Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The Worst Day Of The Year
BWEST OF BWANA
AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE
October 17, 2006
THE WORST DAY OF THE YEAR
We have a head house above the fourth floor of the house – yes, it’s a walk up, but then Victorian townhouses are that way. The heat in the summer time can get fierce up there and fight the air-conditioned space below. Some years ago, I discovered that a simple two-fan air-exchange unit set to “Exhaust” on both sides works as well as a ventilator fan. That double-barreled unit was taken down two weeks or so ago as chilled breezes from the Northwest brought reminders that Canada is our neighbor to the north.
That wasn’t the worst day of the year.
This week and last week, the MLB Championship Series games were twice rained out – those weren’t the worst days of the year.
Today, I stopped at a store and bought Halloween candy – we get about 400 or more kids every Halloween (Tuesday, the 31st of October) coming by the house. The younger kids start off on a march around the Bunker Hill Monument – all led by a bunch of guys in fairy costumes. The Bunker Hill Monument is on Breed’s Hill but that is another story – the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on Breed’s Hill. For the British troops, that was indeed, one of the worst days of the year.
Halloween is not the worst day of the year, unless it happens to fall on what is the worst day of the year.
Pretty soon, I’ll have to turn on the heat in the house … that means turning on the furnace and setting the thermostats to the winter schedule. This probably should have been done a few days ago, but with bonus days in October, we are being stubborn about accepting the inevitable.
Pretty soon, along will come the day when we have to check the batteries in the smoke detectors. It makes sense to replace them, but we have hard-wired smoke detectors, so this is mostly a mnemonic ritual – some genius at Duracell or Energizer thought it up and should get a bonus. On the other hand, checking the batteries in the thermostats and changing them a week or two after firing up the furnace is a sort of cheat on the inevitable day. But, it does pay homage to the worst day of the year.
Then, down come the storm windows. As I’ve explained before, for the benefit of my friends who live outside the US in milder climes, our regular windows have outer windows to protect them. Well, actually, they provide an added layer of insulation sometimes rendered unnecessary by double glazed thermopane (that may be a brand name) style windows.
That is THE WORST DAY OF THE YEAR – the day on which the storm windows come down!
Not only does it spell the end of any plausible argument that summer is not over, and not only does it spell the end of the golf season save a bonus day here or there, but it actually forces us to give back the hour that we thought we’d stolen from TIME.
Yes, the day that we end Daylight Savings Time and go back one hour is the WORST DAY OF THE YEAR.
Not only do we give back the hour, but inevitably, the declination of the sun steals more and more of each day without so much as an opportunity for declension on our part.
One might suppose that as a corollary, the best day of the year is the first Sunday in April when we Spring forward. Not quite, as the best day is more appropriately measured by the condition of the teeing ground.
But, the first Sunday in April is to be replaced by an earlier Sunday in March as by a stroke of the pen, Congress has changed the dates during which Daylight Savings Time will reign.
The Worst Day Of The Year will, as of next year, be postponed a wee bit, until a Sunday in November, but for now, I must offer this lament as we look forward to darker days ahead – at least until the Winter solstice brings the promise of an ever-lingering twilight hour.
And one additional benefit from the Wizards and Witches who inhabit Congress and pass such laws? Well, the WORST DAY OF THE YEAR will never again fall on Halloween unless … unless they change the law again!
Cheerz…Bwana
AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE
October 17, 2006
THE WORST DAY OF THE YEAR
We have a head house above the fourth floor of the house – yes, it’s a walk up, but then Victorian townhouses are that way. The heat in the summer time can get fierce up there and fight the air-conditioned space below. Some years ago, I discovered that a simple two-fan air-exchange unit set to “Exhaust” on both sides works as well as a ventilator fan. That double-barreled unit was taken down two weeks or so ago as chilled breezes from the Northwest brought reminders that Canada is our neighbor to the north.
That wasn’t the worst day of the year.
This week and last week, the MLB Championship Series games were twice rained out – those weren’t the worst days of the year.
Today, I stopped at a store and bought Halloween candy – we get about 400 or more kids every Halloween (Tuesday, the 31st of October) coming by the house. The younger kids start off on a march around the Bunker Hill Monument – all led by a bunch of guys in fairy costumes. The Bunker Hill Monument is on Breed’s Hill but that is another story – the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on Breed’s Hill. For the British troops, that was indeed, one of the worst days of the year.
Halloween is not the worst day of the year, unless it happens to fall on what is the worst day of the year.
Pretty soon, I’ll have to turn on the heat in the house … that means turning on the furnace and setting the thermostats to the winter schedule. This probably should have been done a few days ago, but with bonus days in October, we are being stubborn about accepting the inevitable.
Pretty soon, along will come the day when we have to check the batteries in the smoke detectors. It makes sense to replace them, but we have hard-wired smoke detectors, so this is mostly a mnemonic ritual – some genius at Duracell or Energizer thought it up and should get a bonus. On the other hand, checking the batteries in the thermostats and changing them a week or two after firing up the furnace is a sort of cheat on the inevitable day. But, it does pay homage to the worst day of the year.
Then, down come the storm windows. As I’ve explained before, for the benefit of my friends who live outside the US in milder climes, our regular windows have outer windows to protect them. Well, actually, they provide an added layer of insulation sometimes rendered unnecessary by double glazed thermopane (that may be a brand name) style windows.
That is THE WORST DAY OF THE YEAR – the day on which the storm windows come down!
Not only does it spell the end of any plausible argument that summer is not over, and not only does it spell the end of the golf season save a bonus day here or there, but it actually forces us to give back the hour that we thought we’d stolen from TIME.
Yes, the day that we end Daylight Savings Time and go back one hour is the WORST DAY OF THE YEAR.
Not only do we give back the hour, but inevitably, the declination of the sun steals more and more of each day without so much as an opportunity for declension on our part.
One might suppose that as a corollary, the best day of the year is the first Sunday in April when we Spring forward. Not quite, as the best day is more appropriately measured by the condition of the teeing ground.
But, the first Sunday in April is to be replaced by an earlier Sunday in March as by a stroke of the pen, Congress has changed the dates during which Daylight Savings Time will reign.
The Worst Day Of The Year will, as of next year, be postponed a wee bit, until a Sunday in November, but for now, I must offer this lament as we look forward to darker days ahead – at least until the Winter solstice brings the promise of an ever-lingering twilight hour.
And one additional benefit from the Wizards and Witches who inhabit Congress and pass such laws? Well, the WORST DAY OF THE YEAR will never again fall on Halloween unless … unless they change the law again!
Cheerz…Bwana
Sunday, October 08, 2006
STATE OF DENIAL - THE GRAPES OF WRATH
BWEST OF BWANA
AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE
October 8, 2006
STATE OF DENIAL – THE GRAPES OF WRATH
Many, many years ago, we dined at Restaurant Lucas Carton on the Place de la Madeleine. This was an exceptional dining experience and the wine was a Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche. Okay, don’t ask, don’t tell. A few years later, my dear friend Eddie who since died and I had a wine experience.
However, before that, I will tell you that I was driving down the Mass Pike from Boston to Connecticut when this guy in a blue Mercedes 600 SEL (the old tank version) keeps pestering me. Well, it was Eddie! Later, he would yank my chain from his Aston Martin – only he could drive one of those with the super hard clutch.
Anyway, Eddie got a big raise – I mean a humumgous raise –and called me around 5:00 PM as I was sitting at my desk and contemplating another few hours of work before winding up for the night – contrary to popular belief, such is the life of a lawyer when you are handling trial work. The day is NEVER done as there is always another little bit to get finished.
So, I agreed to meet Eddie at the Four Seasons Hotel and when I got there, he called the waiter over and asked for the wine list. The waiter brought us the menu and Eddie said “Pick a bottle and get something good.” Well, with his raise, I could have ordered one of each and not worried, but I asked the waiter for the cellar list which he brought over. I ordered a bottle of DRC Grand Echézeaux. How much, you ask? Don’t ask, don’t tell, is what I say.
As we sat an enjoyed the wine and had a cigar – in those days, they allowed cigars (I”ve since quit anyway) – and had a snack, Eddie said: “Shall we get another one?” Before any more was said, he had called the waiter over and we had a second bottle!
The following evening, the doorbell at our house rang. There was Eddie and he’d had a couple of martinis. He opened his raincoat and flashed two more bottles of DRC Grand Echézeaux. “I went back and asked the stiff if he had any more and he had only two bottles so I said I’ll take them!” he proclaimed. Now, we are not quite talking Halliburton-level spending here, but four bottles of this stuff would make a decent dent in any wallet.
Two days ago, I stopped at Trader Joe’s to pick up some light groceries and also a couple of bottles of Napa River Cabernet. This stuff is $4.99 a bottle and it is pretty darn good, but it ain’t no Grand Echézeaux. Anyway, while I was in the store, there was an announcement on the PA system that they were having a tasting on macaroni and cheese and also of a California Sangiovese.
Well, I don’t touch macaroni and cheese and I’m not partial to wine tastings of Chateau Rotgut. The good stuff seems to sell itself. However, I did take a sample of the Sangiovese – mind you, they have tiny little plastic tasting cups that look like something in which you might collect a urine sample or dispense a terrible tasting medicine. If a standard wine serving is 150ml, these tasting cups are about 5-7ml.
As I got ready to sip, one of the guys dispensing the stuff said: “You know, they say this has the taste of blackberries but I can’t quite taste that. It’s more like blueberries to me.”
The other fellow said: “Well, I think it has a hint of spice, maybe clove and blackberry but that could come across like blueberry.”
“Sheesh!” I thought, “a $4.99 wine and it’s got all that!”
I tasted it. It was not particularly good. Actually, it was particularly bad. I mean, fuggedabout blackberries and blueberries and spice and cloves and all that stuff. This thing had nothing, nada, niente! I said: “Guys, it tastes like grape to me.”
There was a horrified silence and one of them said “No way!”
I said “Way, man! Wine is made from grapes. In fact, this tastes to me like Welch’s.”
Omigosh, I could have been engaged in the worst form of blasphemy akin to the Danish cartoons or Benny’s latest little quotation from the 13th Century. Wine tasting like grape juice? Man, you’ve got to be kidding!
One of the guys said, “I just don’t see that. It doesn’t taste like grape juice to me.”
I said: “In fact, it tastes like sweetened Welch’s grape juice. Don’t you think it is strange that you don’t think grape juice tastes like grape juice?”
He looked at me with this vacant stare.
It then occurred to me that I now understand why the President doesn’t think the sour grape juice that is Iraq tastes like sour grape juice. After all, grape juice, sour or not, doesn’t taste like grape juice to someone who doesn’t want to face the obvious.
In fairness to Trader Joe’s, it is one of the great stores around – so I’ll give them a plug or two. Their Irish Breakfast Tea and their honey mango shave cream are worth your time.
Cheerz….Bwana
AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE
October 8, 2006
STATE OF DENIAL – THE GRAPES OF WRATH
Many, many years ago, we dined at Restaurant Lucas Carton on the Place de la Madeleine. This was an exceptional dining experience and the wine was a Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche. Okay, don’t ask, don’t tell. A few years later, my dear friend Eddie who since died and I had a wine experience.
However, before that, I will tell you that I was driving down the Mass Pike from Boston to Connecticut when this guy in a blue Mercedes 600 SEL (the old tank version) keeps pestering me. Well, it was Eddie! Later, he would yank my chain from his Aston Martin – only he could drive one of those with the super hard clutch.
Anyway, Eddie got a big raise – I mean a humumgous raise –and called me around 5:00 PM as I was sitting at my desk and contemplating another few hours of work before winding up for the night – contrary to popular belief, such is the life of a lawyer when you are handling trial work. The day is NEVER done as there is always another little bit to get finished.
So, I agreed to meet Eddie at the Four Seasons Hotel and when I got there, he called the waiter over and asked for the wine list. The waiter brought us the menu and Eddie said “Pick a bottle and get something good.” Well, with his raise, I could have ordered one of each and not worried, but I asked the waiter for the cellar list which he brought over. I ordered a bottle of DRC Grand Echézeaux. How much, you ask? Don’t ask, don’t tell, is what I say.
As we sat an enjoyed the wine and had a cigar – in those days, they allowed cigars (I”ve since quit anyway) – and had a snack, Eddie said: “Shall we get another one?” Before any more was said, he had called the waiter over and we had a second bottle!
The following evening, the doorbell at our house rang. There was Eddie and he’d had a couple of martinis. He opened his raincoat and flashed two more bottles of DRC Grand Echézeaux. “I went back and asked the stiff if he had any more and he had only two bottles so I said I’ll take them!” he proclaimed. Now, we are not quite talking Halliburton-level spending here, but four bottles of this stuff would make a decent dent in any wallet.
Two days ago, I stopped at Trader Joe’s to pick up some light groceries and also a couple of bottles of Napa River Cabernet. This stuff is $4.99 a bottle and it is pretty darn good, but it ain’t no Grand Echézeaux. Anyway, while I was in the store, there was an announcement on the PA system that they were having a tasting on macaroni and cheese and also of a California Sangiovese.
Well, I don’t touch macaroni and cheese and I’m not partial to wine tastings of Chateau Rotgut. The good stuff seems to sell itself. However, I did take a sample of the Sangiovese – mind you, they have tiny little plastic tasting cups that look like something in which you might collect a urine sample or dispense a terrible tasting medicine. If a standard wine serving is 150ml, these tasting cups are about 5-7ml.
As I got ready to sip, one of the guys dispensing the stuff said: “You know, they say this has the taste of blackberries but I can’t quite taste that. It’s more like blueberries to me.”
The other fellow said: “Well, I think it has a hint of spice, maybe clove and blackberry but that could come across like blueberry.”
“Sheesh!” I thought, “a $4.99 wine and it’s got all that!”
I tasted it. It was not particularly good. Actually, it was particularly bad. I mean, fuggedabout blackberries and blueberries and spice and cloves and all that stuff. This thing had nothing, nada, niente! I said: “Guys, it tastes like grape to me.”
There was a horrified silence and one of them said “No way!”
I said “Way, man! Wine is made from grapes. In fact, this tastes to me like Welch’s.”
Omigosh, I could have been engaged in the worst form of blasphemy akin to the Danish cartoons or Benny’s latest little quotation from the 13th Century. Wine tasting like grape juice? Man, you’ve got to be kidding!
One of the guys said, “I just don’t see that. It doesn’t taste like grape juice to me.”
I said: “In fact, it tastes like sweetened Welch’s grape juice. Don’t you think it is strange that you don’t think grape juice tastes like grape juice?”
He looked at me with this vacant stare.
It then occurred to me that I now understand why the President doesn’t think the sour grape juice that is Iraq tastes like sour grape juice. After all, grape juice, sour or not, doesn’t taste like grape juice to someone who doesn’t want to face the obvious.
In fairness to Trader Joe’s, it is one of the great stores around – so I’ll give them a plug or two. Their Irish Breakfast Tea and their honey mango shave cream are worth your time.
Cheerz….Bwana
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
The Courage Muscle by Monique Doyle Spencer
FYI
Below is a copy of an entry that appears on Paul Levy's blog Running A Hospital.
___________________________
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Monique's book
October is breast cancer awareness month, designed to help people understand this disease, seek early diagnosis, and inform folks of advances in treatment. In recognition of that, I want to tell you about something that can be very helpful to you, a friend, or a loved one.
A couple of years ago, we published a wonderful book on the subject by Monique Doyle Spencer, which is designed to help people who have the disease understand and cope with many aspects of the treatment process. We published the book because it is funny, and commercial publishers felt that it was inappropriate to have a humorous book dealing with cancer. We thought it deserved public exposure. It is called, "The Courage Muscle, a chicken's guide to living with breast cancer." After my mother-in-law read it, she said, "I wish I had had this book to read during my treatment." Many others have said the same thing, and the book's reputation has spread by word of mouth and occasional newspaper columns and Monique's interviews on television and radio.
You can buy it from Amazon, but if you buy it from the hospital instead, the proceeds go to support Windows of Hope, our non-profit oncology shop that sells wigs, scarves, and other supplies for cancer patients. Just send a check for $16.95 to Windows of Hope, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, and we will mail you a copy. Or call 617-667-1899.
Below is a copy of an entry that appears on Paul Levy's blog Running A Hospital.
___________________________
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Monique's book
October is breast cancer awareness month, designed to help people understand this disease, seek early diagnosis, and inform folks of advances in treatment. In recognition of that, I want to tell you about something that can be very helpful to you, a friend, or a loved one.
A couple of years ago, we published a wonderful book on the subject by Monique Doyle Spencer, which is designed to help people who have the disease understand and cope with many aspects of the treatment process. We published the book because it is funny, and commercial publishers felt that it was inappropriate to have a humorous book dealing with cancer. We thought it deserved public exposure. It is called, "The Courage Muscle, a chicken's guide to living with breast cancer." After my mother-in-law read it, she said, "I wish I had had this book to read during my treatment." Many others have said the same thing, and the book's reputation has spread by word of mouth and occasional newspaper columns and Monique's interviews on television and radio.
You can buy it from Amazon, but if you buy it from the hospital instead, the proceeds go to support Windows of Hope, our non-profit oncology shop that sells wigs, scarves, and other supplies for cancer patients. Just send a check for $16.95 to Windows of Hope, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, and we will mail you a copy. Or call 617-667-1899.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Mozart And The Taxi Driver
BWEST OF BWANA
AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE
October 3, 2006
MOZART AND THE TAXI DRIVER
The Deutsche Oper in Berlin canceled a performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo. Well, it wasn’t Mozart’s Idomeneo but a variation-on-the-theme production, directed by Hans Neuenfels in which, according to reports, King Idomeneo is shown staggering on stage next to the severed heads of Buddha, Jesus, Poseidon (Neptune) and the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) which sat on a chair. Other reports had Kind Idomeneo pulling the severed heads out of a sack.
We have all read or heard that the production was canceled due to fears that enraged Muslims would commit acts of violence. Indeed, the Opera Company reported having received a telephone call threatening violence. No one can say if the call was made by a Muslim, a Buddhist, or indeed an enraged Mozartophile upset that the work of the great genius was being debased.
Some months ago, when the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten published the infamous cartoons, I called it a gratuitous insult to Islam. Of course, the cartoons specifically depicted the Prophet (PBUH) in a derogatory way as cartoonist entrants in the misguided contest were charged to do. My initial reaction to the Idomeneo variation was similar – a gratuitous offense and since the production was not true to the original, what was the need for this? Hadn’t we previously dismissed claims of freedom of expression by saying that one who yells “FIRE!” in a crowded theater is accorded no protection? I then thought a bit more on this and asked myself, “What if there really were a fire and someone yelled ‘FIRE!’ in the crowded theater and a panic ensued?” Does the truth of what is said make the difference? Well, in actions for libel and slander, truth certainly does. Do the results of the speaker’s words make a difference?
Something gnawed at me about this, so I looked up Mr. Justice Holmes’ opinion in Schenck v. U.S., the 1919 case in which he wrote: “We admit that in many places and in ordinary times the defendants in saying all that was said in the circular would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
Aha! So it was the falsity of the words that made them objectionable. It seemed to me that banning the opera was akin to banning a false shout of FIRE! Was it not established that the opera was not true to the original and that it might have an incendiary character? Note that the phrase “shouting fire in a crowded theater” does not occur in the original and was never used by Justice Holmes. And the question whether the results of the speaker’s words make a difference was answered in the affirmative when Schenck was modified by Brandenburg v. Ohio when the Supreme Court of the U.S. stated: “Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
But then I thought, what about freedom of art and expression? Does an opera have to be true to the original? This troubled me for a bit, but not long, as I pondered that musicians often write “variations” on a theme of another composer. Why, sitting in my own collection are many variations including Mozart’s own re-orchestration of Handel’s Messiah in which he replaces the English libretto of the original Oratorio with a German text (K. 572).
H.D.S. Greenway, a Boston Globe columnist writes in an October 3, 2006 column titled Censorship Through The Ages, that Mozart faced opposition from Austria’s Emperor Joseph II to the production of his Marriage of Figaro. Mozart was apparently able to convince the Viennese court that he had excised offending radical material and the opera was allowed to proceed. Similarly, he reports that Giuseppe Verdi too ran afoul of the censors in respect of his opera The Masked Ball. Verdi agreed to relocate the setting of the opera from Europe to North America and the murdered King of Sweden became the Governor of Boston – a sort of variation upon a variation, if you will.
So, perhaps there is nothing wrong with recognizing that, just as with opinions (as distinguished from facts as to which truth is ascertainable) art is art for art’s sake, variation or not. There is no truth standard applicable. Measured against this, the banning of the opera was a mistake of principle, but perhaps a good panic prevention measure.
On top of this, out comes form Minneapolis, Minnesota, a story that about three quarters of the taxi drivers at the airport are Somalis and Muslims. Many of them believe that the Qu’ran forbids transportation of alcohol and, ergo, they don’t want to carry passengers who have alcohol in their possession. Never mind that the Qu’ran only prohibits the consumption of alcohol, not transvection.
The city’s answer it appears is to require taxi drivers who will not carry alcohol to display special colored lights on their cabs. If they do not display the lights signifying that they will not carry alcohol, they must return to the back of the line, and face a three hour wait for another fare.
Now it seems to me this is turning common sense on its rear end – of course, keep in mind that for most people common sense resides in that area anyway.
A fundamental tenet of taxi service is that a taxi driver may not refuse to take a passenger wherever the passenger wants to go and the taxi driver may not refuse to take a passenger for discriminatory or other reasons unless the passenger is violent or evidences a refusal to pay.
The Minneapolis solution would make driving a taxi an inalienable right – life, liberty and the pursuit of non-alcohol carrying passengers. Doesn’t it make more sense to say that a Somali Muslim has a right NOT to be a taxi driver if he feels it infringes on his religious beliefs to carry persons with alcohol in their possession?
I recognize that an argument could be made that a person has the right to earn a living and in the course of that living should not have to do acts which violate his religious beliefs. For me, this does not answer the threshold question: why would you agree to do a job that entails activities that violate your religious beliefs in the first place? Perplexed by this, I asked a Muslim friend for her opinion. “Ridiculous!” she said, “does this mean that devout Muslims cannot be pilots [because passengers may have alcohol in their possession?]”
In May of this year, the Utah Supreme Court in State of Utah v. Holm, held Utah’s anti-bigamy statute constitutional against a claim that it infringed on the defendant’s religious right to engage in bigamy. That court rejected the notion that there is a fundamental liberty interest in engaging in such polygamous conduct. Parenthetically, readers might be interested that this claim was advanced on the basis of the Constitution of the United States as the Constitution of Utah expressly states: “polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited.”
It has long been held that matters of religious belief as distinguished from practices are at the core of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion. Just as polygamy is not a liberty, refusal to carry passengers because their luggage may contain materials offensive to a taxi driver, is not a liberty. What if the taxi driver said it was prohibited to carry an infidel?
The opposing decisions, the one to ban the opera and the other to allow taxi drivers to refuse fares are wrong. One wonders what would happen if an opera company director carrying a sack with props to be used as the heads in question were to get into a taxi and be questioned by the Somali taxi driver as to whether he had alcohol. If he said “I have the heads of Buddha, Jesus, Poseidon, and the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)” would he be justifiably evicted from the taxi? What about the fact that the claim is false? After all, the heads are not real.
I am pleased to report that according to Mr. Greenway’s column, with the consent of German Muslims, the production of Idomeneo may go forward in Berlin.
In Germany, Islamophobia kept an opera from being produced. In Minneapolis, phobia about being labeled Islamophobic kept a city from using common sense. Such is misguided political correctness, but it seems to me that the Germans reached out to the Muslim community to explain the difference between art and insult whereas the Minneapolis people simply came up with a variation on a theme.
Now, for another variation, a little breakfast music – Eine Kleine Frühstück musik.
Cheerz….Bwana
AN OCCASIONAL BREAKFAST WITH BWANA FEATURE
October 3, 2006
MOZART AND THE TAXI DRIVER
The Deutsche Oper in Berlin canceled a performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo. Well, it wasn’t Mozart’s Idomeneo but a variation-on-the-theme production, directed by Hans Neuenfels in which, according to reports, King Idomeneo is shown staggering on stage next to the severed heads of Buddha, Jesus, Poseidon (Neptune) and the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) which sat on a chair. Other reports had Kind Idomeneo pulling the severed heads out of a sack.
We have all read or heard that the production was canceled due to fears that enraged Muslims would commit acts of violence. Indeed, the Opera Company reported having received a telephone call threatening violence. No one can say if the call was made by a Muslim, a Buddhist, or indeed an enraged Mozartophile upset that the work of the great genius was being debased.
Some months ago, when the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten published the infamous cartoons, I called it a gratuitous insult to Islam. Of course, the cartoons specifically depicted the Prophet (PBUH) in a derogatory way as cartoonist entrants in the misguided contest were charged to do. My initial reaction to the Idomeneo variation was similar – a gratuitous offense and since the production was not true to the original, what was the need for this? Hadn’t we previously dismissed claims of freedom of expression by saying that one who yells “FIRE!” in a crowded theater is accorded no protection? I then thought a bit more on this and asked myself, “What if there really were a fire and someone yelled ‘FIRE!’ in the crowded theater and a panic ensued?” Does the truth of what is said make the difference? Well, in actions for libel and slander, truth certainly does. Do the results of the speaker’s words make a difference?
Something gnawed at me about this, so I looked up Mr. Justice Holmes’ opinion in Schenck v. U.S., the 1919 case in which he wrote: “We admit that in many places and in ordinary times the defendants in saying all that was said in the circular would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
Aha! So it was the falsity of the words that made them objectionable. It seemed to me that banning the opera was akin to banning a false shout of FIRE! Was it not established that the opera was not true to the original and that it might have an incendiary character? Note that the phrase “shouting fire in a crowded theater” does not occur in the original and was never used by Justice Holmes. And the question whether the results of the speaker’s words make a difference was answered in the affirmative when Schenck was modified by Brandenburg v. Ohio when the Supreme Court of the U.S. stated: “Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
But then I thought, what about freedom of art and expression? Does an opera have to be true to the original? This troubled me for a bit, but not long, as I pondered that musicians often write “variations” on a theme of another composer. Why, sitting in my own collection are many variations including Mozart’s own re-orchestration of Handel’s Messiah in which he replaces the English libretto of the original Oratorio with a German text (K. 572).
H.D.S. Greenway, a Boston Globe columnist writes in an October 3, 2006 column titled Censorship Through The Ages, that Mozart faced opposition from Austria’s Emperor Joseph II to the production of his Marriage of Figaro. Mozart was apparently able to convince the Viennese court that he had excised offending radical material and the opera was allowed to proceed. Similarly, he reports that Giuseppe Verdi too ran afoul of the censors in respect of his opera The Masked Ball. Verdi agreed to relocate the setting of the opera from Europe to North America and the murdered King of Sweden became the Governor of Boston – a sort of variation upon a variation, if you will.
So, perhaps there is nothing wrong with recognizing that, just as with opinions (as distinguished from facts as to which truth is ascertainable) art is art for art’s sake, variation or not. There is no truth standard applicable. Measured against this, the banning of the opera was a mistake of principle, but perhaps a good panic prevention measure.
On top of this, out comes form Minneapolis, Minnesota, a story that about three quarters of the taxi drivers at the airport are Somalis and Muslims. Many of them believe that the Qu’ran forbids transportation of alcohol and, ergo, they don’t want to carry passengers who have alcohol in their possession. Never mind that the Qu’ran only prohibits the consumption of alcohol, not transvection.
The city’s answer it appears is to require taxi drivers who will not carry alcohol to display special colored lights on their cabs. If they do not display the lights signifying that they will not carry alcohol, they must return to the back of the line, and face a three hour wait for another fare.
Now it seems to me this is turning common sense on its rear end – of course, keep in mind that for most people common sense resides in that area anyway.
A fundamental tenet of taxi service is that a taxi driver may not refuse to take a passenger wherever the passenger wants to go and the taxi driver may not refuse to take a passenger for discriminatory or other reasons unless the passenger is violent or evidences a refusal to pay.
The Minneapolis solution would make driving a taxi an inalienable right – life, liberty and the pursuit of non-alcohol carrying passengers. Doesn’t it make more sense to say that a Somali Muslim has a right NOT to be a taxi driver if he feels it infringes on his religious beliefs to carry persons with alcohol in their possession?
I recognize that an argument could be made that a person has the right to earn a living and in the course of that living should not have to do acts which violate his religious beliefs. For me, this does not answer the threshold question: why would you agree to do a job that entails activities that violate your religious beliefs in the first place? Perplexed by this, I asked a Muslim friend for her opinion. “Ridiculous!” she said, “does this mean that devout Muslims cannot be pilots [because passengers may have alcohol in their possession?]”
In May of this year, the Utah Supreme Court in State of Utah v. Holm, held Utah’s anti-bigamy statute constitutional against a claim that it infringed on the defendant’s religious right to engage in bigamy. That court rejected the notion that there is a fundamental liberty interest in engaging in such polygamous conduct. Parenthetically, readers might be interested that this claim was advanced on the basis of the Constitution of the United States as the Constitution of Utah expressly states: “polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited.”
It has long been held that matters of religious belief as distinguished from practices are at the core of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion. Just as polygamy is not a liberty, refusal to carry passengers because their luggage may contain materials offensive to a taxi driver, is not a liberty. What if the taxi driver said it was prohibited to carry an infidel?
The opposing decisions, the one to ban the opera and the other to allow taxi drivers to refuse fares are wrong. One wonders what would happen if an opera company director carrying a sack with props to be used as the heads in question were to get into a taxi and be questioned by the Somali taxi driver as to whether he had alcohol. If he said “I have the heads of Buddha, Jesus, Poseidon, and the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)” would he be justifiably evicted from the taxi? What about the fact that the claim is false? After all, the heads are not real.
I am pleased to report that according to Mr. Greenway’s column, with the consent of German Muslims, the production of Idomeneo may go forward in Berlin.
In Germany, Islamophobia kept an opera from being produced. In Minneapolis, phobia about being labeled Islamophobic kept a city from using common sense. Such is misguided political correctness, but it seems to me that the Germans reached out to the Muslim community to explain the difference between art and insult whereas the Minneapolis people simply came up with a variation on a theme.
Now, for another variation, a little breakfast music – Eine Kleine Frühstück musik.
Cheerz….Bwana
