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Show / DECEMBER 2004-JANUARY 2005 "All the news that causes fits." THECANYON COUNTRY TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT... ZEPHYR P.O. BOX 327 MOAB, UT 84532 Jim Stiles, publisher (435) 259-7773 AAA UNC sol saeco yh emer cczephyr@frontiernet.net By Jim Stiles moabzephyr@yahoo.com eee BELO) Ken Sleight Robert Funkhouser Erica Walz CactusRat Scott Silver Wendell Berry Martin Murie Dan Rosen Bill Boyle Barry Scholl Philip Hyde Chinle Miller Ric Cantrell Bianca Dumas Michael Wolcott 6 the Heath Monitor Files the artist yyy historic photographs Herb Ringer (1913-1998) s THE MORE THINGS CHANGE... Driven inside by a cold winter storm, I picked up a magazine last week and began to thumb idly through it. The stories seemed so familiar; the lead editorial tackled “The Palestine Problem” and began with this sentiment: “During last Thanksgiving week Americans felt they had something to be thankful for which now turns out to be illusory. It was the news that the U.N. had ‘solved’ the Palestinian problem.” But the editorialist warned that the solution could be costly. “Responsible enforcement takes force, and so does responsible revision. Either entails bloodshed....We have exhausted the possibilities of a policy which wills an end but nota means.” In the letters section, a reader complained about a recent swimsuit pictorial that showed more breast than he was willing to tolerate. “It will be snow in Hades,” Eric Simpson wrote from Blacksburg, Virginia, “before any date of mine wears one of those bare-breasted affairs.” Ah yes, those “moral issues.” Zephyr pilot/aerial reconaissance Paul Swanstrom PAR dg Gary Henderson subscriptions 6 transcriptions Linda Vaughan circulation I rele Ener TTA or Certo Salt Lake City: Nancy Jacobsen Colorado: Tracy Murphy G& Mark Anderson PAV eM CiVMN (elit And there was more. Another story of explicit violence being portrayed program, “growls with menace,” the doctor kills a woman, hides her corpse complained about the excess in prime time dramas. One critic explained, “as a mad ina closet and then prepares to operate on a girl, just for the fun of it. He runs upstairs, tosses a man out the window, then later decides to jump himself.” The total number of dead for the evening’s programming? “At least a dozen violent deaths with the victims being stabbed, poisoned, shot, blown up and thrown out windows, plus one exceptionally messy suicide.” Another photo spread highlighted the latest “movie lingerie,” a five page feature that more than satisfied my need to gawk at long leggy super-models with lots of cleavage. And of course, the magazine was brimming and overflowing with advertisements for everything from the “form-fit Life Bra” to cigarettes, “good to taste, good to smoke.” To Ritz crackers, “nothing tastes like a Ritz.” THEZEPHYR copyright 2004, EVI Baty neers are B The Zephyr is published six timesa ey at Moab, Utah. The opinions expressed SCSHe tates teeris Aint StS NZS ie (SEMEUhisas Cla cnoy eae at times, of its publisher. All photos and cartoonsare by the publisher unless otherwise noted. Yes, the same old news and gossip and titillating sex and violence—how we long for the ‘good old days’ when we could get away from all that bad news and shameful behavior. Bxeept... Except...what I just described were the ‘Good ol’ Days.’ I had been reading from an issue of LIFE magazine....the February 16, 1948 issue. Since that edition of LIFE went to press, more than 55 years ago, the world has changed dramatically and hasn’t moved an inch. All the themes for hate and violence and intolerance and banality were there in 1948—we’ve simply ratcheted up the level of intensity a few notches. The media “violence” was coming from radio, of course. As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. HALL Mencken July 26, 1920 Television was only being seen in a few hundred thousand homes on the U.S. east coast by early 1948. So the graphic violence was relayed via the images the sounds of radio could conjure in the listener’s mind. And of course, the mind is a frightening place to be at times, so who can say if today’s graphic “CSI” and “Law & Order” visual images are any worse than what one might have imagined in 1948? (Although I doubt if in “48, anyone could create such gruesome detail as today’s crime dramas bombard us with.) The bare-breast complaint, in light of last year’s Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction” and all the fury that followed was particularly “revealing.” How can a woman’s breast be such an enduring point of contention in American Culture? Here is, under the right conditions, one of the loveliest forms ever to grace the planet. Artists since the beginning of Time have paid tribute to the breast. Nothing can distract most men and some women like the female breast. A woman’s breasts make us happy. For all of us, it was the first thing in the World that we saw close up. We clung to it for months before we were torn away from it and somebody stuck a rubber nipple in our mouths. Breasts are a good thing. And yet there are always people out there trying to take all the fun out of Life. May women always be proud of their breasts and may we always be allowed to appreciate and admire and adore them. As for the ads, nothing much has changed there. You might think 21* Century marketing techniques have improved—become more sophisticated and clever—but they haven’t. Not really. They’re still mostly dull-witted and transparently solicitous, still trying to appeal to our vanity and egos. And they continue to succeed as our credit card society continues to spend money it doesn’t have on practically anything and everything it wants, whether or not it has a penny to pay for it. And that might mark a significant change since 1948. Fifty six years ago, American Society was still trying to live within its means. Perhaps most heartbreaking to read is the Palestinian editorial and the realization that virtually nothing has improved in the Middle East in more than half a century. The LIFE essay from February 1948 specifically outlined the merits and shortcomings of a United Nations proposal to end the violence between Israel and the Arabs. “The UN had decided,” reported LIFE, “that all Palestine should be divided into three equal parts—a Jewish state, an Arab state and an internationalized Jerusalem.” It was called “Partition,” it was rejected by the Arab world, war ensued and the two sides have been fighting almost continuously ever since. Millions of Arabs and Jews have perished in one bloody encounter after another. The violence is so consistent that the story of another suicide car bomb or an Israeli missile strike that kills civilians rarely raises an iota of indignation among any of us. It’s just a part of the daily news now— except for the most recent victims. I don’t know if there is any lesson in all this. At John Kennedy’s funeral, Chief Justice Earl Warren lamented, “The only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn.” And his warning continues to be borne out by the facts of each day’s events. Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be much hope for this wretched species of ours, but to give up Hope altogether is perhaps the most inhuman gesture of all. 1 think I’ll go out and take a hike and think about lovely breasts for a while. WHERE IS THE “LONE RANGER?’ I woke up aching and groggy on the morning of November 3". l rubbed my eyes, flipped on the tv to confirm what had seemed inevitable the night before (it was), and muttered to myself, “Where’s the damn Lone Ranger when we really need him?” As the morning light filled my room, I was fairly certain that I had lost my bid for the Presidency as a Nihilist. 1 had not received congratulatory calls from any of the major candidates, sol assumed that I would be staying in Utah, and continuing for an indeterminate time into the future, to edit America’s most beloved and reviled alternative bi-monthly. As for the Lone Ranger, it became clear that, to 51% of the American Voters, the Masked Rider of the Plains is alive and well and will continue to stable his horse at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for another four years. To the other 49%, some were inconsolable, others angry and bitter, a handful insisted that the election was rigged.. And there were a few like myself who believed we got exactly what we deserved. Like it or not, George Century. W Bush is America in the early 21° I don’t really enjoy the political post-mortem game, I’m not a pundit and find it excruciating trying to play it over in my mind... don’t want to analyze this election. | want to hop a plane to the Island of Funafuti and dig my toes into a white sandy beach and drink large quantities of Cuba libres. (And I’m still thinking about swaying breasts by the way.) But it’s hard to ignore the fact that the world seems to have been turned upside down and stomped on with a vengeance. I’m not expressing an opinion that is new or different here; I’m simply adding my voice to the chorus. But my rock-solid notions about ‘tight vs wrong,’ and ‘good vs bad’ have been savagely attacked by a majority of my countrymen. And while their odd opinions have done nothing to disturb my own values, it does make me wonder if this country has lost its mind. I keep coming back to the issue of breasts. How is this possible? Is it really true that my moral values are wrong because I like sex and hate killing? I’m a bad person because I think a president who sends young Americans to die in a useless war is worse than a former president playing with a cigar in the Oval Office bathroom with an intern? Im a son of the devil because I think gay couples should have a same rights and benefits as any two people in love with each other? I’m not supportive of our troops because I actually wish they could just stay home and learn a skill instead of being shipped to another part of the world so they can be blown to pieces by a roadside car bomb? I DON'T care about the troops because I DON’T want them to be killed??? Am I missing something? And yes...am I a Godforsaken heathen because I wish Janet Jackson had experienced a double wardrobe malfunction? I turned to my friend Judge Paisley in Kentucky after the election for wisdom and clarification. I asked him what it all meant. He confirmed my greatest fears, “Sex...It’s about sex,” he said. ‘Moral PAGE2 |