GOAT?

I'm a dilettante football fan.  I don't understand all the ins and outs of the rules, the science of ball inflation, or statistics.  I didn't start watching football at all until about a decade ago.  But I'm not really going to be talking about football in and of itself here.

I'm hearing impaired, so a lot of the commentary on the games escaped me.  I read a lot on the subject, but I watched as an outsider.   One player I noticed a lot.  He reminded me of both a spoiled child and a bully.  He frequently complained to the refs about the other team doing the same thing he expected his team to get away with.  He screamed at his team mates and coaches.  He pouted whenever he wasn't the center of attention.  He -- there's no delicate way to put this -- hocked a loogie during a Moment of Silence for murdered children.  

I don't care how many Super Bowl rings he has.  The man is not a GOAT - he's an ASS.

The Whole Picture

Look at the image above.  Can you tell me what the picture is?  Can you tell me what any given individual piece is?  Of course not.  My asking you to do so is just silly.  Yet we do similar things every day.  To our fellow human beings.

One of the big stories in the news is "the MAGA kid".  Given the current political climate, the conclusion most of us jumped to was a reasonable one, but apparently we were wrong.  To what degree we were wrong remains to be seen.  But that video is just one piece of the puzzle.  

As more of the puzzle is assembled, the big picture is very complex.  I do stand by my description of the boy's expression as a smirk, though, although I'm no longer certain why he's smirking. 

In essence, we picked up a single puzzle piece and decided what the entire picture was.  

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I see this a lot in smaller ways, every day.  Pretend you see the following:  A middle aged woman is checking out at Wal-Mart.  Within the purchases, you see a Barbie doll  and a Nerf gun.  Who is the doll for?  The gun?  

Look at a picture and write a story about it.  That's one of my favorite writing exercises.

The tendency to do this - to fill in the rest of the picture - is not something to be ashamed of.  It's hard wired into the human brain.  But we gotta be careful not to let it get the best of us.  Remain open to more information.  And, you know, don't go on a uninformed rampage.  That we should be ashamed of. 

Blades and Books

When my minions were little, they watched educational TV shows.  The specific show changed depending on the minion (after all, the oldest is now in her 40s and the youngest is currently in the womb) but every single one of them had the same game.  One of these things is not like the other.

Gillette has a new ad campaign that focuses on how men should teach their sons (and help each other) be "the best a man can get".  Don't punch each other out.  Don't force yourself on others of either sex.  Basically, just be a better human being.

People who can't tell why a banana is different from a monkey, a walrus, and a horse are in an uproar.  Gillette is attacking men!  The feminists have taken over!  Run for the hills!  Times like this are why adjectives exist.  Masculinity is fine, y'all.  Toxic - that's an adjective - masculinity is not.

The behaviors addressed in the ad apply to either sex.  But society has dismissed them when men do them.  Boys will be boys, right?   That's the entire point of the ad.  But man, have I seen some crazy responses.  One guy posed his children with guns.  (Well, the boys.  The girl was holding a flower.  But I digress.)  "I'll raise my kids how I want, you stupid razor company."   Did Gillette tell you not to teach your kids gun safety?  (Did Gillette tell you not to foist medieval gender roles on your daughter? Oops, digressed again.)  Because I missed that part.

If you use a Gillette razor, your penis is not going to vanish.  Unless you're using it very wrong.

*****

I discovered organizing guru Marie Kondo, or at least her philosophy, a long time ago.  She's in the news now for apparently ordering all of us to toss our books.

My books "spark joy" for me.  Therefore, Marie Kondo said I can keep them. Not that she's the boss of me, anyway.  God knows I ignore that advice about neat rows in my sock drawer.

In conclusion, let's play a round of that game.  Which is different: A suggestion, a hint, a bit of advice, or an order? 

Writers' Agendas

"I'm sick of this show pushing its liberal agenda on us."  "Why can't they just tell a story without cramming their conservative politics up our noses?"  "That book series is a lot of propaganda."

Anyone who has been in a High School or College literature class can tell you about having to psychoanalyze writers.  What is the significance of Harry Potter's glasses?  Why do they run through a series of rooms in The Mask of The Red Death?  How does Dracula illustrate the sexual repression of the Victorian era?   That analysis of the author's psyche is not a lot different from seeking out the agenda.

Everyone has an agenda.  Speaking for myself, as a fiction writer, I don't deliberately plant mine into my stories.  But it leaks in there.  My stories tend to focus on large, loving families.  I put together couples who fit, not really caring about their race or sex.  I don't set my stories in large cities.  I never thought much about those things - I was just enjoying my chosen role as story teller.

I've been guilty of diversity for diversity's sake - which led to the happy accident of Olivia Ross.  My white heterosexual male Owen became an Amerasian* lesbian and for some reason (buried deep in my psyche) this new incarnation blossomed into the rich character Owen never was.  Olivia also taught me not to force these things.  A diverse cast of characters is good, but only if they can bloom as Olivia did.  She isn't "the lesbian" or "the Asian".  She's Olivia.

But I digress.  My point is this - what so many today are calling the writer's agenda is nothing more than their subconscious mind leaking into the tale.  If two characters fit as a couple, it doesn't matter to me what color they are or what genitalia they're packing, so I write them together.  Is that pushing my liberal agenda on my readers?  If my characters go hunting, am I screaming in reader's faces about the Second Amendment?

There are writers out there actively pushing agendas.  It would be foolish to claim otherwise.  I've found that, in that case, the story telling suffers.  All the characters are stereotypes.  Couples that make no sense hook up.  Those writers lose viewers/readers.  I often think that George Orwell didn't sit down to make a comment on Big Government.  If he had, I doubt 1984 would be the classic it is.

A final bit of advice - if you don't like the way the story is going?  Put down the book or change the channel.



*Not sure what the current "correct" term would be.  Olivia has a white American father and a Korean-born mother.  I intend no offense to anyone by my use of this term.  This is the term I imagine Olivia herself using.

Baby It's Cold Outside

People are calling for a ban of a classic song based on their own personal interpretation of the lyrics. 

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is basically a conversation between a man and a woman, one in which she thinks she should go home and he wants her to stay.  While some of the lines can be problematic ("what's in this drink") it really does boil down to our own interpretation. 

Can it be seen as him sexually harassing her and possibly setting her up for date rape?  Yes.  Can it be seen as both of them wanting more time together and her being concerned about gossip?  Yes.  It's all a matter of interpretation, and if we see something problematic in it, why not use it as a teaching moment? 

My sister loathes "Santa Baby" because of the singer's obvious greed.  Others say it sexualizes Santa because the singer is using her feminine wiles on him.  (Santa's not allowed to be sexual?  Poor Mrs. Claus)  These people have, for decades, simply turned the station.

I hate "Blue Christmas" because, to me, it's a guilt trip.  You go on and have fun - I'll sit in the corner and eat wet cigarette butts. If you hear nothing more than "I miss you", that's fine.  That's probably the actual intent of the song.  But what I hear is what I hear. So I just turn the station.

Does "Rudolph The Red-Nose Reindeer" imply bullying is okay?  Does "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" support the Patriot Act?  "12 Days of Christmas" has human beings as gifts - slavery, anyone?  Should anything be banned because of what you or I read into it? 

It's not like any of these songs are coming right out and saying these things.  We're reading into them, as human beings do, and even if they did...  this is called a teaching moment. 

Elizabeth Warren's DNA

I'm going start off with this:  Any comments about Warren's politics will be deleted.  

Elizabeth Warren has, for years, claimed to be an American Indian.  I have no doubt she believed it to be true and now DNA testing has validated the claim - to a point.  I doubt she can meet the blood quantum of any recognized tribe.  My point here is that Elizabeth Warren is not alone.  There are probably more of us claiming "great-grandpa was an Indian princess" than there are doing the opposite. (That line in quotes?  I totally stole it from a book called How To Talk Trash In Cherokee.)

Like Elizabeth Warren, I've grown up with stories of American Indian ancestry.  I've never claimed to be anything but the white girl I am, because I've got no documentation and because it's so far back I've probably got like one chromosome.  Most of the tales agree it came down the Parker line, and photographs of my mother and her father enforce that theory.

All the documentation I've found on my genealogy, however, lists the race as white.  This isn't proof that we're "lying" about the DNA being there.  Many American Indians chose to pass as other races, largely to avoid things like The Trail Of Tears.  Some claimed to be black, which speaks volumes about how they were treated... they'd prefer to be seen as black even before the Civil War!  I suspect something like this happened in my family.

Why do I insist on still believing it?  Because there is other evidence.  Physical Anthropology recognizes three skeletal types - one of which is Asian/American Indian.  Some of the physical markers?  High arches in the foot -- My mother had trouble finding shoes that fit comfortably. (Not that she wore them often, but I digress.)  Winged incisors and shovel-shaped teeth. High cheekbones, of course.  Shape of the eye socket.

With the skin on, of course, you also get the skin color.  All of these things are present in my documented-white family, varying in degree by individual.  Other physical indicators I've heard, but honestly have not deeply researched:  second toe being longer and slightly separated from the big toe.  Tendency toward diabetes and thyroid issues. All present in my family.

A note about DNA tests:  DNA can "fall away".  If Elizabeth Warren's test had not shown her native ancestor, it's possible he might still exist, especially considering the number of ensuing generations.  There is also the possibility that said ancestor was adopted into the tribe and therefore not genetically a part of said tribe.

When all the fuss started about Elizabeth Warren lying about her heritage, I was insulted.  She believed it to be true.  Just like me. If the university in question took her at her word, not requiring documentation, that's hardly her fault.  To say she lied is to say every one of us seeking our own hiding ancestry is a liar. 

I'm Unbalanced

And no, I'm not referring to my mental health this time.  All my life, I've had problems with balance.  When I was a pre-teen, a classmate noted that everyone has a certain "walk".  Mine involves leaning slightly to one side.  It's a running joke that I ride a bicycle like I'm drunk.  When walking down the sidewalk, I drift to one side or the other.  A google search tells me that "listing" is a symptom of all kinds of scary illnesses, but I don't have any of the other symptoms.

There are two likely suspects for this.  The first is DNA...  the ear is the organ of balance and ear issues run in my family.  A lot of us (me included) have hearing issues.  My father's vertigo was so bad, he was forced to retire.  At least one of my siblings also has vertigo.

The second is a longer story.  When I was a toddler, I played Tarzan on a light-pull string.  Over a cement floor.  I was unconscious for, I've been told, five minutes.  I was not taken to the hospital or doctor.  I've had also had syncope (fainting spells) all my life, and the only time it was mentioned to a doctor was after rejection for military service.  I often wonder if my syncope and balance problems are because of the Tarzan Incident.

For the most part, I've learned to live with it.  It really is, for me, a minor inconvenience.  I take a little extra care on ladders and stairs.  I get funny looks some times, but I don't mind.  I'd probably wonder about some lady going down the steps in the weird posture, myself!  It's pretty common for a relative walking with me to say "You're drifting" because I'm pushing them off the sidewalk.

My syncope, my dysthymia, and definitely my diabetes are larger issues.  I've even learned to tell the difference between an attempt to faint from a sugar low.  I take my medicines and try to follow doctor's orders.  But the balance issues?  I wave my hand dismissively at them.