Any Growing Interest in Classical Music is a Sign of Our Nation's Moral Decay

As I read Ann Coulter’s recent commentary on why soccer is un-American, I felt a paradigm shift in my understanding of the world. With a growing pit in my stomach, I saw that her reasoning doesn’t just apply to soccer. And I knew, once I finished the essay, that I would be compelled to resign from the Stillwater Community Orchestra. To do otherwise would be un-American.

I love classical music. I love playing my violin. And I’ve long classed myself among those trying to expand interest in classical music in this country. But enough is enough. It’s clear to me now that any growing interest in classical music can only be a sign of the nation’s moral decay.

▪ Individual achievement is not a big factor in classical music ensembles. Sure, there’s the concert master and the conductor, and the occasional soloist. But in the best orchestras, instruments blend seamlessly together and voices complement one another so as to produce a collaborative work of art. It’s practically communistic. In real music there ought to be stars who stand or fall based on their personal charisma—a Mick Jagger gyrating at the microphone while crowds scream and swoon and tear at their clothes.

▪ In a high school orchestra, lousy players can hide in the back of the second violin section and fake it quietly to cover up their lack of talent, so that no child’s fragile self-esteem is bruised. This encourages kids to hide from personal responsibility. They grow up to be moochers.

▪ Liberal moms like classical music because it’s something both girls and boys can participate in equally. But no serious human endeavor is co-ed, even at the grade-school level. I'm not sure why. Ask Ann for details.

▪ In an orchestra performance, nobody scores. You can sit (or snore) through an entire concert, and the score is still 0-0. No fist pumping as one player dominates another. No victory dance by the principal cellist while the poor clarinetist hangs her head in defeat. It’s all “collaborative” rather than competitive. How does that teach our kids the traits they need to make it in the competitive capitalist economy?

▪ No human endeavor is worth pursuing if it doesn’t come with the risk of personal humiliation or physical injury. While someone sitting in an orchestra might face some slight risk of a bow in the eye, the risk is low. And a personal slip will probably be covered up by the other musicians—unless you're in the winds or percussion section, but then you're safely hidden behind the strings, so no one can see you to pin the mistake on you.

▪ People are always trying to force-feed you classical music as if it were good for the soul. The same people trying to push classical music on Americans are the ones demanding that we drag our noses away from our TV’s and smart phones and spend more time reading books. It’s that “eat your vegetables” thing, except with sound. It’s patronizing.

▪ It’s foreign. Classical music was invented by Europeans. That’s probably why people try to push it. They think European stuff is better than American stuff.

▪ Classical music is like the metric system. It is. Take my word for it.

The only people listening to classical music in America are academics and immigrants from France. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is listening to classical music. Or if they are, they’re forced to do it against their will, or trying to impress someone. Either that, or they are actively betraying American values.

The Gay Agenda

Sally Kern--the Oklahoma state representative who once declared that gays are a bigger threat to America than terrorism--has been talking about the gay agenda again. This time, she's taken the public stage in response to the recent ruling by a federal judge declaring that Oklahoma's constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage violates the federal constitution. 

Her invocation of the legendary gay agenda sent my imagination into overdrive. Here is the result.

The nefarious Gay Agenda Team (better known as the Gay-Team) has gathered once again in their secret base of operations (better known as Joe's basement apartment) to plot their next move.

Joe, leader of the group, stands by the heavy wooden table that dominates the center of the room. He carefully smooths out his worn copy of The Gay Agenda. His fingers touch the page almost tenderly as he scans the now familiar list of numbered goals. 10 of them, in deliberate mockery of the much-despised Ten Commandments.

The other members of the team--Billy and Gary--are eating leftovers and drinking beer on the sofa and watching old recordings of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

"Alright people, let's get going."

He's ignored.

Billy lets out a gasp. "He looks so much better with that new haircut. Doesn't he look so much better with that new haircut?"

"Definitely," answers Gary through a mouthful of reheated Chicken Tikka Masala.

"I said let's get going!"

The others grudgingly shuffle to the table.

"First off, let's have some updates on how things are going. Gay Agenda Item One: Take over the public education system so that we can use the indoctrinating power of the schools to make all children gay. How's that proceeding. Billy?"

Billy squirms a bit. "Um, well, turns out that schools hire based on teaching ability and devotion to educating children, not gayness. So our agents had to get college degrees in elementary education and compete with everyone else for teaching jobs."

"I don't want excuses. I want an update. How's it going?"

"As I was saying, schools hire based on ability and devotion to education. So our agents had to, you know, become talented and dedicated teachers. And, well, now they seem to care more about teaching the kids than indoctrinating them to be gay."

"You mean our agents have been turned?"

"Well, not exactly. I mean, they're still gay. But it turns out...well, I hate to break this to you, but it turns out schools don't have the power to make kids gay, even if they tried. It's like it's biological or something."

Joe lets out an audible sigh. "So what are you telling me?"

"Some of our agents like being teachers. Because they're good at it and they want to make a positive difference in the lives of kids. And they just want to, you know, do that. This whole indoctrination business strikes them as a pointless misdirection of their energies."

"So they have been turned!"

"Joe. They just want to be teachers. Why don't you, I don't know, cross out Gay Agenda Item One and replace it with something like, Promote a world where anyone with a talent for teaching who cares about positively impacting the next generation is free to become a school teacher without recrimination or discrimination based on nothing but sexual orientation."

Joe stares at Billy. "First of all, that's a lot of words."

"I can probably shorten it with the help of a good editor."

"Second, it doesn't sound nefarious. We're supposed to be nefarious. This just sounds like people wanting equal opportunity and freedom from discrimination."

"Yeah. The thing is, Joe, we're not so big on the whole 'nefarious' thing. We just want equal opportunity and freedom from discrimination."

Joe feels his blood pressure rising. He takes five deep breaths before turning to Gary. But Gary has disappeared. It takes him a moment to notice the top of his blond hair, just peaking over the edge of the table.

"Gary, what are you doing down there?"

"Petting Molly." And then, in a higher voice: "You're a good widdul girl, aren't you Molly? Yes you are! Yes you are!"

Joe can hear Molly's excited whine. He sighs. "Stop petting the dog and tell me about Agenda Item Two."

Gary rises and looks across the table at Joe. "Agenda Item Two?"

"Yeah, you know, the one about systematically destroying heterosexual marriage by changing laws so gays can marry each other?"

"Right. Well, we've actually made really good progress on the changing the laws part."

"So I've heard. And?"

"And...it turns out it has no effect on heterosexual marriage."

"What!?"

"Straight couples...well, their marriages are just the same as they were before. Bad marriages fall apart at about the same rate. Good marriages are still as good as they were before. No change."

"But I was assured by Anita Bryant and James Dobson that gays getting married would destroy marriage!"

"Yeah. Turns out they didn't know what they were talking about."

"Okay, but what about the conservative Christians who argued that letting gays marry would trivialize their marriages. Surely they now find their own marriages to be trivial, right? They look at their marriage and say, 'Well, this doesn't mean anything to me anymore, since gays have it too,' right? I mean, at least their marriages must be falling apart."

"Apparently not. Just recently Rick Santorum was going on about how strong his marriage was and how meaningful and important it was to him."

"What!? Even Rick Santorum? Even he still finds his marriage valuable and meaningful even though gays can get married too? How is that possible? I would've sworn that at least he would experience his most intimate relationship as suddenly trivial and empty. You mean he still loves his wife and finds meaning in their union?"

"Yup."

Joe's head sags. "I guess that was a failure. I suppose we should just abandon that marriage equality strategy and--"

"Actually, we want to keep going with that one."

"But why? You just told me that it didn't work!"

"The thing is, we don't care about destroying the institution of marriage. We just want to have access to it, too. You know, equal opportunity and freedom from discrimination."

"That again? Next thing you know, you're going to tell me to crumple up this whole Gay Agenda and just replace it with Pursue equality of opportunity and freedom from discrimination, regardless of sexual orientation."

"Well," says Gary, "now that you mention it." He looks at Billy.

Billy nods. "Equality and freedom from discrimination. The new Gay Agenda. That, and getting the laundry done."

"And having a Doctor Who marathon," Gary adds. "Next Tuesday, my house."

"Doctor Who," Joe breathes. "That's the Gay Agenda? Equality, laundry, an Doctor Who?"

"About right. Yup."

For a moment Joe hesitates. After all, he's been devoted to his nefarious schemes for a long, long, time. But he does like Doctor Who. A lot. And the magical whining sound of the Tardis can fill many empty places in his heart. Even, perhaps, the hole left by a Gay Agenda that nobody ever really believed in anyway.

News Flash! Obama NOT plotting to trigger martial law and set himself up as American Fuhrer

You heard it right. As shocking as it may sound, President Obama is not Hitler’s (black) clone, and may not even be the Antichrist. As popular as it has been on right-wing internet sites, there is no substantiation for the report of a DHS whistleblower exposing an Obama conspiracy to trigger a “Reichstag” event—in the form of a faked assassination attempt on the president, leading to a wave of national chaos that Obama will then ride to a position of tyrannical power.

Earlier reports of Obama paving the way for such a takeover with power-grabbing executive orders have, it turns out (again to the dismay and astonishment of many), proven vacuous. The so-called executive order that was identified as a reason to anticipate such a plot has proved to be nothing more than a routine update of an executive order that’s been on the books in one form or another for decades.

Although some Americans are stunned into silence by the news, it is becoming increasingly apparent that President Obama may, in fact, be the mild-mannered and somewhat wonky constitutional lawyer and left-leaning political moderate that he appears to be, with no ambitions of setting himself up as Fuhrer for life by deliberately triggering a massive explosion of national violence.

In related news, a philosophy professor at Oklahoma State University has come out in favor of a democratic political process focusing on civilized discourse about the relative merits of opposing candidates’ qualifications and platforms, without hyperbolic fear-mongering. In this spirit, the professor admits that he does not live in mortal terror of Mitt Romney being elected president and confesses that were Romney to be elected, the world would probably not come to an abrupt, apocalyptic end.

Lifeguards Reach Deal with Park Manager Just in Time to Save Child from Tumbling Over Waterfall

Piquant Picayune, August 1, 2011

Yesterday afternoon a seven-year-old child—on the verge of tumbling over Deep Valley Falls onto the rocks below—was pulled to safety in a dramatic last-second rescue by a joint effort of the lifeguards from the Grand River beach about two miles upstream.


The lifeguards had apparently been following the boy’s progress since they first saw him drift outside the beach's cordoned safe zone on his “floatie,” only to be caught up by the river’s current and pulled at an accelerating rate towards the waterfall.

When the boy’s parents first apprised the lifeguards of their son’s plight, the lifeguards reportedly said “Finally! This is our chance!” before proceeding to the park manager’s office to negotiate for new lifeguarding equipment.

While the frantic parents looked on, the lifeguards crowded into the manager’s office and insisted that they would not agree to rescue the child using existing equipment until a deal could be reached concerning the acquisition of new, state-of-the-art equipment.

“I asked them why they couldn’t rescue my child first and then bicker about equipment upgrades,” said Sally Smith, the mother of the seven-year-old. “They ignored me completely.”

“It was completely unconscionable that we be expected to simply go out there and save the life of this child without having a deal in place about improving the equipment we use to perform such rescues,” said Johnny Boner, a representative for the lifeguards. “If we just went off and saved this child without an agreement, do you really think the park manager would have taken our demands seriously later, let alone given us the sweet, sweet deal he finally agreed to?”

“I yelled at the manager,” said Jack Smith, the boy’s father. “I told him not to negotiate with a bunch of extortionists. ‘Tell them to do their job and then you’ll talk to them,’ I said. ‘My boy’s about to die.’ Something like that. But the manager just kept calmly telling me that nobody wanted my boy to die, and that if I wanted to see him alive again I should let him do his job. And then they all started looking through equipment catalogues.”

“It was clear to me,” said Barry Kobum, the park manager, “that they would not walk out of my office and rescue that kid until they had a deal. What else could I do? And clearly, we do need new equipment. My position has been that we should go with the more affordable Water Sentry line so that we could still have something left in the budget for park maintenance. But Boner would accept nothing less that the AquaRescue elite line. I had to give in.”

Confidential sources confirm that Johnny Boner’s father is the owner of AquaRescue, a lifeguard equipment supply company, and that all the purchases agreed to in the deal were through AquaRescue. When confronted with this fact, Boner nodded gravely and said, “Everyone is safer in the water if AquaRescue remains a vibrant and successful company. And their equipment is clearly the best.”

“Actually,” said Freddy Comstock, a specialist in water rescue equipment, “studies show that AquaRescue is not necessarily the best equipment out there. It all depends on the conditions. AquaRescue is designed for ocean rescues. For an environment like Grand River beach, there’s reason to believe that Water Sentry equipment may be more effective.”

But Boner was adamant. “AquaRescue is the best. Nothing else will do. And there is no way in hell I was going to go out there and save this kid from dying until I made sure that every person on that beach could rest assured in the future that the next time lifeguards bicker with the parks manager instead of saving someone’s life, the equipment that might save them were there anyone there to use it is the best equipment money can buy.”

Since no one could quite figure out what Boner was saying, everyone decided to praise him and his fellow lifeguards for snatching young Jimmy out of the water just before his floatie went over the falls.

Keeping Oklahoma Safe from Islamic Law

For those of you who haven’t heard the news, legislators here in the great state of Oklahoma (apparently not wishing to be outdone by political weirdness in other states) have now approved a ballot measure that would amend the state constitution so as to prohibit judges from making rulings based on Islamic “Sharia” Law.

Although Muslims comprise less than 1% of the population of Oklahoma, and although Oklahoma is in the Bible Belt where the real risk is that Levitical Law will be enforced from the bench, and although there has never been even the remotest rumbling of a hint of a risk of Sharia law guiding judicial decisions in this state—despite all of this, it is apparently of vital significance for securing Oklahoma’s future that the state take a strong “pre-emptive” stand against Sharia law...apparently in order to discourage “liberal activists” from trying to legitimate it (since we all know how common it is for those ACLU liberals to try to circumvent church-state separation).

At first, of course, I found the whole thing absurd. Since there isn't even the remotest possibility that Oklahoma judges will be tempted to follow Sharia law from the bench, let alone think they can get away with it, it seemed to me that devoting a constitutional amendment to the issue was really just a way of expressing an ideological opposition to Islam. But as I think more about it, it occurs to me that the legislators responsible for this proposed constitutional amendment may be onto something after all.

Of course, there would be no risk of Sharia law guiding judicial decisions were one in a state where the principle of separation of church and state is strongly upheld. But maybe these legislators realize that Oklahoma is not such a state. Maybe they realize it because they are the very ones who have been laboring so long and hard to eviscerate this principle in the great state of Oklahoma, so as to better enable state legislators and judges to impose biblical morality on Oklahoma citizens.

And they are suddenly fearful that their achievements in this area come with a cost. With church-state separation out the window, what is to stop other religions from imposing their sectarian concept of justice on the people of Oklahoma? After all, only Christians should be free to force everyone to live by their sectarian principles. But since U.S. founding principles enshrine equality for all—including on the basis of religion—what happens when a state passes a constitutional amendment enshrining legal discrimination against gays and lesbians, even though such discrimination cannot reasonably be justified by any non-sectarian principle? What we have here is a state that has written legal discrimination into its constitution based on prevailing Christian doctrine--in other words, it has written into its constitution a practice that presupposes the legitimacy of imposing sectarian religious convictions on everyone regardless of their faith (or lack thereof). Because of this anti-gay constitutional amendment, the rejection of church-state separation has been implicitly written into the very constituition of the state of Oklahoma. And if that's the case, but there's still this impulse towards religious equality, what's going to stop those danged liberals from insisting that if Christians are free to use judicial power to impose their sectarian morality on everyone, then Muslims should be free to do the same?

While religious parity might be achieved by trying to restore a strong separation of church and state, doing so would impose inconvenient impediments on the efforts of Oklahoma Christians to pursue their God-given right to use the law to persecute gays and lesbians. While it is true that Sharia law would also call for the persecution of gays and lesbians, Oklahomans are firm in their commitment that when a sexual minority is to be subjected to discriminatory laws in the great state of Oklahoma, the discrimination should be justified by Bible quotes, not Koranic ones.

And even if the risk of the latter may seem low with such a tiny Muslim population in Oklahoma, one can never be too careful...especially now that the very President of the Unites States is a Muslim.

Oh, wait. Nevermind.

Exclusive Interview with BP CEO Tony Hayward

Over the weekend, BP chief executive Tony Hayward took some well-deserved time off from watching oil pour into the Gulf of Mexico to enjoy a yacht race around the Isle of Wight—a race in which his personal 52-fooy yacht, “Bob,” participated.

Our hard-hitting faux interviewer for The Piety that Lies Between caught up with Hayward through the magic of teleconferencing as he was celebrating Bob’s fourth-place finish with a pint of Guinness at his nearest bungalo.

TPTLB: Many people are wondering how, in good conscience, you can enjoy this kind of luxury indulgence—a yacht race in unsullied British waters—while countless people, animals, and ecosystems in the gulf region suffer the grim consequences of the ongoing oil spew. What do you say in response?

Hayward: The truth is that these people’s lives are going to be devastated whether or not I enjoy myself, so I might as well enjoy myself. And while these events are tragic, no one should be forced to give up living their lives because of it.

TPTLB: Umm...People are being forced to do just that--by the great plumes of oil fountaining into the Gulf. Why shouldn't you be one of them?

Hayward: Because I'm rich, so I can afford to go where the water is pristine. No, wait. I take that back. What I mean is...it wasn't my fault.

TPTLB: But there’s mounting evidence that BP has pursued a company-wide policy of prioritizing cost savings over safety issues. In the last three years, BP oil refineries have accounted for 97% of the “egregious willful violations” uncovered by OSHA inspectors, even though they only account for a small fraction of the refineries in the US. Internal documents reveal that BP chose the cheaper and less safe of two designs for the Deepwater Horizon rig, and that BP also rejected Halliburton’s recommendation to use 21 centralizers to make sure the well bore remained in the center of the casing—choosing instead to go with just 6. And CNN interviews of survivors of the rig explosion describe decisions made leading up to the disaster that clearly prioritized profits over safety. CNN’s summary of these interviews runs as follows: “(T)he workers described a corporate culture of cutting staff and ignoring warning signs ahead of the blast. They said BP routinely cut corners and pushed ahead despite concerns about safety.” How do you respond to all of these allegations?

Hayward: I had nothing to do with any of that. I was out of the loop.

TPTLB: But doesn't all of this point to an overarching corporate culture, one that systematically prioritizes profits over workers’ lives and environmental protection? If the CEO isn’t responsible for shaping corporate culture, who is?

Hayward (smiling sheepishly, fishing in his briefcase, and extracting a laminated poster featuring BP’s logo): Just look at this logo. It’s kind of like a cross between a green sun and a flower. Very environmental. And our new brand name is Beyond Petroleum. What other corporation in the industry has done so much to shape its public image so as to convey a love of nature and a commitment to alternative energy? We’re on the cutting edge of green PR. I don't think that kind of accomplishment should be belittled.

TPTLB: Just out of curiosity, how many years might someone live off what it cost to buy Bob, your yacht?

Hayward: What kind of living wage are we talking about? $5,000,000? Bob is worth only $700,000—so I suppose that would keep you going for about a month or two.

TPTLB: No, I was thinking of a living wage more on the order of what a Louisiana fisherman would make—about $30,000.

Hayward: Uhhh…fishermen actually live off of that?

TPTLB: Well, not anymore. The bleeding wound your policy of greedy negligence has punched into the ocean floor has pretty much put those fishermen out of work. According to my math, the price of that yacht of yours could pay a fisherman’s salary for more than 20 years. You think maybe you should sell the thing and donate the money to some of the folks put out of work by your company’s practice of “egregious and willful” disregard for safety concerns? Maybe, while you’re at it, you could sell all your real estate, move into the kind of suburban three-bedroom house that most people who have far more money than they need typically live in, and then give the rest to help mitigate the effects of this disaster. Would you consider doing that?

Hayward: No.

TPTLB: Why not?

Hayward: It’d just be a drop in the bucket. I mean, the costs of this disaster are huge. Billions won't be enough to deal with a catastrophe of this magnitude. I could sell everything, move to skid row, and it would hardly make a dent in the problem. Besides, I already gave up my bonus this year.

TPTLB: Your multi-billion-dollar bonus?

Hayward: Yes. Along with all the other top BP executives. We all care so much about this problem that we felt we should tighten our belts.

TPTLB: And by "tighten your belt," you mean live on a bit less than you're used to but still more than most people will ever dream of seeing even if they pooled their lifetime income with the lifetime incomes of everyone in their village or neighborhood?

Hayward: Uhh...

TPTLB: You are absolutely right that selling your yacht and giving the income to the victims of this oil spew won't make much of dent in the problem. But it would be something. Maybe you could serve as an example to other CEO's. Don't you think you should do everything you can to help assuage the effects of this catastrophe, even if it means a radical change in your lifestyle, and even if it isn't enough? Especially since you bear at least some of the responsibility for what happened?

Hayward (huffing with frustration): Listen, you want me to be honest with you? The truth is that I like the life of luxury that I’ve been enjoying, and this whole disaster is an enormous distraction from it. I’d like my life back. I don’t want to have to give it up just because of my company’s role in the biggest manmade environmental catastrophe in history. I mean, do you think I really care about that, deep down? No! Of course not! At least not enough to give up my way of life over it. I just want to live the life I've come to enjoy.

TPTLB: As do we all, Tony. As do we all.

(The interview had to be cut short at this point because the interviewer needed to fill up gas in his brand new 2010 minivan, drive across town to pick up his daughter from a day camp, and then meet the rest of his family for lunch at a restaurant with enormous portion sizes.)