Why We Love Her

It's been a brutal season for primaries. Even with great candidates, the war managed to get rather ugly. Bernie Sanders followers blame Hillary followers and the opposite is also the case.

There is truth to both sides no doubt. I've seen that personally, although I must say, that a good many people I know who believe in Mrs. Clinton's candidacy, try hard to stick to real issues and differences and not fall victim to the game of pointing out failures on the part of the other candidate. Mostly they don't at least, except when anger takes over.

We all get tired of hearing Mrs. Clinton referred to as "$hillary and HilLIARy". And we are very tired of "paid speeches" crap. Why do we call it crap? Because the Bernie folk admit right up to the top of their team, that they have not a clue if there is any incriminating in her speeches to various banks and other corporate types. But as long as she doesn't release them, they claim they feel free to insinuate that "there must be something bad in them."

Well, that is probably not true for a couple of reasons. Why would Mrs. Clinton risk (in a large venue speaking engagement) assuming that all those present are lovers of her such that they wouldn't record "evidence" of her vile speechifying and release it? And then there is the argument many attach to this, Mrs. Clinton's well-known history of refusing to give in to the crass bullshit raised by her opponents by dignifying their charges with actual proof to the contrary.

But I'm not here to explain and defend Hillary.

I'm here to tell you unabashedly, that we do love her.

And I'll tell you why.

You see, I"m just 66. I was born in 1050. Do you remember the world then?

I grew up as a preteen knowing a few things. I could NOT be a fighter pilot in the Air Force. I could NOT expect to ever be part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the military. I could NOT be a police officer, except as a jail matron. I was not EXPECTED to be a lawyer or a doctor, but rather a nurse or school teacher. I was most suited to being a secretary, executive or otherwise. I could be lots of things no doubt that I had no idea about, such as a physicist or chemist, but nobody encouraging me to be a psychologist or city manager.

In other words, I was either utterly not welcome in a whole list of professions because of my delicate composition (uteri and bosom), or I was dissuaded from trying because only the best of the best of the best of my gender was given a chance in this or that endeavor.

In the 50's women were expected to stay home and take care of children and husbands. They might work, but only at certifiable "ladies" jobs, such as check-out clerks, waitresses, the aforementioned secretarial jobs and so forth. We weren't paid much, but then we were only supposed to be "supplementing" our hubby's salary. We were, if employed expected to do the laundry, clean the house, do the shopping, the cooking, and well, most everything else other than car repair and perhaps run the lawn mower.

We had trouble signing contracts, buying cars and houses without male assistance. We were looked upon suspiciously when it came to jury duty. We could vote, but most of us followed the lead of the male in our lives.

Hillary grew up in the same world.

As we attained near adult hood, things had changed. Universities were setting up "affirmative action" for women like other minorities. Some law schools, and no doubt medical schools started with quotas, trying to increase the numbers of women in their classes. We benefited from that process, and we became lawyers and doctors and all the rest in much bigger numbers in the late 60's.

We saw Hillary as Bill's wife. But slowly, we discovered she was not like other first ladies. She actually had a brain and intended to use it. You might recall when she got in all sorts of hot water by "insulting" homemakers with her, "I"m not Tammy Wynette, standing by her man" and references to not "staying home and baking cookies."

You see, we were not the least offended, but we realized that a lot of women were. The women who remained in the same old stereotypical roles that has always been assigned for women? Oh they were insulted, and angry that we "professional" women had the temerity to look down upon them.

In fairness, we did of course. It took us some time to get over our radical rhetoric and realize that we were attempting to give women choices, not turn them all into CEO's and engineers. It was enough if you had the real choice to be WHATEVER YOU WISHED.

But I don't think some of those housewives ever forgot. We had made them feel small and insignificant, unwilling but more likely UNABLE to make it in the world of business where real decisions were made.

So secretly, (or not so) we were outraged at how Hillary was treated thereafter. She was the subject of every one's ire it seemed. The GOP of course, but also women who were "traditional".

We've watched her over the years. We've watched as a totally different set of rules and standards were set for her, unlike any of her male counterparts. We have seen her soldier on, overcoming, holding her head high.

She was accused of all sorts of things when she didn't throw Bill out for his sexual misadventures. She was judged, plain and simple. And there was no right to do that. Nobody knows what goes on in anybodies relationship, and nobody has the right to judge another for their decision to stay or leave, or what conditions they imposed for doing either. It was her business.

Hillary represents to us professional women of a certain age, all that we went through and endured in this "man's world". I can sit here and tell you a dozen examples that I faced as a lawyer, still operating largely among men. I was called to the bench one day by a judge that I had probably never spoken ten sentences to that didn't revolve around the law. He asked me out to lunch. When I demurred, he got mad, asking his court workers "what was wrong with her?" When they told him that I was dating a police officer, he really blew. How dare I turn down a judge for some silly cop?

Sometimes you paid for such "wrong answers" for weeks or months, before some semblance of professionalism returned to your relationship.

Hillary was one of our role models. When we grew weary of playing "the game" ( and make no mistake we all played), we looked to her and gained renewed strength. I don't want to make more of this than it was, but to all you men out there, and perhaps a certain segment of women who stayed home, it was rather awful at times. It was simply not fair. And it was the "way things were".

As the years have ensued, and Mrs. Clinton has gone on to success after success, the hatred of the right wing has if anything grown greater. They are still determined to take her down. Mostly they have not been successful. She is not down. But they have made life harder for her certainly. And over the years and decades of such attacks, a certain degree of it inevitably sticks.

Mrs. Clinton is perceived as "untrustworthy" by men and women who should know better. It is this vague thing they speak of, for they surely are unable to point to anything specific when you put it to them.

Now, by and large, we are prepared for that. Such is the life of all politicians to a degree. But with her, it has been over the top. And to hear people on our own "side" call her slanderous names in the hope that somehow that will translate into somebody, anybody, being will to throw a vote their way, is maddening, sick, and troubling.

Bernie's followers have been merciless. Out of control often, and not within his ability to control apparently, they flock to her events and try to cause trouble by calling her names. They threw money at her recently and referred to her as "Hey, HO, Hey HO, Hillary has got to go." in some sick sing-song reminiscent of her being propositioned as a streetwalker.

When you do this, you do it to us. We feel it, just as stingingly as if you had said it to us directly. You are reducing her to a vagina, unworthy to be talked to on equal terms. We have tried to gently explain this to you Bernie Bots. But you won't listen because you have found (or have been told it is possible) that all this attack business with garner a vote or two. Perhaps it will, but never enough.

Never enough because with each slur you offer this woman, you make US more determined than ever. And of course, it is all over now. You can of course continue to help the GOP by running her down, but we kind of all know how this will end. And we will remember.

You may suggest that we "friend" up again on Facebook. I'd suggest you don't bother. We are gulfs apart you and I, I suspect. I don't place all the blame on you. I share in it as well. Apparently we never impressed upon you younger men and women just how fucking UNFAIR it was when I was a kid. Apparently you think this "women are paid 79c on the dollar business" as some relic from something you can't even imagine.

Well, we can imagine, because we endured. We lived through it. We struggled, never sure where our professionalism did or should leave off and our womanly attributes be thrust forth. We had to figure out where to "draw the line" a dozen times a week, sometimes in a day. What to resent. What to react to with hostility. What to ignore. What to forgive. What to SMILE THROUGH AND TAKE!

We didn't teach you fools just how bad it was, so you could be protective of FREEDOM to be who and what you want. It's why we are so damned supportive of gays and trans people, and immigrants, and all the "others" of the world. Because WE DAMN IT HAVE BEEN THERE AND DONE THAT.

Yes, kiddo, Bernie is a fine fellow with a fine agenda. He tells us what we can dream for. His sort are always necessary and desirable. But she is one of the doers. She translates the dreams as she has over the years, into policies and legislation and coalitions of people ready and willing to work to improve the lives of average women and children and men too in incremental ways. And as the decades go by, all that incremental stuff adds up and we make another leap forward. We moved from DOMA to full marriage equality didn't we?

So defriend me all you want, I'm better off for it I'm sure. But know this. If you attack her, you attack me. And I'm not nearly as nice as she is.

Spot Ya A Synapse and Raise You one Neuron

Spoiler Alert! Reading further may make your brain hurt!

And it will hurt yours worse than mine, because mine is rather used to the chaos in here.

I'm a collection of anomalies. There I said it. I am as contradictive and dystopian as one can get. And since that sentence probably made little sense to you, well, you see how crazy it is in here?

Okay, there is this.

Life is sorta like events interspersed with getting groceries, clipping your toenails and cleaning the lint filter in the dryer. You get what I mean. We get hired, fired, a baby is born, a grandparent dies, one contracts beriberi and one rejoices at the first tomato. In between is all the "stuff" of normalcy, passing as chores, and "routine".  We get up, we shit, we wash, we dress, we fit widgets with washers and then we come home, eat, vegetate and pass out for a few hours only to do it all over again.

Endlessly.

It's that last part that makes me shudder.

I remember being around 40ish, practicing law in dreary, scary, boring Detroit, and looking at doddering old fools in their 80's shuffling around, dropping files and papers, not being able to hear their case called very well, grabbing their victim client firmly by the arm and marching them through a plea agreement neither one understood much at all.

I cringed, not so much for the luckless client as for the picture of me doing that, that transferred into my mind and made me want to run for the nearest ledge to leap from. I dinna wanna do that when I was 80.

The endless drudgery of sameness damned near stultified my breathing.

I have never been able to comfortably imagine doing the same thing for EVER. I mean the idea of living in the same house for 40 years unnerves me. To live and die within a radius of a hundred miles fills me with such sorrow and terror actually that I would feign take a turn at the local YWCA in Salt Lake rather than live all my life one place.

Why?

Have no clue.

Just is.

Doing the same thing forever, in the same place, fills me with dread. I avoid it, have avoided it for a good portion of my life. I'm not your hi, marry me, lets have babies together, you work, I'll work, and we will raise these kids, retire, adore grandchildren, and die in a bed surrounded by all those we love. It's the scenario most buy into, happily I presume.

Me? Terrifies me. Perhaps it's because I have a family with way too many people I don't really care much for. Spending a lifetime in that company will neutralize whatever intellect one started with I'm quite sure.

Now we get to the OTHER side.

I am not the person you would call to do something spontaneous. I hate spontaneity. I gotta plan ahead. That's all there is to it. No, I will not pack a bag and fly to Paris with you on the "spur of the moment" whatever the hell spur means in that context. No I will not.

Change my pool time, and it will take me a couple of weeks to rearrange all my other rituals and routines to fit the new schedule. And I won't feel the least comfortable until I've tweaked it sufficiently such that it feels "normal" to me.

I'm doing that now. I'm at the pool now at 6 a.m., a full two hours earlier. So no reading in the morning, no breakfast, no planning menus and other trivia. No first load of clothes in the dryer as I leave. It's all upended and I'm uncomfortable.

Tell me how these two very clear focuses on life can live together in one aging body? Please!

Now add this gem.

I separate "ongoing learning" from "set learning". Set learning is that body of knowledge all tend to agree is necessary to be absorbed before one is entitled to call oneself a bricklayer, lawyer, or accountant. Once you have learned the "set" of instructions on any subject, you may be that thing, and do that thing usually with some certificate called a license.

This is the money-making enterprise, the thing that makes everything else go. It earns the bucks that enables the dryer to be bought, the steak to be savored, and the grill to be heated up. Trouble is, I'm one of those "once I have learned the set knowledge, and proven that I get it and can use it properly," I'm pretty much done. Bored out of my skull.

Ready to move on.

Not a healthy way to earn a living consistently.

Ongoing learning is the thing I crave. It's the learning that has no end, each new discovery leading to new questions  and a new line of investigation. I crave it, I love it, I embrace it.

Very cool when the two come together. But I chose law, which is the epitome of set learning. It doesn't mean you don't continually update some of the info, because you do. But one does a lot of it by rote. I shoulda chose something like theology or paleontology, both subjects I've come to love.

Of course, being from a working class family, one doesn't dawdle with foo-foo professions that don't lead to jobs in the known free world. Last time I check Kraft Foods was not looking for a theologian. In fact, about the only people who do look for "on going learning" sorts  are universities. And I didn't think I wanted to teach it.

Kaleidoscope your way into now and see how it all fell out?

Well, being retired, I no longer am bored out of my skull by "beginning with Terry v Ohio,  and Cady v Dombrowski, et al. . . ." dialogues with yawning prosecutors and judges paging through their favorite magazine on the bench. That's the good part.

I made enough money, married enough money, that I was allowed to leave that past behind and concentrate on what I wanted to do NOW.

I figured, as most early retirees do, that just "doin what I want" would be splendid. It is, to a point. Then it becomes boring and meaningless and well, yes, endless. And the old fears return. Is there nothing new under the sun for me?

I seem to have found the right arrangement recently. It's a mixture of "doin what I want" and adding in some ongoing learning, and a bit of set learning too. It's learning new crafts, new ideas, new subjects of interest to concentrate on. It's blending and mixing it all up somehow into an easy but busy day that leave one satisfied at the end that one has "accomplished something."

I always say, feed the mind, the soul, the body. It's balance and each person much figure out what balance works best for them.

Right now, I'm engaged in learning to knit socks (class starts first Sunday in February), learning Spanish, (classes one hour a week), getting to the end of at least one "100 books you should read in your life"list,  and recombining a lot of things I do already that nurture me spiritually and bodily. When those are mastered, I'll seek new adventures. I have some new leads to volunteer work that might suit me as well.

The best part is I have a partner both flexible and with ideas of his own, and we can combine some things (like the Spanish classes) and go our own way on others. Discussing our triumphs and failures, our minor successes and near misses adds variety and excitement to our life together.

So, somehow I come to grips with my need and desire for routine, and my fear and loathing of sameness, and I manage to fashion a life that suits me.

Whether I am odd or normal is really of no concern to me. What you think isn't either but still I'd be interested in how you see the world. Are you married to a spot on this earth that is "home" and feels perfect forever? Or are you like me, always looking for something new to fit into your comfortable routine?

I really hope it turns out I'm odd. I would like to be odd. It's something to aim for.

Magic Gloves and the GOP Race

This has been an ongoing conversation in our home. No doubt it's raging in yours as well. My job? To give voice to the insanity.

Once upon a time there was a game called football. No reason why it was called football, since feet play a minor part in the game. But football it was called.

Now, for a long time, people just ran around chasing the person with the ball. Then came passing. Passing allowed the garnering of greater yardage (important in the concept of "moving the ball"), and at least gave  hope to the "receiver" (also known as a "catcher" not to be confused with a baseball player of the same name) that he might skedaddle into the "end zone" (the place where everyone wants to be) with nary a bruise to his precious skin.

Soon receivers became diversified into tight ends and split ends (not to be confused to anal personalities or the horrors of bad hair)."Wide" receivers (not obese mind you) "spread" the field. This required those who oppose them and attempt to steal the ball for themselves and their posterity, also get specific names such as safety and cornerback, though what these had to do with feeling secure or not being under a dunce cap, is harder to discern.

A particularized problem of said "receiving corp" is how to "hang on" to the ball. Now this in and of itself leads to misdirection, since there is nothing by which one can "hang". The ball being a strange configuration, neither round nor oval exactly nor rectangular. As such, it infuriates the most ardent player/observer with it's (the ball's that is) propensity to go off in all sorts of directions and bounce precariously on the head of a pin before "dying" or tumbling, or ricocheting backwards at the most inopportune of times.

Thus magic gloves.

Well, there were other things before. 

First, back in the cave man days, there was of course one's God-given hand, palm, and fingers which did the job. Said hands suffered as one might expect from exposure to the elements (dishpan hands!), and being stepped on, bitten, and spit on all for good measure.

Balls continued to fall from eager fingers onto the turf.

What to do?

The NFL is about money, and fans like catches not drops.

Enter gloves.

Gloves now, were initially just that, gloves. Designed to do what all gloves do, or should do I imagine... Keep the patties dry, warmer, and free from irritations. And no doubt they worked as expected.

They did not however, enhance in any great way, the ability to catch the oddity known as a football. By now, one hopes you are clear that this football is not what the world knows as football, which is really soccer as EVERYONE in America knows, and given that we are the biggest baddest ass on the block, our definition always holds forth.

So, receivers of all sorts continued their search for ball security.

Stick um.

Yes, I know. I mean seriously couldn't you even call it Miracle Goo?

So they used that until the damn balls got so blessed sticky that even the refs (whom everyone knows come from an island noted for it's care of the blind) said, "hey what the hell is on this ball?" and got another one. Forcing more stick um use, and more sticky balls (don't you DARE go there), and more confused referees.

Now everyone is actually in favor of confused referees, because they are such a humorous lot generally, but the damn stick um was starting to seep through gloves and players said their hands were stuck to steering wheels going home, and they had to sleep all night gripping the car keys because they couldn't let them go. So it was becoming a bit of a problem. (Don't even get me started at all the wide receivers who were being arrested for shoplifting!)

So stick um was declared verboten.

Enter the magic glove.

Channel the Gecko lizard. Think of his tiny little feet.

Each little rib acts as an individual "gripper" (not gipper you fool). Thus if even a finger touches the pigskin (doesn't work on penguin skin I'm told, but don't rely on me on this point), it sticks like glue until peeled off.

Allowing the most phenomenal "catches" which is sorta like this:

Or we could call them "snatches" (DO NOT GO THERE EITHER). Or "picks" but to be fair, picks are not pictures at all but the thing that happens when the QB fails to throw the pigskin near enough to the magic gloves of the receiver to enter into the field of magnetism drawing the ball to the finger tips. With such failure, the ball may pass too near the magic gloves of the "safety" or "cornerman" and be captured for the other side.

What does all this mean?

Nothing much. Or everything, depending on where you lie on the "football is necessary for my life" spectrum.

So, if this means nothing, well, get ready to be really pissed.

This post has nothing to do with the GOP race. But it made for a catchy title no?

Anyway, I don't count these "catches" of much account any more. I just yell "magic gloves" when another amazing, can't be done, sorta catch is seen. I don't like magic gloves.

Now that you mention it, I don't care for the day-glo colors, the "tights"worn now instead of socks, and the fanny packs which seem de rigeur these days so one's lipstick and powder are always available for those touch-ups after a particularly feisty tackle.

I wanna go back to men in leather helmets and no teeth grunting and gouging, spitting, and biting. No more inventive dance routines in the end zone, no more "hey look at me, I did my job of tackling that dude, for which I'm paid 17 million dollars. Aren't you impressed?"

Can you just play the stupid game?

How ISIS Helps Us

If one watched, as I did, both of the presidential debates this past week, one came away slightly confused.

According to the nine-thousand candidates running for the GOP, we are moments away from Armageddon, World War III, or a Hanukkah party, not sure which.

Anyway, they are all super scared and threatening to blow up Russian jet fighters, the sands of Syria, and the families of identified or not "terrorists". It's back to duck and cover and home prep for the coming chaos.

But nobody is trying to sell you a bomb shelter this time. Rather it's guns. Bigger and better, faster and deadlier, guns baby.

Solemnly, each and every one of them tell us that it's guns that will keep us safe. And your sons and daughters lives will keep us safe in the Middle East, where it is imperative we send more and more and more bodies to offer themselves to the gods of oil, who will properly maintain that natural resource for those who know how to use it arightly--the good old US of A.

Yet, on Saturday, the Democrats managed to have a civil, quiet, and at times fairly nuanced discussion about terrorism and how best to resist it.

Fear seems to be winning.

No longer fearful of being as they put it "politically correct" they lash out at Obama, demanding that no immigrants, especially not refugees be admitted to our fairly racist shores until and unless we can be assured that every single would-be terrorist is removed from the possibility of being in their numbers.

Now, when is the last time that law enforcement stopped by to assure you that they were watching your home 24/7 because they were required to make sure that NO burglar  violated your home? or stole your car? or ripped off some green apples from your tree?

Oh, this is different how?

Are you assured that lightening won't strike you during a rain storm? How 'bout whether that drunk driver will happen to be at your stop sign this morning and forget to stop? Are you demanding 100% assurance that these things won't befall you?

Yet you demand the same of the government.

The GOP urges you to at least.

Even though you are probably more likely to get hit by that bus today than you are to fall victim to a terrorist attack, domestic or otherwise.

Where would that stop? If the government is required to assure your utter safety, are they required to assure it from yourself? Are helmet laws, seat belt laws, dietary laws, part of the deal? How far is too far? Should you be limited to home much booze you can buy?

Now you may rebel at this idea, and say, hell no, what I do to myself is my own business. But it's not of course. You right to get stinkin' drunk stops where my right to live without being run over starts. I have some say in all the money you are wasting on treatment too don't I?

My point, I take it, is clear.

So the party of small government isn't really about small government at all. It's WHERE that government intrudes that is the problem. Business? Oh stay out of the way government. My uterus? Come on in and manage my life for me.

Since being afraid to go to the mall or the movie theatre or to the park is insane and not logical as we now see, what say we about those people who are mere seconds away from peeing their britches at the mention of refugees?

A host of men, mostly white, spend an hour strapping on all their guns and ammo belts before they walk their child to the teeter totter, ready at a moment's notice to mow down the terrorist lurking behind the monkey bars.

They do this out of a hysterical terror so great that no amount of weaponry is seemingly enough. With shades of pretending to respond to Call of Duty with patriotic fervor, such men assure us that "they will protect us." The reality of course is quite different.

Experts all agree, people that are not professionally trained, seldom if ever stop a bad guy. Most realize it if it indeed happens that they have no way to identify themselves as a "good guy" and so keep their shootin' irons holstered. The rest, given their intense level of terror, end up effectually neutralized, most sitting in a puddle of urine of their own creation.

So ISIS helps sort out those types for us. They are, oddly enough, just the sort of folks whom psychologists would suggest shouldn't be allowed to even come close enough to a gun to see it.

ISIS sorts out the sort of people who claim to believe such fear-mongering dogma, for the stupid and/or lying people that they are. Either they are too stupid to know better, or they know quite well the absurdity of their claims, but it's really about feeling the fresh air of naked racist/bigoted hate that really turns them on. We need to identify both sorts and keep them weaponless.

Plenty of people suggest to me, hey, live and let live. You're entitled to an opinion. I am too. And if you don't agree, smile and move on.

Do we live in such times where we can abide by the niceties of "don't discuss politics or religion" in polite company? I say no. We don't. We live in frightful times. And we cannot afford the luxury of letting everyone have "his say."

The fact is that there is nothing in the constitution that requires us to all have our say. So I am not compelled to do so, and more so when your opinion is damaging and dangerous. I have a duty, so it seems to me, to alert you of your error with facts and figures. I should not and must not allow you the comfort of thinking you're right so you can return to work on restoring that 57 Chevy, satisfied that you have considered the political implications of the latest Import/Export banking authorization.

All is not well. Your opinions are dangerous, and they hurt us all. We have a duty to inform you of that, stymie further of your kind from thinking you and they are right, and spreading it further without strong opposition.

Our duties as citizens compels us to speak up.

No doubt some will argue that that is merely a self-serving defense of a practice I find particularly embracing where you don't. That may be true, but that by itself does not negate my argument.

Democracy is a hands on sort of political system. It REQUIRES its citizens to maintain real knowledge of world events and alternative ways of responding. It requires not just a citizenry that is trained to operate within it, but one EDUCATED to steering it properly down the road. Those are two different things friends.

We have damn few of the latter.

The fact that you were taught to read and write and cipher in a limited fashion doesn't give you ANY basis for concluding that you have any right to decide whether this treaty or that piece of legislation is good or bad. You have to DO something with those skills of reading and writing. It's knowing HOW and on WHAT to use them that matters. And no, it's not to thumb through the Better Homes and Gardens or Outdoor Life.

I'm sick of memes about a fake "war on Christmas". I'm sick of memes about questioning what we do for others, when we have so many at home in want. (We can do both.) I'm sick of memes that tell me that guns don't kill people. They are stupid, absurd, and meaningless.

I'm sick of things that don't matter at all, but serve to dilute, distract, and misdirect the great unwashed millions who are "not dumb" but little more. Like the proverbial dog and the word squirrel, we are no different. Present us with shiny new toys, new movies, new games, and we are off to the races, with nary a secondary nod to that terrorists that may be hiding in aisles of  Barnes and Noble at the mall. When we got nothing better to do, we get all gangsta on the terrorists as we delight to visions of ourselves as modern Rambos.

Will the madness end? Surely. But no doubt it will be replaced by another "other". The powers that rule the world have good reason to keep you always looking NOT at them.

Wake up, smarten up, speak up.

The Shame That is the GOP

I dunno about your household, but mine is a riot sometimes.

My husband, the ubiquitous "rational animal" and I, the ubiquitous "burn it down" anarchist, are often at odds politically. This stands to reason of course.

The Contrarian prides himself on NEVER (oops) using absolute terms. He objects to me telling him that he NEVER picks up after himself, preferring the term, OFTEN perhaps or ONCE IN A WHILE. Since he NEVER picks up after himself, I feel well within my spousal prerogatives in whining, nagging, reminding him gently of his failings.

He carries this unreasonable desire for rationality over to the political sphere as well, where, as we all known, rationality usually has no part, and if it does, it's a walk-on part with no lines and pays only union base. This means, that on no account will I get away with saying that ALL Republicans say or do anything other than pee standing up if male (making due allowances for Ms. Lindsey of course).

So, since he's no where around right now, let us proceed to call a spade a spade and an idiot an idiot.

I make no claims to special knowledge, nor accurate reflection and opinion generated by a white-hot recollection of all that I have seen and heard. Meaning, I'm often wrong. I'm wrong about a whole slew of things that I don't care about being either right or wrong about. I care not whether I understand what "rebooting the router" means, nor how that works. I care only that it does, and that the rebooter is not myself.

On politics I'm more right than wrong, and daresay that on some things, I might well mimic my new idol Maude Petre, theologian, who suggested that she believed herself so right in her conclusions about God that it would take God himself to tell her she was wrong. I stand with her, and reject the Contrarian's oft repeated admonition: Don't say, ALL, because it simply fosters more of the division in this country that keeps us from moving forward.

ALL, ALL, ALL, ALL.

There.

That being said.

Given that I suggested that the ceiling for Mr. Trump in his quest for whatever the hell it is he's questing for, was about 25%. That was, I figured the top of his appeal. Now I've oft stated that an electorate/population containing only 10/% intelligent rational people is enough to run any civilization, since we are here and not ---------------------------------> there. In that I jested a bit, figuring that in reality any society can handle about 25% stupid and still limp along despite the constant irritation of stupid people getting in the way.

Well, Trump is up in some polls at least to 41%.

This is scary stuff indeed, if you are my husband. Not so much for me. I'll tell you why.

Trump says a lot of really weird stuff. He says stuff that is outright, downright, racist, sexist, and Islamophobic. He makes it clear he has no clue what the nuclear triad even is, let alone what priorities should exist between the three elements. He says he will build a great fence, and the Mexicans will pay for it. He says he will create deals the likes of which the world has to this point never believed possible. Each of us will get a banana split with cherries on top each Sunday. He says a lot of things.

I have no clue what he really believes about ANYTHING. I've heard him say quite different things if I look at old footage of a few years back.

I do know that he knows (as do all smart politicians) what people are really thinking, or at least that part of "the people" that might vote for you if you tap into their thoughts. And he burps that out in soundbites that excite and grow hard-ons for the loyal down home boys whose carbine is never far from their eager hands.

Now these folks are not educated. They are not natively intelligent either. They are much like dear pets that consistently appear to have somewhere to go, but in reality are just walking around trying to remember why they got up in the first place. They are not very successful people, and they feel bad about that when they see people on the TV with all their shiny toys and acting like it was all normal and such to have such fine things.

So, they look for reasons excuses for why it ain't their fault. It's gotta be somebody's of course.

Trump and company come to the rescue.

The GOP en masse, offers any number of willing "causes" of the plight of the white/middle-aged/high-school diplomaed/working stiff dude. It's women and their uppity ways, it's blacks and theirs, it's Mexicans and theirs, it's gays and theirs, it's Muslims and theirs, and its libtards and theirs. (There could be more, but in the end white boys have limited capacities for remembering too many litanies).

Over and over, the ever-lazier media enunciates after the latest Trump spew, "well that's it. You can expect his poll numbers to drop now. Nobody is going to stand by while he spouts stuff that is unconstitutional, unAmerican, and immoral." Yet the numbers rise.And they throw up their hands in disbelief and wonder and move on until the next time they are sure he's tanking.

So what is going on?

It's simple really. Forget what Trump believes. I doubt it's what you or I thinks he believes. But he KNOWS what THEY think. In this he is no different than knuckle draggers like Huck or Randy P., or Cruz, or Rubio. He may be unlike Benjie Carson, whom I contend that history is proving is nothing but a idiot savant. They all KNOW what THEY think.

All the rest except Trump rely on the tried and true "code" for alerting their base that they agree with what THEY think, without being so crass and rude to say it out loud. Also they know, that EVEN IF there are a WHOLE LOT of THEM, it's not enough to win national elections. So they use the code. They are for your "freedoms" "law and order" "pride of work" and all the other slogans that stand for "hint, hint, nudge, nudge, we hate 'em too".

They, in other words, play the game.

Trump, thumbing his nose at the entire political enterprise, simple says what is actually lurking in the sad hateful minds of the mob. "They're rapists, they kill our families, they steal our jobs." He says it in technicolor with no nuances, no filters. It's raw hate, and it's the true beliefs of an enormous number of Americans. They HATE political correctness, because  then they have to wait until they are among friends to use the words they really think in.

His base will not go away because he says exactly what they crave to hear. They applaud the removal of the "code" in favor of the real words they long to give an "amen" to.

And here's what's worse.

Ted Cruz, knows this base and wants it for himself. He won't use the words, because in his stupidity, he actually believes he can be palatable to more than 50% of the electorate. He will play the game of code, while being nice to the Donald, all the while plotting and scheming to be the recipient of that great hate. His hands are eager to embrace it. His heart is eager to lead the people to God's kingdom on a hill filled with all the rest of his Dominionist rant.

And the rest are not far behind.

They all to one degree or another support torture if we need to use it, more troops dying over seas to prove that we are still the biggest bully in town. They all agree and continue using the code words that alert this great swath of haters that they count.

They call Trump names. The more desperate the campaign the louder the outrage at Mr. Trump's limited understanding of world politics, his impractical, unconstitutional, and yes, even inhumane plans. They attack at his effrontery to gain acceptance among the very sort of sick sad humans they want to court.

And yet.

They either dodge, or admit. Admit what?

Oh, if Trump is the standard bearer for the party, yeah, they will vote for him.

Because that is code. That is code for, and if he doesn't get it, please remember me when you cast your vote. I am just like Donald, just cleaner. Or smarter. Or whatever.

That designates the entire GOP as not having the moral rectitude of your average ant eater. To suggest that even a Donald Trump is better than a Martin O'Malley for instance, is insane. It's untrue. It's absurd. And if they say it, they don't mean it. What they do mean, is that I can play in the mud with you folks, but I'm trying to remain neat for those independents and the stray Democrat whom we can hold by appealing to their visceral fear of socialism and death squads.

This is the shame of the GOP. That it ends up standing for nothing at all, except it's willingness to play down to the lowest common denominator when it comes to human existence. It is a party bereft of compassion, empathy, forgiveness. It's a party devoted to rewarding those that feed it--big business, all the while pushing the lie that giving more to the haves will somehow rebound to the poor.

It is willing through it's climate change denial, to see future generations reduced to poverty, and then death, all because campaign contributions from oil and gas interests arrive monthly as needed.

If you cannot call a rabid dog such, then you aren't much of a champion of anything are you? If you can't put it down, stopping its rampage that increasingly aids our enemies and gives comfort to them as well, well, there isn't much to be said for you. You are crass individuals in love with your own rhetoric. You made your choice years ago, when you decided that a good life could be had  on the country's dime.

That's why Trump continues. They have no guts to even try to stop him.

And in the end, he does our work for us. There is no doubt who won't win in 2016.

This Crazy Thing Called Faith

What do you have faith in? Anything? Nothing? The usual?

Are faith and belief the same thing?

I have been reading some stuff on faith, and more importantly (at least to me) doubt. How do they fit, relate, contradict each other?

Faith is a journey for sure. Anyone who claims it for an end is selling themselves and God short. Oh sure, the evangelicals of the rightie-tightie persuasion will affirm in loud and clear voice that they have no doubt. The louder and more vociferously they announce it signifies but the true terror they live in that they won't be believed. Think, thou protest too much.

We believe in God. We have faith that God is worthy of that belief. Blasphemy? No, just honesty. The fundamentalist is incapable of such honesty, because fear rules them so fiercely. Fear that if they allow one smidgen of doubt to be recognized, God will surely abandon them. Such a God they create.

To believe means to choose to accept certain propositions and doctrines. It doesn't mean that you don't question them, incessantly in some cases, but question them we do and must. For we are thinking beings, thinking about another thinking being. We are the creation of that being, and we long to understand.

The Church, by long and troubled contemplation announces the doctrines and creeds that it concludes reflect true belief. That of course doesn't mean they actually know true belief at all, but they have a worthy history that allows them to claim some superiority, since no one can match the amount of time it has spent on such issues.

Still, the Holy Spirit blows as it will.

We are urged as Catholics certainly, that nothing should supplant our earnest, well-thought out, well-prayed through conclusions. Yet, we are then assured that in most cases at least, the Church should be respected and looked to as more likely to have found truth than the average person's paltry attempts. All Christians should at least agree that constant attention to the big questions are in order. We cannot and should not give over this responsibility to any institution, no matter how benevolent it appears.

In the end, faith is personal, dependent upon the developed relationship between Creator and creation. The Church offers it's expertise and experience, but the walk is ours.

Faith is lively when it is full of questions and in tension at all times. We wish a God who "knows" the outcome of life, yet we cling to our need to be free to make choices ourselves. We want the assurance and safety of a universe all wrapped up and tied with a bow, yet we rebel at any notion that the game is "rigged and fixed."

We are growing with God. Perhaps God is also growing, learning, and adjusting. We certainly are, or should be. When we spake as a child, our notions were childish. As we grow into our personal and collective adulthood, we should begin speaking as an adult, and our thinking should grow up as well.

In any case, what once concerned us is solved, and then a bit further along, something else concerns us, and we struggle once again to bring into agreement new insights and new conflicts. We reread scripture, looking for clues for our new questions and perhaps some old bugaboos.

We let it be when we are fragile and weak, we push on boldly, sure that both God and we can take it, when we are strong. We live in grace, offered, rejected, ignored, toyed with, fondled, left until tomorrow. We are after all human.

I struggle with many issues. I find myself in extreme disagreement with my Church on many issues. That leads to a "go it alone" attitude. Yet Church is also community, a concept reflected countless times within sacred writings, as well as in the Trinity itself. We don't do faith rightly it seems alone. We cannot nod and smile as we sleep in on Sunday, assuring ourselves that we are "spiritual" not religious.

Religion is getting a very bad rap these days. Everywhere you look, the extremists within faith traditions use this powerful tool to entrap followers into their rigid thinking, "doing it for God" so we claim, all the while we seek our own ends, be they belonging, power, money, or misguided assurances of ultimate truth and finality. So many need to KNOW, to be certain.

The need for this certainty leads to the  radicalizing of  sacred books into manuals for extending one's beliefs to encompass all comers, willing or otherwise. It leads to fundamentalism and its inherent limitations. One must reject any possibility of doubt, for doubt means failure. Doubt is no faith. So they say.

But of course this is not true. It is just convenient. It serves to prevent the exodus of disaffected believers or to their maturing, if lucky. It keeps them docile, malleable, lead able. We need to grow if we are to do more than give glib responses to creedal demands.

Walter Brueggemann, OT scholar extraordinaire, writes that the OT suggests a God in conversation with His creation. God asks questions. Humans lament, argue, deny, refuse, bargain, accept grudgingly. Look at the prophets and what they endured. How they begged to be released from the calling. Jesus cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" It is our nature, and perhaps God's as well.

I am in deep contemplation of many things again. I am returning to "churchy" things, if not permanently, then for as long as it seems good and valuable to me. Last week, we returned in liturgy to the opening chapters of Genesis. God, enters the garden and cannot locate his creation. He calls out "Where are you?"

That question hit me between the eyes, for it spoke to exactly where I am today. I am trying to figure out where I am in this world of faith, with all its troubling aspects. Some move to agnosticism--whatever God is or isn't is beyond me! or worse, atheism--"I'm taking the easy way out. If I can't prove God, than I'm going to forget it as impossible and not worth the time." Some struggle with the question, until some satisfaction is reached. Before a new question arises.

This is the way of faith. The right way of faith I would contend. I may be no nearer the resolution of anything, yet I feel the better for the trying. I feel clearer in my mind why I do or don't do, think or don't think, say or don't say things. It settles things for a time, even though I know the time will be limited.

God, to me at least, will always be such. Fascinating yet just out of reach. I will never draw a picture of God that is true or satisfactory. I will only in the end fashion? or uncover some notion of God that works for me at that time and place. That is all that is necessary. To know that this God is adjustable, to meet my needs, as I struggle to understand. is enough. That truth is enough today.

This journey is done in fits and starts. Highs and lows distribute themselves along a continuum of feeling presence to utter absence. I'm somewhere along that line at every moment. I feel okay with being in many places along it at any given time, and then wildly at odds with where I am, and ready t move.

I like thinking that God learns things. I love it that God doesn't pretend to know everything. I am okay if God can't fix everything, or maybe even nothing. Sometimes at least. God remains the moving target that I can barely get sighted in on before He surprises me once again.

I keep my bags packed. God tends to want to travel at a moment's notice. It's best to be ready.

Stand Up and Count the Ways

A week or so ago, I posted an amusing little meme of which Facebook is full of. It can be about just anything. How spiritual are you? Are you an honest person? What profession should you have chosen? Where should you be living? What is your "animal spirit"?

Many of these things are posted each week. And like many of my friends, I answer some of them, purely for amusement usually.

Some, so I conclude, merely rifle through your public pages in Facebook and magically discern who or what you are by what you have said in the past.

Anyway, this one was entitled "what kind of friend are you?" and it determined the answer by looking at my wall history. The results were funny to me, but apparently my response gave people pause. So much pause in fact that they said not a word.

The results of my inquiry were that I was

My response was this:

I am so NOT loyal...I'm actually a terrible best friend...I am an only child, I never learned to share...I am selfish. I am self-centered. I am me first oriented. I make small exceptions for my husband and dogs...other than that, I am a rotten friend...don't bother me unless I call you first....seriously...pretty much I am telling you the truth...

Now, first of all, what I said is essentially true. I am not necessarily proud of that, but it is true. I have no loyalty to my country certainly, finding such a thing rather odd and misbegotten as an idea in the first place. I do not mean that I will not stand up for a friend when they are unfairly maligned in my view, but the part about "always being there for? well, no that is not me.

I'm not sure why nobody commented. It may be that they were appalled at my statement and recoiled in disgust. It may be that they felt uncomfortable with my admission and figured the less said the better.

Yet I meant it as no arrogant Trump-like bit of bravado. As I said, I'm not particularly proud of this. But I am not the least ashamed of being myself in public. I despise the idea of public and private "faces" if you will.

Catholicism, or more particularly, my acquisition of faith wrought changes in my life, as one would expect. I took seriously the idea of reflective examination of conscious, which is part of the faith "routine" common to my tradition. Introspection is a valuable tool and one that as we age, hopefully we get better at. It's rather difficult to stop making the same mistakes if you aren't thoroughly grounded in why you are making them.

So, through meditation, and just plain long bouts of thinking about who, what and why I am and why I think and do as I do is a common experience for me.

 I believe that God's love is unconditional, I believe mine for myself must be as well. It is necessary to drag out and examine in detail all the dirty places as well as the clean ones. All the dark must be exposed to the light if you will, if it still will return to darkness when the light is dimmed. And as I stated above, one's dark places cannot be permanently lightened without critical examination in as ruthless a manner as possible.

First impressions, first explanations are seldom the real ones. The probe must be deep.

Some years ago, perhaps 4-5, I used to argue regularly with a fellow a bit older than I who chose to deny climate change. Our discussions sometimes deteriorated into rather unkind shouting matches. One day he posted asking if I was aware that I was not liked by a number of people on that particular page.

I laughed, and said, I was not particularly concerned about who liked me. He was dumbfounded. He couldn't understand how any "normal" person wouldn't care what others thought of them. I couldn't understand why a "normal" person wasn't well past such nonsense by his age.

Age does funny things to people. Seeing the sand running ever faster out of the hourglass causes some changes in how one lives. I have no time for stupid. I have no time for people who annoy me. I cannot any longer care what anyone thinks.

To a point. There is always a point. Rank and file, I don't give a damn what anyone thinks of my politics or my faith, or my lifestyle, or just about anything. But that doesn't mean I don't care about improving myself among those that matter!

I care what my husband thinks. And I have a list of people I know, who are so much better humans than I will ever be. Their opinions all count a lot. If any of them were to tell me, that I was not "likeable" or I was not "honest" or any other trait that I deem essential to have, I would be most distressed, and I would spend the appropriate time sifting through their opinion, and thinking carefully and deeply about the validity of their claim.

I would do this because I have done this. More times than I would like to admit.

Look, we are all human. We all make mistakes. We are all (if we believe Star Trek's The Enemy Within, [season 1, episode 5]) a composite of good and bad traits. And we need both sides of us to be complete. Which is not to say that change is wrong, or unattainable.

If I am more open with my foibles than most, account it a well-studied interior on display. I am not embarrassed nor ashamed. I am not proud either. I am who I am.

Each and every one of you is too. You may carefully hide the bad, but we know it's there. I'm not chastising you in any way, I'm merely stating the obvious. And to the degree that ANYONE is bothered, ashamed, and determined to hide from the world their awfulness, I say--DON'T. You're not worse than pretty much anybody else.

I speak out on these personal things only to let others know that they can relax too. They're normal. You are not some horrible witch because you always take the best pork chop when no one is looking. Or a slightly extra size piece of pie. Or that you hid your sister's favorite doll and never did tell her where it was when you were eleven.

Being authentic is essential to me now. It was not when I was fifteen, and probably not so when I was twenty-five. But by sixty-five, I think it's rather time to be honest with myself, and if myself, then why not the world? There is no honesty in the pretense surely of being "normal" in all respects.

I'm not a loyal friend. My friends, such as they are, especially those of long duration, know this about me. They perhaps don't condone it, nor even like it much, but they know it's me. I know why I am that way. I make efforts, small as they may be to wear off the rough edges of my failing. I perhaps should do more, but that is not the point here. But I don't utterly believe it is wrong of me to be the way I am.

We are all such grand composites of so many things. We have each of us, our quirks, and eccentricities. They are our unique assets actually, the things that set up apart. We have phobias and bizarre spiritual beliefs. Who is to say which are good or bad even?

If knowing that I am a selfish person, admittedly so, helps one person to stop beating up on themselves and accept themselves, then I have served some purpose in my public mea culpa. Surely some traits we have are destructive, and we should tame them, eradicate them if necessary, but understand them we must. In order to do this, we have to accept that they are real, and that they inform our choices and decisions.

The devil you know is better than the one you don't.

What say you? If you wish, just list all your bad points and that will surely make me feel like a pretty good person in comparison.