Don't Gel Too Soon

Is There a Draft in Here? Should There Be a Draft?

 I can't believe I missed it!  Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the first United States draft lottery drawing,  Every young man my age and many older and younger waited in front of their TVs with sweaty palms and pounding hearts (I'm not kidding) as the numbers came out of the barrel.  And those in this photo were the "old white guys" who did it.  The one drawing the number is Republican House Armed Serviced Chairman Alexander Pirnie (R-NY) and the man to his right is the (then) despised Chairman of the Selective Service (the Draft) General Lewis Hershey.

OH and one more thing:  just beyond that camera, over to the left, was me.  Sitting with a telephone and reading each drawn number to the CBS News studio where the number was then posted on the screen.  Each number was a birthday, and the order in which they were drawn determined the likelihood that the men in the list would be drafted and, most likely, go to Vietnam.  First birthday drawn - lottery number 1.  Last birthday drawn - lottery number 365.

As I read the numbers into the phone, I was reading death warrants.  Of men my own age.  And I knew it.  

Every number, every birthday, could be someone I knew - an old boyfriend, a cousin, someone's brother, a high school classmate, a teacher, another someone's son.  The war was real in a way it hadn't been before, even though there had always been a draft.  Up until the lottery, college students and graduate students were deferred and so were married men.  In fact, there were more than a few weddings to keep boyfriends home.  

Many of these rules, which were, after all, based on class since there were so many more white middle class men in college than other groups, were wiped out when the lottery began.

That meant that on a theoretical level, I should have been proud.  My country was spreading the risk, spreading the pain - and even if I opposed the war, I knew that others were not being asked to fight it for me and my peers anymore.  Those we loved were also at risk.  All I felt though was fear, and anger, and despair.  Which is probably not a bad way to feel when loved ones are about to be drafted to go fight in a "dirty little war" in Vietnam.

So today, after the President's speech last night, I wonder.  We know the military prefers a volunteer military even with all the re-deployments and disruptions.  It's building a "military class" in our country of people who know things we don't - won't learn.  And they're proud to be there, scared or not.  It's effective.  But is it fair?  Is it even productive, when it insulates so many of us from an imminent sense of loss?  When we never have to fear the husband in a wheel chair, the son whose PTSD will not fade and, worst of all, that dreaded knock at the door, 

The Vietnam Moratorium, 40 Years Ago Today

It wasn't that long ago - not really.  Thousands of us singing "All we are saying, is give peace a chance" on the Mall in Washington.   It all started when Sam Brown, David Hawk, David Mixner, Marge Sklenkar, John Gage and other peace luminaries, many of whom were veterans of the failed McCarthy and Kennedy campaigns, decided to call a "moratorium on the war in Vietnam" and ask everyone to come to Washington to support it.  It was a great idea: a kind of strike against the war, but with manners.

And 250,000 came, followed by at least 500,000 exactly a month later, during the November Moratorium that followed.   But on this day, a manageable and peaceful crew assembled.  My memories of the day are scattered.  I worked for CBS News by then and my job was to keep track of the march, marchers and plans for all the peace activity going on in the capital.  There was plenty, in a wide spectrum of militancy and affect. 

I wish I could describe for you some of the more radical "peace houses" I visited; collectives with tie died cloth covering the windows and mattresses on the floor - working for a much tougher way to oppose the war. 

Organizers and participants in this march , though, slept in church basements and the homes of local people who made room for them.  Everyone who lived in Washington didn't have a spare bed or couch - or inch of space on the floor.  You know this, but just to remind you, listen to what the BBC says about that time "in context:

American combat troops had been fighting the Communist Viet Cong in Vietnam since 1965.

Some 45,000 Americans had already been killed by the end of 1969. Almost half a million US men and women were deployed in the conflict, and opposition to the war was growing.

The Moratorium for the first time brought out America's middle class and middle-aged voters, in large numbers. Other demonstrations followed in its wake.

I guess that song is what I remember most - that, and members of the Chicago 7, out on bail as they awaited trial, addressing the crowd and pulling off wigs to show how their jailers had cut off all their hair.  For some reason, I can still see that - it felt to me like such a violation.  A less than friendly observer asked me later "How did you like what they did to "your friends" huh?  They weren't my friends; I barely knew them, but the question was a punch in the gut.  So many things stood for other things then. Long hair on men meant rebellion and outlier. 

Anyway, it's yet another 40 year anniversary and I didn't feel that I could let it go un-noted.

If you have never heard the Lennon song "Give Peace a Chance" here are John and Yoko singing it with a crew of friends during a peace "bed in" in, I believe, Amsterdam.  Happy Anniversary

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So Long Patrick, and Thanks

Does anybody not love Dirty Dancing?   At least for the many of us who were the darling Frances "Baby" Houseman, the idealistic, embryonic 60's activist, Daddy's girl for her brains, not her looks, the film is a misty, wonderful time capsule.  And so,  it may be, in essence, a women's film - so romantic and sexy in a new-at-sex kind of way.  But it wouldn't have worked without the sweet, gifted Patrick Swayze, who died today.  Although as Johnny Castle he gave us a young man who tried to present a weary, streetwise persona, he also brought us a man as idealistic as the rich girl who fell for him.  The perfect first lover.  Swayze, with grace and generosity, was all that and more.

This was a class story and coming-of-age story and a Times They Are A-Changin' story, evocative in ways that are difficult to express.  Baby, like us, was riding the cusp between the 50's end of the 60's and the Sixties that were to come.  Her relationship with Johnny was the bridge between those times, and so he meant even more than his lovely self.  I've always thought Swayze underestimated anyway but as I decided to write this I began to realize just how underestimated.  Without the right Johnny, Frances would not have mattered.

I, at least, could look at her and know her future.  Because it was mine.  Like Baby I never hated my parents.  Most of what I did that they wouldn't have liked, I hid.  Defiance was never a goal because I loved my parents and they loved me.   We just didn't see things like love and sex the same way so I decided just not to tell them.  There were many other things we saw differently too, but they changed their minds because they listened to us as often as we changed ours by listening to them.  We respected each other. 

So I did all my overnight disappearing on campus and kept my mouth shut about it.  And went home as the Cindy they knew -- more political and determined, but with no desire to blow up the neighborhood or leave the people I'd loved -- and still loved -- behind.  Like Frances, I responded to the Civil Rights movement and President Kennedy and longed to be part of what was to come.   Like Frances I had a "Johnny" though mine didn't dance. 

Of course, Swayze went on to make Ghost, which I think was at least as successful and even more of a fairy tale.  He appeared in gritty films like Road House and, as a tribute to his fellow dancers, many of whom died of AIDS, in drag in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.  And which role we choose to remember most probably depends on gender, and even more on age.

But for me, gratitude for the gift of memory, of the same sense of romance, in a way, that Twilight offers another generation, that's tough to beat.  And the gift, the reminder of the girl I remember and the hopes and dreams she took with her to college, that gift was from Patrick Swayze too. 

Now That Wasn't So Bad, Was It? The President and the Kids

I'm going to post the entire Obama schools speech because it's so ridiculously safe and regular and parental and sweet -- perfect evidence of how insane this whole battle has been. See for yourself.

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama Back to School Event Arlington, Virginia September 8, 2009  

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today. 

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.   

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year. 

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn. 

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox. 

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve. 

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. 

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. 

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide. 

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future. 

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy. 

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country. 

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in. 

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse. 

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right. 

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying. 

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future. 

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America. 

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall. 

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same. 

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it. 

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things. 

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK.  Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." 

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying. 

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in. 

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals. 

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best. 

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?  

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

OK So I'm Mad

It's been a lazy weekend.  Both Sunday papers got read.  The COSTCO run was made (but not the bed.)  We went out for three different meals so cooking was minimal.  But the news is really pissing me off.

We've reduced the President of the United States to a propaganda tool.  I've worked in school TV.  I know what will happen when the President speaks on Tuesday.  Teachers who disagree with Obama will talk during the speech; others will just turn off the TV.  Remember the story of the kids in Dallas who cheered when President Kennedy was killed?   They were too young to have an informed hatred.  It was generated in them.  And now, with a President whom we all know faces more danger than most, the President's enemies are willing to do it again.

OK lets go from there to health care.  With a calculated harshness these same people have managed to stir up every frightened, confused voter in the country by convincing them they're in infinite danger.  For the elderly it's nearly a promise to send them all out to die on an ice flow.  For others it's the promise that they'll have to wait forever for care, that they'll never be able to pick their doctors and that their care will lose quality.  And let's not forget the screaming madness that forever polluted the revered American tradition of the town meeting.

I'm writing this as Labor Day draws to a close.  Cranky and sad, I wish for a renewed commitment, as we honor those who, mostly, work with their hands, that a miracle will move the battling legislators to "man up" and make something happen so that no worker, or any other American, will spend next Labor Day worrying about what they'll do if one of their kids falls off his bike on the last day of summer and breaks a leg.

Back to the Future: Futurism at the Tate and 1968

In the early 20th Century there was a band of wild men who created an entire new way of thinking about "Art."  They were called Futurists and for those of you who took Art 11 and already know about them, I understand that I didn't discover them - this being particularly true since they are currently appearing in a retrospective at the Tate Modern here in London.  AND for my penultimate (I think) post here I want to tell you about them because they were a real kick.

This painting, by Luigi Russolo, is called "The Revolt."  On the right you can see "the people" pushing up against the hard line of the establishment.  It's the same thing the Futurists themselves were doing.  Here's their major "Manifesto."

These are our final conclusions:

With our enthusiastic adherence to Futurism, we will:

1. Destroy the cult of the past, the obsession with the ancients, pedantry and academic formalism.
2. Totally invalidate all kinds of imitation.
3. Elevate all attempts at originality, however daring, however violent.
4. Bear bravely and proudly the smear of “madness” with which they try to gag all innovators.
5. Regard art critics as useless and dangerous.
6. Rebel against the tyranny of words: “Harmony” and “good taste” and other loose expressions which can be used to destroy the works of Rembrandt, Goya, Rodin...
7. Sweep the whole field of art clean of all themes and subjects which have been used in the past.
8. Support and glory in our day-to-day world, a world which is going to be continually and splendidly transformed by victorious Science.

The dead shall be buried in the earth’s deepest bowels! The threshold of the future will be swept free of mummies! Make room for youth, for violence, for daring!

As I wandered through, alone and more available for being by myself, (this one is Carra's The Funeral of an Anarchist)  I felt that I knew these guys.  Yes they denigrated women (more on that in a second) but their rebellion, their anger, their passion, their desire to change everything - that was familiar.  Of course I never wanted to destroy; none of us did.  But the feelings of anger, of disappointment in the ways of the world, the desire to find new ways to say things, those were familiar -- and swept me back to the determined, impassioned girl I was then.  I can only describe my reaction as delight.

You're going to tell me that this is the kind of blind passion is just what was wrong with the 60's.  And for those who transformed these feelings not into art but into primitive acts of violence - they were wrong then and they're wrong now.  That's what is so amazing about art.  You can act, and express, through representation instead of concrete acts of violence and hatred.  That's what these enraged men did.  Meanwhile, the women artists were pretty angry, as you can imagine.  One of them, Valentine de Saint-Point, although she agreed with their ideas, had some of her own to go along with them.  Like this:

"Women are Furies, Amazons, Semiramis, Joans of Arc, Jeanne Hachettes,  Judith and Charlotte Cordays, Cleopatras, and Messalinas: combative women who fight more ferociously than males, lovers who arouse, destroyers who break down the weakest and help select through pride or despair, "despair through which the heart yields its fullest return."  

I wish I knew more because there's so much more to this; the impact of Cubism on all of it, the way it affected artists in nation after nation, and, most of all, the sheer energy of art that, instead of freezing a moment, seems to set it free and follow it.    

 

Colbert, The Word and Woodstock

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Hippie Replacement
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Tasers

I know, I"m in London and I should stop putting up videos of TV shows.  But I love this one.  And, it's what we call "timely" since the 15th is the 40th anniversary of ..  well watch this and see for yourself.

A New Gig and New Ways to Make Change - Care2.com

This is pretty exciting. I'm now Managing Editor for all the Causes channels at Care2. It's a unique organization that provides essential information on critical problems and the people who want to change them. Unlike many such groups, Care2 combines information and action - offering members both the information they need on the issues they care about and the tools to take action on those issues. I hope you'll come by and take a look; the issues range from Environment,and Animal Rights to Women's Rights, Human Rights, Civil Rights and  Politics to Health Policy to  Global Warming .

I'd be particularly grateful for your observations about the organization and its 11 million members!  Comment here or write to me at [email protected]. 

Paris is a Movable Feast - and We Are Making the Most of It

Ernest Hemingway is pretty passe these days, but in his wonderful memoir of his time in Paris, he wrote something that returns to me every time I'm here "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast."  And so it is.  Right here it's going to rain, and the sky is far more grey-blue forbidding than I could get the camera to record, and it's around 4 PM and we've been walking since 10 AM this morning.  And we haven't really done anything - not in the way tourists go into museums and enrich themselves.  For us these streets, and the Seine, and the beautiful old buildings and boulevards - well, they're the richest of all.

It's pouring rain on the bookstores of Boulevard St. Michel on the Left Bank near the Sorbonne, but that doesn't stop the book shoppers. Paris is a city of readers, one where great writers have been held as heroes and mourned by the city - and much of the entire nation when they died. There are many restaurants and cafes on the Left Bank, which had been home not only to Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein and Sylvia Beach but also to Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre and so many others. They are crammed with people all the time - whether it's the Deux Magots or the Brasserie Lipp or Cafe de Flore because these places have an enormous literary history and those who visit here know that these are the places to visit even if they've never read The Second Sex or The Sun Also Rises or even The Great Gatsby.

Or maybe they just know, like these two troubadours, that Paris, when you're young, (or, hopefully, any other age) is still a gift. So many have already written better words about the indelible impact of this lovely place; I'm really just here to agree with them.

It's Pretty Different for an American in Europe With President Obama in the White House

At the big Paris flea market, Marche aux Puces St-Ouen de Clignancourt, which takes up several city blocks, this portrait was among the items for sale. I've seen people reading Dreams from My Father on the Metro (seriously, the guy next to me, honest) and everyone wants to talk about him. What a difference!