The Indigestible

Last year I wrote that I wouldn’t say anything more about Obama unless I had to.

Yeah, well.

The Dem primaries are really bringing out a stack of ugly, aren’t they? Apart from the locker-room thinking that goes toward disparaging Edwards or Kucinich, we’ve got the usual gang of inbreds and their comments on Clinton and Obama. It’s funny, in a wretched gut-twisting sort of way, to see the right wing carefully stepping through their self-laid minefield of misogyny, sexism and racism as they try to find legitimate reasons to dislike the lead runners. It seems that, to them, the race has become all about gender and color.

But as Pam has pointed out, this isn’t happening with just the right wing. We know that cretins such as Limbaugh and Coulter are going to savage anyone in the Dem camp — it’s their raison d’etre — and we know that they’re going to use the veiled (and not-so-) language of privilege in order to accomplish it. Seeing it happen from the left as well is simply shabby.

There are legitimate reasons to have qualms about either candidate; for instance, Clinton voted in favor of attacking Iraq, and Obama genuinely is a little green (though, to be honest, there’s simply no way in hell he could do a worse job than the inbred caretaker at 1600 Penna Ave right now, but that could also be said of Clinton). I’d rather see Edwards and Kucinich getting more attention, because it seems to me that they’re closer to the mark in terms of what the nation actually wants — but hey, this is our political American Idol, innit? So we can’t count on being right winning out.

But when qualms become covert attacks — particularly racist ones, or fearmongering ones, or attacks that try to make an issue of something that’s already been discussed openly and in publication — it makes it a hell of a lot easier to knock out of the running the candidate whose campaign appears to be supporting the tactics. For me, that shoves Clinton to the back of the line, I’m afraid.

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Sir Arthur Eddington said this of our cosmos: “Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine; it is stranger than we can imagine.” I was reminded today of that fact by an image I’d forgotten.

In an effort to reduce the bareness of the walls in Yoshi’s bedroom (as well as in an effort to lay the foundations for his ultimate nerdification), I went on an image hunt, aiming for some good planetary graphics that I could turn into tabloid-sized posters. I googled Mars, the Moon, Venus and so on, and went looking for some Hubble shots as well.

I found some great artwork, including cylindrical-projection topo maps of Mars and Venus. This page yielded some great pics particularly, suggesting what Mars would have looked like if it still had water on its surface. Most of the continental mass would have been in the southern hemisphere, with the ocean a more or less solid body of water utterly dominating the northern half of the planet.¹

But I also came across this page from ESA, and specifically this image on that page:

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To the market, I say to you, only to the market.
There we will buy only the things we need, and then we will return home.
And, knowing your eyes, I know the lie in my remonstrance;
for I have never been able to resist you
in your puppy looks as you plead silently after sweets
and caress with quiet longing the blister-packed toys.

We are not rich but we have soap,
which you hate,
as all boys do.
It is a small luxury I can afford, an easy price
to see you gleam.
The one penalty for going to the market
you accept with little grace,
but some tolerance, showing me you have washed
and I remind you that Allah loves the cleanly.

Then I must be very beloved indeed, you say.
Such truth in your complaint.

Dressed simply, fragrant with soap, my wealth,
you wait beside me for the bus,
your eyes bright but tainted with the fear
reflecting from my own furtive watch of the neighborhood.
It is not as it was, and I can no longer say
with the surety I once held
that our lives are better now.

But someday, son, I know
this will cease; you will one day be happy again,
your life — simple now, even still, even amid this —
filled with the simple trials of school
and girls and, one day,
marriage and grandchildren for me to relentlessly spoil,
and you wonder a little at my smile as you see it,
and smile back, tentatively, your hand slipping into mine.

So little you know.
So few heartbeats you have had.

I say I love you.
Then, you insist, with the logic of the young,
you must buy me a —
No, I say. No treats this time.
You didn’t wash up properly after supper last night
and you are still being punished.

We both know this means nothing.

Grunting along the patched, roughhewn macadam
the bus growls up its gears, and there is a crack and shudder
a blistering flash of time
scintillating around us as life becomes shattered,
glass diamonds glinting cold,
rubies bright across my eyes.
Your hand, in mine, loosens.

And I cannot hold on to you.

I wanted to say, I wanted to say —
so fast, you were away so fast, your eyes frightened, and I wanted to say —

How many nights did I hold you thus as your heart beat so fast
and rock you as you wept, comforting you, easing your childish fears
of the distant cracks of doom,
whispering into the cup of your ear that we were safe
within the walls of our home?

It has, it has ceased.

I cannot hold on to you.

Bathed now, cleaned now, safe now from any more harm,
beloved,
I leave you to move once more, numb, into the world of light
and sweets and toys,
and if only I could, my son,
I would buy all of them for you
just to feel your hand stir once more in mine,
your puppy eyes aglow.

==

Inspired by; in reference to.

A meditation practice used often in the Buddhist world, tonglen (”giving and receiving”) is often construed as being a means by which the suffering of someone may be relieved. It’s not unusual to hear of tonglen requests directed toward another, and seems to be used often as an analogue to prayer.

This doesn’t strike me as being the chief purpose of the practice.¹ As described in depth by Pema Chödrön, tonglen seems to be more effective at facing one’s own hangups. The practice is deceptively simple, and goes something like this. (It’s assumed one is already in meditation for this.)

1. Visualize someone you know who is in distress.
2. As you inhale, imagine yourself taking in that person’s pain.
3. As you exhale, imagine relief from suffering going out to that person.

This is simple to do when we’re contemplating friends or other loved ones, of course; but Chödrön doesn’t let us off so easily. We’re advised to practice tonglen for others as well, including those whom we dislike, or whom we believe to have harmed us.

It’s a challenge. And sometimes, the effects can be startling. You can actually feel your antipathy toward a perceived enemy slip; you can feel the change in temperament within yourself as you accept that individual’s pain, frustration, anger at the world.

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It’s an occupational hazard for an atheist to hear that he’s soulless, unfeeling, uncaring; we’re regularly reminded that we’re hateful, amoral, would-be murderers and rapists and thieves. The logic is that if there is no god, everything is permitted; the world, under atheistic rule, would be at best an emotionless void subject only to Spocklike cold logic, an unloving, unfeeling, inhuman place.

I refute it, with a poem by atheist naturalist Chris Clarke, thus. I challenge you to read it and not weep.

• Bring the hope of realistic closure to our stupidity in Iraq
• Impeach
• Put the reins on Dick Cheney’s war-hardon
• Put an end to American torture
• Insure children
• End civil liberties and privacy violations

What they have done while our soldiers die at the pleasure of the President:

• Pass a pork-laden bill at the expense of SCHIP

Fuck them. Fuck the Democrats, fuck the Republicans, fuck the Independents, fuck them all.

The right-wing foamers’ full frontal assault on twelve-year-old Graeme Frost was clearly insufficient to slake their leaders’ need for the blood of children. More recently a toddler named Bethany Wilkerson has fallen under attack — more specifically, her parents’ decision to give birth to her.

The capsule version of the very good fisking on Orcinus is (1) Don’t abort, (2) Don’t have uninsured children; in fact, (3) Don’t have sex.

What baffles me (and libbish bloggers like me) the most is how the right-wing asstards can, on the one hand, claim to be “pro-family” while, on the other hand, be so obviously anti-family.

Of course it’s not really about family, and I differ from the post on Orcinus in one respect. I don’t think it’s about sex with the righties; I think it’s about authoritarianism, their specific, strong brand of it. They simply want the world to adhere to their rules and be white, Christian, heterosexual, gainfully employed, married with Dad in the workplace, Mom in the home tending for the three towheaded, homeschooled children, everyone kept so busy keeping their eyes on Jesus that they won’t have time for questioning of or dissension against the government.

I see another fight looming on the horizon, though, presaged by an article from the Beeb about a new version of conception control, a pill that may or may not be available in ten or so years — and that doesn’t use hormones at all, but rather does some RNA hacking instead to prevent sperm from penetrating an egg entirely.

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Well, I half-saw it; so maybe it was only half-awful.

As an English major I was painfully aware, sometimes, of how dreadful some stories could be. Directionless and pointless drivel which seemed of interest primarily for historical value, but certainly not for literary quality, was regularly heaved across my palate. I was subjected to the contrast of Nadine Gordimer versus Ayn Rand¹; I was forced to read Sarah Grand² while at the same time trying to appreciate George Eliot; I was subjected to Moby-Dick and Emma³ as though they were equals.

For recreation I indulged many casual tastes. Generally these were of the SF nature. Not Asimov — Foundation is too facile, too easy; not Bradbury, though I still love Martian Chronicles and Dandelion Wine; not Burgess, though Clockwork Orange is still just fucking amazing. No, for recreation I indulged instead the works of Philip K. Dick, Italo Calvino, Stanislaw Lem and Samuel R. Delany.

I became, in short, an SF literary snob.

And what amused and amazed me, in a good way, was how brilliant some SF really was; not just in the written realm. Babylon 5 was terrific, since it had a well-planted and -planned story arc and indulged the heresies of Lovecraft; Lain and Cowboy Bebop satisfied my craving for good animé coupled with my need for a solid, cogent story; and the very first time I saw Firefly — its premiere episode on Fox, when the series aired out of date and out of order — even then, I knew I was seeing something that would not last, could not persist; for it was far too good, far too deep, and far too original.

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I wrote this in 1999, a bit after Wisconsin Winter.

It is a lovesong for a cat.
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Hard to imagine it’s been that long.

Tuesday, 11 September 2001, America got a hell of a wake-up call.

I’m not going to recap what’s happened since then.

I just have an image that might be worth considering.

As a PDF.

Most of this is lifted directly from a comment I posted at Pam’s place regarding a “youth ministry” that recently offered a “free” Bible to anyone willing to send in five bucks to cover shipping costs.

Guess what?

They ran out of Bibles!

Allegedly.

Hmm. Wonder where all those Lincolns are going.

Anyway, a commenter there mentioned the Youth Bibles of the 1970s, which I actually remember. They were a Zondervan-style production done up in ways that would appeal — presumably — to the disaffected boys and girls living in a post-Beatles America, trying to make sense of how the Summer of Love had gone so terribly weird all of a sudden.

That reminded me of a specific Bible phenomenon of the 1980s: The Book. This was another modernized Bible done up in language accessible to late-20th-Century readers. Overall, not a bad idea necessarily, since knowing the one book that dictates so much about American culture isn’t a bad thing; however, there was a much more popular extrusion called The Story, which was given away for practically nothing ($2.99, if memory serves).

This was a very condensed form of The Book, was released as a pulp-sized rack edition, and was covered in yellow-colored stock that featured a hologram of a dove. (It was the 1980s. Printed holography was Teh Kewl then.) It was 300 or so pages long, written in novel style, with dialogue in quotes, and skipped over a lot of the begats to sort of get to the point, which was of course that Jesus is the Light of the bla bla bla.

Well, it seems the most current edition is something called the Teen Extreme Bible, which reminded me of the time, a couple years back, when the Bible was released as a pair of magazines.

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Tens of Millions Dead

China’s been in the news more and more lately, and not just because of contaminated pet food.

That was bad enough, of course — the idea that feeding your dog or cat a regular part of its regular diet might end up killing the poor animal is awful for any pet owner to contemplate. But it’s not just limited to pet food; medicines, toothpastes and even human foods have been indicted as contaminated. It eventually became so bad that Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of China’s State Food and Drug Administration, was killed for his extreme negligence and outright corruption.

But it’s not really getting better over there, is it? Mattel has had to recall something on the order of 9 million Chinese-manufactured toys because of high levels of lead in paint, and because, apparently, small but powerful magnets used in some toys represent pinch hazards.

This is pretty significant. There’s a history of corruption that clearly did not end with either the removal — or the killing — of Zheng Xiaoyu. It’s a very safe bet that what we’re seeing here is a more or less literal iceberg’s tip.

Why this should matter is the Three Gorges Dam project.

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