Dedicated to My Father

It's gonna take a lotta love
To change the way things are.
It's gonna take a lotta love
Or we won't get too far.

So if you look in my direction
And we don't see eye to eye,
My heart needs protection
And so do I.

It's gonna take a lotta love
To get us thru the night.
It's gonna take a lotta love
To make things work out right.

So if you are out there waitin'
I hope you show up soon,
'Cause my head needs relatin'
Not solitude.

Gotta lotta love
Gotta lotta love.

It's gonna take a lotta love
To change the way things are.
It's gonna take a lotta love
Or we won't get too far.

A Prophet in His Hometown Reflects

Then they scoffed, "He's just the carpenter's son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers--James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things?"
__________

Each of us aspire to be important to someone. This can mean being the best father or mother to one's children, or the best librarian to care for patrons. For me, aspirations and goals are close to the same thing. I want to be a well-regarded writer of essays and short fiction. I want to be a male feminist who consistently challenges himself to learn more, to know more. I want to learn more about the guitar and become a better musician.

In my Quaker world, my aspirations have begun to flower. For one thing, there aren't very many of us out there. On the East Coast, where I live now, there are probably somewhere around 100,000 Friends. I will never meet all of them, regrettably, but paths have crossed, usually at conferences. I have shared space with many others who share my faith and my passions.

Young adults are a minority within the Religious Society of Friends. As you might imagine, it doesn't take long to make acquaintance with the same few hundred socially active young people. We are the most committed and most serious about our faith, the sort that stick out notably on First Days (Sundays) at our home Meetings. Speaking for myself, my reasonably young age has only accentuated my distinctions. Word of mouth speaks with greater influence than any column I write.

The East Coast corridor of liberal Friends stretches from roughly North Carolina to Philadelphia and up into New England. Ever since I left Alabama, I've jumped into the middle of the historic avenues of influence and, dare I say it, power. The past six years of hard work have given me a name and a reputation, one I didn't recognize fully until I came back home.

Everyone seems to think of me as the local boy done good. Three men had prominent man crushes on me, which is flattering and uncomfortable at the same time. The one closest to my age asked me for my opinion on a particular matter. I was glad to oblige him, though I don't consider myself the sole authority by any stretch of the means. A little hero worship isn't a bad thing and I'll allow myself to appreciate it.

Ever since I left, my writings, podcast interviews, blogging, and publication in Quaker periodicals have given me a following. Unlike Jesus, a return to my hometown showed how far I've come, not a summary rejection. I planted myself in the middle of a city where many aspire to great influence, in many avenues, and won a share of it myself. This did not come easily.

Some may know my name, but never know my face. I'm perfectly content with this. Part of being a Quaker is a strong discouragement of hierarchy. Individual accomplishments are to be downplayed, and to be sure, I never find myself drawn to false humility. Strict humility, however, means perpetual anonymity, and my own leadings are too strong for that. I'm a leader with ability. In a different age, I would have requested and been granted a formal designation of recorded minister, a belief that my vocal ministry and life's example were clear gifts from God.

As I said, I will allow myself a particular length of time to appreciate a few starry-eyed Quakers. I tend to impress others with a unique combination of vulnerability and thoughtful insight. There's no turning back now, and I wouldn't want that for myself. There are greater goals and aspirations for me now. Everything is set in motion. God pushes me to greater service for his sake and his plan, whatever it may be.

Teen Rebellion Revisited

For the past couple of days, I've been sleeping in the same bedroom I did as a teenager. Since then, it has sat largely vacant as child after child grew old enough to leave the nest, to move away forever. I remember its original configuration with omnipresent CD player and two large speakers, which were the center of my very existence back then. The adjacent bathroom featured some of my worst moments, the end products of my first few encounters with hard liquor. The wallpaper is the same as it was then, adamantly masculine with aggressive blue and white stripes.

Twenty (gulp) years ago, I was sneakily rebellious, the first kid to apologize to indignant parents incensed about the smell of marijuana in their homes. I was a good-natured charmer who knew all the right things to say, even if they weren't truly sincere. In the vicinity of a now-closed movie theater, I came across two members of my 11th grade biology class, both girls. I was smoking a cigarette, and though they were brave enough to ask me for one, one of the pair noted how surprised she was that I smoked.

I'm afraid it was far worse than that. I drove home from wild parties far too intoxicated to have any business behind the wheel. The police busted one of them because a neighbor had complained about the noise. The cops didn't intend to arrest anyone, just to tell the party-goers to turn down the music. Instead, the arrival of law enforcement caused mass panic. One guy tried to jump over a barbed wire fence and didn't quite make it, cutting a large hole in one jeans-covered pant leg and lacerating a thigh badly enough that it required stitches.

The feminist writer Jessica Valenti once described herself in a younger age as a party girl. If that is the case, then I most assuredly was a party boy. Friday and Saturday nights were packed full of rock concerts at an open-air amphitheater ten miles away. Parties followed next. I saw some of the best alternative rock groups of the 1990's in person and can wax nostalgic about those experiences if I wish. Some of the girls got a head start with drinking, conning and flirting shamelessly with older men to buy them beer, even resorting to bribery when necessary. Supplying minors with alcohol was against the law, but that only made them more determined.

One of my sisters exceeded me in her risk-taking behavior and usage of illegal substances. I never tried to top or better her because she was very unskilled in covering her tracks, meaning my father always found out everything eventually. She had older friends already in college who would pick her up late at night when my parents had gone to bed. Sneaking out through a bedroom window, she got away with it for a while, but her repeated absences at school became too numerous to go unnoticed.

I've never told her that I know about her decision to pose nude for a website. The act itself doesn't really surprise me, but this secret is going to die with me. She had good sense enough to use a pseudonym during the shoot but I would rather she cover every square inch of her body in ink than leave physical evidence like this that will never go away. I support her right to do what she did, certainly, and the rights of all who voluntarily contribute their naked selves for the gratification of others.

I know she must have gotten a few hundred bucks for the effort. All I can say is that I hope her intention was not a result of extreme financial need and that she doesn't regret the decision in the future. As I recall, she posed nude for art classes while in college, but that has a somewhat classier ring to it. What I will say, by way of conclusion, that it does make one pause when a close family member is involved in pornography.

Thus ends another autobiographical tale of debauchery and dashed dreams. Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well.

Christmas Quote of the Week

"Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide–open–heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years...Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart."- George Matthew Adams

Marching on Washington Ain't the Answer

This particular speaker, the Harlem-based preacher James David Manning, has been known for his hateful invective and belief in conspiracy theories. Here, I think he has a particular point. I don't agree with it, but it is worthy of contemplation.

Saturday Christmas Video

God rest ye merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.

Remember Christ our savior,
Was born on Christmas Day.

To save us all from Satan's power,
When we were gone astray.

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

God rest ye merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.

Remember Christ our savior,
Was born on Christmas Day.

To save us all from Satan's power,
When we were gone astray.

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.

Notice

I will be back home in Alabama starting early Monday morning until December 30. Posting will be sporadic at best, since I intend to spend a good bit of time with family.

But in the meantime, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2015.

Book Review: Nick Drake, Remembered for a While

The just-released don't-call-it-a-biography will please both the casual fan and obsessive completist of Nick Drake's music. For starts, it is in large part the work of Nick's sister, Gabrielle, who wanted to personally correct the misconceptions, myths, and legends that have been told about her brother since his tragic death in 1974. When facts and details are sparse, the human mind produces a convincing facsimile of truth.

Nick Drake: Remembered for a While is beautifully designed, particularly showcasing Drake's handwritten lyrics. But in the midst of beauty comes numerous anecdotes from those who knew him when he was alive. It seems that most people, aside from family, found him distant and secretive. He curiously had no documented love life, few (if any) partners, and gives the impression at times of almost being asexual. Though at times his lyrics entertain the idea of romance and love, he does not elaborate. Outside commentators have suggested Drake might have been gay and closeted. Though this is possible, it is impossible to prove convincingly.    
 
Some know of Nick Drake the depressive more than the folk musician, and, to be sure, that information is provided as well. The most harrowing passage comes transcribed directly from the journals that Nick's father kept to document his son's daily struggles. Some were better than others, but it is clear that for the last two unhappy years of his life he was a semi-recluse. During this last period, he produced a total of four new songs, but was in no condition to record upon arrival at the studio. He rarely left his childhood home and the company of his parents, passing away at only 26 due to what the family insists was an accidental, or at least incautious overdose of antidepressant medication.

During his lifetime, as has often been noted, Nick Drake's pathological shyness meant that he played few live shows. A list provided early in the book documents the handful of gigs he performed, which are more than one might initially think, but far fewer than needed for greater success. But he did play enough gigs to attract the attention of Joe Boyd, the American emigre and up-and-coming record producer.

Boyd had produced the first single and a live recording of a group then called The Pink Floyd. He now sought to commit Nick's music to tape. The British music press gave Drake's first album, Five Leaves Left, scant notice, as they would for the whole of the short time he was actively recording.

Past thinkers have tried to posthumously diagnose Drake from a psychiatric standpoint. The book never makes a formal medical judgment. We know that Nick Drake was a depressive personality who, at least part of the time, took medication to treat it. At the end of his life, he toyed with the idea of electroshock therapy but never committed to it. Psychiatry was not nearly as evolved forty years ago, but in fairness he never took medication long enough for it to reach its optimum effectiveness, a far-too-common complaint with those who suffer with mental illness.

As intended, this book is the authorized companion to the music of Nick Drake. Fans should dig out their copies of his albums to play along with their reading. The book somewhat cautiously reveals the most sensitive information, not willing to resort to sensationalizing. But what awaits us is the most intimate and complete rendering of yet another musician who died at too young an age.

Doctor My Eyes

Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears without crying
Now I want to understand

I have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good without hiding
You must help me if you can

Doctor, my eyes, tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long?

'Cause I have wandered through this world
And as each moment has unfurled
I've been waiting to awaken from these dreams

People go just where they will
I never noticed them until I got this feeling
That it's later than it seems

Doctor, my eyes, tell me what you see
I hear their cries, just say if it's too late for me

Doctor, my eyes, cannot see the sky
Is this the price for having learned how not to cry?

Suffer Unto Us

But Jesus called them unto him, and said, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God."

The majesty and eloquence of the King James Bible does this passage well.

Laws and statutes, lawyers and judges, each of these have granted leniency for minors. This is thought to give childhood offenders the chance to redeem themselves before they reach adulthood. It is my opinion that we ought to consider extending the same fair consideration to those of legal age. While I believe in the rule of law and do not consider my own judgment necessarily superior to those of the professionals, I think that many harsh policies which sound good upon proposal often ultimately backfire. Such was the fate of three-strikes-and-you're-out.

In many states, paradoxically those who have declined additional federal funding, Medicaid requirements extend coverage to children, but not to childless adults. I'm sure it gives some politician or bureaucrat great pleasure to trim newly turned 18-year-olds from the rolls, saving money in the process.  By implication, rules and regulations value young lives more than older ones. Television commercials beg us to think of the children, showing poverty-stricken, fly-infested, and emaciated children from the Third World.

The novelty of some foreign land on a different continent can't open checkbooks soon enough. The poverty of African-Americans across town, however, are not treated with the same way. We don't need interpreters or television commentators to explain to us what we see on the wrong side of the tracks, on the other side of town.  ­­­­­­

Why do we value the lives of children in ways that we do not adults? It is true that children are generally impressionable, vulnerable, and easy to deceive. Criminals are supposedly the most evil and corrupted among us, but many of them retain a soft spot for kids.

As I've noted a time or two before, the reason that Medicaid in the District of Columbia, where I call home, offers full dental coverage is due to the tragic death of a child whose severely abscessed tooth led to his death. His parents let the abscess progress to a fatal state because they lacked the money to pay for the procedure. If this had happened to an adult instead, I wonder if the status quo would still be in place.

The 1931 German movie M tells a story of a child serial killer. When the police prove clueless and ineffective, organized crime takes over. A serial killer who preys on children is simply bad for business. In one memorable scene, the actor, a young Peter Lorre, is tried before a jury of his peers, that being his fellow criminals. One hopes that our society does not degenerate enough that the police are ineffective and incompetent. Justice in America, not the Weimar Republic, is, in some ways, the very opposite. It is too aggressive and too punitive.

We ought to treat everyone as though they could quite possibly possess the trusting innocence and purity of a child. Jesus told us that we won't attain the Kingdom of God unless we enter his spiritual kingdom on those terms. His implication was not that we be childish, but that we instead be childlike, pushing our skepticism and doubting aside. A strictly logical and cynical person might find this concept threatening and not especially empowering, but letting go has its place.

Many Quakers have felt led to prison ministry, which is hard work. It is true that prisons hold remorseless sociopaths, but they also hold those who are victims of circumstance. Our national discourse has talked about the vast numbers of black men who are currently incarcerated. It's easy to throw up walls, literally and figuratively. If our very salvation depends upon trust and cooperation, we have sadly gone astray. I'm not inclined to froth at the mouth, nor to use forceful, coarse language to illustrate my points, instead to angle for truths even a child could understand.

The initial outrage is over. Everyone must now work together. Having now identified the problem, we must enter into solemn, sacred covenant with each other. The American people need to sign a peace treaty, a legally binding document that will allow us greater comprehension and communication with each other. It should not be a half-measure, a compromise, or a document written out of barely restrained resentment. It should be genuine and crafted with genuine thought and consideration.

Pity is a human emotion that has its place, but what needs changing has no need to tug at heartstrings. Melodrama, too, should consign itself to plays and films, not wholesale manipulation. We are saved by Grace. There is nothing we can do to win treasure in Heaven. It is instead a free gift, freely given by someone who sees us as his children.

Quote of the Week

"All those writers who write about their own childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn't sit in the same room with me."-Dorothy Parker

Saturday Video

The new Nick Drake "companion to the music" (don't call it a biography) is excellent. It is recommended highly even to casual fans of Drake's work. The beautifully compiled book is titled simply Nick Drake: Remembered for a While. Consider it for Christmas presents.

 

 

A city freeze get on your knees
Pray for warmth and green paper
A city drought, you’re down and out
See your trousers don’t taper

Saddle up kick your feet
Ride the range of a London street
Travel to a local plane
Turn around and come back again

And at the chime of a city clock
Put up your road block
Hang on to your crown

For a stone in a tin can
Is wealth to the city man
Who leaves his armour down

Stay indoors beneath the floors
Talk with neighbours only
The games you play make people say
You’re either weird or lonely

A city star won’t shine too far
On account of the way you are
And the beads around your face
Make you sure to fit back in place

And at the beat of a city drum
See how your friends come in twos,
Or threes or more
For the sound of a busy place
Is fine for a pretty face
Who knows what a face is for

The city clown will soon fall down
Without a face to hide in
And he will lose if he won’t choose
The one he may confide in

Sonny boy with smokes for sale
Went to ground with a face so pale
And never heard about the change
Showed his hand and fell out of range

In the light of a city square
Find out that face that’s fair
Keep it by your side
When the light of the city falls
You fly to the city walls
Take off with your bride

But at the chime of a city clock
Put up your road block
Hang on to your crown

For a stone in a tin can
Is wealth to the city man
Who leaves his armour
Down

More Shameless Self-Promotion

Here I am again, a caller on a sports radio show. Listen for me beginning at the 5:20 mark.

Sail Away

I could live inside a tepee
I could die
in Penthouse thirty-five

You could lose me on the freeway
But I would still
make it back alive.

As long as we can sail away
As long as we can sail away
There'll be wind in the canyon
Moon on the rise
As long as we can sail away.

See the losers in the best bars
Meet the winners in the dives
Where the people are the real stars
All the rest of their lives.

As long as we can sail away
As long as we can sail away
There'll be wind in the canyon
Moon on the rise
As long as we can sail away.

There's a road
stretched out between us
Like a ribbon on the high plain
Down from Phoenix through Salinas
'Round the bend and back again.

As long as we can sail away
As long as we can sail away
There'll be wind in the canyon
Moon on the rise

As long as we can sail away
As long as we can sail away.

The Mind of the South

Now that I have relocated nearly 750 miles northeast from the South, I have moved from a solidly Republican region to a solidly Democratic one. I'm happy where I live, but I am more refugee than immigrant. Immigrants assimilate with great purpose to a new culture, but refugees retain a strong identification with home. I lament the inability to find overcooked, oversalted vegetables seasoned with pork or the proper form of cornmeal by which to make cornbread.

When traveling home or waiting in airports, I automatically gravitate to others from my state of birth. I deliberately seek out those with Alabama t-shirts on, engaging in enthusiastic small talk, most often about football or sports. Part of this comes from growing up in a small state with a population of only 4.8 million people. The city I live in now has more inhabitants than the entire state of my birth.

One topic is noticeably absent: politics. A sharp and immediate difference separates me from most Alabamians, and for that matter, most Southerners. I'm a liberal Democrat. They're usually conservative Republicans. For this reason, I simply don't go there. The conventional wisdom is that our country is as ideologically divided as it ever has been. I'm not convinced.

Writing in the Daily Beast, Michael Tomsky writes, with no small derision, about a new solid South.

It’s lost. It’s gone. A different country. And maybe someday it really should be. I’ll save that for another column. Until that day comes, the Democratic Party shouldn’t bother trying. If they get no votes from the region, they will in turn owe it nothing, and in time the South, which is the biggest welfare moocher in the world in terms of the largess it gets from the more advanced and innovative states, will be on its own, which is what Southerners always say they want anyway.

Once part of the New Deal Coalition, the politics of the South have changed from solidly (albeit conservative) Democrat to solidly Republican. This trend is not new and has been underway for at least the last fifty years.Things really began to change in 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Barry Goldwater, but the region's overwhelming support for George Wallace's independent campaign in 1968 was the true onus. The 1990's saw massive party switching from conservative Democrats in the Senate and House to the conservative Republicans they are today.

Earlier in this year we glanced across the pond at Scotland, a region of the UK that has long had an ambivalent relationship with the rest of Great Britain. By a relatively close margin, it declined to secede. Should Southern secession be put to a vote, rather than a bloody armed conflict, it would be curious to know the results. Southerners, including yours truly, bear a chip on their shoulders a mile wide, believing themselves to be the red headed stepchild, always fearful and suspicious that they are being negatively judged and dismissed by other Americans.

Tomsky is right that the South simultaneously mooches off of the rest of the country while claiming disingenuously that its own affairs and self-governance are not respected. But it is also true that the region contains some of the most deplorable poverty and lack of opportunity in the United States. I left, refugee or not, because it was my observation that the demands and petty superstitions of the rural south consistently dragged down its urban counterparts.

The main point is this: Trying to win Southern seats is not worth the ideological cost for Democrats. As Memphis Rep. Steve Cohen recently told my colleague Ben Jacobs, the Democratic Party cannot (and I’d say should not) try to calibrate its positions to placate Southern mores: “It’s come to pass, and really a lot of white Southerners vote on gays and guns and God, and we’re not going to ever be too good on gays and guns and God.”

Politics in the capital city of Montgomery show this fight between more progressive city dwellers and the attitudes of those in rural areas that I can only describe as backwards and resistant to improve conditions for all Alabamians. I waited years for my state, and the South in general, to change its nationwide reputation and make things better for its citizens. After a time, I threw up my hands and headed North, as many Southern liberals do.

I speak with sadness, not derision. Tomsky's column begins with the failed campaign of now-former Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu.

That is what Louisiana, and almost the entire South, has become. The victims of the particular form of euthanasia it enforces with such glee are tolerance, compassion, civic decency, trans-racial community, the crucial secular values on which this country was founded… I could keep this list going. But I think you get the idea. Practically the whole region has rejected nearly everything that’s good about this country and has become just one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment. A fact made even sadder because on the whole they’re such nice people! (I truly mean that.)

Southerners know how to circle the wagons. They are well-practiced at that and at adapting a kind of siege mentality. Words like these are written for the outliers and outsiders looking in like me. The target of this column will build up walls at an even faster clip. This is why I don't think of the South as a lost cause for the Democratic Party. The failing of Tomsky's argument is that it sees the South as a single entity, with no significantly core distinctions and differences.

South Carolina-bred author and journalist W.J. Cash wrote a notable book about Southern culture and history called The Mind of the South. Writing in 1941, Cash's hypothesis was that Southern identity was uniform and dismissive of alternate points of view.

Proud, brave, honorable by its lights, courteous, personally generous, loyal, swift to act, often too swift, but signally effective, sometimes terrible, in its action -- such was the South at its best. And such at its best it remains today, despite the great falling away in some of its virtues.

Violence, intolerance, aversion and suspicion toward new ideas, an incapacity for analysis, an inclination to act from feeling rather than from thought, an exaggerated individualism and too narrow concept of social responsibility, attachment to fictions and false values, above all too great attachment to racial values and a tendency to justify cruelty and injustice in the name of those values, sentimentality and a lack of realism -- these have been its characteristic vices in the past. And, despite changes for the better, they remain its characteristic vices today.

It's been over seventy years since the book's initial publication, and one can say much the same thing today. Cash's words may be themselves an oversimplification in terms, but they retain enough truth to speak to us today. I don't pretend to know how to fix the problem, but current political realities may not always be daunting, not always leading liberals and progressives to throw in the towel. I'm glad it's not my fight, but it needs to be someone's.

Street Harassment as a Class Issue

A brand new grocery store has been recently built a block from my apartment. To clear my head in between work assignments, I visit several times a week. Unwittingly, I've attracted the attention of three or four women who work there. They are very flirtatious and loquacious in my presence. I'm not used to this treatment. It is flattering, yes, but a little embarrassing at the same time.

Recent feminist discussion has addressed, once more, the issue of unwanted catcalls and other invasive behavior that falls under the category of street harassment. What I've experienced myself is different, but has some similarities. It feels good to be complimented, but a little unnerving when it is so overt and not subtle. The analogy I am seeking to draw here isn't entirely congruent, I recognize, but the two of them share a few things in common.

As a man, I know that I probably don't have to fear pursuit or obsessive attention from a woman. What I have been experiencing is a kind of good-natured, somewhat ribald teasing. I could let it go to my head if I wanted, especially because I've never seen myself as especially good looking. They wait for me now, ready to pounce and to initiate conversation the moment I enter the self-checkout line. If I were less socially phobic, I might be able to even enjoy it, since this appears to be utterly harmless.

What I experience over the course of five minutes is experienced, at least partially, by many women every day. As a male ally, I've observed behavior like this at times when out in public, out in the streets, or on the bus. But street harassment is different. In those situations, I've felt completely impotent and powerless. Is it my role to intervene, perhaps risking a physical altercation in the process? I can't fight every battle and my religious beliefs discourage violence in any form, for any reason. The best I can do is let my life shine as an example of proper conduct and privately instruct other men who behave in inappropriate ways.

The rules and codes of conduct for male feminists are frequently, frustratingly absent. Feminists, either male or female, are often misunderstood, many times a projection of fears that reveal more about personal bias than actual doctrinal misunderstanding. But again, what can men do to eliminate cat calls, wolf whistles, and inappropriate remarks?

None of my male relatives engaged in such behavior. I take an outsider role from the outset. My father viewed it merely from a male perspective as a male-only matter, but was nevertheless critical of these acts. For him, such behavior was low-class and inexcusably coarse. Over the passage of time, men have formulated acceptable codes of conduct within themselves, and many men were brought up to believe as I was. Street harassment in any form is seen as inappropriate by many men, but our mistake is not moving from disgust to intervention.

One incident of street harassment is too many. I wonder sometimes if feminist thinkers and writers have looked deeply enough into Patriarchy, and viewed it on the merits of its complexity and nuances. At times, I feel like a self-designated expert on men behaving badly. If we talk about street harassment, we'll need to discuss the men who maintain the practice and where they learned the behavior.

I began with a story of receiving attention that, while not unwanted, certainly took me out of my comfort zone. Before I read the personal anecdotes of women, I assumed this sort of behavior was consigned only to construction workers. But on second thought, I do recall that a former girlfriend lived in a rough part of town. She enjoyed my company when taking a walk. That way, random men passing by in cars would leave her alone. She saw this as inevitable, not as a personal affront.

This issue is often tied closely to class and socio-economic status. I was taught that this was behavior performed by other men who were borderline criminal. Other men might think these thoughts but not verbalize them, or at least not verbalize them in this way. That was part of being a respectable citizen, not a deadbeat.

In the same way, shouted words and an energetic argument is one way of vocalizing conflict. The appearance of a handgun is another. And until we are really willing to dig deeply into class distinctions and cultures not our own, not to avert our eyes and mutter things under our breath, nothing will change.  

Quote of the Week

Ordinarily I would not post a quote by this speaker, but it was too good to leave out.

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."- Ronald Reagan

Saturday Video

I ain't happy but, I'm feeling glad
I got sunshine, in a bag
I'm useless, but not for long
The future is coming on

I am happy, I'm feeling glad
I got sunshine, in a bag
I'm useless, but not for long
The future is coming on
Is coming on
Is coming on
Is coming on

Edited for brevity.

Big Empty

Driving faster in my car
Falling farther from just what we are
Smoke a cigarette and lie some more
These conversations kill
Falling faster in my car

Time to take her home,
Her dizzy head is conscious laden.
Time to take a ride it leaves today
No conversation

Time to take her home her dizzy head is
Conscious laden
Time to wait too long, to wait too long,
To wait too long.

Too much walking shoes worn thin
Too much trippin' and my soul's worn thin
Time to catch her ride it leaves today,
Her name is what it means

Too much walking shoes worn thin
Time to take her home,
Her dizzy head is conscious laden.
Time to take a ride it leaves today
No conversation

Time to take her home her dizzy head is
Conscious laden
Time to wait too long, to wait too long,
To wait too long.

Conversations kill
Conversations kill
Conversations kill

Time to take her home,
Her dizzy head is conscious laden.
Time to take a ride it leaves today
No conversation

Time to take her home her dizzy head is
Conscious laden
Time to wait too long, to wait too long,
To wait too long.

Conversations kill
Conversations kill
Conversations kill

Ferguson and the Legacy of Bombingham

The last year or so I have watched incidents of racially-based police brutality and violence and have not added my own voice and my own perspective. The reason for this is simple. I'm weary of conflicts predicated on black versus white. Ferguson and the others to come may be novel concepts to much of America, but to me, it's only the beginning of another round of hostilities.

I won't stand in the way of progress, nor will I criticize those who march and take active roles addressing senseless violence against black men. You might say I have no heart for the fighting, because the events of most of my life have been an exasperating series of Fergusons or Trayvon Martins. I've felt unduly persecuted by residents of the rest of the country, a chip on my shoulder, and have noted with a kind of previously secret righteousness that none of these offenses and abuses have occurred in the Deep South.

I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, a city that has greatly rehabilitated its image in fifty years, but only to an extent. The city's tragic history of race relations needs no further mention. Suffice it to say that the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, which we remember to the current day, was only one of fifty in a twenty-year stretch.

In the aftermath, politicians both black and white manipulated public sentiment in Pavlovian fashion, waving the bloody shirt in front of two distinct communities with pronounced biases and mistrust of the other. Resentment is what exists now, the sort of resentment that will only prevent subsequent healing and ensure that reforms proceed at a snail's pace.

The city, like so many others, re-segregated following Civil Rights. White wealth has enriched many communities while the city of Birmingham, now majority African-American, continues to decline. While there has been a mild Renaissance in recent years, revitalizing Birmingham will take time and money, both in copious quantity.

Whites are weary of the same refrain, the same grainy black and white videos queued up again. In my own life, I admit that I've heard a few offensive epithets thrown around, but I've mostly encountered people who have learned their lesson in the most painful way possible.

But achievement aside, learning a lesson does not imply that subsequent growth and active discourse is forthcoming. People sometimes freeze in their tracks, believing themselves to be persecuted and forever the focal point of the blame. I am sure this is a view held by many whites to this day. We will only invoke a racist past as much as absolutely necessary, burying as many painful truths as possible.

The Modern Sign Company was a sign shop owned by Merle Snow and located at the corner of 3rd Avenue North and 16th Street North in Birmingham. It is only a few blocks away from the 16th Street Baptist Church and was a haven of violent extremists, namely the Ku Klux Klan. One will find no plaque present there, nor busloads of tourists commemorating a historical event, though it is most assuredly a significant location to be preserved for posterity.

During the 1950's and 60's the shop produced countless Confederate flags which were a popular symbol of resistance to Federal court rulings in favor of racial integration. Snow allowed members of the Ku Klux Klan and the National States' Rights Party to use the shop's equipment at cost to produce picket signs, bumper stickers and placards. The shop became a meeting place and was sometimes used to establish alibis for Klan operatives suspected of violent crimes. Investigators suspect that the bomb used in the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church two blocks away on September 15, 1963 was assembled at the shop.

In 1974, the black comedian Richard Pryor released a Grammy-winning comedy album entitled That Nigger's Crazy. Forty years later, we've been dealing with the same problem.

Cops put a hurtin’ on your ass, man. You know, they really degrade you. White folks don’t believe that shit, they don’t believe cops degrade. 'Ah, come on, those beatings, those people are resisting arrest. I'm tired of this harassment of police officers.’ That’s 'cause the police live in your neighborhood, see, and you be knowin' 'em as Officer Timpson.

’Hello, Officer Timpson, going bowling tonight? Yes, nice new Pinto you have.' Niggers don’t know them like that. See, white folks get a ticket, they pull over, 'Hey, Officer, yes, glad to be of help, cheerio!'

A nigger got to be talkin’ 'bout, ’I am reaching into my pocket for my license! ’Cause I don't wanna be no motherfucking accident!’ Police degrade. I don’t know, you know, it’s — often you wonder why a nigger don’t go completely mad. No, you do.

You get your shit together, you work all week, right? And then you get dressed and you make — maybe say you can’t make $125 a week, you get $80, if you’re lucky. Right? And you go out, get clean and be driving with this old lady going out to a club, and the police pull over.

'Get out of the car! There was a robbery! A nigger looked just like you! Put your hands up, take your pants down, spread your cheeks!' Now, what nigger feel like having fun after that? ’Let’s just go home, baby.’ You go home and beat your kids and shit. You goin’ take that shit out on somebody.

How we address this issue as a nation is absolutely crucial. Some would brush it under the rug, their own way of managing bad news. Others would proceed forward, but cautiously and without addressing the complete problem. Our fault as Americans was believing that past actions were sufficient and the problem had been solved. Hurricane Katrina revealed the persistence and prevalence of black poverty. Ferguson revealed the racism of the criminal justice system and officers of the supposed peace.

We cannot play duck and cover with the truth. I've looked at well-meaning protesters on television and in person and have felt a deep sadness that they are missing the full picture. We are not all Trayvon Martin, which is the entire point. White allies need to refocus. They are not playing with a full deck and until they are, there simply won't be any real resolution.

Radio Interview

My five minutes of fame on sports talk radio.

I am roughly 18 minutes into the broadcast. Follow the link.

For the Rest of the Week

For the rest of the week, posting may be sparse. I have three separate doctor's appointments scheduled this week, in addition to publication deadlines. I've written three brand new short stories in the past two or three months. The last time I was so prolific was undergrad writing workshop, and that was only because I had to crank out a new story every week or two.

Let Me Roll It To You

You gave me something, I understand,
You gave me loving in the palm of my hand
I can't tell you how I feel
My heart is like a wheel

Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you
Let me roll it
Let me toll it to you

I want to tell you
And now's the time
I want to tell you that
You're going to be mine

I can't tell you how I feel
My heart is like a wheel.

Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you
Let me roll it
Let me roll it to you

You Can't White Knuckle Relationship Success

In most of my writing, I make a point to leave partners and significant others out of them. This is partially an act of benevolence, but mostly a need to keep at least a few secrets to myself. Even an ambitious and driven person such as myself should remember to always leave an escape route. Showing rather than telling is the first maxim of creative writing, at least as I was taught.

Last week, I wrote about a young woman who sought a boyfriend. Her one judging criteria was that he self-identify as feminist. It won me some sharp criticism, in particular one memorable comment that accused me of seeking to put a twenty-one-year old in her place. I recall that at 21 I wanted to be taken seriously, so I merely extended the same courtesy to her.

Her primary litmus test for relationship suitability was a man who was a feminist, and by that she mostly meant that she wanted a man who respected women. While I respect her desires, and agree with them, I'm afraid the reality goes beyond any single movement and a set of legalistic beliefs. She was lamentably ensnared by a forgery, a man who claimed to be and sounded like what she wanted but who disregarded sexual consent behind closed doors. Her conclusion was that no man could truly be a feminist.

Egalitarian partnerships and marriages are prized and desired by many, myself included. I've heard from several women, at least the ones who partner with men, that they want a boyfriend to understand a little bit about women's rights without fearing emasculation or ridicule. It's a worthy request, but if a man isn't at least halfway down the path before her arrival, I fear she is wasting her time.

If a woman feels that she needs to constantly emphasize and reinforce proper behavior and basic human courtesy, the cause is likely lost from the very beginning. There will be no equality. Successful relationships are built not just on an equal distribution of power, but an equal distribution of love and genuine, lasting concern for the other. Selfishness has no place. In my own life, if I've felt a strong connection with a partner, I rarely needed to be reminded of the proper way of conducting myself. Though I would never be optimistic enough to think that love conquers all, but it does separate the suitable from the pretenders.

Each of us can exist on our own best behavior for a little while. Many relationships begin promisingly enough, but problems can develop and worsen with time. When we first meet someone, we often begin by trying to impress them. A friend of mine described successful relationships as tough mountain hikes that give way to beautiful vistas worthy of contemplation. Once primary goals are accomplished comes cohabitation, the ultimate test for lasting stability. Either we are easy to live with, or not.

How we are brought up is important to how we behave around others, at least to an extent. My parents' forty-year-long marriage has been egalitarian in some respects, and highly one-sided in others. Regardless of her strong identification with women's liberation in a younger self, when it came down to actual parenting, my mother only partially accomplished her goal of total self-sufficiency.

When it came time to mete out discipline, Mom and Dad were a unified unit. My two sisters and I were raised strictly and, I think, successfully. Mom had primary domain over the girls and my father took that role with me. But the manner in which the both of them shared overlapping parental responsibilities I can say now with adult insight was executed almost flawlessly.

However, when it came time for crisis management techniques, so to speak, my father was thrust into a very traditional role because he had no other choice. Mom threw her hands up in the air, begging my father to resolve the problem, often stuck in bed, too emotionally wrecked to participate. I could have resented her for dereliction of duty, but I saw my mother's frailties for what they were, a sign of illness. Those were her worries alone. I doubt any of us blamed my mother for her sometimes frayed nerves and bouts with depression, least not me.

As a child, I had no real concept, nor any understanding what my parents should have done in any given situation. I either accepted the decisions made or rejected them. My mother did the best she could and I have never judged her harshly. I maintain that my mother is a tremendously strong woman regardless of whichever definition one uses, regardless of the circumstances. She cannot be faulted for seeking to be the perfect mother, even though this self-assigned burden taxed her severely. Should she from time to time violate her own standard, even without intending it, no one took it harder than she did.

Strong women come in many forms. The women in my life have not been deferential and compliant to anyone's standard, nor a need to conform to whatever a woman is supposed to be. One of my sisters has recently dealt with a collection of traumatizing experiences that have left behind many scars that remain fresh to the current day. She was married for a time to a physically and emotionally abusive man. He hid his behavior well in the beginning, but soon she had to accept that the man she fell in love with was not the same person when the two of them were alone.

Jung theorized that a man seeking a heterosexual relationship was, in essence, capturing aspects of his mother in those to whom he was primarily attracted. If this is true, it would explain much about my own choices, and, if the genders and sexual orientations are properly assigned, everyone else's, too. Past girlfriends have been emotionally intense and artistic, but with a secret vulnerable side that always took me a while to discover for myself.

We return to the question by which I opened this post. What determines an egalitarian relationship? The more I think about it, I believe it's based on intent rather than follow through. Rest assured, I've made mistakes in bushels. Relationship partners have made mistakes. But forgiveness was a constant. There was enough affection and devotion between us that made up for anything that went wrong. For me, the moment the laughing, the playfulness, and the mutual silliness that falls under the category of affection went away, the end was nigh.      

Women often feel they need to closely regulate their life decisions down to the micrometer. In particular, this often shows up during pregnancy and, following that, being a mother. My mother ate protein-rich food during her pregnancy, wanting me to be as healthy as possible. Then when I turned out to have chronic health conditions, she blamed herself for what she had consumed, even though there is no scientific basis that tuna fish causes fetal damage.

The perfect woman, or those who aspire to be the perfect woman have to check many boxes, and my sympathies are with those who believe they must be everything to everyone.

It took my mother to reach her early sixties and retirement to finally live for herself. She looks relaxed and liberated now, a woman liberated at last, having reached or discarded the goals she set for herself decades earlier. Even though it makes no logical sense, I see women streaming past me every day on the bus and the rail with pursed lips and a countenance of extreme purpose. They are on their own crusade.

Welcome to Pennsylvania

German-sounding place names? Check.

Quote of the Week

"Judy Henske, who was the then reigning queen of folk music, said to me at The Troubadour, 'Honey, in this profession there are four sexes. Men, women, homosexuals, and girl singers.'"-Linda Ronstadt

Saturday Video

I'm in a hurry to get things done
Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun
All I really gotta do is live and die
But I'm in a hurry and don't know why

Don't know why
I have to drive so fast
My car has nothing to prove
It's not new
But it'll do 0 to 60 in 5.2

Oh I'm in a hurry to get things done
Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun
All I really gotta do is live and die
But I'm in a hurry and don't know why

Can't be late
I leave plenty of time
Shaking hands with the clock
I can't stop
I'm on a roll and I'm ready to rock

Oh I'm in a hurry to get things done
Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun
All I really gotta do is live and die
But I'm in a hurry and don't know why

I hear a voice
That say's I'm running behind
I better pick up my pace
It's a race
And there ain't no room
For someone in second place

I'm in a hurry to get things done
Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun
All I really gotta do is live and die
But I'm in a hurry and don't know why.

I'm in a hurry to get things done
Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun
All I really gotta do is live and die
But I'm in a hurry and don't know why.

I'm in a hurry to get things done
Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun
All I really gotta do is live and die
But I'm in a hurry and don't know why.

I'm in a hurry to get things done
Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun
All I really gotta do is live and die
But I'm in a hurry and don't know why.

New Thanksgiving Experience

I saw the two of them seated together, next to each other. One of them was an old acquaintance of mine, a woman I’d nearly dated years before, though we retained our friendship. In medical school, she had practiced self-denial for years, before succumbing to the understandable need for a relationship. They sat across the room from me, next to each other at a close enough distance that seemed to signify they were in a relationship. I didn’t want to make assumptions, but of course one always does.

At nineteen, I’d decided to seduce an older man. I knew by his mannerisms he was unmistakably gay. I’d guessed wrongly once before with a guy in writing workshop, which was incredibly awkward for him and me. Fortunately he brushed me off with proficiency and didn't threaten physical violence.

As our time together progressed, my new boyfriend guided me through the unfamiliar, instantly offering to hold my hand through the process. Fellow LGBTs have offered their wisdom and validation to me numerous times since then, and it is for their hard work that I am not a bundle of unresolved neuroses by now. This same unguarded sweetness I have found everywhere is most appealing. But as for my own relationship, I begged my partner not to leave, but the age difference was always an issue for him, though it was never an issue for me.

She was clearly drawn to the masculine, as her girlfriend was decided more so than her. But regardless of how they presented, what they displayed to the outside were the nerves common to those starting out. This was my friend’s first same-sex relationship and I could tell she was still finding her footing. Her partner had only recently gotten a butch haircut, signifying to those in the know that she was interested in women. Her girlfriend kept her hair the same style and length as I remembered. In the beginning, finding balance can be challenging, and knowing the proper amount of makeup or not make up, dressing or not dressing, and haircuts and not haircuts must be discerned only by the self.

The two were too young to be jaded about relationships, which was a disarming thing to observe. One might think that the femme, my friend, who had only dated men before was simply exploring her sexuality. I suppose this is true inasmuch as everyone queer focuses on self-observation due to the way that it sticks out from the norm. But this was not a mere dabbling in homosexual relationships. Teenage acne had barely subsided, true, and what was left were a couple with much to learn about themselves and each other. In time, one gets more of the hang of it.

This is the way relationships, regardless of sex or gender, really ought to be. In times past, finding a queer relationship partner came after a lengthy period of soul-searching, usually with a healthy dollop of angst on the side. Every relationship, gay or straight, feels like a personal invention, a living organism that exists between two people. The patterns by which heterosexual relationships progress have been refined for thousands of years, and homosexual pairings take on some of those same elements while creating something new, unique only to them.

But in any case, I wished my friend well. I didn’t feel particularly jealous, only a little surprised. I asked her if she identified as a lesbian and she gave a flummoxed look. She could only describe herself as queer and seemed extremely conflicted about even that adjective. I relate, but I suppose I mostly wished she’d felt comfortable with me earlier to tell me. More than many men, I would have understood and tried to help her.

For those making familiar Thanksgiving drives in the next few days with unfamiliar company, I wish you peace, joy, and comfort. Regardless of outcome, you are loved by God and loved by the most important person in your life. Parents will be adjusting themselves as you are adjusting yourself, but they've had fewer years to process it than you have. No one ever forgets the first Thanksgiving with a significant other's family.

Belated Quote of the Week

"To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven."-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanksgiving Break Armistice

I will be with family for a week, so posting here will be sparse until next week. I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving and have the ability to spend time with your loved ones.

Saturday Video

Takin' my time
Choosin' my lines
Tryin' to decide what to do
Looks like my stop
Don't want to get off
Got myself hung up on you

Seems to me
You don't want to talk about it
Seems to me
You just turn your pretty head and walk away

Places I've known
Things that I'm growin'
Don't taste the same without you
I got my self in
The worst mess I've been
And I find myself starvin' without you

Seems to me
Talk all night here comes the mornin'
Seems to me
You just forget what we said and greet the day

I've got to cool myself down
Stompin' around
Thinkin' some words I can't name ya
Meet you half way
Got nothing to say
Still I don't suppose I can blame ya

Seems to me
You don't want to talk about it
Seems to me
You just turn your pretty head and walk away

Thanksgiving Cheer

I originally wrote this post as an open letter to my Meeting, Friends Meeting of Washington, DC. In it, I reflect upon the romantic notion of a perfect Thanksgiving and the way it often turns out instead. __________

Dear Friends,

Thanksgiving means warm thoughts of togetherness and familial bliss to many of us. Yet, for some of us, it is a perpetually colossal and consistent letdown, full of needless drama and hostility. I can say with honesty that both the rosy and the sour versions are the case for me. My nuclear family and I, comprised of my two sisters and both parents, come together once a year to share a meal and each other's company. Genuine warmth exists between each of us and we have a lively conversation around the dinner table.

Should I speak about my mother's dysfunctional family, my feelings turn a full 180 degrees. Thanksgiving dinner with two warring uncles, both alcoholics, turns dinner conversation into a verbal feud unlikely to ever resolve itself. Even as a small child, I sensed first a silent tension that usually erupted quickly into caustic commentary between those seated once the first wine bottle was uncorked.

My uncles have mental illnesses they never treat. Instead, they self-medicate with alcohol. Products of the hyper-masculine decade of the 1950's, they believe that seeking help, even for a significant problem, is indicative of weakness and personal failing.

On a positive note, Thanksgiving means something else very important to me. It signifies six years in your company. November of 2008 was the first time I visited Friends Meeting of Washington. Two years before that, I encountered a Quaker meeting for the first time, and fell in love with our faith so completely that I formally joined a mere four months after my first visit. I have never regretted my decision.

You have become my family and my faith community. I have become emotionally invested in each of you. I sense Divine purpose in my work within FMW and have never once believed that this wasn't the right place for me. God wants me here and I have learned not to deviate from his plan for my life. I may not know all the answers, but I know enough to satisfy me.

While on the subject of mental illness, I've meant to share a particular phobia of mine for a while. When considering the shortcomings and mental health issues of my relatives, I am reminded of my own. I could have only told my worries to specialized committees like Personal Aid or Healing and Reconciliation, but, for my own sake, I want instead to share my fears in a public forum like this.

The worry that keeps me up at night is that I, a manic depressive, might enter a manic episode while in your company. Should that happen, I would hope that you could separate who I am from my illness. Sometimes I know that it isn't easy. But neither is it easy to see that of God in everyone.

Depression, I have learned the hard way, isolates one from the rest of the world and provides problems mostly for oneself. Mania quickly become a serious issue for everyone. Should my behavior become erratic, I hope you will correctly know its source and respond accordingly. I don't expect to have one, but I can never say with certainty that I won't.

I haven't had a manic episode since six months before I moved here. I spent three weeks in the hospital recovering, and when I was discharged, I had some wounded pride to take care of after I returned to health. It was a transformative event for me. I felt I had burned so many bridges where I lived at the time that I needed to radically reshuffle my life and my priorities. This is what led me to take a job in DC and to settle here for good.

If George Fox, our founder, suffered from the same medical condition as me, I delight that the both of us eventually found reason to be cheerful and to set our wanderings aside. And in the meantime, I hope we will find ways to bring joy and cheer to the lives of other people, seeing them as they are, underneath the bluster, broken.

Candy Says

Candy says I've come to hate my body
And all that it requires in this world
Candy says I'd like to know completely
What others so discretely talk about

I'm gonna watch the blue birds fly over my shoulder
I'm gonna watch them pass me by
Maybe when I'm older
What do you think I'd see
If I could walk away from me?

Candy says I hate the quiet places
That cause the smallest taste of what will be
Candy says I hate the big decisions
That cause endless revisions in my mind

I'm gonna watch the blue birds fly over my shoulder
I'm gonna watch them pass me by
Maybe when I'm older
What do you think I'd see
If I could walk away from me?

What Makes a Male Feminist?

Around a week ago, the writer Alexis Scargill wrote a column entitled “Kindness and Generosity: Insidious Male Entitlement and the Mask of Male Feminism." Scargill's post set its sights squarely on male feminists or male allies, or rather those who proport to be feminist for their own selfish reasons.

This is a particularly sensitive topic for me. It took me years to win trust with particular feminist activists and fellow writers. At first, they assumed the worst about my motives while I only wanted to learn more. I wasn't pandering for sympathy, but that's often how I was perceived with every intellectual breakthrough I made. It would have been nice every now and again to find a man or woman (or even a group of men and women) willing to be mentors to me. That is what is needed to keep men properly up-to-date and hold themselves accountable.

Though this borders on a very different topic, as I've said, I think that male allies and/or male feminists need to band together to refine their views and help each other through what can be an intimidating atmosphere of terminology and hyper-charged political debate. Otherwise, only the most tenacious and motivated men will bother to remain.

My viewpoints in the beginning were those that any novice might make take. One has to know that 2 + 2 = 4 before one can learn how to multiply. I'll concede that I made my mistakes, but from the outset, by some, the bar was placed particularly high for me. Among some, I was expected instantly to be an quasi-expert. A quick study, it didn't take me very long not just to echo the arguments I saw in front of me, but to add my own views in ways that furthered the greater dialogue.

Men who claim to be feminist or male allies for manipulative ends are a minority, but I don't doubt they do exist. Many men who are turned off by the movement believe that it threatens nothing less than castration on their part and a complete loss of power. But to a particular group of supposedly enlightened men, no pose is off limits if it leads to sex. This reminds me of certain men who claim to be gay in order to win trust from women more easily, only to reveal the truth months later.

Scargill writes,

“I would never date a guy who wasn’t a feminist.” This is something I’ve said in response to a hundred debates in academia, at various jobs, among friends, at family gatherings. It is something I’ve stood by since I was a teenager. But what I really meant was, “I would never date a guy who didn’t self-identify as a feminist.” Because most often, they were not actually feminists in practice, regardless of how they believed to identify and regardless of how enthusiastically they nod in agreement to my feminist declarations.

At 21, I no longer believe a man can take the title of feminist. Feminist ally is the most he could hope to be. Feminist men need to understand first and foremost that the best way to be an ally and support feminism is to support women, not speak for them. Practice good feminism but don’t speak over women. Listen to their experiences and perspectives and learn something every day to be a better ally, because you will never have the lived experience of a woman. 

I will never completely understand what it is like to be a woman. I was not socialized as one and though as a male feminist I will constantly seek to understand, I recognize that I will always come up short. I use this as an exercise in humility and seek to listen more than to talk. At the same time, though I have purged most of this away, something most male feminists often find themselves needing to do, there are residual traces remaining of old hurts. My father has always felt threatened by feminism in any form and those political opinions formed me, even though I came to reject them in later life.

Among affluent liberals, who are a minority group in this country, it is much more likely to come across men who assert themselves in this way. Most American men would never take on the identity of feminist in the first place. This was the attitude present for me while I was growing up in the Deep South where rugged masculinity was still the law of the land. But I think this is true for most men, regardless of region.

Scargill uses several personal examples to explain her argument.

Within the past two weeks, I have had two more experiences with this betrayal by self-identified male feminists with two men who are close friends to me. To everyone around them, they are feminists, outspoken about their politics, critical of outspoken misogynist men, defensive of women. And that’s what frightens me. They seem cool and trustworthy, but in private, they ultimately weren’t. I don’t want to say these men are horrible people- I really do think they believe in these feminist ideals. 

But they don’t practice the same standards they hold men to, and I’m not sure they are even aware of it. If that’s the case- and I hope it is- that self-identified feminist men who fail to respect a woman’s body autonomy by making her feel unsafe or uncomfortable simply don’t realize what they are doing, simply don’t “know better,” they need to know now. They have no more excuses. They need to know better.

And I agree, but I don't think that the behavior of some automatically disqualifies all men from self-identifying as feminist. What the author has experienced is unacceptable behavior, but rather than making a blanket statement that men can't be feminists, I'd rather we continue to work on strategies which insist that men respect boundaries. Scargill backs up from her analysis to state that she doesn't think fake feminist men aren't horrible people, just hypocrites. I understand that she doesn't want to come across too harshly, but if men can't be feminists, how can they hold other men to proper standards of conduct around women?

Male feminist and male ally have been used interchangeably at times. It seems to depend entirely upon the audience. Some think that men can never be feminists. Some think that all men should be feminists. Some define male ally in one way and others define male feminists in a very different one. Some men don't feel they have any right to call themselves a feminist. Some, like me, wear it like a badge of honor. But regardless of definition, we ought to be discussing a code of conduct more than we are defining a litmus test of who's in and who's out.

I respect Scargill's perspective, but I respectfully disagree with her. Being a male ally feels like I'm sitting on the sidelines, consigned to a secondary role. I consider myself a male feminist because I want to be an active participant. My mouth may stay closed longer than it is open, but having processed what I've just experienced, I have the right to open it from time to time and add to the discussion.

The Loner

He's a perfect stranger,
Like a cross
of himself and a fox.

He's a feeling arranger
And a changer
of the ways he talks.

He's the unforeseen danger
The keeper of
the key to the locks.

Know when you see him,
Nothing can free him.
Step aside, open wide,
It's the loner.

If you see him in the subway,
He'll be down
at the end of the car.

Watching you move
Until he knows
he knows who you are.

When you get off
at your station alone,
He'll know that you are.

Know when you see him,
Nothing can free him.
Step aside, open wide,
It's the loner.

There was a woman he knew
About a year or so ago.

She had something
that he needed

And he pleaded
with her not to go.

On the day that she left,
He died,
but it did not show.

Know when you see him,
Nothing can free him.
Step aside, open wide,
It's the loner.

Political Failure is not the End of the World

Ever since the Midterm elections ended, badly, liberals have been looking everywhere for answers. They feel betrayed by the Democratic Party and disappointed by President Obama. Every election cycle that goes against its wishes begins the inevitable finger-pointing and army of apologetics and revisionist historians. One wave of thought and theory begins and another sweeps it away.

A study of history shows that pendulum swings are inevitable. One single party has dominated for a time, but not forever. FDR won four terms and Harry Truman won one of his own, but that only led to two terms of Eisenhower. But Eisenhower could only produce four years of Republican rule in Congress. A generation before, two terms of crusading reforms by Democrat Woodrow Wilson gave way to a Republican return to normalcy.

Americans have always felt, eventually, disillusioned with the party in power. If they had not, one party would have eventually asserted dominance, as is the case with countries not wealthy enough or advanced enough to be considered part of the First World. As some may recall, our founders were idealistic enough to believe that two competing parties would simply not emerge.

Americans have a love/hate relationship with idealism in politics, finding it easy to fall in love with the newest idea or theory and the newest messenger. The opposite side of the coin of idealism is cynicism. Americans are guarded romantics at heart. If we were true cynics or fatalists, we would assume that politics is little more than a lost cause and refuse to cast a single ballot.

We get burned by the Washington insider, so we choose a Washington outsider this time. If he or she disappoints, we believe a Beltway politician is the the most sensible choice. The older we grow, the more we see the same patterns reassert themselves. This is to say that the worries of leftists are temporary. If we ever gravitate to one-party rule, then we have every reason to be genuinely worried. I don't see that happening.

Adversity reminds us that life is short, teaches us to live wisely, and refines our character. Christianity and Judaism see value in suffering in suffering and sorrow. Eastern religions seek to escape it, the Greeks and Romans absolutely despised it, but the Christian and Jewish traditions see tough times as a refining fire. We learn more about ourselves from difficult times than from happy times and now is time to re-school and retool who we are and what we believe.

Democrats may need to sojourn a while in the wilderness by doing what every party must do to remain relevant, reinventing itself. Rest assured, a new leader will win favor and a new kid in Washington will rise to power. Our political system does not preach a belief in escaping pain. Washington is not exactly the place for Zen-like stoicism and self-sacrificial behavior. Nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be so, no matter how many millions and billions of dollars enter the picture.

Legitimate worries exist. Reproductive rights and abortion rights are under attack in many conservative states, but the latest poll showed that a clear majority of Americans still believe that Roe v. Wade should continue to be the law of the land. Many PACs, non-profits, and NGOs have a concerted interest and motive in spinning out the worst case scenario. That what keeps them funded and in business.

Political parties and those allied with them do the same. When I first moved to Washington, I worked an internship at a 527. It was partially my responsibility to take survey data from donors and manually enter it into a spreadsheet. Every donor large and small was mailed a series of questions, along with an opportunity to donate money. We received no dearth of opinions. The form had, frankly, exaggerated the severity of our financial need.

Had the survey been worded in a Buddhist format, immaculately crafted open-ended questions begging for serenity and peace of mind would have been found instead. The problem with this approach is that it would not have increased our donations. An impending snowstorm produces a phenomenon known as panic buying. Over time, people have realized that the same effect is true if you scare people enough to open their wallets.

I firmly believe that at least half of the political organizations in Washington were designed to make themselves redundant, but have decided to set up shop forever instead. That is my answer as to why Washington is broken. Value in suffering exists, but we must first be receptive to hard truths and tough love. We are an experiment in democracy and our own death has been predicted a million times. Let's refrain from sounding the same tired refrain once more.

As it is written, which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to your span of life? Forgive me for saying this, but these are not transformational times. Instead, ours is a brittle, cynical, confusing epoch. This is not the first occurrence and it will not be the last. When it is our turn again, we must hold fast to our successes, knowing we must make the most of the time we have. This is true for life and it is true for politics.

Quote of the Week

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different."-T.S. Eliot

Saturday Video

C'mon Billy
Come to me
You know I'm waiting
I love you endlessly

C'mon Billy
You're the only one
Don't you think it's time now
You met your only son

I remember
Lover's play
The corn was golden
We lay in it for days

I remember
The things you said
My little Billy,
Come to your lover's bed

Come home
Is my plea
Your home now is
Here with me
Come home
To your son
Tomorrow might never come

C'mon Billy
You look good to me
How many nights now
Your child inside of...

Don't forget me
I had your son
Damn thing went crazy
But I swear you're the only one

Come along, Billy, come to me
Come along, Billy, come to me

Sexual Assault Cuts Both Ways

In Blount Country, Alabama, a young female teacher has been accused of performing sex acts and exchanging sexually graphic texts and pictures with three of her male students. What transpired over the past three months has been far from the only instance observed across the United States and in the state.

Ashley Parkins Pruitt, 28, turned herself into authorities just before 3 p.m. She is charged with three felonies and two misdemeanors. She is being held in the Blount County Jail with bond set at $215,000, according to jail records.

In Pruitt's cases, the alleged incidents happened in August, September and October, according to court records. The allegations against the teacher range from having oral sex in a car to sending sexually-explicit photos of her breasts and vagina to the victims.

It may be easy to draw ideological lines and distinction here, but here they are no help. For those who know little about Blount Country, it is a solidly working class part in the north of the state, one of its most conservative and Republican regions. Before conservative commentators draw facile and incorrect conclusions, the facts must be presented first. Many instances of teacher/pupil sexual relationship occur in locations with demographics just like these. This seeming paradox makes it difficult to understand motive and rationale.

As I just mentioned, social conservatives draw and have drawn some instant conclusions for situations like these. For them, the fact that women teachers are molesting their students is purely as a result of lax morals and the drawbacks of women's rights. If women had been put in their rightful place as restrained and demure, as their thinking goes, such indiscretions would never have transpired in the first place. This line of thinking simplifies considerably a complicated issue and does nothing to correct it.

I spent one miserable year as a teaching assistant in a high school. The principal, my immediate boss, was a nice guy, but he had no backbone. He'd stepped away from his responsibilities coaching football to move to administration, which was a massive mistake on behalf of the school system. K-12 systems can be very incestuous, preferring to hire from within. Strong leaders challenge poor hiring practices and keep a toxic workplace climate from developing in the first place. Based on the way the news story is presented, it is much more likely that the parents of one or more of these children blew the whistle, not the school system.

For feminists, this challenges primary focus and preferred narrative. With so many instances of violent assault and rape by men against women left without being brought to justice, little oxygen is left to entertain the reverse. In this situation, the young woman in question is physically attractive and sexually available.

I happen to know a story about a young woman, a teacher, who was several pounds overweight. She engaged in a clandestine relationship with a male student because it made her feel attractive for the first time in her life. In that situation, he made the first move. In the other situation I've described, it seems as though the older woman initiated the proceedings. In time, both women were caught, arrested, and charged.

The high school where I attended had an alternative school for disruptive students who had been expelled from the main campus. One of the teachers was a lesbian and began a relationship with a lesbian student. As school systems often do, the matter was quietly brushed under the rug. If educators had their  way of going about it, embarrassing events like these would never be reported in newspapers or other publications. If they can be hushed up, they are. In this case, even threatened litigation has a way of tarnishing the good name of school systems, sometimes culminating in lawsuits, which drag on for months, and potentially are very costly.

Colleges and universities have been roundly criticized for their own way of dodging accountability and prosecution by men who rape and sexually abuse women. Neither K-12, nor higher education wants a protracted scandal on their hands. Many K-12 systems would sooner settle out of court than go to litigation, and to a degree the same is true with higher ed.

This leads to massive problems where spurious legal charges are brought which would not stand up in court, but even so systems often pay out a cash settlement. I recognize that there are legitimate claims of sexual assault and rape that should be brought before a judge, but the first impulse of many educators and administrators is to first cover their ass. Jobs are at stake. Administration is a dog-eat-dog, hyper-political machine that would not seem out of place in an episode of House of Cards.

School administrators have to be de facto politicians as well as educators, and few can manage both. This does not excuse the conduct of men, particularly male athletes, who receive a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card because they produce millions of dollars in revenue for the university or college. Nothing about that is excusable, but one may have noticed that I have provided few concrete motives for why young women, usually in their twenties and thirties, feel a compulsion to engage sexually with their students. The easiest conclusion is that a belief that sexual desire and conduct is vastly different for men rather than women, though this could not be more incorrect.

Jailbait is a slang term used to denote pornographic content by women are just under the legal age of consent. Most jailbait porn showcases high school girls in various states of undress. It is usually frowned upon by many. But could we say in this circumstance that the female teacher had her own secret attraction, her own taboo attraction? And if that is the case, we may have to concede, once more, that men and women aren't as dissimilar as they have been thought to be.

When women are accused and convicted of crimes like these, the nature of their crimes are softened and sometimes otherwise excused. They are seen as victims. Some argue that they were sexually abused in childhood. Others had low self-esteem and felt they needed someone to make them feel worthwhile. Should a man be on trial for a similar charge, it appears that many want to throw the book at him. Men are the aggressors and the pursuers. Women have merely been led astray.

Until more details of these accusations become known, I'm left with guesses and conjecture. It's worth continuing to pursue young men who take advantage of young women, as these probably constitute the majority of offenses. But until patterns of behavior are fully understood, we should also be cognizant of young women who take advantage of young men. The two are linked, but precisely how remains to be seen.