"Failed States"

-by Noam Chomsky
2006
Chomsky's works centers on one of the great ironies of this land of the free and home of the brave. One of the metrics we employ in global relations is the term "failed state". The definition is complicated and imprecise, but can be said to describe any country that ignores both the dictates of the international community and a majority of its own population. By this metric, the U.S. deals with "rogue" nations, through sanctions and worse. The irony? By that definition, America is arguably the most failed nation in the world. Our history of ignoring the mandates of the UN and world courts is apalling. By a large majority, americans reject the notion of preemptive war, want reduced military spending and increased social services (in particular, the kind of health care that virtually every other industrialized nation enjoys), and strongly dislike policies that prolong our dependence on fossil fuels. In these and other ways, our government is more estranged from the will of the people than at any time in our history. Chomsky offers seven actions that will go a long way toward restoring us as a beacon of democracy and equality. They are worth repeating in their entirety. 1) Accept the jurisdiction of the World Court and International Criminal Court. 2) Ratify the Kyoto Protocol. 3) Let the UN take the lead in international crises. 4) Fight terrorism with economic and diplomatic measures, not machines of death. 5) Return to a traditional interpretation of the UN charter. 6) Give up our much-abused Security Council veto. 7) Cut back on military spending, and use that money for life-building purposes. Chomsky's work is well-researched (almost painstakingly so). "Failed States" is the product of an eminently keen mind, and profound patriot.

you knew?

You've never spent a night crippled by cold?
You've never been sick, with no succor in sight?
You've always known your next meal would materialize?

How are we supposed
to not want you dead?

You've never been helpless before harm's horror?
You've sprawled in shelters that could have shielded scores?
You've retained resources you didn't require?

How are we supposed
to not want you dead?

You knew we were here?
You saw the starvation?
You suffered our suffering?

How are we supposed
to not want you dead?

not-ends 22

Sex is kind, when you ignore your mind. Sex is a pain, when you listen to your brain.

An archaeologist thousands of years from now might learn that America was the fattest country in the history of the world, and that american women led the world in negative feelings about their bodies. That archaeologist might think they had discovered a one-to-one causality. The reality is enormously (pardon the pun) more complicated...and of just those two elements, is it even clear which causes which? Archaeology is surgery in mittens with a blindfold.

People who believe in god are afraid of three things - death, meaninglessness, or accountability. It doesn't mean they're wrong, it just means that that's what they're afraid of.

There are two kinds of people in this world - those who decide what the worst thing they ever did was, and those who have that decision made for them.

Little-known fact: most musicians like it when you bring a kazoo to a concert, and play along.

Suicide has increased 60% in the last 45 years, and is the 23rd leading cause of death worldwide. At that rate, it should crack the top ten within a generation or two.

What is the #1 relationship pitfall in this society? Investing too much of your happiness and self-worth into just one person.

If you don't want to be a pervert, you have to be a deviant.

Any meat eater who has a pet they would passionately protect from harm, is so steeped in rationalization that there is no point in even trying to explain vegetarian ethics to them.

99% of the great romances or friendships you've experienced, read about, or watched, were simply the magical-feeling alignment of two selfishnesses.

Booty-in-perpetooty: what one hopes from from a lover who gives you a social disease.

this week

THIS WEEK i got my first white hair, received a sexual come-on from a sixteen year-old, and found out i have an incurable STD.
Okay, not necessarily (that last one, i mean).
And none of those things are connected (in case you're wondering).
And i'm no believer in anything so self-important as karmic balance, but those first two things together? Fun!
UPON discovering my white hair (a cute lil' feller in my red beard), i immediately scheduled a party. I had to do this myself, as i don't have a group of cool friends to do such things for me. Ready to confound and contradict the dysfunctional dictates of this ageist society, i invited all to come celebrate my ascension to wise community elder. I'll have to hope that the evolutionary basis of white/grey hair (a sexual signal that alerts potential mates to desirable "long life" genes) will kick in subconsciously in females around me...as the conscious reaction our society instills in us is generally more akin to wailing and sackcloth. My party invitation was essentially a silly gesture to promote thinking and talk among people too far away to actually show up, but i thought it was important. So next time you know someone who's discovered their first grey, throw them a blow-out celebration! Sincere, not mockery. Generations from now, our descendants will honor us with statues, for making old age venerable again.
AND...if ever an agnostic who doesn't drink might be tempted to say "god bless alcohol", it's when a drunk female comes on to you. I was on the beach doing yoga calisthenics, when a rainstorm left me the only person in sight. Undeterred, i continued. A group of four female teenagers soon came along. Their ebullience left little doubt that they'd been at some watering hole (and were well-watered). When they caught sight of me alone on a rainy beach doing a dhanurasana, they expressed mystification. When i told them what i was doing, one of them became fascinated, and got down on her stomach to mimic me. I went into a headstand, as two of them walked on. The other two came closer, and the bold one asked me to support her in a headstand. I told her to wait one minute. Her friend pressured her to go - i got the sense that they were on vacation with parents, and were overdue. When i arighted myself, she asked me to give her a session the following morning (after asking about my marital/girlfriend status). I didn't ask how such things were relevant to yoga, but told her when i'd be on the beach again. She ran off.
I was both touched and saddened. Touched, for libidinous reasons. Saddened, because i thought of all the truth that alcohol releases...truths that are crying to be let out. Foremost, the fact that we live in a repressed society, walking around in a constant haze of subconscious (or not so sub) misery over all the SEX WE'RE NOT HAVING. If this isn't the outright, inhibition-lowering, number one reason bars exist, it's at worst tied for first place with the general need to simply escape reality. This poor young creature has a howling sex drive that our society provides no outlet for, that isn't furtive at best. I was also sad because, even in her blurred state, and though she was obviously in no position to be in any kind of monogamous relationship with me, she still framed her come-on in the context of sexual possessiveness. All my hopes for how much more spiritually evolved the younger generation is, suddenly flew away.
I was also saddened, because i had a sudden insight into all the intimacy i've missed in my life, by avoiding the bar scene. Before this young woman knew anything about me she couldn't have learned from a photograph, she was all over me. I'm not saying i ever could have made a career out of hooking up with drunk chicks, but...just the chance to be around people who are perpetually lowering their inhibitions is, well, an intoxicating thought. And then there's me, soberly dedicated to never taking advantage of any woman in any way, spending a life far more alone than not.
Lonely ponderings in a broken world.
AND...i have HPV.
Or not.
You'd think the most prevalent social disease anywhere might come with some sort of test whereby we might KNOW whether we have it, but...no. Not if you're a man, anyway. Unless you, a male, has some sort of visible symptom that can be biopsied, you're out of luck. So why do i think i might have it? Because i had a wartlike blemish on my abdomen. I acid-dissolved it before realizing it was the only way i could have been tested. Why might it have been an HPV flat wart? Because two years ago i had an affair with an HPV-positive woman. She was asymptomatic and we used condoms...but HPV doesn't necessarily care about that. Do you know how many people reading this will get one of the hundreds of HPV strains out there? Four out of five. I spoke to at least six clinics in search of something called an HPV rectal swab test, even visiting one who told me they could do it (but were wrong). Although it presumably exists somewhere, it's so unreliable that it does NOT exist here. In my search, i had given up hope that i (an american without medical insurance - surprise!) would be able to get this test at a walk-in, sliding-scale clinic. So the test would cost $200. This means i was prepared to take it in the ass, both literally and metaphorically.
I did get a nice free gonorrhea/syphilis test out of all this, plus the knowledge that many health care workers are genuine, caring people who hate this capitalistic system almost as much as do the patients who can't afford to go to them.
So now i have to hope(?) i get another blemish. Could it have been any one of a number of other things, including a regular wart? Absolutely. The body creates all sorts of unscheduled growths - i have one friend who had brain and tooth tissue removed from a place where brains and teeth most decidedly do NOT grow (unless we're speaking metaphorically again).
And that was my week.
I love you all.

P.S. For a most curious follow-up, see: http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2014/03/this-week-1-addendum.html

"Self-Made Man"

(One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back Again)
-by Norah Vincent
2006
Through makeup, wardrobe, exercise, and diction, writer Norah Vincent turns herself into Ned Vincent - a woman assuming the identity of a man (outwardly...and ultimately inwardly), to better understand the male reality. Reading this book caused such a wave of catharsis in me, i occasionally clapped and shouted. Her commitment is gobsmacking. She invested a year and a half of her life, devoting as many as five months to each separate exploration. She explores dating and strip clubs, joins a bowling league, works for a male-dominated company, lives at a monastery, and attends male empowerment seminars. I occasionally teetered on the edge of disbelief, waiting for the book to be revealed as a work of secret fiction (like the narrative inserts in "A Princess Bride"), because at times it's too perfect. The characters she interacts with often fall into improbably spot-on archetypes, and many of the resolutions and "reveals" feel too smooth. There are also times when her audacity strains credibility, most notably when she goes on a backwoods retreat in the company of men who have homicidal rage issues with women! But if "Self-Made Man" is even a tiny bit fiction, it is no less powerful and insightful. It will make you face the extent to which gender role identities shape everyone's behavior. Even those who have long been attuned to such things, may find an unexpected bat flying out of their cupboard. Vincent expected to feel fully empowered for the first time in her life - and was shocked to realize the extent to which she didn't. She concludes that our current social structure is at least as damaging to men as it is to women. In a postfeminist world, she contends that the demographic "white male" has lost most of its power and privilege, but none of its dehumanizing stress. The extent to which one agrees with that may vary - i myself have spent my life painfully aware that "white male" still defines our society's norm, and anyone who falls outside that is reminded of their "other" status every day (i even cringe at using "him" or "her" instead of some hypothetical gender-neutral pronoun, and believe that differences between men and women are more artificial than Norah contends). And ultimately, is the "truth" of her observations so subjective that a similar book by a different female writer might have radically different conclusions? Perhaps. Yet don't be surprised to find yourself validating every observation she makes. Her journey finally drove her to a nervous breakdown, no longer able to reconcile her dual identities. Once she recovered, she knew that she never wanted to leave the advantages of female life again. An amazing conclusion. An amazing book.

"Backlash"

(The Undeclared War Against American Women)
-by Susan Faludi
1991
A book about the anti-feminist backlash of the 1980s...but also larger in scope, as it places that backlash in the context of the historical struggle for female freedom. Faludi demonstrates that the march toward equality never runs in a straight line, and for each era of great strides (the mid-nineteenth century, the early 1900s, the 40s, or the 70s), there follows a darkly anti-feminist period. She shows how a backlash can infiltrate society, from media to government to medicine to commerce, in ways that seem coordinated, but aren't - more often than not, the people who serve a backlash's ends aren't even aware of their role. But those ends are always the same, to push women back into "accepted" roles. The stock 80s backlash chain of causation? Feminism leads to professionalism leads to neurosis and psychosis - that women who try to "have it all" end up in manless, childless despair (clinicians of the late 19th century similarly linked feminism to neurasthenia and hysteria). To serve a backlash's ends, actual statistics are either manipulated or (more often) ignored. Most fascinating is how issues that have no obvious connection to feminism, are often about little else. Abortion, for instance. The pro-life/pro-choice conflagration that arose in the 80s was about much more than the sentient status of a fetus. Just as with birth control, it went to the heart of any woman's independence - her sexual self-determination. Despite all the brouhaha, Roe v. Wade didn't change national abortion statistics, it just made the reality safer and easier (that is, until the torching or bombing of seventy-seven clinics between 1977 and 1989). Yet despite all the posturing and terrorism, in 2013 supporters of Roe v. Wade outnumber opponents by two to one - just as always. Still not convinced that moral "outrages" which feel so personal, are the result of society telling us what to think? In the historical context, Roe v. Wade wasn't revolutionary, it was just a return to status quo. Abortions have been practiced in one form or another since colonial times, and that right was never questioned until the end of the 19th century. It had always been legal in every state, and public opinion on it largely neutral. It wasn't until the women's rights movement that it acquired any kind of moral taint. This is just one fascinating example of how a backlash permeates a society - but Faludi ends the book by pointing out that women's power is already in their hands, as evidenced by the plurality of women in our population, and the fact that women exercise their right to vote more often than men. As soon as this power is embraced, women can put their issues at the core of any election, and not lose a single one (which is part of why backlashes occur - those in power often realize the possible ramifications of empowered women long before the women themselves). BACKLASH is an amazing book, overflowing with research and statistics. A must-read for any thinker.

dollie

WOMEN 80
I met Dollie on a moving job. She had just graduated from a southern college with a degree in dramaturgy, and was moving into a family-owned, rent-free apartment in the big city. Various family members helped with the move, too. She was outgoing, funny, and biddable. On a welcome-wagon impulse, i gave her my card. In retrospect, how might my life have been different had i given it to her sister-in-law instead? I had the opportunity. The family was jewish and close-knit, and some were disenchanted with this asian woman their son had married. And indeed, she may have been a bit supercilious…but i was attracted to her, as she seemed to be to me (something that would have gone over like a lead balloon with Dollie…and presumably, her brother). Dollie called that week, and we got together. In retrospect, i was interested in friendship more than romance, but she assumed the latter from the get-go. We spent a few evenings together, sharing our lives and finding some nice commonalities. I was attracted to her in an offhand way, and when she told me she’d never had sex that hadn’t hurt, i thought that my minimally-thrusting, taoist lovemaking might be just what she needed. She thought so too. The night before she left for a month-long vacation in Israel, she stayed at my place. We became sexual. I took it slow, giving her a nice digital orgasm. The day she returned, i was probably her first call. She wanted to see me immediately, having lived a celibate existence abroad. I convinced her that, given her jet lag, we should wait. Ever since, that’s the moment i wish i could have again, to go to her and give her the happiness she was asking for…slow, gentle penetration that would probably put her to sleep after an hour or less. But i was afraid of an imbalance in how much we were attracted to each other. We began spending more time together, and she said all the right things – like that it didn’t matter how long our affair lasted (she was a curious mix of conventional and free-spirited). Once or twice she really threw herself at me, and i held her off. If we did become any kind of couple, i could see a point of conflict that would arise - i favored spontaneity, but she liked to know exactly when we were going to spend time together. She had two reallllly close female friends. When i met one of them and was very attracted, i realized i needed to go away…despite Dollie’s free-spirited side, i knew she wouldn’t like the full truth of my libido. I tried to stay in touch as a friend after some months had passed. A part of me wanted to go back, and be exactly what she’d wanted. That was partly simple sexual loneliness, and partly the spiritual bonobo in me that told me to give anyone whatever comfort or caring they might want or need. But my conciliatory words were clumsy, and she stayed away.