America, Where Are You Now?: Putting Faith in Sons and Daughters; Tribeca Reunion; Dems Cave on Ashcroft; Caldwell's Wrong; New Yorker Nonsense

America, Where Are You Now? Putting Faith in Sons and Daughters

It's been a screwy couple of weeks as the family and I settled into the new year. A particularly nasty strain of flu attacked the boys and me?Mrs. M, fortunately, was spared, most likely because of her strict regimen of daily vitamins and exercise?and we were laid low, one after the other. Junior bore the brunt of it. He started out snorting and snuffling, and then one night couldn't get a wink of sleep. So he coaxed me out of bed at about 11 p.m. and we were up for the duration. It was pretty interesting, watching him react to sitcoms on Nickelodeon he'd never seen before. He especially took a shine to All in the Family and The Jeffersons, and before long dear old dad had become a "meathead." Ho-ho. I explained what a controversial show AITF was back when it premiered in '71, with all the left-wing agitprop of the day and the Nixon jokes, and with Archie Bunker caricatured as a proto-Angry White Male, ranting about spics and coloreds and dagos.

All these sitcoms ran out of steam after 30 or so episodes, as the creators let the politics get more shrill instead of actually inventing new plotlines, but for a while it was fairly radical tv. Norman Lear, the original brain behind the Bunker family and the spinoffs, opted for a liberal soapbox instead of letting the shows evolve, and by the end Archie was a born-again Alan Alda. Matt Groening and his talented crew must've learned some kind of lesson, since The Simpsons?Junior's absolute favorite?remains fresh after 11 years on the air.

Anyway, the flu started knocking my eight-year-old around like a hockey puck. He couldn't sleep for more than an hour, had a crusty upper lip and didn't care for his medicine at all. It was awful to watch: he'd be shivering, crying, hallucinating from a high fever, sweating, not knowing whether he was in London or Malibu. Junior's had an odd habit since he was a baby: when his nose is runny, after repeated swipes with a kleenex, he licks his mouth in a circular motion, leaving a bright red ring. Chap Stick, or a more potent balm, applied after he's asleep usually softens the crud, but during the day it's a struggle.

Two weeks ago, at his school's father-son dinner, one classmate addressed me earnestly: "Mr. Smith, why does Junior have a ring around his face?" I was stumped, and just chuckled, "Well, Harrison, sometimes, in baseball's off-season, Junior pretends he's a raccoon!" Harry was utterly confused, as was I, but then he burst out laughing. These dinners are immensely enjoyable?MUGGER III's was the night before?since the kids get into food fights, sing the school anthem and kibitz about the fourth- and fifth-graders, while the dads talk politics and sports.

The headmaster gave the same intro each evening, but it was an apt address, noting that a new president had taken office whose father had preceded him at the White House. This brought applause from only 30 percent of those in attendance?it's New York City, remember?but the school's leader, a Gore man, I suspect, reached beyond the squabbles of the day and said that President Bush appeared to be a more optimistic fellow than his counterpart, John Quincy Adams, and this was a positive lesson for the boys.

He reminded us old codgers that while time had passed us by, and while none of us would reach the Oval Office, perhaps?only in America!?one of the food-fighters might. It was a basic, 50s-style pep speech, and left me a happy man remembering his words during the cab ride back downtown.

 

Better Spit Out That Gum

Last Friday night, four high school classmates and I convened for a dinner at Tribeca's Roc, an occasion that was far preferable to the cattle-call reunions that are generally so depressing and boring, especially after you've realized that you barely recognize anyone and get stuck with essential strangers at the bar, eating pretzels to kill the time. But private soirees, with people who were actually friends, are pretty cool. Aside from my Tribeca neighbor Elena Seibert, whom I've known since seventh grade, I hadn't seen Rich Hoblock, Ruthe Poma or Hazel Dunnigan in a coon's age, and it was a rousing couple of hours. Middle-age small talk predominated at first?updates on kids, spouses, careers and the high cost of living?but by the time appetizers were finished, we were back in the early 70s, reminiscing about midnight station-wagon cruises, pranks in chemistry class and long summer days at Crescent Beach.

Then the gossip about others at Huntington High School began in earnest. Did you know so-and-so was an incest victim? Not a clue. That an acquaintance from Huntington Bay lost her virginity at 13 and was also anorexic? And what about the aspiring thespian, a chick who peaked in ninth grade, and now looked like a retired 10th Ave. hooker, wrinkled from too many days in the sun, bloated up like a bitter old dime-store rummy, just separated from husband number five? Richard, who came out in his early 20s, filled the rest of us in on who was gay at the time. Seems strange now, but 25 years ago, you just didn't think about such matters.

Rich recounted the time his mother found a journal entry on his desk, all nonsense, about how he and I were planning, at age 16, on scoring some heroin in Huntington Station. Apprehended, he was in the doghouse, and the name of Rusty Smith, "that bad influence," wasn't mentioned in the household for months.

There were tragic stories too. One happy-go-lucky fellow, a real hit with the girls, who sold me my first tab of mescaline, was last seen panhandling in Southern California, his memory shot at the age of 32, stumbling around in shorts and no shoes. And everyone reported the shocking deaths of classmates; some from AIDS, others in car wrecks, and some the first wave of premature cancer victims. I was saddened to hear that a guy named London, who embraced the Carnaby St. craze of polka-dot shirts and flared pants long before anyone else?truly a cool cat of the moment, a British mod in suburban Long Island?was killed in Italy in his early 20s, another car wreck. He, too, the first boy that one of the gals at the table had ever kissed, had turned out to be gay.

Politics were glossed over for the most part. Ruthe, an investment banker, and I were solidly in the Bush-Ashcroft camp; the other three would've preferred that Clinton was permitted to run for a third term. (Although, like the rest of the nation, even the Clintonites at the table were disgusted by the Marc Rich pardon, by the $700,000 rent in New York City and by how Hillary's home furnishings had been provided by power-grubbers.) Richard was vehemently against Bush, saying, "Look, he's going to drill for oil in Alaska!" I replied, "Yeah, just like he promised. Smart move." That cut off the conversation and we returned to what the shifty Jesse Jackson?Mr. Raid the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition coffers for personal use?might call "common ground."

By the end of the dinner?at least for me, bedtime was approaching?it was a raucous and hilarious round-robin of tales, each more incredible and revealing than the last. I'd like to gather a few more New York-area buddies in six months or so and give it another whirl. Far preferable to squinting at name tags in some rented hall out on the Island.

One longtime buddy, a surgeon, was unable to attend the festivities at Roc. He e-mailed me the next day, asking for a detailed report. Howie wrote: "While you were eating dinner last night, I was seeing a 27-year-old Puerto Rican woman, pregnant with her sixth kid, HIV-positive, a paraplegic since childhood, who had such a horrendous leg infection it will probably have to be amputated. I left the room dazed. Although I see it every day, the levels to which human beings can sink still knocks me out. If your president does anything to stifle access to abortion in this country, I'll move to Mexico and retire. This girl is an abortion (or should have been) and should've been sterilized by some smart doctor when she was 10 years old."

Hey, no problemo, How. Even though I'm pro-choice, use me as a punching bag anytime!

By the way, I discovered a website, classmates.com, which circumvents the antiquated high school reunion. For a negligible fee, you can access a list of names, and e-mail addresses, of fellow students from the past. I've discovered a bunch of people from the class of '73, living in all parts of the country, who are filled with info I'd never be aware of if it weren't for this service.

Coincidentally, I received a letter from another Power-to-the-People-Right-On! friend of mine not too long ago and he posed some fascinating questions, at least for those of us who grew up in Huntington. Rick, who now owns his own financial business?and like me finds "the government more of a nuisance than a help"?made my day by saying he canceled his subscription to The New York Times when "I realized that no one I knew lives the lifestyle that permeates their pages."

Then he asked:

"Do you remember listening to a recitation of Walt Whitman's 'O Captain! My Captain!,' out of an intercom box at Southdown Elementary School the day JFK was shot?"

"A dead whale at Brown's Beach?"

"The fountain at Jim's Stationery Store?"

"Judy Agnew's 'Diary' in the first issues of National Lampoon?"

"Being able to clam in Huntington Harbor?"

"The '64 Yanks-Cardinals World Series being broadcast over the intercom?"

"The death of Randy Ferraro in fourth grade?"

"The Fireman's Fairs on Wall St.?"

Yes, I do. And probably will, God willing, 40 years from now.

 

The Democrats Cave on Ashcroft

I watched on C-SPAN the statements of Judiciary Committee members debating the nomination of John Ashcroft on Jan. 30 and was struck by one irritating tic common to the most of the senators. Men and women from all over country insisted on pronouncing Ashcroft's home state as "Mizooruh." It's a regional accent, and just seems silly when Teddy Kennedy?who once again disgraced himself with a demagogic attack against the A.G. nominee?persists in speaking as if he were from St. Louis. It reminded me of Kevin Costner's abominable New England accent in the overrated film Thirteen Days. It's bad enough that the country has become homogenized in so many ways?the proliferation of Starbucks, McDonald's and Wal-Mart outlets; the disappearance of locally made beers, soda and potato chips?without our having to suffer fake accents by fake legislators in the Senate.

I don't agree with Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold on almost anything politically, but his "yea" vote for Ashcroft, considering the enormous pressure that Democrats were under from special-interest groups, certainly qualifies him as a profile in courage. Feingold was rewarded with a puerile attack on the fringe, left-wing website BuzzFlash.com from a writer named P.J. McIlvaine. He wrote about the most honest Democrat in the Senate: "But Uncle Tom Daschle wasn't the only offender of the faith. How could we forget Sen. Russ Feinfart, who gave a lengthy diatribe against Ashcroft but decided to extend an olive branch to Republicans while giving his fellow Democrats the finger. Infested with bipartisanship bonhomie, Orrin Hatch gave it right back to Feinfart by pronouncing Feinfart's campaign finance reform bill DOA. So much for the olive branch. Must be a bitch to sit down, eh, Feinfart?"

On the other hand, Republican consultant Rich Galen was almost equally graceless when, in his Feb. 5 online newsletter (mullings.com), he blasted Missouri Sen. Jean Carnahan for voting against Ashcroft. Tacky. Not only did Carnahan lose her husband and son in a plane crash last October, but she was always an opponent of the new Attorney General in Missouri politics. Lay off.

 

Take the 80 Percent, Chris

Chris Caldwell's a friend of mine, as well as one of the country's finest political writers, but I must take exception to his comments in last week's New York Press. Caldwell, in his column, "Hill of Beans," was dead wrong in his assertion that Bush, because of his moderate education proposal, is likely to "rule as the Clinton of the Right."

I assume Caldwell's incendiary rhetoric was intentionally provocative; and it's proper to hold Bush accountable if he triangulates too promiscuously. But the education rollout, which will be stripped of vouchers, isn't the worst thing in the world. For starters, the plan doesn't lard the teachers' unions' coffers, as Al Gore's would've, and it doesn't intend simply to air-drop money on public schools and hope for the best. I'd have preferred a bold voucher incentive, but at this juncture that just won't happen. Better that Bush get credit for passing an education initiative that will glide through Congress and keep the voucher fight on hold until next year, when presumably he'll have racked up enough legislative victories to stand firm on this important principle.

Bush is politically astute in giving the opposition something to crow about. After all, from a conservative point of view, the new President has triumphed in orchestrating a scenario where previously intractable Democrats are folding daily on the size of the imminent tax cut. He won confirmation of his complete Cabinet, despite the despicable smear campaign against John Ashcroft and, to a lesser degree, Gale Norton. Ashcroft's ascendancy to attorney general is an event of immense significance. Now that the Democratic dinosaurs and potential 2004 presidential candidates have had their opportunity to slime the former Missouri Senator as a racist, homophobe and neo-Confederate, all that garbage can be forgotten. Ashcroft will have the mandate to clean up the corrupt regime of Janet Reno, a task worthy of Hercules, as well as steer the Justice Dept. away from its previous record of litigation-as-punishment-against-entrepreneurs.

Look, I get nervous too when even The New York Times has kind words to say about Bush's first two weeks. And if I read the phrase "charm offensive" one more time, without quotation marks, I'll surely break out in hives. I think it's fine that Bush is schmoozing Democrats?politically it's smart, even if smarmy; that's his line of work?but I wish he'd knock it off with the nicknames. When he sunk to dubbing Paul Wellstone, who can be counted on to knife him in the back at every opportunity, "Pablo," that was a low point. I think a more appropriate nickname, in light of the Minnesota Senator's despicable grandstanding during the Ashcroft debate, would be "Character Assassin."

But maybe I'm partisan.

Far more embarrassing, I thought, was Bush's meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. There was no possible upside in this sham: the President ought to realize that stuck-in-the-60s figures like Charlie Rangel and Elijah Cummings will never compromise with a Republican administration. Bush ought to ignore this group, write them off and foster relationships with the growing number of young black leaders who understand that their constituents are better served by constructive dialogue with the administration, rather than by the destructive, and repetitive, race-baiting that's practiced by the NAACP.

 

Better to Knock Off in the UK

There are countless reasons why the quality dailies of London are so glaringly superior to their counterparts in the United States?with the obvious exception of The Wall Street Journal. Number one, as any discerning reader knows, is that, like the Journal, the British broadsheets declare their political biases up front. Whether it's the Telegraph, The Independent, the Times or The Guardian?which present a broad spectrum of views?the editors don't engage in the myth of objectivity. The New York Times, on the other hand, prints de facto editorials (often in league, it seems, with the Democratic Party) on its front page. The paper, which embarrassed itself so thoroughly in the 2000 presidential campaign, astounding even some moderate liberals with its shameless shilling for Al Gore, has suffered a long-deserved loss of credibility. That it's now crucifying Bill and Hillary Clinton for their shabby exit from the White House?damage control, I'd say?is too little, too late, as the more evenhanded Washington Post is now recognized as the Beltway's Paper of Record.

A less-noticed, but significant, example of this country's mass journalistic mediocrity is the art of obituary writing. With few exceptions, death notices are dashed off, often by inexperienced reporters, and leave the reader with little knowledge?beyond a summary of the deceased's accomplishments, cause of death and age?of the subject. A smart writer comes to this assignment with a ready-made vehicle for a stylish essay: life-affirming eulogies needn't be confined to houses of worship or private memorial services.

Consider the recent passing of Auberon Waugh, one of England's most famous, and brutally amusing, writers. On Jan. 18, The Daily Telegraph ran a long, unsigned obit of Waugh that ought to be slapped on the desk of every newspaper editor in the United States.

The piece began: "Auberon Waugh, who has died aged 61, was the most controversial, the most abusive, perhaps the most brilliant journalist of his age?an acerbic wit, a traveller, a farceur, an epicure; above all, a hater of humbug in all its forms and of politicians in most of theirs. His forte, displayed over the last decade in the Way of the World column in this newspaper, was to express, with pellucid and succinct brilliance, ideas and prejudices of which many people were subliminally aware, but which they would never have dared to articulate, or even consciously think. Waugh's courage was equaled only by his extraordinary intellectual energy... All his life he was a doughty class warrior, but?though many failed to realise the fact?in contrast to his father he was not a snob. He detested the public schools in general and Downside in particular, and did not send any of his own children away to school."

On the same day, the Los Angeles Times' Marjorie Miller drew the same assignment, but you'd never know it by her feeble attempt to bring life to this complex man who'd died two nights before.

Miller writes, in a London-datelined article: "Auberon Waugh, acerbic son of novelist Evelyn Waugh and an accomplished author and editor in his own right, died in his sleep Tuesday night at the age of 61. He was an inveterate smoker with just one lung and had been suffering from a heart condition.

"Waugh, editor of the Literary Review here since 1986 and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, was a courtly gentleman who made a career out of being wickedly funny?and sometimes just plain wicked?in print. He was a professional snob who adored the upper class and frequently thundered against workers, women, leftists and the downtrodden. He was politically incorrect by instinct and ideology, speaking out in favor of topics like chain-smoking in public and drunken driving."

Unlike whoever wrote the Telegraph's piece, which is a fascinating short biography of a well-known Englishman, Miller is unabashed about using the occasion of Waugh's death to promote her own political agenda. Yes, Waugh smoked; that was his choice and no doubt contributed to his demise. But is there any reason to obscure the man's entire life with a promo piece for the antitobacco lobby?

Miller's was a vile piece of journalism and it's small wonder that Brits snicker at the "quality" newspapers in the United States.

 

You're a Marked Man, David Remnick

The New Yorker is a magazine that, despite its deplorable political leanings, I look forward to purchasing. For what it's worth, there aren't many other publications about which I can make the same claim. The Weekly Standard, of course; American Heritage; The New Criterion; and often Vanity Fair.

Still. When Nation-like writing seeps into even the theater clips of The New Yorker, it makes you wonder if all the left-wing publications are written, edited and printed in one dingy, tofu-friendly basement. Here's an excerpt from the Jan. 15 New Yorker take on Cobb, the brilliant Off-Broadway play that's still showing at Christopher St.'s Lucille Lortel Theatre. "For Cobb, baseball was a place to stake kingship, but here he's haunted by a forgotten legend, Negro Leaguer and Hall of famer Oscar Charleston, who forces Cobb to confront the social injustices he sheepishly dodged during his lifetime, denying himself a chance at true greatness."

What nonsense. Ty Cobb, like Pete Rose 50 years later, might've been a disagreeable human being, but his "true greatness" as a baseball player is not in question. This much is beyond dispute: Cobb, along with Babe Ruth (hardly a revisionist role model), Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays and Tris Speaker were champions on the diamond. Demanding that Cobb conform to present-day social mores is a pointless exercise. You might as well lash the Founding Fathers for their uniform dismissal of women, Negroes, Indians and atheists. Come to think of it, when Orrin Hatch is nominated as a Supreme Court justice, perhaps later this year, I'm sure that oily media showboats like Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden will dig up an interview that Hatch gave to some obscure journal in which he praised Patrick Henry. Why, oh why, didn't Henry famously pronounce, "Give me affirmative action or give me death!"

Continuing the Hendrik Hertzberg surveillance, the premature Anthony Lewis clone was on better behavior in his "Comment" of Feb. 5. Hertzberg praised George W. Bush's speech on Jan. 20 as "by far the best Inaugural Address in forty years," giving credit both to the President and his speechwriter, the extremely talented Michael Gerson. But not-so-tricky Ricky can only go so far. He later railed about Bush's "regressive" tax cut proposal, arguing stupidly against abolition of the estate tax. With not a hint of irony he cited Matt Miller, "an economics columnist" who coincidentally worked in the Clinton White House, for backup on his class-warfare assertion that the heirs of men and women who worked their entire lives to provide for their families are somehow evil. The "windfall" for such children would be "a reward not for effort, enterprise, or work but simply for having been, like Bush himself, born rich."

More preposterous still was Hertzberg's daft idea that Bush's speech, "with five minutes of blue-pencilling, could as easily have been delivered by the rightful winner of the election." Suits me fine that The New Yorker's glue-farm candidate is still in a Tallahassee state of mind, but Al Gore could never have lifted the Clinton-induced smog as Bush did just last month. God knows what millionaire/populist Bob Shrum would've come up with, to be delivered along with Gore's own ham-handed flourishes, but as the Democratic nominee demonstrated amply during his years-long quest for the presidency, he's simply incapable of oratory that's both human and humble.

Finally, the cover of this week's Time is a real corker. There's a sad photo of an African woman and her grandchild, along with this small print: "This is a story about AIDS in Africa. Look at the pictures. Read the words. And then try not to care."

I had no idea that UNICEF was part of the AOL-Time Warner merger. The horrific AIDS epidemic in Africa is clearly a valid "special report" project, but it's offensive that Time's editors don't trust its readers to arrive at their own conclusions. I understand that newsweeklies are struggling, but not so long ago Time wouldn't pander so shamelessly in an effort to boost newsstand sales.

 

February 5

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