YESTERDAY, the Houston Chronicle purported to honor "generations of Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice" with two whole paragraphs. The balance of the eleven-graf Memorial Day editorial was about . . .
. . . "succulent corn."
No joke.
Has there ever been a more awkward and inapt pairing of topics in a single essay north of a fifth-grade classroom?
Topic one: "the ultimate sacrifice."
Transition: "Memorial Day also has a lighter side . . . ."
Topic two: "a farm staple that recently was added to the nation's fuel supply in the form of ethanol."
But how these topics were linked is ultimately less important than why. And why is no mystery.
With one honorable exception last Christmas, the Houston Chronicle has never in the past decade, to my best knowledge, written an editorial about any American civic holiday that was not negative, weirdly ironic, dismissive, or snotty. Not for the Fourth of July. Not for Thanksgiving. Not for Flag Day. And again, not for Memorial Day.
It's a matter of honor at the newspaper, apparently, to write nothing at all about these days (in most instances) or to write something that preserves the editors' precious critical distance from such unclever events.
Monday's editorial used three devices to denigrate Memorial Day and the men and women it was meant to honor.
The first, of course, was to devote only two paragraphs to the subject. Brevity here was the soul of a witting insult. [The online version compounds the crime. It has only one paragraph about Memorial Day.]
Second, read those two paragraphs [or one] carefully and you will see that they are descriptive, not exhortative. The editors did not urge readers to honored our military dead. The editors merely declared, "Today we honor generations of Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice while guarding our freedom and democracy."
True enough, but terribly, terribly bloodless, cold, unengaged.
Third, by reserving their real passion for the second topic, "succulent corn," the editors signaled that flags and caskets and tears, that military honor and sacrifice, that the consequent blessings of peace and liberty, were of little real importance compared to this:
Corn doesn't seem very mysterious to us, but it has puzzled investigators of its origins since colonists and conquistadors found American Indian populations [read American Indians] cultivating it.
No similar wild varieties of corn have been discovered in nature, leading to conjecture about where and when native Americans domesticated it and created a food source that now supplies more than 20 percent of human nutrition worldwide.
As reported by the New York Times by University of Wisconsin molecular biologist and geneticist Sean B. Carroll . . . .
And that's where the moral gag reflex cries: No more! No more!
As the editorial ends, the old, dead dudes at America's veterans' cemeteries are long forgotten. Here's the Houston Chronicle's summing up of Memorial Day 2010:
Corn's backstory pays tribute to the talents and perseverence of our continent's first farmers.
Appalling, indecent, and shameful.
(Editorial, "On this day . . . we honor the sacrifice of service members and welcome the lazy days of summer," Houston Chronicle, May 31, 2010, published online in edited form under this headline: "An earful: Mystery surrounds a summer staple: corn")
* * *
When the Chronicle is not committing capital crimes, it commits misdemeanors.
The newspaper was right, in its own timid way, to say recently that "offshore oil and gas well are likely to remain a crucial source of energy for the county." Scratch "are likely to" and insert "will" and you've got it.
But the editorial board, out of step with liberal orthodoxy on this point, preserves its leftist credentials by refusing to say offshore drilling is a good thing for its own sake. As always the Chronicle favors offshore drilling for one reason only: for this bridge-over-troubled-waters metaphor:
We continue to believe in the future of the offshore industry and the constructive role it can play in building a safe, reliable bridge to the future built on sustainable energy.
(Editorial, "Sore subject: As spill widens, decisions arise about future offshore drilling," Houston Chronicle, May 27, 2010)
* * *
On that same day, the Chronicle opined in favor of so-called merit-selection of Texas judges, as opposed to good old-fashioned election by voters. (Editorial, "Supremely put: O'Connor's call for merit selection deserves consideration in Texas," Houston Chronicle, May 27, 2010)
The newspaper's criticisms of the practice are basically right, though I would nitpick the details and reach a different conclusion. Electing judges may have problems, but having them appointed by a committee of Clever People would be far worse. That's the pathway to rule by judges. Which might be okay with the Chronicle, but it would be slow death to consent of the governed and to Texas as an exceptional state.
The judicial selection committee might be nonpartisan in name, but the redhots would capture it in a generation, with the the Chronicle cheering from the sidelines.
Electing judges is the worst method of judicial selection except all the others that have been tried.
You said: "Electing judges is the worst method of judicial selection except all the others that have been tried." And I agree.
Which begs the question: Why hasn't there been a serious attempt to change the way Federal Judges are chosen or the length of their terms?
"Electing judges may have problems, but having them appointed by a committee of Clever People would be far worse. That's the pathway to rule by judges. Which might be okay with the Chronicle, but it would be slow death to consent of the governed and to Texas as an exceptional state."
Is that not what we have in the case of the Supreme Court now?
Posted by: Rorschach | June 1, 2010 at 12:55 PM