May 5, 2008 archive

May 05 2008

The Weapon of Young Gods #22: Accidental Recon

Roy lives just a few streets away from me, across the park, but after I drop him off, my headache dials down to a mellow hum, and since it’s not that late, I don’t feel like going home yet. The scenery change I was looking for when I left UCSB earlier today has already degenerated in my mind to an endurance test comprising my depressed mom and annoying little sister, so I drive down Santiago, making my way out of the old neighborhood, passing my house and others identical in form and function. Twenty years has aged some of them gracefully, but most are not flattered by the passage of time.

When I get to Caracas I go left, opposite from where Colin’s old house is when his family still lived here in SoCal. He wouldn’t recognize it now, rendered gargantuan with new additions, so I don’t bother glancing that way as I go, exposed to the intersection’s blind turn. It’s safe, but I can sense the fog filtering in as the night ferments in that unique suburban stillness.

Previous Episode

May 05 2008

test

Roy lives just a few streets away from me, across the park, but after I drop him off it’s not that late, my headache has dialed down to a mellow hum, and I don’t feel like going home yet. The scenery change I was looking for when I left UCSB earlier today has already degenerated in my mind to an endurance test comprising my depressed mom and annoying little sister, so I drive down Santiago, making my way out of the old neighborhood, passing my house and others identical in form and function. Twenty years has aged some of them gracefully, but most are not flattered by the passage of time. When I get to Caracas I go left, opposite from where Colin’s old house is when his family still lived here in SoCal. He wouldn’t recognize it now, rendered gargantuan with new additions, so I don’t bother glancing that way as I go, daring someone to barrel down the blind turn. No one does, but I can sense the fog filtering in as the night ferments in that unique suburban stillness.

May 05 2008

The Stars Hollow Gazette

The All-White Elephant in the Room

By FRANK RICH, The New York Times

Published: May 4, 2008

BORED by those endless replays of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? If so, go directly to YouTube, search for “John Hagee Roman Church Hitler,” and be recharged by a fresh jolt of clerical jive.

What you’ll find is a white televangelist, the Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish people.” That’s because the Great Whore represents “the Roman Church,” which, in his view, has thirsted for Jewish blood throughout history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust.

…

Mr. McCain says he does not endorse any of Mr. Hagee’s calumnies, any more than Barack Obama endorses Mr. Wright’s. But those who try to give Mr. McCain a pass for his embrace of a problematic preacher have a thin case. It boils down to this: Mr. McCain was not a parishioner for 20 years at Mr. Hagee’s church.

That defense implies, incorrectly, that Mr. McCain was a passive recipient of this bigot’s endorsement. In fact, by his own account, Mr. McCain sought out Mr. Hagee, who is perhaps best known for trying to drum up a pre-emptive “holy war” with Iran. (This preacher’s rantings may tell us more about Mr. McCain’s policy views than Mr. Wright’s tell us about Mr. Obama’s.) Even after Mr. Hagee’s Catholic bashing bubbled up in the mainstream media, Mr. McCain still did not reject and denounce him, as Mr. Obama did an unsolicited endorser, Louis Farrakhan, at the urging of Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton. Mr. McCain instead told George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago that while he condemns any “anti-anything” remarks by Mr. Hagee, he is still “glad to have his endorsement.”

…

There is not just a double standard for black and white politicians at play in too much of the news media and political establishment, but there is also a glaring double standard for our political parties. The Clintons and Mr. Obama are always held accountable for their racial stands, as they should be, but the elephant in the room of our politics is rarely acknowledged: In the 21st century, the so-called party of Lincoln does not have a single African-American among its collective 247 senators and representatives in Washington. Yes, there are appointees like Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice, but, as we learned during the Mark Foley scandal, even gay men may hold more G.O.P. positions of power than blacks.

May 05 2008

Truth Versus Reconciliation

This post contains mild spoilers for the film “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”.

There is a scene in the (very entertaining) film Forgetting Sarah Marshall where the protagonist, played by Jason Segel, is dismayed to learn that his ex-girlfriend, played by Kristen Bell with whom he is on the verge of reconciling with, did not merely leave him for another man but had been carrying on a secret affair with him for a year.  This obviously puts their reconciliation on hold.

This reminded me of something I  find to be an interesting question.  In all aspects of human affairs, the question of truth versus reconciliation often presents itself.  Nearly all people, all groups, and all nations are guilty of numerous transgressions both in history and in the present.  And many, if not most, of those transgressions are unknown; like Sarah Marshall, people, groups and nations will attempt to conceal the bad things they have done.

The problem is this: the truth about these things generally makes reconciliation more difficult.  In the movie, this is presented as a good thing: Bell is supposed to be not only someone who wronged Segel, but an inferior mate for him than Mila Kunis’ character, a hotel hospitality worker.

May 05 2008

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(11 pm – promoted by ek hornbeck)

May 05 2008

i am not young enough to know everything

“I am not young enough to know everything.”

~Oscar Wilde

Photobucket

Born:  October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland

Died: November 30, 1900 (aged 46) in Paris, France

Occupation:  Playwright, novelist, poet

Nationality:  Irish

My impression of this quote is that only young children know everything. When they get older and slower in the mind, they are less likely to believe and therefore to less likely to know the most about unusual but interesting things.

Children believe in fairy tales or some forms of magical happenings, and they also believe in scientifically-incorrect theories such as aliens and Area 54. They believe in certain legends, myths, and fables, and all kinds of other stories.

Oscar Wilde was sometimes called the Man of Barbed Wit, because he could think of many insults to spout at one time that made many people laugh, and many people scowl. He was extremely smart until the day he died; never letting anyone place him as the butt of a joke.

He is saying in this quote that you only believe all those amazing things once, when you are a child. After you age, you begin to think of all those amazing things as foolishness, infantine. This is why it is good to enjoy being young while you are.

May 05 2008

Sons without Fathers.

My father was born Roland Lucien Meyer in Perpignan, France.

Being Jews in 1943 with the country still occupied by the Germans, my grandparents quickly put my father and his older brother Claude in a Catholic Orphanage and changed their last names to the less semitic Clauchre.

There my father and my uncle lived for the next two years… kids both with and without parents… with and without an identity… with and without a real heritage.

Thankfully the war ended and my father got to return home… though not to his family.

See, it was soon discovered that my Grandfather Helmut had ANOTHER child with ANOTHER woman and the secret child was barely three months younger than my father.

Whoops.

I assume that’s when my Grandmother decided to make the trip across the Atlantic…

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