Sunday, November 18, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
Endoscopy for Her
Her gastro doc performed an endoscopy on Her today. Looking for the source of Her recent gastric distress. Doc found little more than we already knew: two (benign polyps) in addition to the expected hiatal hernia and gastritis.
Doc said that if She continues to suffer, we could progress to a CAT Scan to get a better look at her innards.
She tolerated the anesthesia drugs very well this time. Didn't get sick at all after leaving the hospital. Much better than most often.
The hospital charged $3200. Insurance allowed $1374, and covered 80% of that, resulting in Benefit Available of $1099.20. Patient Pays remaining $274.80. Doctor and anesthetist fees separate.
All that effort, all that money, all that time, and we find nothing. Finding nothing is a good thing, because you can rule out a lot more things now. But finding nothing is a bad thing, because whatever "it" is that is hurting Her, "it" is being elusive. Hey, let's spend thousands more dollars running tests and more tests and more tests......
Doc said that if She continues to suffer, we could progress to a CAT Scan to get a better look at her innards.
She tolerated the anesthesia drugs very well this time. Didn't get sick at all after leaving the hospital. Much better than most often.
The hospital charged $3200. Insurance allowed $1374, and covered 80% of that, resulting in Benefit Available of $1099.20. Patient Pays remaining $274.80. Doctor and anesthetist fees separate.
All that effort, all that money, all that time, and we find nothing. Finding nothing is a good thing, because you can rule out a lot more things now. But finding nothing is a bad thing, because whatever "it" is that is hurting Her, "it" is being elusive. Hey, let's spend thousands more dollars running tests and more tests and more tests......
My Grandfather
We struggle with how much to reveal about ourselves online, because we know that there are nutbags out there that will fuck with you. We know what some of the right-wing freaktards are capable of. We've seen their behavior often enough when you cross them politically.
The dreckmeisters at FOX NOISE, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, etc., and lots of rightard bloggers whip people up into a frenzy of hate. It really has become a toxic culture in so many ways.
We've heard about the harassment. Character assassination. The death threats. The random bullet(s) in your house. The car crash that wasn't really an accident. There are some real psychos out there.
In that paranoid spirit, in this article that was written about my grandfather in 1951, I am going to mask the names and places, mostly. I'll use "Pop" when it refers to my paternal grandfather, "Dad" when it mentions my father, "Mammaw" when it mentions my paternal grandmother, and "Dallas" when it refers to the actual town where Pop lived, etc...
In this article, Pop, like Mark Morford in his recent "Outrage Fatigue" (click here) column, is talking to me. Is he talking to you?
Some people have seen a one-man band and marvel at the person's ability to toot and beat an old assortment of musical instruments and whang out a tune. Maybe that's a crude analogy, but Pop, publisher of the Dallas News, comes close to it in producing his one-man newspaper every week.
Publishing a one-man newspaper means filling in the positions of editor, general manager, reporter, advertising salesman, copyreader, typesetter, composing room foreman, printer, proofreader, pressman, circulation manager, inserter, folder, mailer, janitor and anything else that needs to be filled in. Publisher Pop fills that order every week.
(Caption to photo at left: Pop has gathered the new stories, set up his ads and is now hand-feeding his printing press with the latest issue of the Dallas News, which he will later fold, wrap and mail.)
Pop didn't always hanker to be a newspaperman. He recalls that his boyhood ambition was to become a professional baseball player. However fate stepped in and fortune, or to Pop's way of thinking - misfortune, tapped him for the newspaper business.
His father, the late Pop, Sr., purchased the News, "sight-unseen," through a classified ad that appeared in the Publisher's Auxiliary in 1916. The publisher at that time was ol' Charlie. The News, established in 1910, has remained in Pop's family since August 15, 1916.
As a boy, Pop helped his father by working in the composing room and press room, but his blood just wouldn't mix with the printer's ink. Soon after high school, he left home and secured a position with a drug store in Oklahoma, as remote from type and presses as he could get. But it didn't last long.
(Photo at right taken in 1915 - Pop is lower right; Pop Sr upper right; LJS, Pop's grandfather in upper left; lower left is Pop's great-grandfather JMS)
In 1922, during President Harding's administration, Pop's father, being a life-long Republican, was appointed postmaster of Dallas. He called Pop home from his job in Oklahoma. "He sort of beat around the bush about it," Pop recalls. "He said he wanted to be postmaster, but he didn't want to sell the newspaper because he had an idea the Republicans were in office only temporarily. And he didn't want to lease it out because he was afraid somebody would bang up the equipment."
Being the only son, Pop resigned himself to his fate and offered to run the newspaper during his father's tenure as postmaster, which lasted until his death in June, 1928, during his second term. Thus, on April 1, 1922, after only 30 days experience, 22-year-old Pop entered the newspaper profession - "a profession that I had absolutely no desire for in my youth." Nevertheless, Pop, like many other newspapermen who curse the day they got involved in newspapering, has done little about leaving the business, since he's still running the Dallas News.
During his 30 days of breaking-in, Pop learned to set type by hand. But he could never match his sister, who could set four galleys of 10-point type a day.
Somehow, with his father's occasional help and that of his sister, Pop managed to carry on as editor and publisher of the Dallas News, oldest business institution in town. The newspaper then had a circulation of 250, an advertising rate of 15c an inch and a subscription rate of one dollar a year, "payable in cash, cucumbers or cordwood." Writing and setting ads, however, came fairly easy to Pop from the beginning, due to a background of sign painting and showcard lettering.
The News, of course, saw some changes under Pop's guidance. For 15 years it was a 4-page, 5-column handset newspaper, later going to 6-columns. After the purchase of its first Linotype some twelve years ago, the News switched to a 12-em, 7-column format and chased the ads off the front page.
Time, moreover, has changed the reluctant editor-publisher into a well-moulded newspaperman who, like many other publishers, has set out to accomplish certain goals for the good of the community. A newspaperman for some 29 of his 51 years, Pop says his chief pleasure in being a newspaper publisher has been that "of being in a position to serve the progress and best interests of the community. To speak out on the things you know to be right, and to know that you are being heard by your people whether they agree or not."
"You take a lot of country papers," he explains, "that don't take stands on things because they don't want to rock the boat. The way I see it, the hell with the boat. If it needs rocking, rock it. Some people won't like it, but some wouldn't like it if you didn't."
Boat-rocking by the Dallas News has brought results. In 1948 the town of Dallas was incorporated, and the News can claim some credit for tilting the boat in that direction. Recently the News started another boat-rocking, 20-month campaign to build a fire station and buy a fire engine. As Pop explained, tilting the boat might make a few people seasick. Nevertheless, that last campaign also paid off.
In getting out the weekly issue, there are no particular working-day habits at the News plant. "Every day is a habit with us," Pop says, "and even though it sometimes means burning midnight oil, we see to it that today's work is done today."
When Pop says "we" he means he and his only helper, Miss Billie Jean Kennard (pictured), who runs the Linotype. Pop taught her to set type on the complicated machine, which neither understands too well. Both of them learned long ago that when it stops working, it probably can be repaired by simply taking it apart and putting it back together, even though they don't know just why. When Pop purchased the Linotype in 1939, the salesman told him it would set all the News' type in half a day, leaving plenty of time for fishing and golf. "That sounded pretty good to me," Pop says, "so I bought it. I haven't had a day off since. It opened up work I never could do before, and I've been on the go hard ever since."
There is usually no hurry in getting out the News, and although his readers sometimes tell him there is nothing in it, they squawk loudly if their issue doesn't arrive on Friday. However, to Shop Foreman Pop ("It's not going to come out till I get it printed.") getting one issue out means starting in on the next. Immediately after the newspaper goes into the mail, forms are cleared of everything that is dead. Fridays and Saturdays are spent on job printing, changing regular ads, setting copy, usually the "canned stuff" that might be used the following week, and maintaining a clean office and shop.
When news needs to be brought in, Reporter Pop pushes out his motor scooter and scats around town picking up a few items. He finds it's cheaper to run his scooter than his car because of the many stops he makes in digging up stories for the News. "I get about 50 or 60 miles a gallon on this putt-putt," he says. "Once I drove into a filling station and had the oil changed and the tank filled. It only holds two gallons of gas and a quart of oil. Feller worked on it an hour and I owed him 60c. He told me not to come back."
Pop married the former Mammaw Houston in Dallas on May 25, 1922. They have two sons, Navyman JLS, a Machinist's Mate 1/c on the USS Copahee, and Dad, Navy veteran of World War II and now director of the high school band in Dallas.
When the new fire truck rolls out, Reporter Pop can usually be seen flying along behind it in his scooter to cover the story. As most country weekly editors, however, Pop is interested only in news that affects Dallas. "We don't worry about anything but local news," he says. "We let the Houston Post and the Chronicle print all that heavyweight stuff."
Summing up pretty well the attitude of most of his fellow country newspaper publishers, Pop says, "We don't compete with any other newspaper and there is no newspaper in the world that can compete with us."
The dreckmeisters at FOX NOISE, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, etc., and lots of rightard bloggers whip people up into a frenzy of hate. It really has become a toxic culture in so many ways.
We've heard about the harassment. Character assassination. The death threats. The random bullet(s) in your house. The car crash that wasn't really an accident. There are some real psychos out there.
In that paranoid spirit, in this article that was written about my grandfather in 1951, I am going to mask the names and places, mostly. I'll use "Pop" when it refers to my paternal grandfather, "Dad" when it mentions my father, "Mammaw" when it mentions my paternal grandmother, and "Dallas" when it refers to the actual town where Pop lived, etc...
In this article, Pop, like Mark Morford in his recent "Outrage Fatigue" (click here) column, is talking to me. Is he talking to you?
Some people have seen a one-man band and marvel at the person's ability to toot and beat an old assortment of musical instruments and whang out a tune. Maybe that's a crude analogy, but Pop, publisher of the Dallas News, comes close to it in producing his one-man newspaper every week.
Publishing a one-man newspaper means filling in the positions of editor, general manager, reporter, advertising salesman, copyreader, typesetter, composing room foreman, printer, proofreader, pressman, circulation manager, inserter, folder, mailer, janitor and anything else that needs to be filled in. Publisher Pop fills that order every week.
(Caption to photo at left: Pop has gathered the new stories, set up his ads and is now hand-feeding his printing press with the latest issue of the Dallas News, which he will later fold, wrap and mail.)Pop didn't always hanker to be a newspaperman. He recalls that his boyhood ambition was to become a professional baseball player. However fate stepped in and fortune, or to Pop's way of thinking - misfortune, tapped him for the newspaper business.
His father, the late Pop, Sr., purchased the News, "sight-unseen," through a classified ad that appeared in the Publisher's Auxiliary in 1916. The publisher at that time was ol' Charlie. The News, established in 1910, has remained in Pop's family since August 15, 1916.
As a boy, Pop helped his father by working in the composing room and press room, but his blood just wouldn't mix with the printer's ink. Soon after high school, he left home and secured a position with a drug store in Oklahoma, as remote from type and presses as he could get. But it didn't last long.
(Photo at right taken in 1915 - Pop is lower right; Pop Sr upper right; LJS, Pop's grandfather in upper left; lower left is Pop's great-grandfather JMS)In 1922, during President Harding's administration, Pop's father, being a life-long Republican, was appointed postmaster of Dallas. He called Pop home from his job in Oklahoma. "He sort of beat around the bush about it," Pop recalls. "He said he wanted to be postmaster, but he didn't want to sell the newspaper because he had an idea the Republicans were in office only temporarily. And he didn't want to lease it out because he was afraid somebody would bang up the equipment."
Being the only son, Pop resigned himself to his fate and offered to run the newspaper during his father's tenure as postmaster, which lasted until his death in June, 1928, during his second term. Thus, on April 1, 1922, after only 30 days experience, 22-year-old Pop entered the newspaper profession - "a profession that I had absolutely no desire for in my youth." Nevertheless, Pop, like many other newspapermen who curse the day they got involved in newspapering, has done little about leaving the business, since he's still running the Dallas News.
During his 30 days of breaking-in, Pop learned to set type by hand. But he could never match his sister, who could set four galleys of 10-point type a day.
Somehow, with his father's occasional help and that of his sister, Pop managed to carry on as editor and publisher of the Dallas News, oldest business institution in town. The newspaper then had a circulation of 250, an advertising rate of 15c an inch and a subscription rate of one dollar a year, "payable in cash, cucumbers or cordwood." Writing and setting ads, however, came fairly easy to Pop from the beginning, due to a background of sign painting and showcard lettering.
The News, of course, saw some changes under Pop's guidance. For 15 years it was a 4-page, 5-column handset newspaper, later going to 6-columns. After the purchase of its first Linotype some twelve years ago, the News switched to a 12-em, 7-column format and chased the ads off the front page.
Time, moreover, has changed the reluctant editor-publisher into a well-moulded newspaperman who, like many other publishers, has set out to accomplish certain goals for the good of the community. A newspaperman for some 29 of his 51 years, Pop says his chief pleasure in being a newspaper publisher has been that "of being in a position to serve the progress and best interests of the community. To speak out on the things you know to be right, and to know that you are being heard by your people whether they agree or not."
"You take a lot of country papers," he explains, "that don't take stands on things because they don't want to rock the boat. The way I see it, the hell with the boat. If it needs rocking, rock it. Some people won't like it, but some wouldn't like it if you didn't."
Boat-rocking by the Dallas News has brought results. In 1948 the town of Dallas was incorporated, and the News can claim some credit for tilting the boat in that direction. Recently the News started another boat-rocking, 20-month campaign to build a fire station and buy a fire engine. As Pop explained, tilting the boat might make a few people seasick. Nevertheless, that last campaign also paid off.
In getting out the weekly issue, there are no particular working-day habits at the News plant. "Every day is a habit with us," Pop says, "and even though it sometimes means burning midnight oil, we see to it that today's work is done today."
When Pop says "we" he means he and his only helper, Miss Billie Jean Kennard (pictured), who runs the Linotype. Pop taught her to set type on the complicated machine, which neither understands too well. Both of them learned long ago that when it stops working, it probably can be repaired by simply taking it apart and putting it back together, even though they don't know just why. When Pop purchased the Linotype in 1939, the salesman told him it would set all the News' type in half a day, leaving plenty of time for fishing and golf. "That sounded pretty good to me," Pop says, "so I bought it. I haven't had a day off since. It opened up work I never could do before, and I've been on the go hard ever since."There is usually no hurry in getting out the News, and although his readers sometimes tell him there is nothing in it, they squawk loudly if their issue doesn't arrive on Friday. However, to Shop Foreman Pop ("It's not going to come out till I get it printed.") getting one issue out means starting in on the next. Immediately after the newspaper goes into the mail, forms are cleared of everything that is dead. Fridays and Saturdays are spent on job printing, changing regular ads, setting copy, usually the "canned stuff" that might be used the following week, and maintaining a clean office and shop.
When news needs to be brought in, Reporter Pop pushes out his motor scooter and scats around town picking up a few items. He finds it's cheaper to run his scooter than his car because of the many stops he makes in digging up stories for the News. "I get about 50 or 60 miles a gallon on this putt-putt," he says. "Once I drove into a filling station and had the oil changed and the tank filled. It only holds two gallons of gas and a quart of oil. Feller worked on it an hour and I owed him 60c. He told me not to come back."Pop married the former Mammaw Houston in Dallas on May 25, 1922. They have two sons, Navyman JLS, a Machinist's Mate 1/c on the USS Copahee, and Dad, Navy veteran of World War II and now director of the high school band in Dallas.
When the new fire truck rolls out, Reporter Pop can usually be seen flying along behind it in his scooter to cover the story. As most country weekly editors, however, Pop is interested only in news that affects Dallas. "We don't worry about anything but local news," he says. "We let the Houston Post and the Chronicle print all that heavyweight stuff."
Summing up pretty well the attitude of most of his fellow country newspaper publishers, Pop says, "We don't compete with any other newspaper and there is no newspaper in the world that can compete with us."
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Bridge Ladies Unite!
Yet another example of the ludicrous intolerance exhibited by many in this "great" country of ours. At the risk of being a hypocrite, I'm a very tolerant person, but I'm losing patience with these fascists who seem to insist upon strict ideological conformity. Ever heard of free speech you pigs? I guarantee you, this same 25% of freakazoids who can brook no dissent of Bush will be on the front lines screaming for a Democratic presidents head. Idiots.
As today's NYT chronicles, the United States Bridge Federation was not amused. Its president, Jan Martel, and executive board are pushing for tough sanctions against the entire team--a one-year suspension, plus a one-year probation, 200 hours of bridge-related community service and a formal apology. Bridge Federation lawyer Alan Falk threatened team members with "greater sanction" if they reject the Federation's offer. Team members have been accused by other players of "treason" and "sedition," according to the NYT. On message boards they've been compared to the Dixie Chicks and Tommie Smith and John Carlos--US sprinters who raised a fist in salute to Black Power at the 1968 Olympics and were subsequently ejected from the games.
This is not your grandmother's card game! I've dabbled in the world of bridge myself, and as anyone who's played a tournament can tell you--bridge is ruthless. Little old ladies, so sweet pre-game, will mercilessly ruff you up once the cards are dealt. But what are the folks at the Bridge Federation thinking? The game's logic is punitive (you get spanked for bidding too high), but the game itself should not be--particularly on matters of free speech. Nothing makes the game look more backwards, small-minded and elitist than punishing a championship team for using their moment of glory to send a political message well within the mainstream of American society. What's next? Banning certain t-shirts? Buttons? Maybe bridge should only be played in uniform?
But take heart, the fabulous ladies at the center of this controversy aren't ready to make nice, and I'm glad they're putting up a fight. All across this country the common but courageous dissent of citizens is being censored and attacked. Anti-war vets calling for withdrawal from Iraq were banned from a parade in Long Beach, CA. High school students in Chicago are threatened with expulsion for staging a peaceful anti-war protest. More than a dozen anti-war protesters, fittingly wearing gags over their mouths, were arrested outside of Boston's city hall.
And the list goes on. As individual incidents, each provoke a momentary pang of sympathy, a head nod, maybe an exasperated email to your bridge buddies. But taken as a whole, I suspect it adds up to a more disturbing picture--of a nation that went quietly mad, except for a few who spoke up and were ostracized for it; of a country where politics became so estranged from everyday life, that the ordinary expression of it was called treason.
If you're mad as hell and want to support the US women's bridge team--email Jan Martel (President, United States Bridge Federation) at janmartel@comcast.net and the board at board@usbf.org. Left-leaning, free-speech loving bridge players are especially encouraged!
Bridge Ladies Slammed for Anti-Bush Sign
Richard Kim
Richard Kim
"WE DID NOT VOTE FOR BUSH." Those words were handwritten on the back of a menu by the US women's bridge team and held aloft during the award ceremony at the world team championships in Shanghai last month. The team had just won the tournament, destroying Germany in the final, and were making what they thought was a small political statement. It wasn't a particularly radical message (who else didn't vote for Bush?), and it was made spontaneously, in a moment of international goodwill and humor.
As today's NYT chronicles, the United States Bridge Federation was not amused. Its president, Jan Martel, and executive board are pushing for tough sanctions against the entire team--a one-year suspension, plus a one-year probation, 200 hours of bridge-related community service and a formal apology. Bridge Federation lawyer Alan Falk threatened team members with "greater sanction" if they reject the Federation's offer. Team members have been accused by other players of "treason" and "sedition," according to the NYT. On message boards they've been compared to the Dixie Chicks and Tommie Smith and John Carlos--US sprinters who raised a fist in salute to Black Power at the 1968 Olympics and were subsequently ejected from the games.
This is not your grandmother's card game! I've dabbled in the world of bridge myself, and as anyone who's played a tournament can tell you--bridge is ruthless. Little old ladies, so sweet pre-game, will mercilessly ruff you up once the cards are dealt. But what are the folks at the Bridge Federation thinking? The game's logic is punitive (you get spanked for bidding too high), but the game itself should not be--particularly on matters of free speech. Nothing makes the game look more backwards, small-minded and elitist than punishing a championship team for using their moment of glory to send a political message well within the mainstream of American society. What's next? Banning certain t-shirts? Buttons? Maybe bridge should only be played in uniform?
But take heart, the fabulous ladies at the center of this controversy aren't ready to make nice, and I'm glad they're putting up a fight. All across this country the common but courageous dissent of citizens is being censored and attacked. Anti-war vets calling for withdrawal from Iraq were banned from a parade in Long Beach, CA. High school students in Chicago are threatened with expulsion for staging a peaceful anti-war protest. More than a dozen anti-war protesters, fittingly wearing gags over their mouths, were arrested outside of Boston's city hall.
And the list goes on. As individual incidents, each provoke a momentary pang of sympathy, a head nod, maybe an exasperated email to your bridge buddies. But taken as a whole, I suspect it adds up to a more disturbing picture--of a nation that went quietly mad, except for a few who spoke up and were ostracized for it; of a country where politics became so estranged from everyday life, that the ordinary expression of it was called treason.
If you're mad as hell and want to support the US women's bridge team--email Jan Martel (President, United States Bridge Federation) at janmartel@comcast.net and the board at board@usbf.org. Left-leaning, free-speech loving bridge players are especially encouraged!
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Mark Morford is talking to me
I've been experiencing the outrage fatigue that Mark Morford (SF Gate) writes about in his latest column here, (and below), but there is a donkey in the room that he apparently does not see: the Boardroom Democrats.
I know how it is. You've had it up to here. There are only so many stories about blood and death and pain you can take, only so many times you can hear about random shootings and corporate malfeasance and how BushCo's squad of scabrous flying monkeys have, say, supported torture or endorsed wiretapping or gouged the nation for another $200 billion to pay for a failed war. Your nerves are raw and your heart is tired and the media will just not shut the hell up already about the sadness and the war and the mayhem and the Cheney and the doom doom doom.
Torture? Are you kidding? Allegedly the most civilized, the most morally aware nation on the planet and we are still debating, in the highest courts and government offices in the land, about whether the United States should strap human beings to gnarled metal benches in rancid foreign bunkers and inflict such inexplicable terror and fear upon them that they confess to things they didn't even do just to get us to stop? Is this the Middle Ages? Are we regressing back to the goddamn cave?
Oh my, yes, plethoric are the reasons you should be outraged indeed, and torture just might be one of the most incendiary reasons in the past few years. If nothing else, its disgusting return to U.S. political dialogue certainly means it's no time to be laying down arms in exhaustion, no matter how tempting it might be.
Take this fine example: Keith Olbermann, as is his wont, executed another pitch-perfect bout of outrage recently on his excellent MSNBC show, taking BushCo to task on the issue of waterboarding like you never hear in major on-air media anymore.
Olbermann only barely held on to his trademark fierce hyper-articulation against the sheer disgust he/we have to endure at the idea that a sitting American president obviously thinks medieval torture is a gul-dang swell idea, no matter what psychologists, military experts, ethicists, the United Nations, the Geneva Convention and Jesus himself all say.
It was wonderful, powerful stuff, a razor-sharp, highly informed media pundit who dares to presume an unusually high level of intelligence among his viewers, speaking truth to power in a way most liberal media-haters complain never really happens anymore. And of course, his subject was one of the most deserving of our moral outrage in recent history.
But then I read some of the reaction to Olbermann's diatribe on various political blogs and on some news-aggregate sites, with many saying, gosh Keith, lighten up already, who cares, enough with all the outrage and the spittle, wow I'm so sick of all this ranting and raving and gosh I'm tired of these smarty media people telling me how to think and hey maybe torture is good let's kill us some more, haw haw haw snort.
On the one hand, it is, you can argue, generally the way of the meaner-than-thou blogosphere, with all but the most professional and intelligent and positive-minded of outposts seeming to suffer an undue percentage of reactionary chyme in their comment areas, hordes of Net-drunk twentysomethings and extremists and shut-ins who have way too much free time and merely chime in to see their sneers "published" and to prove how much more jaded and apathetic they are than the next person, while adding zero to the conversation.
But maybe it's worse than that. Because this is where it can happen, where you can get sucked into the vortex of whining and bitterness and where you might feel part of yourself wanting to wallow too, desiring to avoid doing the actual moral and spiritual work of dissecting and researching and analysing something as politically messy and morally ugly as torture for yourself, opting instead for the easy path, for closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears and going, nyah nyah nyah shut up shut up SHUT UP! Hey, it sure beats thinking.
Or maybe we can flip it around. Maybe, with the right intent, the exact reverse can happen, and you see this ocean of nasty ennui, this pile of oft-misspelled, poorly punctuated reactionary effluvia as, in and of itself, something to be a bit livid about.
Maybe, in other words, you can enjoy, as one blogger put it, a big dose of "fatigue outrage," the feeling of disgust you get when faced with all those people who think mental lethargy and laziness is, like, way funny, dude.
In other words, enough with the childish, frat-boy-grade complaints about media overload and too many rants and outrage fatigue. You have to earn that sort of thing. If you never give a crap about engaging the world, if you never want to think deeply about complex issues and care about ramifications and see what truly resonates with your own informed spirit and then stand up for what you believe, this pretty much eliminates your right to sneer at others who do.
It is, for me, all about modulation. It is about remembering that outrage does not necessarily equal misery. Outrage does not mean you must wallow in fear and fatalism and yank out your hair and wake up every morning hating the world and hating yourself and hating humanity for being so stupid/numb/blind and wondering how the hell you can escape it all.
Outrage is rich with humanistic understanding. It is not some evangelical Christian parent "outraged" that her kid saw a woman's nipple on TV. It is not some right-wing Family Council "outraged" that someone put S&M outfits on Barbie, or that some art gallery is displaying Jesus as a woman, or that scientists dared to say that stem cell research does not equal abortion, or that the mayor isn't taking care of all the potholes and stray kitties. That's not outrage, that's reactionary whining.
True outrage, like Olbermann's, like (occasionally, hopefully) this column's, like what you should ideally be experiencing on a daily basis while Bush is in office, is honed and sharp and poignant. It contains a powerful sense of deeply informed decency, and therefore has a true feel for when that sense has been violated. Outrage has meat and substance and intellectual nourishment. It is actually healthy.
Smart, informed outrage engages you and fires your heart, your mind. It is fuel. It is the reason you claim you enjoy being an American, to question malevolent government actions and take a stand and demand accountability where there has, for the past seven years, been none. Bottom line: We simply cannot let them convince us, by way of an all-out assault on science, sex, love, et al, that the good fight just ain't worth fighting.
After all, the flying monkeys are far from done raiding the closet and stealing your babies and making a mockery of everything wise and calm and open-hearted people hold dear. And baby, if you ain't outraged about that, something is very wrong indeed.
Not one word in his column about how the Democrats keep caving and caving and caving to Bush. This, as much as anything, is responsible for my current persistent funk: the Democrats inability to get anything past Bush; their constant giving in to that asshole in the White House; and their "going along" on absurd resolutions, such as condemning that MoveOn ad about General Petraeus, while letting other absurdities pass without comment. It's gotten so bad I'm going to register as an Independent.
Bush's outrages are bad enough, but when you have the "other" "party" apparently not all that upset about what Bush is doing, or unable to even articulate their opposition to Bush, unable to inspire anyone with passionate rhetoric such that the public approval rating of Congress is even LOWER than that of Bush, then we have a real problem. If we had some really effective fighters in the Democratic House and Senate, I might be inspired to re-join the fray, but until we do, I feel like all my bitching and moaning is just echoing in an empty canyon. All fury and light, signifying nothing. In other words, if the Democrats don't seem to give a shit, why should I?
Outrage fatigue? Get over it.
Are you sick of being sick? Suffering way too much Bush-induced nausea? Well, tough.
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
I know how it is. You've had it up to here. There are only so many stories about blood and death and pain you can take, only so many times you can hear about random shootings and corporate malfeasance and how BushCo's squad of scabrous flying monkeys have, say, supported torture or endorsed wiretapping or gouged the nation for another $200 billion to pay for a failed war. Your nerves are raw and your heart is tired and the media will just not shut the hell up already about the sadness and the war and the mayhem and the Cheney and the doom doom doom. It is outrage fatigue, and it is epidemic. It's that feeling that we are being hammered unlike any time in recent history with so many appalling and disgusting and violently un-American incidents and scandals and manipulations that our b.s.-detectors are smoking like an old V-8 engine on a hot summer's day and it's all we can do to get up every day without screaming.
What's more, it's not the mere quantity of moral insults, either. It's the bizarre absurdity of the subject matter, the things we are being forced to consider, or reconsider, that seem to make it all so horrific.
Torture? Are you kidding? Allegedly the most civilized, the most morally aware nation on the planet and we are still debating, in the highest courts and government offices in the land, about whether the United States should strap human beings to gnarled metal benches in rancid foreign bunkers and inflict such inexplicable terror and fear upon them that they confess to things they didn't even do just to get us to stop? Is this the Middle Ages? Are we regressing back to the goddamn cave?
Oh my, yes, plethoric are the reasons you should be outraged indeed, and torture just might be one of the most incendiary reasons in the past few years. If nothing else, its disgusting return to U.S. political dialogue certainly means it's no time to be laying down arms in exhaustion, no matter how tempting it might be.
Take this fine example: Keith Olbermann, as is his wont, executed another pitch-perfect bout of outrage recently on his excellent MSNBC show, taking BushCo to task on the issue of waterboarding like you never hear in major on-air media anymore.
Olbermann only barely held on to his trademark fierce hyper-articulation against the sheer disgust he/we have to endure at the idea that a sitting American president obviously thinks medieval torture is a gul-dang swell idea, no matter what psychologists, military experts, ethicists, the United Nations, the Geneva Convention and Jesus himself all say.
It was wonderful, powerful stuff, a razor-sharp, highly informed media pundit who dares to presume an unusually high level of intelligence among his viewers, speaking truth to power in a way most liberal media-haters complain never really happens anymore. And of course, his subject was one of the most deserving of our moral outrage in recent history.
But then I read some of the reaction to Olbermann's diatribe on various political blogs and on some news-aggregate sites, with many saying, gosh Keith, lighten up already, who cares, enough with all the outrage and the spittle, wow I'm so sick of all this ranting and raving and gosh I'm tired of these smarty media people telling me how to think and hey maybe torture is good let's kill us some more, haw haw haw snort.
On the one hand, it is, you can argue, generally the way of the meaner-than-thou blogosphere, with all but the most professional and intelligent and positive-minded of outposts seeming to suffer an undue percentage of reactionary chyme in their comment areas, hordes of Net-drunk twentysomethings and extremists and shut-ins who have way too much free time and merely chime in to see their sneers "published" and to prove how much more jaded and apathetic they are than the next person, while adding zero to the conversation.
But maybe it's worse than that. Because this is where it can happen, where you can get sucked into the vortex of whining and bitterness and where you might feel part of yourself wanting to wallow too, desiring to avoid doing the actual moral and spiritual work of dissecting and researching and analysing something as politically messy and morally ugly as torture for yourself, opting instead for the easy path, for closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears and going, nyah nyah nyah shut up shut up SHUT UP! Hey, it sure beats thinking.
Or maybe we can flip it around. Maybe, with the right intent, the exact reverse can happen, and you see this ocean of nasty ennui, this pile of oft-misspelled, poorly punctuated reactionary effluvia as, in and of itself, something to be a bit livid about.
Maybe, in other words, you can enjoy, as one blogger put it, a big dose of "fatigue outrage," the feeling of disgust you get when faced with all those people who think mental lethargy and laziness is, like, way funny, dude.
In other words, enough with the childish, frat-boy-grade complaints about media overload and too many rants and outrage fatigue. You have to earn that sort of thing. If you never give a crap about engaging the world, if you never want to think deeply about complex issues and care about ramifications and see what truly resonates with your own informed spirit and then stand up for what you believe, this pretty much eliminates your right to sneer at others who do.
It is, for me, all about modulation. It is about remembering that outrage does not necessarily equal misery. Outrage does not mean you must wallow in fear and fatalism and yank out your hair and wake up every morning hating the world and hating yourself and hating humanity for being so stupid/numb/blind and wondering how the hell you can escape it all.
Outrage is rich with humanistic understanding. It is not some evangelical Christian parent "outraged" that her kid saw a woman's nipple on TV. It is not some right-wing Family Council "outraged" that someone put S&M outfits on Barbie, or that some art gallery is displaying Jesus as a woman, or that scientists dared to say that stem cell research does not equal abortion, or that the mayor isn't taking care of all the potholes and stray kitties. That's not outrage, that's reactionary whining.
True outrage, like Olbermann's, like (occasionally, hopefully) this column's, like what you should ideally be experiencing on a daily basis while Bush is in office, is honed and sharp and poignant. It contains a powerful sense of deeply informed decency, and therefore has a true feel for when that sense has been violated. Outrage has meat and substance and intellectual nourishment. It is actually healthy.
Smart, informed outrage engages you and fires your heart, your mind. It is fuel. It is the reason you claim you enjoy being an American, to question malevolent government actions and take a stand and demand accountability where there has, for the past seven years, been none. Bottom line: We simply cannot let them convince us, by way of an all-out assault on science, sex, love, et al, that the good fight just ain't worth fighting.
After all, the flying monkeys are far from done raiding the closet and stealing your babies and making a mockery of everything wise and calm and open-hearted people hold dear. And baby, if you ain't outraged about that, something is very wrong indeed.
Monday, November 12, 2007
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remember
deja vu
indeed
Delete Fox "News"
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