WHOOOOOOO?

My Owl

And sometimes as much as we want to walk as far left as we can, we have to remember that some left is better than completely insane right. 

Mary Moon, from A Good Walk on a Pretty Day 

I wasn't much in the mood to vote the other day. I actually feel strangely (for me) dissociated from all political goings-on and certainly didn't much care whether Sanders or Clinton won the primary. I have felt much as my friend Andrew McElfresh's clever meme says:

Created by Andy McElfresh

I guess Bernie's "fuck you" to big money and his socialism probably most closely align with my values, but I'm okay with Hillary getting the big job and am not a little moved by the historic first woman president thing. Overall, though, I feel preoccupied by other stuff, and I guess that's okay, too. I have a 35th high school reunion coming up in the fall, and while I'm unable to make it back to Atlanta and feel disappointed about it, I'm also sort of relieved. I'm on this Facebook thread right now that is the first in what I imagine will be many to organize the event, and it led me to poke around a bit and read some of my former classmates Facebook pages. Mixed in there are some people who I will just say are mighty conservative, and their posts -- specifically about Trump and their support/admiration of/for him -- with enthusiastic comments from their friends -- made me nauseous. That anyone I grew up with, went to school with, chatted with, danced with, cheered with, sat next to or even liked can possibly support Trump as a human being and POTUS is just as unpalatable to me, I'm sure, as my views are to them, so it's probably a good idea to avoid any gatherings where there might be more than the usual numbers of Trump supporters than one might find in, say, Los Angeles.

Anyhoo.

I wish I could be wise like my totem animal up there whose head can swivel any which way, but I'm human and lean turn fall walk run to the left quite naturally. I was leaning toward Sanders because -- let's face it -- I'm a democratic socialist, but I'm all in for Clinton, now. I started this post with a quote from the inimitable Mary Moon whose post on the subject was just about perfect. You can read the rest of it here.

My Syrian Relatives, Part 3 (edited with other links for clarity)

My Syrian Grandfather
My Syrian Relatives, Part Two

Wow. A lot has happened since I posted about my Syrian relatives in early September when the plight of the more than 3 million refugees from the fighting and chaos in Syria was underscored in a photo of a little boy drowned and washed up, face-down on some godforsaken stretch of water. Now we've got a bereaved country bombing the shit out of another in retaliation for the grossest and most cowardly of massacres last weekend. We ourselves as Americans are complicit in turning a blind eye toward our own leaders who've led the world in constant drone strikes against perceived enemies in a part of the world that other leaders helped to destabilize in false war. We've got governors of some of the most backward of states, crying out about sealed borders and denying refugee status to people based on their religion. I know people who send chain emails about the threat to America from Muslims, comparing my "complacency" to that of the Germans during World War II. The Muslims are coming! The Muslims are coming! a funny friend responded when I shared that email with him, and the image of a Paul Revere riding on the back of a horse through colonial streets came to mind.

What the hell?

My grandfather immigrated to the United States from Homs, Syria in 1907 when he was eight years old. Legend has it that he and his family were Christian refugees. I doubt he was asked what religion he practiced when he fled Syria and persecution, seeking refuge in the United States of America. Or maybe there was a blank on the form he had to fill out in Arabic for religion, but surely his welcome wasn't conditioned by his response. Given that he's Christian, I guess everything was a-ok. As I remember him, though, an often angry man of rants about those of different religions comes to mind. I think that's a sad legacy.

Honestly, I don't think we live in united states anymore. To tell you the truth, I don't want anything to do with people that think we should turn away refugees based on their religion and am grateful that I live in California whose arms appear to be open to all, both historically and at present. I know, though, that I will have to have everything to do with these people because -- well -- it's complex. I will choose to not engage with them on these topics and feel sick about that, about my own complicity.

Are the white robed men in the cone hats and black holes for eyes, holding flaming torches, burning crosses on lawns, lynching men and terrorizing families representative of Christians? Are the murderous fanatics who strap bombs onto themselves, load submachine guns with bullets and spray them into people sitting at Parisian cafes and concert halls or shopping in Lebanese markets representative of Muslims? Is there a difference?

I don't believe in bombing the shit out of anyone for retaliation or dropping bombs with planes or drones in targeted strikes. I don't believe in turning away displaced people who have traveled thousands of miles with nothing but rags on their backs, at least as long as I drive around in a sexy white Mazda, live in a million dollar bungalow, turn my grassy yard into a xeriscaped paradise, upholster my daughter's walls so that she doesn't hurt herself during a seizure, pay cash for cannabis and pay taxes that support the leaders who have contributed to that displacement and the soldiers who carry out those leaders' orders.

I don't know what to do or what not to do, what to think, how to respond or any of it. I do know that I can stand firm in my desire for peace and in my resistance to violence, and that violence includes the turning away of anyone who needs help. I will stand firm in that fully aware of my own complicity as a citizen of a country who is divided, now, even in the most basic of human impulses to help desperate human beings. I owe my Syrian relatives, some of whom might very well share the same blood as I. I want a different legacy for my own children's children than the one my angry Syrian grandfather left.

Brainless and Just About 52

I've got some whiney first world problems that include a broken air-conditioner. We're moving into one of those godawful late summer, early fall heatwaves here in southern California, and our old air-conditioner finally broke. The new AC unti can't be installed until later this week. It's about 85 degrees in the house, so I sat outside in my car, listened to NPR and then watched a great video about cannabis that the Tearful Dishwasher sent my way.



I don't know if it's the heat or just the whole clusterfuck, but the ongoing contemplation of this cannabis thing makes tears prick my eyes. So does the campaign of Donald Trump.

When I was young and in college, I went through a rather insufferable period (at least to my parents) when my eyes were seemingly "opened" to the rest of the world. I had grown up in a relatively conservative and definitely Republican household, went to a southern prep school with its fair share of Bible beaters and Young Lifers (the evangelical, feel-good group that made my skin crawl even then before I could ably articulate why) and just really never openly questioned the conservative status quo, other than to insist to my boyfriend at the time that I was in no way going to be a stay at home mother with no career and lots of kids. The insufferable part came when I started learning about more progressive and liberal values and thrust them upon my parents with all the condescension that people in their late teens and early twenties who've never had to do a single, damn thing on their own tend to do. And I know this is still going on, because I hear it from my friends with college-aged kids who come back from their first years away, militant about language and pronoun use and rape culture and on and on. When you're 50 years old and being lectured by a person in their early twenties, even if they're of a different race or nationality or sex or sexual proclivity -- well -- it's boring, to say the least. I know for a fact that my own parents were more worried that I was some sort of communist living in their midst than a drug user, for example, and I imagine to this day they rue sending me to a very liberal university that if not created a liberal me, at the very least, uncovered it.

I was thinking today, in the driveway, about those days and about that statement my mother attributed to Winston Churchill. It goes something like, If you're twenty and a conservative, you don't have a heart. If you're 50 and not a conservative, you don't have a brain. I'll be 52 years old tomorrow, and apparently, I haven't a brain. I am sick to death of everything conservative -- especially the status quo around medicine, pharmaceuticals, government and anything that claims authority. I'm in one of those Fuck It All Let's Get The Heck Out of Dodge Plant Our Own Cannabis And Make Our Own Medicine kind of moods.

Or maybe I just have heatstroke.

Darwinian Twitter Talk

Someone told me the other day that Oliver appeared on Twitter, dressed in his Halloween costume of Jake from State Farm. I think I set up a Twitter account a while back, but I haven't ever twittered, and today as I traversed the highways and byways of this great and insane city, Twitter-like thoughts were really the only thoughts that I had. Other than those thoughts, I spent a bit of time shedding tears, but I can't really tell you about all of that, so here's the diversion. Twitter thoughts. You know the kind, I think. Sentences or groups of words that are less than 140 characters. Is that right?

Anyhoo.

That's Darwin up there, and his wise old lined face and weird pancake index finger, his shushing motion, gives me comfort.

I gaze at him in response to the agita I feel reading about the new Repubs in town, and the old Repubs with new power.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Evidently, the estimable Republican senator from Oklahoma, Jim Inhofe, uses verses from the Old Testament to deny climate change as a human problem. He is poised to become the head of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Here's what he told a group of Christian youth:

“[T]he Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that ‘as long as the earth remains there will be seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.’ My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”

I think that was too long for a proper Twitter, but it gives me the shivers.

Holy shit.

Let go and let God, at best.

I wish Darwin would appear to Inhofe in a dream with his finger against his lips like the photo. I imagine Inhofe would think it was God Himself and perhaps shut up.

I don't even feel bullied into voting anymore by those who rattle on about who died or was chained to give us the privilege to vote. I vote, but purely on principle.

I don't believe that my vote counts for a bean, to tell you the truth. Or yours.

I vote so I can visit the Korean church down the street or the Lawrence of La Brea Morroccan rug store.

Kids in Florida with epilepsy won't be able to legally try cannabis to stop their seizures, but their older brothers and fathers can stand their ground and protect themselves with assault rifles if they feel threatened.

Shhhhhhhhhhhh.

Evidently a few red states whose residents have benefitted the most from the Affordable Care Act, insured for the first time, voted for conservative governors who want to repeal the reforms.

I think that was too long for a proper Twitter, but it gives me the shivers.

I try not to think some people are stupid, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it.

Some people are stupid.

That Inhofe keeps his smarts in a leaky bucket, someone said today.

Twitter, twitter, twitter, twitter, twitter, twitter.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh.

The Death of Christmas

The scene at Target this afternoon. All the red-shirted stock people were cheerfully stocking the shelves with Christmas paraphernalia.


I thought I'd prempt the hysterical conservative Christian media and let ya'll know that the death of Christmas is imminent. Now you don't have to wait for Bill O'Reilly to tell you.

Next up on my plate is scouting out public schools to make sure they're slipping in some prayers and saluting the flag.

After that, I might build an enormous effigy of a teacup made out of the hundreds of flyers I've gotten in the mail this week, advertising for some candidate or another, and burn it.

Reader, what are you up to?

The House That Jack Built, Part Two***

illustration by Collette J Ellis

This one is a prose poem, sent to me by the clerk from the company who took the paper from the doctor who ordered the EEG for the girl whose brain loves to seize. I told her last week that the company needs another paper from the company who took the paper from the doctor who ordered the EEG for the girl whose brain loves to seize.

Elizabeth Aquino

I called the phone# you gave me and after a 30 minute wait I spoke with Brandi.  She said I needed to speak with the group and told me to call 800-522-0088.   The interactive voice system told me there was a 49 minute wait!    I will try again in the morning when they first open to see if I can get through then.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.  

Please notice that this is all completely out of the doctor's hands, the doctor who ordered the EEG for the girl whose brain loves to seize, a situation which underscores how utterly laughable the conservative's complaint is that "I don't want no government coming between me and my doctor." Because we all know how efficient the private insurance system is -- efficient to an extreme when it comes to collecting your monthly premium and cancelling your coverage if you're late, but otherwise -- well -- that's another story altogethe, perhaps more in keeping with Grimm or even the Marquis de Sade. I've also got to keep you updated on the convoluted Case of the Missing Wheelchair, the latest Nancy Drew installment. Stay tuned.




***Part One is here, in case you missed it.

Thoughts (Not Rants) for the Day on Disability and Worth and the Supposed Welfare State

*** I'm re-posting this because I don't have anything to say today other than some paltry words about how weird it is to read of the ALS organization's request to patent the words "Ice-bucket Challenge" as their own and to continue to wonder how effectively they'll use the nearly $100 million dollars that they raised. Since my reservations about non-profit foundations and the way they conduct business in this country were met so vociferously and rudely the last time I voiced them, I'll stick to issues that I know of very intimately, like this one.

I read this article this afternoon as I languished, a bit sick, at home. For the record, I did do some part time work and home-schooled Oliver in American history and writing. The article was titled Aid to Disabled Kids Surpasses Welfare and states that the amount of federal money going to disabled kids through Supplemental Security Income programs has surpassed traditional welfare programs. You can imagine what this means. There will be people (conservatives) talking about corruption and those who milk the system and rely on government benefits, who don't use their bootstraps properly, who go on vacations when they find out they've qualified for disability and who are otherwise, losers. They will claim that the increasing numbers of children diagnosed with mental health issues, ADHD and other disabilities should actually be parented differently.

There will be people (liberals) blasting the conservatives for once again targeting the vulnerable, blind to white collar corruption and to military expenditures and waste that probably surpass the GDP of most second and third world countries, much less welfare and SSI expenditures. They will talk about the shrinking middle class, how the poor, truly cut off from welfare as it was once known, depend on SSI to even make ends meet.

What you probably won't hear, though, are the voices of those who benefit from SSI programs, many of whom are, literally, without voice. You won't hear about how difficult it is to actually get the benefits, how much education you have to have to parse out the requirements, and in the absence of education, the sheer stamina and persistence  to make sense of the paperwork, to navigate the system, to continue to care for the child with disabilities, to plan for her future with or without you. You won't hear the voices of those who have to continue to make a case for needing the money each year. You will hear that these people are working the system, making up disability so that they don't have to work, that their numbers are growing and America will go bankrupt dealing with them.

First of all, you know that I've a liberal voice, and my voice also happens to be Sophie's voice, since she doesn't have one of her own. Sophie began receiving SSI benefits monthly when she turned 18, the bulk of which I use to pay for the huge drug co-pays that her insurance company doesn't cover, any other medical treatments that her insurance company doesn't cover, her diaper wipes (I pay for her diapers with my own money even though they're covered under MediCal) and various toiletries, occasional clothing and apps for her iPad that she uses at school. Last month, I used part of the money to help pay for her two weeks at communication camp. I realize that some of this is luxury -- she could sit at home in her stroller (also partly paid for by SSI), next to me at my desk as I do my part time work instead of going to camp for three hours. Since I've never found a dentist that provides adequate dental care under Medi-Cal (Sophie receives dental insurance under Medi-Cal but none through our private insurer), I chose to continue to see our family dentist. It's expensive, and in order to keep Sophie's mouth healthy and because it's very difficult to brush her teeth adequately, we pay out of pocket every three months for a cleaning. The SSI money helps with that as well. Sophie's needs are met with a combination of government funds and those earned by her father and me, as well as generous donations toward her care given to us by my parents. I know that there are many, many people out there like us, making ends meet, not abusing the system and grateful for every bit of help -- both private and public. I know that without the combination of funding sources, many of us would have to resort to going into debt, to living far more stressful lives than we already do and to turning our children over to institutional care so that we, their caregivers, can try to find full-time jobs.

I understand that the system will always have corruption, and that some people will take advantage of that system, lie and cheat and steal in order to get something for free. I understand that part of my tax money is going to help the liars and the cheaters and the thieves, but I have a feeling that the vast majority of those that use these funds are doing so responsibly and because they very much need them. I understand that part of my tax money also goes to fund bombs and arms and war apparatus, even if I don't support those wars. It's a sort of price I pay to live in the country that I live in, a democracy where I supposedly vote for the representative that best works in my interest. I understand that people (and I know some of these people) who have millions of dollars but who are also veterans continue to collect what they're "owed," and while I believe that is pretty low-brow, even repellent, I also believe that my taxes go toward far more veterans who, after serving their country, are out of work, homeless, mentally ill, permanently injured or otherwise in need of them. For every Mitt Romney pumping money into tax havens or writing off dressage horses, there are countless businessmen and women getting into their cars and going to work, collecting their paychecks and paying their taxes.

What's the point of this post? Hell, if I know. I guess reading that article sent a frisson of fear into me. The fear is that the difficult job of caring for a person with disabilities in this country will get even more difficult. The fear is that this "difficulty" is really just a cultural construct -- that living in a nation that exalts individual responsibility to the exclusion of community makes my daughter's value recognizable only in dollar terms. The fear is the knowledge that she, and millions like her have to constantly prove their worth. I have certainly been proving her worth for the past nineteen years, and I suppose I'll have the stamina and grit to continue to do so, but damn. It's difficult.

Sunday Preaching to the Choir (I hope), Sesame Street and a Poem

One of these things is not like the other

Two of these things are kinda the same

One of these things is not like the other

Now it's time to play our game

Time to play our game:

Women in Dallas, TX protesting the child refugee problem at the border
July, 2014

Hazel Massery, shouting at Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine over integration
Little Rock High School, 1957

President Franklin Roosevelt on the 50th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty
"To the message of liberty which America sends to all the world, must be added her message of peace."
October 28, 1936

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus, 1883

 the final lines inscribed on a plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty and installed in 1903

Smells Like Bullshit, Round 4,567,893

I used to regularly do a Smells Like Bullshit post, back in the days when George W was at the helm, and it was near impossible to spend a day without catching a whiff. I've done less ranting and raving on this blog to some of you's delight and haven't really engaged with any conservative trolls in ages and ages, mainly because it's pretty boring to listen to rants and raves from whatever viewpoint you espouse. I'll admit to always having what might be called a problem with authority that hearkens back not as long as my childhood, as I was quite a good girl back in Mid-Century Times. It might have started when my 35 year old boss at the retail brokerage firm where I was working advised me to take on the railroad companies and I said NO! and he said Don't you think we know best what's good for your career? and I said, NO! and quit my job right there, packed up my little photos and African violet and objets d'art from my desk, turned off the gargantuan computer and walked out the door. True, I became a waitress at a restaurant on Music Row and was later trained as a cook by a wife-murderer on furlough, but I didn't respect his authority, either, and I would have been hard put to come up with entertaining stories about utility companies and the craven men who worked in the corner offices of that company, anyway.

Anywho.

My first impulse this morning when I read about the Supreme Court rulings (both the Hobby Lobby and union ones) was f!#*k the Supreme Court. I've always hated the word supreme anything. I like even less the phrase the law of the land which apparently means less and less in this godforsaken primitive country anyway. It's the law that women govern their reproductive rights, their bodies, their health. Isn't it? Apparently not. Screw all the fundamentalist Christians who believe their right to practice their religion trumps a woman's right to get appropriate access to medicine and treatment. I imagine the legions of crafty women who shop at Hobby Lobby making little rubber Jesuses fly around on dinosaurs at this point and their husbands coming to pick them up afterward with machine guns slung over their shoulders, the better to protect them from the likes of us. What kind of name is Hobby Lobby, anyway? Is this a joke? The Supreme Court and Hobby Lobby sounds like a new Taco Bell menu item and definitely smells like bullshit.

Meteors, Dyslexia, Tea Baggers and Lemonade

So, it's Sunday. I read about meteors flying over the mid-West, and Ted Cruz, the heinous Tea Bagger senator from Texas who won't give up his paycheck if the government is shut down but thinks it's all right that 800,000 soldiers will have theirs frozen. I fostered a pretty spirited debate on Facebook about the merits of the Affordable Care Act, and how it's going to help so many of us despite its problems. I feel nervous that the Tea Baggers are going to prevail and wish they'd all calm down and let the reform play out. I'm weary of the people who constantly whine about how our political discourse has disintegrated and wish they'd stop whining and say something in addition to how our political discourse has disintegrated. And yes, I'm perfectly aware that it's the Tea Party and not the Tea Baggers. They'll always be tea baggers to me, and I don't give a damn if it's offensive.

 Oliver is outside hawking lemonade again and cupcakes, this time, in an effort to raise money for fishing supplies and the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Los Angeles. I had a talk last night with a friend's boyfriend who told me about his fascinating youth, growing up in Nebraska, how he was always in trouble, on the road, really, to jail,  his unruly behavior in part due to what was later determined to be dyslexia. It all turned out fine -- more than fine -- and that turning out happened when he learned of his strengths, not his deficits, when his mother persevered, when he made drastic and dramatic changes in his life. I'm reading a book by Ben Foss called The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan, and it's illuminating. Sometimes, when I read Foss' descriptions of himself in childhood, I feel as if I'm reading about Oliver, and little by little my gut instincts about my remarkable child are affirmed. When Oliver was young -- let's say three or four -- he was already such a pistol, as my father would say, that we would shake our heads and laugh, ruefully. A neighbor who has a powerful job in publicity once told me that she is always nice to Oliver because one day we're all going to be working for him. The book is not about overcoming learning disabilities but finding one's strengths and recognizing that dyslexia -- disability -- is just part of one's identity, something to accept, to almost embrace. Simple -- but radical -- stuff.  I think, sometimes, that part of my job with Oliver is to literally get him through school and out, to support him in whatever way I can and to guide him to constantly see his strengths and pursue them.

I price my lemonade at $.75. he says. Because most people will give me a dollar and tell me to keep the change.

So, Ted Cruz? Overcome him like a disease. Oliver? Help him to accept his dyslexia and discover his strengths.

What's up with you, Reader?

Gratitude, dropping

When I carried a bag out to the garbage cans in the street tonight, I stopped and listened for a moment to the rain dropping. We so rarely hear that phrase -- rain dropping -- not technically a phrase but different than the noun raindrop. The rain has been dropping for a few hours, slowly and gently, pattering on the metal awning on my back door. I am filled with calm.

I have no idea why I am filled with calm. There has been no effort on my part. Today was partly unbloggable, not because it was bad but because it contained private things that I won't discuss here. There is a lot going on, and I feel a bit like the Cat in the Hat who not only can balance ridiculous things while standing on a ball, but also maintains a kind of sense of the absurdity of doing what he's doing. He is goofy in his confidence.

I began the morning feeling nauseous as I scanned Facebook and saw a thread on one of my old high school classmates' page that discussed the election results. There was talk of doom and destruction, of arming oneself. Those who voted for Obama were called idiots. Evidently, we have no idea what's coming. Debacles of the financial sort. A different America. Debacles of the social sort. Let's move to Texas, one said. There was a photo of a young daughter with a semi-automatic rifle in her hands, its ugly, black force a grotesque contrast to her young beauty. She was out, I guess, for a jolly day of hunting or learning how to shoot, she and her father, exercising their right to bear arms. Raising her up right, said one of my classmates. Way to go! another one said. Girls and guns! with a smile emoticon next to it, said another. Better stock up on ammunition, said another. I don't think I need to say that these are all very successful, well-to-do people who went to an exclusive private prep school in Atlanta, Georgia. Or maybe I need to point that out.

A friend of mine encouraged me tonight that I'm doing a good job, balancing on that ball with all that shit in my hands. I told her that I had a heroin habit and put a smiley emoticon next to it.

I know many people use November to express gratitude. Gratitude schmatitude is what I've thought for the last month, obstreperous, refusing the tyranny of the zeitgeist. A woman with a hairdo and small ballet shoes with kitten heels and a simple lined notepad let me talk today about Oliver. She leaned over a balcony as I walked away and said cheerily, Tell him that help is on the way! Don't despair! I could suddenly hold my troubles more securely. Tipping, I got my balance.

As I drove down Wilshire Blvd. to pick up the boys from school, I was filled with gratitude. With no effort on my part, I was calm.

The Final Bit on Ann Coulter

Vintage Americana Poster: Progress

Oh, God, no, you're saying. 

Please, no more. Let it rest! 

Well, you know me. I'm never one to let it rest. A friend of mine, who writes regularly of her remarkable nonagenarian, progressive mother sent me an email saying, You're going to love this with a link to an article titled Who is Most Pissed Off After This Election?

You know what? I do love it, and I know that many of you will, too. Here's a sample, and then click HERE for the whole glorious shebang.

After lambasting Barack Obama for four years as a Socialist, Nazi, Muslim, terrorist Kenyan; calling him "retarded," "lazy" and "stupid;" using racist innuendos to surreptitiously demean him, and making defeating him the Number One priority for four years, the Republican Party still couldn't defeat Barack Obama. After all this, after all they've been doing for four years to enrage the American public... the American public wasn't enraged. In fact, for all that, the mere fact that Barack Obama actually got re-elected President of the United States is one of the more remarkable victories and testaments of support (and renunciation of conservative agendas) as we've seen in America.

Boys, Girls, The Military, Illusions and a Must-Read by Chris Hedges

Trench warfare, World War I

The disillusionment comes swiftly. It is not the war of the movies. It is not the glory promised by the recruiters. The mythology fed to you by the church, the press, the school, the state, and the entertainment industry is exposed as a lie. We are not a virtuous nation. God has not blessed America. Victory is not assured. And we can be as evil, even more evil, than those we oppose. War is venal, noisy, frightening, and dirty. The military is a vast bureaucratic machine fueled by hyper-masculine fantasies and arcane and mind-numbing rules. War is always about betrayal—betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics, and of soldiers and Marines by politicians.

                                             -- Chris Hedges 

You know when the big war holidays come around -- Memorial Day, Veterans' Day, etc. etc.? Those of us who oppose war and shrink from glorifying it in any way, also shrink from expressing our true opinions of it -- how difficult it is to "honor soldiers," pay respect to those who have given us "the ultimate sacrifice" -- because we will (and often are) called unpatriotic, miserable, and ungrateful. I have been called all of these, even by members of my own family, so I generally post a poem or two written by Wilfred Owen, one of the young artists of World War I who not only spoke eloquently of the war he experienced but actually died in the trenches fighting. I've gotten into "trouble" on this blog expressing my opinion of war, my reluctance to pay homage to those who fight it, my struggles and conflicts regarding young men and women who offer themselves up to either kill or be killed and sometimes both. I have a long list of comments, all from Anonymous, who denounce my pacifist leanings, and some have said terrible things about my Swiss husband and even our children. I have a relative who works in a branch of the services who told me recently, quite sarcastically and casually, that he would continue to "be on the watch," guarding me as I ungratefully lived my otherwise carefree life, taking advantage of those, like himself, living a higher purpose. And while I might roll my eyes at the censure (who in the hell does he think is paying his salary?), I balk at the vast distance between those like me and those like him. I wish it weren't so.

War comes wrapped in patriotic slogans; calls for sacrifice, honor, and heroism; and promises of glory. It comes wrapped in the claims of divine providence. It is what a grateful nation asks of its children. It is what is right and just. It is waged to make the nation and the world a better place, to cleanse evil. War is touted as the ultimate test of manhood, where the young can find out what they are made of. From a distance it seems noble. It gives us comrades and power and a chance to play a bit part in the great drama of history. It promises to give us identities as warriors, patriots, as long as we go along with the myth, the one the war-makers need to wage wars and the defense contractors need to increase their profits.

But up close war is a soulless void. War is about barbarity, perversion, and pain. Human decency and tenderness are crushed, and people become objects to use or kill. The noise, the stench, the fear, the scenes of eviscerated bodies and bloated corpses, the cries of the wounded all combine to spin those in combat into another universe. In this moral void, naïvely blessed by secular and religious institutions at home, the hypocrisy of our social conventions, our strict adherence to moral precepts, becomes stark. War, for all its horror, has the power to strip away the trivial and the banal, the empty chatter and foolish obsessions that fill our days. It might let us see, although the cost is tremendous.

When I went to Washington, D.C. last spring with my two sons, I realized that much of the city is built around memorials to war, to violence, to honoring those who have either killed in defense or perished for freedom or been burned or tortured or otherwise obliterated for ideals. I know, such is life, and I'm not going to pretend that I have any answers. I tromped around and exclaimed at the beauty of the monuments, the history of the brave and the great sentiments, even as I shrank at the horror of it all.  My son Oliver, now eleven, has always been a bit star-struck by soldiering, and given his lack of enthusiasm for school, I get nervous, every now and then, that one day he might want to join the military. Last spring, when the Armed Forces took over a section of the parking lot of Sophie's large, public high school, populated primarily by the disadvantaged and minorities, with their trailers and tents and cheerful pamphlets, I felt nauseous. Cool! Oliver said, when he saw the recruiters, spanky shiny in their stiff uniforms. Awesome! It helps that The Husband is utterly and completely anti-war and also has a cool disdain for American jingoism, but every parent knows that our influence on our children is haphazard at best. For all I know, Oliver (much like his mother -- ahem --) might completely buck our system, vote conservative and become a general.

The Husband, disturbed by what he sees in our sons' starry-eyed view of soldiers, guns and blow-em-up escapades,  brought home a recent article in Boston Review written by the Pulitzer prize-winning correspondent Chris Hedges. It's called War is Betrayal: Persistent Myths of Combat. Hedges writes in simple, powerful language that from as far back as The Iliad, the allure of combat is a trap, a ploy, an old, dirty game of deception in which the powerful, who do not go to war, promise a mirage to those who do.

The Husband is going to have Henry, my older son, read it, and then discuss it with Oliver, too. I figure that, at best, it'll begin to help balance out the bullshit that they've already been exposed to, and we'll hopefully steer them toward a different sort of service in the world, recognizing that yes, this is part of life, but we won't kill to make it better.

Read the whole article here.

First day of school, "libtards," Ayn Rand, and Other ramblings

It's the first day of school for Sophie, but she's at home, sleeping off Diastat that I had to give her on Sunday night after a day of six gigantic seizures. I haven't the foggiest idea why she had so many seizures -- was it the heat? was it the moon? was her brain taking a riff off the flurry of small earthquakes we had? I'll never know, and neither will you. In any case, I left her at home with The Husband so that I could bring her paperwork to school, the boxes of educational stuff and her wheelchair and other accouterments. I was overjoyed that the aide assigned to her will be Millie, the same fantastic person who accompanied her to Communicamp the last two summers. It's almost too good to be true. It might even be a great year.

I walked the halls of the giant high school, tried not to wince at the boy with those giant earlobe stretcher thingamabobs who walked past me, or his friend who wore a black tee-shirt with giant white lettering that spelled out: LEGALIZED POT GANG or something like that. They had backpacks on and skate shoes and were laughing together, typical teenagers despite their off-kilter appearance. I am glad that I only wince when I see this and am not affronted, but I have no idea why this is so.

The other day, I stupidly engaged with a person who goes by the name Skunkfeathers when he comments on a conservative blog that I periodically check on to see what's up in that otherland. Skunkfeathers likes to refer to people of the liberal or left persuasion as libtards, of which I am one, and when I objected to the term, he kept at it. In the ensuing exchange, he claimed You may call the term 'libtard' an attack on a class of handicapped; you're free to do so. A person with a condition from birth, I don't consider 'retarded'. They have a disability. Many of which overcome it with hard work and guts. I promptly told him that his comment was not factual and, actually, ignorant, but the last sentence is the one that I've been perseverating on for nearly a week. Many of which overcome it with hard work and guts. I think it's the word overcome that stops me short and helps me to make the segue to the vast space, ever increasing, between those on the "left," and those on the "right," those that think the recent appointment of Paul Ryan as VP contender is depressing as hell and those that think his government-slashing, Ayn Randian group-think is the answer to the question of the legion of lazy, shiftless folks, including the disabled, who persist in exhausting government monies and leeching from what really matters: a powerful military and the promulgation of American exceptionalism, shoved down the throats of those who just don't know better. Sophie's seizures began for no apparent reason shortly after her initial vaccinations at two months of age. When the seizures didn't stop, her development sputtered along with periodic plateaus, and despite hard work and guts for over seventeen years, she can't talk, can only walk with assistance, wears diapers and must be fed. The other night, when I snapped off the plastic top of the syringe that holds the Valium, dipped it into the foil packet of lubricant, lay Sophie gently on her side and inserted the drug into her rectum, I wondered if she -- and I -- worked hard enough and had guts enough to keep going.

I won't pretend to understand the finer points of Ryan's famous budget proposal, but I do know that if enacted, it will decimate, completely, the already weak supports that people like Sophie and her family (The Husband, me, Henry, Oliver) and other libtards -- as well as conservatives -- depend upon to give our lives a modicum of sanity.  At best, I'm thinking this potential decimination is due to ignorance and fear of The Other, and I'm not sure what to do about it other than keep bleating when I can.

When I told Oliver about the Republican operative in Pennsylvania and his comments about the retarded, Oliver burst into tears. He then uttered the F word, which, I'm certain, some might call an example of the deteriorating values of our young people. I told Oliver that he shouldn't use that kind of language although it might, perhaps, be fitting in this particular circumstance. I then told him that people are ignorant and afraid of what they don't understand. Sometimes, I told him, they're just stupid.

Culmination Cupcakes, Vile Comments and Pablum

Chocolate and Vanilla Cupcakes with Fondant Checkers

This blog appears to be turning into a superficial baseball and baking fest with a bit of eggsex education thrown in. Where are the grim reports of disability, shitty government and seizures? Where's the poetry? Where's the politics and parenting? Over the last week, I've not only gone to four baseball games, but I've also baked and decorated nearly ten dozen cupcakes and three cakes. I've got four dozen more to go, so anything pithy or angst-driven will have to wait. I'll hope you'll hang around if you're more of the mind for the serious. If you're in to that sort of thing, I was recently baited by a vile commenter who calls himself skunkfeather on a reactionary conservative blog that I visit every week or so to see what the crazies are up to. He uses the word libtard regularly and sort of drives home or confirms my perhaps cynical belief that all the talk of needing more civil discourse and we have more in common as Americans than not is pablum at best and bullshit at worst. I didn't take the bait -- except for here, of course, because I doubt he comes around and seeing my name in his comment made me throw up a little in my mouth (an expression that I usually despise) and want to purge.

OK.

Here's a photo of a cake I made for someone for Father's Day. It's chocolate with dark chocolate ganache filling and white buttercream.

And here's a quote from one of the world's greatest satirists, Jonathan Swift:

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

And this:

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed. 

Reader, how was your weekend?

Apples, cores, instinct and welfare

from Songs of Innocence and Experience - William Blake

The grateful heart sits at a continuous feast.

Proverbs 15:15

So, every now and then, in the interest of being "open-minded," I click on to a few conservative blog sites. You know -- see what The Other is up to. These aren't sites that are well-known or well-trafficked, nor are they sites that have anything of interest other than conservative politics. There are no pretty photos or funny stories about children. There's almost never an inspirational story or even quote. There's absolutely no poetry. Occasionally, I'll leave a comment but generally what I have to say is not well-received, so I read and then move on. One blog, in particular, written by a Texan female lawyer is pithy and educational, but nearly everything she writes is completely and utterly antithetical to my own point of view. She is a good writer, witty and not a little mean-spirited sometimes, so I only check out her blog every few weeks to see what she's been up to. This morning I paid a visit and read a whole post about the recent riots in London, what they mean as far as the "welfare state" goes and how some of the same stuff is evidently going on in our country without the media exposure. 


What stuck out for me was this notion (and she's not alone in pointing it out, obviously) that it's somehow shameful to accept help from the government. This notion lies at the core of American individualism and work ethic, I think, and I'm not sure what I feel about it. On the one hand, I'm as American as the next person, the grandchild of Italian and Syrian immigrants who worked their asses off to "get ahead." My own parents grew up very poor in New York City and aren't nearly as "educated" as I -- sheer hard work enabled them to give me a privileged life. Because of those privileges, I went to college and had opportunities beyond what they, at my age, had probably only dreamed about. The notion of "hand-outs" was frowned upon, if not vilified by nearly all my relatives, and I think I still carry a bit of that around with me. Lawyer Mom points out and quotes from several sources that claim that those who receive government assistance generally only "bite the hand that feeds them," and that those who accept welfare should "be grateful and embarrassed."


Here are two quotes that stand out:


On the subject of handouts, Instapundit linked to a bold blogger who wrote, "I have no issue with a social safety net. I just think the beneficiaries of this net should be grateful and embarrassed." But hold your fire.
He wrote about his grandfather during the Depression, how he would come home exhausted after working all day for the WPA. He was ashamed he needed help from the government and he wanted to give the taxpayers a fair day's work for his wage. 


But what Whittle most pointedly assails is that no one on public assistance ever thanks the taxpayers who support them. 


This post has given me much to think about, ponder. It both attracts me in a curious way and repels me like a roadside accident. It raises the hairs on the back of my neck -- partly out of indignation and partly out of recognition. I'd say that I'm exquisitely aware of my own mental projections -- does it bother me precisely because I agree with parts of it? Does it bother me because it repels me? Does it repel me because I agree with it? Are my instincts that veer more toward Christian charity than American capitalism under fire?


I'm not sure.


I recently "won" a case -- or Sophie "won" a case -- that gives us a generous amount of money to help care for her, day to day. The program is called In Home Supportive Services, a government "entitlement" that enables the disabled and elderly to stay in their homes with providers rather than in an institution. Like everything else in this country (and world, perhaps), the care of people with disabilities is quantified -- and it was determined that it's cheaper to take care of these people in their homes (it works out nicely, too, that people are generally happier in their homes). In any case, the burden lies on the disabled and their families to defend this "welfare" by pointing out that it's nearly impossible to hold down a job when one is taking care of a child with severe disabilities; therefore, one can't be a productive member of society. As Sophie's provider, I am now paid a small amount per hour (definitely not a living wage) so that I can keep her at home.


I am profoundly thankful for this money -- so thankful that when I opened the envelope with the judge's orders to grant it, I cried. Hard. The help is life-changing for everyone in my family. But I've been embarrassed to write about this -- embarrassed because I know that there are many folks out there far more needy than I am and that I am, perhaps, using what might be theirs. I feel apologetic -- defensive -- and I understand the roots of that defensiveness to be what I imagine are the roots, or the core of what it means to be an American. But then I wonder if this "core" isn't, at worst, rotten -- rotten because it presupposes us all to be individuals, hardly connected to one another and certainly not responsible for one another. 


Having a disabled child and witnessing the problems and heartache of the most vulnerable in our culture has changed me, revealed a different instinct and underlined my own vulnerability and -- dare I say it -- need for help. 


It seems that my "core" and my instinct are at odds.

I'm interested to hear what you think.          

Forward thinking,

King Midas

albeit sobering.


Yes, we must encourage people to work to the best of their abilities and discourage free riders wherever we can--but it seems only decent at this moment to admit how much luck is required to succeed at anything in this life. Those who have been especially lucky--the smart, well-connected, and rich--should count their blessings, and then share some of these blessings with the rest of society.

Sam Harris' A New Year's Resolution for the Rich

To read more of this extraordinary post, go here.