The Linear Canvas

I wrote this in October 1999. It was published in the USA Today newspaper. I just found it in a box the other day and I thought I’d share it. It was a comment on an article that had been published in the USA Today about how the East Germans were resentful that their lives had changed so dramatically since the fall of communism. The text was heavily edited by the editors at USA Today, but it is mostly as originally written

I wasn’t shocked to read in USA TODAY that some Germans in the eastern part of Germany aren’t liking capitalism as well they did communism ("Glow is wearing off in the east," News, Oct. 11). A certain level of corruption is not unique to either communism or capitalism. Under communism, everyone suspected the government was corrupt, but could do nothing about it. With capitalism, people know the government is corrupt, but unfortunately, they still cannot do anything about it. But of the two alternatives, I prefer at least knowing.

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After the hurricanes and recent earthquakes, almost every televangelist fell over themselves predicting the start of the end of the world. They imply the destruction of New Orleans was the wrath of God, for all of the sin that has happened there. Of course they never mention all of the poor Christians that died or were made homeless. Churches and schools were destroyed because God doesn’t like Mardi Gras and Bourbon Street?

Following the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906, about the only thing left standing was the A.P. Hotaling’s Whiskey Warehouse. A local poet was inspired to write:

If, as some say, God spanked the town
For being over frisky
Why did he burn the churches down
And save Hotaling’s whiskey?

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"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."

-Martin Niemoeller