Sudan

I ask you to look to the East. I want to re-introduce you to a nation that sits just beyond the reach of the American tongue. If your local news station has spoken of our topic, it has most likely been to inform you that Clooney, or Jolie, or some other member of the beautiful people has just returned safely from a trip to our destination.

For this sin alone, our every hand washing should rinse pink into eternity.

Noting the collective American ignorance about geography, humor me for a short “where in the world is--?”

I know that YOU know where Sudan is, but many people don't. You’ll need a globe, or map. Open a separate browser window, and load up a map of the world. I’ll wait for you.

* * *

First, find Egypt at the northeast corner of the continent of Africa. Point to it. Now drag your pointer south. On a modern map, the first border you touch symbolizes the northern edge of “the Dark Continent’s” largest country.

Don’t move your hand just yet.

You are symbolically fingering the historic land of Nubia, ancient Egypt’s silent supplier of goods and knowledge that helped the land of the Pharaohs cast an exceptionally long shadow across time--through history, myth, legend, and lore.

One of the cradles of civilization, Nubia is the ancient link between tropical Africa and the first great international trading zones. In its heyday, the many caravans carrying gold, ivory, diamonds, and knowledge to the world’s first international trading ports on the Mediterranean Sea and River Nile walked its soil. It too boasts pyramids.

It has been Eden, and Kush, and Egypt, and British colony.

It is Sudan.

In that all too human way we cast aside history for shiny things and pretty people, Sudan’s soul has been pillaged for pennies—it is today the scene of what our descendants will know to be our greatest crime.

As we speak, Sudan is reaping the results of a tattered history of war, famine, and corruption. By the hundreds of thousands, Sudanese have walked away from the burning remains of their homes and lives. To the west, neighboring Chad, is straining under weight of hundreds of thousands of pedestrian refugees who cross the borders in groups of 10,000.

Perhaps some of the 2 million people who have fled their homes and villages have settled in your community. Unfortunately, as the first generations of immigrants from other places have discovered, America, my home, can be a very inhospitable place during the transition.

These huddled masses are unquestionably the lucky ones.

To whatever degree there is a spotlight on Sudan, the point of focus is Darfur. This region of Western Sudan is believed to have slightly fewer than eight million people. Believed, because Sudan has been too dangerous to gather accurate census data since 1993.

Darfur is embroiled in a conflict that pits an Arab Muslim militia--the Janjaweed, against the largely African Muslim population. Like most problems, their dispute is too nuanced and complicated to adequately describe in generic terms, but it stems at least in part to a squatter’s rights quarrel between nomads and farmers.

In a disagreement that stretches back a dozen generations, the nomadic tribes believe they have a right to graze camels on the available arable land. No problem, except that the agricultural groups believe they have a right to own, farm, and develop the land.

A series of famines has made arable land scarce. That land is now rare enough to kill for.

On a different continent, in a different age, this dispute might have ended up in court.

But this is modern Africa, and the dispute—complicated by a thousand political and economic facets, assisted to various degrees by such famous bad guys as Muamar Qadafi and Usama Bin Ladin, has become an ethnic genocide.

Turns out the government, the group of people you’d expect to take a role in protecting citizens—any nation’s greatest resource, has instead turned on them.

Not turned on them like … refusing to count their votes. No, no, turned on them like--allowing them to be slaughtered.

The U.N. has settled on a death toll of 400,000 and counting in Darfur. An estimated 2 million people have been forced out of their homes, had their villages burned to the ground, and suffered unspeakable horrors in the name of war.

In a conflict that has literally turned rape into a military weapon, the Arab militias have made it their life’s work to rid the nation of its African blood.

Sadly, Darfur is one of a NUMBER of conflicts ravaging Sudan.

I won’t berate you into feeling sorry for these people of the great past. I am capable, but it’s counterproductive. I’m a much more practical man than that.

I will however, put my considerable pride aside to kneel on both knees, touch my forehead to the floor, and BEG you to take a few moments of your time to do three things:

1: Choose to inform yourself about Sudan.

Media criticism aside, this is the information age. You don’t need CNN, FOX, ABC, CBS, or the Wall Street Journal to tell you what is going on. You and I are engaging in this conversation using the most powerful research tool in the history of civilization.

http://www.wikipedia.com/

Start here. Search Sudan, and follow the links that address whatever questions you have. Don’t worry how far you wander from your starting point. Search “the Darfur conflict” and read what’s been written. You don’t need a globe, or map, or any books. You have everything you need to find out EXACTLY what’s going on.

Next,

http://www.google.com/

Same search. Same drill. Give yourself half an hour. That’s more time than your local newscast can afford.

Do it while you’re hunting for your next 360-playmate, or checking your e-mail.

Follow the first five links that appear to have anything to do with the subject at hand.

Then, switch the upper tabs to “images” and look at some pictures of the damage done to ancient Nubia.

By the end of your 30 minutes, you will have a much better idea of what’s going on in Sudan. You will have started to develop some opinions about whether or not it’s a cause that deserves your attention.

You will have informed yourself enough to know whether you agree that Sudan is a crisis. You MAY conclude that Sudan should be an African problem to be solved by Africans. As an informed citizen, that is well within your rights.

You may decide that it’s no big deal, and doesn’t deserve to be given any more attention than it’s had to this point.

You may compare and contrast it to problems we have here at home and decide it doesn’t stack up. It may not touch you in the way it touches others. From my vantage point, those are completely acceptable outcomes—as long as you’ve taken the time to inform yourself.

2: Come back here, and share a little bit of what you’ve learned.

Or … find some other place where the topic is under discussion and jump in with both feet. Part of the apathy that mires Americans in inaction begins with a lack of viable conversation. We will not solve the Darfur crisis here. That isn’t the point.

The goal is for informed people to share ideas. We should stop underestimating the power of discussion. It is the source of consensus, which births action.

Every real change that has affected the globe began with groups of real people, talking about---and then DOING real things.

3: Act on your conclusions.

This particular blog entry was suggested to me by Zee, from Buffalo, New York. Her parish has taken up this issue, particularly as it relates to their community of immigrants from Sudan, in a tangible way.

For Zee, that parish movement has spawned action in real life. She has chosen to mirror that activity here, and asked me to help spread the word to my small circle of friends. She has posted a number of links to organizations that are taking an active role in having an impact on the daily situation in Eastern Sudan. I invite you to visit her, and consider the opportunities she presents.

I honestly hope that the process of informing yourself and sharing ideas creates in you a passion for a group of people in peril that you cannot immediately see, touch, or hear. I hope that passion manifests itself in action.

My action at this instant is to remove my forehead from the floor, stand to my feet, and conclude my appeal to your mercy.

You are only one person. You are free to do something, or do nothing. We all have that choice, one … by one … by one.

As we’re making that decision, people in Sudan are dying, one … by one … by one.

(29 Oct 2006)

For my Friend Lis

There’s this wonderful woman named Lis, whom I’m acquainted with through yahoo 360. She’s a fellow writer, and phenomenal blogger. I read her comments faithfully. Recently she’s taken a stand against what she feels is a growing sentiment.

She says, and I believe her completely, she has come across a number of blogs that speak from the perspective that women are “silly,” and black women perhaps more than most. I believe that I accurately represent her point of view when I say that she believes those comments represent a growing opinion trend, and perhaps reflect an undercurrent of belief that the overall quality of black women is on the decline.

(Lis, if I’ve misstated your position, feel free to correct me. I’ll make any changes that will more accurate reflect what you actually said. I’m hoping to continue your conversation, not mischaracterize it.)

Before I continue, let me say that I unabashedly and completely adore women. I love black women, and white women, all the brown, tan, and beige shades in between. I dig women from Asia, and Latinas, and Eskimo chics, Native American women; and every mixture, cross-pollination, or combination of the above.

I like big ones and tiny ones, Shaquille-tall ones, and micro-mini four footers. I like the way women smell, and taste, and look, and the electricity they generate when they touch me. I particularly like the ways they aren’t like me. And I live for the type of intelligence that they uniquely bring to every conversation. They know things I cannot know, and see things through much more sensitive and well-tuned vision than I’ve ever developed.

Now some ARE definitely silly and have endlessly wasted my time, or brought less than a full deck to the card game. But that’s not because they’re women, that’s because they’re silly or had less than a full deck to play with.

Without question, black women are a part of my identity. The first thing I ever saw was my black mother looking back at me. I was raised by a black woman, married a black woman, divorced a black woman, and have a son by a black woman—who does an amazing job of putting her “mother’s touch” on the heart of the ‘mini-me.’

I read Lis’s words, and found many of them to be absolutely true. But I don’t agree with her overall assessment. I think she throws too big a blanket on the small ideas of some very small men.

I’d like to offer a response to Lis here, but not as a counter in any way. I offer it as the continuation of a conversation. This isn’t a debate at all. She has earned every opinion I’ve ever heard her express. She’s brilliant, and always ‘brings it’ from a very legitimate perspective. She articulates her point of view with grace and passion. I am learning from her. I support her.

I offer an additional perspective for her consideration.

I believe what Lis has correctly, and appropriately put her finger on is the tip of a much bigger iceberg that threatens the relationship between men and women in America.

The internet at any given time is a digital snapshot of the entire country. The gang’s all here. The misogynists, the villains, the perverts, the pimps, the playas, the hos, the liars, the egomaniacs, the pedophiles, the cannibals, the criminals, the freaks, and the “normal” all share this space like an elevator. This is that look inside the houses of strangers. And just like your mama told you when you were a kid … you “can’t eat at everybody’s house.”

The haters are here with the peaceniks, and if you look—you’ll find some absolutely frightening things about murdering black people, or re-killing the Jews, or stopping the power of “the man” through the violent overthrow of the government. Those people are real, their thoughts exist and are communicated every day, and their pages link from one disgusting site to another.

If you get caught in one of those webs, it can become easy to believe that their name is legion, and that they are many. But in truth, they’re not. It’s a few thousand people whose opinion isn’t all that widespread. They’ve learned the art of speaking “loud” as a masturbatory substitute for being right.

I would suggest the same is true of the people who find their pleasure in degrading women.

Their bullshit ideas don’t represent anything more than bullshit men.

I don’t think they’re little boys, I think they’re men. Little boys are males whose ideas and actions can still be easily shaped by external forces. But positive forces haven’t shaped every man. And every man isn’t a good end product. (And if the man you’re with changes at your whim, be careful, you might end up being mommy.)

Lis, I encourage you to just avoid them. The internet is just like a nightclub. Everybody’s got a line, a mating call, and most of them aren’t meant for you. They are looking for something specific, and whatever it is that they’re looking for … exists. If it’s not you, ignore them, and move to the next possibility. The fact that you aren’t a skank, doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Skanks are as real as virtuous women, and there are men who live to seek them out. The mating call for a skank will repulse you, because it’s not for you.

The mating call that is meant for you will appeal to you. It also exists.

There are millions of good men. I know because in addition to belonging to that club, I converse with men all the time that I would allow to date my younger sister without hesitation.

I’m not a skull-cracker, or thug. I’ve done a few thuggish things in my life, and usually felt bad doing them, and regretted them shortly after.

I’ve hurt a few people, both physically and emotionally.

And I’ve been hurt a few times, physically and emotionally.

With age and experience, boys become men. Where they are at the moment of that transition is more often than not where they stay. And what they’ve experienced is often what they will identify as their preference, and work to perpetuate.

Flower-senders will have that habit forever. As will batterers.

If you are looking for real men, I encourage you to continue that search.

There is plenty of chaff with the wheat. Toss it up, and let the chaff float away. The wheat will land, harvest it.

I wish you well, my friend.

High-Tech Lynching

If given a chance, would you ever join a lynch mob?

Tulsa, Oklahoma. May 31st, 1921.

Dick Rowland is in jail.

It’s too late now to know if he actually attacked Sarah Page in the elevator.

The Tulsa Tribune says that’s what happened.

Says so in the story under the headline that screams:

NAB NEGRO FOR ATTACKING GIRL IN ELEVATOR

His arrest certainly wasn’t the consensus story of the day.

Across town, the Tulsa Globe didn’t even bother to mention it.

Tim Madigan, author of The Burning, suggests that’s because the local police were quite skeptical of Miss Page’s accusation.

Rowland had a reputation of a ladies man, and in retrospect there is significant evidence that their first meeting was certainly NOT at the elevator in question.

What happened over the next few days has become an historic and cultural touchstone of what happens when good race relations go bad.

Dick Rowland was black.

Sarah Page was white.

In those days, the accusation alone was enough to turn racially progressive Tulsa into a violent inferno.

The crowd didn’t so much … need … facts, as they needed to satisfy their thirst for blood.

The ensuing riot prematurely ended as many as 300 lives, destroyed the city of Tulsa, and ruined one of the greatest economic success stories in the history of blacks in America.

There were a LOT of lessons to be learned. The ’21 riot in Tulsa put some of America’s worst problems on the sort of display that outlives all of the participants.

It’s a story of bad media, racism, lynching, violence, rushes to judgment, and mob thought.

It is one of those stories that black people use to illustrate the ridiculous way the country has treated us.

But I’d like to use it for a different purpose.

Clarence Thomas described the Anita Hill portion of his Supreme Court confirmation hearing as a “high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks.”

It was almost a throwaway line, but an appropriate one at the time, because the execution in question was not of his person—but of his character.

But the phrase hearkened back to Tulsa, and 1921.

To have a proper lynching, you need three things--a mob, suspension of the legal process long enough for the mob to make up its mind, and an execution.

In the Thomas example, the execution wasn’t going to end his life, but it was certainly going to kill his good name and reputation.

It was perhaps an overstatement, because his “lynching” was happening as part of the legal process, but the execution was real.

Thanks to the mob of television cameras and breathless news anchors offering play-by-play analysis during every recess, one of the largest international news audiences ever counted up to that point were introduced to pubic hair on Coke cans, and Long Dong Silver.

Dick Rowland might have preferred a high-tech digital lynching to the violent and painful end he suffered.

Good thing the country doesn’t lynch people—digitally or otherwise, anymore.

Durham, North Carolina. March 16th, 2006.

Reade Seligmann has been indicted.

So have Collin Finnerty and David Evans.

They are students of the prestigious Duke University. They are athletes, wealthy, good students, and alcohol consumers.

It’s too late now to get a clean first impression of whether or not they actually raped “Precious,” a local woman, mother, student, and stripper during a lacrosse team party in their city.

Because that’s what the headlines screamed on CNN, Fox, ABC, and ESPN and in every major newspaper in the country.

Of course, we’ve become quite a bit more civilized in the intervening 85 years. Now we use words like “alleged,” and “accused” instead of putting it all out there. Litigation has taught us to be careful. So the mob has to read a little bit between the lines.

If you can believe 60 Minutes, trust the words of Ed Bradley, and have confidence in the video record of the immediate media blitz that followed the initial accusation, the local police are far from skeptical about the claim, as evidenced by their rush to collect evidence of the rape even if it means throwing out all of the rules of evidence in the process.

The district attorney has behaved very badly too, desperately wanting to use the “mob” thoughts to further his career, legal ethics be damned.

“Precious” is black.

Reade, Collin, and David are white.

In these days, the accusation alone was enough to turn racially improving Durham into a festering sore of raw racial passions.

Shall we have us an old fashioned “high-tech lynching for uppity Whites?”

Here’s the debate I don’t ever want to have to blindly score point totals on:

A hired stripper goes into a roomful of drunk college boys. She takes off some or all of her clothing because that’s what she’s been hired to do, things get out of hand, and later she says she was raped.

Did it happen? Is it possible? She said? Or he said?

Who’s telling the truth?

I have no idea, which is why I really dig the idea of having a court trial about it.

Remember those?

In the interim, the crowd is gathering, made up of millions of people who’ve already decided on the truth.

Since Sunday's edition of 60 Minutes, the following question is no longer rhetorical.

You and I have the chance. Shall we join the lynch mob?

(16 Oct 06)

Out of Pocket

I think I'll go out of town for a few days. See you in about a week.

Before I go, Becky appropriately asked why I always leave out the girls when I've talked about molestation.

I've answered her, but I should say it publicly.

The molestation of little girls is even MORE deplorable than the shame of diddling little boys.

In this case of priests, while I'm sure there are some who've made young females their prey--I never hear about them.

As for my rant(s), I wasn't actually talking about molestation in general, but the very specific hypocrisy of the clergy and other professions of power in my not-so-limited exposure to this problem.

For the record--

Fuck Mark Foley. Fuck any man or woman who uses the wisdom of age to overcome the innocence of youth.

If you are a letch of any stripe

Fuck you too.

It's harsh language, I admit. But I'm not a gentleman when it comes to this.
If there is a place for political correctness--a discussion about the care and concern for our children isn't it, unless they're participating in the conversation.

So if you happen to be reading this blog, and you've spent any part of this week fondling, diddling, caressing, or otherwise inappropriately communicating with some child under your influence ... FUCK YOU!

Know that there are those of us out here who don't give a damn who you are, or how close you're supposed to be to God, human power, or monetary wealth.

You are the bane of our civilization, and a shit-stain on humanity.

And yes, I understand that you have a problem, you're not wired like the rest of us, some shit-stain molested YOU as a child blahblahblah.

That's called a cross to bear. We all have one. Mine is an unholy obsession with round asses. But I've identified it, live with it, and manage to walk to and fro on the earth without grabbing all the ones I think are amazing and trying to talk to them with my penis.

Pick up your cross, Strap it on your shoulders, and strain under the weight like the rest of us.

Give these unfortunate children a chance to mature and discover what a fucktard you are before they have to decide whether or not they want to have sex with you.

Everybody out here isn't looking for polite way to say you don't deserve to live.

I curse you, and call on the Creation powers of nature--and WHOEVER holds them-- to use the next time you chew or swallow as an opportune moment to take back the breath you have mistakenly been loaned, so it can be given to a more useful vessel.

I for one have a consistent, and direct message for you. It won't change next week, and it won't be any different when I'm an old man. And if I have to scream it from the top of some mountain, all by myself, forever, I'm dressed for that trip.

FUCK YOU!

And no, I don't know what it's like to be molested. But I do know what it's like to try to hold a decent relationship together with a woman who can barely sleep because she's afraid you're going to try to rape her while she's sleeping--like her daddy did. I know how hard it is to depend on a worker who has nightmares at night. I watch the stunted emotions you leave in your wake. I see the impact on my society from the fallout of your criminal behavior.

And if you need more practical advice, I suggest alt.com

There's a whole community of people a bit more adjusted than you who love to dress up like and be treated like children. Exercise your proclivities there, with other grown-ups who can decide what parts of you they want touching what parts of them.

* * * * * *

To everyone else--have a great week. See you next time.

Peace, prosperity, and pleasure ...

--Stew.

(10 Oct 2006)

The Pick-up

There’s an art to the pick-up.

No so much a learned skill, as an ability to mentally ignore the possibility of negative repercussions should your advances be refused, or worse ridiculed.

Like many things, there are some who develop this particular skill. By ninth grade, certain people have figured out the right combination of words and deeds that ensures them a level of deserved confidence that they can talk a complete stranger into sleeping with them.

It’s part picking the right target, and part having the right introductory line—and being able to follow up the initial intrigue with a conversation that reinforces your humor, or intellect, or sheer pluck.

In my younger youth, we called it fishing, among other things. It seems to be an appropriate metaphor, because it’s precisely like the sport. You have to understand the habits of the fish; does the type you’re after dart into the current and grab something floating by, or seek out the calmer waters and wander through the greenery for a more stable prey.

Some people are much better at it than others.

By college, or your early 20s, you’ve figured out if you have that particular skill. If you do, it tends to come in handy in all sorts of social and business environments.

There’s something useful about knowing that you have enough command of your environment to present yourself in such a way that people find themselves drawn to you. It’s even better if you can get to them give you what you want. Sex, conversation---

maybe even a vote?

I’ve never seen a study on it, but it seems to me that canvassing a community for political votes requires the same set of skills as cruising a bar for a one-night stand.

Your task is to enter an environment filled with people who for the most part, don’t know you, and ask them to give you something that is, or at least should be "special" to them—not “really” knowing what kind of person you are—beyond your pick-up line/stump speech.

I can’t imagine that a shy, or self-conscious person would be very good at it. Politics is an endless cycle of public speaking, begging strangers to give you large sums of money, and whispering the case that you're a better option than every other potential suitor in the room.

Is it the same game?

If it is, it would help me understand why a six-term congressman would be able to ignore the possibility of negative repercussions as he logged on to his internet messenger of choice, and boldly typed the words “are you horny?” to a teenager spending a semester at the Capitol.

He’s been fishing for years. He’s learned his prey for a variety of environments. He's been elected to congress six times, and was considering a run for the Senate. That means he's asked a LOT of people to "give him some," with a great deal of success. And he runs with a pack of people who are used to fishing for their very survival.

The method that seems to have worked for him where it comes to his young male companions is to start reeling them in while they’re young, and finish the deed a few years after their stint as pages is over. This week, the Mark Foley story took what I’d have to call an “expected” turn, as a former page tells the Los Angeles Times that he had sex with the Florida Congressman.

I won’t bother with the “I told you so.”

Now that there’s a full-blown ephebophile scandal in Congress, the question of what “types” of people end up in the House and Senate seems to be at least borderline appropriate. Is there any chance our system has spawned a happy hunting ground for the fishermen?

This week, the Dems get to gloat a bit. I encourage you to avoid that roller-coaster. History teaches us that it will get derailed.

I told you there'd be more to the story, now I'm telling you that there's more to the story. I'll bet Mr. Foley hasn't been fishing alone.

(10 Oct 06)

Recollection from Korea

1994 - 95 was a pivotal year for me. I was in the Air Force, and the military had sent me on my first overseas tour. I drew the short straw, and spent a year at Kunsan Air Base, in the Republic of Korea. It's a fighter jet base, located about three driving hours south of Seoul.

At that time, Kunsan was considered hands-down the worst assignment in the Air Force. Chemical protective gear was a standard issue, and we practiced putting on the various layers and combinations during annoying, week-long drills that were to prepare us for the day the dreaded “balloon goes up.”

There is a weekend of that year that is relevant to me as I type tonight.

Apparently, something had gone wrong in the talks between North and South at the DMZ. A threat of some kind had been made, and by the time the story got to us, it was reported that Kim Il Sung’s representatives at the meeting had threatened to “turn Seoul into a flaming pit of hell.”

I spent that weekend in a silly little trench, outside the building where I worked, holding an empty M-16A1 rifle in the lowest level of protective gear. Trained but terrified, I was more than a little confused about which specific decision of my life had resulted in me being tasked to defend a radio station full of albums from the Communists. I foolishly thought we’d beat the Commies by winning the Cold War. Yet here I was, a 22-year-old Nebraska boy with an empty rifle and no bayonet, waiting for North Korean Special Forces to breach the concertina wire to attack AFKN.

Needless to say, they never showed up. Tensions eventually ratcheted down, and our emergency state of alert went back down to its normal “elevated” status. I never had to fire that rifle. As far as I know, I was never in ANY immediate danger, and if I had been I’m sure someone would’ve brought me some ammunition and a walkie-talkie or something.

But as I sit and watch the news that crazy assed Kim Jung Il is at it again, and has now reportedly tested a nuclear weapon—I wonder about those silly little trenches, and whether there’s some scared 22-year old sleeping there tonight.

The world is a different place now. We’re at war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is rattling its saber, and we finally have action on all three fronts of our self-declared “Axis of Evil.”

Today, Airmen dread an assignment to Iraq for its lack of creature comforts. A tour to Kunsan isn’t such a bad thing. There are seasons on the ROK, and great shopping, and there hasn’t been a hostile shooting in forever.

But the America of today seems to always be aching for a fight, and if conventional wisdom is right, perhaps the maniacal midget north of the DMZ is aching to give us one.

If this is in fact the first signs of the balloon going up, I hope somebody at least takes the 22-year old some bullets.

Still

I’ve long thought of America as a teenaged country.

We’ve been around for 200+ years, but on the world stage of civilizations, that’s about enough time to sneeze.

When you consider that Hawaii, our 50th state was added in 1959 … a mere 47 years ago, you start to appreciate the fact that we’re a very young Nation compared to a nation like Iraq, whose northern city of Kirkuk is more than 5000 years old.

Which isn’t to say this has been a quiet quarter-millennium. The history of America is actually quite fascinating. It has enough sex, drugs, whodunits and rock stars to be a great story—for the written page, musical expressions, movies, or campfire tales.

We have enough heroes, villains, and ordinary people of greatness to stoke the imagination.

It would be a lot of fun to sit the nation down in a therapist’s chair and get a thorough examination of our psyche.

In many ways our country has some of the psychology of a teenager.

We’re quite idealistic still, and have enough successes under our belt to make us see our highs as higher than others, and as failures as more moderate than our competitors.

We’re pretty tough on our elders, and we completely exhibit the personality of the proverbial man “born on third base, who thinks he hit a triple.”

That’s not always a bad thing, and you should know that I’m an extremely proud American, through and though.

But there is one aspect our of adolescence that disturbs me, at times.

We have an incredibly short attention span. Just like I did as a teenager. The record suggests that we find it difficult to carry forward the significance of even a cataclysmic moment for more than a few months.

The media is partly to blame for this, and takes a fair amount of legitimate criticism for its revenue-chasing approach to deciding what’s “important.”

Our news cycle is 24-hours long and its perpetuators can plop a video camera down at any coordinate on the planet within an hour or so and beam the resulting images to every household on the globe. As a result, we’ve come to accept that our instant access to moving pictures of far away places reflects an accurate window on the world.

It does not.

The world is a gigantic place, and while television has bent the physics concept that an object cannot occupy more than one place at a time, it has not negated it.

Emotions last a lot longer than the attention we give them.

But when your only window to the emotions of the world is a constantly shifting collage of new crises, and the image of the moment—it doesn’t take very long to start limiting your feelings about the impact of a moment to its duration in the news cycle.

A widow grieves long after she stops crying. If you are incapable of recognizing the breadth, height, and width of her pain measured across time once her tears are dry, you lose the sympathy and empathy that are required to knit the hearts of humans into a common thread.

On these pages and entries, I’ve passed through a lot of topics. Today, I want to take a moment to remind you that they all still have repercussions.

It is imperative to expand your memory to realize and accept that an event lasts much longer than its headlines.

There are still thousands of people who disappeared in the Christmas tsunami. No trace of them has ever been found. Their families still have to cope with that loss.

Right now, people are still dying in Sudan.

Vice president Cheney is still the man who was careless enough to have shot one of his best friends.

President Clinton is still the man whose morals allowed him to get his Johnson smoked under the desk by an intern.

The city of New Orleans is still a filthy, dysfunctional shell of its former self.

Attacks on Americans fighting in Iraq are still happening every hour.

President Bush is still the man who taunted the so-called terrorists to “bring it on.”

The 190th Congress is still the most inactive legislative body in our short history.

People are still mourning 9/11.

That young man is still responsible for dealing with emotional fallout of having to decide how to respond to a very powerful predatory letch.

Veterans are still waking up every night with nightmares.

Every story you’ve ever seen on every newscast, or in every newspaper is still echoing through the minds of the people who were involved.

The teenaged mind is very capable of being trained and developed into a productive adult mind.

What sort of grown-up will our Nation become?

(8 Oct 06)

To Write

Today, I want to talk about the sheer joy of writing.

I invite you to share it with me.


* * * * * *

For me as a writer, there are three orgasmic moments.

The first comes when an idea shows up with it’s own voice.

My brain tends to race a bit, and most of the time its sort of stream of consciousness, random thoughts and ideas that flash like little lightning bolts in my head. They are usually mushy and voiceless, and I can’t actually hear them for the first time until I’m in the middle of talking and they hitchhike a ride on a sentence to the outside world. Sometimes those are cool, and I think to myself … “Hmm, that was interesting.”

But favorite moment number one of three has to do with the ones that show up on-scene fully formed, kicking and screaming.

They’ve already come equipped with a metaphor or analogy, and they’re wearing it like a winter jacket, or a bikini, depending completely on what their passion is. They require nothing from me but an acknowledgement that I am capable of properly expressing them.

They are sort of like children, in the Gibran sense of the word. They are clearly not “mine.” They come through me, and the universe rewards me with the gift of opportunity to express them. I remember the day I first realized how unusual it was that I don’t agree with about half of my OWN thoughts. I’m just lucky enough to be their conduit.

Developed thoughts don’t ask me to believe them. But they do communicate with me. They are inquisitive and each has only one question.

“Stew, are you capable of expressing me?”

It is literally a moment of bliss to hear that question boom inside my head, and be able to answer “yes.”

Then comes the hardest, yet most rewarding part of the process. The writing.

I’ve conversed with linguists and translators who describe the process of hearing a sentence in one language and mentally processing it to articulate it in another.

That’s what I think it feels like to try to write one of these ideas down.

Because many aren’t words. Sometimes they are feelings, or notions, or emotions, or “sense-i-tive,” in that they are actually smells, or sounds, or sights. And the singular joy of the writing part is finding the precisely correct combination of words in the right order to transfer the thought from its birth form, into written words on a page.

It’s a process that has been modernized to be ---

Typetypetype space typetypetype. Dictionary page-whirling. Deletedelete type space type type type space. Thesaurus smell. Typetype type space typetypetype. Highlight, delete.

But at the end, there is a physical feeling of satisfaction when the last word or phrase falls into place.

It simulates walking up to a locked door in the dark with a set of keys, having to pee. You know that one of them fits, but you ALSO know that you’ve been as bad as good, and karma won’t let it be the first one. And it isn’t. And you’re twisting back and forth, and squeezing to make the pee wait, and crossing your legs, and jangling keys and feeling for the keyhole with your thumb and sliding the key you’ve picked down your thumb to the keyhole, and realizing that “nope, that’s not it.” And starting over, and getting frustrated, and starting to wrongly focus on having to pee as your primary problem rather than having to find the right key because whether you pee on yourself or not, you’re still going to have to open the door. And feeling the next key not even fit in the hole at all and realizing that you haven’t kept track of which key you started with so there’s a chance of wasting a try with the same key twice. Now you’re cursing under your breath even though you’re a Sunday school teacher and wondering if God forgives people who have to pee but the goddamn lock won’t open for taking his name in vain. And starting to think you’re not going to make it and thinking back to the last time you’ve peed on yourself and wondering how many adults pee on themselves a mere 20 feet from a toilet and starting to panic and dropping the keys, and picking them up knowing that now you’ve really lost your place and now you juST NEED TO OPEN THE DOOR BECAUSE THIS SHIT AIN’T FUNNY ANYMORE AND YOU’RE A GROWN-UP AND SHOULD BE ABLE TO HAVE ENOUGH SELF CONTROL TO MAKE IT TO THE FUCKING BATHROOM AND GRABBING THE ENTIRE DOORKNOB AND JUST RAMMING THE FIRST KEY YOUR FINGERS CAN FEEL INTO THE KEYHOLE AND FEELING IT SLIDE IN AND VIOLENTLY TWISTING IT TO THE RIGHT AND THEN THE LEFT AND HEARING IT ...

... CLICK!

Now freeze.

That’s what the moment I’m trying to tell you about feels like.

That instant the door is unlocked. Suddenly, you don’t even have to pee as bad because you opened the door.

In writing, it is orgasmic because you’ve replicated the voice of the idea in your head.

And you are happy.

And the thought is happy, even if it’s a sad thought, because part of it was worried that it couldn’t be shared with the universe because it’d come through such an unworthy vessel.

Can you imagine how fortunate a thought must be to arrive at the mind of a Dante, or a Mark Twain, or a Stephen King, or a Caleb Carr?

How unlucky it is to enter the world and be forced to make its presence known through the limited voice of the inarticulate.

How halting a journey that must be.

It’s probably as unlucky for that thought that wants to be written to arrive in THAT space, as it is for a thought that needs to be drawn or painted to show up in MY brain. Even if it is the Mona Lisa …

She’s doomed! She’ll be lucky to become a stick-man with eyes. Or an emoticon : --)

Getting it right is the second moment.

The third moment happens when you share that written idea, in your own words, in front of someone and watch them “get it.”

You see your idea not “moved” … because it’s still with you.

But it is multiplied because now it lives in two people’s minds.

Then three, then four, then 50, then 100, then 1000, 1,000,000,000

Then everybody knows it. It’s a best-selling idea! It’s … a SUCCESS.

Well, I have no notion of how many people have to get it for that to happen, but I’ve seen the converted; the people who didn’t understand what I was trying to say, until they read it in written words. It completes me as a writer. It’s the conclusion of the trinity.

And they feel me.

Yes?

Priest

When I was a boy, my father taught me that you never speak ill of a man of God.

His object lesson came from the story of Elisha, the boys who mocked his bald head, and a bear that ate them up.

On December 14, 2002 Cardinal Bernard F. Law resigned his position as head of the Boston archdiocese because of public backlash from his blatant attempts to deny, then cover up, then apologize for his role in a widespread and growing sex abuse scandal.

Fuck him.

As of his resignation, there were more than 500 lawsuits pending against priests for a variety of sex crimes against children.

The Catholic church has spent an estimated 70-million dollars fighting them. Fuck each and every one of the men of the cloth that is guilty of those crimes. What goes through your mind as you stand in the pulpit to bring a message from God, knowing that earlier in the week, your penis was in some little boy's or boys private parts?I

In what special part of hell can I stand to pour accelerant on your piecce of the fire so your flames are hotter than mine?

I watched one of the NBC Dateline specials where they trick the pedophile men into showing up at a house to have sex with a child. It broke my heart that one of the predators that made his way to the candid camera setup was a Rabbi from Fairfax, Virginia.

Fuck him too.

Here’s where it starts to actually piss me off instead of just making me sad.

In every community there is an ecumenical council that encourages the ministers of various denominations to fellowship and create strong bonds between the clergy.

Where I’m from, we call that a fraternity.

I’ve been to hundreds, maybe thousands of church services, and I have yet to hear any real condemnation from the pulpit about the fact that their frat brothers have been using their penises to communicate with our little boys.

That’s diabolical.

I smoke, drink, and chase women sometimes. I’ve told some lies, and I’m pretty sure that technically, I cheated on my wife.

I've been a shitbag at times. There’s no question I’m a sinner--good heart and all.

Yet, I get an earful every time I darken the doorway of a church.

But right now,

somewhere a priest is molesting, harassing, or raping a little boy.I’m not against priests, but I AM against the rape of little boys. Meanwhile, the clergy is silent.I’ve decided there are only a few of possible explanations:

1 - They are unaware of the problem.

2 - They don’t care

3 - They don’t think it’s their place to say anything

4 - They condone the behavior.

My four year old knows better than to think any of those would be enough to excuse this type of behavior. MY FOUR YEAR OLD.

I have an extremist position about this, and I no longer care how it sounds. I believe that every preacher should start every sermon with a condemnation of the sexual abuse of our little boys. Instead they tell a warm-up joke, and offer a generic prayer.

This is one of those topics I could rant and rave about. I’ve chosen not to. The point makes itself.

And if you don’t get it, this entry isn’t for you anyway.

I don’t go to church anymore for a lot of different reasons, but I know some of you do.

If your preacher’s never mentioned it, would you ask him why for me?

Partisan

Even now, as I start to type, I realize that I’ve inappropriately titled this entry. It should have been called “In Defense of Boys.”I’m not going to change it. I’m just going to stubbornly plow ahead.At least one boy has been harmed.He was 16 when the harm happened.It came at the hands of an elected official.Somehow, this is an issue of Republicans vs. Democrats.Why?Mark Foley isn’t a despicable man because he’s a Republican. Mark Foley is a despicable man because he is a predator who practiced his trade while supposedly serving the public interest.Unfortunately, the agreed upon news story hasn’t unfolded in any sort of sympathetic dialogue about a boy being harmed. It hasn’t even tackled the concern we should all feel that the entire Congress apparently knew that a predator was in their midst and did nothing, even as they were approving applications from boys in their home States to leave their mothers and fathers for a summer opportunity to be a Congressional Page and learn about government from an up close and personal perspective.No, the story of the week is the Republicans vs. the Democrats.This was also the story last weekand the week before.There was no happy hour in American history where we all got along.But even in my lifetime, there was a time when a person’s identity wasn’t a political label.Perhaps this is just a Washington thing, and I think of it as global because I drive the Beltway to work sometimes.Maybe “blue state” and “red state” citizens don’t know that’s what we call them in D.C.Maybe they too are more concerned that the Republicans have a scandal on their hands than they are that a boy was harmed.We bemoan the violence between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq because it seems like such senseless mayhem.But we’ve divided ourselves into Democrats and Republicans and called each other nasty names and accused each other of terrible things while a predator was harming a boy.You and I are computer people. We "get" how internet communication works. We use yahoo messenger, we read and write blogs. We understand how very real and how very serious these relationships that are developed through broadband and cable hookups are, on every level. We've been told that the totality of the harassment was just a series of e-mails, instant messages, and inappropriate offers from one man to a small number of boys.But you and I, in the part of the conversation that we aren't going to have out loud--the part where I'll give you "the look" and you'll return it so we don't have to slander anybody, the part where we just "know," both know there's more to it. Or do I actually have to wink and fucking nod?If Mr. Foley was a teacher … preying on his students, do you think we’d care if he were a Democrat or Republican?Would the news story of the night be about the political discussion between the school board and the Superintendent?What if he were father molesting his son?Damn those Democrats?Fuckin’ Republicans?Somewhere between Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Blowjob, the Contract with America, election night 2000, 9/11, The Iraq War, and Katrina we stopped being Americans who belonged to political parties and became political party members who happen to be Americans.A boy has been harmed.Are you a Republican? Or a Democrat?Oh yeah … its time to talk about the priests…

--Stew.

(5 Oct 06)

The Teachers

I was perusing my high school yearbook the other night, and I came across a much younger full color picture of myself.

Underneath, I was given an opportunity to tell the world my life’s career goal. I wrote cardiovascular surgeon.

Ha!

But it took me back to a specific moment in time.

The human heart fascinated me. In my schoolbooks its diagrams were covered with red lines and very cool names. It did fascinating things, and a teacher introduced me to those functions.

In fact, even though I dropped out of college after the first semester of my freshman year to wander the world, and haven’t made my way back—I am forever indebted to each of the teachers I’ve had for teaching me the things that helped shape the mind I have.

I remember each of them, in order, and what I learned from them. It’s a peculiar hall of fame, and I’m the only one who’s ever visited it.

For one day only, I’m opening its exhibits to the world.

1st and 2nd Grade, Mrs. Lewis: Psalms 91. She taught me that if you repeat something often enough, you will engrave it on your mind. At the end of every class day, we recited this beautiful passage. She never cared whether you read it from an open Bible or not. By the end of the year, no one needed to. Today, 30 years later, I can still recite it word for word.

3rd Grade: Miss Madison: She taught me that all Africans aren’t black. Her parents were missionaries, and she’d been born on the dark continent. She was the first white woman I ever thought was gorgeous. She was also very kind, but started the trend of letting my math work slide, because I was an excellent reader and writer.

4th Grade: Mrs. Greene: She taught me that not doing a job well is something that will eventually come to light.

5th Grade: Miss Bringham: She taught me that the room doesn’t have to be quiet for learning to happen, and that gymnastics is cool.

6th Grade: Mrs. Gerheart. This was Miss Bringham after she got married. She taught me that some women are better off by themselves, but they’re afraid of being alone. As a result, they’ll put themselves through hell for companionship.

7th Grade: Mrs. Stewart. She taught me that having your mother for a teacher puts you in an impossible situation. Your classmates don’t trust you because your mom is the teacher, and she has to be twice as hard on you to avoid the appearance of playing favorites.

8th Grade: Mrs. Poitier. She taught me that a teacher can become a lifelong friend, and that school is supposed to reinforce the love you get at home. I remember her hugs, and her playboy glasses.

9th Grade:

Mr. Payne, Geography: He taught me how to fold a map, and that I was as smart as anyone else in the world. He showed me how to never be afraid to know the answer, and to never be afraid to not know that answer—but only until I could find it. Every question deserves to be responded to, and you can stop cheating cold if you care enough to try.

Mr. Porter, Biology: He taught me the appropriate use of gambling in every day life. His tests were an exercise in genius. He showed me how to create a dichotomous key, and in passing, the word dichotomy, which remains a favorite to this day.

Miss Mullenberg, English: She taught me to that it was ok to dislike the work of Shakespeare, as long as I read it. ( I have, and I do. He's a windbag. Dante is much better.) She taught me that it’s ok to prefer modern writers, that George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and Stephen King are each geniuses in the same vein, but that nobody cares until they are dead for 100 years. Greek mythology is where a LOT of religious ideas come from.

Sergeant York, JROTC: Profanity has a useful place in conversation, like it or not. Every man needs to know how to properly care for, and use a weapon of some kind. The rifle is highly recommeded, as it allows you to specify the target you are trying to hit. The shotgun is more effective, but less precise. If you learn drill, you learn human behavior. Be yourself, and speak up when you have something worthwhile to say.

Mr. Warner, Drafting: The difference in steel and iron. You don’t have to be able to draw to create useful art. What you need is an idea, a fundamental understanding of the rules of math and illustration, a t-square, and a couple of triangles. Also, its easier to erase a paper cleanly, if you sprinkle the whole thing with eraser-bits first.

Mr. Cain, Algebra: Education as assembly line doesn't work, everyone DOESN’T learn at the same pace, and if you try to force such a thing, the slow ones won’t learn anything. Homework doesn’t reinforce knowledge you don’t already have. Rock stars aren't necessarily cool.

Summer School

Mr. Harrington, Algebra: Bow ties rock! Its not algebra that sucks, its Mr. Cain. The fact that an entire classroom full of his students was back for take two was indicative of this, and mathematically it was a provable fact. Binomial equations. FOIL

10th Grade:

Mr. Harrington, Geometry: All mathematics doesn’t suck, in fact Geometry is useful to all writers. It’s the math that uses words.

Mrs. Stommes, Drama: There is an actor inside all of us, kissing in public is fun (and no, she didn’t kiss us. There was nothing untoward about this interesting woman, she was just youthful, and taught us stage-kissing, along with stage-stabbing, stage-crying, and stage directions.)

SFC Middleton, JROTC: Teamwork is good. Stewart, you’re a natural born leader. Never run from that responsibility.

Mrs. Nelson, English: I was a lot smarter than any of my teachers realized. I should sign up for more honors classes. She was the first person to ever read my writing, offer constructive critiques, and memorize a phrase I turned. She once asked me to autograph a theme I’d written, and seemed to generally enjoy reading my work.

Mr. Gillogly, World Studies: Religion has shaped the world more than any single force. It is neither good nor bad, but if you are going to understand the world, you MUST understand its religions. Read the damn textbook. All of the answers are in it.

THIS IS WHERE IT ALL WENT TO SHIT.

11th Grade:

Mrs. Wehling, English: Racism is still alive. You are “less” because you’re not like “the rest of us.” Some people smile to your face and stab you in the back. My writing is just okay. Just because your ACT scores are in the top tier of the class, doesn’t mean you’re smart. (Actually, it does. Intelligent is a different thing) And just because a person does something nice for you, doesn’t mean they like, or appreciate you.

Elder Fitch, Bible: Religion has shaped the world more than any single force. It is good, and as soon as we can get the world to see religion the way we do, Jesus can come. You don’t have to be feared to be respected.

Mr. Davis, Principal: Sometimes non-racist people live right next to raging fanatics, but if they don’t exercise their power, they are as useless as tits on a boarhog. A good man who says nothing of evil cannot really be called a good man.

Mr. Goodchild, Physics: Music is scientifically measurable.

Mr. Vandevere, American History: If you learn a little bit every day, by the end of the year, you will have learned a lot of new things.

Mr. Vandevere, Music: Just because you can play an instrument, doesn’t make you a good music teacher.

Mr. Turpen, Dean/PE: Your title doesn’t earn you respect, it just puts you in charge.

Mr. Gerrans, Maintenance: The entire world is held together by screws, nails, and bolts. Learn how they work, and the tools used to attach them, and you can either destroy the world, or help put it back together.

Mr. Kaufman, Driver’s Ed/Health: Beauty is skin deep.

12th Grade:

Mrs. Wehling, English: People never change inside. Their words may, but character is with you forever.

Mr. Goodchild, Chemistry: If I don’t understand something, I can’t teach it to you. (Me, not him. I’m sure he gets it.)

Elder Fitch, Bible: Religion is actually pretty complicated as a science. That’s why some men get PhD’s in it. (It’s really an art, not a science. But I didn’t learn that until later, and on my own.)

Mr. Williams, Music: Life is fun. Enjoy it. Music is as individual as writing, art, or your smile. Yours can be as beautiful as anyone else’s.

Mrs. Williams, Music: Anyone can be taught to sing. Some people need the lessons more than others.

Mr. Turpen, Dean/PE: Adults are still learning. Don’t be too hard on them. Nobody’s perfect, but lots of people are trying.

Mr. Gibson, American Government: A “thing” can either be complex, or simple. It truly depends on how creatively you approach it. No job is harder than Senior Class President. This period in your life is the most useful experience in the world to learn how to influence people and how you fit into the world.

Mrs. Gibson, Cafeteria: Learn to cook well, and you’ll always be able to make a friend. Learn to enjoy cooking well, and you’ll always be able to find a path to your own happiness. Cooking for 100 is just like cooking for two, except that you need bigger pots and pans.

Miss Bascom, Typing: The small things matter. Learn them, and you’ll never have to think about them. Ignore them, and you’ll discover why the small things matter.

There you have it. I respect each of them for what they taught me and for what I learned from them. If you want to change the world---teach.

Peace,

--Stew.

A Cappella

I’m in this space where I want to share the pleasures I know.

Please don’t ask why, I have no idea.

I'm challenged by the notion of finding the right words to capture certain ones of them.

At the front of the line, having put the book thing to paper … is the feeling of singing a cappella. I think I've got it right.

If you're a fellow a cappella singer, let me know.Whether you are, or aren't ... share my attempt with me for a moment.

* * * * * *

A single voice sometimes whispers, occasionally talks, or whistles, periodically shrieks, giggles, laughs, yells, or onomatopoeically expresses some thought.

THIS … is a monologue.

Take the syllables of that soliloquy and physically wrap each of them with a specific frequency.

Let those consecutive pitches float out on the river of sound whose headwaters lie just below your diaphragm.

As you push them toward life—one after the other on an escalator of air, and shape the timbre and volume of each in your larynx … you will experience the conception and birth … of a solo.

Each is as unique as creation itself.

This one exists moment by moment, and disappears into the ether at your whim.

Now form it.

Close your eyes.

Give your solo a face, a name, a personality.

Let it breathe, or bleed, or cry.

Let it have a life of its own.

Let it live it.

Now stand near another who is summoning the same force, and match your frequencies a third above, or a fifth below.

Let them dance.

Force them to foxtrot, tempt them to tango, free them to funkily disco.

Listen to them intertwine, and kiss. Hear them hug. Feel them fuck.

Allow their coition to build, hold, climax, and afterglow.

This is a duet.

Now marry your duet to another duet. Let the orgy marinate.

Now find the man (or woman) whose solo has a beat.

Let that drummer drive, and go as fast or as slow as the percussion lets you.

Turn your solos into a song.

Make it something everybody knows, and sing it for them--as hard, and as perfectly as you can.

Watch their eyes glisten in recognition.

Watch their feet tap as they try to hitch a ride on the rhythm. Watch their flesh flush as their

imagination rises to the challenge of guessing where this trip is headed.

Get louder.

Get softer.

Skip-a-beat.

Then tackle the melody with a counter harmony at the corner.

Lean into the turn.

Smile.

This is the essence of music.

This is what men made instruments to duplicate.

This is what gives jazz its splash, gospel its soul, and rock its rebellion.

This is what you crave while the orchestra is playing.

This is what your monologue always wanted to be.

This is what you’d create if it was just you and the song waiting to be born.

This is what it feels like … to sing a cappella.

*****

Peace,

--Stew.

(2 Oct 06)

**Book

There is one love affair that I’ve maintained since my youth. Through numerous relationships, the headaches and ecstasy of wandering the globe, a satisfactory career, a short stint as a professional singer, and the typical highs and lows of life, I have been infatuated with and lusted after books.I know, I know … It’s incredibly corny to say that nothing moves my passions like the written word. Yet, it is the truth.There are any number of things I adore; women, music, beer, sex, football, scotch, a perfectly grilled steak, a good argument, it’s a fairly long list.But nothing has as prominent a place, or has been my constant companion as selflessly or with as little judgment as my collection of bound and printed pages.I should blame it on my father. He’s been a bookman for as long as I’ve known him. But as a child, I found most of the books he sold boring. They were ALL about religion, and I love a great thriller sometimes.Perhaps mom should take some of the fall for this passion. She’s a teacher, and taught me the eternally useful art of sounding out letters until they forced my mouth to say words that I could use to convey or comprehend ideas that could take over the conscious and unseeable places in my brain simultaneously with an idea so powerful that it consumed my every waking thought and sleeping vision.But that was just words. The book thing is bigger.I love the smell of new books. People describe the scent of money, and identify it as something that excites their passions. I can’t smell money. Some days I wish I could.Ahh, but the scintillating scent of fresh ink on new paper, hot off the press, letting me slide my fingers up its spine and caress its leaves. That, dear reader, is bliss to me.I adore the slippery smooth Mylar of a hardback, and the slutty carefree ways of a fresh paperback that will open wide for me, let me consume her, and not care that I’ll toss her to the side when she has sated my curiosity.There is the incredible climax of having the tease satisfied by seeing the first line of a tome I’ve anticipated for a span of time. J. K. Rowling, you move me.There is the utter satisfaction of closing a book for the last time, and the indescribable loss of having to destroy a book.And books force me into the light, refusing to give up their secrets unless I care enough to find an illuminated place, even under the covers where a flashlight is my sun.Their words cajole, and challenge, and inform, and critique me.They hide secrets for millennia and reveal them without my having to ask out loud.They tell of things I’ve never imagined, and paint pictures I can only see when I close my eyes.They accompany me in dark times, and wait with me when the world won’t let me be first in line.They frighten and amuse me. They make me laugh, then cry, then laugh again.They take me to places no man has been, and bring me home safely.You may have heard me rant and rave about the injustices of man against man, and nature against man. I abhor them. But I would personally try, judge, and execute the barbarians who destroyed the Library of Alexandria for base crimes against humanity.There is this quest to find a way to replace books with computer the computer slate. This mythical device will allow users to store millions of pages on a hard-drive, an recall them on a single page-like device.
Blasphemy.I want to share some titles with you. I don't care what, if anything, you choose to do with them. I do this for me, and because a good book is to be consumed, digested, and then shared.The Incarnations of Immortality, seven volumes by Piers Anthony that allow you to see a God and Satan you’ve always wondered aboutHoly Blood, Holy Grail, the REAL DaVinci Code by Baigent, Lincoln, and LeeMemnoch the Devil, Anne Rice’s successful capture of what filmmakers were TRYING to say when they produced the Devil’s AdvocateThe Children, David Halberstam puts the Civil Rights struggle in a light that makes me ashamed of how little I’ve done to make the world a better placeBehold A Pale Horse, William Cooper makes me wish I had a tinfoil hatThe Alienist, Caleb Carr shows me the New York I never saw, from a time and place before I was bornShowing My Color, Clarence Page writes the thoughts I never thought to writeEaters of the Dead, Michael Crichton turns Beowulf into a book you don’t need a professor for Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling creates the most complete and engaging alternate universe in writing since Tolkien retired his pen and closed his eyes at the end of his journey On Writing, Stephen King teaches a class to aspiring writers that utterly defeats the childish premise that you don’t NEED to learn grammar, and proper usageShogun, the James Clavell book I wish my President would read for a better comprehension of just how dichotomous two cultures can be, and how useful it is for ME to learn about YOUTuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom writes the first self-help book to make you actually want to hug your parents and children, without ever saying how much you suck as a person This list could be infinite, but I choose to stop.A book beckons me.

(2 Oct 06)

The Moral High Ground

I was in the fourth grade at Cedarvale Junior Academy the day Jimmy Newlon gave me the experience that later helped me understand the concept of the moral high ground.

The incident took place on the playground, where some recess infraction led Jimmy to punch me in the face.

I have no idea whether I deserved it or not. If I were an odds maker, I would guess that I probably made some smartass comment that earned me the eye-jammie.

The moment created a dilemma for me.

Do I punch this kid back, or not?

I opted for both.

First, I went inside to tell Mrs. Greene that Jimmy’d punched me.

As she grabbed her whistle to follow me outside, I headed back out to where he was sitting on the swings.

Of course by this point, he was calmly minding his own business and looked like the picture of innocence.

About the time the teacher rounded the corner of the school building, I’d reached the swings. I’m sure the sight of me walking toward him with the teacher in tow gave Jimmy a moment of internal peace. I obviously wasn’t injured, so he wasn’t likely to get in much trouble.

I shattered that calm with a rather lovely left hook that landed somewhere between his right eye, and his chin. It caught him off guard, and I don’t think he even tried to block it.

I don’t remember much, but I do recall following it up with a flurry of a couple more punches that ended just as Mrs. Greene reached our now burgeoning fistfight.

Of course, since stealth has never been my strong suit, I’d made no effort to camouflage the blows or pretend like I wasn’t trying to knock his ass off the swing, so Mrs. Greene had no choice but to watch the whole thing happen.

The premise of her lecture has stayed with me in the 30 years since.“Kenney, you started off by doing the right thing. Now, you’re going to be in trouble even though you started off right. You can’t tell the teacher, AND continue the fight.”

I’d lost the moral high ground in the altercation.

By ethical definition, the moral high ground is the status of being respected for doing the right thing against a universally accepted standard of right and wrong.

Keep in mind that it isn’t actually “doing” the right thing. It’s the external status that comes from the action.

From my vantage point, there is no intrinsic value to having the moral high ground. In fact, it only comes into play where others are concerned. Its companion, although I’d argue its inverse, is integrity.

As a rather enthusiastically aggressive training instructor taught me in boot camp, integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking. It allows you self-respect, but not necessarily the moral high ground.

In order to maintain the moral high ground, OTHER people need to be able to see and judge your actions.You only truly “need” the moral high ground if you’re the sort of person that likes to criticize.

If you’re from the laissez-faire school of thought, the moral high ground can be a wasted pursuit. But if as an individual you gain some sense of pleasure from commenting on, judging, or critiquing the actions of others, your skeletons must be safely locked in the closet if you’re planning to plant a flag on the moral high ground.

If your own behavior is publicly above reproach in a given category, you earn the right to comment on or judge the behavior of others. The moral high ground gives you a built-in soapbox that you can whip out whenever you feel the need to address an injustice or wrong committed by someone else.

Historically, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior was one of the very best at exploiting the high ground. He perfected a technique pioneered by Mohandas Gandhi. By using the burgeoning mass media to provide a worldwide stage for civil rights activists to publicly demonstrate their willingness to not violently respond when attacked, he forced the public at large to cede the moral high ground to the movement he fronted.

The result is the possibility for me to have more options open to me, and millions like me, and a life less restricted by the color of my skin.

In later years, the product of illegal FBI spying revealed that the hero was just a man after all, and had a less-than-ideal relationship with the morality of monogamy. Fortunately for we millions of Americans, the information was never released in a setting contemporary with the man behind the myth.

It is an interesting “what-if” to consider the possible long-term impact an immediate public airing of Dr. King’s misdeeds might have had on the absolute stranglehold the wordsmith held on the moral high ground of his era.

Pop culture may give us a glimpse. His political progeny, Rev. Jesse Jackson, has seen his off-camera behavior erode his moral standing to make public declarations about the actions of others, almost immediately reducing his access to the moral high ground.

This in spite of an impressive domestic and international record that includes some successful hostage rescues, a series of corporate shakedowns, a respectable run at the Presidency, and a lifetime of VERY public service.

Society snatched his megaphone when they discovered that he, like many great and not-so-great men, was a slave to his penis more than his public ideology, had a long-term mistress, and fathered a love-child.

This week, comedians and pundits alike will have Representative Mark Foley (R-FL) to kick around. The six-term Congressman resigned his post almost a year after House leaders were made aware of a series of “raunchy” and sexually explicit e-mails between 52-year-old Foley, and a 16-year old boy who was lucky enough to land a summer job as a Congressional page, but unlucky enough to have to deal with one of the old guys who apparently has a hard-on for him.

Literally.

The Foley story could have been an irrelevant side note to this diatribe. But … I’ll give you one guess as to who was the Chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus.

Oh yeah, and one more guess to come up with one of the main proponents of cracking down on internet child pornography and making life MUCH harder for child molesters and sex offenders.

Turns out the moral high ground can be a “Double-black diamond” ski slope if your public profile or position is high enough.

Who’s ever even heard of Foley? It’s almost a shame that “pulling a Foley” might soon be as expressive a phrase as “giving a Lewinsky.”

But such is the etymological ether that is American English. I really should apply for the copyright now.

As a nation, it has always amazed me how completely and legitimately America has managed to control the moral high ground internationally. In spite of our youth (230 years just isn’t a very long time in a world where there are 8000 year old cities), and our less-than stellar ACTIONS with regard to treatment of the natives in America, slavery, the Salem witch trials, lack of universal suffrage, manifest destiny, being the first and only nation to ever drop an atomic bomb directly on an occupied city, Japanese internment during WWII, McCarthy, andonandon, we have legitimately earned the right to be THE gold standard on the subjects of human rights, religious freedom, capitalism, and democracy as ideals for the world to follow. (Amazingly long sentence. Don’t forget to breathe in there somewhere.)

That’s no small accomplishment. Warts and all, the American experiment is a resounding success. The fact that our early elites put enough thought into an ideal, practical society to write such a workable document as our Constitution, gave us a real leg up in the race to the moral high ground.And we’ve done plenty of “good” on the world stage.

Fighting over slavery—and ridding the nation of its evil, accepting the poor, tired huddled masses from England, Ireland, Russia and elsewhere, destroying the third Reich and restoring Germany’s Jews to society after the Holocaust, rebuilding Europe in the post-WWII era, saving Yugoslavia’s Muslims, donating billions of dollars to virtually every nation in the world, and fighting a 50 year was against our biggest philosophical opponent largely by proxy, rather than necessarily cluttering the empty spaces on our planet with weapons.

I’ll bet you’ve figured out where I’m headed with this by now. Most of the time, even our enemies have feared, or respected us. This is a little discussed benefit of having the moral high ground.

In war, having the moral high ground saves lives. It is a fact of military science and history that outmanned enemies are more likely to surrender than fight an enemy who publicly declares and backs up a philosophy of treating its captives like humans. And every weapon NOT fired, is potentially an American life saved.

And following the rules sometimes causes strange reactions from your enemies.Don’t believe “all” the hype about the bad guys not obeying the Geneva Conventions.

Most of them are shitbags. But ask Chief Warrant Officer Michael J. Durant how it felt to get a visit from the Red Cross, after Somali militants captured him in 1993.

When the U.S. complained that although they weren’t a uniformed military force (because they were street thugs), and weren’t at war with the United States (they were embroiled in a Civil War that had nothing to do with America, but centered around who was going to be first to steal the dwindling supplies of foreign foodstuffs and money sent to relieve rampant starvation), they owed Chief Durant decent treatment under the Geneva Conventions, the thugs agreed.

After beating the shit out of him initially, they recanted and afforded him some of his rights under common article three of the treaty, even though they CERTAINLY weren’t signatories of said treaty.

That … is the power of the moral high ground. America doesn’t torture. That’s what makes us better than a LOT of the bad guys. We imprison our own by the millions, we had slaves, kangaroo courts, we dropped the bomb, we conned and murdered the Natives, we lied our way into Vietnam, we claimed Manifest Destiny so we could steal land from Mexico, we did some shady shit with Iran so we could fund Central American rebels, we’ve lynched, we rape our own, we wave guns around at each other like flags, we steal from the poor to fund the rich, but …If you were unlucky enough to face us on the battlefield, and surrendered—our reputation has always been that we’ll take you in, introduce you to the hamburger, give you a cigarette, show you the latest Hollywood movie, hook you up with some decent clothes, and let you go when the fighting stopped.

In World War II, we even let prisoners sign a promise to not rejoin the Nazis, and sent them home—taking them at their word.

But it’s never been our policy to torture. Until now.

Any guesses as to whether we’ll ski, snowboard, or sled off the heights of the moral high ground?

Peace,
--Stew