Rogue Valley Roasting Co.
Soy Cappuccino
Breakfast Burrito
Okay, I'm a little fucking grumpy this morning, so I'm going to start by ripping on my husband a bit. This is what he gets for not reading my blog.
My husband is a racist, just not about race. I have informed him of this before when he has been railing about politicians and lawyers and such. This came up again after I read Amanda Palmer's recent article for The New Statesman. It was a wonderful article about empathy and being open to understanding even the most monstrous of people as human beings who also have human experiences. I thought it was wonderful, anyway. When I brought it up as something my husband might want to check out, not as something he would necessarily agree with, but something he might want to ponder since I have tried to say the same things in my own way, the conversation devolved quickly. So did I.
But, hey, crying at inopportune moments is my catchphrase.
It's strange that someone like me, who was born with extra feels, could end up with someone who doesn't share this level of open-mindedness. Though we generally reach the same conclusions about politics and religion and such, we seem to reach these points from very different paths. This does not mean he is without compassion or deep feelings of his own (he loves to get his cry on watching YouTube videos of surprise soldier homecomings). He's just lazy about applying his empathy.
For instance, when I express grievances about economic inequality favoring the so-called 1%, I am clear that my problem is with economic policies that bring about this situation. I do not presuppose anything about any individual person or their motives. I do not even generalize about "most of them." My husband, on the other hand, is convinced that there is no such thing as a businessman who is both moral and successful. He makes sweeping generalizations about the morality and/or intelligence of many groups of people. He was even dumb enough to make certain generalizations about women.
"Honey, if 'all women' want to marry rich, attractive men with fancy cars, how do you explain me marrying you?"
"You're weird."
And that's the problem. Yeah, I am weird. But that's not why I don't value wealth and other material expressions of virility. I'm not a deviation from "all women." That presumption is just a stereotype. Can you find examples of it? Of course! How common is it to see a beautiful young woman on the arm of a wrinkledy old rich guy? But seeing that doesn't validate the stereotype about how "all women" are in reality. The truth is that women are just as complex as men in their desires and values. But there are comparatively few rich old men, so it is not difficult for them to find at least a few women willing and available to confirm that bias. And the stereotype persists because of overexpression in media and repetition by society at large. As in, people like my husband being idiots, who take television as the broad reality and real-world example as aberration.
This might sound like the rantings of a grumpy wife. These are such rantings, but they are also true. It's also all so much more important - and dangerous - than it might seem.
Every time we frame our opinions, even our humor, in stereotypes and generalizations, we dehumanize people. We take away someone's right to be seen and understood as an individual. Even if it's not someone in front of you at the moment, there is a cumulative cultural effect.
Gender stereotypes engender a "benign sexism," which can be an inconvenience, at best, or a worse economic disadvantage. But that background sexism accumulates in some as outright misogyny, and frequently results in physical and mental violence against women. Men, too, suffer because of gender stereotypes. But no one wants to equate their comment that women just aren't as good at math, or their rantings about their "touchy" girlfriend, to rape culture. They aren't bad guys - they'd never do something like that! But the stereotypes are where the violence starts.
The same is true for racist comments. Even when you're telling a joke among friends, even friends of that race, who know you are not in the least bit racist, if the joke involves race-based stereotypes, it still promotes harm. I'm not talking about satirical use of stereotypes to call them out as ridiculous and invalid, though this is not exactly risk-free. I'm talking about, say, following the news that the new employee is Mexican, making a joke that there will finally be someone to mow the lawn... and it's funny because everyone knows that you're totally not racist and the new guy is actually an engineering major.
But as much as you don't want to see yourself as the bad guy because you are not causing the harm directly, you are going to have to come to terms with the fact that you are still harming people. Your "totally cool with it" friend may not be as cool with the joke as you think they are, or maybe it's over the long run that it's going to take its toll. But even the other "some of my best friends..." people present are affected by the repetition of the stereotype. They are primed for that example to come along and confirm the bias. And someday, when the person who reflects the object of the joke finally speaks up about the harm and dehumanization they have experienced, that would-be ally is more likely to feel detached rather than empathetic, and to deflect or minimize this other human being's experience.
I can feel my older brother rolling his eyes at me. See? This is why he doesn't tell those jokes around me. I have no sense of humor. I'm too sensitive. Deflect, deflect.
Really, how dare he say I have no sense of humor! I heard a great joke the other day:
What did one condom say to the other as they walked by a gay bar?
"Wanna go in and get shit-faced?"
Was that a gay joke? Yes. Did it involve stereotypes or subjective values about gay people? Nope.
There is no doubt that I am sensitive. That is nobody's fault. I was born that way. Cultural stereotypes would have you believe that it's because I'm a girl. But you know who else is super-sensitive in my family? My older brother. Not that brother, the other one. But, growing up, while my crying was "weak" and "girly," his throwing the gameboard was just "being a sore loser." And that's where it starts
All these cultural sicknesses, these abuses of gender or race or creed, they all start from that first act of generalization, thus, detachment, thus, the other-ing and dehumanization needed to make abusive acts, major or minor, acceptable in polite society.
Sorry, if my being aware of that infringes on your punchline.
....
Mix Bakeshop
Decaf Soy Cappuccino
And I'm back for round 4! (Yes, it has taken me four weeks to finish this ever-changing blog). But let's just wrap this puppy up...
Amanda Palmer and I aren't the only ones on this empathy wavelength. Wil Wheaton (who reminds me a bit of my older brother... not that one... the other idiot) also blogged about a seeming cultural shift online toward widespread bullying and hostility. Not that it hasn't been present before. His concern is that the younger generation seems to have incorporated wanton snark and vitriol as part of their cultural identity and is now saturating the internet, among other parts of society, with it.
The internet is a peculiar and particular place, and I think we're still a long way from figuring out how to handle it. But we of the extra feels are still here. Even if there are trends in thinking - trends like racist thinking, sexist or xenophobic thinking, isolationist, myopic, self-righteous, self-involved, what have you - they are only trends and are never all-encompassing. Bell-bottoms were a trend. Many people thought bell-bottoms were a really, good idea. But bell-bottoms were never a fundamentally true expression of human aesthetics and we, thankfully, evolved. If we can get over bell-bottoms, and if we can elect a black president, and if we can handle women becoming astronauts and leading successful movie franchises, then we can overcome this trend of apathy and anti-empathy.
We of the extra feels are not naive or weak. We have been born more sensitive and aware and that has immense value. And I assure you, we are many. We must take strength in each other's presence and pay no mind to our inopportune catchphrases (just me?). And, as hard as it is, don't lose faith in change. People can change their trends in thinking. It's not a guarantee, but it's a possibility. No matter how monstrous. Or how annoying. They are still human, and for most people, there is still plenty of love within them. And we are primed to show them the way back to it.
Time to head home. My loving, misguided partner in crime awaits me. Peace.
No, seriously, motherfuckers. Peace.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Of Food Stamps and Smartphones - part 2
Rogue Valley Roasting Co.
12oz Soy Cappuccino
Vegan Pumpkin Bread
All editing and no blogging makes Chandra a something something... I'm just not right in the head unless I'm writing. Which is saying something sad about my standards for being "right in the head."
Okay, firstly - fuck you Kansas. Sorry - fuck you Kansas government. Fuck you on behalf of the people of Kansas and economically disadvantaged people everywhere.
So much for my policy of speaking kindly and open-heartedly to others. And so much for my policy of not using excessive profanity lest I turn away potential listeners. Well, they're more "goals" than "policies" anyway.
What are far worse policies, of course, are the new policies just passed in Kansas regarding public assistance. If you have not heard already, new restrictions were approved that would prohibit people receiving public assistance from using that money on cruises (wait, what?), at movie theaters, nail salons, concert venues, and the like. They have also taken the extra measure of restricting the amount of money Kansans can withdraw from an ATM per day to $25 so they cannot circumvent these prohibitions.
Grr.
I first found out about this because I have FiveThirtyEight.com (statistical smarty-pants people) on my Twitter feed, and they did a break-down of what these restrictions mean. First, there's a $1 fee for every ATM transaction use. So that $25 per day goes down to $24 per day of actual assistance. Second, there's a good chance that the person with the card doesn't have a checking account, meaning they don't have a bank. And if it's not your bank, then the bank that owns that ATM will almost certainly charge a greater fee on top of that first dollar. The average bank fee (they referenced the Government Accountability Office here) is $2.10, bringing the actual amount of assistance received down to $21.90. So, if you don't have a bank (and it's very common for low-income people to not have a checking account), and you're going to have to pay your landlord in cash, they calculate that it would take 28 days of making the maximum withdrawal to pay your $600 rent.
They also show that the maximum monthly benefits for a family of 4 is $497, so they'd only have to make 20 withdrawals to extract all the available assistance. They'd also lose $62 in the process. (And we're assuming magical ATMs here that dispense both singles and coins). So... a family of 4 has to give up an electric bill every month (a spring electric bill, mind you, when the weather is nice and electric usage is way down) so that they don't go to the movies...?
The truth is, poor families don't go to the movies that often, if ever. They cannot afford to divert a cent from all the numerous worries they have to grapple with every day. They don't have $62 to spare - period. And remember that it costs more to be poor, from those extra bank fees and extortionist payday lenders, to the simple inability to buy the bulk pack of toilet paper because you just can't seem to save up enough at one time to buy more than the 4-roll pack. And after all, those food stamp cards don't actually pay for all the food you need for a month (neither do they pay for any sized pack of toilet paper), so you're going to have to dip into that "wild money" the government doles out.
What bullshit.
So, what is the point? What is the actual point? It does not save the Kansas government any money directly to impose these restrictions - the amount issued is the same, just the amount received by the people in need is directly diminished. The theoretical argument is that people who are receiving assistance either will be discouraged by not being able to "indulge" on "the government's" money or will be more focused on spending their money more prudently enabling them to save(?!) enough and they will finally break their cycle of poverty and get back to work. They also think people who are working or already eligible to receive benefits will see that they won't be able to abuse this free money system and will, therefore, decide to stay in their current job or suck it up and go get a job. Thus, they will keep people off The Dole and make them productive tax-paying members of society.
The problem is this is a complete fantasy. There is zero - ZERO - data to support any of these presumptions. Poor people, as a rule, don't even receive enough to get by on government assistance, let alone indulge on it. And if you subtract ANY money from an already inadequate amount, you only exacerbate the problems endemic to the cycle of poverty and make it more likely that the person STAYS ON WELFARE LONGER.
So why do this? Firstly, the only ones sure to make money are the banks. I'm not sure these stereotypes that lead to policies like this would exist if banks were unable to pay for the politicians who put this type of legislation forward. If no one were allowed to make money off of poverty, my guess is we would have an economic structure that made sense and tried to eliminate poverty instead of stoke it.
That is not to say that many of these politicians - and bankers, for that matter - don't believe in these anti-poor people stereotypes. They are in a willful denial about their own culpability into these circumstances - first they create the poverty, then they blame the people who experience it. Poor people aren't poor because they failed - they're poor because they have succeeded in participating in our economy, just the wrong end of it. Poverty in our country, in our time, is not exclusively the result of exceptional circumstances, as it should be, but the expected result of the design.
If you set minimum wage below the cost of living, you build poverty into the very structure of the economy. And remember what the cost of living is. It is not just your month to month cost, which, in almost every place I've lived, minimum wage won't cover for even a single person. Your true cost of living includes savings. We are supposed to be saving up enough money to cover down-payments (for apartments, vehicles, a house someday, right?), deductibles and co-payments, retirement (Ha!), clothing, furniture, our children's education (and down-payments and deductibles...), replacing all the things that wear out over time, and all those other eventualities - the S-sub-h in the equation of life: Shit-happening.
And did you know that, depending on where you live, to receive assistance, you might have to be in some kind of work program which may or, more likely, may not be good for your situation. Or you have to pay back the government for the welfare or other kinds of assistance you received? What asshole came up with that idea? The only thing worse than poverty is debt. Debt is one of the all-time best ways to ensure that someone never gets ahead. Especially when there are no restrictions on the interest rates someone can be charged. And since wages are so very inadequate, debt is pretty much a certainty. Where is that in the Budget now that you're working again?
And what are the numbers for cancer rates in this country? A quick Google search says 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will get cancer. The cost, generally, is in the tens of thousands, even higher, and the patient, by design, should be paying some portion of that. Those numbers are over a lifetime, of course, but there is no timer on cancer, no excluding by race or economic status (though there is a skew that follows race and economic status and your likelihood of recovery). Where is that calculation in the overall equation? And that's just cancer. There are innumerable other ailments that can be permanently debilitating, or temporarily incapacitating.
And where are your dreams in the American financial budget? The idea is that you work extra hard to achieve your dreams - save up enough to start a small business or buy some piece of equipment or tool you need to do something that becomes your life's passion (maybe buying a laptop on credit because you are infected with that crazy American optimism and you think you can actually become a writer). You put in the extra hours of practice or study and you get the pay-off on that investment. That's the sales pitch. That's not the product we own. The reality is that we have been robbed of our capital by people who probably don't even know they are the thieves. Partly, by ourselves.
If our almighty American Work Ethic is our inherent capital to achieve our Dream, then we no longer have the ability to spend that capital on ourselves. We have to work far more than one full-time minimum wage job just to get by in the here and now, and if the smallest stumble keeps you from achieving escape velocity (maybe you developed a mysterious chronic illness at 21 or decided to keep the baby at 30), then you are screwed in the long-run because these numbers are not out-runnable. We cannot save the money to invest in ourselves, and we have no time left to invest in our skills-development, in our families, in our basic human happiness.
People who have personal social nets, people who can lend them money or a safe place to stay for a little while - and a little while is all you need when you have safety nets like that - and people who have already moved on from the lower economic levels, often have nothing but condescension for the people who aren't up there with them. Because they don't know. They honestly just don't know that things are not how they used to be, and maybe they weren't all that great back then.
I know I've said all this before.
Tuesday April 14, 2015
Mellelo Coffee Roasters
Soy Cappuccino
Amaretto Bearclaw
So that was Sunday. I cut my ranting short so we could take the boys to see a movie - their second ever at "the popcorn store." It was a great experience (we saw "Home") except for the giant poster of the evil clown from the new "Poltergeist" movie which was staring at us from all the way down at the end of the long, yellow hallway we had to walk down to get to our movie. Poor Oliver was still sobbing in the theater, til Daddy got him some popcorn and they started the pre-show commercial reel.
(I say "reel" as if they use actual film anymore. Sigh... I miss my theatre days sometimes. I still have an old 3-minute trailer for "Pan's Labyrinth" in a box somewhere that I plan to, one day, unroll from the top of a very big hill. Maybe some time when they have the downtown streets closed for a parade... Hmm... Any-hoo!)
I went back and read one of my first posts ever, "Of Food Stamps and Smart Phones (Part 1?)". I stand behind the premise of my argument, that bullying and shaming the poor is a far worse economic strategy than being supportive and encouraging of people who are struggling because of all the costs that bullying generates. However, something I wrote bothered me a lot:
"If we were to rally around these people - and their smart phones and their bad choices - and encouraged them, instead of beating them down, then we would see a return on our investment..."
As if having a smartphone were indicative of poor decision-making. That's not what I meant. Granted, it was late and I was tired, and I am not one to go back and fix things much once the blog has been posted. First, there are all kinds of reasons you might see someone with a food stamp card who also has a smartphone, or a nice car, or even a designer handbag. Chances are, the nice thing was purchased prior to their economic hardships, was purchased cheaply (I have a friend who has to use food stamps because she is unable to work because of a work-related injury, and she actually did find a Prada bag at Goodwill for a dollar. And, having a husband who takes donations at Goodwill, I can say it is totally believable that a less experienced employee failed to recognize it, put it behind glass, and price it accordingly. Most of the time, however, the bag's a knock-off), or was purchased by someone else, maybe for work (because, yes, people on food stamps are more likely to be working than on Welfare) or maybe as a gift. Maybe they inherited the decade-old Mercedes when their grandfather passed away.
And it's pretty damn likely that, unless Grandpa happened to live in town, they didn't get to say good-bye before he was gone, because taking time off during the holiday shopping season and traveling hundreds of miles to make sure you're children got to meet him at least once in their lifetimes - that's a luxury. And if you're poor in Kansas, that's not a decision you can make for yourself anyway.
The bottom line is that nobody owes you a fucking explanation. You don't own a person because you give them a paycheck, or because you happen to not be receiving some kind of government assistance and they are. Chances are, they've been paying into taxes for years prior to whatever circumstances they are experiencing now. Chances are, it won't be very long before they are back to putting money back into the Community Chest, if they aren't right now. Chances are, you are going to be drawing on some kind of government fund or other before too long. That's because that is how our economy is structured to function, and because there is no fundamental difference between who that person is and who you are.
And that's what I meant when I said we need to rally around these people and their bad decisions, because we are all people and we all make our own mistakes. The only difference is that the poor have little to no margin of error and have to be careful to make fewer mistakes than most people.
When I lived with my old roommate in Silicon Valley, he paid more in taxes than I made gross. He was very hard working and very intelligent and deserved his six-figure income. And in some ways, he was more of a fuck-up than I was. The difference was that our opportunities to recover from a mistake, or just a run-of-the-mill eventuality, were not equal. When he got his car towed for unpaid parking tickets, it cost him hundreds of dollars (and one of my afternoons as I drove him from police station to DMV to impound lot), but he got his car back. If I had been so careless (and all he had to do was bring the parking tickets to his employer and they would have paid them!) I would have lost my car and one of my jobs, which would have made it impossible to keep paying off the car loan for the next few years. And the consequences just spiral from there...
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Mix Bakeshop
Decaf Soy Cappuccino
There's one more thing I have to cover before I post this rant of rants: the Fight for $15.
Last Monday, there were strikes across the country by fast food workers and others to rally for a pay increase to $15 an hour and for a union. If you're one of those who think they don't deserve to make that much compared to people who make that much right now, I think you are generally right. But you forget that the only thing keeping those who make $15 an hour now from making what they actually deserve is that those striking now do not make what they deserve.
The screwing of the poor screws the middle class.
If you start minimum wage at the point that reflects the real cost of living, that incorporates the cost of human dignity, then those just getting by on their advanced degrees or privileged career choice (not all of us can or should have to be in tech support) would start to feel more than just a stressed-out "okay" but maybe really satisfied and secure. And, yes, we can afford it. And, yes, the wealthy do deserve to lose some of their money, not because they are inherently nefarious, ill-gotten gains, but because the system which produced that wealth is inherently unfair and skewed to their advantage.
You cannot say that anyone has earned their fair compensation when the economic cost is the health and happiness of millions of other people.
...
Seven years ago, I came back to Ashland to stay. My future husband followed a few weeks later. We cobbled together a few jobs between us and found the cheapest decent apartment we could manage. As we lay in the darkness on our newly-bought $50 bed, I sang "Blue Skies" to him. Because I love irony. And because, deep-down, I am an optimist. I promised him that, despite my panic attacks and forebodings, I would get better and we would be okay. Together, we were going to make it.
After seven years... a lot of the time, I don't feel like I've lived up to that promise. I cry a lot. I spend way, way too much going to coffee shops. But he knows it makes my head better somehow, so he encourages it. And besides, we're not broke because of my coffee habit. We're just going to be broke longer (unless I can make up for it by selling lots and lots of copies of this stuff I've been writing here... wink-wink, nudge-nudge).
Everybody needs something to make being alive worthwhile, to take the edge off life. We are alive now. We don't know how long a lifetime we're going to have, and we don't know how long we're going to be struggling to be okay. You have to have those little bits of joy - whatever it is that gives a little lightness to your being, puts a smile on your lips or a fire in your belly - and you have to have that joy, even when it doesn't fit in your budget. You have to have something or what the hell are we living for? That's not a rationalization to indulge and be irresponsible. But if you don't have something, you just aren't human. We, the Poor, don't need to be taught how to be responsible with our meager income, wherever it's coming from. We need to be trusted to make our own decisions and left alone and not asked to justify our entire life story, of which you have only had the merest glimpse.
Because we are grown-ups, asshat.
But on a day like today, when the skies are ridiculously blue... despite Henry having a meltdown because the doors at the shoe store were not closing properly, and stressing over whether or not we should use the credit card or see how much more we could fit on the debit card, and over how much is left on the food stamp card, and how this one blog has cost three coffee trips... I still feel like I can't complain. Oh, the system is screwed - I'm not going to stop complaining about that. But I have two beautiful, caring children, a faithful and resilient husband, a roof over our heads... and damn fine coffee.
Today, that's enough. I'll keep speaking out. I'll keep trying to be better, to make things better. But I'm going to take today and keep it, too. It's a good day.
But, still, fuck you Kansas.
12oz Soy Cappuccino
Vegan Pumpkin Bread
All editing and no blogging makes Chandra a something something... I'm just not right in the head unless I'm writing. Which is saying something sad about my standards for being "right in the head."
Okay, firstly - fuck you Kansas. Sorry - fuck you Kansas government. Fuck you on behalf of the people of Kansas and economically disadvantaged people everywhere.
So much for my policy of speaking kindly and open-heartedly to others. And so much for my policy of not using excessive profanity lest I turn away potential listeners. Well, they're more "goals" than "policies" anyway.
What are far worse policies, of course, are the new policies just passed in Kansas regarding public assistance. If you have not heard already, new restrictions were approved that would prohibit people receiving public assistance from using that money on cruises (wait, what?), at movie theaters, nail salons, concert venues, and the like. They have also taken the extra measure of restricting the amount of money Kansans can withdraw from an ATM per day to $25 so they cannot circumvent these prohibitions.
Grr.
I first found out about this because I have FiveThirtyEight.com (statistical smarty-pants people) on my Twitter feed, and they did a break-down of what these restrictions mean. First, there's a $1 fee for every ATM transaction use. So that $25 per day goes down to $24 per day of actual assistance. Second, there's a good chance that the person with the card doesn't have a checking account, meaning they don't have a bank. And if it's not your bank, then the bank that owns that ATM will almost certainly charge a greater fee on top of that first dollar. The average bank fee (they referenced the Government Accountability Office here) is $2.10, bringing the actual amount of assistance received down to $21.90. So, if you don't have a bank (and it's very common for low-income people to not have a checking account), and you're going to have to pay your landlord in cash, they calculate that it would take 28 days of making the maximum withdrawal to pay your $600 rent.
They also show that the maximum monthly benefits for a family of 4 is $497, so they'd only have to make 20 withdrawals to extract all the available assistance. They'd also lose $62 in the process. (And we're assuming magical ATMs here that dispense both singles and coins). So... a family of 4 has to give up an electric bill every month (a spring electric bill, mind you, when the weather is nice and electric usage is way down) so that they don't go to the movies...?
The truth is, poor families don't go to the movies that often, if ever. They cannot afford to divert a cent from all the numerous worries they have to grapple with every day. They don't have $62 to spare - period. And remember that it costs more to be poor, from those extra bank fees and extortionist payday lenders, to the simple inability to buy the bulk pack of toilet paper because you just can't seem to save up enough at one time to buy more than the 4-roll pack. And after all, those food stamp cards don't actually pay for all the food you need for a month (neither do they pay for any sized pack of toilet paper), so you're going to have to dip into that "wild money" the government doles out.
What bullshit.
So, what is the point? What is the actual point? It does not save the Kansas government any money directly to impose these restrictions - the amount issued is the same, just the amount received by the people in need is directly diminished. The theoretical argument is that people who are receiving assistance either will be discouraged by not being able to "indulge" on "the government's" money or will be more focused on spending their money more prudently enabling them to save(?!) enough and they will finally break their cycle of poverty and get back to work. They also think people who are working or already eligible to receive benefits will see that they won't be able to abuse this free money system and will, therefore, decide to stay in their current job or suck it up and go get a job. Thus, they will keep people off The Dole and make them productive tax-paying members of society.
The problem is this is a complete fantasy. There is zero - ZERO - data to support any of these presumptions. Poor people, as a rule, don't even receive enough to get by on government assistance, let alone indulge on it. And if you subtract ANY money from an already inadequate amount, you only exacerbate the problems endemic to the cycle of poverty and make it more likely that the person STAYS ON WELFARE LONGER.
So why do this? Firstly, the only ones sure to make money are the banks. I'm not sure these stereotypes that lead to policies like this would exist if banks were unable to pay for the politicians who put this type of legislation forward. If no one were allowed to make money off of poverty, my guess is we would have an economic structure that made sense and tried to eliminate poverty instead of stoke it.
That is not to say that many of these politicians - and bankers, for that matter - don't believe in these anti-poor people stereotypes. They are in a willful denial about their own culpability into these circumstances - first they create the poverty, then they blame the people who experience it. Poor people aren't poor because they failed - they're poor because they have succeeded in participating in our economy, just the wrong end of it. Poverty in our country, in our time, is not exclusively the result of exceptional circumstances, as it should be, but the expected result of the design.
If you set minimum wage below the cost of living, you build poverty into the very structure of the economy. And remember what the cost of living is. It is not just your month to month cost, which, in almost every place I've lived, minimum wage won't cover for even a single person. Your true cost of living includes savings. We are supposed to be saving up enough money to cover down-payments (for apartments, vehicles, a house someday, right?), deductibles and co-payments, retirement (Ha!), clothing, furniture, our children's education (and down-payments and deductibles...), replacing all the things that wear out over time, and all those other eventualities - the S-sub-h in the equation of life: Shit-happening.
And did you know that, depending on where you live, to receive assistance, you might have to be in some kind of work program which may or, more likely, may not be good for your situation. Or you have to pay back the government for the welfare or other kinds of assistance you received? What asshole came up with that idea? The only thing worse than poverty is debt. Debt is one of the all-time best ways to ensure that someone never gets ahead. Especially when there are no restrictions on the interest rates someone can be charged. And since wages are so very inadequate, debt is pretty much a certainty. Where is that in the Budget now that you're working again?
And what are the numbers for cancer rates in this country? A quick Google search says 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will get cancer. The cost, generally, is in the tens of thousands, even higher, and the patient, by design, should be paying some portion of that. Those numbers are over a lifetime, of course, but there is no timer on cancer, no excluding by race or economic status (though there is a skew that follows race and economic status and your likelihood of recovery). Where is that calculation in the overall equation? And that's just cancer. There are innumerable other ailments that can be permanently debilitating, or temporarily incapacitating.
And where are your dreams in the American financial budget? The idea is that you work extra hard to achieve your dreams - save up enough to start a small business or buy some piece of equipment or tool you need to do something that becomes your life's passion (maybe buying a laptop on credit because you are infected with that crazy American optimism and you think you can actually become a writer). You put in the extra hours of practice or study and you get the pay-off on that investment. That's the sales pitch. That's not the product we own. The reality is that we have been robbed of our capital by people who probably don't even know they are the thieves. Partly, by ourselves.
If our almighty American Work Ethic is our inherent capital to achieve our Dream, then we no longer have the ability to spend that capital on ourselves. We have to work far more than one full-time minimum wage job just to get by in the here and now, and if the smallest stumble keeps you from achieving escape velocity (maybe you developed a mysterious chronic illness at 21 or decided to keep the baby at 30), then you are screwed in the long-run because these numbers are not out-runnable. We cannot save the money to invest in ourselves, and we have no time left to invest in our skills-development, in our families, in our basic human happiness.
People who have personal social nets, people who can lend them money or a safe place to stay for a little while - and a little while is all you need when you have safety nets like that - and people who have already moved on from the lower economic levels, often have nothing but condescension for the people who aren't up there with them. Because they don't know. They honestly just don't know that things are not how they used to be, and maybe they weren't all that great back then.
I know I've said all this before.
Tuesday April 14, 2015
Mellelo Coffee Roasters
Soy Cappuccino
Amaretto Bearclaw
So that was Sunday. I cut my ranting short so we could take the boys to see a movie - their second ever at "the popcorn store." It was a great experience (we saw "Home") except for the giant poster of the evil clown from the new "Poltergeist" movie which was staring at us from all the way down at the end of the long, yellow hallway we had to walk down to get to our movie. Poor Oliver was still sobbing in the theater, til Daddy got him some popcorn and they started the pre-show commercial reel.
(I say "reel" as if they use actual film anymore. Sigh... I miss my theatre days sometimes. I still have an old 3-minute trailer for "Pan's Labyrinth" in a box somewhere that I plan to, one day, unroll from the top of a very big hill. Maybe some time when they have the downtown streets closed for a parade... Hmm... Any-hoo!)
I went back and read one of my first posts ever, "Of Food Stamps and Smart Phones (Part 1?)". I stand behind the premise of my argument, that bullying and shaming the poor is a far worse economic strategy than being supportive and encouraging of people who are struggling because of all the costs that bullying generates. However, something I wrote bothered me a lot:
"If we were to rally around these people - and their smart phones and their bad choices - and encouraged them, instead of beating them down, then we would see a return on our investment..."
As if having a smartphone were indicative of poor decision-making. That's not what I meant. Granted, it was late and I was tired, and I am not one to go back and fix things much once the blog has been posted. First, there are all kinds of reasons you might see someone with a food stamp card who also has a smartphone, or a nice car, or even a designer handbag. Chances are, the nice thing was purchased prior to their economic hardships, was purchased cheaply (I have a friend who has to use food stamps because she is unable to work because of a work-related injury, and she actually did find a Prada bag at Goodwill for a dollar. And, having a husband who takes donations at Goodwill, I can say it is totally believable that a less experienced employee failed to recognize it, put it behind glass, and price it accordingly. Most of the time, however, the bag's a knock-off), or was purchased by someone else, maybe for work (because, yes, people on food stamps are more likely to be working than on Welfare) or maybe as a gift. Maybe they inherited the decade-old Mercedes when their grandfather passed away.
And it's pretty damn likely that, unless Grandpa happened to live in town, they didn't get to say good-bye before he was gone, because taking time off during the holiday shopping season and traveling hundreds of miles to make sure you're children got to meet him at least once in their lifetimes - that's a luxury. And if you're poor in Kansas, that's not a decision you can make for yourself anyway.
The bottom line is that nobody owes you a fucking explanation. You don't own a person because you give them a paycheck, or because you happen to not be receiving some kind of government assistance and they are. Chances are, they've been paying into taxes for years prior to whatever circumstances they are experiencing now. Chances are, it won't be very long before they are back to putting money back into the Community Chest, if they aren't right now. Chances are, you are going to be drawing on some kind of government fund or other before too long. That's because that is how our economy is structured to function, and because there is no fundamental difference between who that person is and who you are.
And that's what I meant when I said we need to rally around these people and their bad decisions, because we are all people and we all make our own mistakes. The only difference is that the poor have little to no margin of error and have to be careful to make fewer mistakes than most people.
When I lived with my old roommate in Silicon Valley, he paid more in taxes than I made gross. He was very hard working and very intelligent and deserved his six-figure income. And in some ways, he was more of a fuck-up than I was. The difference was that our opportunities to recover from a mistake, or just a run-of-the-mill eventuality, were not equal. When he got his car towed for unpaid parking tickets, it cost him hundreds of dollars (and one of my afternoons as I drove him from police station to DMV to impound lot), but he got his car back. If I had been so careless (and all he had to do was bring the parking tickets to his employer and they would have paid them!) I would have lost my car and one of my jobs, which would have made it impossible to keep paying off the car loan for the next few years. And the consequences just spiral from there...
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Mix Bakeshop
Decaf Soy Cappuccino
There's one more thing I have to cover before I post this rant of rants: the Fight for $15.
Last Monday, there were strikes across the country by fast food workers and others to rally for a pay increase to $15 an hour and for a union. If you're one of those who think they don't deserve to make that much compared to people who make that much right now, I think you are generally right. But you forget that the only thing keeping those who make $15 an hour now from making what they actually deserve is that those striking now do not make what they deserve.
The screwing of the poor screws the middle class.
If you start minimum wage at the point that reflects the real cost of living, that incorporates the cost of human dignity, then those just getting by on their advanced degrees or privileged career choice (not all of us can or should have to be in tech support) would start to feel more than just a stressed-out "okay" but maybe really satisfied and secure. And, yes, we can afford it. And, yes, the wealthy do deserve to lose some of their money, not because they are inherently nefarious, ill-gotten gains, but because the system which produced that wealth is inherently unfair and skewed to their advantage.
You cannot say that anyone has earned their fair compensation when the economic cost is the health and happiness of millions of other people.
...
Seven years ago, I came back to Ashland to stay. My future husband followed a few weeks later. We cobbled together a few jobs between us and found the cheapest decent apartment we could manage. As we lay in the darkness on our newly-bought $50 bed, I sang "Blue Skies" to him. Because I love irony. And because, deep-down, I am an optimist. I promised him that, despite my panic attacks and forebodings, I would get better and we would be okay. Together, we were going to make it.
After seven years... a lot of the time, I don't feel like I've lived up to that promise. I cry a lot. I spend way, way too much going to coffee shops. But he knows it makes my head better somehow, so he encourages it. And besides, we're not broke because of my coffee habit. We're just going to be broke longer (unless I can make up for it by selling lots and lots of copies of this stuff I've been writing here... wink-wink, nudge-nudge).
Everybody needs something to make being alive worthwhile, to take the edge off life. We are alive now. We don't know how long a lifetime we're going to have, and we don't know how long we're going to be struggling to be okay. You have to have those little bits of joy - whatever it is that gives a little lightness to your being, puts a smile on your lips or a fire in your belly - and you have to have that joy, even when it doesn't fit in your budget. You have to have something or what the hell are we living for? That's not a rationalization to indulge and be irresponsible. But if you don't have something, you just aren't human. We, the Poor, don't need to be taught how to be responsible with our meager income, wherever it's coming from. We need to be trusted to make our own decisions and left alone and not asked to justify our entire life story, of which you have only had the merest glimpse.
Because we are grown-ups, asshat.
But on a day like today, when the skies are ridiculously blue... despite Henry having a meltdown because the doors at the shoe store were not closing properly, and stressing over whether or not we should use the credit card or see how much more we could fit on the debit card, and over how much is left on the food stamp card, and how this one blog has cost three coffee trips... I still feel like I can't complain. Oh, the system is screwed - I'm not going to stop complaining about that. But I have two beautiful, caring children, a faithful and resilient husband, a roof over our heads... and damn fine coffee.
Today, that's enough. I'll keep speaking out. I'll keep trying to be better, to make things better. But I'm going to take today and keep it, too. It's a good day.
But, still, fuck you Kansas.
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Finishing the thought bracelets
Dobra Teahouse
Taste of Kashmir tea
Medicine Ball (dessert thingy... it has chocolate)
Let's see, quick update...
I've been sick. I got the flu on Valentine's night. It's alright. Greg had already passed out on the couch while I was putting the boys down. Yay, parenting! I'm still recovering, though. The active being sick part is pretty much done, but things have not cleared out and I'm all eeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh... Hopefully, tea will help.
I'm also plodding away with the book stuff when I can get time alone with the computer. People often think that if you're a stay-at-home parent you get all this extra time to work on stuff. Totally not true. Maybe some people can do that, but I think it requires different kids. Or different furniture. And additional people. At any rate, it's not good think time when I can actually sit in front of a screen uninterrupted. It's still distracted time, because I'm still "on deck" ready to break up a fight or wipe a bottom or argue over whether or not it is actually snack time.
It's also a problem that I still don't have a computer - this is Greg's, and I have to pry him off of his own computer if I want to get any work done, and by then it's later than I should be up. And that's how someone who "doesn't work" can only write for a couple of hours one day a week and get no sleep. Ever.
But you still do it. There's a Rumi quote that goes, "If all you can do is crawl, start crawling." Which is a lot more poetic than my, "Go stand on your treadmill!"
Some explaining.
Once upon a time, I bought a used treadmill with my little tax refund. And like most home treadmills, it mostly sat around and did nothing. It was in the living room corner, and I would look at it and think, "I should be walking on that thing, but I really don't want to put on shoes... or real clothes. I hurt. I'm tired... I don't wunna." So I made a deal with myself: every day, I would just get up and stand on it. Often with no shoes, no shirt (the curtains were closed). But I would get up there and stand on it. And if I got up there and stood on it, I'd probably start walking for a little bit. And if I was going to walk, then I'd walk for five minutes. And if I walked for five, I knew that I could walk for 12 minutes, because that was usually when my body would finally start to feel okay and I could walk for the 20 minutes I was supposed to walk.
So all I had to do to walk for 20 minutes was to stand on my treadmill. All the work was done in the standing.
There are two kinds of energy I learned in school: potential and kinetic. Potential - static, contained, waiting. Kinetic - moving. Energy in motion. That's what I want myself to be. No more waiting, no more same cycle repeating. I want to be living. And when it comes to friction - the force that opposes motion - static friction is the hardest to overcome.
And that brings me to tattoos! I got some more. While I was contemplating what words or quotes I wanted to finish the thought bracelets around my wrist, I gravitated towards three words I had tweeted for the new year in 2014: Peaceful. Kinetic. Wise. But another word struck me and resonated: Lovingkindness. It's actually a particular meditation for Buddhists, focusing on developing and practicing sincere love for all human beings. So, also for the sake of spacing, I settled on "Kinetic~Lovingkindness" on my left wrist. With a treble clef and an 8-point star (from an Eric Carle book) to divide it from the "Bliss in the Is..." phrase already there.
So what went on the right wrist? The second sun from the Moby doodle (I also recolored the first sun), and Rumi. Not the quote from above, but another one in Arabic script. Why in Arabic? First, space availability. Second, it's lovely script. Third, it deepens the meaning of the translation which is (I really hope, Google Translator), "Every story is us."
All of us have a unique story. No matter how similar to another, it is always in some way different. And that is why there is always some value in every single human story. And yet, we are all human. We are all made from the same star stuff. Even though we cannot all live the same story, we all share in each other's story. We are all born with our own unique genetic make-up, surrounded by the environment and people that will shape us. So we can't say when you look at another person that you, as you were born, could have actually become that other person. And yet, every other person on this earth, I consider to be another manifestation of myself.
No matter how grand and benevolent and peaceful and wise... And no matter how brutal, how truly evil and inhuman... In some way, they are mine. Because a human being is a human being is a human being. I happen to be this human, but the stuff that made me, made them, too. And that's all very difficult, especially staring into the eyes of someone truly evil. I don't want to own them. But I feel that I have to. I have to own their story, too, or I can't see them. And if I can't see them, I can't understand.
My husband and I diverge on this point. He, like many, was deeply affected by the September 11th attacks. But he has no interest in understanding why someone would want to fly a plane into a building and slaughter innocents. He just wants to see them gone. Gone from the face of the earth so they can't hurt anyone else. And if Hell exists, so much the better, because it's waiting for them. He does not believe in changing minds, he does not believe it is possible.
I, on the other hand, think the most important thing we can do is understand why someone would fly a plane into a building. Because we make ourselves monsters, and if we don't understand why, then we will simply keep making more. I cannot imagine myself having the impulse to do something like that, but I have to try to think that this person who did this is also me. What would it take to bring me to that place? How could we un-make that monster?
Every story matters. Every story of suffering, of tragedy, of success, of mediocrity... it all matters. Truth, insight comes from anyone, anywhere, in every tongue. Every story, every perspective... it all has value. If we didn't think the stranger's story was about us, would we listen?
This may be easier for me because I am a very sensitive, empathetic person. And I kinda thought everyone understood that we are all connected to each other. But then I was reminded by a really terrible adaptation of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" that some people are not born with this understanding, or are talked away from it. If Ayn Rand wasn't a biological sociopath, then her early childhood experiences certainly pushed her that way. That woman had zero empathy, and also zero understanding of those who do. It's not social control to say that we're all connected and cannot be wholly selfish beings. She just swung way too far to the other end of the spectrum.
But even her story is mine. She wasn't wrong about everything she wrote about, though I disagree with most of her stuff that is wielded like a cudgel against anyone who isn't a "successful entrepreneur" or whatever you want to call the selfishly rich. Not people who are rich. Just the rich who believe in elitist thinking and the relative worth of human beings, and therefore manipulate the system to protect and increase their own wealth and influence.
Oh, what a bunch of poppycock.
Come, have tea with me, those of you who think I'm wrong, who think you know who I am... who do not know I am you, too. I may not change your mind, but perhaps, you may just begin to see me, and to see yourself here, on the other side of the table.
Much love. Hippy - out!
Taste of Kashmir tea
Medicine Ball (dessert thingy... it has chocolate)
Let's see, quick update...
I've been sick. I got the flu on Valentine's night. It's alright. Greg had already passed out on the couch while I was putting the boys down. Yay, parenting! I'm still recovering, though. The active being sick part is pretty much done, but things have not cleared out and I'm all eeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh... Hopefully, tea will help.
I'm also plodding away with the book stuff when I can get time alone with the computer. People often think that if you're a stay-at-home parent you get all this extra time to work on stuff. Totally not true. Maybe some people can do that, but I think it requires different kids. Or different furniture. And additional people. At any rate, it's not good think time when I can actually sit in front of a screen uninterrupted. It's still distracted time, because I'm still "on deck" ready to break up a fight or wipe a bottom or argue over whether or not it is actually snack time.
It's also a problem that I still don't have a computer - this is Greg's, and I have to pry him off of his own computer if I want to get any work done, and by then it's later than I should be up. And that's how someone who "doesn't work" can only write for a couple of hours one day a week and get no sleep. Ever.
But you still do it. There's a Rumi quote that goes, "If all you can do is crawl, start crawling." Which is a lot more poetic than my, "Go stand on your treadmill!"
Some explaining.
Once upon a time, I bought a used treadmill with my little tax refund. And like most home treadmills, it mostly sat around and did nothing. It was in the living room corner, and I would look at it and think, "I should be walking on that thing, but I really don't want to put on shoes... or real clothes. I hurt. I'm tired... I don't wunna." So I made a deal with myself: every day, I would just get up and stand on it. Often with no shoes, no shirt (the curtains were closed). But I would get up there and stand on it. And if I got up there and stood on it, I'd probably start walking for a little bit. And if I was going to walk, then I'd walk for five minutes. And if I walked for five, I knew that I could walk for 12 minutes, because that was usually when my body would finally start to feel okay and I could walk for the 20 minutes I was supposed to walk.
So all I had to do to walk for 20 minutes was to stand on my treadmill. All the work was done in the standing.
There are two kinds of energy I learned in school: potential and kinetic. Potential - static, contained, waiting. Kinetic - moving. Energy in motion. That's what I want myself to be. No more waiting, no more same cycle repeating. I want to be living. And when it comes to friction - the force that opposes motion - static friction is the hardest to overcome.
And that brings me to tattoos! I got some more. While I was contemplating what words or quotes I wanted to finish the thought bracelets around my wrist, I gravitated towards three words I had tweeted for the new year in 2014: Peaceful. Kinetic. Wise. But another word struck me and resonated: Lovingkindness. It's actually a particular meditation for Buddhists, focusing on developing and practicing sincere love for all human beings. So, also for the sake of spacing, I settled on "Kinetic~Lovingkindness" on my left wrist. With a treble clef and an 8-point star (from an Eric Carle book) to divide it from the "Bliss in the Is..." phrase already there.
So what went on the right wrist? The second sun from the Moby doodle (I also recolored the first sun), and Rumi. Not the quote from above, but another one in Arabic script. Why in Arabic? First, space availability. Second, it's lovely script. Third, it deepens the meaning of the translation which is (I really hope, Google Translator), "Every story is us."
All of us have a unique story. No matter how similar to another, it is always in some way different. And that is why there is always some value in every single human story. And yet, we are all human. We are all made from the same star stuff. Even though we cannot all live the same story, we all share in each other's story. We are all born with our own unique genetic make-up, surrounded by the environment and people that will shape us. So we can't say when you look at another person that you, as you were born, could have actually become that other person. And yet, every other person on this earth, I consider to be another manifestation of myself.
No matter how grand and benevolent and peaceful and wise... And no matter how brutal, how truly evil and inhuman... In some way, they are mine. Because a human being is a human being is a human being. I happen to be this human, but the stuff that made me, made them, too. And that's all very difficult, especially staring into the eyes of someone truly evil. I don't want to own them. But I feel that I have to. I have to own their story, too, or I can't see them. And if I can't see them, I can't understand.
My husband and I diverge on this point. He, like many, was deeply affected by the September 11th attacks. But he has no interest in understanding why someone would want to fly a plane into a building and slaughter innocents. He just wants to see them gone. Gone from the face of the earth so they can't hurt anyone else. And if Hell exists, so much the better, because it's waiting for them. He does not believe in changing minds, he does not believe it is possible.
I, on the other hand, think the most important thing we can do is understand why someone would fly a plane into a building. Because we make ourselves monsters, and if we don't understand why, then we will simply keep making more. I cannot imagine myself having the impulse to do something like that, but I have to try to think that this person who did this is also me. What would it take to bring me to that place? How could we un-make that monster?
Every story matters. Every story of suffering, of tragedy, of success, of mediocrity... it all matters. Truth, insight comes from anyone, anywhere, in every tongue. Every story, every perspective... it all has value. If we didn't think the stranger's story was about us, would we listen?
This may be easier for me because I am a very sensitive, empathetic person. And I kinda thought everyone understood that we are all connected to each other. But then I was reminded by a really terrible adaptation of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" that some people are not born with this understanding, or are talked away from it. If Ayn Rand wasn't a biological sociopath, then her early childhood experiences certainly pushed her that way. That woman had zero empathy, and also zero understanding of those who do. It's not social control to say that we're all connected and cannot be wholly selfish beings. She just swung way too far to the other end of the spectrum.
But even her story is mine. She wasn't wrong about everything she wrote about, though I disagree with most of her stuff that is wielded like a cudgel against anyone who isn't a "successful entrepreneur" or whatever you want to call the selfishly rich. Not people who are rich. Just the rich who believe in elitist thinking and the relative worth of human beings, and therefore manipulate the system to protect and increase their own wealth and influence.
Oh, what a bunch of poppycock.
Come, have tea with me, those of you who think I'm wrong, who think you know who I am... who do not know I am you, too. I may not change your mind, but perhaps, you may just begin to see me, and to see yourself here, on the other side of the table.
Much love. Hippy - out!
Monday, February 2, 2015
Discuss! Kindly...
Downtown Grounds
12oz Soy Mocha
Taos Mountain toasted coconut energy bar
I am trying not to blog at all so that I can focus on finishing up the book. Hopefully, I will have actual book in hand when I journey south again with the boys in March. But something has been on my mind, and I may well piss some people off, but I feel I have to put my two cents out there.
Let me tell you about today...
One of my favorite coffee shops was vandalized over the weekend, so I am working from here in solidarity. Before coming here, we took the boys to get caught up on their last vaccination (chickenpox - which the school system is battling in our area). Before sending Henry to his class, I had to make sure to wipe the peanut butter off his face because the school has asked that parents not only avoid bringing nuts to school, but also scrupulously clean the hands and faces of their children so that there are no traces of any nuts on them when they arrived to play with their classmates. Today also happens to be the 20th anniversary of me ending my virginity.
What does all that have in common? Let me start in reverse order.
When I realized that this was the 20th anniversary of me deflowering a Jehovah's Witness, I started tweeting some reflections with the hashtag "20yrsofnookie". One of those central reflections was that even smart people will do very stupid things under the influence of sexual arousal. I could add to that people will do very stupid things when the consequences are distant and abstract.
Stupid things like not wearing a condom and risking premature parenting and worse. Things like smashing the window of a small business to get to a trivial amount of money left in the cash register. Things like not taking care of the environment, or not supporting measures to slow the human impact on the climate. Things like not supporting a living wage and cutting social programs (as I have bitched about extensively already). Things like not vaccinating yourself or your kids.
And that is why, I would like to ask all my pro-vaccination friends to stop being so hostile for a bit. I'm not asking you to not feel angry. I'm not asking you to shut up. But even I, who obviously support vaccination, cannot stomach the barrage of snark and contempt that is clogging up my social media right now. If your goal is to get people to change their mind and get their kids vaccinated, then you are (mostly) going about it the wrong way.
I admit that I have been flippant about some things, and a little hostile, even. But most of the time, I hope I do not come across like that. I try to reign it in enough to show that I am open to hearing the other side. When you throw around contempt and condescension, all you do is get people's backs up and shut down their willingness to listen. You drive them further into their corners instead of bringing them to your side.
We have a cultural problem where all topics seem to get driven into this binary positioning of either for or against. And people are encouraged to take it personal, whatever their position is. Many years ago, I was in a relationship with a former debate team champion. Meanwhile, I was the math/science major. When we argued (which was a lot) these two backgrounds became really apparent. The object of my arguing was to employ logic and listening reach a mutual understanding. His objective was to win the argument by whatever means worked, including logic, yes, but also tactics like interrupting or flustering your "opponent" by provoking emotional responses.
I confess, after we had been in an escalating argument where I had been successfully keeping a cool stream of point-by-point logic in the face his erratic, inflammatory statements, I did end up chucking a water bottle at him after he called me irrational. Not my best moment.
My point is just that "debates" try to win the audience, while "discussions" try to win the people taking part in them. It's hard when you have a righteous anger, but it's important to try to extend your compassion to the person making you angry. Try. Try to remember that the person across from you made their decision for any number of reasons, including their love for the people most precious to them. Challenge them, yes. Ask them to go back to the reasons that brought them there, to listen to the responses to their concerns, to consider things from other perspectives. Remember that they have a mind and it can be changed. Offer to embrace them as an equal instead of battling them into submission, and you are more likely to see them move out of their corners and listen.
I understand that some people think that giving people the chance to opt out of vaccinations is coddling paranoia, and is now too dangerous to be allowed. I understand that view. I understand that their choice presents enough of a risk that unvaccinated kids may have to be kept out of the regular school system. Someone else posted something like, 'If my kid can't bring peanut butter to school, your kid can't bring preventable diseases.' I still don't believe that the choice should be taken away from them.
Just imagine that it's not some anti-conformist, hippy parent you're arguing with. Imagine it's an anti-government, open-carry, Bundy-Rancher type parent who doesn't want to get their kid vaccinated. How do think a mandatory vaccination edict would go over with them?
I've written before that scientists are not infallible, and there have been terrible mistakes in public health over the years, from Thalidomide to lead paint to lobotomies and hysterectomies as mental health treatments to the whole process of hospital childbirth in the first half of the last century (look it up - oh my god). And there have been some terrible things done by governments, including this government, like forced sterilizations of black Americans, also in the first half of the last century. So, it is not wholly irrational that people could find reason to not do something that would benefit their child, especially, as I said before, when the consequences are distant and abstract.
However, the consequences are becoming tangible now... tangible and tragic. But this is a winnable argument. Maybe it's going to take PSAs and even health classes in the schools and seminars for the parents. But the preponderance of the evidence shows clearly that it is much safer - for everyone - to vaccinate. I have also said before that there is a middle ground to this discussion, but "middle" was a wrong choice of word. There is room for discussion, more that we could know about the production process and such that could make people more comfortable with the choice. But until then, as parents we gotta go with what we got.
The boys have arrived to pick me up. Time to go! No time for edits.
Discuss!
12oz Soy Mocha
Taos Mountain toasted coconut energy bar
I am trying not to blog at all so that I can focus on finishing up the book. Hopefully, I will have actual book in hand when I journey south again with the boys in March. But something has been on my mind, and I may well piss some people off, but I feel I have to put my two cents out there.
Let me tell you about today...
One of my favorite coffee shops was vandalized over the weekend, so I am working from here in solidarity. Before coming here, we took the boys to get caught up on their last vaccination (chickenpox - which the school system is battling in our area). Before sending Henry to his class, I had to make sure to wipe the peanut butter off his face because the school has asked that parents not only avoid bringing nuts to school, but also scrupulously clean the hands and faces of their children so that there are no traces of any nuts on them when they arrived to play with their classmates. Today also happens to be the 20th anniversary of me ending my virginity.
What does all that have in common? Let me start in reverse order.
When I realized that this was the 20th anniversary of me deflowering a Jehovah's Witness, I started tweeting some reflections with the hashtag "20yrsofnookie". One of those central reflections was that even smart people will do very stupid things under the influence of sexual arousal. I could add to that people will do very stupid things when the consequences are distant and abstract.
Stupid things like not wearing a condom and risking premature parenting and worse. Things like smashing the window of a small business to get to a trivial amount of money left in the cash register. Things like not taking care of the environment, or not supporting measures to slow the human impact on the climate. Things like not supporting a living wage and cutting social programs (as I have bitched about extensively already). Things like not vaccinating yourself or your kids.
And that is why, I would like to ask all my pro-vaccination friends to stop being so hostile for a bit. I'm not asking you to not feel angry. I'm not asking you to shut up. But even I, who obviously support vaccination, cannot stomach the barrage of snark and contempt that is clogging up my social media right now. If your goal is to get people to change their mind and get their kids vaccinated, then you are (mostly) going about it the wrong way.
I admit that I have been flippant about some things, and a little hostile, even. But most of the time, I hope I do not come across like that. I try to reign it in enough to show that I am open to hearing the other side. When you throw around contempt and condescension, all you do is get people's backs up and shut down their willingness to listen. You drive them further into their corners instead of bringing them to your side.
We have a cultural problem where all topics seem to get driven into this binary positioning of either for or against. And people are encouraged to take it personal, whatever their position is. Many years ago, I was in a relationship with a former debate team champion. Meanwhile, I was the math/science major. When we argued (which was a lot) these two backgrounds became really apparent. The object of my arguing was to employ logic and listening reach a mutual understanding. His objective was to win the argument by whatever means worked, including logic, yes, but also tactics like interrupting or flustering your "opponent" by provoking emotional responses.
I confess, after we had been in an escalating argument where I had been successfully keeping a cool stream of point-by-point logic in the face his erratic, inflammatory statements, I did end up chucking a water bottle at him after he called me irrational. Not my best moment.
My point is just that "debates" try to win the audience, while "discussions" try to win the people taking part in them. It's hard when you have a righteous anger, but it's important to try to extend your compassion to the person making you angry. Try. Try to remember that the person across from you made their decision for any number of reasons, including their love for the people most precious to them. Challenge them, yes. Ask them to go back to the reasons that brought them there, to listen to the responses to their concerns, to consider things from other perspectives. Remember that they have a mind and it can be changed. Offer to embrace them as an equal instead of battling them into submission, and you are more likely to see them move out of their corners and listen.
I understand that some people think that giving people the chance to opt out of vaccinations is coddling paranoia, and is now too dangerous to be allowed. I understand that view. I understand that their choice presents enough of a risk that unvaccinated kids may have to be kept out of the regular school system. Someone else posted something like, 'If my kid can't bring peanut butter to school, your kid can't bring preventable diseases.' I still don't believe that the choice should be taken away from them.
Just imagine that it's not some anti-conformist, hippy parent you're arguing with. Imagine it's an anti-government, open-carry, Bundy-Rancher type parent who doesn't want to get their kid vaccinated. How do think a mandatory vaccination edict would go over with them?
I've written before that scientists are not infallible, and there have been terrible mistakes in public health over the years, from Thalidomide to lead paint to lobotomies and hysterectomies as mental health treatments to the whole process of hospital childbirth in the first half of the last century (look it up - oh my god). And there have been some terrible things done by governments, including this government, like forced sterilizations of black Americans, also in the first half of the last century. So, it is not wholly irrational that people could find reason to not do something that would benefit their child, especially, as I said before, when the consequences are distant and abstract.
However, the consequences are becoming tangible now... tangible and tragic. But this is a winnable argument. Maybe it's going to take PSAs and even health classes in the schools and seminars for the parents. But the preponderance of the evidence shows clearly that it is much safer - for everyone - to vaccinate. I have also said before that there is a middle ground to this discussion, but "middle" was a wrong choice of word. There is room for discussion, more that we could know about the production process and such that could make people more comfortable with the choice. But until then, as parents we gotta go with what we got.
The boys have arrived to pick me up. Time to go! No time for edits.
Discuss!
Sunday, January 25, 2015
The Black and Blue Dramedy Tour
Rogue Valley Roasting Company
Americano
Vegan Pumpkin Bread
This past December 31st, my grandfather past away. We had known he was sick, and we've been planning a long-haul trip with the boys down to SoCal in March so they could meet him while there was still time. There was supposed to be more time. But there was a secondary infection that was found too late and we lost him. He was 88 years-old and he lived an amazing, full life. It's hard to complain, to say he should have had more time, but still, we wished he'd had more.
So, we were able to wrangle a few extra days off at the last minute so that I could fly down for the service this past weekend. (This was decided before I remembered, Oh, yeah, I'm terrified of flying.) If you read the "Recalculating..." post from last year, when I did a long, crazy drive down to SoCal to attend my step-grandmother's memorial service, you'll know what I mean when I say this trip was in much the same spirit. I overpacked again - and since everything I threw in had to be a possible candidate for funeral-ware, I ended up with a suitcase full of exclusively black and blue clothing. Hence, I dubbed this trip from the outset The Black and Blue Dramedy Tour.
I almost didn't get the rental car - I shouldn't have, but I was able to walk that fine line with the managers when I was appealing my case: respectful, somewhat stricken and definitely stranded, but with enough supporting arguments and documentation to convince them - very reluctantly - to go through with the reservation. Fortunately, this time around, I didn't get the car towed. And I finally made it to Griffith Observatory - but not without paying a price for the detour (p.s. fuck you, 210 freeway - fuck you).
I arrived about 2 minutes before the start of the service the next day.
Every time I head anywhere near the town where I grew up, I get Steely Dan stuck in my head: "And I'm never going back to my old school..." Weirdly enough, someone from my old school found me after the service. And I saw family I haven't seen in years, including my father (who instilled in me a love of Steely Dan). Inside the church, I had sat behind him with my stepmom and had had that horrible insight that someday I would be in the front pew with my siblings and I would have to go through this for him. I suppose every child must have that same thought under the same circumstances.
And then I remembered how annoyingly healthy my father is and I reassured myself that he's going to outlive the cockroaches and there's no need to think about that right now.
Tangent...
When my mother turned sixty a few years ago, I called her up and asked, gently, "So... how are you doing?" She was taking it fine, though I found out that my brother had called her up and asked outright if she had cried. When my father turned sixty a little later, I called him and asked how he felt to be sixty. He said he felt twenty-five. Damn it, I said. "I didn't feel 25 when I was 25."
But that's my dad. The brilliant, unconventional thinker who looks like the long-lost lovechild of Leonard Nimoy and Alan Alda and who will outlive the apocalypse. I hope.
Anyway. I eventually found my way back to my grandparent's house - the house I had grown up in, though they had not been living there with us for most of that time.
I made it back there by muscle memory past changed facades and new construction. I didn't know Caterpillar Canyon could fit so much salable real estate. The mountains across the valley are the same, though there's too many damn hedges now to call it the same view. And I remember more snow on the peaks, especially in January. Though I had been so unhappy in that house when I was young, it feels completely benign now. Warm, even. But it hasn't been my house in a long time.
Going back is wonderful and completely sucks. I was reminded of how much love is available if I just reach out for it, even if it dwells in hearts hundreds or thousands of miles away. But I was reminded, too, of how different I thought I would be by now. I had feared getting stuck, but I didn't think I would feel this destroyed.
I think it's easy to forget how much potential and how much worth we possess when we look around and see only where we are.
My grandfather was a tremendous person, with a booming laugh that embarrassed his children in movie theaters. He was a bass section unto himself in the church choir. He took me to see my first concerts at the L.A. Philharmonic, and I ache at the thought that I can never sing with him now. He had an insatiable thirst for learning and continued to accumulate professional credentials, in psychology and in religion, throughout his life. So many people stood to tell stories of his compassion and acceptance and encouragement, whether he touched their lives through the ministry or psychodrama or his crossword troupe.
It feels daunting to imagine trying to live up to such an amazing person. I feel so far from that right now, though if I can track my time by his lifeline, I've got a good 52 years to catch up. What gives me some solace is the thought that, with all the lives he touched, there should be more than enough of us to each contribute some small measure of goodness to the world, and, altogether, we might just amend for his absence.
With love, and gratitude...
Americano
Vegan Pumpkin Bread
This past December 31st, my grandfather past away. We had known he was sick, and we've been planning a long-haul trip with the boys down to SoCal in March so they could meet him while there was still time. There was supposed to be more time. But there was a secondary infection that was found too late and we lost him. He was 88 years-old and he lived an amazing, full life. It's hard to complain, to say he should have had more time, but still, we wished he'd had more.
So, we were able to wrangle a few extra days off at the last minute so that I could fly down for the service this past weekend. (This was decided before I remembered, Oh, yeah, I'm terrified of flying.) If you read the "Recalculating..." post from last year, when I did a long, crazy drive down to SoCal to attend my step-grandmother's memorial service, you'll know what I mean when I say this trip was in much the same spirit. I overpacked again - and since everything I threw in had to be a possible candidate for funeral-ware, I ended up with a suitcase full of exclusively black and blue clothing. Hence, I dubbed this trip from the outset The Black and Blue Dramedy Tour.
I almost didn't get the rental car - I shouldn't have, but I was able to walk that fine line with the managers when I was appealing my case: respectful, somewhat stricken and definitely stranded, but with enough supporting arguments and documentation to convince them - very reluctantly - to go through with the reservation. Fortunately, this time around, I didn't get the car towed. And I finally made it to Griffith Observatory - but not without paying a price for the detour (p.s. fuck you, 210 freeway - fuck you).
I arrived about 2 minutes before the start of the service the next day.
Every time I head anywhere near the town where I grew up, I get Steely Dan stuck in my head: "And I'm never going back to my old school..." Weirdly enough, someone from my old school found me after the service. And I saw family I haven't seen in years, including my father (who instilled in me a love of Steely Dan). Inside the church, I had sat behind him with my stepmom and had had that horrible insight that someday I would be in the front pew with my siblings and I would have to go through this for him. I suppose every child must have that same thought under the same circumstances.
And then I remembered how annoyingly healthy my father is and I reassured myself that he's going to outlive the cockroaches and there's no need to think about that right now.
Tangent...
When my mother turned sixty a few years ago, I called her up and asked, gently, "So... how are you doing?" She was taking it fine, though I found out that my brother had called her up and asked outright if she had cried. When my father turned sixty a little later, I called him and asked how he felt to be sixty. He said he felt twenty-five. Damn it, I said. "I didn't feel 25 when I was 25."
But that's my dad. The brilliant, unconventional thinker who looks like the long-lost lovechild of Leonard Nimoy and Alan Alda and who will outlive the apocalypse. I hope.
Anyway. I eventually found my way back to my grandparent's house - the house I had grown up in, though they had not been living there with us for most of that time.
I made it back there by muscle memory past changed facades and new construction. I didn't know Caterpillar Canyon could fit so much salable real estate. The mountains across the valley are the same, though there's too many damn hedges now to call it the same view. And I remember more snow on the peaks, especially in January. Though I had been so unhappy in that house when I was young, it feels completely benign now. Warm, even. But it hasn't been my house in a long time.
Going back is wonderful and completely sucks. I was reminded of how much love is available if I just reach out for it, even if it dwells in hearts hundreds or thousands of miles away. But I was reminded, too, of how different I thought I would be by now. I had feared getting stuck, but I didn't think I would feel this destroyed.
I think it's easy to forget how much potential and how much worth we possess when we look around and see only where we are.
My grandfather was a tremendous person, with a booming laugh that embarrassed his children in movie theaters. He was a bass section unto himself in the church choir. He took me to see my first concerts at the L.A. Philharmonic, and I ache at the thought that I can never sing with him now. He had an insatiable thirst for learning and continued to accumulate professional credentials, in psychology and in religion, throughout his life. So many people stood to tell stories of his compassion and acceptance and encouragement, whether he touched their lives through the ministry or psychodrama or his crossword troupe.
It feels daunting to imagine trying to live up to such an amazing person. I feel so far from that right now, though if I can track my time by his lifeline, I've got a good 52 years to catch up. What gives me some solace is the thought that, with all the lives he touched, there should be more than enough of us to each contribute some small measure of goodness to the world, and, altogether, we might just amend for his absence.
With love, and gratitude...
Monday, December 29, 2014
The Santa Gift and my armpit hair...
Mix Bakeshop
Soy cappuccino
Chocolate Fox-shaped Cookie
A few thoughts before the end of the year...
Book stuff is coming right along. I have just over 100,000 words. It's crazy. I hope to have actual copies in hand when we head down to SoCal in March. Hold me to that! It also means that I will continue to be scarce. I still have tons to say, and I still will from time to time, but for the sake of publishing an actual hold-in-your-hand book, I have to shut up sometime.
Second, I stopped shaving about a month ago. It was weird at first since I associate stubble with not having gotten a shower recently. I got over that really fast, though. This is the first time I have ever let my body hair fully grow out, and it just feels completely normal and not the least bit unattractive. Of myself and my husband, however, I am the only one who feels like this. He's dealing with it with very little commenting, though, and, since I know some of you are wondering, it has not been a roadblock to intimacy.
Others of you are wondering why the hell I am sharing this. Moving on...
I shared this little bit on my Facebook wall, earlier this month...
Quick thought on handling Santa stories...
They're still young to understand it all, but we are not telling the boys that Santa is real. We are saying that there was a real person who lived a long time ago who was very kind and who did give little gifts to the children where he lived. And we do give them one "Santa Gift" at Christmas to remember that kind spirit of giving. We explain that the stories they hear are just fun stories people tell to celebrate, and the Santa they meet in the mall every year is another person that is helping people celebrate the season. We are also explaining that some people will still tell them that Santa is real, and that a lot of kids would be very sad to hear otherwise. Just because some grownups get carried away with the stories, that doesn't mean we should go around making kids cry by telling them Santa isn't real - that would go against the spirit of kindness. So we just "make room" for people to believe how they want to believe.
We'll get into the Jesus (and Mithras) stuff later.
I'm thinking of trying to convert this idea into some kind of childrens book. Know any good illustrators?
Also regarding Christmas, this year I went out to see Into the Woods on Christmas Day. I try not to abuse the privilege of the theatres being open on Christmas, but I had to make use of it this year as an offered public service. Mommy was done and needed to get the hell out of there for the good of the whole family. It did what I needed it to do. I got out of my head for a little while, and came back calmer and more able to deal with the Christmas Night chaos.
So, before I close this out, my New Year's wish for all of you is the same as ever: just a little peace and love and understanding.
And damn fine coffee.
Happy holidays and every days. Good night!
Soy cappuccino
Chocolate Fox-shaped Cookie
A few thoughts before the end of the year...
Book stuff is coming right along. I have just over 100,000 words. It's crazy. I hope to have actual copies in hand when we head down to SoCal in March. Hold me to that! It also means that I will continue to be scarce. I still have tons to say, and I still will from time to time, but for the sake of publishing an actual hold-in-your-hand book, I have to shut up sometime.
Second, I stopped shaving about a month ago. It was weird at first since I associate stubble with not having gotten a shower recently. I got over that really fast, though. This is the first time I have ever let my body hair fully grow out, and it just feels completely normal and not the least bit unattractive. Of myself and my husband, however, I am the only one who feels like this. He's dealing with it with very little commenting, though, and, since I know some of you are wondering, it has not been a roadblock to intimacy.
Others of you are wondering why the hell I am sharing this. Moving on...
I shared this little bit on my Facebook wall, earlier this month...
Quick thought on handling Santa stories...
They're still young to understand it all, but we are not telling the boys that Santa is real. We are saying that there was a real person who lived a long time ago who was very kind and who did give little gifts to the children where he lived. And we do give them one "Santa Gift" at Christmas to remember that kind spirit of giving. We explain that the stories they hear are just fun stories people tell to celebrate, and the Santa they meet in the mall every year is another person that is helping people celebrate the season. We are also explaining that some people will still tell them that Santa is real, and that a lot of kids would be very sad to hear otherwise. Just because some grownups get carried away with the stories, that doesn't mean we should go around making kids cry by telling them Santa isn't real - that would go against the spirit of kindness. So we just "make room" for people to believe how they want to believe.
We'll get into the Jesus (and Mithras) stuff later.
I'm thinking of trying to convert this idea into some kind of childrens book. Know any good illustrators?
Also regarding Christmas, this year I went out to see Into the Woods on Christmas Day. I try not to abuse the privilege of the theatres being open on Christmas, but I had to make use of it this year as an offered public service. Mommy was done and needed to get the hell out of there for the good of the whole family. It did what I needed it to do. I got out of my head for a little while, and came back calmer and more able to deal with the Christmas Night chaos.
So, before I close this out, my New Year's wish for all of you is the same as ever: just a little peace and love and understanding.
And damn fine coffee.
Happy holidays and every days. Good night!
Monday, December 1, 2014
The Weapon of the Enemy
The living room
Sleepytime Sinus Soother Tea
Pumpkin pie (expired)
I'm starting this at home. Will probably finish elsewhere.
This is why I never finish my housework. Well, this is partly why. Anyway.
If you think about it, there's only one true sin in the Bible. Everything else is only a sin under certain circumstances. Sex is not a sin, just premarital sex. Killing someone is not a sin, not at all. There are numerous passages delineating under what circumstances and by what method someone shall be put to death: female sorceresses, back-talking children, women who are raped who don't cry for help, but only if they live in the city because women who are raped in the country might not live close enough to someone who could have heard them so it's okay if they just didn't bother.
You can even steal someone else's land if you say God really wanted you to have it.
No, the only act that appears to be inherently sinful is disobedience. Everything else seems to have an asterisk. You can even put your beloved son on the alter if the big G tells you to. Obeying the command to kill your child is - in a biblical context - the righteous act. More righteous than obeying the standing order to not kill anybody (except where explicitly commanded to do so) because it was a direct order.
Even our military and police forces are expected to not obey a direct order if it conflicts with the laws established in the Constitution.
Oh, military and police forces... how you have so often failed to disobey... How often you have protected those among your ranks who have defiled their sacred obligations. Instead of casting these criminals out of your body, you have so very often closed in around them and formed a protective cyst, a tumor, and doomed your body to sickness.
Again and again and again...
Mix Bakeshop
Americano
Pumkin-something Macaroon
Biscotti
...And that's where I left it when the boys got home. Let's see if I can finish this before closing time.
Today, we went to the library. As the boys played with the Thomas the Train set in the kids section, we heard chanting and shouting outside. From the window we could see another Ferguson rally marching across the street, blocking the crosswalk for a time to address the stopped traffic, then continuing on to the heart of downtown.
"No justice! No peace!"
"Hands up! Don't shoot!"
As their voices receded Oliver began crying. He was upset because he had wanted to throw something into the recycling bin but Daddy had done it first. I thought how lucky we are that that's all he has to cry about. When I posted that later - the picture of the marchers and Oliver's incongruent despair - a friend of mine replied with "#FirstWorldProblems".
Amen, sister.
We live in another Gilded Age. As before the Great Crash, the news buzzes about the extraordinary wealth of our age, the billionaires being churned out by Wall Street. And the seeming normalcy of Middle America is only achieved through massive debt - student loans that may or may not be paid off before your children are ready for school, and the 30 year mortgage you had to refinance to get the loan to pay for the car repairs on that 2 door subcompact you were supposed to trade-up before you had the 2 car seats in the back, but now you can't afford to replace it so you have to string it along, and you can't put it on the credit card because you maxed it out on 4 crowns and 6 fillings - and that's with insurance! - and the Black Friday specials you sacrificed your Thanksgiving for because they told you it was your only chance to get it cheap enough and you could pay it off when you got your tax refund but then they cut the Earned Income Credit you were banking on so your interest rate just got jacked up to a rate you didn't know was legal. But you sure look comfortable. When everyone looks so comfortable, it's easy to think that it's your fault.
God forbid you get sick.
God forbid you're the victim of a hit and run while you're marching down to the Plaza for those among us who are dying in this Age of Gilded Freedom. That's your ER bill. Good luck.
This country is most definitely not well, but the worst part is that we cannot have the conversations we need to have to fix it because reality is obscured by the gilding of lies. Equal opportunity? Not a bit. Not economically, not legally... We don't even have an equal opportunity to stay alive just walking down the street.
Around the country, some of those who see the injustice, especially those who have been the victims of it, have taken to the streets to grieve, to demand change - they march. And some, they scream their grief, their frustration - their fear - they riot.
Song lyrics come to mind... "I need something to break!"
On the right, they have been stoking fear of the president, of immigrants, and those "thugs" who just happen to, ya know, bounce less light in the sun... Frankly, calling Obama a "tyrant" is an insult to the people of Syria and Libya and anyone else who has really lived under a tyrant. But the fearful shall defend themselves. They have been stockpiling their bunkers and talking openly of insurrection for years.
They want something to break, too.
What we do when we are afraid, when we are threatened... that is when we earn our humanity, or when we fail it.
When Henry David Thoreau saw the injustice of American aggression in his time, he simply stopped paying for his share of it. And he happily went to jail for it. He disobeyed, civilly. That was the righteous thing to do.
But what about today?
We do need change. A lot of it, on many fronts. You could use the term revolution. But I wouldn't go too far with that. I certainly would not say insurrection. So long as the basic structure remains in tact, we need to try to work within it.
I've known people who say we need to tear down the whole system and rebuild on whatever survives. I don't think highly of that kind of nihilism. I think of it as an immature human mind, the intellectual equivalent of a toddler's tantrum. So it's hard? So it's frustrating, and slow? So what? It's a lot harder to bury your sons and daughters sacrificed on the alter of revolution. And the societies built upon the ruins of revolutions most often do not survive, let alone thrive.
There are exceptions. But there is also a cost. Always a cost, not the least of which is our humanity.
I have no disrespect for someone who defends themselves or their families, but only when it is necessary. In the case in Ferguson, the only way Wilson might have needed to shoot Mike Brown dead from 150 feet away is if he mistook Mike Brown for Luke Skywalker and had a reasonable expectation that Mike Brown would imminently use The Force to steal his gun. Which is silly, of course, because Brown could have just choked him before Wilson could reach. Or tossed his police cruiser.
Which makes me think of burning witches. How stupid is that logic? If she's a witch, don't you think she could get out of it? In which case, the only people you'd end up burning would be innocent. Oh, the folly of the righteous... Committing obvious sins in the name of God. Murder, torture, destruction, violence... whatever... for the Greater Good.
Didn't we learn anything from the Lord of the Rings? You never use the weapon of the Enemy.
If killing someone, on purpose, is wrong, then it doesn't stop being wrong if you change the scenery or put the trigger in another person's hand. Injustice must be answered, and in a meaningful way, but you don't go outside the system you're trying to fix if there is any path at all left open. There is no social system that will ever be free of corruption. The strength of the institution comes from the ability to address and amend injustice within itself.
In Ferguson, there was clear abuse of power and corruption - and there are still paths left to address those trespasses of justice. And more broadly, there is wide-spread racial injustice and abuse of police authority - and that, too, can be addressed. There are white allies, and those in positions of power - yes, even white police officers, too - who see and will march alongside those seeking justice.
And even those of us who may only march our fingers across keyboards in suburban coffeehouses, we are doing our best to scrape the fool's gold off the bullshit that's being oversold, hand over bloodied fist, to keep us from seeing that one simply truth: There's no such thing as Other People. We're all in this together, and we can change things for the better and be our higher human selves.
I am such a damn hippy. Coffee shop is closing. Time to go.
I love you all.
Sleepytime Sinus Soother Tea
Pumpkin pie (expired)
I'm starting this at home. Will probably finish elsewhere.
This is why I never finish my housework. Well, this is partly why. Anyway.
If you think about it, there's only one true sin in the Bible. Everything else is only a sin under certain circumstances. Sex is not a sin, just premarital sex. Killing someone is not a sin, not at all. There are numerous passages delineating under what circumstances and by what method someone shall be put to death: female sorceresses, back-talking children, women who are raped who don't cry for help, but only if they live in the city because women who are raped in the country might not live close enough to someone who could have heard them so it's okay if they just didn't bother.
You can even steal someone else's land if you say God really wanted you to have it.
No, the only act that appears to be inherently sinful is disobedience. Everything else seems to have an asterisk. You can even put your beloved son on the alter if the big G tells you to. Obeying the command to kill your child is - in a biblical context - the righteous act. More righteous than obeying the standing order to not kill anybody (except where explicitly commanded to do so) because it was a direct order.
Even our military and police forces are expected to not obey a direct order if it conflicts with the laws established in the Constitution.
Oh, military and police forces... how you have so often failed to disobey... How often you have protected those among your ranks who have defiled their sacred obligations. Instead of casting these criminals out of your body, you have so very often closed in around them and formed a protective cyst, a tumor, and doomed your body to sickness.
Again and again and again...
Mix Bakeshop
Americano
Pumkin-something Macaroon
Biscotti
...And that's where I left it when the boys got home. Let's see if I can finish this before closing time.
Today, we went to the library. As the boys played with the Thomas the Train set in the kids section, we heard chanting and shouting outside. From the window we could see another Ferguson rally marching across the street, blocking the crosswalk for a time to address the stopped traffic, then continuing on to the heart of downtown.
"No justice! No peace!"
"Hands up! Don't shoot!"
As their voices receded Oliver began crying. He was upset because he had wanted to throw something into the recycling bin but Daddy had done it first. I thought how lucky we are that that's all he has to cry about. When I posted that later - the picture of the marchers and Oliver's incongruent despair - a friend of mine replied with "#FirstWorldProblems".
Amen, sister.
We live in another Gilded Age. As before the Great Crash, the news buzzes about the extraordinary wealth of our age, the billionaires being churned out by Wall Street. And the seeming normalcy of Middle America is only achieved through massive debt - student loans that may or may not be paid off before your children are ready for school, and the 30 year mortgage you had to refinance to get the loan to pay for the car repairs on that 2 door subcompact you were supposed to trade-up before you had the 2 car seats in the back, but now you can't afford to replace it so you have to string it along, and you can't put it on the credit card because you maxed it out on 4 crowns and 6 fillings - and that's with insurance! - and the Black Friday specials you sacrificed your Thanksgiving for because they told you it was your only chance to get it cheap enough and you could pay it off when you got your tax refund but then they cut the Earned Income Credit you were banking on so your interest rate just got jacked up to a rate you didn't know was legal. But you sure look comfortable. When everyone looks so comfortable, it's easy to think that it's your fault.
God forbid you get sick.
God forbid you're the victim of a hit and run while you're marching down to the Plaza for those among us who are dying in this Age of Gilded Freedom. That's your ER bill. Good luck.
This country is most definitely not well, but the worst part is that we cannot have the conversations we need to have to fix it because reality is obscured by the gilding of lies. Equal opportunity? Not a bit. Not economically, not legally... We don't even have an equal opportunity to stay alive just walking down the street.
Around the country, some of those who see the injustice, especially those who have been the victims of it, have taken to the streets to grieve, to demand change - they march. And some, they scream their grief, their frustration - their fear - they riot.
Song lyrics come to mind... "I need something to break!"
On the right, they have been stoking fear of the president, of immigrants, and those "thugs" who just happen to, ya know, bounce less light in the sun... Frankly, calling Obama a "tyrant" is an insult to the people of Syria and Libya and anyone else who has really lived under a tyrant. But the fearful shall defend themselves. They have been stockpiling their bunkers and talking openly of insurrection for years.
They want something to break, too.
What we do when we are afraid, when we are threatened... that is when we earn our humanity, or when we fail it.
When Henry David Thoreau saw the injustice of American aggression in his time, he simply stopped paying for his share of it. And he happily went to jail for it. He disobeyed, civilly. That was the righteous thing to do.
But what about today?
We do need change. A lot of it, on many fronts. You could use the term revolution. But I wouldn't go too far with that. I certainly would not say insurrection. So long as the basic structure remains in tact, we need to try to work within it.
I've known people who say we need to tear down the whole system and rebuild on whatever survives. I don't think highly of that kind of nihilism. I think of it as an immature human mind, the intellectual equivalent of a toddler's tantrum. So it's hard? So it's frustrating, and slow? So what? It's a lot harder to bury your sons and daughters sacrificed on the alter of revolution. And the societies built upon the ruins of revolutions most often do not survive, let alone thrive.
There are exceptions. But there is also a cost. Always a cost, not the least of which is our humanity.
I have no disrespect for someone who defends themselves or their families, but only when it is necessary. In the case in Ferguson, the only way Wilson might have needed to shoot Mike Brown dead from 150 feet away is if he mistook Mike Brown for Luke Skywalker and had a reasonable expectation that Mike Brown would imminently use The Force to steal his gun. Which is silly, of course, because Brown could have just choked him before Wilson could reach. Or tossed his police cruiser.
Which makes me think of burning witches. How stupid is that logic? If she's a witch, don't you think she could get out of it? In which case, the only people you'd end up burning would be innocent. Oh, the folly of the righteous... Committing obvious sins in the name of God. Murder, torture, destruction, violence... whatever... for the Greater Good.
Didn't we learn anything from the Lord of the Rings? You never use the weapon of the Enemy.
If killing someone, on purpose, is wrong, then it doesn't stop being wrong if you change the scenery or put the trigger in another person's hand. Injustice must be answered, and in a meaningful way, but you don't go outside the system you're trying to fix if there is any path at all left open. There is no social system that will ever be free of corruption. The strength of the institution comes from the ability to address and amend injustice within itself.
In Ferguson, there was clear abuse of power and corruption - and there are still paths left to address those trespasses of justice. And more broadly, there is wide-spread racial injustice and abuse of police authority - and that, too, can be addressed. There are white allies, and those in positions of power - yes, even white police officers, too - who see and will march alongside those seeking justice.
And even those of us who may only march our fingers across keyboards in suburban coffeehouses, we are doing our best to scrape the fool's gold off the bullshit that's being oversold, hand over bloodied fist, to keep us from seeing that one simply truth: There's no such thing as Other People. We're all in this together, and we can change things for the better and be our higher human selves.
I am such a damn hippy. Coffee shop is closing. Time to go.
I love you all.
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