Amazing Grace

If you did not see or read President Obama’s eulogy for Rev./SC State Sen. Clementa Pinckney on Thursday afternoon, you missed something unique and magnificent. The perspective of the President’s language was very Christian because he himself is very Christian and he was offering a eulogy about a minister, so that’s not surprising. But his tribute was particularly eloquent and filled with messages of basic humanism, the possibility for the evolution of human kindness, historic truth, common sense, and social and political necessity, all of which was entirely appropriate in the context of the eulogy and the time in which we live. If you missed it, I encourage you to click on one of the links above.

The President’s core message was that we are blessed by God with grace – the grace to be good people; people capable of love and forgiveness even in response to the most vile wrong-doing and the most heart wrenching grief; and that if we can learn how to live our lives and view others with a more open heart, anything and everything good is possible. Even if you take God out of that scenario and simply view the capacity for grace as something that is a central part of our DNA which we can choose to cultivate or ignore, the message still rings true and is worthy of contemplation and discussion.

As my regular readers know, I embody a great deal of anger, cynicism, and hardcore judgment about things and circumstances I don’t like. I apply this rancor to all the subjects this blog is primarily about: politics, contemporary culture, new technology, and the ruination of the English language. I try to reveal the sense of humor I have that keeps me relatively sane and has so far prevented me from committing acts of violence. But I’ve also discussed my considerable depression and misery.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve twice watched the President deliver the eulogy and read the text once. Besides increasing my respect and affection for him, I’ve thought a lot about the lack of grace I’ve cultivated within myself and wondered (1) if I have the ability to do so and (2) if even the effort would give me a greater sense of inner peace if not outright love, happiness and joy. I don’t know the answer, but I admit that I fear the process, not because of its difficulty, but because I’ve clung to these feelings like a teddy bear for decades.

Indeed, they remind me of a great Robin Williams scene in Moscow On the Hudson, in which he plays a foreign musician and he’s just jammed with a blues band and is talking to one of the American musicians: “When I was in Russia, I did not love my life, but I loved my misery. You know why? Because it was my misery. I could hold it. I could caress it. I loved my misery. You know, I have a whole family I will never ever see again. You see? Now you see. You know it. There it is. Now you know that the saddest thing in the world is life. Yeah, man. Now you see. Thank you. Thank you for a wonderful night. Boy, I feel great. Take care. I love you.”  “If that was wonderful, what happens when he hits deep depression?” 

The murders in South Carolina filled me with a hopeless sadness and fire-breathing rage. The ability of a number of family members of some of the victims to confront the killer in court and express their grace and forgiveness filled me with humbled awe. The President gave me a whole lot to think about. And the Supreme Court’s affirmation of national marriage equality gave me happy hope – and the sense that enough of the Justices had been blessed with true grace.

I don’t know what the lasting impact of the diverse events and language of the last couple of weeks will be for me – or others. I don’t know how I’ll feel or think or what tone my writing will take, especially as the 300-year campaign of the 2016 election moves glacially along. But whatever people’s different feelings about all this may be, none of us can deny that something extraordinary has happened. And that in itself is amazing.

The SONY Situation

“Behind the phony tinsel of Hollywood

lies the real tinsel.”  Oscar Levant, (1906 - 1972) 

As someone who strongly believes in the importance of free speech and uncensored creative expression, I have of course been extremely interested in and concerned about the “SONY Situation.” This is extremely important because it’s about a whole lot more than a controversial movie. It is a seminal 21^st Century dilemma: the first major confluence of new technology, violent and cyber terrorism, the traditional American definition of Democracy, culture clash, Capitalism, electronic news media, and human behavior in the still-developing “new normal.” This is a big subject but I’ll tackle what I can in this post.

I started writing this post at least a week ago, and there have been new developments in the past couple of days. So to summarize the incident that provoked an international mess: SONY, a giant American entertainment company, was grievously cyber attacked by North Korean extremists (and possibly the NK government itself) because it produced a satirical comedy film about the assassination of the real-life, sitting, North Korean president, Kim Jong-un. The news media ill-advisedly but not surprisingly focused on the celebrity gossip revealed by the hack-attack instead of the depth and implications of the attack itself.

Then, SONY and America were threatened with 9/11-scale attacks against movie theaters if the film was released. All of the country’s theater chains united in their refusal to show the film; Sony announced it would not release the film (like they had a choice, once the theaters decided not to show it); and much of the film industry and some politicians, including President Obama, criticized SONY for giving in to threats, because nobody can tell us what kind of movies we can and cannot make, and, America shouldn’t surrender its core freedoms out of fear.

The irony is we already have surrendered some of our core freedoms out of fear. America was rattled to its previously complacent bones by the 9/11 attacks, though we were determined not to let it show. President John Wayne Bush stood on the World Trade Center rubble and literally told the terrorists to “bring it on,” to prove that our national balls, pride, and courage were undefeatably enormous.

But a few weeks later, Congress and the Senate passed the Patriot Act with whiplash speed. It is still in place, giving the government’s numerous intelligence and security agencies unprecedented permission to spy, bug, physically gather, and in other ways obtain private information about individuals, to basically do whatever they deem necessary to whomever they regard as  suspicious in the name of national security.

Some Americans and some organizations objected. In the minority quarters that value privacy and civil rights for individuals, Ben Franklin’s sage quotation: They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety was dusted off and given new exposure. But it didn’t change anything because it turns out that most Americans are willing to exchange “essential liberty” (privacy, free speech, creative expression, etc.) for whatever sense of safety they can secure.

In the last few days, the country and the companies (SONY and the theaters) seem to have decided to macho-man-up again. President Obama asked China to do what they can to keep North Korea in check. It was suggested that North Korea be added to our official “watch” list of nations/organizations most likely to attempt a terrorist attack, though at this moment I don’t know if that’s been done. Some theaters decided to change their corporate minds about showing the film, and SONY, it appears, has changed its mind about releasing it, even if it will be a more limited release than originally planned. For a Christmas Day debut. Merry Christmas. 

Now we come to our national love affair with technology – which is really just our most recent infatuation with a big, shiny, major new toy, a love that knows no bounds and sees no downside until the initial glow wears off, and that process can take quite a while. We embraced the Information Age with the same passion we lavished on the Industrial Revolution.

I’m not saying America or the world would all be better off living like the Amish. I’m just pointing out that we have a history of plunging into the seductive technically new in the present, without regard for its impact on what we value from the past, or anticipating the potential disadvantages of the presently new in the future. This is especially concerning now as we further explore artificial intelligence and robotics in a spirit of childlike wonder.

Through technology, what used to be a great big world has, from the 19^th Century on, become a much smaller one. Throw differing religions, cultures, economics and politics into the mix and it becomes quite a muddle. Add poor education, increased poverty, huge gaps in human rights and civil rights, terrorism, war and other forms of armed conflict, environmental change, and population growth, and you have the complex quagmire we call Now.

So, in regard to the “Sony Situation,” I believe that our 18^th Century ideas of what Freedom and Democracy allow for were and are rightly challenged, not just by outside anger and danger, but also by a certain measure of contemporary common sense as well. In every discussion of free speech, it is pointed out that while people should have an unfettered right to express their ideas and opinions, they don’t have the right to be irresponsible – such as shouting Fire! Fire! in a crowded movie theater when there is no fire.

I am of the opinion that in this day and age, producing a major motion picture about the assassination of any named, real-life, sitting president of any country – even a bizarre little despot like Kim Jong-un – is the creative equivalent of Fire! Fire!, especially when you consider that totalitarian dictators and the populations they rule have no working concept of humor, let alone satire. And just because one has the right and freedom to do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to do it.

What would the American response be if a foreign country – say France, England or Australia, all of which have thriving film industries, unlike our chief national enemies – made a satirical comedy about the assassination of the named, specific, actual Barack Obama? The President himself, who has a great sense of humor and understands the concept of satire, would probably just roll with the punches as he has with everything that’s been thrown at him. But I doubt Mrs. Obama would appreciate it, nor would the Democratic Party, nor would many Americans who support, even love, the President. We wouldn’t be hearing about free speech and creative freedom in that scenario.

The “SONY Situation” puts the company, the film industry, and the government in the satirically comic position of having to defend a film that shouldn’t have been made in the first place, in the name of free speech, creative freedom, and not allowing other countries to push us around. Why? In no small part because of Capitalism. America’s leading export is entertainment: film, television, music, video games and increasingly stand-up comedy. And for many years now, Hollywood product in all categories has been built on a foundation of graphic violence, drugs and sex.

So when our government tells us that terrorists hate us for our freedom, that is only part of the truth. They also hate us for the nature and content of our popular culture, our military intervention in their countries, and our constant efforts at regime change (what we like to call nation building). We are determined to spread Democracy and Capitalism, two different things that many Americans think are the same.

I know there are critical human rights issues at stake, but it’s not a simple matter to resolve and we tend to make our efforts to fix and change things in a manner that other countries find decidedly objectionable. They think we’re crazy, just as we think they’re crazy. I do think they’re much crazier than we are. However, we have little with which to defend ourselves. Because our other top export is Consumerism – in concept and action. Ours is a youth-&-beauty-obsessed, celebrity-worshiping, materialistic culture. We value money, power, prestige and things more than people. We are the least developed nation among all developed nations when it comes to economic equality, education, health care, and our regard for the poor and elderly.

I think the current defense of The Interview, filled with Constitutional dismay about SONY’s initial response, is misplaced: the right defense for the wrong thing. Where was a similar torrent of outrage when NewSouth Books put a fig leaf on Huckleberry Finn by changing the use of “nigger” to “slave,” even though this is a classic work of fiction that reflects the accurate, actual use of language in its historical place in time? 

Hasn’t the rigidity of political correctness also mindlessly and uncreatively undermined free speech and creative expression? Comedian Lenny Bruce, poet Allen Ginsberg, and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe were never given the succor of the First Amendment in their time, even though they richly deserved it. The "SONY Situation" requires a lot of thought and deserves much intelligent discussion – but The Interview is a regrettable launch pad for it.

Now What?

I watched British mysteries on PBS until 11:00 last night, because I didn’t want to see election returns until there was more certainty about the results. When I finally clicked onto MSNBC, everyone was talking so fast and so much was flashing quickly on and off the screen that it took me a few minutes to understand what was going on – but it didn’t take too long. Democrats had been creamed from coast to coast. There were renewed and additional Republican Governors; more Republicans in the House with an increase in Tea Party crazies; and indeed, the Republicans had taken over the Senate.

Today, those of us who were listening heard Mitch McConnell (by political necessity) and President Obama (by leadership responsibility) talk about working together more productively on issues about which they can find some measure of common ground – chiefly immigration reform, infrastructure repair, and foreign trade (according to the President). But neither of these leopards has changed his ideological spots. McConnell is no friend of the common (wo)man or liberal ideals, and the President is still firm on general health care, the funding of the “Big 3” benefit programs (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) and environmental realities – including, of course, climate change.

I’ve also been watching political analysis throughout the day and there seems to be general agreement that there will be less gridlock and more actual governance than the Republicans have allowed over the past six years; that the Republicans successfully communicated the idea that the nation’s ills were the President’s fault and managed to avoid addressing real issues at all; and that the Democrats shot themselves in their fractured, disconnected feet by not unifying behind the President’s considerable achievements. It was also felt that those Americans who voted, as well as those who didn’t, were both expressing their anger with what has become the dysfunctional status quo.

What politicians in both parties will do from hereon in remains to be seen. But what can we, as citizens, do to influence their actions? I didn’t hear/read any discussion of this, which I find both peculiar and unfortunate. Because in the final analysis, all politicians want votes. They spend huge amounts of money to get votes and accept that money from some very questionable characters. Ironically and importantly, many, if not most, Americans are not political junkies. Many Democrats campaigned on the dangers of Big Money in politics, in particular the bedeviled influence of the Koch Brothers. Apparently most people don’t know who they are or care. And many people don’t connect the dots between their own hard times and Big Money, its key reactionary donors, and the ever-increasing wealth of the 1% (there are now twice as many billionaires as there were before the 2008 crash).

Indeed, virtually all of the pundits I heard today agreed that what most people care about is that they’re increasingly broke; unemployed or under-employed; can’t handle their debt, especially education debt; and fear for their future and their children’s future. In other words, most people are concerned with their own lives and don’t see how their own circumstances fit into the larger, total picture. I hate to imagine that most people are that stupid, that narrow in their perspective, but nothing else explains 2/3 of eligible voters not voting, and the 1/3 that did largely casting their lot with the party that the President doesn’t belong to, because they believe Daddy President should make things better for them and he hasn’t so he’s a bad Daddy President. As the radicals I hung out with in my 20s used to say, “Gimme a break, gimme a gun.” 

If I thought a well conceived and efficiently organized Liberal Revolution were possible, I’d advocate for one. Alas, I don’t think it is, so I don’t. Instead, under the heading “Now What?” I advocate the following: (1) pay closer attention to the news, get your news from more than one source, and start connecting the dots (2) write to everyone in your political world: Mayor, City Council President, State Senator & Assembly-person, U.S. Congress-person & Senators, and the President. Tell them what issues you care about, both the ones that affect you directly and the rest that you recognize affect us all as a nation and as citizens of the world, and (3) remember that democracy is a living, breathing thing made up of all of us thinking critically and participating in the political process. Use the next two years to get ready and in 2016 be fully aware of what’s what and what’s right and vote accordingly. It’s the only real shot we’ve got.

I Know, But PLEASE Vote Anyway!

When I think of the brave efforts made and terrible horrors endured by both the Suffragists of the early 20^th century and the Civil Rights activists of the 50s and 60s so that women and blacks could secure the right to vote, it makes me very sad that so many people today have come to view voting as pointless.

I do understand why. Our governments – locally, statewide and federally – have become completely co-opted by Big Money: corporations, lobbyists for various industries, and rich individuals, whose only concerns are maintaining and furthering their own interests. In both houses of Congress, the vast majority of Representatives and Senators are (1) male, (2) white and (3) millionaires, multi-millionaires and a few billionaires. Their concern seems to be getting elected (and re-elected) to their cushy jobs with good salaries (everyone needs pin money), extraordinary benefits & perks, and very brief actual-work periods.

The Republicans, once a stodgy party interested primarily in minimal government spending and low taxes for the upper middle class and rich (when rich wasn’t yet obscenely über wealthy), has moved so far to the Lunatic Fringe Right and Ultra Conservative that they have zero concern for anybody’s human rights, civil rights, health & well-being, education, or anything else that should accompany citizenship for all citizens. In the name of Christianity (which shouldn’t even be in the picture!), they’ve decided that they and they alone hold the moral high ground on every conceivable issue. And ever since the election of America’s first black President, all that has been transparent is their racism and determination to prevent him from functioning – and they’ve made a good job of it!

But perhaps even more disappointing are the Democrats. We know who and what the Republicans are. But who and what are the Democrats? They’re disconnected from each other; generally cowardly when it comes to speaking to and acting against any sort of formidable, oppositional power; they have been unsupportive of their own President; and as a result of all this, have failed utterly to combat the 1% on behalf of the rest of us. They appear to be a bit more willing and able to rise to the occasion for this critical mid-term election and the endless campaign for the 2016 Presidency that will immediately follow, but still, it is indeed hard to work up a whole lot of enthusiasm for them. 

ALL THAT SAID, IT IS STILL VITALLY IMPORTANT THAT EVERYONE WHO CAN VOTE MAKE IT TO THE POLLS TOMORROW. There is no same day registration/voting in NYC (I checked); I don’t know about the rest of the state, or whatever locale and state you live in. But unlike Presidential elections, during which you might legitimately feel that your blue or red state is going to go blue or red with or without you, EVERY SINGLE VOTE IN THIS ELECTION MATTERS, BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS DETERMINED BY THE POPULAR VOTE. 

If you don’t want to render President Obama completely impotent for the next two years, the Democrats, for all their weaknesses, must NOT lose control of the Senate. There are opportunities nationwide to get rid of some entrenched Republican Congressional representatives or avoid new ones. There are critical Governorships and State Senatorial races. There are important Propositions on the ballots of many states. There is an opportunity tomorrow to show by our numbers that we’re here and we do care about the governments we have. We may not be able to make great strides this time around, but we can rattle the status quo – perhaps just enough to enlarge Democratic balls and impact for 2016. Don’t give up yet. Please vote tomorrow and give what’s left of American democracy a fighting chance.

Twisted Justice

Yesterday, when America’s Supreme Court once again decided 5-to-4, this time in favor of Hobby Lobby/Conestoga Wood, they asserted that the religious beliefs of the owners of private corporations trump the individual beliefs and rights of their employees. This decision does much more than deprive women of insurance coverage for certain kinds of contraception. It gives seriously discomfiting credence to the ridiculous notion that corporations are people and that the rights of corporate persons are greater than the rights of human persons – which is pretty much how things have been going in all areas for some time.

So the Court ended its session with yet another attempt to further a Conservative Christian agenda, redefine personhood, set a dangerous precedent, and create genuine confusion about what is legal, let alone Constitutional. It’s no wonder that Justice Bader Ginsberg in her dissent said, “The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”

I’m so angry about this latest SCOTUS bullshit that I am literally physically, emotionally, and mentally drained. And the thought that I’m morally obliged to help fight this is thoroughly overwhelming – in large part because I don’t understand it.

According to the research I’ve done, the Constitution, in the First and Fourteenth Amendments, makes clear the necessity for a separation of Church and State, even though that specific language isn’t used. But it doesn’t address a unification of Church and Commerce. So what in the Constitution makes it legal for the owners of a private company to determine what kinds of health insurance coverage they will or won’t provide to their employees, not based on cost or law, but on the company’s owners religious beliefs?

Hobby Lobby is a very big company, which is what makes it a corporation. It has thousands of employees in hundreds of stores across the country. This is not a new business, so employees had health insurance in the past. Apparently, it’s the provisions of Obamacare-governed insurance that added types of contraception – such as the Morning After pill and IUDs, methods that can induce abortion – that the deeply anti-abortion Green family (the owners) object to and therefore don’t want to include or pay for (they don’t object to other forms of birth control, such as the pill or diaphragms, which they are willing to pay for – thank you, Green family…).

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that corporations are people. Why do they have rights that human people don’t have? For example, I have Medicare and pay over $100 a month for it. Medicare covers many things that I will never need, such as medications, treatments, and surgeries that only apply to men. Medicare doesn’t cover dental care or eye glasses or hearing aids – all of which I do need.

Yet I can’t say “I don’t want to pay for men’s stuff, I want my Medicare payments to cover what I need.” If the Green family gets to cherry pick the coverage they will and won’t cover – not just for themselves but for thousands of other people – based on what they believe, why can’t I do the same, just for myself, based on what I actually need? 

This whole thing is fucked up. As usual, it’s about religion, women, and sex, a combination that Conservatives are very uptight about, as well as the idea that big business and microscopic goo have more human rights than women. The mind reels.

It would be bad enough if it stopped there. But as Justice Bader Ginsberg also pointed out, “Would the exemption…extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations[?]…Not much help there for the lower courts bound by today’s decision.”

This, my friends, is what’s known as a truly slippery slope. All of America, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.

Celebrating Maya Angelou

As I’m sure you already know, the magnificent Maya Angelou died this morning in her North Carolina home at the age of 86. While I certainly extend my sympathies to her family, friends, and the many members of the worldwide public who felt a strong even daily connection with her (she was on Facebook and was a frequent tweeter), I don’t feel a sense of loss as much as I feel a sense of celebration of and for her spirit. As a writer, she leaves behind a strong and sensitive body of work; and as a human being, teacher, and leader, she leaves behind such a courageous, proactive, and never-ending legacy, that I feel Dr. Angelou has a kind of immortality.

If Rosa Parks was the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement, Maya Angelou was it’s brave, bold daughter. After Bayard Rustin died, she took his place as the SCLC’s (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) New York Office Coordinator; that was the organization that Rustin and others had founded with Martin Luther King, Jr. She later worked with Malcolm X, helping him put together the Organization of Afro-American Unity in 1964. When Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 – the date of her 40^th birthday – she stopped celebrating her birthday for many years after. But before, during and after these significant events, hers was a booming voice and substantial presence in the movements for civil rights, women’s rights, and human rights. For the rest of her life, she lived and worked around the world as an organizer, administrator, teacher, speaker, writer, and the human embodiment of inspiration for millions of people, but most especially women.

For me personally, she entered my life with her first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in the years after I’d been awakened and inspired by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kurt Vonnegut, and Allen Ginsberg, and, irritated by Nikki Giovanni and Ntozake Shange (I appreciated the politics of those women but their personalities and language left me cold). Maya Angelou’s prose was clean and had the imagery of poetry; her poetry was visionary and had the clarity of good, clean prose. She spoke like she wrote and wrote like she spoke, which to me is the totality of a born writer. Her spirit, her essence, was always with me, even when I didn’t know it. Which may be why I don’t feel a sense of loss now so much as a sense of celebration.

The other reason is that I’m a natural intuitive (clairsentient meaning clear knowing, as opposed to clairvoyant, meaning clear seeing), and for five years I also took psychic development classes with an amazing medium, the late Gene Sterling. A few weeks before Maya Angelou recited her great poem, On the Pulse of Morning, at Bill Clinton’s first Inaugural, I channeled an energy that gave me the first real sense of being a channel, because the following words certainly weren’t coming out of my consciousness (or attitude towards nature) as they fell out of my mouth: “The rocks have feet, the trees have feet, the rivers have feet.” I don’t remember the rest of the message, but I’ve never forgotten that line and the whole stunning experience.

So can you imagine how I felt on that January day when Maya Angelou began to recite On the Pulse of Morning and I heard her say: “A Rock, A River, A Tree.” I later bought the recording of that poem, for which she won a Grammy, and I still have it. Listening to her, and listening to that poem, convinced me like nothing else could, that ideas, messages, language, energy, are all around us all the time, and we can pick them up if we’re able to put our egos aside and listen. That’s why, in a way, I’ve long felt that Maya Angelou and I have been tuned into the same otherly frequency. She did much more and a whole lot better with it than I have. But it is in that spirit that I say to her this evening, “Thank you for everything, Dr. Angelou, for all you endured, all you did, all you said, and for just being here. Rest in peace and live well in spirit. I’m still listening.”

A Global Shame

The kidnapping of 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria happened three weeks ago. I’m glad the world is outraged now, but it took three weeks for American news media to pay any attention to this story. Fox News was busy obsessing about Obamacare and Benghazi, as usual; CNN was focused on every dim ping in the ocean in their can’t-let-this-story-go endless focus on the downed Malaysian jet; and MSNBC was still staring at the George Washington Bridge Over Political Waters, not to mention the political horse races of 2014 and 2016. I don’t know what broadcast network news was doing because I don’t watch them. But even the usually ahead-of-the-game PBS NewsHour let us down. In print…even the New York Times was asleep at the wheel.

Three hundred schoolgirls were kidnapped in Nigeria because a bunch of Islamist terrorist wackjobs don’t want girls to go to school – especially Western-style schools. They would rather sell them for $12.00 each, sending them off into the global child sex trafficking trade, or to individual men who want child brides, or someone, anyone, who wants free, hard labor. Only social media – primarily Facebook and Twitter – stopped sharing recipes and selfies long enough to sound an alarm loud enough for the news media and the public to hear. Good for them. Shame on us.

What happened to these 300 girls – yes, about 50 got away but more have been taken since – is a disgusting outrage. But it is part of a larger global shame that has been going on for years and has been shockingly under-reported, never mind addressed. Every year, a million children, mostly girls, literally from infancy to tweens, are trafficked worldwide, around 300,000 in the U.S. alone, primarily for the unimaginable misery of sex slavery, a lesser number for grueling manual labor. And these are just the stats on kids. The numbers for adult women are even more horrific, and men get roped into this travesty as well.

Throughout human history, human life has been regarded as pretty cheap in many quarters. But now we’re in the 21^st century, the bold progressive future, and it’s just as bad if not in some ways worse. Boko Haram may be a new name to us on the roster of terrorists who commit the unspeakable, but they’ve been around for years and our government, and the Nigerian government, and the governments of the world, have known about them – them and others, who pretend to act in the name of religion or culture or tradition or unashamedly in the name of greed run amok. Women, as always, are favorite targets, hardly regarded as human and certainly unentitled to autonomy or dignity. They’re fair game for brutality, especially sexual brutality, because men who are crazy are usually particularly crazy when it comes to women and sex.

And, not for nothing, another thing happened while world news ignored those Nigerian schoolgirls snatched from their beds. The wealthy, dapper, Sultan of Brunei decided that what his little oil-soaked country needed was the mania of Sharia Law, which has a special bug up its Islamist ass for women, gays, and anything resembling the rights of free speech or thought. Stone them! Mame them! It’s what Allah would want! Really?

Three hundred schoolgirls were kidnapped in Nigeria for the crime of being female and getting an education. Now, with international intervention, some of them may be rescued. But much damage will already have been done. The rest, the majority, will be forever lost in the anonymous swamp of child trafficking. Are we, the world, going to confront this issue now? I’m not optimistic. Just heartsick. And really, really pissed.

I Don’t Like Children. Yes, I Said It!

A few days ago, in my post entitled The Tyranny of Healthy Lifestyle Zealots, I clearly detailed my objection to the social disenfranchisement of fat people and smokers (I’m both) by people who are zealously committed to what they consider a healthy lifestyle and therefore blame people like me for the high cost of health care. I corrected this inaccuracy, as well as put forth the idea that: “…in a diverse, free society, people have different needs, wants and behaviors, and everyone can be accommodated if we accept that those who differ from us have as much of a right to be who they are as we have to be who we are.”  I also gave an example, saying in part: “I don’t have children; I don’t even like children. But I don’t begrudge them the health care (or nutrition, education, and protection from abuse and neglect) they require… I believe in the concepts of ‘each according to his needs’ and ‘live and let live’.”

To my surprise, three friends responded privately, not to my larger message, but to my having said “I don’t like children.” Since they know me, they mostly found it funny, but they were all a little shocked that I had the chutzpah to say this straight out because, they explained, it’s just not done! One person voiced concern that I would turn people off and give them the wrong impression of me, which might impede my efforts to draw a larger audience to this blog.

I was nonplussed. I know most people do like kids (particularly babies) and especially adore their own, but I had no idea that to express the opposite was verboten. I know I’m in the minority here, but I didn’t realize that people who don’t like children and have the gall to say so are even more hated than smokers and fat people combined. Now that I’ve made it public that I’m a fat smoker who doesn’t like children, is it still safe for me to leave my apartment?”

While on the phone with my blog-expansion-concerned friend, she searched the phrase “I don’t like children,” and the first thing that came up was a site called Heartless Bitches International, a humor/satire-but-they’re-not-really-kidding-site by, about and for women who don’t conform to all of the current ideals and ideas modern women espouse (those HBs are more radical). On the site was a “rant” by an unnamed woman entitled The 4 Words of the Pariah, in which she beautifully states my own feelings thusly: “I don’t like children. What that lonely little statement can do to people… So what? If someone doesn’t like children why does it bother you so much? Stop taking everything so personally.” Later in the piece, she voices one of my greatest complaints by saying: “Somewhere along the way this society started worshipping children. Everything must be about the children. Every law passed must protect the children. Every restaurant, every movie theater, every bar, every museum, every art gallery, every area of our lives and cities must be child friendly.”

I’ve finally gotten to the point in my quickly-advancing old age that I accept myself just as I am and I really don’t care what people think of me anymore. That’s why I choose to speak my mind uncensored. However, on behalf of myself and other adults who don’t like children, let me say the following. I don’t hate children. I don’t wish them ill. I believe that society, government, and parents (or whomever a child lives with) should ensure that children are well taken care of. All children should be loved by those who give birth to them or adopt/foster them or otherwise take responsibility for them. And as I said above: “I don’t begrudge them the health care (or nutrition, education, and protection from abuse and neglect) they require.” I think government should pick up the tab for whatever kids’ caretakers can’t afford and it’s clearly in society’s best interest to ensure that we don’t raise generations of damaged and/or ignorant people. Whatever taxes are needed to ensure all of this is money well and importantly spent.

That said, adults who don’t have children – often because they don’t like children – are not obliged to like or interact with them. I don’t like babies; they hold as much appeal for me as sacks of flour. I held one once and all I wanted was its mother to get it off my hands immediately. I don’t enjoy the company of children, especially young children. I find them boring, unsettling when they’re running around and yelling, and disgusting when they’re eating. I resent it that our culture increasingly revolves around children. I believe adults take priority because we’re adults! and we should therefore have child-free spaces. The needs/rights of children should co-exist with those of adults, not supersede them. So if parents don’t want their kids to do or be exposed to certain things, it’s their responsibility to supervise them to ensure that – not my responsibility to live or look or speak or behave in child-friendly ways.

I shouldn’t have the presence of children imposed on me. Children don’t belong everywhere. And I’m sick and tired of politicians speaking incessantly about “The American Family.” Not all Americans have families, or want families, at least not those that include children. There are millions of single and married Americans who don’t want or don’t like children. We’re not monsters. We’re grown-ups with different needs, tastes, and points of view. That’s called freedom. And in a democracy, freedom is a delicate but necessary balance between freedom to and freedom from. I choose to be free of children as much as humanly possible. And in the words of that old song, “ain’t nobody’s business if I do.”

Welcome Back to Black History Month

It’s February in America – which means it’s Black History Month, a tradition that began in 1926 with “Negro History Week,” initiated by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.  It became Black History Month in 1976 in conjunction with the celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial and the urging of then-President Gerald Ford.  It may surprise you to know that this occasion is also celebrated in the U.K. (starting in 1987) and Canada (as of 1995), because there are a lot of Black people in those countries, too, primarily (originally) from Africa and the West Indies.

In recent years, some Black Americans have taken to calling it African-American History Month.  This irritates me, because I have never liked the term, since most Black Americans know very little about the 54 countries on the planet’s second-largest and second-most-populous continent.  In addition, many Africans feel no sense of connection to American Blacks or even consider them to be Black, due to more than 200 years of interracial hanky-panky (both lovingly consensual and viciously imposed).

Other Black Americans have started to resist, even outright object to, Black History Month, because they see in what is meant to be a positive acknowledgment of long-ignored history, an unpleasant continuation of the separation of Blacks and Whites in the full picture of American history.  I myself fall into this category – sort of.  For one thing, so many people, events and milestone accomplishments are routinely left out of the telling of Black history – during this designated month and in general education.

 For another, if the widespread disrespect shown to America’s first Black President by both houses of Congress – indeed, the idea that he is not a legitimate President – is anything to go by, a new, more sophisticated racism is still very much with us and Black History Month does absolutely nothing to diminish that.  (I’m sure there are people who dislike Barack Obama because of what they perceive as his bad policies and ideas and nothing more.  But the ballyhoo about his birthplace, his college records and his religion demonstrates that there are a great many legislators and citizens who simply can’t abide the idea of a Black man in the White House.)

Last but not least, nearly 40 years of Black History Month has done very little to educate American Blacks about the fulsomeness of their own heritage – and virtually nothing to demonstrate to White Americans that Black history is an integral part of American history overall.  The young generations of Americans, Black and White, may be more accepting of each other than their elders – but they are still greatly uninformed about their country’s history, period.

So, what is the “appropriate” way to handle Black History Month: ignore it; celebrate it joyously no matter who does or doesn’t participate; or use it as an opportunity to expand the boundaries of American history at every level of education?  I don’t know what the answer is.  All I know is that we’re still a long way from having a complete and unified understanding of who and what we were and what we are as a nation, and that is a very dangerous and unhealthy state of affairs.

So Long, It's Been Good to Know Ya

PETE SEEGER died yesterday.  I feel as if I've lost a beloved friend, a favorite relative; certainly a guiding light.  The following is a comment I left on The New York Times among the hundreds of others that follow their excellent obituary.  (It's also a Times Pick, should you want to find it in the paper.)

I really don't have much else to say right now...

Pete Seeger was and will always be one of [the few] great heroes of my life. His music was an inspiration, particularly because his life was an ongoing testament to principle, commitment, and an unwavering belief that personal action, especially in concert with others of like mind, can effect enormous positive social change.

He was a unique tower and shimmering beacon of progressive light.  But he was also a man with a private heart. When his wife Toshi died last year, I knew Pete wouldn't be far behind.

One of the proudest moments of my life came in 1994 when Mr. Seeger was among those receiving The Kennedy Center Honor and I was on the outside public relations team promoting the event. It gave me the opportunity to interview him by phone and not only did he speak freely and candidly, he spoke to me as if I were an old friend and even sang two songs to me. We were on the phone for half an hour!

May the great yet humble Pete Seeger rest in peace and live on in spirit. And may his death motivate the rest of us to re-examine our values and re-kindle our activism.