Bouncy

bou-ncy. noun. slang term for a promiscuous woman, usu. a woman who is a lesbian or bisexual.

sound over of conversation

lips smacking against cigarette filters. giggles. rustling of plastic bags full of pills. childish needless flinty flicks of lighters. all culminating in squeals of girls who saunter up to the bathroom with their lovers to dose, to swallow the necessary amount of water in the cheap plastic cups and upon doing so collapse onto sofas together in a heap of hair and rumpled clothing.

then fade in on where I’m sitting alone. she has witch tits emily and jessica say. they’ve been inseparable for as long as I’ve been a part of this group of friends. two years or more. I say what do you mean by that? they say well they’re all pointy and you know like cone shaped and I say ewwww gross

the lead girl the one who has been in charge of distributing the beans and will later emplore me to rub her head once the drugs kick in is named Maggie. the woman in question is a short order cook at the local bar and grille and wears jeans that smell of the residue of the trade hot grease warm toast fried anything. so Maggie is saying that I’m glad we’re all together tonight at my place and make yourself at home. though I really don’t know anyone don’t even really know why I’m even here tonight just that I didn’t have much else to do on a Friday night.

I’m self conscious about most things about myself including the black hair around my nipples and my arms and my knuckles that I used to shave away out of shame and now just let grow to spite my mother when she visits. when I was in high school she’d often say I don’t know why anyone so pretty would ever leave the house looking so ugly. not that I was ever the epitome of beautiful even when I tried to be fluffy and dainty. I’m rough as a board and as plain as one but I was never content to completely bull-dyke out and buzz my head and wear some hideously lopsided visor.

camera pulls out centering on the black light meant to accentuate the drug being taken. the lights dimmed now. nearly ten o’clock in the evening. the stale stench of charred tobacco wafting in now and then as it is a perfectly still night with no wind.

camera pulls overhead to me sitting alone solitary on the couch I dosed nearly an hour ago and I can’t say I know exactly what these pills contain other than I manage to catch the strains of other peoples’ conversations as though they were my own thoughts. for instance the pair next to me is currently vying for the title of world’s most annoying lesbian couple. loud and all over each other and cooing to each other about promises made of ultimate fidelity you remember hun that when we get older we’re going to china to adopt a baby one of the couple the brunette one with eyes like a doe dislodges, obviously intoxicated, slinks across the floor and asks me abruptly to guess one of her secrets

your secrets? I ask perplexed yes, my secrets sweetie she slurs and brushes a finger against one of my lips. well I say thinking I bet that you almost died when you were a childand instead of the intended or expected reaction to something that outlandish she grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me

how did you know that? who told you that? I’ve never told anyone that before tell me what powers you possess and quickly her partner drags her back from the issue with a deep kiss and everyone goes back to what they were doing. so I resume staring at the ceiling.

the ceiling is a high A frame that reminds me of the small baptist church mom dragged along to when I was a little girl. I would lie in her lap and lie across one of the uncomfortable unpadded wooden pews and stare at the majesty of the rough pine planks that seemed to tower towards heaven while at the same time smarting from the scrapes and scabs that inevitable crisscrossed both knees as a result of a Saturday spent outside playing in the woods.

camera focuses squarely on the center of the room Maggie claims that one of the group must be rescued. Maggie is always rescuing someone. usually it’s whomever she wants to sleep with but you don’t ask questions of Maggie. this is Maggie’s place, and her drugs and her food that she has thoughtfully prepared for the occasion

technically this is her grandfather’s place who few of us has ever seen he is apparently an eccentric old reclusive transvestite who just wants to be left alone. he scarcely leaves his bedroom and his only condition with Maggie is that she not let guys sleep over. this is hardly a problem.

I hear the loud rumbling of Maggie’s car departing the car has a broken muffler that she refuses to get fixed so as a result it is about as subtle upon entrance as she is.

multiple camera shots of women leading women hand by hand into bedrooms it is the time of night where the true meaning of this party becomes evident. there was a time I once defended Maggie you know she’s bouncy they’d said and I like a fool would deny it time and time again. you want to trust her everyone’s slightly in love with her and so I am I suppose. once this girl I barely knew threw herself upon Maggie. deep down inside I’m sure the snake-charmer does have a heart so she did take the opportunity to remove her bra one handed I haven’t lost my touch Maggie said satisfied but then quickly fell asleep next to the poor girl.

but at this moment camera zooms towards door the aforementioned dream goddess enters with a girl around her waist. Maggie surely does like the young ones this one can’t be more than seventeen at best and makes herself at home in front of the big screen television. flips on mtv . I just ate another bean on the way over Maggie says so what do you want me to do about it? rub my head she says I thought that’s what you got her for I say gesticulating towards the tiny body with eyeballs now glued to the screen.

nah she’s not my type she bores me so who is your type I ask skeptically well, maybe you tonight she says and without thinking I take her hand and walk into the bedroom the teen sensation scarcely notices we’ve left.

Blogging Break

You may have noticed that recent posts have been collections of my short stories or poems. Here's the reason why.

I'm going through some pretty terrible withdrawal from prescription medication, so for the next several days, blogging will probably consist of my creative writing. I still want to blog and I still want to put something up there for you all to read, but the withdrawal symptoms have been pretty fierce.

Let me just say this, think twice before you take Xanax or any other benzodiazepam.

Leanne's Toes

THE BOOK

(Greatly Abridged)

CHAPTER ONE:

Leanne talked to her toes. ”Oh toes, I love you!” she proclaimed to anyone who would listen.

“I love you so! I love my beautiful, cute, piano toes!”

They were, indeed, the most beautiful toes everyone had ever lain eyes upon. They routinely won prizes and exposure in such contests as “Toes of Washington State” and “Miss Toes Universe”.

Her toes were so famous, in fact, that they were mentioned in an article of Cosmopolitan, dated June 2004, entitled “Ten Tips for Perfect Toenails.

Recently, however, Leanne and her toes had fallen upon rough times. It seems that her toes believed that they were not receiving the high quality pedicure treatments they believed they deserved. They came forward with a list of demands.

1. They were to always have access to the finest pumice scrub.

2. They were never to be painted by anything other than high quality, fast drying, no smudging toenail polish.

Lastly, Leanne’s toes including legal language that read that if at in time their needs were not being met, then they had every right to refuse to perform their duties.

Leanne was furious. Since when did she owe her toes anything? In fact, if it hadn’t been for the skillful manipulation of other parts of her body, in particular, her brain, her toes wouldn’t have been anywhere. They would have been just another pretty bunch of toes, scraping by, trying to make ends meet.

“You are nothing without ME, toes!” she spat.

“Toes! I feed you, I wash you, I paint you, I rub you, I sing to you, I talk to you when you are lonely, and THIS is the thanks I get?

FINE!!!”

At that point, Leanne’s toes refused to straighten out so that she could walk. Their toe demands were not being met and Leanne was forced to cancel a photoshoot with a prominent periodical called Playtoes that would have netted the both of them several thousand dollars. Leanne hobbled along on toes that would not fully bend and on the remnants of their life savings.

CHAPTER TWO:

Leanne was also one of extraordinary beauty. I forgot about that.

CHAPTER THREE:

Leanne reached a settlement with her toes after six weeks of agonizing stalemate. An outside negotiator was called in, and it was agreed that Leanne and her toes would make a clean break. Leanne retained the right to all previous photography and media ventures in which they were both attached.

In return, her toes were allowed to go free-lance and find another pair of feet who would agree to their demands. The deal was rumored to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $31 million dollars. Leanne’s toes then signed the contract agreement and wriggled off her feet.

Leanne then found a pair of temporary toes, which were not nearly as beautiful as her previous set, but were willing to learn the ropes of professional toe modeling and didn’t complain.

CHAPTER FOUR:

Leanne’s original toes called her up one day, out of the blue. Things had not worked out nearly as well as they’d intended. They wanted to reconcile. They missed her. They missed it when she talked to them when they were lonely, rubbed them when they hurt, painted them, and sang to them. In short, they wanted to get back together.

Leanne had missed her original toes, too. Things had never been quite the same without them. So, she forgave them and they returned to the top of the toe modeling career where they have been ever since.

I’m sure you’ve seen them everywhere.

Bad Victorian Literature Parody

“We must come together against all odds, furtive and imperious as they may be, to resolve our grievous situation.”

Whatever do you mean, kind sir?” spoke the dirty man with nary a tooth in his head, nor proper shoes.

“Well,” spoke the similarly attired one, “Our urination situation has become rather precarious. No longer can we fertilize the street of the village square with our own secretions.”

The second man scratched two fleas which had nested in his underarm before contemplating this issue further.

“Have they not considered that it is not enough for us to defoul our own clothing, bodies, or mudplots?”

The first man tipped his imaginary hat to a passing lady, then replied,

“They find us revolting, they say. Thought I daresay they cannot understand a gent’s desire to be so uncouth after imbibing intoxicating liquors.”

Aghast, his companion let out a mock shudder.

“This is most upsetting, yes, yes.”

Cheerful Blasphemy

Speaking of Humility

Thank You, Wikiquote

Humility

From Wikiquote

• A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle. —Benjamin Franklin

• Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought. —Dwight Morrow

• Blushing is the color of virtue. —Diogenes

• Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. ~Alexander Pope

• Don't talk about yourself; it will be done when you leave. —Wilson Mizner

• Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. —Frank Leahy

• Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale. —Adlai Stevenson

• Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience. —Eric Hoffer

• Humility is to make a right estimate of one's self. —Charles Haddon Spurgeon

• I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. — Helen Keller

• If every fool wore a crown, we should all be kings. —Welsh Proverb

• It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility. —Rachel Carson

• It is always the secure who are humble. —G. K. Chesterton

• It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help. -Anonymous

• It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles. —Niccolo Machiavelli

• It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. —Mohandas Gandhi

• It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others. —Andrew J. Holmes

• Lord, where we are wrong, make us willing to change; where we are right, make us easy to live with. —Peter Marshall

• Modesty is the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it. —Oliver Herford

• Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly overvalued by others. —William Hazlitt

• Modesty: The art of encouraging people to find out for themselves how wonderful you are. —Source Unknown

• Most of us retain enough of the theological attitude to think that we are little gods. —Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

• Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected. —William Safire

• None are so empty as those who are full of themselves. —Benjamin Whichcote

• Religion is to do right. It is to love, it is to serve, it is to think, it is to be humble. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Swallow your pride occasionally, it's non-fattening! —Anonymous

• Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself. —Friedrich Nietzsche

• The humbleness of a warrior is not the humbleness of the beggar. The warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesn’t permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scrapes the floor to anyone he deems to be higher; but at the same time, he demands that someone lower than him scrape the floor for him. —Carlos Castaneda

• The man who thinks he can live without others is mistaken; the one who thinks others can't live without him is even more deluded. —Hasidic Proverb

• There are a billion people in China. It's not easy to be an individual in a crowd of more than a billion people. Think of it. More than a BILLION people. That means even if you're a one-in-a-million type of guy, there are still a thousand guys exactly like you. —A. Whitney Brown

• There are two kinds of egotists: Those who admit it, and the rest of us. —Laurence J. Peter

• To this principle of vanity, which philosophers call a mean one, and which I do not, I owe a great part of the figure which I have made in life. —Lord Chesterfield

• Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. —Malcolm S. Forbes

• True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes. —Edward Frederick Halifax

• We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm. —Winston Churchill

• We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all. —François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

• Wear your learning like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull it out, and strike it, merely to show that you have one. —Lord Chesterfield

• What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself. —Abraham Lincoln

• When science discovers the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to find they are not it. —Bernard Baily

• When someone sings his own praises, he always gets the tune too high. —Mary H. Waldrip

• With people of only moderate ability modesty is mere honesty; but with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy. —Arthur Schopenhauer

• You shouldn't gloat about anything you've done; you ought to keep going and find something better to do. —David Packard

• I would rather have people wonder why there is no statue of me, than wonder why there is. - Unknown.

• Humility is good for all, but is an added richness to the rich. - Valluvar in Tirukkural: 125

• I am third. [Means God must come first in our lives, and our neighbour second.] —Catherine Doherty

• "The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not sufficient."
  • St. Augustine

• "The high mountains are barren, but the low valleys are covered over with corn; and accordingly the showers of God's grace fall into lowly hearts and humble souls."
  • Worthington

• "He who sacrifices a whole offering shall be rewarded for a whole offering; he who offers a burnt-offering shall have the reward of a burnt-offering; but he who offers humility to God and man shall be rewarded with a reward as if he had offered all the sacrifices in the world."
  • The Talmud

• "True humility—the basis of the Christian system—is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues."
  • Burke

• "By humility, and the fear of the Lord, are riches, honor, and life."
  • Proverbs 22:4

• '"If you ask, what is the first step in the way of truth? I answer humility," saith St. Austin. "If you ask, what is the second? I say humility. If you ask, what is the third? I answer the same—humility." Is it not as the steps of degree in the Temple, whereby we descend to the knowledge of ourselves, and ascend to the knowledge of God? Would we attain mercy? humility will help us.'
  • C. Sutton

• "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."
  • Matthew 5:5

• "Nothing can be further apart than true humility and servility."
  • Beecher

• 'Some one called Sir Richard Steele the "vilest of mankind," and he retorted with proud humility, "It would be a glorious world if I were."'
  • Bovee

• "Humility is the Christian's greatest honor; and the higher men climb, the farther they are from heaven."
  • Burder

• "The grace which makes every other grace amiable."
  • Alfred Mercier

• "If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble; for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, so it is beloved of none but by itself; the voice of humility is God's music, and the silence of humility is God's rhetoric. Humility enforces where neither virtue nor strength can prevail nor reason."
  • Quarles

• "The fullest and best ears of corn hang lowest toward the ground."
  • Bishop Reynolds

• "If thou wouldst find much favor and peace with God and man, be very low in thine own eyes; forgive thyself little, and others much."
  • Leighton

• "After crosses and losses men grow humbler and wiser."
  • Franklin

God IS Dead

I feel this way after having theological discussions with certain people.

Sunday's Food for Thought

My Dear Sweet Child

My dear sweet child
How do I tell you
You came about one fateful, boozy night

Whose memories are now only
A man’s name
A phone number
Scrawled across a
Stained cocktail napkin

Buried in a drawer
Deep beneath old photographs
Newspaper clippings
Receipts
Ticket stubs

The dandruff of selves I once was

What If...

We thought in terms of Jesus being a human being.

A man, not a God.

What if we allowed him the ability to prove himself mortal, rather than insisting he be divine? I don't know about you, but I can't relate to the divine, but I can certainly relate to the mortal.

Imperfect, but enlightened. Flawed, but inspirational. Quick tempered, but still without sin. A champion of the poor who hung around prostitutes, lepers, outcasts, and the various gutter-dwellers of society.

I don't know about you, but the times I've been around the so-called scum of the earth, I haven't come out of the situation having made much of an impact except for having their bad habits rub off on me. It goes contrary to all the things my parents taught me: don't hang around bad influences lest you find them becoming your own.

How did he escape with his virtue intact and his criminal record unscathed? How did he manage to not end up with a drug addiction or a social disease?

How did he not end up contributing to an unwanted pregnancy or worse yet, bring a child into the world that would grow up without ever knowing his father?

How did not end up becoming a criminal himself?

He was a child prodigy turned radical who came to renounce the conventional roles a rabbi was supposed to lead. He was a man who didn't keep his mouth shut and paid the ultimate price for speaking the truth-- to hell with the consequences.

If he lived today, would we call him impulsive? Mentally ill? Hypomanic? Delusional? Too idealistic to be taken seriously? Out of touch with reality? A bottom feeder? A slummer?

Would we be one of the tongue-clucking masses saying that "This time he's gone too far?"

Would we have dispensed advice like "Jesus, for God's sake, just keep your mouth shut."

Would we have questioned why anyone would want to be around prostitutes, drug addicts, malcontents, and all the things we hope our children never become?

Would we have been part of the screaming masses who renounced his teachings and preferred he die a criminal's death on the cross?

Even if we supported him, would we dare speak out out of fear for our own lives and well-being?

Fighting Cross-Cringe

In reading over the recently-published book Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant, I was further reminded of the debate that has recently been raging in the left-wing blogosphere. How do we take back the idea of Jesus, and reframe him in his proper context?

How do we re-establish Jesus as the radical, left-wing prophet he right is, rather than continuing to concede to the right this idea of Jesus as a staid, dyed-in-the-wool conservative?

Well, I think part of it is in the fact that many religious liberals are often reluctant to put a public face on their faith. This viewpoint is nothing new, but I add my own two cents to the matter.

I live in the Southeast, a region of the country where open religious expression is quite common. Some people, natives and transplants both, find it awkward and off-putting to be so open about one's faith, yet still others find it freeing and liberating to be able to vocalize a facet of themselves with which they are passionate.

Having traveled fairly extensively throughout the country, I recognize that other regions of the country are far less effusive about their religious preference. In my opinion, we ought not to fear judgment by our fellow humans and be much more open about our faith and our faith journeys.

I was further reminded of this fact when I was informed that former Alaskan senator and Democratic Presidential hopeful Mike Gravel is a Unitarian. One of the reasons I left the Unitarian church is because UUs are so reluctant to be vocal about their denomination. Unintentionally, UUism lies behind a veil of secrecy to rival the Masons. It loses a member for each member it gains because people are so afraid and uncomfortable to be open with what that which they worship and hold dear. And I can see their viewpoint, but I don't share it.

In a larger context, I think all of religious liberalism holds this same fallacy of thought. People my own age and of my generation hold an often cynical, often skeptical view of religion and spirituality because they confuse the Pharisees for the true believers. During adolescence, when challenging the status quo and the things one has been taught by one's parents is the norm, this is forgivable. But I feel that continuing to remain in this frame of mind after adolescence has passed comes across as a state of arrested development rather than a personal decision to stay mum.

For example, if I put up a scathing condemnation of the Republican party and of President Bush on this website, I'll get some comments and I'll be effectively preaching to the choir. I'll have milked the same old "ain't it awful" perspective that we as human beings love to engage in. Nevermind that all it does is coalesce support amongst ourselves and alienate others. We all want to hate on someone, unfortunately, and few of us wish to stick our necks out for fear of being called out.

So let me propose something radical (and it's not really that radical, because I'm only echoing what others have said on this site and many other places). Why don't we all engage in a grand sociological experiment? Why don't we be more vocal about how important our faith is to us rather than worrying about what the Jones and Smiths will say?

We prove ourselves hypocritical when we hold two contradictory viewpoints: 1) that nonconformity ought to be our goal but 2) only the sort of socially acceptable non-conformity. We were founded on a sort of rugged individualism, so why not follow the example of our Founders and take our Jesus back?

Europe's Distaste of America (Part 1)

I'm reading two books right now. One is called Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America

The reasons advanced by the author, Andrei S. Markovits, are many but I will simplify a few.

Part of it is due to sour grapes: they envy our wealth while decrying our seemingly shallow, materialistic culture. They find our cheerfully optimistic nature naive, when they've been taught to be more stoic about their emotions and generally more reserved.

I saw instances of the latter first hand from my interactions with two Britons while I was staying at a hostel in NYC. A young woman asked me, in typically direct British fashion whether or not I told my friends that I loved them on a regular basis. To the British sensibility, this sort of effusive behavior is ridiculously vulgar and uncouth, but I'll counter that assertion by noting that it is a sight to see to be around intoxicated Britons. Having never been taught to be comfortable with their emotions, and without guidance counselors in school, the famous stiff upper lip quickly degenerates into a room full of emotionally stunted eight-year-old children. It's downright embarrassing to observe and made me deeply uncomfortable.

So maybe there is something to be said for good old fashion American emotion, after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Or maybe we're a nation of Hypomanics and Manic-Depressives. That's what's proposed in The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (A Little) Craziness and (A Lot of) Success.

It is proposed that hypomania drives our peculiarly American sensibility. John D. Gartner even goes so far as to propose that Founding Fathers like Alexander Hamilton and successful businessmen like Andrew Carnegie were products of hypomanic productivity. He further asserts that it takes a person who's a tad bit on the manic side to want to leave his/her country for a Promised Land in the first place. He may be right; I'm still chewing on that. I've certainly thought so myself from time to time.

He notes that the instances of mental illness, particular bipolar disorder, are highest in nations comprised primarily of immigrants.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't share every viewpoint noted by both authors, but do recognize that Anti-Americanism has become a common perspective shared by many Europeans. That's a thread that runs through both books, though it is more explicitly stated in the former.

Parts of both books make me involuntarily bristle. I want to shout out at the authors--hey, that's MY country you're talking about! I can criticize it, but you can't! Then I recognize that I sound just as willfully conservative as those who put down the Dixie Chicks.

In short, I'm not sure that any other society would not take the same tact as we have. I'm not sure that any other nation afford the material wealth we are blessed with and not act in the same fashion. I'm sure they'd have a slightly different spin on it and perhaps be a little less reckless and a little less impulsive.

However, I do recognize that we do take our status as a superpower for granted and that in the near future, we may be a second-class power like Britain or France.

Why The Democrats Are Stalling

First off, let me assert my humble opinion that very soon, within the next few months, we will be out of Iraq.

Those of us who are in the Democratic base want it to occur as soon as possible, but here is why I think so far the efforts of the Democratic-controlled Congress have yet to make it happen. A cursory study of economics would serve us well. I've been disappointed not to hear this side of the story in the Mainstream media, but we Americans have proven ourselves often ignorant of economics and prone to want simple explanation for very complex problems. The Iraq situation is no different.

We are in between the proverbial rock and a hard place in Iraq. When we leave, we will have effectively created a power vacuum in the Middle East. After we pull our troops out of the region, I see a major war between Shiites and Sunnis in the region. I see, as a result of this action, gasoline prices skyrocketing towards the $5 and $6 market. Our economy, which is already skittish, would then take a severe downturn towards recession.

The Democrats in power are not dumb. They realize that the worst thing that could happen to them is if they can be effectively blamed for putting us into a severe economic downswing. They would then lose their control on Congress and their seats in office. This is why gridlock, saber-rattling, and posturing have taken place thus far. And I remind you who are reading this that it took five years for the United States to withdraw its troops from Vietnam. Nixon was elected on a secret strategy to end the War, but he effectively kept it going for much longer than the war-weary American public would have wished.

I don't know what it is about human nature, capitalism, and profit but for some reason or another it seems as though people have got to get killed to keep economies robust. This is hardly a surprise to anyone who has studied history in any fashion. Even the ballerina Nijinksy, who was no great study of current events, set forth in his diary this revelation which I have memorized and kept at hand. He said, I know why wars are fought. Wars are fought over commerce.

Life on the Island of Eels

If you like eels, then it's not so bad.

But if you don't like eels, then it is.

Art and Chaos Day

Something I wrote a while back. I'm (momentarily) taking a break from politics.

End of the Snow Season

I.

Late March in Boston. The tail end of the snow season. Three inches fell last week and two inches at least remain on the ground, pushed aside by snow plows—-grimy black and grey with roadside pollution. The snow lingers copiously in shaded corners, underhangs shielded from sunshine.

At this time, the city begin to believe that winter has departed. Clunky, insulated galoshes are set inside closets by the adventurous and the believers in best-case-scenario. Pessimists still sport them. The wet cold. The steady drizzle. Sustained sunlight is months away.

Your hands are long and thin. The passage of years will leave them no less freckled, but twenty times more wrinkled. Your nose is beak-shaped, bird-like—juts out prominently from high cheekbones. Facial structure is bony and pronounced.

You're selfish, she said. This was in the art museum not from from Allston, where she had casually dismissed all the great masters as little more than charlatans.

II.

I must have walked this same block fifty times over—and more so in my mind. The town square’s denizens no longer wear woolen overcoats and drive horse and buggies. Instead they dress in baggy, hip-hop denim with splatter paint running up and down the pants leg.

If one decides to walk past the homeless people resting uncomfortably on park benches, one will find a memorial to some long forgotten prosperous townsperson. Though some acknowledge his name, most know it only as a landmark. These days, the surname is attached to drug deals and inhales of nicotine—it’s a destination, not a means for solemn reverence.

Civil engineers can’t seem to build enough roadways these days. The nearly empty shopping mall will soon be razed to make way for more asphalt and toll booths.

Your nasally mid-Massachusetts hard As stick out when you tell me I hate this place it’s gone to hell this place really sucks it’s so hard to survive these days.

Bushonics Speakers Strike Back

The day Lisa Shaw’s son Tyler came home from school with tears streaming down his cheeks, the 34-year-old Crawford, Texas, homemaker knew things had gone too far.

“All of Tyler’s varying and sundry friends was making fun of the way he talked,” Shaw says. “I am not a revengeful person, but I couldn’t let this behaviorism slip into acceptability. This is not the way America is about.”

Shaw and her son are two of a surprising number of Americans who speak a form of nonstandard English that linguists have dubbed “Bushonics,” in honor of the dialect’s most famous speaker, President George W. Bush. The most striking features of Bushonics—tangled syntax, mispronunciations, run-on sentences, misplaced modifiers and a wanton disregard for subject-verb agreement—are generally considered to be “bad” or “ungrammatical” by linguists and society at large.

But that attitude may be changing. Bushonics speakers, emboldened by the Bush presidency, are beginning to make their voices heard. Lisa Shaw has formed a support group for local speakers of the dialect and is demanding that her son’s school offer “a full-blown up apologism.” And a growing number of linguists argue that Bushonics isn’t a collection of language “mistakes” but rather a well-formed linguistic system, with its own lexical, phonological and syntactic patterns.

“These people are greatly misunderestimated,” says University of Texas linguistics professor James Bundy, himself a Bushonics speaker. “They’re not lacking in intelligence facilities by any stretch of the mind. They just have a differing way of speechifying.”

It’s difficult to say just how many Bushonics speakers there are in America, although professor Bundy claims “their numbers are legionary.” Many who speak the dialect are ashamed to utter it in public and will only open up to a group of fellow speakers. One known hotbed of Bushonics is Crawford, the tiny central Texas town near the president’s 1,600-acre ranch. Other centers are said to include Austin and Midland, Texas, New Haven, Conn., and Kennebunkport, Maine.

Bushonics is widely spoken in corporate boardrooms, and has long been considered a kind of secret language among members of the fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon. Bushonics speakers have ascended to top jobs at places like the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services. By far the greatest concentration of Bushonics speakers is found in the U.S. military. Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig is only the most well known Bushonics speaker to serve with distinction in America’s armed forces. Among the military’s top brass, the dialect is considered to be the unofficial language of the Pentagon. Former President George H.W. Bush spoke a somewhat diluted form of the dialect that bears his family’s name, which may have influenced his choice for vice president, Dan Quayle, who spoke an Indiana strain of Bushonics.

The impressive list of people who speak the dialect is a frequent topic at Lisa Shaw’s weekly gathering of Bushonics speakers. That so many members of their linguistic community have risen to positions of power comes as a comfort to the group, and a source of inspiration.
“We feel a good deal less aloneness, my guess is you would want to call it,” Shaw says. “It just goes to show the living proof that expectations rise above that which is expected.”

Some linguists still contend, however, that the term “Bushonics” is being used as a crutch to excuse poor grammar and sloppy logic.

“I’m sorry, but these people simply don’t know how to talk properly,” says Thomas Gayle, a speech professor at Stanford University. Professor Gayle was raised by Bushonic parents, and says he occasionally catches himself lapsing into the dialect.

“When it happens, it can be very misconcerting,” Gayle says. “I understand Bushonics. I was one. But under full analyzation, it’s really just an excuse to stay stupider.”
It’s talk like that that angers many Bushonics speakers, who say they’re routinely the victims of prejudice.

“The attacks on Bushonics demonstrate a lack of compassion and amount to little more than hate speech,” says a prominent Bushonics leader who spoke on the condition that his quote be “cleaned up.”

Increasingly, members of the Bushonics community are fighting back. Lisa Shaw’s Crawford-based group is pressing the local school board to institute bilingual classes, and to eliminate the study of English grammar altogether. “It’s an orientation of being fairness-based,” Shaw says. A Bushonics group in New England has embarked on an ambitious project to translate key historical documents into the dialect, beginning with the Bill of Rights. (For instance, the Second Amendment rendered into Bushonics reads: “Guns. They’re American, for the regulated militia and the people to bear. Can’t take them away for infringement purposes. Not never.”)

Bushonics activists say they’ll keep fighting as long as there are still children who come home from school crying because their classmates can’t understand a word they’re saying. Lisa Shaw hopes that every American will heed the words of the nation’s No. 1 Bushonics speaker, and vow to be a uniter, not a divider.

“We shouldn’t be cutting down the pie smaller,” Shaw says with quiet dignity. “We ought to make the pie higher.”

Regarding Yesterday's Post

Idealism has done nothing but keep me sitting on the sidelines when I'd much rather be sitting at the table with the winners. I've shelved a lot of my idealism for pragmatism because idealism will leave you morally right and alone. We admire the underdog in this society, but we always go home with the winner. Many of you will want to vote for Dennis Kucinich, who is the most idealistic and stands his ground. But most of you will end up voting for Hillary Clinton anyway come November 2008.

We claim to admire the idealist, when we always end up siding with the pragmatist. Idealism sounds good and it caters to that romantic element within us all who loves it when the White Hats beat the Black Hats, that good triumphs over evil in the end, and loves the saccharine sweetness of a good Disney movie.

I said what I said yesterday out of frustration. No matter how well-intentioned we are in the blogosphere, we cannot through our good intentions alone re-program human nature. We can sit and metaphorically stroke our goatees meaningfully and agree what a nice world it would be if we all just got along and held hands and sang Kumbaya around the campfire. Meanwhile, the world goes on, still full of human fallibility, sin, and imperfection.

If what I've said comes across as arrogant, than so be it. Better I be arrogant than complacent. Better I be arrogant than inactive. Better I be arrogant than ignorant. Better I be arrogant than passionless.

To Make an Impact

I think all of us who are people of faith struggle with this on a daily basis. And there comes a point in time where I find myself resigned to the fact that politics and politicians are quick to paint themselves as idealistic, but prove themselves beholden to special interests, greed, money, and power.

So I've come to the point that I feel as though we ought to work within the system, flawed and unethical though it may be, rather than try to work outside it. To work outside the system and have it work would insist that we explode it and that was tried during the 1960s with limited success. There is too much at stake and the powers that be will not allow that to occur.

So let me propose something bold.

We in the left-wing elite tend to overlook the plight of the common person. We get so carried away with our own agenda, which admittedly is too far to the left to ever hold sway among all but a few educated people. Faux News fears the power of the netroots but I think they do give us too much credit.

This is the hard truth. The people we need to come to our side most don't read blogs. Few of them read newspapers. Fewer still read books. Most of them get their news from the television if they are even inclined to care about the news. I maintain, and maintain strongly, that the only way to get the attention of the average American voter is through financial means. Their primary concerns are not these grandiose issues we love to dissect, but rather on such prosaic matters as: making enough money to survive, caring for their children, and working to keep food on the table.

We all know that the key problem that faces the average person is ignorance. And I think many of us would agree that the only cure for ignorance is education. So let me propose something that I don't see many people out there clamoring for:

A Free College Education

Report after report has shown that the costs of higher education have skyrocketed over the past few years, putting a college degree firmly out of the hands but the fortunate few who have the financial means to afford it or the courage to take out student loans. I am a victim of the latter, having run up for a mere two semesters of graduate school, nearly $24,000 worth of student loans. I have only managed to pay off a little over $1,500 of that debt.

College is an experience that not only expands minds and counters ignorance but it also nearly guarantees that those who obtain it will make more money and have more career opportunity.

If we educated folks want to grow our numbers and win people over to our side, this ought to be foremost in our agenda.

How do we pay for it? Simple. Let's take money from the wealthiest 1% of Americans who have benefited most from eight years of George the First.

Other options could include:

1. Cutting taxes 10% across the board
2. Instituting a flat tax that taxes all people equally.

Admittedly, these two are Libertarian/Republican ideas, but if politics has taught me anything, it's taught me that just because you say it doesn't mean you have to do it. And these days, spin can justify anything. So am I proposing that we LIE to the American People about these last two points? Well, um...yes. Is this an admittedly deceptive tactic? Certainly. But money and influence comes well before idealism. Idealism has done nothing but isolate the left over the years. Let's be honest with ourselves.

The institutional memory and short term memory of the masses in general is pretty short. I do recommend we institute a free, across the board college education. And I recommend we pay lip service to a tax cut and a flat tax. Is this ethically sound? Maybe, and maybe not, but I agree with Gore Vidal that politics and politicians have never been ethical. It's the way of the world. A President who lied before a Grand Jury and cheated on his wife remained in power and came out of his Impeachment Trial with a 70% approval rating.

It is laudable for both the idealistic left and the idealistic right to point out that character does matter, but I am increasingly of the opinion that idealism almost always loses.

But at least let us have free college education. And while we're at it, let's have universal health care coverage, too. Those two issues will win more people over to our side than anything else.

Summer Camp for Radical Leftists

I wrote this piece about a year ago. I probably should flesh it out a bit more, and it's one of those things I've been putting off because I've got the luxury of doing so. As it stands, it's a short story that is a parody of UU young adult cons.

I mentioned this during the Skye live chat we had over at Blue Gal's place last night, so if any of you are curious, here it is.

Summer Camp for Radical Leftists

One of the most brilliant people is O’Daniel, who makes constant, highly distracting head bobs up and down.

A rumor surrounds the camp that he was born autistic. In actuality, he prefers to bark at you that he is not actually autistic. Instead he has a a rare form of the disorder that is not technically autism.

In long accustomed fashion, just like your parents told you to… you nod your head up and down and agree with him.

The Evil Queen draws these men into her fold easily. They quickly collapse at the knees and beg for punishment. They are sufficiently trained to follow the plan of the manifesto, and begin taking upper level management jobs within the inner works of the machine.

During the numerous training and promotional videos that we are required to view for a good six hours prior to hiring, we are taught step-by-step how to be a model radical. Having good hygenic practices is considered a plus, as well as a winning smile.

This highly offensive form of new employee orientation was the Wicked Queen’s idea. She had “connections”, she said. To me, “connections” looked a lot like tired old B movie actors talking in monosyllables. They knew they couldn’t act and guiltily spoke their lines as though their earnestness in their own mediocrity could redeem the fact. The spoke as though the person across the camera was threatening their lives, much like those hostages held captive by other competing rival groups, or OCRG.

I wish we had a good digital camera like the Islamic Jihadists. Ours hasn’t been the same since the Christmas Party. This was the first year in five that we haven’t beaten them in the pick-up softball game arranged after the generic summer holiday fireworks show. They’ve got this new guy, with a really gigantic turban, who can pitch like nobody’s business.

It was time for the morning meeting around the campfire. Plans were announced to have a meeting of prayer or silent contemplation or any such higher form that you might hold true to yourself. Extremely over-dramatical gestures were made for the sake of emphasis and it was sagely concurred that this was indeed a safe space where we all are present.

The Pagans amuse me greatly.

They dress much like the garden gnomes one sees in the sides of yards in selected Scandinavian countries. They act like them, as well—theatrical overacting common to Vaudeville and silent movies. Sometimes they scare small children in the daycare that was thoughtfully provided this year yet again. This is really just a response to Kathy Ronti who insists taking her whole family with her everywhere. The twins, as they are known, look harmless enough, until they start quoting Marxist conflict theory rhetoric verbatim.

They run around and tell us that they have been well informed about matters of contraception and show us how they are skilled in knowing about multiple forms and methods.

The reason the daycare even existed is because of the unfortunate incident this time last year. Everyone’s trying to forget how the boys deliberately started knocking over the artistic rock structures in the river. Building artistic rock structures is a way that we all bond. They are so important to us that they are scheduled three times daily.

Evening Mediation

I don't remember the first time I heard this, but tonight after a meeting full of suffering people I thought of this on my way home.

I hope it has resonance for you, too.

Do Good Anyway...

"In the Final Analysis"

by Mother Teresa

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered...
forgive them anyway

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives...
be kind anyway

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies...
succeed anyway

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you...
be honest and frank anyway

What you may spend years building, someone may destroy overnight...
build anyway

If you find serenity and happiness, people may be jealous...
be happy anyway

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow...
do good anyway

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough...
give the world the best you have anyway

You see, in the final analysis, it's all between you and God...
it was never between you and them anyway

Something Fun

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.

Who's" Your Inner European?

The Appropriate Bumper Sticker

As I drive around, I often see stickers commemorating the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. As the above image suggests, may I propose that we commemorate instead the day, six years ago, where our current President was presented an urgent memo warning him that an Al-Qaeda attack was imminent.

I'd like to see this image turned into a bumper sticker, as it would certainly grace my back bumper.

Here's my take on the 11 September activities. I have no kooky Rosie O'Donnell style conspiracy theories, though I have pondered them. I don't believe this administration is competent enough to pull off a conspiracy of such magnitude, and that they have the ability to have brought down the Twin Towers by themselves. I don't ascribe to the belief that 11 September was an inside job.

However, I do believe that this administration was complicit in the attack. I believe that they deliberate ignored the threat, wanting their own unique Pearl Harbor. Maybe they didn't recognize just how virulent and involved the plot would be. My gut instinct is that they thought the carnage would be much less intense than it turned out to be. As it stands, 3,000 plus people lost their lives due to criminal negligence on the part of the Bush administration.

I will go to my grave believing this.

PDB blogswarm

EDIT: I like Street Prophets far more than I do Daily Kos. Dear Kossites, there is such a thing as a sense of irony and many of you make me ashamed to be an American. You play into anti-American stereotypes such as ill-informed, stupid, placated by media, and utterly clueless. You remind me of people who think: Why read when you can just flip on the tube? May you develop a sense of critical thinking, else you play into the hands of the Right and the Anti-American sentiment currently brewing in Western Europe. This is my prayer. Amen.

The Role of the Intellectual

One of the reasons I encourage all thinking people to blog is that I believe firmly that all persons who have something to say ought to use their talents to share ideas with their contemporaries. To me, life is about sharing information so that we can better our society for all people, not just the educated elite.

If you've been following the current debate raging in Unitarian/Liberal Christian circles, the question being posed is: How do we keep a sense of collective memory fresh in the minds of all people and how do we make them see how relevant it is to today?

Thomas Jefferson was not an egalitarian. He was an elitist. He believed that the educated elite ought to have access to the most education and that the masses ought to be educated on more practical matters and have a thorough grounding, but not the in depth study provided the educated elite. This philosophy has survived in intellectual, academic settings as well as the Unitarian church. I'm inclined to believe more in Jefferson's take because the older I get, the less I believe that the liberal idea that provided enough education, every person can rise above his station and reach self-actualization is little more than an exploded myth.

Horace Mann, a century later, took a much more egalitarian approach, arguing that education was for all people, regardless of class. I tend to see this approach as pie-in-the sky rather than practical or even possible.

As a historian, I understand that some concepts are so submerged underneath the crap we’re inundated with on a daily basis (particularly in these days of such constant information barrage) that it takes the intellectuals to point it out and re-frame the argument so that the average Joe and Jane can understand it. This shouldn't reflect negatively on the average person and I really believe the idea of blame has no purpose in the discussion. It has been my understanding that it takes a special person to look at the world and dig layers beneath the surface and not confuse that surface as all there is to know. We in education call those sorts “self-directed learners”.

I think only a few people are geared to a self-directed learners. It’s up to the intellectuals to show the average person how to think. Not out of a sense of paternalism, which with a pat on the head says I-know-better-than-you-do, but merely out of matter of course.

Thus we have two competing ideas of thought in history. We have the conservative viewpoint, which argues strongly against exploding conventional wisdom and preserving the mythology. Their viewpoint is based upon the fear that if we call everything into question then we will fall into anarchy and nihilism. To counter that argument, we have the liberal, revisionist critique which calls into question past viewpoints and dares to take on sacred cows for the sole purpose of revealing the past the way it more or less was, and not how it has been watered-down and sugar-coated to suit the whims of those who advance the fantasy to keep themselves in power.

Both points have merit, but it is my opinion that we owe it to ourselves to question and probe. I don't believe Christopher Columbus was a great man, and neither do I see Andrew Jackson as a great man, either. But the debate that really lies beneath the surface is that of fear versus trust. I see the conservative viewpoint as being firmly fear-based--the fear that if we dispose of traditional conceptions of history then we'll find ourselves utterly rudderless. I see the liberal viewpoint, which I entertain, as being based on trust. I trust that the revisionist school of thought will lead us closer to the way things really transpired.

The revisionist school has led me to understand a lot of crucial elements about human nature. There are constants in human nature, and among these are the desire for power, the desire for material gain, the desire for sexual conquest, and the pursuit of commerce. All wars when you whittle them down to their basest elements have these crucial elements in common. Many policy decision, too, have these same elements in common.

I think it is up to the intellectual to put these truths in a proper context. The average person is not capable for whatever reason or another of entertaining these concepts by himself or herself--after all, if he or she were, what would be the role of the pedagogy? If this is an elitist statement, so be it, but I doubt that we have advanced far enough in civilization for every person to be his/her own scholar. I believe that visionaries have an obligation to society to advance the cause of knowledge. In blogging, I've run across many fellow visionaries and nothing gives me more comfort than knowing I am not alone in thinking these thoughts and in pondering these issues.

For whatever reason or another, human beings were created unequal as far as educational prowess and intellectual capacity are concerned. Thus it can be a very lonely experience to be gifted and articulate. But we who do blog, and we who do probe do everyone a great service to keep the debate going. And at worst, it's a fun exercise that keeps us smartypants cognizant of the fact that we ought to have no shame for not being "normal", for not being the Proles of Orwellian fame who take everything the government and society tells them at face value and live lives of productive banality. Clearly, if we were all meant to be equal, we would all have high IQs. But we do not and rather than bemoan this point and rather than fear that we'll all fall prey to the eternal blame game, may we seek to grab the bull by the horns. Some of us are meant to lead, and most of us are meant to follow and whether you find that comforting or disquieting, that's just the way of the world.

Why We Shouldn't Forget Our Past

This is in reference to recent posts by PeaceBang and Never Say Never to Your Traveling Self

Hafida Sofia of the latter blog prosed the question of why a Unitarian need ever care about Christianity. This was my response on the comments and I've added some more to fully flesh this out to a full post.

I think that to have a good understanding of where Unitarians came from, one ought to have a good grounding in Christian thought.

I draw an analogy to music. I’m a musician, and unless I’d taken the time to do the historical research into what had transpired before me, I know I wouldn’t nearly have had the skill and the originality to make a new contribution to the art that wasn’t hackneyed and totally cliche.

That’s what I find true with today’s music–it has no appreciation for the classics and relies on too few primary sources and far too many secondary sources.

That, in a nutshell, is why I believe it’s important for every Unitarian to have a thorough grounding in Christianity. The best artists, the best poets, the best theologians are the ones who take the time to examine as many different sources as possible and by doing so, form a brand new sound/genre/theory that although it is once indebted to its sources, but so multifaceted that it proves itself to be brand new, fresh, and ultimately relevant for a great long while.

Both Christianity and Unitarianism strike to find the best ways to stay relevant in today's 21st century world where most people are largely un-churched and increasingly cynical towards any sort of organized religion. Where I draw the line between Unitarianism and Christianity is that Unitarianism seeks to use the scientific process to improve itself to the point that real perfection can be reached. As I've said before, I feel that is highly unrealistic. The Liberal Christianity I ascribe to seeks to touch the lives of many people who are thirsting and searching, with the full understanding that there is no real perfection and it's unrealistic to think otherwise.

A Brief Note of Caution

I can now say that I know someone who has been the victim of identity theft: Me. At some point yesterday night, someone rang up nearly $250 worth of charges on my credit card without my permission.

Within the past two days, my MySpace account has been hacked into twice. I was asked to change my password once and I foolishly used part of my PIN number as one of the new passwords and my theory is that someone used that information to ring up those charges. My new password is so esoteric that I doubt anyone could figure it out.

I had to go to the bank today and fill out about ten forms. I do intend to press charges as well if law enforcement and/or the bank can find out exactly who used my card to run up these charges. A major inconvenience in itself, this is further complicated by the fact that it may be up to 60 days before I get my money back. However, there's a chance that I might know something within 10 days, if I am deemed not at fault. And by this the bank means that they can solidly determine that I never let anyone use my card (which I didn't) and I never took the card out of my possession (which I didn't).

Interestingly enough, the charges were to a Chevron station and to a strip club in Atlanta. Someone must have had a good time. That's at least four lap dances and a tip.

The odd thing about it was that the only way someone could have used my card is if they had an actual copy of the thing. Making online purchases requires an additional three digit number to be entered as an additional layer of protection. I know that new cards were shipped out to my address, but the ones that arrived I made a point of shredding before I left to go back to Birmingham.

What is most suspect is the fact that this theft happened late last night. I haven't lived in Atlanta in nearly a month and a half. I have an alibi and three witness to prove that I was here and not in Atlanta last night.

Since I do use P2P software on a regular basis to swap mp3s, my theory is that someone got into my account by latching onto my IP address. Still, there's a lot of unanswered questions. A friend of mine suggested that perhaps someone who works for amazon.com, USPS, or UPS is the culprit, being that I do make frequent purchases online. However, my last purchase was well over three weeks ago. The question that remains is why now?

Let this be a cautionary tale that you should use different passwords for every social networking site you use, plus any e-mail programs you might use. Also, use p2p software with caution and make sure you scan for spyware and viruses after every time you use them. You never know who's looking in. Thank God my MySpace account reveals few personal details about myself.

This just gives me another reason to hate MySpace.

On Classism

A major problem that liberal religion faces is Classism. Far more than internalized racism and oppression, which I admit are still pertinent issues, classism taints the perception and perspective of many people. I include myself among the throngs.

Wikipedia defines Classism as any form of prejudice or oppression against people as a result of their actual or perceived social class (especially in the form of lower or higher socioeconomic status). It is similar to social elitism.

For more, click here.

I admit that I am guilty of classism, as are many educated people. The irony of my own personal prejudice is that my roots are decidedly humble. I have to remind myself every day that my own parents came from working-class roots.

My paternal grandfather had a sixth-grade education. My paternal grandmother had an eighth- grade education. Both of them worked long hours, six days a week, in often laborious and unhealthy servitude. They both worked over forty years in a textile mill. My father was the first person in his family to secure both a high school diploma and college degree. This is why he is one of my heroes.

My maternal grandfather and grandmother owned their own business, but it was no less humble. They drilled water wells. Well drilling is one of the dirtiest, most thankless jobs ever. It requires a large amount of physical strength as well as acumen. Neither my Grandfather nor my Grandfather went to college, but they made a point to insist that their four children go to college. And they did.

My father, through his own hard work, rose above his station and lived the American dream, raising myself and my two sisters as respectable middle-class. So it's deeply hypocritical of me to be so harshly critical and judgmental of the salt-of-the-earth types that make up the backbone of this country. I've analyzed why I have this bias, and I suppose I can trace it back to my Mother who filled my head full of prejudicial notions of superiority. When I travel to more working-class regions of the country, I feel decidedly ill at ease. I can't say that I feel superior to working class citizens, but I am acutely aware of their own prejudices, which are more often than not products of ignorance.

I've never figured out an adequate way to address my own discomfort but I feel that keeping myself accountable is the best possible defense. I believe it's up to every individual to call themselves out and I am deeply uncomfortable when any organization, religious or otherwise, takes it upon themselves to take the tough love approach. I learned the hard way that people only change when they themselves take the time and effort to do so.

This is a big reason I left the Unitarian church. I felt that if their current model of Anti-Oppression and Anti-Racism, which I disagreed with strongly on principle, was to succeed then it needed to seriously address Classism before it even touched on racism and oppression. After all, nothing would put we religious liberals and educated folk on the spot faster than confronting our own classism. And it's an exercise that black and white, gay and straight, male and female, could all come to terms with. Instead of the left eating itself alive, I propose that the left make a serious effort for all its members to take a long hard look that goes beyond the current M.O.

________________________________________________________________
Addendum: consider these lyrics.

Pulp- "Common People"

She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge
She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College
That's where I caught her eye.

She told me that her Dad was loaded

I said "In that case I'll have a rum and coca-cola"

She said "fine"
And in thirty seconds time she said,

"I want to live like common people
I want to do whatever common people do,
I want to sleep with common people
I want to sleep with common people like you"

Well what else could I do?

I said "I'll see what I can do"

I took her to a supermarket
I don't know why
But I had to start it somewhere

So it started there.

I said "Pretend you've got no money"

But she just laughed
And said "oh you're so funny".

I said "yeah?
Well I can't see anyone else smiling in here".

Are you sure you want to live like common people?
You want to see whatever common people see?

You want to sleep with common people,
You want to sleep with common people like me?

But she didn't understand,
She just smiled and held my hand.

Rent a flat above a shop,
Cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool,
Pretend you never went to school.

But still you'll never get it right
'cos when you're laid in bed at night

Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your Dad he could stop it all.

You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do

You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view,

And dance and drink and screw
Because there's nothing else to do.

Sing along with the common people,
Sing along and it might just get you thru'

Laugh along with the common people
Laugh along even though they're laughing at you

And the stupid things that you do.
Because you think that poor is cool.

Like a dog lying in a corner,
They will bite you and never warn you

Look out, they'll tear your insides out
'cos everybody hates a tourist

Especially one who thinks
It's all such a laugh

And the chip stains' grease
Will come out in the bath

You will never understand
How it feels to live your life

With no meaning or control
And with nowhere left to go

You are amazed that they exist
And they burn so bright

Whilst you can only wonder why
Rent a flat above a shop

Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool

Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right

'cause when you're laid in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall

If you called your dad he could stop it all

You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people

You'll never watch your life slide out of view
And then dance and drink and screw

Because there's nothing else to do

Gay Jihadist?

Open Letter on Embedded Blogger Mark Sanchez

This is when the far right makes me sick.

Conservative ex-marine reactionary activist Matt Sanchez, a darling of the right-wing blogosphere, was recently revealed as having starred in gay pornography. Left-wing bloggers pointed out the hypocrisy of a soldier who fought in combat, yet could have been dishonorably discharged had he come clean with his past under Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The right wing blogosphere lept to his defense, claiming that he shouldn't be unduly persecuted for his private life and conduct. I find that immensely amusing, considering many of these same right wing bloggers were probably calling for the head of President Bill Clinton during his impeachment hearings.

Now Sanchez has come out, pardon the pun, stating that LGBT activists are gay jihadists. This angers me severely because as Nate Nelson points out, quite aptly, it renders the term "jihadist" as merely an epithet: no more, no less. Sanchez, to add injury to insult, calls the "militant gay movement" shallow. Furthermore, he claims that the movement is a threat to Mom, God, and Apple Pie. This is totally inexcusable hate-mongering to the worst degree.

I have a few bones to pick with that analysis. Shallow? No more shallow than the rest of the country, which comprised overwhelmingly by heterosexuals seems to want to often do its best imitation of a cow chewing cud, placated by material goods and technology. While I agree that militancy of any form is dangerous, just as anything in its pure form is toxic, I hasten to characterize the entire LGBT rights movement as a threat. And lest I seem to contradict myself, by that statement I mean that we ought to ignore militancy on both the left and the right. I don't at all consider most LGBT activists as militant, but I'm merely referring to the few fringe elements, particularly the "radical outers".

Radicals can be found on either side of the line but if we characterize one side by its extremists, we do ourselves a great disservice. Common ground can easily be found between the right and left if we don't let our mutual fears and worst-case scenarios overwhelm us.

H/T Nate Nelson

Sounds About Right

You Are 80% Democrat

You have a good deal of donkey running through your blood, and you're proud to be liberal. You don't fit every Democrat stereotype, but you definitely belong in the Democrat party.

How Democrat Are You?

Opening Pandora's Box

As an unapologetic Democrat and liberal, I see Joe Lieberman as a traitor to the cause. While it is true that if he chooses to caucus with the Republicans he will tip the balance of power in the Senate back in the direction it once was, what I find most deplorable is the hypocritical two-step he seems to be dancing at the moment.

EDIT: Thanks to some sharp-eyed readers at Daily Kos, I came to understand that the balance of power in the Senate cannot be shifted back to Republican control, based on new rules set forth by the Senate in the past few months.

Lieberman escalates attacks on Iraq Critics

I do not agree with his assertion that the Democratic party is merely the anti-Bush party. It has tried to end this conflict through diplomatic action, but the President has put his foot down. Furthermore, the more stubborn Bush is, the more he tears apart the Republican party. If Bush would agree to pull our troops out of Iraq in the next several months, the Democrats would lose a key position issue that so far has kept them in the good graces of the majority of the American people.

I cannot in good conscience support a war that was based on false pretenses and outright fabrications. If we get out now, then yes, I agree Iraq will fall into utter chaos, but it’s imploding right now and our brave men and women are getting killed and wounded.

We couldn’t win a civil war against the Viet Cong and we can’t make Shiites and Sunnis get along, either. We may have opened Pandora’s Box and my fear is that we merely have created the perfect pretext for an all out war in the Middle East: Iran on the side of the Shiites and Saudi Arabia on the side of the Sunnis. Already a war by proxy is being fought in Iraq. Perhaps all-out conflict was inevitable, but neither was it fair for us to expedite the process.

What I am almost dismayed to learn is that we have plans to give billions of dollars of military aid to Saudi Arabia. This is despite the fact that most of the 11 September hijackers were Saudis, as is Osama Bin Laden. This is despite the fact that the only reasons the Saudis even tolerate us is because we bankroll their economy by relying so heavily on their crude oil supplies. In addition,we gave even more military aid to Israel.

We are playing a dangerous game.

As much as I consider myself to be the anti-capitalist, I think the only way we can avoid an all-out conflageration is if we expand capitalism throughout the Middle East. So long as these nations have a piece of the pie, they will not spawn terrorists in great numbers. The only way to do this is to allow Middle Eastern nations the ability to develop a middle class. (This is in contrast to our country, whose middle class is shrinking. Maybe they can learn a thing from Russia or China). Nonetheless, the disparities betweens the Haves and Have-Nots in the Middle East is marked.

Furthermore, if indeed Hillary Clinton (or a Democrat) wins the White House, I am not unconvinced that terrorists will launch another attack on our shores just to test his/her will. It may not be to the scale of 11 September. It may be a dirty bomb or something similar. If that occurs, I believe that we would then have no choice but to start another war. I'm not entirely convinced that the nuclear option won't be at least put on the table.

War with whom or against whom, I do not know. But if war is inevitable, may we learn from the lessons of Iraq and wage a war merely to protect our interests and not to colonize.

The hard truth is that Saudi Arabia is not our ally, and neither is Israel. I think that increasingly, in an era of terrorism, we need to resort to isolationism and self-reliance, else we find ourselves forever mired in the chaos that I see as the Middle East in the foreseeable future.

As many have stated, wealth alone is not enough to curb terrorism. Indeed, the latest batch of UK terrorists were well-educated, wealthy doctors.

But the key is for Islam to reform itself and curtail its radicals. That's what we're all hoping. I’m not sure there’s anything any outside nation can do. I take the approach that we ought to just cut ties with the region and let them go on their merry way, blowing themselves to bits.

That may sound inhumane and cruel, but it may be the only solution that makes any sense.

I'll be honest with you, dear readers. As more and more countries obtain the bomb and as the Middle East continues to remain unstable, there are days when I wonder if we aren't going to end up destroying ourselves through nuclear action. Admittedly, that is a very bleak, doomsday scenario but I think it's increasingly plausible.

h/t Nate Nelson

Canadian/US Relations

We on the American left have for many decades had a certain envy of Canada. We see our neighbor to the north as somehow more pure, less tainted by cynicism, more cooperative with each other, more communal rather than individualistic. We like their more liberal take on politics, we admire their system of Universal Health Care, we yearn for less crime and poverty, and we find their take on life much more live and let live.

So it was that I had a pleasant conversation a Canadian lady with whom I went to undergrad. She is one of the most trusting, kind-hearted, optimistic souls I have ever met. I envy her because I've always seen the glass as half-empty rather than half full. I look at her and wish I could be capable of being everyone's friend. I wish I didn't form all of these judgments about people before I meet them. I wish I wasn't seduced by the dark side. I wish, I wish, I wish.

The last point I'd like to explore in more detail. We Americans are a Puritanical, guarded sort. We are highly judgmental people. I think the paradox intrinsic in Americans is in our world-weary sense of skepticism and in our constant fear of the worst case scenario. Americans are often fear based people. Nothing could be more Jonathan Edwards. Yet, we are super sensitive underneath our hard exteriors. If you strip it away, our guarded behavior is little more than a defense mechanism. We know how much it hurts to be deceived. We know the sting of being injured by a caustic remark. So we build an ego shell around ourselves so formidable that we almost believe it to be genuine and authentic, rather than artifice. We begin to believe our own lies.

Canada didn't fight for its independence. Preferring compromise to revolution, it gradually won full autonomy from Great Britain. It maintains a Parliamentary system of government, which I believe America ought to adopt. The Founding Fathers were so intent on ridding themselves of all traces of their mother country that I believe they threw the baby out with the bathwater in that regard. There's something seductive about revolution and chaos and upheaval. Yet, I find it both thrilling and repelling at the same time. That's why I'm an American.

I know that compromise and delayed gratification aren't nearly as sexy as bombast and instant gratification, but maybe that's where we Americans go wrong. We on the left pander for compromise rather than gunshot, but how many of us wanted blood revenge after terrorists felled two towers of the World Trade Center and crashed a plane into the Pentagon? How many of us would totally renounce our stance against the death penalty if someone whom we dearly loved was killed in an act of senseless violence?

Today's conversation really caused me to question my own motives. Why am I so often seduced by the dark side? What about me has a masochistic streak that finds negativity so simultaneously attractive and repelling? Why can't I go about life the way she does--seeing the good in people rather than assuming the worst? Why not give people the benefit of the doubt? What can it hurt?

Part of this is due to my upbringing, but I see the same sorts of attitudes in most Americans. We're such hyper-individualists in this society, which can be both good and bad. A country founded in rugged individualism often lacks a certain sensitivity to its fellow person. We tend to think that if bad things happen to other people, then they must have done something to deserve it. We're super critical of flaws we find in other people and all we're really saying is that recognize in them our own failings and shortcomings.

We might consider the Canadian too idealistic, too naive, too pie-in-the-sky. We might consider the Canadian easily manipulated. There was a time in my life where I wanted to strip innocence away and reveal life the way it is. I despised those who wore rose-colored glasses. But as I've come to understand through the course of my life is that life is what you make of it. It can be a very good place or a very bad place, but it's all in your perception of it. And in seeking to destroy all that was good about life, I was living my life according to the old maxim that misery loves company.

I know this doesn't apply to all Canadians and I know whomever reads this might comment that he/she has known Canadians with bad attitudes and a judgmental streak a mile wide. I don't think the exception proves the rule. And I know that comparing Canada to America is often like comparing apples with oranges. For starters, they're a fraction of the size we are, population-wise. Furthermore, they live in a society which is not nearly as diverse as ours. They don't call it the Great White North for nothing.

To return to the narrative: in talking to her today, I questioned myself. Why am I so critical? Why am I so guarded? Why do I expect the worst first, rather than giving people the benefit of the doubt? What about me is seduced by negativity, rather than casually dismissing it and instead seeing the world as the good place it can often be.

When I was a Unitarian, I found myself among good company, I thought. We were a motley band of cynics, pessimists, depressives, melancholics, and hand-wringers. Although that was comfortable, I've begun to question whether or not that was healthy. In my own relationships with people, maybe I need to take an example from my Canadian friend and be more open-minded and less apt to believe in self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, thinking this way only keeps me upset. Maybe I need to surround myself with positive people, rather than the people I chose for most of my life to be my closest confidants who although they had a heart of gold and good intentions, lived life expecting to be hurt.

This is true not just of Unitarians but also of Americans, but I find this outlook especially true to UUs.

I'm tired of being Chicken Little. All it does it keep me upset and edgy. Maybe it wouldn't hurt me to be a tad more trusting. After all, what do I have to lose? Maybe life is meant to be enjoyed, after all.