Friday, February 27, 2015

The Sound of Terror

Somehow, I managed to grow up without ever having seen The Sound of Music. However, when I was in my early 20s, I visited Salzburg, Austria, the setting for the film about the von Trapp family in the Nazi era. All I knew about the film was that it was a musical starring Julie Andrews, whom I had liked in her earlier musical, Mary Poppins. I strolled through the Residenzplatz, a lovely Salzburg square where I discovered two things. The first was Mozartkugeln, the chocolate marzipan delicacy named after Salzburg’s most famous resident, composer Amadeus Mozart (Long after leaving Salzburg, I would continue to import Mozartkugeln to satisfy my addiction to it). The second thing I discovered in the square was a movie theater. As I had some time to kill, and the weather had turned inclement, I decided to spend the afternoon indoors, taking in a film. The marquee advertised it was now showing The Sound of Music. Ironically, I had traveled halfway across the world to see a movie everyone at home had already seen.

Still, I was looking forward to finally seeing it. I thought the film might be playing as a tourist attraction, so I was startled when the movie began and all the dialogue was in German, not English as I had anticipated. Perhaps the film was aimed at the local populace or maybe the theater management expected moviegoers to understand the language of the country they were in. As I did not comprehend German, I had to pay close attention to discern the plot. I was surprised to learn the movie not only took place in Salzburg, but that some scenes were filmed in the very square I had walked through before entering the theater.

As I gazed at the familiar setting on the big screen, it was as if I were looking out a large bay window into the square behind me. The Technicolor Residenzplatz on the screen looked identical to the one outside the theater door. At that moment, several Nazi storm troopers barged into the square, shouting their commands in German. My blood ran cold, as I heard the harsh, guttural German words – not understanding the meaning, yet certain of their intent – and watched the Nazis tear through the now familiar Residenzplatz. The Surround sound lived up to its name, as it seemed the Nazis had surrounded us. I heard them not from the screen itself, but from behind me. I saw the storm troopers follow the path I had taken to the theater, and for a brief moment, wondered if I were indeed looking at a celluloid window and if the Nazis of four decades past were waiting beyond the theater door.

It was a Twilight Zone moment – the intersection of fantasy and reality had been a bit too real for me. I had not merely watched the terror of the von Trapp family on the screen, but had shared it.

My experience in the movie theater was made more frightening because I had been alone, unarmed, in a foreign land. I was far from home and the safety of my own country, I knew no one there, and had no way to defend myself. I was at the mercy of strangers, and of a government that not only lacked the constitutional protections of my own, but had relatively recently oppressed and killed its own citizens. I felt threatened because it was not inconceivable that things that had happened before could happen again.

I felt more comfortable after crossing into Germany, because there, I was with a group of American tourists. The idea that there was safety in numbers instilled a false sense of security within me; the irony that Germany had been quite efficient in the wholesale slaughter of millions of human beings never occurred to me. Oddly enough, I felt secure in the company of other Americans who shared my values, spoke my language, and wore similar cameras strapped to their necks.

I wandered into a bookstore and soon became separated from my companions. I reentered the street, gazing about for any sign of them, but found none. I set out for my hotel, walking the streets of Berlin alone. Bright lights and marquees, trendy shops and discotheques lined the streets. It could have been any major city in the world – Paris, London, New York. But it was none of these. It was Berlin, and had I been walking these same streets forty years earlier, I would have been hauled away by the SS and banished to a death camp.

It was a surreal juxtaposition: the Berlin of Nazi Germany and the West Berlin I found myself in. How could the same place be so completely different within the span of a single lifetime? The old men I passed – had they fought in the war, or served as concentration camp guards? Did some of them still believe in The Thousand Year Reich and consider the rise and fall of Nazism to be merely a disappointment and not a mistake? I needed a drink.

The hotel bar was deserted that afternoon. I found a sympathetic ear in the young German bartender, who was about my age. He regretted what his country had done, but felt unfairly tarnished by it. “I’m not to blame,” he said. “I wasn't even born then. Why should my generation continue to suffer for the sins of our fathers?” It was a fair question, it seemed. Or perhaps the whisky had dulled my mind. Either way, I had no answer for him.

It was only much later that I realized the answer. Of course, there was nothing he could have done about events that took place before his birth. But there was a lot he could do to ensure history never repeats itself. While not to blame for the sins of their fathers, perhaps the horror and the magnitude of those sins bestowed upon succeeding generations an obligation to speak out whenever totalitarianism, fascism, or anti-Semitism rear their ugly heads, and to fight against those who would resurrect the demons of the past.

Friday, February 20, 2015

The Definition of News

There’s a commercial currently running on TV that irks me every time I see it. It is so insulting and annoying that my 60-inch screen now bears at least a dozen indentations from objects thrown at it whenever this commercial airs. The spot is for a local station’s news show and quite effectively advertises the fact that they have no clue what news is.

I find this particularly insulting because I worked very hard earning a degree in journalism, only to see journalism move from the print medium to the broadcast medium, where television stations are more interested in hiring attractive Teleprompter readers with high Q-ratings (a metric testing how likable the anchor is) than skilled reporters.

In this commercial, the local anchor – whose LinkedIn profile identifies her as an “investigative reporter” – says her viewers ask her how they find the news, and she explains “We listen to what people are talking about.” That’s neither investigative reporting nor news.

Investigative reporting involves research (both online and offline), cultivating off the record sources, and digging up the stories no one is talking about. News itself, by the very definition of the word, is something that is new. A reporter’s job is to INFORM people about the new things they don’t know about; not to discuss what they are already talking about. Talking about what people are already talking about and then telling other people about it is not news reporting; it’s gossiping.

Of course, some newspapers are little more than gossip rags. You see them at the grocery store checkout counter. But while both are printed on newsprint, no one would equate The National Enquirer with The New York Times. But the Enquirer doesn’t pretend to be the Times. A free press is vital to democracy precisely because of reporters who are willing to investigate what the public does not know but needs to know, and to inform the public of what it should be talking about, not to reiterate gossip. The public needs to know what its leaders are doing behind closed doors; what factors are impacting the global economy; what health risks are being downplayed for the sake of corporate profits; and what can be done to alleviate damage to the planet from global warming, fracking, and deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest – not more celebrity gossip about the latest antics of Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus. As broadcasters move away from “hard news” to “soft news” in search of higher ratings, the public ignorance is increased to its detriment. An ignorant populace is easily manipulated by those in power, or those who seek to be in power.


Friday, February 13, 2015

Love Potion No. 9

Love spells on eBay? Going once, going twice, sold. Apparently there is nothing that can’t be purchased on the Internet. Although the auction site banned the sale of spells and hexes in September 2012 –  at which time, CNN reported eBay’s Spells and Potions category had “more than 6,000 active listings and happy feedback from quite a few satisfied buyers”  – a quick check of auction listings reveals there are still plenty of spells to bid on.

There’s the “Full E-mail Love Spell” for only $9.99 (free shipping!). You may want to hurry though; with Valentine’s Day approaching, there are only three spells left from this seller.

If you haven’t found your true love yet, you can always purchase a Soulmate Spell for a mere $10. The Soulmate Spell comes with the following warranties: “Will not interfere with any existing spells or work done by other spellcasters. My spells are completely safe and will not backfire or cause any harm. This spell is permanent and will not fade over time.”

Of course, if your intended is proving resistant to your natural charms, you may have to resort to “The Most Powerful Black Magick Love Spell”  At $36.99, it might seem a bit pricey, but it does come with this guarantee: “If you do not see results in 60 days from when your spell was cast and are not completely satisfied please email me and I will perform a new spell service free of charge.” Even more reassuring, in the fine print of the eBay auction details, the seller assures us that the love spell does not involve the sacrifice of animals.

If things go really well for you on this Valentine’s Day, you may wish to purchase the “Fertility Conception Pregnancy Spell” for only $1.75. Presumably, this spell would require some physical effort on your part, which you may enjoy repeating as necessary.

Of course, the flip side of love is hate. Need a voodoo doll? Where else, but eBay? (Pins not included; batteries extra). The seller states: “This order is for the voodoo ritual service only. We do NOT send out any physical item. We have hired a traditional Haitian Voodoo priest named Houngan Louidor, who is in charge of magic rituals and is a link between humans and the Voodoo spirits, also known as Loas.” The scary thing is, that of the three available, two have already been sold.

But when simple incantations are not enough, eBay will still help you find the right hex to put the whammy on someone. What could be more appropriate than the “Total Vengeance Black Magic Spell Book”?  Granted, at a mere 48 pages, it’s hardly an arcane tome, but it features some sure-fire winners, such as the General Turmoil Spell, the Enemy Affliction Spell, and instructions on how to create an “Enemy Doll”. I can tell it’s user-friendly because it comes with an  Easy Hexing Spell, and I’m already composing a list of victims for the 6-Day “Shut Up” Spell.

Of course, returns could be problematic.

     Dear eBay:
     I am writing to request a return authorization for a spell I purchased on eBay last week. The incantation was supposed to turn my ex into a horny toad. Instead, it just made him horny and now he is humping every girl in town except me!
     Sincerely yours,
            Witch Hazel
             666 Devil's Lane
             Salem, MA

Perhaps for this Valentine’s Day, you’d be better off doing your bewitching with flowers and candy.

Friday, February 6, 2015

The Fastest Gun in the West


There’s an episode of The Rifleman TV western in which a newspaper reporter files a story for the newspapers back East about a man he calls “the fastest gun in the West.” As a result of the publicity from the news article, a young gunslinger comes to town to challenge “the fastest gun” to a gunfight so he can claim the title and prestige that accompanies it. The young gunslinger outdraws and kills his older opponent. Our protagonist, played by Chuck Connors, tells his young son that he holds the writer responsible for the death his story led to. His son counters, “But why? Wasn't everything in his story true?” Connors explains, yes everything was true but the writer left out one important detail at the end: all of the events he wrote about took place 20 years earlier. The so-called “fastest gun in the West” of 20 years past hadn't picked up a gun since and was now a farmer. “The facts were true then,” Connors explains, “but not now. Today, he was an old farmer, who last held the gun before the man who killed him had been born.”

Can truth change? What was true in the past may not be true in the present. Information must be read in context. The problem with the World Wide Web is that information is searchable and retrievable but without proper context. It’s one thing to read an undated online restaurant review about a wonderful eatery only to discover when you arrive that it closed two years ago. But it’s an entirely more serious matter when the information posted affects an individual’s reputation and remains online forever, resurrected by search engines with no context to show if the veracity of the factual account has been altered by the passage of time.

Things change. A web post is a snapshot of a moment in time, but life is a filmstrip, not a single frame. An article about someone’s arrest for a heinous crime can destroy a person’s reputation. The Internet allows such an article to be continually resurrected as if it were a brand-new story, inconveniently neglecting to note that subsequently the individual had been completely exonerated.

Eight months ago, the European Union Court of Justice established “The Right to be Forgotten” requiring search engines, upon request, to remove content that is “inadequate, irrelevant, or no longer relevant”. It’s a long overdue privacy notion that makes sense. An example occurred last week, when a Spanish court ordered Google to remove a link to information about a debtor because the 1998 notice contained outdated information. What was true in the past may create a false inference when read out of context years or decades later. In the age of the Internet, “The Right to be Forgotten” is an essential privacy right that the U.S. should also adopt. The fastest gun in the West should be allowed to rest in peace in his later years without having to R.I.P. in Boot Hill.