Andy Williams (1927 - 2012)

The most fitting tribute I could muster on the recent news that Andy Williams has joined Henry and Johnny in crooner heaven, was to post my favorite cover of "Moon River".

No bully left behind

Rush Limbaugh and the conservative hacks who savaged and defamed Sandra Fluke for urging Congress to protect contraception coverage in The Affordable Care Act, deserve our pity; just as any other bully does.

All the smoke and sparks about sponsors, free speech, and religious freedom veil what Rush and all other agents of torment are telling the world about themselves. As well, all the PSA talk about bullies as a social menace, how to survive them, or about how "it gets better" (though that's a crucial message)--misses the message conveyed by their acts of cruelty. What they illustrate are the lengths (or depths) bullies are willing to go to forget or smother the memory of their own suffering (always endured as children).

Most certainly not one member of Rush Limbaugh's radio audience (numbered in the tens of millions) was present at any moment of humiliation or deprivation he experienced as a child. Yet his massive appeal owes to the bond he shares with listeners as individuals who rile up over any reminder of their own pain or vulnerability; summoning a pox upon anyone who might dare let their difference from prevailing norms, show.

Anyone who might scoff at this reality have no other way to account for how a grown adult could recklessly and repeatedly speculate on the sexual habits of a woman he knows nothing about. Oh, but Rush is an entertainer--a provocateur--wanting to reach the widest audience possible, his defenders explain away.

Indeed, leave it to Rush and his drones to 'give away the goods' as it concerns their own sexual hangups or unexplored psyches: sexual pleasure and self-empowered women rank as intolerable aspects of our culture that must--must!--be ridiculed, debased, caricatured.

The struggle against bullies demands another, mostly unexplored front--that is the threshold of their psyches. All responses to hostility should point out that the bully is just as wounded as the victim he attempts to afflict. Instead of allowing the brute imagine his actions come from a place of strength, the social menace should endure a gauntlet of reminders that the victim's greatest offense was reminding the agressor of his own weakness.

Rush Limbaugh and petty tyrants of his ilk may not reform their behavior as a result of being thus confronted; this approach at the very least reframes the prevailing conversation about bullies--that they share a deep kinship with the victims they torment to forget.

The limb that dare not speak its name

As her orbit in the world of pop music gained altitude, I took notice of an archly costumed female figure stalking throuh her music videos. What I would describe as a conspicuously concealed personal identity, her various appearances smothered in eyeliner, platinum-blonde wigs and sex object-shiny costumes. Her image was more a cipher than singer; conveying more 'sync' than 'lip'.

Besides the mindless mass adoration her singles and videos churned up, I found it troubling that a performer would go to such trouble to banish nearly all uniquely identifying charicteristics. The gawk-seeking, chameleon quality of her public appearances aroused in me a suspicion as to what exactly she could be hiding or attempting to deflect attention from?

One day it finally struck me--how prominently the bridge of her nose stood out from her face. Given Stefani Germanotta's Italian ancestry, her acquiline feature should surprise no one--though it does deviate from the prevailing WASP ideal (without which rhinoplasty would have no talisman).

She has asserted never having submitted to the scalpel on priciple that plastic surgery promotes insecurity. The photos accompanying the April 1, 2011 Harper's Bazaar feature display what appear as protrusions of bone at her cheeks and from either corner of her forehead. What intrigue she summons when stating the newly sprung bones (obviously the prosthetic magic of a make up artist) are her own--indeed fitting the angular thrust of her own Roman nose. Yes, there's promoting insecurity and then there's hemming said insecurity with all manner of visual gimmicks (who wouldn't fancy a meat dress?). Falling short of shocking, her wardrobe only manages to flout already-trampled middle class senses.

Irony swings every which way for this mediocre talent with the stand-out face. The more outrage or shock she attempts to compel, the louder the protest against her own ordinariness.