Visiting with Grandma

My grandmother, who is 92, flew in to visit me this week. She came for my birthday, which is the best present I could possibly have had. Being single and living a long way from my family, I really have not had a birthday party in years. Yes, my friends have gone out to dinner with me, but always when schedules permitted, not on my birthday unless it was convenient. And no one made a cake or much of a fuss. I knew that I missed the fuss but I hadn’t realized how much until suddenly I could have family here to celebrate. Somebody is going to take the time to make me a cake and celebrate on my birthday.

There is a lesson here, both personally and societally. We have become way to busy getting things done to pay attention to the little rituals that matter. From now on I am going to remember that very little is more important than making time to celebrate the birthday or anniversary on the day of and to make cakes for others. And I can plan a party at my house for my birthdays, even it Grandma cannot come again. But I hope she can...

Sometimes I wish

I wish there was some way to make the abusive partners of the world suffer the way their partners suffer. My ex was abusive and it has taken 15 years to repair the damage to my self-esteem and self-image. Tonight I had drinks with a friend and her SIL (a new friend). I could so see the traces in her that I have been trying so hard to erase. I don’t often wish ill for others, but I so wish that those men could truly understand what they had done and feel the level of remorse appropriate for the injuries they have caused… And on a bad days, I wish that someone would do to them what they do to others. Then I remember that they probably already feel awful about themselves so I don’t know what good it would do.

The Framers of the Constitution Must be Rolling In Their Graves!

Congress has lost its collective mind.

Okay, so I am not politically conservative. But when Congress decided that Habeus Corpus is not important, they threw out one of the most important protections of our freedoms. Never mind, they tell us, it is just for terrorists, after all.

Yeah right. As I read the language, any one of us can be classified by the president and his band of thugs as a terrorist sympathizer and then thrown into one of their secret jails. Remind you of anyone? (Hint, we started a war in another country so we could get rid of him.) Okay, so calling the homeland security people thugs is a little extreme but not by any where near as much as I would like.

What is happening to our country that we don’t care about civil liberties any more? How can it be okay to have secret wire taps and secret jails and to throw people in prison because they might be terrorists? We sound more and more like Germany in Hitler’s rise to power or like we are a member of the so called “axis of evil.”

I’ve gone way beyond appalled at what my government is doing. Now I am just plain scared. G.W Bush sounds and acts like a dictator in the making. I have begun to wonder if he will attempt to stay in office after the next election. Is it possible that he will pull it off? Can I escape this country if he does? I no longer have any faith that Congress will try to prevent him. They will just ratify it as another necessary step to fighting terror…

Foley scandal

The Foley case leaves me a little sad but not terribly surprised. What does worry me is that Congress seems to have adopted a position that no matter what one of our own do, it doesn’t matter. They seem to believe that money and power are adequate excuses for any behavior. I cannot say I am surprised but I am disgusted. I am also disgusted at Foley’s excuses: alcoholism and a personal history of abuse do NOT justify his actions. There are loads of gay men out there who do not abuse their positions and who do not solicit underage men.

I keep wondering if the minors in questions were female, would it even have made the news? In the grand scheme of things, I am guessing not. And Foley almost certainly would not have had to resign - or maybe the IM content would have done him in anyway, but I doubt it.

What bothers me is that Congress doesn’t seem to be able to police itself. I can see where those in power might not have been sure on the basis of just the one email. I read the original email and think that it was perhaps a little more friendly than one might expect from a very powerful man. But I could also read it as avuncular – and that would be okay. Those of us without children of our own often have more interest in the kids of others simply because we have the time and energy to do so. We also will leave our legacies to other people’s children. So that was not so troubling to me.

But surely, when someone complained, they should have investigated. They should already have had some system so that questionable behavior, regardless of the gender of the page, is investigated. Any half-way competent investigator who asked the basic question “are there any members about whom the pages warn each other?” should have gotten to the bottom of the matter in a hurry. It makes you wonder about who else has such a reputation with either the male or female pages.

I frankly don’t know what to think about the IM texts. They are very graphic and obviously an attempt to engage in cyber sex. The questions I have are if the young man was of the age of consent at the time and if there was any sense of pressure to cooperate or Foley would harm his future career etc. Frankly, in some ways the transcript reads as if the young man were a willing participant. It is only at the end that one has to wonder.

But if the young man is legally an adult, then what is the difference between him and Monica Lewinski? Both engage in sexual behavior with much older men. 50 year old men get 20 something trophy wives/mistresses all the time. Why shouldn’t a 50+ year old gay man get a trophy boy? Since the young man no longer worked for Congress, I don’t see the problem if he is of age and consented. It would not be the first time that sex was willingly traded for opportunities and power. We certainly shouldn't be holding a gay man to a different standard than we hold the strait man to. Maybe we should insist on all congressional members maintaining some ethical standards....

Cancer is hard on all of us

My friend has cancer. At first it was this horrid overwhelming fact. I was terrified for her and in mourning for the relationship that we had.

Today, her cancer is just a fact. I haven’t forgotten it; that diagnosis sits there on the sidelines of all my thoughts about her, still wearing that horrid fluorescent pus colored sweat-shirt, waving a sign, and yelling “She’s Got Cancer!” But I have mostly learned to tune it out.

And our relationship has taken a different path. We are closer in some ways and oh so much more remote in others. Part of me still mourns the loss of my hopes and dreams for our friendship. What I mourn most is that I don’t expect her to have the energy to spend time with me. The rest of me is thankful for the friendship and hopes that as time passes she will regain the energy to spend time doing things together.

There are a few other changes. I read Larry Sievers’ blog daily. Today’s was about how it bothered him when people tell him about someone who beat the odds. For the first time I was totally unsympathetic. My response to him read:

As insensitive as this sounds, maybe it is not about you. I can see why it bothers you. I will probably try hard not to make those statements ever again.

But maybe they are not saying it to give you hope, maybe they are saying it to give themselves 1)hope and 2)something to say as they try desperately to process this horrid piece of news. No matter how well or how casually the individual knows you, when you tell them you have cancer, you are forcing them to reassess both your relationship and their perceptions of what will be. And you bring mortality back to the forefront - no longer can it be an unwelcome guest banished to the very edge of their consciousness. It is invited in to sit next to them.

At that moment they may need to have hope for you. As a friend, colleague, or family member, they need a way to give themselves hope that they are not going to lose you. As another living individual, they need to stave off their own fears about death. And often they need to do that while simultaneously holding a conversation with you.

And most of us find frank discussions about death, particularly our own fears about death, an unacceptable topic. Particularly here in the USA, most of us have been able to avoid confronting our own mortality. So rather than discuss your possible death or their fears, they tell you the story of someone who made it, trying to give both of you some hope.

As I wrote that, I realized that we do indeed have taboos about illness and cancer that I had never recognized. Maybe we need more conversations like those that Larry Sievers has started…

Bliss

(Note: I belong to a UU discussion group which has recently been discussing what it means to follow your bliss. This is a combination of some of my thoughts from there and where they have taken me.)

Is bliss is really separate from suffering? We have been assuming that bliss is the absence of suffering. But is it really? As a woman in the midst of a new love, I am not sure that I would say following my bliss means an absence of suffering. Maybe following your bliss simply means to following your heart, despite the suffering.
And even if we define bliss as a state of joy or happiness, then doesn't it follow that to follow your bliss means to pursue a state of joy or happiness. But that doesn't mean that selfish indulgences are inevitable. Rather, it could mean that you learn to see life in a different way. I am not saying this very well. there is page on consciousness that says it better http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/understanding-consciousness/ .

he says, in part, "...non-stop pervasive feeling of happiness. Perhaps a better word for it would be bliss. If you've done a lot of meditation, you've probably experienced this feeling of total oneness at some point. .... If you've read The Power of Now, I think Eckhart Tolle describes this state as a feeling of being totally in the present moment. I didn't fully understand that state when I first read the book. Now I do. This level of happiness is unconditional, not rooted in circumstances, ...”

I think the page is well worth the read. I am beginning to really feel that being present is perhaps the most spiritual and difficult thing we do. It requires that we not worry about what happened in the past or what might happen in the future. Instead we have to be right here right now. And I wonder if that is not how we find bliss – by being rooted firmly in the here and now, do we not enjoy the moment without the worries of past and future?

---

Still doing a lot of thinking about what constitutes bliss. And how is bliss really different from ecstasy?

The online dictionaries have interesting definitions:

Bliss =

the highest degree of happiness; blessedness; exalted felicity; heavenly joy. http://www.selfknowledge.com/10515.htm

Or

1. Extreme happiness; ecstasy. 2. The ecstasy of salvation; spiritual joy. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bliss and http://www.bartleby.com/61/59/B0325900.html

Or

1. complete happiness: perfect happiness 2. spiritual joy: a state of spiritual joy http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861591181/bliss.html

Or

1 : complete happiness 2 : PARADISE, HEAVEN http://www2.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/mwdictsn?va=bliss

I was struck by how bliss has come to mean, based on these definitions, a spiritual/religous joy. But perhaps it is more than the emotion itself. Perhaps bliss is really a state of being rather than the emotion that goes with it. Perhaps following your bliss is really about pursuing a state of spiritual wellness...

Someone recently asked me what dream I most wanted to come true. I was totally stymied. I really don't have any dreams that I am not currently chasing. I live a life that is mostly what I want. I am content in myself, for the most part - and working hard at being the best person I can be. Yes, I would like to have someone to share my life who didn’t walk on 4 legs and have fur. But I don't need someone to make my life whole or perfect, it would just be nice. Does that mean that I have achieved some level of bliss?

---

Still cannot define bliss but since I value the path as much as the destination, I suppose that in a way I am following my bliss. One of my biggest life lessons has been to try and learn to live in the here and now. There are so many things we can wish for and so many things we can wish were not true. But I haven't found any real power to change anything but myself. And changing me has been an intense, slow process. It is also occasionally very painful and I cannot claim to have obtained a state of persistent happiness.

I sometimes envy those with the conviction that they can really change the world. I never have felt that powerful. I might add that I am not truly sure I want to be that powerful. With great power comes great responsibility and often I am all I can cope with.

Losing time

When I started this, I thought that I would be writing daily. Who knew that though I have lots of thoughts, I would get lost when I tried to write them all down in a way that made sense. so many ideas, so little time, and oh so little organization. I promise to do better.

Iraq - not yet time to pull out

The Iraq War was not something I thought we should do but now that we are there, we are obligated to stay until we can leave them in better shape than when we arrived. What I have a hard time with is the whole politics of the thing.

At the time we were discussing going to war, I was against it. My first objection was the underlying premise: We think Saddam has weapons of mass destruction so we should remove him. That statement is like saying someone is capable of committing a crime so we should arrest them and put them in prison. Granted that in this case, the individual has a known tendency to use violence. That does not validate the argument. Preemptive wars simply prove which party is most prone to use violence.

My second objection has to do with state’s autonomy – we do not have a general right to invade another country because we don’t like their government. I do not want to live my life subject to the laws of Iran or Iraq. I do not want them to have the right to decide that I need to change the laws I live under because those laws do not match what their holy law. But if we set a precedent of overthrowing governments that we don’t like, we really don’t have much to protest if someday they decide to overthrow our government.

And that leads me to my third object – if the concepts we are using to justify the Iraq war were applied to the US, could someone justify invading us? The answer is yes. We are a nation with weapons of mass destruction and the only nation to use a nuclear weapon. We have a demonstrated aggressive government that has been known to make preemptive strikes. And we have now demonstrated that we believe one country has the right to remake the political system of another country.

My unrelated objection was that I could not see how this war would help us in the long run. People do not like having outsiders dictate to them. There is a natural resentment that results from being forced to do it the way someone else wants. Thus I expected an increase in resentment/hatred of Americans. I also felt that there was too much religious language in use, making us Christians and them Muslims. Religion is so personal that it amps up the emotional impact of everything else. And when you add in the clearly defined US as the outsider them, then there is a focus for all the rage, anger and fear. I could not help but believe that our invasion in Iraq would lead to an increase in anti-American hostility and a subsequent increase in the number of individuals willing to become “terrorists.” (and I am not even going to go into the whole issue of what is a terrorist this entry).

My expectation was always that this would be a long war. My fear was that it would become another Vietnam. I could not see how we could possibly get out in any short term (under 4 years). I could potentially envision us getting out in 10 years. But my fear was that this was really a 15-20 year project.

But President Bush and his cabinet ignored these issues and pushed us into the war. I doubt we will ever know the truth, but I believe that the decision was made in advance and Bush just looked for the facts that would support his decision. He does not welcome dissenting opinions and seems to prefer a group-think process to any intellectual rigor. My personal take on it is that George W is trying to prove that he is better than his father and so wanted to do internationally the one thing his father did not do. The problem is that he is taking the rest of us along with us (nothing more dangerous than a man with ego-problems and some power).

So now we are in this war and everyone has decided that it is time for us to pull-out. Not because we have accomplished something, but because they are beginning to realize how costly a war can be. The US public apparently believed that one can invade another country, change the government, and then walk away in a couple of months! All, of course, without any opposition or deaths. How naïve can they get?! It doesn’t really take all that much brains to figure out that it takes time and money, that when you fight a war people die. Yes, your people can die when you invade some other country. Perhaps they forgot the Korean and Vietnam wars?

Which brings me to my current struggle with the whole politics of what we do next. If we don’t want to make it worse, we have to stay and ensure a stable, democratic government is installed with adequate police and military to prevent ethnic cleansing and/or the reversion to a brutal dictatorship. We need to ensure that there is better infrastructure when we leave than when we arrived.

But I fear that once again I am going to be a minority voice. As a nation, we want instant gratification without paying for it. I am hearing more and more rumblings that the war is too costly and it is time to pull out. What we need now is someone willing to point out that the cost of pulling out too soon will be worse.

If we don’t accomplish better and more stable conditions, we will desperately wish that we had. Leaving to soon will do nothing more than create a crucible in which anti-US terrorists will breed and multiply. We will create a world condition worse than what we started with and, eventually, it will be our own citizens who die as a result.

©scrapsnthread

Having a voice of my own

It seems to me that there is this tendency to see the people of a country as a unified whole. Democracy is supposed to be this wonderful political system whereby the people control their government. The result is that the politicians and bureaucrats talk and act as if the government is representing all the people. But the problem with most modern democracies is that they are not direct democracies. Rather they are representative democracies where politicians get into power by a majority or plurality vote. That means they are only elected by a proportion of those they are supposed to represent.

The reality is that our representative democracy is not representing people like me very well. I find I am angry at the way the government is handling things with very little sense that they actually hear my protests. And I don’t trust them very much any more. In the last couple of years I have begun to believe that the US news has become so controlled by the government and big business that we might as well consider it state run news services.

And not all Americans are members of the conservative right. I certainly am not. I am not sure that I am a liberal either, though compared to them I am. I actually find that I define myself in terms of what I am not simply because I get so annoyed with their rhetoric that assumes I am just like them.

And that is where this blog comes in. We, the people living in the world, seem to have little input into the way we are presented and represented by the media and the government. I want to represent myself so that at least some will understand that we are not a homogenous whole who all believe in the course presented by our government.

So, here I am going to explore what it is I believe about philosophy, religion, ethics, art and politics. They do go together, although not always because they should.

I confess that I worry about putting these thoughts out into a public space. Speaking up can make one a target of some vitriolic and nasty attacks. I don’t particularly enjoy some of the nasty comments I get from people I know – I have been told that disagreeing is un-American and I should emigrate to some place where my views would be more acceptable. That not only hurts, it violates the principles of a democracy, which scares me.

I am writing despite my fears because the other choice is to let the bureaucrats and politicians destroy the earth and enslave us. That is, of course, a vast rhetorical overstatement. Nonetheless, it is how I am coming to feel about the current state of things. I choose to resist.

Getting into the swing of things

Well, I am finally back from Quebec City. Nice place and people but I missed the kitty girls. Actually, I like people but need lots of personal time. This being a business trip, had little personal time.

Most amazing sight there, at least that I saw, was the setting moon. Normally, I think of the harvest moons as rising moons. but this one was a setting moon. Gorgeous!

And then there was this wall. looked like it might have been the original wall around the settlement but was too new looking for that to be real. But the view gave history a new feel.

Welcome to Scrap's Book.

After threatening to start one of these for a long time, I am finally getting started. Wanted a place to have a voice on the issues I care about. Also a way for my friends to catch up to me. So here goes...