Go, Sports Ball!
If you tell me how excited you are for a weekend of grown men playing with their balls, hope to catch all of the hilarious commercials for dish soap and cat food, and you have a deep and nuanced understanding of something (so cleverly) called ‘Deflategate’ 1, but insist that people should keep politics off of ‘your’ social media, you’re doing a pretty good impression of a Real American(TM) but you’re failing at Actual American (CC BY).
- Other than a a handful of cheating multimillionaires kept their jobs while two low-level ‘ball attendants’ were fired for doing their dirty work ↩
Car Culture is Repulsive
Spotted this on an Audi A4 on my way to work today. Someone created this sticker and sold it. Another person bought it and put it on their automobile.
If you’re identity is so wrapped up in your car that violence is the answer to a fender bender much less brushing past a side view mirror in a parking lot, you are doing human wrong.
Sometimes it’s the Only Answer
I’m reading Strangers in Their Own Land, which reminds me that it’s important for my own well being to listen to, understand, and empathize (where I can) with the thoughts and feelings of others, especially those I disagree with politically. This outlook helps me to ‘turn down the noise’ inside my own head and focus on our shared humanity, joy, sacrifices, and challenges. Although our approaches to solutions may differ, as an American, even the reddest Republican and I are likely to share the same core values. Together, I believe that we can have a sincere and productive conversation about our future.
On the other hand, it’s 100% OK to punch a Nazi.
You will find no quarter with me if you believe in ‘garbage’ people. There are no superior breeds of human. No better skin color. No superior God. If you would murder people (or shrug indifferently when others kill) for the sin of being different from your arbitrary ‘standard,’ you reject humanity. You reject compassion, conversation, growth. Hugging the Nazi out would work as well as praying away gay. Nazis are that foundation crumbling fungus, thriving on misery in the sump well of human existence. There is literally no ground lower.
Sent to Me By My Dutch Colleagues
Yes, it is the Women’s March and We Will Be There
On Saturday, November 21, I will be at the Women’s March in Washington, D.C. supporting SHE WHO WILL NOT BE BLOGGED, our wee bairn, and all the women I know. Yes, even those who support the incoming administration.
For some, this is a series of controversial statements:
For men misinformed by its poorly-chosen name, the Women's March is for ALL anti-Trump Americans. Please attend! https://t.co/731Mf1vr2k
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) January 12, 2017
and
Helping the Trump administration redefine the word “thinker” 1 for the Trump Administration.
I say that if you profess a love of “Liberty,” they are not controversial. Partners and husbands of the women I know will attend as support. They feel as I do.
Women organized; Men did not. Even if done imperfectly, the actions of those that do anything hold more weight than those who merely critique those actions. As it is in art, so it is politics. I would rather be a mediocre, failing artist than the most successful critic (it’s fair to note that I am neither).
And like all art, the Women’s March is part of a conversation among women of different backgrounds, colors, ethnicity, educational backgrounds, politics… That is a universal good. To SHE and the women I know, Trump’s statements are horrifying, full stop. That he can say what he has said about women, and how he has behaved around women, and yet still win 53% of white women votes is chilling to their very core. So too for me. Men who I believed to be fully grown have spent the last year acting like 14 year old boys who have had to eat dinner in their rooms, while their younger sister had a sleepover in the living room. Sad!
This article in Jacobin Magazine sums my feelings well about the election, but this quote is exactly how I think it’s important for me to take a step back from myself and listen to this conversation:
To hear the Clinton loyalists tell it from the artificial moon they live on, orbiting our corporeal reality in a dissociative fugue state, voters in Fond Du Lac and Saginaw and Scranton voted against Clinton only because of a malicious media, James Comey, Benghazi, emails, and Vladimir Putin — and not because, by every metric, they hate her fucking guts and have done so for thirty years.
This is the reality anybody with two volts of brainpower and a Rust Belt address might’ve stumbled across, yet which somehow eluded every major Democrat in an election year.
Why is Hillary Clinton despised? Misogyny, of course, a deep running vein of it — Clinton is right in her suspicion that her persistence in public life has bred contempt in a way no man could ever invite. The violent extremity and gendered viciousness visited upon her is no accident; it speaks to a deep sickness in American men. She is, after all, a woman who demanded a man’s career, no small source of resentment to many Americans of both genders.
Some men will call bullshit because they will see this as a personal attack. Same when women organize a march for, you know, “women” and whine that they don’t feel included. Anything but a call for deep introspection.
63% of white men voted for Trump.
I am not a perfect man. I can latch on to the first, retrograde, repugnant idea that slithers from my lizard brain and hold on to it longer than I should. It takes practice, care, and a lot of work to recognize that my first impulsive thought can be completely damaging to the people and relationships I care about, not to mention my own well being. Unfortunately, It happens more than I like – more than SHE would like – but I seek improvement daily.
We’re stuck with this horrorshow for at least 4 years. The damage, if not permanent, will last much, much longer. Men who say they love women, including myself, cannot control that. But we can stop for a moment, listen to what women 2 are telling the world, and act with understanding, compassion, and support. And hold ourselves to a higher standard in the midterms and the 2020 election.