Showing posts with label Class. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Class. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

What's Going On


I am great in emergencies. I not only can think of the right thing to do, I can instantly come up with a creative solution particular to that crisis. I have been through serious car wrecks where I was the rescuer, blood stauncher, counselor, and advocate all at once, on the spot. I once found the emergency kill switch on a Sears escalator when a toddler riding on it got his foot caught and mangled in the stair-fold mechanism, holding that child and keeping his mother from hysterics as we waited for the paramedics. (Which is why I avoid escalators now.)

I think much of my skill comes from growing up poor. You face the unfaceable and stay thinking or things go much, much worse for you. I count as my kind the folks from the Cypress Street Projects, one of the poorest and "most dangerous" neighborhoods in Oakland, who poured out of their homes when the 580 freeway beside them collapsed onto itself in the 1989 Loma Prieta quake. They assembled makeshift ladders, ropes, anything they could use to clamber up 30 feet of concrete pillars into the narrow gap where crushed cars filled with screaming people were starting to burn. By the time official first responders were able to find a way to the wreck of a roadway, those folks from the projects had already saved most of the survivors, getting them to relative safety, comforting traumatized children, giving drinks of water, starting to joke about how scared shitless they had been. Nobody took their names or did a news feature on these heros, because they were too poor, too black, some of them too clearly high and pissed off. But I know what they did and how they did it. It was much like any other day, really.

But as well as being a child of my origins, I am also a class traitor. I have sought out and absorbed the intelligent remnants maintained by other classes, I have loved and made allies across the divide, and one thing I have learned is that living in adrenaline mode kills you fast. So when I have a breather, even if it is only ten seconds long, I have tried to take it, make the most of it.

Thus, after the paramedics hauled away that sobbing toddler and his mother from Sears, with her looking beseechingly back at me as if I was part of their family and should be accompanying them, I had to sit down on that Berkeley sidewalk because my legs would no longer hold me up. I sobbed and shivered violently, letting myself feel what I had just witnessed, "processing" as my little brother Bill would say with such intense scorn. Bill who died at 42 because the male raised-poor approach finally ran out of any rope at all.

I began running out of rope myself in 2005, and as resource after resource dried up, I eventually, finally, became hopeless. A few folks hung in there with me, although nobody knew how really bad it was for me. Now the pendulum is swinging the other direction, and I am (tiredly, dutifully) using my out-of-immediate-danger time to face how close to immolation I came. I'd much rather eat sugar and watch Youtube and write cryptic poetry that doesn't pass my own Tell test.

But living to be old means I clean up what I can when I have a chance. And the trail of mess goes all the way back to infancy, to betraying my mama by admitting how she failed me, to betraying my family by telling their nastiest secrets, to facing those of you who are clean and educated and making good choices with the hope that I am worthy of you choosing me, too. Fake it til you make it.

Because sometimes you can't save yourself, and you'll have to say yes to others crawling through the debris to reach you. And you have to love yourself to say yes. Loving yourself is the ultimate revolution. You can't do it and live in fear or isolation.

And, you know me -- I write about it as I go along. Tell until your lips are chapped, that's my credo. Thank you for listening.
There's more...

Saturday, May 29, 2010

For Those Of Us Without A Gated Hideaway


Jill Cozzi's post at Brilliant at Breakfast acted as a final spark for me today. In "So Long [Gulf of Mexico], And Thanks For All The Fish", she begins:

I hope you all have had a chance to enjoy a tropical beach at least once in your life, because the days of sitting on pristine sands, looking at turquoise water and enjoying a dinner of fresh-caught fish are over, thanks to the oil-soaked greed of the Bush family and their cronies, the complete selling out of America to corporations, our own sense of petroleum-based entitlement, and Barack Obama's insistence on playing nice with greedy bastards.
Read her post for the details.
So I'll share here some of my not-quite-all-the-way-finished thoughts:

If you ardently believe in imminent Endtimes (count on it, in fact)

AND/OR if you ardently believe wealth is meant for only the elite few and there is not enough to go around, certainly not for the unworthy

AND/OR you are hopeless about human nature being inherently decent

AND/OR you secretly know climate change means hundreds of millions will die before the end of this entury unless a stop is put to the lifestyle which accrues you and your friends wealth and power

If you have this kind of damaged, defeated, christianist, white supremacist, male dominated worldview, you will easily decide to loot what is available for looting as you prepare your compound in Paraguay with its own private and pristine water source that will not be affected by the desertification of much of the globe.

You will easily decide rendering our own ocean unfit for anything BUT drilling is a logical step, a hedge against coming oil wars, because those who depend on fishing and nature are expendable segments of the population.

You will all speak the same language -- which we can interpret, if we are only willing to admit it -- and you will slyly allow things to go past the point of remedy. Beginning with the more unbeloved of our national coastlines.

Katrina and Rita response now appear as dry runs.

This is what I'm thinking. And I can read it also in the post of Jill, whom I trust.

But I am not hopeless, and I will not give up. They are wrong in ALL their beliefs, and I will not let them frame the question or close my mind to possibility. It can just as easily become the event that sweeps our elite from all decision-making over our lives. We can imagine that occurring, and whatever we can honestly imagine is a potential reality. Because, in fact, WE are in charge of our own perspective, and we are not stupid. Deceivable but not stupid, and that is the critical difference their class training has missed.

Not stupid, and we have a means of speaking to each other from the heart.

Rest up, allow yourselves to have a truly joy-filled weekend if you can, but rest up in any event. Talk with you soon.
There's more...

Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Maryland Club Coffee Can Story


During the young years of their marriage, my parents moved often to small towns all over Texas and Louisiana, following my father's job. They had some money then, driving a late-model Chevy and using their vacation time to journey even more, visiting family here and there. But my father refused to shell out for restaurant food, so my mother packed sandwiches, pickles and pie to last the trip.

Daddy also hated to stop except when the car needed gas. He believed learning to "hold it" built character. Once my older brother passed the diaper stage, however, Mama pointed out a toddler simply wasn't capable of controlling their bodily functions for four hours at a stretch. Daddy's soluton was an empty Maryland Club coffee can in the back floorboard, that could be emptied at the next gas stop.

This practice was put to an unexpected test on a trip from Houma to Bowie when my parents were driving my grandmother Sook back home after an extended visit. Sook had a short fuse for nastiness, as she called it. When my brother had to use the can that afternoon, it turned into a #2 voiding, Mama assisting him in the back seat.

But it was winter and with the car windows rolled up, the odor from that can spread throughout the car. Sook, sitting in the front passenger seat, demanded my father find a place to pull over so it could be emptied, and my father kept refusing. Finally Sook rolled down her window, they thought to freeze out Daddy and force him to comply. Daddy set his jaw and ignored her, focusing on speeding up to pass a tractor-trailer rig.

Sook showed surprising agility by leaning over the seat, grabbing the offending can, and pivoting to hurl its contents out her open window without splashback. Unfortunately, she didn't notice the tractor-trailer rig now to her right and far enough behind our Chevy to take all of the coffee can's load -- so to speak -- full on the truck's windshield.

"Oops" said Sook. Mama, who told this story often, swore she would never forget the truckdriver's enraged face as he spit out his Skoal and pushed the accelerator to the floor while taking his first swerve at the Chevy. For the next half hour, Daddy tested the combustion ability of that newish car engine while Mama clung to my weeping brother and Sook leaned out the window trying to convey her apology via a sign language that Daddy said the truckdriver clearly interpreted as further derision.

They were finally rescued by the appearance of a rare hill on that two-lane blacktop, which slowed down the rig enough to allow Daddy to get far ahead. At the next town, he dove deep into a residential area and located a gas station on the outskirts, where everyone in the car used the facilites and Daddy restored his shot nerves with an unfiltered Camel followed by a bottle of Coke with Tom's peanuts poured into the neck.

After that, Daddy stopped when we had to go the restroom. He grumbled about it, but he pulled over.
There's more...

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Focus, Trinity

(Bill David Barnett, age 2.5, and Maggie, age 5, trailer park in Pecos, Texas, summer 1961)

Today my little brother Bill would have turned 51.

Which means he's been dead almost 9 years. Can't quite understand that.

He was waiting for health insurance to kick in at his new job: We'd watched how medical costs had starved our family when we were kids. So instead of being saddled with a "pre-existing condition", he lay down alone on that green-and-white striped couch and watched TV as a heart attack rolled on into cardiac tamponade and he bled out into his chest.

Universal health care for every human being, no questions asked, without profit linked to medical choices. Now. Get rid of any leader who caves, no matter what other distractions they toss up. The alternative is ongoing pointless death.

[Cross-posted at Meta Watershed.]
There's more...

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Going Home Today

(Mary Jo Atkins Barnett and Maggie, 1955, passport photo for going to India)

When I woke up from the RT shakiing my shoulder at 7 a.m., the Roches were singing in my head "We're going away to Ireland soon" with muted glee. It's been three weeks today since I was admitted, and I cannot account for a lot of that time. My Narrative has defiinitely been interrupted. A lot of memories wade in and out like scenes from a bad 60's "message movie".

Everytime I think about getting out of here, my chest relaxes a little and I breathe better. It will be hellishly hard on my own but no one will be opening my front door without my choice, and no more small talk, which is to conversation as WalMart is to small town main street commerce. Pajamas and keyboard, that's enough for me. (grin)

One thing that has emerged as my attention returned is that my attraction to folks who are looking for a place to tell their troubles has spread up and down the hall, apparently. I'm a better listener than I am storyteller, but at home I have a stopcock to control who dips into my well. Yesterday I earnestly told Erlinda, the tech of techs, how much everyone here admires her quick learning and leadership. She was clocking out for the day, but stayed at my bedside for half an hour to tell me what it was like raising her three abandoned nieces the past 9 years. Honestly, it's a tale I'm honored to have heard, altered my appreciation for others ever upward -- but what is it I do that inspires others to confide in me? In Erlinda's case, I wanted to hear. Otherwise, I am not even watching the daily reruns on cable of "Grey's Anatomy" -- my own body and midstream ordeal is swallowing the lion's share of my focus right now, and as Stuart Smalley would say, "That's okay."

Yesterday as I was warshing up (as one tech says it), I examined the altered corpus Maggie carefully. The blown IV sites and JP drain scab will go away entirely, I think. But the contours of my front are permanently rearranged -- large capstone bulge gone, everything listed to the right, and a wicked ruck from just below my breasts through my navel like the Hayward Fault when viewed from Mount Diablo. There'll be no problem saying "Yep, that's her" if I wind up mangled on some CSI slab.

Surgeons go directly to the source of an issue and tend not to deal with the aftereffects. This is seen as more efficient, as all versions of Henry Ford compartmentalization are now revered as most productive. I always question this ethic but especially now, as I hear the muttered resentment techs have toward nurses (who say "call a tech" for ass wiping) and the sullen obeisance nurses display toward doctors who breeze in and out far more obliviously than even the most gritty TV drama depicts. When we added making a profit to the work of caregiving -- and especially Reagan's permission to be greedy as an America ethic -- we created the monster that our government is currently too feckless to tame.

Thanks to Jill Cozzi, by the way, for reminding me of the excellent meaning of that word, feckless.

In contrast, a Quaker man, Sean Carroll, is arranging for a CarShare to get me home after my discharge today, since he doesn't own a vehicle. He's already done all the shopping I need to be safe-ish at home , except for the correct size diapers, which will arrive via FedEx tomorrow -- although at least 1/3 of all American women weigh 200 lb. or more, this hospital doesn't stock diapers that go beyond that size, nor would they research finding them for me. Thank g*d I was alert enough and able to get online to meet my own basic dignity needs.

You know, lesbian-feminism of the early 1970s is where I first encountered the concept of political correctness, and it's never been a joke to me. At bedrock, political correctness is about striving to express respect and kindness according to cultural values which may vary from the ones you were raised with. Respect, privacy, pluralism: arch enemies of the fear-based Right.

I don't know why, but for the last 24 hours a particular memory has been popping into my head, as it did just now. It's my first memory, and occurred when I was around one year age. We were living in Kolkata and I was out for the day with Nilmoni, my ayah. We were in what my mother called a rickshah, which was in fact a horse-drawn cart with a single horse. We turned into a street clogged with a mob. Nilmoni began shouting at the cart driver to get us out of there, but we were already being surrounded and horses have to be turned, there is no reverse gear. I was in her lap, held tight, and she put one hand over my face to block my vision. I tugged at her fingers ineffectually, then discovered if I opened my eyes I could see between her slightly spread fingers. I went still, watching with interest.

The crowd was all Indian, which was normal to me, I thought I was too. It was all male, and they were angry, but I wasn't worried because I was with Nilmoni. They were holding aloft, above their outstretched arms, two items: a round of bread and a man, passing them toward one side of the street. The man was struggling, wild-eyed, shirtless. It was intriguing to see an adult passed around as easily as I was.

At the side of the street was a two-story building with outside stairs to an upper landing. The stairs had no railing but the landing had a wooden frame around it. A rivulet of the mob swirled up the stairs and the flailing man was passed upward from arm to arm. Someone on the landing had a rope which was tied to the porch. As the man reached the landing, the other end of the rope was knotted around his neck. With a roaring surge, matched by Nilmoni's shrieks at our cart driver, the shirtless man was thrown over the railing in a small arc. He slammed against the side of the building and a seond later reached rope's end. He scrabbled frantically at the stucco wall with fingernails and feet to find a purchase. Before he could, our cart finally turned out of view. I tried to turn my head to watch but Nilmoni held me fast.

I didn't understand what had happened, and there is no negative emotion in this memory, only excitement about curious adult behavior. It is vivid -- the bright sun with dust in the air, hoarse shouting, Nilmoni's smell, and the look on the face of the shirtless man, his dark sweaty skin and the visible ribs on his torso. Years later, when I was six or so, I began telling my mother about the memory to ask her what it all meant; I thought of it often. She sat down heavily in her kitchen chair, her face horrified, repeating "My god, my god."

She knew the incident. Nilmoni had told her about it when we got home that day. They were both reassured by their belief I hadn't seen anything, and did not want to discuss it with me. Mama said the man was from the untouchable class, still a strong practice in 1956, and he had stolen the round of bread.

Now I have two versions of the memory, my original and the unspeakable horror of what actually occurred as Mama gently explained it to me later.

Sorting out this cacophony we call life takes up all our time. I'm going away to Ireland soon, will be home tonight, and can resume my sift in solitude. Aching, incontinent, exhausted, in a mess of a house, but with just me and Dinah to accommodate. There is peace and wonder to be found in any situation, even death, they tell us. I'll write again as soon as I can.

The Roches singing "The Troubles" in 1983

[Cross-posted at Meta Watershed.]
There's more...

Monday, December 22, 2008

Home Is Where, When You Have To Go There...

Maggie's parents and older brother in 1949 (Maggie's mother, older brother, and father, circa 1949, Bowie, Texas bus station)

Home Is Where, When You Have To Go There...

I've been missing my father, wishing I could talk with him. He's been dead two years, and it's only in the last couple of months that I've begun missing him. Especially on Thanksgiving, and I expect it will hit me again on Christmas.

He wasn't always home for Thanksgiving with us. I'm not sure how many Christmases he missed, beyond the last one my mother was alive. Mostly he was not there for birthdays. Mama made them holidays without him. I never missed a Thanksgiving or Christmas with Mama, despite moving out to California, and I never missed them with my little brother Bill, either, until -- well, that's the story I mean to tell, here. Somehow.

Bill and I were three years apart in age. He was an accidental pregnancy, and honestly, it showed in how my parents treated him. Not overtly, but the difficulty his needs brought to our already strained family was evident to even him. Kids who grow up with that knowledge have a hard time, you can't convince me otherwise. I believe it played a (small) role in his early death. My wanting him was not enough: What he needed was to have been welcomed, in a way he was not, by my parents.

We're not supposed to admit these kinds of things about our families. Especially in working class families, where any admission of being fucked up is going to be used against us, proof that we deserve our poverty and hard life. They are all dead now, except for me, so I'm not betraying them. At least, not directly.

When Daddy washed out of the Army Air Corps right before the end of World War II, he drifted around for a while, then got a job doodlebugging. His boss told him it was not a fit occupation for a married man, because it paid little and meant moving every six weeks to three months. Daddy assured the guy he had no intention of getting married or having a family. Six weeks later he met Mama, and five weeks after that, they got married. Daddy didn't tell her about the reality of his chosen occupation. She figured it out slowly, on her own, by the time my oldest brother Glenn was born two years later.

But it was 1948, and folks didn't get divorced. And Daddy kept saying he'd get promoted, moved up into an office job, where we'd stay in one place. Join the middle class, or at least the illusion of middle class that office workers have. In the early 1980s, shortly before she died, Mama told me she'd figured out all the ways Daddy had kept himself stuck in the field work which was what he really loved. He wasn't comfortable around men in white shirts with soft hands. He didn't feel good enough to do labor that didn't involve getting sweaty and making loud jokes with other men. He was thrilled to have escaped the farm, and grunt seismology felt respectable enough for him.

So we lived rootless, in trailers or crappy rent houses, except for the two times Daddy convinced Mama to let him take an overseas hitch, where the pay was good and Daddy got to push around brown people. Mama handled all the work of keeping us a family, not perfectly (not even close to that) but using every last bit of juice she had. I worshipped her, as did Bill. And she worshipped me back, flagrantly preferring me to my brothers.

My older brother Glenn was the only child for almost eight years before I was born. He was furious at my arrival, furious at my father's absence, furious at our inability to be anything more than working class in a good year. When I was four, he began coming after me. By the time I was nine, it was sexual as well as all the other ways he could think of to hurt me. He was 17 then, the local high school quarterback, massive and dangerous. Mama was too tired to see what was going on.

At least, that's the story.

I'm not going to tell you any details except this: I did what I could to keep him from going after Bill. I did whatever I had to. Because of this, Glenn said I wanted what he did to me. And Bill, as a toddler until the age of 8 when Glenn finally moved out of the house, was eaten up with guilt at my sacrifice for him -- even as he let me do make it for him. It was the only way we knew to stay alive.

(Bill and Maggie, summer of 1964, Houma, Louisiana, with chihuahua Chico)

I planned for me and Bill to have all our adult lives together, to grow old as brother and sister.

Mama had four heart attacks before she finally died of the fifth one, when I was 28 and she was 56. Once I got to college on scholarships, she and I collaborated and wrote a resume for Daddy (I checked out a book on how to do it from the university library). We got him a suit and I typed letters for him on my Olivetti portable seeking job interviews as a consultant in the seismology field. He was sullen and self-sabotaging, but eventually, in spite of his crap, he got hired on making four times more than he ever had. I was able to leave Texas knowing Mama was financially secure. The last six months of her life, they even bought a house.

The day we buried Mama, Daddy said to the three of us "I know you kids would rather it have been me that died than her." None of us said anything. I feel terrible about that now.

I was the only one in the family, I think, who was able to mourn Mama without conflict. She and I had talked over everything before she died. In 1980, she flat out asked me if Glenn had molested me -- a truth I had thought I'd never be able to tell her because of her precarious heart condition. I answered honestly, and she and I worked out the mess between us. She also asked me if I thought Glenn's three kids were at risk, and I said absolutely, of course they were -- the oldest already showed profound signs of damage. She decided she wasn't up to confronting Glenn, so she sent Daddy to do it instead. Five years after she died, I found out that Daddy had fucked it up in his predictable way. He asked Glenn about it, Glenn said I'd made up the whole thing because I'm a man-hating lesbian you know, and they had a beer together. Daddy came back and told Mama that Glenn had agreed to go into counseling, it would all be okay.

Less than a year after Mama died, Daddy married a woman fifteen years his junior, a divorcee with three kids who was trying to get her master's degree in dance theory. Glenn went into a rage, saying Daddy was dishonoring Mama's memory, and cut off all contact with Daddy. I thought it was very clear the two newlyweds were playing a game of mutual exploitation, but my Aunt Sarah, Mama's sister, gave me a stern talking to and said I had no right to judge my father's pursuit of happiness if it had no impact on me. I could see she was right. I made friends with my stepmother and talked Bill into doing the same. No skin off my back.

She of course left him as soon as the bust hit Texas and he fell behind on house payments. She'd gotten her Ph.D. by then, and married an insurance salesman six months later. Daddy couldn't believe she gave up on him. Some lessons come late. He sold away his pension and most of Mama's belongings before he finally lost the house, too. At 65, he had only Social Security and a broken down red van to his name.

He moved into a shitty apartment complex a few blocks away from Bill and got a job as a security guard, mostly because it gave him a chance to carry a gun. He had few people skills, had never built community or made friends. It was just me and Bill in his life. Bill was on his second marriage and, for the time being, clean and sober. My own partnership of six years fell apart brutally. I began driving up to Irving regularly to sleep on Daddy's couch and listen to him talk over his life.

We became friends. I don't have an excuse for the choices he made, but I really do understand them. Male conditioning, living as a child in the Depression on a 40-acre Oklahoma cotton farm, coming from Fundamentalists, and never breaking out of the bottom working class all left their mark on him. I had a 36 hour limit on the time I could stand to spend with him, but that meant a weekend where he wasn't alone, that was good enough for him.

The first Thanksgiving we had both been dumped, I told him I'd drive up after work on Wednesday and cook for us. Bill was going to spend the holiday with his wife's family, so it would be just me and Daddy. Traffic was a bear, so I didn't stop along the way and buy groceries as I had meant to. Still, there was a Whole Foods not too far from his house, I'd check in with him and then brave the crowds.

When I arrived, however, I discovered he had already done the shopping. He had a canned ham (not the good kind), a box of stuffing mix, canned peas, canned corn, canned cranberries, a loaf of white bread, and a store-bought apple pie with a crust like MDF. He was extremely proud of himself, thrilled at providing for us and please that I was going to "cook it all up" for him. I didn't have the heart to go buy real food. I searched through his pantry for things I could use to make it more palatable, finding zilch. Parkay, no spices except salt and pepper, no frozen fruit or veggies, no flour, not even canned soup except for one of chicken noodle.

So, I made what I could, pulled out the good plates and silverware instead of the paper stuff he used, cleared the table of six months of clutter, and we had a sit-down meal that was one of the worst I've ever put in my mouth, nutritionally speaking. But memorable in the glow on his face. We talked for hours, watched Lawrence Welk, and he went to bed happy.

I cleaned the kitchen, then, and scrubbed down the toilet. Daddy had never bothered to lift a lid or even bother to aim. When I was a teenager, I had seethed at this daily dose of male urine, and sometimes I deliberately left bloody kotex or tampons on the floor beside the toilet to make my point. But he left it to my mother to clean up. And now me, if I was going to use the same bathroom for the weekend.

He began looking for another wife fairly quickly, and went through the rude awakening of discovering that now he was truly broke, he had no chance at all with women younger than him. He began going to bingo night at senior centers, and eventually found a woman five years older who owned a house, had a small savings, and thought he was funny. They got married without him finding out she was a serious alcoholic. Violet was an amiable drunk, but she started on vodka first thing in the morning and kept at it all day. Her short-term memory was nonexistent. Still, she cooked and cleaned, they had a little house to watch TV in all day, and he promised he would never, under any circumstances, let her get put into a nursing home.

I made friends with Violet as well, and continued to come up for weekends. I was bothered, however, by that fact that conversations with my father vanished. For one thing, he hadn't told Violet I was a dyke and insisted I not tell her, as she was hardshell Baptist and barely knew homosexuality existed. For another, while he didn't drink with her, he spent all day talking on her level and his ability to construct even a simple sentence deteriorated. He acted like having to think about complex issues or delve into memory was an imposition. I let it go. I'd had a father only briefly, and only kinda sorta. I still got to see Bill when I visited, and at least my father wasn't about to be hungry.

Bill and I talked a lot about our childhoods. To be honest, I was usually the one who brought it up; he would rather have watched ESPN in peace. But he did share his memories and his interpretation of them. The memories matched, the interpretation didn't, and I found relief in both.

One memory Bill told over and over again concerned the Thanksgiving when he was 10 and, for some reason, Glenn had gone with us to eat with our grandparents in Oklahoma. Glenn was about to be married, to a woman from an upper middle class family bristling with doctors and lawyers, and after that he seldom had much to do with us. Which was fine with me, though it always pained my mother to have been abandoned for reasons of class. Anyhow, the day after Thanksgiving, Bill went into the kitchen and cut himself a slice of leftover pumpkin pie. Glenn had trailed after him, looking for somebody to torment. Bill put the plastic wrap neatly back over the pie and returned it to the refrigerator, an imperative in my grandmother's kitchen. When he turned back around, his piece of pie had vanished except for a small wedge of crust. Glenn was sitting in a nearby kitchen chair, smirking and chewing. Glenn had stolen food from us all our lives, a favorite putdown.

Bill set aside anything he might want to say, pulled out the pie and cut himself another slice. Same thing happened, of course: When he turned back around, his piece was gone and Glenn was almost choking, trying to swallow it down and laugh at the same time. But Bill snapped. He doubled his little boy fist and socked Glenn in the face as hard as he could. Glenn's chair went over backward onto the kitchen floor.

The retaliation was severe, of course. Glenn dragged him, his mouth covered, out the garage and beat the shit out of him in places where the bruises wouldn't show. But that was the last time Glenn stole food from him. Bill's eyes would glint when he told that story.

When I was 26, Bill went to Glenn and told him if he ever came near me again, for any reason, Bill would kill him. By that time, Bill was an inch taller than Glenn and wider in the shoulders. Like all bullies, Glenn only picked on those weaker than himself. He stayed away from me. But long before that, I'd made it clear I'd kill him, too, if he bothered me. Still, I was deeply moved by Bill finally being able to defend me, returning the favor.

On holidays when I drove up, I usually did the cooking, sometimes with Bill's able assistance for the meats. I'm a good cook and I enjoyed it, and it was also a way to make sure the food was healthy. Plus, staying in the kitchen usually kept me away from trying to make conversation with Violet, who was in the habit of repeating the same remark every seven minutes or so all day long. I have a hard time with dementia, I'll admit it.

The second Thanksgiving after Daddy married Violet, I slept over at Bill's house that he and his wife had managed to buy with an FHA loan. The excuse was that I could get up early to start Christmas dinner. Instead, we sat up late playing Risk and watching a Princess Di special on TV.

The next morning, Daddy and Violet showed up around 10 a.m., which was late in the day for Daddy, who liked to rise at dawn. Violet was lit to the gills, and Daddy, for once, had decided to join her in her morning vodka and orange juice. He was tiddly, is how I would describe it. Bill was watching golf in the back room, and his wife was on her computer. Daddy and Violet pulled stools up to the kitchen bar and decided to hang out with me while I cooked.

I had planned an elaborate, 12-dish meal which all needed to come together at the same time, and I was already overheated and stressed. I'm not the sort to chat while I'm multitasking. But the drinkers, of course, were very chatty. The problem was that Violet was in repetition mode. Every seven minutes, the same conversational gambits were replayed. Her focus that day was on how I was making the green beans. I had bought fresh haricot vertes, leaving them whole except for snapping off the ends, and lightly braised them in butter, shoyu, and Chinese hot sauce, with a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Violet had clearly never seen anything like them before, and she kept asking (every seven minutes) why they looked the way they did, sitting in their bowl on the counter nearby.

Four times I explained the recipe to her. The fifth time, I snarled over my shoulder "The recipe is exactly the same as I told you the last goddamned time."

There was a wounded silence behind me. I glanced around. Violet was in profound shock, and Daddy looked belligerent. I said "Excuse me, I have to cool off" and I strode to the front door. It was about 15 degrees outside, but I didn't bother with a coat. I sat down on the front step and tried to slow my thudding heart.

After half a minute, I heard the door open and felt Bill ease himself down onto the step beside me. He lit a cigarette, took a big drag, tried to blow the smoke away from me, then lay his massive arm over my shoulders and said calmly "Well you fucked that one up."

We laughed our asses off. When I began shivering from the cold, I said "I don't know how to go back in there and face them."

Bill said "Ah, shit, she won't remember it by now. Daddy's the only one who's going to remember to be offended, and fuck him."

He was right. Violet had refilled her go cup and asked me brightly how come the green beans looked so different. I explained it to her patiently as I resumed mashing yams, and Bill, chuckling, returned to his golf tournament.

The next year, Bill's second wife had left him. He arrived at Daddy's house on Christmas morning with a bottle of Goldschlager, which he slammed down on the coffee table and said grimly "After every gift, we each take a shot." I declined, but they went after it and it was actually a hilarious day.

Two years after that, Violet died one October morning as they were getting up. Daddy had managed to keep his promise to her, allowing her to live at home until she passed. Daddy inherited the house and her savings. At Christmas, he mailed a check for $8000 to Glenn, asking to make up. Glenn's second marriage was failing, he'd been fired one too many times to find work easily, and he decided Daddy's offer was just what he needed. He called Daddy from the road in California, asking to come live with him. If he drove straight through, he could be there by late Christmas Day. Daddy was ecstatic.

He came into the guest room where I was sleeping and woke me up to tell me that Glenn would be there in a day, to celebrate Christmas with all of us. He said we were to all be nice to each other, for his sake, and in particular I was to not bring up in any way all the abuse Bill and I had suffered at Glenn's hands. We were to act as if nothing had ever gone wrong.

I stared at him in disbelief. I said "I can't possibly agree to that. I won't make a scene, but I'm not going to lie about what he did."

"Then you'll be the one making trouble. The rest of us want to be a complete family again" Daddy said.

I called Bill and we talked it over. In the end, Bill said he couldn't give up on Daddy, no matter what the conditions were. He was still trying to get the love and approval he'd never had as a boy. He said he didn't blame me if I couldn't hack it, we'd still see and talk with each other. I told Daddy I wasn't going to pretend, and he said I should go, then. I packed my bags and left at 8:00 on Christmas morning. Bill came over to see me off.

Glenn moved in permanently to Daddy's house. When I lost my mobility and my job, Bill came to visit me, including in the rehab hospital after my knee was replaced. Daddy never did. I called him every week, where I'd have to listen to how great Glenn was and the latest jokes he'd told Daddy, which I invariably had to interrupt because they were obscenely racist.

Bill's anger built slowly but perceptibly. He blew up increasingly easily when on the phone with me. He kept saying "I don't know how to do this without you here". I felt bad, and kept taking it to counseling, but kept coming up with the same answer: I'd give visiting a try as long as I could be honest. But Daddy kept saying that was out of the question.

A year later, Bill lost his job, I think because of anger issues. He had trouble finding a new one, and when he did, he failed his screening drug test. I didn't know that at the time; he told me he just didn't like the fuckers. It took him a month to land another interview. He managed to pass their drug test, I'm not sure how, because his friends and ex-wife later told me he was using cocaine regularly. By then, he was in default on his truck payment and had lost his insurance.

He had a heart attack, it now seems clear, while he was mowing his lawn. He went in to lie down and eventually called Daddy, saying his chest hurt. Daddy convinced him it was probably just from pulling the mower cord. When I talked with Daddy a day later and heard about it, I immediately called Bill and told him to go the ER. He said he didn't have insurance, and I said they had to treat him anyhow, if it was cardiac (and given our family history, it probably was) they could treat it and he could blow off the bills. He said the pain was getting better, he thought it really was a pulled muscle. I said I'd call him the next day to check on him. I then called his third wife at her job and told her to get him to the doctor.

He didn't get help. Instead, he went to Glenn and confessed his drug usage, saying he was scared it would show up in any medical test and he'd lose his new job. Glenn tore into him, calling him a loser for taking drugs, and said he didn't want to hear any more about it.

The next morning, Bill called in sick to work and told his wife he was exhausted, he just wanted to sleep all day. He lay down on the couch, a golf game on TV, as she left for her job. When she came home at 2:00 that afternoon, he was stiff and cold. The coroner said it was complete cardiac tamponade. The heart attack, whose pain had undoubtedly not only continued but increased, eventually tore open the pericardial lining around his heart and he bled out into his chest. I hope he was asleep when it happened, because my own doctor told me it was an agonizing way to die.

I went to Bill's funeral, driven by a friend. I did not speak to Glenn there. Daddy went home with Glenn, and the rest of the family had a wake at Bill's house. Bill's friends refused to speak to Glenn or shake his hand. It was the last time I saw Daddy.

A few months later, Glenn told Daddy about his last conversation with Bill and begged forgiveness. Daddy called me, suddenly realizing what he was living with. I stayed in touch with him, calling him and listening to him as best I could. He died one morning sitting in his recliner in front of the TV. Glenn found him. Four months later, Glenn died alone in the same house.

I'm not sorry for how I hung in there, and I'm not sorry for when I drew the line. I'm especially not sorry I made a choice different than Bill's. I'm alive, and he's not, and I believe the reason is that divergent choice we made.

I miss Bill every day. But it's odd to now, finally, be missing my father. I'm not sure what it means, except that we are all human and, given enough time, humanity is all we remember.

There's more...

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Where Has All The Money Gone?

Stone stairs between tulip beds
I am not an economist, nor do I play one on TV. Having thus made my disclaimer, I do have a few thoughts to share about the current economic crisis, as it is called.

First, I like it when Letterman says "All the money is gone. My question is, where did it go?" I think that's an excellent question, and I have not yet heard a simple, believable answer except the one in my gut which says "Well, a lot of it must not have been there to begin with." As in: The emperor's clothes didn't suddenly just vanish, he was walking around buck nekkid the whole time.

Since the advent of Reaganomics, we've been increasingly a culture operating on credit. And in the last decade, the best way to make money was not to produce goods or even concrete services, but to play around with imaginary concepts which had to do with credit. That illusion has finally collapsed, and I simply don't believe it is coming back. It looks to me like a lot of other people don't believe it's coming back, either. Banks are not loaning unless the loans are iron-clad, investors want something else to put their money into, and credit-based businesses are increasingly finding other ways to bleed us if they can.

Some commentator on the national news tonight said "People are simply not spending their money." I wondered what fucking universe she lives in. EVERYBODY I know is spending their money, every last cent of it, on groceries, fuel, housing, and maybe health care. There are ballooning numbers of people out there who have spent every cent and now are losing their homes or having to go to food banks to eat. The majority of people in this country -- that majority which is working class, no matter how much they and the politicians pretend they are middle class -- are not sitting on unspent money. What they/we are no longer spending is money we didn't have. Living on credit is coming to an end.

Which means the same amount of money that ever existed is still around, but decisions about how it spent are changing, must change. And its distribution must return to being a collective decision.

Some of us are capable of making decisions about spending that takes into account, primarily, the common good. Some of us are not. Those who are not will not disappear quietly. They are, as we speak, trying to bust unions, shove more worker-hating legislation quietly through the pipeline, and hiding the footprints of their fellow thieves.

There is no recovery from this, because the term "recovery" implies a return to basic principles and function as it was. What we are facing is reinvention. Which, even as I personally face being swept away, is still a hopeful idea to me. It's time, it's more than time, and working people know how to retool. When you believe you EARN your paycheck each week, reorganization and learning how to do things a different way does not threaten exposure and exile: We know we can handle it, we handle everything else, right?

The risk we're facing is revealed by something Einstein said: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

So, stop listening to people who don't make sense, who you think maybe you shouldn't trust, and quit worrying. Especially quit worrying. I know how hard that is to do when things are so bad, believe me, I do. I've gone without a lot of meals in the last month, and there's nothing like hunger to mess with brain chemistry. But worry does not prepare you for reality, it does not foster flexibility or humor. It's a dead end, because it is another name for fear. There are a thousand ways to outwit fear, and by golly, if we have not become experts in those techniques since Bush sashayed into the White House, we're no longer drawing breath.

I'll see you on the soup line, sister. Breathe deep and finger what luck you have. It'll be all right in the end, I do believe.

There's more...

Thursday, August 14, 2008

DAILY BEIJING OLYMPICS THREAD FOR 13 AUGUST 2008


Daily Beijing Olympics Thread for 13 August 2008

Here's your daily subjective report on the Olympics and a chance to converse about it in comments. For the suggested guidelines, please read the opening paragraphs of my my original post.

SPOILER NOTE: Some results will be reported below for the competition of yesterday, so be forewarned.

FEEDBACK: It's so predictable. I self-identify as disabled and at least one person thinks that means it's okay to call me retarded. This is classic able-bodied oppression. I do not have a mental or cognitive disability (although I did for part of one year, after anoxia during a surgery). If I did, I'd say so without shame. It's not funny and it's not "less than", it's simply a difference. Retard, on the other hand, is a hate term and is not welcome here. I'm leaving the comment up to make my point, but future hate speech directed against physical difference will disappear, poof.

I think commenting on the rigid feminization of certain sports is entirely appropriate, just as commenting on race and class as it limits those who can be at the Olympics is what a political blog should be doing. I used humor to change the pace, but I think it must have gone over at least one person's head: Pointing out sexism and classism is NOT part of the problem, despite the American myth that silence is the only (middle-class) way to be "nice". White, male, and upper class are default normal in this country. If you point out something contrary to the default, if you ask for attention to be directed toward the areas where people are still fucking dying daily because they are targeted in these areas, it is not identity politics or causing trouble, it is clarity and conscience which offers hope to every person who isn't comfortably included in (or allied with) the "default" categories.

Using "political correctness" as an attempted insult immediately marks you as having been stunted by the thinking of the Right, as begun by Reagan. Liberal, politically correct, compassion, and global are not terms of disparagement to me and other radicals. Political correctness is, at its baseline, a sincere attempt to avoid language, thinking and behavior which contributes to the oppression of others. If it seems hilarious or too much work to you, well, as Dr. Phil says, you might wanna take a look at that.

I also have a little trouble with the term "heatherish", which has the feel of pretending that the internalized oppression aimed by members of a target group at one another is what keeps those of in the target group oppressed and "in line". My self-reminder in any analysis is: Check the power flow, dummy. Me noticing how terrified these young women are of looking "not right" is NOT the oppression (which is a blend of class and gender).

One commenter made a great point, about objective scoring vs. subjective. Another commenter (at my own blog) made a related point when she voiced appreciation for the commentators who are taking the time to explain the sport to us as the action goes along. Understanding why deductions occur helps make it a much more enjoyable, shared experience -- and, incidentally, reveals where subjectivity has too much leeway. I'm still outraged that Torvill & Dean didn't win their ice-dancing competition years ago, and whether it was judge corruption or simple disagreement about technique, the presence of subjective scoring there allowed a decision that almost no one found fair.

Thanks to the white-water fans who explained more about why Benjamin Boukpeti's win was so exciting, and about how the current course is equalizing gender in this particular sport. And, again, thanks to earlier commenters who gave me a smidgen of education about fencing: When I watched the women's team saber finals today, I understood a great deal more and got very caught up in the action.

Back to the question of attire: Much was made of Michael Phelps having to swim last night with goggles full of water, which effectively blinded him for 100 meters. To his credit, he still turned in a world record time. Since he is poised to break Mark Spitz's record, the Today show featured an interview with Mark Spitz, who was extremely gracious and supportive. I remembered him (all the swimmers then) racing without goggles, so I went to Youtube and found a video of the 1972 games, below. It's blurry but does show all the men wore no goggles or hats, had often shaggy hair (including Spitz's mustache, which I don't think we'd ever see today), and not all of them had the skimpy Speedo that Spitz wore. There was a lot of talk about how revealing his suit was, as I remember, but he said it played a role in his superior swim times and, of course, he was right about that.



In December 1974, my partner and I with our four-year-old daughter were traveling through South Texas and we stopped at the Magic Time Machine restaurant in San Antonio (which is still there). This is a TGI Friday's kinda place whose gimmick is that all the staff dresses up like characters from history or current pop culture. We were shown to a table by a guy dressed as Benjamin Franklin and invited to go to the "salad car" right away. Folks dressed in wildly different costumes flowed back and forth, and our daughter was a little frightened by it all -- she didn't recognize most of who the actors were supposed to be portraying.

Back at our table, however, as our waiter approached she cried out with delight "Look! It's Mark Spitz!" Wearing a skimpy Speedo, with that brushy mustache and mop of hair, and seven gold medals bouncing back and forth on his chest, indeed, Mark Spitz's double took our order. My daughter shyly asked if she could touch one of his medals, and he consented graciously. I noticed, however, his skin was slightly blue and there were goosebumps on his arms. He must have been freezing, poor guy.

My daughter talked about meeting Mark Spitz for years, a thrill of her young life. We didn't let on until she was old enough to figure it out for herself.

This Olympics we're seeing an astonishing number of swimming world records broken, not just by Michael Phelps but across the board, even in qualifying heats. One possible cause is the widespread use of Speedo's Fastskin LZR Racer suit, which I think first appeared at the Athens Olympics but appears perfected at this point. Also, the newer Olympic pools manipulate water away from the swimmer, as if they are "swimming downhill". And I've heard that new chemicals to more quickly remove lactic acid from overused muscles gives a strong advantage to current athletes who must perform repetitively in a single day or over a few days.

I mention all this with no intention to draw away credit from the astonishing performances we are seeing. It's a swimming Olympics to remember, for sure. And -- as Mark Spitz's record is bested, let's remember the guy who did what he did without these advantages, without hype or much expected of him at all: Seven gold medals in seven races, with a new world record time in each race. We can't compare him to Phelps or anyone else, really, because that was then and this is now; his race times would not hold up now. We can honor both equally, for what they have done.

As if the commentators were listening to my earlier criticism (which of course they were not), they've done better about explaining instead of gushing and sharing the praise in more directions. I finally found out what Natalie Coughlin is so good on turns (she rotates her body sideways for a stroke, which creates less drag), why a big swimmer with Alain Bernard can negatively affect a smaller swimmer (backwash at the turn), and why Phelp's unusual body is so ideal for swimming (his arm span is 6'7", three inches longer than his height; his feet are size 14 and bend an extra 15 degrees at the ankle, allowing him to use them much more as flippers).

Interestingly, after Jason Lezak won Bronze in the only event where he swam individually at this Olympics, the men's 100m freestyle, he was interviewed by Rowdy Gaines. During the course of the interview, Gaines quite appropriately brought up the most exciting swim of this games so far, Lezak's anchor leg of the 4x100 free relay with a split of 46.06. However, Gaines veered off into Phelpsomania, stating "You got Michael his gold in that event." With a slight smile and a steady voice, Lezak replied "I did not swim that race to win a gold for Michael." Hear, hear! When this was replayed with Bob Costas present, Costas appeared unable to take it in, although Gaines did and seemed to appreciate Lezak drawing a lane in the pool, as it were: He is not Phelps' minion.

And, from what I can see, Phelps is very aware of that. He seems to be close to his male cohorts. It's the press who have attempted to make him into the Only Swimmer that Matters -- and for too many of them, it's for a commercial bottom line, not even from pure love of sport.

Speaking of commercialism: I don't remember previous Olympics' coverage showing every single heat and semifinal as this one has (51 in total). I personally love swimming, but it occurred to me that because of watching all these non-decisive races, I'm missing all the other events that could be covered. Track & Field begin tomorrow, which has a similar multitude of events and voluminous numbers of competitors to be winnowed down to final races. I'll be watching to see if all those heats are aired as well. If not, I'll raise the question of whether this is pure commercialism -- i.e., give viewers only what is most popular -- or, dare I say it, because most of the athletes in swimming are white and most of the athletes in track & field are NOT white? A discussion to be continued, after more observation.

Locally (I live in Austin, Texas) there's a great deal of credit being given to Longhorn Aquatics at the University of Texas, where a huge number of these swimmers train -- some of them not even pros yet, still students at UT. Since I should plug my home town at least once, the following swimmers are from the Longhorn program: Ricky Berens, Hee-Jin Chang (swimming for China), Ian Crocker, Susana Escobar (swimming for Mexico), Brendan Hansen, Kathleen Hersey, Aaron Peirsol, Scott Spann, Garrett Weber-Gale, and Dave Walters.

While I'm plugging, I discovered a blog I read regularly is running GREAT posts about the Olympics with cultural and sociological commentary, covering territory I'm not: Sue Katz Consenting Adult. I especially liked her report on the older athletes who find a niche in some sports, Boomer Olympians.

Also, the Guardian UK wrote a pre-Olympics article which is highly educational and entertaining, Game For Anything, in which they sent eight of their reporters out in crash courses for competitions. These intrepid writers report back on the finer points of steeple chase, front crawl, shot put, fencing, gymnastics, rowing, high jump, and BMX. It's a great read.

Returning to attire: The aforementioned LZR swimsuits show the men swimmers constantly adjusting their shoulder straps and arm holes as compulsively as the women. I was happy to see it's not just us: When you wear a tight garment that lets flesh bulge out, you simply are not as comfortable in it. (Plus the nervousness factor, I'm sure.) In my freshman year of high school, our basketball uniforms were the old-fashioned style with shorts that were more like panties and arm sleeves in a baby-doll style. I remember our coach screaming at us during one time-out because somebody had been pushing her ass-cheek back into her suit instead of catching the ball on a pass.

The next year, new suits were bought for both the boys and girls' basketball teams, and after heated lobbying on our part, we got the same style as the boys -- roomy sleeves, breathable fabric, long-legged and baggy shorts with wide waistbands. I still remember the glorious freedom I felt when I first put mine on, not only the ease of movement but, even more, the relief from having to worry about exposure. When I watch women doing strenuous movements in leotards and see them constantly reaching to their bottoms to make sure the fabric hasn't ridden up too far, I feel for them. I suspect, as one commenter said, it's about the look rather than the function -- otherwise, men would be wanting to compete in leotards as well.

And, finally, regarding commentary, race, and class inequality at the games: I was watching in 2000 when Eric Moussambani swam his heat for the men's 100 meter freestyle. I was leaned forward cheering for him every agonizing stroke of the final 50 meters, and also laughing wildly: How on earth had this guy gotten to the Olympics? The last few meters, it looked like someone might need to jump in and pull him out. He was immediately dubbed "Eric the Eel".

Turns out, according to Wikipedia, he "gained entry to the Olympics without meeting the minimum qualification requirements via a wildcard draw designed to encourage developing countries without expensive training facilities to participate." In other words, poor countries are given a ticket to compete but no funding to support their athletes. What I remember from interviews at the time, he had no access to an Olympic-sized pool and therefore trained in a hotel pool that was 20 meters long, so 50 meters was 2.5 times what he usually swam. He had only been training for eight months, and he did it for the honor of his country.

It stopped being funny at that point. Below is a Youtube video of Eric Moussambani's swim, the most respectful one I could find (and it's not entirely free of crap).



When I checked the NBC site to see who is competing from his country this year, I found under the entry for Equatorial Guinea a brief reference to Moussambani which stated "he had only learned to swim eight months before, and in crocodile-infested waters." This is directly contradicted by my memory of his history and also by that of Wikipedia, and it smacks of appalling racial stereotyping.

To make matters worse, last night the NBC anchor ran another video of a swimmer from who was the sole competitor for a poor African country (I didn't catch the name and I cannot find it by searching the NBC site). He was swimming in a heat and came in dead last. The commentator prefaced it by going from an image of (guess who) Michael Phelps to the heat, stating "And now, from the sublime to, well, also the sublime but in an entirely different way". He laughed throughout the video. His tone was utterly condescending. If you can supply the name of this swimmer and country, I'd appreciate it.

Professionalism in sports is not the problem: Paying athletes is on a par with paying artists and other non-profit endeavors, in my opinion. It's who is controlling the endeavor (i.e., community vs. corporate or government), and how fair is the access that matters most. Paying lip-service to access while providing no money for athletes to train is disingenuous at best. I admit it's a stretch to ask wealthy superpowers to set aside some of our largesse to create sports program for boys and girls in the countries we tend to exploit, especially since those kids will likely grow up to be crackerjack competitors -- but can you imagine the Olympics which would result from a truly leveled playing field? (Pun intended.)

(Stephanie Rice wins 200m individual relay, photo from China Daily)

WORLD RECORDS IN SWIMMING SET ON AUGUST 12 AND 13:
Alain Bernard of France in Men's 100m Freestyle: 47.20 WR (in the semifinal)
Federica Pellegrini of Italy in Women's 200m Freestyle: 1:54.82 WR (won Gold)
Michael Phelps of U.S. in Men's 200m Butterfly: 1:52.03 WR (won Gold)
Michael Phelps of U.S. in Men's 200m Freestyle: 1:42.96 WR (won Gold)
Aaron Peirsol of U.S. in Men's 100m Backstroke: 52.54 WR (won Gold)
Stephanie Rice of Australia in Women's 200m Individual Medley: 2:08.45 WR (won Gold)
Ricky Berens, Ryan Lochte, Michael Phelps, and Peter Vanderkaay of US in Men's 4x200 Freestyle Relay: 6:58.56 WR (won Gold)

OLYMPIC RECORDS IN SWIMMING SET ON AUGUST 12 AND 13:
Paolo Bossini of Italy in Men's 200m Breaststroke: 2:08.98 OR (in the heats)
Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe in Women's 200m Individual Medley: 2:09.53 OR (in the semifinal)
Daniel Gyurta of Hungary (beating record set by Paolo Bossini in previous heat same day) in Men's 200m Breaststroke: 2:08.68 OR (in the heats)
Leisel Jones of Australia in Women's 100m Breaststroke: 1:05.17 OR (won Gold)
Kosuke Kitajima of Japan in Men's 200m Breaststroke: 2:08.61 OR (in the semifinal)
Rebecca Soni of U.S. in Women's 200m Breaststroke: 2:22.17 OR (in the heats)
Coralie Balmy, Celine Couderc, Camille Muffat, and Alena Popchanka of France in Women's 4x200m Freestyle Relay: 7:50.37 OR (in the heats)
Ricky Berens, Klete Keller, Erik Vendt, and David Walters in Men's 4x200 Freestyle Relay: 7:04.66 OR (in the heats)

SCHEDULE AND RESULTS: Available here.

P.S. NBC, PLEASE stop doing segments on reporters trying to eat fried scorpions. It's junior high "let's make fun of what other people eat" behavior. Get over it.

There's more...

Friday, May 9, 2008

The “Bitter” End


A Nap...Or Something Seems Necessary Here. For Her. For All Of Us.


It was almost a month ago when the lower right side of my jaw turned against me and played LAPD on my nerve endings. It was during the height of what was deemed “Bittergate”, in which Senator Barack Obama while at a San Francisco fundraiser sparked a national “conversation” with these now infamous words:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years. ... And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or anti-pathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”


I was in the midst of writing a post on the whole brouhaha when the tooth fairy got ahold of some bad acid and spaced out in my mouth with a shotgun, but this is what I was working on at the time:

While this was a private function with its words not meant for general consumption, the age we live in is what historians may well call years from now “The Peek-a-boo-isticeine Era”, where nothing one wishes to remain clandestine or for one audience alone ever would. Be the recorder friend or foe, expect that your words and actions will be recorded somehow—especially on the campaign trail, as found out to the ultimate of dismay by former Virginia Senator George Allen via his infamous “Macaca” statement.

-------------------------------------------------------------

What Obama said, is something that many wonks and think-tank babies have postulated for years. Senator Clinton herself used even more brusque language to describe that demographic in 1992. Obama's near-grievious mistake was those words issuing forth from an erudite, and yes—somewhat aloof and “edumacated” Black man's mouth. It was an inartful and clunky phrasing more suited to the hash-it-out style of an academic bull session than the three-word sloganeering that so dominates American politics these days. I got what he was saying there, as did I think a lot of Americans. It is not so much that those embittered among us merely “cling” to those issues of religion, safety (guns), and national security (immigration), but the point that has been made by progressives since the Age of Reagan is that the powers-that-be who are hell-bent on looking out for their own and no one else heavily push these “third rail” issues through the media in an attempt to throw chaff into the air of debate on the things that really affect Americans.. Never mind that you can't afford to see a doctor—how 'bout those gays a' smoohcin' and a' feelin' all over each other! Yes, yes...we know we facilitated your company's shipping your gig halfway 'round the world for 40% of the compensation, but hey, the real pisser is that people want to limit your ability to buy guns that'd blow a moose's head into so much Hamburger Helper™ with a trigger squeeze of 1.75 seconds releasing fifty rounds.

When people are drowning, they will grab at whatever is close by. And if after pushing them into the sea, you throw specific things of your choosing at them to float on—not something that would actually propel them anywhere—they will desperately grab at those things too. Flag-burning. Gay marriage. Willie Horton. Threat levels. Assault weapons bans. All pushed while savings and loans failed, Habeas Corpus was mauled beyond recognition, Bin Laden went unpunished, our privacy ceased to exist and so on, and so on , and scooby-dooby-doo. People are manipulated to where they think these are the issues placed before them are the true issues of the day—not the ones that actually impact them from day to day.

Faux outrage is the true “opiate of the masses”—and this government is its sleazy -ass pusher.

But yes....Obama stumbled with this. Most folks got exactly what he meant, but to the “three word slogan” crowd, he left enough ambiguity there to where he gave his opponents a loaded gun and begged them to blast him in the grille with it—Yosemite Sam-style. Obama has a lot of Adlai Stevenson in him,—a tendency to be very “thinky, sometimes overly-professorial, and yes, sometimes annoyingly analytical. To the point where for all of his soaring rhetoric and verbal élan in-speech, there is a bit of the “I'm going to let you see me figuring this shit out 'cause it's so cool to see my gears working.” when he's just plain talking.


My move out of that rundown was this: Taking into account the mathematical situation Sen. Clinton was in electorally against him, there really is no reason why she shouldn't have tried to maximize the damage ithose words could cause him. It was a desperate time, and regardless of what camp you come down in, strictly on the political maneuvering tip, when your opponent trips and falls into a hole, you toss in snakes, rocks and raw meat so tigers dive in too. We're all adults here and I think we get how the politics game is played. As correct as the statement was, Sen. Obama found himself amending it (as it was open to being easily twisted to a slam on a demographic group) and apologizing for any misconstruement.

Bluntly, he fucked up there, albeit a petit mal fuck-up when you get right down to it. In the ensuing days there were people on the street interviews with Americans in the affected areas who agreed with his statement. Be that as it may, it scanned to many as a huge “kick me” sign taped to his crotch. And kick people did, until Rev. Wright deigned to touch down in D.C., make goofy faces, and rail away as “the pastor scorned”.

Senator Clinton made hay of that too. Again, considering her electoral position, magnaminity was not something to be expected. My father had a saying that “Sometimes in life, there's an ass-whipping or two you just have to take”. “Wright Redux” was one such ass-whipping for Obama. And the media joined in gleefully with Sen. Clinton in the “jolly stomping” as the story and the language around it was vinyl-car-seat-in-the-noonday-sun hot. For two weeks she and the media grabbed Wright by the feet and beat Obama over the head with him like he was a lead pipe used in a gang-fight.

Again. I hold no rosy-eyed view of the media, nor do I expect a mathematically-cornered candidate to have done any less than she did. This ain't beanbag.

However, as far as the media goes, at least in terms of debates, I expect at the minimum, the barest modicum of fairness. In fact—fuck fair, as screwed up as they are, I'd almost accept “Fair-esque—If you like the smell of fairness, you'll love (whispered) Fair-esque!

The Wright thing was a feeding frenzy, and that I can understand. The shitty, “Power Rangers”-level stunt work that George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson pulled at the pre-Pennsylvania debate was a whole other smoke—laced with PCP, donkey piss and battery acid I think. I would love to tell you that what they did lowered my opinion of ABC “News” but it couldn't have. I'd crossed them off my list of reputable broadcast outlets more than a year before over their handling of the wingnut pile-on of Amanda Marcotte/Melissa McEwan/John Edwards:


“Sooo...

A talking head for the network and news division that recently hired documented racist hatemonger Glenn Beck (google Glenn Beck and Media Matters) has the gall to feign moral outrage over a liberal blogger hired by the Edwards campaign's impassioned rants?

Even as said talking head's own brother, who runs a quiet, non-bomb tossing site called "Right Wing Nut House" (!) rails at the left in far worse terms? And has also taken this "story" up as a wingnut hobby horse along with the rest of the wingnutosphere?

Well...okay. I'd love to say hypocrisy like this is the reason I no longer watch ABC, (in spite of my actually being interested in getting into "Lost" this season, and watching "Grey's Anatomy" the last two seasons) but after "Path to 9-11", the entertainment-iaztion of "Nightline", and the general right-wing tilt of the Disney-owned network, the die was set.

And I don't miss it a bit. By all means Mr. Moran, enjoy your and your network's relegation to the "I used to watch you" dustbin.

Posted by: LowerManhattanite | Feb 7, 2007 1:53:55 PM


I wrote that on the ABC website TO Terry Moran and the network, and I fucking meant it. I still have the e-mail exchanges between Steve and myself from the year before where I was telling him how things had exploded at my then-job as we were dealing with ABC and their promotion of the revisionist, jingoistic “Path To 9-11”. There was an in-company revolt with e-mails flying back and forth between divisions to the point where I found myself forced to e-mail Steve outside of my job (because the goings on were so hot internally that outside communication of it being discovered would have cost people their jobs) to brief him on the contretemps. I walked away from ABC for good that day. That walk would be proven justified months later when I read about this:


This Week with George Stephanopoulos, May 13, 2007:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You have a very cool style when you're doing those town meetings where you're out on the campaign trail, and I wonder, how much of that is tied to your race?

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: That's interesting.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: One of your friends told "The New Yorker" magazine that the mainstream is just not ready for a fire-breathing black man so do you turn down the temperature on purpose?


That's the idiot media we're cursed with.They have their special interests and ties to this and that and they do what they do. Which is why we often do what we do here and in other places in our blogroll to counterbalance all of that billion-dollar, pancaked and blow-dried stupid. All flag-pins, fancy salad greens, and fiery Reverends (of their selection, of course).

As I said downpage:

What's that old saying about “The devil you know vs. the devil you don't know”?


I know what I'm getting from the media. They play their stupid little games when the cycle gets light and gin up shit. They'll break a story down to smaller bits to create “new“ stories to fill the broadcast day and self-perpetuate their phony-baloney jobs. It's when people who should know better pick up on their slime-trail and try to sell it as spring water that I find myself wanting to scream.

And that leads us here...to something either so indescribably dumb, ridiculously ill thought-out, or worse—desperately venal— that...that I...I just have to shake my head in disbelief:



USA TODAY INTERVIEWER KATHY KELLY: How does Hillary Clinton win the nomination?


SENATOR CLINTON:
Well Kathy, you know there was just an “AP” article posted that found how Senator Obama‘s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans is weakening again. And how the, you know, whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me, and in independents I was running even with him and doing even better with Democratic leaning independents. I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on.

There's a pattern emerging here.”


The hothead in me wants to say “Yeah. You're right. That whole statement does indeed indicate an emerging pattern from you, ma'am.”

So, I'm gonna give Mr. Hothead a tumbler of Maker's Mark—neat—and have him chill for a few minutes as I look at this...statement.

Here is the deal. There is nothing wrong with discussing demographics and voting breakdowns. Both campaigns do so every damned day in their back rooms as they go over polling data. But when a reporter asks you “How can you win?”, and you start talking about demographics in terms of race, you'd better be Goddamned sure you can do so and finesse that language without coming off like either a.): a dog-whistling bigot, b.): an idiot just winging it off the cuff, or c.), the former and the latter combined.

Why, on God's green earth when asked the question “How can you win?”—asked ostensibly in the spirit of things looking dim and “What can you do to reverse that?”—would she start yammering about working, hard-working Americans, white Americans and whites in general shifting back to her?

There are so many awful tropes at play in that statement.

Is it a desperate call to, “come on home folks” to that group to save her candidacy?

Why the split off of “hard-working Americans” into their White sub-component?

Is that noting she has a “broader base” because of the support of “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans” another call-out to Black and Latin folks that when the rubber meets the road, your votes don't really count for much?

Never mind the seeming verbal exclusion of anybody other than Whites from the rubric of being “hard working”.

Senator Clinton's biggest downstate NY African American backer, Rep. Charles Rangel (who earlier this year called Obama “absolutely stupid” over his interpretation of Clinton camp statements about MLK and LBJ;s relationship) said the following:

But some of her supporters - including Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Manhattan)— slammed the comments.

“I can't believe Sen. Clinton would say anything that dumb,” Rangel told The News as he headed to the House floor, where earlier he had embraced Obama.


Yes Charlie. She did.

And there are so many reasons why she may have said it. Unfortunately...none of them are good ones.

Perhaps she misspoke. Or spoke inartfully. Or chose her words poorly. If so, this off-the-gorge gaffe makes Obama's “Bitter” statement look like a mere stumble.I want to believe it was a misstatement, but God, it's so damned specific, what with citing an AP article and all, and the odd, dissonant hammering of the racial paradigm that I don't know HOW that statement could ever be finessed in public discussion. Private? Closed-door talk—candidate to team? Okay.

But this ham-fisted kind of Bond-villain “I-shall-explain-my-plan-to-you-and-thus-expose-myself-to-destrcution-shortly-thereafter” pronouncement does her no good—in the short and the long run. You want to explain it away as a by-product of the fatigue of a long, brutal campaign? An effect of a strategic breakdown of command and control structures iin-campaign as key message personnel are now distracted with cutting their own financial deals that don't involve the candidate? Those are possibilities. But Melissa over at Shakesville deals with it thusly:

Now, I'm not particularly interested in discussing the veracity of the argument that white, working class voters' preference for Clinton makes her a stronger candidate—though, for whatever it's worth, I quite honestly believe that the vast majority of left-leaning voters are going to get behind whoever is the nominee, and the bigots who wouldn't support Obama solely because of his race are a wash with the bigots who wouldn't support Clinton solely because of her sex. That said, I know there are people who legitimately disagree, and fine, wev.

What I am keenly interested in is Clinton's having either intentionally or unintentionally equated "hard-working Americans" with "white Americans." Because, you know, on one hand, it's a cynical and ugly dog whistle to racists who equate brown-skinned people with laziness—and, on the other hand, it sounds exactly like a cynical and ugly dog whistle to racists who equate brown-skinned people with laziness. Even giving her the benefit of the doubt that she didn't intend to imply that non-white Americans aren't hard-working, the effect is the same.

And, since the best-case scenario is the one generally used to avoid apologies, I'm going with that only to show why she still needs to apologize, anyway.


An apology is in order as this was indeed a fuck-up, whether a simple marble-mouthed, accidental verbal gaffe (kind of unlikely) or a sleep deprivation-fueled “I-thought-I was-using-my-inside-voice” screw-up. Sadly, I doubt one is forthcoming. It's late in the game and when teams are down or feeling frustrated, “flagrant fouls” are likely to occur. Sorry doesn't get said at that point in the game. It's an outgrowth of the situation at hand. It may not have been intended to injure, but you've already clotheslined the mother-fucker and sent the message to the other side, and the whole arena—those who haven't headed for the exits—know the game's situation. And I can only pray that this wasn't an intentional play to super-spike the numbers in the decidedly less-progressive West Virginia and Kentucky where she'll probably win big, just to score some “Bubba vote”-credited “garbage time” points. To cynically goose the margins to the point where she can point and claim “See! I am popular!” Leave us not venture there, please? That isn't a discussion of demographics—that's an appeal to the “Deliverance” crowd.

I mean, It's been evident for quite some time that there's a level of upset in the Clinton camp over the seeming abandonment of them by a once-faithful African American voting public. It was as late as December when pundits across America were wondering whether Obama was “Black enough” and how he'd have difficulty in poaching much of the Black vote from Clinton. And when it happened, it seemed to catch them both—the senator and the former president woefully off guard. There has been a palpable frustration in them over that new reality—and voiced loudest by her most prominent surrogate, her husband Bill. The statements spoke for themselves. And that loss of a key voting bloc identified for years with them had to hurt. We all know that. And when someone you've counted on for-ever stops “picking up the phone”, you look elsewhere for help. And maybe...just maybe you throw a dig at the abandoner to make yourself feel a a little better. You play up your replacement suitor to stem your feeling of betrayal—Hey, he/she/they want me—and to appear to the world as still being desired.

That's human nature. But it comes with a cost.

Whatever short-run gain it achieves with the “new” paramour, once word gets back to the old one, especially if the two of you still have to deal down the road...you will have a problem. Last night I went out to a meeting at a coffee spot in Brooklyn and stumbled into an open mic night. There was no “quiet policy” and people still chattered as the various poets and troubadours did their thing. I overheard a verrrrry animated conversation between four Black women ranging in age from their early thirties to mid fifties.

Having moved from talk of a project they were all working on, they lapsed into discussing Senator Clinton's statement on “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans”.

They were merciless.

There were lots of “Can you believes?...”, “Oh no, she knew exactly what she was sayings”, and worst of all “I will remember THAT shit come her next election days” bandied about.

This...is Senator Clinton's home state for the U.S. Senate where this heated discussion was going on. Now, throw that in with Rangel's angry response, and the feeling—founded or unfounded—that she has been a bit too liberal with the shiv in dealing with Sen. Obama and you have a to say the least, very disillusioned portion of a voting bloc she will desperately need for Senate re-election. It's kind of a “Black New York: Drop Dead!” kind of thing. And don't think for a second that when her Senate re-election time comes around that some enterprising opponent—either a lefty-leaning Dem upstart, or a wrench-in-the-works GOP'er won't trot those words out against her again and again and again.

Black folks in NYC are not happy with her right about now. This shit? Ain't helping out with it.

These are the wages...of bitterness.

And bitterness is an ugly thing indeed. It twists you. It curdles your soul and hardens your heart. It deadens the eyes and rots your relationships. It will drive you to say and do things that a clear-minded person wouldn't dare. Senator Obama's statement about what bitterness brings echoes like a brick ricocheting down an elevator shaft. People will cling to polarizing things as a way to express their frustrations.

I don't like the way this primary season is ending, in spite of my long-held, heartfelt desire for the damned thing to be over. There are things happening here—ugly, unseemly things that'll have a shelf life far beyond this mere blip in time. Class splits unearthed. News agencies exposed and de-legitimized. Reputation-damaging gaffes and cynical plays to people that lower you. Ugh. As a student of history and politics, I forget very little of what I've learned over the years, and I'm already wishing I could forget some of the things I've seen this year. But sadly, I won't.

I guess I'm a little bitter too. Maybe we all are. And a little broken-hearted to boot.

It was a couple of weekends ago when I was at the peak of my dental suffering when the blogospheric story broke about Senator Clinton's meeting with fundraisers where she was imploring their deep-pocketed help. This was never meant to be heard publicly (I think) but when it got out I was very, very down about it. I wasn't alone. From Jane at FireDogLake:

The Huffington Post has Hillary Clinton on tape disparaging Barack Obama and his support from MoveOn, saying that the organization "didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan.”

I've tried to stay out of the pie fights of late, but as a long-term defender of MoveOn and other progressive organizations -- this is completely unacceptable.

"MoveOn opposed military action in Afghanistan" is a Republican talking point, articulated specifically and purposefully by Karl Rove:


Rove went on to say that conservatives wanted to "unleash the might and power" of the military against the Taliban in Afghanistan, while liberals wanted to submit petitions. He cited a petition he said was backed by MoveOn.org that called for "moderation and restraint" in responding to the attacks.


And via The Huffington Post:

At a small closed-door fundraiser after Super Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Clinton blamed what she called the "activist base" of the Democratic Party -- and MoveOn.org in particular -- for many of her electoral defeats, saying activists had "flooded" state caucuses and "intimidated" her supporters, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by The Huffington Post.

------------------------------------------

“Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama]—which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down,” Clinton said to a meeting of donors. “We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with.”


Jane was very hurt by that, namely seeing the senator use a Rovian lie—an actual Rovian lie—as a stalking horse for grubbing campaign dough. And In spite of my pain, I was too when I read it.

Yet, I wanted to understand. Give the benefit of the doubt because not doing so would've sent me deeper into despair. Sen. Clinton's being angry about MoveOn's “endorsement” I could understand somewhat. Even her holding a grudge against them. It was in many ways yet another abandonment.

That's human nature again—especially when one considers the irony of how MoveOn came to be.

The group was originally called “Censure and Move On”—founded as a bulwark against the evils of Ken Starr's vendetta against Bill Clinton.

What was the knife in my gut was her slandering a progressive FORCE with a straight-out-of-Karl-Rove's-mouth lie. Her bitter, (yes, bitter) “how could they”-ish line about MoveOn “not supporting Afghan intervention” was a lie that Rove himself has repeatedly used to pillory the group. His quote in the blockquote a little ways up verfies that.

And the salt water on that knife to the gut was her trotting that shpiel out to fat cats at the fund-raiser as some sort of “I'm not with them!” bona fides. It got me to wondering in one of my more lucid moments, “just who those financiers were and WHY SUCH A ROVIAN SENTIMENT WOULD BE FIGURED TO RESONATE WITH THEM.” I didn't want to be lucid after thinking on that for too long. So I popped a vicodin and went off to the land of nod, where anger and bitterness could not find me. But before I did, I remembered something that FDL's Jane, who has been decidedly, refreshingly fair about the whole primary season said last fall to Elizabeth Edwards:

“So here’s the rule. You never repeat right wing talking points to attack your own, ever. You never enter that echo chamber as a participant. Ever. You never give them a hammer to beat the left with. Just. Don’t. Do. It.”


I remember thinking on her “Just. Don't. Do. It.” as sleep enveloped me.

And when I awoke, I was angry again. And yes...bitter. That event was pretty much the nadir for me. All that has come since is just after-the-coma cock-punches. Wright Redux. Hard-workin' Whites. Sillyfuck debates.

There is no joy in Mudville.

Maybe soon. But right now? As Phase One of “Campaign '08” draws to an end? No. I see it a bit here, but even moreso at other stops I used to love frequenting around blogtopia. There is rancor. There is angriness. And smoldering semi-loads of just-dumped / mixed-in-with-old-mountains of bitterness. A teeming, ever-growing landfill of bitterness.

It needs to stop. But how?

Well, whenever I'm feeling a bit down, I've found that music tends to help me through, and one of this blog's longtime regulars—DocBopper e-mails me regularly with this message in every missive's footer:

“The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing”---James Brown

The man's got a point. I ain't talkin' 'bout a tired-ass “kum-ba-ya” circle of Cowsills-like blended tenors, sopranos and baritones swaying choirfully...I mean an ass-shaking, soulful on-the-two-and-four get down. For release. To get back “on the beat”, if you will, as we gear up for “Phase Two”. As “The Godfatrher” himself said:

People, people
We got to get over
Before we go under...

Hey, country
Didn't say what you meant
Just changed
Brand new funky President.


Who sure as hell ain't the bearings-challenged John McCain.



Dance it out, ya'll.
There's more...