Saturday Video

There's a man who leads
a life of danger.
To everyone he meets
he stays a stranger.

With every move he makes,
another chance he takes.
Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow.

Secret agent man
Secret agent man
They've given you a number,
and taken away your name.

Beware of pretty faces that you find.
A pretty face can hide an evil mind.
Oh, be careful what you say.

Or you'll give yourself away.
Odds are you won't
live to see tomorrow.

Secret agent man
Secret agent man

They've given you a number,
and taken away your name.

Secret agent man
Secret agent man
They've given you a number,
and taken away your name.

Swingin' on the Riviera, one day
and then layin'
in the Bombay alley next day.

Oh no, you let the wrong
words slip while kissing persuasive lips.
The odds are
you won't live to see tomorrow.

Secret agent man
Secret agent man
They've given you a number,
and taken away your name.

Sign of the Times

Our country struggles through this election cycle without much enthusiasm. Once, people spoke excitedly about the promise of substantial reform. Now, the Republican Presidential contest meshes well with the sentiment of the times. Few GOP voters like the choices presented to them, but they'll have to vote for someone. In general, Americans resemble the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free in Emma Lazarus’ famous sonnet. In November, they will cast their ballots with strong reservations, regardless of what party they favor.

Once, immigrants (though notably not immigrants of color) fled the poverty and religious persecution of their homelands to settle here. Passage to the New World was expensive and time consuming. Despite the risk, they were willing to risk disaster itself to start afresh. They arrived, wave after wave, and most of us are their descendants. This country once held a strong promise for those who knew, in their native land, that they could never rise above the station of their birth.

Years of recession have now made social mobility difficult. The laws of scarcity reign yet again, with their emphasis upon coveting, hoarding, and guarding against potential famine. Politicians, without skipping a beat, speak about dismantling or gutting outright essential safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security. In their way of thinking, we are flat broke and austerity measures like these are imperative.

What is for sure is this: certain longtime ideological arguments will have to be scrapped, perhaps forever. What really matters are not the measures and counter-measures being considered. The daily lives of the American people are not abstract notions. Their basic struggle should not be reduced to spreadsheets and acronyms. They have good reason to be cynical, though right now everyone's mostly just exhausted.

The energy and hopeful spirit of four years ago feels like it belongs to someone else’s group consciousness. To many, 2008 might as well be ancient history. Most don't pause to dwell on it for very long. They simply don't have the time to be contemplative to no good end. As they wearily rise each morning for work, Americans focus instead on more pressing needs. Should they not have a job, they then try to accustom themselves to another day of a long, often frustrating search. Many have learned that in this new paradigm, interviews are infrequent and offers even more so.

And with each passing year, those who are close to retirement silently push their intended date forward in time. Some invested in the stock market, only to find that nest eggs shrank at an alarming rate. A younger generation openly doubts it will ever even be able to even retire at all. After lengthy stints of underemployment, some head to grad school to retool. In so doing, they ring up substantial student loan debt, often piled high on top of existing loans. As they see it, it’s better to be doing something than nothing.

In some ways, these sour times were a long time in coming. Greed has brought down many societies over time. In any system that rewards the accumulation of capital, it almost always does. But before invoking catastrophe, let's try to keep things in perspective. Predicting the imminent ruin of the United States is a bit like predicting the end of the world. It makes for a perverse kind of comfort to believe that our collapse is imminent. Should we believe in it, we no longer have to bite our fingernails, nervously. We don't have to worry about the uncertainty of the future.

Too much has been invested in this country. We did come to the brink of disaster back in 2007, but those lessons are too glaring to be quickly forgotten. China and other foreign countries have a strong interest in keeping the American economy afloat, particularly because of how much of our debt they own. No one of any nationality knows quite where we’re headed. In the midst of all the analysis, we are only certain of uncertainty.

In a jittery, nervous time, we turn to economists to spin their yarns. The soothsayers of this age, each trots out slightly different numbers and figures to explain their theories. In the end, we must contend with competing pronouncements and declarations, which provide no one much in the way of comfort.

The anxiety we feel now is existential. Though we may be slowly recovering, financially, the psychological impact left behind will be felt far longer. The aftermath of the recession has profoundly affected individuals, small towns, and cities alike. How it has affected the American psyche has not been as easily discussed. We dare not even speak its name. This lingering trauma will be the hardest to heal.

Individuals or Churches: Who Gets Ultimate Say?

Though it is an unexpected and significant victory for reproductive rights, a recent Obama Administration decision is being critiqued for its lasting reverberations in an election year. The decision speaks directly to a controversy unlikely to subside. Should individual choice speak louder than the canon of an ancient, but still highly influential institution? We as Americans are once again debating the definition of individual liberty and freedom, particularly where it intersects with religion.

President Barack Obama and his senior aides were more than a little concerned before he announced his controversial decision requiring Catholic hospitals and universities to provide contraception in employee health plans.

The Obama Administration has, by this political calculation, espoused the notion that birth control should be accessible to all. That the issue has yet again become a religious one should surprise no one. The above Politico article correctly points out that the Catholic Church’s official position on the subject has never wavered. According to strict definition, contraception is contrary with God’s will. Even so, an overwhelming number of observant Catholics, enough even for a super-majority, have long ignored that commandment.

Polarization of this nature would lead to significant factionalism in many Protestant churches. The very word Catholic means “universal”, which explains its disinclination to fracture along similar lines. But in all fairness, Catholicism has experienced substantial fissures, cracks, and separations for a very long time. What one observes in the Church, one can also see in other areas.

Over time, a war of words over access to birth control and access to abortion has become a frustrating conflict of attrition. Each side believes it is under imminent threat of elimination, so responses are usually aggressively phrased. Whether Roe v. Wade could be soon dismantled or birth control banned outright has never been conclusively established, though the fear remains. There are many interlocking factors in place. The problem and its resolution are many times larger than each cog in the machine.

Anti-choice forces are certainly loud enough and devoted enough, but they are gratefully not alone in the halls of power. Though pro-life proponents contribute their money to favored causes and elect their legislative champions, most Americans still strongly support reproductive rights. They believe that a woman's personal decision is of paramount importance.

However, the problem is not nearly so simplistic as a majority opinion. States retain power to govern their own affairs, to a degree, therefore rendering the issue also a regional one. Some of these have undermined existing statutes. Laws requiring parental consent for the procedure, for those under a certain age, have been passed by several, usually conservative states. Periodically, a pro-life hardliner in a state legislature will advance a bill equating abortion with murder, or something similarly harsh and provocative. This only throws more fuel into the bonfire.

The vast majority of Americans back the use of contraception, and about three-quarters of Catholic women in recent polls part with the Church on its prohibition of condoms and the pill. But the political danger isn’t about pills or piety, it’s that the decision — made by the president himself after months of internal discussion — will be interpreted as a dangerous nanny-state intrusion into the religious freedom of Catholics.

Government intrusion into religious expression, or perceived government intrusion into religious expression is a debate as old as the Union itself. It is a debate already ideologically polarized with no history of equality in enforcement. For example, conservative churches and houses of worship are often held to different standards. While officially maintaining non-profit status, conservative political expression during worship can be fiercely and unashamedly partisan. In an election year, right-leaning preachers will regularly use their pulpit as a way to disseminate political thought.

This would seem to violate the stipulations that insist religious organizations must not take a political stance. Liberal faith groups and houses of worship are often judged by a stricter standard, should they stake claim to similar territory. It may be difficult to fully separate the secular from the spiritual in this issue. That being said, individual liberty, as defined, is an important distinction to make. Religious identification has always been a blend between personal faith and corporate identity.

Catholic universities and hospitals who refuse to provide contraceptive services are only speaking for the moral convictions of some, not all. This isn't just true for people of other faiths or no faith at all, but fellow Catholics. While this is a moral issue to some, it is a question of basic freedom to many others. The Catholic Church and the Pope have consistently refused to confront this, a very significant issue. Having noted this, it begs the question: why have many of its adherents only been selectively following the party line, as defined?

I doubt seriously that these proud, observant, faithful believers are behavior problems or living in a suspended state of sin. Until Catholicism is really willing to confront its larger, systemic issues first, birth control and abortion is the least of its worries. Should it refuse to do so, its institutions of higher learning and healing have a very weak case to present.

Life Begins at Conception

You Are Not a Quaker (So Stop Calling Yourself One)

I would have posted this on my Meeting's listserve, but know it would have been received with instant hostility and plentiful angry commentary. Instead, I'll just put it up here.

Transcribed from the Maggie Harrison.

Included below is the most crucial passage.

___________________

So, if you attend meeting because it’s nice, or because you enjoy having a group of liberal friends to talk with about politics, THIS IS NOT ENOUGH TO CALL YOURSELF QUAKER.

If you call yourself Quaker because you like the social messages and the fact that we’re ‘so accepting’ or that we’re not going to stuff religion down your throat, that’s all fine and good, I feel the same BUT THAT’S NOT ENOUGH TO CALL YOURSELF A QUAKER.

If you attend Friends Church so that you can feel connected to God/Christ and do the things a good Christian would do, THAT’S NOT ENOUGH TO CALL YOURSELF A QUAKER.

If you call yourself a Quaker because you went to a Friends School and now work at a nonprofit and always compost your banana peels, THAT DOESN’T MAKE YOU A QUAKER.

Are you all getting my point? Please stop diluting our movement and muddying the waters with your wishy-washy comfort-driven engagement with this group that you think is cool or enjoy ‘meditating’ with. You are not Quaker. Go join some other group that’s not going to tell you what to do and will accept your lack of interest in real radical transformation.

That’s not what we’re about. And yes, we ARE about something. Don’t you dare imply otherwise and I’m sorry if we mislead you by acting like anything goes because we don’t believe in anything specific or challenging. IT DOESN’T. PLEASE LEAVE.

Sunshine Superman

Sunshine came softly a-through my a-window today
Could've tripped out easy a-but I've a-changed my way
It'll take time, I know it, but in a while
You're gonna be mine, I know it, we'll do it in style

'Cause I made my mind up you're going to be mine
I tell you right now
Any trick in the book a-now, baby, a-that I can find

Everybody's hustlin' a-just to have a little scene
When I say we'll be cool I think that you know what I mean
We stood on a beach at sunset, do you remember when?
I know a beach where, baby, a-it never ends

When you've made your mind up forever to be mine
I'll pick up your hand and slowly blow your little mind
'Cause I made my mind up you're going to be mine
I tell you right now
Any trick in the book a-now, baby, a-that I can find

Superman and Green Lantern ain't got a-nothin' on me
I can make like a turtle and dive for your pearls in the sea, yeah
A-you you you can just sit there a-thinking on your velvet throne
'Bout all the rainbows a-you can a-have for your own

When you've made your mind up forever to be mine
I'll pick up your hand and slowly blow your little mind
When you've made your mind up forever to be mine
I'll pick up your hand
I'll pick up your hand and slowly...

Book review: Delusions of Gender

My mother is fond of telling a story. Her first child, she had me in her early twenties. Highly influenced by the Feminist thought of the 1970’s, Mom was convinced she would raise me quite differently. The first major challenge to her beliefs arrived not far into the process of parenthood. Like the little boy I was, my play routinely involved pretending to shoot a toy gun.

Except that I didn’t actually have a gun at my disposal. Instead, I began to use stray pieces of a vacuum cleaner, simulating the sound of the firing of a gun. Kow! Kow! Mom was determined she would not reinforce such traditionally masculine behavior and refused to purchase me a simulated firearm.

My Grandmother, being of a very different generational mindset, could not understand her daughter’s rationale. Boys played with guns. Boys had always played with guns. Why should it be any different for her Grandson? I was loaded into a car and then taken to a store. While there, three or four toy guns were bought for me. I set aside the vacuum cleaner for good, running around the yard in a fantasy world of my own creation.

This story might, on its face, seem to argue for traditional gender roles. Past scientific research has relied on methodology as simplistic as this to form firm, supposedly unshakable conclusions. But, as we are told, correlation does not prove causation. The other boys I played with, the gender-specific television programs I watched, and the behavior of adults around me almost certainly influenced my likes and dislikes. The brain is complicated both in its wiring and its ability to adapt and be shaped to fit specific situations and environments.

Similar conclusions are plentiful in Australian psychologist, writer, and professor Cordelia Fine’s most recent book. It is entitled, appropriately, Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference. Relying on an exhaustive series of research studies to prove her conclusions, Fine debunks one gender stereotype after another. By the end, the reader has to concede that multiple analyses routinely cited by journalists, each asserting some form of gender essentialism, are of dubious factual value.

Politics, rather than sound methods, motivates any number of shoddily and sloppily performed experiments. In many other scientific fields, hypotheses these simplistic would be laughed at and never allowed to be published. Neuroscience, like the brain itself, is poorly understood, relying on a very small number of indisputable truths. When linked with sexist claims and traditional perceptions of gender, gross oversimplifications of brain function are utilized to consistently prove and reprove the status quo.

A brief note. Those who wish to read Delusions of Gender ought to be aware that large sections of the book contain scientific language and jargon, especially the second part. A more or less standard narrative is present in the first and the concluding partition. Regarding the scientific data, I found myself sometimes having to take great pains to not lose myself in the terminology, though the results of each experiment are easy enough to comprehend.

One discovers that even the most complicated-sounding study has a predictably and distressingly similar result. Yet, even when contemplating the consistently depressing, one nevertheless finds a kind of reassuring comfort. It is possible to easily see well beyond the monochromatic world advanced by scientists with a bone to pick.

By the end, Fine argues for, in her words, a great unraveling. Each of us plays a notable role in the deconstructing and eventual vanquishing of gender inequality. She challenges us to be cognizant, as best we can, of the ideas we directly express and emote. How we talk, how we respond to others, how we hold our bodies and gesticulate, the way we form our thoughts—all of these are of great importance.

The reality is complex in ways we can barely fathom. If the problem was as easy to solve and to understand as the studies that make such claims, we would surely have made much greater strides by now.

Quote of the Week

"The spring of 1988, I spent a fair length of time trying to come to grips with who I was and the habits I had, and what they did to people that I truly loved. I really spent a period of time where, I suspect, I cried three or four times a week. I read Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them and I found frightening pieces that related to...my own life."- Newt Gingrich, 1989.

Saturday Video

Let me tell you how it will be:
That's one for you, nineteen for me;
'Cause I'm the taxman;
Yeah, I'm the taxman.

Should five percent appear too small,
Be thankful I don't take it all.
'Cause I'm the taxman;
Yeah, I'm the taxman.

If you drive a car,
I'll tax the street.
If you try to sit,
I'll tax your seat.

If you get too cold,
I'll tax the heat.
If you take a walk,
I'll tax your feet.

Taxman!

'Cause I'm the taxman;
Yeah, I'm the taxman.

Don't ask me what I want it for
(Aaah, aah, Mr. Wilson)
If you don't want to pay some more.
(Aah, aah, Mr. Heath)

'Cause I'm the taxman;
Yeah, I'm the taxman.

Now my advice to those who die:
(Taxman!)
Declare the pennies on your eyes!
(Taxman!)

'Cause I'm the taxman;
Yeah, I'm the taxman,

And you're working for no one but me...

Bisexuals Get No Respect

I rarely link to existing articles, but I think these two are deserved.

Cynthia Nixon: Bisexuals? We get no respect

This one is better.

Nature

Conscious of my painted toenails, I did not emerge from the river like all the others. I instead bobbed up and down with the gently rolling current. Staring at my slightly denuded chest, I had been earlier experimenting with the removal of body hair. My intention was to reach a more feminine ideal, a standard that always felt more biological to me than cultural.

While swimming or dog paddling, one learns to avoid the beds of fresh water mussels. The pressure of toes and the balls of the feet cause shellfish to slam shut. The first time it happens to you, your body jerks in surprise. After a time, one adjusts, but it’s always a bit of a fright.

My girlfriend at the time implored me to swim closer to the shore. She never divided in headfirst as I did. She never hid her toes or the hair on her legs. Easing her body into the water, little by little, she kept running commentary. A tilted rock, just the right size, was concealed by the level of the water. It entered, unexpectedly, giving her a jolt.

That was… intimate. She chuckled nervously. Past partners would not have called attention to the violation, but this was not how she was. For her, the world was an everlasting scavenger hunt. While walking the woods, she would leap for the latest specimen, grabbing for the ends of tails and wings. I found bugs generally creepy and disgusting, but she had no such reservations. Her entire life had been lived in the outdoors. It was where she came to recharge and where I came simply to be with her.

Being with me took a lot of convincing. At the outset, I held her hand while she cradled the framed picture of her ex-boyfriend, sobbing. I probably should have been more bothered the way she transposed his personality traits and perceived strengths onto me.  I wanted her with a kind of mad desperation and dogged persistence. In workshop, I’d fallen in love with her short stories and now wanted the person whose mind had crafted them.   

Returning from the creek, we drove back to her house, talking of nothing in particular. I was devising another strategy to keep her from pushing away from me. The eight years that separated us in age was often cited as a reason why we needed to no longer see each other. Like a comedy duo, we kept returning to the same exchange, the same routine.

Do you see that picture on the wall? I indicated that indeed, I did see it. That was me when I was your age. She didn’t look that much different then as she did now. Perhaps she seemed less comfortable with herself and a little more unsettled and indecisive. Each time with this call-and-response conversation, she smiled, self-satisfied. I suppose, to her, she felt better being the old wise soul and me the baby.

For all her indecisiveness, or belief in her intellectual superiority and maturity, she returned to me, consistently. I was simply grateful for what I received and did not know yet what I truly deserved. Even so, I still find myself citing in words and in conversation some of the wisdom and insight she shared with me. She is part of me. The frustration is gone. The picture on the wall is now mine.    

Planet Telex (Slightly Shortened)

I decided to leave off the ending coda from the released version.

You can force it but it will not come
You can taste it but it will not form
You can crush it but it’s always here
You can crush it but it’s always near

Chasing you home saying
Everything is broken
Everyone is broken

You can force it but it will stay stung
You can crush it as dry as a bone
You can walk it home straight from school
You can kiss it, you can break all the rules

But still
Everything is broken
Everyone is broken
Everyone is, everyone is broken
Everyone is, everything is broken

Movie review: Black Brown White

The 2011 Austrian film Black Brown White covers a topical issue that has been prominent in German-language cinema the past few years, human trafficking. Director Erwin Wagenhofer is the latest to contribute to a chorus of cinematic reformers who are heavily critical of xenophobic attitudes. The main character, the truck driver Peter (Fritz Karl), hauls garlic and tomatoes, but also undocumented workers. The profit is high, but so are the risks.

A Ghanaian woman named Jackie (Clare-Hope Ashite) throws a spanner into his coordinated plans. She refuses to take a place in the back of the air-conditioned, but packed trailer with the others. With her young son in tow, she defiantly takes a place in the cab at the front, next to Peter. This act is verboten for a reason; it only increases the risks involved in an already risky enterprise. Still, the trucker grudgingly admires her persistence and allows the two of them to stay.

A picaresque journey through back roads and deliberate diversions ensues. Evading the police is almost a skill in and of itself. Jackie and her son present frequent challenges by their very visibility. Showing a surprising sensitive side, Peter violates his good judgment by not keeping constant control and surveillance over the two of them. Other men involved in the process of smuggling assume that the Ghanaian is his lover, and the child his own. Why would he be so uncharacteristically soft and incautious otherwise?

Halfway through the film we, the audience, learn that Peter has become a trafficker of humans because of financial necessity. Bad economic times created the need for additional income, but his feelings towards the practice are mixed. The financial reward is lucrative, but the process from start to finish is involved and frequently harrowing. The smuggler never gets the opportunity to relax even for a moment. Danger is openly courted, fate is constantly tempted. He must find a way to never become caught in a lie. In a quiet moment one night, Peter concedes that this haul will be his last.

A main underlying theme in Black Brown White is racism and racist beliefs. Countries in Western Europe often display overt hostility, even to legal immigration. To cite one example, the immigration policy of the Swiss has long been time-consuming and difficult to navigate. Many Swiss don’t want to live with people who look differently than their people have always looked, or talk differently than they have always talked. Or, in other words, they do not wish to compromise cultural purity. The global economic crisis only amplifies these feelings. People now believe that illegal immigrants are taking money out of their own pockets, not just polluting the gene pool.

The widespread belief in ideas like these does not stop with German-speaking peoples. It is especially true in France. Hypocrisy is rampant and virulent, especially because countries who routinely lambaste American racism take part in it themselves, in their own way. Unlike the United States, Western Europe was never founded on an idealistic premise that one ought to take in the refugees of the world. The nation-states of the Old World have, in effect, put up fences much higher and longer than ever proposed by American politicians.

A fear of ethnic corruption regrettably exists in the minds of millions. Black Brown White shows that at least some can see beyond the fear and suspicion. As Americans, it may do us good to recognize that racism and ideas of cultural acceptability do not end and begin with us. We might need to be cautious before we look elsewhere to find a sort of purity we believe to be not present on our shores.

Our problems may have been magnified with time alongside our predominant size and influence throughout the world community. Large countries magnify both their flaws and successes. Small countries sin no less, but often go unreported and unacknowledged.

And along the way, a few basic lessons can be learned that are true regardless of one's country of origin. Life can be rewarding, but it is rarely easy for any of us. People are pretty much the same everywhere, often when it comes to conquering adversity. Every place in the world holds its strengths and also its weaknesses.

Or, If You Prefer...

Here's a multi-track recording.

Cathy's Clown

Don't want your love anymore,
don't want your kisses, that's for sure,
I die each time I hear this sound

Here he comes
that's Cathy's clown

I gotta stand tall
you know a man can't crawl,
when he knows you're tellin' lies

and he hears 'em passing by,
he's not a man at all

Don't want your love anymore,
don't want your kisses that's for sure,
I die each time I hear this sound,

Here he comes
that's Cathy's clown

When you see me shed a tear,
and you know that it's sincere

Don't you think it's kinda sad that
you're treating me so bad
or don't you even care?

Don't want your love anymore,
don't want your kisses that's for sure,

I die each time I hear this sound,
here he comes
that's Cathy's clown

Paterno's legacy from the perspective of a former football player

The death of Joe Paterno, longtime Penn State head football coach, would have been mourned with appropriately solemn reverence had it not been for the scandal that brought him down. Some have already lionized him anyway, this in the face of evidence that Paterno completely mishandled allegations of child sexual abuse. The conflicting tone evident in the announcements of his death reveals much. In particular, it shows how eager, even desperate we as a society are to be entertained and how attached we are to those who provide that entertainment. That many will always overlook the negligence of one legendary coach shows the priority we assign to sports.

I grew up in Alabama, where college football is a cultural institution. Grown men obsess about the sprained ankles and yards-per-carry of nineteen-year-old young men. Overgrown teenagers offered scholarships are treated like royalty for the whole of their time to wear the uniform. Although more and more revenue saturates the college game, its basic function is often a distraction from dull routine. A still largely working class and poor state eagerly embraces a break from a life spent toiling away in an automobile plant or a paper mill.  

I can’t remember a time during the fall on Saturday afternoons without a game blaring on the television. From a young age, I wanted to be on the field of play myself. In time, I grew old enough to do that very thing. Fortunately, I inherited athletic ability from my father. I began playing at age ten, showing a natural inclination towards the unglamorous world of the offensive line. A guard, I was fast enough to cut off linebackers from making a tackle, but big enough to avoid being run over.

Like many of my teammates, I tolerated the practices and lived for the games. My recollections of those contests are blurry and often unmemorable. Games proceed at such a fast pace, the laws of time do not apply. A play begins and is over within a minute. One picks oneself up off the ground and trots backs into the huddle, over and over again. On the front line, victory and defeat is transitory. One play’s triumph can quickly become a tragedy with the next snap of the ball. For an offensive lineman, one lives in obscurity until quarterbacks are sacked or running backs earn negative yardage. 

After a time, however, even the thrill of the game could not make up for my reservations. Constant crude remarks made towards women made me feel embarrassed. I had little to nothing in common with most of my teammates, who didn’t value academics and seemingly lived to hunt deer on weekends.  After struggling through an interminably long spring practice, I walked away from everything. No one could understand why. It was incomprehensible to them why a starter would quit the team.

Had I continued to suit up on Friday nights, I would have reserved my own spot on a college roster. Even so, I have no regrets. Though I was told for years to feel special because I was a football player, I never felt particularly privileged. What separated me from other students was a vigorous regimen of physical exertion and abject terror. I was put through high-impact, grueling exercise and treated a little like a Marine in basic training. Today, I sometimes miss being in great shape, but never pine away for the volume and proximity of a coach’s verbal directions. When I was a player, I lived in a very deliberately fashioned cocoon during the season and for most of the year.   

This is the life of the football player. Discipline and focus are essential components. However, it is easy to see how this world unto itself grows insular and resistant to change. Joe Paterno only wanted to be a football coach, not a crime reporter. However, he still had an obligation to show the same authority and decisiveness he displayed on the gridiron. Football may be an alternate universe of a sort, but it does not and should not exist in isolation to the rest of the world. Even in death, Paterno should not be absolved fully of responsibility. He could have stopped the behavior of a sex offender, not merely the offense of next week’s opponent.        

Quote of the Week

"He who cannot hate the devil cannot love God."- Joseph Goebbels

Saturday Video

Yes, I'm ready, so come on, Luckie.
Well, there's an avenue of Devil who believe in stone.
You can meet the captain at the dead-end zone.

What Devil doesn't know is that Devil can't
stay, doesn't know he's seen his day.

Oh, Luckie's taking over and his clover shows.
Devil can't get out of hand 'cause Luckie's taking
over and what Luckie says goes.

Dig them potatoes
if you've never dug your girl before,
poor little Devil, He's a backseat man to Luckie
forever more.

Yes, I'm ready, so come on, Luckie, Luckie
inside of me, inside of my mind, inside of my
mind. Don't go falling for Naughty.
Don't go falling
for Naughty, he's a dragon
with a double bite.

Sure can do his shortchanging out of sight.
An artist of a sort but a little bit short of luck,
this lucky night.

Oh, Luckie's taking over and
his clover shows.
Naughty can't get out of hand
cause Luckie's taking over
and what Luckie says goes.

Dig them potatoes if you've never dug your
girl before, poor little Naughty,
He's a backseat man to Luckie forever,
a backseat man to Luckie forever more,
hey, hey, hey.

It's a real good day to go get Luckie,
go get Luckie.

I'm gonna go get Luckie, I'm gonna go get
Luckie. I'm gonna go get, I'm gonna go get,
you gotta go, get on down and get away.
You gotta go, get on down and get away.

You gotta go, get on down and get away.
You gotta go, get on down and
get away from you, hey hey, from you, yes,
Yes, I'm ready, yes, I'm ready, ready for Luckie.

The need for narrative control

For years, media narrative has directly shaped public opinion. In its emphasis on certain stories rather than others, opinions are formed and a hierarchy of current events is created. The cadence and catchy one-liners of pundits and talking heads make their way into routine conversation. Many people walk in lockstep, whether aware of it or not, with how media has framed an issue. The fortunate can peer outside of the box, even while they embrace certain aspects of these presented truths themselves.  They may reject some of what they view, read, or hear, seeking to build their own opinion in contradiction to the conventional wisdom.

As the Presidential Race draws ever nearer, each campaign will spit out public relations bullet-points that play up the favorable sides of their candidate. We will likely parrot these arguments amongst ourselves because, competitive being that we are, we'd like our chosen candidate to win. We're aware that campaign spin routinely stretches the truth, but we'll still disregard strict logic for victory. We'll support our team and its own rationale. We'll be cheerleaders for each candidate's chosen strategy each step, day by day, month by month, until the bitter end.  

Where the media is concerned, where ought to be its role? In shaping information exchange, a few rules (unwritten or otherwise) have sprung up over time. As has been true with the recent tense exchange between Debate Moderator John King of CNN and Republican Presidential Candidate Newt Gingrich, media is often caught in the middle.  It can present an unbiased, fly-on-the-wall perspective, or a very partisan one intended to deliberately influence individual opinion.

Some believe that people are inherently capable of shaping their own conclusions without need for additional agitation. Following this line of thought, news reporting is rather impassive and businesslike. Other outlets believe their role ought to be vetting, jousting, and fact checking. Candidates routinely inclined to hurl their own spin into the mix, like Gingrich, make internal debate between media and candidate irresistible. It makes for great theater, though whether it serves anyone well is debatable.

On a much smaller scale, I understand this conundrum. I am one of the leaders in an house of worship. A recent problem became a time-consuming and frustrating controversy among members and regular attenders. We meant to equip for the hard-of-hearing a simple and cost-effective means so that all might be able to hear during Worship. The challenge before us is an eighty-year-old Meeting Room with its own massive sonic problems.

Seeking sufficient accommodations for the hearing-impaired, I admit that other leaders and I made mistakes. Initially, too many choices were provided the congregation. The selections facing us were broad and expansive, and no one single solution stood out as the best. Leadership regrettably concerned itself more with gathering everyone’s perspective, in the hopes that a wealth of opinion might lead to the best way to resolution.

What we should have done is, at the outset, advance specific possibilities for resolution. Nature abhors a vacuum and the discussion degenerated, I regret to say, into churlishness. Many were afraid, if not terrified that their particular concern was not going to be addressed by the rest of the Meeting. Others were merely petrified of change in any form. Regardless, any decision that leadership made was going to upend the status quo. This is not to take away from anyone’s right to be heard, rather that sometimes complexity for the sake of complexity is not especially effective.

Most recently, I think about this lesson learned in terms of the process of the Health Care Reform legislation. President Obama didn’t get out in front of the bill and guide its passage on easy-to-understand terms. Instead he left the matter wide open for Congress to debate, which provided frequent room for confusion and schism. Without a set of established goals and parameters, the void gave credence to opposition criticism. From then on, the pro-Health Care ranks often seemed to be on the defensive.

Debate can continue indefinitely, as a quick survey of any cable news channel can tell you. Eventually, decisions must be made.  Though we may complain about a media, mainstream or otherwise, that takes a heavy-hand in presenting news, we shouldn’t fail to recognize the need for the messenger. People make their own waves, but without the support of others to amplify those waves, most of us can’t hear them. And not only that, those who are familiar with the industry know the appeal and the benefit of building and following the story.

Simply put, attention is naturally drawn to a narrative. The mere accomplishments of anyone can be purely interesting, but put a person in the context of a compelling narrative, and watch the interest of the audience skyrocket. Communication is not merely a question of compelling details, but also narrative control. Everyone has an opinion, but not everyone has a workable solution.    

A Study in Gender Contrast and Forgiveness

I’ve never felt much reason to comment on controversies at other sites. I usually follow my own path and aim for original analysis on other subjects. However, the Hugo Schwartz controversy over on Feministe has captured my attention. For those unaware, Hugo Schwartz is a prominent male feminist whose personal life and prior conduct has been considered reprehensible to many outside observers. Because he and I both identify as feminist and as men, his behavior reflects upon my own. I myself am highly critical of him, though I have tried to see the matter as objectively as I can. In an effort to perhaps flip the framing or put things in a new context, I’ll share a story.

My mind turns to someone with whom I used to Worship. Her reputation was not exactly stellar.  She was an out-and-out pariah to several people in the greater community. If they kept their distance, they could hardly be blamed. They shunned her because she’d undergone the shame of being the first woman in the state to be forced to pay child support. Her condition and behavior must have been unprecedented and inexcusably reckless. Primary custody was also granted to the father. Though in recovery by the time I met her, she had once been a severe alcoholic. Her substance abuse issues and lengthy history of marital infidelity was used successfully against her in court. Still, she mostly harmed only herself.

  

By the time I met her, her problems seemed to be more or less controlled. I was not aware of her past when she introduced herself to me the first time. She just seemed to me to be a sweet woman in her sixties who had accepted her ultimate fate in the cosmos. She emoted a zen-like quality, one common to those who have suffered mightily. Those who may have otherwise felt vindictive as a result of her behavior in another time now mostly felt sorry for her.

She had cancer. It never killed her, only left her in constant, terrible pain. Death would have been too easy an escape. Instead, the cancer returned time and time again. She underwent chemotherapy, went into remission, and then after a few months of improvement the disease inevitably returned. The process repeated itself for over a decade. Some who were still harboring bitter feelings believed that she got everything that was coming to her, I'm sure. How could someone that out of control not pay the price for what she’d done to her husband and her child?      

Her daughter was similar to her mother in all the wrong ways. Her own periods of substance abuse had resulted in stints in rehab. The same was true for an eating disorder. She stole routinely, often for no discernible reason, this from friends who trusted her. Eventually, several thousand dollars would come up missing. Embarrassed, friends cut their ties but did not report the crime. With time, the daughter chose to steal more than just money and was caught red handed by someone quite willing to prosecute. That decision produced a felony conviction. Like her mother, she burned many bridges in her life and had to live with the consequences.    

I originally thought about framing my conclusion in religious terms, but I instead changed my mind. I’m not trying to vindicate Hugo Schwartz, who identifies as a person of faith. Instead, I'd rather ask instead whether we’re harsher on women who transgress than we are on men.  For example, do we tolerate people who are bad fathers more easily than those who are bad mothers? How much of our sympathies do we devote to someone with the profile of the mother of this story?  I’m curious to know how much compassion directed towards this one troubled life falls along gender lines. 

I have my own answer, certainly, but in this situation, being labeled a bad mother probably explains peoples’ animosity towards this woman I have cited. Their immediate reaction is how dare you. Are women allowed to redeem themselves for past serious lapses in judgment and neglectful behavior, regarding parenting?