Feminism, Football, & Jacking Off

(Originally published in the April, 2013 issue of What White Elephant.)

I am a classical feminist in that I believe women should receive equal pay for equal work, have the same employment opportunities open to them as men, and be treated with the dignity and respect of equals as they so are to men.

However, men and women are inherently different on levels that go beyond mere reproductive physiology.

That last sentence will send flags up for more than a few, I suppose. This reaction isn't without warrant. I have myself on more than one occasion encountered fellow males of my species who start down their slippery slope with just such a statement. Then again, I've found males like myself who do not.

However, while I'm not about to be as cliche as to claim that there's a War on Men, I would say that there is a sector of our society which harbours and facilitates a distaste and denigration of overt masculinity.

For instance, take American Football. Sure, every now and then you run into a female playing on a high school football team, but they're rare. By and large, football is a male dominated sport. (Other than the Lingerie League, which, let's be honest, no one watches for the athleticism of its female players.) The NFL is proposing a new rule to prevent running backs from having their head down when running into linebackers.

This is an insane rule.

Moreover, last year a school board member in Dover, New Hampshire, Dr. Paul Butler, called for football to be banned from the school athletic program completely. Dr. Butler claims that this is due to the risk of concussions in developing brains, but it doesn't strike one as that. No, it rings with all the grandeur of nanny statism. Specifically, this guy knows what's best for you and your kid better than what you do.

Football and the traditions of football, just like many team sports, teach young men the value of playing fair, group effort, and hard work to achieve their goals, but let's be honest - the current War on Football isn't about football, per se; rather, this about the abolition of one of the few remaining male-dominated institutions present within our culture.

In her book, The War Against Boys, (there's that awful war word again), Christina Hoff Sommers points out that far from girls being the maligned and neglected wraiths trudging through the misogynistic halls of our educational system, data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that girls now out number their male cohorts in high-level math and science courses during high school as well as in extracurricular activities such as debate clubs, journalism, and the arts. The only place remaining where boys are represented in greater numbers are in athletics.

So much for women being the lackies of our educational system, how about in the more carnal areas of our society. In particular, masturbation.

Men are seen as sexual degenerates for bringing some much needed relief to their genitals - at least by the media and women. While female masturbation has entered a new golden age of technological advancement, males typically stick with the methods that have served them and their self-flagellating ancestors for generations. Men joke about it in large part now, but a mere 20 years ago it was never something would admit to.

Women? They now have "fun parties" where all variety mechanized and battery powered cunt rockers are available for purchase. The one advancement for men has been the "Fleshlight". I don't own one. That's not to say that I'm by any means opposed to owning one. I'm just not certain on what the cleaning instructions would be. Is it dishwasher safe? I ask this, but I doubt I'll have many friends over for dinner parties if I purchase one. Then again, I might have more friends over for a meal.

Related to the forgoing, but including a partner, men seem to be at risk of losing our position as necessary even with regard to the continuation of the species. New advances in science are making real the very possibility of human reproduction without the aid of men. (See: http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report_planet-of-the-women_1700432)

Is this the modern feminist utopia? Why would such a world be desirable? The article sings the praises of this which must mean that at least some part of the underlying current finds men and masculinity undesirable.

Now, we have women fighting in our military in combat roles - a decision which I fully support. I see no reason why it should be left to men alone to fight for their country. In fact, if that were the case, it would mean that only men were securing and defending the rights of women. Indeed, I want it to be said that as a society, as a culture, and as a nation, that we all fight to defend the rights of our citizens irrespective of gender, class, race, or sexual orientation.

However, a few years ago while in law school, I had a rather disheartening conversation with a classmate. We were discussing the roles of women in the workforce. This colleague, a modern feminist and not a classic one like myself, said during our discourse, that, "As a woman, I want every right and obligation that you have as a male." I told her I agreed with her completely. I then asked when she would attempt to register for Selective Service and sue the federal government over her application's denial. She paused, thought for a moment, and then said, "I want every right and obligation. Except that one."

If that's how she truly felt, and I have no reason to doubt that she did, then she's a hypocrite. Why should it be, now that women are in combat troops, that men alone are obligated to possibly mandatory military conscription? Why should those of us genetically predisposed to having a penis be left be the only ones forced to act as meat shields? It's now a discriminatory and hateful policy, though I doubt the law suits concerning it will be brought by the likes of Patricia Ireland or Bell Hooks.

I want equality for and with my female counterparts. I want people in positions of power and authority because they are the best qualified for those positions and not because what lies between their legs. The perversion of the modern feminist has been to seek equality with men by gradually grinding down the masculine aesthetic. This action by its very nature betrays women by making them appear mentally weaker by design as compared to men. I don't believe this and I hope that you don't either. Thus, when truly examined, it's the modern feminist who contradicts herself and acts as an anti-feminist as compared to those of us who know what this fight is really about and how to win it. 

Through a Bell Blankley

Bethany Blankley, of ChristianPost.com

Rob Bell founded and served as pastor of the Mars Hill Bible Mega-church in Grandville, Michigan through 2011. Since then he’s been writing books, conducting speaking tours, and generally schmoozing with television producers and the like around the California coast.

However, on March 17th of this year, while speaking at Grace Cathedral, an Episcopal Church in San Francisco, Rob Bell voiced his support for same-sex marriage. 

Specifically, he said, "I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it’s a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs — I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are. I think we are witnessing the death of a particular subculture that doesn’t work. I think there is a very narrow, politically intertwined, culturally ghettoized, Evangelical subculture that was told ‘we’re gonna change the thing’ and they haven’t. And they actually have turned away lots of people… We have supported policies and ways of viewing the world that are actually destructive.And we’ve done it in the name of God and we need to repent."

Well, I have no reason to doubt that this is how Rob Bell believes, though I'll also say that stating such in an Episcopal Church in the bluest of the blue cities doesn't strike me as particularly brave.

However, what I do find amusing in all of this are the absolute vicious attacks made by his fellow evangelicals - not only because of their rather unlettered and vacuous writings, but primarily because of their total disregard for church or social history. 

For example (the rather appropriately named) Bethany Blankley, writing for ChristianPost.com, unknowingly gives us a grand lesson in how not to frame issues and debate. Perhaps with no better place to start, she begins with the headline of her article, "Rob Bell Redefines Love, Fidelity, and Who God Is."

The blank Ms. Blankley's thesis statement of a headline is never supported in the body of her work. The words of Mr. Bell serve merely as a medium by which she, quite blankley, informs her choir why it is that homosexuals are deviant sinner perverts who need to repent. The only time she actually comes close to addressing Bell is early on where she states: 

"Many argue, like Bell, that if same sex couples are in a "loving and committed" relationship, than it is permissible for these couples to marry." 

I noted the above use of than for a reason. Ms. Blankley began by making an if-then contention within her argument, but she and/or her editor missed this error. Far be it from me to knock someone over one simple typo (we've all sinned and fell short, haven't we Ms. Blankley?) but this one especially annoys me. 

However, Ms. Blankley wastes only 22 words before triple dipping her crazy stick into a vat full of incorrect psychological terminology: 

"The underlying presupposition is that there is a "natural" homosexual orientation that is not addressed in Scripture. Therefore, homosexuality is a gender identity that no one chooses."

And then:

"To accept homosexual orientation as a gender identity is unbiblical and misunderstands the nature of sin."

No, Blankley, you're at best misunderstanding the term, "gender identity" and at worst, intentionally misusing it in order to make yourself appear more knowledgeable on the subject of psychology and human sexuality than you really are. Homosexuality and gender identity are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. Gay men don't want to be women. If they did, they'd be trangendered; said another way, they would feel that they had an internal gender different from what is shown by their reproductive organs. 

Sure, gay dudes sometimes dress in drag and lip sync disco songs, but talk to a drag queen sometime and you'll find out some interesting things: 1) Very few drag queens actively want to be women, 2) they can make pretty good money doing their shows, 3) they're tough as shit because they get a lot of crap from gay folks and straight folks alike, 4) they're generally having a lot of fun when they're doing shows, and 5) they're pretty funny. 

She also anticipates, in a limited way, some arguments from biology when she states (her declaratory statements in the following are intended as rhetorical artifacts to be argued against):

"Therefore, homosexuality is a gender identity that no one chooses. It is as natural as heterosexuality or being left handed. How can society or the law then expect people to change their identity? How can God, who made homosexuals that way, ask them to go against their nature? Isn't homosexuality God's decision?"

I find the statement on left-handedness to be especially tasty seeing as, for untold years, left-handed children were tortured under the auspices of religious education if they refused to write with their right hands and were also told they were agents of the devil. 

Ms. Blankley harps on her misuse of gender identity a bit more:

"To accept homosexual orientation as a gender identity is unbiblical and misunderstands the nature of sin."

For whatever reason, she seems to think that gay people are confused as to that gender they are. This patently untrue. Moreover, what would she propose to be the course of action for a person who was intersexed? That is to say, those people who from birth have genitals characteristic of both genders. Additionally, how would she regard those people born with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS)? If you don't know, AIS affects approximately 1 in every 20,400 XY chromosomal children born. People born with AIS are, from a chromosomal perspective, male, as they have an XY chromosomal make up. However, due to a genetic abnormality, these people cannot respond to the presence of testosterone. Therefore, they never develop a penis or testicles. Externally, they have a vagina and develop breasts, but internally lack a uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes. 

What would Ms. Blankley propose for these people? People with AIS tend to think of themselves as females, but genetically, they are in fact, male. These people are not confused and to be sure, they are people, but I suspect such thing are lost on those like Ms. Blankley. Would she condemn these souls to a life without the possibility of love or a relationship? And the discussion here of AIS is by no means the only instance in which Ms. Blankley's simple gender bifurcation would fail - other genetic and physical differences occur throughout nature and humanity. 

She continues:

"To accept homosexual orientation as a gender identity is unbiblical and misunderstands the nature of sin."

No, to accept homosexual orientation as a gender identity is: 1) to misappropriate the terminology, and 2) create a false dynamic which alleges that all homosexuals desire to belong to a gender different than to that in which they were born. Moreover, it's only unbiblical if one believes the bible. Not everyone does. 

She goes on to ask a question which she never adequately answers:

"Isn't the issue about love? Can't homosexuals be in a "loving and committed" relationship? The answer is no, just as heterosexuals in "loving and committed" relationships can be wrong."

Well, doesn't quite hit the mark does it. By the answer offered to her own question, heterosexual relationships can be right or wrong, but homosexual relationships can only ever be wrong. I have to wonder how many long-term, committed gay and lesbian couples Ms. Blankley has actually met. How many elderly gay or lesbians couples has she encountered who sit by the bed of their partner as he or she lay dying? 

So gay and lesbian couples are incapable of loving and committing to one another per Ms. Blankley. Got it. Sure. 

More:

"Finally, aren't biblical prohibitions against homosexuality obsolete? They don't "go with the times." In Bell's words, "the ship has sailed." The bible is equally relevant today as it was when it was written because it is not relative to cultural norms (1 Tim. 3:16)."

If all parts of the Bible are as equally relevant today as they were when it is written, then I hope that Ms. Blankley doesn't speak after having darkened her church's doors (1 Cor. 14:33-36), cut her hair (1 Cor. 11:13-16), and I suspect that by even writing this article, Ms. Blankley is violating the prohibition of 1 Timothy 2:12 wherein she's not permitted to teach concerning religious subjects. I guess she should have noted that the article was only for women to read. (I do wonder if it would be permissible for AIS women to read it or if their chromosomal construction or external genitals would be the controlling factor.)

And the forgoing doesn't begin to touch on the edicts of the old testament which allowed men to sell their daughters as servants and forbade the consumption of pork and shellfish among others. 

Ms. Blankley concludes her discourse with a love offering that gay and lesbian people can change their gender identity sexual orientation. She does this by citing Dr. Ed Welch, a Christian psychologist. As if the picking and choosing thus far was insufficient, this particular choice flies in the face of all reputable psychological and psychiatric research. Though, her point that many Christian counselors believe that sexual orientation can be altered may be unassailable, prima facie, that doesn't take away from the underlying falsehood. 

For all her religious motivations, she seems shockingly unconcerned with truth. 

The Rapist Inside of Me (or, the Two-Fold Irony of Rosalind Wiseman)

This is what I hate most about the current state of journalism and media in western society. 

Two-fold Irony: Wiseman.

CNN.com's headline is, "How do I raise a boy not to be a rapist?" 

The question is more than a mere perfunctory lapse in good sense; rather, it starts with an unspoken assertion that all boy's - by their nature - are rapists. So, then, how does one go about raising one of these inherently dangerous creatures known as males to ensure that they don't rape and torture the fairer sex? Because left to our own devices, we'll hurt you. 

Right. 

I'm a classical feminist and damn proud of it, but it's this sort of nascent/misandric feminism that's dangerous. And although I hate the term, "Hate Speech", if this doesn't meet the standard for that, I'm not sure anything does.

The ridiculous author of the article, Ms. Rosalind Wiseman (I note the two-fold irony of her surname) states at one point:

"We must talk to our kids as possible perpetrators and bystanders. And our advice about what to say has got to go beyond, 'How would you feel if this happened to your mother or sister?'"

If a man is sufficiently psychopathic that he'll rape a woman, I doubt he gives a shit about his mom, sister, etc. 

As I said before, I'm a feminist in the classical sense. That is to say, I want every economic, educational, employment, and social opportunity available to me as a man to be open and available to my female cohorts - that's wherein sits my feminism. 

My feminism is the hope and the expectation that while men and women are different, it doesn't mean that we cannot be, and in our true selves, are equal. Likewise, it does not mean is that men should be condemned, via the virtue of the reproductive organs given to them before birth, by one-half of the population of this planet nor should we be denigrated into constant abject apology for actions taken before our time and in which we had no part. 

But according to the politicians and celebrity idiots, there's only a war against women...

A Short Statement on Nut Sacks and Tits

Dear Females:

I feel it necessary to inform you that, as a male, we really don't care to hear you complain about your bra - whether it's not making your dirty pillows look awesome or if it's cutting your back like a cheese slicer at a drunken Italian wedding*.

We don't care. Why? Because we're dudes and we have issues of, "arrangement" which are particular to our anatomy that you conveniently never take the time to consider and, if we were to complain about them, you'd tell us how vile and disgusting we are.

What am I talking about specifically? Our nut sacks.

See ladies, these thing "hang" and depending upon the time of year, the relative temperature, humidity, and upon one's particular anatomy, one may be vulnerable in the most innocuous or private of moments to a sudden jolt of pain, embarrassment, or reproductive preclusion.

For instance, yes, as men, we get that sometimes your tits make your back hurt. However, when you sit down, do you have any fear of sitting on your tits? Most likely not (we hope not at least...if so..deal with the aforementioned cheese slicer pain and STFU). However, as those of our species gifted with external gonads, it's more than possible to experience this phenomenon. When it's hot, they hang further away,and when it's cold, they hug closer to our undercarriage (NOTE: they do this one their own - imagine your tits acting like a thermometer and a ferret merged into one creature and suddenly wrapping themselves around your neck when it's chilly). Thus, our underwear choices must be carefully considered in order to - literally - not crush any hopes of fathering children.

Additionally, ever had your tits dip into the toilet when you were sitting down? Somehow I doubt it. However, for those of us scrotums, this is a very real possibility. Some men are as so created as to have to actually throw them over the outside edge of the toilet bowl in order to keep from achieving an unwanted and unsanitary, "Splash Down**". I'm not kidding. Some guys have to lob their baby batter batteries over the edge of the porcelain throne in order to keep them clean - they can hang that low.

Right now, some female is saying how gross the immediately preceding comment is. Yes, it's a bit of a disturbing visual. It's also the truth.

You think it's sick how we're always touching ourselves down there? Did you ever stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, our nuts have gotten somehow arranged in an unholy machination of flesh-based origami and that perhaps we're preemptively setting them back to their correct sitting position? No. You didn't. Because your ovaries aren't hanging anywhere from 3 - 6 inches (possibly even more) outside your body and susceptible to any number of physical dangers.

So, dear, beloved females, who do so much for we males in this world, please do not complain to us that your back hurts, your tits are squeezed, or any of that other stuff. Personally, I completely support women to go full nipple in public. In other words, anywhere a man can go topless, a woman should be able to do the same. I'm not kidding on this last point. I think a man's chest being socially acceptable and a woman's being "vulgar" is a false dynamic used to shame women about the state of their body and sexuality. Set your fun bags free for all I care***.


*"Drunken Italian Wedding"...as if there's any other kind.
**Or in the case of Lance Armstrong, a lying, cheating, bullying, half-splash.
***Unless you, male or female, have those really weird, dinner plate-sized nipples with the might-be/might-not-be mole things around the edges. In which case, top on!

It's the Most Horrible Time of the Year

This originally appeared in the December 2012 issue of What White Elephant. 

The Mayan calendar ends in a few days. Instead of assuming that maybe the natives ran out of room to carve dates into bone or leather or what-ever those folk wrote on, the western world has decided that it must mean the world is about to end. To this point, major motion pictures have been released and hours upon hours of shitty faux-docudramas are avail-able on Netflix detailing how we’re all about to die.

This is insanity.

 

 “But, you don’t understand how the periods of the Mayan calendar work!!!”

Yes, actually, I do. And probably better than you do. Some idiot watches a 60 minute glam-doc on H2 in be-tween marathon episodes of Ancient Aliens and suddenly decides for him or herself that they’re experts on the “End Times”. This is like me watching a special on the Higgs-Boson particle on the Science Channel and sending in my resume to lead CERN.

Will Earth come to an end? Yes. In a few billion years our sun will expand into its Red Giant phase of life, boiling away our oceans, scorching the planet surface, and then consuming us whole. If you’re living on Mars, you and yours will probably get a few extra years, but if you’re on this planet? Well, hope you like that tan extra crispy. All of our dead in their coffins will essentially become human meat versions of a pot roast left in a crockpot for far too long and, given enough protection, one could conceivably walk on dry ground from England to France. Well, I don’t hold out a particular hope for the fate of mankind.

 I think about it this way: if the church had been in possession of thermonuclear weaponry during the dark ages, do we really think the any Muslims would be alive today? Hell no. At best, we’d be cracking that glass parking lotto get to the oil all the while donning our radiation suits. And at our best, we’re no further along than humans 1,000 or even 5,000 years ago in our physical evolution and only marginally better in our psycho-social mutations. Luckily, the Vatican didn't have plutonium power back in the day. However, we have such capabilities and have dared to test, and in two instances actually used, the sun incarnate on earth to incinerate our fellow primates.

The reality is that there are still peoples on this living sphere who are as primitive with their cultish practices as the Christians were several hundred years ago. However, the reality is that these people are about to get access to planet-killing weaponry. When I was a kid, I watched the move The Day After. It was, to my five-year-old brain, a realistic portrayal of what was going to happen if the Communists decided to launch an attack on us. Well, communism is the least of our worries now as the Shia mullahs of Iran seek nukes to drag the final Imam back up from the well where he’s allegedly been in occultation for the past few centuries.

Our species has a bit of a self-destructive streak. Instead of marching in the streets for Washington D.C. to act against Tehran and their desire for oblivion of us and our allies, Americans are much more concerned about The Real Housewives of Atlanta/Beverly Hills/Compton/Wherever. The number of followers we have on Twitter means far more than the number of hours we spend improving ourselves or conversing with our children. The opiate of popularity is the only thing that matters any more.

We’ll continue to drink this elixir deep into our guts knowing on some level that it’s rotting us from the inside out, but that doesn't matter. Someone else will deal with Tehran and the madmen of the world – there’s no need for us to get involved. Just make sure you’re beautiful and that everyone likes you. And you’ll live forever. Sometimes I wonder if there were Mayans such as this alive in ancient times. Perhaps that was the reason for so much human sacrifice – tell the stupid ones they’re beloved for giving their lives for everyone else when really, we’re just thinning the herd. A crude, but effective, plan to further the cause of the species.

Disjointed Saltines

This originally appeared in the December, 2012 edition of What White Elephant.

By: Dustin’s Gray Half. 

I'm not happy with much of anything I'm putting down on the page at the moment. I'm also not happy with the great bulk of what I'm reading. I love a great story that's well-written. I also love clever phrases and the like. However, I hate shallow people who, from their own vanity and pseudo-profundity, attempt to artificially mine creativity from cavernous hollow skulls filled with shit.

My brain is rather disjointed at the moment. I feel as though I'm leap frogging through some written continuum of time. Nothing much makes sense and at the same time, I know it's all real.  

I'm not talking in riddles. I'm not bullshitting you. There are no hidden messages here. This is a glimpse inside my head during one of the times when the atmosphere is heavy and the whispers climb to perceptible levels.

The apartment is filled with lazy ghosts made of sticky membranes. They prick my finger and sting when I try to breach them. Big stinging dark red caterpillars. They cling themselves from the ceiling and diagonally down to the walls like some extra-dimensional insect breeding its young. That's what it feels like in my house.

For instance, this weekend I visited my canine companion's grave. I sat there and chatted with her for a bit. Eventually I took walk through the woods and down some old railroad tracks. I was meditating on life, the paths we choose, and the ones chosen for us. My mom had earlier said how there was a man attending her church now who she didn't quite understand. "He speaks...odd. Like, he knows what he's saying, and the way it's said is often beautiful, but it doesn't always make sense."

I told her I understood because the way I speak with myself in my brain would prove itself to be an inefficient communication model were I to verbalize it.

She asked for an example. I told her about being on the tracks and thinking earlier that day. "I was thinking about her," I said, "and I thought about the lessons that life gives us. But that's not what I said in my head. The way I phrased it there was, so I came this morning, to this place of mourning, to remember and curse and give thanks, and to learn those things which only the grave can teach."

She said it was beautiful, that it sounded like poetry. I reminded her that it wasn't intended as such - it's just how I speak in my head, but not out loud.

People give their power away, I think. Most often, it's not taken, but rather relinquished. I think most people are so consumed with the idea of money that they're incapable of thinking about it on a rational and logical level. It's just money. One day, you'll end up either in an urn on a shelf or in a casket in the ground. Either way, no matter how large your home, the best you can hope for is a few cubic feet (or cubic inches) where you can rot. And I say all of that as a proud capitalist pig.

Nearly everything tastes like stale Saltine crackers right now. Really old ones. And some asshole has swooped, a thief in the night, and robbed me of all the square salt crystals on the tops of my crackers. That's the best part about them.

Being crazy isn't like being insane. The two are completely different things. Insane people can't put gas in their vehicle, send an email, or craft interesting conversation. Crazy people can. I don't even know if "crazy" is the correct descriptor for it. I don't think I'm crazy; I think I suffer from some sort of hyper-sanity. But to the pedestrian sheep running about believing they're famous (you just don't know it yet!) and brilliant, brief glimpses to those of us who see things they can't imagine - it must seem crazy to them within the frame work of their cloistered lives. They make rules solely for the purpose of breaking them and then declare themselves the new Rebel God Kings. These people are both pedantic and pitiful.

I saw a documentary on trepanation once. It's where you drill a hole in your skull. I thought that'd probably feel good. The same way it hurts when you're a kid and you have a loose tooth, but feels good at the same time to slowly press it out. I think it'd feel alright.

When I sleep, there’s a guy outside of my window. He hangs out there, breathing slowly on the pane. By the time I realize he’s there, the window is fogged over. He makes everything grey. I can only see the outline of him. I feel like he wants to hurt me, but he can’t for some reason. And I can’t make him go away. He’s just there. Breathing on the glass; waiting for me to invite him inside.

As Goes the U.K...

Every election year, one hears the same message: "As goes Ohio, so goes the nation." The line is repeated with about as much flavour one might expect from a bit of chewing gum stuck to the underside of one's desk. It's stated with sufficient repetition that one can experience the stultifying effect of listening to a Gregorian Chant set to repeat by simply scanning through the cable news channels every few minutes.

Even with its tide-like predictability, Ohio is at best an immediate herald of electoral results rather than an avatar of Jeremiah - some lone prophet in the wilderness foretelling of the coming events surrounding a people. Rather, that later image belongs to the United Kingdom.

I've been making this argument with others and myself for several years now. Put succinctly, my contention is that the socio-political climate of the U.K. is a predictor of coming U.S. policy considerations within the next few years.

What do I mean by this and where did it begin?

Healthcare

Looking back, I would argue that the start of the U.S. following the lead of the U.K. began just after World War 2. It was at that point that the citizenry of the U.K. began to call for nationalized health care. The Tories were of course opposed to this. Von Hayek, responding to the increasing calls for state regimentation over pure capitalism, published The Road to Serfdom roughly a year before the end of the Second World War. This couldn't have been an easy thing, in that, he argued that if state intervention were to proceed, that such implementation would lead Britain down the same road as Nazi Germany. Orwell, for his part, conceded a good bit of intellectual argumentation to Hayek, but nevertheless and with regard to the demands for nationalized healthcare, said that only if a certain threshold of individual income were diverted to central planning would the citizenry then be under the auspices of a tyranny.

After the war, the Tories didn't fare much better at crystalizing Hayek's argument for British masses. In a speech regarding and opposing the implementation of national health care, Churchill stated that to police such a massive beaucracy would require a, "Gestapo". Seeing as he and his fellow subjects of the Crown had suffered through the Slump and two terrifically horrible wars involving the Germans, one would suppose that Churchill's fabled and illuminated rhetoric wasn't quite up to snuff that day.

So it was in 1948, three or so years after the official end of the war, the National Health Service came into being in the U.K. Moreover, just as calls for such were being made in the U.K., President Roosevelt in the final year of his last term, proposed a Second Bill of Rights which included a right to healthcare.

This is first example and it was the longest term one since it would not be until the first term of William Jefferson Clinton that a serious push was again made for nationalized healthcare in the U.S. and wouldn't come to fruition until the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in 2010.

Sodomy Laws

Sodomy was decriminalized in the U.K. in 1967. Buggery could now be happily enjoyed by any party willing and able to consent. However, while Britain may have been technically late to the party due to the Illinois legislature decriminalizing sodomy five years earlier, other U.S. states did not follow suit until after the U.K. came on board. Moreover, full nation-wide repeal of sodomy laws did not take place until the 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas.

Thus, the movement in the U.K. was reflected more as a snowfall effect in the U.S. Even in states where sodomy was still officially on the books, it was essentially unenforceable - that was, until a group of teens thought it'd be funny to listen in on gay couple in Texas and make false phone call reporting gun shots to the police.

Lights! Cameras! Action!

Alan Moore, speaking about V for Vendetta, said that the reason he included so many CCTV surveillance cameras in the graphic novel was to let the reader know exactly the sort of fascistic government our anti-hero fought against. In The Mindscape of Alan Moore, the author notes that apparently someone within the government read the work and decided that, yes, surveillance cameras on every street were exactly what the country needed. Along with this implementation came speed cameras to catch motorists exceeding the threshold.

Our own government, taking cues from across the pond, now have these same systems for monitoring public spaces and snapping pictures of my license plate if I run a red light.

All under the guise of "Public Safety".

Freedom of Speech

The U.K. has no "First Amendment" as we do, though various British laws do recognize and protect the right. However, the slow erosion of this right on both sides of the pond seems to have been made a game of sorts by the authoritarian and permanent political class.

For example, last year in the U.K., 1,286 people were convicted under the British Electronic Communications Act for offenses which were, "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character." This year, one man has been convicted for posting on Facebook that British soldiers should, "go to hell," and another man was convicted for burning a paper poppy on Remembrance Day and subsequently posting a picture of it on Twitter.

Now, granted, I find both of these statements deplorable, disgusting, and offensive - but so-fucking-what? There is not, as many would want us to believe, some inherent human right to not be offended.

It is not within the purview of political scaffolding to hand hold human beings throughout life and act in loco parentis to make certain that we, the charges of a paternal political class, remain uncompromised with regard to our individual sensibilities.

What do we think of ourselves for having allowed governments to exercise so much pseudo-care for us?

What sort of emotionally fragile creatures are we that there must necessarily be a law in place which punishes those who act in ways we may find classless and repugnant?

If, as one must infer from the prosecution of the law, humans are as emotionally vulnerable as we appear, then it is indeed a miracle that our species has survived at all. And this sort of law from the country that gave us Elizabeth Tudor, Churchill, and Thatcher; that survived two world wars and gave us Magna Carta, Shakespear, and Rolls Royce? The subjects of this realm are now that prone to shattering? I'm not buying it. As with most things, this is merely an attempt by those in power to centralize more power unto themselves by controlling what can and cannot be said in public spaces.

And make no mistake - there have already been calls here in the U.S. for the internet to be patrolled, for schools to deal with "online bullying" (a ridiculous notion outside the purview of the scholastic institution), and for PIPA and SOPA to be enacted (luckily, those bills have been shouted down).

I don't want the government protecting me from offensive speech. I want to hear it. I want to see it. Not for some masochistic leaning on my part, but so that I might possibly learn something from it, sharpen my own arguments against its hide, and relish in the joys of bringing war to its doorstep.

I don't need any fallible human institution doing this for me - I'm quite happy to filter content for myself, thanks.

Now

I think we may be, or at least are closing in on, a place where the U.S. is either leap frogging the eventual actions in the U.K or we are riding a sort of socio-political tandem bicycle. True, the Tories have control of House Commons at the moment with David Cameron at the helm as Prime Minister while we have a far left president in office. However, while the U.K. has vacillated on it's marijuana laws, the U.S. is, in piecemeal fashion, moving toward decriminalization of it. Already legal for medical use in many states, voters in Colorado and Washington State recently removed all criminal liabilities to the recreational use of marijuana.

In my lifetime, I'll see nationwide legal marijuana in the United States. What I don't - can't - know is if I'll see this same thing happen to my cousins across the pond. I suspect it, will happen, but not before the U.S.

And it's the last part of the prior sentence that puzzles me.

The U.K. still leads the U.S. on issues such as same-sex marriage, but on the recreational use of otherwise illegal substances, we're taking the lead.

This is why I say that I think the time of U.K. socio-political leadership over America is coming to end. Instead, our countries will be acting and legislating as mirror images of one another.

One has to wonder, then, if the colonists will eventually rejoin the Empire.

In Memoriam: Butter "Boo-Bear" Wood

I. Background

Sunday, November 4th, 2012, was the worst day of my life.

I woke up that morning knowing full well the grim task that lay ahead of me - I had to drive to Arkansas to give my companion, Butter, a proper burial on my family's farm. She had died sometime during the early morning hours on November 3rd.  

Butter and I were the pair that very nearly didn't happen. In 2000, just after graduating with my bachelors degree, I went grocery shopping one Saturday afternoon. There, in the parking lot of Walmart in Benton, Arkansas, was a woman giving away puppies . I peeked over into the box and Butter looked at me like, "Yeah, I'm here, pick me up - time to go." Well, I was on my way in to the store, so I shrugged it off, and spent far too much time in there hoping all the puppies would be gone by the time I left. The woman giving them away had explained how they had come about - they owned a female Jack Russell Terrier and the neighbors behind them had a Rat Terrier. The Jack owners had went away for a three day weekend and left their dog in the back yard. While away, she came into heat, the Rat Terrier of their neighbors managed to get through the fence, and the rest is natural history.

They weren't all gone by the time I came out of the store. In fact, there were two left, and an incredibly annoying woman and her obese teen son were trying to decide which of the remaining dogs they would take. I offered that, since they were there before me, they should pick one and I'll take the other. The duo viscillated for what seemed like forever. Eventually, cognizant of the fact that my milk was getting warm, I piped up and said, "You know what? I'm going to make this real easy for you." Butter for her part stared at me the whole time, even when the teen zit king had held her. I grabbed her and we made tracks for my car.

It was a good week before I settled on a name for her. Finally, one evening while eating dinner and sitting on the couch one night, Butter sitting next to me, she leaned over to smell my food. Yeah, you shouldn't give dogs human food, but we all do it from time to time. I moved a bit of bread with butter on it towards her just as she nudged in closer to smell it. This caused a swipe of butter on her nose. I said, "You've got butter on your nose...'Butter'...hmm...I think that'll work...what do you think?"

And from thereon, she was Butter "Boo-Bear" Wood.

 II. The Dream

I've told some friends about this before. I might have even written about it, but I don't recall when. This is, however, a slight diversion, though with a purpose. And I'll swear on any stack of Bibles that this dream happened.

It was around 2006 and I was about to graduate from law school. I drifted off to sleep one night and found myself standing in the kitchen of my family's house prior to my parent's divorce. I looked out the kitchen door, past the patio, and there in our snow covered field, a light brown puppy was jumping trying to carch snow flakes in his mouth.

I didn't know this puppy, but in the dream I had the instant fear of him freezing to death. I went outside, called out to him, and finally got him in the house. Thinking he must be hungry, I began pouring him a bowl of food. As my back was turned, I heard the back door open again. I turned to see three or four large dogs trot into the kitchen. I started to ask them what they were doing or where they came from when Sissy walked in.

Sissy was the lab mix my family had. At the time of her death when I was 14, she had actually been a member of the family longer than I had (16 years). In Sissy's final days, she had trouble standing at times, was going blind, and began to lose the ability to hold her urine. Sissy was one of those dogs that only knew love for humans. She was a guardian and a best friend. I still miss her.

At any rate, in the dream, the three or four dogs sat and sissy walked in. Except, she didn't look how I remembered her; instead, she looked amazing. Her eyes were bright and clear. Her fur even seemed to shimmer a bit as if drops of dew clung to and illuminated her. She looked at me and I fell to my knees in front of her. I held her. I told her I loved her. That I missed her so much. Just over and over, "Sissy, I love you so much..." She nuzzled up against me and leaned her body onto mine.

As so often is the case in dreams, the entire scene SNAPPED to somewhere else. It was still snowing, but I was at the graveside service of a funeral. I'm not even sure who was to be buried, but the priest was just finishing up. Once he had and the people present began to filter away, I walked over to the priest to shake his hand. "That was a beautiful service, Father. Thank you so much," I said. He said I was welcome and to let him know if we needed anything. I told him I would and began to walk away. That's when he called out to me. "Dustin," he said. I turned to face him. "Dustin, you do know that when you dream of a pet that's passed away, that you're not really dreaming, right?" I remember looking at him inquizitively not understanding in the moment what he was saying. Then he said, "It's not really a dream when that happens. It's the spirit of your compannion returning to check on you."

In the next moment, I was awake in my bed. I didn't feel as I had awakened so much as I felt I had hit my mattress after falling about fifty feet. And most weirdly, I was on my back. I don't sleep on my back. And I had been crying. The odd fine-grit feel that skin can sometimes take after exposure to tears was evident on the sides of my face.

You can disbelieve the content of this dream if you so choose. I can no more prove the content of it is real than I can prove to you that I had it. However, I can assure you that did dream this. And even if in no place else, Sissy is still alive in my mind and my heart. Though, I believe she exists somewhere else and checks on me now and then.

When Butter received her cancer diagnosis, I prayed that she wouldn't hurt when her final moments came. I prayed that she wouldn't be afraid. I prayed that she would go in peace and remember that I love her.

Laying there in bed one night after Butter's diagnosis, I called out to the spirit of Sissy.

Chalk this up to a saddened mind or my own neuroses, but after I called out to her, I felt as though Sissy was there, in my bedroom, leaning up against my bed. I asked Sissy to help Butter when the time came. Mind you, I didn't see an apparation, nothing stirred in my room, nor was there any bright light with a Lab mix riding in on the wings of the seraphim. But still, I felt like Sissy was there.

III. Song

I write theme songs for all my dogs.

I have no idea why.

However, here are the words for Butter's Song:

Boo-Bear! Boo-Bear-ba-licious!
Oh, she's a puppy of the wild outdoors!
Boo-Bear! Boo-bear-ba-licious!
She's the puppy who won't be ignored!

IV. The Worst Day of My Life

"Thanks! Have a great day!" the woman in the McDonald's drive-through said to me. "You too," I replied. Little did she know that it was actively the worst day of my life because there, on the passenger-side floor of my truck, wrapped in sheets as a death shroud, was the body of Butter.

It would be the last time we would make the 4.5 hour drive from Dallas, TX to my family's farm in rural central Arkansas.

Half-way there, I stopped at my usual place to relieve myself. I began to crack the windows when I realized I didn't need to.

Walking back from the bathroom, I looked at my truck anticipating her to be standing there looking out the window for when I'd come back. She wasn't. And she never would be again. I feel like all I have now are fragments - snapshots - sketches - of this great animal. Cancer took her at 12 years old. But for more than a decade I got to see what real unconditional love looked like because she loved me unconditionally.

Along the interstate on the way home, I counted three dogs having been victims of accidents. I wondered if anyone had loved them. I wondered if they had loved anyone. I wondered if there was a family somewhere scared for them or if they were simply alone. And I knew there was nothing I could do for them. They were long since dead. All I could do was honor the one who had laid in my bed and waited on me to get home.

I can't begin to thank my brother, Jack, sufficiently for digging her grave. I told him the general area where I wanted it. He dug it for me in a perfect spot. Jack is a person who, when someone close to him is suffering, he needs to feel useful. He was more than useful - he was indispensable and awesome. 

We got to the farm and I went to the back of the acreage where Jack told me he had dug the grave. I stopped my truck, got out, lowered the tailgate, and went to the passenger's side. I picked her up and put her on the tailgate. I uncovered her. Butter had a thing for sleeping on my dirty clothes, so I took off the longsleeve tshirt I wore, and placed it around her along with one of her tennis balls. I kissed her on her head. I then re-wrapped her bural shroud around her and told her one last time that I loved her more than she could know.

I picked her up and carried her to the gravesite. I sat down and just held her. I just wanted to hold her. I recited the Prayer of St. Francis (an animal lover if there ever was one) to her:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, 
As to console;
To be understood, as to understand,
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
And it's in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it's in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

And then, after making sure I said everything I could possibly think of, I gave her to the ground.

I had come to the place where there is only one option and what must be done, must be done. I don't want her there - cold and in the ground. I want her warm and breathing and curled between my chest and arm as I read before going to sleep at night.

I marked the place of her grave with some Anglican prayer beads strung around the limb of a sapling. I'll come back to plant a crepe myrtle there for her in the spring and place some other memorial.

V. Beyond Here Lies Nothin?

I'm cold.

I have another dog, Skylar. She's sweet, calm, and laid back (I call her my Jimmy Buffet dog). She's not stupid by any means - she's just rather simple. Last night she finally clued in that something was amiss. She couldn't sit still for very long. She wandered around my apartment stopping intermittendly to look at me with a confused/worried look on her face.

Nothing in life reminds one quite how trivial most things are quite way that death does.

Butter loved to chase her tennis ball along the shore line of the lake.

I'm trying to get to that place where I celebrate the fact that I had 12 years with this wonderful creature; that place where I feel the warm glow of thanks for having been priviledged to have her in my life.

But I'm not there yet.

Instead, my heart is broken. I'm reminded of her constantly. I feel hollow. Last night I went to take Skylar outside and realized I only needed one leash.

I don't want to be here - and "here" is anywhere I am.

I feel catatonic and pissed off at the same time. I'm usually a fairly political person, but I can't bring myself to care about the election last night. Butter is gone. So far as I care, the world can burn. Because I really don't give a shit.

She was my best friend and she loved me unconditionally - and I, her. Though, I know from her character that the tally of her affection for me was far greater than mine for her.

None of this is to say that I love Skylar any less. It's the truth, though, that there are some dogs we encounter in our lives who just "get" us and the emotional bond between human and animal is amplified. Butter was one of those rare animals for me.

There's something special about the relationship between a boy or a man and his dog.

I love you, Boo-bear. Always have, always will.

  

 

 

My Dog Has Cancer

Butter, a.k.a., Boo-Bear


I've not written on here in a while. My dog, Butter, has cancer and isn't doing well. I'll be back. I'm just focused on making the remaining time I have with her be as good as it can. She's not suffering at the moment nor is she in pain. However, she, like all of us I suppose, are born into this world and given over to a losing struggle. The end of her fight will in all likelihood come far sooner than mine or yours. All that matters to me right now is that she knows she's loved and she's as comfortable as possible.

I can't imagine my life without this animal, nor can I imagine what my life would've been without her.

-Dustin

Acedia Intelligere Americana

Originally published in the September, 2012 edition of What White Elephant.

Scientists drilling in Russia punched a hole so deep in the earth that they could no longer drill due to the heat. When a microphone was placed into it, they heard the sounds of people screaming. 

The Democrats will introduce legislation banning the transportation of Bibles through the Postal Service citing the separation of Church and State. 

Evolution and Carbon-14 dating are crap science. The pastor of my cousin’s church buried some chicken bones for a year, took them to a biologist, and the biologist said they were 1.4 million years old.

I heard all of the above stories, presented as truth, at church when I was younger. Whether due to something innate within me or just plain dumb luck, I never bought into any of them. I’m sorry that I can’t say the same for some of my co-religionists of those days (or even currently).

Recently, I had an exchange with one of these sorts via Twitter. The woman happens to be a friend of a friend and he had re-tweeted her support for Rick Perry as a candidate for the Republican Nomination. The gist of the tweet was essentially, “Bring back prayer in schools! Rick Perry for President!”

Not being one who suffers fools lightly, I told her that school children could already pray in school, but that what was prohibited was teacher-led or mandatory prayer. 

She didn’t believe me. She then proceeded to double-down on the stupid. 

Do you recall arguments in elementary school where, to prove a point, someone would claim that they had a relative who said/knew/worked in or on the disputed subject area and therefore had access to knowledge to prove their contention? The line usually went something like this: No, because my Uncle Billy Wayne and my Aunt Janna Lynn said ____________ and they work there!

If you don’t recall these sorts of assertions, I’m envious of you. They were the playground debate trump card every pre-adolescent moron kept in their back pocket for just such an occasion. I can only deduce that the classmates who alleged such things had a veritable cornucopia of relatives working in occupations ranging from astronauts to zebra herders. Well, my new-found Twitter idiot did exactly the same thing. In response to my rebuttal that kids could, in fact and in law, pray in school, she set out to correct me with such primary school-esque deduction.

“NO they can’t,” she wrote. “I’m a grandmother! My grandkids CANNOT pray in school!”

I then received a follow up tweet from her which, ostensibly, was meant to buttress what she must have assumed was her Mortal Kombat-style finishing move on my decrepit faculties: “I even asked them if they were allowed to pray and they said the school FORBID them from praying in school AT ALL!”

In a series of tweets back to this intellectually lazy shit head, I politely put on my lawyer hat and proceeded to educate her on a little thing I call reality.  I informed her that in a series of cases, notably Engel, Abington, Lemon, and Santa Fe Independent School District, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that students had the right to engage in  voluntary religious observance, either alone or in groups, while at school so long as the activities did not disrupt the educational environment. 

In other words, I told her, “Your grandkids CAN pray in school so long as they’re not forced to by teachers or subject students who don’t wish to participate in such.” She proceeded to tell me that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I, in turn, told her that either, A) the school had violated her grandkids constitutional rights, B) she and/or her grandkids were mistaken, C) the grandkids and/or her were flat out liars, or D) she was fucking retarded and didn’t know what she was talking about (the most likely of the four scenarios). 

I’m really good at making enemies. The woman subsequently blocked me on Twitter which is disappointing. I’d really loved to have seen more of her moronic ravings about an imaginary offense. 

The problem here, though, is that ignorance such as that displayed by the Twitter Twat is much like a cockroach – if you see it once, there’s probably many more examples you’re not aware of. I was proven correct when, before she blocked me, I looked over her followers and more than a few had retweeted her comments to me. 

So much for winning friends and influencing people. 

The question then becomes, why the faux outrage? Kids can and do pray in school. Would she or any Christian of any stripe, for that matter, be content if their children attended public school in Dearborn, Michigan where most of the residents are Muslims? Would they be alright with multiple daily professions of love and commitment, required or coerced, toward Allah? Would Evangelicals be okie-dokie with the idea of their children in a public school being required to seek the intercession of St. Francis prior to a basketball game? I hope you can see the problem here. If you can’t, repeatedly slam your head against a fire hydrant. I don’t know that it’d help any, but if you’re already that stupid, it probably won’t hurt. 

The modern equivalent of Russian’s drilling to Hell and hearing the cries of The Damned is the myth of no prayer in public schools. What’s banned, and rightfully so, is mandatory or coerced religious observance. And this fight isn’t over. As recently as last year, Christian Chapman of Charlotte, North Carolina held a rally to win the souls of the school children to Christ – during school hours – in Jefferson, South Carolina. If the children did not attend, they were to spend the time in the in-school suspension room. Appropriately, the school district is being sued for this unconscionable breach of constitutional rights. Luckily, Mr. Chapman had the entire abomination videotaped and placed on YouTube. 

It’s a public school, not a Jesus camp. 

The sheer idiocy of this modern myth doesn’t stop at the school house doors, though. More than once, I’ve heard conservative political leaders discussing the supposed, “War on Christmas”. The Senate GOP nominee from Texas, Ted Cruz, has led this cause in particular via his Facebook page. Well, in a nation where the vast majority identify themselves as Christians, and judging from the displays already prepared in my local Hobby Lobby, I can assure Mr. Cruz and any others concerned about the War on Christmas that, if such a cultural offensive is taking place, it’s being waged very poorly indeed. 

Acedia:  Latin for “sloth”, or, “slothfulness”. One would think with the propensity toward Biblical literalism today that many Christians would focus on skinning away lazy thinking. After all, aren’t we told in The Book of Proverbs 23:7, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”? If we are lazy in our thinking, aren’t we therefore, according to Biblical literalism, also doomed to be constantly repeating this sin of slothfulness? Seems to me to be a logical reading of the text, however, this appears to escape many of my fellow Christians. 

The intellectual acedia of Americans is by no means limited to Christians. However, as they are the largest group of identifiable in the U.S., if they began to clean up their ranks, the job would be more than 80% complete. 

Then we could begin on the politicians - though I tend to shy away from impossible tasks.