Originally posted April 8th, 2012
By Michael Konik
Sometimes our chaotic, unknowable, seemingly random Universe arranges itself with perfect symmetry. In these moments of bracing clarity, authored by a Creator (in whatever guise or nomenclature you prefer) whose sense of irony is matched only by her/his/its sense of wicked humor, our innate foolishness and learned stubbornness are robbed of their pretensions. We see what we have wrought – and then pretend we didn’t, because, despite our professed wish for “change you can believe in,” change is the process we’re most unwilling to endure.
Last week provided several of those The Way It Is moments, with several illuminating events happening almost simultaneously, twinned like opposite sides of a coin, as though the worm-hole theories of modern physicists were getting an earthbound demonstration. Our chief prophet of change you can believe in, President Obama, who seems intent on being as big of a disappointment to as many . . . → Read More: Perverse Priorities
Originally posted March 25th, 2012
By Michael Konik
Outrageous. Horrifying. Disgusting.
These were some of the adjectives hurled in the press when news broke that the former world champions of football, the New Orleans Saints, for years had instituted a bounty system that rewarded their players for knocking opponents out the game. Players contributed to an in-house pool and collected $1,000-$1,500 when they scored a knockout. Hitting someone so hard that they required a stretcher or motorized cart to be removed from the field earned a special commendation.
The National Football League, presenters of America’s favorite gladiatorial spectacle, handed down sentences to the malefactors. The General Manager and an assistant coach were suspended without pay for about half the upcoming season. The head coach, Sean Payton, was banned for the entire year. And in a maneuver eerily reminiscent of the Soviet Gulag, the former defensive coordinator and alleged mastermind of the bounty program, Greg Williams, . . . → Read More: Violence Voyeurism
Originally posted March 4th, 2012
By Michael Konik
After reading Adam Gopnik’s masterful examination of the American prison system in a recent issue of the New Yorker, in which he examines our fetishistic compulsion to warehouse millions of errant citizens in prisons, it’s easy to conclude that our conception of “cruel and unusual punishment” needs reconsideration. Gopnik burrows through the rotten veneer of propriety that allows us to convince ourselves that for-profit “correctional facilities” are a good idea. He argues persuasively that incarcerating drug offenders is a horrible idea. And he explains why our obsession with procedural correctness is often antithetical to our goal of universal justice.
He also makes us understand what it must be like to be confined to a cage. Not nice.
Compared to solitary confinement and the torturous sensory deprivations that usually accompany a term in the brig, the death penalty seems vastly preferable, if not altogether . . . → Read More: Cages
Originally posted February 26th, 2012
By Michael Konik
First there was “shock and awe.” Then the counterinsurgency, or “surge.” Now it’s “targeted assassinations.” Evocative labels all, making state sanctioned murder easy to accept, if not easy to understand. But does anyone remember why we commit these acts of violence and commit unfathomable amounts of our GDP to their execution?
Right! Because we’re fighting a war on terror. The crazy thing about this war, like our other multi-decade assault on an intangible enemy, the war on drugs, is that almost no one can define our explicit goal. Ask the average American what we accomplished in Iraq. Did we win? Did we lose? Did the trillions of dollars we spent garner a nice return on investment? Ask her what we’re doing in Afghanistan. (Yes, we’re still there, trying to extricate ourselves from another fine imperialist mess.) And don’t laugh when she guesses, “kill the bad guys?” It’s . . . → Read More: Our Endless War(s)
Originally posted January 29th, 2012
By Michael Konik
At the Super Bowl this Sunday, when most of America will gather to watch our national character accurately represented by a brutal, war-like game (football), controlled by a ruthless, cartel-like corporation (the NFL), selling us mostly disposable, harmful products (automobiles, alcohol, online gambling), you’re almost certain to see an expensive (and weirdly effective) propaganda campaign from the United States Military.
Watch when former American Idol Kelly Clarkson, singing our National Anthem, an ode to steadfastness in the face of bloody battles, belts out the alternate (but compulsory for pop singers) high notes on the word “free.” Although the skies over Indianapolis won’t be visible to the combatants and their audience in the stadium – it’s a roofless dome – some symbol of America’s military mightiness (a “stealth” bomber, a squadron of fighter jets in close formation, Taliban-killing drones) will fly over the site with an intimidating roar. . . . → Read More: Heroic Murderers
Originally posted December 18th, 2011
By Michael Konik
Women, those creatures from Venus, assume that most men, particularly boyfriends and husbands, suffer from a malady known as “selective hearing.” Other forms of this pervasive syndrome include “selective memory” and “selective comprehension.” A rough description: When the Lakers score is coming over the radio, a man hears like a bat; when the wife is asking him to do the dishes – or massage her bunions, or watch cat videos – he hears like Marlee Matlin.
Selective memory usually kicks in when the subject of inquiry involves ex-girlfriends or number of beers consumed.
Selective comprehension usually kicks in when the subject of discussion involves the operation of the pay-per-view function on the remote when the new “Twilight” sequel shows up on cable.
Though it’s not yet entered in the Physicians’ Desk Reference, we’ve recently identified a new and possibly unrelated disease. This one affects both men and . . . → Read More: Selective Smelling
Originally posted November 27th, 2011
By Michael Konik
Friends are fickle. Family is unreliable. But shopping – now that’s something we can all count on to raise our collective Holiday Spirit. This was the primary message of hope we heard during Thanksgiving, which has gradually morphed into a two-day bacchanal. (Day One, Thanksgiving Thursday, features food and football. Day Two, Black Friday, features standing in lines and buying things.) In recent years, a period in which overconsumption has become a symbolic form of American art, the second part of the two-day holiday has threatened to overtake the first part in cultural importance. Indeed, in many places Friday is now beginning at 10PM on Thursday.
Here’s how someone the Los Angeles Times identified as a “retail expert” explained early reports that shoppers were “in a frenzy” of spending: “People have had so many years of recession that they want to spend money and feel good about . . . → Read More: Shopping Our Way to Happiness
Originally posted November 13th, 2011
By Michael Konik
The tragic hero, Sophocles taught us, is an otherwise great man (a warrior, a king) with a flaw that makes him perilously human, which is to say imperfect and prone to terrible mistakes that may or may not involve the family matriarch. Thanks to the magic of theatrical drama, we who witness the tragic hero’s downfall understand that he is us and we are him. The dread and disgust we experience at his failures provide a kind of cleansing (catharsis), and, the Greek playwrights hoped, a kind of wisdom.
“Learn from the mistakes of others” is the lesson. But it’s one that’s easier to talk about than master. Instead, we constantly repeat the mistakes of other — and then find new tragic heroes to feel bad about, whether or not they’re tragic or a hero.
Our latest protagonist is Joe Paterno, 84, the lifelong Penn State football . . . → Read More: Sophocles in Happy Valley
Originally posted October 30th, 2011
By Michael Konik
Here’s how a noted correspondent for the London Observer recently described one of the world’s great democratic republics: “[The country] has become greedy, obsessed with commercialism at the expense of any other value or norm, xenophobic, belligerent, and hubristic.”
He was talking about modern Great Britain. But sentient Americans reading the unpleasant description surely identify with the harsh diagnosis. We’ve been this way for as long as I’ve been alive (more than 46 years). Manifest Destiny has always been our credo and American Exceptionalism our rationale. But now, as in Great Britain, our historical mother, the Empire – and the myth of universal prosperity — is crumbling. The belligerence turns toward home.
In London there were riots and looting and violence. In New York (and Los Angeles, Oakland, Atlanta, Denver, Las Vegas, and a growing number of cities in every region of the Unites States) there’s an . . . → Read More: Occupy Everything
Originally posted October 23rd, 2011
By Michael Konik
Finally.
After more than eight-and-a-half years of deadly folly (more than 120,000 lives, most of them Iraqi civilians) at costs that may never be fully counted ($806 billion out of our treasury so far; $3 trillion according to Nobel-winning economists), President Obama announced on Friday that he’ll pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of the year. “As a candidate for president, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end,” Obama said. “So today I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year…After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over,” he said.
Not exactly. The “war” has been over for around 8 years and 5 months. The ongoing (and disastrously expensive) police action we’ve been conducting there will continue, albeit at reduced numbers. The . . . → Read More: Stop the War(s)! Cut the Budget! Restore our Faith?
We're really sorry about our most recent trading loss. People will say we require more oversight, and, in this case, maybe they're right. It shouldn't have happened, and we'll take steps to make sure it doesn't happen for a third time.
The $4,000 or so ($4,882) of your money that we failed to bring back from our annual company trip to Hollywood Park Racetrack and Casino will in... Read More-->
If you’re reading this essay on MichaelKonik.com, you know that this is a reliable place to find “me,” the me who shares his ideas with the world, whether or not any part of the world is interested. This is where I unilaterally invade my privacy, allowing strangers...
North Korea is launching rockets, Syria is slaughtering its citizens, and the Filipino community is organizing a massive get-out-the-vote campaign for a crucial election (not for something boring and unimportant like a public office but a cause that’s got folks passionately engaged: the American Idol finals). So...
Sometimes our chaotic, unknowable, seemingly random Universe arranges itself with perfect symmetry. In these moments of bracing clarity, authored by a Creator (in whatever guise or nomenclature you prefer) whose sense of irony is matched only by her/his/its sense of wicked humor, our innate foolishness and learned...
Poet Robert Pinsky. Pianist Laurence Hobgood. Text, music, and the moment -- what we hear on the new POEMJAZZ recording is two giant artists making something greater than the sum of its parts. While Pinsky recites his lovely words with his unlovely (but weirdly attractive) voice, Hobgood, the longtime arranger and accompanist [...]
Violence Voyeurism
By Michael Konik
Outrageous. Horrifying. Disgusting.
These were some of the adjectives hurled in the press when news broke that the former world champions of football, the New Orleans Saints, for years had instituted a bounty system that rewarded their players for knocking opponents out the game. Players contributed to an in-house pool and collected $1,000-$1,500 when they scored a knockout. Hitting someone so hard that they required a stretcher or motorized cart to be removed from the field earned a special commendation.
The National Football League, presenters of America’s favorite gladiatorial spectacle, handed down sentences to the malefactors. The General Manager and an assistant coach were suspended without pay for about half the upcoming season. The head coach, Sean Payton, was banned for the entire year. And in a maneuver eerily reminiscent of the Soviet Gulag, the former defensive coordinator and alleged mastermind of the bounty program, Greg Williams, . . . → Read More: Violence Voyeurism