Happy Lip Service Day

Every year I make the same tired jokes about Veterans Day. This is usually accompanied by a background anxiety that people will think me glib or insensitive about what people in the armed forces contribute. There are two things I have learned, though:
1) It is impossible to care about what is offending people that have a surface-level sense of humor
2) It is impossible for me to stop making idiotic jokes. No matter how much I want to.

When I was a boy, I wanted to join the Marine Corps. I investigated this option once I grew to the age of eighteen and it became clear that no college with a sentient human working the admissions process would admit me. Sadly, my life took me in a different direction, which, in case you were wondering, is a thing that craven cowards say when they are too spineless to admit their own spinelessness. I don't think a day goes by when I don't regret not going into the Corps. Do I make up for it by contributing to veterans causes? Lobby the government for better care for returning vets and the families of those killed in action? Buy a homeless vet a cup of coffee?
No. I'm an American. Despite a couple days that we set aside to say hollow niceties about people that put their lives on the line, we don't give a shit. We cut their benefits. We make sick jokes about the rampant PTSD caused by stretching a fighting force to it's breaking point. We allow callow, manipulative elected officials send them into nightmarish, unwinnable conflicts we have no business creating, aside from the very good business it will mean for some of their friends. We re-elect these same subhumans as if nothing had happened.
In a world where moral fiber is a devalued commodity, these are people willing to die for their principles. But we've watched our own government treat them as disposable and  feed them into a meat grinder for so long that we have followed suit. It's enough to just click 'like' on a picture of men in uniform to 'Support Our Troops' as if that 'like' button will buy diapers for their children. 

Horrifying News Roundup!

So many horrible things are happening in this country and around the world that I have to cram them into a blog entry! It says a lot about human perseverance and ingenuity that we are always topping ourselves in depravity and degradation while increasing the speed at which civilization goes down the tubes. You can't keep us down!
These are the worst links I can possibly provide. If you think you can top me, please don't. Fair warning, that if you try to stay away from the news to maintain your sanity, you should read no further. I'm not putting these together just to gawk and gape at the horror of it all. We are being desensitized a little more each day with every click to the next sickening news story. I picked these out to highlight specific social ills in the hope we can look at each one a little closer and get down to the root cause.
You may have seen these on social media already, but we're going to discuss them here so we can get it out of our systems and don't bring them up at dinner with the in-laws while stuck for a conversation topic.
 It's important to act like everything is fine in real life. I'm not kidding. Hang on to illusion. It's getting to be all we've got, especially in a world where:

- a man advertises his desire to watch a stranger beat and rape his 11 year old daughter.

Anthony Brinkman's nauseatingly perverse desire was exposed after police found an ad he had placed online. An undercover officer, posing as an interested party, lured him to the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel (naturally) where Brinkman was arrested. Upon confessing, Brinkman said that he was 'sorry' and 'stupid'.

You didn't break a window with a baseball, Anthony. You tried to violate and traumatize your own child.

I have stopped caring what creates animals like this. Nature, nurture, video games, telenovelas, don't make no nevermind to me. You could make the argument that the internet fosters and feeds this kind of psychosis that would come up with this, but of course, if it weren't for the internet (coupled with a lack of foresight that many of these kinds of scumbags fortunately don't have) they might never have caught Brinkman. The weird thing is, we don't want law enforcement invading our private lives, but no one reading this would care if the police didn't follow protocol when arresting Brinkman and accidentally danced all over him while wearing golf shoes. Which brings me to exhibit B:

- After being stopped for a minor traffic infraction, David Eckert is physically violated and humiliated in a vain effort to find drugs that he isn't carrying in his rectum

This happened back in January, but Eckert's lawsuit was just filed this week, leading to a flurry of reporters' questions for the head of the Deming, NM police department, who, rather than address valid concerns about the ordeal, refer the press to their lawyers, who also refuse to answer any questions. Until they do, the only version of events we can go off of is Eckert's account of being repeatedly rectally violated via enema, doctor finger, and colonoscopic probe and having to defecate in front of officers so that a doctor could examine the stool. All this happened because some patrolman thought he was clenching his butt too hard to NOT be carrying contraband. The cherry on top is that Eckert is being billed for all the procedures. That's right, the hospital that went along with this and performed all these procedures because some jackass in a uniform told them to is threatening him with collection, which is one better than Milgram ever did with his experiment.

Last and most heartbreaking:

-After being in an accident, 19 year-old Renisha McBride is shot and killed while seeking aid at a nearby home. 

A message was sent with the Zimmerman verdict. It's been heard by the paranoid, the entitled, and the heartless, the kind of person that responds to a cry for help by shooting a teenage woman in the face. Michigan being a stand-your-ground state, the shooter in question in this case stands a good chance of never being charged in this, unlike in the strikingly similar case in North Carolina from September. The trend is being set, though. Whether you are a civilian or law enforcement, whether you are frightened or just feeling bloodthirsty, you can react with deadly force to any situation as long as certain laws in your state are vague enough.
God help us.

Shut 'em down, shut 'em, shut 'em down

A little over two years ago I wrote one of my signature, rambling, poorly-though-out  posts about the debt ceiling. We were on the brink back then. Lots of dangerous rhetoric being bandied about. People feared that we were about to cross the Rubicon, and that this country might never recover.

Actually, the mood was pretty blase. No one really took it seriously. It looked like the usual political theater from careerist, ideological dolts on both sides of the aisle.
 "It's an arbitrary deadline" we said.
 "They'll just push it back again" we suggested.
 "No, I'm TIRED, I don't feel like going out, let's just make quesadillas and get drunk in the living room" I said to my girlfriend.
And that's what happened. The GOP even got some choice spending cuts and everyone in the Executive and Legislative branches of our government learned a valuable lesson about political brinkmanship and crying wolf.

Then some nutjobs showed up.

 Republicans took the house in a huge power shift, riding on a wave of district gerrymandering and fear about the Affordable Care Act, which I vainly hope we can someday stop calling Obamacare. It just sounds stupid. What we had now in the house was largely a band of political neophytes, resolutely devout in their belief that the ACA would destroy this country. Ambitious, ruthless, and in no way willing to let facts distract them from their aspirations, these are the people that have pushed us into a government shutdown.

People like Ted Cruz (R-TX), whose grandstanding kicked off the current shutdown. His delusions of grandeur are already leading him to think about a 2016 White House run, despite the fact he has been on the national stage for about ten minutes and was born in freakin CANADA.

Also people like Ted Yoho (R-FL), a large animal veterinarian that is used to euthanizing unhealthy behemoths, and also maintains the cognitive dissonance to suggest that the US defaulting on its debt would "bring stability to the world economy" You can't make this stuff up! No matter how much you wish you had and that insane people like this aren't in positions of power.

Anyway, the GOP is trying to keep the conversation focused on the ACA, not the debt ceiling. Mainly because they have an answer to the ACA: No. They don't care that it's the law of the land, they maintain that it is massively unpopular with their constituents and will be nothing but destructive. If only we had these compassionate souls wielding this kind of clout in the run-up to the war in Iraq. I'm sure they would have followed the will of the people.

As it is now, we are in Day 9 of the government shutdown. National Parks are closed and the communities that rely on the revenue they bring in  up the creek. Families of soldiers killed in action aren't getting the death benefit that they are due, par for the course as far as the way we treat our military personnel and their loved ones in this country. To top it off, we are about a week away from default. Even if we get out of this one, the precedent has been set. They have learned they can hold this country hostage as a negotiating tactic. I really don't want to be around for the next temper tantrum these people throw.

A Damn Shame

One of the most jarring things for many people that come to New York City is the proximity. When you're here, everything you might need is right around the corner in almost any neighborhood. All night delis, music venues, restaurants, museums (you won't really go to them, but it's neat that they are there) and stores of all varieties are all within a reasonable distance. After all, many people here don't have a car, or have never driven one, or think that they are a dangerous invention and that the steam engine was as far as we needed to take human ingenuity. That makes for a a very cloistered atmosphere, where everything is right on top of everything else. If you aren't claustrophobic, it's convenient as hell.
Naturally, this means the people are also right on top of each other, and not just in the biblical sense. Remove the walls of the tiny living room I'm writing this in, and I might be surrounded. Ten feet to my left is an elderly couple, twelve feet below me is a professional bachelor from India. Just over my head is a pair of young lovers that like to stomp around the floor at six each morning. You get the idea. Privacy becomes important to people here because it feels so fragile, something that doesn't exist for much of the day. The trains, streets, and places of business are so loud and crowded that any moments you have to yourself become sacred. Invasions of that privacy can range from being a nuisance to being terrifying, but I had a one recently that was simply heartbreaking.
I recently moved from a large apartment building to a converted family house. The walls in the larger place were paper-thin. I could hear my next-door neighbor's kids crying, the young lady upstairs cackling and copulating, and sometimes the superintendent in the basement tied his shoes at a deafening volume. You get used to it.
One of the last nights I was in this apartment I was lying on my bed, staring at my phone, and putting off sleep for no particular reason when I hear George, the old Greek man that shared my bedroom wall, answer his phone. George was hard of hearing, so he talked on the phone pretty loudly. Also, he was Greek, so he probably would have been conversationally yelling most of the time anyway. He answered in English, but didn't go straight into Greek the way he usually did when talking on the phone. My ears pricked up involuntarily.
'"Yannis? That you? What you saying? My brother in Greece died?"
I know it seems unlikely, but he really did give both sides of the conversation like someone in a stage play.
Then the crying started.
I have never been around an old man crying. They are a pretty stoic bunch. George lived alone. His father, who must have been at least 90, had stayed with him until he passed last year. Maybe the fact that he was alone in his place made him feel safe enough to let it out. Or maybe he just really loved his brother. He sobbed into the phone, alternating between Greek and English for the next couple minutes. Then he said he needed to call his sister in Athens. He wept loudly for a few minutes before calling her.
I felt horrible. I felt I shouldn't be listening, that the man should be allowed his privacy for this tragedy. Of course, I was in my own room, in my own apartment. It felt weird to go into the living room because of someone I barely knew that wasn't even in the room with me. Other than all that though, leaving felt like the easy way out, and people who know me can tell you I don't take the easy (or smart) way out of anything.
George eventually called his sister and gave her the bad news. The sobbing started up again in earnest and it went on for what felt like hours. I wanted to do something, but what? I didn't know this man. Just because he was alone doesn't mean he needs me and my sympathy butting in. Not to mention that if I went next door with a bundt cake and said 'sorry for your loss' he would have known I was listening in.
It was one of those moments where this city thrusts someone else's tragedy into your life. It didn't affect me directly, it was really none of my business. It still kept me up all night, long after George finished crying. There's a reason why they tell you New Yorker's don't want to get involved. It's not always because they don't want to be sued. 

Building a Tolerance

Yesterday a crazy man shot up a workplace. Twelve people were killed. Eight were wounded. The shooter was taken out by police.

I could have said that sentence at any point in the past ten years and it wouldn't make people blink. Those same words have crawled across millions of television screens so many times that it may as well just say 'Congress fails to achieve consensus on budget.' for all the reaction it inspires in this country.
A man walked into a secure Navy facility yesterday with a shotgun and pistol, rained bullets on people that thought they were in for a typical Monday at work, and it is barely a blip on the radar.
I don't know about you, but I haven't heard anyone talking about this, posting things about this, or staring at their hands in impotent bewilderment over this. It is being taken in stride. That's where we are. 

The funny thing is, it feels like the news media is trying to make it the same big deal it always should be. Breathless reports, horrified onlookers, the whole schmeer.  The president even pitched in with an address right after the attack, and even trotted out the old chestnut about 'calling for stricter gun control measures'. But even  he sounded bored.

It happened. We've gotten used to senseless gun violence in unexpected places. Yay? Is that a good thing? Because we're less horrified by this, maybe we're better equipped to live in the nightmarish world we've created? That's probably the most you can say about it. I would love to believe that this is a unconscious, collective effort by all of us to not allow the shooter to be made into a celebrity by the media. Maybe we are all becoming aware that the way these tragedies play out in the media, the way the shooters are made into celebrities, with their personal lives scrutinized and motives analyzed, is what inspires copycat crimes, and keeps us on this mobius strip of insanity and death. It would make my day to know we are all taking so much responsibility.

But I'm a cynic. The fact is that with Aurora and Newtown so fresh in everyone's memories, this just doesn't have the hook. Isn't scary enough.  'Unstable man who was discharged from the Navy under less-than-favorable circumstances shoots other military contractors' is like a headline you see on the main character's desk in some B-movie. Like someone just threw together all the usual pieces. The fact that these were people with families and lives to lead just doesn't break through the veil. We've seen it before.

And it doesn't get better from here.

Torture, muthafucka

I get it, we're angry. We've had another terrorist attack, innocent people were maimed and killed, and we have to go through the whole security clampdown tango all over again. We've been reminded once again that our children stand a good chance of being raised in a world defined by fear. There is no reason or excuse to be glib or dismissive about any of that.

But come the fuck on with the torture talk, already.

Everywhere you look, some internet tough guy is talking about all the things he would like to do to this Tsarnaev kid.

"We ought to waterboard this scumbag and see who his friends are!"

"Hang him by his balls and make him squeal! Nothing is too harsh for this POS!!!!"

"Lemme at 'im! I'll moiderize him for what he done did to all of us!"

(I'm Facebook friends with several cartoon characters from the 1940's)

Now, I understand visceral, hyperbolic reactions. I really wouldn't be me without them. Anyone who has read my impassioned, reactionary, and vaguely threatening open letter to the Motion Picture Academy regarding  Elia Kazan's lifetime achievement award can attest to this. What frightens and saddens me is when people look at me like I'm crazy or un-American for pointing out that we shouldn't do that. It's like I want the terrorists to win.
There were a lot of conversations like this in the wake of 9/11, and they came up again when the CIA's 'extraordinary rendition' program for high-value terrorist captives came to light. Thing is, like far too many national attempts at cognition, that conversation never really went anywhere. There are many people that have no issue with torture, and that is usually because they:

1) don't have a clear idea of what torture entails

2) don't think critically about what it does to a person to torture or be tortured

3) never listened carefully to the lyrics of the Jacksons'  1984 hit single "Torture"

There also seems to be a disconnect about why we shouldn't torture people up in here. Little thing called the Constitution, which sports a tasty little tidbit called the Eighth Amendment. It has to do with cruel and unusual punishment and whether or not we should do that (the gist of it is that, no we shouldn't). Don't concern yourselves too much with the details though, because lord knows that people in D.C. don't. Even one of the guys who we used to be able to count on to go against the grain of his own party and say 'Hey, not cool, stop with the torture' is joining the chorus to declare Tsarnaev an  'enemy combatant', effectively negating any rights he has as a defendant. 
That's right, John McCain. A guy who was tortured. He wants to see the hurdle of due process removed from this kid's case so that we can do whatever we want to him in a room without windows under the pretense of a need to extract information. You want to make this place a police state, go ahead. I doubt most people would notice anyway.
Just don't act like that doesn't make us exactly like the people that want to kill us.