Is it my imagination, or do many of the same people who refuse to hear any political talk also say we must learn from history?
And am I in the minority thinking that many historical subjects are so linked to the present that political consideration is unavoidable?
While I’ll be the first to admit that social media cannot be regarded as a college classroom any more than, say, someone’s dining room or patio, a baseball game or a Renaissance faire, it is a place where people frequently say–or unwittingly admit–that they do not want to “hear about” things.
“Hear about” is a euphemism for “know,” just as “woke” is a malphemism for “aware.” American history, after all, has a full chapter on a national movement that proudly called themselves the “Know-Nothings.” And you thought MAGA arrived on a de-escalator just eleven years ago?
If the very site–or page on a site–is dedicated to a historical or literary subject, then the objection might as well come from a sprinter wearing high-heeled shoes to a track meet.
So it was, on a page devoted to Moby-Dick, that someone compared Ahab to a certain political figure who is on our front page news daily and our TV screens nightly.
Predictably and understandably, several commenters objected to the injection of politics onto a page devoted to a literary work published 175 years ago. As a story set on the high seas, Moby-Dick first appeared to me as a college student 50 years ago as a non-political work. And then I read the scholarly essays written about it.
Most agree that Ahab is modeled on John Calhoun, the South Carolinian US Rep and Senator (also a cabinet member and VP), who was the Slavocracy’s most vociferous and volatile champion for three decades until his death in 1850, a year before Moby-Dick appeared in print. Melville had already painted a brief satirical sketch of him three books earlier near the end of Mardi, with a character named “Nulli,” as in nullification, a rebellious political move that Calhoun often threatened.
Add that to the harmony that Melville reports between characters white, black, yellow, red, and brown on board the Pequod–the name of a New England tribe nearly exterminated in colonial times–as well as in Typee, Omoo, Mardi, “Benito Cereno,” and perhaps others, and Moby-Dick is a forceful statement on race relations–a microcosm of the American macrospasm. What color was the whale?
There’s no question that the main theme of the book is what an obsession with revenge will do, not just to those who have it, but those who join the excitement. In 2024, we saw the first successful presidential campaign in American history openly motivated by revenge. We even saw a “Revenge Tour”–which might be the name of Melville’s book had Starbuck rather than Ishmael survived to tell the story.
If the foremost measure of literary worth is how well a work stands the test of time, then its relevance to our present-day lives–be it political, social, or anything else–should be more than welcome in our conversations about it. Those who are adverse to that, of course, have the right to leave the room or remain silent, just as most of us do when hearing things that do not interest us.
Regarding literature, the “no politics” comments are unwittingly revealing of those making them. And it is not flattering.
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Poster for the Moby-Dick Marathon, New Bedford Whaling Museum, 2020
Just what percentage of the American public refuses to hear any talk of politics?
Judging from all that we hear in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and all of our religious holidays, most homes put an absolute ban on any mere mention of it.
For many, the aversion extends into history and literature, which is why we now have citizens’ groups forming to effect bans on school books they fear will make young students “uncomfortable.”
It’s as if the political adage of Keep It Simple Stupid has become an anti-political adage of Keep Ourselves Stupid. Or, to make it as simple as possible: Do Not Think.
I had a rather jolting encounter with it back when I was still teaching in the late 90s. When New Hampshire College, then just a modest business school with a single building in a Portsmouth industrial park, assigned a new class called “Business in American Literature,” the dean asked me to design and teach it.
Apparently my reputation for improvisation–student evaluations credited me with bringing things to life–overrode my socialist tendencies, and so there I was, explaining to prospective students that, no, it will not be about Lee Iacocca, Norman Vincent Peale, and the NYC real-estate guy whose (ghosted) The Art of the Deal had been number one on best-seller charts just a decade earlier.
No, I answered, this will be Mark Twain’s Gilded Age, Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt, a few stories from Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House. Many of them groaned, but Ben Franklin’s “Poor Richard” proved a perfect appetizer for the substantial meal. In particular, Melville’s “Bartleby” proved cathartic for several adult students in the night class. “That’s my office!” exclaimed one while others nodded knowingly.
Skepticism soon gave way to a hunger to learn more, and a good time appeared to be being had by all, including me, until we got to, of all things, The Wizard of Oz.
Though already impressed by stories of ruinous droughts and storms in the American plains, a few did not want to know that this lovable, colorful children’s story was based on the dominant political debate in the 1890s: Would American currency be based on the silver or gold standard?
My sing-song version of “follow the yellow brick road” quickly won most of them over. And, in keeping with the vernacular of the class, I closed the deal with a reminder that Dorothy wears silver shoes in the book (ruby was preferable for one of the first technicolor films made four decades later).
This is what would eventually lead to Teddy Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” crackdown on monopolies, or the wicked witches, with labor cast as Dorothy’s companions: Farmers as the Scarecrow, factory workers as the Tin Man, anyone fearful for their livelihoods as the Cowardly Lion.
For students who seemed resistant to the ideas of political relevance, it was easy to compare it to animated films made for children and to children’s theater. There are always lines of dialogue, sometimes gestures, or even cameo characters that are over the heads of children but aimed at the adults who accompany them. Call it a reward for being a good parent.
Eventually, however, one married couple well into their thirties in the night class wanted none of it. Before I could get to Toto being the only one able to apply common sense–akin to the young boy in The Emperor’s New Clothes–one practically shouted, “It’s a children’s story, and that’s all we want to know about it!”
The attitude stunned me, not because of what was said, but where. Took a few seconds for me to process this, and I have no doubt that today my answer, if reported to a dean, would get me fired as insulting. I thought of it only as obvious and direct: “This isn’t a nursing home. This is a college classroom. You should know all you can about it.”
That was the last class those two attended. Student reviews of the class at semester’s end were as good as I ever received. But the writing of evaluations in years to come was on the wall, and I found myself chafing in department meetings that emphasized students’ “comfort zones,” and urged us to “meet them where they are.”
Finally came the meeting where I could no longer hold it in, and I asked the dean with about a dozen other adjunct instructors at the round table: “Is this a college or a nursing home?”
Rather than waiting to be “not renewed,” I showed myself out the door back in 2002. And I still wonder, if such history is being erased in higher education, why are we so surprised when a younger generation appears indifferent to larger national and global issues?
And if politics are dodged in day-to-day life, why are we offended when elections offer us no choice that we deem worthy of our trust?
Or shockedwhen the personification of self-interest, reducing every possible subject to the simplest terms used with mind-numbing repetition--biggest, most beautiful, hottest, perfect, great again–wins the White House and turns it into his own personal brokerage firm?
Just when I recover from laughing at those gullible enough to believe that Democrats are coming to take away their hamburgers, along come those led to believe that we lefties are threatening to take away their American flags.
Is there anything too lunatic for consumers of Fox News and other foam-at-the-mouth television and hate-radio shows to fall for?
This time, it’s a few of my neighbors, so I’ll try my hardest to tell this with a straight face:
When the folks in Newbury Town Hall issued a reminder to Plum Islanders to keep restricted areas clear for piping plovers, they no doubt thought it harmless.
As they noted, they were prompted by the 4th of July weekend coming up just a week later–the milestone 250th no less–and so they wanted to insure we kept the restriction in mind.
Most of us nodded in agreement. There’s neither effort nor expense in avoiding them just as we have done for at least as long as my 44 years here.
Some Islanders, however, subscribe to Fox News.
Newbury has a fair share. If you’ve driven onto Central St., you’ve likely seen, across from the post office, one of the crude, childish cartoon-signs that some MAGA-type displays to ridicule Democrats while unconsciously making an ass of himself.
Who knows who pounced on the inclusion of the word “flag” in the examples of things not to display in sand where plovers may nest? Straight to Fox News the town’s memo went, and before long Fox’s website, catering to a national audience, appeared with an alarming headline:
“Massachusetts homeowners stunned after town warns July 4 flags threaten endangered birds”
For maximum manipulation on social media, this is textbook. The headline is one of just two ingredients required for the desired effect. Since Massachusetts is long known as the bluest state, put the demonized name in it.
Not only does the name raise rightwing indignation, but you have now brought the controversy inland. Could happen anywhere.
And who are the people most likely to fall for a hint of perceived infringement on property rights? Residents? No. Citizens? No. Taxpayers? Often, but not this time. Homeowners? Bingo!
Moreover, while the town’s reminder mentioned “flags,” the headline turns it into “July 4 flags,” which implies that Old Glory itself is the target of the anti-American attack.
Second ingredient is the featured photo: Show an American flag on a pole in front of a cottage high upon a dune. Next to the flagpole is a wooden rendition of another flag with a 250th inscription suggesting that this homeowner is more than passively patriotic.
Also in the foreground is a mailbox. That would tell a thinking person that we are looking at the house from the street side, and therefore nowhere near any restricted area. So, too, would the unseen details of the accompanying article despite its paranoid, fear-mongering slant.
This is classic Fox News, their well-worn formula for deceit and incitement. Something on steroids out of nothing on tranquilizers, but Fox knows that most people will read only the headline, see the picture, glance at the caption, and assume the worst about those they have demonized without ever looking at the full article.
In the text, very few people are voicing any concern. One is a case of “he said, she said” with no evidence that he ever said what she said he said. As anyone who has dealt with these people knows, the mere, matter-of-fact mention of a fine or prison term for breaking a law is considered a threat. So, yeah, he most likely did say what she then twisted into something else.
That’s all it takes to fool the Fox viewer into thinking that “they are coming to take away your ______.”
If there’s a third ingredient to the scam, it’s the long-established belief that those of us who publicly oppose them are all rich elitists ready to hoard all those flags, burgers, Bibles, SUVs, S’mores, leaf-blowers, air conditioners, and guns we would deny others.
Guess they were onto me. I was already looking for a pair of American flags to fly from the roof of my Maserati.
You may celebrate or bemoan our nation’s 250th birthday as you feel fit, but I will observe it as I have every 4th of July since 2009 by treating myself and college friends to molassoburgers torched off my Plum Island grill.
Admittedly, my annual gatherings do not compare to the Tea Party or Battle of Bunker Hill, but we have wolfed down these Caribbean-laced burgers with grave risk to ourselves.
Oh, the ingredients are safe enough, adding soy sauce, grated Vidalia, and Montreal steak seasoning. Never any cheese, but the taste will blend nicely with your favorite barbeque sauce.
No, my guests risk nothing when they dine at my table. Not unless they forget to leave their cellphones at home or in their cars, and I hear a ringtone. That’s when I do my Mount St. Helens immountaination, and fireworks become redundant.
The risk to eating burgers here in the UST, as you all know, is that Democrats are determined to outlaw beef and take away our burgers. And a Democrat was in the White House for 12 of the 17 years since I’ve been flipping my culinary creation. These are times that try burger-buffs’ souls.
Must be that, as we all keep hearing, they’re spending all their time taking away guns and air-conditioners, and burgers are next. I wouldn’t know because I’ve never had a gun or air-conditioner, but the hysterical warnings date way back, so they must be true.
That aside, you may have noticed the word “observe” rather than “celebrate” to express my attitude toward the milestone anniversary.
Once upon an attention span, I celebrated America despite my awareness of some national flaws. Even in my anti-war protesting youth, we saw progress: Civil Rights acts, Title IX, withdrawal from Vietnam, Roe v. Wade, the EPA, Affirmative Action, the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In my twenties I travelled in 49 states, and still intend to see Hawai’i as soon as I learn to swim. Lived in six of them, including three state capitals. American literature, history, and geography were my majors and minors, undergrad and grad. “All three form one subject,” as I told my own students for another 20 years.
For the Bicentennial I was at the re-enactment at Concord’s “rude bridge.” Back then it was all celebration, and a Republican president was cheered by a New England crowd who would never vote for him as if to agree, yes, “our long national nightmare is over.”
The historic Colonial Inn that evening teemed with good cheer. Even the debates such as I had with a Republican contingent from Connecticut were all laughs. Next day when the editor of the long-gone Salem Gazette read my report, he asked if I was a reporter or a stand-up comic.
Since 2009, I’ve had a column every Presidents’ Day, including upbeat features on those we overlook: Monroe, Quincy Adams, Van Buren, and “A tiff for Taft.” A few years ago, I spent considerable time and effort pestering the Boston Red Sox and WEEI to air the National Anthem before games, which they now do.
For all that, please consider that I have not just celebrated patriotism but participated in it all of my life before faulting me for, as the expression goes, taking a knee on this one.
But I will observe it. In fact, I’m already observing it.
After the cage fight desecration of the White House, I stopped using “USA” and began referring to this country as “UST.” Yes, I know it was removed from the Kennedy Center, but the stain and stench are still there.
As are the vain and vulgar prospects of a $250 bill, an arch, an addition to Mt. Rushmore, and numerous bridges, tunnels, and other places stained with the foul name itself.
Not as a liberal, not as a Massachusetts boy, not as someone involved in the arts, but simply as one who pays attention, how can I possibly celebrate the national transition from USA to UST?
No, nay, never! But my friends and I will enjoy the molassoburgers while cracking jokes about people who believe that Democrats are coming to take them away.
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Shoebox, Plum Island, Mass., site of the annual Mplassoburger Bash since 2009. Painting by Angela Anderson.
As did many other readers of The Townie, a local, online platform, I reveled in the upbeat catalog of Newburyport’s treasures and attractions offered last week by one John Stephen Kelley.*
Reminds me why I washed ashore here in 1982 after a Prodigal Son stint on the other side of the Mississippi. By birth a Lawrence boy, my paternal grandparents were born in Newburyport, and all of their grandparents settled here with an early wave of Irish immigrants. Prominent family names on the trunk of my genealogical tree include Creeden, Kelleher, and Page. Not sure which one lived in the gray house next to Leary’s liquor store, as I knew her only as “Aunt Alice” when my grandmother took me on visits.
During seven years out west, I picked up a taste for busking. In the late-70s, many American cities were re-vitalizing downtowns with historic preservation. I’d never make a living at it, but having done well as a flautist in Denver’s Larimer Square, all I wanted was to live in or near a small city, preferably historic with a pedestrian mall, a square, wide side-walks, benches. One or two days a week was all I needed.
Could say that Newburyport played for me as much as I for it. Surrounding bricks serve as well as Colorado’s Red Rocks as a sound-system. Guitarist John Tavano soon told me that when the wind was right, I could be heard on the Boardwalk. Not bad for someone who never used an amplifier. Yet more: sharp acoustics don’t just project sound, but allow the musician to go easier on the instrument which then allows for more clarity, both in precision and style.
For a wind-musician it also means the ability to play more than half an hour without being taken out of there in an ambulance.
Surprisingly, I had the city to myself for a few years before the harper showed up. We soon coordinated our schedules. He-turned-she graced downtown with music both original and Celtic from about 1988 until passing away two years ago. In the meantime, however, numerous street-performers–jugglers and magicians as well as musicians–have entertained in downtown Newburyport. As we said of Larimer Square in Denver, we are vibrant!
A few more quirky, independent, and locally engaging treasures I’ll add to Kelly’s recent celebration of the city:
Dyno Records all this year is celebrating its 50th anniversary just a couple doors down from The Grog now in its 55th year. Turn right and just up State is the Screening Room now in its 44th. Turn left and you’ll find the Tannery with Jabberwocky Bookshop in its 54th, Cafe Chococoa, and numerous arts studios. Along with performances and exhibits at the Firehouse, the Maritime Museum, the Museum of Old Newbury, Maudsley Park, and elsewhere, all have served as essential contributors to the city’s more than generous arts scene.
For full disclosure, I’ve been a projectionist at the Screening Room since 1998. For a busker, a day-job has to be a night-job. And for fuller disclosure for what’s next, I’ve been writing guest columns in the Daily News since 1983.
Essential to the life of any city is its newspaper, and the Daily News is to be credited for including As I See It on its opinion page. If we consider the feature by itself, it is much like The Townie except not limited to local topics. Out of necessity, an opinion page is obligated to point out things wrong or about to go wrong in the locality and make it open to honest debate. Both forums do this, and it is yet another blessing for Newburyport that there are two forums that make the debate open to any citizen wanting to join.
This brings me to the one and only unfortunate response to Kelley’s otherwise widely praised piece. From none other than the mayor who was intending to praise it, but who, in his characteristically clumsy way, revealed an intent to disparage his critics as well.
Soon after The Townie published it, Mayor Reardon’s post on Facebook read: “Finally, a piece worth reading in the Townie.” Within a couple of hours, someone must have told him he sounded like a long-lost son of Donald Trump, and he removed the word “finally,” but the screenshot and the insinuation aimed at all of us who have contributed to the forum remain.
That would include thoughtful analysis by folks with expertise in water quality, education, infrastructure, and development, including both present and former councilors debating both sides of controversies. Does Reardon not know that debate is the lifeblood of self-rule? Or does he think that “self” means himself, never to be questioned?
Count me with Kelley and all others who sing Newburyport’s praises. The city has been more than good to me.
But count me in opposition to anyone who thinks that smiling for photo-ops is all that’s needed to add to that beauty while tying tourniquets around those hoping to protect and enhance it.
As soon as I heard him say that his friend had sixteen twelve-string guitars, I put the 0 on the end of 16 for 160 and added two more 16s, aka 32, and had the sum of 192 strings.
I could have given that answer in less time than it takes to multiply the 6 by 2 and carry the one, etcetera, all on paper. And in far less time than I’d have needed to do it the familiar way in my head, carrying numbers and trying to keep the columns straight below the drawn line.
Had he said the 16 instruments were worth an average of $743 apiece, I’d have found a pen and paper and done it the usual way.
Now and then we hear complaints about what is called “new math,” or “common core,” new ways of teaching math, simple arithmetic really, in elementary schools. Naturally, we have a tendency to ask and perhaps object: What’s wrong with the “old” way?
Often, the issue devolves into a debate to decide which is better, and as seems unavoidable these days, it becomes a standoff between two sides unwilling to budge. For the most part, parents who want education left as they themselves experienced it, and young teachers convinced that “new” methods represent the future.
This is all for naught because the mistake is thinking that it is a debate at all.
Done on paper, the new way appears to have more steps and take more time, while t he old way is obviously quicker and seemingly simpler, even with the carry-overs. This is why opponents of the “new” math always never use numbers with more than two-digits in the pictures, memes, and videos they post on social media. The small numbers allow them to exaggerate the amount of work involved–and add several curved arrows making it appear hopelessly convoluted and confusing.
Use larger numbers, and the difference becomes slight while the confusion disappears. Here’s an example using just one three-digit number:
Old: Underneath 543 x 4, you write 2, carry 1, write 7, carry 1, write 21. Result: 2,172
New: Underneath 543 x 4, you write 2000, then 160, then 12, after which you add the three numbers. Result: 2,172
Common Core: Change to 550 x 4 for 2200, then subtract 7 x 4 (28) for 2,172.
In what is called “new,” you can see the extra step: “Old” is straight multiplication of a three-digit number; “new” is three multiplications turned into one addition. No question but that “old” is more efficient if you have paper and something with which to write.
Now, try doing that in your head the first way, and the carry-overs blur your process, forcing you to stop and restart. The second will give you the answer with relative ease, at least for numbers that aren’t too long. Depends on one’s ability to remember. Multiplications and divisions of three, four, or even five digit numbers by any single digit should not be difficult. Beyond that, I’m sure that I, too, would rely on the old method–even if it meant waiting until I parked my car, finished the dishes, or got out of the shower.
Problem in this debate, which at times waxes indignant and sarcastic, is how misleading the labels “new” and “old” are. Are we unthinkingly turning this into yet another front of what we call “the culture wars”? If we are to be honest, it is the same math, as the identical results prove. Explain both, and I bet more school children–and adults–would find both easier to grasp.
Numerous other tricks anyone can play in the numbers game are loosely called “common core.” This is best understood as rounding out the numbers for the process, and then restoring the rough edge at the end. Or you can break a number into single-digit denominators for two or three simple calculations easily combined, instead of one that is difficult.
Can you divide 6,795 by 45 in your head? No, neither than I, not until I break 45 into 9 and 5. Now it becomes easy to divide by 9, making it 755, then by 5 for 151. And I can tell you that in half the time it took to type that sentence.
Can you multiply 131 by 18? Maybe in time with considerable effort and concentration. Why not 131 by 20? Now you just put a 0 after 131 and double it for 2,620. Then you simply subtract two 131s, aka 262, from 2,620. Shouldn’t take long to figure 2,358 out of that.
Many numbers–those high prime numbers, will defy the tricks. If the division above was 6,795 by 47, or the multiplication was 131 by 181, I’d find a pen and paper. I recall using a ladder to pick the apples at the top of MacIntosh trees, but I stayed on the ground to pick the branches within my reach. No one in the harvest thought we should either always or never use a ladder.
We all agree that mathematics, unlike other educational subjects including most sciences, is always exact. The expression which holds that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” is true for many other things. But the math in that adage stops at the word “sum,” which cannot be altered, improvised, or changed in any way.
Ways of reaching a sum, however, are many. What is happening in elementary school math classes should not be a debate or a one-way-only showdown. Each way offers a useful option to fit an occasion.
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As with statistics, another numbers game, there’s always a way to favor any side of the debate.
After the first of Golden Calf’s two impeachments, Maine Sen. Susan Collins was asked why she voted to acquit despite her harsh criticism of his attempt to extort a political favor from the president of Ukraine. She chuckled in response:
Oh, I think he’s learned his lesson!
Never had I heard or read so stupid a statement by a public official, past or present. If I may provide some context here: My dad was a political junkie, so I grew up in a household that took in five newspapers each day. I heard all the conventions and debates. That drew me into history, and I’ve been an avid reader of American history all my life.
This I know: Even the nonstop, mind-numbingly stupid statements of the American Golden Calf itself–windmills, sharks, Clorox, raking forests, water bombs, “beautiful coal,” “eating their pets,” will it ever end?–do not match the profound stupidity of Collins’ answer.
You may prefer the softer word, “gullible.” If so, then she was hiding behind gullibility, as the Calf continued to insult those who criticized it at all. How is that “learning” anything?
Collins was taken off the hook two weeks ago by Marco Rubio who defended the Calf’s ridiculous and vulgar cage fight by calling it “a vision.” Stupid, yes, but not enough, so Rubio blathered on, comparing it to JFK’s “vision” of landing a man on the Moon.
Keep in mind that Rubio is the one and only member of the Golden Calf Administration that critics–such as the analysts on MS Now–call “the adult in the room.” At the Calf’s bizarre press conference last week, Rubio stood for over an hour looking like a man taken hostage behind the gilded con-artist who has openly ridiculed him as “Little Marco.” No matter the past insults, the “adult in the room” now compares a cage fight to a Moon landing.*
Apparently, Collins felt the loss. Not to be outdone, she quickly put in her bid to regain her claim to the most stupid statement ever made by a politician in DC by telling reporters that she does “not regret” her vote to appoint Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. As always, she seamlessly switched to the other side of her mouth to express “disappointment” that he–as everyone not named Susan Collins fully expected–helped overturn Roe v. Wade.
With or without Collins’ characteristic double-talk, I’m still measuring which of last week’s gems should now hold the title of Stupidest Statement Ever Made By an Elected Official. Perhaps Rubio and Collins could face off in a cage fight.
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*To be fair, the insults regarding Rubio’s size were slight compared to the Calf calling the wife of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Boeing) “ugly.” No matter, as Cruz, who grumbled at the time, now parrots the MAGA mantra of “greatest president in our lifetime” (some say “American history,” but the absurdity is just as glaring). If I was a reporter in DC, more than anything else I’d like to remind Cruz of that before asking: “Senator Cruz, does the word ‘manhood’ ring a bell?”
Two items in the news last week deserve as much if not more attention than the ongoing, relentlessly sensational circus that dominates the headlines–and has, according to a headline on the cover of Harper’s July issue, “exhausted America” as it “turns 250.”
The second, “And the Award for Stupid Goes to…,” will be posted tomorrow. Here’s the first:
When Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s called him a liar, I was reminded of the young boy in The Emperor’s New Clothes who burst the bubble of royal fraud simply by saying the truth aloud for all to hear. It worked in Hans Christian Andersen’s fictional kingdom because people were willing to see what was right in front of them. Even if they might be deluded for a time by pageantry, the voice of truth, so long as just one was willing to speak it, could not be denied.
Compare that to a far larger nation with countless sources of news–and of speculation and entertainment that pose as news–and you find many people in bubbles of their own choice, and many more paying no attention at all. Andersen’s king could have been wearing a hazmat suit for all they care. Or Meloni could’ve called President Golden Calf a convicted rapist, and they still wouldn’t care. I can say that with certainty because he is, and they don’t.
Some will blame their “news” sources, usually Fox Nonsense. Granted, Fox does not report many stories that show America’s Golden Calf in a bad light. His family profiting off stocks in drone manufacturing, for instance, purchased just before the announcement of his war on Iran. His blocking of an international bridge funded entirely by Canada from Ontario into Detroit because one of his millionaire donors owns the overburdened toll bridge that will lose revenue, for another.
And that’s just a hint of a list that must now be the length of both bridges combined. Point is that, if you bring such things up in a conversation, viewers of Fox and other MAGA echo chambers haven’t heard of them. Therefore, their knee-jerk response: “Fake news!”
Or, the report will be twisted to either discredit or demean those critical of Calf. Meloni is a right-winger, after all, so Fox may feel obligated to account for her. Notice that he claimed she “begged” for a photo with him. Notice, too, that she is a young, attractive woman. Prediction: if Calf responds to Meloni’s claim that he lied, he’ll claim that she wanted more than a photo with him. Nor should we be surprised if he calls her “piggy,” describes her as “nasty,” and says she “has blood coming out of her ears or wherever.”
As we all know, Golden Calf has been doing this repeatedly to young and middle-aged professional women for all of the eleven years he has been on our national stage. Even Fox viewers know that much, and they cheer him on. Worse yet, both sides of the informational divide combined are outnumbered by those who pay no attention to what determines how things are–only to then gripe about how things are.
Rather than an adult version of the boy in Andersen’s story and those who heeded him, America is a land of Rip Van Winkles, sleeping through a revolution. Giorgia Meloni, after perhaps a momentary shock, is but a whisper; our deafness a shout.
As Harper’s interior headline for the July cover story put it, “Happy Fucking Birthday.”
If there were earlier signs, I either missed or dismissed them.
Like last summer when she rode away on her new 10-speed for the first time without me. Nothing to worry about, just a spin up and down island roads on an overcast, quiet weekday. “Be careful,” I want to call after her, but I don’t want to echo the 1950s—or sound old, as Rachel puts such reflexive, canned advice.
To her it is no big deal, just a bike ride in the neighborhood, and so I let pass a vague feeling that something is either lost or gained and return to a manuscript that today I cannot recall. Even subtle indications should jolt the parent who can only wonder where and how time fled. Last Christmas when I mentioned renewing her subscription to the children’s magazine, World, she asked, “Dad, please change it to National Geographic.”
Rationalizing that Rachel has inherited this passion for travel, I fail to hear her request as a rite of passage toward adulthood, much less womanhood. So it is for the parent who measures more in miles than in months, whose tuition is more in tolls than in texts.
Then there are signs that every parent seeks to suppress, usually with rising voice and blood pressure. Since she was four, Rachel and her summertime cronies have often accompanied me on nights that I perform on Market Square. When little, they were quite willing to dance, enhancing my tips—which later melted into ice cream. But when not-so-little they went off on their own, and some nights I’d be left waiting, my bag packed, my foot tapping to something other than a jig.
Can you blame me? Attractive girls—in part because they have switched to frozen yogurt for their treats—they pay careful attention to their hair and clothes; and though each is intelligent and thoughtful, their behavior together is expressed more in musical than in mathematical terms: One plus one is always greater than two.
Put it this way: They think it’s a joke when they quip, “Cheese makes the world go ’round.” But there’s something in their punch line that floors me:
Cheese makes mice go around; mice make cats go around; cats make dogs go around; dogs make boys go around; boys make girls go around; girls make love go around; and love makes…
Finish the last verse yourself; it’s the third-to-last that I’m not ready to let go too far around.
Go ahead and blame me. I can be overly guarded, such as when the two returned to Plum Island not with Anna’s mother as planned, but with a handsome young man I had never seen, all of them in bathing suits ready to romp in the surf. Never mind “old,” it was ancestral rage that I hid before Anna introduced him as a cousin visiting from out of town.
A few weeks later, we go out of town to tour Canada’s Maritimes. On our last night, leaving a restaurant with little daylight left, we find a campground along the high, rocky coast of Fundy Bay. Reaching for the tent, I hear her say, “I’ll do this. Sit down and have a beer.”
Many people may be appalled by the idea of a 12-year-old telling anyone to have a beer. I am not one of them. Still, I can’t quite believe my ears. During the two weeks, we pitched tent just three times, opting more often for bed & breakfasts. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’ve watched you. Now I’m doing it. Take this chair and have a beer.”
So I enjoy the view with a bottle of Moosehead. Only in time does it dawn on me that her offer, while sincere and considerate, was in effect a tactful version of “Get the hell out of my way!” In both the immediate and life-long sense.
Days later back home, Rachel begins reminding me that her birthday, less than a month away, will make her a teenager. But I resist, claiming that the words “thirteen” and “fourteen” were first used by mistake and are now used only in bad habit. “Three-ten” and “four-ten,” I correct, telling her she must wait two more years.
She challenges me with my own dictionary—a sure sign of outrage, as how many teenagers would ever use one of those? “Right there between ‘thirsty’ and ‘thirty’! ‘Thirteen’!”
Caught I am—between an adjective I can’t escape and a state of mind lost too many years ago. Still, I pretend to miss every possible sign:
“Where? I don’t see anything.”
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*From Once Upon an Attention Span, a collection of my columns over four decades. This is one of eight about road trips with my daughter in the 80s and 90s.
Must admit that when AI is used for political purposes, my mood verges on murderous, but this is innocent enough. The likenesses are spot on for 1991, although I know the photo she used for me, and I would not have been wearing that sweater on a summer trip. I do recall her rainbow socks. Can’t really tell if this image puts us in front of or behind the windshield, which makes the car seem more like a Jeep than a 1984 Renault Encore hatchback which did have a green exterior and a patterned cloth interior.
Thanks to my picture appearing on the local newspaper’s opinion page a few hundred times these past 43 years, I gain comments from complete strangers in public places.
Mostly quick compliments or criticisms, both welcome. It’s the only job I know where success is measured as much in opposition as in approval.
Mostly I enjoy it. Still hear the cracking voice of the fellow who cautiously approached me a dozen years ago in the produce section at Market Basket, before asking: “Was that you who wrote about Cleveland?”
My usual response is, “Depends on what you have in mind,” but this fellow was so shy, I had to play it straight:
“Yes. The Rock Hall, the Lakefront, the architecture, Great Lakes Brew Pub, live music in public parks, dates to catch the Red Sox and Celtics…”
“I’m from Cleveland,” he managed to say, “that’s the first time I ever read anything good about my home town.”*
Lately, I have nothing good to say about the Archival Center at the Newburyport Public Library, but I am being asked why it is back in the news. My guess: Two recent letters nicely summed up by their headlines:
“When stewardship fails” (May 13) by Walt Thompson and “Archival Center is a shell of what it used to be” (May 18) by Ghlee Woodworth.
Full disclosure: Both writers are my friends, and we three were among the petitioners to the Newburyport City Council to investigate City Hall’s role in the disastrous moves that erased the Archival Center’s volunteer program and railroaded the regionally acclaimed archivist out of her position.
To their letters, I’ll add my own, “McCauley threw open the windows” (May 13), a tribute to the former councillor upon hearing of his untimely passing. In it, I describe the moment when Jim McCauley took on the leading role of making the library investigation happen.
What prompted my two friends to write about the formerly-renowned Archival Center? Not sure, but from what I’ve read and heard, the list of complaints from researchers and historians who thought they could access it as readily as in the past, has been growing.
Complaints are now finding their way to the NPL Board of Directors, which always includes new members who likely find that serving the mayor who appoints them and doing the right thing is a bit like joining the Trump Administration.
Problem is that the incomptent mayor managed to dodge all accountability for the destruction of the Archival Center despite the findings of the investigation that, in the words of one local historian, should have been “a career ending document” for him.
Instead, City Council President Rip Van Cameron stalled the investigation six months, long enough for Chief of Staff Andrew Levine to find a new job. Simultaneously, as if by pure coincidence, Director of Human Resources Donna Drelick was not renewed. Since the investigator’s report was as damning to both as it was to the mayor, coincidence allowed him to dodge responsibility. With two villains gone, all he had to do was what he does best, keep smiling for cameras.
This brings me to the question being put to me since my last column, “Crimes-R-Us and other musical acts”: For all of the ridicule I hurl at Republicans in Washington DC, why am I not at Newburyport’s weekly Saturday rallies on High Street?
I’m honestly torn. Among the many issues noted on their signs is the censorship of books. Where were the people holding those signs during the prolonged destruction of NPL? If they can see it in Florida and Tennessee, why the blind eye to State Street?
Did those now holding signs citing the 2019 Mueller Report pay any attention to the equally damning 2025 report on the Newburyport Public Library? Does the bumper sticker now read “Think Globally, Ignore Locally”?
Some hid behind pathetic excuses for complacency such as, “There’s a lot we don’t know.” (So why weren’t they asking?) Even subsequent first-hand reports of a toxic work environment in the Clerk’s Office, its members unanimously, urgently appealing to the City Council for intervention, did not stop many of Newburyport’s weekend sign-holders from endorsing the smiling mayor’s re-election.
And, oh, how they love those photo-ops with him in City Hall.
Apologies to most folks at the Saturday rallies, but there are at least a dozen among you I want to have nothing in common with. If, on any given Saturday, you happen to join the weekly rally in Ipswich instead, I’ll gladly answer any question or criticism of this.
Thanks to my picture, I’ll be easy to find. No matter if I have no idea who you are.
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*The Cleveland column, May 2014:
Pitching a Rock and Roll Trip
Want a get-away that rocks?
Consider the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. A towering glass pyramid with long corridors giving it the shape of an electric guitar, the building by itself is worth the trip.
For the other kind of rock, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History is nearby with the dinosaur skeletons you may recall from Calvin & Hobbes.
Cleveland?
If you’re a sports fan, check your teams’ schedules for road games against the Indians, Cavaliers, and Browns. No disrespect intended, but tickets for all three are easy to get these days.
If it’s baseball, you’ll enjoy one of the first retro ballparks built in the 1990s. If football, you’ll be two doors down from the Rock Hall along the city’s gorgeous new Lakefront Park.
Door between opens to the Great Lakes Science Museum, itself an architectural treat, which anticipates the Rock Hall with an acoustic exhibit at the entry facing it:
Whisper into a wall on one side of the lobby and a friend 200 feet away leaning into the opposite wall will hear you. Kids test and re-test this as avidly they wear headphones next door.
Many Rock Hall exhibits have them for visitors to hear no end of recordings. Couldn’t help but notice: Boys all play air guitar; girls all sing air microphone.
One vast underground floor offers memorabilia from countless rockers—and from the hotbeds of Memphis, Liverpool, Seattle, and more. Most prominent are Black musicians from the South who started it all.
Most illuminating item is the hotel stationary with Jimi Hendrix’s draft of a song under the title, “Purple Haze, Jesus Saves.” A swirling script to kiss the sky.
Most sobering are shards of Otis Redding’s wrecked airplane, and most amusing is The Who’s garb on headless mannequins on a stage replete with instruments, amps, and mikes.
Most astonishing is the exclusion of Jethro Tull, but most satisfying is hearing them piped to the height of the pyramid while admiring the playful, life-size re-creation of Pink Floyd’s Wall.
Upper levels also include tributes to Chess and Sun Records, to Les Paul, and a studio for Sirius Radio with glass walls, DJ smiling at my thumbs up for “Aqualung.”
Films ranging from Video Killed the Radio Star to Help! play at small screening rooms.
A two-day bargain pass and a café with dozens of tables and spectacular views of Lake Erie and an always architecturally fascinating downtown help you take it all in.
Cleveland?
The claim of “Birthplace of Rock & Roll” owes to DJ Alan Freed before he became famous in NYC. In 1951 a station with a dwindling audience asked him to turn his classical show over to the emerging “race music.”
Already a fan, Freed, who was Jewish, was game to desegregate radio in pre-MLK America. For his show’s name, he picked a recurring lyric. When one exec worried over the euphemism (“…all night long”), Freed was matter-of-factly persuasive:
“Anyone who would object to that won’t know it.”
Publicly, he claimed it suggested “the rolling, surging beat of the music.” Either way “rock and roll” went from compound verb to proper (while still improper) noun, “The Moondog Rock ‘n’ Roll Hour.” Soon it named the whole genre.
His “Moondog Coronation Ball” in 1952 is Cleveland’s claim to the first rock and roll concert. All of which begins the history available at the Rock Hall. No matter that Freed was forced to drop the name “Moondog” in New York City when sued by a popular street-musician known by that name.
Legalities aside, what is music tourism without a brewpub? Cleveland’s Great Lakes Brewing Company—with German cuisine that never disappoints—is opposite a downtown park that’s often the weekend site of an outdoor market with live music.
Which always rocks in Cleveland.
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To prove that I have attended Newburyport’s rallies in the past, here I am interviewing Tito of N-port’s Theater In The Open. Photo by Richard Lodge.Again in Newburyport. Where’s Waldo? About four or five protesters from the left with the shades and beret. Photo by Walt Thompson.
This happens to be the Newburyport Daily News‘ opinion page on Martin Luther King Day, 2025. The pic was taken by the late and very much missed Tom Epstein, better known as King Richard at the Renaissance Faire of that name, circa 2006, making me the only opinion page columnist in history to have his thumbnail pic taken by a king.
