How I solved the Immigration Problem in 12 simple steps

My immigration plan.

Folks have gotten worked up about this issue, and as a resident of an area that has seen its immigrant population grow by orders of magnitude in the last decade, I’ve given this issue considerable thought. Behold my plan for making it work:

Create a Guest Worker program.
This really is a no-brainer. We need cheap labor, and our nation as a whole benefits it. In many ways it’s a choice between importing cheap labor and exporting whole industries to other countries where the cheap labor resides. Guest worker programs can work, with proper administration and enforcement. Mine would run like this:

1. Anyone can apply for Guest Worker status, after a reasonable criminal background check and a basic English test. “Basic English” is a stripped-down version of English, comprised of about 800 easy-to-learn English words, giving the immigrant basic communication skills. Health screening and immunizations would also be required at the point of entry. If the Guest Worker wanted to work a job requiring a driver’s license, then he/she can take the test like everyone else, but this class of worker would be required to carry insurance and know more English. There would be a cap on the maximum number of guest workers (probably between 5 and 6 million), to be apportioned to qualifying companies.


2. A Guest Worker could only work for 5 years. No automatic citizenship, no renewal, no second chances, 5 years and you go back home to your family. At the mid-way point of your tenure as an American Guest Worker, you would be required to return to your country of origin for a period no less than 6 months. This would keep the Guest Workers’ kids from growing up essentially fatherless, and keep the relations between workers and their families somewhat more stable. While Guest Workers would not be automatically granted citizenship, the five year period would count towards residency and a successful tour as a Guest Worker, along with a citizen sponsor, would bump the applicant to the head of the line.

3. A Guest Worker would be required to work at least one 40 hour a week job, and would be paid not by the company, but through the Guest Worker program, which would deduct money for taxes, social security, fees, and a special savings program. If the Guest Worker wants to work on the side for more money, they can work until their fingers fall off with no additional penalty, and get paid by the employer directly. If the Guest Worker is fired for whatever reason, they will have three uncompensated weeks leeway to find a new job, or face deportation.

4. ANY SERIOUS VIOLATION OF THE LAW, including drug and alcohol related offenses, would result in the loss of Guest Worker status and result in immediate deportation and restriction from applying to the program again.

5. Health care costs would be deducted from the Guest Workers’ pay up front, to ensure that they do not drain local resources. Guest worker would comprise a solid, fairly healthy and young pool of insurees, making them attractive for a government-underwritten HMO/PPO.

6. A Social Security surcharge would be added to help pay for the Baby Boomers’ retirement. They are largely already paying into the system and not collecting.

7. The Guest Worker program would also mandate a savings account that would be returned to the Guest Worker upon completion of their term of service, like an IRA. This would provide a built-in nest egg that would send the guest worker back to their country of origin with a capital stake. Conversely, in case of criminal activity, this account would be forfeit.

8. You can’t get married legally in the US as a Guest Worker. If you have a child, that child retains your country’s citizenship, not US citizenship. Children would be allowed to attend public schools, provided they also attend ESL classes.

9. The Guest Worker program would come with ombudsmen built in to investigate any violations of worker safety and employment law. Wronged Guest Workers would be entitled to compensation through special employment courts. Employers that are found guilty of Guest Worker abuse would no longer be eligible to participate in the Guest Worker program, and would be forced to hire Americans – who can sue. No unionization of Guest Workers would be permitted.

10. Guest Workers could be housed in government-run or government licensed hostels for a nominal fee. Former military bases, church-run establishments, and abandoned or condemned properties could be used in areas with a high concentration of Guest Worker use.


11. One day a month, the Guest Worker would be obligated to appear for a day-long “community service” requirement, allowing the workers to contribute directly and visibly to the community in which they live. In addition, their first year would require monthly (if not weekly) attendance in basic literacy and ESL courses. After one year the GW program would assist the Guest Worker in getting their GED, if desired.


12. All Guest Workers would be required to take a 3 week long orientation course that would include covering laws regarding traffic, insurance, alcohol, firearms, spousal abuse, police affairs, and employment rights. In addition, skills like basic first aid and “housekeeping” issues such as how to use an ATM, cash a check, wire money home, etc. would be covered. In the first six month probationary period, if the Guest Worker runs afoul of the regulations he or she would be remanded to a special employment court where the judge would decide if a return to basic orientation or deportation was warranted. In the case of re-orientation, the worker would get an additional 6 months on probation. In the case of deportation, the worker would be obligated to surrender their bond/savings and/or repay the Guest Worker Program for their training.


OK, it sounds ambitious, but it’s really cheaper than dealing with the issues as they stand. First, it removes the large number of immigrants who use expensive Emergency Rooms as their primary care physician at public cost. Secondly, it manages the quality of labor entering the country, and provides a certain amount of basic training and coverage of laws that are routinely broken by illegals, largely out of ignorance, which is clogging our courts and criminal justice system. It would standardize the pay and employment issues without jeopardizing the low cost of the labor. And it would provide a good return on the Guest Worker’s investment, keep them in contact with their families, and allow them the opportunity to maximize their potential work without cutting into existing jobs. This keeps accountability in the system, provides low-cost labor for those companies that can qualify, and grants more general benefits to the communities at large.

Questions? Comments? Rude remarks?

An Open Letter to Catherine Sanders

Catherine Sanders recently wrote Wicca's Charm, a follow-up book to a series of articles about Wicca from the Christian perspective. While she's journalistically fair in her approach, and does get some things correct, I take issue with the thrust of her argument: that all the nifty stuff Pagans are drawn to in Wicca can be found in Christianity if you look at it the right way and hold your mouth right and ignore 2000 years of history -- so we should stop being witches already and come back to the church. While well-handled, her book is basically a guidebook in how to subvert the honest seeker from their chosen path and get them back in Church. Needless to say, I took issue with it, and here is the letter I sent to her:


Dear Catherine,

I’m sure you are assailed constantly by Wiccans and Pagans who take issue with your views. After reviewing your article on the subject, and purchasing your book last night, I wanted to join that chorus.

Since I have not yet received your book, I will limit my comment to your article. While I feel you have dealt fairly with the subject from a journalistic standpoint, I think that your analysis of the religion is shallow, and your comparisons to Christianity are off base.

As background, I have been a Wiccan and Druid for 20 years, come this August, and I have a degree from UNC-CH in Religious Studies. I consider myself a Pagan Theologian. I’ve devoted considerable time and effort in analysis of my religion and its wild growth in the two decades since I found it. I’ve also spent considerable time examining the relationship between Paganism and Christianity. Perhaps you would appreciate some of my insight to assist in your understanding of those factors.

The number of Pagans in this country is going to increase dramatically, and there is little that the Church can do to stem the tide. The factors are not, as you think, purely a failure of ministry to capture the attention of the youth, the failure is in the fundamental make up of modern Christianity – and the problem is so deep that there is virtually nothing that modern Christians can do to mend it, I’m afraid. The primary issues that most Pagans have with the Church are doctrinal, and they are so fundamental as to preclude any real return to the Church from Pagan ranks.

The combination of an undoubtedly Male godhead with radical monotheism has led directly to the spiritual disenfranchisement of women in the Church, and has further led to a patriarchal mind-set that permeates every aspect of inter-gender relations in the Christian Church. This is not a matter of letting the Ladies Auxiliary lead a service every now and then, it is a fundamental flaw in the make-up of all the Abrahamic faiths. When God is male, with no female counterpart, the deck is inherently stacked and any attempt at true coequal spirituality is dashed. Certainly the doctrine of the Trinity leaves open the possibility of feminine elements, but unless someone in true authority comes out and explicitly equates the Holy Spirit with the Goddess, the Church will remain fatally flawed.

The implicit denigration of Femininity in the scriptures also leads to a denigration of sex, itself. Until the Church is willing to recognize sexuality as inherently sacred, not inherently sinful, there will be few Pagans in your pews. Masturbation, menstruation, pornography, “uncleanliness”, and the host of petty bigotries based on scriptural assertions of the sinful nature of sex, a human universal attribute and font of all life, are anathema to Pagans. The whole concept of the Fall from Eden, predicated by feminine foolishness, is a slap in the face of every woman in the world, an attempt by a tribal patriarchy to provide religious justification for the virtual enslavement and mistreatment of women. You can make all the excuses you like, but the Genesis stories provide ample basis for this subjugation. In doing so, Jehovah has made war on the Goddess. How could we come back to worship the confessed perpetrator of such a crime?

Your take on Wiccan ethics, while accurate to a point, is limited. You do not understand the very sophisticated basis of our ethical life. In comparing our ethics to those of Christianity, you proudly tout that “Only because we have a transcendent Creator, who is perfect goodness and declared what is absolute good or bad, do we have grounds to condemn anything.”, while saying at the same time that “Wicca itself falls short of providing a basis for Wiccans to take social action.” Nothing could be further from the truth, and your analysis demonstrates a distinct lack of research on the subject.

No doubt the ubiquitous Wiccan Rede and the Threefold Law came up in your research. Most Christian critics of Wicca bring them up, praise them in a limited way, and dismiss them in favor of the “absolute good” Jehovah allegedly represents. They decry the lack of an “objective” guide for good-and-evil while ignoring the fact that under the “objective” rules in scripture the most horrendous crimes in history have been perpetrated. Yes, Wiccans do have highly subjective ideas about “good” and “evil” – but we aren’t nearly as concerned with the two as abstract concepts as are the Zoroastrian-influenced dualism of the Abrahamic Faiths.

Our Rede and Law are guides, ethical rules-of-thumb, not divinely given commandments. In our religion we depend on no one but ourselves and our own conscience to determine the rightness or wrongness of our actions. Do Wiccans occasionally transgress our self-imposed subjective morality? Of course, occasionally we do have people who commit acts that objectively could be considered “evil”. Do we forgive them, chalk it up to a skewed perspective and go on our merry way? We do not. We hold that person accountable for their actions.

Indeed, our religion revolves around the individual taking responsibility for their actions, good and bad. There is no Christian “get out of sin free” card. You are expected to make the right decisions, and if you do not, you are expected to live with the consequences. A Wiccan who truly understands what the Rede and the Law and the other ethical components you may have missed (the Codes of Chivalry, for instance, and the Path of Wisdom) knows that transgressions of commonly held moral views that hurt others hold powerful consequences, and encourage a tremendous amount of forethought before action is taken. Hurting yourself is not a violation of those principals – it’s just stupid, and is recognized as such.

Conversely, Christianity is packed full of people who pride themselves on being forgiven for their sins, and because of that they seem to be all the more willing to sin in the first place. “Only God is perfect” they say, as they indulge in one bad decision after another. They are never held to account, spiritually. It’s an ontological blank check, and Christians, in the Pagan perception, are constantly adding zeros to the amount. One reason why you see teens leaving the Church in droves for our covens and groves is because they tire of seeing their “devout” Christian parents indulge in daily hypocrisy. They want a religion that holds them to account. Wicca and the other Pagan religions are very big on constant and intense introspection about ethical issues, because we teach that no matter how much some transcendent deity may forgive you, it is you, and you alone, who must live with the responsibility for your actions. We don’t need commandments or laws to determine what is “good” and what is “evil”. We recognize that when a religion has such, everyone becomes a spiritual lawyer seeking loopholes, from medieval indulgences to modern televangelists crying on TV about their weakness for prostitutes and then declaring that they are forgiven. Our religion is not like that.

Can you tell me, Is Good really inherently good, independent of God, or is it Good because God says it is? Is Evil really inherently evil, or is it evil because God said it is? Under Christian doctrine and practice the “good” that the religion seems so proud of has been used to justify horrific crimes. When Christianity faces its collective responsibility and acknowledges the evil it has done in the name of supposed “good”, then we might come back.

But I doubt it. We’re not very forgiving that way.

You play up the environmental aspect of Paganism, and that’s all to the good. However, you fail to recognize the anti-environmental stance implicit in Christianity. According to the good ol’ Book of Revelations, the Earth is going to get burned up in the End Times anyway – so why bother with it? It is merely a tool God gave to Man, after all. You can quote other scripture all you like, but the overwhelming implication of Revelations, including the fatalism and hopelessness in that book, have forever tainted the Church against doing anything more than lip service to the environment. “Good Stewards”, indeed! Under Christianity we have seen our once glorious planet suffer as Man uses his Goddess-given gift like a rented mule. The tides are rising, the icecaps are melting, the species are dying, the Armada Storms have begun, all because for the last five-hundred years Christian doctrine has not only allowed the use of the Earth’s bounty with impunity or thought to consequence, it has actively encouraged it.

“The fact that all human beings are made in the image of God provides us with a basis to respect women and help the poor, while the pagan, pantheistic view of Wicca places human beings no better than inanimate objects such as rocks or trees.” This is another way in which you demonstrate the shallow nature of your study of our religion. “No better than . . . rocks or trees” . . . are we somehow “better”? Or is this attitude merely human self-aggrandizement, sufficient justification for the wholesale destruction of our world? The Church tries to claim moral superiority to our poor little limited view of humanity by claiming that Man was made in God’s image . . . when, in truth, we instead accept the idea that the rocks and trees were also made in the image of the Divine. If the Christian ethic based on this ideal held true, then we would not have the centuries of suffering the Church has spawned, up to and including the current war. Perhaps we hold human beings in no better esteem than rocks or trees . . . but we hold rocks and trees in pretty high esteem. When humans merit that esteem, we are more than happy to acknowledge it. Is a man worth more than a tree? Depends upon the man. Depends on the tree. Subjective morality is like that.



Christian missionaries approving clear-cutting of African forests to drive the animist tribes out of their arboreal lifestyle and into good little Church-centric villages, divorced from their livelihood; Christian missionaries in Southeast Asia buying little girls from starving families, only to raise them in convent schools and “ration them out” without brideprice on the condition that their future husbands convert – thus destroying a local culture that has evolved over a thousand years to maintain a careful balance with the fragile, limit natural resources at their disposal. The wholesale slaughter of tribal peoples in an attempt to pacify and civilize them while stealing the resources from their lands, with Christians more concerned about their souls than their lives. Christian bishops insisting that condoms do not protect against HIV/AIDS in Africa, and even saying that they spread the disease. Christians have a horrid history of abuses of both man and environment that has led directly to the current state of environmental affairs. And they do so because God told Adam he owned it all in Genesis and then told John the Divine that he was just going to destroy it all anyway.

And then there is the issue of basic Cosmology. Christians, of course, believe you get one shot to determine your eternal existence. Violate the rules, forget to ask for forgiveness at the right time, and you’re hellbound. Conversely, they cannot seem to agree upon what, exactly, one must do to escape the flames of perdition. Pagans see the afterlife as they see life, as a circle or spiral, granting plenty of opportunities for development along the way. In Christianity, you have the doctrine of unlimited forgiveness – but you wouldn’t need it if Jehovah hadn’t set up the rules to ensure unlimited damnation in the first place. Christ brings hope, perhaps, but it was Jehovah who established the hopelessness. Forgive us if we don’t think that’s a fair game. In respect to the afterlife and “eternal salvation”, Jehovah’s rules and attitude throughout the OT reveal a personality that, when sane, appears more like a Mafia don than a benevolent spiritual figure. Until the spiritual coercion implicit in Christianity ends, you won’t see many Pagans come back to the Church. As revealed in the OT, Jehovah simply does not measure up to Pagan moral standards as worthy of worship.
“As for spiritual reality, only Christian truth possesses a deity that took on human flesh, was real, and existed among us. Nothing is more real than Jesus and his Holy Spirit. He has given us the victory over the spirits of this world.” This statement reveals a gross ignorance of both other religions and your own. World religions are replete with examples of deities that took human form, took human flesh. There is nothing remarkable about Christ’s story, save that the mythology is hailed as history and stubbornly defended, despite any evidence to the contrary. It harkens back to the idea that the scriptures were, somehow, immune from the hyperbole and religiously-sanctioned mythologizing of the past that every single other contemporary culture and religion was subject to. And Christians make this claim without a real shred of evidence.
The divinity of Jesus? You can’t even satisfactorily prove the existence of Jesus, historically. How do you know the Bible is true? runs the argument. “It’s old!” the Chrisitans say, “and all these other people thought it was true.” But how did they know? “The Bible says it’s true – you just have to have Faith!” Faith is absolute belief without supporting proof. It’s a circular argument, and one that no self-respecting Pagan of sufficient maturity will fall for. And the implication, that unprovable “Christian truth” somehow trumps all other of mankind’s notions of divinity and automatically places it at the head of the morality line is laughable. You speak of victory over “the spirits of the world” without realizing the mystery: that the “spirits of the world” were never at war with us. We were at war with ourselves, and all Christianity did was to take that internal war which all man is heir to and express it as external war, turning the legitimate quest for spiritual truth into an all-or-nothing battle of evangelism and coercion. The Bible uses the language of warfare constantly, to devastating effect. The Goddess is above such conceits. She seeks not to war on the world, but enable us to live within it.
Indeed, the whole concept of a “divine book” is laughable to Pagans. How can a book be more divine than a tree? How can God say everything he’s going to say to one little tribe and trust them to pass it on to everyone else, untainted by local prejudice? As long as Christianity relies on the Bible as its basis, the “objective” standards you tout only serve as fodder to endless, mindless debate about interpretation, keeping people from true spiritual development as they wade through five millennia of mistranslated hagiography taken drastically out of context. As a rule, Pagans look on Christianity as a hypocritical, anti-female, anti-sex, anti-life death-cult that is bound and determined to see to the wholesale destruction of life on our world. For every positive example of Christian goodness there are a hundred horrific examples of evil done under the sign of the Cross.

Jesus isn’t the problem. Most Wiccans follow much the same path that Jesus preached. The problem is that Christianity has largely ignored his teachings in favor of glorifying his death and alleged resurrection. The Church teaches that the crucifixion is the important part and spends little time on the message. While it terrorizes your youth with images of human sacrifice and bloody torture, of eternal suffering and perpetual punishment, ours invites the youth to examine their lives devoid of threat and coercion. While the Church teaches damnation as the result of deviation from doctrine, the Coven and Grove teach the inherent worth and dignity of the individual, judged by no greater or lesser authority than yourself, with an emphasis on self love that is completely absent in Christianity. Jesus may have taught brotherly love and human understanding, but y’all lost sight of that in your liturgy and catechism long ago.

In short, most Pagans view Christianity as hopelessly flawed and devoid of meaning in our modern world. And attempts to preach at us, as kindly and gently as they may come, makes us mad. There will always be those Wiccans who go back to the Church. There will always be those Christians who find Wicca and the healing power of the Goddess and never set foot in a church again. But after twenty years of intense study on the subject, to have my religion dismissed so casually in favor of a pathologically crippled monstrosity, to have books written about how to subvert my coreligionists from their hard-won spiritual path, that infuriates me.

I have three small children who are all being raised Pagan. They are being taught a healthy respect for Life and Death, are being shown the eternal cycle of the seasons and invited to joy and delight in the manifold glories of Nature. They are being taught that God and Goddess are the Mommy and Daddy to us all. They are being taught to be truthful, helpful members of society who treat all people with respect and love. And yet they are constantly being told by schoolmates, teachers, and “well-meaning” adults that their mommy and daddy are going to Hell when they die, and the only way that we can be saved is to go to Church, where there’s this horrific dead guy on the wall and all the talk about blood. Christians try to get Pagan kids to sign “statements of faith” at “harmless” ice cream socials and Church sleepovers. Christian kids gang up on Pagan kids and call them devil worshippers and Satanists. Christians who tell Pagan kids their Goddess is a whore and a deceiver. The end justifies the means, that’s what Christianity is ultimately about. And you want my kids to come to this “wholesome” environment?

There are no books on how to convert Christians to Paganism. We don’t need them. Y’all are doing a fine job yourself. But I resent you laying out a plan to steal my children’s faith from them, I really do. Until Christianity can come clean and dramatically restructure itself, no amount of weaseling about how you can find “Wiccan elements” in scripture is going to make a convincing argument. It’s a creaky, decrepit house that keeps getting propped up, and every time it does it becomes more rickety and less able to provide spiritual shelter to those who hunger for such.

Arion the Blue

Post-Partum Sex: Myth or Legend?

It’s not often that I plug another blog, but every now and then you come across something worthy of comment and pee-your-pants kinda funny. When that happens, you want to share. So here goes:

http://thenaughtymommy.blogspot.com/

Naughty Mommy. Heh. Anyone who knows me, where I work, or knows my wife realizes why this is personally a hoot. It’s one of those “sex-after-baby” sites, but one written with humor, talent and style. With the motto “Putting the T&A back in PTA” as a masthead, how could you go wrong?

The simple fact of the matter is that once you have a baby, your erotic life changes irrevocably. At first it’s depressing, maddening, and frustrating. By Kid #2 the dull, numbing realization that your genitalia have done their job and can go home, now, sets in. By Kid #3 your thoughts about sex tend to be more philosophical than primal, and you start thinking of your offspring in terms of your Genetic Legacy so you don’t think of them as ruthless midget cock blockers and entertain thoughts of infanticide after a particularly frustrating evening.

Rekindling that pre-child spark in a relationship is difficult because it isn’t going to be just about you and your partner . . . ever again. Apart from the involuntary insomnia and emotional trauma of the first 7-12 months of your offspring’s life, there is a new psychological factor present in your bed every night. The Child. They may not be there, physically, but they’re always Somewhere, and to be a good parent that Somewhere has to be on your mind constantly.

From the Mommy perspective, your body has just endured a year of physiological trauma akin to the transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly. While you are learning to cope with the physical issues and infirmities that arise with labor and delivery, and its ugly aftermath, your hormones are raging like an out-of-control forest fire – but not in a good way. Sex is, literally, the last thing on your mind. You don’t need the intimacy – the bond you share with the New Kid is like fine wine compared to the cheap, flat beer kind of intimacy provided by your husband. Your boobs are no longer property of either you or your husband, and they are about as erotic as a beverage vending machine. Your nether regions are painfully recovering from the most distressing disturbance ever, and the very thought of your man making an erotic advance on you is vile sounding, insulting, and potentially denigrating to the whole concept of Motherhood.

From the Daddy perspective, you are a confused and frustrated ball of hormones and low self-esteem – but not in a good way. You are nearly as sleep deprived as the new Mommy. You also have the tremendous psychological impact of not only being utterly responsible for this new, helpless life you’ve sired, but also for this new, bitchy wife you’ve acquired. And you don’t have a single drop of the serotonin-enhancing hormones your wife’s body pumps out in compensation for the extreme circumstances. Every move you make under her eye is laden with suspicion and mistrust. You have become a junior partner in your marriage, yet the pressure for success goes up by orders of magnitude. You are held up to an impossibly high standard by your wife, her sisters, her girlfriends, her mother, and passing strangers who all have invaded your home and feel obligated to point out your shortcomings as a father, husband, and a man. There is no way you can ever meet this standard. And every sniffing comment on dirty dishes, unfolded laundry, and un-vacuumed rugs becomes a pronouncement on your fitness to be involved in the sacred rite of Motherhood.

Not Parenthood. And certainly not Fatherhood – who the hell needs ‘em? Motherhood is the gold standard, and you will never, ever, ever achieve it. Under the Maternal Microscope, nothing you do will ever, ever be right. This is Mommy’s show, you’re a mere stagehand – it doesn’t matter how many diapers you change, backs you rub, meals you prepare, or the work you take home because the scant compensated “Maternity Leave” your boss begrudgingly extended to you was taken up not with bonding with your new baby, but with catering to the constant physical and emotional demands of wife and child. If that isn’t sapping your self-esteem during this confusing and frustrating time, then congratulations! You’ve found the right medication.

The last ten months have been a roller-coaster of life-changing internal monologs revolving around the implications of the New Kid. The next ten months will be a long and frustrating battle to re-establish yourself as a real Player in your new family, and not a mere servant. You are emotionally shattered, physically exhausted, and psychologically scarred from seeing your favorite piece of anatomy on your wife turned inside out and stretched beyond recognition. Boobs? They seem to be out all the time, big healthy fluffy boobs, too, round, firm, fully packed and ripe for the picking. Just because they are lactating – who knew? – that shouldn’t be a barrier to your enjoyment of them. But. You. Can’t. Touch. Them.

You see sex as a relief, a vital reaffirmation of yourself as a human being and a man. Sex can bring it all back, you tell yourself. That heady orgasmic bliss will soothe your aching ego as well as re-establish the profound love that brought the New Kid into existence in the first place. Perhaps it will also remind your wife of your small, pathetic little needs, as well as the fact that you have purpose beyond Waste Management. You are biologically programmed to use sex as a bridge to your deeper emotional life – you have a difficult time “opening up” without it, so all of these extreme feelings you have are backing up like a broken septic tank. You need sex like an addict needs a fix.

And it just ain’t gonna happen.

It’s a shock when that fact settles in. If you are lucky you will be so busy those first few months that you won’t think about it. That first-six-weeks-no-intercourse rule hangs over your bed like a stern guardian of your wife’s vaginal security, but you intellectually understand the medical reasoning behind it. The Happy Place needs time to heal. And it does give you a goal – if you can’t have sex for the first six weeks, then surely you can have sex after the first six weeks.

There’s a big difference, however, between ‘can’ and ‘will’. Even as you get home from your wife’s six-week-post-partum check up, you are eagerly stripping off your clothes, selecting an appropriate G-string to wear for two minutes, and considering if it’s too early to re-introduce a little light porn, your wife will glare accusingly at you, clutch her baby (HER baby – not yours) protectively in her arms, and snarl “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?!?” Game Over.

The temptation exists to stand around your wife while she nurses, whimpering like a dog begging at the table for scraps. It seems demeaning and degrading at first – and it is – but after a couple of weeks without sex your pride level drops low enough to keep your self-esteem company. Begging doesn’t seem quite so bad anymore. Do it right, it might even be kinky. Get rejected? Go back for more. Maybe if you grovel just a little harder this time . . .

There also exists the temptation to engage in an argument that would have been perfectly normal and healthy . . . pre-Baby. To do so now is to invite untold misery into your personal life. Blaming Mommy because Daddy’s head is about to explode with sexual tension is just a poor idea. It also invites the wrath of her maternal support network, who will have no problems verbally eviscerating you for your temerity. How DARE you blame her for your insignificant problems! And, of course, there is the highly pragmatic issue of an argument just not working the way that you want it to. Best to keep your fool mouth shut. Perhaps if you casually, humorously mention it: “Remember that thing we used to do? Wouldn’t it be cool if we—”

But no. Your natural desire for sex is a perverse sign of your flawed humanity in her eyes. That you could entertain such base thoughts at such an important time reveals your own utter lack of sensitivity. Push it far enough and she’ll start to verbally muse about what she saw in you in the first place. Try to take matters in your own hands – and get busted on it – and you are likely to hear the shriek “How can you jerk off when there is LAUNDRY to be done? What kind of man are you?”

And that’s without the complication of Post Partum Depression. Like PMS and Menopause, this is one of those great female Mysteries that you, as a man, must always be understanding about but must never mention in her presence. No matter how many baby bottles she throws at your head, you must not suggest that she might be feeling a little PPD, lest your possibility of getting nookie – ever – dry up completely. But PPD is a very real and very scary thing, and it is wise to take that into account when you are considering groveling. Remember: women with Post Partum have been successfully acquitted for murder due to insanity. Best not mention that last part to your honey.

Your personal dam will come under strain. Men feel the need to have sex when they are stressed, and nothing stresses you like a new baby, a temporarily insane wife, and a boss who grew up in an era where the Father, as functionary, did not become the focus of the childrearing experience until the kid was at least 12 – “Whaddaya mean you need to get off early again? Can’t she handle a little mommy-crap on her own? You’ve got important things to do! Keep this up and you can be a stay-at-home Dad!”

When the frustration level gets to that certain point, where your subconscious mind is considering which co-workers you would have an affair with in an ideal world and you look forward to a half-hour’s worth of masturbation the way you once anticipated Date Night, it can be hard to successfully communicate these inner feelings to your mate without sounding . . . selfish. And that’s the issue, to her. Your alleged sexual needs, she sees, are a selfish manifestation of your inherently selfish personality. They are something that has nothing to do with her or the baby – just a crude physiological self-gratification, the kind that you should be more than willing to trade in for the august position of Fatherhood.

REE-jected!

So you brood, and your mother-in-law wants to know what’s wrong with you. You sulk, and wife’s BFF thinks you don’t like the baby. Show the smallest signs of self-pity and anger, and you get accused of falling out of love for your wife and mother of your child just when she needs you the most. You cannot defend yourself against these accusations. To do so validates them in the minds of the females involved.

The best tactic to take is a kind of perverse stoicism. Cultivate a monk-like serenity. Go ahead, bottle up those emotions. Pack ‘em down tight – that’s the unselfish thing to do. Consciously distance yourself emotionally from your mate during the period where she wants you to simultaneously be an emotional punching bag, a flawless housekeeper, and a sensitive father to your new child. Cultivate that distance, because it will keep you sane during the next year, while she copes with Motherhood herself, recovers from the hormonal yo-yo, and redefines herself as a woman. As much as you crave it, as much as you need it like the breath of life itself, forget that such a thing as sex exists – any less sets you up for continual disappointment. Eventually, she might let you in. Until then, keep your damn mouth shut and your mind on the laundry.

Of course by that time your own emotional development has become stunted, and your self esteem shrivels up to a ghost of its former self. Your emotional survival and self-image as a man is in jeopardy. You suddenly understand that certain expression on your father’s face. Despite yourself you come to resent your wife and kids and know, instinctively, that your value to them is based solely on how useful you are, and not much more.

Someday, perhaps, your wife will want to have sex with you again. She won’t feel like it, she won’t like it, and it won’t be any good, but by that time a three-minute quickie while the baby naps is like tantalizing dew-drops to a man dying of thirst. No matter how bad the sex is – and it will be bad, mark my words – it will be the first tangible sign that you may have a relationship again.

Emphasis on may. There are no guarantees. Sometimes the strain of the new baby on a relationship is such that it becomes permanently broken. I’ve known even the strongest of relationships to break under that stress. And again, it isn’t just the two of you any more, even when it’s just the two of you.

A co-worker of my wife’s once explained to her the downfall of his own marriage one late night before we were married. He blamed it on the “little shit” scenario, the typical masculine response to the Big Freeze after labor and delivery.

The short version runs like this: New Daddy loves the baby, loves the New Mommy, love, love, love. But New Daddy gets no love of his own, knows New Mommy used to love him, and recognizes the New Kid as the alienating factor. New Kid goes quickly from being the light of your life to the little shit that’s monopolizing the woman you spent years, probably, making into the wife you love. Once the New Kid is weaned successfully, and the Boobies return to your ostensible possession, the little shit still keeps your wife from thinking about sex for the first year or so. The milestones of development progress – sleeping through the night, the need to belch, solid foods, etc. – and the excuses for no sex gradually fall away, but the little shit keeps getting in the way of you having the sex you so richly deserve.

Resentment builds, until you can barely look at your cute baby without blaming the little shit for the longest cock-block in history. Any experiences you do have are furtive, at best, with the constant possibility of the little shit crying or otherwise interrupting your savoir fare looming over the pathetic “moves” that used to work with your wife. Only now, instead of her warming up with your caress and laughing at your stupid pre-sex jokes, she blithely strips off her nursing bra and says with a sigh “We have to hurry – and don’t touch the boobs yet.” Keep it up, and the Little Shit will become a permanent wedge in your marriage, and ultimately keep you from a fulfilling relationship with your own kid. As you grow more and more resentful, your wife becomes more and more dissatisfied with your emotional distance. And your chances of scoring slide quickly to zero.

The one issue I have with Ms. Raykeil’s blog is her emphasis on quality over quantity. I respect it and understand it – to a new mother, few things are more sexy or life-affirming than a husband who changes diapers without complaint and folds laundry without being asked – but I take issue with it. No doubt there is a part of the New Mommy that finds new orgasmic heights in post-baby sex. But to a New Daddy, a single earth-shattering experience a month is a poor substitute for more regular, more mediocre sex. While New Mommy might see once-a-month Date Night as an opportunity for superlative romantic and passionate married-people sex, New Daddy would be so much more appreciative of a weekly handjob or so, just until things return to some semblance of normalcy. It isn’t a character flaw in us – it’s just how we’re wired. We can’t help it any more than y’all can help menstruation.

Now, all of this being said, I want to emphasize that the problems and situations I’ve discussed are by no means a reflection on my wife’s behavior during any of the three New Kids we’ve had. I won’t say that we had a seamless and problem-free transition between pre-baby and post-baby sex, but we were forewarned about the matter, and both of us made a conscious effort to deal with our mutual psychological conditions without recourse to personal judgments or verbal condemnations. But we’re weird. Most couples go through this long and painful transition with no clue what’s going on in each other’s heads, and little desire to add the complications of a real sex life to the already-complex world of New Kid. Not everyone has my wife’s obsession with communication or my own passion for personal introspection. They aren’t told about this by their elders, largely because they don’t want to re-live those wonderful, ghastly days, or discuss it with the grown up Little Shits who still get in the way of their sex life. And I can’t blame them. This column was hard enough to write, knowing how many of my friends, family members, and passing strangers will read it. But it is important that this point of view is expressed, and likewise important for my wife to know that I rarely, if ever, entertain the “Little Shit” model of post-partum sexuality.

Now, if I could just keep “Elmo’s Song” from playing in my head when I’m “doing it”, and I could look at a sexy bra without thinking “How the hell could she nurse in that?!?” I’d be one under par. As it is, I get more than most men in my situation, and my wife is a princess among women.

Maybe that admission will be enough for me to score tonight. But I doubt it.

An Open Letter to Dawn Ostroff

An Open Letter to Dawn Ostroff

Dear Ms. Ostroff:

I admit, I had mixed emotions about the merger between UPN and the WB networks to create the “CW” network. On the one hand, both small networks have produced some quality programming (and, sadly, some less than stellar) over the years, taking programming risks that larger companies would not. As a result, a number of hit shows that would have languished on the larger networks were allowed to flourish. On the other hand, the combination of companies will undoubtedly make the resulting network stronger, as the better shows from both networks are combined. And then there is the chance for new programming, the subject of my letter.

Bring back Firefly.

Yeah, I said it. You have experienced the incredible talent that Joss Whedon and his creative posse possess before. You know how fanatical his fans can be. This is an opportunity to bring high-quality programming, with an established track record and built-in fanbase, to the new network in truly superlative fashion.

Unlike the Angel/Buffy crew of stars, the Firefly cast has yet to sign on for long-term projects elsewhere. They are all still available. The set of Serenity is still there (I believe) and the enthusiasm that everyone shared for the show is just as present now, after the movie. This is a show that has already gone through the painful (and expensive) development phase already, has attracted a core of die-hard fans who are very active, very vocal, and loyal to the extreme, and has already proven its “legs” in a very well-received feature film.

Yes, there are obstacles in the way. Whedon is working in comics, on movies, and is far from his TV roots. The cast is looking at guest shots and searching for more permanent work. The crew that was so integral to the experience has in many cases moved on. But I believe every one of them would jump back on board, if given the opportunity.

This is the world of TV. Anything can be done if you want to badly enough – and I speak for about a million Browncoats when I say we want it badly enough. I therefore strongly encourage you to open negotiations with Whedon, et. al. and return this outstanding series to television. Whedon, for all of his genius, really needs an episodic format in which to develop the characters that drive his stories, and CW is going to need so thick, meaty, and popular fare to survive more than a year or two. Do us all a favor and lure Whedon to your new creation. Get him his ship, his crew. And put us in the air again.

You won’t regret it, I swear. Hell, the DVD revenues alone would make it pay.

Sincerely,


Terry Mancour
tmancour@gmail.com

Cracks in the Foundation: the Sudden Emergence of the Evangelical Center

It was with great amusement that I read this morning that a group of Evangelical Christians has come out strongly against global warming. I was amused because this major political force in our nation, once seen as monolithic, is starting to crumble and splinter because reality doesn’t seem to conform to holy writ. It must be very frustrating for them.

Environmental issues have never played a great role in Evangelical religion, and it’s not because trees and bears don’t vote or tithe. There are two problems, one spiritual and one political.

Firstly, the major tenant of Evangelical Christianity, especially its 21st century manifestation, is at odds with the whole concept of conservation and environmentalism. Sure, there have been Christian calls for better stewardship of the environment, but these have either been completely flaccid publicity stunts to court environmentally conscious youth (who have abandoned the Church in droves for more spiritual, less organized religious expressions) or from the small, vocal, and impotent Christian Left.

Environmentalism, you see, is the idea that maybe we shouldn’t mess up the Earth too badly, because we and our children will need a place to live in the future. That is contrary to the Evangelical view that we don’t need to be concerned with the Earth, because it’s the End Times and its all gonna get blowed up anyhow. So for an Evangelical to step forward in favor of the environment is tantamount to that Evangelical denying the widely-held belief that the Second Coming is imminent, and will be televised live on Fox News with an opening address by George Bush. Which brings us to the political realm.

Bush came to power based in large part by combining the “boots on the ground” of the Evangelical voting bloc with the infinitely deep pockets of the Petroleum Industry. The two even have dovetailing interests in the Middle East, with Big Oil craving high prices and control of Iraqi oil fields (and eventually Iran’s as well) and Big Religion seeking a powerful Israeli state, so they can be a player in the coming End Times. Add in the Military-Industrial complex, which nearly starved to death during the post-Cold War reorganization of the Clinton Administration, and you have a potent political force. But one with some weaknesses, and this is one of them. To be pro-Bush means to be pro-Big Oil. And coming out in favor of the Earth is definitely anti-Big Oil.

The Evangelical movement is not a monolith, and this issue has revealed the cracks in its surface brilliantly. To the one side you have the pro-environment, anti-suffering Centrists, who may think we live in the End Times but who don’t see that as an excuse to eschew basic Christian principals such as compassion and stewardship. On the other side you have the far right-wing, most of whom have offices inside the Washington Beltway, have prayer breakfasts with Congress and Texas oil executives, and who automatically view with suspicion anything that looks like nature worship and idolatry.

You can see this split by seeing who signed the statement – and who didn’t. The Bush Imperium’s pet Evangelicals, including James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, Pat Robertson’s people, former Watergate conspirator-turned-Evangelist Chuck Coleson, Franklin Graham, and other stalwarts of the Religious Right are conspicuously absent. The parties that did sign are decidedly centrists and less-political. But they may well have earned the enmity of their politically-connected brethren for their social heresy.

The problem for the Beltway Evangelicals is that the list of signatories also represents a big chunk of the rank-and-file Evangelicals whom they successfully mobilized in the last two elections by using social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. To come out strongly and reprovingly against the measure – which is a slap in the face to their Big Oil allies in the Imperium – is to risk alienating a significant chunk of this base right before an important mid-term election. Yet they cannot let the centrists get away with this – to care for the environment so borders on apostasy in their religion.

In fact, Coleson, Dobson, and Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, wrote a carefully worded but clearly unmistakable rebuke to the heretics, claiming that “human beings come first in God's created order.” "And that primacy must be given to human beings and for human betterment. If that means that other parts of nature take a back seat, well, then they take a back seat.” They further state that they cannot get behind the measure because there is not a clear consensus in the Evangelical community about this issue. While they didn’t end the letter with “This letter has been brought to you by Exxon,” they may as well have.

This, despite the heart wrenching images of Hurricane Katrina victims being plucked off rooftops and crying desperately for water, medical attention, and government assistance. The Centrist have declared that the ferocity of Katrina was due, in part, to global warming and environmental degredation – poor stewardship of the Earth. They looked at the faces of those God-fearing American Christians who were suffering, and realized that much of the world could look like that soon if something isn’t done. Following in the steps of Christ, it was the right thing to do to take action.

The Beltway Evangelicals saw the victims differently: when what those folks wanted was a little of that Compassionate Conservatism they’ve heard about for the last six years, what they got was smug pronouncements by the Beltway Evangelicals that their fate was sealed because of New Orleans rowdy tourism industry. Likewise the folks on the Redneck Riviera who got hit were getting retribution for letting casino gambling into their midst. The Evangelicals were strangely silent on the number of oil refineries that suffered God’s Wrath.

The problem for the Centrist Evangelicals is that they have little political clout, outside their ability to produce registered voters. They aren’t well-connected to the Imperium. Nor are they the loudest voices in the movement. They are merely deeply caring, highly religious people who are trying to follow the humane and responsible tenants of their religion. They are not they Apocalyptic-minded crowd who is dictating the Bush Imperium’s foreign policy based on the Book of Revelations. But by taking this step, they have cast doubt on the credibility of the Beltway crowd, and don’t think they won’t fire back. It’s what they do.

There is also a racial component here. Looking at the Centrists who signed the document, there are a number of black Evangelical churches represented. The Imperium’s pet Evangelicals are almost uniformly white. You couldn’t ask for a better demonstration of this split than the recent televised funeral of Coretta Scott King, wherein a number of very devout black Evangelicals publicly savaged the Bush Imperium’s policy, with George II sitting there uncomfortably and having to take it. Black Evangelicals have never come out solidly for the Republican party, and that split, as well, has been the dirty laundry of the whole Evangelical movement.

The whole tragic comedy has pointed up one of the three major things wrong with Christianity: the Book of Revelations. This ancient, nightmarish record of an early saint’s bad acid trip was, for whatever reason, included at the end of the New Testament, a fact that has doomed the religion from its inception. Christianity has painted itself into a theological corner with Revelations, and the impetus for salvation and participation in the final, glorious holy war is in direct odds with the compassionate message of Jesus himself. It’s hard to love thy neighbor while expecting to kill him some day on the plains of Armageddon. Revelations has injected a fatal air of fatalism into the religion, one which most “liberal” denominations gloss over, but one which the Evangelicals have embraced and celebrated. That’s right, Boys and Girls, the Finger on the Button was put there by folks who are expecting Bush II to use it in the glory of the Lord.

This myopic reliance on prophecy has always plagued Christianity, causing mass panics, crusades, and general freak-outs throughout the ages. Today it can be seen in the large number of mega-churches funded by well-meaning believers who were encouraged to take out second mortgages on their homes to build them, going on faith that they wouldn’t have to pay the money back because Jesus would be showing up Any Minute, Now. Rural bankruptcies have skyrocketed since 2000, and a lot of that money went to the bright shiny mega-churches and the Republican party coffers. When you compare, theologically speaking, the importance of electing a righteous leader who will protect the Holy Land to the viable sustenance of the world on which we live (but which won’t survive the Tribulation) it’s easy to see why the Imperium is more important than a couple of trees and forest creatures.

This is an especial moment of crisis for Christianity. It has a choice whether to take up swords and march on the infidel for one final, glorious bloodbath before eternal heaven, or to live up to the ideal of loving thy neighbor and practicing compassion and lovingkindness, bringing social justice to the poor and unprotected. It is just this kind of spiritual dilemma, one which demonstrates the religion’s hypocrisy, which has caused the majority of Pagans to abandon their parent’s faith and discover one which isn’t so depressingly fatalistic. It shall be interesting to see which way it goes.

Other cool links to this story: Salon http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/02/09/evangelicals/

New Geopolitical Blog!

I've decided to spin off my geopolitical musings and predictions into a distinctive blog: The Crystal Ball. I'll continue adding articles to both of these, but this blog will remain more personal. Check out the new one: http://druidscrystalball.blogspot.com/

Thanks!

The High Druid of Durham

The Wisdom of Irv

Today is my 38th Birthday.

I’ve always had a morbid dread of my birthdays, once the excitement of my childhood passed, as they were an annual reminder about how I was getting closer and closer to facing my own mortality and all the existential stuff that comes with that. 38 is particularly brutal, because I can no longer fool myself by saying, “Oh, I’m in my mid-thirties” anymore. 38 is Late 30s. Demographics don’t lie. If current life-expectancies hold true, my life is at least half over. My 20th High School Reunion is this year, and apart from one little New York Times Best Seller and two bona fide Dream Jobs under my belt, three precocious, healthy tots and a beautiful wife who makes more than I do, what do I have to show for it?

Oh.

I was struck recently by how good I’ve got it. I live in the greatest civilization the world has ever known, with all the world’s knowledge available for my study in the time it takes to Google, enjoy a standard of living undreamt of by the vast majority of history’s royalty and superrich, and just a century ago the likelihood that I’d be dead by now would be pretty high. It would make a great story to tell you how hard I struggled against overwhelming odds and untold suffering to achieve my current life, but that would be fictional bullshit. I’ve had it good from the start, and I can directly pinpoint the reasons that are most responsible.

This thought occurred to me the other day as I was passing by the playpen where my youngest son, not yet two, had grown dissatisfied with the entertainment value of Noggin and pleaded with me to pick him up, with his customary cry of “Holdju! Holdju!”, accompanied by raised arms and frantically waving hands. Cute.

Just then a flood of comprehension washed across my soul, and the planets aligned, and I had what some would call a quasi-mystical experience. I’d say it was a flashback, except that I was no where near as pharmaceutically liberal in my youthful experimentation phase as most of my peers. I just remembered being in a similar situation when I was around the boy’s age. And that made me appreciate my father, Irv, who himself just had an ostensibly important transitional birthday, his 60th.

If you don’t know Irv, you are the poorer for it. He, like me, is a father to three children, three boys, no less. He was a “Sedimentation and Erosion Control Technician” (read: “Dirt Inspector”) for Durham County for a decade and a half, and had other, less glamorous jobs before that. On paper, he was completely unexceptional: middle class, two-year degree, wife ‘n’ kids. But read between the lines there and you find out just how subtly exceptional he was.

My Dad is the wisest man I know, bar none. While our opinions on many subjects (politics included) have diverged slightly over the years, he remains the most astute analyst of human social interaction and behavior that I have ever known. The lessons he has passed on to me have gone far beyond the “fatherly wisdom” variety, and delved into deep, rich territory.


Unlike the vast majority of his peers, he did not pursue affluence or wealth. Prosperity, yes. Having just enough was enough. “Friends are more important than money” was one of the many, many maxims he instilled in me, and he proved it, over and over again. Faced with the inevitable choices that a middle-class family has to make about expenditure, he consistently chose the path that led to investments in his family, not in things. Oh, he could have, easily, by making the choice to pursue a soul-killing job in middle-management somewhere. But he didn’t, and I am the richer for it.

He was not the typical Boomer Dad, thank the Goddess. He was an outstanding parent, conducting the brain-busting, wallet-draining task of raising three precocious boys to men without investing a shred of self-important ego into the task. He didn’t cheat on his wife, indulge in cocaine or fundamentalist religion, go through some self-delusional pity-party midlife crisis, or any of the other asinine stunts his generation was prone to. He lived life well, a life to be envied, and he had no regrets about the way he did it. If he had disappointments in his life, I rarely knew about them, and bitterness was not in his nature. When I take a survey of my closest friends, I find myself in the enviable position of having the same set of parents, in the same household, that I started out with – which makes me an aberration. I don’t mind.

Perhaps I suffer as a writer because I didn’t experience the agony of “daddy issues”, testosterone-laden competition between father and son, mutual disappointments, constant arguments, or the idea that he “just didn’t understand” me, but I can live with professional mediocrity if that’s the price of admission to greatness. Irv always understood me. He never tried to dominate me, or live life vicariously through me or my brothers. He never tried to make me conform to an uncomfortable social stereotype, or worry overmuch what other people thought about me. We were never trans-generationally alienated. From adolescence on he treated me like an intellectual equal, if an undereducated one. He never tried to push me into a career, or really do anything but exploit my natural talents and interests. He ensured I learned the skills I would need in manhood, and did it in a non-coercive way. Seeing how my peers were raised, I know full well how lucky I was in this.

I know he had issues with his own father, and that makes his parenting that much more impressive. Faced with an occasionally belligerent and rigid-minded dad himself, he went out of his way to raise us with a healthy dose of affection and demonstrated love. He did not become his father.

I said Irv was wise. That’s not something you hear often these days, that a man is Wise; Wisdom is a highly undervalued commodity in our world, but Irv, in his wisdom, knew that, and took advantage of it. He taught us to look at a situation fully before acting, not act in haste without sacrificing the spontaneity essential for a well-lived life, and stay informed on everything that could potentially help or harm us. He taught us how to make strangers into friends, and friends into allies. He taught the art of the Hat Trick, solving your or your friends’ problems through networking, craftiness, and initiative. He taught us how to tell when we’re being bullshitted. He taught us drywall and auto repair and how to do little inexpensive romantic things to keep your marriage running. He taught us how to pay attention to those with wisdom (that is, learning from the mistakes of others; everyone can learn from their own mistakes.). He taught us to be our own men.

Irv was, and still is, a Boy Scout leader. Despite the issues that have arisen surrounding that organization, it still has tremendous value as a repository for knowledge and wisdom – merit badges are “survival tickets” and the moral codes taught by the BSA, while often viewed through a very narrow, conservative lens, are nonetheless strong and important values that are rarely taught any where else. In his retirement he and my mom have become Red Cross volunteers and Ruritans, because helping out your neighbors in a crisis and making your community a better place is the right thing to do. He taught us that community service isn’t just something a judge makes you do. He taught us that Enlightened Self Interest often looks like pure altruism, if you don’t look too closely.

Irv is a political animal, astute in recognizing power structures and adept at realizing their strengths and weaknesses. He is a shrewd negotiator, mostly because he doesn’t try to “get the better end of the deal” all the time. He frequently views the Big Picture, trying to put local issues in a greater context and seeing how trends in the greater world will have a local effect. During his tenure at Durham County, he became known as “the man with the hat”, and it was rare we attended any public event without at least a few folks shouting “Irv!” gleefully, then introducing their entire family. Irv once confided that the hats he wore were a sort of reverse camouflage – he could go somewhere without it, and most folks wouldn’t recognize him off-hand. He could disappear just by taking off his hat. Ingenious.

Despite having nominally racist parents and living in an apparently racist society, Irv never went that route. He taught us to be conscious of race, especially in the South, and taught us how to view people for who they were, not what they were. He taught us to recognize that there are plenty of Black people who are assholes, and that there are plenty of White people who are assholes, and why it was in your best interest to avoid the assholes of whatever color. He has some racist friends of both colors – he doesn’t let a man’s political view stand in the way of friendship, unless it turns him into an asshole. We grew up in a mixed Black/White neighborhood, and I can’t imagine any other way. Truth to tell, I don’t think my father could live anyplace that didn’t have Black folks in it. He can admire aspects of the culture without feeling the need to self-consciously ape it, and he can find fault with the culture without feeling the need to criticize in a patronizing manner. He taught us that, too.

Irv is one of those rare and special Boomers who is not technophobic, which pleases me to no end. He gave me my appetite for high technology and science-fiction (he passed me Heinlein’s The Rolling Stones when I was 8, and it changed my life – not that the book was that special, but it was Real Grown Up Sci-Fi). He has a knack for seeing the social implications of a new piece of technology and projecting into the future what effect it might have. At this late stage he is embarking on a part-time job in computer hardware repair.

Irv knows a bargain when he sees it. While we were not the most affluent of families growing up, we usually lived much higher on the food chain than our family’s income would indicate, largely because my Mom is a demon shopper and my Dad can find hidden resources in the unlikeliest of places. He taught us that a two-year old car is better than a brand new car, and that the best car of all is one you got cheap and you can keep going until the wheels fall off. He isn’t above a good scavenge – he taught me that trash piles are unappreciated resources and that everything has value . . . eventually.

One of the most important lessons he taught me was that sometimes you just have to tip your head back and sing! That doesn’t seem particularly earth-shattering – lots of people sing. But in his immediate family such public displays of emotion were heavily discouraged – an unfortunate by-product, along with hard teasing, of our Scottish cultural heritage, I believe. He spent twenty years teaching himself how to play guitar and sing. After twenty years he became a pretty decent guitar player. He never became a good singer. Didn’t improve one iota. Couldn’t carry a tune in a gunny sack. Had little musical talent at all – but that never once stopped him from expressing himself in the media he preferred. He still sings – badly – but he doesn’t play guitar any more.

Which brings me back to the present, and back to my mystical experience, and back to my appreciation of my father in a way I hadn’t fully realized before. A few weeks before my youngest son (“Holdju! Holdju!”) was born, my father suffered his second stroke. The first had been bad enough; it had reduced his range of movement and strength on his right side. With some physical therapy and determination he had come back to the point where you really had to look to notice any defect. This second stroke, though, struck hard. He is mostly paralyzed on his right side which, among other things, precludes his ever playing guitar again. That’s got to be devastating to a man who had little natural talent to begin with, and whose ability was almost entirely self taught. That was a tumultuous time for us all – my Dad came home from the hospital to live with me and my wife and kids, because they live out in the boonies and I was closer to the hospital, as well as having through no fault of my own a handicapped accessible shower and toilet. A week later we went back to the hospital for the youngest to be born. He now walks with a cane (“Papa’s Hook”) and a leg brace, and there is just the barest hint of a speech impediment. But he walks, and he talks, and he still sings upon occasion. No, the stroke didn’t make that any better, either. But not much worse.

The reason I bring all of this up is that on my 38th birthday I am realizing that my father’s influence on my life, the lessons he taught me, didn’t stop when I moved out of the house. They continue to this day. The struggle he has faced these last two years have revealed a great deal of his character and his personal vulnerabilities that I was previously unaware of. I’ve seen dark parts of my Dad that I’d rather not have experienced – quite understandable, under the circumstances. He still faces depression on a daily basis, I know. But in facing that struggle, with all of its attendant heartbreaks, disappointments, and profound feelings of loss, my father has taught me lessons as valuable as any imparted in childhood. He has taught me how to face the abyss in your own soul, how to challenge adversity, and how to adapt to changing circumstances.

As he stood in the Ruritan hall at the surprise party my mother had so adeptly arranged (haven’t forgotten about you, Mom, you get your own article), he looked out at the crowd of Boy Scouts and grandchildren and friends, and in that moment he taught me how to age gracefully, love life, and deal with adversity. For a half-paralyzed, retired old man on a fixed income, my Dad remains active: he’s rebuilding a 1960s era John Deer tractor that he dearly loves – one handed. He remains a Red Cross volunteer and Scout leader, as well as an active Ruritan. He has a network of friends and allies that Karl Rove would envy. He has six active grandchildren that he remains very engaged with – he’s the perfect grandfather. For a man with one good leg and a quickly-retrained left hand, he accomplishes a remarkable amount. If that ain’t a lesson, I don’t know what is.

But it all started, if my flashback was accurate, when I was a baby my son’s age or thereabouts, with me looking up to his bearded face (God, when he shaved his beard off once when I was 11 I freaked!) from the daycare center near to Mott Community College where he got his 2 year degree, my arms extended, hands waving, shouting my own version of “Holdju! Holdju!” when he came to get me. And the smile on his face when he reached down and picked me up and played with me in a manner which most manly men would have avoided, clinging instead to their rigid idea of traditional masculinity and the very minor role that babies play in it. I saw that smile reflected back at his 60th birthday party, and now when I look at the long, slow journey of middle age and beyond, with the inevitable conclusion, I know how to handle it. Because Irv taught me. He continues to teach me. And I have many more lessons yet to come.

So I reached over and picked up my last child, hugged him tight, and went all Goofydaddy for a good five minutes when there was probably some important stuff I had to do. Because I learned from Irv that my most important job in the world is making sure that my kids have a happy childhood and that they have a friend, first and foremost, in their father.

High Druid's forecast: Mostly Wonky With A Slight Chance of Dictatorship

The recent allegations around the NSA’s warrantless domestic spying on American citizens puts me in a difficult position: agreeing wholeheartedly with Al Gore, a politician I don’t particularly like. But the fact of the matter is that the Bush Whitehouse has, with this action, done more damage to the American way of life than all of the Islamic Jihadis in the world, combined.

Some have noted I often use the term “Bush Imperium” as opposed to “Bush Administration” in this blog. This is why. Not only has Bush invaded a foreign state under false pretenses, putting political ideology economic cronyism above the rational foreign interests of this country, but he has in effect marginalized the other two branches of government to the point of ineffectualness. To willfully contradict legislation he has signed with non-legally binding “signing statements”, he has usurped the power of the Legislative branch. And while there is nothing illegal about packing the court system with like-minded ideologues – which has a long and distinguished history in this nation – he has nonetheless made his Administration into an unchecked juggernaut, answerable and accountable to no one.

The quasi-legalistic term for this is the Unitary Executive Theory, the idea that the President and his men are, indeed, the dominant branch of government, able in a time of war to curtail virtually any constitutionally-protected civil right in the name of “protecting the American People”. This Theory is found no place in the Constitution – it is actually expressly undermined by investing the Congress with the sole power to declare wars. Bush’s violation of FISA and his warrantless searches, added to his cavalier attitude about prisoners’ rights and due process, the torture allegations, and sundry other legal issues are all a direct result of the Unitary Executive Theory. A shorthand term for this is “dictatorship” or “monarchy”.

George W. Bush has transformed our dear republic into an Empire, hence the Bush Imperium moniker. And his assurances that he will use his newly-usurped powers only for Good is the political equivalent of “I won’t cum in your mouth.” Some things, as J. Edgar Hoover proved, are just too tempting to pass up. If the Imperium can wiretap al Qaeda terrorists without judicial or congressional oversight, then the temptation to extend that intrusion for political gain is just too tempting for the Imperium to pass up. It is only a matter of time before the shadowy arm of the NSA starts moving from rabid Jihadis to radical anti-war dissidents to more mainstream politicians. We are staring into the abyss of a thousand electronic Watergate break-ins.
We are a hair’s breadth away from dictatorship, and dictatorship – however benign – is anathema to the American way of life.

There are plenty of folks out there who dismiss this claim as another leftist Democratic stab at Bush, spiteful and petty. By denigrating and “swift-boating” prominent dissidents in Congress, and lambasting Gore for his impassioned speech as mere sour grapes, the Imperium puts a thin veneer of saccharine public relations over the gaping fissure of its own misdeeds. The one saving grace about it is that the current regime resembles the Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight more than an effective grab for power.

So what does the future hold, now? Bush’s poll numbers are a shadow of their former selves, his razor-thin “mandate” from the election has long evaporated, and his chief political advisor is under investigation and may face indictment before year’s end. While he has a political lock on all three branches, he faces mid-term elections that may well turn the tide and leave him facing one or both houses of Congress in Democratic – and very unfriendly – hands. There is no statute of limitations on high crimes and misdemeanors, and 2007 may well see articles of impeachment introduced into the House. The Abramoff scandal threatens to put a dozen or so previously “safe” seats in Congress into play, and the Democrats, while lacking any kind of message, know how to get out the vote.

On top of that, chickens put afield years ago seem to be coming home to roost in foreign policy. The current Iranian crisis has left the Imperium with its metaphorical dick in its hands. On the one hand, Bush cannot deal with another crazy, oil-rich Islamic country with aspirations of WMDs politely and appear consistent. On the other, if the one tough-guy card it has is played and the matter is referred to the UN Security Council, not only does it face lackluster support by China and Russia – if not outright veto – but it would give Iran an out from any further IAEA inspections, according to the laws already passed by the Iranian parliament. That isn’t the worst issue, though: the Iranian threat to halt all oil shipments in retaliation leaves the Imperium looking at $100 a barrel or more prices for crude, and puts us in a bidding war with China over the remaining stocks of crude.

As a nasty by-product, the other petroleum exporter that has become a thorn in US foreign policy, Venezuela, would reap rich rewards and strengthen its already strong position as an alternative to US patronage for the poorer Latin American states.

But Iran is the big issue. Because if we do not take positive action to halt Iranian
membership in the Atomic Bomb club, Israel will. And that will open up a shitstorm the likes of which will make us all think back fondly to the halcyon days of 9-11.
You see, we occupy Iraq right now only because we have the Kurds as firm allies and the Shiites as tolerant subjects, with the promise of an eventual US withdrawal that will leave them in charge. The Sunni insurgents we are currently fighting are a minority, and a minority that the Shia don’t mind beating up every chance they get. It is a precarious balance, and one that could change overnight with one little Israeli airstrike.

Remember the Tet Offensive? Imagine something similar, only with falafel instead of rice. A surprise attack all over the occupied country, egged on and supplied by Iran, would be as good as an Iranian invasion and twice as hard to manage. The relatively peaceful and stable south of Iraq could transform very quickly into the kind of house-to-house insurgency that Baghdad now enjoys. The Shia are better organized and better armed than the Sunnis, and they have a big backer just over the border, something that the Sunnis lack.

Any reprisals to such an offensive could be met with an Iranian invasion, with possible Syrian support (the two countries are close allies and recent events (http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/19/D8F7QV781.html) have pushed them closer; nor is Syria a military slouch – they have a large, well-trained army and bought up plenty of Cold War era Soviet armor and munitions at scrap metal prices) which would leave our forces, as well equipped and trained as they are, trying to fight a traditional land war (at which we excel) on two fronts while simultaneously fighting a violent insurgency in their rear (at which we suck).
Sure, we can bomb and bomb and bomb – we got lots of bombs – but such wholesale destruction of Moslems in Iran/Syria/Iraq may well lead to regime change in some of our staunchest allies. Imagine Saudi Arabia with a hardline Islamic government. Or Egypt. Oh, sure, we own Kuwait, but trying to ship oil out of the Straights of Hormuz from Kuwait would be nearly impossible. The Kurds like us, and since they back up to our ally, Turkey, they would likely provide a stable base, but they are land-locked and poorly equipped compared to our potential foes – kind of like a Middle Eastern Colorado. Our bases in Qatar? That’s like owning Rhode Island.
So the Imperium must deal with Iran, and it is singularly unequipped to do so. I look for Israeli airstrikes before the end of February of this year. I expect a rise in Defense Department procurements of body bags shortly thereafter.

Which brings us back to the original point of this exercise: the Imperium’s inclination to trample our civil rights using the War and security as an excuse for nearly every dictatorial move. With mid-terms on the horizon and its hold on power threatened, the Imperium will not stand idly by and let itself be voted calmly out of office. As scandal-ridden as it has become, only a CNN-worthy military engagement overseas is likely to distract American public attention from their discontent with the status quo. The Imperium will turn its malevolent eye towards staying in power at any cost. That will be hard to do with their traditional bases eroding daily.
Fiscal conservatives are disgusted by the cavalier attitude with which the Imperium has treated the budget – expect them to jump ship or stay home on Election Day.

The traditional support that Veterans have lent to the Republicans likewise is eroding as the facts about how the war is prosecuted – issues like body and vehicle armor, using mercenaries (“Blackwater Security”) in combat, and even issues like declining veterans benefits are making this once-solid part of the base grumble, as Viet Nam era vets remember the abuses and corruption of that war when they hear back from returning Iraq veterans.

The Religious Right, who sees Bush’s foreign policy as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, isn’t very happy about many of the social issues that they were promised action upon. Expect to see lighter-than-expected turnout from them, even if Pat Robertson claims that God has endorsed the GOP and has the press release to prove it. The lackluster-to-incompetent handling of Hurricane Katrina, hitting the stalwart base of the Deep South, may well see a swing in the Dixiecrat electorate as well. The same issue may well prove to galvanize the Black vote in a way we haven’t seen in a generation – just as Cubans in the traditional Republican strongholds of South Florida are starting to examine Democratic candidates that seem more responsive to their own political agenda than the Republicans who have taken them for granted.

What’s an Imperium to do? To lose this next election is to see the Bush Whitehouse being called to account – and it’s a bill they cannot pay.

So expect to see the full range of traditional Republican dirty tricks – augmented by clandestine Federal assistance – this election cycle to make up for the lack. Expect to see muck-raking investigations into “safe” Democratic incumbents, increased harassment of the far-left anti-war/anti-globalization movement, continued stonewalling and condescension by the Whitehouse about the War on Terror, complete with claims that dissent is equivalent to providing aid and comfort to the enemy. And don’t be surprised if you see more than one Watergate-style bit of underhandedness, up to and including vote tampering, income tax audits, and sudden Democratic sex-scandals designed to eclipse the Republican influence-peddling scandals.

That doesn’t even count the potential backlash for very, very expensive gas, the idea that the NSA has been rooting through your porn collection on your computer without so much as a warrant, and the uneasy feeling every American has in the back of their mind when they hear about any prisoner being held and tortured by Americans without legal representation or legitimate criminal charges being filed. Or the picture of poor black folks on rooftops in New Orleans desperately calling on their government for help, only to be turned back by M-16 toting white Blackwater mercenaries hired with US tax dollars. We’re America. We’re supposed to set the example for the world. No amount of flag-waving will erase the specter of the Abu Gharib photos. The Bush Imperium is starting to leave a bad taste in the mouth of the American voter.
Should we have another untimely natural disaster – say an earthquake or tsunami or sudden downturn in the economy – or any further major legal issues, then expect the election to get very nasty.

It will be a hard fought, scorched earth campaign, one the Imperium knows it must win – because to loose means facing an all but inevitable round of impeachment proceedings and criminal indictments in the session that follows.