November 11, 2011
“A coaching legend’s reputation hangs in the balance.”
Discussion of the recent revelation of events at Penn State has been happening everywhere, and a lot of people are saying really smart things on the subject. Plenty of people are saying stunningly ignorant and/or hurtful things, too, which is why I wanted to highlight one of the best things I’ve read on the subject. Guess what—it’s from the Onion:
Given the delicate situation, sportswriters said they felt the need to tread lightly and initially only asked victims how they thought Paterno might be feeling during this difficult time. They then followed up with more substantial questions about being exploited and preyed upon by a sexual deviant, such as how the victims thought their being pinned against a wall while Sandusky assaulted them might hurt Penn State’s 2012 recruiting class; how covering up a systematic pedophile victim-grooming pipeline, in the form of youth football camps, might damage the culture of winning Paterno worked so hard to establish; and whether they were worried about the mental state of the team heading into Saturday’s game against Nebraska.
That is some fiercely incisive commentary right there.
October 13, 2011
One versus fifty-three versus ninety-nine
Background reading: We Are the 99 Percent; Erick Erickson is a lazy parasite; CHARTS: Here’s What the Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About; Open Letter to that 53% Guy
There’s a photo being shared around Facebook (I tried to find a version I could link to, but wasn’t able to); I’ve now seen it twice on my feed. In the photo, what appears to be a young woman holds a hand-written note up in front of her face. In that note, she tells her audience that she is a senior in college and will soon graduate debt-free. She has worked hard and lived within her means, eschewing luxuries like a new car or an iPad, and is thus able to live comfortably. “I expect nothing handed to me,” she says, “and will continue working my ass off for everything I have.” She goes on to say, “That’s how it’s supposed to work,” and concludes, “I am NOT part of the 99 percent and whether you are or not is YOUR decision.”
I have a problem with this narrative. First of all, that last part appears to be based on a misunderstanding of what “we are the 99%” actually means. That statement is based on the distribution of wealth in the United States, i.e. the fact that the top 1% of the population control a sizeable chunk of the country’s wealth. The 1% is made up of the billionaires, the CEOs on Wall Street, the rich folks, the ones who use “vacation” as a verb, and so on and so forth. The 99% is the rest of us, the workaday folks, the ones who are really only one major accident or illness or layoff away from losing everything, no matter how much we believe that if we follow all the rules (don’t spend more than you earn, neither a borrower nor a lender be, keep your nose to the grindstone, etc.), we’ll always be able to live comfortably. And many of the 99% will indeed always be able to live comfortably, especially the middle class white folks. For many others, though, things don’t always turn out so rosy.
Secondly, here’s the thing: I understand how reasonable people can disagree on the efficacy and nature of the Occupy Wall Street protests. What I don’t understand is a) how and why people translate “hold Wall Street accountable for its actions” into “by demanding the aforesaid, I abdicate any and all responsibility for the decisions I myself have made,” and b) how, when faced with a choice between sympathizing with the “unwashed masses” of the 99% and the Wall Street CEOs, people who are in similar income brackets to my own would choose to sympathize with the CEOs. Sure, I’m in debt because I made some arguably questionable decisions—decisions that I nevertheless stand by today. But you know who helped me back up when I was at my lowest? It sure as hell wasn’t Bank of America. It was my friends and family—again, members of the 99%. We, i.e. the American people, bailed Wall Street out; they’ll only return the favor if they deem us an acceptable risk based on our credit scores, income, and other assests. How does that not strike more people as fucked up?
I guess people repost pictures like the one I describe above because they want to believe that’s true—again, that if you follow the rules, you’ll be okay. It actually reminds me of a certain variety of rape apologism, the one that appears to buy into the idea that if you follow a particular set of rules (this time it’s be a “good girl,” don’t drink or do drugs, don’t go places with strange men and DEFINITELY don’t have sex with them!, don’t dress in any way that could be termed indecent, etc.), you won’t get raped. Nevermind that people are often (usually?) raped by someone they know. Nevermind the innumerable survivors who’ve been raped in their own homes. Nevermind that both sets of rules rely on a fair amount of denial and magical thinking (child abuse? sudden catastrophic illness? whuzzat?). This is what we’re told, and what many people choose to believe: follow the rules, and you’ll be safe from harm.
And if you truly believe that, I’ve got a bridge or two you might be interested in.
October 7, 2011
The Topeka City Council and Domestic Battery
I imagine that many of you have now seen the Think Progress article discussing the fact that the Topeka, KS city council is considering decriminalizing domestic battery. I wanted to take a moment to dig a bit deeper into the specifics, and figure out what we can do to make a difference in this situation.
Here’s what’s going on, as best as I can figure out: to save money, the county in which Topeka is located, Shawnee, opted to stop prosecuting misdemeanors committed in Topeka. This meant that a whole bunch of domestic battery cases were dumped on the city, which is ill-equipped to handle them. The solution proposed by the Topeka City Council is that they repeal the part of the municipal code that bans domestic battery. The rationale for this is that it would force the county to start prosecuting those cases again. While I understand that impulse, the move strikes me as short-sighted and potentially dangerous. My hope is that between the council and those of us who live here and care about such things, we have to be able to come up with a solution to this problem that doesn’t involve literally decriminalizing domestic battery.
Locals: please contact the city council. It might be worth mentioning that this is making Topeka look bad on the national level, and could well be considered detrimental to local business and investment. It might also be worth contacting the Shawnee County District Attorney, Chad Taylor.
Out-of-towners: I’m not terribly impressed by this petition, but it’s better than nothing.
Both: please consider donating to or volunteering with the Topeka YWCA.
Thank you for your time and consideration!
April 21, 2011
Emily Dickinson: #249
Wild Nights—Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile—the winds—
To a heart in port—
Done with the compass—
Done with the chart!
Rowing in Eden—
Ah, the sea!
Might I moor—Tonight—
In thee!
—Emily Dickinson
April 20, 2011
Howard Nemerov: “Found Poem”
Found Poem
after information received in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 4 v 86
The population center of the USA
Has shifted to Potosi, in Missouri.
The calculation employed by authorities
In arriving at this dislocation assumes
That the country is a geometric plane,
Perfectly flat, and that every citizen,
Including those in Alaska and Hawaii
And the District of Columbia, weighs the same;
So that, given these simple presuppositions,
The entire bulk and spread of all the people
Should theoretically balance on the point
Of a needle under Potosi in Missouri
Where no one is residing nowadays
But the watchman over an abandoned mine
Whence the company got the lead out and left.
“It gets pretty lonely here,” he says, “at night.”
—Howard Nemerov, 1987
April 19, 2011
Jim Daniels: “Night with Drive-By Shooting Stars”
Night with Drive-By Shooting Stars
Broken beer bottle, fresh with the smell.
A corny joke among hip teenagers.
A loud laugh smacks cement. Muffled
bass from sky radio.
A screen door rattles, moans. A bus moans,
rattles. Litter of light from tall buildings
far away. A sandwich in its wrapper
spoiled by the day’s heat.
The arcing pain of a trigger. A car
idles, the engine tapping, eternal.
—Jim Daniels, 2002
April 18, 2011
Lisa D. Chávez, “The Perfecting of Desire”
The Perfecting of Desire
This is what matters:
the curve of muscle
in his forearm, the way
he smells—smoke, old leather,
beer. What matters
is desire, the way
his beard rubs my thigh,
the way my breath stops
as he slides inside me.
Our flesh sighs into light,
into flame, darkness illuminate.
Stripped down to the porous
skeleton of necessity, we are refined
to pure male and pure female, encompassed
by forces larger than ourselves.
My teeth graze his neck;
his hands bruise my shoulders.
And when we come
to ourselves, slightly sheepish, strangers
in our own bodies, we do not speak
of the place we left.
Some nights, we surrender
like angels, shaky and awed
by what we can do.
—Lisa D. Chávez, 1998
From Destruction Bay
Mary Oliver: “Tasting the Wild Grapes”
Tasting the Wild Grapes
The red beast
who lives in the side of these hills
won’t come out for anything you have:
money or music. Still, there are moments
heavy with light and good luck. Walk
quietly under these tangled vines
and pay attention, and one morning
something will explode underfoot
like a branch of fire; one afternoon
something will flow down the hill
in plain view, a muscled sleeve the color
of all October! And forgetting
everything you will leap to name it
as though for the first time, your lit blood
rushing not to a word but a sound
small-boned, thin-faced, in a hurry,
lively as the dark thorns of the wild grapes
on the unsuspecting tongue!
The fox! The fox!
—Mary Oliver, 1978
From American Primitive
Joan Logghe: Untitled
Posting three, count ‘em, three poems today! 
I hold one human form which is as much
blessing as body, as much prayer
as genital. One man I love is seventy.
The nerve to die, four or five of you.
I passed a sad man on the road
who would have loved me. Ambition
flew out our window over there,
a haze over the Jemez. Leftover flies
from summer on the glass. I swoon
my way through autumn. Not the same
knocking or the same wood. Held and holy,
the heart is the tisket, the tasket, blood
basket. Full lotus position and then the casket.
Under the next full moon, let’s just kiss.
—Joan Logghe, 2004
From Rice
April 15, 2011
Links, poetry-related and otherwise
I stumbled this morning upon this poem, by Catherynne M. Valente: A Silver Splendour, A Flame. It’s exceptional—part poem, part libretto for an imaginary vaudville show, part retelling of the Persephone myth, part kaleidescope, maybe even a bit of ars poetica, and entirely beautiful. Well worth checking out.
The Zingara Poet has begun a new series of interviews with poets, which will feature discussions with poets a bit more off the beaten path than one normally encounters in textbooks or at, say, Poets.org. The first interview, with Alarie Tennille, can be found here.
Just for the record, Liberty University (a private, conservative Christian institution founded by Jerry Falwell) received more money from the federal government last year than the Corporation for Public Broadcasting did. (Hat tip to Fred Clark.)
What’s with the abuse of figurative speech lately? First Senator Jon Kyl states that 90% of Planned Parenthood’s work is related to abortions (when the figure is actually closer to 3%), and when called on it, his office stated that “his remark was not intended to be a factual statement,” and then, after Kobe Bryant received criticism for calling a referee a “fucking faggot,” he stated that the slur “should not be taken literally.” What bothers me about issues like these is, quite simply, words mean things. “Oh, but that’s not what I meant” does not come across, to me, as a particularly compelling explanation. Even when writing poetry—a form of communication that is not generally assumed to represent factual statements or to be taken literally—if most of the people who hear or read your words take from them a meaning counter (or unrelated) to the one you’d intended, you might want to reconsider your words.
Of course, Jon Kyl’s statement ended up leading to a thoroughly amusing Twitter hashtag, so that’s something.
This article about a young woman growing up Objectivist has been making its way across the interwebs, but I thought I’d link to it as well, just in case my lovely readers haven’t seen it.
Happy Friday, all!
