The truth shall set you free

"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." – Mark Twain. Or Winston Churchill.

No doubt you’ve seen it when you open your email — it’s always forwarded by the same folks, and it usually starts with a blaring headline like, "You’re not going to BELIEVE this one!!!!"

You open it, thinking, "Oh, I better open it then, maybe it’s a YouTube video of something cool like a dog shooting a rifle while riding on a horse," but you’re sorely disappointed to find that it’s a bit… political… in nature. How can you tell? Why, the first line, of course.

"OBAMA’S MUSLIM CURTAINS SHOW THAT HE IS GUN-HATING ANTICHRIST BENT ON DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA!!!!!!"

It’s all in capitals, and there’s a lot of exclamation points, because these things are exciting!

The subjects can vary, but they’re mostly about things like Jane Fonda beating American prisoners in Hanoi during the Vietnam War, Denzel Washington paying the entire cost of constructing a veterans hospital, or Obama acknowledging on video that he’s not an American citizen. (Surprise!)

Unfortunately, exciting though these stories may be, they’re not true. In fact, most aren’t even based on a kernel of truth and are entirely made up to inflame the passions of the uninformed and hopelessly gullible.

The misinformation hasn’t stopped there. Social media sites have allowed this plague to reach epidemic proportions. Think about it: how many times have you come across a meme of a Founding Father’s portrait with some political slogan plastered across it that has a hundred likes and 20 shares from those who aren’t even sure if what they’re seeing is a real quote?

Allegedly both sides of the political spectrum do this, but in my experience one side is far more willing than the other to reconstruct history via internet, and they are rarely called on it. It’s as if with the advent of the search engine, all source material has been burned, and all we have left is brainyquote.com. I’m not sure people understand how truly dangerous this sort of thing is, in that Orwellian "who controls the past, controls the future" kind of way. 

Think for a second what the power to attach your chosen phrase to anyone in history actually does — is there any more valuable tool in persuasive speaking?

Concise, witty quotes that prove a point while giving little room for retort are priceless when it comes to swaying opinions. In advertising they become catchphrases, in presidential debates, "zingers," and one need look no further than our own history to find examples of how small, quotable treatises like "Common Sense" and "The American Crisis" influenced the political discourse of the time and, by consequence, the history of the world.

That history, like a shadow dancing on the wall, is hard enough to grasp as it is because it’s cast by a candle that can be filtered and manipulated to serve this purpose or that. But if it can be blatantly rewritten like the ending of poorly done sitcom — and if we actually encourage its rewriting — how can we ever know who we are?

Think of it like this: everything we are as individuals is based on where we’re from and how we came up. It’s what our parents were like, what neighborhood we lived in, who our friends were, and what we’ve been through that shapes our personalities and, by proxy, our future. 

The nation itself is no different. The storms we’ve come through shine the light on where we are headed as a people, and to selectively change our back story is to rob the ship of its rudder.

So next time some asinine e-mail with a headline caterwauling about something that seems too ridiculous (or too good) to be true comes your way, take a second to do a little research before you hit "forward" or "share."

Go to snopes.com, or factcheck.org, type in what you just read, and see if it’s as real as the writer wants you to think it is. Consider it your civic duty, and a personal favor to all of history.

More often than not, you will be surprised what you learn.

And when in doubt, remember Abraham Lincoln’s words of wisdom: "90 percent of what you read on the Internet is BS."

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

Borders' plunge shows booksellers' uncertain future

BY STEVE  JANOSKI

For the great majority of the American public that has not read a book since high school and is only vaguely aware that they're still printed, the slow death of the mega-chain Borders might slip by unnoticed except for the passing recognition of yet another empty storefront gazing out at the highway.

For some of us though, the ones who spent a great deal of time (and a great deal of money) in that cavernous building on Route 23, it is as if a dear old friend has passed.

I've always liked bookstores, as they actively catered to my two addictions: the printed word in all its forms, and coffee. And I loved them for it.

As a kid (and later, as an adult) I wandered their aisles for hours, reading pieces of this and that and marveling at the collected knowledge that sat upon the shelves, wondering if I would ever have the time to read all the things I wanted to.

I'll admit, I always liked Barnes and Noble better. It was, in my eyes, more the “Gray Lady” of that industry - more books, no music, and a bit more stuck up and crotchety. It gets away with this, of course, because it is a bookstore, and most of us who frequent bookstores are a bit stuck up and crotchety.

Borders was always like Barnes and Noble's reckless younger sibling - less books, more music, better prices, a bit more lively. How reckless they were, however, we weren't to know until they finally imploded last month and declared that they'd be going out of business.

Now, the place is a cemetery, and great towering shelves full of liquidator garbage sit where novels once did and a pall pervades the air as the signs declaring that “Everything must go” hang lifelessly from the ceiling.

It is a sad state of affairs…but there may yet be hope.

I am too young to remember the days of the corner bookstore, and all too aware of the increasing influence of the e-readers like Kindle and Nook (neither of which I am onboard with yet), but I have a sincere hope that the crumbling of this brick-and-mortar empire will lead to some kind of resurgence amongst those individual booksellers who had been driven from the field upon Borders' arrival.

Maybe, just maybe, we will see a slew of small Bookends-type shops begin to pop up and fill the void left by the behemoth's fall.

After all, I am very particular about the books I buy, and I have an odd routine that I follow that involves opening to some random page and seeing if the thing can hold my attention long enough for me to justify spending money on it.

And then there's the feeling you get when you physically hold a book in your hands. It's as if you're holding a direct link to history, to the thoughts and musings of the greatest minds that have ever lived, like Paine and Dickens and Rousseau and Voltaire, who spent their lives collecting, disseminating, and fashioning a creation that has a weight and heft (both literally and figuratively) that has to be felt to be understood.

That's hard to replicate through Amazon.com.

For now though, Barnes and Noble sits on its Route 46 perch as the last of the old guard, the only surviving king on a decimated chess board, and few of us know where the game is headed.

Until we do, I suspect that old-school onlookers like me will grip tightly our printed versions of the New York Times and “Les Miserables” and cringe, waiting to see what this future holds.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com

The most expensive paper crown in history

By Steve Janoski

“Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony…you can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!”                                              - Monty Python and the Holy Grail

There’s a lot of things about Great Britain that I, try as I might, simply don’t understand: their hatred of guns, their apparent comfort with “Big Brother’s” cameras watching them from every stoplight and street corner, or those girly accents that do well to conceal the fact that they once had the largest empire in the history of the world.

However, on this Friday afternoon, as that country basks in the glow of its post-royal-wedding bliss, I can say that the one facet that totally boggles my mind is the obsession with “royalty” and a “royal family” still matters.

Like most of us in this country, I am a follower of and true believer in classic liberalism.  I vote in every election I can, even the ones where I have to write in Bill Parcells’ name (again) because I hate all the candidates, and the Virginia state motto, “Sic Semper Tyrannis” (“Thus always to tyrants”) has always appealed to a certain part of my nature.

I guess its this inherently independent, positively “American” streak that makes me wonder how any man can, in these early years of the 21st century, be willing to call any other man his “king,” even if that title is only in relation to a powerless figurehead like Prince William will one day be.

One colleague of mine referenced the Kennedys as a type of “American royalty” to prove that no country is impervious to this infatuation with people we think are better than us.

He’s right— there is some mystique to that clan, and it’s been furthered by the cursed Irish luck that befalls them every so often.

But the Kennedys became famous, above all, because they were movers— John F. Kennedy was one of the most influential Presidents of the last century while Ted Kennedy became, over his 138-year stint in the Senate, an intensely powerful man who took part in passing countless pieces of law. Who knows how much Robert F. Kennedy could have accomplished had he been given a chance to lead.

That family is famous for much more than just….well, being famous.

Furthermore, Joe Kennedy made his money the American way— from the ground up through the selling of realty, the importation of liquor, and the implementation of Wall Street practices that would likely be illegal today.

This is in sharp contrast to The Royal Family, whose wealth is derived from “hereditary title,” which means, more or less, through the accumulated results of blood and oppression over the centuries.

The Queen’s third great grandfather was actually America’s favorite king, George III. He’s the one who so generously gave all the royal property to the government— effectively ensuring that the public would always be on the hook to maintain them.

Even now, the Queen is supported by the British people— a recent CNBC article pointed out that she receives just under $84 million per year from the nation’s citizens in return for…I don’t know. Something.

Maintaining this expensive monarchy when they do so little is like making the payments on a Ferrari that’s got no engine block; most of the year, the family exists as little more than tabloid fodder— hardly worth the $84 million.

But of course, during this grand spectacle of “The Royal Wedding,” all of Britain stands up and cheers wildly whenever the couple kiss, and will sing their de facto national anthem of “God Save the Queen.”

This will last but a few months until those same tabloids begin plastering their front page with rumors about how the Queen is having an affair with an Elvis incarnate or how the King’s (inevitable) hairpiece gets up and ambles away during meetings.

And this will occur until one of them dies, at which point the nation will revert to its solemn, stiff-upper lipped ideal of how they should be acting in regards to “royalty.”

Bizarre.

Thomas Paine had it right when he said that, “Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.”

How this lesson escaped the enamored masses of Britons amazes me.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com

Americans need to fan Bouazizi's flames

BY STEVE JANOSKI

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

                                                                                 - Thomas Paine


Many times when you ask your typical apathetic American about politics, they'll offer one of two answers: "I don't really pay attention…it doesn't affect me" is the first, and "I'm only one person, what does it really matter what I do?" is the second.

But, as the flames of revolution tear across the Middle East's desert sands, we must remember that the firestorm that engulfs the region was lit by the sparks that blew off of one lone man's scorched body.

Mohamed Bouazizi was a 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor who made his living selling vegetables. Everything changed for him one day in mid-December when, according to a recent TIME magazine article, a policewoman confiscated his unlicensed produce cart, slapped him, spat in his face, and insulted his dead father.

Bouazizi went to the provincial headquarters to seek help from the local municipal officials- they ignored him.An hour later, he returned to the headquarters, doused himself in gasoline, and set himself ablaze in the ultimate form of protest. He died days later.

What even Bouazizi didn't know, however, was that his one strike of the match would ignite the rage of all of the oppressed who have long suffered under the harsh rule of their autocratic Middle Eastern dictators.

Tunisia fell first. Then, the protests began in Egypt - weeks later, their dictator of three decades, Hosni Mubarak, fled from Cairo.

Even more remarkably, the fervor has spread: protests have erupted in Libya and Yemen, Algeria and Bahrain, Syria and Iran, as the citizens take to the streets clamoring for the collapse of their governments.

Those governments, in response, have acted accordingly; as Jack London once wrote, "The Iron Heel is getting bold."The Black Hundreds have formed, and there are pitched battles on the boulevards as pro-government forces try to crush the rebellious with truncheon and tear gas, batons and bullets.

The New York Times reported on Friday that dozens have been killed in streetfights in Libya; in Bahrain, security forces launched an attack on sleeping protestors, on women and children, that left four dead and scores wounded.Still, the people chant, "You cannot keep us down!"

In Iran, the opposition figure who led the protests against the results of the 2009 "election", Mir Hussein Moussavi, has disappeared as protests reach a fevered pitch. Some fear he's been "detained," and there are hints that the nation may be on the eve of civil war.

For years I have scoffed at the idea that America could push democracy on another country. I've repeatedly quoted the old saying that if the idea of democracy is so good, you won't have to push it on people- they'll steal it.

However, it takes a steel spine to stand face-to-face with the point of a bayonet and demand it, and even I, ever the idealist, am shocked by the strength and passion being shown by these brave souls.

I have heard some say that the United States must be wary of these protests and their results because some of the outgoing regimes are friendly to America, and we don't know who will take over in the power vacuum.

While that may be true, that line of thinking is also why the rest of the world hates us so much- the fact that a brutal dictator was friendly to the United States doesn't mean that the blood of his murdered citizens washes off his hands any easier.

For once, Americans, look past the confines of our borders, and be, just for the moment, citizens of the world! Realize that what these people are doing is the very thing that our Founding Fathers, so revered by both left and right, did all those centuries ago: seizing power from the cruel and unjust and declaring that they'd rather die on their feet than live any longer on their knees.

Every soul that leaves a corpse on the glowering streets of any Middle Eastern capitol is joining the ranks of the greatest of the world's patriots, from those Frenchmen that stormed the Bastille in 1789 to the Germans who took sledgehammers to the Berlin Wall.

And with the living, the spirit of every American patriot, from Thomas Paine and Sam Adams to Thomas Jefferson and Washington himself, stands defiantly, called back to action once more.

Whitewashing America's History

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

BY STEVE JANOSKI

Words are perhaps the most powerful of things. They can illuminate, devastate, and forever alter the realities of the world, exposing the fraudulent and eviscerating the powerful within the single sweep of an ivory page.

They can erupt in explosions that dwarf the fiercest bomb, and from the printing of the first Bible to Thomas Paine’s legendary "Common Sense" to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s "Uncle Tom’s Cabin," they have inspired new thoughts, generated new beliefs, and ignited revolutions.

In our shallow society, many remain unaware of the potent power they possess by putting pen to page, but for proof of its impact in the present day, one need look no further than, of all places, Montgomery, Alabama, where the literary world has been set ablaze over the controversial decision of editor Alan Gribben of NewSouth Books Inc.

Gribben has decided that NewSouth will attempt to strip Mark Twain’s classic "Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn" of its racist epithets in an upcoming edition due out in February; in it, the word "nigger" is to be replaced with "slave," and the word "injun" is to be replaced with "Indian."

Gribben’s reasoning? The book is left off of many school reading lists because of its use of the words, and isn’t as widely read as a consequence, he says.

"We may applaud Twain’s ability as a prominent American literary realist to record the speech of a particular region during a specific historical era," writes Gribben in the introduction to the book, "But abusive racial insults that bear distinct connotations of permanent inferiority nonetheless repulse modern-day readers."

Gribben goes on to say that for 40 years he has discussed Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in public forums such as college classes and libraries, and he has always refrained from using the slurs.

"I invariably substituted the word "slave" for Twain’s ubiquitous n-word whenever I read any passages aloud," he said. "Students and audience members seemed to prefer this expedient, and I could detect a visible sense of relief each time, as though a nagging problem with the text had been addressed."

Well yea Alan, by eliminating the blatant racism that’s built into this piece of nineteenth-century literature, you sure do eliminate a lot of those "nagging problems," don’t you?

Now, instead of the children who receive this book thinking about how horrific the thought process was of the average white American back in the 1840s, they can believe that slaves and masters alike walked hand-in-hand in harmony under the magnolia trees.

They might even wonder why Jim was trying to escape in the first place….if Gribben mixes in a little "Gone With the Wind," I do believe he could construct his very own mythical history of the Old South.

Hell, while he’s at it, why doesn’t he just go take out the parts mentioning slavery altogether?

We’ll call Jim a "runaway servant" instead, because the term "slave" will surely offend the Southerners who still call the Civil War the "War of Northern Aggression." They’d jump at the chance to throw some white paint over their blood-red history.

And, instead of making it along the Mississippi River, let’s have it take place along the St. Lawrence River, so we don’t generalize and make it seem like the South was the only place that owned slaves.

Oh wait, it was? Well, what’s that matter? We’re revising history, so let’s move the Mason-Dixon somewhere up around New York State to make them feel even better.

We should probably edit the letters of Abraham Lincoln too, being as he used now-derogatory racial terms frequently, and even once said that he didn’t believe the black man was equal to the white.

If people knew this, they might be repulsed! Cut it!

What Gribben conveniently forgets is that literature is supposed to make us confront difficult issues— even if it’s the hideously revolting racism that lies in America’s past, as evidenced by our active participation in the subjugation of a race of people.

When it comes down to it, the removal of these words and the butchering and desecration of this American masterpiece by one pompous editor from a book company based in the first capital of the Confederacy is a crime nearly unparalleled in literary history.

It is a historical whitewashing of epic proportions that is equivalent to tearing out the pages of every German history book that covers the years of 1933-1945.

George Orwell once wrote that, "Who controls the past, controls the future; who controls the present, controls the past."

I’ll be damned if I’ll ever let a member of the politically correct Gestapo control the past, and this publisher should be boycotted and driven out of business; its revisionist filth should be burned in glowing piles in the streets.

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com