Category: philosophy/sociology

View posts musing about the general human condition.

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No good deed goes unpunished

At the beginning of 2010, there was a horrible earthquake in Haiti.  For various reasons, I decided to donate some money and ended up choosing Habitat for Humanity as a recipient. And then began a solicitation campaign that bordered on harassment: emails at least once a week, paper mailings multiple times a month (almost every week).  In time, I began getting solicitations from other non-profits that I hadn’t yet heard of – so I can only imagine Habitat for Humanity had sold/shared my info with their partners.

I care deeply about the environment and I abhor waste.  When organizations that I’m not interested in use valuable resources printing out materials and mailing it to me, it bothers me. A lot.  It wastes my time and wastes resources (in a world where we’re using resources much faster than they’re being renewed and where everyone’s attention is under near-constant bombardment by the advertising industry).

I also get a lot of emails, most of which I care about.  I didn’t immediately unsubscribe to the Habitat for Humanity emails because they were giving updates about Haiti in addition to soliciting more money, but once I realized how frequently they were sending them, I used the automatic unsubscribe feature.  Next week, another email solicitation from them. I deleted that and figured maybe it was a glitch in their system, but the next week, I got another.  So I used the automatic unsubscribe feature again.  That time, it worked.

Then came time to deal with the paper mails, which I’d been dutifully recycling for a few months. Continue reading “No good deed goes unpunished”

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Cancer Dancer

I usually avoid personal posts here as I want to focus on writing and ideas (and diary-like entries are usually boring for casual readers), but I’ve been thinking about cancer a lot lately + I wrote a nice little haiku (about chemo):

Follicles fallow?
Consider hirsute respite
Head skin relaxing

This was for my good friend Mal’s support site (they are having a hairless haiku contest thing there).  It’s discomfiting to have a friend undergoing this (cancer, chemo, port surgery, etc.).  I’m just so powerless. I’m not religious; I’m not a good baker; I’m medically inept (though I know a modicum about herbs; I sent her some info on that); I don’t have a useful crafting skill; and sie’s one of the funniest people I know (I can’t make hir laugh – my ridiculousness is mild by comparison); physical hijinks are out (when one of us is too sick to jump). All I can do is wait and see. And even though I love all my friends, this particular one is exemplary in many ways (one of hir jobs is working as a clown for sick children, sie volunteers time with LGBT youth, walks dogs, etc.) and it just seems horribly unfair.

Also, one of my coworkers (my boss’s boss) has the big C and she’s super-nice and capable (one of the too-rare woman in a position of responsibility) – I see her daily in flamboyant headscarves. She’s cheerful and seems OK, but it’s still worrisome/sad. And I know of several friends who have recently or are about to lose parents or siblings to cancer.  I always knew cancer was a bad thing (my aunt had it years ago, but we were distant), but it always seemed abstract, like nuclear war or something.  It’s scary. This form of dancing is like dancing away from a chasm that suddenly opened up.

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Big G. wants to probe you; privacy & security

We already know that Big G. (i.e., Big Government) wants to look in your underwear; after all, that’s how they determine whether or not you can be eligible for the draft so that you can pull triggers and push buttons in the great war machine.  We also know they want to look in your bedrooms to see what you’re doing there, so they can punish you if you perform any unapproved acts (even when the participants are consenting adults). They can use these underwear/peephole checks to determine whether or not you’re capable of being married or whether you deserve other legal protections (e.g., housing, healthcare, job security).  However, Big G. is going to great new lengths now that we’re undergoing the 2nd generation McCarthy era (ultra- high-tech with better fear efficiency).

When the Cold War ended (officially in 1991, but well on its way to collapse by the mid 1980s), it was a terribly sad for Big G. – its favorite scapegoat and boxing buddy retired from the ring.  It tried for another abstract war concept (officially started in 1969, but ramped up into a powerful, mainstream initiative when the Cold War began to die down, in the 1980s), the War on Drugs.  That pepped things up for a brief while, but most people weren’t really that interested (ho-hum – Prohibition, been there, done that).  After a decade or so, most of those who weren’t using drugs (and many who were) weren’t particularly scared and, worse, it was transparently ineffective[1] (we need a war that we can at least pretend to make progress on). This so-called war was also undermined by our government’s collusion with drug-supporting regimes and rebel factions in other countries (e.g., the anti-Soviet [opium-growing] Taliban of the 1980s Afghanistan or the [cocaine-trafficking] Contras in Nicaragua, also in the Reagan “just say no” era).[2]

Continue reading “Big G. wants to probe you; privacy & security”

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criminal injustice

I don’t think most people understand how truly awful incarceration is. I think because the law so cavalierly assigns years of imprisonment, even for relatively minor crimes, that we trivialize the experience. Having your freedom forcibly removed, being locked up with extremely limited choices (no option to choose your own restaurant or go to a bar or art gallery or wherever) is no small matter.

Even a few months of this is extremely disruptive – you will likely lose your job, your apartment (or house) and possibly some friends and family in the “real” world while being caged in with a bunch of other “same-sex” unhappy prisoners (and not always nice prison guards). Even one year in prison is a very significant punishment, if you look at it from the point of view of the person actually experiencing it (just imagine yourself in it – no privacy, no family, surrounded by concrete walls, steel bars, precious little comfort to be had, etc.).

If we got our priorities straight (with an iota of compassion) and chopped all the knots off the legal system, I think crime could be classified and punished in a much simpler way – where the punishment would actually fit the crime and where many fewer people would ever need to be incarcerated for years at a time. Continue reading “criminal injustice”

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writer’s lock

The paradox of good writing (assuming you have an iota of talent) is that it takes a lot of time to sit down and figure out all the words and phrasing, but in order for it to be interesting (i.e., for you to have something worth saying), the writer needs to get out into the world and really live life (you cannot be locked up with a typewriter or computer all the time). This is especially true of non-fiction, but also true, I believe, even of fiction (which tends to fall flat when written by a deskbound, adventure-shy introvert).

Hunter S. Thompson is a great example of someone who really lived life (at least, had an excess of adventures) and could actually write, but by his own admission, was something of a crazed maniac. How is this possible by those of us who are not quite so blessed/cursed as HST?

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The problems with VD (valentine’s day)

Couples have some obvious advantages in terms of the physical intimacy and companionship that a relationship provides. Less obvious perhaps are the many societal advantages that being in a relationship gives people. Marriage (the “ideal”) provides many legal and social advantages, but even non-married couples are treated as the “standard” (what everyone should be, usually in temporary state prior to marriage, which of course everyone should ultimately aspire to), while singles are looked upon with pity and sometimes scorn. Many people, who leave the ranks of single to become coupled up, distance themselves from their old single friends in preference for other couple friends. Some organizations (i.e., most of politics) are completely closed to the un-married and single.

Throughout the entertainment complex, there is an obsession with relationships (love and sex both), which is a common theme in many, perhaps the majority of stories. When singles are acknowledged at all, single women are singled out (ha) as pariahs -  the “old maid” pejorative of old has now been replaced with “cat-lady.”  No one really acknowledges the existence of single parents (or if they do, it’s something that needs “fixing” with a wedding ring). Single men or “bachelors” are seen as biding their time until a suitable bride can be found. Most representations of singledom involve severe loneliness, misanthropy and/or mental illness. Not independence, self-reliance, community involvement or emotional sturdiness.

Couples are celebrated every day of the year in our culture while singles are put down or ignored, so having a special holiday dedicated to “romance” is a bit like having “white history month” (as if the already privileged need more recognition). Continue reading “The problems with VD (valentine’s day)”

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Breaking Up without Breaking Down

Note: I wrote this in the Fall of 2005, but never “published” it. I just found it and I think it’s pretty interesting, so I’m posting it here.

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Foreknowledge of what comes after is so often desperately absent from what comes before. One can always argue that we learn from our mistakes, but who can truly predict the future? Would it be terribly rude of me to ask, “So how do you handle a break-up?” on the first date? “How do you react when your heart is broken and your pride is downtrodden? Which of the following do you prefer as an tool of revenge? A. The telephone B. E-mail C. Physical omnipresence D. Emotional manipulation E. Financial manipulation F. Property damage G. Violence or H. All of the above ?” It’s not that I don’t adore the first baby-steps of a relationship, the fluttery stomach, the nervous conversations, the first hesitant, yet endearing kiss. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the middle parts when the nervousness has been replaced with a more easy-going camaraderie. It’s not that I’m unwilling to commit, nor that I believe every relationship is doomed to failure. It’s merely that in the case where things don’t work out, I’d like to live to tell about it with all my teeth, car tires and mental acuity intact. Continue reading “Breaking Up without Breaking Down”

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right-to-life, pro-life and other political misnomers

Some people are playing fast and loose with language in order to manipulate political situations. I would like to set a few things straight. Take for instance the term “conservative,” which means minimizing risk and minimizing resource use. A conservative must care about conservation of resources, independence and fiscal responsibility. In political terms, a conservative should be pro-efficiency, pro-environment (conservation), anti-big spending and desiring of low taxes, minimal regulation and, of course, balancing the budget. And yet, so-called “conservatives” are known to drive extremely inefficient passenger vehicles (SUVs, etc.), instigate expensive wars, borrow money from other countries, rely on foreign resources (oil), destroy environmental protections at home while wasting time and money regulating social contracts like marriage.

On the other hand, “liberal” indicates a belief in personal freedom. A liberal must care about the well-being and freedom of choice for individuals. In political terms, a liberal should be pro-equality, pro-environment (for health), pro-labor (rights), anti-imprisonment, anti-war, pro-health, supportive of personal freedom of action (speech, drugs, etc.). And yet, many so-called “liberals” oppose recreational drug use, promote war and are pro-prisons, tacitly anti-miscegenation, enforcers of gender-based discrimination and willing participants in a system that deliberately squanders resources (causing unnecessary disposal problems and related health issues) and routinely uses indentured servants as “labor” (illegal immigrants at home or sweat-shops abroad) for production of goods, all in the pursuit of ever greater profits. And some of these same so-called liberals support governmental regulation of social contracts like marriage. Continue reading “right-to-life, pro-life and other political misnomers”

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liberal cop-out: support soldiers, not war

Contrary to what some people claim, violence does solve things. It is not, however, the only solution; it’s just that the people who benefit by violence want you to see it that way. Violence is an easy method of engendering or maintaining power. An entire industry (the military-industrial complex) has risen up around this type of power-mongering and rakes in billions of dollars each year. Possibly more, considering the modern high-tech costs of war.

What is confounding is that, in recent years, liberals and peace protesters have come out with slogans like “support our troops, but not the war” which is sort of like saying, shut down the factory, but keep the factory workers employed, because without the soldiers, there is no war and without the war (or at least the potential of it), there is no need for soldiers.

Soldiers are not robots. If they were, they’d be fighting machines and wouldn’t get things like post-traumatic stress disorder. Since they’re not robots, like other human beings, they possess free will and can make choices. They’re also free to make mistakes. I believe that intentionally or carelessly killing other humans is a mistake. The most basic function of any organism is its own survival and as highly evolved animals, if we cannot respect the right of other humans to live, then we cannot expect them to respect our right to live. Continue reading “liberal cop-out: support soldiers, not war”