Hunter S. Thompson commited suicide. I always liked this guy. It's sad, to be sure, and yet somehow fitting.
I have a very strange relationships with movies commonly described as "touching." Let me qualify this. First, 99.9% of said films I will not even watch. But there is that .1% that does something for me. Some of those I am unashamed of (_Amelie_) while others I have a more qualified appreciation for (see my recent post on _Garden State_).
Anyway, I watched _The Station Agent_ last Saturday with Capria. Its a qualified "did something for me." I feel that it was a bit over the top in terms of subplots, and some of the symbolic possibilities were too charged and obvious (i.e. Finn's "resurrection"). That being said, I liked the following elements very much:
1. The Chekovian slice of life style. The ending was gutsy and I loved that they did it.
2. The personal nostalgia for the rural northeast US in summer. Most of you know me as an urbanite, but I would be happy spending my summer drinking beer in the green shade and fly fishing for bass on farm pounds. Lots of great atmosphere there.
3. Characters who are completely losing it. Again, these individuals walk the fine line between compelling and annoying, but the bereaved mother worked for me.
4. Last but not least, the following extremely memorable line: "When I was 19, I actually slept with a guy because he rolled his own cigarettes."
This completely personal review is open for attack and mockery.
This is disturbing to me. So is this. And so is this, (with the exception of Peter Groff, who appears to be thinking critically).
Ward Churchill's essay (which was written 3 years ago but only now is drawing critical ire) is by no means purely academic. Nor, to my knowledge, has he presented it as such. It is a presentation of an arguable point which clearly could have been stated better, more clearly, and with fewer inflammatory rhetorical flourishes. I say could have, not should have. It is up to him and his publisher what he wants to say and how he wants to say it. It is up to the academic community whether or not his academic work is legitimate and scholarly.
But it is up to us as a society to decide whether or not he can speak free of government criticism.
In my mind, this is what is really at stake in this issue. There are many people making arguments similar to those Churchill has made, just not in the way he is making them. And there are many people who are arguing the exact opposite. And there is a whole slew of us inbetween. I am not saying the issue he discusses in the essay isn't important; people have died and continue to die because these issues are unresolved. Neither Ward Churchill, nor President Bush, nor Noam Chomsky, nor Bill O'Reilly will resolve these issues to everyone's satisfaction. We will continue to debate, and should, and I salute all those who do so intelligently and sincerely.
But this controversy raises a more fundamental question: can we continue the debate at all? Because that is what free speech allows us to do. And I fear that we, and particularly the government of Colorado, are being careless in our defense of free speech.
I know people will say, "they're not calling for his execution; this is not Khomeini putting out a fatwa." I agree, it’s not. But it is an attempt to silence a dissident voice by an elected official. And while it could be worse, (by the way, I really have a hard time with that argument; to quote a children's book, it could ALWAYS be worse, but by no means does that remove moral culpability. But I digress.), I think we ought to be extremely nervous when official attempts are made to silent dissent, no matter how bizarre or even insulting that dissent may be.
I have written on this before, but we ought not talk about spreading freedom around the world when we allow that freedom to be eroded at home. And the fact that the Colorado legislature and Governor would issue such statements is, I believe, clearly eroding freedom of speech. I recognize that, at least indirectly, Churchill is an employee of the state; but, if anything, that makes the call for his removal even more disturbing. It would be the equivalent of a company firing someone for attending a political rally.
A "free" society always contains an internal struggle between a dominant and minority ideology. Only a totalitarian state can escape this internal conflict. The question is, has the contemporary idea of "America," forged in the collapse of the Twin Towers, become more totalitarian, paradoxically, in the name of "freedom?" If we cannot speak dissent without official sanction, then what is the "freedom" we claim to be defending? The bumper sticker says "Freedom isn't free"; sadly, this is true in more than one way. We need to resist this subtle but dangerous evolution.
So this weekend I had a new experience. I sang karaoke. And not just any karaoke: karaoke at the "Wild Rose," a bar on Capitol Hill with a specific clientle. Let's just say its not a frat boy bar.
I sang the classic Bruce Springsteen song "Born to Run." I think it fulfilled all of my rockstar fantasies, at least for a while. The crowd liked it; I had some help on the "Woo Hoo Hoo" at the end of the song.
I think I was channeling the Boss himself, much to the mortification of my dear wife. She enjoyed my performance, but her initial response was "Wow. I don't know what to say about that." It was equivocal.
It was an experience. On Saturday evening, we went to Tacoma and hung out with Andrew McNeely's brother Tim and his wife Renata (sp?). We talked about the necessity and place of poetry and played cribbage. It was a lot of fun.
I hope all of you had a good weekend. My favorite Super Bowl ad was the Fed-ex one with Burt Reynolds.