I am aware that people who read one of my blogs do not, as a rule, read the others. Not a problem. I wanted to divide things so that people who liked, let us say, music, would not have to suffer through political polemics. But sometimes, there is a thought or event that sneaks up on me and smites most aspects of my thought processes. Thus, I am going to post this in the three blogs in the hope of getting some of the good advice that several musings have generated.
As always, more background than I probably need to provide.
Back in the middle 1960's, I was part of the Great Folk Music Scare. Lacking the talent to go out as a solo act, I had accepted the help of my "cousin" (no real relationship, I had just moved in with his family so I could go to school in that area, and the bogus family titles helped explain things) as possibly the least talented sideman available. This helped me deal with my insecurity while ensuring I wasn't going to be accused of being the source of the worst of the off-notes. Granted, this was Folk, and we could always claim we were going for a more "ethnic" sound, but that was difficult to claim with a straight face. Michael, for such was his name, decided the whole music gig was a great way to meet girls, so he kept trying to recruit girl singers. At the same time, we added a part-time singer/guitarist who was far more talented that he knew, so I was able to get through rehearsals and performances without what had become the obligatory indigestion. It also didn't hurt that his sister sang as good as she looked, so I was able to keep that side of the dynamics steadier.
Throughout this time, there was a girl who had a voice like an angel, a killingly sharp wit, and a beauty that could make you start believing in Higher Powers. We were friends. We never made the leap into any deeper relationship, other than one night after I had returned from overseas planning to marry a girl who said she loved me beyond all reason. Problem was, she had found a reason, and had been dating him since two days after I left to go overseas. My friend and I spent the rest of my leave time together, and it became obvious (at least to me), that there was, and of a right ought to be, more to the relationship. When I got back to my duty station, I found a letter from a mutual friend suggesting I stay away from this young lady, since she was in a relationship with a good guy, and didn't want to tell me. I wouldn't have minded, I suppose. I knew the guy, he was a great person, and he had survived a major motorcycle accident a year or so before .... which in my social circle was only slightly less impressive than getting clobbered by a bull at Pamplona. So I let her alone, told the friend I only wanted her to be happy, and generally spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself.
Between 18 months and two years after that, my pseudo-cousin told my parents that my friend had died, in a car accident, with her new husband (the guy mentioned above). They didn't tell me for some months, since my wife was having major trouble adjusting to life in the States, and had developed a massive case of retroactive jealousy.
So here's part one of what I'm having trouble with. Not long before I had the news of her passing, I was sure I had spent an afternoon talking with her after classes at Spokane Falls Community College, Spokane, WA. At the time, it felt as we were playing roles that started with "if we pretend to be strangers, we can avoid the hurts of the past." Given that I felt (and feel) that I was a total jerk in letting a good relationship go, that seemed to be reasonable. But since I doubt I spent a cold afternoon standing in a wind-swept parking lot talking to a ghost, there must be another explanation. Reverting to a habit I hope I've left behind, I came up with a few reasons to put it out of my mind, and let the whole thing stay buried.
So part two is equally perplexing. Roughly three weeks ago, I saw the lady's name on a new alumni site. She's apparently married, happy, and living at the far side of the country. I made a token effort at sending her a Facebook "friend request," which was ignored. Now that makes sense. She's probably forgotten the whole episode. But the memory of that afternoon in Spokane still haunts me. Was it she? Was I letting my admittedly depressed mind hang a major experience on a chance resemblance of appearance, voice, and mannerism?
The smart part of my head says to let it all drop into the Great Well of Lost Chances (AKA the Slough of Denial), and keep it all in balance that way. The stupid, jerk-like portion of my head says I should come up with some witty way to ask "if you did not, indeed, die, what is the story behind the apparition I witnessed in Spokane?" And then there is The Middle Way. A very long time ago, on multiple occasions, I was unintentionally cruel to a person who deserved much better. Just about anything I do at this point runs the risk of causing further hurt. Given that, my path would seem to stay out of her life, while making the assumption that our conversation was some sort of necessary moment of closure. Any thoughts? Replies here or by e-mail would be good.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Reflections on a changing world (started WAY too long ago)
Reflections on a changing world??? Egad, that IS pretentious. But what the heck, it's my blog, and I'll bloviate if I want to (cue the Leslie Gore intro; fade out). I'll try and keep it in line henceforth (within this entry, at least). Or possibly not. We shall observe.
In this series of occasional items, I am trying to hold on to the memory of events before they slip into that interesting cloud of names, dates, and impressions that lives just out of reach. I was informed all this is normal: something to do with chronological enhancement.
The other day, I had a note on Facebook from my friend, Steve Login. We just recently reconnected, but I go back farther with him than with any non-relative. We're talking grade school. That may not be a big deal for some of you. In my case, it's monster. I was in something like eight schools between Kindergarten and Grade Four. Add in the detail that I was born in New Hampshire, and these schools were in California, and you get the picture. You don't pick up a lot of social skills when you spend the first quarter of your school years being the new kid a couple times per year. It also doesn't help when you get told you talk funny. Anyway, Steve and I go a long way back, and he is a fascinating person who has done all kinds of neat stuff.
So the other day, I had a letter from Steve asking an interesting question. I'll reprint it here, rather than trust my memory (which is, after all, part of the purpose here):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike -
I haven't been on FB for awhile, so I've taken some time catching up on past posts from people.
I wonder, given your views, how did you survive social/politically in the Air Force? Views like yours are rare among the military, closer to the typical artistic type that I worked with (which, you really are). You must have had some heated, but well-argued, conversations; or kept your views completely off the base.
Take care, Steve
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've spent the last few weks going over what I remember of my military days, and comparing those times to what I have observed as a quasi-outsider since my retirement. I come to the conclusion that I would have had far more difficulty in being successful (to a given value, the which I shall rise to explain later) had my service started in 1992 instead of having ended there.
For those whose memories are no better than mine, I enlisted in 1966, was commissioned in 1978, and retired in 1992.
Actually, I think the Air Force and I came out of our relationship at about level pegging. I had the opportunity to live in a number of interesting places, meet a lot of good people, have a family, and advance my academic credentials from a handful of Community College Credits and a High School Diploma I truly believe they gave me so I wouldn't come back to an Undergrad degree in Administration, a Grad degree in Management, and a wall-full of specialist certs. In return, I did the best job I could, ensured my replacement could do more with less than my predecessor, mentored a number of subordinates (several of whom went on to accomplish far more than I did -- I'm particularly proud of that), volunteered for a number of programs, got shot at a couple of times, wrote a number of articles for various professional journals, and taught a whole bunch of people.
I didn't get promoted beyond Major, which bothered other people more than it did me. I didn't think I'd make it beyond Captain. Heck, getting selected as Master Sergeant just about floored me.
The military reflected the surrounding society when I enlisted. Nothing new, it usually does (to a variable extent). This was during a period of Selective Service, where military service was (albeit to a lesser extent than during WWII and Korea) a universally-shared experience among males. To be sure, there were people who had deferments from the Draft for any number of good reasons, and there were people who, as a matter of principle, did not participate, and there were even some who lied like rugs (and got their parents and friendly doctors to swear to it) to keep from having to go to the Draft Physicals they knew they would pass, then bragged about being too smart to get caught, then finished up as Tea Party stalwarts. The first two groups, I have respect for; the third, not so much.
When I got to Basic Training (and Technical Training right after that) at Amarillo AFB, TX, I was among a relatively diverse group. Roughly 95% of us arrived by way of the Draft, and the Army's "join with a buddy" thing was not part of the Air Force system. A preponderance of trainees, as now, came from the Southeastern and Midwestern regions. In my training flight (52 trainees), there were five of us who had enlisted in California, six or seven guys from the Northeast, and the rest from everywhere else. Eight, maybe ten African Americans, possibly four or five Hispanics. The trainers had a vast repertoire of racist "jokes" and ethnicity-based "wit" they were happy to share. Most of them had enlisted in the Korean War era, and had the "manly insensitivity" of the time. Within the trainees, there was a small but vocal anti-Semitic group, and a slightly larger (equally vocal) bunch of self-described Rednecks from Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, etc. who described anyone who wasn't in their group as "sleeps with snakes, barks at the moon, and don't love Jesus."
Those two groups did manage to convince several people to depart in the first couple weeks of training, but then they decided to target the African-Americans, and that didn't work out so well. This was right after the Coromantee Brothers Council had held a demonstration over in the tech school protesting institutionalized racism, and the people who ran Basic were already sensitized to the problem when a multiracial group of trainees approached the training staff with complaints. Never quite shut the idiots up, but the trainers did work to keep it down as much as possible. People still sat in ethnically and regionally defined groups at the how hall and the Airmen's Club, but the edges got less sharp, and there was a growing area that was just people.
When I was in Tech School, some guys in one of the barracks got permission to converted the Day Room/Lounge into a Saturday Night Coffee House, and there was a very diverse crown. Open mike (just without the mike) nights and jam nights (jazz, pop, rock, folk, it all depended) alternated, and it seems to me that every night ended with a sort of song circle. My folks shipped me my 6-string banjo, and I was able to sit in most Saturday nights.
After Basic and Tech School, I went to Wiesbaden, Germany for four years. Other than one trip back home in 1967 (so that my fiancee could tell me she was marrying a guy who bragged about lying his way out of service, and he and his dad could spend the next week or so telling me what a chump I was not to take his dad 's offer of a "friendly doctor" signature in the first place), I spent my off time traveling Europe, and hanging out with a mixed group of Yanks (civilian and G.I.), Irish, Aussies, Kiwis, and Germans. Mostly my age, give or take a year or two, with the sense that we were part of a world that was growing closer together. I played guitar and 6-string banjo with a couple of amazingly talented guys, worked with a bunch of other people who took a sort of traveling folk music review to a number of the U.S. bases and posts, did several gigs with Pat Murphy and his All-Star Jug Band, and gained a lot of insight into different ways off seeing the world.
It was fascinating how the German young people had a striking effect on their American counterparts. This was a generation in Germany that fiercely rejected the racism of their past, and any Americans who weren't able to deal with that could jolly well stay on the base. A lot of G.I.s took the latter course, living on the installation, staying there for recreation and socialization, going off base very seldom, and burning their annual leave time to spend maximum time "back in the World." Others, not particularly wanting to hang out with the same people they worked with, pretty much learned to interact. The rest of us, regardless origin, who never did have a problem with externals, got along just fine.
For some reason, the Air Force tended to have fewer intercultural or interracial problems than the Army (at least in those times; certainly hope things have changed). Even so, there was a lot of class time spent on what was variously called "Intercultural Relations," "Intercultural Sensitivity," and similar titles. By the time the name became "Affirmative Action," I was teaching the courses as part of a team.
Backing up slightly: a couple of years after my former fiancee dumped me, I did, indeed, get married. She was an Irish girl I met as part of the various musical activities. We were married in Ireland, and, while we were stationed in Europe, we spent most of our leave time with her parents, cousins, and friends. That would take us up to 1995, a good enough place to stop. More at a later date.
In this series of occasional items, I am trying to hold on to the memory of events before they slip into that interesting cloud of names, dates, and impressions that lives just out of reach. I was informed all this is normal: something to do with chronological enhancement.
The other day, I had a note on Facebook from my friend, Steve Login. We just recently reconnected, but I go back farther with him than with any non-relative. We're talking grade school. That may not be a big deal for some of you. In my case, it's monster. I was in something like eight schools between Kindergarten and Grade Four. Add in the detail that I was born in New Hampshire, and these schools were in California, and you get the picture. You don't pick up a lot of social skills when you spend the first quarter of your school years being the new kid a couple times per year. It also doesn't help when you get told you talk funny. Anyway, Steve and I go a long way back, and he is a fascinating person who has done all kinds of neat stuff.
So the other day, I had a letter from Steve asking an interesting question. I'll reprint it here, rather than trust my memory (which is, after all, part of the purpose here):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike -
I haven't been on FB for awhile, so I've taken some time catching up on past posts from people.
I wonder, given your views, how did you survive social/politically in the Air Force? Views like yours are rare among the military, closer to the typical artistic type that I worked with (which, you really are). You must have had some heated, but well-argued, conversations; or kept your views completely off the base.
Take care, Steve
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've spent the last few weks going over what I remember of my military days, and comparing those times to what I have observed as a quasi-outsider since my retirement. I come to the conclusion that I would have had far more difficulty in being successful (to a given value, the which I shall rise to explain later) had my service started in 1992 instead of having ended there.
For those whose memories are no better than mine, I enlisted in 1966, was commissioned in 1978, and retired in 1992.
Actually, I think the Air Force and I came out of our relationship at about level pegging. I had the opportunity to live in a number of interesting places, meet a lot of good people, have a family, and advance my academic credentials from a handful of Community College Credits and a High School Diploma I truly believe they gave me so I wouldn't come back to an Undergrad degree in Administration, a Grad degree in Management, and a wall-full of specialist certs. In return, I did the best job I could, ensured my replacement could do more with less than my predecessor, mentored a number of subordinates (several of whom went on to accomplish far more than I did -- I'm particularly proud of that), volunteered for a number of programs, got shot at a couple of times, wrote a number of articles for various professional journals, and taught a whole bunch of people.
I didn't get promoted beyond Major, which bothered other people more than it did me. I didn't think I'd make it beyond Captain. Heck, getting selected as Master Sergeant just about floored me.
The military reflected the surrounding society when I enlisted. Nothing new, it usually does (to a variable extent). This was during a period of Selective Service, where military service was (albeit to a lesser extent than during WWII and Korea) a universally-shared experience among males. To be sure, there were people who had deferments from the Draft for any number of good reasons, and there were people who, as a matter of principle, did not participate, and there were even some who lied like rugs (and got their parents and friendly doctors to swear to it) to keep from having to go to the Draft Physicals they knew they would pass, then bragged about being too smart to get caught, then finished up as Tea Party stalwarts. The first two groups, I have respect for; the third, not so much.
When I got to Basic Training (and Technical Training right after that) at Amarillo AFB, TX, I was among a relatively diverse group. Roughly 95% of us arrived by way of the Draft, and the Army's "join with a buddy" thing was not part of the Air Force system. A preponderance of trainees, as now, came from the Southeastern and Midwestern regions. In my training flight (52 trainees), there were five of us who had enlisted in California, six or seven guys from the Northeast, and the rest from everywhere else. Eight, maybe ten African Americans, possibly four or five Hispanics. The trainers had a vast repertoire of racist "jokes" and ethnicity-based "wit" they were happy to share. Most of them had enlisted in the Korean War era, and had the "manly insensitivity" of the time. Within the trainees, there was a small but vocal anti-Semitic group, and a slightly larger (equally vocal) bunch of self-described Rednecks from Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, etc. who described anyone who wasn't in their group as "sleeps with snakes, barks at the moon, and don't love Jesus."
Those two groups did manage to convince several people to depart in the first couple weeks of training, but then they decided to target the African-Americans, and that didn't work out so well. This was right after the Coromantee Brothers Council had held a demonstration over in the tech school protesting institutionalized racism, and the people who ran Basic were already sensitized to the problem when a multiracial group of trainees approached the training staff with complaints. Never quite shut the idiots up, but the trainers did work to keep it down as much as possible. People still sat in ethnically and regionally defined groups at the how hall and the Airmen's Club, but the edges got less sharp, and there was a growing area that was just people.
When I was in Tech School, some guys in one of the barracks got permission to converted the Day Room/Lounge into a Saturday Night Coffee House, and there was a very diverse crown. Open mike (just without the mike) nights and jam nights (jazz, pop, rock, folk, it all depended) alternated, and it seems to me that every night ended with a sort of song circle. My folks shipped me my 6-string banjo, and I was able to sit in most Saturday nights.
After Basic and Tech School, I went to Wiesbaden, Germany for four years. Other than one trip back home in 1967 (so that my fiancee could tell me she was marrying a guy who bragged about lying his way out of service, and he and his dad could spend the next week or so telling me what a chump I was not to take his dad 's offer of a "friendly doctor" signature in the first place), I spent my off time traveling Europe, and hanging out with a mixed group of Yanks (civilian and G.I.), Irish, Aussies, Kiwis, and Germans. Mostly my age, give or take a year or two, with the sense that we were part of a world that was growing closer together. I played guitar and 6-string banjo with a couple of amazingly talented guys, worked with a bunch of other people who took a sort of traveling folk music review to a number of the U.S. bases and posts, did several gigs with Pat Murphy and his All-Star Jug Band, and gained a lot of insight into different ways off seeing the world.
It was fascinating how the German young people had a striking effect on their American counterparts. This was a generation in Germany that fiercely rejected the racism of their past, and any Americans who weren't able to deal with that could jolly well stay on the base. A lot of G.I.s took the latter course, living on the installation, staying there for recreation and socialization, going off base very seldom, and burning their annual leave time to spend maximum time "back in the World." Others, not particularly wanting to hang out with the same people they worked with, pretty much learned to interact. The rest of us, regardless origin, who never did have a problem with externals, got along just fine.
For some reason, the Air Force tended to have fewer intercultural or interracial problems than the Army (at least in those times; certainly hope things have changed). Even so, there was a lot of class time spent on what was variously called "Intercultural Relations," "Intercultural Sensitivity," and similar titles. By the time the name became "Affirmative Action," I was teaching the courses as part of a team.
Backing up slightly: a couple of years after my former fiancee dumped me, I did, indeed, get married. She was an Irish girl I met as part of the various musical activities. We were married in Ireland, and, while we were stationed in Europe, we spent most of our leave time with her parents, cousins, and friends. That would take us up to 1995, a good enough place to stop. More at a later date.
Monday, June 21, 2010
One more Konya/NATO story
NOTE: "talking about the fellow I met in Konya brought something else to mind, so here it is.
The flight deck of the E-3 NATO Airborne Early Warning Aircraft has an extra position called the Fifth Seat. This is where a fortunate volunteer gets to sit, watch the actions of the flight crew, and keep looking in all direction for an approaching object that the various forms of radar missed. It's particularly important on take-offs and landings, when there can be all manner of small objects capably of reducing the aircraft into a mammoth paperweight. Mostly, it's a chance to get up where the best view on the aircraft lives.
One day, I was Fifth Seat from our Main Operating Base at Geilenkirchen to our Forward Operating Base at Konya. We had a Canadian Major aboard as Second Officer who had never flown into Konya. Naturally, he wanted to take the aircraft in to demonstrate his prowess. Just as naturally, the Pilot, who was a Turkish Lieutenant Colonel, was having none of it.Somewhere during the flight, the Canadian decided it was all because he was a "Bible-believing born-again Christian" and the "Mohammadin" didn't want to "be shown up by a member of the superior faith." The pilot had to pull rank in order to bring the Canadian back into line.
So we are cleared to land at Konya, The Pilot turns on final, levels the aircraft, briefly removes his hands from the controls, says a quiet prayer placing himself, his crew, and the aircraft within the protection of his G-D, places his hands back on the controls, and completes the landing. And the Canadian? Mr. Born Again, with the "In Case of Rapture, this (whatever) will be unmanned" on his car, his motorcycle, his guitar case, his computer, and his desk? The guy who preaches at a little congregation off-base? He goes totally batbarf. He's screaming about how he's going to report the pilot for reckless flying, and how he's never flying with another "Crazy Mohammadin" again, and similar wonderful things. The FOB Commander comes on board, talks to all parties, ascertains that the Canadian was clearly in the wrong, but sees no reason why he, a Christian, should apologize to a Godless Heathen. That's what he said, yes he did. I didn't know (until recently) that people still used that kind of language. In rapid succession (and by rapid, we're talking a matter of a very few hours), phone calls are made to Geilenkirchen, a replacement Second Officer is dispatched on the next outbound aircraft, the young Major gets a bus ticket to Ankara, where a commercial airline ticket will be waiting. By the time he gets back to his squadron, he has orders for another assignment, and the Commander of the Canadian Contingent is explaining how it would be a very good idea to seek success in another line of work.
In a quarter century of travels for the USAF, I found a lot of people who lived their faith without having to think about it. I also found a lot of people who were happy to tall you about the depth and sincerity of their chumship with G-d. These were never the same people.
The flight deck of the E-3 NATO Airborne Early Warning Aircraft has an extra position called the Fifth Seat. This is where a fortunate volunteer gets to sit, watch the actions of the flight crew, and keep looking in all direction for an approaching object that the various forms of radar missed. It's particularly important on take-offs and landings, when there can be all manner of small objects capably of reducing the aircraft into a mammoth paperweight. Mostly, it's a chance to get up where the best view on the aircraft lives.
One day, I was Fifth Seat from our Main Operating Base at Geilenkirchen to our Forward Operating Base at Konya. We had a Canadian Major aboard as Second Officer who had never flown into Konya. Naturally, he wanted to take the aircraft in to demonstrate his prowess. Just as naturally, the Pilot, who was a Turkish Lieutenant Colonel, was having none of it.Somewhere during the flight, the Canadian decided it was all because he was a "Bible-believing born-again Christian" and the "Mohammadin" didn't want to "be shown up by a member of the superior faith." The pilot had to pull rank in order to bring the Canadian back into line.
So we are cleared to land at Konya, The Pilot turns on final, levels the aircraft, briefly removes his hands from the controls, says a quiet prayer placing himself, his crew, and the aircraft within the protection of his G-D, places his hands back on the controls, and completes the landing. And the Canadian? Mr. Born Again, with the "In Case of Rapture, this (whatever) will be unmanned" on his car, his motorcycle, his guitar case, his computer, and his desk? The guy who preaches at a little congregation off-base? He goes totally batbarf. He's screaming about how he's going to report the pilot for reckless flying, and how he's never flying with another "Crazy Mohammadin" again, and similar wonderful things. The FOB Commander comes on board, talks to all parties, ascertains that the Canadian was clearly in the wrong, but sees no reason why he, a Christian, should apologize to a Godless Heathen. That's what he said, yes he did. I didn't know (until recently) that people still used that kind of language. In rapid succession (and by rapid, we're talking a matter of a very few hours), phone calls are made to Geilenkirchen, a replacement Second Officer is dispatched on the next outbound aircraft, the young Major gets a bus ticket to Ankara, where a commercial airline ticket will be waiting. By the time he gets back to his squadron, he has orders for another assignment, and the Commander of the Canadian Contingent is explaining how it would be a very good idea to seek success in another line of work.
In a quarter century of travels for the USAF, I found a lot of people who lived their faith without having to think about it. I also found a lot of people who were happy to tall you about the depth and sincerity of their chumship with G-d. These were never the same people.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
My new friend was a teacher at the local Uni, just finishing off doing a night class to pick up extra cash, and had some questions about various colloquialisms. His subject at Uni was Management, which I taught through the on-base campus of a couple of American colleges, so we wound up talking well into the candle hours of the morning. After that, I made it a habit to visit the cafe most nights.
I got a chance to learn about an academic's life in a fairly conservative part of Turkey, and he wanted to know how American methodology for undergraduate and graduate instruction differed. This was in 1990 and 1991, and he had far more in the way of dealing with religious sensitivities than I did, although the parallel, increasing syndrome in American classrooms is one of the reasons I was just as happy to depart teaching ten years later. I had greater latitude in linking to sources and ideas outside the field, but he was able to count on his students having a better grounding in language and history than mine. Fascinating.
I promise, there IS a point of relevance. His family had come to what is now Turkey over 500 years ago, fleeing persecution by Jews and Muslims. They converted a century later, under the then-Caliph's "you're Moslem or you're dead" policy. Increasing problems in getting back home for religious obligations were also a factor. So here was a guy who was able to help me interpret what I was learning about Islam from both an inside and an outside perspective. As far as his family was concerned, their religious identification was "good Muslims who are really Samaritans." There were Jewish and Christian groups in Konya. He has some friends among the latter, none among the former.
I got a chance to learn about an academic's life in a fairly conservative part of Turkey, and he wanted to know how American methodology for undergraduate and graduate instruction differed. This was in 1990 and 1991, and he had far more in the way of dealing with religious sensitivities than I did, although the parallel, increasing syndrome in American classrooms is one of the reasons I was just as happy to depart teaching ten years later. I had greater latitude in linking to sources and ideas outside the field, but he was able to count on his students having a better grounding in language and history than mine. Fascinating.
I promise, there IS a point of relevance. His family had come to what is now Turkey over 500 years ago, fleeing persecution by Jews and Muslims. They converted a century later, under the then-Caliph's "you're Moslem or you're dead" policy. Increasing problems in getting back home for religious obligations were also a factor. So here was a guy who was able to help me interpret what I was learning about Islam from both an inside and an outside perspective. As far as his family was concerned, their religious identification was "good Muslims who are really Samaritans." There were Jewish and Christian groups in Konya. He has some friends among the latter, none among the former.
I must point out that Konya is the site of the Mevlana Museum, where members of that particular sect of Sufi honor their founder, and where one can always find members of the Mevlani available to provide teaching. It was, and is, a major pilgrimage destination. The tomb of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, is there, beneath the Green Dome. It was a mausoleum (and the first lodge of the Mevelvi, often called the Whirling Dervishes) from 1274 until 1926. A typical week had at least two off days, so (either with friends or alone) I had a wonderful learning opportunity over those temporary duty assignments.
We kept up a correspondence until fairly recently. The area was getting even more conservative and, like my own nation, the lack of religious tolerance was on a downward slide. Out of a possible excess of caution, I have not used his name. A couple of moves for him, a couple of moves for me, and the usual sort of thing happened. Cards on the occasional holiday, then nothing. I think of him every time I hear the Far Right try and present Islam, or any faith other than their own, as a monolithic block of automatons, marching in lockstep.
I know an otherwise normal person who is convinced that Roman Catholics sprang fully organized from the pagan machinations of Constantine, and went on to subjugate the Western World until the Reformation brought us the King James Bible, only revealed source of G-d's word. I know another, similarly rational person who is convinced that all Muslims are Devil-worshiping child molesters who are going to be on the side of the Anti-Christ in the Final Days. I even heard a person, in what was supposed to be a civil discussion present the following argument "All the Priests are pedophiles, all the Rabbis are liars, and all the Politicians are crooks." The only place you can put your trust is in the ******** [church]." I used to tell that story and get a laugh. Now people argue about which religious denomination, order, sect, cult, or whatever is being cited, and then get into shouting matches for or against one of the choices.
We kept up a correspondence until fairly recently. The area was getting even more conservative and, like my own nation, the lack of religious tolerance was on a downward slide. Out of a possible excess of caution, I have not used his name. A couple of moves for him, a couple of moves for me, and the usual sort of thing happened. Cards on the occasional holiday, then nothing. I think of him every time I hear the Far Right try and present Islam, or any faith other than their own, as a monolithic block of automatons, marching in lockstep.
I know an otherwise normal person who is convinced that Roman Catholics sprang fully organized from the pagan machinations of Constantine, and went on to subjugate the Western World until the Reformation brought us the King James Bible, only revealed source of G-d's word. I know another, similarly rational person who is convinced that all Muslims are Devil-worshiping child molesters who are going to be on the side of the Anti-Christ in the Final Days. I even heard a person, in what was supposed to be a civil discussion present the following argument "All the Priests are pedophiles, all the Rabbis are liars, and all the Politicians are crooks." The only place you can put your trust is in the ******** [church]." I used to tell that story and get a laugh. Now people argue about which religious denomination, order, sect, cult, or whatever is being cited, and then get into shouting matches for or against one of the choices.
Friday, August 21, 2009
From the back of the head
Jules Feiffer cartoon. His archetypal loser character is at a party, where he is being conversationaly demolished by a square-jawed, pipe-smoking, painfully urbane guy. Finally, the nebbish has as much as he can take and screams "You dirty, lousy, cheaty rat!!!!!" As Mr. Urbanity smiles and says "Let us define your terms," the loser melts into a puddle of tapioca muttering "you can't win, you can't win, you can't win ...." is decreasing font sizes. I wanted to be the guy with the pipe, until I found out that everybody really hated him for being cooler, sharper, smarter, more educated, that kind of thing.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
And, taking my own advice.......
...which, by the bye (and unlike Alice), I do with reasonable frequency, I have recently subscribed to the Ann Coulter weekly newsletter. I have avoided the works of this particular person in the past, since it was just too easy to dismiss her as being so thoroughly outside of reality and/or rationality that the other Conservative True Believers noticed (being well brought up, I avoid the word "wingnut").
This also ties me into a whole group of other people who are so sure of their truth that they refuse to sully it with fact. Lots of fun. Also more than a little fright-making.
These are people who really believe that the President can simultaneously be a fascist, a socialist, a one-man Arab sleeper cell, a communist, a tool of the Zionist Owned Government, and a militant liberal. In between the "Obama invented the deficit" diatribes and the "Obama is the Anti-Christ" discussions, they send me e-mails touting a wonderful array of products. In general, these are the sort of things the infomercials wouldn't carry (out of respect for their customers).
As I write this, I am reminded of the last time the loonies of the right decided they could get away with saying the first thing that popped into the heads of their corporate sponsors. It was during the Kennedy/Nixon presidential campaign. Nixon put out ads that claimed that electing Kennedy would please the Communists, the Beatniks, the Unionists, and the Catholic Church. Didn't work, but it was pretty insane for the times. Nixon closed it all off when he wrote in Six Crises about his little girl asking him "Daddy, did people vote against us because we're Quakers?" What dreck, but we thought it was over.
Now we have Ann Coulter telling us we are going to have to stand in line for aspirins once "Obamacare" goes into effect. Outside the world of the Uber-Rich where Ms. Coulter apparently lives, there are people doing that now. They are known as the poor, the underinsured, and/or the uninsured. When the nonprofit organization Remote Area Medicine Volunteers decide to set up their tents in the United States instead of their usual locations of Third World Countries, you can easily believe we have rationing of medical care. The dividing lines are easy, in The States. If you have money, or a job with benefits, or you are drawing care from the VA, or TRICARE, or Medicare, or another single-payer system, you get a reasonable level of treatment. If not, tough.
When Medicare came in, the Right Wing claimed it was a plot to impose a national health care upon the nation. Didn't happen, but for a few years we had fewer elderly people facing the" sell your home to pay the doctors or die" dilemma. After the Bush II administration, it's close to getting back to the old days. But maybe not yet.
I do learn from the Human Events newsletter. I learn that there are a significant number of people (adjusting for the ones who are clearly sending the same posting with multiple different identities) who are willing to believe any number of long-disproved (and, in some cases, demonstrably impossible) lies. Moreover, they will cling to these ideas when even their leaders have found that level of shame beneath which even they will not cross. I'm sure most of them are, in many situations, perfectly nice people. But when certain subjects are raised, they have all the charm on the lady in Spokane, WA who, in 1992, apologized to me because she hadn't realized I had "Eye-talyun blood" and she had promised her neighbors she would only sell her house to a white family.
This also ties me into a whole group of other people who are so sure of their truth that they refuse to sully it with fact. Lots of fun. Also more than a little fright-making.
These are people who really believe that the President can simultaneously be a fascist, a socialist, a one-man Arab sleeper cell, a communist, a tool of the Zionist Owned Government, and a militant liberal. In between the "Obama invented the deficit" diatribes and the "Obama is the Anti-Christ" discussions, they send me e-mails touting a wonderful array of products. In general, these are the sort of things the infomercials wouldn't carry (out of respect for their customers).
As I write this, I am reminded of the last time the loonies of the right decided they could get away with saying the first thing that popped into the heads of their corporate sponsors. It was during the Kennedy/Nixon presidential campaign. Nixon put out ads that claimed that electing Kennedy would please the Communists, the Beatniks, the Unionists, and the Catholic Church. Didn't work, but it was pretty insane for the times. Nixon closed it all off when he wrote in Six Crises about his little girl asking him "Daddy, did people vote against us because we're Quakers?" What dreck, but we thought it was over.
Now we have Ann Coulter telling us we are going to have to stand in line for aspirins once "Obamacare" goes into effect. Outside the world of the Uber-Rich where Ms. Coulter apparently lives, there are people doing that now. They are known as the poor, the underinsured, and/or the uninsured. When the nonprofit organization Remote Area Medicine Volunteers decide to set up their tents in the United States instead of their usual locations of Third World Countries, you can easily believe we have rationing of medical care. The dividing lines are easy, in The States. If you have money, or a job with benefits, or you are drawing care from the VA, or TRICARE, or Medicare, or another single-payer system, you get a reasonable level of treatment. If not, tough.
When Medicare came in, the Right Wing claimed it was a plot to impose a national health care upon the nation. Didn't happen, but for a few years we had fewer elderly people facing the" sell your home to pay the doctors or die" dilemma. After the Bush II administration, it's close to getting back to the old days. But maybe not yet.
I do learn from the Human Events newsletter. I learn that there are a significant number of people (adjusting for the ones who are clearly sending the same posting with multiple different identities) who are willing to believe any number of long-disproved (and, in some cases, demonstrably impossible) lies. Moreover, they will cling to these ideas when even their leaders have found that level of shame beneath which even they will not cross. I'm sure most of them are, in many situations, perfectly nice people. But when certain subjects are raised, they have all the charm on the lady in Spokane, WA who, in 1992, apologized to me because she hadn't realized I had "Eye-talyun blood" and she had promised her neighbors she would only sell her house to a white family.
Monday, April 27, 2009
When you feel yourself geting complacent ....
When the sheer rightness of having a President who can speak decent, grammatical English and a staff who carry out Administration policy rather than their own evil agenda lulls you into thinking those who disagree with you have been placed firmly in the background.....
Take this three-step cure
1. Find the web site with which you most strenuously disagree. I routinely update this by turning my pack of search engines loose with phrases such as "most conservative" or "suppressed truth" or "they don't want you to know". For my conservative colleagues, I recommend they stick with Kieth Olbermann or Rachel Maddow. Either of those folks will do the job, as well as possibly sneaking some level of improved grammar and/or vocabulary into the process. Yes, there are MANY more liberal sites, but start slow. You can work up later.
2. Set this page as the first thing you see when you go on line. If you're in a rush (no, that is NOT a suliminal recommendation), you are allowed to skim, but you must come back and read it carefully before you leave.
3. As you read, repeat the following mantra to your self. If you're in public, you can do it in your head, but the reality of it gets better when you engage the vocal chords:
THESE PEOPLE REALLY MEAN IT
....................
THESE PEOPLE REALLY MEAN IT
..............................
THESE PEOPLE REALLY MEAN IT
When somebody actually expects you to get all irate over the President's choice of tie, or the latest "make it up as you go along" social gaffe (frequently bruited about by people who eat pie with their fingers), remember: THESE PEOPLE REALLY MEAN IT.
When various right wing Conservative commentators (radio, TV, blog, or print media) make statements that patently conflict with evidence, history, or just pain common sense, remember: THESE PEOPLE REALLY MEAN IT
This truth was brought home to me several weeks ago. My wife and I were traveling from my mother's home in Southern California to our home in Oregon. We had stopped for the night in a part of Northern California generally thought of as fairly liberal. At breakfst, we were having breakfast in the hotel, and, as one does, struck up a conversation with some of the people there. It turned out that three of them were in town as vendors at a gun show, and a fourth was an organizer of that event.
Two of the three vendors were leaving the gun show early. They had run out of merchandise. The third was all right, since his home was not that far away, and one of his sons was bringing up enough stock to keep him going.
All four of these people (well-spoken, apparently well-educated) were eager to give credit for their success to President Obama. First, because of his (apocryphal) intention of closing down gun shows in their present form, since (paraphrasing here, but close enough for inverted commas) 'Gun shows are the only source law-abiding decent Americans have of arming themselves without creating a record in the Government archives.' Second, because (same caveat as above) 'B Hussain has a plan to confiscate all privately owned weapons as part of turning us into a Socialist State.'
All right, I'm pretty sure that neither "secret government plan" exists. Neither does the "secret plan" to turn two hundred-mile-wide strips stretching from the Canadian to the Mexican borders to NATO and/or the UN as part of any of a number of nefarious plots. The point is that these otherwise reasonable people believed every word of it.
as these four people left the breakfast room, I heard one of them make a racist remark about "Obambi" and his family. Another said (and this I remember): "somebody is going to take that boy out before too long." I doubt any of these meant to do anything about that particularly nasty sentiment. After all, they are making a lot of money out of the fears of the ignorant. But would the mind if one of the guns they are selling to people was used? Probably not.
They have heard all the idiotic trash about the President, and, for that matter, about "any number of card-carrying Liberals that are currently infesting Washington." That last quote? From a nice lady who was trying to recruit me into an online grad program at Phoenix. Just part of the friendly chit-chat that is normally part of such sales pitches.
My response? "Well, nothing lasts forever."
Hers? "I think the people will take matters into their own hands."
THESE PEOPLE REALLY MEAN IT!!
Take this three-step cure
1. Find the web site with which you most strenuously disagree. I routinely update this by turning my pack of search engines loose with phrases such as "most conservative" or "suppressed truth" or "they don't want you to know". For my conservative colleagues, I recommend they stick with Kieth Olbermann or Rachel Maddow. Either of those folks will do the job, as well as possibly sneaking some level of improved grammar and/or vocabulary into the process. Yes, there are MANY more liberal sites, but start slow. You can work up later.
2. Set this page as the first thing you see when you go on line. If you're in a rush (no, that is NOT a suliminal recommendation), you are allowed to skim, but you must come back and read it carefully before you leave.
3. As you read, repeat the following mantra to your self. If you're in public, you can do it in your head, but the reality of it gets better when you engage the vocal chords:
THESE PEOPLE REALLY MEAN IT
....................
THESE PEOPLE REALLY MEAN IT
..............................
THESE PEOPLE REALLY MEAN IT
When somebody actually expects you to get all irate over the President's choice of tie, or the latest "make it up as you go along" social gaffe (frequently bruited about by people who eat pie with their fingers), remember: THESE PEOPLE REALLY MEAN IT.
When various right wing Conservative commentators (radio, TV, blog, or print media) make statements that patently conflict with evidence, history, or just pain common sense, remember: THESE PEOPLE REALLY MEAN IT
This truth was brought home to me several weeks ago. My wife and I were traveling from my mother's home in Southern California to our home in Oregon. We had stopped for the night in a part of Northern California generally thought of as fairly liberal. At breakfst, we were having breakfast in the hotel, and, as one does, struck up a conversation with some of the people there. It turned out that three of them were in town as vendors at a gun show, and a fourth was an organizer of that event.
Two of the three vendors were leaving the gun show early. They had run out of merchandise. The third was all right, since his home was not that far away, and one of his sons was bringing up enough stock to keep him going.
All four of these people (well-spoken, apparently well-educated) were eager to give credit for their success to President Obama. First, because of his (apocryphal) intention of closing down gun shows in their present form, since (paraphrasing here, but close enough for inverted commas) 'Gun shows are the only source law-abiding decent Americans have of arming themselves without creating a record in the Government archives.' Second, because (same caveat as above) 'B Hussain has a plan to confiscate all privately owned weapons as part of turning us into a Socialist State.'
All right, I'm pretty sure that neither "secret government plan" exists. Neither does the "secret plan" to turn two hundred-mile-wide strips stretching from the Canadian to the Mexican borders to NATO and/or the UN as part of any of a number of nefarious plots. The point is that these otherwise reasonable people believed every word of it.
as these four people left the breakfast room, I heard one of them make a racist remark about "Obambi" and his family. Another said (and this I remember): "somebody is going to take that boy out before too long." I doubt any of these meant to do anything about that particularly nasty sentiment. After all, they are making a lot of money out of the fears of the ignorant. But would the mind if one of the guns they are selling to people was used? Probably not.
They have heard all the idiotic trash about the President, and, for that matter, about "any number of card-carrying Liberals that are currently infesting Washington." That last quote? From a nice lady who was trying to recruit me into an online grad program at Phoenix. Just part of the friendly chit-chat that is normally part of such sales pitches.
My response? "Well, nothing lasts forever."
Hers? "I think the people will take matters into their own hands."
THESE PEOPLE REALLY MEAN IT!!
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One night/morning, I was reading a book while noshing my way through something with honey, nuts and strange spices, and a fellow about my age asked me if I was American or British. I replied that I was American, working for NATO, and with a team of two Brits, a Greek, and a Nederlander. Thus I was bilingual in Oxford English and the American dialect. Translation was an actual additional duty for me, and for a Canadian Major who claimed both Oxford and Eastern Standard were just degenerate forms of the "pure English" of his native Newfoundland.