"I don't understand. You used to be so funny! Now you just seem...angry and sarcastic".
I've heard that from more than one person in the last few years, and I'd like to apologize for being a big ol' Debbie Downer but JEEBUS have you SEEN what we've been through, survived, clawed our way out of this last decade?
Seriously.
It was easy, so very easy to write 'funny' when my family was all healthy and well and I had nothing better (or worse) to think about than the antics of chickens or what a gawdawful gardener I am.
Then Cancer.
Then the financial (what's a word like 'burden' but a million times more depressing?) that goes along with cancer even WITH insurance coverage.
Then the eye-opening trauma of finding out the REAL things that happen to real people when in medical crisis in this country followed by looking at other shit that was/is going on and HOLY CRAP I'LL NEVER LAUGH AGAIN.
I remember sitting at Neil and Olya's dinner table the very first time we visited them in Missouri. Probably half a dozen years ago or so, and Neil asked me when I'd be getting another article to him for the homestead.org website. A valid question as I was supposed to provide him with one a month and it'd been...more than that.
I couldn't. I just looked at him and said, "I'm so sorry, Boss- but I don't feel so funny anymore".
Well, once you start looking at something like the fractured infected wound of the health care system in America you can't help but look to either side of it- things like the rest of the social safety net and how we treat old people and children and our infrastructure. How we treat employees and teachers and policemen and soldiers.
And the short answer is, as a culture and society we clearly suck.
The bullies are taking over. The selfish are squashing everyone else. Corporations and special interest groups *cough* NRA *cough* and some lunatic fringe of Christianity *I* never encountered up in Wisconsin where I grew up Lutheran and was taught that evolution is real and to respect ALL other beliefs and oh by the way this country is NOT a Christian Nation- all those are running roughshod over everyone else and crying foul and persecution if anyone even politely and quietly asks them why they are shredding the Constitution to bits and pissing on the Founding Fathers' graves.
There's not a damn thing funny about that.
In fact, I'm not only angry and sarcastic, but I'm also scared- which usually manifests with me as looking like sarcastic anger.
I'm scared silly about my son- where are we heading as a society, the society he'll have to deal with and live in?
I understand the whole "rugged American individualist" thing, but honestly how is that mindset going to bring anything but more of the mess we're now in? There's no compassion, no forgiveness, no acceptance of anything other than what looks back at you in the mirror...no HUMANITY for the society as a whole, not just private little pockets of it.
Corporations and banks can do whatever they want to because CAPITALISM
Christians can force their beliefs into our laws because THE BIBLE
Gun owners can have whatever the hell they WANT (not NEED- WANT...and freely admit that) because SECOND AMENDMENT
What the hell happened to "all men being created equal"? That is a very simple phrase and it's pretty straightforward.
If everyone is equal, everyone matters. But every day in every direction I see and hear people being pushed out of the way, shamed and criticized and berated because they don't think the 'right' way (pun intended) or they don't 'deserve' something that they're getting. Whatever happened to 'judge not lest ye be judged'?
Don't get me wrong. I don't walk around in tears or with a black cloud over my head all day.
I smile and shake my head at our black cat Fred, who thinks stalking birds means climbing to 20ft above the feeder then letting go and dropping like a furred rock to the earth below. We're assuming he figures he'll nab one as it rolls on the ground laughing. The farm is full of characters.
Both Ward and Alec have razor sharp and dry wits and are funny as can be and they both make me laugh out loud on a regular basis. Even when I'm just watching them, I smile inside- they're so very precious to me.
I inhale the good clean air of a cool Texas morning and breathe in the molten sap aroma of a midsummer midafternoon and it calms me.
I see beauty almost everywhere, and am surrounded by love.
But when I sit down to put words on virtual paper, I'm just not funny anymore.
photo
photo by Sheri Dixon
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Up In Flames
We were in the clutches of Houston and hospitals and hotels and all that mess during the whole Dorner episode of American history (still unfinished, of course).
So I admit from the git go that I don't have even all the information that we, as the viewing public is allowed to have.
We got it in fits and spurts while in the car or on the 'net or between episodes of "House Hunters International"- our main TV viewing when forced in front of a TV for lack of chores and outdoors to participate in. There was that one hour that we watched, horrified, unable to look away yet loathing every second wasted on "Toddlers in Tiaras", but we will not speak of that. Ever.
The murders Mr. Dorner is accused of are still being referred to as 'alleged'.
His manifesto was posted on Facebook- which seems an odd way to post a manifesto and also a really un-secure way.
His wallet showed up at the Mexican border AND in the burnt out cremains of the cabin.
Apparently his allegations regarding the LAPD were not unwarranted, and not all that unusual.
I was amazed that he never left California. With his supposed training and mindset, he shoulda been across the Canadian border within 18 hours of the whole shebang breaking into daylight.
Why would he mosey around California for days?
Ward and I never had a moment's doubt that it would have a decidedly UNhappy ending for Mr. Dorner. Not because he would end it all himself, but because the Powers That Be would make sure he never be allowed to speak in public (or anywhere) again.
The curse of knowing too much and not knowing enough to look the other way.
I am not for a second defending Mr. Dorner IF he did, in fact, kill anyone.
But I cannot get behind the whole, "He was a murdering psychopath- fuck him- he deserved everything he got and then some" crowd who are content to shovel the ashes of that cabin into the dustbin of time and move on.
Because they are still 'alleged' murders.
Because there really ARE things that are decidedly rotten in the Denmark of the LAPD.
Because our President used this weird and awful example and time to nonchalantly yet firmly state that he WAS going to set a drone upon Mr. Dorner's ass. An American citizen on American soil.
But mainly because I don't care if he had stood on the 50 yard line of the Superbowl and shot the person next to him square in the head (during the time the lights were on) and there were a gabazillion witnesses both at the scene and watching on TV leaving NO DOUBT that he committed said murder...
...the LAW states that he be arrested, booked, jailed, given a lawyer if he could not afford one, and receive a trial with a jury of his peers.
And that was not done.
Instead, the cabin was set aflame with direct instructions to do NOTHING to douse the fire. Some accounts state that 'someone' DID try to exit from the back door but was forced back inside. Inside the burning cabin. To die. On purpose.
Two wrongs never make a right. To return violence (alleged violence) with violence (horrible flaming violence)does nothing but weaken the entire society.
And the guns keep flying off the shelves of the stores, and the ammo is difficult to get for the demand, and that idiot LaPierre brays that it's not paranoia to be prepared for violence.
Violence is not the answer, violence is the problem.
Being armed to the teeth is not the answer; we now have an entire population who proudly own a shitload of high powered weapons they have no earthly idea how to use.
Fabulous.
Having the courage to stop this culture of death and revenge and suspicion will take more guts than anyone hiding behind a weapon (or 100 weapons) possesses. The weapons are a crutch that are keeping us from ever getting healthy as a society. They don't protect us; they divide us.
We've stopped depending on each other for security...we've got our guns.
We've stopped insisting on the law of our land for justice...we prefer vigilante solutions.
I want better.
I want better for myself and more importantly I want better for my children.
I do not want to hand my children weapons and instruct them on how to watch out for themselves because it's dog eat dog out there.
I want to hand them a world that is on the mend, a society that is truly social, a civilization that is truly civil and those things do not come from burning people alive out of spite, or arming school teachers, or sending drones after citizens of ANY nation.
It comes from a people who are sick of being sick and tired of being scared and who have the courage to really change things instead of getting more entrenched in the same old shit that got us here to begin with.
Change is possible. But it means rethinking everything, everything.
Otherwise we're just slapping a bandaid over cancer.
So I admit from the git go that I don't have even all the information that we, as the viewing public is allowed to have.
We got it in fits and spurts while in the car or on the 'net or between episodes of "House Hunters International"- our main TV viewing when forced in front of a TV for lack of chores and outdoors to participate in. There was that one hour that we watched, horrified, unable to look away yet loathing every second wasted on "Toddlers in Tiaras", but we will not speak of that. Ever.
The murders Mr. Dorner is accused of are still being referred to as 'alleged'.
His manifesto was posted on Facebook- which seems an odd way to post a manifesto and also a really un-secure way.
His wallet showed up at the Mexican border AND in the burnt out cremains of the cabin.
Apparently his allegations regarding the LAPD were not unwarranted, and not all that unusual.
I was amazed that he never left California. With his supposed training and mindset, he shoulda been across the Canadian border within 18 hours of the whole shebang breaking into daylight.
Why would he mosey around California for days?
Ward and I never had a moment's doubt that it would have a decidedly UNhappy ending for Mr. Dorner. Not because he would end it all himself, but because the Powers That Be would make sure he never be allowed to speak in public (or anywhere) again.
The curse of knowing too much and not knowing enough to look the other way.
I am not for a second defending Mr. Dorner IF he did, in fact, kill anyone.
But I cannot get behind the whole, "He was a murdering psychopath- fuck him- he deserved everything he got and then some" crowd who are content to shovel the ashes of that cabin into the dustbin of time and move on.
Because they are still 'alleged' murders.
Because there really ARE things that are decidedly rotten in the Denmark of the LAPD.
Because our President used this weird and awful example and time to nonchalantly yet firmly state that he WAS going to set a drone upon Mr. Dorner's ass. An American citizen on American soil.
But mainly because I don't care if he had stood on the 50 yard line of the Superbowl and shot the person next to him square in the head (during the time the lights were on) and there were a gabazillion witnesses both at the scene and watching on TV leaving NO DOUBT that he committed said murder...
...the LAW states that he be arrested, booked, jailed, given a lawyer if he could not afford one, and receive a trial with a jury of his peers.
And that was not done.
Instead, the cabin was set aflame with direct instructions to do NOTHING to douse the fire. Some accounts state that 'someone' DID try to exit from the back door but was forced back inside. Inside the burning cabin. To die. On purpose.
Two wrongs never make a right. To return violence (alleged violence) with violence (horrible flaming violence)does nothing but weaken the entire society.
And the guns keep flying off the shelves of the stores, and the ammo is difficult to get for the demand, and that idiot LaPierre brays that it's not paranoia to be prepared for violence.
Violence is not the answer, violence is the problem.
Being armed to the teeth is not the answer; we now have an entire population who proudly own a shitload of high powered weapons they have no earthly idea how to use.
Fabulous.
Having the courage to stop this culture of death and revenge and suspicion will take more guts than anyone hiding behind a weapon (or 100 weapons) possesses. The weapons are a crutch that are keeping us from ever getting healthy as a society. They don't protect us; they divide us.
We've stopped depending on each other for security...we've got our guns.
We've stopped insisting on the law of our land for justice...we prefer vigilante solutions.
I want better.
I want better for myself and more importantly I want better for my children.
I do not want to hand my children weapons and instruct them on how to watch out for themselves because it's dog eat dog out there.
I want to hand them a world that is on the mend, a society that is truly social, a civilization that is truly civil and those things do not come from burning people alive out of spite, or arming school teachers, or sending drones after citizens of ANY nation.
It comes from a people who are sick of being sick and tired of being scared and who have the courage to really change things instead of getting more entrenched in the same old shit that got us here to begin with.
Change is possible. But it means rethinking everything, everything.
Otherwise we're just slapping a bandaid over cancer.
Monday, January 14, 2013
The Answer Is No
No.
The cure for violence is not more violence.
The answer to bad men with guns is not good men with guns.
Very few things are black or white.
People are not inanimate objects; numbers that can be added or subtracted and result in the same predictable solution. There are always gray areas.
I've been a victim of violence. I do not wish violence on the offender(s).
It's not a "turn the other cheek" thing. It's a humanity thing.
Revenge would solve nothing- and would make me a lesser human- because then *I* would be a violent human.
There was a mass shooting.
Why was the immediate response a huge run on the purchase of guns?
If you already had guns, why did you need more...NOW?
If you didn't have guns, why did you need any...NOW?
How did that make you safer?
How did that help the victims' families, other than a resounding slap in the face-
"This type of weapon just slaughtered your baby- I GOTTA GET ME ONE!!!"
I don't care what you say, or your alleged motivation- that is exactly what those families saw
-in the empty shelves of the gun stores
-in the rising prices on weapons and ammo
-in the 'gun appreciation' days and the raffles of that exact. same. weapon.
And they hear no apology from you that does not include a 'BUT'-
-We're sorry your child is dead BUT you can't blame the gun
-We're sorry that over 30,000 Americans are killed by guns every year BUT the 2nd Amendment is what keeps us safe and free (unless you're one of the 30,000 I guess)
-We're sorry that our fellow Americans who outnumber us don't agree with us BUT we want our guns, we've twisted the 2nd Amendment to agree with us, we've bought politicians and supreme court justices to agree with us and fuck the rest of you.
Our society is sick.
Our infatuation and devotion and worship of...tools of death are a symptom.
More of the same does not make a cure.
Guns don't kill people.
People kill people.
People with guns kill a lot of people easily and quickly.
The answer is no.
The cure for violence is not more violence.
The answer to bad men with guns is not good men with guns.
Very few things are black or white.
People are not inanimate objects; numbers that can be added or subtracted and result in the same predictable solution. There are always gray areas.
I've been a victim of violence. I do not wish violence on the offender(s).
It's not a "turn the other cheek" thing. It's a humanity thing.
Revenge would solve nothing- and would make me a lesser human- because then *I* would be a violent human.
There was a mass shooting.
Why was the immediate response a huge run on the purchase of guns?
If you already had guns, why did you need more...NOW?
If you didn't have guns, why did you need any...NOW?
How did that make you safer?
How did that help the victims' families, other than a resounding slap in the face-
"This type of weapon just slaughtered your baby- I GOTTA GET ME ONE!!!"
I don't care what you say, or your alleged motivation- that is exactly what those families saw
-in the empty shelves of the gun stores
-in the rising prices on weapons and ammo
-in the 'gun appreciation' days and the raffles of that exact. same. weapon.
And they hear no apology from you that does not include a 'BUT'-
-We're sorry your child is dead BUT you can't blame the gun
-We're sorry that over 30,000 Americans are killed by guns every year BUT the 2nd Amendment is what keeps us safe and free (unless you're one of the 30,000 I guess)
-We're sorry that our fellow Americans who outnumber us don't agree with us BUT we want our guns, we've twisted the 2nd Amendment to agree with us, we've bought politicians and supreme court justices to agree with us and fuck the rest of you.
Our society is sick.
Our infatuation and devotion and worship of...tools of death are a symptom.
More of the same does not make a cure.
Guns don't kill people.
People kill people.
People with guns kill a lot of people easily and quickly.
The answer is no.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Some People Just Set An Alarm Clock
So we're minding our own business, enjoying "Up With Chris Hayes" this morning and I cannot fail to notice that Chris isn't there. Also that in the background was some sort of cartoon character looking in the imaginary window behind the faux-host.
OK, maybe I had just woken up and was still a little fuzzy.
A lot fuzzy.
My POINT is that one of the guests was someone from the Tea Party Express. Unlike (Name any show on FOX. Any of 'em.) "Up With Chris Hayes" is a round table discussion with both or all sides of an issue involved and they actually, yanno, listen to the opposing side with respect and politeness.
Weird. I know.
Almost like it's an actual discussion of ideas and not just a big ol' circle-jerk "lets show those dummies who don't think like us a thing or two and then kick 'em off the air when they start making sense".
Anyhoo.
They had a spokesperson there from the Tea Party Express.
On MSNBC.
For realsies.
The topic was the fiscal cliff debacle.
Her assertion was that we need to address the deficit, and that we need to do it not by just discretionary spending cuts but that we need to also look at 'entitlements'.
And that one of the biggest most dangerous entitlements out there will be the implementation of 'Obamacare'.
Those on the TV round table were respectful and though they didn't agree with her, they didn't verbally smack her upside the head.
The woman in our bed, barely not even out from under the covers, was not so kind. Ward has gotten used to weekend morning tirades (muffled a bit by quilts and flannel sheets) issuing forth from my side of the bed before, "Good morning, Gomez...I need coffee".
"Yes. Lets look at entitlements- lets start with the tax breaks for the very wealthy, move onto huge sums of cash thrown at already-obscenely bloated corporations and banks and then lets look at the goddamn military budget and finish up by TAXING THE CHURCHES!!! DEFICIT SOLVED!!!"
*Commercial break*
Generally, the commercial break is when I have a chance to catch my breath, do a little more waking up and the dogs are able to unclench their paws from terror and settle back onto the pillows and into that nice warm spot in the bend of my legs.
Not today.
Some financial company's idea of an excellent marketing strategy was to show a man (sort of a hispanic-looking man, but we will overlook that for now) on his first day at a restaurant. As a bus boy.
It states that this man goes from his first paycheck (as a BUS BOY, remember) to a financial consultant and sets up a plan for his future.
It shows pretty cleverly, by changing his hats and clothing and background around him while he remains standing in one place his rise from bus boy, to waiter, to chef, to restaurant owner to retired comfortably well-off old guy.
On accounta his wise investment choices from all those years.
As if all anyone needs to do is follow point A to point B and so on and everything will work out OK.
And juxtaposed next to the Tea Party Express chick talking about "entitlements" just hit me all kinds of wrong.
Because here's what she's saying and what the commercial is saying and what I've been hearing from the conservative side for damn ever now-
"If you 'just' follow the right course and do the right things, you will succeed. This is America- if you do not succeed it's your own damn fault and you must be lazy and therefore do not deserve any help."
Except that's bullshit.
Does that reasoning take into account any of the million or so things that happen to a family over the course of a lifetime? Things like abuse, divorce, cancer, job loss through company closure, car accidents, ANYTHING LIKE THAT?
No. It does not.
Life is not simple or straightforward.
People who go through it with no bumps in the road are not blessed, or have not chosen any more wisely than anyone else. They've just been damn lucky.
Nothing more and nothing less.
It's a crap shoot.
And that's the reason a civil society SHOULD be set up to care for those who need it, instead of shaming them into disappearing off of the radar in despair and hopelessness.
Because in a world of odds, the odds are much greater of needing help someday than being what our sick, twisted society calls 'a winner'.
The dogs skittered back to the far reaches of the king sized bed again in reaction to the muffled cursing coming out from under the covers.
I threw back the quilt, kissed Ward on the head, said, "Good morning, Gomez...I need coffee" and headed first to pee, then to get my coffee cup.
Ahhh....another day begins.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Dante's Inferno? A Day at the Damn Park
What will it take?
I can't get the sound of crying out of my ears- my own.
I can't get the shards of sanity to re-knit, my own and my country's.
I can't.
What will it take?
It's too soon to talk, too soon to decide, the edges of our reason are too sharp, too volatile.
It's too late to talk, too late to act, too hideously horrifyingly fucking late.
Why? The word, three little letters explode from my brain and pummel my consciousness over and over and over again.
Why not? A tiny cold and fatigued answer echoes in my head.
Why not?
Babies die every day, every where, every place deaths just as awful (as if the death of babies is ever not...awful).
We are a violent society, a sick society, we're acting out in very unnatural ways to a very unnatural life that we've embraced en masse, welcoming the cancer of our twisted visions of progress and rejoicing in the smothering of our spirits.
FIX IT! every fiber in my motherly being screams.
Fix it. Make it stop. Let me stop thinking about mothers who will never hold their children again, not just here and now but all those before and all who will come after. Let me stop thinking.
Let me never forget. The moments I stop thinking about it are followed by tidal waves of nauseous reminders, survivors' guilt, shame.
How? Another tiny word oozes like blood down my brow, gets in my eyes, burns and burns.
How did it happen? How did 'they' let it happen? Every person involved from the moment of that young man's birth-
How did our society fail him? How did we WE WE not see, not recognize how sick we are and how we contaminate everything and everyone with the sickness of us.
How did we fail his mother? How?
How?
How do we make sure it never happens again? Any where to any one. Ever.
Cold as ice the answer comes, hard as steel and sharp as glass...we can't.
Life is not pre-ordained or orderly. It's a messy, terrible, wonderful brilliant crap shoot. We are all tiny fragile specks whirling together alone on a microscopic rock plummeting through space.
So we can't.
But we CAN look at every aspect of this thing we call 'civilization' and figure out why the hell it's everything EXCEPT civil.
How the hell did we get here? What were we thinking? Why did we lose our humanity so eagerly, lemmings over a cliff we fall and fall.
It's a daunting and grueling proposition, and will mean everyone everywhere will have to be willing to listen more than talk, to give more than take, to offer much and demand nothing but...life.
Not "life as *I* want it" but "life with liberty and justice for ALL".
It involves so much more than placing a lethal yoke on all the teachers in the country, in the world, the same tools of death used to kill babies in an insane gesture of false safety.
More than collecting all the guns and destroying them- we are sick and the illness itself needs to be cured or we're just masking the symptoms.
More than re-evaluating everything from our unofficial but very real caste system, our stifling and violent religious dogmas, our brain-numbing technology, our family-destroying schedules in our quest to be 'successful people'.
More than the foods we eat and the air we breathe, the medicines we take to make us better when we're not ill, we're just human but our society no longer values that in a person.
We must, as an entire planet, STOP.
We must call in 'human' and not participate anymore in the madness.
Since Friday morning I've had chest pains. I go to bed early and rise late and rise exhausted and every muscle stiff and sore from not relaxing them even in fitful slumber.
I'm afraid.
I'm afraid that we can't do it.
I'm afraid of what would happen if we did do it.
Think of the societal breakdown, the people who would resist- cling to their old ways and ideals and beliefs, clutching their fiery totems ever closer as the flames engulfed them.
But we're already there- our culture gangrenous and rotting around us and we either do something NOW or die.
There are people (many people) who will say I'm overreacting. I'm upset. I'm over-wrought. This has been a trying few days, but...
What?
Exactly what will it take before We the People of the Planet Earth demand our humanity back?
Exactly how many children lying dead all over the world will it take?
We're soaked in their blood. All of us, soaked in their blood. And it burns.
More strength. Less force.
The time to be human is now.
I can't get the sound of crying out of my ears- my own.
I can't get the shards of sanity to re-knit, my own and my country's.
I can't.
What will it take?
It's too soon to talk, too soon to decide, the edges of our reason are too sharp, too volatile.
It's too late to talk, too late to act, too hideously horrifyingly fucking late.
Why? The word, three little letters explode from my brain and pummel my consciousness over and over and over again.
Why not? A tiny cold and fatigued answer echoes in my head.
Why not?
Babies die every day, every where, every place deaths just as awful (as if the death of babies is ever not...awful).
We are a violent society, a sick society, we're acting out in very unnatural ways to a very unnatural life that we've embraced en masse, welcoming the cancer of our twisted visions of progress and rejoicing in the smothering of our spirits.
FIX IT! every fiber in my motherly being screams.
Fix it. Make it stop. Let me stop thinking about mothers who will never hold their children again, not just here and now but all those before and all who will come after. Let me stop thinking.
Let me never forget. The moments I stop thinking about it are followed by tidal waves of nauseous reminders, survivors' guilt, shame.
How? Another tiny word oozes like blood down my brow, gets in my eyes, burns and burns.
How did it happen? How did 'they' let it happen? Every person involved from the moment of that young man's birth-
How did our society fail him? How did we WE WE not see, not recognize how sick we are and how we contaminate everything and everyone with the sickness of us.
How did we fail his mother? How?
How?
How do we make sure it never happens again? Any where to any one. Ever.
Cold as ice the answer comes, hard as steel and sharp as glass...we can't.
Life is not pre-ordained or orderly. It's a messy, terrible, wonderful brilliant crap shoot. We are all tiny fragile specks whirling together alone on a microscopic rock plummeting through space.
So we can't.
But we CAN look at every aspect of this thing we call 'civilization' and figure out why the hell it's everything EXCEPT civil.
How the hell did we get here? What were we thinking? Why did we lose our humanity so eagerly, lemmings over a cliff we fall and fall.
It's a daunting and grueling proposition, and will mean everyone everywhere will have to be willing to listen more than talk, to give more than take, to offer much and demand nothing but...life.
Not "life as *I* want it" but "life with liberty and justice for ALL".
It involves so much more than placing a lethal yoke on all the teachers in the country, in the world, the same tools of death used to kill babies in an insane gesture of false safety.
More than collecting all the guns and destroying them- we are sick and the illness itself needs to be cured or we're just masking the symptoms.
More than re-evaluating everything from our unofficial but very real caste system, our stifling and violent religious dogmas, our brain-numbing technology, our family-destroying schedules in our quest to be 'successful people'.
More than the foods we eat and the air we breathe, the medicines we take to make us better when we're not ill, we're just human but our society no longer values that in a person.
We must, as an entire planet, STOP.
We must call in 'human' and not participate anymore in the madness.
Since Friday morning I've had chest pains. I go to bed early and rise late and rise exhausted and every muscle stiff and sore from not relaxing them even in fitful slumber.
I'm afraid.
I'm afraid that we can't do it.
I'm afraid of what would happen if we did do it.
Think of the societal breakdown, the people who would resist- cling to their old ways and ideals and beliefs, clutching their fiery totems ever closer as the flames engulfed them.
But we're already there- our culture gangrenous and rotting around us and we either do something NOW or die.
There are people (many people) who will say I'm overreacting. I'm upset. I'm over-wrought. This has been a trying few days, but...
What?
Exactly what will it take before We the People of the Planet Earth demand our humanity back?
Exactly how many children lying dead all over the world will it take?
We're soaked in their blood. All of us, soaked in their blood. And it burns.
More strength. Less force.
The time to be human is now.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Eating My Words...Just Because I'm Hungry
The following started out well, with a point...sort of, and then meandered off-course a bit here and there. It's OK, though. It's basically all about food and eating and stuff like that so there's a random common thread throughout. Trust me.
It occurs to me every time we go out to eat, which is often.
The sheer volume of the portions is astounding, and none of us, even Alec, can finish the average restaurant meal...not even "super-sized".
And yet all around us people are cleaning their plates, after appetizers, before dessert. How can they even fit that much into their stomachs?
This isn't a condemnation of people who are overweight (she said, looking in the mirror), or even those lucky few who can eat like horses and look like Twiggy, this is just me wondering why the hell we think we NEED to be presented with a whopping pile o victuals for dinner. For one person.
We ate out at Applebee's for Father's Day. Ward had steak and potatoes, with a side Caesar salad. The salad alone would've been dinner for me. He managed most of the salad and about half of the steak and half of the giant mound of garlic smashed potatoes.
I had a half-sized chicken oriental salad and it was all I could do to finish it.
Alec was hungry and ordered the chicken fettuccine. It came in what would be considered a serving bowl in any household and would've fed our family of 3 handily- not just the poundage of pasta, but the 2 huge slabs of breaded poultry...and garlic bread. Over half of it came home.
I guess if you go into the restaurant with the idea that you are not only eating for that meal but at least another one at home, it's not so bad (and not so wildly, heartstoppingly expensive). And that's what we do.
But a lot of people don't.
And apparently, the noshing doesn't stop with three squares (three, big, giant, industrial-sized squares).
According to the food industry, we're not eating ENOUGH.
We need to be eating more.
Snacks? They're great, too. But we need to be eating FOUR times a day.
Seriously.
See?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_revolutionaries_feeding_the_obesity_crisis_20120617/
Don't you have a WTF moment when there's a surgical weight reduction commercial bracketed between Taco Bell Burrito Muerte Grande and IHOP's maple bacon milkshake?
We try to eat as naturally as possible. It's better for the body, and easier to prepare. It's not difficult or expensive. We eat food that looks as close to how Mother Nature made it as possible- fresh fruits and vegetables, potatoes, rice, pastas, meat that's...meat. Not processed, soaked in "solution", pre-gravied or painted with shit that looks like grill-marks.
I've banned "normal" sodas from our house- I'd love to ban ALL sodas, but baby steps are better than no steps. I want to get away from high fructose corn syrup as much as humanly possible, and sodas are the number one source (at least in our house).
Yes, that means more expensive "natural" sodas that use agave or sugar, but they taste better and we don't drink more than one a day apiece anyway.
But that damn HFCS is in EVERYTHING and I trust it as much as sunblock (that's zero percent).
http://www.rodale.com/health-effects-high-fructose-corn-syrup
http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/sunscreen-giving-you-cancer.htm
How can a country be simultaneously weight and fitness obsessed while making a best seller out of Wendy's TRIPLE burger (that comes with mega fries and a large Coke)?
Like I said at the beginning- this is in no way an indictment of anyone who needs to and is trying to lose weight- just an observation of how damn hard our society makes it- "Here- eat all this crap! Why are you overweight???"
I'm eating healthy and I STILL can't lose weight. I'm juicing in the morning (thank you, Joey and his Magic Juicer), having a salad at lunchtime (light on the cheese, oil and vinegar dressing), and a half a portion of what I would normally have for dinner. No snacks. No chips or fries. No desserts.
I've lost Five. Freaking. Pounds.
Ten to go.
And that's not even to my "pre-baby" weight of 125, just a resigned realistic goal of 135.
Here's what matters, though. Even though we eat pretty healthy normally, I had HUGE "snack withdrawal" and was ravenous (and crabby) (yea, verily more crabby than normal) most of the first two weeks. Then...I was fine.
I don't miss chips or fries- don't even miss cookies.
And I FEEL better- less bloated, less "yech", more OK with being hungry between meals and stopping eating when I'm not hungry anymore- instead of when the plate is empty.
How anti-American is THAT?
It occurs to me every time we go out to eat, which is often.
The sheer volume of the portions is astounding, and none of us, even Alec, can finish the average restaurant meal...not even "super-sized".
And yet all around us people are cleaning their plates, after appetizers, before dessert. How can they even fit that much into their stomachs?
This isn't a condemnation of people who are overweight (she said, looking in the mirror), or even those lucky few who can eat like horses and look like Twiggy, this is just me wondering why the hell we think we NEED to be presented with a whopping pile o victuals for dinner. For one person.
We ate out at Applebee's for Father's Day. Ward had steak and potatoes, with a side Caesar salad. The salad alone would've been dinner for me. He managed most of the salad and about half of the steak and half of the giant mound of garlic smashed potatoes.
I had a half-sized chicken oriental salad and it was all I could do to finish it.
Alec was hungry and ordered the chicken fettuccine. It came in what would be considered a serving bowl in any household and would've fed our family of 3 handily- not just the poundage of pasta, but the 2 huge slabs of breaded poultry...and garlic bread. Over half of it came home.
I guess if you go into the restaurant with the idea that you are not only eating for that meal but at least another one at home, it's not so bad (and not so wildly, heartstoppingly expensive). And that's what we do.
But a lot of people don't.
And apparently, the noshing doesn't stop with three squares (three, big, giant, industrial-sized squares).
According to the food industry, we're not eating ENOUGH.
We need to be eating more.
Snacks? They're great, too. But we need to be eating FOUR times a day.
Seriously.
See?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_revolutionaries_feeding_the_obesity_crisis_20120617/
Don't you have a WTF moment when there's a surgical weight reduction commercial bracketed between Taco Bell Burrito Muerte Grande and IHOP's maple bacon milkshake?
We try to eat as naturally as possible. It's better for the body, and easier to prepare. It's not difficult or expensive. We eat food that looks as close to how Mother Nature made it as possible- fresh fruits and vegetables, potatoes, rice, pastas, meat that's...meat. Not processed, soaked in "solution", pre-gravied or painted with shit that looks like grill-marks.
I've banned "normal" sodas from our house- I'd love to ban ALL sodas, but baby steps are better than no steps. I want to get away from high fructose corn syrup as much as humanly possible, and sodas are the number one source (at least in our house).
Yes, that means more expensive "natural" sodas that use agave or sugar, but they taste better and we don't drink more than one a day apiece anyway.
But that damn HFCS is in EVERYTHING and I trust it as much as sunblock (that's zero percent).
http://www.rodale.com/health-effects-high-fructose-corn-syrup
http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/sunscreen-giving-you-cancer.htm
How can a country be simultaneously weight and fitness obsessed while making a best seller out of Wendy's TRIPLE burger (that comes with mega fries and a large Coke)?
Like I said at the beginning- this is in no way an indictment of anyone who needs to and is trying to lose weight- just an observation of how damn hard our society makes it- "Here- eat all this crap! Why are you overweight???"
I'm eating healthy and I STILL can't lose weight. I'm juicing in the morning (thank you, Joey and his Magic Juicer), having a salad at lunchtime (light on the cheese, oil and vinegar dressing), and a half a portion of what I would normally have for dinner. No snacks. No chips or fries. No desserts.
I've lost Five. Freaking. Pounds.
Ten to go.
And that's not even to my "pre-baby" weight of 125, just a resigned realistic goal of 135.
Here's what matters, though. Even though we eat pretty healthy normally, I had HUGE "snack withdrawal" and was ravenous (and crabby) (yea, verily more crabby than normal) most of the first two weeks. Then...I was fine.
I don't miss chips or fries- don't even miss cookies.
And I FEEL better- less bloated, less "yech", more OK with being hungry between meals and stopping eating when I'm not hungry anymore- instead of when the plate is empty.
How anti-American is THAT?
Saturday, January 14, 2012
In All Fairness...
"All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others"
-Animal Farm.
"Life is not fair. The fair is where you go to see cows and eat corndogs"
-unknown (if you remember, please let me know so I can give credit)
Somewhere along the line, the core belief of "no man is an island, but this is the land of opportunity and fairness for all" in this country has given way to the mantra of "I've got mine, go fuck yourself".
I blame every idiot who waves their copy of Atlas Shrugged with as much vigor as their Holy Bible and their Constitutions- none of which they've read completely through, but depending on talking heads on the TV and at church to tell them what the hell's in there. *Bonus points if their church talk also comes from a talking head on TV.
I blame every idiot who sees (and idolizes) a "self-made man" who got that way by taking advantage of others and dodging the law (tax laws count, even though it only seems that way if it's poor people doing it by cleverly not making enough money to be taxed, damn their stealing souls) and calling it "admirable" and running to the defense of people who would light them on fire in a heartbeat just for yucks and giggles.
I've got a little clue for you- the CEO's of the huge corporations and banks do not need your protection. They bought all the politicians, supreme court justices, lawyers and security forces to do that. They're good. Really. Calm the hell down.
Now the really surprising part- you are not them. You will never be them. If you are reading this blog on your home computer and have a stack of ordinary bills like house payment, car payment, utility, insurance bills next to you and you've prayed even ONCE that there was enough in the bank to cover what's due, YOU'RE NOT THEM. The best part? It's ok. Get the hell over it.
Yanno what really chaps my hiney?
People who want to destroy the social safety net in this country in the name of "reducing the deficit" even though it's been shown time and again that it's not contributing a fucking nickel to the deficit.
OK, wait. Here's who I give a semi-pass to on that.
If you've been born wealthy, and your family has never needed assistance, if no one in your family or circle of friends has EVER ONCE needed to cash an unemployment check, or gone to the store with food stamps, or applied for disability or medicare or medicaid, if you've never ever signed your child up for CHIPS (low income health insurance), if no one in your family DEPENDS on their SS retirement check just to buy food and pay rent, who depends on the VA for their medical care even though their service was decades and decades ago, if you never needed to apply for grants and scholarships to attend college because your daddy could just write a check for it, then you are (partially) excused, because you don't get it.
Because if you've been so lucky, there's no way to connect with that.
There's no way to relate to the fear of having nothing "set aside for a rainy day" not because you blew it all on lottery tickets and beer, but because there have been so many rainy days in your life your feet are webbed.
Illness, job loss, even something as common and simple as having a car blow up or pipes burst in the house can plunge the average family into a spiral of Peter paying Paul with no way to catch up...at least not for a very long time.
For every person who's "playing the system" and "using their credit card at Starbucks" there are 1,000 who genuinely need help- and unless you are there you have no idea how easily that can happen randomly and out of the blue.
So you are excused for not knowing, but not for ignoring or for mocking.
Because that just makes you an asshole.
For anyone else- ANYONE who has personally reached for any of the above help when they've actually needed it to feed their families and care for their children, and who now try to shinny up close to the very rich and wear your Conservative flags and scream for tightening of the rules and elimination of the "waste" in the systems- "waste" that looks alot like your own family and friends-
Shame on you.
Shame on your hypocritical asses, and I swear to god if I see one more word out of any of you I am calling you out on it in front of god and in as public a manner as you are sneering at those less fortunate than you are (well, as you are NOW- precariously and probably temporarily- not because you're lazy or make bad decisions but because shit happens- GET IT???)
Show me one, just one self-made man.
Show me one person who was set out as a newborn (and not one of those spoiled babies born in a hospital, either- one who was born in the forest, surrounded by bears and shit), and not clothed or fed or cared for or given ANY HELP AT ALL who survived ALL ON THEIR OWN and is now
a) alive
b) not a raving lunatic
c) rich as all get-out
You can't, because it doesn't happen.
No one succeeds all on their own- in every single American Success Story there is one of 2 main ingredients-
-they were born with a buttload of money waiting in a trust fund for them
-someone already successful helped them
That's not Liberal-speak, it's the damn truth.
Making sure the weakest members of a society are cared for PROPERLY and with DIGNITY no matter how much money they have and ensuring that the young are educated FOR FREE THROUGH COLLEGE is not wasteful, the former is the very essence of being human in a society of humans and the latter is making sure our next generation is given all the tools necessary to succeed.
If we could depend on everyone to give of themselves freely when they could and that it would help those who really needed it that would be awesome.
But there are alot of people "at the top" who look at fellow humans as numbers and resources and figure they don't have to worry about them, and alot of people at the bottom who are invisible- living lives of literal quiet desperation without access to help, and that's where the whole dirty word of "fairness" comes in.
Fairness does not mean everyone plays no matter how bad an athlete you are and everyone gets an A just for showing up. That's bullshit spin used to whip good people into a frenzy and to make them suspicious of their neighbors, who will supposedly "take away FROM YOU what they don't deserve and everyone will be poor".
Fairness means that the kid whose dad bought all the uniforms doesn't get to play every inning even though the only balls he can catch are right under his dick, and the football stars do not get an A just for mouth-breathing in the back row of the classroom. See?
'Leveling the playing field' is the current "spit it out loud" phrase of the far right- and it invokes images of poor people (because that's what we all are in relation to the really really rich people- all of us, everyone you and I know- our doctors, lawyers, bankers, local businessmen large and small- EVERYONE- never ever forget that) having what little they have taken away from them so "crack mamas can go buy big screen tv's and iPhones".
Here's what it really means.
Fairness means that NO ONE can evade the laws by buying enough lawyers and accountants and politicians to change the rules in their favor- to evade taxes or to be given special compensation in return for promises of delivering things they don't really have to (like jobs. here in the US. that pay well. in safe work environments).
Fairness means that NO ONE can purchase an election or skew the news to fit their own agenda.
Fairness means that no one in this country has to fear a medical bill, or feel pressured to work long hours with little compensation to TRY to avoid being laid off, or losing their home to predatory lending practices- things that are unheard of in every other civilized nation on the planet.
Fairness means that we celebrate long term committed loving relationships- ANY long term committed loving relationship and that the real perversion is protecting the sanctity of marriage by having a shitload of them for no good reason other than "upgrading to a newer model" but then saying "it's totally cool- I asked god for forgiveness".
Fairness is respecting all religious views- what if Tim Tebow WERE Muslim?
Fairness is protecting the right of a woman to make very difficult and personal life decisions as much as the right to walk into a gun show and buy any kind of death tool you want to.
See? Fairness is not "making the rich poor and giving the poor shit they don't deserve". Fairness is "making sure everyone plays by the same rules and no one gets stomped into the ground".
Fairness is...FAIRNESS for everyone, not just everyone who believes what you do.
Right now the bullies are running the playground. Is being pissed about that Class Warfare? Is that Envy Politics?
I don't think so. I think it SHOULD piss us off and that we SHOULD change the rules back to level the goddamn playing field- because it always hasn't been this way, yanno. Just because you can't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Believing that America is the land of opportunity where everyone can get ahead with a little gumption and elbow grease has been both our blessing and our curse.
A blessing in that GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY AND A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD, yes- it can be done, with a lot of luck and HELP FROM OTHERS thrown in the mix.
A curse because we're all so enamored of being wealthy, it's so encoded into our definition of how successful we are as humans, we're all "just one lucky break" away from being the guy holding the giant lotto check, that we tend to identify more with the very very rich than the very very poor, which is, of course, ridiculous.
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
-John Steinbeck
And don't paint a fucking red flag on my house because I said "socialism".
Because that would only reinforce my belief that America is in trouble not because of the "evils from the outside world trying to destroy America because they hate our freedoms" so much as the "obstinate and proud refusal to learn a goddamn thing from anyplace other than America no matter how much we suffer because of it. Proudly. Because we're Americans".
-Animal Farm.
"Life is not fair. The fair is where you go to see cows and eat corndogs"
-unknown (if you remember, please let me know so I can give credit)
Somewhere along the line, the core belief of "no man is an island, but this is the land of opportunity and fairness for all" in this country has given way to the mantra of "I've got mine, go fuck yourself".
I blame every idiot who waves their copy of Atlas Shrugged with as much vigor as their Holy Bible and their Constitutions- none of which they've read completely through, but depending on talking heads on the TV and at church to tell them what the hell's in there. *Bonus points if their church talk also comes from a talking head on TV.
I blame every idiot who sees (and idolizes) a "self-made man" who got that way by taking advantage of others and dodging the law (tax laws count, even though it only seems that way if it's poor people doing it by cleverly not making enough money to be taxed, damn their stealing souls) and calling it "admirable" and running to the defense of people who would light them on fire in a heartbeat just for yucks and giggles.
I've got a little clue for you- the CEO's of the huge corporations and banks do not need your protection. They bought all the politicians, supreme court justices, lawyers and security forces to do that. They're good. Really. Calm the hell down.
Now the really surprising part- you are not them. You will never be them. If you are reading this blog on your home computer and have a stack of ordinary bills like house payment, car payment, utility, insurance bills next to you and you've prayed even ONCE that there was enough in the bank to cover what's due, YOU'RE NOT THEM. The best part? It's ok. Get the hell over it.
Yanno what really chaps my hiney?
People who want to destroy the social safety net in this country in the name of "reducing the deficit" even though it's been shown time and again that it's not contributing a fucking nickel to the deficit.
OK, wait. Here's who I give a semi-pass to on that.
If you've been born wealthy, and your family has never needed assistance, if no one in your family or circle of friends has EVER ONCE needed to cash an unemployment check, or gone to the store with food stamps, or applied for disability or medicare or medicaid, if you've never ever signed your child up for CHIPS (low income health insurance), if no one in your family DEPENDS on their SS retirement check just to buy food and pay rent, who depends on the VA for their medical care even though their service was decades and decades ago, if you never needed to apply for grants and scholarships to attend college because your daddy could just write a check for it, then you are (partially) excused, because you don't get it.
Because if you've been so lucky, there's no way to connect with that.
There's no way to relate to the fear of having nothing "set aside for a rainy day" not because you blew it all on lottery tickets and beer, but because there have been so many rainy days in your life your feet are webbed.
Illness, job loss, even something as common and simple as having a car blow up or pipes burst in the house can plunge the average family into a spiral of Peter paying Paul with no way to catch up...at least not for a very long time.
For every person who's "playing the system" and "using their credit card at Starbucks" there are 1,000 who genuinely need help- and unless you are there you have no idea how easily that can happen randomly and out of the blue.
So you are excused for not knowing, but not for ignoring or for mocking.
Because that just makes you an asshole.
For anyone else- ANYONE who has personally reached for any of the above help when they've actually needed it to feed their families and care for their children, and who now try to shinny up close to the very rich and wear your Conservative flags and scream for tightening of the rules and elimination of the "waste" in the systems- "waste" that looks alot like your own family and friends-
Shame on you.
Shame on your hypocritical asses, and I swear to god if I see one more word out of any of you I am calling you out on it in front of god and in as public a manner as you are sneering at those less fortunate than you are (well, as you are NOW- precariously and probably temporarily- not because you're lazy or make bad decisions but because shit happens- GET IT???)
Show me one, just one self-made man.
Show me one person who was set out as a newborn (and not one of those spoiled babies born in a hospital, either- one who was born in the forest, surrounded by bears and shit), and not clothed or fed or cared for or given ANY HELP AT ALL who survived ALL ON THEIR OWN and is now
a) alive
b) not a raving lunatic
c) rich as all get-out
You can't, because it doesn't happen.
No one succeeds all on their own- in every single American Success Story there is one of 2 main ingredients-
-they were born with a buttload of money waiting in a trust fund for them
-someone already successful helped them
That's not Liberal-speak, it's the damn truth.
Making sure the weakest members of a society are cared for PROPERLY and with DIGNITY no matter how much money they have and ensuring that the young are educated FOR FREE THROUGH COLLEGE is not wasteful, the former is the very essence of being human in a society of humans and the latter is making sure our next generation is given all the tools necessary to succeed.
If we could depend on everyone to give of themselves freely when they could and that it would help those who really needed it that would be awesome.
But there are alot of people "at the top" who look at fellow humans as numbers and resources and figure they don't have to worry about them, and alot of people at the bottom who are invisible- living lives of literal quiet desperation without access to help, and that's where the whole dirty word of "fairness" comes in.
Fairness does not mean everyone plays no matter how bad an athlete you are and everyone gets an A just for showing up. That's bullshit spin used to whip good people into a frenzy and to make them suspicious of their neighbors, who will supposedly "take away FROM YOU what they don't deserve and everyone will be poor".
Fairness means that the kid whose dad bought all the uniforms doesn't get to play every inning even though the only balls he can catch are right under his dick, and the football stars do not get an A just for mouth-breathing in the back row of the classroom. See?
'Leveling the playing field' is the current "spit it out loud" phrase of the far right- and it invokes images of poor people (because that's what we all are in relation to the really really rich people- all of us, everyone you and I know- our doctors, lawyers, bankers, local businessmen large and small- EVERYONE- never ever forget that) having what little they have taken away from them so "crack mamas can go buy big screen tv's and iPhones".
Here's what it really means.
Fairness means that NO ONE can evade the laws by buying enough lawyers and accountants and politicians to change the rules in their favor- to evade taxes or to be given special compensation in return for promises of delivering things they don't really have to (like jobs. here in the US. that pay well. in safe work environments).
Fairness means that NO ONE can purchase an election or skew the news to fit their own agenda.
Fairness means that no one in this country has to fear a medical bill, or feel pressured to work long hours with little compensation to TRY to avoid being laid off, or losing their home to predatory lending practices- things that are unheard of in every other civilized nation on the planet.
Fairness means that we celebrate long term committed loving relationships- ANY long term committed loving relationship and that the real perversion is protecting the sanctity of marriage by having a shitload of them for no good reason other than "upgrading to a newer model" but then saying "it's totally cool- I asked god for forgiveness".
Fairness is respecting all religious views- what if Tim Tebow WERE Muslim?
Fairness is protecting the right of a woman to make very difficult and personal life decisions as much as the right to walk into a gun show and buy any kind of death tool you want to.
See? Fairness is not "making the rich poor and giving the poor shit they don't deserve". Fairness is "making sure everyone plays by the same rules and no one gets stomped into the ground".
Fairness is...FAIRNESS for everyone, not just everyone who believes what you do.
Right now the bullies are running the playground. Is being pissed about that Class Warfare? Is that Envy Politics?
I don't think so. I think it SHOULD piss us off and that we SHOULD change the rules back to level the goddamn playing field- because it always hasn't been this way, yanno. Just because you can't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Believing that America is the land of opportunity where everyone can get ahead with a little gumption and elbow grease has been both our blessing and our curse.
A blessing in that GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY AND A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD, yes- it can be done, with a lot of luck and HELP FROM OTHERS thrown in the mix.
A curse because we're all so enamored of being wealthy, it's so encoded into our definition of how successful we are as humans, we're all "just one lucky break" away from being the guy holding the giant lotto check, that we tend to identify more with the very very rich than the very very poor, which is, of course, ridiculous.
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
-John Steinbeck
And don't paint a fucking red flag on my house because I said "socialism".
Because that would only reinforce my belief that America is in trouble not because of the "evils from the outside world trying to destroy America because they hate our freedoms" so much as the "obstinate and proud refusal to learn a goddamn thing from anyplace other than America no matter how much we suffer because of it. Proudly. Because we're Americans".
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
All the World's a Flock, All of Us Merely Flockers
The head of the English department at William Horlick High School, Racine Wisconsin circa mid-'70's was a short, stern man of few words with the incredibly UN-English name of John Barootian.
Mr. Barootian loved his students. They were fresh minds, keen intellects, full of potential and incredibly easy and cheap labor.
Because you see, Mr. Barootian was a mild mannered English Department Head during the day, but by night and weekend he was a farmer. Not just any farmer, a poultry farmer who supplied area restaurants with tasty menu items- pheasants, quail, partridges, chickens, geese and ducks.
Good god, the ducks.
Muscovy ducks were the mainstay of the operation and there were literally a thousand of them. I volunteered to be the person in charge of the twice daily feeding and watering of the poultry which then excused me from that one day at the very end of their lives when he lined up anyone willing to make the $3.35 per hour minimum wage was back then by gutting, dunking in hot wax, peeling and packaging all the feathered entrees Mr. Barootian quickly dispatched at the head of the line and Mrs. Barootian packed in ice at the other end.
My first day on the job I learned many things.
Muscovy ducks don't quack. They have yellow bills and pink feet and they squeak- which is sort of cute, and hiss- which is really disturbing.
Muscovy ducks in large numbers and close quarters produce a horrifying amount of duck shit, which is without a doubt, the slipperiest substance on earth, unless it's been rained on and then it's a million times slipperier than that.
Baby chickens are assholes.
If one gets a tiny boo boo the others waste no time in cannibalizing him/her. They also don't mind smothering, stampeding, squashing the others without regard for the piteous cries of the victimized.
You could say they're almost human.
Geese generally have a leader.
I'd go into the goose pen, which was short of shade and long on geese, and I'd be carrying the water hose.
They wanted the water.
They'd all (there were 50 in the pen) huddle in the back for a moment. Then one would take a step towards me...muttering. The others would follow just a pace behind, giving him confidence and taking from him bravery. I learned to bring the golden retriever in there with me- without his accompaniment they'd overrun me and those damn birds are BIG.
Pheasants aren't meant to be kept inside.
Even though their barn was plenty big enough for them- indeed they milled around together leaving 75% of it empty, and it let in all the natural light through the screened windows, they turned neurotic and ended up turning on each other out of boredom, frustration, despair, the not-quite-squelched genetic memory of being a wild bird driving them literally insane.
To this day the pheasants make me the saddest.
Quails.
The quail pen was in the loft of the barn. Mr. Barootian gave one terse instruction "Don't scare the quail". I assumed that since they were the size of a tennis ball but not nearly as solid this admonition was to avoid scaring the bejeezus out of the little darlings- they may fall over from the vapors or something.
One day I forgot, and the screened door slammed shut behind me.
That's when I learned that when quail are frightened, they fly immediately and violently TOWARDS whatever frightened them, since I was instantly pummeled by 200 quail.
I learned that a cairn terrier- Toto from the Wizard of Oz was a cairn- can kill a bird every 20 seconds until caught up and re-tied in the back yard.
I learned that partridges are beautiful, and quiet, and calm, and perfect. Very little poop, no hissing, no cannibalizing, no neuroses, no pummeling. The ladies and gentlemen of the poultry world, bar none.
A partridge, with our without pear tree, truly is the perfect gift for your one true love.
The drummers drumming would, however, annoy the hell out of me.
Mr. Barootian loved his students. They were fresh minds, keen intellects, full of potential and incredibly easy and cheap labor.
Because you see, Mr. Barootian was a mild mannered English Department Head during the day, but by night and weekend he was a farmer. Not just any farmer, a poultry farmer who supplied area restaurants with tasty menu items- pheasants, quail, partridges, chickens, geese and ducks.
Good god, the ducks.
Muscovy ducks were the mainstay of the operation and there were literally a thousand of them. I volunteered to be the person in charge of the twice daily feeding and watering of the poultry which then excused me from that one day at the very end of their lives when he lined up anyone willing to make the $3.35 per hour minimum wage was back then by gutting, dunking in hot wax, peeling and packaging all the feathered entrees Mr. Barootian quickly dispatched at the head of the line and Mrs. Barootian packed in ice at the other end.
My first day on the job I learned many things.
Muscovy ducks don't quack. They have yellow bills and pink feet and they squeak- which is sort of cute, and hiss- which is really disturbing.
Muscovy ducks in large numbers and close quarters produce a horrifying amount of duck shit, which is without a doubt, the slipperiest substance on earth, unless it's been rained on and then it's a million times slipperier than that.
Baby chickens are assholes.
If one gets a tiny boo boo the others waste no time in cannibalizing him/her. They also don't mind smothering, stampeding, squashing the others without regard for the piteous cries of the victimized.
You could say they're almost human.
Geese generally have a leader.
I'd go into the goose pen, which was short of shade and long on geese, and I'd be carrying the water hose.
They wanted the water.
They'd all (there were 50 in the pen) huddle in the back for a moment. Then one would take a step towards me...muttering. The others would follow just a pace behind, giving him confidence and taking from him bravery. I learned to bring the golden retriever in there with me- without his accompaniment they'd overrun me and those damn birds are BIG.
Pheasants aren't meant to be kept inside.
Even though their barn was plenty big enough for them- indeed they milled around together leaving 75% of it empty, and it let in all the natural light through the screened windows, they turned neurotic and ended up turning on each other out of boredom, frustration, despair, the not-quite-squelched genetic memory of being a wild bird driving them literally insane.
To this day the pheasants make me the saddest.
Quails.
The quail pen was in the loft of the barn. Mr. Barootian gave one terse instruction "Don't scare the quail". I assumed that since they were the size of a tennis ball but not nearly as solid this admonition was to avoid scaring the bejeezus out of the little darlings- they may fall over from the vapors or something.
One day I forgot, and the screened door slammed shut behind me.
That's when I learned that when quail are frightened, they fly immediately and violently TOWARDS whatever frightened them, since I was instantly pummeled by 200 quail.
I learned that a cairn terrier- Toto from the Wizard of Oz was a cairn- can kill a bird every 20 seconds until caught up and re-tied in the back yard.
I learned that partridges are beautiful, and quiet, and calm, and perfect. Very little poop, no hissing, no cannibalizing, no neuroses, no pummeling. The ladies and gentlemen of the poultry world, bar none.
A partridge, with our without pear tree, truly is the perfect gift for your one true love.
The drummers drumming would, however, annoy the hell out of me.
Monday, March 14, 2011
His Brother's Keeper
I recently had lunch with my adopted son- two days before he left to take a job overseas for at least six months.
We were talking about Alec, and Jordan kiddingly said something along the lines of "That kid's gonna need a lot of therapy".
Since he was 2, Alec has seen his dad be rearranged and rebuilt from the cancer and graft replacements Ward's needed. We've spent obscene amounts of time in the bowels of the cancer hospital, which is not something most kids have to deal with.
We home school, not because we seek to shelter him from the evils of the world, but because there's no way the confines of a school can teach him all the world has to offer. I have two photographs from a few years ago- the first was taken in Audubon Park in New Orleans, reasonably close to the mouth of the Mississippi River. The second one was taken 6 weeks later in Minnesota where you can hop across a tiny creek- the beginning of the self-same river. Public school field trips to the fire station sort of pale in comparison...
He's been to 26 of the 50 states...so far. One benefit of spending so much time in Houston (at the hospital) has been our proximity to many of the finest museums in the country.
Although we didn't plan on cancer, home schooling has meant that I don't have to choose between leaving Alec here with friends so he doesn't miss school, or dropping Ward on the curb of the hospital. We pack up school and just go.
We don't have blood relations close to us, so have knit together a family that's proven even stronger than blood, and outwardly even stranger than fiction.
Were he in school, he'd only associate with children his own age all day every day, but he's with all ages in tae kwon do and art class, and adults in the hospital and here at home. He's comfortable in every situation, from asking pertinent questions of a museum curator to ordering at a good (read "the food is not in styrofoam boxes") restaurant to finding his way through the miles and mazes of MD Anderson Cancer Hospital to maneuvering our farm in the dark by moonlight on his bike.
When asked about the all-important "socialization" that being in school would provide, the indignity of having to ask permission to pee, the indoctrination of conditioning to react to bells and alarms and not questioning authority, dealing with bullies on the playground, jockeying for position in the jungle of monocultural social clique bullshit I'd laugh, but it's not funny. All I can say is considering what he's faced with grace and bravery, and the maturity and compassion he possesses, I think he'll do roughly 700% better in life than any of the mean little bastards pushing smaller children around for fun when the teacher's back is turned.
Were we in church, we'd be surrounded by people fundamentally the same (pun intended). But we're not. He's been exposed to all types of religion and beliefs and is forming his own opinions on how the Universe works and his place in it.
Among our adopted family members are people of all races, political ideologies, ages, religions, sexual orientations and tax brackets.
And here's the thing.
They all share one very important trait.
Every last one of them cares. They care for their friends and they care for their family. At one time or another they've every one of them been there for us and cared for us, as we strive to do for them.
Every last one of them has shown our son what it is to be human, and good, and decent.
If our son has learned not to be part of his peer group, or part of his church group, or even part of his race or parents' political leanings group, but to look first to the inside of a person- the literal "content of their character", then my contention is not that he'll need therapy because of his raising
but he'll be one of the lucky few of us who doesn't.
Be safe, Jordan- we love you.
We were talking about Alec, and Jordan kiddingly said something along the lines of "That kid's gonna need a lot of therapy".
Since he was 2, Alec has seen his dad be rearranged and rebuilt from the cancer and graft replacements Ward's needed. We've spent obscene amounts of time in the bowels of the cancer hospital, which is not something most kids have to deal with.
We home school, not because we seek to shelter him from the evils of the world, but because there's no way the confines of a school can teach him all the world has to offer. I have two photographs from a few years ago- the first was taken in Audubon Park in New Orleans, reasonably close to the mouth of the Mississippi River. The second one was taken 6 weeks later in Minnesota where you can hop across a tiny creek- the beginning of the self-same river. Public school field trips to the fire station sort of pale in comparison...
He's been to 26 of the 50 states...so far. One benefit of spending so much time in Houston (at the hospital) has been our proximity to many of the finest museums in the country.
Although we didn't plan on cancer, home schooling has meant that I don't have to choose between leaving Alec here with friends so he doesn't miss school, or dropping Ward on the curb of the hospital. We pack up school and just go.
We don't have blood relations close to us, so have knit together a family that's proven even stronger than blood, and outwardly even stranger than fiction.
Were he in school, he'd only associate with children his own age all day every day, but he's with all ages in tae kwon do and art class, and adults in the hospital and here at home. He's comfortable in every situation, from asking pertinent questions of a museum curator to ordering at a good (read "the food is not in styrofoam boxes") restaurant to finding his way through the miles and mazes of MD Anderson Cancer Hospital to maneuvering our farm in the dark by moonlight on his bike.
When asked about the all-important "socialization" that being in school would provide, the indignity of having to ask permission to pee, the indoctrination of conditioning to react to bells and alarms and not questioning authority, dealing with bullies on the playground, jockeying for position in the jungle of monocultural social clique bullshit I'd laugh, but it's not funny. All I can say is considering what he's faced with grace and bravery, and the maturity and compassion he possesses, I think he'll do roughly 700% better in life than any of the mean little bastards pushing smaller children around for fun when the teacher's back is turned.
Were we in church, we'd be surrounded by people fundamentally the same (pun intended). But we're not. He's been exposed to all types of religion and beliefs and is forming his own opinions on how the Universe works and his place in it.
Among our adopted family members are people of all races, political ideologies, ages, religions, sexual orientations and tax brackets.
And here's the thing.
They all share one very important trait.
Every last one of them cares. They care for their friends and they care for their family. At one time or another they've every one of them been there for us and cared for us, as we strive to do for them.
Every last one of them has shown our son what it is to be human, and good, and decent.
If our son has learned not to be part of his peer group, or part of his church group, or even part of his race or parents' political leanings group, but to look first to the inside of a person- the literal "content of their character", then my contention is not that he'll need therapy because of his raising
but he'll be one of the lucky few of us who doesn't.
Be safe, Jordan- we love you.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
I'll Take a Handful Of the Little Yellow Ones, Please
So, we were watching our morning dose of "What the rest of the world thinks is normal and/or important" via Good Morning America. We like to do that right after viewing the morning traffic commute information for Dallas- the two together sorta act as our daily affirmation of how much we love our life, and a renewed certainty of what we endeavor to avoid at all costs.
Most days, there's at least one thing that makes us go "Huh. Weird". or "SERIOUSLY?" and every so often we can literally see the letters W T F flashing red inside our eyeballs at something especially insane.
The day in question was one of those days.
There was an expert (there's always an expert) who was also a psychiatrist talking about a NEW syndrome for people to be plagued with-
*FRUGAL FATIGUE*
Huh. Weird. SERIOUSLY? WTF???
Apparently, because of our recent National Economic Downturn, people have had to (wait for it...) WATCH THEIR POCKETBOOKS.
And that has made them sad, nay more than sad- they're (insert whiny voice) TIRED OF PINCHING PENNIES.
Tired of Pinching Pennies= Frugal Fatigue.
The good doctor on the TV warned that if Frugal Fatigue is not addressed properly and with all due respect, the afflicted will be likely to fall off the bargain bin wagon and (wait for it...) GO ON A SPENDING BINGE.
Once I got over my shock and horror at this new malady gnawing at the very loins of our Great Nation, I was stricken with a vision, a clue, a prophesy if you will about how to cure Frugal Fatigue without the help of physicians or pharmaceuticals.
So here's the wickedly simple fix for Frugal Fatigue, America-
GROW THE HELL UP.
Yep- I've had to pinch pennies all my life and other than the times I've been caring for newborns or working 2 full time jobs to make ends meet, I've yet to be fatigued for even a second.
In fact, I'm generally tickled pink to find a deal- I consider it the height of the shopping experience to see something I like, then find it at a deep discount (or at Goodwill) before making an actual purchase. I love Goodwill. I get a very real and physical thrill at coming home with a huge bag of clothing- all name brands- and having spent under $50 for what would be $500 worth of stuff at the mall.
Shopping wisely and making every penny count two or three times isn't a burden- it's good budgeting and fiscal responsibility. To give it a medical name is the first step.
That's "Recognizing the problem".
The next step is to find a drug to fix it.
Disgusting.
I can't stand all the advertisements- anti-depressants, anti-insomniacs, what the hell? "Do you find yourself sad and worried most of the time?" "Do you lie awake at night unable to sleep?"
OF COURSE WE DO, YOU ASSHOLES- OUR COUNTRY'S IN THE SHITTER AND WE'RE EFFECTIVELY HELPLESS TO FIX IT OR CHANGE THE COURSE OF OUR OWN MEAGER LIVES.
*ahem*
I'd be horribly remiss if I didn't share the handy hints to stave off the dreaded "spending binge" Frugal Fatigue may trigger, so here they are-
-allow yourself a small luxury now and then- sort of a valve release so you don't just one day go ballistic in Dillards and need a UHaul to get yer stuff home.
-only carry cash- that way you have a very tactile sense of spending money- you aren't just slapping the plastic on the counter, you're counting out actual greenbacks.
-(this one's my favorite) only carry big bills, because you'll be less likely to want to break 'em into change. Notice it says "bills" plural. Like we've all got a mittful of Ben Franklins to walk around with.
That right there told me how very far removed the expert psychiatrist and the hosts of Good Morning America really are from the reality most of us move around in.
The heartbreaking thing is that people are sitting around watching this drivel and thinking "Hey- I'm pretty pissed off and tired of not having any money- I think I've got this here Frugal Fatigue" and simultaneously "Someday I'm gonna be just like those people on the TV- that's the "normal" we're all supposed to be shooting for".
No. It's not. None of the above. If you get up every day and work your ass off to keep your family fed and clothed and happy, and you do it by shopping the sales racks and discount stores and never having a slim dime to put in the "entertainment" column of a budget sheet, YOU ARE A WINNER AND A HERO.
And don't let any talking head or PHD or TV ad with a computer generated moth on it tell you otherwise.
Rock On.
Most days, there's at least one thing that makes us go "Huh. Weird". or "SERIOUSLY?" and every so often we can literally see the letters W T F flashing red inside our eyeballs at something especially insane.
The day in question was one of those days.
There was an expert (there's always an expert) who was also a psychiatrist talking about a NEW syndrome for people to be plagued with-
*FRUGAL FATIGUE*
Huh. Weird. SERIOUSLY? WTF???
Apparently, because of our recent National Economic Downturn, people have had to (wait for it...) WATCH THEIR POCKETBOOKS.
And that has made them sad, nay more than sad- they're (insert whiny voice) TIRED OF PINCHING PENNIES.
Tired of Pinching Pennies= Frugal Fatigue.
The good doctor on the TV warned that if Frugal Fatigue is not addressed properly and with all due respect, the afflicted will be likely to fall off the bargain bin wagon and (wait for it...) GO ON A SPENDING BINGE.
Once I got over my shock and horror at this new malady gnawing at the very loins of our Great Nation, I was stricken with a vision, a clue, a prophesy if you will about how to cure Frugal Fatigue without the help of physicians or pharmaceuticals.
So here's the wickedly simple fix for Frugal Fatigue, America-
GROW THE HELL UP.
Yep- I've had to pinch pennies all my life and other than the times I've been caring for newborns or working 2 full time jobs to make ends meet, I've yet to be fatigued for even a second.
In fact, I'm generally tickled pink to find a deal- I consider it the height of the shopping experience to see something I like, then find it at a deep discount (or at Goodwill) before making an actual purchase. I love Goodwill. I get a very real and physical thrill at coming home with a huge bag of clothing- all name brands- and having spent under $50 for what would be $500 worth of stuff at the mall.
Shopping wisely and making every penny count two or three times isn't a burden- it's good budgeting and fiscal responsibility. To give it a medical name is the first step.
That's "Recognizing the problem".
The next step is to find a drug to fix it.
Disgusting.
I can't stand all the advertisements- anti-depressants, anti-insomniacs, what the hell? "Do you find yourself sad and worried most of the time?" "Do you lie awake at night unable to sleep?"
OF COURSE WE DO, YOU ASSHOLES- OUR COUNTRY'S IN THE SHITTER AND WE'RE EFFECTIVELY HELPLESS TO FIX IT OR CHANGE THE COURSE OF OUR OWN MEAGER LIVES.
*ahem*
I'd be horribly remiss if I didn't share the handy hints to stave off the dreaded "spending binge" Frugal Fatigue may trigger, so here they are-
-allow yourself a small luxury now and then- sort of a valve release so you don't just one day go ballistic in Dillards and need a UHaul to get yer stuff home.
-only carry cash- that way you have a very tactile sense of spending money- you aren't just slapping the plastic on the counter, you're counting out actual greenbacks.
-(this one's my favorite) only carry big bills, because you'll be less likely to want to break 'em into change. Notice it says "bills" plural. Like we've all got a mittful of Ben Franklins to walk around with.
That right there told me how very far removed the expert psychiatrist and the hosts of Good Morning America really are from the reality most of us move around in.
The heartbreaking thing is that people are sitting around watching this drivel and thinking "Hey- I'm pretty pissed off and tired of not having any money- I think I've got this here Frugal Fatigue" and simultaneously "Someday I'm gonna be just like those people on the TV- that's the "normal" we're all supposed to be shooting for".
No. It's not. None of the above. If you get up every day and work your ass off to keep your family fed and clothed and happy, and you do it by shopping the sales racks and discount stores and never having a slim dime to put in the "entertainment" column of a budget sheet, YOU ARE A WINNER AND A HERO.
And don't let any talking head or PHD or TV ad with a computer generated moth on it tell you otherwise.
Rock On.
Friday, December 10, 2010
The Resale Value Bugaboo
So we're building this house.
I may have mentioned that before a time or seventy.
This little house is everything that our little family desires for us to be comfortable. You'd think that would be a good thing, an understandable thing, universally. But we found out differently.
The young man with the computer program who turned my drawing in pencil on graph paper into an actual blueprint kept trying to draw in a dishwasher. I have three dishwashers, and their names are Ward, Alec and Joe. In my entire life I've had one mechanical dishwasher and I hated it. For the most part I used it to hide dirty dishes till I could wash them by hand. It WAS handy for cooking Lake Trout, though...
While doggedly drawing in a dishwasher I didn't want, he also kept leaving out the second stove in the kitchen- in addition to the gas range, we have a wood burning cook stove.
Causing the most consternation was the HVAC closet. When asked where it was going, I said, "We don't have one". Which he couldn't wrap his head around, since how can you have a house without central heat/air???
Like this- the house is site specific- set and arranged to take advantage of every ray of light, every prevailing breeze, every one of the hundreds of trees around it.
Considering our climate is truly temperate, most of the time the windows will be open. When we do need artificial cooling or heating, we have window air conditioners (one for each of the two bedrooms) and heaters- both wood burning and propane.
Why heat and cool rooms you're not using? So I told him we are installing "Zoned Temperature Control" and averted the explosion of his head.
Showing the blueprint to my best friend (lets call her Cathy), she asked where the refrigerator is in the kitchen. I told her it's not IN the kitchen, it's in the pantry, along with the microwave cart. The kitchen is in the actual center of the house with the dining room/kitchen/living room all being one big space, and I didn't want a big stupid fridge sitting in the middle of it, and the pantry is right off of the kitchen. Putting the fridge in the pantry makes it...exactly as far away from the sink, work area and stove as it is now in this house.
Cathy sighed (she's done alot of that in the 30+ years I've known her) and said carefully, "Sher, what about resale value?"
Here's the thing.
We're not going anywhere.
This house is not an investment, not being built to look like the houses around it, not supposed to impress anyone.
It's our Home, and once we move into it, we're not leaving.
And yanno, in years past that's how people built their houses. The old houses were filled with character, color, quirks of all sorts to shelter and nurture the people who were going to live there- not till the market went up, but for generations.
New houses are built in neighborhoods where one house pretty much looks like the next one, except for differences so slight as to be inconsequential. The interiors are stark, neutral, and once stripped of the portable things of life- furniture, things hung on the wall- revert quickly back into what they were built as- gigantic totes to hold stuff temporarily, till the next step, the next job, the next transfer, the next move.
And I can't help but wonder if our Housing Industry is a symptom or a cause of some of our societal ills- our pervasive sense of impermanence- of never setting down roots too deep- because while roots are unsightly on An Investment, they Anchor a Home.
I may have mentioned that before a time or seventy.
This little house is everything that our little family desires for us to be comfortable. You'd think that would be a good thing, an understandable thing, universally. But we found out differently.
The young man with the computer program who turned my drawing in pencil on graph paper into an actual blueprint kept trying to draw in a dishwasher. I have three dishwashers, and their names are Ward, Alec and Joe. In my entire life I've had one mechanical dishwasher and I hated it. For the most part I used it to hide dirty dishes till I could wash them by hand. It WAS handy for cooking Lake Trout, though...
While doggedly drawing in a dishwasher I didn't want, he also kept leaving out the second stove in the kitchen- in addition to the gas range, we have a wood burning cook stove.
Causing the most consternation was the HVAC closet. When asked where it was going, I said, "We don't have one". Which he couldn't wrap his head around, since how can you have a house without central heat/air???
Like this- the house is site specific- set and arranged to take advantage of every ray of light, every prevailing breeze, every one of the hundreds of trees around it.
Considering our climate is truly temperate, most of the time the windows will be open. When we do need artificial cooling or heating, we have window air conditioners (one for each of the two bedrooms) and heaters- both wood burning and propane.
Why heat and cool rooms you're not using? So I told him we are installing "Zoned Temperature Control" and averted the explosion of his head.
Showing the blueprint to my best friend (lets call her Cathy), she asked where the refrigerator is in the kitchen. I told her it's not IN the kitchen, it's in the pantry, along with the microwave cart. The kitchen is in the actual center of the house with the dining room/kitchen/living room all being one big space, and I didn't want a big stupid fridge sitting in the middle of it, and the pantry is right off of the kitchen. Putting the fridge in the pantry makes it...exactly as far away from the sink, work area and stove as it is now in this house.
Cathy sighed (she's done alot of that in the 30+ years I've known her) and said carefully, "Sher, what about resale value?"
Here's the thing.
We're not going anywhere.
This house is not an investment, not being built to look like the houses around it, not supposed to impress anyone.
It's our Home, and once we move into it, we're not leaving.
And yanno, in years past that's how people built their houses. The old houses were filled with character, color, quirks of all sorts to shelter and nurture the people who were going to live there- not till the market went up, but for generations.
New houses are built in neighborhoods where one house pretty much looks like the next one, except for differences so slight as to be inconsequential. The interiors are stark, neutral, and once stripped of the portable things of life- furniture, things hung on the wall- revert quickly back into what they were built as- gigantic totes to hold stuff temporarily, till the next step, the next job, the next transfer, the next move.
And I can't help but wonder if our Housing Industry is a symptom or a cause of some of our societal ills- our pervasive sense of impermanence- of never setting down roots too deep- because while roots are unsightly on An Investment, they Anchor a Home.
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