Broken Chimney Pots

It might have in the long run been a bad thing when John F. Kennedy debated Richard Nixon. Oh, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was a senior in high school. The Presidents I'd had any experience of were first Truman, a man in a hat making speeches now and then on the news reels at the movies, who had something to do with the war going on in Korea. And then Ike,an elderly gent who made speeches on the news reels at the movies, played golf, seemed more and more unengaged in a vague way. Everyone in my family revered FDR, and in the personal vein, as in he saved us during the Depression. Not that I was particularly engaged in anything much during the 1950s beyond the world of home and school. The days and years flowed past. I'd read the box scores, following Mickey Mantle's remarkable homer totals, and the terrific string of World Series Championships. There was the 32-0 season the Heels put up in '57, defeating Wilt Chamberlain's great Kansas team to cap it off. I remember Larsen's perfect game. Delivering papers on my bicycle and getting pretty good at tossing 'em on porches on the fly. The headlines? Whatever.

There was one fall a "paper drive." The Raleigh Times had all its delivery boys get into a contest to see who could get the most new subscriptions. I wasn't really interested in selling, but I was paired for some reason with a serious salesman kid. He knew how to press and close. Wandering around my route with him in the early evening, we rang doorbells on all the houses that didn't subscribe. Damn if he didn't score about twenty or so new subscriptions. He got the credit, and maybe even won the prize. I delivered his new subscriptions. After about two months, almost all of them had dropped off. His method was to get people to give up. Anything to get him out of the living room.

When I was a senior, Kennedy debated Nixon. When Kennedy won, a lot of people breathed a sign of relief. Then it turned out it was pretty neat to have a President who was engaged with America, who had a vision, who wanted to do things. In a vague sort of way, Kennedy's energy and optimism merged with the spirit of the Civil Rights struggle and seemed to give the dream of finally equal rights and treatment some possibility. And after Nixon finally did win, and after the promise of the Civil Rights victories was swirled into the ghastly horror of Vietnam, all to the soundtrack of the Stones and the Beatles and Bob Dylan, it looked even more like the Presidential Debates of 1960 were some how a grand solution to the grand problem America has every four years, of finding someone capable of doing this absurd job of being President, of getting behind the wheel and driving this gigantic engine that's been running away down the tracks. Looking at Nixon as President, you had to say that the Debates had saved us from him once at least.

But these debates are in fact a singularity. They seem, today, like many other familiar things, like sports contests, like a chess game, like Jerry Springer. They are some sort of special Olympic reality show. The media which carries them treats them as a singularity. Every channel brings with it a panel of oracles trying to explain what happened to the people who just watched. And, as in the Kennedy/Nixon template, it becomes mostly about performance and affect. Romney was animated, engaged. His eyes were wide. There was sweat on his lip. Obama came walking in with a bounce, but tended more and more to look down, to look away. Obama seemed to have no real closing statement, just a crumpled piece of paper that looked too much like an apology. Romney, therefore, "won."

The viewers know what "won" and "lost" mean. For the past week now, leading up to tomorrow's debate of the stand-ins, every oracle has told the viewers that Romney won. Polls are now showing him leading Obama, or about to lead the President. The polls reflect the reaction to what the media told the viewers about the debate, who won and lost, and of course the polls also reflect whatever else aggregates in the viewers minds and emotions. NC State won, Florida State lost.

As we elevate the debates to the level of myth, all the obvious facts already available concerning each candidate tend more and more to be eclipsed. Romney has a long record as a businessman, as a governor, as a master prevaricator who has taken vivid and vehement positions on every side of every issue. Obama has been President for nearly four years. Does historical record, factual decision-making, matter in the least? Core beliefs, including religious convictions? Apparently the Debate has spoken, at least for today, and a trend is developing, possibly a tide. We might be seeing a moment when a man who is better at whatever this thing, this "debate," really is, wins over a man who is better at actually doing the job this "debate" is supposed to help us decide. How strange is that?

In a month one of these guys will get back behind the wheel of the biggest locomotive humans have ever constructed. It's already going faster than anybody who turned a wrench on it had any idea was possible.

[photo by John Carr, http://www.carrtracks.com/about.htm ]

Preaching to the Choir

Our little gig went very nicely yesterday. The rain that always accompanies Shakori Hills, The Festival, came much later, in the late evening. I was at home watching NC State break Florida State's heart sixteen seconds before the end of the game. We had one little glitch--my fiddle pickup didn't work. This was disconcerting as it is really brand new, but fortunately there was a microphone to play into, as well as sing into. It all worked out. We had fun. If you're in the vacinity, try to make it to Shakori next year. It's like a little Wheatlands. That's high praise.

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I saw this fine post this morning:


http://www.theygaveusarepublic.com/diary/11264/with-all-due-respect-governor-im-not-one-of-your-boys


Wouldn't that have been nice! I told a friend of mine yesterday, as we sat watching the Unknown Tongues (before I mounted the podium for my small bit), I wished Mr. Obama would come out for the next "debate" and after about ten minutes, shake his head, causing an afro the size of Ben Wallace's to suddenly pop out. Simultaneously, heavy gold bling would spring out from his collar and pendulate down across his chest. After which, Mr. Obama would announce, imperiously, that Mr. Romney and his minions, most particularly Messers Ryan, Gingrich, McConnell, Cantor, Hannity, Colter, and Limbaugh, are taking a long night train to Guantanamo. Oh I know, how dreadfully undemocratic. Next he'll be arresting people for making tapes containing "The theatre's on fire" in shout mode and distributing them to unsuspecting theatre sound systems around the country. Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech. And while you're at it, all those folks in those theatres need Glocks in their pockets to deal with the turmoil of the 47% who'd snuck in anyways. It would be like all the insane racist predictions of the past four years actually come true. But gawd wouldn't it feel so damn good. It would be a moment up there with "Look ahere, Lon, warn't no bullets."

Well, we'll have to be satisfied with the sensible and leave the insanity to the insane. Romney's glittering "triumph" the other night is tarnishing before our eyes. Even a lot of the uninformed are starting to say, at least to themselves, "Hey. This here is pot metal." Voting starts sorta early here in NC, and I plan to get 'er done as soon as I can. Yesterday on NPR some pundit presented an "argument" for waiting until actual Election Day to vote. "For one thing," he said, the "evidence" won't be all in till Election Day. Also, Election Day is like a national celebration of our democracy. It's something we should all participate in and savor, like Christmas, on the actual day it occurs. Early voters, he said, miss out on that.

I get tired of discovering more "balance" on NPR. It's bad enough every where else. This argument against early voting is, at best, romantic drivel. It ignores the plain reality that many people simply do not have the time to spare for long lines that will be the certain result of limiting voting to one day. In Florida the ballot is six pages long. And if this argument were sound, wouldn't folks voting early on the Day be making the same mistake, of not waiting till all the evidence is in? Perhaps at least Democrats should wait till, oh, 4:45 pm or so. Just in case. Rethugs and other known quantities, not so much.

It would be nice if NPR wouldn't leave it as a balanced report. I mean, when one side is driving the scale to the floor while the other side is a small pile of feathers.

While I'm Thinking & Saturday

I've been thinking about this whole debate thing--how we've turned it into magic, which is what we tend to do with stuff, us humans. If I get something written that I like enough, I'll post it. Meanwhile, and apropos the fact/performance chasm that mostly people tend to think on the wrong side of, here's something worth reading:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/10/04/958801/at-last-nights-debate-romney-told-27-myths-in-38-minutes/?mobile=nc

As for performance, if we're going to make decisions on that, then the President should get a rematch--a serious game of H.O.R.S.E. All that happened was, Romney won at J.A.C.K.A.S.S.

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Today, well this afternoon, Libby and I are planning on jumping on stage at Shakori and doing a few numbers with the Unknown Tongues Cajun/Zydeco Circus. We're invited. Amazingly it's not raining. Thank gawd it's not raining. I was able to mow Thursday after work--an early sign of the drying October weather we usually get. There were a few early red leaves, sumac maybe, along the edges of the always encroaching jungle that surrounds the "orchard" that was never planted. The Hudahenians are being delightful. As the weather cools they like to snuggle up. To get us up in the morning, they chirp while jumping around on the bed. Their happiness is a delight. This is typically one of their best features, and why their ancestors made their pact with us long, long ago. Momma is regularly around morning and evening. She eats, then either sits on the race car and surveys the scene from a height, or simply heads out to the rest of her domain. Now and then, maybe twice a week, the big yellow Dad also slinks by. We give him some dry food so he won't steal Momma's. They seem to be pals of some kind. We still may try to capture him and get him neutered too. No doubt the woods doesn't need more cats.

The deer drift in close. The light dapples the tree trunks at 8 AM now. I wish we didn't go back to standard time at all--I don't like that moment when there's no more time after work for anything outside. I miss my outside life, but not the concrete dust. Thus doth October begin in earnest.

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If you want to watch a strikingly good movie, check out Another Earth. It is nice to see poetry and myth realized, and the hope that somehow mistakes can be rectified embodied in a literal new planet. It isn't done much. Unsurprisingly, the movie is an independent, small-budget affair. I watched Drive as a companion. Two different studies in isolation I guess one might say. Drive rectifies something too, but in the nihilistic mode. I thought Another Earth was much more joyous, and contained much concerning human emotion--both real grief and real hope. Hope is not something to deny utterly, even if it might be denied ultimately. Drive, on the other hand, clenches its teeth as firmly as Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, or John Wayne in the Searchers. Still, and in the end, as my late friend Bob Barrett used to quote his elderly aunt whom he cared for in her declining years, "Old age is not for the faint of heart." I'd like to teach a course some day with two texts: The Tractatus and After the Ice Age. This would be an update on a classical education involving Plato and Aristotle, but more in tune with our brief moment.

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If it's not a game of H.O.R.S.E. we're talking about:
http://www.juancole.com/2012/10/extreme-oil-costly-dirty-and-dangerous-klare.html

News or Entertainment, You Be the Judge

There's endless analysis of the first debate last night. It'll go on for the next few days. Driftglass has a good post up. So does Edroso. You can click my links to see what each of them says. No doubt all the networks will be talking about it starting last night. I have little to add, except a few personal observations, including one Libby made just before she turned the thing off and starting a solitaire game on her computer.

For some reason the national media tends to analysis the debate process as if it were performance art, or at least performance. In some ways this is true. Events in the political process generally--all of which, added together, amount to a kind of running "debate" which is ended with an election, which usually provides a victor and a loser--events have an enormous performance aspect when viewed against the whole voting population. A good example might be Ed Muskie's tears.

This is the "zinger" factor. Mr. Romney tossed at least one into the blah last night. Zingers are not usually decisive points in a conversation. They are memorable lines in a play. The American media is much more focused on the play than on the conversation. It's a long term trend. The stated Republican view about this trend is that conflating the two things is actually correct. Delphic one might say. As has been true way too much over my lifetime, Democrats tend to go along, but drag their heels.

What happened last night was that a well-coached Romney performed. I'll bet he watched a lot of film of Reagan in action. I thought his accent even changed a bit towards Reagan's. Mr. Obama seemed to walk on stage believing that he could easily win on facts. His "zingers" were the rather stale ones he's used for a number of years. They included "I'm a good husband and family man," and "my grandmother and grandfather, who raised me, were lower middle class." Mr. Obama was not mentally prepared to deal directly and confrontationally with Mr. Romney's obvious distortions. He also allowed Mr. Romney to essentially shout him and the moderator down a few times.

As a result, in the realm of "performance," Romney probably "won." Whether that matters in the least is unknowable, or at best poll-able over the next week or so. At which pint the bright and shiny Veep debate will obscure our memories. Mr. Obama could have been much much clearer. He still has all the facts on his side. For one small example, when Mr. Romney said that people over 60 could stop listening as the two of them discussed the future of Medicare and Social Security, Mr. Obama might well have strenuously objected. I know I did. Morally, those of us on the north side of that line had better be concerned about our fellow citizens on the south side of it. As King Lear demonstrated, we all get older.

Libby said she thought Mr. Obama was tired. She said she bet he'd been worrying about the Syria/Turkey thing that's about to blow up. She was probably right. Mr. Obama has some other stuff to do every day besides practice lines for the school play. We ought to all keep that in mind. That's on the side of reality, not performance.

Mr. Pierce has some excellent points re the sport of it all. He's a sports writer, so he would know:

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/presidential-debate-obama-2012-13353709

Also:

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/presidential-debate-denver-preview-13336160

At the same time, qua performance, Mr. Obama does have a competent staff. If Mr. Pierce could think up these points all on his own, then Mr. Obama could have had some of them written on his hand if necessary. The overarching point about the First Debate qua performance is, Mr. Romney was able to avoid all mention of the gigantic negative features of this past year's Republican activities, including his own. Qua performance, what Mr. Obama had better do from now on in is stop trying to communicate with a person who isn't interesting in conversation. This has, in a sense, been Mr. Obama's issue from Day One of his Presidency.