Spectacles

     I suppose it’s a matter of taste. Some like Chopin, others like hip-hop. Some like William Faulkner; others like Dan Brown. Some like weddings; others like…

     Executions? Really?

     Apparently so.

* * *

     If you haven’t yet read the news – lucky you – you may not be aware that the execution of Fort Hood mass murderer Nidal Malik Hasan is to be “livestreamed.” Some are aghast; others are cheering. Some feel it’s offensive; others… no, let’s not do that again. The general attitude, as is so often the case today, is “whatever floats your boat.”

     There are serious thinkers who hold that publicly executing the worst of our criminals is edifying to the general public. Not only do they see that justice has really, truly been done; they’re reminded of the possible consequences of a heinous action. And it is inarguable that murder contributes to a degradation of the proprieties. To that effect we have the words of Thomas de Quincey:

     If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.

     And let that be the last drop of humor I drip onto this subject.

     So the public is invited to watch the snuffing of Nidal Hasan on December 3 of this year. As Hasan was a major in the U.S. Army, he will face a firing squad. It’s possible that millions will witness the event.

     At least no one will be “tailgating” it.

* * *

     Executions were once routinely public. Hangings, the “preferred” method of execution in the 19th Century, were held in the open air and often heavily attended. That became less common as the century dwindled. The last public hanging in the United States took place in 1936.

     Executions are still witnessed, of course. Regardless of the method employed, a few dozen people are always present to watch the termination of the condemned man’s life. As grisly as the notion seems, there are sound reasons for it, including transparency and the maintenance of legal standards.

     But I wouldn’t care to see such a thing. I don’t grasp why anyone would, except out of a desire for vengeance. We cannot create a human life; the desire to see one ended by human artifice strikes me as a kind of hubris. Which is not to say that some criminals don’t deserve to be put to death.

     Respect for human life, even the life in the body of a total villain, seems to me to trump any considerations of “closure” or “public edification.” If a man must die, let him be put to death, but why make a spectacle of it? The desire to see such a thing speaks to something unworthy lurking in one’s heart.

     Of course, there are people who delight in seeing others suffer. Perhaps they hope that the procedure will be botched, as was the case recently in Tennessee’s attempted execution of Christa Pike. There were a number of botched electrocutions before that method was abandoned. No doubt some of the onlookers were gratified to see the switch thrown over and over.

     I simply don’t grasp it. Does that mean I’m soft? Over-civilized, as they say?

* * *

     I stand between opposed poles. Despite the teaching of my Church, I agree that there are persons whose conduct merits a speedy dispatch from this life, and who should receive exactly that. But to make a spectacle of it for others’ entertainment? No, that I can’t condone.

     If we must kill for any reason, I’d prefer that we be squeamish about it. Let it be done privately, albeit with the appropriate representatives of the justice system for witnesses. Let it be sanitary and as painless as it can be made. It’s quite possible that there are better ways of sending a condemned man to his final reward than the methods used today. But I can’t see inviting millions of people, the great majority of whom are completely uninvolved with the criminal and his deeds, to watch it done.

The One-Way Door

     People die. All of us, eventually.

     Yeah, yeah, I know: In other news, sitting in a comfortable chair for an hour or two will rest your legs. But the above is among the truths we strive hardest not to think about.

     Just yesterday, Ragin’ Dave wrote of the passing of Larry King:

     Dude was 87. What the hell did you think happens to people, folks? Yes, he was famous. Had a TV show. And he got old, and he died, which is what happens to people. Why the hell do random people freak the hell out whenever some celebrity dies? I'm not saying I'm happy about it, I'm saying that he was an old man and old men die.

     When my father kicks the bucket, I'm going to be weeping and wailing, but he's MY FATHER, not some celebrity that I never met.

     Dave has a point. We routinely attribute excessive importance to celebrities. Most of them are “famous for being famous,” and very little else. If the touts and columnists had never mentioned them, they’d lack significance to the rest of us.

     However, now and then a celebrity becomes emblematic of an era and its values. His passing acquires extra significance from that association...perhaps far more than his achievements, whatever they may have been, would have brought him on their own.

     Consider the 1999 death of “the Yankee Clipper:” Joe DiMaggio. Joltin’ Joe was a fine player, arguably the best center fielder and one of the best hitters of his time, but baseball is merely a sport. It has entertainment value, but little other significance. DiMaggio’s passing acquired extra significance from the era in which he played, 1936 through 1951, and from his excellent personal qualities. The importance of those years to American and world history, added to his superb play and his fine character, gave him a stature unavailable from baseball alone. His admirers’ memories of him come with all of that and more besides.

     Subsequent sports stars who’ve departed this vale of tears haven’t borne the glow that surrounds DiMaggio. Mickey Mantle, DiMaggio’s center-field successor and himself a fine player, doesn’t share it. Ted Williams has a fraction of it, even though he played for (shudder) Boston.

     I know little of Larry King, but I doubt that his memory will have anything like it. King was a capable commentator and interviewer. He occupied a high place among his colleagues for many years. But he didn’t impress the nation in an emblematic way.

     So yes: we generally attribute an absurd degree of importance to celebrities, living or dead. But there are a few exceptions. They stand apart from the rest not because of their achievements, but because of their personal qualities, their association with eras of great events, and with other persons who characterized them. They become emblems of times that we old ones, our rose-colored glasses never far from us, remember as “the good old days:” the days whose values we honored and whose passing we lament. The days when the streets were safe...when homeowners rarely locked their doors...when neighbors looked after their neighbors’ children, properties, and other interests...when immigrants were expected to assimilate and were happy to do so...when the schools taught rather than indoctrinated and propagandized...when journalists reported the news without slanting it toward their preferred political positions...when lawyers counseled their would-be clients not to sue...when politicians occasionally told the truth and didn’t regret it afterward.

     Forgive me, Gentle Reader. I must turn away from this subject at once. Have a nice day.

Mourning The Loss Of A Colleague

     There are people I haven’t met who are dearer to me than anyone I’ve known in the flesh. One of them has just passed away.

     The Blogosphere has lost one of its titans. Charles Hill of Dustbury has just died of injuries he received in an auto accident.

     Charles had been in poor health for some years. His mobility was declining steadily, and he’d had premonitions that his time on Earth was soon to end. Still, I doubt he foresaw this. We who loved him from a distance are immeasurably poorer for losing him.

     Love ‘em while you’ve got ‘em, Gentle Readers. You know not the day nor the hour.

     Farewell, Charles. May Heaven welcome you with a fanfare of trumpets – and may you grace those precincts with all the dry wit and clever puns you were known for in life. I’ll miss you terribly.

Compulsions To Hurry: A Midweek Rumination

     Among my many faults is one that’s dogged me all the days of my life: I’m in a hurry. No matter what I’m doing, I’m doing my best to speed it up. I move as quickly as possible at all times, in every situation. I’m infuriated by obstructions and delays. As you can imagine, that makes Long Island traffic an unusually severe trial for me, which is one of the major reasons I retired.

     Contrast this with Harlan Ellison’s admission that no matter what he does, he’s inevitably late. (It was the genesis of his early award-winner “Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman”) I wouldn’t want his problem, but I don’t much like mine either. There’s no virtue in hurrying all the time unless you’re hurrying toward something important, perhaps even vital.

     Every now and then, someone will inquire about it: “Who’s chasing you?” “Do you have a plane to catch?” I never have an answer. It’s just what I do, automatically.

     So what am I hurrying toward? I don’t know – I’ve never known – but it’s a lead-pipe cinch that whatever it is, I’ll hurry through that, too. It appears to be built into me at some low level that I can’t reprogram by conscious effort, even though I’m aware that it costs me quite a lot in a number of ways.

     When you can feel the end of your life approaching, questions such as that one acquire a compelling force.

---

     I believe I’ve told this little parable before, perhaps at Eternity Road, but it bears repeating now and then:

     A man was feeling unwell, unusually so, and went to see his doctor. The doctor agreed that the man’s run-down condition and general malaise merited a close look, and ran him through a battery of tests.

     The results of the tests were grave: the man was terminally ill. He had only a few months to live. When the doctor told him of his condition, he was immediately stricken with a great fear. “Doctor,” he said, “I’m afraid to die. What happens when we die? What lies beyond death?”

     The doctor, an unusually humble man, whispered “I don’t know!” He reached out to take his patient in his arms when there came a commotion in his waiting room. The two men looked toward the door as it burst open and the doctor’s pet dog, a large Newfoundland, swarmed in, jumped into his arms, and smothered him with dog-kisses. When the siege had lifted somewhat, the doctor turned to his moribund patient and smiled.

     “Here is our answer,” the doctor said. “My dog has never before chosen to go exploring, but he chose this day to leap over our fence. And what did he do then but to come here, to my office. What did he know of what lay beyond that door? Nothing, except that his master is here, and that was enough.”

     The doctor tousled his Newf’s head affectionately. “So it is with us,” he said. “We know nothing of death, and nothing of what lies beyond it...except that the Master is there. And that is enough.”

     At any rate, it should be.

---

     The doctor’s insight is a reason to keep calm, to live in the present, and to do what there is to do right now to the best of our ability. Temporal life is the second-greatest of all God’s gifts to us. Yes, it’s a time of testing, when our trials reveal our ability to discern right from wrong and to choose properly between them. But it’s also a time of blessings. The world is filled with other gifts, most particularly our loved ones, our communities, and our chosen trades. It is right and necessary that we should show these the proper appreciation. Always being in a hurry is inconsistent with that.

     Now, my hurrying problem is probably constitutional; it’s consistent with my unusually quick reflexes, high pulse rate, and high blood pressure. But many others whom I’ve observed hurrying as if they were late for their own funerals don’t do so out of an inner compulsion. The influences that surround them subliminally urge them to an ever higher pace. It’s possible that their loved ones, trusted advisors, and confidants have told them that they’re doing themselves harm. But the many voices through which our milieu speaks silently to us keep whispering that there’s no time to lose! And they can be damnably difficult to oppose.

     Life is short. (“Eat dessert first!”) And yes, it’s a test. Whether you’re a believer or not, you can feel it testing you: your moral sense, your attentiveness, your reaction time, your intelligence and good sense, your ability to persevere, and much else. But it’s also a blessing to be enjoyed, even savored. It will be over soon enough; trust me on that.

     May God bless and keep you all.

In Memoriam

     In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: Dear God, I thank You for the life of Joseph Flamini, who passed from our arms to Yours at 5:00 PM on Monday, August 6, 2018. I pray You, lift up this extraordinary man, a true genius and a Renaissance man for our time, that he may enjoy eternal bliss in Your radiant presence. Please comfort his widow Helen, his wife of so many years, who now faces life without him, his incredible competence, his inexhaustible energy, and his unfailing love. May we who loved him always remember him in the fullness of his strength. I make this prayer through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

[Emily Dickinson]

The Hardest Time

     This is a piece I wish I didn’t have to write.

     A dear friend of mine is about to depart from this life. He took a bad fall some weeks ago, and the consequences have proved far worse than anyone could have anticipated. He’s being kept alive just now by artificial means. However, he’s not fully conscious and never will be again in this world.

     His name is Joseph Flamini, and only my wife Beth could be dearer to me.

     Joe has been an engineer, a physicist, a security entrepreneur, and a law enforcement officer. In the practice of those occupations he’s visited virtually every country in the First World and has amassed an international reputation. For the past thirty years he’s lived in a redoubt near the summit of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, in a compound he built and equipped entirely with his own hands and skills. He spoke many times of the great joy his homestead brought him. “I have my wife and my mountain,” he would say. “What more could I possibly need?”

     You’d have to know Joe personally to grasp the full import of that statement. He was so knowledgeable and talented that I’m convinced that he could rebuild Western Civilization – largely out of parts he already has on hand. And we who love him are about to lose him forever.

     We would have done anything short of murder to keep Joe with us. But there is nothing we can do. The physicians caring for him are at a loss. They cannot restore him to us, even in a reduced state. His body is so badly damaged that even with the most aggressive possible life support, he has only a day or two left to live.

     This is the hardest time for us. The time when love and willingness are impotent. Joe’s future is set beyond human power to alter it.

     The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
          Moves on: nor all our piety and wit
     Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
          Nor all our tears wash out a word of it.

     All that remains is to pray.

     Godspeed, Joseph. May He clasp you to His bosom, where you belong.

Requiescat In Pacem

     No op-ed today. No Rumination. No exegesis upon matters sacred or profane. Today is a day to mourn.

     Yesterday afternoon, the Reverend Charles Papa, Pastor Emeritus of St. Louis de Montfort parish in Sound Beach, NY, was found dead in his room, shortly before he was scheduled to celebrate Mass.

     Father Charlie, as we all knew him, was the Pastor at St. Louis for seventeen years. He’d retired from the pastorate only a few months ago, and was hugely enjoying “just being a priest again.” Sadly, he was granted only a short while to enjoy having shed that burden. The parish was unanimous in its love of him. We will miss him terribly.

     No matter who might come to him, Father Charlie was whatever he needed: a confessor, a friend, a counselor, a confidant, a Dutch uncle, or what have you. His good humor was invincible. He’d happily share anything with anyone, whether it be one’s darkest fears and deepest doubts or a mildly irreverent jest.

     Eternal rest grant him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.

A Passing

     And not just any passing, but that of a giant of our form:

     Steven Den Beste has passed away.

     I just received word from Steven's brother, graciously thanking me for making the welfare call to the police and confirming that what many of us feared had indeed come to pass. I did not inquire as to specifics, but Steven had been in very poor health of late, having had a stroke just under four years ago.

     Steven was brilliant, a former engineer with a crackerjack mind. His old blog, U.S.S. Clueless was tremendously important in the early days of the 'blogosphere'. It is hard to overstate the importance of U.S.S. Clueless and the brilliance of his analysis. Sadly, that site went down this past week as well, when Steven's server failed. That site was immensely influential to many of us, and I am far from the only person he inspired to blog or helped along.

     “In the beginning,” so to speak, there were only a few bloggers whose emissions were noteworthy: more cerebral evolutions than personal jottings. Den Beste was one, and perhaps the foremost of all. His essays, which have been archived here, are gems, and not merely of Blogospheric history but in their own right. To anyone who might not be familiar with Den Beste’s work, I commend them unreservedly, even imperatively.

     Rest in peace, Steven.