23 July 2004

sell sell sell

My brother is a Christian missionary. Philosophically, we are about as far from each other as two people can be.

He just got back from China, where he hung out with some Chinese muslims. (There are 50 - 60 million muslims in China.) He and his small entourage- including my 7-month-old niece, the cutest kid in the world- were welcomed into all the mosques they went to. He even has a picture of a group of them on the roof of a mosque, and they're all wearing the kufi hats.

As a gift to them, my brother gave these very friendly people a small Bible. Turns out they already had one. And they read it from time to time. So, my brother also gave them a copy of the Jesus Film dubbed in their dialect. (My brother has been a recording engineer for some years and has traveled to cities and tiny villages all over the world, finding people to be "actors" and dubbing hundreds of different languages.)

I see the beauty in what he's doing. But I'm also uncomfortable. These people opened up their sacred space. I mean, I suppose they knew he was a missionary and that his purpose in being there was to give some testimony, to just get them thinking about it. And, there are actually as many Christians in China as there are in the U.S. So it's not a foreign concept to them.

There just seems to be a fundamental disrespect there. I understand why Christians want to Spread the Word, I really do. But I would never, ever in a million years go into a mosque or church or temple or synagog and suggest that what someone believes is wrong and that they should believe in something else. Outside of someone's sacred space, I would speak up for myself, I would speak passionately about what I believe; I'm all about discourse. But... I don't know. It's cool to suggest other ways of living and believing. This just seems so aggressive.

I can't seem to stop drawing this comparison in my head to what my brother is doing, and what Islam (in general) thinks the Western world (in general) is doing. The West is pushing- Get democracy, get Christianity, get credit cards. This is the way to live. Because clearly, we here in the West have got it all figured out. We know how to live a fulfilling life.

...At the end of the day, though, I do know that whatever my brother believes Heaven to be, he will certainly go there when he dies. Because he means so well in this life. He wants people to be good and happy. His intentions are so good, and I wish I could believe that about everybody but it's clear that I can't. So, as much as I disagree with him, I'll go on believing in my brother.

i still can't believe john ritter died

Ok? I really liked Three's Company. Mr. Furley was the bomb, with all those matching scarves with his outfits (right, and it was Jack who was supposed to be gay). I won't even talk about the Ropers. Chrissy was hands-down the best blonde, although the tall one was funny and clumsy too. The whiny nurse one, man she was lame. And Janet, well. Janet was a mess. But Larry Dallas had the serious hair going on, and had the major attitude. It was fascinating to watch someone with so little actual game have so much confidence. But out of all those cool people.. Jack Tripper.... you know, they just don't come any better. You couldn't ask for a more funny, lovable character. That was good stuff. There was a lot of innuendo, though. I was probably too young to be watching that.

Ok. I'm glad I got that off my chest.

17 July 2004

washing of the water

According to the Hindus, King Bhagirathi prayed to the god Shiva in penance and was in turn given the gift of the goddess Ganga, delivered in the form of a river.

Many myths have come to be about the Ganges river - her most powerful attribute is that she can take on all the sins of the world. You can bathe in her waters and be cleansed. How small your sins must feel, being but one person of the universe, in the midst of such an encompassing lady who can hold all the sin and sadness of the world?

I too have a sacred river. I view my river as the purest place I can be; perhaps the most important thing about that is that I can see myself in it.

I did not accidentally fall into my river- I chose to go to her. Sometimes intention is the most important thing.

We all need a sacred river. To see the reflection, to see that purity in us. And to be cleansed.


So deep, so wide
Will you take me on your back
For a ride
If i should fall
Would you swallow me deep inside

Going away, away towards the sea
River deep, can you lift up and carry me
Oh roll on though the heartland
'Til the sun has left the sky
River, river carry me high
'Til the washing of the water make it all alright


-Peter Gabriel

14 July 2004

this incredible nonsense

Well thank goodness the Senate was 12 votes short of what was needed to push along the anti-marriage Amendment. Yes, this isn't the last we've seen of this ugly monster, but it seems pretty clear that the people won't stand for such nonsense.

As quoted by the AP, Sen. Rick Santorum says, "Isn't that the ultimate homeland security, standing up and defending marriage?" Ha. Hee-eee. I would be angry if I weren't laughing so hard. This guy has got to be smoking some serious crack.

Nothing like shifting the focus, and other-ing a group that has done nothing but make this country better. I don't see groups of gay people starting wars and sweatshops and nuclear weapons programs.

It should be against the fucking law to try and use the Constitution to take away someone else's basic rights.

Bastards.

Meanwhile, gay people everywhere are forming beautiful partnerships and getting married and having babies and adopting children who desperately need good homes and building good families and are perhaps doing an even better job than a lot of straight people because they've had to fight for it...

13 July 2004

an extremely boring string of numbers

"Everyone sits around and bitches, why don't they get out there and do something?"

We've all heard that. But what about the people who bitch about the people who bitch? Why aren't THEY getting out there and doing something? Why are they spending all their time sitting around and bitching about that?

Have they forgotten the importance of discourse? There would be fairly little doing of anything if people weren't talking-- evaluating, debating, believing, changing. This is the stuff of humanity. For myself, I know that I have, do, and will make a difference in this world in my own unique way.

And I reserve my right to bitch.

Like these observations, for example.... I've been looking at some numbers lately. How stable will our generation be when we reach retirement age? What does our economic picture mean for women? We really need to be looking at this stuff.....

Every couple of years the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the 10-year employment projections. Of the top 10 occupations with the rosiest projections, seven are by and large poorly paid: retail (596,000 new jobs by 2012), customer service (460,000), food preparation (454,000), cashiers (454,000), janitors (414,000), waiters and waitresses (367,000), and nursing aides (343,000). And the BLS numbers don't distinguish between full-time jobs with benefits and part-time or temp work. In other words, there will be plenty of jobs, but far fewer careers.

Combine this phenom with the increase of the income of the very top upper crust. According to Business Week, from 1990 to 2002, workers' income has increased 46%. CEO pay has increased 279%.

According to the Levy Economics Institute, a wealth of information (heh), the top 5% owns almost 60% of the wealth in this country.

It also reports that the top 10% own a whopping 79% of the investment products- stocks, mutual funds, retirement accounts. The top 1% of that group owns 42% of the investment stake. Those are shocking numbers. We don't have the financial education or security we need. We are not planning.

We've got to start. There has been a wave of financial services these past few years that has made financial planning much more accessible to the masses. You don't have to have a lot of money to have a financial advisor. The financial services industry is actually changing for the better. It used to be that you had some schmuck who didn't know anything who would try to sell you some product, get his commission, and be done with it. But commission-based products are going by the wayside. Now, it's all about fee-based advising. Meaning, out of all your money that your advisor touches, they take out a small percentage every quarter as their fee. So it serves them to make you money. They're now being trained to be real advisors, form real relationships.

I hope that women, in particular, will take advantage of this.

There are over 70 million women in this country right now between 19 and 54. That is a huge portion of our population. Nearly half of these women are unmarried. Now, this doesn't mean that they are necessarily living in a single-income household... but some other stats are intriguing...

According to the 2000 census, roughly two-thirds of women who had babies that year were employed. So whether or not these women are married or co-habitating or are single mothers, they are not staying at home full time with their children. Yet, it's still increasingly difficult to be financially stable.

According to the 2003 National Association of Realtors survey of buyers and sellers, 21% of home purchases made in 2003 were by single women, up from 18 percent in 1997. Nationally, the home ownership rate for households headed by females hit 53% in 2000, up from 48% in the early 1980s, according to census data.

So women are doing a hell of a lot more on their own. I find this awesome. But I'm also worried.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the savings rate for single women is 1.5% compared to 2.1% for single men. This is, I'm sure, partially attributable to their having children, many of them on their own. Also because of what they earn.

Women still earn 74 cents for each dollar a man earns, which qualifies them for less Social Security and pension. That isn't good because over 70% of the United State's four million elderly poor people are women; 48% of this group are widows. This makes sense since women live longer. But they have so little security, which is alarming because of that 70 million of younger women who will be reaching old age in the coming decades.

Just some thoughts.

08 July 2004

that's what she said

Had a blast of a Fourth of July BBQ, which also served as Beek's 30th birthday party. Oh, there were haystacks and tiki torches. Oh, there was a great deal of food.

And oh, a naughty little Spunge Bob Square Pants pinata. It was fun watching adults crawling around in the grass all, "Heyyyy! I wanted the tequila!" and "Nooooo! The lubricated one is mine!"

02 July 2004

wild geese, revisited

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

01 July 2004

the most righteous lawrence ferlinghetti

This was written in the fifties.

I Am Waiting

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am seriously waiting
for Billy Graham and Elvis Presley
to exchange roles seriously
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the living end
and I am waiting
for dad to come home
his pockets full
of irradiated silver dollars
and I am waiting
for the atomic tests to end
and I am waiting happily
for things to get much worse
before they improve
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the human crowd
to wander off a cliff somewhere
clutching its atomic umbrella
and I am waiting
for Ike to act
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and save me forever from certain death
and I am waiting
for life to begin
and I am waiting
for the storms of life,
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am waiting
for Ole Man River
to just stop rolling along
past the country club
and I am waiting
for the deepest South
to just stop Reconstructing itself
in its own image
and I am waiting
for a sweet desegregated chariot
to swing low
and carry me back to Ole Virginie
and I am waiting
for Ole Virginie to discover
just why Darkies are born
and I am waiting
for God to lookout
from Lookout Mountain
and see the Ode to the Confederate Dead
as a real farce
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for Tom Swift to grow up
and I am waiting
for the American Boy
to take off Beauty's clothes
and get on top of her
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth's dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder