Saturday, May 12, 2012
Just watch this...
As I'm sure you know I used to be a teacher, and now I work for a Home Health Care agency. I see every day people dealing with circumstances out of their control. I've been a liberal all my life, but seeing the actual consequences of what today's GOP really wants, really thinks is good public policy has actually made me more liberal. How is it that people who rail on about the sacredness of marriage and the family, and how much they love babies, don't seem to care about families or babies that are poor? Aren't they citizens and human beings too, Paul Ryan?
Just watch this.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
It Was A Beautiful, Sunny September Day...
I'm up early this Sunday morning because I haven't been to sleep. As with the nights before the anniversaries of my parents' deaths, I don't sleep then either. I couldn't sleep the night before any of these awful days a decade ago.
I truly hate the wallowing that goes on every year in the media-did they really think anyone has forgotten? Especially people who live here in New York? I began spontaneously posting on Facebook. As much as I avoid talking about it, this is my generation's Pearl Harbor, Kennedy assassination-the day that hits you so hard you carry it in excruciating detail for the rest of your life.
I lived in Hoboken 10 years ago...my cat smelled the smoke and evacuated himself, jumping over the balcony and forcing me to chase him in my pajamas all the way up Washington St. He had been heading for the river. When I caught him by the PATH...we saw we had been heading the wrong way. We came from the Jersey suburbs with lots of woods. He had been put out by some heartless previous owner as a kitten and has lived semi-wild. So he knew to run if he smelled smoke.
Rocky was my late mother's cat, so I inherited him when she died that past January, I had sold the house, and we moved to a far too large apartment in a city filled with young people. Being both depressed and overwhelmed, the place was still half-filled with boxes in September, though I had moved in July first.
I had managed to doze off sometime around seven, I was totally alone for the first time in my life and often didn't rest well. The commotion my cat was making woke me. He was running in and out of the rooms crying, wailing. He came up to the bed and slapped my leg-clawed me. I noticed a strange smell coming in the ajar door to my patio. (The patio opened into the master bedroom-yes weird design, I know.) Rocky pushed the door, meowing at me to follow. When I got out there, he went to the rail and dove off. He made me chase him across half the town in my pajamas as he made his way to the river up the main street: Washington.
After I finally caught my terrified cat, I stood in the small park watching the towers burn, and the giant cloud of smoke drifting in the direction of Hoboken. I am normally good in a crisis, but I was frozen as were all those around me. People were sobbing, and breathlessly asking what had happened. No one believed the people who said it was a plane crash, I'm still unsure why. I don't know how long I stood there in shock either. When he began biting me and wrapped his body around my arm, I woke up. The smoke cloud was expanding and making its' way toward New Jersey. I ran all the way back home, shut all the doors and windows, and turned on the television. I still hadn't put Rocky down, he had climbed to my shoulders and dug his claws in my shirt. I was wearing a cat, who kept making strange crying sounds in my ear.
It was on every channel. The fire was so much worse now, then one of the Twin Towers collapsed. I called my cousin, Elaine, who said she hadn't felt this threatened and shocked since she was young listening to the attack on Pearl Harbor. We could call each other, but no one could use cell phones, or call New York. My friends in London could reach me, but not family in central Jersey. We couldn't reach my cousin, Christopher. Couldn't reach him for days. He lived in Hoboken too.
My next door neighbor was out on her patio crying. Her husband's best friend since babyhood worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, as did many people in Hoboken, back then. The man's pregnant wife was wailing on the other end of the line, certain he was dead. She was right. I came back in without a word to Marilyn, and stared at my TV again in disbelief. Then I did something, I had done as a child, and again after my mother died, I walked into my closet and closed the door. I didn't come out for a long time.
I remember the anger and confusion, and how distressing it was to be confined to Hoboken for the next few days. We were told not to leave. How every cafe and coffee shop and restaurant was filled because no one wanted to be alone. People were gathering, asking about people, worried about another wave of attacks, some talking about moving away. I recall the camaraderie and patriotism of those days, survivors supporting each other and mourning the dead. I remember every day there being a funeral, and the processions walking down the center of Washington St. becoming a parade, for everyone in the mile square city had become the deceased's neighbor and friend.
I certainly won't forget.
I truly hate the wallowing that goes on every year in the media-did they really think anyone has forgotten? Especially people who live here in New York? I began spontaneously posting on Facebook. As much as I avoid talking about it, this is my generation's Pearl Harbor, Kennedy assassination-the day that hits you so hard you carry it in excruciating detail for the rest of your life.
I lived in Hoboken 10 years ago...my cat smelled the smoke and evacuated himself, jumping over the balcony and forcing me to chase him in my pajamas all the way up Washington St. He had been heading for the river. When I caught him by the PATH...we saw we had been heading the wrong way. We came from the Jersey suburbs with lots of woods. He had been put out by some heartless previous owner as a kitten and has lived semi-wild. So he knew to run if he smelled smoke.
Rocky was my late mother's cat, so I inherited him when she died that past January, I had sold the house, and we moved to a far too large apartment in a city filled with young people. Being both depressed and overwhelmed, the place was still half-filled with boxes in September, though I had moved in July first.
I had managed to doze off sometime around seven, I was totally alone for the first time in my life and often didn't rest well. The commotion my cat was making woke me. He was running in and out of the rooms crying, wailing. He came up to the bed and slapped my leg-clawed me. I noticed a strange smell coming in the ajar door to my patio. (The patio opened into the master bedroom-yes weird design, I know.) Rocky pushed the door, meowing at me to follow. When I got out there, he went to the rail and dove off. He made me chase him across half the town in my pajamas as he made his way to the river up the main street: Washington.
After I finally caught my terrified cat, I stood in the small park watching the towers burn, and the giant cloud of smoke drifting in the direction of Hoboken. I am normally good in a crisis, but I was frozen as were all those around me. People were sobbing, and breathlessly asking what had happened. No one believed the people who said it was a plane crash, I'm still unsure why. I don't know how long I stood there in shock either. When he began biting me and wrapped his body around my arm, I woke up. The smoke cloud was expanding and making its' way toward New Jersey. I ran all the way back home, shut all the doors and windows, and turned on the television. I still hadn't put Rocky down, he had climbed to my shoulders and dug his claws in my shirt. I was wearing a cat, who kept making strange crying sounds in my ear.
It was on every channel. The fire was so much worse now, then one of the Twin Towers collapsed. I called my cousin, Elaine, who said she hadn't felt this threatened and shocked since she was young listening to the attack on Pearl Harbor. We could call each other, but no one could use cell phones, or call New York. My friends in London could reach me, but not family in central Jersey. We couldn't reach my cousin, Christopher. Couldn't reach him for days. He lived in Hoboken too.
My next door neighbor was out on her patio crying. Her husband's best friend since babyhood worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, as did many people in Hoboken, back then. The man's pregnant wife was wailing on the other end of the line, certain he was dead. She was right. I came back in without a word to Marilyn, and stared at my TV again in disbelief. Then I did something, I had done as a child, and again after my mother died, I walked into my closet and closed the door. I didn't come out for a long time.
I remember the anger and confusion, and how distressing it was to be confined to Hoboken for the next few days. We were told not to leave. How every cafe and coffee shop and restaurant was filled because no one wanted to be alone. People were gathering, asking about people, worried about another wave of attacks, some talking about moving away. I recall the camaraderie and patriotism of those days, survivors supporting each other and mourning the dead. I remember every day there being a funeral, and the processions walking down the center of Washington St. becoming a parade, for everyone in the mile square city had become the deceased's neighbor and friend.
I certainly won't forget.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Wisewomen, Witches, Midwives, and The Age of Ignorance , Part II
I began to write a follow-up to this post from last February about myths concerning men's reproductive health quite a while ago, but couldn't really find much besides vasectomy, tightness of underwear, and penis size. Next to the constant discussion of women's fertility, there is a relative silence on men's role in making babies. One can almost hear crickets.
Think about this: many of the attitudes regarding male reproduction seem to date back to Henry VII, historically, a rather low point for women's rights, and for medicine in Europe. What I mean by this is, in fertility issues, always assume it's the woman, not the off with her head part. Mothers are always to blame. With Henry, and with today's anti-women forces, women are always the problem.
There clearly was something genetically wrong with Henry Tudor. Though outwardly, he seemed healthy, and was quite athletic in his youth, many years before what appears to have been type II Diabetes and gout set in, and he became the morbidly obese glutton we have seen in so many films, he was in reality, a ticking time bomb.
Henry had six siblings, yet only three survived childhood. His older brother Arthur, died at fifteen, only six months after marrying Catherine of Aragon. Six months, that produced no pregnancies, and according to Catherine, was because the prince had been unable to consummate the marriage. A fifteen year old boy who could not get an erection? Only Henry's two sisters, Margaret and Mary lived to be adults, and had children that both grew up and produced children.
Henry himself had sex with quite a few women, as we all know, though, obviously not as many as in the series The Tudors, or he would have spent zero time actually ruling his kingdom, but I digress. With his first wife, Arthur's widow, Catherine, Henry had five children, but only Mary I lived past infancy. When she grew to adulthood, Mary never had more than a phantom pregnancy, and was mysteriously weak, and ill for some years, withering and dying at only forty-two. Anne Boleyn had four miscarriages, and two stillbirths, all of male children. Only her girl child, Elizabeth I lived.
Elizabeth was not really the Virgin Queen she pretended to be, (I give little credence to the bestiality with her horses stories, people were as mean-spirited then as they are today) for diplomatic reasons, though it was likely she was sterilized by her teenage bout of smallpox. (Smallpox was the reason for her big red wigs and pale, pale makeup too.) So if Elizabeth was fertile we'll never know, though she did manage to outlive most of her Tudor relatives, dying at sixty-nine years old. Jane Seymour's only child, Edward VI did not live to adulthood either. Edward died at only fifteen of lung disease and kidney failure, after a long decline that even the doctors of the day knew was ending in death.
No children, or pregnancies at all, with his final three wives. One was unconsummated, one was with a presumable healthy teenage girl, and last wife, Catherine Parr, had a child with the man she married six months after Henry's death.
The officially recognized bastard, with Elizabeth Blount, Henry Fitzroy, like his uncle Arthur, Prince of Wales, and his half brother, Edward VI of England died as a teenager, only seventeen years old. He also had a marriage that even before his illness visibly set in, he was unable to consummate. Again, a teenage boy who could not get an erection?
Even in those days, when the vast majority of the medical knowledge of the Classical World had been forgotten, or lost, and the ancient wisdom of the wisewomen, witches and midwives ignored by frightened, and bigoted male doctors, somebody still should have thought there were some really strange coincidences occurring here. One man, so many women, and so few healthy babies. A whole family, a royal family, with the best of everything, yet they couldn't reproduce, and died tragically young, and painfully. Royal physicians did have medical records on the Tudors, which is why we know all I've recounted.
The science of the time was promoting a version of Preformationism, in short, a form of the Homuniculus theory of heredity, that claimed that either the sperm, or egg held a miniature complete human being inside it. Pregnancy was just the magical way it transformed into a baby. There was disagreement on whether it was the sperm, or the egg that contained the mini-person. The Spermists concept was what seems more popular since it made a woman little more an an incubator for a man's child.
Such reproductive chauvinism would be a perfect excuse for writing laws that mimicked those of early Rome. Tudor England's-and honesty, most of Europe's laws were more oppressive than the Manus laws.
The Manus form of marriage was one where the woman went from being her father's daughter to her husband's. She was in manum viri-under her husband's authority. Then later there was coemptio, where a woman was literally sold by her father to her husband. Though this was for the Patricians not the Plebeians. Plebeian wives just had to live away from the husband for three days and nights and were after this able to remain part of their own families and retain their property rights. Plebeians had no money, so they were not citizens, and their marriages were not legal anyway at this time. They could live together, but not legally marry.
Now while, yes, a Roman matron had lots of freedom compared to a Tudor housewife, a Victorian one, or shamefully, even to an American woman in the early twentieth century-remember, we only got the vote in 1920-Rome set the precedent for male domination in reproductive matters codified by law. Matrimonium was a deal to produce children, and pass on property. Patria Potestas made a child male, or female subject to the father for as long as that father lived. The laws of The Twelve Tables that legally made a man head of household, also gave a father life and death over his family, were rarely applied. It was considered bad form to expose an infant, unless he or she was really horribly deformed. Though it was his right to kill any infant-to fail to accept it, for a child was yet another possession of the man. A paterfamilias essentially was the king of his own little castle.
While Roman Law gave us some rather useful things like birth registration, divorce laws, voting, the laws were clear in stating the importance of all things male. Law is the basis of society, the rule book so to speak for what is acceptable, and as Rome conquered most of Europe, North Africa, the Mideast these cultures grew more and more misogynistic. As the Catholic Church, which originated in Rome grew, so did the whittling away of the rights of women. This new church wasn't really what Jesus sanctioned, rather that of St. Paul, who was most definitely not a fan of women, and completely against women having power over their own lives. Because he was a Roman citizen, and an educated man, Paul set the tone for the new religion, not Jesus' "rock" Simon Peter, a poor, illiterate fisherman.
These conquered cultures had been by and large much more willing to allow women a place in their societies other than as babymakers. Most of these cultures had their own herbalist, naturopathic healing traditions that were often female-dominated. And most likely what knowledge was passed down was the remains of their aboriginal cultures. Many were something the English called Cunning Folk. Useful witches. They might drive out evil spirits, tell a fortune. Perhaps have some herbal remedy that worked better than bleeding someone, know what grasses to feed a sick sheep. Henry VIII hated these people, and made something as innocent as locating treasure or casting love spells punishable by death. So even though Henry was after fortune tellers and gypsies, the wisewomen, midwives, and other practitioners of the old medicines could be seen as falling under this umbrella. Not quite a witchhunt, but close.
As I noted in my previous post, when male doctors actively began to push women out of women's medicine, the mortality rates for both mothers and babies rose. Dramatically. Back then, as now, men in power made fear-based attacks on women's rights and healthcare options. Why did the medical and scientific establishment endorse such things as the Spermist theory, stripping midwives of the right to practice, and making abortion a crime, and not simply a private issue with the wisewoman or doctor? Why were birth-control methods that were known to the Ancient Egyptians illegal to discuss by the nineteenth century? Why was divorce, which was common and easy to obtain in Ancient Rome extraordinarily hard to obtain for a good half of the 20th century?
Two words. Power and money.
Why is it that at the same time that there is a chipping away of abortion access, and birth-control options, there is also a great deal of misinformation about fertility? Convincing women over 40 that they are nearly incapable of having a baby without medical intervention has resulted in the highest accidental pregnancy rate after teens will mean what? Giving teens and poor women less access to reproductive care and birth control mean what? These War On Woman restrictions, and attacks on institutions like Planned Parenthood mean what? The endgame for the Republican extremists is this: forcing woman back in to so called traditional roles and reversing the second half of the 20th century. Giving older women babies they don't expect and can't afford alone might reduce divorce rates. Young women scared they might not be able to have a baby might marry younger, and have babies younger, curtailing career ambitions. More unplanned for babies, mean more women making hard choices.
As for the money part of it...these treatments are rather expensive and when surveyed only 41% of American companies offer insurance that pays for the drugs. Most do not cover in-vitro fertilization. The experts recommend a couple come in early, so they can do extensive tests and start giving the woman drugs. All of those drugs mentioned in that article are for the woman. Like Henry VIII thought, it's gotta be the woman's fault.
Social conservatives get to set fertile women's lives back using misinformation and political dirty tricks. The industry that is fertility medicine gets to clean up on the infertile ones, or the ones who fear they are infertile. Motherhood is a wonderful thing, but being tricked into it, is not. Nor is having the truth about one's actual chances to have a baby kept from one fair. These lawmakers and interest groups are almost modern day Henry VIIs taking their personal ignorance and bias and imposing it on others. The world would have been quite different if Henry Tudor understood that switching wives every few years wasn't going to make him the father of a healthy son.
Think about this: many of the attitudes regarding male reproduction seem to date back to Henry VII, historically, a rather low point for women's rights, and for medicine in Europe. What I mean by this is, in fertility issues, always assume it's the woman, not the off with her head part. Mothers are always to blame. With Henry, and with today's anti-women forces, women are always the problem.
There clearly was something genetically wrong with Henry Tudor. Though outwardly, he seemed healthy, and was quite athletic in his youth, many years before what appears to have been type II Diabetes and gout set in, and he became the morbidly obese glutton we have seen in so many films, he was in reality, a ticking time bomb.
Henry had six siblings, yet only three survived childhood. His older brother Arthur, died at fifteen, only six months after marrying Catherine of Aragon. Six months, that produced no pregnancies, and according to Catherine, was because the prince had been unable to consummate the marriage. A fifteen year old boy who could not get an erection? Only Henry's two sisters, Margaret and Mary lived to be adults, and had children that both grew up and produced children.
Henry himself had sex with quite a few women, as we all know, though, obviously not as many as in the series The Tudors, or he would have spent zero time actually ruling his kingdom, but I digress. With his first wife, Arthur's widow, Catherine, Henry had five children, but only Mary I lived past infancy. When she grew to adulthood, Mary never had more than a phantom pregnancy, and was mysteriously weak, and ill for some years, withering and dying at only forty-two. Anne Boleyn had four miscarriages, and two stillbirths, all of male children. Only her girl child, Elizabeth I lived.
Elizabeth was not really the Virgin Queen she pretended to be, (I give little credence to the bestiality with her horses stories, people were as mean-spirited then as they are today) for diplomatic reasons, though it was likely she was sterilized by her teenage bout of smallpox. (Smallpox was the reason for her big red wigs and pale, pale makeup too.) So if Elizabeth was fertile we'll never know, though she did manage to outlive most of her Tudor relatives, dying at sixty-nine years old. Jane Seymour's only child, Edward VI did not live to adulthood either. Edward died at only fifteen of lung disease and kidney failure, after a long decline that even the doctors of the day knew was ending in death.
No children, or pregnancies at all, with his final three wives. One was unconsummated, one was with a presumable healthy teenage girl, and last wife, Catherine Parr, had a child with the man she married six months after Henry's death.
The officially recognized bastard, with Elizabeth Blount, Henry Fitzroy, like his uncle Arthur, Prince of Wales, and his half brother, Edward VI of England died as a teenager, only seventeen years old. He also had a marriage that even before his illness visibly set in, he was unable to consummate. Again, a teenage boy who could not get an erection?
Even in those days, when the vast majority of the medical knowledge of the Classical World had been forgotten, or lost, and the ancient wisdom of the wisewomen, witches and midwives ignored by frightened, and bigoted male doctors, somebody still should have thought there were some really strange coincidences occurring here. One man, so many women, and so few healthy babies. A whole family, a royal family, with the best of everything, yet they couldn't reproduce, and died tragically young, and painfully. Royal physicians did have medical records on the Tudors, which is why we know all I've recounted.
The science of the time was promoting a version of Preformationism, in short, a form of the Homuniculus theory of heredity, that claimed that either the sperm, or egg held a miniature complete human being inside it. Pregnancy was just the magical way it transformed into a baby. There was disagreement on whether it was the sperm, or the egg that contained the mini-person. The Spermists concept was what seems more popular since it made a woman little more an an incubator for a man's child.
Such reproductive chauvinism would be a perfect excuse for writing laws that mimicked those of early Rome. Tudor England's-and honesty, most of Europe's laws were more oppressive than the Manus laws.
The Manus form of marriage was one where the woman went from being her father's daughter to her husband's. She was in manum viri-under her husband's authority. Then later there was coemptio, where a woman was literally sold by her father to her husband. Though this was for the Patricians not the Plebeians. Plebeian wives just had to live away from the husband for three days and nights and were after this able to remain part of their own families and retain their property rights. Plebeians had no money, so they were not citizens, and their marriages were not legal anyway at this time. They could live together, but not legally marry.
Now while, yes, a Roman matron had lots of freedom compared to a Tudor housewife, a Victorian one, or shamefully, even to an American woman in the early twentieth century-remember, we only got the vote in 1920-Rome set the precedent for male domination in reproductive matters codified by law. Matrimonium was a deal to produce children, and pass on property. Patria Potestas made a child male, or female subject to the father for as long as that father lived. The laws of The Twelve Tables that legally made a man head of household, also gave a father life and death over his family, were rarely applied. It was considered bad form to expose an infant, unless he or she was really horribly deformed. Though it was his right to kill any infant-to fail to accept it, for a child was yet another possession of the man. A paterfamilias essentially was the king of his own little castle.
While Roman Law gave us some rather useful things like birth registration, divorce laws, voting, the laws were clear in stating the importance of all things male. Law is the basis of society, the rule book so to speak for what is acceptable, and as Rome conquered most of Europe, North Africa, the Mideast these cultures grew more and more misogynistic. As the Catholic Church, which originated in Rome grew, so did the whittling away of the rights of women. This new church wasn't really what Jesus sanctioned, rather that of St. Paul, who was most definitely not a fan of women, and completely against women having power over their own lives. Because he was a Roman citizen, and an educated man, Paul set the tone for the new religion, not Jesus' "rock" Simon Peter, a poor, illiterate fisherman.
These conquered cultures had been by and large much more willing to allow women a place in their societies other than as babymakers. Most of these cultures had their own herbalist, naturopathic healing traditions that were often female-dominated. And most likely what knowledge was passed down was the remains of their aboriginal cultures. Many were something the English called Cunning Folk. Useful witches. They might drive out evil spirits, tell a fortune. Perhaps have some herbal remedy that worked better than bleeding someone, know what grasses to feed a sick sheep. Henry VIII hated these people, and made something as innocent as locating treasure or casting love spells punishable by death. So even though Henry was after fortune tellers and gypsies, the wisewomen, midwives, and other practitioners of the old medicines could be seen as falling under this umbrella. Not quite a witchhunt, but close.
As I noted in my previous post, when male doctors actively began to push women out of women's medicine, the mortality rates for both mothers and babies rose. Dramatically. Back then, as now, men in power made fear-based attacks on women's rights and healthcare options. Why did the medical and scientific establishment endorse such things as the Spermist theory, stripping midwives of the right to practice, and making abortion a crime, and not simply a private issue with the wisewoman or doctor? Why were birth-control methods that were known to the Ancient Egyptians illegal to discuss by the nineteenth century? Why was divorce, which was common and easy to obtain in Ancient Rome extraordinarily hard to obtain for a good half of the 20th century?
Two words. Power and money.
Why is it that at the same time that there is a chipping away of abortion access, and birth-control options, there is also a great deal of misinformation about fertility? Convincing women over 40 that they are nearly incapable of having a baby without medical intervention has resulted in the highest accidental pregnancy rate after teens will mean what? Giving teens and poor women less access to reproductive care and birth control mean what? These War On Woman restrictions, and attacks on institutions like Planned Parenthood mean what? The endgame for the Republican extremists is this: forcing woman back in to so called traditional roles and reversing the second half of the 20th century. Giving older women babies they don't expect and can't afford alone might reduce divorce rates. Young women scared they might not be able to have a baby might marry younger, and have babies younger, curtailing career ambitions. More unplanned for babies, mean more women making hard choices.
As for the money part of it...these treatments are rather expensive and when surveyed only 41% of American companies offer insurance that pays for the drugs. Most do not cover in-vitro fertilization. The experts recommend a couple come in early, so they can do extensive tests and start giving the woman drugs. All of those drugs mentioned in that article are for the woman. Like Henry VIII thought, it's gotta be the woman's fault.
Social conservatives get to set fertile women's lives back using misinformation and political dirty tricks. The industry that is fertility medicine gets to clean up on the infertile ones, or the ones who fear they are infertile. Motherhood is a wonderful thing, but being tricked into it, is not. Nor is having the truth about one's actual chances to have a baby kept from one fair. These lawmakers and interest groups are almost modern day Henry VIIs taking their personal ignorance and bias and imposing it on others. The world would have been quite different if Henry Tudor understood that switching wives every few years wasn't going to make him the father of a healthy son.
Monday, August 30, 2010
People Not Worth The Price Of The Gunpowder Needed To Blow Them To Hell Aug 10 Edition
August of 2010 has been a month to remember, for all the wrong reasons. Hmmm...do I begin with least offensive or most offensive? So hard, they are all so very, very offensive. I can't decide, so they will simply be as they come to me.
1. Morrissey: What the Hell? Everyone agrees that Chinese law allows horrible abuse of animals, he's got a point, but to then suddenly draw this Nazi-like conclusion that the Chinese are some sort of subspecies of human because of this?
Morrissey, you are a racist dumbass. These sort of hyperbolic, nasty remarks set your cause back. People instinctively run away from even good causes when they are championed by kooks.
Oh, and Morrissey, as the son of Irish Catholic immigrants to England, you should be doubly ashamed.
"They use their fields mostly for pasture. Little is cultivated and even less is sown. The problem here is not the quality of the soil but rather the lack of industry on the part of those who should cultivate it. This laziness means that the different types of minerals with which hidden veins of the earth are full are neither mined nor exploited in any way. They do not devote themselves to the manufacture of flax or wool, nor to the practice of any mechanical or mercantile act. Dedicated only to leisure and laziness, this is a truly barbarous people. They depend on their livelihood for animals and they live like animals."
Written by Gerard Of Wales, a chronicler who visited Ireland with Prince John. You know, Richard the Lionheart's brother who became king in 1199? The English have had some kind of theory about YOUR people's genetic inferiority for a very, very long time.
2. Glenn Beck: You are not oppressed. You are not Martin Luther King. What you are doing is your damnedest to fleece your audience of the ignorant, the racist, the terrified into a 21st century Beer Hall Putsch. You are a deluded, dishonest, and dangerous man.
3. Pastor Terry Jones: Pastor of the Dove Outreach Church in Florida. Author of Islam Is Of The Devil. Organizer of the Quran burning scheduled for 9/11. Watch him in action while I go throw up.
4. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer: Racial profiling as law. Beheadings in the desert?? Lying about her own father's death? Privatized prisons that hold killers in medium security so they can easily escape?
5. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: There are so many reasons, but the latest, and worst so far is wanting to change the 14th Amendment so children of illegal immigrants are not citizens. And just how would we do this, Mitch? Will you ask for the parents papers as the mother is in the delivery room? What if one parent is legal and one is not? What is the baby then? Would all children someday have to earn their citizenship like in Starship Troopers?
6. All Kentuckians voting for Rand Paul.
7. Sharron Angle.
8. All Nevadans voting for Sharron Angle.
9. Jorhan Van Der Sloot: Not only did he kill a second girl in Peru, he extorted money out of Natalee Holloway's grieving family who hoped he could lead them to her body. He gave them a bogus spot and kept the money.
"I wanted to get back at Natalee's family – her parents have been making my life tough for five years," the paper quoted him as saying from prison in Peru. "When they offered to pay for the girl's location, I thought: 'Why not'?"
10. Those fools driving a missile around Ground Zero in opposition to the Park51 center.
1. Morrissey: What the Hell? Everyone agrees that Chinese law allows horrible abuse of animals, he's got a point, but to then suddenly draw this Nazi-like conclusion that the Chinese are some sort of subspecies of human because of this?
Morrissey, you are a racist dumbass. These sort of hyperbolic, nasty remarks set your cause back. People instinctively run away from even good causes when they are championed by kooks.
Oh, and Morrissey, as the son of Irish Catholic immigrants to England, you should be doubly ashamed.
"They use their fields mostly for pasture. Little is cultivated and even less is sown. The problem here is not the quality of the soil but rather the lack of industry on the part of those who should cultivate it. This laziness means that the different types of minerals with which hidden veins of the earth are full are neither mined nor exploited in any way. They do not devote themselves to the manufacture of flax or wool, nor to the practice of any mechanical or mercantile act. Dedicated only to leisure and laziness, this is a truly barbarous people. They depend on their livelihood for animals and they live like animals."
Written by Gerard Of Wales, a chronicler who visited Ireland with Prince John. You know, Richard the Lionheart's brother who became king in 1199? The English have had some kind of theory about YOUR people's genetic inferiority for a very, very long time.
2. Glenn Beck: You are not oppressed. You are not Martin Luther King. What you are doing is your damnedest to fleece your audience of the ignorant, the racist, the terrified into a 21st century Beer Hall Putsch. You are a deluded, dishonest, and dangerous man.
3. Pastor Terry Jones: Pastor of the Dove Outreach Church in Florida. Author of Islam Is Of The Devil. Organizer of the Quran burning scheduled for 9/11. Watch him in action while I go throw up.
4. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer: Racial profiling as law. Beheadings in the desert?? Lying about her own father's death? Privatized prisons that hold killers in medium security so they can easily escape?
5. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: There are so many reasons, but the latest, and worst so far is wanting to change the 14th Amendment so children of illegal immigrants are not citizens. And just how would we do this, Mitch? Will you ask for the parents papers as the mother is in the delivery room? What if one parent is legal and one is not? What is the baby then? Would all children someday have to earn their citizenship like in Starship Troopers?
6. All Kentuckians voting for Rand Paul.
7. Sharron Angle.
8. All Nevadans voting for Sharron Angle.
9. Jorhan Van Der Sloot: Not only did he kill a second girl in Peru, he extorted money out of Natalee Holloway's grieving family who hoped he could lead them to her body. He gave them a bogus spot and kept the money.
"I wanted to get back at Natalee's family – her parents have been making my life tough for five years," the paper quoted him as saying from prison in Peru. "When they offered to pay for the girl's location, I thought: 'Why not'?"
10. Those fools driving a missile around Ground Zero in opposition to the Park51 center.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Riding Those Dinosaurs
Back when I was a college freshman, I learned something important that was not in my actual curriculum, but a life lesson. This life lesson learned came from watching my fellow students struggle through classes that covered topics I had learned freshman year in high school, and were often discussed at the dinner table in my home. The American Education system is not simply greatly unequal in terms of quality between rich and poor districts, but also influenced, and run by people who haven't the slightest idea of what produces adults who fully comprehend the world they will someday control.
It was glaringly obvious in our World History classes, some people had never had anything other than an American History class. They didn't know who Hannibal was, other than the character from the A-Team, thought China was always communist, had never heard of the Ottoman Empire, and were shocked that democracy was not begun in the United States. All good things come only from the USA, you know.
I am still uncertain what shocked me the most, that they didn't know these simple facts or that many didn't want to know. It was boring. It had no bearing on their life today. It wouldn't help them get a job, so why bother? The sad, sad fact is that at some point in the last, maybe thirty years, American universities, and high schools, as well, became a factory line for cranking out drones. Go to high school, get a job. Go to college, get a better job.
The entire track is training, not educating. Our schools, don't teach civics, hell, they barely teach art and music, and many places there is a shortage of gym teachers. The pretty much long gone, and sexist home ec. at least used to give lessons on how to manage a household. Depictions of it on television seemed to concentrate on cooking classes, but that is misleading. Yes, they taught them, but also nutrition, child development, sewing, and most importantly, managing your money.
We no longer think it important to teach children how to manage their money.
Once upon a time, we taught high schoolers something called civics! A class that taught them about types of government, and the rights and duties of citizens! Personally, I never had such a class it was a dinosaur by the time I was in high school-I got these lessons at home. Don't even start me on the subject of sex education.
So are we reaping the whirlwind of our short-sightedness, and anti-intellectualism today? The overall ignorance isn't openly insane like the Creationists who think the Earth is 10,000 years old, and Jesus rode dinosaurs. They are kooks, but what is worse is what has been done by sane school boards, and administrators. That is, the whittling away of classes that teach you how to live, and critically think, not simply work for some corporate overlord, is dangerous.
An angry, threatened, population that does not comprehend how it fell into economic hard times, or who is to blame, always seems to lash out, looking for a scapegoat. And things such as this happen.
And if you know your history...what does this scene bring to mind?
It was glaringly obvious in our World History classes, some people had never had anything other than an American History class. They didn't know who Hannibal was, other than the character from the A-Team, thought China was always communist, had never heard of the Ottoman Empire, and were shocked that democracy was not begun in the United States. All good things come only from the USA, you know.
I am still uncertain what shocked me the most, that they didn't know these simple facts or that many didn't want to know. It was boring. It had no bearing on their life today. It wouldn't help them get a job, so why bother? The sad, sad fact is that at some point in the last, maybe thirty years, American universities, and high schools, as well, became a factory line for cranking out drones. Go to high school, get a job. Go to college, get a better job.
The entire track is training, not educating. Our schools, don't teach civics, hell, they barely teach art and music, and many places there is a shortage of gym teachers. The pretty much long gone, and sexist home ec. at least used to give lessons on how to manage a household. Depictions of it on television seemed to concentrate on cooking classes, but that is misleading. Yes, they taught them, but also nutrition, child development, sewing, and most importantly, managing your money.
We no longer think it important to teach children how to manage their money.
Once upon a time, we taught high schoolers something called civics! A class that taught them about types of government, and the rights and duties of citizens! Personally, I never had such a class it was a dinosaur by the time I was in high school-I got these lessons at home. Don't even start me on the subject of sex education.
So are we reaping the whirlwind of our short-sightedness, and anti-intellectualism today? The overall ignorance isn't openly insane like the Creationists who think the Earth is 10,000 years old, and Jesus rode dinosaurs. They are kooks, but what is worse is what has been done by sane school boards, and administrators. That is, the whittling away of classes that teach you how to live, and critically think, not simply work for some corporate overlord, is dangerous.
An angry, threatened, population that does not comprehend how it fell into economic hard times, or who is to blame, always seems to lash out, looking for a scapegoat. And things such as this happen.
And if you know your history...what does this scene bring to mind?
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Single Bullet Got Ya, Arlen?
I imagine that was the expression on the faces of many of the MSM, especially those who work inside the Beltway.
Incumbents losing?!! Being forced into a runoff??!! Isn't the Tea Party signaling a Rightward tilt to our politics??
Maybe it was this...progressives, while not so vocal as the Tea Party stunads, who seem to have been dying to yell "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" since the first time they saw Network, Progressives are mad too.
Progressives are mad at Blue Dogs, and Fake Democrats, and useless status-quo beltway types. The crazy populists wear tea bags on their hats, and spit on congressmen, and rant about scary Mexicans. The Progressives? They very quietly, voted.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
More People Not Worth The Price Of The Gunpowder To Blow Them to Hell
I haven't done this in a while. The title for these posts is a quote from my late father, and he didn't say it often. To make the Gunpowder List you have to be really quite despicable. Like say...
Newt Gingrich. Stop using 9/11 to try to score political points! You don't even know the facts of the terrorism cases you are using to criticize Obama anyway. Obama is treating these cases the same way Bush did, a rare instance when he did something right, by trying these crimes in civilian courts.
Why are you so scared of Miranda Rights anyway? And Newt, terrorists are criminals. They are international organized crime syndicates working in concert with Colombian drug cartels, the Russian mob, and other similar groups. Do we send the army after the mob? Nutley, NJ has yet to be attacked by the military. All Newt and others like him really want to do is grease the Military Industrial Complex and play general.
John Edwards. Eww. The most sordid distasteful love life since Rudy Guiliani began dating. We all make some poor choices, do things we regret, but John Edwards is a combination of Newt, Rudy, and Erica Kane. If she were real, and a man. The Democratic Party dodged a cannonball, not simply a bullet when this guy lost the primaries. Real men face their mistakes, John.
Sarah Palin. Everything she does and says: but I'll go with the latest one, using that poor baby's disability to bring attention to herself as the suffering mother of a special needs child. She does not care about the use of retard, or she would not attack Rahm Emmanuel for something he said privately, and defend Rush Limbaugh for something he says publically on a constant basis.
John Mayer. Mayer and his white-supremacist penis can each get a keg of powder. He needs a team of psychiatrists working round the clock. I always had the impression he was an unpleasant man who had issues with women and intimacy, but didn't think him vile, creepy, and disturbed. I was wrong. Fake apology not accepted, John.
Newt Gingrich. Stop using 9/11 to try to score political points! You don't even know the facts of the terrorism cases you are using to criticize Obama anyway. Obama is treating these cases the same way Bush did, a rare instance when he did something right, by trying these crimes in civilian courts.
Why are you so scared of Miranda Rights anyway? And Newt, terrorists are criminals. They are international organized crime syndicates working in concert with Colombian drug cartels, the Russian mob, and other similar groups. Do we send the army after the mob? Nutley, NJ has yet to be attacked by the military. All Newt and others like him really want to do is grease the Military Industrial Complex and play general.
John Edwards. Eww. The most sordid distasteful love life since Rudy Guiliani began dating. We all make some poor choices, do things we regret, but John Edwards is a combination of Newt, Rudy, and Erica Kane. If she were real, and a man. The Democratic Party dodged a cannonball, not simply a bullet when this guy lost the primaries. Real men face their mistakes, John.
Sarah Palin. Everything she does and says: but I'll go with the latest one, using that poor baby's disability to bring attention to herself as the suffering mother of a special needs child. She does not care about the use of retard, or she would not attack Rahm Emmanuel for something he said privately, and defend Rush Limbaugh for something he says publically on a constant basis.
John Mayer. Mayer and his white-supremacist penis can each get a keg of powder. He needs a team of psychiatrists working round the clock. I always had the impression he was an unpleasant man who had issues with women and intimacy, but didn't think him vile, creepy, and disturbed. I was wrong. Fake apology not accepted, John.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Wisewomen, Witches, Midwives, and The Age of Ignorance
Yesterday, I lost my temper. I know, I know big news, alert the press, and all that . There was a legitimate reason for anger, I will tell you why if you're patient.
I saw the latest report on women's health. The latest fertility reports. The University Of Edinburgh, and The University of St. Andrews have put out a report that states women lose 90% of their eggs by age 30. Really? Only 10% strength by then? That means I shouldn't exist. Or my mom. Or her mom, and dad. Or my great-grandparents for that matter either. At least 3/4s of my family should not exist. I am so sick of these breathless headlines every few years.
These stats from Sheffield University say that between age 40-44 you have a 36% chance of getting pregnant after trying for an entire year. From 30-34 it's 63%. Some sources say a woman's peak fertility is 20, some 27, some say the decline does not start until after 35. I recall an article from about five years ago saying the peak was 29, then one last year putting it at 23.
Let me tell you a secret, kids...they don't fucking know. Notice how the findings keep changing? There are too many variables to make any sweeping statements. And there are several rather important things nobody is telling.
1. Fertility testing is done on people who are having a problem. Blood tests are taken, hormone levels gauged, and from that it is surmised how many eggs a woman has left. No one schedules an egg count like a teeth cleaning. It's not a part of a normal gynecological exam. One of the MDs in the Daily Mail article recommends going in for a blood test, and ultrasound just to know.
Does that sound like drumming up more business to you?
2. Heredity. Heredity. Heredity. All women, and men too are not born equal when it comes to fertility.
This bit of straight talk from Dr Marie Savard, GMA's medical contributor: "Women who have more pregnancies are fertile for longer, and some women are born with more eggs than others, she said. The more eggs with which a woman is born, the longer she will be fertile and more time she will have until the onset of menopause."
Know your family history, if like me, you come from several lines of fertile myrtles who have popped out healthy offspring at 46 there's a good chance you're one too.
3. It's not something that can be accurately measured. There are no ways of tracking fertility from birth to menopause. The Apgar score of a newborn does not include any reproductive tests. They would notice if you were born with something missing or extra, but as of now there is no tricorder to wave over your body and give Dr. McCoy a complete picture of how everything's working inside.
If they don't truly know how many eggs you start out with how would they know you've lost 90% by 30?
4. It's MEANT to scare you. Meant to scare you so much you run out and get pregnant while you still can. Meant to terrify just-past-college age women into getting married and knocked up at an age when they want to build careers and find themselves.
A scare from Dr. Savard, "Women lose eggs a lot faster than we thought," she said. As you get older, conceiving is "much more difficult. ...Even all those assisted reproductive techniques are challenges."
"That biological clock does tick," she said, adding that her advice to women who want kids is, "the sooner the better."
5. Women's health care has never been the same since men took it over.
The norms used in research and assessing health are all masculine in nature.
Once upon a time, pregnancy, childbirth, contraception and abortion were managed by other women. Wisewomen, witches, midwives. For most of Human history, they were considered female physicians. Many were herbalists of great skill, holding on to the traditions and knowledge of the distant matriarchal past. In Medieval Europe, the Church regulated and licensed them, making them swear an oath to the local bishop not to use magic during labor and childbirth.
Women are magical creatures. They fear our magic.
By the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment, male surgeons had tired of the Hippie Chicks keeping all that lucrative birthing business away from them, thus began the witch hunts and the gradual outlawing of the participation of women in medicine. The birth rate shot up, and so did the mortality rates for both mothers and infants.
This, from Wikipedia: German social scientists Gunnar Heinsohn and Otto Steiger have put forward the theory that midwifery became a target of persecution and repression by public authorities because midwives not only possessed highly specialized knowledge and skills regarding assisting birth, but also regarding contraception and abortion.[11] According to Heinsohn and Steiger's theory, the modern state persecuted the midwives as witches in an effort to repopulate the European continent which had suffered severe loss of manpower as a result of the bubonic plague (also known as the black death) which had swept over the continent in waves, starting in 1348.
They thus interpret the witch hunts as attacking midwifery and knowledge about birth control with a demographic goal in mind. Indeed, after the witch hunts, the number of children per mother rose sharply, giving rise to what has been called the "European population explosion" of modern times, producing an enormous youth bulge that enabled Europe to colonize large parts of the rest of the world.
While historians specializing in the history of the witch hunts have generally remained critical of this macroeconomic approach and continue to favor micro level perspectives and explanations, prominent historian of birth control John M. Riddle has expressed agreement.
This dark age of women's medicine was also the germination of the abortion debate. The Catholic Church didn't give two shits about abortion before the end of the 18th century, when the secret doings of women became a very big deal, and they wanted to make sure there was a population explosion.
After teens, the largest group getting accidentally knocked up is women in their 40's. They listen to their doctors, and read articles like the ABC report and think they don't have to be careful, it won't happen. I know at least 5 people this has happened to, all thinking they were challenged or infertile because of age. This conventional wisdom has huge consequences. Read this.
If you google accidental pregnancies over 40, you'll be shocked at what you find. These women also have a 65% abortion rate because they often have had a family and can't handle one more child. So that skews the live birth stats too.
The truth is no one really knows. Eat healthy, don't smoke, don't drink too much, breed with a younger man, his age and health matters too, And "illegitimi non carborundum". (Don't let the bastards grind you down.)
I saw the latest report on women's health. The latest fertility reports. The University Of Edinburgh, and The University of St. Andrews have put out a report that states women lose 90% of their eggs by age 30. Really? Only 10% strength by then? That means I shouldn't exist. Or my mom. Or her mom, and dad. Or my great-grandparents for that matter either. At least 3/4s of my family should not exist. I am so sick of these breathless headlines every few years.
These stats from Sheffield University say that between age 40-44 you have a 36% chance of getting pregnant after trying for an entire year. From 30-34 it's 63%. Some sources say a woman's peak fertility is 20, some 27, some say the decline does not start until after 35. I recall an article from about five years ago saying the peak was 29, then one last year putting it at 23.
Let me tell you a secret, kids...they don't fucking know. Notice how the findings keep changing? There are too many variables to make any sweeping statements. And there are several rather important things nobody is telling.
1. Fertility testing is done on people who are having a problem. Blood tests are taken, hormone levels gauged, and from that it is surmised how many eggs a woman has left. No one schedules an egg count like a teeth cleaning. It's not a part of a normal gynecological exam. One of the MDs in the Daily Mail article recommends going in for a blood test, and ultrasound just to know.
Does that sound like drumming up more business to you?
2. Heredity. Heredity. Heredity. All women, and men too are not born equal when it comes to fertility.
This bit of straight talk from Dr Marie Savard, GMA's medical contributor: "Women who have more pregnancies are fertile for longer, and some women are born with more eggs than others, she said. The more eggs with which a woman is born, the longer she will be fertile and more time she will have until the onset of menopause."
Know your family history, if like me, you come from several lines of fertile myrtles who have popped out healthy offspring at 46 there's a good chance you're one too.
3. It's not something that can be accurately measured. There are no ways of tracking fertility from birth to menopause. The Apgar score of a newborn does not include any reproductive tests. They would notice if you were born with something missing or extra, but as of now there is no tricorder to wave over your body and give Dr. McCoy a complete picture of how everything's working inside.
If they don't truly know how many eggs you start out with how would they know you've lost 90% by 30?
4. It's MEANT to scare you. Meant to scare you so much you run out and get pregnant while you still can. Meant to terrify just-past-college age women into getting married and knocked up at an age when they want to build careers and find themselves.
A scare from Dr. Savard, "Women lose eggs a lot faster than we thought," she said. As you get older, conceiving is "much more difficult. ...Even all those assisted reproductive techniques are challenges."
"That biological clock does tick," she said, adding that her advice to women who want kids is, "the sooner the better."
5. Women's health care has never been the same since men took it over.
The norms used in research and assessing health are all masculine in nature.
Once upon a time, pregnancy, childbirth, contraception and abortion were managed by other women. Wisewomen, witches, midwives. For most of Human history, they were considered female physicians. Many were herbalists of great skill, holding on to the traditions and knowledge of the distant matriarchal past. In Medieval Europe, the Church regulated and licensed them, making them swear an oath to the local bishop not to use magic during labor and childbirth.
Women are magical creatures. They fear our magic.
By the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment, male surgeons had tired of the Hippie Chicks keeping all that lucrative birthing business away from them, thus began the witch hunts and the gradual outlawing of the participation of women in medicine. The birth rate shot up, and so did the mortality rates for both mothers and infants.
This, from Wikipedia: German social scientists Gunnar Heinsohn and Otto Steiger have put forward the theory that midwifery became a target of persecution and repression by public authorities because midwives not only possessed highly specialized knowledge and skills regarding assisting birth, but also regarding contraception and abortion.[11] According to Heinsohn and Steiger's theory, the modern state persecuted the midwives as witches in an effort to repopulate the European continent which had suffered severe loss of manpower as a result of the bubonic plague (also known as the black death) which had swept over the continent in waves, starting in 1348.
They thus interpret the witch hunts as attacking midwifery and knowledge about birth control with a demographic goal in mind. Indeed, after the witch hunts, the number of children per mother rose sharply, giving rise to what has been called the "European population explosion" of modern times, producing an enormous youth bulge that enabled Europe to colonize large parts of the rest of the world.
While historians specializing in the history of the witch hunts have generally remained critical of this macroeconomic approach and continue to favor micro level perspectives and explanations, prominent historian of birth control John M. Riddle has expressed agreement.
This dark age of women's medicine was also the germination of the abortion debate. The Catholic Church didn't give two shits about abortion before the end of the 18th century, when the secret doings of women became a very big deal, and they wanted to make sure there was a population explosion.
After teens, the largest group getting accidentally knocked up is women in their 40's. They listen to their doctors, and read articles like the ABC report and think they don't have to be careful, it won't happen. I know at least 5 people this has happened to, all thinking they were challenged or infertile because of age. This conventional wisdom has huge consequences. Read this.
If you google accidental pregnancies over 40, you'll be shocked at what you find. These women also have a 65% abortion rate because they often have had a family and can't handle one more child. So that skews the live birth stats too.
The truth is no one really knows. Eat healthy, don't smoke, don't drink too much, breed with a younger man, his age and health matters too, And "illegitimi non carborundum". (Don't let the bastards grind you down.)
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Lunatic Fringe Frays
The recent statements by Rush Limbaugh, Pat Robertson, and Glenn Beck in regards to the tragedy in Haiti are so vile, disgusting and especially in Robertson's case outright loony, that I don't care to repeat any of them. One can take comfort in the hope that they are losing all but their most rabid followers as they race each other to the edge. When even George W. Bush won't defend them...
Friday, January 1, 2010
I've Been Searching...
“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” --Neil Gaiman
I've been searching for a quote that spoke to me, on a very difficult day. And thanks to my friend, The Mad Voter, I've found one.
Usually, I don't do things like this, I find them maudlin, and self-pitying. I don't want anyone else feeling sorry for me-why I avoid certain gatherings back home-so I try to discourage myself from throwing any pity parties. But with the turn of the decade, one that she has missed, I can't help thinking about my mother.
She was born slightly after midnight January 1st 1937 and died January 8th, 2001, a mere seven months after my father. She was a massive science fiction fan who claimed I was conceived to Star Trek. A woman who dragged her young child to every now iconic SF film the first week it opened.
As I watched Avatar, I thought how much she would have loved this.
I'm sure I'll add to this later, but for now, Happy Birthday, Mommy.
Addendum: I've surprised myself quite a lot since she died...
I've been searching for a quote that spoke to me, on a very difficult day. And thanks to my friend, The Mad Voter, I've found one.
Usually, I don't do things like this, I find them maudlin, and self-pitying. I don't want anyone else feeling sorry for me-why I avoid certain gatherings back home-so I try to discourage myself from throwing any pity parties. But with the turn of the decade, one that she has missed, I can't help thinking about my mother.
She was born slightly after midnight January 1st 1937 and died January 8th, 2001, a mere seven months after my father. She was a massive science fiction fan who claimed I was conceived to Star Trek. A woman who dragged her young child to every now iconic SF film the first week it opened.
As I watched Avatar, I thought how much she would have loved this.
I'm sure I'll add to this later, but for now, Happy Birthday, Mommy.
Addendum: I've surprised myself quite a lot since she died...
First New Year Surprise! I Agree with Something Written By David Brooks!
David Brooks' column today discusses something I have been attempting to ignore: the reaction to the Underpants Bomber. I was in the air on the way to Miami the day the Shoe Bomber struck, and was outraged that I had to walk barefoot across the airport, and that others who were not wearing sandals like myself, had their shoes cut open by the screeners. (I wasn't exactly quiet about my distaste for this practice. I'm probably lucky they didn't root through my luggage and slash up every bit of footwear I carried in revenge.)
Both articles-of-clothing-bombers are clearly not right in the head. And by that I don't mean simply the sort of evil craziness of a suicide bomber, but the extreme level stupidity-madness that would lead someone to think he could create his own James Bond gadget in his kitchen and that it would be able to take down a plane. People this ridiculously insane always surprise the authorities because no one even approaching intelligent or sane would think up such things. This is Darwin Awards level stupidity with a horrifically evil twist.
Ultimately, focusing on Darwin Awards terrorist is a waste of time and energy. We are spending time worrying about the bizarre and unlikely, and not doing the mundane, but difficult, like securing our ports, and rail system. The truly crazy portion of the population should not cause this much angst. They have always been here, and always will.
Both articles-of-clothing-bombers are clearly not right in the head. And by that I don't mean simply the sort of evil craziness of a suicide bomber, but the extreme level stupidity-madness that would lead someone to think he could create his own James Bond gadget in his kitchen and that it would be able to take down a plane. People this ridiculously insane always surprise the authorities because no one even approaching intelligent or sane would think up such things. This is Darwin Awards level stupidity with a horrifically evil twist.
Ultimately, focusing on Darwin Awards terrorist is a waste of time and energy. We are spending time worrying about the bizarre and unlikely, and not doing the mundane, but difficult, like securing our ports, and rail system. The truly crazy portion of the population should not cause this much angst. They have always been here, and always will.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Because We Won't be discussing Tiger, Top Chef, or Avatar, That's Why
All right, I'm lying, I will be perhaps mentioning Avatar after I see it. It's just the anticipatory lovers/haters debate has exhausted my patience. It feels like the frenzy before The Phantom Menace. Enough.
I watched last night what will likely be a cult movie verrrrry soon. It's called Outlander. A retelling of Beowulf. With Aliens. And Jim Caviezel as a sort of Shane/Maximus/Ellen Ripley space warrior hunting the Grendels after he crash-lands in 6th Century Norway. I know. I was laughing too, but...to my amazement it actually works. And works well, by the end I was charmed and looking for my dog-eared copy of Beowulf.
What was so great about this other than the ensemble which includes John Hurt, and Ron Perlman as two formidable Viking chiefs, was that it did what the best historical fiction does is fit the new events seamlessly into the original story. The Epic Poem never tells the readers-or originally, listeners what Grendel and his Mother were, or why they took such pleasure in killing Humans. Outlander does. And the reason is a twist you don't see coming. In that scene, the Grendels, or the Moorwen, as they are called in the film, transform from being another copy of the Alien from the Alien films to real characters with emotions and motives.
I watched last night what will likely be a cult movie verrrrry soon. It's called Outlander. A retelling of Beowulf. With Aliens. And Jim Caviezel as a sort of Shane/Maximus/Ellen Ripley space warrior hunting the Grendels after he crash-lands in 6th Century Norway. I know. I was laughing too, but...to my amazement it actually works. And works well, by the end I was charmed and looking for my dog-eared copy of Beowulf.
What was so great about this other than the ensemble which includes John Hurt, and Ron Perlman as two formidable Viking chiefs, was that it did what the best historical fiction does is fit the new events seamlessly into the original story. The Epic Poem never tells the readers-or originally, listeners what Grendel and his Mother were, or why they took such pleasure in killing Humans. Outlander does. And the reason is a twist you don't see coming. In that scene, the Grendels, or the Moorwen, as they are called in the film, transform from being another copy of the Alien from the Alien films to real characters with emotions and motives.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Nothing Makes Me Angrier Than Hypocrisy
Just thought you all should know that about me. While we Humans all have our rationalizations, magical thinking, and days where we simply lie to ourselves, nothing makes me angrier than people who have double standards. The healthcare, and the abortion debates are prime examples of this.
Take a look at this. Cigna is the provider for the RNC. The people who believe in Death Panels are covered by a company that has end-of-life services, and abortion. Hypocrites. Grrr.
Take a look at this. Cigna is the provider for the RNC. The people who believe in Death Panels are covered by a company that has end-of-life services, and abortion. Hypocrites. Grrr.
Friday, September 4, 2009
This Status Has Become Viral On Facebook.
No one should die because they cannot afford health care. No one should go broke because they get sick. No one should be denied medical care by their own insurer. No one should stay in a job because they are afraid to lose their insurance. No one should have to get married so that they can be covered under the spouse's insurance. If you agree, please post this as your status.
It has now been noticed by the White House. Funny how the 60's style grand street protest gets largely ignored these days, but a lot of outraged people on social networking sites provoke a response.
It has now been noticed by the White House. Funny how the 60's style grand street protest gets largely ignored these days, but a lot of outraged people on social networking sites provoke a response.
Monday, June 8, 2009
You're Drowning? Try Swimming!
I had to post this article in full. I was an only child,from an area that can be described as affluent...but I never experienced anything like this. I have been wondering myself when and why the phenomenon of twenty and early thirtysomethings who have NEVER held a real job began, I know someone like this but thought she was simply an aberration. Guess not.
Parental Lifelines, Frayed to Breaking
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
Published: June 7, 2009
For the past five years, Ernie DiGiacomo has been able to count on parents to guarantee the $1,500 to $2,500 rents he charges for the 15 apartments he owns in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. When he called renters who had missed payments, he often heard, “My parents will send you a check.”
But in the past six months, the parents are pulling back financial help, he said, and as a result, he has watched more renters move out.
“Most of them are moving back with parents,” Mr. DiGiacomo said.
Luis Illades, an owner of the Urban Rustic Market and Cafe on North 12th Street, said he had seen a steady number of applicants, in their late 20s, who had never held paid jobs: They were interns at a modeling agency, for example, or worked at a college radio station. In some cases, applicants have stormed out of the market after hearing the job requirements.
“They say, ‘You want me to work eight hours?’ ” Mr. Illades said. “There is a bubble bursting.”
Famed for its concentration of heavily subsidized 20-something residents — also nicknamed trust-funders or trustafarians — Williamsburg is showing signs of trouble. Parents whose money helped fuel one of the city’s most radical gentrifications in recent years have stopped buying their children new luxury condos, subsidizing rents and providing cash to spend at Bedford Avenue’s boutiques and coffee houses.
For 18 months after graduating from Colby College, Jack Drury, 24, lived the way many Williamsburg residents do: He followed his passions, working in satellite radio and playing guitar. He earned money as a bicycle messenger and, on occasion, turned to his parents for money.
But as the recession deepened last fall, his parents had to cut the staff at their event planning company to 30 workers from 50. Asked for his help, Mr. Drury cast aside his other pursuits and started work as a project manager for his parents. But he still plays the guitar in two bands, Haunted Castle and Rats in the Walls.
“My future is in the family business,” he said. “Music is just for fun.”
The real estate market, too, is shifting as wealth evaporates. Ross Weinstein, a managing partner of the Union Square Mortgage Group, has worked with hundreds of Williamsburg apartment buyers in the past two years.
“A lot of the money came from family,” he said. “That piece, it’s gone for a lot of people.”
In the boom years, Mr. Weinstein said, 40 percent of the mortgage applications he reviewed for buyers in Williamsburg included down-payment money, from $50,000 to $300,000, from parents. About 20 percent of the applications listed investments that gave the young buyers $3,000 to $10,000 of monthly income.
But in the past two months, Mr. Weinstein said, he has handled two to three deals a week in which the parents cut back their down-payment help.
The number of sales in Williamsburg dropped nearly a quarter in the first three months of this year compared with the same period a year ago, according to HMS Associates, a Brooklyn appraisal firm. And in three recent cases, Mr. Weinstein said, owners sold their apartments in short sales — selling for less than the bank is owed, to avoid foreclosure — because they were no longer receiving parental help.
Mr. Weinstein has been advising two brothers in their late 20s who wanted to buy a $700,000 apartment with $250,000 from their parents. But their parents’ investment portfolio has lost so much value that they now can give only $50,000. Since the brothers make about $45,000 a year each, they are now shopping for a $500,000 apartment.
The parents still wish they could help, Mr. Weinstein said, but “right now, they’re in a situation in their life where they need to ensure their own security.”
It is an adjustment that many have to deal with. Eric Gross, 26, a construction worker, was going to buy, with help from his father, a $600,000 one-bedroom condo with city views at Northside Piers, a luxury building, he said.
But his father, who works in the auto industry, said he had to reduce his contribution. “He’s pulling back the lifeline,” Mr. Gross said.
So Mr. Gross is scaling back, shopping for a $300,000 apartment, said his real estate agent, Binnie Robinson of AptsandLofts.com.
It can be hard to see the signs of financial troubles in Williamsburg because residents are so loath to show that they had money in the first place. Robert Lanham, author of “The Hipster Handbook,” said in an interview that many newer residents tried to blend in with the area’s gritty history and dressed “half the time like they’re homeless people.”
But parental help was obvious in the intersection of residents with low-paying jobs and $3,000-a-month apartments.
“You can put two and two together, that they have money coming in from somewhere else,” Mr. Lanham said.
The culture of the area often mocks residents who depend on their families. Misha Calvert, 26, a writer who relied on her parents during her first year in the city, now has three roommates, works in freelance jobs and organizes parties to help keep her afloat while she writes plays and acts in films. There is a “giant stigma,” she said, for Williamsburg residents who are not financially independent.
“It takes the wind out of you if you’re not the independent, self-reliant artist you claim to be,” she said, “if you’re just daddy’s little girl.”
The cutbacks for the more privileged residents are a welcome change for locals who have struggled to support themselves without parental help.
Katie Deedy, 27, an artist, works two bartending jobs to shore up her designer wallpaper business. Gazing out from the bar at the patrons playing darts and sipping bloody marys during a Sunday shift at the Brooklyn Ale House, she described how refreshing it felt not being the only local resident trying to live on less.
“If I’m going to be completely honest, it does make me feel a little bit better,” she said. “It’s bringing a lot of Williamsburg back to reality.”
Parental Lifelines, Frayed to Breaking
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
Published: June 7, 2009
For the past five years, Ernie DiGiacomo has been able to count on parents to guarantee the $1,500 to $2,500 rents he charges for the 15 apartments he owns in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. When he called renters who had missed payments, he often heard, “My parents will send you a check.”
But in the past six months, the parents are pulling back financial help, he said, and as a result, he has watched more renters move out.
“Most of them are moving back with parents,” Mr. DiGiacomo said.
Luis Illades, an owner of the Urban Rustic Market and Cafe on North 12th Street, said he had seen a steady number of applicants, in their late 20s, who had never held paid jobs: They were interns at a modeling agency, for example, or worked at a college radio station. In some cases, applicants have stormed out of the market after hearing the job requirements.
“They say, ‘You want me to work eight hours?’ ” Mr. Illades said. “There is a bubble bursting.”
Famed for its concentration of heavily subsidized 20-something residents — also nicknamed trust-funders or trustafarians — Williamsburg is showing signs of trouble. Parents whose money helped fuel one of the city’s most radical gentrifications in recent years have stopped buying their children new luxury condos, subsidizing rents and providing cash to spend at Bedford Avenue’s boutiques and coffee houses.
For 18 months after graduating from Colby College, Jack Drury, 24, lived the way many Williamsburg residents do: He followed his passions, working in satellite radio and playing guitar. He earned money as a bicycle messenger and, on occasion, turned to his parents for money.
But as the recession deepened last fall, his parents had to cut the staff at their event planning company to 30 workers from 50. Asked for his help, Mr. Drury cast aside his other pursuits and started work as a project manager for his parents. But he still plays the guitar in two bands, Haunted Castle and Rats in the Walls.
“My future is in the family business,” he said. “Music is just for fun.”
The real estate market, too, is shifting as wealth evaporates. Ross Weinstein, a managing partner of the Union Square Mortgage Group, has worked with hundreds of Williamsburg apartment buyers in the past two years.
“A lot of the money came from family,” he said. “That piece, it’s gone for a lot of people.”
In the boom years, Mr. Weinstein said, 40 percent of the mortgage applications he reviewed for buyers in Williamsburg included down-payment money, from $50,000 to $300,000, from parents. About 20 percent of the applications listed investments that gave the young buyers $3,000 to $10,000 of monthly income.
But in the past two months, Mr. Weinstein said, he has handled two to three deals a week in which the parents cut back their down-payment help.
The number of sales in Williamsburg dropped nearly a quarter in the first three months of this year compared with the same period a year ago, according to HMS Associates, a Brooklyn appraisal firm. And in three recent cases, Mr. Weinstein said, owners sold their apartments in short sales — selling for less than the bank is owed, to avoid foreclosure — because they were no longer receiving parental help.
Mr. Weinstein has been advising two brothers in their late 20s who wanted to buy a $700,000 apartment with $250,000 from their parents. But their parents’ investment portfolio has lost so much value that they now can give only $50,000. Since the brothers make about $45,000 a year each, they are now shopping for a $500,000 apartment.
The parents still wish they could help, Mr. Weinstein said, but “right now, they’re in a situation in their life where they need to ensure their own security.”
It is an adjustment that many have to deal with. Eric Gross, 26, a construction worker, was going to buy, with help from his father, a $600,000 one-bedroom condo with city views at Northside Piers, a luxury building, he said.
But his father, who works in the auto industry, said he had to reduce his contribution. “He’s pulling back the lifeline,” Mr. Gross said.
So Mr. Gross is scaling back, shopping for a $300,000 apartment, said his real estate agent, Binnie Robinson of AptsandLofts.com.
It can be hard to see the signs of financial troubles in Williamsburg because residents are so loath to show that they had money in the first place. Robert Lanham, author of “The Hipster Handbook,” said in an interview that many newer residents tried to blend in with the area’s gritty history and dressed “half the time like they’re homeless people.”
But parental help was obvious in the intersection of residents with low-paying jobs and $3,000-a-month apartments.
“You can put two and two together, that they have money coming in from somewhere else,” Mr. Lanham said.
The culture of the area often mocks residents who depend on their families. Misha Calvert, 26, a writer who relied on her parents during her first year in the city, now has three roommates, works in freelance jobs and organizes parties to help keep her afloat while she writes plays and acts in films. There is a “giant stigma,” she said, for Williamsburg residents who are not financially independent.
“It takes the wind out of you if you’re not the independent, self-reliant artist you claim to be,” she said, “if you’re just daddy’s little girl.”
The cutbacks for the more privileged residents are a welcome change for locals who have struggled to support themselves without parental help.
Katie Deedy, 27, an artist, works two bartending jobs to shore up her designer wallpaper business. Gazing out from the bar at the patrons playing darts and sipping bloody marys during a Sunday shift at the Brooklyn Ale House, she described how refreshing it felt not being the only local resident trying to live on less.
“If I’m going to be completely honest, it does make me feel a little bit better,” she said. “It’s bringing a lot of Williamsburg back to reality.”
Monday, June 1, 2009
Moment of Clarity
By now, we all know what happened in a church in Kansas. I am sick of the Abortion "debate". The supposedly Pro-Life side debates in this manner. I'm right-you're dead! Guess I win. The type of abortions provided by the late Dr. Tiller were late-term. When a woman has a late term-abortion it generally means her life is at risk or she is giving birth to a child with fluid where it's brain would be-severe defects, in other words a dead or dying baby that could kill you both. Bill O'Reilly was wrong. This man was no Mengele.
There is no debate here. Tiller did not bring it on himself. This was the act of a madman who required someone to hate in order to feel like he had a purpose in life.
There is no debate here. Tiller did not bring it on himself. This was the act of a madman who required someone to hate in order to feel like he had a purpose in life.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
The Peasant Mentality
I had been searching for a name for what appears to me to be some sort of psychiatric disorder: the aggressively siding with, the championing the cause of, groups or individuals who are blatantly screwing you, your family, your people over. In the past, I subscribed to the theory that these middle and lower class dreamers saw themselves as potential lottery winners, or brilliant inventors who would one day, one day in the distant future, become rich as Croesus themselves.
I might have been wrong. I do believe that these people who see themselves rolling around in a bed of cash, and are simply preparing for that day by shielding the ultra-rich exist. I just now see them as a minority compared to these folks: the Peasants.
Matt Taibbi, discussing the ridiculous Teabag mini-movement, gave me this lightbulb moment.
" But actual rich people can’t ever be the target. It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger. And that’s what we’ve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish… can’t be mad at AIG, can’t be mad at Citi or Goldman Sachs. The real villains have to be the anti-AIG protesters! After all, those people earned those bonuses! If ever there was a textbook case of peasant thinking, it’s struggling middle-class Americans burned up in defense of taxpayer-funded bonuses to millionaires. It’s really weird stuff. And bound to get weirder, I imagine, as this crisis gets worse and more complicated."
Hear this, Teabagging Peasants and Reagan Democrat sympathizers: the richest 1% of society does not give a flying fuck about you. Does not mingle with you, does not share any of your concerns, in fact, does not even notice you unless your strikes shut down their factories, or you come banging at their chateau gates with battering rams, while holding torches. These are people whose ancestors saw slavery and child labor as good business. Anyone recall what Scrooge had to say about workhouses? Know what they were?
Stupidest protests ever.
I might have been wrong. I do believe that these people who see themselves rolling around in a bed of cash, and are simply preparing for that day by shielding the ultra-rich exist. I just now see them as a minority compared to these folks: the Peasants.
Matt Taibbi, discussing the ridiculous Teabag mini-movement, gave me this lightbulb moment.
" But actual rich people can’t ever be the target. It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger. And that’s what we’ve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish… can’t be mad at AIG, can’t be mad at Citi or Goldman Sachs. The real villains have to be the anti-AIG protesters! After all, those people earned those bonuses! If ever there was a textbook case of peasant thinking, it’s struggling middle-class Americans burned up in defense of taxpayer-funded bonuses to millionaires. It’s really weird stuff. And bound to get weirder, I imagine, as this crisis gets worse and more complicated."
Hear this, Teabagging Peasants and Reagan Democrat sympathizers: the richest 1% of society does not give a flying fuck about you. Does not mingle with you, does not share any of your concerns, in fact, does not even notice you unless your strikes shut down their factories, or you come banging at their chateau gates with battering rams, while holding torches. These are people whose ancestors saw slavery and child labor as good business. Anyone recall what Scrooge had to say about workhouses? Know what they were?
Stupidest protests ever.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Let The Sunshine In
I don't often do this, but David Sirota's latest post at Open Left is something I've been feeling for a while, and a question that is it critical to ask oneself periodically. Think of it as mental maintenance...
Existential Question: What The F%$@! Are We Doing?
by: David Sirota
Tue Apr 07, 2009 at 20:46
Over the last decade, I went from idealistic college kid, to idealistic Hill staffer, to cynical political campaign operative, to angry/angsty writer/activist, to full-time journalist, and in this last stage, I've hit an existential question that I think many are struggling with in their own lives, regardless of their age: What the fuck am I doing?
What, for instance, am I doing working in a media/political business that is so often governed with no rhyme or reason, and so often rewards the foolish, the stupid and the immoral? I mean, really: for every Rachel Maddow, there are five Sean Hannitys, but it's not even that - that's just an ideological bias against progressives, and that I can make sense of (even though it disgusts me). The worse truth - the one I simply cannot grasp - is that for every Harold Meyerson (ie. for every legitimately brilliant progressive writer) there are 25 Joe Kleins (ie. braindead megaphones).
This is the kind of thing that makes me want to throw my computer out the window, wear my PJ's and a robe to the supermarket, and play Halo all day. It's not the conservatives that really get me - their existence/success at least has a rationale (ie. serving the corporate masters who pay them). It's the unskilled - the classic No Talent Ass Clowns, if you will. I work in a business that treats Andrew Sullivan and David Broder and Matt Bai and Journolist and the Politico and Tom Friedman as Very Important, Very Serious, Very Newsworthy People - people worthy of not just applause, but of emulation. Scores of the precocious and the ambitious in this business aspire to be these people, scores of youthful college kids head to D.C. dreaming about being the next Joe Klein or David Broder. Indeed, there are entire magazines like the New Republic whose foundational objective is to groom the next Matt Bai.
Though I certainly don't want that for myself (thus, my flee to the sanity of the Rocky Mountain West), I'm struggling with the questions about the system. I wonder: What am I doing working in a system that creates those desires, rewards that idiocy, and creates a gross incentive structure?
That's the question, as I said, I think lots of people are asking about their own lives, whether in the media business or any other field.
David Sirota :: Existential Question: What The F%$@! Are We Doing?
Thanks to the economic meltdown, ensuing AIG bonuses, and promotion of economic criminals to top White House jobs, it has never been more clear that the American economy and political system is one that rewards everything we say we don't want to reward. The media world I work in rewards David Brooks, the economy rewards AIG executives, the political system rewards Larry Summers. It's all the same fucking thing - everything we say we want to punish, but instead systemically cheer on.
So again, what the fuck are we doing? Why do we just sit here and take it? And if we're not going to take it, what the hell should we do? Most of us who have a job are totally overworked - we barely have time for our families. Those of us who are out of work are scratching and clawing to survive - they barely have time for anything else. So what should we do?
I don't have an answer to these existential questions...at least not yet. And I certainly don't know what to do in reaction to asking them. One voice in the chorus that is my inner monologue says "you're right, what am I doing? Fuck this, I'm moving to Costa Rica."* Another voice says "I'm not getting out - I'm doing the right thing by keeping the faith that this is important work." And yet another voice says, "Just don't ask those questions - they will only give you heartbreak."
All of the rationales have merit - not just for me, but for society. And I'm sure millions of people are having the same "on the one hand, on the other hand" debates in their minds. Some days we defiantly push on, other days we want to drop out and move to some far away nirvana.
Shit, maybe this is my quarter-life crisis (though that would mean I'd have to live to 120) or my mid-life crisis (that would mean I'd be dead at 66 - that would suck). Whatever it is, all I know right now is that we live not in interesting times - we lived in fucked up times, and that means fucked up questions are going to be asked. Here's hoping we don't fuck up the answers.
* I know, I know - there are definitely serious problems in Costa Rica. But at least its warm and near the ocean...or at least that's what I tell myself as a rationale for seeing that Central American nation as a terrestrial version of heaven.
Existential Question: What The F%$@! Are We Doing?
by: David Sirota
Tue Apr 07, 2009 at 20:46
Over the last decade, I went from idealistic college kid, to idealistic Hill staffer, to cynical political campaign operative, to angry/angsty writer/activist, to full-time journalist, and in this last stage, I've hit an existential question that I think many are struggling with in their own lives, regardless of their age: What the fuck am I doing?
What, for instance, am I doing working in a media/political business that is so often governed with no rhyme or reason, and so often rewards the foolish, the stupid and the immoral? I mean, really: for every Rachel Maddow, there are five Sean Hannitys, but it's not even that - that's just an ideological bias against progressives, and that I can make sense of (even though it disgusts me). The worse truth - the one I simply cannot grasp - is that for every Harold Meyerson (ie. for every legitimately brilliant progressive writer) there are 25 Joe Kleins (ie. braindead megaphones).
This is the kind of thing that makes me want to throw my computer out the window, wear my PJ's and a robe to the supermarket, and play Halo all day. It's not the conservatives that really get me - their existence/success at least has a rationale (ie. serving the corporate masters who pay them). It's the unskilled - the classic No Talent Ass Clowns, if you will. I work in a business that treats Andrew Sullivan and David Broder and Matt Bai and Journolist and the Politico and Tom Friedman as Very Important, Very Serious, Very Newsworthy People - people worthy of not just applause, but of emulation. Scores of the precocious and the ambitious in this business aspire to be these people, scores of youthful college kids head to D.C. dreaming about being the next Joe Klein or David Broder. Indeed, there are entire magazines like the New Republic whose foundational objective is to groom the next Matt Bai.
Though I certainly don't want that for myself (thus, my flee to the sanity of the Rocky Mountain West), I'm struggling with the questions about the system. I wonder: What am I doing working in a system that creates those desires, rewards that idiocy, and creates a gross incentive structure?
That's the question, as I said, I think lots of people are asking about their own lives, whether in the media business or any other field.
David Sirota :: Existential Question: What The F%$@! Are We Doing?
Thanks to the economic meltdown, ensuing AIG bonuses, and promotion of economic criminals to top White House jobs, it has never been more clear that the American economy and political system is one that rewards everything we say we don't want to reward. The media world I work in rewards David Brooks, the economy rewards AIG executives, the political system rewards Larry Summers. It's all the same fucking thing - everything we say we want to punish, but instead systemically cheer on.
So again, what the fuck are we doing? Why do we just sit here and take it? And if we're not going to take it, what the hell should we do? Most of us who have a job are totally overworked - we barely have time for our families. Those of us who are out of work are scratching and clawing to survive - they barely have time for anything else. So what should we do?
I don't have an answer to these existential questions...at least not yet. And I certainly don't know what to do in reaction to asking them. One voice in the chorus that is my inner monologue says "you're right, what am I doing? Fuck this, I'm moving to Costa Rica."* Another voice says "I'm not getting out - I'm doing the right thing by keeping the faith that this is important work." And yet another voice says, "Just don't ask those questions - they will only give you heartbreak."
All of the rationales have merit - not just for me, but for society. And I'm sure millions of people are having the same "on the one hand, on the other hand" debates in their minds. Some days we defiantly push on, other days we want to drop out and move to some far away nirvana.
Shit, maybe this is my quarter-life crisis (though that would mean I'd have to live to 120) or my mid-life crisis (that would mean I'd be dead at 66 - that would suck). Whatever it is, all I know right now is that we live not in interesting times - we lived in fucked up times, and that means fucked up questions are going to be asked. Here's hoping we don't fuck up the answers.
* I know, I know - there are definitely serious problems in Costa Rica. But at least its warm and near the ocean...or at least that's what I tell myself as a rationale for seeing that Central American nation as a terrestrial version of heaven.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
More People Not Worth The Price Of The Gunpowder To Blow Them To Hell
It has been a while since I've done a Gunpowder post but I think the liars, fools and idiots on parade the past few weeks warrant it.
A perennial...Bill O' Reilly
The Royal Family likes the Obamas. The Queen hugged Michelle, and the I-Pods contents were thoughtful. Sorry they thought the Bushes were classless jackasses. Get over it right-wing fools.
I saw this man in Grand Central. He ran chills down my spine: he even walks in a manner that is hostile. I hate that he is allowed to vent to the entire world, that he has a paid public forum for tantrums that should be reserved for his therapist.
Glen Beck...again, a man who should be crying to his doctor, not in a PAID forum where his loony ideas can influence the gullible fools who watch him. 9/12?? I love Tina Brown's description of him as a "charlatan evangelist" and "frothing". Curse you Fox News.
Rush. Anal poisoning? His speech at CPAC? His wish for Obama to fail? Ugh. This ass is no longer a mere revolting, so-called entertainer, he now believes his own publicity and imagines himself the leader of the conservative movement, and the Republican party.
President Karzai. Review? He's going to review a law that essentially allows husbands to rape their wives? What the hell was he thinking?
A perennial...Bill O' Reilly
The Royal Family likes the Obamas. The Queen hugged Michelle, and the I-Pods contents were thoughtful. Sorry they thought the Bushes were classless jackasses. Get over it right-wing fools.
I saw this man in Grand Central. He ran chills down my spine: he even walks in a manner that is hostile. I hate that he is allowed to vent to the entire world, that he has a paid public forum for tantrums that should be reserved for his therapist.
Glen Beck...again, a man who should be crying to his doctor, not in a PAID forum where his loony ideas can influence the gullible fools who watch him. 9/12?? I love Tina Brown's description of him as a "charlatan evangelist" and "frothing". Curse you Fox News.
Rush. Anal poisoning? His speech at CPAC? His wish for Obama to fail? Ugh. This ass is no longer a mere revolting, so-called entertainer, he now believes his own publicity and imagines himself the leader of the conservative movement, and the Republican party.
President Karzai. Review? He's going to review a law that essentially allows husbands to rape their wives? What the hell was he thinking?
Friday, March 20, 2009
An Appointment with "The National Razor"?
Yes, this is America, and yes it is over two hundred years later, but I find myself amazed as each new story breaks of the naked greed, and disregard for the public's outrage. Don't these captains of industry know their history? Don't they know bubbles are meant to burst? Don't they realize that when you are in a hole you don't keep digging? Or are they so deep in denial that they will only realize when they are dragged away (figuratively) by the torch-carrying, pitchfork wielding mob?
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