May I Have a Word?

I am an admitted liberal. But not the kind of liberal who thinks all guns should be picked up and melted to build housing for the poor. Not that that would be a bad idea, but what I mean is that I'm not anti-gun. I even enjoy the occasional venison.

I'm also a late bloomer. So when I was at the tender age of forty-four I decided to finish my bachelor's degree. I quite a few unfocused college hours, and it would have been silly not to get that sheepskin. I was working in the financial aid office at a university, so education was smiled upon. My husband was supportive, my boss was encouraging, so I jumped in and planned to study for a business degree. I signed up for a speech class, a Spanish class and an accounting class in the fall of 2001 at the local community college. In October I tearfully handed my accounting professor a blank exam and didn't go back to accounting. I knew that night that I was a words person, not a numbers person. And I do love words. My favorite writers are those who can use the language as playthings. A well constructed phrase, whether in a song, a poem, a political article or news source, can make a bad day good.

What, you may ask, do these disparate items have to do with each other? Well, the language I love is under assault. Today I would like to stop American men and women from calling what they do in the fall to get venison "hunting." They no longer traipse through the woods in search of  herbivorious ungulates. They build tall stands, usually on a friend's property where deer have been spotted rather than out in the wild. They wear camouflage clothing to blend in, and rub their bodies with stuff to prevent the deer from catching their smell. They spread feed around to tempt the deer into their sites, and then they shoot. This activity does not help these men connect with their ancestors. It is not a masculine foray into the woods to commune with nature. I don't think it should be called "hunting" anymore. I think it is time to take back our language, and call this fall male bonding exercise "luring."

What Do Dreams Tell Us?

I don't think much about dreams. Mostly because after I have one, I can usually go through the previous few days and put together where the dream came from, even if the events or people in the dream don't match exactly what happened. Once in awhile I have one that makes me wonder where it came from, or why a particular person showed up in it, but not often. My mother always says that if you dream of a birth there will be a death, and vice versa. A few days ago, I was in the room as my husband watched a police procedural drama (his favorite TV genre) and one of the characters said that when a baby shows up in a dream it usually represents the dreamer. I don't know about that. I do remember many years ago, when I was newly married to my first husband, we went to one of those pizza places that has games and I played Whack-a-Mole for the first time. I laughed raucously at the game, and played it for way too long. We lived in such a terrible one room apartment that when we had a freeze the first year we were married, 1983, there was a sheet of ice on the inside of the front door. After that game of Whack-a-Mole, I dreamed that there was someone trying to break into the apartment, and I was whacking them with a hammer through the chained door as they tried to reach their arms in. I still remember the fear I felt in that dream, and how hard I tried to use that hammer to stop those bad guys.

That was nearly twenty-seven years ago. The dream came to me recently as I thought about the news stories of terror attacks and suicide bombings that have been reported on the news that last few weeks. I haven't done statistical research, but it seems that there have been more attacks, not less, since that fateful day in 2001 when terrorists killed over 3,000 Americans, including American Muslims. This week alone nearly 200 people were killed in suicide bombings, one in Afghanistan, one in Pakistan. There were two attempted attacks from Yemen. We have sent bombs to both Yemen and Pakistan, targeting only what our intelligence sources report to be hard Al Qaeda targets. We have escalated the eight year war in Afghanistan. Eight years! The only place we've ever fought longer is Viet Nam, and it won't be long until we catch up with that record. It seems that the "global war on terror" isn't working. It is said often, by those who don't believe that attacking another country will work, that terrorism is a tactic, not a target. The people who use this method of trying to bring down enemies will not stop-terrorism as a tactic works.

The first time I remember an act of terrorism was during the 1968 olympics. Then I remember airport attacks in Greece, and the Achille Lauro cruise ship attack in which Jewish passengers were targeted, and one Jewish man was murdered. Of course, there have been hundreds of terrorist bombings in Israel. There have been hits at schools, bus stops, restaurants-it doesn't seem to end. There have been similar attacks in Germany, Spain, Ireland, London, Bali, Kenya, and on and on. Every time this happens in an airport or on an airplane, there are new restrictions on airline passengers, which terrorists find new ways to get around each time. While I'm not an expert, it seems to me that the young man who attempted to blow up a flight landing in Detroit on Christmas day didn't fit any profile of suicide bombers that I've ever heard. He was not poor, desperate and hopeless, wanting only a giant reward in heaven after taking out some infidels. It seems he was a big whiner from a rich family, who'd had every possible privilege and just decided to be pissed off at Americans. So now we'll have even more restrictions on airline flights. And the terrorists will find another way to attack us. It is telling that after extremely long wars using terror as a tactic in Ireland and Israel, by the Bosque separatists in Spain; all of those countries are still standing. Terrorists have not brought Israel down, nor will they bring down the United States. But there will always be terrorists, despite the game of Whack-a-Mole we are playing with our bombs in the Middle East: Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan, no Iraq, no Afghanistan, no Pakistan, no Afghanistan. The phrase "Al Qaeda" just means "the base" so Al Qaeda is wherever some guys who think that way get together. So I guess all the military and national security officers who are trying to shoot Al Qaeda really are just dreaming. I wonder what it means that my favorite dream is of peace?

December is About Music

Music is number two on my list of the five best things in life. Number one is love. That includes both friends, family and lovers. But music is number two. I love jazz, rock, some country, folk and blues. I love hearing new stuff. I'm not a fan of hip-hop, but I could be. I love learning-I just need someone to help me select the good stuff---whatever does not include cocky people rapping about how much money they have, or bitches and hos etc. But I digress. Having grown up in the late 60s/early 70s, I guess the classic rock genre defines me the most. Early in December I watched the HBO special "Rock and Roll Anniversary Hall of Fame Concert." Mostly I watched it because of the presence of my musical hero, Stephen Stills. But several more of my lesser heros also showed up, and it affected me to the soul. Their faces are weatherworn, and their voices are careworn., but the music....ah, yes; the music. If I had to pick some songs that defined me, they are probably all by Jackson Browne. I remember in 1972, when "Doctor My Eyes" came out, it made me stop and sigh. I know that adolescent teens are pretty impressionable, but that song hit me hard. It made me a rather unlikable person in some ways because it gave me permission to stop thinking about issues and decide where I stood. I was very sure when I got to that point. Very unshakably sure. Since then I've realized that some of those things I was so sure about were wrong, and some just evolved over time. And it has led to me wondering at times which comes first, the teen angst, or the songs about it? By the time he got to "Running on Empty" and "The Pretender," I was done for. After Jackson Browne played came Simon and Garfunkel. Their songs have also stirred me. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "Sounds of Silence" were the songs that all the guitar playing girls in my high school performed for the talent shows...and all the other high school girls in the audience sang along. But "The Boxer" made us weep. All those feelings came rushing back through the three hours of the concert. Bruce Springsteen came along at the end of my teen years. I was never a fan..."stadium rock" was not at all for me. As you can probably guess, the 80s were not good musical years for me. But I have a great deal of respect for Bruce when I hear him perform his blues/folk style. I'm became convinced that he simply followed the wrong muse, though with all his fame and money, why he or anyone would care about my opinion is beyond me.

Of course, it could be that my lack of gainful employment, the holiday season, the short days simply made me nostalgic for a time when my life was in front of me and regret was something I couldn't imagine. But it could also be that the television is on too much, and the concert provided a much needed "sanity break" from the free credit report and Overstock.com commercials. When I see that beautiful woman in the white coat singing, "O, o, o, the big, big O" to the tune of Jingle Bells, I wonder what my husband would think if I gave him a gift in a box with a "big O" on it. Would he think, "Cool, I'm off the hook," or "What is she complaining about?" "Where the ads take aim, and lay their claim on the heart and the soul of the spender." These rabbit chases aside, the song that has haunted me ever since that evening is "The Pretender." Yes, I've reached an age when looking back and seeing both what was and what wasn't is a frequent activity. And like the pretender, I had some big dreams that never happened. In all honesty, each one of these failures is ultimately because of one decision or another that I made, so this is not a whine about how life has let me down. This is about how a few great artists have captured the feelings of regret and disappointment that come at times with looking back. "I want to know what became of the changes we waited for life to bring. Were they only the fitful dreams of some greater awakening. I'm aware of the time going by. They say in the end, it's the blink of an eye. And when the morning light comes streaming in, we get up and do it again." It circles in my mind when I walk my dog, and when I look for a job or cook or put laundry away. "I'm gonna rent myself a house in the shade of the freeway. Gonna pack my lunch in the morning, and go to work each day. And when the evening rolls around, I'll go home and lay my body down. And when the morning light comes streaming in, I'll get up and do it again." I was going to be an actor. A writer. I was going to study environmental science and public policy and work to make the US greener. But I'm looking for jobs as a secretary. Or in a retail store. Or a call center. Anything, because I'm "caught between the longing for love and the struggle for the legal tender." Ever the egalitarian, I've always held that there is nothing to look down on about honest work of any kind. So why do I feel that I should have done something "bigger?" Is it because of the self-esteem movement? Because I'm a Leo? Because I spent so much time reading books and seeing movies about people who achieved huge dreams through sheer luck. It doesn't really matter why, "where the sirens sing and the churchbells ring and the junkman pounds his fender. And the veterans dream of the fight, fast asleep at the traffic light..." How long does that veteran dream of the fight once the war is over? Is he able to find another way to define his life?

I've been writing this posting in my head for a month. I began putting it down earlier this week, but tellingly, I'm finishing it on New Year's Day 2010. I've been unemployed for four months, and had only one interview in that time. I try to stay optimistic about finding a new job, but that is tough sometimes. Like so many others in this country today, it just seems that I'm spinning my wheels and my unemployment is about to be cut by twenty percent."They strike at the world with all their might, as the ship bearing their dreams sails out of sight."  But this is not only the first day of a new year, it is the first day of a new decade. There are so many reasons to feel hopeful, and not to feel hopeful. On Monday I am very sure that my phone will begin to ring, and some of these applications will begin to play out. I wonder where the "Pretender" is, thirty years on? Could Jackson Browne give me any words of hope? Or does he know someone who is hiring? Because "out into the cool of the evening strolls the pretender. She knows that all her hopes and dreams begin and end there."

Good Movement Gone Bad

Vonnie Shallenberger/ 14 November 2009

I hope none of my liberal friends read this. Many years ago I was working third shift, and occasionally would turn on the TV overnight and watch Rush Limbaugh. I was taught that it helps to fight an enemy if you know his position, so I gave him a shot. One night he got it right. Of course he ruined it later on in the same show, and he hasn’t come close since, but that night in 1993, he said something that I agreed with, and have come to agree with more and more since.

The self esteem movement started out with great intentions. Most social movements do. But then they go too far and lose the truth of the initial premise. I was on the side of the attempt to make children, especially minority and poor children, feel better about themselves. I still am. But the movement lost its soul when it went from trying to help children feel as if they are as good as other people, to being a way of giving children the notion that they are awesome and that the rules set by our civil society do not apply to them. Whether it is simply because children aren’t able to process the information fed to them, or if parents haven’t been taught where the boundaries lie in this message, I don’t know. But it seems to have led to a generation of spoiled, narcissistic young people bent on ruling the world on their terms.

A couple of examples I have personally experienced:

1. A former teacher who is a friend of my family told the story of having corrected a young student in his classroom. This story would not have meant much to me except that the student involved grew up to become Miss America after she graduated. The mother of this student came to visit him, and scolded him for “damaging her self-esteem.” This man responded with, “Madam, nothing could damage your daughter’s self-esteem.” He was not teaching in that school for long after that.

2. I was supervising a third shift call center. I was over three males and one female. The female tended to order everyone around. So one night she gave me an order, and I said, “Please and thank you!” She proclaimed that she did not say please. Please is a begging word and she does not beg. I said, “No, please is a polite word.” She said, “I asked nicely-I don’t need to say please.”

I think where the movement went wrong is in allowing "as good as" to be interpreted as ‘better than,’ which has lead to the crass notion that everything one feels should be aired because every feeling is valid. This has led to a loss of concern for how others feel, a loss of manners, empathy and decorum, and a belief in one’s self that just may not be supportable by the facts. Limbaugh’s remark was that, “Self esteem should be based on something.” I agree-children need to be taught that they are just as good as anyone else. They are neither inferior nor superior to anyone else. Everyone deserves respect-rich, poor, black white, EVERYONE. Every person has a gift. That gift should be encouraged, and children should also be encouraged to explore their interests and discover that gift. But no one can pick a gift-Dad can’t expect Junior to be great baseball player just because Dad was at that age. But the idea that every child should consider him or herself King or Queen of the World is false and dangerous. I recently heard a psychologist talking about self esteem when he was presented with the idea that perhaps serial killers have low self esteem. He said that most serial killers are just the opposite- they tend to be narcissists who believe that the world is not treating them as they deserve. So these people have obviously not been taught that other people deserve respect, have they?

So while Rush Limbaugh may not have learned the lesson he was preaching on that fateful night in 1993, his premise was actually correct.

Marry Me?

I grew up in the south. After I was grown it became known as more “southwest,” but a local humor writer proposes the theory that the “south” is any state that seceded during the war of northern aggression, so Texas counts as the south. My mama is Baptist, and came from rural Arkansas to west Texas, then Fort Worth, where she married very young and raised her five children, four girls and then a boy. I am the oldest of those five. And a dreamer. Always a dreamer. I was going to be an actress. But I am a dreamer. I lived my life in books and movies and dreamed. I emphasize this point because being that much of a dreamer can lead to being that instead of a doer. And those dreams not coming true can lead to great disappointment in later life.


So, besides being a famous actress or writer (or a great writer who gets to star in the movie of her ‘great American novel?”) what do girls growing up in the south in the late 1960s dream of? Marriage. Being a housewife-having a husband who will take care of her financial security, while she takes care of his more personal needs- freshly pressed shirts, happy babies that know how to behave well when Daddy comes home to a delicious meal and lovely dessert. Of course, this family is the pillar of the community and active in the church. This was what every girl dreamed of and planned for. The big wedding with lots of flowers and bridesmaids and the perfect, happy life after. The girls who didn’t dream of this perfect family life got ‘talked about.’ No one wanted to undress next to them in P.E. The ones who didn’t turn out to be gay were simply thought to have something wrong with them that prevented them from meeting that expectation that everyone held to be the natural progression of our lives. I can remember once going to a movie alone; something I still don’t mind doing, and my maternal grandmother saying, “Why, don’t you have a boyfriend to take you to the movie?”

In this day of ‘social networking sites,’ I have been privileged to discover that this dream happened for some of the girls I dreamed with through our high school graduation in 1975. For many of us, though, it didn’t happen quite that way. For me it certainly didn’t. Many of us, including me, greater happiness came the second time around. Some have had to try more than that-some have not found that ‘soul mate’ who can provide the realization of all those dreams.

Now many of us have daughters, and some have granddaughters. What will they dream about? I hope that we are a little further removed from the ancient writings that have led so many of us to that grave disappointment in life that the young girls growing up now will not believe themselves to be lacking in any way if they simply decide that they do not wish to follow that same path. Patterning ones’ life after the expectations of others can only lead to disappointment and disillusionment.

I had a conversation with my nephew a couple of years ago. He will be 29 in 2010, and is a very highly “evolved” young man. He has never been a serial dater, but tends to have one long, serious relationship at a time, and they typically last about 3 or 4 years. The relationship he and I were discussing ended a few weeks ago, but on this particular evening I asked him if he thought that it would end in marriage. His parents were divorced, and his response was, “You know, everyone tells me what hard work marriage is, but no one has come up with a reason that it is worth doing.” We talked about the usual reasons (apart from the moral teachings of the church, which we have both left behind) such as children that marriage is worth doing-besides being partnered with someone you love for a lifetime. He said he believed he could do that without the ceremony…the same answer applied to having children.

Nieces from another sister feel the opposite; they want to get married and have babies. So while there is hope that this won’t continue to be what defines women, it still haunts the edges of our consciousness.

When I began to question the faith I was raised with, one of the things that I noticed about the writings in the bible on wifely behavior didn’t sit well with me. Then I realized that all of them were written by men. I also noticed that men seem to get more out of marriage. I read that women are more likely to describe the relationship is unhappy, and women are more likely to file for divorce. “Of course,” I thought. Marriage was designed by men, and benefits them more-why should they want to end it? Those men spent over 6000 years telling women that they were property, and that they must submit to the authority of their husbands. Why didn’t god tell women that? It just seems suspicious to me for someone to say, “Hey, God told me you have to submit to me or else.” Had I not figured it out on my own, and someone actually told me that, I probably would have to respond with, “Yeah? He’s got my number-tell him to call me himself!”

Women live longer, and work harder to take care of themselves. Women work full time jobs and still wind up with more responsibility for taking care of the house, the kids and elderly relatives. Women have been going to college and graduate school more than men for the last several years. Women have come up with life changing inventions and scientific, mathematical advances, and have worked harder to prove that they are just as smart in math and science as their male counterparts. And yet, women earn .73 to each dollar a man makes, and women still feel inferior if they can’t find someone to marry them? It is time for this paradigm to change. I know that at least one generation after mine still has the notion that traditional marriage and family is the best life path for a woman to take. So my generation may not have been the last to hold this notion, but I do hope it is being chipped away at, and before long, we will not be defined by our ability to find a man to marry.

Post Traumatic Stress

 I am one of maybe three liberals in my family, so I am used to having a different view than the majority, and mostly to keeping my opinions to myself. The tyranny of the majoirty rules.

The problem that I have is when the people on that other side cite the worst and most hateful anti-Obama garbage. There is not one shred of evidence, not one, that the election was stolen. ACORN doesn't even have that kind of power and influence-they would have had to produce 9.5 million votes in order to do that. The only reason that ACORN has become such an easy target, in my opinion, is that they are run by black people, and try to help the poor.  The whole story is just the next salvo of a group that was upset because the lies of the birther movement didn't get rid of someone they don't like, so that had to come up with a new lie. It disturbs me beyond comprehension or words that anyone buys it. It is the most hateful and dishonest of the Beckian-Dobbsian dystopian fantasy of diseased hordes of non-white people rushing over our borders to take our jobs and services and give nothing in return for it. I have watched and listened to both of them, and they don't even bother to support their fearful rhetoric with facts or documentation of any sort. When Dobbs was confronted on 60 Minutes with facts about his story of Mexican illegals coming here and spreading leprosy being wrong, he just said, "If we reported it, then it's true." Not, "But here is the documentation we used to support the story."  The fact of the matter is that if Americans were getting nothing from illegal immigrant labor, they would stop hiring them. But it saves these businesses money and the trouble of having to follow labor laws. An illegal who complains of illegal treatment will be at risk of being deported or arrested. And isn't the right usually in favor of whatever helps business? The free, unregulated market?
It doesn't bother me that to be on different sides politically from any one person or idea. But hate and irrationality are things that don't allow a conversation to go on. There have been times that a rational presentation of ideas and facts have swayed me-I am willing to listen. It doesn't even bother me that some are against health care reform, which seems to be a huge focus of the whole anti-Obama/Tea Party movement. And the red-herring being used by the talking heads against, not just health care, but any and everything that President Obama is for, is money to take care of illegal immigrants and provide abortions. But the argument that health care reform will provide money for illegals and abortions is moot-they have has already been clearly prohibited in the bills. So it is just more fear and smear tactics that keep those stories coming. I do wish that those who are against reform would understand, even if they don't change their minds or positions, that there are all kinds of reasons why people may not have health care. There are humans behind those stories.

I remember a favorite professor of mine in college talking about what has to be taught to soldiers at war in order to allow them to kill is that the other side is not human. That is why there are always other names for the enemy-gook, chink, sand-nigger, towel head, etc. It dehumanizes them and helps the conscience not kick in and prevent a soldier from doing his job. But there is a huge cost-it also dehumanizes the soldier-hence the reintegration problems on returning. But the enemy at war, and those without health insurance,  are people. Right or wrong, agree or disagree, and they deserve to be respected as people.

How to be a good conversationalist

I am a dog person. Not one of those kinds of dog people who believe that you can't be a dog person and like other animals. I have known a few (mostly cat people) who think you must choose one or the other. I used to have cats, and remember those days fondly-I still pet and cuddle the cats of my friends and family when I see them. But when I started being owned by dogs, it was all over. On Sunday, the New York Times Week in Review published an article called "Good Dog, Smart Dog" by Sarah Kershaw. She talked about how much we're beginning to understand about how much dogs can learn, and just how much smarter dogs are than we ever gave them credit for. At the end, Ms. Kershaw cited a Dr. Clive D.L. Wynn, psychologist of the University of Florida who said that we should be careful about comparing dog intelligence to human intelligence; dogs can learn quite alot, but have a different way of thinking than we do.

My husband and I have had four dogs in our ten year marriage. The first was a border collie mix who was a 9-11 rescue. From the moment he and I locked eyes I became his human. His name was Nestor, and he was brilliant and intuitive, but he also had severe separation issues, presumably from his time as an orphan of the 9-11 attacks, and he became increasingly aggressive and after several biting incidents had to be put down in April of 2007. I was devastated, and still get misty eyed when I think about him.

The second dog we got was intended as a companion for Nestor. She was a lab who was already six years old when she came to live with us. She was a gentle though dominant soul, and lived to be twelve. We lost her this past February. After we lost Nestor I thought we would be a one-dog home. I was so lost without Nestor, with whom I had been attached at the hip for more than five years-I just wasn't ready to bring another dog into the house yet. What I had not bargained for was how much Maddie grieved for him. She had been so dominant, I thought she would be happy to be an only dog. But she broke my heart-lingering to sniff at the places he marked (and yes, I do observe their behavior enogh to notice a difference.) I finally convinced my husband that we should get another dog to be a companion for Maddie. He wanted something smaller, so we agreed on a beagle. I watched a beagle rescue in Illinois, and we settled on a beagle-mix, named him Darwin. Darwin was a sweet dog, but so completely out of control that we still haven't been able to tally the stuff he destroyed-shoes, hats, electronics, anything he could reach. And whatever he was mixed with made him bigger than a regular beagle, so he could reach quite alot. He was also a master escape artist. Once I got our backyard fence secure enough that he couldn't go under it anymore, he started going over. But one he did that and his collar got caught on the fence, I was afraid for his safety and decided to surrender him to the rescue. I still wrestle with guilt over that, and feel like a terrible "dog mom" for giving up on him. I truly hope he found the right family that could channel his energy and keep him safe.

After Maddie died we weren't going to get another dog. We agreed to get a cat-less labor intensive, easier to leave alone, etc. But shortly after Maddie was gone I told my husband that I just didn't want to be a home without a dog. So I went to the local shelter, got there before they opened, and started walking through the kennels in the first building, thinking to myself, "It has to be a small dog, it has to be a small dog, but I could love any one of these guys." I think it was around the seventh kennel that I saw this scruffy little terrier pull herself to the door and look at me as if to say, "I think you're my mom." I said, "Yeah, I think so too." I later found out that Abigail had been brought into the shelter as a stray, and that the day I found her was the first day she was available for adoption. When I got her home, I couldn't believe anyone would not try to find this baby-she had obviously been worked with. She was already nearly housebroken, she knew a few basic commands, and she was a quick study on others. Even though they hadn't even bathed her or brushed all the burrs out of her coat, she was the perfect dog for our family.

I could describe the intelligence of our dogs in this way: When I am cooking, all the dogs like(d) to lie in the floor near the stove, in case anything accidentally dropped to the floor, and I would carry on conversations with them. Maddie, the lab, would like it me as if to say, "Ok, Mom, but could you pet me now?" Abigail, the terrier mix, will look at me as if to say, "Yeah, Mom, could you hurry up? I'm bored, and I want to chase squirrels and grasshoppers." Darwin, the beagle would look at me as if to say, "Whatever. Can I have some food?" But Nestor, the border collie would look intently at me as if to say, "I understand completely."

One thing that was suggested in Sunday's New York Times article was that what dog intelligence has given them is not a capacity to think and learn like a human, but perhaps the intuition to understand our signals and what it takes to please us. That sort of empathy is a great gift. I don't think any of my dogs would ever have given me a frying pan for Mother's Day as my husband did-they care too much about my feelings, and whether it is intuition or abstract thought that gives them this ability, it is extremely important. It has always been important to humans to feel understood.

So discussions about what dog intelligence really is may be irrelevant. Dogs and humans are irrevocably bonded-in the past, the survival of each species was dependent upon the other. I say, let's stop using human yardsticks to measure them against us, and just keep throwing new things to them and see if they learn. I'm almost certain we will continue to be surprised and gratified by the result.s