politics – Page 11 – Hopeful Romantics

Bull Sharks as a Metaphor

In a world where things are neither what they are supposed to be or where they are supposed to be, the Bull Shark serves as an excellent metaphor. The Bull Shark is different than most other sharks, or for that matter, most other saltwater fish. It can adapt to fresh water. Like some kind of aquatic hybrid it flips from the saltwater environment to the freshwater environment as easily as a Prius in city traffic.

Lately, the Bull Sharks have been wandering up the Louisiana Swamp Lands through the inland waterways and traveling as far as St. Louis. Whether they are restless creatures, afflicted with a poor sense of direction, or merely curious to see St. Louis is anyone’s guess. But the trip from the Delta to St. Louis is a good 900 miles, so in an era when most folks are sticking close to home the Bull Shark is in search of new hangouts.

You wouldn’t expect to see a shark in fresh water. Especially in shallow fresh water. And it must come as a real surprise to have one gnawing on your leg. Since they can grow up to ten feet long, a hungry Bull Shark is no small matter, nor can it be easily dismissed. It is more like if the Taliban decided to visit your local shopping mall.

What makes this new expeditionary Bull Shark force even more disturbing, is that if they find romance in those freshwater byways, the female can spawn some dozen little babies. Makes the Octomom pale by comparison. And as we know, babies get hungry, and babies will feed on just about anything. While the Bull Shark prefers its sushi alive and swimming, it can eyeball a human who in murky water appears the flapping fish.
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So here we have another situation where external forces are messing with our conditioned knowledge of the universe. In this case a crackpot theory or a subject for B Hollywood movie becomes are living reality. It’s another case is down is up and up, of course, is down. Only not all the time. Sometimes up is really up, and down is really down.

What we think we know, is not the case. What we have been told, turns out to be as mythical as any other legend, be it Bull Sharks in the swamps or alligators in the sewers of Manhattan. We have facts, but then the facts mutate, much like the Bull Sharks and the Swine Flu. In the end, we have all this information, and we remain confused.

We decry healthcare reform because the government is involved, but we demand we keep our Medicare and Social Security. We spend more than we make, and then we wonder why we are broke. We are vehemently opposed to terrorists and those who support them but insist we have the right to gas guzzling vehicles. We are preoccupied with our electronic gadgets, and then wonder why we are lacking in intimate human relationships. We search desperately for romance online, but ignore the person standing next to us.

We think sharks are saltwater creatures. Once again, we are wrong.

When Exceptional People Grow Older

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Years ago, when I was first starting out as a writer, my agent in the Los Angeles had a small second floor office in the old Writers and Artists Building, in Beverly Hills. On several visits to her, I would run into the notorious gangster, Mickey Cohen. He was one of my agent’s clients. Jane was new in the business and maintained an eclectic roster reminiscent of Broadway Danny Rose, only with class.

Since we shared the same agent, Mickey and I would nod at each other and maybe manage a few words. He was sick and dying, preoccupied with getting his book to press, before he passed on. He didn’t have much time for chitchat, or maybe I read it wrong and he nothing but time. He looked lonely and out of touch, out of step in the modern world. His old bookie joint on just off of Sunset Strip had long been converted into a leather shop and finally a hair salon.

I thought to myself that this had been one of the most feared men in America. He ruled Los Angeles and was said to have been one of the luckiest gangsters, having dodged several assassination attempts. He made his enemies pay for such transgressions. He lived long after them. And now cancer was taking him down. He was old and fragile, not the fearsome sort of long ago.

Since that time I have been fascinated by the enigma of age on exceptional people who performed extraordinary deeds. Age can eventually make us all appear frail and marginal. Age can disguise our pasts and the things that took place when we were young, virile and a little bit crazy. But with people, ordinary or not, who committed themselves at one time or another to extraordinary acts, it is so strange how time and age can all but eradicate any sense of the deeds we performed.

On many occasions I found myself staring at persons of some notoriety, waiting for their remarkable character to break through the layers of camouflage and some how reveal itself. You wait for that projection of energy. Sometimes you can catch a glimmer, and sometimes you can’t. Sometimes, depending on life and its fortunes, enough of that character remains, albeit in a slightly muted form.

I was reminded of the vagaries and cruelty of age, recently, when I sat down with an old friend who had been ill for some time. Here was a man who served as a war correspondent in countless third world garbage dumps, who had interviewed potentates and politicians of every stripe. He was a man who has investigated some of the greatest scandals of our time. And now, as he sat across from me, it was tough for him to talk. Over time and a couple of drinks, however, that special glimmer of significance did overtake his earlier reservation. He became more animated and under pain and duress projected some of his old self. Still, seeing an old an ill man in front of me, I had to search of evidence of a greater past.
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There was a former member of the Navy’s Underwater Demotion Unit. A frogman, before there were Navy Seals. He was old and moved slowly, but was a wealthy man as a result of having bought and sold enough real estate to develop a good part of Los Angeles. There was no indicator to what acts of courage this man had performed. He was just another tired old man, still moving forward in the quest of making a buck. But he still had the skin burns from the demolition cord he used to blow up enemy submarines that were docked in their bases. Swim in through the protective netting and swim out again. A few less submarines.

Some people still retain that sense of character. Old actors. Rock and Roll Stars. Performers still manage to put on that face and put on that show. An aging Mick Jagger still looks and appears like Mick Jagger of his youth, albeit, a little slower and a little more craggy. Anais Nin was dynamic almost up to the time she grew terminally ill. She had that special grace and allure, moved across the room like she was gliding on wheels. From what friends say, Henry Miller, her lover of yore, maintained his special presence. Beatrice Wood was still going strong into her 100’s. She was a world class potter but also the lover of Marcel Duchamp. Maybe it’s love, exotic romance at its best that keeps some vital and young in spirit. And delightfully crazy.

I remember meeting the Newton Boys. They were old time bank robbers, cowboy types who still retained their wit and sense of humor. With them, ironically, I could see them as they were, holding up a bank. If they thought they could get away with it.

And then there are the ones we are left to wonder about. What would Marilyn Monroe have been like at eighty? Would Amelia Earhart be dynamic and special, projecting that special aura when they periodically honored her as a pioneer for women’s rights? John Lennon?

So the next time you see someone who is elderly take a second look. Before you judge them merely old and frail, pathetically marginal, look for the signs of an exceptional character . Not everyone will have it. Let’s face it, while we can be kind and classify everyone as special, there are some of us, a few of us, who in one form or another have gone the extra mile. We may not even like what they did. We may not approve of it. But we can recognize that at one time or another they did something extraordinary.

Under the layers of personal history, trials, and disappointment, age may have obscured that special character. But it can never quite remove it entirely.

Clandestine Operations and the Flaws of Congressional Oversight

America was shocked the learn that the intelligence community was running clandestine operations against terrorists, including assassination attempts. Yes, the news media and a good portion of the public recoiled in surprise that the clandestine services were running clandestine operations. This is what passes for news.

Now, surely, there were some sticky points, some of the centering around our former Vice President, Dick Cheney, and allegations he was running assassination teams out of his office. Of course, the same man that mistakenly shot his friend in the face at a duck shoot, discovered that forming the hit teams is one thing, actually killing terrorists on their home turf is quite another. But that is another matter left perhaps for another time.

Or not. It is tough to assassinate people. It is not how it looks in the movies, where easy plots and knuckle dragging super heroes have convinced a gullible public that most crises could be resolved in an hour and a half. It is not how it looks in the movies, either, where a team of stalwart Americans infiltrate enemy terrain, hard and demanding terrain, where they successfully annihilate their quarry, before drifting back into the waiting copters.

Let’s face it, in most places where terrorists hide, it is tough to get there by car, yet alone by mountain paths and jungle trails. It is tough to find the Terrorist Cave among the other 95,000 caves in half a dozen mountain ranges. It is tough to get the locals to give up the people that they either revere or who scare hell out of them. It ain’t easy.

Nevertheless, clandestine services do tend to practice clandestine operations. And clandestine operations, in order to remain clandestine, have to be…secret. Keeping secrets in congress is difficult on a good day. Congress people will blab for any number of reasons, not the least of which is self-aggrandizement and some form of measured gain. They will talk it up, blow secrets, and otherwise piss on the clandestine parade.

So why on earth would most clandestine services feel comfortable, releasing secrets, strategies, and dangerous tactics into the hands of a very leaky congress? They don’t like to. And sometimes they don’t. Which in turn prompts the calls for more rigorous congressional oversight. Rigorous congressional oversight can mean any number of things. It can mean anything from having a clue where the government expenditures are being allocated to using the information as fodder to do an agitprop theatrical drama, playing to whatever base.
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Sometimes the regard for those in the clandestine operations is negligible. A good news story is well worth the trade of a couple, few lives. Later on the jingo dance of support the troops will more than compensate for the loose lips that can jeopardize an operation.

Of course this is all a matter of perspective. It is also a matter of balance. On one hand, a clandestine service without responsible–notice the term responsible–oversight, can shape shift easily from a guardian of our democracy to a fascist sub-service loyal to those who run it. Doubtful, maybe, but it has happened before. There are places in the world where the secret service is the pillar upon which draconian governments rest their anti-human laurels. Can we say Iran?

But then there is the other side. You blow the cover of the clandestine service and your jeopardize its people and you risk the success of the operation. If you become over saturated with self-righteous indignation, you pull away the layers of the onion that reveal the mechanism for all to see. There are some elements of government that simply shouldn’t be all that transparent. Yes, idealistic as you may be, there are any number of aspects and operations that shouldn’t be aired on some mindless news show.

As for our congress, let’s get real. While some are responsible individuals with intellect, tact and a reasonable concern for the well being over the country over their own personal gain, there are a fair number that border on buffoonery. If you don’t believe me, just listen to them. Far too many are has been Rotarians–sorry Rotarians–who can’t keep an illicit sex affair a secret, yet alone a clandestine operation. Some can’t keep their own avarice and corruption from being exposed. Some believe that dinosaurs roamed the earth with humankind some 6,000 years ago. Some are jingoistic fools in bad haircuts, who only open their mouths to change feet.

So here, perhaps, is the oversight. These fair souls may pose the guiding light for intelligence operations we can’t always get right on a good day. Or, sometimes, at all.

But under the age old adage, be careful what you wish for, let’s not get too carried away. Otherwise, someone who can’t either keep his head out of his ass or his dick in his pants, will be deciding the fate of clandestine operations. Yes, there has to be oversight, but anything like the now lauded by truly diasterious Stansfield Turner/Frank Church era may not be all that advisable. Not with the barbarians at the gates.

Cronkite’s Death Marks an Era of News that Passed Years Ago

There was a time when Walter Cronkite could have run for President of the United States. He didn’t. There was a strong possibility he could have won the election, but still, unlike the news hucksters today he want to parlay their two cents of wisdom into a higher office, Cronkite didn’t succumb.

Cronkite had among other things too much integrity. As the most trusted man in America, Cronkite at his peak did more to encourage us to visit the moon than any other person. His vast influence helped hasten the debacle of that era, better known as the Vietnam War. People watched him, and people listened to him. More importantly, people believed him.

Cronkite was arguably the first true anchorman. While he was a at the top of the game, there were others who lent their own credibility and integrity to the news format. The news format, back then, and the network executives who ran that division, assured that it was never mistaken for entertainment, cheap tricks in the guise of news in order to milk the ratings. The news department was sacrosanct. Those in other divisions of the networks, there were only networks at the time, well understood you never messed with or tried to influence the news divisions. Not the entertainment or advertising departments. No in behalf of sponsors or a celebrity looking for a leg up. If you did, you had your head handed to you.

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The list goes on. These were broadcasters who gave you the news. Most often they did little to influence your opinion, and if they did so, it was through subtlety in lieu of bombast. They respected each other, and they respected their guests. They were responsible for utilizing the great new age of electronic media transmission to its best advantage. To make people knowledgeable about the world they lived in.

And then there was Walter Cronkite. We watched him as a news anchor, the host of documentary series, like “Air Power,” and “The Twentieth Century.” We listened as he urged us to the moon and implored us to end another stupid war. We had faith in him. We may have never seen him as a great man, really, but as our wise grandfather, giving us perspective on an ever changing world. But he was a great man. And Cronkite and his kind have been sorely missed. Their passing should cause us mourning and reflection, even if Cronkite and his peers doesn’t get a celebrity laden sendoff from the Staples Center.

We missed them when they went off the air and were replaced by…something else. We miss their style and their integrity. We suffer from their absence. Cronkite’s death is our loss. An era has passed us by. And we are a poorer nation for it.

Is The Governor Sanford Affair Really a Tragedy?

By now anyone with a heartbeat is aware that the quirky Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, enjoyed an extra-marital affair. I say enjoyed, because anyone who would put his career on the line, especially when the career had presidential aspirations, must have really been in love.

Most by now have at least watched soundbites of Sanford’s rambling apology and explanation. He hemmed, hawed and fumbled about in a Joycean stream of conscious admission of his wrong doing. The admission capped off several days of speculation where Governor Sanford was missing and incommunicado. Depending on the time of day, his office reported him to be either hiking the Appalachian Trail or writing. On the weekend that included Father’s Day.

This would not be such a big event for a guy who wasn’t a father. In fact, it wouldn’t hardly be noticed if the person was your run of the mill flake. But in Sanford’s case, his flakiness is labeled as eccentric, due to the stature of his political office. We tend to do that, substitute quirky and eccentric for flaky and irresponsible according to one’s stature in society. But I digress.

What makes Sanford’s affair particularly peculiar is that this is the guy who stood firmly on family values. He is a devout Christian with strong family values and a steadfast belief in integrity and keeping his word and bonds. He was a man who judged others for straying, and straying they are, these politicos. The list of of lawmakers who have conducted extramarital affairs is getting longer every day. On both sides of the aisle. Homosexual affairs. Heterosexual affairs. Come one. Come all. Often on the public money.

But back to Sanford. The news pundits are all over this. The analyze it, assess it, rate it, label it. They have said what a shame it was, fighting back a laugh here and there. Many, including the liberal pundits, have solemnly pronounced this a “tragedy.” A tragedy. Mind you. Iran is beating the hell out of its citizens, and North Korea wants to nuke the world. But here is the tragedy.

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But this poor guy, after years of steadfast and rigid beliefs, finally got to know himself a little bit better than he had ever supposed. He came to terms with himself. He found out he was flawed and not as disciplined as he once believed. He found love, it seems, and through that he came to a recognition. In some ways he transcended the boring black and white, simplistic values he so adamantly enforced such a short time ago and discovered the greater complexities of love and life. It’s an awakening, and hopefully he will use this recognition for a better purpose, for for no other purpose than to love more fully.

As for the supposed tragedy–what tragedy? On the macro level, Sanford couldn’t handle his own romance. Something that finally got under his skin, steamed his sexual engines and made the righteous lifestyle a little more obscure, has in a sense liberated him. But it also demonstrated it is questionable at least that he can’t handle a crisis. Sanford was a candidate for President of the United States.

And you know when that phone rings at three AM or you get a collect call from Argentina, you better know how to handle it. It appears Governor Sanford is incapable of handling that proverbial call. In a sense it is well in keeping with my general take on rigid people with rigid perspectives. They simply aren’t flexible enough to deal well when life throws them a curve. George Bush in the classroom; Sanford in love.

So at the end of the day we caught a break. This man could have been President and in a crisis issued the same style rambling explanation of just what was going down. He could have messed up big time. Now he won’t get the chance.

He can spend his time reassessing those rigid values of his. He can spend the time fixing his life.