Music Monday: Meditation on Idenity

Natalie Imbruglia "Identify"

Footloose "Fake I.D." Music Video Official [HD] - Big & Rich ft. Gretchen Wilson

 

So both of these songs are new to me! Natalie I am very familiar with, just not this song. I am going to go out on a limb, because I do live under a rock, and say that some under-inspired Hollywood type is remaking Footloose. Ugh!

This election season, as annoying and divisive as it was, I do believe it raised some issues, which I think as a country, are bipartisan and need to be discussed, civilly and settled.

One is ID. In general. We as Americans like people to believe we are who we say we are because we say we are who we are. Many Europeans think we are crazy people, for not having some way to prove we are who we say we are! And before my Midwestern friends jump all over me and chant, driver's license, let us remember that not everyone drives in this country and I for one, am not convinced that the DMV, BMV or whatever you call your local license office is that high and tight with their process.  

I also think this would settle a number of issues, if implemented fairly and over a rolling period of time. This national ID would stop the crying over election fraud, medicare/Medicaid fraud and actually streamline the ID process. Everyone gets one and they get it for life. It seems updating pictures on a set interval would work too. I think it would require a study, but it might actually be cheaper, if there was one central card issuer and things like driving, social security, ect, would be add ones. (In Singapore, your national ID functions as your library card. Over kill perhaps, but it would be less to carry.)

The question however is deeper than that. It is about identity, which is different from identification.  The identification is actually just a classification. AMEX for years used the slogan "membership has its privileges." Yes, yes it does. Think about it. Every club you join has some sort of identification. Maybe a membership card. Maybe a uniform, maybe both.

I am not totally convinced, that the bulk of the election fraud crowd, isn't just a tiny, tiny bit worried that perhaps there are more and more people who don't look like them, who are voting. Perhaps the make up of their communities are not a homogenous as they used to be. I would like to refer people to the latest US census. There is a mathematical proof that the US is made up of a variety of people, even in the smallest of towns.

 

I am the first to admit I am ambivalent about the politics of immigration reform. Why? Because we have no clue what we are doing! We do not have a system for tracking people. I mean it is really easy, if you want to invest the funds. If someone stays over their VISA and is not trapped at JFK in the sterile zone due to a delay or cancellation,  you go find them ASAP. Why don't we do this? It is storm trooperish and gonzo expensive. That's why.

Also we have this anchor baby thing going on. Again, I have no real opinion on the custom of allowing citizenship to be based on being born in the US. In the 1790s, it made sense. In the 1800s it made sense. In 2012, does it still make sense?

And let's be frank. Sending the parents back and keeping the 5 year old makes no sense and frankly, sending the 5 year old packing with the parents, isn't ok either. The 5 year is an American. This is a questions with many ethical dilemmas. I think perhaps it is time to have that conversation.

Also we hear a ton about the boarders...  

Remember the hikers in Iran/Iraq who wandered over the boarder. Has anyone seen the boarder we share with Canada? In the woods? I doubt we have agents paroling in South Dakota. Honestly, the southern boarder is only marginally better. Unless we are willing to build a Wall, like the one that cut through Berlin and divided Germany, a trickle of those who are coming illegally, will continue to happen. I also am not sure, how one would secure the miles and miles of coast line we have. Is someone really going to set up monitoring stations every 50 feet? Fence off all the beaches. 

One way we like to monitor illegal immigration is to foist it off onto the employers. I think this is poor choice. First of all, not every business has the technology to verfy driver's licenses, ect. I had a client, who acquired a factory, that had kept employment records on paper, like they had for 50 years. They paid to have the last 5 yrs plugged into excel. What did I find, as I tried to sort the file for 401k purposes. Yep, found about 2 dozen guys with the exact same social... um, hello. With pencil and paper record keeping (which as of 8 years ago, still happened from time to time) how are you to know. I also do not think it is business's job to be the defacto INS. It puts them in a bit of a quandary and we are back to, how do we prove who belongs and who doesn't.

Back in the 1800s-- it was a bit easier. Everyone knew everyone. Strangers were, well strange. Now NYC is like a pool of strangers. Maybe you know someone in your building. Maybe you don't. I love that about NYC. The anonymity. It is nice. Sometimes.

I think we vote the way we do, because back in the day, we voted that way because there were WAY less of us and everyone knew everyone else. (Like in Iceland. Everyone knows everyone or knows someone who does. Strangers stick out. There are roughly 300,000 residents on the entire island.) I barely know my neighbors. On purpose. 

This year I voted early. No ID required. I filled out the card. The lady messed with the computer and made small talk, gave me a sticker. No ID. She did not know me from a ham sandwich.  While I am not completely comfortable with this, historically it makes sense. When our voter laws were written, when the custom of voting was set in the US, we likely all voted in the local one room school house or church basement. (As an aside, voting in a church makes me very uneasy...)

Today, the make up of our country is very different. We cannot look at someone on the street and say, "She is an American and He is not." Visual ID isn't going to work. Shouldn't be allowed to work any longer. Skin color and clothing choices no longer are a mark of membership in the club.

E and I had a chat a few months ago. 

Someone had told his Indian buddy, he should go back where he came from. This got E wondering, "where did we come from. Where would we go back to?"

I told him that was complex and easy. If we had to go back to where Daddy was from, it was a slam dunk. Fatherland here we come! H is 100% German.

I pose a more complicated ethic picture. On my mother's side it is Wales and England. My maternal grandmother was a Jones. Her relation-- Davy Jones, was a Squirrel Hunter.   My maternal grandfather was some mix of English. It is a smidgen dubious.

On my father's side, it is even more dubious. Some mix of German, Irish, Scot-Irish, and Native American.

E commented that it would be easier to work with Daddy's heritage.

You think?

What we have is an identity crisis as a whole and an identification crisis. There aren't any easy answers to these questions.  That said, the census data is clear, the face of America is changing and rapidly. The old ways are not serving their purpose and frankly some shouldn't.

Time is changing. Are we prepared to change with it is the real question. 

  

Bonus Music Monday: We are Never Getting Back Together

Understand I am not a Taylor Swift fan. I don't love this song. L does not love this song, but in the last two weeks I have witnessed two events that make me think this song is very important.

The other day I was dropping something off in a local office building and out front there was a young woman, I am guessing early to mid twenties talking heatedly with a man about the same age. It appeared he stopped her as she was coming back from lunch or something. She was being polite, but firm. "No I don't want to see you again." and "Please stop coming to my office."

I made a point of stopping and observing, long enough to get some key details clear in my mind. She knew I was making a point.

Then Saturday night after L's dance show, I was walking my sleepy Diva to the car and one of the older girls was in the parking lot, walking to her car and a young man, with a dozen pink roses. She kept telling him to "please just leave her alone."

He kept insisting he was "sorry" and "please just take my flowers."

I was just about to suggest he move it along, when one of the fathers in the parking lot, walked over, walked him away from the girl. The father was saying, "son, she said no."

She got in her car.

This summer my book club read The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker.

This is a sobering book. He talks about heeding that little voice that tells something is wrong. He also talks about at great length, how women are 97% more likely to be assaulted on any given day and by "someone just trying to be nice." Only they aren't. They are profiling a potential victim. They are a boyfriend who just won't accept "we are never ever going to get back together."

They are the guy with flowers, who knows if you will take his flowers to shut him up and not make a scene in a parking lot, that maybe just maybe you will go out with him again, if he stalks you in a very public place and asks for a date in a few days.

During this very awful and overly drawn out Presidential campaign and highly contested Congressional campaigns, rape has, in my opinion been made light of by some under enlightened assholes. White men, who have never been in the position of having their consent violated, a foreign body shoved inside them. Held down, choked or otherwise threatened.  They have never had their decision to stop at the grocery after a evening yoga class, judged as fool hardy or a sign they "were asking for it." All I can say to the Paul Ryans and Todd Akins and Robert Murdocks of the world is Karma is a bitch and I hope you are ready, because some day she will get her do.

I digress.

Sexual assault by a stranger is a legitimate concern, but the reality is more women, will be assaulted by some one they know or have been friendly to intimate with previously.

Approximately 2/3 of rapes were committed by someone known to the victim.¹
73% of sexual assaults were perpetrated by a non-stranger.¹
38% of rapists are a friend or acquaintance.¹
28% are an intimate.¹
7% are a relative.<sup>1

(from RAINN)</sup>


In less than 10 days, I witnessed two such examples, women being pursed by someone whom they had a relationship and ended it, and each time, these men were not hearing the word "NO!"

Even more shocking:

(also from RAINN)

I can remember in high school, college and when I was first working, being faced with the relentless pursuit of a man. As women, we are socialized to be nice. So I would always try to be polite. To be kind. To put them off. To say No, 1000 ways. To be not heard. When I finally got to No... a few times I had to yell it a few times... because they were NOT about to take no as an answer. Understand I am not talking about sex-- I am talking about invitations to date, ect. Or another date, after the first one was lousy. Or the guy who stalked me at my first job, convinced he could treat me way better than "other guy."

The cute but uninteresting guy who stood by my locker every day after math class, trying to get me to go out with him... for a year.

De Becker covers this and more in his book. Our culture rewards persistence. The Little Engine that could. Try and try again. Bring on those pink roses, even when she is yelling "go away."

Business breeds this sensibility too. One of the last seminars I took, before leaving the bank, was "Overcoming Objections." It was basically sales techniques to turn a "NO" into a "Yes."

This is dangerous I think. When the wrong person is in the audience. I think we should as a culture, learn to respect the word "No." In all cases.

No means No.

And if you think I am being dramatic-- let's consider this sobering thought--

Every 2 minutes, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted.

Here's the math. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey --there is an average of 207,754 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year.
There are 525,600 minutes in a non-leap year. That makes 31,536,000 seconds/year. So, 31,536,000 divided by 207,754 comes out to 1 sexual assault every 152 seconds, or about 1 every 2 minutes.

(from RAINN)

And those are the assaults we know about... or think we know about... given that so many people do not report being assaulted or seek medical attention, it is hard to get a handle on the actual number.

So while I know this song is annoying and people don't like it... I for one am glad it is out there. We need to be having this conversation more often. We need to push back-- so that under enlightened assholes like Ryan and Akin get tarred and feathered for suggesting that sexual assault, all sexual assault isn't valid or it is rare or whatever random rape denying shit rolls forth from their mouths. It happens-- EVERY TWO MINUTES. Sometimes at knife point and sometimes while in shock and sometimes at the hands of a man who swore up and down he loved you and would never hurt you. Until you tell him "no" and he forces you down and takes what he feels his for the taking.

I cannot stand the rape deniers. They have no place in our government. They have no place making laws. They need to be told-- HELL NO.

We need to teach our children that NO means NO.

But first we obviously need to teach politicians this lesson first.

Music Monday: Get Out of Your Mind and Heads Will Roll

This past week has been all DANCE all the time. Regular rehearsal Monday, extra YCO rehearsal Tuesday, L did volunteer work at school on Wednesday, Thursday was performance at the local Halloween event at the rec center, Friday was no school, but my dancer did outreach with YCO and performed at two inner city schools and a retirement community. Saturday was the show.

The girls brought down the house! So amazing. My music this week is two songs I loved, that were featured in the show. The Middle School dance company did a high energy and amazing dance to  Otta Your Mind! Loved it!

There is another version of this song by Li Jon and LMFAO, but this version by
Alex and Twitch is PG-13 and much closer to the song the girls danced to.

The other dance was "Left at the Alter" aka Brides of Frankenstein...

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs-- Heads Will Roll

I have always liked this song. The girls did a great job with it.

Halloween is a time I think we all confront and think about scary things. This year it is even more confrontational. Living in Ohio is tough... being a battle ground state, has meant my phone ringing off the hook. (The down side of being an independent voter.) I would like to off some heads. I did yell at some people canvasing last week. (Hello, it is the Internet stupid, if I wanna know about your slim ball candidate, I will look him up.)

If it were up to me, lots of heads would roll. Lots... I have decided the most useless, entitled people on the planet are in politics. If they really cared they would get real jobs, helping real people. Our two party system is crap, both parties know it and they work damn hard to keep everyone else out. (I mean who wouldn't want a job, where deadlock is rewarded one way or the other.)

If I were in charge, it would be off with their heads, let's dance cuz the wicked beasts dead. (the parties not the people, I am angry, not homicidal... although one more phone call might push me over the edge.)

Music Monday: Hands Off, Crazy -- BONUS

I found this on Twitter, after Congressman Akin's fantastic example of why politicians should not be involved with women's health-- at all. I think contraception and abortion should be issues that doctors and women deal with. Medical ethicist should be the ones who set medical policy, using REAL science and ethics, not religion.

I also think that as long as employers ask employees to share in the cost of health insurance premiums, they should not be allowed to disallow procedures or coverage along gender lines. If prostrate exams are covered, so must be pap smears and mammograms. If you cover pregnancy, then you must cover contraception (not everyone wants to be pregnant.) If you have a religious objection-- too bad, unless you want to foot the entire bill. An employers religious choices should not trump the employee's religious/ethical opinions/thoughts-- unless the employer wants to foot the ENTIRE BILL (I call this putting YOUR money where your VALUES are.) Cost sharing means belief compromise.

At the moment employees are all at the mercy of their employers for insurance and that is wrong... there is no real choice-- they throw out a plan and we pay for it... That is not a free market. Employers should not hold all the power. They just shouldn't. Unless they want to foot the entire bill.

Furthermore, I say unless you actually have a vagina-- your opinion as to how one cares for the vagina (or the womb for that matter) is really not at all germane to the conversation. I would not dream of weighing in on the care and treatment of a penis or prostrate... I don't have one and therefore I have zero frame of reference... Just as I will never experience a "hard on" or an inconvenient erection during a meeting, or erectile dysfunction... men will never enjoy the joys of a monthly period, the struggle with the side effects of oral contraceptive or monthly depression around a monthly period, which is only alleviated with the oral contraceptive, or a difficult pregnancy. Men will never experience first hand the crush of a miscarriage or the horror of becoming pregnant from rape or incest.

Men can waltz into any drug store or gas station and purchase inexpensive condoms. No doctor visit, no copays, no nothing. Women on the other hand have a variety of options open to them some of which are better than condoms, but they are costly and invasive. If men want more control over the birth control process-- how about they ask for and fund research to find more RX options for themselves? Instead of seeking to control the birth control options for women, why not seek out options for men, that won't end the journey of a fertilized egg-- but instead prevent fertilization AT ALL... Temporary prevention of sperm production would solve a multitude of problems and put birth control control squarely in a man's control. Men would then be empowered to control their OWN bodies. If I were a man, I would not spend my time trying to control women and their bodies-- but be seeking a way to better control my own.

Given that no one is focused on that-- makes me believe this debate is truly about the social control of women and sexuality... not about the mutually assured access to healthcare options and family planning. I think most men, do care about their female partners and want what is best for their future. I would humbly submit those men want birth control covered for their spouse/partners/lovers. Those men are not the ones spouting weird science and wanting to ban all access. Those men aren't crazy.

Scared, very scared...

I have been controversial on Facebook the last few days. I keep my Facebook limited to friends only. I did want to share my thoughts with those of you who aren't on my Facebook.

I am very scared. I am scared for myself as a woman and for my daughter, who is now a tween. I believe to my very core that Romney and Ryan will set us on a course that will send women and women's rights into a tail spin. These men do not-- based on their deeds and their words respect women as equals.

Understand my opposition to Romney and Ryan is not an endorsement of Obama. Obama has been a huge disappointment and all of our civil rights under Obama have been effected-- THAT said he does not make policy based on gender. His moves are more rooted in political ideology. Doesn't give me a warm fuzzy-- but I do not feel that Obama is going to force my daughter to bear her rapist child, if god forbid that ever happens to her... Ryan has already said that is exactly what he would do and happily so. (Heck me too-- I am still biologically able to have children. I don't want any more children and honestly given my auto-immune issues, having a child would not be in my best interest.)

So below are my unedited Facebook posts from the past few days. (I was posting links to news stories and making comments. Links to stories included in this post.)

This post from the NYT.

NYT headline: Wed and Tortured at 13, Afghan Girl Finds Rare Justice

 And this is what happens when a society does not respect women as people and their fundamental right to have total sovereignty over their minds and bodies. I am very sure Paul Ryan would object to the treatment of this young woman-- all the

while voting for and proposing laws which are the first step towards making this Afghani girl's life the life many girls in this country will be bound to lead. We cannot go back... religion has no place in government and human rights the rights of all people-- not just the majority or the powerful... how pathetic are the men who tortured this fourteen year old child...

Mitt and Paul lead not with their minds -- not with a sense of fairness and equality-- but their twisted religious dogma. The same leadership style we see in Afghanistan.

I will seriously consider leaving my home if they are elected-- my daughter will grow up in a place that values her as an equal and not as chattel.

I got called on the carpet for being unfair to Christians. I do not believe that is the case at all. I would argue and I think history backs me up here, the Afghans still practice cultural mores and behaviors that are clearly laid out in great detail in the Old Testament. For those who have never taken a comparative religion class-- the Jews, the Muslims and the Christians (who were Jews with a new Leader) all spring from a similar cultural well and the first 5 books of the Torah and the Bible are the same... seriously... I think western Christianity has progressed given what we like to call Enlightenment... However a great many American Christians keep citing those same 5 books of the Bible as the reason that women, gays and anyone else they deem "other" should not be entitled to civil liberties equal to their own. I was merely pointing out that when on sets up a society that devalues women, women's rights to choose and steer their own destiny-- well this example from Afghanistan is what you get.

I am not saying Christians cannot have the right to believe anything they want to believe, in their own homes and their own places of worship. I don't care if they stand on the village green and pray, pray privately before major events in their life... I don't wish to join them, I don't want to be forced to join them and I do not want them forcing me to live my life by their belief structures. I don't believe life begins at conception, nor do I believe gays and lesbians are an abomination. I believe every human is entitled to basic civil rights and liberties.

Since my credibility was questioned and it was insinuated that I was bashing-- I offered another example-- this time from Communist China-- where religion is not part of the legislative process.

This post about forced abortion in China...

NPR:

After A Forced Abortion, A Roaring Debate In China

I was accused of being too harsh yesterday-- so here, an example from China, where the government has forcibly controlled women and men's right to choice with respect to family planning. Government officials kidnapping and forcing abortions on women who violate a law, that is an unconscionable violation of basic human rights. This One Child policy has caused a huge gender imbalance (because hello-- CHINESE CULTURE FAVORS MALE CHILDREN and girl children are aborted or abandoned in distressingly high numbers-- because people are allowed only one shot...) and as a result, this going to have dramatic impact on the number of workers in less than 10 years... not to mention the number of marriages and child bearing for years to come, given the dramatic gender imbalance which has happened since 1979. So here is another example of why government has NO BUSINESS meddling in the very private matter of child bearing. Adults, who intend to have children, should privately decide what is best for themselves. Women should be allowed to decide when and how many children they wish to bear and care for. No government should have the right to decide-- when, where and how many children a woman should have. It is her choice and her partner's choice to a degree. It is her body... Forcing a woman to have a child against her will is no better than forcing an abortion on her-- both actions say "you do not have the right to control your own destiny and your own physical body." The government does not know what is best for me, I know what is best for me... 

China is another example of a culture that really does value boys more than girls... and then this gross violation of a woman's fundamental human right to choose when and how she will bear children has created a cultural and societal problem, that is reaching epic proportions. (It is a violation of a man's right to choose too...)

I don't want to live in either of these systems. 

I think Mitt and Paul will take us in a direction that will set women's rights back light years...  I am scared, very, very scared...

Group Insurance and "Bogus Choices"

So here is a comment I ran into a few weeks ago on NARAL OH's page:

I find it ironic how people demand freedom of choice to have sex using birth control and then get an abortion while in the same breath demanding that it be funded by others who do not hold the same values. Why is it that one group feels it can force another to violate its moral conscience. If people want to use birth control and or get an abortion why can't they pay for it on their own dime. People need to stop making other people pay for their bad choices and actions and start taking responsibility for their own actions. This ultimately is what the real issue is here, but it seems that folks who demand pro-choice don't want to hear that. Instead what they hear when subsidized funding is going to be taken is that their rights are being violated allowing them to make their own decision. But really if people want to make their own decisions then they should get to pay for them to.

This was my reply:

Actually -- when we participate in all insurance we pay for things we may or may believe in. For example, I don't for one minute think people should consume any artificial colors or favors and fake sugars or  high fructose corn syrup. I am pretty sure a huge portion of my health insurance dollars are going to cover diabetic treatments and hypertension drugs for people who have failed to look after their weight and health appropriately. But that is part of deal. Don't even get me started on people who choose to smoke, knowing the risks and then want me to cover their O2 supplies and or cancer treatments. Hello, it is scientific fact that smoking leads to lung cancer and other lung diseases. But because I understand how insurance works-- I pay my premium-- even though I really do not approve of those other people's choices.

Maybe people who don't want to pay for birth control or abortion as standards of ob/gyn care as approved by the FDA and various medical boards and medical ethics committees should, oh I don't know go find your own insurance and leave the test of us who get how group insurance works alone.

Let's indulge in a little Business 101-- which I am qualified to teach-- seeing as I have earned an MBA...

Insurance Company Profit = earned premium + investment income - incurred loss - underwriting expenses.

So this is the basic business model for ALL insurance. The idea behind insurance is transferring or sharing risk. We can quibble all day-- about earned premium and how to define it, in terms of health insurance it is the money we pay in premium from our pay combined with our employer contribution (which is why COBRA is so blooming expensive-- you pay the whole entire amount... yours and your former employers.)

When a independent business owner(solo practitioner) or freelancer goes to an insurance provider, often times they purchase an individual contract, the rules for those are different, there is more risk to the insurance company, they are insuring one person or one family. Group insurance, like what most of us have at work, the rates are based on the pool of people and not the individuals. As such this is why there are no physicals and many of these plans are covered by ERISA-- which is a complex set of Federal guidelines which cover all manner of employee benefit plans. (Big Gov't is already nosing around your insurance. Has been since the 60s.)

So even though I am fit and active and eat a super healthy mostly organic diet, the person two cubes over might well smoke, gobble Doritos, never drink anything but Coke, and refuse to climb stairs. They might well choose to do drugs on the weekends or on the flip side engage in weekend warrior behaviors that their body is really not up for... I get no say in that. They get to make their own choices. We all pay a premium based on the group's overall costliness annually.

Let's go back to our formula:

Insurance Company Profit = earned premium + investment income - incurred loss - underwriting expenses.

Ever since insurance companies became publicly traded companies, the Profit is basically guaranteed. No CEO is going to steer the company in a direction that does not generate shareholder (his) wealth. Not. Going. To. Happen.

So the Insurance company will do their best to control costs of underwriting and administration (aka loss), they will seek to curb the benefits paid out (EOB with bullshit exclusions and other delay tactics designed to just not pay claims) and other limits to what they will and won't pay for. I am not saying fairly and disclosed limits are not kosher. They are. Asking people to pay a portion of the costs is fair-- if it is clearly disclosed.

(self funded plans are another animal, but the idea is the same... yearly surplus is substituted for Insurance company profits and ERISA governs the proper use of this as well.)

Another way to ensure profit is to continually raise premium costs to participants. I have never not had a premium increase on a year over year basis. Once-- at my first job out of college, we got a rebate. A small one. Not nearly equal to what we paid a month in premium.

So we all pay for life style choices we may not agree with. Most major religions come with prohibitions and some overlap and others are in direct opposition. We all pay for our co-workers' lifestyle choices which are in direct conflict with our own.

I say for as long as our employers demand we pay a portion of the premium, any portion, then we all should have a say in the coverage. Or there should just be a standard of coverage which is universal. Sex is no more a risky or costly choice than smoking. They both have known and frankly quantifiable, in terms of costs, possible outcomes which impact the underwriting of insurance. Insurance companies have priced out the cost of every sneeze and hangnail.

So I think we have a few choices-- nix group health insurance and have it be every man, woman and child for themselves. Individual policies all around. Which would be pricey, but technically speaking no one would be paying for other people's choices. (although that likely isn't exactly true. Insurance companies pool their premium dollars, so this would be to their benefit, they charge more for individual policies and still have a pool of dollars to invest and pay out, but technically speaking your premium would be based solely on you and your families health and choices, and age.)

Or we just take some time to understand how group insurance works and accept that discrimination isn't really in any of our best interest, because I am not all that tolerant of smokers and I know I have shouldered the burden of their "choices" to poison themselves and their loved ones for years... way longer than I was ever on birth control... and I am willing to bet next month's premium it costs us all alot more to cover smokers and smoking related illness than comprehensive gynecological care ever will.

So unless we are going to not cover people who are smoking because of the choices they are making-- I think the argument that childbearing and birth control and family planning are "choices" is bogus.

The Letter A...

I have read The Scarlet Letter more times than I care to remember. Oy, it is dense prose, so very dense. That said I was thinking about my recent music Monday post. I don't want to go back to 1776 or even 1850, the time Hawthorne was writing and certainly not 1680-- the time of Hester Pyrnne. Have the people who speak about going back-- really read any of the literature of time, cracked a history book? I don't think so.

I certainly do not want trade my freedoms now for a life that Hester and her daughter Pearl would have lived. A life of a theocracy. Puritan legalism is still alive and well in our culture, it is dying but it was in full force in Hester's life. There is a movement, among mostly Republicans to go back, to go back to this time, where "god" was a legal scholar and where one interpretation of truth and justice was the only interpretation. The grand irony is, when they branded her with the A-- for adulteress, and cast her out, she found freedom. She had rejected their ways and rejected their culture and found a new way. A way of enlightenment. In many ways Hawthorne is speaking through Hester but even in his life time, there was little religious freedom. There was not one state church, but American culture was very wrapped up in repressions of a religious sorts. It was also a time of great rebellion-- on the continent and soon to be had in the United States. Some say Hester is a metaphor for countries and revolution and enlightenment. Maybe so, but the reality is, this is the status of women, at the time. What I have always loved is Hawthorne at least made her an active participant in her life. She was not seduced or raped. She conceived a child in love, at least we are lead to believe that.

I will also give Purtians their due-- unlike our culture, which is very much rooted in Victorianism, males who committed adultery where also branded. That means men like Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Bill Clinton and John Edwards would have similarly been branded.

In the North-American Puritan settlements of the 17th century, men and women sentenced for having committed acts of adultery were branded with an "A" letter on their chest (men) or bosom (women). (from Wikipedia)

 That aside, I do not want to return to a time where other people's morality are the judge and jury of my behavior. We can all have an opinion about adultery, mowing the lawn on Sundays, the consumption of beer and wine or brewed anything for matter, eating meat or not eating meat and so on and so on. There is no one right answer. Since our country is founded on the very principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It really does not get anymore clear:

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (see the real deal here)

So I fail to see how we can say in one breath (I am looking at you GOP) that we want to go back to the time the Bill of Rights was written and then in the next breath say that we need to protect God's commandments? Oh really, which ones and which God? There are so many versions and flavors running around. (and btw I don't really care for any of them.)

Women were no more free and equal partners in 1850 than they were in 1680. Adultery is still illegal in many states in 2012. Now branding, thank goodness is no longer the punishment, but the law is still on the books. (and Ladies... the rules for you are vastly different than for the men. In fact it really is all on us ladies. Oh goodie, look how far we have come...)

I hope I am being convincing here. I really don't want to go back. The correct direction is forward. We learn as we grow and from our mistakes. Remember in 1776 they walked around in their own sewage. On a hot day that had to be so pleasant. Our laws should always error on the side of inclusion. They should not be based on anyone's holy text and they should not ever make someone a 2nd class citizen.  If we think a behavior is inappropriate or a social custom isn't for us, then we don't do it. We can write about it, we can join groups of like minded people, who also don't do it, we can build big buildings and hang out with other people who don't do it, we can discuss with our children openly and honestly why we do or don't so something,  but we cannot make laws that force everyone to do it this "one right way aka OUR way." There isn't one right way.

I like my tea, my bacon, and freedom. I don't like tobacco, raw sewage and narrow minded people.

See, there was that so hard? No need to go back. If some people want to wallow in their own sewage, I am not going to stop them. I am not going to visit them either.

The Irony

I stumbled upon this cartoon via various Twitter sources and I think it is worthy of posting. The thing I cannot  stand most about most people is the hypocrisy of their opinions, most especially about politics, most especially about the legislation of social issues.

I love that Senators on the far right, who keep trying to slap their religious views all over my body, bristle over the fact that the Congress passed a health care tax package(so says the Supreme Court-- who totally made a judicially conservative ruling btw), which they reject.

So which is it-- the government can control women's access to health care but women's and women's alone? A woman's employer should have more rights than she in the matters of insurance coverage based on his or her religious values-- even though the employer requires her to pay a portion of the premium? I have seen in my life time the erosion of my choices and the availability of those choices. I have been denied care by a pharmacist who did not agree with the availability of a drug which has FDA approval. I shelled out roughly 14% of my take home pay to purchase an insurance policy, which covered nothing in terms of GYN care or birth control... because my employer thought it was trivial. A little known fact-- most of us are covered under ERISA health care plans-- so guess what-- the government has been involved in your health care insurance for a long time-- the Department of Labor to be specific.

Music Monday: Get a History Book Please

So in honor of our nation's birthday, I would like to humbly suggest to every arm chair constitutionalists, every senator and every member of the house and every governor hurry to their local library and or surf on over to Amazon and check out some history books. I would humbly suggest getting books from a variety of sources-- for example, it will not kill liberals to read more conservative texts and conservatives to check out some liberal texts. The ultra religious would be well served by reading some texts by those of an agnostic bent and agnostics would not be struck down by reading some texts written by ardent believers.

The point of this is-- relying on a single source or a single flavor of sources IS not the basis for forming a well rounded opinion. The truth, is almost always in the middle. One cannot in my opinion effectively reach the middle or come to terms with any subject or effectively reject a position until one has examined said issue from all the angles.

Also, one has to be dedicated to understanding the realities of what was in the past. I cringe when I hear people, mostly white middle aged men, saying we need to return to the government of founding fathers. Um, women could not vote in 1776, they could not own property, actually they were property and owning slaves and indentured servants was perfectly legal and encouraged. Monogamy was not the norm, certainly not for men of means. We actively drowned women calling them witches, using way less than humane or scientific means of truth extraction.  People were jailed for debts and small infractions were punished by standing in the public stocks. (Trust me the colonies and early America prohibited all sorts of social behaviors.) The colonists and the early Americans paid a lot of taxes and honestly only property owners actually got to fully participate in the political process. So by all means, let's go back to the time of ...

Beastie Boys-- Paul Revere


(I'll stay right here-- because I have actually read about the early Americans and I think, frankly I will pass. If only to avoid wearing crazy cotton dresses and raw sewage in the streets.)

Music Monday: Jack White -- Love is Blindness

So what is Love? That is the question isn't it. It seems to me that for as long as there has been humanity, we as humans, as emotional beings have spent an amazing amount of time trying to figure it out.

Who do we love? How do we love? What is the correct way to love? The Greeks spent a long time trying to define the types of love.  Right now in the US, we are spending loads of time arguing about who gets their union of love recognized for tax purposes. Who has the right to legalize their love. (Honestly, when you think about it-- that is exactly what we are arguing about. Whose love reigns supreme.)

The great poets and writers have always spent time on the subject of love. Pop songs give us candy versions of love.

The other day, my friend tweeted: "If you say you love them both, then you love neither of them." -what moron came up with that one? 

Yeah that is a good question. It seems to me that we as humans just don't have a handle on this love business at all. We have scores and scores of rules about love (which very few people seem to actually understand and even fewer seem to actually be able to follow.) We seem to all think we have it figured out and yet when pressed, we can't for the life of us define it or accurately categorize LOVE.

So yeah-- maybe love is blindness... I have no idea, and I am all done trying to figure it out. Love just is, let's enjoy it and stop trying to figure it out. Let's stop judging it and just enjoy it.

*** special thanks to Steve VC -- a writer I met when I was actively trying to make it as a freelancer-- for posting this video on Facebook. I was racking my brain trying to find a video for today's post and there it was and a thought provoking one to boot.

Utopia

I am not your average MBA.

But then you all knew that. In fact I have an undergraduate degree in American Studies and German. An odd combo, I know, I know. While I would do it differently, if I had known then, what I know now, I do think a liberal arts education has value. I do. I think it is important to actually read history, to dive into it. To firmly understand that which you are embracing or rejecting.

The other night I was having a discussion with someone very close to me and he, I think was shocked when I said Marx was actually part of a group of or at least very much influenced by Utopians. Also, while Marx gets all the credit and as such all the vitriol disdain, he did not come up with much of those political and philosophical theories on his own. His buddy Friedrich Engels was very much a part of this process and many regard Friedrich as the superior philosopher.

Furthermore, these men were philosophers, not politicians. They were educated men, who wrote and discussed their ideas. They were often employed as tutors or journalists. As with most intellectuals,  writers and philosophers, it is about theoretical world building. Neither Marx, nor Engels or any of the many Utopian theorists from the French Revolution until the early 20th century actually thought about the practicality of their ideas. They were not offering a tested blueprint. It was theory. It was reactionary to the society around them. It was intellectual discourse.

In fact, much of what Marx and Engels were writing, up to and including the Communist Manifesto was reactionary, not only to the society they saw around themselves but in direct response to and as a critic of what other socialists were writing. Think of it as the Wimbledon of intellectual tennis.

What is exceedingly interesting to me, is that they were not alone in this thinking. Socialism as means of social organization can trace its roots back to early Greek philosophers. What is interesting is why does it suddenly become the hot bed of intellectualism in the early 1800s in France and Germany? (Prussia, more specifically.) Also why do these French, German other Continental philosophers keep getting themselves exiled?

They got themselves exiled because they were challenging the established power structure. This is post the successful American revolution and the less successful French one. Remember this anti aristocracy movement, this socialist movement started with thinkers and philosophers who were writing in the 1700s. The same writers and thinkers who influenced the framers of our Constitution. The ideas of democracy and republic and socialism all spring from the same well. These ideas are in direct challenge to the idea that certain people, based upon their divine right/accident of birth, get to rule and control all the resources. All the resources.

In Europe, you had a system of men, who through the ages held power (Ruled) based solely on their birth order and a series of fairly violent power grabs. (some people might call that war.) They hold power through marriage alliances, intimidation and through alliances of equals. (I argued in college, the first cartels were the European aristocracy and their many alliances.) Entry to this game is fixed in such a way that only those with the correct pedigree, ability to curry favor, and so forth can play. The price of entry is exceedingly high.

The percentage of the Europeans who can play in the game is exceedingly small.

This wonderful world is made possible at the total expense of the have nots. The farmers, the artisans, the working class. The taxation was amazing, up to and including payment with your life. These people had no voice. None. In fact they did not count.

I would say that by the 1800s, things were changing. We were seeing the rise of manufacturing, which in some ways was opening the political (power structure) somewhat. The have nots were finding ways to make more money. Money was the ticket into, albeit begrudgingly, the game.

The Socialists however saw the emerging capitalist model by the late 1800s as an exchange of one beast for another. From one system of exploitation for another. They did not see the average working person's life improved by the Industrial Capitalist system taking hold in large European cities in the 1850s.

My point. My point you say?

My point is we still haven't resolved any of these questions. My point is we still have a political system which is controlled largely by a group of people, who limit the ability of those they rule over to have any real participation. Corporations, run by the best educated and very wealthy, now own every single member of Congress. They likely on a smaller scale own those in the State legislatures. The rules of the game still favor those with the consolidation of power. (Politicians and Corporate leaders.) Many enter this game based (in the US) on their family name (dynasty-- Kennedy, Bush, to name a few) or through patronage (Obama???)

I am not saying Marx was right. He was no more right or wrong than Saint-Simon or Charles Fourier or even Thomas Jefferson. 

What I am saying is before people spout anti-Marxist rhetoric or point the finger at the evils of Karl Marx, they have to understand what he was actually writing about and why. Taking his work out of context and not understanding the intellectual climate of when that work was created does no one any good. That his work was read by others and they created a movement is another matter entirely. Marx dealt in theory, not practice. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, they were the practitioners, inspired by what they had read.

Marx's Manifesto was never designed to be a how to manual. I think every Marxist Utopian colony and likely government has/is going to fail because Marx fails to take into account a basic human motivator-- envy and its evil cousin, greed.

In fact many Utopian theorist and socialists, Marx and Engels included, looked down on those Utopian thinkers, who actually tried to test out these ideas in practice. Socialist scientists (a term Marx and Engels coined) were not welcome in the intellectual exchange or discourse. Marx and Engels did not see themselves as architects of evil or as practitioners of social change, they were philosophers and theorists. They were intellectuals, philosophers, writers.

I wonder, how many members of Congress have actually read Marx. I have. In German and English, thank you very much. I spent a summer reading a good chunk of what Marx and Engels wrote. I think before people can reject something, they have to first seek to understand it and its social context.

Before you call someone a Marxist, it would be helpful if you actually understand what Marx was saying and more importantly-- why.