Gwenny and the piece of toast

 

This is one of my dogs. Her name is Gwenny. Not long ago she got one of two pieces of over-heated toast I was sharing with her and her "brother", Poo.

Only she didn't eat it.

It was in her mind some kind of trophy. She carried it around everywhere with her like a prized toy. She loves showing off special gifts.

"Did you see this?"

"Did you how special this is?"

"Can you see how great it is that I have this?"

"Want to sniff it?"

"Did you see this?"

Not sure how long she would have carried it around with her if it hadn't been traded for something else and tossed in the garbage.

Just one of those quirks of behavior that dog lovers get a kick out of. And a cute pic.

Be well.

Show your love of liberty and justice -- support ENDA

[Liberty and justice for all?]

At the end of yesterday's blog post I briefly mentioned ENDA, the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, which is making it's way through the US Senate. As the title of the bill suggests, the law prohibits workplace discrimination because of factors such as gender-identity and sexual orientation.

While the bill is going to pass the Senate and the President is ready to sign it, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, released a statement through a spokesperson yesterday declaring that he "believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs." Later his office added that Boehner believes the bill is unnecessary because such workplaces protections are already protected under existing law.

The claim that federal law already guarantees such protections is not tenable, and most states don't have such explicit protections. If such legal protections already existed, then the possibility of lawsuits for unfair labor practices based on gender and sexual orientation would also exist. So the two statements eat each other.

But let's get back to the initial press release. There are two important things that are being explicitly said.

First, it is saying that LGBQT* rights aren't worth protecting. How can a lawsuit for equal protection and freedom from discrimination be frivolous unless the rights and protections themselves are viewed as unimportant? While one could argue that people could use the law to file false suits, how is that an argument against protecting people's rights? Does that mean we should repeal all workplace discrimination law to reduce frivolous lawsuits, or is it just the LGBQT* community (and maybe women and minorities) who don't count under the eyes of the law?

Second, it is saying that corporate profits are more important than the rights and legal protections of citizens. If  promoting or defending rights costs too much or is too much of an imposition to the business community, it isn't worthy doing. The fact that states with such protections haven't seen a spike in related frivolous lawsuits takes the stale air out of the "too costly" argument anyway.

So why would Boehner make such arguments against ENDA?

It is possible that Boehner and his fellow GOP House members believe these things. If so, vote for them at your peril lest your rights and legal protections be deemed too costly one day.

It is also possible, and more likely, that this is an extension of the culture war waged by the religious far right through their members and proxies elected to the House and Senate, with the redundancy and cost arguments as translucent cover for religion-based bigotry. Liberty and justice in the United States isn't supposed to be guaranteed at the whim of a particular religious sect or movement, let alone its political arm, which is why such motivations have to be given the pretense of legitimate cover.

It is also possible, of course that both of the preceding possibilities are true. Moreover, it's increasingly likely that US citizens will come to believe that one or both are true. If the Republican Party wants to change its image, it is going the wrong way here.

If you don't think that a particular religious movement or unfounded arguments about financial burdens should trump fair and equal protection under the law, then urge your representatives in Congress to support ENDA.

Be well.

Being a feminist

[Does she deserve equal opportunity and the same legal rights as men or not?]

There has been quite a stir over a recent graph that was made to dispel false notions of what feminism is. Some of the blow back I've seen really doesn't make sense. Some of it is faulting the simplicity of the graph, but some of it is the result of challenged privilege.

Privilege as it used in the social sciences and equality studies refers to the way that some groups  are more often given a pass on certain behavior, allowed extra rights and freedoms, and so on, simple because of their social identity. Maybe it is because someone is in the majority religion or ethnicity. Maybe it is because someone is a certain gender or sexual orientation (that is heteronormative male).

The converse is that there are those who are not privileged. Those folks may simply lack the same passes and extra opportunities the privileged receive, which is still a form of discrimination, or they may be mocked or openly oppressed.

Privilege is really hard to see if you have it, because either you assume that the inequality is natural and justified (so it isn't a bad thing) or because you don't face the discrimination yourself. In the latter case, privilege can easily become invisible. You assume everyone is treated fairly, and unfair treatment or practices are rare and not very serious.

This means that complaints about privilege, whether it is mild or severe, are seen as whining, weakness, or even asking for "special rights". After all, if everything is fair, if some group is asking for more recognition, liberty, etc, then they must want something extra, right? Plus, you know someone who is in a privileged group who has had it rough or who was surpassed by someone is the supposedly non-privileged group, so it all has to be an exaggeration or something that only existed in the past.

Except that privilege isn't just about individual anecdotes, it is about systemic and structural bias in cultural attitudes and social institutions. And this is what people of privilege have the hardest time seeing and acknowledging.

Trying to change the system is seen by those denying or defending privilege as reverse discrimination, which itself is a nonsensical term. Basically the idea is that other people are, again, getting "special" rights or are trying to punish those who have been benefiting from privilege. In some cases, those in favor of maintaining privilege lament the attack on what amounts to their supposed freedom to discriminate.

Moreover, there is a tendency to see a group seeking equality not only as asking for "extra" or "special" rights, but to get up or over on those who have privilege. To somehow control or dominate them. Because equality just doesn't compute. Someone's going to be over someone. Those women are man-hating femi-nazis, don'tcha know?

Autumn Chill

[This is what it felt like when I got out of bed today]

Today was the second day in the "new" clock time after the yearly end of Daylight Savings Time. I think "Fall Back" really means "Fall back into bed after silencing your alarm because your body still thinks it's an hour earlier and it happens to be really cold outside."

But that's just lazy and ungrateful thinking, so I put it aside and appreciated having a place to sleep indoors (even if poorly heated) and a blanket to make me more comfortable. And food, and generally good health, and the ability to feel and experience things, even things I may sometimes judge as good or bad (or non-judge as neutral).

It may have been in the mid-twenties at sunrise this morning, but a cold fall sunrise had its own beauty. While I was having my simple breakfast, the following song started playing. I am not sure I have heard of the artist before, but the music blended with the view outside and the temperature to create an interesting experience/perspective:




A kind of long view perspective, not in images or words but more of a felt thing. It's fascinating to me how the mind puts different elements together like that to create and also subtly influence our sense of reality.

Whatever my own problems, there are others who are suffering more than I am and beyond just the immediate suffering there are elements being put into place today that will determine how many and who will survive and thrive or flail and fail in the immediate and long term of our particular societies as well as our emerging global civilization.

Remembering this isn't at all about never having fun and being a dour scold or fusspot. But being grateful at the start of the day, remembering how quickly we judge and shape our experiences reflexively and often without realizing we are doing it, and considering that each of us can make choices that will have real impacts on our own quality of life and that of others, now and in the future, isn't about pessimism or a grim sense of duty or obligation.

It is a chance to recognize what we can do this day, to have the motivation to do it, and having made that resolve or actually having carried out our action, to be able to appreciate everything else without tension or unease. It is a realization that we do have the ability to make things better and also that everything doesn't depend on any one person doing it all.

I know, I know, it sounds like some lame motivational speech like the kind of stuff that floats around social media like stale platitudinal flotsam. That wasn't what I was going for. Really. Honest. It just kind of came out that way.

Yet it is true. I think we might feel better living in a more conscious way where we make the best of each day, appreciate it for what it is and offers, and make thoughtful choices based on those options. And to recognize that we often have more options than our habitual conditioning allows us to perceive.

But here is something you don't often get in those half-hearted faux-tivational blog posts and speeches. I am terrible at actually doing any of the things I just wrote about. I really, truly don't do it most of the time. Either I don't think of it because I am distracted by my routine unthinking or I just don't feel up to "appreciating" whatever it is that I can perceive that the day is offering. That's likely because I am having some self-centered tunnel vision.

There is a reason why gratitude and waking up to your life's blinders involves practice, whether religious or secular in description. Making it all out as being cheery and optimistic can be anathema to someone who is in an emotional or mental stupor, or worse, who has succumb to anxiety or depression. And while the goal may be to embrace and appreciate all things, there's nothing wrong with starting off with one or two things for a month or twelve.

I see I am rambling again, so I will violate all the official and unofficial advice on how to write a "successful" blog post and just stop writing at this very spot.

Happy Diwali! We need a New Enlightenment

[Pretty lights]

Yeah, I know, I just did a holiday post a couple of days ago. But this one is a festival of lights from India known as Diwali, so that means a pic candles lighting up the darkness.

This is a common theme of fall and winter holidays, marking the growing length of night and in the northern hemisphere the increasing cold. Whatever there other religious and cultural significance, Chanukah later this month and Bodhi Day, Christmas, Kwanza, and the rest in December also celebrate the theme of light shining in the deepest dark, hope in the midst of shadows of despair, and wisdom revealing itself in the heart of ignorance.

In other words, it was a way for people in a pre-industrial agrarian society to acknowledge and transform the situation they were facing each fall and winter, when having shelter and enough to eat was more important than ever. Prior to gas and later electric lamps, the world was truly dark when long nights fell save for your candles and lanterns here and there.

Certainly the whole "hope and wisdom" angle is still something those of us in the age of perpetual artificial light can acknowledge. And the value of light itself may still have special meaning for individuals who are still impacted by the change of season, like people suffering from seasonal affective disorder. I am not a SAD sufferer myself but I know one or two people who are.

One of the things we have ignored so well over the last century or two is that we are a part of our physical, ecological, and social environments. We evolved within them as a species, we develop and live within them as individuals. We do not exist apart from them.

I don't just mean we can't live without them, which is true enough. I mean that who we are, biologically and socially, is to a significant degree dependent on these environments. The belief that we can alter these environments to suit whatever our cultural values or collective desires dictate without real consequences is absurd and dangerous.

There are many ways our species, in either ignorance or arrogance, has altered how we exist by altering our environment. Some such as global warming and the destruction of biodiversity, get lots of press but relatively little serious commitment by nation-states and the globalized politico-economic systems to which modern nations are bound. Others, such as the affect of being taken off of a natural light cycle, are on the verge of breaking into the broader popular consciousness.

I don't know about you, but I dear reader think we could use some wisdom and inspiration. A new Enlightenment that combines the best of traditional cultures, modernism, and post-modern critique, drawing on all sources of human compassion and insight.

We need that kind of Light, and we need it now. Learn how to shine and how to see the light in others. That's what I wishing you for any and all of these holidays.

Be well.

Another year older

[Not the author...yet]

Age is a tricky thing. Most of us think of chronological age when we talk about how "old" we are. Yet the development or aging of our bodies don't all run at the same speeds. Not everyone has the same intellectual, emotional, or social maturity.

Depending on the ways you are aging and cultural/personal assumptions about which ages are "good" vs. "bad" or "better" vs. "worse", how you respond to reminders of your chronological age such as birthdays can vary quite  a bit.

Are you happier to be older and wiser? Are you sad to "lose" your youth? Or do you just ignore such questions because you are so focused on or distracted by other things?

As for me, I think that the discovery of my uncertain health status so close to my birthday makes me think a little more about getting older and where my life is, but I had been thinking about the latter for over a year so it doesn't come as some huge revelation. Maybe that will come in time.

Perhaps, though, I am simply not awake as so many sacred traditions put it. Might be worth it to work at that with some actual commitment and consistency. But in the mean time it is a cold, sunless, rainy Saturday and I am off to do celebrate in small, simple ways.

How dull, right? No sagely wisdom. No humorous freakout or perspective on life now that I am a certain age.

I don't think you wake up with that stuff. I've been blogging and writing in different online spaces for fifteen years, and this site is just one of the latest. There will be plenty of stuff to read, but not just because I am observing the anniversary of my birth.

Be well.

All Saint's Day

[Not quite all of them here...]

All Saint's Day was a way for the Church (note the big "C", as in the universal church, as in prior to all the schisms) to honor all of the saints who didn't get their own feast day as well as those who are unknown, such as the hundreds of anonymous martyrs who died when Rome outlawed the worrisome new atheistic cult.

Now, you may have no spiritual or cultural connection or affinity to any form of the Christian tradition, but you can still celebrate the date. How many people have died in the name of fearless love and merciful justice, to witness a greater truth about life even at the risk of their own? How many labored, were imprisoned, tortured,  or died anonymously?

Do you value their sacrifices to make a better world?

So go on and take a day to honor them.