A SMALL ARMY OF LITTLE GOLDEN MEN

Body Worlds, Gunther Von Hagens & life itself

Since seeing the show at the Milwaukee Public Museum when it opened two weeks ago, I’ve been thinking a lot about Body Worlds, and I’ve been thinking a lot about Gunther Von Hagens, the German scientist and provocateur behind the international museum sensation. His name (and his image) is plastered all over the exhibition, and his vision is not just overt – it’s his signature. Von Hagens, with his trademark black fedora, sees himself as a maverick anatomist, a Renaissance man and an artist – a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci whose detractors are merely ignorant or unwilling to see the bigger picture. To the great writ of history, Vesalius is not a grave robber or an exhibitionist, a picture so many people are eager to paint of Von Hagens. Von Hagens, I assume, does not think history will treat him with such ill will, either, and in time, they will come to understand what we view now as grotesque eccentricities – his enduring fascination with public autopsy and dissection, for example. The bio on the Body Worlds website says it all: Gunther von Hagens’ life reads like an archetypal scientist’s resume — distinguished by early precocity, scholarship, discovery, experimentation, and invention. It is also the profile of a man shaped by extraordinary events, and marked by defiance and daring. Von Hagens’ two year imprisonment by East German authorities for political reasons, his release after a $20,000 payment by the West German government, his pioneering invention that halts decomposition of the body after death and preserves it for didactic eternity, his collaboration with donors including his best friend, who willed and entrusted their bodies to him for dissection and public display, and his role as a teacher carrying on the tradition of Renaissance anatomists, make his a remarkable life in science. Body Worlds, amid all of its shock and bravura and bragging feats of technique, carried one-word message for me, a word the Von Hagens publicity machine has used to describe the mastermind himself: defiance. Body Worlds is full of real displays of things that kill us – aneurysms and hemorrhages, cancerous growths, lungs clogged with tar – but above all it attempts to suggest that with science (and in particular with plastination) we have found a way to make the decay of the mortal body avoidable and therefore impotent; moreover, we have managed to make it possible for bodies in death to do what they could not do in life. It is likely – even probable – that the bodies posed as ballet dancers, gymnasts, horsemen, basketball players, skateboarders or practitioners of Tai Chi never did such things when they were alive. There’s a defiance, too, of the way we practice science today – with our heads, and not with our hearts – that Von Hagens is trying to challenge. By displaying the body in all of its grace, it is written in a Body Worlds text panel, it becomes evident to the viewer that something is missing – the […]

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A Hungry Nation

The presidential campaign of Barack Obama received a stunning boost this week after scoring a huge victory in South Carolina’s primary Saturday followed by endorsements from Caroline Kennedy, Sen. Edward Kennedy, and other members of one of the royal families of the Democratic Party. Much has been made about the negative tone that has recently permeated the contest between Obama and Hilary Clinton with most of the blame falling on the Clinton camp. To his credit, Obama has tapped into a positive vein that seems to be surging throughout the country at just the right time for his campaign. His “Audacity of Hope” rhetoric and determination to run an inclusive campaign contrasts sharply with the image projected by Sen. Clinton, her former president husband and her many experienced surrogates. Her campaign is heavily invested in promoting her not only as more experienced at governing but also more skilled at defending herself from the negative attacks that the Republicans will direct at whichever candidate the Democrats nominate. At this point in the campaign, the Clinton machine appears seriously out of touch with the mood of the nation. While the candidate and her supporters deny introducing the issue of race, you have to scratch your head and wonder “What was he thinking?” when you hear Bill Clinton dismiss Obama’s success in South Carolina by comparing it to Jesse Jackson’s victory in 1988. Coupled with former Atlanta mayor and United Nations ambassador Andrew Young’s absurd remark that Bill Clinton is more “black” than Obama because he bedded more black women and former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey’s repeated references to “Barack Hussein Obama” calls into question the whole notion that the Clintons offer the benefits of a well-oiled election machine. Clearly, it’s too early to call this race over. Only a fraction of the delegates necessary for nomination have been chosen. Tsunami Tuesday is next week when more than 20 states hold primaries and about 40 percent of the number of delegates needed to win will be divided up. But unlike the Republicans, the Democrats divide states up proportionately so that it is very likely that neither Obama nor Clinton will be in a position to declare the race over anytime soon. With all due respect to John Edwards, his inablity to win any of the early contests has made it difficult to imagine a scenario where he can catch either of the frontrunners. When asked, voters generally complain that there is too little attention paid to substantive issues and too much on the horse race. At this point, that seems a bit beside the point, at least as far as the Democratic contest goes. For one thing, there are very few significant differences between the two. Policy wonks will note that Clinton’s health care proposal pledges to provide universal access, while Obama’s falls short of that standard, popular as it is among the party faithful. But on Iraq, the economy, and so many issues their differences are minimal. The key variable which may […]

The Kennedy family endorses hope

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When Cans Got The Lip

Clearing the Air

A proposed ban on smoking in all workplaces in Wisconsin is stalled in the state legislature and that’s too bad. There’s no doubt that secondhand smoke is dangerous so it seems to me a no-brainer that no employee should be subjected to toxic air on the job. More than twenty states including New York, California, Illinois and Minnesota have passed smoke-free workplace measures and, as Gov. Doyle has pointed out, Wisconsin is in danger of becoming the ashtray of the Midwest. Even tobacco-addled countries like Ireland, Italy and France have enacted smoking bans, for heaven’s sake. Gov. Doyle reiterated his support for a ban on smoking in the workplace during last night’s State of the State address but it is unlikely to get very far this year. The Senate Public Health Committee passed a version of the ban earlier this month but Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker appears unwilling to bring the measure to a vote. He has called for supporters and opponents to work out a compromise which basically amounts to sweeping the bill under the rug. It’s a disappointing position for Decker to take since his rise to his leadership role was largely tied to his support for the Healthy Wisconsin proposal. Apparently, he wants Wisconsin residents to have access to health care as well as making sure they get exposed to air that can cause lung cancer, emphysema and other diseases so they need the coverage. I’d call that the “Full Employment for Healthcare Workers” platform. Most people recognize that the key stumbling block on this issue boils down to whether an exception should be allowed for bars and taverns. Opponents argue that the owners of places where people go to drink should be able to decide whether to permit smoking or not. Their customers, it is said, choose to spend their money there and are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like it. On the other hand, of course, bars and taverns are also workplaces and their employees are as entitled to clean air as everyone else. The bill passed by the Senate committee would give bars and taverns an extra year to comply with the ban but opponents apparently aren’t satisfied with that. The idea that waiters, waitresses and bartenders know that exposure to secondhand smoke comes with the job and could work elsewhere if they wanted to is bogus. I had a boss once who held meetings in his office where he smoked. They rest of us hated inhaling the smoke and we knew it wasn’t good for us. But it’s not that easy to find work or to tell a job supervisor you’d like them to be more sensitive to your needs. Newsrooms used to be as smoke-filled as any bar and that just doesn’t make it right. Interestingly, there appears to be widespread agreement on this issue. A variety of polls shows that more than two-thirds of people favor a ban on smoking in workplaces, including bars and taverns, and even […]

Our responsibility for the lying Bush

An Epic Loss

As we all know, it’s only a game. Yeah, sure, and Bill Gates is just a software salesman. With the nation in the throes of a presidential election clearly we should have more important things on our minds. During the week when we are supposed to pay attention to civil rights, social justice and other great issues associated with the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., it seems almost abhorrent to waste our breath and energy on a football game. But there you have it. Nothing unifies Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin more than our devotion to the Green Bay Packers. Our state may be divided between Democrats and Republicans, haves and have-nots, urban and rural, etc., but our identification with the Green and Gold is just about universal. So what transpired at Lambeau Field on Sunday has got to be Topic A this week, at least until we all process what happened, as best as possible, so we can move on to other things. First of all, I have something to put on the record. I grew up in New York but I was rooting for the Packers to advance to the Super Bowl and beat the Patriots. As a native of Queens, I have always considered myself a fan of the Mets, Jets and Knicks. All three teams won their respective championships within a year and a half of my tenth birthday. That kind of celestial alignment has a way of imprinting a lifelong connection between a boy and his teams. When I moved to Wisconsin eight years ago, I had been told that the state’s association with the Packers was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I was a bit skeptical since New York fans are pretty intense themselves. Also, I had lived in the Washington, DC area for 15 years and that community’s association with the Redskins is also remarkably monolithic. But there are many more transplants in the New York and DC areas so the percentage of devoted fans is much higher here so I can confirm that the devotion of Packer fans exceeds any team loyalty I have witnessed. I’ve grown to cheer for the Packers and their remarkable run this year was great fun if ultimately heartbreaking. The epic loss on Sunday was doubling disappointing because they were Favred to win, (excuse me), favored to win and they were playing in the welcoming surroundings of a home field. But following a closely fought contest that went into overtime, it will be the Giants who advance to the Super Bowl. Surely, there is no need to recount the details but it was an interception thrown by the great number 4 himself that gave the Giants kicker the opportunity to redeem himself for two earlier misses and score the winning field goal. Ouch. So now Packer nation must lick its wounds and breathlessly anticipate next season. The team is young and its future is bright. The big unknown, of course, is whether […]

Martin Luther King Jr and Politics as Usual

Outside the Free Speech Zone