The Lakers Gripe Page

Okay, here's the deal: The entry for this date will be the ONLY place on this blog---okay, on ANY blog---that I mention the Lakers, or anything NBA. But if you are one of the -0 persons interested, I will keep adding to this date's entry when the mood strikes over the coming days, weeks, months, I don't know, it' s all too depressing...

The thing is I thought I was prepared for the idea of the Lakers without Shaq. His habit of going through the motions (at best) until the playoffs was getting old. In fact it was amazing to see him for a couple of games in the playoffs, especially game 4 of the finals, when it turned out he still could do many of the things that Shaq used to do. Apparently he just can't do them all that often, or on less than two full days rest.

But then they started talking trade, and talking about who they might get for him, and then I got really bummed. Shaq not being a Laker is bad enough, but what's worse is who could become a Laker instead. Those guys from Dallas? DALLAS? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Dallas is even worse than Sacramento: they are both entertaining teams with enough talent to put on a good show, but they can't actually win anything against a good opponent. Especially Dallas. There isn't a player on that team I can think of I'd care to see in a Lakers uniform. They just don't have it.

Well, nobody seems to really know what's going on. But it's nothing good so far. Derek Fisher has opted out of his contract. What's the Lakers without Derek Fisher? He could still sign with them, but... So Fisher is a free agent, Kobe is a free agent, Shaq wants traded, Malone ain't talking, the best coach in NBA history was asked not to return--- and who says he'll be back? Gary Payton. GARY PAYTON. The one guy they need to get rid of.

The writers are writing in circles. Payton wouldn't say he's coming back unless he knew his buddy Shaq was coming back. But Shaq is really serious about leaving. Which means?

It's Kobe's team now, that's what all the changes are about. Only Kobe isn't saying anything, except to let the Clippers know he's available---and they're shedding players like mad to be able to afford him. THE CLIPPERS?

The owner who started all this has gone off to Italy. I wish I had. His general manager, who nobody seems to like, seems to be delaying doing anything about Shaq, hoping either that Shaq changes his mind or he gets better offers. Jerry West, who built the Lakers championships team, is exiled in Memphis, and he says he doesn't believe Shaq will leave, and he certainly doesn't expect the Lakers to trade him to a team in the West (like Dallas, or Sacramento.) But if anybody with Jerry West's basketball mind or common sense was still running the Lakers, would any of this be happening?

Meanwhile I'm waiting to here from one of the players who is trustworthy, what really happened in the finals. I haven't yet worked up the courage to watch the game 4 tape to see if it's true that Shaq was open in the 4th quarter and Kobe didn't get him the ball, and that's why they lost the game that Shaq dominated.(Not that I could really tell anyway.) Watching the Houston series again, it was clear how important a healthy Karl Malone was to their winning the first round, so maybe they couldn't have taken four games from Detroit. Game 5 would seem to indicate that.

Okay, that's enough for now. Everything (except Phil Jackson returning) is still more or less possible, like Shaq, Kobe, Fish and Malone return to the Lakers, and Gary Payton gets traded for a power forward. I mean, what else nearly good could happen? Kobe and Shaq are so expensive, what really good team can afford either one? Well, I've got my old Lakers playoff tapes, and my old Chicago Bulls playoff tapes. I guess until they wear out I'm good.

UpDATE 7/16

It's not so much that the Lakers traded Shaq, or that they mercifully traded him for 3 players I don't know much about (some say they're good, some say they're bad) and not for players from Sacramento or Dallas, but that these players come (from Miami) with such preexisting fat contracts that the Lakers have little room to improve further, unless they can trade somebody else--and all they've got at the moment is those three guys, and Gary Payton. With Derek Fisher also officially gone---having won his championships he opted to make some money with Golden State, can't fault him for that---the Lakers almost have to keep Payton now, or play without a point guard as well as a center.

See, that's the major problem. Shaq may not have been the player he once was, but he was still big. And now the Lakers are let's just say significantly undersized at the center position, assuming they even know who they might play at that position. Now if these new guys don't work out, they've got to pay them anyway and they can't afford anyone new, even though there doesn't appear to be a really good center out there anyway. They'll be lucky to get Vlady Divac, who was a Laker before he was traded to make room for Kobe many years ago, and might be interested in returning if they can find some way to pay him. He is at least sort of tall and a veteran with some knowledge of the game and the position.

No one knows if Karl Malone is coming back---he loved Shaq but he also loves Kobe and the LA fans. On the other hand, he's being recruited by San Antonio, which has a legitimate chance at the championship next year---which is why he came to LA---and his wife is from that Texas city. So chances are he'll go there, and then the Lakers will really be questionable. Unless managment has another move or two up its sleeve before the season starts.

The big news of course was that Kobe will be back. Probably crucial to that were statements by the Laker owner and GM that Kobe had nothing to do with Shaq being traded and Phil Jackson being un-asked back, although both of them thought that management's preference for Kobe undermined them. Kobe denies he had anything to do with it, he told both he'd be content to play out his career with them, but he did have issues with them and...how the hell should I know?

So the Lakers will be a run and gun team, they hope, and good enough (the sports seers say) to make the playoffs but nowhere near good enough to get very far into them. The other very good teams in the west just got a lot better, simply because Shaq is no longer in the west. He and his new but supposedy more team oriented Kobe-type shooting guard are supposed to make the Miami Heat a surefire playoff team---not too difficult in their conference---but if Kobe and Shaq couldn't dent Detroit, can Shaq without Kobe? Maybe, maybe not. The Lakers are betting that Shaq has one or two more good years at best---probably next year---but that Kobe will become the premier player in the league and stay pretty near the top for the next seven years or more. Next year? The Lakers could be fun to watch, and the Heat could be, too. But as things stand now it's not likely either will be in the finals. Just as well. I can spend the time working on my shot (I can no longer with any degree of accuracy call it a jump shot.)

August 3 UPDATE So the Lakers did sign Vlade Divac, and a forward who can spell at center, and who can run, in Slava Mevendko . But the possibility of the Lakers being a playoff team next year rests entirely now with the decision of Karl Malone.

Malone apparently has offers to play for the Lakers (with Kobe) or the Heat (with Shaq) or for San Antonio (where he arguably would have the best chance for a championship ring, but would be part of a completely new bunch of players that might or might not be a team.) Though Malone came to the Lakers at the behest of Shaq and maintains a good relationship and lots of admiration, he also developed a great relationship off and especially on the court with Kobe. The on-court partnership began to sparkle most conspicuously against San Antonio in the playoffs. It was evident at times in the few games both played during the season, and then in flashes in the Houston first round series. If Malone had not gotten hurt, it's more likely that the Lakers would have been able to hang on and win the championship against Detroit. (Not a lock, obviously, given what looked like team fatigue, but he was the missing element.)

With Malone, Kobe has somebody he can trust on the offense, and somebody he can rely on to play defense. Without Malone, the Lakers will be on a steep learning curve, and without much maturity in the playoffs. So stay tuned: the Lakers season is on the line.

On another note, I watched with actually a great deal of pleasure as Italy dismantled the U.S. Olyimpic team, made up mostly of second and third tier NBA semi-stars. The Italians play a different style, but it's smart basketball, with lots of player movement and crisp passes, and accurate shooting. Apparently they've learned that scoring points will win games. They increased a ten point lead to nearly 30 in the fourth quarter. Not only isn't the U.S. team anything like the Dream Team, but the rest of the world is playing their game. Italy has been a mainstay of European basketball for years---hey, that's where Kobe Bryant learned the game (and learned Italian) when his dad played there.

The Real News

Where do you go for the real news, the significant news, the news you need to heed? Well, you can get the latest on Britney's tour cancellation, the Lacy Peterson trial or Madonna’s name change, plus the furor over whether the voting is really fair for American Idol, in most any newspaper, TV network news, MSNBC, CNN and Fox. But for the real news, you might try the Weather Channel.

There you will see, day after day, a summer full of violent storms from the east coast through the Middle Atlantic States---particularly the Ohio Valley---and into the Midwest. Torrential rains, frequent and damaging thunderstorms. In much of the Midwest, this stormy weather has been accompanied by tornadoes---up to 100 in a day this spring, which NOAA has announced was the 3rd warmest spring on record. Storms in the mountain states, too. And in the West, the worst drought in 500 years. Get that? Since the continent was invaded, since it saw its first metal plow.

Nobody really knows how bad the global climate crisis will get, but it’s clearly underway. Not clearly enough for most people yet, it seems. Americans are incredibly literal---the only time they “got” global warming was the very hot summers at the end of the 1980s in the eastern U.S.---including the media capitals of New York and Washington. Hot summer equal global warming, get it? So the first flood of books and films made their way into the marketplace in 1990. But now there's just storms and floods in some places, drought in others, too scattered and slow for the pattern to look as real as a still photo, a special effects sequence.

Probably it will take a combination of extreme events and a new president to point out what the problem is. Or it might be the next international climate change report, due this year, though with a Bush-approved change in its leadership, probably not till after the election.

What really will matter is what the U.S. does or doesn’t do about climate change. Later it will also matter what China and other growing industrial economies do or don’t do. Much of Europe is getting itself into better position to both cope and begin slowing down the runaway train. But the consequences are likely to go on, and probably continue getting worse, for a hundred years or so. In twenty to fifty years, our children and their children will probably have a pretty good idea just how bad it will be---whether it’s going to be manageable, survivable or apocalyptic.

If it’s apocalypse in store, the half-full folks can cheer themselves by remembering that our species achieved its humanity, that we became pretty much what we still are, except with a closer relationship with nature and the realities of the universe now hidden to us, during the last period of major climate disruption---the most recent big Ice Age.

The kind of consequences outlined in the deadpan predictions of the last international report suggest there will be some big losers (in the Third World mostly) and a few offsetting winners (some in the U.S.), so this will be something we’ll just muddle through. I don’t really think so. For one thing, our current government is not only unprepared for any serious set of problems, but is bleeding away the financial resources the U.S. will need, even if incrementally over a very long time, to cope. The goodwill of the world to offer help that might offset what the U.S. can’t afford, is an even more precious resource being bled away. We could wind up with no recourse but to threaten people with our hydrogen bombs and other WMDs.

Or the whole nation-state vs. global corporation situation could come to a head, what with gigantic companies buying up fresh water and doing their best to destabilize governments that might stop them (I’ve even seen this charge applied to attempting to destabilize Canada, the biggest reserve of fresh water in the world.)

It’s all way beyond my meager knowledge, but my intuition does tell me that (and I suppose this is another half-fool move) a lot of the things people are terribly worried about in our technological future---wholesale genetic engineering, human cloning to order, etc.--—aren’t going to turn out to be problems, because society won’t be able to afford them (financially, in terms of energy or social stability), and technology is going to have to take quite a different turn.

There’s just no doubt that climate is going to shape how humans live in the future that is now beginning, for climate always has. And apparently we’ve usually been blind to that fact.

For the last half century or more, and certainly since the 1980s when coincidentally the “greenhouse effect” began to attract notice (although Arthur Miller notes in his autobiography that some scientist he met mentioned the possibility in the 40s) there’s been the drumbeat of the end of western civilization, one that has been growing so insistent that it seems a foregone conclusion. But we might have figured that, absent blowing ourselves up, this might turn out to be overly dramatic. Still, the end of a “civilization” is a bit abstract---a lot of people who wouldn’t agree with each other on what constitutes western civilization, believe it has already ended.

It’s “civilization” or “society” in the broader sense that’s now at issue---humanity that doesn’t shrink way down, that doesn’t go back to the caves and the deserts. Absent being overcome by barbarians---not an idle thought anymore, thanks to…well, let’s not get into that—we’re looking at biological threats. We might be poisoning ourselves fatally---I’ve always expected that my generation would be the litmus test of that, since most of this crap started when we were babies. Overcrowding breeding disease and spreading around the world in a flash, or even the coincidence of a few badly placed disasters that might have gone unnoticed in a less intensely interconnected and interdependent, smugly vulnerable time as ours---earthquake in LA, big volcano eruption somewhere else---or just another brazen meteor—there are lots of scenarios for the possibility of Armaggedon. I’ve even had the nasty thought that a fairly large human die-back is the only way this planet will survive without tossing out the last few million years of evolution: the Gaian enterprise. Still, it wasn’t until this climate thing that it truly seemed that major painful change became all but inevitable.

If it’s the end of the world as we know it, I can’t say I feel fine about it. I’d like to believe we’ve learned enough to make a conscious transition, to do what plenty of us know has to be done (and plenty of people smarter than me know how to do). We could even eventually go back for what we mistakenly jettisoned and see if we can’t recover what we lost in the process of developing certain other aspects of ourselves. At the edge of science and other thought, we seem primed for that.

Oh well.

I’ll keep plugging at this for as long as I’ve got the resources and the wits to do so, because I believe that the future is what we do and what we dream right now, so living in the future and living in the present are really the same thing, as far as our mortal lives go. There are a lot of people working that future more diligently, more knowledgeably and more effectively than me. But facing the climate challenge will take the whole society, and sooner or later it will change the whole society, maybe all societies and cultures on the planet. The longer we do nothing, the worse and the longer-lasting the crisis will be. The sooner people start taking in the real news, the better chance we’ll have to make the major changes that might keep this enterprise going with the least possible amount of pain and destruction.

A Guy Thing

Several of the recent posts in this particular blog have been about sports. In a way they're an anomaly; there probably haven't been any before that for several months. But what do you expect? I'm a guy. I like sports. (Some sports.) I have to, right?

Of course during NBA finals week I also read William Irwin Thompson's book Coming Into Being, which has no sports in it at all, I saw the new Harry Potter movie and watched some DVDs, including "The Hours." You know, the Virginia Woolf thing, the chick flick? And it blew me away.

Maybe I'm strange, and maybe there's no maybe about it, but what's really strange is how strongly gender stereotypes have returned. A great deal of what young men (especially of draft age) went through in the 1960s was redefining our masculinity, and then "women's lib" and feminism in the 1970s seemed likely to sweep away all gender stereotypes forever.

But then some feminists of all genders found it politically convenient to simultaneously insist that gender roles were obsolete (so women could get any job, hopefully at equal pay) and that women were different and essentially better. Gender became a popular political tool, trumping race and totally obscuring what was most important in determining the limitations of my life: class. Feminism of a certain sort became exclusionary.

Which made it much easier for the stereotyping of men to resume. It got much harder to stereotype women beyond the continuing emphasis on sexual attractiveness, but men could be stereotyped with impunity as dumb and barely housebroken. Every societal ill up to and including war was the fault of testosterone.

So strong is the reaction against anything traditionally "male" in some quarters that young boys who don't act enough like young girls in school may be routinely drugged and treated as dangerous mental cases. All children are victims of America's scandalously impoverished schools, but it's the boys who more often wind up in jail. Amongst the upper to mid class young adults, the New Age man is not much of a solution either. Someone once described such fellows as forever looking as if they'd just been hit on the head with a board.

But the most effective stereotyping of men was launched by those who most profit by it: advertisers. Men became not just sports-watching louts, but beer drinking sports watching louts. And so on. You've seen the commercials. It's much easier to sell to a defined market, and much, much better to define the market so it requires the product you're selling. Define this lifestyle repeatedly, and you create a self-fulfilling prophesy, otherwise known as a market of men who believe that being a guy means drinking beer, hating wine, and not being able to shop for groceries without a woman supplying you with photographs of the correct cans and boxes.

There's the true story of a man---and I've got his name somewhere---who made a lot of money writing New York Times columns, and giving lectures and workshops, on feminism. But when he began advocating for men, he stopped getting published, he stopped getting paid big bucks for lectures and workshops, and so on. Remember the reaction to Robert Bly and the men's workshops? They were widely ridiculed as a bunch of comical suburban wildmen, running in the woods, beating on drums and crying. No one would dare ridicule a feminist workshop in these terms, but that kind of gross insulting disdain was widely accepted, without a raising an eyebrow.

But now we've seen that the Iraq prison scandal involves a fair number of the fair sex, just as there seems to be no distinction in behavior exposed by this scandal based on ethnicity or race.

Actually, before I read the Thompson book this week, I was ready to deny any broadly defining role at all for gender, apart from the continuing gender roles and equal pay injustices. I still find most references to "the patriarchy" as offensive and reductionistic, as do folks like James Hillman and Thomas Moore (of course they're just MEN so what do you expect?) But Thompson persuades me that at least the archetypes of gender are meaningful, and that "patriarchy" has some real if limited reference. He's even pretty convincing on the Goddess mythology, though I still think the popular view is much too simplistic, not to mention sentimental, divisive, self-serving and irrelevant. (The problem with nation-states, monotheistic religious cults, industrial civilizations and violence isn't that they're patriarchial; it's that they are nation-states, monotheistic religious cults, industrial civilizations and violent.) And I still think gender as explanation is used inappropriately and unhelpfully most of the time.

As for sports, maybe it's because I come from Pittsburgh, where little old ladies could discuss the Steelers' interior defensive line with comfort and insight. And I suppose I do believe there is something I'd call a chick flick---a movie about relationships with no resonance beyond the mundane---and I'd rather see a good baseball game than one of those. But I find the idea that I have to moan about how "The Hours" is so slow and nothing really happens, because that's the paradigmatic guy reaction, equally as infuriating as the idea that still being captivated by the beauty of a home run swing as I was when I was 10 can be reduced to some cliche that involves swilling Budwisers and scratching.

Is the force with them?

Strange days, my Lakers fans. A single three point shot was the difference that preserves the dynasty, at least for the moment. The Lakers lost the first game of the finals at home, and won the second with a staggering improvised fourth quarter and a dominant overtime. Now they go to Detroit for three games that will tell the tale. They need at least one, and could really use two.

Credit the first game to Detroit's coach, Larry Brown, who had them very prepared and efficient. The Lakers had a tough time figuring the Pistons out, and seemed to be waiting for Detroit's nearly flawless performance to falter. When uncertain, the Lakers depend heavily on Shaq and Kobe, and though both of them came through, the rest of the team was woeful.

The second game showed the Lakers ability to adapt, but their Achilles heel right now is injuries. Contrary to early reports, the Lakers now seem more banged up than the Pistons. Crucial injuries to Karl Malone and Derek Fisher have been costly. Both are playing, Malone is clearly limited and Fisher's shot has been off---though he made two crucial three pointers in the fourth quarter, so maybe he's adapting.

Malone is still valuable on the floor, if only for his courage. The real mystery is Gary Payton, who was a bit more effective defensively in the second game, but is still spiritless and sulky. Neither he nor Malone are hitting their shots.

Injuries (including Rick Fox), inconsistent play and match-up problems had Phil Jackson improvising some strange lineups particularly in the 4th quarter of game 2. But ultimately he outcoached Brown in that quarter, and the battle-tested Lakers dominated the drained Detroit team in overtime.

The star of the quarter was Kobe Bryant, who is now has to be considered a favorite for MVP if the Lakers win the series. Not only for his 3 point shot that tied the game with 2 seconds left, but for his determination, going to the basket for shots that no one else can make, and his defense.

But the player of the game was the rookie with the great pedigree, Luke Walton. Son of Lakers great, Bill Walton, Luke energized the Lakers when he got into the game in the second quarter, and again in the fourth and overtime. He scored crucial baskets, made crucial defensive plays and rebounds, but most of all he made plays, and has the kind of on-court rapport with Shaq that Malone has with Kobe. His passes to Shaq and an inspired alley-oop were the difference. Shaq performed well, especially making an absolutely crucial foul shot and three-point play just before Kobe's three pointer. But he has yet to have the outstanding defensive game as he had against Minnesota and San Antonio.

If the Lakers follow their usual script, the need for so many "crucial" plays in the second game will lead to easier victories in Detroit, perhaps with one more lapse. But Malone's injury and Payton's confused and spiritless play are very troublesome.

The difference could come down to character and playoff experience. Detroit really fell apart in overtime, and they must know they've played about as well as they can. They could have a great shooting night and run away with a game, but they have to win three more, not just one. But the Lakers fought through tremendous adversity---they lost a pretty big lead and were down by five points very late in the 4th quarter. They had a terrible no-call on a foul to Bryant that was inexcusable (when does a Bryant shot fall a couple of feet short of the basket except when his shooting hand is hit? You don't need a replay to show that, although that is what the replay shows) and a bad call against Shaq for his fifth foul, but they overcame that. Malone made important contributions even though his obvious injury cost them at times as well. In the end it was their thundering will that smashed the Pistons in overtime. It could be the difference, but it's unlikely to be easy.

Luke Walton will probably get more playing time, and he deserves to, but he's a rookie and they don't get breaks from officials. The matchups continue to be a problem, especially on the boards. They need a big rebounding night from Shaq and Medvenenko. But Luke's energy and ball-handling ability could be very important. Is that enough for the force to be with them? Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Turns out that Payton is playing with physical problems as well. So, hours before tipoff of game 4, after the Lakers played probably the worst playoff game in their recent history (although they had some bad ones against Sacramento, too, a few years back, a prediction for the outcome of the finals: Lakers in 6.

DOWNDATE Did I say six games? Seven---I meant seven games.

But while it is still possible, the way they lost the 4th game is not encouraging. Whatever happens, the Hollywood ending isn't likely to be there. Karl Malone is completely ineffective with his injury. Finger-pointing has begun among the LA Times sportswriters---one blaming Kobe for not passing enough to Shaq (Kobe did have another bad game shooting), another blaming Phil Jackson for not heeding the request of his 5 former champions and starting the old lineup of Fox, Fisher, Shaq, Kobe and George.

Whatever the reason for the meltdown, if the Lakers don't win the championship, the chances that this team would return intact---which seemed likely a week ago---is about zero. If they lose, the Shaq v. Kobe noise will drive at least one of them out of LA, Malone will retire, Payton will be gone, and other veteran players will probably go, as a new team is built around whatever star remains (if any) and the most promising young players, Luke Walton and Kareem Rush. The end of an era could come as soon as Tuesday. (Which I'm sure for some of my regular readers, won't be soon enough...)

Last Date
There was no Hollywood ending after all, at least for the Lakers. No championship for Karl Malone, whose knee was so bad he didn't suit up for the final game---his injury was the most crucial of many---and he will consult his doctors before the probable decision to retire. No record-breaking tenth championship for coach Phil Jackson, who said there was only a very slight chance he would be back. In the next month--maybe even before the Dems have a VP candidate---the shape of next year's Lakers will be clearer: either almost completely different (no Jackson, Malone, Fisher (free agency), Fox (retires), Grant (retires), Kobe (free agency, but he could return anyway) or surprisingly intact, ready for one more shot (hopefully, without Gary Payton.) Who knows how much ego got in the way, or why Kobe had such a run of poor shooting games...But it says something that every one of the players apologized to Malone for not getting him his championship. Malone said he was disappointed but didn't regret playing for the Lakers this year---he really bonded with this team.

But it was a Hollywood week for Detroit, becoming the first team without home court advantage to win their three home games, and the championship. They played a stellar game, confident that the Lakers couldn't match them, especially with Malone out and Shaq playing on two days rest. The Lakers only hope was that the Pistons would come out flat, and Kobe and other players would catch fire. Instead it was Detroit shooting the high percentage, and both Kobe and Shaq were gracious in defeat, giving Detroit their due as playing a better series and deserving the championship. They were also gracious about each other and Phil Jackson, so all options remain open, and pretty much up to the Lakers management. Then of course the really big decision---who do I root for next year?

The Finals


Down two games to none against the defending NBA champions in the second round, with all of their flaws exposed, the LA Lakers could have fallen apart. Instead they've become a team, a process that was not entirely accomplished until game 6 of the western conference finals. First the stars had to (as they say) elevate their game, and while doing the difficult and improbable things that stars do---in terms of skill, smarts, heart and stamina---they kept teammates involved and played the coach's game. Improbably they won four games in a row against the defending champion Spurs. It took a very improbable shot by a non-star (Derek Fisher) to do it, but most of the time it was Shaq or Kobe or notably both, who sealed the deal.

As predicted here, Minnesota gave them a battle, and also as predicted, there was a most improbable hero, Kareem Rush, whose 6 three pointers won a mostly ugly game 6 (made uglier by needlessly interfering officiating) and the series for the Lakers. And it was Kobe's passes to Rush, and Malone's passes to Mevedenko (and pats on the head when he saw how nervous this reserve player was) that made this a team at last.

So this is what the Detroit Pistons have to face. The Lakers still have a tendency to get lazy (though I thought their much advertised "giddiness" in the locker room before their tepid performance in the fifth game was a good sign---a collective tension release that was another team bonding moment) and Detroit will compete hard, especially on defense. But just as the western conference series was essentially over when the Lakers won the first game, if they win the first game of this series, it will be just a matter of how many games it will take---4, 5 or 6---before they claim the championship. It's not just a matter of numbers, but of the fact that the Lakers have successfully adjusted to their opponents better as the series goes on.

They could get lazy and blow the first game, since it is at home, but that's unlikely. I expect Karl Malone to have a great series and keep the Lakers honest. It will be his first championship, and he may retire afterwards. (Although my decidedly minority view is that he will be back next year, along with Shaq and Kobe. Gary Payton is less likely, and coach Phil Jackson is somewhat of a mystery, but if the two stars and Malone stay, it will probably be as much up to them to ask him to stay as it will be for management to renegotiate his contract.)

I can't say I cared for Malone much before this season. I thought he was mostly a redneck bully; I was slower to forgive him for his comments that caused Magic Johnson to retire (Malone said players wouldn't guard Magic as hard because they'd be afraid to get some of his HIV-infected blood) than Magic was. But he's shown me something this year. Even though he was hurt for a good part of the season, he was the guy who held this team together and insisted on its character, with an openness and honesty, emotion and calm that belies his muscular play. At 40 he may not have the ability to have an MVP series but he's going to be a crucial element. The guy who will be playing at an MVP level will be Kobe, and it's not irrelevant to mention that Malone and Kobe have bonded off and especially on the court this year; at crucial times, before Shaq elevated his game and the team knew what to expect of him, the Malone-Kobe combination was what kept the Lakers going.

Who else is going to step up? Rick Fox has had a dismal playoffs, still hampered by his injury. His defense and passing have been crucial in the past---perhaps they will be again. Gary Payton will earn his championship on defense in this series, but he's capable of scoring in heaps. That's what this Laker team learned-that when the defense gives somebody an opportunity (and they must, faced with the decision to double team and swarm Shaq or Kobe), every one of the "role" players is capable of making big shots, and lots of them. Detroit is perhaps more banged up than the Lakers, though Derek Fisher was playing hurt and not terribly well in game 6. But at this point, every team and every player is hurting. Still, the finals are the finals, and the adrenalin should raise the level of play. Game one is Sunday.

The K Scale

Instead of thumbs up or down, a five star system or a ten point scale, or even the SF Chronicle's "little man" whose posture indicates levels of approval, I am introducing a new system, the K Scale, for the evaluation of new movies.

This new scale is needed I believe because of the sheer awfulness of the vast majority of new movies that ruin the taste of perfectly good cardboard popcorn in 987-screen cineplexes throughout the land.

But more than that it's a highly personal scale. It reflects in part my maturation from a young curmudgeon, mortally offended by degradations upon the cultural potential, to my present state of practicality, and acceptance that demographics have passed me by, additionally leavened by mortality awareness.

So now I make no apologies for my personal taste, and my general priorities of don't waste my time, let alone my money.

I introduce the K Scale in time for the summer movie season. This is actually the time of year I am likely to see new films in the theatre. I know I should be more moved to see the wintry serious films but I find myself spectacularly uninterested in the emotional upheavals of younger Hungarians or the spiritual, sexual and shopping traumas of younger denizens of Manhattan, London or Beverly Hills. The operative words here are "younger" and "trauma." I figure I've paid my dues over the years in having my own emotions wrenched and wrung out for art, through two hours or more of seduction---getting to identify with or care about the characters-and abandonment, as awful things happen to them, with perhaps a couple of glib minutes of hopefulness at the end. Life is taxing enough, thanks.

Which doesn't send me to films of mindless violence either. Possibly due to some mental defect, I find violence disturbing rather than entertaining, even if only as it pushes the fight or flight button. I'd rather not go through that unnecessarily.

Not all action films are just violent. Some are just dull. For instance, the currently popular Kung Fu style fighting bores me to distraction. The fight sequence in the second Matrix film (which I saw only because the first was intriguing; I wasn't dope enough to see the third) only had me yearning for Fred Astaire. He could have done that sequence with so much more style, and with better music.

So the dramas are too draining, the comedies are mostly not funny (and whatever is funny I've seen in the TV promo) and the action pictures are largely without redeeming value. Add to these feelings my new preference for DVDs. In terms of pure viewing---the picture, the sound---they easily beat theatres for me. Plus I can pause, rewind, fast forward, repeat, and indulge in the textural extras and commentaries. All for prices much lower than I would pay for the privilege of sitting in badly proportioned seats behind an excessively tall person who talks throughout the film, my feet sticking to the floor, the picture so dim I can see through the letters in the titles, and the sound pitched to ear-splitting explosions and incomprehensible buzzes of dialogue.

Still, most of my viewing life came before videos, and I have strong affinities for the experience of the movie theatre. I've seen hundreds of films in theatres, including scores I've seen repeatedly. (Glancing through the lists of the ten best film comedies, thrillers, westerns, musicals, fantasies, histories, and dramas in The Book of Film Biographies, edited by Robin Morgan and George Perry, I note that while of course I don't agree with all the choices, I've seen them all except one-"Goodfellas", which I don't miss in the least.)

I also have a partner who likes to go out once in awhile. So once in awhile, and a bit more often in the summer, I'll see a first-run film when it opens. I've always liked science fiction, my favorite as a kid and still appealing if for additional reasons. Science fiction, comic book mythology, fantasy of a certain kind---that's where the new magic is. (Though the Tolkien films were often striking, they were more effect than substance, and the effect was less enchantment than special effects battlefield exhaustion. And I am definitely not interested in the strongest-survive, "fight evil with evil" war movies disguised as science fiction or fantasy.)

So there are a few films I want to see this summer. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban first and foremost-I think this is going to be a good one. I'll see "The Day After Tomorrow" somewhat for professional reasons, but I enjoyed "Independence Day" and found a lot to see and think about, even if I can't say I totally admire it. I was a big Spider-Man comic book fan, so I'll see that one. There are a couple more of that ilk. And of course we all await "Farenheit 911." All this is made easier by a Christmas gift of a movie pass card. Because now that I don't get in free as a reviewer or important art person, money is an object.

So fittingly enough, money is the basis of my K Scale. (What? You think I forgot?) In everyday terms, in our house we tend to rank upcoming films as "see at theatre," "never see until trapped on an airplane with it" or mostly "something to rent when it hits the $1 rack." My K Scale is an outgrowth of this method of thinking.

Instead of rating films based on how much I liked them, which is a sucker's game anyway because you have to see them first, I've decided to rate films I haven't seen by how much money I will require to be paid in order to go to a theatre opening weekend and see it. (I suppose this is also based on habits of mind derived from being a film reviewer, when I saw lots of films only because I was paid to write about them.)

Though the exact K Scale is still in development, here's the basic idea. I start with the smallest amount, say $20. Say there is a film I wouldn't mind seeing and sort of would like to see, like Shrek 2. (I enjoyed Shrek. I loved the Billy Crystal character, and the Harry Hausen in-jokes.) A total stranger could convince me to see it by handing me $20. Then again, I might see it anyway, if I simply wanted to go to a movie and it was playing, or my partner did, or some friends. (Though they are more likely to want to see some serious wintry film, and so I'll go... if it doesn't happen too often. )

After that, we get into serious application of the K Scale. Now we're talking about movies I wouldn't see unless I got paid to see them. (This amount, by the way, is in addition to a free ticket and a pre-paid tub of popcorn.)

So for current movies, the K Scale would be:

VON HELSING.........$30

This is a film I'll probably rent someday, since I'm mildly curious, and I can watch it on fast-forward. But for $30, I'll go to the theatre.

TROY......$60

A film I am unlikely to see even on video unless I'm doing research on the Zena Era of Anachronistic History.

DOGSVILLE... $75

A worthy if not brilliant film I'm sure, but I just don't want to go through all that, thank you very much. But for $75, I'll see it.

And so on, up the scale until we get to the likes of:

KILL BILL (any number).... $10,000
That's what it will take to get me to see these films. The idea of going to see the decadent corruption of filmmaking talent wasted on hip shock and unrelenting cynical violence has no appeal, but $10,000 will soothe the pain, especially since I can contemplate it during the film, plus it will pay for some extra Dots and maybe one of those big Snickerdoodles.

I also apply the K Scale to individuals. For instance, I will go to a film with a cast that includes Ben Stiller or David Spade only for the price of $15,000. (For each film. If both are in it, I'll give you a break and take $25,000.)

Though I reserve the right to adjust the scale according to the continuing deterioration of film quality and the level, sanity and agenda of the general culture, I do have a top, or bottom, point of the scale so far. It is:

PASSION OF THE CHRIST....$50,000 (in advance, cash or cashier's check only.)

Free Barry!


I’ve watched Barry Bonds play baseball since his rookie year for my hometown team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. He hit his sixth home run on my fortieth birthday. His homeruns in those days were memorable mostly for the speed with which they left the park, though he did hit some titans. He was a line drive hitter, but they were the hardest line drives I’ve ever seen. The last Pittsburgh Pirates game I saw at Three Rivers Stadium was at the end of his last season there. He didn’t homer but he had five or six hits, rockets to right, center and left.

Lots of people in Pittsburgh didn’t like him, including sportswriters, but Pittsburgh always had to have a dark hero to go along with the favorite, especially when both were black. Willie Stargell was the beloved Pops, Dave Parker was his bad boy shadow. Bobby Bonilla was the popular favorite when Bonds was in the same stellar outfield, on that brilliant and tragic late 80s, early 90s team that one year came within an out of going to the World Series, and never could quite get past the Atlanta Braves several years running. Pittsburgh hasn’t had a contending team since.

Since 1993, Barry has been on the San Francisco Giants, which came within a single win of winning the division that year, and couple of outs of winning the World Series two seasons ago. And of course in the past several years, Barry Bonds has emerged as probably the greatest baseball player of all time. He followed his record-setting single season home run year with the batting average title the next year.

I’ve only managed to see one game in San Francisco since he’s been there, late last season. He did something rare for him---he struck out twice. Still, it’s a great ball park with great fans, and everyone holds their breath when Barry comes to the plate. So often he rewards them with the kind of home run that takes your breath away, like a Michael Jordan dunk or a Kobe Bryant drive, or some of those amazing things the women gymnasts do.

This year, despite his father’s death last fall, and the shadow of the Balco drug scandal, and turning forty himself this season, he started out with tremendous hitting. In mid April he tied Willie Mays (his godfather) for third for total home runs with a shot that practically bears his patent: out of the park in right field, and into the Bay. The next day he moved ahead of Mays with a shot to the same spot (both balls, incredibly, retrieved by the same guy, out there amongst the other boats and kayaks positioned just to chase Barry Bond home runs.)

A few days Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle sports columnist, let loose the rhetoric along with the statistics. “Barry Bonds is rewriting the Book of Baseball Wisdom. The hardest thing to do in sports right now is to miss Barry’s round bat with your round pitched ball.”

At that point, Bonds was hitting .500, with 7 homers and 16 RBIs in 34 at bats. “His slugging percentage is 1.265, a figure so high that only dogs can read it." Ostler wrote about a Sunday against the Dodgers, where Barry hit a double, a homer, another homer, and an RBI single. “Bonds’ second homer caused the Dodgers to do some soul-searching at two different meetings on the mound in which there were seven participants. I think the group included a Bonds specialist the Dodgers flew in from Zurich. I’m pretty sure I could hear them singing ‘Kumbaya.’ It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a meeting at the mound broken up by the fire marshal.”

Then Bonds hit at least one home run in eight straight games. This is the major league record, held by several players (I believe the first one was Dale Long, for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1950s. One of those stats I memorized from a bubble gum card.) But Barry didn’t hit a homer in the ninth game. He wasn’t allowed to. The San Diego Padres intentionally walked him, every time.

That, my friends, was poor sportsmanship to the extreme. It used to be that in baseball and some other sports, it was a matter of honor to let a player going for a record have a fair shot at it. You didn’t tell your pitcher to throw a fastball down the middle, but you didn’t tell him to walk the guy out of a chance.

But it was only the beginning. By early May Bonds had been intentionally walked 29 times, at a pace to break the single season record of 68 before the season was half over. (The record is held by, you guessed it, Barry Bonds.) By mid May, he had been walked 54 times in 35 games. At first he shrugged it off, saying that the important thing was that the team wins the game. That worked while they were winning. When they slumped, he talked about the strain of it, of staying mentally and physically prepared when he never gets the chance to hit. Then he started talking about being traded. Then his back started acting up again, and he was out of the lineup.

Walking Bonds so much is statistically bad baseball by some accounts (if the idea is to win more than you lose by walking him), but by my account it’s bad for baseball. It corrupts the game. It’s also obviously bad for the baseball business. People don’t go to baseball games to watch the greatest living hitter and maybe the greatest of all time not get a pitch to hit. This is a guy who in the best of times gets maybe a couple of hittable pitches in a game, hardly ever more than one during an at-bat. That he hits as well as he does has to be measured against this.

But this titan of hitting in the last years we will ever get to see him hit is being denied the opportunity to do what he does best, and we are denied the opportunity to see him do it, if only on TV. We’re denied the chance to see him break Babe Ruth’s all time record, which he could conceivably do this season, though not with the at-bats he’s being currently allowed. Then there’s Henry Aaron’s record still to go. There’s no reason that Barry Bonds can’t become the all-time home run champ, except for all those walks.

It’s far from the biggest crime against humanity currently in the docket, but it’s a disgrace to the game of baseball nonetheless. And we can use all the grace and inspiration and wonder we can get.

Summer Preview

What's this?---Half of Arcata's population has suddenly disappeared!

Taken by aliens? The rapture? Health care and cheap gasoline in Canada?

Not exactly. School is out.

The university students who comprise half of Arcata's population are mostly gone for summer vacation. As are the ones who won't be back, the graduates. Last weekend their families gladdened the hearts of the local restaurants with their traditional biggest weekend. Now some of the local eating establishments will shut down completely for weeks or months, while others shrink their hours.

This was as close to an alien invasion as we get, though. I remember several years ago sitting in a local establishment called Los Bagels (yes, it is a Mexican bagel bakery and café) near a table of invaders from the Planet New York. Having spent some time there, I recognized the accent. But then, so would everyone else here. I've learned that here in far northern California, "the East" (which begins just past Las Vegas) is essentially defined as "New York," and everyone who lives there is Jewish. But the provincialism of the cultural capital of New York is also justifiably famous. From that table I heard one older woman exclaim, "I can't believe we're eating bagels here, on the edge of the oith!"

So now summer begins. Despite the increased quiet, the decreased traffic on the streets, it's shaping up to be a busy one. I'm doing three, maybe four writing jobs for the university, plus an article for a magazine. All of them will be due in July. As an elected Kerry delegate alternate, I could attend the Democratic National Convention in Boston in late July, if I scrape up the money to do so.

Counting the reviews and articles I just finished, I haven't had so much paying work at the same time in several years. Last summer's highlight though was the time I spent writing a play. As regular readers may recall, my goal was to finish it in time to enter it in a contest, which I did. It turned out to be a strange sort of contest. I didn't win, and I didn't lose. As far as I know, no one did. The theatre involved seems to have run into financial problems, and never chose a winner, perhaps because they were obligated to mount two productions of the winning play in two different cities, and pay out some prize money.

This spring I entered this play, a full length called "Dance of Souls," in another competition. Though it is for a festival to be held locally, the judging is "blind" (no names on the scripts), and the final choices are made by judges far away. The theme is ecological theatre. This spring I also wrote another play for this contest, a one-act comedy called "That Human Comedy." I suppose I could find out, but at the moment I have no idea whether either or both of these plays made the final cut and got sent to the distinguished outside judges.

Writing and entering the comedy may have been a mistake, since it's easier to like comedies and I'm more interested in the success of the full length. Still, even if they didn't make the cut and/or don't win, I have high hopes for future productions or at least readings.

Writing these plays was a blissful experience both times. Follow my bliss? I'm tempted. I do have the itch to do another this summer. I've had a basic idea for one for at least a decade but every time I wrote a little dialogue for it, it didn't work. If I get enough good dialogue to get started, I may have to. There are other projects of my own that it would be smarter to work on, after this blitz of paying work. The chapters I wrote (also this spring) for the nonfiction "Soul of the Future" finally worked, after several attempts over way too many years. I have a really good plan for the rest of the book, and I'm confident that I can write it, and that I will write it, eventually, and publish it, even if I have to self-publish. And there's my young adult novel, which an agent in the field encouraged me to rewrite. After many false starts, I think I've come up with a way to do it. It would make more sense to work on either or both of those.

I enjoy writing on both of these projects. But plays somehow are the best. Realistically, what I should be concentrating on is getting productions or readings of the ones I've already written-the abovementioned two, plus my antismoking musical for middle school age. But realistic is a relative word when you are my age, without credits or credentials in the field, up here at the edge of the oith.

Fish

Political comment, and plenty of it, has been relegated to the (clickable) American Samizat blog lately. But by Thursday I’d hit the emotional wall. Five of the last six books I read were on terrorism and war: four for a review already published in the San Francisco Chronicle, and one I’ve reviewed for a future issue. In the midst of this, the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal hit, followed by the beheading of an American civilian, both of them weird stories as well as doubly horrific because of how seamlessly they fit into my reading. And of course the war in Iraq continued, as the prisoner photos played endlessly, illustrating every even marginally relevant comment made by anybody on TV.

The moment I couldn’t get past was when one news show dropped Iraq for a few minutes to finally report on the Sudan, and the immense “humanitarian crisis” as we so blithely have to call it, caused by war there: refugees starving in border camps, having fled from the slaughter of ethnic cleansing. It was the kind of scene we’ve grown too accustomed to out of Africa for decades, the flies on starving babies. But what got to me most was the incredibly beautiful clothing the women wore—the brilliant colors and patterns of their everyday life. It was just too much to bear.

So I opted out of the newstream for all of Thursday. How about a nice relaxing basketball game instead? Fortunately for my blood pressure, I couldn’t watch the Lakers-Spurs Game 5 live, but had to do a tape delay. I turned it on just in time to see Phil Jackson’s half-smile, see the score (Lakers by one point) and hear the announcer sign off saying, “one of the most dramatic games in NBA history.”

This second round series has been billed as the one that will likely decide the championship. The Spurs won the first two games at home, over the Lakers who looked disorganized and slow, especially in 4th quarters (when in previous championship years, they systematically dismantled the Spurs) after their 5 game first round over Houston. But then the Lakers won game 3 by 20+ points at home, and held off the Spurs to win the fourth quarter (finally) in game 4. These were classic Kobe and Shaq games, the kind that seemed gone forever.

I learned that the Lakers had held a lead through most of game 5 in San Antonio, where they have never yet won a playoff game. Apparently with ferocious defense and a lot of Kobe Bryant offense, and an unusually active Deavon George. But by the 4th quarter they were just hanging on, their shots weren’t falling, and the Spurs were desperately attacking and scoring. A 16 point third quarter lead turned into the Spurs ahead by one point. The rest can only be recited:

At 11+ seconds, Kobe gets a screen from Malone, elevates on a jump shot and scores. Lakers by one.

With 5+ seconds the Spurs inbound to Tim Duncan, their veteran MVP star. The Lakers defense is stifling. He can do nothing with the ball, and Shaq has come out to stop him beyond the foul line. He throws the ball towards the hoop without being able to see it, as he falls down. The ball goes in. It’s a miracle finish. The Spurs go wild, as do their fans.

It’s all over except for the formality of a Lakers inbound, because there is less than a half second on the clock. Four tenths of a second, to be exact. After a couple of time outs, the Spurs cover Shaq, they cover Kobe, and Gary Payton throws a perfect pass to Derek Fisher. Payton has replaced Fisher as a starter. There are few players better liked or respected by his teammates and the media than Fisher. When murmurs were becoming open dissatisfaction with Kobe’s game, Fisher spoke up for him. He plays tenacious defense and in earlier years was known for his dagger three point shots when they meant something. This year he wasn’t playing all that well off the bench, until the playoffs. He'd never made a game winning shot. They call him Fish.

He’s left handed, he was on the left side of the basket, open. As he caught the ball he started to twist for his shot. Through replay after replay, the ball was maybe a foot out of his hands when the lights around the backboard flashed on, signaling end of the game---and so the shot was legal. And the shot went in.

While the commentators search the record books for anything like this—3 changes of lead in the last twelve seconds, two miracle shots, the last with less than .5 seconds on the clock—they also cited history: that in a 2-2 series, the team that wins game 5 wins the series more than 80% of the time, including last year’s Lakers-Spurs series, almost a mirror image of this one: the Spurs led by more than 20 points, the Lakers fought back and could have won the game on a Robert Horry 3 pointer that went in---and came out, at the buzzer.

But as usual they’re a bit too quick to proclaim the Lakers as champions yet. The odds are in their favor for game 6 in L.A., and they do seem to have jelled as a team more than ever before. Payton to Fish could turn out to be the glue that will hold this team together and take it to its destiny. But the Spurs have lost 3 in a row and face elimination, as the reigning NBA champs. They've shown they can come back. The Lakers are going to have to be intense, and they can’t suffer another 4th quarter letdown. (Kobe was so exhausted he had to receive intravenous fluids for dehydration after the game. Even on the bench in the last seconds it was clear he was having trouble catching his breath. He appeared to meditate for a moment, and when the horn sounded to resume play he jumped up to join his teammates.)

But the Lakers do get better as a series goes on, which credits their court smarts and their coaching. The problem is fatigue in the fourth, and energy and concentration throughout, which has been inconsistent. After a first round and early second round with lots of days between games, these last four games have come with just a day between. It's good for concentration, but not for aging legs. Still, they're at home and the crowd should boost their energy. In a inconsistent year, they've done pretty well in big games, and Phil Jackson teams do well in closeout games.

Even if the Lakers get past the Spurs it’s not over. Though it’s doubtful Sacramento can win 4 out of 7 from them, if Minnesota wins that series, they could pose problems. The Minnesota Timberwolves are the team of the near future, but this could be their year to emerge. They're young, fast and hungry, with this year's MVP Kevin Garnett. Still, you have to like the Lakers chances a lot better than when the playoffs started.

Even if they can’t maintain, they’ve played some memorable games already this postseason. None more so than Game 5, which I have securely on tape, and the ending doesn’t change whenever I watch it. There’s the shot, Fisher running down the court towards the dressing room, grabbed by the exhausted Kobe, who apparently just kept repeating, Fish, Fish, Fish. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

Earth Day Essay: The Forgotten Apocalypse

by William S. Kowinski

Anybody here remember global warming? It's been more than a decade since a few horrendously hot summers in parts of the U.S. inspired a flood of books, articles and television reports on the grave dangers of climate change caused by fossil fuels and other "greenhouse gases." But now, despite continued rising temperatures, and increasing certainty among scientists that the climate change already underway will cause or at least exacerbate ruinous problems that may threaten humanity and the world as we know it for centuries, global warming has become the forgotten apocalypse.

It will undoubtedly be mentioned in various Earth Day perorations, and it is the subject of at least one new television documentary, "The Great Warming," which will be aired on April 22 (but only in Canada. A 90 minute version made by the same Canadian company---Stonehaven Productions---is tentatively scheduled for PBS in October.)

The real resonance test will come at the end of May when the world's first major global warming disaster movie, "The Day After Tomorrow," kicks off the summer season. Director Roland Emmerich has exchanged climate change for the alien threat of his blockbuster "Independence Day" (and the radiation monster of his unsuccessful remake of "Godzilla".) Though most scientific speculation on possible effects of climate change have evidently not limited the film's special effects, its web site includes some reference to the real problem. The film's ambition to raise awareness is suggested in the title's echo of the landmark 1983 television film, "The Day After," which changed public perceptions with its dramatization of nuclear holocaust.

But even big screen catastrophe may not be enough. The recent release of a Pentagon-sponsored scenario that described geopolitical as well as environmental effects of abrupt climate change---a few nuclear exchanges over water shortages, for example-- barely made a ripple in the news cycle. Nor has the growing concern beyond North America, which reached a telling apotheosis in the recent statement by Sir David King, chief science adviser to the British government: "Climate change is a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism."

So why are we so determined to be oblivious? The list of possibilities might include:

Monstrous message: Torrid temperatures for decades, abandoned coastal cities, food and water shortages, diseases, resource wars, not to mention no more SUVs---it's too big, too terrible, too far ahead in time; it's too extreme to believe, and if true, too awful to think about. Denial conceals despair: with no apparent easy solutions, we lack faith in our creativity or character, and probably in each other. Besides, after the Cold War's thermonuclear threat, and while trying to cope with international terrorism, we're suffering from apocalypse fatigue.

Dueling Experts: It's comforting as well as apparently sensible to buy the line favored by the Bush administration that if all scientists don't agree, it doesn't get on the agenda. Chronically indifferent media reporting on science adds to the impression that this is another case of experts saying coffee is good for you on Tuesday and bad for you on Wednesday. In fact, given the incredible complexity of what's involved in a number of scientific disciplines taken to their current limits, it's remarkable that a hefty consensus exists on the basic notions that climate change is real, that our fossil fuel use is largely responsible, and that consequences will be profound and possibly catastrophic.

The Usual Suspects: On the assumption that if Americans believed in global warming they might expect their government to do something about it, major elements of fossil fuel industries have conducted a skilled and relentless p.r.campaign of denial, while pressuring politicians to remember who is buying them. So a question of real economic as well as basic ecological consequence becomes part of the ideological and political shouting show, and America is either entertained or wearily tunes out.

Numbing nomenclature: In a world of warm and fuzzies, and "happiness is a warm puppy," it's hard to get upset about something that sounds so moderate and nice as "global warming." Even the old "greenhouse effect" sounds decidedly unthreatening. Who's afraid of a greenhouse? It sounds green, and warm. The currently popular "climate change" is similarly gentle and bland. People eagerly travel long distances for a change in climate. Various attempts have been made to heat up the nomenclature: "the climate crisis," "Thermageddon," but nothing has caught on.

No Rachel Carson: Books continue to be published that contribute solid information, but none has had the simple eloquence or impact of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," which got DDT banned and jump-started a new kind of environmental awareness.

Failed focus: Are increasingly bureaucratic environmental organizations dissipate their energies on their separate brand-name issues, refusing to set priorities and work together? So far it seems they've failed to focus on global warming as the keystone issue that not only is the most crucial, but addresses virtually every other significant environmental issue, from deforestation and pollution to species extinction.

What is newest and most challenging about global warming is that once its effects are clearly apparent, it's too late to stop them. This is where the fashionable concept of "the tipping point" transcends its usual trivial application. Once the tipping point of global warming is reached, nothing will stop it, and it will only get worse. We will then be forced to cope with it, and maybe slow down its progress. It is not the kind of crisis we're used to, that we can just wait until it gets bad, then fix it and go back to normal. It will change normal, probably for generations.

That's what makes leadership on this issue so dangerous, and so crucial. The basic tasks are easy to state but not to contemplate: first, face the problem. Then take the actions we can to slow down the warming, prepare for possible consequences, and foster the creativity and innovation that might blunt this crisis in ways now unforeseen. Not since Jimmy Carter challenged Americans to become more energy efficient during the last oil crisis has a president dared to risk the political consequences of suggesting such efforts and limits. Just how much this contributed to his failure to be re-elected is debatable, but in fact the combination of his leadership and the perspicacity of many American businesses resulted in a decade of substantial economic growth without using more energy. Now we're told this is impossible.

Now energy efficiency is no longer fashionable, excess is considered patriotic, and leaders avoid moral leadership by denying the dangers. Instead of building resolve and an emotional consensus, we are left with bewilderment. But not to engage, to inquire and do what we can, is to deny and damage the civic soul of America, long before we face the worst physical consequences.

Our failure so far to confront this threat exposes all our flaws, and so may begin our most profound tragedy. But here and there, some Americans are starting to notice changes---New Englanders who see the maple trees and the maple syrup industry dying, or Pennsylvanians who notice that the deer ticks are more active and virulent because of longer and warmer summers. If they begin to connect the dots on their own, will they demand leadership, or at least be ready to follow it? If so, they have in John Kerry someone who understands the issue and is ready to act on it.

This is an issue that more than any other tests our ability and willingness to think about and care about the future. The challenges are to think big, think ahead and take responsibility now. We have some tradition of taking responsibility for the future, in the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee: "In every deliberation we must consider the impact on the seventh generation to come." Thinking ahead together, and thinking for the welfare of the whole planet, are new to us. But we know what the future means when we look into the eyes of children, and the climate crisis will likely be felt by those who are children now.

"If I were a young person being handed this problem by indulgent predecessors, I would be angry," writes James Speth, co-founder of the National Resource Defense Council, in his new book, "Red Sky at Morning." Perhaps that's why the aforementioned new documentaries on global warming are being hosted by young singer Alanis Morissette, and actors Keanu Reeves and Leonardo DiCaprio.

In what remains for me the most cogent media treatment of the subject, the 1990 international television production, "After the Warming," host and writer James Burke examines the crucial role of climate in western civilization and presents a plausible history of global warming from the perspective of a citizen in 2050. (It would be plausible, that is, if humanity had delayed action until only the year 2000, as he supposed it would.) Burke's future self compares us today to the man who falls from the top of a tall building. As he passes the 17th floor, someone asks him how he's doing. "So far, so good," he replies.

Playoffs

It's been a hard year to follow the Lakers, or even to like much about the NBA. The Lakers have been crazy: brilliant in stretches, and dispiriting in others. They've also been beset by an almost unbelievable series of injuries. Literally no starter or even regular player has avoided getting hurt, some for long periods of time (Karl Malone, Horace Grant, Rick Fox) and some with multiple injuries (Kobe Bryant) and chronic ones (Shaq.) And the psychodrama has been pretty unattractive.

It seems that major players on many teams had serious injuries this year, perhaps due to the increasingly "physical" play. Both the injuries (which throw teams into unbecoming chaos) and the trend towards hockey or football style of play have made NBA games less fun to watch.

Soon the playoffs start, and I feel more conflicted than usual about spending the time watching them. When they got Karl Malone and Gary Paton, the Lakers thought they had a dream team but so far it's been more like a nightmare. At times when they jelled, they seemed unbeatable, but most of the time their team flaws were very evident. Other teams know their vulnerabilities. They can be outplayed with speed and intensity.

Which Lakers team will show up? That's often been the question, not only because of the lineups changed by injuries, but by attitude. Shaq is having trouble focusing, even when he apparently wants to. Or so it seems.

Their first round series with Houston may tell the tale. The teams match up well, and the Lakers can't lose focus or intensity, but must use their experience. If they play hard and well, they could dominate. If they fool around and try to win games in the fourth quarter, they could lose the series, or even win the series but lose the war---the next round.

It will be too bad if it's decided by injuries. For a brief moment towards the end of the season, the Lakers had their starting five playing. But then Rick Fox got hurt again, and in the last game of the regular season, they lost Karl Malone again, as well as their two main remaining bench players (Derek Fisher and Deavon George), both of whom have been starters. All of them are expected to be back, but when, and how effective will they be? Horace Grant's injuries are keeping him out of the playoffs altogether, and several other players are hurt.

The Lakers could win the championship, but right now they'd do it as underdogs. Minnesota has the hottest team, and defending champion San Antonio the strongest combination of playoff experience and playing well at the end of the season. But anything could happen. The Lakers could struggle every round, and win them all. Or they could totally dominate certain teams, or all of them. Or they could be gone after six games.

It seems the drama will be Kobe. With his dashing from court room to court, and the mercurial moments he has and the Lakers have surrounding him, together with his immense talent at the top of his game---he just won the Lakers last game, and the Pacific conference championship, with two impossible shots, an off-balance long three pointer to tie the game at the end of the fourth quarter, and a touch-and-shoot three pointer at the end of second overtime with one second on the clock to win the game.

But with that expectation, odds are it will be someone else who makes the difference. Someone unexpected. Besides to see the residual beauty of the game, I guess that's why I'll watch. Starting Saturday.

A Great Year for Fools

by William S. Kowinski

April Fool's Day is the Rodney Dangerfield of holidays: it gets no respect. But maybe it should this time, because it's been a great year for Fools.

For instance, best-selling author Al Franken, who inaugurated Air America Radio, a liberal talk radio network, on April Fool's Day Eve (March 31.)
Along with fellow best-sellers Michael Moore, Molly Ivins and Bill Maher, he made humor a political weapon, and his outspoken outrage towards the Bush administration helped to set the tone for the Democratic primary campaign. It's hard to imagine Howard Dean or even the later rhetoric of John Kerry would have been possible without these Fools paving the way.

(For the uninitiated, Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right" was the second best-selling political book last year(to Hillary's), ranking 21st in sales overall. After leading the list in 2002, Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men (And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation)" remained in the top 100 last year, and has been followed by his current best-seller, "Dude, Where's My Country." Molly Ivins' "Bushwhacked" took up where "Shrub" left off as mordantly witty chronicles of George W. Bush (both books cowritten with Lou Dubose). Together with Bill Maher's best seller "When You Ride Alone You Ride with bin Laden", these books arguably dominated political reading lists for the past year or so ---the less deliberately comic works of self-righteous rightists Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage and Ann Coulter notwithstanding.)

Regardless of political orientation, this tactic of attacking power with laughter is in the tradition of the court jester and the official Fool that this day more or less celebrates. April Fool's Day harks back to the ancient festivals of spring where all kinds of bad behavior was allowed, including making fun of important people.

The Roman New Year's festival of Kalends (from which we get the word "calendar") featured music, masquerades and all imaginable definitions of fooling around, along with gluttony, drunkenness and gift-giving. A similar festival in ancient Greece was called the "komos," the origin of our word "comedy." We get "comedian" from "komidos," the festival's "chief singer," who was probably a lot like the master of ceremonies telling rude jokes between fan dancers at the burlesque.

Then in the A.D., village spring festivals throughout Europe eventually featured comic performances by a King or a Bishop of Fools, or a Lord of Misrule, often elected from among the common folk to poke fun at the established order for a day.

From ancient Egypt until the last Russian jester hung up his motley in the late l8th century, official Fools were found in royal courts throughout the world. The first court fools weren't kidding: they were authentically deranged, or simple-minded "holy fools" who were both feared and admired as God's chosen innocents. Or they were physically different, or they were considered funny just because they were foreigners. But fools were indulged and well-treated, so "playing the fool" became a prime show business gig.

The resulting "artificial fools" became wildly popular. Pope Leo X was reputed to be so fond of them that petitioners who wished to gain a Papal audience were advised to announce themselves as jesters. The French jester Brusquet was said to have come to the royal court to practice law, but realizing he could make more money in a day as a jester than in a lifetime as a lawyer, he made the modest switch of professions. Will Somers, jester to England's Henry VIII, was a national hero. (It's not clear, however, that Somers actually invented the joke, "Take my wife--please!")

By the 16th century, court jesters were doing just about everything that we now associate with comedy. They told jokes and funny stories (which in French is "geste", and therefore "jest" and "jester"), and performed slapstick in imitation of clumsy country bumpkins (the original meaning of "clown".) Some sang songs and passed on gossip like the troubadours, while others (such as L'Angely, jester to Louis XIV) prefigured the wits and political satirists of European society by whispering penetrating observations and sarcastic remarks in the king's ear.

Fools were hired not only by kings but by lesser officials (one of the annual duties of the Lord Mayor of London's fool was to jump into a tub of custard) as well as clergy and the first corporations. In the homes of the rich it was considered the height of good manners to employ a fool to insult the dinner guests.

Officially, the Fool's function was religious: he (and occasionally, she) was supposed to teach the king or queen humility, even if the royals were more interested in the dirty jokes about the cardinal. But this justification led to the most important legacy of the fool tradition: freedom of speech.

Because official court fools could fulfill their purpose only if they were permitted to speak freely, they had to be protected from punishment from those who were offended, including the king. So for centuries throughout Europe, while others could be beheaded, exiled, excommunicated or burnt at the stake for something they said, there were only two people in all the realm with the absolute right of free speech: the king (or queen), and the jester.

So when the idea of free speech for everyone began to spread, it was envisioned as an extension of the right of fools. In France, young men formed a kind of Free Speech Movement to criticize the government, while wearing traditional jester's clothes. Freedom of expression became so closely linked with the court fool that England's Magna Carta, the first great document challenging absolute royal power in the chain of history leading to the American and French revolutions, was decorated with the figure of the court jester.

American colonists used the jester's brand of free speech to parody and lampoon England's king. Their first revolutionary act was buffoonery: they dressed up, ran around, and dumped tea in the cold water of Boston Harbor.

The British aristocracy made fun of these colonists as backward clowns, which is what they meant by calling them "yankees"(meaning dumb Dutchmen.) But the early Americans relished the fool's image of impudence and transformed Yankee Doodle into a symbol of independence, though he remained a pretty goofy character. (What else can you say about a guy who sticks a feather in his cap and calls it macaroni?) A similar figure, a Yankee "wise fool" stock character popular in early American stage comedies, was a source for Uncle Sam.

American presidents haven't had official jesters (make up your own joke here), but they've often had to endure comedians who got away with saying what other people wouldn't dare. Their humor varied from the relatively gentle chidings of Will Rogers during FDR's presidency, to the excoriating mockery of Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce in the Eisenhower-McCarthy-Nixon years, to the cultural as well as political explosions of Richard Pryor and Lilly Tomlin, and the parodies of "Saturday Night Live," Canada's "SCTV" and England's "Spitting Image" during the Reagan reign.

These days we have so much mockery-from the nonpartisan laughs on Leno and Letterman to the stinging abuse from both right and left-that we risk a general cynicism towards political leaders and ideas: what playwright Michael Frayn calls the "permanent sneer."

Caustic political humor walks a fine line, easily falling into a universal cynicism and stereotyping, that can set the scornful tone for political reporting and general attitudes. Perhaps that's why some of today's jesters avoid nihilism, though they risk partisanship, by such political activities as Franken's liberal talk radio, or the Rolling Thunder Down Home Democracy Tour of political workshops folded into a roving country fair, organized by political humorist Jim Hightower, with appearances by Michael Moore and Molly Ivins.

Though the Fool remains dangerous, most societies (including various Native American cultures) provide roles for tricksters and "sacred clowns" who mock authority. These societies are willing to risk disorder so that the unspoken becomes part of the balance, that renews their common values. This may be why clowns are sometimes considered to be healers. Renewal through the self-recognition of laughter is also an ancient rite of spring.

As for April Fool's Day itself, the most plausible explanation is that when individual nations began replacing the Julian calendar from Roman times with the new Gregorian calendar, New Year's Day was moved from its usual spring spot to the first of January. (Even today, some indigenous cultures retain the tradition of celebrating the New Year in the spring.) One of the first countries to change was France in the 16th century. But old habits die hard, especially if they began in 45 B.C. When the change was made, pranksters greeted the forgetful with a "Happy New Year" on April 1, and if the mark fell for it, they cried, "April Fool!"

Actually, they cried, "April Fish!" Those wild and crazy French.

Concert for George

Finally got around to watching the tape of the PBS airing of the concert for George Harrison held at the Royal Albert Hall a year after his death. It was quite a moving experience. Musically, we tend to hear only the most familiar Beatles tunes on the radio and, all too often, as elevator music and mall Muzak. It's easy to forget what amazing music it is, which is evident when other musicians try to play it. They come close, they make something different with their own interpretations, but often they can't quite measure up. Harrison's songs---and not just the basic melody or chords---are deceptive in their apparent simplicity but actual complexity, especially how he and the Beatles built them as recorded songs. Everybody thinks they know “Here Comes the Sun” as a nice little tune, but the construction of it as a recorded song is amazing, as the struggles they had on stage made clear.

In some ways I'm glad that I let Lennon and McCartney overshadow Harrison's music---especially his post-Beatles work---in my experience, because now I have the privilege of discovering its depth and wisdom and musicality. Since there's been no one new who really gets to me for a long time, George's music is a real treasure. Not only is it "new" in this way for me, but I can follow a process of aging and maturing in his work, which is far more personal than, say, McCartney's (except for certain songs, like "Tug of War." And Lennon never made it past 40.) Again this music is so rich that it repays repeated exploration.

But George's music alone doesn't account for how affecting this concert was. It was at once an elegy for my generation and an affirmation of continuity to the next generations. Though Eric Clapton was the organizer and musical director of this multi-artist ensemble, and provided two of the best musical moments (his solos on the Ravi Shankar piece written especially for this event, and on "When My Guitar Gently Weeps") the show was centered on the appearance of the two surviving Beatles. Apparently this was the first time that Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney had appeared together on stage since the Beatles last performed in 1969, which is hard to believe. Ringo sang one of his two best songs he cut as a solo artist, which he wrote with George Harrison (the other was a song he wrote with John Lennon, "I Am the Greatest,") and as he noted, the song had specific new meaning to the event. With a photo of George high at the back of the stage, Ringo sang: "All I have is a photograph/I know you're not coming back, anymore..." Paul sang a song George wrote and recorded as a solo artist, which is a specific and meaningful tribute to him apart from the Beatles, and he began a ukelele version of "Something" (apparently George had become fond of the ukelele in recent years) which Clapton ended powerfully as a full bore rock song.

As one reviewer noted, this was also probably the last time Paul and Ringo will appear together. Most of the musicians on stage had gray hair, and another story of the event referred to Bill Wyman, the former Rolling Stone, being present in the audience, a shriveled old man. Most of the musicians on the stage don't have many years of performing left, and probably many of them don't perform much anymore except as nostalgia acts. So it turned out to be an elegy by a generation of musicians for their generation of musicians, and for my generation that lived our lives by this music.

Ringo's son Zack was in the audience, as was one of Paul's daughters; John Lennon's musician sons by different mothers were nowhere to be found (I searched the Internet to find out why but they weren't mentioned in any account I found.) But on stage for the whole show was George Harrison's son Dhani, strumming a big acoustic guitar and singing backups. He looks almost exactly like George at his age of 21. At times it was eerie, as when Paul and Dhani did harmonies at the same microphone. It was seeing the past and the present alive at the same time.

Ravi Shankar did not play, but his son did, and his daughter, who is the first female sitar player in India, a beautiful young woman who also conducted the orchestra of Indian and western musicians performing Ravi's composition. And by coincidence, I watched this a day or so after seeing and hearing Sam Taylor, the son of James Taylor and Carly Simon, essentially playing a young James Taylor in the 1960s, on "American Dream." He played and sang a Beatles tune, "In My Life," and sounded exactly like James. He looks quite a bit like him, too. It's amazing how strong the genes of musical geniuses can be.

And this above all I celebrate-the continuity of accomplishment and talent at a very high level. As we leave the stage, it is good to know that our music and our work is renewed and continued by the capable next generation, carrying on, with all the beauty and strength of youth that we no longer have.

At times I regret not having had children, but frankly on the list of regrets it is so overwhelmed by others that would have made that possible, that it is not one of the unrealized fantaises I think about often---only sometimes when I feel a twinge as I pass a parent interacting beautifully with a child. I was so many levels removed from these possibilities being realized, that the conditions that would have made this desirable were never really there. But I'm glad that George Harrison had a son, that Ravi Shankar had a daughter. I've accomplished really nothing important in my life, so there is no legacy to continue. Their legacy is strong, and it is fulfilling to me that their legacy continues, their talent and temperament, etc. continues through their genes as part of the human mix. My regrets about children are only selfish, concerning the experiences I didn't have. I wouldn't have provided children with much to help them through this challenging world. (I suspect this is a legacy I got from my father, who I think did sometimes regret having children for just this reason.)

Arguably our fates at this age are more or less settled, no matter what illusions we need to keep going. That our youth is gone is inarguable, so as much as I fantasize George Harrison as a brother I can fantasize Dhani Harrison as a son, as a renewal of some of what I cherish. I hope he does great things for his generation and those that follow. One of the few benefits of getting older is that you can admit your guiding fantasies, since nothing you do can matter much anymore, and what are they going to do to you now for having them? Not much, compared to what you’re in for. All things must pass. But some things pass down, and if they’re good, it makes looking at the book of life a little easier.

Oscars

I had a little oped piece published in the L.A. Times recently, on the politics of gender-specific acting categories for the Academy Awards. I'd only seen it on-line until the Times sent me a tear sheet last week. It turns out that my Oscar piece was published right below another Oscar piece, by Kirk Douglas.

That's as close as I've come to the Oscars. Well, I did have a friend who was nominated once, in the Best Documentary category. It was years ago, when the audience and nominees still sat at tables, like they were just there for dinner. He told me that just before his award category winner was to be announced, his girlfriend at the time leaned over and told him not to kiss her if he wins, because she hadn't told her old boyfriend she was leaving him yet. It turned out not to be a problem, for that was as close as he got to an Oscar.

I have to confess to being a fool for awards shows in the arts, especially the Oscars, which is the only one I've watched in recent years (except the Kennedy Center and AFI Awards which are each a bit different.) I watched a good bit of this year's, even though I saw only a few of the movies nominated. I've watched in the past partly because I had a rooting interest, but except for Bill Murray I didn't much care this year. The last year I can remember being invested in outcomes was quite a good year, when "Shakespeare in Love" and some other good films split the awards.

But I always had two other reasons, and they remain. The one that remains strongest is the one that seems to be getting stronger in the awards' programs themselves: the celebration of the movies, and of the wonder of making them. I've been around moviemakers and moviemaking enough to know that, sure, it is a crazy business full of ego and envy, lies and betrayal, and dominated by arbitrary forces and money, but within that and through that is a wild, joyful and magical process, which also expresses bravery, honesty, integrity and intelligence.

There may be plenty of people to hate, and something in nearly everyone to stay away from, but there is also a lot to like. Technical people are often very smart and they have a lot of fun. Actors can be the greatest people to be around, as long as you can go home by yourself afterwards.

I don't like most movies these days but the ones I do like I really admire, and some I am in awe of. And that's how a lot of those people in the Oscar audience feel---you can see it. They may be self-absorbed stars but they are also in awe of the movies, and they are just as awestruck---maybe more awestruck---as the rest of us, watching Katherine Hepburn and Gregory Peck, two stars who died this past year and who were given tributes. I like to watch them look at each other, and celebrate the work they do.

Which relates to the longest-lasting reason, the vicarious experience. A lot of people put down the vicarious, but I don't. I know only too well that in many areas of life, if I didn't have vicarious experience I'd have no experience at all.

Part of the attraction of movies themselves is the vicarious experience, putting ourselves in the place of those people in those situations on the screen. I feel the same way about the people who make the movies. I vividly remember, so many years ago that it's embarrassing, watching Kirk's boy Michael Douglas, producer of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," with Jack and the cast and director, the first film to win the top 5 awards, saying how long a struggle it had been, how everybody had told them they were crazy, etc. etc. But they did it.

And there I was, looking up at a TV set in a small town bar, wanting desperately for my future to include such a moment. But I got to share the moment anyway, I felt really happy for them. I imagined what it would be like to have that moment---to feel fulfilled, lucky, vindicated and blessed.

I've felt that vicariously many times since, as the years have gone by, as that young upstart producer and his young upstart lead actor have become active elders of the Hollywood elite---as the upstart Francis Ford sweeps the Oscars, becomes vilified and obscured, but makes a life on the big stage, and his daughter becomes the first American woman nominated for Best Director--- while my life spirals in slow inconsequence, from improvisation and reinvention to denial and delusion and back again, and I remain a vicarious participant.

We used to talk about life being a movie. My life has been a movie, that only I have seen.

So when I watched this year, what I saw (for example) was a group of people who shared their lives and work for five or six or seven years on "The Lord of the Rings" project, together probably for the last time, at the end of an incredible adventure that probably has defined their lives. A fantastic gift, and a kind of curse they'll have to deal with for the rest of their lives. One of the producers I think it was who remarked that he had been working on this film for nearly all of his two children's lives. How amazing that is to even contemplate.

I can remember when I was younger actually trying to figure out how long it would take me to get my as-yet unfinished screenplay to the screen, and being in a panic because I couldn't figure out how I could possibly survive that long. So today, as far from Oscar as I've ever been, it's just as amazing to me that I somehow accidentally lived without one than it is to contemplate having one.

Maybe I'll read something different tomorrow, but to me, Bill Murray looked devastated when he didn't win. His first try at a serious part was in a movie I liked a lot, "The Razor's Edge," but which generally bombed. He played comedies forever after, and developed as a comic actor; from within his own personality he developed his unique colors and depths, so that by "Groundhog Day" he was a master---there will be a tribute to him someday as awestruck as the one for Gregory Peck. Then he seemed to fade away. But "Lost in Translation" was a unique part, in which he created a character from his own persona but not identical to it. I'll bet he was convinced he'd never get a better chance at the Oscar than this.

And what was with Diane Keaton, dressed as Annie Hall, the part she won for? Was it to acknowledge that she knew she wouldn't win this year, or was it for luck? Oscar is a strange thing, for everybody, I guess.

I can also remember when I first heard of Oscar parties. I went to one in New York, at somebody's apartment full of hip Village Voice media people, and hated it. People talked all through the show, they dished, they complained. I wanted to bask in it, feel it, do that vicarious thing, be happy for the winners I admired, feel bad for the deserving who lost.

This year I saw an ad for people who design Oscar parties, that's their job. No thank you. Margaret makes the best popcorn in the world. That's all I need.

Why I Support John Kerry

It's been awhile since I've written a political speech. It took some time to get back into the rhythm but eventually I had a good time doing it---and delivering it. The last line is adapted from a Kerry line that I first heard him use to end his Iowa acceptance speech. (I was interested to see that it wasn't in the prepared text.) He used it again in Virginia last Tuesday. The fact that "giving America back its future, and its soul" happens to echo the title of my long awaited project, Soul of the Future (well, I'm certainly awaiting it) has absolutely no bearing on my support for John Kerry. Almost absolutely.

Why I Support John Kerry

Delivered to Humboldt County Democrats
February 15, 2004

I am pleased to speak to you today about why I support John Kerry.

From Arizona to Maine, from New Mexico to North Dakota to Tennessee, from Michigan to Missouri, Democrats in record numbers have spoken in one clear voice.

They listened to the candidates, and they liked what they heard, but from the Iowa caucuses to the Virginia primary last Tuesday and the Nevada caucuses yesterday, they made their choice, and their choice is John Kerry. Over and over they said, we like these new ideas and all this passion, but we're choosing a candidate who has the ideas, who has the passion, but he also has the experience and the knowledge and the character to do what needs to be done. We choose John Kerry.

They said we want a candidate with a proven record of making hard choices, of fiscal responsibility, with practical ideas for growing a sustainable forward-looking economy that benefits all Americans. We want a candidate who has a record in the U.S. Senate of supporting small business, of fighting for American jobs, for social justice, international cooperation, the environment, equal rights and a woman's right to choose. We choose John Kerry.

They said we want a candidate who understands fairness and understands strength. So we choose John Kerry, who as a mill town county prosecutor put the #2 Mob Boss in New England behind bars, and as a defense attorney worked hard to prove the innocence of a man convicted for a crime he didn't commit.

They said the war in Iraq was a tragic mistake but we know we live in a dangerous world, so we choose John Kerry the war hero with the Silver Star and the Bronze Star who risked his life under fire to save others, and we choose John Kerry the anti-war hero who as spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans against the war was so feared by the Republican administration that he made it onto Nixon's enemies list, and whose leadership in the Senate against the shameful war in Nicaragua exposed Oliver North.

Voters looked at John Kerry and saw this combination of sanity and savvy and strength, and they chose him because they know it's all needed for a President to protect us and lead our foreign policy, to fight effectively against powerful corporations for jobs and health care and the environment. But they also saw that strength would be needed in the coming battle to defeat George W. Bush. For we all know what kind of campaigners these Republicans are. We know they're going to spends hundreds of millions on scurrilous attack ads, they're going to distort every Senate vote and policy conversation, they will be try to convince the American people there's a Willie Horton under every bed, and a Saddam Hussein in every closet. We all know the shameless lies and easy slander that pours out of the sewers of talk radio. This year the Democrats need a fighter, somebody who knows who he is and knows what he's doing, and won't back down.

But the voters in the primaries suggest the possibility that this year, all Americans will no longer be willing victims of the same old weapons of mass distraction. That they too will focus on the issues that really matter. We want a President we can trust, who will right this ship of state before it takes us all down.

In 1841 Emerson said humanity is divided between the party of hope and the party of memory. In the 2004 election, America must decide between the party of hope and the party of fear. And make no mistake-we will be hearing a lot from the other side in the coming months about what we must fear. But it is as true now as it was when Franklin Roosevelt said it---the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. We cannot allow fear to triumph, or hope will be a memory.

What has this administration of fear given us? Loss of constitutional freedoms that we've always fought to defend. A war born of arrogance, over the urgent threat of weapons that the UN and other international agencies warned did not exist, and a war begun with lies, when the president broke his promises to the U.S. Senate to let inspectors finish their work, and not to use force without the international community. Without a realistic plan, the Bush administration committed the United States to a horribly costly occupation of Iraq, which so far has only led to more violence, terrorism and death. America believed its president, and America was betrayed.

What else has the administration of fear given us? We saw a five trillion dollar federal surplus left to the nation by those free-spending Democrats turn into a five trillion dollar federal deficit in the blink of an eye, and what did we get for it? A health care system that covers all Americans? New infrastructure in our states and cities? New schools, better teacher pay, decent wages for the people we depend on most-nurses, childcare and eldercare workers, emergency medical personnel? New investments in creating jobs and helping families? Did we even get adequate funding for firefighters and police to carry out their new responsibilities for homeland security?

We got none of that. Instead we got a tax cut for the already obscenely wealthy, pork barrel for pharmaceutical industries, schools in Iraq but not in Ukiah, new jobs in Jakarta but not in Eureka, comfort for senior partners but not senior citizens, everything that Wall Street wants and nothing that Main Street needs.

In 2000, too many of us sat on the sidelines, or demanded purity and perfection, or succumbed to a folksy smile because it didn't really matter who won. Well, it did matter. Instead of joining the world to confront the climate crisis, we're back fighting to keep oil rigs out of the Alaskan wilderness. Instead of building the digital economy, America is bleeding jobs. Instead of securing Social Security and Medicare, and dealing with the health care crisis, this administration has pillaged the future, not just of those who will soon reach retirement age, but of those who have not yet reached pre-school age. Instead of getting at the roots of terrorism, we're off securing oil fields for Halliburton at the cost of American and Iraqi blood, and our future and our sacred honor.

Yes, the election of 2000 mattered. And that's why the election of 2004 matters even more.

And that's why the voters in the Democratic primaries -and 40% of them in New Hampshire were Independents---have spoken with that one strong voice. They've listened to good men and women with good ideas, candidates of great heart and great vision, including some who will be the future of the Democratic party. Perhaps they've also listened to the ideas and candidates of other progressive parties, who may also contribute to the future. But this year their voices were united in a great cry, that to save the future we must change the present, we can't afford to wait.

Back when Franklin Roosevelt was elected president, he gathered his advisors to figure out how to fight the Great Depression. Some of them called only for long-term measures to bolster the economy. But then FDR's chief advisor, Harry Hopkins spoke up. He said, "Mr. President, people don't eat in the long term. They eat every day."

And in 2004, 44 million Americans are without health insurance, 18,000 die every year because they have no health insurance-we don't need health care in the long term, we need health care as a right not a privilege for the wealthy few---we need it every day, we need it now. Eight million Americans who want to work can't find a job-we need jobs now. The richest nation in the history of the world has 35 million people in poverty---we need to deal with that now. Our cities and counties and our states are in crisis, we don't need to keep our schools open and our police on the street in the long term-we need to do it now.

And above all we can't wait to get rid of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld in four more years, we need to get rid of them this November. It's time to send this trigger-happy, photo-op-governing, double-talking, supreme court-appointed bush league president back to the ranch.

To defeat George W. Bush now, to begin a new era for America now, voters in the west, the east, the north and the south have chosen John Kerry, voters in Wisconsin will choose John Kerry on Tuesday, voters on March 2 will choose John Kerry in New York, Ohio, Minnesota, Maryland, Rhode Island and in California… This is our time, to join our voices to the one strong voice of these primaries that is already echoing around the world---it's our turn to join John Kerry's campaign to give America back its future, to give America back its soul.