About holidays

In honor of Easter weekend and Passover, neither of which I celebrate, I'm making a list of the holidays I do celebrate. I'm devoutly non-religious, and I consider atheism a religion as well, so basically I'm the pope of "how should I know?", and I take my responsibilities seriously.

So here is what I celebrate. I celebrate New Years as often as possible. January 1st, Chinese New Year, my birthday and everyone else's as personal New Years, any opportunity at all. I pledge to new year's revolutions and sometimes stick with them. I'm not particularly pagan, although I do love me a good ritual. Unfortunately, I haven't really seen a good ritual since I left California, so that element is not much of a draw at this point. But I celebrate the quarters, the solstices and equinoxes, and the cycles of the moon, because they're actual real things and lovely markers of time here on this planet. I am not interested in the accessory activities, the spells and self important seriousness and the...stuff. I celebrate mardi gras in the festive sense, not the catholic sense, because I never turn down a good party with costumes. I celebrate Arbor Day, because, hello, trees. I celebrate the 4th of July because I love exploding things that are on fire. I'm not much about flags, although Tibetan prayer flags are lovely.

I used to refuse Valentine's Day, but have recently reconsidered and now I view it as a day to celebrate love. Not just romantic love, but the capital L kind of Love. Big love. It almost comes full circle to when I was in grade school and you had to give everyone a valentine, not just the people you especially liked. It's a day to remember to not just be in love, but be love. So now we're friends again, valentine's day and me.

I celebrate All Hallow's Eve and Day of the Dead, because did I mention costumes and parties? Yes, that.

I really like exploring other people's holidays, even when I think the reason behind them is silly, and sometimes once is enough. But other ones are just fun to play with. India has a lot of great celebrations to offer, and they don't seem to be too grimly serious. I appreciate that. Who can't like a day dedicated to lights, for example? What a great idea.

I don't celebrate what I call florists' holidays - Mother's Day, Father's Day, you know the ones. When my son was little his second grade teacher forced him to make me a card for Mother's Day. He kept saying, "she really doesn't want anything" and she kept saying "oh, she's just saying that", and he kept saying "no, she actually means it" (yes, he said things like that at that age), and then he brought it home and handed it to me and said, "I'm sorry, she made me do it.". The thing is, he gave me cards and drawings and paintings and cool stuff he found every day and he completely understood that he didn't need a day assigned to be nice to me. It wasn't a duty. We really liked each other. So anyway, I don't do those kinds of holidays.

I've gone back and forth with christmas. I started out observing only the solstice, then my kiddo felt left out because everyone he knew celebrated on a different day, then I've recently gotten so pissed off at the overbearing exhortations from people who can't tolerate the idea of a secular celebration and want everyone to "put the Christ back in christmas" and remind us that "Jesus is the reason for the season" (bear in mind, I live in the south), that I've gone back to the solstice. But I don't like the idea of celebrating as a season of spending and shopping and gluttony and family obligations. I don't care at all for the idea that one shopping season determines the financial success of the retail industry - this seems insane. If people have to buy a bunch of crap for other people that the other people don't need and often don't even want, this is not a viable business model to begin with. I like to give people things when I'm inspired to, not when I'm told to. So anyway, what I celebrate on the solstice is that every day starts having more light than the last. At the same time, it's the marker for when the plans you made are going to prove themselves - if I didn't have a grocery store down the street, it would be the season where what I had managed to put up for the winter would be my survival. It marks the beginning of seeds thinking about themselves underground, of animals holding back and waiting, it's a pause. Pauses are important. Pauses are what keep music from being screeching cacaphony. The solstice starts the balancing act, and it makes the rest of the year music.

Some miscellaneous extra days: I celebrate cinco de mayo (which many people mistakenly think is the Mexican Fourth of July) because, beer and tacos - somewhat the same way I celebrate St Patrick's day, except that doesn't have tacos. I celebrate Thanksgiving by going to this Indian restaurant we love. I really dislike turkey as a food substance. I don't think it should exist in that way. I celebrate Earth Day especially if it involves a good drum circle, but I think if we don't celebrate every day as earth day, we're fucked.

I celebrate Kris' and my "anniversary", which was the day she asked if she could crash here with her dog because her friend's cat was sick and her dog was disruptive and we were both working Fringe Fest and she lived kind of far out of town, and then she didn't leave after that.

So. Whatever it is you use to mark portions of your year and meaningful days, enjoy. Have fun, share love, try to get some drumming and dancing in. What do you celebrate?

You can't fix stupid.

We've elected a government that thinks government is a bad idea - anybody see a problem with that? -  and who are apparently too stupid to grasp global economics. We've elected people who compare the solvency of treasury notes internationally to a household and credit cards. It is not a useful analogy. Households, first of all, aren't allowed to mint their own currency. Second, they don't hold the trust and investment of the rest of the planet in peril if they don't pay their credit card. This is nothing like a household maintaining a budget, and I used to think these wackjobs were dumbing it down to push their agenda past voters who are none too bright. Now I think they actually are really, really dim witted themselves. I don't know what to do about that.

Kerfuffle is my new fave word

There was a recent extended family kerfuffle involving a new driver who in fact does not text and drive but was threatened with dismemberment and a home lobotomy if she considered doing so. You know how families get. Now, I think that texting while driving is a form of insanity. You also should not read a magazine, play a video game or perform surgery. This is just obvious stuff, right?

Here's where I get confused. There's also a public, legal push to make all cell use while driving prohibited, even fully hands off, because it's too "distracting". Really? Because then, right off the bat, the display panel in my Prius should be arrested immediately. But beyond that, shouldn't we have only single passenger vehicles? And CD players and radios should be removed straight away. If you have children in your car, they should be padlocked into car seats in the back with a soundproof privacy window between their compartment and yours. You know, like in those cars in spy thrillers. Anyone in the passenger seat should be required to wear a ball gag - wiffle balls make the best homemade, cheap ones, as the person can still breathe even if their nose gets stuffed up from the crying. Store them in your glove compartment - come on, you know you don't have that thing filled
with gloves. Also, humming or whistling should get you a moving violation.

Isn't it possible that we could all agree that driving big dangerous missiles at high speeds requires attention, and at the same time not become complete psychos? Of  course no one should text while driving. But you can't talk to someone on a voice activated hands free device? If that's too distracting, stay out of your car. Please.

And I think you should also be required to wear a helmet. A soundproofed one. And possibly bubble wrap, which can really work with the whole ball gag look. Please send me the photos. But don't take them on your phone while in the car. Possibly if you untie your passenger they could take the photo for you. Then wrap them right back up and be on your way.

This time it's personal

I have a sort of objection to the "born this way" perspective on equal rights. I think everyone should have equal rights to choices between consenting adults legally. Churches can sanction what they wish. But people should all equally have the right to choose their legal family. As a matter of fact, I think the number should not be limited to just two, and it shouldn't matter what the combination of genders are.  That should only be the concern of the people involved. The justification shouldn't be that you have no other option. It shouldn't need to be.

Here's my personal, very personal, perspective:  I have a same sex partner whom I adore. I have had opposite sex partners as well. I've had a lot of interesting experiences. I'm not with the person I'm with because I was choosing from a pool of 50% of the population, but out of everyone. So the idea that we should have gay rights only because there are people on that end of the scale who genuinely are only attracted to one gender and THAT'S why same sex partnerships should be acknowledged,  because they can't help it, like it's some kind of disability, pisses me off. It pisses me off because it leaves me out, it pisses me off because it leaves free choice out, it pisses me off because it assumes that the genitals I interact with are anyone else's business.  Having legal family status matters - maybe in ways that it shouldn't. Maybe we should just legally be individuals, and we'll pretend families don't exist. 

There are ways to get around most of it, but it's cost prohibitive if you aren't dealing drugs to a lawyer. And some stuff you still can't get past, and I really, really wish we can just get over it. I don't understand why my choice of family concerns anyone outside of my family.

There, thanks. It isn't like I have the fantasy that saying these things changes anything, but it's still lovely to put it out there.

CDC hires Captain Obvious. Then clones him.

The CDC published a report yesterday with the astonishingly obvious news that antibiotic resistance is a big problem, and that we've overused and misused antibiotics to the point where we've created a plethora of resistant organisms. Nowhere in this report is any mention of what creates natural resistance. There is, however, a suggestion that we should all get more vaccinations (which the CDC insists on inaccurately calling "immunizations"), in spite of the fact thst all effective vaccinations address viral threats, not bacterial ones, which is the target market for our over prescribed antibiotics. At the end of the report we are informed that there is no declared financial conflict of interest. Because it's not like the CDC and big pharma have a revolving door policy or anything. Oh, wait. Right. There isn't any payoff in suggesting that people eat real food, in reasonable amounts, replenish their gut flora with fermented foods, get their hands dirty now and then, use their bodies. There isn't any money in that. As bad as polio was, the majority of people who contracted the virus only thought they had the flu or didn't even know they'd contracted it at all. As bad as the Black Plague was, and as disastrous as public hygiene was, most people did NOT contract it. Now, most people who manifest the polio virus have post vaccination polio. Most people who develop pertussis have been fully vaccinated. Maybe we could start looking for some reasons that don't necessarily pad the bank accounts of pharmaceutical companies. Hmm, but there's no one to fund those studies. And after all, we have an excessive number of serfs to get rid of. Now make sure you get your flu vaccine. Here's the link to this incredibly boring report with some awesome photos: http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/threat-report-2013/pdf/ar-threats-2013-508.pdf

The real problem with Carlos Danger

I do not care at all what consensual behaviors people choose or how they manage their relationships. I don't care if Carlos Danger likes to sext his junk. Loads of people do, and plenty of them are smart enough to get the app that makes the picture disappear after a few seconds. As long as the person on the receiving end agreed to it, it's none of my business. But this is a two part problem in this situation.

Here's the first part of the problem: we all know that plenty of politicians are corrupt and downright despicable. But we expect them to at least present a facade of being a class act. If you can't pull that off, you're disqualified. For example, if you name yourself and your photogenic junk "Carlos Danger". Automatic disqualification. If you're going to play in the public eye of politics, you have to either be much more discreet or subject yourself to a different standard, or you're displaying an inability to play the game. Epic fail, Carlos.

The second part of this problem isn't really his, but it's part of the same principle. In everyday life, I could not care less how people organize their personal relationships, what boundaries they draw, what they put up with or maybe even enjoy. But if Huma Abedin wants to stay in political life, she has to walk away from this whole situation. It's her choice, but she won't be able to have both. And while Carlos never really accomplished much politically, Huma is poised to sacrifice an awful lot for this. Step away from the political chainsaw that is Carlos, Huma. If he actually was a class act, he'd tell you to do just that. But he isn't.

Pick up the rocks

I want to tell you why I care passionately about politics, and why we're being lulled into thinking politics is just some corrupt, boring mess that we'd rather not think about. I want to tell you why I think the distinction between oligarchy and plutocracy is meaningless and that we're stuck in the middle of both - because if you control with either one, money or power, why wouldn't you grab the other up as well? But I think I'm going to bore you to death before you finish reading these words.

This is one terrific explanation of what we're all experiencing.  http://www.ted.com/talks/james_b_glattfelder_who_controls_the_world.html?fb_ref=talk

But here is the thing:  there are more of us feudal serfs than there are of the feudal lords, and they are terrified that we'll figure that out and realize that politics is anything but boring and way more than corrupt and that we outnumber them and we still ostensibly have the right to vote, and just as important, the right to speak out.

There has never been as much transparency as there is now - it's very hard for anyone to hide anything, and not because of Edward Snowden or even the NSA. We now have the capacity to know pretty exactly what our elected officials represent. With a little digging, we can know who they took money from, who they worked for and with, how well they play with others. This situation has never happened before in all of history.

So I'm begging you, anyone who reads a word I write for whatever your reasons are, please pay attention, speak out, vote, do anything you can to counteract voter suppression (I live in the currently worst state, NC), and start with your state and local government and the off year elections. Pay attention. It really matters. We could throw rocks and win, we just have to pick up the rocks.