Lost on the Lunatic Fringe

I’ve been listening to traditional music on Youtube today, and as I listened and read the comments, it occurs to me that the world is full of ancient butthurt. On the Amharic traditional song you have people claiming to be children of Kush with a bone to pick with those descended from Semites. I wondered if this were the source of the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia. In the Korean traditional song, you have people claiming that the Chinese stole the instrument from the Koreans, or that the Koreans simply kept using their secondhand Chinese instruments long after they fell out of fashion in China. It makes me wonder how much of the world’s problems are the result of people who can’t let go of a grudge.
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As long as you stay away from the family. I don’t mean my immediate family. I always look forward to seeing them. My extended family, however, are less of a priority for me. I got to thinking about how nice today has been, a Thanksgiving with the man that I love and no bitter aftertaste. We got to talking about the various things that get me tied in knots during the holidays, and it all comes down to a couple of people in the extended family who seem to think it’s their privilege to belittle others.

Recently I had an experience at a work potluck in which I brought a tres leches cake. The cake got compliments and raves. Then a woman came up to me and told me how I should improve it so that she would like it. I thought to myself how rude that was, and how it was something I’d experienced from a number of people in my extended family all my life. It took a stranger doing it for me to realize that it was rude, and that I shouldn’t tolerate that kind of treatment from strangers or from family. I also thought about how I had been brought up never to argue with them or contradict them, and always think about their feelings. It occurred to me that they’d never considered mine, and that reciprocation might be something a reasonable person could expect.

The conclusion I came to was that if I am trying to walk away from them, I should think about just saying “Thanks for everything, have a nice life.” I need to remember that what goes around comes around, and for my own mental health, I need to cut off the diseased relationships that have never been good. Once my own obligations are met, I can walk away with a clean conscience and have my own life again. I don’t have any responsibility for their happiness, and even if I did, that would probably be best accomplished by my absence during the holidays.

That’s what Kurt Vonnegut Jr. used in his book Slaughterhouse Five to indicate that someone had died. It was an ironic understatement.

I have to say, I don’t think I’ll be sad when 2009 is dead and gone. It’s been a rough year all around. We’ve been laid off, moved, been desperately broke, considered moving again, owed taxes, (the figure we owe is suspiciously similar to the figure we got in a stimulus check) and now due to a fuck-up on the part of our employer during Mehdi’s transfer, we’ve been presented with an $800 bill by our dentist, because Mehdi wasn’t covered by insurance during August. My first thought was, “Sykes strikes again”. The alternate thought was “And here we are again, guests of the surprise party department”.
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I recently read a review about a book which would seem to be by a woman after my own heart. Interestingly, I read about it on MSNBC.
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A couple of years ago I heard of a sweetener which was zero calorie and completely natural. It’s unavailability in the US was bitterly protested by the anti-additive crowd because it would seem to be a perfect alternative to dangerous additives like aspartame and sucralose. Its name was stevia, and it came from a South American plant of the same name whose leaves were dried and ground to produce the sweetener. The sweetener had been in use for decades in Japan in their diet soft drinks.
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Another day, another argument. Of course, in the local forum someone is talking about how what we did at Guantanamo was not torture, and that we’re fucking humanitarians for the “not torture” we carry out there. One woman, a suitably retarded old biddy, says that torture is justifiable and an effective way to get information. She says, “if my grandchild was kidnapped and this guy knew where he was, I’d torture him to get the information.” Wrong. For one thing, we’re not talking about Mexican mafia kidnappings. We’re talking about detainees suspected of or known to belong to enemy organizations, among others. If we’re talking about torture to get information, how come her approach seems to be leaning toward torture as punishment?
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.. I have to go to Walmart. This offends me, because I fucking hate Walmart. I’ll tell you why.

Walmart represents the homogenization of America. You could walk into a Walmart in California and be unable to tell which state you were in,because a Walmart in California is identical to one in Michigan. The products they sell in California are identical to the ones they sell in Michigan, with the exception of some climate-influenced items. What bothers me more is the fact that people seem to be reaching toward this uniformity, and that they appear to embrace it.
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Forgive me for being full of rants lately, but it’s the way my head works.

I was thinking about the whole church/state separation and the argument about how money has “in god we trust” printed on it in violation of that principle…and I got to thinking about how most transactions these days are done in the form of credit cards or even cell phones in some countries, or online. It occurred to me that just about the only things people use cash for, the only money with the aforementioned “in god we trust” on it, are drugs or sex. I guess I could think of other things, like the stuff from coin machines or soda or a beer at the bar. You know, entertainment. Leisure. Nobody really uses cash for things like the groceries or bills. Nobody uses cash anymore for the responsible things. The money with god on it goes for all the irresponsible things, the incidental things.

I got a giggle out of that. The money they’re fighting so hard to keep god on is mostly going for drinking, drugs and sex. Why? Because cash doesn’t leave a paper trail. It’s for the stuff you don’t want a record of. You know what? Fuck it. Leave god on the money. I think it’s pretty appropriate to equate money and god anyway, in an ironic sort of way that would not appeal at all to a religious person.

I was thinking today about a lot of things, but mostly I was thinking about the witch trials. Not just that, but that verse in the bible that says they shouldn’t be suffered to live. I thought to myself about how it was an obvious declaration of war against women who might undermine the patriarchal religion that is Christianity. Any woman who might know something or who might have authority was systematically removed. It achieved the double objective of removing existing threats to the priesthood and of frightening any other women into submission should they have been thinking of continuing the tradition of a female-dominated spirituality.
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I am always a little stunned at the scope of knowledge Mehdi has. We had another conversation in which he explained the inner workings of the universe. What gets me is not that Mehdi understands it. I know perfectly well how intelligent he is. What always stuns me is the fact that he can explain it in a way that keeps my attention and understanding.
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