Half-Staffed

by Dick Mac

As my friend Henry has taken to saying: "I hear Whitney Houston died."

There was a funeral Saturday, and her family avoided a spectacle.

Houston's death was not a surprise to most. She had led a drug-addled life in a tumultuous relationship with singer Bobby Brown. Word is that she often tried to clean-up, and that she died while using prescription drugs, not illicit drugs; that her body just gave-up.

The toxicology report will tell more details.

In America, there is a particularly odd fetish with flags, their meaning, and their importance. The flag is revered as a symbol of our greatness and most Americans get more upset by desecration of a flag than by the gutting of the U.S. Constitution. They wave it around in heated pitches about Jesus Christ and the other founding fathers. (Oh, wait, you mean Jesus wasn't a founding father?)

These faux-patriots swinging flagpoles around often appear to consider themselves "conservative" and "old-fashioned" and "concerned about family values."

They (and I generalize) often wave the flag around while working to deny citizens their civil rights, or condemning the lifestyles of people with whom they are uncomfortable, or just to scream and cry in the face of progress and human development.

Others (and I generalize) burn the flag in protest of government policy, most often war. Maybe it is always over the issue of war.

Perhaps the most moving use of a flag is the draping of a coffin. When the remains of fallen soldiers are brought back to the United States, the coffins are always shrouded in the American flag. One is a powerful image; but sometimes there are multiple coffins and I find it even more disturbing and saddening.

No matter the reason people use to honor or desecrate a flag, it is a powerful symbol for us as Americans. People get very emotional about the status of the flag and its role in our nation.

The flag is used and abused in many ways. I recall a western movie I saw in the 1960s. Some bad guys had taken control of an outpost on the road West. The next morning, the captive proprietor explained to the bad guys that the military patrol would expect to see his flag flying at dawn, and if he didn't raise it they would certainly come and investigate. The sly old fox then hung the flag upside-down, which signaled the patrol and they came to his rescue.

Perhaps the most common use of the flag to communicate a particular message, is the flying of a flag at half-staff (I have also heard it called half-mast, but that might be just in a nautical description).

I found this explanation:

In the United States, the President can issue an executive order for the flag of the United States to be flown at half-staff upon the death of principal figures of the United States government, and others, as a mark of respect to their memory.

See, Half-staff at wikipedia.org

My understanding is that a governor can also order the flag to half-staff.

During the public outcry of sadness and support for Whitney Houston's family, friends and fans, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie ordered that the flags be flown at half-staff. A touching gesture for a very famous New Jersey native.

Of course, somebody was offended.

John Burri, of Michigan, believes it was offensive. Beyond his obvious hegemony and xenophobia, there seems little to support his argument that it was offensive. Like many "hawks" and "conservatives," he has a very narrow and incorrect interpretation of American law and legal tradition. The flag isn't being used the way he thinks it should be used, so he will burn it.

Burri believes that because his son died a hero soldier, in 2005, that flying the flag at half-staff for a state's native cultural giant is wrong -- well, THIS cultural giant, at least.

"They're watering down the term of what a true hero is these days," John Burri told ABC News. "I thought it was offensive to every family's fallen solider out there, and it cheapens the meaning of lowering the flag."

John Burri, Father of Fallen Soldier, Burns NJ Flag to Protest Whitney Houston Tribute

I know: huge disconnect. How he gets from the honor and glory of his son's untimely death to the gesture of a governor honoring a cultural icon a thousand miles away is beyond me.

Something tells me he'd have no problem with it if John Wayne or Charlton Heston or Ted Nugent died.

That's just how faux-patriots behave: they have no knowledge of facts, laws, rights, or Constitution legacy. They have feelings (and when it comes to people different from them, they have strong feelings) and they wave the flag around to make a point, as if they even know what the flag and the Constitution represent.

I thought it odd that the flags were lowered to half-mast; but I do not see any problem with it. The governor can make certain gestures and this is what he chose. Good for him!

I will light a candle at church for Mr. Burri's son. And I will pray that Mr. Burri finds some peace and acceptance in his troubled life.

Whitney Houston Must Have Missed This Video

by Dick Mac

The passing of Whitney Houston is sad in many ways. Addiction, mental illness, and the travels of lost souls are always fodder for tragedy and tragic story-telling.

In the 1980s, I tried to listen to Whitney Houston songs. She had an amazing voice. She was beautiful. She had a presence that commanded attention. She had all of it.

Yet, I only ever purchased one record: an imported Japanese CD of "How Will I Know" remixes. It was pretty fabulous. I wish I still had it, actually. Perhaps I'll check the MP3 stores.

The reason I didn't purchase her music was that she chose painfully dull songs. Painfully dull. Her material was just so boring that (for me) her magnificent talent was wasted. Her voice was the best voice of her generation and perhaps one of the best ever.

Houston was from a clan and an inner circle of talented singers that amazed the world before her: Cissy Houston, Aretha Franklin, and Dionne Warwick. Contrary to popular notion, she was not related to Thelma Houston (nee Jackson), who was from Georgia, not New Jersey.

When I look at Houston's catalog, it reminds me of songs sung by Dionne Warwick. Nice songs. Clever songs. Hit songs. But *yawn* please: a little bit goes a long way. Warwick was a singer of brilliant and lovely songs from Hal David & Burt Bacharach; Houston did not have such a team behind her. While Warwick managed hits year after year after year, Houston's discography is rather limited.

If Houston had taken a different path in career development, she may have had more and bigger hits. I suspect that she never saw this footage of Ike & Tina Turner and the Ikettes on Playboy After Dark (or else she would have had a tad more soul and a tad less saccharine-sweetness):



That said, my words will never take away her legacy. Her huge hits, her cross-over success, and her rendition of the National Anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl are all part of cultural history.

I wish she had sung like Tina Turner, and her untimely death before a comeback leaves a gap in the music industry and music history.

Sad, But Not Unexpected Or Surprising

by Dick Mac

Through the years I have known quite a few drug addicts and alcoholics.

Intimately.

It seems that I gravitate towards people who like to drink and party. Far more than half of my friends throughout the years have been junkies or drunks or coke fiends (as I once heard them referred to in a movie). They are my favorite kind of people.

I've watched people recover from years of alcohol and drug abuse and go on to lead relatively healthy, normal lives.

I have seen people get sick, go crazy, lose everything, and become unemployable from years of drug and alcohol abuse.

I have seen people go to prison because of drug and alcohol abuse.

I have seen people die, die young, from diseases related to drug and alcohol abuse (AIDS, cirrhosis, renal failure, etc.); or the crimes and violence related to drug and alcohol abuse (drunk driving, shootings, robberies, etc.).

I was a volunteer in the Massachusetts Department of Corrections for five years in the mid-1990s. I had regular contact with inmates in many different prisons. Although I never kept count, nor did I meet every prisoner in the system, I would say that more than 75% of the men and women I met were imprisoned for a crime they committed directly related to their consumption or, or relationship to, drugs and alcohol.

As I've aged (and probably because I've become more cynical), it appears to me that most shootings that take place follow a pattern: 'I got drunk, had an argument with my husband and shot him' or 'I got drunk and when I came home my girlfriend was in bed with her ex, so I shot her' or 'I needed money to cop, so I robbed a convenience store and shot the clerk,' etc.

Are these representative of all the shootings in America? No, of course not. But I believe they are representative of a huge percentage of shootings in America and the story almost always includes some relationship to alcohol or drugs.

I am no prohibitionist. I do not think drugs and alcohol are inherently bad. I do not believe they should be outlawed. In fact, I believe that the decriminalization of all recreational drugs would greatly reduce the number of crimes committed by drug users, and would not increase the number of automobile fatalities or family shootings we currently witness.

The older (and more cynical) I get, the more I believe drugs are illegal to help prop-up the prison population. Incarceration is, after all, a growth industry in the United States. It may be the only growth industry in the United States! But, a discussion of privately-owned prisons for profit is a different discussion.

This is actually a discussion about Whitney Houston.

Watching her travel life's road from massive success and perhaps the greatest voice of her generation to an incoherent and decrepit drug addict has been sad. Nobody actually knows what leads one person to addiction and not another person from the same station in life, but theories prevail. And these theories, as fascinating as they may be, are not excuses for the excesses and destructive behavior of a drunk or junkie.

I wasn't a bug fan of her music. I believe she wasted that amazing voice singing saccharine-sweet pablum, instead of good, hard rock and soul. She was more like Dionne Warwick than Tina Turner. I always hoped that Houston would release an album of covers from Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and other hard-rocking singers; but it never happened.

Her rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl in 1991 was so amazing that it was released as a single. It reached the Top 20 on the Billboard charts. The only other recording of the song to break into the Hot 100 was Jose Feliciano's, which reached #50.

I understand that more details of her death will be released later today, but they are just details. Did she die of an overdoes, or did she take an overdose and drown? Did she have an accidental overdose, or was it suicide? Did her body just finally give out after years of hard living and massive drug use? Those are just details, like the color of the bathroom tiles and whether or not she was found dead in the nude. Irrelevant.

The story is the death of a woman at the relatively young age of 48. It is a sad story. And, sadly, a story we hear far too often.



Now THAT'S how to sing the National Anthem.

There will probably never be another voice that will sing that song so amazingly.

Godspeed.