#ROW80 – WEDNESDAY CHECK IN - POST 16 – TECHNOLOGY SURPASSES MORALITY AND PRINCIPLES

One of the things I did in college was write a bit. Not a whole lot, because I was either studying the viola like mad and then some 20 years later boning up (boning up, hell, I was learning it for the first time; I slept through it in high school) on mathematics and computer science. But, I did some dabbling in writing. Enough to win awards for my rhetorical writing; fiction was never really my bag and if I ever tried to express anything that required imagination, it would be stupid, to say the least.

I'm not naive when I say THIS is the America I believe in. The one where I am free to dissent. The one where I am free to worship as I choose. The one I am so proud to be a part of. The one that holds it's hands out to new immigrants and that cares for all.

The kinds of things I wrote about and the articles with which I had my biggest successes were based on intangibles, if you will, although there is nothing tangential or intangible about them. We certainly should, if we are adults, or not, as this is not magically awarded to anyone at the age of 18, but is built over a lifetime I guess, possess good character. Character or morality of a sort that bestows upon us the ability to choose right from wrong and adhere to principles, that we, as a society have agreed upon to be fair, just and own some measure of equality.

To be honest, these are not principles we ourselves chose and wrote into a charter, but they are ideas that set the framework of the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. The Constitution itself cannot be changed, but the Bill of Rights can be amended and it's framework, like that of the Constitution, is deliberately porous, so as to meet any contingency that would follow after its passage and after the deaths of the authors and signers.

We, as Americans, must take the time and care to understand what this all means. It means that we must understand how government works and what these documents mean and what they can and cannot do. It takes time to read and study all of that, but we must, if we are to remain free. We must also understand something else. There are people in our government who are foursquare for us. I know of many Senators who guard their constituencies and truly care about them. Iowa, and Senator Robert Krause. I've been amazed; well, lurking in his wake, watching how he drums up support for various fund raisers; very much a grass roots leader. I really admire that. I am going to follow his run for the Governorship. I plan on learning plenty; I started reading his charts on the economy and the reasons why it hasn't bounced back.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, we have the Governor of my state of Florida, who the less said about, the better. Senator Bill Nelson is around, and is right now trying to get catastrophic aid for Hurricane victims passed; always a tough battle. If I drop him a line, he answers. Senator Krause answers me too. The fact that these busy people have time for people who are or aren't their constituents amazes me.

These are the people who get things done, and we need our Senators and Congressmen and women. They are earnestly holding up the principles outlined by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

But, right now, we have this whole other thing going on and this is not a good thing. I mentioned the Patriot Act yesterday. Back in 2001, six months before planes hit the WTC (which I had actually flown over the previous Wednesday, out of Logan, at sunset, after teaching a software class at Bell Labs, on September 6, 2001) a TV show called “The Lone Gunmen” aired a pilot that hinged upon a thwarting of a plot to fly a passenger jet into one of the towers. It aired March, 2001.

I am not going into conspiracy mode; I mention it as a casual aside. I am in civil liberties mode. How much of our information is controlled? Not only how much is taken from us, but how much is let out? After the trauma of 9/11, people were willing to sign anything. We were also willing to go haring off to Iraq, when there really was no evidence of WMD, or that the Iraqis were involved. It was found out rather early on that the hijackers were Saudis, yet they were already hand in glove with the Bush family. All air traffic had been halted, yet a plane filled with members of the bin Laden family were let out secretly.

The Patriot Act was signed and there were loopholes and codicils all over the place. Homeland Security with Tom Ridge was pretty much a non-starter. He disappeared into thin air, but the Patriot Act lived on and with that, dragon's teeth were sown. Now, we have the NSA actively seeking “information” via phone records from Verizon, and At&T. They've been trying to get in through back doors at Twitter and Facebook. I would be willing to bet the FBI has already done so.

Martin Niemöller was a prominent Protestant pastor during the 3rd Reich. Quote from him upon his release from one of several concentration camps: "First they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out --- because I was not a Socialist.  Then they came for the Trade Unionists and I did not speak out --- because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out --- because I am not a Jew. Then they came for me --- and there was no one left to speak for me.

The trip I was coming home from? Bell Labs? I worked for Verizon. We had 7 people on the roof of WTC1 that day. I worked in the Mainframe and PC deployment/training group, going after rogue servers at the time, I did catchall stuff. I didn't have a formal job title. Those people's computers continued to transmit “handshake” codes for weeks after the towers fell, until their batteries finally died.

Understand, the NSA or whoever, are going through formalities. They're already watching and listening. They have been for years. Being caught with their hands in the cookie jar is only making them go through the sham of begging permission. We gave up that right to privacy when the original act was signed in 2001. “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels,” and “Any society who gives up its freedom for security is neither free nor secure.” Neither of those are mine, but they both apply here. We should have raised holy Hell years ago; it's too late now. 

#ROW80 POST 14 – METAMORPHOSEN (WITH APOLOGIES TO RICHARD STRAUSS)

Dr. Richard Strauss, Time Magazine, July 25, 1938 

The tone poem “Metamorphosen” was written in 1945 in honor and grief by Richard Strauss. The bombing of Munich during WW II and specifically the Munich Opera House in 1943, became the inspiration. “Metamorphosen,” a metamorphosis, is not the only war-inspired music ever written. Shostakovich wrote 3 symphonies, Leningrad 7^th , Stalingrad 8^th and the no-name 9^th symphony. More on this one, later. It’s a juicy story.

I love history and music. My music history professor made me hate it. He was beyond crashing boredom, if he could make me hate 2 somethings balled into 1 something; I should have loved it twice as much, no? But I loathed it. Anyway, the story of the no-name 9^th symphony by Shostakovich that was supposed to celebrate the Soviet win over the Nazis is dandy. As usual, I digress.

Anyway, “Metamorphosen” is a tone poem for orchestrated for 23 strings, specifically 23 SOLO strings: 10 violins, 5 violas, 5 cellos and 3 double basses. This tone poem, along with his “4 Last Songs” are of the more classical and elegiac of Strauss’s works, returning to his initial style of composing prior to WWI, and during the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Anyway, the man lived a long time and saw lots of shit happen. Kinda like me, but I didn’t get threatened with Concentration Camps and hide my Jewish daughter-in-law and grandkids and then turn around and try to convince Stefan Zweig that Joseph Goebbels would be all cool with him writing librettos from London for his Operas, m’kay? This kind of behavior led the great conductor Arturo Toscanini to say, “To Strauss the Composer, I take off my hat. To Strauss the Man, I put it back on.” We have all had those days, but Toscanini should have kept his talkhole shut.

The sum of a person’s life can never be measured in anecdotes, or slices, but how in the hell can we ever qualify a person’s life? Should we even try? I have a bitch of a time with this. Just when I think I’m on a path of clarity, something comes along and tips my clarity wagon over and it goes all to hell and I scramble around. Or I do some ass thing, like make a judgment and guess what? I’m dead WRONG! Shit! How the hell did that happen? Gee, because… maybe, I’m not God.

My Daddy said that once to my Ma when she bitched at him for something that wasn’t just absolutely, fucking PERFECT. After she ran off at the piehole for about 5 minutes and he stood there looking at her with a twinkle in his eye and his easy grin, and said, “That’s because I’m not God.” Actually, I remembered it wrong, on purpose, because I want him to be THAT guy, but he wasn’t. He was kind of exasperated with her, and probably with me, because I laughed. Big deal. I laugh at everything. So did he. He pointed at the floor and said that, then stomped off to the garage for a slug of hooch. He was who he was. He loved her and he loved me in his human way. Nobody died or got beaten up. We laughed about it 5 minutes later. Slice of life.

He just wasn’t Richard fucking Strauss. Richard Strauss wasn’t "Strauss hanging out with Goebbels most of the time." He was home with his Frau Pauline and they were living in Stuttgart with their young son, who has been mayor of Stuttgart. Erwin Rommel’s kid has also been Mayor of Stuttgart. They're Schwabians, I think. Everyone loves Rommel. Rommel was a Wermacht Panzer General in WW II in North Africa, and not a real Nazi. Nobody likes Montgomery, because he was such a jerk. I have taken polls; "Rommel, or Montgomery?" "Not Monty, he's a jerk." So, it's not just me. He would show up and instant jerkery would ensue, just because he’s prissy and seemed a glory hound. Rommel is lion-brave and suave. 

All due respect. General Rommel had been awarded the equivalent of Knight's Cross and the Pour le Merité in WWI and was Hitler's favorite General. Eek! I just always thought of him as lion-hearted.

Fair and a gentleman too. And a comedian. He used to write to his wife, Lucy who was back in Stuttgart taking care of their only child, a son, Manfred. Rommel wrote his wife that Hitler told him that if he caught any soldiers who were Jews they were to be executed immediately. Rommel told Lucy that that directive fell behind his roll-top desk, "ho ho." That is from an actual letter to Lucy. He gave his staff no orders to ask the enemy prisoners’ faith and would not countenance any such questioning.

The point being, that we all aspire to this kind of honor. I fiddle around with some principle and do principle-checks and being the OCD sad thing  I am, it’s always *PRINCIPLE-CHECK TIME!* If it’s good, HAPPY BALLOONS, if not, my sad balloons are on the ground. Believe it, or not, I have *FILL-IN-THE-BLANK CHECKS* for about everything; appetite, mood, vision, nerve-ending, coordination, Asperger's Syndrome, bipolar; I'm a huge mess.  No wonder my goals are unmet!

Well, that formatting nightmare is over with. I just am trying to explain that we tend to try and put a quality on, or qualify things, people, lives  that are not easily qualified. I am especially bad at this. I’ve noticed, for instance, that as I’ve aged, I go back and listen to music I’ve played or known as a child. I experience it much differently. The same is true for reading. I think the difference is this. My brain organizes information differently now. I don’t want to make this sound clinical, because it’s not. I think it’s mostly spiritual.

As we seek and explore different paths of expression, we expand our belief systems. What may seem rigid, or one way becomes more porous and information flows both ways, I believe. Strauss was looked upon as a giant in the musical world. A German composer of what is known as the late 1^st Viennese School. Gustav Mahler was his contemporary, but was of the 2^nd Viennese School of composing; very different; he founded it, actually. But towards the end of Strauss’s life, WW II intervened, and Strauss became Reich Minister of Music under Joseph Goebbels. Thank God, Mahler was already dead; at age 51, in 1911.

He was really Strauss’s only equal as a composer and conductor. They had battled for supremacy on both sides of the Atlantic, and hated one another cordially. Mahler was Jewish. But truly, Strauss didn’t see any of this as a stumbling block. He was absolutely blind to the pernicious racism of the 3^rd Reich. The horrible killing machines were in Eastern Europe; Bergen-Belsen, Theresienstadt, Sobibor, Auschwitz, among many others. In his defense, he could not know about the Wannsee Conference.  Herr Strauss was appointed Reich Music Minister and chose to keep the position so he might be better situated to help his Jewish relatives by marriage. Strauss knew he was a lion in the musical world. In the 20s, only Otto Klemperer, (Werner Klemperer--Colonel Klink's dad, and they had already fled to New York from Vienna in 1938, because they were, gasp! Jews) Bruno Walter, and a very few others were on the scene. 

Even a young Herbert von Karajan had yet to make the scene. Conductors then, were the Rock Stars and they did rock. The mystique and the tantrums were legendary. I started playing professionally, just as those old lions were leaving the stage, so to speak. I'm kind of sad, but with the rise of the musicians' unions, it's probably a good thing. I experienced Klaus Tennstedt, and Karl-Heinz Von Stockhausen and their rages first-hand. Let me bring Richard back to center stage.

Herr Strauss then sparred with Goebbels for the next several years, not entirely successfully. You can read about the whole ordeal and the presumptuous way he was treated, here.. I don't think he was uncaring or unaware at all. I think Dr. Strauss used Goebbels to safeguard his family. He knew what he was doing. So, I choose to give him a pass. Besides, I’m not God; thanks, Daddy.