Joseph Dobrian's Blog

Pardon the past week’s absence of blog posts. I moved out of Manhattan last Monday, having lived there for 27 years, and relocated to Iowa City, Iowa. I’d like to plead the excuse that I’ve been too busy getting myself situated to do any blogging, but that would not be quite accurate. More to the point would be to say that for a week I’ve been using “getting myself situated” as an excuse not to do any blogging. I’m so avoidant, you see, that I even avoid social activities that I enjoy, such as casting my wisdom into Cyberspace.

Speaking of neurotic behavior, I’ve resolved not to surrender to the standard Iowa City uniform of a feed-cap, jeans or shorts, and a flapping t-shirt, or a sweatshirt when it’s cooler. I’m going to continue to wear my bespoke suits on weekdays, and a sport jacket on weekends, mostly because I like to, and partly because I’ve never been any good at blending in, wherever I am and whatever I’m doing – so if I can’t blend in, I might as well make the most of standing out.

It’s pretty clear that I’m going to stand out politically as well, at least in some circles – in a way that’s not likely to endear me to many. I’ve resolved to give up my long-standing habit of staying home and seldom partaking of social and cultural activities. I’ve been telling myself, for the past several months, that when I got to Iowa City I was going to make a special effort to get out there and go to lectures, concerts, recitals, gallery openings, and other such places where I could network, make business connections, and develop a social circle. So far, I’ve been doing a bit of that: going to suchlike events more days than not, anyway.

On this past Friday afternoon, I went to Dey House, a charming little library that houses the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, to hear a lecture by novelist Allan Gurganus. His topic was “Fiction As History, And Vice Versa.” Mr. Gurganus is a fine speaker, and his lecture was interesting to me until he started dropping gratuitous political comments such as “There is no such thing as a Republican artist, period. And if you mention Ayn Rand or Kevin Costner, the exits are there and there.” He also remarked how horrified and disgusted he was that the Supreme Court had ruled that “multinational corporations” could engage in political speech via financial contributions.

Naturally these sallies met with murmurs of approval from the audience. It’s funny and frustrating to me that in many academic or soi-disant intellectual circles, you can say “multinational corporations” and it’s as though you’ve said “child molestor.” People who belong to such circles, ironically, often have an aversion to critical thinking. Perhaps they believe an emotional reaction to a demagogic ploy is somehow more “genuine,” or perhaps they’re afraid that if they question the orthodox position, their peers won’t think they’re cool. I’m not sure.

At the end, when Mr. Gurganus called for questions, I promised myself I’d ask a question if someone else did first, but nobody did, so I didn’t. What I wanted to ask was this: “Regarding your assertion that there are no Republican artists, do you suggest that it’s the party registry that disqualifies a person from artistry? Or are there certain positions on certain issues that you may not hold if you’re an artist? I’m curious, Mr. Gurganus. Is there a calculus, by which one’s political opinions are weighed against the artistic merit of one’s œuvre? Or are you just a horse’s ass?”

Okay, I wouldn’t have said the last part, but I’m sure Mr. Gurganus would have heard it. But if I’d asked the preceding questions, I can promise you I’d not have been forgotten by anyone in that room. What scandal I’d have caused! What a name I’d have made for myself, instantly, as a horrible Grinch who dared to disrupt that wonderful lecture with his insulting and impertinent questions that presumed to contradict that which we all KNOW is the truth!

The following day, I attended another social event where I was introduced to a woman of about my own age who’d been at the lecture, and she asked me, “Wasn’t it wonderful?” I said, “I was enjoying it very much, until he started getting all arrogant and dismissive.” She was genuinely astonished, and asked me what I was referring to. I explained myself, but she still seemed a bit taken aback. I’m sure she was intelligent enough to grasp, intellectually, that some people could have been offended by Mr. Gurganus’ remarks – but the fact remains that I had to point out the offense. She would never have noticed it, herself.

There’s a smugness, I believe, in some Iowa City circles: a notion that of course all decent people think a certain way, and that other opinions merit not the slightest consideration, but merely a reflexive scorn. I’m just enough of a busybody, just enough of a sower of discord, that I intend to do something about it. Maybe that “something” will take away from my avoidance rituals. I can only hope so.

- Josephus Rex Imperator

Any time a whole bunch of people get killed at once, it’s an excuse for the news/entertainment media to trot out their all-time favorite word—”tragedy”—and to misuse it.

Tragedy is a literary form, usually a play or epic poem, in which the protagonist, often a great and noble person, is undone by a personal flaw, by the inexorable will of the gods, or by social forces. After a great struggle, he is utterly defeated, but has understood his own flaws through his defeat. Probably the best-known example of the form is Sophocles’ Œdipus Rex; a more modern example is Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.

When applying the term “tragedy” to an actual historic event, then, we are talking about a very specific type of incident. Some people might say, for instance, that Richard Nixon’s mishandling of Watergate was a tragedy, since his personal insecurity and arrogance led to his destruction. Another tragic figure might be Woodrow Wilson, whose stubbornness and self-righteousness overwhelmed his idealism. The O.J. Simpson murder case might be considered a tragedy, but the tragic figure therein would not be either of the murder victims. It would be Simpson himself, who killed the love of his life and financially and socially ruined himself because of his uncontrollable sexual jealousy.

The word “tragedy” almost never applies to a natural disaster, to an act of terrorism, to a random criminal act, or to a mass suicide.

What, for instance, was tragic about 9/11? One might correctly call it a calamity, a horror, a brutal, insane act perpetrated by a group of evil persons. However, the victims and perpetrators of that attack did not come undone as the result of mocking the gods, nor were they major players in a classic tale of psychological or philosophical struggle. To those of us who didn’t know them personally (nearly all of us), they might as well never have lived; their very existence had been unknown to us and the details of their lives were of no consequence whatever. The victims were mere statistics: simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was as though each of them had been killed by a bolt of lightning. The murderers were mindless monsters. Not one of them, by being involved in the incident, gained self-awareness or contributed to our understanding of the human condition.

In the case of the 39 “Heaven’s Gate” suicides in San Diego in 1997, clearly, no self-awareness was gained either. Each of these idiots died under a preposterous delusion, of which they had neither the time nor the inclination to repent. You can hardly even call this a sad or dreadful event: Aside from the families of the deceased, which of us could care less that there are 39 fewer fools in the world? Can we doubt that society is better off without them?

In effect, the news media uses the word “tragedy” to give a veneer of respectability to our fascination with calamity. Most of us, if asked whether we truly cared about a whole bunch of people, otherwise unknown to us, being killed all at once, would reflexively respond “of course”: not because that’s the truth, but because it’s the only socially acceptable answer—just as it’s the only socially acceptable answer to “Do you love your children?” no matter what the reality might be.

We do like to see, read about, and hear about death and destruction. To admit to taking pleasure in it would be unthinkable—so the news media kindly gives us the polite fiction that by following the event, we are “watching the tragedy unfold.” That is somehow more respectable than taking a frank ghoulish pleasure in the event. Even the plea that you’re paying attention because the disaster is a grand historical event is not quite as acceptable as the insistence that it’s compassion and empathy that keep you glued to your TV.

- Josephus Rex Imperator

I continue to pack for my move, which is now a week off. Today, the big question was what I was going to do about my bodhráin. (I have two: a little one and a big one. It’s one bodhrán, two or more bodhráin.) I bought them three or four years ago as a package deal that included the two drums, a tipper to beat them with, an instructional CD, and a printed manual. I figured I’d teach myself — I certainly wasn’t going to pay good money for drumming lessons at my age, and besides, how hard could it be? — and maybe then I’d be able to participate a little bit on the very rare occasions when I’m with a bunch of people who are getting together to make music.

Predictably enough, I gave up on the project after I’d put myself through two lessons. Learning a musical instrument, and learning another language, get much more difficult as you get older, and by the time you’re middle-aged, either is almost impossible. Not to mention that I will work very hard if I’m properly incited by a paycheque and a deadline, and if I know I’ll be letting someone else down if I don’t get the job done. Lacking those incentives, it’s hard to get me to do anything when I could be goofing off instead.

So, from about three days after they arrived in my apartment, the drums have served a decorative purpose only, sitting atop a table in my office next to a pennywhistle and a chanter — two other instruments at which I can’t even claim to have failed, since I never really tried — and a phrenology bust. (I didn’t buy that with the intention of studying phrenology. It just looked cool.)

Now that I’m packing for a very expensive 1,000-mile move, and throwing stuff out, I had a hard choice to make about these drums. The little bodhrán was easy to pack into a box with other stuff (it fit perfectly into my cast iron Dutch oven), but the big one would be too big, unless I went out and bought an outsized box in addition to the free ones that I got from the last person to move into this building. So, should I keep the little bodhrán and give the big one away? Go to the bother of keeping them both? Leave one or both of them on the “take me” pile next to the garbage cans out back of my building?

The last option seems the most sensible to me — only I have this irrational idea that it’s somehow wrong to simply throw away a musical instrument. It’s related to the idea that one isn’t supposed to do that to books, either, unless they’re really atrocious or written by someone you dislike. So, although it’ll add cubic footage that I can ill afford to pay for, I’ve wrapped the large bodhrán in bubble wrap, and I’ll be taking it along, so that I can find some deserving Iowa City musician to whom I can sell both drums for a pittance.

One thing I did learn, from my pathetic attempts to play the bodhrán, is that drumming is a lot harder than it looks. The assumption that any drum will be easier to play than any other musical instrument is just wrong. (At any rate, with the chanter I got to the point where I could very slowly pick out a couple of tunes; I never got anywhere near to an analogous level with the bodhrán.) Apparently a successful drummer will have started very early in life. You need to, to develop the suppleness and quickness of wrist, neither of which come easily to an adult. What’s more, you can’t start out your education as a drummer by playing tunes very slowly, as you might with a piano, guitar, or woodwind. You’ve got to maintain the correct tempo for the piece you’re playing. That’s especially tough to do with a bodhrán, since it ordinarily plays sixteenth-notes.

My lack of the will to persevere for the sake of perseverance has been a source of frustration to me all my life. I’ll sometimes jokingly say that I curse my parents every day because they never forced me to learn a musical instrument — but the fault was entirely mine. If I’d wanted piano lessons, or trumpet lessons, or drumming lessons, badly enough to insist on them, I’d surely have gotten them. And if I’d been forced to learn an instrument, resentment would have prevented me from excelling at it. So, to this day, I can’t read music, can’t begin to play an instrument, and can sing only very badly. Still, all my life, I’ve had vague fantasies about being an accomplished musician — and my instrument of choice, in these fantasies, has almost always been a drum.

Timpani, for preference. The timpanist, in a symphony orchestra, is the backbone of the team, kind of like the catcher in baseball — and catcher was my position, too, not that I was ever any good at it, since I wouldn’t work at that, either. To this day, my favorite orchestral pieces are those where timpani feature prominently: just about anything by Tchaikovsky; Morricone’s overture to “The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly”; Sam Spence’s “The Autumn Wind.”

Oddly enough, I’m also very fond of the music of Grieg, who seldom used timpani at all in his orchestral pieces. But when I listen to Grieg, I usually fantasize that I’m the conductor. And I reckon I’ll end up conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, sooner than I’ll learn how to bang a drum.

- Josephus Rex Imperator

British accents have long been used (very effectively in many cases) to sell products and services on American TV. A “received pronunciation” upper-middle-class accent, in particular, has long been believed to lend tone to whatever’s being advertised. If someone with a plummy accent endorses the product, the reasoning goes, it must be good. More important, you’ll reveal yourself as a person of sense, sophistication, and taste — in short, the sort of person who would associate with people who had that accent — if you buy it.

That particular accent was the standard, when American advertisers employed British actors and voice-overs, from the 1950s into the 1980s. Since, then, however, other British accents have been growing in popularity. Over the past generation or so, we’ve become more used to hearing Scottish, Cockney, and other regional British accents from time to time. (Irish accents are another matter entirely, and not part of this essay: The use of badly faked Irish accents in American advertising practically constitutes an ongoing crime against humanity, and in any case not many Irish people will thank you for calling them British.)

Advertising isn’t my racket, so I can’t be sure of this, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that in the past 20 years or so, focus groups have frequently been used to determine just which British accent might be most effective in a particular ad. Consider for starters the red-hatted garden gnome who stars in the Travelocity ads. I don’t know any Brit who sounds like he does, and no wonder: His accent is a parody, and a blatant one at that. He sounds rather like Noël Coward would sound if he were doing a bad Noël Coward imitation for laughs. (It’s very hard to do a clever or funny imitation of yourself, but I daresay Coward could have done it if anyone could.) How did the creative department come up with that accent? How did they know it would be effective? That has got to be an expensive campaign — and it must be effective, too, because it’s been running for years. I would love to find out how many different accents they tried before settling on that one. Did they try other British accents? Scandinavian? German? Baltic?

The Travelocity gnome’s accent has remained the same for all the time he’s been in business. But consider another imaginary Brit: the GEICO gecko. This cute little iridescent lizard has been pitching GEICO (“Fifteen minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance!”) for about a decade — also, we must assume, with great success. But while his presence on our TV screens has been constant, his accent hasn’t been. When he made his début as GEICO’s corporate spokesman, a few years ago, he had not quite the standard pronunciation of a BBC newscaster, but it was definitely a higher-end Home Counties accent, the sort you’d expect to hear from any carefully educated person from South Central England. The public seemed to react well to the accent, which suited the gecko’s manner: shy, self-effacing, polite, and slightly nervous.

Then, maybe three years ago, the gecko’s accent was moved down-market — but in a northerly direction. Somehow, he acquired a Mancunian accent, yeah? He became a little more brash in his manner, a little more working-class. But apparently that accent still wasn’t quite right, because in recent ads the lizard has become definitely Cockney — and I’m guessing that East London is where he’ll settle, now, until he’s retired.

Why, and how, was it determined that the gecko’s original educated accent wasn’t quite right for attracting the American Lumpen? I can understand why the creative department settled on Cockney. To most Americans, Cockney is a funny, comfortable accent that makes them think of Bert in Mary Poppins. The gecko’s original accent might have appealed to a viewer with more spending power, and thus would have been ideal if he’d been pitching a luxury product — but he was selling a mundane product and emphasizing its low price at that. Thus, I suppose, a down-market accent was indicated.

But why, in the transition from a middle- to a working-class accent, did the advertisers briefly give the gecko a regional accent with which most Americans aren’t familiar? First his address is Westminster, then it’s Manchester, then it’s Stepney. That doesn’t compute. Again, there must have been a focus group, somewhere, that chose the Mancunian pronunciation — but perhaps, after the new accent was introduced, GEICO started losing market share, and the higher-ups decided the gecko’s accent was to blame. So, they did another focus group, and this one came up with a different result. Or perhaps, once sales started slipping, one of GEICO’s top dogs told his advertising agency, “Look, screw the focus group: You’ve got to change his accent again. Make him Cockney. This whatchamacallit accent is confusing people. They can’t place it. Everybody knows Cockney. Everybody trusts Cockney. Make him Cockney, dammit!” So, the customer always being right, the change was made.

I suppose they could have tried a Liverpudlian accent instead — but would they have used Ringo’s Scouse drawl, or Paul’s nearly-Irish version? And would either have been effective? These days, those of us who remember the Beatles are getting too old to drive, and younger folks would still wonder, “What kind of an accent is that?”

- Josephus Rex Imperator

Among the many unpleasant by-products of our current obsessive health-consciousness is the rash of simultaneously self-abasing and self-congratulatory books by fairly well-known authors (or by ghost-writers, on behalf of less literate celebrities) on the subject of giving up alcohol. But so far, to my knowledge, nobody has written much about how to make the most of the situation if you choose NOT to become an abstainer.

I never drink to excess (unless I happen not to be paying attention), and I would be shocked — SHOCKED — to hear that any of my readers ever over-indulged. However, it will happen to many of us, at least once or twice in our lives, that we will pass an evening in public with a heavy drinker. In situations like that, most people will instinctively try to keep up with whoever is drinking the fastest, and if you’re not used to strong waters, the result can be interesting. Even if you do manage to control yourself, you might find that the person you’re with is a different person entirely when in drink — and coping with that strange person can be just as challenging as coping with yourself if you’re well gassed.

The old saying goes, “A woman who drinks heavily is never a cheap date, but she’s usually worth it.” That’s true only if you can stop her at the point where she’s had enough to make her willing, but not enough to make her incapably stinking. Get her too drunk, and you’ll go home with her, all right: You’ll have to carry her to your car in a fireman’s lift; listen to her ramble about all kinds of uninteresting subjects (it’s possible that she’ll forget that she’s with you, and start saying unkind things about you as though she were talking to a third party — or, she’ll be perfectly aware that she’s with you, and will explain to you at some length that you’re a worthless dirtbag); haul her to a bed or couch; wait until she’s passed out and you’re sure she’s not going to puke — and by that time, it’ll be way more trouble than it’s worth to do anything else besides go to sleep yourself.

No matter how much it pains you to do it, if you’re on an official date with a woman who’s drunk, you’re duty-bound to stay in her vicinity, however obnoxious she gets, however many other guys she flirts with, however badly she abuses you, and be ready to get her home when she finally collapses. The ONLY thing that will absolve you of this duty is if she makes it plain that the date with you has ended and a new one, with another guy, has begun.

If you’re with a woman who has reached the point of no return, if she’s small enough for you to manage, the best policy is sometimes to let her drink all she wants until you can carry her home unconscious. That’s often easier than helping her to walk. If you can get her dancing, this will wear her out and speed the process along.

Never, under ANY circumstances, give a drunk person coffee, and never take it yourself if you’re bombed. All coffee gives you is a wide-awake drunk. Coffee also tends to dehydrate you, which is what alcohol does anyway.

Concerning the use of alcohol to prime a woman for sex, I’m inclined to agree with the remark attributed to Casey Stengel: “If it ain’t happened by midnight, it ain’t gonna happen, and if it does, it ain’t gonna be worth it.”

Drunkenness, by the way, is a situation in which women and men each have certain advantages. Men, being heavier, usually take longer to get drunk. (That can be good or bad.) Women can get as crazy as they like, when they’re drunk, and men will put up with it and even take them home afterwards. A man has to remain somewhat civilized, or his girlfriend will go home with someone else and some guy will knock his teeth out.

A man, no matter what kind of shape he’s in, will usually have to get himself home. A woman who’s in the passing-out stage will always find some kind fellow to help her get home, but it’s a crap-shoot as to whether it’ll be the type of help she wants.

Dealing with a man who’s drunk in public is easy. Just walk away from him. He probably won’t even notice that you’ve left. If he tries to restrain you, it’s a pretty sure bet that even if you can’t knock him down yourself, somebody will do it for you.

If, after all, it’s you who’s the afflicted party, I’ve just two words to say to you: “water” and “aspirin.”

The best palliative for drunkenness is water, quarts of it. Drink til your teeth float, then pee, and drink some more. In fact, if you’re really high-schooled, the best procedure is to sit on the toilet with a gallon jug of water in your hand, and just drink and pee continuously until the room has stopped spinning. Then, when you’ve peed as much as you can possibly pee, take four aspirins (Bufferin is probably best, but NOT Excedrin, which contains caffeine, and NOT aspirin substitutes such as Tylenol or Advil) and go to bed. You’ll still be hung the next morning, but you’ll suffer less than you deserve.

DO NOT go to bed if you’re still feeling dizzy. Anyone who’s ever ridden the bucking bed knows that lying down at that stage merely encourages nausea. If you really want to throw up, take an emetic and get it over with.

Most likely, your body will react to a bout of drunkenness as a woman’s body reacts to childbirth: by forgetting how painful it was, so that you’ll do it again.

Among the several things that made the “boomer” generation unique, I think, was the idea that many of us had instilled in us early on, that we could do anything. I and most of the kids I grew up with believed that we could, if we chose to, become a U.S. Senator, a Nobel-winning scientist, a glamourous private detective, or an N.F.L. football star. Note the common thread: the ideal of rising to the pinnacle, or near it.

For the past 200 years, in the United States, it has indeed been possible for people with average gifts and strong will to pursue virtually any calling they take a fancy to. A child of five could decide to be a politician, a scientist, a detective, an athlete — and as often as not, that child would make it to his or her chosen profession.

But individuals of our generation were rarely conditioned to pursue a certain calling. Rather, the goal instilled in us, by and large, was to make an extraordinary mark, to excel. The important issue was not what one excelled at: merely that one excelled.

This may be why so many of us are now taking rather grim assessments of ourselves. Excellence isn’t attained because one wants to excel; it can only be reached if one wants to excel at something.

A person might say (Indeed I have said it myself, and quite shamelessly), “I want to be rich and famous, and get laid a lot. How I get there doesn’t much matter.” There is nothing wrong with that sentiment. Wanting wealth, fame and sexual desirability gores nobody else’s ox. However, if those are your goals, your efforts to obtain them will likely be so scattered that you will not succeed, save through sheer accident. The lack of a coherent plan, and the lack of even an idea of how to formulate one, will leave you so frustrated that you’ll spend time you could have used to further your ambitions, simply daydreaming about what it’s going to be like when you are successful. Even these daydreams aren’t very satisfactory. Since they don’t tell you what your success consisted of, their credibility suffers.

Why did (and do) we boomers find it so hard to excel at something? My suspicion — much as I hate to agree with just about everyone else in the world — is that TV did it.

Mind you, I’m not saying that TV is by nature a corrupting influence, or that we were scarred for life by watching hours of sex, violence, inane cartoons, and preposterous commercials. There has been, and will always be, plenty of stuff on TV that isn’t exactly edifying, but low-brow entertainment existed for thousands of years before TV, and it’s never done much harm.

If TV has crippled our ability to excel, it’s not the fault of the sentiments expressed in the programs or the ads. What hurt us, I think, was the relentless exposure to glamourous individuals. We took it as an article of faith that everyone who appeared on TV was highly paid and lived a life of almost unimaginable excitement and luxury. We saw hundreds of examples every day that seemed to bear this out. On TV, we saw very little of the mind-bending drudgery that’s almost always a part of a great success story. We knew that superlative performance, and the accompanying rewards, were attainable — but nobody ever suggested that to attain them would be any kind of a strain.

Accordingly, many of us got the idea that if we soldiered on through school and scraped our way through college (and most of us went to college simply because everybody knew you had to go — hardly any of us went there with any specific goal in mind) we would, at 21 or thereabouts, magically be transformed into one of those rich, happy, happening people we saw on the tube every day. It was a mighty rude surprise when that didn’t transpire.

Children of previous generations weren’t exposed to so many exciting people who had apparently got where they were simply by growing up. Therefore, it never occurred to them not to pick a manageable goal, fairly early in life, and strive manfully towards it. The result, for many, was a satisfying career. Even Willy Loman didn’t end up miserable because he’d never known what to make of himself: only because he was displeased with the final product.

We’ve seen some exceptions: boomers who decided on a calling, pursued it with a will, and excelled at it, thereby achieving wealth, fame, wild sex, and so forth. Far more of us, however, just plugged along until we ran out of excuses to stay in college — and then, panicked, grabbed whatever job we could find. Now we’re stuck in lives we find barely tolerable. We can’t just chuck it all and go join a rock band, because that would entail a huge downward adjustment in our standard of living, which none of us would be willing to make even if we could be sure it were temporary. Besides, we’d have to get good at the guitar first.

For the boomers’ children — born between 1970 and 2000, more or less — it might be worse. The idea of learning a craft or a trade is dying. People are catching on to the fact that for most people, college is an utter waste of four years and hundreds of thousands of dollars. We lack hope and we lack desire. Nobody seems to want anything anymore.

Is it possible to instill in today’s youth the idea that a trade or profession well and truly pursued, with clearly stated goals in mind, is the surest route to the easy life that TV has taught them to crave? I have no idea. What worries me more, right at the moment, is how to drive this idea into my own aging skull with sufficient force that I might act on it.

- Josephus Rex Imperator

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to rule on whether a dead soldier’s family can sue protesters who picketed near their son’s burial service with signs that suggested that military casualties were God’s punishment of the U.S. for tolerating homosexuality. A jury in Maryland had previously awarded Albert Snyder, the father of the dead soldier, $10 million in damages in his suit against the Rev. Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church on the grounds that by demonstrating near the burial service, the defendants had invaded the mourners’ privacy and inflicted emotional distress. That judgment was thrown out last fall by a Federal Court of Appeals, on free-speech grounds.

Now, it transpires, a judge has ordered Snyder to pay Phelps’ legal bills — to the tune of about $16,000 — in view of the fact that the original verdict was overturned. This order has met with widespread outrage, and a number of people — most prominent among them is talk show host Bill O’Reilly — have stepped in to pay these bills on Snyder’s behalf.

I submit that O’Reilly et al. are entirely within their rights, to contribute financially to Snyder’s cause. However, I take the position that in these circumstances, Snyder should, indeed, be made to pay Phelps’ bills.

It’s clear to me that Snyder and his lawyers brought this suit not because the Snyder family suffered financial damages, or emotional damages that were worth more than one dollar. No: I submit that they brought this suit with the objective of financially ruining Phelps and his family. In my book, that’s malicious prosecution, and should not be tolerated.

The suit amounted to an attempt to punish the defendant with bankruptcy for harshing the plaintiff’s mellow. The plaintiff wanted to feel sad and solemn and was made to feel angry instead. That’s unpleasant, but it’s not actionable, in my opinion.

Are Phelps, et al., horrible people? I’d say so. But can we use the justice system to bankrupt someone — that being the obvious objective here — as punishment for extreme obnoxiousness? I’d say no. Our laws protecting freedom of speech do not exist to protect speech that most people approve of. Such speech needs no protection. The laws exist, rather, to protect speech that we abominate: speech that would be deeply offensive to most sensible people. The laws exist, you might almost say specifically, to protect the disgusting antics of Phelps and his odious posse.

What did Phelps, et al., do to Snyder? They carried signs, at some distance from the graveside, apparently. Did they interfere with the service? No. Did they threaten? No. Did they physically harm or assault or obstruct anyone? No.

Columnist Michael Smerconish, writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, stated the other day, “The lawyer in me hopes the court restricts Westboro’s free-speech rights in the same way it has in the past with regards to defamation, obscenity, and so-called fighting words. It’s a crime to yell ‘Fire!’ in the theater. It should be one to yell ‘fag’ at a fallen soldier’s funeral as well.”

I suggest that that’s not the lawyer in Mr. Smerconish talking. It’s the emotional idiot talking.

First of all, let’s talk about “fighting words.” The law does recognize that term; does recognize that some words, in some circumstances, are so offensive that the person who utters them can reasonably expect a blow in response. However, “fighting words” is an extenuating circumstance to be used on behalf of the person who threw the punch. It is NOT an excuse for prosecuting the speaker of those words, either civilly or criminally.

In other words, if I insult you in some unspeakable way, and you punch me in the face for it, the courts will take my provocation into account when deciding whether, and to what extent, you should be prosecuted for hitting me. However, the courts will not, should not, must not prosecute me for having uttered those words.

Now let’s talk about the idea that Phelps’ behavior was equivalent to shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre. I’ve heard that one from other commentators besides Smerconish, and it’s a moronic argument whomever it comes from.

First of all, strictly speaking, it’s NOT a crime to yell “fire” in the theatre, as Smerconish asserts. The consequences of that action — if a stampede results in injuries or property damage, for example — might be punishable. If no damage results, the very worst charge that could be made to stick might be disorderly conduct: a civil offense, much like a traffic ticket. However, no sensible policeman would write the ticket, and no sensible theatre manager would demand that the cop do more than throw the offender out on the street.

Second, carrying signs (or yelling “fag,” for that matter) does not constitute a potential danger to anyone but the carriers or the yellers themselves. To whom else were Phelps, et al., creating a hazard? Okay, so their conduct made people turn away in disgust — and well it might have. But I submit that the odium of their fellow man is the only punishment that can rightly be brought against them.

If Snyder’s suit against Phelps is allowed to go forward, it will confirm the already prevalent (and horrifying) notion that you can break anyone you wish to break, merely by bringing suit against him — however frivolous that suit might be. He’ll still have to defend himself against it, and pay astronomical legal costs.

That’s a particularly pernicious danger in a situation like this one, where an emotion-based argument can persuade a jury to impose outrageous damages.

The calls for the reinstatement of those ridiculous damages — or even just the reinstatement of the suit — are, to me, more offensive than anything Phelps and his pals might have said. Phelps can be laughed off, on the grounds that he’s ultimately powerless. A whole gang of imbeciles condoning the seizure of his assets: that constitutes a real danger.

- Josephus Rex Imperator

In one of his very old routines, the late comedian George Carlin remarked that he’d always resented his given name, because, he said, “George” ranks quite low on the List Of Getting Laid Automatically By The Sound Of Your Name. He’s not the only person to have discovered that list. I, too, have scanned it, and have found that Joseph is right down there in the same low position as George, just a notch above Elmer, Everett, Irving, or Marvin. We rank considerably lower than other uninspiring names, such as Murray, Phil, Dennis. Even Tim gets more trim.

This isn’t to say that George, or Joseph, or Irving never have girlfriends. We do, now and then. But to make ourselves interesting, we have to overcome a severe handicap — like a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.

Names go in and out of fashion, and some of them, I’m convinced, lose popularity because parents are aware that they’re low on the getting-laid list. For instance, Elmer Fudd was so christened because the name Elmer was perfect for a fat, ineffectual old guy. Even in the first part of this century, Elmer was an “old man’s” name. You don’t hear of too many boys being named Humphrey, Roscoe, Ignatius or Ferdinand these days, either.

Therefore, readers who are planning to reproduce: you might do well to discuss what you should name your male children if you don’t want them to be angry, lonely, sexually frustrated, and resentful of you for saddling them with a name that made them that way.

If you want your son to be a guaranteed chick-magnet, any Irish name is a good choice: Brendan or its variant, Brandon (dead-certain to get you laid by the hottest babe in the room, wherever you go); Brian; Sean; Seamus; Declan (another sure winner); Conor, Fergus. Use the original Gaelic spelling for extra effect. It helps, of course, if you have the accent to go with it, but that’s just an extra. It’s the name that matters. George might have the most musical brogue in Christendom, but he’ll still have to work for whatever action he gets. (Call him Seoras — the Gaelic equivalent — and he’ll do a lot better.)

Italian names have a reputation for getting you laid, but names like Pino, Tony, Fonz, Vito and so forth are not as universally sexy as the above-mentioned Irish names. They have a cult following, but they don’t attract women above a certain income level, or women of Anglo-Saxon or Nordic descent, or people of non-urban background.

Two “sleepers” — names that you wouldn’t think would get you laid, but do — are David and Michael. Davids and Michaels are usually not very sexy, but they always have something about them that allows them to consistently beat out a George or a Joseph. I’ve had to contend with so many guys named Michael — and one of them, in particular, was a total slimebag who managed to hold sway for years over a woman for whom I would have walked through 20 miles of napalm — that I instinctively loathe any stranger of that name, and have to be shown overwhelming evidence of his decency before I’ll put aside my prejudice.

Peter is near the front of the list, too, no doubt because of its phallic connotations. It’s especially good if you’re trying to attract the dreamy, ethereal types. Oddly, though, another phallic name — Dick — is well back in the pack.

My name is pretty far down the list, no matter what variation I use. “Joseph” conjures up the image of a rather uptight, over-cultured, bookish, unexciting, and decidedly not very macho guy. As for “Joe,” there’s a reason why that’s the first name of the fictitious “Joe Average.” Plodding, not very bright, and as scintillating as tapioca pudding. “Joey” might be okay if I dug women with heavy Bronx accents and big hair, who listen to Barry Manilow and Julio Iglesias. “Zeppo”? Too goofy. It might have worked when I was a teenager, though.

A similar list exists for girls’ names. Surprisingly, female Irish names are not invariably sexy. Names like Eileen, Maureen, Kathleen, Noreen, Pegeen, Mavourneen, Drisheen, Crubeen, Strychneen, Gasoleen, Thirteen and Stringbeen are down around the middle of the list. Plenty of non-Irish names, like Hepzibah, Euphemia, Edna, and Ethel, can put a girl at a horrible disadvantage. Jane is similar to Joseph or Joe: implicit of plainness, or averageness. Gaelicize it to Sheena or Shana, and it’s suddenly hot.

On the other hand, plenty of girls’ names are clear and consistent winners. For example, I loathe all those trendy yuppie shopping-mall names-all those Megans and Brittanys and Ambers — but by God I’ve never met an Amber who wasn’t a babe. Michelle — the female version of Michael — has about the same mojo as Michael. A Michelle may not be particularly pretty, witty, or sexy, but somehow she always makes out pretty good.

A few years ago, in a very bitter book called “Jennifer Fever,” a female author decried the tendency of older, financially successful men to dump their aging wives and take up with young bimbos-whom the author called “Jennifers.” And true enough, a lot of these new-model wives were named Jennifer, and they were hot little numbers, too!

These days, I’m noticing a huge wave of young women named Tara, all of them in their early 20s, all of them excruciatingly babe-a-licious, all of them very much aware of that fact, and all of them way too good to speak to the likes of me. What is it about that name, that makes every Tara really good-looking, and stuck-up besides?

Perhaps, to level the playing field, we should put the naming of babies in the hands of some massive Federal agency, which would bestow random combinations of letters on every newborn. I might make out better if my name were Vmkltyjr.

- Josephus Rex Imperator

In my last blog post, I asserted that in this country at least, the Left has a near-monopoly on the use of force to break up meetings or prevent certain viewpoints from being expressed publicly. I stand by that, but that is not to say that the Right is much more respectful of the concept of “freedom of speech.” Contempt for that concept is common among Americans, and expression of that contempt is usually preceded by, “I’m all for free speech, but…”

It’s useless to pretend that we really have free speech or a free press in the U.S. Our Federal government allows greater freedom of expression than do most other national governments, but that freedom is steadily being chipped away, usually to the applause of a large percentage of the populace. Just about everybody opposes free speech somehow, whether they want to censor anything to do with sex or scatology, or ban “hate speech,” or forbid criticism of a certain political party. Only a very few of us are free speech absolutists.

On the other hand, almost nobody who opposes freedom of speech is willing to say, “I oppose freedom of speech.” To say so, in the minds of many who do in fact oppose free speech, would be as dangerous as saying, “I see nothing wrong with having sex with children.”

I can understand why anyone would be afraid to make the latter assertion, even if he sincerely believed it. That position is so unpopular that if he said it, he would risk social ostracism, criminal investigation, and perhaps prosecution. But why are so many Americans afraid to say, “I oppose free speech,” when that position is manifestly popular, and when many Canadians and Europeans make that very statement with impunity?

This question presented itself to me yesterday, when I got into a conversation with someone who said, in all seriousness, that criminal charges should be lodged against right-wing propagandists Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, and perhaps others, for “incitement to violence.”

“Can you show me,” I asked him, “where any of those people ever exhorted people to commit violent crimes? Much less, can you show me where someone, because he heard such an exhortation, went and committed a violent crime? Or are you in fact urging criminal prosecution for speech that you find offensive?”

“Like proving the existence of death panels and the lack of Obama’s birth certificate, I don’t need to prove anything,” he said. “I just need to ask those questions. Like why do some of those callers into Beck’s and Limbaugh’s show feed off each other, to the point where a man infuriated by an Obama sticker rams repeatedly into an SUV with a little girl in it? Freedom of speech is one thing, but people advocating violence need to re-assess their roles in the current situation.”

To this response, I had to point out that he was still evading my questions, and that he hadn’t actually asked any of his own. Instead, he’d stated affirmatively that Beck, et al., should be prosecuted for their speech. I’d asked him to show me where they’d incited violence, and he would not.

“You’re actually advocating prosecution of speech that you think is offensive or that might influence opinions in a direction that you don’t like,” I told him. “It’s a simple question, and I’ll ask it again: Did any of those people you list ever exhort people to commit violent crimes?”

“You never change a man’s mind by arguing with him,” he replied, and I had to force back the urge to suggest that somebody wasn’t acting much like a man.

Instead, I said, “I’m not arguing: just stating your position a little more honestly than you’re willing to, yourself.”

At this point my interlocutor just said, “Done with ya, bro,” and walked away from the conversation.

Now, here’s what I found remarkable: He could have answered me. He could have said, “No, not in so many words, they didn’t — and maybe I spoke hastily when I said they should be prosecuted; I didn’t really mean that.” In that case, I’d not have thought the less of him; in fact I’d have respected him more. Or he could have said, “No, not in so many words, they didn’t — but, yes: I favor criminalization of speech that might tend to inflame.” In that case, I’d have had fun trying to get him to define his terms and propose his limits.

Instead, he kicked over the chessboard and ran away. It was his perception, correct or not, that he was going to lose face no matter how he answered my question.

We all hate to admit that we’ve said something wrong or stupid; I know I do. Even though we know deep down that admitting a mistake tends to minimize or prevent damage, we won’t do it, because our pride’s at stake. But I don’t think that’s what was going on here. I think this fellow really does oppose freedom of speech, really does think there should be prior restraint against certain types of speech, really does think that certain political speech should be criminalized.

So why wouldn’t he say so? He wouldn’t have faced social ostracism; plenty of people agree with him. What was he afraid of?

I think he was afraid of what he’d think of himself. If you come right out and say “I oppose free speech,” you’ll have to admit certain things about yourself, to yourself — and those admissions are not pleasant for most people.

- Josephus Rex Imperator

Ann Coulter is an evil clown, not a serious political commentator. She’s willfully ignorant and deliberately offensive. If I were a Republican, I’d be dying of embarrassment at the thought that anyone could take her seriously. As I’m a Libertarian, I can look upon her with amused toleration most of the time, and with disgust the rest of the time. But no matter how deeply her pronunciations and her demeanor might sometimes disgust me, it’s not a patch on how I feel about the people who succeeded, last night, in preventing her from speaking at the University of Ottawa.

I’m a free-speech absolutist. I’m not one of these people who says, “I believe in free speech, but…” But NOTHING. We have laws to punish libel and slander; we have criminal penalties if it can be proven that the speech in question caused a crime, or contributed to it. But prior restraint? Never.

That goes for extra-legal attempts to suppress speech, too — such as using the threat of force or violence to prevent Ms. Coulter from speaking. To my mind, that’s impermissible behavior, and conceivably criminal. It certainly constitutes the initiation of force, the opposition to which is the single most important principle of Libertarianism. It is sickening to me — literally, it slightly nauseates me — to see a scheduled lecture or mass meeting prevented by a mob, or to see a speaker disrupted by demonstrators whose only objective is to disrupt and suppress, rather than debate. The fact that in this case the demonstrators were egged on by the university’s provost, François Houle, makes him and them even more despicable.

(Yes, I’m aware that M. Houle wrote privately to Ms. Coulter, threatening her with prosecution for politically incorrect speech, but I can’t for an instant believe that he didn’t expect her to publish the letter.)

I’m not going to get into a discussion of whether there should be limits to legally permissible speech, nor am I going to make a case defending what I’ve just said about these demonstrators. If I could work my will, people who use force or the threat of it to prevent someone from making a presentation of the type that was suppressed last night should flogged so that they’d never sit down or lie on their backs comfortably again, and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

What I am going to do, though, is posit that demonstrators of this type are almost invariably of the Left — or at any rate they are people who would classify themselves as “liberal” or “progressive” or “enlightened” or “interested in social justice.” And almost invariably, these people mob up in order to suppress any message that they consider “intolerant” or “bigoted.” Now, that’s funny, isn’t it?

Cast your mind back over the years, and you’ll find I’m right. Excepting the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, how often, in the past 50 years or so, have you heard of a left-wing speaker being forced by mob action to cancel her presentation? Almost never. How often, on the other hand, have you heard of incidents similar to what befell la Coulter, perpetrated on other righties? How often have you heard of conservative campus newspapers being stolen and destroyed? How often have you heard of meetings interrupted, speakers shouted down, if the meeting’s agenda or the speaker’s message is deemed politically incorrect by enlightened liberals? Pretty often, right?

Right-wingers might picket. They might demonstrate. They might heckle a bit. They might protest an opinion by turning their backs or walking out. But no matter how mean-minded or pig-ignorant they are, they generally protest without the threat of force or violence. They don’t seek to stop a speaker from going on. We can argue all we like about which political positions are the more virtuous, but that’s not the point of this post. My point is that the kind of behavior we saw last night is almost exclusively the property of the Left — and it’s shameful that we hear so few on the Left condemning it.

Why can’t these “progressive” and “tolerant” people confine themselves to silent protest? Why can’t they express their contempt for a jerk like Ms. Coulter by simply shunning her? Why can’t they, at least, confine themselves to the occasional wisecrack from the galleries, if they feel compelled to sit through her speech?

Because their objective is CONTROL. Their objective is to make others live the way they think people ought to live. And that means forcibly preventing people from hearing anything that ought not to be heard. They know better than we do. I suppose we ought to thank them.

- Josephus Rex Imperator