Category Archives: Ideology

I do not want…

…your fucking shirt.

Everybody’s talking at me
I don’t hear a word they’re saying
Only the echoes of my mind

People stopping, staring
I can’t see their faces
Only the shadows of their eyes

I’m going where the sun keeps shining
Through the pouring rain
Going where the weather suits my clothes – Harry Nilsson

No, he wasn’t talking about the cacophony emanating from the human race but the lyrics really suit the mood of the day regarding cacophony.  With the pain of the mass murder of the great minds at Charlie Hebdo still fresh, condemnation freely flows.  A good amount of it is justifiable.  From our perspective, no one has the right to silence another because the message may be unsavory.  We have a right to argue.  We have a right to disagree.  We have a right to ignore.  We have no right to kill another human being because we find their particular message distasteful or blasphemous.  This seems to be lost among many (regardless of preferred religion).

Along with the justifiable outrage, sheer terror and tremendous heartbreak, now we get to wade through the sea of bigotry because this is what happens when a subset of a particular group behaves horrendously.  The few become the sole representation of the many and unfairly so.  Being a religious minority myself, I certainly appreciate that special feeling of mortification and understand the dread in anticipation of the backlash.  Each time Israel blunders, I steel myself for the hate speech and look at the computer monitor through splayed fingers with a turning stomach and legs that feel like lead.  Today, tomorrow and, potentially, the following day, decent Muslims will be attacked by the ignorant masses who presume that bad apples represent an entire belief system.  It’s shameful and disgusting.  It’s why so many people looked at Australia with wonder in middle-December when they responded to an attack with love instead of hate via I’ll Ride with You.  The rest of the world seems completely incapable of doing that.  It’s why I have a tendency to get a bit twitchy and bitchy when I hear people say :insert random demographic here: are dangerous/evil/vile/must be wiped off the planet.  It’s why I won’t allow others to besmirch what they do not know or understand – at least in my presence.  It’s very easy to look at something, form an opinion and stick to it when you lack basic facts and knowledge, especially when everyone else appears to be doing the same.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news but that is the very definition of prejudice.   Oh…and you thought you were so very evolved and enlightened, didn’t you?

Alas, this isn’t a tentacle wag at the bigots.  This is actually something a bit different.  The above is actually a rambling aside.

I freely admit that I spent a large portion of my time in my 20s in a drunken stupor or stoned (possibly).  If you’re unmarried, childless, gainfully employed and unencumbered by any other responsibility, your 20s are the appropriate time for fucking around and fuck around I did.  That said, for as drunk as I was, I don’t recall the world being as barking mad as it appears to be today.  Could it have been because I spent ½ of my 20s living outside of the Bible Belt where religion was just one of those things that was a part of life and not the sole point of life?  I really don’t think so.  I lived in predominantly Catholic Western Pennsylvania, went to a state university and for the life of me, I don’t recall the cafeteria feeding us meat on Friday.  It was fish.  Every Friday in Western Pennsylvania was fish and mac and cheese day.  Yet, no one was hounding me to surrender my faith.  Those who even bothered to ask really didn’t care that I wasn’t one of them.  Oh, and I really loved fish and mac and cheese day, too.

Religion didn’t really become an issue for me until I moved to the Bible Belt.  Since then, I have had the joy of experiencing discrimination at every single job I have had.  It’s not pleasant.  But what’s really unpleasant, what’s really the catalyst behind my picking up my ball and going home (reevaluating my entire position on religion, in general) is the incessant attempts at evangelization.  Yes.  I understand that certain groups have instructions to go forth and seed.  And, yes, I have tried to be patient and respectful of this but a person can only stomach so much before it becomes offensive.

As I see it, religion and attempts to shift someone away from their existing ideology to the ideology of another is just madness.  And it’s presumptuous, rude and in very poor taste.  Think about this scenario:

You’re out and about doing whatever it is that you do and someone walks up to you with a shirt in their hands.  They see that you’re already wearing a shirt but that doesn’t really matter to them.  That person thinks their shirt is better than the shirt you’re currently wearing.  They say “Look.  I have a shirt for you.  I think you need to put it on right now.  This very minute, to be exact.”  You tilt your head in confusion.  You point to your shirt.  You tell them that you’re already wearing a shirt that you quite like.  Yet, the person you’re speaking to is neither listening nor caring about the words coming out of your mouth.  Instead, they say “NO.  You must wear THIS shirt.  This shirt.  Right here in my hands.  Wear it.  Wear it now.”  Again, you look at your shirt and the slightly deranged person talking to you and you say “Allow me to iterate, I have a shirt.  I’m wearing a shirt.  It is a comfortable shirt.  No thank you.”  Still in denial, they thrust the shirt in your face and adamantly exclaim “But MY shirt is better than YOUR shirt.  It will save you!”  “Save me?  Save me from what?” you ask “Is it made of Kevlar and thus bullet proof?”  The shirt bearer stares at you like you’re crazy and says “No.”  You ask “Is it impregnated with some sort of anti-bacterial and/or anti-viral substance that will keep me immune from all disease?”  Shirt bearer shakes head no.  “In the event that I’m standing atop a very high building, near the ledge, and someone decides to shove me, will a parachute deploy and will I float safely to the ground?”  The shirt bearer, again, responds “No.”  You follow with “Ok.  Given that there is zero evidence that this particular shirt will save me from three imminent threats (or three terrible traps, three terrible traps, three terrible traps – so terrible!), please tell me how and why you think this shirt can save me.”

Marginally flummoxed, the shirt bearer responds in the only manner they can “Well, it’s because that is what I believe.”  You, finding this data insufficient, tell the person that you disagree with them which prompts the de rigueur “But then you will go to hell.”  Not one to pass up the opportunity to scramble brains, you say “Well, the joke is on you.  I don’t believe hell exists.”  Completely exasperated, the shirt bearer hollers “PUT ON THIS SHIRT!”  You calmly say “Please take your shirt and leave.”  “MY SHIRT IS BETTER THAN YOUR SHIRT!  I WILL NOT BE DENIED” howls the shirt bearer.  You repeat “Please take your shirt and leave.”  “WHY WON’T YOU WEAR MY FUCKING SHIRT?”  Losing patience, you testily snap “Please take your shirt and your very un-pious self and go away.”  “I HATE YOU.  I WILL ONLY LIKE YOU IF YOU WEAR THIS SHIRT. “  Again, “Please take your shirt and leave.”  Shirt bearer snarls “YOU ARE A VILE HUMAN BEING AND I’M GOING TO SPEW HATEFUL WORDS AT YOU, YOU BLASPHEMOUS, SINFUL PIG!”

In that scenario – do you want to put on that shirt?  Do you want to spend time with that shirt bearing freak?  NO.  And now you understand why many of us are growing tired of religion, in general?  Is the popularity of the Flying Spaghetti Monster starting to make sense?

Within the first few months of living in North Carolina, a colleague asked me out to lunch.  I was excited as I thought “Hey!  Friend making time!  Hooray!!!”  And, since we know how much I love putting myself out there and trying to make friends, this was a pretty big deal to me.  On our way to lunch, she played Christian rock which I found peculiar but kept my mouth shut.  At lunch, she openly prayed before eating.  Again, for someone not from the Bible Belt – different but something I was going to have to accept as the cultural norm.  Then she proceeds to talk to me about religion.  She expresses her grave concern for my soul since Jesus is not my savior.  She is very worried that I’m going to hell; so worried that she invited me to lunch to talk to me about where I was going astray.  All I could do was look at her, smile and say “I’m not concerned about hell.  I know you’re praying for me and that should take care of it.”  We never went to lunch together again.

Mind you, all of this isn’t meant as an indictment of Christianity.  Like every family has its crazy relative, each religion has its crazy zealots who taint the rest of the followers.  Each religion has its own issues with thinking it’s the only path (towards what…who the fuck really knows).  Each religion sits in judgment of the next.  Shit – each religion judges itself.  I spent one Rosh Hashanah listening to a Rabbi drone on forever about how horrible the Hasidim are towards those who are less orthodox.  The Rabbi condemned someone in our own faith for condemning us.  It was one of the most fucked up experiences I have ever had.  I wanted to walk out of synagogue but I was too afraid that the Almighty above would smite me for leaving temple in the middle of a High Holy Day.  And don’t even get me started on how fucked up being afraid of something that may or may not exist is.  My attempts to reconcile that one over the past 18 years have proven unsuccessful.

And this is why I sit with a very fatigued brain and heart and wonder if any of this is worth it.  Aside from some inner peace which could, theoretically, be obtained through various other methods, what is humanity getting out of this whole religion thing?  War.  Discrimination.  Murder.  Death.  Women being treated as chattel or worse.  On a good day, we’re lucky if someone is simply offended by hearing their religion used as a verb, it seems.  That’s not sufficient enough for me.  Not anymore.

There are many things I think humans are not capable of handling responsibly, as collectively, we all do a wonderful job of dropping the ball and screwing things up.  I’m starting to wonder if religion is one of those things.  Have we bastardized the whole concept to the point where it is more detrimental than beneficial?  Is religion simply an outmoded technology (a series of laws before there were actual governments)?  I  genuinely do not know.  What I do know is this – I cannot bear another yesterday.  I don’t want to raise my child in a world where yesterdays are not only possible but normal.

THE HATE

It’s the hate that I find so staggering,
The deep, blind, and passionate, gripping hate.
How does a person get to that dark place?
Driven to slaughter members of their race.
Yes, their race. For truth is there’s only one.
Not political correctness, but fact.
Not wishful thinking, but plain simple truth.
What mind-numbing fear stops that getting through?
We fight for freedom of speech, at what cost?
Is there something we’re missing? Something lost?
There are few freedoms that are inherent,
Perhaps that’s the thing that we’ve come to see,
They are all linked to responsibility,
That much becomes more and more apparent.
Believe many things, I’ll go along, but,
I’ll not grant the right for you to be wrong,
About this, this irrefutable fact,
We are one, one human tribe, one pact,
Divided by nation and circumstance,
Colour and race thrust upon us by chance,
That truth must bind, ironclad, forged in fire,
Extinguish the hate and raise ourselves higher,
All social tools choose a line to draw,
All institutions and forces of law,
Take persons and groups who just want to hate,
Bring them into the light and educate,
Walk the walk, talk the talk of inclusion,
No tolerance for any exclusion,
No exceptions for religion or faith,
The prime belief is we’re one human race,
Our peace and prosperity both depend,
On learning that we were made to transcend.

The stupid. It hurts.

Ah, Facebook. As much as I enjoy using it there are definitely times when it’s more trouble than it’s worth. ‘Tis the season, it would seem, for passive-aggressive “post this as your status” updates. A case in point:

PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

MY GENERATION GREW UP RECITING THIS EVERY MORNING IN SCHOOL WITH MY HAND ON MY HEART. THEY NO LONGER DO THAT FOR FEAR OF OFFENDING SOMEONE!

LET’S SEE HOW MANY AMERICANS WILL RE-POST THIS AND NOT CARE ABOUT OFFENDING SOMEONE!…

Note that it’s not grammatically correct, and it’s written in all caps, for FUCK SAKE. This was posted by one of my more embarrassing red-neck American relatives, and true to form, it sparked off a comment war. I know I should have just left it alone but I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut when someone posted, ” If people don’t like it ,they should move to a different country!!”

*sigh* How boringly predictable.

My step-father, who happens to be the older brother of the person who posted the astonishingly ignorant update, posted the following:

That is a big problem with many here in the US, people forget that we have the right not to conform, to choose, now some people think that if u don’t like something you should leave! Sounds like someone doesn’t understand the Constitution Or the bill of rights. As for the one nation under god, that was added in the 50,s during the McCarthy era, a terrible time for the country. The country was founded on freedom of religion which means also freedom from religion. So of you need to lighten up & learn the law & be a bit more accepting.

Hear hear. I added the following two cents:

Personally, I don’t think it’s right to insist that children recite a symbolic oath of allegiance every single day. Just about everyone I’ve told about this over here has been absolutely horrified. They thought the United States was supposed to be beacon of freedom, and yet its children are made to recite these words over and over like little automatons without understanding what they are saying.

It smells very strongly of totalitarianism. So does insisting that anyone who disagrees with you should leave the country. In the United States we don’t oppress or deport people who don’t share our personal beliefs. Maybe in other countries they do that but America and Americans are better than that, right?

Of course I realise that my eloquently-worded comment will fall on deaf ears, but I meant every word of it. This got me thinking about the Pledge of Allegiance in general and I did a little bit of research. My step-dad is correct in that the “under God” part was added in 1950s as part of Joe McCarthy’s anti-Communist campaign. He wanted to make sure that those godless dirty red scum understood that We the People are God-Fearing Americans.

Anyway, it turns out that the original pledge was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and Christian Socialist. That’s right. The Pledge of Allegiance, recited millions of times by millions of American school children was written by a Socialist. Oh bless.

I wonder what those jingoistically patriotic if-you’re-not-with-us-your-against-us Americans would have to say about that…

WOTD: Armageddon

As long as we’re all preoccupied with the Rapture and the Apocalypse, we might as well discuss what to do if Armageddon occurs. And I’m not talking about the astonishingly bad Michael Bay film from 1998.  In religious/biblical terms Armageddon is the final epic battle between Christ/Good and the Anti-Christ/Evil. However, in more general terms it can be pretty much any “great and crucial” conflict.

The 2012 Phenomenon is considered to be part of the Armageddon mythos. If the Mayan Calendar is anything to go by, in 2012 the earth will be subjected to a series of unavoidable disasters and catastrophes which will culminate in the end of the world as we know it. So, your basic Armageddon.

You probably wouldn’t be at all surprised if I told you that there are several websites out there with important safety tips and “How to Survive” information for the coming disasters of 2012. For example this website discusses how to survive the “polar shift” (this is a misnomer for geomagnetic reversal) which will inevitably occur during 2012.

Those of us living in Northern Europe will probably be okay, but pretty much anyone living in the United States is screwed big time. Might as well start charging up those credit cards right now folks since you probably won’t survive Armageddon 2012.

This same website also offers for sale several items of specialized gear for those who wish to maximize their chances of surviving the disasters of 2012. Included among these are Fruit of the Loom heavy cotton undershirts and Calvin Klein cotton boxer shorts.

Because after all, even if the world is coming to an end it’s important to make sure the family jewels have the support one has come to expect from a brand as reliable and well-known as Calvin Klein. And at £18-£30 for a package of three, they’re not only essential survival gear, they’re also a bargain.

Some of the survival items available for women include a 1950’s style floral halterneck dress, and a silver clutch handbag.

Because after all, even if the world is coming to an end it’s important to be as fabulously dressed as possible and with the proper accessories. It would never do to show to up to Armageddon with your everyday black leather handbag.

Bye for now…

Not everyone is a winner, you know…

Author’s Note: This is something I wrote a little under a year ago. It was originally posted as a note on Facebook and then as a post on my personal blog.

One of my former English-teaching jobs involved working with small children. They were very little (most under the age of five) so the job primarily consisted of playing games and singing songs in English. Like any job there were good and bad things about it. The kids were mostly very sweet and cute. However, I had a colleague who drove me nuts. We used to play these little games with the kids and naturally there would be one winner, which is the point of playing any game, right?

Despite this universal truth, she would always smile at them and say, “That’s okay. Everyone’s a winner!” This always bothered me because there was in fact only one winner. He won because he was the best. Saying that everyone’s a winner totally diminishes the achievement of the kid who actually won the game. It’s unrealistic, dishonest and unfair, and it sets kids up for disappointment later on in life.

It used to be when a child did poorly in school her parents would go straight to her and say, “These grades are terrible!” Nowadays, when a child does poorly in school her parents go straight to her teacher and say, “These grades are terrible!”

Not that there aren’t any bad teachers. Of course there are, just as there are bad examples from every profession. However, I wonder if it ever occurred to the parents that maybe their kid is just a bad student. I know a thing or two about being a bad student because I used to be one. Then again, I had very low self-esteem, so when I got bad grades I assumed it was because I (and not my teacher) was useless. No amount of attempted bribery or bolstering of my nonexistent self-esteem was going to improve my performance in school.

Then one day I realized that I’d better get off my ass and get some decent grades, so that’s what I did. At first I did it mainly to keep my parents from yelling at me, but after a while I figured out that I was actually a good student and I did it for me.

While I strongly believe in encouraging young people to do the best they can, I also believe that it’s ultimately up to them. They choose whether to do well or bad in school, and while we can encourage or even intimidate, their performance in school is their responsibility. The young people of today aren’t being taught self-reliance and accountability. Many of them are little narcissists who have been led to believe they are “special” and therefore entitled to “the best.”

However, we seem to have forgotten to tell them about having to work really hard in order to get it, about taking charge of their own lives, about having to get it themselves if they really want it, and about them not being entitled to anything.

Remember that if everyone is a winner that means that everyone is also a loser.

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WOTD: conflicted

Today’s word is a feeling, one that I think a lot of us are experiencing concerning the death of Osama bin Laden. To feel conflicted is to be full of conflicting and often contradictory emotions or impulses.

Upon hearing that Osama bin Laden, FBI’s number one most wanted bad guy, the one responsible for the atrocities of September 11, 2001, the July 7, 2005 bombings in London (among others) had been killed in a surgical military operation, well, one can’t help but jump for joy and shout, “YESSSS!!!!!!”

But wait, is that really an appropriate response? I mean, should one be filled with joy over the death of a fellow human being? Even one with such a defiantly uncompromising and completely distorted view of reality? Evil or not, he was still a man, who unfailingly believed he was doing God/Allah’s work by ridding the world of the oppressive infidels. Just like Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden hid himself away, and he held on to his misguided convictions until the very end. And like Hitler, he would rather die than be captured by the enemy. And thus he did.

The fate of Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a fate he wished to avoid at all costs.

More on this later…