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TechnoratiAmerica Revels In Spring, Awaits A Worthy Leader
Gorgeous green spring came suddenly to Minnesota this year after weeks of tedious budding and blooming, a great burgeoning of foliage, and Bleak Street became the Via Paradiso, and we pale stoics took out pen and paper and wrote, "O love love love you are the best who ever was" or words to that effect, and we sat outdoors in the evening and thought of various reforms we mean to institute. More joyfulness, kindness to strangers, a general quickening of spirit, etc.
I once knew a man, a true iconoclast, who drank bourbon for breakfast and chain-smoked Pall Malls and held severe views about women, the church, American lit and society in general, a sort of post-beatnik, and every spring he vowed to reform and clean up his house, which had holes in the ceiling where he had poked his broom handle at the squirrels who ran around in the attic. It dawned on him what a mess he'd made of his life, but he fought off reform with Jim Beam, and the last time I saw him he had just purchased a pistol, and I said goodbye. I had no interest at all in being shot by a drunk.
I thought of him when Don Eyebrows got fired by CBS and MSNBC in that outbreak of righteousness during which people lined up to be outraged by what the man had said on his radio show, even if they hadn't heard him say it, though it seemed to be the sort of stuff CBS and MSNBC had paid him so handsomely to say.
The bad boys of radio, he and Howard and Johnny J and the Big Honk, are not shocking to anyone who has spent a few hours in a bar where people drink liquor and speak English. They're loud and vulgar, and so what? There's an audience for that. Plenty of young men feel so squashed by life, they are thrilled to hear other men rasping and hollering about wimmen and the gummint and the danged liberals, and what harm does it do me if the Honk does his act for the poor schlumps stuck in rush hour? No harm at all. The Honk is exercising freedom, bless his heart, just like the snake-handler at the carnival or the man who eats flies. If you don't like it, don't look.
When you think of how Mr. Eyebrows had to sit in sackcloth and ashes and apologize, all for an outburst you can hear in a back booth at Bud's Lounge, and then you think of the lasting damage the Current Occupant has done to this country, a man who lends new richness to the word "malfeasance" and who is deaf on top of it and relaxed and pleasant in the face of fresh revelations, you see what a crazy country this is, but then we knew that a long time ago.
The French have a new president, the British will soon have a new PM, and we envy them as we endure the endless wait for this small, dim man to go back to Texas and resume his life. His party is coming to see that it must figure out how to tell the truth about him if it is to compete in 2008, but so far nobody has stepped forward and wound up to throw the pie. Their clock is stuck in the fall of 2001. They are sleepwalking toward the precipice.
Meanwhile, it is spring, glorious spring. An 80-year-old woman I know, who never had literary aspirations that I was aware of, has written a beautiful memoir. The son of a violist who plays in an orchestra with my wife has gone off to serve in Iraq, a boy brought up in a liberal household dead set against toy guns and violent TV shows. A tall sweetheart of a man who has done exceedingly well in the digital biz has sent an upbeat letter saying he has liver cancer and asking for prayers. My little sandy-haired, gap-toothed daughter shoots baskets in the driveway, and when she hits a swisher she pumps her fist ("Yes!"). My mother has turned 92, still in her own home.
Everyday reality of life in America, and neither the Big Honk nor the Current Occupant seem clued in to it. They both serve the same dwindling clientele of angry, privileged white people; meantime the trees are in bloom and the beloved country looks at the calendar and waits for leadership that is worthy of it.
Garrison Keillor's column appears Thursdays in The Sun. His e-mail is oldscout@prairiehome.us.
Copyright © 2007, The Baltimore Sun
12 Comments so far
Show AllAmerica has the leader it deserves given its history and the voting patterns of its current population.
The most accurate analysis of America especially the last six years.
History : Americans deserve to and do run the world.
Voting Patterns : Voters will vehemently shun any candidate that dares to deny or even put limitations on the the above "brief history"
AND SO IT GOES....
bren,
I respectfully disagree. Racism and sexism and general stupidity from the likes of Imus and Rush and their low brow ilk are not the problem.
Recently Fox news ran a piece on voter fraud. During the audio they played video of black people voting (unrelated to the story) leaving the impression that African Americans are committing voter fraud.
News reports of missing and murdered people that dominate our national headlines have one thing in common, the victim is always an attractive, white, blond female.
Two examples of thousands of the institutional, subversive, and subliminal messages fed to Americans every day. A loud mouth on the radio can be annoying but as Garrison points out, it is clear to all he is an idiot. Racist propaganda disguised as news is the real threat, the real evil in America.
Sure there's an audience for racist commentary but do we have to encourage it? When we accept this stuff without saying some equivalent of: I find that kindof talk unacceptable, we are supporting it and encouraging it. And then we're surprised when we see one or more such speakers acting out (physically) such hateful talk. The people who truly deserve to be taken out to the woodshed are those in charge of CBS and MSNBC who pay people to say hateful, hate-filled things. Filling the airwaves with hate is no way to create a community that one would wish to be a part of. I propose that people (the more, the better) metaphorically take CBS and MSNBC to the woodshed by not watching those stations for a good long while.
After watching the Republican debates I'm more convinced than ever that the only candidate on the horizon "worthy of it" is the paleo-constitutionalist Ron Paul. Only Paul stands on principles; all the others are relativists. And it is relativistic thinking that is sinking the republic. Only a guy who has the guts to stand on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights deserves our attention. All the rest would sell your children down the drain to "keep you safe."
Imus was not fired for his rascist remarks, after all, that was put up with for years by his employers and advertisers.
Imus was fired for calling Bush an Cheney war criminals repeatedly for the past several years.
His sponsors and employers, who are stuffing their pockets full of war, profits had to silence a poplar outspoken opponent to the war.
They had the opportunity and they took it.
The money they lose on the Imus firing palls in comparison to what they are raking in on this war.
The public has been duped again.
Poet:
Did you misspell your name, Poot?
Hang in there Garrison. My family owned a farm in Anoka in 1923, when I was born (in Northwestern Hospital, Mpls.)so we were once almost neighbors.
Yo Garrison--
America has the leader it deserves given its history and the voting patterns of its current population. You do the vaudeville radio schtick so much better than serious commentary.
Is it Spring in Iraq, Garrison?
It's a valid point, if you don't like it, don't watch. But kids who grow up in a Chinese-speaking household speak Chinese, and don't think twice about whether their words sound strange to an English-speaker. To them, Chinese is normal, beautiful, and possessed of a large and graceful vocabulary. And so it is.
Honk-speak is a language, too, and when used in a raucous bar, it's generally heard and understood by a limited numbers of honkers within range. What's new is that now it's heard repeatedly by a staggering number of folks to whom Honk-speak is becoming a native language.
When the kid at the dinner table said "Pass the f***ing butter, B****" to his mom, it used to be an immediate pass to the woodshed. Was that such a terrible idea? Politeness and respect?
yes it is spring and the splash of color and the resurgence of life is calling out for recognition. but it is an ever more difficult task to navigate the perilous terrain of dutiful service to changing season. what should be a positive and joyful expression of connection with the earth and community - gardening and cleaning up the house and getting together with friends and family - has become a dreary search for relief from the ongoing assault on the body-mind-spirit being waged by the coc (a bush that could really use some pruning!) and his cohorts. and not only upon the people of this country, but the entire planet. we must somehow do our duties - work and fix the mower and plant the flowers - with as much meaningful attention and delight as we can muster, while never forgetting for an instant that the living hell we are helping create for others every day is robbing them of this very indulgence. if any have some tips on addressing this conundrum, please share.
Garbotoo - Kurt Vonnegut used that expression in Slaughterhouse Five only when a death was mentioned. Go read it. And all caps is a shout.