Yeah, she looks like a sweet old lady, but if you got on her bad side, she’d rip you a new one. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It may be early in the 2012 presidential general election campaign, but the rhetoric so far has been really lame. Obama indirectly insulted Romney by saying that he (Obama) wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth while Romney said he’d like to tell Obama to start packing. Sometimes the subordinates in election campaigns say interesting stuff, but the best they’ve come up with so far is about a dog that Romney put on top of his car and a dog that Obama ate when he was a kid.
To be fair, it’s been a few presidential campaigns since anybody’s had a really good political insult.
1988, now that was a great year for political zingers. Most people remember Senator Lloyd Bentsen telling Dan Quayle during the Vice-Presidential Debate that he (Dan Quayle) was no JFK. That was a memorable moment. But it wasn’t the BEST EVER!!
A couple months earlier Texas Governor Ann Richards was speaking at the Democratic National Convention (yes, Texas actually used to have Democrat governors, if you can believe it) when she said of George Bush (the first):
“Poor George. He can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth!”
This might not seem like such an awesome political insult at first, but further study of it demonstrates why it’s in the BEST EVER category. First of all, it was a combination of two idioms. Metaphors aren’t supposed to be mixed, but idioms are another matter. Governor Richards combined “he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth” with “he stuck his foot in his mouth” to say that Bush was both rich and stupid. And she said it without saying directly that George Bush was rich and stupid.
Secondly, Ann Richards delivered her insult with a Texas drawl. I’m not sure if Texans have drawls anymore, but Ann Richards talked with one when she wanted to. Her “he can’t help it” sounded more like “he caint hep it,” and that made the words sound endearing yet even more insulting at the same time.
Finally, the insult was kind of good-natured. It wasn’t delivered in a self-righteous tone that Lloyd Bentsen later used (that really turned off some Republicans) on Dan Quayle. Whether it was funny or not is subjective, but it seemed like a lot of Republicans thought Ann Richard’s insult was funny (I only have anecdotal evidence to back that up). When both Republicans and Democrats think a zinger is funny, then that insult is in the BEST EVER category.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, the BEST EVER political insult had no influence on the presidential election. Bush defeated Dukakis that year, and six years later, Bush’s son defeated Ann Richards to become Texas governor (and then he later became President of the United States himself).
When an insulted politician’s son has to get into politics to avenge a political zinger directed against the father, you know that the insult was a BEST POLITICAL INSULT EVER!!
So if you want to thank/blame anybody for the president that was George W. Bush, you can thank/blame Ann Richards.
*****
Presidential insults might sound great and be momentarily gratifying, but they probably won’t affect a presidential election. Politicians might be better off sticking to their “hope and change” and “morning in America” slogans rather than talking about silver foots and spoons in mouths and who ate what dog that was on whose car.
*****
When I was a kid, I was punished for saying the word crap. Looking back, it kind of ticks me off because now I know…
And here is the true story of my one moment of high school glory!
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James Cameron was married to Sarah Connor, and that was cool, but then he made Avatar, and that was uncool, but if he saves the world by mining asteroids, that would make him cool again. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Yeah, it sounds like a bad science fiction movie, and maybe that’s what it will turn out to be. A bunch of corporate guys team up with a loony (but successful) movie director and together they explore space with a bunch of madcap adventures along the way. Maybe somebody pitched this to James Cameron as a movie idea, and he decided to do it in real life.
The name of the (alleged) company that James Cameron and some guys from Google are putting together (or working with) is Planetary Resources (PR), and supposedly the plan is to use private investors to finance space exploration and mining asteroids for really nice reasons (like alternative energy sources and environmental cleanliness) instead of bad reasons (like intergalactic domination).
The first thing a company with such grand ambitions needs is some public relations (PR). So the first thing they do is call a press conference to announce the details (investors, time tables, probably a lot of boring stuff). If PR’s PR is good, maybe this private company can do great things, but if PR’s PR is bad, look for other companies (like Facebook) or the government to fill the void.
Good PR- Technological advances that provide cheap energy and environmentally pure lifestyle.
Bad PR- Smuggling dangerous/hostile aliens just to make money (and die horribly in the process when aliens turn on them).
Any awesome discovery or advancement that’s made by PR is going to be grabbed up by some government, whether it’s the United States, or China, or Russia. Yeah, Planetary Resources will have a lot of high priced lawyers with the law (maybe) on their side, but governments have big guns, and big guns beat high priced lawyers (even if the high priced lawyers are right).
And if the government doesn’t want to use big guns, they can declare eminent domain or interstate/international commerce or public interest or any nonsense they want and lock everything up in the courts until they can find five judges on the Supreme Court to agree with them.
This development has to make Mark Zuckerberg feel insignificant. A few guys from Google create a grand venture to explore the final frontier, and all Zuckerberg has done is create a silly social network that gets people fired from their jobs.
Has anybody that works for Facebook ever been fired for what they put on Facebook?
*****
It’s easy to make fun of stuff that I don’t understand, which is why I wrote about this before Tuesday’s press conference. I was afraid that if I waited, I would be in such awe of this project that I would never be unbiased enough to mock it again. As a former fanboy, I once worshipped James Cameron (1st two Terminator movies and Aliens made him almost a deity in my eyes), but Avatar was dreck, and I have since punished myself for false idolatry.
If these guys from Google and James Cameron can pull this off and do what the United States government (NASA) can’t do, I might have to rethink my position on false idolatry once again.
Related articles
- James Cameron to Conquer Outerspace with Google (hollywood.com)
Anybody can make fun of a guy whose first name is Dick; trying to discover the history of Dick is much more difficult. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When Dick Clark’s friends paid tribute to him last week, they seemed to always say his last name. That’s the problem with being named Dick; you’re never going to be the first-name-only icon like Madonna. If your name is Dick and your friends leave out your last name while talking about you, somebody is going to snicker.
It’s tough to blame them. Here are a few comments and what they would look like without the last name included:
“Everybody loves Dick Clark.”
“It was a pleasure working with Dick Clark.”
“I will always cherish the time I had with Dick Clark.”
Conversely, when Dick Cheney passes (if he passes, and I’m not sure he will in my lifetime because he probably has a stockpile of hearts to keep him going for a few more decades), his critics will sound like a bunch of man-hating extreme feminists.
I can hear the Dick Cheney comments already:
“I don’t like Dick Cheney, I never liked Dick Cheney, and I never will like Dick Cheney. I despise Dick Cheney.”
Actually, I think you can already get quotes like that.
*****
When did the word/name Dick become vulgar?
According to a couple dictionaries, “dick” became slang for the male appendage sometime in the early 1800’s, but nobody is sure exactly where, when, or how. Dick was a very common name back then, so common that if a guy was going to name his appendage (maybe guys have always named their male parts, pure speculation on my part), it might as well be named Dick. What else were they going to name it?
Other common names at the time were James, John, and Peter, but those were Biblical names, and guys probably didn’t want to give their peters Biblical names, so Dick might have been their best choice.
This kind of makes sense. If a car thief can be Jack, and a guy who visits a prostitute is a John, then a male appendage can be a Dick.
Here is a bit of irony. The name Dick was so common that it became associated with the male appendage, and because of that association with the male appendage, the name Dick is disappearing. Yeah, it’s difficult to explain that kind of irony in one sentence.
The worst name ever might be Dick Butkus (pronounced Butt Kiss), a name so bad that Johnny Cash could have written a song about him. The poor guy grew up to be one of the meanest, toughest linebackers in NFL history. Some might call that irony, but I think it’s a simple cause-effect relationship.
Dick also used to mean a detective. If MO can be the abbreviation for Missouri, then it makes sense that dick can be the abbreviated form of detective. It’s probably easier to say “dick” than it is to say “det” or “deet” as abbreviated forms of “detective.” So when a criminal called a detective a dick back in the old days, the dick wasn’t quite sure which meaning was being used (which explains the acceptance of police brutality in the old days).
*****
The English language is constantly changing. Words are created, words disappear, and word meanings are fluid. Dick was once a very common name, but it might be gone in another generation, and it’s easy to see why. It’s almost impossible to talk about the name Dick without making a bunch of Dick jokes (it doesn’t look as bad if you capitalize it).
The good news is the fewer young boys will be burdened with the name Dick. The bad news is that the NFL may have fewer mean linebackers.
Just because there's an award doesn't mean there has to be a winner. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Pulitzer Prize has caused a bit of a controversy by not awarding a work of fiction this year. Some blame the judges for not agreeing on a winner. Some blame the quality of fiction in 2011. Others blame the Pulitzer Prize judging process. I don’t know enough about any of the three to have an opinion (which is weird because lack of knowledge usually doesn’t stop me from having an opinion).
The Pulitzer Prize has a point, though: just because there is an award doesn’t mean there has to be a winner. Maybe more awards should occasionally not have winners.
Take the Oscars, for example. If there were a possibility that no movies could win an Oscar for Best Picture, the drama on stage (or on television) during the ceremony would be intense (and much more compelling than any drama in an actual movie up for Best Picture). The actor/actress presenting the award could shake his/her head in disgust as if nobody had won, and then condescendingly grin as he/she proudly announces the winner. There could be more variations of this trick than Ryan Seacrest saying to an American Idol contestant, “You are not… not… not… not… not in the bottom three.”
No, Hollywood would never dare overuse this trick.
This non-winner concept could apply to any award, but the Heisman Trophy and the Oscars are two of the most talked about awards (way more important than any Pulitzer or Nobel Prize) and would cause even more debate than the Pulitzer.
Seriously, have there been any years where the Heisman Trophy or the Oscars could have gone without a winner (or a recipient)?
If there were a year where no movie should have won Best Picture, maybe it would be 2005. The winner that year was Crash. Crash? 20 years from now, is anybody going to watch Crash? Does anybody even watch it now?
The other Best Picture nominees that year were Munich, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, and Good Night and Good Luck . I’ve seen all of them and don’t remember a thing except a scene where a guy couldn’t go to sleep because of booby trap paranoia in Munich, and I remember a bunch of people making fun of a sensitive scene in Brokeback Mountain after the movie. And I remember cringing at the really bad dialogue in Crash.
2001 might have been a year not to give a Heisman Trophy. The winner Eric Crouch was a great running quarterback, but his passing stats were mediocre (at best), and giving the award to Crouch might have been more for his collegiate career (which was pretty awesome) rather than for his 2001 season performance. The other nominees (Rex Grossman, Ken Dorsey, Joey Harrington) were pretty good passing quarterbacks, but none of them were that noteworthy. Eric Crouch was probably the most deserving out of the other nominees, but if nobody had won that year, a lot of fans would have understood.
I’m way more passionate that Crash didn’t deserve an Oscar than I am that Crouch didn’t deserve a Heisman. He probably did, and it probably didn’t.
*****
Controversy is not always bad. The non-award for fiction gave the Pulitzer Prize a bit more publicity than usual and made me realize that I haven’t read a Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction since The Shipping News almost twenty years ago. I guess it’s time to read A Visit from the Goon Squad. After all, if it won a Pulitzer, it has to be good.
No, she's not wearing a nun outfit, and no, she's probably not in Italy, and I'm guessing she's not performing for a former world leader, but as long as she's pole dancing, a lot of guys simply won't care about the minor details (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It’s easy to make jokes about former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi. First he was accused of having an adult encounter with an underage female dancer. Now some ladies involved with the former premier are claiming that the premier was once entertained by some pole dancing nun strippers at a party with some weird name to it.
People have fetishes and weird fantasies. That’s understandable. But pole dancing stripper nuns are a really bad idea, even for a former world leader who under normal circumstances could maybe have gotten away with such foolishness.
At first, a lecherous old guy might think that a pole dancing stripper nun is a novel concept, but once some thought is put into it (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know!), it’s obvious what a disaster pole dancing nun strippers could be. I’m not even talking about the offensive nature of it. Face it, once a lecherous old guy has an adult encounter with an underage exotic dancer, he’s probably not worried about offending anybody anymore.
The logistics of the whole pole dancing nun stripper just don’t work.
First of all, in order for the whole pole dancing nun stripper thing to work, you have to make sure that you’re dealing with strippers pretending to be nuns because if it’s the other way around, even a horny former Italian premier isn’t going for it.
Once you know for sure that these are indeed strippers pretending to be nuns, several other things could still go horribly wrong.
The heavy black nun shoes could fly off while the stripper nun is performing her swinging kicks off the pole and cause massive head injury to the lecherous old guy in the audience.
The pole dancing stripper nuns might rap the lecherous old guy’s wrists with a meter stick every time he breaks the two-foot (meter) rule.
The church organ music (organ..haha!) has no beat for the pole dancer stripper nuns to grind to.
The strong aroma of mothball clinging to the stripper nun outfits can overwhelm the lecherous old guy.
The chanting Chip-Monk male strippers who follow the pole dancing nuns’ performance can be a turn off to the lecherous old guy afterward.
*****
One of the keys to success in life is recognizing bad ideas and staying away from them. That’s why we normal people get so disappointed with our leadership. World leaders make the laws we are supposed to live by, and then these people who make our laws do things that we normal people know are incredibly stupid. Hanging out with strippers? If you’re a world leader, that can be pretty stupid, but there’s a slight chance that nobody will ever find out about it, and maybe we’ll forget anyway.
But if you hang out with pole dancing nun strippers, people will definitely find out, and they will definitely remember. Just because of that, if you’re a public figure, hanging out with pole dancing nun strippers is a very bad idea.
These presidents look kind of relaxed for two guys with (maybe) bounties on them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The “maybe” in this story is kind of important.
Some guy from the British House of Lords has been suspended from the Labor Party for controversial comments about maybe putting a bounty on Presidents Bush and Obama (and some guy named Tony Blair).
The reason the Labor Party has to look into what this House of Lords guy said is because he didn’t write the comments himself. He said them in an interview, and the quotes were printed in a newspaper (one I don’t read), and the video (if there actually is one) hasn’t been made public yet.
So nobody is really sure what exactly the British House of Lords guy said yet.
Hold on because there actually is a point to all this.
First of all, the British House of Lords guy says he wasn’t suggesting a bounty be put on Presidents Bush and Obama or on former Prime Minister Tony Blair, so followers of international affairs have to rely on what a journalist wrote for a newspaper. Personally, I hate relying on what a journalist wrote. I can’t even remember the exact words that I’ve used in conversations; I’m not going to trust that a journalist can get somebody else’s exact words right, even if that journalist was writing down the exact words as they were being spoken.
The British House of Lords guy said he wasn’t putting a bounty on anybody. He says he was criticizing policies of Bush and Tony Blair where they put bounties on suspected terrorists, but he claims he never put bounties on anybody, especially not on President Obama. I hope nobody would be stupid enough to put a bounty on President Obama (my words, not the British House of Lords guy’s words).
What the British House of Lords guy says he said makes sense in the “that’s probably what he meant” kind of way. Whether or not you agree that bounty policies and war on terrorism policies are stupid, those arguments are for other blogs.
Hold on. We’re finally getting to the point.
If the British House of Lords guy had just written his “bounty” statement instead of saying it, the debate over what he meant would be much shorter. Then again, if he had written his comment himself and had actually suggested that a bounty be placed on Bush, Obama, and Blair, there would be no way for him to deny that’s what he meant. Then he’d really be in trouble, and he’d have to say something even more stupid, like somebody had hacked into his Twitter account.
What’s the lesson? If you’re going to make a controversial or unpleasant statement, make sure you say it rather than write it. That way, if the controversial statement backfires, you can always claim that wasn’t what you said or what you meant.
The other potential lesson? If you’re being interviewed by a journalist, make your own recording (or video) of it so that when the journalist (probably) screws it up, you have evidence that the journalist screwed it up.
*****
As an “ignorant” American, I probably shouldn’t write about international affairs, but I can’t promise to stop. I just heard that an Italian guy partied with some pole dancing nun strippers. Are you kidding me?
Yeah, these guys don’t look too “secret,” but they sure look cool. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Growing up, a lot of kids (usually boys) think being a Secret Service agent is the best job ever! You get to wear cool shades. You travel all around the world. You hang out with the President of the United States. And if you have to sacrifice your life for your country, others will view it in slow motion, and you’ll be well dressed when your time’s up.
But there might be one negative aspect to being a Secret Service agent. You cannot allow yourself to get caught with a prostitute in a foreign country. You can’t even be accused of being caught with a prostitute in a foreign country.
A bunch of Secret Service agents preparing for President Obama’s visit to Colombia for the Summit of the Americas had to return home and were put on leave because of such accusations. Maybe the Secret Service agents don’t understand that the prostitutes at these kinds of summits are for the world leaders, not for Secret Service agents.
The problem now is that there are going to be a lot of bad jokes for the next few days. Secret Service agents got secretly (or not so secretly) serviced. Their covers got blown. Their careers are screwed. Really immature stuff like that.
One of the purposes of this blog is to keep people from getting fired for what they write (yes, Dysfunctional Literacy has a noble function). For example, last week the world learned that if you want to keep your job, you don’t write bad things about your boss (like maybe the President of the United States if you’re a marine) on the internet.
Another thing that you don’t do: don’t get caught with prostitutes while you’re on the job (especially if you’re a Secret Service agent).
It might not be related to writing, but I try to help everybody.
When you’re working for the president, you’re probably not allowed to dally with the prostitutes. Prostitutes can be spies, and a good prostitute (you know what I mean) can get a guy to say just about anything at the right moment. Secret Service agents have access to sensitive information, and prostitutes are very good at gaining access to a guy’s sensitive… ugh, let me try this again.
A really good prostitute can learn that sensitive information and then sell it to the highest bidder, doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling her money… or getting herself killed by one of the bidders. Playing spy can get rough (even the non-prostitution part of it).
Maybe Secret Service agents believe they have the willpower not to spill secrets while being entertained by a prostitute, but if Secret Service agents truly have great willpower, then they will stay away from prostitutes in the first place.
And maybe, just maybe, we’ll find out these Secret Service agents didn’t really do anything wrong and it was all a misunderstanding.
UPDATE-
The only misunderstanding was how much one of the prostitutes was supposed to get paid. Secret Service agents are losing their jobs, President Obama said he would be angry, and Sarah Palin got checked out by a Secret Service agent who was stupid enough to put it on Facebook.
If the Justice Department says somebody did something, then whether or not you believe them often depends on your political affiliation. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Competitors have been trying for years to find a way to defeat Amazon, and now the public is finally hearing about it. The competitor’s strategy may have been… collusion.
According to the Justice Department, book publishers worked with Apple to raise the prices of their new e-books so that Amazon would have to raise its prices too if it wanted to sell the same e-books. These high prices would give publishers more money and Apple a chance to get into the e-reader business with its iPads.
It’s all pretty complicated for a guy like me who just wants to read and write low brow schlock. So I’ve tried to break down this legal conflict into terms most people can understand.
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT vs. APPLE
The Justice Department claims that the collusion scheme was concocted by Steve Jobs himself. Steve Jobs? If Steve Jobs came up with this collaboration between Apple and book publishers, then it must have been a great idea. Steve Jobs may have been an evil genius, but at least he was a genius. If only he were alive today, he would crush the Justice Department like the bureaucratic lapdogs they are!
Unfortunately, for a brilliant Steve Jobs idea to be executed, you need Steve Jobs.
Even without Steve Jobs, Apple has plenty of geniuses. The Justice Department is usually lucky to achieve competence. The Justice Department, however, has power on its side. Without Steve Jobs, I give the edge to the Justice Department.
APPLE vs. AMAZON
Apple makes a bunch of cool stuff and sells it for as high a price as it can. Amazon sells a lot of cool stuff, and sometimes lowers prices way too much to attract customers.
Apple (may have) worked with the book publishers on the “agency model” to increase prices of e-books. Therefore, Apple has the book publishers on its side. Amazon has the United States Justice Department on its side. Therefore, Amazon has the clear advantage.
AMAZON vs. BOOK PUBLISHERS
The book publishers want to keep e-book prices high in order to make more money. Amazon wants to keep e-book prices low to attract more customers and over the long term make more money. Amazon has destroyed huge book stores who at one time had destroyed smaller book stores. The only thing the book publishers have destroyed are the hopes and dreams of millions of aspiring (and probably really bad) writers who can’t get their books published (I’m one of them, so I’m allowed to insult myself).
Without the Justice Department, I’d take the book publishers. But the Justice Department is a game changer.
Once again, Amazon has the edge.
BOOK PUBLISHERS vs. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Are you kidding? If Apple can’t take on the Justice Department, then book publishers have no chance.
WHO WILL WIN?
There are a few factors that make predicting a verdict difficult. The first is the law. Only a few people understand anti-trust laws, and I’m not one of them. If you’re reading this, you’re probably not one of them either. That’s okay; that means there isn’t any pressure on us to pretend to know what we’re talking about.
The second factor is the facts of the case. We only know the Justice Department’s version and a few quotes from book publishers denying everything. That’s not enough to form a valid opinion.
The third factor is the judge(s) who will preside over this case. The judge’s political opinions (liberal vs. conservative) will probably matter more than the law or the facts.
Since we don’t know the law, the facts, or the judge’(s)’ political beliefs, any speculation about a verdict is pretty useless. At least now I know who to blame for those $16.99 ebooks.
When somebody announces that he is going to "xerox" copies on a non-Xerox machine, does anybody dare to correct him? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
You would think a company would be proud if one of its trademarks became a generic word. Products like Band-Aid and Aspirin and Xerox have become actual words that will live on for generations, even after the founding companies have faded into obscurity. If I started a company and a trademark became an actual word, I’d be proud for making a semi-permanent contribution to the English language.
But evidently something horrible happens when your product or trademark becomes an actual word. You, the creator, can lose some legal protections for your trademark, and others may benefit from your generic word. I’m no lawyer or business guy, but it sounds like that sucks.
The reason this matters is that Google and iPad may be on the verge of becoming generic words, and if that’s the case, lots of money can be involved. None of that money is coming to me, so I don’t care, but I’m interested in the language part of this. Will Google and iPad become generic words? Maybe, but I don’t think so.
Some would say Google is already a generic word. “Google” is often used as a verb, and that’s a reliable sign that a brand name is a generic word. But too many people hate Google for it to become a legal issue.
People hate Google because it’s so dominant. People hate Google for its advertising and privacy policies. People hate Google for its algorithms. Teachers hate Google because students end up with a bunch of irrelevant or inappropriate sources for their research papers.
Fair or not, Google is too polarizing for it to become a generic word in the legal sense. No new search engine is going to call itself a google and take the term to court.
If Google becomes a generic word in a legal sense, then it will be because the people that hate Google allow it to happen simply to laugh at Google when it loses some of its trademark protections. But that would take organization and a lot of money to pay off a judge go through the legal process, and I’m not certain Google haters have that much money or organization.
iPad won’t become a generic word because technology snobs that have iPads won’t allow it. I have a tablet that is not an iPad, and when I accidentally referred to it as an iPad, I thought I was going to have to physically defend myself from a violent tech snob who has an actual iPad. The violent tech snob quickly showed me the differences between an iPad and a non-iPad tablet, and I listened attentively and left the encounter unharmed.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember what my non-iPad tablets are called, so I had to rename them so I wouldn’t get accosted again. Non-iPad tablet #1 is called my shmyPad, and non-iPad tablet #2 is called the eyeshPad. A couple tech snobs with iPads have rolled their eyes at me, but we get along, and the trademark protection is safe.
*****
When Band-Aids came out, and somebody using a non-Band-Aid bandage adhesive referred to that non-Band-Aid bandage adhesive as a Band-Aid, I don’t think many Band-Aid owners self-righteously proclaimed, “Excuse me, but that is NOT a Band-Aid. That is merely a bandage adhesive.”
I hope it didn’t happen much. A kid I knew did that in elementary school (no, it wasn’t me), and he got beat up. That type of behavior just wasn’t acceptable when it came to bandage adhesives.
At least the next time I get accosted by a bunch of violent tech snobs for accidentally calling my shmyPad an iPad, I can probably ask for a band-aid afterward without any fear of getting attacked again.
It's not getting banned for my really bad poetry that keeps me from visiting; it's my lack of money. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The consequences of writing can be fascinating sometimes. People get fired from jobs, protested against, and occasionally even killed for what they write. But banned from a country?
A German writer/poet (some old guy named Guenter Grass) has been banned from Israel for publishing a poem that criticizes Israeli nuclear weapons policy. Others can argue about Israel’s possible response to possible Iranian nuclear power/weapons, but that’s not my point. This is about getting banned from a country for something you write.
Here in the United States, we don’t ban people who say/write bad things about our country. If we did, President Obama would have been banned years ago.
But Israel is a different country and might have different laws regarding freedom of speech and political expression. But even so, banning a poet for his poetry might be a bit excessive.
For one thing, he’s a writer/poet. I learned long ago not to try to figure out what poetry means because poems are supposed to use figurative language with layers upon layers of meaning. If this writer is any good, his poem is not even really talking about Israel and Iran: he’s talking about some deeper issue about the state of humanity, and the rest of us are too stupid to figure it out.
If he’s really talking about Israel and Iran, then he’s not really a poet.
Secondly, he’s an old man. One of the benefits of being an old man is that you can say what you want and nobody really pays attention. Israel should just nod politely and give the old man a glass of refreshing lemonade (in a metaphorical way). By banning the old German writer, they made him relevant again, which will only encourage him to compose more stuff.
Finally, how did this German guy live to be so old? Poets are known for dying by self-inflicted methods. The burdens of life can be monumental to the average poet, but this old German guy served in the SS during World War II (he probably didn’t have a choice), so if he really cares about the human condition (as poets are supposed to), then he should really be burdened with overwhelming guilt. I’m not suggesting that he should have taken matters into his own hands (I’m glad that he hasn’t); I’m just surprised that he hasn’t.
Then again, if he’s lived this long , either he’s not really a poet or he’s not a very good poet. I’m in no position to judge whether he’s a decent poet or not because I can’t read German and my poetry stinks.
*****
Communication is a two-way street. The writer writes, and the readers respond. Sometimes it’s best if the readers don’t respond (it happens to me all the time). If Israeli politicians really wanted to hurt this German guy, they would have pretended that his poetry doesn’t matter anymore.
Dysfunctional Literacy 