Hang in there, folks. It won't be long before long-cherished schisms return to American life. Like all good things, even the New, Improved Patriotism of the moment has to end sometime.
As we emerge from two weeks of mourning, resolved to "do whatever it takes" to bring down bin Laden's terrorist network, some of us have noticed institutional assaults on liberty and common sense that can only be described as silly, but we've been too polite to say it.
There's definitely something to the cliche about too much enthusiasm for war clouding one's mind. Unfortunately, there aren't any manuals -- other than the Constitution -- that explain how we should behave when our republic is threatened.
We've been more confused than enlightened by the orgy of "feel-good" media we've had to swallow for patriotism's sake in recent days, but we're not brain-dead, yet.
When Clear Channel, the nation's largest radio network, circulated a list of 150 songs it "suggested" its 1,100 affiliates not play out of respect for the sensibilities of folks watching saturation coverage of the catastrophe on television, everyone knew the chain had crossed the Rubicon of absurdity.
The songs deemed too sensitive for public consumption included Steve Miller's "Jet Airliner," the Pretenders' "My City Was Gone," Kansas' "Dust in the Wind," Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," Van Halen's "Jump," Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets," Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky," Cat Stevens' "Morning Has Broken," Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," Dave Matthews' "Crash Into Me" and the Hollies' "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother."
Not content to merely gobble up the airwaves in the wake of deregulation, Clear Channel wants to provide America with a soundtrack for its grief so sanitized and irrelevant that the merest hint of a reality beyond "Louie, Louie" is considered too painful for "traumatized" listeners. This is, ultimately, too threatening to its bottom line.
That's why sensible folks appreciated Neil Young performing John Lennon's "Imagine" during the benefit concert Friday for the families of the victims of the terror attacks. We were also grateful to Paul Simon for singing "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on the same show. Both are on Clear Channel's list of songs with enduring spiritual value, but unfortunate titles that remind us of our fragile humanity. Both performances were a rebuke to corporate presumption.
Fortunately, Clear Channel's silliness isn't a serious threat to civil liberties, though its censorious urges are indicative of how superficial the soul-searching by our big cultural institutions really is.
It's going to get sillier before it gets better. Several nights ago, a friend waited in vain for Bravo to televise Costa-Gavras' "Missing," a political thriller with a title that obviously made the network nervous. It was replaced by "The Ice Storm," Ang Lee's meditation on serial adultery in the suburbs, a far more disturbing film than "Missing" in the grand scheme of things.
Ever since Sept. 11, the entertainment-industrial complex has taken to second-guessing itself. After denying for years that its products have a subliminal effect on consumers, album art is being recalled, movie releases are postponed and song lists are scrutinized like never before.
If Hollywood suddenly woke up and realized it was the world's biggest purveyor of unadulterated crap, that would be one thing. But this sudden "concern" for America, evidenced in the need to "protect" us, feels inauthentic and hypocritical.
Some folks applauded Dan Rather's weeping on "Late Night with David Letterman" even while dreading -- with good reason -- the possibility of similar crying jags by rival network anchors seeking to close the now-yawning "compassion gap." As breakdowns go, at least Dan's was unscripted.
As irritating as these things are, it's the local stuff that scares me. Last week, the Pittsburgh Public Schools tried to fire a middle school teacher for jotting quotes in the margin of a newspaper that another teacher considered sympathetic to Osama bin Laden.
It was a baseless charge and, fortunately, the teacher, who is writing a book about overcoming adversity, was cleared. He was lucky. The American Civil Liberties Union was on the job and Pittsburgh wasn't so blinded by fear that we didn't recognize institutional overreaction and stupidity for what it was. But thanks to the false patriotism of our corporate nannies, we'll have plenty of opportunities to capitulate to such idiocies in the days ahead.
Tony Norman's e-mail address is: tnorman@post-gazette.com
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