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For those following Downton Abbey, these words were uttered by Mr. Bates, valet to Lord Crawley about his wife Anna who has suddenly turned cold to him. Anna was raped by a visiting valet to another Lord, and is sure Mr. Bates would kill the man and be executed by the Crown, thus she refuses to divulge her secret, but now considers herself unworthy of her husband’s affections.
When Lord Crawley senses some sadness in Mr. Bates, he inquires if all is right in his marriage, to which Mr. Bates replies that it is not, but that he has no clue what he has done wrong. Crawley suggests perhaps it is not his fault to which Bates replies, “It must be my fault, for she is without fault.”
I think that’s the truth. Women are without fault.
Men should realize that. It would make the world a happier place.
Which all goes to say that I find men strange at times. Especially those who cling to patriarchal notions that women should behave in a certain way, normally so as not to impinge on the superior notions that some men have of themselves. You know the type, men who snicker with each other about who has the best “trophy” and brag about their wives “still looking as young as they day we married” rather than bragging of her talents in her profession or hobby or so forth.
As a woman who practiced in a field still tilted toward maleness, I’m only too aware of being told I was “pushy”, “opinionated”, a “ball-buster” and so forth over the years, usually by men who had lost an argument to me or were in that process. I’ve become adept at spotting these types and avoid them as soon as I do so. This recently led to the he-man in question accounting himself the “winner” of a debate that never began, because my refusal to participate could surely only mean that I had no argument to make that I could back up with facts. They call it shooting blanks I believe.
Such men try to set the parameters of a debate at the start to favor their “evidence”. In this case, a self-proclaimed atheist demanded that there could be no evidence of the death of Jesus outside of the actual words of the Bible, a book, I might add, that he suggested could be understood by the most basic average intellect. He claimed as his background, “study in philosophy and linguistics” although his Facebook page turned out to admit that he was “self-taught” because formal education was nothing but “brainwashing”. I refused to participate. He shall continue to believe that Jesus was murdered by the Jews, and I shall continue to know better. He will continue to believe that I am “a con, a humorless bully who talks much and proves nothing”, and I will continue to yawn at silly men who flex muscles in the hopes that this will substitute for a brain.
Speaking of brains, most of the extreme Right is still without one functioning one. Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, should you have forgotten.
The picture at the right is one of my favorite, and a larger version of it hung in the courtroom of a dear judge and even dearer friend of mine from Detroit.
As you probably know, the Extreme Right is fond of re-writing history to conform to their notions of freedom and so forth. Given their lily-white composition, they are always searching for suitable Negroes to deflect the charge that they are what they are: seriously infested with a multitude of racists.
They find a few here and there, men and women who wish to shortcut the climb to national importance by becoming the trained monkey for the Extreme Right. They do and say the right things, as the Master expects, all to gain that fame and hopefully fortune that they don’t wish to really work hard for legitimately.
That is bad enough, but when they attempt to take as their own a hero of the Left, well, it is absurd and well, downright immoral.
The litany as regards MLK, from the crazy Right’s point of view is that MLK was a Republican. Period. Yes, they think that says it all. They of course do point out, rather self-importantly, that the Dixiecrats were the ones who opposed civil rights. As a second offering, they regurgitate about the only phrase they have been taught: “Someday all God’s children will be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
And as we all know, good character is not dwelling on that past in which white people lynched black people, and it certainly doesn’t remind people that racism is still rather rampant in America today.
Of course they never learned neglect to remember that King died while marching with union members demanding fair wages and working conditions, and that he often spoke of the inequality in the distribution of income in this country, both of which are anathema to the average tea-guzzler. And of course they conveniently forget that all those Dixiecrats, after the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of the mid 60’s, all did what they said they would never do, they voted Republican and then (shock and horror) BECAME Republicans, as the only party in the South who was sympathetic to their “whites only” melancholia.
And if you would like to take a trip down memory lane with REAL facts, read this history lesson from Salon which takes us along that dark road of “how do we stop this crap from happening to our lily-white land?”
And as much as I love Las Cruces, it is not a hot bed of liberality regarding the Catholic Church. Our own Cathedral church, Immaculate Heart of Mary, just saw fit through Father Bill to fire the pianist who had first of all the audacity to be gay, but second to marry legally in the state of New Mexico. Father Bill operates not in the spirit of our new Pope Francis it seems, and that sickens me, and makes me quite ashamed. And I do believe that the Church would do things much differently regarding this and other “sex” issues, were more women involved in running things.
So, that about sums up my week of thoughts. Except that thug-bully Chris Christie may be getting what is due him, and that’s all good.
And if it seems that I’m down on men in this post, well, you would be right, except for the Contrarian who continues to be the best husband/person I know, and Johnny Depp who continues to be the best eye candy ever invented by a loving God.
And so it goes.
Existential Ennui 