R.I.P.s in Threes

Any celebrity on his or her deathbed at the moment would do well to hang on for a few more days. It's already been quite a week for famous fatalities and there isn't much ink left to spare on the subject of fallen stars.

A few days ago it was Ed McMahon, the jovial, gruff-voiced Johnny Carson sidekick whose passing was sad, but not exactly tragic given that he was 86 years old.

Then came yesterday's double-whammy. Actress Farrah Fawcett died of cancer at age 62 earlier in the day, but only a few hours later Michael Jackson ruined her closeup by having a fatal heart attack (or so it seems) at the age of 50.

McMahon was old and Fawcett had battled cancer for years, so neither of their deaths were particularly shocking. Jackson, however, is another story. He became famous before he hit puberty, moved on to become the world's biggest - and biggest-selling - pop star in part by cranking out videos filled with youthful fantasy images and spent the last few years of life raising his own children and fending off accusations of molesting other kids. 50 is awfully young to die, but it seems even younger in Jackson's case because his public persona was that of a man whose emotional and intellectual maturing process had halted somewhere in his tween years. He was always and forever a child.

Jackson had been rehearsing for a comeback tour in the past few months, but his early death may actually be the best thing that could happen to his musical legacy, which his strangeness had come to overshadow. He is, after all, the creator of dozens of massive hits, the man who carried music television on his back during its first few uncertain years and the artist who definitively shattered racial divisions in pop music. He influenced just about every mainstream artist that came after him on some level or another with his showmanship, iconography and, of course, his tunes.

He'll never again have to defend himself against accusations of pedophilia, he'll never have another plastic surgery and he'll never dangle another baby out of a window, and as time goes by, those incidents will gradually fade from public memory. At some point then, Jackson will be judged on his merits as an artist. And while I'm not a major fan, I can acknowledge that he stands among the best on any objective level.

We Are All Neda...

...but are we all also sordid voyeurs?

The video of the young Iranian woman who died of a gunshot wound on the streets of Tehran last week has made the YouTube rounds for several days. I don't link to it here because for one thing, it's likely you've already seen it and for another, it's easy enough to find. I'm also not sure I want to become another link in a chain in a phenomenon that straddles an uncomfortable line between righteous, principled protest and outright exploitation.

That said, I have seen the video, in which the woman, allegedly named Neda, crumples to the ground and dies a few seconds later while several protesters try in vain to revive her (and others document her passing with their camera phones). In fact, I clicked on several versions and watched more than once. So I'm not claiming any kind of moral high ground. And there's no doubt that there's a moral argument for posting and sharing the video, as it brings visceral immediacy to the outrageous alleged crimes of a far-off regime and stirs support around the world.

I say "alleged" because one thing the video doesn't show is the murderer, and thus we can't be certain whether Neda was killed in cold blood by an Iranian officer, felled by a stray bullet aimed elsewhere or the victim of some other perpetrator. As Hanna Rosin of the DoubleX blog points out in a wide-ranging discussion about the Neda video, what is being reported as fact by the citizens of cyberspace and even mainstream media outlets may, in fact, be mythology. 

That conversation is worth reading in its entirety because it touches on so many issues raised by video. For example,  Meghan O'Rourke's interpretation of why we watch such gruesome images - she suggests it's because we're fascinated and curious by witnessing the exact moment when someone goes from being alive to being dead (a moment the Neda video captures in intimate detail) - seems spot-on to me, while Dana Stevens wonders if Neda's elevation to symbolic martyr status hasn't diminished her humanity.

The bottom line is that the video is out there, for activists and voyeurs alike. I'm guessing that most of us who've watched it have elements of both within us. On balance, I think it's existence and dissemination is a good thing, because it makes the dire situation in Iran harder to ignore. But, like Neda's death, figuring out the moral implications of the video is messy business.

A Puff of Common Sense

Earlier this week, President Obama (a smoker) signed off on a new bill that essentially forces cigarette shills into a competition to make their products less harmful and addictive. A strange group of partners - which includes a president who smokes and a major tobacco company that helped U.S. lawmakers craft the bill - thus created a surprisingly sensible piece of legislation.

In an article filed under what has to be one of the best headlines of all time, William Saletan of Slate explains why the bill is so sensible. The short version is that, rather than banning tobacco companies from the marketplace outright, the law uses the principles of free marketplace to achieve its harm-reduction goals.

The broader implication of this bill, as Saletan notes, is that if it works for tobacco, its principles could just as easily be applied to other drugs currently prohibited by law. There will always be a marketplace for narcotics of all kinds, but governments can limit the harm that drugs cause by enacting laws similar to the one just created for the tobacco industry.

Seems like wishful thinking, though. The politics of the drug war are deeply entrenched, and this kind of solution is so simple to grasp and so likely to be effective that it stands almost no chance of being adopted.

Unionomics

It's been a long time, but I've written before about my ambivalence about unions, first questioning the left's automatic support of them in times of labour strife and then acknowledging a commenter's point that the hard-line mentality of labour organizations is at least in part a response to hard-line stands by employers and governments (if you're going to dig your heels in, I'll dig mine in deeper - that sort of thing).

Now, with my home city of Toronto into the second day of a strike by city employees, including sanitation and community centre workers, and the province of Ontario facing a strike by LCBO staffers, the union issue is top of mind again. But I find myself no clearer on the subject than I was more than a year ago.

Part of that is selfishness, of course. Having these workers off the job is a (pretty minor) inconvenience, so on a personal level it's difficult to summon any rah-rah feelings for either the picketers or the government officials whose unsuccessful negotiating is equally responsible for the strike. Another reason for my indecision is ignorance. I simply don't have a deep enough understanding of the issues in play, other than knowing they involve usual suspects such as job security and benefits, to pick a good guy and a bad guy in these confrontations.

I'm going to give Graham F. Scott, editor of This Magazine, the benefit of the doubt and assume that he does have a better understanding of the issues. I certainly hope that this post in support of the striking city workers isn't just the knee-jerk reaction of a dutiful liberal foot soldier. Now (full disclosure), I know Graham a little bit and I have every reason to believe his opinion is more considered than that. And I certainly agree with his statement that the union movement has been an overwhelming success in improving the rights of all workers, even those that don't belong to a union.

However, when he writes that the city workers' union shouldn't just "roll over and die every time management has a cashflow problem" and that the union "exists to preserve existing benefits, negotiate for new ones and stand up for their members' job rights," he loses me just a little. Not because they're incorrect or controversial in and of themselves, but because they paint a grim picture of what a union stands for, one that I have a hard time rallying behind.

Here's why. In the documentary The Corporation, the filmmakers argued that corporate entities, with their utter disregard for anything beyond their own narrow self-interest, fit the clinical definition of a psychopath. Fair enough. But when I read Graham's description of what a union exists for, it's just far too easy to substitute the word "corporation" for "union" and words like "revenues" and "profits" for "benefits" and "rights" and come up with the same conclusion. Employers and union employees may be adversaries at the bargaining table, but both seemed to be governed by the same principle of more, more, more - regardless of who gets harmed in the process or of mitigating circumstances that might make their objectives unreasonable.

The current economic situation calls for compromise at both ends. As I've said, I don't have a good enough sense of what's holding up negotiations for city or Liquor Control Board workers to know who is and isn't bargaining in good faith. But if there's a psychopath at the table, I can't blindly assume he or she is sitting on the employer's side.

Um...Sorry?

The U.S. Senate has delivered an official apology for slavery and the Jim Crow laws that kept African-Americans in a state of quasi-freedom for decades after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. The bill, passed unanimously (and wouldn't it have been interesting if there had been a dissenter), is surprisingly honest and robust in its language, condemning slavery not merely as an execrable-but-ancient practice but also for the legacy of humiliation, lost culture, fractured families and general inequality that its victims, and the country as a whole, struggles with to this day. Maybe my bullshit detector is wonky, but the apology seems as sincere as these politically orchestrated things ever get, and not just a false reckoning engaged in with the hope of forever consigning slavery to dusty history books where it can be comfortably ignored. 

But it's hard to feel too celebratory about this apology, however genuine it may be. I suspect that, for an awful lot of people, particularly young people, any urge to applaud was quickly muted by a question nagging at them from the inside. A question that goes something like, "It's taken them how long?" Anyone who hadn't looked into it might have assumed that this had been done decades ago, as, of course, it should have been. After passing the bill, many senators talked about how it constituted a step toward "healing old wounds," but I wonder how many wounds have actually been torn open, or at least picked at, by this reminder of how slow the U.S. has been to acknowledge its most grievous crime. 

Still, it had to happen sometime, and certainly 146 years isn't quite as bad as 147, 148 and so on. And maybe the majority of African-Americans will follow the lead of Terence Samuel, deputy editor of the online publication The Root, who eloquently accepted the apology in this column. 

For African-Americans like Samuel to take the high road is astonishingly gracious, more so than the U.S. government can possibly expect. But it's probably what the nation needs.

Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution

Well, you know, we all want to change the world. And for the past week, courageous Iranian citizens have been trying to change their little pocket of it, having rightfully rejected the results of an election that returned president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. All indications leading up to the vote last Friday suggested that it would be a photo finish between the bombastic, conservative Ahmadinejad and the reformer - a relative term, to be sure - Mir Hussein Moussavi, but the incumbent was announced as the winner by a landslide, an outcome that leaves little doubt that the election was rigged.

The thousands of Iranian demonstrators who have taken to the streets since then are proof that it isn't just an adversarial West that suspects this "election" has earned its scare-quotes. After 30 years of rule by an Islamic theocracy that holds the true power in the country (Ahmadinejad's a puppet figure, as is Moussavi, to a lesser degree, because no one can run for office without the mullahs' approval), Iran's overwhelmingly young, educated and urban population seems to have had enough. They're protesting the sham election, and they're risking imprisonment and death at the hands of their rulers to do it. 

In any repressive regime, there are bound to be political dissidents, but without widespread support, they can't bring down the existing powers. So the outpouring of grassroots support for change in Iran is encouraging - on the surface, it seems like the numbers are there for a new, democratic revolution. Sadly, in this case the usual equation - determined individuals lacking broad support and resources - has been flipped upside down. In Iran, as noted here in Slate, the broad support is there, but the people lack a rallying figure or party. Moussavi might not be as bad as Ahmadinejad, but the difference is more shades-of-grey than black and white.

Still, revolutions have to begin somewhere. 30 years ago, a revolution in Iran created the current regime. No matter how viciously they crack down on the current uprising, Iran's leaders, from the puppets to their masters, have been forced to face the fact that a new revolution is coming, even if it takes decades.

Sniff

Lately I appear to have turned into a blubbering pile of mush. I bawled repeatedly through Up, in theory an animated children's flick but in practice a tearjerker the likes of which I have not experienced since Away From Her. As dozens of little kids shrieked and giggled and picked their nose, I fought off sobs and wiped tears off my face. 

Today, I read a journalist's tribute to her husband's first wife, whose death of cancer indirectly paved the way for the life the writer now enjoyed. Heartfelt, generous, insightful and free from jealousy, it almost sent me to Up territory in terms of waterworks. 

Am I really this brittle? If this keeps up, I won't be able to step on a bug without experiencing a total emotional collapse. 

I hope this is not symptom of aging.

Cut 'N Rummy

He may have been gruff, arrogant, stubborn and evasive. He may have been an advocate for the original Iraq invasion and guilty of dreadfully mismanaging the subsequent conflict. But the folks who've spent the past six years calling for an end to the U.S. military presence in Iraq might be surprised to know that former secretary of defense and the man whose face adorned many a liberal dart board spent the latter part of his term trying to do exactly that. In the months before his November 2006 dismissal, his sin wasn't that he refused to pull troops out, but rather that he wanted to do so too quickly. 

That's one of many interesting tidbits in Bradley Graham's Washington Post story, which came out today in advance of his Rummy biography. It's a long read, but worthwhile. And food for thought for anyone who thinks this colossal mistake can be undone by simply withdrawing armed Western forces from Iraq.

Where's The Safety On This Thing?

A little less than a year ago, I had the pleasure of taking a road trip through the Southern U.S., a region that many of us left-leaning folks from cooler climes tend to imagine as a kind of Dante's Inferno of handguns and hatred. For the most part, though, the Inferno was literal - the people were friendly, but it was too damn hot.

Which is not to say that there weren't some disturbing conversations and images. The racial tension was palpable, and the guns seemed as easy to purchase as a pack of gum. I remember walking into a gun store and seeing everything from small handguns to military-style assault weapons, ranging in price from a couple hundred bucks for the former to a couple thousand for the latter. Frighteningly affordable, I thought, but I tried to console myself with the idea that, hey, at least one had to pass a background check.

Headlines from the past couple of weeks have stirred up memories of those casually hateful conversations and that spooky gun store visit. Just days after abortion doctor George Tiller was murdered in Kansas, an elderly white supremacist walked into a Holocaust memorial museum in Maryland and gunned down a security guard before the guard's colleagues brought him down with their own bullets. It's fair to say that James von Brunn's targets weren't the uniformed security, and only some good luck and bravery prevented a more massive tragedy. 

Kansas and Maryland might not belong to "The South" in the strictest sense (maybe Maryland?), or at least aren't lumped in with the states, such as Mississippi and Alabama, that I visited last year. But my intention was never to pick on the South. What these headlines illustrate is the continued existence of violent, hateful people and the ease with which they can act on their rage pretty much anywhere in the U.S. 

In America, finances aren't much of an obstacle to getting a firearm. Or two. Or an entire weapons cache. Nor do the background checks seem to present a significant hurdle. If von Brunn, a very public and avowed anti-Semite and racist with a long history of convictions for violent offences, can legally own a gun, who can't? What exactly does one have to do to get red-flagged? Now, I'm assuming that von Brunn, as well as Tiller's accused murderer Scott Roeder, legally owned their guns. Perhaps not. But someone did, and the killers somehow got their hands on them, and that to me suggests that guns are altogether too accessible.  

History shows that it's difficult to defend the 1st Amendment and call for the abolishment of the 2nd, which is why guns seem destined to be forever part of the American cultural fabric. But perhaps one day people there will get tired of reading headlines like these and recognize that not all constitutionally enshrined values remain useful in perpetuity. The British left America a long time ago, and they're not coming back, except as tourists.

I know that guns don't kill people, people do. But guns sure do help people kill people, and killing people shouldn't be easy.

Thou Doth Protest Too Much

I keep looking for my cheque for blogging services rendered, but just can't seem to find it. It must be in the mail, right? Sigh. Until it gets here, actual work that I get paid for sometimes pulls me away for longer periods than I'd like, hence the sluggish start to June. Not to worry, though - I've found some timely and some out-of-date news to comment on, so here goes.

I can understand why Cindy Sheehan continues to mount protests against ex-president George W. Bush. She did, after all, lose a son in a the Iraq war, a military initiative that a majority of people feel was either misguided from the beginning, managed with woeful negligence, or some combination of the two. And I'm hardly going to begrudge a grieving mother for venting her anger at the people she feels are responsible - although I'm skeptical that her efforts will produce any satisfying result, and I do wonder if her obsessive focus on Dubya could be unhealthily prolonging and intensifying her grief.

As for the (fairly meagre) band of protesters who gathered in downtown Toronto a couple of weeks back to voice their displeasure at a joint speaking event co-starring Bush and fellow ex-prez Bill Clinton, I don't wonder at all. I'm quite certain that their Bush obsession (no giggling) is unhealthy and counterproductive. 

I'll grant the point that, if you're a Canadian who believes president No. 43 is a war criminal, you probably believe Canada should refuse him entry into the country. But Bush hasn't been arrested on any such charge, and at any rate I doubt that most of the folks who showed up care much about the legal distinction. As one young anti-Bushie told the CBC in the article linked above, "I'm here to protest everything Bush has done. He's a symbol of everything that has gone wrong in the world." I have this funny feeling that this sign-carrier might be a little foggy on the specific details of Bush's misdeeds, but hey, who cares about the details when you can blame one man for "everything" that's gone wrong?

Without question, Bush's presidency was filled with enough arrogance, secrecy, lies, mistakes, stupidity and moral failure (masked as moral superiority) to warrant his piss-poor reputation. But the fact is that he is no longer president and no longer makes the decisions that affect his country and the world. Rather than continue to spit venom at him, it would be much more productive to encourage Obama and other world leaders to find the best solutions to the problems Bush created. 

For eight years, Dubya indeed made for a fine symbol, but that symbol has outlived its usefulness. Dubya is yesterday's news. I wish we could say the same about obsessive Bush-bashing.

A Time to Kill?

The man who walked into a Kansas church this past Sunday and gunned down George Tiller apparently thought so. Tiller was an abortion provider, with a specialty in late-term procedures that few doctors were willing to practice, and that made him a valid target for his assassin - alleged to be a man named Scott Roeder. 

It wasn't the first time Tiller had been the victim of violence. His clinic had been bombed and he'd been shot before, in both arms, by those who believed that he was a murderer. Roeder, or whomever fired the fatal bullet, merely took the life-for-a-life concept to its extreme conclusion. Rest assured that the assassin will likely never feel much guilt about murdering someone who was himself, from the pro-life perspective, a mass murderer. 

Yet the most prominent pro-life organizations are hardly cheering, at least not publicly. The condemnation of Tiller's murder has been almost total, ranging from Planned Parenthood to Americans United for Life. Those opposed to abortion point out that since they believe the procedure involves the taking of a life, they can hardly condone murder - even if it's the murder of an abortionist.

But the absence of support for Tiller's killer opens a window into the mindset of the pro-life movement, as Slate's William Saletan writes in one of the most piercing examinations of the abortion debate I've ever read. Saletan compares Tiller and the man who killed him to soldiers, pointing out that both were willing to back up their beliefs with actions. 

Most pro-choicers, Saletan argues, get to conveniently sidestep the gory details of abortion procedures, whereas Tiller literally got his hands dirty. Supporting choice is one thing, but providing it is enough to make most people squeamish.

Similarly, most pro-lifers say they equate abortion with murder, but very few would be willing to commit murder, even if it meant stopping a "mass murderer" like Tiller. Their beliefs make them feel righteous, but the idea of backing these beliefs up the way Tiller's assassin did makes them squeamish.

Eventually, Saletan comes to the conclusion that the pro-life side doesn't actually believe abortion and murder are the same thing, no matter how often they might say they do. As further proof, he notes that even pro-life organizations pushing for legal sanctions against abortion providers don't think women who have abortions should be prosecuted. Saletan figures that all this, combined with the fact that almost nobody, even pro-choicers, are really pro-abortion in the "Congratulations on your abortion!" sense, means the two sides in the debate might actually find common ground in seeking to reduce the number of abortions through realistic, humane means such as birth control education.

That might be a pipe dream, given the religious underpinnings of the pro-life movement. But Saletan has managed to poke a hole in the moral absolutism of both the pro-life and pro-choice crowd. Whatever side of the debate you're on, this article will challenge the way you think about the issue.