I think I might be over the rash of boycott posting. I have no idea what brought that on. Well, yeah, I do, but I'm weary of politics. Back to tweaking the template. I do wish I could design what I see in my head. Well, on second thought that might lend to some odd results. I'm so tired, too tired to write, too tired to care so I think I'll cruise for awhile. Perhaps a new template can be found. I think I like the new picture. I'd like it better if I were in that car out there headed towards those twilight hills. I would . I will West.
Cincinnati Boycot: Spit & Venom from Channel 5 News forum
Colored,
I simply haven't the patience to take the time to explain how the article I posted had nothing to do with 'putting on a pleasant face' or being courteous. It has to do with this black woman , and apparently many black people conducting themselves entirely differently around whites than amongst themselves. The 'mask' they feel compelled to wear is mentioned through out. How you believe that being inauthentic and duplicitous and secretly despising being in the white world is conducive to better race relations, well, that IS the problem, isn't it? We come from two different worlds and at this point I'm convinced the two won't meet. I have looked a long time for a black on this or any forum to address the daily shootings and, as of today, the 23 homicides blacks have tallied in this city. I ask for a reaction to the Vine St. incident and get zero response to something I see as a very poor indicator of this city's so called progress and bodes very poorly for the summer soon upon us. This city is still being hijacked by a renegade group of hustlers that the black race should be ashamed of. Downtown streets, though not extremely lively before, are now a veritable ghost town and there is nothing, nothing, nothing about ANYTHING happening NOW in this city on this board except this pathetic attempt to be nice to each other. If you folks want peace based on fiction, so be it. Just keep playing nicey- nice over non issues such as statistics and the relevance of historical slavery, well Luken hides behind his ineffective black female front and cinci becomes the Southern Detroit. Go to Black Voices.comand hear "their' voices. Read and read and read, as I have, on any black oriented web site and see if you come away with any hope for REAL communication with a people who essentially disdain and despise the white culture. It will be a long time, if ever, that I regain the trust and respect I had heretofore held for the black race. It apparently was very misinformed. That is what these forums and their boycott have taught me.
Zee
....random communication from the soon to appear "A White Woman Wonders if She is Racist and Does She Really Fucking Care?"
Boycott Cincinnati: Spit & Venom from Channel 5 News Forums
June 2002
I realize some of you on here are striving for a more conciliatory tone. Commendable. I do not seek to disturb this, as no doubt this will be perceived. Disclaimer finished, I ask the following..
I want to know why the recent Vine Street incident is merely a ripple in our stagnant little pond? Why was the Sunday Enquirer replete with the alleged inequities visited upon minorities but pictures of white motorists whose cars were damaged on Vine Street weren't similarly highlighted? How often do you cut down from Vine St when you are leaving Clifton, in broad daylight? Will you again? This isn't racial. This behavior denigrates all races that perpetuate it and should be denounced. Period. That includes the white Ruby patrons throwing debris on the demonstrators. Rather milquetoast compared to rocks, but hell, we can't dance either, right?
If indeed we are striving as individuals and community to proceed with our explorations of 'racial' balance in Cincinnati, than it behooves us that all is done with an eye towards equanimity and integrity. Which I imagine is, as a process, potentially ugly , as we defend against each others imagined, or real, misperceptions. Oh well. If the result is truth, then those aligned with truth will prevail, no matter what color. Or is this city and this country and this era so horribly askew that truth is not the preferred currency?
With that in mind I pretty much intend to refuse to ignore obvious incidents of racist behavior on the part of any other hue of the rainbow when perpetrated against whites. To that end I offer the following: Black Racism: The Hate Crime That Dare Not Speak It's Name
I welcome any balanced responses. This is intended as exploration.
Zee
...random communication from the soon to appear "A White Woman Wonders if She is Racist and Does She Really Fucking Care?"
Boycott Cincinnati: Spit & Venom from Channel 5 News Forums May 2002 Zee addresses THORNHEAD
I'll tell you what is frightening thornhead. Perusing black web sites and hearing your type of idiocy regarded as intelligent. What is frightening is hearing black voice after black voice equivocate about the appalling nature of September 11th. To hear them smugly suggest that whitey NEEDS to feel paranoid. To hear them say they don't think of America as their country. What is frightening is that Jumpin' Jackson and Sleazin' Sharpton are exploiting the same malcontents in your race that Bin Laden cultivated in the Muslim race. What is frightening, thornhead, is to imagine how little it would take to induce some of you and yours to turn against this country while the rest of us blithely assume you play by the same rules civilized folks do. What is frightening is that your boycott is being exploited by and drawing every sick, left wing, socialist fringe group to the doors of our city.
What should concern you Thornhead, is that your boycott has brought more than one white person to re-examine the black folks in their midst. THAT should really, really concern you.
Zee
...random communication from the soon to appear "A White Woman Wonders if She is Racist and Does She Really Fucking Care?"
Boycott Cincinnati: Spit & Venom from Channel 5 News Forums
July reference: 03-15-2002, 11:24 AM
The Tiresome Little July drones on: ". You and Solitude and a few more are the ones who are so into yourselves that you try to push those who are telling the truth into..." blah blah
Zee responds:
. You have the appalling nerve to suggest that Solitude and I are egocentric??!!? You, from a race of people who, like snarling children, are having a tantrum , stomping your collective feet and threatening to huff and puff until all our houses are in the same shambles yours are in. You give not a damn for the innocent citizens in this city who depend on the trade you boycott to make a living. "Sacrifices must be made," you opine. What gall to decide that others must sacrifice for your so called cause. You whine about everything from imagined violations of your rights to the flying of confederate flag to too few black actors winning Oscar nominations. No matter where you turn there is a black face clamoring "GIMME GIMME GIMMIE!" ME ME ME!" And you have the audacity to turn around and suggest we are self absorbed. Your ignorance is simply unparalleled.
July proceeds with her attack: " I have read and re-read all of your posts..."
Zee responds: You say you read my posts? I say you lie. I specifically asked, numerous times, for verifiable incidents of infringements and injustice. I posted an article about a draconian law soon to be re-imposed in over the rhine and asked for feedback. I speculated on the 'glass house' and asked for thoughts, I posted an USA Today article on the economic status of blacks with request for refutation. I sincerely inquired into my relationship with racism, I made suggestions regarding showcasing your more illustrious black citizens. None of those good enough for you and your frigging audience. Are they listening now July? Then hear this. Where once civility was the rule of thumb with all people., with yours I will give pause. Where once I smiled at black face, I now turn away. where once I was curious about a seeming vivid and complex culture I now have indifference.. where once you were welcome in my life, now you are not.
Relentlessly, July goes on...
"Evidently, when you received your diploma, you thought that the learning something new process was over. You can learn a lot from books, but life's experiences are the best teacher. I guess you haven't had enough of life's experiences yet to actually see the world on which you live. The question is, do you really want to see the real world or continue to live on "milk"?
rolling eyes, Zee replies...
As usual you are confused. In other posts you have variously called me a heifer, trailer trash, flat ass, ignorant, uneducated and NOW you allude to ivory towers and sheltered lives? Just which phantom white person are you gunning for little missy july? no sweetie. It's you and yours who can not wean yourselves off the public teat. That is the only 'milk' in this scenario.
I began this venture trying to grasp what the perception of racism is and what I have found is this. Because I ascribe to a particular set of principles and standards, because I adhere to a particular work ethic, because I disdain mewling dramatics and solipsism, because I demand accountability and responsibility...in other words, because of my values, I am deemed a racist. So be it. I am not going to cheapen my standards to accommodate some distorted version of civil rights. I'm not going to subscribe to a crippled social doctrine as define by malcontents just to appease the likes of you and your gang. Your quest for 'equal treatment' has served to lower the bar in education and the professions, but, I assure you, you will not accomplish such trickery with those who know when to say the madness has gone on far too long.
I owe you and your people nothing.
Zee
...random communication from the soon to appear "A White Woman Wonders if She is Racist and Does She Really Fucking Care?"
"If SOME black people feel that they must conduct themselves differently around whites than among themselves, then they must feel like they're in a different, foreign environment...for what ever reason. Exactly what they feel uncomfortable about when around whites would make for an interesting conversation."
ZEE responds: " Foreign environment", "uncomfortable...". That is what I guess I am trying to distinguish among the many factors that hinder what are sincere attempts to communicate on all sides. What I have read from a variety of sources suggests that the black culture is such a presence in the black persons life, that they find their central identity there first and not as a mainstream American, which was new information for me. Thus, they are other than they would be with their own people than when they are with whites. My frustration is how will I understand your culture if you do not bring it into the workplace and the social setting for fear, I, Whitie, will become startled or frightened... Perhaps that essential difference makes it hard for me, who has no real cultural identity OTHER than being a white American (my roots are a matter of indifference to me) to comprehend the insistence on history or a list of inequities suffered. The obvious difference, I imagine, is as a white person I haven't a list of inequities I've suffered attributable to my color skin, but what I thought was simply being human in an insane world. Some of those inequities are the same as a black persons; i.e., financial hardships, job discrimination ( I'm female in a primarily male oriented profession). I have worked six days a week for years and haven't had a vacation since '90. When knocked out of the game by cancer, I piece by piece, have been trying to get back in the game. But it was MY fault I didn't invest in health insurance when I started my little business and thus, all my efforts went down the drain. In all instances when life has gone south for me, I have looked to ME as the culprit. And I'm usually right. It seems to me a black person will blame racial prejudice. Now please, be patient, I'm trying to figure this out. I think the thought process I go through when I hear the black races grievances is similar to that of many of white people. We review our own personal list of woes and think that, hell, I have those same problems as Mr. Black person and you don't see me asking for empowerment zones or economic advantages. Then the anger and chagrin set in and nothing gets heard past that point. Now then, Apone, for instance, might chime in that through ANY of my ordeals, I didn't have the extra burden of skin color to hinder my endeavors on top of all the other insanity life presents us. And I have to say that is true but I guess the white part of me , and maybe many other whites, says with confusion and frustration, 'OK, fine, I'm sorry, but get on with it!!". And maybe it is this mysterious white privilege thing I hear alluded to all the time that allows me to list racial discrimination as just another of life's hassles. The misunderstanding that arises right at THAT juncture- when the black person defends his request for assistance based on history and the white race (seems) to universally respond "Get over it". That point of misuderstanding, two very different responses to the same criteria ( reparations, emtitlement, etc) is what I am trying to figure out how to get past. But, as you suggest, THAT conversation would be interesting because I DO feel that a good percentage of the black culture appears to feel as the women in the "Only One" article, separate and sufficiently different to feel a mask must be presented to the white world. And I feel if that is true, it presents a formidable obstacle to mutual understanding unless a white person knows how long the bridge is that we need to meet half way on. Now you ask that I not make a big deal of this and that I'm perhaps reading trash black web sites. Well, how would I know? I admit to being absolutely ignorant about the Black culture. I know of Ebony and Essence. But you have heard my plea before. Where are the reasonable Black leaders? Where are there more like yourself and what publications or web sites do I need to read to hear the moderate view? So I have no choice but to search the web and try to understand who the black culture is, IN ORDER to communicate effectively, and the prevailing voices seem very hostile and quite willing to tear everything apart. It would be as if the only voice one heard or could discover espousing white culture were "Deliverance" type folk typically categorized as white or trailer trash.
As for your statement that I hate blacks I can only say you are so very wrong. I am angry and offended by much of what I see and hear but I DO NOT hate blacks. I am earnestly attempting to comprehend a race I always kind of thought were experiencing life and its frustrations much like I do.What I do hate is ignorance, my own included.
The links above will serve to continue my attempt at 'educating' myself and I hope perhaps serve to produce feedback here. The tests to determine the degree of prejudice clouds ones thinking are very enlightening and before anyone asks, yes, I failed. Now to find out why......
a frustrated frazzled............ Zee
P.S. APONE and J42.... I want to respond to your posts but I must hit the road and do not know when I will be off the road , so I am not ignoring you.
APONE - real quick. You mentioned doing business at black establisments. Who? Where? I suggested elsewhere that there needs to be a black web site or publication listing all minority contractors and establishments. I have no idea who owns what. Is there such a publication?
...random communication from the soon to appear "A White Woman Wonders if She is Racist and Does She Really Fucking Care?"
Boycott Cincinnati: Spit & Venom from Channel 5 News Forums
On 04-22-2002, 12:12 PM , Apone states.
I speak kindly and i'm friendly, I don't make sudden moves sometimes, because I KNOW the white person next to me will damn near have a heart attack, and I routinely smile or act happy even when i'm pissed off. JUST BECAUSE i know that this may be the only black person they see today, and I want people to have(like i said before) POSITIVE stereotypes instead of negative ones.
and yet, i bet it doesn't have that much of an effect.(affect?...lol...that's messin me up today)
you'd feel a lot different(white people) if almost everywhere you went, you HAD to be on your "best behavior", to try and destroy stereotypes that are on tv and in the media 24-7.
I talked recently with several black women who are also "Only Ones" in workplaces taking baby steps toward diversification. I discovered that being the "Only One" is a balancing act that takes practice. Being an "Only One" leaves you without a witness if anything racist happens. Back in the day, being an Only One was more likely to get you killed, or at least framed. These days, being an Only One may be considered a diversity success.
But it leaves us "Only Ones" with a challenge: We must integrate without compromising ourselves or our beliefs. We must retain our cultural selves and run the risk of scaring the white folks we work with and for. We must constantly filter our experiences, screening for racism in each moment, while still being a team player. We must be able to culturally navigate both worlds, working side-by-side with folks who are only vested in their own white world. We must teach tolerance or suffer being misunderstood. We must put up with ignorant comments, always picking our battles. We must reach out to other people of color for reality checks. We must prove that we are more than a dark body the white company brings in to sit behind a desk. And we must perform twice as well as our peers and look twice as good doing it.
Always with a smile and always with flair. No exceptions.
I'm used to being the Only One, so at this point in my professional life it's almost second nature. Still, it often leaves me feeling numb, defeated. I go home at times exhausted from the effort. I feel cheated out of being who I am in my workplace, where I spend nearly half my waking life. Other "Only Ones" experience being "Only Ones" a little differently.
Now, you have no idea how bewildered I am with this mind set. Prior to this current racial fracas, I held neutral to benign attitudes towards black people. I have stated elsewhere that I had imagined them to be a strong resilient people . The very slavery you wear as anchor and shackle, I had imagined had honed in you a granite will and resolute mind. Character, if you will. Severe hardship endured usually produces character. What I didn't expect was the deep disaffection of black people from America and Americans. How thoroughly you maintain your culture and your world as primary, and in opposition to the white world.
Please read the article. I am thoroughly amazed at the insane amount of energy this 'facade' has to cost an individual and I can not for the life of me understand why a 'mask' need be worn. It has me wondering, now, when I have conversations with black folk if indeed behind their smile they are simply enduring White-y. This article is rife with assumptions about what you think white folks are thinking. Your life would be easier if you would walk in your strength and authenticity and let the burden of evaluating you be the responsibility of the beholder. If they misjudge and underestimate you , it is their fault and loss.
So please, if you will. Explain this duplicity, this mask wearing. You demean other people but automatically expecting the worse possible behavior. You demean me by assuming I think you are going to rape me because your a black male on an empty street. A second job once required me to deliver the Enquirer . Waiting for the fools to show up with the paper trucks could take hours during which I slept, in my Jeep,unperturbed and undisturbed , in a sea of black men. All waiting in their vehicles to do a thankless job. It never even frigging occurred to me I'd be hurt or hassled, let alone robbed or raped. My expectations were to be treated civilly and so I was.
Oh well. This is pointless sometimes but I really would like to understand this. If you all do this, this mask wearing all the time........well, personally I'd be on Prozac. But, quite seriously, how can this inauthenticity serve any purpose except keep white folk like myself quite confused as to what to say or how to perceive you.
Zee
...random communication from the soon to appear "A White Woman Wonders if She is Racist and Does She Really Fucking Care?"
I am alone. Nary another soul hesitates under this same roof. None that I recognize. I'm in my usual driven state woven with the nebulous calm that I, for some unfathomable reason, can conjure up by act of will. A skill 50 years in the acquisition of and I am not yet adept at the application of all its' magic'. Though I venture cautiously in the direction of magic. Magical thinking can be very tricky. Too many times I truly thought I could...........................
I could............
and those were better days . those days when I chose to dream. Spin sweet wheels spin. The road is my magic now. So I have deemed it .
So it is. I owe allegiance to my reality. Somehow I must be awake and conscious and alert to all nuances of my soul. I set forth to sail a sea that my sons and friends, few that they are, would choose to follow. Dream? Dream West. Yes.
posted by zee |
10:11 PM
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return from the land of nod.
Yes, I have been sleeping since my last trip Tuesday afternoon. My excellent grandson Reily was the contributing factor in this bounty of unsolicited rest, he being the culprit that gave me his chest cold. So, if I have barely touched a keyboard since Tuesday, one may surmise, I was definitely under the weather. Well, I did give the archives problem another shot but that put me back in my bed faster than a wave of nausea. The news, at least locally has been sufficient to tie me up in knots anyway. Cincinnati continues to be trashed by the Black United Farce and "Mayor' Luken continues to bend over for more. Sorry for the crudity but I have never in my life seen such a worthless performance as that of our so called strong mayor.
But , That's not the first thing I want to make note of. Cruising Eatonweb this morning, I run across this sad evidence that the TIPS program will bring the first zealots to the fore. Hell, this is before TIPS was ever formally implemented that some avid fool offered up Courtesy Card purchase records to assist Asscroft and his brigand in locating folks eating too much.......I don't know, humus, I guess. I have long opposed these damn courtesy cards on a number of levels, beyond their being intrusive, it's such a crock when retailers, such as Krogers, pretend they are actually offering you a benefit. Well, I won't take off on that tangent. It occurs to me I have a problem with too many things, Krogers long having been one of them, but, I'm a noted and accomplished bitch, so, it is only right that the entire planet pisses me off these days. Anymore, my bitch stance seems justified.
Which takes me back to the local scene. Sad, sad situation. The current spectacle centers around an assistant police chief by the name of Twitty. Before all this civil strife, I wasn't particularly interested in the make up of the Cinci police force, so I have no idea if Twitty is the vaunted pristine officer described by his many admirers. Therefore, I have little hesitation in introducing an aspect that needs to be considered in evaluating Twitty. And this is a sad instance where Affirmative Action and such programs serve as a major stumbling block for those black Americans who have achieved their various successes by virtue of intelligence, hard work, and no compromises. I quote from a City Journal piece by Heather McDonald.
Racial bean-counting reached its zenith in the 1970s and 1980s, when federal courts across the country imposed on police departments draconian quota systems for hiring and promotions and threw out meritocratic standards. Chicago was enjoined from looking at a recruit’s arrest history; Akron couldn’t consider school discipline, academic records, or neighborhood references. In 1980, a federal judge ordered that one-third of the NYPD’s recruits be black. To move things along, he lowered the passing score on the entrance exam for blacks to 84, ten points lower than the requisite score for white recruits.
William Hubbard remembers that era in the NYPD, and deplores it. “They decreased the standards for promotion in 1976: all the passing scores were lowered for minorities,” he recalls angrily. “It was an injustice to all those blacks who had succeeded without decreased standards. You accepted the argument that you were inferior.” Hubbard rejects the idea that the promotion test was biased. “If you just studied, instead of going out on Saturday night and having fun, you could have passed it.”
Sorry, but one has to ask, by which standards did Twitty achieve his purported success. But the following is even more damning.
The most destructive quota pressures come in the area of discipline. Radical officer organizations forever allege that disparate rates of discipline reflect managerial bias, not actual misbehavior, and they are ever ready with individual and class-action lawsuits to put teeth in their claims. This February, for example, a divided jury awarded $1.72 million to an Akron police officer who claimed he had been fired because of his race—not because he had broken his wife’s jaw. The Philadelphia Guardians Association is currently collecting data on discipline rates by race; in 1999, the Clinton Justice Department notified the Dallas Police Department that it was under investigation for its disciplining of black officers. As a result of such actions, managers think long and hard before taking necessary disciplinary measures. Ed Flynn, chief of the Arlington County, Virginia, police force, says that he will extend a longer probationary period to a “non-thug” black cop with discipline problems than to a similarly situated white cop. “I want a paper trail that says you got more breaks rather than fewer,” Flynn admits. Naturally, white cops resent this double standard.
Baltimore’s Barksdale sees this disciplinary hesitation all the time and rues its consequences: “You have to fire bad officers, because they will screw up. It cripples the department.”
Actual analysis belies the racist punishment charge. In response to a still-pending lawsuit by the Latino Officers Association, the NYPD analyzed its disciplinary records several years ago and found that black and Hispanic officers were indeed punished at higher rates, but only for those infractions that carry mandatory discipline, such as drug use or criminal behavior. Black male officers failed drug tests four times as often as white male officers, for example, and they received mandatory discipline for off-duty misconduct like assault and grand larceny nearly three times as often as white officers. Any discretionary punishment, on the other hand, was carefully meted out in exact racial and ethnic proportions. It’s unlikely that officers are more careful about following rules in matters for which punishment is discretionary and thus uncertain. Assuming that rates of rule-breaking are constant between mandatory and discretionary disciplinary categories, blacks and Hispanics are therefore under-disciplined whenever managers have the leeway to do so.
If punishment to black officers is meted out differently from that of white officers, one questions Twittys' supposedly clean record. Clean because he is a good cop, or is it a clean record because he is a black cop? Reading the same article made me a tad more curious about the Sentinels, Cincinnati's black police association. And we will ignore the fact that there is NO white police association. It mentions the following:
Surely the cops would get more support from the community if their moral authority were not constantly under siege from left-wing activists both within and outside of police departments. Lieutenant Eric Adams of the NYPD has made a media career for himself by testifying against the department before every camera he can find, as the self-appointed head of a shadowy organization called One Hundred Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. Every time Adams says something negative about the police, observes Wilbur Chapman, the NYPD’s Chief of Patrol during the 1990s, the department loses blacks who are “on the fence,” whether as witnesses or potential recruits. “There’s no voice to say: ‘This is not the reality,’ ” laments Chapman. (Adams did not return City Journal’s calls.)
and:
Baltimore’s department, like that of Washington, D.C., suffers from a particularly virulent form of internal race politics. A very small but vocal group of black officers is playing the race card against the white commissioner, Ed Norris. Lieutenant Barksdale could not be more disgusted. “I have no time for the-white-versus-the-black mentality,” he scoffs. “Where were the radicals when 261 black kids were getting killed a year? It didn’t matter to them, because we had a black commissioner. This commissioner has dropped homicide levels to their lowest in a decade. [In 2000, homicides dropped below 300—to 261—for the first time in ten years.] I’m sick of [the politics].” Barksdale argues that when the radicals claim discrimination in assignments and promotions, they are merely deflecting attention away from their own shortcomings. “If you asked them, ‘What have you done on this job?’ you’d find excessive medical history and excessive complaints against them. Some cops don’t deserve the uniform; they’re scared to do the job they swore to do.”
So, I ask , who are the Sentinels and what role have they played in the Cincinnati Police Dept?
And, of course, Cincinnati is mentioned, as an example of a city trapped in the no-win 'racial profiling' conundrum of 'damned if you do and damned if you don't':
The costs of the racial profiling crusade, warn these officers, are enormous. Barksdale notes that an officer who hears, “You only stopped me because I’m black,” may well be inhibited from taking further necessary action or from making future stops. “But how do you know that the complainer hasn’t just shot someone, or has a secret compartment [for drugs or guns]?” he wonders. Unless top management reassures cops that they can count on support in strong enforcement actions, black officers caution, some policemen will inevitably back off in the face of racial pressures. Witness what happened in Cincinnati and New Jersey after relentless race-based anti-cop campaigns. In 2001, Cincinnati experienced the bloodiest summer in its history, as stops and arrests plummeted. In New Jersey, consent searches for guns and drugs on the turnpike plunged from 440 in 1999 to 11 in the six months that ended October 31, 2001. Drug traffickers sailed through the turnpike unimpeded, while murder in Newark jumped 65 percent in 2001
back in a bit....
Well, this is a peculiar find. I have no clue as to the authors' credibility but, I suspect he is an extreme right winger. Not an attractive group either. However, he comments on an element of this Cincinnati situation that has continued to irk me since the stupid riots. The infiltration of leftist activists into this area and their exploitation of the discontent who so willingly supply them with a 'cast' of rioters anytime they want to go for some media shine. Just do some searches of Google groups using "Cincinnati boycott" and see who all finds us so interesting, including some very ugly white supremacists groups as well.
Speaking of leftist organizations, here is an interesting disclaimer from the Black Panther Party regarding the New Black Panther Party, whom. I believe are in Cinci mucking about. Seems they are an unwanted stepchild.
That is enough of politics. Sick to death of it all. But I do wonder....... is it possible to impeach a mayor? Can we start with Luken. Who would replace him? Could it be any worse for Cinci? Doubt it................ Well, I'm off to roam in search of more heartening news. Well, that is a bit optimistic. I think I'll just cruise. Or look into more ADD and dissociative info. I had a passenger the other day who claimed she was diagnosed dissociative, only she used a more clinical term. Its' very unusual to run into someone who is dissociative and I'm debating calling her up and chatting to see what she has learned about the condition. So later............. .....
All nightmares are courtesy of Fear, Ignorance, & Religion, proud sponsors of human depravity and tragedy for over two millennia.
posted by zee |
8:52 AM
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Guess so. Random.........
Saturday, July 20, 2002
I'm sorry. But this is getting out of hand. Now, if I'm pissed and I call you a name, you can have me arrested for harassment. Just one incident. One. And it's harassment. Now, if you're white, you'll react any number of ways... ignore me, hit me, ram my car, give me the finger, maybe even shoot me. I don't think taking me to court would cross your mind. Even if I were a black person calling you names I just don't think you would take it much to heart at all. I'm really getting tired of this race crap. And if you lived in Cincinnati, or a city being boosted by the Jackson/Sharpton shakedown gang, you'd be damn sick of it as well. Frigging whiners. Period, and fuck, to death, political correctness.
And actually, its symptomatic of something other than simply a race issue. Why do Americans need protection from life? Can't take insults? Verbal insults? I believe a man got arrested while swimming at a public lake up in a NE state, last summer, for spewing profanities , not at anyone in particular, but to the universe in general. Like when you really, seriously stub your toe. That kind of thing. So, some abysmally moronic woman took offense. Her children, you see. They must be protected from..........big bad LIFE!! These are isolated instances that either of these ultra sensitive folks could have walked away from. Uniform cruelty, race baiting, hate activities that truly show enmity of heart........I have, no one has, any truck with that. But this is just one of those sharp corners, part of life, a minor jab. If you soften all the edges and straighten all the curves and remove all the colors you have...........hell.
I will not choose depression. It is a choice, and I refuse to choose depression. Of course, implicit in 'choice' is the notion that there is more than 'one thing' . OK. What emotional palette is available to me today? I am sick to death of cynicism. Strident hostility reaps little reward. Bored indifference? Jaunty sarcasm? Ballistic bitching? All of those take too much energy. OK. I'll dig further. Surely I have a half way pleasant emotion to feel in here somewhere. Well, there is that supply of joy I was trying to master. gathering a bit of dust I'd say. No, no joy. not enough information on how to deploy a joyful demeanor. Yeah, same for the happy package.......let's see.......calm optimism, sure confidence, loving kindness.......? Damn, I haven't been able figure out how to use any of those emotions either. What the fuck. If only I were one of those quixotic creatures who were born with an impish grin on their lips and a song in their heart, whose ease with their passage on this planet is evident in all they do and say. But I wasn't born that. I seemed to have inherited the moody fatalism of the Transylvania Slavic gypsies my bloodline lays claim too. Just think, if I went to Romania and identified myself as Gypsy, I could experience the plight of the 'American Negro', since apparently gypsies are not viewed with any great fondness by their countrymen. Perhaps it is my civic duty as an imperialistic, oppressive white American to experience the discrimination my downtrodden black brethren endure so I can have some frigging empathy. Oops, employing cynicism. Much overused. It's so much easier to stay in that comfort zone. Well. Fuck it. If I don't want to be depressed, I should just quit reading other folks' blogs. Then I could forget what an untalented idiot I am. I could maintain whatever illusion I have about myself that enables me to keep cranking out the days. But those folks out there, well, they are pretty damn talented. And I'm not. Oh well.
....... Been trying to record some more Moby music. I have a difficult time understanding the genre of music I enjoy. Techno, trance, house, deep bass......on and on. There is an excellent site I found to assist with this. I'm addicted to this music, whatever subgenera it falls in. It is superb for cardio and driving. I tend to use music more like Gravity Kills, Filter, old Alice In Chains and NIN, etc for lifting weights, something with some 'meat' to it. Why I don't listen to the rock and roll I grew up with I only partially understand. I know it evokes more memories and their emotional weight than I can apparently handle. And so much of it isn't 'driven' enough for me. Techno/ house/ trance are kind of like musical Ritalin. Really. Being ADD, extremely hyper, the way chemicals work for me is rather the opposite of what one might expect. Amphetamines, caffeine calm me down, make me feel balanced, whereas 'downers' speed me up. Put me on pain medication and I'm more buzzed than ever. And so, like chemicals, driven One Million BPM music, calms me down. It is absolutely great fun to be improperly wired. ...
YOOOOHOOOOO!! HOMELAND THOUGHT POLICE!!!! Are ya'll out there??? Please take note. I am now taking a hit off my bong and and i just simply want to say Good Morning & Fuck You
random... You know, I find myself envying gay men. So many that I have known are fascinating. Their taste is impeccable, their interests rarely dull. My hair dresser and his partner have one of the most beautiful, peaceful homes I have ever entered and it has all to do with stunning content. Stunning in its simplicity and eclectic variations. Fascinating.. They seem to be able to create a world just hidden from view, rich in story and characters. Their drama is HUGE! They appear to live such large and textured lives......or so it seems to me..Even their blogs have that verve and taste.. I should start collecting gay blogs, kind of like an art collection....
random... "Our weapon is our nakedness..." "Unarmed village women holding 700 ChevronTexaco workers inside a southeast Nigeria oil terminal let 200 of the men go Sunday but threatened a traditional and powerful shaming gesture if the others try to leave — removing their own clothes."
This is really quite a story when you think about it. Nigeria , the 5th largest oil importer to the US has lost production in a facility that normally produces 6 million barrels a day Shut down. 700 men held prisoner. By the threat of naked women. This has so many angles. For one, I am always, beyond amazed, at the power of sexuality, how that same power seems always to be used for ill. And this assignation of shame to human nudity. Why has sex and nudity, throughout the recorded history of mankind, always yielded such destructive power and shame. Just the symbolism here and its raw power to hold 500 men prisoner. What does it mean when a man is held captive for fear of the shame of seeing a naked woman.?
Another angle is the the balls these women have. It took no small portion of courage for peasant women to envision halting the production of an oil facility, without back up and sans weapons.. And who the hell runs Nigeria anyway/ I mean these poverty stricken folks, all over the world, are taught to hate America and blame the 'rich westerners' for their horrid plights, while their barbarian leaders horde the resources and wealth that could turn their countries around.
Freaking sex! Amazing. Here we go again. Gang rape sanctioned by tribal laws in Pakistan. The details are irrelevant. It's the role sex again plays that flabbergasts me. From the account it simply appears you have horny barbarians raping men and women with impunity. In this case, for whatever reason, there has been government intervention, arrests and punishments, but if the body known as mediators or arbiters of tribal law can even conceive of using gang rape as punishment, can you imagine the prevalence of this depravity. Sex as punishment. Sex as shame. Sex as hostility. Sex as subjugation. And yet, the same religion that casts sex in such a ignominious role, casts their damnable 'god' as one who deems sex as the highest reward, an automatic ticket to heaven. An activity worth the sacrifice of human lives. Worthy of suicide. Certainly a god with low standards if not one who is completely schizophrenic. These questions remain enigmas too me. Sex. Power. Religion. Why, given the incredible array of gifts human possess, do we always sacrifice all over those issues. Well, I guess you can distill those three to the ominous ONE: Power. Why is the control of other humans such a siren call. I think it is a sad measure of the human race, after all these centuries on this planet, that we have amounted to nothing more than some cowering species willing to sacrifice an entire planet over tripe. For me, in my unsophisticated assessment, power is only a lure to someone who is inherently weak and consumed by fear. What an ignominious defeat we shall have if, in the end, we destroy an entire planet because we are scared.
I'm at the airport, several times a day, every day of the week. I probably average a minimum of 300 miles daily on the Tri-state highways. Between trips I usually linger at the airport observation area or down on the Kentucky banks of the Ohio River, watching my city across the water live her day. I spend a considerable amount of time watching people and situations.
Every arrival at CVG has to pass by me and as they stream by I zoom in on countenances, attire, gait, demeanor, attitude. A protean stream of humanity, like a magical weaving, coalescing for a moment into a keen picture of a particular family as they greet one another, the exchanged affection - or lack of it, the composition of their family matrix frozen in a flash fresco and then, together they swim away, disintegrating into the stream of traffic collecting baggage.
I record a lot of faces. Because I collect faces. I also collect gestures and attitudes and wicked smiles, or the gait of a truly dignified couple or the swagger of a testosterone driven, MAXUM pumped laptop warrior. I collect all because I am amazed and in love with humanity. (As distinguished, may I caution, from the actual experience of human company. That I have problems navigating ) As a loner and a wannabe be writer I thrive on the panorama of human drama I'm witness to. I am simply a story collector.
So yeah, I do see lots of thiings. But I'm not sharing. If Homeland Security thinks to consider the lowly limo driver for their TIPS campaign, they will get no assistance from me. And anyway, all of those images from all that I see on the highways, at airports, hotels, weddings, private air fields, river banks and concert arenas.... all of it, those are all mine. Right? They are in my mind, the most sovereign territory in my world . Our minds, our consciousness, that which governs our individual 'way of being', are sacrosanct. Besides, other than the vaguely comical threat of truth serum, our minds are inviolate. Impenetrable. We die with our frigging lips sealed.
And now, well, we can still die with our lips sealed, but it won't make any difference. We can't seal our minds. I refer you to Brain Fingerprinting.
Also, quoted from a related piece .... "He also has been asked by military and law enforcement agencies to show how brainprints can be used to determine probable cause, which could be used for an anti-terrorism situation. "If someone is walking through the airport and he goes through the security checkpoint and we get a feeling that this person is preoccupied with certain numbers or certain thought types that may indicate hostility or aggression we could ask him questions and verify the answers. Then it gives you probable cause to say, 'Sir/Ma'am, may we step aside with you and ask you additional questions?' It allows you to find a problem set within a large group." Norseen is confident that if such a system were fully developed it would be accepted if it meant everyone would be safer at the airport gate. The data he collects may not only show probable cause but also truth verification, he adds. The brain, which uses energy, does not want to expend it needlessly, he says. If someone is telling the truth, it is kept on the outside portion of the brain in low-energy domain areas of the brain. "If someone starts to light up in more areas of the brain and at a higher energy level, it means that the person is now starting to confabulate or obfuscate." Research so far indicates a 90 to 95 percent accuracy rate.'
Well, not only do you have to be careful to wear the right shoes, no jewelry, no hardware, ad nauseam. Now you better be pretty damn sure you're in a good mood for your brain fingerprint. Lets hope traffic was good on the way to the airport. The next flight you miss may be due to lingering road rage.
Does that damn Texan imagine all of us have been walking around whistling Porky Pig tunes? Self preservation functions quite well without a government mandate. The 'Let's Roll!!' gang didn't need a Homeland Security Bureau to consult for tactics. If I see a dude at the airport that I deem threatening I will act out of instinct. But therein lies just oneof the many nightmares released from this Pandoras Box. Who the hell am I to decide that someone is acting suspicious? Back when they first started issuing alerts I started actually trying to figure out exactly what it is that I am looking for, a scale of suspiciousness, as it were. As soon as you purposefully don that lens of vision, I assure you, everyone can be construed as suspicious. Those group of foreigners at the observation lot taking pictures for 2 hours. Legitimate tourists? How the hell would I know. The 'foreigners' down by The Brent Spence Bridge taking pictures of the city. I don't know, Interstate 75 is a vital artery, should I call the cops? What about that trucker you saw at the rest stop. The one carrying hazardous materials. Didn't he look nervous? Didn't he have an accent? Shouldn't you just make sure? Just in case?
Well, it's 03:40 and I'm trying to get some random entries in, in lieu of anything more comprehensive in my present somewhat somnolent state of mind
**** I had hoped the few news quips I heard yesterday were satirical, rhetorical, apocryphal, anything but true. But it's true. TIPS exists. My mind is sputtering. What does one do with this. All I can do is recall those old war movies depicting Hitlers' Youth and other insidious citizen patriot groups. Scenes of brainwashed kids turning in parents sympathetic to Jews or critical of Hitler. How can this go on? I 'I'm beginning to wonder if the 'America' I cherish ever existed . I can not begin to conceive how this will be abused.
later... You know, I am actually so disheartened with the above, TIPS, that I actually feel depleted of energy. Too listless to pursue how this last hemorrhage to the body freedom is going to manifest.
Yo! Pretty Lady!! Yeah you, the one with the torch out there in New York Harbor. Why don't you take a break. Lower your arm. Lower the damn beacon. We're temporarily out of freedom.
GAMBLER SHOT GANGLAND STYLE IN NEWPORT Well, I had thought I would start trying to accumulate a list of items that bring our fine city its various flavors of fame and I find I can go back to the 40's, right across the river to find evidence of our just plain old uncivilized roots. Oh what the hell. This is planet earth. This is the human race and Cinci is just a variation to the theme. Damn, I surely do wish there actually were a few other planets as back up....
However, I had been aware that the Newport and Covington area had served as the vice capital of the country before the birth of Las Vegas, but I have never looked into it. It should prove interesting. Well, as usual, I have been distracted from my intended commitment to get up to speed on this blog. Been trying to record the right cuts from a Moby CD I found that is awesome. None of the cars have CD players so I must resort, for now to recording tapes and then its off to a wedding. What I do appreciate about the winter months is people tend not to get married. Well, at least its a two car hit so I can commiserate with another driver.
And I am never looking for my archives again. Ever.
I'll be damn if I want archives. Screw archives. Who needs to dwell in the past anyway....................
I do, damn it.
Where are my frigging archives! I did the script generator thing, I tweaked my templates. I prayed to the Blogger god, I sacrificed a virgin chicken.......
And no frigging archives.
Oh well... . . I will just have to get a grip. Calm down. Breathe deeply.
Oh, to hell with it. I'll remain in the rant mode. I do it best and there is a bounty of rant-able issues to start frothing about. So, I'll have at it. Since I am, as usual, behind, I'll just randomly grab the thoughts that seem to be looping through my mind.....
Random....
...such as this gem recently added to the crown of the Queen cities' notoriety. Under the headline, 'Crime keeps Cincinnati Reeling', USA Today spins this:
But the warm feelings from the event { Billy Graham }, which became public healing sessions for a city still scarred by rioting last year, didn't last long
This event was debated heatedly on the local talk show circuits from the point that it became evident Graham would serve well as a boycott target for the various groups that are practicing their picketing skills on Cinci turf. The general consensus though, by every day folk, seemed to range from indifference to cynicism. My sentiments, no doubt unpopular, are that it was merely another circus in the parade sashaying through town this long year since the infamous riots. It seemed contrived. It was a "Production". It certainly wasn't a conduit for what this city needs to be cured of, but, that is another topic.
Well, tell ya what. Another day off is not a good sign. Enjoyable for me, but the Fourth is over and I would have thought business was going to resume a good pace. Maybe not. I've worked a hard year to prove my worth as a driver to this company. They stuck with me during my tumultuous financial plummet and it's attendant aberrant behavior, and I have stuck with them, virtually on call 24/7, throughout this entire, very lean, year. On time, in tux, in character, a boon to the company. A paragon of professionalism. Well, that's a bit much. But the effort has yielded results. I'm just under the top driver in the pecking order, which determines income. And I play the game well because, aside from most weddings and all funerals, I enjoy the game immensely. My boss and the limousine industry allows me the freedom to be me. In fact , all my sassy, dissociative 'selves' fit right into the strange world that is limo-ing and the, seemingly, tolerant man that is Bob.
And the road allows me to drink deeply of the movement and rhythm I seem to crave. The song of the highways are somehow syncopated to the beat of my heart. I am calibrated to flow with the ribbons of roadways, through the endless land they weave together, just as I did when I first left Cincinnati, my birthplace, and headed west, thumb out, a fearless, crazy lady but ineffably, ineluctably ...FREE. And as the America I journeyed in my twenties fades into what she now is becoming, the highways I travel on, now behind the wheel of a Lincoln, sing clearest to me of the liberties that are the very essence of the real America. The mightiest , most evocative metaphor I know , for the liberty that is in such damnable peril now, is the image of the open highway and is invitation to leave your present life and re-invent it
The day I am financially solvent enough to hit these highways, westward bound, with my entire family in tow, no matter how that looks, that is the day I scream hallelujah and dance a jubilant dance. Yes, dance a jubilant dance I will , the day my Jeep takes the roads west that will lead to whatever mountain our hearts will call home. We are Americans. This is America. That is how we do it. Just try to fucking stop us.
Well, I wanted to continue tweaking the template but the way is denied me. The doors are barred, the gate is up and there is no way that I will use my time venturing through the uncharted reaches of Blogdoms' help resources to find a cure. I'm sure all the information provided is fully comprehensible to those luminous creatures who speak eat drink and fuck HTML and CSS, but it's rather time consuming for the uninitiated. By the way, I regard these aforementioned creatures with awe and respect. At times I am just thoroughly intoxicated as I wander through their myriad creations in this strange land. Absolutely inspiring and encouraging to see how bright the human mind and spirt doth glow. That being said, I had hoped to add some links as well as figure out how to create another table over there to the right. I entertain the idea of listing those questions I might ask god if I ever meet the real god. Until such a time I absolutely refuse to ascribe to that entity any human attribute or tendencies. I'm sure as hell will not put words in..... See. I'm already giving *him* a mouth. My thought is, as soon as you 'understand' a god from a human heart, you create a fallible human god and this god is so like humans that his literature is full of bloodshed and dire pondering and obsessed raving bearded men. No, my imagining is that there is no capacity in us to comprehend, see, or hear. Apparently only the eternal yearning for.......who? BUT, should I meet the dude. I would pose some of these inquiries. In lieu of the table, for now I will just { bracket }those inquiries and nest them in this column.
I have little or no acquaintance with archaeology or its 'star players', so I can not determine if this article refuting any Israelite claim to the Palestine area is credible or biased towards a certain conclusion, or what. This dude, Ze'ev Herzog claims archaeological testing and analysis indicate :
"... that 'the formative stages of the People of Israel were utterly different from those the Bible articulates. Nonetheless, such views have not percolated into the awareness of the public at large.' He (Herzog) believes that most 'Israelis (as well as Jews in the Diaspora) would still be shocked to read such conclusions as these: that the People of Israel did not sojourn in Egypt, did not wander in the wilderness, did not conquer the land of Canaan in a military campaign, and did not pass it on as inheritance to the Twelve Tribes of Israel. "
He goes on to to discredit the account about the walls of Jericho, which, apparently did not 'go tumbling down"
". Though the Old Testament offers no date for the conquest of the Promised Land, later ancient texts and archaeological evidence suggested that this was the only possible period in which Joshua and the Israelites could have arrived in Canaan. Joshua's Jericho lay buried in the tell close to the point where the Late Bronze Age strata ended and the Iron Age strata began. Wedged between these two strata should have been a black band, the ash and the tumbled bricks of the city's fallen walls. Kenyon found evidence that during the Early Iron Age, the period which was the only possible time for the first Israelite settlements in Canaan, Jericho had been largely deserted, having been in a state of ruin ever since the destruction of the last Bronze Age city 300 years earlier. "
Well, I have not heard anything about it in mainstream news and even if it were irrefutably true, would the powers that be allow it to be disseminated? It wouldn't seem to support Israels' claims and, gee, aren't we still having a little brouhaha over there about this. If we allow a biblical myth to instruct the worlds' governments in allowing Israel to be formed, it seems we need to hear from the side that debunks the myths. Especially the frigging biblical myths. They have a nasty tendency to bring out the worse in men.
Jesus, wouldn't that be just the final cap on things to find the billions of deaths brought about because of that one book, the Bible, were all based on lies and fairy tales. I would think everyone might be a tad pissed at these mid-eastern tribes at that stage.. Of course, essentially all wars are only about power and greed. Poor folks like God, and the rest of humanity serve as easy scapegoats.
This is the type of headline that makes me want to just tear my hair out. Friggin Farrakhan should not be even permitted back in this country, let alone be permitted to act in the capacity of a diplomat. It is sad and sobering to realize the sizable number of malcontents in this country, be they any color, who are drawn to these virulent and apocalyptic doctrines, thus, are every bit as dangerous, if not more so, than any of Bin Ladins rancid followers. And I would have to assume the millions in this country who find their heroes in the Farrakhans, Jacksons, and Sharptons of the world, are more than willing to add their chorus to the growing global choir, all of whom sing for our countries destruction. Call it racist. I call it realist. Anyone who can not discern the savage barbarism in Islamic thought, are just frigging deceiving themselves. If it were not so, why are their respective countries primitive and repressive. If this is the religion that nurtures their spirit, then they are spiritual zombies, the tribes of the living dead. Spare us, please, all those who speak for a god!
And so we come to Bush and his damnable faith-based initiative. What is the point? Why has he, since being placed in office, been so avidly pursuing this? What does it entail?
Bush: "America's founding documents give us religious liberty in principle" while charities across the country "show us religious liberty in action," Bush said in defense of his plan. I have a feeling this statement, like most coming from politicians, says nothing at all. What does religious liberty in action look like? Salvation Army? YWCA? Well, they seem to have been doing fine without government funds. Or is religious liberty in action look like Jim Jones and his Kool-aid gang? What about the religious liberty all those in Waco thought they had a right too? It would seem to me, the liberty of acting in the name of your religion, can be the very thing that transmogrifies religious liberty into a license for deception and repression and murder. Ask the Taliban. Anyway if you use religion as a defining factor in charity , I would think you exclude all who can exercise their generosity just fine without the auspices of a god or government. . It is simply ' liberty' in this country that allows people to form charitable organizations, or not. What the hell does religion have to do with it. Are his motives to find a way to tap that vast pool of untaxed church money? Or, is he going to subtly start using religious organizations to be the government's other pulpit. That is a scary thought.
"The president said that "religious liberty is more than the right to believe in God's love. It is the right to be an instrument of God's love. Such work is beyond the reach of government and beyond the role of government." I'm so confused. I hate being so obtuse that I fail to grasp the noble vision. Is the assumption here that all religions serve a benign God? By the Bush definition of religion, the Taliban are simply instruments of god. And if it is "beyond the reach of the government", then why the hell is Bush reaching? Damn it! Religion and liberty are exclusive of each other. One does not construct the other. In fact, my uneducated guess is that the true definition of liberty is inherently at odds with the tenets of most religions. Religions have more in common with dictatorships than democracies. Unfortunately, these days, America is starting to have more in common with tyranny than freedom . Oh well.
Here is one reason why they all hate us.
Radley Balkowrites for FOX: "In fact, life today in America in most every way represents the zenith of human achievement. Even our "poor" are more affluent, well-fed and have access to more creature comforts and amenities than most of the rest of the world’s "middle class." The poor in America today in many ways live better than royalty did just a century ago. In fact, by most standards, poor Americans today live better than average Americans did just 50 years ago."
Why? Why does all data demonstrate that in every way, our culture and society exceeds those of the rest of the world. Liberty! Freedom! Not just our political freedom but economic freedom as well. He goes on to point out that even though India is a democracy, it still endures harsh poverty due to the lack of economic freedom. "America’s economy consistently ranks as one of the freest on the planet. Just last month, the Cato Institute and the Fraser Institute of Canada released their annual "Economic Freedom of the World" report. No surprise. The United States’ economy ranked third, behind only the city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore. The correlation between free economies and standard of living is unmistakable. Free people live better, longer, happier lives."
Well, I find I have an obscene amount of time today to pursue this writing. Being ADD, that can represent yet another block of my life to waste, or I can actually just stay seated at my chair and try to tackle the various threads I want to develop,or log, or make note of.
Such as what I was writing, uh, below. It is before, thus, it appears, below. Right, whatever. But, the affect of living through the 50's. Well, actually, I didn't participate in the 50's experience, being born in '52. But I was in the environment and even if I didn't have, being so young, language or conceptual tools to translate my culture or environment, I'm thoroughly convinced it was absorbed and thus, part of my 'programming'. Whatever culture my parents brought to the table ( the tales of The Great Depression, WWI and WWII,Bing Crosby, Laurel & Hardy), were absorbed as well. A cornucopia of culture to feast upon before thoroughly rejecting, then trashing it. Well, I don't want this to lean towards hyperbole, as is my habit. I will simply narrow it down to my experience because I certainly am not equipped to make pronouncements regarding the entire culture. I may have, in my world, trashed and shredded the moral and social codes I was raised with. Given the repressive nature of my family, I probably would not have had an option, other than rebellion, in any era. It was either rebel or become another morbidly depressed lost Slavic soul. Yikes, frightens the hell out of me yet. Believe me, a bloodline traceable to Transylvania gives me justifiable trepidation about any inclination in myself towards darkness. The taboos I broke were mostly societal. And those transgressions, mostly sexual, some in the realm of witchcraft, would have merited corporeal punishment, prison, or even death 150 years ago. As it was, I earned the repudiation and scorn of my peers. Which, I perversely relished. So, fromLAW, to Moral Stricture, to a plethora of moral options!! There. My erudite synopsis on the progress of social revolution.
Which doesn't bring me to my point, but when do I ever get to my frigging point.
Ok. I have been wandering around the universe, drinking in the lives of others, weeping at the lack of my own. Not quite sure why, at 50, ( if I say it, write it, stare at it, well, will anything make me understand I am 50?!!? There has to be an escape clause, somewhere). Having a day off is still rather uncomfortable. Old guilt triggers I suppose.
You would have thought after dedicating my youth ( and thus, every ensuing year, it would seem) to hippie-dom, I would have thoroughly eradicated the stultifying cultural mores and societal taboos that fought for mastery of my mind and spirit as I slugged my way through the gamut of strictures and stereotypes blandished liberally through such shows as these: Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet and Donna Reed or My Three Sons.
You would think??!!?? But , oh no, not me! I seem still to be subject to and slave of the very judgements and boundaries I had thought were long ago defused and sent packing. If I were truly free, would I still waste energy obsessing with being 12 pounds overweight and several degrees closer to flabbiness than I can tolerate. Or reaching the big Frigging 50 and succumbing completely to the raspy voice of doom that pervades the airwaves of a woman my age in this damnable culture.
Yikes!!! Listen to me. I'm rabid. What to do, what to do......
