From Mike's website; he a funny monkey.
The Sky is (Not) Falling
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Government: "Oh my God! They're attacking our country!"
Public: "Oh my God!"
Government: "We must identify and root out all terror!"
Public: "Yes! Save us!"
Government: "We shall set laws to make it easier to search your records and determine if you are a terrorist!"
Public: "Please, do so freely! I love what you do for me!"
Government: "We will meticulously search your carry-on baggage and make you endure careful shoe examinations --especially if you're decidedly ethnic!"
Public: "Search everything immediately for I am so very frightened for my life!"
Government: "We will invade a country full of people whose culture you don't understand, thus making it easier for you to accept as a direct threat to America despite having absolutely nothing to do with the attack!"
Public: "I'm sure they weren't innocent...Freedom isn't Free!"
Government: "Look! There goes a bronze-skinned American citizen lingering his gaze at a building behind you...we must lock him up for months on end without charging him!"
Public: "Of course! No true American would grow a beard like that!"
Government: "Ah! Anthrax!"
Public: "Acckkkk!"
Government: "Oh no! Bird flu!"
Public: "Eeeeek!"
Government: "We have another credible threat of terrorists attacking your local supermarket!"
Public: "Raise the threat level, RAISE THE THREAT LEVEL!"
Public: "Look! The Arabs are trying to control our ports, creating a huge threat to our security!"
Government: "Huh?"
Public: "The Arabs! Look! The UAE are going to control our ports!"
Government: "I'm not following what you're saying."
Public: "They used to bed with Al Qaeda and the Taliban!"
Government: "That's the most irrational, racist thing I've ever heard."
Public: "But we must fight the terrorists! YOU taught us that!"
Government: "You're twisting my words. This deal WILL proceed as planned."
Public: "What?!? Are you crazy? Not just no, but HELL NO!"
Government: "I assure you everything will be fine."
Public: "Don't you remember 9/11? Don't you remember when the towers fell?"
Government: "What does that have to with the port deal?"
Public: "You buffoon! Are you daft? We're AT WAR! If you're not with us, you're against us!"
Government: "Look, I don't mean to offend you but..."
Public: "Did I mention I'm a registered voter and you're a lame duck?"
Government: "Okay, okay, we'll call off the deal."
Public: "Hurray! All is well in the land! We're saved!"
Government: "Wait! We just received a threat of an attack on college basketball tournaments..."
Public: "Ahhhhhhhhhhh! Help me!!!!"
Mike
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Light the Corners of My Mind
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
Walt Whitman
I've been studying memory a lot lately because to me, one of the things that makes life the most interesting is to remember it in the most objective way possible. There are tricks to doing this correctly. It's hard and takes time and I devote at least one day out of the month to getting it right. I like to know what is motivating me to do the things that I do and I know for sure that the past, while not a place that I like to revist too terribly often, can tell me a lot about who I was and who I am now. There are things that I've done that no one will ever know about that were some of the best moments in my life: total shining examples of humanity. Then again, some of the shit I've done makes me cringe. I realized at some point (actually at an airport in Atlanta) that there really never is an excuse for being as selfish as I was, so I decided that my choices were to do better or die sucking. Now, I never stop wanting to do better, I never stop wanting people to do their best, and I rarely stop expecting that to happen.
I’ve seen some serious hypocrisy in my life. The kind of hypocrisy that made me fear that the person(s) guilty of it would reach some kind of hypocritical mass and explode in a fury of self-congratulatory confetti. I mean, hell, I've yet to be attacked by anyone who didn't throw out my past for target practice and have never, ever been attacked by anyone who wasn't guilty of the same shit that I did. It is because I saw this and the types of people who were very much into it that I forced myself to be as honest as possible without either embellishment or self-deprecation. I was like, "Oh fuck is that what happens when you become too firmly cemented in your own bullshit??!!" Maybe not the finest excuse for an epiphany but it worked. It scared the bejesus out of me and taught me the important lesson of being responsible without feeling guilty. Well, that and Günter Grass.
Our memories unfortunately, tend to reflect an egocentric bias. We want to remember ourselves in the best possible light. We also tend to want to think that our self-serving deeds or failures were simply a reaction to something in our environment. If we're not patting ourselves on the back we're making everything out to be worse than it was so that we can take comfort in self-pity. The truth is that no matter what the provocation, being unkind (even to oneself) is simply wrong. There is no excuse, no provocation that can justify cruelty or smirking indifference to the suffering of another. There is no real excuse for being glad if someone else fails and the only reason we do it is so that we can nod our self-satisfied heads with the knowledge that we were right all along. Good for us. The prize? We lose some perspective because the moment we stop admitting our own failures or excusing our failures for any reason whatsoever, we take the first steps in becoming willfully ignorant. That, to me, is the absolute worst possible fate I can imagine.
True character probably exists in all people, and its strength within us is based on how much we are willing to accept who we are. This is the only way to fully realize who we can be. There are no real martyrs, no heroes, and certainly no saints. There are only those who sleep and those who refuse to eat the lotus. The prize? The sometimes painful but always interesting truth and I like the truth more than I like being right.
Also, if you're going to contradict yourself, change your behavior to reflect your beliefs. Otherwise, you're silly. You're just silly.
Walt Whitman
I've been studying memory a lot lately because to me, one of the things that makes life the most interesting is to remember it in the most objective way possible. There are tricks to doing this correctly. It's hard and takes time and I devote at least one day out of the month to getting it right. I like to know what is motivating me to do the things that I do and I know for sure that the past, while not a place that I like to revist too terribly often, can tell me a lot about who I was and who I am now. There are things that I've done that no one will ever know about that were some of the best moments in my life: total shining examples of humanity. Then again, some of the shit I've done makes me cringe. I realized at some point (actually at an airport in Atlanta) that there really never is an excuse for being as selfish as I was, so I decided that my choices were to do better or die sucking. Now, I never stop wanting to do better, I never stop wanting people to do their best, and I rarely stop expecting that to happen.
I’ve seen some serious hypocrisy in my life. The kind of hypocrisy that made me fear that the person(s) guilty of it would reach some kind of hypocritical mass and explode in a fury of self-congratulatory confetti. I mean, hell, I've yet to be attacked by anyone who didn't throw out my past for target practice and have never, ever been attacked by anyone who wasn't guilty of the same shit that I did. It is because I saw this and the types of people who were very much into it that I forced myself to be as honest as possible without either embellishment or self-deprecation. I was like, "Oh fuck is that what happens when you become too firmly cemented in your own bullshit??!!" Maybe not the finest excuse for an epiphany but it worked. It scared the bejesus out of me and taught me the important lesson of being responsible without feeling guilty. Well, that and Günter Grass.
Our memories unfortunately, tend to reflect an egocentric bias. We want to remember ourselves in the best possible light. We also tend to want to think that our self-serving deeds or failures were simply a reaction to something in our environment. If we're not patting ourselves on the back we're making everything out to be worse than it was so that we can take comfort in self-pity. The truth is that no matter what the provocation, being unkind (even to oneself) is simply wrong. There is no excuse, no provocation that can justify cruelty or smirking indifference to the suffering of another. There is no real excuse for being glad if someone else fails and the only reason we do it is so that we can nod our self-satisfied heads with the knowledge that we were right all along. Good for us. The prize? We lose some perspective because the moment we stop admitting our own failures or excusing our failures for any reason whatsoever, we take the first steps in becoming willfully ignorant. That, to me, is the absolute worst possible fate I can imagine.
True character probably exists in all people, and its strength within us is based on how much we are willing to accept who we are. This is the only way to fully realize who we can be. There are no real martyrs, no heroes, and certainly no saints. There are only those who sleep and those who refuse to eat the lotus. The prize? The sometimes painful but always interesting truth and I like the truth more than I like being right.
Also, if you're going to contradict yourself, change your behavior to reflect your beliefs. Otherwise, you're silly. You're just silly.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Hard for a Pimp
"You should have seen how some of them were dressed," Bridges said. "Sometimes troopers would wrap them up in one of those yellow blankets used to cover dead bodies."
Magistrate Roy Bridges, describing the appearance of the child prostitutes he had recently arrested.
What a creepy, yet appropriate image. Story is here.
Magistrate Roy Bridges, describing the appearance of the child prostitutes he had recently arrested.
What a creepy, yet appropriate image. Story is here.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Anne
Civil rights activist Anne Braden died in Louisville last Monday at the age of 81. I was fortunate enough to have taken a class taught by Mrs. Braden my sophomore year at NKU. At first, it seemed like the coolest thing ever to take a class taught by a friend and contemporary of Martin Luther King. Later, I thought it was much cooler to have taken a class taught by a person who actually worked to help people get a fair break instead of lamenting and waiting for someone else to do it.
If you didn't know her, take my word for it, she was one hella cool chick. No wait, don't take my word for anything! Read all about her!
If you didn't know her, take my word for it, she was one hella cool chick. No wait, don't take my word for anything! Read all about her!
Monday, March 06, 2006
The Right Way
And so it begins.
We ladies should take a moment and consider that if abortion becomes illegal across the United States, women who engage in any activity that could endanger a developing organism (human, of course) could be considered attempted murderers. This means that under the right circumstances (pun intended), women could be imprisoned for driving, walking up stairs, taking aspirin, or eating unhealthy foods.
Yes, that's an extreme point of view, probably just as extreme as pharmacists denying women their birth control prescriptions or their emergency contraception. We live in extreme times.
More than "I can't believe this is happening", I've been thinking, "I wonder what will happen next?" Interestingly, I've found that more and more often, as long as it's a convenient anal rape, most people bleat maybe a vague semblance of protest before they simply lay down and spread their trotters. Give me my gas and my valu-menu or give me death. As long as I'm not ensconced in someone's abdomen.
**Update: Hee, wow, The Great 62-2 Ports Deal Rebellion. Bush must be wearing one of those cone thingies around his neck to keep him from gnawing his wounds over this one...
***And then I was all like...Comedy. Fucking. Gold.
We ladies should take a moment and consider that if abortion becomes illegal across the United States, women who engage in any activity that could endanger a developing organism (human, of course) could be considered attempted murderers. This means that under the right circumstances (pun intended), women could be imprisoned for driving, walking up stairs, taking aspirin, or eating unhealthy foods.
Yes, that's an extreme point of view, probably just as extreme as pharmacists denying women their birth control prescriptions or their emergency contraception. We live in extreme times.
More than "I can't believe this is happening", I've been thinking, "I wonder what will happen next?" Interestingly, I've found that more and more often, as long as it's a convenient anal rape, most people bleat maybe a vague semblance of protest before they simply lay down and spread their trotters. Give me my gas and my valu-menu or give me death. As long as I'm not ensconced in someone's abdomen.
**Update: Hee, wow, The Great 62-2 Ports Deal Rebellion. Bush must be wearing one of those cone thingies around his neck to keep him from gnawing his wounds over this one...
***And then I was all like...Comedy. Fucking. Gold.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Six Degrees of Saturation
Once again, I am pissed.
I just found a new Schizophelia on eBay. At first, when I saw that others were copying my name, I was flattered. I'm tired of it now. I want to kick each and every one of them in the cooter. Except maybe that one who pierces her nethers and eats babies, I kind of like her. But on eBay?? That's not me, guys. First off, I'd never invent a pseudonym like this and then use it to buy used sundries and haberdashery. I certainly wouldn't use it to send hugs and kisses to anyone in a public forum. Girls, if you're going to be lovey dovey about life, can't you call yourself something less...awesome?
This is frustrating. And it's hard to be nice about it. But try I must. But before that, I must confess that after years of trying to extricate myself from people who seek to co-opt my identity at any price, I would love it grandly if others could go out and you know, experience life instead of making it up or better yet, stealing a piece of mine.
I just found a new Schizophelia on eBay. At first, when I saw that others were copying my name, I was flattered. I'm tired of it now. I want to kick each and every one of them in the cooter. Except maybe that one who pierces her nethers and eats babies, I kind of like her. But on eBay?? That's not me, guys. First off, I'd never invent a pseudonym like this and then use it to buy used sundries and haberdashery. I certainly wouldn't use it to send hugs and kisses to anyone in a public forum. Girls, if you're going to be lovey dovey about life, can't you call yourself something less...awesome?
This is frustrating. And it's hard to be nice about it. But try I must. But before that, I must confess that after years of trying to extricate myself from people who seek to co-opt my identity at any price, I would love it grandly if others could go out and you know, experience life instead of making it up or better yet, stealing a piece of mine.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Junky Trouble
JT LeRoy is not a male junky ho, nor is James Frey a recovering ex-con whose teen drama led to a stint in the hoosegow and a miraculous recovery from addiction. What? You mean they lied to us about their junky pasts?? I’m so…not surprised. But why exactly does a person write a “memoir” that proves to be a total falsehood instead of just writing a work of fiction and calling it like it is? Smart people write books, call ‘em fiction and coyly hint that there might be some truth to them, thus creating a mystique and therefore, a following of curious lifestyle onlookers. Stupid people on the other hand, write books, call ‘em autobiographies and forget that along the way, their stupid, lying asses have left behind a trail of people who can’t stand them and would be more than happy to call them out if they happen to be foolish enough to publish their lies and call them truth. Or better yet, have left behind a paper trail (or lack of one, in Frey's case) which disproves all their tear-stained stories and just pisses people off.
Here's the thing: most people who live the lives that LeRoy and Frey made up aren’t necessarily going to be heard. They’re either dead or in prison. Addiction…is Plato’s cave for poor people.
The truth is just too damned honest. It’s dirty and full of flies and grit and smog. The “happy ending” doesn’t just fade in after a montage, but evolves after years and years and years of sewing and knitting back together a life that was so damaged so early that the person just wanted to throw it back.
Lives rarely just stop sucking unless someone works long and hard to make them stop sucking, which means that some small part of you must remain unbroken enough to have the will to even begin such a monumental effort. That in itself is rare for anyone, let alone those who were born into poverty and abuse. If your atrophied sense of self preservation can keep you afloat long enough, (i.e., if you aren’t totally useless after years of being someone else’s punching bag/fuck toy), you must then build a raft amid freezing, rushing water using broken twigs that happen to float past you here and there. Then you must climb on, but beware of all of the people who want to pull you back down off of your half-assed, hoopty raft that is busy engaging in its own brutal struggle just to support your heavy, heavy psyche. You’ll recognize the hands of the people who are pulling at your limbs because they were probably your best friends at some point. Trust me when I say they’ll drag you down with smiles on their faces and promises of loyalty and puppies made of candy. If by some crazy twist of fate you’re able to get away from the grasping claws of your former associates, you’ll have to (for the rest of your life) walk on a river bank that is covered in slippery mud, forcing yourself not to look back and instead, looking from side to side and ahead all at the same time to make sure you don’t fall down while you’re trying to move forward. If you fuck up once, just once, you will have to start this process over and you will have lost faith in your ability to do it again and to keep doing it once you've gone through the larval stage, leaving you once again, fucked. You'll need to possess a strong will, a great deal of self-awareness (a realistic assessment of how much you rock and how much you suck), and an ability to survive completely and utterly alone on top of the will to stop slipping into the much-easier haze of drug abuse or in my case, insanity. Now, you’ve got that done, yes? Ok, now go write a book and get it published with the grand connections and amazing education you’ve obtained while being a junky. K?
I’m not usually one to place a shocking story into a diatribe because it smacks of grandstanding…but I think this one applies and it always bugs me when I hear people talk about their horrid childhoods which lead to their horrid acts as adults, knowing for a fact that they’re making up stories (if you ever hear the words “recovered memories”, run for cover my friends) because they are just too damned lazy and far too dubious of character to earn any real accolades.
My childhood friend Tracey was found face down in the desert last year with a cardboard box only partially covering her body. The last time I saw her, she was dressed up like a Fairy for Halloween. And this is what I see laying there in the Mojave. An 11 year old with broken cardboard wings and dirty pink chiffon, track marks covering her mottled arms and her stripper’s thong wrapped around her neck where the murderer (who is still at large; no one cares about junky prostitutes) left it. I picture him dragging her out there and pulling that piece of cardboard only halfway over her body, scratching his ass and walking away, muttering, "Aw, fuck it." She never had anything better than a half-assed piece of corrugated cardboard life anyway. Why bother allowing her an ounce of dignity now?
This is how most of the people from my neighborhood ended their lives or ended the lives of others. This is the movie I saw again and again growing up at the Plato Matinee for poor kids. These are the lives that junkys lead and this is not an uncommon event. You won’t see it on Oprah. You’ll see “recovered memories”, James Frey, and many other examples of people who are so boring that they lie or co-opt the experiences of others, but you won’t see anyone from my neighborhood.
And I fucking wish I was lying.
For a much more empathetic view of literary hustling, I suggest Stephen Beachy's article in New York Magazine. He has a different perspective than the one above and it is a lovely read.
Here's the thing: most people who live the lives that LeRoy and Frey made up aren’t necessarily going to be heard. They’re either dead or in prison. Addiction…is Plato’s cave for poor people.
The truth is just too damned honest. It’s dirty and full of flies and grit and smog. The “happy ending” doesn’t just fade in after a montage, but evolves after years and years and years of sewing and knitting back together a life that was so damaged so early that the person just wanted to throw it back.
Lives rarely just stop sucking unless someone works long and hard to make them stop sucking, which means that some small part of you must remain unbroken enough to have the will to even begin such a monumental effort. That in itself is rare for anyone, let alone those who were born into poverty and abuse. If your atrophied sense of self preservation can keep you afloat long enough, (i.e., if you aren’t totally useless after years of being someone else’s punching bag/fuck toy), you must then build a raft amid freezing, rushing water using broken twigs that happen to float past you here and there. Then you must climb on, but beware of all of the people who want to pull you back down off of your half-assed, hoopty raft that is busy engaging in its own brutal struggle just to support your heavy, heavy psyche. You’ll recognize the hands of the people who are pulling at your limbs because they were probably your best friends at some point. Trust me when I say they’ll drag you down with smiles on their faces and promises of loyalty and puppies made of candy. If by some crazy twist of fate you’re able to get away from the grasping claws of your former associates, you’ll have to (for the rest of your life) walk on a river bank that is covered in slippery mud, forcing yourself not to look back and instead, looking from side to side and ahead all at the same time to make sure you don’t fall down while you’re trying to move forward. If you fuck up once, just once, you will have to start this process over and you will have lost faith in your ability to do it again and to keep doing it once you've gone through the larval stage, leaving you once again, fucked. You'll need to possess a strong will, a great deal of self-awareness (a realistic assessment of how much you rock and how much you suck), and an ability to survive completely and utterly alone on top of the will to stop slipping into the much-easier haze of drug abuse or in my case, insanity. Now, you’ve got that done, yes? Ok, now go write a book and get it published with the grand connections and amazing education you’ve obtained while being a junky. K?
I’m not usually one to place a shocking story into a diatribe because it smacks of grandstanding…but I think this one applies and it always bugs me when I hear people talk about their horrid childhoods which lead to their horrid acts as adults, knowing for a fact that they’re making up stories (if you ever hear the words “recovered memories”, run for cover my friends) because they are just too damned lazy and far too dubious of character to earn any real accolades.
My childhood friend Tracey was found face down in the desert last year with a cardboard box only partially covering her body. The last time I saw her, she was dressed up like a Fairy for Halloween. And this is what I see laying there in the Mojave. An 11 year old with broken cardboard wings and dirty pink chiffon, track marks covering her mottled arms and her stripper’s thong wrapped around her neck where the murderer (who is still at large; no one cares about junky prostitutes) left it. I picture him dragging her out there and pulling that piece of cardboard only halfway over her body, scratching his ass and walking away, muttering, "Aw, fuck it." She never had anything better than a half-assed piece of corrugated cardboard life anyway. Why bother allowing her an ounce of dignity now?
This is how most of the people from my neighborhood ended their lives or ended the lives of others. This is the movie I saw again and again growing up at the Plato Matinee for poor kids. These are the lives that junkys lead and this is not an uncommon event. You won’t see it on Oprah. You’ll see “recovered memories”, James Frey, and many other examples of people who are so boring that they lie or co-opt the experiences of others, but you won’t see anyone from my neighborhood.
And I fucking wish I was lying.
For a much more empathetic view of literary hustling, I suggest Stephen Beachy's article in New York Magazine. He has a different perspective than the one above and it is a lovely read.
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Not My Real Name
After receiving an email that linked to information about the new law against annoying people over the internet while using a pseudonym, I thought it only fitting to mention that you can't go back to Constantinople, now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople, why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks'.
Got that?
Got that?
Monday, December 12, 2005
Arnie: Savin' the Mutha Fuckin' Day Now
The jury who convicted Stanley Williams and the actor turned Governor who denied Williams clemency are merely defending our noble country, its noble history, and its noble ideals. Ideals like, no torture (unless you're Middle Eastern), no crime must go unpunished (unless you're old, fat, nasty, white, rich, and need Viagra to screw the hooker your secretary just called), and the full on Jesus love, because we wouldn't have Christianity if we never had capital punishment.
America. Fuck yeah.
*Update:
Jasmyne A. Cannick doesn't seem to get it.
Talk too much about the same thing, you become nothing more than noise. If you talk about the same thing once in a while when you can cite a damned good and commonly accepted example of why something is either right or wrong, you have a fighting chance of proving your point. This is why people were so talky about this particular execution, dumbass.
America. Fuck yeah.
*Update:
Jasmyne A. Cannick doesn't seem to get it.
Talk too much about the same thing, you become nothing more than noise. If you talk about the same thing once in a while when you can cite a damned good and commonly accepted example of why something is either right or wrong, you have a fighting chance of proving your point. This is why people were so talky about this particular execution, dumbass.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Bear in Mind
A fun new form of entertainment: Google "Lewis Libby" and "Bears" together. It's awesome.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Living the Archetype
You know what bugs me? Well, if you've read anything other than this post, you have a pretty goddamned good idea. If not, I'll tell you right now, A-#1 top o'the list is willful ignorance. I pretty much despise liars too, but they fall under the willful ignorance umbrella because they lie to themselves first (the part you don't see) then start having to defend the bullshit (the stuff you DO see) and eventually center their lives on this bullshit. Like a Copernican cow-patty; that's willful ignorance.
Life has been made easier by technology but that shouldn't mean that human beings should stop evolving. If anything, we now have the ability to decide what stays and goes in our reality most of the time. However, people still want life handed to them in a series of unlikely answers to intangible questions given to us by people who have no clue what the fuck they're talking about. If people aren't arguing over what they can worship they're arguing over how they should worship and when. If it was up to me, no one would be allowed to worship anything in public. Trade literature all you want folks, but no more churches, ashrams, fucking meditation centers, or anything else where stupid people could congregate and blissfully bask in their own mediocrity and willingness to use a pathetic archetype as an example of how to exist. Flip the fucking pancake; breakfast was over 2,000 years ago.
Why this rant now? Because Christians are now embracing C.S. Lewis and non-Christians are freaking out about it. Both sides sound like angry spouses snarling over an only child in the middle of a bitter divorce.
I spent my early childhood in a small nook of concrete in central Ohio. My brethren were but baby steps from snake handling Appalachia and all the churches in my neighborhood were filled with holy rollin', heaven bound believers in the liberatin' power of Jesus' name. No joke. So there I was, third or fourth grade. The teacher liked to read books to us right before lunch time. So she gathered herself up and made a statement that some of the kids would be excused to the library. The rustle of sack lunches from under desks was heard, coats slung on backs, and out marched about five or six kids, full of purpose. Confused, I turned around to ask the kid behind me what was going on. "She's readin' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." "...and?" "They's talkin' animals in it. That's devil worshippin'." "It is??" "Yeah, 'cause in the Bible, talkin' animals ain't Christian." Hmm. I see. Don't believe me? Check this out. Mmm hmm. That's what I'm talkin' about.
This was sometime in the 70's and it was in a place where "holy rollers" were considered the conservatives. The word "satanic" was heard frequently, many of the evil deeds from lost dogs to colicky babies were attributed to demons. Satan, I suppose, sent lesser imps to handle the stuff in my neighborhood, making personal appearances for oh, things like natural disasters and Led Zeppelin albums (played-backwards, of course). The KKK still considered (and might still, since I've lost contact with much of my extended family, I'm not up on current Klan dogma) Catholics to be akin to Jews, and anyone who wasn't all about church was certainly doomed to burn. Concerned parents pressed the teacher to stop with the entire Narnia series because it was considered satanic. The book was even challenged in Maryland in 1990 because it depicted "graphic violence, mysticism, and gore". Hmmmm. I have searched in vain for what type of mysticism was so offensive to the Maryland crowd and thus far, I have found nothing. So I'm not exactly sure if it was non-Christians who were pissed off because of all the god metaphor or if itÂ’s Christians who were pissed off because talking animals are the devils work. This brings me to my point:
This poor, innocent book is getting it at both ends. I think it best to handle this situation with diplomacy and tact.
To Christians, I say, shut the fuck up. You've been bitching about this book for ages. Now, all of the sudden, it's a badge for all that is holy and righteous and good. Well screw you. It's a much more realistic and heart breaking description of the torture and death of Christ, I'll give you that. But kids will only make that connection later. No kid is going to be thinking, "Hey, that dead lion, all coming back to life and stuff? That's exactly like Jesus! I've been so blind...*sniffle*” Non-Christians who want this book banned from classrooms? You shut the fuck up too. Screw you guys for having to fight a bunch of assholes just so we can read Salinger and then turning around and saying that censorship is ok as long as it's batting for your team. I don't want people forcing kids to pray or to say the Pledge of Allegiance but if a teacher wants to read a book about a friendly lion and a neat portal into another world, let 'em. It's not like any kid ponders that book and says, "Hey, I know. This might just be the primer to world Christian domination. I'ma go get saved right now!"
Get a fucking grip and get it now. Both of y'all are getting on my nerves.
Addendum:
I didn't edit anything above but I am adding this last bit because I had a long discussion with a friend about what I'd written. His take was that barring anyone from public worship is the same as censorship. Good point. My take is that it's not like I think that will ever happen, but I'd like it if people took into consideration that congregating (in its best form) would be a group of people hanging out to either thank *insert deity* for their current bounty or to enjoy the company of like-minded folk. Fine. Not my cup of tea, but hey, no one is shitting on my lawn that way, right? But groups, man. Groups are scary. Someone wants to lead, someone else wants to follow, followers tend to be even more self-righteous to prove that they're serious about the thing they're following, and eventually you end up with a megalomaniacal freak (bolstered by the fervency of his/her followers) and a bunch of freaky followers freaking out over nothing.
Life has been made easier by technology but that shouldn't mean that human beings should stop evolving. If anything, we now have the ability to decide what stays and goes in our reality most of the time. However, people still want life handed to them in a series of unlikely answers to intangible questions given to us by people who have no clue what the fuck they're talking about. If people aren't arguing over what they can worship they're arguing over how they should worship and when. If it was up to me, no one would be allowed to worship anything in public. Trade literature all you want folks, but no more churches, ashrams, fucking meditation centers, or anything else where stupid people could congregate and blissfully bask in their own mediocrity and willingness to use a pathetic archetype as an example of how to exist. Flip the fucking pancake; breakfast was over 2,000 years ago.
Why this rant now? Because Christians are now embracing C.S. Lewis and non-Christians are freaking out about it. Both sides sound like angry spouses snarling over an only child in the middle of a bitter divorce.
I spent my early childhood in a small nook of concrete in central Ohio. My brethren were but baby steps from snake handling Appalachia and all the churches in my neighborhood were filled with holy rollin', heaven bound believers in the liberatin' power of Jesus' name. No joke. So there I was, third or fourth grade. The teacher liked to read books to us right before lunch time. So she gathered herself up and made a statement that some of the kids would be excused to the library. The rustle of sack lunches from under desks was heard, coats slung on backs, and out marched about five or six kids, full of purpose. Confused, I turned around to ask the kid behind me what was going on. "She's readin' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." "...and?" "They's talkin' animals in it. That's devil worshippin'." "It is??" "Yeah, 'cause in the Bible, talkin' animals ain't Christian." Hmm. I see. Don't believe me? Check this out. Mmm hmm. That's what I'm talkin' about.
This was sometime in the 70's and it was in a place where "holy rollers" were considered the conservatives. The word "satanic" was heard frequently, many of the evil deeds from lost dogs to colicky babies were attributed to demons. Satan, I suppose, sent lesser imps to handle the stuff in my neighborhood, making personal appearances for oh, things like natural disasters and Led Zeppelin albums (played-backwards, of course). The KKK still considered (and might still, since I've lost contact with much of my extended family, I'm not up on current Klan dogma) Catholics to be akin to Jews, and anyone who wasn't all about church was certainly doomed to burn. Concerned parents pressed the teacher to stop with the entire Narnia series because it was considered satanic. The book was even challenged in Maryland in 1990 because it depicted "graphic violence, mysticism, and gore". Hmmmm. I have searched in vain for what type of mysticism was so offensive to the Maryland crowd and thus far, I have found nothing. So I'm not exactly sure if it was non-Christians who were pissed off because of all the god metaphor or if itÂ’s Christians who were pissed off because talking animals are the devils work. This brings me to my point:
This poor, innocent book is getting it at both ends. I think it best to handle this situation with diplomacy and tact.
To Christians, I say, shut the fuck up. You've been bitching about this book for ages. Now, all of the sudden, it's a badge for all that is holy and righteous and good. Well screw you. It's a much more realistic and heart breaking description of the torture and death of Christ, I'll give you that. But kids will only make that connection later. No kid is going to be thinking, "Hey, that dead lion, all coming back to life and stuff? That's exactly like Jesus! I've been so blind...*sniffle*” Non-Christians who want this book banned from classrooms? You shut the fuck up too. Screw you guys for having to fight a bunch of assholes just so we can read Salinger and then turning around and saying that censorship is ok as long as it's batting for your team. I don't want people forcing kids to pray or to say the Pledge of Allegiance but if a teacher wants to read a book about a friendly lion and a neat portal into another world, let 'em. It's not like any kid ponders that book and says, "Hey, I know. This might just be the primer to world Christian domination. I'ma go get saved right now!"
Get a fucking grip and get it now. Both of y'all are getting on my nerves.
Addendum:
I didn't edit anything above but I am adding this last bit because I had a long discussion with a friend about what I'd written. His take was that barring anyone from public worship is the same as censorship. Good point. My take is that it's not like I think that will ever happen, but I'd like it if people took into consideration that congregating (in its best form) would be a group of people hanging out to either thank *insert deity* for their current bounty or to enjoy the company of like-minded folk. Fine. Not my cup of tea, but hey, no one is shitting on my lawn that way, right? But groups, man. Groups are scary. Someone wants to lead, someone else wants to follow, followers tend to be even more self-righteous to prove that they're serious about the thing they're following, and eventually you end up with a megalomaniacal freak (bolstered by the fervency of his/her followers) and a bunch of freaky followers freaking out over nothing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
