The fault is not in our stars…

I settled in this evening for a long winter night's viewing of the 31st Kennedy Center Honors.  I was expecting a good show as some of my favorite people were being feted:  Morgan Freeman, Twyla Tharp, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Barbra Streisand, and George Jones (in my personal order of favor). 

The audience was also equally star-studded with many former award winners attending.  I knew I was in for a delightful go of it when the show began with a moving tribute to Morgan by Denzel Washington that brought a tear to my eye. 

There are few actors I admire more that Morgan Freeman.  The show did strike a bit of a sour note when they cut to a shot of Colin Powell applauding. I thought well what the hell maybe they even let OJ out so he could attend also.  KoKo Taylor, B B King and a host of other surviving blues artists took the stage with a soulful rendition of  "I'm a woman."  Everyone was rockin'. 

The camera moved from Roger and Pete to George and Laura.  George and Laura?  Who the hell let them in? With an instinctual move, that could not have been more reflexive if I had just seen Barry Manilow, my finger hit the "off" button on the remote. 

The evening was over.  I thought, how can Morgan and Twyla, Roger and Pete and (good gods!) even Barbara sit in the same room with George Bush?  Has moral relativism reached a new low in the world?

Has everyone on the planet sold out? I quickly dismissed the fantasy that at least one of these stars had a secret plan to use this event to humiliate the president the way the late Eartha Kitt had reduced the first Lady Bird to tears with her acerbic comments concerning Vietnam when she was invited to a White House event.  Upon further reflection I realized, no shoes would be thrown this night.  

Yes, of course, we live in a civil society, and the attendance at the Kennedy Center by the President and the First Lady is a long standing, pro forma tradition going back to the days when we used to have presidents who at least possessed some knowledge of, respect and appreciation for art.  Who today is Marlin Brando enough to soil the occasion with an uncivil protest or by at least by not showing up?

Does the fault lie really not with the stars at this joyous event but within myself?  Do I take all this all too seriously?  Am I the only person in this country that fears the bloodbath awaiting the citizens of Gaza on this very night—a bloodbath supported by President Bush, our Congress and Barack Obama?  And why is everyone talking of George W. Bush in the past tense like he is not continuing to do damage right up to and including the very end?  Does Barbara care? Denzel? Morgan? Barack? 

NO.  They would rather blow a loud public fart than rail against the brutish Israeli thugs whose only answer to even the slightest pin prick is overwhelming, homicidal, indiscriminate, retaliatory force against the guilty and the innocent.  Does even one of these illuminated stars of this night know how many of the eleven-hundred and eighty four Gaza dead and maimed are Hamas card carriers?  Not one.

And so I sit watching a cold, dead, blank TV screen wondering these thoughts—wishing I did not care about anyone or anything and wishing, above all, I could find within me the desire and the capacity to just get on in with all these high-priced whores in their mad race for fame, fortune and awards.

Peace,

PS: I found out later that the actual event was prerecorded at the Kennedy Center on December 7th, so one could be sure that any unpleasantness had already been edited out and no one would ever know. 

Silly me, thinking that the Gaza issue was even on the radar way back then—not that there weren't plenty of other issues over which to destroy a career in the arts with a self-immolation beneath the Emperor's box. That really is the final straw: in our media age, one is never sure if one's outrage is real or merely tape-delayed.

Robert Boldt an editor of MWC News, is a freelance film/video producer living in Jefferson City, Missouri. He is active in local politics, worked on the Howard Dean and John Kerry campaigns and is a cofounder of The White Rose Collective. Articles by Bob Boldt at MWC News http://mwcnews.net/bob-boldt

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