Month: September 2009
Dream
Posted on September 30, 2009 in Dreams
After being defeated at some kind of word or number game played with seeds, pills, and string beans by my brother and his girlfriend (both of whom mock me for being so stupid because I cannot figure out the rules), I gather my things to go to school. At the door, my father ambushes me. He is mad because he says I think I am so smart ((My family felt it was their duty to bring down my ego at every turn by attacking my intelligence)) and tells me — even though the family dog who is a Boston terrier is rolling at my feet — that dogs don’t like me ((Again, a favorite taunt of his while I was growing up)) . He’s obviously crazy and though my mother tells me there is nothing to worry about, I flee to school. Here as the clock circles to the hour when we must go home, I despair. I can’t go home, I say to them. He’ll kill me. A homeless lady with a small long-haired dog that likes me, comes into the class as apparently is her habit and lets me have a pinch of raw sunflower seeds. Where will I go? I ask the class. How can I finish school if I don’t have a home?
Acrophobia 2
Posted on September 28, 2009 in Anxiety
If I am to keep acrophobia from overwhelming me, there’s a simple thing I must do: keep my butt firmly planted. I can get on a ski lift with my feet dangling hundreds of feet in the air and feel no fear. It is difficult to stand at the rim of a canyon, but I can sit with my feet hanging over the edge. No panic captures me until the moment when I stand up: evidentally, I do not trust my heels and toes to keep my head from toppling.
Roman Polanski Caught at Last
Posted on September 27, 2009 in Film Scoundrels
There is no doubt that Roman Polanski has contributed great works of film to the world archives. But there is also no doubt in my mind that he committed a heinous crime when he drugged and had sex with a 13 year old girl.
One can feel compassion for a criminal without endorsing his crime. I recall here the murder of Sharon Tate. I imagine the unbearable longing he must have felt after her murder by the Manson Family. There truly must have been a seeking, a desire for softness and beauty to fill the void. Roman Polanski loved young women, it is clear. But I do not mention this either as an excuse or as a reason to charge him. No, there are other factors that must be thought of.
What surprises me are the legions who are jumping to his defense, saying that he is “misunderstood” or the subject of a witch hunt. I remind readers of these facts: First, that he was convicted of the crime. Second, that his victim was a 13 year old girl — a womanly body who wasn’t even fair game in the eyes of the French. Third, he drugged this said female. So even if he “made an honest mistake” about the age of the girl ((Yeah, right.)) , he still raped her. Fourth, after his conviction, he got on board a Europe-bound 747 and has stayed out of the reach of California law ever since. So he knows what he did was wrong.
I simply have no sympathy for him regardless of gems like Tess that he made in the years after his trial. That any European country other than England — especially Switzerland — was willing to grab him by the collar for the long plane ride home surprises me. But this isn’t a matter of maintaining the sanctity of numbered bank accounts: we have here a convicted child-abusing felon on the run.
No amount of great art exonerates a man or a woman when a trespass is committed against the body of another person. Your past sorrows do not release you from the responsibilities of treating your fellow human beings with decency. For some crimes, such as rape and fleeing from conviction, there can be no statute of limitations.
UPDATE: A few arguments have been advanced to me on Twitter and I’d like to address them here.
First, there are questions about the trial. It was badly conducted, Polanski’s defenders say. This is leaving out the fact that Polanski was free on bail while he awaited his sentencing. It was during this interval that he fled. He could have appealed the decision, but instead he made a run for it. This suggests to me that he and his lawyer both felt that his chances of getting out via this avenue were limited.
Second, there is the complaint that the judge did not honor the deal that Polanski made with the prosecutors. Plea bargains are not writ into law. They simply say that if the defendant pleads guilty, the prosecutor will ask for a specific sentence. The judge is not obligated to accept the deal. Evidently what Polanski did so horrified the justice that he insisted on something more.
A few people say that the victim forgives Polanski and feels that the courts hurt her more. I can understand this, but it isn’t a reason for releasing Polanski. Behind this argument is another one — that this has already gone on too long. But consider this: if Polanski had served his sentence, this would be over for everyone. Instead he chose to hoof it to France.
There’s also the message being sent to other rape victims: the trial is going to be worse than the rape itself. So don’t accuse, don’t press charges, don’t participate. Let the rapist keep raping.
It’s outrageous that Polanski’s supporters are calling on one law for Polanski and another for everyone else. This is shades of the Simpson murder trial except with a different set of people.
For a discussion about what anti-rape activists say, check this article from the Los Angeles Times.
Tears of Blood
Posted on September 22, 2009 in Dogs
A fellow around the corner keeps a pair of dogs that are too big and too mean for the neighborhood. Nevertheless, we try to respect his property rights. Drake, on the other hand, feels it is his devotion to inform those canines that he deserves their respect. He could get this plain enough by ignoring them as they bark at his passing, but the pull on the leash towards them whenever we pass tells us that this low key approach does not suit him. He has to show ’em.
To avoid overexciting him, we pick up our pace or even run by until we reach a peaceful stretch of path where all the dogs forget about each other. We have another habit to which I must confess: to reward Drake at the end of walks, we sometimes let him walk with the leash dragging behind him. The plan is always to pick it up before he gets to where the big dogs are, but on Sunday night he dashed off before Lynn could grab him.
Straightaway he charged to the barred gate where his antagonists lurked. The larger and blacker of the two of them faced off our brindle boy. Fierce barking was exchanged. Drake squatted down on his side of the fence, simultaneously snarling and screaming. Lynn got his tether and goaded him back to the path. He marched with his head up for the few dozen paces back to our condo. When he got in the door, I pulled down a flashlight and shone it over his face.
The rims of his eyes were bright red. Tears of blood flowed from each. I had Lynn bring me Q-tips, hydrogen peroxide, and a clean paper towel. First, I wiped the bloody tears. Then I examined him more closely. An abrasion arced along the bone next to the eye. I carefully sponged this area. Drake sat placidly as I cleansed the wound and patted his head.
The sight of the blood tears worried me, so I checked the Web. Three different pet medicine sites said the same thing: if there is any bleeding from the eyes, take the dog to a vet immediately. Relaying this to Lynn before I dialed, I first called our regular vet then the veterinary emergency service his answering service recommended.
“I have a Boston Terrier,” I said. “He got into an argument through a fence with another dog and there’s bleeding from his eyes.” Boston Terriers, like pugs and bull dogs, have protruding eyes which can catch on twigs, claws, splinters, and even flecks of paint ((The vet told us that the sensitivity of Boston Terrier eyes is less than that of other dogs. Smushed-face dogs had that in common. He had seen pugs blissfully unaware that there were huge chunks of lint attached to their corneas.)) . We were told to come in immediately.
It was a relief to both of us that Drake didn’t paw at his eyes for this was a sign of trouble. Lynn noted that he tracked her finger well when she told him to Focus. Still eye injuries can be slight at first then become more serious as they get infected, the receptionist told us. Drake curled up in the back seat as we drove down to the clinic which is attached to the Mission Viejo animal shelter.
This place wasn’t new to us: it was the same clinic where my little Ambrose had been put down seven years ago. The staff had been kind, but it still ached as receptionist sent us into the same room where my beloved cat had been put to sleep, where I had rushed out in tears rather than face seeing him killed.
Our dog fared much better. The veterinary nurse happened to know him because she had cared for him at our regular doctor where she works days. Drake did not like the taking of his temperature (what dog or cat does?) but he was stoic as the thermometer did its job. The checkup showed that his eyes were less red than when we left. There was no sign of the red tears ((Our best guess about the blood was that his blood pressure was so high vessels inside the tear ducts burst. As he calmed down, they healed. We have seen no trouble since.)) . The night vet complimented me on my treatment of the abrasion, then rinsed and stained Drake’s eyes green so he could check for corneal scratches. There were none.
Drake left with a tube of ointment that we were to apply to his eyes three times each day. The drive home was so restful that I didn’t see that I had dropped my cell phone back at the clinic. (We recovered that later in the night.) Drake licked his paws, made his bed to his liking, and slept deep until Lynn woke him for his breakfast and morning walk.
Acrophobia
Posted on September 17, 2009 in Anxiety Travel - Conferences
We arrived after midnight, our flight having found the tarmac about fifteen minutes past schedule due to a takeoff line in Houston. The pilot could not find space in all that sky between Texas and Indiana to pick up time in or else he wanted to be sure that the stewards had enough time to pass out the mushed sandwiches that were the snack. It looked like we were the last plane to land in Indianapolis’s all glass airport. We waited for our checked bag, then caught an expensive cab that brought us to the Hyatt downtown.
Two stories of conference space, a mystery floor without an elevator exit, a revolving restaurant, and fourteen floors of rooms loomed over the open lobby. The desk clerk sent us to the seventh floor.
The elevators opened out onto contained space, but my hopes for a room that wasn’t facing the atrium were fractured and spewed like projectile vomit when I saw a sign directing us to the right and again to the right. A low wall separated the “hall” from the atrium — a black bottomless pit ringed by faintly lit balconies. Along most of the length of these terraces, the wall was solid. The sadist who designed these lofts found it fit, however, to install glass walls right next to the elevators (which had glass back walls themselves). As I edged toward our lodging, a large picture window directed at the Indiana State House opened on my left. I scurried past it and, keeping the wall near to my left, I crept towards door 729.
Lynn, wont to help, stepped between me and the outer wall in an attempt to shield me from the yawning maw of the hotel’s central courtyard. The reptilian part of my brain saw no charity in this: a feral impulse suggested that her move would tip the contents of the terrace down where our remains would be gawked at by the last people in the hotel’s bar, so I waved her back, back. We reached the door, stuck the card in the lock slot, and rushed in. With the door closed behind me, I felt safe from the abyss.
Over the course of the weekend, I dreamed of the empty darkness beyond the door. As I opened it, the floor would slant and I would be consumed by the motionless mouth of the hotel. I would wake up just as the wall shattered and my fall commenced.
Daytime wasn’t so bad a time — as long as I could see down into the lobby beneath me, the dread took deep breaths and enjoyed the play of light from slotted windows that the architect had obviously thought to entertain visitors with. At night, the terror returned. Once I went to get ice from the ice machine and returned a broken man. That fear — that fear of the whole structure collapsing beneath me persisted despite the inn’s solid construction and the certainty that there would no earthquakes. I was safe my feet averred, but my head swung in awful ellipses about on my neck and I wouldn’t believe them.
High Flying
Posted on September 15, 2009 in Travel
The ascending roar of the jet engines signals the commencement of my favorite part of flying: take off. For a few minutes, [[inertia]] presses you to the back of your seat. It’s the opposite of weightlessness — a heaviness that pulls you into it and cradles you. Slowly it gives way until you find yourself in the boring transit between points. Then there’s naught to do except to read, nap, watch the in-flight movie, and press back at the jackass-in-front-of-you who thinks his comfort is more important than yours.
Landings are another exciting part, but I don’t like them nearly as much. If you’re flying in during the day, you get to see fields and housing tracts, the latter looking like the mosaics of engraver beetles. There’s an anxious wait for the wheels to feel the ground, then a series of shocks and the sighing reversals of the engines. I don’t care much for the meeting of plane and earth.
If you are in transit, as we were the other day, you find yourself coming out of a tunnel into a strange place filled with crowds of people who don’t live in the vicinity. Atlanta, with its hundreds of planes, underground subway, and thronging terminals, is famous for this. If you’ve come to the end, the tunnel sends you off to the baggage claim area. Then it’s off to your hotel via an expensive cab ride or back home — after discovering that someone has stripped the Obama-Biden sticker from your car while it was standing in Long Term Parking.
Bastard.
Not Writing
Posted on September 14, 2009 in Activity
More than a few times in the last several days, I’ve started to compose a blog article in my head only to have sleep or human interaction intervene before I get a chance to write it down. Part of it is the feeling of isolation that has come over me in the waning days of this blog. Part of it is that I seem to lack all conviction. Part of it is that I am addicted to Facebook and Twitter now. The back of my neck feels tight. I’ve lost faith in my ability to engage my readers.
Travel Nerves
Posted on September 9, 2009 in Travel - Conferences
I’m nearly shaking as we check our packing of the bags for our trip to Indianapolis for the DBSA National Conference. An empty pit in the stomach won’t be filled no matter what I shove into it. Have given much thought to how I am going to organize the contents of my pockets so that I won’t take up too much time when I go through airport security. Don’t worry. I’ll settle in as soon as I get through the gates.
Team White
Posted on September 8, 2009 in Equality Hatred
Training against racism is like toilet training. It’s something every parent must do.
People are going to grab onto the latest study out of the University of Texas and declare “See. Racism is natural.” This conclusion is based on a scientific fact: children tend to bond with those who are like them. Clothe some children in red shirts and others in blue shirts, they will insist that those who wear the same shirt color as they wear bear certain superior qualities. They like to segregate.
This could be the basis of hate, Newsweek thinks, but we’re left with a problem: how come some people rose above it all before the emancipation of the slaves and the civil rights movement? One study has an interesting conclusion:
Of all those Vittrup told to talk openly about interracial friendship, only six families managed to actually do so. And, for all six, their children dramatically improved their racial attitudes in a single week. Talking about race was clearly key. Reflecting later about the study, Vittrup said, “A lot of parents came to me afterwards and admitted they just didn’t know what to say to their kids, and they didn’t want the wrong thing coming out of the mouth of their kids.”
I’m very suspicious of studies which say we’re doomed because of our nature. The Newsweek article carries that theme heavily in its headline. But the real story is more complicated: we choose based on who we’re around. White kids are fine with black people if they are around black people. It’s the message that gets passed on to them that matters.
I went to a racially integrated junior high and high school. I was attacked by black kids twice. This is the obsession of white parents — that blacks have switchblades that they will use to gut you. But I was bullied and attacked by white kids many more times. Where teachers and administrators leave the handling of violence to the kids, bullying is going to happen regardless of the races. My own experience — and that of many others — is that people tend to bully those of their own race.
It’s a bit like the plot of A Soldier’s Story — members of a group try to enforce their idea of group loyalty on “their own”. In the eyes of the whites who attacked me, I was a wimp because I would not hit back. That I didn’t believe in race hatred (an idea that I developed in spite of my parents who while not Klansmen still reveled in their own milder kind of hatred) made me a further pariah. I had to be set in line and if that didn’t work, culled. I remember even then how so-called Christians believed in the concept of racial inferiority because of their interpretations of the Bible. They would be civil and even kind towards the blacks they knew. But among whites, they would come out as haters. I have no doubt how they voted in school elections.
There’s this whole team idea that comes into play. On its most benign level, it’s the high school football or basketball game. You are one with the team no matter what color they are. But there’s still this animosity that gets encouraged against members of other teams that can reinforce racism when a white team from the suburbs plays a black inner city one. There’s a tendency to step it up to higher levels. Republicans obviously see themselves as still involved in a huge game in which they must destroy the Democrats at all costs. Team America is busy hunting down the Taliban in Afghanistan. And a large chunk of ignorant whites continue to hate blacks.
Maybe the discrimination of differences isn’t so bad. Maybe it is all right for whites to prefer whites and blacks to prefer blacks, to make their own cultures. Diversity is founded on that principle. But I think the root of the problem is this: We’re not in a big high school death match. We’re not required to think that the other team is Evil Incarnate — to be excluded, kept down, defeated, obliterated. Do we really need to see everything we do as a competition?
Enough of teams, I say, and up with people. Accept that everyone gets a place in our society that is largely their choice tempered by their abilities. Team White is still caught in the old thinking. It’s time that it reforms and learns the new plays.
Full Steam Ahead with the Message
Posted on September 4, 2009 in Civic Responsibility Culture Wars Education
The onslaught of negative media coverage regarding a simple public address to school children must be seen as part of a plan: to erase the message of Hope. How else can you explain the apparent opposition to the principle of working hard in school and making sure that you graduate?
In responding to this, I have seen liberals and progressives faltering into exactly what the reactionaries and hatebaggers want — forgetting the dream. It’s been said that conservatives vote their fears while liberals vote their dreams. We must remember our dreams just as we did during last year’s successful campaign to unseat Republican rule in this country.
The aim for our nation’s students is to be well-educated and smart, to have the intellectual tools they need to think for themselves. It may be that they come up with means of living together that transcend our current politics. Let those minds develop and grow with one another.
Their parents aren’t doing so well.
UPDATE (9/9/2009): Now George W. Bush is planning to give his own talk to Texas schoolchildren. Dubya seems determined to make his place in history as the man who divided the country. Maybe he will surprise us, but I doubt it.
Personal Policy Reviewed
Posted on September 4, 2009 in Site News
A few years ago, noting that it was taking its toll on my mental health, I resolved to keep my political postings in check. Now I am realizing that while I am mostly keeping to the promise of only two political posts per week, I am not posting much else which rather defeats the purpose. I am going to work on posting more about other things. I need to reignite my imagination.
Michelle Bachmann – Danger to Self?
Posted on September 3, 2009 in Accountability Suicide
I must begin this with the disclosure that I have long disliked Minnesota Republican Michelle Bachmann. But until now, I wrote her off as just another demagogue in a party of demagogues. Recent news reports now tell me that there is something far more serious happening in her life and I fear for her safety — from herself.
Her talking to God reeks of religiosity. But more chilling are the words she delivered on September 1, 2009:
What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing.
Minnesota Republicans and family should watch her closely. She is beginning to speak in a way that sounds like she is a danger to self.
