The K.F. Stone Weekly

Ted Kennedy: Of Wickedness and Good Deeds

  

     This past Wednesday I woke up from a semi-shallow sleep; it was about 2 hours before first light. Flipping on the TV, the sound down low, the first word my groggy brain made sense of was "Chappaquiddick." With that single word, I was immediately awake -- and knew precisely two things: that Senator Edward M. Kennedy had passed away, and that the TV was undoubtedly on the wrong  station -- Fox.  For what other TV news channel could be so abysmally classless and clueless as to use a 40-year old tragedy/scandal as its lead in a breaking story about the death of the man known as the Last Lion? 

   Fox, Fox, and only Fox.

   That's just the way it is with the chasidim of Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch.  They are oh so terribly sanctimonious and smug when it comes to those who are "not of our faith." But for those who "pray in our church," they can apparently be forgiven for anything from serving divorce papers on an anesthetized spouse (Newt Gingrich) and committing perjury before Congress (Oliver North) to cheating on one's wife (Mark Sanford).  In other words, "When one of our guys get caught doing bad things, we quote the verse Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.  But when it's one of your guys, s'vet dir gornisht helf'n -- viz., Ain't nothing gonna help 'ya . . . !"

   
   About 60 years ago poet John Berryman, in his "Sonnets for Chris" -- which was about an earlier act of adultery -- asked "Is wickedness soluble in art?"  What Berryman wanted to know is whether he could be forgiven -- or redeemed -- for his act of immorality by striving for the artistic heights?  It is, no doubt, a question worth serious contemplation.  It is also quite likely that if one were to address Berryman's question to the boys and girls at Fox they wouldn't have the slightest idea what in the world was being asked. So be it; that's their problem.  Let's leave B'nai Fox to their own devices and discuss this amongst ourselves. I for one am not sure that wickedness is "soluble in art." I mean, no matter how powerful or important Wagner's "Ring Cycle" may  be, it does not and cannot make up for the fact that the maestro was a roaring, wicked anti-Semite.  Or, that despite his many accomplishments on the gridiron -- which many would consider a form of 'art' -- there is no getting around the fact that O.J. Simpson is a very evil, wicked man.     

   So what does this have to do with Senator Kennedy?  What was his art that he should become a subject for discussion? In an article in yesterday's Guardian, Princeton professor and author Joyce Carol Oates -- whose 1992 novella Blackwater was inspired by the Chappaquiddick incident -- rephrased Berryman's question as: "Is wickedness soluble in good deeds?"  Now there's a fascinating question; one that directly impacts on the life, times and accomplishments of the only Kennedy brother who lived long enough to "comb gray hair."  Admitting upfront and making no bones about the fact that Edward Moore Kennedy was a weak, flawed -- and yes, occasionally wicked -- human being, we are thereby freed to examine his good deeds.  Yes, he cheated on a Harvard exam hoping to stay eligible for football.  Yes, in his early days in the senate he was looked upon as a lightweight who got by on charm, a famous name and a great staff.  And yes, he closed down many a bar in Palm Beach and Cape Cod, and was known to be inarticulate one moment, as eloquent as William Jennings Bryan the next.  This fellow who entered the Senate in 1962 at age 30 brought with him a storied name and virtually nothing else.  And now at his death some 47 years later, he leaves that chamber as quite likely the most effective senator of the past 100 years. 

    Ted Kennedy's first senate tutor was Phil Hart of Michigan, who told him "You can accomplish anything in Washington if you give others the credit."  He learned that lesson well.  During his nearly 8 terms in the United States Senate he drafted and shaped more landmark legislation than such liberal giants as Robert Wagner, Hubert Humphrey, Estes Kefauver and Herbert Henry Lehman.  Among the many, many measures that never would have been enacted without Senator Edward M. Kennedy are:

• The 1964 Civil Rights Act, for which he delivered his maiden Senate speech.
• The Voting Rights Act of 1965.
• Expanding the franchise to 18-year olds.
• The 1985 legislation that imposed sanctions on the apartheid government of South Africa.  (Despite a filibuster by Jesse Helms and a veto by President Reagan, Kennedy mustered 78 votes to override the veto.)
• Led the fight against the confirmation of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.
  
• The 1988 bill that provided $1.2 billion for AIDS testing, treatment and research.
• The 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act.
• The 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act.
  
• The Kennedy-Hatch Act of 1997, which provided health insurance for children.
  
• Heightened taxes on tobacco.
• The Kennedy-Kassebaum bill which made health insurance portable for workers.
• Co-sponsored with John McCain the "Patients' Bill of Rights."

   It is frightening to think that Ted Kennedy may turn out to be the last true  public liberal; the last public person who lives, acts and believes that people are inherently good and that government has a positive role to play in our lives.   Despite all his personal foibles and humiliations, his public losses and private tragedies, he has soldiered on.  He has done good.  He has done more than his share to help make this world a better place.  Nonetheless, there will always be those who -- like the boys and girls of Fox -- dismiss him with that single polysyllabic place name: "Chappaquiddick."  They are the ones who would say that wickedness  can never be soluble in good deeds; that "For you guys, once a sinner always a sinner."  To them I say, "Before you congratulate yourselves on your moral profundity, think long and hard. " There are some folks -- like Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts -- who spend the lion's share of a lifetime in engaged in the act of overcoming. 

   Overcoming loss.
   Overcoming tragedy.
   Overcoming foibles, follies and frailties.

   One wonders how, with all the loss, all the tragedy and all the foibles, Ted Kennedy could soldier on for so many decades.  What was it that made him get up each day and do the best he could to make this a better world?  Although no one can ever know for certain, this, according to one of his friends, has always been his defining quality. 

   Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of the dynasty was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a saint.  He was a scoundrel in business, a cheat in marriage and a bigot in foreign affairs.  Nonetheless, he and his wife Rose did provide the world with  remarkable sons and daughters.  No Kennedy has ever lived a useless life.  No Kennedy has ever accepted more than a dollar-a-year for their government service.  No Kennedy has ever had to ask the definition of noblesse oblige.
  
   Because of all he went through in his family, Ted Kennedy became what the great political writer Jack Newfield called "America's grief counselor."  By way of example, Newfield noted that "when two planes were hijacked out of Boston's Logan Airport on 9/11 and 93 residents of Massachusetts went to their death, Senator Kennedy personally called more than 125 family members offering assistance and solace."  One conversation with a grieving father so moved the senator that he sent the man a copy of a letter that his father, Ambassador Kennedy, had written to a friend in 1958 upon hearing of the death of the friend's son.  That note, perhaps better than anything else, provides the key to what, when all is said and done, made Senator Ted Kennedy so utterly unique and irreplaceable -- not to mention the greatest United States Senator of the past century.

    "When one of your loved ones goes out of your life, you think of what he might have done for a few more years, and you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours. 

   Then one day, because there is a world to be lived in, you find yourself a part of it, trying to accomplish something -- something he did not have time to do.  And, perhaps, that is the reason for all.  I hope so."
   
   Yes, wickedness can be soluble in good deeds.

   Pacem in terres.
   Gratias tibi ago.
  
©2009 Kurt F. Stone

Some Thoughts on Turning (Gasp!) Sixty

  

   "It's been a long time comin'
    It's goin' to be a long time gone"

   So wrote David Crosby more than half a lifetime ago.  So sang Crosby, Stills and Nash last night at the Hard Rock here in Ft. Lauderdale.  They were great.  They    were note-perfect, their harmonies still as tight as a gymnast's abdomen. But my god!  Crosby just turned 68, Stills, the baby of the group is 64, and Graham Nash is 67.  Weren't they just playing at Woodstock?  Was a generation's "going' down to Yasgur's farm" really forty years ago?

"We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden."

  When we took our seats at the Hard Rock last night I was 59; by the time we got home, I was . . . gasp! . . . 60.  After nearly two hours of communing with the sound track of youth -- of a time when "Don't trust anyone over the age of 30" was the Eleventh Commandment -- here I was, trying hard not to think about precisely how long ago "it" all was. I've got to admit that there were quite a few moments  during the concert when my eyes -- which have required bifocals for more than a decade now -- were bedimmed with tears; tears of joy and sadness, tears of recollection and reflection.      

"Think about how many times I have fallen,
Spirits are using me, larger voices callin'
What heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten."  

   Forty years ago my friends the Toppings offered a choice: I could either go to "some rock concert" in Upstate New York or attend the Berkshire Festival at Tanglewood.  I chose the latter.  I remember thinking at the time, "Hell, I can catch Hendrix,  Baez or Creedence Clearwater any time I want. But Eric Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony?  Beethoven's Ninth? Now there's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"

   And so, off to Lennox I went.  Over the past forty years I have on occasion asked myself if I made the right decision.  Invariably, I am torn.  As much as I  do relish the remembrance of Tanglewood -- its beauty and utter civility -- at the same time I think "Ah, what a piece of history you missed out on!"  And history it was, with Crosby Stills, Nash & Young providing the score. It was a time when we really truly believed that our generation could, should and would make the world a place of love, peace and harmony.

   "I think it's time we
Stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look. What's goin' down?"

 Forty years ago the world took an entire generation by the scruff of its collective neck, gave a jolting shake, and set us on a path we thought would lead to a revolution.  To us, the world was fraught with evil: Nixon, Agnew, and Reagan; the Draft, mindless consumerism, the murder of Bobby Kennedy. We really, truly believed we could end war, hunger and poverty; that together we could roll back the dark clouds and restore sun-drenched skies.  All we needed was courage -- and the right message.

"Speak out, you've got to speak out against the madness
You've got to speak your mind
If you dare . . .
But you know, the darkest hour
Is always just before the dawn."

   It is so eerie to realize just how long ago it all was; how back then, a person of sixty was . . . well so incredibly old and out of touch.  I think back to when my own father turned that magic age.  It was back in 1975, and by then, he had already seemed old for a long, long time.  I remember wondering if he ever had been really, truly young. Of course, he and his generation had had a totally different set of realities and experiences including the Great Depression and World War II.  We were the beneficiaries of their struggle; we were the ones who were fortunate enough to go to universities, bum around Europe, thumb our noses at the "Establishment" and see the world through (literally) rose-colored glasses. 

   Experiencing Crosby, Still and Nash last night, I discovered that much of what made youth so exciting, so memorable, so important, is still with me.  The idealistic grounding -- although made a bit uneven by experience -- is still there.  The inability to accept violence, bigotry, duplicity and intolerance still courses through the veins.  Oh sure, I am still accused of having a Pollyanna-ish streak in me; of seeing this harsh old world through those same old rose-colored glasses.  To any and all who hurl this accusation, I gladly plead guilty.  That's just the generation I was born into. In the long run its that idealistic cord which binds this sixty year old to the past, and makes him feel far, far younger than what today's calendar proclaims. 

    There is still so much to be done; so  many wrongs to right, so many, many songs yet to be sung.  And as long as we keep singing, we will never truly grow old.  Oh sure, the hair may thin, the back weaken and the need for licit pharmaceuticals increase; but so long as we have dreams and causes, we will ever maintain our youth.

"Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The ones they picks, the ones you'll know by.

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry,
So just look at them and sigh . . . and know they love you."
  

  

©2009 Kurt F.Stone

The Thriller's Gone

  

   Back in late 1968, early 1969, I wrote a really bad futuristic  short story -- blessedly long since forgotten -- entitled Hello Goodbye.  Taking place in London in the year 2033, the story was in the form of a long newspaper article reporting on the funeral of Lord Paul McCartney, the last surviving member of the Beatles, who had passed away at age 91.  The scene was a cold, darkly-cloudy-drizzly late November morning at London's Bunhill  Fields Cemetery, the final resting place of such immortals as Daniel Defoe, Thomas Hardy, John Bunyan, William Blake and now, Lord McCartney. Peopling the   story were hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of extremely elderly men and women.  Most were decked out in ancient, ill-fitting Levis, moldy navy pea coats, bandannas and beads.  Nearly all were leaning on canes, tearfully daubing their eyes with large red railroad handkerchiefs. Under the canopy at the front of the crowd, a foursome of aged gray-haired musicians was playing a trio of Beatle classics: I Will from "The White Album," There's a Place, from "Please Please Me;" and Hello Goodbye from "Magical Mystery Tour."  Between these pieces, the minister, an elderly Church of England Deacon (who strangely looked an awful lot like an octogenarian Mick Jagger) attempted to deliver the eulogy.  Being nearly as disconsolate as the throngs he was addressing, his voice could barely be heard anywhere but under the canopy.  Other speakers included the 86-year old Peter Noone ("Herman's Hermits"), Marianne Faithful (age 87) and the "Who's" Roger Daltry (age 89).          

   As I recall, the three spoke of Lord Paul's lyric brilliance, his long-lasting partnership with the late John Lennon (who had passed away seven years earlier at age 85) and of the tremendous impact he had made on an entire generation in terms of fad, fashion and passion.  

   And of how an era had definitely come to an end. . .

  

   I had not thought about this long-forgotten "literary" travesty for nearly a quarter of a century . . . until yesterday when word came over the Internet that Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop," had died at the unbelievably young age of 50.  For with his all too real passing -- much like the fictional demise of "Lord" McCartney -- an era has definitely come to an end.  And just as Paul McCartney and the Beatles exercised tremendous influence over the tastes, ideas and passions of a generation, so too did Michael.  In fact, the two both overlapped and intertwined in several eerie ways.  First, up until the time of his death, Michael Jackson owned the rights to much of the Beatle musical catalog.  Second, he and Sir Paul [to give him his real title] did collaborate on at least two pieces --- Say, Say, Say and Ebony and Ivory.  And third, it is likely that Jacko, who in one of his last incarnations took to wearing colorfully embellished satin jackets festooned with gold braiding and brass buttons, took the idea from Sir Paul and the Fab Four -- just look at what the boys are wearing on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. McCartney was knighted by the Queen of England; Michael -- the "King of Pop" -- was enthroned by the public.

    Whether or not one was a fan of Jackson's music, there is no denying that he is was and always shall be an electrifying performer.  The moon-walking Jackson was probably the most imaginative and influential dancer since Fred Astaire first took the stage in the early 1920s. With the 1983 release of his zombie-themed album "Thriller," he all but single-handedly invented the music video and quickly made it an art form. In terms of his artistic longevity and the ability to reinvent both his style and onstage persona, Jackson was sui generis; a performer without peer.

    However, beyond Michael Jackson the performer -- the singer/lyricist/dancer/actor/"King of Pop"/"Gloved One" -- there is, of course, Michael Jackson, the human train wreck.  For more than a generation, both public and press alike have been mesmerized by the ever-changing, eccentric-to-the-point-of-absurdity, "Wacko Jacko."  Whether it be his ever-evolving facial features and pigmentation, his retrogression from adorable, immensely talented 8-year old to preposterous middle-aged quasi-hermaphrodite, or the many peaks and valleys of his personal, financial and sexual life, we haven't been able to take our eyes off him for a long, long time.  To my way of thinking, this says far more about ourselves and the times we inhabit than about Michael Jackson.  Having grown up in and around the world of celebrity -- indeed, the Jackson Family compound was just up the hill from my parents' home -- I know how difficult it is to remain sane when the spotlight is always on; how much more difficult -- and terrifying -- when that spotlight dims or is extinguished.

   Although the cult of personality and celebrity likely goes back to the time of the Greeks, it took the 20th century to make of it an immensely successful cottage industry.  The lionization  and adulation afforded the likes of a Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino or Charles Chaplin [who absolutely fascinated Jackson] in the 'teens and 'twenties; a Clark Gable, Cary Grant or Russ Columbo in the 'thirties; or a Frank Sinatra in the 'forties, is but a brief candle flicker compared to the perpetual blaze  surrounding a James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson.  One huge difference is that in days of yore, what we "knew" about our idols was precisely what their publicists wanted us to know: that they were good, high-minded folks who loved their mothers, were passionate about puppies, and were almost too good to be true.  Over the past generation or generation-and-a-half, we have become addicted to "knowing" (or having exposed for our own enjoyment and entertainment) every blemish, foible, phobia or prosecutable offense of those in the public eye.  The media's glare is, of course, far far more intense today than yesterday.  And we, the public are far far more addicted and insatiable today than yesterday.  The sad fact is that today, we "know" far far more about folks in the public glare than we do about the people who live next door. 

   Although I have long recognized Michael Jackson's immense talent, I can't say that I was much of a fan after the breakup of the Jackson Five.  My tastes in rock or popular music have always been more attuned to Crosby, Still, Nash and Young, the Byrds or the Beatles; I am the sort who will pick "Tommy" over "Thriller" eight days a week. And yet, I daresay that like most, I have paid more than my fair share of attention to Michael Jackson's train wreck of a life. It has been buoyant.  It has been sad. It has been maddening.  It has also been a thriller.

   Like Paul McCartney and the Beatles, he has exercised tremendous influence over an entire generation of newer musical artists like Justin Timberlake and the "Backstreet Boys."  Like the real Sir Paul, his work has been "covered" by a diverse group of artists such as "Soundgarden's" Chris Cornell, "Fall Out Boy", and James Chance and the "Contortions." 

   But just as with the fictional "Lord Paul" from Hello Goodbye, the "Thriller's" gone.

  May he rest in peace.  

©2009 Kurt F. Stone

Of Prophets and Priests

   They [whoever "they" may be] say that death always comes in threes.  Sometimes they're right, and sometimes they're wrong.  The first time I ever recall hearing this so-called truism given voice was way back in 1958, "the day the music died."  That's when a plane went down, taking in a single horrific instant, the lives of rock icons Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper. Sometimes its in twos: back on November 22, 1963, in addition to JFK, the British writer Aldous Huxley had the great misfortune of shuffling off this mortal coil.  I say "to his great misfortune, for as a result of passing away on this precise date, his death -- which under any other conceivable circumstance would have been front-page news -- was, as Grandpa used to say, "buried beneath the truss ads on page 64."

   Now mind you, deaths [whether in threes or twos] don't have to be on the same day in order to fulfill the nameless oracle's bit of wisdom.  Back in late 1960/early 1961, within a matter of weeks, the world lost cinematic titans Clark Gable and Gary Cooper and popular singer ("The Ballad of New Orleans") Johnny Horton.  And just this week, two giants of the religious world, The Rev. William Sloane Coffin and Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, both went to their great reward. 

   The rabbi and the reverend; the reverend and the rabbi.  Sloane Coffin and Hertzberg; Hertzberg and Sloane Coffin.  On the surface, they were two very dissimilar types: Hertzberg, an eastern-European Jew who immigrated to America in the late 1920s, and Sloane Coffin, the scion of an American family that could trace its lineage back to colonial days.  Hertzberg, who spent his early years studying at an Orthodox Jewish yeshiva in Baltimore, and Sloane Coffin, who prepped at Phillips Andover and graduated from Yale. One became a Conservative rabbi, the other a Presbyterian Minister.

   And yet, despite these -- and many other -- surface differences, the two men were remarkably similar in a host of other, vastly more intrinsic ways. Both spent years preaching from pulpits: Hertzberg at Temple Emanu-El in Englewood, New Jersey, and Sloane Coffin, first as Chaplain at Yale, and then, for many years at New York's magisterial Riverside Church.  Both men burned with the fire of prophetic vision.  Neither could sit on the sidelines, idly observing society's ills.  Both firmly believed that their respective religious traditions -- Judaism and Christianity -- commanded them to be proactive agents of progressive change.  As a result, both men became focal points in the American Civil Rights movement; both marched with Dr. Martin Luther King and rode busses with Southern Freedom Riders; both became voices for the voiceless; both were fearless in their pursuit of justice, mercy and equality.   

   Neither man could resist the arena of combat.  According to Hertzberg, "A rabbi should be where the real issues of society are, not where the safe platitudes are to be preached."  Sloan Coffin's take was much the same: "The prophetic role is the disturber of peace, to bring the minister himself, the congregation and entire social order under some judgment.  If one plays a prophetic role, it's going to mitigate against his priestly role.  There are going to be those who will hate him."

   William Sloane Coffin became an icon to the entire generation of 60s anti-war activists.  He was tireless in helping a generation of young men resist the draft, and unstinting in his efforts to bring about an end to nuclear weapons.  For his efforts, Sloane Coffin was arrested, tried and convicted [along with the late Dr. Benjamin Spock] of conspiracy to aid and abet disobedience of the Selective Service Act.  [Their convictions were later overturned.]

   Arthur Hertzberg -- who lost most of his family in the Holocaust -- was instrumental in promoting and establishing the Catholic-Jewish dialogue that became one of the hallmarks of the papacy of John XXIII.  In the early 1970s, the good rabbi chaired the first Jewish delegation to meet formally with Vatican leaders and discuss the Church's complicity and silence in the murder of millions of Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

   Today, our airwaves are filled with the faces, voices and cadences of a generation of preachers who, in comparison to Hertzberg and Sloan Coffin, have lost their moral compass.  Their understanding of God, Jesus and Scripture often leads them to side with the so-called "haves and have-mores" while neglecting God's command that we clothe the naked, feed the hungry and provide for the homeless.  Far too often, these blow-dried prophets of profit use religion as a wedge that essentially turns one segment of society against another, rather than as a compress that helps heal our wounds.  Where Hertzberg and Sloane Coffin were always striving to improve a nation and a people for whom they had boundless love, the current crop seems to continence love for the unborn and disdain for those living in need. 

   From the perspective of 2006, its hard to believe that not so long ago, religious leaders were at the forefront of progressive movements; that men and women of faith put their faith on the line in order to make the world a better place for everyone.  The way the Robertsons, Falwells, Dobsons and Kennedys carry on brings to mind an old bromide of Mark Twain: "Christianity's a fine religion that's never been tried."

   Without question, the world is greatly impoverished with the passing of these two spiritual giants.  Their courage, conviction and compassion made them ceaseless warriors in the battle for equality and human dignity.  Its sad to report that were they just beginning their respective careers in the early 21st century, they probably wouldn't be able to hold a job.  For today, in-house religious leaders are often expected to be a combination of institutional executive and entertainer.  To Hertzberg and Sloan Coffin -- the rabbi and the reverend -- the job (or calling, if you will) was one part prophet, and one part priest.

   May their names, their memories and their achievements, be honored for generations yet unborn.  And may a new generation of rabbis and reverends arise who, like Arthur Hertzberg and William Sloane Coffin, will burn with the fire of prophetic vision.  As Sloane Coffin often said, "God loves you the way you are, but knows that you can do better . . ." 

Simon Wiesenthal: A Giant Who Walked the Earth

     Among the most persistent delusions we humans commonly share is the myth of the bygone era -- the "Golden Age" -- when people were superior to the sorry specimens running around today.  Examples abound.  Pick a field.  Any field.

     Out in my hometown, Hollywood, California, we natives are often heard yammering about the film industry's "Golden Age;" that time when there were "real stars" like Gable, Cooper, Davis and Crawford.  "How in the world," these moaners and groaners complain, "can any knowledgeable person compare the likes of Hanks, DeCaprio, Zeta-Jones or Thurman with the real stars of yesteryear?  By comparison, these current Hollywood wannabes are nothing more than a bunch of one-note stiffs!"

    Then there are the diehard baseball purists who absolutely, positively insist that guys like Bonds, Sosa and Martinez can't hold a candle to such "real" giants as Mays, Ott and Hubbell.  And of course to the true political junkie, the likes of Bush (take your pick), DeLay and Lott are mere pygmies when stacked up against real political giants like Roosevelt (take your pick), Rayburn and Fulbright. 

     "Oh yeah?  Sez who?" cry out voices from an even dimmer past.  "Cooper and Crawford were nothing -- absolutely nothing -- compared to Gilbert and Garbo."  "And if you want to talk about real political giants let's begin with Webster, Calhoun and Lincoln."  And on and on.  Every era looks back to a past, when the women were more beautiful, the heroes more heroic the artistes more artistic, the sands more pristine.  Hell's bells, even Homer's Iliad tells of an earlier time when "Giants walked the earth."  Its a mortal passion, a human delusion, as old as time itself. 

     But I'm here to tell you that while we were all looking backward for inspiration, we missed the chance to be held breathless by a giant in our own time: Simon Wiesenthal. 

     As I write this, Wiesenthal's funeral service is taking place in Jerusalem.  He is no doubt being eulogized as one of the greats; a person who, like the Phoenix, rose from the ashes of despoliation and went on to become one of history's most estimable, most courageous individuals.  Who would ever have imagined that this middle-class man, born in the waning days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and educated in the technical institutes of Prague and Warsaw, this Jew who, along with millions of his lantsleyt was marked for extinction in the camps and gas chambers of the Third Reich -- that this man would survive and then spend the next 60 years hunting down the deranged perpetrators of the so-called "Final Solution" -- history's most monstrous, most flagitious act of barbarity?  A short answer to a rather long question: no one.  No one would ever have believed that anyone -- short of perhaps a fictional superhero -- could be so possessed, so driven as to develop a global network dedicated to the sole purpose of hunting down and bringing to justice, history's most infamous doers of evil.       

     In a sense, Simon Wiesenthal did become a fictional character -- in movies such as "The Nazi" (2002) and "Max and Helen" (1990) and novels like "The Boys From Brazil" and "The Odessa File."  For in Wiesenthal, we find a man whose humanity, whose passion and obsessive drive for ultimate justice is the stuff of Homeric legend -- well beyond the ken of "modern mortal man."  Who but the truly great, the truly heroic, could arise day after day, month after month, decade after decade, energized by the same goal, the exact same purpose as yesterday, last month or the previous decade?  Who but the truly Homeric could, after escaping death not once, not twice but a dozen times over, continue to place himself in harm's way in pursuit of an overwhelming goal?  And who but the truly lion-hearted would ever go out into battle against history's ultimate evildoers armed primarily with the haunting voices of the murdered as his lance, his shield and his goad?  This, Simon Wiesenthal did decade after decade, identifying, hunting down and bringing before the bar of justice, more than 1,100 Nazis and pro-Nazi sympathizers.  Starting out as one man on a holy mission, Wiesenthal build up an international following.  He also became the target of those who vehemently denied the truth of the very horror he was seeking to requite.  And despite being told time and time again to let the hounds of history lie dormant, he persisted -- just like a giant, just like a hero.

     Over the past fifteen or twenty years, the term "Holocaust" has been hijacked and misappropriated by groups and individuals who are either blind to the facts of history, or else possess third-rate vocabularies.  For Christian conservatives to claim that there is an ongoing Secular Humanist-led "holocaust" against the unborn, or for Arabs to aver that the Israelis are perpetrating a "holocaust" against the Palestinians is patent nonsense.  It denigrates, denatures, and trivializes that which occurred to Jews, Gypsies and Gays during the dark days of the Third Reich. It also shows just how cynical, how intellectually bankrupt some people can be. 

     In Simon Wiesenthal, all humanity -- and not just Jews, Gypsies and Gays -- have had a champion, a man who would not rest so long as the voices of victims echoed in his ears.  Wiesenthal's life is an extraordinary testament to the energizing power of an ideal.  Indeed, as with all giants, he has, through both his deeds and his very mien, achieved immortality.

   Contemplating his own mortality, Wiesenthal was once quoted as saying: "When my life is over and I meet up with victims of the Holocaust, I shall have the privilege of saying to them 'I never have forgotten you.'"

    Back in 1977, when Sir Charles Chaplin passed away, tributes came fast and furious from the four corners of the world.  Everyone -- from royalty and diplomats to actors and fans -- wanted to express their thoughts about this giant of comedy.  It fell to Bob Hope to express what perhaps was the best eulogy of all -- and one that seems entirely fitting for Simon Wiesenthal: "We were fortunate to have lived in his time . . ."    

Gaylord Nelson: A Man Who Made A Difference

    With the death of Gaylord Nelson - former governor and United States Senator from Wisconsin -planet earth has lost one of its best and most compassionate friends.  In a legacy-filled life of eighty-nine years, Senator Nelson was one of that truly rare breed of whom it can be honestly said: "He really made a difference." Through his energy, his imagination and his deeds, he carved out an indelible niche in the pantheon of immortals.

      Nelson's passion was Mother Earth: its care, its health and its future.  While serving as Wisconsin governor in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Nelson pushed through a penny-a-pack tax on cigarettes to pay for his Outdoor Recreation Acquisition Program.  At a time when few men or women in public life were cognizant of environmental issues, Nelson virtually broke new ground by pushing through a program which allowed Wisconsin to buy literally hundreds of thousands of acres of park land, wetlands and other open space. 

       In 1962, the Governor became a Senator when he defeated 4-term incumbent Republican Alexander Wiley (1884-1967), one-time chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  As Wisconsin's Junior Senator (his "senior" was William Proxmire, who had been elected in 1957 to fill the unexpired term of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy), Nelson quickly made a name for himself as an able advocate for planet earth.  During his 18-years in the Senate, Nelson championed conservation policies, including legislation to preserve the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail and create a national hiking system.  Without question, his crowning achievement was "Earth Day," which he started as an environmental demonstration modeled on the anti-war teach-ins of the Vietnam War.  As Nelson would later recall: "It suddenly occurred to me, why not have a nationwide teach-in on the environment."  He announced his Earth Day idea in a speech in Seattle in September 1969.  The idea "took off like gangbusters."  The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970. 

     In the thirty-five years since the first Earth Day, people have gathered each April 22 for convocations, teach-ins and such activities as planting trees, cleaning up trash, and lobbying for a cleaner, healthier environment.  As a result of Nelson's passion, he came to be recognized as one of the word's leading environmentalists.  In 1995, then-President Bill Clinton presented Senator Nelson with a Presidential Medal of Freedom -- the nation's highest civilian honor.  The proclamation, read by President Clinton stated: "As the father of Earth Day, he is the grandfather of all that grew out of that event: the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act."

     To my way of thinking, the highest praise with which one can grace another comes in the form of four simple words: "He [or she] made a difference."  In this age when religious rhetoric and scruple seem to be directed mainly toward that which is arch-conservative, pro-business, and  "cult-of-life,"  it is gratifying to note that more and more people of faith are coming to realize that to be religious -- truly religious -- means to be a steward of the earth.  For in protecting the skies and oceans, the forests and plains, we are doing precisely what God intended. 

     There is an old Jewish tradition which teaches about the six Days of Creation: whatever was created first was not reliant upon that which was created second; whatever was created third was reliant upon whatever was created first and second.  In other words, seas no more require fish than trees do birds.  Fish, however, which were created after the sea, are totally reliant upon their watery home.  This teaches us that nothing depends upon man, who was the last of God's creation.  Conversely, this means that man depends on virtually everything.  Anyone who teaches this lesson -- and few did it better than Senator Gaylord Nelson -- can truly be said to have made a difference.

     Nelson's fellow Badger, the great Aldo Leopold is known as the  "Father of Wildlife Ecology."  In his seminal work A Sand County Almanac, Leopold noted: "Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for Gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how.  To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither God nor poet; one need only own a good shovel.  By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree -- and there will be one."

    In like fashion, Gaylord Nelson taught that each and every person can rise to the level of God or poet, by learning to love, protect and defend the earth.  In teaching this lesson, Gaylord Nelson truly made a difference.

    May his memory be a blessing for us all.