Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Proximal Vs. Ultimal cause
There's a concept in anthropology called "Ultimal vs. Proximal Cause " Ultimal means "if you keep doing that, ultimately this will happen". Proximal means, close enough to see and experience for yourself.
The average caveman will say "Cha, whatev" if you tell him that a week from now, a lion will be chasing him, and he better prepare for that now.
However, when a lion is actually chasing the caveman, he does alright at doing something about it, like running, rather than arguing with you about whether a lion is actually chasing him.
I was going to say Humans, in general, are historically pretty bad at responding to Ultimal causes, and then I remembered that indigenous societies were actually pretty good at it, through generations of transmission of knowledge and ritual- that is, until European colonizers came along. Since White, European culture dominates the world right now, it's fair to say that most of the world is also really bad at responding to Ultimal cause, or even believing threats that they can't SEE exist. This is why we're so bad at dealing with global warming.
This is because our responses to a threat don't necessarily have anything to do with intelligence. Your response has more to do with your experience. If you've been through a hard time or catastrophe before, and survived, you've taken steps to ensure that particular hardship never happens again- at least the parts that are within your control. If you don't, you likely won't survive the next catastrophe. That simple.
And I say this because I've seen a lot of dumb/lazy shaming on the interwebs lately, about how certain people aren't preparing enough or whatever, so that makes them stupid. Dudes. We're all stupid. If White civilization (and I use the term loosely) hadn't smashed up indigenous cultures worldwide and replaced honest-to-God lifesaving information with ads for Playstation and cosmetics, we would all be as "smart" as the First Ones.
In this theoretical framework, (which just might be real) as soon as the Deniers (of climate change, pandemics, poverty, this fucked up system, etc) actually experience the Ultimal cause as Proximal cause, they will do something about it.
Previous to now, the Elites have been able to live in this fantasy-world bubble of Everything Is Awesome and if not it's Your Fault.
But guess what? Mother Nature is a stone-cold genius, and instead of killing everyone in one fell swoop (which she was seriously considering, believe me) she let loose this little virus that won't necessarily kill you, but if/when you do catch it, you will definitely Experience things that you've never experienced before- especially if you're an elite.
Speaking for our country, here's a list of things that a critical mass of people will experience for the first time, that which they've been denying for at least 40 years.
*The reality that our "health-care system" is really just a lottery. Yes, even if you work full-time, have "good" insurance, and a treatable condition, the odds are not in your favor.
*The reality that our education system is broken, and teachers do a heroic job on a daily basis. It is not their fault that your kid is a little shit, it's yours. Homeschooling isn't all petting zoos and poetry, is it?
* The reality that "careers" are just fancified slavery. That people have been bought and paid for, just like the janitor down the hall. Actually, probably more than him or her, because she has no illusions about what a "job" is. People will start to question what work & labor mean, what is worth their time and what is not, what they are worth.
There's more, but please comment below if you can think of some things that many people will experience for the first time and hence, GROK.
Daaaaaayyyyyyyuuuuuuummmmm Mother Nature, you are brilliant! I would kiss you, but that's not allowed rn.
😍
Saturday, September 21, 2019
You Know You Are From Denver When
You know you are from Denver when some White Supremacist pig posts a pro-Nazi event flyer in a popular group and the admins let that stand, but won't allow the counter-protest event to be posted.
You know you are from Denver when you can't believe this is happening in your hometown, your home state. You can't believe that the grandson of a KKK grand-wizard was allowed to run for governor on a "Let's forget about all that unpleasantness and continue blaming brown people for our problems" platform. You can't believe this is the same town, the same state that used to boast of its broad and fair-mindedness, it's the live-and-let-live mentality.
You know you are from Denver if you grew up with friends and family of all colors, all religions, all parts of the world, and you didn't think much of it. If you had to sum it up as a creed or a philosophy, it's that there's really nothing high-minded about it, you just don't give a fuck. Most people you know also don't give a fuck. Unless someone is an asshole, and then we definitely give a fuck, and will give them free directions to the nearest highway.
You know you are from the Mile-High city if you care more about musical tastes, craft beers and sports teams than anyone's so-called "race."
You know you are from Denver when you know this used to be Mexico for a good 300 years before it was ever Amurrrica, and you know that not from what they taught in school, but from your friends, neighbors, and probably your mixed family who had to move up here from the San Luis Valley to get jobs. You know to mind your fucking manners and to not purposely offend your Latinx friends and family because they were here first, so shut yer white gob and pass the tortillas.
You know you are from Denver when some shady af pseudo-military organization calling themselves "ICE" (as in... Vanilla?) tries to bust up your neighbor's party and you launch cans of skunky Coors Lite at them, which no one was drinking anyway.
You know you are from Denver when your whole life has been nothing but change, but you can't remember a time like this.
You know you are from Denver when you can't think of Thanksgiving without Daddy Bruce, or helping out at the Rescue Mission, or some other homeless shelter where your parents made you go and you hated them for it but now you're grateful. Because you have memories of compassion. And joy.
You know you are from Denver if you are still shocked to see a homeless population that has only grown since the '80s. You know that Denver has always been a crossroads, back to the tribes, but people were just passing through. You know you are from Denver when you look at the monstrous new "Mile Hi Stadium" and then back at the homeless camps along the Platte and Cherry Creek, and you want to puke.
You know you are from Denver when some punk-ass little bitches calling themselves "Proud Boys"
who probably aren't even from here try to counter-protest your AntiFa rally and they get booed into silence by a bunch of grandmothers who could probably kick their asses.
You know you are from Denver if you feel guilty about letting this hateful behavior get this far, this quickly, in the name of being "friendly" and "cool." You know the coolness ship has sailed and shit's about to get real.
You know you are from Denver if you have friends and family on the Western Slope or the Eastern Plains who voted for Trump and then immediately lost their jobs, or their ranches, or all their money to lack of healthcare. You don't mock them, you cry with them. And you would invite them to stay with you but your 600 square foot apartment won't hold anymore.
You know you are from Denver when you had a house, but lost it in the foreclosure crisis of 2010 and watched as Eastern developers with cash turned it into luxury condominiums that only Eastern transplants could afford. You know you are from Denver when you don't recognize your neighborhood anymore, and you get lost going home from work.
You know you are from Denver when one by one, all your friends start moving away to cheaper places where they can actually raise their kids and not starve. Places like Texas. T.E.X.A.S.
You know you are from Denver when you haven't been able to afford skiing in 15 years, even with your side- gig at a rental shop where you outfit hundreds of people from out of state every winter, all of whom want to move here. You know we don't have many snowy winters left, so you'd better get up there while you can.
You know you are from Denver when you don't even want to go to the mountains anymore because there are too many fucking people up there -and on a weekend? Forget it! Maybe on a Wednesday. But you have to work, just to be able to scrape by in this beautiful place.
You know you are from Denver if you are completely ruined for living anywhere else. Sure, you've traveled a bit, but you always come back. This is basecamp and home, and by God, you're not leaving. So you get another side-gig and start growing pot.
You know you are from Denver When your hospitality is completely shot, and you gather your community, such as it is, and together you start to rise up against the carpetbaggers, the extractors, the developers, the bankers, the fascists, the corrupt politicians and together you say ENOUGH. BASTA. You've had enough sunshine and smoke blown up your ass to power several hot-air balloons and you are using that power to lift up the people, amplify their voices, and finally overthrow this greedy, corrupt, cancer that has grown over everything you love. Like Aurora. A.U.R.O.R.A.*
*I'm from Aurora, I can say that.
Sunday, June 16, 2019
We're so sorry, Matthew Shepard
True Story: When I first heard of Matthew Shepard's death as a result of a vicious hate-motivated attack, I was like "Welp, that's too bad, he seemed like a sweet little gay boy - (I thought he was from Denver at the time) "but even I wouldn't fuck with people in Laramie."
I was a few years older than him and had just moved back to my hometown of Denver, Colorado, following 5 years in New Mexico. It sounded like the kind of thing that happened in Albuquerque on a weekly basis. The culture there- at the time at least- was very dangerous for LGBTQ folks, especially if you were Latinx and Catholic, or white and Protestant, or anything outside the straight, macho norm, really. Having grown up in Denver, which is an unofficial LGBTQ refugee center for kids and adults from the South, the Midwest, Utah, Wyoming, and the East Coast - anywhere intolerance reigns- the attitudes in NM kind of shook me. I myself identify as straight, but my best friends have always been outcasts, and more than once I've had to knock some bully's teeth out in their defense. I assumed that all Westerners had this open-minded, live and let live attitude, especially about sexuality, because it's no one's gahdamn business. I used to say, There's nothing really high-minded about it, we just don't give a fuck about your _________ (race, gender, sexuality, religion, class, academic achievements, family name, etc)
Then I found out he was *from* Laramie. Lived there all his life. Hometown boy. Then why did he go into that redneck bar alone? I wondered aloud, as did many people in Denver, in Colorado, around the world. I knew people who had known him because the Denver gay community was pretty tight back then. They worked with him at the natural foods store, or hung out with him, or knew him from school. Everyone said how sweet and kind he was- and that he knew enough NOT to go into some redneck, non-gay bar, wherever he was.
This is one of the many things that make women and gay men equal; we both know not to walk into bars alone unless we're meeting SEVERAL friends there. If we do happen to do so, we definitely do NOT strike up conversations with strangers or anyone we don't implicitly trust. We both know the world outside is not safe for us, and you have to take many precautions against assault and death- even if it's a Wednesday night and you just want a beer before heading home. Shoot, for both of us, it's not even safe INSIDE our own homes- but that's a story for another time.
Then I found out that it was indeed abnormal behavior for him. His own best friends were at a loss as to what he was thinking. He had just moved back home after a stint of independence in Denver, where he found a community, he could be himself, and everyone liked him. Maybe he was trying out his new found confidence in his own hometown. Maybe he reckoned, I should be able to go into any bar I want to, anywhere I want to. I'm twenty-one. No law against it. And he was right - if that's what he was thinking- I've been known to get cocky and pull stuff like that, but I've never paid for it with my life, obviously. But he was right. He should be able to get a drink anywhere, strike up a conversation and maybe make some new friends. That shouldn't be a risky, potentially lethal thing to do. And yet women and gay men are punished every day for being so foolish. They are raped, beaten, and outright murdered. Because, how dare we think even for a second that we're equal.
If his murderers meant to punish him for such audacity and send a message to all gay boys everywhere- it backfired. To put it mildly.
The world was, rightly, horrified. The straight "community" allied with the gay community in outrage, and parents everywhere were forced to confront the bigotry in their hearts, decide that it was bullshit, and cast it out. The question, "what if that was my child?" could be heard ringing around people's heads, not just in the media.
And then I found out that he wasn't one of those runaway kids that populate the streets of Denver, rejected from their close-minded, probably Christian, homes for being gay, or trans, or whatever. Nope. He was a well-loved and accepted child, with lovely, educated, open-minded parents. He moved to Denver because he and his parents thought it would be good for him to get out of his hometown, and disenroll from the University of Wyoming for a while, to figure out what he really wanted to do. They trusted him. They checked on him. He loved them. They loved him. Nothing to see here, move along.
A few years later, two different made-for-TV movies about his death came out- one of them filmed a few blocks from me at an abandoned hospital scheduled for demolition. One day on my walk, I saw a young woman dressed in scrubs sitting on what was the old Emergency Room dock for ambulances. She was sobbing and trying to smoke a cigarette at the same time. The film crews had it all fenced off, but I hollered to her through it, "Are you alright?" Thinking maybe someone did something horrible to her or tried to. She nodded back, and stammered, "yeah... this scene... it's so hard. Really hard." I looked up at the fake made-for-TV sign put up over the old hospital sign, that read "Poudre Valley Hospital" - the place in Fort Collins where Matthew was taken. I nodded back at her. "This scene," she said, "this is the scene where he dies. We've been trying all day to get it right." Now I was starting to tear up. "Good luck. Do your best." And I moved off quickly from there, not wanting to completely collapse. I took my dog to the park, took some deep breaths, and got over it eventually.
(By the way- I recommend the MFTV movie that stars Stockard Channing as his mother. Because... Stockard Channing is just awesome, in everything, and rumour has it she did the work for free. It's a well-rounded and sensitive portrayal of his whole life, not just the incident that ended it. )
Through the years, as anti-gay violence ebbed and flowed depending on the Presidential administration, I rewrote my initial assumptions many times over, even as I heard other people echoing them.
"Well ya know, you lay yourself down on the train tracks long enough, you're gonna get runn'd over! What do you expect?"
"Even his own parents agreed that he was acting stupid."
"Kid should have taken some martial arts lessons. Ya got to know how to defend yourself."
"If it were me, I'da shoved a crowbar up their asses."
Nothing about how the murderers were some crazy, ignorant, insecure, hateful fucks. Nothing about how you should be safe in your hometown, where people know you, and presumably look out for you. Nope. Mostly stuff about how you should expect that if you *choose* to be gay.
Fast forward many years to just two years ago, when I was *briefly* working at a King Soopers in Highlands Ranch, an upper-middle-class, mostly white, mostly moderate conservative suburb south of Denver. Surprisingly, there were probably at least a dozen LGBTQ people on staff, and four of them were transgender. Out of those four, both of the female-to-male transitioning people chose the name Matthew as their new names. Since the store already had at least ten Matts or Matthews in every department - seriously, not exaggerating- I decided to tease my transitioning friend one day in the break room about their choice of name. "I applaud your bravery," I jested, "but for the love of God, did you have to choose the name Matthew??" I was cracking myself up. They responded quietly, it's partially for Matthew Shepard, and partially because I just like it.
Oh. This is not the first time I've found out what an ignorant douchebag I can be. But it was the most poignant. I had hurt my friend's feelings, unintentionally but still - and had completely forgotten about his legacy. Shit. I told my friend, "that's a beautiful tribute. And an awesome name. You wear it well." Luckily they forgave me.
We are so sorry, Matthew Shepard. So sorry for what happened to you, for allowing it to happen, and for forgetting even for a second what your name might mean to some very brave young people who are afraid to come out as gay, transgender, bi, queer, or asexual or whatever it is. Your name does not mean hate, and fear, and death. It means Gift from Yahweh. And now it means, acceptance, forgiveness, and love.
I was a few years older than him and had just moved back to my hometown of Denver, Colorado, following 5 years in New Mexico. It sounded like the kind of thing that happened in Albuquerque on a weekly basis. The culture there- at the time at least- was very dangerous for LGBTQ folks, especially if you were Latinx and Catholic, or white and Protestant, or anything outside the straight, macho norm, really. Having grown up in Denver, which is an unofficial LGBTQ refugee center for kids and adults from the South, the Midwest, Utah, Wyoming, and the East Coast - anywhere intolerance reigns- the attitudes in NM kind of shook me. I myself identify as straight, but my best friends have always been outcasts, and more than once I've had to knock some bully's teeth out in their defense. I assumed that all Westerners had this open-minded, live and let live attitude, especially about sexuality, because it's no one's gahdamn business. I used to say, There's nothing really high-minded about it, we just don't give a fuck about your _________ (race, gender, sexuality, religion, class, academic achievements, family name, etc)
Then I found out he was *from* Laramie. Lived there all his life. Hometown boy. Then why did he go into that redneck bar alone? I wondered aloud, as did many people in Denver, in Colorado, around the world. I knew people who had known him because the Denver gay community was pretty tight back then. They worked with him at the natural foods store, or hung out with him, or knew him from school. Everyone said how sweet and kind he was- and that he knew enough NOT to go into some redneck, non-gay bar, wherever he was.
This is one of the many things that make women and gay men equal; we both know not to walk into bars alone unless we're meeting SEVERAL friends there. If we do happen to do so, we definitely do NOT strike up conversations with strangers or anyone we don't implicitly trust. We both know the world outside is not safe for us, and you have to take many precautions against assault and death- even if it's a Wednesday night and you just want a beer before heading home. Shoot, for both of us, it's not even safe INSIDE our own homes- but that's a story for another time.
Then I found out that it was indeed abnormal behavior for him. His own best friends were at a loss as to what he was thinking. He had just moved back home after a stint of independence in Denver, where he found a community, he could be himself, and everyone liked him. Maybe he was trying out his new found confidence in his own hometown. Maybe he reckoned, I should be able to go into any bar I want to, anywhere I want to. I'm twenty-one. No law against it. And he was right - if that's what he was thinking- I've been known to get cocky and pull stuff like that, but I've never paid for it with my life, obviously. But he was right. He should be able to get a drink anywhere, strike up a conversation and maybe make some new friends. That shouldn't be a risky, potentially lethal thing to do. And yet women and gay men are punished every day for being so foolish. They are raped, beaten, and outright murdered. Because, how dare we think even for a second that we're equal.
If his murderers meant to punish him for such audacity and send a message to all gay boys everywhere- it backfired. To put it mildly.
The world was, rightly, horrified. The straight "community" allied with the gay community in outrage, and parents everywhere were forced to confront the bigotry in their hearts, decide that it was bullshit, and cast it out. The question, "what if that was my child?" could be heard ringing around people's heads, not just in the media.
And then I found out that he wasn't one of those runaway kids that populate the streets of Denver, rejected from their close-minded, probably Christian, homes for being gay, or trans, or whatever. Nope. He was a well-loved and accepted child, with lovely, educated, open-minded parents. He moved to Denver because he and his parents thought it would be good for him to get out of his hometown, and disenroll from the University of Wyoming for a while, to figure out what he really wanted to do. They trusted him. They checked on him. He loved them. They loved him. Nothing to see here, move along.
A few years later, two different made-for-TV movies about his death came out- one of them filmed a few blocks from me at an abandoned hospital scheduled for demolition. One day on my walk, I saw a young woman dressed in scrubs sitting on what was the old Emergency Room dock for ambulances. She was sobbing and trying to smoke a cigarette at the same time. The film crews had it all fenced off, but I hollered to her through it, "Are you alright?" Thinking maybe someone did something horrible to her or tried to. She nodded back, and stammered, "yeah... this scene... it's so hard. Really hard." I looked up at the fake made-for-TV sign put up over the old hospital sign, that read "Poudre Valley Hospital" - the place in Fort Collins where Matthew was taken. I nodded back at her. "This scene," she said, "this is the scene where he dies. We've been trying all day to get it right." Now I was starting to tear up. "Good luck. Do your best." And I moved off quickly from there, not wanting to completely collapse. I took my dog to the park, took some deep breaths, and got over it eventually.
(By the way- I recommend the MFTV movie that stars Stockard Channing as his mother. Because... Stockard Channing is just awesome, in everything, and rumour has it she did the work for free. It's a well-rounded and sensitive portrayal of his whole life, not just the incident that ended it. )
Through the years, as anti-gay violence ebbed and flowed depending on the Presidential administration, I rewrote my initial assumptions many times over, even as I heard other people echoing them.
"Well ya know, you lay yourself down on the train tracks long enough, you're gonna get runn'd over! What do you expect?"
"Even his own parents agreed that he was acting stupid."
"Kid should have taken some martial arts lessons. Ya got to know how to defend yourself."
"If it were me, I'da shoved a crowbar up their asses."
Nothing about how the murderers were some crazy, ignorant, insecure, hateful fucks. Nothing about how you should be safe in your hometown, where people know you, and presumably look out for you. Nope. Mostly stuff about how you should expect that if you *choose* to be gay.
Fast forward many years to just two years ago, when I was *briefly* working at a King Soopers in Highlands Ranch, an upper-middle-class, mostly white, mostly moderate conservative suburb south of Denver. Surprisingly, there were probably at least a dozen LGBTQ people on staff, and four of them were transgender. Out of those four, both of the female-to-male transitioning people chose the name Matthew as their new names. Since the store already had at least ten Matts or Matthews in every department - seriously, not exaggerating- I decided to tease my transitioning friend one day in the break room about their choice of name. "I applaud your bravery," I jested, "but for the love of God, did you have to choose the name Matthew??" I was cracking myself up. They responded quietly, it's partially for Matthew Shepard, and partially because I just like it.
Oh. This is not the first time I've found out what an ignorant douchebag I can be. But it was the most poignant. I had hurt my friend's feelings, unintentionally but still - and had completely forgotten about his legacy. Shit. I told my friend, "that's a beautiful tribute. And an awesome name. You wear it well." Luckily they forgave me.
We are so sorry, Matthew Shepard. So sorry for what happened to you, for allowing it to happen, and for forgetting even for a second what your name might mean to some very brave young people who are afraid to come out as gay, transgender, bi, queer, or asexual or whatever it is. Your name does not mean hate, and fear, and death. It means Gift from Yahweh. And now it means, acceptance, forgiveness, and love.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
A Day Late and Several Thousand Dollars Short. Tax Day in America
CW: FUCKERY
This is a Rant blog. Just my little corner of fucked-up dystopian 'Murrica here, but .... my scanty-ass, $325 tax refund, one-twelfth of what it was last year, just got sucked up by the Machine because I apparently I "owed" the Food Stamp program money. Because they screwed up and gave me "too much" money in EBT benefits in 2017 and 2018. Serio-fuckingly? Yes, Serio-fuckingly.
I am a single mom, making minimum wage and no benefits at the moment. I'm one of the lucky ones, I get enough child support/ maintenance to cover my rent. And that's it. No food, no gas, no utilities, no luxuries like toilet paper. When I was receiving about half of what I actually needed in food stamps, I was getting by. Things were just barely ok. And then I started helping my best friend with her cafe, and even 20 hours a week at minimum wage was too excessive for the paradigms of our ridiculous assistance programs. Serio-fuckingly.
Like most of America, I wish I was making this up. True, last year was an even year, meaning I don't get to claim my daughter as a dependant/ deduction. (Per the divorce agreement with her dad who is, unfortunately, still alive) But in the 5 years since I've been separated/ divorced, my lowest refund was around $1700. Highest, almost $5,000. Not to brag. I think that's average for any working stiff, especially when you have at least one kiddo.
And like most of America, I was depending on that at-least-one-thousand-buckaroos. I was going to pay off my used car, not that the guy I bought it from is pressuring me - but I wanted the title in hand. And then with the rest- I was going to upgrade to the GOOD insurance, you know, the kind that promises not to bankrupt the next seven generations of your family if you get rear-ended. Modest goals.
I have never bought a powerboat with my refund monies. Or any type of watercraft.
Now, I might be enticed to do some good old-fashioned Puritanical self-flagellating, if it weren't for the fact that giant corporations like Amazon and Netflix and General Electric paid ZERO DOLLARS
in taxes. Like, not just a low rate, not just a token amount to cover their asses, no- ZERO. FUCKING. DOLLARS. And the CEO's of those corporations are taxed at LESS than 30% of their income.
And here I am, working my ass off, trying to recover from trauma and take care of my daughter at the same time, and I'm supposed to feel ashamed to admit that I was on food stamps in the first place? Oh no, hunty. I took Brene Brown's class, I know that Shame is merely projected from those in power onto us, those who struggle, to keep us quiet. No other reason.
My parents were both narcissists, one diagnosable and one just too proud and egotistical for his own good. And then I was married to one for 15 years. I know all about gas-lighting, projection, deflection, distraction and all the other tricks that narcissists use to basically spew their shit onto everyone else, rather than account for it. And once that shit is showered upon you, it is very difficult indeed to sort out. For years, you may think it is your own shit, especially if you're still around the Narc- they are expending all of their time and energy trying to convince you that it IS your shit, no question. So yes, in the past, I've bowed my head and submitted to the abusive rhetoric of the 1% that is I who is lazy, ignorant, dependent, conniving, and every other synonym for shiftless and stupid.
No more. Viscerally and intellectually, I know now that our government has completed it's de-volution into a sociopathic entity. Or rather, our government has finished the merging process with corporations, which are sociopathic entities. Both.
And baby, that shit ain't mine.
This is just one snapshot, one story in the miasma of stories and anecdotes. The voices who scream at us that we should be too ashamed to even talk about these things are getting more distant and hard to hear. The voices of encouragement and validation for our stories are getting closer, and louder, but not in a shrill way. And they are saying, No bitch, no. No reason for you to feel ashamed. And Yes bitch, yasssss, keep your chin up. Time for you to out-create the narcissists.
Fortunately, this is not difficult, because all they know how to do is destroy.
Monday, July 18, 2016
The Toughest Man In Oklahoma Territory
And now it's October of 2017, and I still can't. Except that there's a deafening silence now. Because it was a white guy, shooting white people? Really? Well yes, that's pretty much why. I hope this is the last time I have to update this blog.
It's July 18th, 2016, and I just can't, anymore. Can't stay silent, that is. The violence perpetrated by police and against police, the mass shootings, the terrorist attacks, the innocent and the insane mixed together in the same bloodbath. I'm not saying that my words, my stories, my perspective is going to put the kibosh on this madness, for once and for all. AND I think the media because it's on nobody's side but it's own, is trying to drown out our stories. The more we try to tell our stories, on social media, blogs, whatever, the shriller their screaming gets. They have to do that, as George W. Bush famously admitted, "to catapult the propaganda." When we're being told lies that are patently false, and we can see with our own eyes that they're patently false, they have to repeat the lies over and over, louder and louder, until we believe them. Until we start seeing our neighbors as enemies because they have the wrong bumper sticker on their car.
So here's my story, my view, my questions on all this gun violence in particular but just mainly- bloodshed.
My grandfather on my dad's side was the Sheriff of his tiny town, Plankinton, the county seat of Aurora County in South Dakota. For a while. Off and on, really. Mostly during Prohibition and the Great Depression. He was also an unrepentant drunk. The joke was that he would have to throw himself in jail every so often. Arrest himself. During Prohibition, he was also making bathtub gin and corn moonshine with his buddies, so as Sheriff he would have to make raids on his friends’ outfits to keep the higher-ups happy- and he would always tell them way in advance so they could stash the good stuff somewhere else. He'd make a big show of smashing bottles that were probably full of watered-down piss, and some money would exchange hands, and he'd be on his way. Apparently, he kept getting re-elected Sheriff because of this friendly relationship with the bootleggers.
The first time he got elected, I would bet money that he played up the story of his father, Bernard Koehler Sr., who was for a time known as “The Toughest Man in Oklahoma Territory.” Great-Grandpa earned that moniker honestly, as a young, maybe 21-year-old man who lit out for Oklahoma Territory along with 30 million other poor whites, blacks, and immigrants who had nothing to lose. The "town" he landed in consisted of a couple hundred squatters, and a lone building that served as the church, the school, and the town meeting hall. One night they held a town meeting where everyone had to be in attendance, or risk losing title to their land. There was maybe a pro-tem Mayor, but no Sheriff. A couple of equally young outlaws got wind of the meeting, knew everyone would be there with all their earthly possessions and pocketbooks, and decided to hold the place up. They had guns, and no one else had their guns with them because they weren’t allowed to. Apparently that was a pretty common rule in frontier towns, because fights broke out all the time, and escalated quickly. Anyway. There was young Bernard, just trying to keep his claim on his land and make something of himself. And these punks walk in, demand everyone put their cash and valuables in a pile or they’ll all be shot dead- women and children included- and I don’t know if he snuck up on them or what, but in the melee, he took their guns away. With his bare hands. Took them away. Saved the fledgling town. Just like that.
Before my dad died, and I knew he was dying, I tried to get a real answer out of him, or more detail at least, about this family legend. He kind of shrugged and said, “Grampa was always really fast with his hands. Even at 90 years old, sitting on the porch, he could catch a fly – Fwoomp!- just like that. With his hands.” And apparently, he was like, redneck-ninja stealthy. Point being, he didn’t out-shoot them or out-gun them with superior firepower and brute strength. It wasn’t some silly goddamn John Wayne or Arnold Schwarzenegger-like movie rescue. He outsmarted them, and literally disarmed them. Of course, they made him Sheriff and gave him an even bigger plot of land as a reward- and I have a feeling he had a fine old time with the local Cherokee honeys that came around, as they are wont to do, with a man of prestige. The past four presidents of the Cherokee Nation have all come from a family named Keeler- which is how we pronounce our name- so you just have to wonder.
Great -gramps didn’t stay in Oklahoma very long though. Farming proved too difficult there, even with gifted acres. So he lit out again for Iowa, whose rich topsoil even a drunk could make a living on, and he built his family there. I’m sure he taught all his kids to shoot properly, because that’s what you did back then, for hunting or whatever, but it was a never… a thing. As we would say today. Everyone knew how to use a gun, and probably owned several, but there was none of that braggadocio we see today. Guns were serious business- you didn’t fuck around with them too often and live to tell about it.
Anyway, my grandpa, Bernard was evidently a dead shot, and when he wasn’t Sheriff he was personally escorting rich people from back East on pheasant-hunting expeditions in the area. But as Sheriff, apparently, and yes this is all from verbal anecdotes and the like- he pretty much never had to use his gun. The few times he used it, he was sort of ashamed of himself, like that was the least-possible-manly thing he could have done. More than likely, he was aiming at the tires of a fleeing vehicle, driven by some drunk jackasses that he probably helped get drunk, and he was trying to shoot out their tires so they wouldn’t wrap themselves around a goddamn tree or land in Shit Creek and get themselves killed. I can just see him shaking his head and cursing at the ground. “Dammit! I should’ve been able to stop them with my bare hands.”
Again, I am not trying to paint him as a saint of any kind. He and my Grandma had 13 kids, 12 survived, and as I said he was drunk and progressively more abusive as the years went on. My dad was second-to-youngest, and by the time he was in high school, my grandma was using a gun to keep grandpa away from her. No slouch in the toughness department herself, she finally blacklisted him as a Communist so his sorry ass had to leave the state to find work. This was during McCarthyism of the ’50s. But they never got divorced because they were Catholic and that’s a sin.
They and most of my aunts and uncles on that side had probably never seen a black person face to face until they left home, and they referred to the neighboring Lakota as “prairie niggers.” Not at all saintly. More afraid of what they didn’t know, and didn’t understand. My grandma came to visit us in Denver when I was 8 or 9, and I remember her asking me, “Do they let Black people live in the city here?” I was shocked and felt sick to my stomach because several of my school friends were black and lived right around the corner from us. When I answered Yes, she shuddered and clutched her purse closer to her.
Then there’s my dad, who was a big guy. One of the biggest of all 8 Koehler boys and none of them were small. We tease my uncle Tom, the youngest, for being the “runt” and he’s six foot one and built like a little brick shithouse. He could kick your ass sitting down and not even break a sweat. He spent thirty-something years on the California State Highway Patrol and could probably count the times he used his gun on one hand. As far as I know, he was never shot, though he may have been shot at. As he explained to me one time, “We always try to de-escalate the situation. People are crazy enough without us adding to it.” In California, where almost all crime ends up on the highway, that’s saying something. Uncle Don followed Grampa into exile in Washington State, and also became a State Trooper, but he was a hothead, used his gun one too many times and got fired.
My dad eschewed law enforcement, but as a big guy, former Navy lineman and college cornerback, he became the de facto security force at his favorite bar/pizza place, GeJo’s II in Aurora. My dad wasn’t a drinker, but he was a great storyteller around his friends, and 3 or 4 Miller Lites couldn’t do much damage to his immense bulk. His friend Jerry Jellison told us that one time, an ex-friend of theirs from the bowling league came into GeJo’s, bragging about how he’d just abandoned his wife and kids, and my dad set down his beer, punched that sorry sack of shit in the face one time, threw his carcass out the door, and went right back to his bar stool and telling stories. I think we got a free pizza that night.
My dad had exactly one rifle and one shotgun at home, but I rarely saw them because they were locked up in their cases and stowed in the attic except for hunting season. He took them out to clean them before and after his annual pheasant hunting trip in South Dakota, and once I stood in the doorway of his office while he explained to me what the magazine was, the chamber, etc., but I didn’t even want to enter the room, and he didn’t make me. He kept the ammunition stored in a completely different place and neither my brother nor I learned to shoot until our 20’s. Looking back on it, he might have done that because our mother was mentally unstable and threatening suicide or homicide every other day, but I don’t think my mom could have fired a gun if she tried.
You could say that naturally big, scary looking people don’t need guns because people don’t fuck with them in the first place. I could make the obvious observation that the fewer people actually know about how to handle themselves in a real fight, or a conflict situation, the more likely they are to turn to guns and violent rhetoric that reeks of false bravado. You usually don’t hear military guys and cops bragging about their guns. But in the wake of these police-targeted shootings and racially based panic that our officers are exhibiting- it seems something has changed.
Another story- from someone else’s family. Author of several books on Celtic Spirituality, Frank MacEowen’s family in America hails from Mississippi, going back several generations. His grandfather was also the Sheriff of their small town and county during the ugliest, most Klan-infested years of the South: Prohibition and the Great Depression. Sometime in the early 1930s, there was a spate of lynchings in his county, and Frank’s grandfather actually had the temerity to prosecute the one he could find the most evidence around. Because that’s what Sheriffs are supposed to do. Prosecute murders. No matter who commits them. Well, the Klan was trying to take control of that county and put their Klansmen in as many public offices as possible- so as you might imagine, they didn’t take too kindly to being prosecuted. Since Frank’s grandfather was white, they didn’t kill him. They captured him and burnt his eyes out with some of their torches, and told him to back off or they’d do the same to his family. When the townsfolk found out what had been done, they were outraged. They got a fancy lawyer from Jackson to prosecute the lynchings, and they set about throwing the Klan out of their county for good. Frank’s grandpa was re-elected to Sheriff, as a blind man, TWO MORE TIMES. Until he retired.
Again, I’m not saying those townspeople were saints, or that they instantly became BFFs with the black community. They were fed up with this gang of thugs called the Klan running around like they were above the law, terrorizing the entire town, not just the Black community. If you got on their bad side, you were labeled a traitor and you might lose your eyesight, or worse. Practicality ruled the day, in all probability. Maybe they only did it because one of their own got hurt, and the KKK finally showed themselves for who they are: unprincipled terrorists. People could at least agree on one thing- they didn’t want terrorists running their town. Maybe these horrific things have to happen in order to wake us all up. And when we wake up, we need to stand up.
Also, guns are for cowards.
It's July 18th, 2016, and I just can't, anymore. Can't stay silent, that is. The violence perpetrated by police and against police, the mass shootings, the terrorist attacks, the innocent and the insane mixed together in the same bloodbath. I'm not saying that my words, my stories, my perspective is going to put the kibosh on this madness, for once and for all. AND I think the media because it's on nobody's side but it's own, is trying to drown out our stories. The more we try to tell our stories, on social media, blogs, whatever, the shriller their screaming gets. They have to do that, as George W. Bush famously admitted, "to catapult the propaganda." When we're being told lies that are patently false, and we can see with our own eyes that they're patently false, they have to repeat the lies over and over, louder and louder, until we believe them. Until we start seeing our neighbors as enemies because they have the wrong bumper sticker on their car.
So here's my story, my view, my questions on all this gun violence in particular but just mainly- bloodshed.
My grandfather on my dad's side was the Sheriff of his tiny town, Plankinton, the county seat of Aurora County in South Dakota. For a while. Off and on, really. Mostly during Prohibition and the Great Depression. He was also an unrepentant drunk. The joke was that he would have to throw himself in jail every so often. Arrest himself. During Prohibition, he was also making bathtub gin and corn moonshine with his buddies, so as Sheriff he would have to make raids on his friends’ outfits to keep the higher-ups happy- and he would always tell them way in advance so they could stash the good stuff somewhere else. He'd make a big show of smashing bottles that were probably full of watered-down piss, and some money would exchange hands, and he'd be on his way. Apparently, he kept getting re-elected Sheriff because of this friendly relationship with the bootleggers.
The first time he got elected, I would bet money that he played up the story of his father, Bernard Koehler Sr., who was for a time known as “The Toughest Man in Oklahoma Territory.” Great-Grandpa earned that moniker honestly, as a young, maybe 21-year-old man who lit out for Oklahoma Territory along with 30 million other poor whites, blacks, and immigrants who had nothing to lose. The "town" he landed in consisted of a couple hundred squatters, and a lone building that served as the church, the school, and the town meeting hall. One night they held a town meeting where everyone had to be in attendance, or risk losing title to their land. There was maybe a pro-tem Mayor, but no Sheriff. A couple of equally young outlaws got wind of the meeting, knew everyone would be there with all their earthly possessions and pocketbooks, and decided to hold the place up. They had guns, and no one else had their guns with them because they weren’t allowed to. Apparently that was a pretty common rule in frontier towns, because fights broke out all the time, and escalated quickly. Anyway. There was young Bernard, just trying to keep his claim on his land and make something of himself. And these punks walk in, demand everyone put their cash and valuables in a pile or they’ll all be shot dead- women and children included- and I don’t know if he snuck up on them or what, but in the melee, he took their guns away. With his bare hands. Took them away. Saved the fledgling town. Just like that.
Before my dad died, and I knew he was dying, I tried to get a real answer out of him, or more detail at least, about this family legend. He kind of shrugged and said, “Grampa was always really fast with his hands. Even at 90 years old, sitting on the porch, he could catch a fly – Fwoomp!- just like that. With his hands.” And apparently, he was like, redneck-ninja stealthy. Point being, he didn’t out-shoot them or out-gun them with superior firepower and brute strength. It wasn’t some silly goddamn John Wayne or Arnold Schwarzenegger-like movie rescue. He outsmarted them, and literally disarmed them. Of course, they made him Sheriff and gave him an even bigger plot of land as a reward- and I have a feeling he had a fine old time with the local Cherokee honeys that came around, as they are wont to do, with a man of prestige. The past four presidents of the Cherokee Nation have all come from a family named Keeler- which is how we pronounce our name- so you just have to wonder.
Great -gramps didn’t stay in Oklahoma very long though. Farming proved too difficult there, even with gifted acres. So he lit out again for Iowa, whose rich topsoil even a drunk could make a living on, and he built his family there. I’m sure he taught all his kids to shoot properly, because that’s what you did back then, for hunting or whatever, but it was a never… a thing. As we would say today. Everyone knew how to use a gun, and probably owned several, but there was none of that braggadocio we see today. Guns were serious business- you didn’t fuck around with them too often and live to tell about it.
Anyway, my grandpa, Bernard was evidently a dead shot, and when he wasn’t Sheriff he was personally escorting rich people from back East on pheasant-hunting expeditions in the area. But as Sheriff, apparently, and yes this is all from verbal anecdotes and the like- he pretty much never had to use his gun. The few times he used it, he was sort of ashamed of himself, like that was the least-possible-manly thing he could have done. More than likely, he was aiming at the tires of a fleeing vehicle, driven by some drunk jackasses that he probably helped get drunk, and he was trying to shoot out their tires so they wouldn’t wrap themselves around a goddamn tree or land in Shit Creek and get themselves killed. I can just see him shaking his head and cursing at the ground. “Dammit! I should’ve been able to stop them with my bare hands.”
Again, I am not trying to paint him as a saint of any kind. He and my Grandma had 13 kids, 12 survived, and as I said he was drunk and progressively more abusive as the years went on. My dad was second-to-youngest, and by the time he was in high school, my grandma was using a gun to keep grandpa away from her. No slouch in the toughness department herself, she finally blacklisted him as a Communist so his sorry ass had to leave the state to find work. This was during McCarthyism of the ’50s. But they never got divorced because they were Catholic and that’s a sin.
They and most of my aunts and uncles on that side had probably never seen a black person face to face until they left home, and they referred to the neighboring Lakota as “prairie niggers.” Not at all saintly. More afraid of what they didn’t know, and didn’t understand. My grandma came to visit us in Denver when I was 8 or 9, and I remember her asking me, “Do they let Black people live in the city here?” I was shocked and felt sick to my stomach because several of my school friends were black and lived right around the corner from us. When I answered Yes, she shuddered and clutched her purse closer to her.
Then there’s my dad, who was a big guy. One of the biggest of all 8 Koehler boys and none of them were small. We tease my uncle Tom, the youngest, for being the “runt” and he’s six foot one and built like a little brick shithouse. He could kick your ass sitting down and not even break a sweat. He spent thirty-something years on the California State Highway Patrol and could probably count the times he used his gun on one hand. As far as I know, he was never shot, though he may have been shot at. As he explained to me one time, “We always try to de-escalate the situation. People are crazy enough without us adding to it.” In California, where almost all crime ends up on the highway, that’s saying something. Uncle Don followed Grampa into exile in Washington State, and also became a State Trooper, but he was a hothead, used his gun one too many times and got fired.
My dad eschewed law enforcement, but as a big guy, former Navy lineman and college cornerback, he became the de facto security force at his favorite bar/pizza place, GeJo’s II in Aurora. My dad wasn’t a drinker, but he was a great storyteller around his friends, and 3 or 4 Miller Lites couldn’t do much damage to his immense bulk. His friend Jerry Jellison told us that one time, an ex-friend of theirs from the bowling league came into GeJo’s, bragging about how he’d just abandoned his wife and kids, and my dad set down his beer, punched that sorry sack of shit in the face one time, threw his carcass out the door, and went right back to his bar stool and telling stories. I think we got a free pizza that night.
My dad had exactly one rifle and one shotgun at home, but I rarely saw them because they were locked up in their cases and stowed in the attic except for hunting season. He took them out to clean them before and after his annual pheasant hunting trip in South Dakota, and once I stood in the doorway of his office while he explained to me what the magazine was, the chamber, etc., but I didn’t even want to enter the room, and he didn’t make me. He kept the ammunition stored in a completely different place and neither my brother nor I learned to shoot until our 20’s. Looking back on it, he might have done that because our mother was mentally unstable and threatening suicide or homicide every other day, but I don’t think my mom could have fired a gun if she tried.
You could say that naturally big, scary looking people don’t need guns because people don’t fuck with them in the first place. I could make the obvious observation that the fewer people actually know about how to handle themselves in a real fight, or a conflict situation, the more likely they are to turn to guns and violent rhetoric that reeks of false bravado. You usually don’t hear military guys and cops bragging about their guns. But in the wake of these police-targeted shootings and racially based panic that our officers are exhibiting- it seems something has changed.
Another story- from someone else’s family. Author of several books on Celtic Spirituality, Frank MacEowen’s family in America hails from Mississippi, going back several generations. His grandfather was also the Sheriff of their small town and county during the ugliest, most Klan-infested years of the South: Prohibition and the Great Depression. Sometime in the early 1930s, there was a spate of lynchings in his county, and Frank’s grandfather actually had the temerity to prosecute the one he could find the most evidence around. Because that’s what Sheriffs are supposed to do. Prosecute murders. No matter who commits them. Well, the Klan was trying to take control of that county and put their Klansmen in as many public offices as possible- so as you might imagine, they didn’t take too kindly to being prosecuted. Since Frank’s grandfather was white, they didn’t kill him. They captured him and burnt his eyes out with some of their torches, and told him to back off or they’d do the same to his family. When the townsfolk found out what had been done, they were outraged. They got a fancy lawyer from Jackson to prosecute the lynchings, and they set about throwing the Klan out of their county for good. Frank’s grandpa was re-elected to Sheriff, as a blind man, TWO MORE TIMES. Until he retired.
Again, I’m not saying those townspeople were saints, or that they instantly became BFFs with the black community. They were fed up with this gang of thugs called the Klan running around like they were above the law, terrorizing the entire town, not just the Black community. If you got on their bad side, you were labeled a traitor and you might lose your eyesight, or worse. Practicality ruled the day, in all probability. Maybe they only did it because one of their own got hurt, and the KKK finally showed themselves for who they are: unprincipled terrorists. People could at least agree on one thing- they didn’t want terrorists running their town. Maybe these horrific things have to happen in order to wake us all up. And when we wake up, we need to stand up.
Also, guns are for cowards.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
HindSight News: where everything is 50-50
Here's the blog I should have written about 3 or 4 months ago, regarding the election, politics, and the current state of affairs in America. It's the first in a series of blogs with the subheading "HindSight News" that I've been thinking about creating for oh, about a year now. This title beat out "Untimely News," "Too Late for Prime Time News", and "Un-breaking News." (You're welcome.)
The problem is, I'm an archaeologist. I was once an aspiring journalist, but in college discovered that I was actually an archaeologist during a series of experimental activities*. This came as a shock to me, but then again, my nickname at the time was, "Queen of Delayed Reactions." As it turns out, Archaeology is a lot like journalism, albeit focusing on events that occurred at least 100 years ago. In reality, most of us work on things that occurred at least 500 years ago. We like it that way. It gives us plenty of time and leeway to accumulate stupefying amounts of data, look at a situation from every possible angle, and when asked for clear answers to simple questions, reply, "We need more data."
Also, I would like my stapler back, please.
Actually we're not allowed to give definitive answers to any type of question, vague or specific, we are honor-bound to begin every sentence with the qualifier, "We THINK this is what happened, based on the evidence....." Even if we had bonafide video footage of say, ancient Native Americans consuming beans, squash, and corn just like all of the other evidence suggests, we would still have to say, "We THINK that they ate corn, beans, and squash, but we really can't say for sure, because that would smack of hubris and high-handed-ness."
Contrast this with what passes for journalism in today's media. E.g., Fox "News".
I'm not saying it wasn't frustrating to put this lame-ass qualifier in front of all my declarative sentences when I was working as an archaeologist- it was. So partially to vent the steam coming out of my head from this frustration, I double majored in English along with Anthropology- specifically, Creative Writing. There, in the safe haven of my other major, I could write poems about Howling Wolf's ledger drawings and tipi paintings that started with the deliciously subversive line, "THIS IS HOW IT HAPPENED- the horses here...."
Well, I'm no longer a professional archaeologist, and dagnabbit, I still have things to say. Somewhere in between the "pronouncements" and poetry of my youth, and avalanche of stultifying, curiosity-killing data, my inner journalist is still screaming to get out. I'm guessing most scientists have this problem- none of us are allowed to make pronouncements or give definitive answers, DESPITE the piles of cold, hard evidence backing us up, and simultaneously, uneducated asstards and newsmodels on Fox, and really all the major stations, are allowed to say things like "Global Warming is a Mind-Control Scam from the UN!" because that's what they're paid to say. It's enough to make a person drive a .7 mm mechanical pencil straight into their brain, via the nearest soft-tissue entrance.
I mean, only if you don't have a nice obsidian projectile point handy. Which I usually do.
So here I am in a "Post-Truth" America, glad to be neither a journalist nor an archaeologist, and yet I still need more than 15 minutes to digest and report on something that I feel strongly about. Much more than 15 minutes. Por ejemplo, something like 9 years ago my minister asked me what I thought about the "Culture Wars" as it was called at the time. I raised a skeptical eyebrow and replied that I wasn't convinced any sort of cultural war was happening, at all. Give me 500 more years and mountains of overwhelming evidence, and I'll get back to you- albeit with the qualifier sentence, "We THINK this is what happened...."
But now, a mere 9 years later, I may have an answer. There is a sort of cultural war going on, for the hearts and minds of the 99% as we've taken to calling ourselves- but it is not fueled or paid for by any of us in this so-called war. It's sole purpose is to divide us into mortally opposed, warring factions, and failing that, to distract us from the fact that WE outnumber THEM vastly, insurmountably, and almost comically. And besides, it's not even about Us vs. Them. We are all in this together, supposedly.
I have to remember that every day, especially when some jack-ass in a gas-guzzling SUV with a bumper sticker that says "Why Should I Pay for Your Healthcare?" cuts me off, or tries to run me over.
A Different Kind of War
David Wilcox says it better than me, but basically, we are being played, big time. Advertising has always manipulated emotions in order to get people to buy things, but now that manipulation is masquerading as journalism, and even Truth with a capital T- and worse, people don't see a difference. And people don't see a difference between truth and bullshit anymore because they've been taught to believe the only difference is a matter of opinion, or perspective, and that Truth, or even facts, are all relative. Or rather, they HAVEN'T been taught critical thinking of any kind, except "when in doubt, go with your gut" and by gut they mean raw, un-examined emotions- not the still, small voice of intuition. Hence, we get these extreme political views voiced by otherwise sane, rational people, who are trying to pass them off as natural, mainstream, "normal," and unarguably, patriotic.
What happens when these politically extreme views masquerading as mainstream/normal views get elected? George W. Bush happens, that's what. And what happens to the misinformed electorate that got their raw, unexamined emotions ratified and validated all at once? Long story short, we turn into a nation of whiny little babies and assholes, and people trying to shove something sharp into their heads. The whiny little babies or (WLB's for short) are the ones who are incessantly whining about how many "entitlements" and hand-outs other people are getting, when in reality they are probably getting the most hand-outs and are over-entitled up the wazoo. Assholes are pretty much the same, they're just meaner about it. Both have the self-awareness of donuts and take absolutely no responsibility for their own actions, or the actions of whatever group they belong to. And since they mostly belong to the dominant group that's in power, they don't feel the need to take responsibility for anything that doesn't polish their balls, so to speak.
What wlb's and assholes generally do to mask their shitty behavior and sociopathic attitudes, is something psychologists call Projection. We commoners know it as Blowing Smoke Up Someone's Ass. Basically, you accuse the opposition, or anyone but you, of doing what you're doing. Why is that fat man screaming about "Welfare Queens" in a city very far away from him? Because he's getting government tax breaks that dwarf the amount of those welfare checks by a ratio of 10-1, that's why! Why did Republican Dick Armey* act so upset about Bill Clinton's affair back in the late '90's? Because he was screwing every staffer on the Hill, that's why! Pretty simple.
This is all stuff that pundits probably said in 2008, or a few months ago, but as I said, I'm an archaeologist. You want up-to-the-minute analysis, watch The Daily Show. And as you can surmise, I'm going to have to cross-post a lot of this in my Come To Jesus blog forum, because there's a shitload of coming to Jesus that needs to be done here, sinners.
*all of it legal
* his real name
The problem is, I'm an archaeologist. I was once an aspiring journalist, but in college discovered that I was actually an archaeologist during a series of experimental activities*. This came as a shock to me, but then again, my nickname at the time was, "Queen of Delayed Reactions." As it turns out, Archaeology is a lot like journalism, albeit focusing on events that occurred at least 100 years ago. In reality, most of us work on things that occurred at least 500 years ago. We like it that way. It gives us plenty of time and leeway to accumulate stupefying amounts of data, look at a situation from every possible angle, and when asked for clear answers to simple questions, reply, "We need more data."
Actually we're not allowed to give definitive answers to any type of question, vague or specific, we are honor-bound to begin every sentence with the qualifier, "We THINK this is what happened, based on the evidence....." Even if we had bonafide video footage of say, ancient Native Americans consuming beans, squash, and corn just like all of the other evidence suggests, we would still have to say, "We THINK that they ate corn, beans, and squash, but we really can't say for sure, because that would smack of hubris and high-handed-ness."
Contrast this with what passes for journalism in today's media. E.g., Fox "News".
I'm not saying it wasn't frustrating to put this lame-ass qualifier in front of all my declarative sentences when I was working as an archaeologist- it was. So partially to vent the steam coming out of my head from this frustration, I double majored in English along with Anthropology- specifically, Creative Writing. There, in the safe haven of my other major, I could write poems about Howling Wolf's ledger drawings and tipi paintings that started with the deliciously subversive line, "THIS IS HOW IT HAPPENED- the horses here...."
Well, I'm no longer a professional archaeologist, and dagnabbit, I still have things to say. Somewhere in between the "pronouncements" and poetry of my youth, and avalanche of stultifying, curiosity-killing data, my inner journalist is still screaming to get out. I'm guessing most scientists have this problem- none of us are allowed to make pronouncements or give definitive answers, DESPITE the piles of cold, hard evidence backing us up, and simultaneously, uneducated asstards and newsmodels on Fox, and really all the major stations, are allowed to say things like "Global Warming is a Mind-Control Scam from the UN!" because that's what they're paid to say. It's enough to make a person drive a .7 mm mechanical pencil straight into their brain, via the nearest soft-tissue entrance.
So here I am in a "Post-Truth" America, glad to be neither a journalist nor an archaeologist, and yet I still need more than 15 minutes to digest and report on something that I feel strongly about. Much more than 15 minutes. Por ejemplo, something like 9 years ago my minister asked me what I thought about the "Culture Wars" as it was called at the time. I raised a skeptical eyebrow and replied that I wasn't convinced any sort of cultural war was happening, at all. Give me 500 more years and mountains of overwhelming evidence, and I'll get back to you- albeit with the qualifier sentence, "We THINK this is what happened...."
But now, a mere 9 years later, I may have an answer. There is a sort of cultural war going on, for the hearts and minds of the 99% as we've taken to calling ourselves- but it is not fueled or paid for by any of us in this so-called war. It's sole purpose is to divide us into mortally opposed, warring factions, and failing that, to distract us from the fact that WE outnumber THEM vastly, insurmountably, and almost comically. And besides, it's not even about Us vs. Them. We are all in this together, supposedly.
I have to remember that every day, especially when some jack-ass in a gas-guzzling SUV with a bumper sticker that says "Why Should I Pay for Your Healthcare?" cuts me off, or tries to run me over.
A Different Kind of War
David Wilcox says it better than me, but basically, we are being played, big time. Advertising has always manipulated emotions in order to get people to buy things, but now that manipulation is masquerading as journalism, and even Truth with a capital T- and worse, people don't see a difference. And people don't see a difference between truth and bullshit anymore because they've been taught to believe the only difference is a matter of opinion, or perspective, and that Truth, or even facts, are all relative. Or rather, they HAVEN'T been taught critical thinking of any kind, except "when in doubt, go with your gut" and by gut they mean raw, un-examined emotions- not the still, small voice of intuition. Hence, we get these extreme political views voiced by otherwise sane, rational people, who are trying to pass them off as natural, mainstream, "normal," and unarguably, patriotic.
What happens when these politically extreme views masquerading as mainstream/normal views get elected? George W. Bush happens, that's what. And what happens to the misinformed electorate that got their raw, unexamined emotions ratified and validated all at once? Long story short, we turn into a nation of whiny little babies and assholes, and people trying to shove something sharp into their heads. The whiny little babies or (WLB's for short) are the ones who are incessantly whining about how many "entitlements" and hand-outs other people are getting, when in reality they are probably getting the most hand-outs and are over-entitled up the wazoo. Assholes are pretty much the same, they're just meaner about it. Both have the self-awareness of donuts and take absolutely no responsibility for their own actions, or the actions of whatever group they belong to. And since they mostly belong to the dominant group that's in power, they don't feel the need to take responsibility for anything that doesn't polish their balls, so to speak.
What wlb's and assholes generally do to mask their shitty behavior and sociopathic attitudes, is something psychologists call Projection. We commoners know it as Blowing Smoke Up Someone's Ass. Basically, you accuse the opposition, or anyone but you, of doing what you're doing. Why is that fat man screaming about "Welfare Queens" in a city very far away from him? Because he's getting government tax breaks that dwarf the amount of those welfare checks by a ratio of 10-1, that's why! Why did Republican Dick Armey* act so upset about Bill Clinton's affair back in the late '90's? Because he was screwing every staffer on the Hill, that's why! Pretty simple.
This is all stuff that pundits probably said in 2008, or a few months ago, but as I said, I'm an archaeologist. You want up-to-the-minute analysis, watch The Daily Show. And as you can surmise, I'm going to have to cross-post a lot of this in my Come To Jesus blog forum, because there's a shitload of coming to Jesus that needs to be done here, sinners.
*all of it legal
* his real name
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
About a week ago, before we turned that corner into 2012, we were doing our nightly "gratitude" round at the dinner table, and whe... -
Here's a little story that will either warm the cockles of your heart, or make you laugh, or both. It involves approximately 20 bored a...
-
Yesterday was shit and today wasn't much better. Death sucks. Don't let anyone tell you it doesn't. At the end of yesterday I f...
