The most beautiful sound there is is the sound of the human voice but this morning the Complete and Total Loser's local NPR station had technical difficulties and lost the BBC news feed it gets daily from midnight to six a.m. and is all-Syria all the time these days.
To alleviate the dead air they played a little Handel.
Up to the early 90s the station regularly played classical music. Then the Boomers aged in and they realized that anyone with a CD player could play all the classical music they wanted whenever they wanted and it would sound better.
Still. The Loser liked the break, interrupted only by the nervous local announcer who seemed to fear abandonment. Hearing the music flow through rooms from his clock radio and the little radio he has in the bathroom was nice, the Loser thought.
More of us should begin the day that way.
After all the politicking and showboating is over, there will be American military involvement in Syria, even though it won't change anything there and there's nothing there we want or need.
Here's why:
- Americans like to be in a low-grade war someplace so long as it doesn't really threaten them. It makes them feel like by being in favor of it they're supporting a necessary thing and they share in what they perceive as heroism among soldiers.
- Politicians want to look tough and nothing keeps a party in power better than being in the midst of a war. (George W. Bush was never happier than when he could define himself as "a war president." It made him seem to have things in common with leaders who meant something, like Lincoln and Roosevelt.)
- The media loves war, whether they're rallying for or against it. Reporters get to tell interesting stories about heroism and gruesome deaths. Columnists get to write impassioned prose. Photographers and videographers get strong images of people in life-or-death situations. (Sports photos don't mean anything. War photos do.) Awards are given, careers are made. They can all pretend that what they do is important and at times it is.
