Okay, I have to tackle this subject. Sure there’s been way too much said about it, but I will have to add my two cents to the cacophony. Why? Because we can’t let this one go. We can’t just ‘keep walking’ as Peggy Noonan suggests, and not look back, in the hopes of having the whole ugly episode ‘just go away.’ It won’t. If we don’t expose it to the disinfectant of sunshine, some other party somewhere on the planet will—and that will leave us looking even worse.
You can read the torture memos yourself at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/16/bush-torture-memos-releas_n_187867.html
It’s not pleasant reading. And it’s not pretty to think that our national leaders spent so much time parsing the details of what temperature of water was required to douse a prisoner with, for how long, before it actually became torture, nor whether having a physician and psychologist just standing there could assure there would be no lasting damage that would make it torture. The very fact that they studied the processes so closely and refined the details so exquisitely means they were dancing on the line—often wandering over that line, either by accident or design. It’s ugly to think about.
And there is Cheney. Now, I don’t have to add to the public dismay at the character of Cheney. All of that is obvious—it’s self-explanatory—from the lying on camera to push the war in Iraq—to the handwriting on the memo regarding Valerie Plame. It’s a dismal ‘legacy’ for Cheney to leave behind, and no doubt his progeny will have to bear the burden of it, because he surely doesn’t seem inclined to. That is his personal concern. It’s his personal conscience that he must live with, for now and throughout the ages. I wish him luck on it.
Let us just say that we can’t let this sleeping dog lie. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen. We can’t even pretend it wasn’t as bad as it clearly turned out to be. America is better than that. America is stronger than that. We can admit we were led astray. We can admit we were paralyzed with fear into inaction. We can even admit that we so wished it wasn’t true. All that is very human. What is inhuman—and inhumane—is that we knew, and did nothing about it once we knew.
That is beneath us. And I don’t believe Americans will tolerate it.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
The Joy of Lint
For those who don’t know, Lintballing is the careful accumulation and nurturing of that stuff that comes out of your drier filter, that stuff that can make your life a living hell if not attended to, and which can be an element of endless creativity if you utilize it properly. Evidently, humans have made friends with dryer ‘fluff’ and have come to view its accumulation as art, as science, and as culture. Yes, this phenomenon has come to the fore at the very time when our lives are most insecure--when our jobs most threatened, our finances most pilfered, and our futures most uncertain. Lint has entered to save the day.
It started, as many things do, with a person in a chatroom.
A woman whose name will remain unblogged mentioned that she saved—that is to say, collected—the fluff from her dryer. She found that this dryer ‘fluff’ formed beautiful, intricate patterns when it was gathered together into artfully manipulated ‘balls’ that were both pleasing and satisfying. In what most of us would ordinarily overlook and discard, she had found beauty and Art.
When I first heard of it, it struck me so deeply that I wanted to participate in this ‘lintball phenomenon.’ I began collecting this fibrous output from my dryer filter, and it did, in fact, have wonderful bits of color that called to mind not only the clothing and material it came from, but the people and events that surrounded that clothing. And collecting this lint was a sensory experience as well. Smelling fresh from the fabric softener, and soft from the fluffing of the dryer, it was the kind of thing that made you put your nose right into it and savor the moment. But I soon found that collecting lint demanded a focus and dedication that I did not possess--well, not for lint, anyway. Houseguests came and treated the lint like so much garbage. And this caused a deep resentment for my guests that I otherwise would not have felt. They didn’t understand me AT ALL—they didn’t even KNOW me--and they sure didn’t respect my property. The nerve of these people.
It was after one of these occurrences when my carefully crafted lintball was thrown into the trash, that I began to see that my attachment to this collection of lint was perhaps not healthy. That is the hazard of lintballing—it is addictive and absorbing. So I tossed the lintball and stopped lintballing altogether. I’m not saying I don’t still have the craving, because the fact is, I still appreciate and caress the little woven sheets that come off my dryer filter (“Oh, that’s a nice one!” and “Look, there’s Mom’s sweater!”). I just don’t attach to the emotion anymore. I let it go. But I still retain an interest in lint in general, and communicate often with the woman who started the phenomenon, so that I can vicariously enjoy her collection.
To update:
Her lintball has grown to unmanageable proportion and she has decided to burn it, ritually, on a day and time meaningful to her. I find this not only fitting, but a decision that must be supported. Why, I don’t know. Lint is symbolic of something else, it seems. All that we throw away—all that we consume without thinking—all that we leave behind.
She decided on the June 21st, the beginning of summer. It was only then that she told me a story of a demanding, abusive husband, who pulled out the lint from the dryer and showed it to his wife with the words, “There—see how you waste our clothing?”
I knew that the woman who related this story to me had no tolerance for abusive men in any way, nor even women who allowed themselves to be abused. Yet, the story stuck in her mind. And it sticks in mine.
At this, I suggested that some Tori Amos music might be a suitable accompaniment for the lintball-burning ceremony. She agreed. We might even post the burning event on youtube. A ‘Burning Lintball,’ rather like the Burning Man event in Nevada—only with particular meaning for women. Announcements will be forthcoming.
This blog entry has gone on for too long, and I have no idea why. As I said, lint is symbolic of something else. A metaphor.
Consider it yourself, and see what it means to you.
It started, as many things do, with a person in a chatroom.
A woman whose name will remain unblogged mentioned that she saved—that is to say, collected—the fluff from her dryer. She found that this dryer ‘fluff’ formed beautiful, intricate patterns when it was gathered together into artfully manipulated ‘balls’ that were both pleasing and satisfying. In what most of us would ordinarily overlook and discard, she had found beauty and Art.
When I first heard of it, it struck me so deeply that I wanted to participate in this ‘lintball phenomenon.’ I began collecting this fibrous output from my dryer filter, and it did, in fact, have wonderful bits of color that called to mind not only the clothing and material it came from, but the people and events that surrounded that clothing. And collecting this lint was a sensory experience as well. Smelling fresh from the fabric softener, and soft from the fluffing of the dryer, it was the kind of thing that made you put your nose right into it and savor the moment. But I soon found that collecting lint demanded a focus and dedication that I did not possess--well, not for lint, anyway. Houseguests came and treated the lint like so much garbage. And this caused a deep resentment for my guests that I otherwise would not have felt. They didn’t understand me AT ALL—they didn’t even KNOW me--and they sure didn’t respect my property. The nerve of these people.
It was after one of these occurrences when my carefully crafted lintball was thrown into the trash, that I began to see that my attachment to this collection of lint was perhaps not healthy. That is the hazard of lintballing—it is addictive and absorbing. So I tossed the lintball and stopped lintballing altogether. I’m not saying I don’t still have the craving, because the fact is, I still appreciate and caress the little woven sheets that come off my dryer filter (“Oh, that’s a nice one!” and “Look, there’s Mom’s sweater!”). I just don’t attach to the emotion anymore. I let it go. But I still retain an interest in lint in general, and communicate often with the woman who started the phenomenon, so that I can vicariously enjoy her collection.
To update:
Her lintball has grown to unmanageable proportion and she has decided to burn it, ritually, on a day and time meaningful to her. I find this not only fitting, but a decision that must be supported. Why, I don’t know. Lint is symbolic of something else, it seems. All that we throw away—all that we consume without thinking—all that we leave behind.
She decided on the June 21st, the beginning of summer. It was only then that she told me a story of a demanding, abusive husband, who pulled out the lint from the dryer and showed it to his wife with the words, “There—see how you waste our clothing?”
I knew that the woman who related this story to me had no tolerance for abusive men in any way, nor even women who allowed themselves to be abused. Yet, the story stuck in her mind. And it sticks in mine.
At this, I suggested that some Tori Amos music might be a suitable accompaniment for the lintball-burning ceremony. She agreed. We might even post the burning event on youtube. A ‘Burning Lintball,’ rather like the Burning Man event in Nevada—only with particular meaning for women. Announcements will be forthcoming.
This blog entry has gone on for too long, and I have no idea why. As I said, lint is symbolic of something else. A metaphor.
Consider it yourself, and see what it means to you.
Friday, April 10, 2009
The Rape of the Afghan Women
I don’t like to say stuff like ‘I told you so,’ but I told you so. We are now in cahoots with an Afghan government that is legalizing the rape of Afghani wives by their husbands, pretty much whenever they want. I don’t know what tenet of Sharia law this follows, nor in what passage in the Quran it is mentioned, but I’m pretty sure this just your garden-variety marginalization of women that that world has always been seen, throughout the history of mankind, especially in Muslim countries (usually on religious grounds). This means that not only are Americans sending their money to support an Afghan government that betrays women at the drop of a hat, we are also sending our soldiers to die for it. This is not cool, man. This is NOT okay.
I’m mad. And I’m mad not only in that ordinary ‘someone is pissing me off’ way, I’m mad in a political way, historical way. I’m mad for everything that has been done to women for someone else’s advantage, throughout time. I’m mad for every time anyone has ever said or thought, “It’s okay now—women have their rights and should pipe down.” I’m mad in a profound, visceral, all-encompassing way—because I do not intend to be complicit in ‘trading away’ the rights of women for certain alleged successes. That is not a ‘success.’ And it has been done habitually in the history of the world, and I won’t have a part in it.
We anticipate this happening in Iraq, too. The ascendancy of Sharia law will make it not only harder for women there to keep their rights, but for religious minorities, too. And we have blundered into it, losing 4270 of our soldiers to the ‘liberation of Iraq.’ And countless of innocent Iraqi lives, as well. Who—exactly—will be ‘liberated’? What are we to tell the families of those soldiers who were lost? That ‘they didn’t die in vain’? That their service was wholly ‘honorable’? How can we sustain that lie when a previously secular Iraq will now be demanding veils on women, and keeping them in their homes unless they have men to accompany them? What is ‘honorable’ about that? And you can’t say ‘well, we didn’t MEAN for that to happen’ when it was totally foreseeable, given the religious situation there.
So what do we have in these places that we have bumbled into with some testosterone-loaded plan to vanquish the ‘enemy’ that A) wasn’t in Iraq to begin with, and B) might have been in Afghanistan, but is now in Pakistan, and where we have in fact, helped to continue the oppression of women. We have a mess—that’s what we have. An unjustifiable, unholy, unfair, and undemocratic mess.
I do not hear Republicans taking responsibility for that mess. I do not hear this party that is so anxious for others to be ‘accountable’ for their actions actually being accountable for what they themselves have lockstepped in support of for the past 8 years. In fact, I hear a party that is STILL pushing the swaggering, macho ‘strong (if thoughtless) defense’ mentality that bungled us into these various messes. Well, I am not going to let them carry on as if nothing has happened. What happens to the women of the world may not be very important to them, but it is important to ME. And I will out them at every opportunity.
As is spoken from those who endured a previous hideous outrage of history: “Never again.”
Whenever we deal with countries whose entire cultural and historical pattern includes the oppression of women, we must tread carefully, so as not to entrench these grotesque patterns even further.
That is the very least a ‘democratic’ nation can do.
I’m mad. And I’m mad not only in that ordinary ‘someone is pissing me off’ way, I’m mad in a political way, historical way. I’m mad for everything that has been done to women for someone else’s advantage, throughout time. I’m mad for every time anyone has ever said or thought, “It’s okay now—women have their rights and should pipe down.” I’m mad in a profound, visceral, all-encompassing way—because I do not intend to be complicit in ‘trading away’ the rights of women for certain alleged successes. That is not a ‘success.’ And it has been done habitually in the history of the world, and I won’t have a part in it.
We anticipate this happening in Iraq, too. The ascendancy of Sharia law will make it not only harder for women there to keep their rights, but for religious minorities, too. And we have blundered into it, losing 4270 of our soldiers to the ‘liberation of Iraq.’ And countless of innocent Iraqi lives, as well. Who—exactly—will be ‘liberated’? What are we to tell the families of those soldiers who were lost? That ‘they didn’t die in vain’? That their service was wholly ‘honorable’? How can we sustain that lie when a previously secular Iraq will now be demanding veils on women, and keeping them in their homes unless they have men to accompany them? What is ‘honorable’ about that? And you can’t say ‘well, we didn’t MEAN for that to happen’ when it was totally foreseeable, given the religious situation there.
So what do we have in these places that we have bumbled into with some testosterone-loaded plan to vanquish the ‘enemy’ that A) wasn’t in Iraq to begin with, and B) might have been in Afghanistan, but is now in Pakistan, and where we have in fact, helped to continue the oppression of women. We have a mess—that’s what we have. An unjustifiable, unholy, unfair, and undemocratic mess.
I do not hear Republicans taking responsibility for that mess. I do not hear this party that is so anxious for others to be ‘accountable’ for their actions actually being accountable for what they themselves have lockstepped in support of for the past 8 years. In fact, I hear a party that is STILL pushing the swaggering, macho ‘strong (if thoughtless) defense’ mentality that bungled us into these various messes. Well, I am not going to let them carry on as if nothing has happened. What happens to the women of the world may not be very important to them, but it is important to ME. And I will out them at every opportunity.
As is spoken from those who endured a previous hideous outrage of history: “Never again.”
Whenever we deal with countries whose entire cultural and historical pattern includes the oppression of women, we must tread carefully, so as not to entrench these grotesque patterns even further.
That is the very least a ‘democratic’ nation can do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
