Yelling loudly when no one is listening

I listen to and read all these valiant verbal warriors railing against the weaknesses of their elected leaders, shaking their fists on their lunch breaks, commenting on the pathetic nature of their representatives or during their supposed work hours. All this rage must take a great deal of work. It can’t be healthy, to constantly be so angry, to rage against whatever target is at hand, to only know how to turn and twist words to suit your momentary mental state. I suspect it hollows out the self, to the point nothing remains, rendering the person into a spectre of hatred; hardly the sort of person one invites for anything besides a stoning.

Politicians cling to their jobs much in the same way most people do, and it’s ridiculous to suggest that they would put their livelihood at risk any more than the average person would. Expecting leadership and doing what is just is just as naive in politics as it is in every day ordinary life. I doubt most would throw their own (verbal) feces at their co-workers, as it likely would not endear them nor encourage their continued employment. Be thrilled when they do lead, don’t take the small good things to be insults, be better than that.

How many I wonder, had horrible parents, who chastised them for not being good enough, for not applauding the small steps as steps upon a long path, but rather abject failures with no future? Terribly Freudian I know, but so much anger and so much visceral hatred must stem from a world view that says that sort of thought and behavior is normal, and where else to take a good look first? And yet at some point they ought to look in upon themselves, to gather their own flaws into a pen, and to brush and de-worm the ones that can be, and terminate the rest.

SWA isn’t just 737s crossing the nation cheaply

Looks like I’ll be winging my way to the land of SWA for a few months, maybe even 6 (the official orders will be for a year, which I think is bone chilling) to do my current job in a land of sand.

Last year I volunteered as did a number of other people, including my co-worker who is going this time too. I’m in a very different place this year, at least in my own mind, but that only takes up 25% of my thoughts. The rest is “This is going to be so cool!/This is what my life was scripted to be like!”

Until details surface I can’t plan ahead too much. If there’s funds to do it, and it’s for 6 months, I may just try to sub-let my apt (partially furnished I guess, tho I don’t have nice stuff, and yet I kind of like it as is) and pocket the extra cash. More than likely though I’ll just cut keys for friends to check in on it now and then, run the roomba, drop off a rent check if the web bill pay fucks up or something.

Told my sister, and a few of my friends. reactions range from “OMFG are you insane?!” (I believe the split interrobang to be appropriate) to “Oh cool!”. Parents are away, so we’ll cover that soon enough.

The other guy who volunteered is the most amazing tech ever. I’m pretty darn good so my boss, if he could say no, would, but he knows we both really want it, and no one else is in a position to say yes, or has as broad experience and healthy (over)work ethic.

I’m taking the first rotation, my co-worker the second, with an overlap in the middle.

I guess I should go out and get all the American excess out of my system before I go over.  life

Out Stealing Horses, in continuation

Still reading Out Stealing Horses, and still incapable of describing how in so few words he can construct mental landmines with such perfect balance.

A call to reason, through a different prism

One of my greatest frustrations with supposedly intelligent/educated/thoughtful people in America is that they usually lack the knowledge beyond their own subjective experience or desire to understand. History is a lost concept to so many, which gives rise to impatience and a failure to appreciate that time is a variable they actually do need to consider, not something to be brushed aside as an artifact, curious and unimportant.

This becomes ever more clear with the increasingly shrill and agitated yelling and gnashing of teeth by many gay men (and it is almost exclusively gay men) who with the benefit of just four months of a presidency have already both given up hope and ascribed martyr status to themselves. It is a mixture of distaste and incredulity that I observe this act play out around me.

Perhaps it is viewing a steady parade of Western European nations take the plunge into equal marriage that makes them feel so in need to shake their fists for wishes of a better shake. This is where they fail the test of understanding. I will show the Nordic thinking and Sweden foremost, because it is what I know best.  There is a leftism which has blended into the culture, which encompasses a feminism and egalitarianism that most relatively well off gay men would shudder at, that is if they understood it.

Gay rights in the Nordic countries¹ spring in part from the emancipation of women, of full equality and of a mutual support which many American gay men have not embraced as their own. Equal marriage in those countries has come slowly, and is based on rule by consensus, and in a piecemeal fashion. The decriminalization of sex between two men or two women happened in 1944, not in 2003, though unfortunately the conception of it as an illness remained in medical literature until 1979, 6 years after the APA changed its diagnosis. In 1955, the highest court in the land decreed that being a lesbian is not reason on its own to deny a woman custody of her children. Civil unions with a little extra happened in Sweden 14 years ago, and marriage only a month ago.  The courts were not the way forward, and adversarial actions do not always lead to change or progress; forging bonds do. In addition marriage as such is a different beast, does not mean joint ownership of property and debt but rather that each individual remains responsible for his or her own and still pays taxes as an individual.

Culture and history have a far greater effect than most would like to admit, yet it is to do a disservice to ourselves to pretend they do not matter. Tied up in those are real people with real emotions, and there are some who will always be opposed, but it’s not necessary to say that we can only have gay marriage or only health care for all, or only one thing. People are many things, and have many different, sometimes changing, priorities. To deny this, and to upbraid, lecture and hound those who disagree with you, invalidates your argument, and sensible people will tune you out.

Consider more than just the “I want it NOW!” reaction, which while visceral and emotionally satisfying, is both ephemeral and likely to lead to disappointment and perhaps even setting back progress, just as the hasty moves of Bill “The Waffle/I feel your pain, breasts” Clinton showed us not so long ago.

Man har mycket gratis som                           You have a lot of advantages²
bög och man. Men det finns                          as gay and a man. But there are still
sammanhang där jag inte                                many contexts in which
är normen.  - Are I am not the norm.- Are

As shy as some are of the word and concept, duty comes to mind. It is your duty not to fulminate and rant and rave, but rather to try to live your life honestly, openly and with respect toward others. It is they who go to the ballot box after all, and to work with you, and with whom you share the rather short time you will have here between birth and death.

Everything you can learn erroneously from bloggers

EVERYONE in NYC has big pecs.

EVERYONE with body hair in prodigious amounts is a slut.

EVERYONE who is IN is bitter and amusing.

EVERYONE hates vegetables unless they came from a chic farmer’s market.

EVERYONE is filled with righteous anger.

EVERYONE is living in an attic in Nazi occupied Holland.

EVERYONE is blissfully happy.

EVERYONE is miserable and has to share.

EVERYONE knows better than you do.

Everyone knows better.

“What are you reading?”

“What are you reading?” he said, nodding, or cocking his head forward, temple first, toward the book under my left arm, held against my side, post it inserted. I showed him the book, which I’d actually seen first there but thought better of mentioning. “It’s ‘Out Stealing Horses’ by Per Petterson but in Swedish. The original is in Norwegian so I asked my sister to get me a copy. Norwegian and Swedish are close and sometimes English misses things.” I said, hoping it sounded as flat and non-snobbish as I meant it to sound. He nodded, I don’t think he smiled, but at the end of the transaction he wished me luck and sent me on my way.

It really is about what is missing. English is an excellent language, with so many words and imported ones too, that everything should be within its grasp. It is however, incapable of replicating exactly the meaning of some texts, and sometimes even when the translation is perfect (I have not read this book in English but hear the translation is excellent), it’s as if something is missing. Even the title, though accurate, misses a certain meaning in the title in Swedish. “Out Stealing Horses” suggests a present activity in motion or a past event not in doubt, but the Swedish title suggests something to be done, a future that is a planned event but may or may not come to pass. So too there is a fear on my part that translations miss some aspect, that I am missing out on something which I can only approximate an understanding of, but as in a commercial roll versus my aunt’s sweet rolls, you can only know it’s missing if you’ve had one before. It is a pain I cannot quite describe, almost heart-breaking to know that there is something which I am denied knowing because I do not have the means to get at it.

I’ve always been flustered talking to him, the book seller, and I have shopped there for books for many, many years. There is something I cannot explain about him. There’s nothing particular about him I suppose, except that everything is particularly interesting. Even as someone who doesn’t fancy the “word shirt” fashion, his light blue t-shirt emblazoned with “the queens army will make a man out of you” made me cock my head around the stacks just to make sure I saw it, in case he wasn’t the one ringing me up. His beard is neatly trimmed these days, perhaps in preparation for our summer ahead, and his legs, though hairless, betray some activity other than walking to and fro in a bookstore. More than any of that however, is his presence, which renders me mute, which is why I am quite pleased that I managed to exchange perhaps a sentence or two and even look him in the eye for once. I think now at least, in passing and overhearing, I know his name. I remain certain that he is unavailable for a number of reasons, and it is quite alright; not everything in life is about the having.

They were placing out all the new books, all those little literary love affairs crowning the entranceway to Kramerbooks, presenting themselves in full view, but not begging, not pleading, merely suggesting their presence; I am but a lonely sailor to a siren, helpless to resist. I’ve probably spent the GDP of an LDC or two in bookstores, with much of the thoughtful fiction of the past few years being sourced there and the now defunct Olsson’s.

If anyone cares to take up suggestions for namesday presents, may I suggest that you point out where I can procure a sturdy, quality, all wood (no more G_Damn fiberboard!) bookcase, with additional storage as an option, in DC. I would even rent a car if there were suggestions which panned out, if it meant I could continue to feed my addiction.

Thoughts on fully expected Prop 8 ruling

How can they rule that way? It’s a very narrow ruling on the proposition’s legality, rather than on the Equal Protection clause. They also are not ruling on an amendment to the US constitution, only to the CA one. Since constitutions are living documents and can be changed by the electorate (in CA they don’t appear to have well thought out measures such as requiring passage twice and affirmation by the state legislature for example), it’s a rational ruling. Does it suck? Yes. Is it perfectly legal and rational given the way CA’s constitution and proposition system works? Also yes.

Right now:
CA residents should focus their anger on fixing their gloriously fucked up system of governing themselves, so that they don’t send wingnuts of both flavors to the legislature. Dump the Prop system! Or fix it somehow. Bosnia has a better government than the state of CA ferg’dssake, and they just got yelled at by Joe Biden.

When The Economist calls you an ungovernable state, you really need to pay attention. Californians have long made a big deal about how if they were independent they’d be the x largest economy in the world. They’d also be the worst governed in the top 100, nudging out such stars as India (who have now managed, with the recent election, to make CA look pathetic) and Japan (whose constant LDP governments flail until the election, yet always wins) and landing in the neighborhood of the LDCs (Least developed countries). The EU wouldn’t accept it as a member and they accepted Bulgaria and Romania, albeit with considerable reservations.

If you really want to be part of the solution, make sure you are invested in fixing the whole apparatus, not just one loose cog.

OBE is not an option

There are two events of note this weekend, one a staple of life that signals the opening of summer and a parade of other people’s memories, and the other a one time event which is noteworthy because it will be my memory.

The first is Rolling Thunder, which runs through the weekend, where motorcycle riding veterans course through DC, announcing their arrival in advance as loudly as the peeling of a fighter jet leaving formation to fly up signals an end. Neither requires warning, any more than the sound of bells announce happier events in northern climates.

I wonder how the current generation will memorialize those who have died, and those who live. Will they have to wait until it is a forgotten war, thoughtfully memorialized in a small stretch of land that evokes far more than the interruption of the longstanding conversation between three great presidents? Will there be the uproar of a “ditch”, only to become the most moving of memorials for a conflict so steeped in bad blood and conflicted silence to this day? Between two conflicts where the cost has been borne by so few, it does not augur well for the building of anything.

The second event is the wedding of my oldest friend in America, and my first wedding in this country. A good match in every respect, and it will be a privilege to attend.

A weekend to remember.

Dodging raindrops no more

I can walk without feeling flustered in the rain now, or at least attain acceptance of the state much more quickly. Before I had to stop when in a dry place, wipe my glasses, and hope it was dry when I got back out, or that the cloth would miraculously dry before then.

I did trade one weakness for another, one I was partially prepared for. I lost what may have been better than average night vision for a very good daylight vision, and it was a fair trade. It’s the vision in low light conditions that have left me a little unhappy, but what’s done is done, and overall it’s for the best. My night vision would have disappeared with age anyway, or so they say.

I can see in the shower, but I still keep my eyes closed at home, out of decades of practice and habit, and still in the dark, saving electricity by the penny, and wasting it by the pound in the extra hot water.

My own experience weighs more than anyone else’s, no matter what stories, tales and “Praise Jesus” moments I hear.

Persistence

I recently replied to someone who noted they’d deleted all their data before departing their last place of employ. I realize the logic behind it, though it’s a logic that rests on a very limited set of variables. Data is persistent, it doesn’t go *poof* when you hit delete, or when you empty the recycle bin, any more than your trash disappears just because you dropped it in a wastebasket. The ignorance of this fact is generally one which can be perilous for your run of the mill miscreant, or sloppy employee charged with data destruction.

I was once on an air force base, and figured perhaps the best or most fun (though definitely not approved, nor cost efficient I would think) way to destroy a hard drive’s data there would be to hang it behind the engine of a C-5. Physical destruction is a pretty reliable method: personally I’ve developed a preference for a power drill, a hammer, and a 7 floor drop. A 7-pass wipe is very reliable, but there is a certain satisfaction to hearing the drive rip itself apart.

Human memory can be surprisingly similar, though humans have an almost built in ability to purge data, but it often misses pieces. Erasure is only possible by the exact same means for both storage vessels: destruction.