I normally hold to a strict policy of “if everyone else is saying it [or will be saying it], don’t add to the cacophony.” However, today I am making an exception.

This is Sonia Sotomayor’s now well-known comment that appellate courts are “where policy is made:”

Apologists for the Honorable Justice insist that the full clip shows she was referring to the distinction between nonprecedental district court decisions and those of appellate courts (which do set precedent). I think that her slightly uncomfortable chuckling about the offhand remark is a tell – she clearly understands that this comment could be brought up again later in her career, and that this could be problematic, regardless of context. The tone of the statement seems remarkably akin to that assumed by most Americans when we assert our intention to voluntarily report all taxable income to the IRS.

Anyway, today’s sound byte is her statement that “the task of a judge is not to make law, it is to apply the law:”

Well, imagine my relief.

I’m of the opinnion that good judges who understand their role can be found in the favor of both parties, and am more than willing to give Sotomayor the benefit of the doubt. However, I can find no way to reconcile these two statements. I have only a limited knowledge of legal philosophy, but I think it is quite evident there is a conflict here. She needs to be grilled on this and forced to explain herself.

As a “wise Latina woman,” I’m sure this will be a piece of cake.

Michael Jackson, that is. At least, I find it unlikely.

Nevertheless, New York Representative Peter King wants to know if I would let my (hypothetical) child spend time in a room alone with Jackson. The answer is certainly no, but that is due to a general policy I have about not allowing my future progeny to spend any time alone with any adult I don’t know very, very well (call me crazy).

The fact that Jackson might be more likely than other to extend such an invitation means he was a weird guy. I recognize that. However, I also recognize that a child’s testimony is – to put it mildly – of questionable veracity. The fact is that children lie, and for reasons failing to even approach the nobility of those offered by adults: “I would like to stop answering this stupid lawyer’s questions and go play Super Mario Kart” is just one example.

Children like to please adults, so when certain adults with Juris Doctorates pepper them with silly questions about who touched whom, when and where, etc., they tend toward answering in the affirmative, regardless of whether or not their answer is actually true. This seems silly and overly simplistic (and there is little doubt that, once their moral development has advanced significantly, an adolescent will begin lying with much more sophistication and advanced motivation), but it has been scientifically verified.

So chock one up for psychological science’s relevance to current events! You too may now mourn the death of the King of Pop without reservation.

May he rest in peace.

(And why the Beatles will be forgotten by 2064)

I hate popular music.

Since I met and married Rachel – the Center Of My Universe and the Reason For My Existence – I have been subjected to a particular genre of popular music each morning as she and I drive to some useless location in an effort to rid her pants of ants. I perused the website of Billboard which, I am told, is the popular music business’ commercial compass but was unable to discover the particular genre to which I am subjected each A.M. (morning, not “dial”).

My Beloved’s favorite station touts itself as the “Home of Soft Rock” but Billboard has no such classification. In my youth, radio stations were at leisure to inform their listeners of the title and artist of each presentation, but the competitive nature of modern FM radio must be such that precious air-time cannot be devoted to such trivia, so I am forced to provide you with a list of tunes based on sketchy information.

* Miley Cyrus employs a southern accent to discuss “other mountains” and “uphill rides (?)”.
* Some other female vocalist moans about the fact that she “keeps bleeding”.
* Another female named “Fergie” (I trust this is not the ex-wife of Prince Andrew), informs me that “big girls don’t cry”, something I thought Frankie Valley had already told us.
*A group of men who have assumed the name of a CIA airplane sing that they still haven’t found what they’re lookin’ for.
* Kelly Clarkson is a regular feature, shouting (with a terrific voice) that she is afraid to cross the street, walks away, ponders about her life since you’ve been gone, and has hazel eyes.
* Yet another female asks “how do I live?”
* Some guy repeats, about a billion times, “Say what you mean to say.” Say it, already.

Popular music is trash because it is written, performed and marketed to be disposable. That which we dispose of after use is, by definition, trash.

As an outsider, my impression of the mechanics of the popular music industry is that it is in constant need of fresh material which, once unearthed, is played to extinction on popular music outlets such as radio, which creates the demand for yet more new material. Billboard serves as both midwife to the newborn and undertaker for the recently disposed. Billboard accumulates sales data on a piece of popular music and uses this data to track the health of the song through its charts of rising and falling pieces. What gives the whole process a “chicken or egg” dilemma is this: If radio airtime drives sales and sales drive Billboard and Billboard drives airtime, how does it get started? It is, as Rachel says, a quandary. My theory is that a secret coterie of Illuminati, housed deep within the earth below the Bavarian Alps, picks works of popular music at random and they drive the whole thing.

When a piece of popular music has been played to the point where the mere hint of its opening theme causes drivers to swerve around the road as they desperately punch buttons on their car radios, sales will invariably fall off and the piece will begin its slide into pop oblivion. Sales go down, Billboard lowers the rating of the piece, radio stations give their listeners a break and only play the damn thing sixteen times a day instead of forty, which further depresses sales, etc., etc., etc. Back under Munich, the gnomes rub their hands gleefully and throw another dart.

Now, I confess to be a lover of “Classical Music”. By that I mean the orchestral and operatic masterpieces of the past 400 years. When She Who Is The Light Of My Life was orchestrating our wedding ceremony four years ago, she instructed the deejay to play “classical music” as a token of her love and affection for me (because she loathes the music I love). What we got was an evening of Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme and other lounge singers – that’s what “classic” meant to the r-e-t-a-r-d running the CD player.

More on that anon, but first, here is a five-part test you can conduct on the music you hear on your radio, I-pod, music library, the crap they play in grocery stores and every other enclosed space where people tend to congregate. Tell me if I’m wrong.

1. Musical Time: 99.9% of all popular music is written in standard time, i.e. two or four beats per measure. In the past six months I have heard precisely one melody in three-quarter (three beats per measure) time. By contrast, not only are there plentiful examples of classical music written in other than standard time, some are written in musical times that defy toe-tapping. The opening bars of Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio Italien” and Wagner’s “Siegfried’s Funeral Music” are both written in something like nine-sixteenths time – difficult to play, but wonderful to hear.

2. Theme: 95% of all popular music has “love” as its theme. Getting it, abusing it, losing it, regaining it, whining about it, missing it, hoping to regain it, dying for it, living for it … in short, everything about love other than cooking it for breakfast. Other thematic elements appear from time to time, such as trucks and prisons (Country-Western) rape and cop-killing (Rap). To my (limited) knowledge, there has not been a strictly instrumental popular piece since “Wipe Out” (‘60’s) and “Classical Gas” (70’s). Contrast this with the bulk of Classical music which contains no lyrics. It’s important in the same way that the Mona Lisa is a superior piece of art than a poster of a daisy with the words “War is unhealthy for children and other living things.” The former demands something of the viewer in order to realize its importance. The latter is a spoonful of Pabulum poured directly into the ears and brain of the observer. It is not important because it was never meant to be so.

3. Instrumentation: 85% of pop music is scored for guitar, bass guitar, keyboard and percussion. There is a good reason for this. Popular music must be as portable as possible, else the coming wave of new artists will never emerge because they’re too busy schlepping around orchestras. These guys have to bust their humps in the minors for many years before the Alpine Seers choose them for stardom, at which point they can go on the road with entourages, roadies, groupies, agents, camp-followers and all the other hangers-on whose purpose seems to be nothing more than to deplete the income of the stars. Their concert appearances are replete with pyrotechnics, light displays, gaudy visual effects, etc. Some performers – Celine Dion comes to mind – perform musical arrangements with a violin or two, perhaps a flute and maybe even a harp. In contrast, consider the piano composition “Pictures at an Exhibition” by Modest Musorgsky. It does an adequate job of presenting its themes, but Ravels arrangement of the piece for a full orchestra – with more than twenty different instruments – is nothing short of magnificent. The “Polish Cart” section features saxophones and they manage to convey this cumbersome beast of a vehicle with amazing accuracy. Various permutations of the “Promenade”, as Musorgsky strolls through the gallery, express the musician’s mood as he views the various pieces painted by his recently-deceased friend. “Pictures” is a minor classic but popular music has yet and never shall produce its equal.

4. Vocal Quality: 70% of the people who yowl the lyrics of pop music have no vocal talent whatsoever. It is remarkable to consider that popular music, which is almost completely lyrical, grants no importance to the quality of the voice(s) which deliver those lyrics. Make it easy on yourself – listen to some really good singers like Celine Dion and Kelly Clarkson.  Afterwards, listen to the vocal quality of almost anyone else purveying their goods in popular music and you should immediately understand my meaning. The truly adventurous should then go on to experience Pavarotti’s rendition of “Nessum Dorma” from Puccini’s opera Tourandot or Maria Callas’ performance of Bizet’s opera Carmen. Some will then understand that the human voice is a musical instrument more difficult to play than any mechanical contrivance found in the orchestra pit.

5. Structure: Perhaps you should pull off the road for this part. 65% of popular music observes the following structure: First refrain, chorus, second refrain, chorus, instrumental interlude, chorus. The percentage is so low because what follows the instrumental interlude can vary considerably. Nevertheless, the marketing requirements of popular music are such that three minutes more-or-less is allotted to each performance before it is crumpled up and disposed of.

Popular music has a half-life of one generation. Testing this theorem requires a minor assumption. For our purposes, we will assert that a generation is whatever number of years has elapsed since you and your parents were in high school. I will use my own family as an illustration. My parents were in high school when big bands and swing music were popular. Only half of my generation appreciates this music (and I count myself among them). I know nothing about what my parents’ parents enjoyed. My son knows a lot about my generation’s music (because he was a brief fan in his pre-adolescence). He is completely familiar with his generation’s music but pays scant attention to swing jazz and absolutely none to what his great-grandparents enjoyed. Once he and his wife provide me with a grandson, the kid will have access to a completely new variety of popular music which will shock his parents just as hip-hop has shocked me. He will abhor mom and dad’s music and appreciate his grandpa’s psychedelic music not at all. Swing? Never heard of it.

By 2064 – 100 years after they broke into the bigs by appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show, the Beatles will be forgotten by that generation. The existence of billions of the Fab Four’s oeuvre immortalized on tapes, L. P.’s, sheet music and C. D.’s will be of negligible consequence because nobody will care.

At the aforementioned wedding between Rachel and my humble self, she selected, as the processional music, Pachelbel’s “Canon in D Major”. Many people would recognize this melody without knowing who wrote it or when because it has the power to soothe frayed nerves and bring about tranquility (something we both needed on that memorable occasion). The composition has no lyrics with which to accomplish its purpose and must rely on the subtleties of harmony, melody, theme, orchestration and contrapuntalism (look it up). The composition is 325 years old – more than three times my estimate of the Beatle’s musical duration, yet hardly a day goes by when some chamber group somewhere does not perform the work to an admiring audience. If anyone can produce a piece of popular music that old (and popular music has been around at least that long), I will eat my hat, tie, shirt and trousers.

Classical music abides despite the fact most of it was created at a time before copyright laws, electronic means of sound reproduction and university professors of “popular culture”. The works of Beethoven, Mozart, Puccini, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and others are timeless because the vision that drove their creators was likewise. It is not the words of Rossini’s “La Centerentola” that makes the opera immortal, it is the music itself. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Mahler’s First, Mozart’s 41st, Rachimaninov’s First and Verdi’s “Mass” will live forever because they represent more than any poster-words can ever express. They represent “beauty” which will not tolerate explanation.

I have observed that the lovers of popular music can no more tolerate classical music than the lovers of classical music can abide the popular variety. Each camp describes the music of the other as “boring”. Nevertheless, they are wrong and I am right. I am no slave to research, but I have been able to find only one piece of eighteenth century popular music that continues to be performed on a daily basis. The tune was penned by John Stafford Smith for the amusement of the Anacreonic Society – a British collection of gentlemen of an artistic nature who met from time-to-time to raise their glasses in praise of high culture and good ale. The tune was adopted by an American poet after he witnessed the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor in 1814 and his verse was later set to Smith’s music. In 1931 Congress adopted Francis Scott Key’s lyrics, set to the tune of John Stafford Smith’s music, as the National Anthem of the United States of America. Other than this, the popular music of the past is dead and forgotten.

I support same-sex marriage.

Actually, I would be even happier to see the government abandon recognition of marriage as a specific legal status, and simply recognize contractual obligations between individuals, regardless of their sex. But I’m a realist, and am not holding out for my libertarian utopia to come to fruition.

However, the tactics devised by advocates of same-sex marriage have been nothing short of deplorable, and occasionally brazenly self-serving at the expense of the same-sex couples. With this in mind, I have a few thoughts in the aftermath of the California Supreme Court’s decision regarding Proposition 8.

“Hate” is not the issue. Advocates of same-sex marriage are constantly referring to Prop.8 as an example of “hate”. They’re never specific as to exactly who is doing the hating, but they’re damn sure their use of the term is called for. The lack of specificity when the term is applied leads one to think that a vote for Prop. 8 can be, without further review, automatically attributed to “hate”.  Is it not possible that, in lieu of seething rage toward homosexuals, 52% of Californians are simply reluctant to redefine an institution almost as old as human history itself? Regardless of whether or not this fear enjoys empirical foundation (it does not), we should at least be willing to remove the horns from the heads of Californians who voted in the affirmative.

It’s not a “human rights” issue. Let’s put things in perspective: the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, female genital mutilation, and Nazi gas chambers are human rights issues. The lack of state recognition of same-sex unions is a tragedy which will be rectified by the gradual evolution of human society. Referring to the latter as a “human rights issue” degrades and defames the victims of true human rights abuses. Even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – which reads more like a letter to Santa Claus than a legal and philosophical declaration – fails to address the issue of same-sex marriage, probably because its authors could not fathom a world in which such an issue would receive widespread public attention. Obviously, they were wrong (knock-me-over-with-a-feather-and-spill-my-gin).

Equality is the problem, not the solution. Advocates of same-sex marriage are constantly employing “equality” as their rallying cry. This is, I feel, mostly due to the fact that using the term is politically expedient, as it appeals to the left’s growing neurotic obsession with equality as a concept (they’re rarely able to specify exactly what should be equal – only that equality is good and that they’re in favor of it). The irony here is that equality is the problem: the law treats every adult as if they want to marry a member of the opposite sex. That is, it treats everyone equally. Historically, arguments in favor of equality under the law have addressed legally prescribed practices based on a particular attribute (for example, “if you are black, you may not vote”). The exact opposite is the case with same-sex marriage, as all homosexual individuals are afforded the exact same opportunity that is afforded to their heterosexual counterparts: the ability to marry someone of the opposite sex. The problem, of course, is that gays and lesbians don’t want to marry someone of the opposite sex. As such, the problem is that the law does not serve all segments of the population well. Moreover, while Jim Crow laws were deliberately constructed in an effort to specifically address a group (or groups) of people, the opposite-sex definition of marriage is simply an artifact of history. When laws regarding legal recognition of marriage – I assume this can be traced back to English Common Law, but have not done enough research to be sure – the notion of same-sex unions was simply not entertained. It was not until advocates of same-sex marriage sought to strong-arm the American populace into legally redefining what constitutes marriage that idiotic constitutional amendments such as Prop 8 were seen as necessary.

It’s not a matter for the courts. I am trying to post to this blog with greater regularity. As such, I have to resist the temptation to meticulously document every point I make, and will avoid enumerating the countless examples of commentators, journalists, and (dare I say it) academics who have indiscriminately applied the term “lawmakers” to the California Supreme Court, which has received much undue criticism from gay rights activists who were apparently absent from their high school civics class the day the separation of powers was discussed. Had these critics gone to the trouble of actually reading the opinion in question, they would have seen that the court was unhappy with the consequences of its ruling, and did so only out of an obligation to… well… do it’s damn job. The court’s job is to interpret the law, not make it.

Perhaps this is the best lesson for individuals who favor same-sex marriage, myself included: after duking it out in the courts for years, we must ask ourselves, “what hath it profiteth us?” With constitutional and/or statutory bans on recognition of same-sex unions in place in 38 U.S. states, are gays and lesbians better off today than they were before this idiotic crusade began? Would we not have been better off to seek public support first, then a change in the law?

This leads me to a final point about left-wing movements: the moral superiority factor. I have often mentioned my disgust with religiously-motivated, right-wing professions of moral certitude. But those emanating from the left are even more odious. At least Christian conservatives have the decency to base their moralizing on the injunctions of no lesser an entity than God Himself. Those on the left who consider themselves to be morally superior have the audacity to claim that they just know – either that, or they just don’t feel it necessary to explain themselves.

Sorry, friends, but your shit stinks too. It’s high time you wake up and smell it.

Then, get to the task of changing American minds on the subject of same-sex unions.

In 2000, Walt Disney Studios released “Remember the Titans”, the story of  Coach Herman Boone (played by Denzel Washington) and his first year as head football coach at T. C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia.  One of the things that makes this a great movie is that it never overtly states the movie’s theme:  high school football in the south was one of the factors that eased the transition to integration in that region.  Most of what follows is personal reflection since there has not been (to my knowledge) any systematized study of this phenomenon in the scholarly literature (not that I would be able / trouble myself to discover it).

The story takes place in 1971, which was two years after I graduated from high school in 1969.  Five years earlier, in 1964, I vividly remember sitting in junior high school homeroom for about 45 minutes listening to the school principal as he read the text of the 1964 Civil Rights Act recently passed by Congress and signed by president Lyndon Johnson.  The man read the Act without particular emotion – as though it were something the law required him to do, having no especial meaning for him.  At the conclusion of his address, we went to our usual first-period classes without any discussion.  The school’s administrators may have thought that the subject held no meaning for their charges but, if they did, they were quite mistaken:  we students debated the issue of integration with no less passion (and ignorance) than our elders.  In any event, Robert L. Osborne Junior High School was not suddenly flooded with black students, because all the black students lived within the city limits of Marietta and that city had its own, segregated, school system.

In 1967 the Marietta school system closed the all-black Lemon Street High School and integrated Marietta High School along with the rest of their system.  This was approximately midway through coach French Johnson’s illustrious career as head coach of the Marietta High School football team.  Coach Johnson had a better-than average career leading the Marietta squad up to that time, but with the 1968 season, Marietta High became a football powerhouse.  Given the resources of Lemon Street students previously denied him, Johnson retired in 1972 with a record of 125 wins, 46 losses and 7 ties.  Thats a 70.2 win rate.  Prior to his arrival, the school could only boast a 45% win rate from its founding in 1920 to coach Johnson’s arrival.

The Marietta Blue Devil Marching Band also changed.  Prior to 1968 they were excellent – being one of only two bands in the district capable of playing music and marching at the same time.  Everyone else marched to a drum cadence and performed standing still.  Beginning with the 1968 season, they were fabulous!  They added capes to their uniforms.  Their drum major was a vision of the future Michael Jackson.  They didn’t just march, they STRUTTED across the field, leaning back and forward in time with the funky music they performed.  They didn’t just lift their legs while marching, they kicked and bobbed and flung their capes in a spectacular display.  Obviously, someone else was also taking advantage of the new talent pool from Lemon Street.

And the community changed.  For years after 1968, black and white students at Marietta High segregated themselves within their integrated environment.  But after the first integrated class graduated in 1970 that began to break down bit-by-bit as new arrivals paid less-and-less attention to the racial divide.  That racial divide began to transform into the more usual cliques in high school society.  Jocks stayed with jocks, social climbers with social climbers, shoppies with shoppies and nerds with nerds.  If you took a photograph of the Marietta fans in Northcutt stadium on Friday nights over the years, what you would see in 1968 was black fans sitting with black fans and white fans sitting with white fans.  Over time, that snapshot would slowly evolve until now, it doesn’t matter.  Everyone sits wherever they like and the race of the person next to them is superfluous because they are all there to support the Blue Devils.

High school football is a serious business in the deep south.  It is followed in the local press by fans who pack the local stadiums on Friday nights.  Citizens debate the virtues of individual players without reference to race.  In the final analysis, if a kid makes a great play, it matters not to the local fans if he is white or black – he is OUR kid, playing for OUR team.  When a true sports fan waxes eloquently on some player’s athletic virtues or faults, race is NEVER an issue worth considering.

Not mattering is the key to racial harmony.  I lived for several years in the central Georgia town of Cordele, deep in the black-belt.  The city council was comprised of black Democrats and white Republicans and they argued among themselves in the unseemly manner we have all come to expect from politicians.  But they were in solid and fraternal agreement that Cordele’s football team could whip any other team in their division.

Midway through Remember the Titans, the local peckerwoods heave a brick through coach Boone’s living room window.  Several weeks later, after securing a place in the division championship series, Boone returns home and he and his family are greeted warmly by their previously aloof neighbors.  Obviously, there’s a bit of theatrical telescoping involved here, but the point is justified nevertheless.  It didn’t matter that coach Boone had integrated the football team.  It didn’t matter that he had supplanted the previous (white) head coach.  It didn’t matter that he and his family lived in the “white” part of town.  What mattered was that he had built a winning football team and lead it from triumph to triumph.  Had he failed to do that, I have no doubt that his race would have been a prominent feature in the local discussions regarding his failure.

If not mattering is the key to racial harmony, then sports is the perfect place to find it because, in the grand scheme of things, sports does not matter.  I’m no fan, but I can still appreciate the awesome skill of Michael Jordan in basketball and the fielding wizardry of Andruw Jones in baseball.  A joke circulated several years ago and I remember it only imperfectly.  It went something like this:  “There is something seriously wrong in the world when the greatest golfer is black, the best basketball player is Chinese, the most popular rap artist is white and …” (I don’t remember the fourth element).  The first phrase is intentionally wrong.  What the joke means is that some things are becoming seriously right.