necromancy put flesh on its bones and jolted its heart beating. I was Igor the bone collector digging through a graveyard of rhymes to provide genius Dr. Scott-kenstein the specimen to spark rhythmical life into. Yes, I, I…I better stop with the metaphors before someone connects their foot bone to my ass bone.
Anyway, go hear the Taoist Cowboys and many other Knoxville bands of the last three decades at Lynn Point’s Web site. If “Body and Soul” appeals to you, credit Scott Carpenter. If it doesn’t, well, don’t blame me. ;-)
This column may eventually get posted at Knoxville Voice's Web site, but in the meantime you can go visit there (http://www.knoxvoice.com/) and check out Julie Auer's blog or Steve Dupree's guest commentary or something and pick up a hard copy for my column. Or, of course, read it here.
A Modest Proposal Toward a More Rational Religion
by Scott McNutt
A while back on a local discussion board, someone proposed forming a church of fundamental humility and inquisitiveness, whose evangelism would consist of asking people what they thought about stuff. So taken with the concept was I that I’ve decided to resurrect it – with just teensy tweaking and fleshing out. What follows is my modest proposal for the formation of a church whose beliefs and practices would conform entirely with those of the United States of America’s military rules of interrogation. It would be called the Church of Rational Inquiry for Truth (adherents would be called CRITters for short).
The Church of Rational Inquiry for Truth would be dedicated to the quest for the True Truth, naturally. We’d ferret out the Truth no matter where It was and no matter who was hiding It. All CRITters would do is ask questions of people. We’d calmly ask rational questions of anyone whom we suspected of harboring Truth.
If those suspects provided us with answers we believed were half-Truths or unTruths, we’d ask them some more rational questions – still calmly, but more forcefully. Our Pastors of Gentle Persuasion might, for instance, strap the unTruthers tightly into chairs in contorted, perhaps even painful, positions, and say to them in very even tones, “Tell us the Truth.”
And if the unTruthers still refused to be Truthful, we would use even more persuasive techniques to squeeze the Truth out of them. We would do this not because we derived any pleasure out of causing pain to the unTruthers, you understand, but only because we were dedicated to finding the Truth. But anyway, Our Deacons of Diligent Inquiry would have to force the unTruthers to stand naked on one foot in a dark, cold, wet cell for up to 72 hours without food or water, periodically telling them, “Tell us the Truth,” until, at last, the Truth was told.
At this point, we might even believe they had given us the Truth. But if we believed they had told us only a small “t” truth, or that they had maybe told us the Truth, but not enough of the Truth, we would even resort to still more forceful measures. And we’d only do this with great sadness, not because we wished ill on these pitiful unTruthers, or because we took joy in their misery, but because the higher cause of seeking the Truth sometimes requires extreme measures. So our Bishops of Really Forceful Inquiry would repeatedly hold the unTruthers heads’ underwater for up to two minutes at a time to be sure we had the real, unadulterated Truth.
Of course, after the unTruthers converted and became Truthful, we’d still have to test their faith. You follow that, don’t you? The unTruthers have been unTruthful in the past. We must take care that there is no backsliding.
So to be sure that the Truth the converts had provided was actually True, our Archbishop of Actively Ensuring the Truth would take our new converts’ families to an isolated place, and over closed-circuit TV, threaten to execute their families and even pretend to do so off-camera. That way we’d ensure the Truth they had told us was in fact, the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth.
Of course, if our Pope of Pure Truth had doubts about the converts’ sincerity after this, we might, in very rare circumstances, stage actual executions of a convert’s family. We would hate that they’d forced us to this extreme, but what else could we do? The Truth must be known. So we’d execute their families. And then we’d be satisfied.
We’d have to deal with splinter groups, of course, every religion has them. There would be those who would claim that the search for Truth cannot be constrained by concerns for mere decency, and that any and all measures, including torture, must be allowable in pursuit of the Truth. They’d give themselves some noble-sounding name, like the Church of the Thorny Crown of Absolute Truth, Inc., to make themselves appear more reasonable and their methods more palatable.
But we True CRITters would know that they were wrong, and we would denounce their methods as barbaric. We’d tell them there was a line, a humane line, and that they’d crossed it. All the while, we’d still love our splinterer CRITters and their quest for Truth, misguided though it was. And such would be our love forour misguided fellow CRITters that we would use only humane methods, like brainwashing, to return them to the True path of Truth.
Then there would be those who would deny and denounce us, saying that the True God was a God of love. Their God, they’d say, would never countenance the methods we used in our search for the Truth. They’d say Jesus would tell us that if a man struck you upon the cheek to turn the other one to him. They’d say Jesus would tell us to love our enemies as our brothers. They would say, “Ask yourself, ‘What would Jesus Do?’”
However, through the doctrines of the Church of the Rational Inquiry for Truth, we’d already know the Truth about Jesus: that he’d brought, not peace to earth, but a sword, to fulfill his mission. He says so himself, does Jesus, right in Matthew 10:34. Jesus, we’d be confident, would approve our mission, too.
So when the deniers and denouncers asked us “What would Jesus Do?” We’d tell them “He’d hold our Ipods for us while we stoned this guy. Not to death, that would be wrong – but he’d hold our Ipods while we stoned this guy to Truth.”
And that’s the TRUTH. So help me, God.
Knoxville Voice's Web site seems to be getting its kinks worked out. I have a new column up over there (even though my byline was left off, it's still me): http://www.knoxvoice.com/arts/funny-ha-ha/county-commission-voice/
County Commission Voice
Get Your Sunshine Online
by Scott McNutt
Moderator: With county commissioners’ ongoing inability to understand Chancellor Fansler’s ruling regarding their violation of the Sunshine Law and the obvious dysfunction in commission meetings, Knoxville Voice is pleased to announce the creation of "County Commission Voice." Commission Voice is an online forum where county commissioners can openly debate and deliberate in full compliance with the Sunshine Law. We’ll invite County Commission Chairman Thomas "Tank" Strickland to open the proceedings. Chairman Strickland?
…
Moderator: Chairman Strickland? Are you there?
Tanque: I’m leading with deeds, not words, so I won’t be participating.
Moderator: Ho-kay, perhaps we can get County Law Director John Owings to make the introductions. Mr. Owings?
JudgeDread: Not me! I’m not posting on any Interwebs blog. They’re scary! People are mean!
Moderator: Don’t worry, JudgeDread. The public can see what you post, but they can’t respond. Only you and the commissioners can post here. It’s not a blog; it’s a closed forum.
Most Important Man in South Knox: Is that rite? This is close and the pubic can not do nothing?
Moderator: Correct, Commissioner Pinkston…
Most Important Man in South Knox: Good! I want to call sum witness afore us to inquisigate em!
Moderator: Assuming a motion to that effect is made and passes in your regular meeting, and Mr. Owings approves it-
JudgeDread: Not getting involved!
Moderator: …then you could ask guests to post here. But I think an online interrogation would look pretty silly. How will you intimidate your "witnesses"? Type at them in ALL CAPS?
Most Important Man in South Knox: DRATS! Still, ‘less we invit em, the peeple kin not do nothing on this blob?
Moderator: It’s "blog," not blob, only it’s not one. But, yes, commissioner.
Most Important Man in South Knox: Good! becase I have a deel to work out on ol Sout Knox Hi wit Com Dee Freeze-
Moderator: …however, I must remind you, Big Man in South Knox Town, that any citizen who wishes to can view what you do here. You might want to keep things aboveboard.
Most Important Man in South Knox: Curses! Foil agin! I gone!
Commissioner M. Harmon: I make a motion that we all identify ourselves by our real names. Internet "handles" are juvenile, not befitting the decorum this august body should conduct itself under. And I want to state for the record that I think this blog is a great way for us to show the citizens of Knox County that we really care about keeping our proceedings legitimate.
Moderator: IT’S NOT A BLOG!
L84Dinr: neato! this is a kewl blog! mrowings or mrmoderator, I have ???: can I curse in cyberspace?
JudgeDread: Don’t drag me into this, Lumpy! It’ll all end in tears, I know it: Mine!
Moderator: :~( It’s not a blog, but you can be as colorful as you like, Commissioner Lambert…
L84Dinr: ALLLLL R8T! hey, university twit: PECKERHEAD! PECKERHEAD! PECKERHEAD! :-P
Moderator: …but remember, in cyberspace, everyone can hear you’re obscene.
L84Dinr: no praw, my hardworking blue-collar peeps love it! so does the media! need to see which reporters want to interview me 4 my l8est antics! c ya!
M. Harmon: Won’t anyone second my motion? …Anyone? …Anyone?
IcePrincess: Speaking of press conferences, Mr. Moderator, You need to set up a chat room for me to hold a press conference so I can alert the media that I will be participating here.
Moderator: I’m sure the media is monitoring this exchange, Commissioner DeFreese, so they’re already aware that you’re participating.
IcePrincess: Yes, but I need to have a chat room so we can arrange a time for them to put cameras on me and interview me. You really don’t understand how my media relationship works, do you?
Moderator: …and that’s probably best for all involved.
IcePrincess: Well, you just set up that chat room ASAP. TTFN.
M. Harmon: …Anyone?
Commissioner I. Harmon: I would second your motion, Commissioner M. Harmon, because I do agree that the dignity of this Commission is hurt by silly conduct. But I can’t second it because the Internet is an invention of the Devil created to further spread His Lies, and I am only here to point that fact out. My fingers are burning from His Hellfire even as I type "Goodbye." AMEN!
Leuthold: Mr. Moderator or Mr. Law Director, can we sell advertising space on the front page of this blog? I’ve seen that done on other blogs so I was wondering.
JudgeDread: notlisteningnotlisteningnotlisteningno-
Moderator: Commissioner Leuthold, I think Mr. Owings is trying to indicate the equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and saying "Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah." It’s not my place to say, but it doesn’t seem appropriate for the government to be in the business of selling advertising space. And-
Leuthold: "-it’s not a blog," yes, sorry about that. OK, well, I just thought it might be a good idea, since we have this tight budget coming up. Guess I better go study up other ways to raise money. ’Bye.
M Harmon: Craig, will you second my motion?
Commissioner Moore: I’ll second that motion.
M. Harmon: Well, that’s unexpectedly decent of you, Scott. Thank you!
Moore: …with one amendment: Everyone goes by their correct names except YOU, "UNIVERSITY TWIT"! HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
M. Harmon: Oh, very funny…
Moore: Now, I’m out of this blog until you stick it where the sun don’t shine!
M. Harmon: …Anyone? Will anyone second my motion? It’s a good motion…
Moderator: I think we’re alone now, Commissioner Harmon, so I think I’ll be departing, too.
M. Harmon: …Anyone? …Anyone? Doesn’t…doesn’t anyone care?
…
M. Harmon: I guess no one does. No one cares… *sniff* …signing off now…
…
…
JudgeDread: I told you it would end in tears!
I'm sure this'll be up any time at Knoxville Voice's snazzy new digs (www.knoxvoice.com), but in the meantime, here's the latest column.
Blood? Simple.
I leak, therefore I am
by Scott McNutt
A while back, for insurance purposes, I had to give up three large vials of blood and two of urine. A few ounces of pee-pee and few more of hemoglobin may seem a good swap for the $250,000 insurance to you, but the unnaturalness of it bothers me.
Blood is supposed to keep you alive by circulating in a closed system of tiny tubes inside your body. Blood is an inner-you sort of thing. It’s not supposed to come out of you. If your blood isn’t inside you, you’re dead. So voluntarily having my insides drawn outside turns my world upside down. My life essence being sucked out through a needle the size of a vacuum hose freaks me, frankly, the hell out.
Still, I used to donate blood annually. Come that donation day each year, I’d wake up pale and sweaty and only sweat more and wax paler as the bloodletting hour drew near. When my time in the mobile blood bank came, I would be asked if I were about to faint by the attendant who is there to ask you those sorts of questions. (Example: "Are you now injecting or have you ever injected yourself with drugs or other substances not prescribed by a physician?" "Are you now about to faint?" "Are you now or have you ever been a man who has had sex with another man?" "Are you about to faint now?" "Not even one time, sex with a man?" "Are you sure you’re not now about to faint?" "Are you now or have you ever been a bloodsucking creature-of-the-night living-dead vampire?" "How about now?")
I’d always reply that I hadn’t yet fainted while giving blood, but I supposed I always looked like I was about to faint because, apparently, looking faintly is the visceral reaction my body has to having its life essence sucked out.
The person who actually stuck the giant siphon in my arm would always observe, "Are you sure you’re OK? You look like you’re about to faint." I’d reply that I always looked like I was about to faint when giving blood, and I’d apologize for not having the proper blood-donating demeanor. Who knew blood donation was supposed to be such a peppy occasion?
Finally, around 2002, I think, one attendant had enough of my pasty, perspiring pallidity. He said, "You know, if giving blood causes you to stress so much, maybe you just shouldn’t do it. You know?" So I stopped.
Anyway, for some tests, I had to give the blood. But why blood? Without water, we all amount to about $1.98 in common chemicals. So if we’re all mostly water, couldn't I just spit on 'em to give them all the information they need?
Barring that, I want to know why it had to be three containers of blood and two of urine. Why not three urine and two blood, or even five urine and no blood? What makes blood a 3-to-2 favorite? What do they have against urine? I could give gallons of urine. I could give urine all day. As long as there’re no needles involved.
I thought about bringing this up to the nurse who had come to my office to draw my blood but decided against it. I figured that if I started talking up my pee-generating capabilities, she might get the wrong idea, and my premiums might go up. Besides, she was a nice lady, one I didn’t want to gross out.
She was one of those thin older women with leathery skin, wearing maybe a little too much makeup, whom you supposed would be outside leaning against the building and taking a drag off a cigarette as soon as the procedure was done. She had a slightly world-weary air, but a kind voice. As she broke out her equipment, she said, "Honey, how do you do having your blood drawn? And roll up your sleeve."
"I always look like I’m going to faint, but I never have," I replied.
"Well, you’re already looking pasty, hon, and I haven’t even got the needle out," she said.
"I know," I answered. "The anticipation, the dread of it, makes it much worse than it really is."
"Well, just you don’t think about it," she said as she prepped the syringe. "You just look over my shoulder, and tell me what you do here. This won’t hurt a bit."
"I appreciate your saying that, Ma’am, but, yes it will – ow – hurt. What we do is-" and I proceeded to outline my organization’s work, perspiring freely all the while.
"You’re sweating," she noted.
"Yes. My body does that. It’s not intentional," I said. It occurred to me that if I could just sweat blood, everybody’d be happier. But I didn’t share that insight.
"OK, keep talking to me."
So I did. And several hours later (minutes by some objective measure, perhaps, but hours, days, eons even, in my subjective one) we were done. I had not fainted, but, as always, I was soaked, sallow, and substantially lighter of hemoglobin. The nurse asked if I was sure I could stand on my own before she sent me off to the bathroom to deliver the rest of my end of the bargain. I dutifully did so without incident, but she hovered just outside the bathroom door, certain, I believe, that at any moment she’d hear the thump or splash of my collapsing body and have to rush in to save me.
After that, she instructed me to drink a soft drink, and she made sure I was drinking it before she departed. I’ve often wondered why it’s soft drinks they force upon you after a blood-taking. The claim is that soft drinks replenish your blood sugar, but my theory is that their high-fructose corn syrup helps seal the gaping wound in your arm. Whatever the reason, it worked. I didn’t pass out, and I didn’t bleed out.
My results came back the next week. Blood work they call it, and work it they do. Glucose, lipids, cholesterol, HDL, LDL, triglycerides, electrolytes, thyroid, liver and kidney function, viruses, diabetes, cancer -- so much can be read in your blood. Happily, all the things written in my blood were spelled out correctly, within norms for my age. My blood sugar was a little low, but that’s nothing a dose of high-fructose corn syrup can’t solve.
I still don’t know why the same things can’t be discerned from urine. But I should be thankful for small favors, I suppose. At least the blood was drawn from my arm and not my privates. Then I would have fainted. I hope.
The new Hellbender Press is out, available at these locations:
Sizzling Gettysburgers
What’s cooking on America’s battlefields?
by Scott McNutt
Development is eating up the United State’s historical battle sites. Developers seem to believe that the best way to honor our soldiers’ death-sites is to build atop them subdivisions with names like Longstreet’s End, Sherman’s Marsh, and Nathan Bedford’s Forest; then they’ll add upscale snack shops named Custer’s Last Custard Stand, Meade’s Meadery and Sherman’s Sherbet Shack. This is wrong.
If there’s one thing we as a nation should value, it’s places where lots of men died violently. In the short time we’ve existed as a nation, killing is something we’ve excelled at. It’s a tradition of which we are proud. Lincoln said we cannot dedicate, consecrate, or hallow these grounds. But that doesn’t mean we should just surrender them for four score and several million bucks.
These sites, where brave souls gave that last full measure of dedication to their country, should be reserved for the purposes of mourning, veneration, recreation and learning. Especially if the lesson learned is not to allow the history there to repeat itself.
Last year, a plan to build a 3,000-slot gaming facility next to the Gettysburg battlefield was beaten back in Pennsylvania. Some might appreciate the symbolism of a gambling den marking the spot where the forces of the daring Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s were fought to a standstill by the grinding Union leader, Ulysses S. Grant. But the prospect of Wayne Newton doing a floorshow atop the graves of 7,000 American soldiers ought to chill the fever of even the most addicted gambler. Do we really want our history reduced to a carnival barker hawking Gettysburgers at the Bobby E. Lee Betting Hall?
You would think more care would be given to the blood-soaked soil in a region nicknamed "The Volunteer State" because of the willingness of its young men to go die for the cause. But no. We Tennesseans are no better than the rest of the nation at preserving our sacrificial landscapes. The site of one of the worst defeats for the South in Tennessee, the battle of Franklin, for years was overrun with sprawl. Only recently have preservationists advanced the front of setting aside some portion of thebattlefield for posterity. "Volunteer State" seems to mean that we’ll gladly volunteer battlefields for development.
Knoxville honors Fort. Sanders, the site where 880 Civil war soldiers were killed, wounded or went missing, with cheap condos, parking lots and beer bottles. War is hell, they say, but they probably never envisioned its aftermath as a college-student ghetto "heaven."
Is it too late? Important battle sites in Georgia, Alabama, Virginia and even Washington, D.C., are either under threat from developers or already erased by our avaricious desire for commerce. So if battlefields will always eventually end up under development, why bother preserving any on continental soil at all? We seem determined to surrender our heritage for the sake of profit, so why not go all the way? Why not let the developers have it all and outsource our battlefields to foreign operators?
We could skim six inches of topsoil off battlefields like Gettysburg and replant them at Abu Ghraib and other foreign sites we occupy. Blackwater, that militia-for-hire that likes to use the civilian population of Iraq for target practice, could administrate Abu Gettysburg. To make the experience even more authentic, the Blackwater mercenaries could fire randomly into the crowd of visitors every 20th tour or so.
Just as gamblers are driven to the gaming tables, developers will inevitably want to cash in on these outsourced battlefields. Commercialism and our military heritage, it seems, must always be intertwined. So perhaps it would be better to preempt the development? Prisoners in the CIA’s secret prisons could be forced to construct hotels and casinos at their concentration camps. Abu Gettysburg would morph into Abu Vegas, as tourists flocked to drop big bucks and get a sneak peek at our future bloodstained battlegrounds.
Tourists would pass an entertaining evening, drinking and carousing and playfully positioned prisoners in naked human pyramids for photo ops. To the delight of the audience, inmates would do chain dances to tunes like "Chain, Chain, Chain," "Working on a Chain Gang," "Unchain My Heart," and "Back on the Chain Gang," and for an encore, "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?"
Floor shows and gambling could be combined, with prisoners being interrogated in front of a live audience. As the Beach Boys warbled their new hit, "Waterboarding, U.S.A.," the audience would place bets on which internee will break under what alternative interrogation method. It’d be fun for the whole family! Just remember, what happens in Abu Vegas, stays in Abu Vegas. Under penalty of death.
With this arrangement, we should never run out of battlefields to honor and eventually redevelop. Squads of Blackwater operatives could periodically venture out into the general Iraqi population and dedicate, consecrate and hallow new battlegrounds with the blood of innocent civilians. And if ever – God forbid, perish the thought –outsourced battle-sites in Iraq fall into short supply, we can always export them somewhere else.
Like Iran.
But if outsourcing our national heritage doesn’t appeal to you, it’s not too late to turn the tide of this battle. We can defeat the developers over here so we don’t have to fight them over there. You can learn more about what development is doing to historical battlefields and what you can do to combat it by checking with the Civil War Preservation Trust (www.civilwar.org).
Or you can turn your back on your country’s history and invest in a condo with a nice view of the spot where gallant American soldiers died for your right to live there. Your choice. After all, it’s a free country, isn’t it?
Or is it for sale?
Only the fields of battle know.
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