Historical Me

Friends sent me this picture in an e-mail last week. That's me in September, 1975, sitting on their deck in the Berkeley hills. So I'd be looking out at the San Francisco Bay and the city itself, and the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges. That was some deck (and house).

I had turned twenty-seven the previous month.

Thanks, Bill and Chissie!

Pharaoh Akhenaten And President Obama; Similarities; Discuss

Pharaoh Akhenaten ruled Egypt for seventeen years, which ended with his death of natural causes in 1336 BC or so. He was the least popular of the Egyptian Pharaohs, and that’s putting it mildly.

He had taken over as Pharaoh under the name Amenhotep IV (“Amun is satisfied”). After four years he had some kind of religious epiphany and changed his name to Akhenaten (“Effective for Aten”). He created a new religion and built a new city called Akhetaten to serve as its administrative center. He seems to have tried to change the state religion of Egypt over to his new system, but the effort was not well received.

While he was alive, things proceeded along normal lines for the times. He built what he wanted to build; he did what he wanted to do; he had the usual half a dozen or eight consorts (including Nefertiti); he had children (including his son Tutankhamun, who succeeded him as Pharaoh); and many monuments were erected in his honor, with the usual elaborate statuary. But in Akhenaten’s case there was a personal twist to everything.  

There was, of course, the new religion, which even today would be a tough sell. The equivalent event in our day would be a pope of Rome announcing that he had received wisdom directly from God and that he was going to change everything about Catholic doctrine and move the administrative center of the resulting new church to Uganda.

The personal touch was also apparent in the art of the period. All art was royal at the time; all art was commissioned by the government. Suddenly, the style of representation was drastically changed. Where before it had been a bit on the stiff side, and the royal subjects had been idealized, the new style was very flowing and naturalistic. People like Akhenaten were shown with their faults. He was not a handsome man, and his physique was neither athletic nor military. Even beyond that, the features and the figures were stylized. Features were elongated; shapes were exaggerated.

This artistic explosion was weird enough to make the History Channel think that Akhenaten might have been an alien.

It may be that his own ministers also thought that he might have descended from another planet. Very soon after his death, official records began to refer to him as “that criminal,” or “the enemy.” There was a concerted effort to deface statues of Akhenaten, or at least get them out of sight somewhere. There was a movement to get him stricken from the list of Pharaohs. It occurred to me the other day that something similar could happen to President Obama after he’s out of office.

Soon-To-Be-Ex-President Obama

President Obama’s path to the presidency, like Akhenaten’s path to the throne, was completely orthodox. He was elected in the normal way; he ascended to the presidency in the prescribed manner; he was re-elected after four years and that election was allowed to stand; and it appears that he will serve out the remaining several weeks of his second term.

Also like Akhenaten, President Obama has met with as much resistance as the law allows for his entire time in office. Obama's desire to enhance medical security for many uninsured Americans was his goal analogous to Akhenaten's new religion. It upset the political apple cart. Obama is a neo-liberal, but he is a neo-liberal with a difference: he has a conscience. Sometimes I wonder if that makes him a Clintonian neo-liberal. I leave those fine points to the political scientists. The Republican neo-liberals, the only other brand available these days, certainly have no consciences. What a bunch of granny-starvers! So, the Affordable Care Act, that was Obama's new religion, that was one of the prime drivers for his opposition. 

He’s been disrespected and called a traitor. What, I wonder, would people think and do if he had not appreciably reduced the ridiculous deficits created by his Republican predecessor; if he had not avoided a second Great Depression; if he had done any of the things that they were afraid that he would do (like take peoples’ guns, or surrender America’s sovereign power to the United Nations)? What would they have done if President Obama had done even one of the egregious things that President Elect Trump has already done? Disqualifying things that he continues to do on a daily basis? What indeed.

So I also wonder what will happen after Mr. Obama officially becomes an “ex-president.”

And what, we may well ask, would the result have been in an alternate universe where Barack Hussein Obama was a white man named Robert Miller or something, who was married to a white woman named Jane, ne Taylor? What indeed. Can anyone honestly say that they believe that the experience would have been identical? I didn’t think so. Certainly it could not have been racism! We are post-racial now! We don’t see color! All of those people, and each of them, had policy differences of opinion with President Obama! His race had nothing to do with it! Why, it’s a total coincidence that they have no problems at all with a government filed with white neo-liberal globalists but that they just happen to hate the black neo-liberal globalist.

Polite Liberals will affect a continuing appreciation of and affection for President Obama. What about everyone else, though? Will time temper any of the hatred that large swathes of the population have shown for President Obama and his wife for eight years now? Many of the haters did not even wait for him to be out of office before calling him “the enemy,” or “that criminal,” much in the same vein as those very terms were used against Akhenaten.

Ours is a very new, very different, completely wacky world in the Twenty-First Century. Right now there are computer savvy teenagers over in Macedonia and the Ukraine and the Philippines inventing strategies for anti-EX-president Obama hit pieces for their fake news sites. “New evidence proves that Obama DID have a plan to take guns out of private hands!” “Obama’s father was an anti-British Mau Mau hit-man!” “Obama now secret lobbyist for Rothschild Bankers!” “Moochelle was a Chinese agent in the White House!” Hillary will continue to feature in fake news as well, because, why not? “Hillary was set to finalize Obama’s gun collections!” I’m sure those kids overseas will come up with better stuff then me.

I’m sure that this new Trump/Republican/Anarchist tidal wave would love to strike the name “Barack Hussein Obama” from the list of American presidents as well. They're still so desperate to force us to realize that OBAMA IS BLACK! (Why not transcend white purity and go for WASP purity at the same time? Maybe we can strike “Kennedy” while we're at it.)

My advice for Ex-President Obama is . . . no, he doesn’t need any advice from me. I’m sure that he’s got a handle on it. He has effortlessly absorbed all of the bile and vitriol that has been thrown at him during his presidency, and he’ll continue to do just that, while enhancing his reputation as a highly intelligent and level headed man, who also manages to be gracious, charming and witty.  

Graham Central Station - We've Been Waiting

These Graham Central Station albums were terrific. What enthusiasm! And I have always loved that they put these intro pieces at the front of side one. It's a nice touch.

Lethal Injection Should Not Be This Difficult

After my two cents is a rough paste from Think Progress, and I sure hope that they don't mind me borrowing it. It's just here to illustrate that problem that people are having with medically killing our unfortunate death-penalty inmates. 

And should it be so hard? I mean, really? 

It's like they were trying to do it in the most degrading and uncomfortable way possible. First they strap the person in whose honor the execution is being given to a specially designed killing table. Then they hook some kind of special IV device into his arm, or arms. Then they've got these three giant cylinders of medicine with plungers. Number one is supposed to knock the person out, but it often misses the mark. Why they use this Rube Goldberg device is a mystery to me. It should be very simple. 

All you need to do is sit the honoree in a comfy chair. Give him or her a cocktail while a priest give him or her a pep talk and rolls up a sleeve. Then while the priest says a prayer, give the patient a shot of sodium pentothal. The same shot that they'd get if they were about to undergo abdominal surgery. It works every time. 

I have had that pleasure. The anesthesiologist approached me with the needle and said, "you're going to feel a pin prick. When you feel it, I want you to count backwards from 100." I remember the pin prick, and I remember forming the present intention to say, "one hundred." That's it. They proceeded to open me up from pillar to post, search around for my wayward, burst appendix, cut out the offending organs, make a couple of stitches, lift out my intestines and hose out the body cavity, replace everything and sew/staple me up, and place me in a hospital bed with tubes hanging out in a few places. 

What would be wrong with that knock-out method? After that shot, I can tell you, they could just inject bubbles into the condemned person's veins. That would work, and it would be cost effective, and the deceased would be never the wiser. 

But no, Rube Goldberg it is. And here's what happens. 

(Everything that follows comes from Think Progress, with my sincere appreciation.)

  

"A botched lethal injection ends in agony

Ronald B. Smith appeared to be conscious and gasping for breath during his lethal injection.

On Thursday night, Ronald B. Smith became the latest death row inmate to suffer during a lethal injection. The Alabama prisoner heaved and gasped for air for 13 minutes on the execution table, and there were reportedly no attempts to stop the procedure.

Smith’s 34-minute execution, consisting of the injection of a three-drug cocktail, began shortly after 10:30pm. But after the first drug, midazolam, was administered to render him unconscious, it was evident that Smith was conscious and in excruciating pain.

According to AL.com, he “appeared to be struggling for breath and heaved and coughed and clenched his left fist.” The head of the Department of Corrections (DOC) stepped in to test his level of consciousness by “calling out Smith’s name, brushing his eyebrows back, and pinching him under his left arm,” but the coughing and gasping didn’t let up. Smith also moved his right arm and hand after a second consciousness test was conducted.

In total, Smith’s suffering lasted between 10:34 and 10:47, at which point the remaining drugs were injected. Per Alabama Prison Commissioner Jeff Dunn’s own admission, there was no talk of halting the procedure and that the executioners stuck closely to “protocol.”

Smith ultimately died at 11:05, but his torturous demise is just the latest in a spate of botched executions involving midazolam, a controversial sedative at the heart of major legal battles in the past two years.

Scientists and pharmacologists agree that “midazolam is incapable of inducing a ‘deep, comalike unconsciousness,” like other sedatives administered during past executions. The medical community, legal experts, and human rights advocates call the use of midazolam — an unregulated drug that isn’t approved by the Federal Drug Administration for lethal injection — cruel and unusual.

In 2015, the controversy made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which dealt a huge blow to opponents of the death penalty. In the final opinion, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, the court ruled that there must always be a mechanism to administer the death penalty, regardless of its reliability.

Smith was one of five death row inmates who filed a lawsuit against Alabama for its new use of midazolam as the sedative in the three-part cocktail. They said that midazolam wouldn’t be effective in masking the pain associated with the other two drugs used to stop heart and lung function. In lieu of the three drugs, the five prisoners fought to be executed with one hefty dose of midazolam.+

The Visions - Cigarette

I know just how he feels. I quit, again, about six weeks ago. In my conscious hours, I do fine. I'm glad that I stopped. Sleeping, though, is a different story. Sleeping, I dream about cigarettes. In typical dream fashion, the dreams are a mix of cigarette cravings, cigarette terrors, and cigarette nostalgia. I'll get over it. Or I'll start again. You've got to die of something!

Talking Heads live - Cities with Adrian Belew on guitar

A gift! For Christmas! (Because you've all been so kind. No one has complained about all of the politics. Thank you; I'm sorry.) Talking Heads from this period, combined with Adrian Belew, reminds me of a Stephen Wright joke I heard long ago. "I made instant coffee in a microwave," he said, "I almost went back in time." Many, most, musicians work within some kind of framework. I love Earl King (see below), and it doesn't bother me in the least that he was part of a tradition. After all, almost no one in music breaks entirely new ground. And no, I'm not adding a list here, as much as I am fond of lists. Just consider . . . When Talking Heads hit the market in, what was it? 1976? After a couple of years of obscurity (weren't they on the Live at CBGB's album?). No one knew how to describe Talking Heads music. I loved their music myself, but I remember marveling at their lack of obvious influences. It was like they had grown up on a deserted island with access to human history but no musical references and had then discovered instruments at some point. The music press at the time was dumbfounded; they had no idea what to say about Talking Heads. And then to add Adrian Belew to that miasma of futuristic technicolor mist? Adrian "Mr. Wait, What Did He Just Do?" Belew. Why, it was almost enough to loosen one's attachment to the very space/time continuum itself!

Earl King - Street Parade

Welcome to December! I skipped Thanksgiving this year, but not to worry, no one seemed to notice. (But thanks, Tony, for being the exception!) Christmas? Am I forgetting Xmas too? Hint: I bought a Christmas Tree today! And decorations! And lights! LED! I have two, count 'em, two Christmas parties on calendar. So yeah, I'm not forgetting Christmas this year. I might just even play this song at both parties. It's Christmasy, don't you think?