Let Love Continue

I’m not standing with gay people. I’m standing with Americans who deserve equal protection under the law. I’m standing with my family and friends who believe the power of love is greater than the cowardice of injustice. I’m standing with future generations who deserve to be born into a country that ridicules bigots and condemns hypocrites.

No one needs civics lesson from me. The information for both California’s Proposition 8 and The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is available online. And unfortunately, the decision by the Supreme Court is not necessarily swayed (or dissuaded) by popular opinion. I don’t want to cite sources or statistics, because most can be manipulated to appeal to either side of the debates.

Pray, dream, hope, or send positive vibes to the universe to whatever god you believe or don’t believe in. America does not need another minority class created out of fear and ignorance.

 

All About Poems

We’ve all seen this poem, perhaps in our own school or on the subway or inside your prison library:

Most of what I really need
To know about how to live
And what to do and how to be
I learned in kindergarten.
Wisdom was not at the top
Of the graduate school mountain,
But there in the sandpile at Sunday school.

 

It’s a lovely poem. It is. And the remainder of the book looks lovely too. Well, the cover and the font do. I don’t like reading. And neither do you. You’ve probably already moved onto something else. But for those of you who stayed, I promise a good time where you may or may not get wet.

When Robert Lee Fulghum wrote the book, he probably couldn’t have predicted the idea of the “simple life” would be completely renovated under the arrival of the internet (and also the arrival of the soul-deadening reality show, “The Simple Life”)

Although Robert Lee did come up with some nice thoughts, he is still a minister with a name that makes me believe he sounds like Foghorn Leghorn. He also probably doesn’t look at life as realistically and cynically as say, someone like me. Since the dude looks like George Lucas and Santa Claus’ love child, he probably won’t be around long enough to update his short essay collection to the more internet-friendly “I Haz Learned Kindergarten?” Although he does seem to understand the internet and will post occasionally, I feel like he is just out there writing another unfunny but poignant book out of experiences of spying on his neighbors and tapping their phones. I’m 63% sure he doesn’t do this, but it would be a better way for him to come up with those essays than actually “talking” to “people” in “social” situations. Ex-HAUST-ing

So in the spirit of furthering my own agenda and reminding people to stop being horrible, I have taken on the task of updating it for him. I expect royalty checks in approximately 3 to 5 weeks.

It will be called “All I Really Need is Validation From the Internet.” Bobby boy’s words will be in bold. My revisions are directly underneath and will be right and hysterical.

Share everything.

No. Please stop sharing. I can’t take it anymore. I don’t care about your kids’ play/dinner/bowel movement if I haven’t spoken to you in 4 years. And even if I spoke to you yesterday, the internal monologue you need to spew if not as interesting as you’d like to believe. In fact, they’ve done studies to show that although your brain likes it when you brag or talk about yourself, the rest of the brains in the world don’t.

Play fair.

Except when sterroids or other performance enhances could possibly be involved. Then take them, break a bunch of records, then rat out your friends a couple years later in front of a Congressional committee.

Don’t hit people.

Poke them. Troll them. Remind them they are worthless pieces of garbage. But only anonymously on message boards.

Put things back where you found them.

If I have to see you pick up one more rock and Instragram it, I’m gonna throw a Canon lens at you.

Clean up your own mess.

Better yet, become a publicist who cleans up other people’s messes for them. $$$$$

Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

If I had a nickel for every time I witnessed a stolen thought posted as original content, I’d be richer than God, Zuckerface, and Bill Gates combined. Although, to be fair, I am stealing Robert Fulghum’s original essay in order to make a sarcastic but thoughtful point. Mr. Fulghum, you can take that nickel I owe you out of the royalty check.

Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.

But only with a staged publicity stunt and if the restraining order allows.

Wash your hands before you eat.

But not with hand sanitizer because that shit will cause cancer, asthma, rashes, superbugs, and drunk teenagers.

Flush.

But don’t flush your meds, maxi pads, or kittens. All are not biodegradable and can infect your drinking water with lithium, cotton, and cuteness.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

No they aren’t. The internet told me so. Both make you obese and hormonal. (Side note: http://www.notmilk.com/ might be my new favorite Drudge-Report-like-but-not-Drudge-Report-but-just-as-crazy website.)

Live a balanced life: Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance.

Besides the fact that the above sentence sounds like it was said by an actual Kindergartener, it is probably the top reason why people go to liberal arts colleges. The bottom reason is the desire to have a lifetime of student loan debt and underemployment.

And play and work every day some.

Welp universe, you gave me the internet so I’m just going to play at work. That was easy. In fact, I’m writing this at work and passing it off as real work. I am skilled in the art of having a “leave me the fuck alone” face at my place of employment.

Take a nap every afternoon.

This one is a little ridiculous. Adults don’t need naps every day. And neither do children. We only make children take naps so adults can get a break and eat all their candy. At least that’s what I would tell the kids I was a nanny for. And got to charge $25/hour for that abuse. I miss Manhattan…

When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic.

BUT make sure your web traffic is good enough to justify your recipes, fake wedding plans, and inspirational but misattributed quotes on top of pictures of candles.

Hold hands and stick together.

This one is fucking sweet. I have nothing. Here’s a picture of sea otters holding hands.

Be aware of wonder.

Nah. We invented Google and Wikipedia so you don’t have to use the word “wonder” anymore.

Message from a bottle

“If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together…there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart…I’ll always be with you.” –AA Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

 

Life isn’t tough. Life is soft. That’s why we’re able to mold it and punch it and throw it away and destroy it sometimes. It’s why we can yell at it and insult it and degrade it and it won’t say anything. Life is soft because we coddle it. Most of us won’t challenge it, because we’re afraid life can’t handle it. 

But thankfully, life bounces back. Sometimes it bounces back like a pendulum: just ENOUGH momentum to not hit you with the same force again, only graze you. And then it’ll bounce back with a vengeance. Like it has something to prove. Don’t fall for it. It’s all bark and no bite.

…but just to be sure, get a rabies shot.  

Dream on.

Hang on.

Love on…the run.

Pray For a Better Us

If you can get married to the person you love, pray for those who can’t.

If you have a home, pray for those who have lost theirs to greed.

If you have a job, pray for those who were considered expendable.

If you can afford healthy food, pray for those who don’t have that luxury.

If you were given help in the past, pray for those who need it now.

If you get paid an equal share, pray for those who don’t.

If you made a decision about your body today, pray for those who don’t get that freedom.

If you have a voice to defend yourself, pray for those who don’t.

If you can go to college, pray for those who can’t justify the cost.

If you are allowed to practice your religion, pray for those who are ridiculed because they don’t.

If you enjoy your freedoms, pray for those who fight for them selflessly.

 

On Election Day, please read this. Then go back and replace “pray” with “vote.” Please realize that your choices affect people around you. Don’t just vote for yourself. Vote with your parents, your brothers and sisters, your neighbors, and your children in mind. But most of all, vote with our future in mind. Don’t vote for the past because that would only limit our most valuable resources: our citizens.

Women voting in New York, 1917
Courtesy of the Library of Congress

 

I Will Survive Your Survivalism

This is not a piece on gun control. I understand the Second Amendment. I understand the Tenth Amendment. I will not pretend to understand how these two interact. I will not pretend to understand individual county and state laws. It is too complicated and therefore should only be debated on by people who understand these laws.

This is not an essay on mental health care in this country. There are people who are mentally ill. People often die from their mental illnesses or commit acts that a person without a mental illness would not do. However, I took only four college courses on psychology and therefore do not consider myself an “expert” on the subject.

This is not an article on politics. That’s for the pundits. Whatever the hell a “pundit” is.

Instead, I write this because I’m exhausted. The “violence in the media” argument has been used so often, it’s cliche. In fact, so cliche that Amy Heckerling wrote one of the greatest responses to it back in 1995 for “Clueless”:

“Until mankind is peaceful enough not to have violence on the news, there’s no point in taking it out of shows that need it for entertainment value.”

It is not “glorified violence” in TV and movies that makes guns more appealing. We glorify survival. We glorify personal justice, pride, and revenge through popular media. That makes weapons more appealing to us, not violence in video games and movies.

The opening scene of the first episode of “The Walking Dead” depicts a cop shooting a little girl, who is a zombie. In the movie “Taken,” Liam Neeson’s character crosses international borders and commits murder to save his daughter’s life. In “Home Alone,” a child booby-traps his own house in an attempt to deliberately assault two home intruders. In the book and film “The Hunger Games,” children must both fight for their lives and and kill each other.

The theme throughout these shows and movies is that in the spirit of protecting your home, your life, and the life of your loved ones, we will go to great extremes. But these are works of fiction. However, instead of seeing them as entertainment, our society began to see them as handbooks. After “The Hunger Games” premiered, there was an increase in requests for archery classes. While it is a well respected world-wide sport, what was the reason? Should it be put on the same field as soccer and Little League as part of team building and exercise for children?

The zombie “trend” in popular culture spawned books and internet “how-to” guides to survive a zombie apocalypse. Zombies are not real. Aliens will not attack you. These creatures do not exist in the sense that are depicted. However, people take these threats seriously. They imitate movies and hone their skills and buy large knives. They stock up on supplies. And yet, they don’t know their neighbors. They don’t respect cops and see emergency personnel as a nuisance. Those distrustful of the system are inadvertently causing cracks in it.

People will buy guns for any number of reasons: Craftsmanship, sport, protection, intimidation. The same could be said for why people buy cars, which kill more people a year than guns according to the CDC. Yet the cultural landscape has one-upped the protection aspect. There are reality television programs and internet videos that show personal arsenals of self-described “Survivalists.”

The Survivialism movement isn’t new. We have seen bomb shelters and underground bunkers since the beginning of the Cold War. However, in recent years, (most notably since Y2K), movies and books have started to glorify it. People no longer want to be heroes that “save the day.” They want to be the heroes that “kick that threat in the face and make it suffer for the pain it caused or will inevitably cause their loved ones.”

So we sit around and brag about what we would do in “this hypothetical situation” or “If I was there, it wouldn’t have gone down like that.” We’d like to all think in a time of crisis and panic, we would be the ones who would stand up and take down the threat. However, people don’t realize that in the midst of mayhem, you have just enough success rate of taking down a mass murderer as you would if you stood up to a tornado.

There is a reason law enforcement condemn vigilantes. It’s not because they are “making the cops look bad.” It’s for the safety of the vigilante and those around them. Military and law enforcement officers are trained rigorously to recognize situations where it is better to intercede and when it is time to stay on the fringe. They are also trained to separate their emotions. In a real life emergency situation, there is no way to predict how one’s body will react. Adrenaline is a powerful biological element passed down through human evolution. However, it wasn’t passed down so we could ninja flip from one building to another. It was an evolutionary trait for when our ancestors came across lions and large snakes. Fight or flight. This was to protect the human species and eventually get us to the top of the food chain. And now that we are up there, the only things we have to fight are each other. Which we seem to always be itching to do.

There is an old joke where a cop stops a little old lady in her car and sees a shotgun in her lap. He then asks to see her registration and see an handgun in glove compartment. He next asks her to open the trunk and sees several more guns and rounds of ammunition. He goes, “Ma’am, why do you need these weapons?” “For protection,” she says, in her innocent old lady voice. “What are you afraid of?” asks the cop. The old lady cocks the shotgun and says, “Not a damn thing.”

Maybe we should be asking ourselves the same question.

“Above-Love”

Photo by Ellen Jones Photography

Today’s blog posting is on the Times Union’s “On the Edge” blog. Click the beautiful picture above for the link. Or copy and paste the following link into your browser:

http://blog.timesunion.com/kristi/vacation-post-about-love/49110/

My Many Dads

No one has ever put an exact number on the Founding Fathers of the United States. Some historians believe it is the “Signers of the Declaration of Independence” and the “Framers of the Constitution.” Others believe this group extends far beyond these two key groups of men, to include merchants, businessmen, military members, and landowners who enlisted service, funds, and support for the cause. However, there are the famous ones that our history books will not shut up about it. If our history books were Us Weekly , Benji, Tommy, and Georgie would be the Beyonce, Kardashian, and Lindsay Lohan of the world. I’m sure they got themselves into as many scandals as our contemporaries did, but they also had their fair share of good ideas and even better advice.

So in the spirit of America’s Birthday today (which is July 4 for those who don’t live in America or own the internet), I would like to dispense their wisdom here. Who doesn’t love bragging about how awesome their dad(s) are?

You’re America! Be Loud! Be Proud!

 

 

John Adams

“You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.”

Letter to John Quincy Adams (14 May 1781)

Benjamin Franklin

“Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.”

Letter to Abbé Morellet (1779)

Alexander Hamilton

“The passions of a revolution are apt to hurry even good men into excesses.”

Personal Essay (August 12, 1795)

John Jay

“Real Christians will abstain from violating the rights of others, and therefore will not provoke war.”

Letter to John Murray (12 October 1816)

Thomas Jefferson

“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.”

Letter to Alexander Donald (7 February 1788)

James Madison

“I always talk better lying down.”

Last words of James Madison

George Washington

“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.”

Letter to Bushrod Washington (15 January 1783)

America

J. R.

“No fussing, no fighting, no kicking, no biting.”

My actual father, to all his kids, all the time.