Yep, Je Suis Charlie, Y'all.

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

In the wake of the brutal murder of 17 people in Paris last week, a new catch phrase sprang up: “Je suis Charlie.”

It’s an expression of solidarity with the employees of the satirical tabloid Charlie Hebdo who were shot to death by self-proclaimed “jihadists” after the newspaper published raunchy cartoons featuring the image of the Prophet Muhammad.

Among the many ironies arising here is that one of the first people these religious thugs killed in their alleged “defense” of Islam was himself a Muslim, police officer Ahmed Merabet. In a related attack, several customers of a kosher grocery were saved by another Muslim, an employee of the store named Lassana Bathily, who hid them in the freezer.

In addition, the French Muslim Council, the Muslim Council of Britain, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Al-Azhar (Cairo’s thousand-year-old center of Islamic learning), the president of Egypt, the Arab League, and other Muslims around the world condemned the attack.

Heck, even Hezbollah said the “apostates” had done more damage to Islam than any cartoon, but that may have been more of a Sunni/Shia thing. If these goobers wanted to defend Muslims or unify them against the unbelievers, they did a mighty poor job of it.

Another irony is that, under normal circumstances, a lot of the people in the streets and in the media throwing their support behind Charlie Hebdo might very well be picketing them or calling for boycotts of their advertisers.

These guys were (and are) equal opportunity offenders. It wasn’t just drawings like the one of a naked and, shall we say, anatomically complete Muhammad with his behind in the air and a caption that’s so ugly I can’t even describe it via euphemism and expect to see it printed in this newspaper.

They also drew anti-Christian cartoons like the one of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost having sex with each other. Some of their caricatures of Jews are like something from ’30s-era Nazi propaganda. And so on. The lengths to which Charlie Hebdo goes to not just push the limits of good taste, but to gleefully explode them make the most vulgar “South Park” episodes look like “Barney the Dinosaur.”

One of their cartoonists, who goes by the pen name “Willem” (and who didn’t get shot because he missed the staff meeting) put it this way: “It makes me laugh. We vomit on these people who now say they’re our friends,” with “these people” explicitly including the pope, the queen of England and Vladimir Putin. Well, Willem, old son, all I can say is, resisting terrorism makes for strange bedfellows.

Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that, thanks to the outpouring of support, the magazine just printed and immediately sold over 3 million copies, by far their largest run ever, and put out new international editions in 16 languages, according to Reuters.

And their new cover is another picture of Muhammad, holding up a sign that says, you guessed it, “Je suis Charlie,” below a headline saying “Tout est pardonné” (“All is forgiven.”)

So, suis-je Charlie (am I Charlie)? Well, thankfully, I’ve never been shot for what I’ve written. At least not yet. But I have had people publicly express on this newspaper’s website that I deserve “a long agonizing death, not quick, but slow and painful,” or that I’d die soon and my whole hometown would celebrate, all over jokes I’ve made in this column.

Others have sent me emails telling me I deserved to be hanged for treason for questioning Mr. Bush’s disastrous war. So I do feel a certain solidarity, even though these hateful sentiments were expressed to me by people who would no doubt describe themselves as Good Christians rather than Muslims.

To paraphrase one of my literary heroes, Mr. Samuel Spade: When a writer is killed for what he writes, you’re supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him. He was a writer, and you’re supposed to do something about it. Well, what I do is write. Writing is a small thing, I suppose, but it’s not nothing, or people wouldn’t be killing over it.

Therefore, wherever those so-called “jihadists” are spending their afterlife right now, I want to do what I do and tell them, in writing: You blew it, dimwits. You tried to silence Charlie Hebdo, and you utterly failed. You didn’t die martyrs. You died as ineffectual fools, and Charlie Hebdo lives and thrives. (Insert razzberry noise and extended middle finger here.)

Though some of their content makes me say it through gritted teeth, I have to say it: Je suis Charlie.

Here Comes JEB!

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Recently, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (or JEB! as his campaigns have referred to him) announced that he would form a “Leadership PAC” in January to “actively explore the possibility” of running for president.

After the announcement of the Leadership PAC, JEB! also announced that he was resigning from every private and nonprofit board of directors he sits on, according to stories in Politico and The Washington Monthly. Severing himself from all those corporate ties (which took effect on the last day of 2014) gives him a chance to characterize any slimy or damaging corporate connections as “long in the past” by 2016.

This may seem a curious attitude from the party who will be trying frantically to hang the 1990s-era indiscretions of Bill Clinton around his wife’s neck, but then, no one demands consistency from Republicans. Certainly not the national media.

In politician-speak, all of this means: “I’m totally running, but to announce this early would seem crass.” After all, the last thing someone running for the most powerful job in the Free World wants to appear is ambitious.

While I’ll probably never agree with JEB! on a lot of issues, I’ll give him credit for being at least reasonable on things like immigration reform and Common Core. He’s also miles ahead of many members of this party on the environment, according to statements I’ve read from both Democrats and Republicans from Florida. In fact, JEB! Is now a candidate for my small list of sane Republicans.

That’s going to be a problem for him.

See, there are two things that really grind the gears of the far right: (1) any proposal for immigration reform more realistic than “put a giant electric fence on the border and ship every single illegal immigrant home tomorrow, including the toddlers”; and (2) Common Core, a system of national education standards that they don’t really know anything about, but which Fox News has assured them is the thin end of the wedge for Islamofascistcommiesocialism.

JEB!, however, has stated that illegal immigrants “broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love.” Oh, the heresy! He went on to say, “It shouldn’t rile people up that people are actually coming to this country to provide for their families.”

This is guaranteed not to sit well for those for whom “riled up” is their default state, especially when it comes to Those People.

As for Common Core, it’s been decried by other Republicans such as Jim DeMint, former senator and Heritage Foundation president, who says the standards “substitute an unaccountable federal bureaucracy for state, local and parental decision-making in education.” It has also been condemned by presidential hopefuls Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum. But JEB! has vowed to keep pushing it, calling the standards “good for the country.”

So by 2016, JEB! will have two choices. He can stick to his guns on immigration reform and Common Core and lose primary after primary to one or the other of the jokers who’ll keep popping out of the Republican Clown Car to be the front-runner for 15 minutes before imploding in a cloud of racism, misogyny, or bat-spit craziness. Or he can pull a Romney and try to run from things he once championed, to convince the raging right he’s one of them, and then lose the general because neither side trusts him.

So far, JEB! has shown an admirable tendency to take the first option. He’s even said he’s willing “to lose the primary in order to win the general.” How he hopes to win the general election without getting enough primary and caucus votes to get the nomination has not, however, been disclosed by his campaign. It’s probably some kind of top secret “strategery.”

Or possibly, the wingnuts will be able to choke back their bile over immigration and Common Core and embrace JEB! as the one most likely to beat Hillary Clinton. After all, as governor of Florida, he did do some things they love. He cut taxes, of course. He signed the Stand Your Ground law, which effectively legalized the killing of young black men if you could convince a jury you were scared enough of their hoodies and Mighty Black Fists of Doom. He ended affirmative action in state college admissions.

The Teahadists love that sort of thing and, if they can find it in their hearts to compromise, just a leeetle bit, on a couple of issues …

Wait. What I’m I saying? They’ll never do that. JEB! is toast.

Flights of Insanity: The Media and Missing Jetliners

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

What is it about missing jetliners that causes media outlets to completely lose their minds? (I mean, even more than usual.)

You may remember what happened after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in March of last year. Bafflement about what had happened to the unfortunate aircraft quickly gave way to the type of crack-brained speculation you’d expect from a barefoot bearded guy raving on a street corner in a dirty pajama bottom and a stained Army surplus jacket.

Our old friends at Fox News, for example, trotted out one crazy theorist after another. They had a retired lieutenant general who came on and said he was “certain” the plane had been hijacked and secretly taken to Pakistan.

They had Erik Rush of WorldNet Daily, who appeared on Fox and claimed to have a source who told him that the U.S. (on President Obama’s orders, of course) took control of the plane via remote control of the “fly-by-wire” system, then diverted it to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. There, software engineers who were preparing to defect to China with sensitive computer data were taken away, and everyone else on the flight was murdered to cover up the plot.

The one who really led the charge over the Cliffs of Insanity, however, was CNN’s Don Lemon, whose commentary on the disappearance of Flight MH370 earned him a spot on the Columbia Journalism Review’s “Worst of 2014” list.

Lemon got the ball rolling when he began openly wondering if there was a “supernatural” explanation for the plane’s disappearance. “Why aren’t you talking about the possibility,” he demanded, “that something odd happened to this plane, something beyond our understanding?”

What cemented his place in last year’s Hall of Shame, however, was the moment when he suggested, in front of a panel of guests, that the plane might have been sucked into a black hole in the sky. “I know it’s preposterous,” Lemon said, “but is it really preposterous?”

Yes, Don. Yes, it is. I hear that Stephen Hawking is working on designing a mechanical arm so he can whop you upside the head with it.

Now, with the disappearance of AirAsia Flight QZ8501, it appears as if the same silly circus is beginning again. Fox News host Anna Kooiman asked if maybe the plane crashed because of “differently trained” pilots using the metric system. “It’s not just a difference in the way that we measure things?” she asked. “Is it not as safe in that part of the world? Because our viewers may be thinking, ‘International travel, is it safe? Is it not safe?’”

Over on CNN, “aviation expert” Mary Schiavo attempted to assure us that it couldn’t be a terrorist attack because “most terrorist activity takes place in good weather.”

Meanwhile on Twitter, CNN viewers have been begging the network for “less crazy this time.” Well, we can hope, I suppose, especially now that they may have started finding actual debris and bodies from the terrible crash.

Part of the problem, as always, can be laid at the feet of the 24-hour news cycle, which constantly demands new material to view, read or download. Certainly there’s a powerful temptation to feed that ravenous beast with anything near to hand, even if it’s garbage.

In addition, as people like Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein (author of the book “Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas”) have pointed out, inconsistent information from “official” sources contributes to an environment of uncertainty. That kind of uncertainty provides fertile ground for the wildest conspiracy theorists.

That’s a reasonable explanation for the behavior of the paranoid fringe, wrapping their tinfoil hats on tighter as they hammer away on their keyboards to blog about their latest demented fantasy. But when it comes to supposedly “legitimate” news sources (and, for the moment, I’ll include Fox in that category) — well, to paraphrase one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies, it’s not their job to be as freaked out as we are.

Certainly it’s the responsibility of governments involved in a mass disappearance or other disaster to provide accurate information in a timely fashion. But in the event that they don’t, it’s equally the responsibility of news organizations not to fill the void with ridiculous speculation and wild theories that would embarrass a writer of ’30s pulp novels.

Like it or not, the news media help shape public perception and opinion, and that gives them a responsibility beyond just filling air time with nonsense. Someone needs to act like the grownup here.

Review: Let the Devil Speak by Steven Hart

Let the Devil Speak: Articles, Essays, and Incitements by Steven Hart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Smart, witty, acerbic essays about American culture, literature, and music. The book's real tour de force is the first  chapter, "He May Be a Fool, But He's Our Fool", which proceeds from a curious juxtaposition between two cultural events: racist Georgia Governor Lester Maddox' contentious appearance on the "Dick Cavett Show" and Randy Newman's seminal 1974 album "Good Old Boys." Newman had often said that the Maddox appearance, where Newman felt the Governor was treated unfairly, was the inspiration for the album's opening track "Rednecks." Steven Hart uses that connection to trace not only the divergent careers of Newman and Maddox, but the thread of bitter, corrosive resentment, inevitably tinged with racism, which runs through right wing politics to this day.

My favorite passage is the one about Pat Buchanan's "culture war" speech at the 1992 Republican convention. Hart writes: "the imperturbably sunny face of the Reagan Presidency had been replaced by a frothing troglodyte with an anti-tax pledge in one paw and a picture of a bloody fetus in the other." That passage perfectly sums up the moment when I got off the moderate fence I'd been sitting on during the first George H.W. Bush term and threw in with the liberals.

It's not all politics, however: "The Ents From The Orcs" provides a fascinating glimpse of another particular moment in time that left an indelible mark on our culture: a night-long conversation in 1931 between three Oxford University academics (Henry Victor Dyson, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien) that led to the writing of Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" and Tolkien's Middle Earth series. "Bruno" is an appreciation of the life and work of the late Jacob Bronowski (of "Ascent of Man" fame). All of the essays share the same insight and sharp, incisive, sometimes cutting prose. I found myself nodding along in some places, laughing out loud in others. Great book, and highly recommended.


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Review: 212 by Alafair Burke

212 by Alafair Burke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Alafair Burke is an incredibly talented writer. One of her many strengths is the ability to use just the right detail (the unmatched desks in a detective squad room, the contrast between a DA's cheap Bic pen and a defense lawyer's expensive one) to make the reader feel that they're right there in the scene. The plotting is tight and just twisty enough to keep the reader guessing without going so over the top as to elicit eye rolling. And her characters are very well drawn. For instance, I love how Burke portrays Ellie Hatcher, the protagonist of 212. She's certainly less than perfect, but without so much baggage that it weighs down the story. This is police procedural done right. Highly recommended.


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2015: The Year In Preview

The Pilot Newspaper: Opinion

Once again, we look into our slightly cracked crystal ball for our annual tradition of fearless predictions for the year to come. Without further ado, we bring you 2015 in preview:

JANUARY: Sony finally allows the wide release of the Seth Rogen/James Franco film “The Interview.” North Korea immediately issues a public statement: “We threatened the U.S. over THIS piece of crap? Man, do we feel stupid. This is more embarrassing than the time we invited Dennis Rodman to dinner because we thought he was LeBron James. Face it, as a government, we’re just not that bright.”

FEBRUARY: Following the lead of the right wing’s insistence on calling torture “enhanced interrogation,” the Mafia announces that it has hired a PR agency to rebrand “armed robbery” as “enhanced wealth acquisition.” Not to be outdone, the National Football League announces that its new behavior policy reframes “domestic abuse” as “enhanced spousal negotiation.”

MARCH: North Korea unleashes its long-dreaded retaliation for the Sony film “The Interview” in the form of a 90-minute feature film called “Obama Is a Big Doo-Doo Head.” At the film’s premiere in Pyongyang, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and Sen. Ted Cruz appear as guests of the North Korean government, but strongly deny serving as technical advisers on the picture.

APRIL: A new hacking scandal erupts when a group calling itself “The Sons of the Big Easy” breaks into CBS’s computer network and releases thousands of embarrassing emails and digital copies of unreleased shows. The group claims that the attack is retribution for Scott Bakula’s awful attempt at a Louisiana accent in “NCIS: New Orleans.”

MAY: Russian President Vladimir Putin announces that he’s formed an “exploratory committee” to consider a run for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. “Republicans say nice things about me,” Putin says. “Rudy Giuliani is talking about how I ‘make decision and execute quickly,’ and Sarah Palin likes the idea of me ‘wrestling bears.’ They want leadership? Putin give them a bellyful of it.”

JUNE: Republican lawmakers, who hold a majority in the House and Senate, announce a major policy initiative. “We’ve decided to change our practice of not doing anything and blaming it all on President Obama,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tells “Meet the Press.” “After the summer break, we’re going to start doing nothing and blaming it all on Hillary Clinton.”

JULY: Christmas decorations and promotions appear in stores, as Christmas-themed commercials begin running on TV. Everyone complains, but they buy the stuff anyway.

AUGUST: First lady Michelle Obama rolls out a new campaign to promote the eating of junk food. “Candy, sugary sodas, Twinkies three times a day, and lots of Mickey D’s,” the First Lady says. “That’s the secret to a healthy, happy life.” Congressional Republicans and Fox News immediately go on an outraged crusade against the movement, which they call “yet another attempt by the Imperial Obama Presidency to control every aspect of our lives.” Fox begins promoting salads, low-fat foods, and drinking lots of water, while the Republican caucus gives up sugar, white bread and potatoes. Waistlines shrink across the nation, and obesity-related illnesses take a prodigious drop. “I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out,” the first lady says.

SEPTEMBER: Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush formally announces his candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination. Bush vows not to back down on his support for immigration reform and the federal Common Core standards, even though those issues are unpopular with conservatives. “I’m willing to lose the primary to win the general,” a defiant Bush says, repeating earlier statement he made to the online magazine Politico.

OCTOBER: The Jeb Bush campaign issues a retraction of his “willing to lose the primary to win the general” promise when someone explains to him how the primary system works.

NOVEMBER: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz attempts to stop President Obama from pardoning the White House turkey by going to the Senate floor for a marathon reading of the children’s book “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell asks the office of senate legal counsel for an opinion on whether the Senate can involuntarily commit one of its own members.

DECEMBER: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat all experience a massive decline in users after Santa announces he’s going to start using social media to help compile the “naughty” and “nice” lists. A young woman identified only as “@SexyAllie 999” explains to The New York Times why she deleted her Snapchat account: “Like, I don’t know if sending some random guy a picture of my, y’know, breasts is, like, something that will get me on, like, the naughty list? But, I mean, I’m not, y’know, taking any chances.”

As we like to say at this season (with a hat tip to poet Ogden Nash): Duck! Here comes another year!