Balance

I recently heard it said of Stalin - and I have heard this on many lips about him and other deceased despicables - "I hope he's rotting in hell". I take this to mean that the wretch in question is still somehow conscious and experiencing great suffering. I also infer that the opiner thinks that this somehow redresses a balance, maybe not completely or even much, but to some extent or other. He caused others to suffer, he should take on suffering himself albeit post-mortally.

Seems to me, rather than redressing a balance, even slightly, this would merely cause it to tilt worse. Stalin's post-passing purgatory merely adds to the suffering quotient rather than depleting it. What might actually redress the balance would be latter day rulers taking a lesson from history and not repeating it - or latter day superpowers doing more to prevent it globally. To the extent that Bush and Blair were trying to ditch a Stalin from Iraq, they perhaps deserve our plaudits (the subsequent quagmire notwithstanding). We can all help redress the balance tipped by ill-doers by at least striving to do the Right Thing ourselves, rather than wasting time cursing the deceased.

Bobby and Phillip

Meet Bobby. Bobby was a quarterback on the University of Virginia football team in the early 1990s who threw 24 touchdown passes - a pretty good record I would say, the sign of consummate athlete. We are told that Bobby is now a senior specialist in the Marketing & Promotional Services at the company that posted his bio on their Website. His role is "to ensure a positive telephone customer experience for Marlboro, Basic, Virginia Slims and Parliament consumers". Bobby works for Phillip Morris, America's largest tobacco company. Why did he sign up? Because " I knew it would be the beginning of a long career filled with opportunities". I see.

"...cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers. Smokers are far more likely to develop serious diseases, like lung cancer, than non-smokers. There is no safe cigarette." This is from PM's own Website. So is "Our goal is to be the most responsible, effective and respected developer, manufacturer and marketer of consumer products...". According to Allan Brandt (article in Denver Post, March 4th), 450,000 deaths in the US each year are attributable to cigarettes. Although PM has finally acknowledged the harmfulness of cigarettes, it continues to show its "responsibility" by investing $15 billion annually in promotion of cigarettes and increasing the percentage of nicotine in its cigarettes in an effort to stem quitting, and is so successful recruiting "replacement smokers" in foreign lands for the ones that manage to give up in the US that PM International sells four times a s many cigarettes as its American sister company. Brandt points to a WHO report that predicts that tobacco-related deaths in this century will exceed one billion - ten times as many as the century just ended. Which raises the question in my mind - how does anyone who works for PM sleep at night?

A word of advice to Bobby on his employment with PM - just quit.

Huang Chung Tonight

I just received The Best of Wang Chung from my CD club www.yourmusic.com, a bargain at 6 bucks! The late 70's produced a number of bands that were, to coin an oxymoron, "intelligent punk" - children of the mid-70's punk phenomenon that were talented nevertheless - The Police, XTC and Tears for Fears come to mind. Huang Chung were trying to break into this niche when we used to go down to the 101 Club in Clapham and see them perform, led by Sting-wannabe Jack Hues (the liner notes of this CD are very informative - Jack attended the Royal College of Music and "Jack Hues" (note "Hues" not "Hughes") is a nom de tune based on "j'accuse"!). Some of the songs we heard there appeared on their first album (which I still have), including the wonderfully titled I Never Want to Love You in a Half Hearted Way ( "a love that's fallen, that makes no sense Is better than indifference"), Hold Back the Tears and Dancing.

Richard, Duncan and I loved those songs (and I still do), though, sadly but predictably, none of these appear on the Best of. For Huang was westernized to Wang and the band's thoughts turned to having fun - Dance Hall Days, What's So Bad About Feeling Good, Everybody Have Fun Tonight. As these titles suggest, the band turned bland and these are lightweight catchy offerings compared with the initial promise of Huang. But that said, they are fun stuff, Jack's unique intonation is ever-catchy, and there are flashes of brilliance here and there: Everybody is an infectious dance number (with the now classic lyric "everyone wang chung tonight") that includes a wonderfully anomalous middle section - modulating down a major third, Jack suddenly bursts out "On the edge of oblivion All the world is Babylon And all the love and everyone A ship of fools sailing on". I guess the message is "enjoy now for tomorrow we die". And Don't Let Go is somewhat Huang-ish in its pulsing verses. Worth 6 bucks, but hardly worthy of the moniker on the CD cover "20th Century Masters".

Wang's last album was 1989's Warmer Side of Cool. It's final track is something unusual for them - a slow heavy number, worthy of 70's Genesis, whose repeating chorus contains a brief excerpt from Huang's Dancing. I guess dancing music was what they were about all along!