Explaining Mitt Romney’s Dog Crime to my Border Collie or ‘How Seamus Shit Happens’

Flick and her hedgehog

It had been a fairly long Friday at school today. When I hit the door, Flick is at the top of the stairs with her little snarl-grin she gets for me, wiggling her entire body in the thrill of our reconnection. I’m just as thrilled to see her, and from the bottom of the stairs until the moment I reach her--my arms full of purse and grocery bags, in my usual doggie/kitty baby-voice I coo and say “Ooooh, my Flick, my cutest baby, my lover…how are you today? What a beautiful girl…what a good girl….oh hello to you, too.” The purse must be dropped and full affections must be delivered, not only to Flick but to my cat who swirls around my feet awaiting the same attention. Then comes the second cat squeaking out a raspy “rowl”. What a greeting! No matter what kind of day I’ve had, I’m fully uplifted by this furry welcome wagon. We all reconnect. Toys are brought and offered. There’s much excitement. Flick immediately goes out to the back yard for a bathroom journey but is just as quickly back on the deck wagging at the slider. She wants in. She wants to tell me something.

She’s quite exercised. First, she runs to the bedroom and grabs Froggy, dropping it for me. Then she finds her tennis ball. I pet her and ask her why so energetic. “I’m not energetic, dramn it,” she answers as she sails through the kitchen.

“No?” I say as I get ice cubes from the refrigerator. She hates the sound of ice cubes dropping in a glass, so she takes another circuit through the house. She runs back, grabs a bite of kibble, and then I know for sure she’s got something on her mind. She’s a nervous eater and tends to snack when she’s stressed. She chews kibble while she paces, and even though she scatters kibble throughout the house, I love this about her. Having gone through a half-rack of Oreos after a bad day a time or two in my life, I can relate.

“Uh….Mom…is it true what I heard on the radio this morning?” she asks.

“What?” I filled up my glass with water and took a drink.

 “Ya know, the gruy who wants to bre president that tried his dog to the roof of the car and drove across the crountry? (Chomp chomp)  Is thrat true?” She’s crunching kibbles the whole time she’s talking, so she’s a bit hard to understand. I take another drink before I answer.

“Romney…well he’s a Republican.” Like that’s supposed to explain that behavior to a Border Collie.

“Ya, Romney. Did thrat really happen?” Flick continues to pace and chomp, pace and chomp. She’s got kibble from one end of the kitchen to the other.

“I’m afraid so,” I answer carefully. “But he didn’t just tie Seamus to the roof. Seamus was in his carrier, you know, his bedroom.” That was a bad enough image, but I didn’t want to scare her. I Frank Luntzed the hell out of it.

“So rif he becromes president, rill dogs have to ride on the roofs of cars?” She’s rarely still, but she has stopped shortly when she asked this and looked at me with those big, brown doleful eyes. I reach down and rub her behind her ears.

“Oh, Flick, beautiful girl. Of course not! You’ll always get to ride shotgun right next to Dad.”

“Uh, Mike,” she corrected me. Flick continues to have some issues with the fact that I’m the alpha female. She’s so alpha it’s a wonder she didn’t drop a testicle. She grudgingly relinquished the role when we rescued her, and when Mike’s not around, Flick and I have a true sisterhood. But as soon as he gets home, she sometimes forgets and thinks she’s top female; she thinks she’s the wife. I look at her with love but directly in her eyes.

“Dad,” I say firmly. She reaches back to sniff her “girl parts.” She does that for comfort in stressful situations, too. But she quickly refocused on the topic.

“So, what about rother dogs. Will they have to ride on roofs if he’s president?”

“No. Presidents can’t order dogs to ride on roofs. They can only invade other countries after lying about weapons of mass destruction and order people tortured. Dogs are safe.” I rubbed her head. She rolled over on the floor, attempting to keep her mind off the scary images in her head—the picture of being trapped in a vestibule on top of a car for 12 hours and shitting herself in that cold, scary wind tunnel. She closed her eyes as I rubbed her stomach. This should appease her, I thought. She rolled back up and shook. No luck.

“But wrhy didn’t they ret Seamus ride in the car?” She had her teeth in this and wouldn’t let it go. I started rubbing her chest and then back again.

“I don’t know, my good girl, my cutest girl. He’s an asshole. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“But I am wrorried about it. You know me. I wrorry about shadows! I wrorry about the ice maker! I wrorry about big truck breaks. Now I have to wrorry about Mitt Romney putting rus dogs on roofs!” She ran to the back room and came back with her hedgehog and made it grunt and few times. I sat down, and she came and put her head in my lap.

“But you’re safe, and you know you never have to worry about us putting you on a roof.” I rubbed her behind the ears, those soft ears.

“But I’m a Border Collie! It’s my job to wrorry. I don’t have any sheep!” She stopped and nuzzled me, looking up at me. Then she softly said, “besides….I’ve been there…”

“I know you have, girl. You’ve never talked about it.” She pulled away from me and made her way back to her bowl for another mouthful of kibbles and began more rapid, nervous pacing.

“I cran’t,” she said as she chomped.

“I know, girl. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

“You didn’t, Mom. I did.” She circled the couch as if herding it.

“Flick, come here….you just need to come, lie down. I’ll make a fire. Lie here beside me and relax. It’s going to be okay. Romney won’t win anyway. He’s not even popular in his own political party let alone with the rest of the country. About 39% of the people in this country are owned by at least one dog. That disgusting story plus the fact that Romney’s a rich guy who’s responsible for outsourcing his own labor in his companies is going to prevent him from being a viable general election candidate.” Flick came and lay at my feet. She rolled over in a huff.

“I need to hear rit from Dad,” she said. I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah,” I said exhaling in that way I do when I love and am at the same time disgusted with a family member’s behavior. “I figured as much. We’ll talk to Dad when he gets home. He’ll tell you Romney has no more chance of winning the presidency than a Chihuahua has of becoming a good sheep dog.”  Flick closed her eyes and slept. I fear her dreams placed her in a doggie dystopia where the government required dogs to ride on roofs and each SUV on the freeway sported a shit stain down its back window with a bumper sticker that said Romney 2012. I just hope Flick asks my husband about what “man-on-dog Santorum” refers to. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t believe me if I told her.

For some more information on Romney's unimaginable dog crime, see:

Mitt Romney and the dog on the car roof: one columnist's obsession (at Politifact)

 Romney's Cruel Canine Vacation
For some balance: Wall Street Journal
Some question as to the REAL story about how they cleaned the dog up (Although if it were an automatic, drive-through car wash, it would have tore the things from the top of the car. Stories change over the years in the retelling. I think that they retold this story over the years fondly is the point. It shows a lack of empathy at its core. And, if a person can't empathize with a poor animal, he won't likely empathize with a poor child needing food or health care. Or a factory worker who has lost his job. Or a college student saddled with unimaginable debt to get a public college education. It's about empathy.)

Alice in Wonderland says "Hellooooo 2012!"

Su Blackwell's Down the Rabbit Hole

Well folks, December was a total loss as far as posting on the blog. I started a piece called “Down the Rabbit Hole,” which followed the frenetic pace of the month as if I were Alice tumbling down into Carroll’s surreal world. I fell past December task after December task. I met Mitt Romney the Dormouse. But the writing lurched when I had trouble deciding just who to make the Mad Hatter—Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, or my superintendent. Oh, my…the choices, decisions, and online shopping. I just couldn’t put it all together. And many of you don’t know this about me, but it’s healthy that I didn’t finish it; I didn’t make it Martha-fucking Stewart perfect. I let it go. In December. Good for me!

All of it took a different surreal turn on December 17^th when we boarded a plane to Kona. There, I floated in a dreamlike bliss of turtle swims, Pele visits, spending time with my family and one of my best friends, and sipping the Kona coffee my neurologist had just told me I should try giving up. (Really? I’ve given everything else up—now coffee too? But it helps my migraines. It’s a variable. So it’s being reduced. I may show up on America’s Most Wanted soon.) My neurologist, Dr. Sylvia Lucas, MD PhD is an amazing migraine specialist in the Pacific Northwest. And if she demands that requirement, then God damn it, I’ll do it. I’m breaking my usual rule of no-names on this blog to mention her. She’s not only a great researcher and started the Headache Center at the University of Washington Medical Center, but she is by far the most personable, down-to-earth, easy-to-talk to doctor I’ve ever had. I absolutely adore this woman, and I wish every patient had a doctor like her. Somebody should tape her interactions with patients and use those as training DVDs for interns. Title them “How to be brilliant and listen to those who aren’t as brilliant but are in pain.”

We just got back from our Big Island idyll in time to celebrate our 19^th wedding anniversary, New Year’s Eve. Our celebrations are always at home where we see plenty of fireworks by looking out across Puget Sound. I don’t like to be on the roads on New Year’s Eve, and even if we felt adventuresome, we couldn’t abandon our Border Collie who needs our emotional support at midnight when expensive fireworks are inevitably set off about a block from our house down on the water. It happens twice a year there. It’s a little vacation house that people only come to a few times a year. When they do, they bring fireworks that—even if they’d purchased them on a reservation—are so lavish and expensive, the money spent on them could have easily purchased two tickets to Kona. I don’t get it and neither does our Border Collie. She barks nonstop panicked and pacing. So our New Year’s Eve is the countdown, a kiss, and then let the barking and dog whispering begin.

As the morning breaks, even though I don’t officially set New Year’s resolutions, for I think self-improvement goals much more appropriate after bouts of illness, or the illness of a friend, or a near car crash—I do hope you’ll indulge this list of things I will attempt to see more clearly in 2012. I find that when I get myself into the most trouble, is when I haven’t stopped to look at things that frustrate me through another lens. Here’s what I’ll try to see:

1. I will try to see that when my “constitutional law president” signs a bill that allows both his administration and future administrations (crazy-ass as they may be) to militarily detain people without any geographic limitations whatsoever, violating international law simply because “it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war” that I need to see it as positive. After all, I just have to repeat to myself, “same shit, different bill, same shit different bill…” since the Obama Administration already had been indefinitely detaining terrorist suspects. I have to just say, since he’s a Democrat and I voted for him, it’s okay that he can indefinitely detain me as a terrorist if the FBI doesn’t like this blog and thinks it a threat to national security. After all, I do say “fuck” a lot.

2. I will try not to flinch when my superintendent says, “I honor the work you teachers do.” (He’s never been a teacher or spent time in the classroom.) I will attempt to count to five before I roll my eyes when he looks past me or any other woman to talk to my husband or any other man. I’ll attempt to look at the district as a fiscal entity and not as a place where students are inspired and challenged and offered the opportunity of in-depth learning. Perhaps I’ll buy a piggy bank and place it on my desk at school to remind me of the new role of public schools.

3.  When I get frustrated and angry with my principal, I’ll attempt to see the woman inside her that struggles with family and health and a boss from hell. I’ll try to remember the principal she once was before she learned to prevaricate her way through years of community scrutiny and this new Napoleonic super. I’ll attempt to conjure up the image of that sturdy woman who held us all together after a student was killed by her father; the principal I hugged tightly on that day and said, “I’m so proud to work with you.”

4.  I will try not to think of Republicans one-dimensionally. After all, the party is now a veritable Joseph’s coat of many colors, and for those who remember that Old Testament story, such flashy patchwork manifestations only end in more boasting, suspicion, and envy within a family. No, the Republican Party is a family of brilliant colors. I will try to see them not for their biblical rhetoric, but for their biblical metaphorical significance.

5. I will attempt to see automated customer service the way an automated customer might see it. And when, after listening to the phrase “Thank you for waiting, we care about your business” for the fifteenth time, I’ll merely nod like the automaton I’ve become on the other end and grin like an appliance. If, and when I get a real person on the other end, I won’t change my tone if I detect a Bangalori affect. I’ll maintain my slow, deliberate, blender speed and get the help I need. No synapses in my head will fire the notions human labor replaced by computers, nor outsourcing, nor a loss of service business. Nor will I replay my usual internal tape of “Yeah, right…and they want public education to apply the standards of private enterprise to the public sector.” So help me God I won’t!

6. I will begin to enjoy the increased volume of commercials during my favorite television programs. I don't have many favorite television programs, and many of them are news programs, so to DVR them and watch them later is pointless. I will especially appreciate loud pharmaceutical ads that list possible side effects like "watery bowels" and "erections lasting more than four hours." You just never know at my age when this information might come in handy for a woman.

7. I’ll attempt to see the world the way Michele Bachmann does. So that means if (God forbid) my daughter is raped and becomes pregnant, I’m duty bound to require her to have the baby. Fiscally naïve minorities caused the 2008 financial crisis. There’s no global warming, evolution is a hoax and “intelligent design” should be taught in public schools. The HPV vaccine causes mental retardation. My dear friends who are gay have “identity disorders,” and Bachmann is a messenger sent from God to prevent gay marriage. I know there’s more, like her oft-repeated statement on Iran wanting to bomb and destroy Israel.  Is there a side of a mushroom I have to eat to see these things?

8.  I will start to enjoy more the Republican primary/caucus sideshow and predatory reality shows like Hoarders or Storage Wars, both of which are the Dickensian LOLCATS of our age. After all, these do us all a service by ameliorating our wealth disparity and obscuring the covert war we are currently waging against Iran. Such things are messy and controversial. We don’t want to acknowledge them nor talk about them. The fact Ahmadinejad has one of our toy spy drones, which dropped from the Persian skies is just a fluke. Time to join American Attention Deficit Disorder (AADD) that makes the military industrial complex function. Why fight it?

9.  I will start to believe in phrases like “clean coal” and “uncompromising integrity.”

10. I will start to watch one hour of FOX News a week just to balance my “liberal” news sources.

Or maybe I’m still down the rabbit hole.

Happy New Year!

Overnight Memes and Brilliant Satirical Response

I've been watching in amazement the proliferation of Photoshopped images (now a meme) of the sadistic officer pepper spraying UC Davis students. This article gives a good sampling of some of the better ones if you've missed these popping up on Facebook. http://www.christianpost.com/news/casually-pepper-spraying-cop-internet-meme-uc-davis-pepper-spray-incident-goes-viral-overnight-photos-62728/

The best use of this meme I've seen to date, though, is a dubbed YouTube video done by Sarah Harbin called "Hitler Reacts to Pepper Spray Meme." Had to share it here. (I've noticed that double clicking and going directly to the YouTube page will get better results for some reason. Don't know why this is the case, but it is. Trust me, it's worth the trip.) Thanks to Sergio Toporek who had posted this on his Beware of Images Facebook Page.

A bit scared of red?

This morning I made a quick run to my mailbox in the school office to check for mail. Our union flyer I had hung there last Wednesday that reminded teachers to wear red as a show of solidarity for the opening of the special legislative session today hung over me as I sorted through mail. I caught just a snippet of a conversation leaving through a door questioning if red was appropriate-- "Isn't red the color of Communists?" one teacher questioned, mostly in jest. Still, I sent this quick note to the staff and thought I'd share it with you all as well. 

Why red today?

For those a bit uncomfortable with the Socialist and Communist links to red, a bit of history might allay your worries. Red has long roots as a signifier of defiance. Captain John (a teacher on our staff known for nautical lore) might tell you that late 13^th Century records show ships at war sometimes used red flags to indicate ‘no quarter would be given’ meaning surrender was not an option and any prisoners taken would be killed. Red meant business. It’s time we as teachers mean business when we say “no more cuts!” http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/vxt-dvb2.html#baucens

Later on, castles, ports, and towns that refused to surrender during a siege would hoist a red flag, following this tradition. Perhaps we should all hoist red flags above our public school buildings, above each and every crowded classroom. 

Socialists and Communists certainly adopted red in their 19^th and 20^th Century struggles. Teachers as well, many with Socialist and Communist tendencies, adopted red flags as their symbols. One was Yetta Stromberg who taught at a summer camp that helped working-class kids. She was a dedicated teacher and communist. She was also 19 years old. Her problem was hoisting a red flag daily which violated a California law passed in 1919 that prohibited the public display of red flags—dangerous stuff. Yetta was arrested along with other camp counselors. Their case went to the Supreme Court. Alito and Scalia weren’t on that court, and the Court found for Stromberg. Ah, the good old days when our Supreme Court actually protected individual speech. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0283_0359_ZS.html

Red, of course, has other symbolism. Blood, passion, anger—all of these should fit the circumstances of our teachers in public schools today as this special legislative session opens to figure out what to do with a budget short fall. A short fall not caused by us, but by national circumstances and regressive tax structures within our state. We put our blood and passion into this job, and we should all be damn angry that any legislature would entertain cutting our public schools again.

So time to hoist the red flag gang!

Shopping Stinks

This morning my husband and I marveled at the viral YouTube video, The Waffle Riot, showing Walmart shoppers climbing over each other while showing ample ass crack in an appliance-grabbing frenzy. (I had earlier posted the video, but it appears to no longer be working...hmm. Is Walmart offended?) Anyway, I guess I’m un-American. I don’t get it. Not only would I never hang out for a bargain at a box store, I don’t like to shop. Period. I don’t like the crowds. I don’t like having to cruise row after row of cars, only to in the final moments of actually finding a vacant slot for mine, have to battle for it like Mad Max with some frantic guy in an SUV. The poor bastard, of course, is on his way to fulfill a jewelry-store fantasy planted in his head by a Jared commercial, but the diamonds he’ll buy his wife are no doubt dripping in Congolese blood. I don’t like the plastic bags, or plastic smiles on the salespeople, or plastic sales prices. I don’t like having to stand in a long line to give some corporation my money.

The worst part of shopping for me is the fragrance. Well, calling the stench in malls “fragrance” is like calling midriff tops on middle-aged women “fashion.” Trying to shop in a mall for a migraineur is a process of breath-holding zigzags through pungent clouds of synthetic compounds pumped out of stores like Abercrombie and Fitch. Of course, like radiation, these chemicals don’t stop at their doors. They fallout into the public course ways landing on jackets, hair, and purchases; the benzene derivaties, aldehydes, and other toxins and neuro-sensitizers—many known carcinogens are inhaled by hapless shoppers like me looking for jeans that fit. Nine-five percent of the chemicals used in fragrances are derived from petroleum. Breathe in that middle-eastern oil, shoppers.

These odors not only trigger migraines, but possibly cause cancer, birth defects, central nervous system disorders and allergic reactions—these are all pretty serious allegations. But of course, we have known about these health risks for a long time, or at least our government has. In a study brought before the US House of Representatives in the 1980s in a report --Neurotoxins: At Home and the Workplace, Report by the Committee on Science & Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, Sept. 16, 1986 (Report 99-827)—it was clear that the soup of chemicals used in the various fragrances used to cover the normal odors of life posed health risks. But government opted for "self-regulation" to “protect” consumers from these dangers. After all, fragrance companies are the experts on fragrance. Why should bureaucrats get involved?

Even though both the FDA and EPA have the power to regulate these toxins, government has handed our health and safety over to industry associations like the International Fragrance Association and the Personal Care Products Council aka the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association (CTFA). Of course, just like the rest of the government regulatory structure, the entries and exits to these private guardians of public consumer health are strictly guarded by revolving doors. Take John Bailey, PhD, the former head of FDA’s cosmetics branch. Guess what lucrative digs he’s in: yep—Vice President of the Personal Care Products Council. Bailey and his friends at the Personal Care Products Council are busy lobbying for over 600 companies in Washington, D.C. to promote “science-based legislation." And on goes the iron-fragrance triangle.

“Science-based legislation.” What could be wrong with that, right? Well, since the cosmetics industry “self regulates” in order to protect their precious ingredients (we could tell you what’s in our fragrance, but we’d then have to kill you), it’s their science we must rely upon. That’s kind of like relying upon BP’s scientists to tell us if the Gulf is safe for manatees, or relying upon PG & E to assess the levels of hexavalent chromium in Hinkley, California. Lobbying organizations, both international and national tell consumers they’ve set “safety standards” and have strict “code of practices” while ensuring their member manufacturers that their trade secrets are kept in the vault. That, of course, prevents governments from moving toward labeling or demanding a knowledge of ingredients that would be required to do independent research for the protection of public health. My favorite PR piece on the Personal Care Products Council website is a “petition” that consumers can click on that reads as follows:

I strongly support the Safe Cosmetics Alliance and am eager to sign this petition. It supports science-based legislation that will modernize and strengthen FDA oversight of personal care products.

I love the personal care products that I use - from my daily moisturizer to bath soap to shaving cream - and want to ensure that they continue to meet the highest safety standards. That's why I support the work of the Safe Cosmetics Alliance and legislation that will modernize the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act in ways that will enhance cosmetics regulation and further empower scientists at the FDA. I fully support the Alliance's efforts to enhance FDA oversight and give the Agency the information and flexibility it needs to continue to ensure product safety and safeguard my health. Therefore, I join the members and employees of the Independent Cosmetic Manufacturers and Distributors, the Professional Beauty Association, the Direct Selling Association, the Personal Care Products Council, and consumers of cosmetics and personal care products in encouraging you to support science-based legislation.

Unfucking believable. You really do have to hand it to the public relations/lobbying world. Somewhere in the fragrance is a whiff of Frank Luntz. In the meantime, malls have become veritable chemical zones. Last summer I needed to run into an Apple store in one of our local malls. I knew the closest exit to the store, I walked directly to the Apple store, purchased the item for my daughter’s computer, and left immediately. I wasn’t in the store five minutes. Unfortunately it’s in the same wing of the mall as Abercrombie and Fitch. I didn’t even walk by that store. When I returned to the truck, my husband, who had been waiting there for me said, “God, you reek! You’ve got to get that sweatshirt off or you’re going to have a migraine.” I shelled off the sweatshirt and stored it in a cubby in the bed of the truck. It was too late. The odor was in my hair, in my jeans, in my skin even. We rolled down the windows and I helplessly felt the pain come on.

Yes, shopping stinks. Literally. But so too does the reason it stinks. And that stench can be followed all the way to Washington, D.C.

Want to read more about the issue? Here are some links:

 The Danger of Toxic Consumer Products

Environmental Health Network Petition Summary Analysis
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics

Living in a state of blessedness

Yesterday morning I woke up 52. There’s nothing particularly sea-changing about that number, but there it is. There’s evidently no numerological protection from pain associated with the number, no Mayan calendar significance for 11/19/11, because as I write this, I have the usual morning migraine.

Even so, yesterday and today I awoke in a state of blessedness. I’ve been thinking a lot about this concept over the past week. I sit in a warm, comfortable home with a beautiful view. I get copious amounts of love daily from my husband, my daughter (now from an Iphone), my codependent cat who must be on my lap constantly, and our rescue wonder dog, a high-strung Border Collie who possesses equal amounts of high IQ and emotional baggage from when she had been abused before we got her. Our other cat cuts into the fray with body motions I’ve seen Great White Sharks use on National Geographic shows. She tries to communicate--what I’m not sure. She’s short on social skills (possibly a form of feline Aspergers), so her methods of getting and giving love are hard to figure out sometimes. But she’s part of the family, and we’ve dubbed her “Sharkey” (even though that’s not her name). She sleeps by my side of the bed, and I think that’s her way to tell me she loves me. Or that she loves her cat bed placed there. Regardless, our home is filled with lots of funny, furry love.

For a living I’ve been doing what I love for 27 years—teaching. And my philosophy of teaching is that inspiration and motivation (two things that don’t show up on standardized test scores) are some of the most important components of my lessons. I have a lot of fun in my classes—I laugh a lot with my students. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have done it this long. I believe that laughter is in itself a state of blessedness. Last week I had a student linger after school to open a conversation about possibly studying history or political science next year after he graduates. I encouraged him of course. Then he said, “I’m sorta thinking of teaching…I mean this class makes me want to teach…I can be a real pain if I don’t like a class, but I really like what we’re learning.” I smiled. I told him I used to be a pain if I didn’t like a class as well. He’s a bright young man, the kind we’d hope would find their way into teaching. Let’s hope the powers that be in education with their standardized tests and new acronyms every Thursday will find a way to keep him once he’s in the field. Teachers need support, a simple blessing really—well, that and a better paycheck, especially for entry-level teachers.

My blessings extend beyond my immediate family and my career. I couldn’t talk about this feeling of being in a state of blessedness without talking about my two best friends. I somehow fell into a tripartite accord that has lasted since 1977, the first day I walked into my college dorm at the University of Montana. The three of us have kept the others’ bodies, souls and spirits afloat all these years. One of the greatest blessings that comes from this triangle is to have a language all our own. Over the years we have cobbed together some synthesized trialogue based in Jimmy Buffet lyrics, Steve Martin riffs, and margarita moments. And how comforting it has been to effortlessly fall into the rhythm of that language at moments in my life when I could barely stand on my own. A hair-dye intervention when my dad was dying and my mom had Alzheimers. A call before neuro-surgery. Lifting me after a long bout of migraines. As I’ve told them, we’re as sturdy as a three-legged Montana bar stool.

The etymology of the word blessedness in Christian texts comes from 15^th century beatitude, meaning “supreme happiness.” But of course, Christianity mixed “blood” in suggesting Christ’s sacrifice for sins committed by all of us sinners to come. In the writing and re-writing of various books in the Bible, blessedness meant anything from Old Testament blessedness that God bestowed upon Adam and Eve in providing them companionship and a Hawaii-like setting to the kind of blessedness Israel received. “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.” (Genesis 22:17). The land of Canaan was later delivered to Israel as a birthright, and “Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry.” (1 Kings 4:20) Later in world history, after the Balfour Declaration, pogroms in Russia, and a couple vicious world wars, the Palestinians scratched their heads and said “whose blessing?”

 Of course the most significant Christian teaching on blessedness comes from Christ’s sermon on the mount (Matthew 5). How the Christian right fails to keep this portion of the Bible in their NRA crosshairs is beyond me, but not being a Christian myself, it’s a part of their scriptures I particularly like:

The Beatitudes

1Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2and he began to teach them, saying:

3“Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

5Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the earth.

6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be filled.

7Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.

8Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God.

9Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called sons of God.

10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Christ was a lot more about doing than saying, and for him, a state of blessedness resulted from deeds. The Hindus likewise believe that a state of blessedness, nirvana, must be earned through deeds. I like that part of their belief structures; I don’t like the notion that poverty is explained by not doing a good enough job in the good deed category in a past life. One life can be challenging enough; I hate to see children in desperate poverty assumed to be guilty for something they did in a past existence. But then America has a status quo way of justifying poverty, and it is just as deeply rooted in the Protestant work ethic and our Puritan roots. Go figure.

Of all religions, I find the teachings of Buddha to resonate most clearly about true blessedness. After all, isn’t blessedness how we cope with the dualities of life? Isn’t it a process of finding rich fulfillment in those we love while living within a world constantly darkened by a pepper-sprayed hate? Aren’t we, especially as we age, losing family and friends by cruel illnesses and tragedies only by pulling ourselves through those losses in finding life-affirming connections and joy in those we still have with us? Don’t I continue to despair at our broken political and economic system and at the same time find enormous humor in its players? Can I prevent the corporatization of public schools or curb testing that doesn’t gauge critical thinking? No. But I can inspire and teach and motivate until the end of the year. And have a hell of a good time doing it.

So here I am in my state of blessedness, continually looking and attempting to learn more as I age. There’s so much to learn and do and be before I grow up, and my fulfillment will continue to be in the people I love and the connections I make with others. And that includes my animals. For who could look into the eyes of a Border Collie and not think of the word nirvana?

A John Gault November Rain

 Joshua Trujillo, from the Seattle PI, took this picture of 84 year old Dorli Rainey who had just been pepper sprayed to remove her and others from Occupy Seattle.

It’s raining today. It’s a God-awful cold, oppressive rain, the kind that feels like a million John Gaults pouring down from the smothering gray. I know each drop is a false prophet sent from FOX News. Miniature Gaultians all boasting and blustering, but few produce grand machines or wet us with brilliant self-reliance or teach kids to read. It’s a kind of rain that drowns us with mortgage-backed securities and horse’s-ass-race politics. It’s a trickle-down kind of rain.

It’s just the kind of rain that soaks kids and old women and priests holding the lines at Occupy Seattle. It’s the kind of rain chilling those in Occupy Portland. It’s a rain full of police truncheons. A rain that smells like pepper spray. It’s a window-pounding rain rapping in a staccato “Zuc-cot-ti Park” “Zuc-cot-ti Park” rhythm. And this damp night cadence that reminds me that kids and women like Dorli Rainey, pepper sprayed at the age of 84 for holding her ground, for being an age at which one knows that dignity comes from endurance, no longer have tents tonight. Tents. Tents are too much to ask when regular people are exercising their First Amendment rights. Our Supreme Court sprinkled corporations with our rights as if those rights were holy water anointing medieval kings. So endorsed and blessed, these corporations exercise their First Amendment from the comfort of leather boardroom chairs and attorney luncheons.   

But our kids and old women like Dorli continue speaking truth in raw sopping cold. How much I owe them. And, God, I do hate November rain.