Dippy Hippy

The counterculture was not pretty. Some believe the selfish, immature, irresponsible, unethical behavior of many Americans today has its roots in the 60s and 70s...

Presidential Hate

Many feel that the hate directed at Obama is unprecedented. I can confirm that there ARE many who hate him. I certainly don’t want to engage in a who-hated-who-more contest between Obama and Bush. (It is interesting that many Obama-supporters try to connect Obama-hate to just racism. Do they not understand the political issues? However, there are racists, and there are those who genuinely disagree with his policies who also go too far.) I must confess that I feel the natural urge to notice, point out and oppose all the hate for Dubya because I like him.

However we got here now, whether it was by defending Bush or by defending Obama, we all need to denounce the craziness. If you allow Bush-hate in your public space, you’re allowing Obama-hate, too. Everyone needs to take the high road and condemn ALL of it as terrible. This is shameful. There’s free speech, and then there’s a ridiculous extreme, the abuse of free speech.

A blogger known as Zombie spent a lot of time and energy collecting photo evidence of Bush-hate signs and displays for an article on his blog. His purposes were not what you think. Firstly, he had a difficult time finding them because they were not in the mainstream media, but photos taken by himself or individuals at events and posted, thus proving media bias. They did exist, but the media and WE didn’t think they were newsworthy or important. We accept extreme, hate-soaked displays in our public space. That is a sad observation of us.

http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=621

I’m grateful for the chance to focus on this now, even though the rationale is wonky (it was okay to victimize a white man, but not a black man). If having a black president is what it took to get our attention on this matter, thank goodness.

I am an outspoken critic of Obama’s presidency. I also think he’s a handsome man and a great salesman (with no product to sell), very pleasant and unbelievably brave. His two biggest problems are he was never a Boy Scout (!) and he hoped to parlay his lawyer-skills (the only knowledge base he has) and unusual background (his background is not the same as most Americans) into an influential political position, “to make a difference in the world.” It’s not his fault that he doesn’t understand how America WORKS; it’s ours for electing him. His intentions were good, and the road to Hell is paved with them. My opinion is incompetence. You have no idea how much I wish Obama WAS a competent black president.

If only he had been in scouts. See, he’s the guy standing on the side, talking about what all he’s going to do. Some of the other boys are actually doing, leading, advancing through projects and ranks. I can imagine little Barry then gathering the younger, littler kids together to stage a protest and demand ranks be given them, listing reasons why, all external “reasons.” It doesn’t matter what they say – nobody gets ranks and badges who didn’t earn them. Then the Scoutmaster points out to Barry how he organized this, what a great ability and what great people skills he has – now use your skills and energy to organize and lead a service project! Create value for your community and self, not take it from others and demand it be given. Use your powers for good, not bad!

(BTW, Scouts involvement fixes a lot of faulty thinking. You carry your own backpack. You earn your own accolades. It’s pure.)

However, it would bring tears to my eyes if this man were shot, like so many of the white-guy presidents were. Reagan was shot. Ford was shot at as he reached to shake the hand of Charles Manson-follower, Squeaky Fromme. Four bullets were in the gun, none in the firing chamber. Kennedy…Lincoln… Unspeakable shame. There are 20 known attempts to assassinate presidents, none so far for Obama, thank God.

I believe the secret service has their hands full, in more ways than one. When I saw the pictures of Michelle strolling the streets of Spain with her 40 closest friends on vacation, I was alarmed for her safety first, then pissed at the extravagant waste of taxpayer money. Where were the agents? Not in the pictures. I wanted to yell at her to at least think of those two little girls – take a car for God’s sake! Does she think we only have crazy people in America?

So, I appreciate the vigilance today in condemning over-the-top presidential hate. Zombie states that the number of threats investigated by the secret service is up 400% with Obama. He believes an increased number of threats is not necessarily the case, but the vigilance of Americans to alert the service so they CAN investigate is.

When I see the hired demonstrators at the Wisconsin capitol blow their hoo-hubas and bang their little drum-dinkers, I could puke. They look like 2-year-olds. (Noise is a primitive attack, as someone with hearing loss and sensitivity, I don’t find this amusing.) I am not proud of these Americans and the so-called American process at that moment. We have a process that supports right to assemble and free speech, and I see a lot of demonstrations today as an ABUSE. Let’s put the freaks from Westboro Church at the top of the list. ABUSE of our precious rights!

I know proposing legislation to check abuse would never pass. But, in my dream world, we could define free speech abuse as using racial and sexual slurs, nudity (the naked men at the Berkeley parade was a visual assault!), or any images of violence and death used in a political context. (Note I did not say artistic context, although the crap coming out of Hollywood can be considered more political than artistic these days.) Then let a jury of peers decide. They just need a careful framework of law to guide them.

Stop trying to shock people to get their attention! Your argument either has merit or not. It’s obvious it does not.

NOTE: I tried to find an example of a hate-spewing Obama sign to run next to the Bush guillotine display…couldn’t find one anywhere on the same par as the stuff against Bush on Zombie’s blog. This is a great story found on another blog, put together by kids at Marquette University. Their findings? The same. Sorry, the media bias on this one is very clear.

http://mu-warrior.blogspot.com/2009/09/those-offensive-anti-obama-signs.html

Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands

I wanted to share THIS picture with you because I think we have the WRONG picture in our heads when we look at limiting the right to bear arms. First, we visualize the handful of gun-toting crazies who over the years have opened fire at a political gathering, school, restaurant, and post office. They are mentally ill. And if they don’t have a gun, they strap a homemade bomb to their chest and sit on a bench at a college campus. They get lots of press and attention.

I personally imagined that the bulk of gun-owners were sportsmen. I’ve always supported their right to engage in this traditional, family-oriented activity. Important lessons about responsibility and confidence are transmitted during long periods of time ACTUALLY spent with sons and daughters on hunting trips.

A sorority sister, who hunts with her husband, sons and daughter, commented on a Facebook friend’s query yesterday. The man, a gun dealer and trainer, asked his gun-savvy female friends for suggestions for the best way to illustrate a new holster product for women that involved the chest area. My sis provided her usual wit (“well, that brings a whole new meaning to packin’ pistols”), but I can understand his dilemma as a “married Christian man.” The idea here is to get women to stop putting the gun in a purse, the first thing grabbed by a mugger.

But, this is the fascinating part (as if a bra-holster isn’t): 70% of his students are women. Concealed-carry products are the bulk of his business. Over 50% of those products are purchased by women. Everything else is a distant second.

Then, today, a cousin posted this pic proudly posing with her classmates upon completion of that man’s Concealed-Carry class! (I know, Facebook is a trip! That whole degrees of separation thing…paths zig-zagging every which way.)

This picture is an important piece of the right-to-bear-arms puzzle. We need to start imagining WOMEN when we consider chipping away at their rights.

How many of those women depicted have been beaten by boyfriends or husbands? How many raped? How many finally feel safe, empowered, calm and capable?

I’d like to add two additional puzzle pieces.

Women who recently rallied for democracy in Egypt were arrested, beaten, photographed, and subjected to “virginity tests.” Don’t ask me what a virginity test is (If the presence of a hymen is explored, is she a virgin afterward? Why do ignorant people STILL equate the unreliable hymen as proof of virginity?), BUT, if she failed, she got raped. Now, that’s a test you definitely want to study for. I realize this isn’t Egypt, but I want to make sure any American woman has the right and means to defend herself from sadistic sexists. Call it an “equalizer” or better yet “equal protection under the law.”

Second point. The wife of my husband’s young co-worker was at home with their small children in a back bedroom one recent morning. She was chatting on the phone with her husband when she heard the back door kicked in by two intruders. She met them in the hallway to the bedrooms with her gun. She killed one and hospitalized the other. Later that day this young Army engineer’s wife was busy packing everything she owned to move to another state, after receiving death threats from the intruders’ families. She did not want to have to use her gun again to defend her family. His transfer to Utah was approved immediately.

If a woman wants a gun, she should have it. End of story.

END NOTE: There are two Gravitt women in that photo, and my great-grandmother Sarah would be beaming with pride. I believe Sarah knew how to handle a piece herself since she was married to a U.S. Marshall here in the Territory, our great-grandfather Philow Washington. She would want her female kin to fight back!

There Are No Right Answers

Cooter and I are arguing about what would be the correct answer to this question on his Chapter 26 history study guide:

President Reagan’s “Star Wars” program would have
a. Put weapons in space
b. Increased nuclear weapons production
c. Stopped any attack against the United States

He insists “a.” I say “c,” because the text at no time describes the lasers on ground and in space as “weapons” (I’m trying to find exact duplication of terms). Furthermore, the text specifically says this program is to stop an attack. Young Cooter wisely said, “I don’t care what the book says. The lasers shoot and destroy missiles thus they are a weapon, and ‘c’ says ANY. Any attacks? Maybe, and that’s a big maybe, just the missile ones.” Spoken like a true video gamer.

But my son doesn’t understand that in public education, he is supposed to regurgitate. They don’t have time for a lengthy analysis. I picture the teacher staring at him, then glaring at his defiance and nerve to challenge her red mark on his paper. My son does not do well with most public school teachers, and his “grades” reflect it. He thinks too much. Sigh.

Stoopid damn public school test materials…

Wut up, nigga?

I have a wonderful friend, a black man with whom I attended junior high school in the 1970s, during the time of “busing.” For some reason, the smart people in charge at that time thought it would be good to take a black kid from a poor, black neighborhood and bus him to the opposite side of town to attend a school in a poor, white neighborhood. We both joke about how crappy this school was. Nevertheless, a wrong was set aright – money, time, and effort were expended to enable my friend and many others to attend this rotten school…and I’m personally glad because otherwise I would not have met this wonderful person.

We recently reconnected on Facebook, and this weekend I saw the pictures he posted of the 50th birthday party of his sister. She wore a blue formal gown with a sparkly tiara perched on her head. Another sister wore a gold lame’ blouse, the 80-something mother a bright pink suit with shoulder pads, sharp and church-ready! I love it when people dress in such a joyful, lively manner. That older sister was the queen of the ball, the princess of the prom, and I resolved right then to do the same when I turn 50 in three years.

Being the nosy Facebook creeper I am, I enjoyed reading the comments from family and friends, wishing the sister birthday happiness and remarking on the combined beauty of these women. Then I came to one comment from a male that said “wut up, nigga!” and I froze. Who was he talking to? The sister in the photo or the photographer-brother who posted it? Huh? How dare someone cast a cloud on this lovely family occasion!

I know my black friends call each other this and mean it like a slangy substitute for “friend.” But, is this really the right time and place? I can’t stand either version, the original “nigger,” or its stoopid cousin “nigga.” Even typing it makes me feel disgusting.

However, this is not my business, my sister, my photo, my Facebook page. But, I did wonder how my friend would view this. I seem to remember him grinning in embarrassment in the distant past, shoving a stoopid friend behind his body, like you would shove your daffy great-uncle in the broom closet before company arrives. Yeah, we all have friends like that, you know.

The comment was removed less than an hour after its appearance, as if it never happened.

Well, now I have to research it, study it, understand it. I do believe in the power of co-opting words, claiming an evil word or concept as your own and giving it a new meaning on your terms. But, where are we now in 2011? It’s still a stoopid word created by stoopid racists who were too ignorant to properly pronounce Niger. And now it is still being used by stoopid people living in the past.

The past I speak of is circa 1970s. Richard Pryor was a tortured soul and a comedic genius. He is the man I credit with the brilliant move of taking this powerful, evil word and draining it of its juice. Every last drop of hate. Laughter can do that, strip a situation of its pain and frustration, like a beautiful healing balm. Pryor was an amazing person when you begin to analyze what laughter can change AND what people laughing together can change. He was a great human being.

But. After he traveled to Africa as a tourist, he never used the word “nigga” again in his routines. I wonder if he felt, at that time, that the word’s time was over and now its widespread use might hold black Americans back in their collective psyche of how they regard themselves. I wonder if he was a little sad at his part in society holding onto a word that should have been buried with no funeral, or a little happy at his part in moving us all down the healing path to a better tomorrow. I’m sure it was both.

I don’t regard black people as “niggas,” and I am impatient with those who still do. I am impatient for a new world, the future.

The best Internet discussion I found of this situation was on the site of black political pundit and Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill. Dr. Hill, a pleasant and charming liberal, wrote a very funny piece on this topic. “We’re conflicted!” he asserts. I smiled throughout the article.

http://www.marclamonthill.com/is-it-ok-to-call-niggas-nigga-1511

He asks for a little more time and understanding as black America wrestles with this weed in its front yard. Okay, Marc. Take all the time you need, my friends, but please hurry. Because we need black America and ALL-ALL-ALL of its energy, intelligence, forbearance, vibrance, and creativity, and I am anxious to see it in my lifetime.

Join me in making this a better place before we, too, have to leave.




Richard Pryor, RIP

The Movie Star

A friend asked that I write a little thing acknowledging today's passing of one of the greatest movie stars of our time, Elizabeth Taylor. He included some thought-starters:

"Breathtakingly beautiful. Fat and Bloated. Child star. Sex symbol. Award-winning actress. The marriages. The divorces. The jewelry. The career. National Velvet, Little Women, Raintree County, Giant, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cleopatra, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Violet eyes. Perfume. Champion of AIDS sufferers. Self-absorbed. Generous and giving. The world is a lesser place without her."

I think his words stand by themselves as a fitting tribute.

The only things I would add are: Did you know she raised more money for AIDS research than she ever earned as an actress? And she was the first actress paid $1 million for a picture. (Debbie Reynolds, whom Liz burned when she stole her husband Eddie Fisher, was the second.) :^) A traditional 1950s woman who really knew how to make the dough...

The Total Package

This pic is for those of my friends who have never seen it before...it sort of "commands" your attention, huh.

I laugh everytime I see this photo! I insist that George W. Bush was the greatest war president we've ever had.