Think About It! – Page 2

Never Forget What?

September 11, 2018

We must never forget September 11th, 17 years ago today.

Though maybe we should try to remember just what it is we should be remembering.

It’s been 17 years. Certainly we can’t still act like it only just happened, though individuals may have their own feelings about it still, particularly if they were present at the attack sites or lost a loved one. After all, people who are now the age I was at the time would have no memory of it. I do remember it. I was in college. But, this far out, what does observing today mean? Some have declared it a day of service, and today some new memorials are being unveiled and ceremonies are taking place. There can be a certain connection to one’s own emotions to recall such horrific events.

But I think what we need to remember is what happened afterward. The healing, for one. The Pentagon has been repaired. The rubble has been cleared, and there are two memorial pools where the towers stood, beside the new tower, One World, which I visited two years ago.

What else?

I remember how I felt about the attack, sure. But I also remember the foreboding, wondering what would happen after this. And what did happen. There was big stuff like the “war on terror” and increased airport security and the Patriot Act. There was also the often violent scapegoating of Muslims and anyone who looked like them, with serious concerns over whether we’d see a return of internment camps. There was how for days after the attack all media outlets had turned into 24 hour news channels, disrupting usual entertainment to run footage of the attacks and George W Bush’s speeches over and over. There was how for months after the attack everything seemed to allude to us living in a “time of terror”. There was a marked increase in showy patriotism, with, once they started playing music again, radio stations playing songs like God Bless the USA all the time, and avoiding certain others. There was the insinuation that if you objected to or questioned any of this in the slightest, then you’re letting the terrorists win.

When the attacks happened, we were shocked and hurt and looking for answers. We were vulnerable.

And in the time that followed, our vulnerability was exploited.

We were kept scared while being told we were brave. We were told they could never take our freedom while we allowed our freedom to get taken by those telling us this. Our fear and anger were encouraged by those who found it useful.

And suddenly September 11th was the go-to excuse for everything for any agenda no matter how remotely if at all linked, from the War in Iraq to some truly shameless anti-drug campaigns.

I wouldn’t worry about forgetting the attacks happened. You won’t forget that.

What we must never forget is that ultimately the best way to honor those lost on that dreadful day is to heal and move on, at our own pace. And to not get swindled into supporting even more atrocities and loss of civil liberties in their name.

McCain the Honorable

August 26, 2018

So, anyway, John McCain died.

As with any such political or otherwise high profile death, there’s the predictable and rather tiresome back and forth where some want to venerate him while others want to yell at those venerating him that he was responsible for lots of bad stuff.

I’m not interested in doing any of that. Instead, let’s have a look at this.

If you don’t feel like clicking and watching, it’s the clip from 2008 during the McCain-Obama presidential campaign (was there ever such a time?) where a woman says she doesn’t trust Obama because he’s “an Arab”. McCain shakes his head no, that he’s a “decent family man” and that his only differences with him are policy, that there is nothing to be afraid of about him.

Now what’s remarkable about this? Well, nothing really. Except the fact that, looking back on it from a decade later and in our current political climate, it seems remarkable at all.

Really, there is so much wrong in this exchange it’s hard to know where to begin. For one, this woman rather confusingly claims Obama is an Arab, because she likely thinks “Arab” and “Muslim” are just interchangeable terms referring to the exact same people. Which, of course, isn’t even close to true, with a great many people being one and not the other (including my own Christian Arab mother). But I guess I forget there are parts of this country where such distinctions never cross anyone’s mind, where people who aren’t white or black are pretty much unheard of. And that such people might be such a sizable portion from these regions that they get to ask such a question on the national stage of a presidential candidate.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being either Arab or Muslim. Just an ethnicity. Just a religion.

That’s what’s tricky with responding to such a claim. “I don’t trust Obama because he’s Arab!” He’s not Arab (or Muslim for that matter), not that there’s anything wrong with that if he were. But McCain didn’t mention that latter part (though perhaps due to time). He simply refuted any assertion that he’s dangerous or untrustworthy, with the “decent family man” comment. Not that men who are Arab and/or Muslim can’t be decent family men. Not that being a family man necessarily makes one decent, of course.

His response left something to be desired, or at least it would if not for us now being starkly aware of how much worse it could have been. I mean, we really shouldn’t be holding him up as honorable for simply doing the bare minimum of decency in refuting such assumptions about his opponent, in trying to keep it about policy rather than racist paranoia. That’s what he should be doing. It’s not extraordinary. What’s extraordinary is that he even needed to. What’s extraordinary is that, in that video, when McCain uttered his defenses of Obama from these weird assertions, the crowd grumbled and booed.

Instead, all we can think now is how the Orange Thing would and does handle such questions.

Of course, McCain has been a vocal critic of the Orange Thing, so lately he’s had that going for him as well, if he perhaps could have done more to stop him. Though, again, that should not be extraordinary, since everyone should be against the Orange Thing. What’s extraordinary is that most Republicans have fallen in line behind the Orange Thing, with McCain and a few others being the exceptions to varying degrees.

Perhaps you could still say McCain is honorable in the sense that he’s mostly if imperfectly resisted the temptations to paint Obama as dangerous and the Orange Thing as not dangerous. But really it’s all a sign of just how low the bar is set now. Meh

This has been Day 95 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 18. Summertime!

This Is Not Who We Are

July 4, 2018

On July 22, 2016, around the time of the Republican National Convention, I posted this to Facebook:

I spent my 4th of July evening on a plane flying home from across the country. When the sun was out, I saw craggy desert that gave way to the Rocky Mountains that became flat farmlands. When it got dark, far below me, blinking on and off all over like lots of multicolored fireflies, were the fireworks shows. From above, on its special night, I watched my country sparkle. And under the sparkling were the people, in all the various terrains within our borders, from all walks of life, enjoying a cozy summer evening and watching bright flashy colors across the sky, saying “ooh” and “ahh” and “oh, look, a plane”. Diverse yet with a common bond. That’s who we are. That’s what it means to be American.

Yet, we have a presidential candidate and the major political party behind him peddling paranoia, xenophobia, bigotry, greed, and violence. Worse still, these things are being touted as “American”, that these things are not only desirable but are part of our national identity, that they are what makes us “great”. And the thing is, as the primaries have shown us, this is resonating. Maybe it’s because so many, of any political persuasion, whether in support or against, really are buying the idea that this is what it means to be American.

So let’s maybe drop that idea already. It is a dangerous lie. Don’t lend it any credence. We’re a diverse land and people who value freedom and human rights and other nice stuff like that. And when some ultra-narcissistic loudmouth seeks the highest office in the land by supposedly speaking for us all when he promotes fear and hate and the ugly manifestations thereof, we have to say NO! SHUT THE FUCK UP AND SIT DOWN! THIS IS NOT WHO WE ARE!

The Orange Thing’s campaign seemed like a bad parody of white conservative American intolerance, from the longing for some imagined “great” past to the hostility toward Hispanic and Muslim immigrants, with the explicit notion that those white conservatives who have these beliefs are the only “real” Americans, that the rest of us either don’t exist or aren’t important or don’t belong in our own country. The rest of us make up the vast majority of the country, and surely, I and so many others thought, what he’s saying is so blatantly toxic and against everything we’re about.

But then, on the night of November 8, 2016, I reshared that post with the added comment:

THIS IS NOT WHO WE ARE!

*looks at electoral map*

…right?

The following January, a few hours after Orange Thing made it official in front of probably anyone, at a resistance event at WES, I read the above post in the open mic portion. In person, through a microphone, with my actual voice, to a room full of people, I recited: “…And when some ultra-narcissistic loudmouth seeks the highest office in the land by supposedly speaking for us all when he promotes fear and hate and the ugly manifestations thereof, we have to say NO! SHUT THE FUCK UP AND SIT DOWN! THIS IS NOT WHO WE ARE!” Followed by a round of applause.

It’s a year and a half later, and so so so much has happened, much of which I don’t even remember because it’s been one thing after another with this administration. There isn’t exactly anything great going on, that’s for sure.
Continue reading “This Is Not Who We Are”

Mmmm, Candy Hearts 13

February 14, 2018

“U R CUTE” Aww, thanks, candy heart.

“EMAIL ME” I have such a backlog already though.

“TRUE LOVE” Yeah, that’s a great way to get swindled by a Prince of the Southern Isles.

Happy Ash Valentines! Enjoying the candy hearts and still going meatless today despite having walked away from Christianity nearly a decade ago. In 47 days, we’ll be looking for colored eggs that might turn out to be an overshaken Duff beer can.

Anyway, here’s the thirteenth installment of this, the annual glance at love and relationships and how people seem to deal with them.

Let’s see…

Ever notice how basically everybody seems to think they are unlucky with relationships? I mean, that’s the trouble with love, in that we’re all built to some degree to crave the hell out of it, so of course it will more often than not feel lacking. And for very many people, well, this is absolutely true, that pairing up with someone for a while seems to happen almost as often as a transit of Venus.

But for others, they’re all like “no one wants me” and the proper response is “dude, you dated like three people this year and it’s only April”. Perhaps none of those dates progressed into anything else, and that’s certainly frustrating. But other times, you just wonder what they’re comparing themselves to.

It’s one of those times you must say… you know TV isn’t real, right?

I mean, if you’re comparing yourself to basically any sitcom character, where even the “losers” seem to not have any trouble getting dates and sex, yeah, of course you’re going to feel like a romantic failure. That TV show or movie is a fantasy, playing on a very universal insecurity where the only winners would be aromantic asexuals if this weren’t yet another occurrence of their existence being denied. Because of writers seeking widespread appeal and ability to identify with the characters in a given situation, they make characters whose lives revolve around their dating lives, with everything else secondary, whereas one’s entire worth has everything to do with how well they conform to an unrealistic standard of romantic or sexual frequency.

Maybe it’s kind of like how the fashion and other industries set unrealistic beauty standards, undermining the inherent worth of those whose appearance doesn’t conform. Where, like how they need to acknowledge more diverse body types to allow those with different bodies to feel beautiful, maybe we need characters with more diverse types of relationships, so that someone who spends six consecutive months single isn’t made to feel they shouldn’t exist. Or, hell, just more media without any romantic plotlines. Not that there’s anything wrong with romance, of course. Just that there’s more to life.

Then again, everyone knows TV shows aren’t real and neither are the relationships depicted. Perhaps the feelings of romantic inadequacy stem from real life or at least a perception thereof. And it’s understandable, because, for all its faults and all the bullshit, when there’s a connection there with someone, it’s no exaggeration that everything is amazing and beautiful and all is right with the world. For a little while anyway. Reality always forces its way back into the picture, whatever it may be. But when it’s good it’s so very good. So of course when media and culture and friends and family say this so very good thing will definitely come to you if you’re worthwhile, and when reality doesn’t sync up, you wonder that maybe you’re not worthwhile after all. Perhaps with the unfortunate side effect of casting ridiculous aspersions on desired objects of affection.

It’s all such a mess. But we still have these candy hearts and their messages.

“SOUL MATE” Wait, do candy hearts have souls? I have made a terrible terrible mistake…

The Actual Innocence

December 14, 2017

Five years ago today, Sandy Hook happened.

Several children who should be navigating middle school right now instead had their short lives come to an abrupt and tragic end because some shithead came into their classroom and opened fire on them for some reason.

In the above post on the day it happened, I lamented this loss of life, wondering, as I said, what they could have ever done to anybody. After all, at their age, one is new to the world and still figuring things out and likely hasn’t gotten to the point of causing any deep and deliberate harm to others like those older have. Not that it’s ever okay to kill anyone, of course, but with kids, it’s hard to see any rationale for it. An adult might have deliberately ruined your career or betrayed you in some severe way or what have you. Again, not that the killing is okay, but you can see how one so distraught might decide it’s the thing to do. With kids, they aren’t capable of doing anywhere near the damage to others that adults are.

After all, children are innocent.

And that is what the innocence of children actually is. Innocence is the opposite of guilt. It refers to what the children themselves have or have not done, and how good or evil their intentions. This varies by child, as children are individuals, and there’s no specific point where one goes from “childhood innocence” to “adult asshole” as it’s a gradual progression depending on one’s specific life and circumstances and experiences. But any innocence refers to the individual’s intentions and actions.

As such, it has nothing to do with something being done to said innocent child, nor does it have anything to do with said innocent child’s knowledge of the world.
Continue reading “The Actual Innocence”

The First Thanksgiving

November 30, 2017

Isn’t there anyone who knows what Thanksgiving is all about?!

Sure, I can tell you what Thanksgiving is all about. Lights, please?

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

This is Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation in 1863, officially declaring Thanksgiving a holiday, continuing to this day, changed only when FDR made it the fourth November Thursday rather than last, so we celebrated a week ago rather than today.

There were earlier proclamations of specific thanksgiving days with very similar text by earlier presidents here and there, but Lincoln’s is about where it was mostly set as an annual thing where it still is now.

What I don’t see is anything about the pilgrims at Plymouth. About two and a half centuries earlier. It’s mentioned at the above link, but also mentioned is there were numerous such feasts through the then colonies around the time.
Continue reading “The First Thanksgiving”

It’s Not Your Candy

October 31, 2017

Happy Halloween!

Anyway…

No.

Stop. Don’t touch it. It’s not yours.

Earlier tonight, the kids traversed their neighborhoods in their awesome costumes and visited their neighbors with a familiar chant in hopes of a yummy treat (specifically Nerds, Starbursts, and Skittles if they came to my door!). Afterward, they went on home, checked everything for tampering for fear of the urban myth about poison or razor blades in candy suddenly actually happening, and at long last chowed down. Yay!

All this candy in the hands of kids? What are parents to do?

Nothing. It’s not theirs.
Continue reading “It’s Not Your Candy”

Mmmm, Candy Hearts 12

February 14, 2017

“IM YOURS” Yes, candy heart, I suppose you are. Lucky you.

“YES” What are you replying to? Or is this open-ended?

“KISS ME” Well, you’ll pass between my lips in the course of being devoured, so close enough.

Ah, it’s Valentine’s Day again. How nice. Last year, by which I mean like four posts ago since I’ve been neglecting this thing, I finally said screw it and tore love itself apart. And it deserved it, that bastard. Masquerading so long as being pure and good and something that will trump hate, someone had to say it.

I believe I’ll take a different tack today, however.

When in love, there’s this urge to place object of said love on a pedestal, to see everything this person says or does as brilliant or amazing. Something that you just sort of come to expect and work to see through it. It makes no sense. This person isn’t brilliant. They’re totally full of shit and they know it and really you know it.

And then you know you know it. Then what?

You find you still love that pile of shit anyway, that’s what. Whether it’s in the form of wanting to kiss them or being deliriously happy when around them or wanting to fight over money and dinner plates for life, you still feel it nonetheless despite them being very clearly full of shit.

Not that this is really a beautiful thing. I mean, this is also how abusive relationships continue. But let’s say there’s no abuse here. It’s just seeing human imperfections for what they are. This pile of shit that has won your affections for some reason is, after all, human. Just like you. Such an important common ground!

So you two piles of shit, enjoy your evening!

I’ll sit here with my candy hearts.

“U R SWEET” I think you’re the sweet one, being made of sugar. I’m made of other stuff.

“MARRY ME” Eh, why not? Could be the start of a long relationship- Or not, I just ate you. I must be part spider.

“TRUE LOVE” Ah, but we just met. You have yet to see through my nonsense. Give it time- Or not, I just ate you.

Mmmm, Candy Hearts 11

February 14, 2016

“MY LOVE” What a sweet little candy heart you are!

“URS 4 EVER” Damn, candy heart, slow down!

“LET’S KISS” Well, you’re going into my mouth anyway. Close enough.

“NO WAY” Oh, well, can’t win them all. 🙁

Oh, hello. Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s time once again for the tradition that began ten years ago today, when I sit here and eat these candy hearts and gripe about romantic relationship stupidity.

I’ve said in the past that it’s people’s behavior and expectations around relationships and their partners that I take issue with, and that love itself isn’t what I’m against. That love itself really is pure and good.

I’ve changed my mind. Love is fucking stupid.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say it isn’t a good thing at all, that it is terrible, and really we should be recognizing it as the affliction that it is.

Love is a destructive illusion that causes terrible behavior and misery. When you’re in love, sure, everything feels all warm and sweet. At first. Then something goes wrong, and now all those warm and sweet memories turn to poison, no longer making you happy but only sad and angry. Someone who was once a source of comfort and joy is now just a reminder of shame and loss. You believed you felt some strong spiritual connection, but the bubble burst, and you feel more isolated than ever before.

People have a way of reacting badly to this, from making total asses of themselves in front of their object of affection and others to outright harmful or abusive behavior. Yeah, I’m not seeing the beauty here.

Maybe we should just remove “love” from our vocabulary altogether. Maybe just cut straight to what you actually mean when you say you love someone. Maybe instead of “I love you” it could be “I want to spend time with you” or “I’m deliriously happy when I’m with you” or “I want to kiss you” or “I want to have sex with you” or “I don’t wish you any specific harm” or “I want to buy a house with a nice yard and fight with you over money and dinner plates for the rest of my life” (also known as “will you marry me?”). In any case, maybe the only real response to a declaration of love is “yeah, and?”

I mean, it’s a loaded and muddy word. It distracts from what specifically is going on. It inflates importance of what’s being felt, adding some artificial divine quality, which really serves only to make it hurt so much more when it goes wrong, that the very essence of life itself has failed you. It’s just not worth it. There are much better uses of time and energy.

If only it were that simple. I get so afflicted just as anyone else.

Oh, well. There’s always the candy hearts!

“I-M SURE” Well, heart, most people aren’t sure of much of anything. You’re lucky.

“YOU ROCK” Awww, thanks!

“XOXO” I fucking hate that Elle King song.

Presence of Presents

December 23, 2015

I’ve mentioned a number of times that I’m sick of people complaining about Christmas being “materialistic” or some crap. That we focus too much on presents and not enough on Jesus or family or something like that. As if these things are mutually exclusive or something.

But presents are not only, you know, gifts. They’re wrapped and under the tree and not to be opened until Christmas morning. They’re a mystery!

And isn’t that just like the coming year? The future? That the future is just there all mysterious and just waiting to be revealed. Could be everything you wanted. Could be disappointing. Could actually be a live cobra for some reason. Could be nothing you expected but everything you needed.

Okay, I’m making this up, but it sounds cool.