Teutoburg

The forest is no fit place for a young Italian man to live.

I feel like I’m dancing around bear traps sometimes. Except for a pleasant four years in Chicago where I lived by a lake, every place I’ve called home has bordered on or been surrounded by a forest. My family’s property in Canton was, some years back, carved out of a copse of trees next to a cornfield. The trees were so congested that the few patches left are still sufficient to block out the sun at the right time of day. Wolves, languidly confident, sometimes venture out of the woods to stare. Huge deer munch on my father’s tomato plants despite the best efforts to fence them out. My father, my brother and I came across one mid-meal once, and fanned out in an attempt to capture the thing. What were we thinking, exactly? Even if one of us had something other than our bare hands, I’m certain that killing a deer in Massachusetts is illegal.

It bounded away at top speed before we got within fifty feet. Back into the forest.

That seems so long ago.

Quinctilius Varus took three legions from Rome to cement the Empire’s rule of Germania. This was two thousand years ago, give or take two months. Three legions is twenty five thousand men, all marching in red rectangles to civilize the barbarians.

Maybe a relative of mine marched with them. Unless I get a genetic test, I’ll never really know from where my family originated. As far back as I’ve  cared to trace it, we’re Italian to the core, but my family turns out light as well as dark, unlike what you’d traditionally see. Back in college, my brother researched the history of Cassino, my family’s hometown, and found that it had been invaded by (conservatively) everybody. English, French, Germans, Moors, Vikings, and probably Carthaginians and the Aragonese for all I know. I never really got how people could be terribly proud of a cartoon version of their heritage (KISS ME, I’M ITALIAN) after I heard about that little revelation. Better to embrace your commonality with everyone, and make where your ancestors came from the least interesting thing about you.

If a distant DeMartino did make that march, it didn’t end well for him. Varus was betrayed. His men were slaughtered. This doesn’t happen all that much in modern times, because you have lines of communication and advanced forms of transportation, so people can get away, but odds are that every single one of Varus’ 25,000 legionaries died or were captured. Rome was devastated by the loss – the emperor Augustus (who found Rome in brick and left it in marble) was said to have gone temporarily mad, banging his head against the walls of his villa and crying, “Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!”

The battle took place in the forest of Teutoburg.

I live in a condominium surrounded by several miles of forest, deep enough so that the woods will come to me as I’m walking from my car. It’s not all bad. A family of foxes greeted me once as I pulled into my parking space. All of them fled except for one, the youngest. We stared one another down until its mother came back to fetch it.

Other times, the darkness seems to stretch and stretch. We used to hold bonfires in a sandpit (the origin of which we never discovered) in the middle of a forest near my friend Yaron’s house. Heading back from the campfire one night, many years ago, my flashlight went out just as I reached the edge of the woods. I kept walking, because I was sure that if I looked over my shoulder, I would have seen nothing at all.

I hope someday I’ll end up sipping wine on a hill, overlooking a lake. It’ll be a nice change from the constant sense of menace they exude. I don’t know that it has anything to do with Teutoburg, but almost exactly two millennia ago, someone whose chin or eyes or laugh may have resembled mine was in a forest too, his shield soaked and useless, the trees suddenly teeming with painted men who sacrificed their captives to a woods-god.  For all I know, he may still be there.

Anyways, history hasn’t been kind to young Italian men in the forest.

It's Osgood's Fault

I can't remember the last time I actually sat down and read a newspaper. I'm sure I've glanced at the occasional article, but actually picking up the latest issue and reading it is practically unthinkable at this point. This is very bad for the newspaper industry, because I am a journalism major.*

*Actual sequence of events during my academic career at Northwestern:

1. Promises are made regarding Medill's 100 percent job placement rate after graduation.

2. NU raises $1.5 BILLION dollars in a huge effort.

3. Professors inform us that the news media industry, in addition to being a frightening and horrid place where terrible people excel and truth is a habitual consequence, is losing money and lots of it. So it's a frightening and horrid place etc. that will not be hiring us.

4. NU raises tuition.

Don't major in journalism, kids.

I used to read all types of papers, among them being the New York Times. That's over now, 'cause I get my news from the internet*, but the Times is technically part of the internet, so it still makes up a small part of my daily news gathering. There's been this really distressing trend I've been noticing recently that I've never picked up on before, and it centers on the Old Grey Lady.

*When did it become OK not to capitalize the word "internet"?

It's become cliche to call an institution like the Times "out of touch", but MAN, they've been doing this...thing that drives me up the wall. Take this story regarding the recent Mixed Martial Arts fight last Saturday:

“Way to go ‘Dirty Dan’ Miragliotta!” read one post on mmajunkie.com. “What were your instructions? If Kimbo doesn’t get knocked out, make sure he wins the fight?”

Fine, right? Only whoever runs mmajunkie.com didn't write that. A commenter on the post wrote it.

POSTS are written by a blog's author. COMMENTS are written by people COMMENTING on a POST. This seems like a basic issue, one not worth getting worked up over, but it's similar to saying, "A story in the New York Times said recently that 'The New York Times sucks! I've read better writing out of Pravda!'--Jim Bob Jaworski, Bangor, Maine". It's merely commentary!

They get this wrong OVER and OVER again. It's misleading, and lazy, and weird.

There was a similar issue that happened today. If you haven't watched Barack Obama's victory speech on Wednesday, here's a screen cap from right before it, showing Michelle Obama congratulating her husband:
That's a fist pound. Or fist bump. One of those two things. You can really use either expression. Simple. Pound, or bump.

The Times referred to it, in this story, as a "closed-fisted high five".

What the hell.

There aren't any people at that paper who've ever engaged in a fist bump? Not a one? Impossible!

There's only one explanation.

Somewhere in the Times' copy desk, there is a man. He is old, likely over 70, clearly past retirement age, but no one will fire him because he has been at the paper for almost his entire life. I can picture his desk: full of pictures of him with the movers and shakers of the past fifty years, old Sinatra tapes, perhaps some quirky memorabilia he's acquired in his decades reviewing all the news that's fit to print.

His name is Osgood.

He's an institution at the paper. He is stubborn as the lid on a pickle jar. He does not understand anything after 1990 or so, when his mind started to go.

For some inexplicable reason, the Times sends every piece of technology or modern culture-related news his way to be edited.

I can see him now, in the fading half-light of his corner of the floor, peering over the story referencing that picture. He squints at the picture, then at the phrase "fist bump", that the reporter used to describe it. Osgood can feel the world closing in on him. What is this new means of expression? He can't fathom it.

Osgood snorts, and changes the phrase to "closed-fisted high five".

If he can't understand it, he'll be goddamned if anyone else can.

From the Archives: Hate Theater

Back in 2006, my friend Phil Wiese and I were working together on a photojournalism project, in which we were instructed to take pictures of an outsider group. We ended up choosing, as our subject, the Westboro Baptist Church, an anti-...well, pretty much anti-everything hate group. This is an edited account of the trip, written on the way back to Evanston.

Phil and I cut through Chicago and smoggy Gary, Indiana to end up in Ann Arbor. A local theater group had decided to put on a production of The Laramie Project, which dramatizes the murder of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man. The Laramie Project has advanced beyond the realm of mere storytelling and become one of those things that sends people into a frenzy.

Fred Phelps is a preacher and lawyer, formerly a practicing attorney in civil rights cases around the middle of the century. He’s a wiry man with big teeth, a former Golden Gloves boxer fond of wearing a humongous cowboy hat. His flock is the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Counts vary as to their numbers, but a young man I talked to from the church says there are at least seventy. Most of them are related to Phelps. He has 13 children and 54 grandchildren. Eleven of his children are lawyers. Four no longer speak to him.

“What is happening now, is that this country is in the midst of a Jonah situation,” said Sam Phelps-Roper, 27, one of Phelps’ grandchildren, who quite clearly still speaks to the old man. It’s early evening and the Mendelsohn Theater is host to two productions tonight. Sam is in front of the theater with ten other members of the church. Two are children. Fred's not here tonight, but he doesn't need to be. They have their own area on the sidewalk, surrounded by yellow police tape. About five hundred Ann Arborites, University of Michigan students, and others have essentially surrounded the church members. Those closest to the church are yelling, and the church members have responded in kind. Sam has taken some time out to talk to me about the purpose of his group.

He carries a sign that says “God Hates Fags”. It’s neon green with a little bit of orange. The other side says “Thank God For AIDS”. Are they, I had asked, attempting to save souls, or merely warning them of their damnation?

“Do you know who Jonah is?” Sam asks me. I do, at least to some extent. Swallowed by a whale, right? Converted to Christianity afterwards?

Sam looks at me like I insulted his mother. Lack of scriptural knowledge is a big no-no amongst Phelps’ flock. “He didn’t convert to Christianity. He already was a Christian. Afterwards, he preached to the city of Nineveh that God was displeased with them. They repented and were saved, but he did not tell them to repent.”

So you’re trying to tell them they’re going to hell?

“Everyone here who does not accept the word of God will go to hell. He is not a forgiving God. The spiritual man judges everything.”

The Westboro Baptist Church, in one form or another, attends approximately 2500 of these protests per year. Their message is simple; America is a godless nation and is therefore condemned to be cast into hell.

Their main complaint with America is its tolerance of homosexuality; as one sign puts it, God not only hates Fags but also Fag Enablers, who are equally condemned. God hates those who do not follow his scripture to the letter. Women who cut their hair are condemned. Those who drink and party are condemned. I would imagine those who eat shellfish are also condemned, as Leviticus puts it, but I didn’t see any “God Hates Cephalopods” signs.

Recent events give the church all the proof it needs of God's wrath. Hurricane Katrina was sent to punish Godless New Orleans. 9/11 was sent to punish Godless New York. Even roadside bombs in Iraq are evidence of condemnation; how else, Sam asks, could a soldier from the most powerful army in the world be killed by a simple explosive? “Thank God for IEDs” is a more recent, popular sign, and the church uses it when they demonstrate at the funerals of U.S. servicemen killed in Iraq.

Not ten feet away from us, Charles Hockenbarger is arguing with Lee Chrisman. Hockenbarger is a bull-faced man with earmuffs and the sign informing Fag Enablers that they will etc. etc. Chrisman is a freshman, majoring in acting. Their conversation is set on a loop.

“You can’t even quote for me the correct verse! You don’t know anything about the Bible,” Hockenbarger yells. His voice is very strong and can be heard easily in a crowd. “How can you argue with me, you moron? You hate God. You hate him.”

Chrisman is a Roman Catholic, a group for which the church saves special disdain. “I don’t hate God! I love God, and I love you too! You have to realize what you’re doing is wrong! God does not hate! God loves everybody.”

Again, says Hockenbarger, Chrisman is ignorant of scripture. “Haven’t you ever read Psalm 5:5?” he screams. “It says that God hates Esau! God does not love everybody. And how can you say you love me when everybody here has been threatening us? Why do we need these cops here?”

In internet-speak, a troll is someone who posts on a message board with the specific purpose of riling up its inhabitants. Skilled trolls will take an outlandish position, present it as nonchalant fact, and watch as the board blows up in aggrieved response. The Westboro Baptist Church is both the best and worst kind of real-life troll. Their positions are outlandish, but sincerely believed. They have message discipline; no one strays off the basic God Hates X theme. They are deliberately provocative, as children as young as eight stand, bundled against the cold, holding these signs.

They've set it up so they're in a no-lose situation. You can't argue with them as the Bible disproves you. You can't judge them as your sin is infinitely worse. You can't even join them. That's what makes the group unique among fundamentalists--no converts are necessary or wanted. The church just wants to taunt. To provoke. To infuriate

Their law degrees come in handy whenever they provoke a bit too much. A middle-aged woman records the proceedings on a handheld DiviCam, focusing on any particularly intense arguments. If a fight breaks out, they will use the footage as evidence in a court of law. Likely they’ll win; they never start physical confrontations, but they know how to profit from them.

This nearly comes to a head as the church members pack up their signs and leave. Phil and I had been allowed complete access behind the yellow line up until this point. The police officers asked us and anyone else not carrying a sign to back up, so we did, despite protests. Hockenbarger and Phelps-Roper called everyone together into a tight clump, where they deposited their signs into a small green bag. As they begin to leave, a few young guys wearing Michigan sweatshirts begin to run toward them. The crowd starts to cheer, although the perceptive ones realize that this is exactly what the church members want, and yell at the others to stop. They do, but only because the cops have formed a protective wall in front of the church members.

Everyone disperses. The play outside is over, and the one inside is just beginning. There is nothing here for anyone. The church hasn't convinced anyone, but they never wanted to. The protesters didn't prevent the church from coming, but they never wanted to either. Our pictures will later reveal that, aside from a few heated arguments, most people in the throng surrounding the church members were smiling, or ignoring them.

A good time was had by all.