Tag: rants

“A time comes when silence is betrayal.” Martin Luther King

Dear Karen Markham:

I am a straight person in Texas and that makes me reluctant to respond to your letter. Not because what happens in Maine is none of my business and my state certainly has enough issues of its own to trouble me. But because, like you, when I hear a generalization that I question, I like to confirm it by going to a source that might have firsthand experience that can refute or support it.
Continue reading ““A time comes when silence is betrayal.” Martin Luther King”

Good and Bad

It’s 73 degrees and breezy at The Compound, which is our version of fall. I’ve opened up all the windows to enjoy it, and it feels wonderful.

Which is a good thing, because today I cried when I opened my power bill. Instead of going down, like it usually does this time of year, and in spite of the fact that all central air at The Compound was shut down for three days during the Rita scare, the bill was even higher than last month’s.

Usually the “winter months,” and I use that term loosely, provide my relief from high utility bills, but I’ve read that our natural gas bills are expected to be astronomical this season.

Sad, because while most people keep their thermostats in the low to mid seventies, in summer we keep it on 82 and in winter on 68. I don’t know how people with huge houses pay their bills.

P.S. I wonder what salaries and bonuses CEOs and upper management at utility companies are getting this year and if they are comparable to those of the oil company executives…

Looters ‘R Us

I think that reactions to the looting in New Orleans may say more about people than the actual looting does. If I were scared, thirsty, hungry, and tired, I don’t know what the hell I’d do. If I had a child, sick or injured loved one, or elderly parent who was scared, thirsty, hungry, and tired, I’d probably be capable of pretty much anything.

Would I steal a loaf of bread? Absolutely. Would I steal a TV? If I thought I could trade it for a loaf of bread, probably (except I couldn’t carry it, but that’s not the point). I might steal a gun to protect myself and those I care about (but I wouldn’t shoot a man just to watch him die).

And forgive me if you would not, but I think THAT NEARLY EVERYONE would do what they have to do to survive, especially under such circumstances, when no one in authority seems to have any information that can offer hope or promise of an endpoint. If, that is, someone in authority could actually be found in all that chaos.

SO… Seeing what the media chooses to show over and over… Reading what people have to say about it online, has been sadly enlightening. Some people really lack an empathy gene: that is, the ability to actually feel what those residents are feeling and therefore not rush to judgment. Only the absence of a mighty strong wind stands between any of us and a shopping cart with what’s left of our lives.

Mary T has managed to find two pictures that say a little more than we might be comfortable knowing about ourselves. Apparently, looting and finding falls along color lines. Whoever at Yahoo is responsible for these captions should be ashamed.

they wanted to go to church or come home after a weekend riding the trails on horseback

A gunman opened fire with a .38 caliber revolver outside the Sash Assembly of God church in Sash, Texas, on August 28, 2005. He killed two people there:

• James Wayne Armstrong (42 years old)
• Ernest Wesley Brown (61)

The perpetrator fled the area and came upon two women who had stopped their truck and horse trailer at an intersection on their way home from a weekend of horseback riding. He killed both with a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol.

• Holly Ann Love Brown (50)
• Ceri Litterio (46)

He later barricaded himself in his house, and after an hours-long standoff with police, took his own life.

Just My Opinion

It seems every week I read or hear about a new article/study/argument over whether people are born gay or become gay. And I’ve heard all the reasons for why this is so important to figure out, ranging from the answer becoming a basis for tolerance, to passion for unlocking the mysteries of science, but damn, really, I don’t care why. As Jim likes to say, “It is what it is.”

Should people be tolerated, accepted, or treated as equal only because of characteristics they “can’t help,” like being gay is some kind of pitiable genetic rarity? Will we stop unjustly accusing gay people of “recruiting” only when we find out people are born gay? Will we stop these ridiculous and often harmful efforts to “change” gay people only when we find out they are genetically wired to be as they are?

Or what if genetic predisposition to homosexuality is unprovable or disproved? Are we going to insist that all gay people find some way to change so as not to offend the sensibilities of the bigoted? Are we going to start sending social workers into homes to take children from parents who fulfill the Freudian hypothesis that cold father + overprotective mother = gay son? (And where the hell do lesbian and bisexual children fit into that equation? And single parents? And how is it that the same homes produce both homosexual and heterosexual children?) If gay and lesbian people refuse to stop falling in love and having sex and making homes and having children with one another, are we going to put them in gay prison? Sterilize or lobotomize them? Hang them, like they do in Iran?

Justice, fairness, compassion, tolerance, acceptance–to me, these qualities are not about arbitrary criteria for who receives them, but about offering them unconditionally because it is the right thing to do.

About this writing thing…

In his Live Journal, Greg Herren said:

I am not really sure how I feel about writers who begrudge other writers any small success.

Without addressing Greg’s situation or whoever prompted his remarks, this particular statement did call to mind a conversation I had with my writing partner, Jim, the other day. I am often reluctant to comment on other writers’ books even on readers’ boards of which I am a member because while I may express dislike for a writer’s work to a few trusted friends or fellow authors, it’s just not in me to publicly belittle another writer or his work. As far as begrudging a writer success… It’s a tough business. In my opinion, anyone who can get an agent or a publisher or find a means for getting their writing to the public is already a success, regardless of how much they sell. Nor do I look down on writers who self-publish. The amount of perseverance it takes to write, to complete a work, to believe in it enough to pay for its publication, to market and promote and distribute it, is a huge accomplishment in and of itself.
Continue reading “About this writing thing…”