Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Rubber-necking a Hollywood wreck

We have a propensity to do this, to get caught up in the speedy downward spiral of some overly hyped, rich and pampered star, to revel in his or her disgusting behavior — as entertainment, as a way of proving we are better than these rich lowlifes, as a sop to our voyeuristic urges.

We slow down on the highway when we see a car wreck, not because we think we can help, but because we are curious, because we want to see. Police stories are the most popular on news web sites, often not because we are concerned that crime is encroaching but because we want to see, we want to oggle.

So, Charlie Sheen gets to ride the media merry-go-round and we all watch — and, yes, I did watch last night — and hope that his drug-addled mind will snap, that his mania will be on full display for our entertainment.

It was sordid, painful and completely unnecessary, as Dan Watson on Neon Tommy points out:

Charlie Sheen, the star of “Two and a Half Men” — who thinks he can live the same fantasy as his character — is sick. And I don’t mean in some “funny uncle” way.
Sick, as in less than a month ago he began in-home rehab. Sick, as in he admitted to doing enough cocaine — “7-gram rocks” — to send him into mania at that time. And sick, as in a score of doctors are saying he is bi-polar.

He is not a “winner.” He is not a hero raging against the corporate machine. He is not playing a joke on us. He is not a serious interview subject.

He is sick.

Tonight was an abomination.

The executives at ABC should be tried in court for enabling a drug user.

They are preying on a sick man. And all the while, laughing at rival CBS — host of Sheen’s wildly successful show.

Sheen, of course, is responsible for his plot in life. He diagnosed himself perfectly in one interview:

“I’m on a drug: It’s called Charliesheen.”

“Tiger blood,” runs through his veins, he said.

Today, he loves himself. Tomorrow, he will hate himself.

Tonight, was, to put it lightly, the most devastating interview I have ever seen. It was also one of the more disgusting things I have ever seen.

And it is not likely to be the last time we see it, and I’m not talking about Sheen and his sordid, tawdry life. Yes, Sheen is engaged in a high-profile battle with his network and a very public battle with his ex-wife, so the Sheen narrative is likely to be a part of our lives for as long as we wish it to be.

Sheen’s story is his own, but it also is part of a larger narrative of American obsession with famous meltdowns. Last night, it was Sheen blathering on, while in the recent past it has been Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears, Mel Gibson, Anna Nicole Smith and far too many other unstable, out-of-control celebs. When Sheen’s public meltdown ceases to be interesting, we will move on to someone else.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Libya on the brink and the French respond

The French are stepping in to aid the rebels in Libya, as the Qaddafi regime steps up its repression.

The civil war already has created a humanitarian crisis in the African nation, one the west needs to address. So we should follow the French lead, aid the rebels — in Libya and across the region — to show that we believe our own rhetoric about democracy and that we are not the monsters al Qaeda paints the West to be.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

For democracy to flower, the grassroots need constant attention

Democratic self government needs some help in the United States. We have grown soft in our assumption that change comes from the orderly, yearly visit to the ballot box. Nothing more is needed from us.

Is that true? Not when you consider the evidence. Our willingness to cede our own authority to our elected officials, to vote them into office and then ignore what they do, has left us with a fragile connection to power. Money governs the electoral process — picks the candidates and runs the campaigns — and the winners at the ballot box know exactly to whom they owe their jobs.

A huge majority of Americans tell pollsters they want politicians to leave Social Security alone, for instance, but because the financial services sector wants a piece of the federal retirement pie it keeps ending up on the table.

We got financial reform, but only in name, health-care reform that leaves corporate health-care companies in charge, a recommitment to state secrecy, and we’re still waging two disastrous — and unpopular — wars, despite two elections in which voters emphatically said we should leave.

It’s not Barack Obama’s fault, however. Anyone who thought Obama, whose ascendancy in the Democratic Party was anything but a challenge to the party hierarchy, would challenge the corporate state just hasn’t paid attention to his history as a politician or the history of the republic.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m angry with Obama and the Democrats. They talked a decent game, but had no intention of playing.

But we cannot blame them for betraying progressive principles if we have not applied the necessary pressure.

Consider the wars — as Chris Hedges does in this rabble-rousing column. The wars go on because we have not demanded that they end, have not forced the issue.

We will not stop the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, we will not end this slaughter of innocents, unless we are willing to rise up as have state workers in Wisconsin and citizens on the streets of Arab capitals. Repeated and sustained acts of civil disobedience are the only weapons that remain to us.

We have to march and write and speak out. That’s what history tells us, as Howard Zinn made clear during the early part of the 2008 election season, as the press got caught up in the blathering nonsense of candidates and the minutiae of horse-race politics:

The unprecedented policies of the New Deal—Social Security, unemployment insurance, job creation, minimum wage, subsidized housing—were not simply the result of FDR’s progressivism. The Roosevelt Administration, coming into office, faced a nation in turmoil. The last year of the Hoover Administration had experienced the rebellion of the Bonus Army—thousands of veterans of the First World War descending on Washington to demand help from Congress as their families were going hungry. There were disturbances of the unemployed in Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York, Seattle.

In 1934, early in the Roosevelt Presidency, strikes broke out all over the country, including a general strike in Minneapolis, a general strike in San Francisco, hundreds of thousands on strike in the textile mills of the South. Unemployed councils formed all over the country. Desperate people were taking action on their own, defying the police to put back the furniture of evicted tenants, and creating self-help organizations with hundreds of thousands of members.

Without a national crisis—economic destitution and rebellion—it is not likely the Roosevelt Administration would have instituted the bold reforms that it did.

Rahm Emanuel said before the inauguration that Obama would not let a crisis go to waste. The president did, as did a neutered American left. It is up to us on the left to change the dynamic, to make them do the right thing.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

The heat is on the Heat

The Miami Heat showed last night why they may have a lot more difficulty getting through the Eastern Conference playoffs and to the finals than their record would indicate.

The team led the Knicks last night for most of the game — but surrendered two significant Knicks runs that ultimately doomed the Heat and the Heats’ big guns came up small when they needed to come up huge.

Lebron James and Dwayne Wade looked flustered and Chris Bosh disappeared for long stretches. There were lazy passes and an inability to contain Carmelo Anthony when Anthony wanted it.

What seemed obvious, as the game clocked ticked down to zero was that the Knicks wanted it more, from Anthony’s decision to cover James down the stretch to Amar’e’s huge block on James to Chauncey Billups once again living up to his nickname.

What was striking was the Knicks’ defense when it mattered. A team that no one will confuse with the Willis/Clyde or Ewing/Oakley Knicks, Stat and Melo made it clear last night that they were ready to put in the effort on the defensive end, and the role players — Bill Walker, Shawn Williams, Rony Turiaf — played their roles well.

The Knicks are not going far in the playoffs this year — though I do think they match up well with their likely first-round opponents Chicago or Miami.

But I have my doubts as to whether the Heat can go far, as well. The Celtics play devastating defense, as does Dwight Howard and Orlando. And the Heat just don’t close out games or win close games (5-11 in games decided by 5 or less) or consistently beat good teams (under .500 against teams above .500).

None of this is meant to indicate that the Heat are a bad team. These numbers are going to change and the Heat will move to the top of the heap. It’s just that, this year, the Heat have a lot of work to do.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Charter dissent

There appears to be some dissent from charter mania, and not just in the suburban districts.

Droves of parents and community members at tonight’s Newark school board meeting expressed vociferous outrage about a plan to close and consolidate failing Newark schools in an effort to clear space for charter schools.

The meeting became so raucous and hostile at moments that Advisory Board President Shavar Jeffries threatened to remove audience members or stop the meeting. About 300 people attended the meeting at the 15th Avenue School, one of the facilities slated for consolidation.

Everyone wants parental involvement. Well, here it is.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.