tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82945080835857224282024-03-05T19:44:16.563-08:00Grilled Cheese JesusEjaculations and buttery bits of cheddar from corn countryC. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-40561325400350866122017-05-23T17:22:00.002-07:002017-05-26T13:21:00.665-07:00The American Stain, or, Come on, White People, Stop Lying<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjHgzVbjItzTHkWMst7drGTaA40eYKxIyPSzH92rtyzcPctL_EFAb87kbgs38VyozTIe2uhiZkkal0MFGW1RJxUAUz7j8PrhT2XyN_nkT5rwwQx4FAoFmi2QJJi9HjfiMct4VOCS8p7Mk0/s1600/rogers_pittsburgh_post_gazette.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjHgzVbjItzTHkWMst7drGTaA40eYKxIyPSzH92rtyzcPctL_EFAb87kbgs38VyozTIe2uhiZkkal0MFGW1RJxUAUz7j8PrhT2XyN_nkT5rwwQx4FAoFmi2QJJi9HjfiMct4VOCS8p7Mk0/s400/rogers_pittsburgh_post_gazette.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cartoon by Rogers Pittsburgh Post Gazette Please Don't Sue Me I'm Already Broke.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I cannot remember a more demoralizing four months in governance. <br />
<br />
In November of 2016, about 40% of U.S. voters (give or take a couple of percentage points depending on who is counting) elected a man so vile in personality and so low in moral character that Richard Nixon looks statesmanlike in comparison, and George Bush looks like an aspiring saint. <br />
<br />
The 60% of us who did not want this man in office immediately went into serious shock, and have since that time been descending through the various stages of grief: <br />
<br />
• <b>#1 Denial: </b>This can’t be happening. We will take to the streets and work every second and make lots of noise and it will go back to the way it was!<br />
• <b>#2 Bargaining: </b>Okay, maybe we can’t be in the streets every minute and maybe it won’t go away right away but we <i>will</i> fix it, just not as fast. Everyone will do what the can and the bad man will stop being bad, someday, maybe.<br />
• <b>#3 Depression:</b> Shit. We have a dictator and he’s dangerous and Congress is craven and stupid and they don’t care about us one whit. It's all over. Why even live? Life sucks.<br />
<br />
This week the country seemed to enter the depression state <i>en masse</i> as 45, the ugly American at the top of the pile, threw a week-long tantrum that started firing the FBI director—something that has been done only one other time in history. The tantrum continued.<br />
<br />
Baldly admitting during a television interview that he fired Comey to obstruct an ongoing investigation into his ties with Russia, 45 humiliated his staff, threatened the intelligence community AND Comey on Twitter, and threatened to pull the funding for the ACA anytime he felt like it.Then he had the Russians into the Oval Office with no US press allowed but Russian press welcomed (because Putin asked him to, and how could he say no?)<br />
<br />
Then he admitted he told the Russians a sensitive highly classified secret and also called Comey a 'nut job' and admitted the pressure over 'this Russ-er thing' was off now that Comey was gone.<br />
<br />
Then his family said, hey Dad, let's all go to the Middle East! Like, um... now! Right away!<br />
<br />
Chop, chop, time's a wastin'.<br />
<br />
The 45 Show never ends. I mean, seriously. This perpetual dumpster fire literally<i> never ends. </i><br />
<br />
But the real problem is us.<br />
<br />
We all know it is, too. <br />
<br />
<b>The Worm Hath Turned</b><br />
<br />
When I was a kid, every time a change came that hinted at somebody getting his or her just comeuppance, my Irish-American grandmother would declare smugly,<br />
<br />
“Pammy, the worm hath turned!” <br />
<br />
White America’s refusal to confront the legacy of slavery and an intractable acceptance of white supremacy post-Civil War is what brought 45 to power. Not jobs. Not the economy. Not his 'refreshing direct language.' Please. Russia could not have gotten so much as a dirty look from voters if we weren’t already so bitterly divided. <br />
<br />
During the obsessive election postmortem, pundits were fond of explaining that politicians in both parties had ignored working class white America for way too long—so long, in fact, that the desperate working poor were willing to vote for a huckster and a liar. <br />
<br />
Oh bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. <br />
<br />
Listen, <i>I’m</i> a white working class American, so is my husband, so are my kids, and so are my in-laws, and all sorts of other folks who live and vote here in the decaying rust belt, and we were, to a person, horrified by His Royal Orangeness, his filthy mouth, his racist ideas, his bold stupidity, his untreated mental illness, his horrible clothes, his fatty diet, and his piggish and criminal abuse of women. <br />
<br />
What’s more, while some of the white working class poor wailed and moaned about brown people taking 'their' jobs and 'their' country, black Americans were struggling harder than almost any other group, and the ‘illegals’ they so despised were picking tomatoes and corn and fruit for wages no white person would ever accept—that is, if a white person could even work like that, which few will.<br />
<br />
Some were receiving no wages at all. <br />
<br />
A few years ago, Michigan, the fruit belt of the Midwest, tried forcing farmers to hire white citizens over transient brown workers through state legislation. The legislature had to repeal that attempt shortly after it became law. White people were walking off these jobs after half an hour; eventually workers stopped showing up at all, and crops began to spoil in the fields. <br />
<br />
Of course, there are all those great slaughterhouse jobs a bit farther west--jobs where South American refugee teens lose limbs and bleed to death on the cutting floor, and there is also the slavery of the tomato and strawberry pickers in Florida—a place that routinely and openly coerces ‘illegals’ fleeing brutal conditions in South American dictatorships to work for free or be turned over to ICE.<br />
<br />
There are also all those great dish-washing jobs and domestic positions white people are missing out on. Oh yeah, and stripping and making up motel beds and cleaning up pubes and puke.<br />
<br />
In short, all of us are suffering since the crash of 2008 (and before!), but black and brown people are suffering way more, as usual, than poor whites. <br />
<br />
The big difference is not the suffering, it's the sense of entitlement. <br />
<br />
When some poor whites start suffering the same harsh conditions blacks have suffered since the horror of Reconstruction and Jim Crow, some of us white folks experienced that loss of special privilege as an unfair attack. Are these people not due certain considerations just for being white? <br />
<br />
They feel they are. Or they should be. They say as much. Openly. <br />
<br />
White Supremacy is the gasoline that fueled the fire that energized 45’s campaign--not job loss, not aborted babies, not the tragedy of the opioid epidemics--which by the way no one gave two hoots about so long as illegal drugs only killed urban blacks--and not the terror of gays and transsexuals doing anything at all, just daring to, you know, exist.<br />
<br />
No, it was race. White entitlement. White whining and pissing and moaning. <br />
<br />
And we, as a culture, as a nation, still don’t want to talk about it. <br />
<br />
Why not? It’s been 154 years by the shortest count, much longer if you count the slaves brought here in the 17th century, before America was even a thing. Slaves that literally built the country. For free.<br />
<br />
Too soon? Seriously? After 154 years? After over 300 years?<br />
<br />
As my grandmother used to cluck, the worm has turned all right.<br />
<br />
And now we have a nation ruled by worms. <br />
<br />
<b>This Means W.A.R.: Whites Against Racism? Why Not?</b><br />
<br />
Here’s something you don’t see very often: White people talking to other white people about how not to act like racist assholes (and how not to be racist assholes, and why this is worth working on). <br />
<br />
You just don’t see much of that. <br />
<br />
And there’s a good reason you don’t see it.<br />
<br />
It’s because, as a white person, if you pipe up in that voice in public, you put your own safety in peril. At the very least, you’re likely to get shouted down, or drown in a chorus of, “My great-grandfather wasn’t even HERE during slavery,” or some other whiny sniveling evasive rant. The 2017 justification for this is "I don't believe in political correctness," which, nine times out of ten is a coded way of saying, "I'm not going to be ashamed of my racism."<br />
<br />
During the Watts riots, I was standing in line at a Mini-Mart behind five or six assorted white people, some well-dressed, some in work clothes, some just waiting to buy a lottery ticket. The conversation in front of me turned to the riots, with everyone going on about “these people who go and burn down their own neighborhoods,” while looking nervously over their shoulders to be sure no black people were around.<br />
<br />
Being way more mouthy that intelligent, I said, “Would you be happier if they hopped on buses and burned down YOUR neighborhood?”<br />
<br />
The silence after that quip was so heavy, I decided to leave. Right away.<br />
<br />
Because I’m cowardly that way. I am.<br />
<br />
I've been through worse, but I'll get to that by and by. My history is what inspire my cowardice. <br />
<br />
I have stories to tell about race, lots of them. <br />
<br />
Recently some online writer friends were talking about what we could do about this mess the US finds itself in, what would help, and one person suggested a blogging circle. “The only bad thing is,” she warned,”you will get trolled. If you write about politics you will get trolled.”<br />
<br />
I used to write about politics back before 2008 but I gave it up because I got sick of trolls. That was years ago. But I thought her blogging circle idea wasn’t bad. I need a place to dump my anti-45 thoughts, and it seemed to me that it also might be the right time for me to tell my stories and talk to other white people about race and my own experiences confronting racism.<br />
<br />
Basically I'm taking up Michael Eric Dyson's challenge to white people to challenge each other. Already I am getting shit about it, which is encouraging.<br />
<br />
So that’s my declaration of W.A.R.<br />
<br />
I mean to speak for no one except myself. These are personal stories and will be presented as such. They are not prescriptive or preachy, just an account of shit that has actually happened in my actual life, shit I have never had a place to share. <br />
<br />
Take from it what you will, or leave it. <br />
<br />
And stay tuned. C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-78021407158800055242017-05-20T08:24:00.001-07:002017-05-20T08:28:57.342-07:00Dear Stephen: A Letter to an English Friend About Life Under Trump<h2>
Dear Stephen,<br class="" />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixckKp7kuiZd0r2bgBYG4pJOH786mgOKAsfRFwVEVXyHNBk5jr3y2MniKz6xPDvdv_hG21eK64ChxPR_A2tG5v3fvCO3gRYCzlP3Ty5R0Ym7LSV5gTPV1zGZoQHTC_0IkqZcpGbGUsx3zW/s1600/chidingofisaac.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixckKp7kuiZd0r2bgBYG4pJOH786mgOKAsfRFwVEVXyHNBk5jr3y2MniKz6xPDvdv_hG21eK64ChxPR_A2tG5v3fvCO3gRYCzlP3Ty5R0Ym7LSV5gTPV1zGZoQHTC_0IkqZcpGbGUsx3zW/s400/chidingofisaac.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy of Inkygirl, creative commons license.</td></tr>
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It’s pretty clear to me that there was collusion between not just the
Russians and Trump's team but Trump himself. He brags that he doesn't
play by the rules, and that he games the system. I'm sure some voters
saw that as an asset, as if knowing how to beat the system meant that he
understood it and could win the Washington game for them, but that's
the same lie we were told when Bush and </div>
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Obama tried to persuade us that
the guys who caused the financial meltdown were just the guys to fix it,
since no one understood it better than them. The biggest lie was in the
last phrase- they didn't understand it. Then Fed chairman Alan
Greenspan: “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending
institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a
state of shocked disbelief,” he told the House Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform." That quote is from the New Yorker. From NBC: “A
critical pillar to market competition and free markets did break down,”
Greenspan said. “I still do not fully understand why it happened.”
</div>
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I don't think Trump thought he would lose without help from Putin. I
think it's simply the way he operates. What evidence beyond his
behavior for the last seventy years is needed to observe that the fat
fuck has no moral compass? The goddamned media has bought into the
current "post truth" fetish. The only reason they cover him now is the
same reason they gave him a trillion dollars worth of free advertising
during the campaign. The media loves conflict and Trump is loaded for
bear with potential conflict. He's certain clickbait, and the media
doesn't give a shit if it's negative or positive- “Just look at our
fucking ads, stupid". They're corporate whores, and covering his reality
show antics is a hell of a lot cheaper than paying for good
investigative journalism.
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There are a few things going on with Trump that although they aren't
news ought to be repeated here. One, he lies so egregiously and so
often that it's difficult to sort it all out and winnow out whatever
germ of truth might have accidentally wandered into his remarks..
Second, although he claims not to care what others think of him, he's in
fact so thin skinned that he can't let any criticism slide, no matter
how trivial. He tries to cover his dumb ass with bluster in cases like
this. Hence, when he blurted out that he fired James Comey to end the
investigation into his ties with Russia, it was not only true-
disconcerting enough coming from a congenital liar- but bluster. It was
Trump's great "Fuck you!" to the system. He doesn't have a feel for
politics at all, and cut the legs out from under his entire staff, who
were trying to pass off their own outrageous and completely different
lie that Comey was fired for being mean to Hillary. But of course we're
reeling from the audacity of it all and stand by gobsmacked. He hasn't
been able to decide which he's going to react with, one of the lies or
more bluster, so he's used both and we're left wondering if he's
arrogant or stupid, when in fact both things are true. In any case it
was an unbelievably stupid admission, bluster or not.
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It couldn't be more obvious, or more simple, that Comey was fired for
exactly the reason Trump gave- he didn't like the Trump/Russia
investigation and wanted to end it. The simplest explanation is very
often the most likely, and whether Trump had chosen to lie or tell the
truth, ending the investigation is the one thing he might think he had
to gain from dismissing Comey. But of course he only succeeded in making
himself guilty of obstruction of justice, coincidentally the exact
offense that brought Richard Nixon face to face with impeachment and
resulted in his resignation to avoid that fate.
</div>
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What Hunter S. Thompson wrote about Nixon over forty years ago is
also true of Trump: The son-of-a-bitch ought to have his nuts ripped off
with a plastic fork. When Trump thumbs his nose at the system he gets
big cheers from his hard core of supporters, but what he's thumbing his
nose at is our system of checks and balances and our rule of law. He
thinks he's above the law and his staunchest backers are looking for
revenge against a government that they think has sold them down the
river, so every nail he drives in the coffin of the republic sends them
into an ecstasy of perceived retaliation. They don't recognize white
privilege and are so blind to it that equality looks like oppression to
them. And they have no loyalty to that system anymore for all their
protestations of patriotism and love for America. They claim to love a
vanished America, and indeed many of them do pine for the vanished and
traitorius Confederate States of America, paragon of Christian virtue
that it was.
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There is a recent article in The Nation magazine by Susan
McWilliams: "This Political Theorist Predicted the Rise of Trumpism.
His Name Was Hunter S. Thompson.”.
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(<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/this-political-theorist-predicted-the-rise-of-trumpism-his-name-was-hunter-s-thompson/" target="_blank">https://www.thenation.com/article/this-political-theorist-predicted-the-rise-of-trumpism-his-name-was-hunter-s-thompson/</a>)
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McWilliams points out that Thompson described the culture and
motivation of our present class of Trump deplorables fifty years ago in
his book " Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw
Motorcycle Gangs". Thompson chronicled the philosophy of violent and
total retribution that was followed by the Angels against anyone who
crossed them, which meant pretty much any outsider, and almost all of us
are outsiders to them. I remember the book well, and Thompson in his
turn had credited Nelson Algren from his book, "A Walk on the Wild
Side".
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<i class="">"Algren’s book opens with one of the best historical descriptions of American white</i>
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<i class="">trash ever written.</i>
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<i class=""> He traces the Linkhorn ancestry back to the first wave of bonded</i>
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<i class="">servants to arrive on these shores. These were the dregs of society from all over the British</i>
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<i class="">Isles – misfits, criminals, debtors, social bankrupts of every type and description – all of</i>
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<i class="">them willing to sign oppressive work contracts with future employers in exchange for</i>
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<i class="">ocean passage to the New World. Once here, they endured a form of slavery for a year or</i>
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<i class="">two – during which they were fed and sheltered by the boss – and when their time of</i>
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<i class="">bondage ended, they were turned loose to make their own way."</i>
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Later:
</div>
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<br class="" /></div>
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<i class="">Drifting became a habit; with dead roots in the Old World and none in the New, the</i>
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<i class="">Linkhorns were not of a mind to dig in and cultivate things. Bondage too became a habit,</i>
</div>
<div class="" style="font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;">
<i class="">but it was only the temporary kind. They were not
pioneers, but sleazy rearguard camp followers of the original westward
movement. By the time the Linkhorns arrived anywhere</i>
</div>
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<i class="">the land was already taken – so they worked for a while and moved on. Their world was a</i>
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<i class="">violent, boozing limbo between the pits of despair and the Big Rock Candy Mountain. They</i>
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<div class="" style="font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;">
<i class="">kept drifting west, chasing jobs, rumors, homestead grabs or the luck of some front-running</i>
</div>
<div class="" style="font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;">
<i class="">kin. They lived off the surface of the land, like armyworms, stripping it of whatever they</i>
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<i class="">could before moving on. It was a day-to-day existence, and there was always more land to</i>
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<i class="">the west.</i>
</div>
<div class="" style="font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;">
<i class=""> Some stayed behind and their lineal descendants are still there – in the Carolinas,</i>
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<div class="" style="font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;">
<i class="">Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee. There were dropouts all along the way: hillbillies,</i>
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<i class="">Okies, Arkies – they’re all the same people. Texas is a living monument to the breed. So is southern California."</i>
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I know these people, Stephen. I grew up with them, went to school
with them and worked with them. Lived next door to them. I don't shrink
at all from identifying them as deplorables and racists. Not many of
them ever did believe that Trump would fix their problems or bring back
their jobs, dumb as they are. What they liked were the things that
repelled the rest of us, Trump's open misogyny and bigotry. They liked
his fascism. He blamed the same people they blame- anyone seen as not
"one of us", and they're out to burn down the system, burn it all down,
since being white and Christian is no longer enough to buy them special
treatment. In the past was a time when no matter how low they were in
the pecking order, at least they weren't black or brown skinned or Jews,
and by God that meant something. If the system won't give them back
what they once had they mean to see to it that nobody has it.
</div>
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In an earlier time we'd have been able to count on a congress that
still had some vestiges of decency to thwart Trump's ambition and
restrain his excesses, but this is no longer that time. The "Freedom
Caucus" wing of the House, put there in the rebellion once known as the
Tea Party, was elected by the folks Thompson and Algren described, Bible
thumping, hellfire and brimstone preaching, hard drinking and bitter,
and the right wing ideologues that make up the rest of the Republican
congress are more interested in their own agenda of stripping away the
last threads of an already shredded New Deal. Theirs is a bankrupt
political philosophy demonstrated to be false time and again, but these
are Ayn Rand devoteés and they believe with the fervor and fanaticism of
true believers. They are beholden to huge muti-national corporations
which are now the sugar tit they suckle. Democrats will put up some
resistance but many of them are nursing from the same tit. The Democrats
will bring a hacky sack to a street fight.
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Plainly the incidents of Russian hacking and Comey's ill-advised
tepid dismissal of the email charges against Hillary had an effect on
the election. Only a fool would find nothing suspicious about the timing
of that move. But concentrating on that distracts attention from an
unrelenting assault by the Republican party in legislatures across the
country on the voting rights of minorities, most of whom would vote
Democratic. Voter suppression is not there yet, but it’s approaching the
old Jim Crow years and includes the conservative Supreme Court’s
repudiation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its decision in
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. When you add in the
apathy many of those same voters feel, and the defeat of the most
acceptable alternative to either Hillary or Trump- Bernie Sanders- the
voting rolls were trimmed and diverted enough for Trump to just squeeze
in. </div>
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</div>
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And squeeze he did! He won the popular vote in Michigan, Wisconsin
and Pennsylvania by a tiny amount, giving him the bare edge in electoral
votes. Inquiries into the legality and accuracy of the vote were
slammed shut by Republican legislatures in each case and we may never
know whether there was hacking at the state level by the Russians or
ballot manipulation by the Republicans. Journalist Greg Palast has
reported on shenanigins in several states, but of course it’s buried in
an avalanche of clown show performances by the Trump administration. And
given the constant barrage of misdeeds by that administration, it seems
likely that any election irregularities will take a permanent back seat
to more pressing issues, leaving us vulnerable to a repeat performance
in 2020.
</div>
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<br class="" /></div>
<div class="" style="font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;">
We’ve been there and done that. In the election of 2000 it was made
clear that reform of our federal elections was badly needed and that
some kind of standardization of procedures by the states was in order.
We have had one Democratic House since then and they did not address it.
You can bet your last quid that no Republican congress is going to
devote itself to the mantra of one man, one vote. As far as they’re
concerned money talks and everything else walks. It’s interesting to me
that the Old South and the Dixiecrats who waved its flag considered
blacks to be property and thus ineligible to vote, while now they’re
married to the party whose idea is that property should indeed have a
vote.
</div>
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</div>
<div class="">
William Hutson </div>
<div class="">
</div>
<div class="">
<i>The letter above was penned by my husband, William Hutson. Bill writes political commentary and humor at another blogging site and regularly corresponds with friends overseas. </i> </div>
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C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-52437529021621361992017-02-20T15:14:00.002-08:002017-02-24T07:35:24.315-08:00The Madness of King Donald<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijY_teNV-Prnmt_mOpA8gGtva8rlWoVFmf_rrIzL-E6ozaSW6mtItRxqS_rVjnXUNMZHk6IDAlXTlcB799TdcER4MMWca6-jp0U1DChVZ_xrqgqrpAK3SxFOFWOucdOYOIwAiSGysQtoHp/s1600/madhatter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijY_teNV-Prnmt_mOpA8gGtva8rlWoVFmf_rrIzL-E6ozaSW6mtItRxqS_rVjnXUNMZHk6IDAlXTlcB799TdcER4MMWca6-jp0U1DChVZ_xrqgqrpAK3SxFOFWOucdOYOIwAiSGysQtoHp/s320/madhatter.jpg" width="320" /></a>Did you know that the 25th Amendment to the Constitution outlines a procedure for removing a President from office due to mental or physical incompetence? <br />
<br />
Did you know it before November 8th, 2016?<br />
<br />
Yeah, me neither.<br />
<br />
What I did know, and what I've known as far back as I can remember, is a thing or two about the consequences of crazy. <br />
<br />
Mental health professionals of various stripes have lately been debating whether it is 1) ethical, and 2) possible to diagnose a public figure simply by observing his public words and behaviors. <br />
<br />
I suppose this debate grew out of a hopeful reinterpretation of the 25th Amendment. Our President appears to be batshit. Can we use this obscure procedure to get him out of office? How would we begin? What diagnosis would be most compelling?<br />
<br />
Forget all that speculation. Just put that debate right out of your head, while you still have a head, and listen up. That debate is not for you, it's for people with time and money and years of expertise on their hands, so leave them to it.<br />
<br />
No, what you need to know, what we all need to know right now <i>How Can Ordinary People Deal With a Disordered Personality?</i> If a popular book on this topic existed (I'm sure there are many), we could all just buy one, but I'm going to save you some money.<br />
<br />
Because I've had to do this for most of my life, and I have some tips and tricks.<br />
<br />
<i><b>How To Deal With a Disordered Personality</b></i><br />
<br />
First of all, whenever possible, don't. <br />
<br />
I'm not being snarky or flippant, I'm speaking from years of experience trying to sort things out with mad relatives, spouses, and friends. If you can just stay away from that, do it. Just because someone has a blood kinship with you doesn't give that person the right to verbally and emotionally abuse to you for the rest of your life.<br />
<br />
You don't get to chose your family, but you can chose how much time you waste on them for no apparent good reason.<br />
<br />
However, if you are in a close relationship with a person with Malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, or any other disorder with 'personality' as a distinguishing diagnostic feature, and you want to maintain the relationship, the first thing you have to do is save yourself. <br />
<br />
Saving yourself means learning how to disengage and focus on your own needs as often as necessary.<br />
<br />
Once you learn the art of disengagement and self-care (and this isn't easy by any means), you may choose to engage with such a person for any number of reasons. Maybe your person is in a crisis. (Are they ever not?) Maybe you care about this person and he or she has asked for your help. Maybe you feel forced to deal with this person for business or other reasons and you just can't get out of it.<br />
<br />
If you know you must sometimes engage with a disordered personality:<br />
<br />
1) Maintain a relaxed level of detachment.<br />
2) Set limits on time and intimacy.<br />
3) Communicate what you need to communicate in a calm voice using brief, repetitive sentences.<br />
4) Recognize you may not be heard and will have to do it all over again at some future date.<br />
<br />
Above all, don't take this person's personality personally. What he says and does isn't about you. The ongoing drama is always ALL about the disordered personality's entrenched methods of coping and the use of these methods to control other peoples' attention. <br />
<br />
Disordered personalities are comfortable with chaos and drama. If there isn't any occurring naturally, they are absolute artists at creating some.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Controlling Through Chaos</b></i><br />
Personality disorders are rarely diagnosed as a single problem. They usually occur in conjunction with other psychiatric diagnoses such as bipolar disorder, depression, or any of the anxiety disorders. Typically people seek treatment for the depression or anxiety, and the personality disorder is tacked on by a clinician so the next clinician will have a shorthand description of entrenched behaviors and emotional responses.<br />
<br />
In other words, Narcissists don't seek treatment for their narcissism, and Borderline Personalities rarely seek treatment for being Borderline unless they end up hospitalized or are in repeated trouble with the law or some other social intervention interrupts their routine. <br />
<br />
The reason why not is straightforward: These people have learned to control situations by creating chaos and the last thing they want to give up is that sense of control. Calm and sanity, the very conditions that reassure most of us, terrify them.<br />
<br />
It's easy enough to see this in the behavior of our current president. His antics are nonstop, confusing, and exhausting. He lies so easily and so often that he sometimes spouts contradictory falsehoods in the same sentence. He clearly revels in this dysfunction and if he doesn't get enough of it he arranges rallies so he can conjure up some more.<br />
<br />
Put any name you want on his disordered personality, I want you to recognize his effect on YOU. HE'S a psychic vampire: a man who by his very presence sucks other people emotionally and mentally dry, spitting out the withered husks that used to be their souls when there is no 'juice' left and moving on to the next victim. <br />
<br />
When you know a person is into baffling you with bullshit, you either dump that person entirely or learn to keep your distance and look for slip ups and behavioral clues about what is really going on. You know you can't listen to their nonsense. So you learn to read the situation. <br />
<br />
<i><b>Pay Attention to the Men Behind the Curtain</b></i><br />
I don't mean to minimize the personal suffering of people coping with mental illnesses. People with personality disorders suffer, and I am not hardened to that suffering. I just know what I can fix and what I can't. <br />
<br />
For instance if, like I did, you have a mom with a disordered personality you know that anything, no matter how small or petty, can turn into an occasion for drama and histrionics. Your attention is demanded on all these occasions--your total attention-- but it will never, ever be rewarded. <br />
<br />
In fact, just as you are about to collapse from fatigue and confusion and throw up your hands, your attempts to 'help' end the mess and drama will be met with vitriol, blame, and spite. This makes sense once you understand that maintaining the chaos is the goal, not ending it. The entire crisis is just a ruse, a gimmick to suck you in and suck you dry. <br />
<br />
After awhile, you learn to leave mom to it and let her describe your coldness to an endless parade of other marks who don't know her as well as you do. <br />
<br />
My mother died nearly 30 years ago. From this distance I have a lot of compassion for her--her difficult upbringing, her fears and sorrows, her many humiliations. But up close and personal, while I was living with it, not so much.<br />
<br />
Relatives are hard to deal with anyway, and we all have some madman or madwoman chained up in the attic (sometimes in our family it's me). But starting in January of 2017, a disordered personality became the leader of the free world.<br />
<br />
Yikes.<br />
<br />
That's not a new thing, but it's a new thing for the United States.<br />
<br />
As a political strategy it was darkly brilliant. <br />
<br />
Think of it: The richest people on earth freaked out when this dumpster-fire-clown-show was installed as King, but immediately afterward, while we are all having our souls sucked out reading his tweets and watching his antics and deciphering his populist word salads, these very same Uber-rich folks moved in and got busy robbing what few pennies we have left and plundering the planet, unmolested.<br />
<br />
So we have to stop doing that. Stop watching the clown show, turn away from the dumpster fire, ignore the president's words and pay attention to the actions of those around him. Watch those around him very, very closely. <br />
<br />
You'll be amazed at what you see. Already some of his closest associates from his 'business' days are privately brokering a deal with the Ukraine that would install a Putin puppet as leader, giving these men a favored position from which to broker a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.<br />
<br />
Rex Tillerson, former CEO of Exxon and current Secretary of State, was all set, before US sanctions set were applied, to join with Putin on an oil deal worth billions of dollars to the both of them. Coincidentally, one of the first executive orders signed by the new president gave corporations the right to clandestinely pay off dictators of underdeveloped nations in order to secure access to oil, minerals, etc., within their boundaries. <br />
<br />
And there's more. Much more.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Resistance in the Age of Crazy</b></i><br />
None of this means resistance is futile. But it does mean that resistance, following the guidelines stated above, must be focused and simply stated, with easy to remember demands and clear consequences for when those demands aren't met. <br />
<br />
In other words, when the government goes crazy, we have to go sane.<br />
<br />
And here's the important part: <br />
<br />
We can't expect that, even with our best, most disciplined efforts that these people will suddenly become pliable and responsive. <br />
<br />
No, fuck no! These people are very rich and very crazy. They will stay that way. It works for them. And as for our efforts, they will of course hate us for trying.<br />
<br />
The same is true of the president's followers. Stop trying to engage them, it can't be done, you will lose every time. Some people love constant drama and emergency. It releases them from any need to reflect or think or take responsibility for their own suffering in any way. <br />
<br />
It's also enormously entertaining--at first. And even when it gets to be too much, it's too much in a pharmaceutical, self-medicating way--like too much ice cream, too much bacon, too much heroin. <br />
<br />
What we can expect from focused resistance is that some of our needs may be met if we make big enough pests of ourselves. <br />
<br />
Failing that, we will have to shoot these crazy rich people and poop on their lawns. (Anyway that's what usually happens historically speaking.)<br />
<br />
Happily we do have some indication the focused pest strategy can yield results.<br />
<br />
When the first act of Congress was to get rid of the Congressional Ethics Department, the phones in DC jammed up so bad they decided, "Oh never mind." When people started showing up at Congresspersons' offices, they started scheduling town hall meetings. When so many people turned out to protest the Muslim ban, three state attorneys sued to block it and won.<br />
<br />
It's a lot of work, a lot of thinking things through, a lot of phone calls, a lot of protests, but what is the alternative? Yeah, that. So take care of yourself when you get tired.<br />
<br />
It's going to be a long four years.C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-20025088231352265362016-11-15T12:22:00.003-08:002016-11-16T07:06:54.506-08:00White Power's Ugly Last StandAmericans have been through a lot this year.<br />
<br />
It's been especially hard on us because, for the past fifteen years or so, we as a people have become world famous mainly for 1) conspicuous material consumption, 2) overeating, and 3) bragging.<br />
<br />
We also have a giant military and have been accused with some justification of being at the summit of a quest for empire. But that happens somewhere else while the rest of watch "Survivor."<br />
<br />
Personally, I understand how eating and shopping can relieve chronic stress, (or at least seem to relieve it). I enjoy both of those activities. I'm no zealot. The biggest cause I've championed lately involved warning the world about *vegan baked goods*.<br />
<br />
But then suddenly the 2016 elections were looming over us and all of our fear, dread, and loathing started ratcheting up by a factor of ten every week or so. For a solid year. More and more intense. By November 8th we didn't think it could get any worse. <br />
<br />
Enter fat, comb-over Caligula stage far-right--A bloated, narcissistic orange demagogue who spent a solid year sucking so much air out of our cozy little room of a nation that half of us fell under his spell and immediately sold off our souls for more warm lies, while the other half plugged our ears and started singing "la la la" at full blast until, on that fateful November 9th, we woke the fuck up and started screaming for real.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ao8dCOg4vi5kBOWHkYziGyFZxzftk_d9YZnJOP6LFPLd-rVDN5LTlERO3INogxTkFBNObEQXUnOYxLD9n_sOCHzZDxYkDYTD-5qz0LcShDes4aN55V8RiNBJq1-NUk6Pu2gL-PNQEb4s/s1600/800px-Hortus_Deliciarum_-_Hell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3ao8dCOg4vi5kBOWHkYziGyFZxzftk_d9YZnJOP6LFPLd-rVDN5LTlERO3INogxTkFBNObEQXUnOYxLD9n_sOCHzZDxYkDYTD-5qz0LcShDes4aN55V8RiNBJq1-NUk6Pu2gL-PNQEb4s/s320/800px-Hortus_Deliciarum_-_Hell.jpg" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Having fun yet?</td></tr>
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<br />
A Buddhist aphorism observes that, "Everybody wakes up in hell."<br />
<br />
It's true, I think.<br />
<br />
Classically speaking, hell is just a synonym for 'cauldron': a fiery invitation to deep and painful transformation. You always have the option decline this invitation and go back to sleep, but if you go that way your dreams become more and more poisoned with echoes of suffering and pain.<br />
<br />
The better but more challenging choice is to accept the invitation: to take a step forward, breathe. Then take another. Breathe. <br />
<br />
Rinse and repeat for as long as it takes until you can take hell deep inside yourself, work on it, and spit it out as something kinder and gentler. Healing, even. It can happen, but not easily.<br />
<br />
So here we are, five days into the reign of Hatey McHateyPants and already the U.S. looks and feels like some kind of bad reality-show/dystopian nightmare. Suddenly, without warning it feels like we all work up in some special American version of Hell.<br />
<br />
But the truth is, it has always been thus.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Beautiful Dreamer/American Horror Story </b></i><br />
<br />
America has always been a beautiful dream unfolding beside a horrifying reality.<br />
<br />
Four hundred years ago, the vast American forests and shorelines seemed to promise European settlers untold space and timber for homes, barns, farms, churches, businesses--and yet the unforgiving climate and the wildness of the land itself confounded these hopes in ways white people like to leave out when we tell the story.<br />
<br />
For example, there is evidence of cannibalism at Jamestown, the first American settlement, a travesty built in a swamp. Fevers and other ills were harvested in the damp and heat, damp and cold, but not much else. When winter came the few settlers froze. The food vanished.<br />
<br />
There are human bones at Jamestown that show gnaw marks from human teeth.<br />
<br />
The first slaves were shipped to the Americas in 1619, about the same time that the Lord Mayor of London began to round up orphan children from the streets and send them to the American continent to work. It is doubtful these children even made it across the oceans. Because the ship captains were paid up front to transport prisoners (or orphans), it was easier to just throw them overboard early in the journey.<br />
<br />
The first thieves and debtors sentenced to transportation met the same fate as the orphans. Only about 20% actually made it to an American port. Pressed by horrified members of the English middle class, the government eventually insisted that money per transportee be paid upon delivery of that laborer in one piece to an American land owner. Once that change was made, the numbers flipped and about 80% of the transported lived long enough to be shoved off a boat and put to work.<br />
<br />
For awhile in the mid to late 1600s, slaves, transportees and indentured servants of various races were treated in similar ways and were able to help each other. However, plantation owners soon realized that slave labor was much cheaper than indentured servitude, and then the slave ships started arriving more and more frequently.<br />
<br />
Even the Pilgrims we so revere in our beautiful dream about the first Thanksgiving did not escape America's original sin. Puritans allowed themselves to own slaves if 1) the slave was captured in battle, or 2) if the person had sold him or herself into slavery under his or her own volition, or 3) if the person was a child of a slave.<br />
<br />
The slave trade became so lucrative many major banks became investors. White people pushed westward, Indians were massacred, and dreams of a small plot of land and a home as often as not turned into nightmares of starvation, disease, or massacre.<br />
<br />
I could go on. But you get the picture.<br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wake up!</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<br />
<i><b>Sleeping Beauty Wakes Up </b></i><br />
<br />
Some white people seem to think that White Power is good for them, even if it is bad for everyone else. That is why political pundits are now busy telling us that Donald Trump won this election because Hillary Clinton wasn't nice enough to working class white men.<br />
<br />
This is bullshit. <br />
<br />
Donald Trump won because a bunch of white men and their white Church-Lady wives decided to sell themselves to Satan and throw the rest of the country into the depths of Hell just so they could have a self-destructive racist temper tantrum.<br />
<br />
Working class white guys are suffering, the pundits say.<br />
<br />
Guess what? We're ALL SUFFERING.<br />
<br />
Trump's constituency thinks that their suffering should come first, and also that anyone who gets attention or sympathy or help reduces the size of a finite, tiny pool of resources. They are playing a zero sum game that says any minority's gain is their loss.<br />
<br />
In this twisted world, women's freedom reduces masculine authority. Freedom of religion threatens Christianity. LGBTQ agendas create rampant immorality that will result in a world where men suddenly go crazy and start sucking penises willy nilly, bringing about the collapse of civilization.<br />
<br />
In their world, if Black Lives Matter then White Lives Don't Matter. If immigrants get health care, white children will starve. If black children get free oatmeal the economy will collapse.<br />
<br />
The world of White Power is a world of perverse fear combined with self-righteous rage, and now, thanks to people who thought they'd "give Trump a chance" because they wanted "change" have now accomplished what no terrorist attack ever could: They've transformed the US into a fascist state.<br />
<br />
Some of us can see this clearly.<br />
<br />
We are the ones who are awake.<br />
<br />
We now have a grave responsibility to the sleepers to face the fascist threat directly, to stand up, to speak out, to be willing to feel uncomfortable, to listen when our brothers and sisters speak their pain, to cry when we grieve, to show anger when faced with oppression and hate, to stand with the vulnerable and the targeted, and most of all, to survive.<br />
<br />
This isn't complicated.<br />
<br />
Remember: tolerating hate speech for the greater good is like being a little bit pregnant.<br />
<br />
If you thought putting up with some ugly words was going to get you a better job, you're in for a nasty surprise.<br />
<br />
If you knew that was bullshit all along, welcome to the resistance.<br />
<br />
You may feel like everything depends on you now, like the whole world is suddenly on your shoulders. But that's only because it does, and it is.<br />
<br />
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-31113131477261723012016-10-10T17:27:00.001-07:002016-10-11T15:18:47.934-07:00Why We Need Politicians in American PoliticsIf you live in the U.S., the first thing you probably think you know about politics is that politicians are lying, corrupt bastards and the world would be a much better place without them.<br />
<br />
Let's think that through for a few paragraphs, shall we?<br />
<br />
It's true that politicians are often evasive and love to answer questions that have nothing to do with the question asked. It's also true that politicians can also be corrupt and greedy, or at least they can seem to be overly-focused on campaign money and political 'pork'-- that is, projects and laws that benefit only the people who live in their own districts and states.<br />
<br />
Current common sense dictates that these qualities have damaged our nation so severely that we should now seek to elect only people of pure ideals and ideas, or businessmen, not politicians, and certainly not 'political insiders'--a term that can mean a lot of things but usually refers to a politicians who have been around Washington for many years.<br />
<br />
I think that the second part of this phrase--the part that wants to clean up Washington by ridding it of nasty, murky politicians--is where common sense gets it dead wrong. <br />
<br />
Although it might sound strange in this acid historical moment, I would argue that what looks like evasiveness (lying) and greed (corruption) to the American public, is actually part of a whole set of political skills necessary to the process of getting anything done. By purifying government of people who know how to use these skills, we, the public, have created paralysis and division--so much paralysis and division that our government has ceased to function normally.<br />
<br />
In short, we need politicians. Plug your nose if you must, but we need skilled politicians badly. <br />
<br />
Politicians do the ugly, hard, thankless work of bargaining and negotiating that most of us do not want to even see much less do, and without them we are left with a bunch of egomaniac loudmouths who like to go on talk shows and cable news programs but don't do much else.<br />
<br />
A few of these zealots (Ted Cruz, are your listening?) enjoy pitching infantile tantrums that shut down the government over figments of the public imagination but keep the representatives in the public eye. This tactic is even less helpful than simply blathering on about your high principles and refusing to compromise those principals while Rome burns down around you.<br />
<br />
It's easy to see how after Nixon and Watergate we confidently ushered in this era of political purity.<br />
<br />
It's somewhat harder to see how to rewind this particular tape and try something more traditional and boring.<br />
<br />
<u><b>The Art of the Deal in D.C.</b></u><br />
<br />
Jimmy Carter makes the point that in any political negotiation, every faction has to feel like it is secretly winning. If one faction holds most of the cards, that winning faction has to leave an opening for the other side to back off gracefully and save face.<br />
<br />
If this sounds complicated that's because it is, and not everyone is good at it.<br />
<br />
If you are a businessman, you may be able to take a scorched earth attitude and push through hostile takeovers and humiliating deals that leave your opponent resentful and grinding an axe. But if you are a public servant and you behave this way, you soon find yourself isolated and unable to push through the simplest piece of legislation.<br />
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Business and public service are not the same thing. Business is about making money. Public service is about, well, serving the public--doing the greatest good for the greatest number, even if the action that accomplishes that is not the action that creates maximum financial profit.<br />
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Michigan elected a corporate businessman to be its governor in the last election. That catastrophic bit of wishful thinking resulted in the permanent poisoning of thousands of children in Flint, MI in an effort to save, literally, a few cents per gallon on public water.<br />
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From the point of view of a corporation, which has very limited liability for such things, this was a smart move. From the point of view of public service, it was an unforgivable betrayal.<br />
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<u><b>One Man's "Pork" is Another Man's Paycheck</b></u><br />
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For decades Alaska's Ted Stevens specialized in "pork", doing so well at bringing home the bacon for his constituents that Alaskans received yearly checks from the oil industry instead of paying state taxes. That is what got Stevens reelected term after term.<br />
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Stevens' focus on political pork is an extreme example, but it illustrates how what looks excessive at the national level looks quite different locally. Before Washington became so divided and dysfunctional, pork was one of the most powerful chips in getting landmark legislation through Congress.<br />
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Lyndon Johnson used promises of pork to get the Civil Rights Act passed. Lincoln used the same technique to pass the Emancipation Proclamation. In the process of negotiating these historic changes for America, both Presidents kept many cards close to their chests, and both were ready and able to politically push their fellow poker players against the wall if necessary.<br />
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Politics is a game, and the game has rules, and you can cheat and win. But if you throw the game out and just beat your chest in fury, nothing gets done.<br />
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<u><b>Chasing Out the Good Guys</b></u><br />
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For the last decade the Republican party has been purging its members of moderates and insiders, men (mostly men) who had years of successful across-the-aisle politicking under their belts. Intelligent men respected by both sides have walked away in disgust.<br />
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In Indiana, where I was born, the exodus started with Evan Bayh and continued on to Dick Lugar, a man so universally respected on the topic of foreign policy that members of both parties relied on his expertise. These men were replaced with Tea Party zealots, newcomers who believe being a good representative means compromising nothing. The GOP now even includes Congressional representatives who don't believe in government.<br />
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Lest Democrats get too smug here, it's worth noting that the Democratic Party shows signs of following the same self-destructive pattern, insisting on the ejection of "insiders" (read: people who know how to get shit done) with politically correct satisfactorily left-leaning speech givers. Witness the Bernie or Bust phenomenon during the current Presidential campaign, a movement that became so insistent on ideological purity that Bernie himself was no longer good enough.<br />
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<u><b>Reality is Not a Reality Show</b></u><br />
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Reality shows are cheap, filled with drama, and not much happens in them. Their main appeal is spectacle. Viewers get to watch people behaving outrageously and often cruelly and best of all, to feel superior to the people on the show. <br />
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Reality, on the other hand, is expensive. Reality sucks the life out of everyone sooner or later, and that is why people cluster together in communities--so the strong can help the weak, knowing that other strong members will be there for them when their hard times come. To negotiate reality, as opposed to a reality show, we really are stronger together, but working together is hard.<br />
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If you think working with other people isn't hard, join any committee formed to accomplish anything, and see how that works out for you. I once was put in charge of a community that was to make PNB sandwiches and lemonade for a street fair. The internal discussion on how to get this done got so heated and acrimonious that after many, many hours of fruitless arguing one member mutinied and ordered all of it catered before anyone could stop her.<br />
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I could have made fifty PNB sandwiches and 5 gallons of lemonade for under twenty bucks in an hour or so, but we had to do it together, so we spent over $100 in the end.<br />
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<u><b>You Monster, You Miscreant, You <i>Public Servant!</i></b></u><br />
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So many surreal political moments have been floating by lately that I'm kind of losing track of them all, but one of the weirdest was surely the way Donald Trump kept flinging the ultimate insult at Hillary Clinton in the second televised debate. Not that she was married to a hound. Not that she set up her own email server. But that she had been working hard behind the scenes in Washington DC, doing the grunt work, the negotiating, the behind the scenes politicking that almost no one knows how to do anymore for THIRTY YEARS!!<br />
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He said this over and over again, and it started to make me a little woozy. There was a time when pointing out a public servant's longevity in DC would have been the highest praise and most genuine compliment. But we are now living in the age of the Reality Show, not actual reality, a time when competence in public service is considered a liability.<br />
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I don't have all the answers. In fact, I hardly have any answers. But I do think I have a sense of what the right questions are, and I do believe too many voters are not asking them.<br />
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I would also say, if you don't like the government you have, then step up and get involved in government.<br />
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Don't want to do that? Too messy? Too corrupt and smelly and time consuming?<br />
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Then maybe think about voting for people who are experienced in politics, not just good at shooting off their mouths.<br />
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You don't have to have a beer with them or even like them.<br />
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You just have to go to the polls and make an informed choice based on experience and facts. <br />
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<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-39411904582245410482016-03-13T18:35:00.000-07:002016-03-13T19:15:20.253-07:00Five Good Reasons Why Donald Trump Will Never Be President<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The past few days have been tough on just about everybody who pays even passing attention to media. </div>
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In case you've been living in a cave under a mountain in Antarctica, what's got people stirred up lately is Donald Trump, the loudmouth Cheeto-Colored drunk at the end of the bar who decided late last year to run for President, just for shits and giggles. </div>
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Well, it turns out he's pretty good at whipping up a certain sort of American person; so good at whipping these people up in fact that his rallies have been getting more and more unapologetically violent and more and more reminiscent of a phenomenon specific to the fall of Weimar Germany, circa 1933 and after. </div>
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I admit it got to me too, especially the mess Trump created, on purpose, in Chicago Saturday evening March 12th. As I write this, Trump is threatening to send "his people" to rallies for Bernie Sanders, a not at all veiled threat that gives his Trump-shirted devotees yet another green light to create chaos, do bodily harm, and spread hate. </div>
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But I've had a day to calm down and take some deep breaths, and listen to me carefully:</div>
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<b><i>Donald Trump will never be President of the United States. </i></b></div>
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Why not, you ask?</div>
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Hey, I'm glad you asked that question!</div>
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Here's five good reasons why not:</div>
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1) <b>Trump is courting the wrong demographic.</b> Pissed off racist white people are now, believe it or not, in the minority in the U.S. The United States is already solidly multicultural, and within the next ten to fifteen years many academic types predict that there will be more brown people than white people here. Those of us who live and work in cities are not alarmed about this--we work and live side by side with the very people Trump demonizes. Neither time nor history is on Trump's side. He's talking to the past, literally beating a dead horse.</div>
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2)<b> Millennials own the future, and Trump is the antithesis of what Millennials want.</b> Most young people today know that their parents and grandparents generation pretty much wrecked the economy and the political system, which you might expect to make them bitter, but no. Millennials have embraced multiculturalism, racial equality and harmony, flexible work and gender roles, ecological responsibility, and creative endeavors. Trump is old. He's ugly. And his fans are longing for the bad old days. Not a good way to get the kids on board.</div>
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3) <b>Trump can't do any of the things he's promising.</b> Mexico is not going to build a wall all the way across the Southern border. The very experienced and often brilliant generals in the US military are not going to follow the orders of a demagogue. (Many have already said so.) Half of the country is not going to listen to him, even if by some cataclysmic accident he 'became' President. He can't govern. He can only shoot off his mouth and lose his temper.</div>
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4) <b>This is not the Weimar Republic, this is the United States.</b> Most of us came here to get away from the kind of government that Trump wants. Our ancestors (sometimes our parents or even us) took grave risks and started with nothing to speak of, just to escape that kind of totalitarian nightmare. Another large portion of the US population was brought here against their will to build this country and pick its cotton and clean its homes and more, only gaining their freedom after hundreds of years of slavery and abuse. We remember the bad times, and we don't want them back. We won't have that.</div>
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5)<b> The RNC doesn't have to give the nomination to Trump.</b> A brokered convention could hand the nomination to anyone, regardless of how many delegates Trump gets and regardless of how much spittle his deranged fans leave on windows and camera lenses. And if Trump, lacking the nomination, runs as an Independent, great. Split the vote, end of story, the Democrat wins.</div>
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So that, my friends, is that. </div>
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This Trump BS has really gotten in the way of my Rick Snyder vendetta, and things at the state level with Governor Mealy Mouth and his progress in not fixing Flint are really heating up in dramatic ways that deserve way more attention than bloated middle-aged demagogues who import trophy wives from Slavic countries. </div>
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Oh yes, and,</div>
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6) <b>Mrs.Trump as First Lady?</b> Girlfriend, <i>please</i>. </div>
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Might as well have Kanye West as Secretary of State. </div>
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Kim Kardashian as Head of FEMA. </div>
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Bruce Jenner as Vice President. </div>
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So let the press keep coming all over itself while covering this maniac. </div>
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The rest of us have real problems to deal with, and they need our immediate and focused attention.</div>
C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-34180642189520174832016-02-01T10:19:00.000-08:002016-02-02T09:01:51.673-08:00<br />
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<b> How Michigan Governor, Rick Snyder, Committed Political Suicide and Woke Up America.</b></h2>
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By now we all know, from a variety of sources' that Michigan Governor, Rick Snyder, is the man who engineered the poisoning of the water in the city of Flint, via a succession of incompetent, appointed(not elected) city managers. None of these city managers was remotely responsible to the good citizens of Flint, but served at the pleasure of the Governor. His desk is where the buck definitely stops.</div>
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Though there are <a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2016/01/flint_residents_call_for_gov_r.html" target="_blank">loud calls for his resignation</a> and a gaggle of pending lawsuits, he's still on the job. He hasn't figured out yet that, in a democracy, elected officials are responsible to the people who elect them. I can only hope that he will eventually get the memo, resign from office and toddle back to corporate America from whence he came. Some powerful people in high places are calling him a criminal, and even want to see him do jail time. On the face of it, the slammer seems like a good place for him. Certainly his dream of <a href="http://www.nga.org/cms/home/governors/current-governors/col2-content/main-content-list/rick-snyder.html" target="_blank">capping a successful business career with a few years of public service</a> in his home state has gone down the drain ( to coin a phrase). He'll be lucky not to be tarred and feathered and driven out of town the way things are going.</div>
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Here's what happened in a nutshell. To save money, Governor Snyder signed off on a plan to change Flint's water supply from pristine Lake Huron, to the less than healthy but much closer Flint River. Water from the new source began to flow into Flint's homes and its remaining businesses at the end of April,2014. Problem is, the water was toxic, the pipes carrying it corroded, and what came out was brown and full of lead and other goodies. Consumers began complaining just days after the switch but city officials turned a deaf ear. Protests grew. There were demonstrations. State and City officials went into defensive mode. The water may look bad and smell worse, but it definitely is safe to drink they assured worried citizens. <a href="http://www.wired.com/2016/01/heres-how-hard-it-will-be-to-unpoison-flints-water/" target="_blank">Yeah-- sure. Drink that brown stuff. Bathe your kids in it. Cook with it. It is totally safe. NOT. </a>An estimated 8000 children under the age of six will live with the lifelong effects of lead poisoning in Flint because of Governor Snyder's decision and the subsequent state and city cover up. Talk about having the blood of innocents on your hands.....so much for Rick Snyder's political ambitions.</div>
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By August of 2014, Flint's water supply had tested positive for <i>e coli </i>and citizens were advised to boil it before using. By the beginning of 2015, the water was testing positive for lead and other carcinogens and people were getting mad. . The mayor and city council were still saying it was safe to drink( although now it turns out that <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/01/water-crisis-flint-state-employees/433872/" target="_blank">bottled water was being trucked into Flint for state workers at this time</a>. Nice, eh?) Calls for the governor's resignation got louder. By the end of 2015, President Obama weighed in and declared Flint a Federal Emergency . Access to bottled water, testing kits and the like were provided to residents and Governor Snyder finally apologized for the whole mess and announced that Flint will soon return to Lake Huron water at a cost of 12 million dollars. I really do not understand why this man has not yet resigned. Can he possibly think that he has a political future after bungling so badly? Flint is the canary in the coal mine of crumbling American infrastructure. Watch this CNN video and weep. <br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nTpsMyNezPQ" width="560"></iframe>
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All across America, an antiquated infrastructure is crumbling.<a href="http://infrastructurereportcard.org/a/#p/home" target="_blank"> The American Society of Civil Engineers gives our dams, bridges, roads, and public transportation a resounding D+ in its most recent report</a>.Where I live in central New Jersey, the bridges and highways are only marginally safe for the morning commute.New Jersey is a leader in polluted industrial sites as well. New York City has three 19th century water tunnels which bring fresh water into the city. The clock is ticking on those babies while the politicians haggle about replacement. It is ticking as well on the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, Manhattan's lifeline to the mainland. Our nation's trains run on track that was laid out in the 1870's and the service sucks when compared to any European or Asian country. Ditto our airports. We're great at building bridges to nowhere in Alaska, but decent public transportation? nah.Where's the short term profit in that? <br />
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A decade ago,my local municipal water company was sold to United Water, itself a subsidiary of a<a href="http://www.suez-environnement.com/" target="_blank"> massive, multi national corporation based in France</a>. A couple of years ago they put new smart meters in all the basements in town and beefed up the water storage supply. Since then, my water rates have increased...a trend I expect to continue. This is not a municipal authority. It is a multi-national, profit making, corporation. There is nobody to complain to except their customer service.The fox is guarding the hen house again and the one percent is happy with its dividends. The customer is a profit opportunity, not a tax-paying co- owner of the business.<br />
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Flint's water crisis is a warning for the rest of us. Let's get our house in order. It is amazing that so little time is being spent by a broadcast media seduced by the phony glitz of Presidential campaigning on the disaster in Flint. It is more surprising still that the man who caused it all is still in office and not being held accountable. I hope he will be before this is over. In the meantime, Wake up my fellow Americans, the clock is ticking. The next water crisis could be yours.<br />
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photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/24457975391/in/photostream/" target="_blank">DonkeyHotey, Flickr </a><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09600365870806305125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-86715946932773357932016-01-28T15:34:00.000-08:002016-01-29T05:35:10.398-08:00Flint Michigan: Urban Disaster, or Just Good Corporate Governance?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michigan Politicians</td></tr>
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When Rick Snyder, Michigan's former CEO & self-professed 'Nerd' governor discovered that his personal decisions were directly responsible for turning Flint, Michigan's water supply into a toxic, lead-infused mess, he took immediate action (well…two years late), the same kind of immediate action that any powerful, effective CEO would take in such a situation:</div>
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He hired two new PR firms and conceded at a national press conference that the situation in Flint would "probably be a stain on (his) legacy."</div>
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Yikes. </div>
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Priorities, huh? Good thing he got right on that.</div>
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Actually, by revealing his priorities in such a bald and tone-deaf way, Governor Snyder unintentionally shone a surgical-wattage light on why good governance and good corporate management are not the same thing, nor should they be the same thing.</div>
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No matter how many political sound bytes we hear to the contrary, being a successful businessman is not a credential for being a decent public servant. </div>
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It's worth doing a little thought experiment at this point:</div>
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Just imagine, if Rick Snyder could do this much violence to the people of Michigan in four years just by running it like an efficient corporation, what could Donald Trump do to the U.S. over the same period of time by applying the same methods?</div>
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If that thought doesn't scare the pants off you, keep reading.</div>
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<b>The Rick Snyder Guide to Ridding Your State of Pesky Poor People</b></div>
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A lot of political progressives believe that corporations are immoral and evil, but corporations are not immoral by design. Corporations are amoral. The purpose of organizing a business as a corporation is not to create evil but to generate the most profit with the least liability. </div>
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A corporation is essentially a profit-making machine. Should this machine end up taking harmful actions in the pursuit of profit, the individual people running the corporation can't be blamed because the corporation did the harm, not the people. The corporate structure protects the individuals running it. </div>
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Corporations may or may not be required to redress those harmed by their actions, but often, even legal consequence turns out to be inconsequential. How badly was Wall Street harmed after nearly tanking the world economy? World Con? Dow Chemical?</div>
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You get my drift.</div>
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Corporations may do evil in the pursuit of profit, but that's more of a side effect, not an expressed intent. </div>
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Running a government like a corporation therefore means valuing what and who is profitable above all else, and taking no personal responsibility for harmful outcomes in the process of applying those values. Rick Snyder is doing exactly that and he is doing it consistently and well.</div>
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Sadly, representative government gets in the way of efficient corporate management, especially when it comes to unprofitable segments of the governed. Immediately recognizing this troubling conflict of interest between government and good corporate management, Rick Snyder decided to simply wave the rights of citizens in poor cities and instead appoint his own city managers to take over and make all their decisions for them.</div>
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OK, the jury is still out on whether that is even constitutional (because so far there hasn't been a jury or a constitutional inquiry), but Snyder did it anyway. </div>
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When a statewide ballot initiative calling for the repeal of the city manager provision passed overwhelmingly in the last election, Snyder and the GOP-controlled legislature changed a few phrases of the old law and simply reinstated it under a different name, immediately. </div>
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So, if you live in Michigan and your city is poor, you have no rights. Sorry. </div>
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This policy had far-reaching effects almost as soon as Snyder took office, and not just for cities.</div>
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School teachers instantly became the target of brutal cost/benefit analyses and many teaching positions were eliminated in poor cities and towns across Michigan. State employees similarly became the butt of severe ridicule and their access to unions, pensions, and decent wages was slashed. </div>
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Benton Harbor, a city consisting pretty much entirely of desperately poor blacks had its local government shut down and taken over by a state-appointed city manager in 2008. That city manager decided that what would really help the poverty stricken people of Benton Harbor would be to sell their Lake Michigan access and empty land to a private developer. </div>
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That developer is currently building an exclusive private golf resort with an expensive beachfront hotel on land that once belonged to the citizens of Benton Harbor. </div>
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Benton Harbor's citizens will be priced out of that resort and that golf course. The likelihood that they will be employed in these exclusive developments is not looking good either. </div>
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Back before the days when we thought corporations and governments were the same thing, that used to be called a 'land grab'. Now it's just an example of maximizing your profit margin: giving to the profitable the spoils of the profit-less</div>
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No one should be surprised that Rick Snyder's city managers are people he knew from his CEO days, his friends and cronies and familiars. The fact that his CEO days were at Gateway, that 90's computer retailer that sold desktop PCs packed in witty cow boxes seems not to matter. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Gateway is long gone, sold to China, and the cow box thing was kind of stupid. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The point is, if you are a CEO of <i>something, </i>even outsourced cow boxes, people figure you know what you are doing, even if all you know how to do is delegate and hire PR firms.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Maybe we need to start examining this government=business equation more critically.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<b>Eat the Poor</b></div>
<div class="p2">
<b></b><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7BeyVPezFLZt1INpuegLcg0hcMvr9slB9D10VVj_19ZeRMKqKiIusLKi9zMghQ_Aio9YA5EJizB8-XSzYcYbpvco9_mOa3q96cUhiYyyfXU0dXn2ZPtW5Hv7hfu4evgjbgTHLqRRj6jVo/s1600/foxwduckwikimediacca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7BeyVPezFLZt1INpuegLcg0hcMvr9slB9D10VVj_19ZeRMKqKiIusLKi9zMghQ_Aio9YA5EJizB8-XSzYcYbpvco9_mOa3q96cUhiYyyfXU0dXn2ZPtW5Hv7hfu4evgjbgTHLqRRj6jVo/s320/foxwduckwikimediacca.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="p1">
Have you noticed that, except for random general complaints against food stamp recipients, no one talks about poverty anymore? </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Most Americans today think of themselves as "middle class", and this seems to be so whether they make $12,000/year or $120,000 or $400,000; whether they are employed, between jobs, retired, or other; whether they live in shared efficiency apartments or trailers or gated communities. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The reason everyone has decided to be middle class these days is that we've pretty much accepted the proposition that poverty is shameful.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
We don't talk about poverty, and we most especially don't talk about our own poverty, because we feel ashamed. Good hard working people are rewarded with wealth, right? So if you don't have enough, you must not be enough.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
This shaming of the poor is great for rich people and even better for corporations. You don't have to pay people well or treat people well if they have already proven their unworthiness by having no money. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
When a government-run-like-a-corporation steals land from the poor, or takes away their rights to representative government, or poisons their water to save a paltry amount of money then refuses to repair the damage done, no guilt or liability is admitted, because these people, these <i>poor</i> people, are not profitable concerns. They have no wealth, they generate no profit. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
And what's more, most of them are black.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Swift's <b><i>Modest Proposal</i></b> doesn't read as satire in such a world, it reads as a poor business plan, since even the corporate elite have a negative reaction to consuming cooked babies. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Why should they have to consider such a thing?</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
They can afford that $45/pound steak and the right wine to go with it. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
And the poor?</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Never mind cake: Let them drink the water in Flint.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<b>As Flint Goes, So Goes the Nation</b></div>
<div class="p2">
<b></b><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I live in West Michigan, roughly 130 miles southwest of Flint. The city where I live is also an aging industrial center that has recently seen jobs dry up and blow away, specifically northward, to the GOP-leaning city of Grand Rapids. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
It is another unintended artifact of corporate governance that the cities most likely to be unprofitable are also the ones most likely to vote Democratic: Flint, Detroit, Kalamazoo.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I retired at 62 when I could no longer get a decent job to save my life, and that makes me just another unprofitable person in an unprofitable city in Michigan, but that, for me, was an upgrade, since before that I lived in Indiana. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
A couple years ago, the worst inland oil spill of all time happened where I live now, and not long after a half-assed clean up effort, the corporation responsible for that spill hired a PR firm to make TV spots about how the oil spill actually made the rivers and wilderness areas better than before. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Nothing like a buttload of sticky, toxic, tar sand oil spilled all over field and stream to improve the beauty of nature, huh?</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
America has become increasingly corporate over the last three decades, and that corporatization has mostly benefited the super-rich, who are now the super-duper-rich and getting richer by minute. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The rest of us, not so much.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Millions of middle class people are falling into poverty, while clinging to the middle class title to cushion the anger and shame. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I didn't like working for corporations, and I like being governed by them even less. All over the U.S., infrastructure is crumbling at an astonishing rate. In some places, like Flint MI, that decay is helped along by callous GOP governors. In others, like Porter Ranch CA, amoral corporations who only care about money neglect toxic situations of their own making. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
In still other places, like San Francisco, the new techie elite are pushing people out of their own neighborhoods and turning entire cities into expensive Whole Foods-Starbucks-Sushi-bar meccas accessible only to young hip millionaires. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The midwest may be on the crest of this new and destructive wave, but it's what's on the menu for everyone who didn't inherit a whole lot of Benjamins. If that seems like a good thing to you, by all means, continue carrying on as if you are perfectly safe and everything is fine. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
If not, you might want to think about making some noise. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Like, now.</div>
<div class="p2">
</div>
C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-64505908315948049642016-01-15T11:27:00.001-08:002016-01-16T07:23:55.142-08:00The NPR White People's Introduction to Poverty<div class="p1">
According to several recent reports on NPR, middle class white people are falling into poverty at a rate unseen since the days when children still worked 18 hour days in garment factories and gentlemen wore spats. </div>
<div class="p2">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Q8jY9fhw3xICQF-HfxCG2UTx-i4lBB-4qyu0JsMFt_88VFkpH395GnveBGicJtcGckdsm6W8_XypEVurvzff9mpTxZOwLmI66RUSrS19nAbVqhueZlg6A-CTNUiO8oGLfS6qnbFl_goy/s1600/shoes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Q8jY9fhw3xICQF-HfxCG2UTx-i4lBB-4qyu0JsMFt_88VFkpH395GnveBGicJtcGckdsm6W8_XypEVurvzff9mpTxZOwLmI66RUSrS19nAbVqhueZlg6A-CTNUiO8oGLfS6qnbFl_goy/s400/shoes.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
As I write this, in January of 2016, expensive prescription opioids are being thrown over for cheap heroin faster than your grandmother can flip flap jacks; artisan meth manufacturing has become a growth industry; over half the US population takes anti-anxiety/depression meds (until they can't afford health insurance anymore); and the most suicidal group of people in America are now middle-aged Caucasian men. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
If you listen to a lot of NPR (I do), then there's a real good chance you already are a white person, and you might think, wow, this is news? You might think you'd damn well know if you were falling into poverty or not, thank you very much. Falls of any kind suck and most human beings do notice them, even white human beings. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
But you'd be wrong. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Many of the universal features of poverty are more or less unknown to middle class white people, and the few aspects of poverty we do understand tend to get chalked up to someone else's laziness or lack of character. So when these things happen to <i>US</i>, after we feel we've been <i>GOOD </i>and done everything <i>RIGHT</i>, it seems that we freak out comically and grab for the hypodermic or start attending Trump rallies and taking over bird sanctuaries. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
It's not that we are bad people. We are not bad. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
It's just that many of us have never been poor before. We take it personally because it's new and we don't understand what it means. We think it's about us. Isn't everything about us?</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
We're just ignorant, that's all. But we can learn. I believe we CAN learn. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I personally have been poor more than I've been anything else in my life, and I don't let it freak me out anymore. All you really have to do to stay mellow is recognize that you ARE poor and that it just is what it is. It really isn't about you. It's about other people hogging all the goddamn money--something they won't ever ever quit doing just because you don't like it.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Once you realize this, once you learn to go with the flow and just lean into it, you can even grab a chunk of serenity now and then during the giant lull between your shitty temp jobs, should you be so lucky to get any. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
So if you are white and confused, please don't jump off a bridge or start foaming at the mouth at Mexican dishwashers just because new, unpleasant things are happening to you. Instead, check out the following list, and if you recognize yourself in more than one of these normal facets of poverty, take a deep breath and adjust your expectations to zero. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You'll feel a lot better, I promise.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
So here goes.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You might actually be poor if:</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You've ever pilfered toilet paper from public stalls or napkins from fast food places so you can wipe your ass until payday. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You enjoy a filling Sunday meal composed of three different starches. (Noodles over mashed potatoes with biscuits! Beans with rice and cornbread! Boxed Mac & Cheese with white bread!)</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Some of your favorite sweet treats contain no actual food. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You can't get a bank account and have to cash your sporadic paychecks at storefront loan shops.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You rent sleeping space in your step-uncle's trailer but some other guy is always in your bed.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You shop for new furniture and household items on trash day.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You are an adult person and have more than four roommates. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Your TV only gets three channels and two of them are in Spanish.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Your last three jobs required a hairnet, a stupid hat, or a name tag that says "I like to help!"</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You've ever taken expired veterinary meds instead of going to the doctor.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You've had your electricity or water shut off more than once.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Crack addicts won't break into your house because they are afraid you'll rob them.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You buy black market laundry detergent.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You sell black market laundry detergent.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You have four jobs and three of them are conducted out of your garage.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You dream of the day when you can move back into a luxurious manufactured home community.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You think the women shopping at Walmart are hot.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Your idea of a romantic evening involves a candlelight spaghetti dinner with canned Ragu sauce, Velveeta, and a fresh bottle of Wild Irish Rose. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You think that someday you really might win the lottery. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Your beloved is missing more than three teeth. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You consider ketchup packets and soda crackers to be versatile cooking staples. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I could go on, but I think you get the drift. </div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Maybe none of this seems all that funny, or maybe you are still clinging to the delusion that "middle class" refers to any person making between $12,000 and $240,000 a year. If that's how it is, carry on, don't mind me. I'm just a bitch.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
But if, on the other hand, you are starting to realize that the other side of 'lonely at the top' is 'crowded at the bottom', then pull up a chair, pop a malt liquor, and pass the soda crackers. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Mumbly peg anyone?</div>
<br />
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-51999358757129368612015-01-05T16:19:00.004-08:002015-01-06T11:28:01.041-08:00America's Corporate Perversion of Work<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnxI3Ntnb8ySp-StHVs0d6oGGzTg0L6nzpD9MrfYyfUARYZs74wwOvlcpRDDdgsoq5jXkx0vVJpA110cls7n1xekExCkLR__hcusUJ-v9628J4J8hE7mDVvEcJ3PfxjziWJKVxZWJszE-b/s1600/Claire_Falkenstein,_ca._1936.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnxI3Ntnb8ySp-StHVs0d6oGGzTg0L6nzpD9MrfYyfUARYZs74wwOvlcpRDDdgsoq5jXkx0vVJpA110cls7n1xekExCkLR__hcusUJ-v9628J4J8hE7mDVvEcJ3PfxjziWJKVxZWJszE-b/s1600/Claire_Falkenstein,_ca._1936.jpg" height="320" width="251" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Artist Claire Falkenstein courtesy Wikimedia CC</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I am not very sympathetic to people who like to bloviate about the value of hard work and pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps.<br />
<br />
Usually such people either 1) don't work at all, or 2) are the laziest assholes on your job site.<br />
<br />
They are often destined for a supervisory position, where they can then tell other people to work harder and point to statistics that prove their underlings are unproductive mulch.<br />
<br />
You also hear this kind of thing from Congressmen.<br />
<br />
Don't even get me started on that.<br />
<br />
But work does have intrinsic value, and the kind of work you do matters.<br />
<br />
One of the happiest jobs I ever had was at a garden center where I worked physically hard but always felt I was knowledgable and needed. Plus, I got to work outside around beautiful plants and shrubs and trees. I held the hands of fluttering rich ladies and sold them perennial flowering things that they could fret over instead of their obsessing about their tiny hard spandex-covered asses.<br />
<br />
I loaded the shiny pickup trucks of self-designed landscape dudes and sold them reams of hostas and daylilies while they stood around acting macho, brandishing Corona pruners, and running their fingers through their sun-bleached hair before adjusting their ballcaps.<br />
<br />
It was hard work, but I had fun there.<br />
<br />
I saw brilliant orange slugs, jeweled hummingbirds, and yellow and black garden spiders the size of a child's hand. My boss did throw a pot at me once in a fit of rage over a cranky customer, but he apologized later when I confronted him.<br />
<br />
Things tended to work out in the end.<br />
<br />
My second favorite job was probably the one I got after finishing my BA, as a writer and volunteer recruiter for the local PBS affiliate. My volunteer recruitment technique mostly came down to a Huck Finn "not everyone gets to paint this fence" routine, and when that failed, begging. I also was responsible for some on-air copy and writing and designing a monthly membership magazine.<br />
<br />
That job was the only job I ever had where I got my own office, on the top floor of a 100-year-old converted brick brewery, with six foot tall windows that looked out onto a tree-lined shopping plaza.<br />
<br />
I got to be on TV a couple of times for that job. I learned that even locally for PBS, people will kill each other to be on TV. I did not wish to die. So a couple of times was plenty.<br />
<br />
I also spent seven years as a mobile service rep for a print distribution warehouse, going from store to store and slapping up tabloids, magazines, and paperback books. I liked that job too, and since I was paid by the account and not hourly, I had a lot of flexibility and almost zero supervision.<br />
<br />
The pay at these jobs was not good, and the benefits were nonexistent, but liking what you do and knowing you do it well is worth the world to me. Plus, I knew I was needed and competent.<br />
<br />
Little did I know that these low paid years would later become, in memory, my halcyon days.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The Rise of Corporations and the Almighty Dollar </b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjZ5jATkH3IfoiFIyFrkq3H1mLAyUPQ_kwATVaCAW1QvYT8iPlppVqK7ffwqRXBs_EGjHH5nhnAI469AKq59U7eWpU3ddSgJc-Tam-g3X4ezKbaZEihPXmblHJEwm3O8eMkWo9WapLGGCn/s1600/great+beyond+cc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjZ5jATkH3IfoiFIyFrkq3H1mLAyUPQ_kwATVaCAW1QvYT8iPlppVqK7ffwqRXBs_EGjHH5nhnAI469AKq59U7eWpU3ddSgJc-Tam-g3X4ezKbaZEihPXmblHJEwm3O8eMkWo9WapLGGCn/s1600/great+beyond+cc.jpg" height="203" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Great Beyond courtesy Flickr CC</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Karl Marx is not a favorite writer in America (as if Americans read Karl Marx anyway), but in spite of all the bad local press, Marx was <i>not</i> responsible for the travesty that became the Soviet Bloc.<br />
<br />
Seriously, he was not. If you don't believe me, read. His books are in the library, accessible to anyone. It's true, I'm not making this up. One of my own daughters is a librarian, so I know about these things, trust me.<br />
<br />
Marx was mostly a philosopher, and his philosophy 'thing' was the nature of work.<br />
<br />
Marx argued that people need work, that work imparts dignity and pleasure to the people who engage in it. He also argued that Capitalism (especially as it applies to mass production), if left to run rampant with no checks or balances, would eventually strip all the dignity and pleasure from work.<br />
<br />
Marx predicted that as workers were gradually transformed into suffering drones, all the money and wealth would drift upwards, until end stage Capitalism collapsed under its own top-heavy ruthlessness.<br />
<br />
You don't have to be a scholar to see that, starting back in to 1970s and speeding up as it went along, Capitalism has become more and more top-heavy and work has become increasingly corporate and meaningless. Think "Dilbert". Think "Office Space".<br />
<br />
The mass production system of Marx's factory era has been broadly applied to almost every form of work today, despite the fact that it does not produce more productive workers or a better product. In fact, in many cases, the product has dropped out of the equation almost entirely, in favor of manipulating stock prices to benefit stockholders.<br />
<br />
Workers have become a kind of buffer between the irrelevant product or service and the teeming masses that consume it, and obscenely rich people playing with stock prices at the top.<br />
<br />
The main job of today's worker too often is to protect and defend the rich from every one else.<br />
<br />
Your customer service rep may provide service accidentally, but often won't because his job is to make you go away. The product you just bought may be crap because, well, who cares about you, really? You should have bought the thing at Tiffany's or had it custom made.<br />
<br />
A complementary development is that today the U.S. has successfully (sic) conflated the word 'freedom' to mean 'freedom to be a laissez faire Capitalist', stripping the word "freedom" of all of its original moral and ethical meanings. Freedom to make money is the long and short of it.<br />
<br />
This does not mean you. YOU will not be making gobs of money.<br />
<br />
Freedom IS Capitalism in the U.S. today. Yet most of the wealth is held by the top .01%.<br />
<br />
So paradoxically (though maybe not if you've read Orwell), jobs today are more demeaning and and punitive than they have been in over 100 years.<br />
<br />
Servitude is Freedom. Poverty is opportunity. The truth is a lie and lies are the truth.<br />
<br />
Face it, (says Corporate America and uber-rich) if you were worth anything at all, you'd already be a billionaire, so shut up and comply while you still have the chance.<br />
<br />
Yack.<br />
<br />
Not exactly the American dream as I originally understood it.<br />
<br />
Although Orwell was concerned with totalitarian communism, the current state of Capitalism and its language shows that totalitarianism can take hold of any economic or political system when power becomes concentrated in the hands of an elite few.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Corporate Perversion of the Workplace</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK1niySSboZcr1cNrmF4beOVMK8tU2oKuFQbbGTeT4VdzuZN-bFIdlnmYbZ3tdM1Rs7SReu7EXnDcy3yrUPW6EUiOonGr0oa53PWkEtM1r2dQ2WKdS-mwGiKPKpUOaV_Kb16c_FMJZhH6j/s1600/Larry+Wentzel+cc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK1niySSboZcr1cNrmF4beOVMK8tU2oKuFQbbGTeT4VdzuZN-bFIdlnmYbZ3tdM1Rs7SReu7EXnDcy3yrUPW6EUiOonGr0oa53PWkEtM1r2dQ2WKdS-mwGiKPKpUOaV_Kb16c_FMJZhH6j/s1600/Larry+Wentzel+cc.jpg" height="241" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy Larry Wentzel Flickr CC</td></tr>
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In spite of this dystopian state of affairs, corporations are not really evil.<br />
<br />
To ascribe evil to an inhuman structure is to imbue it with humanity, and corporations have none. They are not persons.<br />
<br />
A corporation is a legal structure designed to systematically maximize profit while minimizing liability (read: responsibility).<br />
<br />
Think of a great grinding wheel that, if you come in at the bottom (where most will come in), you get ground to hamburger and spit out the other side.<br />
<br />
Persons have to take responsibility for their actions and most persons have other goals and values besides simply increasing profit for someone else.<br />
<br />
Corporations do not.<br />
<br />
Corporation don't abuse people because they hate humanity. Corporations are set up to generate profit, period. People don't even enter into the corporate equation.<br />
<br />
The ideal corporation would generate huge profits without offering any product or service and without paying any employees at all. If things continue on the present course, some of us may see that happen in our own lifetimes.<br />
<br />
Because employees are essentially a liability within a corporate structure, (a necessary evil, if you will), a new corporate management style has grown up over the past thirty years in order to keep new employees moving in under the wheel and out the other side without complaint.<br />
<br />
Maybe you recognize some of these principles:<br />
<ul>
<li>Always appear happy, even if you perceive a workplace problem. 'Negativity' (also known as 'common sense') will not be tolerated.</li>
<li>Constantly prove that you are increasing profit at the micro level. Simply doing your job well is not enough. You must quantify exactly how much you are aiding the corporation in increasing profit, and you must continue to generate more profit than you did after your last review, unto infinity, or you're out. </li>
<li>Expect frequent humiliating reviews by a lackey who makes not much more than you, filled with numbers and assessments and an accounting of your weaknesses. While you may perceive these reviews as personal and take the criticism hard at first, it is, in reality, a simple formula: You will be complemented on a strength ("Your shoes are always clean"), a weakness ("but your work sucks and you move too slow"), and given an 'action plan' (by next review I want you to fill-in-the-blank 100 times per hour instead of 25). Even if you are the fastest smartest motherfucker in the building you will still get some version of this.</li>
<li>Be afraid, be very afraid. Never forget that the corporation is doing you a favor by letting you work. You can be terminated at any time. You will receive constant subtle reminders of this and periodic not so subtle reminders. I know one woman who received a "Service Rep of the Year" plaque at Verizon and was terminated the following week when the operation was moved overseas.</li>
<li>Your job has an expiration date, whether you know it or not. My first corporate job had a "two years up or out" policy, so if you didn't move up in the organization in two years, they would start to push you out. Except, there was almost no 'up' to move to, so basically it was "two years and out." I stayed five years. The next corporate job had a one year up or out policy. I stayed two. My last job (and I do mean my LAST job) had a "hope you make it a month policy" and many did not. I made it two years.</li>
<li>Humiliation creates compliance. Expect to be required to observe small humiliating rules and rituals and expect to be punished if you don't. One corporate job I had allowed no more than three minutes per day of restroom time, which I managed by mostly going on my break. Another required "Silly Hat Day" as a "morale booster" and gave out smiley faced balloons as a reward. Points were taken off your annual review for not participating in Silly Hat Day.</li>
<li>Learn to decipher corporate-speak. People are not being fired, the organization is being "right-sized." The daily memo reminding you to say the organization is in great shape means it is about to go bankrupt. Smile. We don't tolerate negativity here.</li>
<li>Be on task every minute. You are entitled to two breaks and a lunch. Do not take them. Do not speak to your coworkers. Do not work off the clock, but understand that you will be unable to finish your work on the clock and will be fired if you don't finish it. So, do not work off the clock, but work off the clock. This is technically illegal, but corporations don't go to jail and most practice some coercion for wage earners to work off the clock.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Research has shown that this atmosphere increases stress, leads to high employee turnover, and does not result in increased productivity or job satisfaction. You might wonder then, why is the corporate management style so prevalent? Why is it spreading to every corner of the working world?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The answer is pretty simple actually. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Corporations do not increase profit by increasing productivity or satisfaction at the entry level (which is fast becoming the only level). This is because profit is no longer generated by the sale of products or services, but rather by financial games and fiscal illusions created from the top down. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Perception is the product, and the product is not for you or your customers, it's for the stockholders. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In short, profit is created by enhancing perception of success among stockholders, and keeping a steady stream of low-paid drones moving through the grinder at the bottom, tasked with blocking the ignorant masses from gaining access to those at the top </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>The Perversion of Work</b></div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
It's no surprise that many of the people who lost their jobs in the crash of 2008 have not returned to the workplace and never will. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's also no surprise that an 'underground' economy based on barter and resale is thriving and likely to continue to thrive unless (until?) corporations find a way to muscle in on it. Despite the fact that freelance work comes with no safety net and is unpredictable and competitive, the number of freelancers is also growing quickly. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Basically people who can make money any other way, and people who can make do on less money, are doing it, because working has become, for many, a nonsensical, oppressive, low-paid charade that wrecks your health in exchange for very little. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I think it is important to mourn the passing of real work and the loss of respect for the artisans, entrepreneurs, laborers, and tradespeople who do it. We have all lost something important, and the effects are corrosive and ongoing. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I think it is also important to speak the truth about this sorry state of affairs, and to push back to the degree that each of us can. Some of us cannot afford to push back very hard, but all of us could push back a little, and some of us could push back a lot.<br />
<br />
I push back by patronizing individuals or local businesses as much as I can, and trying to limit the infrequent corporate contact with corporations that I do have to businesses that treat people well. That's not always possible, but it is often easier than you might think.<br />
<br />
Also I speak out even if it pisses people off.<br />
<br />
I'm not a revolutionary.<br />
<br />
Revolutions tend to make things worse for those at the bottom for years, sometimes much worse, before they get better. But I do believe in resistance and plain speech.<br />
<br />
Some people are waiting for a grand collapse, figuring that Marx was right about Capitalism and a collapse is inevitable, but many alternate possibilities exist: We could see a long, slow erosion of the United States at the end of which most of the superrich go live somewhere else, or we could see increasing violence and protest that turns into a two-tiered society with an apartheid on the poor, who would basically be all of us.<br />
<br />
Or, in my most positive moments, I think that perhaps we could see something better slowly grow up alongside of this corporate train wreck, and that when that something better become obvious and visible, corporations will see that we're mad as hell and not only are we not going to take it anymore, we're going about our much happier lives without them.</div>
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-36731654234913546642014-11-18T06:09:00.002-08:002014-11-18T06:09:47.200-08:00When Good Faith Vanishes<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ONCwRcWQ8FgqCJQFhJaIYq1cT-b0RnE62h3GKLMfpfhJwBmgJ5GpMC6OlaQ9gT7qKtdbFsXW6rHcvZgJmAPudFJbugfo5DALlPnvQ6MZpeMSS45GAfBstkMbwBx_hq18GB3yyxHgx-nV/s1600/102929Stuck_in_a_1950s_Science_Fiction_Movie.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ONCwRcWQ8FgqCJQFhJaIYq1cT-b0RnE62h3GKLMfpfhJwBmgJ5GpMC6OlaQ9gT7qKtdbFsXW6rHcvZgJmAPudFJbugfo5DALlPnvQ6MZpeMSS45GAfBstkMbwBx_hq18GB3yyxHgx-nV/s1600/102929Stuck_in_a_1950s_Science_Fiction_Movie.png" height="320" width="275" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oh shit not you again</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So Dr. Huxtable may be a rapist, Governor Nixon declared a state of emergency before the grand jury decision about Ferguson even comes down, and President Obama is doing everything by executive order to get around our worthless Congress.<br />
<br />
Some parts of California are sinking into the earth at the rate of a foot per year because so much ground water is being pumped out to irrigate heavy water feeding crops like almonds during the worst drought in centuries.<br />
<br />
Farmers now routinely soak our GMO wheat and corn in glycophosphate poisons because they can, and corporate meat farms are breeding deadly treatment resistant diseases.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile the Supreme Court looks for a way to back out of Obamacare even though it is helping millions of people, the Keystone pipeline is getting another thumbs up from the GOP even though it now snows in the deep south, some guys in the Mideast are nasty so we have to be at war with them for another gazillion years, and just about the whole world thinks America has lost its mind.<br />
<br />
Well, it has.<br />
<br />
When ordinary good faith vanishes, society falls apart. When no one trusts the other guy to basically do the right thing 80% of the time, everyone starts doing the wrong thing proactively, out of fear.<br />
<br />
Americans are encouraged to spend a lot of time worrying about terrorism, but what about the terrorism promoted by our own media, our own politicians, our own corporate overlords?<br />
<br />
Is it possible that we are encouraged to mistrust and even hate each other because it makes it easier for those already in power to control us through fear?<br />
<br />
It's what's happening.<br />
<br />
The collapse that started in 2008, the one that really started in the 1970s, that collapse has not stopped, it hasn't even slowed down that much.<br />
<br />
It's like we are all just sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop.<br />
<br />
And then what?<br />
<br />
Then you will need your neighbor but maybe he will shoot you.<br />
<br />
Then you will need the police but they won't show up. Or they will, but they will shoot you.<br />
<br />
Then we will all wish we did something when it was still possible to make a difference.<br />
<br />
Do I sound a bit discouraged?<br />
<br />
Well that's what chocolate is for. Did you know that, globally, we are running out of chocolate?<br />
<br />
Happy Wednesday.<br />
<br />
Shit.<br /><br />It's only Tuesday.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-63335346930107766742014-11-07T16:32:00.000-08:002014-11-07T16:32:50.817-08:00A Pox on Both Your Houses<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaggQAbGgnv9Zu8FIr-lAD2ENyLR583YLUdGpRxUmfhyphenhyphenJBtKnT-IP2HiX8ZJky9H27raB-b6JNO5DfxUkfwZtmrzbNuCPzdd2fPDnodtcneElgEOGFbD3DwtSANj5z2Hnk9Zn5eNnXuZv6/s1600/badger&foxpd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaggQAbGgnv9Zu8FIr-lAD2ENyLR583YLUdGpRxUmfhyphenhyphenJBtKnT-IP2HiX8ZJky9H27raB-b6JNO5DfxUkfwZtmrzbNuCPzdd2fPDnodtcneElgEOGFbD3DwtSANj5z2Hnk9Zn5eNnXuZv6/s1600/badger&foxpd.jpg" height="264" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm not a scientist, but my opponent...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I just can't care about American politics anymore.<br />
<br />
The process has become so farcical it is painful to watch: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum running around pummeling each other on a sinking shop, arguing about whether the deck chairs should be red or blue. Or purple.<br />
<br />
I cried the first time I saw <i>Titanic, </i>not because Leonardo DiCaprio was so cute before he got all hairy and paunchy and middle-aged, but because I saw the film as this big sappy metaphor for what was happening to the United States.<br />
<br />
Here we are, seventeen years later (is that even possible?), and the nose of the ship is pointing almost straight up, and most of us are floating around in the ice water thinking, "Wow, this is some serious bullshit," and what do we get from our fearless leaders?<br />
<br />
Don't ask. It isn't funny anymore.<br />
<br />
I did learn some good stuff this week though, stuff that might turn out to be helpful at some point. Like, did you know that you can make bread out of wood?<br />
<br />
You can!<br />
<br />
Start with a type of wood that doesn't have tannin in it, like beech. Most woods that are heavy in tannin are conifers, but I confess I am not well-versed (yet) in the best-tasting types of wood for bread making. I suppose it depends on what kind of bread you are making.<br />
<br />
Anyway, chop the wood into the tiniest little slivers you possibly can, then boil it for a long time, then boil it again, then boil it again. Oh hell, boil it one more time.<br />
<br />
Now, let it dry a bit, and then spread the chips on a baking sheet at bake at 275 degrees or so for a long time, like, until they are bone dry.<br />
<br />
Take the baked woodchips out, let them cool, then pulverize them with a meat grinder, a food processor, a coffee grinder, or whatever you can lay your hands on until you have a fine powder, or at least a coarse meal.<br />
<br />
Now, make your bread out of that.<br />
<br />
You can also eat acorns, which are high in protein and not bad tasting if you know what to do with them. You have to either peel and boil them for 45 minutes, or soak them in fresh water for a week, changing the water every day.<br />
<br />
That gets the tannin out, which is bitter and nasty. It also smokes out any bugs.<br />
<br />
Once you've soaked your acorns you can toast them in the oven or grind them into meal and add them to your wood bread to give it some actual nutritional value.<br />
<br />
And here's the important thing:<br />
<br />
Once you've gone to the trouble of making bread out of wood and acorns so you don't fucking starve, share it with your neighbors, because you don't want to pull a Little Red Hen on everyone.<br />
<br />
But your Congressperson?<br />
<br />
That guy can go suck a rock.C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-37127968896874590502014-10-23T09:35:00.000-07:002014-10-23T09:35:35.858-07:00Letting Go of Self-Hatred<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whoa, Graces got back!</td></tr>
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Female bodies come in all sizes and shapes, and chances are good that if you have one, you probably think it is flawed and wish it was better.<br />
<br />
In private, it likely goes farther than that, Maybe you think your thighs are hopelessly fat, your breasts too small or too large, your eyes too far apart or too close together, or your stomach is [fill-in-blank with any harsh criticism].<br />
<br />
You may, at times, absolutely hate yourself for any number of reasons, some of them physical, others emotional or social.<br />
<br />
Some days you dread the mirror.<br />
<br />
The point is, you don't measure up and you'd better try harder.<br />
<br />
This is a basic fact of life. It is almost what being female <i>is.</i><br />
<br />
<b><i>The Perks of Female Self-Hatred</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
If you do hate yourself variously and a lot, take heart: Not only do you have plenty of company, but you are also supporting a huge sector of the American economy, and China's economy, and Pakistan's and Turkey's economy, and all sorts of other places that make shoes, clothes, underwear, etc.<br />
<br />
You also support the food industry (gluten-free fat-free sugar-free everything!) and help otherwise unremarkable people make money by writing diet books and diet cookbooks.<br />
<br />
So you are definitely serving an important economic function with your unending inadequacy and self-hatred, but did you know that you are also helping to keep the social fabric knitted together? Every day, your self-hatred insures every thing and every body stays in the right place and does what society would like people to do so we can all get along and not cause problems for each other.<br />
<br />
Probably you don't see it that way, but it's true.<br />
<br />
Imagine how hard it would be for men to approach, much less intimidate, women who did not feel inadequate in some fundamental way. It would be a heck of a lot harder for many of them, and maybe the two sexes would never hook up and the population would die off and human beings would become extinct instead of overrunning every square inch of the planet.<br />
<br />
That would be bad, I guess. I don't know.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2HM8juXst9lNbHzmDApUcEFSCleRKHwdNF8ZNLdZX_ywky6VdPoWSDsIphCsVtYaF1n_JzVevU-_bMhqEzKKpziIfbNT9Ag3Wut3_cPIiESStAfI7isgrphWdmt61odtFcIS_xvMVlfGX/s1600/The_Frog_Prince_-_Anne_Andersonwikicca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2HM8juXst9lNbHzmDApUcEFSCleRKHwdNF8ZNLdZX_ywky6VdPoWSDsIphCsVtYaF1n_JzVevU-_bMhqEzKKpziIfbNT9Ag3Wut3_cPIiESStAfI7isgrphWdmt61odtFcIS_xvMVlfGX/s1600/The_Frog_Prince_-_Anne_Andersonwikicca.jpg" height="320" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You aren't getting any younger, Princess!</td></tr>
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I'm of two minds about it these days, seriously.<br />
<br />
Also, if women were strangers to self-hatred, they'd expect more money in the workplace, and they'd start more businesses of their own, portraying themselves as competent and intelligent instead of cooperative and deferential. They'd run for Congress and stuff.<br />
<br />
Pretty soon everybody would be doing what they wanted and everybody would expect respect and decent treatment for it, and whooo haaa wouldn't that be a pisser?<br />
<br />
We can't afford that kind of crap!<br />
<br />
So you see, self-hatred, specifically female self-hatred, is an integral part of our social and economic fabric.<br />
<br />
On a familial and person level female self-hatred also serves a protective purpose.<br />
<br />
If you start out openly admitting your many flaws and shortcomings and your persistent shame at not being able to fully fix all of same, other women (and men) are less likely to slap you down, because you are already slapping yourself down.<br />
<br />
Maybe the elder women in your family have even taught you this kind of self-hatred by routinely and from a very young age critiquing your manner of dress, your hair, and the way you paint your face (or don't), and also by reminding you that the pool of available men is finite and, "You aren't getting any younger."<br />
<br />
<b><i>Letting Go</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
The problem is, this required self-hatred is horse shit and on some level you have always known it, deep down, but you probably comply to keep the peace, and over time that compliance becomes reflexive. Self-hatred becomes a habit. You barely think about it most of the time--it just hangs in the air about you like a lingering fart.<br />
<br />
To let go of that warm, if stinky, blanket of self-loathing means letting go of the false humility that makes the world go round and makes insecure people like you. (Or pretend to like you.)<br />
<br />
That's hard. But it can be done.<br />
<br />
You don't have to go overboard and become a Libertarian, but you do have to let yourself fall out of the mainstream, fall out of hate with yourself, and realize you are just fine as you are.<br />
<br />
Everything around you will keep screaming that you are not OK.<br />
<br />
So it isn't easy.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Me, Me, Me</i></b><br />
<br />
I've spent the last six weeks taking a beginning yoga class, and what it has done for me more than anything else is to make me realize my body is fine. It's a good body, it has served me well and keeps doing so, and I kind of like it.<br />
<br />
Basically there is nothing wrong with my body, and there is nothing wrong with yours either.<br />
<br />
I'm not getting any younger. That much is probably true. Right now I'm 61, and last year I was 60. The year before that I was 59, and no kidding, I am sensing a pattern here.<br />
<br />
But men? God they are all over the place and always have been. They comprise half the population, at least, and even on my worst day I will catch one or more of them checking out my boobs.<br />
<br />
It's not because, at 61, I am so smoking hot. It's because <i>that's what men do. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
If I am lucky enough to make it to 95, it will still happen occasionally, because by the time men hit 95 checking out boobs has become such a habit that they still do it even though they can't remember why.<br />
<i><br /></i>
Yes, that's right, all that "sex yourself up and do it pronto or else you'll be left in the dust" was a big fucking waste of time (unless you enjoyed it) because men will check our your boobs even if you run into 7/11 in your pajama bottoms and a hoodie and zero makeup.<br />
<br />
I am also OK psychologically. Yes I take medication for depression, just like many people my age take medication for diabetes or high blood pressure. I'm grateful for it.<br />
<br />
I have not forgiven every single person who ever was violent or degrading toward me. I have not made any teary speeches on Oprah or Dr. Phil. I still think my brother is a fucking psychopathic douche bag and here's why: My brother is a fucking psychopathic douche bag.<br />
<br />
I don't live in that thought. I live in my nice warm life now, surrounded by people who love me, a dog and a cat, and beautiful nature preserves and public parks up North here.<br />
<br />
If anyone else has a problem with any of that, guess what? It's their problem. I hope they find a way to deal with it and move on. If not, oh well.<br />
<br />
So that's where I am today, a little less self-hateful, a little happier.<br />
<br />
The journey continues.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-37314534584444389752014-10-16T07:35:00.002-07:002014-10-16T07:35:56.085-07:00Happy Thoughts: Ebola, MRSA, KPC and other Deadly Germs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE68a-4KPCGio-_nPzNjDRIa4sA2_suLyLkAvEZ0n2roHgngdD9wG7S0aH9hEe5MrdXyuI5Kn5y_0fT81OFmQJMUy7S15OHwT-wCc2LKZfzKzZWkEMydGazoyBclAjjSRRkNmIfUzVCtoW/s1600/wb_pandora.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE68a-4KPCGio-_nPzNjDRIa4sA2_suLyLkAvEZ0n2roHgngdD9wG7S0aH9hEe5MrdXyuI5Kn5y_0fT81OFmQJMUy7S15OHwT-wCc2LKZfzKzZWkEMydGazoyBclAjjSRRkNmIfUzVCtoW/s1600/wb_pandora.jpg" height="320" width="231" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Can't unopen the box.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
OK, I'm not panicking about ebola. That would be stupid.<br />
<br />
I do have some concerns about ebola though, so I'm going to dump them here instead of on FB.<br />
<br />
If you live in the US, you are about as likely to get hit with a meteor right now as you are to contract ebola virus. If you do get it though, best not show up at your local ER and wait in line, because eventually it is going to be like a Keystone cops versus the media feeding frenzy and you have enough problems.<br />
<br />
After all, you have ebola virus (hypothetically), remember? And in the US (or anywhere) that's a problem.<br />
<br />
So what <i>can </i>you do that would address your concerns, especially the one about not dying by bleeding out of every orifice and losing one third of your body weight in a few days?<br />
<br />
I don't have a fucking clue.<br />
<br />
So I'm really hoping I never find myself in that situation.<br />
<br />
Lots of people in West Africa have though, and half of them are dead now. If we are to believe anything we read in the press or see on TV (and that's a <i>big</i> if), that 50/50 survival rate might be getting worse: something more like 30/70.<br />
<br />
As if we needed any more bad news.<br />
<br />
Here are my thoughts:<br />
<ul>
<li>Must the US really spend a squillion gazillion dollars blowing up terrorists halfway around the world for the rest of all eternity? Couldn't we put at least some of that big money into global public health? It's like we are shitting in our own nest and blithely slipping clothespins over our noses and carrying on as if it's someone else's problem.</li>
<li>If things get scary enough, even if the real threat from the disease is not huge, institutions get fucked up and start to shut down. Hospital workers walk off the job. People refuse to fly or go to restaurants or send their kids to school. Everyone starts suing everyone else. And it just goes downhill from there. So hopefully someone somewhere knows how to get a grip on things before any of that happens. That would be good if that could happen, quick.</li>
<li>Every year a certain percentage of Americans refuse to get flu shots that are basically free or very cheap. The flu kills over <b>20,000 people in the US each year</b>, on average, but it can and has been much worse. The infamous 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak killed between <b><i>40 and 50 million</i></b> people worldwide, including 675,000 in our own country.</li>
<li>The US is creating antibiotic resistant superbugs by feeding antibiotics to meat animals on factory farms. Two new killers: MRSA and KPC. MRSA has become so common kids get it now just from being around other kids. If it gets into their bloodstreams they die. KPC is usually fatal and if it breaks out in a hospital it is hell stopping it. In spite of this, factory farms continue to push meds into animals to get them to market faster and the FDA continues to meekly ask them to voluntarily stop it. They won't.</li>
<li>We can't treat ebola in US hospitals, give me a break. Not safely anyway. It's asinine to pretend we can. The pretense is an attempt to calm everyone down. Stop treating people like idiots, CDC, NIH, hospital administrators, and President Obama. Stop it. You're making it worse, eroding trust, confusing people.</li>
<li>Now that the Congress has decided to hold show boat hearings, the circus is in town. Be aware that the fear that can be drummed up from this point on is as bad, or worse, than the disease.</li>
</ul>
<div>
I am coming to the conclusion that Americans are, by and large, spoiled pussies. No one gave two shits about ebola until it came here. Africa? What is Africa? Can't see it from my house!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But now that we have a handful of cases here everyone is running around squealing like little children, mommy mommy mommy. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Can we have some grown ups on board now?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Seriously, what will it take? </div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-67604140443209635852014-10-11T13:06:00.001-07:002014-10-11T13:06:03.904-07:00The Depression Epidemic and Me<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPTM4YsCkqm3v3cxe4juyyl5z52LPqSigBY2SDUj0uoYO0wh1AuLkzyz__YFzvuCCSOPiC7r2HWHlpZJNsCHtGWCkI10_QgHJg6weF-g7qKHS2rf3ZHMnq68sM0Hta_m_BRd5UInzO26Nr/s1600/tree-eastofsunandwest0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPTM4YsCkqm3v3cxe4juyyl5z52LPqSigBY2SDUj0uoYO0wh1AuLkzyz__YFzvuCCSOPiC7r2HWHlpZJNsCHtGWCkI10_QgHJg6weF-g7qKHS2rf3ZHMnq68sM0Hta_m_BRd5UInzO26Nr/s1600/tree-eastofsunandwest0.jpg" height="400" width="258" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This public domain art has nothing to do with depression.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Right now, most news cycles are feverishly reporting on the latest tidbits about ebola virus and enterovirus 68, but did you know that in 2012 <a href="http://www.nimh.nih.gov/statistics/1mdd_adult.shtml">16 million Americans had at least one major depressive episode</a>?<br />
<br />
A 'depressive episode' is not a sad day or a passing bad mood, but a kick-you-in-the-ass can't get out of bed want to die total shut down that lasts and lasts for weeks and weeks.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Did you know that suicide is the <a href="http://www.save.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_id=705D5DF4-055B-F1EC-3F66462866FCB4E6">s<i>econd leading cause of death</i></a> among people fifteen to twenty-four years of age. In fact, suicide rates in that category have <i>tripled s</i>ince the 1950s?<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One American d<a href="http://www.save.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_id=705D5DF4-055B-F1EC-3F66462866FCB4E6">ies from suicide every 13 minutes, and 15% of all depressed people </a>will die by suicide. </div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Running with this (since I have the stats in front of me), clinical depression is involved in two thirds of all suicides, and rates of both major depression and suicide have been rising in the US for years.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In spite of these facts, the US is rife with misinformation about both major depression and suicide. Both depression and suicide come with significant social stigma attached, and many people are uncomfortable discussing either one.<br />
<br />
Worse, the politics surrounding mental health issues and big pharma, as well as popular bloviation and quackery on the internet lead many otherwise well-meaning people to support wrong and damaging ideas. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One of the worst of these wrong ideas, IMO, is the belief that depression shows a lack of character or spiritual development or dietary knowledge (or, really you can fill in this blank with any damned thing you want and it will fly), and because of <i>whatever,</i> medication is bad. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If you take meds you will hear that you are taking the easy way out. You are not fully feeling your feelings so you can not release them and heal, some will say. You are a pawn of big pharma, others will opine. You are weak and misinformed. You are being poisoned. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And so on.<br />
<br />
And the worst one of all: "I don't <i>believe </i>in medication."<br />
<br />
To which I say, well, we know it exists. Seriously, I can show you some if you don't believe me.<br />
<br />
<b>One Size Does Not Fit All</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGfPqubUWbdo8WRlv-GFB8ZWmf-SABDJPSMaizK4A4YuNIvalvASPpqNdSr62jYD5R6ebT22V4j9btyJirpCVZ-xCUJgUAhPgWBMQvuMJx4F2-XLM5M893NpsjPMN7DTyDEUAuVlLm2yB/s1600/moon-eastofsunandwest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGfPqubUWbdo8WRlv-GFB8ZWmf-SABDJPSMaizK4A4YuNIvalvASPpqNdSr62jYD5R6ebT22V4j9btyJirpCVZ-xCUJgUAhPgWBMQvuMJx4F2-XLM5M893NpsjPMN7DTyDEUAuVlLm2yB/s1600/moon-eastofsunandwest.jpg" height="400" width="258" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Three days my ass.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Clinical depression comes in many forms and can occur with or without other disorders and/or physical illnesses. PTSD and depression often happen together, as do chronic illnesses and depression, substance abuse and depression, and and all kinds of other vexing problems and depression.<br />
<br />
Medication is about as helpful as daily exercise and cognitive behavioral therapy for mild to moderate depression, and most cases of mild to moderate depression resolve eventually, one way or another, no matter what is done or not done.<br />
<br />
I don't say this to diminish the suffering of people working through mild to moderate depression, I'm just pointing out what seems to happen according to the research.<br />
<br />
But for about 15% of people who struggle with recurring depression, the condition does not improve on its own and the episodes get steadily more severe. Once you've had two major depressive episodes, the likelihood that you can 'heal yourself' by reframing your perceptions or running or whatever are small.<br />
<br />
For people unlucky enough to be in that 15%, medication will likely be needed for life, just like insulin for diabetes, or diuretics for high blood pressure.<br />
<br />
I happen to be part of that fifteen percent. The last time I went off my medication I ended up in the hospital for ten days.<br /><br />
It wasn't exactly like being at a spa, but it wasn't all shrieking, manacles, and lobotomies either.<br />
<br />
I watched a lot of sit coms until I quit saying the wrong the things.<br />
<br />
If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, remember these three tips:<br />
<br />
1) You are not getting out in three days.<br />
<br />
2) Stop asking when you are getting out because they will always say "three days" and you are not getting out in three days. In fact, you are not getting out until you stop asking when you are getting out, so stop that.<br />
<br />
3) Eat the food, all of it, because they are writing all this shit down. (See #s 1 & 2).<br />
<br />
<b>The Sociology of Depression</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Psychology, sociology, and medicine are always in a state of tension.<br />
<br />
For instance, depression is at epidemic levels. However, maybe if society wasn't so harsh and fucked up, fewer people would develop depression that needs treatment.<br />
<br />
Still, society can't be fixed through criticism and broccoli. Once your physiology has been messed up by constant trauma, it's been messed up and needs attention.<br />
<br />
It's kind of like when a truck runs over your leg. You can go on a crusade against crappy truck driving, but you've still got that broken leg. If all the trucks in America apologize and change their ways, the leg still needs attention.<br />
<br />
Medicine is like this too. MSF, the organization that is in Africa treating ebola, was once criticized for creating more new diseases by treating old ones. But that's what medicine does. It is always stamping down one bump in the rug just to get on to another.<br />
<br />
When you are affected by recurring depression, or any medical/emotional condition, pragmatism works better than philosophy. If something works, keep it. If something doesn't work, move on.<br />
<br />
This may sound comically simple-minded, but it does get down to that.<br />
<br />
For me, medication, exercise, and a good support system work.<br />
<br />
Philosophy, opinions, intellectual insights, and strongly held beliefs are not really helpful.<br />
<br />
So I guess what I'm saying here is, if you are one of the many people in the world who "doesn't believe in medication," how nice for you.<br />
<br />
But remember, should you ever find yourself in the nuthouse...<br />
<br />
You are NOT getting out in three days.<br />
<br />
Doesn't matter what you fucking do or don't believe in.<br />
<br />
You're welcome.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-26326916421680921022014-10-04T10:32:00.002-07:002018-01-12T07:50:34.168-08:00Hair and Horror: The Dark Underbelly of Postmenopausal Beauty<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZELyiYzLpfPu_2qH6QV_RbuhSie-LyoWaeRnSC436IF3LIGo65wJmAevmnohYkPK5ys4_NZUQd2tlHsMzgsNf09R3X6sg5yM41Pd2xDPlK90zY3Pu3LqiUeEdSeeVr2WH98E0kkveQUrm/s1600/DSCN0405.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZELyiYzLpfPu_2qH6QV_RbuhSie-LyoWaeRnSC436IF3LIGo65wJmAevmnohYkPK5ys4_NZUQd2tlHsMzgsNf09R3X6sg5yM41Pd2xDPlK90zY3Pu3LqiUeEdSeeVr2WH98E0kkveQUrm/s1600/DSCN0405.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How I think I look with gray hair.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I'm 61.<br />
<br />
If I live five more months I'll be 62.<br />
<br />
And I still won't know what to do about my hair.<br />
<br />
If you think that women just automatically get into this kind of thing with a passion, simply because we are women, think again.<br />
<br />
I'm one of those girls who never learned to be a girl, and believe me, there are lots of us out here. My Mom was sick most of the time, and when she wasn't, she was pretty harsh.<br />
<br />
We were not close.<br />
<br />
In fact, the elder women in my family all seemed to think that the best way to raise girls was to remind them constantly of how unattractive and fat they were, and then try to marry them off as quickly and as early as possible, as if the supply of marriageable men was extremely limited and rapidly disappearing, and we, as unattractive female sub-creatures, were already at a disadvantage.<br />
<br />
I remember as a teenager standing in the bathroom, my mother in back of me flipping my hair around and sighing that I would likely never marry. (I've been married four times. I can't run to the supermarket without marrying somebody.) My grandmother used to constantly sigh, "Oh Pammy, you'd be so pretty if only you would do something with your <i>hair."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
The only thing that really tempered this never-ending criticism was having sisters and seeing them get the same treatment. We called it the Grundy girls 'ritual humiliation'. We knew we would get it at every holiday, before shopping with a female relative, and whenever we visited grandparents, and we learned to endure it.<br />
<br />
I don't want to over dramatize it. It's not like they dragged us to a tent and sliced off our genitals. But it had a similar, if milder, effect.<br />
<br />
So I grew up with 'issues' around this stuff, hated to shop for clothes, and especially hated going to beauty parlors (as we called them back in the horse and buggy days).<br />
<br />
So here I am, 61, and I still have not much improved in this area.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht55PNbCnonAVYE0kNLhbSelxejl9blbLMlTFC00G-1iDHkOvvvdl6EiRyN53WQbiZ8IastXP7JylOpy5pxze4s61hmH4QNITQE8Ge6xPDfb8IASYsT5tcqdeApcH4UTXIqR21WK1D2imV/s1600/100_0098.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht55PNbCnonAVYE0kNLhbSelxejl9blbLMlTFC00G-1iDHkOvvvdl6EiRyN53WQbiZ8IastXP7JylOpy5pxze4s61hmH4QNITQE8Ge6xPDfb8IASYsT5tcqdeApcH4UTXIqR21WK1D2imV/s1600/100_0098.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How I really look with gray hair (I'm on the left).</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Four years ago, I decided I didn't want to be a postmenopausal bottled redhead anymore. Little did I know how controversial this decision would turn out to be.<br />
<br />
Immediately after announcing this decision. I was assailed by every over-40 female employee at the big box retail store where I worked part-time. I must not do it, they said. I must not 'give up' they said. If I were to 'give up', how would it make them look, huh?<br />
<br />
They informed me that the younger women were already running all over them and the one thing they couldn't abide was an older woman who just 'gave up' and looked her age.<br />
<br />
Wow.<br />
<br />
My husband didn't like the idea either, but he knows better than to say so more than once.<br />
<br />
I was pretty sick of splashing red hair dye all over our bathroom no matter how careful I was, and I didn't think this ritual made me look one whit younger or better, so the minute I was no longer employed in a retail capacity I started to let my hair grow out.<br />
<br />
Right around this same time, the big chain hair place where I usually went for a cut hit the skids. I did not know this from watching the DOW, but rather from the aggressive behavior of the hair dresser who, always pushing 'product' on me as part of her job, was now practically beating me over the head with 'product'.<br />
<br />
"Listen," I said finally, "I'll pay you extra in addition to the tip if you just stop bugging me about that stuff. I never use it and now I already have every hair product ever invented, just from coming here."<br />
<br />
She informed me that ALL salons were owned by this same conglomerate, and anywhere I went I would be sold 'product', so I'd better just suck it up, because there was nowhere else to go.<br />
<br />
Then, she cut a big bald spot into the back of my head where I couldn't see it.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzXAEHHLzJ9j5SsYvHAxCLA6FeXR7uUCScmQVdjyOqQzVMYrzVoKhzrF7-3hg5ff9rOnkNW5WrIG5kIHfySWPs9PG-9xccFEYQU3JfbHCbbTbbjBCySnv1qNxHbqYABRCBsIrIs7IzK73f/s1600/joancrawfordw-ax.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzXAEHHLzJ9j5SsYvHAxCLA6FeXR7uUCScmQVdjyOqQzVMYrzVoKhzrF7-3hg5ff9rOnkNW5WrIG5kIHfySWPs9PG-9xccFEYQU3JfbHCbbTbbjBCySnv1qNxHbqYABRCBsIrIs7IzK73f/s1600/joancrawfordw-ax.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My former hairdresser.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Now you may think (especially if you've read my other posts), that I must be some kind of bitch-on-wheels haircut customer, but nothing could be farther from the truth. I'm soft spoken, I never complain (except for this one time), and I always over-tip.<br />
<br />
So I thought, screw this. There has to be at least one self-employed hairdresser in Michigan who will give me a basic cut without browbeating me into shit I do not want.<br />
<br />
I found one. I went there. I explained why.<br />
<br />
It worked out well at first.<br />
<br />
She didn't understand why I would quit coloring my hair either, but she respected my decision and she did a nice job cutting my hair.<br />
<br />
So now I have light gray hair in front and dark gray in back and I'm reasonably OK with it.<br />
<br />
But I've noticed my hairdresser--I'll call her Dawn because that's her name--although never bugging me about 'product', never stops talking.<br />
<br />
Often, I would even go so far as to say <i>usually,</i> Dawn talks nonstop about some perceived slight someone or the other has dealt her just lately. There she is, waving very sharp scissors around my head, talking about the asshole of the week and why that person is a total fool.<br />
<br />
This last time, the asshole of the week was a client who was complaining about the cost of a hair process she'd bought for her daughters. Dawn had even thrown in something for free, yet here was this woman complaining. Then, as if that wasn't outrageous enough, she<i> quit coming back.</i><br />
<br />
At this point, a shiver ran through me. Have I chosen the hairdresser from the Hotel California? Can I check in anytime I like but never leave? OMG, how could I have missed that? <br />
<br />
How is it that <i>any woman </i>enjoys getting her hair done? Why don't I like "Steel Magnolias" or "Fried Green Tomatoes." Am I fat? Is my hair fat? What's <i>wrong </i>with me?<br />
<br />
Now I'm thinking about coloring my hair again.<br />
<br />
I'm thinking, pink.<br />
<br />
Grey and pink.<br />
<br />
But I don't know...<br />
<br />
Where do <i>you </i>get your hair cut?<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-10809658096690450472014-09-30T18:40:00.004-07:002014-10-01T05:53:02.245-07:00Women & Crazy: Some Heretical Thoughts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image of me courtesy XRay Delta Flickr CC</td></tr>
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Want to know what's <i>really </i>crazy?<br />
<br />
Arguing with people on the interwebs, that's what.<br />
<br />
I've engaged in this insane practice more than I care to admit, even though I know how pointless it is. I know I'm not alone.<br />
<br />
Still, it's not all negative.<br />
<br />
You learn stuff on the interwebs, weird stuff you need to know. It's kind of like taking the pulse of the masses, such as we are, and we are not always making a heckuva lotta sense.<br />
<br />
Here are some popular interweb memes that seem to me to be totally batshit:<br />
<ol>
<li><i style="font-weight: bold;">If you eat well, exercise, and feel all your feelings fully and completely, you will never get sick or have any emotional problems. </i>Rot and nonsense. This is something scared, selfish people tell themselves to avoid caring about others and/or to magically protect themselves. How about this: Trouble comes to all of us in time, so don't judge. Remember Jim Fixx? Yup. The unwelcome truth is, "Eat right, exercise daily, die anyway."</li>
<li><i style="font-weight: bold;">Vaccines are a government/big pharma plot to control your mind/kill you/turn your children into naked blind molerats. </i>Listen up dipshits: Vaccinate your fucking kids. Whooping cough and measles are coming back because of your stupidity. I was alive when these diseases and others, including polio, were still common. If you think vaccines are now more dangerous than infectious illnesses that target kids, you need to learn how to read. </li>
<li><i style="font-weight: bold;">Women who are violently raped need to forgive their rapists in order to heal. </i>This works even better if it happens within days of the rape in a very public forum like the Dr. Phil show. If you choose to swallow this poisonous crap, be aware that ten years from now you may still wake in the middle of the night screaming. It happens. A lot. So stop beating up on women for it and start prosecuting rapists. How's that for a formula for healing?</li>
<li><i style="font-weight: bold;">Medication is poison. If you take medication for depression or bipolar disease you need to suck it up and heal yourself. </i>Uh, um, sure. Or... maybe some people ought to shut the fuck up and stop giving medical advice without a degree in medicine. </li>
<li><i style="font-weight: bold;">Feminists are frigid bitches. </i>Why do you say that as if it's a bad thing? Maybe I'm not a frigid bitch, maybe you are just kind of crude, smelly, and unattractive. I'm not saying that's how it is, I'm just offering up some other options for consideration.</li>
</ol>
<div>
As you can probably see if you've gotten this far into this cranky post, it's been a slow news day. Nothing much going on except for ebola showing up in the US, America blowing stuff up in the Middle East (for a change), killer flu strains in over 30 states paralyzing children, and an armed robbery at my favorite nature preserve. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So all I could write about was how dumb the internet is. It isn't my fault. Nothing else to discuss.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Did you know that it's a series of tubes?</div>
C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-59448358172053464642014-09-20T10:09:00.000-07:002014-09-20T17:57:50.140-07:00The NFL & Our Culture of Violence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Warning: rant in progress</td></tr>
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As the spectacle of domestic violence and the NFL plays out on televisions across America, I'm guessing I can't be the only person in this country who finds this drama a little bit sick.<br />
<br />
Even Dr. Phil is in on it now; a sure sign that the circus is in town for real.<br />
<br />
Here are my thoughts, such as they are:<br />
<ol>
<li>The NFL doesn't give a shit about domestic violence. The NFL cares about profit and fans. So far, no one, and I mean NO ONE thinks fans are going to stop going to games or watching NFL football because some of the players punch their wives in the face or hit their four-year-olds with sticks. If you are upset that some NFL players are as violent at home as they are on the field but you are still watching and/or going to games, shut up. </li>
<li>Football in America is all about violence. If you don't believe me, attend just one pee wee football game and watch the parents get into fist fights and foam at the mouth swearing on the sidelines, as their confused five-year-old boys toddle a ball up and down a big field, hoping to be admired and loved. If you happen to be one of those parents, shame on you.</li>
<li>Don't tell me you don't know that high school and college football players are considered rarified, privileged creatures who can do no wrong even as they degrade and demean others off the field, commit atrocities and, well, do great wrong whenever they are so inclined. Not every player certainly, but how long have these young men been held up to the community as shining examples of perfect manhood, while year after year some of them rape and harm 'townies' and any female they consider to be a sub-creature, which, basically, is almost any female. These women are shuffled away by authorities and if they do press charges they are deemed sluts. Nice. As if engaging in violent gang sex doesn't demean men, only women. </li>
<li>How many football players come from the upper classes? A few. Some quarterbacks. But most of the muscle comes from the black community and the working class. These men are gladiators. We can call them football players if it makes us feel better, but if you can't see through this you are deluding yourself. We make sure they play on broken bones and torn ligaments. When later in life they end up with permanent, traumatic brain injury, we throw them away. We figure it's fair because some of them make a lot of money for a short time.</li>
</ol>
<div>
Sports doesn't have to be like this, but it is like this, and has been for a very long time. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Don't get me wrong. I watch football and sometimes I even enjoy it. But I don't nurse the delusion that I am watching squads of heroes. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I know what sports in America is, I've seen it up close and personal most of my life, being related by birth to a 'sports hero' and local legend. It never has been what some people want to believe it is, and it seems to me that a better approach than screaming and crying when your heroes let you down is grow up a bit and see the world for what it is. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Not that the world has to be what it is. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We don't have to raise boys by knocking them around and bullying them into 'toughness'. We don't have to make it clear to them that the boys who matter most, the boys who are admired most, are the boys who can be mean as hell and pretend to be nice. As a culture we could instead demand good sportsmanship, kind behavior, scholarship, and accountability, but we don't. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We want our guns. We want our macho saviors. We want to know that, as a nation, we can bomb into oblivion any country that shows us disrespect no matter how ineffective that strategy proves to be. If we have to watch a black man on TV, we want to see him mow down a squad of other black men, not give a Presidential speech, not host Cosmos. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Every day we convey to our young men that might makes right and violence earns respect, demanding conformity and shaming anyone who falls short. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As long as we glorify violence, we will get violence. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The violence in the NFL is a mirror. There is nothing 'in there' that isn't out here in equal if not greater numbers. And if we really cared about that, we'd change it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But we won't.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
You know it. I know it. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So let's stop pretending. It's disrespectful to the women who absorb the blows. </div>
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C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-73614871038459196162014-09-13T08:48:00.002-07:002014-09-13T18:54:41.629-07:00Why Do Men Rape?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIQAD1bPEb8jclsWcX-kYtL1YtIIQ389L7wWjUWXB9nY1dgbobYRwi1D2nbkzHjx7QETl-8jWOp1iXuldNPiRwXJjPTBzXfF6zZNVpgiEktriBsWcDmpWXUTbl4B0nF5VYi3IQ47ykdygV/s1600/Russia_chagall_over_town.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIQAD1bPEb8jclsWcX-kYtL1YtIIQ389L7wWjUWXB9nY1dgbobYRwi1D2nbkzHjx7QETl-8jWOp1iXuldNPiRwXJjPTBzXfF6zZNVpgiEktriBsWcDmpWXUTbl4B0nF5VYi3IQ47ykdygV/s1600/Russia_chagall_over_town.jpg" height="224" width="320" /></a></div>
Answer:<br />
<br />
Men rape because they can.<br />
<br />
What? You were expecting some sort of complex psychological analysis maybe? Mother issues? Violence in the home? Sociopathy and its many permutations?<br />
<br />
Nope, it's just easy to get away with, and lots of men get away with it every year.<br />
<br />
According to the CDC, about 1.3 million rapes happen in the U.S. every year. The FBI estimate of 300,000 per year uses a much narrower definition of rape that excludes violent sexual acts that are not forced intercourse (use your imagination, I'm sure you'll figure it out).<br />
<br />
Both numbers are bad, and both organizations recognize that over half of all rapes are never reported.<br />
<br />
I got to thinking about this in the wake of all the hoopla about domestic violence and football, after the release of the endlessly replayed clip of football player Ray Rice punching his wife in the face and dragging her unconscious body off of an elevator.<br />
<br />
The NFL doesn't really care about this. The NFL cares about getting embarrassed by it or losing money over it, sure, but violence against women? No, that's part of sports culture and everyone implicitly 'gets' that.<br />
<br />
So it was weird to see the NFL on the defensive this week, crying crocodile tears over something they not only don't care about, they actively foster. It was almost as weird as seeing Jerry Sandusky cry crocodile tears about the love and concern he had for all the boys he'd been sexually violating for, what? A couple of decades? Gee whiz, it weren't like that, honest, he said. He loved those boys, he said.<br />
<br />
Bullshit.<br />
<br />
I cry bullshit on all of this because you know what? Several studies have linked rape and domestic violence to macho subcultures which objectify women and see sex as a contact sport, a conquest, an entitlement that real men take when they need it, no apologies necessary. (See for instance, Lisak & Miler 2002; Foubert, Newberry, & Tatum 2007; and Loh, Gidycz, Lobo & Luthra 2005.)<br />
<br />
But do you really need studies to confirm what we already know about sports culture?<br />
<br />
Activist and survivor Theresa Flores founded her <a href="http://www.traffickfree.com/S-O-A-P-.html">S.O.A.P. campaign</a> as a way to reach out to the adolescent girls sold in motel rooms in cities hosting major sporting events. A bar of soap goes inside every room if the motel owner agrees. On the soap is a hotline number a girl can call to get help.<br />
<br />
Flores survived such an adolescence, and this simple attempt to turn the situation around has put her in a certain amount of danger. But she keeps at it.<br />
<br />
You might wonder, how is that underage girls can be trafficked around sporting events and this woman from Detroit knows about it but the police don't?<br />
<br />
That's a good question, and it's not unlike the question of how the NFL didn't know that Ray Rice was in the habit of punching his wife in the face.<br />
<br />
We all turn a blind eye to atrocity. To a certain degree, we have to just to get through each day. But our women and girls are too valuable, too important to be wasted and disrespected in the name of a game that props up men with weak sexual identities.<br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy sports. I watch football.<br />
<br />
I just believe it is possible to play and watch sports without hurting women. In fact, in grade school and high school sports are promoted as a way to 'build character' in boys and young men. We should hold our young, and older men to a much higher standard.<br />
<br />
Will the NFL (and the rest of the U.S.) clean it up?<br />
<br />
I don't think so. Not willingly.<br />
<br />
But I can hope for a day when Mrs. Rice knows that a kiss is a kiss and a punch in the face is a punch in the face, and so do the rest of us.<br />
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<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-47261640552705070642014-09-03T09:37:00.007-07:002014-09-03T18:56:45.067-07:00Forgiveness Gone Wrong<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6_y8DiYN0gIr8YngjTHA2hd_9tERynsNnIVNjzBZ3PMsSumtVN2jVnUkdfEfwmawv4LjrX_4lOdWHwiw9SYq6Zux_ASpGEFzatquMd8PSqBcSWXVtCvsCoZTGODy8zxqSTaBseP6NAAU3/s1600/redridinghood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6_y8DiYN0gIr8YngjTHA2hd_9tERynsNnIVNjzBZ3PMsSumtVN2jVnUkdfEfwmawv4LjrX_4lOdWHwiw9SYq6Zux_ASpGEFzatquMd8PSqBcSWXVtCvsCoZTGODy8zxqSTaBseP6NAAU3/s1600/redridinghood.jpg" height="320" width="230" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Damaged inner child wolf</td></tr>
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Anyone with a Facebook account knows that the way to heal any kind of family problem, social problem, or mental or emotional disorder is to practice forgiveness.<br />
<br />
I've seen at least a dozen meaningful, moving forgiveness platitudes posted on the FB this week alone.<br />
<br />
But what does forgiveness really mean?<br />
<br />
Before I get into that, let me tell you a story about what it doesn't mean.<br />
<br />
Back in the 90s, when I was an adjunct college teacher (roughly the equivalent of a McDonald's employee except you don't have to say "Would you like fries with that?") I was invited to attend a one-day retreat offered by the Women's Studies Department.<br />
<br />
A Native American medicinal healer was going to be there. So was a famous Eastern European self-proclaimed feminist witch.<br />
<br />
Since my academic mentor had strongly suggested I attend, I did.<br />
<br />
It was a pleasant experience for the most part. We made some stuff out of clay. We did some meditative exercises.<br />
<br />
Then, as we sat down together to eat a noon meal, the conversation wandered over to forgiveness, the super megavitamin of all non-traditional healing. Everyone seemed to feel pretty damned forgiving and lamented the fact that more people weren't as evolved as them.<br />
<br />
At this point I was ready to leave but to do so at that moment would have been impolite so I kept chewing and not talking, hoping this would all end mercifully soon.<br />
<br />
Someone brought up Hitler. Would you forgive Hitler?<br />
<br />
Now here was a meaty New Age hypothetical if ever there was one (which there never was, just in case you were wondering).<br />
<br />
After a bit of reflection it turned out everyone at the table would have forgiven Hitler. One person knew Hitler had had a crappy childhood. Another had read about his conflicted feelings about his Jewish ancestry. Still another suggested that if you can't forgive Hitler you can't forgive anyone.<br />
<br />
At this point, against my academic self-interest (such as it was) I cried bullshit.<br />
<br />
No one at that table had been in a death camp. No one was Jewish. It was no one's business there to forgive Hitler, because Hitler had not wronged any of them, except to maybe offend their ethereal sensibilities.<br />
<br />
Everyone now turned their attention to helping me raise myself to a higher level of consciousness so I could forgive Hitler and heal the world, at which point I said, "Get off of me."<br />
<br />
Weirdly, the Eastern European self-proclaimed feminist witch came to my defense, shutting everyone else up immediately.<br />
<br />
"No, she's right," she said. "Hitler is in a different category. It's not a good topic."<br />
<br />
By the way she was glaring at me, I knew she had no softness toward me as a person (later confirmed through a friend and also my mentor). I mean, I know a Madame Blavatsky bullshitter wannabe when I see one, having that kind of ancestry myself on my mother's side, and having seen one.<br />
<br />
I didn't really care that she didn't like me.<br />
<br />
So the fact that she stuck up for me in this crowd was a bit of a surprise.<br />
<br />
Here's the thing: Human beings are capable of great atrocity. We all can access a darkness that is so deep it feels supernatural, whether or not it really is. The best you can do in such instances is turn away, laugh, focus on loving yourself and others.<br />
<br />
Forgiveness?<br />
<br />
It was a 'given', beforehand, that Hitler, having aligned himself with this Darkness would cause suffering and death beyond imagining. If we, imagining ourselves safe from harm and looking back at this transcendent evil feel moved to embrace the damaged child inside of a dangerous man who no longer exists in the flesh, does that help anyone?<br />
<br />
Does it heal what happened?<br />
<br />
No. It just feeds our own egos, which, by the way, are already way too good at giving us bad advice.<br />
<br />
Sometimes, when faced with such Darkness, if you can summon the strength to turn away and heal yourself, and go on to live and love, that is enough. That, in fact, is amazing and heroic.<br />
<br />
May you never have to experience this truth firsthand.<br />
<br />
Many have, however.<br />
<br />
You probably know more than few, and yet you don't know, because they remain silent.<br />
<br />
I try to remember this, although I'm not always successful. Sometimes you open your mouth and your brain falls out.<br />
<br />
Now that, as a person who has lost my mind many times, is something I can forgive.C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-10278455518501906382014-08-25T12:12:00.000-07:002014-08-25T12:13:17.744-07:00Racist, Post-Racist, Hyper-Racist, Why We Can't All Just Get Along?<div style="text-align: left;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy Gregg Richards, Flickr CC</td></tr>
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First of all, we can all just get along.<br />
<br />
But we often don't.<br />
<br />
Whenever the topic of race comes up, most people take it very personally and get defensive and/or accusatory. I'm not a racist, you are. We are all the same race so stop it, there is no such thing as race. Please stop talking. Black people are racist too. Everybody is racist. This is not about race.<br />
<br />
And so on.<br />
<br />
All the defense mechanisms get trotted out and then the volume goes up and then the room goes silent or things get ugly.<br />
<br />
It's not so much what we say as what we carefully don't say that builds tension.<br />
<br />
Open your mouth and all the tension burbles up like sludge in an over-full septic tank.<br />
<br />
I've thought for some time that racism is damaging because it is systematic and pervasive, because it touches everyone in some horrible, deforming way, because it ignites violence and stokes hate without ever really showing itself in a way everyone can agree on.<br />
<br />
The reason we argue about race is because it is so ingrained in American culture, so big and so diffuse and integrated in how we all think and perceive, that we have trouble seeing it clearly, even when it is hurting everyone.<br />
<br />
Most white people think that if they are not burning crosses or beating up people with dark skin or using the 'n' word (really, really dislike that phrase <i>'the n word'</i>), that means they are not racist. Most white people and black people think that people who do use the 'n' word ARE racist.<br />
<br />
None of that has anything to do with how racist any one person is or isn't IMO, and I would go so far as to say that I almost don't care about the degree of racism any one person exhibits. Who am I? God? No, I'm just a person living in the U.S., as skewed and infected as anyone else.<br />
<br />
Also, I know that focusing on whether or not any single given person is racist is a trap. It starts a conversation that goes nowhere, pumps up tempers, and increases resentment.<br />
<br />
But that doesn't mean we can't talk about racism.<br />
<br />
We can talk about racism as an institution, a social construct that once justified slavery and now justifies lots of other horrible things, an American disease, and so forth.<br />
<br />
The reason I am thinking all these thoughts is because after I wrote my last post about Mr. Anderson, I received some criticism for calling my brother a racist but not showing how he became one.<br />
<br />
I realized a couple of things: 1) I did<i> not </i>show how my brother became a racist, I only hinted at where it all started, and 2) Nothing good ever happens after you call anybody a racist, even if that person is wearing a white hood and man-dress, even if that person is a violent psychopath seething with (barely) repressed hatred of anyone different from himself.<br />
<br />
After this conversation and accurate yet uncomfortable critique of my blog post, I went to bed and had nonstop nightmares about my brother stabbing me, punching me, hurting me, and so on, and when I woke up the next day I was regretting my personal story-corp experiment.<br />
<br />
But I'm not giving up.<br />
<br />
The thing is, if you stand up to a bully, no matter what the situation, there will be consequences. Nightmares are the least of those consequences.<br />
<br />
So seriously, truly, I 'get' why this country wants to avoid the topic of racism at all costs.<br />
<br />
But sometimes you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. That's all I'm doing here.<br />
<br />
I don't know where I'm going. But I'll know when I get there.<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-82738228466321995172014-08-21T19:03:00.002-07:002014-08-22T05:56:23.088-07:00Mr. Anderson, Janitor Super-Negro<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBeRiz2XnJIqTvX0hxMeOkcHn1IND-PWZWEUl6tN75fMVqd1_bZCYNXZSbOKMMfAJR1nvHYgGBce-3oVmXTdcTrolmxfSAffTWPmz7q_yzyZzFQKTIBDruFxvneQQ6xHaV7OBz6hsYu5Ln/s1600/andresmustaflickr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBeRiz2XnJIqTvX0hxMeOkcHn1IND-PWZWEUl6tN75fMVqd1_bZCYNXZSbOKMMfAJR1nvHYgGBce-3oVmXTdcTrolmxfSAffTWPmz7q_yzyZzFQKTIBDruFxvneQQ6xHaV7OBz6hsYu5Ln/s1600/andresmustaflickr.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy Andres Musta Flickr CC</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My brother is a little more than a year younger than me, but most people still think he is older because he is 6'4" and was a high school sports celebrity.<br />
<br />
He's a big guy. He's my only brother.<br />
<br />
He's a psychopath and a racist.<br />
<br />
I say this, not out of bitterness or resentment, but as a simple statement of fact.<br />
<br />
Oh sure, I've had my bitter, resentful spasms through the years. But that's a different essay.<br />
<br />
Back in the early 1960s, while my brother was still a psychopath-in-training and had not yet become a full-fledged racist miscreant, he was just a scrawny kid who liked to jump out from behind things to scare his sister (me), and who drew the same Easter Bunny over and over again for way longer than was appropriate or necessary.<br />
<br />
He drew my mother a bunny one Easter and she liked it and pinned it on the refrigerator. When neighbor women would stop by for coffee she'd point it out, and they'd make nice noises.<br />
<br />
But then, he drew dozens more Easter Bunnies. He drew a Thanksgiving East Bunny, a Christmas Easter Bunny, a Valentine Easter Bunny, a Mother's Day Easter bunny, and so on and so forth... It got so it was beyond awkward. We all could see something was wrong, and my parents, already badly hobbled in the sanity department themselves, had no idea what to do about it.<br />
<br />
Ignore it maybe. Smash it.<br />
<br />
In my parents' defense I should mention that this happened way before child psychologists even existed, and lofty notions of instilling 'self-esteem' in children were so alien as to sound heretical. This happened back in the day, when children were supposed to keep quiet and mind their elders, and infractions brought a whipping "for your own good". <br />
<br />
Spare the rod and pretty soon you have too damn many rods. Might as well beat your kids.<br />
<br />
Not to judge that reality either way. It was what it was.<br />
<br />
Anyway, one evening my father, my mother, my brother, and me were sitting at supper together, and my father, by way of making conversation, asked my brother what he wanted to be when he grew up. (He didn't ask me. I was a girl.)<br />
<br />
My brother brightened and answered immediately,<br />
<br />
"Mr. Anderson!"<br />
<br />
I was surprised that my brother actually gave a credible answer instead of choosing, oh, Superman, Zorro, or the Easter Bunny, and I totally 'got' why he chose Mr. Anderson.<br />
<br />
Mr. Anderson was one of only two male employees in the entire school. (The other was the science teacher, who wore a crewcut and was kind of scary.)<br />
<br />
Whenever anything went wrong, Mr. Anderson came and quietly fixed it. If a kid puked, bled, or peed on the school linoleum, Mr. Anderson came with a coffee can filled with something that looked like eraser shavings, sprinkled it on the disgusting bodily fluid, then swept it up in a dustpan, like magic.<br />
<br />
Mr. Anderson was quiet, kind, helpful, and always nearby. He said little and helped much. He showed kids that men are kind, responsible people who take care of messes no one else wants to touch. Men respect women, especially teachers, and help kids.<br />
<br />
At six years of age, my brother responded to this, including and maybe especially the magic eraser shavings.<br />
<br />
How my father was able to remember that Mr. Anderson was the black grade school janitor I can't imagine, but remember he did, and at hearing my brother's answer his face went three shades whiter, then bright red.<br />
<br />
My mother ventured into the thick, charged silence as tentatively as a mouse sniffing about for a cat.<br />
<br />
"You can be anything sweetie. You can be an astronaut, a fire fighter, even President!"<br />
<br />
I think my father said something about my brother not understanding until he was older. I really don't remember what my father said in response. I do remember the tension, the fear. I saw a beating in my brother's immediate future, and since I was already waiting for that I lost my appetite. I knew the Easter Bunny production line would not shut down anytime soon.<br />
<br />
Bad Dad Syndrome. Every working class white kid knows what it is.<br />
<br />
Today we do have a black President. We also have black fire fighters, and probably even a black astronaut or two, and my brother no longer draws Easter Bunnies (at least to the best of my knowledge he doesn't--I haven't spoken to him for over twenty-five years).<br />
<br />
Most of the janitors around here these days are Mexican.<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-19006345616216073222014-08-20T18:14:00.003-07:002014-08-22T05:56:00.514-07:00Racial Stories We Never Tell<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh9XdM4w6r4RoJwJZAxTpe6dx6KJ9YT5cWg3FVuWWFGDl1lR37GeAf61unAWgDeh9TNiXJLDW148cv9ZNV35fEN-TR4ch5-vQ6E8w-5d-mt2AxR2ptWoF9hgsQ5SN0EfPxWGsBEa1fbnJs/s1600/rosaparks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh9XdM4w6r4RoJwJZAxTpe6dx6KJ9YT5cWg3FVuWWFGDl1lR37GeAf61unAWgDeh9TNiXJLDW148cv9ZNV35fEN-TR4ch5-vQ6E8w-5d-mt2AxR2ptWoF9hgsQ5SN0EfPxWGsBEa1fbnJs/s1600/rosaparks.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ms Parks courtesy Corbin-Benson@FlickrCC </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, about how white America has all these stories we never tell, stories that are not in the public canon, human stories about race and relatedness and personal history.<br />
<br />
Not all of these stories are unhappy, but many of them are.<br />
<br />
Not all of them date back to slavery, but some do.<br />
<br />
My belief is that as a culture we keep as many secrets about race as we keep about sex, maybe more. If we stopped doing that, it might open up a space for change.<br />
<br />
Junio Diaz was once asked if he thought white people would ever be able to write these stories, and he said no, not in his lifetime. Maybe sometime far, far in the future.<br />
<br />
I thought maybe I'd use this blog for awhile to tell some of my stories.<br />
<br />
I have more of these stories than I really want to have, and I don't have a good place to put them. Many of them make people of all colors and backgrounds uncomfortable.<br />
<br />
They are filed in my head right behind the folder entitled, "Pam You Are Freaking Worthless." I don't open <i>that</i> folder anymore if I can help it, and most of the time I forget about the file behind it.<br />
<br />
I often wonder how many white-seeming people have such stories.<br />
<br />
No one ever tells me theirs.<br />
<br />
Here's a small one:<br />
<br />
When I was a kid we used to ride the bus downtown all the time and just wander around, getting kicked out of stores occasionally and sometimes getting a soda. This was before malls, before shopping centers, during the Civil Rights movement of the 60s.<br />
<br />
I grew up in the North, in an industrial city south of Detroit. But although my city was on the Underground Railroad, no blacks stopped and stayed until the big factories came in the 40s and 50s, along with a need for lots of factory workers.<br />
<br />
I remember black ladies being escorted out of department stores if the tried on hats. Also, if they went in the dressing rooms to try something on, a white saleswoman would go in and ask them not to do that, as if they were somehow dirtier than everyone else.<br />
<br />
One day I was riding home on the bus and an elderly white woman got on.<br />
<br />
The bus was full, so a black woman seated across from me stood up and offered her seat.<br />
<br />
The elderly white woman smiled and then fished around in her purse for a moment, producing one of those flowered cloth handkerchieves. Unfolding it, she daintily spread it across the seat the seat the black woman offered, and then sat down.<br />
<br />
The black woman, seeing I had witnessed this sorry scene instead of looking away like the adults did, shook her head sadly. Our eyes met for that moment and I did... nothing.<br />
<br />
I was a kid. I probably should have given her my seat, but I got off the bus shortly thereafter.<br />
<br />
Now nobody rides the bus in my home city except black people and schizophrenics.<br />
<br />
Come back if you want more.<br />
<br />
I'll keep going until I run out.<br />
<br />
<br />C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-40589971263268636402014-08-19T18:49:00.001-07:002014-08-20T07:45:29.717-07:00American Apartheid<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8blW-bBcpHPlkr2AR3k7oKGE5HO4WK0m3o5pJghOWfjYOyBnGw7i2UmJwDlMCIbdS6O9cduSQ4zZuVQ3DfgeXu4MkYpWefgyyiDiqdZAINF1o-t2Ef8tqFKz6Agiu615IxumjUTyE-mGs/s1600/The-Fox-And-The-Crow,-Illustration-From-Aesops-Fables,-Published-By-Heinemann,-1912.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8blW-bBcpHPlkr2AR3k7oKGE5HO4WK0m3o5pJghOWfjYOyBnGw7i2UmJwDlMCIbdS6O9cduSQ4zZuVQ3DfgeXu4MkYpWefgyyiDiqdZAINF1o-t2Ef8tqFKz6Agiu615IxumjUTyE-mGs/s1600/The-Fox-And-The-Crow,-Illustration-From-Aesops-Fables,-Published-By-Heinemann,-1912.jpg" height="320" width="219" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not really having a conversation.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Why should white people care about racism?<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Trust me, most white people never consciously ask themselves that question, because they already are pretty sure they personally are not oppressing anyone. They feel that if they personally are not racist, then racism is not their problem.<br />
<br />
Whenever a racially charged incident occurs in the U.S., lots of pundits start talking about how we "really need to have a serious conversation about race in this country."<br />
<br />
That's not what we need.<br />
<br />
I've been present at many such discussions, and what usually happens is that five or six white people dressed in J.Crew khakis and polo shirts suck all the air out the room whining that they personally are not racist and they don't like feeling accused.<br />
<br />
Usually some excruciatingly tactful and patient black professional takes the time at this point to carefully explain racism as an institution (not a personality trait), at which point the same white people just keep on whining about how no one is showing them any respect.<br />
<br />
Right about there, I want to slap one or more them. Hard.<br />
<br />
Understand, nothing has been done to me. I have nothing to complain about and I'm not insulted. I'm just embarrassed--no, mortified--that these assholes are the whites who are 'representing', and I begin to feel like it is my job to somehow blow them up so they will stop talking.<br />
<br />
So enough of the talking about race nonsense. We talk too much as it is.<br />
<br />
Instead, how about we agree, as a society, to fix some stuff.</div>
<div>
<br />
For instance, because most white people don't think about racism outside stereotypes, ugly remarks, and their own raging narcissism, it has been possible to quietly corral all the poor people of color into huge urban deserts, where nothing is. No schools, no stores, and no cops most of the time.<br />
<br />
Integration as a concept for peace has been largely abandoned in favor of something like "just keep it out of my face and out of my kids' school."<br />
<br />
So basically we have de facto segregation in most of American society today. It may be a different kind of segregation and a different atmosphere than the Jim Crow days of the pre-Civil Rights Act South, but the effects are every bit as oppressive.<br />
<br />
If the recent events in Ferguson have not laid to rest the idea that Americans live in a post-racial society just because Barack Obama is President, I don't know what will.<br />
<br />
I keep thinking of the line from that song Crosby, Stills, and Nash song about the Ohio State Vietnam protests that goes, "...what if you knew her and found her dead on the ground? How can you run when you know?"<br />
<br />
We can't pretend like we don't know anymore. Some of us have known for a long time.<br />
<br />
But now, even those J.Crew idiots need to STFU.<br />
<br />
Enough talk.<br />
<br />
Time to get to work.</div>
C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8294508083585722428.post-58586053986974199922014-07-31T10:15:00.001-07:002014-07-31T10:15:40.368-07:00The All Cricket Diet<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjXQ_XM6PRKbJVBRLvyCtTRGRRlNITnBL0a4aD39LR3MZC_qg0IKvlRfpVfJGFZEeZVL9rDCEhXiX84Yxb9ucH0YcBxtfXOHLEenIblknEWDZAvhux_HEY12o4y5oPTT9KJQ1lNVxdu-rG/s1600/cricket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjXQ_XM6PRKbJVBRLvyCtTRGRRlNITnBL0a4aD39LR3MZC_qg0IKvlRfpVfJGFZEeZVL9rDCEhXiX84Yxb9ucH0YcBxtfXOHLEenIblknEWDZAvhux_HEY12o4y5oPTT9KJQ1lNVxdu-rG/s1600/cricket.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy Johan J. Ingles-Le Nobel @ Flickr CC</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Early this year I stopped eating meat. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I did this because I was grossed out by how meat is raised, because I can't really afford to buy even the most corporate-raised mystery meat (never mind grass-fed organic), and because we had just gotten Netflix live streaming for TV, which offered at least six documentaries on why vegan eating is the only responsible way to eat, period. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That was back in February or so.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Since then, I've added eggs and whole milk to my diet because I just started craving them. I buy cage free eggs which I know are still not that humanely raised, and organic milk. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We grow some of our own fruit and veggies.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It got me to thinking though how hung up on food American's are, me included. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We're fat, for one thing, and we know it. We get constant reminders on the news and in the doctor's office and when we try on clothes made in the third world for people one-third our average size. We feel bad about that and wallow in self-hatred and yet... losing weight is hard. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Correction: Losing weight is easy.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Keeping it off is hard. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I've lost some weight. mostly by accident, switching to veggies. But in general, I'm still not bikini material (at 61) and even though Helen Mirren IS (and she's older than me!) I've learned that I can't (won't) do anything about it and anyway, acceptance works way better for me for a happy life.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I've seen these food fads come and go:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Stillman Diet (remember that one?): All protein. period.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Atkins Diet: Mostly protein, some veggies.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The South Beach Diet: Low fat protein, lots of veggies & fruit.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Food Combining: Because nobody knows more about food than Suzanne Sommers.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Eating every other day: Because if you don't eat, you can lose weight.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Vegan: No meat or animal products ever, no matter the cost. (The saddest two words in the English language are "vegan bakery.")</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
No grains, no bread: Wheat belly? Please. I made this belly myself, thank you very much!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
No sugar: OK that's actually a good idea. But very difficult.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Basically almost any change you make to your diet that eliminates a food group will cause you to lose some weight, for awhile. But for most of human history, people ate whatever they could get their hands on. And in lean times, so would we. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm thinking however that diet books might be a source of income in a time when most writers are filled with financial despair. How about the All Cricket Diet? Did you ever see a fat bird? No of course not. Birds eat crickets and so should we. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
John the Baptist lived in the desert on locusts and honey and did he have a gut?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
No, he did not. Although, he did lose his head eventually... but I don't think it was due to the locusts.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So choose your poison, or your food. It's your life, after all.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But you are not what you eat.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
You are you. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Food is food. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Crickets are free.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Eat as many as you can catch for a svelte new body!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
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</div>
C. R. Rookwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16167804392560473423noreply@blogger.com0