Category Archives: Ayn Rand

Back in the mid-1990s, when the Republican-controlled Congress briefly considered cutting off funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, I remember seeing an editorial cartoon that portrayed Newt Gingrich taking an axe to Michelangelo's David, over the caption "Counter-Culture." It captured a historical snapshot of our political debate, one that was probably already antique at the time: a portrayal of conservatives as yokels and religious obscurantists, indifferent to art and literature, while the left was the party of education and cultural refinement. Though somehow I can't recall the NEA ever funding anything remotely like the David.

Today, of course, the situation has reversed. Not that conservatism under the influence of Donald Trump has become the party of highbrow intellectualismfar from itbut the left has become the party of a literal iconoclasm, tearing down sculptures and monuments that they imagine represent the old order. They are the new obscurantists seeking to purge our culture of some of its most important art and literature.

This is not exactly unprecedented. In her notes for The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand defined her villain Ellsworth Toohey, a distillation of the 20th-century totalitarian intellectual, in these terms: "He says that he is fighting Rockefeller and Morgan," the big industrialists of the previous era, but "he is fighting Beethoven and Shakespeare." Toohey's left-wing anti-capitalism is just cover for a wider attempt to subordinate the individual to the collectiveand, in service to this goal, to deny the existence of any extraordinary individual. In the real world, this sort of outlook explained, for example, the old left's mania for folk music, because, as Alan Lomax put it, it was "equalitarian," providing us with "a people's culture, a culture of the common man." Beethoven was not a common man.

Under today's left, this desire to cut down the tall poppies is given a racial gloss, and today's "woke" Ellsworth Tooheys are now openly fighting Beethoven and Shakespeare on the grounds that they were white men and thus have been unjustly foisted upon us.

In our age, librarians are not the guardians of great books but their denouncers, so we find them leading the charge against Shakespeare.

A growing number of "woke" academics are refusing to teach Shakespeare in US schools, arguing that the Bard promotes racism, white supremacy, and intolerance, and instead are pushing for the teaching of "modern" alternatives.

Writing in the January issue of School Library Journal, Amanda MacGregor, a Minnesota-based librarian, bookseller, and freelance journalist, asked why teachers were continuing to include Shakespeare in their classrooms. "Shakespeare's works are full of problematic, outdated ideas, with plenty of misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism, and misogynoir," she wrote, with the last word referring to a hatred of black women ....

Jeffrey Austin, Writing Center director at Skyline High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, agreed. "There is nothing to be gained from Shakespeare that couldn't be gotten from exploring the works of other authors," he said. "It's worth pushing back against the idea that somehow Shakespeare stands alone as a solitary genius when every culture has transcendent writers that don't get included in our curriculum or classroom libraries."

I don't know what's worse about this story. Maybe it's the teachersall of them white, by the waywho only assign "authors and characters [who] look and sound like my students," as if it is the job of teachers to keep their students within the confines of their existing lives rather than to expand their horizons. Or maybe it's the ones who do teach Shakespeare, but only ifthey can filter him through their trendy political obsessions, teaching Romeo and Juliet "through the lens of toxic masculinity analysis" or using Coriolanus "to discuss Marxist theory."

It seems strange to have to defend the greatness of Shakespeare, but perhaps people can get away with canceling him because we have taken his status for granted for so long. So let me just list three big reasons we study Shakespeare.

The first is the prodigious variety and creativity of his plots, which have been so endlessly stolen and reworked over the centuriesa few years back it seemed that every movie made for teenagers that didn't have a plot stolen from Jane Austen had a plot stolen from Shakespearethat we forget he was the one who did them first.

Then there is the vast fund of words and phrases in English that Shakespeare created.

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me," you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked, or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort, or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradisewhy, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, thento give the devil his dueif the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded, or a blinking idiot, thenby Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts!it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.

Shakespeare, more than anyone else, is the creator of modern English, and the reason we study him is because of his outsized influence in shaping our language.

But the final reason is the one that makes the attempt to racialize Shakespeare utterly ridiculous. Shakespeare is the most global playwright in history, endlessly translated, adapted, and appropriated by every culture in the world, outside of North Korea. No, strike that, even there.

Only a "woke" American could be so parochial as to imagine Shakespeare to be a restrictively white or English writer. So what purpose is to be served by pretending this is the case?

For an answer to that, let's look at the assault on Beethoven.

As a fan of classical music, this is the shoe I've been expecting to drop for some years now: the claim that classical music is somehow racist and must therefore be canceled.

For now, this takes the form primarily of an attack on music theory, on the body of knowledge that helps us to understand classical music. But you can see the obvious motive. If we can no longer understand or explain classical music, then we won't be in a position to promote it or defend it.

Hence the assault on a tiny little academic journal devoted to the study of early 20th-Century music theorist Heinrich Schenker.

There is no controversy over whether Schenker held racist viewsdespite himself being a Jew whose work and family were later targeted by the Nazis. (We live in a complicated word.) The question is whether this makes his theories on music invalid. That is precisely the claim made by musicologist Philip Ewell in a broadside arguing that "Schenker's racism permeates his music theories" and "accusing generations of Schenker scholars of trying to 'whitewash' the theorist in an act of 'colorblind racism.'" When the Journal of Schenkerian Studies tried to push back against these claims, it got canceled.

That last phrase from Ewell, "colorblind racism," is the curious one, because the upshot is that Schenker scholars stand accused not of broadcasting Schenker's racism but of attempting to separate it from the valid ideas in his musical theory.

If we are going to reject any idea ever developed by a racist as the fruit of a poisonous tree, then I suppose we had better get rid of Woodrow Wilson's entire "progressive" agenda, including the income tax, on the grounds that it was championed by an out-and-out racist and a defender of segregation. Somehow nobody (on the left at least) ever seems to want to draw that conclusion.

Yet it is far more plausible to say that political ideas should suffer guilt by association than it is to apply this standard to science or scholarship. If we found out Copernicus was a racist, would the sun stop being at the center of the solar system? The very notion is an absurdityyet that is essentially Philip Ewell's argument against Schenker and music theory.

No, really. Here is his whole argument for Heinrich Schenker's music theory being racist: "As with the inequality of races, Schenker believed in the inequality of tones." So is an octave consonant and, say, a tritone dissonant, just because a music theorist thought black people were inferior? Would it be "anti-racist" to pretend to hear no difference between the two intervals?

You might as well claim that all numbers also have to be equal and thereby cancel the entire field of mathematics. This is not just an analogy, because as the Greek philosopher Pythagoras discovered 2,500 years ago, musical intervals are directly related to numbers. You can easily replicate his ancient experiments yourself. If you pluck a guitar string, for example, and then you hold the string down against the fingerboard at exactly half its full length and pluck it again, you will get a tone one octave higher. Pythagoras did this and concluded that an octave represents a mathematical ratio of 2:1. (In modern terms, we know that a pitch one octave higher is produced by air that is vibrating exactly twice as frequently as in the original pitch.) Two pitches with this interval between them are so consonant with each other that they are experienced as being the same note, just higher or lower.

Pythagoras then went on to identify the next simplest ratio, 3:2, which sounds to our ear as the next most consonant interval, what is called a fifth or a dominant interval, which is so ancient and widely recognized that it features in the simple pentatonic scales of folk music from around the world. The next most consonant interval, 4:3, is called the subdominant, and if youve ever been to church, you will recognize it instantly as the amen chord progression. And so on.

Thats all that music theory really is. Not that its just the mathematics of the notes. Starting with the rediscovery of Pythagoras in the Renaissance, musicians and scholars began to learn more about the relationships between musical pitches and used this both to create and to understand new forms of melody and harmony, along with developing new ideas about the structure of a piece of music, how to progress from one melody to another, and so on.

Finding out that one influential theorist was a racist does not invalidate thousands of years of accumulated knowledge of music, nor does it change the mathematical relationships between musical pitches, and it is preposterous to think that it ever could.

But to go back to Ellsworth Toohey, let's follow a piece of advice he gave us: "Don't bother to examine a follyask yourself only what it accomplishes." In this case, it's not about a musical theorist unknown to the general public. It's about bringing down the classical composer everyone has heard of: Ludwig van Beethoven.

So Ewell goes on to disparage Beethoven as an unfairly uplifted mediocrity. "To state that Beethoven was any more than, say, above average as a composer," or to say that "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is a masterwork, born of the genius of a titanic composer," he writes, is to perpetuate "music theory's white racial frame, which works in concert with patriarchal structures to advantage whiteness and maleness." "Beethoven occupies the place he does because he has been propped up by whiteness and maleness for two hundred years."

So Beethoven was just a middling guy foisted upon us in order to keep down "persons of color."

The only way Ewell and the rest of the woke crowd can get away with it is because of decades of neglect of musical education in our schools. Music theorists may know better, and as a musician, Ewell definitely knows better. But he's depending on being able to dupe the public, who only know Beethoven as the guy who wrote the song that begins "duh-duh-duh-DUN."

The insult behind these claimsand the implied intimidationis that we venerate the achievements of a Shakespeare or a Beethoven unthinkingly, out of mere prejudice or chauvinism, without knowing the reasons their work is great. So let's call that bluff by talking for a moment about what's great about Beethoven.

"Duh-duh-duh-DUN" is how most people remember the opening notes of the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphonythree forcefully delivered short notes, followed by a long, sustained note one whole step lower. This is not the opening melody. It's what is called a "motif," a fragment of a melody, something too short and simple to be a melodic theme on its own, but which can be extended or combined with other motifs to become a theme. And that's precisely what Beethoven proceeds to do with it.

This, by the way, is the main difference between classical music and popular music or folk music. You will find that most popular songs have perhaps 15 to 20 seconds of actual, unique musicusually, just enough melody to sustain a single line of the lyrics. That melody is then repeated over and over again, with only the lyrics changing (if you're lucky). Maybe there's a brief hook or refrain, and maybe there's a bridge, a second melody briefly introduced for contrast before returning to the opening melody. But popular and folk music tends to rely on repetition. That's what makes it seem less complex and demanding to listen to, and it's what makes classical music seem more "serious" by comparison.

Classical music is generally built on the opposite approach. Once a melodic theme is introduced, it is meant to be varied, modulated, transformed, inverted, and contrasted. So in the Fifth Symphony, once Beethoven introduces the "duh-duh-duh-DUN" motif, he immediately repeats it one whole step lower. Then he turns it into a full-fledged melody based on the repetition of the motif at progressively higher and lower pitches, first going down, then going up, then put into counterpoint against itself in a kind of call and response. Then the whole process is repeated and extended.

After a little while of this, the opening motif is repeated,at about 0:51, in a horn call that carries the same rhythm but extends itthree short notes followed now by three long notesand spaces out the pitches at wider intervals. The pitches of these notes are then taken as the basis for a second melodic theme, and you will notice that this one sounds much happier. The symphony as a whole is in the key of C minor, and carries the ominous, slightly dissonant tension of a minor key, made all the stormier by Beethoven's urgent, brooding rhythms. But this second theme appears in the key of E-flatmajor. This is the "relative major" of C minor, which just means that if you take all the same notes as a C-minor scale and play them in a different combination, it sounds like a major scale. It's a neat trick for seamlessly changing from an ominous to a happy mood, and back again.

Beethoven then brings back the duh-duh-duh-DUN motif, but this time in a mood that is not brooding buttriumphant, ending (at 1:33) with a variation in which the final note, the DUN, reaches up rather than down.

This sense of triumph is cut short by a return of the original, ominous version of the motif, and this establishes the basic idea for the rest of the first movementa contest between the ominous and the joyous, a sense of impending doom that is transformed into a sense of triumph. After another section of variation and development, the initial theme is broken down, reduced (at4:02) from four notes to two, then to only one, and the heartbeat of the movement nearly flatlines, only to be revived by an adrenaline shot of the opening motif.

If this were a movie, this is the point at which our protagonist, after a series of early victories, suffers a series of setbacks. It looks like he might finally lose, but with the help of some soul-searching (represented here by a quietly introspective oboe solo), he manages to rally for one last superhuman effort.

That's exactly what happens here. The happier second theme makes a triumphant return, at5:38, now in C major, briefly changing the dominant mood of the whole movement from a minor key to that of a major key, leading to a triumphant version of the "duh-duh-duh-DUN" theme that keeps on going this time and rises to new heights. But then the second theme evolves into a form that is darker, more brooding and defiant (atabout 6:55). The piece ends with the opening motif returning, but this time stated (at7:49) in a form that is neither despairing nor triumphant but assertive and indomitable.

Notice how Beethoven starts with the initial motifa short, bare fragment of a melody, so mindlessly simple that anyone can remember itand takes it through so many variations, modifications, and transformations that it can capture a whole gamut of emotions: from dread to joy, from despair to triumph, from stormy defiance to confident assertiveness.

And what does it all add up to? It's helpful to know the context of Beethoven's life. He wrote the Fifth Symphony from 1804 to 1808, years in which he was beginning to lose his hearing and was giving up his career as a concert pianist, turning his energies fully to composing, and that suggests what the Fifth Symphony is about.

Beethoven's secretary, Anton Schindler, later said that the opening motif represents the hand of fate knocking on the door, and his story became so popular that this is known as the fate motif. But most historians agree that Schindler is not a reliable source, and musically, I'm not buying it. The Fifth Symphony is not about fate. It is about Beethovens defiance of fatehis determination to triumph over his circumstances. He is the one who knocks.

To take such a simple motif and weave it, not just into a complex musical tapestry, but into a profound yet personal statementthat is the achievement of a musical genius.

This is precisely why Beethoven is under attack. Ewell says that part of his purpose is to expose the "myth of the artistic genius." Beethoven has to be knocked down a peg.

But the broader motive is the same as Ellsworth Toohey's: to herd us all into a collective and make us think about everything in terms, not of the individual, but of the group. Just as with the supposed anti-racists who want us to see hard work and rational thinking" as "white" values, so Ewell lists the following among his catalog of euphemisms for whiteness": authentic, civilized, classic, function, fundamental, genius, opus, piano, sophisticated. Oh, and also science, theory, and the calendar, because I guess the Gregorian calendar is colonialist. We are not allowed to think of anything independent of the political dogmas of the moment or outside of a racial frameand this is billed, in the final insult to our intelligence, as anti-racism.

This is also, obviously, condescending and infantilizing toward the supposed objects of its concern, conceding as it does the denial to black people of civilization, sophistication, and the ability to appreciate or learn from Beethoven and Shakespearein defiance of all actual evidence. But disparaging the common man under the guise of being his champion is the whole point, which takes us back to the idea Ayn Rand was trying to embody in the character of Ellsworth Toohey. He tears down greatness in order to make man feel small. He fights Beethoven and Shakespeare (and Rockefeller and Morgan) because he wants people to think of themselves as small and weak and thus to allow themselves to herded into undistinguished collectives in need of a rulersomeone like him.

In that regard, notice what this woke analysis accomplishes for its contemporary Ellsworth Tooheys: It allows them to elevate themselves by tearing other people down. They do not have to discover a new continent or unlock the secrets of the universe; they do not need to found a free nation or fight a war to free other men from bondage; they do not need to write a play or a poem or a symphony, or develop their own theories of music; they need merely point out the flaws of the people who did all of these things.

All they need to be better than the best is to display their mastery of the latest catchphrases.

To state it in those terms is to expose the absurdity. And here we need to remember another piece of wisdom from Ayn Rand: The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. The collectivist doctrine of anti-racism is the uncontested absurdity that is rapidly becoming our culture's accepted slogan.

Perhaps the best antidote to that, the best way to combat the absurdity, is simply to keep ourselves grounded in the great works that the woke intellectuals want to cut down. Keep on reading Shakespeare and listening to Beethoven, keep our minds broadened by focusing on the broad vistas they illuminate and the potential for human greatness than they reveal. By contrast to that, the political dogmas of the moment will seem as petty and narrow as they really are.

See the original post:

Why We Need Shakespeare and Beethoven - The Dispatch

Quarterfinal Game 2

3 p.m. CT, Sunday, March 14

From the front windows of Compton Family Ice Arena, one massive parking lot away from Notre Dames famed football stadium, you can almost see the iconic Touchdown Jesus mosaic that is a landmark of this place most known for exploits on the gridiron.

Before heading to Notre Dame for the Sunday afternoon playoff opener, it was perhaps appropriate for Minnesota Gophers coach Bob Motzko to be thinking in football terms when scouting his opponent.

Theyve had a tough stretch, but its over. Theyre going to get a fresh set of downs now, Motzko said of Michigan State, which the Gophers beat four times in the regular season. Theyve got a chance to remedy some things into the playoffs...Theyre a big strong team, theyre well-coached their goaltender (Drew) DeRidder has been one of the best in the conference.

In fact, just a few weeks ago the Gophers chased DeRidder from the net in a 5-1 victory in Minneapolis. That was one of a NCAA-best 20 wins in the regular season, but the Gophers did not get a banner to show for that effort, and head to the next phase of this most unique season with unfinished business.

Well-assured that they will be in the NCAA tournament in a few weeks, the conference playoffs are a different atmosphere for the Gophers. They played three playoff games at home versus Notre Dame last season before college hockey shut down due to the pandemic. These Gophers have no experience playing at a neutral site in the postseason, but that is not to say they have not experienced higher-pressure hockey in the past. For many players, there is a feeling in the air in March that signals the stakes going up.

This is the best time of year. Growing up as a kid in Minnesota this was state tournament time, said freshman defenseman Brock Faber. When the weather starts to warm up a bit, this is always fun. I wouldnt say (there are) nerves, Id say more excitement for me.

For the Gophers to win a trophy in South Bend, the formula is pretty straightforward. Goalie Jack LaFontaine needs to keep doing the things that have him solidly in the running as the Big Tens top goalie, and Motzko noted that a few of the teams more talented goal-scorers need to be heard from.

Weve got a guy like Ben Meyers who is maybe one of the big spark plugs in our conference, that can explode, Motzko said. Sammy Walker, at any moment. (Blake) McLaughlin (Sampo) Ranta for the first time now is heading into a tournament. Rantas been pretty steady all year. There are not many weekends that he doesnt have a goal.

Like every team except Wisconsin, the Gophers will need to win three games in three nights if they want to raise the Big Ten playoff banner for just the second time (after 2015) in program history. The players who spoke to the media this week said their sole focus is Sunday, and anything past that will be dealt with as it comes.

Thats the biggest game of the season so far. Just focusing on the next one is huge for us, Faber said. Focusing on Michigan State, theyre a heavy team and theyll play physical on a smaller ice sheet that fits their game a lot better.

There are good times ahead for Michigan State, which has an extensive remodeling and modernization project underway at Munn Ice Arena. And there have been good times in the past, as the Spartans remain the most recent Big Ten team to win a NCAA title (in 2007, under former coach Rick Comley).

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The present is more challenging in East Lansing, where Coles teams have finished sixth or seventh in the seven-team conference in all four of his seasons at the helm of his alma mater. They made a valiant stand versus Wisconsin in the season finale, leading the Badgers with a minute to play in the second period before falling 2-1. Although the pessimist will note that the Spartans closed the regular season going 1-9-0 in their last 10 and scoring one goal, total, in their final three games.

Cole was philosophical when talking with the media prior to their fifth game versus the Gophers, quoting both Ayn Rand and Sun Tzu, and making correlations to hockey and hinting that his team may need to play a more aggressive game versus the Gophers in the playoffs.

Even when we havent played well, I do like the way our guys have competed, but you can do that in a lot of ways, he said. If you stand at the bottom of the hill and the opposing army runs down the hill, and you just stand there and they run you over, I guess youre competing, trying to hold your ground. But its not very smart, tactfully.

Like they did in hanging close to the Badgers last weekend, the Spartans are likely to try to make things defensive, as they have averaged 1.5 goals per game this season and scored more than three just twice.

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B1G tourney preview: After 20 wins in NCAA regular season, Gophers still have something to prove in playoffs - Brainerd Dispatch

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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is a pioneer of modern politics. The junior senator of the Lone Star State defied the odds to become the most unpopular member of the U.S. Senate, a body of people whose collective approval rating falls belowhemorrhoids, traffic jams, root canals and Nickelback.

So why should we be surprised when the least-liked person in such an unpopular body of men and women does something that Ted Cruz would do like fly off to Cancun while his state struggles with a killer winter storm? And why should we be surprised that when he came back in a pandering Texas face mask and blamed his own kids for the trip? And why should we even look moderately shocked when he made a joke about a rotten thing HE did in a CPAC speechin Florida? ("I gotta say, Orlando is awesome. It's not as nice as Cancun. But it's nice." Oh yes, he did.)

These are not surprising because the Cancun incident is just one of the most Ted Cruz things Ted Cruz has done in a long, long line of Ted Cruz-y moments. These aren't his worst moments as a senator, attorney or human being. These are just the most bewildering moments in all Cruziness.

1. Ted Cruz Blocks a Senate Resolution Honoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg One of the unspoken rules of American politics is that you don't have to agree with an opposing leader's politics to honor their memory after they die. Since no one in Congress wants to speak with Cruz, he's more likely to break the rule because no one told him about it. Then again if someone did, that probably wouldn't stop him.

Last year, Cruz blocked a bipartisan ceremonial resolution to honor the late Supreme Court justice because he objected to "partisan" language relaying the justice's final wishes to delay filling her seat until after the presidential election. You know, the very thing that Cruz and his party did for a year when Justice Antonin Scalia died in the final year of President Barak Obama's term? The resolution's words didn't provide any legal recourse to blocking ex-President Donald Trump's ability to choose her replacement. Cruz just objected to Ginsburg's dying wishes being mentioned because he didn't like her choice of last words. Cruz wouldeditsomeone's dying words with a red pen if he could.

2. Ted Cruz Gets Caught By a Dog Puppet Repeating the Same BS Speech to Primary VotersThe fact that Cruz thought a majority of Americans would vote for him for president in 2016 even when people in his own party once called him "Lucifer in the flesh" is Ted Cruz-y enough, but his choice to seek the Republican nomination would be one of many mistakes to come in his first presidential bid.

A plucky, wisecracking puppet named Triumph the Insult Comic Dog voiced by pioneering comedy writer Robert Smigel is one of the reasons his campaign unraveled. Triumph followed Cruz through the early part of his campaign in the New Hampshire primary and caught some of the BS he was peddling to potential supporters. Smigel and his crew recorded Cruz repeating the same tired speech on more than one stop; it accused the other side of the aisle of voter fraud in a joke that would make the hokiest man cringe until his face turned into a prune. We know he used it over and over because Triumph repeated it word for word as Cruz repeated it word for word right down to the stuttering "n-now, look."

3. Ted Cruz Brags About a Painting of Himself While Arguing Before the Supreme CourtCruz is a master of self-worship. He seems like someone who has one of those Time magazine "Man of the Year" framed mirrors. There's something even more Ted Cruz-ish on his office wall.

During an interview with ABC's Jonathan Karl, Cruz brought up a hand-drawn portrait hanging in his congressional office. The portrait shows Cruz arguing a case that he unanimously lost before the Supreme Court from his time as Texas' solicitor general. Cruz says the portrait humbles him and reminds him of the inevitability of losing and failure. The part Cruz leaves out is about the case he argued in 2003 in which he defended Texas' decision to renege on a legal settlement to provide funding for adequate healthcare for poor children. The Supreme Court unanimously voted against Cruz's side, citing the precedent of "Come on, it's Ted Cruz."

4. Ted Cruz Reads Green Eggs and Ham to Filibuster the Affordable Care ActYou know you've sunk to a new low when you shut down the government and piss off government-hating, federal deregulating Republicans at the same time. It's the Congressional equivalent of nuking fish in the office microwave.

Cruz shut down the government in 2013 in order to prevent the funding for the Affordable Care Act because he thought you might as well go all-in if you're gonna argue to the highest court in the land that a state shouldn't have to treat poor, sick children. Cruz filibustered the ACA funding for more than 21 straight hours (only 13 of which involved Cruz actually speaking, which is Cruz-y enough). He quoted the braying, whiny words of author Ayn Rand and Ashton Kutcher's acceptance speech from that year's Teen Choice Awards, and he achieved peak Cruz-iness by taking down something we all love with him. Cruz read from Dr. Seuss's immortal literary classic Green Eggs and Ham in a way that makes us grateful he never had to tuck us in at night.

5. ...Then Ted Cruz Says He "Consistently Opposed Shutdowns" Just like Cancun-gate, Cruz found a new way to out-Cruz himself under the pressure of another Cruz-ian scandal.

Five years after his infamous shutdown, Cruz claimed in a hallway interview with an MSNBC reporter that he "consistently opposed shutdowns." He claimed that during the infamous 2013 shutdown, he "repeatedly" asked "unanimous consent to reopen the government" with a straight (what he calls) face even though he actively fueled and refused to stop a shutdown that's practically named after him. The amazing part is it wasn't the first time he said such aplain wrong thing. He even wrote it in his book titled, get this, A Time for Truth.

6. Ted Cruz Tries to Legally Defend a 16-Year Sentence for Someone Who Stole a CalculatorIn a Texas court in 1997, Michael Wayne Haley received a 16-year prison sentence or a minor shoplifting charge thanks to a clerical error committed by the judge and both legal teams overseeing the case. The maximum sentence is two years. Cruz defended the heavy handed sentence as Texas' solicitor general because a calculator was involved and it would become one of many times that Cruz would prefer that people didn't try to do math (i.e. the 2020 election and its subsequential Cruz-topian events).

7. Ted Cruz Tries to Make Beto O'Rourke Look Bad Because He Was in a Punk Rock Band Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke came the closest to toppling Cruz with his 2018 Senate campaign that ran on a progressive platform of "I'm not Ted Cruz."

One of the "negative points" Cruz tried to pin on O'Rourke was that he played in a punk band when he was young, a talking point sure to win the support of the sort of Texan's who protect their lawns at gunpoint, a vital slice of the electorate that makes up roughly 61 percent of the population.

8. Ted Cruz Makes Fun of Joe Biden the Night Before Biden's Son's FuneralMaking jokes about your political rivals isn't a new concept. In fact, it's sort of expected unless timing is ill-advised. But bad timing never let Cruz stop being Cruzy.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden lost his oldest son Beau in 2015 to cancer. Cruz waited until the eve of Beau's funeral to toss a joke about how Biden's name is just a punchline, which really isn't a joke if you have to explain that it's a joke, but that's beside the point. Someone recorded and released a video of it and Cruz only issued an apology when the video made everyone wonder how someone could be so Cruz-ish. Then again, if someone quotes Ayn Rand while trying to keep people from having access to healthcare, then their humor radar isn't that strong anyway.

9. Ted Cruz Pisses Off Everyone on George W. Bush's 2000 Presidential Campaign You know someone is on an epic level of Cruz-ness when they figure out a way to be the least liked person on a team like the George W. Bush campaign staff. It's like being named the least talented member of Limp Bizkit.

Cruz worked as an advisor on W's 2000 presidential campaign team and "Theodore" (as George W. called him) instantly became the least popular member of the team.W. sensed that the Theodore Cruz-esqueness was on par with a coked-up ferret and sent him to form the legal team that would bring the 2000 presidential election out of voters' control and into the hands of the Supreme Court. Theodore would email staffers throughout the day and night bragging about his legal qualifications to the point where people avoided being in the same room with him during meetings. Of course, Theodore bragged about all of this in his aforementioned book, which he probably emails to his staff in the early morning hours every day.

10. Ted Cruz Elbows His Wife in the Face While Hugging His Dad Three TimesThis moment was easily the most Cruz-y moment of his campaign. It's a perfect metaphor for Cruz's plan to prevent Donald Trump from winning the nomination and his subsequent groveling to win Trump's favor when Trump became president even after the man publicly criticized Cruz's wife for his being less attractive than Melania Trump.

Cruz's disastrous run at the White House ended following his loss in Indiana. He concluded it with a speech in which he went in to hug his father, Rafael, and ended up elbowing wife Heidi in the face (more than once!), like he's on a bad date in the world's lamest mosh pit. Hurting someone with a hug is one of the Cruziest things a human being can do.

Keep the Dallas Observer Free... Since we started the Dallas Observer, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Dallas, and we would like to keep it that way. Offering our readers free access to incisive coverage of local news, food and culture. Producing stories on everything from political scandals to the hottest new bands, with gutsy reporting, stylish writing, and staffers who've won everything from the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi feature-writing award to the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism. But with local journalism's existence under siege and advertising revenue setbacks having a larger impact, it is important now more than ever for us to rally support behind funding our local journalism. You can help by participating in our "I Support" membership program, allowing us to keep covering Dallas with no paywalls.

Danny Gallagher has been a regular contributor to the Dallas Observer since 2014. He has also written features, essays and stories for MTV, the Chicago Tribune, Maxim, Cracked, Mental_Floss, The Week, CNET and The Onion AV Club.

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The Worst Ted Cruz Moments in History - Dallas Observer

The first book Tina Howard remembers learning to read by herself was Paddington Bear at least, thats what she fooled her mother into thinking.

She figured out that I wasnt actually reading; I had memorized the entire book and knew when to turn the pages, Howard says with a laugh.

Still, that first book sparked a love of reading that eventually carried into Howards adult life, ultimately leading her to open a bookstore in the Near Southside, Leaves Book and Tea Shop.

In fact, she cites three specific books as being influential in shaping her personhood. The first is a novel she read in high school for a scholarship essay The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, which tells the story of an architect caught between making a living and staying true to his art. Howard says The Fountainhead taught her to stand by your values and let them influence you; you dont always have to compromise.

The second book on her list psychologist Daniel Kahnemans Thinking, Fast and Slow, an analysis on how the brain functions in decision-making; and the third food blogger Molly Wizenbergs A Homemade Life, which intertwines life stories with recipes. Howard recommends making the banana bread.

But as much as she loves to read, Howard also loves to write. And while running Leaves is taking priority right now, a book by Tina Howard may exist in the near future.

I have actually started a novel a long time ago at a time when I was trying to process some things in life. Then I opened a bookstore, and that got set aside, she says. So, well see what happens with that.

Tinas Book and Tea Pairings

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand -Pair with: Sparkling Tea

[The Fountainhead] was from my youth, and it was influential to me. I do find that a lot of our younger tea drinkers really enjoy our sparkling tea. Its also bubbly and vivacious that beginning part of life when everything is exciting and new.

Thinking, Fast and Slowby Daniel Kahneman -Pair with: Matcha

Matcha is a very meditative drink. Monks drink it to help them stay awake but also because the caffeine in the matcha helps you to be alert, think clearly, and there are so many health benefits. That matches really well with a book about how you think.

A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg -Pair with: Earl Grey

Earl Grey, to me, is just a classic, heartwarming, traditional tea. A Homemade Life is very much about coming to grips with who you are, your identity, a love of food, and tradition.

FROM THE FEED

Samantha Calimbahin is the managing editor at Fort Worth Magazine. When she's not editing or making to-do lists for the magazine's gazillion projects, she's jamming on her guitar and planning her next trip to a Disney theme park.

March 4, 2021

12:00 AM

Read the rest here:

The Books That Shaped Tina Howard and Teas to Pair With Them - Fort Worth Magazine

Never bet against America. Warren Buffett, 2021 Annual Shareholder Report

Im not a bull, Im not a bear; Im a chicken. Charles Allmon(Maxims of Wall Street, p. 67)

One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Pledge of Allegiance

It is easy to be bearish on America, with all theshenanigansgoing on in Washington these days wasteful deficit spending, widespread voting fraud, lockdowns, loss of liberties and the cancel culture.

Yet, Wall Street is hitting all-time highs, so there must be something good going on.AndForecasts & Strategiesis beating the market!

Warren Buffett is Still Bullish

Warren Buffettjust released the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-B) annual shareholder report.

He was upbeat even though his investment fund, Berkshire Hathaway, vastly underperformed the market last year (up only 2% compared to the S&P 500 index rising 18%).

There are some bright spots in todays top news story.

Gov. Kristi Noem is a Hero

GovernorKristi Noemgave a heroic speech at CPAC Friday evening, Feb. 26, declaring, South Dakota never ordered a single business or church to close in 2020 (although she did close down schools until the fall).We never mandated that people wear masks.After providing the best information about the virus, she said, I trusted the people to make the best decisions for themselves, their families and their communities.

Noem said she was surprised that she was the only governor to oppose the coercion, the force, the anti-liberty steps to control the coronavirus.As a result, South Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate, 3%, in the country.

Good for her!We are looking forward to meetingGov. Noem in personon July 21-24 in the opening ceremonies at the Rushmore Civic Center in Rapid City, South Dakota.

At the end of this Skousen CAFE, I have a special announcement about FreedomFest:Our keynote speaker will require two bodyguards!Plus, ourprivate subscriber meeting at FreedomFest is almost sold out see below how to sign up.

Tom Woods on the Two Visions of America

Last Tuesday evening, March 2, over 250 friends of liberty gathered at a local speakeasy restaurant in Southern California to hear economist and authorTom Woodsand I talk about the uncertain future of freedom.

It was a standing-room-only crowd.The Tom Woods Show is a popular daily podcast that interviews a variety of guests, including me from time to time.He also is the author of 12 books, includingThe Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.

I invited him and his fianc to California to speak candidly about our country, and he didnt disappoint us.(He also will be a featured speaker at FreedomFest this year and will have his own Tom Woods Day!Not to be missed.)

Your editor and Tom Woods taking questions.

The Conflict of Visions Between the Authoritarians and the Libertarians

He spoke passionately aboutCOVID and Two Visions of America.He began with a discussion of ProfessorThomas Sowells 2007 book A Conflict of Visions.This book summarizes Sowells philosophy about politics.

Essentially, the world is divided into two types theauthoritarianswho want to control and run our lives, and thelibertarianswho want to control and run their own lives.

Tom Woods asked the audience, Why is it that those who favor lockdowns are also the ones who favor raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour?

Governor Noem is in the libertarian camp.She and other government officials in South Dakota want to give you all the correct information about the virus, and then let you decide how to comport yourself, your businesses and your institutions.

Joseph Smith,the Mormon leader, said it best.When asked why the city of Nauvoo in Illinois was prospering, he responded,We teach them correct principles and they govern themselves.

We believe in persuasion, not force. Read the articlehere.

How to Become Unified as All Americans

I dont think the divide is that great in America.I am inMilton Friedmanscamp.He argued that if the facts were presented in a fair and convincing way, most people would adopt the same policies.It is more a question of education and training rather than some kind of genetic division between Republicans and Democrats, or between liberals and conservatives.

Most people have the same goals, such as living a comfortable and profitable lifestyle, to help end poverty, social injustice, discrimination, gross inequality, crime and environmental pollution, while becoming more humane, educated and spiritual.

The real debate is how to accomplish these goals, not what the final goals are.

For example, Milton Friedman always argued that if people really understood that the real costs of a $15 minimum wage law, and how it actually hurts the poor more than helps them, they would not support it.

Thats why at FreedomFest, we always present both sides of the arguments in a civil manner. As Ben Franklin said, By collision of different sentiments, sparks of truth strikeout, and political light is obtained.

We are more interested in what is right than who is right.We focus on the best solutions, not winning a debate.

Big Announcement:Keynote Speaker Requires Two Bodyguards, Early-Bird Discount Ends This Month!

Meet Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Prepare to be inspired, challenged and maybe even outraged by a woman who grew up in oppression but found the courage not only tofreeher own life but to challenge that oppression in full scale. Her pushback has made her the target of Islamic extremists, to the extent that she requires round-the-clock security. In her first appearance atFreedomFest, Ms. Ali will discuss her new book,Prey, and share with us the lessons she has learned about oppression, forced inequality and extremism, and how to combat them.

Other confirmed speakers:#1 Talk Show HostLarry Elder, Whole Foods CEOJohn Mackey, health care expertDr. Drew Pinsky, economistTom Woodsand podcasterDave Rubin.

We also plan a full three-day investment conference, with a specialBitcoin vs. gold debateyou wont want to miss.Plus, the 10th anniversary of the Anthem film festival (expect to meet a major movie star, to be announced soon!).

We have nearly 1,200 attendees signed up already, with five months to go.Many people are making it a family vacation, to see Mount Rushmore and Deadwood.Three hotels have already sold out.

Our early bird discount ends this month on March 31.NOW is the time to register.The price is only $399 per person, $299 for each guest.Special discounts exist for students and young professionals.

Go towww.freedomfest.com, or call Hayley at 1-855-850-3733, ext. 202, to register or get more information.Use Eagle2021 code.

Special Private Reception for Subscribers Almost Full!

Remember, subscribers to my newsletter get a 2021 American Eagle silver dollar and a signed copy of The Maxims of Wall Street at our special Eagle private meeting at FreedomFest.The room at the historic Alex Johnson Hotel (whereRonald Reaganand five other presidents have stayed) is limited to 150 subscribers).Were almost sold out, so I urge you to sign up right away.

Good investing, AEIOU,

Mark Skousen

You Blew it!

Dont Give Away Free Books!

Im not a fan of giving away books. Free books are seldom read.

I well rememberHans Sennholz, when he was president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in the 1990s and published tons of books to give to donors like myself, as well as important persons, for review.

I hardly ever read them, and discarded them after a while, or gave them to a library. When I became president of FEE in 2001, I noticed there were thousands of books stacked in the basement of the FEE mansion in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York.

This was a serious misuse of capital whatLudwig von Mises(Hans mentor) would call malinvestment!Think tanks send out free books all the time, which makes it appear that they are doing something good with donors money.

But if you charge for the books, only those who really want to read them are likely to buy them and not let them gather dust on their bookshelves.

The Henry George Foundation used to give away thousands of copies ofHenry GeorgesProgress and Poverty and then announced to the world that it was a bestseller and sold more copies than anything except the Bible.

The Ayn Rand Institute does the same. The group encourages donors to give money to fund the distribution of copies ofAtlas ShruggedorCapitalism, the Ideal.I suspectAyn Randwould want her readers to pay!

Religious groups do the same with the Bible, the Book of Mormon, Science & Health, the Koran, etc.

Distributing books for free is not a good use of a valuable commodity, paper!

Granted, young people often dont have the funds to buy books.But even a discounted price is better than no price at all.Instead of a free book, why not adopt a policy of charging a modest FEE for books.

Sometimes retail publishers charge too much for their books, and Im against that, too.I always offer a discount for my books, whether The Maxims of Wall Street or The Making of Modern Economics.Check out my discounted prices atwww.skousenbooks.com.But never offer books for free!

View original post here:

Are You Bullish or Bearish on America and Wall Street? - Stock Investor

Photo by Matthew Keough | The State Press

"Two doses of an alcoholic elixir cures all wounds, real or imagined."

The great Greek philosopher Aristotle attempted to explain how to live a virtuous life through balancing 12 extremes of temperament. The idea of virtue through moderation was also present in the Pythagorean cup I took home as a souvenir from a trip I took to Greece as a gangly 11-year-old.

Aside from creating an equation thats brutalized the minds of middle school math students for decades Pythagoras was known for pwning his students with a wine chalice that drained through the bottom, and onto his students, if it overflowed.

He wanted to instill a lesson: have fun but in moderation because if they didnt listen, theyd end up with wine down their robes. And wine stains are just damn hard to get out, even in 2021.

So to put my minor in philosophy to use, Ive come up with my own thesis: Two beers is the perfect amount.

As I write this article, I am currently two beers deep to show the latitude of skills still at ones disposal after two beers. I can dance without paralyzing social anxiety. I can have deep and introspective conversations. And I can avoid an UberEats bill I may regret seeing on my bank statement.

So let me ask you, the reader, have you ever had two beers? Two beers could get you through anything forget about a holy book. Get a pair of holy brews instead.

Finals? Oh yeah. A break-up? Bring it on. A Thanksgiving with your liberal aunt involved in a multi-level marketing scheme and your conservative uncle who believes Bill Gates put a microchip in the vaccine? Get ready for the political discourse!

But while the arguments about naturopathic medicines transcendent ability to cure illness and the Clintons drinking adrenochrome to stay young causes more damage to your inner ear than a Motrhead concert, two beers will filter the noise into a song like "Cardigan" by Taylor Swift.

Just look at the world around you. Comedy clubs, like Tempe Improv, have a two-drink minimum. Not because they want to support the consumption of alcohol, although they are a beneficiary of that, but because the amateur comedians during their open-mic nights need it!

Two beers is the perfect amount because one beer is pointless. Nobody feels a buzz after one beer; its just calories. Its like ordering McDonald's. Sure, I could get some Sausage McMuffins in the morning, but theyre going to taste that much better late at night on an empty stomach fueled entirely by caramel iced coffees.

Chip Mulala, the minister of craft beer at Huss Brewery in Phoenix, said that the first beer is just an introduction with all the courteousness of a first date.

"The first beer has to be all about getting yourself acquainted with the flavor, especially with local beer," he said. "It gives you that opportunity to wet your palate and tickle your whistle. And the second beer really brings it on home."

And if the first beer sets the stage, then the second beer is the show.

"It brings you to that point where you're getting all of this great flavor, you're getting all this great balance, you're getting something new or something that you really enjoy and love," Mulala said.

And if two beers are the show, three is the messy after-party. That's not always the best thing, Mulala said.

"I do believe that to get to a point after two beers where it's beyond really kind of enjoying and appreciating the nuances of what's been happening with that beer," Mulala said.

And three beers is a quick road to four then five and then a text to your ex. C'mon, youre better than that! (And they definitely dont want you back after you called them during the early stages of a multi-beer bender).

"After that second beer we definitely start going into what I like to call the spirit world," Mulala said.

Yet even Harvard yes, the one that produced Mark Zuckerberg found in more than 100 studies that moderate drinking, identified as one to two drinks per day, decreased the risk of heart attack, ischemic (clot-caused) stroke, peripheral vascular disease, sudden cardiac death, and death from all cardiovascular causes by 25-40%.

Im smarter than Harvard because I didnt need 100 studies to tell me that two beers are a good thing.

More importantly, two beers make writing a 10-page paper on Ayn Rand and her moralizing of capitalism writings bearable. Scratch that. You might need more beer for a paper on Ayn Rand, but at that point, its just self-care.

Ideas flow unobstructed like a stream, and if you're lucky you might just write with a coherence that will give you a solid B- for that English teacher that hates you for keeping your Zoom screen off.

Even a pandemic that has destroyed the foundations of social life for our hyper-communal species can be numbed with two beers. Living inside the bubble of your own home has wreaked havoc on the mental health for millions of college students.

It's no surprise, then, that many people, at least early in the pandemic, found solace through new passions. Baking bread, at-home workouts boasting "6-pack abs in 30 days," and making a cloud coffee recipe from Pinterest all proved to help keep us sane.

It also corresponded with a sharp increase in the consumption of alcohol. According to a study by the RAND corporation, there was a 54% spike in alcohol sales the week of March 21 compared to the previous year.

But if you're Mulala, you know that more alcohol doesn't necessarily mean a better experience.

"If you really want to enjoy it and be a connoisseur of it, two beers should be the perfect amount," Mulala said. "But I'm still fighting the good fight."

Reach the reporters at cbudnies@asu.edu and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.

LikeThe State Presson Facebook and follow@statepresson Twitter.

Originally posted here:

Satire: Why two beers is the perfect amount - The State Press

Before Elon Musk was with Grimes, he dated Aquaman actor Amber Heard. The pair seemed like an unlikely couple, but they were in an on-and-off relationship for a couple of years. Their story of how they met dates back to 2013, in which Musk made the first move.

Musk and Heard were together from 2016 to 2018 in and on-and-off relationship. Heard previously was married to Pirates of the Caribbean actor Johnny Depp, but the two broke it off before Heard was with Musk. The Aquaman actor alleged that Depp abused her while they were together in an op-ed in The Washington Post. Depp responded by suing her for libel.

The story of how Musk and Heard met, though, stems from a surprising co-working experience for the two who are in very different fields. Musk is the CEO of Tesla, while Heard is an actor. Heres how they met.

RELATED: What Is Elon Musks Age, and How Much Older Is He Than Grimes?

The former couple met while working on the 2013 action film Machete Kills, per The Hollywood Reporter. Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Sofia Vergara, Antonio Banderas, and Vanessa Hudgens were also in the film. Musk had a brief cameo.

According to a THR source, Musk became infatuated with Heard on set. The source claimed that Musk sent e-mails to Rodriguez and others requesting a set up with Heard. His alleged e-mails showed that he was interested in Heard for more than just her beauty.

If there is a party or event with Amber, Id be interested in meeting her just out of curiosity, Musk wrote in an e-mail. Allegedly, she is a fan of George Orwell and Ayn Rand most unusual.

Musk pursued Heard while she was still with Depp. But his initial interactions were strictly platonic, he claimed in another message.

Can you send her a note saying I would like to get together for lunch in LA, Musk allegedly asked Heards team. Am not angling for a date. I know shes in a long-term relationship, but Amber just seems like an interesting person to meet.

Musks plan actually worked the pair ended up dating for some time.

Musk and Heard called it quits for good in February 2018, per People. The reason for their breakup? Timing.

Elon decided it was time to end it and Amber agreed, a source told People. They both still care deeply for each other but the timing wasnt right.

Heard spoke about her time with Musk several months later, following their split.

Elon and I had a beautiful relationship, and we have a beautiful friendship now, one that was based on our core values, Heard described her friendship with the technology guru in another THR article.

She listed the pairs shared core values as: Intellectual curiosity, ideas and conversation, a shared love for science. We just bonded on a lot of things that speak to who I am on the inside. I have so much respect for him.

Musk has since moved on with singer Grimes. They have a baby together named X A-Xii.

Read the original here:

Elon Musk and Amber Heard: How Did the Two Celebrities Meet? - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

The GOP's attempt to rebrand as a working-class party was on full display at CPAC, the annual conservative conference that is something like Bonnaroo except instead of Azaelia Banks you get Jim Banks, a Republican Congressman from Indiana who claimed that Donald Trump "taught us to be the party of the working class," while blasting Democrats as "the party of multinational corporations, big business, Wall Street, [and] Silicon Valley." "It's the greatest blue-collar movement in America," Senator Bill Haggerty, a Republican from my state of Tennessee, said of Trumpism in his CPAC address. "We can have a republic where the people rule, or we can have an oligarchy where big tech and the liberals rule," admonished Missouri Senator Josh Hawley.

As a socialist, I shook my head at the farce of it all. None of these people care about the working-class. No Republican does. If they did, they would not have passed a tax cut that enabled billionaires to pay a lower tax rate than the working-class, a tax cut Hawley supported and Banks voted for. They wouldn't stymie attempts to raise the minimum wage, something Hawley only supports in convoluted half-measures.

On Friday, he announced he would introduce a bill which would require companies with revenues of $1 billion or more to pay workers $15 an hour and would supply a tax credit to Americans making $16.50 or less. These plans might sound progressive compared to most of the GOP, which is only one powdered wig away from "let them eat cake," but they would still leave millions of the poorest Americans in the lurch while shifting the onus away from capital and onto the workers who would have to navigate a complicated tax credit scheme.

The very notion that Josh Hawley, the privately-educated son of a wealthy banker, would rail against oligarchs is laughable. Viewed through any perspective to the left of Ayn Rand, the senator from Missouri is as much an oligarch as anyone working in Silicon Valley. So it's no coincidence that the bulk of Hawley's CPAC speech was spent complaining about "cancel culture," with only a brief mention of the "poverty wages" American workers are paid. Hawley's brand of populism, itself a subset of the Trumpist ideology, is not about economic empowerment of the working-class but about stoking the very real cultural divisions that exist within our country.

America likes to view itself as a classless society, even though we have the largest wealth gap in the world. It's why so many Americans identify as "middle-class," regardless of whether they make $30,000 a year or $230,000 a year. We kid ourselves into thinking the class structures inherent in European societies of old do not exist, have never existed, on these shores.

Because of this, our identities cut not across socioeconomic lines but racial, religious, and regional lines. There is little class consciousness and virtually no class unity. This enables Trumpists like Hawley to position themselves as champions of the working-class because "working-class" here is a stand-in for largely (though not exclusively) rural/suburban/exurban people who distrust government handouts unless that handout is going to them.

It is the responsibility of the left to build that class consciousness. And we do that through materially improving the lives of the working-class.

So far, we are failing abysmally. Just last week the Senate parliamentarian issued an advisory ruling that a minimum wage increase could not be added to the COVID relief bill through a process called "budget reconciliation." Democrats do not have to abide by this ruling, but Joe Biden and Senate leadership have indicated they would out of a respect for "procedure."

Meanwhile, most people don't give a fig about the Senate rules. What they care about is feeding their families and feeling like someone is helping to make their difficult lives just a little bit easier. But when all they hear is how Democrats won't raise the minimum wage but will pass the Equality Acta law I support and that is neededit makes it seem like the left only cares about people if they fill some sort of quota. It's a ludicrous thought, but you can't help but to forgive people for thinking it when Democrats do nothing to persuade them otherwise.

These folks aren't the enemies of equality. But they see the cultural elements of progressivism as the enemy for how it replaces the very real material, class-based policies that the Democrats fail at. And this is exactly what Republicans like Hawley want. It helps them convince their voters that culture matters more than class. "Part of standing up to the oligarchs in tech and in the media and the liberals is reclaiming our history and saying, 'It is good, and we are proud to be Americans,'" Hawley told the crowd on Saturday.

That line resonates with people in the heartland who were raised to love God, family, and country in that order. They look at the left and see a bunch of out-of-touch Champagne socialists trying to cancel Abraham Lincoln rather than doing anything to actually improve their lives. Even liberal Bill Maher ranted about this on his show last week. "Cancel culture is real, it is insane, and it is coming to a neighborhood near you," said Maher, though it could just as easily have been a line from Hawley's speech.

Maher cited the very real case of Emmanuel Cafferty, a Latino utility worker who was sacked after allegedly making a white supremacist signal while drivinga charge he denies.

Getting the working class fired from their jobs is not the way to build class consciousness. It does, however, fit into the fear-mongering narrative Hawley constructed on Saturday: "Don't vote for the Democrats, they'll get you fired for a gesture."

That someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth like Josh Hawley can position himself as a champion of the working class shows just how much work we have ahead of us. We can start by reframing this conversation. We start to do that by passing legislation which will help struggling Americans in a tangible way. It means raising the minimum wage regardless of what some unelected bureaucrat says, getting relief checks out to people as quickly as possible, investing in infrastructure and providing healthcare to an ailing nation. If Republicans won't support us, we make sure people know it.

Josh Hawley wants to fight a culture war because it benefits him electorally. We should not engage, because we will never win. Cultural conservatives are not going to get on board with LGBT rights or critical race theory. That doesn't mean we abandon the pursuit of social justice, but it does mean we start taking economic justice just as seriously. The only way to defeat the Republican culture war is by fighting a class war of our own.

Skylar Baker-Jordan writes about the intersection of identity, politics, and public policy based in Tennessee.

The views in this article are the writer's own.

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CPAC Exposed the GOP's Fight for the Working Class as Just Another Culture War | Opinion - Newsweek

In 1974, Peter Laughner, the legendary musician from seminal local acts Rocket From the Tombs and Pere Ubu, wrote in the Plain Dealer that, "I want to do for Cleveland what Brian Wilson did for California and Lou Reed did for New York."

Chasing and emulating those stars, Lester Bangs wrote three years later in an obituary for Laughner, who passed away at the young age of 24, was in some small way part of his demise: "Peter Laughner had his private pains and compulsions, but at least in part he died because he wanted to be Lou Reed. The 'new wave' can boast its first casualty."

Laughner's brief but influential career has experienced a revival in recent years, including through a five-LP box set from Smog Veil Records released in 2019 that brought previously unpublished recordings to light.

Smog Veil has also recently republished a memoir from Adele Bertei, a musician, writer, actor and artist who was friends, roommates and bandmates with Laughner. She first self-published the book in a limited run in 2013.

In a New York Times article on the "excavation of a rock 'n' roll tragedy," Bertei said, "If he had been able to sober up and shake off the whole Cleveland attitude and stigma that hung around him and just really concentrated on his music and gotten the hell out of there, I think he really would have been one of our major talents in America."

In Peter and the Wolves, named after the band Laughner and Bertei were in together, she "recounts her friendship with the late great Peter Laughner, Cleveland's answer to all things underground and punk in the 1970s. The book is Bertei's intimate recounting of the musical education she received from Laughner; of their complex artistic kinship, and the vivid trajectory of the 'live fast die young' ethos that extinguished the light of a radiant rock and roll heart."

Bertei decamped to New York shortly after Laughner's death. There, she began what's become a lengthy and notable career, beginning with the Contortions and a prominent role in the early No Wave art and music scene of late 1970s NYC. She was also a member of The Bloods, considered to be the first all-out, all-female rock band, before European DJ adventures and a return to the States and a record deal with Geffen as a solo artist. She's sung backup vocals for the Culture Club, written songs for the Pointer Sisters, made films and, in recent years, has published columns and her memoir.

In this excerpt, republished with permission, Bertei talks about her early friendship with Laughner, shares her memories of Laughner's private life compared to his public persona in the local scene, and gives insight into a singular talent lost far too soon.

Peter and the Wolves is available now at smogveil.com.Enjoy a curated Spotify playlist here.

I'd heard about a place in Cleveland Heights where local musicians held blues jams on Friday nights. Cleveland spawned many great musicians, yet few would propel themselves out of the local scene. Blues bands and cover bands were the norm. Legendary Robert Jr. Lockwood (rumored to have been the stepson of Robert Johnson) played often. The Mr. Stress Blues Band didn't really impress me, but the Tiny Alice Jug Band sure caught my attention. Their fiddle player could burn a circle around Paganini, and foxy little singer Peggy Cella stood out on lead vocals. 15-60-75, also called the Numbers Band, featured stunning musicians backing charismatic singer Robert Kidney. From the Akron and Kent area, the band included Chrissie Hynde's brother Terry, a beast on the saxophone.

While bussing tables at Isabella's restaurant in University Circle, one of the waiters told me about a local blues jam; if the players approved the look of you and you knew a song in their repertoire, they'd let you get up and sing. I picked something I imagined they might know, "Piece of My Heart" by Janis Joplin, and rehearsed until I felt secure enough to try my luck.

I made my request to the bass player. When the band kicked into a version close to Big Brother and the Holding Company's, I grabbed the mike and started to wail. It was an out of body experience, and the applause of the small crowd signaled I'd actually pulled it off. I collapsed into a chair, shaking, ready to drink my nerves away when a guy in a black leather jacket approached our table.

He had pale skin, dark wavy hair, eyes masked by Wayfarer sunglasses. A lean figure in tight indigo Levi's, his new white t-shirt peeked from beneath the open leather. I noticed a little space between his front teeth as he smiled, and he removed his shades, exposing mischievous eyes searching mine as he said, "You're really good."

I blushed and thanked him. He told me he played guitar, humbly, assuming I didn't know who he was.

"Do you wanna hang out and uh, maybe sing with me sometime? Maybe with the new band I'm putting together?"

I'd hardly forgotten Peter performing at the Change as lead singer, guitarist, and point of focus in Cinderella Backstreet. Three years later, there he was in the flesh, telling me he liked my voice. He gave me his phone number scrawled on a matchbook, put his shades back on, and walked out. Every head in the bar turned to follow.

No other guy in Cleveland struck as cool a style as Peter Laughner. The Plaza is an apartment building on Prospect Avenue. A jumble of several architectural styles, the Plaza served as the alternate nexus to Coventry for artists and musicians. It was Cleveland's poor stepsister to New York's Chelsea Hotel, hence a natural fit for Peter, who lived at the Plaza with his ex-wife Stella for a time. The building had been constructed to house the mistresses of Cleveland's earliest millionaires, John D. Rockefeller among them. I lived there for a short time and had met several people Peter had played music with. I'd heard the stories. He was the most talked-about musician in Cleveland, notorious due to his brilliance on guitar, his transgressions with drink, drugs, and guns, and for leaving every band he'd ever begun in a trail of bad blood. Twenty-two years old and he'd already served as catalyst to three of the best-known underground Cleveland bands: Rocket From the Tombs, the Dead Boys, and Pere Ubu. He incited strong opinions and stronger epithets; Peter the Genius, Peter the Asshole, Peter the Legend, the Drunk, and the Fool. The legend didn't compute with the guy I met that night, who was sweet and humble. A true gentleman.

I guess you could say we made a good match when it came to our reputations. No other girl on the scene had as bizarre a reputation as did I. Before I met him, I'd done time in detention homes and foster homes, on the streets, in reformatories. Held jobs at a Veteran's Hospital, on the assembly line at Ford Motors in Lorain, reading to the blind, sorting clothes at Sally Army. Twenty years old and I carried more stories than Pliny the Elder, with not a chip but a brick of attitude on my shoulder. Behind the airtight mask of a little OG, I was intact and impervious to hurt. Or so I thought.

Beneath the swagger I was petrified of people I admired, especially an artist like Peter, and it took a few days for me to call him. In case he'd meant what he said about my voice, I had to follow through, take the chance. I pulled my nerves together and dialed. He invited me over to his place in Cleveland Heights, off of Coventry a block away from where I lived.

I arrived at the appointed time buzzing with nervous energy. Peter greeted me with a warm smile, gesturing me into an empty living room adjoining the large dining room where his entire life was set up. A life clearly devoted to music.

"This is where it all happens," he said.

***

Peter's apartment was spotless, and I held cleanliness in high regard, having learned to appreciate order after my mother's cyclone of destruction. The Sisters of the Good Shepherd drummed it into me as well; at Marycrest, we had to wash the floors beneath our beds on hands and knees. Every morning, a nun would come by with a glove a white glove! and run a fingertip across the tiles, and woe to thee if a speck of dirt appeared on the cotton of Christ's bride. A tortuous exercise yet perverse as it may sound, it gave me a feeling of comfort. If you can't control what life pitches at you, cleanliness grants a semblance of control, some order to fall into when life knocks you off balance.

Against one wall was a nubby 1950s couch and lining the other, an elaborate stereo system and music gear a reel-to-reel tape recorder, a few assorted amps, and a collection of guitar pedals. The focal point was a lineup of stunning guitars. He had a classic Stratocaster, a Telecaster, two beautiful acoustics, a Les Paul, a Gibson ES-335, and a Dobro. I don't think I've ever seen an instrument as impressive as that Dobro. It seemed more precious art object than musical instrument until I heard Peter make it sing. Peter introduced his guitars as if they were human; this one was made in 1959, the headstock is yadda and the fingerboard yadda. . .. All Greek to me, but fascinating to hear him recite details about each instrument as if they were intimate friends.

Fronting two stacks of records were Patti Smith's Horses and Fripp and Eno's No Pussyfooting.

A 1950s blonde coffee table held neatly stacked magazines: Creem, Crawdaddy, and Punk on one side, opposite a local DIY newspaper called The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail. Peter wrote for Creem, a gig he'd scored not only with his writing chops but also through his friendship with the reigning bard of rock and roll journalism, Lester Bangs.

To the air between us he offered up a pretty guitar with reverence, as if it were a holy artifact. A guitar with a rosewood neck, like Tom Verlaine's, he said proudly. Verlaine was the lead singer and guitarist in the band Television.

I hadn't yet heard their music, which set Peter to shuffling through a pile of 45s as I continued inspecting the room. Above the stereo equipment was a black and white photograph nailed to the wall by a switchblade. A skeletal man. An Auschwitz inmate? It was Lou Reed in his Metal Machine Music phase. On another wall, he'd stapled a slip of paper with a scrawl; "It's so cold in Alaska." The Alaska line was from Lou's Berlin LP the most depressing rock and roll album ever recorded, yet compellingly poetic. The maiden voyage of punk cabaret.

Books were piled neatly around the room. Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Dylan Thomas, Anne Sexton, Burroughs, Malcolm Lowry, Kerouac, Patti Smith. Scanning his record collection, I saw the Kinks, Richard and Linda Thompson, Nils Lofgren, Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man. Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf, Phil Ochs, Tim Buckley, Laura Nyro, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, the Stones' Exile on Main Street, Dory Previn, Lotte Lenya, Roxy Music, Eno.

Peter's taste ran the gamut. I'd learn that Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Gram Parsons, Television, and Richard Thompson were always given precedence when whatever high he was on reached its ultimate peak. He was into jazz too, but it didn't feature much in our friendship. Soon enough, I'd experience an instructional jazz moment through someone Peter would introduce me to in New York City.

He snapped a plastic disc into the opening of a 45 and placed it oh so carefully on the turntable. The stereo system was high-end. A Marantz. Parents Luke and Margaret Laughner lived in the tony suburb of Bay Village, and price tags were insignificant when it came to their only son's desires.

"Television's first single," he grinned, cueing up.

As the room filled with Fred Smith's eerie bass line, Peter beamed, motioning for me to sit in the center of the couch the perfect listening position for the speakers to bring forth the magic. The track was "Little Johnny Jewel," and from the first pings of Tom Verlaine's guitar, I knew I was in for something extraordinary. I closed my eyes, imagining a flock of birds pecking notes from starlight in this brand-spanking-new music, an otherworldly rock defiant of genre or label. Billy Ficca kicked in with the beat and the guitars began to chime like church bells, with Richard Lloyd's notes echoing Fred's bass line and Verlaine's voice coming on all awkward and angular, like the voice of puberty cracking. Words of boy-longing tumbling from a brain strung out on Mickey Spillane, science fiction paperbacks, and symbolist poets. The music perfectly matched a voice that didn't have much to do with singing and everything to do with poetry.

I glanced over at Peter. He was nodding in bemused approval to the lyric, "I want my little winghead!"

***

After the record finished, he asked if I wrote songs. I happened to have the lyrics to a song I'd written about my ex-girlfriend, a simple melody with a girl-group kind of chorus of da doo ron rons. When he asked how I started singing, I told him the story of Grandma Jo, teaching me how to harmonize to the Boswell Sisters.

Grandma Jo played stride piano, a highly rhythmic style popularized during Prohibition. She had that driving left-hand of stride, keeping the beat on the bass with a volume that could cut through the ruckus of the speakeasies. How my Irish Grandma learned to hammer the keys like that was a great mystery, but boy, could she play, by ear and like a soul possessed. She'd pick up a melody with her right hand after hearing it only once, her mean left pounding out a bass line worthy of Fats Waller. She may have met some traveling musicians making their way east to New York in the 1920s and decided that stride was the rhythm for her. I once thought she was a boogie-woogie player in the style of Meade Lux Lewis. That is, until I heard Fats. I can see her now, bouncing on the piano bench, black pin-curled hair, and bright red lipstick staining a dangling unlit cigarette. She was created for music. Her hands tap-danced over the keys with irresistible rhythm.

Grandma Jo was a single mother, raising my mom on the tips she made playing piano in the speakeasies. Imagine being a single mother in the 1930s. Unless you were a streetwalker or a scullery maid, you were out of luck and in line at the soup kitchen, making Grandma Jo as professional a musician as they came. She took my toddler mom to the speaks with her, sat her in a basket beneath the piano where her little hands hung on to a piano leg, feeling the vibrations of Grandma working the keys. Kitty's dance steps no doubt resonated with those early rhythms. Grandma Jo taught me about rhythm when I was old enough to hold a hand of playing cards. We'd play gin rummy, trading beats on the kitchen table with our plastic cards, she pushing me to beat out a cross-pattern to hers and we'd go on happily for hours. Rhythm is in the blood, she'd say with a wink, signaling that I was in on the secret.

My musical education continued at Blossom Hill. We had the choice of attending Catholic or Baptist services, a no-brainer. I loved reading stories of the Catholic saints, but it was gospel music that showed me the way to march those saints right on in. And then, to pull them up and out by the roots the saints transfigured into notes and the notes, my Holy Grail.

Peter enjoyed hearing these stories, would coax them out of me as the drink flowed. I felt comfortable telling him about the antics in reformatories where we queer girls called our kind of love "playing the game." The "game" made it easier for straight girls to play along if it was just a game, then no harm done when you're emancipated and return to your boyfriend on the "outs." But for many of us, it wasn't a game. I told him about Blossom Hill, where we created families from the same need as the darlings the world would later discover in Paris Is Burning and Pose.

On the flip side of my l'il Pimpin' act was the pathetic waif act I could never have pulled off with my OG sisters on the Hill. Marycrest, a convent school for "Wayward Girls," was run by the same order of nuns responsible for Ireland's Magdalene laundries the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Same order as Baltimore's convent reformatory, House of the Good Shepherd for Colored Girls, once home to teenage Billie Holliday, where she received tutoring in choral singing. At Marycrest, my playing orphan worked like magic. Sister Veronica loved hearing me sing the embarrassing "Where Is Love?" and "Who Will Buy?" from Oliver! These wide-eyed, pathetic performances meant an extra dessert, another hour of clarinet practice, an amorous hair brushing by Sister V. and a burgeoning lesbian pedigree. Maybe it was my comfort around telling these stories that allowed Peter to reveal his gentle side the lonely that clung to his edges. Despite our vast childhood differences, we connected on the same terrain of lonesome.

***

Peter reminded me of Nan as we talked through the nights. Although I was trying my best to catch up, I was painfully uneducated compared to him. Reformatories don't exactly have well-stocked libraries, or in the case of Blossom Hill, classes above a junior high level. The childhood loss that enraged me most had nothing to do with being abandoned it was the lack of a decent education that haunted, leaving me in a constant state of resentment with an I can take care of myself attitude that forbade a reach toward formal education. This would have shown vulnerability and need, two feelings abandoned kids work hard at obliterating. My approach was based on following my curiosity, whatever shimmer of interest on the page proved capable of pulling head and heart. I thought, to hell with the GED, to the poverty and laziness of intellect I imagined it signaled. In truth, I was petrified I'd fail the GED, since I knew nothing of maths and sciences. My outside bad-ass was inside more Jude the Obscure, yearning for Christminster.

Once emancipated from the Hill, I hit the library and read everything I could get my hands on the Bronts, Hemingway, Henry Miller, Maya Angelou. Violette Leduc, Nikki Giovanni, and Rita Mae Brown Rita, a mandatory balm for every budding lesbian in the 1970s. The exhilaration of Rimbaud arrived courtesy of Patti Smith. Other potes maudits awaited my discovery via Peter. Delmore Schwartz, Bukowski, the French Decadents. I was crazy about all things French. I'd later discover certain guys in the music scene were reading Ayn Rand, getting off on her sexed-up capitalist white male superiority, while Peter was reading Walt Whitman, James Baldwin, and Anne Sexton.

***

Peter described The Buddhist Third-Class Junkmail Oracle as the brainchild of a Cleveland poet named d.a. levy. levy had been arrested several times on obscenity charges for handing out copies of his poems to minors. One of his works "Suburban Monastery Death Poem" is a compelling rendering of Cleveland during the 1960s, its themes still prescient today. levy bore a striking resemblance to Rasputin; imprisoned and shell-shocked, he gazes toward us from a photo as if asking, WTF am I doing here? Unable to acclimate to this world, he shot himself at twenty-six years old.

I read levy's agit-prop poetry while Peter set up his Telecaster, plugging into his Fender Twin amp. He played a series of ballads. All mournful. The dark "Baudelaire" reflected a weary isolation, yearning for mysticism and secrets in the presence of sylphic beauties. "Sylvia Plath" skated between serious and crass, and "Amphetamine" could have been lifted from a Velvet's rehearsal, with the opening line, "Take the guitar player for a ride, never in his life been satisfied." Another of his songs, "Rock It Down" had a verse about two sisters "doin' it." I tried not to blush while telling him how cool the song was. Being so close to a master musician, the torque of notes moving from his hands, through the guitar and into my nervous system felt like the earth reversing its turn. To play like that how much time had he spent practicing? When he showed me how to play scales on the guitar, I understood how mastering an instrument, or any art form requires a commitment to a solitude I was not ready to embrace.

Peter strummed a few chords and asked me to try out my lyrics. We wrote a song there and then, recording it on his reel-to-reel tape recorder. Aside from a bit of cognac, the night was excess-free, with none of the aggression, gunplay, or ass-holery tied to his rep. That night I met a true artist, a guy who lived for music, literature, and poetry. And shocking as it felt, he seemed genuinely interested in what he heard in my voice, and the stories I had to tell.

I'd placed my copy of Jean Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers on Peter's coffee table to impress him. And before my departure, he played an dith Piaf record, Non, je ne regrette rien, and gave me a paperback bio of her life. I fell in love with her voice at first trill. He asked if I wanted to meet up again that same week... to listen to music, to make more of our own.

Having arrived at his place around four in the afternoon, I left after midnight walking on ether, a new constellation of lights shimmering beneath my skin.

***

I'd taken a job at my second Salvation Army and began hanging out with Peter. One night while we were listening to music and drinking cognac, I took my first bump of methedrine. He didn't offer I saw him snort a line, so I asked, eager to try anything he'd lay claim to. The night became a jag of intense conversation, white lines on the table like so many guitar strings. I played rhythm guitar, rudimentary E-A-D chords beneath his lead, the meth coursing through my head and hands as I shaved the strings in a blur as fast as hummingbird wings. I liked the drug's effect, the race of shiny thoughts bursting to be expressed in the moment. My stories wrestling with his for airtime, we laughed as the words bumped and shimmied between us.

He played a track from the Roxy Music album For Your Pleasure, "Editions of You." I'd heard noise-music before, like the Velvet Underground discord of "The Black Angel's Death Song," but not like this. Peter explained it as the genius of a Brit named Brian Eno, unleashed on an electronic box of assorted oscillators called a synthesizer. For Your Pleasure's foldout album cover featured Eno dressed as a Cruella de Vil faerie queen. Mesmerized by Eno's image and sound, I needed to hear everything, and Peter owned most of Eno's recordings: Here Come the Warm Jets, No Pussyfooting, Taking Tiger Mountain, and a new release, Another Green World. As the speed progressed on its course, the music became more heated, Iggy and the Stooges style "Down on the Street." He showed me how to pedal a lethal guitar chord along with the track. Next came the MC5, founders of the White Panther Party screaming, "Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!" from the turntable. He told me they'd broken up and were all junkies. Guitarist Wayne Kramer had gotten busted selling drugs to a Fed and was now in jail. Peter opened Punk magazine and pointed to a photo of Patti Smith. She wore a large button that read FREE WAYNE KRAMER.

Dawn followed that shiny night with the speed wearing off and my first Valium nose-diving the energy. The music followed suit, downshifting to Richard and Mimi Baez Faria's petrifying ballad of white supremacy, "Bold Marauder" from Reflections in a Crystal Wind. Joni Mitchell's The Hissing of Summer Lawns. Dylan's Blonde on Blonde. Watching Peter dozing, the Gibson hollow-body in his arms while I daydreamed of the new possibilities provoked by him and the music I was hearing. He looked content. Innocent. A far cry from the raving, drunken maniac of myth. I wanted to smooth his cheek in a gesture of thanks but didn't dare. I left him to the sound of Eno singing "Everything Merges with the Night."

***

I never felt any sexual tension around Peter. He treated me like a friend from the very beginning, was never condescending, and didn't objectify women in person, although occasionally he did in song due to boy's-club groupthink. His girlfriend at the time was a quiet librarian. Ex-wife Stella was a fellow rock journalist and brainiac. People say she and Peter were quite the volatile pairing. When I met Stella, she launched into a monologue about the Peloponnesian War, my brain scrambling to understand why. Stella clearly operated from the head, where Peter steered more from the heart. His women were the antithesis of the rock and roll groupie-types you'd imagine a legendary rocker bedding. If he was a womanizer, he sure kept it hidden during our friendship.

Some claim he was into S/M. I'm not buying it. He was a dedicated follower of rock fashion, hence the nods to bondage. Then there was Lou Reed days and nights when he lived and breathed Lou Lou Lou only Lou. He fetishized Lou. If it were something he thought Lou might get up to, Peter would damn well try it on, sartorially and otherwise, hence the photos of him trussed like a turkey in a jacket of chains. The idea of sexuality defining the everything of a person's being he seemed to resent it as much as I did and my being queer was a non-issue. I'd be surprised if he had much sex at all in his short lifetime. Peter was a melolagniac. He got off on music.

Flying your 1970s freak flag before dark in Cleveland was never a smart move. One of the drag queens I performed with at the Change was murdered by her 'straight' married plumber boyfriend in the parking lot of a gay bar called Twiggy's. No matter how Lou Reed's Transformer may have cavorted with Bowie's Ziggy Stardust in the airwaves and on stages, once you stepped outside of your gay ghetto, you were treated like vermin, especially when it came to family. I had a foster sister beat the whites out of my eyes when she discovered I wasn't just nipping into the parent's booze at our all-girl pajama parties. Some boys in Cleveland's rock scene played dress-up glam gay as long as it was counterfeit. For those of us who resisted daytime camouflage as our authentically bent selves, we were treated like glittery dust mites; fascinating for a moment, but not enough to keep the crowd from kicking you deeper beneath the bed.

The ber-straight punk and avant-garde music scene of Cleveland never would have accepted a fag in their midst, just as a faerie bairn never could have walked beside Peter's father, the hard-drinking WWII army colonel Luke Laughner. Some nights I'd gaze over at Peter and notice how graceful he looked, especially when we were listening in deep to an incredible piece of music. Sometimes he'd knot a kerchief around his neck, like the Belleville thugs of Brassa. Or lounge around cat-like in a kimono, reading. And I'd wonder if being queer was the biggest secret he carried, his bisexuality a Calvary cross he had to bear in secret due to the scene's homophobia. He'd allude to it sometimes, went as far as telling me he'd been with a guy, but I never mustered up the nerve to delve into it with him. Loving girls well, my preference never blinded me to beauty. I see him as I did then, a parallax view of St. John the Baptist as rendered by Caravaggio; lithe upper torso and milky white skin, St. John gently cradles a lamb while raising aloft a crown of flowers. Savior and lamb, on earth in wolf's clothing.

Playing along to Lou Reed's Transformer, singing together on the chorus of "I'm So Free," crooning "Perfect Day," the joy coming off of him was visceral. Sometimes, as the night rolled away from us and his melancholy entered the room through his voice, his guitar, I imagined him feeling the sentiment of another watcher the boy in Bowie's "Lady Stardust" who sings, "I smiled sadly for a love I could not obey."

Read more here:

An Excerpt From 'Peter and the Wolves' by Adele Bertei on the Brief, Brilliant Life of Peter Laughner - Cleveland Scene

Our house is divided. Perhaps more than at any time since the Civil War, Americans seem to occupy two different worlds, suspicious of the other and wary that the view of the other represents a threat to cherished, inviolate truths about what America is all about. This tension has humbled a nation whose unity helped win its freedom from the worlds strongest empire nearly 250 years ago, see it through a civil war and defeat fascism and communism.

Where is that unity today or the strength it helps fuel? In its absence, it has come to violence in the very halls of our national capitol.

From our countrys founding, there have been a series of conflicts with one unresolved theme: Slavery, suffrage, and civil rights have the same pressure an unwillingness to recognize the value and rights of those whom the powerful deem different. In our civilization and every other there are endless stories of those with power being unwilling to share it.

Yet, our awareness of this weakness from generation to generation has made possible the courage to make steady, incremental change. Let us not forget where we started with a constitution that counted enslaved human beings as 3/5 of a person and where enfranchisement was limited only to wealthy white men. We are far from the goal of equity, but the sacrificial work of leaders and martyrs has improved our shared plight.

Sacrificial. Lincoln, King, Kennedy and thousands of others who never received fame, paid the ultimate price for this progress.

We are grateful for their courage and commitment, and on their shoulders we stand today as we reach higher to recognize the humanity in those with whom we disagree.

The sacrifice we are called upon to make today is smaller. We must try to understand a viewpoint that doesnt seem to make sense, and the life experiences that gave rise to it. It can be gut wrenching to do, but it is a necessity for a democracy to survive.

We are justifiably outraged at the ransacking of the Capitol, but we must also ask what led those who did it to believe the presidential election was stolen. We may condemn riots that burn down shops and neighborhoods, but we should ask what leads people to feel they have no other choice. We must ask how we got here because unless we understand that and address the root causes, we cannot move forward.

No one wins hearts and minds by yelling more loudly than the other side. Both sides lose their hearing.

To be united is not to agree on everything, but to agree that some interests and values rise above all others. Our nation has never fully agreed on much, but it has not always torn itself apart because of it.

This is something we try to model in higher education. To read Marx does not make you a communist. To hear a lecture by Rand PaulRandal (Rand) Howard PaulLawmakers lay blame on Trump over riot as second impeachment trial looms Murphy: 'I don't think any of our job ends just because the president has left office' Congress mulls tightening eligibility for stimulus checks MORE does not make you a libertarian. Understanding another perspective can better help you form your own. This can be especially true in trying to understand a perspective that may be totally opposite of your own. Every socialist should read Ayn Rand. Every conservative should read the New York Times editorial page.

Indoctrination is not the goal. Those who have been indoctrinated to a cause are not true believers. They are simply parrots, repeating what they have been told without real understanding or thought. Those with a shallow understanding are scared to confront other beliefs and perspectives. Those with deep understanding and commitment are not.

Those who want to rebuild unity and democracy will seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Being rude on social media or getting in yelling matches on cable TV are acts of those with shallow beliefs and understanding. These are actions of the weak and insecure, who dont actually understand or care for the significance and gravity of the ideas at hand. We need leaders and citizens who are bigger than that.

John Comerford is president ofOtterbein Universityin Westerville, Ohio. Follow on Twitter@Otterbein.

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Our nation has never fully agreed on much, but it hasn't always torn itself apart | TheHill - The Hill