Them

Last week was ominous. This, I thought as I listened to the madness about the Islamic cultural center, is what it must feel like to witness logic going straight out the window and replaced with tribalism. For the past year and a half, I’ve listened to corporate criminals blame every problem this country faces on “illegals,” I’ve listened to the right wing talkies call for the head, more or less, of the judge who wrote the decision declaring California’s attempt at legalized homo hatred unconstitutional, I’ve endured, with great sadness, the media in this country become little more than the U.S. military’s PR department. I’ve done all this, I’m proud to say, without throwing a heavy object, without resuming my drinking career, without assaulting anyone physically or verbally, without gaining or losing a substantial amount of weight, or sleep.

Last week was a challenge. The September 11 crowd is offended about the cultural center – referred to as “the mosque” – that may end up situated a few blocks from the grounds where the towers known as the World Trade Center were knocked over by airplanes piloted by men who were members of the religion that now wants to operate the cultural center. And when this gang gets offended, the country sits up and takes notice. Not only has the country noticed, people have settled into the storyline as if it were their favorite recliner. The facts notwithstanding, the tone of the conversation, if it can be called that, was nauseating. You can dress up the language any way you’d like, but the message coming across the air waves at my house last week was clear: Muslims aren’t real Americans, they’re the enemy, and they are not to be trusted.

One of the most disturbing tid-bits from last week was the president’s response to it. Poll data released revealed that the percentage of people in this country who believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim has actually increased since he was elected. I still cannot figure out the timing of the poll, but his response was to underscore the fact that he’s a Christian, which is disappointing in my opinion, and then go on to talk about his daily dose of scripture and his regular prayer sessions, which is ridiculously disappointing. What a cartoon character he’s become, scurrying around the White House in fear, hiding behind some biblical monkey business to prove to the Super Christians that he’s not to be feared – he’s one of them. There’s a goddamn country that needs to be run here, by the way.

And then Harry Reid. In the same spirit that Joe Lieberman threw the Clintons over the cliff at their most vulnerable point in order to curry favor with the moralists of the day during the mercifully brief era of Congressional righteousness, Harry Reid promptly parted ways with the president on the issue of the cultural center. This sort of behavior is one of the main reasons I have never registered as a Democrat: one of the things at which they seem most talented is stabbing one another in the back for very short-term returns (i.e., elections). It’s also one of the main reasons Democrats don’t accomplish much unless they’re safely in the majority; they’re too busy offing one another. I don’t care if Harry Reid’s opponent is an escapee from the psychiatric hospital – I hope he loses, and badly.

As disturbing as last week was, it did end on a good note. I felt better after a bit of Friday night television for two reasons: first, people are still allowed to speak; and second, a lot of them expressed opinions that aligned with mine. And most of those people, much to my surprise, were Republicans. The governor of New Jersey, for starters, said that it was irresponsible of politicians to use this as a political football. W.’s former speechwriter, who filled in for David Brooks on the PBS NewsHour Friday night, called the argument that Islam is incompatible with American pluralism “deeply dangerous.” And on Washington Week, one of the regular guests could barely contain his disgust in explaining his magazine’s (Time) poll that piggy-backed the one concerning Obama’s religion: not only do many believe the president is a Muslim, many, many people in this country believe that a Muslim should not be allowed to serve as president or sit on the supreme court. Gwen Ifill asked the guy what he believed caused people to hold these opinions, and he answered, in a beautifully succinct way, “ignorance.”

Speaking of which, my final source of week-end comfort was – are you ready for this? – W. himself. I was liquored up for all but the last few months of his reign, and – like my father – I could not, would not listen to that man speak. The sound of his voice hurt my fillings. So imagine how dumbfounded I was to hear a clip of W. speaking right after September 11, 2001, reiterating and repeaterating – in his own unique way – that people of Muslim faith are not the enemy, and to judge them as such would be un-American.

Bal-uh-more

The Wire came to an end here a couple of weeks ago. If you’re not familiar with the HBO show, here’s a brief synopsis: A group of detectives in Baltimore plays a game of cat and mouse with an elaborate network of drug dealers. I first became aware of the show when its creator was a guest on Bill Moyers’ show, back in the gilded age of Friday night television. I was intrigued from that point on. The show’s creator is a former Baltimore Sun reporter. I was immediately drawn to the jaded, cynical way he spoke. Months later, a friend of mine asked me if I’d be interested in getting together with a group of her friends every third Sunday night for a potluck and to watch episodes of The Wire. Yes, I said, and we did, but it didn’t exactly take: you cannot visit during The Wire. In fact, as I learned over the month or so that it took me to watch the entire series on my own, I could not do anything when watching The Wire except watch The Wire. It requires absolute focus.

I loved it, more or less. I think the main factor in the show’s addictive quality is the writing, which is excellent, but not self-consciously so. It didn’t seduce me directly: it was sneakier than that. I also think the story itself is compelling. Poverty, politics, organized and disorganized crime, hard luck on the streets, sex, the public schools, absentee parents – it’s all there, and then some.

I do, of course, have a few criticisms. The first, and biggest, is that there is way too much muttering. The entire storyline would twist and turn on one line of dialogue, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to have to replay it three times to get an idea of what had been said. I told a friend of mine about this issue, and she told me she has the exact same problem with all of Robert Altman’s movies. The second is that there were too many subplots for five seasons. I thought it was a bad move to not introduce the newspaper angle until the final season. I also would have liked to have seen more of the dock workers. The third is the ending. A detective gets fired, a major player in the drug economy gets out of jail, a couple of people get murdered and that’s kind of it. Maybe it was a commentary on the inevitability of it all, but it came across as hurried, as if the budget had run out and the actors had found other jobs.

Among people who have watched The Wire, the question of favorite characters usually comes up, so here’s my list, starting with the ones I did not like. Kima, I thought, could have been erased outright and not much would have been missing except the opportunity to type the word “motherfucker” into a script, which I’m sure is a thrill for the writers. McNulty was necessary, I suppose, but utterly unsurprising, I thought. Two characters struck something in me that I would have never expected. When Stringer was killed I actually cheered, and when the same happened to Bodie I shed a few tears – me, the same person who enthusiastically ridicules people who get emotionally involved with the television. It was a turning point of sorts. Felicia, in all of her horribleness, was weirdly intriguing, and even though the scenes with her in them required more rewinding and replaying than the others, I looked forward to them. I read the actress’ bio on the show’s shockingly bad website and learned that she arrived on the set straight off the streets. I loved Prop Joe from the moment he appeared at the basketball tournament to that fateful night he tried to leave Baltimore. I think the most artistically acted character was Omar but, believe it or not, I didn’t like the fact that he was gay. It came across as gratuitous. I could almost hear the discussion in the writing meeting: Let’s make Omar the meanest, most feared son of a bitch in Baltimore. But, to add some depth of character, let’s make him fierce about adhering to the code … and let’s make him gay!

My favorite character, by far, was Bubbles. He seemed to answer to multiple agendas in a believable, authentic way. If I had been on the writing team for The Wire, I would have made Bubbles gay rather than Omar. To me, it would have seemed like a more natural extension of his character, much more so than Omar, or Kima for that matter (oh no, did I forget to mention that she’s a lesbian? That’s because it’s forgettable). Wasn’t that scene in the basement when Bubbles is getting ready to tell the reporter his life story delicious? I kept waiting for something to happen, and waiting, and waiting.

What I didn’t wait for was the opportunity to put some more crime into the DVD player after The Wire’s vaguely disappointing ending. I watched, in horror, Crips and Bloods: Made in America and American Drug War: The Last White Hope, each of which I recommend highly.

A few technicalities

You don’t need to look at the calendar to know that the election season is right around the corner. Just listen in on the shit storm over “the mosque” near the blocks that used to house the World Trade Center and it’s crystal clear.

I’d love to write about what I think of the entire spectacle, but I think there are a few technicalities that need to be addressed first:

• It’s not a mosque. It’s a cultural center. For those who learn better from examples than facts, if you take the concept away from the Muslims and apply it to my people, although they often are, places that are dedicated to the history of Ireland are not necessarily Catholic churches.
• Ground zero is not a proper noun. It is not a brand. The “g” and the “z” should not be capitalized unless the word “ground” happens to be at the beginning of a sentence. It does not mean, automatically and without clarification, the place where the World Trade Center buildings once stood. The same holds true for the term “holocaust.”
• The property where the cultural center is to be is not on the property where the World Trade Center once stood.
• The United States Constitution specifically and clearly (quite) protects people from being discriminated against based upon their religion.
• The United States Constitution does not specifically protect people from being discriminated against based on a) being gay or b) the date, time and location of death of one or more of their loved ones.
• The national shit storm did not start as a result of Barack Obama’s statements over the weekend, as reported by Katie Couric, which is to be expected, and Gwen Ifill, which is not. The right wingers have been screeching about this on their talk shows for weeks.
• Newt Gingrich would be wise to read up on a parade that went through Skokie, Illinois once upon a time before he starts trying to line up the Jewish vote.
• People in New York – including politicians – who justify their position on this issue at least in part by saying it’s consistent with “70 percent of America” automatically and irrevocably forfeit their right to condescend toward anyone who is not a New Yorker.

Notarized

On Oct. 28, 2008, the United States Treasury gave JPMorgan Chase & Co. $25,000,000,000 – courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers – to bail it out of the vortex of greed into which it had guided not only itself but the entire country, if not the world, as well. On Nov. 17, 2008, it issued forth $6,599,000,000 for the fine folks at US Bancorp.

So I was a bit surprised when I stopped into a branch of Chase on Monday morning – Aug. 16, 2010, not even two years after it received public assistance in an amount so beyond my realm that I cannot even say it out loud without counting the zeros manually – and was denied notary services. The branch employee reminded me of the main character on Designing Women. She walked out from behind the counter and over to a desk, where she gestured for me to have a seat. This is going to be nice and easy, I thought. She got out a rectangular, leather-bound book and, as she opened it, said, “I’m assuming you have an account with us.” No, I told her, I did not. She closed the book and said the notary service is for Chase customers only. It’s only a one-page reference form, I told her. “You’re welcome to open an account,” she said haughtily. I was tempted to tell her that she was welcome to stop pretending to be anything other than a welfare queen, but instead I told her she was ridiculous and got up and left.

About half an hour later I went to the US Bank branch on NE Glisan. There I was told that they could notarize the reference form for me, but, since I’m not their customer, it would cost $10.00. For a moment I considered taking the woman up on her offer. $10.00 is not going to sink the ship around here, but the principle of it infuriates me. It seems to me that notaries are public servants and that they ought to serve the public, the same public, in the case of bank employees, to whom they owe their livelihoods. I also started wondering as I was walking back to the house about people who are in seriously dire straits, especially those whose straits are particularly dire due to the recession we’re in thanks to companies like US Bank and Chase. What do people already living deep within the money hole do when they need something notarized? What about people who don’t have bank accounts? What about people who don’t have half the day to traipse around town in order to make something official? What if their inability to get something notarized (and pay for it) costs them a job? A loan? Anything, in fact, that might go toward getting on firm financial ground? Where’s their bailout?

I got the form notarized yesterday morning at the Bank of America. The guy who performed the ceremony was kind of attractive and kind of flirty. “You have really nice handwriting,” he said. I said, why thank you. There was something sort of soothing about the entire procedure. He matched my actual face up with the picture on the driver’s license, and then watched very closely as I signed my name on the reference form. There is nothing automated or electronic about the notary business: you have to prove that you’re alive, and that you are who you say you are. It’s a business that appears completely unscathed by the Internet. Once the form was notarized and safely ensconced in my backpack, I decided to ask the guy where the account number is entered in the ledger. It’s not, he said. The account number is just for him to verify that I am indeed a customer of the bank, a bank that, in my opinion, I actually own whether I keep any money there or not.

Blown way out of proportion

Not long ago a little girl from Oregon City persuaded her mother to take her to Portland, where she set up a lemonade stand in a recently whitened neighborhood (Alberta) as part of a regularly scheduled event that purports to be an alternative to the Pearl District’s First Thursday. For those of you who read this blog and know nothing of Portland, First Thursday is an event that allows the rich and famous the opportunity to feel really urban and edgy once a month. It lets them dip their beautifully maintained toes into the wild waters of Art. Anyhow, it wasn’t long after the little girl set her stand up that someone from Multnomah County came along and informed her mother that she needed a permit. So the people in the booth next to the lemonade stand, who were self-proclaimed anarchists, advised the mother to give the lemonade away free of charge, but suggest a donation. The story, of course, was on all the local news channels, because we love nothing more than sappy, child-centric dramas. Then it hit the Internet, and then the national news and, I believe, the international news as well. Everyone got involved, everyone had an opinion and something to offer the poor little girl. This was a story, after all, that was custom made for the camp that likes to draw attention to itself by “giving back.” It was simple enough for everyone to understand, it was about the children, our very future. It didn’t take long for a Facebook page to get up and running.

And then something happened that totally impressed me. The mother went on Think Out Loud, a pretty good radio show on the local NPR affiliate. So too did the Multnomah County commissioner, who I thought did a pretty good job at straddling the line between saying the incident was unfortunate but, on the other hand, imagine the hell that would have erupted had someone gotten ill from the lemonade. Then a couple of other children came on to share their stories about lemonade stand – one of them even donated the profits to charity. So cute! The host asked the mother what she thought her daughter had learned from the experience. The mother, much to my surprise, said she was still thinking about it, but that one of the lessons she thought had been imparted is that the sky is the limit when it comes to ambitions, but still, there are rules and it’s important to follow them. I know a lot of people call it stammering, but I think it’s refreshing when it’s obvious that someone is thinking about her answer before spewing it forth.

Then, and this was bound to happen, an attention-seeker disguised as a giving, caring citizen called in. He was affiliated somehow with the anniversary party that was held on the Hawthorne Bridge over the weekend, a fundraiser, of course (everything in Portland is a fundraiser, sooner or later) and he was just overjoyed to be calling in to say that they’d love to save a spot for the little girl at the bridge party so that she could “make up for lost time.” This guy’s voice made me cringe. He spoke in that grandiose, let’s-save-the-day … together sort of way. I’m cynical and jaded, I realize, but my God, it is so fake, and it’s so scripted, and it seems to be everywhere I listen. I also think these stories are distracting. When we’re preoccupied with the maudlin, what are we ignoring? That’s my question.

Much to my surprise, there were no choked up voices eschewing gratitude and wonder at the beauty and kindness that surface even in these trying times. Instead, the mother said thank you, but no. Her daughter, she explained, was uncomfortable with all the attention. They were going to participate in a lemonade stand publicity stunt at a tire shop the following day, and then that would be the end of it. In a tone that was admirably neutral, the host of the program asked the mother, Why? Because, the mother said, this thing has already been blown way out of proportion.

Suspect

Last week a judge in California reached the conclusion that the law of the land should not accommodate the millions of voters in that state who used their ballots to promote their belief that two people with the same reproductive equipment should not be allowed to marry each other. Somehow, I found the response to the ruling more sickening than the passage of Proposition 8. After listening to the commentary, there are so many things I’m tempted to write about. I’d love to write about the boy in Portland who’s been missing for two months now, and hold up his utterly incompetent parents (there are four of them at the moment) as an example of why it’s a crapshoot to let heterosexuals have children – not because I believe that, of course, but because it’s exactly what the family folks would be broadcasting if half of what we’ve heard about so far were to happen under the watch of two gay parents, and I am starting to think it’s time to fight fire with fire. I’d like to write about the right-wing talk show hostess who bellowed that gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry because the parts don’t fit, an opinion she shares even with her gay friends. Either her gay friends are warped beyond recognition, or she has the most elastic definition of friendship on the planet. Speaking of parts, I wanted to write about how physically repulsive I find a guy I know who is convinced that 80 percent of the gay men he knows have “hit on” him. I wanted to write about that not to be mean – well, okay, maybe a little – but to clarify my position: if I were forced to make a choice between pleasuring him or his wife, it wouldn’t take me a fraction of a second to make up my mind to eat out.

Instead, though, I decided to do something more constructive. I am increasingly confused about all the legal talk that commences when the gay marriage issue comes up, so I downloaded the U.S. Constitution, and then I read it. It’s a beautiful document, I think, one that verges on elegance. But I do not think it is going to save the day for those of us who think people should be allowed to marry the person they love.

The first problem, I think, is Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which says “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

To me, four words bubble up to the top of that stew of double- and triple-speak: due process of law. What’s that? An election where the citizens vote on who is entitled – or not – to what? Or a town meeting down at the coliseum, where the applause meter determines whether the guy in the field gets mauled to death by the beasts? Or when a guy in a robe writes a scathing indictment on what he believes is the unconstitutionality of having one set of rules for male-female couples and another for the rest of us? The original purpose of the amendment was to manage and manipulate the then-nascent freedom of the newly liberated slaves. It draws on the same brand of slick that’s been elevated by people like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and scores more “moderate” Democrats: it sounds great, until you do a little digging. Obama’s position on the whole thing, if you can call it that, is straight out of the separate-but-equal playbook. Ironic, ain’t it? Our first black president.

More ominous, though, is the quiet but shrewd shop steward of constitutional law, the suspect classification doctrine. The suspect part of it comes into play when laws, or proposed laws, call out individuals, or groups of individuals, based on race, national origin, alienage or religious affiliation. In these cases, the supreme court holds these laws to a stricter degree of scrutiny by shifting the burden of proof to the government, which is required to prove that the law is indeed constitutional. All of which leads, of course, to the arena of civil rights laws, which make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, handicap or national origin.

You’ll notice, no doubt, that there’s nothing in there about sexual orientation. That would require a precedent. And given the fact that we have a supreme court that believes corporations should have the same rights as individuals and a president who appears to think there are some good policy cues to be taken from the age of racial segregation, I’m not holding my breath.

Hello from the situation room

About a year ago I got involved in a neighborhood effort. We mapped out a timeline, wrote a mission statement, planned some events to raise money and raise awareness. And from day one the entire process and accompanying personalities have annoyed me. That’s because there is, in this group, a fundamental lack of acknowledgement. Some people put a lot of time and effort into organizing the three separate databases into one that’s actually usable, or spend a weekend designing a logo, and the thank-yous, if they come at all, come begrudgingly. Then someone announces that she knows someone who will let us use his garage. For what purpose it’s not clear, but the news is received with trumpets and champagne. And that’s when the one-upping gets going in earnest. Over the weekend, one of the guys who recently signed on with this effort – and who is about to sign off – put it best. We were talking about one of our fellow volunteers. The man I was speaking with has raised millions of dollars for non-profits over the course of his career. And yet our fellow volunteer is clearly the expert. As the man said, “No matter who I suggest we work with, his connections are always just a little bit better than mine.”

So I started thinking about it, and I’m not exactly thrilled with where that led. The way this group functions, if you can call it that, is identical – identical – to the way my family behaved following the death of our mother in 2005 and our father in 2008. It was the way we’d always behaved, actually, but there’s nothing like the death of a parent when it comes to putting everything into high resolution. My brothers and sisters and I promptly divided ourselves into factions. Sitting on top of it all was one of my brothers – the self-appointed emperor – who, among other things, asked me to write an obituary for the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, then asked one of my sisters to do the same thing “… only better.” On its own, in isolation, that’s trivial and petty; multiply it by 50 or 75, on the other hand, and it’s brain tumor material.

Believe it or not, I’m not here to air the dirty laundry, or to reiterate how right I am about this or that. I am arrogant enough to not really give a shit what motivates those who consider themselves leadership material. And I’m vindictive enough to truly enjoy derailing them. What I am here to say here is that I had no idea how active a participant I am when it comes to seeking out situations that repeat the same script, over and over and over again. I look for them, and when I find them it’s not only like coming home, it is coming home. I don’t have a lot of faith in these sorts of things, but if knowledge is power, I just got some. Now I need to figure out what to do with it.

We want to spare others from our pain

Last week I noticed a truly strange story on the news. Two young women were in a horrendous car crash in Arizona. One died, and one survived, though barely. A week or so after the crash, the hospital realized a mistake had been made: the young woman whose memorial service was being planned was actually the one who was alive, and the one believed to be clinging to her life in the ICU had in fact died at the scene of the accident. I am sure this is shocking and horrific for all involved. I cannot image losing my child and then being informed that she’s actually still alive; nor can I imagine believing my daughter is fighting for her life only to be told that she actually lost the fight a week ago. But, this being the age of victimhood as a competitive sport, and also the age where the news is more than happy to serve as a forum for the contest provided there are enough tears, it didn’t end there. The outrage directed at the hospital over the mix up was shocking even to me. How could this have happened? one of the relatives blathered. This has caused a lot of unnecessary pain, said another. And then, on Friday morning, as if in deference to the Shirley Sherrod situation, one of the aunts used her moment in the spotlight to say that the hospital should have focused on accuracy rather than speed when informing the families. Which made me start wondering about a few things. First, does anyone really believe that we’d be willing to wait for the sake of accuracy? We want everything right now, if not sooner, and the minute there’s a delay on anything the whining begins. This is how flights delayed due to weather become national news stories. Second, if I’m ever in a dire situation, I’d strongly prefer that the emergency room staff focus on saving my life rather than trying to figure out who I am. And third, and this to me seems the most basic question of all – one that as far as I can tell was not asked last week – if the relatives weren’t able to discern one young woman from another, how on earth can they expect the people at the hospital to? If I’m ever in an ICU struggling for my life, I hope my loved ones are there with me, sending me their strength and wisdom, rather than getting dolled up to go on national television to bitch about the paperwork. I don’t want my friends and family to be so generous at a time like that, as the people in Arizona were last week, leaving the hospital and going before the cameras just to do their part to make sure nobody ever has to go through what they’ve experienced, a line that’s become a signature throughout the victim community. How altruistic of them.