This past weekend the entertainment world lost one of its biggest stars with the death of Whitney Houston. Based on the news coverage of this event, you would think that much more was lost than an individual life.
Although any loss of life is tragic, the obsession of our culture with celebrity is reminiscent of the adulation bestowed upon royalty and sports figures in many other cultures. This also reminds us of the undue attention paid to athletes and famous people in the Roman and Greek empires prior to their fall.
Sir Winston Churchill reportedly once approached his foil Lady Astor with a startling proposition, stating, "Lady Astor, if I gave you a million pounds would you sleep with me?" To which Lady Astor, somewhat flustered and flattered, accepted. Churchill then asked, "Lady Astor, if I gave you 10 pounds would you sleep with me?" To which she replied indignantly, "Mr. Churchill, what do you think I am?" with the reply, "Lady, we have established what you are, we are just negotiating price."
The Federal Communications Commission finds itself in the same boat as Lady Astor on the censorship issue these days as it seeks to determine whether the coarse language that has slipped into America's everyday speech should be allowed in over-the-airwaves television.
In 1967 I walked the night through around two top-secret nuclear weapons buried not so deep in the heartland of Ohio’s vast corn belt. One day I noticed that someone had scrawled on the wall of a concrete bunker, "Frodo lives." Then it was everywhere. Frodo had become an overnight hero of an underground movement begun inadvertently by a mild-mannered Catholic professor of Middle English at Oxford who in 1937 published a charming book about hairy dwarves and little people. Frodo became in no time at all the avatar of rising Aquarius. The Hobbit, prelude to the journey of Frodo featuring his uncle Bilbo (like John Lennon and his son Sean, born on the same day), hits the big screen this coming year, on Dec. 14, 2012.
It seems as though everything that could be said regarding the Penn State scandal has been. What a terrible tragedy. The Washington Post last week shared a powerful (and scathing) review of how various outlets covered the news as it developed. That should be required reading for any press secretary on Capitol Hill or any journalism student. How this story unfolded had millions first reacting negatively that somehow legendary coach Joe Paterno was being fingered as culpable. Only after another few news cycles did it become evident that Paterno knew more than originally believed.
And therein lies the lesson for all leaders in prominent roles: acquiescence in any shape or form today is unacceptable. One can no longer look the other way and expect to get away keeping his or her job.
With a solid endorsement from Steve Forbes and an idea whose time has come — the flat, fair and free Cut, Cap and Grow plan, Rick Perry's team rolls out. And if I have it right the Texas Rangers are on the verge of winning the World Series tomorrow night. For the first time.
The show of tight jaws unsettled the pundits last week at the debate, but it worked. And Perry wandered the wilderness of Iowa in tree bark since, gun in hand. What gave Rick, the hunter, that aspect of authenticity was the contrast with Romney's bookishness. And Perry’s jaws were still tight. He was shooting birds with tight jaws. Shooting birds in anger. The pictures were great.
Is there any process by which the NFL constantly chooses losers like Hank Williams Jr. and Madonna to sing at football games? Besides the fact that they are all about a hundred years old and pick someone whose career ended decades ago like the Who. There is one issue here that can be seen via the use of "psychological types"; the thing they use in TQM systems and in the Army similar to Myers-Briggs testing.
If you take a logic-based employee like a lawyer or investor and ask her to choose between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as to who she likes best, she will usually choose The Rolling Stones. That is, if she is a really good lawyer of investor. Because a logic-based, left-brain type doesn't have a clue regarding true art, because it resides in a different part of the brain. You will need someone else to be in the group to help in those decisions, and that person won’t be any good at investing.
The September issue of Elle magazine features a lengthy article about the rise of conservative women — or “Baby Palins,” as author Nina Burleigh affectionately refers to them. Included is a brief — but highly inaccurate — profile of my IWF colleague Carrie Lukas, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism.
Like Carrie, I was encouraged that a major women’s magazine decided to engage in this often taboo subject of free market-oriented women; but Burleigh’s misrepresentation of Lukas and her ideas is shameful.
Pimco’s Bill Gross, leery of the wobbly American fundamentals, told Bloomberg recently the company is looking for new investments, mentioning Canada, Germany and others. The Canadian banking system is solid, there have been no bailouts, and the Canadian dollar has been growing strong against the American in recent years. But uh-oh. Something happened in early summer. What happened? The Vancouver Canucks lost in the Stanley Cup final to the Boston Bruins.
A FOREX (FOReign Exchange market) blog author wrote on June 8, 2011: “In April, I wrote a post entitled, ’Economic Theory Implies Canadian Dollar will Fall.’ " But did the FOREX author take into consideration hockey theory and the Canadian psyche?
And when did you last hear this from Washington: “I’d like to apologize to the fans, that for the last five, six months we’ve been talking about the business of football, not what goes on on the field.”
That from Robert Kraft, owner of the Patriots, whom players say was instrumental in reaching an amicable agreement, even as his wife was dying of cancer.
Granted, Kraft is a towering figure, and rightly, we have come to expect more from men like Kraft and Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and player rep Jeff Saturday, center for the Indianapolis Colts, well-pictured on the front page of The New York Times this morning, affectionately comforting the mourning Kraft cuddled under his wing; big and bearded, vaguely giving the impression of God the Father. Because America is still healthy in the center, even if it is fraying on the edges, and at the center of the American journey at this moment is football.
“By returning and rest we shall be saved.” — The Book of Common Prayer
Can’t speak for everyone in New England, but for me, there was a large gap in space/time — a period of wu chi like that well described by the master bard who was getting married at Gibraltar while in a parallel event his cosmic counterpart, Neil Armstrong, was playing golf on the moon; “no heaven ... no country ... no religion too” — a time between creations that started its long pause when Ted Williams left Boston in 1960 and finally ended when Tom Brady came to Boston in the year 2000. In between we, the people, left the earth for space.
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