Follow the journey of discovery, disorientation, irritation and, sometimes, joy:
Friday, December 14, 2018
Southern African Musings
Life is ... different... in my neck of the Southern Hemisphere, near the arrows and red dot on the map:
Follow the journey of discovery, disorientation, irritation and, sometimes, joy:
Follow the journey of discovery, disorientation, irritation and, sometimes, joy:
Monday, October 1, 2018
How Dare She Unsettle Us? A Peek into the Stronghold
(Also published in Common Dreams, Oct 2, 2018)
An intense week of riveting cultural moments amplified by assorted news media. Is he lying under oath to get on the Supreme Court? Is she a pawn of the Democrats? Is Lindsey Graham melting down or showboating? Is Jeff Flake a flake?
I appreciate the week-long reprieve as the FBI investigates.
Uncounted numbers of women around the world and more than 20 million Americans followed Dr Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Most victimized women haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of being heard in the US Senate Judiciary (or their country’s equivalent), but women around the world watch and support our American sisters. Lightyears ahead of women in other parts of the world in publicly acknowledging sexual violence and indignity at the hands of men, we know that as American women go so go we – eventually…we hope….
As Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Lindsey Graham, Brett Kavanaugh et al, undermine women’s latest efflorescence toward equality, Dr Ford highlighted essential elements of ubiquitous toxic patriarchy. And she did so from the epicenter that dispenses male power.
Throughout Ford’s testimony and Kavanaugh’s dissembling, Jeff Flake’s demeanor suggested his discomfort. He admitted he was “unsettled although not discomforted or unsettled enough to go against his Republican brothers. He’d agreed to vote for Kavanaugh when Ana’s and Maria’s elevator pitch rattled his defenses. Soon after, he conferred with Senator Coons, a colleague and a Democrat… and together they made history.
Pundits judge, even scorn Jeff Flake; the few progressives who acknowledge his courage do so dismissively. Yes, the guy is conservative. Many people are. (Believing that conservatism/Republican –or liberalism/Democrat – is intrinsically offensive describes our nation’s current polarization). Flake didn’t transform into Liberal Man (he’s admitted that were he not retiring from the Senate there’s “Not a chance,” he’d buck his party’s line) but cut the guy some slack. Bucking the trend is tough. The payoff is heart-felt rather than monetized.
Transformation is tough. Lasting transformation, the kind that results in spiritual growth after reevaluating one’s Self and culture, is iterative, discouraging, uncertain. It requires patience, compassion, nerve, and a generous spirit.
Interruptions to the dominant narrative – “culture” – present enormous disorientation in individual and collective psyches. Interruptions rattle, demand one think creatively and on one’s feet, pose dilemmas, and threaten change. Faced with a Dr Ford, chinks appear in the system and dominant beneficiaries respond by stalling, dismissing, shoring up, protecting the system by feverishly applying that which has worked in the past. Cover up. Undermine, but not too openly. Humiliate, but not too openly. Rage. (Don’t cry.) Then emulate Donald Trump and “punch back ten times harder,” search and destroy, wage war.
Ironically, if Judge Brett Kavanaugh had admitted abusing alcohol he’d already be on the Supreme Court. (George W. Bush, a fellow Yalie, admitted, “When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible,” and he became a two-term president.) But admitting to “youthful hi-jinks” doesn’t sit well with Kavanaugh. Gripped by self-righteousness, he sees himself the way his culture portrays masculinity: boot strapping, busting his butt, athletic, charitable. Reports among the thousands of pages from earlier investigations suggest Kavanaugh tends to “dissemble,” a culturally appropriate way of saying he lies. If he’d admitted his high school and college years included booze-addled blurs, and if Dr Ford’s claims were true (they’re not! He’s “innocent”) he must have been drunk (implicitly not responsible). If he’d expressed shame, if he’d apologized, he would be on the Supreme Court. That’s the power of male culture. Instead, he foisted a false narrative and “dissembled” under oath about Maryland’s legal drinking age, that he never ralphed, about the meaning of “boof” and “devil’s triangle.” He raged. He cried. Now he and his supporters seek to search and destroy.
Damaged, Brett Kavanaugh is also a highly damaging man. He can wreak havoc. He can harm. We, the People, the Supreme Court, our sisters and brothers beyond our borders, are entitled to, deserve, a well-rounded, judicious Justice. That’s not Brett Kavanaugh.
An intense week of riveting cultural moments amplified by assorted news media. Is he lying under oath to get on the Supreme Court? Is she a pawn of the Democrats? Is Lindsey Graham melting down or showboating? Is Jeff Flake a flake?
I appreciate the week-long reprieve as the FBI investigates.
Uncounted numbers of women around the world and more than 20 million Americans followed Dr Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Most victimized women haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of being heard in the US Senate Judiciary (or their country’s equivalent), but women around the world watch and support our American sisters. Lightyears ahead of women in other parts of the world in publicly acknowledging sexual violence and indignity at the hands of men, we know that as American women go so go we – eventually…we hope….
As Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Lindsey Graham, Brett Kavanaugh et al, undermine women’s latest efflorescence toward equality, Dr Ford highlighted essential elements of ubiquitous toxic patriarchy. And she did so from the epicenter that dispenses male power.
Enter serendipity
Perpetuating entrenched power means following a cultural script. Yet, now and again the extraordinary human heart urges someone off script. Then, serendipity happens. This time, serendipity brought together Jeff Flake, Ana Maria Archila, and Maria Gallagher. Had it been Chuck Grassley, or Orrin Hatch, or Lindsey Graham in that elevator, Brett Kavanaugh would be on his way to fulfilling his Trump-designated role as president’s protector on the Supreme Court.Throughout Ford’s testimony and Kavanaugh’s dissembling, Jeff Flake’s demeanor suggested his discomfort. He admitted he was “unsettled although not discomforted or unsettled enough to go against his Republican brothers. He’d agreed to vote for Kavanaugh when Ana’s and Maria’s elevator pitch rattled his defenses. Soon after, he conferred with Senator Coons, a colleague and a Democrat… and together they made history.
Pundits judge, even scorn Jeff Flake; the few progressives who acknowledge his courage do so dismissively. Yes, the guy is conservative. Many people are. (Believing that conservatism/Republican –or liberalism/Democrat – is intrinsically offensive describes our nation’s current polarization). Flake didn’t transform into Liberal Man (he’s admitted that were he not retiring from the Senate there’s “Not a chance,” he’d buck his party’s line) but cut the guy some slack. Bucking the trend is tough. The payoff is heart-felt rather than monetized.
Transformation is tough. Lasting transformation, the kind that results in spiritual growth after reevaluating one’s Self and culture, is iterative, discouraging, uncertain. It requires patience, compassion, nerve, and a generous spirit.
What the…?
Imagine you’re a privileged white male who’s learned, implicitly, and accepted, explicitly, that white male culture will protect you, no matter what, if you stick to the script. If you can’t imagine that, recall Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Lindsey Graham, and Brett Kavanaugh during the hearing. After lifetimes, from 53 to 85 years, of things going your way, of never facing discomfort, powerlessness, or indifference, a woman, a lesser being, goes off –and stays off – the script of male-hegemony. Ford, herself white and privileged, stood in their bastion and spoke against their version of truth, nobility, and right-thinking. This, moreover, after Orrin Hatch described her an “attractive witness” and “pleasing.” This is how she repays his gallantry?Interruptions to the dominant narrative – “culture” – present enormous disorientation in individual and collective psyches. Interruptions rattle, demand one think creatively and on one’s feet, pose dilemmas, and threaten change. Faced with a Dr Ford, chinks appear in the system and dominant beneficiaries respond by stalling, dismissing, shoring up, protecting the system by feverishly applying that which has worked in the past. Cover up. Undermine, but not too openly. Humiliate, but not too openly. Rage. (Don’t cry.) Then emulate Donald Trump and “punch back ten times harder,” search and destroy, wage war.
Ironically, if Judge Brett Kavanaugh had admitted abusing alcohol he’d already be on the Supreme Court. (George W. Bush, a fellow Yalie, admitted, “When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible,” and he became a two-term president.) But admitting to “youthful hi-jinks” doesn’t sit well with Kavanaugh. Gripped by self-righteousness, he sees himself the way his culture portrays masculinity: boot strapping, busting his butt, athletic, charitable. Reports among the thousands of pages from earlier investigations suggest Kavanaugh tends to “dissemble,” a culturally appropriate way of saying he lies. If he’d admitted his high school and college years included booze-addled blurs, and if Dr Ford’s claims were true (they’re not! He’s “innocent”) he must have been drunk (implicitly not responsible). If he’d expressed shame, if he’d apologized, he would be on the Supreme Court. That’s the power of male culture. Instead, he foisted a false narrative and “dissembled” under oath about Maryland’s legal drinking age, that he never ralphed, about the meaning of “boof” and “devil’s triangle.” He raged. He cried. Now he and his supporters seek to search and destroy.
Cultural baggage
Brett Kavanaugh is a culturally damaged creature of toxic male hegemony who lacks a broad understanding of and pleasure in our complex, multicultural world. He’s confused –outraged -- about why this is being done to him. He’s played the culture game right: “had no connections” to assist him into Yale, “worked his butt off,” excelled at academics and athletics, attended church, enjoyed the occasional beer, and kept his calendars from high school and college to prove it. His version of American culture (Grassley’s, Hatch’s, and Graham’s, too), the only version that matters, entitles him to his spot on the Supreme Court. He deserves it. The job of lesser beings— Americans—is to get out of his way.Damaged, Brett Kavanaugh is also a highly damaging man. He can wreak havoc. He can harm. We, the People, the Supreme Court, our sisters and brothers beyond our borders, are entitled to, deserve, a well-rounded, judicious Justice. That’s not Brett Kavanaugh.
Thursday, August 16, 2018
What is that thing? Updated edition
What is that thing? Updated edition
As a Boomer, I'm fascinated with time...and aging...and where "we, the people" are heading (I promise I won't say, "to hell in a hand basket"). I'm fascinated with up-and-coming generations, too.
Stephen Colbert's Millennial Tutorial: Pay Phone hit all the right notes. Enjoy!
Previous edition:
I grew up in South Africa on a “guest farm,” the equivalent, in the U.S., of a “dude ranch.” In the late 1950s and early 1960s, this guest farm had a ‘call box,’ a public phone set on one wall of a 4 x 4 room with a door and a window. This phone, number X03, looked something like the one above (taken at Pt. Reyes in 2014) in that it had a handset connected with cable to a “box” and a slot for coins. The one above gets a dial tone. The vintage, all-black, heavy plastic version in South African, however, had a crank-style handle that, when wound round and round, alerted an operator in the “telephone exchange” three miles away. The operator responded and “put through” the call after the caller dropped the requisite funds into the slot.
As a Boomer, I'm fascinated with time...and aging...and where "we, the people" are heading (I promise I won't say, "to hell in a hand basket"). I'm fascinated with up-and-coming generations, too.
Stephen Colbert's Millennial Tutorial: Pay Phone hit all the right notes. Enjoy!
Previous edition:
I grew up in South Africa on a “guest farm,” the equivalent, in the U.S., of a “dude ranch.” In the late 1950s and early 1960s, this guest farm had a ‘call box,’ a public phone set on one wall of a 4 x 4 room with a door and a window. This phone, number X03, looked something like the one above (taken at Pt. Reyes in 2014) in that it had a handset connected with cable to a “box” and a slot for coins. The one above gets a dial tone. The vintage, all-black, heavy plastic version in South African, however, had a crank-style handle that, when wound round and round, alerted an operator in the “telephone exchange” three miles away. The operator responded and “put through” the call after the caller dropped the requisite funds into the slot.
Today, I use an iPhone 6 (I don’t recommend this model) that, besides calls, allows me to Facetime my grandkids in Texas, Skype family in South Africa and Europe, send emails, access the Internet, watch movies, and read library books. None of this existed even as concepts in the 50s and 60s.
Progress. Amazing. Particularly for a Boomer.
Sunday, June 3, 2018
Culture Shock Co-morbid with Bureaucratitis
Welcome Home!
Since 1989, I’ve made many two- to three-month-long forays “back home” to KZN from California. After my most recent foray unexpectedly extended from three to six months, I suffered a dose of culture shock co-morbid with a dizzying dose of, well, let’s call it bureaucratitis.
Culture shock is a state of critical assessment, psychological discomfort, even alienation that follows the initial euphoria a traveler experiences with immersion into exotic places, people, and things. It has an incubation period of three to four months in the unfamiliar or foreign place. It’s neither contagious nor terminal and the traveler slowly adjusts to and accepts her new circumstances.
Bureaucratitis is an acute state of anxiety, high blood pressure, and disorientation caused by reluctant visits to a local municipality or post office. Bureaucratitis worsens with an impending visit to the Department of Home Affairs.
Culture shock is a state of critical assessment, psychological discomfort, even alienation that follows the initial euphoria a traveler experiences with immersion into exotic places, people, and things. It has an incubation period of three to four months in the unfamiliar or foreign place. It’s neither contagious nor terminal and the traveler slowly adjusts to and accepts her new circumstances.
Bureaucratitis is an acute state of anxiety, high blood pressure, and disorientation caused by reluctant visits to a local municipality or post office. Bureaucratitis worsens with an impending visit to the Department of Home Affairs.
Read more >>
Saturday, June 2, 2018
Comrades Marathon
"Something there is doesn't love a wall"
June 10, 21,500 registered competitors ran the 90.184 km (56 mile) Comrades Marathon. This year’s race, the 93rd, was a “down run,” meaning runners started at Pietermaritzburg’s City Hall. Most of the route follows what was once Old Main Road.
Leaving the city, runners travel along Polly Shorts (Ashburton), through Camperdown and Cato Ridge, past what was once my home (see red print on map), along Harrison Flats, up Inchanga Hill… well, see the map for the full route that finishes at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium.
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
“If you think you are too small to make a difference...try sleeping with a mosquito in the room.” –Dalai Lama
I've started another blog.... read a post from it: Mosquitoes
I've started another blog.... read a post from it: Mosquitoes
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