That last one is a result of reading his latest sordid volume: Coming Apart: The State of White America. At first, you think, huh? WHITE America? And then he explains that he has taken everyone else out of the equation so as not to be (insert whine) ACCUSED of anything, as he (correctly) was when he (co)wrote the racist book THE BELL CURVE. Thus, suitably chastened, he petulantly refuses to discuss anything but white people from now on.
Throughout the book, Murray periodically reminds us that he went to Harvard, just after he asserts something resoundingly clueless. Just so you know: he makes big money saying these stupid things. Is this what a Harvard education is worth? Save your pennies, kids.
What he doesn't understand is that white people's position is a result of having several buffer classes of people to take the heat; classes that CUSHION whites from economic and social upheaval (and thoroughly unpleasant jobs such as picking grapes in the fields), rather as having military bases all over the world cushions the USA from much unpleasant international fallout.
Murray thinks the elite (whites) have become the elite because of their superior morals and values... an argument so flimsy (regardless of all his graphs and pie charts) that Jonathan Chait (who admits he has not even read the book) successfully countered it in ONE FUNNY GRAPHIC on his blog. We know Wall Street is filled with paragons of virtue, yes?
Tellingly, Murray also includes a quiz about "living in a bubble"--which I found the most incredible section of the book. (Needless to say, I don't, and I doubt you do either.) One question, for instance, is "Have you ever been on a factory floor?"--and Murray has, exactly ONE TIME. (!) One. Time.
Non-Harvard aside: Why is someone so sheltered he has only been on a factory floor ONCE, trusted to write an opus about CLASS? That's hilarious, all by itself.
DEAD AIR studied this book in abject amazement, and consequently wondered if the Right and Left can ever agree on ANYthing at all. (shakes head) Also, my dislike and mistrust of the elites populating the Left, has been greatly enhanced... if that's possible.
~*~
I got photos... I have not posted random photos for a good while. (I blame Facebook!) Also, I have noticed that these random-photo threads tend to become spam magnets, for some odd reason. I guess the word "random" brings in the bots?
Anyway... below (as always, you can click to enlarge):
1) Efia Nwangaza addresses the Malcolm X festival; the local Malcolm X Center meet-and-greet photos are here.
2) Doggie cooling off in Falls Park fountain.
3) Big Girls Rock banner, also present at Malcolm X festival.
4) Cyril decides to relax in my clean laundry. It was suggested to me on Facebook, that a warm basket of laundry IN THE DIRECT LINE OF A SUNBEAM amounts to me setting an irresistible cat-trap.
5) Your yearly azalea fix! I almost let Spring go by without posting any! (McPherson Park)
6) Country band, The Buchanan Boys, who did an excellent country version of "Kashmir"! They have a Facebook page, but not a regular web page. (May 4th)
7) Purty roses and 8) Irises! That new Facebook "timeline" gives me an excuse to post flowers! Both from Falls Park.
I fully realize this is theumpteenthtime I have posted photos of the falls, but I love them so much! During the spring, I try to visit about once a week or more.
Likewise, I know you've seen plenty ofazaleas from me by now, but I simply can't resist them.
All photos from my Flickr page... And BTW, did you know that BY LAW you have to link back to Flickr? To your own photos? Hmph.
I haven't had as much time to blog, because I've actually started hiking again. I started slow, and I am now up to about an hour and a half before I completely collapse. My beloved azaleas are in bloom, and it's a beautiful spring!
My goal is to someday be able to climb a real mountain again. At this admittedly-slow rate, it will be at least another year, but I am fervently hoping for next spring/summer... and I promise if I ever again get to the top of Table Rock, I will take oodles of photos for DEAD AIR--so you will all believe me!
~*~
As I said in this post (fabulous music awaits you at the link), the kids used to ask me the names of songs... but yesterday, I had to ask one of them. As you all know, it is impossible to Google lyrics from an instrumental song, since they have no lyrics. (sigh) Stranded, desolate and desperate... the pretty music plays on and on and you can't ever find it again. One 60s-era instrumental arrangement, in particular, has been haunting me for several months now. Upon hearing it again, I scurried over to the work-area of said young person, who then held his handy-dandy iPhone up to the speaker broadcasting my long-lost tune. Held the phone up, said the old lady, amazed...do you believe that shit?
Answer, within about 10 seconds: Cleo's Mood, by Junior Walker and the All Stars. (I have helpfully provided the long-lost song for you below. You knew I would.)
And that's what I mean about becoming obsolete. My musical memory is certainly no match for an iPhone application! Somehow, it makes me feel sad and exhilarated, all at once. I guess this is how the old mule skinner felt when he saw the Model-T Ford: Wow.
Just for that, adding Muleskinner Blues to our mix. (Just listen to her hit them high notes!!!)
~*~
Believe it or not, it was once considered pretty radical stuff for a woman to sing this song. (Notice she is careful to say she is a lady mule skinner.) Typically, Dolly takes a classic male song (about a male occupation!) and makes it totally her own, singing it far better than any man, with that Tennessee-wildcat soprano of hers. I've always loved this!
And for the record: It does not get more country than this, so if you don't like country music, do not listen. Really.
Mule Skinner Blues - Dolly Parton
~*~
My long-lost Motown instrumental! Brought to you by... the wonders of modern technology!
(Is this the coolest thing you ever heard or what?)
Cleo's Mood - Junior Walker and the All Stars
~*~
Last, but not least.
I grew up with this song, and I always think of it when any coal-miner is hurt. Dedicated to the miners in West Virginia, and their families; I'm sure lots of people are thinking about these words right now... and my prayers are with them.
Dark as a Dungeon (written by Merle Travis)
Oh come all you young fellers so young and so fine
Seek not your fortune in a dark dreary mine
It'll form as a habit and seep in your soul
Till the stream of your blood runs as black as the coal
Well it's many a man that I've seen in my day
Who lived just to labor his whole life away
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine
A man will have lust for the lure of the mine
Where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where the danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's a dark as a dungeon way down in the mine
And pray when I'm gone and my ages shall roll
That my body would blacken and turn into coal
Then I'll look from the door of my heavenly home
And pity the miners digging my bones
Where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where the danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's a dark as a dungeon way down in the mine
Everyone's feeling pretty
It's hotter than July
Though the world's full of problems
They couldn't touch us even if they tried
The American right-wing is having a meltdown. Their carefully-constructed pretense of patriotism-at-all-costs, is crumbling right before our eyes. Politico reports:
Screaming constituents, protesters dragged out by the cops, congressmen fearful for their safety — welcome to the new town-hall-style meeting, the once-staid forum that is rapidly turning into a house of horrors for members of Congress.
On the eve of the August recess, members are reporting meetings that have gone terribly awry, marked by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior. In at least one case, a congressman has stopped holding town hall events because the situation has spiraled so far out of control.
“I had felt they would be pointless,” Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to temporarily suspend the events in his Long Island district. “There is no point in meeting with my constituents and [to] listen to them and have them listen to you if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation.”
In Bishop’s case, his decision came on the heels of a June 22 event he held in Setauket, N.Y., in which protesters dominated the meeting by shouting criticisms at the congressman for his positions on energy policy, health care and the bailout of the auto industry.
Within an hour of the disruption, police were called in to escort the 59-year-old Democrat — who has held more than 100 town hall meetings since he was elected in 2002 — to his car safely.
“I have no problem with someone disagreeing with positions I hold,” Bishop said, noting that, for the time being, he was using other platforms to communicate with his constituents. “But I also believe no one is served if you can’t talk through differences.”
Bishop isn’t the only one confronted by boiling anger and rising incivility. At a health care town hall event in Syracuse, N.Y., earlier this month, police were called in to restore order, and at least one heckler was taken away by local police. Close to 100 sign-carrying protesters greeted Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) at a late June community college small-business development forum in Panama City, Fla. Last week, Danville, Va., anti-tax tea party activists claimed they were “refused an opportunity” to ask Rep. Thomas Perriello (D-Va.) a question at a town hall event and instructed by a plainclothes police officer to leave the property after they attempted to hold up protest signs.
Why is no one calling these trouble-makers insurrectionists, wingnuts and psychos, as lefties have always been called?
Time to call them what they are: dangerous, anti-American wackos.
*Trying to get a ballpark figure for an appropriate amount of weight gain during pregnancy from the internet is not a good idea.
Take all of the crazy, interfering, I-know-better-than-you stuff that gets directed at pregnant women.
Take all of the crazy, interfering, I-know-better-than-you stuff that gets thrown around about weight and health issues.
Combine.
Or hit yourself in the head with a brick a few times. It's faster, and just as informative.
* Moods are not unstable. Moods are turned up to eleven.
Instead of "cranky" I was achieving "kill it and devour its heart that its lifeblood might sustain my offspring."
Instead of "I don't want to deal with this" I was achieving "I need to go live in a cave and contemplate the hopelessness of human interaction."
* Childbirth classes with any sort of natural bent will spend at least a quarter of the time in class talking about how to protect yourself from hospitals.
This is epically fucked up. Completely, totally, epically fucked up. Legalhusband and I would leave our childbirth class every time, exchange glances, and then he'd say, "I'm so glad we're not planning on a hospital birth. I'm so glad we don't have to go through that."
They will lie. They will not talk about the risks of epidurals. They will insist on putting an IV shunt into your vein "just in case" and not mention that it's possible to refuse. They will pressure. This is why people hire doulas - when they can afford them - to help protect their families from the crushing stress and pressure. This is insane.
Ohhhh, hell yes it is.
Awesome writing and women's truth, read it all!
~*~
They want us to join their fighting
But our answer today
Is to let all our worries
Like the breeze through our fingers slip away
And while reading, always keep in mind John Scalzi's Law of Internet Invocation:If you name them, they will come.
So yeah, the Libertarians are present and accounted for.
~*~
Old railroad trestle is from West Greenville County, SC.
One of my least favorite subjects, one that makes me want to scurry away and hide, was addressed in a round-about way earlier this month, on a vibrant and interesting Quaker blog: Anti-Christianity and where it comes from.
Usually, it comes from us. (The Christians, I mean.)
She also poses this as a generational question, which is fascinating, also:
What do Friends have to teach me about how to deal with people at Quaker gatherings who are openly hostile to christians? I've encountered some of it in the most liberal Quaker gatherings I've been to. It's not ok. I know that some liberal Friends groups in their lack of openness attract some people who are really spiritually wounded.
How do we make such people welcome and address their fears whilst at the same time not tolerating hatred of Christ or people who follow him? It's not a loving favour to indulge the spiritually wounded. Our indulgence of each other is spiritually dangerous and I believe I have seen it pretty much kill the spirit of a Meeting. How do we challenge wounded people to heal?
I care about this because it's not just about sucking up the persecution. It's about whether liberal Quakers get to keep a whole load of smart committed highly motivated christian young folks who may already be bored to tears with boomer wooliness. This is a key issue for people in liberal meeting to address. I think lack of toleration for open hostility to Christ needs to be the very least we can expect, otherwise what on earth are we doing?
Her post was the catalyst for a thoughtful discussion about WHY people are hostile to Christianity in the first place. And yeah, I already know why, but I always force myself to read the gory details.
Betsy Blake comments:
Alice, it is soothing to me, to hear you address this. I have done intensive Quaker intervisitation work for 14+ years. I am a Jesus-loving FUM Quaker. I identify with traditional Christian language. I didn't learn until college (at a liberal Quaker school), that even if you have the best of intentions and are as grounded in love as one can be, it still hurts people just to say the very words that are associated with this past hurt. This in turn can trigger swift attack.
I really, really, struggle with this.
Yes, me too. And I identify as a dissenting Catholic, not even one of the cool-liberal hippie Quakers.
Blake adds:
My question is--do people WANT to be healed?
Hmmm. Good one.
I often believe they do not.
Bill Samuel, another commenter:
Some meetings seem full of sick people not wanting to get well. Healthy people are viewed as sick. What happens when good Christians stay in such meetings? Well, a variety of things, but one thing I've noticed is that they tend to take on some of the illness. I'm not sure it's healthy to stay.
Does it have to be like this? The faith community I'm in now (I resigned from a liberal Friends meeting in 2005) also attracts lots of people who didn't fit in typical evangelical, Catholic, or whatever churches. But our community focuses on discovering what it really means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, not on rejecting Christ because others have distorted him badly.
And then there was this comment, from Algirdas Davidavicius:
I guess on the level of interpersonal relationships with such "hostile" people one good Christian Friend can always keep in mind, that the hostility in question is not because Christ nor His message, but because some painful, rejecting experience these people or their important ones once have from institutionalized, formalized or self-proclaimed "christians", hence they are making this projective, negative blanket-statement, discounting everything "christian". This is not problem, solution is always to listen and inquire directly persons experiences, feelings behind those "anti-" statements, which are only kinda cries for positive affirmation and, actually, truly christian acceptance of anyone as possessing indelible "that of God in us".
Hold Thee in Light -- Algis, Lithuania (Eastern Europe)
I'll try, man, and thanks for that reminder. I needed it, today.
~*~
Yall knew I couldn't get through a post this size without AZALEAS, right? :)
I guess I didn't fully realize that his entire nose was GONE.
GONE, a hole in the center. (He was wearing a prosthetic nose.) Didn't any surgeons wonder if he was able to give "informed consent" for that? Evil, money-grubbing greedheads; I guess if he wanted to destroy his nose, they were glad to do it for a hefty fee.
Likewise, the pharmacy bill totaling (!) over $100,000 in a year's time. Holy shit, people.
This brings to mind an AA discussion, back in the day...John Belushi died about 6 weeks into my sobriety, and I owe him for that. John Belushi died for my sins, right about the same time I was starting to dangerously waver and reconsider the whole sobriety enterprise. And then he died, and I thought, ohhhhh.
The AA-meeting question after his death: Is it worse to be a rich addict or a poor addict?
Everyone agreed: A rich one.
Sycophants, groupies, hangers-on and various assortments of fellow-travelers and dealers, will fuck you up. By contrast, when you're a poor addict, people rapidly desert you in droves. You are out in the cold and you have no choice but to clean up. No job, no money, no lovers, no place to go. There it is, cold hard reality, staring you in face. All your goofy, drug-addled ideas (like destroying your nose) can never really come to fruition. They become the stuff of mindless junkie-talk, pipe dreams and nonsense-blather.
And a good thing too, or you might have had the power and money to do something insane, like destroy your nose.
I first visited South Carolina on Easter weekend of 1987, and there was an amazing explosion of color everywhere. I had never seen azaleas except on TV and in photographs... I still don't think you get the full impact unless you see rows and rows and rows of them in person, covering hills and yards and roadsides; their bright, beautiful colors gleaming all over the place. I felt like I was visiting a tropical paradise.
I still feel that way when I see them bloom every spring.
Alice Walker said God wants us to notice the color purple, and I would add, He also wants us to appreciate His stunning azaleas in bloom!
Left: Azaleas! Photo from my hike in Falls Park (Greenville, SC) last weekend.
~*~
I've been entrusted to get the oil changed in Mr Daisy's car, but can't seem to rouse myself to do anything but putter around and look at Vanessa's cat drink out of the toilet. Lots of overwork lately, with attendant exhaustion. Where's my Rhodiola? I need an IV administered.
Whilst sifting through a mountain of ancient, illegally-recorded videotapes, I discovered A HARD DAYS NIGHT ("My grandfather? I thought he was your grandfather!"). And that reminded me: I need to stop and pick up Pattie Boyd's book, because clearly, there isn't enough trashy gossip in my life. I was talking about the book with a friend recently, who proclaimed it a must-read.
Apparently, the UK edition is titled Wonderful Today, which is perfectly fine, but in the USA, it was changed to Wonderful Tonight, in case we didn't know which famous fellas she was attached to. ((rolls eyes))
Quote from Times review:
In “Wonderful Tonight,” Boyd seems like a real person who happened to be lucky enough to live shoulder to shoulder with rock deities. The prose is clear and unpretentious, and although she writes candidly about the pain her husbands’ infidelities caused her — particularly [George] Harrison’s affair with Ringo Starr’s first wife, Maureen — this isn’t a bitter tell-all screed. There’s an aura of sweetness around Boyd’s approach. Her early years with Harrison, who comes off as a relatively gentle man, clearly were happy ones, and she rather openly states that she regrets leaving him — although she’s quick to acknowledge she would have regretted missing out on the passion she felt for [Eric] Clapton.
Hey! In case yall haven't noticed, those ARE the issues!
~*~
Speaking of George, this was the first song he ever wrote to appear on a Beatles album, and is also prominently featured in the aforementioned A HARD DAY'S NIGHT. George and Ringo called themselves "the economy-class Beatles"--usually George was rationed at two songs per album, max. (John and Paul were very territorial in the songwriting department.)
Not sure who he was talking about in the song. He was somewhat shy and introspective (especially compared to the other three) and was likely referring to various hangers-on, groupies and weirdos coming out of the woodwork after the Beatles became mega-famous. Certainly, he wasn't talking about our beloved Pattie!
Enjoy this little-known Beatles tune, which I've loved since I was about six years old. Feminists will appreciate that lots of us little girls sang it to boys who bothered us (in unison, too!) and we also jumped rope to it. (People who wonder why Pete Best got canned, just listen to that BEAT. The name was Beatles for a reason, people!)
During my unofficial blog break, I pondered these Puzzling Questions of the week:
