Apologies Upon Demand

Now we have Ginni Thomas, the Tea Party activist who's married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, demanding an apology from Anita Hill. Reportedly, Thomas has said she was extending an "olive branch" with her out-of-the-blue phone call to Hill. What she didn't mention was that she tried to poke Professor Hill in the eye with that olive branch.

As absurd as Thomas' demand might seem, she's just one more political player insisting on an immediate apology. These days, stories about impatient demands for apologies from the deeply offended are an every day thing. It seems the surest way to create a news event out of thin air is to puff yourself up with blustery indignation and call upon a politician to apologize.

Typically, a planted outrage story goes through its predictable cycle, which usually plays out something like this:

The Demander: Sir, I demand an apology. When you said, “War is hell,” you demeaned every single young American in uniform today, particularly those serving on the battlefields of this nation’s War on Terror. You were saying they’ve gone to hell, which is to say they do not deserve to go to heaven. Who are you to judge?

The Offender: What in heaven’s name are you talking about? “War is hell,” is a quote from General William Tecumseh Sherman.

The Demander: That’s your opinion.

The Offender: OK. I regret accidentally offending anyone who agrees with you, if it is true that offense was taken.

The Demander: If? I demand you apologize for issuing an insulting apology, and I also call upon you to apologize to Maria Shriver and Caroline Kennedy.

The Offender: What have they got to do with this?

The Demander: When you say “war is hell” it has to remind them of the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, because that was the title of the war movie he slipped into a Dallas theater to see, after he alone shot President Kennedy. Why do you hate poor Maria and the rest of the Kennedy family?

The Offender: How about I just hate Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movies?

The Demander: Your un-apology apologies reek of sarcasm. I demand a full and unqualified apology, immediately. And your elitist opinions about movies are only making it worse.

The Offender: Does saying “war is heck” make it any better?

The Demander: The hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” should convince you that saying war is hell, while we are engaged in righteous war against heathen terrorists, is tantamount to blasphemous treason.

The Offender: The First Amendment says you can't put blasphemy and treason in the same sentence. How about I put it this way: “War is so dangerous it can be hell-like?”

The Demander: You’d only be emboldening the enemy.

The Offender: To hell with the enemy!

The Demander: Better, now we're getting somewhere.

O'Donnell: Separation of church and state not in First Amendment

Today Republican Christine O'Donnell and her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons, debated at Widener University Law School in Delaware. The debate was carried live on radio by WDEL-AM.

During the debate O'Donnell called for teaching Creationism/Intelligent Design in public schools. Coons said that would be unconstitutional because it would violate the separation of church and state. O'Donnell then shocked the roomful of lawyers and law students when she questioned (several times) whether the First Amendment of the Constitution calls for the separation of church and state.

Don't believe me? Watch the video above. Click here to read more in the Washington Post about this bizarre episode.

*

Update (4 p.m., same day): O'Donnell is a litmus test for your Republican friends. From here on you'll know it's a flat waste of time talking politics with anybody who can ignore all the crazy stuff and go on saying she really ought to be in the Senate for six years. Look at it this way: they're either so cynical it would make a goat puke, or they're dumb as a post.

Yankee Doodle at the Tea Party

The main character in this story, which is fiction, is a 33-year-old man who lives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He normally works at least 50 hours a week, although he only gets paid for 40 hours. He works in a warehouse-like building full of audio visual equipment, which he delivers to clients who rent it for big trade shows and conventions; he also works on the crews that set up and tear down the gadgetry. He is one of 21 fulltime employees at the local branch of an AV rental company that has similar branches in seven other cities along the East Coast. He lives in a two-and-a-half room apartment, not counting the tiny bathroom. He has a satellite dish and watches a lot of sports. He is divorced. He makes good on his monthly child support payments over half the time to his ex, who has custody of their seven-year-old daughter; the softhearted ex gives him a hard time but she lets him get away with it. He smokes a pack of Camel Filters every day. He drinks a six pack of Bud Light Lime every night. His name is Josh.

The two men who own the company that employs Josh are millionaires, several times over. Josh admires them even though neither seems to know his first name; one of the owners has never spoken to him in the nearly four years he‘s been on the job.

Like his successful bosses, Josh considers himself a conservative, when it comes to politics. Also like them, Josh’s two favorite sports teams are the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys.

In the company trucks on the road, in the process of driving AV equipment back and forth, Josh likes to daydream about being a wealthy man. He thinks about what sort of cars and boats he’d have. He thinks about traveling and staying in fancy hotels. He thinks about watching Super Bowls from inside private luxury boxes. He thinks about drinking expensive Tequila. He thinks about having a beautiful redheaded secretary who travels with him and services his account on a regular basis. He thinks about what cigars he’d smoke. He thinks about wearing a Rolex watch and shoes imported from Italy. He thinks about playing golf on the world’s most famous courses and hobnobbing with the other wealthy men. He thinks about not having to work. Josh can see it all in his mind’s eye.

When he’s not imagining how he’d spend his fortune -- if he had one -- Josh listens to talk radio; politics and sports, mostly. He’s a big fan of Rush Limbaugh and Jim Rome. Although he's not religious, Josh likes televangelist Glenn Beck, too. Those well-to-do men are good at saying what Josh likes to hear, because he's a Yankee Doodle Dandy kind of guy who loves his country and hates trade unions, although he‘s never been a member of a union.

This year Josh is a Tea Party kind of guy, too.

In his Oct. 2 OpEd for the New York Times Frank Rich wrote: "[Christine O'Donnell] gives populist cover to the billionaires and corporate interests that have been steadily annexing the Tea Party movement and busily plotting to cash in their chips if the G.O.P. prevails."

Josh hasn’t ever read what Frank Rich has to say about politics and he‘s not about to start now. He heard Rush call Frank Rich a “Dem Flack,” so Josh doesn‘t care that Rich says the Joshes of the Tea Party movement are dupes who don‘t even know where their bread is buttered. Josh is against taxes and he thinks Christine O‘Donnell is sassy.

Josh wants the Bush tax cuts for millionaires to continue. Not only does he believe in the whimsical trickle-down notion that the super wealthy need tax cuts to create more jobs like his, Josh expects to be a multimillionaire, himself, one day. Josh doesn’t believe in ivory tower theories like evolution, global warming or the national deficit.

Josh wants America to leave the United Nations tomorrow. Josh also believes it would be a good idea to nuke Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan all on the same day. Josh’s favorite movie is “The Godfather.” He loved how Michael Corleone had all of his family’s enemies wiped out in one doomsday of payback. So, Josh would be happy to include Somalia, with its pirates, on the to-be-nuked list. Angry Josh is too conservative to enjoy Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Josh would also be happy to deport every undocumented worker in one day to create jobs for real Americans. Logistics don't concern him. The next day he would close every mosque in the USA and deport every Muslim who isn‘t a U.S. citizen, born in America. Therefore, Josh believes President Barack Obama should be removed from office and sent to Kenya.

To win Josh’s vote, senate hopeful Christine O'Donnell proudly flaunts her angry ignorance as a sign she is more like him than her opponent and her elite detractors. It gets worse.

Josh hates elites almost as much as he hates ethnics with funny accents, gay men and unattractive lesbians. He has no opinion about witches. Although he disagrees with O’Donnell about masturbation, she will get his vote. In fact, Josh particularly enjoys masturbating when he's watching Christine on television.

While all of the above is fiction, nonetheless, it appears there are plenty of Joshes out there, dwelling on fantasies with Election Day approaching. Will these self-styled patriots vote in large numbers? Or will they be too occupied with holding their Bud Lite Limes in one hand and yanking their doodles with the other?

The End.

Five Favorite Directors

My Thursday gig at the James River Film Journal has me making lists of favorite movies. This time it’s favorite directors. Click here to read the post on my five favorites and some of their best movies.

While you're at the web site there are several other recent posts. Unlike my tendency to dredge up old movies for my lists, the other writers at the JRFJ write about the work of contemporary filmmakers.

Art: What It Is

Jerry Donato (1941-2010) in the Texas Wisconsin Border Cafe (circa 1985)

In a Richmond, Virginia courtroom in November of 1982 I witnessed an entertaining scene in which an age-old question — what is art? — was hashed out in front of a patient judge named Jose R. Davila. The judge seemed to thoroughly enjoy the parade of exhibits and witnesses the defense attorneys put before him. The room was packed with observers, which included plenty of gypsy musicians, film buffs and art students wearing paint-speckled dungarees.

The defendant in this freedom of speech case was this story’s teller.

When I got charged with a misdemeanor for posting a handbill I had designed that promoted the premiere of a new feature, “Atomic Cafe,” it was a bust I deliberately provoked. At that time I was determined to beat the City of Richmond with a freedom-of-speech defense and knock out the statute prohibiting the posting of flyers on utility poles.

The little poster had been stapled to a pole near the Virginia Commonwealth University campus. Rather than pay the small fine for breaking The City’s law forbidding such advertising in the public way, as the Biograph’s manager, I opted for a day in court. My defense attorneys, Jack Coaln and Stuart Kaplan -- who were also my good friends -- attacked the wording of the statute as “overreaching.”

They asserted on my behalf that it was my right to post the handbill, plus the public had a right to see it. The prosecution called the handbill “litter.”

Beyond the wording of the statute it was easy enough to see the real push behind The City’s crackdown on posting handbills in the Fan District was coming mostly from people who didn’t want rock ‘n’ roll, or alternative cinema, or all sorts of activities close to where they were living.

Thus, my day in court was one little battle in what had been an ongoing culture war in the Fan District in that era. Some of the Fan’s property owners wanted to get rid of much of the commercial activity in the densely populated neighborhood, especially the restaurants/bars.

The expert witnesses/friends who testified to support my case were David Manning White, Phil Trumbo and Jerry Donato. White had been the chairman of VCU's mass communications department. Trumbo was the best known handbill artist in the Fan. Donato was a painting and printmaking professor at VCU.

We also entered into evidence 100 cool handbills by a variety of artists. We contended that when such flyers appeared on key utility poles, in certain shop windows and on selected bulletin boards, they constituted an information system. We said that an aspect of the citizenry didn’t always trust the mainstream media, especially the daily newspapers, so it frequently relied on information delivered by posters made by people they knew.

The judge was reminded that history-wise, handbills predate newspapers. Furthermore, we asserted that the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven, cheaply printed posters were art — a natural byproduct of having a university with a burgeoning art school in the neighborhood.

At a crucial moment, Donato was being grilled by the prosecutor over just where to draw the line between what should be, and what should not be, considered to be genuine art. The Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney, William B. Bray, asked the witness if the humble piece of paper in his hand, the offending handbill, could actually be “art.”

“Probably,” shrugged the prof. “Why not?”

The stubborn prosecutor grumbled, reasserting that it was no better than trash in the gutter.

Eventually, having grown weary of the artsy, high-brow vernacular being slung around by the witnesses, the prosecutor tried one last time to make Donato look foolish.

As Warhol’s soup cans had just been mentioned by the art expert, the prosecutor asked something like, “If you were in an alley and happened upon a pile of debris spilled out from a tipped-over trashcan, could that be art, too?”

“Well,” said the artist, pausing momentarily, Jack Benny-like for effect, “that would depend on who tipped the can over.”

Donato’s punch line was perfectly delivered. The courtroom erupted into laughter. Even the judge had to fight off a smile.

The crestfallen prosecutor gave up. The City lost the case. Although I got a kick out of the crack, too, I’ve always thought The City’s mouthpiece missed an opportunity to hit the ball back across the net.

“Sir, let me get this right,” he might have said, “are you saying the difference between art and randomly-strewn garbage is simply a matter of whose hand touched it; that the actual appearance of the objects, taken as a whole, is not the true test? Would you have us believe that without credentials, such as yours, one is ill-equipped to determine the difference ordinary trash and fine art?”

A smarter lawyer could well have exploited that angle.

Still, the prosecutor’s premise/strategy that an expert witness could be compelled to rise up to brand a handbill for a movie, a green piece of paper with black ink on it, as “un-art” was absurd. So, Donato, who was a wily artist if there ever was one, probably would have one-upped the buttoned-down lawyer, no matter what.

Perhaps the question shouldn’t have been — how can you tell fake art from real art? After all, any town is full of bad art, mediocre art and good art. Name your poison.

The better question to ask is whether the art is worthwhile or useful. Then you become the expert witness. However, when it comes to great art, it still depends on who tips the can over.

-- 30 --

-- Words and photo by F.T. Rea

Monkeying with Byrd Park

Should a ropes course be installed in Byrd Park? My latest OpEd piece at Richmond.com asks a few questions about the new proposal.

Hey, if people want to pay money ($55 in Rockville) to swing from trees, why not? Sounds like fun. But true nature-lovers, as well as the neighbors who live close to the park, might suggest this granola theme park activity -- with its considerable liability potential -- seems like it would be far better situated on private property.

Click here to read the entire piece at Richmond.com.

Click here to read an article in Richmond BizSense that puts a positive spin on the same project.

Like ... I'm you

This piece was inspired by Christine O'Donnell's campaign ads.

(Click on the art to enlarge it.)

Copy and collage (and photo-stealing) by F.T. Rea.

Swinging course, or slippery slope?

Go Ape!, a Maryland-based company, wants to install a "ropes course" in the wooded area of Byrd Park behind the Carillon. Ropes course?

City officials are working with Go Ape!, a Maryland company, to develop a ropes course that would take people on an adventure 40 to 50 feet above ground in the woods behind the Carillon in Byrd Park. The course would include zip-lines, Tarzan swings and obstacles for a high-stepping experience of two to three hours in the trees.

Click here to read a Richmond Times-Dispatch article about the unusual project now being studied by the City of Richmond. For more on the proposed recreational project, including a map showing the area to be affected, click here to read RVANews' article.

The natural wonders offered by Richmond's parks along the James River are spectacular. Whether this activity should intrude on such public property is questionable. Mountain bikers, bird watchers and joggers pursue their recreational treks through the area Go Ape! wants to appropriate without making a mark on the land.

The RT-D article says Go Ape! will build the course at its expense and assume the liability for participants. But does the City Attorney advise that there's no way a personal injury lawyer could bring the City into a lawsuit, should there be some catastrophe? After all, Go Ape! and the City would be partners and the land would still be owned by the City.

Hey, if somebody wants to pay $50 to swing from trees wearing a helmet and harness, why not? But on the face of it this activity seems like it would be better situated on private property.

Some frequent park users, as well as those who live in the neighborhood adjacent to the park, might say the more natural (and free of charge) the trails through that part of town are, the better. They might also see this theme-park-like development as a slippery slope that will allow for more public/private partnerships that could run roughshod over the quiet subtleties of nature.

Instead of invading this publicly-owned sanctuary, which now stands largely undisturbed by modernity, perhaps Go Ape! should cut a deal with some property owner along the river. Or it should simply buy some land and keep all the profits.

War/Anti-War Films

Still from "Forbidden Games" (1952)

My five favorite heroic war movies and five favorite anti-war movies are listed in the latest installment of Five Film Favorites at the James River Film Journal.

Click here to read the lists and comment, if you like.

Curtain Call for a Class Act

Going into the last regular-season series of his storied career, a three-game affair with the Philadelphia Phillies, Bobby Cox has managed for teams that have won 2,503 games. In Major League Baseball’s history only three skippers have more victories.

Although the Phillies have clinched the National League’s East Division, at this writing the Braves (90-69) hold a two-game lead over the San Diego Padres (88-71) for the league’s fourth postseason qualifying spot -- the wild card.

No matter how it turns out, playoff-wise, Cox will hang up his spikes for good once the Braves are through with their 2010 campaign. Fittingly, this season Cox has turned in one of the finest jobs of guiding a clubhouse full of egos and superstitions in his 29 years of calling the shots from the dugout.

Well, not always from the dugout. Cox holds the all-time record for managers being tossed out of ongoing games by umpires -- 158 and counting.

Although Braves pitching has been strong this year, there’s been no one the likes of Greg Maddox, Tom Glavine or John Smoltz on his staff. On offense it’s been done with smoke and mirrors more than power and speed.

Incidentally, Glavine and Smoltz both hurled for the Richmond Braves in the 1980s, when Cox was in Atlanta’s front office as the franchise‘s general manager. He was the guy who drafted/signed the players who formed the Great Eight of Richmond’s 1993 season, when the local all-time attendance record for a season was set (540,489).

The biggest star of that season at The Diamond, Chipper Jones, has played his entire 17-year career with one manager -- Bobby Cox, who, by the way, played third base for the Richmond Braves in 1967.

No doubt, there will be more than a few old R-Braves fans watching Saturday afternoon’s Phillies vs. Braves game at 4 p.m. on Fox. Lots of retired Braves players will be on hand to help the fans honor Cox's days in a baseball uniform during a pre-game ceremony.

Before that broadcast ends this Braves fan is hoping to see the old and new Braves players gathered around the crusty and crafty Bobby Cox, 69, to celebrate seeing him in the postseason picture for his last hurrah.

-- Words and art by F.T. Rea

Remember the Fan District Softball League?

The Facebook group page for the Fan District Softball League is here. Pictures and comments. Join up if you like. The photo above (circa 1976) is of WGOE's popular disc jockey, Jim Letizia.

Way Conservative, or Just Crazy?

The Republican Party's agenda and the ambitions of the Tea Party movement seem to be coalescing. With Tea Party-endorsed candidates having upset more traditional GOP candidates in a few primaries, the Republican establishment is begrudgingly hopping aboard the ultra conservative bandwagon.

Karl Rove had to eat his words after the dust settled on Christine O’Donnell’s stunning defeat of Mike Castle, a well-connected moderate Republican, in Delaware’s recent primary. Soon it was announced that Gov. Bob McDonnell will be participating in the upcoming Virginia Tea Party Patriots Convention, scheduled to unfold at the Greater Richmond Convention Center, Oct. 7-9, 2010.

In the past Flat-Earth Republican strategy has picked at scabs, hoping fresh blood from yesterday’s thought-to-be-healed cultural troubles would distract Democrats from the present and tie them up defending gains made long ago. Whereas, now, it seems many Tea Party activists actually want to march us all back across the bridge to before the New Deal, perhaps as far back as the Gilded Age.

With Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin stealing his thunder, a couple of weeks ago Rush Limbaugh launched a new campaign. Limbaugh called for the newly coined Limbaugh Rule to be observed by his followers from now on:

“In an election year when voters are fed up with liberalism and socialism, when voters are clearly frightened of where the hell the country is headed, vote for the most conservative Republican in the primary, period.”

Which opens the door to wondering how one is to decide who is the “most conservative.” Like, how far right can you go before you fall off that flat earth? Moreover, where’s the line to be drawn to separate an I’m-more-conservative-than-you Tea Party style Republican from a lunatic who hears trees falling in the woods, when there are no woods?

After all, this season Arizona’s sitting governor, Jan Brewer, has made campaign news by seeing headless bodies no one else can see.

Hype? Hallucinations?

She won’t say.

Christine O’Donnell used to earn her living campaigning against masturbation, calling on teenagers to abstain. Is that way conservative, or what?

Obviously, being a “conservative” now hasn’t got much to do with what it meant a generation or two ago. Now the most passionate conservatives seem to want to turn back the hands of time, to when wealthy Christian white men controlled everything.

When your program is to do away with Social Security, is that conservative, or is it actually crazy in today's world? When you say you want to shrink the deficit, but you also want to give huge tax breaks to millionaires -- while remaining the planet’s policeman! -- is that realistic? When, instead of science, you want to teach Creationism in public schools … well, what is that?

Speaking of religion, what about the Fred Phelps clan -- the Westboro Baptist Church people from Kansas, who are coming to Richmond on Sunday, to stage their God Hates Fags stunts, etc., at local places of worship?

Are the Westboro haters just as Republican, but more conservative than Beck and Palin?

If you say that's a stretch, remember that same dynamic duo recently lent its support to the mustachioed Rev. Terry Jones, when he threatened to burn copies of the Quran.

So, when push comes to shove, which one is the more righteously conservative preacher, Jones or Phelps? Which is just crazy?

*

Update: Click here to read about the RT-D's account of the Westboro haters' work at three churches on Sunday.

'What train?'

What follows is an excerpt of "The Natural" by Bernard Malamud (It's a conversation between Iris and Roy on page 142 of the Avon paperback):

Roy felt like crying, yet he told her -- the first one he ever had. "I was just a kid and I got shot by this batty dame on the night before my tryout, and after that I just couldn't get started again. I lost my confidence and everything I did flopped."

He said this was the shame of his life, that his fate, somehow, had always been the same (on the train going nowhere) -- defeat in sight of his goal.

"Always?"

"Always the same."

"Always with a woman?"

He laughed harshly. "I sure met some honeys in my time. They burned me good."

"Why do you pick that type?"

"It's like I say -- they picked me. It's the breaks."

"You could say no, couldn't you?"

"Not to the type dame I always fell for -- they weren't like you."

She smiled.

Favorite detective films

The series of Five Film Favorites continues at the Jamers River Film Journal: this week it's my five favorite American detective movies.

Click here to see the list and accompanying commentary. And, feel free to offer suggestions of your favorites that I overlooked.

Poll: 1 In 5 Americans Believe Obama Is A Cactus

At long last, it has come down to this:

According to a poll released Tuesday, nearly 20 percent of U.S. citizens now believe Barack Obama is a cactus, the most Americans to identify the president as a water- retaining desert plant since he took office. The poll, conducted by the Pew Research Center, found a sharp rise in the number of Americans who say they firmly believe Obama was either born a cactus, became a cactus during his youth, or has questionable links to the Cactaceae family.

Click here to read the entire article at The Onion.

Rev. Ben Campbell

The cover story for STYLE Weekly today is about an old friend, Rev. Ben Campbell, who has been the pastoral director of Richmond Hill for the last 22 years.

“The whole New Testament is the story of breaking down barriers of race,” he says. “The word gentile means ‘ethnic group.’ Nobody tells you that, but that’s what the word means. So when [Jesus] talks about Jews and gentiles, he’s actually just talking about ethnic groups, not just different religions.”

Click here to read "Bridge Work" by Scott Bass.

Why do crooks wear Yankees caps?

Writing for The Atlantic Wire, Ray Gustini asks a good question. Some of us who always root for whichever team is playing the Yankees might have wondered the same thing -- why do we see so many pictures of criminals wearing caps with the Yankees logo on them?

Yankees caps and clothing have dominated the crime blotter for so long, in so many parts of [New York City] and in so many types of offenses, that it defies an easy explanation.

Click here to read "Why Do Criminals Wear Yankees Hats?"

Perhaps author James A. Michener said it best in 1981: "I don't see how anybody interested in the humanities could possibly be a Yankees fan. They are the Republican right wing. They represent everything that is conservative and objectionable in life."

Harvey Family Memorial Bridge

Painting by Laura Loe

Hills and Heights has the story of the bridge dedication in Forest Hills Park tomorrow (Sunday):

On Sunday, September 19, people from across the city of Richmond are invited to come together in healing and celebration as they help dedicate a new pedestrian bridge named for the Harvey Family in Forest Hill Park. Beginning at 2 pm, musicians, a balloon artist, children and families will be present as city officials cut the ribbon on the bridge across Reedy Creek where it flows into the lake and Friends of Forest Hill Park unveil a granite marker nearby.

Click here to read the entire story.

Click here to read another story about the bridge at the RT-D.

Click here to read quite a bit of background on the Harvey family (some of the links are old and stale, but a lot of it is still available.)

Update: Click here to read the story about the ceremony yesterday (Sunday), including a short video at the RT-D.