Polyamoralicious and Spirals

Funny how things are with humans. We grow older and, with fortune, humility and persistence, come to realizations about themselves. Realizations which were in some ways very clear from the beginning.

I'm thinking about a friend of mine, let's call her "Sarah". When we were both in college, she was a fun and freaky little thing. Very into sex, or at least sensuality, she had a variety of experiences, some of which I was a part of. Then she met her man, and became monogamous.

Now after having reconnected with her years later, it turns out that she's just recently realized she's polyamorous. She wants loving relationships with more than one person at a time. This was very tough for her man - the same one she met in college - but they were working it out. After what must have been a rather intense conversation that took place on Christmas day...

A cynical part of my mind wonders if Sarah has just become disenchanted with this man in particular, and is unconsciously finding a way to leave. With others this might be more believeable - but polyamory fits very closely with that Sarah I first met. Back in college, Sarah enjoyed an essentially polyamorous lifestyle. She liked having a few different very close people to fool around with, and was not visibly jealous of those others' escapades as long as she received closeness. It's taken a journey of roughly 15 years, for her to realize this more fully about herself.

As for me, while I've not yet discovered that I'm polyamorous (at least, not much more than most other single men), I have been realizing ways I am in relationships which have been similarly evident, for 15 years or longer.

A lot of life's lessons seem like this. Not so much a circle, as a spiral. It is a blessing that, on making the journey of discovery, with perseverance humility and good fortune we may come back to some place near where we began - but with a much higher level of understanding, and a greater range of vision.

This spiraling process may also show that when we started on our journey, we may not have been as wrong as we thought we were.

ADDigression 1 - Rather mythic, isn't it, this journey through a labyrinth of relationships, to bring the grail of self-knowledge back home? Like Joseph Campbell meets the Kinsey Report...

ADDigression 2 - interesting links.

Kosher Polyamory
Polyamory and the hierarchy of relationships
An outsiders account of the Kerista Polyamorous commune, 1971 - 1991.

ADDigression 3 - The accepted term is "polyamory" and not "polyamorality" - to avoid the awkwardness of the full word "amorality" inside. Critics would say it's still in the lifestyle itself; adherents would say polyamory is very moral, it's just an acknowledgement of the reality of human attraction and a way to build relationships that honor it.

Certainly, the extent that human relationships remain completely monogamous for lifetime spans is pretty small. Living as we do now in an increasing vacuum of church, state and society-enforced morality, it seems that it's up to consenting adults to determine what is and isn't moral with their sexing. We'll be able to determine what really works best for humans psychology in 100 years. Or by 2012 when the Aliens come, if you prefer.

ADDigression 4 - If the Aliens come, will we even notice? Will they have to get jobs like everyone else? Will they be outsourced to other Aliens, and protest by disintegrating management?

Nutball v. Obama

So some nut petitioned the Pennsylvania District Court for injunctive relief. Said nut basically wants to forbid the Electoral College from certifying Barack Obama as President, at their upcoming meeting on December 15.

This guy's rationale is that Obama is not a US citizen, because Obama's father was not at a US citizen. This, the dude claims, means that according to the original Constitution Obama can't be President.

This is related to an ongoing meme that won't die - that Obama is hiding his original birth certificate because it will somehow reveal he wasn't born in the US. A scan of the birth certificate has been provided. All appropriate Hawaii state personnel have confirmed the scan is genuine, that Obama is a US citizen, and also that he is not the artificially inseminated love-child of Malcolm X (as another conservative blogger actually claimed!! Seriously!!).

So this guy and others have concocted various rationales to "prove" the scan is a Photoshop fake. All of which have been debunked, but like Iran-Contra it's just never talked about.

This crap shouldn't even need debunking. If there was an ounce of possible truth to this crap, wouldn't it have been pursued to Hell and back by Bush, McCain and the rest of the GOP? Or Hillary in the primaries, for that matter? And if Obama would forge a birth certificate, don't you think he'd slap down another $500 from his donations to forge with an actual typewriter on paper? But some people just don't want to be a part of any reality that has Obama making it the Black House.

Anyway, the district court denied the guy's petition for injunctive relief, and then further dismissed his entire suit. And that was that. But the nutball then petitioned the Third Circuit for emergency relief. (In East Brunswick NJ, of all places.) They also sent the nutball packing. So he then took it to the Supreme Court, where Justice Souter refused to hear it.

So this persistent-like-a-rash nutball took it over to Justice Thomas. And Thomas actually agreed to bring it to current consideration before the other justices. This is either because a) the GOP knew what it was doing by appointing Thomas, as he is a house Negro Uncle Tom, or b) because Obama criticized Thomas once during the election, Thomas is a bitter angry and vindictive house Negro Uncle Tom.

As things stand, it can apparently take one SCOTUS judge to declare an emergency stay. I don't see Thomas doing this by himself. He's the only current justice (possibly the only one in US history) to not write down the reasoning for his decisions. So if anyone could get away with it, he could. But I doubt he'd want to stick his neck out alone.

And since the other conservative SCOTUS justices write down their reasons, Roberts Alito and Scalia are unlikely to join Thomas. Since it would take four judges to hear Nutball v. Obama, and five to grant a stay - it seems astronomically remote that anything Nutball v. Obama will go any further.

I'm just amazed at what one nutball with court access can do.

Said nutball's website - http://www.obamacrimes.com/ . (I shit you not.)

And here's his surprisingly lucid description of the process, and what's to follow:

http://www.obamacrimes.com/index.php/news/68-us-supreme-court-update-regarding-the-december-01-2008-deadline

Someone get Santa hooked on crack for me.

http://www.amazon.com/Archos-320-Internet-Media-Tablet/dp/tech-data/B001D0E4EE/ref=de_a_smtd

and...and....

http://www.crutchfield.com/g_168550/In-dash-DVD-Receivers.html

but....there's also...!!!...

http://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-3-80GB/dp/B001COU9I6/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1227293801&sr=8-1

...and what about the....

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-HL61A750-61-Inch-1080p-Powered/dp/B001415FIG/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I24AETRPPE90LY&colid=L2RXCO17NZ83

MUST SHOP! MUST SHOP TO SAVE AMERICAGLARRGHHH!!!!

(head explodes)

Mitch Mitchell rides on into the sky

Sad to see you go. The joy and power of the music you made with Jimi Hendrix had a huge impact my life. Even though it was first recorded before I was born.





Here's to the rhinestone-studded drum throne that awaits, at the Great Jam in the Sky.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYgvK9u7-N8

If you could, say hi to Studs Terkel for all of us, as well.

Hey, Ads by Google? Go fuck yourself. ->

For the next day or so, as you look to the right of this article, you may see a "Yes on Proposition 8" piece of shite camouflaged as a blog ad.

They are shovellin' that shite far and wide.

So, let it be known that I don't agree with it, and if that link makes me any money I'm donating it to the most pro-Gay Marriage charity I can find.

Honestly. People need to not deny rights to other people. It's that simple. All the things going on with our present and our future, and people are spending their money holding onto a past that was only an illusion anyway. Gay people were around, in love and having long relationships since before history began. What's their love got to do with yours? How does their calling what they have "marriage" and them applying for the legal protection they want, lessen anyone else's marriage OR legal rights in any way, shape or form?

Come on people. Use what's between your ears - because while you're worked up about this, your preachers, pundits and still-standing Presidents are stealing your wallets and selling them to China.

Update: Well the vote's over now, at least. I can only hope that once all the votes are counted, Proposition 8 still goes down into the dust. Or, failing that, the California Supreme Court shitcans it like the shit it is.

Turns out the Utah Mormons are behind it. I guess if they can't have their wacky marriages, no one can. Well, here's the deal you fuckers: first Nevada went blue, and now you're next. Better retreat to Area 51.

Update 2: So much for that.

There is one consolation, one hope and one lesson. The consolation: this passed with lower numbers than the the last one. The hope: that this one will get shot down as unconstitutional, just like the last one.

And the lesson, that it seems liberals and progressives have to keep learning: thinking we're right is not enough to win.

I've heard some blame Proposition 8's passage on African-American and Latino voters - but what did white liberals and progressives do to convince them to vote against it?

Many Californians, me included, were sure this proposition wouldn't pass. So we didn't reach out beyond our convinced circles. So a bunch of freakin' white-bread conservatives and even MORMONS were able to connect more with African-Americans and Latinos than we did.

That's right. Conservatives, who routinely tar all Latinos as illegal immigrants to blame for all their woes, while they at the same time exploit them for cheap labor...and Mormons - who belong to a church so racist at it's core that until recently they publicly forbade all non-caucasians from any positions of power.

How could we blow that kind of advantage?

Right before the vote I saw a deluge of ads for Proposition 8, and barely any against. So I thought we were just outspent; but I was surprised to find out that's not the case. Funding against Proposition 8 was even greater than that for it. Perhaps those for Proposition 8 had a more united strategy.

In any case, just buying a bunch of ads is clearly not enough. We need to go in there and connect with people we disagree with, and find a way to sway them. If Mormons and conservatives can connect through religion, then we need to get comfortable with religion. Or really, just more comfortable...that might be another ugly truth Proposition 8 reveals: even though us white liberals and progressives and want what's best for all regardless of skin, religion, income, background, race, gender, sex preference etc. I really aren't hanging out with our fellow non-white Americans.

I'm not saying we should go out and self-conscisously try to get more "non-white friends" or something. Honestly, what's more false, disgusting, and patronizing than that? Turns my stomach just to think of it. But we do need to be more with other communities, and not just try to change the world by sending anonymous money to ad campaigns.

Hell, there's probably a lot of social conservatives we could have convinced to vote against Proposition 8, just by pointing out over some beers how much money all those weddings make for California.

We've got to plan better and do better. We've got a lot to do in this country. Let's get it together.

sepultura -territory

Just so much power, it's almost too much for a human head to withstand without exploding.

And not one time-wasting puerile lyric about the Devil either.

David Brooks: Using black magic to pull rabbits from his ass

I love to hate saccharin-coated gourmet crapslinger David Brooks. Every week he graces the NY Times with a fresh example of a high art: writing as black magic. His method is simple but extremely well executed. He'll compose an article of smoothly-phrased selective information, and carefully place within it one KEY implied assumption.

It's like a magician's trick, where he sets the stage, points the audience towards the Left and pulls a rabbit from his ass.

His latest article, "Big Government Ahead", doesn't disappoint.

First, Brooks sets the stage as firmly in the present and the future.

We're in the middle of a financial crisis, but most economists say there is a broader economic crisis still to come...By the time the recession is in full force, America's Democrats will probably be running the government.

Here we see Brooks is a true master. A lesser conservative writer would blame the Left for the current situation, while they excuse the Right. But by simply starting as if the world began today, he gracefully avoids any need to even deal with how Republican and conservative people, policies, and ideology might be even partly responsible for how we got here.

Next, Brooks writes several paragraphs of how bad things are now, and how bad he thinks they will become. Here he shows more of his subtle slickness; he doesn't even mention the Republican party. Instead he only gives a passing nod to John McCain, and a scaremongering mention of Newt Gingrich - who doesn't even hold office. Thus Brooks conjures a future in which Republicans will have NO effect on economic policy - not even as a minority party, not even as voices in the wilderness.

And therefore all the hypothetical bad things in the future can only be blamed on the Democrats, you see.

This implication of minority-party powerlessness, is clearly contradicted by a quick look into the past Brooks is avoiding. Recall how the minority party House Republicans completely derailed the $700 billion bailout package, until they got the added goodies they desired?

...But to just stop at this logical mistake, is to be distracted from it's lower purpose. It's a seeming oversight that's a setup for the misdirect. Just like a stage magician might appear to stumble - while he is in fact preparing to launch the rabbit in his pants.

Now that an unwary reader's eyes are pointed critically towards the Left, Brooks launches the rabbit from his haunches:

The new situation will reopen old rifts in the Democratic Party.

One the one side, liberals will argue...

On the other hand, the remaining moderates will argue...

Did you catch that?

The hidden key assumption is that with a President Obama and a Democratic House and Congress, it won't be liberals vs. conservatives, but liberals vs. moderates.

From this seed, many further implications spring.

First, as we all know, moderates are safe, reasonable and balanced. Therefore if liberals are opposed to moderates, they must be unreasonable, unsafe and insane radicals.

Next, by describing Democratic non-liberals as the "few remaining moderates" Brooks implies that the crazy Democratic party liberals will outnumber and overpower all the sane, helpless moderates within the entire effective government.

Then, possibly most deceptively at all, this hidden key assumption also obliviates(*tm) the fact that the Democratic party *also* has conservatives. And, once again looking at the past Brooks is avoiding, constantly clash with Democratic liberals and often side with their Republican conservative counterparts.

A few sentences later, as a stage magician would make a final flourish with the inexplicably brown-stained rabbit, Brooks gracefully tap-tap-taps his key assumption just a wee bit further to set it firmly in place. The subtle efficiency with which Brooks achieves this is true writing craftsmanship.

Obama will try to straddle the two camps - he seems to sympathize with both sides - but the liberals will win.

Now, the first tap is slick enough:

Tap 1. The completely crazy non-moderate liberals will certainly win, to the point of overruling Obama.

But hidden beneath this are no less than three further innuendos driving this assumption home:

Tap 2: Obama is only HALF sane, because he's both a liberal sympathizer and a Democrat moderate sympathizer.

Tap 3: There's only *two* sides in the Democratic party. Liberals and moderates. No one else, that's it! And certainly no conservatives!

Tap 4: If the Democratic party has only 2 sides, liberal and moderate - then Obama has no sympathy for Republican or even Democratic conservative views.

Four innuendoes in just one sentence! The last three so easily missed, in fact, that I didn't even parse them out until just now, well past the 5th draft of this post.

So to sum up the badly-smelling brown-covered pants-rabbit of Brooks' article:

1. anything and everything that goes wrong in America for the next 8 years can only be the fault of Democrats, because they're the only people in power, and no one else exists
2. certainly no conservatives will be involved in anything that goes wrong, because none of them exist in government now either
3. of those Democrats, it will be more the fault of liberals than moderates - because liberals are crazy non-moderates
4. Obama will fail in controlling the insane unsafe never-moderate liberals, because he sympathizes with some of them - which means he's at least partly insane as well.

I hate all that Brooks is trying to accomplish here. Nevertheless I must at the same time acknowledge that this is great writing. That it's used for dark aims of deception doesn't detract from the focus, skill and craft involved. It only makes it more tragic. A very smart man with schooled charm and very sharply honed writing skills, is using his gifts to try and fool people.

For us humans to do anything consistently, we must convince ourselves that it's right. So the only way I could see putting that much conscious effort and years of honed skill into manipulation like this, is to think that people must be fooled for their own good. What a sad, messed up world. Where our democracy is not a blessing but an inconvenience; the peasants can't be trusted to make up their own free minds - they must be beguiled towards the goals of their betters.

Brooks concludes this article, in a way sure to salve the wounds of those conservatives wounded by reality's recent economic meltdown, election of Barack Obama, and other refutations of their worldviews:

The over-reach is coming. The backlash is next.

Brooks' problem is that the over-reach was committed by the 2000-2006 GOP, and the backlash gave the Democrats control of both houses for the first time in decades. And it's only getting started. The more Americans realize how awful the so-called conservative movement and it's GOP host-succubus has been for America, the greater this backlash will become.

Big changes are clearly coming in the political environment, and hence for both David Brooks and the ideological constituency which he serves. I think Brooks is trying to reposition himself. He probably will avoid mentioning conservative figures or ideology - favorably OR unfavorably - as much as possible. He will instead camouflage himself and the politics he serves by deifying conservative figures and goals in the holy cloak of "moderation". And demonize all non-conservatives as doubleplusungood liberals. And thus try to maintain his facade as a reasonable pundit, while waiting for the mob of angry peasants to pass by.

* obliviate - (noun) - 1. to obliterate from memory by blowing over it with bloviation. 2. In the Harry Potter universe, a memory charm which erases the recipients memory.