Crime and the Artistic Elite

If you are among the elite in the arts and humanities, any crime you commit will be defended by a stream of articles and books written by those who appreciate the genuine contributions you have made to your field. I suppose that this is also true for the elite in other areas (the financial elite, the military elite, and so on). There is no act or situation that can't be defended on paper. Given Woody Allen's history of timid pursuit of teenagers, his daughter's account deserves attention.

When I was young, the troubling example of celebrity amnesty was the case of Ezra Pound, a major American poet and literary critic who lived out World War II in Italy defending Fascism and the hatred of Jews. After the Holocaust, not knowing what to do with him, our government put him in an insane asylum (although he wasn't insane), and some of the famous among our progressive community (including Jews) went to work and got him out. Was that the right thing to do? I suppose it was. I'm not sure.

Consider Martin Heidegger (a revered founder of existentialism and member of the Nazi party) and Paul de Man (a founder of deconstruction and a Jew-hating journalist during the Holocaust) and Roman Polanski (a great film director who drugged and raped a very young teenage girl in Hollywood, then fled to Europe). Consider Michael Jackson, still the King of Pop, defended by our entire entertainment industry. To what extent do we owe exceptional contributors amnesty? Or rationalizations or amnesia? We do owe them something. It remains open and troubling, the debate about Ezra Pound.

All this does, as some say, remind us of Edward Snowden, of which it is said that his only crime was that he broke the law. 

 




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The Monsters of Florence

THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE was a book covering true events in Italy 30 or 40 years ago. There was a serial killer at work. A succession of innocent people were put on trial, based on absurd conspiracy theories, and sentenced to prison. The real killer was never found.

In recent years we have watched from afar as a similar pattern has dogged a young American tourist named Amanda Knox. While in Italy her roommate was stabbed to death by a third party, now in prison. Knox and her boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted of some sort of conspiracy in the murder, based on DNA evidence later refuted. Their motive in the murder, according to the prosecutors, had something to do with their insistence on wild sexual excesses. A higher court threw out the case. Amanda Knox returned to the United States. Recently a new trial was held in Florence with Knox in absentia. This time she was accused of participating in the murder for an entirely new reason. A third party had left a toilet unflushed, so, the prosecutors argued, Knox had helped to kill her roommate. Knox, furnished with this compelling new motive, was found guilty again. The case will now go to a higher court, and Knox may face extradition (and our state department might give her up). 

Here's what I think. You shouldn't leave a used toilet unflushed except in a drought. That is especially the case in Italy, where the Romans practically invented plumbing. If you don't flush, an American girl will stab you to death while having wild sex. Consider this a fair warning.


Gary

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Deb Fudge's Campaign

If you would like to help in Deb Fudge's campaign for 4th District Supervisor, think about adding your name to the 170 donors she has gathered to date. Deb has raised over $36,000. She's a progressive, an environmental expert, and she is leading a strong grass roots campaign. Deb Fudge, many times a mayor, has an excellent chance to win--and she would maintain the current and rare progressive majority on the county board of supervisors.

I give Deb very small donations because that is all I can afford.

Visit her excellent web site at www.debfudge.com, where you can see Deb pedaling her bicycle on a cement park path, something I do frequently on my way to Cafe Noto. 

Gary

 

Is Richard Sherman a Thug?

Richard Sherman is an excellent professional football player, an African-American graduate of Stanford and rich. Last week, after winning a key game, he unleashed a display of taunting on national TV that turned off many viewers, including me. I find taunting, rubbing it in, unpleasant to watch, but I'm old and out of date in certain ways. I didn't watch Jersey Shore or those survivor programs (except for the first, which was compelling if appalling).

Anyway, some Interneters and talking heads on TV, none of whom had ever met Richard Sherman, who might be a a nice guy out of uniform, apparently called him a thug. Sherman is a law-abiding citizen and a bad sport but not a thug. John Gotti was a thug. Chris Christie is a bully but not a thug. What really caught my interest, though, was the football player's next claim, which was that "thug" is code for the n-word. As many must know, the term "thug" comes from India, where it originally referred to assassins from a murderous cult devoted to the goddess Kali. This religious organization was suppressed by the British in the 1830s. Perhaps the original thugs became Anglicans. In any case, the term hung around.  

I have never heard "thug" used to mean the n-word. Perhaps Richard Sherman just made that up. Or maybe he didn't. I have to say that I was amazed to see so many of my fellow progressives immediately decide that Sherman was an authority on diction. ("Thug" was also a term in some early rap, where it meant a hopeless guy leading a hopeless life.)

Educational Absurdities

The argument that education can solve our economic problems, demonstrated by the fact that well educated people make more money than uneducated people, is unconvincing. It has been true for individuals. I got to live a somewhat middle class life because I went to college and graduate school. But what if everyone had my education? 

To put it bluntly, our current economic system makes it cheaper to buy a robot than to hire a human. Let's say that 200 million people in our work force go to graduate school. How much impact will that have on the fact that we don't have enough human jobs to go around? Soon you would need a master's degree to flip burgers. And human work with a living wage is even harder to find in most other countries. And no political leader is addressing the problem.

Christie

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In Florida when a reporter asked Chris Christie when he would decide for or against a Presidential run, Christie said, "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."

(Not really)

Fudge and McGuire

Deb Fudge, often the mayor of Windsor, was endorsed yesterday by Congressman Jared Huffman. Fudge is running for county supervisor, and if she is elected, the rare progressive majority among supervisors will survive. That matters a great deal if you work for a living or care about environmental issues. 

Fudge has endorsed Mike McGuire for the state senate. McGuire, the progressive supervisor that Fudge will replace, saw his last Democratic rival, Novato Mayor Eric Lucan, drop out of the race for state senate.  Lucan endorsed McGuire. At this point McGuire must have a big lead against his Republican opponent in the open primary, but recent history tells us that McGuire will run hard until the polls close, and then he may campaign for three more days just to cool down. What is remarkable about all this is the way that local progressive Democrats have been helping one another. We need a linked effort. 

King

When I was in graduate school (of sorts) at UCLA, one afternoon I started to walk down a sloping lawn on campus and saw a group of about 100 students surrounding a short stocky man dressed in a black suit. I recognized him, of course. It was MLK. I walked on over and stood there in the warm sun as he talked about why we should treat one another decently. His style, Southern and mannered and sonorous, was somewhat foreign to me. My idea of good prose was THE MALTESE FALCON or THE STRANGER. But I did not feel right about being critical, because King was the American I most respected. That is still the case.

Liberals vs. Corporate Masters

My knowledge of Sonoma's five county supervisors is limited. Each makes around $130,000 a year and has one employee, which makes them job creators. All five are Democrats--this is a blue county--and three of the five are progressives. The other two are Corporate Masters. You can tell which is which by whether they talk with unions or try to destroy them. It's unusual for the liberals to be a majority, and the next election may change that.

To some extent this might depend on the fate of Supervisor Efren Carrillo, who was caught with his pants down, literally, by the police while drunk, pathetic and apparently about to break into the home of a young woman not interested in him.  Carrillo is a Corporate Master. If he goes to jail, I figure his seat will be up for grabs, much like his underwear.

Mike McGuire, one of the three supervisors who respect unions, is running for the state senate, and he will win. That leaves a  supervisor's seat open. At least five candidates are in the open primary, including Healdsburg City Council Member Tom Chambers, a centrist independent Democrat who rides a good bicycle, Deb Fudge, a long-time liberal office holder who once lost an election for this post by a few hundred votes, and James Gore, a former Washington wine lobbyist, who may be Fudge's main opposition. Fudge has the backing of many Democratic incumbents, and Gore has the backing (I assume) of the county wine barons, the anti-union folks, and the anti-science voters. Gore has refused to take a position on fluoridated water. Perhaps he hopes that if the liberals' teeth fall out, gumming food will weaken their will to vote. 

At stake is which camp will have the majority of supervisors in the county. The Republicans will pour money and influence into the campaign, hoping to get corporate newspaper endorsements, hoping to elect their favorite Democrats. That's how they roll in these semi-rural parts.