Postcards from Scotsylvania

If anyone has experience in this...

2011-09-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

There are things I try not to make a public fetish of, but which consume my mind every day. If you'll pardon me, I'll say that my childhood was abusive in a unique way, meaning there are many actors in my drama. But the one that I always entertained fantasies about revenge, that was my stepdad. He did things to me that shouldn't be done to a child. He was a very, very bad man.Something recently made me want to look him up. I don't know why; old, unrealized revenge fantasies were on my mind, I suppose. But I looked him up, and I'll be damned if the fucker wasn't dead. He died approximately 3 years ago, it turns out. Had a pretty standard glowing obituary. I wonder about his own kids. Did he hate them as much as he hated me? He was married to one woman after my mom for the rest of his life. Was she able to cope with his twisted mind games?He was cremated. I don't know where his ashes where dumped, but it doesn't matter. He's long gone down to be part of the soil now. I suppose I wish I could visit that site, if only so I could burn it and salt it. So this bubbled up to a conscious thought, though not really a feeling: now I understand it when they tell you you have to let go. I can't resolve it. I'll never challenge him to beg for mercy. No confession will be offered. Suddenly, you realize, the only one keeping it alive is you. You in your thoughts and your actions toward others. I lost my opportunity for revenge three years ago, the fucker, and he didn't even leave me a grave to piss on. But I know now that until I've let go of you, you'll always ruin me. You'll always be influencing my decisions. You'll always make me want to be something I don't want to be, which is myself. You were a monster. I remember the monstrous things you did. I can't forgive you. I don't know if I can let go without it, but I have no one to forgive anymore. He's clay somewhere. But I have to let go of the pain. I somehow have to make those events not matter to me anymore. It's not forgiveness; it's release. When I've let go of you, you monster, and watch you recede like a drowning man, I'll be free. If you know how to help, please help. If you don't, that's cool. It's not your fault.

What do you do?

2011-09-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you realize this is all there is? That my circumstances, combined with my personality, could have come to no other result than the life I am living now. All things conspired, as if on purpose, to bring me to this point. One change here or there could have steered my life otherwise; one choice or one chance could have changed my life. But the truth that I am where I am means that none of the circumstances of my life would have been any different. I say that even without the bitterness that usually accompanies it. It's just reason. If it could have happened differently, it would have.

What if Hitler had changed his mind about Barbarossa? But he didn't. He couldn't have, because his past is immutable and all circumstances led to that decision. Hitler will always have chosen Barbarossa. I will always have broken Jane's heart. Nothing in all my life, gathered at that moment, not all my wisdom, nothing would have prepared me to have acted any differently than I did. If I chose to live my life a second time, Jane's heart still would have been broken. And now, and for all this life, I will have written this blog. Nothing in my life would have changed the circumstances of now, because if they were going to, they would have.

So the rest of my life is written already, really, as is yours and everyone else's. Random events occur that direct events in their way, but they are no more immutable than the laws of motion. The laws of the universe are right now working to send an asteroid our way that will end all higher life on earth. We don't know when it will strike, but it is following a course right now that avoids all paths but our own.

So whoever you are is whoever you are. Nothing would have changed you. You will have always had the experiences and genetics that combined to make you who you are.

So if you're dismally unhappy, and you realize, this is as good as it gets...what then?

Are we heading toward two economies?

2011-09-04T16:54:00.000-07:00

A recent, urgent-seeming article popped up in the Wall Street Journal just a couple of days ago , asking if the middle American class is even necessary to the wealthy. The wealthy now have the money to have their needs met by companies that don't need anyone else to survive. In other words, we're toast. Labor organizing, financial regulators, governmental oversight is all going to fail: the wealthy are, in the end, going to do what they want, because there are enough of them to sustain the economy without paying anyone above minimum wage. (Which I am sure they will soon abolish.)

Here's the hopeful side I'll take out of it. It beats all the negatives that weigh heavy against it. At some point, we are going to get screwed out of jobs by the wealthy. We then come up with a barter system that eventually grows into an economy. We begin picking up fundamental skills and learn to live in a world detached from the producers and industrialists. We'll all be a nation of small shops, local economies, barter systems, and whatever scrapping we need to do to get the actual "dollars" we need for manufactured goods. We'll become a nation like BarterTown, while the wealthy--and the politicians they own--do as they please.

Worked for Louis XVI.

Dear Gov. Walker (R-WI)

2011-02-22T18:28:00.000-08:00

I'm so sorry that your state is about to break the workers' unions. I'm also sorry that, even though I have friends in Wisconsin, I won't be visiting them anymore. I'm sorry I won't be buying Wisconsin dairy products anymore, and I'm sorry I won't ever get to visit the Woodman's in Kenosha again. I'm really sorry that I'll be checking labels on the products I see at the store for the Wisconsin origin so that I can put them back.

I'm sorry I won't get to see the Dells again.

We used to be friends, Wisconsin.

Dear Jon Stewart

2010-12-06T21:24:00.000-08:00

Dear Jon Stewart,

I’ve had to think a long time about my reaction to your Rally to Restore Sanity back on Oct. 30. Don’t be bothered by the long pause; I’m a slow thinker. I hadn’t really been able to sort through my feelings over it, because I knew I was disappointed, but didn’t WANT to have been disappointed. This rally had so many people counting on it, me with them, maybe more than most. When you announced the Rally, my first reaction was, “When and where? I’m there.” I had a lot of faith that this was going to be the defining moment of my generation. We had the primary satirist in the country telling us about ourselves straight up, and we needed to hear ALL about ourselves. You could feel the hunger for direction. My guess is that you knew how keenly disappointed America has been for the last year or so. Like Michael J. Fox said in “The American President,” we’ll cross the desert looking for leadership, and if we don’t find it, we’ll drink the sand. Here’s where we come to the problem.

Mr. Stewart, you raised our hopes without a plan for how to fulfill them. Perhaps you didn’t realize it, much less expect it, but for the people who miss a sane America, you became our stand-in for Obama. When we elected him, we thought we were getting Teddy Roosevelt. Instead, we got Stuart Smalley. The surge of hope we felt when you announced that we were all going to take a stand for sanity was the last scraps we had after watching a Dem majority go soft and squishy, un-led by our new President. Yeah, he got things done, but he didn’t lead, he didn’t challenge his critics, and because of his Hamletphilia, he left a power vacuum that the GOP stepped into. We were losing hope, and you reminded us what we loved about our country, our votes, and that election. So expectations were pretty high.

I’m cutting to the chase. What we got was a one and a half hour Daily Show/Colbert mash-up with a 25-minute plea for sanity. I don’t know what others expected, but me, I expected a little more direction…and a lot more seriousness. I dunno, being summoned en masse to the heart of our nation to rally for the sanity and unity of our country demanded a little more than skits, music, and Mythbusters. It demanded direction, not a reinforcement that we all were really hip and creative. I expected something tangible, something intrinsically valuable, with laughs thrown in.

You ARE comedians, after all. I expected comedy. But you don’t drag a quarter-million people from all parts of this nation together unless you can deliver more than a show. This wasn’t just a road version of your everyday comedy. We expected fun, but we expected substance. What we got was a big rally that celebrated us for being at a rally. We congratulated ourselves for being so devoted that we would travel across the country to prove it. That was the extent of it. We accomplished nothing.

What took me this long to want to write this, though, was the little gnawing bit I couldn’t put my finger on. We heard the message just fine, criticizing the media for dividing us, and so on. Yeah. But here’s this: Mr. Stewart, you and Mr. Colbert are part of the problem.

It has nothing to do with the direction of your politics. Your fans know you’ll go after Dems just as much as the GOP. (The GOP just happens to provide you with more material.) It’s the polarizing nature of satire. What you do, the satire you make, hitting the media 4 nights a week and approximately every other hour on Comedy Central, allows the side not being skewered to feel vindicated. It’s meant to create sharp emotions, as satire always has. But you can’t be satirical without being divisive. Satire hits extremes, else it’s not good satire, and seeing your sacred cows gored creates resentment. Unless you’re perceived as fair to all sides, you’re going to fail, and the positions you’ve taken on the show are contrary to conservatives. You make fun of conservative people, roles, stereotypes, politics, and so on. No matter what you say about the media or the left, you are the guy who goes after conservatives. Want to know why?

Because you don’t make fun of liberals in the way conservatives want.

They don’t want to hear the jokes that make liberals laugh at themselves, so they don’t. They want to hear about why liberals are the enemy. I think that goes both ways. I don’t think liberals are necessarily interested in what conservatives think makes them funny. And in this polarized climate, the perception is what counts. You’re liberal because even your self-deprecation is liberal. You’re the enemy.

So right now, you’re contributing to the problem. And by coming on at the time the divisiveness was starting to grow, and by taking on the establishment, you earned yourself their enmity almost immediately. Not all the pious kumbaya-spoofing self-referential ironic humor in the world makes up for helping maintain the divide. You might have had a chance with the rally, you might have gotten something started, but like this Administration, there was almost no substance underneath. It was hollow, it was presumptuous, and really, Mr. Stewart, you set us up for disappointment. We didn’t come together for just a laugh, you and me and a quarter-million people. You know that speech at the end? We needed an hour of that. Or maybe we needed a whole weekend of the whole thing. We came to belong; we needed to be challenged. Instead, we got a benediction and thank-you-for-coming.

Why did we do this? What did we accomplish? So what?

RED ALERT!

2010-10-26T02:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, fellow babies, here’s the long and short of it: this is the most important election in our history. Not 2012. Now. Listen:

The Citizens United decision recently gave corporations the ability to spend unlimited amounts on campaigns, and groups no longer have to disclose donors. Already they are funneling at least three times as many dollars into these campaigns, almost all for Republicans. Corporations are now baldly buying candidates. This is the last moment before the corporate takeover of America. Who do you think is going to vote for campaign reform? Republicans? After they just had their election bought for them? Three billionaires have pumped most of the money into this election cycle, and a lot of that has gone to fund Tea Party operations, whether Tea Partiers believe that or not.

Now, where do you think the Tea Party is going to be in all this? Do you think you’re really going to be power players? Do you really think your “citizen’s uprising” is going to be the first step to dismantling government? Dream on. Once the Republicans have a majority, they’ll freeze you out quicker than a spurned lover. Because…where are you gonna go? Who else are you going to caucus with? Democrats? So once the GOP has the majority, you can kiss campaign finance reform and the “citizen’s uprising” goodbye…and welcome to the oligarchy.

Get this party started

2010-10-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

IIIIII’m comin’ out, so you better get this party started…

I suppose this is one of those things where you wonder, “Okay, now what?” I’m not even how to address the situation. On the one hand, I am definitely a drama queen, and I think everyone who knows me knows that. But on the other hand, I have no idea how many who know me have ever wondered if I am gay. Technically I’m bisexual; I just don’t like the focus on “sex” as an identifier. I’m going to go with “two-spirited,” because that describes where I am best. It’s not just a matter of preferring one or the other, or being open to both; it’s that there are some things I like about men, some things I like about women, and a great big muddle in the middle of the Venn globes where these things blend.

I’m like that, too. Some things about me are fairly feminine--like being a good listener, or being nurturing, or being in touch with my feelings, about not liking to see people get hurt. Underneath a lot of it, I’m gentle. But there’s also the part everyone sees, with sarcastic humor, sloppy upkeep, a good amount of gruffness, and (developing late in life) a linear, no-frills, no-bullshit perception of issues. Somewhere along the line I decided to be more male than female, since my feminine side has gotten my ass kicked in many ways most of my life. Now that I’m in a much better emotional place, I’m going to start letting that feminine side flourish more. It’s weird being two-spirited, you know. I like power tools, and I cry at movies. I like cuddling, and I watch football. I’ve been trying to reconcile this all my life.

For years, and this is the biggest obstacle I had to coming out, I struggled with the idea that I had to be one or the other. Something that still sticks in my mind was reading an interview with a British celebrity who denounced bisexuality in no uncertain terms, saying you had to choose--you couldn’t be a little bit pregnant, was the analogy he used. I heard that a few times. Society doesn’t like you to inhabit the gray areas, either. They want you to fit in easily referable labels. That’s not an American thing, but a human thing, and everyone does it. People like mental shorthand, which is what labels are, because their heads are already full of problems and trying to figure a new one out is annoying. So I understand that. It’s just that when I grew up, bisexuality was seen as indecisiveness, or guilt, or any number of other things that are wrong with you…the one thing it never, ever was is “healthy.” Even among people who considered being gay normal, being bi is suspect. There’s something WRONG with you! Choose a label and stick with it!

So for all my years growing up, I was terrified. I tried desperately to make myself one or the other. All I wanted was to be settled, to be identified. I hated being confused, and believe me, I was one confused puppy. I can’t count the number of crushes I had on boys growing up, but I had more crushes on girls. There was an imbalance, so I figured the gay side of me was just…wrong. I thought that I had to have started with one and begun to change to the other, and I couldn't decide which was the "real" me. It’s been over forty years and I still struggle with it. But a thought occurred to me the other day, while I was thinking over when (if ever) I would come out, and all the fear I feel about my gay side, and memories of desperate yearning to be mainstream. It was simple, because I was thinking deeply on how I respond to men and how I respond to women. The underlying emotion about men, though, was fear. Tons and tons of fear. But I know that fear is what has been hammered into me since I was a child, and it doesn’t reflect what’s in me. It’s what’s been constructed around me. I know now I was born to be both. It's just me. So I thought: Why can’t I be as enthusiastic about men as I am about women?

I love women. I love all kinds of women, feminine or glamorous or nerdy or tomboyish. My tastes are pretty wide. Now, my tastes in men are much narrower, but I’ve never been happy about it. I’ve never felt free enough to say in public, “Wow, look at HIM!” the way I might about a woman. Fear of being revealed made me hate that part of myself. But I do have friends who’ve known about me, and the beautiful relief and freedom at being able to be open to them tantalized me. Just a couple of weeks ago I visited a friend for the first time, and though the subject had never come up in any way, I felt so free with her that I tossed in a couple of catty comments about men we talked about that I thought were cute. I like that energy. I missed out on it growing up. I would have loved to have sat up nights with a friend, painting our toenails and talking about boys. But this was Indiana and Michigan we’re talking about, not exactly liberal hotspots. Being out was like signing a death warrant.

Not that that mattered. When I was young, I was not effeminate, but I got bullied. A lot of what I got was savage homophobic language. Thinking of it makes me cringe now. It was pretty bad. I’m surprised I survived, as are a lot of gay people who dealt with the hostility of society. Making it through really was a miracle. Those of you who’ve known me for many years, I want you to think about this. How many times, in my presence, did you make fag jokes? How many times did you use the word, “faggot,” or “queer,” or “nancy boy,” or “pantywaist,” or “sissy,” and never know that you were talking about me? How many times did you cut down gays, insult gay people, put gays into nasty categories, and say ignorant things, not knowing you were talking about me to my face? How many times did you argue that I don’t have the same fundamental human right to marry who I want? How many times do you think I died when I heard someone I loved and cared about rip to shreds something that was essential to me?

There’s prejudice on the other side, too. I’ve heard of bisexuals called straddlers, indecisive, dilettantes, posers, fakers, dabblers, and the like. I’ve had it said to my face, and it’s come from gay men and women. I’ve seen the bigotry among people who should know better than to look down on others. I understand it, though, because I’ve known the anger that comes with having been put down all your life and looking for an outlet for it. That doesn’t excuse it, though, no more than it did me when I looked for outlets for my inner anger, either. But it hurts almost as much as knowing your family hates people like you when the people who are supposed to be your community don’t like you much, either. It’s very tough being alone when all you want is to belong.

So I had my moment of clarity. As soon as I thought, “Why can’t I be as happy about being gay as I am about being straight?” I knew I was coming out. Now I understand the “pride” business more than I did before. It’s more than being proud of who you are. It’s accepting yourself and casting away society’s bigotry. It’s making emotional choices for yourself, not letting the history of outside hatred shove you into a corner and make you sorry for existing. It’s saying, “I ENJOY this part of myself! I can have FUN with this! This can actually bring me some happiness, and I can feel free!” Why can’t I be as free about being gay as I am about being straight? That did it for me. Finally, this voyager found a path that leads to stating who I am and that I am going to live and enjoy my life, and for anyone who wants to hate me for it, I’m sorry you’ll be deprived of what I can bring to your day.

So the closet is behind me. I don’t know if this is brave, but it’s certainly essential. Now, expect me to be a drama queen about this for quite some time. I know it’s coming, and it’s fair to warn you. I’ll probably go overboard with freedom, too, and it will probably make you uncomfortable. Sorry about that. I’ll try not to be too militant about it, but if you tell a foul gay joke in my presence, expect to get hammered. It’s like the N-word. If you’re an insider, you get to use it and joke about it, and if you know me well enough and are okay with me being two-spirited, so can you. But no fag jokes.

Other than this, I’m not going to try to make too big a deal of it. Some people have coming-out galas. (That’s where “coming out” comes from; it doesn’t mean coming out of the closet, it means coming out to society, like a debutante. The term originated in the early 20th century among the very lively gay societies in urban America, according to Wikipedia.) I think it’s fun that I came to this decision a mere 5 days before Coming Out Day. I’m not sure what the repercussions (“blowback,” ahuhuhuh) will be. I just know I owe it to myself to enjoy this part of my life as much as I can.

(I waited until today to post this. Surprise!)

You kids get off my lawn!

2010-09-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

Matt Taibbi, in his latest Rolling Stone article on the Tea Party, makes a poignant observation. Paraphrasing, he said that in the Tea Party there is such a yearning for a simpler, more honest time that is forever lost that it almost breaks the heart. Someone, in a private correspondence, said that what we’re seeing is the last throes of white male dominance in this country. Times, they are a-changing.

Put into that perspective, it’s easy to understand. I’m old eniough to start yearning for the simpler, more honest days...in which the old generation used to yearn for the simpler, more honest days....in which THAT old generation used to yearn for the simpler, more honest days. It’s part of the cultural fabric now, seeing change rushing toward us like an oncoming train and wishing for our childhoods, when truths were clearer and people were less harsh and more of a community.

Not all the wishing and protesting in the world is going to bring it back, though. Not unless we face some sort of Mad Max technology-destroying apocalypse, that is. We’ve entered a world we’ve made without the vision of the consequences--isn’t that the way it always is? We celebrated the ubiquity of cars way back when, but smog and global warming wasn’t a concern. We love labor-saving machines but regret the lost employment. We like our cheap goods but pay lip service to regretting the poverty in which we place workers. We love the internet but complain about how isolated we’ve become.

Like most old cranks, I don’t like where we’re going. The ages-long era of privacy is over. We never predicted that when information technology got to this point that it would bite us in the ass. We didn’t see that when all the world’s information was at our fingertips, our personal and private information would be there too. Just as, when little bitty cameras were invented, we never predicted that our every move could be recorded and put on the web for all to see.

I saw this morning where a college student killed himself because his roommate set up a webcam in their dorm room and caught him having sex with another man, then broadcast it on the internet. Then I read--this same day--that many apps in the Google Android app store collect your information and sell it to others. Sure, they tell you they will in the 30-page license agreements for the software, but who has the patience and expertise in legalese to plow through all the garbage they put up to purposely drive you away from learning their purposes?

We are starting to shrug now. Loss of privacy is just another price we pay for constant connectivity. We’re finding out that we can live with everyone knowing what we do. What would be nice is if this had a positive effect, like turning everyone tolerant of the common activities they now think are deviant (i.e. gay). What is more likely is, as our culture becomes angrier, hastier, and more prone to attack pre-emptively, this knowledge will turn into bludgeons. The generation enraged over the rise of a black man to the Presidency is teaching the younger generation that rage is the path to coercion and dominance. We’re teaching the next generation that hate is the answer.

I wish for the wistful days when kids could play outside forever and we didn’t worry about strangers; for the days when communities held pot lucks; for the days when you could sit outside without listening to people scream at each other, and for the days when you could leave your door open during the day and not worry about random intruders. But raging against your own common good is not the answer. Screaming that the world isn’t the way it used to be isn’t going to accomplish anything positive. The answer is to fix the current model, not trade it in for an Edsel. Trying to force a 19th-century decentralizing political system onto a 21st-century technological giant is a recipe for the death of a country.

GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY!

2010-09-23T21:02:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that if you're a lefty, you've demanded that the rich pay higher taxes than the middle class. If you've tried to get that past a libertarian, they probably have countered with arguments about equality and fairness that mask the true issue (they want to be as rich as possible, even if only vicariously through their heroes). Somehow, you knew there was an argument against that. You knew you had the moral upper ground, but perhaps were stymied by the arguments about generating jobs, keeping what they rightfully earn, and such. Perhaps you found yourself caught between wanting to be a good lefty and trying to be understanding of the capitalist ideal, and you couldn't find your argument. Here it is.

There are no figures or citations in this because, if challenged, I can find them; and chances are, the righties would pull out some industry-funded astroturfed study from a no-name university that supports everything they say. So let's just stick with the plain, moral facts: American-style capitalism is in the process of destroying this country, and it is morally right for us to expect them to pay the tab for their decades of misdeeds.

Look. Things were bad in the 70s, and we were losing out to overseas cars, overseas steel, and other products. The Japanese were undercutting us. Our companies here had never had to worry about efficiency before, and it was a concept that rocked them to their core. While paying lip service to the idea of adopting Japanese ideas and efficiency to make our home-grown companies competitive, they attacked employees. They slashed benefits, slashed wages, slashed employees, and finally, when American workers refused to work for less money than it takes to live on in America, the manufacturers up and left. Little by little, at first, they picked up their companies and moved to places like Mexico. Then they discovered just how profitable it was to manufacture in the Third World, so they started building plants in China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, and American Saipan, among others. They paid wages that wouldn't buy you a hamburger in this country, then charged Americans higher prices for the privilege.

So far, you're agreeing that happened, but you're wondering why this is a moral, and not a business, issue. Here's the deal. Those companies had social contracts. What? I hear you cry. A social contract isn't legally binding! Well, yes it is. As many a tort has shown us, a non-verbal contract can be just as binding as a signed contract. And here's the contract: the companies agreed, when they built their plants, that they would support entire communities, and the communities, in turn, agreed to provide all the necessities that made a company viable in America. The community agreed to provide a workforce that was able, willing, and ready to work; they would provide safe neighborhoods for the company to operate in; they would provide streets, lighting, sanitation, police, firehouses, and cleanliness. The community would also provide all the local ancillary needs a company might have that you'd never think of, like pharmacies, groceries, doctors, dentists, lawyers, banks. Now here's the kicker: we kept our part of the bargain. We invited businesses in to our community because they promised us livelihoods in exchange for their presence. It was a symbiotic relationship, and it worked.

Then they were suddenly lost. They couldn't cope with modernization (at first) or efficiency. They were losing money on outdated, rusty supply and delivery systems that had never been challenged because there was no need. America was its own ecosystem. Then those companies abandoned America for profits. For those of you who might argue that a business has no responsibility other than to its shareholders or owners, you are wrong. When a business establishes itself in a community, indeed is the primary support for a community, you've accepted responsibility for that community. And they abdicated it. Left it, abandoned it, threw it down the well. Companies discovered that, overseas, desperately poor people were willing to work for pennies (or sometimes nothing, in the case of Chinese slave labor), and with dollar signs in their eyes, they breached their social contract.

Now look at what we have. The disparity between rich and poor has increased dramatically since 1980. Entire neighborhoods and towns, almost entire states, have fallen into decay, poverty, crime, and violence. Little businesses that those companies supported died. The taxes those companies would have paid to maintain the streets, lights, police, and so on, were gone. The companies asked communities to build them an infrastructure, and the communities gladly responded. Then the companies up and left, so suddenly that many communities had no chance to recover. They offered little to no assistance for the now-unemployed, and they didn't even clean up their own toxic messes when they left, leaving yet more liabilities that they expected others to clean up. They promised capitalism, but capitalism involves reinvestment of the profits (the capital) into the company and its community.

They broke the contract, and argued that it was the American Way. They abandoned capitalism for sheer greed, but asked the government to protect their profits. The madness of the Reagan and Bush and Bush II years (and, yes, the Clinton years) somehow bought into this supply-side malarkey. They even abandoned the supposed ideals of supply-side (trickle-down) economics, in which a company makes more revenue by not being taxed heavily and reinvests that into their companies, their workers, their communities. Instead, they kicked capitalism to the curb for good old feudalism. We paid the price.

So screw them. We are now on the verge of seeing the country crumble. Hundreds of billions of dollars will have to be spent to get this country back to the state it was in, and I don't think that's going to happen unless these companies—which are still in America—are compelled to clean up their vast ruin via taxes and other assessments. They abandoned loyal workers who gave their entire lives, they bankrupted pensions, and they never looked back. They broke the promise they made, and that broken promise has cost America countless lives, a healthy and prosperous future, safe neighborhoods, broken families, and a chance at better lives. They broke a contract, and the consequences run in the trillions of dollars. We have every right, nay, a moral imperative, to make them pay for the damage they've done. In a court of law, my feeling is they'd be put into receiverships. Instead, we give them tax breaks.

I'm trying to remember if I've ever defended a company's right to keep all its profits. I might've, in an insane time in an economics class. If I did, you'll never hear it from me again. All those companies, the appliance makers and car makers and TV makers who kept their business operations here but moved their manufacturing operations to desperate countries willing to work in fiefdom-like conditions, all of them, they owe us. They sustained this country and turned their backs on us when it we needed them most. And now they argue they deserve even bigger tax cuts for the wealthy.

Screw them.

Why the Quran book burning can be stopped

2010-09-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

In short, and very quickly: because it is a terrorist act.

Terrorism is violent acts done to intimidate people, particularly an identifiable group of people, into submission to a political entity. Al Qaeda is political: they want Westerners out of their countries. (We'll leave aside the argument that they are turning every country into "their" country.) The IRA was political. The Palestinians are political. And this Terry Jones is political. He's not doing this for God: he's doing this to protest the community center near Ground Zero. He's doing this to intimidate Muslims. He's doing this to spread fear.

He's using violence to deprive Muslims of their equal enjoyment of American freedoms. That is terrorism.

Short one: How a Republican '10 victory works out for Dems in '12

2010-08-31T09:26:00.001-07:00

I was just reading a Media Matters post that said Republicans are looking forward to gaining the House in 2010 and bringing the government to a screeching halt. They are apparently nostalgic about the '95-96 shutdowns. They apparently don't remember that this handed the 1996 Presidential victory to Clinton, who came through this looking Presidential. People didn't like the obstructionism then.

There are very different times, though, than fourteen years ago. Obstructionism now gets enthusiastic approval from an increasingly paranoid and stringent GOP that feels its purpose in life is to do anything, anything, to stop the evil commie socialist Muslim jihadist President. This year, they are on a mission, and that mission is to rid America of any sort of compassion and charity, along with fire departments, police departments, roads, water, and anything else that involves paying taxes. I am not the first to point out that the original Boston Tea Party was to protest taxation without representation, not taxation as an idea. To many on the right, opposing Obama and ending all taxation are the same goal.

That's where I think they'll fail. (Don't mind that my prognostications are never right.) Defeatedly, I'm on the verge of accepting that we may lose the House this year. I've been hopeful all year that Teh Crazee would turn the independents out to vote against the ideologues this year, but Dems have the amazing ability to not capitalize on anything their opponents do, no matter how mad. So with three months yet to go before the midterms, and no organized anti-GOP strategy on the horizon, it begins to look like a White Sox game in the 9th inning when they're ahead by several runs. It's doomed to fail.

But this, I think, will be the Dems' salvation, and may be the last hurrah for the GOP. Yes, if they win in '10, the next two years will be excruciating. We won't see anything getting done. (And may I take a moment to say that what Obama has accomplished in a little over a year and a half is pretty amazing? It's not enough to satisfy us lefties, but it's more than any president since...I dunno...Lyndon Johnson? Maybe even FDR?) Not only won't things get done, but the drama queens who infest the Right will spend the next two years clamoring, posturing, making futil assaults on the Washington hierarchy, and eventually being sucked into the giant swamp that is Washington, DC. They'll have their hurrah, but when it becomes clear that they have no actual agenda beyond stopping the government from working, the independents will turn against them.

It's a little pie in the sky to hope for this, and maybe it's just a rationalization. Maybe I'm trying to find the bright spot in what may be a bleak November. My prediction, though (and take this with a small Siberian salt mine), is that if the GOP and Tea Partiers take back the House, and if they are able to effectively stop the Dems from accomplishing anything for the next two years, they'll be hoisting themselves on their own petard. (Look up "petard." It probably doesn't mean what you think it means. This is the voice of experience.) Just as we had to go through 8 years of GOP Hell to find out how evil they could be, we may have to go through 2 years of Tea Party Hell to find out how incompetent and truly crazy they are. I'm not saying we should give up on '10. I'm saying that if the Tea Partiers take seats and we lose the House, we may be given a great big lemon with a solid gold center.

Except the Dems will do anything they can to screw it up. It's in their nature.

Dear Illness

2010-05-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

Dear Illness,

I've been wanting to write you for a while. Not that we don't see each other often enough...you come by every day, sometimes several times a day, to let me know you're still thinking of me. Don't think I don't appreciate it! But I never really get to ask you the questions that bug me about you so much, and we never get anything really resolved. Don't take it personally, please.

For instance, I wonder what makes you so persistent. You know very well that I've tried to keep you away. It wasn't always like this. In the beginning, I thought we could have sort of a relationship. In hindsight, I guess I really knew it wasn't going to work out. I had my life to live, and you...you were just so needy. I didn't want to take you in, but I didn't have a choice. In fact, I didn't even know you had moved in permanently until you were already here for some time. There were early signs, but I ignored them. After all, I was pretty young then! Not young enough that I had no idea of my own mortality, but young enough that I thought I was going to be in good health pretty much forever. You know how it went, though. You orchestrated it. First, shrugging off the minor discomforts that tweaked me here and there for years. And who knows which flare of nerves, which muscle twitch, with flash of random pain was you, and which was just the usual unexplained nonsense that everyone's body does? I was young! I wasn't going to deteriorate!

After some time, though, I noticed patterns. Just little things that happened in sequences that came to be familiar. There were the muscle aches, but who wouldn't think I was just sore from exertion? I was pretty active then. The mental fogs would come and go, but they didn't worry me until I noticed they came along with the muscle aches. I still didn't really think they were connected, and as long as I could function most of the time, I figured I'd just soldier through. Plus, as you know, I've been battling depression my entire life. It was easy to think that my problems were caused by the depression. All in my head, that is. I was young, after all, and in my prime of life; surely an illness couldn't be settling in and putting a claim on my well-being, could it?

The more and more you stayed, the more I tolerated you, though. I don't know why. Maybe I thought I deserved you. I hadn't been the most careful or moral person out there, so I thought that you were sent here for a reason. Like I needed to be punished for being a depressed whiner. But the depression...that was you, too, wasn't it? Not all of it, but you were setting me up. You were the cause and the result. The arthritis-like pain in my joints and muscles, though, and the exhaustion were part of the same deal. So I tried avoiding you. You know how well that worked out: if I could just exercise more, if I could keep up my spirits, maybe you'd take pity on me or help me get better. Since it was all in my head, you know.

I still don't know how my drinking fit into this. The pain was part of the reason I started drinking, but the problem started getting worse after I started drinking. I'll never know if I exacerbated you. See? Here I am, still blaming myself for the awful things YOU do. But I know that after I stopped drinking things got a bit better, but they never went back to the way they were. By the time the rest of it settled in--the shakes, the sweats--I knew there was something bigger than just psychosomatic illness. So I saw a specialist and asked him about all the other signals you'd been sending, major and minor: the sniffles, the tremors, the indigestion, the failing memory, the waking stiffness that never seemed to go away, the tender points. He told me your name, finally: fibromyalgia.

By then you'd started hitting me. It wasn't too bad at first, just little swats here and there to keep me in line. Some pain flare-ups, some queasiness, some weakness. Bouts of shakiness and rampant pain came after. I'd thought it was some sort of hypoglycemia or something, but the doctor assured me that you were doing this to me. I don't know if I could have ever kept you away, but by then, it was too late. You'd settled in. The feeling of having been beaten was daily. You never left me alone. Sometimes you'd shake me like a rag doll and I couldn't do anything but take it, and then I'd be useless for the rest of the day. Boy, does all that hurt. I can't even express it, except to say that at an attack is sort of like having your muscles sanded with sandpaper while suffering from hot and cold flashes and shaking, unable to keep a coherent thought in your head. What else could I be after that but defeated?

So here you are. I don't have any way to make you leave. Everything I try, even the best things I try, put you off a little bit, but then you're right back. You've been kind of leaving me alone lately, and I'm grateful, but now you're back and just as vicious as before. I used to wonder if I deserved you. Now I know I didn't do anything wrong, that it's you, not me. But I still can't get rid of you, and no one can make you leave. I'm managing as best as I can, getting some things accomplished and taking steps to work around you. But I'd rather not have to. I know you won't listen to me--you've got too much invested in me--but I can't stand you anymore. You've cost me enough pain and tears.

Please. Just go. Go. Away.

Why AA and I don't get along

2010-05-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

Following is a letter written to friends about my feelings near the end of a class on drugs and behavior:

There are more chapters than one that address 12-stepping, but as with any time I try to focus on the 12 steps, I become frustrated and upset. How else can I put it? I just don't buy into the 12-step program. I think it works for a lot of people, but not for me, and probably for many others, too. In the book, though, are two pages of criticism of the AA model, and I read them eagerly (but, as much as I could, objectively).

I've been thinking much on some of the basic tenets, and come to the conclusion that the AA model is unnecessarily punitive and cult-like. It's Calvinistic, really, based more in Puritanism than in reality, and offers itself as the only solution that works. [I am advised by a respondent that it is actually Arminian, not Calvinist.] The problem is, it doesn't work very often. Yes, it works for those who make it work, and for those people, mazel tov. But it presumes much and accepts no deviation. I also don't like its tone: being in an AA meeting, for me, is a *trigger,* not a relief. Sitting around and hearing stories of use and redemption don't make me want to not drink, they make me want to drink so I don't have to listen to any more stories of use and redemption.

Some of the complaints in the text I have already made myself, though some I agree with were new to me with the reading. For instance, the insistence that newcomers must have come to this stage through desperation. True, AA is there if you are desperate...but why must you be in order to attend? I don't think that's an entirely valid complaint, though, from my own experience; as the preamble read at every meeting says, all you need to attend is the desire to stop drinking. That's really it. That's what it says, and that's true. But the real emphasis in meetings is of people who descended, and kept descending, until there was no other way out. If you admit to a problem with drinking but aren't desperate, chances are you will be told that you are in constant danger of the downward spiral into oblivion and must adopt the program in toto. It's a stark adaptation of Christianity, in which wretches who have no other place to turn finally give their lives up to God, and that makes AA religious in origin. That works for a great many people who lean towards Christianity to begin with, but for the atheist or the agnostic or the ambivalent, it can be oppressive and daunting. Telling addicts and alcoholics that the only way to health is through a quasi-religious "awakening" and surrendering to a Higher Power is indoctrinating. It also evokes the "all-or-nothing" personality trait of the addict, replacing the old addiction with the new. There can be, and are, other approaches to sobriety.

Which is another complaint. Just yesterday I read a quote that sobriety and abstinence are two different things. Sobriety, properly, is decision-making based on clear-headed reason; abstinence is the complete abandonment of a given substance. It's similar to the difference between chastity and celibacy. Some addicts--not many, I know, but SOME--are able to make the conscious, reasonable decision to imbibe and move on. (I don't believe this is true of cocaine, opiates, or their derivatives. They are simply too powerfully and chemically addictive. I don't think I've ever heard of someone who could go from addictive use of those drugs to casual use.) The important thing to address is, which approach is most appropriate for the particular addict. I would say that in most cases, as it is with me, that abstinence is the only safe path. I don't think I can ever have "just" a beer without triggering the landslide into oblivion again. For me, casual use of alcohol just doesn't work. But there are people who are alcohol-dependent but not addicted; they "need" a drink at the end of the day, or just before bed, or what have you, making them dependent on that ritual. That doesn't make them alcoholics, and even if the use is problematic in some way, that doesn't mean abstinence is the only answer. Learning different patterns of behavior and searching one's own self for answers are good approaches and may solve the problem without eternal meetings and self-flagellation.

And there is another complaint. AA takes the position (even though it is contradicted, in passing, in "The Big Book") that meetings are requisites for the rest of your life. You are never recovered, according to AA, always recovering. Now, for a lot of people, that's as true as the sun rising in the East. Some sober alcoholics need the meetings and the fellowship because they know the disease is lying in wait for them to stumble. I wouldn't dare to tell someone that *everyone* can recover and move on. But some people can, and AA doesn't accept that. For some people, continuing in AA may exacerbate the problem (as it does for me), imposing on them fairly rigid standards of behavior in a one-size-fits-all model of discipline. Not only does it impose the discipline, it imposes a fundamentalist philosophy on its members. Trust me on this one! In many meetings I've related how I don't always have to pray, I don't have to read the Daily Reflections, I don't actively "work the program," but that the meetings have helped because I get to talk to some people and unload, and that saves me. When I say things like that, you can hear the intake of breath and watch the eyerolls and head-shakes. They won't tell you that you don't belong; what they'll tell you, though, is that you don't "get it," and that you have to keep attending meetings until you DO. They don't accept that there are alternate routes to sobriety. It's indoctrination, really.

One of the personality traits that can lead to alcoholism (in conjunction with others, natch) is the need for outside approval. People who have low self-esteem, whose identity is dependent on the opinions of others, are ripe fruit for the alcoholic demon. But in AA, you're just as dependent on the outside approval as you were before you started drinking. You're not solving the problem, you're just transferring it. In that very narrow way, AA is much like the Scientologists or any other cult: they find the desperate, offer them a plan of action, insist on rigid discipline, don't allow for diversion, and impose upon the individual an entire system of thought and behavior that leads to approval. They require regular, frequent reinforcement through phone number lists, sponsors, Daily Reflections, "working the steps," and dependence on the Big Book. They don't cast you out for not believing, as cults don't, but they will not fully accept you until you conform...which is what cults do. The only difference is that AA lets you leave, whereas cults don't.

What's interesting is that some of the cornerstones of AA aren't falsifiable. The most powerful one is that without AA (or some treatment), the alcoholic (and the disease) will necessarily get worse and worse until they either hit "rock bottom" and either find AA or die. Research doesn't bear that out. AA's insistence on this is based on its members who have hit rock bottom and either become sober or died. You can see that the methodology there is dangerously flawed. They don't accept as role models those who have abandoned drink on their own, or who have found a different path to sobriety. But as we all know, not everyone who follows the AA program becomes a successfully recovering alcoholic, and not everyone who recovers does so under a 12-step program. Research shows that very few alcoholics actually end up in the death spiral that AA warns you about, though of course it does happen...just not predictably or reliably so.

There are, for me, some conceptual problems with some of the steps. Step 5 tells you that you have to admit to God and another human being the exact nature of their wrongs. This comes directly after the command to "make a fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves," and together, steps 4 and 5 are powerful and restorative. As they say, you're only as sick as your secrets, and self-avowal (saying your secrets aloud so that you come to accept and comprehend the extent of your addiction) is the strongest step you can take toward recovery. I've told you many of my secrets, and by telling them I've been able to heal them. But Step 6 says that we "were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character," and Step 7 is that we "humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings." I find this detestably crippling in that it sets the addict up for false hopes and self-reproachment. First, God (or your "Higher Power") is not going to remove your shortcomings. He, or you, may find paths to address them, to cope with them, to resolve them, and to carry on responsibly, but they're part of you. They're not going anywhere. No matter how good you become at becoming a better, more sober person, you're going to have a core that is the nuclear furnace of the abuse and trauma that led you to become an alcoholic in the first place. (With the caveat that it may be possible for some to reach that state...but it's not bloody likely.) Teaching the addict that God can "remove our shortcomings" while preaching that AA and recovery is forever is not only contradictory, it sets the addict up to relive one of the emotional states that led to the addiction. That is, the tendency to blame oneself for the failure of others.

I'll expound on that just a little, though I am sure my meaning is already obvious. Odds are, God is not going to remove your shortcomings. The reasons for that are debatable, metaphysically and organically, but you're not likely to go from self-loathing to happiness in this lifetime. If you do, mazel tov, God bless, good on ya, and all that, but it's an unrealistic, almost impossible, expectation, and when it fails--as it almost always will--you won't blame God. God is, after all, perfect and beyond reproach. Someone must be at fault, and if there are only two people involved (you and God), then that person must be you. That leads to the self-reproach that led to the drinking to begin with. To me, the sixth step is the make-or-break step: if God can't fix you, who will? Me? Might as well drink. That's reduction, but it's pretty accurate. It's a set-up to accept an article of faith that has very little chance of success. Like I said, I detest that step.

With the exception of the 3rd and 11th Steps--increasing our reliance on God--the rest of the steps are as valuable as gold. Yes, admit to others how you have wronged them, and ask for their forgiveness! (Unless doing so harms them or you or others.) Yes, take personal inventory! And especially the 12th step--reaching out to others. Nothing will help you, the individual, as much as helping others along the path you've successfully walked. It's generativity, it's the helper principle, it works. But there's one last complaint to be made.

AA is, at its heart, punitive and about powerlessness. It's not enough in AA to succeed: succeeding has to be painful and purgative, and that means no crutches (like Camprol, the anti-craving drug). The original goal was to obliterate the ego (that was Bill W's own belief) so that God can move in and heal. But the subtext of this is that when you succeed, you can't own it. It's God who did it for you. It doesn't give credit to the hard work the addict does to improve his or her life. Now, in treatment (hopefully, as it was for me), you will get a lot of support and reinforcement for the hard work of delving through your life and resolving the issues that made you an addict in the first place. It's tougher than just about anything you can do, and the addict needs to feel empowered, that he has made the success. But placing responsibility for your recovery on God takes it out of your hands. To me, that is more insidious than the unspoken idea that if you don't succeed, then God has abandoned you (or is ignoring you until you conform to AA's mindset). By giving the credit to the Higher Power, it's been taken away from the individual and left him or her weaker...which leads to the dependency on AA, thus reinforcing its cultishness.

Finishing up, I have to say that one thing I will teach the addicts I will eventually meet is that your guard always has to be up. The price of sobriety, not only freedom, is eternal vigilance. You have to be educated, you have to be aware, you have to always be watchful for the time your addiction tries to sneak up on you...and it will. It WILL. It's a hungry beast that lives inside you. But that beast can be tamed, and you can come to lead a normal life in which you aren't mandated to attend meetings that reinforce a sense of impotence, conformity, and dependence. AA is not about independence, not at all. For some people it provides much--fellowship, family, relief, salvation--but more people drop out of it than stay in it, and it can be improved upon so that even more people can overcome their addictions reliably and healthily.

iCal it: the Kidder-in-Chief will win 2012

2010-04-02T07:29:00.000-07:00

Prognosticators and pundits are looking to the November elections for big gains for Republicans. After all, they have everything on their side: indignation, rage, offense, fury, resentment, all the things that indicate a big voter turn-out. On the other hand, the Dems are, well, Dems. They don't do organization well, whereas the GOP? David Frum learned what happened when you cross the party line. He's been shunned. First rule of GOP Club: don't talk about GOP Club.

So they're a tight, focused, well-knit unit that only has to overcome the upcoming C-Street tax evasion scandal, militias, racism, threatened violence, several sex scandals, a lesbian-themed bondage club outing, a party leader who puts his foot in his mouth every time he opens it, ridiculous spending on party outings, a message that is limited to "less tax" and "less regulation," rescued-bank rapaciousness, hate radio, the unraveling James O'Keefe "journalism" fraud, and so on. That's a tight ship right there.

They're used to combating regular Dems, though, and not Obama. Don't get me wrong: I'm not 100% thrilled with Obama, if only because he wants more offshore drilling. He's got other Republican-leaning moves that annoy me. But he's ascendant again. In the primaries, when things looked worst, he boosted his sunny disposition and charged forward like a winner. It's not a stretch to say that, with health care, when things looked worst again, he pulled out an astounding victory and fulfilled his promise. Not in the way we all wanted--no public option, mandates--but we realize it's a start (that's our rationalization, anyway) and, given the GOP and Blue Dog Dems, was probably the best he could manage. That he got any health care reform at all accomplished is almost a miracle.

Now we can look back over the last year and nearly three months with a little perspective and realize that he's accomplished more than we've thought. Not just health care: the Lily Ledbetter act, the stimulus, student loan reform, reversal of the ban on stem cell research, a new START accord with Russia, returned the Dow to its level before he was president, and saved the economy from a much deeper depression than it might have been... Those, and more, would be enough to polish the CV of any president. Obama's administration accomplished this in *one year.* He's a winner. Even schlubs like the Dems rally around winners.

So now he's rallying supporters and straddlers around the new health care reform, and his sunniness is out for all to see. He's been joking about how the sky hasn't fallen, no asteroids have hit, the earth hasn't cracked, and people are still able to choose their doctors, and people respond well. His new line is to go after the media who are freaking out over his poll numbers, telling them, in essence, get *real,* people: it's only been a week. His winning joke now is that pundits are like farmers who plant one day, come out the next, see no plants, and announce there's been a crop failure. He chides, really, rather than mocks, and his lack of nastiness brings people to him. Remember the undauntable Obama of the campaigns? That's who we have now.

That this attitude will win him more legislative battles can be predicted from the latest responses of Congresspeople, both GOP and Dems. Some Goopers are not only backing off their calls for repeal, they're admitting some good things in the bill; and both they and Dems who opposed the bill are taking credit for it. This is significant: Obama's become more assured, more respected...more Presidential. When you can take your opponents down a peg with gentle humor, you're in charge. People like that.

None of the marbles

2010-03-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo

I read this last night and smiled. Reading it today makes me smile even more.

Follow me as I daydream. Is it possible the Republicans have done themselves more damage with this fiasco than it seems? While I'm no big fan of the final health care industry giveaway, it does do some good things and it is a foundation for further legislation. But as Frum said, this was all the marbles for the Republicans. They staked everything on this: reputation, power, authority. They were so arrogantly convinced that they could block any kind of health reform that they figured dealing was beneath them. The Republicans had lost their grip on power and it unsettled them to where they grasped for it at all costs. So, to be really vulgar about it: did they shoot their wad? Was this everything?

It's hard to imagine whipping up their supporters into this kind of tea-party frenzy again. With all the months, the energy, the focus, the rage, the organization, the indignation, and with the long, hard fight this was--leaving them with *nothing*--I find it hard to imagine that even the True Believers, the right wing rage zombies who made this such a torturous battle, summoning up the will for another year-long battle over something as dry as cap-and-trade legislation. It was easy to put health care into fighting terms: death panels, killing grandma, take away your Medicare, and so on. This issue was made for sound bites, and the sound bites failed. More arcane policy battles are not going to lend themselves to chants in the park.

This may have been *their* Waterloo. Worse than failing, they've embarrassed themselves. At the very end, they have almost nothing of consequence to show for all their sound and fury. They think this will turn into electoral rage. It might; I won't discount that. One thing we know is that they'll be flogging this horse all the way to November. But other than the core that would have voted their way anyway, and would have showed up to vote out any Democrats who dared challenge the right-wing lock on power, they're not going to get a lot of voters. Certainly they've lost a lot of the independent voters due to their viciousness and uncompromising fury. (That may have gained them a few votes, but I doubt it's balanced out.) My guess is that a number, probably small, of right-wing voters will stay home, resigned to second-tier status in the next Congress. Quite possibly a number of right-leaning independents will too, mollified by the benefits of the health care bill and by what is almost certain to be some improvement in the economy. (As Frum said.) But what they have lost is their cachet of power, their tough-guy take-no-prisoners M.O. that served them well in the Bush years. They went to the well for it and lost. They're not invulnerable anymore.

I just don't think they can manage the pitch of rage they've had during the health-care debate. Without that lightning rod, what will they do? Work themselves up into town hall meetings over immigration reform? Cautiously, hopefully, I'll venture that they're spent. I think they've been defeated and won't recover from it easily. But then, if there's one thing the right wing in this country has shown, they have an almost infinite supply of offense and righteous indignation. The left can celebrate over the biggest legislative victory in 45 years, but cautiously. You can't take your eyes off these guys.

Greed for something they'll never have

2010-02-23T20:24:00.000-08:00

An excellent article in the Huffington Post the other day said a few things about the way conservatives think. It was a brilliant article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/a-good-week-for-science_b_470500.html) in that it laid out how conservatism and liberalism are much more biological in nature. Specifically, conservatism is rooted in fear and reacts most strongly to external threats. (I oversimplify.)

What does that mean for the Tea Party movement? I know they're reacting like spastic lemmings to the code words of "socialism" and so on, rending their figurative garments and figuratively gnashing their teeth over their perceived loss of freedom and the death of America. It's plain to see that there's a gripping fear underneath it, irrational though it is; modern conservatism needs an enemy, seems to thrive on having an enemy, really, and cannot justify its existence without one. They lost their dearest enemy when the Soviet Union fell, and searched for something to replace it. Well, they didn't so much replace it as transpose it to the Democrats. Their enemy is still there, it's still the Communists, only they've decided to rebrand the Democratic Party as Communists so that their worldview is still intact.

In order to make Democrats Communists, though, an elaborate and false scaffold has to be built on which to hang this. None of the Tea Party people (they're now offended by the name, "tea baggers," that they gave themselves at the outset) seem to be able to vocalize exactly what dire consequences await if the Democrats get their way, referring in generalities to "government control" and so on. They don't have an architecture for this accomplishment, in the same way the gun fanatics live in constant fear that the Gummint will try to take away their guns...not comprehending the logistical impossibility of such a task. They don't seem to be able to make the leap from, say, health care for all to Soviet-style (or, from some, Nazi-style) control without a structure of false beliefs and logical inconsistencies that beggar description. I feel sorry for them, in a way: how terrible it must be to live in constant terror, and to need to live in constant terror to constantly validate their beliefs.

That's the success of hate radio, by the way: its audience is in constant need of validation. This is why liberal talk radio doesn't succeed as well. Liberals and progressives don't need to be coached, 24/7, that something is out to take away everything they have, or ever will have. Liberals can go through their day without having their beliefs hysterically supported.

This leads me to an interesting feature about the Tea Party movement, and really most of conservatism, that defies logic. Many people have remarked in many places that a defining characteristic of Americans is that we like to believe that untold wealth and prestige live around the corner for any of us: be it the lottery, a timely invention, a fortuitous lawsuit, or an unforeseen inheritance, any one of us in America can suddenly find ourselves lifted from our mundane lives and launched into worry-free comfort. That's the American dream: not the Horatio Alger lifting-by-our-bootstraps rugged-individualism dream that with the right combination of pluck, determination, and work, we can succeed, but that at any time a bolt out of the blue will rescue us and make life a big, fluffy pillow.

So when you tell the teabaggers that, for instance, health care for all will not come out of their pockets--that they're going to get something very good on the backs of the very wealthy, to really simplify things--why do they react with fury that the American way of life, THEIR way of life, is threatened? I've become convinced that most of these people, who can't put together a plan that gets them from average life to stellar life, feel that the wealth they might have is threatened. Obama-style reforms don't threaten their way of life at all: they threaten the hazy dream of one day having everything they want at no effort at all.

So they don't want you to have something that they don't have, either. They want to keep to themselves all the wealth they don't, and won't ever, receive. There is in America a very real terror that people in the same economic strata might possibly get something without having earned it, even though they hope for the same thing themselves. They're afraid of being taxed to support the losers...once they become rich enough that the tax applies to them.

Like my earlier summary, this is a very strong oversimplification. Of course there's much more to the Tea Partiers than just the dread that someone, somewhere, might get a benefit they don't have. There's subtle racism behind a lot of it, a lot of media manipulation, a great amount of untruth, no small amount of gullibility, and a very great amount of uncertainty that comes from a roller-coaster economy. Factor into this the knowledge that our economy is supported on China's good graces, that we don't produce much of anything in this country anymore, that within one generation we've gone from the standard that even a high-school dropout could get a factory job and support a family to the frightening reality of most of those jobs being relocated to southeast Asia, and there's an understandable subcurrent of fear in every American's life. But to get Americans to reject their own best interests in favor of the wealthy took an amazing amount of trickery, orchestrated by the wealthy and their industries. And the Tea Party movement swallowed it like cherry-flavored arsenic.

It took a lot of doing to get Americans to think that something that will bring them a better life in reality is evil because it threatens the security of luxury they daydream of. But they did it.

Step 1: admitting you have a problem

2010-01-11T18:46:00.000-08:00

I'm forgetting where I read the comment over the last couple days of reading editorials and forwarded articles, but one of them contained the European observation that Americans are very self-satisfied. It may have been in the article about Chinese researchers returning to China out of patriotism, challenge, and the desire to make more of a difference than they can here in America. Not sure. But tonight my nephew and I were talking about the many things that America has become mediocre in--education, health care among them--that once we led, and I mentioned this observation. We joked about Americans having come to the idea that we're #1 in everything and deciding that it was time for us to relax.

That's not much of a joke, I'm afraid. Obviously Americans think we're #1 in everything. Like every other empire that became #1, we became complacent while making ourselves a target for derision and takeover. The uniquely American aspect to this is the angry denial and rationalization we've descended to. We've forgotten how to lead, I think, but we haven't forgotten the sense of entitlement in leading, so that instead of meeting challenges and renewing ourselves, we've simply become more angry and confrontational about our bruised egos. It's apparent in so many things from index finger-waving jingoism to wanting to kick butt worldwide. We're a people who know that our country is in decline but are so afraid to confront that truth that, instead of meeting the challenges of an emerging China and a potential India, we angrily denounce anyone who reveals our flaws as traitors and threaten (or attempt) to beat up anyone who challenges not our actual position in the world but our perceived position in the world. And for an angry, militaristic people, that means force, from the personal to the global.

Luckily we've gotten past the Bush Doctrine, but Obama doesn't seem to be much better. Rather than accept the obvious futility of our situation in Afghanistan, he's decided to meet it with more force. America has become the possessive boyfriend of the world: we don't know how insecure in ourselves we really are, but our only response to that is to threaten anyone who's perceived as taking away the object of our affection. At the heart of every bully is a deep insecurity, and we are a very insecure country. The anger and confrontation of the right wing, bordering on hysteria, in this country reveals much more about that insecurity than we want to admit.

All of this comes from the bloated self-satisfaction I mentioned earlier. If we'd never rested on our laurels, we might have met the challenges of the late 20th century, but we came to the belief that because we want to do it (whatever "it" is), it is therefore the right thing to do, and any suggestion contrary to that is treason. I know, this is really all boilerplate psycho-political musing, but what struck me on this was that at the base of most of the ills America suffers, and makes others suffer through, is that satisfaction with ourselves. Unless we, as a country, are able to admit that we are failing and that the future of representational democracy lies in confronting the failure rather than the critics, we're doomed to becoming a historical afterthought while repressive, China- (and Russia-) style oligarchy represents the wave of the future.

Overwhelmed in the garden and rethinking for next year

2009-08-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

Whew. I haven't posted about gardening in a long time, and for good reason...I just plain got swamped. This was pretty much the year that everything involving gardens crashed for me! My seedlings all failed for various reasons. I found that I have physically deteriorated significantly since just last year and can't keep up with a garden the size of the one I planted. My niece and her fiance promised to help all summer, but they haven't been able to. I started classes again recently for a change in life direction. On top of all that, I was subscribed to every gardening group known to Yahoo, and my mailbox was overstuffed every day! It just plain got to me, and as I am likely to do when faced with too much, I wasn't able to do much of anything. (Except the classes. I got A's.)

So here's the story. Once this year's garden is done, I am radically rethinking it. For one, far fewer tomatoes and more peppers. The reason for this is that peppers need far less care than tomatoes and have fewer pests, also taking up less space, and are easier to weed. Another thing I am thinking is going to container gardening, even homemade upside-down planting. I'm also wanting to experiment with growing tobacco, so that eliminates the problems of cucumber, melon, and squash vines.

I'm also rethinking a lot of my organic ideas. I hate to admit it, but I don't have the physical capability anymore to garden totally organically. Essentially, the weeds and the perennials are taking over, and I can't keep them back. Not when just a few minutes' of bending over and standing up makes me so light-headed I'm nauseous, and not when standing up for any length of time makes my knees scream in pain. So when I take down the garden this year, I am going to apply some weed killer to prevent them from coming up in the spring, and when spring comes, I am going to apply some pre-emergent herbicide.

Seed starting is a pain as well because of lack of space, the energy it uses, the fact that I have to do it upstairs, and so on. So the only thing I am planning on starting is the tobacco, and I'll be buying starts through sites like www.thechilewoman.com. I'm going to cut back my tomato varieties from approximately 9,000 to one or two--probably Rutgers, which is the one tomato this year that excelled even in the weeds.

Next year: more and better mulching. I just can't keep down the weeds without heavy fabric and mulch.

And...I severely cut back on my Yahoo groups! I cut many of them to digests and special notices only or even no mail, and a few I dropped entirely. The important thing is to not FEEL overwhelmed. I almost totally lost my love of gardening because there was so much to do, and I don't want that. So next year...much less. Much less. And more happiness.

There is no "next time"

2009-08-18T12:51:00.001-07:00

A thought came to mind that I hadn't seen elsewhere. I don't post many blog entries because anything I have to say has generally been said by a lot of people elsewhere, and I don't feel my words are so deathless that they need to contribute to the junk drawer that is the blogosphere. When I see an aspect of something no one else seems to, though, it's time for a comment.

Now, a lot of people are saying we have to get healthcare done now, because if we don't, it won't get done at all. I agree with that, but I think it's much more than that. We have to succeed--Obama has to succeed--or else it's the end of the road for Democrats entirely.

Look at it this way. Obama was elected with the closest thing Dems have had to a mandate since LBJ was elected in 1964. We have the largest Congressional majority since that time, too. Obama came in with the kind of popularity that we haven't seen since Reagan and a clear mandate for change. Yet we're getting derailed by the combined might of the D.C. lobbies--Big Health is out to get us, and it's been revealed (via leaked internal memo) that Big Oil is planning the same strategy for climate change legislation.

If we can't accomplish major legislation with the assembly we have now, when will we? Is there any possibility that if the big corporations win now, they will be weaker in the future? If the most popular Democrat since Kennedy, since FDR really, can't accomplish the major change we need along with a veto-proof Senate, who is going to come along and do it? We get taunted by the right for having elected "The Messiah" and "The One." Yeah, we put a lot of pressure on Obama to deliver more than any other President has. But if he doesn't do it, if we can't do it, who in the world is going to?

Who will be able to stand up to Big Money if we cannot?

Paraphrasing the Chief of Staff in "The American President," the American people thirst for leadership, and they'll crawl through the desert to get it. And if they don't find it there, they'll drink the sand. Wake up, Democrats: if we can't show that we have the spine and cojones to lead, Americans will turn to people who do. And the only other option is the GOP.

We can't crow that the GOP is dead. We can't relax just because they keep putting up fools and buffoons. If we don't lead and succeed, the American people will choose a buffoon who can. They already did in 2000 and 2004. As it is, we stand to lose seats in 2010 because of our indecision, and we'll be able to accomplish far less--especially since, thinking they see the writing on the wall, Dems will tack even farther to the right, thinking that's what Americans want. That's not what they will be voting for: they'll be voting for anyone who can govern strongly. And if they see the GOP as strong in 2010, and we can't accomplish anything between there and 2012, we're going to see a Republican president...and that one may well be a loon like Sarah Palin.

There is no "maybe next time." This is it for us. We have the strongest leader in a generation, and if we can't get it done now, no one is going to trust us in the future. Be firm with your congressperson and your President. Tell them that the public option is not optional. As our President said, "We are the people we have waited for." If we let our agenda be destroyed by a well-ogranized group of lobbyists now, we might as well throw in the towel. This is it. If we don't win now, they own us.

Write, call, and pester your leaders until they listen. A free America is your responsibility.

Keeping the Heat on...Obama

2009-04-07T23:40:00.000-07:00

Both Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow devoted significant time at the tops of their respective shows for this story, and were highly critical. As Jonathan Turley, a constitutional scholar at Georgetown U., said, what good are constitutional rights if there is no framework to enforce them?

The comments following this story (at the site) are passionate and sometimes enlightening.

Myself...I only hope that the argument put forth that the DOJ is doing its legally-mandated job is the correct one. By that argument, the DOJ must defend the United States' government against any and all lawsuits brought against it to the utmost of its capabilities, and the DOJ (with or without, most likely without, the oversight of Obama himself) is going over the top in its arguments so that no one involved in this case, at any time, can be accused of not doing due diligence. That's a valid argument, especially if Obama's administration has no intent of putting into effect any policies depending on their legal defense. Evidence against this, though, is that Obama has decided to maintain some long-standing "black sites" at which torture is alleged to have occurred. As Turley said on "Countdown," Obama seems to be all about programs, not principles. I don't know if I agree with that 100%, but there's something to it.

I just know that we have to hold the Obama Administration just as culpable as we would the Bush Administration. Yes, the lawsuit against the United States now has Obama's government as defendants, and they must defend themselves vigorously. And yes, it is entirely possible that they are choosing a ridiculously over-the-top defense not only to ensure due diligence but also to throw the case. But if the current DOJ pursues this as a matter of policy, it is our obligation to protest it in every avenue available to us.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/7/15548/97017?detail=f

(live links at website)

More Immunity Claims on Wiretapping from Obama DOJ by mcjoan

Tue Apr 07, 2009 at 05:02:04 PM PDT
In three separate cases in as many months, the Obama Justice Department has used the same arguments that the Bush administration Justice Department used to attempt to stop judicial review of extraordinary rendition and warrantless wiretapping. In the Mohamed v. Jeppesen extraordinary rendition case, the Obama administration reiterated the Bush administration argument that the case should be dismissed to preserve "states secrets." Likewise, in the Al-Haramain wiretapping case, Obama's DOJ used the arguments of the Bush administration to argue, again, that state secrets should prevent the Al-Haramain case--in which the only secret isn't a secret because it was inadvertently shared with plaintiff's attorneys--from moving forward.

Late Friday, the Obama DOJ actually went the Bush administration one argument further, in a third case. InJewel v. NSA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is "suing the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records." The Obama administration filed its first response [pdf] to the suit Friday, demanding dismissal of the entire suit.

Just a reminder, as pointed out by Glenn; one of the rationales provided by all of those Senators who supported the FISAAA that granted immunity to the telcos was the the avenue of suing the government was still open. Jello Jay wrote: "If administration officials abused their power or improperly violated the privacy of innocent people, they must be held accountable. That is exactly why we rejected the White House's year-long push for blanket immunity covering government officials."

Let's hope that Senator Rockefeller holds that belief when the government is led by his own party. Here'sGlenn's synopsis of the government argument:

[T]he Obama DOJ demanded dismissal of the entire lawsuit based on (1) its Bush-mimicking claim that the "state secrets" privilege bars any lawsuits against the Bush administration for illegal spying, and (2) a brand new "sovereign immunity" claim of breathtaking scope -- never before advanced even by the Bush administration -- that the Patriot Act bars any lawsuits of any kind for illegal government surveillance unless there is "willful disclosure" of the illegally intercepted communications.

In other words, beyond even the outrageously broad "state secrets" privilege invented by the Bush administration and now embraced fully by the Obama administration, the Obama DOJ has now invented a brand new claim of government immunity, one which literally asserts that the U.S. Government is free to intercept all of your communications (calls, emails and the like) and -- even if what they're doing is blatantly illegal and they know it's illegal -- you are barred from suing them unless they "willfully disclose" to the public what they have learned.

There are several notable aspects to what happened here with this new court filing from Obama:

(1) Unlike in the prior cases where the Obama DOJ embraced the Bush theory of state secrets -- in which the Obama DOJ was simply maintaining already-asserted arguments in those lawsuits by the Bush DOJ -- the motion filed on Friday was the first response of any kind to this lawsuit by the Government. Indeed, EFF filed the lawsuit in October but purposely agreed with Bush lawyers to an extension of the time to respond until April, in the hope that by making this Obama's case, and giving his DOJ officials months to consider what to do when first responding, they would receive a different response than the one they would have gotten from the Bush DOJ.

That didn't happen. This brief and this case are exclusively the Obama DOJ's, and the ample time that elapsed -- almost three full months -- makes clear that it was fully considered by Obama officials. Yet they responded exactly as the Bush DOJ would have. This demonstrates that the Obama DOJ plans to invoke the exact radical doctrines of executive secrecy which Bush used -- not only when the Obama DOJ is taking over a case from the Bush DOJ, but even when they are deciding what response should be made in the first instance. Everything for which Bush critics excoriated the Bush DOJ -- using an absurdly broad rendition of "state secrets" to block entire lawsuits from proceeding even where they allege radical lawbreaking by the President and inventing new claims of absolute legal immunity -- are now things the Obama DOJ has left no doubt it intends to embrace itself.

(2) It is hard to overstate how extremist is the "sovereign immunity" argument which the Obama DOJ invented here in order to get rid of this lawsuit. I confirmed with both ACLU and EFF lawyers involved in numerous prior surveillance cases with the Bush administration that the Bush DOJ had never previously argued in any context that the Patriot Act bars all causes of action for any illegal surveillance in the absence of "willful disclosure." This is a brand new, extraordinarily broad claim of government immunity made for the first time ever by the Obama DOJ -- all in service of blocking EFF's lawsuit against Bush officials for illegal spying. As EFF's Kevin Bankston put it:

This is the first time [the DOJ] claimed sovereign immunity against Wiretap Act and Stored Communications Act claims. In other words, the administration is arguing that the U.S. can never be sued for spying that violates federal surveillance statutes, whether FISA, the Wiretap Act or the SCA.

Since EFF's lawsuit is the first to sue for actual damages under FISA and the Wiretap Act, it's arguable whether this immunity argument applied to any of the previous lawsuits. What is clear, though, is that the Bush DOJ, in any context, never articulated this bizarre view that all claims of illegal government surveillance are immunized in the absence of "willful disclosure" to the public of the intercepted communications. This is a brand new Obama DOJ invention to blanket themselves (and Bush officials) with extraordinary immunity even when they knowingly break our country's surveillance laws.

It's difficult to read the administration's brief in any other way than a reinforcement--even an inflation of--the unitary executive, or to attribute it to Bush holdovers. This is first of the cases in which the DOJ attorneys aren't carrying over arguments from the previous administration--they are initiating this case. And it appears that the promises of last summer and fall when FISAAA was being argued were pretty damned empty. As EFF points out:

"President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a 'secret' that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again."

Judge Walker, the judge also hearing Al-Haramain, has been hostile to these extraordinarily broad claims by the previous government, and will likely be so again. But it seems pretty clear that the Obama administration will appeal this one, if necessary, as far as it has to.

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight

2009-03-26T22:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry to have been away from my blog so long! But I must post because I just cannot believe what has happened to the GOP. Not that I'm sorry, mind you, because I'm not. Couldn't happen to a nicer vast right-wing conspiracy. But how did the Armies of Mordor turn into the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight?

It's becoming a comedy. Every day, it seems, is an adventure into the GOP shooting itself in the foot. Here are a few recent stumbles: Bobby Jindal's goofy post-Obama speech response in which he tsk-tsk'd volcano monitoring (nicely underlined by Mt. Redoubt in Alaska, which said, "Bobby WHO?"). Bobby Jindal giving a fundraising speech during a prime-time Obama press conference. Eric Cantor abandoning the Obama presser for a Britney Spears concert. Sarah Palin in front of the turkey killing machine. David Vitter throwing fits over not getting priority treatment at an airport. Michael Steele criticizing Rush Limbaugh, then doing backflips to apologize. Michael Steele being pro-choice, then being reeled back in by his party masters. Michael Steele being pro-gay rights, then being reeled in by his party masters. Michael Steele stating that this was all strategy and part of his master plan. (OO!) Sarah Palin knocking the McCain campaign for not having anyone to pray with. The continuing goofy feigned outrage by various talking heads (repeated, of course, by the sheeple) over Obama using a teleprompter. (See below for a picture of Bush using one.) Being overall the Party of No (Ideas). And this is just a smattering of stuff over the last three or four months. There's more. Lots more.

But today, how lovely!--the GOP finally offered its Republican Road to Recovery budget response to Obama's budget. "Here it is," John Boehner intoned solemnly, holding up a 19-page pamphlet with a spiffy blue cover with an official-looking seal. This was it: the real thing. Only it was virtually empty. It contained no numbers. That's right. Mike Pence, R-Indiana, was on MSNBC to crow about it but was stopped cold by Norah O'Donnell. (I'm going to have to rethink my opinion of her as a bimbo.) She demanded to know what Pence's actual deficit-reducing figures were, and he clumsily evaded the issue. (Video is here: GOP Budget Plan Fizzles) According to HuffPo, there was actually some sort of response actually in the works (heavy on tax cuts for the wealthy, natch), but Pence wanted to get on the TeeVee and rushed this thing out. Boehner strong-armed Eric Cantor into going along with it, and everyone looked...well...stupid.

How did this happen? In 2004, you had a virtual army, a Politburo, and a Corleone Family all rolled up into one. Those guys marched in lockstep, painted anyone who disagreed with them as traitors to America, and enforced omerta on everyone in the party. This was the Party of BOO!, the bouncer who wouldn't let the Dems into the club, the full-tilt total media spin machine that issued dicta and talking points to an enslaved media and a cowed public. But since then, they've started to lose control of the audience the more strictly try to enforce the message. Now, there have been written tomes of analysis on how the Republicans drove the country into the sh*tter during the Bush years, and I'm not going to try to summarize any of them. But how did the GOP lose their grip? I'll give it to you in one word: KATRINA.

Yup. Hurricane Katrina was the tipping point. That was when the emperor's new clothes came off. At that point, the incompetence of the GOP stood revealed before an aghast nation, and that nation began asking questions. They began doubting in the mighty wall that was the GOP. But let's fast-forward so as to not compile some tedious timeline. What we have now is a GOP in denial, that cannot believe it doesn't have the same power and credibility pre-Katrina. They haven't grasped that beyond the devout, no one believes their bullshit. This is a crowd that honestly thinks that the reason they lost in 2006 and 2008 was that they didn't get their message out. Here's your clue: we all got your message. We rejected it. And we're rejecting it now.

But they still think that all they have to do is yell louder. That's why you have hysterical wingnuts out there crying "Socialism!" and "Communism!" and "Fascism!" and "Dictatorship!" And that's why you have frightened, frustrated loons out there bitterly complaining that Obama uses a teleprompter. Just like the tick that does nothing in its life but hang onto a blade of grass waiting for a mammal to happen by, that's all they've got now.

You know, there used to be a responsible, sensible GOP. They had admirable goals: reduce government waste, reduce bureaucracy, budget wisely, and leave people the hell alone. That GOP started disappearing in Nixon's southern strategy and had totally vanished by Ronnie's second term. What took office in 1994 (the "Republican Revolution") and in 2000 was so far from common-sense Republicanism that it wouldn't get the endorsement of Henry Luce. Against Bush II, Eisenhower would have been seen as a dangerous liberal, and the party would have drummed him out. I don't even know if the current GOP has an ideology other than "I got mine, screw you!"

They've become clueless and angry, and the American populace responds to that by staying away. There's a reason why Obama's popularity is going up despite the constant attacks. We're responding to a President who tells us what we have within us to succeed, not a cabal that tells us that everything not-us is threatening to kill us. Is it hope? Maybe. Or maybe it's just relief that the White House finally has someone competent and responsible in charge.

Repudiation and Succession

2009-01-27T13:33:00.000-08:00

We can be excused our happiness for so many reasons, not the least being that just in his first week President Obama is proving to be just the leader we've expected. Jubilation's easy to come by when your team wins, and it fills out like a full sail when it carries the promise of a positive course for the world. Knowing that we will all sacrifice together for a better day makes it sweeter, though tougher: we're all going to carry a burden for the greater good, and at the finish, we'll have the right to be proud of ourselves, our fellow citizens, and our country. So the winning has passed and the work has started, and in ourselves we find the patriotism that has eluded our most cynical. So this is more than just a repudiation of the Bush era. It's much more than that.

At the base, we've repudiated more than just an administration. That sense of relief you feel, the tonnage lifted from your backs, is more than just a farewell to the most secretive, dangerous, subversive, underhanded eight years this country has ever seen. It is, and it's more than, the repudiation of a generation.

We've repudiated supply-side economics, that bastard grandchild of trickle-down. We've repudiated the religion of tax cuts and laissez-faire. With it went the fantasy that the free market cures all economic ills. Ayn Rand and her acolytes have sailed into irrelevance, the idea that somehow businesses will work for the betterment of humankind because the search for profits will lead us there discredited. Greed is an exhausted notion. Selfishness has gone with it.

Goodbye, the ideas that a government cannot care about and for its citizens. Take along with you the baggage of a generation's misdeeds: Enron, Bechtel, Halliburton, Iran-Contra, Abscam, Abramoff, "national malaise," stagflation, wiretapping, misbegotten wars, disrespect for our servicemen from the top, and a return to the law of the economic jungle. Put in your baggage Star Wars, MAD, neocolonialism, bellicosity, and rules-for-thee-but-not-for-me. Those notions are old now.

So it is with jingoism, the bitter distillation of patriotism, anger, and fear. So it is with anti-intellectualism and the rule of the brute. So it is with fear of dissent. So it is with the darkness of paranoia. So it is with the weary resignation that lets such things live.

Not everything is fixed, and not all evil is dead. It won't ever be. If we've learned anything since the last great hope, it's that human nature will always keep utopia bobbing just ahead of our fingertips. Forces that survive on the power of savage fear will always find food. But in this day, and in this time, though they don't realize it, they have become irrelevant. They're howling into the wind now, afraid that power will slip away from them. They don't know it already has.

But it's never far from their reach. Smoldering resentment is seductive. It nurses its anger on patient milk. That this country has passed through its greatest crisis of character since the war that nearly tore us apart is a reason to celebrate, and we should. We've looked national despair in the eye and found the will to stare it down. Now we can stand fast, work together, and hold on to the confidence we've found within ourselves.

We've let go, at long last, of a generation. We are the ones we've been waiting for.

He Is Beautiful

2009-01-19T19:58:00.000-08:00

It seems there are a few out there who do not understand the mood of this country at this historic time. They are called Republicans.

Someone I know recently remarked that he hasn't seen a jubilance like this moment in this country since V-J day. (And yes, he was a young man at the time.) That struck me, because of my silly grin for the last couple of weeks, mirroring the one I began wearing on November 4th. I balance that with the sneering remarks from the right, many of them variations on "Obama the Messiah." Yes, I worry that we expect too much out of him. But I want to say to those who sneer: "You don't understand. It's not about him. It's about US."

Today, I saw coverage of Obama saying things he has said since long before the election. It won't be easy; we are only going to come through this together; we have within us everything we need to do exactly what is called upon at this moment; we must sacrifice. What we must understand is that this is a man who acutely understands history and the spirit of this country. America has done its best when this country is at its worst. This country transforms iron and coal into steel in the crucible of turmoil. We hurt, we rage, we suffer, but our fortune has always been that in the moments crisis threaten us, we have found the leaders who have challenged us to reach within ourselves and find our common spring. From it, from ourselves, flow the waters that replenish us, heal us, and bring us to new days.

No one can think Obama is sugarcoating anything. He certainly isn't. He is telling us that things are awful, they're going to get worse, and we're going to suffer. Isn't that a prescription for defeat? Not at all, not when that man informs us that we have within us the resources to endure and flourish. And we do. He tells us what we fully know. What those few who sneer don't understand is that we hunger for this. We have hungered for this since the old call to ask what we can do for our country. We have hungered for the man who would look at our spirits' empty bellies and say, "Only together can we fill them." We have hungered for the man who would see the country in crisis, tell us the truth, and say: We have what we need. It is within us.

This country has been in constant crisis since the days of Viet Nam. We have been beset on all sides by anger, ignorance, frustration, and the erosion of the spirit that nourishes us. We've seen the false populists come and go. We've seen the incompetent come and go. We've seen the cheerleaders come and go. But has it really been since Kennedy that we have had a man who said to us, "We are the people we have been waiting for"? Has it really been nearly fifty years since we were told that we, together, can accomplish so much more than us, apart?

Yes. At last, we have what we have hungered for. We are called to sacrifice, and we say, "At last!" We are called to service, and we say, "We can do it!" A man, a solitary man, calls us to unite, and we say, "Thank you!"

Is it any wonder we respond with the biggest, most powerful, most sincere outpouring of affection and admiration since those halcyon days of Camelot? He asks us to do the impossible, and tells us that we have it within us. And we, together, tell him: "Yes, we can."

Oh, Rachel, how do we love thee?

2008-09-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight, when Keith Olbermann did the toss from his show to Rachel Maddow's, he mentioned that she had beaten Larry King in the ratings the entire previous week. I don't know how big a deal that is. King is popular but past his sell-by date, and I am sure his numbers are heavy in the all-important 66-95 year old demo. But it sure seems important, and I've read that she is now the #2 evening draw over at MSNBC behind Olbermann. The two of them provide a knockout punch for lefties, and fans of true journalism, everywhere.

That doesn't cover the real reasons, though, for the nearly-fanatical following Maddow has developed. If you read, or have read, comments about her across teh intarwebz, especially regarding her new show, you've seen that she gets an enthusiasm totally out of proportion of her aw-shucks demeanor. Why does she get this? Why do men AND women, straight AND gay, get crushes on her? (Me, it started with the short haircut. Rowr.)

First, notice that she's the hero of people who read and stay informed. No one has properly estimated the power of a grounded woman with a sharp-as-a-knife mind, and here is Rachel Maddow proving that legions thirst for a drink from the tap of Rhodes scholarship. She's smart. Smarter than me and you put together. But she doesn't have an ego problem. She's not only the smartest person in the room, she's also someone you'd have a beer with. She's someone who will laugh at your jokes but keep you in line, who will hear your tales and not twit you, who just may well laugh at that thing you did where you said, "Hey! Watch THIS!" and dissect exactly how stupid it was. She gets us to examine ourselves, laugh at ourselves and others, and she affirms our confidence while getting us to admit we're maybe not so perfect.

She's also the androgynous dream date for millions. Well, maybe thousands. She's an object of desire but utterly non-threatening. For straight women (I am guessing), she's the friend, the buddy, the compatriot who is all about the feelings and thinking through things. You know she will listen and give advice both. She's perceptive of human ways, but she's non-jealous, non-possessive, non...attached. For gay women... Well, let's just file that in the FREAKING OBVIOUS folder. For gay men? She's sort of a substitute man, and I don't mean that in a sexist way. (Like there's any other way to take that.) My feeling on this is that she's the androgynous (again that!) person a lot of people wish they could be; if she were a man, virtually unchanged, a lot of men would be in love with her brains, her cheer, her competence, her clarity. She represents for us all an icon of what we wish we were, and what we wish to love: complete personally and professionally and untainted by her own fame.

As far as straight men: well, she will always be the Other, the Unattainable, the Yearning, the Unrequited. Boys, she's NOT for us. She's for the girls. But those of us who straddle the gender lines--not just those who wish they could have sex with lesbians because it's a challenge, or because they can't imagine anyone turning down their masculine charms, or who are envious of anyone who gets to have a kind of sex they don't--she is the ideal. All the reasons I gave above are true, but here's the rest: in a big way, she's a GUY. Not in terms of equipment, but in attitude. She keeps it simple while competently handling the big issues, her emotions reside in the same home as ours, she cuts through the dross to the quick, she can be fanciful but she's grounded, she makes decisions responsibly, and yet--because she is female, ignoring that she is a lesbian--she exists somewhere within the universe of possibility. (The right man and all that.)

But in short, she's what we wish we could be. We wish we could have the clarity of purpose that she does, her substance, her foundation, her commitment, her intelligence, her application. She's a dream for many of us, a liberal goddess who fills every fantasy of who we want and who we want to be, unencumbered by society's restrictions but respectful of society's rules. She trips our triggers in myriad ways, all of them good.

Rachel? I'm free. Call me.

Desks? It's about desks?

2008-09-03T18:51:00.001-07:00

Okay. I just got through watching Mike Huckabee's speech. Here's the thing that baffled me. The story about the desks. Let me 'splain... No, let me sum up. Here's the story in a nutshell:

Martha Cochran(e?), a teacher somewhere, had her kids come in on the first day of school to a class bereft of desks. She said they wouldn't get their desks until they figured out how to earn them. Long story short, the entire day passed and the kids made bunches of guesses, all of which failed. In the meantime, kids called their parents on their cellphones (making this a recent story), and they called news organizations. By the time the last period had come, all four local networks were there covering the story. In the 6th period, she finally said she would tell them about the desks. She went to the door, called out, and in came 20 veterans in uniform with 20 desks, who put them all into place. She then said that there was nothing they had to do to earn the desks, because the veterans had already done it for them.

Okay. I didn't even have to Google it to know this was bullshit, though I did Google it. You would think that with 4 local networks handy, there might be some mention on "the Google." There's not. But even if it WERE true, I would want to ask:

Where did you hide the 20 veterans so that no one noticed them the entire day?
How did they know to come into the hall at exactly the right time for you to call on them?
Didn't they have to be fed at some point?
Wouldn't the news organizations, or the office, or students, or SOMEONE, have noticed 20 veterans in uniform hanging around the school?
How did you line up 20 desks in the hall without anyone noticing, especially the students who sit in them?
What if you had had more than 20 students in class, which is most often the case?

See, I'm a teacher (sub, but nevertheless). This just SCREAMS "Snopes" to me. One, you wouldn't get away with it, and two, you couldn't hide this for some big theatrical moment. It just doesn't happen. Especially with 4 networks and their cameras skulking about.

I think Mike Huckabee told a porkie.

You can't hide it! GOP Convention Edition

2008-09-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

Just a quick thought as I watch the ongoing GOP morass they are calling a convention. Two things you can't hide:

1. Hundreds of empty seats. The delegate seats are full, sure, but the levels above the floor are sparsely attended. And what this means is...

2. The speeches are sparsely cheered. Carly Fiorina, who was fired from Hewlett-Packard, just gave a speech full of applause pauses and hooks. Problem? Very little cheering at the pauses or in general. Her speech was accepted with what can best be called gracious apathy.

All the Sarah Palin stuff I would like to cover is already aflame at Daily Kos, TPM, and other blogs. There's little question in my mind that this campaign is going to self-destruct. That they're already reaching for the "sexist" label to any criticism of Palin is telling. It's like the POW issue: it's the go-to when any criticism arises. I hope the American public is smarter than that. I already know the GOP True Believers aren't, of course, but I have hopes for the swing voters.

An odd thought about seasons

2008-09-02T14:22:00.001-07:00

I just read a note on one of my gardening groups that a member in Montana is going to try to harvest her entire garden because it might snow tonight. In September!!! But it got me to thinking about the bittersweet, melancholy feelings I have about the turn from summer to fall, from fall to winter, and the first snowfalls. The silence, the chill, the puffs of breath, the slow waltz of snowflakes in descent.

You know what would be sweet? If winter were so short I looked forward to it. :)

BREAKING NEWS: Barack Obama Rescues New Orleans

2008-09-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

SEPT 1, 2008 (ROOTERS) - In a display of party unity, Democratic Party presidential nominee Barack Obama today used his angelic powers to blunt the impact of Hurricane Gustav on New Orleans.

"It wasn't easy," said a visibly drained Obama, wiping stigmata from his palms. "But I believe in the fairness of the political process and am determined that everyone have a fair say in this election season. I was disappointed that the Republicans wouldn't have the opportunity to present their platform to the American public."

Obama has used his powers before, but rarely, as the "recharging" period afterward is lengthy and involved. The last manifestation before today was the 2005 World Series, in which he willed the White Sox on not only to victory, but a wire-to-wire first place season. Previously, his neophyte powers had been misdirected, causing Florida to go to Bush in the 2000 presidential election.

"I thought I was making the butterfly ballots easier," he said, "but I royally screwed that up. I had to take SO many seminars after that. That's why I couldn't do anything about Katrina. I was still on probation."

The McCain campaign was less charitable, though. "Show-off," said Tucker Bounds while pushing pins into a doll. "He won't show up for a debate, but he 'saves' New Orleans to 'help' the Republicans. Right. If John McCain could have done it, he would have, but he couldn't, and Obama knows it. That's why he gets all the press."

Obama expressed hope for Mr. McCain. "It's never too late to learn to use the Force," he said, drinking a goblet of water transformed into wine. "He simply needs to learn how to let go."

On a serious note...free market democracy?

2008-08-27T16:09:00.000-07:00

Here's something that's been bubbling up in me for a long, long time. I have friends who are very, very conservative. One of them, my friend since childhood, visited not long ago. We've jousted over the years on issues and always felt a spirit of camaraderie anyway. Another is a woman who is more on the right than I am on the left. Now, I mention them because I have been listening to and reading comments for a long time about free-market capitalism, of which these friends are adherents, and a comment at the Daily Kos focused it a little more sharply for me today. I have to ask, then: which is more important, this country or the free market?

I hate to impugn anyone's patriotism. God knows I've been on the receiving end of that for years as a liberal, which (thanks to Fright Wing media manipulation ever since Reagan) has become synonymous with radicals, terrorism, and anarchy. But I honestly wonder when Adam Smith free-market capitalism became synonymous with America.

Since when does the United States Constitution prevent regulation and direction in the market? Both Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin expressed deep misgivings about the excesses of capitalism and its threats to a truly free society. As it is now, after 19 years of Republican rule (27 if you count Clinton, the proto-Republican), we have determined that in terms of maintaining a free society, free market capitalism does not work.

What got me to write about this was the AT&T party for "Blue Dog Democrats" during the Dem convention. Rep. Steny Hoyer denied that it had anything to do with Congress having given immunity to telcos from civil suits over FISA violations, but that's a lot like saying the water is not the reason you're going into the swimming pool. This is just the latest example of massive corporations having bought the American system entirely, reducing the voters to simply approving one or another choice supported by Big America, Inc.

The response, as I have heard from Smith capitalists, is that as long as corporations and people have the money, they have the right to do with it as they will. I do not agree. Nothing in the Constitution says you have the right to subvert the democratic process because you have wealth. Nothing gives a corporation the right to despoil the environment for future generations. No one has the right to pollute our air and water for the simple love of excess.

Jefferson wrote that the American government was to provide for the common welfare. Today, as jobs have moved overseas, as our environment turns into garbage, as judges maintain that "free speech zones" ("freedom cages") are entirely legal, as media corporations determine the news that moves out to us, as transnational corporations suckle off the American tax dollar without paying taxes in return (Halliburton, I am talking to you), as all of our lives are bought and sold for cheap by soulless corporations, it's time to ask: Which is most important to you...your country or the free market?

They aren't one and the same.

"surgical strike"

2008-08-26T21:44:00.000-07:00

How often are surgeons called upon to make missile strikes? I mean, really?

Hillary Promises: "This Shiv For McCain"

2008-08-26T16:20:00.000-07:00

AUG. 26 (ROOTERS) - In a widely-hailed speech at the 2008 Democratic Convention, former candidate Hillary Clinton held aloft a blade once destined for the back of Barack Obama and promised: "This shiv is now reserved for John McCain."

The blade, which has a long Clinton family history, is slender yet strong, its handle a simply-tooled ash with ivory inlay. "There was a time," Senator Clinton said, "when this would have gotten me the Presidency," alluding to the vice-presidential nomination she had expected. "That possibility is now past. In the name of unity, I now promise that this blade will find its home only in the back of John McCain, should he be fool enough to be elected."

The blade, which had been unadorned, is now laser-engraved with the legend, "Unity '08" and a picture of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton shaking hands.

Rumors had arisen in the days after the Clinton concession that she was angling for the vice-presidential spot. Less speculated on was what has been referred to as "Roman succession" and "the breaks." However, since Biden accepted Obama's offer of the vice-presidential spot on the ticket, any internecine plots on Clinton's behalf were rendered moot. Speculation exists that her promise to lay aside any revenge slaying is contingent on an appointment to the Supreme Court.

Senator McCain, campaigning this week at the Mars Cheese House in Wisconsin, vowed not to let her come near. "Not that I ever have," he added. "She's trouble."

BREAKING NEWS: Joe Lieberman's Ego Nominated for Republican VP

2008-08-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

SEPT. 4, 2008 (ROOTERS) - John McCain stunned voters and colleagues alike today with the nomination of Joe Lieberman's ego as his vice-presidential choice.

"Joe Lieberman has the support of many voters in this country," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers. "He brings in a lot of Jewish voters, traditional voters, and swing voters. However," he added, "a lot of his positions lose us traction among traditional Republican voters. For instance, he's pro-choice. We can't lose the fundamental Christian vote. So the next best thing was to nominate his ego."

Lieberman's ego, which has previously been seen to be impervious to criticism and electoral challenge, was gratified to be on the ticket.

"I see this as a great step forward for independents who have ambition but no scruples," said the ego. "Without being tied down to any policy or morals, we can accomplish great things. Such as getting elected."

The Obama camp was swift to respond. "It's not fair," said a spokesman. "We have to contend against one of the greatest egos in American politics, and if it gets elected, we still have to deal with Lieberman's policies in the Senate. We're filing a protest and issuing a strongly-worded letter."

Unknown is whether the ego will carry with it Lieberman's speaking habits. Mr. Rogers insisted, though, that they are working to eliminate all traces of sonorous monotony from the voice of the ego.

"NOW I can vote for Obama"

2008-08-23T13:03:00.000-07:00

There were questions about whether Obama could gather together the Hillary voters who felt disenfranchised when she lost the race. There were suggestions that Hillary voters would turn to McCain, or third party candidates, or simply stay home. Hillary supporters were talking about protesting the convention, and even recently there was speculation that somehow Hillary was going to try to steal the nomination away from Obama.

Pundits also speculated on whether Obama could win unless he put Hillary at his side. He needed her experience, both on the campaign trail and in the office. Without her substance, he would fail. Speculation was that if he chose someone without the standing, substance, and energy of Hillary, he would fail. If he did not include Hillary, he would lose the female vote, he would lose the older vote, the blue collar vote. Without Hillary, he would fail.

I don't say this with any animosity to the Hillary camp. I'm reflecting the words of the newspaper pundits, talking heads, and more than a few bloggers. But I believe the turning point has come. I have a friend, a woman and a Hillary voter, who had previously asserted that there was no way she could vote for Obama. She cited the many reasons that others do: his lack of experience, his associations, and one thing no one had really pointed out--that there had to be some dirt about Obama not yet dug up. She never bought into the obvious nonsense (he's a Muslim!), but she had serious questions about him and was either going to vote third-party or stay home.

Today, after Biden was announced, I received an e-mail from her. The subject was, "NOW I can vote for Obama." Biden turned the tide for her. His working-class roots, his foreign policy experience, his intelligence, his character made the difference. Choosing Biden showed Obama's good judgment. Biden gets respect. He's plainly on the side of the working man and woman, and, really, all women. He has the gravity that completes this ticket.

I am convinced that a great many Hillary voters will see the Biden choice with the same relief. All right, their candidate didn't make it--but Obama chose wisely. He has reassured the Democratic voter that he does indeed know what he's doing. He's made it clear to the Hillary voter, the kitchen-table voter, the working voter, that he's heard them and still intends to look after them. iCal it: this is the week Obama won the Presidency.

BREAKING NEWS!!!

2008-08-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

OCT. 12, 2008 (REUTERS) - Tropical Storm Fay has settled into the living room of Mr. and Mrs. Manny Glickstein of Ocala, Florida.

The Glicksteins, a retired couple originally from Great Neck, NY, were throwing a dinner party for their friends, the Feldmans, to celebrate Mr. Feldman's ascension to the chair of the math department at the University of Florida Ocala when Fay showed up at the door unannounced. Fay, which brought a bowl of spinach dip, was awkwardly invited in.

"What could we do?" Sally Glickstein was quoted as saying. "Fay's applied for tenure."

Unknown still is when Fay intends to leave. Although most of the party guests have already gone home, Fay is reported to have spotted a copy of Scrabble™ in the den closet and enthusiastically asked if anyone would like to play.

"Manny is such a Scrabble™ maniac, too," said a weary Gil Feldman. "But he's so SLOW."

Indications are, though, that Fay may leave, as the only beverages left in the house are some bottled water, a little orange juice, and coffee, and it's just too late for coffee.

Good deeds in a weary world

2008-08-21T14:43:00.001-07:00

In the past couple of weeks, two people I know and love did things which amazed me. I wish I had been there to see them. Especially when one of them was Andy, my dear friend of over twenty years. He's not the physically bravest of people--being targeted when you're young tends to do that to you. But a couple of weeks ago he was in downtown Minneapolis, about to cross a street, when he saw a man on the other side attacking a woman. I won't share his private thoughts with you, but safe to say he was alarmed and frightened. This man was pulling the woman's hair and beating at her, and no one was helping her out.

Now, Andy could have been like anyone else on the street, minding his own business, and he had every right to fear for his own safety if he intervened. But as he said, he was brought up that you don't hit women, so when he crossed the street and the man hadn't continued, Andy walked up to him and hit him...with an umbrella.

Don't laugh. Really. Andy hit him hard enough that the umbrella handle broke. The man was stunned enough that he backed away from the woman. Andy put himself between the man and the woman and wielded the umbrella like a sword, keeping the confused and enraged man at bay until the sirens were heard. (At which point, like a coward, the man ran.) Andy had saved the day. I just don't have enough words to express how proud I am of him. He not only did the right thing, he did the brave thing knowing that he could get hurt himself. That takes courage, and he has it. He's on my Best Persons in the World list now.

The other is my nephew. He has a similar story. The other night he was coming out of a movie theater with a friend and saw a man apparently choking a woman in the parking lot. There was a small bunch of frozen onlookers. Just as one guy said that maybe somebody should do something, Kyle charged up and pulled the guy off the woman. He said later that he didn't seem to be actually choking her, but grabbing her in a way that looked like it. And it turned out the guy was mentally handicapped and the woman was his caretaker. But Kyle put himself between the guy and the woman and kept him at bay until the cops showed up.

I'm just as proud of my nephew, though to be honest, he's a lot younger and a lot more muscular than Andy. He doesn't take crap from anybody. But when other people were wondering what to do, he stepped in and did it. He saved that woman from possible, real damage. (I bet she called the agency for another assignment in the morning.) You have to do the right thing, and here are two people who did so without hesitation. I am proud to know them.

Solar Energy Breakthrough

2008-08-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

For copyright considerations I won't reprint the article here. But the article states the obvious: virtually free, limitless energy. What it doesn't say is what this could mean for the global environment. Just imagine if, in ten years, this is engineered so that solar batteries collect energy to power our cars as well as our houses. For many of us, we would make the shift in lifestyle to adapt to shorter-range vehicles, perhaps leaving long-distance travel to trains or whatnot. Within ten years, global emissions could be drastically reduced as coal plants are shuttered, cars convert to zero-emission energy, and the only combustion engines would be those necessary for long-distance travel such as trucks and trains. It wouldn't eradicate all carbon emissions, since there's not really a way to substitute for airplane travel, for instance, but it could potentially slow global warming within a few decades.

As long as Exxon doesn't crush this or gain control of the technology, that is.

We interrupt this long absence for an important thought

2008-07-25T13:16:00.001-07:00

Okay, so we all know UFOs are alien spaceships, and we're all okay with that. But isn't it about time someone told these aliens that their ships look a little, well, out-of-date? I mean, that saucer look is SO 1950s. You'd think they could come up with something more, I dunno, zippy, maybe that looks like a Stealth fighter, or at least really shiny like the one in "Starman." What would be really cool is if we got a UFO that looks like a Klingon Bird of Prey. I think THAT would wake some people up.

Oh yeah...

2008-06-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

And the Supremes decided we do have habeas corpus after all.

HUGE RELIEF.

Hey, George: I got yer noncombatant status right HERE.

Being an uncle rocks

2008-06-28T18:11:00.001-07:00

I am going to keep this short, short, short. All I am going to say is: for the moment, the custody battle is resolved. It was looking like it might go ugly, but certain realities got it resolved, and...my nephew's daughter is coming home to live with us. In fact, she's already here.

When my nephew's marriage broke up, and his wife left with his daughter, it was a blow to him but also to me. Despite some flaws around here, I had gotten used to thinking of this house as a family, and wanted it very badly to continue. I missed my great-niece like crazy. She's a bundle of fun, smart and willful, and the opportunity to help bring another little person through childhood and into adulthood was wonderful and exciting. Then, suddenly, gone. Now she's back, none the worse for wear, and things feel right again. Maybe her mother isn't here, but at least the house feels like a family again.

I feel sorry for his wife. I do. I can't think of anything more wrenching than a mother letting go of her child. That really bothers me, and I wish circumstances were different so we could all exist in the same space. We can't, though, and what we have now is the next-best thing for everyone involved.

This is a substitute for all the political crap I could be writing, by the way. Right now nothing of any great importance is happening politically (except for the Supremes deciding that rich candidates have special rights poor candidates don't), and there was something about gun rights, and someone called Barack Obama "John Kerry with a tan," and a few other things, but you know, that all gets hashed out endlessly in the blogosphere. If I have a unique viewpoint on that, I'll let you know, but in the meantime, this is just the latest news from Scotsylvania.

Has it really been eleven days??

2008-06-28T18:06:00.000-07:00

I wish I didn't have to blame fibromyalgia

2008-06-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

I've written a little on it before, this fibromyalgia thing. It's a weird, sneaky disorder. Sometimes it leaves you alone sometimes it wallops you, and sometimes it's just, well, more subtle. Take the exhaustion that comes from it. It's so everpresent that sometimes I don't notice when it's getting worse. I knew it was making a comeback after about three weeks of leaving me (mostly) alone; in the last two days there were two "attacks" (the ones that mimic low blood sugar episodes), but they were weak.

Last night I slept about ten and a half hours. That alone tells me just how tired and sore I was, especially since my sleep was restless. But after I woke up, made my coffee, sat at the computer for a while, and got ready for a job interview this afternoon...I fell asleep again. I was just plain worn out. The exhaustion came over me and I couldn't stay awake.

I wish there were a better reason for this. I wish I had been outside working all day yesterday, or that I had been compulsively been working on some sort of project, or that I had gone on a tear of cleaning up my house. But none of that is true. Exhaustion just hit me. There's little way to explain to people who don't suffer from this the emotions that come from this: regret, guilt, anger, frustration, sadness, depression, and no small amount of shame. Shame, that is, because I still feel responsible for having this. I still feel it's something I should just be able to overcome, that all I need is a swift kick in the pants, that somehow this is a result of choices I have made and not forces beyond my control. It's hard not to feel that I've failed my responsibilities rather than having been overwhelmed with one of the most invisible, crafty disorders in the world.

It seems that it might be better if it actually came with some obvious physical deformity, because then people would know you're not faking. As it is, you suspect that's what people think, because you wonder that yourself. Am I faking? What's wrong with me? Even in the middle of its worst, you somehow suspect you're just being a pansy. But believe me, when those attacks hit, I know better.

The Latina in the Cialis ad?

2008-06-11T20:04:00.001-07:00

Freakin' GORGEOUS. (Remember, I'm middle-aged.) I'm in lust. But what's the deal with Cialis takers sitting in bathtubs in meadows? It shows up more than once in their ads. They mash, they canoodle, then they sit in tubs in the middle of nowhere.

WHAT ABOUT THE MOSQUITOES?!

Sitting in the garden on a near-perfect day

2008-06-10T16:07:00.000-07:00

I only say near-perfect because there's no such thing as perfect. It's pretty close right now, though. Boo said earlier how wonderful it is, and it is. 77 right now, a little breezy, hardly a cloud in the sky.

The last few days have kept me from really doing anything in the garden. I was out of town for four days, in which we got torrents of rain...and when I came back it was hot and muggy enough that I wussed out on weeding. Well, that got the best of me, for sure, because the weeds out there are MANY. As in, much. Mucho. Lots. Well, they were, at least, until I weeded, and now it's not so bad. I love my scuffle hoe. :)

The excellent thing is that my early-planting experiment, which some of you may remember (with the Wall-o-Waters and the homemade milk-jug and pop-bottle greenhouses) has astounding results. Here it is June 10th in Zone 5b, and those tomatoes are already as high as my hips and blossoming! (And I am 6 feet tall.) The tomatoes set out normally are about a foot and a half high. Guess what I'll be doing with ALL my tomatoes next year. :)

Had some casualties, though. Not a single dill seed produced. Culprits? Birds, I think. They seemed really pleased with my dill patch once it was planted. Some of my patty-pan squash didn't come up, and the same with muskmelons and cucumbers. Short story: planted them in mid-May, and while we didn't get a frost, we had two weeks of wet, cold weather. I checked the seeds near the end of the month. Rotted in the ground. Same with the herbs I planted. Not much of anything. So...a quick trip to the nursery (Vite up in Michigan), a little resowing, and there are now some muskmelons, cucumbers, and patty-pans, as well as rosemary, thyme, oregano, marjoram...and a couple ornamental peppers by the front door on the porch.

The potato experiment (tires and trash can) is a mixed bag, though. The trash can taters are thriving like crazy, but the one stack of tires? Not so much. I think I just finally overextended them. I filled in dirt one last time and the plants never came up again. Maybe I'll put some squash or something in there, too--hate to see something like that go to waste. The other two tater tire projects, though, are also thriving--only two tires high. Maybe I'll even get a couple of taters.

2 waves of poppies, coral belles are incredible, and the, uh, let's call them "native grasses" are doing just fine.

Tomatoes by June! It's not just a hope, it's a rallying cry!

Just a quick note while I am doing things other than blogging

2008-06-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed that when John McCain smiles, he looks like he's following someone else's instructions on how to do it?

Look, everybody else was all over the Clinton/Obama thing like flies on rice. Or something.

Dunkin' Donuts...folding!

2008-05-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

Check Countdown, check Dan Abrams on MSNBC, check USAToday: Dunkin' Donuts removed an ad featuring Rachael Ray because the Fright Wing blogosphere got its tits in a knot over the SCARF she was wearing. Seriously. I am not making this up. They got all upset that the scarf she was wearing in the ad looked like some sort of Arab scarf and threatened a boycott unless they removed the ad. And DD, being the corporate weasels they are, caved rather than face the loss of one donut sale.

America: Hell. Via handbasket. Here ya go.

Let's...

2008-05-28T17:32:00.000-07:00

I'd like you to take a look at the new Yahoo group I just created: Victory Gardens It's a simple idea: putting together gardeners with time, resources, and ability with the poor, the infirm, the elderly, and so on to help bring a little joy of gardening into everyone's lives. My idea is that someone out there who can't garden because of arthritis, or who can't even afford a single tomato plant, or just can't get around well, can have even a small plot with a tomato plant because there's a gardener nearby with extra starts, or a supply of compost or topsoil, or a day a week to help.

It's not going to be perfect. The group isn't for the perfectly capable to get free help, or those without time to get someone to do their gardens for them, or for the greedy to get more than their share. It's also not for the greedy to prey upon the poor and charge them for services or goods, and it's not for businesses to network. It's for the fortunate to help the less fortunate. That's it. Weeding through the dross to get to the good is going to be a pain, and I know it. But I believe that at least some people will do the right thing when they have the chance, and hopefully this group will get them together.

Let's work together!

A break from silliness for ridiculousness

2008-05-28T15:20:00.000-07:00

Okay. I haven't read the new book, "What Happened," by Pinata Scottie McClellan yet, so admittedly I am talking out of my ass. I have, however, listened to many talking heads on the television and on teh intarweb commenting about it, about how shocking it is, how he threw Bush under the bus, and how he's revealing all manner of things we'd suspected ("Bush eats his own boogers") but never known for fact. Scottie's position, in effect, is that everybody lied to him so that he would pass on propaganda to the American people, and this disillusioned him, and now he is telling the truth. So let me get this straight:

1. Everybody gave Pinata Scottie false information.
2. We should believe him now because he was an insider.

Am I the only one who has a problem with this logic?

A new comic! Told you it'd be irregular!

2008-05-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

An uncle's lament

2008-05-21T13:02:00.000-07:00

Last week, a "for rent" sign popped up on the lawn of the house next door.

This didn't really surprise me, but it disappointed me. The family that had been living there was not friendly: they had moved into the house, it seemed, on the strength of one month's rent plus one month's deposit, and left as soon as that was used up. That possibility was something I just didn't take into consideration, though, and I tried to be friendly to them. Waved, said "hello," and so on. I didn't get much response. But after a bit, the one boy who lived there responded to me. He told me his given name, which I forget, and some other name, which I also forget, but he told me that everyone called him "Pank." When I mispronounced it "Pink," he corrected me. It was "Pank."

There started a two-week friendship that had potential to be much more. He was a good kid. Talked about his little brother (three or so years younger) a lot, talked about the things happening with his mom and her boyfriend, talked about his grandma, but mostly he talked about the things he found fun. For instance, his bicycle--a small child's plastic toy. He asked me if I could fix its broken wheel, and I did. Same for his little brother's bike. He asked me what I was doing in the yard, and I told him in ways he could understand. We marveled together at the carpenter bees swarming around my redbud tree. He asked me how to move the sticks in the yard. He showed me how fast he could navigate his bike around them. And as he warmed up, he began to show the pure joy of having someone older to talk to, of having an uncle who would listen to him. He wanted to borrow the wagon (previously used by my nephew and niece, Jeffy and Rachel) sitting in my yard, and I gave him the plastic dinosaur toys inside. This thrilled him, and for the next few days he was going up and down th sidewalk in the wagon, playing with his little friend DJ, taking his brother for rides.

Then, one morning, the wagon was sitting in the front yard abandoned, a skateboard (whose?) in it. The house next door was quiet. As I went outside for the mail, I looked anxiously over. I listened for the sound of young voices. I waited for running feet on the sidewalk. Then, the sign appeared. "For Rent," followed by a phone number. They had gone.

Ahead, it seems, of any obligations, of any entanglements that might involve getting credit reports attached to their names. They lived in one house as long as they could and moved on. No wonder they had no intention of knowing their neighbors. But there was a good boy there, and his nickname was "Pank." He had a good heart, he was fun, and he was eager to meet people friendly to him. For a very short time, I was there as I was for my sisters' children, an uncle who saw a child with needs and stepped in to fill a gap. I hope he remembers me when he grows up. Failing that, I hope that the kindness I showed him gives him a little softness, a little compassion, in the edge his life will have. I hope that couple of weeks made a difference.

Me, I'm sad. So much potential, gone like a flame in the wind. But I hope that for a breath of his life, I made a difference. Sometimes, I think that's all we've got.

A great day slipped in amongst a chilly day

2008-05-21T12:29:00.001-07:00

Ahhh, just a short note. There are no significant advances in the garden, no ribs planned, nothing like that. But it's unexpectedly chilly today--it's just 52 where the high was supposed to be 62, still low for this time of year--and I am out in my yard. Now, I am siting in full sun wearing a dark blue hoodie, and this matters...because I am all toasty-warm while breathing in clear, chill air and soaking in the green of leaves all around me. It's almost a dream, really, because this is exactly what I love...well, just below a flourishing garden full of tomatoes and peppers, of course.

The school year is winding down. Finals are tomorrow and Friday, then comes a pointless last-day on Tuesday. I have no idea if there'll even be work the next three school days. But for now, everything is fine.

Disappointment

2008-05-18T15:58:00.000-07:00

...that I can only plant so much. :)

Today I finished up my planting, pretty much. There are two or three
more spots where I can put starts, since the ones I put out there
failed, but otherwise all my tomatoes and peppers are out. I have a
bean tower up and a ring of Blue Lake green beans planted, as well as
five hills of cukes and a couple more hills of patty-pan squash. Also,
one more hill of Amish muskmelon, though it may be too shaded to
produce. Put out some basil in the row-ends that I had available,
using leftover seeds from last year (still on the stalk). Also planted
my small patch of Fernleaf Fiddleneck, a bee-attracting annual.

Dangit! To ($*(*#*!!! with fibro! I want to get out and plant more,
but I only have so much property! I want to plant brassicas, and
jalapenos, and pumpkins, and watermelons, and Hutterite soup beans,
and lima beans, and paste tomatoes, and...and...and... But I only have
a small part of a quarter-acre!

If anyone can ever bottle the joy of gardening, I'll invest. :)

An Obama Landslide?

2008-05-18T15:22:00.000-07:00

Here's one of the indications why:

Daily Kos

Essentially, when the REPUBLICANS think John McCain is a few Legos short of a "Space Shuttle Set," and when they think Barack Obama is "brilliant," you know you've got a winner.

I love being in a good mood

2008-05-18T14:33:00.000-07:00

Here's why, in short:

* Barbecued ribs yesterday. The leftovers are still excellent. I am close to developing a style and flavor I consider my own.

* Gardened all weekend. Everything is planted. Actually, someone on one of my Yahoo gardening groups is promising me her leftover starts, and I have room for maybe, uh, two or three of them. But there's tomatoes, peppers, patty-pan squash, green beans, cucumbers, radishes, potatoes, and some herbs. I overcame fibromyalgia to put in raised beds...YES!!! Now comes the fun part: watching them grow, and doing the little bitty things to help them. Tinker, tinker, tinker.

* The Sox beat San Francisco two games in a row, and right now are ahead 4-2 in the top of the 6th. And Mark Buehrle hit a fabulous single yesterday--I mean, a really great single that came close to being a double. Reminded me of the day I saw Milt Pappas hit a home run about thirty-five years ago.

* Am reliving my "If I Ran the Zoo" fantasies...regarding my own retail store. More as it becomes more possible. (Someone want to lend me a few thousand bux?)

* Obama is succeeding despite the Fright Wing Noise Machine's efforts to turn him into some sort of 1968 Black Panther Muslim America-hating hysterical radical.

* The MSM (main stream media) may actually be paying some sort of cursory attention to John McCain's flip-flops, lies, diversions, attacks, and unsavory connections. (Pastor Hagee, anyone?)

* My cat did not take the momentary opportunity to escape the house and get out into the Big Wide World.

* I've allowed myself a little beer. A little. For today.

*Hockey playoffs are over. I think. Are they? Did they start?

Things are just generally going well. How's that for a post?

UPDATE: Sox 13, Giants 8. Three-game sweep on the West Coast. I want a double-header! LET'S PLAY TWO!

Garden stuff

2008-05-16T20:14:00.001-07:00

The respite from fibromyalgia goes on! After work, I felt good enough to finally do some of my planting. I know some of you plant by the cycles of the moon, but I plant by the cycles of my job, if it's not raining, and when I feel good. As They Might Be Giants sang in their song "Triangle Man," "When they meet it's a happy land!"

So the front is planted. Thanks to the seed savers for borage, cilantro, basil, rosemary, thyme, and marjoram! Mixed some Starbuck's grounds in with the soil, raked it out, sowed, and watered. Even felt good enough to do the part way in the back close to my fence, where I put in a butterfly mix, dill, and summer savory. (The dill will be interesting. I had some dill seed I got from an organic spice dealer MANY years ago...I'm talking, well before there was an Internet! I never used it, but I had so much that if one seed out of a hundred germinated, I'll have a decent patch. I also put in some seed from 1999 and fresh from this year. It'll be fun to see what I get.)

Also the Yukon Gold taters are FINALLY coming up in my tire gardens...the peas, radishes, and spinach seem to have stalled (too much mulch, not enough compost is my thought)...and the store-bought taters are continuing to work their way upward. I stopped adding dirt to the ones in the trash bin, but I'll still add some to the ones in the one tire patch. Oh yeah--and took the pop-bottle cloches off tonight, since the tomatoes inside were cramped and threatening to grow out of the spout. Oops. :)

It's still a little chaotic, but it's looking good. Crossing my fingers, tomorrow will see me put up the raised beds, my bean tower, and plant my cukes and patty-pan squash. And more basil. :) Oh yeah--and BBQ ribs tomorrow, too. Damn, I have got to get me some beer!

Dep

I actually wanted...

2008-05-15T17:37:00.000-07:00

I was going to ramble about a few things, but I am too tired to think. Would've covered: Bush as a douche for his "appeaser" comments, McCain doubly so for repeating it AND naming Neville Chamberlain, gardening a little because the fibromyalgia subsided for a couple of days, the Democratic victory in Mississippi against a GOPer using Obama as a weapon (Daily Kos) presaging an Obama win in November, John Edwards being a stand-up guy and having the prettiest hair I've ever seen on a man, Bush as a douche for lying about quitting golf (after saying he gave it up as his big sacrifice for the war), maybe some thoughts on the revelation that Einstein called religion a "childish superstition," and kudos to Chris "Tweety" Matthews for ripping apart that know-nothing right-wing radio talk show host on his show, but I'm pretty beat.

Days like this, frozen pizza rocks.

Ramblin' guy

2008-05-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

This week's comic:

Political OCD

2008-05-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

One of the indicators of the obsessive-compulsive personality is all-or-nothing fixations. This is something I was told years ago, and I know this well because I am obsessive/compulsive in a lot of things: food and beer for instance. We become either all for something or all against it; we love something or hate it irrationally; we either do the whole job or nothing at all. As a for-instance, some years ago I was athletic, rode my bike almost 20 miles a day, and obsessively trained to become the best cyclist in the world. Of course, my knowledge was well short of my vision, and one day it became clear just how wide the gulf was between my daydreams and my capabilities. From that day on, cycling was ruined for me. If I couldn't eventually become the best in the world, I wouldn't do it at all.

As we head into the 2008 elections, I see a lot of this happening on both the Democratic and Republican sides, more so with the Dems. On the GOP side, they already seem to be getting over it. There was the initial surge of "If it's McCain, we won't vote at all" or "If it's McCain, we're voting Hillary." But as expected, the reality of the political landscape is hitting the GOP voters and the likelihood of a Democratic presidency is corralling them into lockstep again. Make no mistake, by November every GOP voter will be voting McCain.

But on the Dem side, I don't know what we'll get. There's a particularly rabid support for Hillary that I find disturbing. Here's a link to an article about whether Obama will choose Hillary for his VP: New York Observer More than the article, read the comments. Are some of them astroturfers or Flush Rimjob's "Operation Chaos" flunkies? I don't know, but if they are genuine, the vitriol coming from some Hillary supporters is really frightening. If Obama doesn't choose Hillary, they'll vote for McCain? Are they insane? Everything that Hillary supposedly stands for--such as universal health care and abortion rights--are things McCain is resolutely opposed to. But they've taken the position that if they don't get their way, they'll sabotage the election.

In what way is that a rational response? It reminds me more than a little of the Apple fanbois who post MacDailyNews, among other sites. No one can say anything negative about the object of their obsession lest they be condemned. And frighteningly enough, it reminds me of the rabid Bushies who cannot tolerate even the slightest criticism of the right wing. Now, since I've admitted to being OCD myself, I will admit: if she somehow becomes the nominee, I won't vote for Hillary. This is because I simply cannot believe she would make a good president. I don't think she would. She is too divisive, too self-interested, and contradictorily too dependent on public opinion to truly lead. But does that mean I would vote for McCain? Not on your life. I couldn't imagine a realistic scenario where McCain would get my vote. I'll vote Green, or some other third party, but I can't vote for Hillary or McCain. I can't vote for another unitary executive.

But that doesn't mean I want to punish the Democratic Party for not nominating Obama to the point of voting for the enemy. That's irrational. The hatred from some Clintonistas toward Obama is almost savage, and it's rooted in the Clinton arrogance that they were owed this election, that Obama has taken away their divine right. It's a righteous rage of the sort we saw from the GOP when Bill Clinton was elected. They were enraged, offended, indignant that anyone would take away their God-given right to run the country as they saw fit, voters be damned, and the Clintonistas are too. They're cloaking it in feminist terms--a vote against Hillary is a vote for misogyny--but for those rabid supporters, there's something deeper. It's as if it's a blow against their identity. By removing the object of their affection, the voters are hurting them personally.

This political OCD-ness has been ruling the political land for the last 16 years and we need to get away from it. My support for my candidate does not mean America should be punished if he does not get elected. My patriotism is not wrapped up in one person. If the person I dislike most gets elected, I will still support my country and hope for the best. I want America to do well. When Obama gets the nomination--which is about as certain as such a thing can be now--I hope Hillary's supporters can abandon their irrational hatred of the man and vote for the best course for this country, not for a scorched earth.

First in an unevenly contributed series!

2008-05-07T19:36:00.001-07:00

First Blog Entry...just rambles

2008-05-07T15:23:00.000-07:00

I hate introductory posts. They always sound too much like a sales pitch. I'll just start and, if you read enough of these, you'll learn what you need to.

A weirdness in the Hoosier State: Ron Paul signs. I have NO idea why the Paulies are still promoting this guy. By that I mean that they were, as of Tuesday at least, *still* putting up new signs for this guy. I don't know if he was even on the ballot in yesterday's primary, but I saw a great big Paul sign on the way to Chicago yesterday. (It covered up the "US out of the UN" sign that's normally there.) My nephew told me he saw one on his way to work last night that wasn't there the day before. What is it about Paulies? Don't they have a clue that his horse was dead before the Republican race even started?

Ron Paul. Because 519 crazy Libertarian types can't be wrong.

I'm really psyched about how well Barack Obama did in yesterday's primary here in the Hoosier State. He lost? Au frere, mai contraire! Indiana is probably the hickest state north of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Pecos. Up here, our people ain't too fond of the coloreds. And still they came out in the hundreds of thousands to support the first African-American man running for President! Indiana might, just MIGHT, even go blue in November. Think about THAT. The last Dem this state went for was Lyndon Johnson, and he was a Texan, after all.

It says great big long Chris Matthews-sized rants about how much a uniter Obama is. If he can pull together enough voters in Indiana to essentially break even in the primary, he's got the Big Mo. I've wanted him to be President ever since I cast a vote for him back when I lived in the North Suburbs, and he's fulfilling everyones dreams about him.

Plus he stopped smoking. Now he is...COMPLETE.

It hasn't been a good week for the garden. Let me tell you: fibromyalgia SUCKS. I don't care how many doctors doubt its existence, I have one who confirmed that I have it and I can tell you that it sucks mightily. I've been fending off attacks the last week that have virtually incapacitated me. Saturday and Sunday were going to be my days to till the garden, but I could hardly lift my arms without shaking. Same with Monday. Then last night I got walloped with the worst one yet. They come out of nowhere, start with a little pain and weakness in the lower back of my shoulders, then spread out to where I am shaking, sweating, and hardly able to move. Totally unpredictable. It's as if I am running a marathon and hit "the wall" by just picking up the garden hose or walking outside.

It's always worse in summer, too. Whee!

You know, that's enough for a first blog. Maybe in the future they'll be more focused. I kind of doubt it. We'll see.

Dep