Knee Deep in Hair Tufts

Tags

death, guns, Health care, loons from the right, marriage equality

It’s fairly easy to pick out uber conservatives (aka nut jobs) today. They are the bald ones, having pulled out every last hair upon their holy heads at the vile in-your-face rebuke offered them by “those five unelected lawyers” who have seemingly taken to poking a stick at family values and the American way all in one fell swoop.

I arrived home yesterday to find my Better Half (aka the Contrarian) all dressed up and meeting me at the door. After the usual, “how was the pool?” dialogue, I was unable to contain my query any longer. “Why are you all dressed up in your big-boy clothes at 9:30 in the morning?” i asked.

“Guess you didn’t hear the news,” he grinned. “Gay marriage is now the law of the land, and according to WorldnetDaily, the next step is mandatory marriage. I don’t even have a boyfriend yet, but I’m ready if anyone shows up at the door as my designated gay-marriage mate.”

“I won’t make the cake you know,” I reminded him, “since it’s  my constitutional right based on religious freedom not to be forced to sanction your unholy alliance. Besides, since I’m gonna wear white, I don’t wanna take a chance on getting ganache all over me.”

I have no doubt that similar scenarios were played out all over America.

It’s now a day later, and well, we are being patient. I do hope the Committee to Assign picks a suitable dude for my dude. We are still negotiating whether I’ll get my own room or just get a King-size bed.

Oh, in case you have any “in” with that committee, we just want to say, we are open to most anything but we both dislike back hair if you don’t mind not sending that type. Otherwise we’re pretty open-minded.

On the other side of the ducat you will find your pass to health care still intact. Much as the uber right was praying to see millions of weeping ex-insurance holders collapsing in cancerous piles, all to the tune from The Life of Brian–bring out your dead!

Justice Roberts is being hung in effigy throughout the south and other hidey-hole enclaves throughout the lower forty-eight. “Traitor” is being bandied about and serious inquiry is afoot to determine whether the Chief has middle initials of B.A. and no I ain’t talkin’ about Bachelor of Arts.

It’s been a thoroughly bad week for the side that hides its hatred and bigotry behind phrases like “religious freedom” and “work ethic”. As usual they betray themselves in ‘splainin’ that all they want to do is punish the sin and give charity as they see fit without being taxed. Cuz we are so wilfully caring of our fellow-man and woman ya know.

Meanwhile, another  very right-wing piece of refuse, killed a bunch of surely very nice folks at a Black church in Charleston S.C. The Foxy Fools immediately decried this “attack on Christianity” furiously trying to pretend it had nothing to do with race hatred, since we live in a post-racial loving America.

Inevitably, somebody mentioned that once again, mass murder by guns in the hands of a loon. And just as surely,  the Foxy Fools  recalling their Murdock learnin’ responded, “the libs are trying to politicize this tragedy once again! Shame on them!” This while, Wayne La PeePee, stuttered in a whisper, “tell ’em to buy all the guns they can, cuz that Nazi-Arab-lovin’ usurper in the GOD-DAMN IT, CAN’T YOU SEE IT’S A WHITE HOUSE, is surely gonna take them away from you, declare martial law and declare himself Emperor for life.” Wayne’s phone went off, to the tune of cha-ching.

Meanwhile, I engage in yet another fruitless discussion with idiots. “If the crime rate has gone down in the last 25 years, as you say, well it must be because our gun laws are perfectly strict now,” said the lady who is too lazy to even determine whether crime is down as “I say”, let alone offer a rational explanation. Actually, the drop in crime is so significant that it has spawned several major studies done by illustrious public institutions like the U of Chicago, and the Brennan Center for Justice.

Guess what? It has to do with abortion (meaning unwanted children are not raised in poverty and do not fall victim to crime as a means to get out), and the passing of clean air/water act which cleaned up the lead in our old housing units and the neurological damage is does. Or better policing. Open carry and conceal carry? Zero impact on falling crime rates. Strict gun laws? Huh?

Now that’s gotta twist some knickers don’t it? Things the GOP and the so-conservative-it-hurts group have opposed. Abortion and regulation are ugly words to a Rightie.

So how about that Confederate flag thing? Yep, as soon as the GOP gave up any hope that the Foxy Fools could work their magic and turn the issue of a mass shooting to serve their own purpose, well the GOP turned on a dime and became “outraged” and all agreed that Nickki Haley was “courageous” in doing the “right thing”. Course the Nickster saw the flag as no problem just a few months earlier when running for her re-election.

“Why the CEO’s I’ve talked to haven’t ever mentioned that Confederate flag,” she assured us, so what’s the problem? Black folk, you see, did not figure into her determination. Why should they care?

Meanwhile, Governor Abbott in Texas proves what was deemed unbelievable only a few months ago. Somebody can do a worse job than Rickie “glasses” Perry. Abbott, appointed some woman to head up the state’s Board of Education. Which is of course not remarkable, except the woman appointed home schools her kids.

Did you read that? She home schools her kids because she doesn’t believe in the public school system. How rich is that? Seriously?

I’m keeping a close tab on all points of egress from the US. There are scores of drooling half-wits who claim that if either Obamacare or gay marriage came to fruition they would be movin’ elsewhere. I want to be sure to be there to wave them goodbye. And then burn the damn ramp to the boat once they are aboard. Good riddance!

Oh and California is facing a water shortage. Actually they are facing NO FUCKING WATER. This lead one lady to blame it on gays. God surely hates the wrong people screwing each other she bellowed and will punish US. And the rest of the thirsty bunch is suing to make sure they get their fair share of dry sand.

I gotta say, it’s been a good week for sanity. If you sort out the bullshit.

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There Are No Rules of the Road

Tags

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, death, Democrats, economy, life, life in the meadow, Republicans, Sarah Palin

If I had found myself abandoned in the wilds of the US, oh say, four hundred years ago, I would surely have perished. I was not “the fittest”. Nor even close.

To what do I refer? Well, please keep the secret, but I am one of those people genetically challenged when it comes to sight. I couldn’t hit the side of the proverbial barn as they say. Without technological assistance that is.

So with bow and arrow, I would have missed the target, and no doubt starved to death.

I started wearing glasses in the fourth grade. Year by year my eyes deteriorated until I was close to the “coke bottle” syndrome. I switched to contacts, but a badly shaped eyeball made them difficult at best.

Finally, I trucked off to Canada and got the Lasix treatment where they rearrange your focal point by some voodoo magic light, and voilá, I could see, sans glasses.

That has pretty much been it for nearly seventeen years. But alas age catches up with all of us.

Which is nothing more to say than that the Contrarian and I (as part of our departure stuff) went off to get our eyes tested and glasses ordered. We have gotten to the point that watching anything written on the TV screen, requires both of us to read it. We figured we might miss New Mexico all together and end up in the Grand Canyon by mistake. I do mean IN it.

So that was yesterday.

And I’m telling you all this, simple because there are no rules of the road here, and I can tell you whatever I choose, and you can read or not as the mood or time strikes you.

♦

As we were driving and I was trying hard to ignore the fact that one is never quite sure where one will end up when driving with the Contrarian at the wheel, we got to talking about Brandy. The sorrow is still there, but we can talk with laughter now.

Anyway, we were talking about how she went so easy and we were not forced to make that decision to “put her down”, a thoroughly strange way of avoiding “ordering her killed.”

It came to me, that we as humans are adjudged “humane” for putting down an animal that is in pain and with no real way to correct the condition. If we were to do the same thing for a human being, we would be adjudged more often than not, a murderer. A human is required to die in misery if that be the medical situation, no matter how long it takes. ‘Course, they often don’t. I understand doctors often “over dose” with pain killers, knowing that death will ensue.

Still, we wouldn’t judge it humane to put a human being out of their misery. Except if you were Doctor Kevorkian. He judged it merciful.

♦

I wonder how it will play?

Democrats: lets build roads, repair schools, fix bridges. (translate: hire construction companies which then hire more workers, and all the supply companies (concrete and so forth). Job creation: immediate. Results: workers make some money, start buying crap at Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart starts hiring more workers. Two tiered job creation.)

Republicans: cut taxes, eliminate regulations. (translate: corporations have more cash. HOPEFULLY they will expand worker pools. Hard to see why they would when nobody has any money to buy their shit.)

Does the American public at large have the brains to see this? I wonder.

♦

Did ya hear? Sarah Palin is heading off to Korea in a month or so to speak at a “World Knowledge conference.” I mean, oxymoron or what? What on earth could she possibly be speaking about? Is she gonna ask for help? A book list maybe? Or just pooh-pooh the notion that In_tEYE-lec-tuls are necessary in a world where everything can be decided using just good old common sense.

♦

Did anybody catch that Rudy Giuliani did it again? He said he will make a decision about running for the GOP nomination but not until after the 9/11 events. He does always get that 9/11 reference into everything he says doesn’t he?

♦

I’m just about done with Atlas Shrugged. She really is a pretty awful writer. She actually had some interesting characters but she’s buried them in so much political rhetoric that you have to wade through pages and pages of it, to get back to the story line.

I just finished “John Galt’s” radio broadcast. It went on for about forty pages of non-stop explanation of why enterpreneurs were good and everybody else was bad. This quote sums up her thinking about all of “us”.

“The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom, who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains.”

The rich man is the victim you see, and the worker is the exploiter of the rich man’s intellect. Why, Rand claims, all the things the worms at the bottom have, are the product of the genius of the top. The worms could never create a car if their life depended upon it.

This is ADMITTED mindset of the Cantors and Ryans, the DeMints and the Pauls. This is their concept of “survival of the fittest.”

Have a nice day!

If I Hear the 23rd Psalm One More Time!

Tags

death, funerals, Grief

I’ll make this as plain as I can: I HATE FUNERALS! And I hate everything associated with them.

I find them archaic, ghoulish, unhelpful in grieving, bizarre, in-opposite to their proposed point, and anything else that might smack of a good reason for having one. I hate ’em.

You can stand all the psychologists in a line and I will say that to each and every face. I don’t believe you have a clue what you are taking about when you suggest that it somehow is “closure.” It’s not. It’s barbaric. Period.

Such is my opinion. But I’m right. Just in case you were about to toss it off as but one woman’s idea. It’s simply the truth. It is beneath the emotional maturity of a 21st century person to engage in such a Gawd awful exercise.

We gathered today for a funeral of my husband’s cousin. It was a painful thing for the Contrarian, because now, the grandparents, most parents, and most aunts and uncles are now interred in Terra firma permanently. We are down to contemporaries–cousins and siblings. One’s own mortality looms ever larger.

We arrived at the quaint Methodist church in the small town where the deceased was “a pillar of the community.” A fine showing indeed, as the church pews were filled and the rest of us sat listening from the basement kitchen area. The usual prayers, hymns ensued. (Another rendition of Amazing Grace of course–I never say “a  poor wretch like me”–Catholics priest and sisters taught me that long ago–we eliminate the word wretch, much as I do in the Nicene Creed “for us (men) and our salvation”–I eliminate the word men–again taught to me by another priest).

Someone always breaks into tears giving the family eulogy. Soon everyone is drying eyes. I cry at the only hymn that ever makes me cry–“here I am Lord.” I don’t cry much, just get a bit watery.

We burst from the confines of the church to wander around and meet up with folks not seen for years. We locate the Contrarian’s brother, who always flies in from where-ever ( they live in Chicago). It’s almost the only time we see them, funeral or wedding. The Contrarian shakes hands and sometimes a hug with other cousins. They all look questioningly at me–yes eleven years and most have no clue who I am yet.

We finally break for the car, parked a full block away–I said the guy was the pillar of the community–not quite making it. Two other young cousins have spotted my husband and just have to say hi.

Mostly this “after” time is filled with laughs and back slapping, and introductions. Nothing is said about the deceased. Everyone is mildly ill-at-ease.

We stop off at the grocery/florist and pay for the flowers we sent to the “showing” which we did not attend. (I hate those worse than funerals) We can see that we can’t proceed but a block. The local fire truck is lit up and a few young kids have been co-opted to hold traffic until the funeral cortege has filed onto the Walker Rd.

We finally get to resume, following the last vehicle, a truck with blinking lights. Heading for the Troy Mills cemetery where nearly everyone  in interred. The Contrarian’s folks are there, as are, well every one of note.

We peel off at Alice Road, just a few hundred feet from the Cemetery entrance.  From there to Campfire and then back to the Troy Rd. and home.

We are skipping the “meal” at the bowling alley after the grave site, events. Festivities seems the wrong word, grave site event? We have spoken to those who we needed to, everyone has seen that we were there, the book has been signed.

For those in deep grief over the untimely death, all this is what? Goes by in a blur? Strange moments of memory, punctuated by strange faces smiling, laughing, children running, the same old tried and true, “I’m so sorry for your loss,” refrain. How is this helping?

Attendees are awkward, not knowing what to say, how long to say it, and how to disengage. Everyone is looking for someone or something to save them. At the awful meals, you just want to eat, find someone you’d like to talk to, chat about family, kids, the economy. It’s all so dreary, and there is less and less mention of, you know, poor Ronnie.

You mumble some more half-meant words of condolence and take off. You declare it a “fine” funeral, the food good, bad, or okay. You undoubtedly talk about how “good” this one looked, and how bad that one looked. You predict the next death.

You shudder at the grave site, if you went, as you think of the body inside the box. Seeing it there, above the hole, makes it so other worldly. I recall how my aunt was appalled that I kept a closed casket for my dad. I knew way too many funerals and recall the death face too well. I hate it. I’m glad I didn’t have to see Ronnie’s death face.

I would think a well-timed letter to the family might be worth more. Highlights of memories that make one smile, feel proud, or laugh out loud. Poignant pieces of paper that can be kept and taken out and lovingly re-read.

But that’s just me. I only know what I don’t want and that is people peering down at me in all my made-up mask, talking about how “good I look” and then talking about “Phil’s new promotion” next to my cold bones.

Throw me in a pit and let me feed the earth. It is not me any longer. I’m long gone. I’m sailing among the stars, unencumbered by flesh. My Father has allowed a two-week tour of the galaxy before I get on to work, helping his children on distant words.

That’s just the way I see it.

Hope Springs Eternal?

Tags

brain biology, death, faith, God, hope, Marx, Oscar Romero, philosophy, psychology, religion

It’s been one of those mornings. Not to my liking by a long shot. Even Bear looked up with disgust as if to say, “Oh good grief, grow up, it’s raining, stop your silly complaining and take a nap.” Which he then preceded to return to.

I didn’t go to church today. I should have, and could have, but I didn’t. I woke up several times during the night and heard the rain whipping against the house, thinking of the lane getting worse and worse with each drop. The holes fill in the in low spots, and become large enough for the dogs to leisurely take a bath in. By 5:30, I decided I wouldn’t go.

The Contrarian had worked long and hard to smooth it out. I could get out, but I would have torn it up a lot doing so. Set and satisfied with my decision, it helped not a bit when the Contrarian encouraged me to go. “Actually, tearing it up might help some, it will give me so ridges to pull dirt from and help smooth it even better.” Now my damned excuse was gone! My mood deteriorated further. Worse yet, by 8 the rain has ceased and the sky brightened as the weather people, my enemy today, said the break would last until evening when all hell would break loose again for some more hours of soggy goodness.

“Blessed by you, Lord our God, King of the Universe, for rains to feed all life on your earth.” I mumbled this through tight jaws, spitting out the words. I’d learned this Jewish blessing a few days earlier. Blessings were to be poured out at the rate of 100 per day, everything after Universe, created by the speaker to honor God for something close at hand–the mixer that kneaded the dough, the vacuum that sucked up the dust, the eyes that looked over slowly budding trees.

Then I recalled a post. Wounded Bird and Mimi wrote a post on how hope is the defining element of Christianity.  I think that is essentially true. We are a people of hope, we Christians. We hope for things unseen. We believe that Jesus was the Christ, the son of God. We believe that if we are faithful, however we define that, we will be with Jesus in heaven, however we define that. It is a hope for the future.

But then, hope is always for the future isn’t it? Hope is defined as “the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out well.” According to Webster’s Dictionary at least. Notice that  hope is not irrational, it is the feeling that what is wanted CAN be had.

That is comforting. But hope is not the property of faith, far from it. It is clearly ingrained in the human psyche. The fact that we are here today is proof enough of that. If we lived without hope, then we would simply sit and rot. The race would have been extinct soon after it came to be.

Lack of hope is the nemesis of depression. It is the essential definition of this insidious disease after all, the feeling of utter hopelessness. Nothing can be more corrosive to the human mind. In fact, if it remains unchecked for too long, the mind gives up and destroys itself. People who are hopeful don’t kill themselves.

We know what Christians hope for, eternal life with God. Some other faiths have hopes for after lives as well and this is also easy to understand.

But what is the hope of the atheist? Or any faith-filled person whose religion has no such belief in a continuation of some sort?

I have been at a loss to understand what there is to hope for absent an afterlife frankly. I see people living in conditions that make me weep with frustration and sadness. I see people wracked with chronic pain and chronic disability that makes life difficult beyond measure. I see people spending thirty and forty years working eight hours a day at a job they hate. The list goes on and on. How do they continue I ask myself? How?

After all, if death  comes to all, and it does seem that way, then why do we strive? Why do we fight to leave legacies of achievement? We will not be here to see the accolades. Has Yul Brennar gained anything tangible because his movie “The Magnificent Seven,” is being shown today? He’s long dead, and if with God, I’m sure he’s way too busy to notice.

The only clear answer I ever get is that that those with children have reason to struggle, sacrifice and otherwise keep on steppin’ because everyone wants their kids to have it better than they did. That is pretty much true for every parent, though I’m sure there are exceptions. But then, we know what will come. They will, no matter how comfy we make them, still move toward inevitable death, wherein their triumphs will be meaningless, at least to them, and who else counts when you’re dead?

Sorry to be so depressing. But I’m a believer, and I have hope of that afterlife after all. But I can’t come up with a reason for the others. I just can’t seem to fathom in my dark moments how you keep on getting on with it, without this. Maybe Marx was right when he called religion the “opiate of the masses,” the thing that keeps them passive, and quiet while they are being exploited.

If Marx was right, it changes nothing really. That doesn’t make religion or faith invalid in the least, it just means we ought not fall subject to its being used to keep us passive to our own exploitation. Marx was speaking of Europe. Archbishop Oscar Romero could have said the same thing about Latin America.

What upsets me at moments like this, is that this is misuse of faith as far as I’m concerned. Using it to carry my hope for me. For indeed, as I said, it seems utterly ingrained in us all. I just don’t know where it comes from. Perhaps from that same place that allows us up to the moment of death to think without thinking that somehow we will escape it. It causes us to use that so funny phrase at every age, “if something happens to me,. . . .” IF???? Did you say IF? We never use WHEN, and the appropriate word is WHEN!!!!

So somebody come forth and explain to me the altruistic reasoning that allows the non-believer to have hope. Cuz, I feel mighty rotten in using my faith as a crutch. I want to love my God because he’s God, because he’s worth loving, and not just because he’s holding the best ever Christmas present ever devised, and promising it to me one day.

As Oscar Wilde said, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Tell me of your stars.