Russia Brings Out Our Cowards

August 14, 2008

It didn’t take too long, eh? I was wondering how long it would be until the nervous little bedwetters in our country start their smug nattering about whether or not America has the authority to criticize Russia for its invasion and slaughter of Georgia.
For liberal cartoonists like Oliphant, Toles, and Rall, there is no shred of patriotism as common Americans define it. They are the type who have never worn the uniform, but are sure they know how to criticize those of us who have. When the chips are down, and America has its back to the wall, it is the cowards who throw stones at the men who do the fighting.
Does America really deserve to be slandered like this?

Honestly, I don’t feel as if President Bush needs to be defended for criticizing Medvedev, Putin, and Russia, for their imperialistic invasion of Georgia, but, for the faint of heart in our country, allow me to remind you:
Russia’s pattern of behavior for the past 100 years should scare every moral judge who dares to read their history. They have rolled their tanks into innocent countries whose only crime was to resist the godless communism that Russia wanted to inflict on them.
When America sends its good men and women into a country, it’s to help liberate their people. Just because you’re too lazy to study American history, compared to Russia’s, doesn’t mean that everything is the same in this world.

Iraq started their reign of terror over thirty years ago, when Saddam Hussein rose to power. As a Sunni, he savaged the Shi’a and Kurds in Iraq, feeding innocent people into wood chippers (while alive), raped and indiscriminately killed hundreds of thousands of his people, a’la Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. We only started our “brutal, stupid, war” with them in 1990, after Saddam turned his murderous gaze outside his own country, towards Kuwait.
Since then, Iraq has defied UN resolutions 16 times, fired on our men in no-fly zones, attempted to assassinate one of our presidents, and supported Islamic suicide bombers throughout the world.

Now, when you can find a similar example that Georgia has committed against Russia or the world, then maybe there would be an argument to make. Until then, we patriotic Americans shake our heads in shame at the Oliphant’s of this great nation.

Russian Round Two: Ukraine

August 13, 2008

Now that Russia has claimed to observe a cease-fire with Georgia as they drop rounds and keep up suppressing fire on their civilians, the time has come for the Bear to stage their next step: the Ukraine.
See, Russia is not only trying to seize control of all major fuel sources on the continent(s), they are also trying to reassert their empire in the former Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe. One problem: Many of them want to be in NATO. Namely, Georgia and Ukraine. Their admission into NATO has been stalled for various reasons, but the relationship between Russia and the rest of Europe is getting more tense.
International analysts are warning of a possible intimidation from Russia towards Ukraine, now that the Georgian people have been slaughtered and are terrified under the military control of Russian President Medvedev in their fractured sovereign nation.
To refresh our memories, this is the handiwork that Russia (Putin) has already committed in Ukraine:

This is the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko. If you recall, during their Orange Revolution in late 2004, the Ukrainians chose the side of light in a high-profile run-off election. The choice was between Viktor Yushchenko and Russian-backed Viktor Yanukovych, and in true Soviet style, the game pieces on the chessboard were moved while the opponent wasn’t looking. Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin before the elections and very nearly killed by the Russians, according to him, and foreign policy experts from the Ukraine and around the world.
It is a miracle that he survived, but it looks like the Bear is mounting its final blow. For world politics enthusiasts, here are a couple of maps that may come in handy in the next few weeks:

Highlighting Ukrainian places of interest that Russia may be targeting soon:

Russia's Shock And Awe

August 11, 2008

For the past four days, the nation of Georgia has been pummeled by a Russian reaction that has left at least 2,000 people dead, many more wounded and displaced. Early reports are that despite the long-brewing clashes between ethnic Russians living in Southern Ossetia and the rest of the Georgian population, (where the fighting has been limited to small arms skirmishes for the past two years), the Russians decided that the global timing was right to mount a prolonged incursion into Georgia, using as an excuse one of the many random instances of Russian military forces claiming they needed to intervene to protect the beleagured renegade enclave. [and that "enclave" is a sizeable population of agitated citizens who often shoot weapons at the Georgian police, army]

Is this the same declaration of authority that Stalin and Kruschev showed in Eastern Europe? As Prime Minister Putin flexes his muscle through the proxy of his hand-picked sucessor, President Dmitry Medvedev, is the Iron Curtain far behind? Time will tell. One thing is sure: the Soviet Bear still lives.

I wonder if President Bush is seeing into his soul at this point:

With Soviet era-like grip, the BTC Pipeline (BP operated) is attacked in Georgia:
Read about it here. The article highlights the fact that the BTC pipe is the only major pipeline for Central Asian resources in the Eastern European region not under Russian control.

But wait! I thought that Russia was only bombing civilians in an effort to protect those renegade enclaves?
You can read the Pravda-like party line recited in this official-sounding blog, called russianblog.org, then see for yourself: the pipeline barely skirts into southern Georgia, yet the premise for this entire "intervention" was a humanitarian rescue effort involving the northern region of South Ossetia. Uri has been drinking too much vodka if he expects me to believe that Russia and Putin are galloping into Georgia for the sake of some villagers.

Russia's new attempt at empire may be less built on the 20th-century practice of land grab, and more on the consolidation of an ever-increasingly precious commodity: fuel. Just last year then-President Putin repeated his claim of north pole territory that, according to the UN, is international.

In fact, let's take a look at the citizens caught in the crosshairs of the Russian peacekeepers in Georgia for the past four days:

Shall I call the UN to deal with this, or will you?

Sounds Like A Sham Wow

July 04, 2008



Well, Vince from Sham Wow is quite a spokesman. This skinny, meth addict-ish squirell just twists and twists his way into history. He wore a headset while being filmed for his national spot, but I hardly think he'll have to continue on the phone bank crew for very long. He's famous now. Goodbye cheap headset, polo t-shirt, and eye-twitch. It's time to realize your glory.

Much like Obama. I mean, before last year, who really knew anything about him? His star has risen quickly. From his own books we know that he was raised for five years in Indonesia at a parochial school dominated by Islamic teachings. Some refer to it as a madrassa. However, the Obama camp is quick to refuse to call it that, as Barrack says that the academy allowed some students of different faiths to attend. We also know that he spent 5 more years in Hawaii. The private school he was admitted into is reportedly attained at an annual fee of $20,000. Read on to see a confirmation from the savvy, trusted buster of urban legends, lies, rumors, and untruths, we know of as Snopes.

Of his first father, we know this from Snopes: "[My father] was as African, I would learn, a Kenyan of the Luo tribe, born on the shores of Lake Victoria in a place called Alego. The village was poor, but his father, my other grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama; had been a prominent farmer, an elder of the tribe, a medicine man with healing powers. My father grew up herding his father's goats and attending the local school, set up by the British colonial administration, where he had shown great promise. He eventually won a scholarship to study in Nairobi; and then, on the eve of Kenyan independence, he had been selected by Kenyan leaders and American sponsors to attend a university in the United States." Obama has written (and spoken) at length about his father's returning to Africa from America to work for the Kenyan government, with that country's political turmoil eventually leaving him a "bitter drunk" and "a defeated, lonely bureaucrat."


Of his mother, we know this from Snopes: "For my mother, organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness.This isn't to say that she provided me with no religious instruction. In her mind, a working knowledge of the world's great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education. In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology. On Easter or Christmas Day my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites. But I was made to understand that such religious samplings required no sustained commitment on my part. Religion was an expression of human culture, she would explain, not its wellspring, just one of the many ways — and not necessarily the best way — that man attempted to control the unknowable and understand the deeper truths about our lives.In sum, my mother viewed religion through the eyes of the anthropologist she would become; it was a phenomenon to be treated with a suitable respect, but with a suitable detachment as well."

From Snopes, we know this: "Barack Obama's parents separated when he was two years old, his father moving to Connecticut to continue his education before returning to Kenya. When the younger Obama was six years old, his mother married again, this time to Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian oil manager. Barack and his mother moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, where Obama spent 4-5 years attending both Muslim and Catholic schools before his mother sent him back to the United States to live with his maternal grandmother. The school Barack Obama attended in Indonesia was "Muslim" primarily in the sense that the preponderance of its student body was Muslim (because Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim country), but both the Muslim and Catholic schools he attended in Indonesia offered a few hours of religious instruction each week.In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama elaborated on his early schooling, explaining that he attended both Catholic and Muslim schools in Indonesia; not out of any particular religious affiliation, but because his mother wanted him to obtain the best education possible under the circumstances: "During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin's call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables."

Isn't it curious how much the author tries to assure the reader that attending these religious schools was by no means a testament that he received any religious instruction of any sort? Quite the opposite, in fact: his mother, a rebel in herself, after purposely avoiding any American, nay, Western choice for fathering her child, chooses to pay a lot of money to have her son attend not a secular academy or prepatory school befitting of someone who wouldn't take to receiving religious indoctrination, but these self-described schools of religious indoctrination indeed.What's interesting about Snopes, however, is how earnest they seem to be at disputing the notion that Obama IS a Muslim. I've been hearing for many months, now, about how ridiculous it is to think that he is a Muslim.

I really don't care as much about a person's faith if they're upfront about it, but the more I'm implored to NEVER believe something, I become a bit suspicious. When I read a supposedly bona fide rumor-busting source on these subjects such as Snopes, though, I expect to see unassailable sources in order to back up their claims.

I loose faith in Snopes when I see this: "Claim: Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school." Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that he is not a radical.
[Snopes response] Barack Obama never stated that he "was once a Muslim" (radical or otherwise), so his "handlers" have nothing to "conceal." Obama communications director Robert Gibbs noted that "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim. As a six-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism." Barack Obama has been associated with the United Church of Christ since the mid-1980s, describes himself as a Christian, and says that he is "rooted in the Christian tradition."[end Snopes explanation]"

And that is that? Snopes "debunks" a myth by asking a campaign public relations specialist whether it's true or not?

To further buttress their contention, Snopes turns to these unbiased news organizations: CNN and AP: "Claim: Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world.
[Snopes response] The claim that Obama attended a radical Wahabbist school in Indonesia in the mid-1960s is exceedingly far-fetched, given that: The large Indonesian community resident in Mecca was a medium through which knowledge about Wahhabism reached Indonesia, but the community itself appears to have remained virtually immune to Wahhabi influences. In reality there was little direct influence of Wahhabism on Indonesian reformist thought until the 1970s.


So Snopes is satisfied that elements of dangerous, radical belief didn't waft through the halls of a mainly-Islamic school in Indonesia because A) philosophy books written in Indonesian reformist thought don't reflect a violent, jihad-centered movement's credo; and B) things in Indonesia APPEAR to be immune to Wahabiism! Move on, folks, no story here! It's "far-fetched" to look beneath the surface of philosophy tracts and magazines. Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, has over 8,300,000 people in it alone, a literacy rate over age 15 at 64%, with a religious breakdown at 77% Muslim, the rest a showing of Hindu and Christian, with only a scant 1.9% claiming to be nonreligious, so don't fault me if the authors of Snopes' claim that by their estimation, as Westerners who may or may not know this massive city's many layers, there doesn't APPEAR to be any influence of a brotherhood that has moved silently in the shadows of the Middle East for hundreds of years.

[Snopes admits] "Insight magazine claimed in a January 2007 article that Barack Obama spent at least four years attending what is variously described as a "madrassa," a "radical Muslim religious school," or a "Muslim seminary" in Indonesia, but CNN has more recently reported that its own investigation found those claims to be false: [R]eporting by CNN in Jakarta, Indonesia and Washington, D.C., shows the allegations that Obama attended a madrassa to be false. CNN dispatched Senior International Correspondent John Vause to Jakarta to investigate.He visited the Basuki school, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971.


This should feel "odd", already, to the careful student of politics. Before I examine the naive notion that the leaders of this school, Basuki, wouldn't have quickly "adjusted" the appearances of this school for the famous visitors from CNN, I must voice my concern for unbiased reporting from CNN. I don't trust CNN because of a few things, among them being Ted Turner himself, and his outspoken attitude of America.

One of the other reasons is because of the fact that CNN and the New York Times were the only two American news companies to remain in Iraq after the first Gulf War. See, even though we won that war, we allowed Saddam to stay in place as a ruler. One of his privileges as supreme ruler of Iraq was the ability to censor all media video and script before it was to be broadcast or printed. When CBS, ABC, NBC, Reuters, AP, UPI, etc learned that they would have to submit all copy from their Iraq beaureau's to Saddam himself, they rightly opted to leave the country, citing journalistic integrity issues. They, of course, were used to an American way of looking at the news.

However, two American "journalist" firms allowed this relationship with the monster Saddam Hussein to exist. For 12 long years, the New York Times and CNN submitted all information coming out of their offices to Saddam before printing or airing. Any attempt to "uncover the truth" by these two organizations known as CNN and NYT should be met with high suspiscion from the beginning.

[Snopes continues] "This is a public school. We don't focus on religion," Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told Vause. "In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."Vause reported he saw boys and girls dressed in neat school uniforms playing outside the school, while teachers were dressed in Western-style clothes.


Well, case closed, then! I mean, if the teachers were in slacks and Oxford shirts, there MUST be no story, here! Deep investigative methods at CNN allow them to conclude what's in a student's heart by watching them play at recess. I feel relieved! :-)


[Snopes quotes] "I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Vause said on the 'Situation Room.' "I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that."


Ok, we'll just take your unbiased word for it. Thanks for flying over there to Jakarta to clear this up for us.


[Snopes continues] "Vause also interviewed one of Obama's Basuki classmates, Bandug Winadijanto [real hardcore investigative journalism at work, here, to find someone who is probably all too happy to paint an innocent picture for the famous news agency], who claims that not a lot has changed at the school since the two men were pupils. Insight reported that Obama's political opponents believed the school promoted Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam, "and are seeking to prove it."
"It's not (an) Islamic school. It's general," Winadijanto said. "There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian. ... So that's a mixed school."


I regret to remind the weary reader that these same Western reporters never bother to parse denominations, seemingly mollifying the oppressive qualities of Islam here in this story, when they report on Christianity. We never hear about Eric Rudolph, who shot an abortion doctor, about which particular twisted, insane sect or version of the Bible he followed, but only that he was a "Christian activist".

[Snopes] "The Associated Press reported similarly [surprise]:A spokesman for Indonesia's Ministry of Religious Affairs said claims that Obama studied at an Islamic school are groundless."SDN Menteng 1 is a public primary school that is open to people of all faiths," said the spokesman, Sutopo, who goes by only one name." [One name, eh? How reassuring for a high official]


[Snopes] "Moreover, he studied earlier at Fransiskus Assisi, which is clearly a Catholic school."Obama later transferred to SDN Menteng 1 the elite, secular elementary school at the center of the controversy. The school is public but is very competitive and has exceptionally high standards. It is located in one of the most affluent parts of Jakarta and attracts mostly middle- to upper-class students, among them several of former dictator Suharto's grandchildren.Indonesia is home to several of the most radical Islamic schools in Southeast Asia, some with alleged terrorist links. But Akmad Solichin, the vice principal at SDN, who proudly pointed to a photo of a young Barry Obama, as he was known, said his school is not one of them.


No story here, just move on. Don't even think about tracing the lives of a wide sampling of past graduates from this school, or anything complicated like that.

[Snopes]"Moreover, [this press release] by the Obama campaign affirmed that." [Ah, I see. A politician's campaign website is to always be trusted.]

[Snopes] "In the past week, many of you have read a now thoroughly-debunked story by Insight Magazine, owned by the Washington Times, which cites unnamed sources close to a political campaign that claim Senator Obama was enrolled for "at least four years" in an Indonesian "Madrassa". The article says the "sources" believe the Madrassa was "espousing Wahhabism," a form of radical Islam.All of the claims about Senator Obama's faith and education raised in the Insight Magazine story and repeated on Fox News are false. Senator Obama was raised in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother. Obama's stepfather worked for a U.S. oil company, and sent his stepson to two years of Catholic school, as well as two years of public school. To be clear [because we just want to pound it into your brain], Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa."

So quit asking, allright? It's not like this is a rumor about, say, a *gasp* Republican, who may have gone AWOL from a national gaurd drill weekend 30 years ago. No, that deserves the press' devotion and tireless search for the truth. CBS didn't stop in 2004 when the Bush campaign told them there was no proof of official accusation of going AWOL from his or any gaurd unit when he was serving his time for America. Dan Rather researched and dug DEEP to discover the document which "proved" the truth in that case.

Here, though, in 2008, in the case of Barrack Hussein Obama, campaign spokesmen carry a lot more weight, or water, as the Sham Master Vince might show us.

George Carlin Died Today

June 24, 2008

George Carlin died today. He is being memorialized as an agent of the Counter Culture. It is true, I guess. I saw him in Radford, Va, at Radford Univ. in 1990. His act was unique, clever, and caustic. I liked him, but when I think "Counter Culture", I tend to think of William Burroughs, Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and a few others. They were pre-Boomer, though. Carlin was 71, and his death is probably garnering this much press because of the Old Guard (Baby Boomers) still in the newsrooms of today, feeling their own mortality more keenly every day.

Is it possible that we can finally usher in the era of post-Boomer-ism? I, for one, have been calling for this for oh, let's see...about twenty years, now. I graduated from high school in 1985, and I can remember how the death of Q99 in 1980 meant a sudden loss of all things cool, drawn-out, and experimental. The industry name for that Q99 format was "album-oriented rock", or AOR. But before we knew the word, it could have really been called 'alternative'. How can anyone listen to King Crimson, The Moody Blues, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Pink Floyd, Yes, Steely Dan, Queen, Doors, Cream, The Who, Traffic, The Alan Parson's Project, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, Canned Heat, (early) Chicago, Genesis, Nick Drake, Todd Rundgren, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Styx, Jimi Hendrix,Led Zeppelin, The Velvet Underground, Donovan, Steppenwolf, and the like, and deny that they were alternative for their time?

And there were precursors, of course. Miles Davis, always working to form his own voice, cut his teeth with other alternative artists of his time, like Charlie Parker. They formed the Be-Bop sound of jazz in the 40's. By the time Miles went solo, in the early-mid 50's, he was beginning to push the acceptable duration of single songs, allowing for unheard-of improvisational freedom. Others were experimenting in jazz, also, like Charles Mingus, Thelonius Monk, and Bill Evans. And before the age of Jazz there were others, too.

Alternative and counter-culture won't stop because of the Baby Boomers going out to pasture. Indeed, their footprint was large. (Hence the name "baby boomer", 'natch). Hell, I was just listening to the oldies station I quit from last year. Same old shit that it ever was, only sadder. The people out there who actually listen to this limp collection of rock and roll are not too far from the grave.
Maybe that's what most oldies/classic rock is best described as: "Muzak Over God's Waiting Room Speaker System" The format is yet another pitiful example of what the crowd who told us, "Don't trust anyone over thirty", has hammered into our heads for WAY TOO LONG. The same 350 songs which have been tested by lots of people who don't have to go to a job every day, streamed through the best software for maximizing a 'fresh' rotation. Most of the cadre in FM radio that's left standing is the most bitter, burned-out, blearry-eyed bunch of boomers you'd ever want to meet. Not an original thought among them.

I remember going to my boss, "Joey", the program director, for an idea I came up with. See, I was not only a full-time jock there, but also it's webmaster. I had been given some copy from the PD the day before. It was about a young child who was due for an emergency operation soon, needing a bone marrow donation. When I was uploading it to our site that night, I got into the second paragraph, and realized that he was an African American, and, thus, would be requiring donors of the same race only. Our station is Billy Joel-white, skewing white soccer moms.

So I went to "Joey" the next day about a possible life-saving idea that wouldn't have cost him anything but a quick conversation or email. Since the young boy needed only African American donors, I asked "Joey" if he would talk to the pd from another station in our cluster, The Beat, which has a sizeable audience of African Americans in the area, and offer to hyper-link my copy dealing with this call-for-action to help save this young boy's life.

"Joey" is a Boomer, having been a rock radio dj from Boston for the past thirty years before coming here. He worked at the hottest AC stations in the late 70's through to the 90's, then moved here shortly after Y2K. He's a corporate yes-man from way back, always willing to kiss the right ass and talk bad about anyone who isn't a liner jock. Those who aren't liner jocks take risks and chances on the air. It's what radio is supposed to be made of, but isn't anymore. The "Joey"'s survived by stabbing the risk-takers in the back.

I saw it happen to the best jock I ever worked with. He sailed into every break with spontenaity, freshness, and unpredictability. In other words, it was fun. He was a good smart-ass, too. Perfect attitude for American Radio. As our afternoon drive, he was easily the best jock besides the morning guy, surrounded by big market talent. He was so gifted that he could do a network-quality impersonation of Wolfman Jack. He would cut a six-hour show of "Wolfman" for the Sunday night shift.

He was excellent and creative, so, of course "Joey" had to push him out the door. "Joey" lives the persona on the air of a caring, friendly, companion for "your workday". He makes a big production out of the annual "Kids With Cancer" drive our station promoted. He makes an effort to put little kids on the air at our yearly radiothon, and stay excited and positive in front of everyone at the remote. So I thought he would pick up this opportunity to help this kid with Lukemia.

ME: Joey, you know that copy you gave me yesterday, about the kid needing a bone marrow match?"

Joey: [kinda clueless] Yeah...

ME: Well, I don't know if you read it or not, but it turns out that he's African American, and he needs donations from only African Americans.

JOEY: Uh...

ME: I've got it up on our site, but we would do a lot better for him if we had The Beat link to our site--it's easy. All you have to do is tell Scrappy to have his webmaster do it...

JOEY: [look of I-can't-believe-you'd-ask-me-that!] Uh, I don't think so. I don't have time for something like that.

And he walked off. "Time for something like that???" Joey's office is all of ten feet from the other PD's office! He knew how easy it was to offer some help for this dying boy, but because he couldn't make the effort to talk to another radio station's PD, (Joey is older, more accomplished in major markets, and sees himself as superior to the other 3 PDs in our cluster), this young kid's chances for survival were diminished.

And that's the way I see the entire Baby Boomer generation. They start off praising transcendental meditation in the 60's, tried to attach a lot of pride and righteousness to running from the Army, America, and the draft, only to become sullied, poisoned, and murderous, just like the generation they were railing against. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so narcissistic. All things are viewed through the lens of what they saw in their precious youth, the prism of the 60's, Vietnam, and The Establishment.

Their maturation process is stunted, having become stuck on their 18th birthday. Now that they're ready for their dribble cups, they're reverting to that tired, silly, childish attitude which they threw away for their piece of the pie in their middle years. Now that they're bent, cranky, and retiring, they can scream and bitch as if they weren't The Establishment for the past 30 years, themselves. They have turned into the "Still navel-gazing at 60", and can't even see the cliche'.

Maybe Carlin would have seen it.

Today Was Earth Day

May 27, 2008

Today was Earth Day, 2008. I first realized it when I walked into work, and our receptionist, Dianne, greeted me with an "Earth Day" kind of sentiment. I enjoyed the exchange, joking back with her that I planned on chewing some tree bark to commemorate this honorific event. I remember that those early Earth Days from the 70's usually included media footage of celebrations in (fill in the blank city), complete with hippie-strewn lay-abouts, some carrying big signs that said quasi-flower power sentiments like "Recycle" , "No Nukes", etc., and occasionally there would be placards warning of the climate problems resulting in a coming ice age.

An ice age!

What happened to those "experts" and their prediction about global…cooling? Oh, that's right. They are the same ones who today tell us that we'll be globally warming eight more degrees within ten years. Meanwhile, no apology for going on such a frenzy about chlorofluorocarbons, freon, and hair spray. No apology for being wrong about a lot of things: We were harassed about ddt to the point of banning it from our shelves, and now the rate of malaria is skyrocketing in developing countries where the American eco warriors have done their handywork. Oh, but at least the eggshells of a certain bird species may be stronger!

Coming home tonight was peaceful enough. I'm listening to a book on cd these days. It's called Widow Of The South. A lot of it is from the viewpoint of a Confederate infantryman. Instead of listening to Hannity on the way home, I decided to continue with my progress on the book. I'm on the 4th disc out of 6. The sacrifice of my normal AM show routine is no small departure, as today is the Pennsylvania primary, and I would normally be focused on any political discussion leading up until the returns tonight.

I get home about the same time most afternoons, and my dog Phoebe is always at the door, prancing around as I open the door. She's my best companion, and I don't have to feed her Prozac to be happy to see me every time I greet her. A long day of work is now over, and it's time to fire up the lcd and watch history play out.

NOTES:
Chelsea appears on stage before mom, and does the act-surprised-to-see-someone-far-into-the-crowd-then-point-at-them thing…
Bill appears slackjawed at the 12 minute mark of Hill's speech. Uncertain if he's looking at his wife or the 17 year-old supportor in a tight jumpsuit behind her…
Her speech lasted 17 minutes, fifteen too long…
She seemed as stiff and scripted as Al Gore does…
You were happy it was over finally…

Obama has a much better style than Hillary…
His concession speech sounded better than Hill's winning speech…
Only John Mellencamp and his wife were on the stage immediately afterwards…
His 17 minutes felt like 5…
He left you wanting more…

Isn't it amazing that Southern white states are the ones with the highest amount of white males voting for Obama? Yet it's true: Obama took Va, Nc, Sc, and Ga. And African Americans weren't the majority of Democrat primary voters, either. True, the African American voting bloc has voted for Obama at 92 percent in all of the primaries, but if it hadn't been for 62 percent of the white primary voters in those southern states [ALERT! ALERT! Southern White Men…gathering in numbers…details at 10pm], then Obama wouldn't be where he is right now.

So much of the real drama with what's going on right now is not being discussed, and I'm watching as much or more news than I used to. The drama isn't so much that blacks are overwhelmingly voting for an African American…it's the unavoidable reality of a demonized sect in our country-Southern White (Christian) Men—showing open-mindedness and enthusiasm for someone that conventional wisdom says, by the poor devils' nature itself, they can't.Why aren't there a lot of microphones and cameras grabbing Bubbas at every bowling alley, demanding an explanation at how they can defy mythology and prejudice like this as they actually go cast a vote for a black man?

That is the real story here.

(when will) We Shall Overcome

April 02, 2008

Most of us have experienced this: a child says to you, his or her parent, "You just hate me". This happens when you, acting as their gaurdian, decide to deny them something that they really wanted: ice cream, PS3 time, online access, etc. It is ridiculously wrong to assume that, indeed, you hate your own child, but that is how the little one feels. If he/she doesn’t get exactly what they want when they want it, then "the world is against me."Usually we grow out of this kind of immature reasoning.

Unless, of course, you have people around you who foster this kind of thinking, and you are too comfortable with blaming your shortcomings on someone else. We can find examples of this kind of immature reasoning in adult minds from time to time, but we also quickly rebuke it, usually.
Unless we are gripped by the throat with fear.

What kind of fear would keep us from telling someone that they are acting like a child? Well, simply put, it is fear of not appearing politically correct.

The Thought Police have terrorized America for the past 20 years, and the condition, unfortunately, is that of a yoke which has become all too comfortable on our necks. Want to keep your job? Well, keep your mouth shut when thinking about applying the same standard to that African American at work. You have to word things very carefully, so as not to be seen as reflecting attitudes from people you never knew 150 years ago, towards people who have never been slaves for 150 years.

Despite the mammoth amount of laws to prevent black people from being fired, excluded from purchases, or treated without respect, the convenient drumbeat continues.

Rapper 50 cent displays the mildest of reactions against white America:"I just think there’s people that might not be ready for an African-American president," he continued. "It’ll be an issue, believe it or not." "I’m not sure America is ready to have a black president," he continued. "I think they might kill him." The MC said that as a black man, "You’ve got to be conscious of racism, period. And it’s still there. We don’t deal with it as often as my grandparents did. My grandparents grew up in South Carolina, so they experienced the heart of that."

Alice Walker displays the more resentful side of African Americans. In case you forgot who Alice Walker is, she’s the one who wrote, "The Color Purple". She received a full scholarship to two different private, elite colleges, and became angry for her lot in life. You can read her bio at: http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vZW4ud2lraXBlZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpL0FsaWNlX1dhbGtlcg==

She just wrote an open letter to us all about the selection of a candidate for President Of The United States Of America. You can see it in full here: http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnRoZXJvb3QuY29tL2lkLzQ1NDY5L3BhZ2UvMQ==

Here are some excerpts to which I express my reaction:

"I made my first white women friends in college; they were women who loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered. That, for instance, at Sarah Lawrence, where I was speedily inducted into the Board of Trustees practically as soon as I graduated, I made my way to the campus for meetings by train, subway and foot, while the other trustees, women and men, all white, made their way by limo. Because, in our country, with its painful history of unspeakable inequality, this is part of what whiteness means. I loved my school for trying to make me feel I mattered to it, but because of my relative poverty I knew I could not."

Excuse me while I wipe away my tears. Poor Alice had to attend a college where, *gasp*, there were people who had more money than she! What a CRUEL thing to do to a woman! How clueless of me not to realize that when I was catching a bus ride in Athens, OH, to my school campus every day that "whiteness" meant that I was to ride in a limo! This is the ridiculous standard of equality that we are treated to by these child-like brains: "If I, as a black person in America, have to ride a bus or walk to my destination while white people ride in limos, then IT’S A RACIST SOCIETY!"

How does any adult reason with childish emotions like that?And pray tell, just how did "whiteness" matter in her context? Here is a woman who gets to attend a college that SOMEONE paid for (no one paid for mine. I still have $30,000 in student loans to pay back from a degree I completed 12 years ago), and upon graduation, she is IMMEDIATELY given a position on the Board of Trustees! Just WHO in America gets treated like that?

And yet Alice receives all of this privilege, resulting only in her spiteful resentment of the "system" that put her there! There is no pleasing some people! There is a great saying I learned while substitute teaching in Virginia public schools years ago. It was etched into the hall pass the kids would use: "Gratitude is the sign of a noble soul." After all that our mean, racist, evil "whiteness" has done for African Americans in this country for the past two generations, the only thanks or expressions from the benefactors is, "What have you done for me lately?"

I guess, for brains like Alice’s, if we don’t catapult all poor black people to the same income level as Bill Gates, then "AMERICA IS A RACIST SOCIETY."

"When I have supported white people, men and women, it was because I thought them the best possible people to do whatever the job required. Nothing else would have occurred to me. If Obama were in any sense mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like Mandela is. We look at him, as we looked at them, and are glad to be of our species. He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill. The change America must have if we are to convince the rest of the world that we care about people other than our (white) selves."

Oh, I see. America is supposed to be on a quest to convince the rest of the world that we care about people, "other than our (white) selves." Silly me. I’d thought that when my paycheck has many dollars taken from it every two weeks to be spent on foreign aid to practically ALL Third World (excuse me, "Developing Nations"), that I was working for a gesture of kindness to be spread to Africans, South Americans, Asians, and Arabs. But I was wrong! According to Alice, my tax dollars going to all of those black, brown and yellow folks proves just the opposite: that I only spend my hard-earned dollars at white stores, on white-produced products, in white neighborhoods.

Thanks, Alice--you really cleared that one up for me.And here’s something else that Alice illuminated for me, a Southern White Chrtistian Male: Me and my band of brothers didn’t REALLY put ourselves on the line and die for non-whites when we were in the Army. It was all an illusion: I didn’t really serve as a combat infantry soldier for 5 years in far-away lands, amongst non-white villagers. Me and my fellow soldiers didn’t really do anything special when we liberated yellow South Koreans, protected and fed black Africans in Somalia, defended Serbian Muslims against genocide in Bosnia, or any of the other far-away places we went to in order to die for their cause.

Since Alice doesn’t live in her original continent, where her own people sold her ancestors to European slave merchants, I guess she’s never felt the overwhelming gratitude of a native people who were liberated, rescued, and served by good, white men in American uniforms.

Funny how foreigners love America more than many of it’s citizens.

"I want a grown-up attitude toward Cuba, for instance, a country and a people I love; I want an end to the embargo that has harmed my friends and their children, children who, when I visit Cuba, trustingly turn their faces up for me to kiss. I agree with a teacher of mine, Howard Zinn, that war is as objectionable as cannibalism and slavery; it is beyond obsolete as a means of improving life. I want an end to the on-going war immediately and I want the soldiers to be encouraged to destroy their weapons and to drive themselves out of Iraq."

This passage is stunningly stupid. In one paragraph she manages to reveal just how deficient is her awareness of world politics: belief in Howard Zinn and helpmaid of communism. Leave it to someone who was "educated" (indoctrinated?) at Sarah Lawrence college to be unaware of the evil system known as communism, or it’s long record of murder, malaise, and decay.

To be fair to the braintrust at Sarah Lawrence, perhaps poor Alice just missed the bus to school that day when this was covered.

"I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behavior towards the Palestinians, and I want the people of the United States to cease acting like they don’t understand what is going on. All colonization, all occupation, all repression basically looks the same, whoever is doing it. Here our heads cannot remain stuck in the sand; our future depends of our ability to study, to learn, to understand what is in the records and what is before our eyes. But most of all I want someone with the self-confidence to talk to anyone, "enemy" or "friend," and this Obama has shown he can do. It is difficult to understand how one could vote for a person who is afraid to sit and talk to another human being. When you vote you are making someone a proxy for yourself; they are to speak when, and in places, you cannot. But if they find talking to someone else, who looks just like them, human, impossible, then what good is your vote?"

Whew...the stench from that well Alice is in is beginning to really stink. She’s so far deep into her hole that she can’t see any light whatsoever. Poor thing. She’s so racist and angry that she can’t even see an epic story for what it is.

The story of Moses and his people all the way up until now has been an amazing story of an underdog against the world. The Jews have been chased, murdered, and disrespected for four thousnd years. Whereas the Jews have always been a distinct people, with a distinct homeland, the Palestinians are a people who have constantly moved in and out of different cultures, refused entry into their own people’s nations (refugees, even. Regular studies show that "Palestinians" are discarded Jordanians, Syrians, and other Arabs. Whereas their parent nations refuse them citizenship, Jews actually allows Palestinians the right to vote in Israel.) and have resisted every attempt to establish a homeland for them also.

When the newly-formed UN tried to erect a Palestinian nation in 1948, their "leaders" refused, on the grounds that they wouldn’t put up with living next to those pigs and monkeys we know as "Jews". The surrounding Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, Iraqi, Saudi Arabians, Kuwaitis, and Algerians have waged more than four major wars on Israel since 1948, and when they aren’t trying to push the Jews "into the Mediterranean", they are waging minor wars, known as "intifadas".

But, then again, I guess I’m just a "typical white person" (Obama qoute), who is acting like I "don’t know what is going on." (Alice quote). Perhaps I should learn from such an enlightened mentor as she.

"It is hard to relate what it feels like to see Mrs. Clinton (I wish she felt self-assured enough to use her own name) referred to as "a woman" while Barack Obama is always referred to as "a black man." One would think she is just any woman, colorless, race-less, past-less, but she is not. She carries all the history of white womanhood in America in her person; it would be a miracle if we, and the world, did not react to this fact. How dishonest it is, to attempt to make her innocent of her racial inheritance."

"Racial inheritance"? "...carries all the history of white womanhood in America in her"? My, my. Just WHAT kind of "education" is that Sarah Lawrence school peddling?

I’ll tell you what, Alice: if you stop seeing all the evils of white society every time you look at my people, I’ll stop seeing all the rapes and murders that blacks have been responsible for when I look at you. Deal?

"I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking, person to person, with any leader, woman, man, child or common person, in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks. I cannot see the same scenario with Mrs. Clinton who would drag into Twenty-First Century American leadership the same image of white privilege and distance from the reality of others’ lives that has so marred our country’s contacts with the rest of the world."

That’s (part of) your problem, Alice: you imagine too much. Sure, you can easily imagine lots of things, but Obama himself exclaimed that he would have bombed Pakistan right after 911! He didn’t say that he would "talk" to them. But details like this are unimportant when you live in a fantasy world, where everything around you is imagined (racism included). "...with no baggage of past servitude or race supremecy to mar their talks."

Here’s a little clue, Alice: we whites don’t walk around, remembering the "good old days", when we used to buy you from your own people. It isn’t something we hold onto, ya’ know? It’s not as if we’re learning anything valuable from the hateful rhetoric that too many blacks like you spew, so we’re not obsessed with concentrating on "how it used to be."

And, believe it or not, when a white American is in the position of ambassador or diplomatic attache’ to some third-world nation, the "whitey" in him or her isn’t dictating their every thought or move. We whites are mostly thinking of how to do our job to the best of our ability so that we may advance in our job capacity.

And in case you haven’t noticed, being an outright bigot is not a way to advance. Even for Condoleeza Rice, who is our present Secretary of State (that’s the office which is designated to talk to foreign leaders). And she’s black.

"And yes, I would adore having a woman president of the United States. My choice would be Representative Barbara Lee, who alone voted in Congress five years ago not to make war on Iraq. That to me is leadership, morality, and courage; if she had been white I would have cheered just as hard. But she is not running for the highest office in the land, Mrs. Clinton is. And because Mrs. Clinton is a woman and because she may be very good at what she does, many people, including some younger women in my own family, originally favored her over Obama. I understand this, almost. It is because, in my own nieces’ case, there is little memory, apparently, of the foundational inequities that still plague people of color and poor whites in this country. Why, even though our family has been here longer than most North American families – and only partly due to the fact that we have Native American genes – we very recently, in my lifetime, secured the right to vote, and only after numbers of people suffered and died for it.Imagine, if he wins the presidency we will have not one but three black women in the White House; one tall, two somewhat shorter; none of them carrying the washing in and out of the back door. The bottom line for most of us is: With whom do we have a better chance of surviving the madness and fear we are presently enduring, and with whom do we wish to set off on a journey of new possibility? In other words, as the Hopi elders would say: Who do we want in the boat with us as we head for the rapids? Who is likely to know how best to share the meager garden produce and water? We are advised by the Hopi elders to celebrate this time, whatever its adversities." "...in my own nieces’ case, there is little memory, apparently, of the foundational inequities that still plague people of color and poor whites in this country."

Sorry, Alice. It looks like you’ve thrown a pity-party, and no one is coming! Your own neices don’t have a bitterness in their hearts towards us whites, but you do! And I’ll bet you won’t let them remain happy, either.

Perhaps there’s "no memory....of the foundational inequalities that still plague people of color and poor whites in this country" because the memory is just that: a memory. If these foundational inequalities were actually a problem, then they wouldn’t need angry Aunt Alice to point them out!

And just what "madness and fear" are you suffering from, poor Alice? Just what else do you want besides your Ivory League education, celebrity life as a poet/author, and large family? Is the madness you describe something that could better be described as, "failure to assimilate"? Is the fear you describe more aptly stated as, "aversion to hard work"?

"We have come a long way, Sisters, and we are up to the challenges of our time. One of which is to build alliances based not on race, ethnicity, color, nationality, sexual preference or gender, but on Truth. Celebrate our journey. Enjoy the miracle we are witnessing. Do not stress over its outcome. Even if Obama becomes president, our country is in such ruin it may well be beyond his power to lead us toward rehabilitation. If he is elected however, we must, individually and collectively, as citizens of the planet, insist ..ing him do the best job that can be done; more, we must insist that he demand this of us. It is a blessing that our mothers taught us not to fear hard work. Know, as the Hopi elders declare: The river has its destination. And remember, as poet June Jordan and Sweet Honey in the Rock never tired of telling us: We are the ones we have been waiting for."

All hail the prophet, Alice Walker! We have come to learn the Truth about America from her trusted bossom: "Even if Obama becomes president, our country is in such ruin it may well be beyond his power to lead us toward rehabilitation." That’s it--set up the board for the next round: no way will simply electing a charlatan like this black man we call Obama really do any kind of "healing" for our black citizens.

The fight must continue! White brother kills white brother for what end? To free the black slaves! Is that enough? NO. Massive restructuring to our constitution and the creation of intrussive agncies are formed for the next 140 years to give you even MORE of a chance at the American Dream. Is that enough? NO. Ok, what if we elect a black man as president of this beautiful nation--will that be enough, Alice? NO.

You know, it’s funny. Ancient slave masters never were treated to the vitriol from their subjugated that the free great-great-great-great grandsons of the slaves inflict upon the whites of today. And that’s after the whites from the past two generations have put themselves at the back of the line for hiring, receiving education loans, and cultural respect. People who have NEVER experienced slavery or even Jim Crow laws are exacting pain and suffering from people who NEVER had anything to do with slavery or Jim Crow.

Acceptable In The 80's

January 27, 2008

"I've got love for you if you were born in the 80's", says Calvin Harris in his song, "Acceptable In The 80's". I know what he means. He was born in 1984. I'm now 40, and despite feeling the escape of my years quicken slightly, I'm far from becoming one of those stereotypical old codgers who inevitably adopts the attitude of, "Today's generation has it easy compared to mine—they don't know what it was like". In fact, I love this next generation just hitting their 20's: the Y generation. You won't catch me repeating the negative narrative our parents' generation did about my generation, the X generation.

In the 80's, there was a grey cloud over the horizon. And that cloud was a mix of Cold War fears, Aids, the proliferation of "McJobs". There were more, of course, but those are some that come quickest to mind. Some people really feared Jesse Helms, the Christian Coalition, and the Moral Majority. Others feared black helicopters, a UN takeover, and the Council on Foreign Relations. It wasn't a time of innocence and naivette', just because it started nearly 30 years ago. Sure, for a time in the early 80's it was actually fashionable for guys to roll up the bottom two inches of your jeans, which hadn't been seen in the American landscape since, yes it's true: the 50's. But that's where the myth of the 80's being some kind of 'Golden Age' repeat of the 50's ends.

When I entered my teen years in the late 70's, what you heard a lot of (if you were part of the hip "in" crowd, natch'), was this disdain, nay, condescending attitude towards this one illegitimate instrument which rock bands from Led Zeppelin to Queen railed against: the synthesizer. Why? Because the synthesizer created the facsimile of a true guitar, drum, or horn. A synthesizer compressed and recoded the trumpet's natural sound. One man could replace three (or more). For those of us who had been weened on understanding this thing we call music in two ways, the sound and the band, the thought of a couple of keyboards replacing our band was unthinkable.

The element of sound is self-evident. But the other aspect, knowledge of the band, is multi-dimensional. Personalities are involved. Egos compete. And in this aspect, it is illustrative to understand the problems of ego when you notice the divide between the Baby Boom generation and the next. The Baby Boom generation was forged from a 60's decade of deconstruction. It was the first generation to insist that it was more special than any other before it. Other generations met challenges in front of them, and answered when their country's sanctity was in peril. That is what allowed each generation to show great fortitude in improving social and economic conditions from the past.

Take the question of civil rights. When WWII was fought, there was a strong push already old by that point, to integrate the armed forces on racial lines. By 1952, there were mostly-African American units in our Army who fought in the Korean War. After the wars of the 40's and 50's were over, those men who were former soldiers were then in the Senate and Congress, affecting laws and society. The most important US legislation for African Americans in the past 100 years came about in the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts. They did away with poll taxes, literacy tests, and other barriers to full equality of access to the voting process in this great country. They also made it illegal for businesses to practice prejudice when both hiring and selling to African Americans. The same generation that stormed the beaches of Normandy in their youth grew into the ones who understood the need for a respect for the rule of law.

Survivors of D Day will tell you the truth: draftees made up a large portion of the initial bodies that ended up on the beaches that morning. Does the fact that many of them who may have had questions, misgivings at least, about our involvement with Germany (a country that hadn't done anything to us! And the US was invading-gasp-France, which also didn't have anything to do with 911, er, I mean Pearl Harbor), still put aside their fear and anger with their government and did what was asked of them mean anything anymore? Many of the Bedford Boys were drafted, as they were from farming families who couldn't easily afford to lose another set of hands. But it was those Bedford Boys who survived that horrific day who went on to be part of the clan who made the Civil Rights Acts of the 60's possible. At that time, Baby Boomers were under 25 as a generation, not in places of power such as congress or on town councils.

Our awakening into adulthood, we X-Gen'ers, was ushered in with the Baby Boomers telling us we were a bunch of "slackers". We were a do-nothing crop of brain-numbed, lazy, unmotivated youth. They were already printing nostalgic memoirs of their protest-filled 60's awakening of adolescent to adult. I read quite a few, actually. Some while I was young, myself. That's when all of that fuzzy-headed relativist cotton candy tastes best. When you don't have any idea of sacrifice, servitude, and faith in your whole being, it's easy to mock those of us who take those notions seriously. It's not all relative. And all it takes to realize that is to travel and live in a developing country for a year. Of course, for those who have never done that, this perspective may be lost. But it was important to me when I was 20 years old, entering my third year in the US Army, an infantryman being stationed in S Korea from Jan '88 through Jan '89.

It used to offend me a little to hear my parent's generation have such a low estimation of us. (now, I don't give a damn what they think of us.) My dad's cousin Jimmy belonged to the same hunting club my dad belonged to, and we would all see each other once a year during early trout season. I remember Jimmy extolling his disbelief at my generation. I was 16 at the time, and the drinking age had recently been raised from 18 to 21. Jimmy said that was bullshit, and that if it was his generation (my dad's--Baby Boomers), they'd be out in the streets about it, blah, blah. He said he can't believe my generation, taking it like that. So, in their eyes, I can see why they would consider us, "slackers".

Movies were made with those titles, books were written, and it was allowed to thrive unchallenged. But it is my generation who are the upper NCO's and officers of this latest war, (where the average age of combat death is 27 years old. In Vietnam, it was 23) and the enlistees and young seargants of the last one: the Persian Gulf I, or Desert Storm. My generation has been a quiet return to the best of American qualities: faith in something other than yourself.

We were told that our generation will be the first to be unable to achieve what the previous generation had. They were talking financially. We were coming of age when the notions of "downsizing", and "exporting of jobs" were placed in front of us. Those factors are still all over the ever-changing American domestic workplace. The proper term now is "outsourcing". To know that job insecurity will constantly be your reward until your death keeps you in need of something that enables you to meet each day with an air of gratitude and contentment...and for many it is faith. Faith in something bigger than yourself.

It hasn't been easy for the last 20 years. Moving from job to job, state to state. Relationship to relationship. Hardly time to sit and navel-gaze, wondering how I can think of a new way to protest in the streets for more.

I enjoy the largest free-market existence in the world. A startling experiment in self-government, coupled with a (mostly) free market economic engine. No other country has done so much for so many, in such a short time, while asking so little.

And finally, after a sad display in the 1960's of some of our American citizens and their lack of commitment to sharing in the responsibilities of maintaining this benevolent, reluctant empire, I am proud to be a part of the NEXT generation: a generation who didn't run and hide. I'm proud that we entered these last three wars (Persian Gulf I [Desert Storm], Afghanistan, and Persian Gulf II [Iraq War]) with a proud, determined, soulful acceptance of our place in this whole mix.

It is when you lose the ego that you can truly serve.

It's not hard to see why the Pink Floyd generation, with their Roger Waters-size egos, can't understand what the quiet, determined, focused Chemical Brothers are all about.

Half-Empty Jars

January 13, 2008

"Here, do you want to take these?" I was looking at a handful of half-empty jars of shaving lotion that my grandmother was thrusting in my face, as I sat down in the living room for the first time since he passed, earlier that morning.

"No, that's ok", I politely responded to her. Her nerves are completely shot. I am almost certain that the reason that she is worrying enough to scurry off to the bathroom to collect something as inappropriate for the moment as old, mostly-gone lotion, when I'm just about to sit down to the fact that I've lost the grandfather that I've lived with for the past three years…is because she's still in shock. And that's very understandable. She has just lost the man she's loved and lived with for 64 years.

Even though we've been prepared for this inevitability, we have been even more acutely aware of his frailty of life. He went down in the first week of September, four months ago. It was his breathing at first, but mainly his heart. It was giving out. He was flown to Health Park three times the first month, each for a weeklong stay. His prognosis was extremely grim each time, but he managed to hang on, fighting as any soldier does, emerging in a bedridden condition. He has lived the past four months on his back, in a hospital bed, in our living room. His mind was there, but his body was giving out.

There is a wash of emotions that come over you when someone that close passes. Something you think that would be met with high drama and intensity is actually calm. Sorrowful, numbing, humbling, yes. But simultaneously calm. Perhaps it's the knowledge of his long, rich life that has outlived all the odds. Perhaps it's the gratitude that his long battle is over. Life lived on your back is like a prison of sorts. The chains of emphysema and heart disease were strained against for many years, and he fought to make it for 85 years.

We have all been moving as if in slow motion for the past 4 months, running on adrenaline alone, sometimes. The needs for him were great, and the round-the-clock care was filled, mostly by my grandmother, my mother, and me. But that's what you do when you're in a family—you rally. You meet whatever task at hand you must, and think less of what impact it has on you. Days go by; everyone is clenched, nervous, and spending a LOT of energy in keeping a good front, expecting death at any minute. Then, days turn into weeks. Schedules are formed as to when to pick him up from either the bed or his wheelchair. Or from the porta-potty. That was my job, mainly. Although he'd lost some weight, he was still too heavy for my mother and grandmother to do with great care.

And weeks turn into months.

My mother lives in Va, so she had to fly down when he first went down—it hit us all pretty quickly in Sept. If she had driven, it would have required 19 hours straight on the road, and at the time, we weren't sure he would last that long. She flew back two months later, after living out of a suitcase for all of that time. He was debilitated, but stable for the time being. She stayed back in Va for about a month, then came back in early December. This time she drove.
And it's a good thing, too, because she just drove my grandmother back to Va, where they buried my grandfather yesterday.

He woke up last Tues, January 1st, saying that he wanted to "start the new year off right", by becoming more mobile than he's been for the last four months. He thought that he would try to stand up. He scooted to the edge of the bed, where my mother helped him swing his legs down to a stool at first. He sat there for many minutes, thinking. Finally, he thought better of it. Reluctantly lying back down, he resolved to try a few leg exercises instead. He tried a couple of repetitions, then quit. He complained of, "Not feeling very well."

He started getting grey soon after that. We called the EMS folks, who were there in minutes. "This time it looks bad", one of them said. We were all in the hospital within an hour after it all started that morning, and didn't leave until late in the evening. I had to work the next day, Wednesday. The prognosis wasn't good when I left, but it was undetermined as to exactly when it might happen. Hours, a day, three days…kinda like back in September, but even more certain-sounding. We found out that the loss of oxygen for the past 12 hours had damaged his brain. This wasn't good at all, of course. This was probably going to be his final passing.

I hadn't been asleep long when the phone rang. It was my mother. Very tired, and somber-sounding, she told me that it was probably going to happen soon. I said, "I'll be there in a half hour". She said no, that she and Granny were going to be leaving soon, themselves, and that there was no need to come out expecting him to be alive when he probably won't be. At almost 3am, exhausted myself, knowing I had to be at work in a few hours, I decided to concede.
Minutes went by after I hung up. I was dozing between conscious and unconscious when I was suddenly jolted awake, feeling a definite unexpected rush in my mind, a sudden increase in my heartrate. For minutes I was affected by this sudden reaction. Indefinable, but undeniable.

"They're good lotion; he had a bunch of them. Are you sure you don't want to take them home with you?", she said, her voice starting to trail off, realizing the way she was speaking in the past tense about him.

The Minefield We Walk Through

October 28, 2007

I'm the first to admit that I don't read things as accurately as I should all the time. I've been flat-out wrong about many things in my life. But all of us are guided by that "little voice" inside our head. Whether we choose to listen to it or not is another thing.

The other day I was in my company's small kitchen with three other women. We all work in cubicles throughout the day, so it feels different when you're actually grouped together with one or more people at the same time. Such times allow for a little playful interaction with each other, something to break up the monotony of the day.

It was lunchtime, and I had to leave to run some errands during my break, so I was trying to nuke my lunch, a soft burrito from WallyWorld, before I set out on my trip. Every minute counted, as I don't like to be late when clocking back in after lunch is over.

Out of the three women in the kitchenette with me, two of them were ahead of me for the sole microwave we have there. One was finishing warming up her meal, then the next one, I'll call her 'Jane', had to cook hers, then I would be next. The third woman was behind me in order.

While we were all standing there, the women started to joke with me about how they were not going to be "bumped" out of rotation for their meal, and I'd better get used to it, etc, etc. I was joking right back with them, enjoying the light banter for once. My job is such that I deal with angry, exasperated women on the phone all day, and for there to be a conversation that doesn't start with an upset tone is really a momentary blessing for me.

"Oh, I know better than to jump in line in front of you guys. I've heard you're really cutthroat about that stuff!", I jokingly replied. Two of the women were immediately laughing with me and going along with the joke, adding things like, "That's right, you better watch it", or, "Umm-hmm", and the like. But Jane's tone changed slightly when she chimed in on the lighthearted banter. "What do you mean "you guys"?"

It just so happened that out of the three women, two of them were African American. Jane was one of them.

Let me say right now that I am 40 years old, and I have been around the block a few times. I don't look for things to separate myself from others, as I've spent my life seeing the things that make us all similar to each other. As a white male, being raised in America right after the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 were passed, I think it fair to say that I've "seen the light" when it comes to race relations. We all are overwhelmingly deluged with cultural messages which seek to continually portray my white race, particularly Southern White Males, as having "a lot further to go" when it comes to treating African Americans as equals.

It doesn't matter to the race-baiters that I was raised in a family where the 'n-word' was NEVER used. It also doesn't matter to those who see a racially-bigoted component in all facets of American life that as a young adult, I've promoted and advanced African Americans in every station of life in which I've been in a managerial position to do so. To those that are prejudiced against my race, I still am in need of being "taught a lesson" about race. I get the message, and have had to quietly deal with it my entire life.

So, when "Jane" made the exclamation about, "What do you mean, "you guys"", my internal radar immediately went off, assessing her accusatory tone. I was hoping I was wrong, frankly, in hearing what I thought I might be hearing. I have had a great relationship with "Jane" up until now, but her tone and quickness with that remark were almost unmistakable to this man of many years.

I jovially replied, without missing a beat, "Well, I mean 'you guys' who work up here with me". Jane then said back to me, "You cleaned that one up really well". Her tone was slightly less joking at this point, and it seemed to say, 'You may have gotten that one by me now, but I'm watching you'. But what, indeed, did I "clean up"? When I said, "…you guys who work up here with me", how could anyone see that as being 'cleaned up', unless a person was seeing an implied insult by referring to a group of people in my immediate vicinity as 'you guys'?

Now, I hope I've misinterpreted her implications. Like I said above, I'm guilty of misreading things in life occasionally. Some of us are plagued with a sensitive antennae, and have to always be on guard for reading "too much" into signs from people. I mean, after all, Jane could have been angling for me to say, "You women" is what I had really meant, and then the little room would have erupted into a lot of anti-woman, sexist kind of accusations instead of the racist element that ended up just hanging in the air, unclear and unrefined.

I know what I meant, and it wasn't either sexist or racist. It was just a joke that I was going along with from them in the first place. But of course, as a White Southern Male in this modern world, I don't get the luxury of defining what I mean when I talk. It's all in the mind of the minority, these days.