The GOP: Saving Children from Themselves, Again

I think the word fuck is an important word. It's the beginning of life, and, yet it's a word we use to hurt one other, quite often. And people much wiser than I have said, I'd rather have my son watch a film with two people making love than two people trying to kill one other. And I of course agree. I wish I know who said it first, and I agree with it. But I would like to take it a step further. I would like to substitute the word fuck for the word kill in all those movie cliches we grew up with.

'Okay Sheriff, we're gonna fuck ya now. But we're gonna fuck ya slow.' — George Carlin, “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television.”

I’m referencing a section of this famous stand-up routine for a reason. Are we still having this debate, forty years later? We can cling to our guns, but somehow those same weapons can’t protect us from the violence inherent in our lives and the lives in those we love. I’d like to hear a news story about how someone’s open carry right prevented a terrorist attack. What I call vigilante justice is another person’s constitutional privilege and patriotic birthright, which confirms our current national lunacy.

It doesn’t stop there. The latest GOP platform declares pornography a public health crisis. Politics makes for bizarre bedfellows sometimes. The so-called “sex negative” feminists of the Sixties and Seventies might find something for them inside the conservative language that follows below.

"The internet must not become a safe haven for predators," the provision states. "Pornography, with its harmful effects, especially on children, has become a public health crisis that is destroying the life of millions. We encourage states to continue to fight this public menace and pledge our commitment to children's safety and well-being. We applaud the social networking sites that bar sex offenders from participation. We urge energetic prosecution of child pornography which closely linked to human trafficking."

And, in fairness, I can’t disagree with parts of this proviso myself. But the issue is really not that simplistic. Human sexuality is extremely personal and very nuanced. To treat pornography as a cursed state of degeneracy is not the fairest interpretation to take. The difference between now and decades ago is the prevalence of the Internet, of course. But every revolutionary change and resulting technological advance radically changes the nature of the game. If you’ll recall, warning labels were placed on cassette tapes and CD covers in 1985 (see above). Ostensibly, these safeguards were put in place for the sake of minors, but one can cite any number of reforms, effective and ineffective, that ask us to think first of the children.

Carefully measured statements like these, which no doubt went through several cautious drafts before being adopted, still don’t reflect an accurate image of the world in which we live. This statement is notable for what it implies and leaves out. Is all pornography inherently bad? Can the state of, say, Nebraska, effectively address this issue in ways that Washington, DC, cannot? Child safety is a hot button issue, one that makes parents across the board fearful and paranoid. This isn’t a wonky discussion over Medicaid coverage or abortion rights. This is a very personal argument that cuts right to the quick. What politician in his or her right mind would run on a platform of being anti-child safety?

America’s modernity has expanded considerably from its frontier beginnings. With extended lifespans and fewer deaths from disease, childhood and adolescence have been redefined, too fast for us to take proper stock of each. Around the time of the Civil War, many children, especially from working class families, had to take on the responsibilities of adults at very young age. Many mothers died in childbirth. Several marriages of convenience were arranged to give poverty-stricken families one fewer mouth to feed. As I (and many others) have mentioned before, the poor are still among us.

Returning to my original point, equating all pornography with its illegal form is overreaching. I’m sure the first part of the statement took a more zero-tolerance approach and was ironed-out somewhat with subsequent revision. Hands up if you’ve ever viewed pornography. Keep them up if you’ve ever smoked marijuana. In a spirit of great magnanimity, I’m calling everyone out, including myself.

Hypocrisy and charges of hypocrisy undercut everyone’s best attempt at sounding strong and irrefutable. Child safety is an important issue. Every parent’s worst nightmare is the mere thought of something awful happening to his or her kids. To treat pedophilia and child pornography as some new menace is awfully disingenuous. We talk more about it, for sure. I have gotten to the point that I can’t read my online hometown newspaper. Almost every day, it seems that I read stories about high school and middle school teachers who have pursued unlawful relationships with their students. At a slightly later time in my life, I knew several older men, college professors, who had frequent affairs with their students. If their example is any indication, I’m not shocked at the prevalence of the custom.

Ethics should not be confused with legality. There are far too many legitimate instances of childhood sexual abuse. My life experiences are proof that child molestation did not begin with the age of the Internet. The silent film actress Louise Brooks was lured to the home of a local pedophile by the promise of candy. When confronted with the knowledge, Louise’s mother blamed it on her strong-willed daughter. Such attitudes are still among us. Adults in positions of trust and reverence have adopted predatory behavior on numerous instances. Now they have different tools and different methods. They will change with the times. Indeed, they already have.

I hate to put it this way, but we can’t build metaphorical walls around convicted sex offenders any more than Mexico can build a wall alongside our border. We’ve pushed these convicted felons into less affluent areas and restricted their mobility, but we can’t force individual compliance. I happen to believe that sex offenders are mentally ill, but tough talk is often the refuse of the well-intentioned. I was raised to be skeptical of vague promises and toothless rhetoric, and as this crazy election year grinds to a close, I know we’ll see plenty of each.

Do You Think I Came to Bring Peace?

Years before Alex P. Keating, my father was a young Republican. He believed in Richard Nixon until the very end, voting for him in 1968 and 1972. Before Donald Trump decided, as late, to adopt this opportunistic moniker as the so-called “law and order” candidate, my father believed in its original distillation. I love my father dearly, but note with much sadness that he has become a Trump apologist. While he is offended by the notion that I have grown as liberal as I have, I strongly hate the fact that, in recent days, we can’t even have a civilized conversation before heading directly for fisticuffs. And on that note, I’m sorry, Mr. President. Sometimes family dynamics are solidly red and solidly blue states of being. Never are they purple.

Conversation between myself and the old man recently have become especially heated. Smoldering resentment and a fear of change are the elixir of Trump supporters and he has fallen into the same trap. It is the same rhetoric that raises blood pressure and accomplishes next to nothing. White baby boomer men will necessarily break for the Donald in a big way and there’s little to nothing Hillary Clinton supporters can do to win those votes. Every election cycle hopes to sway the votes of those whose minds can be changed. Dad made up his mind a long time ago, and since Hillary has been on the public scene for about twenty-five years, he’s had twenty-five years to despise her.

Retirement has given my father the opportunity to tune into Fox News on a consistent basis. If it simply reported facts, albeit with a conservative spin, I could agree to tolerate it. That said, the aforementioned network and its counterpart, conservative talk radio, encourage Pavlovian fear and anxiety in those who consume them. Both feed the diet of the modern day Archie Bunkers, part angry son-of-a-bitch, part grump. Speaking of Archie Bunker, I was recently in a taxi cab wherein the driver was listening to one such over-amplified broadcast, one of those where everyone seems to be half-shouting, half-speaking. I was quite glad my trip was short.

I wonder if other fathers and sons are fighting this same verbal battle. In our last skirmish, my father went a step forward and upped the ante. Should a second Civil War break out, according to him, the two of us would be fighting on different sides. That’s a strong statement and also a bit of a ridiculous one. And if we examine the none-too-distant past, the comparison made is hurtful on more than one level.

My great-great grandfather Camp (and Alabama native) fought for the North, but many of his close relatives fought for the South. Before that, a father and son in my family tree were separated forever, never to be on speaking terms again, when the son opted to join the Patriot cause during the American Revolution. The father decided to stay loyal to Great Britain and the crown. I do not wish to create this kind of fissure in my own life.

War, be it with guns or words, has a way of creating hurts and slights intense enough to last a lifetime. Quakers are not perfect people, but, to our credit, we know what it’s like to experience persecution and to shoulder the burden with dignity. Conscientious Objectors during World War II had their patriotism robustly questioned and were sometimes the victim of violence at the hands of those who did not understand their religious beliefs. Our stance against war and participation in war has many Scriptural antecedents, stated plainly from the very beginning in 17th Century England. We are to remove the occasion for all war. The words are those of our founder, George Fox.

I have no doubt that if Trump were to be elected and to become a war President, he would call for today’s COs to be roughed up, too. He might see CO’s as having some kind of unholy, noxious alliance with the radical Islamic terrorism he seems to find evidence of everywhere. I don't put anything past Trump. In contrast, the peace I advance is for everyone, not only for the battlefield soldier, not only for the site of armed combat, and not only for the divisions inside families.

The application of our Peace Testimony is that broad. It encompasses daily human behavior, not mortars and shells. We can live in this world and yet not be of this world. Most organize religions teach that much, but the approach differs.

In all three Gospels, the Prince of Peace has some tough medicine to administer. The passage was worthy enough to be included three times in three separate books, so clearly whomever transcribed those passages must have known its importance. It speaks to our collective understanding of the recent tragedies, events that have combined to lower our flag to half-stand.

“Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against--or two in favor and three against. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

This is not an invocation for violence. Instead, it is a path for us to take. Living a just life in a spirit of love is possible. But in so doing, one will leave behind those who have been poisoned by bitterness and their own blindness. This isn’t a kind of rapturous event or belief in the end times. Neither should this attitude be adopted with smug condescension, the kind I see in the countenance of many social conservatives.

Believing that love is a superior force requires a discerning, critical eye. We must pick our battles, so to speak, and refuse to escalate conflicts that might lead to directions that are in no one’s best interest. Quakers refer to prayer as “holding (something or someone) in the Light. On that note, I am holding the United States of America in the Light.

Mother: Excerpt (State of the Nation)

Mother, do you think they'll drop the bomb?
Mother, do you think they'll like this song?
Mother, do you think they'll try to break my balls?
Ooh, ah
Mother, should I build the wall?

Mother, should I run for President?
Mother, should I trust the government?
Mother, will they put me in the firing line?
Ooh ah,

Is it just a waste of time?

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry.
Mama's gonna make all your nightmares come true.
Mama's gonna put all her fears into you.
Mama's gonna keep you right here under her wing.

She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing.
Mama's gonna keep baby cozy and warm.

Of course mama's gonna help build the wall

Quote of the Week

"Rapper Kanye West told a prime-time T.V. audience, 'George Bush doesn't care about black people'. Jesse Jackson later compared the New Orleans Convention Center to the 'hull of a slave ship'. A member of the Congressional Black Caucus claimed that if the storm victims had been 'white, middle-class Americans' they would have received more help. Five years later, I can barely write those words without feeling disgusted."-George W. Bush, writing in 2010.

Saturday Video

A sad song, for a sad time.

Rolling the Dice for November

Bad Quaker, bad, bad Quaker.

These are the words of my partner upon discovering I have purchased lottery tickets. Friends are supposed to be against games of chance. They're not fair, they’re a tax on the poor, and they're exploitative in lots of other ways. We have a Testimony of Integrity to speak to that, one that we apply individually to our lives and our life actions. Truthfully, I only play for my father, who lives in a state without its own lottery. For him, I buy about twenty dollars' worth when the jackpot reaches record levels. He never wins, but neither do millions of others.

If any game is truly rigged, it's probably gambling. Lotteries promise only millions-to-one odds, and those who lose can often console themselves that they are paying for college scholarships or some worthy cause. The same cannot be said for casinos, as they rake in tons of pure profit, which is one of the reasons Donald Trump's fingerprints (and tiny, tiny hands) can be found there. The house is always designed to win, with the math stacked in its favor. If Trump could stop being righteously indignant enough, he'd recognize he's benefited from this arrangement more than it has ever hampered him. He’s far from a populist champion, and yet some are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

At the moment, I'm at a small, working class town outside of Pittsburgh. In my travels out to peek around and have a meal, I've already seen four separate people buy lottery tickets. In young professional land, where I live, few people buy them or talk about winning a huge jackpot. The most success I've ever had was in Florida, playing scratch off tickets, winning back the $10 I had spent to buy them in the first place. Around my parts, the only people I’ve ever seen buying lotto tickets are working class black people hoping for a huge payday.

Unlike casino gambling and lotteries, the entire American people have an actual say in who will win the election in November. The odds of Trump winning are much more realistic than a $508 million jackpot. Get Out the Vote is always crucial, but it is especially important today.  The odds will change as the campaign goes on, but here's hoping that the numbers reward Hillary Clinton more. Those who vote for Trump are rolling the dice, expecting great profit when they will only receive minimal returns, if that.

If Trump was a bank, I would not put my money there. If he was a stock portfolio, I would not invest money in a company under his control. And I certainly wouldn’t want him behind the wheel of my country. The truth is, I am not convinced he is a good businessman or that he makes consistently savvy deals. The United States has been run efficiently by people of great wealth and privilege, FDR being the example that comes to mind first.

But FDR had a sympathy for people in poverty or in bad circumstances that I have never seen Trump demonstrate. Trump says he will not touch Social Security, perhaps FDR’s crowning achievement, but neither do I hear any significant policy statements, the so-called red meat issues that are absolutely crucial.

Time is wasting. The GOP convention is not far away. Prime time speeches from substantial members of the party will not conceal the cancer growing within. I hope we see the beginning of the end only a few days from now, the exact moment where a political amateur and blowhard blows a gasket on live television. The odds of that happening may be more likely than we could even imagine.

Quote of the Week

"You're a slave in your own country, White Man. Each year you get to keep less of the fruits of your labor; each year it gets more difficult to carry the burden the aliens have placed upon you; each year the cheap labor of aliens makes your future less secure; each year you retreat a few steps more into the world of slavery."-George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party

Saturday Video

Moving forward using all my breath
Making love to you was never second best
I saw the world thrashing all around your face
Never really knowing it was always mesh and lace

I'll stop the world and melt with you
You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time
There's nothing you and I won't do
I'll stop the world and melt with you

Dream of better lives the kind which never hate
(You should see why)
Dropped in the state of imaginary grace
(You should know better)
I made a pilgrimage to save this human race
(You should see why)
Never comprehending the race that long gone bye

I'll stop the world and melt with you (I'll stop the world)
You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time (let's stop the world)
There's nothing you and I won't do (let's stop the world)
I'll stop the world and melt with you

The future's open wide
I'll stop the world and melt with you (I'll stop the world)
I've seen some changes but it's getting better all the time (let's stop the world)
There's nothing you and I won't do (let's stop the world)
I'll stop the world and melt with you

The future's open wide

I'll stop the world and melt with you (let's stop the world)
You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time (let's stop the world)
There's nothing you and I won't do (let's stop the world)
I'll stop the world and melt with you (let's stop the world)
I'll stop the world and melt with you (let's stop the world)
I'll stop the world and melt with you (let's stop the world)

Radical Perspectives: Malcolm X and Donald Trump

In his 2012 Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Malcolm X, Manning Marable shows a leader with a compelling vision, but with consistently shifting position statements. Subtitled A Life of Reinvention, Marable's account retells a the life of a radical leader who skillfully fit each argument to best suit his audience. The author lets each incident of media catnip speak for itself, but introduces his account by saying that while one may disagree with his subject's always intense and sometimes extreme rhetoric, one finds much to admire about Malcolm's sincerity.

Malcolm X shot from the hip on numerous instances and nearly made an art form of it. A life of constant revision, as his biographer has put it, had him modify his rhetoric considerably from speech to speech, platform to platform. The same has been true for Donald Trump on the stump and in his numerous social media postings. As has been extensively noted, Republican primary voters cast their ballots for a formerly staunch Democrat with many liberal positions. Incredibly, he is now somehow the presumptive standard bearer of the GOP.

An undisciplined campaigner at best, Trump has foolishly ignored even the basics of Campaign 101 from the outset, letting his outsized ego mostly dictate what he says and the decisions he makes. He has stepped on his own message on many occasions, allowing bluster and hot air to jeopardize his entire Presidential run. But this significant issue is certainly not uncommon to many who court attention. Neither Trump, nor Malcolm could pass up the opportunity to speak their mind when in front of the camera. Both enjoyed a life in the limelight, serving up salacious comments for an enraptured audience.

Malcolm X couldn't help himself from feeding incendiary statements to the press and, as a result, made many of his own unforced errors during his career as official mouthpiece for the Nation of Islam. The most damaging remark of his decade or so in the public eye had him refer to the November 1963 Kennedy assassination as "chickens coming home to roost," which led to his temporary silencing by Nation leadership. Nation of Islam theology was hostile enough, but Malcolm took what was termed by some the Hate that Hate Produced to a brand new level.  

Trump is indebted to no one, and, if current trends hold, is only nominally indebted to the Republican Party. Aside from a few weak slaps on the wrist, his own party will not discipline a schoolyard bully. Few in his own party have been willing to silence him or to have him pay the consequence for the vitriol spewing daily from his mouth and onto his Twitter page. The Dump Trump movement that would have him forcibly removed from the ballot at the Republican convention a few weeks from now has never truly been a viable force. Many hope it will, but as of now the Republican Party seems frozen in place due to its own indecision.    

The comparisons and similarities made here between two admittedly very different men might be worrisome to everyone who believes in the basic ideals of this country. And there are major differences, too. Malcolm X almost always strove to be impeccably disciplined in his personal dealings, sought to organize in large numbers, and by the end of his life, formed alliances with related groups who espoused Orthodox Islam and Pan-Africanism. He was willing to modify his stance to marry together his own loyalists and followers, even if that required the kind of about-face tactics that any politician worth his or her salt must perfect to stay in office. Malcolm might not have liked the game, but he knew he needed to play it.

One wonders what he would say today about our age of radical Islamic terrorism (irony), and what conclusions Malcolm X might draw from the wanton destruction.

Trump wants to return the United States to some golden age, but can't say for sure what that age really looks like. Perhaps it is a time where white men were in control of every aspect of governance, before globalization and at a time where we could afford to be more isolationist in nature. Now the world is too interconnected. The argument advanced is out of synchronization for an increasingly global world that everyone now inhabits.

The Donald’s message is too garbled and messy to easily reduce to position statements and political minutia, but what he lacks in specifics he makes up for in channeling the hostility and frustration of those who feel themselves powerless in a new age. Details matter little to the Trump campaign. His is a movement of the disenchanted, the angry, and the secretly fearful, those who view with great distress the changing demographics of this country, the 37% of Americans and growing who are not Caucasian. Some fear change, and some welcome it.

Uncomfortable comparisons can be fairly made, as well. Malcolm X's most unforgivable act was, while a Nation of Islam minister, to propose an alliance between George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party and Malcolm's Muslim sect, the Nation of Islam. Both were separatist groups who believed that integration in American society was impossible. The American Nazi Party routinely referred to black Americans with racial slurs, as Marable points out, characterizing them as mentally and morally inferior to whites. This had been a common stance far too many white Americans had taken a century or more before.

Once [American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln] Rockwell learned of the Nation of Islam's anti-integrationist positions, he became fascinated by the concept of a white-supremacist-black nationalist-united front. He even praised the Nation of Islam to his followers, arguing that Elijah Muhammad had "gathered millions of the dirty, immoral, drunken, filthy-mouthed, lazy and repulsive people sneeringly called 'n*****s’ and inspired them to the point where they are clean, sober, honest, hard-working, dignified, dedicated and admirable human beings in spite of their color."

This sounds a little too much like Trump for comfort. Under the dubious logic of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Malcolm's secret talks tarnish his legacy. There are plenty of other missteps to scrutinize, but none are quite so damning as these. What is plain is that these covert 1961 talks are hard to excuse or rationalize for any reason. What is also plain is that these two rival groups captured the attention of the press more than they did recruit members to their cause. Actual membership of both groups was reasonably small, despite fearful pronouncements from commentators. Media hype was as prominent then as it is today. Many people would rather believe in romantic glory rather than the patently offensive.

To much of the Left, Malcolm is seen as an energetic freedom fighter along the lines of Argentinian Ernesto "Che" Guevara, which is why some Leftists will no doubt bristle with this comparison. The former Malcolm Little channeled a different sort of populist anger, one that progressives and liberals still embrace. It led many to cast their ballots for Bernie Sanders in an unusually contentious Democratic primary. In its time, despite being characterized by Nation of Islam propaganda as devils, white people in search of true racial diversity had to concede some of the group's militantly espoused tenets. In particular, it did not fail to address the centuries of abuse the people of color endured upon arriving in the New World.

As we know, disenfranchisement of minorities did not stop at the conclusion of hostilities during the Civil War, nor the Civil Rights Movement. Today's activists and political leaders would have us consider whether black lives matter. This might well measure how far we have come in what will be, in a few days, 240 years of our great experiment in Democracy.

To some extent, every prominent figure, movement, or party evolves over time. The same is true for Supreme Court judges, religious leaders, and nearly everyone in positions of power. The same is true for faith groups, of which the Nation of Islam is only one of many. Remember E Plurbis Unum? Out of many, one. That is the United State’s official motto, but some would have us deny the intentions of our very founders.

We like to believe that religions are rigid and unchangeable, to best guard against the cheap and corrupting fashions of the present day, and to some extent they are. Sometimes we call that tradition, and it gives us considerable comfort to know and to recognize consistency. When it becomes oppressive, we want change.

Examine the Catholic Church, for example. Catholic dogma and doctrine has responded to changing times with a combination of reform and a desire to keep things much the same way they always have been. This is distressing to some, satisfying to others. The dictates of hierarchy and the leader of the church of Rome that we call the Pope weigh that balance with every pronouncement made. We are often beholden to our own myopia, since the human record is long and our lives are relatively short. Individuals and groups of individuals differ about tactics and directives and indeed, they always will.

But let’s remember the best parts of ourselves and not give in to the very worst.

A Plug

To the Student Who Asked Why He Earned a "C" on an Essay about Love

by Clint Margrave

Because love has its own grammar,
its own sentences,
some that run-on too long,
others just fragments.
It uses a language
not always appropriate
or too informal,
and often lacks clarity.
Love is punctuated all wrong,
changes tenses abruptly,
relies heavily
on the first person,
can be redundant,
awkward,
full of unnecessary repetition.
Every word is compounded.
Every phrase, transitional.
Love doesn’t always know the difference
between lie and lay,
its introductions sometimes
lack a well-developed thesis,
its claims go unfounded,
its ad-hominem attacks
call in question
its authority.
With a style that’s inconsistent,
a voice either too critical
or too passive,
love is a rough draft
in constant need of revision,
whose conclusion
rarely gives any sense
of closure,
or reveals the lingering
possibilities of a topic
that always expects high praise,
and more often than not
fails to be anything
but average.

"To the Student Who Asked Why He Earned a 'C' on an Essay about Love" by Clint Margrave from Salute the Wreckage. © NYQ Books, 2016. Reprinted with permission.

Quote of Week

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.-Oscar Wilde

Saturday Video

Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons,
Packed up and ready to go
Heard of some grave sites, out by the highway,
A place where nobody knows

The sound of gunfire, off in the distance,
I'm getting used to it now
Lived in a brownstone, lived in a ghetto,
I've lived all over this town

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
This ain't no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey,
I ain't got time for that now

Transmit the message, to the receiver,
Hope for an answer some day
I got three passports, a couple of visas,
You don't even know my real name

High on a hillside, the trucks are loading,
Everything's ready to roll
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nighttime,
I might not ever get home

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
This ain't no fooling around
This ain't no Mudd Club, or C. B. G. B.,
I ain't got time for that now

Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
Heard about Pittsburgh, P. A.?
You oughta know not to stand by the window
Somebody see you up there

I got some groceries, some peanut butter,
To last a couple of days
But I ain't got no speakers, ain't got no headphones,
Ain't got no records to play

Why stay in college? Why go to night school?
Gonna be different this time
Can't write a letter, can't send no postcard,
I ain't got time for that now

Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock,
We blended in with the crowd
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines,
I know that that ain't allowed

We dress like students, we dress like housewives,
Or in a suit and a tie
I changed my hairstyle, so many times now,
I don't know what I look like!

You make me shiver, I feel so tender,
We make a pretty good team
Don't get exhausted, I'll do some driving,
You ought to get you some sleep

Burned all my notebooks, what good are notebooks?
They won't help me survive
My chest is aching, burns like a furnace,

Forgiving Sexual Assault Without Condoning It

The latest season of Netflix's Orange is the New Black, as usual, brings up several controversial issues and numerous topical points. For those unaware, OITNB is a popular streaming service television show set inside a minimum-security women's prison. Orange is the New Black features a large ensemble cast, encouraging viewers to pick their own favorite characters, following their development from episode to episode. Picking one single aspect of the plot to analyze is difficult, as many beg to be examined more closely.

The character of Tiffany "Pennastucky" Doggett (Taryn Manning) is a caricature of white trash culture. Earlier episodes have focused on issues like her remarkably poor dental hygiene and her status as a shill for ravenous pro-life organizations. For a time, it is her responsibility to drive the prison van, which allows for outside errands beyond the gates to be run. She is closely supervised by a male prison guard, but given some degree of freedom with the responsibility. It is on one of these excursions out that the guard pulls the van over at a remote location and rapes Pennsatucky.

In dealing with the aftermath, she confides what has happened to a friend, a fellow inmate. As has been retold in a series of flashbacks, Pennsatucky has had a sad history of acquiescing to abusive men. For a time she merely shrugs off what has happened as typical. Her confidant, Carrie "Big Boo" Black (Lea DeLaria), takes a very different approach. She is outraged by what has occurred and intends to avenge the crime, Big Boo concocts a plan. Drugging the guard's coffee with a powerful sedative, she renders him unconscious for a time. The plan involves sodomizing the guard with a mop handle in retribution, but when faced with the opportunity, Pennsatucky is too squeamish to comply.

Having had time to think the matter through, Pennsatucky decides, with time, to forgive the guard who raped her. Admitting she has read a few pertinent passages in the Bible, she believes that it does her better to put the assault past her. She states that her desire to forgive is more for herself than for her attacker.  Following her decision, Pennsatucky speaks directly to the guard who raped her. She informs him that she has forgiven him, but the two of them recognize that things between them will never be the same. Both of them were once attracted to each other, but they recognize that such contact is against the rules. They were foolish to let things progress, as the system is designed to keep them apart. Further resolution will be left to next season.

Big Boo reacts to Pennsatucky's perspective in disgust, and it does little to paper over the differences in opinion and action that have driven them apart. She continues to takes a strong stance against sexual assault in any form, laying down the zero-tolerance policy of a zealot. Pennsatucky is largely intimidated by the intensity of the entire experience, from start to finish, and her conflicting feelings. Two different points of view lead to a schism in both women's friendship. By the conclusion of the most recent slate of episodes, season four, the damage has yet to be repaired.

Some of the harshest criticism I have ever received resulted from my attempts to address this issue. In a post I wrote a few years ago, I argued that, like Pennsatucky, it might be helpful for victims of sexual assault to forgive their assailants. Some people take Pennsatucky's perspective, some people take Big Boo's. I find it impossible to say right or wrong to either. I think it probably depends on the person. Forgiveness should only be undertaken with the consent of the victim and should never be coerced or forced.

I understand now why this stance was greeted by the same kind of indignation and anger of Big Boo, and now I have a better comprehension as to why. It's the sort of rage that comes from seeing rapists and those who assault women repeatedly beat the rap or receive slap on the wrist sentences. The problem is far from over.

On the subject of religious conviction, Christians are supposed to practice radical forgiveness. The Gospel of Matthew makes that very plain.

"You have heard the law that says, 'Love your neighbor' and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!

Words cannot express how difficult, how very challenging that is. Secular people don't always recognize how difficult it is to hold oneself to high standards like these. Notice that it is not written that one should refuse to seek justice or that one should blame oneself. Sexual violation is against the law for a reason. Hating and exacting revenge are satisfying emotions, which is why we often cling to them following a severe hurt. That's what makes forgiveness a radical act. It negates the very parts of ourselves that clamor to seek justice in any form, especially violently.

The desired goal of victims, as I see it, is to seek a strong resolution and to get past the trauma they have experienced. No stint, no sentence, no statute of limitations can be attached to healing. I myself find it tragic to see the toll damage sexual assault and physical abuse exacts upon victims. I have made my own mistakes in interpretation and I won't repeat them, I will continue to encourage those harmed by sexual violence to consider forgiveness only as a means of greater health and well being.

If those damaged by acts of violence can get past their trauma in this way, then this might facilitate greater health. The way to avenge acts as barbaric as these is to work past them. Prosecution and court proceedings can add an additional layer of trauma and anguish to victims already unsteady and destabilized. None of this is easy.

Naturally, improvement comes with time, and probably also with pain. I have learned that few gains in life come without some discomfort. We must continue to encourage men not to commit acts of sexual assault. Once that is accomplished, women won't have to worry about protecting themselves, keeping pepper spray in their purses, or taking self-defense classes. I myself apologize for not seeing the complexities of this issue some time before. I don't excuse myself for my earlier ignorance, but now I understand why I stirred up the hostility I did.

Adjusting

Periodically it becomes time for me to undergo an extensive tuneup. The severe chronic illnesses I deal with must be treated with strong medications. These treatments are inexact at times and it takes a while to adjust as best one can. Some treat symptoms flawlessly, others produce other sensations that are strange and sometimes unwanted. My cocktail of medications used to treat bipolar disorder and generalized anxiety disorder have undergone a rather radical reinvention, if you will. The body changes, and as it does, its needs change also.

I spent years on Seroquel, but it has provided more problems than it is worth. Going into all of them here would only exhaust my patience and yours. I've now switched to Geodon, and this weekend was full of spur-of-the-moment ER visits best forgotten. There was a time where I wanted to hash out every last detail, every drop of blood, every cry of pain, and now I'm weary of the constant recounting. They are helpful when they remind people what it's like to be more or less able-bodied. I've never been one for militant observance of all the ways in which life challenges me.

I will be 36 in October, and I feel myself entering a period where I am quieter. Youth has plenty of time for rowdiness in all of its forms. Something now whispers to me, "calm, calm," and so I am embracing calm. Embrace calm with me. What does it mean to take a moment to let everything change around you, monitoring the pace, minding the differences?

The height of summer is upon us and I felt it today, walking the streets. I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year, partially because my body temperature runs high and I love feeling cold and secure. Paradoxically, everyone else seems to love hot, love wearing less, love being out and about. I wonder how they experience the season for themselves. I notice the kids out for school and the foot traffic on the sideways.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to write something else again. Maybe sooner rather than later, maybe not. It all depends. Same me, different me. I took a risk with the most recent essay I wrote and got some really vicious criticism that bordered on personal attack. It's tough not to take that sort of stuff seriously. I was making a harsh point, sure, but to belittle my livelihood is taking it a little far. It made me question from the person who said it whether or not they were now friend or foe. Sometimes you can see something from someone that makes you really want to step away.

Had it been a random reader, that's not as much of a big deal. I've received some vicious trolling, as has anyone who puts a personal piece of writing up in front of an audience. As much I try to love people as a person of faith, sometimes you need to love a person from a place of distance. It's a difficult lesson to learn. Enjoy your summer, readers.

Quote of the Week

Freedom is never given; it is won.- A. Phillip Randolph

Saturday Video

The "Epidemic" of Single Parenthood

I've recently returned from a week-long trip to the Pacific Northwest. I was pleased to have the opportunity to see a different part of the country I had never before visited. In the time I was there, I observed the many distinctions between the West Coast and the East Coast, asking natives and current residents alike their impressions of the area. Most were glad to answer my questions, but many displayed a lack of introspection regarding their home that I found curious.

I’ve lived in DC for eight years and have become something of a mini-Chamber of Commerce for the benefit of tourists and newcomers. It struck me as strange that many did not seem to care one way or another about the particulars and the superficial statistics. Native Southerners like myself have a way of playing to the crowd, like a skilled impressionist. The level of disengagement was notable, and I found it challenged my understanding. Was this due to modesty or were such issues thought to be unimportant?

Aside from the obvious differences in general attitude always cited, I viewed an area of the country largely dominated by whites, with a smattering of Asians drawn in by their proximity to the Pacific Rim. Underneath the Portland transplants and the hipper-than-thou milieu of the city is a somewhat washed out, working-class attitude even naked bike riders can't quite conceal. Strip away trendy donut shops and highly competitive brunch restaurants, and one sees something of the essential character of the region.

I could never be confused as a conservative in any form, and never a social conservative. I have no unwavering allegiance to the cult of the sanctity of marriage, nor how God ordains that such an arrangement ought to be composed of exclusively one man and one woman. Moreover, this post is not an attempt to raise a purely racial argument aimed squarely at the black community. What I saw in eight days of constant motion made little to no exception for race or class.

Instead, I saw instance after instance of mothers raising children alone. Most of them I noted only in brief. While stationed there for the duration of my trip, I did have the great fortune to keep company with two single mothers. One was in her mid-thirties, separated from the biological father, and raising three children on her own. The second was in her mid-forties and divorced, having waited as long as possible to have even one child. The subject did not change very often to the absent father in both instances, and if it did, it didn't linger very long beyond the perfunctory. I gathered the topic was still a very sensitive one and I did not press it.

Back home in DC, I live in an affluent blue enclave, full of yuppie parents and double strollers. Privilege and wealth are in prominent display. Here it is manifest in two-parent households, usually opposite-sex in makeup, though not always. Children are expected to be high-achievers in every station in life, eventual candidates for expensive, exclusive private schools. They are fed on food and drinks from the local Whole Foods. I'm sure for some that the same is true in Portland, for example, but priorities and goals are often very different from coast to coast.

Never was this more in evidence than a trip that took me 2,500 miles northwest and six hours by airplane. It may have taken a change of surroundings to amplify and illuminate the unreality of my home, the bubble I can sometimes convince myself exists everywhere. Single motherhood was in plain view everywhere my travels took me, reminding me that it is an inordinately difficult job and all too commonplace. Being privy to instance after instance of it made me pause to count my blessings

I am quite fortunate to have been raised by two parents who, forty-one years later, are still together. My mother and father have only been married exactly once, betrothed to themselves and no one else. Many of my classmates and friends growing up in the Eighties were children of divorce, part of that moral panic that may have been overstated but was nevertheless more prominent than it needed to be. Midway through their childhood or adolescence, they were often forced into compromise measures. Yours, mine, and ours families are not always a comfortable fit. Anyone with a half-sibling and a step-parent can tell you that.

I do think that two-parent families are the most stable, most solid pairings. Should one parent grow exhausted with routine duties, another can step in to take over. That, for no other reason, is cause enough to opt for raising a child with a partner. Having said that, I do recognize that the situation is not that simplistic, nor as easily fixed. Absentee fathers are prominent, and, in my opinion, we've been far too culturally lenient, demanding financial payments and custody arrangements from one half of the equation, not time spent in the company of offspring. Children don't need fathers like piggy banks or sporadic trips to Disneyland, they need the moderating influence of active parenting.

I'll tell a brief anecdote. About ten years ago, I was in a relationship with a woman who was much older than me. She had two kids from a previous marriage, both boys. The youngest kid was a bit rebellious, something of a behavior problem. Though I pushed away from him, uncomfortable with the attention he lavished upon me, the idol-worship he made plain, and the void I filled, I could tell he craved my company.

One night I arrived home late from work and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Having read somewhere that letting manual toothbrushes drain upside down was more sanitary, I'd turned my brush bristles in that direction, facing towards the basin. Returning late from work, I discovered that someone else had turned his bristles downwards towards the basin as well, right next to mine. I have to admit I shed a few overwhelmed tears once I observed his behavior, as I was nowhere near ready to be anyone’s surrogate father.

This might come across only as a sweet story. For me, it was evidence that my very presence was more prominent and influential than I had even dreamed. But it also reveals more about the compelling need for fathers, or at least the need for more than one single parent. Married or partnered same-sex parents can replicate the same loving household dynamics. Provided the relationship between partners is stable, regardless of sexual orientation, I have no reservations. Children demand better.

I recognize that some may choose to criticize me for these remarks, to seek to spot a few holes in my argument. Single parents might believe that they have an adequate grasp of their duties without needing to rely on anyone else. I know of single parents who do an excellent job rearing children on their own. I don’t seek to criticize their hard work. It is also true that I have no children of my own, nor intend to have any myself.

But even casual observation, on one level, is sufficient enough. Spend enough time around airports, on board public transportation rails, or shifting uncomfortably on a bus and one can view ample evidence of good parenting and bad parenting. To be fair, one can also observe single parents, often single mothers, at the end of their rope, struggling massively with misbehaving and unruly children. Single parents of any gender may assert that conditions on the ground are fine the way they are. This may well be true. I seek not to challenge their intentions.

My experiences may not fit the norm. Sometimes bad behavior is not relegated only to children. I have known single mothers who have spit in their faces of their children when they wouldn't mind and cursed at them violently when they wouldn't get up in the morning. And I have called them friends and acquaintances. I don’t condone their behavior, but neither did I cast them aside. One of them had a child at seventeen who she came to resent, but tearfully confessed to me the nature of this offense. At what point does parenting become abusive or, at best, incorrect? It’s easy to make sweeping generalizations, and it’s equally easy to take a zero tolerance attitude when a child is not our very own.

I have also known single parents who agonize about striking a balance the best way, between raising children and dating, darting back and forth from A to B in the deepest of ambivalence. In my case, I observed her berating her children verbally when they wouldn't spring to action immediately. I was indebted to her as her partner, and I resisted reporting her behavior. Unlike some, she was well-connected legally and I knew nothing would be done. In addition, I wasn't sure it was my place to say right or wrong. It's easy to call out behaviors that some may say border upon child abuse, but often difficult to make them stick. One parent’s perceived discipline is another parent’s abuse. That was a difficult lesson to learn.

Divorce rates have actually decreased with time, but so have the rates of marriage. More people are living together for years at a time, many with no intention to say their vows. The question at hand should then be phrased a little differently. No one seems to understand if or why people marry for all the wrong reasons. And even then, marriage success is no guarantee. Problems with rearing children, particularly children with special needs, have proved the undoing of even the most stable marriages. What we are observing is, in part, fate, luck, devotion, and unrequited toil. But again, we can’t overlook the need for a two-person household. For some, it’s a paradoxical situation.

We're told to believe that things were more solid and stable in the past. This is not always the case. My father's parents stayed together, but theirs was an immensely difficult union, an arrangement put together by family members for the sake of the children. Few people were divorced in the Fifties, and each had a child from an earlier marriage. Mutual guilt has rarely motivated people to make sound decisions. My father has a step-sister from his father's first marriage who he has never even met. She has never made any overtures to connect with him, and, sixty years later, he doesn't expect it. My grandparents conformed to an ideal that was socially acceptable, but a bad fit for both.

A relationship that was the product of his mother's first marriage produced a half-sister, who hated her step-father. She and my father were estranged for years, and never reconnected before her untimely death by way of a premature heart attack. My aunt married five times before her death. The first was an effort to get out of her step-father's house at all cost. One disastrous marriage involved an ex-convict who proved to be an abusive sociopath. These are difficult issues to consider, as they strike at the heart of our personal development and understandings of self.

I may not have said my vows, but I have made substantial mistakes in relationships. When children become part of the equation, the stakes are propitiously raised. Parenting can be like a highly dramatic, incredibly competitive hand of poker, with all of the chips on the table, with a risk for great gain and great loss. Often, sufficient parenting is revealed years after the fact, not in the present tense. Children are not raised in isolation. They are raised by all of us, and it may indeed take a whole village.

Laid-back or Type A, granola or traditional, parenting is a reflection of who we are and how we ourselves were raised. My parents grew up in families where problems were swept under the rug and never confronted. They vowed that they would not take the same approach when it came their time to be parents. I appreciate the courageous stance they took, but have come to realize how many families simply do not follow this same basic model.

And that unfortuate lacking is clear in our governance, the patchwork of laws which are intended to maintain decency and morality. It is easier in the short term to not call things out, but it also encourages a kind of evasiveness that is not predicated upon honesty or trust. Having tried the old standards of mutual love and best intentions, I wonder what fruit truthfulness and integrity would bear. We may need to rethink our approach while recognizing the complications. We can't hide from ourselves any longer.

Portlandia and The Coast

Click to explore the entire album.

Saturday Video

Ready or not, here I come, you can't hide
Gonna find you and take it slowly
Ready or not, here I come, you can't hide
Gonna find you and make you want me

Now that I escape, sleepwalker awake
Those who could relate know the world ain't cake
Jail bars ain't golden gates
Those who fake, they break
When they meet their 400-pound mate

If I could rule the world
Everyone would have a gun in the ghetto of course
When giddyuping on their horse
I kick a rhyme drinking moonshine
I pour a sip on the concrete, for the deceased

But no don't weep, Wyclef's in a state of sleep
Thinking bout the robbery that I did last week
Money in the bag, banker looked like a drag
I want to play with pelicans from here to Baghdad

Gun blast, think fast, I think I'm hit
My girl pinched my hips to see if I still exist
I think not, I'll send a letter to my friends
A Born Again hooligan only to be king again

Ready or not, here I come, you can't hide
Gonna find you and take it slowly
Ready or not, here I come, you can't hide
Gonna find you and make you want me

I play my enemies like a game of chess, where I rest
No stress, if you don't smoke sess, lest
I must confess, my destiny's manifest
In some Goretex and sweats I make treks like I'm homeless
Rap orgies with Porgy and Bess

Capture your bounty like Elliot Ness, yes
Bless you if you represent the Fu
But I'll hex you with some witch's brew
If you're doo-doo, voodoo

I can do what you do, easy, believe me
Fronting niggas give me hee-bee-gee-bees
So while you're imitating Al Capone, I'll be Nina Simone
And defecating on your microphone

Ready or not, here I come, you can't hide
Gonna find you and take it slowly

You can't run away
From these styles I got, oh baby, hey baby
Cause I got a lot, oh yeah
And anywhere you go
My whole crew's gonna know baby, hey baby
You can't hide from the block, oh no

Ready or not, refugees taking over
The Buffalo Soldier, dreadlock Rasta
On the twelfth hour, fly by in my bomber
Crews run for cover, now they're under pushing up flowers
Superfly true lies, do or die

Toss me high only puff la
With my crew from lock high
I refugee from Guantanamo Bay
Dance around the border like I'm Cassius Clay

Notice

I will be out of town from Saturday until Sunday of the next week. Postings will be light in my absence.

Assateague Island

Click to explore.

True Weakness and Strength in the Age of Trump

In the early to mid-Seventies, my mother, like many women of the period, found much appealing about the Women's Liberation movement. The inequalities between men and women were prominent and reform was needed. Having said that, she never truly immersed herself fully in the radical and activist side of things, never learning applicable academic terms like second-wave feminism or consciousness-raising. She never subscribed to Ms. Magazine.

She never took to the streets to march or distributed self-penned polemics on street corners. Even with an informal understanding of a complex issue, something about the spirit of the times strongly grabbed her attention. A well-stated and personal manner of framing an argument spoke neatly to her condition and her frustrations. And she was not alone. Lots of women felt the same way, and I'm sure many of them will pull a lever for Hillary Clinton a few months from now.

I came along a few years later. Though she willingly took on the role of mother and caregiver, a hard-edged side always shone through. That part never completely faded from view. Though I tried to understand and usually kept my hurt feelings to myself, my mother used a particularly infuriating mantra on occasion.

Men are weak. This was always said with an off-handed smirk, offered with a kind of snarky condescension that cared little for who it offended. It consistently managed to enrage my father, which might have been the reason why she used it as frequently as she did. Though I love my mother with ever fiber of my being, the comment always burrowed under my skin the way only the best insults can. It still does, even now.

In adulthood, with a far greater sense of context, I better comprehend what she meant and her reasons for saying it. Roughly translated, in her way of thinking, men believe that they are in total control, but they are easily tripped up and felled by their baser instincts. Men are convinced that they are as omnipotent as gods, but they are destroyed time and time again by hubris and arrogance.

The point is taken fairly. Yet, taken a different way, it can also be a gross oversimplification motivated by feelings of substantial resentment, along with a corresponding lack of agency. I get it, though I'm not convinced it is correctly applied in each and every circumstance.

If men are indeed weak, this stance implies that they simply can't help themselves. Talk about an enabling statement! Put that way, men are totally off the hook. In our own time, Donald Trump seems to be unable to help himself in a different way, convinced it is wise to consistently bring up the indiscretions of Bill Clinton. As we know, Trump’s own history with women is not much better. Nevertheless, his supporters see their beloved as strength personified, a man unafraid to speak hard truths with no need for tact or decorum. Only weaklings and losers need take that course.

It is perhaps inevitable that any political campaign pitting a woman against a man should become, in part, a battle of the sexes. If a more conventional Republican candidate was pitted against Hillary Clinton, more or less politically safe charges and counter-charges of sexism would predictably fly back and forth.

Instead, Americans are dealing with an unprecedented election in American politics, a grudge match between a “strong” man and a “strong” woman (depending on how one defines strength) each with tremendously high negatives that might even increase before voters cast their ballots in November.

Women can be weak, too. They may not be flawed and foolish in the way that skirt-chasing and risk-taking men can be, but they are capable of making mistakes based on very poor judgment. Love her or hate her, Hillary Clinton has been gaffe-prone since the days of two-for-the-price-of-one. But, as we’ve observed in fascinated horror, her GOP opponent seems to have forged his political identity by making outrageous statements that any other candidate would have swiftly walked back.

In this alternate reality, Trump may well have accomplished the impossible. He has somehow managed to secure the party's nomination, while at the same time potentially neutralizing every pertinent talking point Clinton might try to make. Or, he might well have counter-productively managed to somehow neutralize the damage any potential Clinton misstep might make upon the electorate. Or both. These are the risks we take when a loose cannon could well be President.

One wonders if the Trump phenomenon will be a flash in the pan or a dramatic realignment of political rhetoric and the consequences of doubling down on even the most patently offensive remark. On one level, a double standard continues to exist between men and women. That I am not debating. Today, however, it seems that two parallel standards in public perception exist. One applies to Trump and a second, more conventional one applies to Clinton.

On the question of strength versus weakness, who is most deserving of the label? One is reminded of the exhaustively quoted passage from Julius Caesar, itself a story about domineering politicians who reign for a time with unchecked authority. As the Bard put it, "the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." Americans can opt for true strength or weakness masquerading as power. It will take a movement, not a few committed citizens, but the work can be done. No one will do it for us.

I'm Not Sure What to Think About This

We shall see.

Quote of the Week

When I was about twelve, I used to think I must be a genius, but nobody's noticed. Either I'm a genius or I'm mad, which is it? "No," I said, "I can't be mad because nobody's put me away; therefore I'm a genius." Genius is a form of madness and we're all that way. But I used to be coy about it, like me guitar playing. But if there's such a thing as genius — I am one. And if there isn't, I don't care.- John Lennon, 1970.

The Predominant Mood

C. Murphy/Sloan

So many stories I could tell
I had the world under my spell
Does this even ring a bell?

I wonder because
Don’t you know who I was?
Interest in me dissipated
All my methods antiquated
I’ve been cast away
Lost and friendless today

I made a name for myself
When one could do such a thing
A reputation that’s held
Together by string

And so I chose to cherish those
Who think there’s some purity
To fading into obscurity

What works on paper
Has the tendency to ride on vapor
Sometimes what’s not to love
But then other times what’s to like?

I’m unable to tell if I know who I am
A modest success, a shill, or a sham
I’m not afraid of what I’ve made of
But my trajectory
Has me fading into obscurity

You kids’ll have to fend for yourselves
Because your mother’s gone and asked for the elves
Who used to do all the work around here
Well they’re not gonna do it anymore

You kids can kiss your mother goodbye
And I’ll give you twenty minutes to cry
She used to do all the work around here
But she’s not gonna do it anymore

And you’re getting to old to be cared for by me

And for that matter
This cake is baked but I much prefer the batter
Perhaps in part because it had so much potential
To be delicious and still be influential

I’m undecided
If the evidence that I have provided
Explains what I mean
It’s too late now ’cause I can’t see or be seen

And I know you don’t shrug through my tears
So I’m not gonna shed ’em anymore
Out of favor with the flavor of the week’s where I’ll be
And fading into obscurity

An outsider but in good company
Oh yeah
I’m fading into obscurity

I’m undecided

Saturday Video

There's a destination a little up the road
From the habitations and the towns we know
A place we saw the lights turn low
Jig-saw jazz and the get-fresh flow

Pulling out jives and jamboree handouts
Two turntables and a microphone
Bottles and cans and just clap your hands and just clap your hands

Where it's at
I got two turntables and a microphone
Where it's at
I got two turntables and a microphone

Take me home in my elevator bones!
That was a good drum break

Pick yourself up off the side of the road
With your elevator bones and your whip-flash tones
Members only, hyponotizers
Move through the room like ambulance drivers
Shine your shoes with your microphone blues
Hirsutes with your parachute flutes
Passing the dutchie from coast to coast
Let the man Gary Wilson rock the most

Where it's at
I got two turntables and a microphone
Where it's at
I got two turntables and a microphone

What about those who swing both ways: AC-DC's

Two turntables and a microphone
Two turntables and a microphone

Where it's at
I got two turntables and a microphone
Where it's at
I got two turntables and a microphone

Oh, dear me. Make Out City is a two-horse town
That's beautiful, Dad
Get my microphone

Where it's at
I got two turntables and a microphone
Where it's at
I got two turntables and a microphone

I got plastic on my mind
Telephone plastic baby

There She Goes

There she goes
There she goes again
Racing through my brain
And I just can't contain
This feeling that remains

There she blows (there she blows again)
There she blows again (there she blows again)
Pulsing through my vein (there she blows again)
And I just can't contain
This feeling that remains

There she goes
There she goes again
She calls my name
Pulls my train
No one else could heal my pain
But I just can't contain
This feeling that remains

There she goes
There she goes again
Chasing down my lane
And I just can't contain
This feeling that remains

There she goes (there she goes again)
There she goes (there she goes again)
There she goes (there she goes again)

2016: Making Sense of Where We Are as a Nation

Anyone who knows me well recognizes that I don't like being caught flat-footed. After a trip, I frantically unpack and put everything back exactly where it was before I left. I recently read somewhere that my behavior is symptomatic of someone who wants to assert control over unfamiliar surroundings. No one panics more than me when I momentarily lose my cell phone, or my wallet, or my keys. Most of the time, such items are easily found, and yet in the process of locating them I'm convinced they are gone forever, never to return.

This is why I am often reminded of the biblical Parable of the Lost Coin.

Suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.”

Jesus speaks here beyond the literal, specially about the concept of redemption. And by this he means the radical notion that it is never too late to turn away from sin. There is no hierarchy in Heaven over who arrived first or last. This speaks contrary to the way we are conditioned to think and the games we play in the course of our lifetime. We learn to flaunt our credentials, our history of good works, and the sacrifices it took to reach them. We rationalize what we do by saying that such things are simply the way of the world, that they are necessary evils, and they cannot be evaded.

In life, we expect to be treated differently if we've reached some high achievement, made lots of money, or accumulated some combination of the two. In political parties, workplaces, and especially in churches, seniority means that those who have been in good stead longer have more say and more control. These people who occupy the favored seats have the right to guide and lead in the way they choose. To many, Jesus' ministry is an egalitarian one, where the first person to speak is held in the same high esteem as the one who has spoken ten thousand times before.

Backing up one verse from where we started out, the meaning of the parable is made clear.

I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

The upcoming Presidential election showcases two of the least religious candidates in American history. Hillary Clinton rarely mentions her suburban Illinois Methodist upbringing, a past that at least instilled the candidate with a strong sense of social justice. On the other side, Donald Trump could almost be considered areligious, a fact that until this moment was a sure violation of Republican orthodoxy. Assuming the point is raised during the campaign, Trump can avoid even discussing religion, specifically Christianity on the stump unless placed on the defensive.

This would be unheard of not that long ago. GOP candidates have consistently and conspicuously put public displays of faith before voters for a very long time. Courting Evangelical conservative voters, according to the conventional wisdom, panders to the base. It is a move of either cynicism or desperation that many such voters have seemingly placed victory above rhetoric this go round. Clinton is not especially strong on the issue and is unlikely to force the issue. Neither candidate is likely to have a Pastor Wright problem this cycle.

Every election is a barometer of how we have changed as a nation. Only the once-in-a-decade census shows the macro trends that began small, yet grew steadily over time. 2016 might well the first sign that we as a country have moved towards a new Post-Christian reality. Here on the East Coast, organized religion has been dying for a long time. The Midwest and the South continue to uphold long-standing religious traditions and have the highest rate of church attendance, but disenfranchised and thoroughly disgusted voices can be heard from those places as well. In time, I expect that more and more Americans will fall away from church or some sort of religious observance.

Members of Generation X and the Millennials that followed them have consistently shown little to no interest in religion. Within these two subgroups, what remains are a mere sliver of what once existed, a minority group of leaders and activists. These are the sort of people who take their convictions and leadings very seriously, often wishing that others adopted this same kind of passion.

Extremely motivated believers are not enough. Church was designed for mass participation, specifically set up as a place where any and all are truly welcome. It makes me very sad to see these traditions slowly withering away. From now on, I inhabit a space dominated by baby boomers. They may be the last generation, in all seriousness, who wish to carry the mantle.

So how does one find these lost souls, these coins in search of a finder? Many Evangelicals have recognized and observed the distressingly slow decline for years. Many now seek to perpetuate and plant their chosen faith in developing parts of the world. The continent of Africa is a particularly favored target. Asia and South America are next. To some observers, this is merely another form of colonialism, presented with a slightly different backswing. These deeds and the cheerful enthusiasm in which they are undertaken makes even other religious people a mite uneasy.

The Roman Empire successfully spread Christianity across the civilized world, even as its borders eventually grew too large and unwieldy to defend. Today, some people of faith are completely in favor of outsourcing a precious commodity to the third world, their eye on conserving the old ways, keeping Christianity alive, thriving, and intact.

I personally am highly conflicted about the process, as I most certainly do not want my own faith, Quakerism, to die out. Neither do I wish to supplant the ideas of the conqueror upon the conquered, even though that very same process made me who I am today. Assuming I am speaking to those who live in the so-called First World, the same process made you who you are today, as well.

Speaking of American politics, let me put it another way. When I fear that our own treasured Democratic values themselves are truly under threat, not presented in a spirit of reactionary fear-mongering, then I will sound the alarm for a five-alarm fire. Until then, everything is not lost, but time is of the essence. We need to act and come together. Our causes are linked by necessity.

Members of liberal and progressive faith traditions are not nearly as ambitious as our Evangelical and ideologically conservative brothers and sisters. Many of the former are divided among themselves as to know how to best grow the faith in the parts of the world where we first came to be. But in truth, the extreme skepticism and even hostility towards organized religion has in large part caused this problem. Sixty years ago, a sitting U.S. President could state, without pandering to voters, that he was a Christian and a Democrat, and nothing more.

The last Democratic President to make the same distinction was Jimmy Carter, whose rise to prominence came about four decades ago. Since then, the liberal electorate and the powers that be have skillfully talked out of both sides of its mouth on the subject of religion, much to its detriment. It has equivocated by way of a mealy-mouthed, on-one-hand-but-on-another-hand ambivalence that is always careful to offend no one, but offers no real path forward.

And it's this attitude, among others, which must change if Christianity in its current form is to even survive the next few decades. Faith is undone and perverted by people, not by the concepts and precepts themselves. The Left is reaping what it has sown by disassociating itself from Christianity, and sometimes even a higher power. The Right has dug its own grave by selectively picking the verses, moral lessons, and self-serving emphasis it most agrees with, implying that the entire faith itself has no greater context aside from the narrow interpretation of some. Both are wrong. Neither is correct.

If all else fails, I suggest buying a one-way ticket to some simpler place, some far away hamlet. A person might be heard and understood there, not talked over on the cable television news program of one's choice. The next six months are going to be bitter and nasty, and the vitriol ginned up by both sides will likely persist well past November. If ever the world needed religion, let it be today. The message remains, but we must stop resisting, thinking that we are somehow in control of our own destiny. Election years are always proof to me that despite on-message delivery and focus groups, one can never prepare for the unexpected.  

Quote of the Week

,
"...Of no one marrying, or going home, or getting a job in a town a thousand miles away, or doing any of the traitorous things friends do after college."- Donna Tartt, The Secret Life

Saturday Video

We like the breeze flow straight out of our lids
Them they got moved by these hard-rock Brooklyn kids
Us floor rush when the DJ's booming classics
You, dig the crew on the fattest hip-hop records
He touch the kinks and sinks into the sounds
She frequents the fattest joints caught underground
Our funk zooms like you hit the Mary Jane
They flock to booms man boogie had to change
Who freaks the clips with mad amount percussion
Where kinky hair goes to unthought-of dimensions
Why's it so fly cause hip-hop kept some drama
When Butterfly rocked his light blue-suede Pumas
What by the cut we push it off the corner
How was the buzz entire hip hop era
Was fresh and fat since they started saying audi
Cause funks made fat from right beneath my hoodie
The poobah of the styles like Miles and shit
Like sixties funky worms with waves and perms
Just sendin' chunky rhythms right down ya block
We be to rap what key be to lock

But
I'm cool like dat
I'm cool, I'm cool

Friday Video (A Day Early)

For Donald Trump

I bet you fall in bed too easily
With the beautiful girls who are shyly brave
And you sell yourself as a man to save
But all the money in the world is not enough

I bet you've long since passed understanding
What it takes to be satisfied
You're like a vine that keeps climbing higher
But all the money in the world is not enough
And all the bridges blown away keep floating up

It's cold
And rough

And I kept standing six-feet-one
Instead of five-feet-two
And I loved my life
And I hated you

It's cold out there
And rough

And I kept standing six-feet-one
Instead of five-feet-two
And I loved my life
And I hated you

Quote of the Week

Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.-H.L. Mencken

Saturday Video

Punctured bicycle
On a hillside desolate
Will nature make a man of me yet?

When in this charming car
This charming man

Why pamper life's complexity
When the leather runs smooth
On the passenger's seat?

I would go out tonight
But I haven't got a stitch to wear
This man said "it's gruesome
That someone so handsome should care"

Ah! A jumped-up pantry boy
Who never knew his place
He said "return the ring"
He knows so much about these things
He knows so much about these things

I would go out tonight
But I haven't got a stitch to wear
This man said "it's gruesome
That someone so handsome should care"
La, la-la, la-la, la-la, this charming man
Oh, la-la, la-la, la-la, this charming man

Ah! A jumped-up pantry boy
Who never knew his place
He said "return the ring"
He knows so much about these things
He knows so much about these things
He knows so much about these things

How Prescient

From A Face in the Crowd, released 1957. Andy Griffith, in his first film role.

The Continuing Experiment to Regulate Teen Drinking

I’ve been watching, as some of you may have been, CNN’s recent documentary series about the decade of the 1980’s. Many, if not most of the historical events and themes covered are familiar. I was a child at the time, but nevertheless a precocious little boy, and my memories of those times are strong. Two of my strongest recollections show the fingerprints and direct involvement of my parents. My mother and father quite intentionally sat me down in front of the television to watch two crucial world events unfold. Children of the Cold War, they had never been allowed to forget the spectre of communism and inherent threat of the Soviet Union. Could the end finally be near?

Patriotic Americans to their core, these family viewings were partially a pep rally for capitalism. Democracy had won. Communism had lost. They were enthused by the optimism and myriad of possibilities in Tiananmen Square. And then it all came crashing down, predictably. My parents held their breath as the students were dispersed, the depressing, but inevitable conclusion in place, a repressive government back in control. The fall of the Berlin Wall, that same year, was a different story. The Reunification of East and West Germany to follow provided what it promised. It was trendy, almost de rigueur, to buy a tiny concrete cube of the Wall and install it like an art exhibit on a person’s work desk. Many an interesting conversation piece was, for at least the next two years, provided for the slightly gloating Western world.

But if any event summarizes the decade for me, it’s a much more localized incident. The reason it left an indelible impression on me is due to my relative proximity to the source. For in it, I came to understand for myself what real, not canned grief looked like. Instead of a world away, through the lens of a camera and a video feed, I only needed to direct the handlebars of my bicycle a mile from my backyard. In the beginning, the story was considered only somewhat newsworthy. It was treated as not much more than an afterthought in the local newspaper, a one-day story at best. When the details spilled out, to most it was just another senseless tragedy. It became little more than a two minute story on a local news broadcast, provided by appropriately serious and grave toned news anchors.

No one could have foreseen a ghoulish plot twist the likes of which O.Henry would have loved. Let’s first consider a familiar culprit, drunk driving. As likely happens in every city and town in the United States, five high-spirited teenagers crammed into a car late at night. Many of us probably resembled them once, if we think back on it hard enough. None of them had any clue of what was to follow. Teenagers usually don’t. When I was that age, I tended to live quite happily in the present tense.

Tuesday, August 11, 1987, was the waning moments of summer vacation for many. In the news, the attention of Americans continued to be directed at the always-troublesome area of the Middle East. Iran-Contra raged on, as did the Iran/Iraq Civil War. In film, the sleeper hit Dirty Dancing, starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Gray, was a week away from being released. The number one song in the nation, according to Billboard, was Irish group U2’s single “I Still Haven’t Found What I'm Looking For.” In sports, another college football season was about to kick off. Only a few months before, Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, received the Death Penalty for frequent violations of NCAA rules.

August 11, 1987, is notable for other reasons. It marks the date that five teenagers from Hoover, Alabama, a southern suburb of Birmingham, made a particularly fateful decision. Four were female. A fifth, the driver, was male. As it was learned after the fact, he had apparently been drinking, despite being several years underage. The family of one of the girls, Ashleigh Nutter, has since stated that none of the passengers were aware of his level of intoxication before entering the car. Nutter and the driver, Todd Patterson, were dating at the time, which might explain why he offered everyone a ride.

A fascinating wrinkle to this story came two or three days later. One of the girls, first identified as Susan Ponds, somehow managed to survive the crash. Her body was rushed to a local hospital, where she was placed upon a ventilator to save her life. As fate would have it, she’d been the only passenger not to wear a seat belt. Though currently alive, there was no guarantee that she would survive. If she did make it, extensive time would be required to heal from her injuries. The story now takes a swift, unforeseen turn for the macabre.

At some point during that fateful night, Ponds and a friend, Christie Reeder, decided to swap class rings. The girls had been attending a slumber party, one of those chatty affairs which inevitably concludes well into the early morning. The accident that followed had been a brutal one. Patterson took a hairpin turn, driving much faster than the posted speed limit of 30 mph. This bad decision on his part effectively flipped the Ford Mustang in which all had been traveling face down in a ditch. Due to the severe injuries inflicted by the trauma of the crash, identifying the bodies was a difficult task. It became evident to many that the funerals to follow would likely be closed-casket affairs.

Three days later, the UPI caught up to the story. Nothing captures the attention of the media more than news of the bizarre.

HOOVER, Ala. -- A 17-year-old girl severely injured in a car accident while wearing a friend's class ring was mistakenly reported dead, and her relatives prepared for her funeral before learning she was alive in a hospital.

The mistake in identities was announced Wednesday night at the closed-casket visitation of Christie Lee Reeder, a Hoover girl whose funeral had been set for Thursday although she was very much alive.

'When the young man told me, I said, 'I'm her grandmother, what are you trying to tell me?'' Margaret Welch recalled. 'He said there was some sort of mix-up and Christie wasn't dead and it was another girl.

'When they announced it at the funeral home it was just bedlam.'

Imagine how it must have felt, as a parent, to absorb the shock. Grief that intense rarely produces many retellings, which is why I’ve rarely heard this story told much. To learn first that your child has been involved in a terrible accident is beyond awful. Informed of your child’s demise, you dazedly and dutifully follow all the needed steps, manage the hoops to jump through as best you can, all the while processing the loss and anguish. You even make funeral plans, only to learn that your child is, in fact, very much alive. Imagine the tragedy in reverse, the agony of the Ponds family, their hopes cruelly dashed.

I was young then, almost seven, but I remember how the news reverberated across the community. The local swimming pool and racquet club, itself less than a mile from the site of the accident, installed a brass placard by a flagpole that listed the names of the deceased. I walked past it on many a fond, chlorinated day. For a time, using this example, adults warned me of the consequences of drinking and running with a wild crowd.

The age today that my parents were thirty years ago, I understand the approach they took, even as I acknowledge its flaws. They meant well, but I was a little too young to understand. It would be many years before I was old enough to drive a car. Only then would I have any kind of conception for how deadly automobiles can be. It would take a long time before I understood innately how easy it is to get into an accident and how much care one must take while driving.

As warnings go, not much was going to dissuade me from adolescent foolishness when it became my time. The years of mandatory D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) taught me from the age of nine or ten what hard drugs were, but I grew up in a suburban bubble where no one snorted lines of cocaine or tried to sell me PCP on street corners. Later, as so many do, I drank too much in college, even breaking the law a handful of times by taking the wheel when I shouldn’t have. I’m lucky that I didn’t get caught.

Twenty-nine years later, I wonder how many of us from back then remember that car full of teenagers and how they ended up. I pass by the site of the accident multiple times on my way home to visit my parents. Car wrecks are the real American epidemic. I have only known one confirmed heroin user in my life, but have had at least five relatives and friends die or be seriously injured in an automobile. The statistics on auto vehicular homicide are probably close to their levels in the 1980’s. I would be shocked if they were not.

When we talk about the decade of the 80’s, we shouldn’t leave out a crucial detail. It was in 1984 when the United States raised its drinking age in all states from 18 to 21, an experiment in paternalism and in placating grief-stricken Mothers Against Drunk Driving that, to many, has been about as effective as Prohibition. If we examine a very formative and significant time in American society, we need to also examine its share of enacted reforms, legislation, and the ways they continue to affect every American. How times haven’t changed.

Quote of the Week

In times like these, it's helpful to remember that there have always been times like these.-Paul Harvey