The Quest Continues

Tags

brains, Christie, fundamentalists, GOP, high school, Huckabee, Politics, psychology, Women's issues

You’d think that I’d know pretty much all I need to know at my age.

I mean seriously folks, shouldn’t I just sit and chortle at all the younglings’ who are still running into things, unable to fathom that pace of life yet? Shouldn’t I know the BIG issues of life?

Why am I always surprised and puzzled?

Having just finished reading Joseph Campbell’s, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, I should get that we are all just playing out the story of humanity in infinite forms, no? Can’t I leave it at that?

NO, apparently I’m forced to admit at my refined age, that I may be just a tad, just a tiny bit, miniscule actually, ANAL.

Case in point.

Or in several, but in POINT now.

Michael Huckabee, once governor of Arkansas, a state lost between Noah’s ark and Kansas. Now our Huck as he is fondly called by many, was once upon a time (not a fairy tale) a preacher. A southern Baptist one, to be exact, and that means literally, literal, insofar as a fundamentalist can be literal, which is way a lot when they need to and way not all when it would be inconvenient to be so. Which makes him really a Christianist, one of those rather duplicitous individuals who sorta uses Jesus when needed and ignores him when not, although pretending to NEVER forget Jesus, i.e., sprinkling all talk with plenty of “thanks be to God” and Thank the Lord” .

So, Mikey as he is not fondly called, figured he would jump into the fray of the “war on women” being continuously waged by the GOP.

That that is clear to every human being save the GOP itself who continue to remain with head firmly inside butt is also clear.

And the trend has continued as we all know in 2012, 2013 and so on.

It is Republicans who are trying to restrict abortions and are, through phony laws, forcing PPH offices to close all over the country. Women are being denied reproductive care quite simply and that results in more women dying from reproductive disease, and more unwanted pregnancies, the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Republicans claim they are introducing such legislation for.

In pops the Huckster, who is starting to think that running for President might be a good thing, and off he goes with the mouth part:

“If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it,. . .”

So, old Mikey thinks that Democrats believe that women’s insatiable libido requires contraceptive care in the guise of Uncle Sugar?

Seriously, explain how he came to that conclusion, or is just simply the way dead-below-the-waist-Mike feels? Is his wife dragging him to bed every night and telling him to Viagra up or something? Is the old man tired of “gettin’ it up” and gettin’ going?

This after some dip wad in Virginia by the name of Black, who is running for Congress, suggests that there should probably be no laws against marital rape.

“How on earth you could validly get a conviction of a husband-wife rape when they’re living together, sleeping in the same bed, she’s in a nightie, and so forth, there’s no injury, there’s no separation or anything.”

Seriously, it’s just a he said, she said kinda thing, right? Boys will be boys. . . .or, I bet he’s the one in the nightie.

Are Republican men this utterly clueless. Is there no Republican woman around who can just tell them to SHUT THE F**K UP?

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Explain to me how any person can go to college for four years and become educated sufficiently to teach math, and still denies the truth of evolution?  How does a brain do that?

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By all accounts Chris Christie is a reasonably intelligent human being. I have learned that he was darned good at running for stuff in college and in organizing so that his “team” would win across the board in student elections. And we are most aware of his spectacular rise in New Jersey, a definitely blue state.

So, in looking forward to someday running for President, (and surely you know he’s always had that in his mind since he was 12 or so), wouldn’t you sorta know that thugs and others who did your dirty work and the people you intimidated all your life, would literally flood the plains of Jersey should they even SMELL a leak in the dike?

Is it just me or is this just the beginning of an avalanche of charges, and victims parading forth telling their story of how Christie thugs forced them to throw Grandma off the train? The Bridge and Hoboken are just the tip of the iceberg I suspect.

Why do people who don’t play by the rules always think nobody will find out?

Do the really believe in perfect crimes?

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Here’s one for ya.

I went to a typical high school. Maybe not so much as I thought.

A whole bunch of us started in kindergarten and graduated together. Over the years, cliques changed. Our group splintered into a good five groups or so. Some of us got hurt by being dumped. Some never aspired to group 1, probably most. We all dissed those below us, more or less. We gave what we got.

I’ve been to college, three times. I’ve worked for people and for myself. I’ve been in a ton of relationships, all of which obviously went sour for one reason or another, due to one thing or other, until the last one, which has lasted nearly 14 years. I’ve been screwed over by the best and worst of them, regarding all sorts of things. In that regard I am no different from any other human.

As my friend Jean said, all humans are flawed. We get to accept that about each other, and how our flaws blend enough to get along.

But, when I reconnected with high school classmates, I found this:

A friendliness that turned out to be all too superficial. Most of the lines remained drawn. A rather stunning realignment based on who agrees with who. Fundies gather together and chat like great friends when way back then, they never spoke and one would not be caught “dead” with the other. All the liberals now, however, were my friends back then. People I thought were smart turned out to be dumb, or as uninformed as a person could be and still walk. A whole slew are angry, very angry people, mostly those who stayed in the factory town that went belly up.  And although raised in a working class environment where the UAW was the norm in most households, most are conservative, hating folks, who blame unions, and the poor for being takers. And kids should be slapped around because “it was good enough for me”. They are “patriotic” as they define it, meaning they love “the troops” and the flag, but hate the President, and income redistribution, although surely they would benefit from that.

And I don’t get most of ’em. A few who were a year or two behind me or ahead, I get. They escaped the hate thing somehow. They are good people, who have worked hard, but avoided blaming those who have less for what they don’t have.

And the real point here, is that, all those people from college and work situations and relationships that didn’t do unto me as I think they should? I have long ago forgotten them and their transgressions because, hey, we are all flawed. But the angers from those old high-school slights still linger and still seem rawer than they should.  And I have a couple of those classmates who don’t participate in group discussions and I think they are  so much smarter than I. They are not wasting their time on stupid.

Which all goes to say that I delight a bit too much in telling old X and Y what utterly stupid people they became. Ain’t that funny? Or sad in a funny sort of way?

The first cut is the deepest. Thank you Rod Stewart for reminding me.

A Tidy Mind

Tags

brains, Contrarian, Humor, life in the foothills, thinking

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a student. When I started eighth grade, I was placed in an advanced math class, Algebra I. My brilliance, as you can see, was noticed early.

By the tenth grade, I was in Algebra II, and struggling. I just could not get the equations any longer. Truthfully, I had struggled through Geometry in the ninth grade as well. I decided to opt out of Trig and Analytical Geometry. I will never forget that I had to “not fail” the final in order to get a B– in the class. I got a D.

Several years later I actually bought a work book and tried to systematically learn the darn stuff. I failed again. This, I have to tell you, was a major blow to my ego. It was not until years later that I read that there are two ways to understand math, and typically only one way is taught in most of our schools. I was one of those who needed the “other” method.

Similarly, I am told that some people are incapable of “seeing” optical illusions:

I’m told that depending on how easily you can decipher this, you have either a weak or strong mind, whatever that means.

All this adds up to only one thing: brains are not all wired the same. Now I don’t know if we are all unique, or if there are some basic systems that most people fall into.

No truer proof of that is the Contrarian and myself. This came to the fore but again today.

We got a letter from the State, telling us that their data base failed to show that we had insurance on one of our cars. Now this is patently in error, since you can’t get a registration, license, plates or title without such proof. The letter gave instructions on what to do, and then who had to do what. Basically it was comparing the actual VIN with the title, with the letter, with the insurance card. Depending on what matched or didn’t, would determine the next step.

To make a long story short, all numbers agreed so the next step was to call the insurance agent and have them resubmit the information to the appropriate data base collector.

The issue for the Contrarian and I came after.

“You know, I really had a hard time finding all the information,” he sighed.

“Why is that?” I muttered.

“Well, you had a folder entitled car insurance, but the title wasn’t there. I couldn’t find any folder entitled ‘car’ and then found a folder entitled ‘Dodge’ and one entitled ‘Subaru’. I had to find all three to make sure I had the right stuff.”

“Well, yes, I see your trouble. Just rewrite the folders in any way that works for you,” I proffered, walking from the room.

You see, it makes perfect sense to me. There are less than twenty folders in our file cabinet. It takes less than 30 seconds to run through them. I keep the titles separate because it’s easier than reading down to find out which car is which. Perhaps it would be easier to put the insurance for each in their “car” folder, but I didn’t anticipate any problem like this.

This situation is not unique. If we have a computer problem, we both approach it from vastly different places. In fact, any thing we do is approached from different angles. I open a box and reach for the instructions, methodically lay out all the pieces, remove all the boxing material, and then begin. He throws packing material hither and yon, picks up pieces he identifies as fitting together, and starts assembling until he runs into a problem.

We do not play well together. In a sandbox, we would have beaned each other over the head with the shovel and the pail. If you ran into us in a moment of joined effort, you would think we hated each other. Usually somebody is forced to retreat to cool down during any enterprise.

We do not teach each other well. I’m busy telling him that it would have been more useful to lead with this fact rather than that one. He looks at me as if I were a moron and simply repeats the same sentence again and again as if a rhesus monkey could understand.

I feel stupid. But I know I’m not. He’s a DOS and I’m an Apple. It’s just that simple.