The Deal

1 Comment

Intellectual property is a concept that only arises where thought can be monetized. Think about that. (But don’t charge me, please!) It is a strange idea, when you ponder it. In any case, one of the problems with writing book reviews is that the reviews themselves become the intellectual property of the journal in which they appear. In a mental ménage à trois, everyone gets something out of it: the publisher gives away a book for free publicity, the journal gets copyright content of value to its readers, and the reviewer gets a free book. In the best of these encounters everyone goes home happy. I began doing book reviews when teaching at Nashotah House. Academic books are expensive and although professors make more than editors do, they are still hard-pressed to pay academic press prices. After my strictly platonic affair with higher education, I stopped doing reviews for a while, but now that I have hours on a bus to read, I’ve picked up the habit again.

Most often I review books for the two societies of which I’m a member—the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature. There might, however, be a conflict of interest here. One of the main things I do on this blog is talk about books. Since I’m no longer a professor, but I still think like one, I figure it’s a compromise I can live with. The conflict arises because I post daily on my blog while publishers take weeks, or even months, to publish reviews. Despite technology, publishing is a slow business. That means that I read books I can’t really talk about until the review has appeared. That’s the case with Jill Graper Hernandez’s Early Modern Women and the Problem of Evil: Atrocity & Theodicy. I can’t say here what I say in my review since the review isn’t my intellectual property anymore. There’s another trade-off here: publishers get your name out there in return for owning your content—everything can come down to the level of business, it seems.

Still, I can use this post to reflect on theodicy—the justification of God in the face of evil. Since I don’t address this fact in my review I can say here that since Trump’s election it’s difficult to read a book about suffering without tying it to the current political situation. Many of the incumbent’s ardent supporters are coming to see that he doesn’t really care for them or their issues, and conservatives as well as liberals have four years of suffering to face. I was surprised how often in reading this philosophical treatise that our present national shame came to mind. Perhaps that’s inevitable in a book that discusses how women have been repressed in a world where they too have been relegated to the level of a commodity. Intellectual property seems less a concern when human beings are still trafficked as chattel. That’s not just bad business, it’s evil.

Basic Training

1 Comment

I recently sat through Sexual Harassment Prevention training. Not because of anything I’ve done, mind you, but because organizations have long realized that if training isn’t mandated, lawyers are ready to pounce when someone does do something illegal. I first started taking these trainings at Nashotah House and I’ve had them just about everywhere I’ve worked since then. Even so I sometimes see people who just don’t “get it,” even after training. Workplace harassment is, unfortunately, something we do need to be concerned about. I couldn’t help but think, however, while sitting in the training—does having a Commander in Chief with a history of sexual harassment make all of this merely academic? Sexual harassment is against the law, but the one who swears to uphold this law with an oath on the Bible breaks that very law. There are very deep implications here.

It might’ve been a different story if all of this weren’t known before going into the election, but it was. In the twenty-first century, who in good conscience could vote for a man on the record as a sexual harasser? In many situations you’d lose your job for less. In this case masses of hate-filled rhetoric topped common sense: don’t do as I say, don’t do as I do. I want to be your leader. This cultural schizophrenia takes its toll on our family values. Where all people are not treated equally there are no human values. I’m sitting in this training room being told of court case after court case where companies dismissed individuals for doing something the leader of the free world just doesn’t see as wrong.

How little it takes to undo the progress of centuries. I suppose that’s what we might expect when a bunch of educated people put democracy in place for a nation that prides itself on being anti-intellectual. Perhaps this was inevitable. We’ve become a nation where we have to try to lead our leadership. Politicians long out of touch with the quotidian training in the pedestrian lives of the masses. We know—and hopefully knew before we attended that seminar—that all people have a right not to be harassed based on gender or any other immutable characteristic. Instead we’ve become a nation where “President” is supposed to be a protected category and where, outside a very small Oval Office, the rest of the country is left to fend for itself.

Hidden History

1 Comment

the_official_poster_for_the_film_hidden_figures_2016

History involves perspective. We sometimes forget that. I was alive when human beings first reached the moon, so maybe I’m a bit blasé about what a great technological accomplishment that was. Down here on earth we were still having trouble with the human rights thing—still are, incredibly. Working in my own silo I hadn’t heard of Hidden Figures and wouldn’t have gone to see it if my wife hadn’t suggested it. It’s hard to be reminded of the world into which I was born and how terribly backward it was. For all my conservative upbringing we were never racists. Of the two African American guys I remember attending my elementary school, I was proud to call both of them friends. I could see no reason not to think of them as friends. We lived in the same town and had the same basic needs. I had no idea the struggles they really faced.

Although offering social commentary, gently coating it with humor, Hidden Figures follows the story of three mathematicians who made America’s participation in the space race possible. Moreover, they were all women. African American women. Brilliant, but unequal under the law. I was glad for the darkened theater as I couldn’t keep my eyes dry thinking of the terrible backward step we’ve taken since November. This nation has never been fair to African Americans and police statistics bear that out. Given equal opportunity, I can’t help but think of what me might accomplish. How this nation could support a bigot for the highest office in the land I can’t compute. It sets the clock back before I was born. We wouldn’t be where we are not without shining examples of humanity like Barack Obama.

We are fighting for the future. Over the past few weeks every few days I’ve been attending marches, rallies, and political meetings. I’ve been signing petitions until my clicking finger is numb. I wish there were more that I could do. The blatant racist, sexist maneuvers by Mitch McConnell should stand out as a mark of shame on all who claim the name American. Silencing Elizabeth Warren from reading a letter by Coretta Scott King regarding Jeff Sessions. When our children’s children look back on this age they will rightly wonder how people who’ve been privileged all their lives could turn their backs on progress in the name of racial insecurity. And how Mr. McConnell could’ve had the appallingly bad taste to do so during Black History Month. History involves perspective.

A Glimpse at the Future

3 Comments

Last month one of the three remaining Shakers died. In this era of religion unawareness, not many Americans, I expect, could identify this dying religion. The Shakers aren’t the Quakers—we like to give religions we don’t understand pejorative monikers—they are a group that grew out of the Friends but that had important differences. Shakers believe, especially, in celibacy. It had to grow through conversion since Shakers could not reproduce biologically. At their height there were about 6000 of them—the number of Twitter followers of a fairly successful humanities professor, I suspect. They were hard-working and their brand of furniture endures beyond the life of the sect. The official count of Shakers worldwide now stands at two.

This little bit of news saddened me. Not that I’ve ever been tempted to join the Shakers—it would be a bit of a stretch for a family man—but I’ve always admired countercultural groups. Like many religious sects of the late eighteenth century, the Shakers were millenarians. That is, they believed in the imminent second coming of Christ. Given this belief, biological reproduction wasn’t really necessary. In fact, it was counter-productive. Like so many of the slumberers of the Great Awakening, the Shakers eventually settled in upstate New York. Since their lifestyle was different, they had to form their own communities. The last community is in Maine. When the last two Shakers go to their reward, barring a miracle, the denomination will be extinct.

life_of_the_diligent_shaker

The Shakers were distinctive for yet another reason as well. They were open to, and often defined by, female leadership. This might be expected in a world where men have difficulty controlling themselves in mixed company. Catholic monasteries locked men in without women. To agree to live in a mixed gendered community but without mixed gendered relations took a dose of will power that borders on the saintly. The Shakers won’t be the only religion to have gone extinct, when that happens. Religions, like organisms, grow, thrive, and die. This little group had a disproportionate impact on society. Those who watched Michael Flatley throwing his body across the stage to the haunting joyfulness of the Shaker Hymn “Simple Gifts” likely had no idea that the world owed one of its most beautiful melodies to a group of people living celibate lives in the woods of Maine. The Shakers’ unique contributions to the weird and wonderful world of religion will be missed by at least one.

By Any Other Name

1 Comment

nakedundeadGood and evil. Well, mostly evil, actually. No, I’m not talking about Washington, DC, but about horror movies. Cynthia A. Freeland’s The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror is a study that brings a cognitivist approach to the dual themes of feminism and how horror presents evil. It’s not as simple as it sounds. Like many philosophers Freeland is aware that topics are seldom as straightforward as they appear. Feminists have approached horror films before, and other analysts have addressed the aspects of evil that the genre presents, but bringing them together into one place casts light on the subject from different angles. Freeland begins this process by dividing her material into three main sections: mad scientists and monstrous mothers (which allows for the Frankenstein angle), from vampires to slashers, and sublime spectacles of disaster. Already the reader can tell she’s a real fan.

One of the simplistic views of horror is that these kinds of movies—particularly slashers—are misogynistic by their very nature. Feminists, including Freeland, question that assumption. Horror is a genre with a decidedly checkered history. Some films do feature mostly female victims to male monsters. Not all do, however, and even those that do may be saying something other than the obvious. Looking for the locus of evil in these movies provides a lens that focuses the meaning somewhere other than the surface. This is one of the benefits of philosophy—probing questions may be asked and unexpected answers may result. Along the way you can have a lot of fun, too. Especially if you watch horror movies.

A large part of the criticism probably arises from the fact that film making was, for much of its earliest history, run by males. That’s not to say women couldn’t do the same thing men were doing, but the opportunities simply weren’t there. Most film makers, I expect, have trouble getting out of their heads to think about how someone of a different gender might perceive this kind of movie. Fear, we are told, is “coded” feminine. It seemed natural to such film makers to put the female in peril since both women and men would respond to it. Since then it has become clear that fear isn’t coded for gender. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of modern horror is that we all have cause to be afraid. Fear is no respecter of gender. Freeland’s analysis, now getting on in years, correctly looked ahead in many respects. Especially concerning the ongoing presence of evil.

O Brother

2 Comments

o_brother_where_art_thou_ver1When teaching mythology at Montclair State University, I had students watch O Brother, Where Art Thou? Based on Homer’s Odyssey, the movie follows a trio of convicts during a election campaign through depression-ridden Mississippi. The populist candidate, Homer Stokes, runs his campaign with a little person (but as a true Republican, he can call him a derogatory name and nobody blinks). Both Stokes and “the little man” are members of the Ku Klux Klan and even Mississippi of the 1930s won’t have that. How things have changed!

The movie comes to mind because of Friday’s march on Washington of women in favor of anti-abortion legislation. Look for the numbers to grow as the White House inaugurates comments about it. A few thousands gathered after last weekend’s 1.2 million—yes, a million more than expected—Women’s March on Washington. I respect these folks’ right to protest, of course. They might’ve done well to watch O Brother before heading out the door, however. The incumbent in Mississippi is Pappy O’Daniel. His clueless campaign managers have no ideas how to counter the populist Stokes. Junior O’Daniel suggests they could get an even shorter “midget.” Pappy, as if speaking to Friday’s marchers says, “Wouldn’t we look like a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies, bragging on our own midget, doesn’t matter how stumpy.” With apologies for the insensitive terms, size does matter. The First March had world participation of nearly 5 million. And that’s just those who were free that day.

I’ve been drawing quite a bit of wisdom from cinema lately. Maybe because it is often in harmony with vox populi. If it weren’t the industry wouldn’t be thriving. I think of O Brother and how the south in the 1930s makes us look regressive today. The good, Christian folks of Mississippi wouldn’t have a racist for their governor. When they saw what he really stood for, they voted for the lesser of two evils. Today we have a president that would’ve had a hard time being elected in that past. The tide has shifted to a more selfish and shortsighted instant gratification without benefit of education. “And our women, let’s not forget those ladies, y’all. Looking to us for protection! From darkies, from Jews, from papists, and from all those smart-ass folks say we come descended from monkeys!” Homer Stokes preaches in the light of a burning cross. Instead of booing him out of the town hall, we’ve asked him to lead the free world.

Can I Get a

Leave a comment

Public restrooms have always made me uncomfortable. This has nothing to do with North Carolina. It’s more an issue of being raised to be ashamed of bodily functions and then trying to shift, as it were, in mid-stream. Coming back from the Women’s March on Washington (we have to keep talking about this to give us momentum to move forward) we had an hour layover in Philadelphia. I can’t walk into Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station without thinking of Witness. Indeed, they were announcing the train to Lancaster on our layover. Then I realized coffee before a somewhat long train ride isn’t a great idea. As I headed to the men’s room I remembered what happened there in 1985. After all, with Trump in charge all kinds of carnage can be expected.

img_3158

Witness has a redemptive message. And maybe it’s a parable too. Anabaptists, such as the Amish, take their Bible seriously. Not being conformed to the world, but separating out from it is a kind of Protestant monasticism. Even those who can’t understand their lifestyle choices (so Republican in so many ways) admire their industry and care (so unlike Republicans in so many ways). The problem is, we can’t separate ourselves from the world any longer. We’re all Samuel staring out of that toilet stall. We have seen the truth and we feel vulnerable and violated and unsure of where to turn. When someone’s hurt they reach out to others for help. The others are the world. A community may be self-sufficient, but it shares the planet with aggressive others. You can never truly be alone.

The lifestyle of the mean and corrupt erupts into the calm, peaceful, and contemplative life of those who want to live simply and unmolested. Some mentalities—particularly capitalist ones—see the non-aggressive as chattels. Women, children, men who don’t fight, any minority—these can be exploited for one’s own grandiosity. We’ve seen that already in the regressive and repressive policies an illegally elected president has already started to enact. John Book is not going to come save us this time. We need to take the initiative to protect the way of life we simply wish to lead, without interfering with those who sadly believe money really means something. You and I, my readers, are witnesses. And like witnesses we have the responsibility to make certain that the world knows the truth of what we’ve seen.

Reading Lesson

Leave a comment

“The President” responded to the Women’s March on Washington by tweeting that he was “under the impression that we just had an election!” Perhaps if “the president” read more he would understand that instead of looking in a mirror you need to look out the window once in a while. The Electoral College is even more outdated than the Republican Party and has only stood in place so long because our elected officials lack the energy to dismantle it. Like Daylight Saving Time. A loss by nearly 3 million votes is not a win in anybody’s book. I would suggest that Mr. Trump and his party learn to read. In strings of more than just 140 characters. Those who read know that Russia hacked our election. Voters can speak with their feet as well as with their fingers. We can see the Republican Party for what it’s truly become. Those accustomed to a lifestyle of theft sometimes don’t realize that others have seen their fingers in the cookie jar.

dscn6861

As one of the many marchers I would say if you want a mandate, look out your window. George Washington, if I recall my history correctly, did not try to put his will over on an unwilling country. Indeed, most of us believe he had too much integrity than to try to hide behind something like an Electoral College to reinforce his tenuous grasp on the reins of power. It’s our constitutional right, Grand Old Party. We can protest. Legally. We will protest. Continually. We will not let you suffer under the delusion that you won anything. Your party gamed the system and any “president” who reads would say “I can see now that I misunderstood.” Backing down is not cowardice. Listening to others is not weakness. Being “president” means having to ignore your cronies once in a while. Vox populi, for those who know how to read, means “the voice of the people.” Democracy is upheld by the consent of the governed, not electoral casuistry.

Those who rely on crooked systems to claim a mandate need to learn to read. Reading requires thought. Concentration. And the will to repair rather than to dismantle. Try ignoring the handlers once in a while. Was the “president” not at the inauguration? Did post-truth press secretaries hide the photos? Please look away from the mirror. Governing with the consent of the governed is hard work. It’s not about brokering deals and looking for one’s own best angle. It’s not about “me first.” As long as any disabled child, any woman who’s been sexually assaulted or discriminated against, and any African American can be told that his or her life doesn’t matter the job will be never ending. The accountability just started this weekend. Read and learn. We are the people.

On the Ground 2

4 Comments

dscn6785

Don’t believe the lies. Your government is lying to you already on day 1. I watched in disbelief as Trump’s press secretary for the White House, Sean Spicer, told bald-face lies the very first day of Trump’s reign of terror. I was in Washington, DC. My niece attended the inauguration. My extended family attended the Women’s March on Washington the next day. Spicer, clearly comfortable with untruth, lied through his teeth mere minutes after I myself stood outside the White House, saying that Trump’s inauguration was the best attended in history, far outstripping the paltry women’s march. Pure, unadulterated lies from the White House. My niece, and many others, noted how poorly attended the inauguration was. The evidence was in the white plastic matting, unbesmirched by mud on Saturday morning. The federal government disallowed the use of the Mall for the Women’s March. The unused matting was very clearly white the next morning. Around 8:30 on Saturday morning I saw for myself.

img_3152

The Women’s March may have been the most significant event of my life. I was part of something much bigger than myself. Along with thousands of others, I stood for three hours while celebrities including Scarlett Johansson, Michael Moore, and Madonna, appeared on stage to cheering crowds. There was barely room to stand. We marched past the Washington Monument to the White House. A US Security guard told us there were an estimated 1.2 million people there, making this one of the largest marches on Washington in history. Just inside that white-washed tomb Spicer was lying his face off. He castigated the press for telling lies. Wake up, my fellow Americans. On day one our new government has shown that it intends to lie and smirk its way through every attempt at honesty. My eyes did not deceive me. I was there, on the ground.

dscn6816

I work in Manhattan. New York City is a community of some 8 million people. I’ve never in my life been in a crowd as large as yesterday’s in Washington. The Women’s March was peaceful and perhaps the largest protest in our nation’s history. Protests in over 600 cities around the world joined it. An administration of the people, by the people, and for the people would acknowledge that. The smug, implacable—and I use this word sparingly—evil administration that insists on lying to its citizens is already spinning a false narrative. I was there, on the ground. This March may have been the best use of time in my life. Beware, Americans, your government will regularly be lying to you until future notice.

dscn6842

On the Ground

2 Comments

Washington, DC has always struck me as an artificial city. The neoclassical architecture is just a bit pompous and rolling into town on a train is kind of like stepping onto a movie set. Or, I’m told, into Los Vegas. Regulations about the heights of buildings make it unlike other large communities, and the Washington Monument has taken on a new phallic significance as of this weekend. I don’t come here seeking salvation. Indeed, I only came to register my dissatisfaction. I’m not alone. “Pussy hats” outnumber red caps by a long shot. It’s time to stand up and be counted. Stepping out of Union Station the first thing we saw was a Black Lives Matter protest. It’s peaceful, but forceful. Those selling Trump merchandise look like it’s a slow day. The inauguration is less than three hours from now.

Washington has some personal resonance with me. My grandmother—herself a second generation American—was born here. She wouldn’t have shared my political views, I’m pretty sure, but I believe in fair treatment for all. Even those who haven’t asked for it. The last time I was here it was for a conference. The atmosphere was more congenial then, but I’m liking the number of protesters I’m seeing here today. Woman carrying signs, wearing pink hats, talking to people they don’t even know. We’re all in this together and it sure feels better to know you’re not alone. We come upon a protest march. Police are herding the crowd away with an impressive array of black. A small crowd gathers to watch. I hear what sound like explosions. Welcome to the land of the need, the home of the rave. I’m not here to make trouble. The electoral college started it.

dscn6747

What you saw on the news last night isn’t what was taking place here on the ground. The protests here in DC have been going on all day. Even as I was getting ready for bed protesters had blocked the street on the way to Trump’s oversized balls even as the television anchors were spreading a narrative of glitz and glam, ignoring the tempest just outside. Determined to normalize Trump as if the elections of incompetents were everyday business is these states, the smiling anchors didn’t comment on the completely empty stands of the inaugural parade that were so painfully obvious. I’ve never seen so much riot gear in my life. This, they tell me, is democracy. I’m here to march peacefully, in solidarity. Marches in 60 countries and seven continents—the first ever Presidential protest in Antarctica has been announced. To see you only have to open your eyes. I’m in DC and I’m glad to be in the company of others who haven’t yet given up on our country.

Elephants and Snakes

Leave a comment

I try to be a good son. As good as you can when living a few hundred miles from home. I call my Mom every week and when the mood’s right, we reminisce. During a recent conversation I was recollecting my first trip to Washington, DC. My grandmother, who lived with us, had been born there and wanted to see it again before she died. I don’t remember much about the trip. I would have been maybe 5 or 6, possibly 7. The Washington Monument I remember because I was terrified of heights and didn’t want to go up. The sharpest memory, however, involves the motel.

We didn’t have much money and very, very rarely stayed at motels. In fact, this is the only time I remember it happening before I went to college. It was one of those cheap places where you park right outside the door to your room. In the morning, bright and sunny as only childhood mornings can be, I remember racing around the oval, gravel drive with my brothers. We had our favorite stuffed animals with us. Mine, ironically, was an elephant. I remember that elephant well. I remember running with him under my arm and laughing and having one of the most carefree moments of my entire life. Now I think of elephants in Washington, DC and the magic is gone. We never had much money when I was growing up, but my other favorite stuffed animal was a long, black snake. It was as long as I was tall and I loved the fact that snake and my name began with the same letter. I loved him so much that his eyes came off and my mother sewed large purple buttons in their place. At that time I had no concept of how apt the symbolism might be.

400px-march_on_washington_edit

The snake and the elephant are two of the most feared creatures on land. (There is a bit of symbolism here, so please don’t be too literal.) In the biblical world the serpent can stand for good but more often it represents temptation, danger, and treachery. I loved that snake as much as I feared its real-life counterparts. And now I find myself headed to DC again. I’ll shortly be on the train to join the Women’s March, my first official protest. I don’t know that I’ll have internet access the next couple of days (I hear Washington’s a swamp) so I may not post again until the work week starts. This time I’m not taking either elephant or snake. They exist already in abundance in our nation’s capital.

Women and Men

2 Comments

I’m going to the Women’s March in Washington, DC next weekend. At an organizing meeting yesterday it occurred to me that someone might ask me why. Why would a white, male, straight, employed-with-health-insurance person bother to go through the disruption, effort, and hassle of getting to the capital to protest when I personally stand to lose little? That question has stayed with me and although I haven’t articulated an answer, I’ve never questioned the decision either. So why am I going to a women’s event?

I am a son, a husband, and a father. The son of a mother, the husband of a wife, and the father of a daughter. Having been largely raised by a woman on her own, I came to realize early on that all the good I experienced in life was because of the effort of one woman fiercely determined to help her boys get ahead in life. Without the help of a man.

I am married to a woman who has had to face prolonged periods of my unemployment because an institution run by men dismissed me for standing up for minorities. As I have struggled with my career since then, often she has earned the lioness’s share of our household income. When I couldn’t find full-time work we relied on her steadiness to provide our healthcare.

I am the father of a daughter. She is part of the future and I can’t sleep at night if I don’t do everything within my power to ensure that her world is better than mine. A world where women share completely equal rights with men. Get paid the same as men for the same work. Aren’t forced to be biological slaves because men often act without thought of consequences.

IMG_0969

Today is Martin Luther King Day. I’m not an African American, but I believe the same truth applies. All human beings deserve equal rights. If those of us who personally stand to loose nothing do nothing one thing is certain—everyone loses. A friend implied, back in November, that this election was simply a matter of fiscal conservatism. That wasn’t the ticket on which the rails to electoral success were greased. It was a ticket of racial and gender superiority. A message of entitlement. Pulled by a locomotive of caucasian testosterone. Why am I going to Washington next weekend? Because I believe that the only way to be truly human is to recognize, respect, and resist any efforts to relinquish the rights of any person who calls this nation home.

We Are an Island

Leave a comment

moana_teaser_posterApropos of both building your own deity and Disney, my family went to see Moana. Now, I have to admit up front to being a bit behind on my Polynesian mythology. Scholars of the history of religions feel terribly insecure if they don’t read the languages or haven’t spent time with the culture first-hand. I’ve seen the Pacific Ocean a few times, but never from the point-of-view of an islander. In fact, one of the areas of growing interest in biblical studies is the interpretation of Holy Writ by islanders. Their perspective, it seems clear, is different from others in more populated land masses. So Moana, which delves into Pacific islander mythology, was a brand new world for me. More than hearing about the demigod Maui, it was a chance to consider what destruction of our ecosystem looks like to those who have more limited resources at hand. Those who, when global warming really kicks in, will be the first to become homeless.

One of the strange things about living in the post-truth world (defined as the world after 11/9) is that many movies, novels, and other creative explorations I encounter seem to underscore the demon we’ve invited in. Moana is about a girl who saves her people, but she only does so by defying the man in power. Had she not journeyed beyond the reef, her people would’ve starved on their island. Meanwhile the big white man prepares to assault the White House and all that our founders held dear: an educated leadership. Progress. Fair treatment for all. Someone needs to remind these short-sighted individuals that every landmass is an island.

As we approach the end of 2016 it’s time to think of where we’ve been. At the theater, an ad by Google showed the newsworthy events of the year. There could not have been a better rendering of the high hopes with which we began and the sorrow with which we’ve come to an end. Our scorn of education has caught up with us and we’ve asked “the man” to please destroy our world and enslave our women and deport anyone who’s different. We need a lesson in how to build better deities. We need to be willing to admit that a girl might know more than her father. We need to learn the wisdom of the islanders.

Lions and Lambs

Leave a comment

This brief break between Christmas and New Year’s Day, taking into account the vacation days expended to enjoy it, is a time filled with movies, reading, writing, and sufficient sleep. In short, it’s like a dream. I’ll get around to addressing the movies eventually, but right now one in particular is on my mind: Zootopia. Disney movies weren’t a big part of my childhood. We did watch the Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights, but movies were an expensive treat. I remember seeing The Jungle Book, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and Herbie the Lovebug. When we could afford a movie, it was frequently at a drive-in where a carload was cheaper than individual seats. I missed several of the childhood western canon—I never saw Mary Poppins until I was in college. Becoming a parent in the 1990s meant becoming conversant with Disney.

zootopia

Oh, I’ve heard the conspiracy theories: Disney is “the evil empire,” part of the Bilderberg Group, the Illuminati, and any number of other collectives that want to run the world. They have access, we are told, to the young and a reach that excludes few before the age of ten. I know little of Disney’s business practices, but Zootopia suggests to me that they are telling our children the right message. The movie follows the ambitions of Judy Hopps, a bunny that want to be a police officer in Zootopia, the largest city in the animal world. Threatened and bullied because she’s a girl, and small—traditionally prey—she nevertheless overcomes the obstacles necessary to meet her dreams. Once she meets success, however, she finds herself engaging in prejudice against predators. Species profiling takes over and the white sheep (literally) take over.

The message of not assuming someone is a slave to their “biology” is a powerful one. Nick Wilde, the fox that assists Judy to her goal, becomes a victim. The only way forward for Zootopia is to recognize that profiling—gender or species—is wrong. Since the story isn’t preachy, it’s all the better. Watching unchecked prejudice surging through our political machinery today, it was difficult to believe that this movie was released all the way back in March. The prey animals are the majority, and they feel threatened and so follow the leadership that controls, deports the predators who’ve been law-abiding citizens all along. Only when we once again see shrews living peacefully next to elephants, rabbits, lions, and polar bears, do we get the sense that everything’s as it should be. I know nothing of Disney’s business practices, but with messages as important as this, I have but few worries.

The Naked Truth

Leave a comment

As my regular readers know, I’m struggling. The shock is palpable. Even over a month and a half later, I still keep going over in my head the many, many reasons why Trump can’t be elected and wake up in a cold sweat with anything but visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. I recently saw a video on YouTube that made the point: with the millions of smart, qualified Americans our system decided that only someone like Donald Trump was able to lead us? (That is, if Mr. Putin didn’t cast a few votes himself. It might be understandable if he was Putin’s choice.) I have trouble coping with the lack of transparency. It’s like opaque cellophane. Except when it comes to women. Then the motives are perfectly obvious.

It bothers me that we’ve lost our dignity. I never thought it’d be possible to find the first lady naked on the internet. Some might argue that this is progress, but government is, and always has been, about decorum. It’s pretty hard to maintain that your king is a god when you see him sitting on the toilet. We like to believe our rulers are somehow better than us. We’re in trouble when they start believing that. There are those that say “quit your whining, pull up your socks, and accept it.” The naked truth is that I bought into the illusion that America couldn’t sink so low. There are lots of qualified Republicans out there. To have a man that makes Ronald Reagan look smart in charge is too frightening to accept, however. Let me have my neuroses. They’re all I’ve got left.

eleanor-roosevelt-wh-portrait

The whiplash is the thing. Just three presidents ago the nation was up in arms about Bill Clinton’s peccadilloes. It was such an outrage that the same people who voted for a naked first lady wanted to impeach him. My neck hurts from my head swiveling so much. Ladybird Johnson this is not. Let alone Eleanor Roosevelt. I’m not whining, I just want a solid spot to place my feet. Never before has the fact that we’re spinning at 1,040.4 miles per hour felt more real. What do we want as a nation? It isn’t going back to the fifties—that much is clear. You couldn’t even show a toilet in the movies back then. No, we’ve gone beyond Psycho’s flushing scene and right into the shower with its curtain ripped back. And yes, like Janet Leigh, we’re struggling for our life.