Field notes, November 7th 2016. Approximately 3:30 PM.
The walls were closing in, so I bestirred myself out of doors. Ambling though a local park, I heard some small voices raised to one another in greeting. Two little girls were shouting hello to each other from yards apart. They ran to one another, kicking up little rooster tails of dried leaves. As much as little girls can be said to bear hug, they embraced each other like there was no tomorrow. Like best friends after a long absence.
It may shock some to know that the scene actually made me smile. Watching those girls take obvious delight in seeing each other created some light in the darkness that has threatened to swallow me up in the latter half of 2016. Some long time readers will know, or have guessed, that depression is not unknown to me. We have, if you will, an understanding.
This year has been rough. Financially, personally, emotionally. The godawful mess that is the election cycle has only worsened over time, compounding the misery we felt earlier in summer when our granddaughter died in her sleep. Shifts in work arrangements, to the detriment of revenue streams for yours truly, added a bitter icing to a leaden cake. The cherry? My big brother's fifty-third birthday is today, but he has been gone for seven years.
Seven years. A dog's age. A lifetime. My heart bears the bruises still.
I know what this gray shadow is looking over my shoulder. I feel the chill of cold hands reaching for my heart. I feel as if I know what Harry Potter felt facing dementors, if fiction can be said to mirror reality. My younger self would have been all over that, identifying with a fictional character as if I were him.
My older self nods knowingly. My older self does not give in all the way, though. I know now through dint of hard experience that real life is stranger than fiction but the myths we indulge in give us the strength to carry on. Hope is found in the oddest of places.
Maybe not so odd. If we want to be hopeful and not consumed by cynicism, maybe hope shows up where we need it most. This is the lesson I told myself I should take away from the scene before me. That I should cease being so wrapped around the axle of my fears, and nurture the flame of hope in my heart.
So I saw these two little girls, one African-American, one Caucasian, shouting hello and running gleefully through the leaves of an early fall day. They appeared to know nothing of the trash fire that is our election of the next President. They knew nothing of the weight on my heart, my troubles with the universe. And they did not need to to. Watching them say hello and embrace each other, it occurred to me that maybe I don't need to know either. What I need to know is that greeting a friend with a great big hug is the starting point to pushing back those great gray walls, and getting on with the business of living.
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
08 November 2016
20 November 2012
A Brief Word About America
In the run up to the recent elections, and in the noisy din of its aftermath, there has been much talk by the sore losers that they needed to "take back America" and that they"lost America". Such bloviation angers and saddens me.
America belongs to all Americans, not one ideology or otherwise arbitrarily defined socio-economic-political grouping of citizens.
America is a grand, shared idea. No one gained it or lost it, because it was never theirs to possess.
America belongs to all Americans, not one ideology or otherwise arbitrarily defined socio-economic-political grouping of citizens.
America is a grand, shared idea. No one gained it or lost it, because it was never theirs to possess.
28 October 2012
Suffrage (Sunday Meditation #24)
This morning it hit me that it has been less than 100 years (92, to be exact) since women gained the right to vote in this country.
It has been less than 50 years since the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964...
...less than 50 years since the Voting Rights Act of 1965...
...yet there are those who still refuse to believe there is much work to be done.
This election cycle all we seem to hear is "economy, economy, economy"...but still there are those who want to exclude and disenfranchise human beings due to their skin color, sex and/or gender orientation.
In a particularly dark bit of thinking, I couldn't help but think that those who feel their income, personal taxes and the price of gasoline take precedence over civil rights and equality under the law...will always be slaves.
Yeah, it's the economy, alright. But more importantly, now and forever, it's human beings that matter.
It has been less than 50 years since the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964...
...less than 50 years since the Voting Rights Act of 1965...
...yet there are those who still refuse to believe there is much work to be done.
This election cycle all we seem to hear is "economy, economy, economy"...but still there are those who want to exclude and disenfranchise human beings due to their skin color, sex and/or gender orientation.
In a particularly dark bit of thinking, I couldn't help but think that those who feel their income, personal taxes and the price of gasoline take precedence over civil rights and equality under the law...will always be slaves.
Yeah, it's the economy, alright. But more importantly, now and forever, it's human beings that matter.
20 January 2012
Human, Kind
In over three months of unemployment, I have spent a majority fraction of my waking hours thinking about, looking for, and worrying over finding a job. This we know, as I have beat that particular horse too often in the annals of Irish Gumbo. This week was no different.
Right now, dear ones, I don't want to dissect the job hunt. I want to get something different out of my head. Something that has been incubating in there for weeks, and that I finally put my finger on today.
In my time that has not been spent on job searching activities, I have had the opportunity for steady engagement with current events. Not always to my benefit, either, as I tend to mouth off at the computer or the television when perusing or watching the news. I have had many opportunities to indulge my love of reading and research in following threads on a wide range of topics. When something catches my interest I savor the opportunity to follow it until I decide I have learned enough, not when the dictates of the outside world say I am done.
In an election year this carries noticeable risk. Especially when one has strong feelings and opinions about many things involving the human condition. This year it has been especially acute given all the attention lavished on the issues of what constitutes marriage, families, gender politics and equality. When this is mashed up with regressive social thinking, bigotry, hatred and exclusion, it becomes a big thought bomb. Today it blew up in my face.
A lot of wind has blown from the mouths of conservative, right-wing, supposedly religious people in the past few months. A lot of foul, obnoxious wind. Much talk has been aimed at the supposed damage that has been done to "God, America and Family" by those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) people. We have presidential candidates signing pledges vowing to be faithful to their spouses and to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and opposing same-sex marriages, while continuing to maintain the false premise that homosexuality is merely a "choice". We have politicians who have been divorced multiple times (including cheating on a spouse while trying to divorce them) telling us our morals are corrupt and "America has lost its way".
There are people who call themselves serious contenders for the office of President of the United States, and seem to think nothing of condemning lives they obviously don't understand. They claim to stand for the ideals of a country founded on the principles of life and liberty written into the U.S. Constitution. It is a poor joke to claim one stands for individual freedom while ostracizing and attempting to legally exclude whole groups of people from the benefits and protections of the law. It is abhorrent to use hate and ignorance to tell anyone, not just Americans, you don't deserve to be treated as an equal human being because you are a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person.
What that amounts to is saying: you are not human.
It is a classic sign of a fascist mindset to designate a class of people as The Others, The Different, The Outsiders, in order to galvanize the remaining people with fear and hate, as a method of exerting political control. Look at the governments of Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy, the Soviet Union of Stalin. Look at McCarthyism in the 1950's. The thread continues into today. Look at the idiocy that spews from the organizations supporting Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, any of them. Better yet, look at the statements and actions of the people themselves. Signing ridiculous pledges. Claiming that the morals of the country are being destroyed by people who don't marry, or want to marry a person of the same gender; that ruin lies down the path of acknowledging someone who was born one gender realizes they are really another.
You know who else makes hateful, ignorant, repellent statements like that? Groups like the Taliban, and other religious fundamentalists. Groups who want to control what you feel, who you love, what life you want to live. It is terribly insulting to me, and incredibly dangerous to others, to be told that my morals are corrupt...because I don't think the way they do.
My morals are just fine, thank you. I don't need some ignorant, power-hungry buffoons deciding for me what is right or proper, especially when their definition of right and proper is based on taking away freedoms and arbitrarily designating some people as not worthy of love, respect or protection under the law.
To sit and listen to someone slander tens of thousands of their fellow citizens, to hear the hypocrisy behind asking for their votes while working to deny them basic rights, is abhorrent beyond endurance. They cannot claim to know what is best for all citizens, because they have demonstrated they do not have empathy for or understanding of all those citizens. Anyone who cannot see the crippling inconsistencies in their ideology, and expects me to ignore those inconsistencies, has no business running the country.
I am not a lesbian. I am not gay. I am not bisexual. I am not transgender. I am a heterosexual male. Most important of all, I am a human being, as is anyone who identifies as LGBT.
To condemn people to the status of sub-human, not equal, because of their inherent identity is probably the most revolting perversion of the American ideal I have witnessed in my lifetime. The claim that we are a compassionate, humane and free society will remain a joke if intolerance and hate become the rule of law.
We all deserve love and respect based on who we are, not on someones ignorant and hateful definition of who they think we are. I cannot accept, will not accept, will not support any political hopeful who wants to exclude human beings from society based on lives different than their own. Different does not equate with wrong.
Heterosexual. Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. We all identify as one of those. The common thread is that we are all human beings. It saddens me to think there are forces out there that want to deny many of us our humanity. Those forces must be opposed.
Right now, dear ones, I don't want to dissect the job hunt. I want to get something different out of my head. Something that has been incubating in there for weeks, and that I finally put my finger on today.
In my time that has not been spent on job searching activities, I have had the opportunity for steady engagement with current events. Not always to my benefit, either, as I tend to mouth off at the computer or the television when perusing or watching the news. I have had many opportunities to indulge my love of reading and research in following threads on a wide range of topics. When something catches my interest I savor the opportunity to follow it until I decide I have learned enough, not when the dictates of the outside world say I am done.
In an election year this carries noticeable risk. Especially when one has strong feelings and opinions about many things involving the human condition. This year it has been especially acute given all the attention lavished on the issues of what constitutes marriage, families, gender politics and equality. When this is mashed up with regressive social thinking, bigotry, hatred and exclusion, it becomes a big thought bomb. Today it blew up in my face.
A lot of wind has blown from the mouths of conservative, right-wing, supposedly religious people in the past few months. A lot of foul, obnoxious wind. Much talk has been aimed at the supposed damage that has been done to "God, America and Family" by those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) people. We have presidential candidates signing pledges vowing to be faithful to their spouses and to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and opposing same-sex marriages, while continuing to maintain the false premise that homosexuality is merely a "choice". We have politicians who have been divorced multiple times (including cheating on a spouse while trying to divorce them) telling us our morals are corrupt and "America has lost its way".
There are people who call themselves serious contenders for the office of President of the United States, and seem to think nothing of condemning lives they obviously don't understand. They claim to stand for the ideals of a country founded on the principles of life and liberty written into the U.S. Constitution. It is a poor joke to claim one stands for individual freedom while ostracizing and attempting to legally exclude whole groups of people from the benefits and protections of the law. It is abhorrent to use hate and ignorance to tell anyone, not just Americans, you don't deserve to be treated as an equal human being because you are a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person.
What that amounts to is saying: you are not human.
It is a classic sign of a fascist mindset to designate a class of people as The Others, The Different, The Outsiders, in order to galvanize the remaining people with fear and hate, as a method of exerting political control. Look at the governments of Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy, the Soviet Union of Stalin. Look at McCarthyism in the 1950's. The thread continues into today. Look at the idiocy that spews from the organizations supporting Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, any of them. Better yet, look at the statements and actions of the people themselves. Signing ridiculous pledges. Claiming that the morals of the country are being destroyed by people who don't marry, or want to marry a person of the same gender; that ruin lies down the path of acknowledging someone who was born one gender realizes they are really another.
You know who else makes hateful, ignorant, repellent statements like that? Groups like the Taliban, and other religious fundamentalists. Groups who want to control what you feel, who you love, what life you want to live. It is terribly insulting to me, and incredibly dangerous to others, to be told that my morals are corrupt...because I don't think the way they do.
My morals are just fine, thank you. I don't need some ignorant, power-hungry buffoons deciding for me what is right or proper, especially when their definition of right and proper is based on taking away freedoms and arbitrarily designating some people as not worthy of love, respect or protection under the law.
To sit and listen to someone slander tens of thousands of their fellow citizens, to hear the hypocrisy behind asking for their votes while working to deny them basic rights, is abhorrent beyond endurance. They cannot claim to know what is best for all citizens, because they have demonstrated they do not have empathy for or understanding of all those citizens. Anyone who cannot see the crippling inconsistencies in their ideology, and expects me to ignore those inconsistencies, has no business running the country.
I am not a lesbian. I am not gay. I am not bisexual. I am not transgender. I am a heterosexual male. Most important of all, I am a human being, as is anyone who identifies as LGBT.
To condemn people to the status of sub-human, not equal, because of their inherent identity is probably the most revolting perversion of the American ideal I have witnessed in my lifetime. The claim that we are a compassionate, humane and free society will remain a joke if intolerance and hate become the rule of law.
We all deserve love and respect based on who we are, not on someones ignorant and hateful definition of who they think we are. I cannot accept, will not accept, will not support any political hopeful who wants to exclude human beings from society based on lives different than their own. Different does not equate with wrong.
Heterosexual. Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. We all identify as one of those. The common thread is that we are all human beings. It saddens me to think there are forces out there that want to deny many of us our humanity. Those forces must be opposed.
19 November 2010
Farging Bastiches Friday: The Curmudgeon Files
Apologies, dear readers, as I must indulge myself a rant, in bullet point form:
All of then above items I have recently heard or seen in person or through various forms of media, and the irritation factor reached critical mass, hence this post. It may be a long winter, folks...maybe I'll just put my fingers in my ears and shout "La, la, la..."
THINGS WHAT HAVE BEEN BUGGING ME LATELY:
- Being possessed of a pulse, a uniform and a job does not make one a hero. Being 'heroic' (i.e. showing great courage, exhibiting noble qualities, and great achievements) makes one a hero. Calling someone a hero because they got out of bed and put on their pants only cheapens the ideal, and means that if everyone is a "hero", no one is a hero. You want to be a hero? Then do something truly heroic.
- Being possessed of great religious conviction does not equate with being possessed of superior morals or ideas. If you ask a stranger what faith they profess, ostensibly to have a polite discussion about belief, only to quickly turn it into a thinly veiled lecture on why their relationship with God isn't the "right" relationship, and that yours is, then you have disqualified yourself from being a truly humble practitioner of faith. No one can truly know the mind of God, so don't even try, you hypocrites. Corollary: When the party you have just insulted and patronized by denying the legitimacy of their belief system reacts by disagreeing with you, said disagreement does not constitute persecution of you as a believer of a different faith, nor does it constitute an insult to your faith. The person simply does not believe what you believe. Different belief is just that; different, not wrong. So get over yourselves, you tinpot martyrs. Cry your crocodile tears somewhere else.
- Being a newly elected Republicanfacisticteabaggernutjob U.S. Representative or Senator does NOT mean you are possessed of a God-given, "will-o-the-people" mandate to enact every ill-thought out piece of legislation in your Big Box of Crazy Ideas. You won that seat because people wanted to change things, and because this supposed democracy is heavily weighted to the two-party system, the people who wanted to change things voted for you because YOU WEREN'T THE GUY/GAL ALREADY IN OFFICE, not because your stupid ideas and close-minded thinking were so attractive. There were no real, viable third-party alternatives. So get your heads out of your own asses, and stop looking in the mirror so damn much.
- Being excited about getting up at 3:00 a.m. on Black Friday does not make you the envy of the neighborhood, or an example to be imitated. It does not make you worthy of respect, and it does not make you nearly as cool and fascinating as you think you are. What it does do is make you a tool. A Pavlovian, programmed consumerist tool, beholden to whatever megacorporations have hoodwinked you into believing that the latest/greatest app/gadget/machine/toy is the only way to show how much you care for the people you want to give gifts to. Good thing the product life cycles are so short, that way you can do it all again next year! Seriously, though? Do you really want to be at the end of your days, thinking "Wow, it was so cool that I was the first one with an xBox 3000, way back in '10!" Hate to break it to you, Sparky: NO ONE CARES.
- F-book (or any other Internet-intensive New Economy company) announcing it will be "making a play" for the market by offering services that other companies already offer...is not news. So, all you local news anchors hawking thinly veiled ads for said companies under the aegis of "Consumer Watch" human interest stories? Shut up. Just shut up. I. Don't. Care. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
- Putting any humble food (like french fries) on a pretty plate, and taking a glossy picture of it, and adding the word "GOURMET" to the description, does not make automatically that food "gourmet". If you want to make french fries "gourmet", let's see them fresh-cut to order, twice-fried, properly drained and served with side of say, chipotle aioli or homemade mushroom ketchup. Plus, a waiter should bring them to the table. DO NOT let some bored high school kid dump a block of batter-coated frozen fries into stale grease, oversalt them and dump them (undrained) into what will become a grease-soaked recycled paper boat, accompanied by a fistful of 'ketchup' packets. Really, if you want to impress people, just make them hot, crispy and with the right amount of salt. If you can do that simple thing well, you will go far in life.
All of then above items I have recently heard or seen in person or through various forms of media, and the irritation factor reached critical mass, hence this post. It may be a long winter, folks...maybe I'll just put my fingers in my ears and shout "La, la, la..."
04 November 2010
Electioneering
Surfeit of color and noise
and that was just the crap
in the mailbox, every day
Forests bled to extinction
More shiny noises from the box
Bright hues and gaudy wraps
So many promises! like God and
Marilyn Monroe delivered to your door
The palate dulls, hearing fades
eyesight dims under sensory fatigue
No, under siege! Because you cannot escape
bleat, blather and bother, beyond the end
Necessary evil, this binge and purge
of the body politic, they tell us to care,
we must care, but too many broken promises,
shattered hopes, have eaten our trust.
and that was just the crap
in the mailbox, every day
Forests bled to extinction
More shiny noises from the box
Bright hues and gaudy wraps
So many promises! like God and
Marilyn Monroe delivered to your door
The palate dulls, hearing fades
eyesight dims under sensory fatigue
No, under siege! Because you cannot escape
bleat, blather and bother, beyond the end
Necessary evil, this binge and purge
of the body politic, they tell us to care,
we must care, but too many broken promises,
shattered hopes, have eaten our trust.
03 November 2008
I'm Voting For The Irish Guy. No, No, the Black One.
“Vote Irish. Vote O’bama.”
-seen on a bumper sticker near home
Finally, a great reason to vote! An Irishman is running. No, not the McWhatever guy. THAT one. The greatest chance since JFK to get a true son of Ye Auld Sod in what is arguably the most powerful position on the planet! Rejoice, Hibernian-Americans, rejoice!
What? He’s not Irish? He’s Kenyan-American, or something like it?
Well, f**k me! I guess I’ll have to vote for him because he is the right man for the job! Articulate, composed, well-educated, charismatic, intelligent, and seems to have a genuine feel for the complexities that he would face as President of the United States. A man who thinks with his BRAIN and not with his GUT. A man who is willing to admit he does not have all the answers and remains calm under pressure. A man who sees more value in “Let’s pull together to solve some problems” than in “Exclude those who don’t agree.” A man who does not believe I reside in a different country, an “unreal” country, because I may not agree with his point of view in all cases.
I cannot, I will not, vote for someone who insults my intelligence, exhibits poor judgment, acts according to the way they want things to be rather than the way they are, seems more interested in maintaining power than effective governance, and cannot see that real change is needed. John McCain has done all that, and acts like no one has noticed.
Barack Obama is not Superman or Jesus Christ; John McCain is neither the Antichrist or a fool. But we desperately need change. Voting for John McCain, in my opinion, is voting for pretty much the way things are and have been for the past eight years. Enough is enough. This country has had its fill of a ‘cowboy’ President and a ‘pit-bull’ Vice-President; changing hats or dying your fur is not going to cut it for the next four years. Voting for the Republican ticket this Presidential election is like voting to keep hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. The only redeeming thing about hitting yourself with a hammer is how good it feels when you stop.
I’m smart enough to not keep hitting myself with a hammer. I’m voting for the black Irish guy.
-seen on a bumper sticker near home
Finally, a great reason to vote! An Irishman is running. No, not the McWhatever guy. THAT one. The greatest chance since JFK to get a true son of Ye Auld Sod in what is arguably the most powerful position on the planet! Rejoice, Hibernian-Americans, rejoice!
What? He’s not Irish? He’s Kenyan-American, or something like it?
Well, f**k me! I guess I’ll have to vote for him because he is the right man for the job! Articulate, composed, well-educated, charismatic, intelligent, and seems to have a genuine feel for the complexities that he would face as President of the United States. A man who thinks with his BRAIN and not with his GUT. A man who is willing to admit he does not have all the answers and remains calm under pressure. A man who sees more value in “Let’s pull together to solve some problems” than in “Exclude those who don’t agree.” A man who does not believe I reside in a different country, an “unreal” country, because I may not agree with his point of view in all cases.
I cannot, I will not, vote for someone who insults my intelligence, exhibits poor judgment, acts according to the way they want things to be rather than the way they are, seems more interested in maintaining power than effective governance, and cannot see that real change is needed. John McCain has done all that, and acts like no one has noticed.
Barack Obama is not Superman or Jesus Christ; John McCain is neither the Antichrist or a fool. But we desperately need change. Voting for John McCain, in my opinion, is voting for pretty much the way things are and have been for the past eight years. Enough is enough. This country has had its fill of a ‘cowboy’ President and a ‘pit-bull’ Vice-President; changing hats or dying your fur is not going to cut it for the next four years. Voting for the Republican ticket this Presidential election is like voting to keep hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. The only redeeming thing about hitting yourself with a hammer is how good it feels when you stop.
I’m smart enough to not keep hitting myself with a hammer. I’m voting for the black Irish guy.
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