Tuesday Voice

What do Christmas and the New Year hold for those in the news?

By Jonathan Price

It seems now to be a tradition in the media to fill the airwaves and the newsprint with gifts to the rich and (in)famous and those who have been in the news over the last year, with odd or amusing tokens that comment on their performance or reward their perfidy, and take up space or time without expending a great deal of effort. Here are some further suggestions:

To Senator Ted Cruz, recent filibusterer and Harvard graduate: a copy of Joyce’s Ulysses to read during his next filibuster, to raise his own intellectual level to that of his education and perhaps increase his humanity, rather than Dr. Seuss Green Eggs and Ham, a great book in its own way, but one all of whose messages managed to elude Cruz.

To former Vice-President Cheney, who appeared on Charlie Rose’s interview program recently to discuss his heart transplant (which certainly seemed to be effective medically and made Cheney look younger, more forceful, and superficially convincing), during the 20-minute course of which he managed to virtually accuse President Obama of treason and to encourage our country to start new wars, against Iran and Syria: a new heart, maybe like the one the Tin Man wanted, to make him warmer and more human.

To Kevin Orr, Detroit’s emergency manager, who has initially proposed ten-cents-on-the-dollar offers to all creditors, including city pensioners (average pension $19,000 a year), and whose current pay in that job is $275,000 a year, and Judge Stephen Rhodes, who recently decided that Detroit could move forward with its bankruptcy despite Michigan’s constitutional prohibition against public-pension-tampering: a month living on the presumed pension that would result from the proposed salary reduction, or $158.33 a month.

To all those business executives who foster phone-prompt trees with multiple limbs and additional ads while we wait to get information or talk to an actual human being: one hour on the phone trying to retrieve vital information about the functioning of their own business or to accomplish a personal task.

To those responsible for the rollout of Healthcare.gov: a 24-hour wait and an emergency room as the venue for their next visit to a medical professional for a routine appointment, while trying to access a website with 10-second delays.

To the new owners of the Sacramento Kings—currently stuck for another year next to the bottom of the NBA ratings and playing, like most pro basketball teams, about 40 games a year in their home city—and the City Council of Sacramento, which recently initiated a deal to subsidize a downtown stadium for the NBA team, financed with city parking revenues: a reserved parking spot within a 2-mile walk from the proposed stadium, with a basketball season fee of $2,000.

To Pope Francis, who has breathed new humility and love into the Catholic papacy for the first time since Pope John XXIII: peace and hallelujah and a recommendation he address the continuing moral obligation of the Church to redress fully and without quarrel the grievances of all those victimized by pedophile priests.

To Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations envoy to Syria, who has worked unstintingly and with all the hope in Pandora’s box for a solution to the world’s most troubling and intractable dilemma: some success in the New Year.

To Paul Ryan, the conservative who used to represent retrograde Republican budget plans and an assault on the Affordable Care Act and saw the wisdom of working with the Democrats to achieve the first serious compromise on the Federal budget in years and garnered a vote of 393 in the politically divided House of Representatives: more of the wisdom that led him to this compromise.

To Amy Adams, actress of many roles, with three star turns this year including Man of Steel and Her, and a stellar career that continues to fascinate and surprise: a scarf to cover her always half-exposed breasts in American Hustle.

To Pieter Breughel the Elder, whose Wedding Dance (painted some 450 years ago and currently owned by the Art Institute of Detroit) was recently valued at $200 million by a group assessing its value in the aforementioned Detroit bankruptcy (the most paid for any painting has been recorded at $140 million, and no one has offered a Breughel for sale in, perhaps, over a century) and is one of only five Breughels in American museums (the museum in Vienna has 12), and who reminds us that there is the priceless, ridiculous, intense, painful, and wonderful world beyond the failings of mere mortals: admiration and transcendence.

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Copyright © 2013 by Jonathan Price

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