New York Past
The New York Post used to have five reasons for its continued existence. One, it had great headline writers; important articles and thoughtful opinions, of course, not so much. Two, it was founded by Fading Founding Father Alexander Hamilton who with the props provided by Lin-Manuel Miranda no longer needs the credit on his resume. Three, it had a wondrous New York sports section made obsolete by ESPN circa 1979. Four, its Page Six so successfully dove as low as possible for celebrity news and gossip but is sadly now rendered yesterday’s non-news by TMZ and the entire internet. Lastly, it employed folks and I believe it still does.
Five reasons now down to one, FOR.
Five million now up to five million and one, AGAINST.
That new one is the fact that they have located the only person on earth, the “auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles, Robert Barron”, who has managed to label John Lennon’s Imagine as “one of the worst pop songs of all time”. Listening to the song presented at the Tokyo Summer Olympics opening ceremony, he finds the “melody and arrangement are indeed beautiful, the lyrics are an invitation to moral and political chaos”.
Barron presents a religious screed of course and he is so entitled to that. He’s entitled also to warn us that we can never have heaven on earth, that we can only have heaven in heaven, where it belongs. And he can complain that there can’t be a “brotherhood of man” without “a common Father” while he’s at it. It’s called preaching I think, he’s probably quite good at it, and everyone’s entitled to preach to anyone who wants to hang in there and listen. And he’s entitled to guffaws and the suppression of guffaws listening to the lyrics, as Barron describes he did; it is a free world after all.
So the point is, this is on the bad old Post, not Barron. Preachers gonna preach, small church, the whole world if they can manage that. It was the Post after all that added the headline JOHN LENNON’S ‘IMAGINE’, BLARED AT THE OLYMPICS, IS A TOTALITARIAN’S ANTHEM. https://nypost.com/2021/07/25/imagine-blared-at-the-olympics-is-a-totalitarians-anthem/
That’s what the Post does, headlines, when they’re not busy inspiring one former president in 1989 to wrongfully attempt to lynch the Central Park Five, invading anyone and everyone’s privacy for any reason, falling in lockstep with the rest of the Fox News empire, and generally doing their daily part to make bipartisanship, compromise, reasoned discussion, and, yeah, peace on earth a little less likely.
And now, with a preacher’s words, they’ve brought Imagine into it. Please refrain. Imagine is an honest and concise review of a few thousand years of what has brought us to this point, weaved into a dream, a beautiful dream for humanity, simple as that. Call it long-term planning, a model, a vision. Just please don’t call it “an invitation to moral and political chaos” or headline it as “a totalitarian’s anthem".
Some might add, you’re better than that, New York Post, but I will have to disagree.