Realignment…

Okey dokey. Here’s the thing.

I’m pretty sure I’m suffering post-semester burnout, but after spending 10 weeks cozied up to the aristocracy and the totalitarian governments it spawned in Europe, I’ve had about enough.

If you’re angry, that’s great! BE angry. Go find out the details and post those – article, blog, whatever.

There’s been a tremendous amount of activity on my Facebook account since I launched it in 2008, before I got laid off. I’m angry about all sorts of things and I know it shows. I want the world to wake the hell up and do something before we stifle ourselves and poison our environment so much that we won’t survive. Running to hide in the wilderness won’t solve our immediate problems and probably won’t solve the long-term ones either.

I’m deleting pretty much all the photos (and associated comments) from my feed if I think they contain text that should relate to an article, if they have a “Like this? Share it!” command or if I think for any reason there’s no benefit gained from sharing the photos.

If you want me to read and like/share something, go find me the article that supports the text, and check that it’s not a humor web site because if you don’t, I’m just going to laugh at you. In public. On your wall.

In the meantime, if you put something on my wall, especially if it was a Tea Party rant in favor of their ludicrous behavior, or a Gun Lobby rant in favor of the Second Amendment without exception, it’s probably going away. I am standing down from fighting with you because I can’t win and I have better things to do with my time.

I want to hold accountable those who put us in this place. I want to see restitution for the terrible political decisions our people have made in the last 32 years. And I want to see it in my lifetime. Life’s too freaking short.

I long for the day when the GOP finally realizes the only ones in office whose behavior can truly be called reprehensible enough to justify actual impeachment come from their side of the aisle.

If you blow enough smoke, you’ll keep everyone’s eyes closed, but it won’t fix the problems you create, it will just force us to postpone dealing with them until the smoke finally clears. I just hope there’s still something left of the original American Dream when that happens, because our chances aren’t looking real good right now.

• The Washington Post | Wonkblog: The scandals are falling apart
• The Raw Story: Maher: GOP has moved beyond obstruction to treason
• Stonekettle Station: The IRS Scandal: Tempest In A Teapot
• IRS.gov: IRS Announces Appointment of Sarah Hall Ingram as Chief, Appeals

The value of a college education…

On my way to class on Wednesday last week, I tuned in to the Diane Rehm show and got an earful about what’s wrong-headed about college education.

The show, broadcast on NPR, is here:

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-05-08/who-benefits-college-and-why/transcript

As is often the case, I found myself talking to the radio, which has cathartic benefits but fails to solve any real problems other than to raise my blood pressure.

I’ve stewed on the discussion since then, having completed finals in the first two college courses I’ve taken since 1987, when I failed to grasp the reality behind attaining a Master’s degree in Costume Design. (Western Civilization and the Modern World and 2-Dimensional Basic Design, thanks for asking. I have As in both classes.  Apparently I’ve learned a thing or two about college since 1985. But I digress.)

So why, I ask, did it take almost 45 minutes before anyone mentioned the Human Resources requirements for college degrees? In fact, why hasn’t anyone focused attention on the database method of hiring? If we have to spend hours customizing every job application to fit each job listed, perhaps we should spend more time looking at the specialization movement instead of asking why college is so important.

Lord knows, college isn’t for everyone. The bureaucracy alone is enough to turn many people’s minds to mush. Endless paperwork, boring lectures that are best handled with judicious combinations of textbook reading combined with constant searches on Wikipedia (yes, my professor insisted this was a way to manage in his class) and the ultimate test – the written essay question – are unrealistic as real-world examples of what we’re expected to do…unless, of course, we’re working in an office environment, where we are constantly expected to write, research on the Internet, and listen quietly to boring speeches about whatever topic(s) our boss(es) think are vitally important to our jobs.

So, yes, if you’re destined to be an auto mechanic, a trade school might be more appropriate for you, and no, college isn’t necessary, but if that’s what the entire population of the US is destined to become – a nation of auto mechanics, waitresses, retail workers and hairdressers, then by all means, eliminate college as an option except for the very wealthiest of us.

But if we do, we shouldn’t expect these people to be able to purchase automobiles, eat out at restaurants, or buy a lot of clothing, because there won’t be much of that when the working class spends most of their money on food and shelter.

If we want to enjoy an economy that works for everyone, we need everyone to work at a living wage that pays more than just for the basics. The sheer waste of food, manufactured clothing and goods outweighs our ability to enjoy these things. And Congress has found ways to make the decisions even harder for us.

In just the last month, the House has voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act (for the 37th time) and to take away overtime pay. They have done more damage to the working class than anyone can possibly imagine, and threaten to do more if they get their way. It’s not just about voting against anything President Obama wants. It’s about hurting the people who put them in office.

We all need to wise up and throw them out. All of them.

Then, maybe, we can go back to concentrating on earning a living so that we can actually enjoy our lives.

On the 15th of April…

I have had thoughts over the last week or so on my next post here, but my brain has been overtaken by residual grief wrapped up in losing my dad 3 years ago today.

All the highly personal whining I could do about missing him pales, sadly, in comparison to today’s events in Boston.

I don’t have a lot to say (yet) on the subject. Earlier, I posted this on Facebook:

Aside from the marginally humorous Eff-You PSA messages in replacement for DJ chatter, Jack FM has one thing to go in favor of it. I had zero idea of what was going down in Boston until I checked my feed while selling records at CD Depot. I’ve finally gone back the requisite 5 hours and change to see the chain of events.

I refuse to discuss or analyze anything until I hear something concrete regarding motive and responsible parties. There simply isn’t enough information to gather anything other than that it’s likely a group effort. WHO that group is/was and WHY they did it should not receive speculation.

And a comment: In other areas of the world, bombs go off every single day. As horrified as we are when it happens here, we should remember that we’re lucky (some might even say blessed) it doesn’t happen more often.

I think I’ve heard from everyone I might have known there today. Regardless, my heart goes out to the victims, their families and friends, and to the thousands who were not hurt physically but were there and will remember this day forever, with pain, in Boston and elsewhere.

And I hope for peace, everywhere, soon.

No matter what happens now, the truth – people injured, maimed, killed;  many of them, children – should serve as a reminder of how fragile life really is, more than anything else, and how much we often take for granted waking up each day.

It’s easy to descend into self-indulgent speculation, but such philosophical navel-gazing accomplishes nothing except to anger the falsely accused and give you a sense of false control over a situation for which there is no sane or reasoned explanation.

I hope this is not the start of something terrible. It’s all I can hope for at the moment, until we know more about what happened and why.

And there’s an end in itself. We wait.

In the meantime, take care of yourself and those you love, and in a week or so, when the fury and immediacy have died away, go to the Red Cross and give blood.

Connecting the Dots, Part 2

On October 11, 2012, I wrote the following post: Do you know ALEC? If not, you should. And you should be afraid.

The video above was part of the above post. I just watched it again. Somehow, there has to be a way to get the word out that ALEC isn’t just a lobbying organization masquerading as a non-profit educational organization but is actively writing legislation that states are voting on now to take away individuals’ rights. Including the Stand Your Ground law, Right to Work law and more.

Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Virginia…they’re in every state (including Maryland, where I live). Fortunately, Maryland still carries Democratic Majority, and we are still able to pass legislation that protects our rights, much to the NRA-backed gun lobby’s consternation, but if we don’t spend the time and learn more about ALEC’s activities today, we’re dooming our country to a corporate-driven demise not seen since World War II, or possibly ever.

(Yes, I don’t like the source, but the sources he quotes are legit, and frankly, he’s not the only one who’s noticed the parallels between then and now. If you have a real problem with the site, go to Harvard and view the docs there instead: http://nuremberg.law.harvard.edu/php/docs_swi.php?DI=1&text=overview)

Back in the late ’90s, Hillary Clinton referred to a “vast right-wing conspiracy” targeting Bill Clinton for takedown, first with Whitewater and then Monica Lewinsky. The GOP-backed House, led by Newt Gingrich, almost achieved impeachment, which failed in part because the 1998 election cycle brought in enough senators (not exactly bipartisan, but enough who crossed the lines to make acquittal possible).

Most people blew off  the possibility that there was an actual right-wing conspiracy as improbable at best, unprovable at worst. Who knew the conspiracy would be driven by corporate America, interested most in retaining the bottom line.

Enter the makers of the documentary above.

Suddenly, 40 years of American political history starts to make sense.

The New Yorker, in August 2010, published Jane Mayer’s investigative biographic article, COVERT OPERATIONS: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama. In the article, she outlines the role the brothers have played in shaping conservative politics.

Forbes Magazine, on March 21, 2011, published The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy 2011: Less Vast- More Powerful as a clearer picture of the men behind the curtain, but even this article failed to get to the true depth and breadth of the organization.

On September 12, 2012, in the heat of last year’s election cycle, the Center for Media and Democracy published this article, which helps map out the relationships between the top three conservative think tanks:  Paul Weyrich’s Troika Reunited: ALEC Partners with Republican Study Committee at Heritage Foundation.

The Trayvon Martin case, as sad as it was, has served to expose ALEC’s role in state government politics. Every time I hear the phrase “States’ Rights” I go back to one thing: We have set ourselves up via the Constitution for a corporate takeover the likes of which has never been seen.

All the signs are there. Social programs designed to protect the poor? Gone. Equal pay for equal work? Laughable. Health care? Social Security? Even privacy? Every last one of these is suspect.

So today, we come to this (from Salon.com, today): The Republican Party is officially broken: Washington’s problem isn’t partisanship or a fatally flawed system. It’s that one party is massively dysfunctional

Only, I would argue that they aren’t broken at all. They are operating exactly, specifically as planned. And unless we can find some way to stop their progress, before 2014, there will be no way to fix what’s wrong with this country because Corporate America will have won.

Public school will eventually cease to exist, becoming private (commercial). Tens of thousands of people will die because they can’t afford the cost of healthcare. We will decrease the unnecessary surplus population and that will suit the Suits just fine. The Tea Party will do all the driving if we don’t figure out a way to stop them. Because the Tea Party is leaving “Brownshirt” stains everywhere.

Heck, if this keeps up, I may have to buy a gun.

Remember: You heard it here. Spread the word.

You say banana and I say tomato…

I’m from New York state. New Paltz (where I received my BA in Theatre) was the first town in the state to recognize same-sex marriage as a right, a point of particular pride for me. This morning I got hammered for expressing an opinion that we should call it simply what it is, Marriage Equality, based on the following meme:

Facebook meme courtesy of Support Marriage Equality in Ohio

You want to call it Same Sex Marriage? That’s okay, though the phrase cuts out Transgender relationships for what I think are obvious reasons. If you want to hold the line at calling it Gay Marriage, recall, please, that Gay is not a catch-all phrase for the LGBTQ community at large, and I will hold you accountable for leaving out anyone in the discussion.

I’m going there because that’s where this discussion truly belongs. It takes us into territory that we are really only just starting to understand, but avoiding this aspect doesn’t help my trans friends unless we treat every single person as a person REGARDLESS of their orientation.

Sexuality is a trait, just like skin, hair or eye color. You are born Jewish if your mother is Jewish, because being Jewish is a genetic heritage, but you choose to observe (or not) the tenets of Judaism. Christianity is a choice. And if you choose to discriminate based on gender identification because your chosen faith tells you to, that’s still bigotry.

Those who want to withhold the right of marriage for SOME couples are choosing to do it on the basis of a TRAIT they do not believe exists. Being Gay is not a choice. You can’t choose to have green eyes if you were born with blue. Sure, you can choose to cover up that trait with green contact lenses, but that doesn’t change the fundamental fact that you still have blue eyes. And you can choose to marry someone of the opposite sex to reap the benefits obtained through marriage, but that doesn’t make you straight.

Dark skin is not as easy to disguise, but it was (and still is, at some level) the basis of discrimination. Anti-miscegenation laws remained on the books until 1968. It took us 300 years (give or take a bit) for the Supreme Court to take that ugliness on and it’s STILL a problem to this day, but at least now the courts have recognized the discrimination, even if our people haven’t. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation)

I’m thrilled that we’ve come as far as we have, but there’s still a very long way to go before it becomes safe to say that we are all free to be with and love whomever we want and to share what we have in a legally binding way. All I am saying is that there should NEVER be references to sexual or gender orientation when discussing rights and the law. As the popular saying goes, you don’t need a court system to give you rights. That’s why they’re called rights. I am arguing for equality under the law, regardless.

Marriage is a financial contract committed by people who want to share their lives and livelihoods with each other. In a more sarcastic mood, I would say that every couple has the same right to unhappiness that I have, but I truly know better.

We are starting to hear rhetoric that bothers the hell out of me because it sounds (on the surface) like the bigots have a hook. I want to take that hook away. Equality under the law is the only way to do that. Either everyone has the same rights to marriage or NOBODY does. That simple. Now this blog post, has sparked more, sometimes combative, conversation:

This one will probably get me hate mail from both sides, Gay Marriage

Blogging, in general, consists of opinion sometimes threaded with references to the articles that helped inspire the post in question. WordPress is easy to set-up and allows for free publication – vanity press for the 21st Century. The Cassie Times (this blog) also resides on WordPress. It costs me nothing to write, and you some time to read. It’s where I try to keep my more complex posts, because I like the ability to include multiple references, and that ability sucks in Facebook.

The post in question is a purely op-ed piece, without references to anything concrete. Opinions are free and open, guaranteed by the First Amendment. I haven’t read anything else. His comments about saying that being gay is a lifestyle choice tells me I’m pretty sure I’m not interested in the rest of his opinions, though he does raise several points.

This one in particular:

Why not have a ballot initiatve [sic] that says consenting adults can form a civil partnership that allows visitation rights, joint filing of taxes, parental custody, and coequel property ownership? GASP! But where would be the controversy in that? Then we wouldn’t be able to scream about hatey hate mongers and stuff.

…would be fine except that civil partnerships that aren’t for absolutely every person in the country are the definition of “Separate but Equal” and the moral equivalent of the Whites Only drinking fountain.

If you truly want to argue for civil unions, get yourself to your congressional representatives and argue your case for rewriting our laws or our constitution at the federal level, because anything else fails the test of Equality Under the Law.

State’s Rights has been the traditional bastion of discrimination on the grounds of race, sex and every other separation you can name. Until we abandon its siren call, we will continue to harbor and encourage inequality on all levels of our society. Arguing for Civil Marriage for everyone without actually doing something about it means you keep a class of citizens in their separate place. No matter how you slice it, that’s wrong.

Talking Points Memo: Georgia GOP Chair Warns That Straight People Will Enter Sham Gay Marriages For Benefits

People already get married to reap the benefits of medical insurance and tax shelters. That they are not same-sex is irrelevant. Her point is invalid, unless she wants to come up with a valid test for love. And, since love is often secondary to an arranged marriage (which still happens in this country, depending on the couple’s ethnicity), that point’s invalid, too.

I don’t know about the rest of you and so can’t say that this would be the case for anyone else, but considering the cost of a wedding anywhere, let alone the church-sanctioned variety, I’d think very long and hard before selecting a location or an officiant who did not want to perform my ceremony. Frankly, there’s plenty of fish in the sea, including county clerks (ooh, government again) and justices of the peace who are more than happy to perform such ceremonies. If the priest or church doesn’t want me, I’m pretty sure I don’t want him, either.

The church had nothing whatsoever to do with my marriage, from beginning to end. I have found comfort in belonging to my Unitarian Universalist congregation, and I *might* (or might not) choose a UU minister to serve the next time – if there ever, ever is one – but I would at this point be just as happy to go to the county courthouse and do the deed right there. Having a church-sanctioned wedding and having a legally binding marriage are two totally separate things. The sooner everyone on the religious right stops flapping about rights infringement, the better off we will all be about the issue.

Your argument is (and remains) invalid. While I don’t like the idea of divorce, the act remains legal. Based on NOM’s rhetoric, there are plenty who would be happy to take that right away and turn the USA into Ireland. Fortunately, this country was founded on the separation of church and state for a reason.

And here’s another thing:

The Raw Story: Baptist pastor tells ABC: Same sex marriage is ‘the freedom God has given you’

Because not everyone with religious beliefs thinks same-sex marriage is a problem. And for that, I’m grateful.

Did I hear you right…?

You know, aside from the questionable benefits of drinking overpriced coffee or (in the case of last Friday) tea, and solid support for Marriage Equality – among other things – I gotta give Starbucks credit for hiring people who are generally literate.

Last Friday, I walked in fresh from a philosophical lunchtime discussion that was about to get a lot deeper, about the detrimental effects a professor whose delivery method lacks quite a bit in terms of clarity but who claims to be an authority, and what his impressionable students take away with them having encountered his authoritarian views on the subject.

The subject came up because I was simply appalled at the description said prof gave of a historical British figure, Benjamin Disraeli, the only “Jewish” prime minister of Britain. (a technicality, because Disraeli became a member of the Anglican Church at the age of 12).

It wasn’t the mention of Disraeli but the racial description that caught me off guard. I imagine the point was that this is what people thought of him, but the stereotypical framing of Disraeli’s features, his “annoying voice” (as seen in the movies…yes, really) were classic. And (IMNSHO) dead wrong. How do you prolong a stereotype? Repeat it. In class. When students are hanging on to every word as if it might appear on a test, which is possible.

So we talked about this, at length, at lunch. I know the guy means well, but if I hadn’t been running late, I might have stopped and given my prof a piece of my mind. I’ll be over it again by Wednesday, so I’ll let it rest for now, but on Friday we continued to discuss the subject, up to the point where the barista was working on filling measuring cups with hot steamed milk. She overheard the conversation and pointed me to the article below.

TED Talks: Chimamanda Adichie:
The danger of a single story

I’ll admit, I’ve been on TED a few times, and I’m pleased that NPR is picking up on these stories as jumping off points, so I get to hear about them more often than I have in a while, but she caught me off guard by agreeing with me on the subject. Bravo for her!

If we only hear one point of view, we might never know there are other points to believe. If the only stories we read are about people who are not us, we lose our own stories and we lose our frame of reference. It’s the danger I see in religious-based homeschooling as well. If you restrict the teaching so you never cover science, if your only sources for truth are intentionally omitting  important data, you’ll never know what you’re missing.

And if a professor draws a conclusion that Disraeli is the epitome of a Jew because he has short dark curly hair, small, beady eyes and a big nose, then that’s what you will come to expect. If you opt not to open your eyes to reality, you’ll be surprised to find people of African descent with blue eyes because it never occurs to you that blue eyes are recessive, not impossible. (I made that mistake 20 years ago and never forgot the look on my doctor’s face when I expressed surprise. I should have known better. Now I do.)

This point was so shocking, I lost a portion of the lecture in trying to wrap my mind around what he said.

If we are surprised at the political leanings of the White Student Union of Towson, we should look to our educators. These kids had to learn it somewhere. But that’s not all. Take a gander at the comments in this article from Towson’s Patch.

We’re on shaky ground in my class. We’re getting ready to talk about pre-Nazi Germany. Just as it’s easy to fall into the trap of self-diagnosis when one is a medical student, it’s also too easy to see Nazis everywhere. Trouble is, the Tea Party has built much of its party line on the foundation of racial supremacy, intolerance and nationalism, the same foundation on which the Nazis rose to power.

It’s hard not to see them everywhere. The only question (and I think it’s a good one) is whether we have enough of a balance to keep the wolves at bay. There’s an awful lot of paranoia out there right now, and a whole bunch of it is armed to the teeth, supported by the NRA and by power brokers like the Koch brothers.

“Just because you’re paranoid
doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”

–Joseph Heller, Catch-22

A Tale of Two Rapes… *Trigger warning*

CNN and the rest of our media are taking a lot of well-deserved flack for their report on the Stubenville, OH, rape verdict handed down Sunday.

There is also this report: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/17/justice/ohio-steubenville-case/index.html 

I recognize that reporters are far less objective than they once were, but CNN (and the rest of our media sources) should take the public backlash as a clue to re-evaluate their reporters’ investigative standards. They need to understand that they promote this reprehensible custom: Sympathizing with criminals while leaving victims out to hang.  Jezebel says Here’s What CNN Should’ve Said About the Steubenville Rape Case

CNN isn’t alone in letting this unadulterated crap slip through. Too many members of our society encourage this sort of thinking.

NBC News and Fox fared just about as well, though neither source came out and said it was a shame what happened to those boys. Yahoo (of all places) gets much closer to the truth of the situation Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel for calling it what it is.

Throughout this trial, the two defendants and a parade of friends who wound up mostly testifying against the defendants, expressed little understanding of rape – let alone common decency or respect for women. Despite the conviction, the defendants likely don’t view themselves as rapists, at least not the classic sense of a man hiding in the shadows.

We live in a culture of rape, patronizing subordination and violence. We glorify gun ownership and alcohol and we look for ways to excuse bad behavior because they’re young and don’t know better. But who taught them about behaving this way in the first place?

We encourage our kids to dress in ways that enhance their attractiveness to each other, but too often we fail to teach them anything about what should happen when they are together, about taking responsibility for one another, or what abuse means. The emphasis on the victim’s level of intoxication should lead us to wonder how she had access to so much alcohol, how she came to be in that condition when they abused her.

This “they’re OUR kids, hands OFF” approach to sex education leaves kids with a basic understanding of biology and no understanding of ethics. Add alcohol into the mix, reduce remaining inhibitions, and you have a mess on your hands. Assuming the family or church will handle it absolves our society of dealing with the real problem: Education our kids with empathy, understanding consequences and recognizing right from wrong.

But that’s not what CNN reported.

Is it social media that’s to blame? No. In fact, without access to the electronic connection, the victim’s abuse would have gone unreported and she would have had no recourse. Nobody would have believed her because “she lied” and must have “asked for it” by being at the party and drinking. At least, that’s the gist of the reports coming out of this trial.

So when her rapists are found guilty and punished, we hear sympathy for them and what they’ll go through now that they’ve been found guilty.

Really?

The only way we’re going to change our society is to acknowledge that these crimes deserve punishment and that victims are NOT to blame for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or for provoking the actions of their abusers.

In fact, there should BE NO WRONG PLACE.

The real story here is how hard it was for victim to seek and receive  justice, not how the verdict destroyed the lives of two boys because the victim sought justice.

How we address these issues speaks volumes about who we are as a society. For all the good we can do, there’s this, also from CNN:

6 men arrested in gang rape of Swiss tourist in India

Contrast? You bet. Sadly, it happens here, like this, all the time.

Nobody told those boys they were doing anything wrong until they got caught and punished.

Seems to me they regret getting caught as much or more than the acts they committed, as horrific as those acts were.

That is the biggest crime of all.