I woke up at 4:30 yesterday morning, a full hour and a half before my alarm (two hours before I normally get up, as I tend to hit snooze a lot). I hadn't slept much through the night, maybe three or four hours. I decided to give up, go downstairs, allow myself to just be up. As I made a pot of coffee, turned on the computer, pushed the confused dogs off the couch, the thoughts that had been spinning around and keeping me up all night began to take a little clearer shape. Nothing new, really, the same sort of things that have been spinning and whirring for a few months now. For some reason, though, I found that the thoughts went back over and over again to where, who, and what I was ten years ago. Not in any sort of nostalgiac sense. Not out of a desire to be twenty-three again, not a romanticizing of the past. Rather, there was a sense of wondering if maybe I'd forgotten somethign I used to know, or that there might be things I could learn from the past, or perhaps somewhere along the way a wrong turn was made that could still be corrected.
The thoughts went mostly like this:
Ten years ago I lived in a big three story house with two other guys. It had probably once been a nice place, but it was a little bit run down, a lot drafty, and in a bad part of town, so rent was cheap. There was a decent amount of petty crime and burlgarly and such in the area (the first night I moved in, a guy who had been getting beaten to shit in the park down the street ran into our house and started crying on the stairs, trying to find a place to hide from the gang of guys pacing up and down the street waiting for him), but for the roughly two years that we lived there, no one ever really gave us a hard time. One roommate was an ex-Marine who liked to keep his skills sharp by rapelling out of the third story window in camouflage, guns occasionally went in and out of the house, most of the people who hung out there had shaved heads and permanent scowls, and one could usually hear Slayer or hardcore punk coming through the windows.
I moved into the house with all my worldy possessions packed neatly into my small Ford Tempo (I may have made a second trip, but definitely not a third) that I'd bought from a friend of a friend for $300. I slept every day on a single mattress on the floor until the girl I was dating at the time (who stayed there 5 or 6 nights a week) finally convinced me to spend my tax return on a bed with a frame. Most of the clothes I owned had been picked up at garage sales (my favorite jeans actually just "manifested" one day on my bedroom floor... nobody ever claimed them, so they became mine). The living room and dining room furniture-- all of it clean and sturdy-- came mostly from sidewalks and front lawns, with a few items donated by a friend or family member. We had no cable and no desire for cable, but we did have an old tv and a vcr and often ran down to the local video store and rented movies. We had no computer and, of course, no cell phones.
In the winter, we were cold, but we lived. None of us had much money. One roommate worked at a call center for maybe $7.50 an hour, another worked at U-Haul for about $8 an hour. I worked at a hospital for just about $6.75. I wasn't full time, didn't have insurance. I worked about 25 to 30 hours a week unloading trucks, stocking freezers, and cleaning up store rooms in the kitchen area. Because it was physical work, I was in pretty good shape (I thought I was a little too chunky at the time, but when I look back at pictures from that time period, I can't believe I was ever so thin). And it was only about 2 miles from the house, so when I decided I didn't want to keep paying for insurance to keep my car on the road, I could either walk or ride a bike every day.
Free time, which there was an abundance of, was thoroughly enjoyed. I read a lot (15 to 20 books a year, I think). I meditated almost daily on an old ratty rug that I'd found in the attic. I played music as often as possible, writing and recording acoustic music on a beat up 4 track recorder in my bedroom, playing in alternative and punkish bands that never went beyond various basements. My roommates and I went to bars a few nights a week to see local bands playing and to drink cheap, cheap beer. We made twice weekly trips to Clinton to sit in a coffee shop and get hopped up on iced cappucinos while listening to poetry slams, then walk around town wound up and venting all of our big ideas in the fresh air. We ate meals together, usually boxed macaroni and cheese or veggie burgers cooked on the grill year round on our tiny back porch or disgusting Velveeta nachos or canned, store brand soup. We obsessed over women, Scorcese movies, and the new Tool album.
Overall, it was a pretty good life. Close friends, lots of free time, creativity. There were rough times, sure. The girl I dated back then was a thoroughly bad person (really, I mean it, I'm not just a bitter ex) who often put all of us through agony. And being poor in a big, drafty house meant that we could never afford to keep the place warm in the winter and so spent a lot of time being sick (really sick, black chunks on your pillow in the morning sick). And there were the typical roommate squabbles which at twenty-three seem so big, so important. But the balance, to be sure, went to happiness.
Ten years later, I find that my situation has changed in almost every imaginable way. A lot of it happened without my noticing it, a lot of it is just the standard stuff of growing older (there are a number of drunken episodes, hilarious at the time, which just wouldn't be funny at all today).
My house is smaller (slightly) but still plenty big, and much, much nicer. In a better neighborhood. We own it. Some of the furniture is second hand, some new, all of it nice. I sleep in a king size bed. I get my clothes from actual stores. I own a suit. I own several ties. I keep my clothes in a closet and in a nice dresser instead of in an old foot locker next to the mattress. I have a yard. Two dogs. A wife. A pregnant wife.
My work is more meaningful (managing a couple of programs for a human services agency), but also takes a lot more time. Instead of 25 hours a week, I put in 50 or more. And the commute isn't a five minute bike ride, but a 45 minute drive on the thruway. In order to make that commute every day, I have to have a decent car, spend time and money keeping it in good condition, pay thruway tolls, etc. To make the commute enjoyable, I have a decent cd player in the car. To keep the cd player in the car (the first one was removed by bandits in the night) I have a decent alarm system.
Our house has cable. The channels go up to 700-something. We have DVR. A laptop. High speed internet. A couple of cell phones. Thousands of cds. I spend a lot of time on the computer (accomplishing what, I'm not always so sure) and a lot of time talking to people I'd prefer not to talk to (usually work stuff) on my cell phone.
The thousand or so books we have no longer fit on milk crate and board makeshift shelves, so we have 6 sets of book cases. My worldly possessions no longer fit in my car. When we moved into the house, we rented a U-Haul truck. We filled it twice. Moving took a long time.
I still play my guitars, but I do so infrequently, and usually alone (I get the chance at random moments, haven't been able to fit in that three times a week band practice thing). I still drink my beer, but it's not cheap beer in bars watching local bands, but rather expensive beer on my couch after a long day of work. Dinner is no longer boxed macaroni and cheese but rather (often fairly expensive) vegan, organic homemade stuff; a fancy dinner out isn't a trip to Taco Bell, but a trip to a trendy, veg-friendly, arty Mexican restaurant.
I know longer meditate on a ratty rug, but on an expensive cushion bought out of a Dharma Crafts catalog. My job involves a lot of sitting down and staying still, so over those ten years I've gained about thirty pounds. To combat that, I try to take time out every day to exercise.
When I look at all the changes-- I work twice as many hours, make far more money, have more things in my house, drive a nicer car, eat more expensive food, spend less time with friends, read more books, spend more time on the computer, and so on and on and on-- it's hard to see it all as "progress."
To be sure, the balance is still toward happiness. And to be sure, there are many areas of my life I can point to and say "this is better." I'm lucky enough to have a wonderful, really truly wonderful, wife, and no amount of nostalgia could ever make me want to go back to a time or place without her. I've gained information and experience over the years that has helped me live life, in some ways at least, closer to my values, has helped me to define those values in the first place. I've gained more appreciation for family. I'm looking forward to the joy of raising a son. I have the money to support things that I care about ($6.75 an hour never left much for Farm Sanctuary or UNICEF or even that struggling local band's tip jar).
It seems, though, that the areas where my life has improved and the areas where I feel I've "forgotten something" or "made sacrifices" aren't directly connected, and so I can't help wondering what those sacrifices were for, if they were worth it. I work twice as many hours and can now afford twice as much stuff; but that stuff didn't help me fall in love with my wife. I commute an hour and a half each day so that I can afford cable; cable hasn't helped me appreciate family, hasn't brought me closer to living my values. It seems that most of the truly good things in life are things I would have grown into anyway. I didn't have to make a trade.
And so I keep asking myself, as I have for months now, "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?"
And answering, with a little uncertainty as to the details, not always sure what it might mean, "The land to which God has brought you is not like the land of Egypt from which you came out. You can no longer live here as you lived there."
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Hey, Beth...
Here's a link to that New Yorker piece I was talking about at lunch today.
For those who weren't in on the conversation, I was talking about Bush's short-lived sense of "bipartisanship" following the last elections and refered to a great Hendrik Hertzberg piece from the December 4 issue.
The article notes that at almost the same time Bush was sitting with Nancy Pelosi and vowing to "find common ground" and "overcome the temptation to divide this country between red and blue," his Press Office was announcing that his nomination of John Bolton for Ambassador to the United Nations was being resubmitted. John Bolton, who even a Republican senate wouldn't accept the first time around and had to be snuck in with back door tactics, who sixty-four former Ambassadors and diplomats have referred to in a letter as possessing "egotistical intolerance," "arrogant actions," a guy who they say "has alienated the bulk of the diplomatic community and cost the United States its leadership role."
Even better, a week after the photo-op with Pelosi and the "reach across the aisle" back-slapping rhetoric, Bush renominated Kenneth Tomlinson to be chair of the agency that oversees Voice Of America and other overseas operations. Tomlinson's qualification seems mostly to be his friendship with Karl Rove... he resigned from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting after he was caught violating rules there, and was busted prior to that for using another position to support a horse racing operation.
Or even better, just a day after the Tomlinson renomination, Bush renominated four of his candidates for federal courts of appeals: 1, "a former Interior Department attorney and mining and ranching lobbyist who sees the Clean Water Act as 'regulatory excess,'" 2, "a district-court judge whose decision have been reversed or vacated more than a hundred and fifty times," 3, "a Defense Department lawyer who has been denounced by a score of retired generals and admirals," and 4, "a former aide to Senator Trent Lott who is the first federa-appeals-court nominee in a quarter of a century to be unanimously rated 'not qualified' by the American Bar Assocation."
But best of all, the one that makes me chuckle. A day later, Bush appointed Eric Keroack to a position at the Department of Health and Human Services. Keroack will oversee the program that "distributes contraceptives to poor or uninsured women," despite the fact that he was previously the medical director of a right wing group that thinks distributing birth control is "demeaning to women," despite his views on oxytocin, or "God's Super Glue." Oxytocin is a hormone "released during certain enjoyable activities, including hugging, massage, and, of course, sex. It is also, according to Keroack, the fluid that keeps married couples bound to each other. Therefore, if a young woman squanders her supply on too much fooling around, she can forget about ever becoming a committed wife."
For those who weren't in on the conversation, I was talking about Bush's short-lived sense of "bipartisanship" following the last elections and refered to a great Hendrik Hertzberg piece from the December 4 issue.
The article notes that at almost the same time Bush was sitting with Nancy Pelosi and vowing to "find common ground" and "overcome the temptation to divide this country between red and blue," his Press Office was announcing that his nomination of John Bolton for Ambassador to the United Nations was being resubmitted. John Bolton, who even a Republican senate wouldn't accept the first time around and had to be snuck in with back door tactics, who sixty-four former Ambassadors and diplomats have referred to in a letter as possessing "egotistical intolerance," "arrogant actions," a guy who they say "has alienated the bulk of the diplomatic community and cost the United States its leadership role."
Even better, a week after the photo-op with Pelosi and the "reach across the aisle" back-slapping rhetoric, Bush renominated Kenneth Tomlinson to be chair of the agency that oversees Voice Of America and other overseas operations. Tomlinson's qualification seems mostly to be his friendship with Karl Rove... he resigned from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting after he was caught violating rules there, and was busted prior to that for using another position to support a horse racing operation.
Or even better, just a day after the Tomlinson renomination, Bush renominated four of his candidates for federal courts of appeals: 1, "a former Interior Department attorney and mining and ranching lobbyist who sees the Clean Water Act as 'regulatory excess,'" 2, "a district-court judge whose decision have been reversed or vacated more than a hundred and fifty times," 3, "a Defense Department lawyer who has been denounced by a score of retired generals and admirals," and 4, "a former aide to Senator Trent Lott who is the first federa-appeals-court nominee in a quarter of a century to be unanimously rated 'not qualified' by the American Bar Assocation."
But best of all, the one that makes me chuckle. A day later, Bush appointed Eric Keroack to a position at the Department of Health and Human Services. Keroack will oversee the program that "distributes contraceptives to poor or uninsured women," despite the fact that he was previously the medical director of a right wing group that thinks distributing birth control is "demeaning to women," despite his views on oxytocin, or "God's Super Glue." Oxytocin is a hormone "released during certain enjoyable activities, including hugging, massage, and, of course, sex. It is also, according to Keroack, the fluid that keeps married couples bound to each other. Therefore, if a young woman squanders her supply on too much fooling around, she can forget about ever becoming a committed wife."
Thursday, December 21, 2006
The Rest Of The Posts I Didn't Write
Frisbees And Marbles
Faith And Chili Peppers
But you'll have to use your imagination.
Faith And Chili Peppers
But you'll have to use your imagination.
Posts I Didn't Write: 88 Lines About 44 Books
Now that would have been an especially clever title if:
- everyone was familiar with the old Nails song
- I read 44 books this year
- I could limit myself to writing a two line review about each
I started the year off with an intense desire-- a resolution, even-- to read 52 books in 2006. I quickly learned that that was a stupid resolution to make, as I thoroughly enjoy reading and trying to follow a schedule was making one of my very favorite things much less fun. So I dropped the resolution, but couldn't stop counting in my head. I figure in January I'll be free of this damn game, but for now I'll finish what I started. I personally hate lists, but we live in a list culture (Top 40 Metal Moments, 5 Best Celebrity Weddings, 100 Greatest Moments In TV History) and I'm a product of that culture, so here you are. The 2006 reading list went like this:
- A Man Without A Country (Kurt Vonnegut)
- Fates Worse Than Death (Kurt Vonnegut)
- Letters To Malcolm (C.S. Lewis)
- Out Of The Silent Planet (C.S. Lewis)
- Perelandra (C.S. Lewis)
- That Hideous Strenght (C.S. Lewis)
- The Tremor Of Intent (Anthony Burgess)
- If The War Goes On... (Hermann Hesse)
- 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Fight The Right
- The Origins Of The Palestine-Israel Conflict
- The Way We Eat (Peter Singer, Jim Mason)
- All Ages: Reflections On Straight-Edge (Beth Lahickey)
- "Sakuntala" (Kasadeva...?)
- "Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead" (Tom Stoppard)
- The Seven-Storey Mountain (Thomas Merton)
- My Master's Robe (Thich Nhat Hanh)
- Peace Is Every Step (Thich Nhat Hanh)
- Kerygma And Myth (Rudolph Bultmann)
- Confessions (Leo Tolstoy)
- Lost In The Cosmos (Percy Walker)
- Burying The Black Sox (Gene Carney)
- Zen 24/7 (something or other Sudo)
- Everyday Zen (Charlotte Joko Beck)
- Buddhism Without Beliefs (Stephen Batchelor)
- The Way Of Zen (Alan Watts)
- The Bhagavad-Gita
- The Higher Taste (The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust)
- My Ishmael (Daniel Quinn)
- The Expectant Father (Armin Brott)
- Vermintide (Bruno Lee)
- Living Simply With Children (Marie Sherlock)
- Without Sin: The Life And Death Of The Oneida Community (Spencer Klaw)
- Hardcore Zen (Brad Warner)
- Lonesome Traveler (Jack Kerouac)
- The Last Of Danu's Children (Alison Bush)
- 1984 (George Orwell)
- Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
- Anthem (Ayn Rand)
Standouts?
My Ishmael was a truly amazing book. It was exactly the thing I needed to read, exactly the moment I needed to read it. It was the best thing, I think, that I've read in several years.
The Seven-Storey Mountain hit a similar nerve. Retreat from the world and whatnot.
Without Sin had a similar appeal (the community lifestyle more than the complex marriage).
Burying The Black Sox was a good, good book, and not just because the author bought me a burrito last Friday.
Hardcore Zen is one of the better Zen books I've ever read.
Lost In The Cosmos convinced me to take naps more often. I don't think that was the point, but that's what I really took from it, and I appreciate it for that (I'm much better rested these days).
The Way We Eat is one of the better books I've read on veganism, organics, etc. It's not as hard-hitting as Animal Liberation and other classics, but I think this would be more appealing to people not willing to take the plunge, might be more convincing than some of the tougher rhetoric.
Next year... I might finally read The Lord Of The Rings (how is it that a 33 year old lifelong sci-fi/fantasy nerd has never read these). Or finally make it all the way through The Brothers Karamozov. Or read a book by a Republican. Or Buddha Da. Or Dharma Punx. Or one of so many books I've discussed through my Voluntary Simplicity workbook.
Posts I Didn't Write: My Name Is Ludd
This one goes back. Back to the beginning of my current hiatus. It's gone through a few transformations. Originally, it had a lot to do with music. But now it's changed a bit, and if I were to write it, it would go something like this:
Probably my very favorite place to be these days is the Farm Sanctuary outside of Watkins Glen. I get there only a couple of times a year, but I mention it to people as often as I can, and thoroughly enjoy every opportunity I get to visit. This past summer, my wife and I had the chance to rent a cabin and spend a couple of days there. It will always be memorable... if not for the happy cows and playful chickens, then for the fact that a bottle of blueberry wine, a brilliantly starry sky, and a general feeling of peace and contentment may have led to the good news we've been sharing with family and friends these past couple of months: in May, we'll be having our first child.
In the time between that first test and this week's second sonogram, my wife and I (and most of my family) had taken to calling the baby "Nikoma." Not yet knowing the sex, and not happy with the idea of referring to him or her as "it," we had to go with something. When I was five and my mother was pregnant with my sister, I'd begged her to name the new baby after the loyal Indian sidekick in my favorite television show, "Grizzly Adams." No dice then, but the name sort of stuck this time.
Monday we got a clear look at Nikoma and had the choice of whether or not to find out the sex. We went with it and learned that we'll be having a baby boy. Which makes it a "Sam." No more need for "Nikoma" (though I'm guessing we may be calling him "Nicky" now and then for years to come).
The following day, I scanned the sonogram picture at the office, emailed it to myself, and, returning home that night, attempted to email it out to my family.
For some reason-- and I still haven't figured this out-- it didn't quite work. Some program at the office was incompatible with something at home or something or the other thing or I don't know what. I was told that I needed to download a program in order to send the picture, but I had to download three other things in order to get that program, and so on and so forth. In the end, I spent roughly an hour hammering away at the keyboard, watching progress meters, and becoming more and more frustrated before finally giving up, sending out the best version of the picture I could, and going to bed irritated.
And it occured to me, as it often does lately, how disillusioned I've become this past years with the whole notion of "progress" and "technology." With gadgets, conveniences, time savers, electronics.
It occured to me that I'll be seeing my entire family this weekend for Christmas, and that, if I did not have email and a scanner, the situation would be different, but no worse. I would have walked into the Christmas gathering, shown the picture to the family. They would have responded with ooos and ahhhs and jokes and congratulations. And they would have been content. No one would have thought "if only I'd seen this last Tuesday, things would be better." But because I do have email and scanner, because they do have those things, there's a different expectation, a different standard. And while there certainly wasn't any pressure (my mom didn't exactly call with threats), there was in a sense the creation of a need, followed by an unnecessary frustration. An hour that could have been used to read a book or to have a conversation or to just sit down and relax (just imagine such a thing) was spent fighting with a machine, pushing buttons, getting irritated. Modern convenience turned out to be anything but.
And this is a theme with me lately, something I can't really get out of my head. It's not just about computers. It's not just cell phones (I truly, truly despise mine). It's about the way we live in general. The things we crave in order to make our lives easier end up making them more complex, more uneasy. The work place has become more and more mechanized and efficient, yet most of us work longer and longer hours. Our homes have become filled with gadgets to assist us with every task, yet we're busier, more stressed, less at peace with ourselves, less in touch with the people we love. Every supposed "advance" brings more aggravation into our lives.
I've finally reached a point where I'm tired of it. Where the foolishness of so much of it seems painfully clear to me. I don't want any more. I want, I suppose, a "moratorium on progress." We've got enough. We've learned how to be innovative. Now it's time to learn how to be satisfied.
Yeah. That's more or less how it would have gone. Maybe an edit here and there, a little more effort to make things flow. But that's the gist.
Probably my very favorite place to be these days is the Farm Sanctuary outside of Watkins Glen. I get there only a couple of times a year, but I mention it to people as often as I can, and thoroughly enjoy every opportunity I get to visit. This past summer, my wife and I had the chance to rent a cabin and spend a couple of days there. It will always be memorable... if not for the happy cows and playful chickens, then for the fact that a bottle of blueberry wine, a brilliantly starry sky, and a general feeling of peace and contentment may have led to the good news we've been sharing with family and friends these past couple of months: in May, we'll be having our first child.
In the time between that first test and this week's second sonogram, my wife and I (and most of my family) had taken to calling the baby "Nikoma." Not yet knowing the sex, and not happy with the idea of referring to him or her as "it," we had to go with something. When I was five and my mother was pregnant with my sister, I'd begged her to name the new baby after the loyal Indian sidekick in my favorite television show, "Grizzly Adams." No dice then, but the name sort of stuck this time.
Monday we got a clear look at Nikoma and had the choice of whether or not to find out the sex. We went with it and learned that we'll be having a baby boy. Which makes it a "Sam." No more need for "Nikoma" (though I'm guessing we may be calling him "Nicky" now and then for years to come).
The following day, I scanned the sonogram picture at the office, emailed it to myself, and, returning home that night, attempted to email it out to my family.
For some reason-- and I still haven't figured this out-- it didn't quite work. Some program at the office was incompatible with something at home or something or the other thing or I don't know what. I was told that I needed to download a program in order to send the picture, but I had to download three other things in order to get that program, and so on and so forth. In the end, I spent roughly an hour hammering away at the keyboard, watching progress meters, and becoming more and more frustrated before finally giving up, sending out the best version of the picture I could, and going to bed irritated.
And it occured to me, as it often does lately, how disillusioned I've become this past years with the whole notion of "progress" and "technology." With gadgets, conveniences, time savers, electronics.
It occured to me that I'll be seeing my entire family this weekend for Christmas, and that, if I did not have email and a scanner, the situation would be different, but no worse. I would have walked into the Christmas gathering, shown the picture to the family. They would have responded with ooos and ahhhs and jokes and congratulations. And they would have been content. No one would have thought "if only I'd seen this last Tuesday, things would be better." But because I do have email and scanner, because they do have those things, there's a different expectation, a different standard. And while there certainly wasn't any pressure (my mom didn't exactly call with threats), there was in a sense the creation of a need, followed by an unnecessary frustration. An hour that could have been used to read a book or to have a conversation or to just sit down and relax (just imagine such a thing) was spent fighting with a machine, pushing buttons, getting irritated. Modern convenience turned out to be anything but.
And this is a theme with me lately, something I can't really get out of my head. It's not just about computers. It's not just cell phones (I truly, truly despise mine). It's about the way we live in general. The things we crave in order to make our lives easier end up making them more complex, more uneasy. The work place has become more and more mechanized and efficient, yet most of us work longer and longer hours. Our homes have become filled with gadgets to assist us with every task, yet we're busier, more stressed, less at peace with ourselves, less in touch with the people we love. Every supposed "advance" brings more aggravation into our lives.
I've finally reached a point where I'm tired of it. Where the foolishness of so much of it seems painfully clear to me. I don't want any more. I want, I suppose, a "moratorium on progress." We've got enough. We've learned how to be innovative. Now it's time to learn how to be satisfied.
Yeah. That's more or less how it would have gone. Maybe an edit here and there, a little more effort to make things flow. But that's the gist.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Posts I Didn't Write
These past couple of months, I've wanted to write so many things, gotten to the keyboard (or near it, at least), and found myself without the ambition, the time, the focus. Opportunities for fulfilling rants or the sharing of deep, deep insights have passed by.
A couple of weeks ago, for instance, in keeping with my tradition of venomous, partisan political posts, I almost sat down and wrote a little something about Dick Cheney. It was a Friday night, and on the way to Rome to visit my mother I happened to turn on NPR's Fresh Air. I didn't have time to listen to the whole thing, but caught part of a conversation with Ben Karlin, one of the guys behind The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Karlin told a story about his trip to the ranch where Dick famously shot his friend in the face. What he described was more than a little creepy. According to Karlin, what happens there is a far cry from "hunting." It goes, if memory serves me, more or less like this: rich men show up, and are taken by staff to view birds kept in cages. They have the opportunity to hand pick the birds that they would like to kill. The cages are then loaded into the backs of trucks. The courageous "hunters" ride up front. The rich men get out, load there guns, and stand waiting while ranch staff take the cages behind some bushes. The staff then turn the cages upside down and shake the birds out. The birds, coming out upside down and hitting the ground, are disoriented, giving the staff a moment to get out of the way and giving the rich men a chance to aim their guns. As the birds try to fly into the air, the rich men kill them.
And I don't know, but that seems a little unnerving. I'm a vegan, sure, and maybe a little biased, but, believe me, I get hunting, I understand it. What I don't exactly get is rich men paying people large sums of money for the chance to kill small caged animals. It's not the sort of hobby I like the Vice President of my country to have. I mean, when teenagers mutilate and kill small animals for pure enjoyment, we generally send them to therapy, worry that this is going to turn into a bigger problem. What about this makes Dick not a potential sociopath? (Potential? I'm being generous. Bodies piling up in Iraq, deals cut for personal gain, complete disregard for other human beings... there may be a pattern here.)
But I didn't write that. Nor did I write Obfuscation. That one was originally going to give me the chance to vent about a whole lot of what was going on leading up to the November elections. The whole Rush Limbaugh/Michael J. Fox fiasco comes immediately to mind. If you tuned into Rush's show on day 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 of that controversy (as I did, loving every aching, painful, angry minute of it), you would have heard Rush apologizing over and over again for incorrectly saying that it seemed as if Michael J. Fox had forgotten to take his meds for Parkinson's. You would have thought that he made a simple error, and had been proven wrong, and you might have wondered what the fuss was about. Had you tuned in on day 1, however, you would have heard little or nothing about Fox's meds, and a whole lot about Fox "acting" (which, according to Rush, was never intended to mean anything at all like "faking") sicker than he really was in a campaign commercial, deliberately "hamming up" his symptoms, shaking, making them more visible. You would have heard a "maybe he forgot his meds" comment as a derisive, insulting aside, but the main point would have been clear: Fox is a liar.
When you make an ass of yourself or simply find that you're on the wrong side of an issue, the easy way out, it seems, is just to pretend you said something else. Better yet, if you find yourself without facts or persuasive ethical standards to back you up, you can still try to win an argument by using the same word for two very different things, and then, through repetition, convincing people that those things really are synonomous. Herbivore Magazine caught Shaunti Feldhahn doing this in a recent issue. Twice.
First, Shaunti discusses animal rights. She doesn't define it, of course. An absolute definition of "animal rights" isn't simple (neither is a definition of "human rights"), but most look something like the one given here: "The right to humane treatment claimed on behalf of animals, especially the right not be exploited for human purposes." Agree or disagree, but that sounds fairly accurate. By not defining it and pretending that she has no idea that such a definition exists (how could she write on the topic and not have a clue?), she is able to mix the word up with another kind of "rights," allowing here to close her argument with a quote from David Martosko: "...if you want to give rights to animals, then they should expect to embrace responsibility in return. As soon as chickens can make a sensible decision at the ballot box and pay taxes, they can have rights. Until then, chicken is for dinner." Brilliant, right? Puts all arguments to rest. (Hey, until a fetus can make a sensible decision at the ballot box and pay taxes... until your mentally retarded uncle Steven can make a sensible decision at the ballot box... until your 9 month old can make a sensible decision...). Then Shaunti tackles the issue of "violence," again using two definitions, then bringing them together to hide the fact that she hasn't actually made a persuasive moral argument. In definition 1, "violence" is the close confinement, lifetime of pain, and often ghastly death inflicted on billions and billions of animals every year (I don't know the exact number, but it's high; in this country alone, 8 billion chickens are slaughtered annually). In definition 2, "violence" is the occasional breaking of locks or destruction of property utilized by animal rights activists to free animals or raise awareness. Pretending that those two definitions mean the same thing, Shaunti is able to say "It is ironic that animal-rights groups that use violence to demand that everyone else take responsibility, are so unwilling to look at their own." And I guess it's ironic that someone who makes her living using words would have such a blatant disregard for clear and meaningful language.
But we don't expect any better. And that was to be the point of a post called Low Expectations. This election, Republicans in my area posed as Democrats and used auto-dialers to call potential supporters of Dan Maffei, hoping that if they called often enough, at inconvenient times, they would discourage some of those potential voters from going to the polls and thus give their candidate the edge. Is it illegal? Yep. But they started it with only a few days left till the election, knowing that there would be no time for the Democrats to mount a response and get legal action through to stop them. And their candidate-- Walsh-- won. Then there's that whole Kerry thing. When Kerry made his admittedly stupid comment (you know, getting "stuck" in Iraq) before the election, Republicans went ape-shit, just couldn't believe how much disrespect he had for the troops. And some of them, being blinded by their ideologies, might have believed their own nonsense, might have been sincere. Bill O'Reilly, however, saw things clearly, and said so. On his show (I can't remember the date, hence no link), he stated in no uncertain terms that he was absolutely sure that Kerry didn't mean his comment to be disrespectful to the troops, that as much as he didn't like Kerry, he understood that it was a botched joke. He said that he was fairly certain that Bush understood this as well. Then he went on to compliment Bush for pretending to be so offended by the comment, said that that was as it should be, that Republicans should use this against Kerry, exploit it. In very, very clear terms, he advocated dishonesty, obfuscation, bending words, exploiting minor errors, pretense.
And we accept this. We expect it. We don't even expect decency, honesty, integrity, fair play. We fully expect our politicians to attempt to mislead us, to trick us, to play dirty. We don't want the "best" person to win, only the most ruthless, the most cunning. Where's the pitchforks and torches? Where's the righteous indignation? No time for it, I suppose, what with all the big sales, high tech games, new gadgest, and pretty twinkling lights to stare at.
Well, I had more. It'll have to wait.
A couple of weeks ago, for instance, in keeping with my tradition of venomous, partisan political posts, I almost sat down and wrote a little something about Dick Cheney. It was a Friday night, and on the way to Rome to visit my mother I happened to turn on NPR's Fresh Air. I didn't have time to listen to the whole thing, but caught part of a conversation with Ben Karlin, one of the guys behind The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Karlin told a story about his trip to the ranch where Dick famously shot his friend in the face. What he described was more than a little creepy. According to Karlin, what happens there is a far cry from "hunting." It goes, if memory serves me, more or less like this: rich men show up, and are taken by staff to view birds kept in cages. They have the opportunity to hand pick the birds that they would like to kill. The cages are then loaded into the backs of trucks. The courageous "hunters" ride up front. The rich men get out, load there guns, and stand waiting while ranch staff take the cages behind some bushes. The staff then turn the cages upside down and shake the birds out. The birds, coming out upside down and hitting the ground, are disoriented, giving the staff a moment to get out of the way and giving the rich men a chance to aim their guns. As the birds try to fly into the air, the rich men kill them.
And I don't know, but that seems a little unnerving. I'm a vegan, sure, and maybe a little biased, but, believe me, I get hunting, I understand it. What I don't exactly get is rich men paying people large sums of money for the chance to kill small caged animals. It's not the sort of hobby I like the Vice President of my country to have. I mean, when teenagers mutilate and kill small animals for pure enjoyment, we generally send them to therapy, worry that this is going to turn into a bigger problem. What about this makes Dick not a potential sociopath? (Potential? I'm being generous. Bodies piling up in Iraq, deals cut for personal gain, complete disregard for other human beings... there may be a pattern here.)
But I didn't write that. Nor did I write Obfuscation. That one was originally going to give me the chance to vent about a whole lot of what was going on leading up to the November elections. The whole Rush Limbaugh/Michael J. Fox fiasco comes immediately to mind. If you tuned into Rush's show on day 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 of that controversy (as I did, loving every aching, painful, angry minute of it), you would have heard Rush apologizing over and over again for incorrectly saying that it seemed as if Michael J. Fox had forgotten to take his meds for Parkinson's. You would have thought that he made a simple error, and had been proven wrong, and you might have wondered what the fuss was about. Had you tuned in on day 1, however, you would have heard little or nothing about Fox's meds, and a whole lot about Fox "acting" (which, according to Rush, was never intended to mean anything at all like "faking") sicker than he really was in a campaign commercial, deliberately "hamming up" his symptoms, shaking, making them more visible. You would have heard a "maybe he forgot his meds" comment as a derisive, insulting aside, but the main point would have been clear: Fox is a liar.
When you make an ass of yourself or simply find that you're on the wrong side of an issue, the easy way out, it seems, is just to pretend you said something else. Better yet, if you find yourself without facts or persuasive ethical standards to back you up, you can still try to win an argument by using the same word for two very different things, and then, through repetition, convincing people that those things really are synonomous. Herbivore Magazine caught Shaunti Feldhahn doing this in a recent issue. Twice.
First, Shaunti discusses animal rights. She doesn't define it, of course. An absolute definition of "animal rights" isn't simple (neither is a definition of "human rights"), but most look something like the one given here: "The right to humane treatment claimed on behalf of animals, especially the right not be exploited for human purposes." Agree or disagree, but that sounds fairly accurate. By not defining it and pretending that she has no idea that such a definition exists (how could she write on the topic and not have a clue?), she is able to mix the word up with another kind of "rights," allowing here to close her argument with a quote from David Martosko: "...if you want to give rights to animals, then they should expect to embrace responsibility in return. As soon as chickens can make a sensible decision at the ballot box and pay taxes, they can have rights. Until then, chicken is for dinner." Brilliant, right? Puts all arguments to rest. (Hey, until a fetus can make a sensible decision at the ballot box and pay taxes... until your mentally retarded uncle Steven can make a sensible decision at the ballot box... until your 9 month old can make a sensible decision...). Then Shaunti tackles the issue of "violence," again using two definitions, then bringing them together to hide the fact that she hasn't actually made a persuasive moral argument. In definition 1, "violence" is the close confinement, lifetime of pain, and often ghastly death inflicted on billions and billions of animals every year (I don't know the exact number, but it's high; in this country alone, 8 billion chickens are slaughtered annually). In definition 2, "violence" is the occasional breaking of locks or destruction of property utilized by animal rights activists to free animals or raise awareness. Pretending that those two definitions mean the same thing, Shaunti is able to say "It is ironic that animal-rights groups that use violence to demand that everyone else take responsibility, are so unwilling to look at their own." And I guess it's ironic that someone who makes her living using words would have such a blatant disregard for clear and meaningful language.
But we don't expect any better. And that was to be the point of a post called Low Expectations. This election, Republicans in my area posed as Democrats and used auto-dialers to call potential supporters of Dan Maffei, hoping that if they called often enough, at inconvenient times, they would discourage some of those potential voters from going to the polls and thus give their candidate the edge. Is it illegal? Yep. But they started it with only a few days left till the election, knowing that there would be no time for the Democrats to mount a response and get legal action through to stop them. And their candidate-- Walsh-- won. Then there's that whole Kerry thing. When Kerry made his admittedly stupid comment (you know, getting "stuck" in Iraq) before the election, Republicans went ape-shit, just couldn't believe how much disrespect he had for the troops. And some of them, being blinded by their ideologies, might have believed their own nonsense, might have been sincere. Bill O'Reilly, however, saw things clearly, and said so. On his show (I can't remember the date, hence no link), he stated in no uncertain terms that he was absolutely sure that Kerry didn't mean his comment to be disrespectful to the troops, that as much as he didn't like Kerry, he understood that it was a botched joke. He said that he was fairly certain that Bush understood this as well. Then he went on to compliment Bush for pretending to be so offended by the comment, said that that was as it should be, that Republicans should use this against Kerry, exploit it. In very, very clear terms, he advocated dishonesty, obfuscation, bending words, exploiting minor errors, pretense.
And we accept this. We expect it. We don't even expect decency, honesty, integrity, fair play. We fully expect our politicians to attempt to mislead us, to trick us, to play dirty. We don't want the "best" person to win, only the most ruthless, the most cunning. Where's the pitchforks and torches? Where's the righteous indignation? No time for it, I suppose, what with all the big sales, high tech games, new gadgest, and pretty twinkling lights to stare at.
Well, I had more. It'll have to wait.
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