Religion

This is just a mini rant. I seem to be on a tear today and I might as well get it all out!

There are a lot of people who wear their religion or lack thereof on their sleeves. That is, I know proseletyzing Christians and proseletyzing atheists, but not usually other faiths or non-faiths. I know preseletyzing Oprah fans, too, as well as Republicans who are constantly sending me their Ronald Reagan idolizing junk in emails. So I just want to say here that it isn't any of my business how you believe or don't believe. Since it isn't my business, please don't try to make it my business, and don't ask me about my faith or lack thereof. Because that isn't your business, regardless of whether your god tells you to preach the word.

Musings

I am on the verge of offending some people whom I consider friends. I don't mean to offend or hurt them. I am just fed up.
Fed up? Really? Why? I am fed up with Oprah. I find her narcissistic. There seems to be a cult of Oprah. It crosses the whole political, religious, sexual orientation spectrum, since I have friends of every stripe who find her fascinating, entertaining, educational, inspirational. I don't get it. I've seen her show, or rather, bits of it, and while I enjoyed the guests I was watching I didn't find her to be an incredible interviewer. I don't find her personally appealing. I have been switching back and forth since last night to check out her personal tv network and haven't seen anything yet that I couldn't see on A&E, TLC, Bravo, Lifetime, MSNBC Lockup or any other network I don't watch. Here's the deal for me: I don't talk about my religious beliefs, because they're mine, and I don't really care about yours, because they're personal to you. I don't want to know about other people's sex lives; if I wanted one, I'd have one, and if I wanted a partner, I'd look for one, but I don't care about other peoples' issues (unless it's my friend, that's a whole different thing). If I want to see hoarding, I'll just look at my spare room or garage or attic, and rather than sit and watch other people deal with their issues with hoarding I need to tackle my own cleaning (which I am). Maybe I am overly hostile about this, but I am inclined to think that if people spent the same amount of time living their own lives as they spend watching shows about other peoples' problems, their lives would be so much better. I watch a lot of television, I admit it. My preferences are, however, for fictional shows-cop shows, romantic comedies, old movies, science fiction. Not horror. Not personal non-fiction train-wreck shows. And to me, that is what Oprah's new network, much like her current talk show, is all about. A combination of celebrities (whose work appeals to me but not their personal lives) and non-celebrity train wrecks. I do like celebrities on talk shows when they are talking about their current projects or when they are just funny people, but I don't care about their lives too much.
Well, for what it's worth I've gotten that off my chest. Maybe at some point I'll find something on Oprah's new network that will appeal to me. But in the years she's had her magazine, nothing in it has compelled me to buy it or even read it, and I do buy women's magazines.

I don't really know why this stuff bugs me so much. Maybe because the whole idea of people turning to celebrities for their opinions and advice is so crazy to me. I will just use this one example, Glenn Beck. If you, for example, are a Baptist, then you wouldn't turn to a Mormon for religious guidance. In fact, you would slam the door on Mormon missionaries who came to your house. Yet millions of listeners think Glenn Beck, a Mormon convert, is brilliant. If he is that brilliant, those millions should be immediately searching out their nearest LDS church and signing up for conversion classes. Are they? If he is brilliant about politics then obviously his brilliance extends to his religious beliefs. So if you follow him politically because he is so brilliant, you should follow him in all things. But if he so disastrously wrong in his religious beliefs as you might assume, given that you aren't changing your religion to follow him, then why isn't he wrong politically? It is this cognitive dissonance that is so infuriating to me.

This example came to me because I just switched over to OWN and saw a bit with John Travolta. Scientology is a very odd religious belief system to most people, and most people don't follow John Travolta or Tom Cruise or any other celebrity into it, so that didn't fit into my analogy, but it triggered the whole thing. I don't watch Travolta's movies because I like his politics or his religious beliefs but because I enjoy his movies. So I don't have a huge desire to see him anywhere except in a movie. If he appears on a talk show I'm not tuning to the talk show to see him. On the other hand, I will watch George Clooney on some talk shows because he is very involved in some fine work in Africa, most especially the Sudan, and he has been working there for many years trying to improve those peoples' lives. That is important, and interesting to me. It doesn't hurt that he is easy to look at, but if he were just there talking about his current love life or his religion or his personal life at all, I wouldn't be watching. It is his work that draws and holds my interest. And he does a lot of that work quietly, only drawing attention to it in order to engage other people. I admire people who quietly do good works, donate money or otherwise try to help people who have not been as fortunate. What I find so unappealing about Oprah is that when she does good work it seems to be as much about promoting Oprah as it is about doing the good work.

New Year, New Plan

So for the new year I am planning to write more regularly here, on whatever topic comes to mind, and to craft my way out of my household clutter. I have so many unfinished (and unbegun!) projects that haunt me, and I really want to de-clutter so I am going to only give gifts this year that are either crafted or rescued. I'll post pictures as I go along, here on my blog, so I can track my progress.

I also hope to be kinder. And more organized. And work on my breathing.

Happy New Year!

Post-election thoughts

I had a brief conversation today with my mother about the election. She told me about going to hear a preacher last night who told the congregation that the health care bill would require us all to have black disks (think microchips) implanted that would enable the government to know all about us. I am not surprised. This crowd that seems to be the loudest and most likely to vote in our state only listen to Fox, only read emails with crazy shit like this, and believe what they're told as long as it gives them an excuse to hate the Democrats and fear the President. This is insane.
Anyone could have seen this sort of thing coming. Years ago the "Christian" Coalition determined that for the religious right in this country to gain the power they felt they deserved, they needed to start at the bottom. That meant that school boards, town and county councils, any local office, would become ground zero in their fight to take control. Gradually, at least in South Carolina, these people got elected. Often by using issues like abortion and gay rights, and subtly injecting racism, they became the ones who set school budgets, policy and curriculum standards. Rupurt Murdoch happily jumped into this by establishing Fox News, which has over the years descended into the right wing pool further and further, until this year his News Corp actually contributed money outright to the Republican party. One million dollars, at least. That is so unabashedly biased, and so inappropriate for a news organization, that it boggles the mind. But it wasn't a surprise that he did it, just a surprise that he did it so blatantly. This gradual takeover by the far-right has been the real reason our education system has been failing our students. Not the lack of prayer, as the more vocal would have us think, not the lack of bible reading, none of that. But the lack of critical thought. Many teachers have bought into this idea of "bad liberal, good conservative", and I honestly can't tell you why.
And another thing before I forget again-this idea of "American exceptionalism". I find it arrogant beyond belief that we look to our leaders to talk about our country as if it is the only "good" country on earth. If someone said to you, USC is the only university in the country where a person can get a good education, you would laugh him out of the room, even if you weren't a Clemson person. That is just a ridiculous thing to say. So to say, America is the only country on the planet where a person can have a good life-isn't that just as absurd? Everyone loves his/her country. Even those who are forced to leave their countries because of the political or economical climate love their home. So while people may come here for economic opportunities or asylum, they go to other countries besides the good old USA for those same reasons. People move. I love South Carolina, but I am not about to tell you that it is inherently better than North Carolina or Virginia or New York. It is better for me (although sometimes I wonder), but that doesn't make it the best for everyone. Same for our country. We have a great system, but other countries have emulated that system, some may have even improved upon it, and we have flaws just like everywhere. So I am fed up with the criticism of anyone just because they don't think America is "the greatest strongest country in the world" (thanks for that, Jon and Stephen!).
Okay, more later. Just a little vent for the day after elections that I think have taken our state-and maybe our country-in a totally wrong direction.

Changes

So, the snake has moved out. His stuff is still here, because even though he had notice nearly two months ago that he would have to move at the end of summer, he still made no effort to find employment. I finally had all I could take and let him know in mid-July that summer ended at the end of July (he of course wanted to argue that no, it ended mid-September). He still made very little effort to find work or shelter, so I don't know exactly where he is sleeping (although he emailed his sister that he slept on a park bench the first night). I hope to think I am a compassionate woman, but as to him, I really do not care. He had time (five months!) to find work and try to prepare for life on his own, and he chose instead to live like a hermit. I finally decided he wasn't really drinking (at least not so I could tell after a couple of times) but just holing up in his room, lying on the gradually flattening air mattress I had bought for him (because I couldn't afford a mattress for the bed he was using) and being too lazy or shiftless or whatever to even blow up the mattress-with an electric pump! By the time he left that mattress was nearly flat (and it doesn't leak, it was brand new).
Okay, now I can resume posts that are good for me, and quit obsessing about him. I look forward to my writing again.

Attitude

I am, at the moment, furious and trying not to be. I made the mistake of kindness. It is a mistake I often make. Remember the Al Wilson song about the woman bringing in the snake? I feel like the woman. Although he hasn't bitten me, he is disrupting my moods, and I hate it.

What happened is this. I had a friend, from many years ago, with whom I had been corresponding for a year or so. He got in a bad place (he was living in California). I had more or less casually commented before this that if he couldn't find a job there and should want to come back to South Carolina he could stay with me. He became unemployed in California, and didn't have success finding another job (based on his behavior since arriving here, I doubt he tried very hard). He asked if he could come here. I emailed his sister and told her I had concerns because he had been a heavy drinker in the past; she assured me that he didn't drink anymore. He assured me he would look for a job right away, that he had no intention of acting, as he put it, "as if he were on vacation". May I say, HA!! SNAKE!!

Since he came he has primarily stayed in his room. He sells plasma for money. He hasn't ONCE filled out a job application anywhere, and he doesn't even have his birth certificate with him (which is a requirement for a South Carolina ID card or a job)! I think he uses the plasma money for wine because I haven't seen but $50 in over two months.

I can't even stand to look at him at this point, because over the weekend I talked to him about all this and since then he is, if possible, worse. Years ago I swore I would never take anyone else in, and I should have stuck to it. I hate being lied to and used.

Civilization and Westerns

I have watched Westerns all my life. My father really liked them, and so I watched a lot of TV shows and movies about the settling of the western part of the US. Something that strikes me about these old shows is that usually one of the first things the new marshall or new sherrif does when they take office in a "wild" town involves guns. They don't give all the upstanding citizens guns and tell them to defend themselves. They don't go on a "war against crime". They make a law that no one in the town can be carrying a gun. They check the guns at the door, so to speak. The people who don't choose to cooperate are locked up, and their guns taken from them. The lack of guns is what establishes the beginnings of a town where people can walk the streets in peace.

So as our population moved westward, the towns began, and as decent, civilized people moved into them, the guns disappeared. Gunfights were discouraged, the rule of law established, and those who wanted to take the law into their own hands were arrested. I am not talking about having a gun in your own home for self-defense, foolish as I think that may be. I am not talking about England, where the police don't generally carry guns. I am talking about walking around with a six-shooter strapped to your leg or an AK-47 slung across your back. Those are things I expect to see in countries where there is constant warfare, or in the uncivilized west, or in the movies. To see it at Presidential events, at Town Hall Meetings held by Congressmen for their constituents, gives me the impression that there are those in this country who want to return not to the ideals of our founding fathers, but to the reckless behavior of the men who thought to take the west for themselves, with no thought for the civilized settlers who had just as much right to live on those lands. It gives me the impression that there are those in our country who want to return to those wild west days, with no civilization or law enforcement. And that is truly frightening.