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The True Legacy of J.D. Salinger

By now anyone with a heartbeat knows that J.D. Salinger passed on, last week. The death of the controversial author of “Catcher in the Rye” was certainly a news event, bringing out the deferential and the snarky. There were reviews and reminiscences, lengthy and brief accountings of his place in literature and his place in American and even world culture. It was in one spontaneous moment a reminder that even the pop minded, celebrity inundated America sometimes remembers its true artists and its literary lions. A nice touch for a country with a memory of its history that is equivalent to a dog.

Salinger only published four books. The first is “The Catcher” in the Rye, published in 1951. He also published “Nine Stores,” “Franny and Zooey,” and “Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenter.” This is a modest literary output but significant on so many levels. To read Salinger is in some way to follow the trajectory of the American family and with it American Culture. At once it is intensely personal. We derive an intimate knowledge of the fictional Glass family, fashioned after Salinger’s own Irish-American Heritage. But we also derive a sense of the dissolution and reformation of the American family.

In Salinger’s intimacy, we find a universal world, a changing sequence of family life that has left us somewhat bewildered in the 21st century. We see how in “Catcher,” the questioning of the system. the realization that even the more exalted visions of success and supremacy are artificial, or “phony,” as protagonist Holden Caulfield, pronounces throughout the book. We see in the complete published work the splintering of the family, with its doubts and second thoughts, idiosyncrasies, and its conflicting impulses to survive or destroy itself as the characters hang on for dear life or take leave of themselves.

This was America of the fifties and sixties. Holden Caulfield is maybe dated now to some extent. He, like the protest movements that grew out of the fifties and sixties, is maybe a an inglorious monument to a slice of modern history. He is quaint in his evaluations of society, as the system he faces has in its ongoing metamorphosis worked to co-opt us all. His cause, which was personal cause, aimless and misdirected rebellion, may now be seen as no cause at all. In a world where mood elevators, the Prozacs and Zolofts relieve us from actually realizing the dreadful impact of meaningless and often nonsensical social behavior, we tend to bury our inner Holden Caulfied’s. We bury them where they can’t rise up, ask questions. Start trouble.

Nevertheless, Caulfield lives on. For Salinger, like Bob Dylan and a number of others cannot merely be judged by their artistic creations. They must also be regarded for the impact they had on society itself. Millions have read “The Catcher in the Rye.” We know it is not a story rife with sex and celebrity, gratuitous violence, and all the other elements that drive the train of pop consciousness these days. It is a story of perceptions and idea, told with with and humor.

Yet “The Catcher in the Rye,” was banned from schools and libraries around the countries. The usual reactionary pundits held up this slim fictional volume as emblematic of the moral and social decay. It was, after all, an attack against artifice and shallow values. It was a perception of society that gave vision to ourselves in a way we were horrified to recognize. Rather than examine its point of view, like all things different, it was judged subversive and shouted down.

But millions of us read it. And millions of us found our heads turned and our thinking changed. We no longer put as much faith in our institutions. We no longer accepted our society and its social mores without question. What was fed to us and to be accepted on face value was questioned, criticized, and ultimately rebelled against. “The Catcher in the Rye” was the seed, the first implant that rewired the nation. From that seed, there came social disruption. Society though still manacled to lockstep ideology and systems not of our making, had still felt the impact of changes in its sexual values, civil rights, and our outlook to those that hired us, those who governed us, and the wars they committed to on our behalf.
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“The Catcher in the Rye,” was more than a book. It was a de facto instruction manual for how to see things outside the institutional perspective. I should add here that there are good stories and then there is good literature. While good stories, the big, sweeping blockbusters, must by their nature be story driven, this is not necessarily the case with good literature. With a good blockbuster, you must start at the beginning and finish at the end. A page turner. The same may hold true for good literature. But there is a difference.

With good literature, or I should say a test of good literature, is to be able to start anywhere in the book and moving forward or backward glean insights and understanding from what is written on the pages. You can turn to the middle and not care, really, how the book was started and how it will end. In good literature, wherever you start, you can read something that will move you in some way, that will turn your head around. This is the case with Salinger’s works. Start anywhere and there is something to gain.

As for Salinger himself, he stands in vivid defiance of our modern, celebrity saturated times. He at first may have wanted his fame and attention, but soon tired of it to retreat to his ninety-odd acres in New Hampshire. He was famous for being a recluse, which while not altogether new is remarkably edifying in a world where the desperate want to be publicly vaunted for some insipid act. It may be fleeting fame, but it is fame. Having eight kids and once and you are the OctoMom, gracing the tabloids and the six o’ clock news. Make some outrageous claim in defiance of all things scientific, and your are considered Presidential material. Have sex with the right person, and you get to tell your story and write a book.

Yet here was Salinger who backed away from it all. The presumption was that he had stopped writing. This apparently is not the case. While he may have engaged in what we call eccentric behavior, Jerry Salinger, still lived a long and fulfilling life. He was able to explore metaphysics, homeopathy, and other pursuits that would have given cause to deem him an oddity, had he been under the social microscope. He came and went, had people for dinner, had sex with people of his choosing, mostly out of the public view. He engaged in his intellectual pursuits outside the public eye, so people couldn’t judge him or hash out their half baked theories on what he was up to. Although, even when they lacked a clue as to what he was up to, theories bubbled like farts to the media surface every now and then.

Salinger was a living example, melding as best he could his real life with his written word. Maybe we will see more of those words in time as some of the alleged books and stories he had been writing all these years emerge in the public light. If they do, a lot of people will have a lot to say. And we will be forced to listen to theories, conjecture from the pompous and mindless to fill up the air time. To be fair, more knowledgeable souls will chime in with their thoughts, and from them their may be nuggets worth pocketing. Or not.

But all of it in the end means little or nothing, compared what the author has ultimately put on paper. As for Jerry Salinger, whatever he had to say about this human condition, we can be grateful, he has said it already.

Hang High the White Collar Criminals

People are pissed off. This in itself is no real news as the public disgust with the news media, politicians and Wall Street has been on the increase every year. But now they are really pissed off. People are so angry that not even their Prozac and Zoloft, and the other mood enhancers, can fend off the seething desire to retaliate against the charlatans they believe have done them wrong.

People want justice. They have lost their savings, and they have lost their jobs. They have seen their pensions cut in half. Their houses, if not foreclosed upon are underwater. What equity they had is gone. They have been lied to, bamboozled, and moved around by the sound byte media and the sound bitten politicians. The had put their faith in their civil and social leaders, their financial advisers, and they have been led astray. The economy has become a fiasco and the state of the nation is regarded as but one more news event to be commented on by the spurious and insipid who through media magic have been qualified as experts. A reinvigorated Wall Streets continues its efforts to make a buck off the public’s ignorance and apathy.

But people are pissed off. Certainly, some of the responsibility for this national debacle must fall upon their shoulders. For it is the public that overbought and extended itself. It is the semi-literate public who disregarded the large print, yet alone the fine print, on its mortgage contracts, never bothering to ask why am I paying so little for a house that is worth so much? Instead, they bought into the snake oil sales pitch that they should overlook the balloon payment due in a few years, as they will always be able to get another mortgage. And the real estate con artists most used phrase, ” housing prices will always go up,” resonated with millions, much like we take comfort in our being watched over by angels, or global warming will be corrected by forces other than ourselves.

We are a nation that doesn’t read too well. Forget about the languages of other nations. Approximately half of us our functionally illiterate with our own language, and that’s when we bother to read. Much of our more significant correspondence has been truncated down to pithy little phrases that hinder the scope of any detailed thought or definition. We utter sound bytes that are fed to us and believe wholeheartedly that this is original thought. Anything more than a few sentences to a paragraph forces us to give up what little element of concentration we still possess. And critical thinking, true critical thinking, is far too demanding to warrant our attention.

So, in short, our ignorance and laziness can turn us into victims. We are easily bamboozled. We take lies as truth on face value, as long as those lies come from our own segment of social and political belief. We give more credence to our celebrities and are suspicious of our scientists. A crackpot with a theory gets more attention than the knowledgeable with the facts. Especially if the fact is bad news.

We believe for some reason that we have the inherent right to be safe and free of any slights or contrary opinions or perspectives that would make us uncomfortable. We think of our children of geniuses in the making and believe they will prevail and prosper by virtue of their American heritage and their legacy of a two car garage. We believe we can buy anything and pay for it later. We take out home equity loans on our houses with inflated values and then use that money for trinkets and beads and other crap we don’t really need. We buy boats and overpriced designer clothing. We buy gourmet foods for our pets and dress our four-year-old’s in $300.00 blue jeans.

Instead of being a producer nation, we are a consumer nation. Two-thirds of our economy is based in consumerism. It is a hell of a lifestyle, and to support it we borrow money from foreign countries, borrow against our house, our credit cards, and, lately, we melt down our own crappy old jewelry and sell it off for its weight in gold. We do this for one of two reasons. We are either in love with ourselves; we are special people who absolutely deserve to garner all the material offerings that the world can provide. Or we hate ourselves, have the kind of esteem issues that compel us to buy these baubles and trinkets so that we can feel better about ourselves. Feel that we measure up to the people next door.

In short, we have set ourselves up as suckers. We are ripe for the plucking. We are semi-literate, prescription drug indulged individuals who worship celebrity while eschewing any kind of critical or cognitive thinking in favor of our own distorted view of the world. We are the perfect mark for any group of slippery sliders wishing to sell us a bill of goods. And that they did. Our government gave Wall Street a license to steal. And that is what they did.

First came the panic. We were on the verge of a depression. Enter the federal government as those surviving companies, paragons of what is loosely labeled free enterprise and free market conditions, took bailout money by the trillions to shore up their companies. Those those that took the bailout money, or stimulus money, were supposed to use it wisely. Stimulate the economy. Pass it from Wall Street to Main Street. It didn’t happen. Instead the money was used for consolidation, for shoring up financial institutes and for buying companies that should have been left to die. A trillion bucks later, and unemployment remains high, businesses are closing, and there are millions of foreclosures.

There is constant talk that America is in the economic downturn from which it may never recover.. We have stopped our buying, most of us anyway. Suddenly, we realize we really don’t need those extra trinkets and beads and that Fluffy the Cat doesn’t need gourmet food that children in a developing nation would kill for. Little Child can make do in a $50 pair of Levi’s, in fact it is chic again, and the two luxury vehicles in the driveway, the $20 thousand dollar vacation, the caviar and custom made $500 shirts, the ski mobiles and snow mobiles and the RV that drags them to places where we can overrun the landscape may not have the cachet they once did.

Then came the anger. We are trying to save our money. We are watching every buck. We are eating in and ordering movies with a couple of pizzas for our rich and robust entertainment on a Saturday night. We have no credit left, so cash is king. We try to make the best of a bad situation, knowing that we were left stranded by political and financial chicanery and that the vaunted promise of change is like other campaign promises, fading in the light of a harsh reality. We are tightening our belts and punching new holes in the leather, because we can’t afford to buy another belt.

And we are very pissed off. In response to our anger we have voiced our concern by claiming we are lapsing into Socialism though few really know much about that economic system and what it really means. We make noises about a free market, but corporate welfare leaves the rest of us struggling. We become tea baggers and in tepid attempt to express ourselves conduct insipid reenactments of the more stalwart at the Boston Tea Party by flinging our Lipton’s into the rivers and lakes. We are angry and it is vented in misguided ways with little direction that will promise little results.

We are frustrated and we have few channels for its expression. In the past couple of decades we have been indoctrinated with the belief that anger and frustration are by their nature bad things and shouldn’t be expressed in polite society. As colonialists in our nascent stages and in quest of our independence we dragged our scalawags into the streets where they were summarily tarred and feathered. Now we just whine at them. We are admonished that we shouldn’t act out, that we shouldn’t raise our voices, that we shouldn’t complain. So when we do act out and raise our voices, we do so with meaningless displays. We wear our guns to a healthcare meeting and consider this a show of resistance.

We immerse ourselves in nonsense. We conduct meaningless debates that are exploited by the media and the interest groups who manipulate our deeper emotions. We are turned against each other over petty discord, and we allow our prejudices to condemn us to the kind of narrow thinking that obfuscates the real demons among us. It is in the best interests of the special interests that we continue this nonsensical rancor, allowing time for the real criminals to continue to rob us blind.

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We are a nation that believes in justice. We are a nation that believes in accountability. At least we used to. We believe someone should be responsible for transgressions against society. We went to war and fought the Nazis, then conducted the Nuremberg Trials to show that leaders must be accountable for their actions. At Nuremberg, we listened to one Nazi after the next claim they were only following orders. And then we hanged the bastards. We hanged them high.

But no more. Our leaders are anything but accountable. They screw up and get promoted. They run their companies into the ground and they get bonuses for their efforts. They break the law and rob and steal, and receive bail out money from the government, which is best described as public money misused and misdirected. We bail them out and absorb the disaster, and they pat themselves on the back. The New York Times just announced that Wall Street is preparing to give itself even more bonuses, after taking government money for bailing out of a debacle they created and then leaving us in the lurch. Who could be more deserving of a hefty reward than a collective bunch of failures?

There has been predatory mortgage lending, falsification of documents, and the fraudulent act of according toxic financial packages mythical value. There was insider trading and the illegal shuffling of money. There were crimes committed. And yet the government in its implacable wisdom has deemed it fit not to investigate or prosecute any financial wrongdoings. While it has been broadly acknowledged that a fair portion of the financial dealings were indeed criminal acts the government while wrangling over partisan politics can not be bothered bring these white collar criminals to justice. Sure, they brought Bernard Madoff to justice, ad a few others, but their few billions in stolen funds are mere drops in the bigger bucket, compared to the trillions stolen by others.

We are not accountable. We do not suffer consequence for our actions. We allow criminals who screw up royally and drive this country into the ground to walk off with the the spoils of their ill gotten gains. We endure one of our few remaining industries were the media discusses the crimes ad nauseum, and books are written. But no one stands accountable and no one goes to jail. Remarkable.

I realize that out of the thousands of people in the financial sector, Wall Street, if you prefer, only a portion committed criminal acts. The rest merely climbed in on a rare opportunity, universal deregulation, perpetrated for the past twenty years by idiots in government who failed to see the catastrophe the end game would bring. But then, among the high paid toadies there are the criminals, the ones who robbed this country blind. These are people with no conscience that raided pension funds and pillaged the economy worse than any group of gangsters. While we arrest a couple of grocery store robbing fools and put them in jail with vapid pronouncements that we are fighting crime, we allow the true criminals, the ones that took our retirement money and the futures of the children to live in luxury.

This is what we are pissed off about. Underneath the spurious nonsense about Socialism and the loss of our old America, we are seething that everything we believed in has been delivered as one big lie. We are enraged that all those Western Movies, Cop Movies, where the good guys defy the odds to bring the bad guys to justice is just a lot of crap. Because we have not just been robbed of our money. We have been robbed of our culture and our sense of justice and fair play for all.

Had either this administration, the past one possessed half the insight it claims it has, then they would prosecute these white collar criminals. They would bring them to justice. We would take back the money they stole and give them long and harsh prison sentences. We would make examples of them by making it more costly to commit the crime than to endure the moderate penalty that, if ever, are now being handed out. We would hang them high.

Making white collar criminals accountable would promote the true healing of this country. Here is where at least partisan populist cultures can converge in rare mutual agreement. This would ease the anger and the pain. This would give us justice. And justice is what we deserve.

Advent of the Electric Car Means Luxury Cars for the Poor

The Age of Steam is upon us. Or, in this case, as we are several generations removed from the Age of Steam, we are adapting to the age of alternative energy. Alternative Energy is in itself a funny name, as energy is energy, so an alternate energy source is just a difference source than the fossil fuels we have been using for several centuries to foul up the planet.

Or, more to the point, some of these energy forms we have been using for quite some time. Coal has been with us for centuries. We have stories written about the people who have extracted it from the earth. Stories about the people who delivered it to houses. We have stories about the people who work with it, suffer illness from it, and die from its dreaded black lung disease. We hear tales of horror about going into the bowels of the earth and the mine shaft collapses, both newsworthy and legendary. We hear about perhaps even the greater horrors of strip mining and what it does to the community and general environment. We hear about clean coal, and the rebuttals there will never be any such thing as clean coal.

Coal drives machinery and begets our electricity. So does oil energy, nuclear and solar. No matter what source we utilize, it gets down to one or two things, driving our machinery and providing electricity. Our industrial machinery relies on these sources of energy. Some machinery requires the conversion from the energy sources into electricity, and others do not. The automobile is one of them. The automobile depends on the combustible engine, which is set off by tiny explosions initiated by gasoline or some other fossil fuel. That is the way it has been for nearly a century. First steam and then the internal combustible engine, functioning on diesel or gasoline.

Until now. With the world well aware that oil won’t be around forever, we have been searching for new sources to fuel our vehicles. There are rumors and then there is the reality. In the rumors, we have hydrogen powered cars and solar powered cars. Maybe. But not at the moment. What we do have are hybrid, part gasoline, part electric cars, and, finally, all electric cars.

Despite the pitfalls of short ranges and the need to find an electrical outlet, the electric car is upon us. Much as the Age of Steam was once upon us, the electric car is greeted with mixtures of wonder and skepticism. These two sentiments rest at the heart of our true diversity. We are naturally skeptical, and we are naturally in wonder. We live in awe of new achievements, technological breakthroughs, but we also revel in their subsequent failures. We either choose sides and split up the responsibility for uttering either sentiment, or we fall back into our time honored position of wait and see. Right now probably more people are waiting and seeing than pushing the pros and cons of electric powered transportation.

Nevertheless, it is here. The recent Los Angeles Car Show featured a variety of electric cars. Other, gas powered vehicles garnered not even half the excitement as the new offerings of electric cars. Damn near every car manufacturer stepped up to the plate, showcasing either its production model or prototype. It is here, and despite our concerns, we secretly can’t wait to embrace it.

Of course life will be different. With the economy in the dumper and the cost of gasoline bound to increase in the forthcoming years, a little fuel economy never hurt anyone. Electric powered vehicles offer just that. Also, electric cars can be fast, as in very, very fast. There is on reconstituted, electric powered old Datsun Sedan that is breaking quarter mile speed records at the local drag strips. They are fast, and they are cheap to fuel. They may lack the range, making longer trips a little difficult at the moment, but over time that concern with be a thing of the past.

Of course, electric cars don’t make the sexy sounds of the old V-8’s. No throaty, ass gripping roar as the engine accelerates. The quiet electric motor may lack something in the sex factor. As a matter of fact the sex factor may lack something as well. So far we have no reports of couples doing it in an electric car. No humming engines on Lover’s Lane. Singles don’t get hot over the new lack of throbbing engine. Hey, but throw in a few accessories, perhaps some truly futuristic accouterments, and having sex in an electric car will someday be downright sexy.

Okay, so with the price of fuel going sky high and the electric car the poster child of the car shows, what’s to become of the plain old internal combustion luxury roadsters we know and love? I live in Los Angeles where the love and reverence for the luxury car takes on religious dimensions. A perfunctory observation of the boulevards and parking lots would tell even the densest of individuals that you are nothing here if you can’t plod through bumper to bumper traffic in a 200 mile per hour Ferrari or Maserati. Or if you are too cheap to lay out the necessary $300,000 or more, the very least you can do is a Turbo Porsche or Aston Martin.
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If you are a paltry piker living from paycheck to paycheck than you should simply make do with a Lexus, BMW or Mercedes Benz. If not the top of the line, then at least an entry level or middle of the line model. Lest you disgrace yourself with anything that would appear unseemly and out of touch in an image minded status seeking society that has as its epicenter the City of the Angels.

And while Los Angeles is the epicenter for status seeking car culture, the rest of the nation, despite its protests of humility and self-denial, is not all that far behind. Not really. Look at the recent real estate boom, or the more recent real estate illusion, where millions of people took out equity loans on their overpriced homes to buy among other trinkets and beads a luxury automobile. Because if you can’t live in luxury for that ten minute trip to the market, what is life, after all?

But now, after all the years of scratching and stretching for that luxury automobile, we find ourselves in a proverbial quandary. There is the slow dawning that the sleek Italian or German, maybe even Japanese piece of machinery in the driveway will soon be diminished in status and value. The electric car is here, and it is the next big thing. Even if it is a modest Chevy Volt it may have more cachet than that lumbering Lexus some stranger must have left in your driveway. I mean, with everyone going electric, what is a person to do? When you can buy a sleek and sophisticated all electric 200 MPH Tesla to drive in bumper to bumper traffic what are you doing with that gas guzzling Neanderthal of another technological era?

Well, if you are a righteous, environmentally concerned individual, you would be giving away that smoking, belching dinosaur. You wouldn’t be caught dead in it, not when you could be ensconced in the vanguard of the 21st century. Let’s e objective. It’s time to go electric. So what to do with that suddenly out of fashion internal combustion vehicle?

Why you give it to the poor. That’s right. Sign over that pink slip to some non-profit organization and hand the keys to a member of the underclass. Let them experience luxury driving for a few brief moments before the polar caps melt and global warming floods the streets, making the Hummer the only drivable vehicle. Let the poor souls who are out of work or barely working, surviving grimly in this economic downturn, take a brief spin in an historical landmark of automotive engineering. It’s only fair.

It’s a win-win situation. The poor have a brief shot at luxury living, and you can feel good about brightening up their lives. You also get rid of this inconvenient truth of a luxury albatross that is so diminished in value it is hardly worth the paint that covers its metal. As for its value in status and image, you are driving the equivalent of a Nehru Jacket.

So let the poor have all those luxury cars. A few smiles, before the last hurrah. All those streamlined super designed German and Italian vehicles will brighten up those seedy neighborhoods. Add a shabby chic sensibility to the dilapidation and graffiti overload.

Some may caution with the price of gasoline ever on the increase it would burden the poor. They would have these beautiful cars but not the money to pay for the fuel that would power them. Not to worry. The poor are poor, remember. They are not going anywhere, anyway.

Time to Reinstitute the Military Draft

It is time to consider reinstituting the military draft in the United States. Despite the brilliance of the American volunteer and therefore very professional army, clearly our troops have been exhausted with multiple tours of duty. The National Guard, which is just that, has been called up into active duty, and that has put a tremendous burden on the Guard itself as well as their families.

The levels of emotional and financial drain have been reported by key military personnel for the past number of years. It has been reported we have drained the resources of our military personnel by committing them to protracted wars. We have overburdened their equipment and have depleted our physical resources. Because of the financial outlay and our need to borrow money to fight this war from nations like China, different military weapons projects have been cut out or reduced substantially. None of this is any good.

We have had the military draft, or conscription, with us in different occasions. Initially, during the colonial days, we relied on militias. Militias were too small and inconsequential to be utilized for the larger and more deadly wars that would follow with the modernization and growth of American into an industrial nation. Enter the draft so that Armies of both the Confederacy and the Union could furnish enough troops for the now legendary battlefields where between one and two million Americans would die. Later came conscription for the First World War and then again in the Second World War.

But we were a different nation then. If we went to war then we called up our forces and manufactured mass weaponry to meet the challenges. Come peacetime we would reduce our forces substantially and not really modernize our weaponry until the next crisis came upon us. We did so during the First World War and then again in World War Two. In World War Two, where the threat to the nation was hardly and abstract we built a military and produced weapons with speed and efficiency that surpassed most imaginations, certainly those of our enemies.

We had become the “Arsenal of Democracy.” This is no small title and assuredly no small task. Come the end of the Second World War we realized the world had changed. We could no longer stand down our military and allow that military to rely on weapons systems that would soon be obsolete. We had to not only develop new weaponry but to continue to do this so we would not only have parity against any nation’s military but we would in fact be the dominate force. We learned that in the new world to protect our interests on a global level we had to project our military on a global level. This meant the continued development of the military and the weapons it would use.

By 1948, just a few years after the end of World War Two, it was evident to protect our interests through military force, when necessary, we would have to establish a peacetime draft. Essentially, the draft was continued through most of the Vietnam War until 1968 when then President Richard Nixon opted for an all volunteer army. This was part of the new concept, a military built around technology and professionalism. This all volunteer army would relieve the burden of public service.

The volunteer military can be problematic on several levels. As I mentioned before the all volunteer military is smaller and in theory more professional. As a smaller force it doesn’t require the funding of a larger army. This has allowed us to shut down military bases around the country and in parts of the world. All good, so far. In theory. Reality is a bit different.

But now we are faced with a military force near exhaustion. Whether you believe either the Iraqi War or the War in Afghanistan is justified or not there is no denying that are troops have been stretched thin and worn out over time. Repeated tours have proved hazardous and overwhelming. Equipment has been overused and spare parts are at a minimum. Should the United States get into a truly serious conflict, meaning that where the enemy is in possession of advanced weaponry and is consequently much more formidable than Iraq or Afghanistan, we may be confronting some very serious problems. We may lack the resources that would assure victory.

Couple this with the growing trend toward the infusion of fundamental religion in the military. There are reports about evangelical proselytizing in the Army, Navy, and at places like the Air Force Academy. Evangelicals have brought pressure to bear on the less religious members of the military or those of a different faith. They have invoked methods and practices that could be considered coercion. They have brought to our military an element infused with the Christian Crusade, which is hardly in keeping with the standards and traditions of our military. This is neither the precepts found in the militia or our civvilian armies of our past.

With regard to history, there are repeated examples where the volunteer army becomes a mercenary army and follows those who either pay it or give it orders. Mind you, I am not saying this is the looming case with our all volunteer military, but the historic examples are enough to take measure. Consider also, that the shortage of troops has initiated the expanded use of mercenaries in groups like Blackwater, where the rank and file is loyal to its leadership and carries with it the inherent evangelical element of religious fundamentalists.

Blackwater is a private army. And because it is a private army we pay its troops a lot more salary, nearly four times the salary, in fact, of our regular forces. This creates resentment within our regular forces who have to risk their necks for a quarter the money. This also raises questions of loyalty and issues of oversight, where the private army does not necessarily subscribe to normal military standards of conduct. There are numerous reports that such mercenary groups as Blackwater do not adhere to the established rules of engagement. This is already proving worrisome to American citizens and to not only members of this government but to members of governments where this private army is engaged.
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Clearly, the American all volunteer military is no longer able to function alone, but must be supplemented with a private mercenary force. In our democracy, this is hardly the precedent we want to establish.

If we are going to continue to serve our national interests by projecting military force then we need to reinstitute the civilian army. A civilian army will augment the professionals within the service and will help dilute the religious fervor and proselytizing that has proven controversial and disturbing. There will be less of a crusade mentality as a civilian army will be more eager to get the job done than endure a protracted crusade. The lack of this religious fervor will enable conscripted members of other religions and ethnicity to participate without encumbrances. The civilian army will better understand that its loyalty remains first and always with the American people.

While there may be some difficulty in maintaining the streamlined professionalism of our current forces, this will be augmented by talented civilians who ordinarily would not have served. These recruits can possess insight and skill sets in psychology and technology that may not be as prominent in a smaller force. They can bring a better cultural understand of our enemies, speak their languages and interpret for forces on the group. There is in the end a lot to be said for greater numbers.

I believe we would be a lot less prone to commit ourselves to questionable wars if we had a civilian army. Surely, we did just that during the Vietnam conflict. We drafted tens of thousands of kids and sent them off to yet one more questionable war that four decades later has produced little but the revelation of our own foolishness. It is no small irony that in modern times we are expanding trade and partnership with the same government we battled for close to a decade.

But we have learned from that mistake. We have learned because the parents of kids are more willing to question the validity of a war when their kids are involved. Even the chicken hawks, those that are all for war as long as it doesn’t involve their own children, may reconsider before throwing their support toward conflict. Simply put, more would be at stake with a civilian army. We wouldn’t be only sending someone else’s kids to war, we would also be sending our own.

If this were a civilian army, certain things would have happened by now. Our National Guard and volunteer force would not be overburdened with repeated tours. They wouldn’t have financial problems, psychological problems, difficulty finding jobs again upon their return from a war they were sent to under specious circumstances. It is questionable if fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is truly the role of a National Guard.

We who were once the recruits for Vietnam are now the parents and grandparents of young people who would be going off to war, if we still had a civilian army. With our own kids invested and our own blood on the line, and not just that of someone else’s kid we would reconsider committing our troops and national economy to this type of battle. We would wonder a lot more about what the hell we were doing and why. We would think rather than take refuge in the fact that our lethargy and inability to question resides in some form of patriotism. In short, this war would have been over long ago. If it ever got started to begin with.

If we do institute another round of conscription, should everyone go? No. Everyone would not have to go into the military, anyway. Those who were uncomfortable could commit to other forms of public service without the deliberations of being conscientious objectors. They could work in nation building, our nation instead of someone else’s. They could work on rebuilding the infrastructure or working for a two year commitment in some form of public service. They could use their education and skill sets for rebuilding this nation. They would get to know in their work in recreating the infrastructure or teaching or working in underclass neighborhoods how rest of the country lives. Nothing wrong with that exposure.

Yes, we would have a larger army, which would incur to some degree a greater expense. But that expense would be mitigated by public discretion. A public with their own kids at stake will not be as willing to spend either the money or the lives of its citizens for any war that is not clearly defined as in our national interest. All around, it would be a bargain.

When Sex Goes to the Dogs

Let me begin by saying I enjoy having pets. Pets are great companions, and they give you unqualified love in return for very little. To be the object of adoration, you just need to pet them, feed, them, change their cages or little boxes every now and then, and take them for a walk. Pets are healthy for our spirit and made even add years to our life. And when their life ends, it leaves us wanting and missing them.

I have had at one time or another, either because of children or on my own, a pretty rich assortment of pets. I have had a couple birds, a frog, an Iguana, enough turtles and fish to populate a small lake, the brief stint with a cat left by a runaway neighbor, and at least a half dozen dogs. All things considered, I prefer the dogs.

I have loved my dogs, some more than others. I grew up with a dog loving parent who kept Dog World Magazine in the bathroom for comfort reading. I went to dog shows and probably knew more types of breeds at nine years old than most adults.

I have experienced the terrible moment when you have to put them down. I have taken them with me on long trips and spent time walking them and doing all the things dogs love to do. The thing is, no matter how much I have enjoyed my dogs, or other pets, I realize they are not people. Dogs are much simpler, but still require much attention. People are far more complex and tougher to deal with. Some animal lovers deal well with animals, but have it rough when dealing with relationships, no matter how casual.

Lately, I have noticed more people are pet centric and less people centric. They adore their pets, bestow on them the affections and attention folks don’t seem to be getting elsewhere. Pets are not only pets but objects of transferal. They lavish the kind of love and attention on them they have normally reserved for close friends, family and the people with whom they engage in romantic relationships.

What used to be reserved for people love and romance, those with whom we have sex, share histories and develop relationships, we give to the dogs. Perhaps it is the economy and daunting times that people need so much reassurance without complications. Perhaps it is life and all its disappointments and knowing that tail wagging fur ball loves and accepts you know matter what. Perhaps we are experiencing levels of arrested development and any relationship more complex than that with the pet or a twenty minute reality show is far too daunting for our childlike sensibilities.

I would like to think this perception applies largely to aging Gen Y people or Boomers. Here it is somewhat understandable. Whether for good or bad a lot of Boomers, especially, for reasons unknown to me, are winding it down and resting on what they mistakenly consider their laurels. They have been hurt in love, carry enough baggage to settle in Paraguay, and are too set in their ways to adjust to another human brain pan. Besides, as they are climbing in the years, romance is scarce, sex for a good many is near nonexistent, and there isn’t a whole lot going on, anyway.

For those who were married with children, the kids are out of the house and are soliciting not desiring your advice and counsel. The children are no longer dependent and will rarely show up for the holidays yet alone paddle every night up to their food dish, do a little begging or lick your hand. Or give you the dog breath kisses so many seem to adore and even boast about on Facebook. Notice in Facebook all the people who instead of themselves post photos of their dogs. Subliminal desires?

So to put it bluntly, the kids are ungrateful little assholes that can barely remember to buy you a birthday card. The dog is nothing but an everlasting expression of gratitude. Your kids will barely let you touch them. The dog will curl up in your lap and in your bed. When was the last time your teenage or older kid with lie in bed with you as a gesture of affection. You would have to be sick and dying, or close to it, before most of you would see that day again. As for those who don’t have and never had children, will then the dog is a definite convenience. No nasty sex with strangers, in vitro sessions, or adoption overtures. Just a trip the the pound or a few hundred bucks if you are determined to acquire pedigree.

I see a great many women I know, and some men. I watch them thrust their affections on their four legged lovers. They hug them, kiss them, buy them gourmet food and cute little dog clothes that have the kind of price tags animal rescue groups would covet as a generous donation. They talk baby talk, and if there is a prospect of a relationship, the dog comes first. Maybe it is smart, and maybe it is just another rationale for a missed opportunity.

But that is not the only place the pet fetish has fully taken hold. Blame it on the lousy economy, maybe, but more and more younger people are not only acquiring dogs but taking them wherever they go. Living in a high rise building I can see the increase in dog ownership. I can also smell it in the elevators or see the little urine trails the overanxious canines leave on the floor as they scramble to make it to the great outdoors of Los Angeles.
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Ad when the dogs take sick or are o the verge of dying? It is a sad moment. As I have said, I have been there. But the dog is old, or it is sick, and while we can reconcile it more often with people we have a tougher time letting the animals pass on to pet heaven. Rather than let old Fluffy go when it is terminally ill or has reached the age where it is barely functional, these people are spending a small fortune for the kind of medical treatment half the people in this country do not receive. In short, they do more for Fluffy than they would for Aunt Mary, yet alone the ailing kid down the block.

Okay, I am grousing. And what, you may ask, is the point of all this grousing? I will tell you. I believe this sudden embrace of the obsessive canine code is more of a testimony to our abject failure to engage in relationships with people than anything else. I think it tells us more about our dashed expectations, fed and fostered by relentless commercials and magazine write ups about all the glitz, glamor, and drama that is ephemeral at best, and nonexistent for the most part. We embrace an illusion and then grow disappointed when it shreds in our hearts.

We think love with a human will be some kind of fairy tale, and life will be a constant adventure. And then when it doesn’t turn out that way, we shun the possibility and turn to our dogs. After all, they will give us unqualified love and a surfeit of affection. They are grateful that we take care of them, and I am sure grateful to the good and caring souls who volunteer at the animal shelters but not the hospitals and hostels.

But the dog can give us affection, but it cannot give us the intimacy that only humans can provide. Sure humans will give us more grief and disappoint us more than any beast, but they also leave us with complex and richer memories. Humans are the material from which civilization moves forward. In our relationships with humans we come to understands ourselves in ways we can never do with animals. We realize the complexities of love and the nuances and predilections of our sexuality. We are gifted by their involvement in the arts and sciences.

We will miss the dog, and we will love the dog. But the people who have impacted our lives are subjects of ongoing reflection. Through our relationships we comprehend our personal breakthroughs and failures, the measures of our personalities. We become wiser through these human relationships and we pass this wisdom on to forthcoming generations.

So why the breakdown, besides some of the things I noted? Why are we finding it so tough to relate to people and preferring to romance our dogs instead of men and women. I believe it is our reliance on technology that has caused so many to turn away from people and turn to their dogs. Maybe they have sex and maybe not, but deeper relationships are difficult to develop and sustain if your main form of communication is texting. If the relationship is broken down to categorical components, behavioral mosaics that either fit or don’t fit into your own lifestyle, it is difficult to advance the romance. If you want undying and one dimensional love and affection, well people can be tough and more demanding that that.

So with our dogs, we don’t text or email. We don’t even phone them. We spend time with them. We talk to them. We listen to them. Part of that listening if to take note of every nuance, every expression, the slightest movement. We know from their body language what they want. We understand their nuances and can make the distinction between our dog and another dog, even one of the same species. We are intimate and affectionate for reasons other than sex. Well, in best case scenarios.

With people. It’s different. We simply don’t have the time to nurture the relationship. It’s a few characters on a liquid crystal display and a quick roll in the hay.