I recently watched a video of Linkin Park’s “What I’ve Done” and found it to be quite interesting. It actually seems anti-patriotic, perhaps somewhat of a protest song. Wow, the popular music culture hasn’t done anything like that since maybe 1974 or so. The most daring scene is towards the end, showing a group of children waving American flags – followed by a child in the Middle East holding a gun. Amazing; they imply that waving American flags is not a great idea anymore, perhaps even a stupid idea. It looks like young folk are finally moving away from the unquestioned patriotism of the last 25 years; e.g., I don’t hear Van Halen’s “Yankee Rose” on the local rock station anymore.

Lots of other heavy imagery in this video – atomic explosions and industrial wastelands and melting polar ice and birds in oil slicks and starving Africans. Soldiers at war and a junkie readying his arm for the needle and an aerial bombing run, maybe from Vietnam. And my favorite juxtaposition – the remains of an old Roman Empire temple, followed by a shot of the World Trade Center.

If the Linkin Park video is any indication, then American teens and twenty-somethings are quite disgusted about being handed a future that will surely include terrorism, continuing warfare in the Middle East (with continuing US involvement), environmental degradation, possible catastrophe from global warming, nuclear proliferation, gross economic inequities, resource depletion, etc. They appear not to like the idea of inheriting a world that has been used up and sucked dry by the previous generation or three.

Well, I think that’s good. They should indeed blame my generation. We really should have thought more about what would be left behind for our kids. But no, we kept living the high life and burning up the future. And now the burned-out future is coming into sight, and sharp musicians like Linkin Park are making a buck playing off the disgust of those who see what’s in their future.

Unfortunately, Linkin Park is unrelievedly dark. They offer no hope at all, no “we can make it happen” endings. Ultimately, they’re just there to entertain, to make some cash and enjoy it while they can.

In the “What I’ve Done” video, young musicians jump around and emote at an impromptu concert stage out in the middle of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. What’s more ironic than their intended irony is that their performance co-opts the ways of the broken world they condemn. They are surrounded by towers of lights and amplifiers and speakers, all needing lots of electricity. They utilize guitars and drums made of high-tech plastics and composites, and wireless microphones utilizing the latest chip technology. Their performance is tightly woven within the techno-establishment (now there’s a phrase from the 60’s – “the Establishment”) which they blame. They don’t stop to wonder how much greenhouse gas their musical excursion produces. Their video rightly implies that everything ties together – war, terrorism, famine, American greed, lack of concern for the rest of the world, environmental collapse. But Linkin Park themselves seem immune from their own equation.

Overall, however, they do have a point. I’m not sure if “the center can hold” for America very much longer. Just a quick example: Iran is now preparing to bomb Israel if anyone tries to stop its nuclear weapons program.

“Let mercy come, and wash away – – – – WHAT I’VE DONE”.

I read that Jackson Browne has been speaking out against the war lately. Hey, good to hear that Jackson is still out there, holding on and holding out. Wow, Jackson Browne was once my favorite singing artist. Jackson seemed like the man for all seasons; he could rock when he felt the urge, he could get a pop hit going when he needed the money, he could push the social conscience button without turning everyone off, and he could croon the pathos and bathos of lost love and days gone by. Yea, Jackson Browne was about as intense a popular musician as you could get back in the 70s and 80s. He was truly an INFJ’s singer and songwriter.

I only saw Jackson Browne once, back in 1978 when he made an appearance at a free and very-unplugged concert on the Mall in D.C at a pro-ecology event (I think they called it “Sun Day”). He had his young son with him (recall that Browne’s first wife died soon after the son was born and that Browne committed himself to being a good father, taking his son along with him on his tours, avoiding the usual rock star debauchery in order to be a good parent). The Jackson Browne myth, i.e. of a rock star with substance, appeared to have some substance to it.

Then one day I wrote him a letter, using an address for correspondence provided on one of his albums. How naive of me — another one of those lessons in real life. I opened my heart a bit in my letter, telling Mr. Browne how important his lyrics and his music were to me, how they related to my daily life, how they gave me hope. Well, after a few weeks, I got a reply. Reality fix: the letter was not from Jackson Browne himself, but from one of his p.r. people. And the tone of her letter was very Californian — i.e., she tried to be nice, she acknowledged my feelings, but ultimately there was nobody home.

In other words, always remember this: the more famous a person is, the more unreal that person is. What you are seeing, however edifying or appealing, is a carefully crafted image, one fashioned by a group of investors in order to make money. Who or what the person behind that image really is, who knows. One thing, however, is for certain: whoever that person really is, they are definitely too busy to interact in any depth with the great unwashed masses (other than a concert and an occasional autograph on the street). Their time is money. But admittedly, in the case of a Jackson Browne, perhaps they have a valuable message to broadcast to the world as well.

One side-note about the war, one that relates to Jackson Browne in a way: I recently saw one of those “send to everyone you know” e-mails about how smart the President and his advisors are and how dumb the anti-war celebrities are (question: why do so many people feel that their mission in life is to pass along these supposedly interesting e-mail messages on a regular basis to 50 or more of their friends?). The list of dummies included Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Cher, Sean Penn, Ed Asner, Bono, and Larry Hagman (Larry Hagman!! Is he still around?). Jackson Browne didn’t make the list — probably because of his declining fame more than because of his solid credentials in foreign policy analysis (although Browne wouldn’t seem any more declining than Larry Hagman… ).

Getting back to this “patriotic” e-mail, and to some other things I’ve seen in the news recently and have overheard at work, it seems as though we are going back to the divisive postures that were last seen during the Vietnam war. I.e., both the protestors and the pro-war people are getting vehement; they are starting to take each other personally. That’s too bad. I hope that the anti-war people will try to make it clear that they aren’t trying to insult veterans, they aren’t trying to force people to become vegetarians or give up their SUVs (or listen to Jackson Browne music), and they aren’t condemning America or trying to make Saddam Hussein look like a hero. By the same token, I hope that the pro-war people will realize that protest and dissent is as American as apple pie. Our system works because we air our disagreements. Were we to adopt the viewpoint implied by that seemingly patriotic e-mail, i.e. that we should all silently support our leaders and assume they always know better than we do, than this just wouldn’t be America — it would be more like Iraq!

(And as to the notion that people with the highest levels of academic and career experience in politics and foreign policy analysis should be trusted to always make the right choices for our nation, let’s go back to the Vietnam days and pull out the resumes of Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, Lyndon Johnson and General William Westmoreland; how could a dream team like that be wrong about America’s ability to achieve its objectives in Vietnam? And yet they were.)

As an eternal student, I’m responsible to read some books. Lately, I’ve lacked the discipline to devote myself to any one book. Thus, I’m hunting and pecking through three or four titles at a time. The line up right now: Complexity, Mitchell Waldrop; Greek Ways, Bruce Thornton; Complete Idiot’s Guide to Taoism, Brandon Toropov and Chad Hansen; The Presidency of Jimmy Carter, Burton Kaufman; The Changing Face of Jesus, Geza Vermes; and Disarmed & Dangerous (The Berrigan Brothers), Murray Polner and Jim O’Grady. I’ve also been taking an occasional look at Lila by Robert Pirsig and The Cosmic Code by Heinz Pagels. This isn’t exactly the best way to get through a book, but it does allow some intellectual cross-fertilization.

I’d like to offer a few comments on two recent deaths. First off, Maurice Gibbs of the BeeGees. Yes, the BeeGees. Not exactly the most brilliant musical talents of the past thirty years, but they certainly did have staying power. I wasn’t exactly thrilled by their disco opportunism, nor by Barry’s post-disco pretensions as a classy singer who could complement the likes of a chanteuse such as Barbara Streisand or whoever. Nor by Barry’s pretensions to still have a falsetto after 1983. Nor by Barry’s pretensions to still have long hair and good looks. I guess that I wasn’t exactly thrilled by Barry in general. Robin was OK, although he put too much intensity into his lyrics — his songs weren’t all that profound! Maurice was about the best you could do with a group like the Gees. He pretty much stuck to his supporting role and didn’t complain, no matter what phase the group was in. He kept doing his job, even during their long decline. He went bald, but instead of messing with pretentious hair-weaves, he just wore a hat on stage. And actually, he didn’t look bad with it. I suppose that I should have stopped taking the BeeGees seriously after 1970, but even in their disco phase there was a certain romantic idealism to their songs that was so schmaltzy that you started believing in it again. Maurice’s quietness lent the band some gravitas, some credibility. He kept the group from becoming a complete joke. He was the one good man that could save a city. Maurice Gibbs, hats off to you.

The second death of note? Faheem Williams, the seven year old boy who was found dead in his aunt’s home in Newark, New Jersey after years of complete family neglect. All of the usual child protection systems of our society broke down on Faheem: the courts involved with his mother and aunt, the state child protection agency who investigated his mother, the school system that didn’t notice his absence, and the other family members who knew something but didn’t step in. I work for a prosecutors office (called a district attorney or states attorney in other places), and it will be people like us who administer the criminal penalties involved. Hopefully, the prosecutors will do their job properly, although that certainly won’t bring Faheem back. The Governor is quite incensed, and is calling for big changes to make sure this doesn’t happen again. But I myself have only one little change to suggest for now. And that is this: everyone who hears about Faheem should bow their head for a moment and think about the poem “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. Put aside the fact that Faheem was an African American child living in a dysfunctional family succumbing to the pressures of urban poverty. Just think of him as another human life that perished tragically. Much like the people in the World Trade Center, or in a plane crash, or any other place where life turns into a nightmare. Let me mention another case that we got just a few weeks before Faheem’s case hit: a highly dysfunctional young woman gave birth, wrapped her baby in a plastic bag and stowed it away. A near-by county has a 20-year old who dropped her one-year old child into the river. I have no real answer to such horror. All I can say is, ask not for whom the bell tolls.