Just Like A Tree…

The thing about characterizing yourself as “spiritual” or “non-practicing,” or “non-religious” is that you are alone. Without a community it’s like being a big tree in a South American rain forest. You’re doing your thing, your roots are firmly entrenched in the ground, but you stand alone, surrounded by a lot of other great trees. There’s no connection.

You don’t go to church.  You don’t attend meetings or fraternize with any like-minded others at all.  You are a great tree.  Firmly planted.  Roots deeply entrenched.  Shading none.  Sheltering no one. Bearing no fruit. You are neither lamp nor light.  You’re lost and alone and afraid.

Dear God…

is there somebody out there?

Is there someone to hear my prayer?

I’m a simple man with simple words to say

Is there some point in asking?

Asking for more only got us where we are today

Lost and alone and afraid

Give me, love for the lonely

Give me, food for the hungry

Give me, peace in a restless world

Give me, hope for the children

Give me, a worldwide religion

Give me, peace in a restless world

Dear God, can you hear me crying?

A whole world crying

Looking for something to say

We had it all and we threw it all away

Is there somebody watching

Somebody watching over the mess that we’ve

made

We’re lost and alone and afraid

Give me, love for the lonely

Give me, food for the hungry

Give me, peace in a restless world

Give me, hope for the children

Give me, a worldwide religion

Give me, peace in a restless world

And we need to know there’s something good

Though all our years of solitude go on and on and on…

Give me, love for the lonely

Give me, food for the hungry

Give me, peace in a restless world

Give me, hope for the children

Give me, a worldwide religion

Give me, peace in a restless world

Dear God..,

is there somebody out there,

Is there someone to hear my prayer..?

♫♫The Sound Of Silence

The thing about music is once you have it in you, it’s yours forever.  No other art form burrows so deep inside your heart and your head like music.  You feel it. You crave it.  It creates sensations inside.  It makes you leap to your feet or can place you gently into a chair.  It makes you grimace, it makes you smile, it makes you laugh out loud.

It resurrects memories and sights and smells and tastes.  You see colors.  It reunites you with loved ones– or vice versa, the living and the dead.  It blurs the constraints of time or alters them completely.  Suddenly you’re twenty-five year old son or daughter is two again or you yourself are nineteen.  Music is the most powerful art form.

It’s not like a movie, or book or theater.  You can play whole songs in your head; your intimate, personal, private soundtrack  anytime, anyplace, anywhere. It’s portable.  No batteries required.  No equipment necessary.  It is all yours.  No one’s inner audio library is exactly like anyone else’s. No one may judge the sounds in your soul.

You can feel it by yourself or you can feel it in a group.  It can envelope you in melancholy and with the next cut, ecstasy. And the emotional explosion of excitement you experience when just one person relates to your inner sea. Music makes you feel good and makes feeling bad even better.

People fear death because they can feel just how much they’ll miss their music. Like a premonition– A foreboding.  Music is the moon that swells the tide of your being.  Music is your soul and your soul is you. What would it be like when music is turned off? It’s the SILENCE we’re all so afraid of.

Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

‘Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools”, said I, “You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you”

But my words, like silent raindrops fell

And echoed

In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls”

And whispered in the sounds of silence

♫ Hello darkness, my old friend

I’ve come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

‘Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools”, said I, “You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you”

But my words, like silent raindrops fell

And echoed

In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls”

And whispered in the sounds of silence ♫

♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫…

♫So much to say, so much to SAY, so much to SAY, so much to SAY…

First among many famous Tweeters whose fleeting thoughts are memorialized in writing.  How much more would they have said if there were, first, alive today,  and “egonomically” Favrd clever?

Jack Handey

The World’s  First Tweets, though, continue to outlast even these venerable thinkers

9“…and so there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Does anything exist of which one may say: ‘See this; it is new?’” Ec 1:9, 10

Still rockin’ the Pithy. Succinct. Bound.

Remember when thoughts used to be fleeting?

♫So much to say, so much to say,  so much to sell, so much to say…

I deleted my Twitter account today.

I am just not all that clever.

little baby…♫

♫Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Everyday…

“On the other hand, the fruitage of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control.” Gal. 5:22,23

♫Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Everyday...

Elizabeth Eckford, followed and taunted by an angry crowd after she was denied entrance to Little Rock Central High School, September 4, 1957. (Will Counts Collection/Indiana University Archives.)

And Repeat…  ♫Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Everyday...

September 11th Teabagger Festival, on September 12, 2009

Then, also, many… will hate one another. and … the love of the greater number will cool off. Matt 24:10-12

Ooooo… oooo…whaaaa aahhh  aaahhhh

IF You Can Keep Your Head When All About You…

Courage is:

• Following your conscience instead of “following the crowd.”
• Refusing to take part in hurtful or disrespectful behaviors.
• Sacrificing personal gain for the benefit of others.
• Speaking your mind even though others don’t agree.
• Taking complete responsibility for your actions…and your mistakes.
• Following the rules – and insisting that others do the same.
• Challenging the status quo in search of better ways.
• Doing what you know is right – regardless of the risks and potential consequences

Source:  http://drlill.com/

On the other hand, the fruitage of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control. Gal. 5:22,23

Make character your cause for celebration

October 18-24, 2009 could be the best thing that ever happened to your town. We offer all the free resources you need to celebrate: lesson plans, Red Ribbon Week tie-in activities, and so much more!  Register here »

Serena Williams.  Kanye West. South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson. Jesse Jackson.  Barbara Bush. Elvis Costello.  Rush Limbaugh.  Glenn Beck:  October 18-24, 2009  is Character Counts Week!  Pass it on.

Brigitte Bardot was convicted of provoking discrimination and racial hatred for writing, in her ardent defense of animal rights, that Muslims are destroying France saying she was:

”tired of being led by the nose by this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts.”

Vice President Dick Cheney’s  “joke” suggests a widely held belief of there exists a culture of generational incest in West Virginia:

“So I had Cheneys on both sides of the family and we don’t even live in West Virginia..,”

Don Imus on the the Rutgers women’s basketball team:

IMUS: Awesome rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some hardcore hoes.
IMUS: That’s some nappy-headed hos.

Don Imus, on Gwen Ifill, distinguished journalist, moderator and managing editor of Washington Week and senior correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer:

“Isn’t the ‘Times’ wonderful.  It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.”

Barbara Bush on hurricane Katrina evacuees in Houston who lost everything back in Mississippi or Louisiana…

“What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas..,   And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this is working very well for them.”

Costello “called James Brown ‘a jive-ass n****r’.” Of Ray Charles?’ He said, ‘Screw Ray Charles, he’s nothing but a blind n****r.’

Michael Richards…

‘Nuf said.

I could go on and on. I’m gonna channel Marvin Gaye here–  ”What’s going on?”  Is the whole world losing its mind?  Whatever happened to a little som’ sompin’ called self-control?

Dictionary.com defines self control as “control or restraint of oneself or one’s actions, feelings, etc.” It’s interesting to note synonyms include discipline and levelheadedness. In the world of personal morality, then, has it really come to pass..? One day morality is in, and the next day it’s OUT?

You don’t have to be anti this or pro that to appreciate self-control.  It’s not about clinging to religion or right wing conservatism or any of these descriptors tossed about to silence those we disagree with or to disguise or justify why “WE” don’t like “you.” People are just opening their mouths and letting the toads plop wherever they may.

WHAT’S GOING ON!!!?

In the cases of Don Imus and Michael Richards, these men had deluded themselves into believing that just because they hung with Blacks who “reclaimed” the “N” word and other equally crass expressions often degrading of women, they were in the fratority. They felt safe to use the expressions themselves, after all “everybody knows I’m not a racist!” They actually believed they were not only down with them but down like them. Imus has said he’s learned his lesson.  Hmmm…  That’s easy for you to say, Don, now that you’re able to go on making a living.

More than racism is rearing its ugly head as these remarks and all the other recent verbal faux pas clearly demonstrate. These tiny thumbnails should be starting to switch on our collective alarm bells. These are no mere slips of the tongue. These are revelations, a heads up if you will pointing out what really lies beneath. Attention needs to be paid!

In the sixties, the hippies mantra was love, love, love. Today..?  What’s going on?  Where is the love?

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

If  |  Rudyard Kipling

Town Without Pity |Simply Because I LOVE This Tune

When you’re young and so in love as we

And bewildered by the world we see

Why do people hurt us so

Only those in love would know

What a town without pity can do

If we stop to gaze upon a star

People talk about how bad we are

Ours is not an easy age

We’re like tigers in a cage

What a town without pity can do

The young have problems, many problems

We need an understanding heart

Why don’t they help us, try and help us

Before this clay and granite planet falls apart

Take these eager lips and hold me fast

I’m afraid this kind of joy can’t last

How can we keep love alive

How can anything survive

When these little minds tear you in two

What a town without pity can do

How can we keep love alive

How can anything survive

When these little minds tear you in two

What a town without pity can do

No, it isn’t very pretty what a town without pity

Can do

When you’re young and so in love as we

And bewildered by the world we see

Why do people hurt us so

Only those in love would know

What a town without pity can do

If we stop to gaze upon a star

People talk about how bad we are

Ours is not an easy age

We’re like tigers in a cage

What a town without pity can do

The young have problems, many problems

We need an understanding heart

Why don’t they help us, try and help us

Before this clay and granite planet falls apart

Take these eager lips and hold me fast

I’m afraid this kind of joy can’t last

How can we keep love alive

How can anything survive

When these little minds tear you in two

What a town without pity can do

How can we keep love alive

How can anything survive

When these little minds tear you in two

What a town without pity can do

No, it isn’t very pretty what a town without pity

Can do

And the 1961 movie starring Kirk Douglas and Robert Blake.

Rent it!

Six of Ten

“The worst thing you can be is a liar….Okay fine, yes, the worst thing you can be is a Nazi, but THEN, number two is liar. Nazi 1, Liar 2″

– Justin’s dad*

Boys who killed dad seek fresh start

King brothers call murder a ‘mistake’

After serving time in prison for slaying their sleeping father, Derek and Alex King talk to Matt Lauer about what they learned behind bars and their plans for the future.  Full story

Ask any person you happen to see– “What’s the worse person anyone can be?” 9 out of 10 people will probably say “murderer.”  It’s Black letter law.  It’s the sixth of the Ten Commandments:

‘You shall not murder.’ Right..?

I say  Dat’s not iiiitttt.

The worse person anyone can be– is a malicious LIAR. Justin’s dad gets an A for effort, but his short list is ordered wrong.  Liar-1. There is no #2.

Maybe that’s why it’s so easy for murderers to get a second chance. Their story may have some mitigating circumstance.  They may be young like the King brothers. It may have been self-defense, unintended, an accident. Once they’ve served their time– paid their debt to society, rightfully they should be able to regain their rights as citizens, get a job, and get on with their lives. It’s easier to be a paroled/released murderer (or should I say ex-convict?) than it is to be a job seeker these days.

These boys are young.  They don’t have the yoke of an employment history to lug around. Or an ex-boss or colleagues who don’t like them enough to torpedo any potential future prospect with a LIE.

You hear about it, but the problem still does not get the media attention that it really and truly deserves.  The majority of people who are out of work are people who have been the victim of workplace bullying and some LIE that keeps following them around like a bad credit rating. The comparison is especially appropriate because if you’re unaware there’s a “mistake” on your credit report, it can literally rock your world, and quite a few of you know what that’s like and how that feels. The shock. The surprise. The embarrassment. The dream deferred or worse, the plans postponed, even derailed. Maybe even forever.

The cumulative effect of the LIE is that it slowly, insidiously, transforms the Object of the lie into a victim.  Victimization leads to frustration.  Frustration leads to anger. Anger leads to desperation.

“Please don’t make me angry. You won’t like me when I’m angry.”

The caveat to that?  The psychological and emotional energy it takes to damp it all down and reign it all in.  You’re the victim but you have to do all the work.  First, keep the secret. No one must ever know you’re angry, annoyed, disappointed, hurt, scared, humiliated.  Second, Remember you are made of iron.  You’re not only a problem, you are the one with the problem. You’re the difficult person, the malcontent, the complainer, the irritating source of all the friction.  You’re INFLEXIBLE. You don’t “go with the flow.”  You’re a rock and an island.

The Rock feels no pain

And an Island never cries | Simon and Garfunkle | I Am A Rock | 1966

”How does it feel to be a problem?” | The Souls of Black Folk

I’ll bet’cha Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold know knew.   Seung-Hui Cho.  I bet he knew.  Megan Meier, John Hinkley,Jr.,  Jeffrey Weise, Perry Smith, John Merlin Taylor, Joseph M. Harris, Aileen Wournos, Thomas McIlvane, Mark Richard Hilbun, Bruce William Clark, Travis Bickle, Jennifer San Marco, Mark David Chapman, Willie Loman.., just a few of the former members in the sad and tragic fratorities of the walking wounded and the living dead–

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose

You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal | Bob Dylan | Like a Rolling Stone | 1965

“How does it feel to be a problem?” | WEB Du Bois

If only they knew how to articulate their pain, or get the “help” they needed or maybe, just maybe could one kind word have averted any or all of these disasters? One tiny apology?  One small gesture of empathy? One olive branch extended, one promise kept? One LIE left untold?

You want a friend you- can rely on
One who will never fade away
And if you’re searching for an answer
Stick around. I say  It’s coming up, it’s coming up
Its coming up like a flower
Its coming up. Yeah*** | Paul McCartney & Wings | Coming Up | 1977

It’s neither fun nor funny to deliberately and maliciously thwart another human being’s pursuit of happiness.  When someone physically assaults you, or steals your property, or you lose a limb as a result of medical incompetence or malpractice, the law’s the remedy for you.  But when someone hurts, or assaults, your feelings, or robs you of your opportunity to make a living or adequately care for your children, have a life– who you gonna call?  The police?

Society says you need to act like an adult, shake it off, grow up, be a man, turn the other cheek, give it to God. But when mean people and their lies interfere with your ability to sustain or even have a quality of life itself, it’s a tad harder to just shake it off. And it takes soo long, requires soo much energy.  It’s soo exhausting. Mean People, jealous, hateful, judgemental, gossips– these office PARIAHS who cause other people to lose or leave their jobs are socially acceptable, predatory murderers. They get away with their crimes so they repeat their offenses.  They never pay their debt to society.  And the worst part:  They believe they’re “nice.”  People always use that particular word to characterize these killers of the spirit.

That’s the insidious, paradoxical beauty of the lie.  At first glance the lie looks so innocuous, so inconsequential, so small; it’s fun. And yet the lie is responsible for all the aforementioned people and all their murders and all their victims, and all our collective pain.

Everybody who wants it and is willing to work hard for it deserves a second, third, fourth, fifth… 900th second chance. Stop being a Hater.  Stop hatin’ on Chris Brown, Michael Vick, Ted Kennedy for God’s sake, Jane Fonda.  Stop hatin’ on that girl at the office whose “look” you don’t like or that fellow who doesn’t watch American Idol so he “just doesn’t fit in,” or those Mormons or that “geeHovah witness” ‘cause “Most Christians believe they’re a cult.”

Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” | Matthew 22:36-40.

Love is all you need.

“If, then, you are bringing your gift to the altar (claiming to be a Christian) and you there remember that your brother has something against you (because you’re making his life hell at work), leave your gift there in front of the altar, and go away; first make your peace with your brother, and then, when you have come back, offer up your gift. Be about settling matters quickly with the one complaining against you…” | Matt 5:23-25

One thing leads to another | The Fixx | 1983

Mommy… Why Does Everybody Have A Blog?

“To the making of many books there is no end, and much devotion [to them] is wearisome to the flesh.”

Eccl 12:12

Mommy, why does everybody have a b—?
Mommy, why does everybody have a b—?

©1982 Controversy Music|ASCAP | Prince | 1999

You can “publish your own sound bite” on Twitter, or you can do it the old fashioned way and blog. The results will be the same– page after page after page after page after page of “many books”–” People making sense of their lives, their work, their world– or propagate their world view.

The Tweeps and the Bloggers, a lot of them women, “making” sense of men, (mostly why they don’t have, can’t get, or can’t keep a man), babies, mommyhood, work; or deconstructing religion, politics, society, God.

People who are funny or who only just think they are, mounting e-glossy magazines full of color and graphics and photos; pithy, philosophical, practical and witty, or whimsical, angst riddled and hopeful; often poignant, repulsive, rhapsodic, ironic and sarcastic, perhaps, even with a side of pathos.  So much color and content– so little time to plow through them all.  So many words, so little opportunity to transform them into a living. When the visitor counter displays hundreds, thousands, and to the mighty among them, millions, does it really mean their “makings” have been read? Is it really proof  that anyone is listening?  Is anyone  paying attention?  Does anybody really care?

Countless numbers of people turn to the Internet, self publishing with blogs or on Twitter. Why scribble “I was here” on a cliff or carve initials into tree trunks anymore when you can leave your mark on MySpace or Facebook, or form your own social network on Ning, or Ellen? I wonder if there has been a noticeable drop in graffiti?

Never in the history of man’s six thousand year existence on earth has there been so many people with the time and the access to say so much to so many.  Many “makings” go uncommented on. Why do readers stop and speak to some and merely stop to leak on others?  What makes one blog great fish and all the others plain fish wrapping?

People, young and old, smart and not so smart, poor and not so poor…  every kind of people busting out all over with thoughts and feelings, baring their souls to the world (or so they think).  All those very busy, very invisible, unreciprocated, unlistened to, unresponded to “Makers” of many blogs and tweets.

Much devotion to them is impossible to keep up with and wearisome to the flesh.

It’s only words, and words are all I have…

Raffle Winner: Back at 2:30

Charlize Theron in "Monster"

“Love conquers all.” “Every cloud has a silver lining.” “Faith can move mountains.” “Love will always find a way.” “Everything happens for a reason.” “Where there is life, there is hope.” Oh, well… They gotta tell you somethin’…”   -Monster (2003)

Sigh.

Monday morning I got a call and it was good news.  No, I didn’t get a job  (I wish).  I won a gift basket in a raffle!  After some small talk, I told the caller I would be there to pick it up tomorrow (Tuesday).

Nowadays all I ever win is the occasional $2.00 playing the lottery.  The last time I won a raffle it was 1991.  It was an office raffle and I won a color TV which was a big deal way back in 1991.

I got up early, tidied myself up and drove to Sorrento Valley.  I got there around noon. After a week of  fall-like temperatures, this week we’re in the midst of a heat wave.  It is hot, hot, hot! Yesterday was no exception.

Sorrento Valley is some 53 miles (one way) from where I live, but I didn’t mind.  Besides, it was a chance to take a drive and maybe stop in the village and have lunch with That (you know he goes with me wherever I go). We’ve been mostly housebound since this episode with his eye and I admit I was excited to visit the office and maybe get some pictures for the blog.

We arrve at the office only to find a post-it note on the locked door:

Raffle winner:  Back at 2:30

It would have been nice to have been called before they left the office to let me know it was going to be closed this afternoon, but I’m a big girl. I take my lumps. I should have nailed down a specific time for the pickup. My bad. Fortunately, there was a company kitchen right there, lots of magazines on hand and the AC was on. I took a deep, cleansing breath and decided to hang out and wait.

The company kitchen is shared by GS Levine (the “G” stands for Gary, CEO and founder), a personal lines and group insurance company that provides a full complement of products and services including Business Insurance, Workers Compensation, Employee Benefits, Risk Management, Financial Services, Personal Asset Protection and ADP services.

GS Levine

It’s lunchtime, so after a very short time several of the company’s employees begin to trickle in.  Naturally, a white English bulldog splayed out on the floor in your company kitchen is not exactly an everyday occurrence, but everyone, to a person, was just so happy to see That.  They oooo’d and aww’d, they smiled and laughed.  They stooped to stroke him.  They offered him treats.

They extended the same warmth, hospitality and goodwill toward me.  One of the ladies was a dead ringer for Judith Light (wish I’d taken her picture).  And Rosemary, herself a bulldog owner, took pictures.  If I hadn’t turned out looking like a lump of coal in them I would share them with you, but as usual, That looks great. He just ate up the attention.  Even with one eye closed, he’s still the ladies man.

That @GS Levine

Rosemary with That

All this activity helped make the time go by fast.  Before I knew it, it was 3:30 and still no sign of life at the other office.

Raffle winner:  Back at 2:30

I called.  I got voicemail.  A GS Levine employee called.  She got voicemail.  The Judith Light look-a-like expressed empathy, after all That and I were there four hours!  I was embarrassed and a tad… put out.  But as usual, I was determined I was going to be happy and enjoy this day.  I was not going to get upset.

This morning, as I was getting dressed to have brunch with the Dog Park Bitches, a group of ladies I met and befriended at our community dog park, the phone rang.  It was Stacy, the Executive Director calling to apologize for the office being closed yesterday.  Seems a meeting they attended took longer than she had anticipated, and since everyone in the office lives in the area, they all decided to just pack it in and go home.  Oops! Sorry.

I’m sorry, too.

She pledged to ship the basket, so what more could I say?  Oh, well…

California.  It’s so laidback.

Twitter: Notes To Self

Where is the love, the love, the love?

As with anything having to do with technology today, you have to get it to get it…  Get it? So I tweet on Twitter. Why would anyone  be excited about responding to the question “What are you doing?” I wanted to find out.  What does Twitter do for you?  What’s the attraction? What are the features and the benefits?

To me it’s like: note to self.

I have a Twitter but I have no Tweeps. So I kinda don’t get it. But what I do get are multi-level marketers masquerading as “followers,” people who have paid their $2.99 S&H fee to post links on the Internet; the making money online with Google scam taggers with get-rich quick websites you have to practically shut down your computer to navigate away from.  People using their “tiny URL’s” to sell stuff. These “followers” are the 21^st century version of Job’s three false friends only without the empathy. Job wasn’t buyin’ what they were selling either.

Tiny tweeter

I’ve looked at the twitter pages of some celebrities who have a million– over a million followers.  What are “followers” getting out of following, say, Ashton Kutcher, or Sherri Shepherd or Regis_and_Kelly, or Oprah?  They post a tweet, and then what?  Hope for a response?  Scroll through the seemingly infinite stream of brown Avatars littered with “tiny URL’s” hoping to see their 140 characters sandwiched somewhere between Gail’s and Dr. Phil’s? And if they do find their tweet, then twhat?

I tweeted Sherri Shepherd. I wanted to know if she was ever baptized Jehovah’s Witness because some of the comments she makes on The View about prohibited practices and behaviors are false.  You are not Jehovah’s Witness if you have never been baptized. It is impolite and disrespectful to refer to adherents as “a” Jehovah Witness or just “Jehovah Witness.” It betrays a level of intolerance toward a religion that is often openly subjected to disdain, derision and riddicule.  Just ahead of Scientology.

You may have a long-term association with Jehovah’s Witnesses.  You may have attended meetings, engaged in private and group bible study, even have reported time and participated in the door-to-door ministry, but you are not Jehovah’s Witness until you have symbolized a private dedication to do God’s will publically through water emersion or baptism. It’s like the wedding ceremony where the bride and groom elevate a private pledge to the level of public commitment.

Jehovah’s Witnesses do not dictate individual behavior where there is no violation of a bible standard. An individual or group of individuals may frown upon another’s choice to do something, wear something, go somewhere, even eat something.  There are judgmental, joy-obstructing curmudgeons like that everywhere you go.

An individual’s bible trained conscience, however, is subject to a variety of influences: nature and nurture, culture, social and economic factors, education, intellect, observances and experience just like every other living person on earth. These also affect an individual’s personal, intimate, private relationship with Jehovah God. It is this personal relationship that informs and directs an individual’s actions and choices.

Just because you’re one of Jehovah’s witnesses doesn’t mean you can’t go to the prom. There are no “rules” prohibiting going to the prom if no bible principals are being violated.  Christians are physically in the world, but they can make spiritually healthy choices in the meantime.  It doesn’t have to be all sack cloth and ashes.  It’s called balance.

Sherri Shepherd shouts out to her “tweeps.” My lone tweet was never responded to. Lost in the flood of brown Avatar I suppose.  I don’t believe she is willfully trying to malign or misrepresent Jehovah’s Witnesses and their faith.

So for now, I follow Larry King. His staffer/scribe is good about just announcing who’s going be on the show, although the bit about the King Charles Cavalier made the corners of my mouth curl upward for a nanosecond. It’s a bit faster, too, than plowing though the choked website and blog.

I follow Kevin Spacey.  His 140 characters are interesting to skim.  It’s not a list of announcements. He’s not hyping anything. He has 1,034,739 followers last time I looked.  1, 034,700 probably are “tiny URL’s.”

Kevin ain’ buyin’.

I don’t feel engaged with Twitter. Probably that’s not it’s purpose.  It’s more like deliberately driving down a short, dead end street. I prefer getting comments on my blog and responding to them. I like a couple social networks you don’t hear about on CNN.   I’m old school.  Remember this:

I found love on a two-way street…,   And lost it on a lonely highway*

I like a two way street.

Life is a highway
I wanna ride it all night long | Rascal Flatts

…and get somewhere.  Umm…  Note to self.

*Moments – Love On A Two Way Street

Lamps and Dining Room Tables

Outrageous!

“Your word is a lamp to my foot, and a light to my roadway.” Ps 119:105

Way to go, Congressman Barney Frank! I saw the news last night.  Oh, boy.   Somewhere between the YouTube message from Michael Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray and the breaking news about the arrest of Survivor winner Richard Hatch, CNN and Fox News managed to squeeze in a clip of you expressing exasperation and righteous outrage over one determined young woman’s attempt to make like a programmed latter day Stepford wife and demonstrate her ignorance and the fruit of her idealogical brainwashing while clutching a tattered picture similar to the one on the left in her cold, undead hand, at a town hall meeting Tuesday night in Dartmouth, Mass.

The raucous, hyperbolic  ranting of these so-called “concerned citizens” raises the specter of Willie Horton.  Remember him?  The Republican’s used him to good advantage to scare whites and derail the presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis in 1988.

As I was preparing this morning to write a blog post about it, I stumbled across this blog post on FDL (fire dog lake):  Early Morning Swim: Rachel Finds a Willie Horton Connection Behind Town Hall Protests By: Blue Texan Friday August 14, 2009 4:47 am

Rachel Maddow.  Looks like she’s abandoned the Drew Carey style glasses.  Way to go, Rachel Maddow!  Good lookin’ out!

Then I stumbled across a blog published on WordPress.  The title:  Barack the Black Hitler by a 25 year old fellow from San Diego, CA named Fred Shelm (if that’s his real name). Here is a portion of the introduction:

But now America has a new star politician, Obama, and the parallels between he and the most loathed man in history are very real. In this article, we will examine the methods of assuming power employed by both men, and the role of their decisions in the lives (and deaths) of six millions jews.

You have to see it to believe it.

Could young Fred Shelm (if that’s his real name) have developed these “ideas” entirely on his own?  If so, what could have influenced and informed such thinking in the face of all verifiable facts? Could Fred Shelm be the “father”of the so-called “concerned citizen ‘grassroots’” movement currently disrupting town hall meetings throughout the nation? Who is Fred Shelm?  What are his affiliations?  Is he the 21st century David Duke?  It’s interesting to note that his WordPress blog posts, Facebook pages and Diggs all stopped in November, 2008.  What’s he doing now?  Doesn’t appear to be a Tweeter.

It would be beneficial to the majority of honest-hearted Americans and a relief to the rest of us to have our unspoken suspicions confirmed:  That perhaps Mr. Shelm, other individuals  and these “concerned citizen” organizations  may in fact really be 21^st century incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan.

These emotinally charged, hysterical demonstrations at the town hall meetings are more than just spirited disagreement over health care reform.  I don’t recall anyone ever photo shopping a swastika around Hillary Clinton’s neck  or a mustache over her upper lip during the public debates  over health care reform in 1993. Can you?  Not even Richard Nixon was exposed to such public vitriol. Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck have publically gone on the record characterizing the popular and lawfully elected 44^th President of the United States as a racist!!!  Who’s “sensibilities” do you imagine these men seek to foment?

The legitimate media is largely silent about the possibility of militia/KKK involvement.  The shouting is all you tend to see in the clips while the red faced Congressperson shrinks away annulled and defeated.  Then there’s the polite skirting around the putrefying dead bodies in the room by the news analysts and contract contributors.  Their dispassionate, carefully constructed comments chafe those of us who recognize these  purulent utterances as code. Harry and Louise were products of Madison Ave and Lee Atwater. They weren’t real!

These people shouting down our elected representatives are not sitting at home at the kitchen table drinking coffee with their spouses, David Gergen.  Who are they drinking coffee with?

Why have Sarah Palin’s regurgitated diatribes gone unchallenged by the press? Which one of these so-called “concerned citizens” groups pays her honorariums?  Perhaps there needs to be more investigation and less pontification.  Where are the investigative journalists?   What is everybody afraid of?

Is it all 360 now?  When you draw a circle, the protractor point gets driven into the paper only once and that’s where the circle begins and ends.  It starts with the reporting of the screaming and yelling and ends up with the reporting of the screaming and yelling.  All around the circle is Michael Jackson’s face morphing, Jon and Kate, pop up squirrels and the shameless promotion of their networks on Twitter.  Is Rachel Maddow the only one digging deep to find out where the “scary information” is coming from?

I applaud Barney Frank.  He had a right to be incensed.  At least he said something instead of merely looking shell shocked and befuddled.  He didn’t try to mitigate the woman’s  inflammatory, hate rhetoric by characterizing it as the frustration and anger of the citizens. The Ku Klux Klan were frustrated and angry by the integration of the University of Alabama in 1963.  They were frustrated and angry over the the “Freedom Rides” desegregating public transportation throughout the south. They were frustrated and angry over James E. Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner working to register black voters in Mississippi in 1964.

People get  frustrated and angry all the time.  It doesn’t justify abandoning all reason, ignoring established facts and the disregard of verifiable truth.  It doesn’t justify verbally abusing our elected representatives and disgarding all civility and rules of decorum. It doesn’t justify  equating our nation’s President with an individual who was responsible for the deaths of  six million European Jews, and millions of Catholics, homosexuals, people of color and Jehovah’s Witnesses. An individual whose very name and image congers up only contempt, and pain– pain for the living descendants of the Holocaust survivors and pain for the veterans and living descendants of the men and women who served during WWII.

It’s hate rhetoric.  It’s a scare tactic.  It’s the propagation of hate masquerading as frustration and anger over health care reform.  It’s the new terroism.  Don’t let them scare you out of the public option!

This article has put a great deal of focus on the similarities between Hitler and Obama, and they are indeed numerous. Indeed, I never even got around to most of it, such as the Hitler/Obama muslim connection, or gestures they share in their oratory, or even much depth into their shared views of socialism. (I will discuss Obama’s socialist/marxist views at length in a later post.) An encyclopedia could be written documenting the parallels.

An encyclopedia?!!?

Don’t let them scare you into backing away from the public option, Mr. Obama!  And the rest of you..?  Steer clear of dining room tables.

Tell Me More About My Eyes…

or A Day in Thats’ Life

As told by ThatOne:

I love the dog park. I wrote a song about it. Like to hear it? I’d love to sing it for you. And the off-leash dog beach. I’m small, yeah, but I like to think I can keep up with the big boys, you know? Unfortunately, this one time the big boys bested me. I got trampled and my face was ground deep into the beach sand.

I was a trooper, though. I ain’ no punk. My mom flushed my eye and then we both just expected my usual resilience to kick in and do the rest. A month later, my face was all itchy and scratchy all the time. Then it got so I really couldn’t open the eye and I was winking and squinting and rubbing and sticky stuff started running out the corner of my eye all the time.

I got an indolent corneal ulcer.

It’s been three weeks now (since July 28) and when the meds and the non-invasive treatments failed, I had to have my third eyelid sutured across the defect in a procedure called tarsorrhapy.

I usually look like this:  

Awwww…

But today I look like this:  

Awwwww…

Even with my protective “doggles” strapped on,  LL Cool J ain’ got nothin’ on me:  

Oh yeah.  This is how I roll..!

I got another two weeks to wear “the cone of shame.” In the meantime, my mom is waiting to exhale. Wish me luck that all of this effort will be a success, my eye will heal and  I can get back to the business of just being a handsome dog.

Goodwill energies always and to each and every one of you each and every day,

ThatOne

(with a little help from his Mom)

Well I can’t do everything around here..!

People let me tell you ‘bout my best friend

He’s a warm-hearted person who’ll love me to the end

People let me tell you ‘bout my best friend

He’s a one boy cuddly toy my up my down my pride and joy

People let me tell you now he’s so much fun

Whether we’re talking man to man

Or whether we’re talking son to son

Cause he’s my best friend now

The theme to The Courtship of Eddie’s Father | 1969-1972 | Harry Nilssen

Now smile!

Tax Payer Dollars At Work or Multiple Births For Fun And Profit

Susan Smith. Remember her, the South Carolina woman who, in 1994 killed her two boys by driving her auto into a lake while the children slept in their car seats? Remember how she went on Good Morning America? That’s when we all knew something about her and her story was not right. Her demeanor, something about her and her performance that morning was just not quite right.

I’m having the same reaction to Ms Nadya Suleman, the Whittier, California woman the press has dubbed “The Octuplet Mom.” In a portion of the interview with the unbearable Ann Curry on NBC’s The Today Show, Ms Suleman volunteered that the biological father was “overwhelmed” by recent events but that she hoped he would want to be involved in the childrens’ lives in the future. Talk about entrapment. Did Ms Suleman bear 14 children to finally get her man? This relationship needs to be investigated.

If the children were all conceived through IVF, how is it that Ms Suleman appears to enjoy not only a longstanding relationship but an apparently complex, ongoing relationship with the sperm donor who she claims is the biological father of all her kids?  Who is this guy? And what does he do? Who’s paying for the premature birth and NICU expenses?

During her televised sit down with NBC, Ms Suleman repeatedly characterized the birth as “a miracle.”  So what then, is a miracle?

According to the American Psychological Association (APA):  miracle. (n.d.) citing Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary,* a miracle is defined as :

an event in the external world brought about by the immediate agency or the simple volition of God, operating without the use of means capable of being discerned by the senses, and designed to authenticate the divine commission of a religious teacher and the truth of his message (John 2:18; Matt. 12:38). It is an occurrence at once above nature and above man. It shows the intervention of a power that is not limited by the laws either of matter or of mind, a power interrupting the fixed laws which govern their movements, a supernatural power.

Hmmm.  Wilfully deciding to become pregnant, paying for IVF treatments and then cognitively participating with her doctor neither constitiutes an act of God nor a supernatural happenstance.  What happened here appears less a miracle and more like “a matter of mind.”  

Another Susan Smith moment for me was her appearance. Her nose (her lips especially) doesn’t look “natural.” Did Ms Suleman have cosmetic surgery in a pathetic attempt to make herself look like Angelina Jolie?

If so, how was this cosmetic surgery financed and when?  Was Ms Suleman influenced by the spate of reality shows featuring women with large families like the bewildering Duggars, or Jon and Kate Plus Eight? Does she believe this is her ticket to reality show fame and fortune?

Women have been devising creative ways to make a living in this world since time and memoriam, but when they take their act on the road and publish it on the airways and to the media for profit, that’s when the public, (and justifiably so) is outraged. When a human interest story reaches the airways, it generally brings out the best in all of us, our true altruism. We want to help and we do.

We love a feel-good story.  We love it when we can have a part in making someone else’s life better. For the featured family, the public airways is generally the last resort, turned to when all the other support mechanisms or government has failed. But lately there have been too many Susan Smith-like cases, too many GMA Queen for a Day sob stories, too many Live Ambush makeovers, too many people getting a new car simply for showing up at a taping of a popular talk show; too many people taking advantage and being taken advantage of.

And now Nadya Suleman. Her selfish motives are so obvious and yet who she really is remains a mystery. 14 lives are forever going to be affected by the decisions of this woman. Is she emotionally or mentally disturbed? From where I sit, something is not quite right with her. Mary Kay Le Tourneau was functional while mentally/emotionally impaired, and look how things turned out for her.  There is so much we don’t know about Nadya Suleman and her many enablers.  

Ms Suleman’s choice to bear 14 children, however,  is her private choice. It’s not for her to make the care and feeding of these children a public works project.  These expenses are hers to bear. If she has a longstanding and healthy relationship with a church as she suggests that she does, I think this is where it all should stay, as opposed to the public airways.

Alas, someone will pay for her story. It’s inevitable. It may even become a Lifetime Television Network movie event. Her book will get published and it will sell well. Hell, she may even get a reality TV show just like Jon and Kate, and a big, new house and a bus and Pampers and formula donated by the sponsor.

I hope she will also get regular home visits from Child Protective Services in Whittier, California. That some authority will be appointed to make certain the proceeds from her TV appearances will go to the care and upbringing of the children and not so Ms Suleman can continue to have pink acrylic French tips or more cosmetic surgery. Finally, I hope never to hear about Ms Suleman or her children ever again.

There is precedent. After all, the McCaughey seven born November 19, 1997 were the only family so far to really become famous. Diane Sawyer loves the McCaughey seven, and returns with her camera crew annually to update us on how they’re doing.

The Chukwu octuplets (born in December 1998 in Houston, Texas to Nigerian immigrants) were the world’s first set of octuplets. Born in the United States, the smallest of the octuplets, Odera, died a week after birth. There was hardly any fanfare in this country, but the birth was an international sensation and remains so to this day. Diane is not so interested in them. They appeared recently on The Today Show. It would really be disgusting for Ms Suleman to garner more national attention than either of these families, neither of whom exploit their children or their situations with reality shows.

People need to feel accepted and approved for who they are. Desperate times are forcing people to devise more desperate measures. How many women are out there now closely observing how things turn out for Nadya Suleman?  How many more children are poised to be exploited on reality television? Or become their family’s sole means of support? How many more multiple birth moms are out there waiting in the wings for their big TV break or their 15 minutes or Today Show segment at taxpayer expense?

Tick-tock… tick-tock… tick tock…

Originally posted February 20, 2009

*Retrieved February 15, 2009, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/miracle

From Blastocyst and Beyond!

Oh, now don’t be hatin’, but children should be seen and not heard.  This is especially true in restaurants, movie theaters, supermarkets, libraries–  any and all public places where people are paying for the privilege to eat, watch a movie, enjoy a leisurely read or are studying in public libraries (yes we do pay for this privilege with our tax dollars).

For you parents who blithely move about the country under the mistaken belief that your child’s protracted shrieks, screams, outcries, growls, grunts, yips, squeals, yells and all manner of vocalizations are just too adorable, I’m here to lovingly tell you–  they’re not.

What they are is inconsiderate, startling, unpleasant, unwelcomed, alarming, distracting and annoying.  They are way, way, way on the negative side of the spectrum of cute and adorable; nowhere near within range.  The longer you allow the outburst to go on, the more my blood begins to boil.  One of us needs to be put out of our misery.  

Only it ain’t gonna be me. 

Now this is the part where you ever so slightly shrug your shoulders and then sheepishly direct one of those “Oh well, nothing we can do about it” glances towards me that’s supposed to make everything wholly tolerable then. 

Oh, oh, of course.  That’s your child.  Everybody and their mother knows they’re not responsible for their behavior, silly me.  Let me just digest my food. After all, what can these hapless parent(s), grown adults with jobs, maybe even piloting our airplanes, possibly do to control their own kids?  How stupid of me.  You’re right.  Let me just pay for my meal and leave. Heaven forbid I should be the nasty old curmudgeon who ruins your dining experience this evening.

Not!

Oh, and I especially  love when your kids are running amuck about the place, hiding under tables, teetering and tottering about with grown folk tripping over themselves  trying  not to  trip over them, or having to stand and wait while walking behind them, or narrowly  avoiding nearly  braining them when  a door opens and oops–  why there’s little Austin or Emily obliviously running by with you cooing and  smiling and coaching ten feet away. 

My most favorite thing is when you allow your kid to approach our table, mid-fork to mouth, and just stand and stare while you sit ten feet away.  After all, your child is just too adorable and I’m the adult so let me just bear this uninvited, unwelcomed, insufferable alien landing.  “If you can’t fix it, you gotta stand it*,” right?

Wrong!

I was eighteen years a single mom.  My only child is now 24 years old.  I received a whoppin’ $25.00 a week in child support.  He said he couldn’t “be involved in this.”  I said ‘I ain’t mad at’cha.’  I didn’t win the love lottery.  What’s the use in crying?  But I chose to continue with the pregnancy.  I could not wrap my brain or my gut around my “choices”  so when that airplane landed on the runway of my life I knew I just needed to decide.  I began to pilot that plane and lift it off the ground.  I experienced turbulence during that eighteen year journey.  I had no encouragement, no help, no support from family.  There was not even proximity.  I found it difficult to start and sustain friendships.  I had no circle.

I did have a few really nice, but sadly transient experiences with some really great people who wandered in and out of my life during my 18 year journey.  One was a lovely young man named David.  At one time, I worked three jobs to support myself and my then nine month old son.  I worked full time for a group insurance company, weekends during the day at  Fotomat, and then four week nights and every weekend at night at a basic cable network operations facility on Long Island.  That’s where I met David, a tall, gangly, 28 year old with a thick, wavy helmet of light brown hair.  He was thin with a long swan-like neck and a giant  Adam’s apple protruding from within it.  He had a deep, breathy, velvety smooth voice and a low, rapid-fire, staccato giggle that makes me smile as I think of it.

The year was 1984 and David was in the closet.  He was gay, and I was his fag-hag.  I was his confidant, his friend, his cover.  Whenever there was a company function, we went together.  We spent a lot of time together outside of work.  He was a delight with my son.  He was one of the dearest, most warm-hearted people I have  ever known in my adult life.

The guys at the facility suspected he was gay, but I could never figure out how.  I had no idea he was gay until he told me, and while I never witnessed David being mistreated, or shamed or belittled or anything, when he told me what he was experiencing there, I believed him.  David decided he needed to move to San Francisco.  Within six months, he was gone.  I received one phone call, but then I myself moved and we lost touch.  I never saw nor heard from him again.

Being a single parent, even under the best circumstances is 100% wretched and 100% joy; 100% giving and 100% receiving; 100% blessing, 100% malediction.  It’s all-in, baby, and women who characterize the SP life  as 50-50 are already standing 100% behind the eight ball. SP is more than just a part of your life–  It’s your entire life but only for a finite and relatively brief period of time. 

In my case, the “parenting” phase was complete by the time my son was 16.  By then, not only did he  know what the expectations were, he was mastering them. He had his baseball league.  He worked part time for the Seattle Mariners.  He was making responsible choices.  He was never in trouble at school or with the law. I was only providing for him materially and guiding him.  I was just his mother– not a parent.

Now I realize some of you appear not to have it as I did.  From conception (yes, we knew right then and there we were pregnant) to birth (I was in labor only two hours, natural birth, no drugs) I won the labor and childbirth lottery.  From blastocyst to this very day, my boy is my joy.  How did this happen?  I was not afraid to discipline him.  I didn’t fear damaging his self-esteem or hurting his fragile  feelings, and you know what..? It didn’t rock my world when he hurt mine.  The expectations I had for him were high and so were my standards and these were never compromised.  

My son was not my “little man” or the “man of the house” or my “Boo.”  He was never my friend, my peer or my confidant.  I didn’t stop being an adult so I could be on his level.  He had enough on his plate just being my son and I had all I could handle just being the best mom I knew how to be.  To this day, I think my son would rather drive steel pins through his eyes than disappoint me and he knows I feel exactly the same towards him. 

I did not tolerate my son behaving badly in public or being disrespectful, rude or discourteous to grown folk.  I did this by letting him see my disappointment on those occasions he indulged those behaviors, and by showing him my approval when he didn’t.  Unwanted behaviors prompted expressions of disappointment and were frowned upon.  Desired behaviors were approved and smiled upon.  Literally.  And you have to stand your ground and stay the course, even when it’s especially hard and you are especially exhausted.

I suspect this is the hardest part of parenting for many.  It’s the part that’s often replete with unpleasantness.  My experience has shown me that parents who fear disciplining their children most are the ones most likely to verbally, physically and emotionally abandon self-control, and they know this about themselves.  The rest of us may have steelier nerves or use what Lee and Marlene Canter called “the broken record” technique, or we tend to be more alert, conscientious and considerate when we are in public with our children.  I know I certainly was. 

More than anything in the whole, wide world, your child wants to please you, but you have to teach them how. They’re depending on you to do that. Your child does not want to alienate your affections.  They want your approval, acceptance and attention.  Acting out behaviors are born out of a mistaken belief that this is how to succeed in getting your  approval, acceptance and attention.  Disciplining your child guarantees they’ll always be able to do just that. Maybe then I can enjoy my dinner and maybe truly see your Austin or Emily is just too cute.

*Ennis Del Mar,  Brokeback Mountain |  2005 | 

Proverbs 17:17

There is nothing– nothing on earth and in this world– Nothing! more painful than to have to say “no” to your child, particularly when this child is your only child.

I shared several months back(http://killinmesoftly.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/walk-and-don%e2%80%99t-look-back/) that my then six year old son pressed me for a bulldog. We were too financially unstable to accommodate his oft  repeated requests during those years but I never forgot his audacious perseverance.  We got two cats instead.

Now my son is grown and on his own. He has a life and I couldn’t be more happy and relieved. He’s found his niche here in Southern California.  Me, I don’t belong here, but  I’m trapped,  so  I must stay in faith, keep positive, believe God is in control.  Several years ago I began to search in earnest for two bulldogs.  I have always wanted two.

I have the Power to stay in Faith. I have the Grace to overcome every disappointment. I have the Strength to stay in Peace.   Power.  Grace.  Strength to stay in Faith and Peace. ThatOne . ThatOne daily affirms my occasional waning resolve to be happy and to enjoy this day.

I remain connected to the human race because of ThatOne. The goodwill I receive because of him is more than I have ever received, experienced or enjoyed in my entire lifetime. I meet people and have conversations with people who are genuinely interested, attracted to,  curious about and drawn to him. Then they turn to me and ask questions or ask to pet him or take his picture or tell me about their pet or that they know someone who owns an English bulldog. I am grateful for each and every one of these experiences.

I have even written the Obama’s to encourage them to at least consider the English bulldog. They are just GREAT dogs. Loyal. Funny. Lovable.  Beautiful.  Owning an English bulldog is like having a two year old toddler forever.  They are wonderful, wonderful dogs and companions, and more than that, they are the very epitome of the definition of a friend:

“A true companion is loving all the time, and is a brother that is born for when there is distress.” Prov 17:17

I was aimlessly surfing the net one evening 18 months ago when ThatOne’s picture just appeared. The post was dated several days before I’d stumbled upon it so I was certain he’d probably already been sold  but, since nothing beats a try but a failure,  I left a voicemail message anyway.

To my shock and surprise, the owner not only returned my call but volunteered the dog was still for sale as well. I told him right then and there I would take him.

“He’s my dog!” I enthused.

The next day, armed with my MapQuest hardcopy and the asking price in cash, I showed up at the owners home in Oceanside, California. They had what seemed to me like a kitchen full of bullies.  I immediately focused on another bully that appeared to be about the same age as the dog the family was selling.  I decided I wanted to take them both.

“Oh.., I’ll take this one and that one” I gushed.

“Well, you can’t have this one,” He said.

“Ok, then I’ll take that one,” I responded. And ThatOne is his name-O.

I joined bulldog meetup group that I stumbled upon online:  (The Afternoon San Diego English Bulldog Meetup Group).

Today, I donated Science Diet to the Animal Friends of the Valleys  (29001 Bastron St., Lake Elsinore, CA (http://www.animalfriendsofthevalleys.com/).

Every time I feel like checking out, ThatOne keeps pulling me back in. And there came to be morning and there came to be evening. Yet another day. (Gen 1:31).

ThatOne, this post today is dedicated to you.

People let me tell you ‘bout my best friend
He’s a warm-hearted person who’ll love me to the end
People let me tell you ‘bout my best friend
He’s a one boy cuddly toy my up my down my pride and joy

People let me tell you now he’s so much fun
Whether we’re talking man to man
Or whether we’re talking son to son
Cause he’s my best friend now

The theme to the Courtship of Eddie’s Father | 1969-1972 | Harry Nilssen

Despair, Inc.

Gloom, despair, and agony on me

Deep, dark depression, excessive misery

If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all

Gloom, despair, and agony on me*

Finally a philosophy, an attitude, a culture and a website especially for all of us on the broad and spacious leading to ordinary (not that there’s anything wrong with that).   It’s called Despair, Inc.    Check it out.   Here’s  a taste of the incredible array of  goodies you, too, may be able to own thanks to Despair, Inc:

Wish I’d thought to turn it into a living instead of      living in it.

Death is highly underrated. Why else would self-described “Christian soldiers,” those fiercely entrenched in their beliefs, those of the rapture loving, Left-Behind fearing, born-again, homo-phobic, Elizabeth Hasselback Stepford wife Republican variety, postpone the grand reward of eternity in heaven to “be with the Lord” without a breast, or a jaw, endure excruciating pain and suffering while desperately seeking out every extraordinary life sustaining remedy, procedure and equipment modern medical technology and science has to offer for a mere three to five more years here on earth, heaven’s ersatz waiting room?

Probably more concrete and certain to stick with the devil you know. You know?

*GLOOM, DESPAIR AND AGONY ON ME | From the TV Show “Hee-Haw” (1969 -1992) | Buck Owens & Roy Clark

I Only Wanna Be…

  ThatOne

ThatOne has once again exposed me to a whole new and different world: The neighborhood dog park. Yep. You read it right.

The neighborhood dog park is the fun, social hot spot especially for our times.  It’s the place to see and be seen. Different breeds freely associate with the only goals being to play and have fun and sniff some butt.

It’s the closest thing to life in the paradise earth in that people love their dogs, people love to talk about their dogs, the dogs make people smile and laughter, smiles, goodwill abounds. Love, love, love. It’s a wonder John Lennon never wrote a song about it.

Dog park etiquette is enforced like the mafia code of conduct. You are expected to supervise your dog. Your dog may not be aggressive. You are expected to pick up after your dog.

If you decide not to observe The Code, the Poop Police, ever vigilant, who caught your dog in the act will make you an offer you can’t refuse. But nicely. No cement shoes or severed horse heads between red satin sheets here. No one gets angry.

There are no flushed red faces, no outbursts of temper, or dirt kicking or pouting. No, everyone dutifully and often cheerfully marches right over to the temporary latrine, crisp, crackling plastic bag at the ready, and removes the offending mass. No static at all.

There are those infrequent visitors who are both indifferent and disrespectful of The Code. In that case, the Poop Police will pick it up, albeit grudgingly and after some bit of discussion, ever mindful of the fact that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

After a while, people are actually  falling over themselves volunteering to pick up the poop. Cooperation is the operative word. Consideration is the next. People don’t want to step in it and no one wants their dog to step in it, track it into the car or home, or worse, eat it.

The small dog park and the big dog park are adjacent, separated by a fence. The difference between big dog owners and small dog owners is like the difference between the blue jeans and tie wearing high school teacher and the multi-pocketed oversized jeans smock dress wearing kindergarten teacher.

“One pair of matching bookends, different as night and day*.”

Big dog owners seem to be a more mixed, more diverse, more inclusive and homogeneous demographic. In the big dog park there are no cliques, no ridicules “My dog doesn’t like your dog” prejudices. Young people don’t seem to mind at all hanging with the OG’s.

Everybody’s protective and tolerant of one another’s dogs. No one manhandles or is rude, or unkind to anyone’s dog. There is no disrespect. There are never any overprotective “parent” outbursts. When a regular is absent for a few days in a row, there is genuine concern. People take the time, not just to make small talk, but if you listen carefully, you may actually witness a whole conversation taking place.

In the Big dog park, people tend to use the entire length and width of the dog park as opposed to congregating in a specific area. It’s important to stand away from tables and chairs otherwise the dogs will congregate underneath and we all know what can happen when a dog feels cornered.

It’s just a great sort of hidden society. I mean, no one ever comes back to the office after the weekend and tells tales of their weekend in the dog park with Daisy or Rufus or Tank. It’s not a subject that keeps people gathered around the water cooler. It’s never a “hot topic” on the View.

People bring their collapsible canvass chairs, their gallon jugs of water and a book, but you will only get to read your book if you’re alone, you are determined to be alone, and there is no other person in the dog park. It’s not like riding the subway in New York City where possessing an open book screams: “Don’t talk to me. Don’t invade my personal space.” Having a book doesn’t convey the same subliminal “back off” message here in Southern CA. You need to stay home if you really want to be alone.

A well attended, well supported community dog park serves a purpose that is especially important in these difficult times when people are increasingly isolating themselves because they’re jobless or are experiencing some sort of personal and/or financial difficulty.

In my case, I find myself enjoying a sense of community I never experienced before and a sort of camaraderie (dare I say it.., even a level of goodwill) I never experienced in any office I have ever worked in; Goodwill that is freely expressed and that with no strings. It not contingent upon regular attendance. There is no tithe. There’s no joining, no public baptisms, no oaths– no conditions. You go and you– just be.

People describe the love of a dog or any pet they have as “unconditional.” ThatOne isn’t concerned about my anxieties or worries. He doesn’t care if I’m young, or wrinkled or whether my breath is minty fresh. He doesn’t care what I do or don’t do for a living. He’s the same in the back seat of a Honda Civic as he would be in a Bentley. He just only wants to be– with me– just the way I am. That’s how it is at the dog park. The only thing you have to do is be– just the way you are. Canvass chair optional.

Don’t go changing, to try and please me,

You never let me down before,

Don’t imagine, you’re too familiar,

And I don’t see you anymore.

I would not leave you, in times of trouble,

We never could have come this far,

I took the good times, I’ll take the bad times,

I’ll take you just the way you are.

Don’t go trying, some new fashion,

Don’t change the colour of your hair,

You always have my, unspoken passion,

Although I might not seem to care.

I need to know that you will always be

The same old someone that I knew,

What will it take till you believe in me,

The way that I believe in you?

I said I love you, and that’s forever,

And this I promise from the heart,

I couldn’t love you, any better,

I love you just the way you are.

I don’t want clever, conversation,

I never want to work that hard,

I just want someone, that I can talk to,

I want you just the way you are.

| 1977

*The Patty Duke Show Theme | TV series 1963-1966 |   

 

 

Words

“It’s only words, and words are all I have…”

I have always had a great love of, interest in and affinity for words. I love language. I love the music of language. I love the individual words of the English language. Even profane language has a certain musicality about it when the vituperation is strung together with the requisite amount of heat when used to punctuate anger or the right amount of wit to invoke humor.  Richard Pryor, we sorely miss you.

People are always either amused or angered by my vocabulary. It’s never made me popular at work.

My own mother hated me all her life because I was a reader and I had an affinity with words. She always told me I was acting white or that I was not smart, and when she thought she wasn’t beating me down enough with her constant assaults to my self esteem, she talked about me abusively to anyone and everyone who would listen. My mother was my most vociferous hater. After her, all others paled. And there were others. Many others.

People have said things to me, to my face, that it would never, ever even  occur to me to say out loud or maybe perhaps think to contemplate or even utter to myself, alone in the dark, under my breath about anyone I have ever met. I must be the biggest asshole I have ever known in my life or I really am Job, only without the three false friends. Even three false friends I would welcome at this point.

I love the English language. It is about big words because our small ones don’t always covey emotion. They just make you seem like you’re going with the flow. Like Elizabeth Hasselback.

The English language is not romantic like Spanish or Italian or French. It’s not necessarily meant to convey feelings or nuance. We have film for that.  It’s utilitarian. It’s cerebral. It’s meant to convey ones thought processes. Its sole purpose is to establish meaning.  In America, it’s all about making meaning, making sense, making the point, being UNDERSTOOD.

Maybe in France and Italy it’s more about expressing feelings, emotions, evoking the past; it’s playful. Here in America, it’s all business all the time.  It’s about not being misunderstood.

Language is serious, especially now in our “it’s my way or the highway” group-think, be different just like everybody else society. You will never see a fiction writer or non-fiction writer appear as a guest on Jay Leno, or sit with Matt and Meredith, or Regis and Kelly and the ladies of The View.

Nobody’s talking about books, or ballet, or opera. Nobody plays the accordion or the harp, or sings songs with intelligent, meaningful lyrics without vocal gymnastics. If they talk about a book, it’s probably written by some celebrity who thinks we “need to understand” their mental health issue, or their divorce, or their list of lovers, or their addictions. Boor..ring!

Seems the only place you can hear about books and words is on NPR or The Daily Show or The Colbert Report or the NYTimes Book Review.

Do we really need another self-help book, or celebrity “cathartic,” tell-all expose, or someone’s false-seeming memoir, or yet another book book about how to get, attract, keep, meet or marry a man? Or get a job, write a resume or network?

Do we?

smile an ever lasting smile

a smile can bring you near to me

don’t ever let me find you gone

’cause that would bring a tear to me

this world has lost its glory

let’s start a brand new story

now my love

you think that I don’t even mean

a single word I say

 

it’s only words

and words are all I have

to take your heart away

 

talk in ever lasting words

and dedicate them all to me

and I will give you all my life

i’m here if you should call to me

you think that I don’t even mean

a single word I say

 

it’s only words

and words are all I have

to take your heart away

 

it’s only words

and words are all I have

to take your heart away

 

da da da da da da da

da da da da da da da da da da

da da da da da da da

da da da da da da da da da da

 

this world has lost its glory

let’s start a brand new story

now my love

you think that I don’t even mean

a single word I say

 

it’s only words

and words are all I have

to take your heart away

The World Is Closed

I’m a very private person. I don’t put too much out there about myself. It’s easy to talk about feelings or to react to current events, or the arts and entertainment, politics, The View. But for the most part my life’s experience has taught me to be on my guard. Anne Frank wrote while hiding with her family in an attic during the Holocaust that she believed people are basically good at heart. I think she’s right: People are basically good at heart but the caveat to that is they are mean as well.

I’m discovering daily over the past twenty years I am just angry. I have cognition around my anger so I pray about it, I cogitate over it, I devise coping strategies and try very hard to act on these. I smile, I try to be nice, I’m effusive, helpful, knowledgeable, funny, ( I’ve read the bible from Genesis to Revelation), but mean people are not invested in me, my success or my future. It’s their mission in life to rid the world of people like me; to expose me as the fraud that I am. I am an angry person trying to look like I’m just like everybody else.

My anger has been reflecting back at me by my recent experiences at the dog park of all places. Before I got ThatOne, I could go whole weekends without parting my lips to utter a single sound. On Friday after work, I’d drive back to wherever I was living, shit, shower and shave and lie in bed where I remained until Monday morning. I have no friends. If I suddenly died tomorrow, no one would care or notice or come to my funeral. Now, I enjoy whole conversations with people who actually touch me, hug me, laugh with me and who call me by my name.

For Christmas 2008,  I saved $200.00 to entertain my son and his girlfriend. I invited them here where I planned for us to relax in the hot tub out back, swim in the pool out back, have breakfast at the Buffet at the casino a minutes drive from here and to show them around the Inland Empire.

It is really quite beautiful here, surrounded by black, craggy mountains with snow capped mountains off further in the distance, the historic old town, the ducks, the lake, the fountains, the ducks. Only it rained buckets Christmas day which was a Thursday, so out of concern for my son I suggested they come Friday instead.  I waited and waited and waited and waited. No one ever came. No one ever called. Part of the reason I hoped I would give birth to a boy 25 years ago was because I believed then that they’re more loyal to their mothers.

Finally I texted my son and told him I was disappointed. He acknowledged in his response that he should have called but that he just didn’t. I told him I was a big girl and that I would get over it. What do you think?

He came here for the first time this past Saturday. He said he was going to celebrate our not seeing each other in over three months by treating himself to a big meal. I took him to the dog park. He met Sharon, and Nancy and That’s doggie friends. Then we went to Claim Jumper. I had the gigantic chocolate cake and milk. He had top round and lobster tail and the crab cake appetizer, cheesy garlic bread and a mixed greens salad.

I recalled how in November I begged him to lend me $130.00 so I could pay my rent. He couldn’t help me. But he and his girlfriend took a trip to Puerto Rico and in April, (the same week as my #52), they’re going to New York.

All of these things and the crushing sadness I feel daily over my unemployment has made me more verbal than usual about my present circumstances. I have been telling everyone that will listen that I am unemployed and passing out my resume to any and all takers. So you can imagine my elation when I got an email response from a lovely woman I met at the dog park suggesting there may be a place in her office for me. But my experience did not leave me totally gullible. This was too good to be true and it was.

You see, it turns out this woman is trying to organize a team under an MLM opportunity called 5Links (http://www.5linx.com/opportunity/index.html). My heart broke in a strange way. I know now what Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath , Ray Combs, David Foster Wallace, Spalding Gray, Vincent Van Gogh, Jean Seberg, Donny Hathaway, Marilyn Monroe, Phyllis Hyman, Kurt Cobain knew at crisis time. They all knew just like I know now: Your arm’s too short to box with God.

“…But if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them, otherwise you may perhaps be found fighters actually against God.” Acts 5:39

If  this  pain and decades long misfortune is in fact from God, I may not escape this destiny. The lifelong struggle to escape will only make matters worse as I  become then a fighter against God. Clearly that’s a battle I cannot win or even hope to enjoy a modicum of success at during the brief, fruitless struggle. I’m a fighter against God. How can anything I ever do succeed?

The world is closed. I’ll never work again. I cannot publish a video resume. The world is closed. Like Zack Mayo said in An Officer and a Gentleman: “I got nowhere else to go! I got nowhere else to g… I got nothin’ else …”

“I’ve always taken ‘The Wizard of Oz’ very seriously, you know. I believe in the idea of the rainbow. And I’ve spent my entire life trying to get over it.”
Over The Rainbow | Judy Garland

“And now you know… the rest of the story.” Paul Harvey

The world is closed.

The Needs Of The Many

If your dog has mange, please do not take him/her to a public dog park or a public, organized specialized breed dog meet up.

Mange is highly contagious; an unsightly and painful condition caused by burrowing mange mites.  Mange is contagious and is spread by contact from infested to non-infested animals.  Mange can occur in man, dogs, cats, horses, sheep, cattle and other animals.

When contracted by humans, it often manifests as yeast. It causes excessive peeling of the skin, excessive itchiness, (and particularly on Black skin) unsightly dark, scaly rashes, and will only go away with topical antifungal treatments that can easily be bought over the counter: lotrimin and clortrimazol.  Washing the affected areas with dandruff shampoo also helps.

ThatOne and I eagerly attended a bulldog meetup in North County. The meetup was scheduled to begin at 3pm. We left our home in the Inland Empire at 2:10pm. Dog parks are often hard to find. They’re usually in a secluded part of a neighborhood that really does not want the immediate public to know there is a dog park there, so the signage is virtually next to non-existent.

If you are going to the dog park for the first time, the entrance sign may be so unobvious you may drive past several times. We did not find the park, despite my being more than familiar with the area until about 3:45pm.

The meetup was poorly organized and even more poorly attended. All went well, however, until about 4:15 when a woman showed up with her female, who was not spayed, who was in heat and who had the worst case of mange I had ever seen in over twenty years.  Pets should not be permitted to mingle with mangy animals or contact premises occupied by them since individual contact is the most important method of transmission.

I was stunned. I turned to another attendee and asked “Does that dog have mange?” I then immediately asked the owner if her dog had mange. She admitted the dog had mange, but with the caveat that hers was non-contagious, which I found hard to believe. She was uncertain about what type of mange the dog had, and when pressed, volunteered her dog had Sarcoptic mange, but I could tell she had no idea on earth what type the dog had.  I am not even confident this dog is under the care and supervision of a vet.   But it doesn’t matter: Mange is HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS. PERIOD.

The other attendee with her husband and d0g, Pork Chop immediately left, and I was hot on their heels. I was livid, and frightened and concerned for ThatOne. This was the second meetup where someone brought their dog out with mange. This dog’s mange was not localized and appeared on her face, head and all over her upper body. To add insult to injury, the dog was not spayed and was in heat.

Like me, you may be unemployed. Alone. Seeking companionship or occasional association for your bullie. Like me, you may love your bulldog. But in spite of all that, you may not, YOU MAY NOT bring your unhealthy dog to a public dog park  and expose it to healthy dogs. YOU MAY NOT do that! YOU MAY NOT do that!

I have washed my steering wheel, my car, my hands and shoes with a bleach solution. Bleach kills the mites.

I have all the fellow feeling and empathy in the world for you, but I am also a responsible pet owner and I expect–  no, I demand the same from all of you.  Please, Please, Please don’t bring your unhealthy, un-spayed, un-neutered adult dog around healthy, spayed and neutered dogs whose owners have taken their responsibilities seriously and can, upon demand, produce current immunization records.  It’s thoughtless, unloving, inconsiderate and especially unkind to dog owners with puppies.

You love your bullie, and so do we, responsible pet owners.   But, in the immortal words of  Star Trek’s  Mr. Spock  “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

 http://www.ask.com/web?o=sb&l=zr&q=is+mange+contagious

Two American Kids

Two American kids doin the best they can…

Oprah, and Tyra and Larry and Matt and Meredith and Ann and Al (love ya, Al!)— Everybody’s talking about Rihanna and Chris Brown. Everybody’s talkin’ loud and sayin’ nothin’,  spoutin’ the same-sounding, redundant   Stepford-wife speak in unison.

You know the stake has been rammed securely into the heart of cognitive journalism when Robin Givens, the ghost of celebrity past, is resurrected from career-dead to appear on Larry King to speak about her experience with her “abuser,” ex-husband Mike Tyson. Um, Humm… ‘Nuf said.

All this media speculation casting Rihanna as the poor, defenseless, poor helpless, poor pity inspiring woman-Victim and Chris Brown is the big, mean, psychologically damaged-victim man-ABUSER.

Everybody’s talkin’ ’bout the rumor that the couple has produced a track together. Could it be they’re just fulfilling a prior contractual obligation?

Will she break the mold and speak articulately, clearly and truthfully about what really happened to her? What happened to them that fateful night and why has she decided to continue to maintain a relationship with him afterward?

Rihanna and Chris are not married. They have no children together. Conventional wisdom says they should just go their separate ways, then, right? Is that why no one is talkin’ ’bout Hilary Clinton, who chose to remain in an emotionally, sexually, and perhaps even psychologically tormented relationship with her husband Bill?

Rihanna knows she is not a victim. Chris Brown knows he is not the star of  OJ, The Prequel. These are two people who were, by all accounts, in a committed, monogamous relationship and then got into an argument on Grammy night that got out of hand. Had this happened before—but without the violent escalation?

Was Rhianna a jealous person? Had she been jealously acting out throughout the course of their relationship? Was she accustomed to demeaning him? Hitting him? Was physical violence a recurring dynamic of their relationship?

 Was Chris Brown less than faithful to the relationship? Did he subliminally enjoy her jealous outbursts thinking it was perhaps “cute,” even a boost to his ego? Was her jealousy and his tolerance of it, even physical violence, a recurring dynamic of their relationship?

Rihanna and Chris have the answers to these questions. It would really be brave and refreshing for them to intelligently and publicly, together, articulate this not often discussed relationship dynamic. You see, I don’t believe all women are “abused.” Relationships are like fingerprints: Every one is unique and different.

We seem to be living in a tabloid dominated society where everyone has to think alike or else suffer the painful consequences. If you don’t think and sound and believe like a herd of sheep then  prepare to be slaughtered, maligned, ridiculed or worse (gasp)– shunned.  

If the talking heads say you’re un-American, or you don’t support the troops, or you’re an abuse victim and here are all the benchmarks that clearly identify you as an abuse victim, then count on Oprah, and Dr. Phil, and Dr. Drew and Dr. Laura, Matt, Meredith, Ann and Al and anyone else who has a ratings stake in promulgating their “expert” opinion or their past experience to keep whipping up the redundant media conflagration designed not to inform, but rather influence the court of public opinion.

Well, I’m here to tell you: All women who are “abused,” are not helpless, shrinking, passive, uncooperative, milquetoast  ”Victims.” Nor are their “abusers” always monsters, percolating murderers, socio/psychopaths who “will beat you again.” Relationships are like fingerprints: Every one is unique and different. There is no such thing as a “one size fits all” panty for relationships.

I admire Hilary Clinton for staying with her husband, despite the media talking heads whipping a judgemental public into a frenzy calling for her to leave him.

Hilary knew things about her husband of over twenty years that Oprah and the public did not know then (or now) and neither would they ever know. She valued things about her husband that Oprah and the public did not value nor would they ever value or even ever know.

Hilary may have been hurt by Bill. She may have experienced humiliation because of his behavior and the resulting publicity. She may have hated him with every fiber of her being for a good long time but she bravely chose to love, honor and respect  herself more.  Yes, he may have been a lousy, cheatin’, wife-abusin’, ignorant, jack ass son-of-a-bitch, but you know what? He was HER lousy, cheatin’, wife-abusin’, ignorant, jack ass son-of-a-bitch!

She enjoyed an intellectual compatibility with him she was smart enough to realize was better than even great sex. She decided she was going to stand by her man because the intellectual compatibility they shared was bigger than his wandering penis. I don’t think for a minute she’s regretted that decision. I don’t think he has, either.

Chris, you did wrong, and you know it. And you were S-T-U-P-I-D! You didn’t think about your career or the public’s perception (after all, perception is reality), or your young fans, or the things you yourself have said to the press, or Oprah, (who has never conceived an original idea or has been presented with someone else’s she would not shamelessly exploit for her own gain) or your contractual obligations or your family or your sponsors. Chris, sure you’re 19. But Chris, there are plenty of 19 year olds in relationships with women who don’t beat them up or cause their lips to swell or threaten to kill them.

Don’t go the Michael Phelps route and blame it on youth. Be a Man! You lost your temper and your perspective and your self-control and you punched her. Then things went on and on and escalated. Then you opened your mouth and frogs leaped forth and fell with resounding thuds. These are  in her statement to the police.

You were not having an out-of-body experience, Chris. Someone or something else did not take over your psyche. You were angry. You allowed the rage to engulf you. You chose not to rely on any of your usual, reliable defenses: your memory of your witnessing the spousal abuse between your parents, reflecting on scripture, paying attention to the inner voice, your conscience, screaming for you to stop– No. You allowed yourself to be carried away with your rage.  You lost your self-control.

Rihanna, when he told you not to worry about the text message or phone message or whatever it was that set you off– why didn’t you just take a chill pill or did you kinda sorta rely on his usual response to your “cute” jealous ragings? Did you knock him upside his head? Did you call him a name (and you know what I’m talkin’ about). Did you do that repetitive slapping on the arm thing, perhaps even while he was  driving?  

In the past he would just smile that sly, sexy smile and and tell you how cute you were being or even just ignore you, but on this night you chose not to rely on any of your usual, reliable defenses:  your soft spoken modesty, good conscience and self-control.  What went wrong this night?

Don’t go the Michael Phelps route and blame it on youth. Be a Woman! You lost your temper and your perspective and your usual self control and you punched him. Then things went on on and on and the thing just escalated. Tell us why you didn’t call the police, or phone a friend or get out of the car or use your head and diffuse the situation enough so you could get out of the car.

It’s good that you want to protect your privacy, your dignity and perhaps even Chris, but you both need to sit down with Michele Norris of NPR radio and clearly, articulately, with humility and truth, with soberness of spirit  (be prepared!), with no references to God, with no pregnant pauses, no “ums” and “you knows,” tell what happened that night and then explain why you have decided to remain together. Rihanna, you are not a Victim! And Chris, you are not a Monster!

It is true: Things got out of hand.  You lost your self control.  Chris, you should not have hit Rihanna. Period. End of story.

Do not go to The Today Show, Good Morning America, The CBS network, Larry or Barbra Walters. For God’s sake, don’t appear on The View. Don’t go to People magazine. Go to NPR radio, go to Essence, sit down with the Managing Editor;  go to Vanity Fair. That’s it. Don’t go on Entertainment Tonight, Extra, Access Hollywood, MTV, VH-1, or E! Although it may be tempting, please, please, please don’t appear on Larry King! Don’t go on Jay Leno or any of the late night venues. 

Go to NPR radio, go to Essence, sit down with the Managing Editor; go to Vanity Fair. That’s it.  

Michele Norris, NPR.  Vanity Fair.  Essence.   That’s all and that’s it. Respect yourselves!  Maintain your dignity. 

With all the mainstream media encouraging a sort of goose-step, collective group think promoting the contention that men beat women because they themselves are bad or damaged or suffer from some level of psychopathy and need help and that women who allow themselves to be abused are weak, defenseless, innocent, unwitting, non-participating, weaker vessels,  you can still tell the truth about the mercurial nature of  your relationship.

It’s not always as easy as characterizing someone in terms of black and white. We, none of us, are all one way all the time. Chris Brown beat up Rihanna, but he may also be a nice guy who lost his temper and did a bad thing one time. I don’t believe he will beat her again.  He needs to manage his anger and GET that he lives in a fish bowl.  Nothing he ever says or does will escape the glare of celebrity.

Rihanna is not taking an abuser back who will snap in a future circumstance and beat her again. She probably loves this guy, recognizes her own culpability in the unfortunate circumstance and its even more unfortunate outcome, does not desire to see him ruined and wants to believe they may have a future together. What’s so dangerous and unbalanced about two American Kids doin’…

…the best they can?

Oh yeah life goes on
Long after the thrill of livin is gone
Oh yeah life goes on
Long after the thrill of livin is gone

foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com

Whatta Mighty Good Man!

It’s no secret I rather enjoy listening to Joel Osteen. He’s a talented motivational speaker. I don’t for a minute regard him as a “pastor” or look to him for especially insightful bible instruction. I wish he would embrace his talent and gift as a motivational speaker rather than promulgate what he does for a living as “religion.”

Whenever the Osteens appear on Larry King it’s hard to watch. Both he and his wife, the strangely Stepford-Barbie looking Victoria, struggle to defend or even explain their belief or the bible.

Joel is always forced into acknowledging he has no formal religious training, to concede others may well demonstrate a stronger knowledge of the scriptures than he, and almost invariably dissolve into a trembly-voiced, teary-eyed,  embarrassing display of bizarre emotionalism on camera.

Victoria is generally more dispassionate,  stating that what they lack in knowledge they more than make up for in “heart” knowledge. They “just know” they have God’s favor. They believe they don’t have to understand God’s word, his purposes or His will as much as simply believe and have faith. They never publicly declare or explain what it is they have faith in, though.

Happily for me, God is good.  His word the bible does not leave us twisting in the wind in an intellectually vacant, supernatural phenomenon dependent,  cerebral desert. The scriptures do more than support being hooked on a  feeling.

It’s a living, breathing document; a  guidebook for living that enables us to successfully cope with life by providing concrete, tangible answers rather than bizarre abstractions framed as “the natural” vs “the supernatural.” Fortunately, I don’t need those distinctions neither do I need spiritual shepherding by the Osteens. But I do enjoy his speeches. And I guess I was a little starved for association.

That’s why I bought a ticket to one of his worship events scheduled on Friday, February 20th in Oakland. I bought the ticket online in December. I looked forward to the trip and the experience for weeks. I flew to Oakland, and arrived at the Oracle Arena. The doors were opened at 6 pm. The house lights were on. From 6 pm to 7:30 pm a continuous video loop played on two large screens on either side of the speaker platform. The house lights remained on as people milled quietly about, boxed cheesy nachos or other purchased foodstuff in hand, making their way to their assigned seats.

According to my ticket, the event was scheduled to start at 7:30. I thought there would be the worship service, the music and the singing and the eyes squeezed shut and hand waving, and then, with the audience sufficiently worked up, Mr. Osteen would appear onstage (promptly at 7:30), deliver a half-hour long message, and like Cinderella with one shoe, I would dash out of the arena at 8:00 and race back to the airport to catch my 9:05 flight (the last flight out of Oakland) back to San Diego before my steeds turned back into mice.

Unlike Cinderella, however, this fairy tale did not exactly have a happy ending. At 7:35 a man appeared at the podium, stated there was no itinerary but that they were going to launch into their usual worship service. The musicians took their places behind the drums and the synthesizer, and the singers all formed a chorus line on the small stage. This was at 7:45. Like Cinderella with one shoe, I dashed out of the arena and raced back to the airport to catch my 9:05 flight (the last flight out of Oakland) back to San Diego.  My steeds did not turn back into mice.

I experienced the virtual no touch pat down at the terminal when my underwire set the alarm off, but except for that tiny delay, I made it onto the plane.

I didn’t get to be encouraged or refreshed by Joel Osteen that Friday night, but God is good. My disappointment was assuaged first on the Southwest Airline flight to Oakland.  I sat next to a rather loquacious gentleman who was kind enough not only to acknowledge me, but he looked at me and talked to me as well.

His name was Michael Schumacher, a 61 year old silver haired businessman in a fresh looking navy suit. He offered me his coupon for one complimentary drink. I ordered white wine. He shared with me that he’s never stepped out on his wife of over 40 years, and that on those occasions when he fanaticizes, he fanaticizes about her. He wishes he knew how to rock her world during the horizontal.  He wishes she would tell him what she wants and how, where she wants him to put it.

Then Mr. Schumacher gave me a gift I call the Olympia Dukakis  moment from 1987’s Moonstruck. Ms Dukakis played Cher’s long suffering mother, Rose Castorini, who is frustrated by the fact that she knows her husband, Cosmo, (played by Vincent Gardenia) is having an affair with a younger woman (played by Anita Gillette). A philandering college professor, Perry, (played by John Mahoney, who most of you will recognize as Fraiser Crane’s father in the TV sitcom, Fraiser***) develops something of a crush on Rose. For a split nano second, she is tempted, but she resolutly resistes his awkward advances,  saying  “because I know who I am.” 

Then she asks Perry a question: “Why do men cheat?”

He says it’s because they’re afraid of death. His response to her question was an epiphany, having the same effect on her then that the line “he’s just not that into you*” had on Amanda in Sex and the City  decades later.

“That’s it!” Rose exclaims. “Thank you!  Thank you for answering my question!” (It’s my favorite scene and line in the film).

The next morning at breakfast, armed with the answer to her question and standing solidly in her “I am,” she confidently confronts her husband and quietly demands he end the affair. Physically exhausted and just plain relieved, Cosmo happily capitulates. The couple quietly renew and reaffirm their love for each other and their commitment to their marriage.

What did Mr. Shumacher say? Well, during the hour long plane ride, he shared his wife bore him two sons, in whom he is enormously proud and who validate his life. I had natural child birth and so did his wife.  He was with his wife and witnessed the births of both his sons.  I explained that women can’t honestly describe the pain of child birth. All we tend to vaguely recall is that there was pain, but we cannot describe it because the memory of  the pain seems to vanish immediately after the child is born.

We talked about Jay Monahan,** Katie Couric’s late husband. Mr. Schumacher then said he would feel “embarrassed” to complain to his wife about any ache or pain he may experience because he has so much respect and admiration for her birth pangs. He talked about how he felt childbirth allowed women to be more in tune with their bodies, but men might wonder about some discomfort for a second, but then quickly dismiss it because they don’t have a point of reference. After all, men generally aren’t confronted with the recurring instance for pain every month, and a third of a year of their lives are not disrupted by the physical and hormonal demands of  pregnancy.

“We don’t really know when we feel bad and whether this is something we need to get everybody alarmed about.  Compared to what she went through, I’m embarrassed to complain,” he said.  I was struck by the genuine sincerity and introspection in his voice.

Could it be that this is the secret sentiment of all men who wait until the eleventh hour to complain of a health issue?

That’s it! Thank you for answering my question!

So ladies, if yer lissnin’, it’s not machismo or false bravado or any of the nonsense we hear about from network medical correspondents. Your man is  bewildered. He really doesn’t know nor does he understand what’s happening to his body. He really is that into you. Open up the dialogue. Help a brother out. Tell him what you want, show him where you want him to put it, and quit ‘cher bitchin’!

On the return trip to San Diego, I had the unique privilege to sit next to Derek Olson, a 6 ft, twenty-something returning home from a business trip in Oregon. God is good. A committed theocrat, we traded stories about how we came to a lifelong love of God and his word the bible. It just felt so good to really share a laugh with someone, and that was twice in the same day someone actually turned toward me, looked at me, acknowledged my existence and shared. Michael Schumacher and Derek Olsen extended a level of  goodwill toward me that day that I will forever be grateful for and will not soon forget.

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Joel Osteen if yer lissnin’, perhaps it would be more loving to arrange it so that these stops on your worship event tours start a little more early, perhaps at three in the afternoon or promptly at 5 pm  rather than 8 or 9 pm. Most Christians are morning people, not vampires. We prefer to be home by midnight. I was also  struck by the relative absence of families with young children doubtless because of the lateness of the hour.

Was I disappointed that I didn’t get to see you or hear you deliver a speech that may have benefitted me? You bet I was. But God is good, and he allowed me to be refreshed, encouraged and comforted on the way to your worship event and upon my departing from it.

I guess I got rained on coming and going, Joel, thanks to you.

Michael Schumaker, God bless you and hang in there.  Marriage is hard work but it’s so much easier when two people have the attitude you do, that you have decided to love your wife, stick with your wife for better and for worse and  keep the focus mostly on the better.  I admire you for that. 

Has one found a good wife?  One has found a good thing…”  Prov 18:22 .  Now dance!

Whatta man, Whatta Man, Whatta mighty good man!
(Repeat 4 times)

I wanna take a minute or two, and give much respect to -
to the man’s that’s made a difference in my world.
And although most men are hoes, he goes on the down-low
cuz I never heard about him with another girl.
But I don’t sweat it because it’s just pathetic to let it,
get me involved in that he said she said crowd.
I know that ain’t nobody perfect, I give props to those who deserve it,
and believe me ya’ll he’s worth it.
So here’s to the future cuz we got through the past,
I finally found somebody who can make me laugh. (ha ha ha)
You so crazy…I think I wanna have yo baby.

Whatta Man, Whatta man, Whatta man, Whatta mighty good man!
(repeat 4 times)

My man is smooth like Barry, and his voice got bass.
A body like Arnold with a Denzel face. He’s smart like a doctor
with a real good rep, and when he comes home, he’s relaxed with pep.
He always got a gift for me everytime I see him.
Alot of snot nose, ex-flames couldn’t be him.
He never ran a corny line once to me yet, so I give him stuff
that he’ll never forget. He keeps me on cloud 9 just like intended.
He’s not a fake wannabe, tryin’ to be a pimp. He dresses like a
dapper don, but even in jeans, he’s a God sent original,
the man of my dreams.

Yes my man says he loves me, never says he loves me not. Not to
rush me good and touch me in the right spot.
See other guys that I’ve had, they’ve tried to play all the mac shit,
but everytime they tried, I’ve said “That’s not it!”
But not this man, he’s got the right potion, baby rub it down
and make it smooth like lotion. He’s the original highway to
heaven. From seven to seven he’s got me open like 7 eleven, and
yes it’s me that he’s always choosin. With him I’m never loosin,
and he knows that my name is not Susan. He always has heavy
conversation for the mind, which means a lot to to me cuz good men
are hard to find.

Whatta man, whatta man, whatta man, whatta might good man!
(repeat 4 times)

Whatta mighty mighty good man! Know what I’m saying? Whatta
might mighty good man ya’ll! Ya’ll don’t hear me. Now check
him out.

My man gives real lovin, that’s why I call him killa. He’s not a
wham bam, thank-you-ma’am, he’s a thrilla. He takes his time,
and does everything right. Knocks me out with one shot for
the rest of the night. He’s a real smooth brotha, never in a
rush. And he gives me goose pimples with every single touch, spends
quality time with his kids when he can. Secure in his manhood
cuz he’s a real man. A lover, and a fighter, and he’ll knock
another out. Don’t take him for a sucka, cuz it’s not what he’s
about. Everytime I need him, he always got my back. Never dis-
respectful, cuz his momma taught him that.

Whatta man, whatta man, whatta man, whatta mighty good man!
(repeat 4 times)

En Vogue | Very Necessary | 1993 | 

Moonstruck | 1987 |

*Sex and the City | Episode 78 | “Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little” |

**Jay Monahan | http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,996315,00.html

***Cast of Fraiser |  |September 16, 1993 – May 13, 2004

Mood: How It Feels Not To Have a Job

For all the talk about honesty and integrity and authenticity, the most life altering circumstance where these attributes are glaringly absent is during the job search process.  You may be driving on fumes, so hungry your stomach muscles are stuck in a painful concave or twisted up in a knot with fear about the phone and ISP bill that’s past due and you know full well there’s no income coming in this week… but when you show up at that interview you better look like you haven’t got a care in the world.  You better act like you don’t need this job.  

“People call me rude.  I wish we all were nude…  I wish there was no Black or White, I wish there were no rules…”  Prince/Controversy

The hiring process as it stands today makes thieves and liars out 0f all of  us.  Worse, it transforms otherwise law abiding, tax-paying wives and mothers, husbands and fathers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, Protestants and Catholics, Christians and Jews into cold-hearted murderers of the spirit before lunch at Subway.  Given the choice between having my spirit killed and being shot 42 times, in this economy, I choose the latter.

The 21^st century workplace is the new Roman Coliseum.  All it takes is the downturned thumbs of the masses for you, even you, to be thrown to the lions.  You don’t like somebody you work with?  Conspire to make the office environment so unbearably uncomfortable, the disliked person feels compelled to quit.  You don’t like somebody you work with?  Don’t like the way they look, or the way they type or breathe? Subscribe to the belief that “most Christians” believe that religion is a cult?   Start a bad rumor about them.  Have them fired. 

Never mind that person may have a child or two to support, or a mortgage, or car note, or college loans to repay, same as you.  Never mind that person you don’t like may want to look toward tomorrow with a modicum of hope and confidence, the same as you.

Never mind that every thread that constitutes the fabric of life is completely unattainable when one does not have a job.  You can’t make friends.  You isolate yourself from family.  You can’t own anything or even make plans.  You can’t provide for your children.  You can never let anyone in to know your shame and deprivation.  You are forced to keep terrible secrets.  You’re afraid all the time. You can never tell the truth. 

And that’s probably a good thing because the truth is not what prospective employers want to hear from job-hopping, gaps-in-your-resume-having, slow-bill paying, deadbeats like you.  That’s just the way it is.., Right?

Standing in line marking time
Waiting for the welfare dime
‘Cause they can’t buy a job
The man in the silk suit hurries by
As he catches the poor old ladies’ eyes
Just for fun, he says, “Get a job”

That’s just the way it is

Some things will never change

That’s just the way it is
But don’t you believe them

 They say, “Hey little boy you can’t go where the others go

‘Cause you don’t look like they do”

Said,”Hey old man, how can you stand to think that way?
Did you really think about it
Before you made the rules?”
He said, “Son”

That’s just the way it is

Some things will never change
That’s just the way it is
But don’t you believe them”

That’s just the way it is
That’s just the way it is

 Well, they passed a law in ‘64

To give those who ain’t got a little more

But it only goes so far
Because the law don’ change another’s mind
When all it sees at the hiring time
Is the line on the color bar

That’s just the way it is
Some things will never change
That’s just the way it is
That’s just the way it is, it is, it is, it is

 Performed/Lyrics Bruce Hornsby, 2004

Let’s just say for the sake of argument all that’s true?  What could anyone in this country or anywhere in the world for that matter possibly do that could be so terrible they may not be allowed to earn a living?  Or eat?  Or have a place to lay their head and store their stuff?  Or be?

W.E.B DuBois wrote in The Souls of Black Folk “…How does it feel to be a problem?”  (page 5, paragraph 1) 

It’s How It Feels Not To Have a Job.

Jubilee Year

A couple months ago I applied for a job at Marine base in San Diego that paid $10.00 an hour. You would have to wait at least half a year before health and life insurance benefits would kick in.

On the second interview, there was a panel of three with a list of questions and after each response (and even during), they would be busy jotting down notes. I remind you, this was a clerical, data entry, accounting position, on a Marine base in San Diego, that paid a whopping $10.00 an hour and offered no health benefits until after six months!  Hardly a corner office on the 80th floor.

One of the questions I was asked was what were my goals for the next five years. I am a college grad. I went back to college 10 years later and earned a K-12 teaching certificate. I taught in America’s urban schools for six years. Today, I am 51 years old, and I am unemployed. My five year goals are to be:

(1).  alive. John Kennedy, Jr. didn’t live to see 51. Diana, Princess of Wales didn’t. Eddie Kendricks didn’t. Billy Stewart didn’t. Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, Phyllis Hyman, John Coltrane, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bobby Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Jimmy Hendricks, Janis Joplin, River Phoenix, Donny Hathaway, those four little girls, Heath Ledger, David Foster Wallace, none of these people, not one, lived to see 51.

(2).  able to support myself (pay my bills) and not be a burden to my only child

(3).  able to care for my English Bulldog (EBD) ThatOne

(4).  able to have an EBD companion for ThatOne.

(5).  employed; to still be doing an honest days work; drive home; love my son; support my dogs.  Live a balanced life.

Alive.  Able.  Employed.  That’s it.   These are my simple, basic, unglamorous goals.

I don’t need diamonds and pearls.  I desire to remain content.  If ThatOne needs a hip x-ray I want to be able to afford that. When I run out of Bare Minerals, I want to be able to afford to replenish that.  I like to go to the movies. I love Asian cuisine.

I need access to the Internet. I enjoy my iTunes. That’s it. All I want to do is live until I die.

I have no delusions of grandeur. My needs and my wants are simple. I just want to feel content, just like I do now, only without the fear and anxiety. All I want to do is live until I die.

I have never been arrested. I have never committed a crime. I am a Christian.  I love God’s word, the bible. I don’t smoke, do drugs, drink to excess or indulge profanity.  I love to dance.  I love film. I love music. I appreciate writers and their writing. I love NPR and Public television. I enjoy Merlot, a good book, good news,  Stephen Colbert and a good joke. I am the Queen of Pop Culture and yet  I don’t watch The Bachelor or American Idol. I believe Ellen DeGeneres and Michelle Obama must be among, if not the most fortunate people on earth right now.

You would like me. I know I do.

There is a slovenly, bearded man who walks up and down Hwy 76 here every day, undoubtedly toting everything he owns. Every time I pass him by, I wonder: Where is he going? Why is he homeless? What’s his story? Who was he? Who is he now? Where did he come from? Why is he homeless? How did he come to be homeless? Why does he scare me?

Where do I want to be in five years? Ask me where I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be homeless, wandering up and down Hwy 76 or any other Highway in America. I don’t want to be pushing a shopping cart full of all my belongings up and down East Vista Way or any other Way in America. I don’t want to go to bed hungry. I don’t want to have to go without my Bare Minerals, or a shower or toilet. I don’t want to be afraid every day, or utterly and completely alone. Invisible. YOU (Employers; EE’s), YOU have the power to affect the course of a fellow Human Beings’ life.   Think about that.  YOU have the power!!!

Wow.

Who are You? I really want to know.

Don’t you?

http://www.barackobama.com/displayer/pages/econ-stories.php

Back during the Jewish system of things, every 50 years there was the Jubilee Year. The Hebrew word yoh-vel or yo-vel means “ram’s horn.” The sho-phar would be sounded during the 50^th year to proclaim liberty throughout the land. Le 25:9. The Land was to have complete rest. This meant freedom for Hebrew slaves, the return of all hereditary land possessions sold because of family financial reversals, and individuals returned to their families who had been sold into slavery.

“No family was to sink into the depth of perpetual poverty. No one should come to be poor among you.” Le 25:8-10, 13; De 15:4, 5.

“The Jubilee law, when obeyed, preserved the nation from gravitating into the sad state that we observe today, where there are virtually two classes, the extremely rich and the extremely poor. The benefits to the individual strengthened the nation in that none would be underprivileged and crushed into unproductiveness by an economic crisis, but that all would contribute their knowledge, skills, talents and abilities to the national welfare. The law was read to the people during the Festival of Booths (De 31:10-12).*“

It would be great if the stimulus money was funneled directly to each and every American with an income under $250,000.00. These families know how to stimulate themselves (http://killinmesoftly.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/so-president-elect-obama-if-yer-lissnin/).

These families would pay their bills off. Their paying down their bills would infuse money into businesses, money every American could all see and account for. This revenue infusion would stimulate business and perhaps extinguish layoffs.

The economy would be stimulated the old fashioned way:  by honest-hearted people happily paying their bills, and businesses happily  investing in their businesses, encouraging competition, promoting Laissez faire (from the French, meaning to leave alone or to allow to do is an economic and political doctrine that holds that economies function most efficiently when unencumbered by government regulation. Laissez faire advocates favor individual self-interest and competition, and oppose the taxation and regulation of commerce).

Adam Smith, father of classical economics, maintained in Wealth of Nations (1776) that Britain’s goal should have been the promotion of the welfare of individuals, rather than centering on national power and prestige. Freely functioning economies were capable of bestowing benefits to all levels of society**.

I wish President Obama publicly endorsed this more far-reaching, more historical grasp of economics and  history. We could learn a lot from looking at the original, pre-Christian model. The Jewish model failed because it was ahead of its time, and the people then did not support it as it should have been supported. Its legacy, however, lives on as a lesson for us today.

When I listen to the political shouting heads in the news, I am astonished by how unknowledgeable, naïve and utterly disinterested the House and Congress are in the financial machinations of Wall street and the Hamiltonian system. We have already “loaned” billions to companies that cannot account for how they spent this money.

Clearly, this infusion of cash during the last days of Bush 43’s administration did absolutely nothing to bolster the current economy. I want to know what happened to every cent of that initial bailout money. I want to know what happened to every cent of that initial bailout money. I want to know what happened to every cent of that initial bailout money!! Will I ever? Will the country?

Obama’s stimulus bill has already passed now. Can we learn lessons any from the old, pre-Christian Jubilee Year? Yes we can.

foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com

*Insight On The Scriptures |Watchtower Bible and Tract Society NYC | Vol II | 1998

**http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h844.html

Everybody Knows I’m Not Like That

FOX News Blogs » FOX Forum » You Decide

February 19th, 2009 2:48 PM Eastern

Are We a ‘Nation of Cowards’ When It Comes to Race?

In a speech on February 18 marking Black History month Attorney General Eric Holder said:

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. Though race related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”

Some critics have called Holder’s comments “offensive” and others can lauded them as “honest” and “constructively provocative.”

YOU DECIDE: Are we a nation of cowards when it comes to race? http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/02/19/youdecide_holder_race/

Given the right situation and circumstance, the average, every day, experienced, habitual  practitioner of racism tend to be people who have an entrenched belief that they themselves are not racists.  

“You, African American, Black person, descendant of slaves may not work in my office, but I will happily welcome an Asian immigrant.  See?  I accept other races, therefore I am not racist.  How does this make me a coward?”

“You, African American, Black person, descendant of slaves may not work in my office.  I will not welcome your presence.  I will make the environment sooo hostile, so unpleasant.  I will try to provoke an anger response from you at every turn, and when you choose not to allow yourself to be provoked, I will decide you are a coward, you are weak and therefore I am entitled to torment you until you either quit or we succeed in getting you fired.  But my Middle Eastern immigrant co-worker likes me and I allow him so, see?  I’m not a racist.  How does this make me a coward?”

On Wednesday, February 18, Rupert Murdoch’s  New York Post published this political cartoon.  It clearly personifies our nation’s 44th president as a chimpanzee shot multiple times by police. 

The incendiary ramifications of this seemingly benign expression of 5th Amendment privilege is beyond the pale. It’s 2009.  We have elected an African American President and yet this decades old, hateful, racist comparison is still a subject for even-handed debate?  When are we going to simply just say no–  to racism?

If the subject of this so-called political cartoon was the Holocaust, the public outcry would have been overwhelmingly unanimous in its outrage.  The paper would have issued an apology so fast, the incident would have escaped the notice of the ladies of The View.  But no.

This cartoon has been defended as freedom of speech.  I have the right to yell fire in a crowded movie theater, but no one would defend this conduct in the absence of a fire, especially if people were hurt.  Just because you have the right to say it, doesn’t mean it’s right to say it. The defenders’ voices are also astonishingly mute around the fact that this cartoon’s inception and publication is a moral outrage.  It’s the middle finger in the face of every American who held a mistaken belief we were inching toward turning the page on collective racism.  

This cartoon is wrong on so many levels.  It invokes the memories of  Eleanor Bumpurs, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell and reminds us of the antipathy that exists between the NYC police department and the black community.  It personifies our President as an animal, a “monkey.”

And then there’s that nasty subliminal subtext that makes it impossible for any thinking person not to reference Martin Luther King, Jr, Robert Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Abraham Lincoln, men all felled in a hail of an assassin’s bullets.   Worse, it has as its primary goal to undermine and disrupt (perhaps even crush?) the spirit of healing and growth that has galvanized the American psyche of late.

People genuinely began to allow themselves to believe President Obama’s election was a sign America was inching toward acknowledgement of and reconciliation for past crimes, attitudes and conduct.  This hateful, cynical, mean illustration was clearly designed to remind “haters” that some things will never change.  That’s just the way it is.  It really is about control.

I find it hard to believe this cartoonist would think there was anything funny or innocuous or even clever about this!This cartoon should never have been approved for publication by the managing editor.

It’s interesting to note Dog, The Bounty Hunter is now quietly back on the air.  Don Imus is back behind the mike at 77WABC morning radio, yet Isaiah Washington appears to have fallen off the entertainment radar.  So the New York Post will just skate on this just like all the others. And so  on, and so on, and so on…

“Stop the Madness!”

So Attorney General Eric Holder, while I appreciate what your words were maybe trying to acheive, I’m just not sure the expression “nation of cowards” was a characterization that was especially useful.  Your words are out there now, though.  You can’t unring that bell.  You should have just said it outright instead of trying to soft-peddle the message.  I disagree.  We are not a nation of cowards.  We remain, however, both to our chagrin and our horror, a nation that continues to excuse and tolerate racism toward descendants of slaves.  

“Everybody knows I’m not like that.  See? I am not a coward!  Now get out of here and let me get back to business as usual in my African-American free office!”

Virus & Rain

People say believe half of what you see.  Some and none of what you hear.  But it’s true what’s been said in that 70’s tune It Never Rains in Southern California.  It doesn’t just rain.  It pours.

 

We have been experiencing stormy weather since before Thanksgiving.  Christmas day was a complete and utter washout. It rains just about every weekend.

 

Needless to say this weather has been very hard on ThatOne.  And me.  He doesn’t like the cold and wet, but neither one of us is especially tolerant of heat, so I’ll take this over being hot any day.

 

He misses fraternizing with the other bullies at the meetups.  There was one scheduled for Saturday, the seventh (7^th), but it rained.  I wound up driving to Balboa Park anyway, but I wasted too much time wrestling with deciding whether to go or not.  By the time we got there, just about everyone had already left.

 

I did get to meet a few owners and their dogs and chat them up a bit, but ThatOne was not having any of it.  It was raining, and he was wet. 

 

Ironically, he loves water and he loves taking a bath.  He just doesn’t like getting rained on.

 

I downloaded the latest version of Windows IE and caught the Trojan virus.  Wouldn’t you know it?  This happened on Friday the 13^th. How the virus affected my computer was that it kept disabling the browser as soon as I launched it.  My life began to flash in a high speed blur before my eyes.

 

I thought I would have to take my notebook to Best Buy for the Geek Squad to look at.  I imagined it would cost at least $200.00, and right now, $200.00 may as well be the stimulus/bailout package.  There are so many needs this $200.00 needs to cover.  I’m fiscally paralyzed.

 

The wish list includes the need for two new rear tires, brakes, and a wheel alignment.  The left outer rear view mirror has fallen off.  I have it taped to the housing. And then there are the bills and attention must be paid to these before even considering anything else. I’d like ThatOne to have his hips x-rayed.  That’s on the wish list too.

 

Even the state of California is virtually bankrupt.  Yep, it never rains in California, man. It pours.

 

But I caught a break.  Joel Osteen would say I got rained on by God’s mercy and favor this morning.  I activated my Windows® Defender and the program successfully swept out the virus.

 

The moral of this story:  Be Careful when you download IE8-ENU and music website, Jango.  That’s how I wound up releasing Trojan.  It masquerades as a Windows based product called Antivirus Pro.  You can’t uninstall it.  You can’t even right click on the tray Icon. 

 

Thank goodness I also have  Apple’s Safari browser installed on my computer.  That was the only way I could interface with MS Windows and download Defender even though Defender was already preinstalled on my computer when I bought it.  If you don’t already have Apple’s Safari, I highly recommend it.  I also appreciate the newest version of IE.

 

Well, the rain has returned in torrents again.  I love the rain.  I love weather.  I always have.  We need the rain, and it will be nice to see the landscape hurrying to get green before the 100 degree temperatures turn everything to ash and burnt again.

 

It never rains in California.  It pours.  Man, it pours. Dig…

 

Got on board a westbound seven-forty-seven

Didn’t think before deciding what to do

All that talk of opportunities

TV breaks and movies, rang true

Sure rang true.

 

Seems it never rains in southern California

Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before

It never rains in California, but girl don’t they warn ya

It pours, man it pours.

 

Out of work, I’m out of my head

Out of self-respect, I’m out of bread

I’m under loved, I’m underfed

I wanna go home

It never rains in California, but girl don’t they warn ya

It pours, man it pours.

 

Will you tell the folks back home, I nearly made it

Had offers but don’t know which one to take

Please don’t tell ‘em how you found me

Don’t tell ‘em how you found me

Give me a break, give me a break.

 

Seems it never rains in southern California

Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before

It never rains in California, but girl don’t they warn ya

It pours, man it pours.

 

Recorded by Albert Hammond |(c) Copyright 1972 by Landers-Roberts Music.

 

- HIT PARADER, April 1973.

 

A Song For You

Dear God, is there somebody out there?

Is there someone to hear my prayer?

I’m a simple man with simple words to say

 

Is there some point in asking?

Asking for more only got us where we are today

Lost and alone and afraid

 

Give me, love for the lonely

Give me, food for the hungry

Give me, peace in a restless world

 

Give me, hope for the children

Give me, a worldwide religion

Give me, peace in a restless world

 

Dear God, can you hear me crying?

A whole world crying

Looking for something to say

We had it all and we threw it all away

 

Is there somebody watching

Somebody watching over the mess that we’ve made

We’re lost and alone and afraid

 

Give me, love for the lonely

Give me, food for the hungry

Give me, peace in a restless world

 

Give me, hope for the children

Give me, a worldwide religion

Give me, peace in a restless world

 

And we need to know there’s something good

Though all our years of solitude go on and on and on…

 

Give me, love for the lonely

Give me, food for the hungry

Give me, peace in a restless world

 

Give me, hope for the children

Give me, a worldwide religion

Give me, peace in a restless world

 

Dear God, is there somebody out there?

Is there someone to hear my prayer..?

 

 

Dear God | Midge Ure | Answers to Nothing | 1988

Soul, Sound/Fury, Soul

Hey, don’t you know I’m human
I have thoughts like any other one
Sometimes I find myself alone and regretting
Some foolish thing, some little simple thing I’ve done

I’m just a soul whose intensions are good
Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood

I understand why artists go crazy or do terrible things to themselves like abuse drugs and alcohol or commit suicide, or succumb to mental and emotional disease. To possess a voice, a fiery passion burning in your bones, eating through your mind like a cancer with no outlet for expression or feedback is torment.

To know you are different and have everybody know it as well, only they don’t necessarily think that’s a good thing.  To always, always find yourself surrounded by people and not know anyone at all. To desire to be heard, but you sound like an alien so people ostracize you, exclude you or worse, utterly ignore you,  but never without first humiliating you. Passive aggression to the nth degree because the world says you have to be different, just like everybody else.

100 years ago, I was watching American Bandstand. It was Prince’s television debut performance. I recall him saying he didn’t care if anyone liked his music. As the years and several of his incarnations have borne out, however, nothing could be further from the truth. We don’t care if people don’t like us. We care that people like what we produce, whether it be music, or the dance, or acting or thoughts we labor to memorialize in writing. We want people to see, to read, to feel, to know, to care about what we experience. Validate our I Am. Acknowledge we were. Value the produce of our living soul.

“The soul… itself shall die.” Eze 18:4, 20

“…and God proceeded to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul.”
Gen 2:7

Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath , Georgia O’Keefe, Judy Garland, David Foster Wallace, Spalding Gray, Vincent Van Gogh, Jackson Pollack, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Donny Hathaway, Marilyn Monroe, Phyllis Hyman, Kurt Cobain, Willy Loman, Amy Winehouse (at least,not yet)… Tortured.  Tormented.  Once living, now departed. Souls.

Just a thimble full of the blood of the lucky ones. Everybody knows their names. Their roads may have been torturous, but they were heard (Some, sadly though, not in their lifetimes) and we remember. How come that wasn’t enough?

Unlike latter day “artists,”  people who announce on national television that their goal is to be “an icon,” who produce and then churn out formulaic, shrill, hollow noises celebrated as music, manic gyrations characterized as dance or excrement (animal and otherwise) that masquerades as artwork, these men and women, these Artists,  were literally publishing their souls. Every word was agony to produce. Every sound like the moon’s influence on the tide.

They were not interested in celebrity. These men–  these women–  habitually raped their own psyches and dared to peer into cramped crevices of their own minds and hearts to reveal inconvenient, universal, often incontrovertible truths  hoping only for some intellectual reciprocity but never really having any. Everybody looks and listens but no one seems able to share.

The Artist seems always to be alone inside their head wishing they had someone to talk to. Sometimes being your own best friend is enough. Many times keeping one’s own counsel is unhealthy and unwise. That’s the price exacted for needing to understand and be understood. The Artist cannot subjugate one for the sake of the other. That’s why these voices are timeless, why these voices still resonate like a boom when you think about the words and music rendered mute by death in graves.

Maybe that’s why the Artist is never an example in books about highly effective people with useful habits. The Artist doesn’t revere Oprah or Dr. Phil. The Artist doesn’t necessarily find joy and fulfillment in weekly group meetings although many  have tried and more than once.

The Artist always depend upon the kindness of strangers, may consume mass quantities of drugs or alcohol. Some attempt to explain and excuse these lapses in judgement and struggles with self-control by repeatedly uttering clichés about needing to dull the pain when what they really want is to understand, be understood and not be misunderstood. It’s an all consuming desire.

Mean People know how to spot the “weakness,” the gangrenous wound of acceptance and approval and then pour salt in it. That’s their talent.  That’s their gift to the world. Mean People believe they have souls, but Artists are Souls, dead or alive. Our soul–  our life is  present in everything we do.

That may be why we think about life and death a lot and we realize… Death is highly underrated. Just as life is the beginning, death is just the end. Sandwiched in between the crispy, cookie crust is the creamy nugget center called living.  All good things (and even all not-so-good things) must come to an end, right?

The Soul, living, breathing, is not some ethereal, mystical entity that detaches from you and lives on. You are the Soul.  The Soul is you. You and your soul are one. Alive, it’s kickin’. Dead, it’s done. It’s what we leave behind that lives on for as long as there exists someone who’ll remember,  and values that your living soul produced.

Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath , Georgia O’Keefe, Judy Garland, David Foster Wallace, Spalding Gray, Vincent Van Gogh, Jackson Pollack, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Donny Hathaway, Marilyn Monroe, Phyllis Hyman, Kurt Cobain, Willy Loman, Amy Winehouse, Heath Ledger, Michel Mercer, Betty Davis, Ray Charles, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X—  “A name is better than good oil, and the day of death than the day of one’s being born.” Ec 7:1

Death of a Salesman

HYMAN

MARILYN

VAN GOGH

O'KEEFE

PLATH

HEMMINGWAY

GRAY

POE

HOLIDAY

FITZGERALD

POLLOCK

JUDY

COBAIN

WINEHOUSE

WOOLF

HATHAWAY

LEDGER

WALLACE

I’m just a soul whose intensions are good
Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood

Seals & Crofts | We May Never Pass This Way Again | 1973

Place Of Skulls | Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood | Benjamin – Marcus – Caldwell / Originally recorded by The Animals | 1965