Provincetown, Massachusetts has been a popular place for gays and lesbians to settle for as long as I can remember. In fact, I recall hearing about this about 35 years ago, from a buddy who used a derogatory term, not because he hated or even disliked gays, but because where I grew up, that was how 10 year old boys described anyone showing any sexual preference.
“Hey guys, guess what! Bobby likes Lori Walsh!”
“Shut up, Fag! I do not!”
“Why did you walk home from school with her then?”
“She lives on my street!”
“See? You live near her because you do like her! Fag!”
“Shut up, Fag!”
“You’re a fag!”
“No, you are.”
“Fag!”
“Fag!”
There was never any hate implied or inferred. In our minds, to be a fag was to be an outsider, someone who didn’t fit in.
I remember learning from a friend that a faggot was actually a bundle of sticks, and later, that in England, a fag is a cigarette, and none of us could figure out why the word had such disparate meanings. Of course, if any one of us had used the word disparate, or suggested that we look up the etymology of the word, he’d have been called a Fag, and he’d have gotten his ass kicked at recess.
The buddy who told me about P-town did so with a sort of awe, and now that I think about it, he must have heard about it from his parents. These days, we tend to look on that sort of thing with horror, as though they were intentionally raising their child to hate.
I’m not saying that there weren’t parents who fostered prejudice in their children in the early 70’s, but in my Catholic, predominantly Irish neighborhood, most of my friends were simply raised with the same misunderstandings their parents had. The kids in my neighborhood were the children and grandchildren of immigrants who believed so fervently in assimilation that those in my generation grew up seeking sameness, commonality, unity.
So I was amused this morning to read that the municipal leadership of Provincetown held a meeting so that heterosexual residents could complain about being the targets of hate speech by the town’s homosexuals. There’s no small amount of irony there: gays and lesbians move to P-town so that they can be where they feel accepted, to assimilate, to find a place where they can live honestly and can share a sense of community.
A place where they aren’t so different.
And then, they reject those who are different.
The one and only time I’ve ever been thrown out of a bar was in Norfolk, Virginia. I was there on business, and went out partying with a friend and her newlywed husband, and a group of their friends. We wanted a quiet place to have a few beers, dance a little, and shoot a little pool.
One of the women in the group suggested a lesbian bar, and we all agreed. Really…we were looking for a quiet place to have a couple beers.
The bartenders were polite. We were not obnoxious, at least, not in my opinion. We gathered around two tables, drank our beer, told stories, shot some pool, and did a lot of laughing. The regular patrons either ignored us or fixed us with sullen gazes.
Until my friend’s husband sought to distract her from the game by sliding the butt of his pool cue up the inside of her thigh as she leaned over to make her shot. She wiggled flirtatiously, then missed her shot.
By the time the table had settled back to stillness (I started to write by the time the balls had stopped moving, but that would be too ironic), one of the bartenders was standing at our table, arms folded and insistent that we leave.
“Why?” someone asked. “We haven’t been too noisy. We haven’t been rude to the other people here. What did we do?”
I swear I am not making this up.
The bartender spoke firmly: “You’re too heterosexual, and it’s bothering the other customers.”
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
Dear Terrorists
A friend e-mailed this to me this afternoon, and I thought it was worth passing on.
“Dear Terrorists,
I am a Naval Aviator. I was born and raised in a small town in New England. I come from a family of five. I was raised in a middle class home and taught my values by my mother and father.
My dad worked a series of jobs in finance and my mom took care of us kids. We were not an overly religious family but attended church most Sundays. It was a nice, small, Episcopal Church.
I have a brother and sister, and I am the youngest in my family. I was the first in many generations to attend college.
I have flown naval aircraft for 16 years. For me the flying was never a lifelong dream or a "calling," it just happened. I needed a job and I liked the challenge. I continue to do it today because I feel it is important to give back to a nation which has given so much to me. I do it because, although I will never be rich, my family will be comfortable. I do it because many of my friends have left for the airlines and someone has to do it.
My government has spent millions to train me to fly these multi-million dollar aircraft. I make about 70,000 dollars a year and after 20 years will be offered a pension. I like baseball but think the players make too much money. I am in awe of firemen and policemen and what they do each day for my community, and like teachers, they just don't get paid enough.
I respect my elders and always use “sir” or “ma'am” when addressing a stranger. I'm not sure about kids these days but I think that's normal for every generation.
I tell you all this because when I come for you, I want you to know me. I won't be hiding behind a woman or a child. I won't be disguised or pretending to be something I am not.
I will be in a US-issue flight suit. I will be wearing standard US-issue flight gear, and I will be flying a Navy aircraft clearly marked as a US warplane.
I wish we could meet up close in a small room where I could wrap my hands around your throat and slowly squeeze the life out of you, but unfortunately, you're hiding in a hole in the ground, so we will have to do this a different way.
I want you to know also that I am very good at what I do. I can put a 2,000 lb weapon through a window from 10,000 feet up. I generally only fly at night, so you may want to start sleeping during the day. I am not eager to die for my country but I am willing to sacrifice my life to protect it from animals like you.
I will do everything in my power to ensure no civilians are hurt as I take aim at you.
My countrymen are a forgiving bunch. Many have already forgotten what you did on Sept 11th, but I will not forget!!
I am coming.
I hope you know me a little bit better, see you soon...sleep tight.
Signed
A U.S. Navy Pilot”
“Dear Terrorists,
I am a Naval Aviator. I was born and raised in a small town in New England. I come from a family of five. I was raised in a middle class home and taught my values by my mother and father.
My dad worked a series of jobs in finance and my mom took care of us kids. We were not an overly religious family but attended church most Sundays. It was a nice, small, Episcopal Church.
I have a brother and sister, and I am the youngest in my family. I was the first in many generations to attend college.
I have flown naval aircraft for 16 years. For me the flying was never a lifelong dream or a "calling," it just happened. I needed a job and I liked the challenge. I continue to do it today because I feel it is important to give back to a nation which has given so much to me. I do it because, although I will never be rich, my family will be comfortable. I do it because many of my friends have left for the airlines and someone has to do it.
My government has spent millions to train me to fly these multi-million dollar aircraft. I make about 70,000 dollars a year and after 20 years will be offered a pension. I like baseball but think the players make too much money. I am in awe of firemen and policemen and what they do each day for my community, and like teachers, they just don't get paid enough.
I respect my elders and always use “sir” or “ma'am” when addressing a stranger. I'm not sure about kids these days but I think that's normal for every generation.
I tell you all this because when I come for you, I want you to know me. I won't be hiding behind a woman or a child. I won't be disguised or pretending to be something I am not.
I will be in a US-issue flight suit. I will be wearing standard US-issue flight gear, and I will be flying a Navy aircraft clearly marked as a US warplane.
I wish we could meet up close in a small room where I could wrap my hands around your throat and slowly squeeze the life out of you, but unfortunately, you're hiding in a hole in the ground, so we will have to do this a different way.
I want you to know also that I am very good at what I do. I can put a 2,000 lb weapon through a window from 10,000 feet up. I generally only fly at night, so you may want to start sleeping during the day. I am not eager to die for my country but I am willing to sacrifice my life to protect it from animals like you.
I will do everything in my power to ensure no civilians are hurt as I take aim at you.
My countrymen are a forgiving bunch. Many have already forgotten what you did on Sept 11th, but I will not forget!!
I am coming.
I hope you know me a little bit better, see you soon...sleep tight.
Signed
A U.S. Navy Pilot”
Monday, July 24, 2006
Foot In Mouth
The moment I told my brother-in-law that this had been the best birthday ever, I realized I’d said exactly the wrong thing; his sister died early that evening.
In my defense, I didn’t say it when we spoke that night. I said it when he called to wish me a belated birthday on Sunday morning. I’m not that insensitive.
It was a strange evening, the actual night of my birthday. Heidi was gone to her mother’s already, and Alanna went to bed early. And then my parents called with birthday wishes and the news of my brother-in-law’s sister. It was not unexpected; she’d been sick for several months, but the death of a sibling is never a small thing, and Joe felt it very keenly.
This was the second time in five years that a death has occurred on my birthday. The first time, some family friends lost their five year-old daughter. I cannot conceive of the devastation they must still feel, but the celebration of my birthday has since lost quite a bit of its luster. (And as if losing a child isn’t bad enough, Caroline’s birthday was December 25th. Sometimes life is very, very cruel.)
In my defense, I didn’t say it when we spoke that night. I said it when he called to wish me a belated birthday on Sunday morning. I’m not that insensitive.
It was a strange evening, the actual night of my birthday. Heidi was gone to her mother’s already, and Alanna went to bed early. And then my parents called with birthday wishes and the news of my brother-in-law’s sister. It was not unexpected; she’d been sick for several months, but the death of a sibling is never a small thing, and Joe felt it very keenly.
This was the second time in five years that a death has occurred on my birthday. The first time, some family friends lost their five year-old daughter. I cannot conceive of the devastation they must still feel, but the celebration of my birthday has since lost quite a bit of its luster. (And as if losing a child isn’t bad enough, Caroline’s birthday was December 25th. Sometimes life is very, very cruel.)
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
How To Fix A Flat On A BMW
I am on a business trip to San Jose. In an ill-advised attempt to be somewhat self-sufficient, I opted to drive here from San Diego, rather than fly and rent a car. After all, I drive a BMW…the drive would likely be pleasant, or at least not unpleasant, and I’d have the use of my own car while here.
That was my logic, anyway.
So it was that I found myself moving along with early afternoon LA traffic. Feeling rather smug, I was, too.
“DING!” said my car, in her polite way. Her name is Giselle. She says, “Ding!” whenever anyone riding in her has forgotten their seatbelt, or if a door isn’t fully latched, or if the parking brake is not fully released. She is very polite, and this surprises most people, who expect her to be very German. I have no idea what this means, but most people say it, so presumably people expect the car to alert me to a passenger’s Seatbelt Infraction by sounding a U-boat diving klaxon and shining the errant passenger’s individual map light on them.
A-OOO-ga! A-OOO-ga! Eine passagier sicherheitsgurt ist nicht gewölbt!
No.
Giselle simply says, “Ding!”
I am sure she’d whisper it if she could.
But getting back to my story, I was in the far left lane, the ostensible fast lane, traveling at about 15 miles an hour (in a 65 mile per hour zone), when Giselle dinged this warning:
“You have a flat tire.”
That was the important part. There were instructions on the video screen that needed to be scrolled through to be fully read, which is not what one should do while driving in traffic with a flat tire.
As it turns out, I have run-flat tires, which I was a little skeptical of when I got the car, but now, having been told by my car that I have a flat tire while driving on the freeway in Los Angeles, I must say I fully appreciate the concept of the run-flat tire now.
I grok run-flat tires in fullness, as Heinlein would say.
I put on my hazard lights, and made my way to the next exit. (I must add here that hazard lights seem to be much more effective than mere turn signals when one desires a lane change in LA traffic. I don’t recommend abusing this knowledge, but it’s nice to know it’s there, you know?)
I found myself a gas station, pulled in and got out to examine my tires.
None of them were flat.
Now, never having actually seen a run-flat tire perform its sacred task, I speculated that perhaps it might not look any different when running sans air, so I checked the tire pressure in all four tires. Both rear tires were at 41 psi. The right front was at 41 psi. The left front was at 39 psi.
Hmmm. Not that big a difference, but to be on the safe side, I filled the left front to match the other three and started the car again.
Still getting the indication of a flat.
So, I asked the gas station cashier for directions to a tire place.
He sent me to his cousin’s place down the street.
To be fair, it might not have been his cousin, but it was another 76 station and the proprietor was also Middle Eastern. So it’s possible that this was, in fact, his cousin’s place.
The guy at the second station made me wait while he checked the pressure in all four tires of another flustered driver and sent him on his way. Then he checked the pressure in all four of my tires and concluded that the sensor was probably bad and suggested I take the car to my dealership for service. The other customer had exactly the same issue, he said.
He gives me vague directions to the BMW dealership in Glendale, which I find easily, but can’t figure out how to get into because it’s under construction. Two trips around the block later (growing increasingly nervous, as I may very well be driving on a punctured tire), I find my way in.
The receptionist is very apologetic about the fact that the service department is 8 blocks away.
I head to the service department.
I explain my predicament to the receptionist, who makes a call, and then tells me that they can schedule me an appointment for Thursday.
It was at this point when my frustration got the best of me. “Thursday? I need an appointment to have a flat tire?” I stop, take a breath, and less psychotically explain that I am already 140 miles from home and that I am en route to San Jose on business. Thursday is out of the question.
She makes another phone call. The service department doesn’t handle tires, anyway, but she can give me directions to the shop where they refer all their tire work. I explain that someone needs to at least reset the tire sensor for me before I go to the tire place.
One of the service representatives walks me out to my car and shows me how to do it. I is actually very easy, and I had thought of performing it myself, but wasn’t sure I could. He makes me promise to get the tire looked at, gives me directions to the tire place, and sends me on my way.
At the tire place, they removed the wheel, examined the tire and found…
No.
Puncture.
Not even a slow leak.
I asked the tire guy to set all the pressures correctly, and while waiting for the chance to back out of the stall, I reread the section of the owner’s manual on the flat tire sensing system.
If the system, when active, senses that one wheel is spinning faster than the other three, it knows that the only way this can happen is if the tire is somehow smaller than the other three. Low tire pressure makes the tire smaller…who knew? According to the manual, a difference of only 3 psi between tires will trigger the alert.
As you and I now know, the system works exactly as it should.
For the remainder of the drive, I kicked myself for not checking the tire pressures…as I should have…before beginning a 460 mile road trip. I assumed that the service inspection I’d had done on the car just a few hundred miles ago would have set the pressures on the tires correctly, and that I had one less thing to worry about.
Writing about this tonight, I realized that the front tires were over-inflated, and that undoubtedly contributed to the leak in the left front. I still should have checked the pressures, but I would have set the pressures to the same for all four tires, just as had been done by the dealership a couple weeks ago, so I wouldn’t have avoided the problem.
With the tire pressure set correctly…I got two miles to the gallon more than I expected. The little excursion off the freeway in Glendale cost me two and a half hours, but not a dime otherwise, and actually saved me money by improving the gas mileage.
Funny how things work.
That was my logic, anyway.
So it was that I found myself moving along with early afternoon LA traffic. Feeling rather smug, I was, too.
“DING!” said my car, in her polite way. Her name is Giselle. She says, “Ding!” whenever anyone riding in her has forgotten their seatbelt, or if a door isn’t fully latched, or if the parking brake is not fully released. She is very polite, and this surprises most people, who expect her to be very German. I have no idea what this means, but most people say it, so presumably people expect the car to alert me to a passenger’s Seatbelt Infraction by sounding a U-boat diving klaxon and shining the errant passenger’s individual map light on them.
A-OOO-ga! A-OOO-ga! Eine passagier sicherheitsgurt ist nicht gewölbt!
No.
Giselle simply says, “Ding!”
I am sure she’d whisper it if she could.
But getting back to my story, I was in the far left lane, the ostensible fast lane, traveling at about 15 miles an hour (in a 65 mile per hour zone), when Giselle dinged this warning:
“You have a flat tire.”
That was the important part. There were instructions on the video screen that needed to be scrolled through to be fully read, which is not what one should do while driving in traffic with a flat tire.
As it turns out, I have run-flat tires, which I was a little skeptical of when I got the car, but now, having been told by my car that I have a flat tire while driving on the freeway in Los Angeles, I must say I fully appreciate the concept of the run-flat tire now.
I grok run-flat tires in fullness, as Heinlein would say.
I put on my hazard lights, and made my way to the next exit. (I must add here that hazard lights seem to be much more effective than mere turn signals when one desires a lane change in LA traffic. I don’t recommend abusing this knowledge, but it’s nice to know it’s there, you know?)
I found myself a gas station, pulled in and got out to examine my tires.
None of them were flat.
Now, never having actually seen a run-flat tire perform its sacred task, I speculated that perhaps it might not look any different when running sans air, so I checked the tire pressure in all four tires. Both rear tires were at 41 psi. The right front was at 41 psi. The left front was at 39 psi.
Hmmm. Not that big a difference, but to be on the safe side, I filled the left front to match the other three and started the car again.
Still getting the indication of a flat.
So, I asked the gas station cashier for directions to a tire place.
He sent me to his cousin’s place down the street.
To be fair, it might not have been his cousin, but it was another 76 station and the proprietor was also Middle Eastern. So it’s possible that this was, in fact, his cousin’s place.
The guy at the second station made me wait while he checked the pressure in all four tires of another flustered driver and sent him on his way. Then he checked the pressure in all four of my tires and concluded that the sensor was probably bad and suggested I take the car to my dealership for service. The other customer had exactly the same issue, he said.
He gives me vague directions to the BMW dealership in Glendale, which I find easily, but can’t figure out how to get into because it’s under construction. Two trips around the block later (growing increasingly nervous, as I may very well be driving on a punctured tire), I find my way in.
The receptionist is very apologetic about the fact that the service department is 8 blocks away.
I head to the service department.
I explain my predicament to the receptionist, who makes a call, and then tells me that they can schedule me an appointment for Thursday.
It was at this point when my frustration got the best of me. “Thursday? I need an appointment to have a flat tire?” I stop, take a breath, and less psychotically explain that I am already 140 miles from home and that I am en route to San Jose on business. Thursday is out of the question.
She makes another phone call. The service department doesn’t handle tires, anyway, but she can give me directions to the shop where they refer all their tire work. I explain that someone needs to at least reset the tire sensor for me before I go to the tire place.
One of the service representatives walks me out to my car and shows me how to do it. I is actually very easy, and I had thought of performing it myself, but wasn’t sure I could. He makes me promise to get the tire looked at, gives me directions to the tire place, and sends me on my way.
At the tire place, they removed the wheel, examined the tire and found…
No.
Puncture.
Not even a slow leak.
I asked the tire guy to set all the pressures correctly, and while waiting for the chance to back out of the stall, I reread the section of the owner’s manual on the flat tire sensing system.
If the system, when active, senses that one wheel is spinning faster than the other three, it knows that the only way this can happen is if the tire is somehow smaller than the other three. Low tire pressure makes the tire smaller…who knew? According to the manual, a difference of only 3 psi between tires will trigger the alert.
As you and I now know, the system works exactly as it should.
For the remainder of the drive, I kicked myself for not checking the tire pressures…as I should have…before beginning a 460 mile road trip. I assumed that the service inspection I’d had done on the car just a few hundred miles ago would have set the pressures on the tires correctly, and that I had one less thing to worry about.
Writing about this tonight, I realized that the front tires were over-inflated, and that undoubtedly contributed to the leak in the left front. I still should have checked the pressures, but I would have set the pressures to the same for all four tires, just as had been done by the dealership a couple weeks ago, so I wouldn’t have avoided the problem.
With the tire pressure set correctly…I got two miles to the gallon more than I expected. The little excursion off the freeway in Glendale cost me two and a half hours, but not a dime otherwise, and actually saved me money by improving the gas mileage.
Funny how things work.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Curmudgeonly Game
Saturday night, sitting in a bar with Sihaya, I spotted a guy – a white guy, mind you, with dreadlocks that went to his waist. Blond dreadlocks.
Now, some of you might be thinking, “Wow, that guy’s been doing that for a while!”
I’ll admit, that was my first thought, too.
But then, the curmudgeonly side of me popped out of my chest, screeched eerily, bared tiny metallic teeth, and scurried across the barroom floor.
Keep an eye on the cat.
Anyhow, the curmudgeon that was formerly in me thought of the old Jeff Foxworthy routine…the one that made him famous: “…you might be a redneck.”
Taking a slightly different tack on it, I amused myself for several minutes with a little game that begins, “If your dreadlocks are blond, you might be a poser.”
“If you’ve ever touched up a temporary tattoo, you might be a poser.”
“Yo, if you be stawtin yo’ sentinces wit’ `yo’, an you a white boyee, you might be a poser.”
If you’ve got any more ideas, I’d love to read ‘em!
Now, some of you might be thinking, “Wow, that guy’s been doing that for a while!”
I’ll admit, that was my first thought, too.
But then, the curmudgeonly side of me popped out of my chest, screeched eerily, bared tiny metallic teeth, and scurried across the barroom floor.
Keep an eye on the cat.
Anyhow, the curmudgeon that was formerly in me thought of the old Jeff Foxworthy routine…the one that made him famous: “…you might be a redneck.”
Taking a slightly different tack on it, I amused myself for several minutes with a little game that begins, “If your dreadlocks are blond, you might be a poser.”
“If you’ve ever touched up a temporary tattoo, you might be a poser.”
“Yo, if you be stawtin yo’ sentinces wit’ `yo’, an you a white boyee, you might be a poser.”
If you’ve got any more ideas, I’d love to read ‘em!
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Shakespeare on a Midsummer's Night
Arr, me lads and lassies, the birthday plunder this year has been exceedingly good, yes it has.
Sorry. Still sort of in the spirit of "Pirates of the Caribbean" from Saturday.
But seriously, the gifts this year have been pretty sweet. For starters, for the first time in several years, I have a girlfriend. A Significant Other. I've written about it before, of course, but her presence in my life pops everything into sharp relief.
Then, my dad sent me a digital camera. I promise: I will take pictures and post them here for your enjoyment. I have two in mind, for starters…first is the view from my office window, and second, a shot of me and my shiny pate, taken in a mirror, of course. Other pictures will follow, I'm sure.
My daughters gave me a DVD and a gift certificate for a music and video store, so I will go shopping there tomorrow, when the fact that it is my birthday will give me an additional discount.
And Sihaya gave me tickets to this season's San Diego Shakespeare Festival, along with a book containing all of that Shakespeare guy's plays.
Last night was the first of the three: A Midsummer Night's Dream.
I must say that this Shakespeare dude knows his way around a story. I predict good things for him, and I suspect that his plays will (eventually) be very popular.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is pure fun. There are young lovers who quarrel, and doubt, and hate, and then love again. A husband and wife plot against each other, not for anything deadly, but in the way that married couples do when their arguments overshadow their appreciation of each other. Playful spirits, woodland fairies make mischief, and magic is everywhere, as pervasive and cool as mist in the forest.
Watching the Mechanicals rehearse their play-within-a-play, it's easy to imagine that Will might have been poking fun at some of his lesser contemporaries, or even at those with whom he worked most closely.
As a fan of Hamlet, Othello, and Much Ado About Nothing, I have to say that the bawdy side of Will Shakespeare is a welcome discovery.
When Helena says,
"…So we grow together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition;
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem…"
…'twas the bark of laughter mine which heard you,
O'er reaching the tittering gallery.
Sorry. Still sort of in the spirit of "Pirates of the Caribbean" from Saturday.
But seriously, the gifts this year have been pretty sweet. For starters, for the first time in several years, I have a girlfriend. A Significant Other. I've written about it before, of course, but her presence in my life pops everything into sharp relief.
Then, my dad sent me a digital camera. I promise: I will take pictures and post them here for your enjoyment. I have two in mind, for starters…first is the view from my office window, and second, a shot of me and my shiny pate, taken in a mirror, of course. Other pictures will follow, I'm sure.
My daughters gave me a DVD and a gift certificate for a music and video store, so I will go shopping there tomorrow, when the fact that it is my birthday will give me an additional discount.
And Sihaya gave me tickets to this season's San Diego Shakespeare Festival, along with a book containing all of that Shakespeare guy's plays.
Last night was the first of the three: A Midsummer Night's Dream.
I must say that this Shakespeare dude knows his way around a story. I predict good things for him, and I suspect that his plays will (eventually) be very popular.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is pure fun. There are young lovers who quarrel, and doubt, and hate, and then love again. A husband and wife plot against each other, not for anything deadly, but in the way that married couples do when their arguments overshadow their appreciation of each other. Playful spirits, woodland fairies make mischief, and magic is everywhere, as pervasive and cool as mist in the forest.
Watching the Mechanicals rehearse their play-within-a-play, it's easy to imagine that Will might have been poking fun at some of his lesser contemporaries, or even at those with whom he worked most closely.
As a fan of Hamlet, Othello, and Much Ado About Nothing, I have to say that the bawdy side of Will Shakespeare is a welcome discovery.
When Helena says,
"…So we grow together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition;
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem…"
…'twas the bark of laughter mine which heard you,
O'er reaching the tittering gallery.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Contrast
If you were paying attention, yesterday offered a good picture of what makes this country great.
I spent my morning in front of CNN, watching their live coverage of Discovery’s launch. When I tuned in, the commentators were busy trying to make a news story of the routine, but there really wasn’t much to report. In NASA’s parlance, all systems were “nominal”, so the “controversy” of the morning was whether or not a missing eighth-inch-thick piece of foam was capable of killing another seven astronauts.
Periodically, they’d switch over to cover other things, an interview with Warren Buffett’s grand-daughter about his $37 billion donation to the Gates Foundation, and a few other fluffy stories…and the terrible story of former soldier Steven Green, accused of murdering a young woman’s family, then raping and murdering her.
I’m not going to mince words about the soldiers who’re accused of going off the rez. Whether or not the accusations are true, the political climate will ensure that none of them will get a fair trial.
But this morning, reading the story of the young Iraqi woman apparently raped and murdered by Green, I stumbled across a small statement – that thirty troops have been implicated in the various incidents that have come to light in the last few weeks.
Thirty.
There are 138,000 troops currently serving in Iraq.
Thirty alleged criminals out of a hundred and thirty-eight thousand. Two hundredths of a percent.
The main stream media would have us believe that all American operations in Iraq are vaguely Haditha-shaped, and they show distorted photographs of the mentally ill Steven Green as proof…I didn’t see a single human interest story yesterday about how the troops marked the 4th…just an absurdly stretched mug shot of Green, put up behind the story that he was honorably discharged in March after being diagnosed with a personality disorder.
But think about it: two hundredths of a percent.
I don’t mean to minimize the incidents in Haditha and elsewhere, but I would like to point out that the vast majority of our service members serving in Iraq are doing so with honor, courage, and commitment.
Shortly after Discovery achieved orbit, it struck me that ours is a nation of contrasts. On any given day, you can find rapists and murderers, but also brilliant scientists and engineers working together to put men and women into space.
On our way home from a party last night, Sihaya credited the freedom we have in this country for giving us such contrasts. We can choose, she said, to be a murderer or an engineer, to take lives or to save them. What we do with our choices is less important than the fact that we have them. The truth is that most people will choose to do something good, if given the opportunity…
I’m proud of my country. I’m proud that I had a small part in defending her, in carrying out her foreign policies. I’m proud of the way our leaders conduct themselves in the face of direct threats…and make no mistake, North Korea’s launch of a missile that could reach our Pacific coast yesterday didn’t have to be successful to convey the intended threat…and I’m proud of the way our soldiers and Marines are conducting themselves in nearly impossible circumstances.
There’s a lot to be proud of.
I spent my morning in front of CNN, watching their live coverage of Discovery’s launch. When I tuned in, the commentators were busy trying to make a news story of the routine, but there really wasn’t much to report. In NASA’s parlance, all systems were “nominal”, so the “controversy” of the morning was whether or not a missing eighth-inch-thick piece of foam was capable of killing another seven astronauts.
Periodically, they’d switch over to cover other things, an interview with Warren Buffett’s grand-daughter about his $37 billion donation to the Gates Foundation, and a few other fluffy stories…and the terrible story of former soldier Steven Green, accused of murdering a young woman’s family, then raping and murdering her.
I’m not going to mince words about the soldiers who’re accused of going off the rez. Whether or not the accusations are true, the political climate will ensure that none of them will get a fair trial.
But this morning, reading the story of the young Iraqi woman apparently raped and murdered by Green, I stumbled across a small statement – that thirty troops have been implicated in the various incidents that have come to light in the last few weeks.
Thirty.
There are 138,000 troops currently serving in Iraq.
Thirty alleged criminals out of a hundred and thirty-eight thousand. Two hundredths of a percent.
The main stream media would have us believe that all American operations in Iraq are vaguely Haditha-shaped, and they show distorted photographs of the mentally ill Steven Green as proof…I didn’t see a single human interest story yesterday about how the troops marked the 4th…just an absurdly stretched mug shot of Green, put up behind the story that he was honorably discharged in March after being diagnosed with a personality disorder.
But think about it: two hundredths of a percent.
I don’t mean to minimize the incidents in Haditha and elsewhere, but I would like to point out that the vast majority of our service members serving in Iraq are doing so with honor, courage, and commitment.
Shortly after Discovery achieved orbit, it struck me that ours is a nation of contrasts. On any given day, you can find rapists and murderers, but also brilliant scientists and engineers working together to put men and women into space.
On our way home from a party last night, Sihaya credited the freedom we have in this country for giving us such contrasts. We can choose, she said, to be a murderer or an engineer, to take lives or to save them. What we do with our choices is less important than the fact that we have them. The truth is that most people will choose to do something good, if given the opportunity…
I’m proud of my country. I’m proud that I had a small part in defending her, in carrying out her foreign policies. I’m proud of the way our leaders conduct themselves in the face of direct threats…and make no mistake, North Korea’s launch of a missile that could reach our Pacific coast yesterday didn’t have to be successful to convey the intended threat…and I’m proud of the way our soldiers and Marines are conducting themselves in nearly impossible circumstances.
There’s a lot to be proud of.
Friday, June 30, 2006
This Just In
Winnipeg Herald, Manitoba, Canada*
June 2, 2006
The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The actions of President Bush are prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O'Reilly.
Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night. "I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry.
"He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?"
In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh cross the fields. "Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk."
Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves. "A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said.
"I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley cabernet, though."
When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the Bush administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR races.
In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers on Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney hits to prove they were alive in the 50s.
"If they can't identify the accordion player on 'The Lawrence Welk Show,' we get suspicious about their age," an official said.
Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies.
"I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history majors does one country need?"
In an effort to ease tensions between the United States and Canada, Vice President Dick Cheney met with the Canadian ambassador and pledged that the administration would take steps to reassure liberals, a source close to Cheney said.
"We're going to have some Peter, Paul & Mary concerts. And we might put some endangered species on postage stamps. The President is determined to reach out," he said.
*Not really sure; My dad forwarded it to me after getting it from a friend.
June 2, 2006
The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The actions of President Bush are prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O'Reilly.
Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night. "I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry.
"He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?"
In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh cross the fields. "Not real effective," he said. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn't give milk."
Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves. "A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said.
"I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley cabernet, though."
When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the Bush administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer and watch NASCAR races.
In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers on Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney hits to prove they were alive in the 50s.
"If they can't identify the accordion player on 'The Lawrence Welk Show,' we get suspicious about their age," an official said.
Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies.
"I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history majors does one country need?"
In an effort to ease tensions between the United States and Canada, Vice President Dick Cheney met with the Canadian ambassador and pledged that the administration would take steps to reassure liberals, a source close to Cheney said.
"We're going to have some Peter, Paul & Mary concerts. And we might put some endangered species on postage stamps. The President is determined to reach out," he said.
*Not really sure; My dad forwarded it to me after getting it from a friend.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Just A Few Words
I want to write a few words about the woman I love. Quite honestly, a few words couldn’t possibly fill the bill, but neither would a million. Where my Sihaya is concerned, I often find myself bouncing off the limits of the language.
I took her to the airport last Sunday morning at 4:30 am. She had a flight to Hawaii, where she spent the next ten days with her family, and she will be home tomorrow. Though the trip was planned before Sihaya and I met, her mother invited me along – a wonderful gesture – and if my daughters were with their mother, I would have gone.
On Sunday morning, we sat in the terminal food court, her head nestled on my shoulder, and the conversation was as easy as if we’d known each other for three decades instead of three months. After we parted, she to the security area and I to my car, she lasted five whole minutes before calling to say, without any artifice or agenda, that she missed me.
Seriously, the words that flow so easily on abstract subjects…haven’t left me, it’s just that pulling them out is like pulling hen’s teeth. All the eloquence has left me; her very existence is poetical, and nothing I can say can do justice to her.
I could more easily describe the Mona Lisa, or synopsize the collected works of Shakespeare in twenty-five words or less.
And without warning, a song like KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See” comes on, and I’m free to write something nearly worthy of her.
“…you can see she’s a beautiful girl
She’s a beautiful girl
Everything around her is a silver pool of light
People who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm
Suddenly I see
This is what I want to be…”
I first heard that song before Sihaya and I met, but this is the first time I’ve heard it since, and I think I get it now. It’s the silver pool of light thing.
Since the day she and I met, she has plainly shone with joy. That first date, coffee at Starbucks in Fashion Valley, while we wandered around the mall, talking and gazing into windows, I remember commenting on her laugh. I remember exactly where we were, outside the Bang and Olufsen store, I said simply, “I love that you laugh so much.” She replied that she’d gone a long time without laughing and had only just recently found her capacity to laugh again, and she was making the best of its return.
And then she walked into me, playfully, nudging me with her shoulder.
I thought, Oh, so that’s how you are!
She walked into me quite a few times that day, always playful, as if she was saying, Hey, this could be good, you and me. Let’s have fun!
This is good, her and me.
I make it a point to tell her every day that she is amazing. I never get tired of saying it, and no matter how many times I do, the meaning of the word doesn’t diminish a single jot. It’s about the joy she finds in her dancing, in her friends, in the myriad aspects of her day, and – however inexplicably – in me.
Is it any wonder that she sees joy in my eyes?
Yep. I know. I seem to be using the word “joy” a great deal in this post. I will not apologize.
We exchange e-mails throughout our day, share jokes and frustrations and triumphs. We share each other’s thoughts, exist in each other’s thoughts. When she gets home from dance class or rehearsal, she calls to say good night, and because we know how the day went, we’re free to talk about other things: her cats, the opera, my flight simulator projects, family, cookies, wine, farts, movies, hopes, dreams, history, current events. In short, we can move past our day and on to Important Stuff, Getting To Know Each Other Stuff. This is how we’ve become friends.
It’s no different on those nights when we can be together. The weight of the day has been shared all along, and we can almost always let it all go in the first five minutes of each other’s company. Once in a great while, it takes almost ten.
I must confess that the greatest joy I get from knowing her is the privilege of seeing her open herself to me. This is the part of being in a relationship I had forgotten about, and I am captivated not only by the wonder of it, but also by the fearlessness she seems to have as our intimacy grows and our lives slowly intertwine.
As fearless as she is, she is equally unhurried. There is no stumbling, headlong rush, no breathlessly exaggerated proclamations in her approach to the process of becoming us. It is, we are. The most noticeable outward expression of the deepening commitment we share is the slowly increasing number of pages between where we are on the calendar and where our plans begin to be formed.
From time to time, she shows me a glimpse of the enormity of her soul, the vast depth of her character. One of the challenges I face is in dealing with an inappropriate sense of my own unworthiness…in the face of all evidence to the contrary, I have long lived in fear that an annoying little dog might someday pull back the curtain and show me to the world as I feverishly work the controls of my illusions. The only time I have ever seen Sihaya irritated with me happened when I deflected a compliment she paid me, and I realized that in refusing to accept her amazement and wonder at the discoveries she was and is making in me, I was withholding a part of the respect she deserves. After all, how could it be possible for anyone to be simultaneously wonderful and incapable of experiencing genuine wonder herself? Consciously, I began by simply thanking her for her praise, but as my awareness of her integrity has grown, I’ve also come to accept the basis for her admiration without any question, and feel that I am indeed worthy of such a woman.
And the most wonderful thing of all: she thinks I’m brilliant.
I took her to the airport last Sunday morning at 4:30 am. She had a flight to Hawaii, where she spent the next ten days with her family, and she will be home tomorrow. Though the trip was planned before Sihaya and I met, her mother invited me along – a wonderful gesture – and if my daughters were with their mother, I would have gone.
On Sunday morning, we sat in the terminal food court, her head nestled on my shoulder, and the conversation was as easy as if we’d known each other for three decades instead of three months. After we parted, she to the security area and I to my car, she lasted five whole minutes before calling to say, without any artifice or agenda, that she missed me.
Seriously, the words that flow so easily on abstract subjects…haven’t left me, it’s just that pulling them out is like pulling hen’s teeth. All the eloquence has left me; her very existence is poetical, and nothing I can say can do justice to her.
I could more easily describe the Mona Lisa, or synopsize the collected works of Shakespeare in twenty-five words or less.
And without warning, a song like KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See” comes on, and I’m free to write something nearly worthy of her.
“…you can see she’s a beautiful girl
She’s a beautiful girl
Everything around her is a silver pool of light
People who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm
Suddenly I see
This is what I want to be…”
I first heard that song before Sihaya and I met, but this is the first time I’ve heard it since, and I think I get it now. It’s the silver pool of light thing.
Since the day she and I met, she has plainly shone with joy. That first date, coffee at Starbucks in Fashion Valley, while we wandered around the mall, talking and gazing into windows, I remember commenting on her laugh. I remember exactly where we were, outside the Bang and Olufsen store, I said simply, “I love that you laugh so much.” She replied that she’d gone a long time without laughing and had only just recently found her capacity to laugh again, and she was making the best of its return.
And then she walked into me, playfully, nudging me with her shoulder.
I thought, Oh, so that’s how you are!
She walked into me quite a few times that day, always playful, as if she was saying, Hey, this could be good, you and me. Let’s have fun!
This is good, her and me.
I make it a point to tell her every day that she is amazing. I never get tired of saying it, and no matter how many times I do, the meaning of the word doesn’t diminish a single jot. It’s about the joy she finds in her dancing, in her friends, in the myriad aspects of her day, and – however inexplicably – in me.
Is it any wonder that she sees joy in my eyes?
Yep. I know. I seem to be using the word “joy” a great deal in this post. I will not apologize.
We exchange e-mails throughout our day, share jokes and frustrations and triumphs. We share each other’s thoughts, exist in each other’s thoughts. When she gets home from dance class or rehearsal, she calls to say good night, and because we know how the day went, we’re free to talk about other things: her cats, the opera, my flight simulator projects, family, cookies, wine, farts, movies, hopes, dreams, history, current events. In short, we can move past our day and on to Important Stuff, Getting To Know Each Other Stuff. This is how we’ve become friends.
It’s no different on those nights when we can be together. The weight of the day has been shared all along, and we can almost always let it all go in the first five minutes of each other’s company. Once in a great while, it takes almost ten.
I must confess that the greatest joy I get from knowing her is the privilege of seeing her open herself to me. This is the part of being in a relationship I had forgotten about, and I am captivated not only by the wonder of it, but also by the fearlessness she seems to have as our intimacy grows and our lives slowly intertwine.
As fearless as she is, she is equally unhurried. There is no stumbling, headlong rush, no breathlessly exaggerated proclamations in her approach to the process of becoming us. It is, we are. The most noticeable outward expression of the deepening commitment we share is the slowly increasing number of pages between where we are on the calendar and where our plans begin to be formed.
From time to time, she shows me a glimpse of the enormity of her soul, the vast depth of her character. One of the challenges I face is in dealing with an inappropriate sense of my own unworthiness…in the face of all evidence to the contrary, I have long lived in fear that an annoying little dog might someday pull back the curtain and show me to the world as I feverishly work the controls of my illusions. The only time I have ever seen Sihaya irritated with me happened when I deflected a compliment she paid me, and I realized that in refusing to accept her amazement and wonder at the discoveries she was and is making in me, I was withholding a part of the respect she deserves. After all, how could it be possible for anyone to be simultaneously wonderful and incapable of experiencing genuine wonder herself? Consciously, I began by simply thanking her for her praise, but as my awareness of her integrity has grown, I’ve also come to accept the basis for her admiration without any question, and feel that I am indeed worthy of such a woman.
And the most wonderful thing of all: she thinks I’m brilliant.
Monday, June 26, 2006
A Burning Issue
As early as next week*, the Senate may consider an amendment to the Constitution that would specifically ban the burning of the American Flag. This time, it may pass. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) says he’s got 66 votes, just one vote shy of the two-thirds majority needed to send the proposed amendment to the states for ratification. The House has already approved the amendment, and if it passes, it will mark the first time in history that both houses of Congress have voted to amend the Constitution to restrict the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment.
This is not an issue of National Security. There has been no raging national debate on this issue since the early 1970’s. Americans rarely burn the American Flag in protest any more…it simply doesn’t evoke the emotional response it used to, because we’ve matured enough since the Vietnam era to understand that burning one flag might offend a few people, but no harm is really done. (To do any real harm by burning an American Flag, you’d have to burn them all. Go ahead and try; we’re even bigger than that.) Once such an amendment is in place, flag burning might come back into vogue, though – as a gesture of defiance. Perhaps it’s just best to leave well enough alone.
The truth is that in the twenty-five years I’ve been participating in the debate about flag burning, I’ve heard dozens of arguments in support of the kind of ban now in front of the Senate, and every one was based on emotion. I have never seen or heard any rational argument in favor of curtailing freedom of speech.
And that’s what bothers me about this. We’re very nearly willing to give up our freedom to avoid offending anyone’s sensibilities. I’m sorry, burning the flag bothers you? Okay. Sorry. Can I have some of your bottled water to put this out with, please? That twenty-nine foot tall cross on a privately-owned war memorial honoring Korean War veterans offends you because you’re an Atheist and the cross used to be on public lands? Oh, gosh, let’s just tear it down for you at taxpayer expense.
Since we’re on the verge of relinquishing our hard-won freedoms to the forces of Political Correctness, I propose the following changes be made to our Bill of Rights (my text is in italics):
I
Congress shall make no law respecting or disrespecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof unless anyone’s delicate sensibilities are offended; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press except when the exercise of such free speech be considered vulgar or thought-provoking; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble without doing or saying anything meaningful, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances at taxpayer expense, no matter how frivolous.
II
A well regulated militia, once being considered necessary to the security of a free state, but not any more, the right of most of the people to keep and bear arms should be considered fair game, such decision being at least initially based upon the design of the arms in question, but the right of Dianne Feinstein to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, except when those papers and effects may be transmitted electronically, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I could go on, but do you really want me to?
If this passes the Senate, Americans will spend the next seven years embroiled in a debate over whether or not to curtail our First Amendment rights. It will become the hot topic of the 2006 and 2008 elections. At a time when we should be setting the example for struggling new democracies such as the one in Iraq, we’ll be ripping ourselves to shreds re-deciding an issue so central to our national identity that our present enemies cite it as the prime reason that all Americans must die.
The reality is that the people who burn American Flags these days aren’t Americans, and none of our laws can touch them but the one we haven’t changed since 1791: “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.”
We need to leave that one alone, if for no other reason than it scares the shit out of al Qaeda.
* It happened today, Tuesday, June 27, 2006. The amendment failed, 66-34. Democracy WINS!!
This is not an issue of National Security. There has been no raging national debate on this issue since the early 1970’s. Americans rarely burn the American Flag in protest any more…it simply doesn’t evoke the emotional response it used to, because we’ve matured enough since the Vietnam era to understand that burning one flag might offend a few people, but no harm is really done. (To do any real harm by burning an American Flag, you’d have to burn them all. Go ahead and try; we’re even bigger than that.) Once such an amendment is in place, flag burning might come back into vogue, though – as a gesture of defiance. Perhaps it’s just best to leave well enough alone.
The truth is that in the twenty-five years I’ve been participating in the debate about flag burning, I’ve heard dozens of arguments in support of the kind of ban now in front of the Senate, and every one was based on emotion. I have never seen or heard any rational argument in favor of curtailing freedom of speech.
And that’s what bothers me about this. We’re very nearly willing to give up our freedom to avoid offending anyone’s sensibilities. I’m sorry, burning the flag bothers you? Okay. Sorry. Can I have some of your bottled water to put this out with, please? That twenty-nine foot tall cross on a privately-owned war memorial honoring Korean War veterans offends you because you’re an Atheist and the cross used to be on public lands? Oh, gosh, let’s just tear it down for you at taxpayer expense.
Since we’re on the verge of relinquishing our hard-won freedoms to the forces of Political Correctness, I propose the following changes be made to our Bill of Rights (my text is in italics):
I
Congress shall make no law respecting or disrespecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof unless anyone’s delicate sensibilities are offended; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press except when the exercise of such free speech be considered vulgar or thought-provoking; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble without doing or saying anything meaningful, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances at taxpayer expense, no matter how frivolous.
II
A well regulated militia, once being considered necessary to the security of a free state, but not any more, the right of most of the people to keep and bear arms should be considered fair game, such decision being at least initially based upon the design of the arms in question, but the right of Dianne Feinstein to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, except when those papers and effects may be transmitted electronically, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I could go on, but do you really want me to?
If this passes the Senate, Americans will spend the next seven years embroiled in a debate over whether or not to curtail our First Amendment rights. It will become the hot topic of the 2006 and 2008 elections. At a time when we should be setting the example for struggling new democracies such as the one in Iraq, we’ll be ripping ourselves to shreds re-deciding an issue so central to our national identity that our present enemies cite it as the prime reason that all Americans must die.
The reality is that the people who burn American Flags these days aren’t Americans, and none of our laws can touch them but the one we haven’t changed since 1791: “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.”
We need to leave that one alone, if for no other reason than it scares the shit out of al Qaeda.
* It happened today, Tuesday, June 27, 2006. The amendment failed, 66-34. Democracy WINS!!
Thursday, June 22, 2006
World Cup Football Live!
Why do sports fans so often consider themselves free from the constraints of polite society during the time surrounding their sport-of-choice?
Put more succinctly, why are World Cup Soccer/Football fans such assholes?
On what fucking planet is it okay for fifteen fucking guys to get beered up and scream at their overly-loud television at four o’fucking clock in the fucking morning on a fucking Thursday?
I know it’s getting warm…yesterday was the first official day of summer (though this is Southern California, and summer actually started in March), so the air at 4 am down here on the coast is a scorching 62 degrees, which obviously means you have to, have to have your doors and windows open at all times, and most especially when you have more than a dozen sweaty, loud-mouthed, drunk-assed frat boys crammed into one small apartment living room to watch the game and cheer loud enough that your team can hear you all the way in Germany.
The respectful thing to do at that hour would be to close the doors and windows so that you don’t wake up the whole neighborhood and keep them awake for the remaining two-and-a-half hours before their alarms complete the job. The resulting buildup of heat in your living room might be a tad uncomfortable, might make it hard to keep the beer cold, but also might create the same conditions the Lakota seek to create in their traditional sweat lodge. You might suddenly achieve a level of awareness beyond yourselves.
While I’m thinking about it, why are there no women there? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just saying, is all.
Okay, I’m going to wrap this up and get to work, but I’d like to finish with two choice words for all you World Cup fanatic assholes out there: TiVo.
Put more succinctly, why are World Cup Soccer/Football fans such assholes?
On what fucking planet is it okay for fifteen fucking guys to get beered up and scream at their overly-loud television at four o’fucking clock in the fucking morning on a fucking Thursday?
I know it’s getting warm…yesterday was the first official day of summer (though this is Southern California, and summer actually started in March), so the air at 4 am down here on the coast is a scorching 62 degrees, which obviously means you have to, have to have your doors and windows open at all times, and most especially when you have more than a dozen sweaty, loud-mouthed, drunk-assed frat boys crammed into one small apartment living room to watch the game and cheer loud enough that your team can hear you all the way in Germany.
The respectful thing to do at that hour would be to close the doors and windows so that you don’t wake up the whole neighborhood and keep them awake for the remaining two-and-a-half hours before their alarms complete the job. The resulting buildup of heat in your living room might be a tad uncomfortable, might make it hard to keep the beer cold, but also might create the same conditions the Lakota seek to create in their traditional sweat lodge. You might suddenly achieve a level of awareness beyond yourselves.
While I’m thinking about it, why are there no women there? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just saying, is all.
Okay, I’m going to wrap this up and get to work, but I’d like to finish with two choice words for all you World Cup fanatic assholes out there: TiVo.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Good Night and Good Riddence
I think it was Jeff Foxworthy who said, “If you can’t think of anything nice to say, you’re probably talking about Hillary Clinton.” My thoughts have been turning to the political lately, which is one of the reasons I haven’t been writing as much as I once did. I don’t want my blog to become anything like a screed.
One topic that has occupied me of late is the growing concern over the conduct of our soldiers and Marines in Iraq. My opinions remain largely unformed on the subject, and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.
There is a tradition that seems prevalent in some of the blogs I read is the Commentary On Dumbass Celebrities, and though I myself have not taken part in this tradition (largely focused on TomKat and BrAngelina), an event took place today which compels me, and in that vein, I’d like to share a few thoughts with you.
It is my sad duty to report to you that Dan Rather has left CBS in a huff. Dan described a “protracted struggle” with network executives who had “not lived up to their obligation to allow me to do substantive work.”
Time for a quick review: Without expecting him to do any real work, CBS has been continuing to pay Dan Rather his very hefty salary, after sidelining him in the wake of a national scandal he created by airing a report which was at best poorly reported and unsubstantiated, and was eventually discredited – his report on the president’s military service during the Vietnam War. Sure, Rather stepped down voluntarily from his position as anchor, but at that level, people never get fired, they’re simply offered the opportunity to leave of their own accord.
It’s a tradition, you see, to allow people who have attained a certain rank and degree of notoriety to salvage a bit of dignity at the end they themselves brought about. Just like the captain of a warship that rammed another vessel, he was told, “Dude, you’re a fuckin’ psycho, and we’d feel more comfortable if you’d just leave.”
Only he wouldn’t leave. He just hung around.
For their part, CBS executives have been pretty cool about the whole thing. CBS News and Sports President Sean McManus complimented Rather by invoking Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. He also said, “I had one of our interns put shortcut icons for Solitaire and Minesweeper on Dan’s Windows desktop, but the guy just can’t take a hint,” though this remark has not been widely reported.
Dan, I have a couple things for you to think about:
First, journalism is, on the surface at least, all about image. As we used to say on USS COWPENS, “An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.” All you had to do, all you had to do, was appear to be telling us the truth, and we’d have cried over your retirement as we did 25 years ago when Cronkite chose his sailboat over the anchor’s desk.
Second, when someone is paying your salary, they get to define the expectation of satisfactory performance. You were allowed to fuck up on a grand scale, in public, and leave with your salary and your corner office intact. In Japan, you’d have been banished to the subway with a thousand ribbons pinned to your suit instructing passersby to scream at you about your foolish arrogance. If you were in any way related to us mere mortals here in the US, the only way you could have prevented your ass from being escorted to the door by CBS Security would have been to pull a Tyler Durden-est-ce-que self-ass-kicking before they got to McManus’ office.
Nope, you got to keep your multi-million dollar salary with no expectation beyond you taking the spanking.
So let’s get this straight: You. Fucked. Up. You did. And you know you did, because your fallacious report impugned an unpopular president, which rules out politics as the reason you had to leave. You were, were, powerful enough, respected enough, that Bush wouldn’t have had the political capital to have you fired if there’d been even the tiniest shred of truth to that report. No, you had to leave because you had compromised your own integrity, and your continued presence would have compromised the integrity of the entire CBS news organization.
And yet you storm out four months before the end of your contract, as petulant and demanding as an ill-disciplined child. Why did any of us ever respect you?
* * *
When I read that news story, the Reuters piece that quoted Rather’s bitter departure, I came to a pair of unpleasant realizations: first, that this was the reason I never liked Dan Rather in the first place and that the feeling I always had was finally vindicated and second, that people like Rather are everywhere in positions of power and prestige here in America. That leaders who live by maxims like, “The buck stops here,” and, “A good plan executed now is better than a perfect plan next week,” and, “Ask not what your country can do for you…” are conspicuous only by their absence. That Dan Rather actually is what’s wrong with this country.
Our national motto officially remains, “E pluribus unum”, once proclaimed with strength and pride by all who lived here, and with envy by many who didn’t. Now, at least in practice, our motto seems to be, “You must respect me!” in a voice like Droopy the Dog’s. Hell, even people here illegally demand our respect, as if it’s a guarantee that comes with placing the bottoms of one’s feet on American soil.
Edward R. Murrow, indeed. If Murrow’s life teaches us anything, it’s that respect must be earned, and integrity is a precious commodity that must never be left unguarded.
One topic that has occupied me of late is the growing concern over the conduct of our soldiers and Marines in Iraq. My opinions remain largely unformed on the subject, and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.
There is a tradition that seems prevalent in some of the blogs I read is the Commentary On Dumbass Celebrities, and though I myself have not taken part in this tradition (largely focused on TomKat and BrAngelina), an event took place today which compels me, and in that vein, I’d like to share a few thoughts with you.
It is my sad duty to report to you that Dan Rather has left CBS in a huff. Dan described a “protracted struggle” with network executives who had “not lived up to their obligation to allow me to do substantive work.”
Time for a quick review: Without expecting him to do any real work, CBS has been continuing to pay Dan Rather his very hefty salary, after sidelining him in the wake of a national scandal he created by airing a report which was at best poorly reported and unsubstantiated, and was eventually discredited – his report on the president’s military service during the Vietnam War. Sure, Rather stepped down voluntarily from his position as anchor, but at that level, people never get fired, they’re simply offered the opportunity to leave of their own accord.
It’s a tradition, you see, to allow people who have attained a certain rank and degree of notoriety to salvage a bit of dignity at the end they themselves brought about. Just like the captain of a warship that rammed another vessel, he was told, “Dude, you’re a fuckin’ psycho, and we’d feel more comfortable if you’d just leave.”
Only he wouldn’t leave. He just hung around.
For their part, CBS executives have been pretty cool about the whole thing. CBS News and Sports President Sean McManus complimented Rather by invoking Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. He also said, “I had one of our interns put shortcut icons for Solitaire and Minesweeper on Dan’s Windows desktop, but the guy just can’t take a hint,” though this remark has not been widely reported.
Dan, I have a couple things for you to think about:
First, journalism is, on the surface at least, all about image. As we used to say on USS COWPENS, “An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.” All you had to do, all you had to do, was appear to be telling us the truth, and we’d have cried over your retirement as we did 25 years ago when Cronkite chose his sailboat over the anchor’s desk.
Second, when someone is paying your salary, they get to define the expectation of satisfactory performance. You were allowed to fuck up on a grand scale, in public, and leave with your salary and your corner office intact. In Japan, you’d have been banished to the subway with a thousand ribbons pinned to your suit instructing passersby to scream at you about your foolish arrogance. If you were in any way related to us mere mortals here in the US, the only way you could have prevented your ass from being escorted to the door by CBS Security would have been to pull a Tyler Durden-est-ce-que self-ass-kicking before they got to McManus’ office.
Nope, you got to keep your multi-million dollar salary with no expectation beyond you taking the spanking.
So let’s get this straight: You. Fucked. Up. You did. And you know you did, because your fallacious report impugned an unpopular president, which rules out politics as the reason you had to leave. You were, were, powerful enough, respected enough, that Bush wouldn’t have had the political capital to have you fired if there’d been even the tiniest shred of truth to that report. No, you had to leave because you had compromised your own integrity, and your continued presence would have compromised the integrity of the entire CBS news organization.
And yet you storm out four months before the end of your contract, as petulant and demanding as an ill-disciplined child. Why did any of us ever respect you?
* * *
When I read that news story, the Reuters piece that quoted Rather’s bitter departure, I came to a pair of unpleasant realizations: first, that this was the reason I never liked Dan Rather in the first place and that the feeling I always had was finally vindicated and second, that people like Rather are everywhere in positions of power and prestige here in America. That leaders who live by maxims like, “The buck stops here,” and, “A good plan executed now is better than a perfect plan next week,” and, “Ask not what your country can do for you…” are conspicuous only by their absence. That Dan Rather actually is what’s wrong with this country.
Our national motto officially remains, “E pluribus unum”, once proclaimed with strength and pride by all who lived here, and with envy by many who didn’t. Now, at least in practice, our motto seems to be, “You must respect me!” in a voice like Droopy the Dog’s. Hell, even people here illegally demand our respect, as if it’s a guarantee that comes with placing the bottoms of one’s feet on American soil.
Edward R. Murrow, indeed. If Murrow’s life teaches us anything, it’s that respect must be earned, and integrity is a precious commodity that must never be left unguarded.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Past President
I am, as the saying goes, a little verklempt. More than a little, actually.
Tonight was my last PTSA meeting as president.
I held the position for two years, having been reelected for the second year because no one else stepped up to fill the position, which is more or less how I became the maitre d’ for my eighth-grade French class’ French Restaurant project: I fit the tux.
I wrote about some of the events that filled the end of last school year, and no, I am not linking to those posts because the events themselves deserve to be left in the past. If you have a few minutes to dig, feel free to go back and read about them, but I – along with the faculty and staff, students and parents of Point Loma High School – have moved past them.
Of course, we may have moved past those difficult days, but there’s no denying that they’ve colored most of the days this school year. I can’t imagine how it’s been for those who work every day on campus; for my part, I’ve felt a little gun shy all year.
Over the last few days, I’ve felt a growing sense of relief, that my days of decision-making were nearing an end. It wasn’t until this evening, on my way to the meeting, that I began to feel a little sad. Another phase of my life is done, a part of my daughter’s life is nearing an end, and we’re both gearing up for what’s next.
I am a little sad. Sure, the last few weeks of school were tough last year, but overall, I’ve had fun.
So, tonight, I ran as loose a meeting as I ever have. I always felt that Roberts’ Rules of Order were a bit too stentorian for a polite group of twenty-five parents who love their kids and give each other credit for having at least that in common.
We settled the money issues, talked about some ideas for next year, and all of it with a sort of easy camaraderie. I’ve been a part of this group for just short of three years; many of these people have known each other their entire lives. That’s reason enough to consider it a great honor to be asked to serve as their president.
It is astonishing how many of the people in the PTSA give the full measure of their devotion to our kids. All our kids. Not just the twenty-five or thirty kids directly represented in the room, but all of the more than two thousand kids here.
I am humbled by their hard work, and I can say with all honesty that I never felt quite adequate to the task they asked of me.
At the end of the meeting this evening, I stood up and admitted that I felt honored to be asked, two years ago, and that I had no idea at the time what that honor really meant. Now, I said, now I know. To have had the opportunity to work with such selfless people, to share a little in the satisfaction of their hard work, that has turned out to be the real honor. The honor doesn’t come from anything I might have done to deserve the post, but from the extraordinary people I’ve worked with.
By way of thanks, I presented each of the members of my executive board with a bottle of Pinot Noir. Nothing extravagant, just a good little wine that they could share with their spouses, all of whom have worked just as hard, but without any recognition at all.
I am so very grateful.
Tonight was my last PTSA meeting as president.
I held the position for two years, having been reelected for the second year because no one else stepped up to fill the position, which is more or less how I became the maitre d’ for my eighth-grade French class’ French Restaurant project: I fit the tux.
I wrote about some of the events that filled the end of last school year, and no, I am not linking to those posts because the events themselves deserve to be left in the past. If you have a few minutes to dig, feel free to go back and read about them, but I – along with the faculty and staff, students and parents of Point Loma High School – have moved past them.
Of course, we may have moved past those difficult days, but there’s no denying that they’ve colored most of the days this school year. I can’t imagine how it’s been for those who work every day on campus; for my part, I’ve felt a little gun shy all year.
Over the last few days, I’ve felt a growing sense of relief, that my days of decision-making were nearing an end. It wasn’t until this evening, on my way to the meeting, that I began to feel a little sad. Another phase of my life is done, a part of my daughter’s life is nearing an end, and we’re both gearing up for what’s next.
I am a little sad. Sure, the last few weeks of school were tough last year, but overall, I’ve had fun.
So, tonight, I ran as loose a meeting as I ever have. I always felt that Roberts’ Rules of Order were a bit too stentorian for a polite group of twenty-five parents who love their kids and give each other credit for having at least that in common.
We settled the money issues, talked about some ideas for next year, and all of it with a sort of easy camaraderie. I’ve been a part of this group for just short of three years; many of these people have known each other their entire lives. That’s reason enough to consider it a great honor to be asked to serve as their president.
It is astonishing how many of the people in the PTSA give the full measure of their devotion to our kids. All our kids. Not just the twenty-five or thirty kids directly represented in the room, but all of the more than two thousand kids here.
I am humbled by their hard work, and I can say with all honesty that I never felt quite adequate to the task they asked of me.
At the end of the meeting this evening, I stood up and admitted that I felt honored to be asked, two years ago, and that I had no idea at the time what that honor really meant. Now, I said, now I know. To have had the opportunity to work with such selfless people, to share a little in the satisfaction of their hard work, that has turned out to be the real honor. The honor doesn’t come from anything I might have done to deserve the post, but from the extraordinary people I’ve worked with.
By way of thanks, I presented each of the members of my executive board with a bottle of Pinot Noir. Nothing extravagant, just a good little wine that they could share with their spouses, all of whom have worked just as hard, but without any recognition at all.
I am so very grateful.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Let's Not Forget
Through all the talk about 6/6/06, try to remember that 62 years ago today, the Allies invaded Normandy and took the fight back to the Nazis. 10,000 Allied soldiers died on the beaches that day.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Doing My Irony
I wished I’d had a digital camera: this particular bumper sticker was of homemade quality, but there were several on the car’s tail expressing contempt for the Bush Administration. The one I’m compelled to write about in this instance read: “Overthrow the Facist Bush Regime!”
The sticker was on a sensible, environmentally-friendly, economy car, and though I’m sure that this is not fair, the image that popped into my head was of a passionately self-righteous, organic-cotton-muumuu-wearing woman in her early fifties who, on seeing video clips of Mr. Bush uncorking a particularly folksy malapropism, shrieks, “See? See?!?!?!? WE ELECTED AN IDIOT WHO CAN’T EVEN SPEAK THE LANGUAGE!”
As I said, I’m sure it’s not fair, but I’m a writer and I do enjoy my irony.
A footnote: When it occurred to me to look on the Internet for an image of a similar bumper sticker, I turned to Yahoo! and applied the following search phrase:
“facist regime” Bush
I discovered (to my delight) that there are no less than ten freaking pages of links, and no way to share this with you, my reader, without coming across like a sanctimonious prick.
(Of course, now my blog will be one of those links.)
The sticker was on a sensible, environmentally-friendly, economy car, and though I’m sure that this is not fair, the image that popped into my head was of a passionately self-righteous, organic-cotton-muumuu-wearing woman in her early fifties who, on seeing video clips of Mr. Bush uncorking a particularly folksy malapropism, shrieks, “See? See?!?!?!? WE ELECTED AN IDIOT WHO CAN’T EVEN SPEAK THE LANGUAGE!”
As I said, I’m sure it’s not fair, but I’m a writer and I do enjoy my irony.
A footnote: When it occurred to me to look on the Internet for an image of a similar bumper sticker, I turned to Yahoo! and applied the following search phrase:
“facist regime” Bush
I discovered (to my delight) that there are no less than ten freaking pages of links, and no way to share this with you, my reader, without coming across like a sanctimonious prick.
(Of course, now my blog will be one of those links.)
Friday, May 26, 2006
Memorial Day
A friend of mine sent me this thought today: A win-win situation: Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border, take the dirt and raise the levees in New Orleans, and then put the Florida alligators into the border moat! Any other problems you would like for me to solve?
Clever.
He also sent me this, which is timely, this being Memorial Day Weekend, and all. The music accompanying the slide show is from the movie, “Glory”, which is about the first US Army unit comprised entirely of Blacks.
The combination of the two got me to thinking about immigration and time spent in our nation’s service. One immigrant I met baffled me somewhat – we met in boot camp. He was a lunatic Brit from Liverpool…a “Liverpudlian”, as I have since learned…and twenty-seven years later, I remain astonished by his choice to join the Navy. Why? What was it about this country that inspired him to make such a choice?
If I may be permitted to put his choice into context, joining any branch of the military at the time was an unpopular thing to do; we were then just four years out of Vietnam, and a neatly-worn uniform nearly always came with the epithet, “Baby Killer”.
I never did get to talk to him about the reasons behind his choice. I was in awe of him simply for making it.
I have since met many immigrants, most of them Filipino, who were allowed to join the Navy by virtue of winning a lottery established for the purpose of limiting their recruiting numbers. One Filipino sailor I spoke with told me that many of his countrymen joined the US military to gain their US citizenship, a goal worth tremendous sacrifice. For them, the cost of a better life is paid up front.
During one man’s security background investigation, it was discovered that though he had already been serving for a dozen years and held a lower-level security clearance, he was not a US citizen. His mother had come from Mexico to be a cook for itinerant farm workers in central California, and had brought him and his brothers and sisters here when he was very young. He was serving his country.
President Theodore Roosevelt said, “In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all…we have room but for one sole loyalty and that is loyalty to the American people.”
You didn’t hear Teddy shouting, “All right, we’ll give some land to the niggers and the chinks, but WE DON’T WANT THE IRISH.” As Americans, we should all feel welcome here. Certainly, immigrant veterans have assimilated themselves by their very service.
He also said, “We have room for but one flag, and that is the American flag…” This morning, I read this post by my friend Betty. Towards the end, she writes, “At one point, the flashlight caught the image of the tattered flag I have had hanging on my porch since September 11, 2001. Last First Date Guy gasped in horror, immediately offering to take it down for me, to buy me a new one. Very calmly, I explained that I had a brand new flag in my foyer, but that I had no intention of taking the tattered flag down.
“I hung the flag that day because I was so proud to be an American, so proud to live in a country which could rise to the occasion, process our grief in a constructive way, help each other get through the cold night aftermath. Since then, I have been dismayed at the atrocities that have followed. I am appalled by the war, by the Patriot Act, by the dismantling of our civil rights, by the greed of the oil companies. I am confused by the hypocrisy of anger following the killing of American citizens by Iraqis, while the blood is still cooling in the bodies from the bombs we dropped on the homes of countless Iraqi women and children.“My flag reflects my dismay at the performance of our current president. I have not mutilated our country's flag, Mother Earth has. She is just as dismayed as I am. The wind and the rain has wreaked identical damage to my flag as George W. Bush has done to our country. My flag will fly until January 8, 2009, when his reign will finally be over.”
It goes without saying that I don’t share many of the sentiments Betty expressed, nor do I agree with some of her more emotional statements (quite the contrary; I take personal umbrage at the assertion that we dropped bombs on “the homes of countless Iraqi women and children”), but I am very grateful that we live in a country where she can write such things without fear of reprisal, where she can display a mutilated flag as a form of protest.
There are those among you who might be astonished at how much I do agree with her. I, too, am appalled by the USA PATRIOT Act*, the corporate juggernaut of greed, and by the way the war has been conducted.
I am deeply suspicious of the current debate about immigration, and whether it is indeed about the security of our borders. Why now, nearly five years after our border policy led directly to the loss of three thousand lives? Had President Bush announced immigration reform the day after 9/11, I might have understood such an argument. Now, however, I can’t escape the parallels with German National Socialism in the early 1930s. (No, I am not comparing Mr. Bush with Adolph Hitler. The President seems merely to be reacting to public outcry on the subject, and I believe there are far more sinister players on the field.)
Having spent my entire adult life in the service of the United States, first as an active duty sailor, and later as a consultant to the US Navy, I can’t help but think of all these things on a personal level. My direct experience of immigrants has been, on the whole, overwhelmingly positive. Surely, others must feel as I do.
At the end of Batman Begins, Police Lieutenant Gordon says to Batman, “I never got to say thank you.”
Batman replies, “And you’ll never have to.”
To Betty and to all Americans, whether you feel as she does or not, I must say that I am proud to be but one of the men and women (immigrants or the descendents of immigrants all) who have, over the course of some two hundred and thirty years, earned for you the privilege of hanging a tattered flag in front of your home.
No thanks are necessary.
* The “USA PATRIOT Act” is the correct title for Public Law 107-56. “USA PATRIOT” is an acronym which stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”.
Clever.
He also sent me this, which is timely, this being Memorial Day Weekend, and all. The music accompanying the slide show is from the movie, “Glory”, which is about the first US Army unit comprised entirely of Blacks.
The combination of the two got me to thinking about immigration and time spent in our nation’s service. One immigrant I met baffled me somewhat – we met in boot camp. He was a lunatic Brit from Liverpool…a “Liverpudlian”, as I have since learned…and twenty-seven years later, I remain astonished by his choice to join the Navy. Why? What was it about this country that inspired him to make such a choice?
If I may be permitted to put his choice into context, joining any branch of the military at the time was an unpopular thing to do; we were then just four years out of Vietnam, and a neatly-worn uniform nearly always came with the epithet, “Baby Killer”.
I never did get to talk to him about the reasons behind his choice. I was in awe of him simply for making it.
I have since met many immigrants, most of them Filipino, who were allowed to join the Navy by virtue of winning a lottery established for the purpose of limiting their recruiting numbers. One Filipino sailor I spoke with told me that many of his countrymen joined the US military to gain their US citizenship, a goal worth tremendous sacrifice. For them, the cost of a better life is paid up front.
During one man’s security background investigation, it was discovered that though he had already been serving for a dozen years and held a lower-level security clearance, he was not a US citizen. His mother had come from Mexico to be a cook for itinerant farm workers in central California, and had brought him and his brothers and sisters here when he was very young. He was serving his country.
President Theodore Roosevelt said, “In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all…we have room but for one sole loyalty and that is loyalty to the American people.”
You didn’t hear Teddy shouting, “All right, we’ll give some land to the niggers and the chinks, but WE DON’T WANT THE IRISH.” As Americans, we should all feel welcome here. Certainly, immigrant veterans have assimilated themselves by their very service.
He also said, “We have room for but one flag, and that is the American flag…” This morning, I read this post by my friend Betty. Towards the end, she writes, “At one point, the flashlight caught the image of the tattered flag I have had hanging on my porch since September 11, 2001. Last First Date Guy gasped in horror, immediately offering to take it down for me, to buy me a new one. Very calmly, I explained that I had a brand new flag in my foyer, but that I had no intention of taking the tattered flag down.
“I hung the flag that day because I was so proud to be an American, so proud to live in a country which could rise to the occasion, process our grief in a constructive way, help each other get through the cold night aftermath. Since then, I have been dismayed at the atrocities that have followed. I am appalled by the war, by the Patriot Act, by the dismantling of our civil rights, by the greed of the oil companies. I am confused by the hypocrisy of anger following the killing of American citizens by Iraqis, while the blood is still cooling in the bodies from the bombs we dropped on the homes of countless Iraqi women and children.“My flag reflects my dismay at the performance of our current president. I have not mutilated our country's flag, Mother Earth has. She is just as dismayed as I am. The wind and the rain has wreaked identical damage to my flag as George W. Bush has done to our country. My flag will fly until January 8, 2009, when his reign will finally be over.”
It goes without saying that I don’t share many of the sentiments Betty expressed, nor do I agree with some of her more emotional statements (quite the contrary; I take personal umbrage at the assertion that we dropped bombs on “the homes of countless Iraqi women and children”), but I am very grateful that we live in a country where she can write such things without fear of reprisal, where she can display a mutilated flag as a form of protest.
There are those among you who might be astonished at how much I do agree with her. I, too, am appalled by the USA PATRIOT Act*, the corporate juggernaut of greed, and by the way the war has been conducted.
I am deeply suspicious of the current debate about immigration, and whether it is indeed about the security of our borders. Why now, nearly five years after our border policy led directly to the loss of three thousand lives? Had President Bush announced immigration reform the day after 9/11, I might have understood such an argument. Now, however, I can’t escape the parallels with German National Socialism in the early 1930s. (No, I am not comparing Mr. Bush with Adolph Hitler. The President seems merely to be reacting to public outcry on the subject, and I believe there are far more sinister players on the field.)
Having spent my entire adult life in the service of the United States, first as an active duty sailor, and later as a consultant to the US Navy, I can’t help but think of all these things on a personal level. My direct experience of immigrants has been, on the whole, overwhelmingly positive. Surely, others must feel as I do.
At the end of Batman Begins, Police Lieutenant Gordon says to Batman, “I never got to say thank you.”
Batman replies, “And you’ll never have to.”
To Betty and to all Americans, whether you feel as she does or not, I must say that I am proud to be but one of the men and women (immigrants or the descendents of immigrants all) who have, over the course of some two hundred and thirty years, earned for you the privilege of hanging a tattered flag in front of your home.
No thanks are necessary.
* The “USA PATRIOT Act” is the correct title for Public Law 107-56. “USA PATRIOT” is an acronym which stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Belated Blogiversary
My glasses are not clean. Dr. Lori would consider this a sin, I know, so I will not tell her and I ask you to, please, keep this a secret between us. (Actually, Lori would be amused, even as she clicked her tongue at me. We began our friendship as chat room compatriots, graduated to sailing buddies, then had a standing arrangement to be each other’s New Year’s date if we were both unattached, and now she is my eye doctor. And for the record, the New Year’s thing lasted less than a year. But, I digress.)
So I am sitting here with unclean glasses, listening to the iTunes playlist entitled “mix”, but which has become my “writing mix”. I’d rename it, but that would screw up the convenient alphabetical place it currently occupies. At the moment, it is playing a very cool tune from the Kill Bill Vol. I soundtrack called “Battle Without Honor or Humanity”. This tune is so cool that when I play it in the car, I drive like a fighter pilot…the kind of guy Sihaya calls a “multi-zippered sun god”. The song makes me want to wear leather and walk in slow motion.
Aside: Is anyone else annoyed by the fact that the WB’s Pepper Dennis uses KT Tunstall’s “Black Horse & The Cherry Tree” as a theme song? Maybe they just play a snippet of it for the commercials, to send the message that this show is supposed to be hip even if it is about a dorky-but-hot chick. Which means she’s still a dork, even if she is hot. Seriously, how many variations on the “pie-in-a-pretty-girl’s-face” theme can there be?
Back from aside: I know I’m several weeks late for the traditional Blogiversary Post, as it’s been almost thirteen months since I began this blog. It began with this promise: “…I am going to document the process of dieting and exercise and self-reclamation here...and intersperse the whole thing with tales of single fatherhood, friendship, volunteerism, career headaches, growing older, girl-watching, dating, and if I'm very lucky...sex.”
How have I done with that? Have I lived up to my self-imposed obligation?
For starters, you could read everything I’ve written after that first post and not find anything about dieting and exercise. Sorry…not much of that has been going on here.
I have, however written about connecting with my daughters.
I’ve shared my thoughts on simply being friends with a woman. I confess that I am still mystified at what motivates a woman in the romance department, but these days, I am not complaining.
There have been a few posts inspired by the volunteer work I’ve done, such as this one on the cost of education, and this one on simply being the PTSA President at my daughter’s school.
I know I said I’d talk about career headaches, but really haven’t had many to speak of. There was this one, and as an update, I have to say that the guy I flame sprayed is still the same. After he was disrespectful to B in an e-mail he sent to the entire command, B’s boss suggested that he and I hold him down while B beats some sense into him.
I’ve talked some about dating, mentioning a brief crush and a number of interesting dates that didn’t lead anywhere. I’m not dating any more, having been taken off the market. Last Friday night, Sihaya said that she feels a bit like she’s cheating, that being able to read my blog gives her an unfair advantage in getting to know me. She has nothing like it to offer in return. I replied that I can be patient; that I can wait for my knowledge of her to unfold over time. I like that she has access to thoughts I had before I knew she existed, and that those thoughts make me more attractive to her.
At some point in that conversation, I made her cry – in a good way – and no, I’m not going to write about what was said. She returned the favor the next night, but then, she does have an unfair advantage.
This has been a good year – writing here and sharing my thoughts elsewhere has brought me into contact with a number of people I deeply respect and admire, none of whom would ever have been more than phantoms at the barely visible fringes of my awareness otherwise. I am intensely grateful for such friendships.
Thanks for reading.
So I am sitting here with unclean glasses, listening to the iTunes playlist entitled “mix”, but which has become my “writing mix”. I’d rename it, but that would screw up the convenient alphabetical place it currently occupies. At the moment, it is playing a very cool tune from the Kill Bill Vol. I soundtrack called “Battle Without Honor or Humanity”. This tune is so cool that when I play it in the car, I drive like a fighter pilot…the kind of guy Sihaya calls a “multi-zippered sun god”. The song makes me want to wear leather and walk in slow motion.
Aside: Is anyone else annoyed by the fact that the WB’s Pepper Dennis uses KT Tunstall’s “Black Horse & The Cherry Tree” as a theme song? Maybe they just play a snippet of it for the commercials, to send the message that this show is supposed to be hip even if it is about a dorky-but-hot chick. Which means she’s still a dork, even if she is hot. Seriously, how many variations on the “pie-in-a-pretty-girl’s-face” theme can there be?
Back from aside: I know I’m several weeks late for the traditional Blogiversary Post, as it’s been almost thirteen months since I began this blog. It began with this promise: “…I am going to document the process of dieting and exercise and self-reclamation here...and intersperse the whole thing with tales of single fatherhood, friendship, volunteerism, career headaches, growing older, girl-watching, dating, and if I'm very lucky...sex.”
How have I done with that? Have I lived up to my self-imposed obligation?
For starters, you could read everything I’ve written after that first post and not find anything about dieting and exercise. Sorry…not much of that has been going on here.
I have, however written about connecting with my daughters.
I’ve shared my thoughts on simply being friends with a woman. I confess that I am still mystified at what motivates a woman in the romance department, but these days, I am not complaining.
There have been a few posts inspired by the volunteer work I’ve done, such as this one on the cost of education, and this one on simply being the PTSA President at my daughter’s school.
I know I said I’d talk about career headaches, but really haven’t had many to speak of. There was this one, and as an update, I have to say that the guy I flame sprayed is still the same. After he was disrespectful to B in an e-mail he sent to the entire command, B’s boss suggested that he and I hold him down while B beats some sense into him.
I’ve talked some about dating, mentioning a brief crush and a number of interesting dates that didn’t lead anywhere. I’m not dating any more, having been taken off the market. Last Friday night, Sihaya said that she feels a bit like she’s cheating, that being able to read my blog gives her an unfair advantage in getting to know me. She has nothing like it to offer in return. I replied that I can be patient; that I can wait for my knowledge of her to unfold over time. I like that she has access to thoughts I had before I knew she existed, and that those thoughts make me more attractive to her.
At some point in that conversation, I made her cry – in a good way – and no, I’m not going to write about what was said. She returned the favor the next night, but then, she does have an unfair advantage.
This has been a good year – writing here and sharing my thoughts elsewhere has brought me into contact with a number of people I deeply respect and admire, none of whom would ever have been more than phantoms at the barely visible fringes of my awareness otherwise. I am intensely grateful for such friendships.
Thanks for reading.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)