War's Commercialism Is Too Depressing

One of the most depressing things about Operation Desert Storm was the commercialization which went on back home.

It never dawned on me that the war would spark the amount of sheer hucksterism which took place at every store and business in the United States.

Just color me naive.

It seems to have started within minutes after bombs were dropped. Shirts, flags, yellow ribbons, keychains, magnets, decals, stickers and, yes, condoms, all begging me to reach out and BUY, BUY, BUY!!!

C'mon, Gaba. It's for a good cause. Only $10. It's for life, liberty and the pursuit of BIG BUCKS.

Well, I don't need to buy some cheap red, white and blue thingamajig to show the world I'm an American. And given the permeation of this "these colors don't run" mentality across the board, I'm pretty proud to have NOT bought anything.

So goodbye and good riddance to this shameless exploitation. I was getting pretty sick of this whole "patriotism" thing, which got more overkill than either Michael Jackson's Thriller, Bo Jackson's two-sports status or Mike Tyson's hype ever did. Thank God it's over.

Or is it?

I see blatant, brazen commercials on television, showing off the Armed Forces. "Freedom isn't free," they exclaim.

They're right. The freedom our country gave to a no-vote-needed monarchy in Kuwait, just because we didn't like Saddam Hussein, sure wasn't free. We saw that every time we went to the gas pumps. We're still seeing it today.

Speaking of gas pumps, there are plenty of reaction-style ads for Big Oil. "Let's put our energy into saving it," one fuel company shouts at me.

See? No escape from the Storm.

Now, of course, we have a problem. Lots of money - including MY TAX MONEY - was spent. And the government needs more aid, because of the debts it incurred overseas.

So, here's a not-so-novel idea. How about the oil companies paying for the freedom they received to wipe out my paycheck for another day? Then, maybe, I'll buy a new bicycle. And save PLENTY of energy, if not frustration.

But even this I can live with. It's not the same as having an inner feeling of being cheated in life. Which I do.

See, I've always had this fascination with the Vietnam era. Not the war, per se. But the anti-war movement and civil rights actions that took place in the 1960s and early 1970s.

I wish I could take pare in a quantum leap, jumping back to Selma, Alabama, or Woodstock, or Kent State. Just to experience it. To be a part of it.

I wonder what it would be like to be involved with Flower Power, The British Revolution and "Make Love, Not War."

But I can't. I'm trapped in the 1990s, a castoff from a previous generation. I'll never be able to fully experience an era which, at times, I think I would have fit into much better.

What happened to all the great anti-war protests and songs?

This year, we were slapped across the ears with Whitney Houston doing a glitzy lip-synch version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl, and Bette Midler's wishful-thinking saga "From A Distance."

How about that inept all-star cover of John Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance"? The multi-voice choir should have given their efforts a break. Leave the original alone.

The radio was saturated with Lee Greenwood ("God Bless the USA") and Dennis DeYoung (lead singer of the popular rock band Styx), forced by local radio stations to share time with crying children, hysterical spouses and George Bush on an overly-dubbed version of "Show Me The Way," which, as far as I can tell from the lyrics, has NOTHING to do with Desert Storm.

I want some REAL patriotic music. How about songs like "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie? Or the Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers"?

What about classics like Edwin Starr's "War," Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" and Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth"?

Where's the lyrical spiritualism of a Dylan, a Pete Seeger? What happened to Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie and Country Joe & The Fish?

Where are the great protest singers of today?

I don't know.

And that's the most depressing part.

This article originally appeared in the Ogemaw County Herald.

Chanticleers, Emus Are Names To Reckon With

I am consistently fascinated by the naming of things.

For example, West Branch is south of South Branch, but north of North Branch, which is located far south of here, near Lapeer.

It's a pity there's no East Branch, because if there were, it would probably be located way north, near Harbor Springs. Nothing like keeping my directions straight on the state map.

On the map of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, you may have noticed a school called Coastal Carolina, which is nicknamed the Chanticleers.

The what?

The Chanticleers. After the rooster in Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Nun's Priest's Tail" in The Canterbury Tales.

Coastal Carolina was not the only team with a unique nickname. There were the Richmond Spiders, Murray State Racers, Wisconsin-Green Bay Fighting Phoenix and Wake Forest Demon Deacons.

And, of course, there's Eastern Michigan University, which has no official nickname. They used to be known as the Hurons, but that was before school officials decided that Native American tribes do not make suitable nicknames.

Just for the record, and not really meaning to harp on directional misnomers, but the Hurons are a tribe that the dictionary says come from west of Lake Huron. Ypsilanti, last time I checked, was not west of Lake Huron.

Anyway, the lack of a nickname left people calling Eastern the Emus - which is an ostrich-like bird as native to Ypsilanti as the Huron tribe.

I should note here that commentators on Cable News Network, ESPN and several radio stations broadcasting tournament games chose to keep calling Eastern the Hurons. They probably just didn't feel right about saying "Emus" on national broadcasts.

The last nickname-less team in the Big Show was Siena College, in 1989. They had dropped the moniker "Indians," but no one called them the Emus, either. They were dubbed the Measlemen, though, since there was a measles outbreak at the New York campus.

What's in a name? Well, names are a big part of schools today. And one of the things which has come up recently in the West Branch-Rose City School District is a change of name.

The thrust of this argument is that, having a two-sivyt, hyphenated name produces a division among the two cities within the district.

Maybe there's some merit in the idea to change the name. Suggestions I heard at a recent school board meeting included:

Ogemaw Consolidated Schools.

Ogemaw Hills Schools.

Ogemaw Area Schools.

If it would help ease whatever tensions exist between some residents in Rose City and West Branch, a name change would be great.

But then some people started talking about changing school nicknames. And colors. Somebody suggested making them uniform throughout the school district.

Well, hold on. Let's not get carried away.

Even if the district name is changed, there's no need to start messing with individual school nicknames. Surline can still be the Patriots, even though there's no team locally called the Scuds.

Rose City can remain the Wolverines. However, maybe the colors should be maize and blue. Just a thought.

Whatever. Just don't mess with the nicknames. You might end up having to dress some poor student up like an ostrich at sporting events.

This article originally appeared in the Ogemaw County Herald.