Every once in a while, the nation's newspaper conglomerates, television networks and Internet, uh, folks, come across a story that just plain gets out of hand. Rarely has there been a better example of this than the uplifting fable of the New Orleans Saints football team.
I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. You've got a city (actually several cities and too many towns and parishes to count, but then no one's actually trying to) still reeling 17 months after a horrible disaster that tried not just the physical safety but also the heritage of its citizens. There is talk that New Orleans will never be able to rebuild, not really, and that we have lost a city unique in the world.
Then just like in the movies, a group of heroes emerges from the wasteland. A group of strong, charismatic men of many colors. A rainbow coalition of skill and athleticism. The Saints. As their city struggles against poverty, disease and destruction, so do Drew Brees and Reggie Bush struggle against their foes in the National Football Conference. Where once the Superdome was wind-thrashed and overflowing with a mass of suffering humanity, now it was filled with cheering fans, united behind their boys. People were whispering "Super Bowl." The city that care forgot was back.
It sounded great. Dozens of different narratives showing how beautifully the Saints' resurgence mirrored that of New Orleans hit the press, and it was gold. It was feel-good disaster coverage for the whole family.
The thing is, it wasn't true. New Orleans has been and remains a terrible mess. Many homes and businesses are still empty. Electricity remains unreliable in most of the outlying areas. And according to Adam Nossiter of The New York Times, well less than half of the city's pre-Katrina population of 444,000 are there now:
"Katrina may have brutally recalibrated the city's demographics, setting New Orleans firmly on the path that its underlying characteristics already had been leading it down: a city losing people at the rate of perhaps 1.5 percent a year before Katrina, with a stagnant economy, more than a quarter of the population living in poverty and a high rate of unemployment, in which as many as one in five were jobless or not seeking work."
To put it bluntly, New Orleans is just about screwed. You'd think that a world-famous, historically significant American city on the verge of going out of business would be an important political issue. But judging by Tuesday's State of the Union address, it isn't: The president did not mention the biggest domestic catastrophe since the Civil War even once.
Back to the Saints. I've always liked them as a football team, probably because when I was little, their old uniforms reminded me of knights. I think that the current tag team of running backs Bush and Deuce McAllister is one of the most exciting things going in the NFL. But are they the saviors of New Orleans? Do they represent its people? Let's see: Reggie Bush's six-year contract guarantees him $26.2 million no matter what happens, and he could pull as much as $51 million plus bonuses. When I was there last year, the average joe in New Orleans counted himself lucky if his apartment still had a roof on it.
Then the Saints lost and the whole story got messed up. Sportswriters don't know if they should applaud the team's mighty effort, mourn lost opportunities or leave the thing alone because, hey, disaster relief is a total downer.
At least they tried, though. I have to give "the media" credit for not letting the New Orleans story fade away, even if some of the angles they take on it are pretty goofy. It's a battle someone has to fight. Because even if rapper Kanye West was wrong and George Bush and company actually do care about black people, they sure don't seem to be doing much about the place where hundreds of thousands of them used to live.
•••
I'm 40-some years old now and man I don't care.?All I want now is just a comfortable chair.?And to sell all my stock.?And live on the coast.?I don't believe in heaven, but I still believe in mfarley@register-pajaronian.com.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
The girl can't help it
And now, I'd like to talk about public nudity.
It's been a couple of weeks now since photos of Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees acting… unladylike surfaced on the Internet and America is finally beginning to pick up the pieces. It's always terrible when a public figure who is paid to pose so men can ogle her goes "off the reservation" and lets them ogle her for free. But this time, I have taken it especially hard because the rogue trollop is a fellow Nevadan.
No, Katie and I have never met, although it looks likely that she wouldn't remember it if we had. But I feel that I understand her pain nonetheless. It's like, pretend that you're an attractive young person (not all of us have to pretend, of course, but bear with me). Pretend that you're a beauty queen, which means your very livelihood has always depended on your ability to give a dynamite first impression to judges, fashion designers and older men, such as Miss USA owner Donald Trump.
More than that, imagine that ever since you were small, you got positive feedback when you did things that drew a lot of attention to how pretty you were — such as winning pageants. And not only did you never learn that people also cared what you were like inside, you found yourself in a lifestyle where most people literally don't. That could be rough on the old self-esteem.
Now let's pretend that a few years go by and now you're really drunk at a bar with your friends. Nobody is paying attention to you, which makes you feel kind of lousy. You decide you don't like feeling lousy. The equation is simple: If you can make people look at you, you will feel good. Click. Time to strip.
The whole Rees scandal makes me doubt the intelligence of the average citizen. What exactly did we expect? Models, including those in so-called "scholarship programs" like Miss USA, are young women who have been shown over and over that looks are all that matter and that if they make one wrong move, they will cease to be pretty enough to compete. Then no one will like them. It's a miracle we don't have pixielike 20-somethings exploding every day like a chain of firecrackers across the globe.
Another aspect that bothers me is the double standard implied here. When Rees appeared in mainstream magazines, it was OK, because we could all pretend that every male in the audience was not looking straight at her chest. But as soon as pics come out acknowledging that some people might want to see her without her clothes, and — horrors! — that she might want to see other people without theirs, she compromised the sanctity of her office. The moral of that story is one we've heard before, mostly from guys who harass their secretaries: Sex is bad and we should pretend it doesn't exist.
I'm not saying that taking those pictures was a smart move, though. It was foolish. Rees has probably managed to ruin her preferred career path for good. She won't starve, but she probably will never be Miss America. I feel that she did this to herself, and I don't have much sympathy. But haven't you ever done something you'd rather not have broadcast over the Internet? How about your wife or son? How would you feel if anyone with a computer could see a photo gallery of you losing your last job or getting dumped by your college girlfriend?
What if you were Katie Rees' parent? A lot of people say, "My daughter would never do something like that." But everyone who ever did drugs or appeared in an adult video or committed a war crime was someone's child, and I'm willing to bet most of their folks never saw it coming. People do dumb stuff, especially when they're young and confused. Maybe if you try to cut them a little slack when they screw up, someone will do the same when it's your grandson up there on stage.
•••
He is the lamb. She is the slaughter. She's moving way too fast and all he wanted was to hold her. Nothing that mfarley@register-pajatonian.com does is really having an effect. He whispers that he loves her, but she's probably only looking for…so much more than he could ever give. A life full of lies and failing relationships. He keeps his hands pinned down at his sides. He waits for it to end and for the aching in his guts to subside.
It's been a couple of weeks now since photos of Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees acting… unladylike surfaced on the Internet and America is finally beginning to pick up the pieces. It's always terrible when a public figure who is paid to pose so men can ogle her goes "off the reservation" and lets them ogle her for free. But this time, I have taken it especially hard because the rogue trollop is a fellow Nevadan.
No, Katie and I have never met, although it looks likely that she wouldn't remember it if we had. But I feel that I understand her pain nonetheless. It's like, pretend that you're an attractive young person (not all of us have to pretend, of course, but bear with me). Pretend that you're a beauty queen, which means your very livelihood has always depended on your ability to give a dynamite first impression to judges, fashion designers and older men, such as Miss USA owner Donald Trump.
More than that, imagine that ever since you were small, you got positive feedback when you did things that drew a lot of attention to how pretty you were — such as winning pageants. And not only did you never learn that people also cared what you were like inside, you found yourself in a lifestyle where most people literally don't. That could be rough on the old self-esteem.
Now let's pretend that a few years go by and now you're really drunk at a bar with your friends. Nobody is paying attention to you, which makes you feel kind of lousy. You decide you don't like feeling lousy. The equation is simple: If you can make people look at you, you will feel good. Click. Time to strip.
The whole Rees scandal makes me doubt the intelligence of the average citizen. What exactly did we expect? Models, including those in so-called "scholarship programs" like Miss USA, are young women who have been shown over and over that looks are all that matter and that if they make one wrong move, they will cease to be pretty enough to compete. Then no one will like them. It's a miracle we don't have pixielike 20-somethings exploding every day like a chain of firecrackers across the globe.
Another aspect that bothers me is the double standard implied here. When Rees appeared in mainstream magazines, it was OK, because we could all pretend that every male in the audience was not looking straight at her chest. But as soon as pics come out acknowledging that some people might want to see her without her clothes, and — horrors! — that she might want to see other people without theirs, she compromised the sanctity of her office. The moral of that story is one we've heard before, mostly from guys who harass their secretaries: Sex is bad and we should pretend it doesn't exist.
I'm not saying that taking those pictures was a smart move, though. It was foolish. Rees has probably managed to ruin her preferred career path for good. She won't starve, but she probably will never be Miss America. I feel that she did this to herself, and I don't have much sympathy. But haven't you ever done something you'd rather not have broadcast over the Internet? How about your wife or son? How would you feel if anyone with a computer could see a photo gallery of you losing your last job or getting dumped by your college girlfriend?
What if you were Katie Rees' parent? A lot of people say, "My daughter would never do something like that." But everyone who ever did drugs or appeared in an adult video or committed a war crime was someone's child, and I'm willing to bet most of their folks never saw it coming. People do dumb stuff, especially when they're young and confused. Maybe if you try to cut them a little slack when they screw up, someone will do the same when it's your grandson up there on stage.
•••
He is the lamb. She is the slaughter. She's moving way too fast and all he wanted was to hold her. Nothing that mfarley@register-pajatonian.com does is really having an effect. He whispers that he loves her, but she's probably only looking for…so much more than he could ever give. A life full of lies and failing relationships. He keeps his hands pinned down at his sides. He waits for it to end and for the aching in his guts to subside.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
I got your surge right here
"Dude, that was the most terrible shot I've seen in a long time," Mike shouted from the other end of the shuffleboard table as my pusher caromed past its intended target and tumbled into the gutter. "You're worse than an insurgent."
He and his opponent gathered up the pucks and began skimming them back toward me. Mike's first shot stalled halfway down the table and the other guy hammered it off with his next puck. As the round heated up and the trash talk got louder and fouler, the girl I'd been playing against wandered back to the bar. While I wanted her to come back, I sincerely hoped it would be without the wheat beer she'd been trying to foist off on me all evening.
Mike banked a puck along the left side of the table and got a decent lie in the 2-point zone. He held his arms aloft, Rocky style, a display made all the more impressive by the fact that both of his arms were still attached and functioning normally. There are plenty of folks who've spent time in Iraq who can't say the same.
Our buddy Jason sidled up to watch the game. He was also an Iraq vet, and likewise had lost nothing in the war — at least nothing visible. His service had finally run out, and his hair had grown back after four years of high-and-tight crew cuts. He sported the same carefully styled bangs he'd had in junior high, though perhaps with a deeper widow's peak. Come to think of it, it seemed like most of the guys were developing V-shaped hairdos these days. I resolved not to check my own locks too carefully on my next trip to the bathroom. Jason probably still had better hair than me.
The soldiers exchanged some good-natured insults while Mike waited for his opponent to throw. Between the two of them, they'd survived least six vehicle explosions, along with any number of events that they considered too mundane to mention but would probably send me shrieking out into the night. It was entirely possible that people had died as a result of two of my best friends' actions within the last six months. Perhaps many people. And not only was that OK, but it was something I and most other Americans respected them for. I wondered if I could do their job and then just turn it off and go play shuffleboard.
Then I considered how much pain and misfortune I come across in my own job and realized that maybe I could. Maybe anyone could, under the right circumstances. Or maybe it took a certain kind of person to do it and they all hung out together on the weekends. Maybe that was why I suddenly found myself in a room full of fighters, writers, drunks and womanizers and loved them all. In any case, I needed to visit the jukebox.
As I moved toward it, I noticed several other guys edging in the same direction. When I walked faster, so did they. I looked both ways and ran flat out for the box, sparking a stampede of pub patrons who knew that there would be no more country music in this bar if Matt Farley had his way. I stayed ahead of them for most of the way, but was swallowed up by the mob before I could lay hands on the controls.
After a ferocious struggle, Mike lunged past the crowd and started feeding change into the jukebox. Merle Haggard began blaring from the speakers. I howled in defeat as the soldiers queued up several hours' worth of Toby Keith and Lynrd Skynrd songs. Every Army guy I ever knew listened to pop country. It must be something they teach in basic training. I straggled back to the shuffleboard table.
My focus shot, I immediately started giving up points by the dozen. I went down like I was being paid to throw the game. Fortunately, there was liquid consolation close at hand. We all clinked glasses.
"When are you going back?" I asked Mike.
"To the Army, or to Iraq?" he laughed and had some whiskey. I guessed that was the only reaction a sane person could have. "Sunday, and never, I hope."
Never looks like it might come a little sooner than any of us would like. By the time you read this, the president will probably have announced a 20,000-troop escalation of the Iraq invasion. I'm willing to bet that it sounded pretty good when he called on the brave champions of America to once again do their proud duty to enhance the glorious march of freedom, or something to that effect.
To me, though, it sounds a lot like "These folks have a duty to die to help us save face." I don't want to hear any more about civil wars and conflicting worldviews. I don't want to hear another word lauding the first female Speaker of the House. And I am sick to death of euphemisms like "troop surge" and "future success." All I want to hear is that nobody I know is likely to be shot this week, and I'll be good. You'd think the world's last superpower could at least manage that.
•••
We'll be fighting in the streets with our children at our feet. And the morals that they worship will be gone. And the men who spurred mfarley@register-pajaronian.com on sit in judgment of all wrong. They decide and the shotgun sings the song.
He and his opponent gathered up the pucks and began skimming them back toward me. Mike's first shot stalled halfway down the table and the other guy hammered it off with his next puck. As the round heated up and the trash talk got louder and fouler, the girl I'd been playing against wandered back to the bar. While I wanted her to come back, I sincerely hoped it would be without the wheat beer she'd been trying to foist off on me all evening.
Mike banked a puck along the left side of the table and got a decent lie in the 2-point zone. He held his arms aloft, Rocky style, a display made all the more impressive by the fact that both of his arms were still attached and functioning normally. There are plenty of folks who've spent time in Iraq who can't say the same.
Our buddy Jason sidled up to watch the game. He was also an Iraq vet, and likewise had lost nothing in the war — at least nothing visible. His service had finally run out, and his hair had grown back after four years of high-and-tight crew cuts. He sported the same carefully styled bangs he'd had in junior high, though perhaps with a deeper widow's peak. Come to think of it, it seemed like most of the guys were developing V-shaped hairdos these days. I resolved not to check my own locks too carefully on my next trip to the bathroom. Jason probably still had better hair than me.
The soldiers exchanged some good-natured insults while Mike waited for his opponent to throw. Between the two of them, they'd survived least six vehicle explosions, along with any number of events that they considered too mundane to mention but would probably send me shrieking out into the night. It was entirely possible that people had died as a result of two of my best friends' actions within the last six months. Perhaps many people. And not only was that OK, but it was something I and most other Americans respected them for. I wondered if I could do their job and then just turn it off and go play shuffleboard.
Then I considered how much pain and misfortune I come across in my own job and realized that maybe I could. Maybe anyone could, under the right circumstances. Or maybe it took a certain kind of person to do it and they all hung out together on the weekends. Maybe that was why I suddenly found myself in a room full of fighters, writers, drunks and womanizers and loved them all. In any case, I needed to visit the jukebox.
As I moved toward it, I noticed several other guys edging in the same direction. When I walked faster, so did they. I looked both ways and ran flat out for the box, sparking a stampede of pub patrons who knew that there would be no more country music in this bar if Matt Farley had his way. I stayed ahead of them for most of the way, but was swallowed up by the mob before I could lay hands on the controls.
After a ferocious struggle, Mike lunged past the crowd and started feeding change into the jukebox. Merle Haggard began blaring from the speakers. I howled in defeat as the soldiers queued up several hours' worth of Toby Keith and Lynrd Skynrd songs. Every Army guy I ever knew listened to pop country. It must be something they teach in basic training. I straggled back to the shuffleboard table.
My focus shot, I immediately started giving up points by the dozen. I went down like I was being paid to throw the game. Fortunately, there was liquid consolation close at hand. We all clinked glasses.
"When are you going back?" I asked Mike.
"To the Army, or to Iraq?" he laughed and had some whiskey. I guessed that was the only reaction a sane person could have. "Sunday, and never, I hope."
Never looks like it might come a little sooner than any of us would like. By the time you read this, the president will probably have announced a 20,000-troop escalation of the Iraq invasion. I'm willing to bet that it sounded pretty good when he called on the brave champions of America to once again do their proud duty to enhance the glorious march of freedom, or something to that effect.
To me, though, it sounds a lot like "These folks have a duty to die to help us save face." I don't want to hear any more about civil wars and conflicting worldviews. I don't want to hear another word lauding the first female Speaker of the House. And I am sick to death of euphemisms like "troop surge" and "future success." All I want to hear is that nobody I know is likely to be shot this week, and I'll be good. You'd think the world's last superpower could at least manage that.
•••
We'll be fighting in the streets with our children at our feet. And the morals that they worship will be gone. And the men who spurred mfarley@register-pajaronian.com on sit in judgment of all wrong. They decide and the shotgun sings the song.
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