The NRA Lies and Americans Die

Before you call him a liberal weenie, this is Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City calling for gun control!

Okay, I promised I’d not say anything more about the Aurora shooting, but the pro-gun cult has been so vociferous they provoked me into another rant.  Let me take you back to 1993, folks, when the Brady Bill was passed, a bill the NRA tried its best to sandbag, but couldn’t. Civics lesson: The Brady Bill is a pathetic and mostly symbolic gun control bill named for Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, James Brady, who suffered permanent brain damage when Reagan was shot in 1981. It’s the bill that requires a background check before buying a gun. How horrible! Reality check: It’s way harder to register to vote or get a Social Security card than it is to buy a gun in America.

The Brady Bill was the last time Congress seriously discussed gun control, but let’s put that aside for a math lesson. Can you add these figures? Below is a list of mass killings since the passage of the Brady Bill. The first figure beside each mass shooting is the number of dead, the second the number of wounded. Can you add these figures?

1994            Fairchild Air Force Base, Ark.         5/23

1994            Jonesboro, Ark                                 5/20

1999            Columbine, CO                                 13/21

2002            Beltway sniper                                   11/6

2004            Columbus, OH                                     4/7

2004            Fresno, CA                                           9/0

2005            Red Lake, MN                                    10/5

2006            Univ. of Northern Illinois                     6/21

2006            Amish school, Lancaster Cty.            6/5

2006            Golita, CA Post Office                         5/23

2006            Seattle                                                 7/12

2007            Salt Lake City                                       6/4

2007            Crandon, WI                                          6/11

2007            Westroads Mall, Omaha                      9/4

2007            Virginia Tech                                       32/17

2008            Kirkwood, MO                                        6/2

2008            Covina, CA                                          10/3

2009            Binghamton, NY                                  14/4

2009            Kinston, AL                                           11/6

2009            Carthage, NC                                         8/3

2009            Fort Hood, TX                                       13/29

2010            Appomattox, VA                                     8/0

2011            Carson City, NV                                     5/7

2011            Tuscon, AZ                                             6/13 

2011            Cooley Twp., OH                                   8/1

2012            Oikos Univ. Oakland                             7/3

2012            Aurora, CO                                            12/58

While you’re punching numbers into your calculator, I’ll save you some research. How many of the above incidents saw an alert NRA member jump into the fray and take out the assassin, thereby averting greater carnage? Answer: zero, as in not a damn one of them. If there is a bigger load of hooey than the argument that a gun-packing citizenry making the streets safer, I’ll be hornswoggled if I know what it is. As a historian, though, I recall that the same argument was advanced long ago in places like Tombstone, Arizona and Dodge City. I’ve yet to unearth a document proclaiming them as great places to raise a family.

My take away message from the above list of blood and tragedy is simple. The last time we tried gun control, there was a short period (1995-99) where the mass murder rate declined. But now the NRA is back in the saddle and the blood flows faster than Mitt Romney’s assets to the Cayman Islands. Each time we bury the dead, the NRA tells us to resist gun control because guns make us safer. How’s your math coming along? There’s more evidence to support the theory that Casanova was a virgin than the NRA’s assertion that guns protect us.

So why do we fall for this canard time and time again? What about the old adage that if you keep trying the same old thing and getting the same old result, there’s little likelihood that trying it again will yield a different one? We’ve tried the NRA way and it yields death. If your math looks anything like mine, you might conclude that taking away the guns can’t make it much worse than it already is. The NRA says gun control doesn’t work. I call that hypothetical BS because we’ve never seriously tried it. Fragmentary evidence suggests than even minimal efforts, like the Brady Bill, make some difference. Look, I can’t guarantee you that gun control would make Americans safer, but isn’t it worth testing? If it fails, we can always go back to the way it was and I’ll personally write an apology letter to the NRA and promise never again to refer to it as the Nazi Rifle Association. 

Andra Kouyate Release Too Much of the Same Groove

ANDRA KOUYATÉ and SÈKÈ CHI

Saro

Studio Mali

*  *

Malian music covers a lot of turf. Some of it is so bluesy that American artists such as Taj Mahal find instant affinity with it; some of it unfolds with dancers in mind and is heavy on percussive backbeats. Still more showcases Malian guitarists and their cascading riffs. Andra Kouyaté represents the Saharan north and its desert griot traditions. Alas, his new 16-track release is a bit like the desert for my tastes–too expansive and short on variety.

The good news is that he’s nurturing a new generation; Séké Chi is a youthful ensemble that supplements his ngoni playing with its hand drums, bass, balafon, voices, additional ngoni, and hand claps. There’s no denying Kouyaté’s skill as an instrumentalist; in his hands the ngoni­ sizzles. (The ngoni is a West African instrument that’s akin to a cross between a banjo and a small guitar.) The ngoni is a perfect instrument for laying down quick tempos, or for fading into the background like a ukulele backing hula singers. Kouyaté is an undisputed master of the instrument, and he extends its boundaries to draw upon funk, reggae, jazz, and slack key influences. He’s also a soulful singer. More good news: The younger players backing Kouyaté are quite talented.

So why only two stars? The album cuts big pieces from the same cloth and calls it a quilt. Even when Kouyaté crosses genres, as in the reggae-influenced title track, the album’s tones, moods, and melody lines all have the same hypnotic feel and groove. It’s like a jazz composition building up to something it never gets around to developing. You’ll probably find yourself swaying meditatively for a time, but after a while you’ll snap out of it and wonder, “Is this all there is?” In the end, it's all hooks but the same groove. The problem is compounded by the fact that the album is at least four tracks too long. It would have been wiser to pare the tracks and intersperse the few changes of pace–the dancey “Aye Anfle,” the keening vocals of “Maningaken,” and the joyful “Den Massa Lou”–amidst the trance tempos of most of the pieces. (It would have been an even better idea to turn loose the young players and let them rock out a bit.) Overall the album is too quiet and monochromatic. Call it a good idea, but a missed opportunity.--Rob Weir

Check out the 9-minute "Yankalou" on YouYube. If it doesn't seem too much of the same to you, ignore my review! 

Former F-Bomb Hardly a Firecracker Anymore

A book title unfathomable not so long ago!

I was walking downtown a few days ago when I overheard two men engaged in casual conversation. “How’s it going?” asked the first. “Not so good,” replied the second. “I spent all day looking for work but there’s nothing out there.” “Yeah, that’s fucked up,” responded the first. I agree that the economy is pretty awful, but my eavesdropping actually made me think about George Carlin.

Back in 1972 Carlin had a funny routine about “the seven words you can’t say on television.” Avert your eyes if you’re sensitive, but they were: piss, shit, tits, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, and motherfucker.  Things have changed a lot since 1972. It’s for sure that only five of those words are problematic and only the last three are real shockers any more. Like British English speakers, the word “piss” has come to mean just about anything except urine. It can piss rain, one can piss and moan, get pissed or pissed off, or expose a phony by taking the piss out them. Shit still causes some alarm on TV, but it slips in, and hearing it upsets hardly anyone, even if it comes from the mouths of youngsters. Ditto “tits,” which I’ve (surprisingly) overheard college-age women use to refer to their own breasts.

Of Carlin’s list, the only words I ever use with regularity are the first two and I never use the last three. But it’s the word formerly known as the “F-bomb” that got me thinking about how language and culture change. Frankly I marvel at how easily and casually the word pours from people’s tongues these days. I don’t say that as a way of decrying the decline of Western morality; it’s more about me. I recall a time in which the F-bomb wasn’t a small firecracker; it was the nuke of the English language. Detonating it, even by accident, meant–depending on where you were–an instant trip to the principal’s office, a backhand across the mouth, ostracism from everyone within hearing distance, or a close encounter of the worst kind between soap dish and mouth. No more. It’s become like piss–a word that means just about anything except what it meant a generation ago. The word is now used to convey personal misfortune (I was fucked.); anger (Fuck you!); being beaten up by another, drugs, or alcohol  (I was really fucked up.); or astonishment. (Fuck!) We drop to register anger or disinterest (Fuck that!); confusion (Things were fucked up.); communicate that something doesn’t work (It’s fucked.); or adjectively enhance the power of another ex-swear (He’s a fucking shithead.). We even use it as gentle jibe, (Who are you, fucking Einstein?), to express admiration for the mighty feats of others (He knocked the fuck out of the ball.), or to register complete agreement or disagreement (Fuck, yes/no!). These days I suspect that only porno sites still use the word to reference sexual intercourse. Heck, look up the word on Google Images and you'll get 16 pages that any toddler could access!

I wonder what Carlin would say about this if he were around today? I pass no judgments one way or another. You folks need to make up your own minds if it’s a good thing or a bad one that language is losing its sting. I’m just fucking saying….

You've Not Seen Ansel Adams Until You Go to Salem

Reflection at Mono Lake. If this doesn't thrill you here, see it in person and get back to me!

Ansel Adams: At the Water’s Edge

Peabody Essex Museum

Salem, MA through October 8

Yes, I know--Ansel Adams. Been there. Done that. No reason to see an exhibit of his work, right? Wrong! And wrong in more ways that you can even imagine until you stand amidst the hundreds of watery glories on display at Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum  (PEM).

Ansel Adams might be the most popular American photographer in history. (Is there anyone who has not seen one of his shots of Yosemite Park’s Half Dome?)  Reproductions of his works show up in textbooks, in documentaries, in poster shops, and on college dorm rooms all over the country. He is, in short, a person whose work we think we know. Confounding our expectations is among the many joys of the PEM show. 

We mainly think of Adams as stolid and earthbound, a bit like Half Dome itself. The PEM exhibit concentrates on images of water, those that flow, spray, crash, dribble, roar, tumble, terrify, pacify, and reflect. Among the exhibit’s surprises are images made by Adams (1902-84) when he was a mere lad of 14 and, yes he had a keen eye even then. As the story is often told, though, young Adams confined himself to soft focus, painterly images until he co-founded f/64 in 1933, a group that foreswore gauzy, romantic imagery and embraced sharp focused photography that documented reality rather than fantasy. As the tale continues, f/64–named for the smallest stop on a camera lens, one that yields the greatest sharpness–decided to leave symbolism to painters. In truth, this yarn is only half right; Adams and his cohorts did leave soft focus in the dustbin, but Adams, at least, never gave up the notion that a photograph could be imbued with spiritualism, or that shooting what was (literally) there was devoid of mystery. Nor did he ever stop being a painter of light. Check out “Reflections at Mono Lake” (1948), which is a black and white version of what Claude Monet might have done with a camera. Or gaze upon images such as “Grass and Pool” (1938), “Grass, Water, and Sun” (1948), or “Submerged Trees, Slide Lake” (1965). Each looks as if they could be prints of Japanese calligraphy. Adams may have photographed what he saw, but abstract art doesn’t get any more ambiguous than “Foam” (1960), or his’ 1940 “Surf Sequence.”

We are accustomed to thinking of Adams as a California photographer, but the PEM exhibit also exposes us to shots taken in places such as Alaska, Hawaii, and Cape Cod. (The latter have a forlorn quality evocative of Edward Hopper.) But the best thing of all about the Adams exhibit is seeing the photos as they were meant to be seen–as direct photographic prints. That may sound obvious, but aren’t most of us more familiar with reproductions of Adams’ work? I was stunned by the clarity and detail of the PEM exhibit. Reproductions smooth and obliterate details such as reflection, grain, shadow, and texture. In black and white photography, though, how an artist uses these things is often the very essence of what makes a great image as opposed to a so-so offering. Adams was famously obsessive in the darkroom, often working days to obtain a single image. Seeing the prints reveals his hard work but, more importantly, it reveals levels of detail and majesty that no reproduction can show. I’m sure I am among the many who bought the exhibition catalog, took it home, and felt a letdown when images on the wall over which I gasped looked merely ordinary on the page. (There are other reasons to buy the catalog, including Phillip Prodger’s insightful and well-titled essay “Sharp as a Tack, Mysterious as the Universe.”) Therein lies the best reason to see this show–unless you’ve seen the prints, you’ve not really experienced Ansel Adams.

The PEM show closes October 8, about the time Salem’s ghoul industry cranks up. If you’ve been contemplating some witch hunting, avoid the crowds and go before October 8. You can assuage your guilt over wallowing in pop culture trash with a dollop of high art.  

Rocky Mountain Die: More Senseless Gun Murders

And Aurora surprises us, why, exactly? 

What’s left to say? James Holmes walks into an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater armed for Armageddon and blows away a dozen people and wounds 59 others. Tragic? Of course it is, and my heart goes out to the victims and their families. Surprising? Not in the least. In fact, I predicted it–on this blog no less. Back in 2011, when Gabby Giffords and her aides were shot, I remarked that such incidents were inevitable because Americans think the Second Amendment is more sacred than the sanctity of human life. I said it when the Virginia Tech murders occurred in 2009, and I said it after the tragedy at Columbine in 1999. (It’s located just 20 miles from Aurora, by the way.) I said it again when Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman, a pipsqueak who thought a gun made him a man.

I’m sure the rightwing nut jobs will try to tell us that fewer would have died in Aurora if the patrons were all packing pistols. They’ll drag out all the nostrums, such as “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” “Guns cause crime like flies cause garbage,” and “An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.” These look good on t-shirts, but it’s gauche to wear them to funerals. How about this one for a new slogan: “The N.R.A. Murdered More Americans Than Osama bin-Laden.” Catchy, eh? And true as well. Because the NRA lines politicians’ pockets and because they propagandize a naïve citizenry into thinking guns make them safer, each year more than 11,000 Americans die from gun violence–that’s more than 3 ½ bin Ladens per year, folks. But we already know and ignore these statistics, and others such as the overwhelming evidence that murder rates are highest in states where guns are most easily obtained, and that individuals are more likely to be killed in an attempted crime if they brandish a firearm. But we don’t want to hear any of this, so maybe we should applaud James Holmes for helping us reach our national murder target faster (word play intentional).

Look–here’s a guy, Holmes, who in fewer than 60 days, purchased an AR-15 assault rifle, two Glock pistols, a 12-guage shotgun, six thousand rounds of ammo, and enough chemicals and explosives to restage Bhopal, and nobody was suspicious. Why? Because it was all legal; Holmes had no criminal record, so to raise any questions would be, according to the NRA, a dangerous intrusion of civil rights on the part of the Evil Government. (For the record, Evil Government officials, AKA/the police, generally fatally wound around 400 people a year. What a bunch of amateurs!) The Aurora massacre raises the same damn questions asked (and ignored) before: Why does any American need an assault rifle? (Up yours, collectors!) How is it an intrusion of rights to limit the number of rounds a gun can fire without reloading? Why can’t we place strict limits on sales of ammunition? (The NRA even opposes technology that would allow ammunition to be traced to its purchaser.) Why is the Second Amendment more sacred than the 18^th (Prohibition), which was repealed? Yada, yada, yada….   Same questions, same funerals, same tears, same bewildered shock, same inaction….

I’ve not been following Aurora carefully–it’s like a syndicated TV show whose episodes I’ve seen so often I can recite the plot and dialogue from memory. And it will air again, and again, and again. All because we allow a terrorist organization in our midst, the NRA, to pose as a public service organization and sandbag sane political policy (gun control). All because we really don’t give a damn about Aurora, Trayvon Martin, Gabby Giffords’ aides, Virginia Tech, or Columbine. Harsh? I don’t think so. If we really cared, wouldn’t we have done something more than dry our tears and move on? 

American Banks: Parochial Thinking in a Global Economy

But do U.S. banks even know the rest of the world exists? 

The evidence of the global economy is all around us. All of our electronics are made abroad, as is nearly every stitch of clothing we wear. You name it– knickknacks, mowers, appliances, kayaks, bicycles–and chances are good it’s not labeled “Made in the USA.” We eat sea bass from Chile, olive oil from Italy, cheese from Switzerland, and egg rolls from China, then wash it down with beer from Mexico and coffee from Vietnam. If it makes you sick, your stomach x-ray will be read in India. Looking for a car with the most American-made parts? Try a Toyota Camry! Go to work and your boss tells you that you have to work harder in order to be more competitive in the global market.

Yep. It’s a global marketplace out there, which makes you wonder why American banks seem not to have gotten the memo. Two recent examples: Try to buy some Euros, Yuan, or British pounds at your local bank. If you live in a major city such as New York or Chicago you can probably find one, but all the banks here in Western Massachusetts told me the same thing: they would need to “order” foreign money. That little “service” costs far more than using my ATM card and withdrawing it in the countries I visited.

Okay, a minor thing perhaps. But try this one. I am the organizer for a yearly academic conference. We don’t accept credit cards or other rip-off services (like PayPal, the TicketMaster of credit transfers) because their fees are too high. (I’ll be damned if I’ll pay banks more than my annual stipend for the “convenience” of allowing others to deposit money into their accounts.) We operate on a cash, check, or money order basis. Until recently, that is. Now I have to tell those who don’t live in the United States that their checks and money orders must be issued by a U.S. bank. I recently had to return a money order to a young man in Canada because–and you can’t make this up–Canadian routing numbers only have eight digits and U.S. banks require nine!

Wait a minute! Have banks never heard of NAFTA? This is Canada, for heaven’s sake, as in our number one trading partner. As in that place north of us with the world’s longest unprotected border. As in an economy that’s outperforming our own. Exchange is a rather basic economic concept and these experiences made me wonder how American banks expects to compete in the global marketplace if they can’t even handle a money order. A personal check I can understand. It would cost the bank something (substantially less than they charge) to process a bad check, but a money order is cash under a different name. It’s akin to old-style travelers’ checks in that they’ve already been purchased, so there’s no fear that the money isn’t there. And we’re also talking an electronic transfer of funds. How hard is it to enter an eight-digit routing code into a computer? I went on line and found dozens of software packages available for any bank (apparently all in the U.S as the sites are all in English) dealing in foreign currency, transfers, and–ahem!-–money orders.

And really, shouldn’t all banks be dealing in foreign exchange in an economy in which goods, services, and workers move across borders? It made me think. Maybe the U.S. is so concerned about Mexican migrant laborers because they are stamped with the wrong routing code.

The Kid with a Bike: Excellent Portrait, Weak Story

THE KID WITH A BIKE (Le gamin au vélo) 2011

Directed and written by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Les Films du Fleuve, 87 mins. PG-13

* * *

There are long sequences in The Kid with the Bike in which we see the namesake character peddling furiously across Liėge, Belgium. We theorize that he’s searching for the back-story of the adults in this story.

That sounds more negative than is intended. This is an excellent character study of a distressed 12-year-old boy named Cyril (Thomas Doret). The problem is that we never learn much about anybody’s motives but his. We meet Cyril in a state-run boarding school where he’d ended up–we don’t know how–because his father has abandoned him. Cyril, not surprisingly, refuses to believe his father would do such a thing, and escapes from his minders to find his dad and his treasured black bicycle. He’s not hard to find and is easily tracked down at the empty, torn-wallpaper apartment where he once lived with his father and recently deceased grandmother.

Then the logic begins to weave toward the “say what?” end of the spectrum.  Cyril bolts from his guardians one final time and ducks into a clinic in an attempt to elude them. When he’s found, he clamps onto one of the patients, an attractive young hairdresser named Samantha (Cécile de France) and must be pried loose from her body. Such an event would shake most of us to the core, but when Cyril begs Samantha to let him live with her on the weekends, she agrees to consider his request. A few days later she shows up at his school having bought his bicycle from the man to whom his father sold it before leaving town. Thus is launched what will strike most viewers as a highly improbable foster family situation.

Doret is terrific as Cyril–the perfect blend of sullenness, impulsiveness, and deep seated hurt that one would expect from a traumatized preadolescent. His face is etched with his warring emotions–on one hand he’s on the verge of uncontrollable weeping; on the other he’s ready to strike out in fury from the incomprehensible rage that roils within. We understand perfectly why we wants Samantha to care for him, but is more attracted to the town’s local bad boy, Wes,  (Egon DiMateo) who recruits young boys to do his criminal dirty work. We also easily grasp the symbolism of Cyril’s bike–his ticket to freedom to be sure, but also a Zen-like escape into physical and mental oblivion on which he peddles away his anguish.

Like many stylish European films, this one allows the camera to linger on objects, faces, and scenes far longer than most American directors would dare. Those raised on f/x and non-stop action will find the pacing languid and will long for something “to happen.” Things do happen, but they take their time. That’s appropriate for the film’s subject: a probe of young Cyril’s psyche. What is far more problematic is the Dardenne brothers’ thin development of everybody else that populates this film. We meet Cyril’s father, for instance, but we never learn why he abandoned his son or why he thought that was socially acceptable. Nor is Cyril’s mother even mentioned. Much more perplexing is Samantha. De France does a great job with the character and she needs to, as she’s given nothing to explain her motives. Why would she take in such a damaged kid? Is she a liberal do-gooder? A repressed social worker? A sucker for a sob story? Does the kid strike some sublimated maternal instinct? Would that the other characters have half the depth of Cyril.

I’m sure that the Dardennes purposely left these issues vague so that we’d concentrate on Cyril. We do, but the experience feels oddly empty in the end. The Kid with a Bike garnered quite a few film festival prizes and won the coveted Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 2011. We would suggest, though, that it was often nominated but seldom victorious because it is, in the end, a classic “small” film.  As a touching profile of a wounded young boy it’s first rate. Just don’t expect path breaking filmmaking, a gripping narrative, or a lesson in logic.