For years, Barack Obama has summed up Republican philosophy this way: “You’re on your own.” That’s what he tells audiences over and over: “They say, ‘You’re on your own.’” Rarely do people answer him.
George W. Bush answered him brilliantly in 2013, when the ex-president was inaugurating his library in Dallas. With Obama sitting on the stage, Bush said, “Independence from the state does not mean isolation from each other. A free society thrives when neighbors help neighbors, and the strong protect the weak, and public policies promote private compassion.”
I noticed something in the address of the British prime minister, David Cameron, to his Conservative party conference the other day. He said, “I care deeply about those who struggle to get by — but I believe the best thing to do is help them stand on their own two feet. And no, that’s not saying, ‘You’re on your own,’ but, ‘We are on your side, helping you be all you can.’ And I believe in something for something; not something for nothing.”
To read the speech in its entirety, go here.
‐I know that today is a better day, because we have the Internet. This is true in a thousand ways, or a hundred thousand ways. I know that books, newspapers, and magazines will be a thing of the past — I mean, in their physical forms. I don’t regret it that much.
But I must say, I find it increasingly difficult to read things on the Internet. I click on an article, and I’m not taken to the article: I’m taken to an ad instead. Then there is this experience: Loud music will suddenly start playing. Or loud talking will suddenly start. Often, my screen looks like an old pinball machine, with lights flashing and boxes shaking and music blaring. I just want to read an article.
I think of an old expression: “It makes my eyes go yuck.”
Again, I know that the Internet is a better day. I would not go back. But lately, I’ve been annoyed.
‐In the next issue of National Review, I’ll have an essay on the Gideon Bible — or, more to the point, the campaign being waged against it. The Bibles are being removed from hotel rooms. I ask, “What’s next? What’s the next thing that will go?” (Chaplains in the military?)
There is always a “next.” This is an old theme of mine. Progressivism never rests, because there is always progress — or someone’s idea of progress — to be made. And things can move with astonishing speed in America.
One day, no one thought of gay marriage (or few did). The next day, “civil unions” were the far-out, progressive position. The day after that, if you favored civil unions but not gay marriage, you were a Klansman. A Nazi. That’s where we are now. Try refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding, or refusing to rent your hall for such a wedding. Just try it.
What’s next? Recently, the German Ethics Council came out for the decriminalization of incest. Is that “next”?
For decades, no one said boo about the name “Redskins”: “the Washington Redskins.” Then, one day, newspapers were refusing to print the name. Okay. I realize that “Redskins” will go by the boards, soon enough.
What I want to know is, “What’s next?” Today, we are all saying something that, tomorrow, will be verboten. What is it? I don’t know.
Anyway, to be continued (for this theme is ever relevant).
‐Nicolas Sarkozy is making a comeback in France. I have nothing against Sarkozy, in particular. But, with 66 million people in France, isn’t there someone else who can lead the conservatives? Surely there must be, non?
‐Here is a bulletin from Down Under: “The West Australian Opera has dropped ‘Carmen’ from its scheduled 2015 run because the 140-year-old French opera depicts smoking.” The Aussie prime minister, Tony Abbott, characterized this as “political correctness gone crazy.”
I have about a million things to say about this. I’d better pick just one. Hearing this news, I went back to find an old review of mine. Here it is. The review was of a new opera, Miss Lonelyhearts, by Lowell Liebermann. The opera treats the novel by Nathanael West, of course.
Here is how I ended the review:
. . . if you go to the Juilliard School to see the opera, they have a warning for you. At the entrance of the auditorium, a sign says, “Please be advised, gunshots and herbal cigarettes are used in this performance.”
Gunshots and herbal cigarettes! Oh, my! Never mind the humping, the masturbation, and the most wretched human sorrow. If that sign’s not a supreme reflection of life in modern America, I don’t know what is.
‐Still on the subject of music — a friend sent me this. Some people interrupted a concert by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. They sang a kind of protest song about this summer’s police shooting in Ferguson, Mo. I was at the Metropolitan Opera once when a man — just one person, I think — started chanting “Occupy Wall Street,” over and over.
In London, Israeli musicians have been disrupted and taunted at least twice. I think of a concert by the Jerusalem Quartet in Wigmore Hall. And of a concert by the Israel Philharmonic in Royal Albert Hall.
You know, I’m upset about a lot of things in the world — very upset. Oddly, I don’t disrupt concerts (though I may review them negatively afterward). I’m sure that you are upset about some things, too. But you don’t disrupt concerts.
Is there something wrong with us?
‐I watched a video, which was accompanied by an article. The article was headed “Baby dances inside mother’s pregnant belly.” Watching the video, I couldn’t help thinking of a phrase I grew up with: “meaningless blob of protoplasm.” That described an unborn child.
‐I enjoyed reading an obit of Morris Collen, “Pioneer in Computerized Medicine,” who died at 100. I’m not happy the man is dead; I just enjoyed reading about him. I enjoyed this, in particular:
Morris Frank Collen was born on Nov. 12, 1913, in St. Paul. He wrote in 2006, “I feel that I was born with an interest in data, beginning with my birth date, a series of three consecutive two-digit numbers.”
Isn’t that marvelous? I wish I could think more like this — number-aware.
‐I have a couple of names for you — beginning with Ralph Swearingin. A reader sent me a link to Judge Swearingin’s website, saying, “Could a judge have a better name? ‘Swearingin’?”
Also, a friend of mine told me about a golfer appearing on The Big Break, a Golf Channel program: Christian Heavens. Excellent. (My friend’s sister is also appearing on the program.)
‐Before we leave the subject of golf: I had the privilege of visiting Baltusrol, the storied course in New Jersey. In the clubhouse are many memorabilia — a letter from Jack Nicklaus, etc. — but I think my favorite is a photo of Bobby Jones with his mother. His mother is saying something to him (Jones is a world celebrity at this point, the king of golf), and he appears to be listening to her respectfully. Their expressions combine tenderness and solemnity. A striking photo.
‐A little language? This relates to something I discussed above (the Washington Redskins). I heard a man recently say the first syllable of “Indian” — “In” — then switch to “Native American.” And I thought, “You know who says ‘Indian’ with abandon? Indians.” Go to any reservation, and you’ll see.
‐A little more language? I heard a man say “general consensus.” And I learned long ago that this is a no-go — redundant. Consensuses are general. But: You can have a consensus of real-estate agents, a consensus of nuns; a consensus of thieves, a consensus of tennis players. So “general consensus” is maybe not so bad, in the right context . . .
‐A little music — more music, I should say? For a review of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, with James Levine, conductor, and Maurizio Pollini, piano soloist, go here.
‐Finally, I want to throw another video at you: here. It’s of whales playing around in Ketchikan, Alaska. Friends and I once observed such a scene on a National Review cruise. On the video, we hear these whales, thanks to hydrophone technology. They are talking to one another in high squeaky voices.
Not to cast aspersions or anything — but should these mammoth creatures of the deep have such girly voices? I know, no one died and made me Jacques Cousteau.
I’ll see you later.