Laugh or cry
By David Brooks
From the Mexican newspaper La Jornada
NEW YORK CITY – The daily tragicomedy in the United States manifests itself in various ways.
At the corner of Broadway and Bleecker Street stands a man with a pushcart. He promotes a new brand of dog food, giving away packages of what (he promises) is a very nutritious formula. Nearby, on a bench, sits a man whose face shows no expression; he holds a cardboard sign that reads: “Veteran of Afghanistan; any contribution of money or food will be gratefully accepted.” Neither man looks at the other, as a river of tourists, models, clerks, students and others passes by.
What are the public acts most seen in the country in an election year? The conventions, the presidential debates, the newscasts, the programs of political analysis? The most important news recently and the most intense debate for weeks has been the resolution of a labor dispute, not the strike affecting tens of thousands of teachers in Chicago or the nationwide crackdown on public-sector unions, but the impasse between the owners of the National Football League and the referees.
It was THE national news event of this week, when a collective contract was announced, presaging the return of the referees and the end of the ineptitude of their scabs. Even the most anti-union governor, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, sided with the union so the comedy of the scabs could end.
That’s because football is sacred. Last year, 9 out of the 10 programs with the largest TV audience were football games. “Football is the national passion, the great public spectacle of the United States in the 21st Century,” wrote Nicholas Dawidoff in The New Yorker.
Banned Books Week began Sept. 24 in the country whose president told the United Nations that the most sacred universal right is freedom of expression. According to the American Library Association, more than 11,300 books have been the target of censorship since 1982 (some have been withdrawn from libraries, schools and bookstores, but most of them are only the targets of “challenges” from communities or officials who want to censor them.)
In 2011, 326 “challenges” were recorded, but the ALA considers that more than 70 percent of those attempts are not publicized. In 2011, among the books most rented in various cities or states were: “Brave New World,” by Aldous Huxley; “The Hunger Games,” by Suzanne Collins (made into a movie this year) and a book by the famous Native American author Sherman Alexie.
On the list in previous years were an examination of poverty and labor exploitation by Barbara Ehrenreich; “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker; the classic “Catcher in the Rye,” by J. D. Salinger; “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain; “Of Mice and Men,” by John Steinbeck, and “Beloved,” by Nobel Prize winner (Literature) Toni Morrison.
The justifications almost always include sexual scenes or naked characters, although others are unacceptable language (for more information, access bannedbooksweek.org)
The United States in the 21st Century: “The election will decide interrogation methods in cases of terrorism in the future,” said the headline in The New York Times for a story that said that this election will, among other things, determine if the U.S. will use torture in the future.
One of every five deaths of U.S. soldiers is caused by suicide, according to Harper’s magazine.
A U.S. Army brigadier general who served four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan has been accused of forcible sodomy, adultery, possession of pornographic material and “inappropriate” relations with several subordinates, Army officials told The Associated Press.
When the chief of police resigned in Vaughn, N.M., the town was left with only one official member of its public security force: Nikka, the narcotics-sniffing dog. The chief of police, Ernest Armijo, resigned after it became known that he could not carry a firearm because he had a criminal record, The Associated Press reported.
The country’s 400 richest individuals have fortunes in excess of $1 billion (the richest, Bill Gates, has about $66 billion). An average American family would need more than 20,000 years to spend $1 billion. But the rich have problems, too: The Daily Show discovered that there are psychologists who specialize in treating the problems of the richest people, including treatment for something called “Sudden Wealth Syndrome.”
Maybe the people who represent the greatest danger for commercial aircraft are not the “terrorists” but the American citizens who – under laws that allow them to carry concealed firearms in universities, bars and even churches in several states – forget that they’re carrying them. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the federal agency in charge of security at airports, reports that so far this year it has seized 1,105 firearms. Last year’s total was 1,320.
Most of the guns are owned by people with license to carry them, the TSA says, who simply forgot at the time they went through security. “Firearm owners should know where they have them, for our safety and that of those with whom we live and everyone around us. I always know where my gun is. It’s a very basic thing. Firearms are dangerous,” Nico Meléndez, a TSA official, told The New York Times.
Bread and circus (or lack thereof), conditional freedom of expression and dangerous books, torture, trauma among warriors, flawed public safety, rich people with personal problems and firearms everywhere. Insane laughter and tears of despair in the United States.
