The Voyeur Mafioso, Part 3

Part 2 here.
Part 1 here.

I check my phone for a text message.

GAP DRESSING ROOM, DOWNTOWN, 3:00 to 4:30 pm

That store always makes me nervous. It provides considerable challenges even when it is not packed to the gills. I know that whatever I salvage from this trip is going to come at great risk and what is usable won’t be much. Apparently it’s a popular location for our subscribers, which is why I keep coming back here against my better judgment.

When I set up next to a woman in an adjacent room, I have little to no idea of what she looks like. I have to rely on my ears, not my eyes. Based on what I’ve heard, I assume the occupant is a woman in her late teens. This is confirmed when I peek slightly over the divider, using my camera attachment like a flexible periscope.

She’s also trying on bathing suits, but only the brassiere portion. She calls out to an unseen friend who is also trying on clothes. A group of girls appear to have gone on a shopping trip together.

Maybe we should go to Target later.

Yeah, we should, she replies.    

Her voice is girlish and youthful, very much the stereotypical high femme girly girl with immaculately applied makeup and blow-dryed hair. The audience likes women like her, based on the statistics and the research. When one considers the number of highly ranked and liked downloads, women like her are among our most favored. There’s commission in it for me if stumble upon a particularly creative and revealing setup and produce a particularly popular clip.

That depends on luck more than it does skill. Much like the dynamics of a viral video, it’s often difficult to predict success and interest. Videos I thought were fairly unimpressive have at times struck a chord.

Assuming I had a girlfriend, I might be able to take on-the-job experience and apply it to my love life. I’ve seen hundreds of women preen and primp before the mirror, scrutinizing themselves in a way they would only do in strictest privacy. That ritual in insecurity can take whole minutes before I need to start filming. I often have to do lots of editing to compress ten minutes live action into two or three.

After going through an elaborate, private ritual of self-scrutiny, each subject puts on a new outfit or element of clothing. Aesthetically speaking, this is, in many ways, much more interesting to observe. Sex is one thing, but vulnerability and perceived total secrecy is even more private than that. We may be more comfortable as sexual beings in the outside world, on our own terms. We are considerably much less confident when our bodily flaws are on display. Our worst critics are ourselves.  

I’ve done this for five years and I’ve developed a sixth sense about this location. Something about this place makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I’m tempted to leave a few minutes early. The effect reminds me of gambling. Should you chance upon a winning streak, the best decision is in knowing when to quit.  The odds are in your favor only to an extent. Eventually, mathematically speaking, your luck will swing against you. Time to cut one’s losses and move elsewhere.

As I alluded to earlier, the pay isn’t what I’d prefer, but neither do I have to work terribly odd hours. Once I slaved away as a security guard at an exclusive golf course. My assignment was the graveyard shift, 7 pm to 7 am. Twelve hour shifts will really take it out of you, as well hitting the bed after the sun has risen. I don’t have to guard ice machines and golf clubs at early mornings anymore, and I’m thankful for that much. It’s tough to be strictly ethical when you’ve never had much money. Even with the constant threat of great terror that would come from being discovered, my work is generally fun.

One learns to not ask questions of one’s superiors. Plausibility denial is a good strategy. I don’t even know the name of who puts clips and pictures online. I send them along in edited form to a purposefully innocuous e-mail address. I am instructed only to use it for video submissions. Few of my contributions are ever returned for being of insufficient quality or for needing additional video edits. An operation this intensive and complex could only work in a large city, which is how I’ve learned nearly every neighborhood and general area, even if I’ve gotten completely lost a time or two.

Quote of the Week

"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."- Proverbs 16:18

My Life as the Great White Hope

He's a good player. And he's the right color, too.

The person speaking about me is a booster. I'd played football for him in Pop Warner league. While still children, our helmets and shoulder pads appear bigger than we are. We all look like Michael Dukakis’ ill-advised campaign ad, showing the candidate piloting a tank. We look cute rather than intimidating. I'm scared to death of this coach, to be blunt, but he's always let me know that I'm one of his favorites.

Kids from third grade onward are allowed to suit up. They take their first few tentative strides with helmets, padding, and other protective measures belted and strapped on. School years are broken down into weight classes. Each grade, each birthday passed by, players are allowed to gain an additional ten pounds. I started in fourth grade, when the maximum a boy can weigh is 90 pounds. By the time I’m in sixth grade, I can get up to 110 pounds, but no more.

A big kid, I always stepped on the scale prior to games close to the absolute threshold. Sometimes I had to run laps around the field to lose water weight before the action started. Even at a young age, my broad shoulders and large build meant that I would be an offensive lineman. Legendary broadcaster Keith Jackson always called players like me the big uglies or the fat bodies. The description is a truthful one, though I'm a cute kid with a baby face. I’m not exactly menacing, at least not yet.

The comment about my race is even more telling. Forty years earlier, most elite college athletes in the South were exclusively white. It wasn’t until the early Seventies that Southeastern Conference teams began to desegregate. By the time it's my turn, 70% of the players on a college team are black. To be sure, there are a few positions where whites still predominate. Quarterback is one. Place kicker is a second, followed closely by punter. And then comes O-linemen like me.

Every snap from center to quarterback is a collision and a fight for position. After every game my arms are covered with deep bruises and small cuts. Nothing productive happens unless we shove and push and block for running backs, who take advantage of the huge holes and running lanes we create in opposing defenses. No one notices us much as long as we're doing our job. But should we fail, suddenly we're completely to blame.

It's a position that requires much humility. Offensive linemen can be superstars, but they have to be legendary talents. If we are merely competent, few fans will learn our names. Sometimes there's an anonymity present in the position, a way to hide behind my helmet so no one can see my face. If I miss a block, I know it immediately and pray that the source of the error is not traced back to me.

I’m not perfect. Sometimes I miss my assignment and the quarterback gets sacked. Sometimes I arrive on the scene at the perfect moment. Most of the time, I give the player with the ball a second or two to make a cut and run for positive yardage. Linemen don’t have to be flashy. Instead, they have to be productive.

The booster took a shine to me from an early age. This started when I was still in elementary school. The grooming of jocks for greater success starts at that soon an age. When I moved up to the high school level, my advocate dangled promises of college scholarships in front of me. Like so many Alabama-bred kids, I grew up a Crimson Tide fan. Millions of young boys have that same dream, but I learn quickly that I'm simply not good enough to punch my ticket to Tuscaloosa. It’s a letdown, but I choke back my disappointment.

If I get a slot on a team, it will be for a lower-tier SEC school like Kentucky or Vanderbilt. My college tuition will be covered in full, but I'm not sure I can stomach a career of mediocre 5-7 seasons. I know I won’t be pleased to miss out on the fun of a bowl game, year after year. I'm smart enough to let my academic skills take me elsewhere. The odds of making a pro team after college are against me, because I'm proficient, but not stellar. If ratings like these existed at the time, I’d be a three star recruit with tons of potential, but I know my limitations better than anyone else.

My booster nevertheless is persistent. His connections have been built by a political patronage system. If he pleads my case and I do well, he does well, too. He's a crusty old Yellow Dog Democrat with a curious admiration for British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. About the time I'm ready to start middle school, a new political face arrives on the scene. His name is Clinton and he's a rising star in the party.

It's 1992. Arkansas has joined the Southeastern Conference after years of competing in the Southwest Conference. Instead of playing teams based mainly in Texas, most of its schedule will be devoted to taking on universities in the Deep South. Simultaneously, the governor of Arkansas manages to win the Democratic Nomination for President. Candidate Clinton is in attendance when his team plays Alabama in Little Rock. He arrives late and doesn't stay for the whole game. The Razorbacks lose, but not its favorite son.

The booster has some salacious stories to tell about this newcomer. He's apparently got a fondness for the ladies and he and his wife have got some kind of arrangement worked out. He shows up at retreats with whomever he happens to be bedding at the moment. Oh, no one can prove anything, but the circumstantial evidence is pretty damning. This is mighty powerful hearsay. It will eventually lead to impeachment proceedings, six years later. But as we know now, that's in the future. What was then little more than gossip is likely not going to be disputed two and a half decades later.

In the meantime, no one hates practicing more than I do. No one feels more isolated, alone, and alienated. My friends are geeks and budding scholars, but most of my teammates are dumb jocks. The games are fun, but practices drag on for hours and involve wind sprints. I could be one of the popular kids and benefit from the reverence and personality cults granted to jocks. I could have a cheerleader for a girlfriend, but I resist. I'd feel like a terrible phony. I already feel like I'm leading an inauthentic life as an impostor.

Anyone who has ever played a competitive team sport like football knows how quickly time progresses in a game settings. It feels as though one is existing in a dream state. Adrenalin flows. A game that lasts three hours in duration feels like ten minutes to its participants. I've received numerous nicks and cuts in the middle of a game and not felt them until the final whistle is blown. I love the the blood sport involved and thrive on it.

But practice is very different. I absolutely hate the massive physical exertion required. My body temperature rises to potentially dangerous levels during fall camp in August. Summer is the South is trying for everyone. In 100 degree Fahrenheit heat, I’m asked to sacrifice my body every day but Sunday. I'm in the best shape of my life, but overexertion and heat stroke is always a possibility in soaring heat indexes and high humidity. The body cools itself by sweating, but in 100% humidity, the moisture has nowhere to go, so it runs down my face in trails. My hair is sopping wet, as though I’d just taken a shower.

I decide to quit. No one can understand why. They're sure I'll change my mind later. Why would I turn down the admiration and adulation given to all popular kids? They're certain I'll come back to the fold eventually to confess my guilt. The booster intercedes, seeking to force my hand. My father is wined and dined at an impromptu visit to Lexington, Kentucky. The former governor, Martha Layne Collins, is notably present. The symbolism and intent is obvious. I can be a Wildcat football player, or at least given a favorable shot at winning a position.

My decision does not change. I do not regret it.

Later in life, well into my adulthood, I saw an early 1960's British film entitled This Sporting Life. One of its main characters is also a booster, who discovers a budding young rugby player in the North of England. Unlike Frank Machin, the athlete, I am not a violent, amoral hell-raiser. The quiet, shy, and reserved booster in the film is the exact opposite of the man who made my case and cheered me onward. But that bit of celluloid does remind me of my aggressive play and my take-no-prisoners attitude while on the playing field. Truth be told, I held a special hate for everyone I faced. I channeled the way I felt into being a tireless player who never got rattled and played hard on every down.

I could have been a successful soldier who kills efficiently and ruthlessly. And it would have won me awards and promotions. I did my job without complaint. I never taunted other players or made a great show of celebration. That wasn't exactly my M.O. Instead, I was coldly efficient like a surgeon. I would have brought that same attitude with me wherever I went. Football is a game of momentum swings, but I seemed to be largely immune to them. Win or lose, I gave it my all.

It would have been an adjustment for me to play on a team where racial dynamics were flipped. My high school was 90% white. Only a handful of players were black. These days, winning Southeastern Conference teams sport rosters where most of the combatants are black. They usually come from small towns and, quite often, the ghetto. Black players who come from poverty have an incentive to do well and to make good. They are given a chance for social mobility, a social mobility not easily granted otherwise, and they would be fools not to grab hold of the opportunity.

My booster said I was the right color for a reason. In his mind and in the mind of many others, I was the Great White Hope. I was the white knight on a powerful steed, seeking to equalize the racial balance of a football team. It's one of the uncomfortable realities that led me to choose a different path for myself.

Black Lives Matter on the football field. However, they may not matter as much when their talent is used up and thoroughly exhausted. And there will always be calls for the next white superstar to make a name for himself in sports that are now black-dominated. This will be the case no matter how post-racial a society we become. If my mindset were different, if I was acquiescent and cowed and pressured, I might have been pushed into that role. But it would have only kept me miserable. Today I live for myself, not as anyone’s bargaining chip or quid pro quo.

Saturday Video

Oh, why not.

Baby, baby, let's get together
Honey, honey, me and you
And do the things, ah, do the things
That we like to do

Oh, do a little dance, make a little love
Get down tonight, get down tonight
Do a little dance, make a little love
Get down tonight, get down tonight

Baby, baby, I'll meet you
Same place, same time
Where we can get together
And ease up our mind

Oh, do a little dance, make a little love
Get down tonight, whoo, get down tonight, hey
Do a little dance, make a little love
Get down tonight, get down tonight, baby

Oh, do a little dance, make a little love
Get down tonight, whoo, get down tonight, hey
Do a little dance, make a little love
Get down tonight, whoo, get down tonight, baby

Get down, get down

Get down, get down, get down, get down, get down tonight baby

The Voyeur Mafioso, Part 2

Part 1 here.
I’m not smart enough or proficient enough for setups like those. Since none of us receives formal training, what we bring to the table are skills we’ve likely cultivated as a hobby, often to appease our own private peccadilloes. Those jobs I’ve just mentioned pay more because there’s increased risk involved and arguably more work. I’m not sure how to remove mortar around bricks or to chisel a small opening for a camera lens, nor do I care to learn.

I make enough. My paychecks never bounce, but they always come from a front company that is totally legit, but vague. For what it’s worth, I’m good at what I do. I never have to leave the city and I don’t scout my own assignments. In the summer, certain people are assigned to beach detail, setting up cameras inside shower stalls where women change into bathing suits. Year-round, some find ingenious ways to enter and visually document women’s locker rooms at pools, spas, and gyms.

The only drawback for me is that weekends are always busy. When everyone else is out having fun, I’ve hit four or five dressing rooms, usually in the touristy part of town. I’ve done this long enough to know what to expect and when to expect it. If nothing especially interesting shows up within a few minutes, I know of alternate locations that have worked well before.

But unlike those who know how to conceal a hidden camera which runs for hours, then edit it down proficiently, my usable videos might last for a minute tops, or at best they might last for no more than five. To correct my earlier mistakes, I try to keep my hand motionless and I don’t make a sound.

At the moment, I’ve just finished up recording a young woman who appears to be in her early twenties. On my knees in the next stall, shooting upwards, the tiny camera lens poking over the partition, I’ve managed to take an effective camera angle. She is too busy trying on swimwear and then talking on a cell phone to know what I’m doing.

These are the easy ones. Posted on every door in the changing area is a reminder that it isn’t sanitary to try on bathing suits without first donning underwear. This woman doesn’t seem to notice, but I could care less about store policy. She stays reasonably still and will be a popular upload.

What makes my work even possible is the way the cubicles are laid out. In many stores, the men’s facilities are right next to the women’s. In stores where men and women are placed far apart, my job is impossible. We usually hit the smaller stores for this reason, though once again, finding an adequate location is a task best left to someone else. As I leave, the woman continues to speak excitedly to an unknown party, entirely naked, conversing enthusiastically about some person who is a dickhead, in her words. I’ve been here long enough.

The Voyeur Mafioso, Part 1

I've decided to post a lengthy short story here. It is several pages long, and I'll be sharing it with you one section at a time. The main character is not likable on purpose.

_____________

The Voyeur Mafioso, Part 1

To be honest, I’m not sure what led me into this unconventional career. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that much of our forbidden thoughts and fantasies are fueled in large part by the basics of voyeurism, my trade. Particularly, our private glee and secret arousal is a result of observing something supposedly off-limits and verboten. We desperately want to see something we know we shouldn’t.

With time, those fantasies grow more refined, layered, and amplified due of our own advanced personal tastes. These are enhanced by an increase in life experiences. I know when mine began. They started in middle school gym class, seeing if I could look up the shorts of girls. I rarely succeeded, but when on the odd chance I did, it felt as though I’d had something akin to a religious experience.

When I began to give it some thought in my teens, voyeurism in any form appeared to skirt a line somewhere between acceptable and unacceptable conduct. If not against the law, it was, at best, invasion of privacy. But, as I learned years later, it paid. A black market existed for it.

This is why I made the decision I did. I had to buy my own equipment at first, though I was eventually reimbursed for it within the first month or two. Digital video cameras are a fraction of the size they used to be, as are the lenses, and I learned many ways to disguise what I was doing along the way. Concealment was my stock in trade and I coupled that with enough raw nerve and boldness to achieve every target goal.

Every morning, even Saturday and Sunday, I received a fresh e-mail from my boss. They were usually curt and to the point, typed in all caps. DRESSING ROOMS IN HECKART, 10:30 AM-12:00 PM, COLLEGE STUDENT RUSH.

I mused to myself that one wouldn’t want to hang around that location for too long, as that would attract attention.

Technology makes much possible that was once impossible, or at least consigned to the realm of speculative fantasy. Photographs are much easier, because they take only a fraction of a second or two, but the customers clamor for videos. Don’t worry about trying to find our website. You won’t come close unless you’re an expert in navigating parts of the web beyond the reach of Google or have a few hours to spend linking from site to site.

Most of our business is spread by word of mouth, though at times a few persistent and lucky people have encountered our site on a whim and subscribed. It’s safer that way. Everyone knows the risk involved.

Every assignment has its own challenges and unknown variables. One day at a department store I spied only middle aged women, which is fine for some tastes, but we tend to get more requests for the younger set. I’ll let our customers provide the color commentary. For me, this is just a job. My foremost responsibility is not getting caught. I’ll concede there is a degree of taboo fun present for me sporadically, but that’s mostly faded into the background. In a terrible sort of way, I’ve become a professional, a label that always eluded me beforehand in every other occupation I tried.

How I do it is a trade secret I would largely prefer to keep hidden. I have to retain some secrets. Suffice it to say that it wasn’t learned overnight. In the beginning, I silently observed whomever entered a stall. I then balanced uneasily on a chair or by whatever elevation was possible for me. My focus was on an immediately adjacent room. Half-standing, half-crouching, peeking just over the partition, I recorded a few moments or so before noiselessly ducking back down for protection. Before I perfected my technique, I almost got caught on more than one occasion. My first few attempts were unusable because I couldn’t hold my hand steady. I was too nervous.

I don’t know the identities of anyone else who works this same basic job. This is a condition of employment. We can’t be seen at the same place too frequently or be somehow linked together due to guilt by association. Some men are assigned very different tasks from my own. Those who are skilled with hidden cameras have a basic understanding of concealing their equipment in an inconspicuous way, inside walls, bricks, bathrooms, and showers.

Another Reason Why Gun Control Doesn't Go Far Enough

Many Americans don't realize that substantial gun control legislation is already on the books. If one observed the arguments and counter-arguments currently raging, one might think this country has done nothing at all. In the midst of recent violence against young black men and police officers, we forget that established precedent exists. Loopholes within the existing legal language are at fault. Then, as now, the Gun Control Act of 1968 faced a hefty headwind in committee and barely made it to the President's desk. Then, as now, the National Rifle Association tried its best to kill it. It is still far too easy to buy a gun, forty-eight years later.

Passage of the Gun Control Act was initially prompted by the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The President was shot and killed with a rifle purchased by mail-order from an ad in National Rifle Association (NRA) magazine American Rifleman. Congressional hearings followed and a ban on mail-order gun sales was discussed, but no law was passed until 1968.

At the hearings NRA Executive Vice-President Franklin Orth supported a ban on mail-order sales, stating, "We do not think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States."

When the NRA starts speaking sense, the world has indeed flipped upside down. Then-President Lyndon Johnson spoke lucidly upon signing the Gun Control Act.

"Congress adopted most of our recommendations. But this bill—as big as this bill is—still falls short, because we just could not get the Congress to carry out the requests we made of them. I asked for the national registration of all guns and the licensing of those who carry those guns. For the fact of life is that there are over 160 million guns in this country—more firearms than families."

What separates today from the frightening times of 1968 is the extreme pessimism of the American people. Back then, many young people and activists believed that a true revolution was imminent. Others were afraid and disgusted, and they made up Nixon's (not Trump's) silent majority. To a generation large in numbers that continues to actively shape our national discourse, these were the proverbial birth pangs of a better world order.

But with that order came an uptick in violence and a corresponding increase in handgun sales from the beginning of the 1960's to the end of the decade. Even women began packing heat and heading for firing ranges to test their aim.

I can't help but be reminded of a particular book I read in college. Robert Penn Warren's novel All the King's Men is a story of a Louisiana demagogue named Willie Stark. Now a classic, the novel discusses the nature of politics and power. Jack Burden is Willie's right hand man. Jack's last name is chosen deliberately. He will bear the burden of his boss's actions no matter what. Eventually forced into an ethical dilemma, Burden can no longer dig up dirt and discredit Stark's opponents any longer. He can no longer be the Karl Rove of the Depression-era Deep South.   

Jack Burden remembers the years during which Willie Stark rose to power. While Willie was Mason County Treasurer, he became embroiled in a controversy over the building contract for the new school. The head of the city council awarded the contract to the business partner of one of his relatives, no doubt receiving a healthy kickback for doing so. 

One day during a fire drill at the new school, a fire escape collapsed due to faulty construction and three students died. At the funeral, one of the bereaved fathers stood by Willie and cried aloud that he had been punished for voting against an honest man. After that, Willie was a local hero. 

This is proof that sometimes times have to get worse before they get better. How many more people must die before Congress acts responsibly and President Obama signs the bill into law? I pray daily for real reform, but as a student of history, I recognize how easy it is to over-correct and over-compensate, pushing through legislation that is reactionary rather than wise. The public will eventually clamor for something to be done as one voice. The NRA may be powerful, but public will is strong when people fear for their lives and the lives of those they love.

This underscores a much more revealing trend. People are demoralized and disengaged from politics this go-round. I have seen relatively few Donald Trump t-shirts and bumper stickers, but the same is true for Hillary Clinton. It seems almost hard to conceive how tuned in so many of us were at this time eight years ago. Record crowds will not stand in the freezing cold on Inauguration Day.

We will lose a chief executive who has underwhelmed at times, but who has run an almost drama-free, scandal-proof Administration. Bill Maher has said much the same thing himself. It seems almost inconceivable, considering how difficult, even impossible, it is to prevent unflattering news from being widely disseminated in the Internet age. 

I hate to admit this, but conservative writer and interview subject George Will was correct to a degree. He said that the Obama phenomenon was metaphorical cotton candy and would eventually melt away. One wonder if he reached this conclusion due to some acumen in predicting the future. If so, I grant him the credit he is due. Should Hillary Clinton be elected, I expect change that I can believe in, now more than ever.  

Quote of the Week

"You will never learn what I am thinking. And those who boast most loudly that they know my thoughts, to such people I lie even more."-Adolf Hitler

Saturday Video

I could have loved you, girl
Like a planet
I could have chained your heart
To a star.

But it really doesn't matter at all
No, it really doesn't matter at all
Life's a gas.

I could have built a house
On the ocean
I could have placed your love
In the sky.

But it really doesn't matter at all
No, it really doesn't matter at all
Life's a gas.

I could have turned you
Into a priestess
I could have burned
Your fate in the sand

But it really doesn't matter at all
No it really doesn't matter at all
Life's a gas.

But it really doesn't matter at all
No, it really doesn't matter at all
Life's a gas,
I hope it's gonna last.

But it really doesn't matter at all
No it really doesn't matter at all
Life's a gas.

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

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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

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