Dicey Venison

          I've been thinking about my old frenemy Dawn.
          I thought about our falling out, about how I had grown to feel less like a friend and more like a servant to her. She grew to feel entitled to violate boundaries, insult my family, and embarrass me in front of people. She used guilt as a way to manipulate me, as a way to gain the upper hand and maintain a position of superiority.
  
          It was classic Dawn, really.
          There was never an apology.
         Being Dawn means never having to say you're sorry.

          Dawn has a Mental Illness, you see.
        
        Somewhere along the way, she discovered that having a Mental Illness gave her a special status that allowed her to get away with trangressive behavior. She found that she could be hurtful, and when confronted, she could always derail the conversation with:

"I have a Mental Illness. I can't be held responsible."

End of discussion.

This way, she could use her mental illness "status" as leverage to manipulate me into accepting the role of Insensitive Bad Guy, so that any further discussion would be shut down, and she could continue to be entitled to treat me like shit.

        This is the essence of what Political Correctness has become.

I've had a recent conversation with a friend about how political correctness is about being a good person---treating people kindly and fairly.
Of course, that was what it was originally intended for, but it has mutated into something else entirely.
It has become a weapon wielded by those who see it as a convenient excuse to avoid personal responsibility.

And I see it all the time.

Here are three examples:

1.)  The current trend of Arab Muslims to call anyone a "racist" if they criticize suicide bombers, or the inherently misogynist, homophobic backward religious dogma of their cultures.



2.)  Whenever Israel is criticized for human rights abuses against Palestinians, Jewish people become enraged and start yelling about the Holocaust in order to use guilt to silence the critic and end the discussion.
We're not talking about the Holocaust; we're talking about Israel's policies toward Palestinian land rights, but somehow, it always ends up being about the Holocaust, because that's a powerfully manipulative tool to get people to back off from having an intelligent conversation about solving the problem at hand.
Of course, it isn't about the Holocaust. 
You shot a Palestinian child in the face.
Don't you think it's a bit callous for you to exploit your great-grandfather's agony at the hands of the Nazis as a convenient excuse to torture Palestinian children and deprive them of the basic necessities of life?


3.)    The Fat White Woman With The Creepy Black Boyfriend

           Here's one of my favorites.
            Of course, we know that the down-trodden rarely ever confront those with any real power.

This is beautifully illustrated in the scenario of black men with bleak prospects who attach themsleves to overweight white women who have low self esteem.
In this scenario, the black man is socially marginalized (unemployed, addicted, repeated problems with the law), but according to Political Correctness, this affords him a heightened status of victimhood---in contrast to the woman---who can claim white privilege, at least in theory.

This relationship isn't about "falling in love".
Far from it.
The relationship is a political act of revenge.
Getting back at Whitey.
The man steadily chips away at the woman's already shaky sense of self-esteem.
(Remember, she's overweight and probably poor, so she's already a reject in white society and nobody will stand up for her, least of all herself.)
The constant put-downs, the repeated "borrowing" of already meager money, the blatant cheating and womanizing---all create a sense of doubt in the woman. Yet, if she calls him on his asshole~ism, he can always lash out and call her a "racist" in order to shut her up and continue being a stereotypical nigger.

He angrily denies everything--even when caught!
Slowly, she thinks she's going crazy.
Why?
Because she so desperately refuses to believe in stereotypes!
She doesn't want to believe that the creep she's with is actually a big, ugly, grotesque stereotype.
In fact, the fat white woman with low self esteem, throwing herself away to this manipulative fuck-wad is, herself, a stereotype!
These creeps attach themselves to these women precisely because they aren't racist.
That way, they can manipulate them with guilt about race.
You don't see somebody like Ann Coulter dating a black ex-con, because she doesn't have any racial guilt.
Therefore, she can't be manipulated.
You can't manipulate somebody who doesn't give a shit in the first place.                                               And my personal experience has taught me that I have given far too much of a shit. I've wasted far too much of my life worrying that people might not like me. Especially if i stand up for myself.                                                                                                                                                                Like sociopaths, those who exploit the tenets of political correctness rely on our sense of pity to manipulate us.
Liberals are easy prey, because they don't want to be the Insensitive Bad Guy, so they naturally bear the brunt of being taken advantage of.

Political Correctness has strayed from its original protective purpose and is now just used as a Free Pass to be a douchebag and to silence anyone who questions said douchebaggery.

Politically Correct thinking strongly resembles the psychological workings of a cult.
There's a great deal of pressure to discourage critical thinking.
There is heavy reliance on thought-stopping cliches and bumper-sticker slogans.
There is a lot of guilt-tripping and group ostracizing if you dare to question the prevailing structure of taboos. The list of taboos continues to grow, until we are imprisoned in a guilt-ridden mental straight-jacket, fearful of losing our jobs, friends, and reputations if we make an honest observation. It has reduced academia into a bunch of quivering fearful mice.
Political Correctness is a form of thought-control to shame people into denying what is really in front of them.

Stereotypes are more or less accurate.

So, anyway, that's my rant for the day!
Toodles!






                       

          Today is Friday the 13th.
                It is my birthday.
                      I am 42.

             So far, this is the best decade of my life.
                      I do not exaggerate.
                     
                   Except for the wonderfully efficient body I had in my 20s (which I punished and starved, thinking I was fat, which I really wasn't),  I don't miss anything about being young.
I do not miss the self-doubt.
I do not miss the uncertainty, or the poverty.
I don't miss being a miserable addict, and I don't miss throwing myself away to a bunch of creeps because I was desperate and couldn't see that I was a beautiful person.

I don't miss any of that.

One thing that I'm just starting to discover is the incredibly subtle shades of grey in life.
Nothing is black and white.

Right-wing conservative god-bags call that "moral relativism", but those ignorant fucks can go fuck themselves.

I've also realized that there actually is such a thing as being too nice.
I've seen how guilty white liberals get played by every manipulative sad sack on the planet, and you know what?
After a while, you just have to filter a whole lot of it out, and pick your battles.
 I've learned from personal experience that a lot of people would rather manipulate you and take you for everything you've got because it's easier to have a chip on their shoulder and blame everybody else for the fact that they just can't get their shit together.
And liberals enable the fuck out of them.

Yes, I just said that.

In other words, at last, I've awakened from the nightmare of youth.

Maturity gives you the opportunity to make up for the bullshit you did to yourself when you were young.
Hopefully you've learned something and can get away from dogmas and start to create your own views.
I don't think there is any political group that isn't absolute shit.
All of them suck.
Religion---same thing.
I think you can be ethical without a political affiliation, and you can be a good person without religion.
In fact, I think you're a BETTER person if you can abandon these miserable mental crutches and think for yourself.

Really.


The Mister bought me a cake---as per my request---from Lane's Bakery on Park Street, and it is a lovely creation.
I haven't had a birthday cake in years.
In past years, I've had slices here and there at restaurants, but Lane's Bakery is THE place to get a true birthday cake.

It's sitting in its box in the fridge, smelling of old-fashioned sweetness.

I will braid my hair,  put on some linden perfume, and go with The Mister for Thai food at Ha-Long-Bay over on Willy Street.

It's going to be a beautiful day.

          Yesterday, I had a customer come through my lane with a six-pack of that bubbly flavored water that comes in plastic bottles with plastic rings to hold them in place.

     Plastic bottled water.

     I'm not judging. I'm just setting the scene here.

So, anyway, Plastic Water Bottles was trying to stuff the unwieldy six-pack of plastic bottled water into one of our tiny little handled bags.

    The laws of physics being what they are, the bag ripped.

   So, ever the solution-oriented guy that Plastic Water Bottles apparently is, he grabbed another tiny handled bag and began to try to squeeze the plastic bottled water which was wrapped in a torn paper bag of equal size to the one he was now stuffing the crumpled mess into.

I could no longer stand by and watch idly.

I gently took the torn crumpled bags from Plastic Bottled Water's now-trembling hands and I put them in the recycle bin.
I put the six-pack into a larger sized bag.

"I was just trying to avoid using a large bag," he explained after the ordeal was over.

And why am I telling you this idiotic story?
Because, Gentle Reader, this is a pure distillation of the type of thinking that defines the
Guilty White Liberal.

The Guilty White Liberal wants to Save The Planet.
Not really.
They like the Good Life, just like anybody else.
However, whilst living this pleasant existence, they espouse to a crippling guilt complex that interferes with their thinking.

I see them in their primal state---shopping for groceries.
In this high-tech hunter-gatherer environment, one is treated to the contradictory, nonsensicle patterns of their need for luxury, coupled with their anxiety and guilt about obtaining it.

The natural manifestation of this comes in the form of---

Bag Guilt.

This maddeningly annoying bullshit maneuver has leaked into this entire social class. 
Sure, they'll buy all kinds of stuff with extremely wasteful layers of useless plastic packaging that they're just going to throw away anyhow, but watch what kind of paper grocery bag you pack it in!

The smaller bags are actually more expensive to produce, but by golly, they're gonna stuff a week's worth of organic pasture-raised shiatsu-massaged pork belly into that bag even if it splits down the sides and they have to clutch the whole spilling mess against their chest and juggle it before dumping it into the trunk of their Lexus®.

It is then that I realize that these self-rightous fucks don't really give a shit about "Saving The Planet."

What they DO give a shit about is posturing and showing off  to their equally self-absorbed peers, creating a convincing illusion that they are Saving The Planet.

Carrying a small shopping bag is a status symbol of leaving a smaller carbon footprint.
Other Guilty White Liberals look askance and cast aspersions on one another for being so gauche as to put their groceries in an adequately-sized bag.

This is what Liberals have come to.

And why am I going on about this?

Because it applies to politics as well.

This insanity has spread to all aspects of their decision-making.

The blind cultish support of Barack Obama is another glaring example of this refusal to see facts as they are.
There has been no Hope---or Change---for that matter.
The Obama administration is a continuation--no--escalation! ---of the Bush Administration.
It just has prettier packaging.
A good-looking articulate black guy who exudes cool.

Beyond that, absolutely nothing has changed.

His defenders go into all kinds of mental gymnastics to explain why nothing has changed, why tings have gotten worse, in fact.
The Republicans cock-block him.
The American people don't get behind him.
He doesn't get enough support.

Really?
Is this the president of the United States we're talking about?
From the way these people talk, you'd think we were talking about an abusive bum who doesn't need his bitches whining.

This country has gotten to be absolutely insane and polarized.

On the one hand, you've got illiterate right-wing redneck god-bags trying to send us back to the 1840s.

On the other hand, you've got the snuggly multi-culti "Kumbaya" crowd who want to cuddle up with jihadist Salafis.
It's amazing what Guilty White Liberals will put up with from Muslims, while simultaneously spewing hate at Right Wing Christians who share the exact same values as Islamic fundamentalists, such as the Salafis.

Believe me, I was right there for a long time.
But then, I woke up.
Maybe not soon enough.
I wanted so badly to connect with Arabs, to connect with my heritage.
Now I see that I can't do that.
It's sad, but it's reality.
I can't get behind what they believe in.

The Right Wing and Muslims actually share many of the same backward values.

A lot of fundamentalist Muslims are moving into Madison in droves---because we're a politically-correct, diverse, tolerant city.

Therein lies the paradox.

They come here and get lots of support from liberals who want to welcome every type of exotic being that floats in.
The thing is, fundamentalist Muslims find many of the progressive values of Liberals to be immoral and repugnant.
Like the illiterate right-wing redneck masses that seethe in the hinterlands of Wisconsin, Muslims also have a zero-tolerance for gays' and women's rights, are staunch supporters of heavily criminalizing drug use, and have absolutely no time for secularism.

So, really, I think Madison is setting itself up for problems down the road.
I think in its desperation to please anyone who is exotic, Madison is going to find that sometime in the future, Muslims will turn on them and unleash their true hateful colors.

I don't think there are any other people on Earth who think like me.

It's either right-wing conservative assholes or Guilty White Liberal Multicultural "Experts", (or as Damon Wayan's character described them in the film Bamboozled, "Niggerologists").

Nobody can think with any intelligence or common sense.

It is incredibly frustrating.

Oh well, my rant is over.
I've got to check on the laundry now.




 

         
THINKING is a fluid exchange of ideas that are constantly being tested and amended as more information and facts come into one's awareness.

BELIEVING has a tendency to cement information into an unyielding fossilized form that eventually becomes hidebound, dogmatic, and incompatible with new data.

This is probably why religious people become very irritable and fly into rages when confronted with evidence that proves their cosmology to be obsolete.

This is why Galileo was excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

A great number of Muslims are flooding into Madison.
Madison is a liberal college town, suffocatingly PC and very proud of supporting diversity.
Which is its own kind of paradox.
We're attracting so many Muslims because we're so tolerant.
They, however, have a zero-tolerance policy on so many issues, like gays or women's rights.
They come here to live, all the while railing loudly about how morally bankrupt liberals are.
They couldn't settle down in some right-wing redneck city---which, surprisingly, would actually have many of the same values that Muslims subscribe to!

Double paradox!

This is one of the reasons I have a problem with Arabs and Muslims.

Their ideology is one of strict conformity, to the point where it's just the rote mouthing of slogans that are actually pretty meaningless.

In order to be a good Arab or a good Muslim, it is imperative to adhere to a certain ideological package.
The first tenet of that Ideological Package, is that Everything Is The Jew's Fault, and  second tenet is that Everything Is America's Fault.
Anytime Muslim extremists blow up a shopping mall or a church with a car bomb, it becomes a big twisted convoluted conspiracy theory involving Mossad agents, dressed-up-as Muslim extremists, commiting these atrocities in order to discredit Muslims.

Then, when evidence is presented to the contrary, they start phase two, which is to say that the U.S. tricked somebody into believing they were blowing shit up for Islam.

When evidence proves that didn't happen either, then they fly into a rage and start shouting incoherent shit about The Crusades and American prostitutes, alcoholics,  and pork consumers.


     How many Muslims does it take to change a lightbulb?
            None.
       They will sit in the dark forever and blame the Jews.

          I just remembered something from my teen years that is very odd, yet typical of something my parents would do...

       When I was a teenager during the 80s, we lived in Kuwait.
When we moved into our apartment in university housing, the telephone was plugged into a wall in the bedroom I shared with my sister.

   Of course, we were strictly forbidden to have boyfriends, but my sister was always good at covering her tracks.
She never got caught, and my father thought she could do no wrong.

When she left for college, it was just me.
My parents fixated their attention on me, and now I realize that I was the scapegoat so my parents didn't have to deal with the taboo of having to face the fact that their marriage was absolutely miserable.

My parents have never had the ability to discern a pattern of cause and effect.
They simply cannot see their role in how the world responds to them.

Whenever my parents needed to make a phone call, they'd go into my room to make it.
It would have been easy to simply unplug the jack and plug it into the phone jack in the living or dining room.
But my parents just didn't think like that.
My dad felt that he could walk into my room any time to get to the phone anyway, since my privacy was a non-issue for him.
I was just a stupid kid, after all, and besides, what would I be I trying to hide---demanding privacy!?

So, as I entered my teen years, I discovered that girls are divided into hot and ugly.
I was ugly.
Even if a boy actually did like me, he wouldn't openly admit it to his friends for fear of crushing ridicule.
So, I looked elsewhere for validation that I was pretty---i.e. "acceptable".
And that elsewhere involved the local boys outside my private American school.
Muslims who were just as repressed and desperate as I was.

Soon, I was exchanging notes and phone numbers and talking late at night with my forbidden friends who made me feel special.

When eventually, my parents found out, they were shocked---SHOCKED!!!---

...that their teenaged girl would be sneaking around at night---making phone calls ---in her own bedroom, where the only telephone in the house was located---
---making phone calls---TO BOYS!!!

I was shuffled to psychiatrists and lawyers, with my dad whining in a hand-wringing frenzy about my being "BOY CRAZY"---which, in his Arab mind, was an actual psychiatric disorder.


It's absolutely amazing, how my dad is such a successful academic genius---deciphering ancient cuneiform text like it was second nature, but having absolutely no common sense about how to raise kids.

Some people really shouldn't have children.

My parents' generation were so imprisoned by social pressure to conform to a societal norm of marriage and the nuclear family, that untold millions like us were raised to try to exist in complete insanity.

It's women like us, who develop severe "daddy issues", who are raised in a laboratory that fosters the kind of personality that would join a cult like the Manson family, for example.

I recognize that if I were to have kids, I would just pass the insanity onto the next generation.
So, it stops here.
I opted out of having kids, and I'm glad that I live in an environment that doesn't see me as a deviant.

I live in a liberal college town, which has its other side of the coin.
Although the younger people are now going back to more traditional family types, I remember how hard it was to find anyone to have a relationship with during the 90s, when I was in my 20s.
Madison was very supportive of any and all alternative lifestyles---except anything traditional.
Marriage was seen as highly suspect.
If you openly admitted that you wanted to get married and have a family, you were seen---at least by anyone who was hip---  as a PERVERT.

So, it was an endless parade of one miserable failed relationship after the next.


It really sucked being single during the 90s.


And I'm glad it's over.
 

       I miss being spiritual.
       There was something warm and satisfying about it.
I was never raised with religion.
My dad was an intellectual of the 1950s, and part of the package of being an Intellectual Of The 1950s was that you were supposed to subscribe to Communism, and Communism forbade any religious attachments.
Of course, Communism became this rigid ideology that became a religion-like structure in and of itself, but you weren't supposed to notice that.
My father retained a lot of the baggage of his Islamic up-bringing, like keeping his daughters under house arrest if we so much as giggled if a boy smiled at us.

So, anyway, when I was old enough to escape this weird and schizoid home-life, I craved
Something To Believe In.

I would have made the perfect Manson Girl.

I was fascinated by them.Their personalities and life stories were just like mine.
Daddy Issues.
Feeling lost and drifting.
If the times and circumstances has been right, I know I would have been among some sort of cult.
During the 90s, I wanted to leave and go join the Zendik Farm cult.
I'm really glad I didn't.

I remember being criticized by some guy at a Rainbow Gathering---that I wasn't spiritual enough.
I didn't really get what he meant, but I knew it was Something Awful.
you're It's that feeling you get when People In The Know claim that you Just Don't Get It---and what "it" is is something so wonderful and marvelous that truly gifted seers can naturally glom onto, but you---you're too corrupted by "Babylon" to see anything but the Wal-Mart reality that you're trapped in.

I joined a coven in 1997, looking for something to join, something to believe in.

I remember feeling good to be part of something, getting a glimpse into the spiritual hidden magical side of things.

It troubled me that I couldn't "feel the energy" that the others in the group were so natural at picking up.

It was jarring that I felt that there was something comical and fake about the High Priestess when she was Drawing Down The Moon and "channeling" the Goddess into herself and speaking in that weird voice and then cllapsing exhausted in a chair afterward.

When the high priest came over and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, I couldn't help thinking of James Brown...

I remember being all spiritual and New Agey about sex.

Having been raised with so much deep shame and patriarchal punishment about sex, I wanted to reclaim it for myself. But I felt that in order to do so, it had to be re-packaged as something pretty and sweet.
It had to be "Tantra-fied".
Because fucking was porn-y and the feminists said that all porn and graphic sex was damaging to women.
So, they had that in common with the Right-Wingers.

I think maybe it's OK that I didn't "feel the energy".

Because now, I think it's all bullshit.

        Wow. It's been a while.
        Maybe it's the power of suggestion.
           
              I'll get to that in a moment.

 Maybe I ran out of ideas.
Not likely.
I'm doing great, and maybe it's not as much fun for me to go on about gratitude as it is to bitch about politics and asshole rock stars.

     The power of suggestion:
         A friend noted that "nobody uses Livejournal anymore."
        I never really thought about it.
         But my usage has slacked off since moving onto other online entertainments.
        But I love writing.
I love this venue for working out my inner dialogues.

       I've noticed that nobody seems to read anything I write anymore, which makes me happier, since I don't have to feel like I need to conform to some "readership" or anything.
I've disabled comments (except from friends) because all I get are creepy spam messages.

I want to continue to write in Livejournal because it's good for me to do so.
I appreciate this space.

The power of suggestion is powerful indeed.
To plant a thought in someone's mind that affects their belief system.
Take the placebo effect, for instance.
People take homeopathic medicines---which really do absolutely nothing--- and the person will report a complete cessation of symptoms because they believe it so strongly.

I finally decided to go to the dentist.
It had been ten years, and I was being plagued by dreams of my teeth falling out, teeth being pulled, teeth crumbling, deep cavities with exposed raw nerves throbbing in screaming pain...
I was absolutely convinced that a crown needed replacement, perhaps a root canal.
I was feeling pain.
I've had trouble with this crown, having it replaced several times.
The first time I had it put on was when I was about 14 years old in Kuwait.
The dentist office looked like a barbershop in the middle of a butcher shop.The floor had that brown tile that you find in no-nonsence meat shops.
The receptionist offered us glasses of spiced sweet tea as we sat in the waiting room.

It's been ten years since I last saw a dentist, and my dream mind was nagging me.
It was time.

Okay Okay Okay... I'll make an appointment!

Anyway, the dentist examined my crown and told me it was fine.
He said that the pain may be due to sinus trouble, but there was nothing wrong with the actual crown.

Soon after that, I noticed that the pain in the tooth went away.

Strange, the power of suggestion ...

So, I've been thinking.
About this blog.
What a weird, meandering collection of thoughts.
When I started the thing back in 2007, I had this image of it being a collection of travel writing, music reviews, and recipe/cooking blogging.

Instead, it turned into this jumbled mess.

I've learned a lot, so I guess that's good.

I think that what I learned most of all is that I need to destroy my idols.
I learned that you can't be afraid to examine your belief, because dogma is a dangerous thing.
Critical thinking is essential, and it is also in very short supply.
I have begun to avoid Middle East politics because I no longer believe it can ever improve until the Arabs themselves learn to change thier way of thinking--to move beyond reactionary incoherent rage and move toward actual logical thought. I don't see a lot of thinking going on.
I see a lot of blame, a lot of religious fundamentalism springing up---but no actual thinking.
The Arab Spring is a spectacular disappointment, and a hopelessly lost cause.
I've stopped trying to befriend Arabs because I don't want to deal with their incoherent rage anymore.


They have so much potential.
They are so proud of their history.

But I think that their religious dogma has hobbled their minds and prevents them from moving forward.


The Muslim Arabs reached their zenith of power during the Medieval times.
Andalusian Spain was the center of learning: science, art, music, architecture, medicine---the Arabs were making exponential advances while the rest of Europe were basically stuck in a backward mental quagmire unlike that of the Religious Right, here in America's Bible Belt.


However, The Arabs haven't advanced past those halcyon days.

What you're seeing in contemporary Arab culture is like a time-capsule of what civilization was like during the Medieval times.
And these were the advanced people.

Which says a lot of what a miserable nightmare Medieval Europe must have been!

Anyway, enough Arab-bashing.
I'm just disappointed that I cannot have an intelligent conversation with anyone from the culture from which half of my ancestry is derived.

In other news, I've become Vegan.

I don't know if I'll do it permanently, but I feel absolutely great, so I don't see why I shouldn't continue.

I'm on Rip Esselstyn's Engine 2 Diet.
We're doing it at work.
It's a 28-day Challenge, and we're on day 21.

I love feeling good, reducing my impact on animal suffering, saving money, and a lot of other benefits.


Things are going really well.
I'm going to make an effort to write more.

Counting one's blessings is important.


  



 

 



 



 

          The song for the day is:  "Faith In Something Bigger", by The Who.

                http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkaIh7VKkkA


                  I don't know if anyone reads this blog anymore.
               It's been around for more than four years.
               It doesn't have fun pictures.
                    It's tedious to read through at times.

                 But it's always been my therapy, so it remains.

                   I guess some of my last rants have been rather harsh.
 
                      As the great and acerbic comedian George Carlin once said,
                     "A cynic is just a disappointed idealist".

                   And so that describes me very well.

                      A cynic is a disappointed idealist.

                     I was never raised with religion.
                 Although my parents are quite conservative, they never had any religious doctrine.
                 The only vestiges of religious doctrine that my father ever exhibited were his unbelievably over-the-top harsh and viciously punitive reactions whenever he suspected me of furtively flirting with some neighbor boy.

          But maybe that was his Arab culture, rather than Islam that influenced him in his strange "performance pieces", as I later came to describe his insane histrionics.

I was really angry for a while after my bizarre interaction with the Muslimah who was once my friend.
I think what really pissed me off was how she tried to make an example of me in front of an audience.
One way to really piss me off and "un-friend" me is to spill your dirty secrets to me in private and then try to act superior and make me out to be the Bad Guy as soon as you have an audience.

A major difference between Arab and American culture is that in Arab culture, if you do something wrong, there is no guilt ...until you get caught.

         And then, you deny everything.

And that's a reason why Arabs can be so exasperating.

Even in the face of evidence and solid proof, they'll continue to deny any wrong-doing, and shift the blame on anyone else, but never own up to their own responsibility.

I didn't really want to get into that today.

I want to talk about keeping a balanced perspective.

I was so angry that I had a very reactionary and dark view of religion.
I still do.
The entire Abrahamic triad: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,  are out-moded adaptations to untreated schizophrenia that got way out of hand thousands of years ago.
It is useless, and ought to be abandoned.
Not that it will, but if I were queen of the world, we'd do away with the Abrahamic legacy.

I even transferred my anti-religious zeal onto Wicca.
Not because of any damaging ideologies per se, but because I found it silly to call the Gods "Lord" and "Lady", and have them personified, with the God being simultaneously the Lady's husband and son.

It just seems like a lot of nonsense.

I appreciate a lot of what Wicca has to offer in terms of a spirituality based on natural phenomenae.
There are beautiful ideas, and if not taken literally, it does not conflict with science.
Which is a bonus.

So, I'm coming back into an understanding of spirituality.
On my own terms.
Between me and The Cosmos.
There is no conflict there.

There is conflict, however, when mentally ill religious fanatics with a crooked agenda try to bully their way into telling me how to think.

I think the Universe is doing just fine with or without us.



 

 





         
             




                

                  

        

          I used to get so hung-up on wanting people to like me. Now, I'm more willing to trust that rejection might sometimes be a blessing in disguise.
            I'm trying not to get upset about it.
                   Really, I'm not.
                  I'm a big girl.

               I'm not Arab "enough".
                 I know that.
                  And I'm OK with that.
               After trying to connect with other Arabs, including cousins, I'm done.

                  There are aspects of the culture that I simply cannot allow to go un-challenged.

                The inherent misogyny is top on my list.
                And it has to be completely internalized and defended in order to be a "real" Arab.
              
                 I can't deal with the religiosity either.
              The rote unthinking obedience to doctrine is out of my scope.

               I am offended by the fact that I am seen as "tainted" and "unclean" because I am part of the Western culture, and I am therefore invalidated from being part of a rational discussion---particularly if there is any criticism of Islamic Arab culture's treatment of women.

         So, I'm walking away from all of it.

           I think the final straw came when my cousin "unfriended" me.

           I can never be part of that culture.
            And perhaps my rejection is a blessing.
       
             And you know what?
             I reject them.
           I reject them wholeheartedly.
I put my best foot forward, and got shot down.
Every goddamn fucking time.

  It started as a child.
The claustrophobic cage that is the life of growing up female with an Arab father.
Being interrogated for three days until the only way out I could imagine was suicide.
At the age of 14.
Slitting my wrists in the bathtub.
Being dragged and locked up in an Arab insane asylum as punishment---for what?
For WHAT?

For smiling and waving at the neighbor boy.
For feeling flattered that a boy liked me.

I went to a private American school.
The other kids were pairing up and "dating".
Whatever that entails in Middle School.

All the boys in school made fun of me told me that I was fat and ugly.
I was a pathetic social reject.
And when boys who didn't go to my school paid attention to me, I was so happy that somebody actually acted as if they liked me.

And for that, my father punished me with the world-famous harsh sadistic cruelty that the Arab world is known for heaping onto its daughters who rebel against being trapped at home like a forsaken bitch on a chain.

Of course, unknown to me at the time, the boys that I thought liked me actually thought I was a "filthy American whore". 
I was actually mistaken in thinking that they liked me.

So, I was really getting the short end of the stick from both sides.

Just the idea that I had to grow up in such a sick, fucked-up society makes me wonder why I'd want to go back, to re-visit, to reconcile.

After the hard work of un-learning all the insane crap I had shoved down my throat by those  fuckers...Why would I think it could ever be different?
In fact, it's getting worse.
Religious fanaticism is sweeping over the Arab world like a dark suffocating blanket of ignorance, with no let-up in sight.
That's what these revolutions are about.
It has nothing to do with being free from tyrranical dictators.
It has everything to do with turning back the clock and becoming frightened, superstitious illiterate nations of unquestioning adherents of stone-age theocracies.
 That's what they want.

So, you know what?
If you want it that bad, go ahead and enjoy your status as a 5th-class citizen in a third-rate theocracy.

But I want no part of cheering you on.

It's a matter of creating my own culture, my own interpretation of the world.
And I don't need your acceptance to do it.

( By the way, I've limited comments to friends only because I was getting a lot of annoying spam, and I don't need that shit.)




 

            We put Grandma in the ground today.
                 The weather was lovely.
                   It was just Dad, Mom, and me.
                And the guy who put the box in the ground, and the guy who tamped the dirt down.
               Grandma was cremated.
               Her ashes were in a little wooden box, and she was laid to rest in the same plot as Grandpa.
              They're in Forest Hill  now.
              The whole thing was very quiet, short, and there weren't any words said.
                There wasn't really anything to say.
               We didn't have anyone to impress or anything to prove.
              Grandma's troubles are over.
              And we were all kind of relieved.
      The siblings are all estranged, and can't even reconcile for one day to bury their mother, so it was just us.

            What a fucked up family.

              After burying Grandma, we went to the Memorial Union and had ice cream cones.
                   Then my parents took me home.

                I went for a walk and took pictures of the prettiest Christmas lights in the neighborhood.
            Then, I went home and made almond cookies.
              I make them every year for the ChrisHannuKwanzYulstice holiday.
               I made pomander balls---where you stick cloves in oranges.
                They smell nice.
                But my thumbs hurt now, so I'm taking a break.

               We got a Christmas card from Dawn, but addressed it only to The Mister.
               I laughed, because that is such a Dawn thing to do.
               The Mister thought it was awkward and weird, and he slowly said
                  "O-Kaaaaaayyyyy?"
                
                So wonderfully prickly.
This is such a great time of year to demonstrate holier-than-thou self-righteousness disguised behind a veil of Christmas Cheer.

Maybe next year, she'll set a bag of shit on my door step, set it on fire, and ring the doorbell.

...and then emerge from the shadows, Rod Serling-like, and tell me how much it hurts her to have to do this, but she had no choice --- I drove her to do it...


      
                 
                
                
                     
               
               


          

          So, I had an interesting situation come up which has made me reconsider a lot of what I've believed for a while. It made me take a step back and see more clearly, I think...


Something that bothers me about the politically-correct Left is their tendency to forgive gross human rights violations---as long as they are goin on in other cultures.
Honor killings, female genital mutilation, child marriage---that sort of thing.
Guilty White Liberals will get very very upset and loudly voice thier outrage against people like the Westboro Bapstist Church, but have a kind of uncomfortable silence when it comes to outrages committed in the name of Islam.

Anyway...I came across this article about the Afghani woman who was jailed for "adultery" after reporting being raped, but was pardoned and released, with the understanding that she would marry her jailer.

My "friend"  the Krazy Muslimah always has to pipe in whenever I post anything having to do with the deplorable condition of women's rights in Muslim theocracies. It just drives her crazy! This is because she is absolutely miserable in her marriage; her extra-marital affair was a grand failure, and now she's becoming a foaming-at-the-mouth religious fanatic in order to compensate. She has to internalize the misogyny inherent in Islam in order to remain a "successfully" married woman and earn brownie points from her fellow Muslims for being holy enough.

I see it a lot with women whose marriages begin to crumble. While both sexes tend to have affairs in order to feel validated and desirable, men and women have some differences. Men tend to hit the alcohol and drugs more, while women turn to religion. Religion is basically a drug, but it is a socially-approved drug that makes the user feel superior and "holier-than-thou", so they can elevate themselves and judge others' moral defects.

Following is the entire online "conversation" as it appears:

The comments on my post were from me, Krazy Muslimah, the priest from the Wiccan coven I used to be in, and my cousin (on the American side of the family)..

So, in order to maintain the integrity of the conversation, I will copy and paste the entire conversation directly from the thread, so there will be no paraphrasing. I only changed names for the reason of privacy.


Here is the thread in its entirety: 


           Me: [My wall post before the link] :

       'Yes, but ..."Don't be judgmental and impose your evil Western Imperialist values..." Or at least that's what I get told when I disagree with disgusting shit like this.'

                   http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/world/asia/for-afghan-woman-justice-runs-into-the-static-wall-of-custom.html?_r=1&hpw


 Krazy Muslimah:
"she was his mistress for a long time probably but as soon as she got caught she claimed he raped her to avoid the severe penalty of adultery and fornication. Now she's happy she has a husband. I see it happening here in the good old USA all the time. Boy invites girl to dinner girl says yes they eat they drink they start getting drunk boy invites girl to his place they start making out girl half way through realizes oooh maybe not the guy is too excited they do it. Next morning the girl realizes it was not a good idea. She calls the cops on him and claims he raped her."


 ‎Me:
"..Now she's happy she has a husband." Really. So quick to throw her under the bus and use a Straw-Man argument in defense of an incredibly backward law. Why? So you can get points for being holy? So guys will approve of you? I don't get it. And maybe I really don't want to.

Krazy Muslimah:
"I personally think that rape should be a crime punishable by law in the most severe way. It's horrible. But did you know that this is one in a blue moon story that happens to make it to the news and we know why. Rape incidents are much lower in muslim countries than in non muslim ones. I do not claim to be holy. I think Americans should take care of their own shit first. and mind their own freaking bussiness."

Wiccan Priest:
"Unsupportable statement. You have no reliable data to compare rates of rape between muslim and non-muslim countries. Likewise, your "one in a blue moon" statement; If by that you mean these are rarely reported, then I'll concede that. But if you're implying the rapes don't occur, I have no reliable information either way. And until rape victims have a reasonable expectation that their reports will be given the proper legal consideration, I would expect reports to be rare. And finally, your remark about Americans "minding their own business" demonstrates the exact mindset that Andrea was pointing out: that the pointing out of an injustice can't be done by a Westerner. And that is a ludicrous position to be taking."

 Me:
"Notice also, how nobody held the man accountable. He isn't mentioned at all, except as some sort of "prize" that the woman had better be grateful for. Having experienced everyday life in repressive Muslim societies in my formative years (8~16), I can tell you how psychologically damaging it is. A lot of fear. Paranoia. Self-loathing. When I returned, I had to un-learn much of what I absorbed there. Just going for a walk was a huge deal for me. Hearing women defend Patriarchy-On-Steroids theocracies is is like hearing an African-American saying--with a straight face--that if only they knew their place, they'd see that the KKK knows best and is only burning crosses on their lawns "for their own good"."

Krazy Muslimah:
[Wiccan Priest] you know by now that there is a big war on Islam and that's why I called America to mind their own business. Off course you have a point in what you said about rapes not being reported in many cases. But Ok for all the brainwashed people saying that women who gets raped in Islam get killed or murdered.
If you get raped in Islam the man gets the deaths penalty immediately. That is why they have few rape cases in Islamic countries. the low rape/capita rate in Saudi is mainly due to the capital punishment and strict laws in rape cases in KSA.
Once the western world with their NWO moved into the lands of muslim countries to take over their resources and introduced Alcohol and gambling and stripped the people of their independence the diseases of the western world got the most out of muslims. Just as the white man produced this monsterous civilization of fornicators and prestitutes and alcoholics by eradicating the natives. Maybe [Dicey] may wish to be more balanced if she can point out an injustice right here in this culture like the recent one in Penn state for a change. How about that!?

 Me:
I have, and I do. You live here and are actually allowed to have a voice to criticize this country, which is great. I don't think you'd have that opportunity in a kingdom or theocracy. I've said it before, and I'd say it again: the U.S. military needs to get out of these countries. I am not justifying military invasions by pointing out the short-comings of Shari'a. Those are two different subjects, but they tend to get intertwined. If my posts are so upsetting, perhaps you'd can hide them from your news-feed.


Krazy Muslimah:
 "you know well these are your posts and they are not upsetting they are false. Just because of one story you take it and you twist to say this is all there is to this culture. Because you had a bad experience while growing up in an Arab country doesn't mean you have to become a vendetta against that culture. Off course I am not defending any government and yes I can state my opinion in this country and not only in just one language I actually can do it in 3. That's what my country has paid for me to do while growing up. They paid for my education up to my BA. Now that's very repressive."

Me:
Wow. A vendetta? If that's what you want to call it. Fine.


Wiccan Priest:
I never said any of those things. But I will say you a very poor debater. You are displaying no use of proper, or even common logic. Clearly, you have an axe to grind with anyone who points out the obvious injustices that occur under islamic regimes or legal systems. That's unfortunate -- for you. You would be better served by developing a more objective viewpoint. I consider this "conversation" over.

Krazy Muslimah:
no  I only became tired of this because that's all you hear about those countries in the media. And you know it. No axe just sick and tired of propaganda.

My Cousin:
Well I think John Lennon was right--woman is the n*gger of the world, still. And as an outsider somewhat (but still a woman), the elements I see argued here echo a lot of what I've seen brought up by Black feminists--the conflicts between gender and race/culture/religion. But I do see a fallacious argument here--"if you're not with us, you're against us", or the divided middle. I've experienced it with a friend who said if you criticize Israel, you're slamming all Jews.

Krazy Muslimah:
 [Dicey] I apologize for that word. Facebook sometimes gets too exciting. I really don't think you are. I love you sister.

[Wiccan Priest]  google "Dr. Javed Jamil Muslims Most Civilized" for an exhaustive compilation of statistics comparing Muslim to non-Muslim countries on rape, alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide, murder, broken homes, divorce, and so on. And don't claim "statistics are meaningless because any statistics I don't like must be wrong because the facts must be non-reportable." That argument can be used by anyone who wants to ignore any facts that conflict with their worldview. And your worldview has obviously been conditioned by the rabidly islamophobic propaganda of the Zionist New York Times, which is working to support the post-9/11 genocidal murder of millions of Muslims, using your tax dollars.


So there you have it.
The whole thread.
Everyone who has read it is has said
"Whoa...she's out of control..."

I liked the part where she tells me (and Western journalists) to "mind our own business" about world affairs if it's the ugly part of Islam.
Imagine, reading and posting a story from an internationally published online news source, and being told to "mind your own business".

But really, I've been hearing this stuff all my life.

And now, I'm done.

I'm done because nothing ever changes.
It will never change.

Any time an Arab or Islamic society is exposed for their unbelievably backward shit, they have to become enraged and spout all kinds of convoluted conspiracy theories about the intricasies of Mossad's double agent operatives and cover-ups and how the West is a nation of alcoholic "prestitutes".
They can never just honestly look at their own bat-shit crazy behavior.
That would mean losing face.Owning up to their part is an admission of guilt---letting "Them" win.
There has to be a distraction.
Blame.
A Straw Man argument.
Circular reasoning.
More blame.



There's absolutely no reasoning with them.

I think what pisses me off in this particular case is that Krazy Muslimah doesn't even live in a Muslim theocracy.
She lives right here in a nice Midwestern college town.
A hot-bed of Leftist activity.
Political Correctness and Multiculturalism are the law of the land here.
Guilty White Liberal academics fall all over themselves to "open up a dialogue" in order to understand the insanity of misogynistic Islamic theocracies.
And these psychotic foaming-at-the-mouth Jihadist fuck-wads thrive in places like this.
They are expert manipulators who know how to push the guilt buttons and play these Multiculturalists like a fine-tuned oud.

And while the Guilty White Liberal Multiculturalists help the Bat-Shit Krazy Muslims thrive here, they'd better not bring up such hot-button issues like women's rights.
Nothing makes the Mujahadeen's blood boil like any mention of women's rights.
That goes for Krazy Muslimah as well.
They'll never give you a straight answer, but change the subject and distract you with stories about the inherent whorish-ness of American females.

Other issues that make the Muslim's eyes bug out and cause them to sputter incoherent foaming-at-the-mouth insanity are:

1.)  The reforming of drug laws. Legalizing marijuana is a no-no.
2.)  Sex workers' rights. This one is inconceivable to a Jihadist and any mention of it will cause eye-bugging sputtering and foaming-at-the-mouth.
3.)  Gay rights.
4.)  Atheism.

I was delighted to find that I'm not alone in my assessment of this situation.
I've been finding things from Christopher Hitchins, and Richard Dawkins,  Salman Rushdie, and especially Pat Condell,  that have really been resonating with my observations.

 Krazy Muslimah can bitch and moan about how much it totally sucks to live in the U.S.
That's because she has an audience online who validates her holiness and piety for denigrating her host country. The First Amendment allows her to fling shit at this nation of "prestitutes", while throwing her Muslim sisters under the bus from a safe cushy distance.

After all, it was they who got caught having illicit affairs, not her.

And another thing:
 It's about damn time that sex workers got to live in dignity, and these hypocritical God-bag ass-wipes left them alone and quit stigmatizing them already.

I've got to say, it sure felt good clicking on the "Un-Friend" button last night.

          It amazes me how Thanksgiving is so often over-shadowed by everything but giving thanks.
        It's a time for families to get together under one roof and push each others' buttons, rub salt in one another's wounds, and raise up unresolved issues ---all of it resulting in awkwardness, silence, and the occasional Jerry Springer~esque brawl.

     For me, going home to my parents' house is a learning experience.
It is a return to the birth-place of my neuroses.
Time and distance have created enough of a sense of objectivity so that I can more clearly see what it is that I've worked so hard to un-learn.

I love my parents dearly, but...
Oh, Christ...

My nephew just turned 15.
He called us on Thanksgiving, and my mom got on the phone and asked him:

"So, how do you feel about going through puberty?"

We got a call from the nursing home where my mom's mother lives.
The staff was noticing some changes in her behavior---some fussiness and wanting to stay in bed more often. She doesn't eat and prefers to drink her nutrition shakes.
My grandmother is 101 years old.
She doesn't remember anything after the 1920s, and doesn't recognize any of us.

My parents are not handling this well at all.

They have a lot of unresolved issues about her from as far back as the 1950s.
Grudges about every tiny slight and off-handed comment going back as far as fifty or sixty years.
My maternal grandparents hated my dad because they were red-necks and he was a "for'ner".
My mom was totally impressed by my dad because he was an intellectual and she saw him as a way out, despite very clear signals that the extreme cultural differences were going to make this a truly miserable marriage.

Back during the 1950s, it was not OK to retain any trace of your country of origin. Assimilation was total and absolute. It was very important to lose your accent and customs and take on American (White Anglo-Saxon) traits. Immigrants were openly ridiculed and shamed.
And that was considered acceptable.

My dad suffered a lot during this adjustment phase.

My mom has deep abandonment issues with her mother, and my father has a seething resentment toward her for belittling his Arab origins.

They see her memory loss as something to be taken very personally, and they are disgusted by it.
In a way, they are in denial, and I think that her condition horrifies them, because it is a glimpse into their own mortality.

They are also furious with her because she was a door-mat all her life.
If you were nice to her, she had no respect for you, but she would bend over backward for anyone who was an asshole toward her.

She didn't want to join the Jehova's Witnesses, but caved because she couldn't stand up to their pushy bullshit.

Before going into the nursing home, she agreed to let her oldest son--my uncle--persuade her to sell her house and move in with him and his wife.
The wife master-minded a plan to bilk my grandmother out of all her money.
The uncle got power of attorney and siphoned off all of her money from the house, her Social Security checks, and any and all savings she had. 
Her son was the "prize", the only child she actually cared for, and she made excuses for him for treating her badly.
She refused to complain, always insisting that they were wonderful.
Until she ended up in the hospital from neglect and was never the same after.

So, after the nursing home called, my parents figured that this might be the last tme to see her alive, so I got in the car with them and rode the two hours to Waupun. We got a very late start, so it was dark by the time we got there, and Grandma was already asleep.
Her door was open, and we quietly walked in.
She was fast asleep.
Her dentures were out and her face looked kind of caved in because she was lying on her back with her teeth out.

And she's 101 years old, so there's that.


My parents were really annoying.


My dad took out his digital camera and was hovering over her, getting ready to take flash photos of her.


I couldn't fucking believe it.
No sensitivity AT ALL.
The man has never had a shred of empathy and obviously never will.


I shook my head violently and waved my arms, scowling, pantomiming so as not to wake up Grandma.


"NO! Don't do that!"  I said.


Thankfully, he put his camera down.
He usually doesn't listen to anything I say because my role in the family is that of "Family Fuck-Up Who Can't Do Anything Right",  and everyone makes it a point to either ignore my input or do the exact opposite---just to show me.
He must have seen that what I was saying actually made sense.

Meanwhile, my mom sat down in a chair and began blubbering and sobbing:

"She doesn't even look like herself. I can't stand to look at this death scene!"

And Grandma was lying right there---thankfully oblivious to this hideous surreal display.

I tried to offer Mom some comfort and whispered to her to please, please hold it together and put on a cheerful face for Grandma---let's not upset her.

After a few minutes, we realized the futility of the situation and found a nurse to update us about her condition.
Grandma is most likely on her way out.
Her body is shutting down, and her troubles are at long last coming to an end.


My parents are obviously not emotionally equipped to deal with this.

Although we were somewhat affectionate early on, my Grandmother and I were never particularly close.

My free-wheeling ways and her religiosity were at odds, so there was never a strong bond.

She had a very difficult and sad life, so it's really a blessing that she has lost most of her memory.

I don't know what else to say.

As a child, my parents had so much power over me. My father's obsessive hovering and criticism set me up for reactionary blind rebellion.

I spent much of my adult life making an effort to un-learn so much of the awfulness that they indoctrinated me with.

I'm always surprised by my parents' racism.
I shouldn't be, but I keep expecting them to evolve with the times.
Especially with my mother.
But then, I have to realize that for her, time stopped somewhere during the 1950s. She's frozen in time somewhere during 1950s rural Wisconsin.

She told me a story about one of her doctor visits.

"I had to have blood drawn, and they had this nurse---a Negress--- right off the boat from Africa! Those people are infested with AIDS and God only knows what else, and who should they have but this Negress handling needles and slopping around with people's blood? They're all trying to be so P.C., but I want to live! So, I made sure that she wasn't going to be poking around in my veins, and insisted on having another nurse take my blood."

There is nothing to say.
I've given up trying to talk sense to them.

I remember one time, my father was verbally bashing gays and I spoke up.
He was absolutely furious and insisted that I had "betrayed" him by "siding with those filthy perverts".
By standing up to his bigotry, I was being "dis-loyal".
And that was treason.

I often feel that my dad gleaned his parenting techniques from the leadership style of Saddam Hussein.
Or maybe from watching "The Godfather".
Or a combination of the two.

I feel suffocated if I spend too much time with my family.
If I'm not too careful, I can so easily slip right back into my role.
And I really don't want to do that if I can help it.












 













  
 

        Tears formed in my eyes. 
            It was cold and the wind stung as I walked home.

            "So, that's what this is all about, huh? You wanted your dad's approval. You just wanted him to accept you for who you were.
But instead, he was mean to you.
Locked you up in a mental hospital as punishment.
Because he couldn't kill you.
He was a modern Arab. Enlightened by science.
But he was still an Arab. Still locked into the old patriarchal bullshit. So blinded by it, he couldn't see cause and effect. Couldn't see how he drove his own kids to want to kill themselves.
After all these years, you still want your dad's acceptance..."

"My dad? He's your dad, too---"


"Ohhhh No he's not.  That's where you're wrong.  I created myself from Spontaneous Generation! The coalescence of consiousness. I don't have a father! 

        I am the Cosmic Bastard!!!"



          Religion pisses me off.
          Religious fundamentalism sucks.
        
             I can be a spiritual person without the dogma of religion.
         There is cosmic wonder.
The amazement of discovering the universe through science.
   You can still have that Soul-Shine without the menace of religion.

           The ancient people didn't understand schizophrenia.
     If only th eproper medications had been available at the time, humanity may have been spared the misery of the Abrahamic legacy.

        I'm seriously losing my patience with the Arab Muslim fundamentalists.

          And here's why :

        I'm a liberal. I am politically on the Left.
         Hippie, jam-band fan, tofu-and-tempeh, granola-and-rice milk.

         I am also half Iraqi.

         I've tried. Really I have.
         You know. The cute bumper sticker.
                "CO-EXIST",
with all the religious symbols put together to form the word.
          
             But the truth is, I don't want to coexist with them.

         Liberals value multi-culturalism.
         We like to think that we can be open-minded and tolerant and celebrate diversity.

But what if the culture we encounter has absolutely no tolerance for us?

          We want women's rights. We want to combat homophobia.

         We're quick to denounce groups like The Westboro Baptist Church.
         But we're a little slower to denounce fundamentalist Muslims.

           Because we want to be multicultural and accepting.

           I can't accept their way of doing things.
           I lived among them from the time I was 8 until I was 16.
               Islam makes me claustrophobic.
               Islam makes me angry.
                Islam is ugly.

             I feel a rising anger whenever I'm around Muslim women who are making excuses for their religion imposing limitations and restrictions on them.
Especially when not adhering to the restrictions brings about a violent punishment (if caught---and that's important, as you'll see later.)
   They have the classic symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome.
   They frighten me with their vehemence, their irrational and avoidant excuses for the insanity of "honor killings". 
     
     I've just come down from feeling furious with a Muslima I know.
      We're friends, but I'm beginning to feel not so much like being friends.

        We had an online conversation last spring.
       She was having some trouble with her husband.
     He was being a total douchebag, belittling her, being a jerk.
She doesn't love him anymore.
      I didn't know what to say at first.
I said maybe she could try to work things out.
But then, I thought maybe she should get out, since this has been going on for some time.
Who knows?
I just wanted her to be safe. Her safety in a volatile situation was my main concern.

She said that wasn't an issue--she would be fine.

But...she had some guy she was falling in love with.
I guess it was online---I don't know if she ever met him in person.
She said they had this very deep spiritual connection, yada yada yadda...
...Turns out, he was engaged to be married the next month, to a girl that he had to marry, since he'd taken her virginity and he didn't want to ruin her life by not marrying her.
Since a girl's virginity is absolutely everything to Arab Muslims.

Yeah.

So, it turns out the guy is a player, a lying scum-bag, etc.

And my friend decides to redouble her efforts to be a good wife and Muslima.

I see a couple of problems here.
One: using a guy to escape. Seeing another man as a way out. Not such a good idea.
Two: The mistake I see a lot of people doing when they have a major setback in life is, they Get Religion.
They Get Religion Big Time. 
Whichever religion you're familiar with takes on added luminosity.
If you're a Catholic, you get super-mega Catholic.
Walking around with a five-pound crucifix around your neck and telling anyone within earshot that "Abortion Is Murder!"
 If you're a Protestant, you pull out all the stops and start rolling on the floor, speaking in tongues. 

And I guess, if you're a Muslim, you start thinking that the Taliban are a bunch of really wonderful freedom fighters and wouldn't it be great if the entire world could live happily under the watchful eye of these holy men?

After all, Islam is the Religion Of Peace.
That is, only after all the stubborn infidels have been killed off and the more compliant ones converted.
Then, the world will all live in Islam--the Religion Of Peace.
But...peaceful for whom? 

"In heart I am Moslem...I have no guilt...I seek pleasure..."

I've been thinking of Patti Smith's Romantic Orientalist take on Islam from her poem "Babelogue".

I've never known Muslims to seek pleasure.
I mean real  Muslims.
Not the repressed Saudis who can't wait to get on a plane and get the fuck away from that place so they can go to Amsterdam and drink and fuck until they puke.

No---I mean the ones who have bought into the Stockholm Syndrome hook, line, and sinker.

I'll amend my last statement.
Muslims actually do seek pleasure.
They seek it in others, so they can beat it out of them.

So, my friend has been on this super-mega-Muslim-fundamentalist trip.

Denouncing moderate Muslims as being tools of the Western Imperialist/Zionist conspiracy.
That sort of thing.

She actually defends a culture that would have seen nothing wrong with stoning or hanging her for having ( a very understandable ) affair.
Of course, she defends it from the comfort and safety of the American Midwest.
Which is even worse, no?
I mean, real women are suffering real injustice in actual Muslim countries.
And Muslim women are so brainwashed that they defend this system.

It's amazing to see absolutely no compassion in these women.

"This could have been me," never seems to cross their minds.

Yet, they sneak and lie in order to get around their religion's prohibitions.
Getting caught is where the real guilt lies.
Everybody sneaks and lies.
But if you get caught, you're on your own.
Because even women who sneak and lie have to say all the right stuff.
And it perpetuates itself, and nobody just comes out and says how fucked up and ludicrous the whole thing is.

During an online discussion about Tunisia's new Shari'a "Democracy" and whether people should have free choice about alcohol being available,
she actually flamed me.

"THE WEST SHOULD NOT IMPOSE ITS VALUES ON MUSLIM COUNTRIES!"

   She threw me under the bus in order to get Righteousness Points from her fellow Muslims.
After confiding her "sins" to me.
After all I'm an infidel, and I'm going to Hell anyway, right?
Just pile your sins onto the Infidel (scapegoat) and be absolved, since their taking your sins with them to Hell.
At least that's how I interpret her behavior at this point.

It was a long drawn-out discussion with several people about Tunisia lightening up on things like the status of gays.
My "friend" used the out-dated assertion that gays are pedophiles.
That they prey on young boys.
I was getting irritated.
First of all, that has long ago been proven not to be the case.
Pedophilia and homosexuality are two different things and are not synonymous.
My irritation was rising.
Because nobody objects to old men taking child brides.
Apparently, that's very honorable, and nobody thinks it's an act of child molestation if it's a little girl who has no say in who she marries.
Even if she is horribly injured and hemorrhages from being raped--yes, raped-- on the wedding night.

I finally decided to just end the conversation because she was getting more and more irrational and ridiculous.

You just can't argue with crazy.

Arabs simply cannot accept criticism.
Not even constructive criticism.
There is no internal mechanism for reflection.
There is only anger and retaliation at what is perceived to be a personal attack.There is no ability to form a coherent
argument, just a bunch of sputtering about Western Imperialism and Zionism ruining everything.


Yes, that is a factor, but come on.

First of all, this extremely restrictive Shari'a business is not necessarily an "Arab" thing.
It is a crazy irrational reactionary thing.
Back in my aunts' and uncles' day, for instance, Iraq was more open and people enjoyed music and dancing.
Now, they live in a world where the religious authorities busy themselves with harassing merchants for engaging in the "haram" practice of displaying women's clothing in their shop windows.
Ridiculous shit like that that they never used to do.They would laugh at the Saudis for being so backward and uptight.Now, that mentality is spreading across the Arab countries through their so-called "democracies", and they are all going to choke to death under its strangling grip.

And yeah, I am  going to criticize it.
Because nobody really wants to live that way.
That isn't your culture.
That is social decay.

It would be like having the Westboro Baptist Church suddenly acqyuiring lots of weapons and assassinating everyone in high positions of government who don't agree with them, and installing themselves in every high office.
"Ex-gays" would be singing praises to the Church and condemning to death anyone who said,

"You know what? I think you've got Stockholm Syndrome. Can't you see this is crazy? I want my fabulous guy back..."

The Arabs have a beautiful cultural history, but they're just letting it rot for the sake of some sadistic ignoramuses who force their religious doctrine on everyone---or else.


And another thing:
Mohammed really was a child molester.
He married a six year old child, for fuck's sake!!!


He consummated this marriage when she was nine years old.

He was fifty.


Mohammed was a child molester.
I mean, what else can you call it?!?


Just because it was considered OK at the time, and you make excuse upon excuse for it, it doesn't change the fact.


Here in America, we had slavery.
It is a horrible fact.
But we admit to it.
Just because it was accepted back then, it doesn't make it right.
It wasn't right then.
It isn't right now.
It just was.
And it's part of our sordid past.

The problem is, Arabs still take child brides and traumatize them and destroy their lives.
It is a huge problem in Yemen.

And I'm disgusted when Muslim women defend this and make excuses for it.

I can't say that's OK.
Multi-cultural acceptance has its limits.


 







      




           










       

          




           Today's musical selection is actually a spoken-word piece by Patti Smith called "Babelogue", a kind of prologue that segues directly into the track "Rock-N-Roll Nigger", on her album, Easter.

         Enjoy!

                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wDmR4sYZ2U 

          I just read her memoir of her life and friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe, "Just Kids". It is a very beautifully-written, tender, spiritual tribute to a very special time.

The first time I ever listened to Patti Smith was through the album "Horses", and I was magically transformed in a deep, soaring, spiritual way.
I was changed.

The machinery of my mind was altered, and I never thought about perception, language, or time the same way again.

I recently came across an interesting article about Patti Smith, her process and influences. How she found a language with which to create a feminized version of the traditionally male forms of rock-n-roll rebellion.

Here's the article.

             http://www.oceanstar.com/patti/crit/sexrevol.htm

          I always found it troubling, the part of "Babelogue", where she says

 In heart I am a Moslem; in heart I am an American;
In heart I am Moslem, in heart I'm an American artist, and I have no guilt.
I seek pleasure.
I seek the nerves under your skin.
The narrow archway; the layers; the scroll of ancient letters.
We worship the flaw, the belly, the belly, the mole on the belly of an exquisite whore.
He spared the child and spoiled the rod.
I have not sold myself to God."

    I can only suppose that, like most Americans before 9/11, Patti Smith must have had the usual Romantic Orientalist image of the Arab/Muslim aesthetic:

  Opulent  silhouettes of minarets against a gold, mauve, turquoise, and cobalt sky in which rested a perfect crescent moon.
Tents of flowing gossamer overflowing with harems of voluptuous doe-eyed belly dancers and giggling brown (topless) serving girls generously offering fragrant treats from heavily-laden trays skillfully poised upon their elaborately-coiffed heads.
Languid ease, a timeless dreamy world buoyed upon gently drifting clouds of hashish and myrrh smoke...

     Even I thought it was going to be like that.
Until I actually lived in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

What a complete and utter disappointment.

I guess what I'm going through right now is a return to Square One.
It is a good thing to experience disillusionment.
Dis-illusion-ment.
Having one's illusions removed in order to reveal what is really there.
The basic building blocks of the Scientific Method.
Something religious people haven't the first clue about.

I've gone through the whole thing of trying to understand my place in the world as an Arab-American.
Trying to fit the pieces together in a clear and coherent manner.
But I can't.
They don't belong together.
They can't belong together or co-exist side by side.
It is unworkable.

Muslims try so hard to explain that they're just normal Americans.
But they aren't.
I find it surprising that Fundamentalist Evangelical Christians clash with Muslims.
Which I can't understand, because they actually think the exact same way.They have so much in common. I can't see why they think they have a conflict of interests.

For starters, they are totally obsessed with sex.
They are sexually frustrated, trying to eradicate healthy sexuality to the point where they drive it underground and turn it into a creepy unhealthy obsession.
They hate women.
Healthy female sexuality, self-expression, and creativity are demonized.

And the women hate themselves.

They defend this insane misogyny as somehow necessary for "protecting" them.

I attribute it to a kind of Stockholm Syndrome---where the oppressed actually identify with their oppressors and try to curry favor, even competing among themselves for status.
They band together against anyone of their own who is "uppity", or who questions the restrictive conditions.
In a society where collective punishment is meted out if one person falls out of line, it is very important to not draw attention, and if one person ruins it for the rest, the majority will help to carry out the punishment and the masters (men) get to keep their stranglehold on the women.

What else could explain why Muslim women insist that a sister who was stabbed, shot, burned, had her eyes gouged out, or her nose sliced off, actually deserved this, as punishment for something as minor as smiling at a man who was not a member of the immediate family?

They like to argue that here in America, we also have problems with domestic violence.
Where their argument fails, is that yes, we do have problems with domestic violence---however--- the difference is that here in America, a guy who murders his daughter for smiling at a boy is not a hero, restoring honor to his family.
He is looked on as a sick disturbed fuck who needs to do time behind bars.

We don't have Shari'a.
We didn't derive our Constitution from the schizophrenic fever rants of illiterate sheep herders from remote desert villages of past millenia.

I think that what finally made me turn my back on the Arab world---the last straw--- was Libya.
Middle East politics are so exasperating.They can only be counted on to do one thing with consistent accuracy, and that is to Fuck Up spectacularly.
They make shitty decisions and then blame everybody but themselves for the resulting disaster.

All the news going on about the Arab Spring reaching Libya.
The news spin about the minority rebels fighting the "ruthless tyrannical dictator", Ghaddafi.
The U.S. intervening and the capture and assassination and the dancing in the streets...
And what gives the U.S. the right to go in and start assassinating all the Arab leaders it doesn't like?
How many dictators have we "liberated" the Arabs from?
And has it ever done a damn bit of good?
Fuck no.

All of this was supposed to bring about a wonderful new era of freedom and democracy and yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah...

So, what do you suppose these newly liberated people are choosing to do with their wonderful new democracy?
What opportunities await them?


After all this, they are choosing to impose Shari'a law.

This means that first of all, the women have to be shut up in their homes, covered from head to toe---at the risk of punishment.
Gays will be sought out and harassed with greater scrutiny and cruelty.
Music, art, literature, and all culture will be subjected to heavy censorship.
As more and more behavior will be condemned as "haram", (unclean, heretical, forbidden ), paranoia will reach very high levels, with neighbors ratting each other out over real or perceived wongdoing.

Let's not forget the most fun part of Shari'a--- that's right, kids ---

Public executions.

Hangings, whippings, floggings, stonings, beheadings, dismemberment.

And there will be plenty of them, because-- like the benevolent Christians who brought you The Inquisition and the Westborough Baptist Church-- fundamentalist Muslims believe in a world where any and all natural human functions and feelings are condemned as the work of Satan. Therefore, the people who might actually be able to think for themselves must be destroyed through torture and spectacular splattering bloody displays.

Because their heresies can contaminate the meticulously maintained Stockholm Syndrome that keeps the whole sickening mess running smoothly.

There was a point to all of this...
Oh yeah...
Patti Smith declaring that  "in heart I am Moslem. I seek pleasure..." etc.
As much as I love and admire Patti, I must say that in this particular instance, she had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

Muslims seek a lot of things.
Pleasure is definitely NOT one of those things.

Wow.
I didn't set out to rant about that tonight...

I was going to write tonight about how cool 11:11 on 11/11/11 was yesterday.
How I attended a wonderful concert.

Bandallamas played a benefit concert for Veterans For Peace, as a tribute to Veterans Day.

Here's the title track to their album "Eye To Eye":

             http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NUG9SvMan4

       It was a wonderful experience. They are easily my new favorite band.
Outside the Barrymore Theater, the Full Moon shone with glowing clarity on us all.

I felt good.
I felt good about the music.
I felt good about the people I was with.
The atmosphere was charged with warmth, a kind of magic, a sense of friendship and a hopeful attitude that we are blessed with the ability to collectively do good.

My greatest hope in terms of the U.S. relationship with the Arab world is this:

Develop self-sufficiency through wind and solar energy programs. It's cleaner and less expensive.
The goal is to end our dependence on fossil fuels.
We need to get out of the Middle East.
And stay out.

They can't solve their problems in any rational coherent way, and that's just how it's always going to be.

Their stupid religion makes them so sexually frustrated that all they want to do is kill each other.
That's how they want it.
That shouldn't have to be our problem.
We shouldn't step in anymore.

We should close Guantanamo Bay Prison and abandon all of this bullshit.

Cut off all ties and let them have thier ugly backward illiterate world of miserable superstition.
Let them be.
That's how they want to be.


I thought about the veterans.
My sentiment was this:

Honor The Dead.
Heal The Wounded.
End The War.
Work For Peace.

And that was all.


 
 
 







 

          PRIMUS  came to town the day before yesterday!!!

           Oh boyoboyoboy!!!

            Les Claypool's three-man outfit played a mind boggling show at the Orpheum on Oct. 13th.
It was a Thursday night.

              So, I present to you the song of the day:  "Those Damn Blue Collar Tweekers"

                          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZPNK57NyPU

                   ENJOY!

             The morning started out oddly enough...
            I got up at around 6:00 a.m. and leisurely waddled out into the kitchen to turn on the fire under my coffee pot.
I lazed about in bed, listening to the blup*blup*blup*  of the coffee brewing.
I caught up on my social networking whilst sipping my morning brew, enjoying the gentle caffeinated lifting and clearing of cerebral cobwebs and such...

The bus ride to work was pleasant and uneventful...

And then...

I arrived.

"Where were you? You missed the meeting this morning!"

OH. FUCK.

I never missed a meeting.
Until now.

I just spaced it. I completely forgot about it.

Well, at least The Food Hole has an intricate system of shaming techniques and bureaucratic points and write-ups in order to keep their minions in a constant state of fear of getting shit-canned.
It's a miracle I've remained in their company for as long as I have.
(Knock on wood), but thank The Gods I haven't gotten sick often, and I don't have kids.

  Well, I got through the day, because at least I showed up for my shift.
Missing the meeting counts as a No Call /  No Show, which gives you a point.

If you get three points within a 6-month period of time, then you start getting written up.

So, I'm actually OK.

Let's just hope I don't get sick, or miss a bus over the next 6 months.

         So, my weird day ended at last and I could punch out and leave The Food Hole.


The Mister and I had dinner downtown before the show.

There was a line forming outside The Orpheum, but The Mister didn't want to stand in line.
We decided to go have a drink at Paul's Club.
Paul's Club is famous for their indoor tree, strung with festive lights.

The tree isn't alive, of course, but it gives the place a nice grotto effect.
The only problem is, the moment you walk through the door, the stink of mildew-and-vomit-covered-with-bleach slaps you in the face before you can take in any of the visual stimuli..

At last, it was time to really get in to see the show!

The Orpheum is a lovely classic old theater.
Thick draperies, chandeliers, ornate balconies, and art nouveau architectural flourishes.
The red-carpeted hallways have the dim mysterious dankness of a David Lynch dream sequence.

I always get a weird, haunted feeling in The Orpheum.
But I like it.


We got to the open floor near the stage, and I looked around me.

It makes me sad to see the building is getting shabby.
Chunks of plaster have fallen off the ceiling, and a lack of funds is making the theater struggle with its upkeep.

I hope it won't eventually come to resemble that other grande dame of crumbling splendor in Chicago---The Riviera...

        The lights went out and it was SHOW TIME!!!

    Les Claypool came out and started playing some of that crazy alien shit that he coaxes out of that bass.
Mmm...mmm...
A very tight, telepathic band.
A guitar, a bass, and drums.
That's it.
And they are really amazing.
Primus just came out with a new album: Green Naugahyde, which they're on tour to promote.

And the audience...
Buncha freaks.
Oh boy...

I'd forgotten about the moshing part...
...But was quickly reminded...
I opted to remain on the furthest periphery of the mosh pit.
There was jumping and pushing and sloshing of every sort.
Within a minute, I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I was going to be completely pummeled nonstop and that was just how it was going to be.
I guess it was OK when somebody cute slammed into me, because let's face it---that's the only time cute guys are ever going to have any physical contact with me ever again as long as I live.
So, yeah, that was the bonus.
Yay...

I couldn't help noticing something odd...
There is a definite disconnect between Les Claypool and his fans.
Les is an articulate, endearing, nerdy musical genius.
He has a whimsical aesthetic and a sense of humor that tends to favor the absurd and grotesque.

His fans, however...

Well, to put it in laymen's terms:
His fans are dicks.
Clods.
Out-of-control and pushy. 
They never seemed to be able to outgrow that Middle School mindset where being a huge asshole makes you "cool".

It's kind of like Jesus and his odd situation...

Weird...








 

 




 

  

          I was going to post Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues", but I found a song I liked better:
Weird Al Yankovich's  parody of Bob Dylan! This song is wonderful because it is composed entirely of PALINDROMES!  Which I think is awesome, since it appeals to my deep sense of nerdidity.

                          Enjoy!

             
                        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nej4xJe4Tdg&feature=related

    Things are getting Terribly Serious in the world these days.

            The Occupy Wall Street Protests are getting bigger and stronger--they've spread to 150 cities nation-wide, including here in Madison.
     People are comparing it to the Arab Spring---like we're all in Solidarity...

            I think it's an interesting phenomenon, in the sense that they actually have some ideological similarities.
As far as logistics go, they have that in common as well.

People are very discontented about how the government is giving corporations the right to control our lives and livelihoods. The economy is collapsing while all the wealth gets concentrated into the hands of a smaller and more controlling elite.

   It's great to see so many good and caring people getting out there and voicing their protest, all over the country.

As with the Arab Spring, however, I see that there is a lack of a coherent plan.
A clear picture of how to organize a real, working solution to this madness.

What's happening in Egypt now is what I feared would happen.
Now that Mubarrak has been removed, there is a vacuum of power, and now there are heavy violent clashes in the streets of Cairo.

Deep civil unrest between Muslims and Christians, not unlike that between Sunni and Shia Muslims in Iraq following the forced removal of the Ba'athist regime there.

This is the last thing that needs to be happening.

But, by golly, it happens every goddamn time.
It's so predictable.

That's exactly what the powerful monied elites want --- the common people play right into their plan.

Keep the people fighting and killing each other, so they're too distracted to form any real workable solutions to the problems they were attempting to address in the first place.


This is one of the frustrating aspects of getting older.
You see this same shit going on over and over and over.
The young people in their zeal, passionate about changing the world--- only to see this happen.

One really ominous aspect of the protests is that the corporate goons---separate from police--- are using violent tactics against the protesters---mace and pepper spray...in order to intimidate them and use them as examples to others. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ05rWx1pig


Scary stuff, my friends...

What needs to happen is a preparedness and a clear, coherent plan in order not to slip into the chaos that we're seeing in Egypt now.
Seriously, people, we're on our own and we only have each other to depend on.
So we really really need to be good to each other.
That's where the strength is.

Not that anybody is ever going to listen to me.
But anyway, that's my two cents.

Meanwhile, I have to be sure that the kitty litter box gets changed and the laundry doesn't pile up.
The little things in life are really important, too.

Yesterday was Columbus Day.
I work in retail, so I don't notice these things as much, and I didn't even know it was Columbus Day until late in the afternoon, when somebody posted something about it.
I don't really understand why this is still considered a holiday.

You'd think we'd out-grow this as a nation by now, but nooooo...

I need to quit having these great expectations that we're evolving as a society.
It only leads to disappointment and bewilderment.

I need to have faith that roughly a quarter of American society is composed of retards, and that all of the national institutions are being run by sociopaths.
If I approach my worldview from this angle, everything just falls into place and makes much more sense.

I wish more people would listen to John Trudell.
But they probably wouldn't get it, anyway.
That's unfortunate, but that's the peril of being a PBS mind trapped in a Fox News ® world.
And now that's becoming a cliche too.
So now I'll just shut up.











 
    

         The song for the day is Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon".
           I was looking for the creepiest song, and this fits the bill. Enjoy!

                   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc_ZNWBx7-M


      One of the most difficult things to explain to Americans about Arab culture is the whole gender-segregation trip.  People just can't understand the concept, because it seems really crazy.
And I agree. It really is.

       The other day, I had to experience the situation again.
  And I had to deal with it.

             A friend of mine posted my political art-work on her wall.
It was a painting I did whose message was basically, don't trust the U.S. when they say they're sending you the "gift" of Democracy, because it always comes with the price of bombs and destruction.
When they say they're helping Arab countries, it's a lie.

One of her friends saw this, and a conversation thread started.
My Arabic isn't very good, but I did understand a short sentence he wrote, that simply said,
"Amrika Shaitan".

"America is Satan".

I'm not a religious person---at least not in a monotheistic sense--- and I replied that while I wouldn't exactly say that the entire country is "Shaitan", our foreign policies in the Middle East definitely aren't helping the greater good of the people, and are in place simply to serve the elites.

Then, the guy wanted to be my friend.
He had an annoying habit of writing one word in each comment box, so that he was totally hogging the space for comments.

But what really annoyed me was that he started with the come-ons.

Apparently I had failed to list my married status publicly on my profile, so he assumed I was single.
And my being single made it open season for him to "Don't Mind If I Do..." his way into my space.

It wouldn't bother me so much if it were an American, I don't think.
But when an Arab does it, there is a lot more going on under the surface.

First of all, Arab culture is extremely  gender-segregated.
It may be a little less so in Christian communities, but in Muslim communities, it is very strict.
Gender segregation is similar to  the Jim Crow laws that existed here in the South, only it's "Women", instead of "Colored".
Arabs believe that the behabvior of girls and women determines the family's honor.
The behavior of girls and women determines the image of the family---whether the family is "good" or "bad", is proven by how well the girls and women are controlled by the men of th efamily.
If the girls are "out of control", then the men are out of control.

The biggest indicator of this is chastity.
A girl's virginity is the absolute most important thing.
So much so, that even using tampons is forbidden because if the hymen is broken, so is the girl.

If a girl is seen even speaking, looking, or smiling at a boy, outrage will ensue.

This is where honor killings come in.
The family's honor is besmirched by even a whispered rumor of the girl's "mis-behaving".

The family feels it is their duty to kill her.

Honor killings happen a lot.
They are often overlooked, or the legal action is light.
Families often arrange for a teenage brother to carry out the murder, because they know he will get a lighter sentence.
Women are stabbed, stoned to death, burned, and shot in Arab countries for the crime of smiling at someone, for fuck's sake!.

Muslims go on and on about how it isn't a Muslim practice, but a cultural one.
I don't believe them.
It happens in Muslim countries among Muslims, so your argument is simply a matter of semantics.


I'm half Arab, and I know how it works.
You can't explain this shit away.
This is the part of being Arab that I really hate.
It's embarrassing, and makes Arabs look like pathetic savages to the rest of the world.

So anyway, what does any of this have to do with the Arab guy trying to "befriend" me?

Knowing how this works, I had to revert back to "Arab mode" to really inderstand what he was trying to pull on me.

I deduced that he saw that I live in the U.S.
I am half-Arab, but I am still "corrupted" by Western influence, nonetheless.
Therefore, he is Entitled to initiate an online affair with me, because American women can't say no, right?
We're all a bunch of cheap whores whose job it is to open up for anybody because That's What We Do.

I explained that I am indeed married, and that I corrected the "mistake" on my profile and that I was sorry for any mis-understanding.

But he wasn't taking the hint.
He said that we should still be friends, regardless of my being married.
In American Speak, this means what it says.Friends.
But in Arab Speak, this means something entirely different.
Arabs are so gender segregated that it creates an atmosphere of extreme sexual tension.
Men and women can't simply be friends in Arab society.
It just Isn't Done.

Men don't even ask their friends how their wives are.
That would be considered rude, with lascivious overtones.
Yes, it's that crazy!

By his not backing off, he was telling me that he didn't have any respect.

At last, I think he got the message, because I haven't heard back, once I disabled his ability to make another friend request.

You just can't be friendly.
It's misinterpreted as a come-on.
I had almost forgotten how insane it is, but I'm glad I was able to slide back into the mind-set so that I wouldn't endanger myself.
In Arab society, a woman is owned ---first by her father, then by her husband.
There is no concept of autonomy.

When I first came back to the States, I remember being acutely agoraphobic if I was alone outside.Quic
kly, I bacame accustomed to being outside by myself, and I began to walk.
And walk!
I went on long walks across town, because I could.

And nobody was going to stop me.

I am fascinated by the proliferation of SlutWalks in major cities across the country.

The concept is one of respecting the idea of consent.
In Arab countries, the concept of consent is entirely absent.
Women are either virgins, married (owned), or they are Whores.
And not only Whores, but Public Property, to be defiled by anyone.


During the protests in egypt, young women were being arrested and subjected to a medical exam during their detension to determine if they were virgins.
The virginity tests were conducted so that the police would not be held liable if the girls were raped.
The thinking here is that since the girl has already been "ruined", it is permissable for anyone to simply help themselves to the goods.


It's really despicable.
But there you have it. 
















 

          The song for today is:  NEKTAR:  "Good Day" 

                           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRzF88Fubsk




          Getting on a plane and flying to New York.
The nice TSA lady took me aside---on account of my long billowy skirt, an apparent security threat---and treated me a free thigh massage, working her latex-gloved hand up into my groin area!
Who knew?

After that, I was free to board the plane.

        Takes two hours.
      First time we flew out there---we always drove or took the train before.
It used to take an entire day of traveling.
Beautiful winding scenery thrugh the wooded hills of Pennsylvania, riding along the weird ruins of factories and train stations in Buffalo, and the eerie sewage-like abandoned edifice of punishment that was Sing-Sing...

This time there was none of that.

It was all obscured by clouds below.

And then we landed in Newark and took a cab over the bridge and through the Holland Tunnel and were spit up through Tribeca and wound our way through the streets until we were deposited in the Gramercy neighborhood.

We got to our hotel and took the tiny little slow elevator up to our room.
The hallway stank of aging urine.
That special clinging odor that makes New York so...New York~y.

At least the hotel was bug-free.
I'd prepared ahead of time.
I soaked cotton balls with cedar and cinnamon oils and let them sit in my back-pack---sealed--for a few days before even packing my clothes in it.
I was determined to create a hostile environment for bugs.
New York is notoriously infested with bed-bugs and I wanted to have an advantage over them.
I massaged cedar oil all over my body and in my hair.
When we arrived at the hotel, I removed the oil-soaked cotton balls from my back-pack and put them in the dresser drawers and let them sit there before putting any of my clothes in.


We were off to have dinner.

There was so much to see and do in Manhattan.
If you can't find something wonderful and intriguing in New York City, it's your own damn fault.

We went to the finest bars.
The Mister took me to the Carlyle and St. Regis hotels just to have cocktails (well, cappucinos for me).
These hotels are like gigantic Faberge eggs. Incredibly beautiful architecture and luxurious details.
I felt embarrassed to be sitting there in my jeans and peasant shirt, but oh well what the hell, right?

After glamorous bar-hopping, we went to Times Square.
My least-favorite place in NYC.
It's so busy and congested and sensorily overloaded that I literally feel nauseous there.

However, we had tickets to see Nektar at B.B. King's Club, which happens to be in Times Square.
Man was I glad!
Beautiful, friendly club with tables where you're seated together and you can order drinks and/or dinner while seeing the show.

And what a show!!

Huw Lloyd Langton of Hawkwind opened.
He played a solo acoustic set.
Really charming and nice.
Not a lot of people here in America are familiar with Hawkwind.
Maybe some of the older crowd, but certainly none of the younger set.
I'll put it this way:  America has the Grateful Dead; England has Hawkwind.

Next, came Brainticket, a psychedelic punk band that's been around since the 70s, with a few neww-comers including an amazingly theatrical singer who sports a Medusa costume and utilizes a voice-warper machine hook-up for her microphone!

And then, Nektar!!!

What can I say? It was an amazing show.
Great line-up, and fun! Fun!! FUN!!!

We saw a few shows while we were in New York.
We went to the theater and saw the last Harry Potter movie in IMAX 3-D.
Whoa!
I think all movies should be in IMAX 3-D.
It's just so much better that way.
We also went to the little art-house theater in our neighborhood to see Ken Kesey's Magic Trip.
If you're at all interested in the history of the Merry Pranksters and the Electric Kool-Ade Acid Tests, with all the mid-sixties bridge between the beatniks and the hippies with Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and all the rest--this is a must-see!

We went to the City Winery two nights in a row to see Joan Osborne and David Bromberg.

It was a lovely place, elegant and spacious.
Like B.B. Kings, it was set up with tables where you could enjoy drinks and dinner during the show.
I could really get used to this.
No being rudely felt-up and treated like a criminal being processed for jail just to get in to see a band.
No pushing and shoving.
I liked this.
I liked this a lot.

Joan Osborne's show was a subtle, stripped-down, intimate gathering. Just her and her partner on keys. She had a lovely opening act, Carsie Blanton, who has a charmingly original swing-jazz/Americana style. I hope to see her more in the future.

Joan Osborne did an OMIGOD Wow! --- St. Teresa.
That song has always given me goosebumps, and especially now, hearing it live!

She also did Tupelo Honey, One Of Us, Crazy Baby,  Brokedown Palace, and God Bless The Child--her first song she ever sang on stage!

When we saw David Bromberg, his wife Nancy Josephson's Angel Band opened.
She is just so cool. I love her.
David Bromberg had his big band along with his, and they played:

Sloppy Drunk
Pallet On Your Floor
Watch Baby Fall
Drown In MY Own Tears
Never Be Your Fool

They did a song about the world being a junkie, strung out on gasoline, and digging in the deep blue sea...
They did a very beautiful, touching instrumental of "Somewhere Over The rainbow".
And then of course, the wild Celtic jam...

His over-the-top hyperbole at the end of Never Be Your Fool had me almost rolling on the floor laughing.

And they did "Sharon".
"...she proceeded to have what we used to call a 'meaningful relationship' with the floor of the stage. It was disgusting. I loved it!!!"

Good times...

It was always good to get back to the hotel at night... only there was that reeking stench of piss in the hallway.
Sometimes it was there, sometimes, it was faded.
It's a "European-style" hotel, meaning that it has a shared bathroom.
Two bathrooms to each floor.
One morning, I was just leaving my room to go to the bathroom, when---

A naked man was ambling down the hall...
He was short and covered with hair, and everything was all a-dangling and jiggling about ---


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14alLh3LglQ&feature=related

AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

I quickly darted back into my room...

Yeah, yeah, I know.
I'm a Rainbow hippe, I shouldn't be alarmed...
But first of all, I've out-grown the Rainbow Hippie thing. and second of all, I was totally not expecting to encounter this in the hallway of my hotel.

So, sorry.
Yeah.
I'm a little judgmental.

I kept encountering this little troll.
I wondered if he was a ghost.
When clothed, he wore brightly-colored woven things, dark garments with bags and pouches and strings hanging and fluttering.

I named him The Naked Turk.

One day, we encountered The Naked Turk on the steps outside of the hotel.
We didn't know if perhaps he actually lived there.
He exuded a nostril-alarming stink of urine.
So now I knew what the source of that godawful smell was.
The Mister offered to open the door for him as he was climbing the steps, but he waved him away and shouted "NO!"

Yikes.

So let's see, I covered the music, the Naked Turk, what else...
Oh yeah!
The Earthquake!

I'll get to that in a minute.

But first, China Town.

In the heart of China town is one of the most interesting streets I've ever been to.
Doyers Street, where the Nom Wah dim sum restaurant is.
Doyers street is a narrow winding little street bordered by Bowery and Pell.
It has a history of being a crowded world of tenements and opium dens, and you can still feel the ghosts of its past. Nom Wah's dim sum is not to be missed. It is an ancient restaurant, recently renovated after a period of decline. I'm so glad it's doing better than ever, because we were there a few years back, and it was a dusty hole in the wall---still serving remarkable dim-sum, but now the restaurant is shiny and alive.

One memorable afternoon, we toured the Tenement Museum.
I couldn't believe that a n entire tenement building was abandoned in the middle of New York city for decades with not so much as a squatter.
The building was built in the 1860s, and had no water or light, and everyone had to use a common outhouse. The walls were covered with a weird painted canvas.
During the 1890s, someone painted and decorated the hallways with pastoral scenery.
The residents lived very hard lives, and the area was unimaginably crowded.

There really were no such thing as "The Good Old Days".

Human misery seems to be the genral reality of history.

We decided to put history behind us and embrace our zest and gratitude for life by going to Yonah Schimmel's Knish Bakery, 137 Houston. (On the corner of Forsyth).

Oh. My. Goodness.
Best Knishes In  The Universe.
Knishes rhymes with Delicious, and that's no accident!

One afternoon, we decided to go to a bar, the Local 269, on the corner of Houston and Suffolk.
The Mister had a drink, and I was writing out post-cards.
The Mister played some songs on the juke box.
Suddenly, I felt a shaking.
I though The Miste rhad his foot on the rung of my bar-stool and was shaking his leg to the music. I looked over and saw that this was not the case.

"Are you feeling that?"  The Mister asked.
We all looked at each other as the bar itself rocked back and forth and the chandelier lights shook and rattled.
The floor was moving.

We thought maybe it was a subway below us.

"No, there's no subway under us,"  the bartender, Judy replied.

So then, what could it be?

Construction workers---in the building?
No.

Bombs?
Were the terrorists at it again?


Judy grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.

Turns out it was an earthquake.
The epicenter was in Virginia, but it was felt all up the East Coast.
In California the land is more sandy, so the quakes are felt more locally.
Because the East Coast is hard bedrock, the shock-waves traveled much further.

I must say, it was a weird experience.
Everybody was stepping outside every building on the block, turning to ask each other,
"Did you feel that? What is it?"

Our cell phones weren't working.

I finally was able to get through to my parents and tell them what happened before they heard it on the news.

We also explored Brooklyn this time.
Flatbush Ave.
Spent too much money at a comic book store, had delicious hot dogs at Bark, and a lovely berry panna cotta at Franny's.
We took the train out to Rockaway Beach.
It was beautiful.

I didn't smoke a single cigarette the entire time.
I feel really good having quit.
I can breathe and sing so much better, and I've noticed that my skin is much more clear.

We left right before Hurricane Irene got to the East Coast.
We were really lucky to have planned our trip when we did.
An earthquake was enough.

So, that was my trip to New York.
God, I love that place.
There is infinite magic there.

I'd best get going, since my computer is being a jerk.


Love,
Dicey Venison















  



 

          The song for the day is: Bono singing "I Am The Walrus", from the fantastic movie, Across The Universe. This was one of my favorite psychedelic scenes from the movie...Actually, the whole movie was great, and I highly recommend it.

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5KvcXU0qCQ


       A week and a half.
        Eleven days.

         The hacking/choking/coughing/wheezing  part is the hardest.
It feels like a cold, or allergies.
Couging up "lung oysters".
The emptiness of riding out the triggers and associations.

Affirmations.

"I'm no longer in the Old Thought. I've removed myself from that. I'm in the New Thought. I don't pollute myself anymore..."

It's time.
It's really time.

I enjoyed smoking, but now it's time to end that phase in my life.

I smoked my first cigarette when I was thirteen.
It was a Marlboro®.
It was in Kuwait, and I was sneaking it with my precocious buxom Texan friend Kelly, while she was playfully rejecting the creepy Palestinian dude who would later become my disastrous first boyfriend.
It felt deliciously naughty to smoke.
I worried about the smell clinging to me.

I think that most kids start smoking in order to be rebelliously "cool".
Somehow, clogging your lungs with carcinogens translates into a kind of suave, devil-may-care vibe.
Smoking is dangerous, and danger is "cool".
Smoking literally acts as a smoke-screen to cover up your insecurities and fear of inadequacy.
You can pretend you're not an unpopular dork when you're smoking.

I became a regular smoker by the age of fifteen.
I never got carded, because the laws were a lot more lax in the 80s, and I also looked much older.

   The desire to quit started when my beloved cat Sundance died.
I chain-smoked in the house, and I was filled with remorse and guilt when she died.
She was twenty years old, and I knew it was probably time.
Still, I felt that I had hastened the process by smoking in the house.

When Raider and Nineveh arrived, I decided I would not smoke in the house.
I wasn't going to repeat my old mistakes.
I smoked on the porch.
I don't live in the best neighborhood, and we live on a busy street.
Every weirdo walks by and stares at me.
Stumbling drunks shout at me to give them an extra smoke.
I finally got tired of being on display.

There's no place to smoke anymore..
Even if I go on the back steps, my upstairs neighbor's crack/meth addict friends are coming over in a steady stream, and it's awkward to be in a position to let them in, because I really don't know them.

To be honest, I'm tired of all the effort it takes to maintain this habit.
I'm sick of the smell.
The bad breath.
The phlegm.

Not to mention the desperation that comes when the last rolling paper is gone, and it's dark out, and I have to go over to the Stop-n-Rob down the street, where all kinds of creeps lurk.

I wouldn't smoke around kids or my cats.
So why be so self-destructive?
Why have I thought it was OK to sabotage my own health for all these years?

There was an anti-smoking commercial on TV that really got to me.
It shows a guy smoking, then the camera pans down his trachea and into his lungs.

"It only takes one abnormal cell to grow..." the narrator intones ominously.
The CGI cancer grows and multiplies until the entire lung is choked up with these disgusting-looking tumors.

Every time I lit up after that, the image stayed with me.

I didn't quit cold turkey.
It's been a gradual process.
I got to the point where it took about three or four days to smoke a pack of cigarettes.

Then, last weekend, I ran out of rolling papers, and I decided that Enough Is Enough.
I wasn't going to go over to the Stop-n-Rob.
I was going to stay home and ride it out.

Not being able to smoke wasn't the end of the world.
I wasn't going to be a slave to this anymore.

The first few days were tentative.
I didn't know if I could keep it up.
But then a day turned into a week.
And I'm well into the second week.

The process of clearing my lungs is kind of tough.
So much coughing and hacking.
Sometimes I crave a cigarette, but I just ride it out.
There are so many triggers and associations.
Waiting for the bus, after a meal, with my morning coffee...

I think that the best parts are to come.
Being able to smell again.
Being able to sing and sustain high notes without breaking down into a coughing fit.
That's going to be huge.

After I've mastered living smoke-free, I will turn my attention to my eating habits.
One thing at a time.
But I'm making changes very soon.
I'm focusing on being healthy.
I've never really done that before.
Any dietary changes I ever made before were fueled by self-loathing and a belief that I couldn't measure up, not because I wanted to live a healthy life.

Ageists and sexists will deny it up and down, but life really does begin at forty.
You're still young and energetic enough to enjoy life, and hopefully you've conquered some of your demons and grown wiser for it.

This is going to be the most awesome decade!

If I worry about pollution, how can I justify smoking?
If I love the Air, Trees, Water, and Animals, why do I act as though it's OK to harm the animal that is me?
If I want to be All The Way Alive, and I want the same for my planet, how can I treat my own body like a cesspool?
Be the change you want to see.
Be honest, get rid of all that hypocrisy (which is also a form of pollution).

I feel really good about quitting smoking.
This is a big step in the right direction.

          It's been a while since I last posted. LJ's format seems a little different. I'm sure I'll get used to it. 


        I've run out of steam. Or juice. Creative energy. That's always my problem. I get started with great enthusiasm and then kind of run out of the good stuff as soon as it starts to feel like "work", and then it turns to tedium before coming to a screeching halt.

   I don't want that to happen with this. Writing is good for me. I must remember that. Just as art and music are good for me. I've got to get that string fixed on my guitar. I've got to get another painting started. Just got to get off my ass and do it...  

     Just as I need to keep my creative juices flowing, I also need to make an effort to cultivate my friendships.
It's easy to get into the rut of work, home, eat, sleep...
After a day at work, having gone through hundreds of people in a steady stream and having to anticipate all of their particular quirks and preferences, the last thing I want to do is see...more people...
I used to get lonely, but now I cherish my solitude, and the last thing I want is to socialize.
Still, it's important to keep up with loved ones.
   I hadn't seen Annie13moons in a while, and we decided it was time to get together again.
She sent out an e-mail to a bunch of the women we used to get together with on Goddess Nights.

    We were to meet at Hoyt Park at 6:00 p.m. last Friday, and bring a dish to pass.
       
             The theme for the evening was Gratitude.

Annie13moons really needed this, and I really wanted it.

She came by my house to pick me up. We laughed and chatted and smoked cigarettes on the way. Nobody lets you smoke in their cars anymore, so it was kind of a fun anachronistic situation to be in. 
We got to Hoyt Park and set up our stuff in the shelter.
The park shelter is a spacious  sandstone structure with family-sized picnic tables and a fireplace on the North and South ends.
It was a beautiful day. Bright sunshine. 
The park is really pretty. A pleasant meadow surrounded by woods and trails. 

We sat and waited for others to arrive.
Which they never did.
It was just the two of us.

We chatted and got caught up for a while before we decided it was time to call in the quarters.
We did that, and I could feel the energy shift to a deeper, warmer space.
I felt that I could speak frankly about spirituality.
At least fo rmyself.
I've drifted away from Wicca as a practice. I don't have anything that could be called a "daily practice".
I have an outlook, a way of interpreting the metaphysical underpinnings of my universe, but it's been a very long time since I've had any kind of ritual work to acknowledge these things.
As a matter of fact, I've actually gotten away from calling myself a "Wiccan", because I know that I am a "bad" Wiccan---in the sense that I don't do Sabbats or Esbats anymore. I haven't created ritual in a circle in forever. I'm not a joiner---I have no desire to join another coven, or to form one. 
My experience has shown me that you're either going to get  Dwight---from "The Office"--- IT tech nerds who long for a kind of Superman release from their cubicle-bound Clark Kent worlds. Or... schizophrenic Rainbow Hippie types who blame all their dysfunctionality on "Babylon".
Either way, it's just not for me.

   It was nice to have Annie13moons get me off my ass, though.
And I'm kind of glad that nobody else showed up.

We built a fire in the South fireplace before calling in the quarters.
It was perfectly appropriate, because Fire belongs in the South.
We did not set up any other props in the other directions.
I wonder if that had anything to do with what came next...

We were deep in a conversation. Everything felt very serene...

Suddenly, there was a quick series of LOUD EXPLOSIONS!! ---from the fireplace!
I was stunned for a moment before realizing that someone had put fire-crackers in the fireplace.
What. The. Fuck.

The fire was going full now, and the firecrackers kept going off every time a log would shift.
Some boys at a nearby picnic table explained that some stupid kids had put firecrackers in there.
"They're idiots," the boys added.

We were too scared to go and try to put the fire out.
Besides, we had written our lists of things we were grateful for.
We had sprinkled herbs on the lists and bound them up as offerings to the fire.

We tentatively stood before the fire and dropped our offerings in.

"I offer my gratitude with loving thanks," we whispered before dropping the bundles in, and we scurried across to the picnic table on the other side.

Then, another LOUD POP!!!
And another.

I was on edge the whole time, waiting for the next POP!!!

At last, it seemed to die down.
There must have been twenty or more firecrackers in there.

Finally, the sun started to set, and we decided to wind things down.
We put out the fire.
There was a dog bowl next to the nearby bubbler.
We filled the bowl with water over and over and doused the fire until it was out.
Then, another firecracker went off.
We doused the remainder of the embers until it was all wet!

We closed the circle, thanking the spirits for being there with us.
We decided that the South element of Fire had a sense of humor, or was trying to tell us something.
I've drifted away from magical thinking.
I figured it was just some kids being assholes and playing a practical joke.
Nothing more.
But Annie13moons still believes in magic.
And I remembered TANSTAC---There Ain't No Such Thing As Coincidence.
Of all the park shelters and fire-pits we could have gone to, we went to this one.
The one that was located in the building's South face, and was filled with firecrackers.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it was trying to bring our attention to...

South: Fire, Action, Passion...
That makes sense.
Get off your ass and take action and put your passion behind it.
I guess if there is an interpretation, that's the one I'm going with.