Humanitology: Study of Us

Massachusetts: My Homo Sweet Homo

2007-06-14T18:46:00.000-04:00

1) I love this state.

2) I am happy that the fact that one is born gay and should not be discriminated against because of it is slowly being more accepted and understood.

3) To the other side: we did not strong-arm anyone. The people did vote. By contacting their representatives. As it should be.

4) There are far more important things we can now focus on like teen violence, poverty, health care, taxes, the economy.

5) May those brought here by their hatred for me go back to their own states and worry about their own morality.

6) Thank you Massachusetts. Leading the way for the nation, once again.

I Think My Cat Has A Chair Problem

2007-06-03T15:14:00.000-04:00

Four days ago my house-mate moved out and left us his two living room chairs. I put them in the office.

Our cat has not left those chairs in four days. She gets up to eat, shit, and goes back to sleep on them. I moved one into the bedroom to try to get her to sleep with us again, but she just started sleeping on the other one still in the office.

What the hell?

She used to sleep with us. She used to get up and say hi when we got home. She used to hang out in whatever room we were in. But now she just glances at us, rolls over, and goes back to sleep.

I'm jealous of a chair.

The Book Game Thingy

2007-05-28T13:26:00.001-04:00

So instead of doing the fifth line from the twenty third page of one book, I'm doing multiple books to see how they look together a la The Yak Shaver.

Here's what I got:

I lingered in that tenement, keeping my ears alert to conversations, drifting off to other rooms. That girl was drained. We had to dash back for fear of the filth splashing on our platties, but splussshhhh and glolp she went, down and lovely. "I have more than this, more than you can see: talent, perhaps, and humor of a sort, and I'm a lady and I have pride and affection and delicacy and a certain clear view of life that might make a man satisfied and productive and happy; there's more than you think when you look at me." The face in the motor car will then be known. I concentrated on running away, waiting for the right moment. This pattern of presentation may have certain advantages, and the personality in the wings remains the dominant reality. "Subject and object and the nature of reality," Andrew had said. A couple of the privates in my platoon actually couldn't take it anymore and started breaking down in tears on the first day. For that day we all must labour, though we die before it break; cows and horses, geese and turkeys, all must toil for freedom's sake. I thought we were gentlemen.

In order:

Fade - Robert Cormier
Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
Stone Butch Blues - Leslie Feinberg
City of Wrong: A Friday in Jerusalem - M. Kamel Hussein
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
My War: Killing Time in Iraq - Colby Buzzell
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard

(my apologies to my fiancee for putting the books back in the wrong places. I'm sure there is some order to that shelf, I just can't figure out what it is.)

A-B-C

2007-05-13T12:27:00.000-04:00

I'm working on my final assignment for my Aztec class and I had to write an Aztec word I heard pronounced in a lecture. It is pronounced "Shou-co-ot" but it is spelled Xiuhcoatl.

This has bothered me for a really long time: if you're translating a language that does not use the Latin alphabet into Latin writing, why would there be silent letters? Why wouldn't it be spelled out phonetically?

If the language were already written in our alphabet there would be reasons for silent letters (pronunciation changes over time, etc.) but if you're taking a completely foreign language and writing it in your own alphabet why not sound it out?

This was a real problem for me when I studied Tibet because their language is written in the Latin alphabet in such a way that what you see has absolutely nothing to do with how it is pronounced. To read it fluently you need to learn a very complicated set of rules that tell you which combinations of letters say what.

It's not even like we're trying to come up with symbols for sounds that we don't have in our language.

What gives?

ERA All The Way!

2007-04-26T11:40:00.000-04:00

Have you recently found yourself feeling the urge to read a good feminist diatribe? How about a good fifteenth-century French feminist diatribe?

Me neither. But I was assigned one. And my god it was worth reading.

A work that echoes the rhetoric skill of Plato and St. Augustine, but with the passion of Gloria Steinem, The Book of the City of Ladies is the story of the humble Christine (de Pizan) who while reading the great ancient authors' tirades against women is visited by Lady Reason, Lady Rectitude, and Lady Justice. These representatives of God answer questions like, "Why do men say that women make marriage miserable?" and "Is it true what men say that women like to be raped?" Yes, folks, she hits it home on all the tough subjects. From relating the story of the Amazons to Dido and Cleopatra, she sets the foundation of the City of Ladies one strong woman at a time. With her eloquent marriage advice (If you have a good husband, thank God; if you have a bad husband, pray to God) and noble goal of enlightening men while inspiring women, Christine de Pizan has really created a work of philosophic hilarity, brilliance, and balls.

I give it six stars out of five.

The Pillow Book of Bry Bryagon

2007-04-26T11:20:00.000-04:00

I love spring. Every day - no matter what the season - I wake up between four and six a.m. and try to get back to sleep. In the spring I can open my window and listen to the dozens of different birds that live in our backyard. The air has that distinct fresh smell that reminds me of springs past. It lulls me back to sleep in the most comforting way. I wish the early mornings were springtime early mornings all year round.

My Gay Comrades

2007-04-22T14:15:00.000-04:00

Last evening was the one year anniversary of my asking my Fiancee to marry me. I took her out to dinner at a fabulous little restaurant. We were seated next to a large table with a family of eight or ten celebrating what looked like their mother/grandmother's birthday. Sitting facing us was a woman in her mid-to-late-fifties with very short gray hair, a beige blazer and a red collared shirt. I poked my Fiancee, telling her to check out our lesbian friend (as I always do when I see "one of us" in public).

We forgot all about her as we enjoyed our amazing meal (mussels in a mustard wine sauce, duck for her, lamb for me), but as this woman's family filed out to leave she was the last in line. On her way out she stopped at our table, nodded and said "Evening, ladies" before following her wife out the door.

That is what I love about being gay. Gay men tip their hats to us when they walk by the coffee shop we're lounging at. Lesbians honk at us on the highway, waving excitedly. The butch girl who sweeps out the back of the tiny grocery store in Nowhere, Maine nods and says "how ya doin'?" The gay manager of the Au Bon Pain gives me extra bread for free with a wink. It's like being in a secret club - out of a room full of people only the gays are aware of the silent camaraderie.

It makes me feel like I'm not quite so alone when I drop my Fiancee's hand walking through the common because there are a bunch of guys hanging out by the basketball court. Like if that bitch in the Market Basket parking lot screaming "DYKE" at me really chases me, there will be people around to help. And most of all, like I don't just get snickered at in the mall for being recognized as gay. I get respect from the old school men and women out there who remember switching partners when the red light flashed and running from the cops when the door you had to knock on exactly five times got busted down. They look at us, young, in love, planning our wedding, with pride and pain and hope. I may still get spit on and told I can't see my wife in any hospital outside my state, but I've never gone through what they did.

As much as I fear losing all my rights to a nation-wide ban or on the Massachusetts ballot of '08, as much as I get gay bashed and live in fear of really being beaten while alone one night, I have to remember that from '69 to now, it has gotten better. It really has gotten better.

Of course, we still have a long, long way to go.

A Note on Imus

2007-04-19T12:21:00.000-04:00

The communication over this issue in all types of media is wonderful. I'm glad to see that America is outraged by racism. Suspend him if you want. But firing a man for saying something racist tells the world that a) he has the power to hurt people THAT MUCH with his stupid thoughtless words b) there is no forgiveness for thoughtless speech and c) there is no "recovering" from being labeled a racist.

Rather than allowing him to continue his show in a slightly new direction after learning the power of his words, reviewing the nature of humor and trying to choose his words better in the future, we're telling the world that if the general public decides you're racist, it's over. If that's the attitude out there, he might as well join the KKK because that's the only place he's going to get any support.

Ignore the Nutjob

2007-04-19T11:37:00.000-04:00

If you broadcast a nutjob's manifesto after he murders people, don't you think other nutjobs are going to go for post-humus glory too?

Nutjobs should be ignored. It's the victims who matter.

Occasionally nutjobs lose their shit. Evil is tragic. We need to collectively focus on recovery from that evil.

I am sick and tired of people pushing their gun-control views on the world everytime something like this happens. Just because one nutjob does something horrible doesn't mean we should all lose the right to bear arms, nor does it mean we should all be armed to the teeth.

5'2"

2007-04-10T15:57:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry, Mr. Ahmadinejad, but Western women aren't scared of you.

That chick rules.

Transmen

2007-04-08T15:12:00.000-04:00

Okay, two things:

1) The problem with college students changing their gender is not that they are too young (most trans people realize there's something "wrong" with them before or during puberty), it's that they are in an environment where they become tangled up in a very small, peer pressured community. Trans people feel like they need the surgery to prove themselves. Dress, act, be however you want. But realize that these things are permanent, and a penis or vagina is not going to make you happy, no matter how much you think it will "complete" you.

2) If you enroll in a women's college and realize you are a man, I appreciate the fact that you should be accepted and supported through this difficult transition. But how dare you graduate from a women's college? How dare you tell us to treat you like any other man and then use the fact that you were born with a vagina to go to whichever college you want? Choose. Be a man or don't. But to be a man at a women's college is to be a hypocrite and to take advantage of the institution that has accepted you and supported you. Become a man and then go to a college where men are accepted. But don't tell me you have any right whatsoever to graduate from Smith.

3) Transwomen going to Smith? Maybe. But we have to think the details of the admission procedures through a bit though. We have to figure out what requirements one must fulfill to be a woman.

Supply on Command

2007-04-08T13:03:00.000-04:00

I would like to acknowledge the scholars whose work I am totally summarizing here: G. Urton, D. LaLone, T. LeVine, T. D'Altroy.

The Inca Empire was (as far as I know) unique in the world in that there was no major market system. LaLone has shown that there may have been a market economy on the outskirts of the empire, particularly in the north, but at the heart of Tawantinsuyu there was no major commercial system of exchange.

The Andes contain many different environmental zones, each with its own animals, plants, and resources. The way the Andean peoples exploited this environment was with the ayllu system. An ayllu is a family or clan group. Each group would have a "place of origin" where the family was centered, and would send small detachments of members off to live in a different environmental zone. At certain times in the year, groups living along the coastal desert, in the foothills, in the depths of the rain forest, and in the mountains would all gather in their place of origin to exchange their respective resources. Thus without money, without markets, and without bartering, each family is able to take full advantage of the varied terrain of the Andes.

Granted, there was some limited exchange of specialized goods, but ideally each ayllu was more or less autonomous. So how does one run an empire if everyone is self-sufficient? You control their labor.

When the Inca conquered a new territory, they divided up the land into three parts: that of the people, that of the state, and that of the state religion. The people were allowed to farm their land first, but then worked the land of the state and the land of the state religion. Storehouses for state goods and foodstuffs were built by the thousands all over the region, and were so full that they did not run out for more than twenty years after the Spanish invaded.

The interesting part: most of the goods never moved. When the army was in Chinchaysuyu, they lived on the local supplies of that district's storehouses. If they were in Antisuyu, they used those supplies. And when an area was rebellious, the state would take an entire ayllu from an area loyal to the Inca and move them hundreds of miles to "infiltrate" and settle in the rebellious territory. The Inca moved people rather than goods.*

I have never seen a system so "backwards" to our own economy (and that of the entire ancient "Old World"). The most amazing part: the Inca empire only existed for roughly a hundred years before the Spanish conquest. Their elaborate system of labor and population rotation was just getting started. We will never know if their continued expansion would have killed the market systems of the north or if they would have incorporated these systems into their empire.

*Not only did the rich and varied environment encourage this, the Inca did not use wheeled carts to transport things. Goods were carried on the backs of men or llamas, but mostly men. If the capital, Cuzco, needed specialized goods, they simply brought the craftsmen to Cuzco for a few months after the harvest was taken care of. People were easier to move than goods.

ATHF

2007-03-22T13:03:00.001-04:00

Remember when the bomb squads were called in for a glowing Moonanite? I just found this entry, which I forgot to publish. I was fighting with the Red Line that day (and looking under the seats for suspicious packages like everyone else). I wrote this a few days later.

I have read a few people's blog entries on this subject and must say a word or two.

1) I feel very safe in Boston as I think our bomb squads and city authorities can and will respond quickly and successfully to bomb threats.

2) I do not trust our ability to recognize a bomb in the first place and call the bomb squad.

3) Guerilla advertising walks the line between giving me what I want (twenty-somethings promoting ATHF last year gave me free stickers and a poster. I was happy) and being very freaky (companies should not be spray-painting fake art around the city). Art for the sake of advertising drains our souls. But then again, artists have always created what their patrons told them to.

4) Boston over-reacted. Big time. I don't think a LiteBrite flipping you off is very bomb like. But where were the people in the crowd who recognized it? Did NONE of the cops know this show? HELLO? Why was it not called off sooner?

5) The company should pay up and that should be the end of it.

6) Those hired to design a company's idea should not be held responsible for the idea.

7) The two guys talking about hair were brave to flip off the reporters and stupid to put themselves in question/more trouble. Ultimately it was an interesting comment on media interaction with individuals.

8) This has not exposed a generation gap, it has exposed the difference between people who laugh when the authorities chase something silly and those who scream when the authorities have been made a fool.

Ever see Wonder Showzen? They have a game called FUNNY! NOT FUNNY!

Image of Urr, flipping us off: FUNNY!

Image of Longwood Medical Center being evacuated: NOT FUNNY!

Why can't the situation contain both? Lessons for the authorities and lessons for stupid glowing middle fingers?

Feet and Faces

2007-03-19T22:34:00.000-04:00

This evening the better half and I received a photo album belonging to her maternal grandfather. Among pictures of his youth and of his children's youth, there were pictures from his tour during WWII. There were pictures of the liberation of Buchenwald.

There is one photo that is haunting me. It is of a stack of skeleton-like bodies. We've all seen them; there are many in the history of the holocaust. Some bodies are facing the camera, others show only their feet.

What frightens me is that I see the humanity, I wonder about the life of, the people of whom I can only see the feet. In the state of starvation at death, the toes of these people were more real and more human than their faces. Their faces are all the same, all blank, all devoid of reality. But the feet - the toes, all different, the feet of all shapes and sizes - I can picture these feet when they were a year old and they sucked on their toes and when they were five and wore their fathers' shoes and when they were twelve and scrunched their toes up in the sand of a beach with their family...

If I were a poet I would write something that captures the wrong, upside-down-ness of the feet and the faces of these people. But I am not. I cannot adequately express this feeling. I can only sit with it. And try to tell you about it.

The Hard Part

2007-03-14T05:22:00.000-04:00

In June I graduate. I receive my bachelor's degree. I attain the goal that has been ingrained in me since the day I was born.

My question:

and then what?

My entire life I have had a structured goal. First it was learning to share and passing kindergarten. Then it was learning to read. Then math. Then doing well in middle school so that I would get into the good high school classes. Then I did well in high school so I could get into college. Then I did well in college so I could get a good job. And that is where the structure ended.

I'm having trouble grasping the idea that this is the part where I just...live. From here on out I just try to pay my bills and live. I could do anything. I'm aiming to be a teacher, though my teaching friends and family have been making me think twice about the deteriorating public school system. But I can't just start teaching this fall, I'll be too busy getting married, finding a summer job (probably the same crap I've been doing for a while, depressing as that is) and then I'll sub or get an aide job in the fall, if things work out. But I really could do anything. Which is kind of scary.

My parents didn't figure out what they wanted to do when they grew up for a long time. My father got his bachelor's around 30, my mom worked her way through junior college, college, and at forty-one years old (with two kids, mind you) decided to go to law school. That means to be like my mother I have twenty years to figure out what to be when I grow up.

There is a phenomenon in my age group that I've noticed more and more lately: we all want to be the opposite of our baby boomer parents and have a career locked in at twenty five, own a house at thirty, and have a retirement planned - itineraries for our trips to Kenya at seventy - by thirty-five. Somewhere I read about a CEO lecturer who ran into college student after college student wanting to get their whole lives in line right now. He told them to chill out. The beauty (or curse, depending on perspective) of a capitalist society is that you can have fifteen careers during your lifetime, retire and have two more part-time. You can do anything. At any time. There really is no rush.

I keep telling myself this, but I'm still frightened by the idea that I'm going to "waste" years of my life doing something that I hate or that I will never be able to retire because I didn't plan enough. My future wife is older than me and the idea of working until I'm eighty and alone is really frightening.

But I keep coming back to my friends and family who have all had a few careers apiece and are stable, financially-secure-enough, and even - get this - happy with their careers.

I will chill out.
I will chill out.
I will chill out.

Life is an adventure, and it's time that I throw my head back and scream frigging
"WEEEEE!!!"

Another Hilarious

2007-03-08T19:21:00.001-05:00

exercise in futility.

Hello Strangers

2007-02-28T21:27:00.000-05:00

It has been almost a month since my last post. I have completely fallen off the blogging planet. All I have to say is that I'm learning five things right now:

1) The Aztecs were crazy motherfuckers who re-enacted their god's myth by cutting off all limbs and decapitating their sacrificial victims, then throwing the pieces down a huge flight of stairs in the front of their temples. And they were incredible engineers.

2) The Inca were way cooler.

3) The history of Islam as a religion and as a political system is far more fascinating than I ever would have thought. More on this later, if I have time.

4) Weddings are not only time consuming and expensive to plan, they are also incredibly stressful. Did I mention they're time consuming and expensive?

5) This semester, to try and help the other half get her shit done, I have officially (though not completely) taken over household duties. Dishes, vacuuming, all errands, cleaning, etc. I have a whole new respect for housewives in general, and my Fiancee specifically. I had no idea how much she did until I tried to do it all myself, on top of wedding planning, full time school and work. Holy shit. If I make it to graduation I'm buying myself a drink. Or ten.

That's all for now, hopefully I can squeeze a few words about all the wonderful things higher education is teaching me in soon.

One last nugget of educational wonder: the Aztec word for "gold" literally translates as "excrement of the sun," or "sun shit."

Thank you and good night.

Sigh. Iran.

2007-01-24T14:53:00.000-05:00

"A global village will have its village idiots."

--Cambridge Astrophysicist Martin Rees

We have tried to pretend that the Middle East, with all its complicated problems, is just a bunch of irrational cave men, but we can't keep pretending. We keep taking Ahmadinejad so seriously. Our favorite presidential wannabe, Mitt the Twitt, said "For all of the Soviets' deep flaws, they were never suicidal. Soviet commitment to national survival was never in question. That assumption cannot be made to an irrational regime (Iran) that celebrates martyrdom."

That is complete bullshit. First of all, stop longing for the "simple" days of the Cold War. We had our head in the clouds then, and that's why we ended up with such a mess in the Middle East. Do I really need to remind everyone that Iran had a democratically elected government in 1953 that the CIA overthrew, giving full power to an evil dictator? There would never have been an Islamic Revolution if it wasn't for us playing Iran against the Soviets.

Second of all, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL MARTYRS AND NATIONAL SURVIVAL. The Japanese were happy to send a few dozen men and airplanes into oblivion, but do you think they wanted to get the bomb? Iran may support Hezbollah, but that doesn't mean they want a nuclear war. A minority of people in the country, including their president, want the complete destruction of Israel at all costs. All costs to the guerilla fighters. They don't want to lose their cushy lifestyles over it. And the rest of the country just wants to be left alone.

It is my understanding that Iran's government is made up of a Parliament, a President, a Leader, and the Guardian Council. The Parliament and President are voted on by the electorate, the Leader holds his position for life and has sway over all others (though not complete power), and the Guardian Council can veto any legislation the Parliament passes which it does not like.

Now the whole government is Islamist, there are no opposition parties, and everyone agrees that the government should at least include some aspect of the Sharia, Islamic Law. But the strange thing that has happened since the 78-79 revolution is that there has been more and more division within the one government party. There are conservatives and reformists and moderates just like our government, they just all work within the assumptions of an Islamic context.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the people voted in huge numbers for reformists, and had a more reformist-leaning president. But most of the reformist legislation was vetoed by the Guardian Council. As I know I would, most left-leaning voters got fed up and didn't vote in the 2005 elections because they felt like it wouldn't matter. And a very strong conservative who appealed to voters based on his domestic economic ideas won. And his name is Ahmadinejad. And he's a fucking loon.

When this village idiot gets up and speaks of wiping Israel off the face of the earth, we need to remember that the only people cringing more than us are the Iranians. Both conservative and reformist politicians have been outraged by his horrible PR in the world arena (sound like a familiar problem?). What we forget (and Bush probably doesn't know) is that Ahmadinejad "does not control foreign or nuclear policy, nor do his statements indicate that Iran is suddenly going to launch aggressive wars that it cannot win" (Keddie, "Modern Iran," p.338).

Iranians are not stupid. They are not going to fire off a nuclear missile because they know that their country would soon become nothing more than a smouldering pile of rubble. If they want nuclear capability, it is to make countries like the U.S. think twice about pre-emptive attacks. All this "fight Israel, the Imperialists are trying to split Muslims in half, do not fight shi'ites or sunnis, fight Israel" crap is just a sad attempt at trying to convince Muslims that the only reason they're fighting each other is because of us. Turning all that energy against Israel would create stability, benefiting Iran and the whole region. Ahmadinejad is just trying the old trick of using a common enemy (somehow it always seems to be Jews) to unite the people.

I'm not sure if they really want uranium for domestic energy or if they're building a bomb. But why do we care so much about Iran? What about all the other countries that are getting uranium or nuclear technology? Anyone remember a little country called Venezuela? HELLO?

Iranians were a huge help to us in Afghanistan. They have been dealing with Afghan refugees since the Russians invaded in 1980. They helped our armed forces know where to go and who to talk to. And the thanks they get is the "Axis of Evil" speech where they're listed next to North Korea as a huge threat. Yes they support the Palestinians. And there may be trouble with arms flowing over the border into Iraq. But the former is a serious difference in point of view that can only be helped by diplomatic means and the latter is a complicated problem with a complicated answer - also best dealt with by diplomacy.

Our figurehead makes us look like morons in the world arena. Europeans shake their heads and say "I'm sorry, you poor things" about his being our president. Why aren't we doing the same thing with Ahmadinejad? If the reformists hadn't been so pissed and not voted, he wouldn't be there. And the government has tried to rein him in in recent months, as they're horrified that he's running his mouth off in front of the world. He and Bush have a "Bring it ON" mentality. It's going to get both of them into trouble. And their parliament/congress know it.

The more we fuck with Iran, the more they'll hate us and the more they'll support idiots like Ahmadinejad in their government. If we got bombed tomorrow, Bush's approval ratings would go through the roof. Ahmadinejad will suddenly become popular over there if we attack. Iran is in no way a "friendly nation," but they are not a direct threat to us unless we make them one. We need to get off Iran, or we'll be fighting the entire Middle East.

The more we bomb people, the more they want to hurt us. Why can't we get this through BushCo's heads????

A State of Mind

2007-01-21T12:25:00.000-05:00

I received A State of Mind for Christmas, but just watched it last night. This is an exclusive documentary about North Korea. It follows two gymnast/dancers through their training for the Mass Games, the largest coordinated spectacle in the world. It involves something like 80,000 dancers, gymnasts and children in a forty-five minute fully coordinated show with costumes and music. It is not just entertainment, it is living, breathing Communism. The self is completely a part of the group and the group does things that could never be accomplished by the self. 80,000 people become one perfect person.

While following the girls' families, we learn that they each live in a small apartment in one of many concrete block apartment buildings in a city that is considered the best in the country, despite frequent power outages and little food. There are three equal "classes": workers, farmers, and intellectuals. One girl is a worker and the other is an intellectual. You receive the job for which you are best suited; in the intellectual family one daughter was good at Tae Kwan Do so she was going into the army, one daughter was good at studying so she was going to be a scientist like her dad and one daughter was artistic so she was the dancer.

There is one tv channel, state controlled, and a radio in the kitchen that can be turned up or down but never off. The biggest holidays are The General's birthday (Kim Jong Il) and The Leader's birthday (Kim Jong Il's father, now deceased).

I had no idea how official, strong, and constant the anti-American rhetoric is. Thousands of people hold up coordinated cards (like in a football stadium) that make a huge picture of evil Americans being shot at by Koreans. When the lights go out, they swear at the evil Imperialist Pigs. The Korean War, "Forgotten" over here, is called something like the Liberation War (I need to see this again to be sure), and the devestation we brought to their country is possible again at any moment. They live in fear of an American attack. Even our own Pentagon estimates that a war in Korea would kill one million people in the first twenty-four hours.

This is 1984. There is a bad guy, a huge army, a constant threat, and a leader who will protect you in exchange for complete obedience and devotion. They call him Father.

The most difficult and intricate part of this film is realizing that these people are not stupid, nor do they want us to get rid of The General, Kim Jong Il. They are a part of a cult that funnels their abilities into doing what it wants. They believe everything the General says. But they are people, living their lives. One girl doesn't study and used to go hide instead of going to dance practice. I used to go hide during compulsory gym class. One mother yells at her daughter to eat more. The other mother coddles her daughter, is best friends with her, and lets her husband and mother-in-law be the strict ones. They have goals, they get recognition for their abilities (being in the second row for the Mass Games), they have hopes and dreams and fears. Their setting may be 1984, but they are not all Winston Smith. They are not looking for a way out.

And they practice what they preach. They see the group moving as one - be it dancers or armies marching - as the most beautiful human action. To join together and become one body, one soul, to even breathe and have their hearts beat in unison - I cannot deny the beauty of coming together as one. This is something I have seen in karate competitions more than once, and something that I know is more than just coordinated movement. It makes people be on the same brainwave. I saw a study once that measured brain activity of athletes, and when the martial artist thrusts his hand toward the board, his brain stops. There was no brain activity as the baseball player took a swing. Some call it getting in "the zone." Some call it "the flow." Some consider it a spiritual experience. I think that this group of people got into the flow together for forty-five minutes. Twice a day. For twenty days.

Is it beautiful? Is it creepy? Is it the highest a group can reach together? Or . . . the lowest?

These people live hard lives because there is such little food. But if there was enough food and electricity and water, would they be "happy"? I don't know. And I don't think it is for me to say. If Kim Jong Il doesn't attack us, I think we should just leave them alone.

I wish I could see what they would say if they really knew about the West. I'm sure they would point to our homeless, our poor and call us hypocrites for criticizing them. And our masses watch Fox News. But we do have freedom of thought, we can decide what truth is for ourselves. Is that worth the risk of homelessness? They are guaranteed housing. We take whatever jobs we can get. They take the job that best suits their abilities.

The North Korean self-image is that of "self-reliance." If they, as a country, work hard enough, they believe everything will be okay. Americans see self-reliance as a virtue, too. But we are self-reliant as individuals, and globally reliant as a country. Ultimately, I think I would kill myself if I was an "intellectual" in North Korea. But then again, I wasn't raised that way. When I look at Communism, I try to remember the negative aspects of America and the positive aspects of North Korea.

But you know what? No matter what aspects of their life are better or worse than ours, Kim Jong Il still has the power to break their hearts.* And that is just not right.

And, ultimately, you can argue back and forth forever about the ideology, but if The General can't feed his country, and they aren't allowed to figure out how to get more food on their own, there is something wrong with the country. Can it be fixed within the framework of Communism? I don't know.

*This is me only ruining the ending a little. Forgive me. See the film.

2007-01-16T03:17:00.000-05:00

Vegetable Soup - Black American Slang

This is just under three minutes long. It was originally aired on PBS in the 70s. Other than that, it speaks for itself, so to speak.

MC HOLY SHIT

2007-01-13T22:08:00.000-05:00

You ever hear a song, enjoy it, listen to it, and then hear it so many times you want to kill everyone responsible for writing, producing, and playing the damn thing?

Well, that song was "Download This Song" by MC Lars. And I really was ready to kill him. And then I won some cds from a radio station. Included, of course, was MC Lars' album, which I am listening to right now for the first time.

What a fucking genius. He's young. He sounds like a skinny white boy. But my god, he knows his shit. My favorite (so far) may be "Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock," a song written in perfect punk rock style.

I quote:
"Hello Kitty ipod cases
ARE NOT PUNK ROCK
Rob Zombie lunch boxes
ARE NOT PUNK ROCK
Tupac incense burners
ARE NOT PUNK ROCK
Hot Topic
IS NOT PUNK ROCK"

And from "21 Concepts," about all his failed songs that never made it to an album:

"There was the KRS slash Nirvana debut
but the mash-up thing was so 2002
I did an anti-Bush track, and then I did five more,
but "Rock Against Bush" was so 2004"

And here's a medley from "Generic Crunk Rap":

"Phrase about my gun, rhyme about my loot,
Phrase about these haters I sometimes have to shoot
Rhyme about my clothes
Props to my hometown (Carmel Valley!)
Lyrics that say nothing - cause that's how we get down
Phrase about my clique, don't step to me punk
Gratuitous rhyme about keeping it crunk
Big ups to our genre, we do it our own way,
It's just too bad our songs don't have anything to say!

Buy cars
GET CRUNK
Escalades
GET CRUNK
Spend money
GET CRUNK
Take shots
GET CRUNK
Have sex
GET CRUNK
Spend money
GET CRUNK

Grandmaster Flash, I'm sorry but we're killing hip-hop
Run-DMC, I'm sorry but we're killing hip-hop
Chuck D, I'm sorry but we're killing hip-hop
But who can argue with the charts
When we're sitting at the top?
And we're making so much money
That we ain't about to stop!"

He ends with "I'm just playing, Lil Jon. You know I love you." a la Eminem. Fucking amazing.

One more quote because I just can't get over this guy:

"This song is futuristic, so hardcore
Hey T.S. Eliot! Please shut the door
Because modernism is so passe
The postmodern revolution is here to stay
In the house tonight because of Frank Lloyd Wright
The bass goes "boom!" like dynamite
"Yo, Wright was a Modernist!"
Yeah I know that, all right,
But you can't rhyme "Bob Venturi" with "Dynamite"

Ezra Pound can't stop me (I'm on fire tonight)
Virginia Woolf can't stop me (I'm on fire tonight)
E.E. Cummings can't stop me (I'm on fire tonight)
I've got postmodern game and it feels all right"

Now THAT, my friends, is hip-hop.

www.mclars.com

The Overwhelming Problem of Government

2007-01-07T10:49:00.000-05:00

For the first two years of my education, I immersed myself in the social sciences, my first academic love. I took a few religion classes, some anthropology, lots of psychology and lots more psychology. But, as I've decided to move toward giving in and being a teacher like everyone else I know, and I can't teach psychology at the high school level, I realized I need to learn some history so I can teach that. And my adventures in history are making me face the one subject that makes my head blow off, my brain short-circuit and my stomach turn: government.

I have always avoided the subject because I hate things that have no correct answer. At least the social sciences provide multiple ways of looking at things, allowing one to choose the model that best suits the situation or person being studied. Therapy/pills either help or they don't. The question of right government is not quite so simple.

One of the many things that has come up in my study of government, from Hammurabi's Code three thousand years ago to Reagan's speaches about the free market, is the question of the proper governmental role in regulating business. Arch-conservatives espouse the free-market as the God-given miracle that will save the world and right all wrongs should it be given free reign. And the U.S.S.R. showed us that the opposite of this - total government control - is obviously flawed.

So where do we find the middle ground? I read one article, which I wish I could find now, written by a hard-core Republican about how the free-market would eliminate the need for minimum wage. His argument was that if one company paid poorly, the workers would go to another company, forcing the two companies to compete for higher wages. This is a nice idea until you realize that the rules of supply and demand do not apply to employment. Put a thousand workers in the community where the two companies together only offer five hundred jobs and the companies will start seeing how far they can lower wages. Business is for profit. Profit does not require morality or fair treatment of workers. It only requires that the customer be happy. As far as we are consumers, we can control certain things. But not every aspect of life is based on consumption. The idea that everything is governed by supply and demand may be capitalism's corresponding fallacy to Marxism's belief that class rules all. Both do have a lot to do with many aspects of life, but giving them too much weight is unrealistic if not dangerous.

I, for one, want the smallest government possible. Bureaucracy is a frightening thing that takes on a life of its own once created. That much most people can agree on. But at the same time, I think our society is greatly benefited by some government programs, for example, Health Inspection. This is a government body that "invades" the privacy of a private business and gives fines for doing things that it believes make people sick. This program is far from perfect, sometimes creates rules that are unnecessary, and cannot keep business from committing all violations. But I am willing to judge countries where chickens are beheaded on the floor in a puddle of festering blood as worse than countries that have health codes. The free market might make businesses that choose to be sanitary successful because their product would be improved, but it would not put out of business those who did not choose to be sanitary. On the contrary, the sanitary would raise their prices along with the quality of their goods and the unsanitary would be free to market to those who could not afford better: the poor.

So a complete free market is not the "answer" to the "government question." But we learned from FEMA that a poorly run burocracy poisons those it was meant to help and spends untold amounts of money doing it. Well-connected contracters made millions of dollars while people who lost everything had to get through tons of red tape just to get less money than they needed. And now they're being told to give it back because the bureaucracy didn't have the details worked out and classified them wrong.

And, while I lean toward wanting the smallest federal government possible, I have to reconcile this with the fact that I believe forced federal desegregation was an emensely positive force in American society. I truly believe that if the government had not forced it, it would not have happened in more than a few select places. But the way this was executed was often horrendous. For example, Boston bussing. One judge decided how it would work. Children from Southie were sent to Roxbury and vice versa. No one bothered West Roxbury. No one living on Beacon Hill had to worry about their children being sent far away. And the whole situation could have been dramatically improved if the proper form of government, the city's school board, had been working on the problem and laying plans for gradual change since Brown v. The Board of Education twenty years earlier. The concept of forced desegregation was entirely necessary but the government executed this in the worst possible manner.

So it seems to me we need to figure out what the bare minimum of government interference in private life is and make the government as efficient, useful and appropriate in decision making as possible. Which is nice and easy to say, but near impossible in practice. And the more I learn about the economy, different types of government and different views on the role of that government, the more overwhelming it is to figure out my own personal views of what is best. Add to this the need to implement these views and I wonder how anyone can make their mind up enough to get into politics at all.

Maybe I'll search the internet for some studies on rapid cycling bipolar disorder. It makes a whole lot more sense to me.

Iran Is Dry In Both Senses of the Word

2006-12-20T12:17:00.000-05:00

In the 1980's, the street leading to the British Embassy at Tehran was re-named "Bobby Sands Street."

Yeah.

Quote of the Day

2006-12-12T14:18:00.000-05:00

"God Bless Christmas."

--Roger Smith, GM Chairman, 1989

Meka Leka Hi Meka Hieni Ho Ho Ho

2006-12-09T14:05:00.000-05:00

My favorite television Christmas special ever created is Pee-Wee's Playhouse 1988 special. Where else can you get Frankie Avalon, Charo, Del Rubio Triplets, Annette Funicello, Whoopi Goldberg, Magic Johnson, Grace Jones, k.d. lang, Little Richard, Joan Rivers, Dinah Shore, Oprah Winfrey, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Cher in one hour?

k.d. lang's performance might be the best of her entire career. She's wearing a cowgirl DRESS and singing Jingle Bell Rock at the top of her lungs. There may have been alcohol involved. I am most impressed that she did the entire thing without stopping to roll on the ground laughing.

And, as Pee-Wee says, "All that's missing now is CHARO." Feliz navidad. I vant to vish you a merry chreestmas. I vant to vish you a merry chreestmas. I vant to vish you a merry chreestmas from the bottom of my hea-eart.

What's your favorite christmas tv special? (Yes, we all love Charlie Brown, but what else?) If you must, tell me about your SECOND favorite. My second favorite is South Park's Critter Christmas where Stan teaches lion cubs how to perform abortions so that they can abort the anti-christ fetus from a porcupine after all the woodland creatures have a blood orgy. Not exactly the sweetest Christmas special, but by far the funniest. Except for Charo.

I forgot to mention...

2006-12-09T13:23:00.000-05:00

THIS may be the best part of the Pee-Wee special. He uses all the fruitcakes he received to build an extension to the playhouse. Note the shirtless men. Fruitcake. Shirtless men. Hmmm....

A question for you because I don't know

2006-11-30T15:34:00.000-05:00

If Socrates said (roughly) "The only thing I know is that I know nothing," and "The unexamined life is not worth living," then what was there to examine if you can know nothing? And had he fully examined his life when he chose death over exile?

How can you know nothing if you know that you know nothing? That's something, isn't it?

Is it the same lack of logic that disproves the statement "The only truth is power"? The statement can't be true if the only truth is power.

So was Socrates just a damn Sophist like Aristophanes claimed?

This one made me chuckle:

There arre threee mistakes in this sentence.

UU Update

2006-11-27T18:03:00.000-05:00

So we met with the new minister and I'm liking her more and more every time I talk to her. I am very hesitant, as she is a minister and thus immediately suspect, but we'll see.

Our first meeting was a get-to-know-our-story meeting. She made it clear that as children of members of the church we don't need to pay to be married there. And she also made it clear that she does not expect or want us to join unless that feels right to us. I've never felt so little pressure from a minister at that church.

I like her approach to "pre-marriage counciling" or whatever it is. She meets the first time to get to know us. On the second meeting she'll ask us all kinds of tough questions, kind of like a councilor, to see if we've thought about our relationship and our future. She'll ask how we fight, what we fight about, if we want kids, what our money situation is like, what we want for careers, what's important to us at the end of the day, etc. I look forward to it; I've always enjoyed an invigorating round of self-reflection.

The third meeting is to plan the actual ceremony. She sends us information on two weddings she did, one very traditional and one ass-backwards. Then we pick and choose what we want.

I'm looking forward to the process. But the most important thing that happened in our first meeting was that she acknowledged and we talked about the pain that the previous minister left us with. She was very sympathetic and could relate to us with her own stories of seeing colleagues act recklessly. We talked about when you can and cannot forgive, what the three of us can do to help the Fiancee and I feel at ease in the community again, and what options we have in talking to members of the church who were involved. She has really laid to rest many of our problems with the church from when that minipulative monster ran it. I feel like we can start over in our relationship with the church and with organized religion as a whole. I still don't think I'll join, and I still have trouble trusting organized religion, but I'm open to going more often and volunteering for a few of the things that interest me there.

I am very happy. And I can't wait to get married.

The Organized Religion Thing

2006-11-24T20:37:00.000-05:00

Alright. Finally time to discuss my feelings about organized religion. More for me to get my thoughts organized than anything else. Brownie points to anyone who reads the whole thing.

I was raised Unitarian Universalist, third generation. This is very rare, as the 100,000-200,000 person denomination is made up mostly of converts. Ex-Catholics, current Jews, and lots of Protestants who never went to church as a kid but want some kind of community and spiritual leadership as they raise their kids.

To be UU, you need to believe in one thing and one thing only: respect for the interdependent web of life and the sanctity of that life. Some take this more seriously and are vegan, most take it to mean eating but not torturing animals and respecting all human beings. It is liberal, democratic and of Judeo-Christian origin, with more recent Pagan influences. All churches are self-run, some more Pagan, others more Christian, some more Jewish, many a whole mix of all of the above. They all belong to the Unitarian Universalist Association, the central organization of the religion.

Okay. So I'm getting married soon in the church we both grew up in and the new minister wants us to join, become members, pay an anual fee to belong to a church in which we will be able to vote on church decisions. And this frightens me. I do not like the idea of paying for church membership, though those who cannot afford much are allowed to pay like twenty five dollars a year. But still, the money thing bothers me. But: how can you run a building without money?

Another thing that bothers me is the whole idea of having a minister lead a church. Sure, it's democratic, but that minister holds power and sway over the spiritual and emotional lives of the congregation. I know. I got fucked by a minister who mixed friendships, alliances, power and church law to ban people I love from church property for committing no crime. She threatened my family stability and did things I cannot publicly publish here. Until she did this to us, I wanted to be a minister myself.

And then there's the liberal rhetoric. I have strong liberal leanings. I believe in charity and support for those on the bottom of the social and economic ladder. But I do not blindly follow all the liberal dogma. I disagree with a lot of it. (I don't believe in the type of gun control on the books and think Affirmative Action is racist). To be a part of this church, it is assumed that you believe in the whole damn lot of it. I can't stand the ignorant blind peace-mongers who light candles before they eat a steak dinner praying for world peace. Shut the fuck up. There are times to fight and times not to fight. You have to use your brain to decide the difference.

I love that Unitarians don't assume you believe in God. What they stress, though, is the community. Which is fine. But I look around after the service and don't feel I particularly need this community in my life. If I were raising children, I might feel differently. I am glad I was raised in the church and love seeing the "old folks" who have been there forever. But I don't really need pot lucks and pancake breakfasts. I do, however, need the church building itself. If a family member dies, when I get married, I want the building I grew up in to be there for me. Hypocritical?

And then there are the sermons themselves. The current minister is a fire-breathing activist. She gets up there and PREACHES, and I mean PREACHES, motivating the congregation to save the world. And that's nice. But I don't want someone in my face all the time. I like her sermons because I disagree with a lot of what she says. I find that she makes me define my position because she comes from a pure liberal angle and puts me on a conservative retreat. Well, conservative for a Unitarian. But either way, her sermons are intellectually stimulating.

Back when I believed in God (I found God in Nashville, Tennessee, and I think that's funny) I had a few intensely spiritual experiences with Unitarian youth organizations. And they were central to my development as a spiritual person. But I have developed away from all of that. I am a strict humanist/agnostic. When I say "Humanitology: We are the answer to our own question," I mean it. I find the study of human culture and thought truly divine. My love of psychology, religious studies, anthropology, history, literature and art are all a part of my spiritual life. I am always searching for those traits that are universal, that make us human, because I believe that humanity is the most beautiful and ugly thing in the entire universe. In terms of a separate divinity: I have had unexplained experiences; I am perfectly open to the idea of a higher power. I just refuse to decide what to believe because afterward I will miss out on all things that do not conform to my belief. And besides, I don't think it matters whether there is a creator god or other gods or not. Morality and virtue are not dependent on anything but humanity. We know what is right or wrong, whether we attribute it to a higher power or not. I believe most people strive to be good, but that "good" is a culturally defined term. I am still trying to figure out the relationship between relative good and universal morality. Most religions and cultures agree on things like "don't kill" and "don't lie," they just disagree on the circumstances that make exceptions to the rules appropriate. Humans are capable of true evil. But the idea that good and evil come from different places, places other than the human heart, is ludicrous in my mind.

The church is not my spiritual home. It is not where I have revelations. Actually, the house I live in right now is. The house I live in is as close to a church as I will ever get. I have had most if not all of my "unexplained" experiences here. This is where I do any mediation/rituals that I am going to do. So I don't need the church for that.

I suppose I don't feel that I need organized religion. I just enjoy the intellectual stimulation of a well-writen sermon. I like disagreeing with someone's thoughts. Nothing spiritual there. But I want the building for my own because of all my memories there, because we both grew up there, because we need a place for weddings and funerals.

So am I a hypocrite not to join and still use the building? And if I do join: I always said I won't participate in someone else's holy ceremony because to do so without believing is offensive to those who do believe. If I sat through a Catholic Mass, I would stand and kneel where appropriate out of respect but not say the words that I don't believe in. So would joining a church I don't believe in and a community I don't feel I need be equally offensive?

I still don't know. We meet with the minister Sunday. We'll see how it goes.

Kurdistan

2006-11-15T12:09:00.000-05:00

The Fiancee mentioned dividing up Iraq into three countries today. One of them being an independent Kurdistan.

We were talking about this in "Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan" class last night. If we create an independent Kurdistan, the Middle East will implode.

Turkey has trouble with its Kurds in the south east. They regularly cross the border into Iraq, where Kurds are more or less independent in the North. Turkey regularly conducts raids across the border. Turkey hates us right now because American troops recently captured a bunch of Turkish troops and treated them poorly. But the point is that both Turkey and Iran (which also has a "Kurd problem" in its adjacent regions) have said that they will not stand for an independent Kurdish state because their Kurds will try to separate, taking big chunks of each country's territory with them.

If we create an independent Kurdistan, our friend Turkey and our enemy Iran will be on the same side waging war with the Western Darling, Kurdistan. It will be another Israel. We will lose Turkey, one of the most strategic countries in the Middle East as it has both the straits between Istanbul and Anatolia and bases within bombing distance of the rest of the region. This cannot happen. If we leave Iraq and lose Turkey simultaneously, we will have no way of keeping Iran from doing anything it wants.

My heart goes out to the Kurds, but if Iran and Turkey say no, Kurdistan cannot exist. Independence will only bring more war and devestation to a group of people who have been shit on for as long as anyone can remember.

Disgusting

2006-11-15T11:46:00.000-05:00

I understand that double jeopardy exists for a reason. And that's fine. But this is truly sick.

O.J. Simpson is giving a two part interview to FOX (big surprise) called "O.J. Simpson: If I did it, here's how it happened."

I know that television likes exploiting victims. I know that television likes sensational stories. I know that we have all known he did it since his trial. But does anyone give a shit about the families? I thought O.J. had no soul because he killed his children's mother. But this may be worse. He is now making money off of recounting the juicy details of killing his children's mother.

His poor, poor kids. They should sue him for emotional damages, pain and suffering.

Jubilatory Tenativity

2006-11-08T14:06:00.000-05:00

TAKE THAT

THE, and I mean THE, most important lesson we can take away from this election is that the voting machines are only being used to fudge elections if and when it is 51 to 49. The GOP never would have allowed such a push if they were in complete control of the elections and certainly wouldn't have allowed cronies like Santorture'em to go unemployed. When the voting is 55+ to 45-, the elections aren't fucked with enough to make a huge difference.

The most important lesson we can learn from the GOP itself is the same lesson every empire ever taught us: never assume you will rule forever; never get comfortable; never get lazy. And never make any race about only one issue. Even if it's fags.

We need to keep on our toes, move quickly, get/stay organized, keep our noses clean, have a little more faith in the Christian States, and keep our noses clean.

Mantra of the Day

2006-11-07T12:22:00.000-05:00

Everybody say it with me:

Germany survived the Nazis
Germany survived the Nazis
Germany survived the Nazis
Germany survived the Nazis
Germany survived the Nazis
Germany survived the Nazis
Germany survived the Nazis
Germany survived the Nazis

Of course, the Jews didn't.

Do I stick it out and keep my head down, stick it out and fight, or run like hell?

The folks running this country are a lot more subtle than Hitler was. It will take a hell of a lot longer for things to get 1941 bad. Globally, I have faith in two things: money, as they will never take away the freedom to purchase whatever they can make a profit off of; and the epilogue of Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, the reminder that no matter how bad it is there is always an end to the chapter, and future historians to read it like a fascinating, frightening book.

Not that I am particularly fond of having to live this chapter.

Am I a pussy to run off to another country, leaving my friends and family behind? Do I stick with the community I love and endure whatever happens over the next fifty years? I have no inherent sense of nationalism. The concept seems kind of silly to me. But I do love My City, and New England as a whole. Not simply because I live here, was raised here, have family and memories scattered throughout, but because I have roots in a wonderful community and feel connected to the Earth here, the ocean, the seasons.

But there are other wonderful communities elsewhere. And there are other beautiful places on Earth.

And then: where would I go? Will it be better in Europe, with the shady EU and Muslim riots? Canada with their recent overthrow of the scandalous liberal government? England, the most Big Brother surveillance-d country on Earth? South America with its political turmoil? Africa with its wars and diseases? Asia with its tsunamis, Communists, and dictators? The Middle-East with its fundamentalism and lack of women's rights? Russia with god-knows-what-is-next?

If only I had some idea of what the next twenty years are going to be like.

But: where there is satire, there is hope. Even Iraq has a Jon Stewart-esque show that is hugely popular (when the power is on). An unidentified man has been kidnapped by unidentified men and taken to an unidentified location. And now for the weather: hot, dry, sandy. And in sports...

I think I need to go watch Stan and Kyle make fun of Canada. It always makes me feel just a little bit better. And then I'll vote. It's a useless hobby, but it makes me feel nice anyway.

Healey Pulling A Kerry

2006-11-02T13:51:00.000-05:00

Healey is acting like an idiot. Now, don't get me wrong, she's a smart woman. But she is doing exactly what Kerry did in 2004. She is listening to her handlers. She is saying that a vote for her is a vote against the other guy. She is attacking with ruthlessness and speaking in obscurities. Not what she will do, but what she will not do. She is not speaking to the public with honesty, with thought (Kerry stopped thinking before he speaks a long time ago, as we can all see).

She is not explaining that she is the perfect Republican for Massachusetts because she is pro-choice but a fiscal watchdog, and wants compromise on gay marriage. Had she tapped into the women's groups who courted her, had she posed for photos next to the conservative ministers who are trying to clean up crime in the city, had she tried to look like she was helping poor people despite her being a millionaire, had she proposed plans for shaping the Mass economy and dealing with taxes, she would be leading in the polls.

But it's too late. She looks like a bitch and Patrick looks like a fairytale liberal, but he at least has something to say that is not about his opponent. And the voters are sick of the hate.

Healey's campaign:
RAPE: vote for Healey
BLACK PEOPLE: vote for Healey
FEAR: vote for Healey

Scare tactics work much better on the national level, not the local level. Hasn't anyone told her that yet?

"Lord, We Thank Thee For All Thy Bounty, Your Paper Towels Clean Up Our Messes Better Than That Brawny Dude"

2006-10-28T21:38:00.000-04:00

Right now, cooking in and on Darth Vader (my mystical and posessed black electric oven, usually called "Dearth Vader", as we can rarely afford good food), are onions, garlic, shallots, pork, squash, potatoes, apples, maple syrup, cinnamon, sugar, butter and gravy. Soon we will add buttermilk biscuits to the list.

This meal has been brought to you by the letter Chardonnay and the number 420.

VIVA LA NOR' EASTER.

happy halloween.

Thank You and Good Night.

Bueller? Anyone?

2006-10-26T14:02:00.000-04:00

The above pictured is a Christian monastery at the base of Mt. Sinai, where Moses talked to God.

They believe they have the original burning bush.

A few years ago there was a fire in the monastery.

They were very concerned for the safety of the bush.

It was fine. Thank God.

2013

2006-10-22T15:18:00.000-04:00

They're going to put chips in your passport so they can identify you from a distance without you even knowing. Starting this year. Get your passport right now if you don't have one. Mine expires in 2013. I will be able to see the 08 and 12 elections pass before I decide whether I have to leave this country. If you get one right now you'll have until 16. Go. Fill out paperwork. Keep your passport in a very, very "secure location".

Nothing Teaches Like the Choked Up Voice of Someone Who Was There

2006-10-18T22:35:00.000-04:00

This evening in my American history class we discussed and watched footage of the Civil Rights Movement. One student spoke after we viewed Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech. This man was in high school during the march and went down to D.C. to attend.

He told us with tears in his eyes that as he tried to move closer to hear MLK's words, he stepped on the foot of a black woman. He said "excuse me, ma'am". She broke down crying and told him that she was from Alabama and a white person had never said "excuse me" to her before.

In the silence that filled the room as he composed himself, the emotional reality of our American history hit me like a fire hose.

I Paid a Lot of Money to Learn This

2006-10-18T12:27:00.000-04:00

Last night I spent four hours sitting in the same chair as both of my classes are in the same room on Tuesdays. My ass is now in the shape of those big fancy wooden chairs with the school shield thingy that ivy league schools have for no apparent reason.

Out of those four hours one very interesting fact stood out:

Aparently American kids picked up the habbit of wearing a baseball cap backwards from seeing American black Muslims do it. Muslims across the world (I was studying Turkey last night) wear brimmed hats backwards so that when they pray they can touch their foreheads to the ground. In Turkey the word "hat" was not even used until 1928 (when hats were required and fezes banned) because the word brought such strong images of infidel imperialist pigs. They called them "brimmed headdress of infidels". And Muslims traditionally wore sandals and slippers not just because they lived in hot, sandy Arabia, but because they had to wash their feet five times a day to pray and taking shoes on and off is a bother. The mid-to-late 19th century was when Ottoman armies were first required to wear boots to battle.

I learned something today. I learned that it is ironic for a kid with a backwards baseball cap to hate on Muslims.

The Braindirty Toll is Three Dollars

2006-10-13T22:23:00.000-04:00

When we switched our internet to the new apartment, the company offered us a three dollar savings on our bill if we would kindly subscribe to their !FREE FOR SIX MONTHS! cable tv.

We pay three dollars a month not to have tv.

Trying to Sort Through the Semantics

2006-10-12T12:52:00.000-04:00

How come we aren't supposed to say "colored people" when it's the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People? I'm not looking to use the phrase - it makes me flinch the same as many Americans - I'm just trying to figure out the meanings of the words we use.

But if they changed the name of the NAACP, wouldn't the new term be out-dated and un-PC in a decade or two anyway?

Why are we not supposed to call black people black when it's okay to call white people white? Black people are never actually black and white people (except, I suppose, in the case of albinos) are never actually white, but it's an easy and clear way of talking about skin color. Black at one end, white on the other and a whole bunch of people who fall in between. Everyone will know what you mean if you use those words. What is wrong with that?

I'm all for being called whatever you want to be called, but I just want some consistancy. Changing the words we use to describe race and race relations does not make those who are shit on any better off nor does it change the attitudes of those who do the shitting.

[I had another paragraph here about my uncle being the only white kid in Hicksville, Florida to join the black kids in lowering the flag to half mast when MLK, Jr. was killed, and about how even white people like him who fought on the front lines of the civil rights war have to be careful about the words they use and jokes they tell for fear of being labeled "racist", but I have chosen to remove it because my wording of these ideas really might offend. If I was black I could have left it in. Which was my point in the first place.]

Those Who Would Give Up ESSENTIAL LIBERTY To Obtain A Little TEMPORARY SAFETY Deserve Neither Liberty Nor Safety

2006-10-07T14:17:00.000-04:00

This morning I cried for my country. The last time I shed tears for Her was in November of 2004. We have a president who has produced more signing statements than all previous presidents combined, stating specifically that he can choose which laws to follow based on "his interpretation of the constitution". People within our borders and under our control abroad no longer have a right to know the charges against them nor to a fair and speedy trial by a jury of impartial peers. And now for the "privilage" of using PUBLIC transportation I must forfit my right to be secure in my person from unreasonable search and seizure.

The MBTA plans on randomly searching for explosives among the one million daily passengers of the transit system. Not only is finding one terrorist among one million not statistically possible by random searches, these searches are not-so-random harassment paid for by my tax dollars. But the MBTA wants you to know that this obliteration of your rights as an American citizen will not be inconvenient: they will even hold the train for you while they do their testing for explosives.

I want to boycott the MBTA. But I can't. I am too poor. To get the education I need to not be poor anymore, I need to go into the city. I cannot afford to fix my car well enough to safely make the journey, nor can I afford a taxi. Thus my tears this morning.

What I have chosen to do is carry my pocket-sized copy of the Constitution. If I am searched I will pull it out, politely explain to the officers that they cannot do this, and refuse to be searched. The MBTA has already stated that anyone who refuses to be searched must leave the T. If they do not leave they will be arrested. After my discussion with the officers I will leave the T. I will walk/hitch/call for a ride/scrape enough money together for a taxi, and then proceed to the nearest public land line and call the ACLU. And I will sue.

I also plan on contacting the ACLU to find out what my rights of protest are on MBTA property. I want to make a few hundred copies of the Bill of Rights and hand them out in and around T stops. I am also going to look into getting support from my school and starting an organization to educate the masses about their rights. I want every Bostonian stopped in the subway to refuse to be searched.

If you use the MBTA, please purchase a copy of the Constitution small enough to carry with you. Please refuse to be searched. Many have died for the freedoms we have, the least we can do is be inconvenienced in the name of Liberty. I want to die where I was born, but I will not die under a fascist state.

2006-10-07T14:12:00.000-04:00

Despotism

This was made in 1946. It is 9:56 long. It is worth your time.

Tenative Hope

2006-10-03T10:28:00.000-04:00

I don't much care what the Dems say about their chances. They are a bit sanguine for me. But when the GOP is freaking out, then I feel a little better.

Christian Activists UNITE!! Scream bloody murder until there are mass resignations over this! RIGHT NOW!! (Or at least between now and November.)

Aint nothin wrong with sittin back an enjoyin a little exposed hypocrisy. It so often goes unrecognized that I'm gonna hafta savor this, ya'll!

I'm...losing it

2006-09-23T14:22:00.000-04:00

The title of this post was going to be "I'm BAAACK" but I looked at the word back as I still am right now, wondering if that's really how you spell it. I'm losing my mind. I've been reading about 19th century Turkey for a few hours now and am confused by any word that does not have at least two "h"s in it and any name that does not end with "Ali".

Sometimes I spell "of" "uv". Seriously. I notice when I read over my notes before a test. And I confuse "g" and "j" a whole hell of a lot.

I SWEAR TO TELL THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, SO ANYWAY,

I, the jenius that I am, am trying to battle my way through books thicker than my head (believe it or not) and will probably be posting way more than I did this summer. Blogs are homework evasion.

Three, neigh**, five things I learned in my first week back to school:

1) Turks are not from Turkey; they are originally from central Asia and swept across Iran on their way to Turkey, leaving a few deposits here and there. Oh, and Persian languages are closer to English than they are to Arab languages. So if we learn Arab to invade Iraq, we have to learn a whole new language to invade Iran. How inconvenient!

2) 150/X = 75/100 can also be written 150=.75X. This is therefore solvable because I forget how to cross multiply.

3) The Big Bang Theory can be conceptualized as fitting into the ancient Hindu belief in circular time. It would make it the end of the last universe and the beginning of this one. And the guy with the bad eighties hair who hosted the video we watched made in 1981 seriously should have been on Monty Python.

4) BURMA!

5) I panicked.

**Moo. I shall taunt you a second time: baaaa.

The Difference Between a Cult and a Religion is Money

2006-09-23T11:22:00.000-04:00

Yesterday at work, a particularly infamous witch came in. Ask me in person and I'll give you a diatribe about our experience with her yesterday, but for now I'll stay off the karma train.

However, her presence brought up a discussion of her politics, her followers, her motivations. Which led me to describing to a coworker my reasons for calling her a cult leader.

This woman makes her money on selling potions, "witch supplies", teaching classes, reading cards and telling the future. Ask anyone in town and they'll say, wide-eyed, that if you look her in the eye, she'll hex you. I looked her in the eye yesterday as I pleasantly asked if she needed help, and then we discussed the weight of bread. But I digress. Essentially she is well-known, feared in a vague sort of way, and the only witch to collect on her fame every time the Discovery Channel comes to town.

Now, not only does she receive money for the reading of cards and sell meaningless potions to tourists who have never heard the rule of three, but she also has a large following who work in her stores and act as "teaching assistants" in her classes for free. That's right, her business is staffed by "volunteers"*. These volunteers follow her religiously. She is their spititual guide.

Okay. So Christians need crosses, and those who consider themselves Wiccan may need supplies for their rituals. Running a business that sells "witch supplies" is no worse than a Catholic gift shop. BUT Catholic gift shops are businesses. Priests do not run them and the employees do not work there for free to "get in good with God". Charging money to read cards is, I believe, equivalent to paying a priest for a blessing or a referral to an appropriate passage in the Bible when a Christian needs guidance. It is slimy and ingenuine, not to mention that it lowers an ancient ritual to cheap entertainment.

The real difference, I believe, between a cult and a religion is money. You pay to belong to a church, but that is membership in a community. Any person off the street can walk into any church or synagogue anywhere in the world and the priest or rabbi will tell them everything they know about Christ or Moses. You do not pay for knowledge in a religion, only to be an ongoing member of a community that needs, say, heat in the winter and snacks after the service. In a cult you pay for knowledge.

Take Scientology: to become more and more advanced toward "cleanliness" or "self-realization" or whatever they have chosen to call it, you must pay. You move through the levels of the cult by paying huge amounts of money. You cannot be a poor Scientologist (or, I suppose, all Scientologists are poor by the time they reach enlightenment). I think that this witch's organization is much the same. You pay to take classes to learn her religion. You pay for her or her minions to give you (what was once spititual) guidance through the reading of cards.

BUT WAIT! you say. Everyone needs to make a living! Why can't she make a living at what she knows best?

Because she is selling her religion. And in the exchange she is turning it into a cult. And, of course, she wields a huge amount of influence over people who look up to her for spiritual fulfillment. Therefore it is a cult and she is a leader.

BUT WAIT! you say. She is putting Wicca in the mainstream! She is representing a community and letting the rest of the world know about it!

No, she is representing her community. She is putting Wicca in the mainstream as a joke for tourists and mixing its image with that of the historical killing of innocents (who were not witches) and the pointy-hatted witch on a broomstick that shows up on every t-shirt ever sold around here. This woman tried to sell a potion to break the Curse of the Bambino a few years ago. She is not a community head or a PR witch. She is a minor celebrity here to collect.

Don't get me wrong, I am not talking about Wicca. I am talking about one woman and her covencult. Real witches do not charge money. Real witches are willing to give knowledge to anyone who honestly shows an interest in the religion. Real witches do not sell love potions.

*I am only ninety percent sure of the source I got this fact from, so I will not quote it, but I believe it was printed in a newspaper.

Moved

2006-09-12T15:34:00.000-04:00

We are officially up here. I can't wait to get my computer set up so I can post a few pictures. For those of you who don't know, the Fiancee and I have moved from the second to the third floor and we love it. The cat has settled and decided she likes being queen of the mountain.

Lemme tellya, there aint no better place to enjoy these cool, fall, New England breezes than on the top floor of a nearly two hundred year old building fifty yards from the water.

I see parties in our future...

But for now we're unpacking and starting school. AHHH!!! I buy one million dollars worth of books tomorrow...

2006-09-03T11:51:00.000-04:00

ok go

Whether or not you like the music, this has to be the best music video ever. They went all out. It's like if Monty Python was a band. And this is their other video, using treadmills. Yeah. Treadmills.

And the Polarization Continues...

2006-09-03T11:13:00.000-04:00

Look at this. We all need to see Metropolis* again. The only way to slow the polarization of the head and the hands is through mediation of the heart. There's a head/hands fat joke here but I will end this entry with a shred of dignity and let it go.

*I am of the opinion that the film is a critique of both capitalism and communism, whereas some feel it's one and others feel it's the other. See this for a lecture on changing the story rather than protesting the status quo.

Your Patriotic Publicity Stunt is an Insult

2006-08-25T17:20:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr. LoBaido,

It has recently come to my attention that you are travelling around the United States painting one roof in each state with a giant American flag. Your reason? This is "a thank-you greeting card the size of the United States" for servicemen and women who really "step up to the plate".

I am writing to inquire, if I may, about the purpose of fifty giant American flags. Do these flags raise money for political candidates who might decide to take a look at military spending and redirect the money flowing into buying new expensive, elaborate, ships and aircraft toward providing all troops in Iraq with armor. Or is it that these flags will relieve some of the symptoms of PTSD, like nightsweats, extreme startle responses or fits of rage, for our troops when they come home.

Now that I think about it, maybe the flags are working hard to ensure that we fulfil our promises to our troops, by sending them to school and setting them up with the opportunity to live the American dream that they supposedly lost their legs and saw their comrades die for.

You're reply is most likely that they are meant to show the vets that we support them and are thinking of them. Too bad they'll never see all the publicity you're getting because they're trying to wipe the sand out of their eyes in 110+ degree heat many thousands of miles away.

But thank you. Thank you, sir, for your 'patriotism'. Thank you for making sure to explain that this display is "not political". Because war is never political.

Ever so sincerely,

Bry

Academia

2006-08-20T12:12:00.000-04:00

So I just wrote a whole long blog entry on my brain turning to cabbage because all I do all day is make small talk and stock shelves. And about how I want to get back to school and after that be a teacher because it makes me feel like my brain is alive. But upon reading it I realized that it is going to sound like snobby academic bullshit. And I don't mean it that way.

The problem, or one of them, is that I love academics. I love school. I love doing research in libraries that have stood for three hundred years. I love finding the facts and then shooting down ivy league professors, pointing out the holes in their statements. I love seeing how math and history and psychology are all the same thing from different angles. I love connecting the dots. And I don't think that there is any way to make my love of most things academic not sound stupid. Because academics are snobs. I have found very few who are not.

I'm not quite sure how to explain myself on this one. I hate the academic social world, you know, outside of class, because professors think that they know everything. They don't realize that everything is relative. What these people spend their life studying matters, but only in relation to itself. Academics make an imprint on history, but no more than any other group. I can step back and realize that my twenty page paper on ultra-rapid cycling in pediatric bipolar disorder, while interesting (in my opinion) and possibly useful to doctors diagnosing one very rare disorder, is not as useful to society as what a carpenter does with his day, or a woman who runs a great business that gives many people job security and income. If I become a public school teacher, the important part of my job is not teaching what year the magna carta was signed, it's getting to know my kids and helping them to see their own potential as carpenters and business people.

So when I go on and on about how working in the bakery is turning my brain to cabbage, I suppose I need to qualify the statement. I should say that I, unlike the Baker I work with and many of our coworkers, am not good at retail or food service. I am not creative about how to decorate a cake or double the profit on muffins. I cannot come up with new ways of doing the daily chores that are better, faster. I do not find satisfaction in customers being delighted with the brownie tray they ordered. I can stock, I can bag, I can slice, but I cannot do what the Baker does. It doesn't make me satisfied. What will (I'm betting) make me satisfied is helping kids get through high school. I only made it through two years before I got the hell out. Others don't have that option, and I want high school to be better for them than it was for me. And I want to encourage them to all go out and do what they are good at, whether it's writing fifty page papers on ancient greeks or tuning a car to perfection.

The academic world thinks that it is mighty important. Most people think that it is not important at all. I think it is somewhere in between. Reading books makes my brain happy, but it is what I do with my brain for the rest of the world that matters in the end.

I Am An Air Quality Meter

2006-08-17T14:29:00.000-04:00

I hadn't used my inhaler in at least eight months, probably ten, save once or twice while exercising on a particularly cold day. In the last month or two I have been using it two or three times a day. I can't fucking breathe.

So is it pollution, me, or the shit they're spraying? Besides the insect crap they're spraying, there are also those planes flying low and leaving a "cloud streak" (my own term, not sure what it's called) that you usually see behind planes at thirty thousand feet. Way up high the engine gives off moisture which freezes and becomes a fake cloud. But these planes are at ten thousand feet or lower, and the trail behind them cannot be pure moisture. It's not cold enough. They're spraying something.

But what? I don't care. All I know is it leaves a white dust that is not pollen on my car (look early in the morning, you'll find it a few days a month in the spring and summer) and makes me use my inhaler every three seconds. And unlike every professional athlete ever, I do not want a small penis and beard from the steroids. Thank you very much.

I Fucking Love This City

2006-08-14T21:51:00.000-04:00

Today my landlords put out a whole heap of old clothes for the trash. Since I got home from work I have run into three men, one homeless, one ?, and one who drove up and parked next to the house, rummaging through the bags looking for good shit. Every single one of them was polite as all hell, one said he wouldn't make a mess, all said hello and all chatted for a moment.

Even the folks going through our trash are fucking awesome here. Anchovies, maybe, but still awesome.

A real blog entry to come...

The Perfect Setup

2006-08-11T19:37:00.000-04:00

So the dudes who wanted to blow up planes from England to America were from Pakistan?

Fucking perfect. Haven't heard about Pakistan in a while. We're dealing nuCUlar shite to India. Hate to say it, Muslims, but so far in history modernist Westerners have beat every foe they've taken on. India and Japan finally bought in. You're next, but you'll end up more like the poor-ass void between Russia and Western Europe than Japan. Just think of us as a giant drug dealer. We sell to those we like/trust/want to use, we kill/mame/destroy those who threaten/compete/fuck with us.

You know, Americans (myself included) don't know geography well enough. Click on and really look at this map. If we're in Iraq and Afghanistan, we're buddies with India (well, they're taking our jobs and our scientific knowledge), and Saudia Arabia, China AND Russia own our stocks&realestate/companies/WesternEuropeanAllies'oil, this next world war is going to be UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE.

And now, for something completely different.

Well, not really.

Quotes of the Day:

Alien: "What if we took species from all different planets in the universe, and put them together, on the same planet? Great TV, right? Asians, bears, ducks, Jews, deer and Hispanics, all trying to live side by side on one planet! It's great!"

And later:

Stan: [Don't cancel the hit tv show "Earth".] "I'm sure that if you give our world time, it will become even more outrageous and violent."

Cartman: "There's even World War Three to look forward to!"

We look forward no more. We just look around. And shake our heads.

Thank you, and good night.

2006-08-06T22:53:00.000-04:00

My Face On Fire

Yeah. So here it is. My brother's friend's face on fire. His name is Ben.

Loathe

2006-08-06T22:50:00.000-04:00

Loathe. Now that is a good word for describing my feelings toward the woman who has hurt me, my Fiancee and my immediate family more than any other. I guess you could say she is my only enemy. This is a woman who through some subtle and some not-so-subtle ways manipulated a large body of followers. This is a woman who went on a crusade against me and mine, who put my immediate family members in grave danger of losing each other, and for whom I have no sympathy whatsoever.

Now, I will not say that I'm completely blinded by rage. She has done a few good things, too. Her family loves her and there are a select few of her followers who have honestly benefited from her actions. She preaches the right message, half the battle, she just does not practice.

Within my immediate family there is no end to the jokes at her expense. She is a topic that, it seemed a short while ago, could always bring a laugh from the crowd of the ones I love. Until recently, that is.

Sitting at dinner with our mothers, I threw out some insignificant joke about this woman. I was hushed. It turns out that she, in her mid fifties, has been diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease. This means that over the next three to five years, her muscles will waste away until her diaphragm collapses and she suffocates to death without a ventilator. This is a disease I would never wish on my worst enemy. I know this because she is, and if I could wish her pain away I would. I do not want harm to come to her, except maybe some psychological payback from the karma train. This, never. I am honestly sorry this is happening.

BUT, that does not mean that I'm going to go on and on about how wonderful she is like some of her fucked-over-followers turned she-wasn't-really-that-bad babbleheads. I am no longer allowed to joke at her expense near my family. This bothers me. My moral dilemma is that I still hate her, though I hope to see her live a long life. Far away from me. She needs a lot more time on the planet to figure her shit out. But am I allowed to continue making fun of her for the horror that she has inflicted on her fellow man and that this disease has not changed? Our mothers say no. When someone is sick you have to be nice to them. I say yes. It bothers me when folks talk nice about dead people they loathe, and why should sick people be different?

I continue my jabs at her because they make me feel better. My life is just now recovering from what she did six years ago. I do not wish her physical harm. I loathe her. I do not think that I am being hypocritical.

Hell

2006-08-02T19:15:00.000-04:00

Tonight when I got home from work (had to walk part way in bright sun), I passed out. On the floor. Naked. The Fiancee passed out face down across the bed sideways. The cat assumed pancake position on the floor by my head. Half an hour later the three of us groggily moved around a little before collapsing again.

When will this end?

And don't say tomorrow because I don't care. Lower temperatures tomorrow do not make me more than semi-conscious today.

Party of God, Your Table Is Ready

2006-07-30T18:53:00.000-04:00

The Republican party is being called "the party of God" by millions of Americans.

Guess what Hezbollah means. What a fucking showdown.

Read this. At least there's one evangelical willing to stand up for the separation of church and state. Only one, but one none the less.

WWIII

2006-07-29T18:25:00.000-04:00

So the showdown between evangelical capitalism and extremist islam has begun. It's Iran vs. the US, via Lebanon (to start). Syria along with the vast majority of the Middle East has got Iran/Lebanon's back. Fighting a holy war is a great reason not to pay attention to sky rocketing unemployment and mass discontent. Europe, India, Japan, etc. are playing for Team West. East vs. West is pretty straight-forward, what will muck things up are the unknowns. China (and it's bitch North Korea) plans on doing anything it wants. Russia has the power to royally fuck with Eastern Europe and can dominate, despite it's weaknesses, with it's strategic positioning and sheer mass. South America is one big group of in-fighting siblings, controlled by drug lords who are employed by our very own cocaine addicts, with Venezuela coming up on top hating America almost as much as the Shiites. Africa is not a big player right now. Fear of America there has played out by having parents not use Western vaccines for polio, for fear of conspiracy. Disease, starvation and war are keeping Africa worried about itself, but the Muslims in the north can easily be recruited for the Middle East effort, should fighting between Muslims subside for the greater good of the destruction of Westernism.

Just one question:

Where does Iceland fit into the international political puzzle?

Do they even have an army?

Just curious.

Update

2006-07-21T20:35:00.000-04:00

My brother gets home Sunday, but he didn't end the trip without one kid setting his face on fire. You know those stupid jackass videos on youtube where they get very hurt and you wonder what kind of morons would do that?

My brothers' friends are those morons. Do not do what you see performers at the beach do. The first three times you'll be fine. But that last one is not worth it. Nevermind your face on fire, the panic makes you swallow the rest of the gas.

Did you know poison control calls you back an hour later to see if you're okay? What a country.

Age

2006-07-20T14:11:00.000-04:00

Age. I've been meaning to write about it for a long time now. I'm still not sure quite how to approach it; there are so many levels.

Culturally, Americans are more obsessed with age than most/all other cultures that I've ever heard of. I once asked a Malaysian co-worker what was strange about the United States and she replied "green blinking traffic lights and how important birthdays are". I couldn't really explain either to her.

I think that part of the reason age is so important to Americans, besides the cliche that youth is part of the American dream, is that we don't have any other major anchors to mark our progression through life. In more "traditional" cultures the phases are clearly marked: babyhood, childhood, bachelorhood, marriage/children, grown children/grandkids, old age. In our culture people get married at all different ages, some people stop going to school and become "adults" at sixteen, some don't finish school until they're thirty. With bigger and more uneven gaps between generations, age is really the only way to measure differences.

Independence is also highly valued in our culture. Old people are not independent. We are afraid of being old as if it means being a child again. And we often treat our grandparents like children, putting them in "daycare" and talking to them like they're stupid. A shame.

Wisdom does not come with age for us, as change happens so quickly that no child looks to their parents for advice. We might be the only culture to expect children to live very different lives than their parents. If you do exactly what your parents did (which is weird), you're still doing it with far more advanced technology and "modern" problems. Old people do not contain information on how to use the latest technology. They are obsolete. Our culture fears being obsolete.

But on a more individual level, age is our indicator of how to behave toward each other. You would never speak in the same manner toward an eighty year old as you would toward a twenty year old. People get very freaked out if someone much younger than them (or older, for that matter) is supposed to be considered a peer. We think of people of different ages as being different from us, when they are just living different lives with different concerns. This is where my own personal experience has given me a little perspective.

My other half is fourteen years and five days older than me. That's a lot by almost any standard. I only know two couples with a larger age difference. Most couples in our culture are within three to five years of each other. I also went to state college at sixteen. Teachers were always shocked to find out my age. At nineteen I went to night school, almost always the youngest in my class by at least eight or ten years. My first semester I got to be friends with a woman who almost fell off the bar stool when she realized I was only three years older than her son.

People have never known what to do with me. The relationship between adults and children is lopsided. Children talk about what they're doing in their life, but adults are not expected to reply similarly. Just nod and smile. But what happens when you are expected to respond in kind, be a peer? And when do you act like a peer versus an adult toward a younger person?

My other half is only five or so years younger than some of my parents' young friends. They are totally freaked out by us. They used to change my diapers and now I, this little kid in their minds, am with someone that they should see as a peer. But they more just see her as a freak, because she falls into no category. We are very uncomfortable with people who have no category, for whom there is no script on how to act.

I've been asked by a number of my older friends and aquaintances, "why are you different? why are we able to be friends?"

I honestly don't know. But I don't think it is me, per se. I think it is my life. I live the same life as them. I'm a married old lady. I go home to my other half every night and make dinner and go to bed. I pay my bills, work my ass off, and enjoy gatherings with friends on the weekends. Most of my age-mates wander around looking for things to do, trouble to cause, out of boredom. They have no space to call their own, are out looking for alcohol and sex, and just generally live very different lives than I do. I have more in common with settled down people, which is always necessary for friendship.

So now the qustion of maturity arises. Am I more mature because I aimed at a settled down life so young? Or am I just boring? People always say that with age comes insight. In general, that might be true, but I know older people with no insight and younger people with tons. And there's the reverse thingy, where as I get older I realize more and more how young I am. But I also see myself aging and knowing myself and my motivations better. So, try as I might, I am still unsure of the nature and meaning of age on an individual level.

Culturally, aging for Americans is a painfully negative thing. But I take great delight in the few people I know who honestly do not care. I know a woman who is forty-three and her husband is in his early sixties, and she is completely ageless. She doesn't care about the number on her driver's license one bit. When I met her I wasn't sure if she was twenty-five or fifty. She talks to me like a peer and forgets my age all the time. She tells me that she doesn't understand people who are uncomfortable around people of a different age. I feel the same way, but the reasons for that lack of comfort have become more and more apparent to me over the years. If/when I become a teacher I am going to have to draw a very strict line between myself and people who are much closer in age to me than my own wife. I will have my age- and position-defined role. But it won't be so hard because high school kids live very different lives than I do. What is hard is remembering that my parents' friends still think that that line is there between us. I forget about it because I live a very similar life to them. I always get a rude awakening when I hang out with them. They make me feel more like a kid than my grandparents, who force martinis and beer into my hand as soon as they see me and tell me about their lives, too.

I am sure that my perspective on age will continue evolving, especially as I become a teacher. Watching my brother grow up is teaching me a lot too, because he is very mature but also very inexperienced with the world. I still haven't nailed down the relationship between maturity, age and experience. I am interested to see what a few more years will teach me.

Get Me The Hell Out Of Florida

2006-07-18T18:29:00.000-04:00

Both sides of my family live in Florida. My mother went to high school there and many of my relatives who don't even live there anymore went to college there. I have three aunts, three uncles, six cousins and a grandmother there, counting both sides. And those are just the full-timers.

I fucking hate Florida.

I hadn't been back since I was twelve, but I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid. My hatred of Florida, I felt, needed a refresher. I wanted to, as an adult, stand in the sun and confirm my beliefs.

My uncle got married, thus the weekend-long trip to Clearwater and our stay in Clearwater Beach. The entire "mom's side of the family" got together for a happy-non-funeral-occasion for the first time in years. Nice wedding (despite the lack of A/C), and I loved meeting the bride's autistic twelve-year-old son who was brilliant if you could get to him right. He told us he has his own culture that doesn't involve manners, and that he "flaps" (wildly throws his hands in the air) to calm himself down because he is aware that he is autistic, and he aparently had the most involved and long conversation with us, strangers, that my uncle has ever seen. He even remembered our names the next day, which is also very, very rare.

But back to Florida: the first five things I saw were a Jesus-mobile, a beautiful crane, a choose-life license plate, the international Scientology headquarters and the national Shriners headquarters.

The crane did not make up for the rest. I love the wildlife (the lizards are fun to chase), hate the weather (just like today, 95-100 degrees, but even MORE humid), can't stand the people (either fat and angry or anorexic and drunk, it seemed), hate most of the food (can I please get a grilled chicken sandwich, not a blackened chicken sandwich), feel weird in the brand-new architecture (the streets are all at perfect right angles and everything is painted PINK or AQUA), and am not a huge fan of the sun - water - sun - water - sun - drinks - water - drinks - water - drinks - passout routine.

I believe that the God-fearing Christians down there are honestly good people. They try their best to do what they believe (and are told) is right and want to raise their kids well and be happy. This does not mean I want to live with them. Christians here are what I consider "real" Christians, who are more concerned about their own relationship with God. Down there they seem to be far too concerned with all the sinners out there. On the plane home (JetBlue rocks, by the way), I watched something on the discovery channel about evangelicals and some survey somewhere says over half of all Americans believes we are living in the End Times.

Only YOU can make your dreams come TRUE!!

Anyway, Florida is an interesting experience. Yes, there was some southern hospitality. People seem happier to chat with a stranger in line or ask the time. But I also saw extreme road rage and a cop almost get into a fist fight with some lady who was criticizing her. Having my mother and cousin point out where they went to high school was creepy. People actually LIVE here? All the time? This is their experience of "home"? I would feel more at home in Arizona, where it feels like walking on the moon. I would live anywhere I've been before Florida. Colorado. Arizona. Even one of the Carolinas would be better, because the people might be similar but at least the landscape is somewhat normal. When my brother mentioned to my cousin that he could never imagine living there, she replied that she felt the same way about where we grew up. I guess it's all perspective. But still...

I kept meaning to go into the motel room, and kept staying just a little bit longer, until I ended up with a sunburn that is uber-embarrassing. I look like I am wearing pink stalkings up to my thighs and a white tanktop with a red shirt underneath. I'm off to put on more "green stuff".

Quote of the Day

2006-07-12T21:10:00.000-04:00

"I will never pay for water and I will never pay for sex."

--A coworker good looking enough to never have to pay for either

Why Is Everyone So Cranky?

2006-07-09T19:23:00.000-04:00

Last night I saw a movie at the cinema, my first one there. I was excited to see what it looked like in there.

I went, sat, waited. The AC was broken in two of the three theatres. But it was not a hot evening. I am always ten degrees hotter than everyone around me, sweat like a pig. But I was fine.

For TWENTY MINUTES I had to hear everyone around me complain. Complain about the heat (they were mostly over sixty, with a few fifty-somethings complaining of hot flashes), complain about the seats being uncomfortable, complaining about the shape of the god damned theatre. When the girl came in to announce where the fire exits were, first someone screamed "LOUDER!! We can't HEAR you!" then, after she repeated herself and tried to exit, they all screamed "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE AC?!". She made a meek apology and they humphed in her general direction. Two nice old ladies who felt bad for her clapped awkwardly.

The folks working at that movie theatre are paid to be yelled at. People scream when they're told that credit cards are not accepted yet. It's a new cinema! People scream when they have to pay for the cups, which are on inventory and counted every night. They don't want the free cups, they're too small. They want the massive ones that cost a lot for the cinema to buy. People scream when the movie's too loud. When the movie's too quiet. When there are kids in the movie giggling. When they realize that their favorite flavor of minute maid juice is not offered. Never mind the fact that the cinema openly encourages people to bring whatever food they want.

What the hell is wrong with people? I'm sorry if you don't like the product, but no one is making you buy it. Unless a clerk makes an actual error there is no reason to get upset, let alone yell. Don't like company policy? Don't support the company. Do you really think the eighteen year old telling you how to exit in an emergency knows how to fix the fucking AC?

I do my best to be really, really nice to service people. Unless they are openly rude to me, I do not give them shit. I had a place at the mall fuck up my sandwich order four times in a row a few weeks ago. I waited half an hour for what ended up being not-even-quite-what-I-ordered. By the end it was clear I was agitated, I said "Don't worry about it. I don't care anymore" when the last one came out wrong, with vaguely hostile resignation in my voice. But I did not yell. I did not call them stupid. I did not scream about what a travesty their sorry excuse for a sandwich counter was. I did not call their attention to how undertrained and understaffed their business was. Because that is not their fault. I chose to give them my business when I had had a few little problems in the past, and I had the option to ask for my money back. I chose not to, but I have not gone back. Why scream?

Is it me or does it seem like people are looking for something to complain about? Especially old people. We have a delivery service at work for old people and the folks who run that department get yelled at at least ten times a day each. Over everything and nothing. Is this the highlight of these people's day? Is someone to complain to the only person they talk to all day? Is it really that bad if they got mashed potatoes on the side instead of potato slices? Seniors at the cinema pay FIVE DOLLARS to see first run feature films on a Saturday night and they go on and on about the seats being uncomfortable.

The only thing that makes me want to scream and complain is when people scream and complain. Civility and manners are not that much to ask for.

My Brother's (Mis)Adventures

2006-07-06T15:06:00.000-04:00

The Boys of Sally Boy

My brother and his friend are touring with Sally Boy*, a band they know, and Falling in December, a band they just met, all over the East Coast. My brother and his friend are making a video of the adventure. A guy from the band has been updating Sally Boy's blog throughout. Today's entry made me laugh hard enough to copy and paste a section of it here:

...we spent the night at Wal-Mart last night which was surprisingly comfortable given the circumstances. We tried to fire up Falling in December's grill, but Mr. Wal-Mart got mad at us so we wheeled it out to the sidewalk and tried to make burgers but we were impatient and now we all have salmonella or however you spell it. You get the idea...

So after eating some shitty burgers we curled up to sleep for a few hours, all the while keeping a watchful eye on all of the drug dealers, when we were woken up by EMT's who were trying to revive John, FID's drummer, who was having a diabetic attack and convulsing. He pulled through, which was good, because that would have really put a damper on things.

...after that we showered in [Niagra] Falls. I dropped the soap over the edge, though, so now the whole river is full of suds. All the fish are dead. I am wanted in the state of New York...

I can't wait to hear the rest of their story. Ahh, to be eighteen with a partially functioning car and nothing to do but roam the country causing trouble...

*Their myspace is really funny...all old pics and the only people who comment are girls.

Creepy

2006-07-06T14:57:00.000-04:00

Cats are creepy enough as it is. This afternoon I watched The Bean sleep with her eyes cracked open just a little bit. She was in total REM, her eyes were darting all over the place and she kept twitching. Creepy.

What do cats dream about? The one time she saw a mouse she stared at it until it had a heart attack and died of fright.

Kim Jong Il Has Sand In His Vagina

2006-07-06T12:05:00.000-04:00

This is a man who loves two things: himself, and movies. His love of himself is self evident if you've ever seen pictures of his palace. His love of movies he expresses by kidnapping foreign film makers and forcing them to direct his scripts. I highly recommend checking out the all-puppet satire of Kim in "Team America", because Trey and Matt did their research and represented the Dear Leader better than he could have.

He is a lonely aging wacko who has been neglected in the international media until very recently. Everyone was so worried about Iran that they forgot all about poor old Kim. So he began his "comeback" with some meetings and reunions of North and South Koreans. A feel-good, human-interest touch. Then he pulls out his Bombiewombies (which didn't work, by the way) and we're supposed to be shaking in our boots.

Now, I'm not saying that North Korea is not a nuclear threat. I think North Korea is mighty frightening. Ten years from now. Kim needs to be dealt with so he is not a threat in the future. But what pisses me off is the way the Republicans are spinning this sad little son-of-a-bitch.

We're not afraid of terrorists like we used to be. The estate tax reform fell through. Gays are not illegal. Hippies can still burn flags. What's left? The Asians.

I never heard of Kim test firing bombs before. But that's because American media never reported it before. I cannot assume that it means it has never happened. My guess is that he's been doing it for a long time. He loves his military (third to himself and movies) - they're the only ones in the country that get fed. I'm sure that if he invests enough to feed the bastards he's gonna want them to have big boom-boom capabilities. How could this be the "first" test of weapons we've been warned he's had for more than a decade?

But this is the first time we've decided to "intercept if necessary". The funniest thing is that we're ready to kick the ass of a guy whose bombs don't even work. It's like a body-builder beating up a six year old who won't stop saying "neener neener neener".

There are two major options about the bombs not working. My thought is that they simply don't work. Scientists with guns to their heads don't generally produce the finest work. The other is that they purposely had them crash into the ocean to "test the waters" (pun totally intended). But either way, Kim is not ready to blow up the West Coast, as we've been promised he'll do.

However, Americans have run into a shortage of things to be afraid of. Whenever we are short on supply and high on demand we seem to be saved by either the Middle-East or Asia. This time it's Asia. So, although Kim Jong Il has been a "major threat" for years, now it is newsworthy which means buy-extra-water-honey-we're-all-gonna-die.

Kim Jong Il and all the tons and tons of sand in his vagina need to be dealt with. I am fascinated to see how the international bitchfest will go. Obviously Russia and China are against us, because they are the defiant bullies on the block, and we will puss out to them, because they own Europe via oil and America via cheapplasticcrap, respectively, but we're not scared of North Korea because they don't give us anything. So who knows? We could invade North Korea before we even invade Iran. Or both at once!! Then we can dust off the ol' draft!!! Everyone under FORTY-TWO can wear a spiffy new uniform MADE IN CHINA. It's fucking perfect!

I am getting a bit ahead of myself. I am mostly being sarcastic. I think. We'll see. But I refuse to be afraid of Kim Jong Il, for now, and am much more afraid of the international reaction to him.

I should make a movie about my thoughts on him. He'd surely watch it. He has a room full of just about every movie ever made. I'm sure he owns a copy of "Team America". I wonder if he liked the scene where he sings "I'm so Wonewy".

Ginormous People

2006-07-05T19:12:00.000-04:00

First of all, let me clarify here. I am not talking about just "fat" people. I don't care. Health and size are not as related as everyone thinks. You can be big and still very athletic and healthy. According to height/weight charts I'm thirty pounds overweight and I can run for at least an hour straight (with my inhaler, of course) and work out regularly. I'm talking about GINORMOUS people. I'm talking over 400 lbs, driving those little carts at the supermarket people. I'm talking out of work on disability people. These are folks who cannot function. They cannot walk from the sofa to the bathroom without getting winded. The government gives them money because they cannot work. There may be a small handful of those people who have genuine genetic disorders and government help for them is fine by me. But the vast majority of ginormous people do not need to be that way.

The other day one of these ginormous people came within two inches of running me over in her little cart that goes far too fast, thus the rant. Would we allow an alcoholic to drink until they cannot walk, let alone work? No. We would help them, have compassion for them and their situation, but view their behavior as unacceptable. So why are ginormous people different? Why are we only ever allowed to talk statistics, epidemics, never real people? Is their behavior really acceptable?

Is it rude to tell someone they're dying?

My father was approaching ginormous status. He was at around 350 and gaining. My brother had to have a little fridge with a lock on it to keep enough food in the house for him to eat. My father chose to eat his problems away. He couldn't get drunk he was so fat. I worried about him. It pained me to see him eat. We tried everything to get him to stop, to exercise, to do ANYTHING. But he didn't. And I had no sympathy for him when his knees hurt. When he couldn't fit into a booth at a restaurant. When he got winded on a walk with the family. When he needed an extension for his seatbelt on airplanes. When he was exhausted all the time. Because he chose to use food as a tool to cope. Even if his choice was because of depression or stress, we all have problems and an array of options of how to deal with them. For most of his life, he chose food.

Then he got the surgery. Not the way I would have gone. Almost killed him. More pain pills than I have fingers, every day, for months, due to doctor error. But he made a decision. And changed. He's under 250 now. And still losing. I'm proud of him for taking responsibility, even if our insurance paid for it. That surgery cost a lot less than the government paying him disability for eating a pound of cheddar cheese every day. Even if he gains a lot back, I don't see him ever being as big as he was again. And he will certainly never be on disability because of his weight, which was a real possibility before the surgery.

The surgery (stomach staples to make your stomach frickin tiny) does not make you skinny. It makes your body so sensitive to food that you are aware of every bite you take. This is something that ginormous people find shocking when they first get the surgery. The realization that there is a connection between food in your mouth and the state of your body is made sometime after the surgery. It's like a light bulb turning on. And when you lose enough weight, you have a lot of energy to play with. My father has used his to discover exercise. He loves it.

He tells me all the time now, "just write down what you eat every day, you'd be amazed". I guess he didn't hear me say it a half dozen times before the surgery. But no matter. He made his decision and is able to function now. He chose to stop killing himself with food. The rest of America can do the same, whether with surgery or old fashioned eating reasonably and exercising. I know that being poor means eating crappier. Being poor can equal being fat (and that's a big problem; a rant for another day I suppose), but to be ginormous, unable to work, you really have to try.

I see a lot of similarities between ginormous people and alcoholics. And I think that a lot of the same techniques, therapy, strategies for changing their lives can work. But AA and their disease model are wrong. You do not have to turn yourself over to a higher power. God will not make you skinny or sober. You DO have control over your behavior, your body, your life. Getting back under control and staying that way is very, very difficult - even for people who have surgery. But it is a matter of life and death. And you have to choose to live.

I know I can't tell anyone else how to live their life. But the un-PCness of talking about extremely, morbidly obese people has got to go. How can they change their life if we can't even talk about the fact that there's a problem? My father was very defensive and embarassed about his weight. But part of the catalyst for his decision to change came from our, as a family, making it very clear to him that he was going to die if he continued. Call it an intervention, call it sticking your nose in someone else's business, but either way it saved my father. Actually, it convinced him to save himself.

***Also: see this for thoughts on parental responsibility and childhood obesity

Independence Day

2006-07-04T17:39:00.000-04:00

The day we celebrate our country. And what potential it has!

Recently I've been hearing a lot of people talking about how they wish we had "the old government" back, the one from before the President decided he could break laws and shit on the Constitution.

But for those people I have a few words of hope. Or despair, depending on how you look at it.

The Constitution has been shit on since the ink dried. Now we're abusing it in the name of hating gays. Before we used it to make blacks objects to be owned. This may seem mighty depressing, but what I want to stress is the American Patriots who have always been there, since the very beginning, fighting the injustices of the abuse of the Constitution. Fighting the abuse of other human beings. America has a long tradition of people who give a shit. And fight. From our founding fathers to Harriet Tubman to Dorothea Dix to Eleanor Roosevelt to Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Goodridge family.

So today I am going to remember those who fought. We have a rich heritage of good thinkers, and good do-ers, and those are the people whom I am proud to stand next to as an American.

From the Worst Day Ever to the Best Day Ever

2006-06-26T20:48:00.000-04:00

My day started with my boss screaming at me. Aparently last year I was a wonderful employee and she does not know what has happened to make me the plague of the earth. She cut my hours from over forty to thirty five - not one minute over. I'm not sure how we're going to eat with The Fiancee getting so few hours. And there is only one way she could know that I'm such a "horrible" employee. My one bakery co-worker: The Baker. The Baker tells me all fucking day that I'm "number one" and "flawless". All fucking day. And then this. And when I didn't say a word to her all morning she played dumb. "I know nothing! What happened?"

Right.

Then I took my glasses off to go into the freezer (they fog up for half an hour when I don't take them off) and on my way out I knocked them off the table and stepped on them. Best day ever. Now I have to see if my frames are ruined and go all the way back to Costco to have them fixed. Until then I shouldn't drive.

But tonight (after I passed out on the floor in the bedroom of exhaustion an hour before I SHOULD have gotten home) The Fiancee and I went to the tavern to have a drink with the Mothers of the Brides. And I feel sooooo much better.

We met to discuss whether or not we're going to put the deposit down on the place we want to get married. We thought we'd have a drink, sign the papers and be done. We ended up being there over two hours and a couple glasses of wine each. We had the waitress who knows us by name and loves us to death, who inquired about our planning and started telling us just what kind of wedding gowns we should wear. It was wonderful. We talked guest list, told stories from our childhoods, joked that the mothers of invention t-shirts should be edited for the mothers of the brides. The Fiancee and I were crying when they handed us checks for the deposit. Both of them are giving us so much, and I don't mean money. They are whole-heartedly supporting us, throwing out ideas, telling all their friends, getting excited over different options for table decorations.

The Fiancee's mother kicked her out when she found out she was gay years and years ago. She has come a long way.

They made me feel so good. It ultimately doesn't matter what happens at work. I would like to avoid drinking Miller Lite all summer (like last year) but this is not my career. I'm going to be a history teacher and I have a feeling I'm going to love it. This is just some shit job I'm doing while I'm in school getting to where I'm going. It's hard to remember that when I'm paying the bills or standing silently ten feet away from someone who talks shit about me behind my back. But it's true. I am blessed. I have a supportive family who loves me and whom I really do like. On her side and my side. And talking to my mother about her meeting all my friends made me glow. I can't wait. She will love them and I think they will love her. She's smart, no nonsense and motherly at the same time. And, of course, I have a woman with whom I am madly in love, who can reach over and put her hand on my knee and make my problems melt away.

Seeing our mothers tonight made me feel like I can go into work tomorrow without the anger and without fighting the tears as I did today. I have a feeling I will be slamming things around and swearing less, too. And you know what? I like The Baker. She's a fascinating person. Even if she deals with things poorly and is scared shitless of confrontation. I'm going to go in there to study her fucked-up brain and when things get overwhelming I'm going to think of my future wife and our evening with our mothers.

Blessed Be

Ruane

2006-06-25T18:48:00.000-04:00

I thought the Bush Administration was bad about giving favors to friends. THIS makes me fucking crazy.

Okay, so Policitian can't pay into a retirement fund because of technicality. In 1994, he has the option to start paying, BUT DOESN'T. Then he gets old. Then he gets sick. Then someone notices that he has no money. Then the state government decides that it is their business to give him money. Because he was a good Polician and they like him/feel bad for his wife. Then they spend weeks of lawmaking-time figuring out how to give him money. And they do. But they don't want it to appear that they're just giving him the money, so his family has to sell his house and pay that to the state to make up for what he would have paid had he contributed his whole life. When they all die. Basically they get money but don't leave a house to their heirs.

I am sure that he was a very nice man. I'm sure that if I met his wife I would feel bad for her too. And it is unfortunate that his pension crap worked out the way it did. But his lack of financial planning is not my government's probem. HE COULD HAVE GOTTEN A FULL PENSION FROM PAYING FOR ONLY TEN YEARS STARTING IN 1994! If every state employee who didn't plan for retirement got help, we wouldn't have a government, we would have a bank. I don't care that his family is paying the state. Any legislation enacted for one person is sketchy. Very sketchy.

If the rich politicians feel so bad for him, why don't they use their influence to start a private fund for his survivors? They would end up being able to give his wife a lot more money without wasting everybody's time. But no. Rich politicians use their influence to make us pay for it in time and money.

I'm sorry that he's died. But he had his whole life to plan for this. He could have fixed everything in 1994. No one can say he didn't know about the legislation HE WAS A LAWMAKER. That's like a lawyer claiming not to know stealing is against the law.

He should not get his own legislation. But he is. The State has failed us on this one.

Pardon Me While I W(h)ine

2006-06-25T18:18:00.000-04:00

I proof, bake, bag, sticker and stock more bread than pictured every single day if you count rolls.
By myself.
My employer does not understand the phrase "understaffed".
This moment of self-pity was brought to you by:
AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I miss my blog. I feel as though we've been apart a long, long time.

I began working at the bakery at the grocery store again June 1. It took me until four days ago to want to kill someone. That's not bad. But I'm going to complain anyway. What's a blog if not therapy? Most of the people who read this work twice as hard as me (coffeesnob) and I have no right to complain. But today I don't care.

Working 8-5 5-6 days/week. Get screamed at for punching out late (I really leave between 5:30 and 6:30). Boss tells me "working faster is this wonderful new concept, you should try it". Fridays my co-worker (who freaks the fuck out whenever I ask questions, but if I do anything wrong gets all upset - can't win) says she's schizo. It's true, Fridays suck because we have to bake bread for the weekend, do a bunch of orders and get like three different loads in that all need to be put away in the negative twenty degree freezer sometime inbetween it all. But on Saturdays my boss, my boss' boss, my boss' boss' boss, the store manager, and occasionally the owner and owner's son all hang around the bakery impeding our progress, asking stupid questions, joking with us grunts because they're oh-so-in-touch, giving us new orders to do this and that and add this and that (without adding employees or hours) and making my co-worker even more frazzled.

UGH!

The upside of the bakery: no meat. I am not up to my elbows in ham and franks like in the deli. Not swimming in raw (and often questionable) fish or racking raw chickens for hours. All good things. Don't have to wear my "other" shoes because of drippings and ickiness. But I do have to exercize unbelievable amounts of self-control not to eat frosting and cake all day long. I think I gained five pounds my first week back - even with all the running around and heavy lifting.

So I get home at the end of the day, take off my horrible little uniform, and lie on the floor and stretch my aching body (I didn't remember how much physical work the bakery involves versus the deli or the kitchen). I spend half an hour on the floor stressing over The Fiancee's lack of hours, my inability to get more, how I can manage to make my schedule match hers more (only one day a week together, and when she works she leaves just as I get home), and the rest of it. Then shower, wine, food, wine, tv, wine, and, finally, bed-later-than-I-should-because-I-love-being-exhausted-at-work-oh-so-very-much.

So the blog has been neglected. While I'm bagging bread I'm writing blog entries in my head. Sad, I know. I hope to get to writing down a few of the ones festering in my brain in the next few days. The Fiancee's working a few nights that leave me home alonely in the near future, so maybe I can get them done then.

Oh, and planning a wedding is not stressful at all. There aren't a million little aspects to worry about and two mothers of the bride trying to help and get their two cents in. Nope. No stress here.

The Crap That Straight But Not Narrow Folks Don't Know

2006-06-11T19:40:00.000-04:00

A friend recently posted about a musician being attacked and it got me thinking. All my friends and almost everyone I know is totally supportive; these are the people who think the way they should - that being gay is no big deal. Shruggable. They don't blink when they find out someone is gay. The Fiancee recently had this wonderful experience at work.

But these people, the ones who think exactly the way I want them to, are often the most ingnorant about how bad things really are. They don't care that people are gay. Most people they know don't care that people are gay (especially around here). So things must be getting better for gays and lesbians. Right?

Wrong. My own mother thinks we're fine and dandy. I've given up trying to tell her about how close we are to losing everything and going backward forty years. Check out 365gay if you want to know what is really going on. Look it up every day for a week. For every one positive article there are three negative ones.

But my point here is that I want to share the not-so-happy events in my homosexual life. I came out at 14 and with relatively few exceptions was well-received. For your education, and my therapy, here is some of my story, emphasis on the negative.

It occurred to me that I might be gay one day around my thirteenth birthday (seventh grade). I spent six months in a suicidal state, battling with myself over whether I was straight (didn't think so), bi (maybe) or gay (uh oh). Even for kids like me, raised in a liberal household with gay aunts, it was terrifying to think that I might like girls. This messed up all my ideas of what my future would be like. It made me wonder who my friends would be once they knew. It made me want to know what the hell being gay meant anyway. I have one very special teacher to thank for my not killing myself.

The summer after eighth grade I went to camp. There were three girls who were friends in my cabin. I was very homesick. I could not sleep. My bunk was squeaky. So when I rolled around not sleeping all night, they decided I was watching them. Their little boyfriend called me dyke all week. I came about two inches away from a fist fight with him. It was one of the worst weeks of my young life.

I came out at a diversity training meeting at school. It was just before my fifteenth birthday, beginning of freshman year of high school. I had told a few close friends before that, but that day I came flying out of the closet, screaming at the top of my lungs. I didn't face anything directly, homophobia in the liberal town I grew up in was always behind my back. It was the slow distancing of certain people. It was the car driving by me at night, with an unidentified teenager screaming dyke out the window. It was the kid at the dark beach party screaming to me and my friends "which one of you is the dyke? wanna suck my dick?". And even the best of my friends replying "not me".

Before The Fiancee and I were living together we would go down to the beach at the bottom of her (now our) street a lot. That is until one day, when we were standing there holding hands. Not kissing. Holding hands. There was a little old man who always watched us out his window. That day his wife stuck her head out and screamed "You can't do that here! Get the hell away from here! You're sick!". We were so dumbfounded we stumbled away and never really went back. We've had sticks thrown at us. Snickering at the mall, the grocery store. She gets it worse than me. She has short hair, and therefore is more dykey to your average straight white male. She gets snickered at. Pointed at. Even when I'm not around. It's the worst right after she gets a hair cut. When it happens while I'm with her, I want to kill someone and cry at the same time.

We're careful not to call each other honey in public. We know when and where not to hug, kiss, bump hands against each other. I've felt very, very unsafe in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Maine. One day we were driving to the liquor store from Market Basket, and a white trash bitch in a jeep ended up stuck in traffic right in front of us. I think she expected us to go right, but we wanted to go straight. When we just sat there she leaned out the window and screamed. "What? You fuckin dykes. What? You wanna go? You wanna go you fuckin dykes?" The Fiancee turned right and decided to get the fuck away, to go to another liquor store. We ended up driving toward the main road, parallel to her in the parking lot, with a median in between. She kept right up and kept screaming. I looked right out my window, eye contact all the way to the street, and had my eyebrows up, mouth wide open in a "are you for fucking real? this is hysterical" face. But it wasn't funny. I laughed at her, which pissed her off more. I thought she was going to have a heart attack in that trashy little jeep. But when we got home I felt so unsafe. It took a long time for that feeling to wane.

I would have short hair but I don't want to get snickered at. Is that giving in? I had short hair in middle school and was asked if I was a boy or a girl every fucking day. And before I realized that what was wrong with me was just homosexuality, I wasn't quite sure. I don't have short hair because I'm scared and I never want to be called sir again. I'm a fucking pussy. I give my Fiancee so much props for going out in public every day never knowing what she is going to get.

I'm not even going to go into everything revolving around power of attorney, hospital visits, dealing with our bank account together, or me taking her to the dentist to help her with her phobia. Every little couple thing we do we are afraid that we'll be treated like shit, threatened, laughed at, or kept apart. God forbid we ever have an emergency outside of our home state. Even in our home state there is the threat of a homophobic paramedic who decides to give shitty care to dykes. She needs polish for her engagement ring and we don't want to go to the jewelry stores in the mall together to get it because it becomes far too obvious that we're gay. We need to go to one of the most homophobic parts of Florida in July to attend my uncle's wedding. We're going to be very, very careful - hyperalert.

Straight people will never understand what makes Provincetown so special. It's just another little Cape town. But for us it is the only place we have ever been where we could put our guard completely and totally down. The feeling of relief and relaxation when we step off the boat is indescribable.

Liberaltarian

2006-06-10T19:21:00.000-04:00

I kind of like this little quiz. It seems to have been quite accurate. I am exactly between liberal and libertarian. I believe in having the smallest government possible while still providing social services to those in need. I want very few laws governing my behavior and very many services helping me to help myself should I need them. I do want some check on trade and big business, but I also want individuals to be as free as possible. The flip side of the coin is responsibility for what one does with one's freedom. When people harm others they lose their freedom. Violence is the worst type of crime; drug laws have to go. They're costing us money and jamming up our jails. If someone wants to ruin their body, let them. If they want help stopping, help them. If they take drugs and complain that they are miserable, laugh at them.

I do not mind taxes, but I want the majority of my money and government power in the hands of my state. I feel very strongly about local government and states' rights. I don't give two shits what the other 49 do. Federal should watch over trade, deal with foreign relations, have a strong military and provide aid to states in need. All law enforcement should be at the state level with a very small FBI to come in only on inter-state and state corruption cases. I want taxes managed well and welfare-like-programs made rip-off-proof (or at least better than now). I believe that social services for the poor are good for the country, but I also believe in not getting fucked over by people who have kids just to get government money. There will always be an element in society that is poor and miserable. But that group can be smaller with fiscally responsible social services that balance compassion for the poor with a demand for their taking responsibility and working hard to become independent.

Few laws governing behavior.
Many services helping the poor to no longer need services.
Small federal.
Medium state.
Fiscal conservative.
Social liberal.
Liberaltarian.

Psycho Babble Bullshit

2006-06-08T15:12:00.000-04:00

It seems we're looking to make everything a disorder. I'm sorry, but "Intermittent Explosive Disorder" (the guys in Iraq know a lot about IEDs, but those aren't assholes with road rage) is bullshit in any case where there is not some sort of brain damage. I read about a case where a guy had a tumor on his brain and became violent. But people who can't handle their rage were raised by monkeys, not mentally ill.

I know that these people need therapy to learn how to not be assholes. I believe that in cases like this, basic cognitive/behavior therapy works really well. And I know that to have health insurance pay for it it needs to have a name. Blue Cross does not cover "issues" or "baggage". It's when the psychologists start believing in the "disorder" themselves that I get really, really disappointed. The disease model makes it not one's own fault. This is true for everything from alcoholism to temper tantrums. GIVE ME A BREAK. The name is not the problem. The behavior is the problem. But finding out how many people do things that fit your favorite new term does not help anyone. OH MY GOD! Did you know that one million percent of Americans get pissed off and throw things? WHAT WILL WE DO?

You'll help those who need help. It does not matter how many people you are going to make money off of. It does not matter what you call their issues. Come up with a name to get the insurance companies off your back and get over yourself. You have NOT discovered anything new. You have just come up with a new name for it. Which does nothing and means nothing.

Why are psychologists so goddamned obsessed with semantics? I will never understand how new labels help folks understand themselves and become better people.

Hell No

2006-06-05T20:45:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer: I realize that both the Catholic Church and Tibetan Buddhist Church have true holy men in their ranks. My focus here is on those who are not holy. I mean no disrespect nor do I mean to give the impression that all priests and monks should be seen in a negative light.

I've finally seen enough "Free Tibet" bumperstickers. I have to write about this.

The Dalai Lama (pictured above selling computers; real fucking holy) touts "Free Tibet" everywhere he goes. But the more I learn about both the Dalai Lama and Tibet, the more I think he is just a celebrity politician looking out for himself. Yes, Tibet was terrorized by the communists. And Tibet should not be run by the Chinese. At this point I don't even think China should be run by the Chinese. But the Dalai Lama should not return to being Tibet's sole ruler.

I believe that local government is the best government, everywhere in the world. The closer to home the politicians and rulers are when things go wrong, the better. In that sense, Tibet should be "free". Free to be self-governed.

I also believe in freedom of religion. Religion and government are the two most dangerous institutions; they both hold massive power over the human heart, mind and body. Having both means that they can keep each other in check. If the government fucks up, religious leaders are there to help and lead the people. And vice versa: government can protect people of all religions, and can even protect people from their religion, like in the case of putting pedophile priests in jail.

The DL wants a return to the way things were pre-communist-takeover. Which means that he is both religious and government leader. This is a problem. To put any religious leader in charge of a country's government is dangerous. Not only will Buddhists who disagree with him be vulnerable to incarceration and police action, those who are not Buddhist, the Bonpo, will be in position to be royally screwed. The original religion of Tibet is Bon, a shamanistic, mountain-worshiping religion. They are not well-known outside of Tibet, have no celebrity face to help get Western sympathy, and could easily be taken advantage of if the DL ruled.

About Buddhists who may not agree with the DL: there are two major and three minor schools of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as numerous mini-schools and wandering lamas. In the late sixteenth century, the position of "Dalai Lama" was given to Sonam Gyatso of the Galupa school by a Mongolian emperor who wanted to recreate the dynasty of Ghangas Khan and needed a spiritual advisor. Because Sonam Gyatso was supposed to be the third incarnation of his series, he became the third DL. All the other schools were at a great disadvantage. Much war and pain ensued. Not only did the other schools have to fight for recognition, power and resources, but every time the DL died there was a battle over who would be next. The position of Dalai Lama is not "natural", ancient, or universally accepted. It is historically a position of hot politics.

What the DL never mentions to his adoring Western fans is that the Tibetan Buddhist Church (for lack of a better term) is more like the Catholic Church than any other institution. It has the same bureaucratic skeleton. It has a history of mysterious DL deaths when they weren't pleasing the rich and powerful. It has a history of little boys getting diddled, as a vow of celibacy is not really all that broken if it's with a little boy. Each monastery had its' own police force (big guys with huge keys attached to long chains, used for crowd control). And many monks became monks because it was easier than farming at 12,000 feet. And they could get drunk every night, even if they weren't supposed to.

I believe that Catholics should be free to be Catholic, and Galupa should be free to be Galupa, despite the hypocrisy and corruption rampant in both institutions. But neither should ever run a country. (I know they will have a lot of power anyway, but there needs to be as much separation as possible).

Tibet is in need of a local government; the Dalai Lama should not be it. When he says "Free Tibet", what he really means is "Give Me Tibet".

Hell no.

Dear (No Mr.) President

2006-05-31T21:31:00.000-04:00

The following is a recently rediscovered letter written by My Fiancee to President Reagan in 1982. She was as outraged by politics then as she is now. Spelling errors included for your amusement.

Dear President,

I wrote to you a couple of months ago about Nuclear Holocaust. But did you write me back? No, you didn't! You let your secretary take care of it all. I requested a real letter, not a cover letter. I received a cover letter. The whole thing is not a joke, and you should be very concerned. You should be busting your brains trying to ban nuclear bombs and try to make peace with Russia. Last night I watched a program on television called "Life During Nuclear Holocaust" on channel 2. I found out a lot of things, including - no one would survive the fallout. few people would survive the heat, fewer would survive the shock, but NO ONE would live. If I went to Austraila, I would die. If I went to South Africa, I would die. Lets face it. We would all die, no matter where you went. Would you care to aknowledge a few phamplets or television shows? No? Yeah, I knew it. Would you kindly take 3 miniature minutes of your time and answer my letter? I happen to be 11 1/2 and I would like to do something with my life. You are really helping to stop that.

Unsincerely,

My Fiancee

Purses

2006-05-31T18:22:00.000-04:00

At a recent gathering, a friend was wandering around holding her purse. When asked why she was carrying it, she said that she always does, even just around a party. The rest of us thought that her holding it was an indication that she was leaving, but it turns out she just likes to.

I mentioned something to the effect of "I've never had a purse, if it doesn't fit in my pocket I don't bring it". My friend's husband said, "That's because you're a lesbian".

It made me think and I would now like to correct that statement. I believe what he meant was that because I was dykey, I did not carry a purse. But he confused my gender identity with my sexual orientation. A lot of people do this, but there is a big difference between the two.

The biggest mistake people (gay or straight) make is thinking that a lipstick lesbian is different than a dyke. In reality the two are equally gay. On the "sexuality spectrum" they are clustered at the same end. But their gender identities are at opposite sides of the spectrum.

Sleeping with a woman does not make me put my cellphone in my pocket. Sleeping with a man does not make my friend carry a purse. Sexuality and gender interact in very intimate ways, but one does not cause the other. There are very butch women who are straight (we jokingly call them "shouldabeens"). There are femme lesbians. The same goes for both straight and gay men.

But the reason I don't carry a purse is because I hate carrying things and would forget it the moment I set it down. Simple as that.

Kicking Ass

2006-05-28T12:39:00.000-04:00

Last night I dreamt that I was driving down the street in a huge white SUV full of poodles. The big kind. I looked over to my right and saw Dean being pinned down by two homeless guys on someone's front lawn. One was holding him while the other punched him in the stomach. I slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car and ran over. I pushed one of the guys off of Dean, and he retaliated by trying to kick me. I grabbed his foot and threw him onto the ground. Dean grabbed the other guy. We proceeded to kick their asses to a bloody pulp. We had fun doing it too. Then the cops came over and took the homeless guys away. We walked back to the party where everyone wanted to hear the story and buy us a drink. Neither of us had a scratch on us, and we spent the rest of the dream telling and retelling the story and getting piss drunk.

It was a really good dream. Here's to our ass-kicking skills, Dean.

School Can Kiss My Happy Ass Goodbye!

2006-05-23T21:34:00.000-04:00

For now anyway.

Finished my project for my last class and started doing all the blogging that I've been (literally) dreaming about for the last few nights. Can you tell? Sorry about the length...I get all excited and ramble. Anyway, here are some posts to look forward to now that I am out of Finals Hell:

Free Tibet My Ass

True Confessions of a Homo

and

Why Working In a Deli is Worse Than Licking The Bottom of a Dog-Walker's Shoe

*All titles subject to change.
*There is no guarantee that reading this blog will not be a waste of your time.
*All posts are final.
*No exchanges, No returns of time wasted.

Discovering Buried Treasure

2006-05-23T20:39:00.000-04:00

I feel like an old-fashioned treasure hunter. Saturday The Fiancee and I went to her deceased grandmother's storage unit to hunt furniture. We did find a lovely love seat, but more importantly, we discovered true treasure. I wish her grandmother was around to answer some questions.

The first two pictures at top really only matter to me. It's a set of miniature playing cards with a leather carrying case from sometime before WWII. The sides are gold leaf and every single card is there. I have found very similar cards on the Internet and they seem to be from between 1926 and 1936, but I haven't found these exact ones yet so they could be a reprint or something. I love them and just holding them makes me happy.

The letters, now there's the real treasure. We found a box full of letters, most of which are dated 1930, but they go all the way up to 1950. The main ones are to and from my Fiancee's grandmother's second husband's deceased first wife. Got that? So when her grandmother got married, her husband had all these letters from his first honeymoon. He, his wife Priscilla, his father (who worked for the Stromberg-Carlson Company) and his mother all went on a 11 week cruise all over the Mediterranean. The letter shown is printed on letterhead that reads:

The American Colony
P.O. Box 19
Jerusalem
Palestine

JERUSALEM, PALESTINE!! Priscilla complained that they covered everything old with glitzy crap and the best place there was the American Colony! Her father-in-law said that Italy was the best place they stopped and that Mussolini was doing a great job cleaning up the place!

We got a menu from their cruise, tons of letters, and the telegram pictured above. Western Union, dated Jan 24 1930. This stuff is unreal. We're reading all through it trying to figure out who all the names are, what their relation is. We also got the Stromberg-Carlson Exchange, the company magazine, with an article by the father about the trip. Under the title of the magazine it says "Connecting the Interests of All Stromberg-Carlson Workers". How many workers wanted to hear about their rich boss' 11 week trip?? The pictures are of them in Northern Africa, Egypt, Palestine and Italy. They hit just about everything off the Mediterranean and then went by train across Europe back to England to sail across the Atlantic again.

We also have a letter to Priscilla dated 1950 explaining the last 13 years of some woman's life. We're trying to figure out who that woman is. She married a German in 1937 (a total no-no) in New York City and in 1950 she was in Germany while he helped with charities and reconstruction. This stuff is so amazing I can't stand it. Turns out the Sphinx did not have a nose in 1930 (I had heard it was still there then), we know because we have a picture! We have dozens of post cards from everywhere they went and clippings from each hotel they stayed at. There were no zip codes then. And sometimes not even a street address, just Mr. X at This Town, This State, USA. Stamps cost 2 cents. When the father writes about the places they went, islands in the Mediterranian, places in North Africa, he always states which European country "owns" it right now. It really knocks it home that this is pre-WWII.

We haven't gone through all of it yet, but I am just floored by this stuff. Priscilla missed milk and ice boxes, and while she was in Italy she could not stop dreaming about spaghetti. She wrote home to her sister to tell her that she met a nice man on the cruise who asked "if there are any back home like me". Being the honest woman she is, she said yes. Now the man wants to meet and marry her sister. She apologizes and tries to describe him, saying she likes him but they have wildly different tastes in men, so she'll have to meet him.

I've never felt like a moment in time so long ago was so real. All the letters, telegrams, pictures...it makes the whole trip come alive.

I wonder if the stock market crash affected these people. They would have booked the trip well in advance, probably before the crash.

We even have a list of all the passengers onboard, Mr. and Mrs. Robert SoandSo style. One letter is addressed to Mrs. Benjamin Whatever. Women didn't even have their own names!!

Oh my god. Anyway, I just wanted to share a piece of this treasure with the world. We'll be doing more detective work and finding out more about these people. I want to make a framed collage of all the pictures and post card and letters. SO FUCKING COOL!!!

Oh, and we got a really old Heinz company clock. Perfect for the two biggest ketchup eaters the world has ever known.

The "News"

2006-05-23T18:47:00.000-04:00

Can anyone explain to me why the "news" is always about fucking celebrities? Even Drudge cares about Brangelina or Angelad, or whatever the fuck they're calling that couple. And when did they start giving names to couples???!!!

Sorry, went to the gym today and was forced to stare at the tv for my 35 minute cross-training routine. There I am just minding my business trying to get in shape and the tv makes me feel like I'm going to have a heart attack. And someone stole "my" WWII magazine so I was forced to watch the tv. I'd prefer soap operas to the "news" at this point.

Celebrities belong in checkout isle magazines. They are NOT newsworthy. But maybe if we all just stare into Jolie's breasts, we'll forget how bad a job the Administration is doing. What year is it? Nineteen eighty what now? FORE! Duck or you'll get smacked by the Coke Twins' (Olsen Twins') elbows, and those things are sharp as daggers!

*One more thing before I stop type-screaming: TONIGHT AT TEN: 8 year olds on diets! Anorexic first graders! We'll tell you how to talk to your children about anorexia.

I'm not kidding. It's airing tonight. You know why 8 year olds go on diets? Because they watch MTV, have mothers who obsess over their own bodies, and are allowed to go to spas, wear makeup and generally try to sell themselves as little whores years before they even bleed. How about having Mom keep track of the tv watching, stop being jealous of women who can barely stand, and stop reading those horrible magazines I see at the gym (theme here) that tell women how to loose weight and please their man enough to keep him from sleeping with the secretary? How about having Dad drool at women who aren't disgusting, or maybe give the kid a role model, because obviously if your kid is 8 and dieting, Mom is NOT a very good one.

Talk to your kids TALK TO YOUR KIDS? IF A FUCKING "NEWS" SHOW HAS TO TELL YOU HOW TO RAISE YOUR KIDS THEN ANOREXIA IS NOT YOUR BIGGEST PROBLEM!!! And how about this novel idea: make it so you don't have to talk to your kids about anorexia because THEY'VE NEVER HEARD OF IT!

Quote of the Day

2006-05-22T13:19:00.000-04:00

"There is no safe sex, for sex causes bonding, and there is always the possibility of bonding with a jerk." --Professor Anderson

Katmandu, Where Kat and Man Du It Right!

2006-05-20T13:08:00.000-04:00

And he wonders why they don't want him running the country? Does this man take himself seriously?

You're not doing too well if it takes me five minutes to figure out that the thing over your head is not a hat. I was wondering how he could balance it all up there.

And who made the Star of David the symbol for one of the only Buddhist countries left?

Bueller?...

Bueller?...

Anyone?

Educate me, bitches!

All Ye Who Love 30 Orne

2006-05-20T12:05:00.000-04:00

REJOICE!

The Soul Sucking Couch

IS OURS!

When we go upstairs it will be a part of either our living room or kitchen. You will be swallowed by the power of the COUCH!

This Is What Drugs And Educational Television Have Done To A Generation

2006-05-17T16:45:00.000-04:00

Alright. I'm not sure how to put YouTube videos on my blog directly, so I'm posting the links.

These are clips from Wonder Showzen, a show on MTV2 that I only know about through the DVD's. Anyone who grew up on Electric Company, Seseame Street, etc. NEEDS to watch this. It's a kids show, with real kids, FOR ADULTS. It can be quite "out there", but it also can be unbelievably funny.

Make sure you pause these and let them load before watching them or they'll skip.

First, watch the ode to slaves. Note the girl pointing toward you, the audience.

Then, watch "Where do babies come from?". I seen a picture. But I don't wanna say.

Finally, watch "What is Heaven?". PILLS!!!

Today's post has been brought to you by:
Crack
Avoidance of Homework
and More Crack

What Has Been Banging Around In My Head Today

2006-05-15T14:30:00.000-04:00

Homeostasis, and stability as a whole, is a process of constant change.

I think the above is exhausting but true. I think. It is a subject that was brought up in my take-home final that I've been working on for five hours now. Thought I'd take a break and either write something or shoot myself. Decided to write something. So, even if I'm wrong about homeostasis, this was a very adaptive blog entry.

I am in over my head with finals. I will post a bit irregularly until next Wednesday, at which point I am free from the shackles of the freedom to be educated.

Note to Self

2006-05-12T12:17:00.000-04:00

Note to self: Do not mix tequila, beer and wine.

Other note to self: When drinking tequila, beer and wine, have more than a slice of lime for dinner.

Other, other note to self: Thank the nice flight attendant who introduced you to tequila.

Last note to self: Ask Tom if you have scared her away forever with your drunken tribute to Richard Cheese, and apologize if you did.

Universal Human Logic at the Institutional Level

2006-05-11T14:43:00.000-04:00

The following, where I do not directly quote, is my paraphrasing of Herdt as my knowledge of the culture is a result of reading a few chapters of his, assigned for a class I am taking. As my copy of said chapters is a photocopy, I do not know from which of his works it comes.

The Sambia of New Guinea have a sense of sexuality that is strange and exotic from Western eyes. Every man spends his youth - from about age 11 (correction: they go in around age 8) to about age 17 - performing secret and ritualistic fellatio on older men (women do not know about this). When they are around marrying age and pass through a particular ritual to the next stage of becoming a man, they receive fellatio from younger boys. Sambia women do not menstruate until between 16 and 19 years of age, and if they marry before menstruation, they perform fellatio on their husbands until they are fully mature. A boy is not a man until after his first two children are born.

Once they become men, the Sambia drink the sap of certain trees to replenish their semen supplies, which are seen as of limited quantity. Semen is a central symbol of power, strength, and growth in Sambia culture.

This all seems very, very strange to the Western world. Our conceptions of homo- and hetero-sexuality make an institutional switch from homo- to bi- to hetero-sexuality across the lifespan seem totally...fucked up. BUT, if we learn about the assumptions under which Sambia society operates, their actions make perfect, logical sense. This is because all normal (not mentally ill or retarded) humans behave according to the same If...Then logic, but very different assumptions. I argue that if we understand the assumptions, we will see most human behavior as logical (at least at a societal/institutional level). (I do not use logic as a necessarily positive or negative word: understanding does not mean condoning. I am not attempting to draw any moral conclusions about the Sambia or any other culture, and, conversely, I am not arguing for a neutral, culturally relativistic approach to culture either. I simply mean to look at human logic.)

The assumption underlying Sambia sexuality is that semen must be attained, and is then of very limited supply. They believe that semen creates life, growth, maturity and strength. Women are seen as naturally maturing, due to their "blood organ", but men must be made men. Because semen is not made by the male body, it must be put into the male body. When a boy performs fellatio on a man, he is receiving the man's semen. The semen makes him grow, and eventually hit puberty and mature physically. What does not go into growth of the body is stored in the boy's "semen pool". When the pool is full, it is expressed through "wet dreams". This is a major sign of sexual maturity, and having performed enough fellatio.

When a young bachelor acquires a wife who is not menstruating, he can give her strength and maturity by allowing her to drink his semen (perform fellatio). This hastens the process of becoming reproductively mature, although many women do so without the aid of semen. Thereafter, semen is stored by the female body and eventually turned into breast milk, which helps the infant to grow and mature.

Procreation is not a one-shot process, either. The semen of the husband must be added to and stored by the female body until a baby starts to form. The mother's blood gives the baby its blood, but the semen creates all bone structure and flesh. Thus, the strength of the man is given to his wife and child by his semen. Sex with women is seen as taking much more strength from the man than oral sex with a boy. When men marry and begin having regular sex with their wives to build up a baby, they must get semen from tree sap to replenish the source (it is not appropriate for men to perform fellatio). The sap trees are on their land, which has been passed down from their ancestors, and their semen goes into their children's growth and sexual maturity, thus the circle of fertility and life is passed through the generations.

"In male subjectivity...strength is a transactional product that makes use of the father's secret sexual acquisition of semen from other men, which he feeds to his wife, whose body, in turn, has a natural capacity to store the fluid and turn it into breast food that strengthens and matures the infant."

This is a much more complicated process of social interaction than I indicate here, as some women believe that they make their own breast milk, but others don't, and some men enjoy sex with boys for its own sake and others don't, and I have not even touched upon the concept of sexual enjoyment, orgasm and sexual play. But my point is that IF a society believes that semen is of limited quantity, that it can be stored in the body for later use, that it is necessary for a boy to get it from somewhere, and that it creates growth, strength, and sexual maturity in both sexual partners and offspring, THEN Sambia culture makes complete sense. Homosexual activity in boys in necessary because of their understanding of how a boy becomes a sexually mature adult. The man can enjoy it and the boy can enjoy it (not all do), but, unless an alternative way to put semen in the body was created, it would happen even if both found it unpleasant. The boy receives what he needs to make babies, which is necessary for becoming a man. The man gives his semen to a boy who will then make children with the man's strength, thus spreading his masculine potency around the society and reinforcing bonds between the boy's kin group and the man's. (Often the boy is the man's wife's little brother, and his making the boy a man strengthens relations between the kin groups leading to supporting each other in war in the future and the boy possibly giving his daughter to the man's kin group of the next generation).

This is the most basic of overviews of Sambia sexuality, and in reality it is much more complicated than this as it involves spirituality, war, politics and just about every other aspect of life. But my point is that institutionalized homosexuality serves a major function in the development of each individual man AND strengthens bonds within the society. Institutionalized homosexuality is LOGICAL if you believe that sperm must be attained and sustained.

This is only one example of something exotic, strange, and counterintuitive for Westerners, but I do not believe that there is any cultural practice or institution that does not make sense given the assumptions involved. We all have the same brains, but we have very different information in them. Whether or not this universal logic applies to the individual, I am not sure. But I do believe that it applies to group goals and motivations for behavior. If this is the way it is (assumption) then we must do this (behavior).

If we do not understand the actions of another culture or group, we are missing information about their assumptions. I am tempted to say, but need more time to think about it: You cannot change the behavior of a group until you change the assumed world-view. Hmm...

The Only Downside to Being a Lesbian

2006-05-10T12:47:00.000-04:00

NO THEY AREN'T

If you had stumbled into my apartment this morning you would have found two lesbians lying in bed rolling back and forth clutching their stomachs and groaning, moaning and ocassionally gritting their teeth. Neither of us slept a wink last night and the advil only worked a little for me and not at all for her. We haven't started our period on the same day since exactly three years ago, but now I'm remembering why it sucks so much.

Two nights ago we had a screaming, crying fight over pasta. Pasta. No PMS here. Nope. Then yesterday the pain began. The worst part is that we're lying there looking at each other going "I am so sorry I can't make you feel better. I am so sorry I can't help you!".

She: "I'll do the dishes when I get up."

Me: "No, you have to write an entire presentation to do tonight...ugh...where's the advil?"

She: "Here, it didn't fucking work for me. Maybe it'll work for you. Take a bunch. But I'll do the dishes, you're in pain."

Me: "No you're in pain! I don't have endometriosis, it's not nearly as bad for me, and pain killers work for me. I'll do the fucking dishes!"

She: "Ughhh...."

Me: "I'll go get your coffee. What size?"

She: "You don't need to get my, ughhhhhhhhh, coffee...I'll get it..."

Me: "You...goddamn it, why does my lower back hurt more than my cramps?...I'll get the coffee you poor thing. You have...to...do...the project...."

Then she tries to lie on my shoulder for a moment before getting up and it's just a lot of "Oh! My boob! Move your elbow!" and "Shit shit shit, put your leg ON THE OTHER SIDE of my knee" and "don't touch my tummy! You're touching my tummy!"

Yeah. So, besides the occassional hate crime in the parking lot of Market Basket, that's the only downside to being a lesbian. Gay men are so lucky. Although, I suppose when they get older they have to fight for the bathroom a few times a night. But then again, two men can theoretically pee into a toilet at the same time. So, in the end, gay men have it far too easy.

Anyone who ever said lesbians are hot has not been around two women with their period at the same time. It is SO not hot. It's actually kind of sad. I am hoping that this will not happen for three more years.

And that is far more than you ever wanted to know about me and mine. Thank you and good night.

Quote of the Day

2006-05-09T13:33:00.000-04:00

So if you suffer from astigmatism does that mean you see Jesus all the time?

--Fiancee

The Devil's Panties

2006-05-08T11:46:00.000-04:00

I just want to thank Stacy for sharing The Devil's Panties with me (see my list of links). This is one of my favorites. I encourage everyone to navigate around; there are some comics, some sketches, some random things, but she posts something new just about every day. And there are a few real gems. What IS that smell?

You're Welcome Japan!

2006-05-07T13:18:00.000-04:00

I think Japan is the only country in the world that has televsion as messed up and disturbing as the U.S.

See? They did nothing but benefit from us after we got that little WWII scuffle over with.

Quote of the Day

2006-05-06T14:10:00.000-04:00

Today's Quote of the Day has been provided by my fiance.

"Working with food is like working with tourists."

"Why?"

"Because the bullshit smells the same."

She has a point.

Ban Liberal And Conservative

2006-05-05T15:26:00.000-04:00

Please, ban the words Liberal and Conservative when referring to politics. They are symbols of the ridiculousness of a bipartisan republic. I hate them.

I hate them if a person is referring to himself as one or the other, and I hate them when they are used as a political slur against an opponent. I hate them.

Why? Because their political meanings are defined by mindless adherence to party rhetoric.

Liberal=
Death Penalty: No
Abortion: Yes
Military: Eh
Gay Marriage: Yes
Education: More, please
Republicans: Evil

Conservative=
Death Penalty: Yes
Abortion: No
Military: More, please
Gay Marriage: No
Education: Eh
Democrats: Immoral

The use of these words encourages people who feel one way about one thing to subscribe to everything else on the list. Like gay marriage? Better want abortion too. But god forbid you like the death penalty. Feel strongly about building a bigger military? You better not be gay or into higher education for poor people.

Each of the above-mentioned issues and many more are important and need to be discussed intelligently by the entire country. But using conservative and liberal to describe any position on any of them means confusing all the issues and jumbling it all up until you have hicks on one side and hippies on the other having a name-calling match. What about those of us who aren't hicks or hippies? What about those of us who think about each issue and learn about the different opinions on them and come up with our own ideas about what is best? We do not conform to the label of Liberal or Conservative, no matter how we feel. Because those labels have been bastardized beyond recognition, to the point where I consider them both to be offensive.

Why do we need a label for our political opinions at all? I can't think of a single label that does not box a person into a particular stance on everything.

My political orientation is Thoughtful.

Ode To A Framily

2006-05-04T23:09:00.000-04:00

(USED TO BE A PICTURE OF A SHANTY HERE)

Yesterday I spent the day job hunting and got 0 applications and 1 $10 parking ticket. It was not a good day. And then I got a call from a friend and went down to the local place of alcohol to have a few beers. I can't believe how therapeutic conversation in the sun with the Magnificent Basset and a gang of friends can be.

In America, or at least where I live (I forget that the rest of the country is so different than here that I should really not generalize because I don't know anything about the rest of the country) family is not just those you are related to. It's also the group of friends that become your core social group. The people I spend Christmas Eve with. The people I celebrate my birthday with. The people to whom I send mass emails when anything of any significance in my life happens. The people who make me feel better no matter what. These are friends who are family. These are my Framily.

My parents have a Framily too. They were like aunts and uncles to me. They changed my diapers and went to my softball games. They drank in celebration when I graduated from high school. They are a part of the normal family in the social world I grew up in.

In my Framily there are the more distant members, the folks I see every few gatherings. There are those who I see or speak to on a weekly basis. There are those who are at every gathering. There are those who I live with and depend on for the roof over my head. There are those who live far away (more than 15 minutes by car) and those who live within walking-home-drunk distance. But if I ever needed any of them, they would be there for me. And more than my actual blood family, they know exactly how to make me feel better when I'm down. They do it without even trying. And the cool thing about a Framily is that it is so diverse. We've got a little bit of everything in the group, and it makes for conversation that always sends me home thinking, laughing or combination of the two.

Most people choose their Framily. Mine was bestowed upon me. I thank my lucky stars for them.

I Love The YMCA

2006-05-03T17:40:00.000-04:00

I love the gym at the YMCA because it is full of fat people, short people, black, white, asian, and hispanic people, muscular guys who are fun to watch when they watch themselves in the mirror, 14 year old boys who want so badly to be big and tough, female atheletes who make me wish I was in shape, old people who have muscles anyway, old people who don't look strong enough to do what they do, gay people, straight people, inbetween people, people who are there every day, and people who go twice a year. I could walk up and talk to any of the above and it wouldn't be weird. That's hard to find.

Oh, and no one looks at me funny when I struggle or fart or sweat too much and turn red like a cherry.

Quote of the Day

2006-05-02T13:58:00.000-04:00

I was sitting in the bedroom, quietly reading a dated anthropology text, when I came across a phrase that startled me. I called out, "What does he mean by 'Black Africa'?"

From the other room came the reply, "All the part that isn't Johannesburg."

And I laughed really, really hard.

Too bad you can't see the shanty towns in this picture. Funny, I couldn't find a single shot of a shanty with the city in the background. All the pics were either shanties or big cityness...such a dramatic difference. And in all fairness, most people in Johannesburg are black. I can't believe so few white people were able to run the place for so long...

Why Life Would Still Suck Without Industrialization

2006-05-01T13:08:00.000-04:00

You know what really pisses me off?

Those little tabs that never come off right on brand new mustard bottles. But right now I'm talking about the "good old days".

Living in our modern industrial world, academics (and others, I suspect) sit back and talk about how AWESOME things were before industrialization. How we've RUINED the world. How colonialism was EVIL (which is an over-simplistic value judgment and I fucking hate over-simplistic value judgments) and how people are miserable across the world because of US. (you can read US both ways)

How ethnocentric can you be? WE are the cause of the world's misery? Industrialization was the beginning of the end?

If there was a beginning of the end it was the invention of agriculture. But that's a rant for another day.

Humans are not strong. Or fast. Or all that dangerous without weapons and other humans to help. What we have going for us is our brains. They're really big. And we come up with ways to get around how slow, weak and ineffective we are physically. TOGETHER our brains meant we survived all these millennia. So we evolved as group-oriented animals. We eventually NEEDED human interaction (Harlow's monkeys and experience with feral children have shown us that without enough human contact we DIE). Which meant that we created societies. Which meant that we became what we now know as humanity. And do you know what happens when we create a society with its own culture and cultural pressures and have near constant interaction with people we depend on for survival?

CONFLICT.

Which is why life has always sucked. No, that's not accurate. Life has always been hard. Really, really hard. We like to look at "quaint" tribes in Africa and say that the only problems they have are a result of colonization. Like they would live in peace and harmony if it weren't for us. Walter Goldschmidt argues quite convincingly that the Sebei of Uganda were actually saved by colonization because it ended the wars with their neighbors that they were losing due to inadequate adjustment to settling down to become farmers (which happened before the colonization by the British). Got that?

Cultures create idealized images of what their people are supposed to be. The ideal and the real are very rarely the same. No matter which culture you pick, or which time period, if you're thinking that they are "happier" than you are, and they live conflict-free lives, you are not accurate. Dorothy Lee, a usually great thinker, wrote a painfully cheery essay on Hopi Indians. Apparently, we are supposed to be just like them because while they make all individuals bow to the group, each individual is appreciated for what he or she can do. They don't treat their people like interchangeable robots, which was pissing her off about the United States in general. She gave us a picture of a beautiful and fluid society where everything was perfect. She did not mention that the children were taught to fear Katchinas, gods who would punish them if they were bad, and then at 10 or 12 they were beaten by said Katchinas, finding out afterward it was their family all along. This was presented by David Aberle in a paper called "Psychological Analysis of a Hopi Life History" as the source of the major trauma and trouble with adjustment of one Hopi child.

Since culture came into full existence in the Upper-Paleolithic, there have been cultural roles and people who do not live up to them. There has been warfare due to economics and warfare due to ego. There have been individuals who feel alone and unconnected to their society, or who feel animosity toward their community. We all struggle with living up to the roles we are supposed to play. (Professor McSmartSmart said something that rings quite true: We see people from other cultures as truly human and can relate to them most when they mess up and don't fulfill their cultural roles, like when we see a couple ostracized for their forbidden love). There is extra trouble when the roles are ill-defined or in a process of rapid change due to ecological changes. Societies, all societies, are constantly in flux; we are our societies and we are forever adapting to the external world and changing to try to meet our needs as best we can.

"It is a peculiar conceit of modern man to think that...individual behavior, such as doubt in and disrespect for traditional wisdom is a product of our era, that tribal man, that humanity in its state of nature, neither enjoys the freedom of choice nor suffers the pangs of doubt." --Walter Goldschmidt

So let's liberate ourselves from the fallacy that if we could travel back two hundred or two thousand years we would live lives without conflict, disease, war, disappointment, betrayal and all the other fun things that go along with taking part in Humanity. None of this is new. None of it is a sign of the apocalypse (which we have also been predicting for as long as we've lived in communities...coincidence? I think not). Humanity is conflict AND the attempt to FIX the conflict. Humanity spends its life dealing with the problems it creates.

Disclaimer: This is a rant intended to make us accept society for all its problems, not reject it. I believe "Humanity" is what has set us apart from the animal world. Not opposable thumbs, but society. And I love society. We are born without morals, character, or value (I refer to social value, that we matter to people, because I'm not sure I believe in objective value). Socialization in the family, the community, society and the world gives us the morals, character and value which make us great. Cultures are constantly changing, and you can argue that in the industrial world they change very quickly. But there have been many periods in time when cultures have had to change quickly - for example every diaspora ever - and we adapt. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. But that is our official profession as a species. And as we are still here and have been wildly successful at procreation (how many billion people are there?!!), I suppose we can slap ourselves on the back and say we're mighty good adapters. CHEERS TO US!!

Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed

2006-04-30T17:42:00.000-04:00

And What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs.

You all must read this book. Every responsible American voter should read it, no matter what their political orientation. It was written by a conservative judge who has the personal backing of judges across the nation. It is about how much harm we are doing to ourselves with the War on Drugs. He wants there to be conversation about the topic in the political world. I do too. If you read this book, I have helped in my own small way.