Bespoke and Other Irritating Things

There are three things that have been irritating me lately: people who mindlessly re-post things on Facebook that are not true, people who post controversial things on Facebook and then either refuse to discuss their post or get offended that someone has a differing opinion, and third, the word "bespoke".

Let's start with the third: bespoke. There was a time when, if you wanted a suit (or anything else) made to your personal specifications, you'd say it was "custom", or "custom made" or made even "personalized" or "tailor made". "Bespoke" just sounds pretentious.

Now as to the other two, perhaps I shouldn't be too concerned about what shows up on Facebook and spend less time there, but the modes of interaction on Facebook are not somehow separate from "real" life, but are just one aspect of it.

One common aphorism that I disagree with is that you should not talk about religion or politics. I think that the reason most people believe this is that most people are too immature or opinionated to be able to have a respectful conversation with people with whom they disagree. This has always been true to a certain extent, but the instant "connectedness" of the internet has made it easier to insult those that are standing right in front of us. Why is it bad etiquette to have a discussion about comparative religious beliefs, to ask someone the reason for their beliefs? Why is it a a social faux pas to express an opinion about the current administration? Of course if your version of discussion and expression includes demonizing the other side of the political spectrum and belittling those who believe differently as heretics or mindless or "insert your favorite insult here" it would be socially awkward to have that discussion at Sally's birthday party. But surely two (or more) intelligent people can compare the pros and cons of any political issue without calling each other extreme and insulting names I've seen it done, I've done it myself. It's not that tough...if you respect the other person.

But in a weird kind of mirror universe way, people who would never utter a hateful, bigoted, opinionated word in the company of those who hold differing opinions think it's alright to post hateful, bigoted, opinionated words on Facebook where they are in virtual company with those who hold differing opinions. And then claim that they will not discuss, not debate, sometimes claiming that it's their page and telling others to back off. This is not isolated to some fringe group of Facebook users, but seems to be the prevailing culture. People want to trumpet their opinions, but don't want to be challenged, so what happens is people talk past each other. One person posts a meme about how squirrels are a menace to a free society, but those who love squirrels don't dare argue, but post their own memes in support of squirrels. No one listens to the other person, no one considers that there might be truth in the other's position, shots are just traded across the other's bows.

Add to this insularity is the propensity of many to just re-post something that backs up a pre-existing opinion, whether true or not. There is so much information available on the internet that it's pretty easy to determine whether something is factual or not, or at least to find out if there are differing points of view on a subject. One could spend all of one's time just debunking the crap that's easy to discredit, let alone the things that take a little time to research. And I'm not just talking about snopes.com, which some people mistakenly believe is bankrolled by some shadowy liberal cabal, but just some basic fact checking. It's frustrating.

This could all be fixed if I could just create a bespoke world.

Music is Alive

The last time I was in an arena of any kind for a musical performance Jimmy Carter was the president. Granted, I had some good times attending concerts in those cavernous spaces designed, not for music, but for basketball and hockey, enjoying performances by the mega-acts of my youth. I much more prefer my music in small, intimate settings. As for my choice of musicians, I'd rather see a local or regional group than a national act any day. More often than not when I tell acquaintances about a band that I went to see I encounter blank stares. Dweezil Zappa, Return to Forever, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Chris Duarte, Tinsley Ellis, John Hiatt and Dave Alvin are all musicians that I have seen perform in recent years - I am astounded at how little their names are recognized. Now I still have affection for the bands of yesteryear, and some of the names I mentioned were popular in the past, but they are still thriving artists who are not just recycling their "hits", but still creating new material.

During a business trip with some colleagues we got to talking about music - several people complained about how they don't like it when a band they go to see plays "their new shit" instead of just sticking to the hits. Sad.

With so many artists of so many styles out there, why stick with the same old stuff all the time. Expand your musical horizons. Go to The Bourbon Theater, to The Zoo Bar; listen to KZUM; pick up Josh Hoyer's newest recording; fill your ears with some new stuff .

Music is alive, don't mummify it.

Home

The bar top was a replica of (or perhaps not) of an old-style shuffleboard table, of the type that one upon a time inhabited the bars, pubs and taverns of America. At semi-regular intervals, abandoned newspapers, dinosaur-like in their non-digitalness, sprawled sadly, crying for attention and relevance. Dick Dale, who also cried for attention and relevance, shredded surf-redolent notes from the jukebox. State of the art flat screen televisions, a counterpoint to the many Post-it Notes™ and handwritten signs, lit the interior with a ghostly light. Home, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

He sat at the bar, equidistant between the off-sale cooler, stacked high with beers-for-the masses, and the giant bag of popcorn which invited speculation about bacteria and mass-produced faux butter. It was close to empty, as it often was on a Thursday afternoon, populated only by the white guy who insisted that he was one quarter Cherokee (why is it that white people who claim Indian ancestry are always Cherokee?) and the guy in the waist-length black ponytail who announced at regular intervals that he was the illegitimate son of Anastasia Romanov. Regulars. At home. Like him.

Fairly easy it is to call a bar home when the usual definition doesn’t apply; after all, home is where you go when you’re done doing all the things that you have to do, where the day ends, where your stuff is. When you don’t have any stuff, when the day doesn’t ever really end, when it’s not just metaphorical, you enjoy your illusions wherever you can get ‘em. Especially when reality doesn’t quite measure up. And why should it? He knew that reality would kick in quite smartly at 2:00AM, when ready or not, it was time to leave his home and descend into the nightmare. Not exactly “livin’ the dream”.

What is madness? Some might say that it’s the recognition that the world isn’t what we want it to be…and it never will be. That it’s the railing against the unfairness of “the way things are” and the creation of a reality that fits our sense of right and wrong. That it’s a howling – knowing that “what’s real” will never, ever be the same as “what should be”. He knew madness, he knew the howling, he knew the emptiness.

Away from home, away from the nine-to-five, as the howling died down, reality was the back seat of an unheated car, wrapped in layers of goose-down and a woolen hat.

               

               

                

Million Muslim March

The "Million Muslim March", to paraphrase Voltaire's description of the Holy Roman Empire, was neither Muslim, a march and was quite short of a million. While the central organizing group was indeed the American Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC), the planned march was a "Truther" event. A "Truther", for those who don't know, is one of a variety of people who believe that we have not been given "The Truth" about the events of September 11, 2001. The so-called Truth includes claims that the United States government or perhaps one of the intelligence agencies set the whole thing up, or maybe it was Israel. There are assertions that the planes crashing into the World Trade Center could not have caused them to collapse and that explosives must have been planted from within. Truthers generally believe that the government, or elements thereof, caused the events of 9-11 in order to justify the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and to provide a pretext for curtailing civil liberties. Non-Muslim truther groups such as the DC Area 9/11 Truth Movement and Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth Movement were listed as partners in the event. Interestingly enough, AMPAC encourages it's followers to support Congressman Ron Paul and his son Senator Rand Paul. In addition to the Truther aspects of the Million Americans Against Fear (the new name for The Million Muslim March) - the event was to highlight the discrimination and targeting of Muslims by law enforcement that took place post 9-11 as well as the general discrimination by the public. 

So what was the big deal? A fringe group decides to stage their event on a significant day, yes a tragic day, in order to get attention. And get attention they did, despite their march turning into, as The Huffington Post called it, "A Few Hundred People Walking Down the Street". Without the outrage, and yes, the bigotry, that their event engendered, no one would have noticed them save the few tourists who happened to cross their path as they waited for the light to change. What was the big deal? If this had been a "Million Christian March", or if Glenn Beck had staged his event on 9/11/2010 instead of in late August, would there have been the anger, the anti-Muslim signs, the "patriotic" holding up traffic? 

And how about them bikers? How is riding around DC honoring the victims of 9-11, or the military or whoever they're supposed to be honoring? Sounds more like a visceral response to a group that they hate exercising their rights to free speech. Of course the somewhat-less-than-two-million bikers have the right as Americans to oppose a tiny-percentage-of-one-million Americans' exercise of their rights.

But just what are they protesting, these noble bikers? The message? I doubt they even know what it is. The fact that they're Muslims?

I guess in all of this I should be thankful that both groups got the opportunity to express their views.

Lughnasadh...halfway between life and death

Lughnasadh, the sabat that occurs at or near the first of August, has always been my favorite. I think the reason might be is that it was one that I had begun to research after I had begun to consider myself an adherent of the old religions. Most  of the other sabats  have been absorbed or co-opted by the larger culture and its religion. Samhain, of course has become Halloween, first transformed into All Souls and All Saints Day as Hallowmas and later into the kids celebration of Halloween. The Winter Solstice, Yule, most famously is recognized as Christmas. Imbolc is not as big a deal, but we still have Groundhog Day associated with it. The Spring Equinox shares many attributes and is reasonably close to Easter, which isn't tied to a single calendar date like the rest, and May Day is recognized in some areas. Of the other three, two, Midsummer and the Autumnal Equinox are solar observances, which leaves Lughnassadh. For some reason I wasn't as curious about the solar dates, but back when I was in a Christian religious cult I had done some research on the non-solar, or cross-quarter days in order to highlight their "evil" pagan origins, giving sermons on the focus on death at Halloween and the centrality of the goddess on May Day. I had noted that a third day corresponded to May Day, but at the time was stumped as to the significance of the mirror date of Imbolc...what was going on at the beginning of August?

This blog entry isn't going to be an exhaustive study of the history and customs of Lughnasadh, but just a few thoughts on what it means to me. Historically it was a harvest festival, the first of several harvests in the ancient Celtic world. It was also a festival of games and sport, with many competitions in honor of Taltiu, the god Lugh's foster-mother.

To me, I look at it in the context of the other cross-quarter days. Samhain is a day to honor and reflect on the dead and our own mortality. Samhain's opposite, its complement, May Day or Beltane, is a day to celebrate fertility, virility, growth, birth...life itself. I view the other two as combinations of life and death. Imbolc is the stirring of life under the cold crust of ice and snow, life springing up despite the appearance of death; Lughnasadh on the other hand is the shadow of death lurking around the corner despite the appearance of vitality. Now I don't see this as depressing or dark, but more a wake up call to leave something behind, to make the world a little better than I found it, much like the death of a plant leaves the world richer in the form of the harvest.

That's how I view Lughnasadh, a reminder that it's not all about me, but what seeds that I plant will grow into and how they will be harvested...the future without...me.

Drug Testing

With all the attention being paid to the Big Brother-ish activities of the government, not a lot of attention is being given to the intrusiveness of the corporate world. And when some attention is given to corporate “curiosity” it’s usually in reference to your boss reading your emails or listening to phone calls over company phone lines. What isn’t given much attention, and is in fact considered right and reasonable, is drug testing.

More and more companies use drug testing as some kind of screening, whether it be post-accident, pre-promotion, random,  or as a prerequisite for hiring. Several different arguments are used to justify this practice. The main rationales fall into several main categories: one of these categories is safety. It could be argued that drug use on the job could cause one to behave in an unsafe manner. For example, employees who drive fork lifts, use knives, or operate heavy machinery (including motor vehicles) could pose a danger to themselves and others if under the influence while at work. Another area would be productivity. An employee who is under the influence of drugs would in general be likely to move slower, and in many cases even think slower than someone who isn’t under the influence.  A third reason given for being concerned about drug use is the legal aspect. Marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine are all illegal. A company might assert that employees engaging in illegal activity are a priori exercising bad judgment and should be excluded from employment, or at least from positions of responsibility. Finally there is the moral argument, which in my observation isn't usually said out loud: the moral argument, i.e. drugs are bad.

Let’s look at these arguments, first, the moral. While privately held companies have the right to set their own standards, and the ethical and moral positions of the owners certainly have an impact on a company’s ethics and values, where does that end? There is without question a broad range of opinions on the ethics of drug use, especially regarding marijuana, so it surely cannot be argued that marijuana use is obviously a bad thing. A stronger argument could easily be made for morphine-derived drugs, or “meth”, but a 2012 study indicates that it is marijuana users who are most impacted by drug testing. [1] (More on that later) So with the often unspoken moral revulsion at drug use, we have allowed the values of some to dictate how the rest of us must behave.

            What about the fact that drug possession and use is illegal? This particular argument is usually used when drug testing for management personnel or employees in other positions of responsibility (cash handling, security) is involved. How can we trust someone who is engaged in an illegal activity? First, marijuana use isn't illegal everywhere. (From this point on I will be focusing primarily on pot) Second, if any illegal activity precludes one from a responsible position, why wouldn't tax avoidance and speeding be included? I know very few people who always drive at or under the speed limit. Many people practice the 5 mph grace period – believing erroneously that it is legal to drive up to 5 mph over the speed limit. This is not true; what is true is that most highway police don’t bother with speeding a few mph over the limit, but it is still illegal. I believe that it is the rare person who has never indulged in illegal activity of any kind. “But this is drugs! It’s different!” – That brings us back to the moral argument.

We can look at productivity and safety together, since the arguments for and against are somewhat similar. It is claimed that drug use on the job renders an employee less safe and less productive. With that I have absolutely no argument. Marijuana is by no means a performance enhancing drug…dude. Getting high before coming to work, or at lunch, or in the bathroom is going to slow you down and fog your mind to the point where you will be less safe. However, what is being tested is how much of the drug is still in your urine, or hair or whatever is being tested. Not whether that residual amount is affecting you in any way. An employee can smoke a joint or two at a party and test positive a week later. Someone can get high after work or on weekend and test positive 30-45 days after the last time they smoked. One can smoke themselves into oblivion on a Saturday night and still be sharp and ready to work on Monday morning.

And then, there’s alcohol. You can go out and get drunk every night, be hung over every morning and you’ll test out fine on any drug test. You can test well over the legal limit for alcohol and as long as you’re not actually drinking at work your job is safe. In fact, to fold in the previous arguments for drug testing, if you are above the limit in public or are driving, then you are engaged in illegal activity, if you are coming in hung over, then your productivity is significantly lower and you are likely not as aware of safety concerns as if you were not hung over.

And then there is the question of constitutionality. Is it really legal to turn over your bodily fluids without a court order if there is no suspicion of illegal activity? Aren’t we protected against unreasonable searches and seizures? (4^th Amendment). And how can we be compelled to in essence testify against ourselves? (5^th Amendment) I’m sure in many cases employees sign some paper authorizing the company to do this, but wouldn’t that be coercion? I can understand if there were some suspicion that an employee were under the influence, or to do a test after an accident. But to take and test people’s urine without due process and without real consent, is in my opinion not only unconstitutional, but illegal.

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[1] http://www.freedomisgreen.com/drug-testing-targets-marijuana-users/

Support the Troops...and Everybody Else

For those who choose to put their lives on the line and do an extremely difficult job, I have the utmost respect. The way our returning service members were treated during the Vietnam War was disgraceful. Some time during the last series of wars the consensus mindset has been to revere them as do-no-wrong heroes and to treat the wars that they fight in as above criticism.

One thing that I wish to address is the oft repeated line that they are "fighting for our freedom", or "fighting to keep us free", and especially we owe our freedom to them. It has been quite a long time since the goal of any of the wars that we have been involved in could be considered, by any stretch of the imagination, to be to keep us free. Our current war, in Afghanistan might have come close in the early days. Our special forces went in and quickly dislodged the Taliban government who were offering sanctuary to the architects of the 9-11 attacks. The years since have been  an effort to prop up a corrupt government and to fight against those who see our occupation as the problem, not the solution. The previous war in Iraq was based on at least bad intelligence, if not outright lies. Iraq was not threatening us in any way, in fact, terrorist activity was virtually non-existent in the Saddam Hussein dictatorship. Between Iraq and Vietnam there were a series of interventions, like Panama, the Kuwait War and various small potatoes operations that had little to do with protecting our freedoms, although it might be argued that our national and economic interests were threatened. Vietnam and Korea both were meddling in civil wars that were fought to prevent the spread of Communism. In one we failed and in the other the two sides still stare each other down across a militarized border. You have to back to World War II to find an instance before 9-11 where our territory was attacked. It could be argued that even absent the Japanese attack, Germany and Japan presented a long term threat to the United States. World War I was fought to bail out our allies, the Spanish-American War netted us the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico as colonies. Before that our military spent most of their time killing the Indians.

This is not to say that protecting our nation is not something that the military does and does well, but our freedoms? They derive from a  variety of sources. Primarily (in terms of chronology) they derive from the leaders who wrote our founding documents and designed a system of government that despite individual abuses has stood the test of time. And yes, in those early days, armed militias and armies helped to secure the independence needed to implement their grand plans. Who else gained for us and protected those freedoms? How about abolitionists in the pre-Civil War days? People were regarded as property, and other people stood up for that evil institution to be done away with. How about the advocates for woman's suffrage? Many of the rights that we take for granted were not extended to women until well into the history of our nation? Do you have a job where you have to work 10-12 hour days, seven days a week? Is the workplace safe? Then thank the labor movement for securing those freedoms for you. The list is a long one, advocates for all manner of causes who eventually won the day in the halls of Congress helped to extend and protect our freedoms. For those on the right, the NRA helped protect your right to bear arms, on the left, groups like ACLU helped protect your rights to peaceably assemble, disparate groups like the Occupy Movement and the Tea Party groups, exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech brought the concerns of the citizenry out in the open and helped keep us free.

Without a doubt our military are to be commended and thanked and recognized for their role in the continued strength and greatness and security of our country, but let's not neglect all the others who have stood up and fought for the freedoms that we often take for granted.