I dedicate this post to anyone who has lived in a cave, in a tree, in a wolf pack, in an isolated cabin, or in West Monroe, Louisiana in 2013.
January: Patti Page dies
She was the first popular singer I knew by name. I still remember singing “Mockin’ Bird Hill” with my 3rd-grade class and the sweet innocence of her other songs, like “Tennessee Waltz” and “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window.” Because of her, pop music had a place of honor in my young heart. Today, I have quite a different opinion of it.
March: Pope Francis begins his papacy
Jorge Bergoglio was elected Bishop of Rome and took the name Francis. He became the first pope by that name, the first Jesuit pope, and the first pope from the Americas. In the ensuing months, he said some surprising things. He labeled the Church’s focus on homosexuality and abortion an “obsession.” He criticized greed and the disproportionate wealth held by a tiny fraction of humanity. Mostly, people rejoiced to hear his opinions, but some were appalled. Rush Limbaugh called him a Marxist.
It seems to me there’s a backstory here that the news media have overlooked: how did this renegade get elected? Really, how different could the College of Cardinals have been from the one that elected the insipid Benedict XVI? And wouldn’t Benedict have been responsible for any changes to the makeup of the College? This is a mystery that someone should investigate.
April: Abe escalates dispute over Senkaku Islands
The Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, vowed to forcibly remove any Chinese who landed on the Senkaku Islands, a tiny, uninhabited archipelago that lies northeast of Taiwan. The islands have been under the control of Japan for most of the last 120 years, and the U.S., by treaty, has pledged to come to Japan’s aid if a military challenge to its sovereignty occurs. The Chinese dispute Japanese authority and have declared an air defense zone that encompasses the islands, including some Taiwanese and South Korean territory. They insist that no aircraft, including commercial airliners, can enter the zone without first filing a flight plan and acquiescing to other annoying requirements.
All this reeks of the mindless nationalism that cost tens of millions their lives in the 20th century. The images of Chinese and Japanese in a frenzy of anger over this dispute makes me wonder if we’re trapped in a time warp.
June: Snowden leaks
Edward Snowden, an NSA contractor, disclosed the first of a trove of confidential documents about the data amassed on the communications of American citizens and foreign leaders. Most news commentators and politicians branded Snowden a traitor. A few hailed him as a hero for disclosing a frightening breach of privacy by the government.
Clearly, what Snowden did needed doing. I have no reason to believe that innocent people have been harmed, at least not yet. Nevertheless, the NSA’s vacuum continues to gain suction, and the oversight of its operations is far from vigilant. Is it not likely that sooner or later they will follow in the ignoble tradition of J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon? With their computing power, we would risk the dawning of a Big Brother state. They must be curbed.
I’m no fan of Snowden’s, however. He did all of us a favor in revealing the NSA menace, but he did no good in showing that the leaders of our allies had been caught in the same net. That revelation smacks of malice. Withholding amnesty indefinitely is too harsh, but I’m in no hurry to welcome him home.
June: Rouhani elected President of Iran
Hassan Rouhani won the presidency on a platform of reviving the economy and improving relations with the West. These promises amounted to the same thing: the Iranian economy was depressed because of economic sanctions imposed by the West. In effect, he was vowing to remove the cause of the sanctions, concern about Iranian intentions to build nuclear weapons.
Once in office, Rouhani unleashed his “charm offensive,” brought the major parties to the negotiating table, and assented to a freeze on his country’s nuclear program in exchange for some relief from the sanctions. A broader agreement is supposed to be hammered out within six months.
I’m puzzled by the many U.S. politicians and world leaders—chiefly the Israelis and Saudis—who are certain the Iranians will cheat, even though continual monitoring by international inspectors is part of the interim deal. Perhaps they’re right, but if the Iranians are planning to cheat they must be thinking one of two things: we can cheat and they won’t detect it (ha!); or, if they catch us cheating, they won’t have the will to punish us (ha! again). Can they possibly be that stupid?
July: Zimmerman found not guilty
George Zimmerman, a man given to power fantasies, was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager. The jury found no evidence to refute Zimmerman’s claim that he faced great bodily harm or death in his struggle with Martin. They therefore accepted his plea of self-defense. Since then, Zimmerman has had two encounters with the police based on complaints from his wife and his girlfriend. Both women claimed he threatened them with a gun, but they later withdrew their accusations.
The Trayvon Martin case illustrates that feeble-mindedness and heroic impulses can be explosive in combination but are not, in themselves, criminal offenses.
July: Morsi ousted by Egyptian military
In response to continual public protests, the Egyptian army removed Mohamed Morsi from the presidency and suspended the constitution. Morsi had been persistently arrogating power to himself. His offenses included placing himself above judicial challenge and reinstating an Islamist-dominated parliament that the supreme court had disbanded.
The news media neglected to mention that the newly minted constitution lacked an explicit provision for removing a president. (Only one-third of Egyptians had voted on it, and two-thirds of those ratified it, meaning only one in five Egyptians formally expressed approval. A low bar for the law of the land.) Egypt had an affliction, Morsi’s autocratic tendencies, and no constitutional cure. A coup d’etat was the only available remedy. Another confirmation that an election does not a democracy make.
August: Miley Cyrus twerks
Miley Cyrus completed her metamorphosis from Sweetheart of the Disney Channel to Queen of Vulgarity in a bizarre performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. Appearing half-naked in a duet with Robin Thicke, she sang badly, danced suggestively, and rubbed her crotch with a giant finger. If I had to guess her talent category, I’d have to go with “Exhibitionism.”
Her interviews reveal textbook narcissism. For example: “I hate the paparazzi—but when they’re not sitting there waiting for you, you’re like, ‘Who’s bigger news? Who are you trying to get a picture of?’” On a tasteless video: “I think it will be one of those iconic videos, too. I think it’s something that people are not gonna forget. Hopefully an artist 30 years from now will be like, ‘Yo, you remember that Miley Cyrus video? We gotta do something like that.’” On her image: “I want to be the cool chick that everyone wants to be friends with. I want the people who watch my shows or watch my videos to be like, ‘She looks like the most fun person to hang out with ever. I want to be that girl’s best friend. I want to party with her.’” I suppose this is the phase of women’s lib where the pendulum slips its hook and flies off into space. A tricky time to be raising daughters.
August-September: Obama paints himself into a corner
Secretary of State Kerry, speaking for the Obama administration, denounced the “undeniable” use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime and called it a “moral obscenity.” He made it clear that a response from the international community was necessary. Soon afterward, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, remarked pointedly that a military response was not being taken off the table. Washington was abuzz with talk of limited air strikes. As the nation awaited an address from President Obama, the British parliament rejected a motion that would have led to the UK’s participation in air strikes. The president was in a tight spot. He had threatened some time before that consequences would follow if Syria crossed the “red line.” Now they had. His decision came two days later; he would order the strikes, but first he would seek congressional approval!
What was he saying? Chemical weapons weren’t that serious a menace after all? He’d been mistaken in saying their use was a threat to our national security? Congress, then on adjournment, was ready to rebuff him, but as he stared humiliation in the eye, a deus ex machina appeared: Vladimir Putin proposed that the Syrians voluntarily dispose of their chemical weapons. The spinners in the West Wing could not, of course, give thanks for dumb luck. Rather, they shamelessly portrayed the turn of events as what can be expected when a president takes a firm stand! The entire affair was as sad and inept as foreign policy gets.
October: House blackmails the nation
The House of Representatives, dominated by reactionary bullies, demanded concessions from the Senate and president in exchange for a continuing budget resolution and an increase in the debt ceiling. Their motto became “A minority can dominate the political agenda if it’s willing to stoop to extortion.” The harm this philosophy might do never worried them, even though the possible outcomes ranged from bad to ruinous. If the president gave in to them, politics would ever after become a tyranny of the minority. If neither party gave in, the world would fall into an economic death spiral in short order. If they gave in—as they eventually did—$1.5 billion of productivity would be lost for every day that passed before their surrender.
It appears that the House Republicans are unlikely to shut down the government again, but the same can’t be said about their debt ceiling threat. Paul Ryan, who passes for a serious thinker among his conservative colleagues, has said the House Republicans will have to caucus early next year to decide what they want in trade for raising the debt ceiling. In other words, they are none the wiser for their folly.
October: The Scratching Post is launched!
Enough said.
October: HealthCare.gov rolls out, sort of
On October 1, HealthCare.gov, the federal exchange for purchasing health insurance, opened to the public. Its start was more than embarrassing, more than awkward. It was like a race horse stumbling out of the starting gate, throwing its jockey, and crashing through the railing. It was so buggy and user-unfriendly that many called for it to be euthanized. The government responded to the steady barrage of outrage and ridicule by authorizing a crash program to fix the worst of its problems. The president held a news conference, apologized profusely, and underscored the determined effort to make it work. I was struck that in the space of two months he had shown himself to be inept at managing both foreign and domestic policy. It came as no surprise that polls showed the public to be more dissatisfied with his leadership than at any time in his presidency.
I’m unsure how Obamacare will fare next year. Certainly much will depend on whether the people who think they have health insurance really do: enrolling in HealthCare.gov doesn’t guarantee a connection between an applicant and an insurance company. We won’t have a final verdict on the website until enrollees actually start visiting doctors in January. In any case, I feel as though the president is gradually becoming invisible. Before much longer, it may seem as if the White House is vacant.
Decenber: Kim executes his uncle
Kim Jong-un, the Caligula of North Korea, executed his uncle in a dispute over the control of coal, clams, and crabs, the most lucrative of the country’s exports. They had been controlled by a grateful military under Kim Jong-un’s father, but the younger Kim had transferred much of their authority to his cabinet. It was then that Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, began to take these resources under his wing. When Kim reversed his decision, Jang refused to give them up, and his aides engaged in a confrontation with the military. They were eventually arrested and executed by anti-aircraft machine guns. I couldn’t find a description of the mode of Jang’s execution, but it was apparently less colorful.
The episode may reveal a society so poor that any source of wealth can cause destabilizing contention. If this is a correct inference, perhaps we can look forward to further stress fractures in the North Korean elite.
December: Queen pardons Turing
Queen Elizabeth II officially pardoned Alan Turing for the crime of homosexuality, nearly 60 years after his death. Turing was one of the great geniuses of the 20th century. He was instrumental in breaking the German enigma code, thereby saving a great many lives. He devised the “Turing machine,” a forerunner of general-purpose computers. He also proposed the Turing test, the criterion used to evaluate artificial intelligence. In his name, the Association of Computing Machinery annually presents an award for advances in computer science. It’s considered the “Nobel prize of computing.”
Turing’s downfall began In 1952, when he was arrested and charged with “gross indecency.” Rather than face imprisonment, he submitted to chemical castration. He committed suicide two years later by taking cyanide. In all the years since, no British leader formally expressed regret until 2009, when Gordon Brown released a statement of apology on behalf of the British government. Three years after that a bill was introduced into the House of Lords to grant Turing a statutory pardon. After absurd delays, the Cameron government asked the queen to exercise her “royal prerogative of mercy”—that is, to sign a royal pardon. She did so and left the Justice Minister the task of reading it.
All the living British subjects who were convicted for gross indecency have had their criminal records expunged. However, there are some 55,000 others like Turing who died under a cloud. They were not great geniuses and so have not received royal mercy. They deserve some recognition from the British government, but more to the point, the queen and other British dignitaries should apologize for their great cruelty. Over the decades it has been a scandal and a stain on British society, and it needs to be acknowledged with deep contrition.
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With that, out shuffles 2013, a world-weary, bearded old man, and in crawls 2014, a bright-eyed, guileless babe.
The Scratching Post 