For a couple years in college I partnered with a friend and we wrote a political column for the school newspaper. We were the designated liberals–I think we saw our beat as Noam Chomsky and American imperialism. I distinctly recall editorial meetings when we would shout and point shaky fingers into the face of the conservative columnist. On better days we would be more playful with the conservative guy, who had a penchant for speaking in cliches, and we would try to invent or mash-up cliches that we hoped would enter his cliche lexicon to later embarrass him (“Tony, I think you’ve got your mistress’ underwear in your closet on this one …”).
We helped to start a student political group that aimed to be a sort of an umbrella organization of the disparate liberal groups on campus. We handed out condoms (taped to flyers that read, “Condoms not Contras”), protested against Nazis (Cue Blues Brothers: Elwood: Illinois Nazis. Jake: I hate Illinois Nazis), organized an April Fools Day Tribute to Ronald Reagan. I tried to grow facial hair and scowled. His girlfriend later became my girlfriend and we drifted apart, then drifted back to being good friends. Over the years we’ve stayed in irregular contact. I moved away from political writing, wanting to write something that had more of a shelf life (still working on that). He went into union organizing. We both got married and had children. I moved to the South …
The political fixations we had back then all seem almost quaint now.
In a recent email, he asked,
Can you imagine if we could have magically brought ourselves forward to this point in time from our vantage point back in 1986? What would we make of the shift in American politics? And would we be hopeful, or terrified? (Remember when the idea of using American military in foreign countries was unthinkable? We were protesting proxy wars then.)
Ah, proxy wars. Them was the days.
It’s often assumed a person grows more politically conservative as they grow older. Personally, that’s not the case. Politically I’m pretty much the same, though I’m not quite as in-your-face about it as I once was. And I like to think I’m wiser, that I have a longer view of things. I’m less certain and see complexity where I once saw simplicity. I find meaning in my family and in my writing and other creative endeavors, not in abstract political goings-on. I’m happier, too.
But lately I’m feeling more and more angst about political matters. This whole Cordoba House near ground zero controversy has really gotten to me. But it’s not just that, it’s the whole array of bullshit “issues” the right wing keeps dreaming up. Oh, how offended people are. Sometimes it seems like we’re just a nation of outrage junkies.
Over the past year my brother (12 years older) has sent me a slew of ludicrous chain emails, everything from Obama isn’t American to all Muslims cannot be trusted. Each time I have dutifully fact checked the nonsense (it doesn’t take long to cut and paste into Snopes.com). All of my adult life I’ve been having these kinds arguments with my brother. I’ve grown better at avoiding emotional investment in his nonsense, mostly because his political beliefs lack content and are really just feelings, but lately I’ve found myself thinking that I don’t want to have anything to do with him anymore. And that’s sad. Yet his home is our designated hurricane evacuation destination, so I suppose I’ll be seeing him sometime in the next month or two. And that should be fun. He’s also prone to saying stupid shit about New Orleans.
Could it be that things have actually gotten worse in the past 20-25 years?
I know the culture doesn’t move in a straight line. There are always backlashes, fits and starts. In 1986 I would have been shocked that gay marriage would ever seem inevitable. In 1986 I would not have been shocked that I would someday marry an African American woman and have a child together, but to have a biracial president? No freaking way would I have seen that one coming.
I think the right wing hyperbole we’re witnessing is essentially the last gasps of a white majority culture not coming to terms with the vast demographic changes our country faces. Add to the mix the 9/11 attacks, a whacked economy, a brown president, a mid-term election, and here we are.
There’s one other change I didn’t see coming that I really like: Senator Al Franken. Senator Al yesterday said the conservative attacks against the proposed Cordoba House are “one of the most disgraceful things that I’ve heard.”
Shocking, I know, but I came across a nearly incoherent quote from Sarah Palin this morning at Politico:
“Nobody argues that that freedom of religion that the Muslims have to build that mosque somewhere,” Palin told Greta Van Susteren. For the mosque to be “so adamant about this exact location just a block or two away from 9/11, again, is that knife, it feels like.”
The first thing that caught my attention was her use of the word “that”–4 times in the first 16 words! And the last bit, “again, is that knife, it feels like” has an echo of weird Yoda speak about it … let’s see, converting Palin’s sentiment (“Building a Muslim center near ground zero in New York City is like a knife to the heart.”) using a Yoda converter gives us:
Like a knife to the heart, building a Muslim center near ground zero in New York City is. Yes, hmmm.
But let’s step beyond Palin’s tortured use of language. She refers to the 9/11 attacks as “that knife.” Here Palin is trying to scrape the national 9/11 scab, coax out the blood, in the guise of protecting us from the knife aimed at the 9/11 scab by a caricature of Muslims. I get the feeling that for Palin personally, she couldn’t have been more delighted when she heard about the Muslim Center proposal. She absolutely loves to nurture anger. She gets off on it. She’s an anger junkie.
I’m not breaking ground here by noting that Palin is the vengeful sort. It’s even part of her self constructed identity. She is, after all, a Mama Grizzly.
Now, not to get all East Coast about it, but it seems venting one’s anger only serves to sustain it. Venting keeps the hurt alive. And it feels good:
If you think catharsis is good, you are more likely to seek it out when you get pissed. When you vent, you stay angry and are more likely to keep doing aggressive things so you can keep venting.
It’s drug-like, because there are brain chemicals and other behavioral reinforcements at work. If you get accustomed to blowing off steam, you become dependent on it.
The more effective approach is to just stop. Take your anger off of the stove. Let it go from a boil to a simmer to a lukewarm state where you no longer want to sink your teeth into the side of buffalo.
[Psychologist Brad] Bushman’s work also debunks the idea of redirecting your anger into exercise or something similar. He says it will only maintain your state or increase your arousal level, and afterward you may be even more aggressive than if you had cooled off.
Still, cooling off is not the same thing as not dealing with your anger at all. Bushman suggests you delay your response, relax or distract yourself with an activity totally incompatible with aggression.
Now a street scavenger’s lust for scrap metal is sending the sculpture away. The eyes will beam their light across Camp Street until after Labor Day, which falls just eight days after the fifth anniversary of the devastating storm and flood they helped us see past.
Posted 4 weeks, 1 day ago at 12:58 pm. Add a comment
I guess I have a soft spot for Brett Favre (except when he plays the Saints). It’s kind of weird how worked up people get over how conflicted Favre apparently is over whether to retire from professional football. It’s sports, I know, I shouldn’t think it’s weird at all. But the guy obviously loves playing football and he clearly wants to keep playing as long as he’s physically capable of performing at a high level. It’s not surprising, now that he’s past 40, that he goes back and forth about whether he’s still got it. One would think fellow athletes would understand, but NBC football analyst, Rodney Harrison, who retired from the NFL as a 36 year old, chastises Favre for his selfishness:
“It’s so unfair to your teammates,” Harrison said. “It’s unfair to your coaches.”
Rodney said Favre’s me-first attitude cost them in last season’s playoffs. “That’s why they didn’t find themselves in the winner’s circle last year against New Orleans.”
Winner’s circle against New Orleans? Um, they’re both NFC teams, so both teams couldn’t be in the winner’s circle, right? Anyway, Harrison adds,
“This is all calculated by Brett,” Harrisons said. “Brett knows exactly what he wants to do.”
Hey, we agree! I think Favre knows exactly what he wants to do–play football–he just doesn’t know if he can.
Now, to assuage my guilt for spending any time on this faux controversy, go read this at The Lens.
I like short stories. Novels. Screenplays. Very good poems. Why do [I] write? To quote Donald Barthelme: ‘It is the most interesting and difficult thing one can do.’
Now that we have a dog and I walk him everyday I’ve come to think that having a dog is good for community building. I know the streets of our neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods far better and I’ve met many fellow citizens I probably would have never met. It’s a good check against my tendency toward alienation.
I’ve started to pay much more attention to scribbles in the sidwalk. Sometimes the markings people leave behind are ephemeral:
And there’s plenty of “I was here” messaging:
And sometimes it gets a little weird:
My favorite is when kids are clearly involved:
In fact, I think it’d be cool if when new sidewalks are poured city workers encourage neighborhood children to scribble on select sidewalk tiles. So long as nobody uses profanity or scribbles hateful messages, it can only enhance the feeling of community.
Posted 1 month, 1 week ago at 9:37 am. Add a comment
