Changing Places

Tales of the Freewayblogger: Chicago, IL

Hell yeah.

Indeed. It angers me that we still have to fight blatant racism and sexism. I put up with the snide remarks when I went to my engineering classes – I truly hope, one day, we will be beyond this crap.

Hey, all you insecure white males – you don’t need to make fun of the rest of us. You are the privileged ones, who don’t have to put up with jokes made at your expense. It’s no excuse for your ignorance, your intolerance, your “jokes”, and your covering for your own fears and insecurities. We don’t need it, and this country can no longer afford it.

First Draft

As Coach Stringer said, we realize that it’s about women across the world, across this nation. It just so happens that we finally take a stand. And we ask that you continue to support us and not look at it as we’re attacking a major broadcasting figure. We’re attacking something – an issue that we know isn’t right. And we just continue to ask for your support and thank you for your support thus far.– Essence Carson, captain of the Rutgers women’s basketball team (via Pam)

I can’t believe that there is any debate by anyone as to whether Imus’s remarks were racist per se. It’s pathetic. It was racist. No debate, no question. Period. But the remarks were also incredibly sexist and as a one time young woman student athlete I have a few remarks on what Essence had to say from that perspective.

As a kid I loved basketball. In fact I was crazy about basketball. I played everyday out on the driveway, rain or shine. In the winter I’d shovel the snow from the drive and shoot away. However there was no organized girls basketball back in those days. So I played alone. Why? Because I loved it and I was GOOD at it.The coach of the boys 8th grade team had told me if I had been a boy I’d be starting for him. His words were affirming and crushing. If only…..

When I was in high school a friend and I decided enough. We went to the principal and demanded there be girls sports. Fortunately Title IX was in the pipe and the writing was on the wall so he supported us. However it had to go to the school board. They were not so enlightened. According to them I’d never menstruate again if allowed to play sports. Oy! In response I remember standing and giving a passionate speech at the board meeting ….the theme of which was WE were their children too. We simply wanted the opportunity to play. They approved a program for basketball only and we had our opportunity. It wasn’t easy.

We were given the old uniforms of the boys volleyball team to wear. We had to find our own coach for them to hire. We practiced at the worst times in the worst gyms all over the town. And we took shit…a lot of shit. We were mocked and called names and basically characterized as ugly manly dykes. It hurt.

It wasn’t something we discussed often as a team. We heard it. We knew it. We expected it because we were the first. We knew there was a responsibility in being first and that was to prove we could PLAY. That was our answer. We would show them girls could be athletes. Good athletes. Great athletes.

In the final year I played we won all but one game and brought our school a conference co-championship. We were proud of our record. We were good. We had done all we could to prove our point. To make our stand. To take our rightful place. We were pioneers and proud of it. No matter what people thought or said. Every dirty look, every cruel remark, we took it. We took the shit in hope that those who came after us would not have to do so. We were proving a point and taking our stand, not only for ourselves but for all the other girls out there who one day would just want to PLAY because they loved the game and they were good at it.

That was years ago. And given that, it is sad to see in the year 2007 that someone as accomplished as Essence Carson has to stand before the nation and “finally take a stand” as a woman …. the very same damn stand we had taken so many years before as young women. How many generations will have to fight this fight?

I wonder what my team mates of years ago are thinking, feeling and saying of all this tonight. No I don’t have to wonder. We shared too much, were too close. I know exactly what they are saying of Don Imus. I know they are immensely proud of the Rutgers women’s basketball team for proving the point, for taking the stand…..for being the new pioneers.

Congratulations to the Rutgers women on a great season and Thank You for carrying on. It isn’t right to have had this placed upon you. It’s never been right. But somewhere out there is a young girl shooting hoops on a driveway or at a park……

UPDATE: Had to add this from Smirking Chimp after the “But what about the rappers?” comment here:

The Imus affair is not about free speech. If he wants to throw these bigoted hate words in the face of some glorious young women, he has the right to do so, on any street corner.

The issue here is whether a publicly owned media company, in a publicly regulated industry, with sponsors dependent on the public goodwill of their customers, with some serious standard of corporate responsiblity, should peddle this crap for profit on the public airwaves.

Let’s be clear: Media barons not only allow but encourage bigotry, anger, smear, derision and disrespect so long as it is good for business.

Much of my business is in entertainment, and I once had dinner with a high-level friend in the business and his wife. In a pre-planned attack, I said to them that maybe I should tell their teenage daughter she is deserving of various criminal sexual acts because she is really nothing more than a prostitute (I used different words).

Of course, Mom was deeply offended and said if I ever used such language again she’d never talk to me again. At which point I pulled out a CD, from a black rapper, using those exact words about a black woman, and asked them both: You realize I just quoted verbatim a product your company puts out, whose profit is paying for our wonderful dinner at this fine restaurant?

At which point Mom looked at my entertainment-business colleague and said, “We are going to have a long talk when we get home tonight!!!”

Does it matter if a billion-dollar white-owned conglomerate pays a fortune to a black rapper to make insulting, racist, sexist comments about a black woman? Or if a white-owned conglomerate puts this garbage on television and radio?

Trust me, if there were more African-American, Hispanic, and female owners at the highest levels of management of these companies, this kind of racist, misogynist content would disappear.

If there were more African-American, Hispanic and females as full-blown hosts on these radio and television networks, the quality and respect of our media and political discourse would far better reflect the American notions of tolerance and melting-pot inclusiveness.

And more from Gwen Ifill:

Every time a young black girl shyly
approaches me for an autograph or writes or calls or
stops me on the street to ask how she can become a
journalist, I feel an enormous responsibility. It’s
more than simply being a role model. I know I have to
be a voice for them as well.

So here’s what this voice has to say for people who
cannot grasp the notion of picking on people their own
size: This country will only flourish once we
consistently learn to applaud and encourage the young
people who have to work harder just to achieve balance
on the unequal playing field.

Let’s see if we can manage to build them up and reward
them, rather than opting for the cheapest, easiest,
most despicable shots.

Gwen Ifill is a senior correspondent for “The NewsHour
With Jim Lehrer” and the moderator of “Washington
Week.”

Did my good deed for the day — rescued an Australian Shepherd named “Theo” who had gotten loose from his petsitter. Didn’t get a picture, though, but he was beautiful. Not a golden, but quite a nice dog.

He’s on his way back to the petsitter’s home now and all is well – yay!

Dispel time
And you will
Dispel fate.

Fate is the force that interferes with our lives, wrecking things at the worst moments. Yet what we call fate is nothing more than the consequence of our own actions. Each time we act, we generate a chain of events that is tied to us completely. The faster we run from these links, the faster they follow us. They cannot be severed; our every act binds us further.

The operative element here is time. The events of the past are the curse. Beginning followers of Tao learn to manipulate past, present, and future. They learn how circumstances operate and seek to take advantage of that. More advanced followers of Tao eschew this process of manipulation. They obliterate all regard to past, present, and future as definitions in order to negate the concept of fate.

In order to attain a state of being where there is no past to weigh upon the present and no future to be determined, followers of Tao must reach a profound merging with Tao. The follower then acts no differently than Tao would. There is no fate to oppose them, for they are existence, they are causality, they are Tao itself.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Of course, since the Tao encompasses everything anyway, we are already Tao itself. What it really takes is a realization of this, and then you stop complaining about fate. We are where we are in our lives by the choices we make. Yes, things happen to us we have no direct control over, and I think this passage is a bit simplistic in not acknowledging that. That is what people really refer to as fate, when they feel they have no control over events around them.

But we do have control over how we react to the events around us. We can realize this and manage our own reactions to what happens around us.

73. Fate

The brave and bold perish;
The brave and subtle profit.
The subtle profit where the bold perish
For fate does not honor daring.
And even the gentle dare not tempt fate.

Fate does not attack, yet all things succumb to it;
It does not ask, yet all things answer it;
It does not call, yet all things meet it;
It does not plan, yet it determines all things.

Fate’s net is vast and its mesh is coarse,
Yet none escape it.

– Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

Desire nothing, Chafe not at fate, nor at Nature’s changeless laws. But struggle only with the personal, the transitory, the evanescent and the perishable.

— Helena Petrovna Hahn Blavatsky (1831-91)
Russian-born theosophist

What we really control in our lives is the present moment. If we live without regretting the past, without fretting about the future, and use the present moment as best we can, aware of the consequences of what we do now to the future, then we are doing all we can to live our lives the way we want them to be. That is the real understanding of the Tao, i think – to live in the now as if it is all that matters, because, really, it is.

(originally posted March 18, 2005)

Losing the tree across the street was hard, but this one is truly tragic – they are taking down the one we call “The Dragon”, which was our Feng Shui “dragon” tree next door protecting our left flank.

I am truly angered. This is the asshat that is leaving his wife and two boys, two and five years old. Yes, he can do what he wants with his house and family and his new skanky woman, but I sure don’t have to like him. Sure, the tree is tearing up his foundation, but he’s already done a great job himself of destroying the foundations of his life.

And I sure don’t like him. I’ll miss that tree, I’ll miss his wife, and those kids, who are now living in a townhouse a few miles away. And I’ll sneer at the bastard and the skank every damn time I see them.

Not a good day. Not at all.

I’m off to sulk, now.

peep jousting!

Happy Eas…

Hmmm. Oh well, Happy East…

Darwin!!

Well, Happy Easter, anyway…

Online Reader – Project Gutenberg

The Taoists relate that at the great beginning of the No-Beginning, Spirit and Matter met in mortal combat. At last the Yellow Emperor, the Sun of Heaven, triumphed over Shuhyung, the demon of darkness and earth. The Titan, in his death agony, struck his head against the solar vault and shivered the blue dome of jade into fragments. The stars lost their nests, the moon wandered aimlessly among the wild chasms of the night. In despair the Yellow Emperor sought far and wide for the repairer of the Heavens. He had not to search in vain. Out of the Eastern sea rose a queen, the divine Niuka, horn-crowned and dragon-tailed, resplendent in her armor of fire. She welded the five-coloured rainbow in her magic cauldron and rebuilt the Chinese sky. But it is told that Niuka forgot to fill two tiny crevices in the blue firmament. Thus began the dualism of love–two souls rolling through space and never at rest until they join together to complete the universe. Everyone has to build anew his sky of hope and peace. The heaven of modern humanity is indeed shattered in the Cyclopean struggle for wealth and power. The world is groping in the shadow of egotism and vulgarity. Knowledge is bought through a bad conscience, benevolence practiced for the sake of utility. The East and the West, like two dragons tossed in a sea of ferment, in vain strive to regain the jewel of life. We need a Niuka again to repair the grand devastation; we await the great Avatar. Meanwhile, let us have a sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.

I love this. It is a lesson that took me a long time to learn, too. Particularly over my sister and nephew’s troubles, and my own children’s problems. I used to tell their teachers, “I don’t rescue” when they would call in concern over the kid’s grades, and I don’t. I believe people need to be (or become) responsible for their own actions or inactions. We can’t take on other’s problems ourselves without becoming codependent. It is a hard, hard lesson to learn….

BlogLily

For a very long time, I responded to the knowledge that someone is having trouble by becoming so invested in helping them get out of it that their trouble became my own. My own troubles and needs? They did not seem to exist anymore.

This is the sort of thing that made me a terrible litigator. When the client’s trouble became my trouble it was as though I was the one being accused of terrible wrongdoing. I would be defensive and upset every time I responded to the lawyer on the other side. Never mind that I was not the one who displayed the poor judgment that got the client to the place where they needed to hire my law firm to defend them. Their mistakes felt like my own. Their setbacks? Mine.

Gradually, and mostly because I stopped doing that kind of work, it dawned on me that someone else’s trouble was not my trouble. It was generally not my fault, and although I could feel sympathy for the person in trouble, I did not need to become them. I could say, you and your lawsuit live over here — in a place that is not mine. You got yourself into this mess, not me. There is a hand gesture that goes along with this thought. If you have trouble with this issue, you might want to try it:

Cup your hands together, and place the trouble you have been taking on inside the space in your hands. (Obviously, you must pretend, this being a symbolic exercise.) Now stretch your hands as far away from you as you can — across my desk is where I mostly do this. And then gently deposit it all at this far away place. Now sit back and repeat after me: This is not my trouble. This does not belong to me. It is not of my making, nor is it my fault. I can help, if I choose to, but only if I am clear that this is not my trouble.

Knowing where I end and others begin has been the single biggest challenge I have faced as an adult. That, and learning not to eat every last bite of the chocolate cake just because I can.

I would say I’ve been busy, but really there’s just not a lot happening.

Lolcat via Icanhascheezburger?

Oh, and it’s wine, btw….

Dependable Renegade: John McCain visits Portland, Maine.

Update: it’s a series!

McCain visits Florida

McCain visits San Francisco

Dependable Renegade: McCain visits Katz’s Deli

Dependable Renegade: McCain visits Indiana

Americablog: Baghdad markets not like Indiana markets

Baghdad in the Midwest cornfields

Is John McCain Insane?

The American Tragedy of John McCain

Egoism is the identification of the seer with the instrumental power of seeing. — Yoga Sutras

Patanjal goes on to point out the second affliction, asmita. The definition of asmita is egoism, or sometimes pride. In purely spiritual terms, asmita is the direct result of avidya. Having lost track of who we are, we make up a definition that seems to make sense. Asmita is the mistaken belief that our abilities are who we are, and not a reflection of who we are. It is as though a lightbulb, having forgotten about electricity, believes that it is light. In a more worldly sense, asmita manifests as the madness of pride, and the despair that comes from a belief in an isolated self.

Those of us in the United States live upon a segment of the earth whose resources provide us with enormous material power. The belief that this power is somehow our fault, rather than a blessing and a responsibility, is the madness of asmita. Conversely, the belief that our material wealth must be safeguarded from those who share the planet with us arises from the fear that derives from the isolated self. The isolated self, the rugged individual, lives in imagined exile from love and safety. Asmita, then, is a coin with two sides. On one side is the sense that we are above everyone; on the other is the fear that we are beneath everyone. Out of disconnection from self comes disconnection from others. — Rolf Gates, Meditations from the Mat

Mistaking the transient for the permanent, the impure for the pure, pain for pleasure, and that which is not the self for the self: All this is called lack of spiritual knowledge, avidya. — yoga sutras

According to the Yoga Sutras, avidya is the source of all our troubles. .. It is as though we grew up in a dark room filled with hot stoves. To make matters worse, there were people in the room trying to get us to touch those hot stoves. Growing up consists of touching one stove after the next as we slowly come to understand the nature of our predicament. At first we learn to back off when we start to fell the heat. We also begin to question the voices that are promoting intimacy with hot stoves as the key to right living. Eventually we find out that there is someone in that dark room who wants us to turn on the light. Initially we are too busy getting burned to listen, but in some still moment, as we recover from a particularly bad burn, we begin to pay attention for ourselves. Those of us on a spiritual path have entered into a dialog with that voice. And those of us who do actually turn on the light can, in turn, become teachers to the rest of us. — Rolf Gates, Meditations from the Mat

Tattoo Your Toddler!

“April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.” — Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson, 1894

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” — George W. Bush

“The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.” — Will Rogers

“The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time.” — Franklin P. Adams

“However big the fool, there is always a bigger fool to admire him.” — Nicholas Boileau

“There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.” — Adlai E. Stevenson

“Lord, what fools these mortals be.” — William Shakespeare

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” — Bertrand Russell

“If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.” — Carl Gustav Jung

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” –Douglas Adams

“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” — Abraham Lincoln

“APRIL FOOL, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.” –Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

April Fools on the web – don’t believe everything (anything?) you read today….