So, this morning I started reading Radical Discipleship Interesting. Glancing at the upcoming chapters, I suspect that the author and I will have some serious disagreeemnts. however, the first chapter makes good sense to me. The trouble I've run into this morning is that reading a passage I particularly liked to my roommate/landlady sparked what could have turned into a nasty debate if I hadn't simply decided to stop responding.
I was reading a section wherein Camp points to the differing perspectives from which people come to the New Testament, and how that affects the questions we as readers ask. So I read this section of the chapter out loud to Ida, whose response was that it's true but irrelevant--because the book holds all the answers to those questions, and stays the same no matter what. This led into a lecture from her on the fact that the Holy Spirit is no longer there. According to her theological tradition, apparently, the Holy Spirit existred solely for the purpose of prtecting the message of the gospel until it was written down in the first century A.D. As such, with the completion of the Bible in its present form, the Holy Spirit disappeared. It is therefore no longer to be seen as a guide in the world; for that, only the written text matters.
I'm sorry, but I call bullshit. Part of this is due to my Quaker readings and experiences, I suppose. A great deal more of it has to do with the experiences of others that I have heard about. Some of those having the experiences weren't even Christians. Yet they were led by something to do the right, Christian thing. Barring an actual visit by Christ, what is it then that leads us to act in accordance with God's will, if the Holy Spirit is no more? What is it that led a friend of mine to pull over on the roadside to help in an emergency on the interstate? What led an ex-girlfriend's father to stop once on an icy road to help a woman change a tire, even though it meant he was late for his worldly appointment? What prompts the atheist I used to live with to give freely to those who were unfortunate, even though they were strangers? Is it not through the Holy Spirit that God leads us, guides us toward goodness?
On the other hand, we have people like Ida, I suppose. Ida's devotion to the exact wording, the written document, of the New Testament, is her guide. She does that which she believes to be right, not because she is led inwardly to do right, but because "The Bible says..." and therefore she has to do it. As much as I like Ida, as much as she often seems to be such a good and righteous person, sometimes I can't help but shake my head in sadness at her motivations. In many ways, she seems to be exactly the kinds of Christians that Lee Camp has in mind when he says "'Salvation,' instead of being construed as the gift of a transformed, abundant life in the now-present kingdom of God, begins to be equated with an otherworldly reward. More crassly put, 'salvation' is increasingly viewed as a fire-insurance policy, a 'Get Out of Hell Free Card' guaranteeing an escape from the fires of torment and ensuring the receipt of treasures in heaven."
Now granted, I don't feel it's necessarily my place to judge, since I don't consider myself a Christian. Yet even what I've read of the New Testament seems to point rather glaringly in the opposite direction from what Ida's denomination practices. Frustrating morning.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Matthew.
Strangest experience this past week or so. I started reading Matthew about a week ago, got sidetracked, picked it up again last night for an hour or so. I really like Matthew. I mean, there are a lot of passages that serve only the purpose of emphasizing that Jesus is the Son of God and that the Pharisees suck, but when it really gets down to what Jesus is teaching and preaching (nice rhyme there), as Lenny Bruce once said, "Heavy; beautiful."
Included in this particular gospel, I have found something which, to me, suggests that baptism might be good, even beneficial, but is not 100% necessary for salvation. Ah, hear me out (more Lenny. Damn, caffeine makes my brain go nutso). Anyway, in chapter 19, a rich man comes and asks Jesus how he might obtain everlasting life. Interestingly, Jesus lists five commandments, only four of which are included in the original Ten (the other being "Love your neighbor as you love yourself"). The young man says, essentially, "Right. doing that. What else is needed?" Now, if it were really true that only the baptized could be saved, would Jesus not reply "You must be baptized"? Yet He does not! Instead, He commands the young man to sell his worldly possessions and give the money thus accrued to the poor, and to follow Jesus to the end of His days. So, sacrifice and help those less fortunate than you. This is more important, according to the Gospel of Matthew, than any ceremony of baptism. I find it interesting...
In other news, am now officially dating someone (long-distance; she lives in Vermont of all places!) who, unlike all my previous girlfriends is actually theologically compatible with me! This is a big deal! Go me!
Note to self: seriously, no more coffee early Sunday morning.
Included in this particular gospel, I have found something which, to me, suggests that baptism might be good, even beneficial, but is not 100% necessary for salvation. Ah, hear me out (more Lenny. Damn, caffeine makes my brain go nutso). Anyway, in chapter 19, a rich man comes and asks Jesus how he might obtain everlasting life. Interestingly, Jesus lists five commandments, only four of which are included in the original Ten (the other being "Love your neighbor as you love yourself"). The young man says, essentially, "Right. doing that. What else is needed?" Now, if it were really true that only the baptized could be saved, would Jesus not reply "You must be baptized"? Yet He does not! Instead, He commands the young man to sell his worldly possessions and give the money thus accrued to the poor, and to follow Jesus to the end of His days. So, sacrifice and help those less fortunate than you. This is more important, according to the Gospel of Matthew, than any ceremony of baptism. I find it interesting...
In other news, am now officially dating someone (long-distance; she lives in Vermont of all places!) who, unlike all my previous girlfriends is actually theologically compatible with me! This is a big deal! Go me!
Note to self: seriously, no more coffee early Sunday morning.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Maybe I'm Crazy--I.
So, now is not the time to be posting this AT ALL, given how tired I am. But after reading some party platforms on various websites today, I was struck with an idea for revolutionizing and improving the public school systems.
I. Reduction of federal involvement. As some group or another points out, states can bettter make decisions on many issues regarding their constituent towns, counties, etc. This includes matters of education. Federal oversight would be important for a couple things, however:
a. Making sure that no state Board of Education endorsed programs counter to federal statutes (e.g, no white supremacy classes or mingling of church and state).
b. Determining that the information taught in science and social studies courses are accurate (we lost in Vietnam, the Earth is not flat, etc), and that some sense of common identity with the rest of the country is included (not just regional literature, history, etc).
c. Laws would also need to be in place to prevent descrimination against students and teachers, and to provide for special education services for those who need them.
II. Decentralization of public school districts.
1. Obviously, one-room school houses will no longer do. But the older, smaller-district schools had many advantages:
a. nearby locations meant decreased transportation costs for families and schools (who didn't
need so many buses).
b. smaller schools were easier to find locations for, and cheaper to maintain.
c. smaller schools meant smaller class sizes, which were beneficial to everyone. Also, fewer
teachers would mean fewer costs as well.
2. Newer advantages, perhaps less realized in former days:
a. Parents would have more direct control over what their children were taught. It could be
more of a community-based model, and with the next school not so far away, transfers would
be easier if you were the one unhappy parent and wanted something different
b. More opportunities for unique curricula and innovation, and a willingness to adapt to the
students' needs and interests.
3. The big drawback--that poorer communities would have poorer schools--could be remedied
either through the simplified transfer system or through decisions made at a state level for
leveling the playing field there. The citizens have more of a voice at state level, and if such
ideas as No Child Left Behind had been introduced there, it probably would have failed.
Wouldn't this make sense? Why aren't we doing it?
I. Reduction of federal involvement. As some group or another points out, states can bettter make decisions on many issues regarding their constituent towns, counties, etc. This includes matters of education. Federal oversight would be important for a couple things, however:
a. Making sure that no state Board of Education endorsed programs counter to federal statutes (e.g, no white supremacy classes or mingling of church and state).
b. Determining that the information taught in science and social studies courses are accurate (we lost in Vietnam, the Earth is not flat, etc), and that some sense of common identity with the rest of the country is included (not just regional literature, history, etc).
c. Laws would also need to be in place to prevent descrimination against students and teachers, and to provide for special education services for those who need them.
II. Decentralization of public school districts.
1. Obviously, one-room school houses will no longer do. But the older, smaller-district schools had many advantages:
a. nearby locations meant decreased transportation costs for families and schools (who didn't
need so many buses).
b. smaller schools were easier to find locations for, and cheaper to maintain.
c. smaller schools meant smaller class sizes, which were beneficial to everyone. Also, fewer
teachers would mean fewer costs as well.
2. Newer advantages, perhaps less realized in former days:
a. Parents would have more direct control over what their children were taught. It could be
more of a community-based model, and with the next school not so far away, transfers would
be easier if you were the one unhappy parent and wanted something different
b. More opportunities for unique curricula and innovation, and a willingness to adapt to the
students' needs and interests.
3. The big drawback--that poorer communities would have poorer schools--could be remedied
either through the simplified transfer system or through decisions made at a state level for
leveling the playing field there. The citizens have more of a voice at state level, and if such
ideas as No Child Left Behind had been introduced there, it probably would have failed.
Wouldn't this make sense? Why aren't we doing it?
I am weary tonight, and not solely from the lateness of the hour. It's been a damn exhausting week. I want to feel like I can lay down my sword and stop fighting in all directions, stop trying to fend off attacks. On the one hand, a very exhausting argument with a friend who is an atheist and has spent the evening trying to ram that down my throat and coerce some kind of admittance that she's right about there being no God. On the other, over the past week or so, many, many Christians who have, knowingly or unknowingly, tried to push fundamentalism on me. And here I am in the middle, trying to just get by and practice my faith, exercise my beliefs, in peace.
Makes me kind of homesick. At least there I could believe what I believe without people always trying to argue the point with me. This has been a very tiring week. I pray (literally and idiomatically) that the next 365 days will make up for the past seven.
Makes me kind of homesick. At least there I could believe what I believe without people always trying to argue the point with me. This has been a very tiring week. I pray (literally and idiomatically) that the next 365 days will make up for the past seven.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Thoughts On William Penn...
One thing I find rather intriguing about reading William Penn is just how much more seriously people in his day took studying the Bible and its origins. He was a very knowledgeable man on those points, and a chapter I've been reading of late makes some very telling points against 21st century fundamentalist nuts.
Quakers, in those early years, were frequently attacked by other English denominations for regarding the Holy Spirit to be paramount over written Scripture. Penn counters that knowledge of the Bible's creation supports this idea, for a number of quite logical reasons.
One: The Bible was written over a period of hundreds of years. Therefore it is not a single revelation of God, but many.
Two: Different versions of various books known in Penn's time to exist or to have existed show such marked variation that it becomes clear that no one version can be declared superior to the others with any great certainty.
Three: The versions that are now commonly regarded as the infallible text were selected in various Catholic Church councils in the thousand years or so after these variations and books were written. In essence, the Bible as we (and as Penn's contemporaries) know it is the product of much human interpretation and selection, often motivated by political aim. Many books that are not inherently wrong or inferior to others were simply cast aside, and are now regarded as apocrypha rather than the "true" word of God (and the irony of his fellow Protestants defending the Catholic Church's decisions of inclusion and exclusion is certainly not lost on Penn). Yet all of this is the product of human activity, not of God's decrees. As such, we can not be truly sure that these selections and interpretations were infallible.
Four: From the texts of existing New Testament gospels, it is suggested that there were in fact several more gospels written, eye witness accounts of Jesus and his work. Yet we are left with only a handful. If the words of the ones we do have are to be accepted, then it would seem that many other gospels are missing, and not present in our current Bible. If this is indeed the case, then the Bible is also an incomplete and therefore imperfect record...
Something else which Penn points out in the course of discussing the Holy Spirit versus Scripture--many of Christ's teachings were in fact being advocated hundreds of years earlier by Socrates, Pythagoras, and many others. To Penn, this suggests that the Holy Spirit was properly in these people as well, tough Christ had not yet come--they knew the law inside their hearts, without a written record of it yet existing.
Myself, I can't help but wonder if it mightn't also be possible that, given that the Greeks and followers of Greek philosophy were among the earliest converts to Christianity, the words of these ancient sages were taken into account when the time came to put down in writing what Jesus said. Perhaps these philosophers' constant injunctions to "Love thy neighbor"--which appears quite frequently--were the actual source for that rule, that the historical Jesus said something similar, and so to attract new converts, the words of those earlier Greeks were placed in the Bible. Not saying that they didn't reflect the same point as what Jesus did say, but it seems altogether possible to me that the wording might have been borrowed to aid conversion purposes. Or, it's entirely possible that it happened just as Penn says--that they were simply led to the same conclusions by the piece of Holy Spirit within them, as it is in all of them. I'd like to think so. There's really no way to know, though.
It's refreshing to find a devout Christian who's willing to actually examine the origins of the Bible and admit to the reality of its construction and consequent imperfection. True, it might be the creation of human beings, led by divine inspiration. But it is nevertheless a human creation, and therefore always to be suspected of fallibility. Given the presence of similar laws and customers among the Gentiles prior to conversion, Penn says something which I think sums the whole thing up nicely: the Scriptures are a rule for faith and practice; they are not the rule. It is possible to follow the Light at least in some measure without them. They have their uses, but ultimately, they are not complete and perfect. The Holy Spirit is, however--a point brought up again and again by Jesus and the Apostles. It is the law written on the heart, not the law written on paper.
Quakers, in those early years, were frequently attacked by other English denominations for regarding the Holy Spirit to be paramount over written Scripture. Penn counters that knowledge of the Bible's creation supports this idea, for a number of quite logical reasons.
One: The Bible was written over a period of hundreds of years. Therefore it is not a single revelation of God, but many.
Two: Different versions of various books known in Penn's time to exist or to have existed show such marked variation that it becomes clear that no one version can be declared superior to the others with any great certainty.
Three: The versions that are now commonly regarded as the infallible text were selected in various Catholic Church councils in the thousand years or so after these variations and books were written. In essence, the Bible as we (and as Penn's contemporaries) know it is the product of much human interpretation and selection, often motivated by political aim. Many books that are not inherently wrong or inferior to others were simply cast aside, and are now regarded as apocrypha rather than the "true" word of God (and the irony of his fellow Protestants defending the Catholic Church's decisions of inclusion and exclusion is certainly not lost on Penn). Yet all of this is the product of human activity, not of God's decrees. As such, we can not be truly sure that these selections and interpretations were infallible.
Four: From the texts of existing New Testament gospels, it is suggested that there were in fact several more gospels written, eye witness accounts of Jesus and his work. Yet we are left with only a handful. If the words of the ones we do have are to be accepted, then it would seem that many other gospels are missing, and not present in our current Bible. If this is indeed the case, then the Bible is also an incomplete and therefore imperfect record...
Something else which Penn points out in the course of discussing the Holy Spirit versus Scripture--many of Christ's teachings were in fact being advocated hundreds of years earlier by Socrates, Pythagoras, and many others. To Penn, this suggests that the Holy Spirit was properly in these people as well, tough Christ had not yet come--they knew the law inside their hearts, without a written record of it yet existing.
Myself, I can't help but wonder if it mightn't also be possible that, given that the Greeks and followers of Greek philosophy were among the earliest converts to Christianity, the words of these ancient sages were taken into account when the time came to put down in writing what Jesus said. Perhaps these philosophers' constant injunctions to "Love thy neighbor"--which appears quite frequently--were the actual source for that rule, that the historical Jesus said something similar, and so to attract new converts, the words of those earlier Greeks were placed in the Bible. Not saying that they didn't reflect the same point as what Jesus did say, but it seems altogether possible to me that the wording might have been borrowed to aid conversion purposes. Or, it's entirely possible that it happened just as Penn says--that they were simply led to the same conclusions by the piece of Holy Spirit within them, as it is in all of them. I'd like to think so. There's really no way to know, though.
It's refreshing to find a devout Christian who's willing to actually examine the origins of the Bible and admit to the reality of its construction and consequent imperfection. True, it might be the creation of human beings, led by divine inspiration. But it is nevertheless a human creation, and therefore always to be suspected of fallibility. Given the presence of similar laws and customers among the Gentiles prior to conversion, Penn says something which I think sums the whole thing up nicely: the Scriptures are a rule for faith and practice; they are not the rule. It is possible to follow the Light at least in some measure without them. They have their uses, but ultimately, they are not complete and perfect. The Holy Spirit is, however--a point brought up again and again by Jesus and the Apostles. It is the law written on the heart, not the law written on paper.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Feck.
Facing a quandary that my recent examinations of morality just doesn't help. I think I know what I'm going to do, but I'm not completely sure it's what I should do. Maybe posting here will help me clear my head a little.
I've been living here just over a month. My roommate is a strange person, and further proof that people who categorize anyone as either good/bad, evil/pure, sinful/righteous, etc etc, is oversimplifying. It's true that he has been known to steal from thrift stores and sell his ill-gotten booty online. It's true that he sometimes shoplifts food for his dog, or switches price tags. It's true that he drinks most of his SS check, and doesn't keep up with the utilities very well. But dammit, he's also in many ways a very moral and upright person. He will not sidestep the truth to your face. He does not let hypocrisy slide. He strongly rejects the claims so many people he knows make about how hard their lives are and why they deserve a handout because they have problems (are black or adopted or have mild fetal alcohol syndrome). And he is generous and caring and all that. He believes in treating people with respect and compassion. He's a stalwart atheist, yet in many ways he reflects an idea central to Quaker beliefs, that we all have the capacity to understand and follow God's will toward the world. He believes in being good to those who need it most.
Anyway. we're losing this place around the first of October. The landlord has apparently been skipping his mortgage payments on a couple rental properties, and the bank is taking them. So, we have to move out soon.
Problem: Ethan needs a place to live.
Problem: Ethan has $50 left in Oregon, and maybe $200 in an account at home (being sent West soon).
Problem: Ethan needs to be able to keep his Tracfone supplied with minutes, and needs to be able to buy bus fare to attend interviews and (if hired somewhere) work. Without these two items, he will be unable to make more money.
Problem: If Ethan buys an hour of minutes for his phone, he will only have $30 left.
Problem: All Day bus passes cost $4.75. Ethan will therefore be able to buy 6 days' worth of bus passes.
Problem: Ethan will not receive any more bus fare assistance from OFSET until the 18th (10 days from now).
Problem: It takes at least 10 days to mail anything from Vermont to Oregon.
Cumulative Problematic Circumstances: Ethan has $50 to spread between phone, bus, and housing expenses for the foreseeable future (until first paycheck or arrival of last $200).
Solution 1: Find a new place to live with Don. Move there as soon as we have to vacate this one.
Perks: Remain on Don's good side; help him to afford a decent place to live after this one (thereby doing a good deed).
Drawbacks: A) no way to tell how much my share of rent would be or if I could pay it. Right now I'm paying $300/month; if I don't have a job by next week, I'll only have $200 to my name. And if I don't have a job by mid-October, I'll be completely broke and unable to stay in the new place. B) In any case, requires a definite hand-to-mouth existence even with employment, meaning no opportunity to save up for necessities like getting off food stamps, buying a real cell phone, etc. C) This would also require continued exposure to his friends, who like to make me feel like total shit whenver possible. They also enjoy engaging in rough S&M-type foreplay while Don and I are in the room (the guy keeps smacking the girl and she moans ecstatically for him to stop...it gets really disgusting--and this is in OUR living room, no less). D) Given Don's extra money-making activities, not to mention his two good friends' continual plans to rob the girl's parents, there's always the possibility that I could get dragged into something as a naccessory simply because I heard about it and didn't report it.
Solution 2: Move in with my cousin -once-removed's mother-in-law (in her 70s) before the end of September.
Perks: This lady is very friendly, with a penchant for bluntness, a repertoire of good stories, a history of helping those in need. Never charges more than $200/month, and is willing to reduce my costs further in exchange for some repainting and other chores. Would allow me to save up money from my hypothetical job and eventually get off government assistance. Ida has also promised to help me learn to drive.
Drawbacks: May screw up my friendship with Don, who as I mentioned has some definite good points. May also greatly reduce his ability to find somewhere to go himself. Ida is also, if at all like her son, probably not especially tolerant of many things that mean a lot to me (civic participation, grassroots-level organizing and change, well, tolerance). This could lead to some friction in the future.
So, yeah; at this point, I think Solution 2 seems most beneficial for me. But I can't help wondering if that just makes me selfish. What's going to happen to Don if I take off? Do the benefits of moving in with Ida justify the potential consequences? What about staying with Don, same question? What is the right thing to do here? The path I have chosen? Or that which places more trials in my own path?
I've been living here just over a month. My roommate is a strange person, and further proof that people who categorize anyone as either good/bad, evil/pure, sinful/righteous, etc etc, is oversimplifying. It's true that he has been known to steal from thrift stores and sell his ill-gotten booty online. It's true that he sometimes shoplifts food for his dog, or switches price tags. It's true that he drinks most of his SS check, and doesn't keep up with the utilities very well. But dammit, he's also in many ways a very moral and upright person. He will not sidestep the truth to your face. He does not let hypocrisy slide. He strongly rejects the claims so many people he knows make about how hard their lives are and why they deserve a handout because they have problems (are black or adopted or have mild fetal alcohol syndrome). And he is generous and caring and all that. He believes in treating people with respect and compassion. He's a stalwart atheist, yet in many ways he reflects an idea central to Quaker beliefs, that we all have the capacity to understand and follow God's will toward the world. He believes in being good to those who need it most.
Anyway. we're losing this place around the first of October. The landlord has apparently been skipping his mortgage payments on a couple rental properties, and the bank is taking them. So, we have to move out soon.
Problem: Ethan needs a place to live.
Problem: Ethan has $50 left in Oregon, and maybe $200 in an account at home (being sent West soon).
Problem: Ethan needs to be able to keep his Tracfone supplied with minutes, and needs to be able to buy bus fare to attend interviews and (if hired somewhere) work. Without these two items, he will be unable to make more money.
Problem: If Ethan buys an hour of minutes for his phone, he will only have $30 left.
Problem: All Day bus passes cost $4.75. Ethan will therefore be able to buy 6 days' worth of bus passes.
Problem: Ethan will not receive any more bus fare assistance from OFSET until the 18th (10 days from now).
Problem: It takes at least 10 days to mail anything from Vermont to Oregon.
Cumulative Problematic Circumstances: Ethan has $50 to spread between phone, bus, and housing expenses for the foreseeable future (until first paycheck or arrival of last $200).
Solution 1: Find a new place to live with Don. Move there as soon as we have to vacate this one.
Perks: Remain on Don's good side; help him to afford a decent place to live after this one (thereby doing a good deed).
Drawbacks: A) no way to tell how much my share of rent would be or if I could pay it. Right now I'm paying $300/month; if I don't have a job by next week, I'll only have $200 to my name. And if I don't have a job by mid-October, I'll be completely broke and unable to stay in the new place. B) In any case, requires a definite hand-to-mouth existence even with employment, meaning no opportunity to save up for necessities like getting off food stamps, buying a real cell phone, etc. C) This would also require continued exposure to his friends, who like to make me feel like total shit whenver possible. They also enjoy engaging in rough S&M-type foreplay while Don and I are in the room (the guy keeps smacking the girl and she moans ecstatically for him to stop...it gets really disgusting--and this is in OUR living room, no less). D) Given Don's extra money-making activities, not to mention his two good friends' continual plans to rob the girl's parents, there's always the possibility that I could get dragged into something as a naccessory simply because I heard about it and didn't report it.
Solution 2: Move in with my cousin -once-removed's mother-in-law (in her 70s) before the end of September.
Perks: This lady is very friendly, with a penchant for bluntness, a repertoire of good stories, a history of helping those in need. Never charges more than $200/month, and is willing to reduce my costs further in exchange for some repainting and other chores. Would allow me to save up money from my hypothetical job and eventually get off government assistance. Ida has also promised to help me learn to drive.
Drawbacks: May screw up my friendship with Don, who as I mentioned has some definite good points. May also greatly reduce his ability to find somewhere to go himself. Ida is also, if at all like her son, probably not especially tolerant of many things that mean a lot to me (civic participation, grassroots-level organizing and change, well, tolerance). This could lead to some friction in the future.
So, yeah; at this point, I think Solution 2 seems most beneficial for me. But I can't help wondering if that just makes me selfish. What's going to happen to Don if I take off? Do the benefits of moving in with Ida justify the potential consequences? What about staying with Don, same question? What is the right thing to do here? The path I have chosen? Or that which places more trials in my own path?
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Digital TV=Pork
Holy shit. Many thanks to wikipedia for confirming my suspicions about the DTV transition. This is a BIG deal.
A couple months ago, I sent a letter to each of Vermont's two senators, demanding to know the purpose behind the Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005. I told both of them that I was tired of hearing these explanations that praised this as a move toward "greater access" to things like broadband internet. People are not stupid; when given the chance to really, really consider it, they generally realize that giving American citizens greater access opportunities really translates to giving corporations more access they can sell. What, beyond that, could these capable statesmen give me for an explanation?
The single response I received was a generic letter that seems to have been passed along to anyone writing about any aspect of the DTPSA; the gist of it was that--Oh my! What a surprise!--the transition will provide we Americans with greater opportunities for access to things like broadband internet. Did I or did I not make it clear, sir, that I have heard such answers before, and, to quote e.e. cummings, "there is some shit i will not eat"?
Well, tonight I decided to do a little digging, as long as I was looking into the matter of braodcast regulations anyway. I've always been puzzled by how suddenly this whole transition became big news late last fall. You would think that something as monumentuous as this-- "the most significant advancement of television technology since color TV was introduced," according to David Rehr, CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters--would have received a lot more attention in the media while it was being debated and discussed in Congress. Someone would have done a little digging, uncovered the story behind it. I don't know about anywhere else, but where I was living last year, nobody really knew what was happening until long about December. There had been some discussion in a vague way for a year or so before that, I guess, but not much coverage overall.
Well, tonight I think I may have made some sense of it. Tonight, my long-held suspicions that this whole thing was meant to benefit cable, satelite, and internet providers, and provide no real benefit to the common citizens, has been given more support. Check out the wikipedia page regarding the transition. Now, check out the law which Congress passed, of which the DTV transition was a small piece. Notice something a little fishy? Perhaps that this provision, regarding the switch to digital broadcasting of all major media sources, is a little...misplaced? Among provisions meant to reduce government spending for Medicare over the long term, and provisions for altering the repayment structures of student loans, there is an additional law requiring the switch to DTV. Feels a bit like that old Sesame Street bit about how oner of these things just doesn't belong, doesn't it?
What we have here is a blatant example of pork in a federal bill. Somebody, may they be run out of office by a mob brandishing rabbit-ear antennae, inserted that puppy into an unrelated piece of legislation. Most of us, I think, know why, too; in a spending bill of this nature, controversial enough with its Medicare cuts, who would take time to thoroughly investigate the add-ons? Who would have time to chase it down and discover the real beneficiaries of the program? Not the media, that's for sure. Not broadcasting corporations with stock in the cable, satelite, and internet companies. Not the supposed free press, which ought to serve as the watchdog against this kind of corruption, and as a source of information for an informed and participatory electorate. So, hello DTV. Goodbye, last semblance of responsible government.
A couple months ago, I sent a letter to each of Vermont's two senators, demanding to know the purpose behind the Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005. I told both of them that I was tired of hearing these explanations that praised this as a move toward "greater access" to things like broadband internet. People are not stupid; when given the chance to really, really consider it, they generally realize that giving American citizens greater access opportunities really translates to giving corporations more access they can sell. What, beyond that, could these capable statesmen give me for an explanation?
The single response I received was a generic letter that seems to have been passed along to anyone writing about any aspect of the DTPSA; the gist of it was that--Oh my! What a surprise!--the transition will provide we Americans with greater opportunities for access to things like broadband internet. Did I or did I not make it clear, sir, that I have heard such answers before, and, to quote e.e. cummings, "there is some shit i will not eat"?
Well, tonight I decided to do a little digging, as long as I was looking into the matter of braodcast regulations anyway. I've always been puzzled by how suddenly this whole transition became big news late last fall. You would think that something as monumentuous as this-- "the most significant advancement of television technology since color TV was introduced," according to David Rehr, CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters--would have received a lot more attention in the media while it was being debated and discussed in Congress. Someone would have done a little digging, uncovered the story behind it. I don't know about anywhere else, but where I was living last year, nobody really knew what was happening until long about December. There had been some discussion in a vague way for a year or so before that, I guess, but not much coverage overall.
Well, tonight I think I may have made some sense of it. Tonight, my long-held suspicions that this whole thing was meant to benefit cable, satelite, and internet providers, and provide no real benefit to the common citizens, has been given more support. Check out the wikipedia page regarding the transition. Now, check out the law which Congress passed, of which the DTV transition was a small piece. Notice something a little fishy? Perhaps that this provision, regarding the switch to digital broadcasting of all major media sources, is a little...misplaced? Among provisions meant to reduce government spending for Medicare over the long term, and provisions for altering the repayment structures of student loans, there is an additional law requiring the switch to DTV. Feels a bit like that old Sesame Street bit about how oner of these things just doesn't belong, doesn't it?
What we have here is a blatant example of pork in a federal bill. Somebody, may they be run out of office by a mob brandishing rabbit-ear antennae, inserted that puppy into an unrelated piece of legislation. Most of us, I think, know why, too; in a spending bill of this nature, controversial enough with its Medicare cuts, who would take time to thoroughly investigate the add-ons? Who would have time to chase it down and discover the real beneficiaries of the program? Not the media, that's for sure. Not broadcasting corporations with stock in the cable, satelite, and internet companies. Not the supposed free press, which ought to serve as the watchdog against this kind of corruption, and as a source of information for an informed and participatory electorate. So, hello DTV. Goodbye, last semblance of responsible government.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The Shape I'm In...
So, it's been a long time since I posted. Much going on. As of today, I believe I have properly arranged to fly Burlington-New York-Portland Oregon on 7/14/09. I have contacted job postings on craigslist, contacted possible living spaces on craigslist, and posted a seeking-housing bit on craigslist. And, having done this last, have had a very nice-seemingly gay man ask if I wanted to move in with him and be more than roommates. Declined nicely, of course.
Ordered a trail pack of three Weird Tales back issues. Discovered that the author of the best story I've come across in them so far is on Facebook. We've friended each other, and have been passing wall posts b&f. I'm sorta being a geeky fangirl (er, boy), but trying to restrain myself. The story was just so freakin' AWESOME.
Once I'm located in Portland, I need to get really busy with reading and writing. Far too unknowledgable regarding my favorite genre of fiction, and not doing as much writing as I'd like, either. Plenty of ideas, though. I'd like to think I can make a sale my year's end if I get more focused on cranking them out.
The future lies before us. Its way is uncertain, its promise tantalizing. Leap, and let us have faith that there will be a net to catch us, not merely the crush of jagged rocks at the bottom.
Ordered a trail pack of three Weird Tales back issues. Discovered that the author of the best story I've come across in them so far is on Facebook. We've friended each other, and have been passing wall posts b&f. I'm sorta being a geeky fangirl (er, boy), but trying to restrain myself. The story was just so freakin' AWESOME.
Once I'm located in Portland, I need to get really busy with reading and writing. Far too unknowledgable regarding my favorite genre of fiction, and not doing as much writing as I'd like, either. Plenty of ideas, though. I'd like to think I can make a sale my year's end if I get more focused on cranking them out.
The future lies before us. Its way is uncertain, its promise tantalizing. Leap, and let us have faith that there will be a net to catch us, not merely the crush of jagged rocks at the bottom.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
For Your Consideration: To Title Yet (Suggestions Welcome)
Bobby slammed on the cruiser’s brakes, jerking to a stop. His heart hammered in his chest. That sweatshirt. That pink hooded sweatshirt. His head swiveled toward the Vincent Merrill Memorial Playground. There, perched on the dome-shaped monkey bars. Near the top. Next to the boy in the blue shorts.
He realized he had stopped in the middle of Neibolt Street at three in the afternoon. He pulled the cruiser to the curb and stared at her. His ears were ringing; he held the steering wheel in a death grip. She was turned three-quarters away from him, so he couldn’t see her face well enough for certainty, but those golden curls...she had the right build...most of all, she had that damned pink sweatshirt. Allison Walker. Had to be. After three years, there she was on the monkey bars, waiting for him.
He unbuckled the seatbelt. He would walk up to the green chain-link fence, and call her name, and she would come to him. He would report his luck over the radio and bring her home with him; Michelle wouldn’t mind, would surely be overjoyed, knowing that The Dream would be gone for good now. Allison could stay with them until her parents were notified. Yes. He reached for the door handle, and she turned and gave the street a sweeping glance, and he saw that she was not Allison. The cheekbones were a touch too prominent, the nose straighter. She was just a little blond girl in a pink sweatshirt. A stranger.
His breath escaped in a ragged rush. He slumped, his grip on the steering wheel now loose and watery. Tears prickled at the back of his eyes, but he fought them. After a while he pulled back onto Neibolt and drove away.
***
She looks back once before entering the darkness, to make sure he is following. She smiles, just as she has smiled at him a thousand times, ten thousand, from the picture he still carries in his wallet. And then the smile widens, widens too far in fact, as though her face were more elastic than it should be. Then it contracts, becoming again the smile he knows by heart, a sunny little girl’s smile, and her pink sweatshirt disappears into the blackness. He hesitates an eternity, then follows.
***
“Bobby? Are you all right?” A pause, then: “Was it The Dream again?”
He forced his hands to let go of the sweaty twists of sheet he grabbed to keep from screaming. He heard the concern in Michelle’s voice, and something else: on that second question, fear.
He recognized the fear. She was afraid of The Dream coming back, not only for his sake, but for hers as well. She was afraid he’d need another transfer, and they would have to repack their lives and move to another alien place. They had left Lisbon six months ago, running north into Vermont to escape The Dream that invaded his sleep almost nightly. He had suffered a near breakdown at the hands of The Dream. She had left behind everyone and everything she had known,the house they had shared for four years, without complaint. For his sake. He knew she feared a relapse, knew she might not uproot as willingly a second time. So far, that had seemed a remote possibility; he had not had The Dream since leaving Lisbon. Until tonight.
“No,” he said. “Not The Dream. Work finally getting to me, I guess.”
He felt her relax against him, a little. Work stress was still bad, but it was better than The Dream. A month after they’d come to Westborough, when the child murders had begun, she had worried about his ability to handle what was no longer a stress-free assignment in a quiet town. He had told her, with complete honesty, that he could handle this Shoemaker business just fine. “Murder is a known entity,” he’d said. “And somehow knowing even an awful truth like this one is better not knowing at all.” He’d meant it then. It was still true, but she needn’t know that.
He touched her shoulder lightly. “Need help getting back to sleep? I sure do.” It was an old joke between them, and its familiarity comforted. She pulled him closer. The moon peaked in through the window from a cloudless autumn sky.
***
The darkness is unending, impenetrable. He can scarcely tell if he’s heading in the right direction, but he thinks he is: from somewhere ahead he hears her laughing, echoing and faint as though from very far away. Closer, he hears the thick Drip. Drip. Drip. of water. The air is damp and smells of slow decay and eroding stone. Underneath is another scent he cannot name, paradoxically dry and dusty, perhaps the essence of Time itself.
He stumbles against the right-hand wall of the tunnel and pulls up short. The dusty smell is stronger now, and in the dim light he can make out the individual stones. Someone has scrawled a strange circular design on the wall in pink chalk. He cannot see it very well: a Star of David at the center, and in the middle of that, an eye rendered in hieroglyph. The rest is to ornate to make out in the darkness.
From somewhere ahead, that high, echoing laughter. She is getting further away. He pushes off from the wall and shuffles forward again, following the sound of her laughter.
***
After meeting with the realtor, Bobby Dawson had gone exploring. Downtown Westborough was strange to him, and he wanted to remedy that before bringing Michelle up (she had been unable to get out of her shift at the restaurant, and so he had come up alone to see the house). He had gotten lunch at a café on Main Street, found the grocery and natural food stores. At the café, he’d asked about good antique stores, and the girl behind the counter suggested the Odds and Ends Emporium in the Harmony Lot, a large parking lot surrounded on three sides by stores.
“You could walk from here down to Elliot Street, then up to the Lot here,” she scribbled a rough map on a napkin. “Personally, I prefer the back way.”
So he followed this second route to the Harmony Lot, from Main to First Avenue and then onto Marsh Street. Halfway up this last, an archway opened in the brick solidity of the Blair-McCallister Block. There were businesses on either side of the archway—Devlin, Winters & Burke, Attorney’s at Law; the Westborough Gazette—and the second storey, presumably apartments, continued above. It was simply a rounded hole in the brick, with a narrow street through it. A nearby sign pointed through the archway: HARMONY LOT.
Bobby had stood on the sidewalk, looking through the twenty-foot tunnel. Shoppers toted bags from Odds and Ends and Hutchin’s Jewelry and a place called Intense, some headed toward their parked cars, others toward Elliot Street at the far end of the Lot. A family of four came out of Frankie’s Pizza, stuffed and contented. He stood by the archway perhaps ten minutes, chills climbing his back. Memories of The Dream had tried to assert themselves. The tunnel. The darkness. The smell.
He looked at the archway some more. Ridiculous. He was an adult; he knew the difference between nightmares and the real world, and there was no reason that stupid dream should interfere with him going through the archway. No reason at all, and he walked back to Main Street and turned onto Elliot Street and the proprietor of Odds and Ends said, yes, he could hold anything for up two weeks with a twenty-five percent deposit, and Bobby had put money down on a set of end-tables for their bedroom.
***
He did not see the girl again for nearly a week. At work, there were the usual run of domestic disturbances and armed robberies, and on Wednesday a middle-aged man named Carl Rorschach shot his elderly mother with a double-barrel shotgun in Sharpsboro, thinknig she was the postman, and then led Bobby and his coworkers on a twelve-hour manhunt around Sharpsboro and Kennestead. There were dead-ends to follow and paperwork to file on the Shoemaker case (they were getting nowhere, and the Westborough Gazette had run more and more outraged letters, calling for Sheriff Perry’s resignation).At home, Michelle had fixed the kitchen faucet he’d been promising to get to and was re-papering the guest bedroom and wanted to know what he thought about tearing out the kitchen linoleum and laying down tile.
“What color were you thinking?”
She showed him the sample from the hardware store. Marbled blue.
“Perfect,” he said, and they had figured out how much tile they needed, and on Thursday he stopped at Ace Hardware after work and picked them up. The next day he saw her.
He was coming back from lunch at Barney’s Diner, and stopped for pedestrians at Jackson Street.He watched them and tried to guess what they did for a living. Bank teller. Construction worker. The older gentleman in the blue suit was probably one of the lawyers at Devlin, Winters & Burke. Then he saw her. That pink sweatshirt again. Her curls bounced with each step. Halfway across she turned and looked at him. It was not the disinterested sweep she had made on Neibolt Street. She knew he was there. She smiled, and the steering wheel became ice, because while he knew she wasn’t Allison Walker, her cheekbones and nose were not Allison’s, the smile was. He could compare it to the the photo her parents had given him three years ago in Lisbon, but there was no need. Then she hurried across Jackson Street, and he could not see which way she turned.
“She can’t be older than seven,” he said aloud once he was driving again. Which, of course, was how old Allison Walker had been when she disappeared. Three years ago. But that smile...that hair...that damned hooded sweatshirt...
Much later, it occurred to him to wonder: what was she doing on Jackson Street at noon on a school day? Waiting for me to be there, he thought, and shivered.
***
It is lighter now. Ahead, he can see the end of the tunnel. Somewhere back in the darkness, the pavement beneath his feet has changed; instead of asphalt there are ancient cobblestones, worn and gray. He can see her now, her pink sweatshirt brilliant against the gray stone all around. Beyond the tunnel’s end he can see a patch of sky, and great gray buildings. From the color of the sky he thinks it must be sunset. Not that it matters; all that matters now is Allison, he has found Allison. She exits the tunnel, and he quickens his pace, heart hammering, thinking only that he has found her at last.
***
Michelle set down her coffee cup and said, “All right, enough. We need to talk about this.”
It was Saturday, his weekend off, breakfast on the table and the Westborough Gazette sports section in front of him. “Talk about what?”
She glared, and shook her head. “Don’t. Damnit Bobby, you know what.”
He sighed. The Dream. He’d been having it almost every night since seeing her on Jackson Street. Twice he’d awakened, a scream half-caught in his throat. He thought he’d lied well enough to convince her it was something else. Apparently not. “I didn’t want to worry you,” he said.
“Bobby.” Her eyes welled. “Don’t you remember, when you proposed, we swore to be a team, face the world together? No matter what?”
Four years ago, after an evening out. Unable to get a cab home, they had walked through an October downpour until, shivering and worn out, they had taken refuge on the soggy benches outside the Lisbon Transportation Center. Huddled under the pitiful protection offered by the building’s front overhang, he had asked, not in the well-practiced poetry he’d intended, but flat out: “Marry me?” There hadn’t even been a ring, but she had said yes, and they had sworn, just as she said.
“You’re right,” he said now, and their fingers entwined on the tabletop. He looked into her eyes. “It’s under control this time, Shelly. I swear. You won’t have to move again.” He squeezed her fingers. She squeezed back. She looked reassured.
After breakfast, they walked through Mosher Park, hand in hand beneath the first hints of autumn color. He did not mention the girl who was not Allison Walker even once.
***
His first thought is that he was wrong about the sunset. It is not only that strip of sky which he saw from the tunnel that is colored that dull, smoldering red; it is the sky itself, or all that can be seen in the square at the end of the tunnel. The skyline is shaped, delineated by the ancient buildings which surround the square. Jagged points and spires knife skyward, leaning at every possible angle as they rise. Their windows remind him of the narrow pointed casements in medieval cathedrals. There are spaces between the buildings, no ways outside the square save for the tunnel he has come through, and with the certainty one finds in dreams he knows that even that way is now blocked, a point of entry only. Something large and dark and almost bird-like, passes overhead with a sound like flapping canvas.
He turns his eyes at last to the others in the square. The girl in the pink sweatshirt he knows, of course, but as he scans the circle of faces he realizes with a jolt that he recognizes others, too. Some of them he can put names to; others are simply faces, faces he has seen staring from bulletin boards and office walls in every police station he has ever walked through: toddlers and children and teenagers and even, yes, an old woman in mourning garb. At the far end of the square, he can see Chris McCormick, a skinny black ten year old, one of his first cases with Lisbon Missing Persons, still wearing the torn Aerosmith tee shirt he disappeared in, and beside him...
Someone takes his left hand; a girl in red pigtails and a dirty calico dress. A boy, probably twelve or thirteen, takes his right. He looks at the boy’s overalls and slouch hat, like a character from The Grapes of Wrath, and he thinks My God how long have they been waiting here? All around the circle, they are joining hands now, all of them gray and colorless as the stone, even the girl’s sweatshirt made dull in the wan light of the red sky. Their eyes begin to drift upward, their heads tipping back. He looks up, too, and the creatures that are not quite birds pass overhead, and just before he wakes up he thinks And now we wait. Here under the red sky, we wait—
***
The following Monday, driving home, Bobby swung onto Neibolt. She was where he expected her to be, perched three-quarters of the way up the dome-shaped monkey bars. The playground was otherwise deserted. No traffic passed. They were alone. It was six o’clock. He walked up to the fence, his uniform hat in one hand.
“Hello.”
She smiled, but said nothing. He came in through the gate and stood at the base of the dome.
“What are you doing out here, all by yourself?” Doing his best The-Policeman-is-Your-Friend voice.
Now she spoke. “Waiting.”
For a moment the question stuck in his throat, refusing to come. “Waiting for what?”
She rose. “Someone who was looking for me,” she said, and descended. She walked past him out of the playground. When she reached the sidewalk, she turned. Looked at him. Then she headed south toward First Avenue. Her pink sweatshirt receded, her blond curls bouncing toward the corner. At last, he followed.
She led him past the barbershop, the Union Bank, First Avenue Grocery. He quickened his pace, eating up the space between them until she was a mere fifteen feet in front. He saw no one; no cars, no pedestrians. A few cars clustered together in the grocery parking lot, steel bears that had opted for early hibernation. No children on skateboards or playing hopscotch on the sidewalk. She turned onto Marsh, crossing to walk up the left side of the street, and he followed. He knew now; he understood and it was all right. Halfway up the street, she came to a stop, waiting. He had nearly reached her when she turned again and smiled. For an instant her mouth seemed to stretch like putty, the smile too wide, and then she was simply the girl in the pink sweatshirt, she was Allison Walker only not, and she turned left into the Harmony archway.
He walked to the archway. Beyond, where there should have been a parking lot, shops, a pizza place, there was only darkness. It was like gazing into an abandoned mineshaft. From somewhere in the darkness, he could hear her laughter, faint and childlike, echoing as if it came from far away. Closer, he could hear water dripping. Squinting, he thought he could see a faint pink smear a long ways off. A chalk drawing on stone, perhaps. He thought he could smell Time.
One hand outstretched, Bobby stepped into the blackness.
He realized he had stopped in the middle of Neibolt Street at three in the afternoon. He pulled the cruiser to the curb and stared at her. His ears were ringing; he held the steering wheel in a death grip. She was turned three-quarters away from him, so he couldn’t see her face well enough for certainty, but those golden curls...she had the right build...most of all, she had that damned pink sweatshirt. Allison Walker. Had to be. After three years, there she was on the monkey bars, waiting for him.
He unbuckled the seatbelt. He would walk up to the green chain-link fence, and call her name, and she would come to him. He would report his luck over the radio and bring her home with him; Michelle wouldn’t mind, would surely be overjoyed, knowing that The Dream would be gone for good now. Allison could stay with them until her parents were notified. Yes. He reached for the door handle, and she turned and gave the street a sweeping glance, and he saw that she was not Allison. The cheekbones were a touch too prominent, the nose straighter. She was just a little blond girl in a pink sweatshirt. A stranger.
His breath escaped in a ragged rush. He slumped, his grip on the steering wheel now loose and watery. Tears prickled at the back of his eyes, but he fought them. After a while he pulled back onto Neibolt and drove away.
***
She looks back once before entering the darkness, to make sure he is following. She smiles, just as she has smiled at him a thousand times, ten thousand, from the picture he still carries in his wallet. And then the smile widens, widens too far in fact, as though her face were more elastic than it should be. Then it contracts, becoming again the smile he knows by heart, a sunny little girl’s smile, and her pink sweatshirt disappears into the blackness. He hesitates an eternity, then follows.
***
“Bobby? Are you all right?” A pause, then: “Was it The Dream again?”
He forced his hands to let go of the sweaty twists of sheet he grabbed to keep from screaming. He heard the concern in Michelle’s voice, and something else: on that second question, fear.
He recognized the fear. She was afraid of The Dream coming back, not only for his sake, but for hers as well. She was afraid he’d need another transfer, and they would have to repack their lives and move to another alien place. They had left Lisbon six months ago, running north into Vermont to escape The Dream that invaded his sleep almost nightly. He had suffered a near breakdown at the hands of The Dream. She had left behind everyone and everything she had known,the house they had shared for four years, without complaint. For his sake. He knew she feared a relapse, knew she might not uproot as willingly a second time. So far, that had seemed a remote possibility; he had not had The Dream since leaving Lisbon. Until tonight.
“No,” he said. “Not The Dream. Work finally getting to me, I guess.”
He felt her relax against him, a little. Work stress was still bad, but it was better than The Dream. A month after they’d come to Westborough, when the child murders had begun, she had worried about his ability to handle what was no longer a stress-free assignment in a quiet town. He had told her, with complete honesty, that he could handle this Shoemaker business just fine. “Murder is a known entity,” he’d said. “And somehow knowing even an awful truth like this one is better not knowing at all.” He’d meant it then. It was still true, but she needn’t know that.
He touched her shoulder lightly. “Need help getting back to sleep? I sure do.” It was an old joke between them, and its familiarity comforted. She pulled him closer. The moon peaked in through the window from a cloudless autumn sky.
***
The darkness is unending, impenetrable. He can scarcely tell if he’s heading in the right direction, but he thinks he is: from somewhere ahead he hears her laughing, echoing and faint as though from very far away. Closer, he hears the thick Drip. Drip. Drip. of water. The air is damp and smells of slow decay and eroding stone. Underneath is another scent he cannot name, paradoxically dry and dusty, perhaps the essence of Time itself.
He stumbles against the right-hand wall of the tunnel and pulls up short. The dusty smell is stronger now, and in the dim light he can make out the individual stones. Someone has scrawled a strange circular design on the wall in pink chalk. He cannot see it very well: a Star of David at the center, and in the middle of that, an eye rendered in hieroglyph. The rest is to ornate to make out in the darkness.
From somewhere ahead, that high, echoing laughter. She is getting further away. He pushes off from the wall and shuffles forward again, following the sound of her laughter.
***
After meeting with the realtor, Bobby Dawson had gone exploring. Downtown Westborough was strange to him, and he wanted to remedy that before bringing Michelle up (she had been unable to get out of her shift at the restaurant, and so he had come up alone to see the house). He had gotten lunch at a café on Main Street, found the grocery and natural food stores. At the café, he’d asked about good antique stores, and the girl behind the counter suggested the Odds and Ends Emporium in the Harmony Lot, a large parking lot surrounded on three sides by stores.
“You could walk from here down to Elliot Street, then up to the Lot here,” she scribbled a rough map on a napkin. “Personally, I prefer the back way.”
So he followed this second route to the Harmony Lot, from Main to First Avenue and then onto Marsh Street. Halfway up this last, an archway opened in the brick solidity of the Blair-McCallister Block. There were businesses on either side of the archway—Devlin, Winters & Burke, Attorney’s at Law; the Westborough Gazette—and the second storey, presumably apartments, continued above. It was simply a rounded hole in the brick, with a narrow street through it. A nearby sign pointed through the archway: HARMONY LOT.
Bobby had stood on the sidewalk, looking through the twenty-foot tunnel. Shoppers toted bags from Odds and Ends and Hutchin’s Jewelry and a place called Intense, some headed toward their parked cars, others toward Elliot Street at the far end of the Lot. A family of four came out of Frankie’s Pizza, stuffed and contented. He stood by the archway perhaps ten minutes, chills climbing his back. Memories of The Dream had tried to assert themselves. The tunnel. The darkness. The smell.
He looked at the archway some more. Ridiculous. He was an adult; he knew the difference between nightmares and the real world, and there was no reason that stupid dream should interfere with him going through the archway. No reason at all, and he walked back to Main Street and turned onto Elliot Street and the proprietor of Odds and Ends said, yes, he could hold anything for up two weeks with a twenty-five percent deposit, and Bobby had put money down on a set of end-tables for their bedroom.
***
He did not see the girl again for nearly a week. At work, there were the usual run of domestic disturbances and armed robberies, and on Wednesday a middle-aged man named Carl Rorschach shot his elderly mother with a double-barrel shotgun in Sharpsboro, thinknig she was the postman, and then led Bobby and his coworkers on a twelve-hour manhunt around Sharpsboro and Kennestead. There were dead-ends to follow and paperwork to file on the Shoemaker case (they were getting nowhere, and the Westborough Gazette had run more and more outraged letters, calling for Sheriff Perry’s resignation).At home, Michelle had fixed the kitchen faucet he’d been promising to get to and was re-papering the guest bedroom and wanted to know what he thought about tearing out the kitchen linoleum and laying down tile.
“What color were you thinking?”
She showed him the sample from the hardware store. Marbled blue.
“Perfect,” he said, and they had figured out how much tile they needed, and on Thursday he stopped at Ace Hardware after work and picked them up. The next day he saw her.
He was coming back from lunch at Barney’s Diner, and stopped for pedestrians at Jackson Street.He watched them and tried to guess what they did for a living. Bank teller. Construction worker. The older gentleman in the blue suit was probably one of the lawyers at Devlin, Winters & Burke. Then he saw her. That pink sweatshirt again. Her curls bounced with each step. Halfway across she turned and looked at him. It was not the disinterested sweep she had made on Neibolt Street. She knew he was there. She smiled, and the steering wheel became ice, because while he knew she wasn’t Allison Walker, her cheekbones and nose were not Allison’s, the smile was. He could compare it to the the photo her parents had given him three years ago in Lisbon, but there was no need. Then she hurried across Jackson Street, and he could not see which way she turned.
“She can’t be older than seven,” he said aloud once he was driving again. Which, of course, was how old Allison Walker had been when she disappeared. Three years ago. But that smile...that hair...that damned hooded sweatshirt...
Much later, it occurred to him to wonder: what was she doing on Jackson Street at noon on a school day? Waiting for me to be there, he thought, and shivered.
***
It is lighter now. Ahead, he can see the end of the tunnel. Somewhere back in the darkness, the pavement beneath his feet has changed; instead of asphalt there are ancient cobblestones, worn and gray. He can see her now, her pink sweatshirt brilliant against the gray stone all around. Beyond the tunnel’s end he can see a patch of sky, and great gray buildings. From the color of the sky he thinks it must be sunset. Not that it matters; all that matters now is Allison, he has found Allison. She exits the tunnel, and he quickens his pace, heart hammering, thinking only that he has found her at last.
***
Michelle set down her coffee cup and said, “All right, enough. We need to talk about this.”
It was Saturday, his weekend off, breakfast on the table and the Westborough Gazette sports section in front of him. “Talk about what?”
She glared, and shook her head. “Don’t. Damnit Bobby, you know what.”
He sighed. The Dream. He’d been having it almost every night since seeing her on Jackson Street. Twice he’d awakened, a scream half-caught in his throat. He thought he’d lied well enough to convince her it was something else. Apparently not. “I didn’t want to worry you,” he said.
“Bobby.” Her eyes welled. “Don’t you remember, when you proposed, we swore to be a team, face the world together? No matter what?”
Four years ago, after an evening out. Unable to get a cab home, they had walked through an October downpour until, shivering and worn out, they had taken refuge on the soggy benches outside the Lisbon Transportation Center. Huddled under the pitiful protection offered by the building’s front overhang, he had asked, not in the well-practiced poetry he’d intended, but flat out: “Marry me?” There hadn’t even been a ring, but she had said yes, and they had sworn, just as she said.
“You’re right,” he said now, and their fingers entwined on the tabletop. He looked into her eyes. “It’s under control this time, Shelly. I swear. You won’t have to move again.” He squeezed her fingers. She squeezed back. She looked reassured.
After breakfast, they walked through Mosher Park, hand in hand beneath the first hints of autumn color. He did not mention the girl who was not Allison Walker even once.
***
His first thought is that he was wrong about the sunset. It is not only that strip of sky which he saw from the tunnel that is colored that dull, smoldering red; it is the sky itself, or all that can be seen in the square at the end of the tunnel. The skyline is shaped, delineated by the ancient buildings which surround the square. Jagged points and spires knife skyward, leaning at every possible angle as they rise. Their windows remind him of the narrow pointed casements in medieval cathedrals. There are spaces between the buildings, no ways outside the square save for the tunnel he has come through, and with the certainty one finds in dreams he knows that even that way is now blocked, a point of entry only. Something large and dark and almost bird-like, passes overhead with a sound like flapping canvas.
He turns his eyes at last to the others in the square. The girl in the pink sweatshirt he knows, of course, but as he scans the circle of faces he realizes with a jolt that he recognizes others, too. Some of them he can put names to; others are simply faces, faces he has seen staring from bulletin boards and office walls in every police station he has ever walked through: toddlers and children and teenagers and even, yes, an old woman in mourning garb. At the far end of the square, he can see Chris McCormick, a skinny black ten year old, one of his first cases with Lisbon Missing Persons, still wearing the torn Aerosmith tee shirt he disappeared in, and beside him...
Someone takes his left hand; a girl in red pigtails and a dirty calico dress. A boy, probably twelve or thirteen, takes his right. He looks at the boy’s overalls and slouch hat, like a character from The Grapes of Wrath, and he thinks My God how long have they been waiting here? All around the circle, they are joining hands now, all of them gray and colorless as the stone, even the girl’s sweatshirt made dull in the wan light of the red sky. Their eyes begin to drift upward, their heads tipping back. He looks up, too, and the creatures that are not quite birds pass overhead, and just before he wakes up he thinks And now we wait. Here under the red sky, we wait—
***
The following Monday, driving home, Bobby swung onto Neibolt. She was where he expected her to be, perched three-quarters of the way up the dome-shaped monkey bars. The playground was otherwise deserted. No traffic passed. They were alone. It was six o’clock. He walked up to the fence, his uniform hat in one hand.
“Hello.”
She smiled, but said nothing. He came in through the gate and stood at the base of the dome.
“What are you doing out here, all by yourself?” Doing his best The-Policeman-is-Your-Friend voice.
Now she spoke. “Waiting.”
For a moment the question stuck in his throat, refusing to come. “Waiting for what?”
She rose. “Someone who was looking for me,” she said, and descended. She walked past him out of the playground. When she reached the sidewalk, she turned. Looked at him. Then she headed south toward First Avenue. Her pink sweatshirt receded, her blond curls bouncing toward the corner. At last, he followed.
She led him past the barbershop, the Union Bank, First Avenue Grocery. He quickened his pace, eating up the space between them until she was a mere fifteen feet in front. He saw no one; no cars, no pedestrians. A few cars clustered together in the grocery parking lot, steel bears that had opted for early hibernation. No children on skateboards or playing hopscotch on the sidewalk. She turned onto Marsh, crossing to walk up the left side of the street, and he followed. He knew now; he understood and it was all right. Halfway up the street, she came to a stop, waiting. He had nearly reached her when she turned again and smiled. For an instant her mouth seemed to stretch like putty, the smile too wide, and then she was simply the girl in the pink sweatshirt, she was Allison Walker only not, and she turned left into the Harmony archway.
He walked to the archway. Beyond, where there should have been a parking lot, shops, a pizza place, there was only darkness. It was like gazing into an abandoned mineshaft. From somewhere in the darkness, he could hear her laughter, faint and childlike, echoing as if it came from far away. Closer, he could hear water dripping. Squinting, he thought he could see a faint pink smear a long ways off. A chalk drawing on stone, perhaps. He thought he could smell Time.
One hand outstretched, Bobby stepped into the blackness.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Thoughts on Cell Phones and "Free Market" Ideals
So, this struck me as related to the general thrust of my posts, so I decided to discuss it briefly before going about my mid-day errands.
I was reminded again this morning of the problem with free market enterprise. Essentially, proponents of the unfettered market claim that, if capitalism were allowed to run its proper course, things would be much more efficient: companies which provide the best products will prosper, while those that are not as good, not as innovative, will die. Consumers get the best products at the best price, capitalists make profits. Shoddy workmanship gets punished. The reality, however, is that the giants in any particular field rarely turn out to be those making the best product, selling at the lowest price, or innovating intelligently. Case in point, the recent and ongoing problems with the financial system and the American auto makers.
Or, for that matter, the conversation I had with my sister this morning. The three of us--me, her, and her boyfriend--are all on the same cell phone plan. It's been great; my bill generally runs about $25-$30 per month, and pretty much everything goes smoothly. The problem is that we're with Unicel, which is in the process of being bought out by AT&T. By year's end, our phones will cease to work. As such, we're trying to figure out how to switch over to AT&T. Now, following the ideals of capitalism, one would expect that AT&T is therefore a better company to have one's cellphone through--if not, they wouldn't be taking over, right?
Wrong. In actuality, when we switch to AT&T, we're going to be screwed, and thoroughly. The cheapest AT&T plan, which will still be more expensive than our current plan, would have about half the minutes we currently get through Unicel, and will also--get this--not include free incoming calls. I personally was not aware there were still networks that did not routinely give you free incoming calls. So, I'm thinking already that this is crap. Why should we be forced, through a business takeover, to pay higher rates for a lower quality product? Is that what capitalism is supposed to do? It got worse. The package which offers about the same number of minutes we currently have is even more expensive, and still has no free incoming calls. In fact, the lowest costing AT&T plan that will offer us free incoming calls will run $100 per person per month. I have no idea how many minutes this would offer us. All I know is this would give us the same basic coverage we currently have FOR ABOUT THREE TIMES THE PRICE. So, um, how does this in any way reflect the ideals of capitalism and the efficiency of the marketplace? Answer: it doesn't. What it reflects, in fact, is the current incarnation of the reality of capitalism. And that reality is that the big guys on top don't give a shit what their customers want or need. Because it isn't about choice, not really. It's about restricting options until people take the lesser evil available to them. Fuck these overgrown capitalist dinosaurs, and fuck their free market. He concluded maturely.
I was reminded again this morning of the problem with free market enterprise. Essentially, proponents of the unfettered market claim that, if capitalism were allowed to run its proper course, things would be much more efficient: companies which provide the best products will prosper, while those that are not as good, not as innovative, will die. Consumers get the best products at the best price, capitalists make profits. Shoddy workmanship gets punished. The reality, however, is that the giants in any particular field rarely turn out to be those making the best product, selling at the lowest price, or innovating intelligently. Case in point, the recent and ongoing problems with the financial system and the American auto makers.
Or, for that matter, the conversation I had with my sister this morning. The three of us--me, her, and her boyfriend--are all on the same cell phone plan. It's been great; my bill generally runs about $25-$30 per month, and pretty much everything goes smoothly. The problem is that we're with Unicel, which is in the process of being bought out by AT&T. By year's end, our phones will cease to work. As such, we're trying to figure out how to switch over to AT&T. Now, following the ideals of capitalism, one would expect that AT&T is therefore a better company to have one's cellphone through--if not, they wouldn't be taking over, right?
Wrong. In actuality, when we switch to AT&T, we're going to be screwed, and thoroughly. The cheapest AT&T plan, which will still be more expensive than our current plan, would have about half the minutes we currently get through Unicel, and will also--get this--not include free incoming calls. I personally was not aware there were still networks that did not routinely give you free incoming calls. So, I'm thinking already that this is crap. Why should we be forced, through a business takeover, to pay higher rates for a lower quality product? Is that what capitalism is supposed to do? It got worse. The package which offers about the same number of minutes we currently have is even more expensive, and still has no free incoming calls. In fact, the lowest costing AT&T plan that will offer us free incoming calls will run $100 per person per month. I have no idea how many minutes this would offer us. All I know is this would give us the same basic coverage we currently have FOR ABOUT THREE TIMES THE PRICE. So, um, how does this in any way reflect the ideals of capitalism and the efficiency of the marketplace? Answer: it doesn't. What it reflects, in fact, is the current incarnation of the reality of capitalism. And that reality is that the big guys on top don't give a shit what their customers want or need. Because it isn't about choice, not really. It's about restricting options until people take the lesser evil available to them. Fuck these overgrown capitalist dinosaurs, and fuck their free market. He concluded maturely.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Here's an interesting idea.
I could be a real jerk and just say "discuss," but let's consider this for a second.
On the one hand, there's the argument (made by libertarians, conservatives, etc) that the government has no right to do this. It's meddling beyond its acceptable limits. Sticking its nose where it doesn't belong, making us suffer under a socialist form of taxation in which those working hard and making the most are being penalized at the expense of everyone else.
And Yet:
As has been discussed rather extensively here, these guys aren't exactly Rhodes Scholars, or even of average intelligence. They ran their frickin companies into the ground. They don't appear to be especially bright, or concerned with the companies they run, or especially hard-working, either. It's about easy money, not long-term profits gained through toil. They made their money by being lucky idiots. So I don't buy the last third of argument #1.
At the same time, there are definitely sonme merits to that first position. Bailouts are arguably unconstitutional, as is any attempts by the federal government to regulate how much a corporation pays its CEOs and other top executives. Congress does not in fact have that power, nor does the Executive branch. And Lessig may be right about those being capped jump ship to other, unrestricted companies.
The question becomes, is it OK for the government to impose caps on corporate salaries? Ron Paul would argue that it's not only unconstitutional (because gov't isn't allowed to meddle like this, including bailouts) but also immoral. That's where, from my perspective, the water gets murky. Is it immoral to tell someone that they need to use federal bailout money for the purpose it was granted--i.e., fixing the system--rather than lining their own pockets with big celebratory bonuses? We could argue about whether or not the bailout is OK in the first place, but that's not what I'm after right here and now. The question right now is, are the proposed salary/bonus caps acceptable, or should the government not set such limits on its bailout cash?
What I find particularly interesting about this is the proposal mentioned in the first link, or rather, its source. this is an idea brought forth by a company executive. I always find myself pausing when I hear someone making massive amounts of money per year saying "take more of my income in taxes, please." Mostly, it is out of admiration. Here, as I see it, is someone expressing the root of what it means to be patriotic. Here is a person able to see beyond themselves, to so believe in the interconnectedness of every American citizen that they recognize their duty, as a successful individual, to help those around them. This is a person who recognizes that a country's greatness stems not from the wealth and prestige of single citizens, but the collective health, wealth, and happiness of its citizens.
To which Paul would say, sure--let HIM pay higher taxes if he wants to. Why should anyone else have to? It's a pointed question, but one that I think many of us, if we really considered it, might see this as a slap in the face of the concept of America as a nation. If the individual and her personal desires are to be supreme over all other considerations, then what we have is not a coherent nation. We have a bunch of individuals. Good, bad, indifferent, passionate, what have you, we have individuals. Over the last several decades, Americans have been increasingly encouraged to see themselves that way, and while it is important to maintain a view of oneself that is NOT simply a number, a member of the faceless mass, it is also necessary to remember the consequences of taking this idea too far. If, in the end, each of us is simply ourself, purely an individual, then we lose the ability to come together as a group, to make positive change. It's a process that a number of theorists--Erik Swyngedouw, in particular--have noted in the field of labor relations and industry, and which has likewise permeated our culture.
What fascinates me about Ron Paul's book The Revolution is that it proposes to increase the pressures toward this individual-centrism, making all taxes voluntary, allowing each person to decide for themselves whether or not they will give money to the government that ultimately has a responsibility to protect them from outside aggression, police their streets, and possibly perform other responsibilities that, while not spelled out in the Constitution, ought to be. Things that these individuals would not want to be responsible for doing themselves. Yet Paul argues that in such a society, more people would voluntarily stretch beyond themselves, take care of their neighbors, participate in their communities, and the like. I'm not sure I buy it. Seems to me that this sort of thing would only encourage the "but it's about me" mentality, not combat it.
People need to be retaught that being a citizen of a country is not merely a convenience for them, or a right. Privilege is privilege, and with it must come both the recognition of having it, and also the acknowledgement that privilege comes of necessity with responsibility. We must relearn to see ourselves as citizens of the nation, as parts of something larger than ourselves.
The question I then have to ask myself is, how do we accomplish this without turning totalitarian fascist?
I could be a real jerk and just say "discuss," but let's consider this for a second.
On the one hand, there's the argument (made by libertarians, conservatives, etc) that the government has no right to do this. It's meddling beyond its acceptable limits. Sticking its nose where it doesn't belong, making us suffer under a socialist form of taxation in which those working hard and making the most are being penalized at the expense of everyone else.
And Yet:
As has been discussed rather extensively here, these guys aren't exactly Rhodes Scholars, or even of average intelligence. They ran their frickin companies into the ground. They don't appear to be especially bright, or concerned with the companies they run, or especially hard-working, either. It's about easy money, not long-term profits gained through toil. They made their money by being lucky idiots. So I don't buy the last third of argument #1.
At the same time, there are definitely sonme merits to that first position. Bailouts are arguably unconstitutional, as is any attempts by the federal government to regulate how much a corporation pays its CEOs and other top executives. Congress does not in fact have that power, nor does the Executive branch. And Lessig may be right about those being capped jump ship to other, unrestricted companies.
The question becomes, is it OK for the government to impose caps on corporate salaries? Ron Paul would argue that it's not only unconstitutional (because gov't isn't allowed to meddle like this, including bailouts) but also immoral. That's where, from my perspective, the water gets murky. Is it immoral to tell someone that they need to use federal bailout money for the purpose it was granted--i.e., fixing the system--rather than lining their own pockets with big celebratory bonuses? We could argue about whether or not the bailout is OK in the first place, but that's not what I'm after right here and now. The question right now is, are the proposed salary/bonus caps acceptable, or should the government not set such limits on its bailout cash?
What I find particularly interesting about this is the proposal mentioned in the first link, or rather, its source. this is an idea brought forth by a company executive. I always find myself pausing when I hear someone making massive amounts of money per year saying "take more of my income in taxes, please." Mostly, it is out of admiration. Here, as I see it, is someone expressing the root of what it means to be patriotic. Here is a person able to see beyond themselves, to so believe in the interconnectedness of every American citizen that they recognize their duty, as a successful individual, to help those around them. This is a person who recognizes that a country's greatness stems not from the wealth and prestige of single citizens, but the collective health, wealth, and happiness of its citizens.
To which Paul would say, sure--let HIM pay higher taxes if he wants to. Why should anyone else have to? It's a pointed question, but one that I think many of us, if we really considered it, might see this as a slap in the face of the concept of America as a nation. If the individual and her personal desires are to be supreme over all other considerations, then what we have is not a coherent nation. We have a bunch of individuals. Good, bad, indifferent, passionate, what have you, we have individuals. Over the last several decades, Americans have been increasingly encouraged to see themselves that way, and while it is important to maintain a view of oneself that is NOT simply a number, a member of the faceless mass, it is also necessary to remember the consequences of taking this idea too far. If, in the end, each of us is simply ourself, purely an individual, then we lose the ability to come together as a group, to make positive change. It's a process that a number of theorists--Erik Swyngedouw, in particular--have noted in the field of labor relations and industry, and which has likewise permeated our culture.
What fascinates me about Ron Paul's book The Revolution is that it proposes to increase the pressures toward this individual-centrism, making all taxes voluntary, allowing each person to decide for themselves whether or not they will give money to the government that ultimately has a responsibility to protect them from outside aggression, police their streets, and possibly perform other responsibilities that, while not spelled out in the Constitution, ought to be. Things that these individuals would not want to be responsible for doing themselves. Yet Paul argues that in such a society, more people would voluntarily stretch beyond themselves, take care of their neighbors, participate in their communities, and the like. I'm not sure I buy it. Seems to me that this sort of thing would only encourage the "but it's about me" mentality, not combat it.
People need to be retaught that being a citizen of a country is not merely a convenience for them, or a right. Privilege is privilege, and with it must come both the recognition of having it, and also the acknowledgement that privilege comes of necessity with responsibility. We must relearn to see ourselves as citizens of the nation, as parts of something larger than ourselves.
The question I then have to ask myself is, how do we accomplish this without turning totalitarian fascist?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Briefly, before my time on the library computer ends and the place shuts down. Let's talk about political beliefs, shall we?
I've become a bit torn of late. A lot of my recent reading--Ron Paul's The Revolution, several articles in the alternative quarterly Vermont Commons, etc.--have introduced me to some of the more attractive ideas that inspire libertarianism. There's a lot to be said for a doctrine which believes, first, in a strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution, second, in the individual's rights as guaranteed under that document, and third, in limiting the power of federal goverment to matters requiring national attention, which cannot be adequately handled on the state, municipal, or personal level. It suggests, strongly, the need for an actively engaged, informed, passionate civic body, and seems to exemplify the ideas which went into the founding of America to begin with. The purpose of the Constitution, after all, is to set clear limits on the powers of the federal government. I've actually been reading it this afternoon, and realizing just how far we've drifted as a nation.
However, I see several definite drawbacks to libertarianism, particularly as reflected in Ron Paul's book. First, Paul advocates the abolition of income taxes and of tariffs and other penalties for imported goods. While this latter especially has lnog been pointed to as a force which serves only the interests of corporate America, and not the consumer, the removal of Congress's sole sources under the Constitution for collecting money strieks me as a sure way to destroy what's left of America. A government with no money coming in cannot pay out in any direction without increasing the already enormous deficits. Worse, a federal government with no money that tried nevertheless to cut spending would, among other probabilities, have to lower and eventually do away with salaries for federal employees. Which may seem all well and good until one realizes that the only way to accomplish this is to encourage de facto restrictions on who may serve in federal office, limiting them entirely to those able to support themselves without having to be at another job. In effect, we would transform our federal government into the oligarchical republic known by the Romans--exactly what this country is supposed to be fighting against.
There are other problems, of course, more broadly. While I agree on principle with decentralizing education and healthcare, for instance--let these things work at the state and local level; get rid especially of government's insistence on insurance (federal or HMO), and perhaps limit the power of the Department of Ed--at the same time I understand the impetus driving both. The federal education system is intended, after all, to insure that our children are being taken care of. Systems in place in which government takes money from everyone to pay for everyone's kids' education, in my book, is not immoral (as Paul would call it): it is putting forth the belief that we all, individuals though we be, have a responsibility toward our nation as a whole, and toward ensuring the greatness of our children and their peers. Which is not to say that federal money should have heavy strings attached; minimal federal oversight would be sufficient, however. Primarily, the federal government ought to serve as a secondary funding source, giving equal money to all schools, and spending more of its budget on making sure schools have adequate funding. Perhaps minimal national standards have their place. Beyond ensuring that our children are receiving proper intellectual care, however, federal government should stay out. I reject that federal involvement necessitates indoctrination, any more than having academic content determined by state or local governments is likewise indoctrination (and it certain is, regardless of which government is controlling it, or whether it's simply the parents of the community--it's always indoctrination). Likewise, I think all Americans have an obligation toward each other, to make sure we are all fed, clothed, warm, healthy. This doesn't necessarily mean forced distribution of wealth, either; it means humanitarian effort on the local level, where people are more inclined to be humanitarians.
While I accept in many particulars the positions of libertarianism, I also reject one of their fundamental tenets, that the marketplace is the best form of efficiency. Much of what I've been reading suggests that if schools and health care providers were allowed to compete more fully for customers, we'd have better schools and insurance companies. I doubt it. First, as poorer schools failed to compete, they'd be forced to close, making it necessary for the poor students they had taught to go elsewhere--probably to more expensive schools. Assuming this doesn't drive their families broke and starving, it would place significantly more burden on those better schools to accomodate more students. Those schools would then begin to suffer many of the issues currently being decried in America's schools: overcrowding, insufficient funding. We'd be back at square one, only with even fewer schools to choose from. Marketplace mentality does not strike me as an effective way to fix the school system, at all.
So I find myself at a bit of a loss. I hate the idea of labels, yet I constantly seek them out, to pigeonhole myself. And I can't find one that helps other people understand my beliefs. I'm not even sure I understand them, for that matter. There are a lot of gray areas, a lot of places where I see both sides of the issue, where I'm really not sure what I think. Without having yet read over the specifics, I think I'm probably most in agreement with the Republican party of George Aiken and other New Englanders, who were progressive in many ways, yet true to their party's original stance on spending and smaller government. I'll keep posting on here as I discover more about me and them, I guess...
A query: Why hasn't anyone ever started the machinery for a Constitutional Amendment requiring Presidential elections to involve anything other than state governments? After all, the true text of the Constitution only mentions state-appointed electors. Why haven't we fixed this to guard against a removal of the people from the entire process somewhere down the road?
I've become a bit torn of late. A lot of my recent reading--Ron Paul's The Revolution, several articles in the alternative quarterly Vermont Commons, etc.--have introduced me to some of the more attractive ideas that inspire libertarianism. There's a lot to be said for a doctrine which believes, first, in a strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution, second, in the individual's rights as guaranteed under that document, and third, in limiting the power of federal goverment to matters requiring national attention, which cannot be adequately handled on the state, municipal, or personal level. It suggests, strongly, the need for an actively engaged, informed, passionate civic body, and seems to exemplify the ideas which went into the founding of America to begin with. The purpose of the Constitution, after all, is to set clear limits on the powers of the federal government. I've actually been reading it this afternoon, and realizing just how far we've drifted as a nation.
However, I see several definite drawbacks to libertarianism, particularly as reflected in Ron Paul's book. First, Paul advocates the abolition of income taxes and of tariffs and other penalties for imported goods. While this latter especially has lnog been pointed to as a force which serves only the interests of corporate America, and not the consumer, the removal of Congress's sole sources under the Constitution for collecting money strieks me as a sure way to destroy what's left of America. A government with no money coming in cannot pay out in any direction without increasing the already enormous deficits. Worse, a federal government with no money that tried nevertheless to cut spending would, among other probabilities, have to lower and eventually do away with salaries for federal employees. Which may seem all well and good until one realizes that the only way to accomplish this is to encourage de facto restrictions on who may serve in federal office, limiting them entirely to those able to support themselves without having to be at another job. In effect, we would transform our federal government into the oligarchical republic known by the Romans--exactly what this country is supposed to be fighting against.
There are other problems, of course, more broadly. While I agree on principle with decentralizing education and healthcare, for instance--let these things work at the state and local level; get rid especially of government's insistence on insurance (federal or HMO), and perhaps limit the power of the Department of Ed--at the same time I understand the impetus driving both. The federal education system is intended, after all, to insure that our children are being taken care of. Systems in place in which government takes money from everyone to pay for everyone's kids' education, in my book, is not immoral (as Paul would call it): it is putting forth the belief that we all, individuals though we be, have a responsibility toward our nation as a whole, and toward ensuring the greatness of our children and their peers. Which is not to say that federal money should have heavy strings attached; minimal federal oversight would be sufficient, however. Primarily, the federal government ought to serve as a secondary funding source, giving equal money to all schools, and spending more of its budget on making sure schools have adequate funding. Perhaps minimal national standards have their place. Beyond ensuring that our children are receiving proper intellectual care, however, federal government should stay out. I reject that federal involvement necessitates indoctrination, any more than having academic content determined by state or local governments is likewise indoctrination (and it certain is, regardless of which government is controlling it, or whether it's simply the parents of the community--it's always indoctrination). Likewise, I think all Americans have an obligation toward each other, to make sure we are all fed, clothed, warm, healthy. This doesn't necessarily mean forced distribution of wealth, either; it means humanitarian effort on the local level, where people are more inclined to be humanitarians.
While I accept in many particulars the positions of libertarianism, I also reject one of their fundamental tenets, that the marketplace is the best form of efficiency. Much of what I've been reading suggests that if schools and health care providers were allowed to compete more fully for customers, we'd have better schools and insurance companies. I doubt it. First, as poorer schools failed to compete, they'd be forced to close, making it necessary for the poor students they had taught to go elsewhere--probably to more expensive schools. Assuming this doesn't drive their families broke and starving, it would place significantly more burden on those better schools to accomodate more students. Those schools would then begin to suffer many of the issues currently being decried in America's schools: overcrowding, insufficient funding. We'd be back at square one, only with even fewer schools to choose from. Marketplace mentality does not strike me as an effective way to fix the school system, at all.
So I find myself at a bit of a loss. I hate the idea of labels, yet I constantly seek them out, to pigeonhole myself. And I can't find one that helps other people understand my beliefs. I'm not even sure I understand them, for that matter. There are a lot of gray areas, a lot of places where I see both sides of the issue, where I'm really not sure what I think. Without having yet read over the specifics, I think I'm probably most in agreement with the Republican party of George Aiken and other New Englanders, who were progressive in many ways, yet true to their party's original stance on spending and smaller government. I'll keep posting on here as I discover more about me and them, I guess...
A query: Why hasn't anyone ever started the machinery for a Constitutional Amendment requiring Presidential elections to involve anything other than state governments? After all, the true text of the Constitution only mentions state-appointed electors. Why haven't we fixed this to guard against a removal of the people from the entire process somewhere down the road?
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