There is a provincial election tomorrow--if you live here, no matter how much effort you put into being politically blind, you'll know it. Lawn signs are everywhere; TV ads are everywhere; disdain and distrust is everywhere as well, at an all-time high as far as I can tell.
If you believe the polls, this election is too close to call. Then again, I've found that all but the most marked routs are "too close to call" in the week before the election...I think the media has a vested interest in saying this, for the dramatics that are in it. Landslides are boring.
Regardless, we're told this is a two-horse race between the Progressive Conservatives, led by Tim Hudak, and the Liberals led by Kathleen Wynne. Andrea Horwath's New Democrats are polling a distant third and the Green Party is barely on the radar outside Guelph, probably the most environmentally conscious city in the province, where it's running second behind the Liberals.
The None of the Above Party is also on the ballot, at least in eight ridings. More broadly, there is a movement afoot to decline your ballot on the grounds that the three choices on offer are not acceptable.
Longtime readers will know I have a problem with that philosophy. My firm belief is that if you can't find a party and leader you're willing to vote for--given the marked differences between the four major parties--you're either looking for someone whose values perfectly align with your own, in which case you should be running yourself...or you just don't know what you want. Unless you are utterly clueless and vote because you like the pretty blue or red signs--stay home, if that's true--I urge you to vote.
That's not to say that either Hudak, Wynne, or Horwath has been particularly inspiring, or indeed even all that engaging. The single televised debate did not produce a single quote geared towards changing anyone's mind; it seems that SOP these days is to preach to your respective choir, and that's one of the saddest things about politics in general. Another is that, notwithstanding what I said earlier about people being perhaps a little too picky, it's true that often you have to hold your nose and vote for the least worst candidate--if you want your vote to mean anything, that is.
In as non-partisan a fashion as I can make it, here's the situation in Ontario. We've had a Liberal government in power here since 2003, and again without being partisan at all, it shows. Old governments grow stale and are often beset by scandal. The most notable incidents of wrongdoing centre around gas plants, the mismanagement of an electronic health record program and the province's air ambulances. Ontario has also faced the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs during the Liberals' tenure. Thanks largely to some of the highest electricity prices in North America (which have tripled under McGuinty and Wynne), companies are deserting the province in droves. The unemployment rate is 7.4% and edging higher. And our provincial debt is, by some measures, worse than that in Greece.
This would normally be a prescription for a change in government, more than likely to the PC party. Ontario was solidly PC for most of my childhood--Bill Davis, the longtime (1971-1985) Premier, was a legendary conciliator who was almost universally respected even by people on the opposite side of the aisle, and since when does that happen anymore? Then we began flipping back and forth between Liberal and PC with one brief NDP excursion in the early nineties. (I'll never forget the Toronto SUN's headline the day after Bob Rae was elected Premier: "WELCOME TO HELL".) In hindsight it wasn't much worse than your average global recession, although there are people today who blame Rae for all manner of ill, just as there are people who blame his successor, Mike Harris, with ruining the province when he turned it hard right. The truth (as I see it) is that we are where we are because of many factors, some of them within political control and some well outside it.
Ar any rate, conventional wisdom says Tim Hudak should be the next Premier. Except he has run a campaign that has alienated at least as many voters as it has attracted. He pledged to cut 100,000 civil service jobs, and it wasn't until much later in the game that he clarified the cuts would be by attrition and not in the form of mass layoffs of teachers and nurses and such. He also infamously pledged to create a million jobs over eight years. Four issues here:
One, eight years is two terms, which I find just a tad arrogant: we're campaigning for one here, Tim.
Two, he meant person-years of employment, not actual jobs
Three, the definition of a "job" is no longer what you may think it is, as I recently mentioned: part time minimum wage jobs with no pensions or benefits are better than nothing, I suppose, but not by a whole hell of a lot.
And four, Conservative governments, particularly the sort of Conservative government Tim Hudak represents, have historically held very strong opinions on government creation of jobs. It seems more than a little odd to hear Hudak touting a job creation plan that on the surface at least (definitely not in the details) could have come from the NDP.
Kathleen Wynne, under attack from both sides, has held her own, again if the polls are to be believed. Her radio spots convey (to this voter, at least) just the right blend of authority and compassion and the budget that precipitated this election was the most progressive this province has seen in decades. But there's the matter of all those scandals. While Wynne is not Dalton McGuinty--if Dalton were still around, I believe the Liberals would be routed tomorrow--it's not as if she came out of nowhere. Sources differ, of course, on how much Wynne knew or did; there are a couple of matters under investigation, which in itself puts a cloud over Kathleen's campaign.
And Andrea Horwath? She forced this election by not supporting the Liberal budget (because, she said, she didn't believe Wynne would keep her promises)...and yet her party was flat out of the gate, and has been outspent by the other two. (Money isn't quite the factor in Ontario elections that it is in America, but it is a factor. The Conservatives have scads of it and the Liberals aren't far behind, while the NDP, the party of the little guy, is little-guy poor.)
The Green Party, which has never held a seat in Ontario, has been a non-factor in this campaign, to the endless chagrin of a friend of mine. Truth be told, the chicken-and-egg problem they face annoys me as well. They are never included in the televised debates on the grounds that they don't have a seat; they'll never get a seat unless and until they are included in the televised debates. They have many policies I support, including defunding the Catholic school system (which, done properly, could secure all manner of savings in education). Just one appearance would win the Greens at least a few seats, I am convinced. But alas, not this time.
There are three very different visions of this province at stake tomorrow. Which one is closest to yours? Whatever it may be, get out there and vote. It doesn't take long, it's painless and while far from perfect, it's what we citizens have.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Tuesday, June 03, 2014
Dear Diary,
I've been keeping a diary since I was 15. I wonder how many guys can say that.
Between '88 and '90 it was a daily diary. I think I only missed one day in that three year span, and I hope you'll pardon the nearly instant digression because it's time for y'all to laugh at me again.
I usually wrote up my day just before going to bed. One hot day in July--a Friday--my day went long. , I walked up to McDonald's for a 4-8 shift. Sometime in the course of that shift I was asked if I could stay until midnight. I was already scheduled to bop--that's McD's slang for 'breakfast-open' the next morning at six. Ken at 42 would never even consider it: by the time I get home and get to sleep, given my wind-down period, it's gonna be 1:30 minimum and I'd have to be up by 5:15 to get to work for nope no way in hell. Ken at 16 didn't bat an eye.
Ken at 16 was every bit as absentminded as the antique version is today. On this day he forgot his keys...and somehow didn't notice this until he was dropped off at about twenty after midnight. (McDonald's policy back then was that anyone closing would get a ride home courtesy the manager on duty).
Anyway, so here I am bounding up my walk, reaching into my pocket for keys that don't exist.
Now here's the interesting part: my parents are home, asleep. Their bedroom looks out over our townhouse's little postage stamp of a back yard. It's July, and hotter than the hubs of hell: they've got an industrial-sized fan in their bedroom window, on full blast, and it effortlessly drowns out the door knocks, the doorbell, the catcalls from the yard, and the stones I throw at the window as a last resort. There's no point finding a phone to call them, either...chances are very good to excellent they wouldn't hear the phone. I try anyway, from a phone booth a block away. Nada.
What would you do? I'd spent probably 45 minutes trying to rouse them with no luck. Time to try the stick.
We had a mail slot in our front door. If I poked it open just so and peered at just the right angle I could see my keys, hanging on the wall straight ahead, maybe five feet away.
Find LONG, thin stick. Thread it through mail slot. Ever so carefully, inch it towards hook where keys are winking at me. Against all odds, actually manage to hook the keys on only the seventeenth try. Pull stick back, with keys on it--
--stick bends--
--and keys drop to the floor where I can't even see them any more.
A word I was not allowed to say at my age was said. Several times.
I have two choices now: go back to work and see if I can attract the attention of the close-open guy cleaning the pickles off the ceiling in the lobby (I'll be a close-open guy myself in a few years in a city an hour east of me and pickles on the ceiling will be commonplace...university students, the leaders of tomorrow)...or I could try to sleep outside.
I was every bit the weather geek at 16 than I am today, and I knew the forecast was good for outdoor sleeping. Probably don't want to sleep on the ground, though, on account of the dew and the dirt and the fact that I'm going to have to bop my way through another shift in this uniform.
That left the picnic table.
Have you ever tried to sleep on a picnic table? Don't.
At dawn's first ominous crack I wriggled and writhed myself off the table and staggered to work. I actually got there about 45 minutes early and caught the close-open guy sweeping the lot. He let me in and I promptly fell asleep on a standard McD's bench seat in the crew room. After the agony I'd endured, that bench was like a feather bed.
So that's why I missed a day. Also why if I'm sufficiently awake I'm paranoid about my keys. But that adventure aside, I kept that diary every day for three years. In university, it became a sometimes thing, whenever I felt like writing, and whatever I felt like writing about....at first it was a giant WordPerfect document, then it went back to a couple of notebooks. I don't have the document and I've lost all but the last of the notebooks, which is a real shame because some of the best poetry I've ever written is gone forever. But eventually my diary migrated online into this very Breadbin.
Anybody can read this, anybody in the world, and there's not a great deal I've censored over the years. I've spent a lot of time looking at my numerous weaknesses and foibles and I've invited anyone who reads this to get in a good hearty guffaw at the ridiculous stuff that happens in my general vicinity on an almost daily basis.
This mindset towards my "private" scribblings is not new.
I let Eva read anything she wanted to read of my old diaries, before things got really serious between us. Without hesitation. The thought was, if she looked unflinchingly at what was (and is, let's face it) an unflattering portrait of the man she was proposing to marry...well, it's only fair to let someone know what they're in for, isn't it? She looked and still married me and here we are fifteen years later. happily insane. She gets editorial control over any Breadbin entry about her--again, only fair--but otherwise she lets me type to my heart's content. And for some reason I've never really understood, the most revealing posts about me, the ones that tend towards either embarrassment or bewilderment, are the posts she likes the most.
Back in the mists of time, when I was keeping that daily diary, it took the form of a faux-leather-fronted little book with a lock, and pages for each day of the year. The first thing I'd do on Christmas Day, when next year's incarnation of the diary arrived, was break that lock. The trifling (but again, revealing) reason was that I didn't want to have to fiddle-faddle with a lock just to write some stuff down: way too lazy for that. The more pressing reason, though, was that if I could break that lock, anyone who really wanted to could certainly do it too, which made it pointless as far as I was concerned.
"Anyone who really wanted to", in those days, was limited to my mom and stepdad.I'm an only child, and while I did have friends by, well, shortly after I started that daily journal, well, males don't keep diaries, right? Nor are they interested in anyone else's. But my parents-- I'm not sure if they ever did read any of it. I suspected at one point, but couldn't be certain. In the end, though, I wouldn't have blamed them if they had taken a look every now and again. I was an odd kid and an odd teenager...not budding serial killer odd but a bit odd nonetheless. Also, by dint of living in my parents' house, I had absolutely no expectation of privacy.
Which is not to say there was no propriety in my house; indeed, if anything there was a surfeit. I'm sure this will come as a shock to anyone who hears my off-colour jokes today, but I was Mister Priss growing up My 'talk' came in this form:
Helpful book--I've never forgotten that 'vagina' rhymes with 'North Carolina'--but it's almost frighteningly sanitary. It's also beyond sexist. People have sex, we're told, because "the man wants to get as close to the woman as he can." Interesting. Does the woman want this? Doesn't say. The man obviously enjoys the act, but nothing is said about the woman enjoying it. The person who wrote this book is named Peter Mayle. No kidding. Somebody really needs to update this book for this century.
Off pursuing the men on the beach again. Damn tan gents.
Anyway, as I think I was saying, I had propriety. I had privacy too, but I didn't expect it. It was made pretty clear to me that while my room was my room, it existed in my parents' house, which really made it their room. This is not a popular attitude nowadays, but I agree with it. If we'd had kids, they would have seen it in action. Here's a for instance: even with two kids, until high school at a minimum, the computer(s) would be right here in the living room where Eva and I could keep an eye on it or them. I wouldn't presume to censor where my kids went on the Net--no point, for one thing--but I'd be ready to talk to them about anything they might find lurking in its dark corners. Privacy? Not in my house you don't.
(And while I've come around reluctantly on cellphones, if only because without one my child would have no "social" life -- and you're damned right "social"'s in quotes--until my kid is paying for her own cellphone and all that goes with it, I'd get free and unfettered access to anything on it...or she wouldn't. Simple like that.)
I had privacy...on my parents' terms. That seems odd to kids today, who insist on privacy even as they share every last bowel movement on whatever the latest app-du-jour is. What they mean by privacy, of course, is privacy from one's parental units...that's why kids are abandoning Facebook in hordes and droves, because Mom and Dad and even Grandma are all on there now. Well, you know what? Sooner or later the stuff you do in private is probably going to wind up public and you're going to have to explain it to dear old Mom and Dad and maybe even Grandma. This was so patently obvious to me growing up that I couldn't have even tried to dispute it. But nowadays it boggles my mind how, nearly every time we have a , the parents are oblivious. I mean, how does that happen? It wouldn't have happened in my family, let me tell you.
My cousin says there's no such thing as privacy any more. He's echoing the former chair of Sun Microsystems, Scot McNealy, who said "you have zero privacy. Get over it" back in 1991. This is the world we made, folks...a world I daresay I was well prepared for. For now, the only privacy we retain is in our heads. (Someday I'll explain to you why this is not necessarily a Good Thing.) For now, Dear Diary...and dear readers of this diary...I bid you adieu.
Between '88 and '90 it was a daily diary. I think I only missed one day in that three year span, and I hope you'll pardon the nearly instant digression because it's time for y'all to laugh at me again.
I usually wrote up my day just before going to bed. One hot day in July--a Friday--my day went long. , I walked up to McDonald's for a 4-8 shift. Sometime in the course of that shift I was asked if I could stay until midnight. I was already scheduled to bop--that's McD's slang for 'breakfast-open' the next morning at six. Ken at 42 would never even consider it: by the time I get home and get to sleep, given my wind-down period, it's gonna be 1:30 minimum and I'd have to be up by 5:15 to get to work for nope no way in hell. Ken at 16 didn't bat an eye.
Ken at 16 was every bit as absentminded as the antique version is today. On this day he forgot his keys...and somehow didn't notice this until he was dropped off at about twenty after midnight. (McDonald's policy back then was that anyone closing would get a ride home courtesy the manager on duty).
Anyway, so here I am bounding up my walk, reaching into my pocket for keys that don't exist.
Now here's the interesting part: my parents are home, asleep. Their bedroom looks out over our townhouse's little postage stamp of a back yard. It's July, and hotter than the hubs of hell: they've got an industrial-sized fan in their bedroom window, on full blast, and it effortlessly drowns out the door knocks, the doorbell, the catcalls from the yard, and the stones I throw at the window as a last resort. There's no point finding a phone to call them, either...chances are very good to excellent they wouldn't hear the phone. I try anyway, from a phone booth a block away. Nada.
What would you do? I'd spent probably 45 minutes trying to rouse them with no luck. Time to try the stick.
We had a mail slot in our front door. If I poked it open just so and peered at just the right angle I could see my keys, hanging on the wall straight ahead, maybe five feet away.
Find LONG, thin stick. Thread it through mail slot. Ever so carefully, inch it towards hook where keys are winking at me. Against all odds, actually manage to hook the keys on only the seventeenth try. Pull stick back, with keys on it--
--stick bends--
--and keys drop to the floor where I can't even see them any more.
A word I was not allowed to say at my age was said. Several times.
I have two choices now: go back to work and see if I can attract the attention of the close-open guy cleaning the pickles off the ceiling in the lobby (I'll be a close-open guy myself in a few years in a city an hour east of me and pickles on the ceiling will be commonplace...university students, the leaders of tomorrow)...or I could try to sleep outside.
I was every bit the weather geek at 16 than I am today, and I knew the forecast was good for outdoor sleeping. Probably don't want to sleep on the ground, though, on account of the dew and the dirt and the fact that I'm going to have to bop my way through another shift in this uniform.
That left the picnic table.
Have you ever tried to sleep on a picnic table? Don't.
At dawn's first ominous crack I wriggled and writhed myself off the table and staggered to work. I actually got there about 45 minutes early and caught the close-open guy sweeping the lot. He let me in and I promptly fell asleep on a standard McD's bench seat in the crew room. After the agony I'd endured, that bench was like a feather bed.
So that's why I missed a day. Also why if I'm sufficiently awake I'm paranoid about my keys. But that adventure aside, I kept that diary every day for three years. In university, it became a sometimes thing, whenever I felt like writing, and whatever I felt like writing about....at first it was a giant WordPerfect document, then it went back to a couple of notebooks. I don't have the document and I've lost all but the last of the notebooks, which is a real shame because some of the best poetry I've ever written is gone forever. But eventually my diary migrated online into this very Breadbin.
Anybody can read this, anybody in the world, and there's not a great deal I've censored over the years. I've spent a lot of time looking at my numerous weaknesses and foibles and I've invited anyone who reads this to get in a good hearty guffaw at the ridiculous stuff that happens in my general vicinity on an almost daily basis.
This mindset towards my "private" scribblings is not new.
I let Eva read anything she wanted to read of my old diaries, before things got really serious between us. Without hesitation. The thought was, if she looked unflinchingly at what was (and is, let's face it) an unflattering portrait of the man she was proposing to marry...well, it's only fair to let someone know what they're in for, isn't it? She looked and still married me and here we are fifteen years later. happily insane. She gets editorial control over any Breadbin entry about her--again, only fair--but otherwise she lets me type to my heart's content. And for some reason I've never really understood, the most revealing posts about me, the ones that tend towards either embarrassment or bewilderment, are the posts she likes the most.
Back in the mists of time, when I was keeping that daily diary, it took the form of a faux-leather-fronted little book with a lock, and pages for each day of the year. The first thing I'd do on Christmas Day, when next year's incarnation of the diary arrived, was break that lock. The trifling (but again, revealing) reason was that I didn't want to have to fiddle-faddle with a lock just to write some stuff down: way too lazy for that. The more pressing reason, though, was that if I could break that lock, anyone who really wanted to could certainly do it too, which made it pointless as far as I was concerned.
"Anyone who really wanted to", in those days, was limited to my mom and stepdad.I'm an only child, and while I did have friends by, well, shortly after I started that daily journal, well, males don't keep diaries, right? Nor are they interested in anyone else's. But my parents-- I'm not sure if they ever did read any of it. I suspected at one point, but couldn't be certain. In the end, though, I wouldn't have blamed them if they had taken a look every now and again. I was an odd kid and an odd teenager...not budding serial killer odd but a bit odd nonetheless. Also, by dint of living in my parents' house, I had absolutely no expectation of privacy.
Which is not to say there was no propriety in my house; indeed, if anything there was a surfeit. I'm sure this will come as a shock to anyone who hears my off-colour jokes today, but I was Mister Priss growing up My 'talk' came in this form:
Helpful book--I've never forgotten that 'vagina' rhymes with 'North Carolina'--but it's almost frighteningly sanitary. It's also beyond sexist. People have sex, we're told, because "the man wants to get as close to the woman as he can." Interesting. Does the woman want this? Doesn't say. The man obviously enjoys the act, but nothing is said about the woman enjoying it. The person who wrote this book is named Peter Mayle. No kidding. Somebody really needs to update this book for this century.
Off pursuing the men on the beach again. Damn tan gents.
Anyway, as I think I was saying, I had propriety. I had privacy too, but I didn't expect it. It was made pretty clear to me that while my room was my room, it existed in my parents' house, which really made it their room. This is not a popular attitude nowadays, but I agree with it. If we'd had kids, they would have seen it in action. Here's a for instance: even with two kids, until high school at a minimum, the computer(s) would be right here in the living room where Eva and I could keep an eye on it or them. I wouldn't presume to censor where my kids went on the Net--no point, for one thing--but I'd be ready to talk to them about anything they might find lurking in its dark corners. Privacy? Not in my house you don't.
(And while I've come around reluctantly on cellphones, if only because without one my child would have no "social" life -- and you're damned right "social"'s in quotes--until my kid is paying for her own cellphone and all that goes with it, I'd get free and unfettered access to anything on it...or she wouldn't. Simple like that.)
I had privacy...on my parents' terms. That seems odd to kids today, who insist on privacy even as they share every last bowel movement on whatever the latest app-du-jour is. What they mean by privacy, of course, is privacy from one's parental units...that's why kids are abandoning Facebook in hordes and droves, because Mom and Dad and even Grandma are all on there now. Well, you know what? Sooner or later the stuff you do in private is probably going to wind up public and you're going to have to explain it to dear old Mom and Dad and maybe even Grandma. This was so patently obvious to me growing up that I couldn't have even tried to dispute it. But nowadays it boggles my mind how, nearly every time we have a , the parents are oblivious. I mean, how does that happen? It wouldn't have happened in my family, let me tell you.
My cousin says there's no such thing as privacy any more. He's echoing the former chair of Sun Microsystems, Scot McNealy, who said "you have zero privacy. Get over it" back in 1991. This is the world we made, folks...a world I daresay I was well prepared for. For now, the only privacy we retain is in our heads. (Someday I'll explain to you why this is not necessarily a Good Thing.) For now, Dear Diary...and dear readers of this diary...I bid you adieu.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
I Deal In Ideals
Heather Mallick of the Toronto Star has written an article--actually, most of the Star's Insight section for today--that hurt to read. It's not available online as of yet, or I'd link to it, but let me give a summary. Because Canada's laws are about to change regarding prostitution, Mallick took a trip across Europe to see how various countries there deal with sex work and sex workers. What she found changed her mind about prostitution and it's caused me to question my beliefs on...quite a lot of things.
She believed, before she embarked on this trip, that sex work was, or at least could be, a job like any other. That legalization would offer some protection for women whom our society has chosen to marginalize. She found otherwise. In Germany, one brothel has flat rate specials, anything goes, and German net forums are flooded with complaints that the women there are "unfit for use" after a few hours. None of the many women she interviewed, in three countries, wanted to be photographed; many were hesitant to even talk to her. They seemed to exist, she wrote, entirely for the men; the idea that they themselves might have sexual desire wasn't even an afterthought. In most cases, while lip service was paid to the ability of the workers to refuse clients, reality suggested that would be, shall we say, an unwise career move. And so on. Basically, in the course of four pages, Mallick rubbed my nose in reality, and how it differs from my ideals. This really bothered me, because reality differs from my ideals in many, probably most ways, and I hate to be reminded of that.
I have this fault: I insist on seeing the world not as it is, but as I think it should be. It's not a pretty fault to have. When presented with irrefutable evidence that reality doesn't measure up to my ideal, I'm apt to withdraw from reality entirely rather than exert pointless effort trying to change it. And in the meantime my ideals blind me to the way things actually are.
Prostitution is one example. I've written on it here, here, and here; that last entry was even framed as a clash between my idealistic view of the trade and how it actually is. I suggested there that we could change the way sex work is viewed with a few simple paradigm shifts. After reading Mallick's exposé, I'm no longer sure about that.
The overwhelming takeaway from the article I just read is that men--it seems like all men, although I know otherwise--think women in general and prostitutes in particular are holes. Receptacles. The thought sickens me. It's not just that I do not and have never thought that way, but my heart aches that any woman--any person--should be thought of that way. It's not just one man thinking this about one woman, however. It seems like it's endemic. How the hell do you find the vaccine for a disease like that, and where do you apply it?
It's by no means just sex. My thoughts on love are unconventional, to say the least. I've been mocked online every time I've dared to bring them up. My sexuality has been questioned, repeatedly, because my claims that I find women beautiful regardless of their physical appearance are apparently impossible to believe, despite being true. (You'd think that my loving so many women would qualify me as heterosexual, but you'd be wrong.)
Politics--I'm forever looking for consensus, trying to drive people towards the center and get them to respect each other's points of view. That's so old-fashioned it's laughable: everyone knows right wingers are evil and left wingers are stupid. Or maybe it's the other way around, but c'mon, Ken, get with the program.
Religion: I'm really not keen on proselytizing, because if you feel the need to do it you view yourself as superior and everyone else as inferior. I have my own spirituality that works for me, and I'll talk about it here and if someone asks me about it--but I'd never suggest for a second that you adopt it. "Mine is not a better way; mine is only another way." Again, weird. I mean, if you listen to the militant atheists, any belief in God or gods is self-evidently infantile; evolved human beings, by which they mean them, have no time for fairy tales. You know what? I ask two things. One, examine your beliefs. If they work for you, great. Two--don't presume to make them mine. Beyond that, believe in one God, or seven, or none--makes no difference to me.
My thought processes, in short, are so uncommon that I often feel the need to defend them. But sometimes--like today--I get to wondering if I should just let these uncommon thoughts go. It looks from here like it would be so much easier to row with the current.
She believed, before she embarked on this trip, that sex work was, or at least could be, a job like any other. That legalization would offer some protection for women whom our society has chosen to marginalize. She found otherwise. In Germany, one brothel has flat rate specials, anything goes, and German net forums are flooded with complaints that the women there are "unfit for use" after a few hours. None of the many women she interviewed, in three countries, wanted to be photographed; many were hesitant to even talk to her. They seemed to exist, she wrote, entirely for the men; the idea that they themselves might have sexual desire wasn't even an afterthought. In most cases, while lip service was paid to the ability of the workers to refuse clients, reality suggested that would be, shall we say, an unwise career move. And so on. Basically, in the course of four pages, Mallick rubbed my nose in reality, and how it differs from my ideals. This really bothered me, because reality differs from my ideals in many, probably most ways, and I hate to be reminded of that.
I have this fault: I insist on seeing the world not as it is, but as I think it should be. It's not a pretty fault to have. When presented with irrefutable evidence that reality doesn't measure up to my ideal, I'm apt to withdraw from reality entirely rather than exert pointless effort trying to change it. And in the meantime my ideals blind me to the way things actually are.
Prostitution is one example. I've written on it here, here, and here; that last entry was even framed as a clash between my idealistic view of the trade and how it actually is. I suggested there that we could change the way sex work is viewed with a few simple paradigm shifts. After reading Mallick's exposé, I'm no longer sure about that.
The overwhelming takeaway from the article I just read is that men--it seems like all men, although I know otherwise--think women in general and prostitutes in particular are holes. Receptacles. The thought sickens me. It's not just that I do not and have never thought that way, but my heart aches that any woman--any person--should be thought of that way. It's not just one man thinking this about one woman, however. It seems like it's endemic. How the hell do you find the vaccine for a disease like that, and where do you apply it?
It's by no means just sex. My thoughts on love are unconventional, to say the least. I've been mocked online every time I've dared to bring them up. My sexuality has been questioned, repeatedly, because my claims that I find women beautiful regardless of their physical appearance are apparently impossible to believe, despite being true. (You'd think that my loving so many women would qualify me as heterosexual, but you'd be wrong.)
Politics--I'm forever looking for consensus, trying to drive people towards the center and get them to respect each other's points of view. That's so old-fashioned it's laughable: everyone knows right wingers are evil and left wingers are stupid. Or maybe it's the other way around, but c'mon, Ken, get with the program.
Religion: I'm really not keen on proselytizing, because if you feel the need to do it you view yourself as superior and everyone else as inferior. I have my own spirituality that works for me, and I'll talk about it here and if someone asks me about it--but I'd never suggest for a second that you adopt it. "Mine is not a better way; mine is only another way." Again, weird. I mean, if you listen to the militant atheists, any belief in God or gods is self-evidently infantile; evolved human beings, by which they mean them, have no time for fairy tales. You know what? I ask two things. One, examine your beliefs. If they work for you, great. Two--don't presume to make them mine. Beyond that, believe in one God, or seven, or none--makes no difference to me.
My thought processes, in short, are so uncommon that I often feel the need to defend them. But sometimes--like today--I get to wondering if I should just let these uncommon thoughts go. It looks from here like it would be so much easier to row with the current.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
"Impure Thoughts"
Administrivia: my next economic post will be forthcoming in a couple of days. Or not. My aunt-in-law (is that a thing? Screw it, my aunt) provided me with an article that inadvertently activated a time machine, carrying me back to
THE TIME MACHINE: WESTMINSTER S.S., LONDON, ONTARIO, MAY 1989
Her name is Danielle, and right now she's the most enthralling thing in my universe.
I don't rank my crushes--I'm really not that good at the kind of advanced math that would take--but if I did, she'd be at the top of the second tier. That's to say, on days when Darlene hasn't favoured me with any attention at all, Danielle's among the first people my ever-restless brain turns to.
This particular crush is a little more...physical...than most of them. That's because Danielle is one of those misunderstood, thoroughly wonderful women who are free with their affections. She doesn't think twice about doling out hugs and pecks (and her hugs are the number-1 hugs of someone who means it, not the awful letter-A hugs that connote fear of disease). I've no doubt that some people thought of her as that word that starts with s and rhymes with lut...and nothing could be further from the truth. She has a devoted boyfriend, and she's sure to let everyone know it. But not in that way that high school girls the world over have perfected...you know, the "my boyfriend says it's nice outside today". No, there's just a line that you don't cross with her...call it the first base line...but you're free to come to the ballpark and she has this way of making you feel like you've caught a home run ball...every day. (2014 Ken intrudes: in all my life, I've met exactly one other person who has this mindset...it's rarer than albino unicorn tears.)
The lovelorn teenager I am can't help but take these hugs and the odd peck and throw them headlong into the fantasy fire, where they burn with a heat that melts mattresses. The adult struggling to birth himself recognizes Danielle's free-floating love for what it is (exactly the sort of love he feels himself and wishes everyone felt comfortable expressing) and what it isn't (the sort of love that melts mattresses)...and he's more than content to spend time in her company on her terms.
Now, a few months down the road, after I've moved away from Darlene, Danielle, and everybody else I ever cared about, I'll be asked what colour paint I want in my bedroom, and I will find a shade of paint called 'danielle', and it will be a lovely light blue, but it won't matter if it's pus-coloured, I'll take danielle for my bedroom, please and thanks. Teenage Ken won't be going away any time soon.
But that's the unknowable future. Tonight's all about the past.
It's nothing short of incredible what this school has turned into. Scores of teachers and students have worked long and hard to transform different rooms of the school into time portals. There's a 1950s sock hop in the cafeteria, complete with classic car show outside. One gym is now smack dab in the Middle Ages, with mosaics and troubadours and fencing duels; they're building a pyramid to Cheops in the other gym. My French classroom has become 1890s Paris. And I'm part of a smoking hot quartet in a 1920s speakeasy that was an auditorium yesterday.
It really is amazing: we've got smoke, imitation '20s spotlighting, a capicola sandwich vendor in the corner...and me at the piano, wearing a shirt that says "don't shoot the piano player". I'm just the accompaniment to Craig, smoking away on trumpet, our music teacher on spoons...and Danielle on clarinet, who is just plain hot in a red dress with a strategic slit up the side.
We're doing Chimes Blues, something I will believe for years that Mr. Hall wrote for us, until I stumble on it when YouTube becomes a thing. Regardless, Mr. Hall wrote the arrangement, and coached us a bit on jazz improv, telling me to just use the music as a rough guide except for the 'chime' measures in the middle.
I am in my freaking element. I've been playing piano since I was four and I've gotten as far as Grade 5 Conservatory before dropping out in disgust because I was never allowed to experiment with the music. Now here's a teacher not just telling me it's acceptable, but flat-out demanding it. "Take this music and improve on it", he says. "I know you can do it." That heady praise goes straight to my fingers: it's damned hot in this costume...and it's about to get a damned sight hotter.
Craig launches into a solo and Danielle sashays out into the middle of the room...and then, with a flick she'll later tell me she's practiced for weeks, her dress will swirl and...just for the barest instant...the slit up the side will part and I'll be vouchsafed a vision.
My fingers are on autopilot, tickling ivories and wishing they were tickling something else. I've found a way to get my eyes on porn by this age and I gotta say, heaving thrusting naked orgies have got nothing on this young woman in red. An entire song I'll call 'Danielle's Ditty' coruscates out of my mind and through my fingers when it comes time for my solo. I will never compose another jazzy song, even though 'composed' is entirely the wrong word for this one. It's born without thought: just a mindless, hedonistic musical ejaculation. It occurs to me that jazz is to music what Danielle herself is to love: free-flowing, grab-you-by-the-seat-of-the-pants and don't let go. It belongs in dark, hot, smoky secret spots, even if it's thoroughly respectable on the surface.
Several fellow students and more than a few adults will ooh and ahh and sigh in my vicinity over the next hours and days: in true Danielle fashion, that flick of the dress was repeated several times to various corners of the room. The words "impure thoughts" will be mentioned by one of the teachers, and be echoed by another. I doubt anyone here will forget her anytime soon.
----------------------
Danielle came to mind as I read this.
A 17-year-old girl named Clare was booted, along with her friends, from her homeschool prom because her dress--which is shorter, but trust me, a good deal more conservative than that flaming number Danielle wore--was causing some chaperoning dads to think 'impure thoughts'. They actually stated they were concerned the 17-year-old boys were also thinking impure thoughts.
Well, duh. Any seventeen year old boy is a jittering jiving impure thought on legs (three of them) and any parent who believes otherwise has drowned in an Egyptian river.
Part of the problem here, I'm convinced, is in the first sentence. HOMESCHOOL PROM? I mean, good on the organizers for granting their charges this rite of passage, but pardon me for questioning whether a homeschool program in Virginia bothers to teach girls or boys anything about the facts of life. It also, quite evidently, imparts that peculiar Christian ethos that blames women for the conduct of men--we all know Eve tempted Adam with that fruit.
(It was not an apple, by the way. Apples are not native to the Middle East. The Latin words for "apple" and "evil" are identical. Just one of dozens and dozens of mistranslations in the Bible...some of them a good deal less trivial.)
The comments below this article contend the dads should have been kicked out instead. That's stupid. Not as stupid as kicking Clare and her friends out, mind you, but stupid. If we're to be punished for our very thoughts, there's no hope for any of us. I think of Danielle, and the bevy of impure thoughts she inspired, and how we all healthily sighed and giggled over them. Nobody kicked her out. Nobody was kicked out. And you know what? Nobody went after Danielle that night and assaulted her, either. In fact, all of us congratulated her, and she basked in the love we gave her, so similar really to the love she'd been giving herself.
Nobody deserves to lose her prom for clothing that met the dress code. We are not responsible for how our messages are received, only for how clearly we send them, and the message Clare was sending (to me. at least) was clearly inoffensive. Even granting some license for licentiousness--say, a subtle flick of a dress--and even as I acknowledge I had thoughts that would make a longshoreman blush confronted with that flick--I actually thought of Danielle at the time, I kid you not, as completely pure. An essence not of woman, but of Danielle. Is it really not possible to see Clare in that light?
Ever since that high school year, I have made it my life's mission to discover the essence of people. On some memorable occasions I've been responsible for people discovering parts of themselves they didn't know were there; on many, many others I've given them permission to be who they are. For me, that's purity, even if it yields the odd impure thought.
THE TIME MACHINE: WESTMINSTER S.S., LONDON, ONTARIO, MAY 1989
Her name is Danielle, and right now she's the most enthralling thing in my universe.
I don't rank my crushes--I'm really not that good at the kind of advanced math that would take--but if I did, she'd be at the top of the second tier. That's to say, on days when Darlene hasn't favoured me with any attention at all, Danielle's among the first people my ever-restless brain turns to.
This particular crush is a little more...physical...than most of them. That's because Danielle is one of those misunderstood, thoroughly wonderful women who are free with their affections. She doesn't think twice about doling out hugs and pecks (and her hugs are the number-1 hugs of someone who means it, not the awful letter-A hugs that connote fear of disease). I've no doubt that some people thought of her as that word that starts with s and rhymes with lut...and nothing could be further from the truth. She has a devoted boyfriend, and she's sure to let everyone know it. But not in that way that high school girls the world over have perfected...you know, the "my boyfriend says it's nice outside today". No, there's just a line that you don't cross with her...call it the first base line...but you're free to come to the ballpark and she has this way of making you feel like you've caught a home run ball...every day. (2014 Ken intrudes: in all my life, I've met exactly one other person who has this mindset...it's rarer than albino unicorn tears.)
The lovelorn teenager I am can't help but take these hugs and the odd peck and throw them headlong into the fantasy fire, where they burn with a heat that melts mattresses. The adult struggling to birth himself recognizes Danielle's free-floating love for what it is (exactly the sort of love he feels himself and wishes everyone felt comfortable expressing) and what it isn't (the sort of love that melts mattresses)...and he's more than content to spend time in her company on her terms.
Now, a few months down the road, after I've moved away from Darlene, Danielle, and everybody else I ever cared about, I'll be asked what colour paint I want in my bedroom, and I will find a shade of paint called 'danielle', and it will be a lovely light blue, but it won't matter if it's pus-coloured, I'll take danielle for my bedroom, please and thanks. Teenage Ken won't be going away any time soon.
But that's the unknowable future. Tonight's all about the past.
It's nothing short of incredible what this school has turned into. Scores of teachers and students have worked long and hard to transform different rooms of the school into time portals. There's a 1950s sock hop in the cafeteria, complete with classic car show outside. One gym is now smack dab in the Middle Ages, with mosaics and troubadours and fencing duels; they're building a pyramid to Cheops in the other gym. My French classroom has become 1890s Paris. And I'm part of a smoking hot quartet in a 1920s speakeasy that was an auditorium yesterday.
It really is amazing: we've got smoke, imitation '20s spotlighting, a capicola sandwich vendor in the corner...and me at the piano, wearing a shirt that says "don't shoot the piano player". I'm just the accompaniment to Craig, smoking away on trumpet, our music teacher on spoons...and Danielle on clarinet, who is just plain hot in a red dress with a strategic slit up the side.
We're doing Chimes Blues, something I will believe for years that Mr. Hall wrote for us, until I stumble on it when YouTube becomes a thing. Regardless, Mr. Hall wrote the arrangement, and coached us a bit on jazz improv, telling me to just use the music as a rough guide except for the 'chime' measures in the middle.
I am in my freaking element. I've been playing piano since I was four and I've gotten as far as Grade 5 Conservatory before dropping out in disgust because I was never allowed to experiment with the music. Now here's a teacher not just telling me it's acceptable, but flat-out demanding it. "Take this music and improve on it", he says. "I know you can do it." That heady praise goes straight to my fingers: it's damned hot in this costume...and it's about to get a damned sight hotter.
Craig launches into a solo and Danielle sashays out into the middle of the room...and then, with a flick she'll later tell me she's practiced for weeks, her dress will swirl and...just for the barest instant...the slit up the side will part and I'll be vouchsafed a vision.
My fingers are on autopilot, tickling ivories and wishing they were tickling something else. I've found a way to get my eyes on porn by this age and I gotta say, heaving thrusting naked orgies have got nothing on this young woman in red. An entire song I'll call 'Danielle's Ditty' coruscates out of my mind and through my fingers when it comes time for my solo. I will never compose another jazzy song, even though 'composed' is entirely the wrong word for this one. It's born without thought: just a mindless, hedonistic musical ejaculation. It occurs to me that jazz is to music what Danielle herself is to love: free-flowing, grab-you-by-the-seat-of-the-pants and don't let go. It belongs in dark, hot, smoky secret spots, even if it's thoroughly respectable on the surface.
Several fellow students and more than a few adults will ooh and ahh and sigh in my vicinity over the next hours and days: in true Danielle fashion, that flick of the dress was repeated several times to various corners of the room. The words "impure thoughts" will be mentioned by one of the teachers, and be echoed by another. I doubt anyone here will forget her anytime soon.
----------------------
Danielle came to mind as I read this.
A 17-year-old girl named Clare was booted, along with her friends, from her homeschool prom because her dress--which is shorter, but trust me, a good deal more conservative than that flaming number Danielle wore--was causing some chaperoning dads to think 'impure thoughts'. They actually stated they were concerned the 17-year-old boys were also thinking impure thoughts.
Well, duh. Any seventeen year old boy is a jittering jiving impure thought on legs (three of them) and any parent who believes otherwise has drowned in an Egyptian river.
Part of the problem here, I'm convinced, is in the first sentence. HOMESCHOOL PROM? I mean, good on the organizers for granting their charges this rite of passage, but pardon me for questioning whether a homeschool program in Virginia bothers to teach girls or boys anything about the facts of life. It also, quite evidently, imparts that peculiar Christian ethos that blames women for the conduct of men--we all know Eve tempted Adam with that fruit.
(It was not an apple, by the way. Apples are not native to the Middle East. The Latin words for "apple" and "evil" are identical. Just one of dozens and dozens of mistranslations in the Bible...some of them a good deal less trivial.)
The comments below this article contend the dads should have been kicked out instead. That's stupid. Not as stupid as kicking Clare and her friends out, mind you, but stupid. If we're to be punished for our very thoughts, there's no hope for any of us. I think of Danielle, and the bevy of impure thoughts she inspired, and how we all healthily sighed and giggled over them. Nobody kicked her out. Nobody was kicked out. And you know what? Nobody went after Danielle that night and assaulted her, either. In fact, all of us congratulated her, and she basked in the love we gave her, so similar really to the love she'd been giving herself.
Nobody deserves to lose her prom for clothing that met the dress code. We are not responsible for how our messages are received, only for how clearly we send them, and the message Clare was sending (to me. at least) was clearly inoffensive. Even granting some license for licentiousness--say, a subtle flick of a dress--and even as I acknowledge I had thoughts that would make a longshoreman blush confronted with that flick--I actually thought of Danielle at the time, I kid you not, as completely pure. An essence not of woman, but of Danielle. Is it really not possible to see Clare in that light?
Ever since that high school year, I have made it my life's mission to discover the essence of people. On some memorable occasions I've been responsible for people discovering parts of themselves they didn't know were there; on many, many others I've given them permission to be who they are. For me, that's purity, even if it yields the odd impure thought.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Poor
There are, by and large, two parts of our economy that are still functional. The tippity-top is going great guns, of course...they engineer it that way. The stock market is nosing around all-time highs. The price of admission to this market--in an example of truly side-splitting irony, it's called a "share"--well, some of them are five or six hundred bucks apiece, and if you call up the guardians at the gates and ask to buy just one "share", you'll be laughed into another dimension. For most of us down here in the sweatshops, five or six hundred bucks is a non-trivial amount of money. For more than a few of us, it's more than we earn in a week's work (and that's not even mentioning the countries where five hundred bucks is an above-average ANNUAL income).
As much as we need to talk about those countries, let's focus on ours for now. As I said, if you're monied, you're doing well, and the more monied you are, the better you're doing.
There is another part of the economy that's doing very well, and that's towards the bottom.
People are unaware of this--they hear the latest "job creation" figures and think that those jobs fit their preconceived notions of what a job is and what it's supposed to do. But for the most part, that's not true. Most of the jobs being created are part time, minimum wage or-so-near-to-it-as-to-make-no-difference positions without pensions or benefits of any kind. Such is the society we are creating for ourselves: consumerism run amok, supported by a phalanx of 'service industry' drones who aren't paid enough to serve themselves, let alone the world. Many of them can't afford to buy the goods they create, or sell.
This is what it's like to work for the world's most profitable retailer. It's an American article, of course. and many of us up here in Canada with our inferiority complex that manifests as a superiority complex will immediately dismiss it on those grounds. But there are political forces at work in our country that seek to make us just like America; indeed, our job creation figures are very much like theirs. Outside of Alberta, of course, where you can make a fantastic wage helping to destroy the environment.
Whenever the poor work and life conditions in the service industry are brought up in polite company, I've noticed that they are brushed off as unpleasant but necessary. Nobody is expected to stay in such a job for long, we're told. They're starter jobs, for kids, and if they paid a "living wage", nobody would have the ambition to better themselves.
This is, of course, absurd. The rich person doesn't stop at his first million.; why would a poor person stop at her first thousand? But don't blame the monied people for thinking it--they have no idea what a "living wage" actually is, because quite frankly, they have no need to know that sort of thing. They are not accustomed to thinking in terms of where their next meal is coming from; for them, it's more where their next luxury automobile is coming from.
Poor people, to the rich, aren't really people at all. They lack some fundamental ingredient that would make them so. What is it the poor lack? Ambition? Drive? Integrity?
In most cases, non of these. No, in most cases poor people lack...money. But that's enough to dehumanize them, We live in a culture where people are judged not by their self-worth, or their worth to others, but solely by their net worth. Sad, but true.
And most importantly, the rich tend not to have a concept of the low-income trap that keeps people in these "starter" jobs for years, often for entire careers.
That trap has a number of springs. The first and most obvious is that there are more and more "starter" jobs and fewer and fewer jobs above that rung, making the competition more and more intense over time. (This is called 'social Darwinism' and it's a favourite philosophy of the rich. Why wouldn't it be? We're all looking for confirmation that we're the best...for most of the rich, that confirmation is right there in their bank accounts.)
The second spring in the trap is a little more subtle. Finding a new job isn't simply a matter of effort. A sustained job search is expensive in time and money, for values of 'expensive' that only the poor can appreciate. Proper interview attire; resume writing and interview coaching; transportation to and from interviews; sufficient time off from work (unpaid, of course) to search in the first place. And I'm completely disregarding the most expensive item of all: an education. School costs. A lot. It's one thing to want to better yourself--most of us do--it's another entirely to have the means to do it!
But the third low-income trap is the killer. It's expensive to be poor. From bank accounts with minimum balance requirements you can't meet, to limited to nonexistent healthy food options, when you are poor, there are a host of factors conspiring to keep you that way. Poverty truly does act like a disease: it infests entire areas, like a cancer might, and it hardens hearts and attitudes in those areas such that climbing out of poverty often carries a social cost.
I will write soon on my ideas for needed paradigm shifts to elevate the poor among us. For now, take heart: it doesn't have to be this way.
As much as we need to talk about those countries, let's focus on ours for now. As I said, if you're monied, you're doing well, and the more monied you are, the better you're doing.
There is another part of the economy that's doing very well, and that's towards the bottom.
People are unaware of this--they hear the latest "job creation" figures and think that those jobs fit their preconceived notions of what a job is and what it's supposed to do. But for the most part, that's not true. Most of the jobs being created are part time, minimum wage or-so-near-to-it-as-to-make-no-difference positions without pensions or benefits of any kind. Such is the society we are creating for ourselves: consumerism run amok, supported by a phalanx of 'service industry' drones who aren't paid enough to serve themselves, let alone the world. Many of them can't afford to buy the goods they create, or sell.
This is what it's like to work for the world's most profitable retailer. It's an American article, of course. and many of us up here in Canada with our inferiority complex that manifests as a superiority complex will immediately dismiss it on those grounds. But there are political forces at work in our country that seek to make us just like America; indeed, our job creation figures are very much like theirs. Outside of Alberta, of course, where you can make a fantastic wage helping to destroy the environment.
Whenever the poor work and life conditions in the service industry are brought up in polite company, I've noticed that they are brushed off as unpleasant but necessary. Nobody is expected to stay in such a job for long, we're told. They're starter jobs, for kids, and if they paid a "living wage", nobody would have the ambition to better themselves.
This is, of course, absurd. The rich person doesn't stop at his first million.; why would a poor person stop at her first thousand? But don't blame the monied people for thinking it--they have no idea what a "living wage" actually is, because quite frankly, they have no need to know that sort of thing. They are not accustomed to thinking in terms of where their next meal is coming from; for them, it's more where their next luxury automobile is coming from.
Poor people, to the rich, aren't really people at all. They lack some fundamental ingredient that would make them so. What is it the poor lack? Ambition? Drive? Integrity?
In most cases, non of these. No, in most cases poor people lack...money. But that's enough to dehumanize them, We live in a culture where people are judged not by their self-worth, or their worth to others, but solely by their net worth. Sad, but true.
And most importantly, the rich tend not to have a concept of the low-income trap that keeps people in these "starter" jobs for years, often for entire careers.
That trap has a number of springs. The first and most obvious is that there are more and more "starter" jobs and fewer and fewer jobs above that rung, making the competition more and more intense over time. (This is called 'social Darwinism' and it's a favourite philosophy of the rich. Why wouldn't it be? We're all looking for confirmation that we're the best...for most of the rich, that confirmation is right there in their bank accounts.)
The second spring in the trap is a little more subtle. Finding a new job isn't simply a matter of effort. A sustained job search is expensive in time and money, for values of 'expensive' that only the poor can appreciate. Proper interview attire; resume writing and interview coaching; transportation to and from interviews; sufficient time off from work (unpaid, of course) to search in the first place. And I'm completely disregarding the most expensive item of all: an education. School costs. A lot. It's one thing to want to better yourself--most of us do--it's another entirely to have the means to do it!
But the third low-income trap is the killer. It's expensive to be poor. From bank accounts with minimum balance requirements you can't meet, to limited to nonexistent healthy food options, when you are poor, there are a host of factors conspiring to keep you that way. Poverty truly does act like a disease: it infests entire areas, like a cancer might, and it hardens hearts and attitudes in those areas such that climbing out of poverty often carries a social cost.
I will write soon on my ideas for needed paradigm shifts to elevate the poor among us. For now, take heart: it doesn't have to be this way.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Every Day is Mother's Day
I have three mothers. Besides my Mom, there's my stepmom, Heather, and my mother-in-law, Anne. All three of them put a high value on their privacy, and so this paean to motherhood probably going to come off sounding a little generic. It shouldn't. These three women are anything but ordinary...even among mothers, who tend to be a cut above the ordinary themselves.
Circumstances prohibit my seeing any of the three of them near as often as I should. (I'm known as the invisible son-in-law; to my shame, I'm also an invisible son and stepson.) But I carry the three of them with me through my life, and I'm so very grateful for that.
The three of them, each in their way, are strong and resilient beyond my ability to describe. That strength can be intimidating, viewed at a distance. They do not live life in the passive mode; they are actors, fully conscious and competent. But again, each in their way, they embody compassion, not just cold competence. They are strong, yes, but so is their love.
The deepest, most life-sustaining parts of me come from my mother. I owe her my spirituality and my twin passions for words and music. The deep, seemingly limitless wellspring of love that is my single defining characteristic is her greatest gift to her son. She's a complicated woman, a study in opposites that somehow synthesize into a walking miracle.Kind of like my wife...of course. They say that men marry their mothers. That's not true, thanks to my next paragraph...but there are definite similarities between Eva and my mom, and all of them are good similarities to have.
The lessons I've absorbed from Eva's mom have largely come secondhand, through the remarkable woman she helped to craft. Among the many, many gifts that Eva has granted me, two stand out above all, and both come direct from Anne: her limitless strength in the face of anything life can throw at her (which, admittedly, I can only tap, so far)...and her restless, roving mind, endlessly curious, which gathers blacks and whites and produces lovely shades of grey. Eva, like her mom, is a woman of strong opinion who nevertheless can argue any side of any issue. From Eva I have learned that no position is worth taking unless you understand how you get to it...which means understanding how others derive different positions. That's a rare quality in the world.
Heather's lessons also come to me secondhand, through my father, whom she loves dearly. She has given my dad the freedom to let his emotions out, which has brought us closer together. She's a conciliator, a consensus-builder, a person who projects above all an aura of caring. That mix of indomitable spirit and empathy is a source of inspiration for me.
I love all three of you. I hope you know that.
Happy Mother's Day.
Circumstances prohibit my seeing any of the three of them near as often as I should. (I'm known as the invisible son-in-law; to my shame, I'm also an invisible son and stepson.) But I carry the three of them with me through my life, and I'm so very grateful for that.
The three of them, each in their way, are strong and resilient beyond my ability to describe. That strength can be intimidating, viewed at a distance. They do not live life in the passive mode; they are actors, fully conscious and competent. But again, each in their way, they embody compassion, not just cold competence. They are strong, yes, but so is their love.
The deepest, most life-sustaining parts of me come from my mother. I owe her my spirituality and my twin passions for words and music. The deep, seemingly limitless wellspring of love that is my single defining characteristic is her greatest gift to her son. She's a complicated woman, a study in opposites that somehow synthesize into a walking miracle.Kind of like my wife...of course. They say that men marry their mothers. That's not true, thanks to my next paragraph...but there are definite similarities between Eva and my mom, and all of them are good similarities to have.
The lessons I've absorbed from Eva's mom have largely come secondhand, through the remarkable woman she helped to craft. Among the many, many gifts that Eva has granted me, two stand out above all, and both come direct from Anne: her limitless strength in the face of anything life can throw at her (which, admittedly, I can only tap, so far)...and her restless, roving mind, endlessly curious, which gathers blacks and whites and produces lovely shades of grey. Eva, like her mom, is a woman of strong opinion who nevertheless can argue any side of any issue. From Eva I have learned that no position is worth taking unless you understand how you get to it...which means understanding how others derive different positions. That's a rare quality in the world.
Heather's lessons also come to me secondhand, through my father, whom she loves dearly. She has given my dad the freedom to let his emotions out, which has brought us closer together. She's a conciliator, a consensus-builder, a person who projects above all an aura of caring. That mix of indomitable spirit and empathy is a source of inspiration for me.
I love all three of you. I hope you know that.
Happy Mother's Day.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Dream A Little Dream...
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."--Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
In the last week, I've
In the last week, I've
- spent three days and two nights in Australia with a friend;
- suddenly grown fifteen inches and found myself in the seventh game of an NBA playoff series;
- found myself on a beach somewhere, being stung to death by dozens of jellyfish;
- decided I wanted to become a tax accountant, got myself accredited, found a job and got myself immediately fired for showing up to work naked. Well, I was wearing a tie. It wasn't knotted in an appropriate place (I was told), but the knot was impeccable.
Dreams are weird.
Ever had a scorchingly hot quadruple-x-rated dream starring somebody you're actually repulsed by in real life? That's one of the world's little nonplussing experiences. If you're a guy, you wake up in a puddle of gelatinous horror, trying mightily to square residual sexual tinglies with acute shame and revulsion, (Those feelings don't square very well, not when the shame and revulsion are circular, like a vortex coming to swallow you whole, and never you mind how she did just that in the dream. Wow. I mean, ugh.)
Except in cases of serious psychological disorder, all of us dream. But we tend to forget around ninety percent of our dream life: we're more likely to recall an individual dream if we wake in the middle of it.
Science is less sure about the concept of time in dreams. Current theory is that the brain is free to work at its own pace when it is not limited by waking consciousness, and that pace is fast, allowing the mind to create a vivid and rich dream which seems to last hours--or days--in only minutes or even seconds.
That Australian adventure was a real anomaly...I've only ever had one dream I can recall that involved me waking up, and until this week I've never done it twice in the same dream, to my knowledge. As strange as that dream's timeframe was, however, it followed a standard progression. I don't know about you, but the longer my dream goes, the more likely it's going to turn nightmarish. In this case we found ourselves stranded, 448 km from Sydney (a sign very helpfully informed us). Google tells me that could be Leeton or Wagga Wagga, and let me tell you that I'm kind of afraid to go searching images in case I recognize something. In the dream, I was frantically trying to find a way to call home, to let Eva know where I was and try to explain--somehow--that although I was with another woman, I hadn't run away from her and by the way, I'm supposed to work tonight, could you call them and tell them I'm Down Under the weather or something? Except I had no money and just the clothes I was wearing (clothes I don't actually own) and...damnit, that dream was odd.
The NBA dream. I'm not a big basketball fan. I watched a little of the Raptors-Nets series because, hey, hometown team making good, maybe. (Or maybe not; they lost by a single point in game seven, because Toronto is cursed like that.) Anyway, evidently my mind was busily storing up footage for me to play back and insert myself into later. And it took some inserting. I knew my suddenly 6'10" self belonged on the team, and most of my team-mates welcomed me, but a few of them were hostile and the refs wouldn't allow me to take my place on the court, at first. Then I picked up a a foul by drawing the word "FOUL" in Sharpie on the floor...and then I woke up.
Jellyfish: I've had that one before, several times, most memorably the night before my vasectomy. It's one of many, usually fatal, repetitive dreams I've had through my life. God knows how many times I've found myself splattered over several city blocks from an overenthusiastic swan dive, or shot in the face by a home intruder, or in this case mauled by jellyfish. That jellyfish dream always starts off sexual, too. I'm laying on a beach with my eyes closed, deep in fantasyland and sporting a streetlamp between my legs...the longer and harder it gets, the more jellyfish it attracts, except I don't know there are any jellyfish there because my streetlamp is flashing on and off in a very distracting way. The power surge and the stinging start simultaneously. It is very disconcerting to wake up dead, with your streetlamp extinguished forever.
The less said about that accountancy dream the better. Though, again, I must say that Windsor knot was impressive.
The more perceptive of you will notice a common theme: Ken neck-deep in situations out of his control and often beyond his...ken, you might say. Some people are able to control their dream lives. Not me, not ever. I'm strapped to a missile whose guidance system is malfunctioning. Even my nice, non-nightmare kind of dreams almost always involve situations I'd never find myself in out here in wakeworld, and my actions and reactions are not those I'd imagine myself pulling off. Very rarely does my dream even start from a known where/when in real life...and if it does, it diverges right quick from the life I already lived, sometimes for the better but usually for the worse. I'll find myself in a car driving on the 401--bad enough since I don't drive--and then the car will suddenly turn into a plane and I'm taxiing down the 401, having to leap over the overpasses...I'll be at work and everything's normal except I see I have instructions to individually price all the penny candy/drink all the milk on the milk counter (that one didn't end well)/ hop on till (which I've never worked in a grocery store) and serve all the customers--who turn out to be zombies buying brains.
You probably don't want a starring role in a Ken-dream. Trust me on that.
That Australian adventure was a real anomaly...I've only ever had one dream I can recall that involved me waking up, and until this week I've never done it twice in the same dream, to my knowledge. As strange as that dream's timeframe was, however, it followed a standard progression. I don't know about you, but the longer my dream goes, the more likely it's going to turn nightmarish. In this case we found ourselves stranded, 448 km from Sydney (a sign very helpfully informed us). Google tells me that could be Leeton or Wagga Wagga, and let me tell you that I'm kind of afraid to go searching images in case I recognize something. In the dream, I was frantically trying to find a way to call home, to let Eva know where I was and try to explain--somehow--that although I was with another woman, I hadn't run away from her and by the way, I'm supposed to work tonight, could you call them and tell them I'm Down Under the weather or something? Except I had no money and just the clothes I was wearing (clothes I don't actually own) and...damnit, that dream was odd.
The NBA dream. I'm not a big basketball fan. I watched a little of the Raptors-Nets series because, hey, hometown team making good, maybe. (Or maybe not; they lost by a single point in game seven, because Toronto is cursed like that.) Anyway, evidently my mind was busily storing up footage for me to play back and insert myself into later. And it took some inserting. I knew my suddenly 6'10" self belonged on the team, and most of my team-mates welcomed me, but a few of them were hostile and the refs wouldn't allow me to take my place on the court, at first. Then I picked up a a foul by drawing the word "FOUL" in Sharpie on the floor...and then I woke up.
Jellyfish: I've had that one before, several times, most memorably the night before my vasectomy. It's one of many, usually fatal, repetitive dreams I've had through my life. God knows how many times I've found myself splattered over several city blocks from an overenthusiastic swan dive, or shot in the face by a home intruder, or in this case mauled by jellyfish. That jellyfish dream always starts off sexual, too. I'm laying on a beach with my eyes closed, deep in fantasyland and sporting a streetlamp between my legs...the longer and harder it gets, the more jellyfish it attracts, except I don't know there are any jellyfish there because my streetlamp is flashing on and off in a very distracting way. The power surge and the stinging start simultaneously. It is very disconcerting to wake up dead, with your streetlamp extinguished forever.
The less said about that accountancy dream the better. Though, again, I must say that Windsor knot was impressive.
The more perceptive of you will notice a common theme: Ken neck-deep in situations out of his control and often beyond his...ken, you might say. Some people are able to control their dream lives. Not me, not ever. I'm strapped to a missile whose guidance system is malfunctioning. Even my nice, non-nightmare kind of dreams almost always involve situations I'd never find myself in out here in wakeworld, and my actions and reactions are not those I'd imagine myself pulling off. Very rarely does my dream even start from a known where/when in real life...and if it does, it diverges right quick from the life I already lived, sometimes for the better but usually for the worse. I'll find myself in a car driving on the 401--bad enough since I don't drive--and then the car will suddenly turn into a plane and I'm taxiing down the 401, having to leap over the overpasses...I'll be at work and everything's normal except I see I have instructions to individually price all the penny candy/drink all the milk on the milk counter (that one didn't end well)/ hop on till (which I've never worked in a grocery store) and serve all the customers--who turn out to be zombies buying brains.
You probably don't want a starring role in a Ken-dream. Trust me on that.
Monday, May 05, 2014
WiFi in the Wild
I'm on vacation right now. And I've been glued to this computer even more than I usually am.
My French IV class has been cancelled due to lack of interest--only four people enrolled, and I was one of 'em. I thought this might happen, as many of my French III classmates expressed serious misgivings about the intersession class, which was supposed to be a twice-a-week affair over eight weeks (as opposed to the three classes I've been through so far, which were Tuesday nights only).
Me, I'd go all day five days a week if it would get me fluent faster. As it is, by the time my fall course starts up, I'll probably have finished all the exercises in the textbook. I'll have to, just so I don't forget what I've learned already.
WiFi hotspots are coming to Canada's national parks.
Your reaction to this probably depends on your age. I've written before about wifi at Disney World and the reaction to its coming, which boiled down to "it's about bloody time". I was incredulous. I simply couldn't believe any sane, rational person would survey the so-called 'Happiest Place On Earth' (it is, trust me) and say to themselves, you know what's missing here? The Internet! "Flabbergasted" doesn't even begin to cover it.
Now they're putting wifi hotspots in our national parks. Because, you know, this
doesn't hold a candle to the latest Tweet. Because people would rather stare at their screens than at something like this...
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Because camping at Georgian Bay National Park
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just can't be camping if your employer can't get a hold of you and make you work on your vacation.
I say I'd quit a job that pulled that stunt, except in all honesty I'd probably be fired. Because if my boss said something to me about keeping in touch, I'd ask him if he had a family he cared about.
That people would willingly, even eagerly, tote their smartphones into the backcountry--while I wouldn't even put myself in a position where I could be forced to--just speaks to how alien I seem to be.
The only blog entry I've done about camping is also, oddly enough, about cell phones. But the cell phone part of the blog did not intrude on the camping part. To this day, nothing does intrude on my memories of camping: they're pure and pristine, like the lake, like the air, like the forest.
I love the online world mostly because of how it connects me to the offline world...my day isn't complete unless I check in with a couple of friends, and Facebook makes that so simple. Reddit is a source of endless blog and thoughtfodder and YouTube is, to me, nothing less than a miracle. But Ecclesiastes had it right, to everything there is a season, and as we approach camping season, it saddens me to think that someday soon, camping will be no different from sitting on your ass at home.
My French IV class has been cancelled due to lack of interest--only four people enrolled, and I was one of 'em. I thought this might happen, as many of my French III classmates expressed serious misgivings about the intersession class, which was supposed to be a twice-a-week affair over eight weeks (as opposed to the three classes I've been through so far, which were Tuesday nights only).
Me, I'd go all day five days a week if it would get me fluent faster. As it is, by the time my fall course starts up, I'll probably have finished all the exercises in the textbook. I'll have to, just so I don't forget what I've learned already.
WiFi hotspots are coming to Canada's national parks.
Your reaction to this probably depends on your age. I've written before about wifi at Disney World and the reaction to its coming, which boiled down to "it's about bloody time". I was incredulous. I simply couldn't believe any sane, rational person would survey the so-called 'Happiest Place On Earth' (it is, trust me) and say to themselves, you know what's missing here? The Internet! "Flabbergasted" doesn't even begin to cover it.
Now they're putting wifi hotspots in our national parks. Because, you know, this
doesn't hold a candle to the latest Tweet. Because people would rather stare at their screens than at something like this...
Because camping at Georgian Bay National Park
I say I'd quit a job that pulled that stunt, except in all honesty I'd probably be fired. Because if my boss said something to me about keeping in touch, I'd ask him if he had a family he cared about.
That people would willingly, even eagerly, tote their smartphones into the backcountry--while I wouldn't even put myself in a position where I could be forced to--just speaks to how alien I seem to be.
The only blog entry I've done about camping is also, oddly enough, about cell phones. But the cell phone part of the blog did not intrude on the camping part. To this day, nothing does intrude on my memories of camping: they're pure and pristine, like the lake, like the air, like the forest.
I love the online world mostly because of how it connects me to the offline world...my day isn't complete unless I check in with a couple of friends, and Facebook makes that so simple. Reddit is a source of endless blog and thoughtfodder and YouTube is, to me, nothing less than a miracle. But Ecclesiastes had it right, to everything there is a season, and as we approach camping season, it saddens me to think that someday soon, camping will be no different from sitting on your ass at home.
Friday, May 02, 2014
Sterling the Pot
There has been a surprising amount of misinformation cloaked in righteous indignation concerning Donald Sterling, the soon-to-be-ex owner of the L.A. Clippers and what widespread published reports would have you believe is his cruel and unusual punishment for uttering a stunningly inappropriate, racist comment.
The one thing everyone does seem to agree on is that Sterling is a jerk. I don't usually make light of cancer, but reports that this man is suffering from prostate cancer seem rather fitting. After all, consensus is he's a giant inflamed asshole.
But since when is being a jerk illegal? I mean, even if you aspire to be a veritable robford, surely getting fined two and a half large and being banned for life/forced to sell your team is a tad...harsh? And doesn't the U.S. believe in free speech? There's this thing called the First Amendment, isn't there? This was a private conversation, illegally recorded, we're told. How can you be punished for saying something in private? There have been all sorts of editorials saying, in effect, hey, I'm not a racist, but what happened to Sterling is worse than racism.
Where to begin. Let's start with the assertion that's correct. Being a jerkwad is perfectly legal in the United States. Donald Sterling, in uttering his appallingly racist comment, broke no law and faces no legal punishment. He is (for the moment), however, the owner of a National Basketball Association team, and as such, he's the member of a private club and a stakeholder in a very lucrative business partnership.
That means he's subject to a code of conduct, which he broke in spectacular fashion. If you break the code of conduct of a private institution, it's up to them and them alone what they do with you. The First Amendment doesn't enter into it--that protects you from repercussions from the government, which Sterling is not facing.
When I was a university student, I signed a code of conduct promising me I'd be expelled for action unbecoming a student of the school I went to--wether that action happened on or off campus, and however it came to their attention. Judging from the asinine behaviour I saw daily from scores of university students, that clause is never enforced. But it's there. I can be fired from my job for saying or doing anything that reflects poorly on my employer. And I'm just a lowly peon. Donald Sterling is the owner of a billion-dollar in a business that happens to employ a great many African-Americans, and his words have caused an unprecedented amount of horrible publicity. The NBA was perfectly within its rights to ban Sterling for life, and to fine him any amount of money. Forcing him to sell his team is a little more ambiguous, but only in that it requires a vote among the other 29 owners, a vote I expect will be unanimous. Reports are Sterling will then sue...because like the robford he is, he just doesn't get it.
(In case you're wondering, there will not be a Rob Ford blog forthcoming.)
Now let's dispense with the "private conversation". Between Sterling, who is 80, and "V. Stiviano", his mistress, who's 31. She's gone by at least three aliases. She's fifty years his junior. She's the subject of a lawsuit from Mr. Sterling's wife, alleging he gave her millions of dollars in gifts, including a house and four luxury automobiles. SHE IS THIRTY ONE YEARS OLD AND HE IS EIGHTY. I think the phrase "gold digger" is the general gist here.
"Stiviano" claims, and claims to be able to produce proof of her claim, that Sterling knew he was being recorded. She says she has over a hundred hours of Sterling on record. If this is true, the taped conversation was entirely legal. Fobbing its fruit off on TMZ was kind of a dick move, but ahem SHE IS 31 AND HE IS 80 and somebody here had a serious lapse in judgement, or actually several of them.
"We've all told questionable jokes and said questionable things", I've heard lately. Yeah, I have too. I'm kind of careful who I say those things to, though, and if any of them come back to bite me, I'll have seriously misjudged a friend. That's the risk you take, and it's a risk Sterling took, and it bit him. I have zero sympathy.
There ARE a couple of questions I'm left with in the wake of this sordid affair, though. One: how is it that Sterling, who has been a notoriously unrepentant racist for years, has a lifetime achievement award from the N.A.A.C.P.? And two, how is it he was going to receive a second such award next week, until this happened?
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Jealousy
"A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity."
--Robert A. Heinlein
WARNING: ADULT CONTENT
--Robert A. Heinlein
WARNING: ADULT CONTENT
I've run across a lot of jealousy, latent or otherwise, in my travels of late. Longtime readers will have some inkling of how I feel about jealousy. For those new to the Breadbin, I consider it to be one of the worst, most corrosive emotions it's possible to feel. It's a perversion, a hateful, spiteful thing, and it baffles me how common it is. I see people claiming to be "in love" that consider jealousy to be an integral part of that love. Crazy.
I've felt it, I won't lie and say I haven't. I'm proud to say, however, that I haven't felt it in many years, not since I noticed that always, always, always it's been rooted in my own insecurity.
I should distinguish jealousy from its mild stepsister, envy. Envy is wanting something that someone else has. It's a perfectly natural emotion, an impetus for growth. It's what makes the little kid want to be a big kid. Jealousy, on the other hand, is wanting something that someone else has, such that they don't have it anymore.
My other working definition of jealousy is "pain at another's happiness", as distinguished from schadenfreude, "happiness at another's pain"--the other monstrous, truly acidic emotion that is even more common and accepted than jealousy...it's the foundation of almost all of what's called "comedy" in this society, and a big reason I don't find very much "comedy" funny. Pain isn't funny. If you think it is, I'm sorry, but there's something wrong with you.
Usually, but not always, jealousy is tied up in wrongheaded ideas about love--incredibly common in this society, but no less wrongheaded for so being. One of those pervasive, wrongheaded ideas is that love can, and should, be confined to one person per person. This isn't the first time I've posted this poem, and it probably won't be the last, but--
Sweet Marie, she loves just me
(She also loves Maurice McGhee).
No she don't, she loves just me
(She also loves Louise Dupree).
No she don't, she loves just me
(She also loves the willow tree).
No she don't, she loves just me!
(Poor, poor fool, why can't you see
She can love others and still love thee.)
--Shel Silverstein, "Where the Sidewalk Ends"
I first read this poem in third grade. I can't say it had a profound effect on me--even though I've never forgotten it. (Did 2+2=4 have a profound effect on you? Silverstein's poem has, for me, the same sort of elemental obviousness.) As I've aged, I've found that most people agree with the sentiment behind the poem (it's hard not to, since I've yet to meet someone who only loves one person)...but they don't apply its lessons to their own lives.
I can hear you now. Ken, you're being wilfully obtuse and you know it. The problem isn't love, but how that love is expressed. My wife can love other people, she just better not show it.
Or what? She'll leave you? Are you that insecure in your relationship? Not surprised. There seems to be a lot of that going around.
"It's not love that is blind, but jealousy."--Lawrence Durrell
I spend a lot of time on Reddit. If you're not familiar with it, it's a giant (almost 115 million unique visitors last month) bulletin board system wherein users submit and comment on content. The content can be anything at all, and both the submissions and the comments are voted up or down by the community at large. The site is organized into various "subreddit" forums (thousands of them). One of the default communities is "AskReddit"--a general catch-all question forum, and the query that caught my interest the other day was this:
"What's a question you never want to know the answer to?"
I like to play Family Feud with things like this--what's going to be the most common answer? Probably the day I'll die, I thought. Click. Nope. Often Reddit has a Hollywood Squares sort of ethos in which the most ridiculous comment gets upvoted to the skies. I thought that had to be the case when I read "how big her ex's dick was". Lots and lots of upvotes, ha-ha, that's funny.
Not funny at all, it seems. That comment touched a collective nerve. Not just touched it, but hammered on it. It became increasingly clear the further and further down I scrolled that a very large number of men have a very large hangup when it comes to their wife's or girlfriend's sexual past. They don't want to know. Anything. It's so much better, apparently, to convince yourself that your partner was a blank slate when you met her.
So here's jealousy over somebody who isn't even in the damn picture anymore. She chose you, dumbass. Obviously you compensate for your sexual failings in some other, more important way. More likely several much more important ways. And what are you jealous over? Dick size? What are you, twelve?
Given that so many men seem to be driven crazy simply imagining their partner's past, it goes without saying that they must see threats everywhere in their partner's present.
"I hate jealousy. I hate possessiveness. I'm nobody's possession."--Olga Kurytenko
One problem with jealousy (amongst many) is that it is a self fulfilling prophecy. Feel jealous long enough and hard enough at some imagined threat to your relationship and I will guarantee you the imagined threat will become a real threat. When this happens--it will--you will never believe it's your own distrust dooming things. No, you'll probably feel vindicated instead.
I should probably say that I'm not arguing here for some sort of free-love hippie-dippy mindset. I could do that, and easily, but I'm not doing it here. I'd settle, at this point, for society recognizing how love, like other emotions positive and negative, works. To wit: the more you give, the more you have to give.
This is counter to the way our cultural stories urge us to think about love. Supposedly we're all looking for one soulmate, and once we've found him or her, we'll (a) know it and (b) that one person will fulfill every need we'll ever have in life.
I much prefer the imagery one dear friend suggested to me last week: that there are soul "trees", and we're all leaves on one or another of them. It goes without saying, too, that love isn't needs fulfillment. If you want to kill a relationship, one of the surest ways to do it is to imagine you need something from it. Sooner or later, that need will go unmet, and then what?
Eva doesn't complete me. She's not the other half of me (even though she is the better half of this relationship). I am complete in and of myself and so is she; we have chosen to share our lives, and each day I share with her is a joy, even the sad ones. I do depend on her, probably more than is healthy at times. I'm envious of her many competencies. But if I ever start feeling jealousy, I clamp down on it hard. After more than fifteen years together, I owe her that courtesy. Pain at her happiness is not an option: I love her, which means her happiness is essential to my own. But I can say the same about other people: if something's amiss in the life of a good friend, the part of me that is devoted to that friend is hurting. I think other people can say the same; they may not be comfortable calling that "love". But that's what it is, as far as I'm concerned.
Jealousy isn't part of love. It's actually closer to hate.
I
Sweet Marie, she loves just me
(She also loves Maurice McGhee).
No she don't, she loves just me
(She also loves Louise Dupree).
No she don't, she loves just me
(She also loves the willow tree).
No she don't, she loves just me!
(Poor, poor fool, why can't you see
She can love others and still love thee.)
--Shel Silverstein, "Where the Sidewalk Ends"
I first read this poem in third grade. I can't say it had a profound effect on me--even though I've never forgotten it. (Did 2+2=4 have a profound effect on you? Silverstein's poem has, for me, the same sort of elemental obviousness.) As I've aged, I've found that most people agree with the sentiment behind the poem (it's hard not to, since I've yet to meet someone who only loves one person)...but they don't apply its lessons to their own lives.
I can hear you now. Ken, you're being wilfully obtuse and you know it. The problem isn't love, but how that love is expressed. My wife can love other people, she just better not show it.
Or what? She'll leave you? Are you that insecure in your relationship? Not surprised. There seems to be a lot of that going around.
"It's not love that is blind, but jealousy."--Lawrence Durrell
I spend a lot of time on Reddit. If you're not familiar with it, it's a giant (almost 115 million unique visitors last month) bulletin board system wherein users submit and comment on content. The content can be anything at all, and both the submissions and the comments are voted up or down by the community at large. The site is organized into various "subreddit" forums (thousands of them). One of the default communities is "AskReddit"--a general catch-all question forum, and the query that caught my interest the other day was this:
"What's a question you never want to know the answer to?"
I like to play Family Feud with things like this--what's going to be the most common answer? Probably the day I'll die, I thought. Click. Nope. Often Reddit has a Hollywood Squares sort of ethos in which the most ridiculous comment gets upvoted to the skies. I thought that had to be the case when I read "how big her ex's dick was". Lots and lots of upvotes, ha-ha, that's funny.
Not funny at all, it seems. That comment touched a collective nerve. Not just touched it, but hammered on it. It became increasingly clear the further and further down I scrolled that a very large number of men have a very large hangup when it comes to their wife's or girlfriend's sexual past. They don't want to know. Anything. It's so much better, apparently, to convince yourself that your partner was a blank slate when you met her.
So here's jealousy over somebody who isn't even in the damn picture anymore. She chose you, dumbass. Obviously you compensate for your sexual failings in some other, more important way. More likely several much more important ways. And what are you jealous over? Dick size? What are you, twelve?
Given that so many men seem to be driven crazy simply imagining their partner's past, it goes without saying that they must see threats everywhere in their partner's present.
"I hate jealousy. I hate possessiveness. I'm nobody's possession."--Olga Kurytenko
One problem with jealousy (amongst many) is that it is a self fulfilling prophecy. Feel jealous long enough and hard enough at some imagined threat to your relationship and I will guarantee you the imagined threat will become a real threat. When this happens--it will--you will never believe it's your own distrust dooming things. No, you'll probably feel vindicated instead.
I should probably say that I'm not arguing here for some sort of free-love hippie-dippy mindset. I could do that, and easily, but I'm not doing it here. I'd settle, at this point, for society recognizing how love, like other emotions positive and negative, works. To wit: the more you give, the more you have to give.
This is counter to the way our cultural stories urge us to think about love. Supposedly we're all looking for one soulmate, and once we've found him or her, we'll (a) know it and (b) that one person will fulfill every need we'll ever have in life.
I much prefer the imagery one dear friend suggested to me last week: that there are soul "trees", and we're all leaves on one or another of them. It goes without saying, too, that love isn't needs fulfillment. If you want to kill a relationship, one of the surest ways to do it is to imagine you need something from it. Sooner or later, that need will go unmet, and then what?
Eva doesn't complete me. She's not the other half of me (even though she is the better half of this relationship). I am complete in and of myself and so is she; we have chosen to share our lives, and each day I share with her is a joy, even the sad ones. I do depend on her, probably more than is healthy at times. I'm envious of her many competencies. But if I ever start feeling jealousy, I clamp down on it hard. After more than fifteen years together, I owe her that courtesy. Pain at her happiness is not an option: I love her, which means her happiness is essential to my own. But I can say the same about other people: if something's amiss in the life of a good friend, the part of me that is devoted to that friend is hurting. I think other people can say the same; they may not be comfortable calling that "love". But that's what it is, as far as I'm concerned.
Jealousy isn't part of love. It's actually closer to hate.
I
Sunday, April 20, 2014
In Defense of the F-Bomb
"Context is everything. Breastfeeding is beneficial to nearly all infants, but to an elderly cardiac patient it can be fatal..."-Spider Robinson
So Masai Ujiri, the general manager of the Toronto Raptors, said a word yesterday.
Actually, he said a whole bunch of them, but the world fixated on just one. That one word, which most of us first hear in kindergarten if not well before, set off a storm of controversy and could end up costing Ujiri significant coin.
"Who's all going to the game?". Ujiri asked a throng of Raptors fans as they partied outside the Air Canada Centre. And then, with his boss, Tim Leiweke right there, Ujiri yelled "FUCK BROOKLYN!"
And the crowd went wild...which is one of a few reasons Ujiri said what he did.
Make no mistake, this was calculated, the same way Justin Trudeau's use of the same word was calculated.
Swearing has several mental, physiological, and social effects.. One, as anyone who has ever unexpectedly injured himself knows, is that it blunts pain. It's also a very effective form of non-violent retribution: swearing energetically at someone who has wronged you yields the same effects as punching him in the face, minus the assault charge.
In the link above we see this:
Swearing can be a way of showing that we really mean something or that it is really important to us. That's why swearing is so much a part of any sport. It also broadens our register and makes us more lively and interesting, being used, for example, to add emphasis or 'punch' to our speech.
That's what Ujiri was going for here. Whereas Trudeau's profanity was an example of
Peer and social bonding. Swearing can serve to show that we belong in a certain group, or that we are able to be ourselves and so wholly comfortable with the members of that group. If done correctly, it can also signal that we are open, honest, self-deprecating, easygoing, and barrel loads of fun.
Stephen Harper criticized Tradeau and said his words showed "a lack of judgment". Given the crowd's response to Trudeau's words was quite similar to the response Ujiri got, I'd suggest Trudeau's judgment was spot-on, and so was Ujiri's.
I would have been seven or so the time I got my mouth washed out with soap for telling a neighbour kid to fuck off, not knowing my mother was standing right behind me at the time. The taste of the soap almost made me say fuck again. (If you say fuck while getting your mouth washed out with soap for saying fuck, what's the punishment for that? Chocolate? Or Drano?)
Those who would suggest that swearing is proof of nothing more than a poor vocabulary should note that context is everything. There are times when swearing is wholly appropriate and even vital, and if you argue otherwise, the weight of history shows you're wrong. Swearing is not new. I bet Mr. Cro-Magnon had a grunted equivalent of "fuck" to employ when he cut himself on his flint. Pompeii had an awful lot of bawdy graffiti. And today, in some places, the word 'fucking' only serves as warning of an impending noun. One of those places, interestingly enough, is Brooklyn, New York.
Nor are our swear words universal, not by a long shot. Go across the pond and you'll learn very quickly not to flinch when you're called a 'feckin' cunt'...it's a term of endearment more often than not. (Whereas the word 'bloody'. which is on a par with 'darn' or 'heck' here, still has some power to shock.) There's also this common Middle Ages street name...people look at me with disbelief when I inform them that "the c-word" was once common and accepted. I tell you, swearing has a long and proud history and it's nothing to be ashamed of, used properly and in context.
If you think I'm building a defence for little kids to swear their fool heads off, you're reading me wrong and should start over. Context, context. Just as there are times when swearing is useful and appropriate, there are times when it certainly is not. Obscenities directed at an individual are not okay--I don't care if you're four or forty, calling someone a fucking idiot is fucking idiotic. Civility, which is a hallmark of civilization, means a civil tongue. I believe teaching kids not to swear is pointless (what kid ever heard 'don't do x' and never did x again? They told me my palms would grow hair. I figured that'd just make it feel even better.) Teaching kids WHEN to swear, and when not to, is important.
Personally, I'm never offended by a cuss word in and of itself, although I've been very offended by its tone and intent. I don't think Ujiri's use of the "f-bomb" should be held against him.
So Masai Ujiri, the general manager of the Toronto Raptors, said a word yesterday.
Actually, he said a whole bunch of them, but the world fixated on just one. That one word, which most of us first hear in kindergarten if not well before, set off a storm of controversy and could end up costing Ujiri significant coin.
"Who's all going to the game?". Ujiri asked a throng of Raptors fans as they partied outside the Air Canada Centre. And then, with his boss, Tim Leiweke right there, Ujiri yelled "FUCK BROOKLYN!"
And the crowd went wild...which is one of a few reasons Ujiri said what he did.
Make no mistake, this was calculated, the same way Justin Trudeau's use of the same word was calculated.
Swearing has several mental, physiological, and social effects.. One, as anyone who has ever unexpectedly injured himself knows, is that it blunts pain. It's also a very effective form of non-violent retribution: swearing energetically at someone who has wronged you yields the same effects as punching him in the face, minus the assault charge.
In the link above we see this:
Swearing can be a way of showing that we really mean something or that it is really important to us. That's why swearing is so much a part of any sport. It also broadens our register and makes us more lively and interesting, being used, for example, to add emphasis or 'punch' to our speech.
That's what Ujiri was going for here. Whereas Trudeau's profanity was an example of
Peer and social bonding. Swearing can serve to show that we belong in a certain group, or that we are able to be ourselves and so wholly comfortable with the members of that group. If done correctly, it can also signal that we are open, honest, self-deprecating, easygoing, and barrel loads of fun.
Stephen Harper criticized Tradeau and said his words showed "a lack of judgment". Given the crowd's response to Trudeau's words was quite similar to the response Ujiri got, I'd suggest Trudeau's judgment was spot-on, and so was Ujiri's.
I would have been seven or so the time I got my mouth washed out with soap for telling a neighbour kid to fuck off, not knowing my mother was standing right behind me at the time. The taste of the soap almost made me say fuck again. (If you say fuck while getting your mouth washed out with soap for saying fuck, what's the punishment for that? Chocolate? Or Drano?)
Those who would suggest that swearing is proof of nothing more than a poor vocabulary should note that context is everything. There are times when swearing is wholly appropriate and even vital, and if you argue otherwise, the weight of history shows you're wrong. Swearing is not new. I bet Mr. Cro-Magnon had a grunted equivalent of "fuck" to employ when he cut himself on his flint. Pompeii had an awful lot of bawdy graffiti. And today, in some places, the word 'fucking' only serves as warning of an impending noun. One of those places, interestingly enough, is Brooklyn, New York.
Nor are our swear words universal, not by a long shot. Go across the pond and you'll learn very quickly not to flinch when you're called a 'feckin' cunt'...it's a term of endearment more often than not. (Whereas the word 'bloody'. which is on a par with 'darn' or 'heck' here, still has some power to shock.) There's also this common Middle Ages street name...people look at me with disbelief when I inform them that "the c-word" was once common and accepted. I tell you, swearing has a long and proud history and it's nothing to be ashamed of, used properly and in context.
If you think I'm building a defence for little kids to swear their fool heads off, you're reading me wrong and should start over. Context, context. Just as there are times when swearing is useful and appropriate, there are times when it certainly is not. Obscenities directed at an individual are not okay--I don't care if you're four or forty, calling someone a fucking idiot is fucking idiotic. Civility, which is a hallmark of civilization, means a civil tongue. I believe teaching kids not to swear is pointless (what kid ever heard 'don't do x' and never did x again? They told me my palms would grow hair. I figured that'd just make it feel even better.) Teaching kids WHEN to swear, and when not to, is important.
Personally, I'm never offended by a cuss word in and of itself, although I've been very offended by its tone and intent. I don't think Ujiri's use of the "f-bomb" should be held against him.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
For Nicole: Thought Is Creative
"Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny."--Mahatma Gandhi
My friend Nicole asks me "how thoughts/attitudes/beliefs affect the physical." This is a topic that's near and dear to my heart as I seek to unite science and spirituality in my own little way. It's something that every spiritual book I have ever read gets around to saying sooner or later.
The Christian Bible gets around to saying it right quickly, as it claims we are made in the image and likeness of God the Creator.
It's worth quoting this verse (Gen. 1:27) entire: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (KJV). I find it very telling that the only definition of what it means to be in the image of God that we're given here is 'male AND female'. There you go, barely into Genesis and we've already determined that the Christian God can't be confined to one gender and one role.
For Christians, this "made in the image of God" business is a double-edged sword. It cuts clean through doubts of self-worth, but it also can very easily be read as 'Thou art God'...which is a blasphemy (albeit a blasphemy I personally happen to believe)...watch this video to see why.
But what, exactly, does it mean?
I'd suggest that it means, above all, that we are creators. That stands as a functional definition of what it is to be human: all of us, instinctively, create in some way. You can discard God in any form and still come to that conclusion. We're makers. It's what we do, because it's who we are. But do we creating by doing, or by thinking?
Both.
What we consciously think about, we tend to create much more easily. Whether it's a musical composition or a new house, it requires the whole brain: conscious thought plus subconscious effort.
Remove the thought and you get instinctive creations. These can be anything, and they come directly from your default state of mind. Live your life full of love, and you'll see and create love everywhere you go. Live your life full of fear, and that's what you'll see and create. In either case, it's because you're only using the material you have to work with. What you see determines who you'll be, to be sure...but also: what you be determines what you see. Seeing is believing? No: often we see things we don't, or can't believe. Believing is seeing.
There are some people, as Nicole notes, who believe that thought has no effect on anything material. This, then, of course, is their experience. I choose to believe otherwise. Because I play with language, I notice that our language puts the lie to that belief. Think about it: if you are crying, someone is very likely to come to you and ask
"WHAT'S THE MATTER?"
There are other people who claim to be able to move things with the power of thought alone.
Personally, I believe in telekinesis the same way I believe in ghosts: barely. I suspect that nearly every recorded instance of both phenomena is either sleight of hand or explainable some other way. But only nearly. I suspect--can't prove, of course, or I'd be in line for a Nobel, but suspect--that telekinesis and other such 'paranormal' abilities do exist among a select few. Why do I believe this? Because thought is energy. I suspect that it's possible to harness the energy behind a concentrated thought. Is it easy? Hell, no, and it's a good thing it isn't, or our world would be hopelessly chaotic. But possible? Yes, I believe it is.
Belief is a very powerful thing. I can think of no proof of this more convincing than the placebo effect. You give somebody nothing, but convince them you gave them something, and the odds are pretty damned good the nothing will have similar effects to the something. (I particularly love how this site asks 'Placebos: Are they real, or all in your head?" As if there's a difference.
This brings me to prayer. Now prayer is one of those things that necessarily sharply divides the atheist from the religious. The atheist is apt to say something like "pray into one hand and piss into the other and see which one fills up faster". Having no belief in the power of prayer means by definition that prayers won't work for or on such a person. To the extent that science is able to study prayer, it has been shown to have AT BEST no effect.
This doesn't surprise me, since it's my contention that most people don't pray properly.
I was taught in my Christian days that the only acceptable prayer is one of gratitude. This is not the kind of thing you usually hear, of course, amongst people petitioning their God for some desired outcome. But it only stands to reason that if thought produces experience, the thought "I want...." will produce exactly that in your experience....wanting! Whereas thanking God--and if you're not comfortable with that, substitute 'Life' or 'The Universe' or any other all-encompassing concept--means you recognize you 'want' nothing...and that's a very powerful place to be in life.
If you want money, the way to get it is to realize you already have it. What's the best way to realize that? By giving it away. It sounds counterintuitive, to be sure, but there's always somebody poorer than you, and by making him richer you notice that you had that money to give. Do that often enough and it becomes a habit. Think of yourself as rich, and guess what? You'll actually be rich.
If you want love, give love away and you'll get it. It really is simple like that. Simple...but not easy. Because the same thing holds true for negative emotions, and many of us have a real attachment to those. whether we realize it or not. Also, as Carl Jung noted, "what you resist persists". That's another way of seeing that gratitude will go a lot further than supplication.
The cynical way to phrase this is 'fake it until you make it'. I'd suggest that 'faking it' is not an option, unless you are able to fake it with such sincerity that you're completely unaware you're faking it at all (in which case, of course, you're not!)
My friend Nicole asks me "how thoughts/attitudes/beliefs affect the physical." This is a topic that's near and dear to my heart as I seek to unite science and spirituality in my own little way. It's something that every spiritual book I have ever read gets around to saying sooner or later.
The Christian Bible gets around to saying it right quickly, as it claims we are made in the image and likeness of God the Creator.
It's worth quoting this verse (Gen. 1:27) entire: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (KJV). I find it very telling that the only definition of what it means to be in the image of God that we're given here is 'male AND female'. There you go, barely into Genesis and we've already determined that the Christian God can't be confined to one gender and one role.
For Christians, this "made in the image of God" business is a double-edged sword. It cuts clean through doubts of self-worth, but it also can very easily be read as 'Thou art God'...which is a blasphemy (albeit a blasphemy I personally happen to believe)...watch this video to see why.
But what, exactly, does it mean?
I'd suggest that it means, above all, that we are creators. That stands as a functional definition of what it is to be human: all of us, instinctively, create in some way. You can discard God in any form and still come to that conclusion. We're makers. It's what we do, because it's who we are. But do we creating by doing, or by thinking?
Both.
What we consciously think about, we tend to create much more easily. Whether it's a musical composition or a new house, it requires the whole brain: conscious thought plus subconscious effort.
Remove the thought and you get instinctive creations. These can be anything, and they come directly from your default state of mind. Live your life full of love, and you'll see and create love everywhere you go. Live your life full of fear, and that's what you'll see and create. In either case, it's because you're only using the material you have to work with. What you see determines who you'll be, to be sure...but also: what you be determines what you see. Seeing is believing? No: often we see things we don't, or can't believe. Believing is seeing.
There are some people, as Nicole notes, who believe that thought has no effect on anything material. This, then, of course, is their experience. I choose to believe otherwise. Because I play with language, I notice that our language puts the lie to that belief. Think about it: if you are crying, someone is very likely to come to you and ask
"WHAT'S THE MATTER?"
There are other people who claim to be able to move things with the power of thought alone.
Personally, I believe in telekinesis the same way I believe in ghosts: barely. I suspect that nearly every recorded instance of both phenomena is either sleight of hand or explainable some other way. But only nearly. I suspect--can't prove, of course, or I'd be in line for a Nobel, but suspect--that telekinesis and other such 'paranormal' abilities do exist among a select few. Why do I believe this? Because thought is energy. I suspect that it's possible to harness the energy behind a concentrated thought. Is it easy? Hell, no, and it's a good thing it isn't, or our world would be hopelessly chaotic. But possible? Yes, I believe it is.
Belief is a very powerful thing. I can think of no proof of this more convincing than the placebo effect. You give somebody nothing, but convince them you gave them something, and the odds are pretty damned good the nothing will have similar effects to the something. (I particularly love how this site asks 'Placebos: Are they real, or all in your head?" As if there's a difference.
This brings me to prayer. Now prayer is one of those things that necessarily sharply divides the atheist from the religious. The atheist is apt to say something like "pray into one hand and piss into the other and see which one fills up faster". Having no belief in the power of prayer means by definition that prayers won't work for or on such a person. To the extent that science is able to study prayer, it has been shown to have AT BEST no effect.
This doesn't surprise me, since it's my contention that most people don't pray properly.
I was taught in my Christian days that the only acceptable prayer is one of gratitude. This is not the kind of thing you usually hear, of course, amongst people petitioning their God for some desired outcome. But it only stands to reason that if thought produces experience, the thought "I want...." will produce exactly that in your experience....wanting! Whereas thanking God--and if you're not comfortable with that, substitute 'Life' or 'The Universe' or any other all-encompassing concept--means you recognize you 'want' nothing...and that's a very powerful place to be in life.
If you want money, the way to get it is to realize you already have it. What's the best way to realize that? By giving it away. It sounds counterintuitive, to be sure, but there's always somebody poorer than you, and by making him richer you notice that you had that money to give. Do that often enough and it becomes a habit. Think of yourself as rich, and guess what? You'll actually be rich.
If you want love, give love away and you'll get it. It really is simple like that. Simple...but not easy. Because the same thing holds true for negative emotions, and many of us have a real attachment to those. whether we realize it or not. Also, as Carl Jung noted, "what you resist persists". That's another way of seeing that gratitude will go a lot further than supplication.
The cynical way to phrase this is 'fake it until you make it'. I'd suggest that 'faking it' is not an option, unless you are able to fake it with such sincerity that you're completely unaware you're faking it at all (in which case, of course, you're not!)
For Craig: The Decline of The Arts in Education
"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. --Plato
"Earth without art is just...eh" -anonymous
--------
I've been writing about myself for far too long. I've bored the snot out of myself, and if that's the case, I shudder to think what I've done to you, dear reader.
Time for a break and a weightier topic.
My call for blog topics on Facebook produced an outpouring of good ideas. Some of them I'm not qualified to tackle, others (like my niece) I simply need to research more (Ally: soon, hopefully, okay?)
My friend Craig wanted to hear some things on the decline of the arts in schools. I suspect he was thinking primarily of music, and if so I wouldn't blame him: he is one of comparatively few in the world talented enough to be making a living off that art. As it so happens, music is something I cherish myself: I possess a small musical talent and it means a lot to me. That said, while this entry will focus on music, much of what I'm going to say applies to other arts as well, be they theatrical or of the cut-and-paste variety. And while I'm not the one to write a paean to sport and physical activity in education, I'm quite sure many of my readers could, and should.
In fact, I firmly believe that the 3 R's we hear so much about--only one of which actually starts with R-- really aren't the end-all and be-all of an education. Or at least they shouldn't be. They're trivial, really...doubtless they're important life skills, but they should be taught in the service of everything else.
Current thinking is that there are seven intelligences, not one. They include:
--visual/spatial;
--bodily/kinesthetic;
--musical;
--interpersonal;
--intrapersonal;
--linguistic;
--logical/mathematical.
Education is routinely being repurposed, refocused, and stripped of everything that isn't reading, writing and 'rithmetic...which might produce linguistic and mathematical geniuses, but last I looked that's two forms of intelligence out of seven. Stupid people, in other words.
Let's pretend first of all that there is no intrinsic benefit to music (or art) class, that "all" these classes are is a break from math and reading. Of course this is patently false, but let's pretend anyway, because many parents seem to believe it's true.
Ever seen a real tear-jerker of a movie...or at least a very serious drama, or even a horror movie? All three are likely to have moments of comedy in them. Maybe not many, but they're usually there. Why? To lighten the mood, sure...but also to keep viewers interested, Few people can stand a steady diet of nothing but seriousness.
The same holds true in school. Especially if academics isn't your strong suit, you need opportunities to express yourself in other ways, be they arts or sports....else you're likely to drop out.
And let's face it. Even people who are academic whizzes are probably more likely to remember their extracurricular activities more fondly than their lessons. I know I do.
But music is so much more than a break from the drudgery of multiplication tables (wait a minute, they don't have those anymore, either) and writing exercises. From the standpoint of those multiple intelligences, music fosters (of course) a musical intelligence, but also an interpersonal intelligence. This for a couple of reasons: one, performance in a band or choir, for instance, fosters a sense of teamwork and camaraderie; two, it is not only possible, but inevitable, to learn deeply of a culture or an individual from exposure to that culture or individual's music. This means empathy, which is to my mind the most important skill any student can hope to gain from an education. It also means historical knowledge. For instance, an ardent lover of music can write you a decent paper comparing and contrasting European culture ca. 1722 with that ca. 1872...without having been exposed to anything other than the music of both time periods. Don't believe me? Listen to this, from 1722...and then this, also written for keyboard, from 1872, and draw your own conclusions.
Music does things that other subjects can't do, or can do but poorly. Consider falling in love. Chances are very good that there's a song or songs you hear that bring your beloved to mind instantly. Can't resist the personal here: Eva's got at least ten, and if you consider me a close friend, I guarantee you have at least one.) Can math do that?
...not really.Can words do it? I can spend a lifetime saying loving words to Eva and only get the ones on top...and I've said recently to a dear friend that there really aren't words to describe our friendship..."Friendship" itself is just pitifully inadequate, but the only step up from there is "lover", and that's not right, either. But I can say in music what words and equations can't.
And if that isn't enough, instruction in music has been shown to increase abstract and spatial-temporal reasoning; enhance aural, visual, memory and language skills; and develop quick and decisive thinking (Johnson, 2004*)
Consider, too, how much discipline it takes to learn an instrument. Ask my friend Craig: it's considerably more demanding than the toughest quadratic equation or spelling test. That kind of self-discipline will serve a music student well in all areas of her life.
Before I go any further, I should mention that we're living through a kind of existential crisis right now. You don't have to go far to find someone bemoaning the rise in stupidity, and even of stupidity-as-virtue, in the world today... Idiocracy as straight documentary. Our politics have devolved into people calling each other stupid. Jackass is a thing. Kids seem incapable of putting together, much less writing, a coherent sentence; Facebook--a public forum all but unimaginable as little as twenty years ago--is riddled with grammar errors I was taught not to make ins second grade, and it seems like they go unnoticed most of the time. In short, the world is moronic and getting more so.
Or is it? The same TV set that brings you such fare as Big Brother's 16th season (Lord have mercy) also brings you Game of Thrones, Veep, Breaking Bad, Mad Men and a slew of other engaging, highly intelligent and complicated serial dramas; the re-emergence of Cosmos (on Fox, of all places!) to say nothing of the biting satire that skewers the nightly network news. The same kids who can't seem to type a coherent sentence spend more time reading than at any time in history, and have developed skills their parents would envy if they could recognize them as skills. (YOU try holding four text conversations simultaneously while watching TV.)
Indeed, kids today seem worlds more intelligent than I was at their age. Not just one kid (though that niece of mine is pretty damn smart)...every child I'm acquainted with from the age of two on up is smarter and more engaged with the world than I was (and I was by no means an idiot). Is it just that I have a bunch of smart friends who are great parents? That's undoubtedly part of it, but probably not all of it. The educational system isn't where it needs to be, but it's better than it was. Bullying, by all reports, is down significantly. Students are being groomed to care for the world in a way that my generation simply wasn't. It's not all bad. It might not even be mostly bad.
To be sure, schooling has come a long way. But there's still so much to do, and many concerns. One of which is that arts funding and participation is declining.
This document (pdf) shows what you would expect: that students in Toronto stand a much higher chance of having a specialized music teacher than schools in Northern Ontario. It also shows that the number of music teachers is dropping, province-wide. Schools are increasingly losing their band and choir programs, especially at the elementary level.
Given everything I've argued above, I'd suggest that needs to change. We owe our children a well-rounded education that concentrates not just on their minds, but also on their bodies...and their spirits.
*Johnson, Jr., Bob L., (2004). A sound education for all: Multicultural issues in music education.Educational Policy; 18 (1), 116-141.
"Earth without art is just...eh" -anonymous
--------
I've been writing about myself for far too long. I've bored the snot out of myself, and if that's the case, I shudder to think what I've done to you, dear reader.
Time for a break and a weightier topic.
My call for blog topics on Facebook produced an outpouring of good ideas. Some of them I'm not qualified to tackle, others (like my niece) I simply need to research more (Ally: soon, hopefully, okay?)
My friend Craig wanted to hear some things on the decline of the arts in schools. I suspect he was thinking primarily of music, and if so I wouldn't blame him: he is one of comparatively few in the world talented enough to be making a living off that art. As it so happens, music is something I cherish myself: I possess a small musical talent and it means a lot to me. That said, while this entry will focus on music, much of what I'm going to say applies to other arts as well, be they theatrical or of the cut-and-paste variety. And while I'm not the one to write a paean to sport and physical activity in education, I'm quite sure many of my readers could, and should.
In fact, I firmly believe that the 3 R's we hear so much about--only one of which actually starts with R-- really aren't the end-all and be-all of an education. Or at least they shouldn't be. They're trivial, really...doubtless they're important life skills, but they should be taught in the service of everything else.
Current thinking is that there are seven intelligences, not one. They include:
--visual/spatial;
--bodily/kinesthetic;
--musical;
--interpersonal;
--intrapersonal;
--linguistic;
--logical/mathematical.
Education is routinely being repurposed, refocused, and stripped of everything that isn't reading, writing and 'rithmetic...which might produce linguistic and mathematical geniuses, but last I looked that's two forms of intelligence out of seven. Stupid people, in other words.
Let's pretend first of all that there is no intrinsic benefit to music (or art) class, that "all" these classes are is a break from math and reading. Of course this is patently false, but let's pretend anyway, because many parents seem to believe it's true.
Ever seen a real tear-jerker of a movie...or at least a very serious drama, or even a horror movie? All three are likely to have moments of comedy in them. Maybe not many, but they're usually there. Why? To lighten the mood, sure...but also to keep viewers interested, Few people can stand a steady diet of nothing but seriousness.
The same holds true in school. Especially if academics isn't your strong suit, you need opportunities to express yourself in other ways, be they arts or sports....else you're likely to drop out.
And let's face it. Even people who are academic whizzes are probably more likely to remember their extracurricular activities more fondly than their lessons. I know I do.
But music is so much more than a break from the drudgery of multiplication tables (wait a minute, they don't have those anymore, either) and writing exercises. From the standpoint of those multiple intelligences, music fosters (of course) a musical intelligence, but also an interpersonal intelligence. This for a couple of reasons: one, performance in a band or choir, for instance, fosters a sense of teamwork and camaraderie; two, it is not only possible, but inevitable, to learn deeply of a culture or an individual from exposure to that culture or individual's music. This means empathy, which is to my mind the most important skill any student can hope to gain from an education. It also means historical knowledge. For instance, an ardent lover of music can write you a decent paper comparing and contrasting European culture ca. 1722 with that ca. 1872...without having been exposed to anything other than the music of both time periods. Don't believe me? Listen to this, from 1722...and then this, also written for keyboard, from 1872, and draw your own conclusions.
Music does things that other subjects can't do, or can do but poorly. Consider falling in love. Chances are very good that there's a song or songs you hear that bring your beloved to mind instantly. Can't resist the personal here: Eva's got at least ten, and if you consider me a close friend, I guarantee you have at least one.) Can math do that?
...not really.Can words do it? I can spend a lifetime saying loving words to Eva and only get the ones on top...and I've said recently to a dear friend that there really aren't words to describe our friendship..."Friendship" itself is just pitifully inadequate, but the only step up from there is "lover", and that's not right, either. But I can say in music what words and equations can't.
And if that isn't enough, instruction in music has been shown to increase abstract and spatial-temporal reasoning; enhance aural, visual, memory and language skills; and develop quick and decisive thinking (Johnson, 2004*)
Consider, too, how much discipline it takes to learn an instrument. Ask my friend Craig: it's considerably more demanding than the toughest quadratic equation or spelling test. That kind of self-discipline will serve a music student well in all areas of her life.
Before I go any further, I should mention that we're living through a kind of existential crisis right now. You don't have to go far to find someone bemoaning the rise in stupidity, and even of stupidity-as-virtue, in the world today... Idiocracy as straight documentary. Our politics have devolved into people calling each other stupid. Jackass is a thing. Kids seem incapable of putting together, much less writing, a coherent sentence; Facebook--a public forum all but unimaginable as little as twenty years ago--is riddled with grammar errors I was taught not to make ins second grade, and it seems like they go unnoticed most of the time. In short, the world is moronic and getting more so.
Or is it? The same TV set that brings you such fare as Big Brother's 16th season (Lord have mercy) also brings you Game of Thrones, Veep, Breaking Bad, Mad Men and a slew of other engaging, highly intelligent and complicated serial dramas; the re-emergence of Cosmos (on Fox, of all places!) to say nothing of the biting satire that skewers the nightly network news. The same kids who can't seem to type a coherent sentence spend more time reading than at any time in history, and have developed skills their parents would envy if they could recognize them as skills. (YOU try holding four text conversations simultaneously while watching TV.)
Indeed, kids today seem worlds more intelligent than I was at their age. Not just one kid (though that niece of mine is pretty damn smart)...every child I'm acquainted with from the age of two on up is smarter and more engaged with the world than I was (and I was by no means an idiot). Is it just that I have a bunch of smart friends who are great parents? That's undoubtedly part of it, but probably not all of it. The educational system isn't where it needs to be, but it's better than it was. Bullying, by all reports, is down significantly. Students are being groomed to care for the world in a way that my generation simply wasn't. It's not all bad. It might not even be mostly bad.
To be sure, schooling has come a long way. But there's still so much to do, and many concerns. One of which is that arts funding and participation is declining.
This document (pdf) shows what you would expect: that students in Toronto stand a much higher chance of having a specialized music teacher than schools in Northern Ontario. It also shows that the number of music teachers is dropping, province-wide. Schools are increasingly losing their band and choir programs, especially at the elementary level.
Given everything I've argued above, I'd suggest that needs to change. We owe our children a well-rounded education that concentrates not just on their minds, but also on their bodies...and their spirits.
*Johnson, Jr., Bob L., (2004). A sound education for all: Multicultural issues in music education.Educational Policy; 18 (1), 116-141.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Oh, what a feeling
My social calendar is actually more full right now than it has been at any time in my entire life.
I'm feeling a whole lot of emotion at this realization. Mostly happiness, of course...actually a kind of acute happiness that borders on pain and is probably very hard for you social butterflies to understand. Last entry I wrote about two dear friends I saw last week (and I missed them both as soon as they were out of sight)...now I get to see three other friends in the next week. Two are co-workers and the third was a co-worker twenty years ago. All three are women I care quite a lot about (and so is Kate, of course), and so it behooves me to thank and extol my wife Eva, the woman of a thousand virtues.
The one I'd like to single out here is her trust in me. Never mind that my 'girl friends' are simply friends who are girls; no matter that two of them are married, one is partnered and I know very well how all four of them do and more pertinently don't feel about me, Many, if not most wives would not allow their husbands unfettered and unchaperoned access to other women. It would put me in a bind if Eva was many or most wives, because for some strange reason I've always gotten along better with women than with men.
To be sure, I've earned that trust. Since marrying my wife, I have rarely felt more than a fleeting sexual attraction to anyone else. Rarely; for all my protestation, I'm human and male and there have been a couple of intense attractions over the last fifteen years. But cheating? I left that behind long, long ago. Such a purely selfish act, that is, and it almost never works out in real life like you think it will in your fantasies. Take it from somebody who's been there. The person you cheat with is usually a pale imitation of the person you're cheating on (and if that isn't the case, you don't belong with the person you're cheating on anyway and you should leave her before you betray her.) Having experienced the bitter, bitter aftermath of an affair not once but twice, I was stunned I didn't see it coming (especially the second time--really, Ken, how stupid can you be?) But really, to anybody thinking of a fling--think past the orgasm, okay?
Even though I've never given Eva any reason to distrust me, I still appreciate her trust. More than she probably knows.
Anyway, I feel all this happiness, and a touch of incredulity I'll probably never lose, a rotten revenant of my years without self-esteem. A very small (and even now, sometimes, not so small) voice inside me whispers that I'm not worth such wonderful friends, or any friends at all. A part of me is--well, "scared" is probably an overstatement, call it a touch of anxiety at just how different this is for me. Wonderfully different...but different. I haven't been friendless since fifth grade, but usually my friends either live far enough away that seeing them is rare...or in the case of friends who live close by, they've often been 'school friends' or 'work friends' and they certainly wouldn't, say, come to my house, nor would I go to theirs. That's been the pattern, with very few exceptions, for my entire life....so much so that being invited to someone's place used to provoke a tear or two. I know how strange that sounds. I'm not crying for joy now, to be sure--for God's sake, I'm past forty--but again, that little boy inside is quivering a little. I work nights, straight nights, and the day people I miss actually seem to miss me too. Wow.
Oh, what a feeling.
I'm feeling a whole lot of emotion at this realization. Mostly happiness, of course...actually a kind of acute happiness that borders on pain and is probably very hard for you social butterflies to understand. Last entry I wrote about two dear friends I saw last week (and I missed them both as soon as they were out of sight)...now I get to see three other friends in the next week. Two are co-workers and the third was a co-worker twenty years ago. All three are women I care quite a lot about (and so is Kate, of course), and so it behooves me to thank and extol my wife Eva, the woman of a thousand virtues.
The one I'd like to single out here is her trust in me. Never mind that my 'girl friends' are simply friends who are girls; no matter that two of them are married, one is partnered and I know very well how all four of them do and more pertinently don't feel about me, Many, if not most wives would not allow their husbands unfettered and unchaperoned access to other women. It would put me in a bind if Eva was many or most wives, because for some strange reason I've always gotten along better with women than with men.
To be sure, I've earned that trust. Since marrying my wife, I have rarely felt more than a fleeting sexual attraction to anyone else. Rarely; for all my protestation, I'm human and male and there have been a couple of intense attractions over the last fifteen years. But cheating? I left that behind long, long ago. Such a purely selfish act, that is, and it almost never works out in real life like you think it will in your fantasies. Take it from somebody who's been there. The person you cheat with is usually a pale imitation of the person you're cheating on (and if that isn't the case, you don't belong with the person you're cheating on anyway and you should leave her before you betray her.) Having experienced the bitter, bitter aftermath of an affair not once but twice, I was stunned I didn't see it coming (especially the second time--really, Ken, how stupid can you be?) But really, to anybody thinking of a fling--think past the orgasm, okay?
Even though I've never given Eva any reason to distrust me, I still appreciate her trust. More than she probably knows.
Anyway, I feel all this happiness, and a touch of incredulity I'll probably never lose, a rotten revenant of my years without self-esteem. A very small (and even now, sometimes, not so small) voice inside me whispers that I'm not worth such wonderful friends, or any friends at all. A part of me is--well, "scared" is probably an overstatement, call it a touch of anxiety at just how different this is for me. Wonderfully different...but different. I haven't been friendless since fifth grade, but usually my friends either live far enough away that seeing them is rare...or in the case of friends who live close by, they've often been 'school friends' or 'work friends' and they certainly wouldn't, say, come to my house, nor would I go to theirs. That's been the pattern, with very few exceptions, for my entire life....so much so that being invited to someone's place used to provoke a tear or two. I know how strange that sounds. I'm not crying for joy now, to be sure--for God's sake, I'm past forty--but again, that little boy inside is quivering a little. I work nights, straight nights, and the day people I miss actually seem to miss me too. Wow.
Oh, what a feeling.
Sunday, April 06, 2014
A Thank You To My Friends
Warning: here be gushy mushy feelings in abundance
This has a weekend to remember and cherish.
Eva's been away on business all week. This is the second time in a couple of months, and as always I've missed her dearly. I'm very grateful she's getting the opportunities to learn so much, and a little envious these opportunities always seem to be located in warm, touristy areas (especially this winter...who couldn't use a week in Orlando along about now, even if much of it's spent in a classroom?)
Solitude and loneliness are two sides of the same coin, and someone who feels as deeply as I do can be deeply appreciative of...well, both, actually. The solitude goes without saying: I'm an introvert and a bit of a loner and mildly to sharply uneasy in the hustle and bustle of social situations unless I'm with a select few people (Eva at the top of that short list) who make me feel comfortable. And loneliness? I spent much of the first two decades of my life practically drowning in it before I even knew what it was. When I feel it now, it's always accompanied by the soothing feeling that this too shall pass.
It passed sooner than it would have thanks to two people I am proud and honoured to call friends. They're also two people who are inextricably linked in my mind, even though they don't know each other at all. Read on as this post is commencing to ramble.
Kate is a woman of heart and mind and it detracts nothing from my love for my wife to say I love her. (You can keep the 'have your Kate and Eva, too' puns to yourself, thank you very much.) Craig, meanwhile, you know about--I just saw him a couple of weeks ago playing trumpet in a production of Cabaret. He's an old friend and a good one...that's most of what he and Kate have in common. That and they live in London, where I grew up and (quite honestly) where I sometimes wish I still lived. That city has gone downhill since I moved away in 1989...but most of my friends are still there.
Eva and I first actually met Kate and her partner a year and a half ago, on the same evening we attending Craig's wedding reception. Since then, we've seen neither of them near often enough. This is going to change. I'm just happy I got to see both of them this weekend...
Kate came up on Saturday. Our dogs and cats promptly fell in love with her (Well, Peach had to bark at her for a while first, but later on, she was actually cuddling Kate in a way I don't think I've seen her manage with anyone else besides Eva.) Before long a big puppy/kitty pile had formed and peace and contentment reigned supreme. A nice dinner was had (still can't get over the fact I like (some) Thai food). Wish you could have stayed longer, Kate, but we're all glad you came. Thank you. *hug*
And today, the third (or is it fourth?) annual baseball game with Craig. And for the first time, his son Angus came along, which was a real pleasure. Usually it's the Chicago White Sox in town, but Craig called me a while back and said he had opening weekend tickets versus the Yanks and I had right of first refusal. Like I'd refuse that. I'm not near as much of a baseball fan as Craig is, but you don't turn down a chance to see Derek Jeter on his farewell tour. Quite possibly the best shortstop the game has ever seen.
The Jays lost, but at least they made it interesting.
Good times, good friends. I feel good. And Eva's coming home several hours earlier than she was originally going to, which is even better.
This has a weekend to remember and cherish.
Eva's been away on business all week. This is the second time in a couple of months, and as always I've missed her dearly. I'm very grateful she's getting the opportunities to learn so much, and a little envious these opportunities always seem to be located in warm, touristy areas (especially this winter...who couldn't use a week in Orlando along about now, even if much of it's spent in a classroom?)
Solitude and loneliness are two sides of the same coin, and someone who feels as deeply as I do can be deeply appreciative of...well, both, actually. The solitude goes without saying: I'm an introvert and a bit of a loner and mildly to sharply uneasy in the hustle and bustle of social situations unless I'm with a select few people (Eva at the top of that short list) who make me feel comfortable. And loneliness? I spent much of the first two decades of my life practically drowning in it before I even knew what it was. When I feel it now, it's always accompanied by the soothing feeling that this too shall pass.
It passed sooner than it would have thanks to two people I am proud and honoured to call friends. They're also two people who are inextricably linked in my mind, even though they don't know each other at all. Read on as this post is commencing to ramble.
Kate is a woman of heart and mind and it detracts nothing from my love for my wife to say I love her. (You can keep the 'have your Kate and Eva, too' puns to yourself, thank you very much.) Craig, meanwhile, you know about--I just saw him a couple of weeks ago playing trumpet in a production of Cabaret. He's an old friend and a good one...that's most of what he and Kate have in common. That and they live in London, where I grew up and (quite honestly) where I sometimes wish I still lived. That city has gone downhill since I moved away in 1989...but most of my friends are still there.
Eva and I first actually met Kate and her partner a year and a half ago, on the same evening we attending Craig's wedding reception. Since then, we've seen neither of them near often enough. This is going to change. I'm just happy I got to see both of them this weekend...
Kate came up on Saturday. Our dogs and cats promptly fell in love with her (Well, Peach had to bark at her for a while first, but later on, she was actually cuddling Kate in a way I don't think I've seen her manage with anyone else besides Eva.) Before long a big puppy/kitty pile had formed and peace and contentment reigned supreme. A nice dinner was had (still can't get over the fact I like (some) Thai food). Wish you could have stayed longer, Kate, but we're all glad you came. Thank you. *hug*
And today, the third (or is it fourth?) annual baseball game with Craig. And for the first time, his son Angus came along, which was a real pleasure. Usually it's the Chicago White Sox in town, but Craig called me a while back and said he had opening weekend tickets versus the Yanks and I had right of first refusal. Like I'd refuse that. I'm not near as much of a baseball fan as Craig is, but you don't turn down a chance to see Derek Jeter on his farewell tour. Quite possibly the best shortstop the game has ever seen.
The Jays lost, but at least they made it interesting.
Good times, good friends. I feel good. And Eva's coming home several hours earlier than she was originally going to, which is even better.
Thursday, April 03, 2014
Thoughts on the resignation of Brendan Eich
I cheered.
Then the cheer faltered a little, stuttered, and died in my throat and I thought, did I just feel schadenfreude?
Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich has stepped down after his anti-gay stance was exposed and went viral..
The dating site OKCupid, upon determining you'd reached it using Firefox, helpfully put this up on your screen (click to embiggen:)
And I thought, this is great, but it's just one site. The entire Internet should do this, each and every page of it.
Not a day later, the CEO steps down. As George Takei noted, "Corporations: Sure, you're free to support bigotry. Just be prepared to face the music.
And the band played on...
I predict a shrill chorus of "help, I'm being oppressed!" from certain quarters as this news makes its way around. There will be columns penned about thoughtcrime and how there's no freedom of speech or religion any more. Some people will defiantly 'come out', so to speak, in favour of 'traditional values' and be declared heroes among their fellow bigots.
Christians in particular have been saying for years now that 'yes, it's okay to be gay, but don't act gay, that's a sin.' Well, for values of Christianity that include denial of rights to gayfolk--not all do, by any means--I tell you this: it's okay to be 'Christian', just don't act Christian, that's a sin.
The thing that really irks me about this whole controversy is this: Not one person has ever been able to explain to me how extending marriage rights to homosexual persons harms (a) those persons or (b) any other persons. I've asked, and I'll ask again here, and believe me, I'm listening with open ears and a mind as open as I can make it. I want to know what's being taken from heterosexual couples so that gay couples can wed and be happy together. I want to know denial of human rights is so important to so many people who call themselves Christian. How are you affected if Jack and Gil down the road get married?
Mr. Eich is unrepentant about his beliefs, and he seems to think, even as he resigns, that they'd have had no bearing on his actions as CEO of a company that claims to be all about openness and inclusivity. This is clearly nonsense: people's religious beliefs, to the extent they hold them, inform every action they undertake. Indeed, Mr. Eich donated money in the past to a campaign to actively destroy the rights of gay people. In Christian parlance, "ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" (Mt 7:16)
Eich claims his donation to Prop 8 is not "evidence of animosity" towards gay people. What, then, is it? This, too, reminds me uncomfortably of Christian tenets I've heard over and over: "love the sinner, hate the sin"--which is all well and good until the "sin" is something intrinsic to your very being!
Any time I ask what a CEO is actually for, one of the first things I'm told is that a CEO sets and embodies the values of his or her organization. By empowering Brendan Eich, Mozilla is empowering values that are inimical to its vision of equality for all. As the linked article above puts it,
By financially supporting a cause that said I do not view these people as deserving of all the same rights I have, and acting appalled when people were vocally upset about it, Mr. Eich was not taking responsibility for anything.
That shadenfreude I feel, the happiness at another's pain? I don't think it's shadenfreude when the pain is (a) deserved and (b) self-inflicted.
Then the cheer faltered a little, stuttered, and died in my throat and I thought, did I just feel schadenfreude?
Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich has stepped down after his anti-gay stance was exposed and went viral..
The dating site OKCupid, upon determining you'd reached it using Firefox, helpfully put this up on your screen (click to embiggen:)
And I thought, this is great, but it's just one site. The entire Internet should do this, each and every page of it.
Not a day later, the CEO steps down. As George Takei noted, "Corporations: Sure, you're free to support bigotry. Just be prepared to face the music.
And the band played on...
I predict a shrill chorus of "help, I'm being oppressed!" from certain quarters as this news makes its way around. There will be columns penned about thoughtcrime and how there's no freedom of speech or religion any more. Some people will defiantly 'come out', so to speak, in favour of 'traditional values' and be declared heroes among their fellow bigots.
Christians in particular have been saying for years now that 'yes, it's okay to be gay, but don't act gay, that's a sin.' Well, for values of Christianity that include denial of rights to gayfolk--not all do, by any means--I tell you this: it's okay to be 'Christian', just don't act Christian, that's a sin.
The thing that really irks me about this whole controversy is this: Not one person has ever been able to explain to me how extending marriage rights to homosexual persons harms (a) those persons or (b) any other persons. I've asked, and I'll ask again here, and believe me, I'm listening with open ears and a mind as open as I can make it. I want to know what's being taken from heterosexual couples so that gay couples can wed and be happy together. I want to know denial of human rights is so important to so many people who call themselves Christian. How are you affected if Jack and Gil down the road get married?
Mr. Eich is unrepentant about his beliefs, and he seems to think, even as he resigns, that they'd have had no bearing on his actions as CEO of a company that claims to be all about openness and inclusivity. This is clearly nonsense: people's religious beliefs, to the extent they hold them, inform every action they undertake. Indeed, Mr. Eich donated money in the past to a campaign to actively destroy the rights of gay people. In Christian parlance, "ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" (Mt 7:16)
Eich claims his donation to Prop 8 is not "evidence of animosity" towards gay people. What, then, is it? This, too, reminds me uncomfortably of Christian tenets I've heard over and over: "love the sinner, hate the sin"--which is all well and good until the "sin" is something intrinsic to your very being!
Any time I ask what a CEO is actually for, one of the first things I'm told is that a CEO sets and embodies the values of his or her organization. By empowering Brendan Eich, Mozilla is empowering values that are inimical to its vision of equality for all. As the linked article above puts it,
By financially supporting a cause that said I do not view these people as deserving of all the same rights I have, and acting appalled when people were vocally upset about it, Mr. Eich was not taking responsibility for anything.
That shadenfreude I feel, the happiness at another's pain? I don't think it's shadenfreude when the pain is (a) deserved and (b) self-inflicted.
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