I am so stressed right now that anyone who crosses me will be chewed up and spit out and left for dead along the highway.
You have been warned.
Showing posts with label Musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Musings. Show all posts
Friday, October 04, 2019
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Eighteen Years Later, What Have We Learned?
On this day in 2001, I, along with most Americans, watched a plane crash into the second tower. Shortly thereafter, I watched the towers collapse in a swirl of dust, debris and screams.
My main concern was for the firemen, since my husband is one. I knew they were climbing the steps and making valiant efforts to rescue people trapped inside.
The towers' collapse killed 343 firefighters. It's a number that sticks with me to this day.
In all, 2,974 people died in the attacks that occurred in New York City and at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. That number also includes the passengers of United 93, which did not hit its target but instead crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
My place of employment closed at lunch time, as did many others. No one could work anyway, not with attacks on New York and Washington, DC on our minds.
I came home and watched footage of the event over and over again. My husband was not at the firehouse, but he was working at his second job installing septic tanks. This was pre-cellphone days, and I couldn't reach him to tell him what had happened.
After a while I came into my home office. I turned on the computer, and I played a puzzle game while the images settled in my mind and I tried to come to grips with what had happened.
A feeling of helplessness settled over me. I think it settled over much of the nation. For many it hasn't yet gone away - I'm not sure it will, ever. It left many feeling emasculated and I don't believe that has yet been assuaged.
Most of the world stood by the USA while she grieved the loss of her citizens.
Air travel was suspended and the following afternoon I stood with a friend and looked up. Neither of us had ever seen the sky so pure and unmarred by jet trails.
The government used the attacks as a reason to implement the USA PATRIOT ACT, which abolished many civil liberties, including the right to check out what you wanted from a library without being turned into the police if somebody thought it was suspect. Unfortunately, while some of this kind of behavior settled down, the current federal government administration is encouraging these types of activities, particularly where it pertains to immigrants or anyone perceived as "other."
The government also began spying on emails and telephone conversations and doing other Big Brother things. I serious doubt that ever stopped.
The US led a coalition into Afghanistan. That war continues, though it is not well reported. This has become the longest war in history.
The 9/11 attacks are a sober reminder for me of how badly the US government sometimes behaves in world relations, how poorly some citizens of this world think of this country, and how hard our people work, pray, and play.
September 11 also reminds me that all in the world are a part of the circle of life. Everyone, regardless of race, color or creed, deserves a chance to live. That includes bankers in the World Trade Center and Iraqis huddled in their homes during bombings in Baghdad, shooting victims in schools and theaters, and everyone else who is robbed of their life prematurely.
I hope for peace every day and I wish for wisdom in the leaders who hold the decisions for such things in the palms of their hands.
Perhaps one day issues will be resolved without bloodshed and tears, and the world will lose its hatred for one another and embrace love. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon.
I wish that love, not vengeance and revenge, had been the lesson learned from September 11, 2001. Because for a day or two there, we united as a nation, grieving and striving to rescue those in harm's way, and much of the world stood with us, too.
If only it had lasted.
My main concern was for the firemen, since my husband is one. I knew they were climbing the steps and making valiant efforts to rescue people trapped inside.
The towers' collapse killed 343 firefighters. It's a number that sticks with me to this day.
In all, 2,974 people died in the attacks that occurred in New York City and at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. That number also includes the passengers of United 93, which did not hit its target but instead crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
My place of employment closed at lunch time, as did many others. No one could work anyway, not with attacks on New York and Washington, DC on our minds.
I came home and watched footage of the event over and over again. My husband was not at the firehouse, but he was working at his second job installing septic tanks. This was pre-cellphone days, and I couldn't reach him to tell him what had happened.
After a while I came into my home office. I turned on the computer, and I played a puzzle game while the images settled in my mind and I tried to come to grips with what had happened.
A feeling of helplessness settled over me. I think it settled over much of the nation. For many it hasn't yet gone away - I'm not sure it will, ever. It left many feeling emasculated and I don't believe that has yet been assuaged.
Most of the world stood by the USA while she grieved the loss of her citizens.
Air travel was suspended and the following afternoon I stood with a friend and looked up. Neither of us had ever seen the sky so pure and unmarred by jet trails.
The government used the attacks as a reason to implement the USA PATRIOT ACT, which abolished many civil liberties, including the right to check out what you wanted from a library without being turned into the police if somebody thought it was suspect. Unfortunately, while some of this kind of behavior settled down, the current federal government administration is encouraging these types of activities, particularly where it pertains to immigrants or anyone perceived as "other."
The government also began spying on emails and telephone conversations and doing other Big Brother things. I serious doubt that ever stopped.
The US led a coalition into Afghanistan. That war continues, though it is not well reported. This has become the longest war in history.
The 9/11 attacks are a sober reminder for me of how badly the US government sometimes behaves in world relations, how poorly some citizens of this world think of this country, and how hard our people work, pray, and play.
September 11 also reminds me that all in the world are a part of the circle of life. Everyone, regardless of race, color or creed, deserves a chance to live. That includes bankers in the World Trade Center and Iraqis huddled in their homes during bombings in Baghdad, shooting victims in schools and theaters, and everyone else who is robbed of their life prematurely.
I hope for peace every day and I wish for wisdom in the leaders who hold the decisions for such things in the palms of their hands.
Perhaps one day issues will be resolved without bloodshed and tears, and the world will lose its hatred for one another and embrace love. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon.
I wish that love, not vengeance and revenge, had been the lesson learned from September 11, 2001. Because for a day or two there, we united as a nation, grieving and striving to rescue those in harm's way, and much of the world stood with us, too.
If only it had lasted.
Tuesday, September 03, 2019
Changes
I noticed it in early August, the dying of summer and the approach of Autumn,
The shimmer of light against pale leaves, leaves that once were thick with green, now letting the sunshine slither through, like sand seeping through a sieve.
Then I saw the poplars turning, their leaves beginning to yellow.
This morning as I drove to an early appointment, I looked at Tinker Mountain and saw that the familiar dark greens were giving way to milder color, muted, less pronounced - almost a gray in places.
Autumn is on its way.
This used to be my favorite time of year, not because of the cooling temperatures (most welcome now), or the colorful trees, but because September signaled my return to school.
Oh how I loved my education. I loved the books, the teachers, the smell of the school library overloaded with young adult fiction. Worlds where horses talked, girls solved mysteries, and toads enjoyed tea and joyrides in cars. Lands filled with inhabitants I could see in my minds eye with each word I devoured.
My teachers, for the most part, were good souls, even the older ones who must have seen thousands of kids offer up excuses for lack of homework. I adored their ability to reach me, to see into my soul, to call out the best of me. Oh yes, I was often the teacher's pet, the A student, the smart one the other kids sometimes hated but secretly admired. Too smart for my own good, book smart, and no common sense.
Or so some folks said.
I don't go back to school now in the fall. In August, when the notebooks go on sale, I sniff my way through the aisles of the box stores, occasionally (maybe frequently?) picking up an 18 cent notebook and placing it gently in my cart. My notebooks must not be bent or torn; I won't use them if they're mussed. Picky, I know. But don't we all have our quirks?
This morning I looked at the big project I have before me, one that would earn me a check-off on a masters' thesis if I were doing such a thing again (thank goodness I am not), and thought of those school days. Those long days in a seat with names scratched into the top of the desk. Those vividly rainbow-colored days when my English teacher captivated me with Shakespeare or Poe. And sometimes a teacher even managed to teach me math, though I could not tell the order of operations now if my life depended on it.
I know though the grammar rules, the "I" before "e" except after "c" and in weird words like weigh and neigh. Knowing the rules means I can break them, because once learned they became part of me, and then my reflexes can take over when I write, and I can be free of the phrases and clauses. I can write as I like, and end a sentence with a preposition.
Here I find my voice, on white pages - computer screens now. It was lost for a long time and sometimes it still disappears on me. Then I must seek again, that voice. That sound of my self, the song of my heart.
Autumn brings on these thoughts. The changing leaves soon will rustle beneath my feet should I take a quick walk, the wind will whirl them around my legs on a cool night.
The change is coming.
The wind speaks its name.
The shimmer of light against pale leaves, leaves that once were thick with green, now letting the sunshine slither through, like sand seeping through a sieve.
Then I saw the poplars turning, their leaves beginning to yellow.
This morning as I drove to an early appointment, I looked at Tinker Mountain and saw that the familiar dark greens were giving way to milder color, muted, less pronounced - almost a gray in places.
Autumn is on its way.
This used to be my favorite time of year, not because of the cooling temperatures (most welcome now), or the colorful trees, but because September signaled my return to school.
Oh how I loved my education. I loved the books, the teachers, the smell of the school library overloaded with young adult fiction. Worlds where horses talked, girls solved mysteries, and toads enjoyed tea and joyrides in cars. Lands filled with inhabitants I could see in my minds eye with each word I devoured.
My teachers, for the most part, were good souls, even the older ones who must have seen thousands of kids offer up excuses for lack of homework. I adored their ability to reach me, to see into my soul, to call out the best of me. Oh yes, I was often the teacher's pet, the A student, the smart one the other kids sometimes hated but secretly admired. Too smart for my own good, book smart, and no common sense.
Or so some folks said.
I don't go back to school now in the fall. In August, when the notebooks go on sale, I sniff my way through the aisles of the box stores, occasionally (maybe frequently?) picking up an 18 cent notebook and placing it gently in my cart. My notebooks must not be bent or torn; I won't use them if they're mussed. Picky, I know. But don't we all have our quirks?
This morning I looked at the big project I have before me, one that would earn me a check-off on a masters' thesis if I were doing such a thing again (thank goodness I am not), and thought of those school days. Those long days in a seat with names scratched into the top of the desk. Those vividly rainbow-colored days when my English teacher captivated me with Shakespeare or Poe. And sometimes a teacher even managed to teach me math, though I could not tell the order of operations now if my life depended on it.
I know though the grammar rules, the "I" before "e" except after "c" and in weird words like weigh and neigh. Knowing the rules means I can break them, because once learned they became part of me, and then my reflexes can take over when I write, and I can be free of the phrases and clauses. I can write as I like, and end a sentence with a preposition.
Here I find my voice, on white pages - computer screens now. It was lost for a long time and sometimes it still disappears on me. Then I must seek again, that voice. That sound of my self, the song of my heart.
Autumn brings on these thoughts. The changing leaves soon will rustle beneath my feet should I take a quick walk, the wind will whirl them around my legs on a cool night.
The change is coming.
The wind speaks its name.
Monday, August 12, 2019
I Have Taken More Breaths
Today is the day that I have taken more breaths than my mother.
This year I turned 56, the age my mother was when she died. Her birthday is 12 days after mine. Twelve days from now, my mother will have been dead for 19 years.
The numbers are kind of wonky. I was born when she was 18 but she turned 19 just 12 days after I was born.
Nineteen years difference between when I turned 56 and she died.
She died on August 24 at 1:45 a.m., so this morning when I woke up, I had already taken more breaths than she had, as she did not live out the entire day of August 24. She only lived less than two hours of it.
This has eaten at me since my birthday. It is a strange notion and I have fretted over it more so than I think healthy. I can be morose that way sometimes. I hope that is over now, now that I have outlived my mother.
This morning when I was realized that I didn't have to wait until tomorrow, that in reality I've already lived longer than my mother, even to this very moment, I felt relieved. I felt like I'd jumped through some magic hurdle that until then I didn't even know existed.
I also feel sad, because this was a very young age to die, really. I know it is beyond middle age and heading on into plain ol' "old," but 56 is not that old, really. Not when my grandmother lived to 87, and some of her family lived beyond 100. Heck, I haven't even reached the halfway point of the age Aunt Pearl was when she died at the age of 107.
My mother was scared to die, I know. She fought it hard. She didn't talk about her fears to me, though. I think she did with her sister. But not with me.
I was 37 years old when my mother passed away. She probably thought, and rightly so, that I couldn't relate. I couldn't, not really. Not at that age.
People in their 60s still have their parents with them today. I was not that fortunate with my mother. But she died young and still pretty, and even though it was cancer that took her, I suspect she would rather have died while she had her looks than to have grown old and haggard.
I wear "old and haggard" like a badge of honor. I earned the soft-white hair, the wrinkles around my eyes. They are external signs that I have lived.
Forgive me for the weird post. It's just been that kind of Monday.
This year I turned 56, the age my mother was when she died. Her birthday is 12 days after mine. Twelve days from now, my mother will have been dead for 19 years.
The numbers are kind of wonky. I was born when she was 18 but she turned 19 just 12 days after I was born.
Nineteen years difference between when I turned 56 and she died.
She died on August 24 at 1:45 a.m., so this morning when I woke up, I had already taken more breaths than she had, as she did not live out the entire day of August 24. She only lived less than two hours of it.
This has eaten at me since my birthday. It is a strange notion and I have fretted over it more so than I think healthy. I can be morose that way sometimes. I hope that is over now, now that I have outlived my mother.
This morning when I was realized that I didn't have to wait until tomorrow, that in reality I've already lived longer than my mother, even to this very moment, I felt relieved. I felt like I'd jumped through some magic hurdle that until then I didn't even know existed.
I also feel sad, because this was a very young age to die, really. I know it is beyond middle age and heading on into plain ol' "old," but 56 is not that old, really. Not when my grandmother lived to 87, and some of her family lived beyond 100. Heck, I haven't even reached the halfway point of the age Aunt Pearl was when she died at the age of 107.
My mother was scared to die, I know. She fought it hard. She didn't talk about her fears to me, though. I think she did with her sister. But not with me.
I was 37 years old when my mother passed away. She probably thought, and rightly so, that I couldn't relate. I couldn't, not really. Not at that age.
People in their 60s still have their parents with them today. I was not that fortunate with my mother. But she died young and still pretty, and even though it was cancer that took her, I suspect she would rather have died while she had her looks than to have grown old and haggard.
I wear "old and haggard" like a badge of honor. I earned the soft-white hair, the wrinkles around my eyes. They are external signs that I have lived.
Forgive me for the weird post. It's just been that kind of Monday.
Wednesday, August 07, 2019
Stepping on Toes
I have been watching the discussions on Facebook and other social media, along with reading articles in the news, etc., about guns.
This comes about after another round of shootings (yes, in the multiple) that occurred over the last week. Three large shootings in a relatively short time, two of them within less than 24 hours of each other.
Statistically, this country is a mess. No other country in the entire world has mass shootings like the United States. This is a phenomena that is distinctly ours.
It's not mental illness.
It's not video games.
Other countries have mental illness and their young men play video games. No, this is a problem unique to white males of North America and specifically this nation.
I don't know the answer. I think we need to try something, and better gun control would be a good start. I think we need to make people with guns have insurance. They need to be certified to own a gun, which, by extension, means an entire family would need to be certified, and I can see where that might become a problem. They also need to be recertified every so often, much like we do with driver's licenses. Japan has it figured out. Are they smarter than we are?
Certain guns do not belong within the public sphere.
I say this as someone who grew up around guns, who was taught how to use guns, and who has shot guns. I've never killed a deer and have no intentions of doing so, although I have shot a small critter a time or two. I always feel rather sick afterwards, because I don't like to kill anything at all. I think guns are necessary on a farm, though, especially in an area where it could take 20-30 minutes for police to arrive. By that time, the dog is dead and the rabid racoon has eaten a kid. So sometimes a weapon has a use. I'm not saying they don't.
But I think it's time for people to value life over rights. I don't understand why anyone's right to do anything at all takes precedence over someone else's right to live. Isn't that primary and first, the living part? Doesn't everyone's right to go buy groceries without worrying about being shot at take precedent over the right to carry a gun?
Yes, I know, criminals will kill. They'll buy guns. Blah blah. That doesn't mean we don't try to make things better, or institute better laws. We have laws on the books against murder but people still murder. Does that mean we shouldn't have any laws against murder?
What we seem to have are a lot of white men who, having been unable to marry the model of their dreams, or reach the career of their dreams, or masturbate to perfection or whatever their problem is, who decide they are going to reach a pinnacle of infamy via mass murder. And the media obliges.
There is also a contingency of young men who think the government is going to come after them (I guess to get their guns) and they somehow think they will be able to take on an entire battalion of police SWAT or whatever government agency they fear with their big stash of weapons. All it takes is one hand grenade and these little fellas are done. Overzealous preppers are part of the problem. Yes, the government is corrupt. Go vote, run for office, hand out flyers, or do some other productive activity to fix the problem. Stockpiling Bisquick, peanut butter, and rifles isn't going to save your ass.
Note that I've not named even the places where these latest mass shootings took place. For one thing, unfortunately, it could be anywhere USA. For another, the place isn't the point. The point is it could be the store down the street, the theater you next attend, or the laundromat.
I'd just as soon not be shot while I'm picking out the best cut of chuck roast at the supermarket. I'd also like to eat in a restaurant and not get up and leave my food sitting because I see some person walking in with a gun strapped to his leg, looking like he's the Lone Ranger. How am I supposed to know who's a good guy and who's a bad guy? I don't know. I see a gun, I leave.
If you're carrying a gun on you and you're not hunting during a valid hunting season, as far as I'm concerned, you're a nut and I don't want to be around you. (That goes for concealed carry, too, although at least if that person has stuck a gun down his/her sock I don't see that, and if it goes off it's going to blow somebody's toes into the ground.)
But these people think their rights outweigh mine. Fuck you, I like guns, they say. Well, fuck you, I like my life and I don't want a bullet in my body. Is this really what the argument boils down to?
Here are a couple of interesting articles. This one is about the Second Amendment and what it really means, and this one is written by a former service woman who wants to see better gun control.
This comes about after another round of shootings (yes, in the multiple) that occurred over the last week. Three large shootings in a relatively short time, two of them within less than 24 hours of each other.
Statistically, this country is a mess. No other country in the entire world has mass shootings like the United States. This is a phenomena that is distinctly ours.
It's not mental illness.
It's not video games.
Other countries have mental illness and their young men play video games. No, this is a problem unique to white males of North America and specifically this nation.
I don't know the answer. I think we need to try something, and better gun control would be a good start. I think we need to make people with guns have insurance. They need to be certified to own a gun, which, by extension, means an entire family would need to be certified, and I can see where that might become a problem. They also need to be recertified every so often, much like we do with driver's licenses. Japan has it figured out. Are they smarter than we are?
Certain guns do not belong within the public sphere.
I say this as someone who grew up around guns, who was taught how to use guns, and who has shot guns. I've never killed a deer and have no intentions of doing so, although I have shot a small critter a time or two. I always feel rather sick afterwards, because I don't like to kill anything at all. I think guns are necessary on a farm, though, especially in an area where it could take 20-30 minutes for police to arrive. By that time, the dog is dead and the rabid racoon has eaten a kid. So sometimes a weapon has a use. I'm not saying they don't.
But I think it's time for people to value life over rights. I don't understand why anyone's right to do anything at all takes precedence over someone else's right to live. Isn't that primary and first, the living part? Doesn't everyone's right to go buy groceries without worrying about being shot at take precedent over the right to carry a gun?
Yes, I know, criminals will kill. They'll buy guns. Blah blah. That doesn't mean we don't try to make things better, or institute better laws. We have laws on the books against murder but people still murder. Does that mean we shouldn't have any laws against murder?
What we seem to have are a lot of white men who, having been unable to marry the model of their dreams, or reach the career of their dreams, or masturbate to perfection or whatever their problem is, who decide they are going to reach a pinnacle of infamy via mass murder. And the media obliges.
There is also a contingency of young men who think the government is going to come after them (I guess to get their guns) and they somehow think they will be able to take on an entire battalion of police SWAT or whatever government agency they fear with their big stash of weapons. All it takes is one hand grenade and these little fellas are done. Overzealous preppers are part of the problem. Yes, the government is corrupt. Go vote, run for office, hand out flyers, or do some other productive activity to fix the problem. Stockpiling Bisquick, peanut butter, and rifles isn't going to save your ass.
Note that I've not named even the places where these latest mass shootings took place. For one thing, unfortunately, it could be anywhere USA. For another, the place isn't the point. The point is it could be the store down the street, the theater you next attend, or the laundromat.
I'd just as soon not be shot while I'm picking out the best cut of chuck roast at the supermarket. I'd also like to eat in a restaurant and not get up and leave my food sitting because I see some person walking in with a gun strapped to his leg, looking like he's the Lone Ranger. How am I supposed to know who's a good guy and who's a bad guy? I don't know. I see a gun, I leave.
If you're carrying a gun on you and you're not hunting during a valid hunting season, as far as I'm concerned, you're a nut and I don't want to be around you. (That goes for concealed carry, too, although at least if that person has stuck a gun down his/her sock I don't see that, and if it goes off it's going to blow somebody's toes into the ground.)
But these people think their rights outweigh mine. Fuck you, I like guns, they say. Well, fuck you, I like my life and I don't want a bullet in my body. Is this really what the argument boils down to?
Here are a couple of interesting articles. This one is about the Second Amendment and what it really means, and this one is written by a former service woman who wants to see better gun control.
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
When One Doesn't See Color
A very long time ago, I had the best third-grade teacher ever.
Her name was Mrs. Fairfax. Mrs. Fairfax was black, but I did not notice that. I only knew that she was my teacher. My beloved, teacher, actually, and as I generally was, I was a teacher's pet.
She was kind, gentle, good to me, understood that I was sick a great deal, and new who my friends were and where I should and should not sit in the classroom because I couldn't see the blackboard. She applauded me, lauded me, and gave me courage to speak in front of the classroom. She was good for me and to me. I thought she was terrific.
She wasn't a black person to me. She was just a person. The fact that she was black completely escaped my attention.
Black people, as I had learned through osmosis or general local attitudes or whatever, apparently were not nice - or so I thought at that age. They would steal from you, they were different, they weren't people I was supposed to associate with, and they certainly weren't supposed to be teachers. Those were the things I'd picked up on as a child.
Mrs. Fairfax was a teacher and she was terrific. So in my mind she wasn't black.
Today I know better and have a completely different outlook toward people who are different from me. I outgrew or somehow or another have basically managed to eradicate that kind of thinking, as best as I can. I try very hard. I am human, though, and I'm sure I have messed it up somewhere along the way.
I bring this up because I still don't often see color. When someone recently mentioned that Senator Kamila Harris is black, I was surprised. When my husband pointed out that Natasha Trethewey, a Hollins poet and former Poet Laurate of the United States is black (she's half black and half white, I think), I was surprised. (We'd gone to hear her read her work at Hollins.)
And when #45 recently tweeted his racists rant to the freshman ladies of Congress who are persons of color, I had to stop and think about it. I had not given any thought to their origins or their color. I was listening to their ideas, to their language, to the things they were saying about the world, and their visions for this nation.
I wasn't paying attention to their color. Or the length of their hair. Or the shape of their noses, or anything else physical about them, aside from gender. I knew they were women.
It was a while before I realized Barrack Obama was black, too. I was listening to his speeches and reading his words and ideas, not looking at the color of his skin.
The color of skin doesn't negate the things coming from the heart, soul, and mind.
We seem to be a divided country. I'm certainly not going to fix it with a blog post that says, "Don't be racist." Nor am I going to say "I'm not a racist" because I think everyone has issues with people who are different, whether they know it or not. If I've ever offended anyone, I would like to apologize. I'd do it in person if I were aware of it.
I live in a county that's 96% white. People of color are not dominate. We're not exactly the most diverse area in the country. Most crime here is committed by white people - because we're a community of mostly white people. But no one wants to see that, just like they don't see that it's mostly white people who are using Social Services and receiving financial assistance from the government.
Preconceptions are hard to fight. Misinformation is hard to eradicate. Life's a bitch sometimes. All I know is that underneath the skin we're all the same. We have bones, and we bleed.
I want a happy world for everyone.
I don't live in a happy world. When I look around me, I see sad, angry people.
I am so sorry that is what we have become.
Her name was Mrs. Fairfax. Mrs. Fairfax was black, but I did not notice that. I only knew that she was my teacher. My beloved, teacher, actually, and as I generally was, I was a teacher's pet.
She was kind, gentle, good to me, understood that I was sick a great deal, and new who my friends were and where I should and should not sit in the classroom because I couldn't see the blackboard. She applauded me, lauded me, and gave me courage to speak in front of the classroom. She was good for me and to me. I thought she was terrific.
She wasn't a black person to me. She was just a person. The fact that she was black completely escaped my attention.
Black people, as I had learned through osmosis or general local attitudes or whatever, apparently were not nice - or so I thought at that age. They would steal from you, they were different, they weren't people I was supposed to associate with, and they certainly weren't supposed to be teachers. Those were the things I'd picked up on as a child.
Mrs. Fairfax was a teacher and she was terrific. So in my mind she wasn't black.
Today I know better and have a completely different outlook toward people who are different from me. I outgrew or somehow or another have basically managed to eradicate that kind of thinking, as best as I can. I try very hard. I am human, though, and I'm sure I have messed it up somewhere along the way.
I bring this up because I still don't often see color. When someone recently mentioned that Senator Kamila Harris is black, I was surprised. When my husband pointed out that Natasha Trethewey, a Hollins poet and former Poet Laurate of the United States is black (she's half black and half white, I think), I was surprised. (We'd gone to hear her read her work at Hollins.)
And when #45 recently tweeted his racists rant to the freshman ladies of Congress who are persons of color, I had to stop and think about it. I had not given any thought to their origins or their color. I was listening to their ideas, to their language, to the things they were saying about the world, and their visions for this nation.
I wasn't paying attention to their color. Or the length of their hair. Or the shape of their noses, or anything else physical about them, aside from gender. I knew they were women.
It was a while before I realized Barrack Obama was black, too. I was listening to his speeches and reading his words and ideas, not looking at the color of his skin.
The color of skin doesn't negate the things coming from the heart, soul, and mind.
We seem to be a divided country. I'm certainly not going to fix it with a blog post that says, "Don't be racist." Nor am I going to say "I'm not a racist" because I think everyone has issues with people who are different, whether they know it or not. If I've ever offended anyone, I would like to apologize. I'd do it in person if I were aware of it.
I live in a county that's 96% white. People of color are not dominate. We're not exactly the most diverse area in the country. Most crime here is committed by white people - because we're a community of mostly white people. But no one wants to see that, just like they don't see that it's mostly white people who are using Social Services and receiving financial assistance from the government.
Preconceptions are hard to fight. Misinformation is hard to eradicate. Life's a bitch sometimes. All I know is that underneath the skin we're all the same. We have bones, and we bleed.
I want a happy world for everyone.
I don't live in a happy world. When I look around me, I see sad, angry people.
I am so sorry that is what we have become.
Monday, July 15, 2019
Speaking Your Mind
We have many cherished rights in the United States, and one of them is the "freedom of speech."
This is derived from the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states:
But what does this mean, particularly the "freedom of speech" part? Does it mean you can say anything you want, have any opinion you want, be as racist, bigoted, idiotic, stupid or whatever as you want, and not suffer consequences?
No. It does not mean that.
If you grew up when I did, if you said "shit" or "fuck" in front of your mom, your ass was red for quite a long time afterwards, or maybe you ate soap. I don't know what parents do these days about such language. Maybe nothing.
I bring this up because so many people seem confused and think that "freedom of speech" means they have the right to say whatever they want to and suffer no consequences.
Maybe they want to leave me ill-thought comments on my blog. Do they have that right? No. This is my blog and if I want to delete a comment, I will delete it. There is no law that says I have to leave it. There is no law that says anyone has to read my blog, either.
Same goes with Facebook or any other social media (unless you're the President of the United States, according to a recently SCOTUS ruling) - if you're writing stuff on your wall and I find it offensive, I can block you. If you write things on my wall, and I find it offensive, I can delete it. There's no "freedom of speech" where individuals are concerned (unless you're POTUS), nor is there freedom from the consequences of said speech.
(Every POTUS has suffered consequences from speech, by the way. Just look at the way the press went after Bill Clinton for saying "it depends on what the meaning of "is" is," or George W. Bush for his comments about the government's clean-up of Katrin, or Barack Obama's comments about "you didn't do it own your own," said right here at a rally in Roanoke, or the weird stuff that comes out of #45's twitter feed. Covfefe, anyone? However, the POTUS is the government and thus should be critiqued and reviewed.).
If you post on your Facebook page things that are racist and your employer finds out and fires you for it, the employer is within its right to do that.
You're not free from the consequences of the things you say or write.
The First Amendment is about the government and what it can and cannot do, not about your friends, family, readers, or whomever.
Basically, the First Amendment means that the government may not jail, fine, or impose civil liability on people or organizations based on what they say or write, except in exceptional circumstances. The Supreme Court has broadly interpreted "government" to mean any elected official, all the way down to your town council representative.
The First Amendment does not protect writers, speakers, or demonstrators from private individuals or organizations, such as non-governmental employers, private colleges, or private landowners. The First Amendment restrains only the government.
Yesterday I was reading someone's blog and she wrote a diatribe against another blogger, and then felt upset about the pushback from that blogger's friends, but she let everything stand, because, "free speech, you know." Well, no. She could say what she wanted and the blogger's friends could say what they wanted, but she did not have to let any of it stand. She could delete the entire post if she wanted, including the comments.
Actions have consequences, as do spoken words and writing. I have long been keenly aware of this as a former news writer. I did not write articles for 35 years and not occasionally have issues with readers or people I quoted. Actually, I frequently had issues with readers or people I quoted. People do not remember what they say, particularly if they say things in the heat of the moment, as sometimes happens at Board of Supervisors meetings. People also often misread things, seeing what they want to see in a news article and not what is actually there.
So they came after me. The stuff was under my byline, after all. I learned early on that a tape recorder was my best friend - if I could play back to someone exactly what they said, they shut up because they couldn't deny it.
Generally I wrote articles using my notes but I taped things "just in case." I have an entire shed full of "just in case" tapes out back. I think I have 20 years worth of meetings and interviews rotting there. I don't need them anymore, as the statute of limitations for libel or defamation or anything else someone might have wanted to do to me is over for most things, but I also don't go into the shed because I suspect it is full of snakes and bees, so there they sit - my "gotcha" tapes for the folks who couldn't keep their mouths shut and then had fits when their words showed up in print.
Freedom of speech has been broadly interpreted by the high court to include talking, writing, and printing, of course. However, they also apply it to broadcasting, the Internet, and many other forms of expression. The court considers symbolic expression to be a freedom of speech issue, including displaying flags, burning flags, wearing armbands, burning crosses, etc. (I assume "taking a knee" during The Pledge of Allegiance falls under this, as does not saluting, the middle finger, and saying "fuck the White House" if you're a soccer player, although private entities can still take action against such expressions.) Read more about this here if you want.
The Supreme Court also has ruled that "freedom of speech" is limited. One cannot use action, speech, or writing to:
To incite actions that would harm others (e.g., “[S]hout[ing] ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”). Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919).
To make or distribute obscene materials. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).
To burn draft cards as an anti-war protest. United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968).
To permit students to print articles in a school newspaper over the objections of the school administration. Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988).
Of students to make an obscene speech at a school-sponsored event. Bethel School District #43 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986).
Of students to advocate illegal drug use at a school-sponsored event. Morse v. Frederick, __ U.S. __ (2007).
Link to that is here if it is wanted.
So, to wrap this up - as a member of the press, if someone said something stupid in a government meeting, I had the right to print it. Generally, in private interviews if people said really stupid things, I refrained from printing those words (and sometimes I was chastised for that if it didn't go into the article, because people didn't know how stupid they sounded, but oh well). My job was not to make people look bad, after all, unless the things they said needed to be "out there" to make some specific point or teach a specific lesson.
If someone wants to disagree with my blog post, said person can do so, but I also can delete the comment if I want. If someone wants to rant and rave on Facebook, they should not be upset and cry "freedom of speech" when they're fired for it, or their friends distance themselves, or whatever.
Say what you want. Express yourself, sure. But remember, as when you were 10 and your mom forced soap down your throat, there are consequences in the real world where government is not involved.
Sometimes a secret notebook (made of paper), tucked in a corner where no one else will ever see it, is the best place to put down some of those really nasty thoughts.
Some people might want to give that a go instead of posting or tweeting everything that crosses their mind.
This is derived from the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
But what does this mean, particularly the "freedom of speech" part? Does it mean you can say anything you want, have any opinion you want, be as racist, bigoted, idiotic, stupid or whatever as you want, and not suffer consequences?
No. It does not mean that.
If you grew up when I did, if you said "shit" or "fuck" in front of your mom, your ass was red for quite a long time afterwards, or maybe you ate soap. I don't know what parents do these days about such language. Maybe nothing.
I bring this up because so many people seem confused and think that "freedom of speech" means they have the right to say whatever they want to and suffer no consequences.
Maybe they want to leave me ill-thought comments on my blog. Do they have that right? No. This is my blog and if I want to delete a comment, I will delete it. There is no law that says I have to leave it. There is no law that says anyone has to read my blog, either.
Same goes with Facebook or any other social media (unless you're the President of the United States, according to a recently SCOTUS ruling) - if you're writing stuff on your wall and I find it offensive, I can block you. If you write things on my wall, and I find it offensive, I can delete it. There's no "freedom of speech" where individuals are concerned (unless you're POTUS), nor is there freedom from the consequences of said speech.
(Every POTUS has suffered consequences from speech, by the way. Just look at the way the press went after Bill Clinton for saying "it depends on what the meaning of "is" is," or George W. Bush for his comments about the government's clean-up of Katrin, or Barack Obama's comments about "you didn't do it own your own," said right here at a rally in Roanoke, or the weird stuff that comes out of #45's twitter feed. Covfefe, anyone? However, the POTUS is the government and thus should be critiqued and reviewed.).
If you post on your Facebook page things that are racist and your employer finds out and fires you for it, the employer is within its right to do that.
You're not free from the consequences of the things you say or write.
The First Amendment is about the government and what it can and cannot do, not about your friends, family, readers, or whomever.
Basically, the First Amendment means that the government may not jail, fine, or impose civil liability on people or organizations based on what they say or write, except in exceptional circumstances. The Supreme Court has broadly interpreted "government" to mean any elected official, all the way down to your town council representative.
The First Amendment does not protect writers, speakers, or demonstrators from private individuals or organizations, such as non-governmental employers, private colleges, or private landowners. The First Amendment restrains only the government.
Yesterday I was reading someone's blog and she wrote a diatribe against another blogger, and then felt upset about the pushback from that blogger's friends, but she let everything stand, because, "free speech, you know." Well, no. She could say what she wanted and the blogger's friends could say what they wanted, but she did not have to let any of it stand. She could delete the entire post if she wanted, including the comments.
Actions have consequences, as do spoken words and writing. I have long been keenly aware of this as a former news writer. I did not write articles for 35 years and not occasionally have issues with readers or people I quoted. Actually, I frequently had issues with readers or people I quoted. People do not remember what they say, particularly if they say things in the heat of the moment, as sometimes happens at Board of Supervisors meetings. People also often misread things, seeing what they want to see in a news article and not what is actually there.
So they came after me. The stuff was under my byline, after all. I learned early on that a tape recorder was my best friend - if I could play back to someone exactly what they said, they shut up because they couldn't deny it.
Generally I wrote articles using my notes but I taped things "just in case." I have an entire shed full of "just in case" tapes out back. I think I have 20 years worth of meetings and interviews rotting there. I don't need them anymore, as the statute of limitations for libel or defamation or anything else someone might have wanted to do to me is over for most things, but I also don't go into the shed because I suspect it is full of snakes and bees, so there they sit - my "gotcha" tapes for the folks who couldn't keep their mouths shut and then had fits when their words showed up in print.
Freedom of speech has been broadly interpreted by the high court to include talking, writing, and printing, of course. However, they also apply it to broadcasting, the Internet, and many other forms of expression. The court considers symbolic expression to be a freedom of speech issue, including displaying flags, burning flags, wearing armbands, burning crosses, etc. (I assume "taking a knee" during The Pledge of Allegiance falls under this, as does not saluting, the middle finger, and saying "fuck the White House" if you're a soccer player, although private entities can still take action against such expressions.) Read more about this here if you want.
The Supreme Court also has ruled that "freedom of speech" is limited. One cannot use action, speech, or writing to:
Link to that is here if it is wanted.
So, to wrap this up - as a member of the press, if someone said something stupid in a government meeting, I had the right to print it. Generally, in private interviews if people said really stupid things, I refrained from printing those words (and sometimes I was chastised for that if it didn't go into the article, because people didn't know how stupid they sounded, but oh well). My job was not to make people look bad, after all, unless the things they said needed to be "out there" to make some specific point or teach a specific lesson.
If someone wants to disagree with my blog post, said person can do so, but I also can delete the comment if I want. If someone wants to rant and rave on Facebook, they should not be upset and cry "freedom of speech" when they're fired for it, or their friends distance themselves, or whatever.
Say what you want. Express yourself, sure. But remember, as when you were 10 and your mom forced soap down your throat, there are consequences in the real world where government is not involved.
Sometimes a secret notebook (made of paper), tucked in a corner where no one else will ever see it, is the best place to put down some of those really nasty thoughts.
Some people might want to give that a go instead of posting or tweeting everything that crosses their mind.
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
A Flat Earth, The Handmaid's Tale, and Science
If someone had asked me even 20 years ago if I knew I would on this date be reading an article in Newsweek about people who believe the earth is flat, I am sure I would have said no. I might have even laughed.
If someone had asked me 20 years ago if I thought states would be curtailing women's rights and working hard to ensure that the white race has babies by manipulating settled constitutional law and creating challenges sure to head toward a loaded, political Supreme Court, I would've thought about it a bit but rejected the idea, ultimately. But here it is. It's here. And here. And here. How long before it comes to my state?
None of this affects me personally right now, but it makes me sad. Under some of the bills, procedures I endured while trying to have a child, birth control pills I took to control endometriosis, and other drugs given me could have sent to me to jail. Or they might have simply allowed me to die instead of operating. So if you're one of those applauding these laws, please leave my blog now. Because essentially you're saying you want me, and thousands of other women like me, to die or be locked up to ease your conscious and so you can hold up your illogical and mythological religious beliefs front and center. Screw that. And screw you for thinking that.
I grew up knowing the earth was round. I do think we have been up in space. I believe my body is mine not my husband's or anyone else's for that matter. Opinion is not fact. The Bible is a book of stories, it's not fact in my mind. You might not like the color blue but I love it.
So back to the article on flat earth believers. Just like people who do not believe vaccines work, these are folks who do not respond to rational arguments. Their views are not based on anything rational in the first place.
These are people not convinced by research or data. They are convinced by people who reach them at some visceral gut level of trust (like a preacher might). Denouncing them is to threaten them. It's the same with anyone who has a different view. If you call names or do as I did above and simply say, "screw you" you're not really going to change any minds.
I am pretty sure I am not going to change any minds anyway, but it would be nice to know how to make an honest effort. I give up quickly because I don't like to argue. I have discovered, though, that in this day and age if you can't engage people on topics besides their job or maybe something like food (and not how climate change affects your dinner), you quickly run out of conversation.
How do you engage or converse with people one finds irrational? I think hearing them out is a good way to start, and then challenging them. It takes patience, though, and a bit of internal fortitude, because these folks are brazen and feel they have the Bible at their back (in many instances) and who are you, woman (with a little "w") to challenge anything anyway?
I think starting at the top of the scientific method might be a good way to begin. Ask the question. Why do you believe the earth is flat? Why do you believe women are inferior to men? Why do you believe life begins at conception and not at birth? How do you know you really have a soul? Why do you believe in goblins?
Here's the scientific method, for those who might have forgotten:
I don't think "because the Bible says so," is a reasonable, logical, and researched answer. So that might mean more questions. It might mean a great many questions, and lots of thrusts and parrying in a conversation.
"All science deniers use roughly the same reasoning strategy. Belief in conspiracy theories, cherry picking evidence, championing their own experts. These are also the tactics used by deniers of evolution, climate change, and the recent spate of anti-vaxx," according to the Newsweek article.
So what to do? What scientists, and regular folks who believe in science, can do is this: "say much more than they do about the importance of likelihood and probability, to puncture the myth that until we have proof, any theory is just as good as any other. Scientific beliefs are not based on certainty but on "warrant"—on justification given the evidence."
Science is NOT based on certainty. Science is based on predictions, tests, etc. You are reading this on a technological device of some kind, and that didn't happen without science. People don't just magically produce cell phones or PCs or the Internet, for that matter.
Certainty cannot be the basis for comprehension and understanding. If that is the standard, "science deniers may feel justified in holding out for proof. So let's explain to them that this is not how science works. That certainty is an irrational standard for empirical belief," says Newsweek.
Science, "does NOT pretend that it has all the answers. It is open to new ideas, but also insists that these must be rigorously tested. In science there is a community standard to enforce this, based on data sharing, peer review, and replication. The scientific attitude exists not just in the hearts of individual scientists, but as a group ethos that guides empirical inquiry in a rational way," says Newsweek.
"It is reasonable to expect more interactions between scientists and science deniers, as is now happening with the measles outbreak in Washington state, where public health officials are holding workshops to talk with anti-vaxxers," Newsweek says.
It's also reasonable to have conversations about women's rights, the law, health, the judicial system, and the definition of theocracy, which is not the same as democracy in any sense of the word.
Science and scientists know that sometimes their theories are wrong. Maybe there is string theory or maybe there isn't - it's not a proven theory yet. But we have more technology in our hands in a cellphone than it took to send a rocket ship into space in the early 1960s, so why would you not believe that to be possible?
And if you believe that possible, then why would you insist that the photos taken from space are all one big conspiracy theory, and the world is really flat?
The existence of your cell phone, your car, electricity, and the gazillion other things that make up modern life - and the things that made up the agrarian life (like something simple, such as making fire) - prove science has its uses and its theories and hypotheses and those put into action are generally correct.
Otherwise we'd all still be walking, and I'd be beating a drum to send a message over to the next hill instead of picking up my cell and making a call.
If someone had asked me 20 years ago if I thought states would be curtailing women's rights and working hard to ensure that the white race has babies by manipulating settled constitutional law and creating challenges sure to head toward a loaded, political Supreme Court, I would've thought about it a bit but rejected the idea, ultimately. But here it is. It's here. And here. And here. How long before it comes to my state?
None of this affects me personally right now, but it makes me sad. Under some of the bills, procedures I endured while trying to have a child, birth control pills I took to control endometriosis, and other drugs given me could have sent to me to jail. Or they might have simply allowed me to die instead of operating. So if you're one of those applauding these laws, please leave my blog now. Because essentially you're saying you want me, and thousands of other women like me, to die or be locked up to ease your conscious and so you can hold up your illogical and mythological religious beliefs front and center. Screw that. And screw you for thinking that.
I grew up knowing the earth was round. I do think we have been up in space. I believe my body is mine not my husband's or anyone else's for that matter. Opinion is not fact. The Bible is a book of stories, it's not fact in my mind. You might not like the color blue but I love it.
So back to the article on flat earth believers. Just like people who do not believe vaccines work, these are folks who do not respond to rational arguments. Their views are not based on anything rational in the first place.
These are people not convinced by research or data. They are convinced by people who reach them at some visceral gut level of trust (like a preacher might). Denouncing them is to threaten them. It's the same with anyone who has a different view. If you call names or do as I did above and simply say, "screw you" you're not really going to change any minds.
I am pretty sure I am not going to change any minds anyway, but it would be nice to know how to make an honest effort. I give up quickly because I don't like to argue. I have discovered, though, that in this day and age if you can't engage people on topics besides their job or maybe something like food (and not how climate change affects your dinner), you quickly run out of conversation.
How do you engage or converse with people one finds irrational? I think hearing them out is a good way to start, and then challenging them. It takes patience, though, and a bit of internal fortitude, because these folks are brazen and feel they have the Bible at their back (in many instances) and who are you, woman (with a little "w") to challenge anything anyway?
I think starting at the top of the scientific method might be a good way to begin. Ask the question. Why do you believe the earth is flat? Why do you believe women are inferior to men? Why do you believe life begins at conception and not at birth? How do you know you really have a soul? Why do you believe in goblins?
Here's the scientific method, for those who might have forgotten:
I don't think "because the Bible says so," is a reasonable, logical, and researched answer. So that might mean more questions. It might mean a great many questions, and lots of thrusts and parrying in a conversation.
"All science deniers use roughly the same reasoning strategy. Belief in conspiracy theories, cherry picking evidence, championing their own experts. These are also the tactics used by deniers of evolution, climate change, and the recent spate of anti-vaxx," according to the Newsweek article.
So what to do? What scientists, and regular folks who believe in science, can do is this: "say much more than they do about the importance of likelihood and probability, to puncture the myth that until we have proof, any theory is just as good as any other. Scientific beliefs are not based on certainty but on "warrant"—on justification given the evidence."
Science is NOT based on certainty. Science is based on predictions, tests, etc. You are reading this on a technological device of some kind, and that didn't happen without science. People don't just magically produce cell phones or PCs or the Internet, for that matter.
Certainty cannot be the basis for comprehension and understanding. If that is the standard, "science deniers may feel justified in holding out for proof. So let's explain to them that this is not how science works. That certainty is an irrational standard for empirical belief," says Newsweek.
Science, "does NOT pretend that it has all the answers. It is open to new ideas, but also insists that these must be rigorously tested. In science there is a community standard to enforce this, based on data sharing, peer review, and replication. The scientific attitude exists not just in the hearts of individual scientists, but as a group ethos that guides empirical inquiry in a rational way," says Newsweek.
"It is reasonable to expect more interactions between scientists and science deniers, as is now happening with the measles outbreak in Washington state, where public health officials are holding workshops to talk with anti-vaxxers," Newsweek says.
It's also reasonable to have conversations about women's rights, the law, health, the judicial system, and the definition of theocracy, which is not the same as democracy in any sense of the word.
Science and scientists know that sometimes their theories are wrong. Maybe there is string theory or maybe there isn't - it's not a proven theory yet. But we have more technology in our hands in a cellphone than it took to send a rocket ship into space in the early 1960s, so why would you not believe that to be possible?
And if you believe that possible, then why would you insist that the photos taken from space are all one big conspiracy theory, and the world is really flat?
The existence of your cell phone, your car, electricity, and the gazillion other things that make up modern life - and the things that made up the agrarian life (like something simple, such as making fire) - prove science has its uses and its theories and hypotheses and those put into action are generally correct.
Otherwise we'd all still be walking, and I'd be beating a drum to send a message over to the next hill instead of picking up my cell and making a call.
Friday, May 03, 2019
Free Speech - Yeah, No.
Today in my local paper, I saw two national stories that dealt with speech issues.
In one, a nominee of #45 for an office overseen by the U.S. Senate dropped out because he couldn't withstand the pressure of being interviewed by senators. This became particularly burdensome after someone produced articles he'd written and published about 20 years ago. The articles were inflammatory and particularly biased against women.
So he got sent back to the washroom.
Another article said Facebook had deleted the accounts of what it called hate speech groups - most of them on the right of the political spectrum (Alex Jones is the only name I remember). Howls of protest and cries of censorship ensued.
I am not in favor of banning books. A book sits on a shelf and is there until someone goes and gets it. It doesn't do anything unless someone reads it, and if someone checks out and somebody else objects, the problem lies with the person objecting, not the reader. If the reader objects to the content, that's an easy fix. Stop reading the book. Don't stop me from reading what I want.
Somewhat like a book, my blog is here and sits here until someone comes to my blog specifically to read it. It doesn't cross people's Facebook feed because I seldom link to it.
Facebook, however, is like a living information center where crap passes in front of your face time and again, whether you want it to or not. TV is like that, too, except now there are more channels to choose from, so there is NRATV and Christian Science TV, neither of which I have ever watched nor will I. But that is my choice and it's not in my newsfeed or on my TV screen.
The information Facebook has banned is available in other places, so if someone wants to find it, they can read it there. Rather like a library, they may have to look for it now. But it's still available.
Facebook is also not the government. It's a corporation, and corporations don't have "free speech" laws that they must live by. They have laws against discrimination that they must live by, and while we don't have actual "hate speech" laws here, "hate speech" in and of itself tends to be discriminatory.
Here's a definition of "hate speech" from Wikipedia (not the best source, I know):
So, constitutionally, in these United States, folks have the right to be bigots, racists, misogynists, or whatever, but that doesn't give them the right to be a jerk anywhere they please, or to be a hate-filled idiot without feeling the consequences. (And I also don't believe all speech is constitutionally protected, not really. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, or maybe in today's world, the example should be "gun." Parents can be held accountable for verbally abusing their children to the point of emotional cruelty, and that same term can be used to dissolve a marriage. If the boss is a woman and she overhears someone saying bad things about women, then that person should not be surprised when said person ends up jobless.)
If someone walks up to me and start dissing women, I'm going to turn and walk away. Nothing says I have to listen. People can have their words and opinions, but my eyes and ears need not see or hear them.
I'm sure that in my long career of writing, I've written stupid things; words that I no longer agree with, even. I've grown and changed. That's what happens as you mature, if you move beyond being 14 years old (some people never do, I'm afraid). Your thought processes don't stay the same. Mine certainly haven't.
Fortunately, I am not a politician or a high-ranking political official. Even so, whatever stupid thing I wrote may someday come back to haunt me. What will it cost me? I don't know. All I can do is take ownership of whatever it might be and say, "Yes, I wrote that. I was 27 years old. I think differently now and I've grown past that. I wish I hadn't written it, but at the time I didn't know any better." I don't know that "I'm sorry" helps in that situation but I would have no problem throwing it in there.
In this day and age, I think it is foolish not to think that something you wrote a long time ago won't come back to slap you in the face. I am prepared for that situation, sort of. Since I don't know what it might be, all I can do is think of how I might react if or when the time comes.
So am I in favor of free speech? Yes - to a point. Am I in favor of listening or reading every piece of trash out there? Nope. I prefer freedom of choice. I think Facebook has the right to ban whatever it wants from its operations. I also think if you're a nasty person, then you deserve whatever nastiness you get from being nasty.
I also think I have the right not to see discriminatory items cross my Facebook page, and I liberally use the "no longer see posts from . . . " feature on my Facebook page.
I also hope that if I should ever start writing things that are terrible and disagreeable, someone stops me and shakes me until I come to my senses.
In one, a nominee of #45 for an office overseen by the U.S. Senate dropped out because he couldn't withstand the pressure of being interviewed by senators. This became particularly burdensome after someone produced articles he'd written and published about 20 years ago. The articles were inflammatory and particularly biased against women.
So he got sent back to the washroom.
Another article said Facebook had deleted the accounts of what it called hate speech groups - most of them on the right of the political spectrum (Alex Jones is the only name I remember). Howls of protest and cries of censorship ensued.
I am not in favor of banning books. A book sits on a shelf and is there until someone goes and gets it. It doesn't do anything unless someone reads it, and if someone checks out and somebody else objects, the problem lies with the person objecting, not the reader. If the reader objects to the content, that's an easy fix. Stop reading the book. Don't stop me from reading what I want.
Somewhat like a book, my blog is here and sits here until someone comes to my blog specifically to read it. It doesn't cross people's Facebook feed because I seldom link to it.
Facebook, however, is like a living information center where crap passes in front of your face time and again, whether you want it to or not. TV is like that, too, except now there are more channels to choose from, so there is NRATV and Christian Science TV, neither of which I have ever watched nor will I. But that is my choice and it's not in my newsfeed or on my TV screen.
The information Facebook has banned is available in other places, so if someone wants to find it, they can read it there. Rather like a library, they may have to look for it now. But it's still available.
Facebook is also not the government. It's a corporation, and corporations don't have "free speech" laws that they must live by. They have laws against discrimination that they must live by, and while we don't have actual "hate speech" laws here, "hate speech" in and of itself tends to be discriminatory.
Here's a definition of "hate speech" from Wikipedia (not the best source, I know):
Hate speech is a statement intended to demean and brutalize another. It is the use of cruel and derogatory language, gestures or vandalism often directed towards an individual or group. Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or a group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity. The laws of some countries describe hate speech as speech, gestures, conduct, writing, or displays that incite violence or prejudicial actions against a group or individuals on the basis of their membership in the group, or disparages or intimidates a group, or individuals on the basis of their membership in the group. The law may identify a group based on certain characteristics. In some countries, hate speech is not a legal term. Additionally in some countries, including the United States, hate speech is constitutionally protected.
So, constitutionally, in these United States, folks have the right to be bigots, racists, misogynists, or whatever, but that doesn't give them the right to be a jerk anywhere they please, or to be a hate-filled idiot without feeling the consequences. (And I also don't believe all speech is constitutionally protected, not really. You can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, or maybe in today's world, the example should be "gun." Parents can be held accountable for verbally abusing their children to the point of emotional cruelty, and that same term can be used to dissolve a marriage. If the boss is a woman and she overhears someone saying bad things about women, then that person should not be surprised when said person ends up jobless.)
If someone walks up to me and start dissing women, I'm going to turn and walk away. Nothing says I have to listen. People can have their words and opinions, but my eyes and ears need not see or hear them.
I'm sure that in my long career of writing, I've written stupid things; words that I no longer agree with, even. I've grown and changed. That's what happens as you mature, if you move beyond being 14 years old (some people never do, I'm afraid). Your thought processes don't stay the same. Mine certainly haven't.
Fortunately, I am not a politician or a high-ranking political official. Even so, whatever stupid thing I wrote may someday come back to haunt me. What will it cost me? I don't know. All I can do is take ownership of whatever it might be and say, "Yes, I wrote that. I was 27 years old. I think differently now and I've grown past that. I wish I hadn't written it, but at the time I didn't know any better." I don't know that "I'm sorry" helps in that situation but I would have no problem throwing it in there.
In this day and age, I think it is foolish not to think that something you wrote a long time ago won't come back to slap you in the face. I am prepared for that situation, sort of. Since I don't know what it might be, all I can do is think of how I might react if or when the time comes.
So am I in favor of free speech? Yes - to a point. Am I in favor of listening or reading every piece of trash out there? Nope. I prefer freedom of choice. I think Facebook has the right to ban whatever it wants from its operations. I also think if you're a nasty person, then you deserve whatever nastiness you get from being nasty.
I also think I have the right not to see discriminatory items cross my Facebook page, and I liberally use the "no longer see posts from . . . " feature on my Facebook page.
I also hope that if I should ever start writing things that are terrible and disagreeable, someone stops me and shakes me until I come to my senses.
Tuesday, April 02, 2019
No April Fool
Yesterday was April Fool's Day.
Not my favorite day of the year by any stretch of the imagination.
My sense of humor is not bad, though it's a little out of the ordinary. But I find April Fool's jokes, unless they are incredibly exceptional, to mostly be in poor taste.
So much information on my Facebook page yesterday appeared to be false that I simply gave up looking at it. Someone reposted NPR's story from 2015 about Hillary Clinton's announcement that she was running for president, and that set off a firestorm from the schmucks who only read the headline and didn't look at the article to see the date.
Not funny. Not even remotely amusing. That loss still stings and rankles and I expect if I live to be over 100 (which I won't), it will sting and rankle.
In school, April Fool's jokes consisted of, "You've got a bug in your hair! Ha ha, April Fool's" or similar nonsense. It is rather like being pinched on March 17 if you are not wearing green. Who comes up with this dumb shit?
Apparently nobody knows, or at least not the Wikipedia writers. They guess it started way back in the Middle Ages (about 475 a.d. to 1500 (a very long time for stupidity to reign)), tracing it by some accounts back to Chaucer (1392).
At any rate, it goes back hundreds of years, this foolishness.
So what makes a good April Fool's joke? Some of the local ones are more hoaxes than jokes. I seem to recall a radio station saying that the city was going to rename Mill Mountain, or some such, one year. I listened to indignant callers for a while, some who were obviously smirking and in on the joke and some who had been taken in totally and really though this was happening. Funny? Maybe. But I think hoaxes are ultimately mean, even if meant in fun or jest. Who wants to feel the fool, anyway? Doesn't that happen often enough in day-to-day living without creating special circumstances for it?
--------------------
Lastly, I have to note that yesterday was the day my aunt, Carolyn, and my uncles, Jerry and Junior, along with their wives and perhaps a cousin or two, went to Kansas to finish the burial of my uncle who perished in a fire back in the winter. There is nothing funny about that, but my aunt and I both thought (me, at least, with a touch of melancholy and slightly wry amusement,) that it was an appropriate and fitting day to bury Uncle Butch. Not that he was a joker or a fool; I know he was a loved brother, husband, father, friend, etc. Still, for some reason it seems fitting that he was finally laid to rest on All Fool's Day.
Not my favorite day of the year by any stretch of the imagination.
My sense of humor is not bad, though it's a little out of the ordinary. But I find April Fool's jokes, unless they are incredibly exceptional, to mostly be in poor taste.
So much information on my Facebook page yesterday appeared to be false that I simply gave up looking at it. Someone reposted NPR's story from 2015 about Hillary Clinton's announcement that she was running for president, and that set off a firestorm from the schmucks who only read the headline and didn't look at the article to see the date.
Not funny. Not even remotely amusing. That loss still stings and rankles and I expect if I live to be over 100 (which I won't), it will sting and rankle.
In school, April Fool's jokes consisted of, "You've got a bug in your hair! Ha ha, April Fool's" or similar nonsense. It is rather like being pinched on March 17 if you are not wearing green. Who comes up with this dumb shit?
Apparently nobody knows, or at least not the Wikipedia writers. They guess it started way back in the Middle Ages (about 475 a.d. to 1500 (a very long time for stupidity to reign)), tracing it by some accounts back to Chaucer (1392).
At any rate, it goes back hundreds of years, this foolishness.
So what makes a good April Fool's joke? Some of the local ones are more hoaxes than jokes. I seem to recall a radio station saying that the city was going to rename Mill Mountain, or some such, one year. I listened to indignant callers for a while, some who were obviously smirking and in on the joke and some who had been taken in totally and really though this was happening. Funny? Maybe. But I think hoaxes are ultimately mean, even if meant in fun or jest. Who wants to feel the fool, anyway? Doesn't that happen often enough in day-to-day living without creating special circumstances for it?
--------------------
Lastly, I have to note that yesterday was the day my aunt, Carolyn, and my uncles, Jerry and Junior, along with their wives and perhaps a cousin or two, went to Kansas to finish the burial of my uncle who perished in a fire back in the winter. There is nothing funny about that, but my aunt and I both thought (me, at least, with a touch of melancholy and slightly wry amusement,) that it was an appropriate and fitting day to bury Uncle Butch. Not that he was a joker or a fool; I know he was a loved brother, husband, father, friend, etc. Still, for some reason it seems fitting that he was finally laid to rest on All Fool's Day.
Monday, April 01, 2019
The Curtains Came Down
For as long as I can remember, I have seen things in designs. My grandmother's tile in her bathroom was particularly colorful, but unremarkable. The design was little multi-colored squares, strewn about in no discernable pattern.
And yet, when I visited her bathroom, I would find people and objects in the linoleum. I even talked to them.
Along the bus route, I found a dinosaur in a tree stump and visited with it every day as we passed by. How sad I was when the following year I realized the stump had been removed by the landowner, and the dinosaur was no more.
It is like finding shapes in clouds, something most of us do as children, only I tend to see them in places where they do not exist - or are not supposed to exist. I see lines that, if I could draw, would magically become art. A unicorn here, a sobbing woman there, a guitar elsewhere.
Nothing with a design is safe from my imagination. As a child I feared electric sockets not because they shocked me, but because they had a face - two eyes and a mouth. When we built our house, my father, who was helping us wire it (you could do that 32 years ago), asked if we wanted the receptacles "monkey face up or monkey face down." I immediately responded "monkey face up" because when the receptacles are upside down I don't see the face. At the time most things were two-pronged plug-in items anyway. How was I to know that in the not-so-distant future most everything would have three prongs, and sometimes the monkey-face-up thing can be a pain?
Anyway, this ability, if one wants to call it that, has followed me into my middle age (Is 55 middle-aged?). The new tile we put down in the kitchen has no obvious designs in it, yet I see a woman. A dolphin shows itself in the tile in the bathroom. Even the new hardwood floors has little critters in them. Fortunately, I only seem them in passing, fleeting images as I walk over. If asked, I could not find it again.
And so it is we come to the curtains. I bought them about two years ago at Lowes to replace some aged ones that had faded. They were a solid dark blue and I thought it made the room look dark, too. The new curtains had a huge initial problem: they were supposed to be 84" long but were only about 78" long, so that my sheers were too long. (Yes, I use sheers. I see my reflection in the windows at night and it scares me. So, sheers.)
The new curtains were a nice shade of dark blue in design on a whitish background. But they weren't up long before I realized there were faces in the things. Everywhere. And not nice faces, either. Evil faces.
I ignored the faces as best I could, but finally I decided I couldn't deal with it anymore, and the curtains yesterday came down. They've been replaced with an aqua blue solid (and they are 84" long), and I told my husband that there would be no more curtains or bedspreads or anything else with designs in them in the bedroom.
He thinks I am silly, but I am glad to be rid of those curtains.
And yet, when I visited her bathroom, I would find people and objects in the linoleum. I even talked to them.
Along the bus route, I found a dinosaur in a tree stump and visited with it every day as we passed by. How sad I was when the following year I realized the stump had been removed by the landowner, and the dinosaur was no more.
It is like finding shapes in clouds, something most of us do as children, only I tend to see them in places where they do not exist - or are not supposed to exist. I see lines that, if I could draw, would magically become art. A unicorn here, a sobbing woman there, a guitar elsewhere.
Nothing with a design is safe from my imagination. As a child I feared electric sockets not because they shocked me, but because they had a face - two eyes and a mouth. When we built our house, my father, who was helping us wire it (you could do that 32 years ago), asked if we wanted the receptacles "monkey face up or monkey face down." I immediately responded "monkey face up" because when the receptacles are upside down I don't see the face. At the time most things were two-pronged plug-in items anyway. How was I to know that in the not-so-distant future most everything would have three prongs, and sometimes the monkey-face-up thing can be a pain?
Anyway, this ability, if one wants to call it that, has followed me into my middle age (Is 55 middle-aged?). The new tile we put down in the kitchen has no obvious designs in it, yet I see a woman. A dolphin shows itself in the tile in the bathroom. Even the new hardwood floors has little critters in them. Fortunately, I only seem them in passing, fleeting images as I walk over. If asked, I could not find it again.
 |
| Do you see the woman in this tile? Or maybe it looks more like a bird. |
The new curtains were a nice shade of dark blue in design on a whitish background. But they weren't up long before I realized there were faces in the things. Everywhere. And not nice faces, either. Evil faces.
 |
| Do you see the multiple tribe of people in this design? |
He thinks I am silly, but I am glad to be rid of those curtains.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
The Writing on the Wall?
Many people I know who are in their mid-50s are "retiring." They're leaving jobs they've held for long periods of time, sometimes decades, to do something else.
Some are leaving to take care of grandchildren. Some, like me, have health issues. Some want to travel and live life before time takes its toll on their knees and hips.
I wonder, though, if deep down we don't see the writing on the wall. We're not going to have the longevity of our forefathers. The health care is not going to be there, and what is there will be unaffordable, unless there are great changes in that industry.
Social Security may not be available when I hit the age to draw it. I still have a ways to go to get there, so it's not a stretch for that to be a concern. My husband now expects to die working, even if that means he's 80 years old. He likes to work but I'd like for him to not be working at 80.
The folks I know who are ending careers do not seem to me to be overly wealthy. Usually what I see are women stepping down, with husbands still on the job. Maybe they have enough saved to cushion the blow, or maybe these women are moving into other work arenas that I know nothing of.
Still, it's an unsteady future those of us who are at the low-end of the Baby Boomer generation, and Generation X, face. (I missed the Generation X label by a year and I identify more with that generation than the Baby Boomer one.)
A recent story from marketwatch.com says Gen X "may already be financially worse off than other generations in a number of ways."
The article lists credit card debt, loads of spending on non-essentials (like eating out), and lack of savings for retirement as problems for Gen X.
Additionally, having children with financial demands (even if they are adults) plus caring for aging parents (Baby Boomers) is also crunching the financial stability of this generation.
All of this makes me wonder if the people I see retiring, including myself, aren't realizing that the retirement you see on TV where you go play tennis and golf are simply dreams that will never materialize.
Perhaps stepping out of the workforce pre-retirement age is a way to spit in the face of the establishment, that free market that wants everyone enslaved to a corporation until you're 75 years old.
Or maybe we're all just tired.
Some are leaving to take care of grandchildren. Some, like me, have health issues. Some want to travel and live life before time takes its toll on their knees and hips.
I wonder, though, if deep down we don't see the writing on the wall. We're not going to have the longevity of our forefathers. The health care is not going to be there, and what is there will be unaffordable, unless there are great changes in that industry.
Social Security may not be available when I hit the age to draw it. I still have a ways to go to get there, so it's not a stretch for that to be a concern. My husband now expects to die working, even if that means he's 80 years old. He likes to work but I'd like for him to not be working at 80.
The folks I know who are ending careers do not seem to me to be overly wealthy. Usually what I see are women stepping down, with husbands still on the job. Maybe they have enough saved to cushion the blow, or maybe these women are moving into other work arenas that I know nothing of.
Still, it's an unsteady future those of us who are at the low-end of the Baby Boomer generation, and Generation X, face. (I missed the Generation X label by a year and I identify more with that generation than the Baby Boomer one.)
A recent story from marketwatch.com says Gen X "may already be financially worse off than other generations in a number of ways."
The article lists credit card debt, loads of spending on non-essentials (like eating out), and lack of savings for retirement as problems for Gen X.
“While Generation X continues to struggle with saving and spending, millennials — although not without their own unique financial challenges — seem better positioned for retirement than their closest predecessors. Median retirement savings for Gen X is only $35,000, the same median amount as millennials, despite Gen Xers being much closer to retirement,” according to a study of 3,000 Americans by Allianz Life.
Additionally, having children with financial demands (even if they are adults) plus caring for aging parents (Baby Boomers) is also crunching the financial stability of this generation.
All of this makes me wonder if the people I see retiring, including myself, aren't realizing that the retirement you see on TV where you go play tennis and golf are simply dreams that will never materialize.
Perhaps stepping out of the workforce pre-retirement age is a way to spit in the face of the establishment, that free market that wants everyone enslaved to a corporation until you're 75 years old.
Or maybe we're all just tired.
Monday, January 14, 2019
Getting to the Point
The circular route around a topic is frequently the easiest for me. Sometimes I can write around and around and around and maybe at some point I reach the crucial words.
But not always. Sometimes I never find the crucial point.
This is especially true when I am writing about topics that require me to have an absolute unequivocal opinion. Or perhaps I should say things that I should have an opinion on but for whatever reason I pussyfoot around it.
This is particularly true about politics. I spent years not having an opinion about politics because I covered politics, and I wanted to be fair. So I bit my lip and never wrote something like, "Today the supervisors passed the most idiotic legislation I've ever seen."
I felt like writing that many times, I have to say. Over the 30 years I covered government, I saw a lot of stupid pass before my eyes.
Then there is national politics. Because I'm a reporter, still, I try to keep my thoughts to myself on that, but sometimes I just want to scream it out. I want to scream it out straight and get straight to the point.
But I don't. I learned a long time ago not to have an opinion. I learned that even before I was a writer, because when I had opinions, I found trouble.
Or trouble found me. My own opinions could often be used against me.
So best to keep my mouth shut.
But here I am with a blog that's been in existence for 12 years, and anyone who reads it ought to know by now where I stand on certain things. So for once, I'm going to get to the point.
I think #45 is a terrible person. He's a bully, he's loud, he's egotistical, he's arrogant, he's mean, he's a liar, he's a bigot, and he does not deserve to sit in the oval office.
People should not be used as pawns and keeping the government closed is immoral and sinful.
Walls are meant for houses and cover, not for separating nations.
Those are my points for today.
But not always. Sometimes I never find the crucial point.
This is especially true when I am writing about topics that require me to have an absolute unequivocal opinion. Or perhaps I should say things that I should have an opinion on but for whatever reason I pussyfoot around it.
This is particularly true about politics. I spent years not having an opinion about politics because I covered politics, and I wanted to be fair. So I bit my lip and never wrote something like, "Today the supervisors passed the most idiotic legislation I've ever seen."
I felt like writing that many times, I have to say. Over the 30 years I covered government, I saw a lot of stupid pass before my eyes.
Then there is national politics. Because I'm a reporter, still, I try to keep my thoughts to myself on that, but sometimes I just want to scream it out. I want to scream it out straight and get straight to the point.
But I don't. I learned a long time ago not to have an opinion. I learned that even before I was a writer, because when I had opinions, I found trouble.
Or trouble found me. My own opinions could often be used against me.
So best to keep my mouth shut.
But here I am with a blog that's been in existence for 12 years, and anyone who reads it ought to know by now where I stand on certain things. So for once, I'm going to get to the point.
I think #45 is a terrible person. He's a bully, he's loud, he's egotistical, he's arrogant, he's mean, he's a liar, he's a bigot, and he does not deserve to sit in the oval office.
People should not be used as pawns and keeping the government closed is immoral and sinful.
Walls are meant for houses and cover, not for separating nations.
Those are my points for today.
Tuesday, January 08, 2019
Why Learning Matters
I was seven years old and the bus dropped me off at my babysitter's house. She lived a good walk from the trailer my parents and I (along with my brother) were living in at the time, on a dirt road. I wasn't supposed to walk on the road. I was supposed to go to the babysitter's house, though.
On this day, though, I found the front door to my babysitter's house locked. There was a note on the door - a note that did me no good.
The note was written in cursive. I had just started second grade and we hadn't learned cursive yet. I could make out a few things - by that time I could read extensively for a 7-year-old - but only print. I knew my mother's signature in cursive and that was about it.
I wandered around the back and found that door unlocked. I went in and called for my caregiver. The house echoed only my timid little voice as I first called out a name and then moved to a sobbing wail as I realized I was alone.
The phone lines were still party lines, and I had been told on multiple occasions not to touch the telephones, no matter what, not even to answer what was called "our ring." I did not dare call anyone because everything was long distance. The only number I knew was my grandmother's, anyway, and she lived 30 miles away.
My mother worked at a job near my grandmother (it was a long way off to a little child), and my father was a traveling salesman and I never knew when he would be home. It would be two hours at least before my mother came to fetch me.
Two hours is a mighty long time when you're a little girl. I made myself a jelly sandwich and tried not to make a mess - my babysitter hated messes - and sniffled myself quiet long enough to do whatever homework I had. Then I settled in to finish reading Bambi, by Felix Salten. This was the original novel, not the Disney version for kids, which tells you how progressed I was in my reading.
My mother finally turned up, followed not long after by my babysitter, who had left because she'd had an emergency with one of her own children.
Both were surprised to find me alone in the house.
I had not followed directions. I was supposed to walk up the road in the opposite direction of my home to the trailer up the hill, where an adult was waiting to take me in hand (why the adult never came for me, I do not know). I remember being yelled at, and my mother giving me a swat on the behind for not doing what I was told and for leaving crumbs on the kitchen table.
After they all finished yelling at me, I tearfully explained that I couldn't read the message. "You can read!" my mother exploded.
"Not that kind of writing," I cried.
It was then my mother saw the note and realized it was in cursive. I could not read cursive at that time, though I made it a priority after this incident. (I remember going to my second-grade teacher and begging her to teach me cursive, bursting into tears while I asked, and so without question she took me aside during the daily quiet time when the other children were napping, and taught me to read cursive writing, which wasn't taught until third grade. Bless her.)
I don't recall an apology from the babysitter or my mother, but I generally don't in most of my memories. Adults in my youth were not known for apologizing when they screwed up. Unlike Andy Taylor in the Andy Griffith Show, big people in my life were not good at recognizing the need to sit tiny little me on a knee and kiss me on the head and say, "I'm sorry." That's too bad, really, because it would have gone a long way toward making childhood more bearable. (It helps in adulthood too, if people say they are sorry, but I no longer expect apologies from anyone. I just hand out "I'm sorry" like candy, myself, knowing it is somehow my fault that I was too young to read cursive (with said incident serving as a nice metaphor of everything I cannot do or do not do right).
It wasn't long thereafter that I had a new babysitter, though I don't recall if the incidents were related or if it was because the babysitter was going to have a seventh child. Oddly, I don't know who kept me after school after that; certainly someone did for a time. After my brother started school I know where we stayed but there is a gap there for me in that I don't know where I went after school for the remainder of the second grade and none of the third grade. Maybe I just went home and stayed alone, although that doesn't sound right. I'll have to ask my brother if he remembers.
This odd memory came roaring back this morning, totally unbidden, while I was in the shower. It is neither a bad memory nor a good one; it's more a tale of how life was when I was growing up.
Perhaps a recent article I read about how certain states are bringing cursive writing back into the curriculum brought this incident to mind. Supposedly cursive has always been taught here where I live, but my 24-year-old nephew, who went through the same school system I did, only 25 years later, cannot read it. Two years ago when my brother sent him a recipe in my mother's handwriting, he couldn't understand the words because they were written in my mother's beautiful cursive.
When I go to the county courthouse, all of the old records are handwritten. Court orders, civil verdicts, birth and death certificates - all written in longhand, all illegible to thousands of people who cannot read cursive and apparently have no desire to do so.
Many primary sources that pre-date the 1900s are handwritten. The original U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are written in the cursive of the time. Can you read them?
My cursive handwriting is awful; I turned to print a long time ago. I still remember how to write it, though.
And I certainly now know how to read it.
On this day, though, I found the front door to my babysitter's house locked. There was a note on the door - a note that did me no good.
The note was written in cursive. I had just started second grade and we hadn't learned cursive yet. I could make out a few things - by that time I could read extensively for a 7-year-old - but only print. I knew my mother's signature in cursive and that was about it.
I wandered around the back and found that door unlocked. I went in and called for my caregiver. The house echoed only my timid little voice as I first called out a name and then moved to a sobbing wail as I realized I was alone.
The phone lines were still party lines, and I had been told on multiple occasions not to touch the telephones, no matter what, not even to answer what was called "our ring." I did not dare call anyone because everything was long distance. The only number I knew was my grandmother's, anyway, and she lived 30 miles away.
My mother worked at a job near my grandmother (it was a long way off to a little child), and my father was a traveling salesman and I never knew when he would be home. It would be two hours at least before my mother came to fetch me.
Two hours is a mighty long time when you're a little girl. I made myself a jelly sandwich and tried not to make a mess - my babysitter hated messes - and sniffled myself quiet long enough to do whatever homework I had. Then I settled in to finish reading Bambi, by Felix Salten. This was the original novel, not the Disney version for kids, which tells you how progressed I was in my reading.
My mother finally turned up, followed not long after by my babysitter, who had left because she'd had an emergency with one of her own children.
Both were surprised to find me alone in the house.
I had not followed directions. I was supposed to walk up the road in the opposite direction of my home to the trailer up the hill, where an adult was waiting to take me in hand (why the adult never came for me, I do not know). I remember being yelled at, and my mother giving me a swat on the behind for not doing what I was told and for leaving crumbs on the kitchen table.
After they all finished yelling at me, I tearfully explained that I couldn't read the message. "You can read!" my mother exploded.
"Not that kind of writing," I cried.
It was then my mother saw the note and realized it was in cursive. I could not read cursive at that time, though I made it a priority after this incident. (I remember going to my second-grade teacher and begging her to teach me cursive, bursting into tears while I asked, and so without question she took me aside during the daily quiet time when the other children were napping, and taught me to read cursive writing, which wasn't taught until third grade. Bless her.)
I don't recall an apology from the babysitter or my mother, but I generally don't in most of my memories. Adults in my youth were not known for apologizing when they screwed up. Unlike Andy Taylor in the Andy Griffith Show, big people in my life were not good at recognizing the need to sit tiny little me on a knee and kiss me on the head and say, "I'm sorry." That's too bad, really, because it would have gone a long way toward making childhood more bearable. (It helps in adulthood too, if people say they are sorry, but I no longer expect apologies from anyone. I just hand out "I'm sorry" like candy, myself, knowing it is somehow my fault that I was too young to read cursive (with said incident serving as a nice metaphor of everything I cannot do or do not do right).
It wasn't long thereafter that I had a new babysitter, though I don't recall if the incidents were related or if it was because the babysitter was going to have a seventh child. Oddly, I don't know who kept me after school after that; certainly someone did for a time. After my brother started school I know where we stayed but there is a gap there for me in that I don't know where I went after school for the remainder of the second grade and none of the third grade. Maybe I just went home and stayed alone, although that doesn't sound right. I'll have to ask my brother if he remembers.
This odd memory came roaring back this morning, totally unbidden, while I was in the shower. It is neither a bad memory nor a good one; it's more a tale of how life was when I was growing up.
Perhaps a recent article I read about how certain states are bringing cursive writing back into the curriculum brought this incident to mind. Supposedly cursive has always been taught here where I live, but my 24-year-old nephew, who went through the same school system I did, only 25 years later, cannot read it. Two years ago when my brother sent him a recipe in my mother's handwriting, he couldn't understand the words because they were written in my mother's beautiful cursive.
When I go to the county courthouse, all of the old records are handwritten. Court orders, civil verdicts, birth and death certificates - all written in longhand, all illegible to thousands of people who cannot read cursive and apparently have no desire to do so.
Many primary sources that pre-date the 1900s are handwritten. The original U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are written in the cursive of the time. Can you read them?
My cursive handwriting is awful; I turned to print a long time ago. I still remember how to write it, though.
And I certainly now know how to read it.
Monday, December 31, 2018
At Year's End
So now at last we come to it, the end of 2018.
What has this year brought?
Rain. Mold. Leaks. We've had about 22" more rain that normal and broke records for rain for the year. My poor husband could barely find a dry day to make hay, never mind work on people's septic tanks.
As this day hit is mid-hour, I learned that Elizabeth Warren is looking into running for President of the United States. While I would love to see her as president, I don't think she is the candidate for the Democrats. We will see. Already on Facebook the #45 trolls are out, bashing, thrashing, mauling, crawling, before the day is even thinking of ending.
Play nice.
I would like to say I saw lots of niceness in 2018, but I did not. Oh, I was not personally molested, except for my mind, which frequently couldn't begin to understand the anger, ire, hatred, bigotry and rage that surrounds me. I stopped reading comments on articles, even mundane things, because suddenly there would be hate, seemingly unrelated and coming out of left field. This is really America, though. This is what we are, who we are, and our new normal. We're a people full of hate and rage. I suppose we always have been. My rose-colored glasses kept me from seeing it. I thought we liked one another, that we cared about each other, that we were rising to a higher level of society. That we would one day be the pinnacle of civilization, a true beacon of light and hope.
I don't think that now.
My life went on quietly, with no great strides in personal growth, but I don't think I went backwards, either. I read fewer books, which was unfortunate, but ever since I switched to progressive lenses I find reading harder and more headache-inducing. It makes me sad that my eyes are keeping me from something I love so much, but there you go. It is what it is. I read more magazine articles now, though. More things online, too, because I can increase the font.
The rain suits me. Or maybe it is the mud, because I feel stuck, my feet firmly encased in goo that oozes down my socks and traps me as I stand there in my shoes. Thank goodness I still have clothes on. Wouldn't that be a sorry sight.
Today I reflect. Tomorrow I hope.
Tonight, I go to bed and sleep in the new year, much as I have done most of my life. You can make a new year on any day of your life, after all, if you want. Just be different one day and see what happens.
Let's all try that tomorrow. My nephew has a motto for his business that is "be opposite." I wonder if all of those who hate could try that, just for a day. Be opposite and love.
Would everything break, if it was just for a day?
I hope you, my dear reader, whoever you are, have a wonderful 2019. I hope you had a good 2018, too. I hope it wasn't a year filled with hate and heartbreak. I hope 2019 brings everyone sacks full of hope, honesty, honor, and love.
Sacks that I hope find their way into hearts and not trash cans.
Be good out there. Be kind. Be best, as our First Lady says.
Be your best.
What has this year brought?
Rain. Mold. Leaks. We've had about 22" more rain that normal and broke records for rain for the year. My poor husband could barely find a dry day to make hay, never mind work on people's septic tanks.
As this day hit is mid-hour, I learned that Elizabeth Warren is looking into running for President of the United States. While I would love to see her as president, I don't think she is the candidate for the Democrats. We will see. Already on Facebook the #45 trolls are out, bashing, thrashing, mauling, crawling, before the day is even thinking of ending.
Play nice.
I would like to say I saw lots of niceness in 2018, but I did not. Oh, I was not personally molested, except for my mind, which frequently couldn't begin to understand the anger, ire, hatred, bigotry and rage that surrounds me. I stopped reading comments on articles, even mundane things, because suddenly there would be hate, seemingly unrelated and coming out of left field. This is really America, though. This is what we are, who we are, and our new normal. We're a people full of hate and rage. I suppose we always have been. My rose-colored glasses kept me from seeing it. I thought we liked one another, that we cared about each other, that we were rising to a higher level of society. That we would one day be the pinnacle of civilization, a true beacon of light and hope.
I don't think that now.
My life went on quietly, with no great strides in personal growth, but I don't think I went backwards, either. I read fewer books, which was unfortunate, but ever since I switched to progressive lenses I find reading harder and more headache-inducing. It makes me sad that my eyes are keeping me from something I love so much, but there you go. It is what it is. I read more magazine articles now, though. More things online, too, because I can increase the font.
The rain suits me. Or maybe it is the mud, because I feel stuck, my feet firmly encased in goo that oozes down my socks and traps me as I stand there in my shoes. Thank goodness I still have clothes on. Wouldn't that be a sorry sight.
Today I reflect. Tomorrow I hope.
Tonight, I go to bed and sleep in the new year, much as I have done most of my life. You can make a new year on any day of your life, after all, if you want. Just be different one day and see what happens.
Let's all try that tomorrow. My nephew has a motto for his business that is "be opposite." I wonder if all of those who hate could try that, just for a day. Be opposite and love.
Would everything break, if it was just for a day?
I hope you, my dear reader, whoever you are, have a wonderful 2019. I hope you had a good 2018, too. I hope it wasn't a year filled with hate and heartbreak. I hope 2019 brings everyone sacks full of hope, honesty, honor, and love.
Sacks that I hope find their way into hearts and not trash cans.
Be good out there. Be kind. Be best, as our First Lady says.
Be your best.
Monday, November 05, 2018
Listen to the Music
I've been thinking a lot about this great divide, these hideous, ugly cracks that have appeared in the landscape and throughout the minds of the citizens of the United States.
First, I wonder if it's really there - because I have always been able to talk to most people about nearly anything, in my work as a news reporter. Perhaps it was because I was listening and not arguing that I was able to do that. I may have disagreed with the person's words or point of view but it was not my job to judge. I reported what was said and let the public decide if a supervisor or county administrator or judge or whoever was a total idiot or one of the greatest minds ever to walk the grounds of Fincastle.
I think it is there, now, and I think the media is keeping at the forefront. Divide and conquer creates great copy, after all, and makes for excitement. Keeping the public stirred up, fearful, questioning, and confused works for those who crave power, whether that is a politician or a TV executive. The politicians do not help, of course. I will be so glad when the election is over tomorrow. Perhaps for a day we will have some time on TV with no political advertisement. Then they'll start for whatever election is next, I suppose.
Then I wondered how long this divide has been around. Unfortunately, I have determined it has been around for as long as I have been alive. I overlooked it. I missed it. It was right in front of me, staring me in the face, but I didn't see it. Maybe I didn't want to see it. Maybe because I was raised with racism around me, with hatred and bitterness simply a part of the landscape while I escaped to better places in my mind with my books and my own somewhat less angry heart. (I have a depressed and sad heart, always have, but at least it is not an angry one.)
How did I figure out it has always been there? I listened. This time I listened to things I'd been hearing all of my life - certain songs and words in music. And in those songs I find the beginnings of the discord, the great divide, the things that at the time seemed innocent but which ultimately are not.
I grew up listening to country music in my early years. I switched over to pop/Top 40 as soon as I was old enough to do that (let's say 11 or 12) and never looked back. I still don't listen to country music.
But it occurred to me that the divide was going on way back when. Two songs come to mind for me when I think about what we'll call "the right." Those songs are Okie from Muskogee and Sweet Home Alabama.
The first song, by Merle Haggard, celebrates what I would call small town America. Here are the lyrics:
I presume everything "they" don't do, then "the left" does. Although I know plenty of folks of all persuasions who've smoked a little marijuana and had long hair, but whatever. This song spells it out about as well as anything. And it dates back to 1969. I was six years old in 1969.
The second song, by Lynard Skynard, is a one I've always liked. It falls more into the Southern Rock category than the first song, which is definitely country.
I always thought it was a song about a trucker going home to Alabama, and maybe it is. But the lines that really caught my attention recently were the ones about Neil Young (a liberal musician) and "Watergate does not bother me."
That stopped me short. Why wouldn't Watergate bother someone? Shouldn't it have bothered everybody? It was a crime, a violation of trust, a break in the sanctity of government, a breach of truth.
I strongly suspect that the same people who weren't bothered by Watergate aren't bothered by the things the 45th president says. I am greatly bothered by them, particularly the lies and the outrageous statements that serve only to create fear, disharmony, and discord.
That song came out in 1974. And from there I really stopped hearing that side of things, because I stopped listening to country music. I began listening to disco and songs that celebrated love. I also started listening to songs like Born in the USA, by Bruce Springsteen, which has a patriotic chorus but is not very flattering to the nation because it's really an indictment of the Vietnam War. And then there were the anti-war songs, in particular War by Edwin Starr (War! Good God, y'all, what is good for? Absolutely nothing.) I also loved White Rabbit byJefferson Airplane (and that has an inappropriate age restricted notice from youtube, I can't even imagine that), Where Have All the Flowers Gone (Peter, Paul, and Mary) and similar songs - mostly anti-war, pro-love, pro-peace, pro-people.
The thing is, had I spent more time listening to different types of music, maybe I would have picked up on the divide. It's rather like the shock I get when I watch something on Fox (which I seldom do but sometimes I feel compelled to check it out). Everything is different about that TV station, even the TV commercials. It's slanted, focused, and pointed at one thing - making sure the viewer knows that change is coming and whatever the change is, it is not good, and the viewer should be afraid.
Change always comes though. Music has evolved since 1969 - we have so many different genres now that it is truly an accurate reflection of the prism of our society, right down from the differences in country music to hip hop to new age to adult contemporary.
I thought I was being open-minded in my music styles, but I wasn't. I listened for a long time to adult contemporary, NPR classical stuff, a little jazz, and oldies music. However, I don't listen to country or hip hop (or reggae or the blues) and in the last two years I have stopped listening to new music for the most part. Mostly now I listen to songs from the 1970s and older albums by Sheryl Crowe and Melissa Etheridge.
I tuned out and turned it off.
I created my own little bubble without realizing that was what I was doing.
Such a fractured, fragile nation, full of bluster and humus and deranged personalities. I don't expect a single day of voting to change the rhetoric or much of anything else.
Only we, the people, can do that. We can come together, or we can continue to tear ourselves apart.
I wonder what we will choose.
First, I wonder if it's really there - because I have always been able to talk to most people about nearly anything, in my work as a news reporter. Perhaps it was because I was listening and not arguing that I was able to do that. I may have disagreed with the person's words or point of view but it was not my job to judge. I reported what was said and let the public decide if a supervisor or county administrator or judge or whoever was a total idiot or one of the greatest minds ever to walk the grounds of Fincastle.
I think it is there, now, and I think the media is keeping at the forefront. Divide and conquer creates great copy, after all, and makes for excitement. Keeping the public stirred up, fearful, questioning, and confused works for those who crave power, whether that is a politician or a TV executive. The politicians do not help, of course. I will be so glad when the election is over tomorrow. Perhaps for a day we will have some time on TV with no political advertisement. Then they'll start for whatever election is next, I suppose.
Then I wondered how long this divide has been around. Unfortunately, I have determined it has been around for as long as I have been alive. I overlooked it. I missed it. It was right in front of me, staring me in the face, but I didn't see it. Maybe I didn't want to see it. Maybe because I was raised with racism around me, with hatred and bitterness simply a part of the landscape while I escaped to better places in my mind with my books and my own somewhat less angry heart. (I have a depressed and sad heart, always have, but at least it is not an angry one.)
How did I figure out it has always been there? I listened. This time I listened to things I'd been hearing all of my life - certain songs and words in music. And in those songs I find the beginnings of the discord, the great divide, the things that at the time seemed innocent but which ultimately are not.
I grew up listening to country music in my early years. I switched over to pop/Top 40 as soon as I was old enough to do that (let's say 11 or 12) and never looked back. I still don't listen to country music.
But it occurred to me that the divide was going on way back when. Two songs come to mind for me when I think about what we'll call "the right." Those songs are Okie from Muskogee and Sweet Home Alabama.
The first song, by Merle Haggard, celebrates what I would call small town America. Here are the lyrics:
We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee
We don't take no trips on LSD
We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street
'Cause like livin' right and bein' free
We don't take no trips on LSD
We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street
'Cause like livin' right and bein' free
We don't make a party out of lovin'
But we like holdin' hands and pitchin' woo
We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy
Like the hippies out in San Francisco do
But we like holdin' hands and pitchin' woo
We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy
Like the hippies out in San Francisco do
And I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all
Leather boots are still in style for manly footwear
Beads and Roman sandals won't be seen
Football's still the roughest thing on campus
And the kids here still respect the college dean
Beads and Roman sandals won't be seen
Football's still the roughest thing on campus
And the kids here still respect the college dean
And I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all
In Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all
In Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA
I presume everything "they" don't do, then "the left" does. Although I know plenty of folks of all persuasions who've smoked a little marijuana and had long hair, but whatever. This song spells it out about as well as anything. And it dates back to 1969. I was six years old in 1969.
The second song, by Lynard Skynard, is a one I've always liked. It falls more into the Southern Rock category than the first song, which is definitely country.
Big wheels keep on turning
Carry me home to see my kin
Singing songs about the south-land
I miss 'ole' 'bamy once again and I think it's a sin
Carry me home to see my kin
Singing songs about the south-land
I miss 'ole' 'bamy once again and I think it's a sin
Well I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well I heard ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A southern man don't need him around anyhow
Well I heard ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A southern man don't need him around anyhow
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
In Birmingham they love the Gov'nor, boo-hoo-hoo
Now we all did what we could do
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you, tell the truth
Now we all did what we could do
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you, tell the truth
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you, here I come
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you, here I come
Now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers
And they've been known to pick a song or two (yes they do)
Lord they get me off so much
They pick me up when I'm feeling blue, now how bout you?
And they've been known to pick a song or two (yes they do)
Lord they get me off so much
They pick me up when I'm feeling blue, now how bout you?
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
Sweet home Alabama, oh sweet home
Where the skies are so blue and the governor's true
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
Where the skies are so blue and the governor's true
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you
I always thought it was a song about a trucker going home to Alabama, and maybe it is. But the lines that really caught my attention recently were the ones about Neil Young (a liberal musician) and "Watergate does not bother me."
That stopped me short. Why wouldn't Watergate bother someone? Shouldn't it have bothered everybody? It was a crime, a violation of trust, a break in the sanctity of government, a breach of truth.
I strongly suspect that the same people who weren't bothered by Watergate aren't bothered by the things the 45th president says. I am greatly bothered by them, particularly the lies and the outrageous statements that serve only to create fear, disharmony, and discord.
That song came out in 1974. And from there I really stopped hearing that side of things, because I stopped listening to country music. I began listening to disco and songs that celebrated love. I also started listening to songs like Born in the USA, by Bruce Springsteen, which has a patriotic chorus but is not very flattering to the nation because it's really an indictment of the Vietnam War. And then there were the anti-war songs, in particular War by Edwin Starr (War! Good God, y'all, what is good for? Absolutely nothing.) I also loved White Rabbit byJefferson Airplane (and that has an inappropriate age restricted notice from youtube, I can't even imagine that), Where Have All the Flowers Gone (Peter, Paul, and Mary) and similar songs - mostly anti-war, pro-love, pro-peace, pro-people.
The thing is, had I spent more time listening to different types of music, maybe I would have picked up on the divide. It's rather like the shock I get when I watch something on Fox (which I seldom do but sometimes I feel compelled to check it out). Everything is different about that TV station, even the TV commercials. It's slanted, focused, and pointed at one thing - making sure the viewer knows that change is coming and whatever the change is, it is not good, and the viewer should be afraid.
Change always comes though. Music has evolved since 1969 - we have so many different genres now that it is truly an accurate reflection of the prism of our society, right down from the differences in country music to hip hop to new age to adult contemporary.
I thought I was being open-minded in my music styles, but I wasn't. I listened for a long time to adult contemporary, NPR classical stuff, a little jazz, and oldies music. However, I don't listen to country or hip hop (or reggae or the blues) and in the last two years I have stopped listening to new music for the most part. Mostly now I listen to songs from the 1970s and older albums by Sheryl Crowe and Melissa Etheridge.
I tuned out and turned it off.
I created my own little bubble without realizing that was what I was doing.
Such a fractured, fragile nation, full of bluster and humus and deranged personalities. I don't expect a single day of voting to change the rhetoric or much of anything else.
Only we, the people, can do that. We can come together, or we can continue to tear ourselves apart.
I wonder what we will choose.
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