South Korea Does What the USA Has Struggled To Do. We Should be Embarrassed and Ashamed.

Future South Korean President Yoon, former US President Trump. — South Korean President-to-be Yoon; US President-that-was-Trump

According to the New York Times, the presidential election was “so plagued by a series of scandals and marred by mudslinging between the parties that some in the electorate took to calling it a contest between two “unlikables.”

Conservative vs. liberal, experience vs political neophyte. Soaring housing prices, gender issues, a resurgent virus. dirty tricks. It was politics at its dirtiest.

But when the votes (over 31 million in a country of 51 million) were counted earlier this week, one candidate in South Korea’s presidential election, Mr. Yoon Suk-yeol of the People Power Party, held a minuscule lead of about 0.8 percentage points. And at 4 o’clock in the morning, his major opponent, Mr. Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party, did something that in the present-day US feels remarkable. Mr. Lee conceded the election.

Yes, you read that correctly. Not only did Mr. Lee concede to Mr. Yoon, as of today no one has called the election fake, fraudulent, corrupt, or a big lie.

Mr. Yoon will take office on May 10. At this time there are no lawsuits to deny him the presidency, no insane press conferences scheduled at Four Seasons Landscaping of Seoul, and the loser, Mr. Lee, has not been ignominiously banned from Twitter.

I lack in-depth knowledge of the politics of South Korea and know even less about the policies Mr. Yoon will favor. I suppose the talking heads on CNN and on Fox News will disagree about whether his victory is good or bad for the US. Not many people here will watch or care.

But what is most notable to me is that even in this day and age of social networking and misinformation, even with (or perhaps because of) a lunatic with a bad haircut staring at it from across its northern border, a country can still figure out how to do this most important part of democracy, the peaceful transition of power, and how to do it right.

And those of you in our country who don’t get that should be thoroughly ashamed.

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In Memorium: Duvall Hecht, The Man Who Let Me Listen

Duvall Hecht (1930-2022) Founder of Books on Tape.

The man who has helped keep me sane and happy over the last 17 years passed away last month in Costa Mesa, California, at the age of 91. His name was Duvall Hecht and though I had never met him his creation has been my daily companion on my long commute to the lab. In 1975 Mr. Hecht and his wife Sigrid invented Books on Tape.

Mr. Hecht founded B-o-T because wanted more things to listen to when he traveled. And once I started driving from the north suburbs to Westchester every day, I realized that I did too.

Barb actually tried audiobooks before I did, listening during her long drives to Joliet for a part-time hand therapy position. It was in her car that I had my first taste, catching a snippet of the Richard Russo novel “Empire Falls” while on a day trip. And I thought, “this could work for me, too.”

Thus began my long love affair with books on my car CD player. My passenger seat is never without a hard-plastic encased set of discs in their filmy envelopes. I have become adept at using one hand to fish the next CD out when the current chapter ends while driving at 80 75 65 mph on the Tri-State. Only once has a disc somehow found its way into the innards of the dashboard and disappeared for good.

And what a marvelous and varied bunch of novels I have listened to. I started with “East of Eden,” still one of my all-time favorite books. Of course, I had to listen to all of “Empire Falls,” and a whole bunch of other Russo books as well.

Oh, the places I have visited during my daily commute! I have traveled through Europe via Hemingway, explored Westeros and The Seven Kingdoms with George R. R. Martin, and ridden on the Underground Railway and to a reform school in Florida with Colson Whitehead. I have listened to Jack Reacher escape from dozens of impossible situations and heard Stephen King create dozens more. I heard Patti Smith tell her own rock’n’roll story in “The Kids are Alright,” and listened while Keith Richard shared the narration of “Life” with fellow mumbler Johnny Depp. And I laughed and cried while listening to “The Book Thief” and “All the Light We Cannot See.”

Lately, my car CD player has gotten squirrely. Every time I turn the car on, the CD backtracks, anywhere from 3 seconds to 3 minutes. I spend precious listening time figuring out where I am. And I know my next car won’t even have a CD player. Just one more reason to retire and say goodbye to my long commute.

But before I do, I want to bid Mr. Hecht a fond farewell. You powered me through the last 17 years, and for that, I am ever grateful.

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Hotel California. A Classic or a Nightmare–What Do You Think?

Hey boomers–any idea of how many “classic rock” radio stations are in the USA? Wikipedia lists 496 stations using some variation of that moniker. Assuming all are 24-hour a day broadcasters, that is 496 X 24 X 60 = 714,240 minutes of air time per day that these stations have to fill. Let’s guess that 214,20 minutes of that is filled with commercials, news, and DJ jabber. That leaves about half a million minutes a day for music.

And how do most classic rock radio stations fill that time? They play the Eagles “Hotel California.” And then they play it again.

You can travel anywhere in the country (we just spend a lovely week in Phoenix) and the results will be the same. The ethereal images, the dueling guitars, the Steely Dan reference, the never-ending fade, all those will follow you coast to coast. And you won’t escape it at 30,000 feet as ‘Hotel California” is certainly on your airline’s in-flight song menu as well.

It is quite possible that if you stacked up a new 45 rpm disc for each radio play in the last 45 years, you would end up with a pile 4.3 light-years tall, high enough to reach the star Alpha Centauri. And when you got there, some intergalactic radio station would be probably be playing the intro to “Hotel California.”

This isn’t to say some radio stations don’t occasionally get creative. If you listen long enough you may hear the rare playing of some other song from the Hotel California album. “New Kid in Town” frequently makes the cut. There is also a dictum that one out of every ten plays of “Hotel California” must be the live acoustic version from the “Hell Freezes Over” CD.

So whether you are in the fast lane, takin’ it easy, or taking it to the limit, you can be sure that when you check in to Hotel California, you can never leave.

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