Someone I love said to me that his camping days are over, implying that this is roughing it. Pennsic is a different animal. This isn't ordinary camping. I have a yurt with oriental rugs and a queen sized bed piled with furs and pillows. Enough candles to light Versailles. A kitchen set-up as good as home.
In fact, the best thing about Pennsic is that I get to cook. I actually have time to cook. Last night's dinner was grilled teriyaki marinated pork loin, garlic butter rice, tossed salad with fresh tomatoes, olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing.
Breakfast today was chocolate filled croissants, fresh strawberries, and Gevalia Stockholm Roast coffee. This is decadent-living-style camping.
Tonight, steaks on the campfire, fingerling potatoes with fresh rosemary, corn on the cob, baby watermelon for dessert.
And then there is the food court here. You can get anything from Middle Eastern delicacies to ice cream, from Medieval stews in bread bowls to killer burgers. Yesterday I found one of the beverage places can do iced mocha smoothies.
Oh, you could live on hotdogs and Gatorade if you wanted to, but what fun is that compared to Cornish game hens stuffed with pears and raisins, wrapped in bacon and tin foil and baked slowly over a campfire the served with a nice Chablis?
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
21 January 2014
So many books, so little time
Well, the summer's half gone and I haven't accomplished one quarter of my goals. The hallway wall paper is finished (thanks, Gillie!) although the staircase still needs doing. The Pennsic A&S stuff is nearly finished--the book of classes went to press, but there are always additional classes left to schedule and the webpages need updating daily with changes as teachers cancel, add more classes, want to switch days/times.
On the other hand I have been able to do a lot of reading. . . .
For you murder mystery fans I suggest checking out the Magdalene la Bâtarde series by Roberta Gellis. there are three volumes which should be read in order: A Mortal Bane, A Personal Devil, and Bone of Contention. Magdalene is the whoremistress of the Old Priory Guesthouse in Southwark--which is what first caught my attention when I read the publisher's blurb.
I once took a remarkable walking tour of the high points of Shakespearean London (including a death-defying stroll along a not-really-public-access walkway on the Blackfriars bridge underpass) with William P. Williams; and when we reached Southwark, William told us the story of the Bishop's Geese.
It seems that the Bishops of Winchester have always lived in Southwark (pronounced sooth-ark) in close proximity to the Cathedral there. And because of the laws against theaters in London, the theaters (the Globe, the Rose, the Curtain) were built outside of the city walls--many in Southwark. Well, theaters tend to attract crowds, and crowds tend to attract sellers of all sorts of merchandise. One of the most popular things a theatergoer in Medieval times might be able to pick up in Southwark was a "lady of the evening." And since it made sense for such ladies to have "rooms" nearby, and since Medieval bishops tended to be wealthy and own properties, the bishops of Southwark became the landlords of many medieval to early modern brothels (note that I said landlords, not pimps, though I must point out that the distinction is rather unclear historically). The upshot of the story is that the prostitutes of Southwark were many and often under the protection of the bishops, but you don't say things like that out loud--so the euphemism for prositutes soon became "the Bishop's Geese."
Now you see why a murder mystery set in the 12th century where the mysteries are soved by a very uncommon lady who runs a very uncommon guest house under the protection of the bishop of Winchester sounds interesting to me?
Am I going to review this book; give you the 50 cent synopsis? Nah. You'll have to read it for yourself. I'll just say that if you liked Brother Cadfael or Sister Fidelma or Dame Frevisse, you'll love Magdalene la Bâtarde! Gellis has done her research on the period, and yet manages to push the feminist envelope with her treatment of the gender issues all the while telling a darn good story with characters you can care about. I picked up the first book on Saturday, went back for the next two on Sunday--simply devoured them and can't wait for the next one in the series.
On the other hand I have been able to do a lot of reading. . . .
For you murder mystery fans I suggest checking out the Magdalene la Bâtarde series by Roberta Gellis. there are three volumes which should be read in order: A Mortal Bane, A Personal Devil, and Bone of Contention. Magdalene is the whoremistress of the Old Priory Guesthouse in Southwark--which is what first caught my attention when I read the publisher's blurb.
I once took a remarkable walking tour of the high points of Shakespearean London (including a death-defying stroll along a not-really-public-access walkway on the Blackfriars bridge underpass) with William P. Williams; and when we reached Southwark, William told us the story of the Bishop's Geese.
It seems that the Bishops of Winchester have always lived in Southwark (pronounced sooth-ark) in close proximity to the Cathedral there. And because of the laws against theaters in London, the theaters (the Globe, the Rose, the Curtain) were built outside of the city walls--many in Southwark. Well, theaters tend to attract crowds, and crowds tend to attract sellers of all sorts of merchandise. One of the most popular things a theatergoer in Medieval times might be able to pick up in Southwark was a "lady of the evening." And since it made sense for such ladies to have "rooms" nearby, and since Medieval bishops tended to be wealthy and own properties, the bishops of Southwark became the landlords of many medieval to early modern brothels (note that I said landlords, not pimps, though I must point out that the distinction is rather unclear historically). The upshot of the story is that the prostitutes of Southwark were many and often under the protection of the bishops, but you don't say things like that out loud--so the euphemism for prositutes soon became "the Bishop's Geese."
Now you see why a murder mystery set in the 12th century where the mysteries are soved by a very uncommon lady who runs a very uncommon guest house under the protection of the bishop of Winchester sounds interesting to me?
Am I going to review this book; give you the 50 cent synopsis? Nah. You'll have to read it for yourself. I'll just say that if you liked Brother Cadfael or Sister Fidelma or Dame Frevisse, you'll love Magdalene la Bâtarde! Gellis has done her research on the period, and yet manages to push the feminist envelope with her treatment of the gender issues all the while telling a darn good story with characters you can care about. I picked up the first book on Saturday, went back for the next two on Sunday--simply devoured them and can't wait for the next one in the series.
Guest Post: by Baroness Brise (aka: my friend Kendra) at Pennsic
Pale orange morning arrives on a golden drop of dew, the whir of golf carts going by. Last night's festivities on the battlefield have long since made way for hangovers. Bleary eyed travelers are still arriving as they have been through the night--minivans, pick-ups, school buses packed to the point of madness.
Shortly, what was once a big field will be a small medieval town with majestic gates, pavilions, yurts and towering camp walls of fabric, wood and extruded plastic (which doesn't have a poetic sound to it but it's a church with stained glass, a rhythm all its own). Soon there will be Lords and Ladies dressed in garb, nicer than their Sunday's best. Kings and Queens processing about, shimmering in the sun--crowns almost too bright. Knights making believe they are something a little better, a little more refined than they actually are--for no other reason than it sometimes feels good to be that guy just for a little while. Night will eventually nestle itself on a bed of wood smoke, lulled in by the beat of drums. Few fires are without dancers, barefoot in the dust. Painted faces, feet and fingers move like liquid. One by one the campfires will go out as Pennsic falls asleep in tents nicer than some homes--rugs, pillows four poster beds with tapestries all around.
Tomorrow the sun will rise again and we will do the same as we have all done for decades. Each a little better than before. I love this Pennsic town.
For now there are things to do. Territory to negotiate. Lines to draw in the dirt--the same lines we negotiate and draw every year with the same neighbors.
It's not all drunken assholes. It's not all risk and liability. There is beauty here you will never find anywhere else.
Shortly, what was once a big field will be a small medieval town with majestic gates, pavilions, yurts and towering camp walls of fabric, wood and extruded plastic (which doesn't have a poetic sound to it but it's a church with stained glass, a rhythm all its own). Soon there will be Lords and Ladies dressed in garb, nicer than their Sunday's best. Kings and Queens processing about, shimmering in the sun--crowns almost too bright. Knights making believe they are something a little better, a little more refined than they actually are--for no other reason than it sometimes feels good to be that guy just for a little while. Night will eventually nestle itself on a bed of wood smoke, lulled in by the beat of drums. Few fires are without dancers, barefoot in the dust. Painted faces, feet and fingers move like liquid. One by one the campfires will go out as Pennsic falls asleep in tents nicer than some homes--rugs, pillows four poster beds with tapestries all around.
Tomorrow the sun will rise again and we will do the same as we have all done for decades. Each a little better than before. I love this Pennsic town.
For now there are things to do. Territory to negotiate. Lines to draw in the dirt--the same lines we negotiate and draw every year with the same neighbors.
It's not all drunken assholes. It's not all risk and liability. There is beauty here you will never find anywhere else.
Last Friday at Pennsic
Last night was the typical "party at the gate." Pug had a keg of beer he wanted to empty, and what was left of the cyzer. We fed beer to passers by on the road, saved the cyzer for ourselves. Then there was the remainder of the Kahlua, the Baileys, some cherry liquor that Devon had which could easily remove paint, some St. Germaine that Irene brought. And a bottle of chai liquor that Corun gave me. (That of course engendered many jokes about "having a taste of Chai" which of course led to choices: a kiss from Chai or a pull on the bottle of chai?) The thing that is so hard to explain to non-scadians is the easy familiarity among SCAdians. The flirting, the hand-kissing, the hugging, the courtly-love behavior, the puppy piles.
There is a level of intimacy among SCAdians that doesn't even happen among some mundane families. We sit around campfires or gates and rub each other's backs or feet or hands, we snuggle and cuddle and enjoy the warmth of human contact with people we see only once or twice a year. We hold each other's hands through crises, confide intimate details of our lives, trust each other with steel, with our our wallets, with our children.
It is hard to put into words what these people on this hill mean to me. How much I love each and everyone of them. We call each other "brother" and we mean it in all senses of the word: family, comrade in arms, child of the same parent, of the Society and the Dream.
We come from Texas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, Ohio. And if you added all the real time hours or days I have spent with some of these people--somewhere between 2 and 4 weeks a year for somewhere between 2 and 20+ years--it comes to mere days and weeks. But I tell you, I know them all. Some of them I have known for lifetimes and will know for lifetimes to come. We are family, not by blood, but by choice. Even those who have left the household are still with us. Corun no longer rides this path, but he still is my anda, my bredu. Lance rides in Northsheild these days, but we still count him among our own and when he was Pelicaned this week we gave (okay, inflicted upon!) him the family medallion with its chainmail burden.
Through the years we have lost brothers. Some have returned--Bojei, Teg. Some we have been lucky enough to reconnect with fortuitously--Kashra most recently! Others will never return in this lifetime, but live still in our hearts. Christopher. Moriseqti. Chinua. Kit. Dwarf. Ulrich.
This afternoon after Kuraltai we strike the Mongol set. The Tugh comes down first, then the wall and the gate. Tonight we will burn a Viking longship for Ulrich. And there will be more partying, Moritu and Pennsic staff as well. More drinking, toasting laughing, hugging, loving, and some crying, too.
And then we go separate ways. This afternoon Bagshi leaves. After dinner so will Bryn. Tomorrow morning the Ansteorrans pull out. And Silver and I packup and head home then, too. By Sunday evening the rest will be gone. Monday there will be nothing but grass left on the hill. Like Brigadoon this will all fade into the mist, gone again until next August.
But Moritu continues. This is roleplay, yes, but it is more than just that. It is a lifestyle, a commitment, a family as well.
I love you all, Andanar.
There is a level of intimacy among SCAdians that doesn't even happen among some mundane families. We sit around campfires or gates and rub each other's backs or feet or hands, we snuggle and cuddle and enjoy the warmth of human contact with people we see only once or twice a year. We hold each other's hands through crises, confide intimate details of our lives, trust each other with steel, with our our wallets, with our children.
It is hard to put into words what these people on this hill mean to me. How much I love each and everyone of them. We call each other "brother" and we mean it in all senses of the word: family, comrade in arms, child of the same parent, of the Society and the Dream.
We come from Texas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, Ohio. And if you added all the real time hours or days I have spent with some of these people--somewhere between 2 and 4 weeks a year for somewhere between 2 and 20+ years--it comes to mere days and weeks. But I tell you, I know them all. Some of them I have known for lifetimes and will know for lifetimes to come. We are family, not by blood, but by choice. Even those who have left the household are still with us. Corun no longer rides this path, but he still is my anda, my bredu. Lance rides in Northsheild these days, but we still count him among our own and when he was Pelicaned this week we gave (okay, inflicted upon!) him the family medallion with its chainmail burden.
Through the years we have lost brothers. Some have returned--Bojei, Teg. Some we have been lucky enough to reconnect with fortuitously--Kashra most recently! Others will never return in this lifetime, but live still in our hearts. Christopher. Moriseqti. Chinua. Kit. Dwarf. Ulrich.
This afternoon after Kuraltai we strike the Mongol set. The Tugh comes down first, then the wall and the gate. Tonight we will burn a Viking longship for Ulrich. And there will be more partying, Moritu and Pennsic staff as well. More drinking, toasting laughing, hugging, loving, and some crying, too.
And then we go separate ways. This afternoon Bagshi leaves. After dinner so will Bryn. Tomorrow morning the Ansteorrans pull out. And Silver and I packup and head home then, too. By Sunday evening the rest will be gone. Monday there will be nothing but grass left on the hill. Like Brigadoon this will all fade into the mist, gone again until next August.
But Moritu continues. This is roleplay, yes, but it is more than just that. It is a lifestyle, a commitment, a family as well.
I love you all, Andanar.
08 February 2010
A Quote for February, and for Lovers
"The terrible thing about love is that it takes away your safety net, your balancing pole. Even the tightrope you walk upon will disappear beneath you, yet love expects you to keep walking anyway, arms outstretched, one foot after the other, on nothing more than air."
— Christopher Barzak, from The Love We Share Without Knowing
— Christopher Barzak, from The Love We Share Without Knowing
17 June 2009
Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman are Dating! (And Other Tidbits From Housing Works)
Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman are Dating! (And Other Tidbits From Housing Works) Posted using ShareThis
You go, Neil. And Amanda. (Now I have to go find out who she is, seeing as she has stolen the heart of one of my favorite authors.) And hoorah for them for making money for the Housing Works folks, too.
BTW, Amanda? I totally agree on the naked thing. Naked is fun.
Be happy, kids.
08 June 2009
10 Ways to Keep Books You Love in Print
There are books you love, books that change your life, books that make you realize that you aren’t alone. But sometimes, those books go out of print and are no longer available. You gnash your teeth and curse the vagaries of publishing. You feel helpless and frustrated, but you know that there’s nothing you can do about it.
Not so! You can do something! Publishing is a capitalist enterprise, driven by sales and profit (as well as a love of books). But even if you’re too broke to buy a paperback book, you can influence book sales and affect a publisher’s profits.
What can you do?
#1 Review the book you love online in a newsgroup, on a webzine, on an e-commerce site, or on a personal web site. This is an easy way to tell a lot of people about a fabulous book. People pay attention to reviews. Hey—authors read reviews. With a good review, you can make an author’s day.
—Pat Murphy, author of There and Back Again.
#2 When asked what you want for your birthday, or Hanukkah, or Christmas, or any other gift-giving occasion, answer with your favorite author’s current book.
—Michaela Roessner, author of The Stars Compel.
#3 Give books as presents. If someone has a favorite author, buy that author’s latest title. If the gift recipient doesn’t have a favorite author, buy a book by an author you like. If your friend likes the book, you’ve done the author a big favor by creating a new fan.
#4 Ask for books by your favorite author at your local library. If the library doesn’t have a book, request it. Checking a book out of the library helps establish that there’s a demand for that author’s work. Demand leads library systems to buy books.
#5 Tell writers how much their work has affected you. Go to readings—even if you can’t afford to buy the book. Urge your local library bookstore or your school to invite the writer to do a talk, a reading, or a class visit. Sometimes writers just need to know that someone is listening.
—Leslie What, author of “The Cost of Doing Business.”
#6 Talk about books and authors at work, among friends, and in other not-necessarily literary environments. If you belong to a writing group, recommend your favorite authors to the group. If you add a book to your reading group, tell your favorite bookstore what you’ve done and buy your books there. The bookstore may put them out front on display.
—Susanna J. Sturgis, editor of The Women Who Walk Through Fire: Women’s Fantasy and Science Fiction.
#7 Point to good books in the bookstore and tell people, even total strangers, “That one is great.” If you see someone looking at a copy of a book you like, encourage them to buy it.
—Ellen Klages, author of “Time Gypsy.”
#8 Carry around a copy of a book you love. Read it on buses, in waiting rooms, and in other public places. Be prepared to wax eloquent about it—spontaneously or only when asked; that’s up to you.
” —Susanna J. Sturgis.
#9 Just because a book is out-of-print doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t get it. Lightning Print Inc. is currently asking for suggestions for books to reprint. You can vote now at their web site:
#10 Nominate your favorite authors for awards. Any year that you are a member of the World Science Fiction Convention, you can nominate and vote for the Hugo Award. Nominate gender-bending works for the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award and works with gay or lesbian content for the Lambda Literary Award. If you subscribe to Locus Magazine, you can nominate works for the Locus Poll and Survey. And yes, it’s worth taking the time—awards make a difference to an author’s sales and that helps keep books in print.
Above all else, keep reading!
Read more books!
Eat more cookies!
this blog post was re-blogged (read: stolen! but also shared like all good ideas and writing should be!) from the James Tiptree Awards Website at http://www.tiptree.org/
10 May 2009
Communication, Procrastination, Mountains, and Music
This morning in my inevitable procrastination (because it is time to grade exams), I dragged my heels by cruising my favorite blogs and I stumbled a selection of Laura Nyro music I hadn't heard in ages. It was on Paul Lisicky's blog--something I was drawn to in the search for information about Craig Arnold, a University of Wyoming poet who was declared missing and presumed dead in Japan last Friday.
Lisicky has a copy of Arnold's Bird-Understander there on his blog. A poem that is one half of a conversation between friends. On the surface the poem is about a bird trapped in an airport terminal. Underneath, it speaks to fear and loss, and ultimately to the value one friend sees in another--a value beyond the separation, the distance between the two people. The bird is alone, like the man in the terminal who fears for it. But just as the man is there for the bird, understanding its fear, so is the poet there for the man, understanding him perhaps better than he understands himself. Someone to talk to. Someone with whom to share the beautiful poignant moments that life hands us.
Then, although I doubt that Lisicky meant them to be connected, when I scrolled further down below the post about Arnold, I came on some music by Laura Nyro. I was touched by the corollary commentary in Nyro's lyrics that seemed to fit right into the both the morning and the moment.
The song which particularly caught my attention was "Mr. Blue":
In that ineffably honey-sweet voice of hers, Nyro sings:
This is the song of communications
Sending out peace vibrations,
Genuine cause to end our wars.
Or is this the song of complications?
A hopeless declaration?
Can we mend, transcend
The broken dishes of our love?
Our conflicts?
Can we be friends?
And I am reminded of all the things, the broken dishes, that need tending to in my own life. My mother, who I have been avoiding calling even though it is Mother's Day. My children who are so far away (Arizona, Maryland, Australia!) and so busy in their lives that we don't talk enough. The friend I parted from over hard words. All the wars everywhere that might not have happened had we talked more. Listened harder.
Lisicky has a copy of Arnold's Bird-Understander there on his blog. A poem that is one half of a conversation between friends. On the surface the poem is about a bird trapped in an airport terminal. Underneath, it speaks to fear and loss, and ultimately to the value one friend sees in another--a value beyond the separation, the distance between the two people. The bird is alone, like the man in the terminal who fears for it. But just as the man is there for the bird, understanding its fear, so is the poet there for the man, understanding him perhaps better than he understands himself. Someone to talk to. Someone with whom to share the beautiful poignant moments that life hands us.
Then, although I doubt that Lisicky meant them to be connected, when I scrolled further down below the post about Arnold, I came on some music by Laura Nyro. I was touched by the corollary commentary in Nyro's lyrics that seemed to fit right into the both the morning and the moment.
The song which particularly caught my attention was "Mr. Blue":
In that ineffably honey-sweet voice of hers, Nyro sings:
This is the song of communications
Sending out peace vibrations,
Genuine cause to end our wars.
Or is this the song of complications?
A hopeless declaration?
Can we mend, transcend
The broken dishes of our love?
Our conflicts?
Can we be friends?
And I am reminded of all the things, the broken dishes, that need tending to in my own life. My mother, who I have been avoiding calling even though it is Mother's Day. My children who are so far away (Arizona, Maryland, Australia!) and so busy in their lives that we don't talk enough. The friend I parted from over hard words. All the wars everywhere that might not have happened had we talked more. Listened harder.
So Nyro and Arnold. An unexpected serendipitous conjunction. Like a street corner where a couple of old friends might bump into each other and say: "Ah. There you are. How have you been?"
So many things to think about. Time. There is never enough of it. Life. It is way too short. And who knows what mountains loom before any of us?
Communication. Caring. The understanding that, although sometimes we cannot fathom why bad things happen--why birds get trapped in high ceilings, why poets fall off mountains, why friends and lovers and families drift apart--there is always someone listening, watching, wanting to be there for us.
I think I will call my mother, and my children. And I think I will send this blog post to my friend. To all the friends I with whom I have lost touch.
22 April 2009
Love me because of who I am not in spite of who I am
Shakespeare said:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds. . . .
Which is exactly the subject of this blog post from Stinky Angels. Well said, Jae and Bill!
Because of.... Sunday, April 12, 2009 [from Stinky Angels]
For anyone who is counting, today is Andreas' and my 6 year wedding anniversary. That makes it the 12 year anniversary of our first date. (Yes, we did that on purpose. Too cutesy?)
Back at the very beginning I created a phrase that described how I wanted to love and be loved, and Andreas and I have subscribed to this philosophy ever since. I said that I wanted someone who would love me "because of, not in spite of" the way that I am, and I'd do the same in return.
If I were to love everything about him except the one or two things, then I'd constantly be trying to "fix" him. If he were to love me "even though" I am one way or another, then he'd wonder when I was going to change. Instead, we try to accept each other exactly as we are, and love all of those things that are the hardest to love.
Andreas has loved me because of my big heart, my love of animals, my joy of life, but also because of my (occasional) sharp-tongued jabs at his expense, and the way I smell (stinky) after two days of not showering because being a mommy sometimes means I forget to be a (clean) wife.
In return, I have loved him for the way he sees humor in everything, his ability to keep me calm and sane, and the way he can make friends with anyone, but also the (sometimes maddening) way that he volunteers out his time to anyone who needs help even if I need him at home, and how he (usually, but not always, correctly) thinks he knows the best way to accomplish any task.
Now we have Eme (whose 14 month "birthday" was yesterday) in our lives. There are days (though they are very few) when we might wish that she would be different than the way she is (please, please, PLEASE sleep through the night). But we love her. Just as she is.
We love Emelie because...
she is very good at making us laugh.
she is amazingly smart.
she almost never lets us take naps.
she learns new things every day.
she gets excited by anything that moves by itself (trucks, cats, leaves, whatever).
she says "mama" and "dada" and means us.
she loves us.
she sometimes stinks.
she knows how to spit her food out (see Cuffs and Peaches).
she enjoys singing and dancing.
she enjoys spinning around in circles until she falls down.
she enjoys doing very unladylike things even when we're in public (see The F Bomb).
she's usually sweet and gentle.
she's sometimes not sweet and gentle.
she's awesome.
For all of these reasons and more, we love our beautiful, stinky angel.
Posted by Jae at 12:21 PM
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds. . . .
Which is exactly the subject of this blog post from Stinky Angels. Well said, Jae and Bill!
Because of.... Sunday, April 12, 2009 [from Stinky Angels]
For anyone who is counting, today is Andreas' and my 6 year wedding anniversary. That makes it the 12 year anniversary of our first date. (Yes, we did that on purpose. Too cutesy?)
Back at the very beginning I created a phrase that described how I wanted to love and be loved, and Andreas and I have subscribed to this philosophy ever since. I said that I wanted someone who would love me "because of, not in spite of" the way that I am, and I'd do the same in return.
If I were to love everything about him except the one or two things, then I'd constantly be trying to "fix" him. If he were to love me "even though" I am one way or another, then he'd wonder when I was going to change. Instead, we try to accept each other exactly as we are, and love all of those things that are the hardest to love.
Andreas has loved me because of my big heart, my love of animals, my joy of life, but also because of my (occasional) sharp-tongued jabs at his expense, and the way I smell (stinky) after two days of not showering because being a mommy sometimes means I forget to be a (clean) wife.
In return, I have loved him for the way he sees humor in everything, his ability to keep me calm and sane, and the way he can make friends with anyone, but also the (sometimes maddening) way that he volunteers out his time to anyone who needs help even if I need him at home, and how he (usually, but not always, correctly) thinks he knows the best way to accomplish any task.
Now we have Eme (whose 14 month "birthday" was yesterday) in our lives. There are days (though they are very few) when we might wish that she would be different than the way she is (please, please, PLEASE sleep through the night). But we love her. Just as she is.
We love Emelie because...
she is very good at making us laugh.
she is amazingly smart.
she almost never lets us take naps.
she learns new things every day.
she gets excited by anything that moves by itself (trucks, cats, leaves, whatever).
she says "mama" and "dada" and means us.
she loves us.
she sometimes stinks.
she knows how to spit her food out (see Cuffs and Peaches).
she enjoys singing and dancing.
she enjoys spinning around in circles until she falls down.
she enjoys doing very unladylike things even when we're in public (see The F Bomb).
she's usually sweet and gentle.
she's sometimes not sweet and gentle.
she's awesome.
For all of these reasons and more, we love our beautiful, stinky angel.
Posted by Jae at 12:21 PM
07 March 2009
10 October 2008
Why We Do It
The other day, after running into two disgruntled students, I was wondering if I am doing anything useful as a teacher. Today I remembered what I love about teaching.
This week in my World Literatures class we are reading Abeng by Michelle Cliff. This is a coming of age story of a creole girl in 1950s Jamaica. It has three (at least) story threads running through it: the childhood and sexual awakening of Clare Savage, the protagonist; the story of Clare's plantation owning ancestors on the eve of independance in the mid-1800s; and the fight for freedom by the "maroons," escaped slaves under the leadership of Nanny, an Ashanti woman who escaped slavery in the 1700s.
The thing that is interesting is that I have a primarily white classroom full of very suburban kids. But I also have one African-American male student and one Muslim female student. I sometimes worry that I shouldn't draw attention to differences--the very P.C. thing to do these days is to ignore the differences we have. Politely pretend they don't exist. But that also allows us to ignore the very real problems that arise out of not seeing people as they are, which allows us to later see them as "other." Today I called on the black man in my class and asked him to give us his take on the slavery and racial issues in the text. He hemmed and hawed a bit, then he said "Oh, I just read the books for what they are. It is just literature." So I didn't push him anymore, but one of the themes I have been pushing the class to look for in the texts are the similarities between ourselves and other cultures. So I called on the women in the class to look at the choices the character, Clare, is facing--whether to embrace her mother's black heritage or her father's white culture, live within the middle class life of the paternal family or embrace the rural poverty of her maternal grandmother's culture, accept the docile domestic roles offered to women or choose masculine roles and with that embrace her nascient lesbianism.
The character of Clare is torn between two worlds. She visits the maternal poor black culture in the summer, but can return to the safety net of the middle-class paternal culture at any time. Her black friend Zoe has nothing before her but poverty and the drugery of a life of "woman's" work. Clare will go to college and leave Jamaica, Zoe has no such chance, limited as she is by the color of her skin.
As we are talking about this, suddenly my black student wants to speak. He makes the comment that many of these same students in this class are in his African-American literature class, too. And there they also discuss the issues of race and social class and the disenfranchised vs. the priviledged. But the thing that strikes him is that all the white students can close the book and go home. Maybe they have felt some empathy, but in the end they are the recipients of white priviledge while he will always be judged by the color of his skin no matter what he does.
I see people around the room looking uncomfortably down at their books. I see some nodding in understanding. And I think that, no matter what else we say about this book, nothing will compare to this one young man's courage to say what we all know but rarely acknowledge--that in some way we are all complicit in racism by not only our deeds, but by our lack of doing.
After class he hangs around for a moment and I thank him for speaking, and he thanks me for making him want to talk. Also hanging around is the Muslim woman. She wants to talk about her up-coming paper, she says, and we discuss the options for that. But as we are walking out together she very quietly asks: do I know what she needs to do to become a teacher? Who should she talk to about her major? She thinks, she says, that she'd like to someday teach a class like this, on literature from the non-western world. She wants to do what we do in this class--find and appreciate the similarities between the many different peoples of the earth through the beautiful things--the literature, the art, the music. Because, she says, she can see now how we are all more alike than we ever are different.
And suddenly I am reminded of why I love teaching.
This week in my World Literatures class we are reading Abeng by Michelle Cliff. This is a coming of age story of a creole girl in 1950s Jamaica. It has three (at least) story threads running through it: the childhood and sexual awakening of Clare Savage, the protagonist; the story of Clare's plantation owning ancestors on the eve of independance in the mid-1800s; and the fight for freedom by the "maroons," escaped slaves under the leadership of Nanny, an Ashanti woman who escaped slavery in the 1700s.
The thing that is interesting is that I have a primarily white classroom full of very suburban kids. But I also have one African-American male student and one Muslim female student. I sometimes worry that I shouldn't draw attention to differences--the very P.C. thing to do these days is to ignore the differences we have. Politely pretend they don't exist. But that also allows us to ignore the very real problems that arise out of not seeing people as they are, which allows us to later see them as "other." Today I called on the black man in my class and asked him to give us his take on the slavery and racial issues in the text. He hemmed and hawed a bit, then he said "Oh, I just read the books for what they are. It is just literature." So I didn't push him anymore, but one of the themes I have been pushing the class to look for in the texts are the similarities between ourselves and other cultures. So I called on the women in the class to look at the choices the character, Clare, is facing--whether to embrace her mother's black heritage or her father's white culture, live within the middle class life of the paternal family or embrace the rural poverty of her maternal grandmother's culture, accept the docile domestic roles offered to women or choose masculine roles and with that embrace her nascient lesbianism.
The character of Clare is torn between two worlds. She visits the maternal poor black culture in the summer, but can return to the safety net of the middle-class paternal culture at any time. Her black friend Zoe has nothing before her but poverty and the drugery of a life of "woman's" work. Clare will go to college and leave Jamaica, Zoe has no such chance, limited as she is by the color of her skin.
As we are talking about this, suddenly my black student wants to speak. He makes the comment that many of these same students in this class are in his African-American literature class, too. And there they also discuss the issues of race and social class and the disenfranchised vs. the priviledged. But the thing that strikes him is that all the white students can close the book and go home. Maybe they have felt some empathy, but in the end they are the recipients of white priviledge while he will always be judged by the color of his skin no matter what he does.
I see people around the room looking uncomfortably down at their books. I see some nodding in understanding. And I think that, no matter what else we say about this book, nothing will compare to this one young man's courage to say what we all know but rarely acknowledge--that in some way we are all complicit in racism by not only our deeds, but by our lack of doing.
After class he hangs around for a moment and I thank him for speaking, and he thanks me for making him want to talk. Also hanging around is the Muslim woman. She wants to talk about her up-coming paper, she says, and we discuss the options for that. But as we are walking out together she very quietly asks: do I know what she needs to do to become a teacher? Who should she talk to about her major? She thinks, she says, that she'd like to someday teach a class like this, on literature from the non-western world. She wants to do what we do in this class--find and appreciate the similarities between the many different peoples of the earth through the beautiful things--the literature, the art, the music. Because, she says, she can see now how we are all more alike than we ever are different.
And suddenly I am reminded of why I love teaching.
08 August 2008
Across the Bifrost Bridge
We are sitting, a hundred or so people, in the falling dark, watching a boat burn. The sky is that deep indigo just before night. Lights from camps on the far side of the lake are beginning to glow. There is the rattle of a distant drum now and again in the distance. Sounds of far away laughter. The flames are a hard brightness against dark waters.
We sit in silence. Some weep softly. A few tell stories, pass a bottle of Tullimore Dew.
In memorializing a good man's untimely death we are reminded of life.
We touch. Hold hands. Reach out to each other knowing that none of us knows the hour that the ravens will come for us.
You out there at home... touch someone. Reach out to someone you love and tell them you love them. Life is too short to waste even a moment of it alone.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
04 August 2008
Showers!
We have a new source of hot water in camp this year. It is a 30 gallon propane fired hot water tank.
Decades ago this camp was one of the first to have a hot in-camp shower with a wood fired tank. You would stoke the fire and wait for the water to heat. Then we went to propane, but it was still a wait for hot water proposition. For the last few years we have been using an instant heat RV trailer kind of propane burner. But we found it had more problems--you had to turn it on and off in a special sequence, couldn't leave it running long or you risk blowing the hoses from the pressure.
This year's shower has all the hot water you need, an overhead spray and a handheld spray--run one or both. Best of all the worst thing that can happen is the propane tank runs out and you need to swap in a new one before you can shower.
Thank you Toguchi, Pug, Devon, and all the campmaster's crew! I love my sword brothers!
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30 July 2008
Quote for the day: Auden
"Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh." - WH Auden
And to those of you (Steve, Daniel, Gillie, Marti) who made me laugh or smile today, my very special thanks!
And to those of you (Steve, Daniel, Gillie, Marti) who made me laugh or smile today, my very special thanks!
04 October 2007
The Ghosts of Familial Past
A dear friend is heading to his hometown this weekend to face his relatives at a funeral. Knowing what he will be facing in the jungle of his birth family, has made me think about my own birth family today. It's funny how family can have so much power over us, even once we are grown and need them so little. How the ties that bind us are forged in sorrow and guilt more often than in love or joy.
I don't know all the particulars of your birth family or its attendant crazies, but I know how bizarre mine is. I have one randomly employed redneck brother and his twin sister, a multiple times divorcee who lives to shop at Saks; one libertarian entrepreneur brother and his twin sister, a graphic artist with a conservative corporate-type husband; then there's my father who is a bigoted homophobic hard-line Republican, but who now incapacitated and fairly senile; and let's not forget my manically depressed drama-queen mother who thinks she is Peter Pan and doesn't want to grow up. Anyone who met all of us separately would conclude that we could not possibly be related. In fact, I'm still wondering how I got here. How did this family spawn me: a "rabid feminist liberal hippie bitch"? (That is just one of my dad's nicer descriptions for me . . . no kidding.)
When I was growing up my mother kept telling me how lucky we were, what a great family this was, and how happy we were. I think she was really doing all she could to convince herself. The wierd thing is I believed it as a kid. But then as kids we live in fantasy land, we make our own realities. And since most my childhood was spent with my nose in a book (any book, all the books I could find) I was happy. Fairytales were my favorites. You know those stories where the royal coach shows up to take the cinderella-child away, because she's really the princess? I was certain through most of my childhood that any day now the royal messenger would knock on the front door and take me home to the castle where I really belonged. I was sure these weren't my real parents, I was taken away from some castle in rural Ruritania and abandoned by the evil vizier or abducted and carried off by gypsies. My real family would find me, I was sure of it.
Funny thing is I don't think my parents were particularly abusive or anything to us kids. Oh, my dad had a belt we all feared and my mom wielded a mean hairbrush, so discipline in my family was corporal. But on the other hand I don't remember bruises, and to be honest most kids in my generation expected to be "spanked"--it was the traditional child-rearing tool. What I did hate was the fighting between my mom and dad. We kids were pretty certain that sooner or later one of them would do major damage to the other. Though that never happened, my parents, now well into their eighties still regularly threaten to kill each other. It may be only some warped kind of dramatic affection, but it scared the hell out of us kids.
Dad was an amorphous figure who was most always "on the road." When he was home, he was generally asleep in an easy chair front of some ball game on the TV, usually with beer in hand, and god forbid anyone changed the channel. The man could be snoring like a buzz saw, but would wake at any sound of channel clicking to smack the one responsible and insist he had been watching that show (even with his eyes closed). Mom, a medical secretary, worked very full days, leaving before we went to school and, though she returned home before us, was generally asleep on the couch when we came in and would stay there drifting in and out of sleep until we woke her for dinner. Odd, but most of my memories of my childhood involve one or both of my parents being asleep a lot. Granted they worked hard, or at least they regularly told me that they did. In fact a good chunk of my childhood was spent feeling guilty (having been told repeatedly) about how hard my parents had to work to feed and clothe the five of us and that no amount of chore doing could ever make up for what they had to spend on me.
Bedtime for us kids was always 8 pm, even in the summer, even when the sun was still out. For me that was no hardship, I read books. My youngest siblings would come crawl in bed with me and I'd read to them, or if the parents insisted on lights out I'd make up stories for them--usually with them in the starring roles. We spent a lot of time in make-believe as kids. Sometimes though, the noises from downstairs woke us all out of both sleep and our make-believe worlds.
Sometimes I still have nightmares about all the knock-down, drag-out, plate-throwing, screaming matches my parents had whenever my dad was actually home. When the noise started, we kids would creep down to sit on the stair landing just out of sight and listen to the fight and the name calling. As if by being there, witnesses, we could mitigate the violence. I learned to cuss early on from the things my parents said to each other. For me it was like watching a train wreck--you couldn't stand to look and you couldn't stand to look away. For each of my siblings it was different, I think. I clearly remember holding my youngest sister, on my lap while she cried--always softly so they wouldn't hear us--and telling her that it would be okay, that mom and dad were just playing. As the baby she was the sensitive one, and I always thought of her as mine to protect. She took it hardest when they fought. She always felt every pain anyone else felt. She was only 3 or 4 (that would make me 8 or 9) when we moved to the south side of town, where I remember the fighting really beginning. Or maybe I was just old enough notice by then. Dad was home more in those years, traveling a more local route rather than being out of town so much. The others had their own ways of dealing. One brother was the family clown, always redirecting anger with slapstick humor. My middle brother retreated and denied, middle sister pouted and demanded attention. I just lived in a fog built of books and stories.
As families go mine is by no means the worst. Emotional chaos yes, but there are lots of kids who are physically and sexually abused by their families. Yesterday in the news there was a story about a local woman who, having been abused by the father of her children, drowned her 2 daughters and sent a letter to their father that said the girls were at peace and couldn't be hurt anymore. By a standard like that my childhood was a walk in a park.
The funny thing about families is that no matter how wierd, no matter how dysfunctional, no matter what emotional or physical pain we endure--most of us survive. Sometimes we survive to become the people we are, even the decent parents that we are, despite our childhoods. Every parent sets an example for their child, even if it is a negative one. So now, as I think about the grandchild I have and the one soon to be born, I can't help but think that the really neat people my grown children have become and the really cool parents they are and will be, is in part due to me, and in part due to my dad. A dad with whom I have a strange love/hate relationship, but from whom I think I learned some valuable lessons. . . primarily on how not to treat your kids. In the fire the steel is tempered.
I don't know all the particulars of your birth family or its attendant crazies, but I know how bizarre mine is. I have one randomly employed redneck brother and his twin sister, a multiple times divorcee who lives to shop at Saks; one libertarian entrepreneur brother and his twin sister, a graphic artist with a conservative corporate-type husband; then there's my father who is a bigoted homophobic hard-line Republican, but who now incapacitated and fairly senile; and let's not forget my manically depressed drama-queen mother who thinks she is Peter Pan and doesn't want to grow up. Anyone who met all of us separately would conclude that we could not possibly be related. In fact, I'm still wondering how I got here. How did this family spawn me: a "rabid feminist liberal hippie bitch"? (That is just one of my dad's nicer descriptions for me . . . no kidding.)
When I was growing up my mother kept telling me how lucky we were, what a great family this was, and how happy we were. I think she was really doing all she could to convince herself. The wierd thing is I believed it as a kid. But then as kids we live in fantasy land, we make our own realities. And since most my childhood was spent with my nose in a book (any book, all the books I could find) I was happy. Fairytales were my favorites. You know those stories where the royal coach shows up to take the cinderella-child away, because she's really the princess? I was certain through most of my childhood that any day now the royal messenger would knock on the front door and take me home to the castle where I really belonged. I was sure these weren't my real parents, I was taken away from some castle in rural Ruritania and abandoned by the evil vizier or abducted and carried off by gypsies. My real family would find me, I was sure of it.
Funny thing is I don't think my parents were particularly abusive or anything to us kids. Oh, my dad had a belt we all feared and my mom wielded a mean hairbrush, so discipline in my family was corporal. But on the other hand I don't remember bruises, and to be honest most kids in my generation expected to be "spanked"--it was the traditional child-rearing tool. What I did hate was the fighting between my mom and dad. We kids were pretty certain that sooner or later one of them would do major damage to the other. Though that never happened, my parents, now well into their eighties still regularly threaten to kill each other. It may be only some warped kind of dramatic affection, but it scared the hell out of us kids.
Dad was an amorphous figure who was most always "on the road." When he was home, he was generally asleep in an easy chair front of some ball game on the TV, usually with beer in hand, and god forbid anyone changed the channel. The man could be snoring like a buzz saw, but would wake at any sound of channel clicking to smack the one responsible and insist he had been watching that show (even with his eyes closed). Mom, a medical secretary, worked very full days, leaving before we went to school and, though she returned home before us, was generally asleep on the couch when we came in and would stay there drifting in and out of sleep until we woke her for dinner. Odd, but most of my memories of my childhood involve one or both of my parents being asleep a lot. Granted they worked hard, or at least they regularly told me that they did. In fact a good chunk of my childhood was spent feeling guilty (having been told repeatedly) about how hard my parents had to work to feed and clothe the five of us and that no amount of chore doing could ever make up for what they had to spend on me.
Bedtime for us kids was always 8 pm, even in the summer, even when the sun was still out. For me that was no hardship, I read books. My youngest siblings would come crawl in bed with me and I'd read to them, or if the parents insisted on lights out I'd make up stories for them--usually with them in the starring roles. We spent a lot of time in make-believe as kids. Sometimes though, the noises from downstairs woke us all out of both sleep and our make-believe worlds.
Sometimes I still have nightmares about all the knock-down, drag-out, plate-throwing, screaming matches my parents had whenever my dad was actually home. When the noise started, we kids would creep down to sit on the stair landing just out of sight and listen to the fight and the name calling. As if by being there, witnesses, we could mitigate the violence. I learned to cuss early on from the things my parents said to each other. For me it was like watching a train wreck--you couldn't stand to look and you couldn't stand to look away. For each of my siblings it was different, I think. I clearly remember holding my youngest sister, on my lap while she cried--always softly so they wouldn't hear us--and telling her that it would be okay, that mom and dad were just playing. As the baby she was the sensitive one, and I always thought of her as mine to protect. She took it hardest when they fought. She always felt every pain anyone else felt. She was only 3 or 4 (that would make me 8 or 9) when we moved to the south side of town, where I remember the fighting really beginning. Or maybe I was just old enough notice by then. Dad was home more in those years, traveling a more local route rather than being out of town so much. The others had their own ways of dealing. One brother was the family clown, always redirecting anger with slapstick humor. My middle brother retreated and denied, middle sister pouted and demanded attention. I just lived in a fog built of books and stories.
As families go mine is by no means the worst. Emotional chaos yes, but there are lots of kids who are physically and sexually abused by their families. Yesterday in the news there was a story about a local woman who, having been abused by the father of her children, drowned her 2 daughters and sent a letter to their father that said the girls were at peace and couldn't be hurt anymore. By a standard like that my childhood was a walk in a park.
The funny thing about families is that no matter how wierd, no matter how dysfunctional, no matter what emotional or physical pain we endure--most of us survive. Sometimes we survive to become the people we are, even the decent parents that we are, despite our childhoods. Every parent sets an example for their child, even if it is a negative one. So now, as I think about the grandchild I have and the one soon to be born, I can't help but think that the really neat people my grown children have become and the really cool parents they are and will be, is in part due to me, and in part due to my dad. A dad with whom I have a strange love/hate relationship, but from whom I think I learned some valuable lessons. . . primarily on how not to treat your kids. In the fire the steel is tempered.
29 August 2007
As the rabid-feminist-liberal-bitch and black sheep of my hard-line-conservative-homophobic-racist family, I strongly identified with this post on Salon.com from a few days ago. Tomorrow my Republican dad will be 85. And I dread even the requisite "happy birthday" phone call where he always asks if I am still a "dirty democrat." Sigh . . .
How can I love my Republican parents?
The people who gave birth to me support George Bush. How can that be?
By Cary Tennis
Aug. 24, 2007 Dear Cary,
How can I love my parents when they are supporters of the most corrupt, willfully ignorant, deceitful, lying administration in our nation's history?
If we were not related by blood, I would have nothing to do with these people. The Bush presidency has ruined our reputation in the world, destroyed many of our civil liberties and increased the divide between the rich and the poor. Plus they think torture is just dandy!
I don't have any Republican friends. I don't like to talk to Republicans mostly. I find them ignorant of other cultures, and smug--feeling that our country is the best in the world--period.
I lived in a foreign country for several years and have traveled to several others. I find many things good about America but I think there are many things to be improved. When I visit my parents, politics is generally off the table for discussion. Occasionally it will come up with tense, sometimes angry results. They have no idea of my political thoughts and don't want to hear them. On the whole my relationship with them is better than many I've seen. We're not estranged, they didn't abuse me, but I don't really like them. I simply shut up and endure the visit.
I live on the East Coast, they live in the Southwest. I know I should love them. They supported me, helped me through college and such. But we have nothing in common and I dread seeing them. They embarrass me sometimes. Why should I spend time with people I don't like and resent for helping to lead my country in the wrong direction? Will I ever enjoy spending time with them again? It doesn't feel like it's possible. They say that you miss your parents when they're gone, no matter what your relationship was like. That might be true but I don't miss them now when they live 2,500 miles away. Can I change my attitude? I doubt it. Maybe you can shed some light.
A Bad Son
Dear Bad Son,
So you have nothing in common with your parents, you dread seeing them, you are embarrassed by them, don't see why you should spend time with them and doubt that you ever will enjoy spending time with them.
Awesome!
You ask if you can change your attitude. I think you probably can.
Here is an idea for an exercise, or thought experiment, that you might try. I thought this all up on my own. It's premised on the assumption that even though you have had very different experiences, you have the same brand of processor. So though your experiences have been very different, you process experience and arrive at conclusions in similar ways. Knowing this, it should be possible for you to imagine the experiences that have made your father who he is. So ask yourself, what would it take to make my dad into a Republican?
Pretend you are your father. Explain how you got to be the way you are. Not why you think George Bush is a good man, but why you are who you are, why you identify with George Bush and the Republican Party, what it feels like to you, what you get out of it. What experiences did you have that led you to this point in life? Now, your dad has probably told you stories about his early life and struggles. You grew up with him. You know where he worked and what his attitudes toward life were. So talk for him, in his voice. Tell the story. Try to get his voice, his facial expressions. That's right, mimic your father. Try to get his posture, the way he walks, the way he stands.
Then ask yourself, what does it feel like to your dad? In particular, what does it feel like to him to be a Republican? Like, what is his face doing when he says he is a Republican? How is he standing? Is he apologetic? Is he proud? Is he grandstanding?
If it was an emotion, or a gesture, what would his Republicanism be? Would it be a sad, mournful tune? Would it be a rebel yell?
What needs does his Republicanism meet in his own life? Does it meet his need for affiliation? (That is, are his friends also Republican? Does he get together with Republicans and have a good time? Does he identify with and emulate prominent Republicans?) Is it functional? (That is, if he is a corporate man, it may be that Republicans treat his business better than Democrats do, giving his business a better regulatory environment and better taxes, and it may be that his personal financial situation does better in a Republican environment.) Are there historical reasons for his Republicanism? (Were his parents Republicans? Has he been a Republican for a long time?)
So get a feeling for what this is all about with your dad. Do the same thing with your mom. Think about her story. Get inside her head. What has her life been like that she would find comfort and meaning in the Republican Party? Mimic her face, her gestures. Try to feel what she feels.
As you do this, consider your own political beliefs, and what they feel like, and how they fit into your social world. You say you have no Republican friends. So does that mean that you feel particularly strongly about agreement as a component of friendship? Do you have any friends you like just because they are funny, or because you have been through things together and you admire how they handled certain tough situations? If not, I might suggest that you and your father are alike in this way: That you are both a little narrow in your choice of friends. If he is narrow and you are narrow, then it is not likely for there to be much common ground. But you would have common ground in the style and manner in which you have processed your experiences: Your experiences have led you to affiliate almost exclusively with non-Republicans; his experience has been different, and yet he has processed it in the same way, and reached the same conclusion: stay away from anybody who does not agree with him.
Now, your attitude about all this will not change overnight. You are in a state of anger toward your parents. There may be reasons for that aside from their political affiliations. That is OK. It is possible to love people and also be angry at them. It is possible to love people and disapprove of the way they run their lives. We are talking about filial love here.
You know, this just occurred to me: the connection between "affiliation" and "filial." Sure enough, when I look it up in the Online Etymological Dictionary, I see that the two words have a common Latin root. "Filius," as I recall from high school Latin, means "son." And, as the dictionary points out, "affiliation" comes from the Latin "affiliare" -- to adopt a son. So this need for affiliation has some kind of familial echo: We seek affiliation as we seek family. So, not to psychoanalyze you, but the way you and your father seek different political affiliations may have some deep resonance with other family conflicts or differences. You have "adopted" different beliefs. You may even feel some kind or primal dissatisfaction with the fact that your father has "adopted" beliefs inimical to your own, as if he had, by doing so, given you an obnoxious, competing sibling. I know that's stretching it, but then, it only gets really interesting when we stretch it a little!
So how can you love a Republican? You can love a Republican because family love is an unbreakable connection. It isn't an idea. Love is not approval or agreement. It's a bond. So when you ask why you should spend time with them, remember this: There is such a thing as enduring bonds of blood. These people gave you life. Your mom gave birth to you. We humans feel deeply connected with those who bore us.
(Oh, that's a good pun, isn't it?)
How can I love my Republican parents?
The people who gave birth to me support George Bush. How can that be?
By Cary Tennis
Aug. 24, 2007 Dear Cary,
How can I love my parents when they are supporters of the most corrupt, willfully ignorant, deceitful, lying administration in our nation's history?
If we were not related by blood, I would have nothing to do with these people. The Bush presidency has ruined our reputation in the world, destroyed many of our civil liberties and increased the divide between the rich and the poor. Plus they think torture is just dandy!
I don't have any Republican friends. I don't like to talk to Republicans mostly. I find them ignorant of other cultures, and smug--feeling that our country is the best in the world--period.
I lived in a foreign country for several years and have traveled to several others. I find many things good about America but I think there are many things to be improved. When I visit my parents, politics is generally off the table for discussion. Occasionally it will come up with tense, sometimes angry results. They have no idea of my political thoughts and don't want to hear them. On the whole my relationship with them is better than many I've seen. We're not estranged, they didn't abuse me, but I don't really like them. I simply shut up and endure the visit.
I live on the East Coast, they live in the Southwest. I know I should love them. They supported me, helped me through college and such. But we have nothing in common and I dread seeing them. They embarrass me sometimes. Why should I spend time with people I don't like and resent for helping to lead my country in the wrong direction? Will I ever enjoy spending time with them again? It doesn't feel like it's possible. They say that you miss your parents when they're gone, no matter what your relationship was like. That might be true but I don't miss them now when they live 2,500 miles away. Can I change my attitude? I doubt it. Maybe you can shed some light.
A Bad Son
Dear Bad Son,
So you have nothing in common with your parents, you dread seeing them, you are embarrassed by them, don't see why you should spend time with them and doubt that you ever will enjoy spending time with them.
Awesome!
You ask if you can change your attitude. I think you probably can.
Here is an idea for an exercise, or thought experiment, that you might try. I thought this all up on my own. It's premised on the assumption that even though you have had very different experiences, you have the same brand of processor. So though your experiences have been very different, you process experience and arrive at conclusions in similar ways. Knowing this, it should be possible for you to imagine the experiences that have made your father who he is. So ask yourself, what would it take to make my dad into a Republican?
Pretend you are your father. Explain how you got to be the way you are. Not why you think George Bush is a good man, but why you are who you are, why you identify with George Bush and the Republican Party, what it feels like to you, what you get out of it. What experiences did you have that led you to this point in life? Now, your dad has probably told you stories about his early life and struggles. You grew up with him. You know where he worked and what his attitudes toward life were. So talk for him, in his voice. Tell the story. Try to get his voice, his facial expressions. That's right, mimic your father. Try to get his posture, the way he walks, the way he stands.
Then ask yourself, what does it feel like to your dad? In particular, what does it feel like to him to be a Republican? Like, what is his face doing when he says he is a Republican? How is he standing? Is he apologetic? Is he proud? Is he grandstanding?
If it was an emotion, or a gesture, what would his Republicanism be? Would it be a sad, mournful tune? Would it be a rebel yell?
What needs does his Republicanism meet in his own life? Does it meet his need for affiliation? (That is, are his friends also Republican? Does he get together with Republicans and have a good time? Does he identify with and emulate prominent Republicans?) Is it functional? (That is, if he is a corporate man, it may be that Republicans treat his business better than Democrats do, giving his business a better regulatory environment and better taxes, and it may be that his personal financial situation does better in a Republican environment.) Are there historical reasons for his Republicanism? (Were his parents Republicans? Has he been a Republican for a long time?)
So get a feeling for what this is all about with your dad. Do the same thing with your mom. Think about her story. Get inside her head. What has her life been like that she would find comfort and meaning in the Republican Party? Mimic her face, her gestures. Try to feel what she feels.
As you do this, consider your own political beliefs, and what they feel like, and how they fit into your social world. You say you have no Republican friends. So does that mean that you feel particularly strongly about agreement as a component of friendship? Do you have any friends you like just because they are funny, or because you have been through things together and you admire how they handled certain tough situations? If not, I might suggest that you and your father are alike in this way: That you are both a little narrow in your choice of friends. If he is narrow and you are narrow, then it is not likely for there to be much common ground. But you would have common ground in the style and manner in which you have processed your experiences: Your experiences have led you to affiliate almost exclusively with non-Republicans; his experience has been different, and yet he has processed it in the same way, and reached the same conclusion: stay away from anybody who does not agree with him.
Now, your attitude about all this will not change overnight. You are in a state of anger toward your parents. There may be reasons for that aside from their political affiliations. That is OK. It is possible to love people and also be angry at them. It is possible to love people and disapprove of the way they run their lives. We are talking about filial love here.
You know, this just occurred to me: the connection between "affiliation" and "filial." Sure enough, when I look it up in the Online Etymological Dictionary, I see that the two words have a common Latin root. "Filius," as I recall from high school Latin, means "son." And, as the dictionary points out, "affiliation" comes from the Latin "affiliare" -- to adopt a son. So this need for affiliation has some kind of familial echo: We seek affiliation as we seek family. So, not to psychoanalyze you, but the way you and your father seek different political affiliations may have some deep resonance with other family conflicts or differences. You have "adopted" different beliefs. You may even feel some kind or primal dissatisfaction with the fact that your father has "adopted" beliefs inimical to your own, as if he had, by doing so, given you an obnoxious, competing sibling. I know that's stretching it, but then, it only gets really interesting when we stretch it a little!
So how can you love a Republican? You can love a Republican because family love is an unbreakable connection. It isn't an idea. Love is not approval or agreement. It's a bond. So when you ask why you should spend time with them, remember this: There is such a thing as enduring bonds of blood. These people gave you life. Your mom gave birth to you. We humans feel deeply connected with those who bore us.
(Oh, that's a good pun, isn't it?)
17 April 2006
Why I'm going to vote for Russ Feingold if I get a chance
The following was passed on to me by my friend and colleague, Jinny. Makes a great case for teaching students to use critical thinking skills and to recognize fallacies in an argument....
REPUBLICAN PROPAGANDA
Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.
A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can be trusted to make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.
The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.
If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.
Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism.
HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.
Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
A president lying about an extramarital affair is a impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.
Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.
Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host or Newt Gingrich. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.
What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.
Feel free to pass this on. If you don't send it to at least 10 other people, we're likely to be stuck with more Republicans in '06 and '08.
Friends don't let friends vote Republican.
REPUBLICAN PROPAGANDA
Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.
A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can be trusted to make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.
The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.
If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.
Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism.
HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.
Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
A president lying about an extramarital affair is a impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.
Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.
Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host or Newt Gingrich. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.
What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.
Feel free to pass this on. If you don't send it to at least 10 other people, we're likely to be stuck with more Republicans in '06 and '08.
Friends don't let friends vote Republican.
15 September 2005
Mr. President, this job can't be fun. . .
Many thanks to Andreas for sending me this closing bit from Bill Maher's show the other night:
"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.
"Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.
"But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.
"On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. "So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.' "
"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.
"Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.
"But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.
"On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. "So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.' "
19 April 2005
If I ever become an Evil Overlord
The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became an Evil Overlord
1. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.
2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.
7. When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."
8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.
10. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum -- a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.
11. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
13. All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied
into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
14. The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.
15. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
16. I will never utter the sentence "But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know."
17. When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.
18. I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.
19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.
20. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.
21. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman ootsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.
22. No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.
23. I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.
24. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)
25. No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.
26. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.
27. I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.
28. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.
29. I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.
30. All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.
31. All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.
32. I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.
33. I won't require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.
34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.
35. I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.
36. I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.
37. If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he's my trusted lieutenant.
38. If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.
39. If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.
40. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
41. Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.
42. When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.
43. I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.
44. I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.
45. I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say "And here is the price for failure," then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.
46. If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.
47. If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.
48. I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.
49. If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a ant-Ad in the local paper.
50. My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.
51. If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess' cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.
52. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.
53. If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I'll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well" and kill her.
54. I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.
55. The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legions of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.
56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.
57. Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner's manual.
58. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.
59. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.
60. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.
61. If my advisors ask "Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?", I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
62. I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.
63. Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.
64. I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.
65. If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.
66. My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.
67. No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.
68. I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they'd better save my life again.
69. All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.
70. When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.
71. If I decide to test a lieutenant's loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.
72. If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.
73. I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my
advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.
74. When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk "Project Overlord" and leave it lying on top of my desk.
75. I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
76. If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the
middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)
77. If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutentant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.
78. I will not tell my Legions of Terror "And he must be taken alive!" The command will be "And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical."
79. If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.
80. If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.
81. If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.
82. I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.
83. If I'm eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.
84. I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.
85. I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more along the lines of "Push the button."
86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
87. My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.
88. If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.
89. After I capture the hero's superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.
90. I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.
91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.
92. If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead I will say this his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)
93. If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and an underling who failed or betrayed me, I will see to it that the hero is scheduled to go first.
94. When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.
95. My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it's an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.
96. My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.
97. My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces or anything that can be unravelled.
98. If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However if circumstance have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each others' lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.
99. Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.
100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.
This Evil Overlord List is Copyright 1996-1997 by Peter Anspach. If you enjoy it, feel free to pass it along or post it anywhere, provided that (1) it is not altered in any way, and (2) this copyright notice is attached.
1. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.
2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.
4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.
7. When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."
8. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out.
9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.
10. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum -- a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.
11. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.
12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
13. All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied
into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
14. The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.
15. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
16. I will never utter the sentence "But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know."
17. When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.
18. I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.
19. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.
20. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.
21. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman ootsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set.
22. No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head.
23. I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks.
24. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)
25. No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot.
26. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.
27. I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.
28. My pet monster will be kept in a secure cage from which it cannot escape and into which I could not accidentally stumble.
29. I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.
30. All bumbling conjurers, clumsy squires, no-talent bards, and cowardly thieves in the land will be preemptively put to death. My foes will surely give up and abandon their quest if they have no source of comic relief.
31. All naive, busty tavern wenches in my realm will be replaced with surly, world-weary waitresses who will provide no unexpected reinforcement and/or romantic subplot for the hero or his sidekick.
32. I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by.
33. I won't require high-ranking female members of my organization to wear a stainless-steel bustier. Morale is better with a more casual dress-code. Similarly, outfits made entirely from black leather will be reserved for formal occasions.
34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.
35. I will not grow a goatee. In the old days they made you look diabolic. Now they just make you look like a disaffected member of Generation X.
36. I will not imprison members of the same party in the same cell block, let alone the same cell. If they are important prisoners, I will keep the only key to the cell door on my person instead of handing out copies to every bottom-rung guard in the prison.
37. If my trusted lieutenant tells me my Legions of Terror are losing a battle, I will believe him. After all, he's my trusted lieutenant.
38. If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.
39. If I absolutely must ride into battle, I will certainly not ride at the forefront of my Legions of Terror, nor will I seek out my opposite number among his army.
40. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
41. Once my power is secure, I will destroy all those pesky time-travel devices.
42. When I capture the hero, I will make sure I also get his dog, monkey, ferret, or whatever sickeningly cute little animal capable of untying ropes and filching keys happens to follow him around.
43. I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism when I capture the beautiful rebel and she claims she is attracted to my power and good looks and will gladly betray her companions if I just let her in on my plans.
44. I will only employ bounty hunters who work for money. Those who work for the pleasure of the hunt tend to do dumb things like even the odds to give the other guy a sporting chance.
45. I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say "And here is the price for failure," then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.
46. If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.
47. If I learn that a callow youth has begun a quest to destroy me, I will slay him while he is still a callow youth instead of waiting for him to mature.
48. I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.
49. If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a ant-Ad in the local paper.
50. My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.
51. If one of my dungeon guards begins expressing concern over the conditions in the beautiful princess' cell, I will immediately transfer him to a less people-oriented position.
52. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.
53. If the beautiful princess that I capture says "I'll never marry you! Never, do you hear me, NEVER!!!", I will say "Oh well" and kill her.
54. I will not strike a bargain with a demonic being then attempt to double-cross it simply because I feel like being contrary.
55. The deformed mutants and odd-ball psychotics will have their place in my Legions of Terror. However before I send them out on important covert missions that require tact and subtlety, I will first see if there is anyone else equally qualified who would attract less attention.
56. My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.
57. Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner's manual.
58. If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.
59. I will never build a sentient computer smarter than I am.
60. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.
61. If my advisors ask "Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?", I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
62. I will design fortress hallways with no alcoves or protruding structural supports which intruders could use for cover in a firefight.
63. Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.
64. I will see a competent psychiatrist and get cured of all extremely unusual phobias and bizarre compulsive habits which could prove to be a disadvantage.
65. If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.
66. My security keypad will actually be a fingerprint scanner. Anyone who watches someone press a sequence of buttons or dusts the pad for fingerprints then subsequently tries to enter by repeating that sequence will trigger the alarm system.
67. No matter how many shorts we have in the system, my guards will be instructed to treat every surveillance camera malfunction as a full-scale emergency.
68. I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they'd better save my life again.
69. All midwives will be banned from the realm. All babies will be delivered at state-approved hospitals. Orphans will be placed in foster-homes, not abandoned in the woods to be raised by creatures of the wild.
70. When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.
71. If I decide to test a lieutenant's loyalty and see if he/she should be made a trusted lieutenant, I will have a crack squad of marksmen standing by in case the answer is no.
72. If all the heroes are standing together around a strange device and begin to taunt me, I will pull out a conventional weapon instead of using my unstoppable superweapon on them.
73. I will not agree to let the heroes go free if they win a rigged contest, even though my
advisors assure me it is impossible for them to win.
74. When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk "Project Overlord" and leave it lying on top of my desk.
75. I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
76. If the hero runs up to my roof, I will not run up after him and struggle with him in an attempt to push him over the edge. I will also not engage him at the edge of a cliff. (In the
middle of a rope-bridge over a river of molten lava is not even worth considering.)
77. If I have a fit of temporary insanity and decide to give the hero the chance to reject a job as my trusted lieutentant, I will retain enough sanity to wait until my current trusted lieutenant is out of earshot before making the offer.
78. I will not tell my Legions of Terror "And he must be taken alive!" The command will be "And try to take him alive if it is reasonably practical."
79. If my doomsday device happens to come with a reverse switch, as soon as it has been employed it will be melted down and made into limited-edition commemorative coins.
80. If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.
81. If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.
82. I will not shoot at any of my enemies if they are standing in front of the crucial support beam to a heavy, dangerous, unbalanced structure.
83. If I'm eating dinner with the hero, put poison in his goblet, then have to leave the table for any reason, I will order new drinks for both of us instead of trying to decide whether or not to switch with him.
84. I will not have captives of one sex guarded by members of the opposite sex.
85. I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more along the lines of "Push the button."
86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
87. My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.
88. If a group of henchmen fail miserably at a task, I will not berate them for incompetence then send the same group out to try the task again.
89. After I capture the hero's superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.
90. I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.
91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.
92. If I ever talk to the hero on the phone, I will not taunt him. Instead I will say this his dogged perseverance has given me new insight on the futility of my evil ways and that if he leaves me alone for a few months of quiet contemplation I will likely return to the path of righteousness. (Heroes are incredibly gullible in this regard.)
93. If I decide to hold a double execution of the hero and an underling who failed or betrayed me, I will see to it that the hero is scheduled to go first.
94. When arresting prisoners, my guards will not allow them to stop and grab a useless trinket of purely sentimental value.
95. My dungeon will have its own qualified medical staff complete with bodyguards. That way if a prisoner becomes sick and his cellmate tells the guard it's an emergency, the guard will fetch a trauma team instead of opening up the cell for a look.
96. My door mechanisms will be designed so that blasting the control panel on the outside seals the door and blasting the control panel on the inside opens the door, not vice versa.
97. My dungeon cells will not be furnished with objects that contain reflective surfaces or anything that can be unravelled.
98. If an attractive young couple enters my realm, I will carefully monitor their activities. If I find they are happy and affectionate, I will ignore them. However if circumstance have forced them together against their will and they spend all their time bickering and criticizing each other except during the intermittent occasions when they are saving each others' lives at which point there are hints of sexual tension, I will immediately order their execution.
99. Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.
100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.
This Evil Overlord List is Copyright 1996-1997 by Peter Anspach. If you enjoy it, feel free to pass it along or post it anywhere, provided that (1) it is not altered in any way, and (2) this copyright notice is attached.
27 December 2004
US gov requires Loyalty Oath from overseas importers?
I remember the first time I read a tax form and noticed the line on it that asked me to report all my illegal income. It led me to speculate about really stupid criminals ("Hey guys, do you remember how much profit we took in on that liquor store heist? Let's see, deduct for stocking masks and bullets, depreciaton on my street piece. . . Damn! I am going to have to pay taxes on that job, and I was just hoping to break even.") and even stupider government clerks who expected such items to be reported. Now we've done it again.
Seems that our government might want packages from overseas shippers to include a sort of loyalty oath (shades of McCarthy! ) First I want you to take a good close look at this note found in a package recieved from an Italian distributor of DVDs. Now think about it. Yep, you can rest easy folks, our administration is out there collecting loyalty oaths from anyone who might ship an Osama bin Laden video to the unsuspecting liberal media where they might accidentaly infect us all with the urge to commit treason.
I find this potentially disturbing. I looked at the Senate and House pages looking for the law that required this "declaration," but no luck.
So I tried the Fedex pages for copies of international documents, but there was no info on "Video Declaration" forms. I tried looking at Snopes.com which is the best rumor buster site out there, but again no info. So is this something dreamed up by some bizarre government idea that terrorists and pornographers (talk about strange bedfellows) are going to identify themselves in their shipments of videos to the USA?
Read the the original post from the blog of Matteo Bittanti where I first found out about this (copied below): http://mbf.blogs.com/mbf/2004/12/no_sex_please_w.html
the copy of the letter in his shipment is here:
Seems that our government might want packages from overseas shippers to include a sort of loyalty oath (shades of McCarthy! ) First I want you to take a good close look at this note found in a package recieved from an Italian distributor of DVDs. Now think about it. Yep, you can rest easy folks, our administration is out there collecting loyalty oaths from anyone who might ship an Osama bin Laden video to the unsuspecting liberal media where they might accidentaly infect us all with the urge to commit treason.
I find this potentially disturbing. I looked at the Senate and House pages looking for the law that required this "declaration," but no luck.
So I tried the Fedex pages for copies of international documents, but there was no info on "Video Declaration" forms. I tried looking at Snopes.com which is the best rumor buster site out there, but again no info. So is this something dreamed up by some bizarre government idea that terrorists and pornographers (talk about strange bedfellows) are going to identify themselves in their shipments of videos to the USA?
Read the the original post from the blog of Matteo Bittanti where I first found out about this (copied below): http://mbf.blogs.com/mbf/2004/12/no_sex_please_w.html
the copy of the letter in his shipment is here:
"Attached is a notice contained in the package. Its a hoot--its just like the 1950s. I am so glad that the government is protecting me from the nasty old terrorist propaganda--not to mention sleazy, indecent, decadent, European smut/porno merchants" (John)
I love the Americans. I mean, who else would require any visitor to specify on a green form if he or she is a terrorist or a Nazi supporter and submit it to the custom clerks before entering the country? (Well, the Russians, for instance - they started using the same forms a while ago). I did not know, however, that when you buy DVDs from Italy and have them shipped overseas, the seller has to declare that the movies do not contain obscenity, illegal matter, or "anything that could lead to treason or insurrection against the US". And what about "Bodily harm"? Now, I ordered many movies through Amazon.com, but I never found a note saying, for instance, that The Godfather does not represent a menace to the Italian republic ;-)
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