He predicted, I remember, that human slavery would come back, that it had in fact never gone away. He said that so many people wanted to come here because it was so easy to rob the poor people, who got absolutely no protections from the Government. He talked about bridges falling down and water mains breaking because of no maintenance. He talked about oils spills and radioactive waste and poisoned aquifers and looted banks and liquidated corporations. "And nobody ever gets punished for anything," he said. "Being an American means never having to say you're sorry."
I literally (just kidding - forget I used "literally") just finished Ben Yagoda's Memoir and something strange happened near the very end.
Reading along, taking in some facts, marveling here and there, contextualizing periodically, when all of a sudden I come to this:
"That is in part because she is a better writer and a more sympathetic and insightful observer of human beings than..."
and I hurt.
"Ouch" I monologue.
I think it was the, no, I know it was the sympathetic and insightful observer of human beings part that made it go in the bone.
I figure I am a pretty shitty writer right now but after reading this little ole sentence, I hurt because I figured that maybe I am a pretty shitty human being right now because I am not a sympathetic and insightful observer of human beings.
Walking to the library to return the book I monologued and tried to justify:
I am shitty at a lot of things: husbanding, parenting, guitar playing, singing (especially singing), electrical wiring, money earning, running (except from cops), hygiene upkeeping, anger managing on Rhode Island/Massachusetts highways, and so much more...
But I keep trying. I told myself.
And, as George Carlin said upon recounting that he never fucked a ten but that one night he fucked five twos, I think that outta count.
Federal law
prohibits sex discrimination in public schools. Last year, the Obama
administration interpreted that to mean transgender students should be allowed
to use the bathroom or locker room of the gender that they identify with, and
they put out federal guidance to schools to reflect that. Many conservatives
saw it as federal overreach.
This “overreach” led
to this:
SEAN SPICER: The
president's [sic] made it clear throughout the campaign that he's a firm
believer in states' rights and that certain issues like this are not best dealt
with at the federal level.
Later in the interview
I latched on to this:
MARTIN: At the same
time, you know, when this guidance came down, there were these charges of
federal overreach and especially conservatives saying this is a moral issue and
this is now the federal government telling me how to understand an issue that I
think of in religious terms.
STOP.
This is interesting.
Think about this,
people view sex and gender in religious or moral terms. Fascinating.
Morality, be
definition, requires objective truths. I was taught that objective in this sense
means that x is true no matter what
people think or say or do. Think 2+2=4 but for moral statements.
Now the indicting of
religious terms here clearly means that these truths come from god.
Circling back, we are
to believe that sex and gender are handed down from god. Binary.
Remember from above
… transgender
students should be allowed to use the bathroom or locker room of the gender
that they identify with…
Identify with? Your
sex and your gender are handed down to you and god doesn’t make mistakes.
Thesis: This
completely ignores the fact that we are psychological beings. Because humans
are psychological beings, sex and gender are identified with…and malleable…and
influenced…and AMORAL.
I have fun with this
in my psych class via this Louis CK bit about starving.
Humans have a terrific
set of homeostatic mechanisms (i.e., physiological [god given]) to balance
eating and weight but…psychology factors in and people become overweight and obese
and morbidly obese.
Why aren’t the god
given mechanisms enough? Why do we become obese to the point of unhealthy?
Especially if we aren’t
psychological beings subject to influence?
Maybe the question is:
why is psychology a factor for weight gain but not for gender identity?
Do you know of a good
argument for the denial of our psychological selves?
I have made a few enemies in my
life stating that there is nothing unnatural. This truth is so obvious and yet so
ire inducing to modern paradigms.
Be that as it may, I do like to
take a walk in the woods or on a beach… and separate myself from the present
dins and whatnot.
So I did, with my two sons, on
president’s day.
And it was glorious.
I got the idea the morning of
president’s day as I knew my wife would be out all day and I would have to come
up with things for us to do.
So when it became apparent that my
youngest wasn’t going to nap as he yelled “papa” for what felt like eight
hours, I coated, hatted, and gloved them up and told them “rule number one for
walking in the woods”:
Stay
close to papa
On the drive there I mentioned rule
number one again and quizzed them.
Stay
close to papa
We get there and my oldest darts
off like a dragon fly in heat.
Rule number one might as well have
been cruel cummerbund for all he cared.
Of course he finds himself in a
pricker bush and I have to get my little guy to come back and I ask my
eldest “are you in no man’s land?” I extricate him from the prickers and most
of the remainder of the walk was spent avoiding the bear-claw like horror of
the prickers. Never mind that the path is about six feet wide in most areas and
the prickers only lie at the edges.
My youngest won’t be three until
the end of march but he was such a trooper: running to catch up, never
complaining, and being an all-around joy with his curved, brittle walking stick.
My oldest was inquisitive, excited,
and steered clear of those prickers at every turn, straightaway, and reverse.
So maybe I don’t think there is
anything unnatural. Maybe you do. When you find a square circle, let me know.
In the meantime, I’m going to walk
in the woods with my boys, naturally.
I had started Bill Bryson’s A Walk In
The Woods a few days back, based upon Stephen King’s list of recommendations at
the back of his On Writing.
Thoroughly enjoying the book I
decided to heed my 5am alarm last Saturday morning and, instead of playing
guitar in the basement, read at the dining room table as feet of snow awaited
shoveling outside.
Soon thereafter I was laughing so
hard I was worried I was going to wake the tots. Just howling in the light of
the dining room with the rest of the house cloaked in darkness and silence.
Bryson is so very funny and is so
because he is so unassuming in his voice.
The book is simply about his experience hiking the Appalachian Trail, most of it done with his childhood friend Katz.
-Tom Hanks, pleading with Bosom
Buddies costar Peter Scolari
Well smart
is a relative term as we all know and we all know about Marches on Washington.
Only a few of us smart people know about Fredric March’s portrayal of Matthew
Harrison Brady (based on William Jennings Bryan) in the movie Inherit The Wind.
A must see I
must say.
Back to
marching. So now, Scientists are going to march on Washington.
Some people
think this is NOT, repeat, NOT, a good idea.
Or at least,
there are some cons to scientists marching on Washington. But you have to admit
scientists marching on Washington is better than cons marching on Washington. Our
cons are in, not on…
I kid. Sort
of.
Well science
is a dicey thing at best and in our (wink, wink) post-factual world, hasn’t
science been taken down a peg? Or 100 pegs?
I say that
science is a dicey thing at best because of one of my favorite phenomena:
cognitive dissonance (CG).
In a
nutshell, CG happens when a person feels discomfort because they hold
contradictory beliefs or holding a belief and committing a contradictory action.
