By Wayne Osborn

It was a dark and stormy night, the Friday after Halloween, and instead of attending a high school football game, I was waiting in the lobby of the Puyallup Police Station. I was going on a “ride along”, as a member of the Puyallup Citizen’s Police Academy. I would get to ride along with a police officer during their shift, responding to calls and getting a glimpse, for a few short hours, of what it was like to be a police officer. The lobby was empty and quiet, except for the lady sitting on the bench across the lobby from me. She had a small backpack and another bag filled to the brim with what I imagined were her worldly possessions. She didn’t look dirty, but she did look like she had nowhere else to go. I tried to engage her in small talk; her name was Amanda. She wasn’t much of a conversationalist, so I just sat down and stared out at the windy, rainy night.
Before too long, the door to the station opened up and a police officer looked at me and said “Ride along?”
“Yes” I answered, and introduced myself as we walked back into the secure confines of the police station. He introduced himself as Kevin, and told me this was his first night back after three weeks of vacation. He checked his mailbox, filed a few things and recycled others, and then said “Ready?” I said “Sure”, and we were off, out the back door and into his vehicle, an unmarked, white Chevy Tahoe. He opened up the back of his rig and revealed a virtual office on wheels, with several locking compartments containing everything from files to spike strips to an assault rifle, which he put on a rack right behind our heads. After showing me how his touch screen laptop computer worked, we were off. Almost immediately, we were responding to a call regarding a welfare check on a baby girl at an apartment complex. We arrived, along with another squad car and a K9 unit. This wasn’t intentional overkill; it was just a slow night. Upon arriving, we encountered a resident who directed us to a drunken lady in a stairwell. “Stairwell woman” was apparently the source of the child abuse allegations. However, when asked about this situation, she denied having ever said such a thing. She also had no identification and gave the officers what proved to be a fake birth date. After several minutes of questioning this woman, the officers were getting exasperated, since getting reliable information from this woman was like nailing Jell-o to a tree. A check was made of the apartment and child in question, the child was determined to be fine, and we were on our way.
The next call had us meeting a woman in the Safeway parking lot. She was leaving her husband, and wanted the police to escort her to her house to get some clothes. Her husband was apparently a meth user who had a large collection of hunting knives and a history of violence towards the police. Officer Kevin told me to stay in the police car. He was worried about his own safety; he didn’t want to have to worry about me too. Confronting an angry, knife wielding meth user wasn’t my idea of a good time anyway, so I had no problem staying in the car.
After that situation was handled, we drove around the rain soaked streets for awhile, made a couple of traffic stops, and took a coffee break at Starbucks with some other officers. The conversation there revolved around police work, pending investigations, and the facts that in England, criminals committing crimes are referred to as villains engaged in sinister activities.
Driving back downtown after our coffee break, we encountered another officer arresting a young lady for what I assumed was drunk driving. I quickly found out that she was actually being arrested for driving the wrong way down a one-way street with a suspended license, and there were three warrants out for her arrest. When I asked Officer Kevin if he was surprised by her one-way driving, he said “No. Most people don’t get their license suspended because they’re good drivers.”
Our final call of the night was both funny and sad. A man called to say he had been assaulted by his ex-girlfriend for no apparent reason. “There’s more to this story than that” quipped Officer Kevin.
We arrived on the scene in less than five minutes. Another police car containing two officers pulled up behind us. The rain pelted us relentlessly as we tried to find the house. Small rivers of water roared down the sidewalk. It became somewhat of a game: find the house while dodging the small puddles that permeated the landscape. Neither task was easy. After a block and a half, we were very soaked and a little exasperated. “Where is this place?” asked one of the soaked officers. “It’s gotta be around here somewhere!” replied another. We finally found the house.
The outside lights were off. That was odd, I thought, especially if you were expecting the police. The guy opened up his door in response to a loud knock, invited us in, and then related to us his tale of woe. Details were sparse; he and his girlfriend had just returned home from the movies, and all of a sudden, his ex-girlfriend had burst through the unlocked front door and hit him in the chest, for no reason at all. He then pushed her through the door and then called the police.
The officers took pictures of his chest, which did have a visible red mark. They had him fill out a statement, and then asked him if he had his ex-girlfriend’s phone number. While he was filling out the statement, Officer Kevin called the ex-girlfriend.
“Did you have an altercation with so and so tonight?”
“So he’s your ex-boyfriend?”
“Oh, he’s your husband?”
The officers exchanged raised eyebrows.
After Officer Kevin got the address of where she could be found, he hung up the phone, looked at the guy, and said “She says that you’re married.”
“No, we used to be, but we’re not married anymore.”
“You said that she was your ex-girlfriend.”
“Well…ex-wife.” The guy laughed nervously.
“How long have you been divorced” Officer Kevin asked, with a hint of suspicion creeping into his voice.
“I don’t know….six months?”
“Do you have any paperwork regarding your divorce?” asked the officer.
“Yeah, it’s around here somewhere, but I don’t know where it is.”
After completing all of the necessary paperwork, the officers told the guy that they were going to go talk to his ex-wife, gave him a case number, and told him to keep his door locked from now on. Once outside, the general consensus among the officers was that this guy was full of hot air (that wasn’t the exact terminology they used). He was caught red-handed cheating on his wife, she hit him, and that was it. According to the domestic violence laws in the State of Washington, we were going to have to arrest his wife, since she was the aggressor. Officer Kevin said that if it was up to him, he would tell the woman to divorce her husband, and he’d tell the guy that he’s lucky the only thing that happened to him was getting punched in the chest, and that would be the end of it. Events had been set in motion that were out of his control, however, and we were now on a mission to arrest this woman who had been scorned.
We drove over to the apartment building and located the woman’s apartment. After asking her a few questions, including “Did you hit him?” she was placed in handcuff in the narrow hallway.
While all this was going on, a fight seemed to break out in the apartment next door. A woman was screaming “Oh no you didn’t!” over and over again at the top of her lungs. Finally, Officer Kevin said “I can’t take it anymore” and pounded on her door. The lady who opened the door looked like she should be on the Jerry Springer Show, and was talking on a cell phone. She was also very surprised to see three police officers and a school librarian standing in her hallway.
“I’m out here trying to conduct business and you’re so loud that I can’t hear myself think. STOP IT!” Officer Kevin deadpanned.
“Okay” said the shell shocked woman as she closed the door.
My night with the police ended as we took the woman to jail and booked her for domestic violence. She was going to have to spend the entire weekend in the Puyallup City Jail since there is no bail for domestic violence. You have to see a judge, and the soonest that could happen was Monday morning.
For the police officers, this was just another day at the office. For me, this ride along provided a glimpse into the world of the police, where just about everyone you meet is having some kind of crisis.
It has been said that police work is 95% boredom punctuated by moments of sheer, heart-stopping terror. Even a routine traffic stop can turn deadly, if the driver is a two strike felon who will do anything to keep from going back to prison. While the police are constantly maligned and second guessed, can you imagine a world without them? On this dark and stormy night, I cannot.

Afrika laat zich moeilijk helpen, zo veel is na zestig jaar ontwikkelingssamenwerking zeker. Hetzelfde lijkt te gelden voor het Nederlandse ontwikkelingscomplex zelf. Terwijl de economische crisis, nationalistisch populisme en twijfel over hulp tezamen springtij maken, graaft de hulpsector hard mee aan het eigen graf.

Het succes van hulp wordt niet overtuigend opgeëist: de kwaliteit van leven van veel Afrikanen is door hulp verbeterd. Op het falen van hulp om economische groei te realiseren, wordt ontwijkend gereageerd. Onder toenemende druk van buiten zegt minister Koenders van Ontwikkelingssamenwerking (PvdA) dat hij “de hulpindustrie op de schop” neemt. Dat is: meer dan 70 ontwikkelingsorganisaties moeten allianties vormen om nog subsidie te kunnen krijgen. Maar om de hulp te redden, heeft Bert Koenders heel iets anders nodig dan een complexe uitvoeringspraktijk. Hij zal een nieuwe, fundamentele visie moeten ontwikkelen op wat we hoe in Afrika willen bereiken. Daarvoor moeten het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, parlementariërs en hulporganisaties zich verhouden tot een confronterende realiteit. Hen wachten drie ongemakkelijke waarheden:

1. Ontwikkelingshulp wil vaak wat niet kan
Dat begint bij de misvatting dat het Westen een Afrikaans land zou kunnen ontwikkelen. Een mens, een volk, een land ontwikkelt zichzelf. Waar geen verbeten wil is om te veranderen, haalt hulp niks uit. Onderwijs blijkt voor veel arme Afrikanen minder belangrijk dan wij denken. En mensen die zich laten paaien met douceurtjes in plaats van hun bestuurders verantwoordelijk te houden voor erbarmelijke zorg, onderwijs en wegen, die helpen hun land niet vooruit. Dan blijft democratie een luchtspiegeling.

Ontwikkeling is vervolgens geen hygiënisch proces. Het is rommelig, soms gewelddadig en altijd smoezelig. Afgelopen zestig jaar was bijna al onze bemoeienis gericht op armoedebestrijding en economische groei. De route daar naartoe ligt niet vast. Die moet altijd opnieuw worden gezocht. Als ontwikkelingsorganisaties al willen helpen zoeken – vaker is er een vooropgezet plan, doen ze dat zonder te zien dat de gemiddelde Afrikaanse samenleving een volstrekt andere ordening heeft dan de onze. Alle landen die hulp ontvangen, zijn gesloten samenlevingen met een patronagesysteem. Het eerste, gesloten, betekent dat er geen vrije concurrentie is om macht en economische middelen. Het tweede, patronage, betekent dat macht en middelen worden verdeeld op basis van loyaliteit aan een Grote Man. Een kliek van Grote Mannen onderhoudt een ongeschreven vredespact: zij delen de poet en voeren geen oorlog. Arme, niet corrupte landen bestaan dan ook niet. In het patronagesysteem is er een kleine elite die zich verrijkt. De grote massa blijft straatarm achter.

Die armoede is geen ongeluk. Ze is wezenlijk onderdeel van dit systeem. In Oeganda kun je mooi zien hoe de gesloten samenleving geweld indamt. President Museveni pacificeerde 23 jaar lang al zijn uitdagers – van gestoorde rebellenleiders tot serieuze politici. Niet door ze in verkiezingen te verslaan, maar door ze een bak geld, een mooie baan en een villa te geven. Dit is democratie per afkoopsom.

Afgelopen jaar kregen alle 340 parlementariërs een nieuwe Toyota Landcruiser. De staat blijft uitdijen. Nieuwe districten en ministeries herbergen meer Grote Mannen – talrijker naarmate Museveni langer regeert. Alleen met oppositieleider Kizza Besigye, zijn voormalig lijfarts, heeft Museveni zich niet verzoend. Die trouwde de vrouw van wie hij hield. Het patronagesysteem doet met hulp ook andere dingen dan donoren voor ogen hebben. De Grote Mannen hebben middelen nodig om hun achterban tevreden en hun machtspositie veilig te stellen. Museveni zelf moet het meeste uitdelen. Hij wil in 2011 de presidentsverkiezingen winnen.

In deze context wordt alles aangedreven door politieke motieven, zelfs noodhulp. Toen het Wereldvoedselprogramma (WFP) begin dit jaar constateerde dat de ondervoeding in Karamoja was afgenomen (het Noordoosten van Oeganda krijgt al 46 jaar voedselhulp), verlaagde het de dagelijkse rantsoenering van 70 naar 53%. Janet Museveni, first lady en minister voor Karamoja, eiste dat de voedselhulp terug ging naar 70%. Museveni moet hier straks stemmen halen. Een cruciaal inzicht, tenslotte, is dat het patronagesysteem niet is gebaat bij verheffing van de massa paupers. Hun steun kopen de Grote Mannen voor een habbekrats. En de miserabelen, druk met overleven, komen nooit in opstand.

2. Hulp doet soms het tegenovergestelde van wat is beoogd
Meerpartijendemocratie voedt in Afrika gemakkelijk etnische of tribale strijd. De conflictdempende werking van het patronagesysteem wordt door democratie immers ondermijnd. Dat kan leiden tot politieke instabiliteit, zoals in Kenia in 2007, in Burundi in 1993. Nu president Museveni van Oeganda zijn macht bedreigd ziet, speelt hij etnische verdeel- en heers om straks toch de verkiezingen te winnen. Afgelopen september leidde tot rellen waarbij 27 mensen zijn doodgeschoten. In een gesloten samenleving bestaat geen maatschappelijk middenveld, omdat buiten de staat geen onafhankelijke organisaties kunnen bestaan. Steun aan organisaties die wij labelen als ‘maatschappelijk middenveld’ leidt er vaak toe dat de staat deze infiltreert en ondermijnt. In 2003 werden de door Nederland gesteunde mensenrechtenorganisaties in Rwanda geïnfiltreerd en stukgemaakt. Door onderwijs gratis te maken is de kwaliteit van publieke scholen in veel Afrikaanse landen dramatisch gedaald, kijk naar Tanzania, Zambia, Oeganda en Malawi. Het versterken van formele vrouwenrechten heeft menige Afrikaanse vrouw binnenshuis een beroerder leven bezorgd; hun mannen, in de buitenwereld onzeker over hun rol, laten zich eens te meer gelden in de binnenwereld van het huwelijk. Kortom, zonder begrip van een gesloten samenleving, doet onze bemoeienis soms meer kwaad dan goed.

3. Het ontwikkelingscomplex sluit de ogen voor onbedoelde gevolgen
Hulp geeft zich nauwelijks rekenschap van die andere ordening met zijn eigen logica. De bemoeienis veronderstelt dat in een Afrikaanse samenleving dezelfde wetmatigheden, reflexen en morele codes gelden als thuis. Donoren legitimeren het onverstoorbaar geloof in eigen beleid met data die aantonen dat ze op de goede weg zijn. Verkiezingen zijn verlopen zonder ongeregeldheden, melden waarnemers. Politieke arrestaties worden voor de rechter gebracht. Er gaan veel meer kinderen naar school. Maar de becijferde schijnwerkelijkheid verhult dat mensen stemmen op degene die hen een fooi belooft. Dat de etniciteit, religie of kreukbaarheid van menig rechter zijn vonnis beïnvloedt. Dat de op school ingeschreven kinderen niet leren lezen, schrijven en rekenen.

De wake-up calls aan het adres van het hulpcomplex zwollen afgelopen jaar aan tot sirenes. In 2008 concludeerde een onafhankelijke evaluatie van het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken dat Nederlandse hulp aan Afrika tussen 1998 en 2006 nauwelijks effect heeft gehad op de allerarmsten. Naar de effecten van die conclusie is het gissen, want van een fundamentele discussie over hulp is niks naar buiten gekomen.
De Zambiaanse econoom Dambisa Moyo beweert dat Afrika’s onderontwikkeling een gevolg is van financiële hulp. In Dead Aid stelt zij voor in vijf jaar tijd te stoppen met alle geldoverdrachten aan Afrikaanse regeringen. Minister Koenders reageerde in NOVA: “Moyo schreef een slecht boek.” Een heel goed boek is het ook niet, maar Moyo maakt wel één cruciaal punt. Hulp ontslaat Afrikaanse leiders van de plicht verantwoording af te leggen aan hun bevolking. Het zijn immers de donoren die hebben betaald voor wegen, zorg en onderwijs, niet de burgers.

Hiermee steekt Moyo het lancet in het hart van het armoedeprobleem: Afrikaanse landen laten zich moeilijk helpen omdat hun leiders er belang bij hebben dat alles bij het oude blijft. Die kritiek op de hulp was al eerder te horen. De Oegandese politiek commentator Andrew Mwenda zegt het al jaren: Hulp bestrijdt de symptomen van Afrika’s probleem, niet de oorzaken. Erger, doordat hulp pleisters plakt, verergeren de structurele problemen. Mwenda legt het zo uit: een regering verdient de steun van haar volk door het leveren van publieke goederen. Wanneer die moeten worden betaald uit belastinggeld, zal een regering het land behoorlijk moeten besturen. Zo ontstaan instituties en beleid die gunstig zijn voor economische groei. Bij wanbeleid zijn scholen en klinieken een puinhoop en weigert de burger belasting af te dragen. Uiteindelijk verliest een regering dan de steun van haar bevolking.

In precies dat mechanisme van verantwoording wortelt ook de Nederlandse democratie. Symbool daarvoor is de Acte van Verlatinghe uit 1581. De Staten Generaal ‘verlieten’ Filips II en zijn erfgenamen: de koning werd wegens wanprestatie afgezet. Afrikaanse regeringen hoeven niet bang te zijn dat het volk ze verlaat. Dat laat zich lijmen met kralen en spiegeltjes. En geld krijgen de regeringen toch wel van het Westen. Daarvan nemen ze zelf een aardig deel, de rest is voor gammele voorzieningen. De burger pikt dat omdat er nergens voor is betaald.

Dat hulp de relatie tussen burger en bestuurder vergiftigt, is niet nieuw. Maar nu pas schreef een elegante Afrikaanse econoom het zo helder en knapperig op. Dambisa Moyo deed wat die evaluatie van Buitenlandse Zaken niet lukte: het jaagde het publieke debat over ontwikkelingssamenwerking aan tot een stevige storm. De grote kranten deden in maart een interview en een recensie, ter gelegenheid van Moyo’s recente Globaliseringslezing nog eens een stuk. In Hotel l’Europe wisselden verslaggevers en tv-ploegen elkaar af voor een wetenschapper die oogt, praat en zich beweegt – op lakleren naaldhakken – als een popster. Nu het stof gaat liggen, wordt duidelijk dat die discussie ons geen steek verder heeft gebracht. Dat komt doordat het debat over Dead Aid door zowel voorstanders als opponenten is gevoerd met meer sentimenten dan argumenten. Iedereen met voorheen een vaag onbehagen over hulp, vond in Moyo de gedroomde woordvoerder. Die schenkt klare wijn: afschaffen die hap.

Dead Aid-adepten concluderen met Moyo dat het de schuld is van de hulp dat Afrika niet floreert. Maar dat is flauwekul. Hulp kan ook helpen. En Afrika heeft meer handicaps. Geef het gemiddelde Afrikaanse land olie – of goud of diamanten of ongeacht welke grondstof, en de gevolgen zijn erger dan van financiële hulp. De kleine kliek aan de macht verdeelt dan zonder pottenkijkers de opbrengsten. De meerderheid van de bevolking is straatarm – en moet dat blijven ook. Want een redelijk opgeleide middenklasse kan een bedreiging worden voor het politieke systeem. Die kan gaan eisen dat de regering verantwoording aflegt. De voorstanders van hulp reageren net zo eendimensionaal. Zo verwijt hulpprofessor Jeffrey Sachs zijn oud-student dat zij Afrikaanse kinderen de gesubsidieerde opleidingen wil onthouden waarmee ze zelf groot is geworden. Ton Dietz (hoogleraar Universiteit van Amsterdam) vergeleek Moyo met Geert Wilders (een versimpelde boodschap en geen alternatieven). En Paul Hoebink van de Radboud Universiteit verwijt Moyo leugenachtigheid (“dishonesty”) omdat ze zou sjoemelen met de cijfers.

Ook al kan het gevoel van urgentie en vertwijfeling binnen de sector nauwelijks nog groter, geen hulpprofessor of hulporganisatie die hardop nadacht over de verstoorde relatie tussen de Afrikaanse burger en zijn bestuurders. Het hulpcomplex draait de blik liever naar binnen. De kop vol in de storm krijgt het kortetermijn overleven van de hulporganisaties prioriteit.

Doordat professionals blijven zwijgen over de ongemakkelijke waarheden, zwelt de druk van buiten juist aan. Er is een staat van beleg en geen verdediging. Hulpcynici bedienen zich gretig van de kritische publicaties. Geert Wilders (PVV) wil van alle ontwikkelingssamenwerking af, noodhulp uitgezonderd. Mark Rutte (VVD) stelt voor de helft van het budget van 2008 schrappen, zo’n 3 miljard euro. Het verweer van ‘de sector’ bestaat vooral uit het beschermen van de ‘0,8-norm’ – die bepaalt dat 0,8% van Nederlands BNP bestemd is voor ontwikkelingssamenwerking.

Vakblad voor ontwikkelingssamenwerking Vice Versa publiceerde in oktober een artikel met als kop: ´Alles trilt´. Daarin zegt GroenLinks-Kamerlid Kees Vendrik: ‘In de wereld van ontwikkelingssamenwerking is alles aan het trillen’. Vervolgens praten parlementariërs en directeuren van hulporganisaties drie bladzijdes lang over alleen maar geld. Over een onsje en een procentje meer of minder, over ongewenste ‘vervuiling’ van het budget met maatregelen tegen klimaatverandering. Zelfs Jan Pronk, doorgaans een denker, liet in een interview (Waterstof oktober 2009) weten dat ‘de 0,8’ overeind moet blijven. Het debat over hulp krijgt binnenkort zijn apotheose. In januari verschijnt het langverwacht WRR-rapport over de toekomst van ontwikkelingssamenwerking. Afgemeten aan wat Peter van Lieshout, hoofdauteur van dit rapport, prijsgeeft in het debat met Dambisa Moyo en in de aanstaande VPRO Tegenlicht-film En wat als we de hulp stoppen, mag het ontwikkelingscomplex zich opmaken voor een kritische analyse.

In Afrika beneden de Sahara leeft intussen nog 49% van de mensen van minder dan een dollar per dag. Wie oprecht geïnteresseerd is in duurzame armoedevermindering, maakt het inzicht van Moyo en Mwenda tot uitgangspunt van zijn ontwikkelingsbeleid. Hulp moet bestaande veranderingsprocessen willen versterken, opdat er uiteindelijk – zonder geweld te ontketenen – meer concurrentie komt om de macht en de middelen.
Daar kun je geen receptuur voor bedenken. Voor elke nieuwe situatie geldt: verzin een list. Het laatste waar dat om gaat, is meer of minder geld. Het gaat om inzicht, vernuft en creativiteit. Om minder cynisme, meer scepsis. Minder papieren evaluaties, meer ervaren experts voor wie evalueren een grondhouding is: het gaat om permanent observeren, leren en bijsturen.

Neem het onderwijs in Tanzania, Oeganda en Zambia. Publieke scholen zijn gratis en waardeloos. Wie kan, koopt voor zijn kind onderwijs aan een dure privéschool. De elite in dienst van de staat, heeft zijn kinderen op kostscholen in Kenia, Engeland of Amerika. Om het openbare onderwijs in Tanzania, Oeganda en Zambia te verbeteren, is niet allereerst meer geld nodig. Een verbetering vereist de wens van de elite dat op openbare scholen kinderen leren lezen, schrijven en rekenen.

Vermijd gebaande paden als de genomen weg nergens toe leidt. Gebruik de miljoenen euro’s op een manier die in de gesloten samenleving wel effect sorteert: lijm de elite en laat zijn belang samenvallen met dat van de armen. Nederland kan samen met andere westerse donoren zijn geld verbinden aan stevige condities. Wat zou er gebeuren met de kwaliteit van Tanzania’s onderwijs als alle ambtenaren hun kinderen naar een publieke school moeten sturen?
**
VPRO Tegenlicht WAT ALS DE HULP STOPT?, maandag 30 november 2009, 20.55 uur, Nederland 2

Über die Frage, ob Denken dem Handeln gleichzusetzen sei, lässt sich vermutlich ein Äon lang diskutieren. Ich habe keine Ahnung, wie lang ein Äon ist, und ebenso wenig weiß ich, ob Denken und Handeln sich vergleichen lassen. Mir persönlich scheint manchmal ein Gedanke, wenn er in die richtigen Worte gefasst ward, größere Freisprengungskraft zu besitzen als eine Tat, aber das ist sicher auch eine Frage der jeweiligen Mentalität — zumal man die Taten, die uns wirklich befreien könnten, ja nicht tun darf.

Es gibt auch Leute, deren Ansichten dermaßen präzise und überzeugend sind wie der Aphorismus eines Könners, so fest verwurzelt in ihrer Persönlichkeit dabei und so diamanten facettenreich, dass einem die Einheit von Denken, Fühlen, Wollen und Handeln, die bei ihnen gelungen ist, sofort ins Auge springt. Solche Persönlichkeiten strahlen unmittelbar auf uns ab, Ruhe und Glanz gehen von ihnen aus, und wir glauben an das wohltätige Verhältnis von geistigen und leiblichen Sachverhalten.

Dann wiederum stößt man auf Geister, deren schräges Gebaren zwar sehr quer liegt zu ihrem Gerede, gerade dadurch aber eine Art von Harmonie herstellt, eine atonale Harmonie, gewissermaßen, und man flüchtet sich am besten gleich aus dem Raum. Solche kindischen Figuren, prallvoll von Anmaßung, Dünkel, Selbstüberschätzung und Überschätzung auch ihrer Gedanken (die bei ihnen keine sein können, da ihre Persönlichkeit nicht wie eine Hand in den Handschuh in ihre Gedankengänge eingedrungen ist, sondern diese mehr wie ein Ingenieur den Untertagebau vom Büro aus beaufsichtigt), habe ich massenhaft an verschiedenen Universitäten unseres Landes getroffen. Sie starren, mit weit aufgerissenen blinden Augen, immer stier hinein in die Nacht ihres Denkens. Am liebsten verbringen sie ihre Zeit damit, über die mögliche zeitliche Ausdehnung eines Äons zu debattieren. Gedanken sind für sie per se totes Zeug, und darum erübrigt sich die Frage nach der Handlungsähnlichkeit wohl.

Von denen hält man sich besser fern, sonst wird einem am Ende noch das Schönste und Beglückendste, das Denken, verleidet. Diese Leute speicheln nur alles ein mit dem Schleim ihrer Groschen-Dialektik, die sie aus Kinderbüchern gelernt haben.

The end of history will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one’s life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands. In the post-historical period there will be neither art nor philosophy, just the perpetual caretaking of the museum of human history.

Many writers don’t write full time. They fit their writing in and around their full-time jobs or around caring for their families. If they write for a living, or, like me, write and edit for a living, they may have little time to work on personal writing projects during the day. Plus, as we’ve seen if writers seriously take on the task of promoting themselves to build their platforms, this also can take up an enormous part of their day or the time that could be spent writing.

It’s no wonder, then that many writers, myself included, moan about the fact that they have no time to write. They also may complain that they have no time to market themselves with their writing. I’m here today (Yes, just me again…I’m the expert blogger.) to tell you that a way exists to get a lot of writing done and to use it in a variety of useful ways that doesn’t take up a lot of time. The most efficient time-management tool I have discovered over the years involves “repurposing” your work.

This means reusing your writing, as well as your telesminars, talks, blogs, news releases, etc., for other purposes. The best way for me to explain this is to offer you examples from my own experiences.

Let’s say I write a brief article for my Examiner.com column, a job I took on primarily for promotional reasons. It gives me great exposure online but pays very little. (If you would like to know more about how to become an Examiner, please read about Examiner.com here or apply here – but be sure to use my name when you apply—I get a $50 referral fee, and every little bit helps. Thanks.) I can then expand upon what I write in that column and use it in my blog at www.purespiritcreations.com/wordpress. I also then link the two, increasing readership in both places.

Here’s an even better example of how I repurpose material with very little effort: Each month I produce a podcast script for my show on Conversations with Mrs. Claus (www.thefamilyyak.com). This takes me most of a day. I then take a piece of the script, usually something that includes tips, and modify it slightly to create an article I can submit to the ezine distribution service I use, www.submityourarticle.com. I use this same article in my Pure Spirit Creations newsletter. Then, I take the same article and rewrite it as news release by placing some of the information in quotes. In other words, I make it sound as if someone interviewed me. I then submit this news release to ExpertClick.com’s newswire service, so it can be read by journalists.  (If you are interested in increasing your status as an expert and becoming a member of Expertclick.com or The Yearbook of Experts, please use this link to receive $100 off our membership.) I may even use the same information as the basis for a blog post at www.purespiritcreations.com/wordpress. So, this one piece of work, which wasn’t even actually writing work—although it did take the form of a script, turned into three or four other pieces of writing. All my podcasts scripts may also become fodder one day for a book.

Blog posts also can be turned into articles or essays. Mine tend to be somewhat “essay like” in nature much of the time. It’s easy enough for me to add a few tips to them and submit them to an ezine distribution service, put them into my newsletter or actually submit the piece to a magazine. If yours tend to be more businesslike and include tips, think about how to modify them into personal essays or full-length articles by adding examples from your own life experiences. If you write a series on the same topic, you may find that you have the makings of an e-book or special report.

I added an opt-in to my website called the “Living Fully Challenge.” I offered people a free one-year-long course, basically, in how to live their lives more fully. All they had to do was sign up–giving me the ability to place their email address on my mailing list; in return, they received an assignment every month for a full year. (Not that many people signed up, but enough did to keep it going for about a year and a half.) At the end 12 months, I discovered I had written a book. I simply wrote an introduction, and, wallah…manuscript completed. It’s being reviewed by a publisher as I write this post.

If you conducts teleseminars  or classes in conjunction with your writing, these can be transcribed and edited into e-books or other written products you can sell. Your talks and workshops can be made into videos or CD or MP3 series, which you also can sell.

Look at all your writing work for ways in which it can be repurposed, and you’ll find that you can get a lot of writing accomplished in little time. You’ll also market and promote yourself in less time than you thought it necessary to get the job done. When you examine your writing output at the end of the day, you’ll be amazed at how much writing you’ve accomplished—both what you wanted to write and what you needed to write to handle the “business of writing.”

About the Author

Nina Amir is a seasoned journalist, nonfiction editor, author, consultant, and writing coach with more than 30 years of experience in the publishing field. She has edited or written for 45+ local, national and international magazines, newspapers, e-zines, and newsletters on a full-time or freelance basis. Her essays have been published in five anthologies and can be found in numerous e-zines and Internet article directories. An award-winning journalist, she also has a proven track record as a book editor; one of her client’s books was self-published and then purchased and re-released verbatim by Simon & Schuster (Fireside) and another won the 1998 Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Award (Inspirational category), received a contract from William Morrow but remained self-published and went on to sell over 115,000 copies. Another of her client’s books recently was purchased by O-Books, a fast-growing British publisher.

Nina also is an inspirational speaker, spiritual and conscious creation coach, teacher, and the regular holiday and spirituality expert on Conversations with Mrs. Claus, a weekly podcast heard in more than 90 countries and downloaded by 110,000 listeners per month (www.thefamilyyak.com). Through her writing and speaking, Amir offers human potential, personal growth and practical spiritual tools from a Jewish perspective, although her work spans religious lines and is pertinent to people of all faiths and spiritual traditions.

Additionally, Amir has written and self-published several booklets and workbooks, including:

• Using the Internet to Build Your Platform One Article at a Time, 8 Tips for Getting Publicity, Exposure and Expert Status by Providing Free Copy Online
• The Priestess Practice: 4 Steps to Creating Sacred Space and Inviting the Divine to Dwell Within It
• The Kabbalah of Conscious Creation: How to Mystically Manifesting Your Physical and Spiritual Desires
• From Empty Practice to Meaning-Full and Spirit-Full Prayers and Rituals…in Seven Simple Steps
• Navigating the Narrow Bridge: 7 Steps for Moving Forward Courageously Even When Life Seems Most Precarious

Currently Amir is writing four books; she also compiled a Jewish celebrity cookbook for which she is seeking a publisher.

To learn how to use the Internet to build your platform one article at a time, why every author needs a platform or how to enhance your expert status by posting articles online, go to:
http://www.copywrightcommunications.com/Teleseminars.html orhttp://www.copywrightcommunications.com/Products.html

Nina Amir
CopyWright Communications
cpywrtcom@aol.com

www.copywrightcommunications.com
www.purespiritcreations.com

http://www.facebook.com/people/Nina-Amir/1180528530
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nina-amir/6/460/134
http://twitter.com/ninaamir

www.mysoncandance.wordpress.com
www.purespiritcreations.com/wordpress
http://www.examiner.com/x-7363-San-Jose-Jewish-Examiner

Help writers find the wonderful information and resources at Write Nonfiction in November all year:
Vote  WNFIN One of Writer’s Digest’s Annual 101 Best Internet Sites for Writers

Please visit www.copywrightcommunications.com and sign up for the free newsletter to receive a gift at the end of the Write Nonfiction in November challenge!

Don’t forget to sign into the WNFiN social networking and chat room and tell us what you are writing about or start a discussion.
http://writenonfictioninnovember.ning.com/

I logged onto facebook today to discovered that Vivian had gone through most of Michael’s old notes and commented “dislike” on all of the ones that involved me. (Oh, yes, Michael, don’t think I don’t know who she is. I don’t need to stalk; it’s pretty evident. >_>)
Being reminded of these old notes wasn’t fun.
In fact, I’d forgotten all about them.
I won’t deny it: I completely see why she’d begrudge these notes. I mean, any normal girl would easily hate “The Ex”. Reading the notes, I don’t doubt she’d wonder what else had been talked about that she never knew about. I almost feel sorry for her that she had to see those notes. >_< Most likely she stumbled upon them by mistake. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to see (or even know of) them if I were in her position.
But I kind of think she dealt with it immaturely. By commenting on those notes, she reminded us all of something we probably don’t need (or want) to remember. And poor Amaris keeps getting dragged into the mess, too. >_< If she really does have a strong opinion on it (and I don’t doubt that, either) she’d have been better off talking to Michael in person about it. Not announcing her displeasure publicly.
But then again, I have no idea what’s going on. Quite possibly she’s dealing with it in a way that I know nothing about. I was almost about to send her an inbox message and request that she not try to bring things like that back up, but… now that I think about it, it’s probably better to do nothing. After all, considering the anecdotes Michael tells, she could quite possibly despise me.

Sigh. The stupid past.

Meanwhile, in the present, I still haven’t received an answer. >_>
Surely you’ve made up your mind by now! It’s been nearly a week!

I had three tests today. T_T
First block English, the in-class essay on Hell. I hadn’t prepared at all for the essay because I’d been studying chem the night before (using the terribly-written textbook, since Conrad has my review pkg). But this morning in a slight panic, I pulled out my notes from this summer about Dante, and somehow I ended up with enough materials to make up five pages of essay. There were some things I didn’t even end up using. Hah, so no need to worry after all!
Then, immediately next block, the chem test on energetics. I hadn’t anticipated that the two would be right back-to-back, but I think I did all right on both.
There was a bit of a break in between, where we watched a documentary about the Korean War. 
Finally, the math test. TRIG. T_T I remember being really good at trig back in grades 9 and 10 and even 11. Well, today was paper 2, calculator-active, so it turned out a lot better than I feared. I was able to answer all the questions on the first three pages… unfortunately, I ran out of time for the last page. Bye-bye, 14 marks.

Afterwards, I rehearsed Life Is A Road with Jireh for the first time. We added a bit of harmony and adjusted the notes and who-sings-which-lines a bit. I think we sound pretty good! He just needs to sing a bit louder during his solo bits… and I need to quiet down when I’m on harmony so that I don’t overpower him. XD No worries. It’ll be good at the Christmas banquet.

All in all, a very busy, stressful day… but I’m okay.
It turned out balanced — an equilibrium of good and bad things.
… wow, physics on the brain. T_T (If only I could channel that on tests.)

Pavlov, Freud And Community Organizing

by

R.E. Prindle

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/11/24/racial-terror-in-denver-that-wont-make-national-news/

     I’m sure everyone will have heard of Pavlov and his famous dogs.  Pavlov introduced the concept of Conditioning to the psychological lexicon.  The concept sort of flies under the radar in Freud’s version of psychoanalysis but the Old Master Fudger was quite taken by it.

     The question for Freud was how do you condition a whole people to respond to stimuli as you want them to do using a less noticeable  method than a dinner bell.

     Let’s look at the this recent Denver Danger with fresh eyes.  What sort of conditioning of  White people is going on here and for what result?

     It is clear the Jews and Africans intend the destruction of the White species.  If you haven’t looked into Noel Ignatiev or Kamau Kambon as yet may I suggest you do so and take what they’re saying seriously.   They are not standup comics.

     The problem is how do you get the majority White population to allow a much smaller Negro and Jewish minority to march them into extermination camps without resistance?  Well, you condition them to not respond to provocation but to placidly accept it until they are conditioned to taking it.

     In Denver, for instance, and this is going on all over the country, a group of paramilitary Africans systematically crippled numerous White people on the streets of Denver.   Now, these were not spontaneous attacks.  The FBI was called in which means that ‘community organizers’ and agitators crossed state lines for violent purposes.  I smell Chicago here and Chicago leads to the Great Black Hope in Washington DC.  The techniques used were those of professional sluggers resulting in broken jaws and fractured eye sockets.  Takes a little skill to do that.  These were not casual assaults they were organized.  Perhaps people were being trained to  organize other ‘communities’ in other cities.

     The Denver Police Chief thought it best, or said it was to prevent White vigilante patrols or defensive action, to keep the White public uninformed of this paramilitary activity.

     Now, we are told that thirty some members of this ‘gang’ or organized community were rounded up in a sweep.  That must mean that the members of this organization have been known for some time.  We are led to believe that these organizers will be put on prison relief for twenty years.  Will they?  What will happen when the furor, as small as it is, dies down?

     Thus the White public is conditioned to accept this terrorization passively without resistance or retaliation.  More incidents will be occurring  with greater frequency.  In each instance Whites will be prevented from responding in kind to this race war.   In other words they are being conditioned to non-resistance.  Now, people will say that Jews are White so how can they be referred to as not White.  Let me refer you  to a notorious figure known as A.J. Weberman.  In his online biography he proudly proclaims that he is not White, he is a Jew.  There’s your rationale.

     Soon neighborhoods will be invaded while Whites stand passively by as homes are looted and they and their neighbors beaten.   Then when White ‘troublemakers’ who write critical blogs are rounded up and sent to extermination camps for their own holocaust, Whites will have been conditioned to accept this crime without demur.

      Now, anyone who believes Africans don’t harbor a desire for revenge for slavery; or don’t think Jews feel shame for their passive acceptance of extermination had better reexamine their beliefs.

     The future is plain before you.  Will you accept your Pavlovian and Freudian conditioning and acquiesce in your own destruction?  I fear it.

Today I finished what I’m calling draft 1 and a quarter of Exile Issues. I’m pleased with the milestone, even though it’s, well, gloriously minor.

The new “draft” added about 12,500 words to the manuscript—it’s up to about 67,500 now—and addressed one of the major loose ends. Specifically, the original manuscript introduced the idea that one of the characters knew some prophecies involving himself and others, and then, ahem, dropped the issue completely.

Draft 1.25 resolves, or at least lays the framework to resolve the issue, showing how two of the prophecies come to pass.

Of course, doing so also introduced roughly 19 new problems. I say “roughly” because there are 19 new entries in a Word document I’ve made up entitled “Things to Fix.” It’s a good-sized document, though, and it’s likely that a couple are duplicates.

Even if solving the one problem did introduce 19 more, it’s still much better than it looks, because each of those 19 problems are tiny relative to the one problem that I solved. For example, one of the “problems” is a note to myself to show public disdain for one of the main characters with a few nasty posters or billboards. Hardly a tough fix.

There’s still plenty of work. My initial goal of having a true second draft done by the end of the year seems ludicrous. Part of the reason is that I’m now thinking that a second draft will resolve all or most of the issues from my “Things to Fix” file, rather than just some of them. Also, October was a pretty bad month for me, effort-wise; I’m back to working steadily, though.

The work is chaotic, much moreso than any other editing project I’ve tried. That’s a natural consequence of the size and the randomness with which the manuscript was written. My approach is going to be to grab a loose strand at a time, tie it up as completely as possible, and move on.

I hope that I can work it around FAWM. I’m not sure that’s possible; FAWM is a pretty time-intensive thing. Which means that I should probably be as far as I want to get by January 31, eh?

By Chris Garvey

I started drinking shortly after I’d woken up. It was Sunday and hopes for gloomy weather had been ruined by sunny skies. After walking around for an hour or so, I went into a Barnes & Noble, not for a book, but a bathroom.

Inside, people sipped lattes, anguished over which bookmark fit their personality best and navigated aisles with double-decker Scandinavian strollers. I was envious of them—they seemed like normal people doing normal things. Normalcy is subjective, of course, and it may not even exist, but some activities must be a bit more normal than others: a morning jog, brunch with a friend and an afternoon shopping for a new book, or one spent alone drinking whisky?

You see, I don’t go on ski trips with old college buddies, make breakfast in bed for a girlfriend or play pickup games of Ultimate Frisbee in the park. And I’ve always been more than OK with that. But I’m thinking it may be time to join a chess club or something. I’d just have to learn how to play chess first. And learn how to enjoy being around people for periods of time. And learn how to spend those periods of time without imbibing. Shit, that’s a lot.

The other day I heard something, made me think. Two guys were walking down Desbrosses Street having a seemingly normal conversation. I was sitting on a sliver-of-sun-covered stoop having a smoke. “He’s like a second father to me,” one said. “Yeah, I hear ya,” the other one replied.

I heard him, too, but didn’t understand. I don’t know from one father, let alone two. But it did make me think of my old man and the activities we did together. Besides smoking cigarettes and not talking, there weren’t too many. He wasn’t the type of dad who wanted to do anything with you. He wanted to be alone, and he got his wish when I was twelve.

So now here I am, 20 years later, a man (of sorts), one who isolates himself, whose manic social spurts are usually followed by spans of crucial seclusion. I’m aware of this proclivity that’s probably equal parts ‘nature’ and ‘nurture,’ and I guess that’s a good start, but I still wonder how can I prevent this cycle of less-than-social behavior from overtaking me?

Well, Thanksgiving is at my house this year, so tomorrow I will take some steps. I will sit down with my family: my mother, my brother and his wife, my sister and her boyfriend, her French Bulldog and another bulldog she will be dog-sitting. I will be grateful, for the food we’re bound to receive but for more than that as well. Up until a few weeks ago, our Thanksgiving had been more or less cancelled due to familial fighting. These issues have been, if not fully resolved, slightly mended, so now it’s back on and I’m thankful for that.

As for my father, he won’t be there, not in body or spirit but, unfortunately, in un-fond memory. And soon that’s all that will be left of him. In 2010, he’ll further isolate himself by retiring to Guangzhou, China, where he’ll live with his Chinese wife and spend the rest of his days doing what he does best—smoking cigarettes and not talking. (She knows little English, he knows zero Cantonese).

I guess his departure could pass for some closure, but I’m pretty sure closure requires a resolution. That’s not coming, but the New Year is and I’ve already chosen my resolution and I’m pretty excited by it—never enter a Barnes & Noble again.

One of my earliest memories of a palpable and completely irrational fear was camping with my father somewhere in Ontario, well before my 10th birthday. We had typically only taken family vacations to a cottage on Lake Michigan, which, while it was remote and seemed poorly protected as far as locks were concerned, at least had four standing walls and felt sturdy and protective, similar enough to my home to put me at ease. While I was camping, I began to consider the luxurious protections that a house afforded me in ways I had never before. Sure, I had always reasoned that the locks would keep criminals, zombies, and vampires out, but it also protected me from rabid raccoons, bears, falling tree trunks, and flash floods. Camping, I was totally exposed, and even my dad couldn’t adequately protect me from the runaway malevolence of nature.

I became aware of disaster movies in my early teens by way of Airplane! and I felt an immediate connection to them. Movies like The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, and Airport showed me that even ensemble casts of celebrities – people like Steve McQueen (who I just sort of assumed wielded supernatural powers) were still at the mercy of natural disasters. They also exposed me to exciting new fears, like elevators, airplanes, and, thanks to Earthquake, the city of Los Angeles. I discovered these movies about the same time I became increasingly aware of the world’s inequalities, and took solace in them because they leveled the playing field; the people who survived were primarily alive because they were lucky (and had received top billing). Wits and skill, to say nothing of physical attributes or money, entered only minimally into the picture.

After 9/11, and especially after I moved to New York, I found myself drawn to disaster movies in which the city gets destroyed. As someone who has gone through life accumulating fears like others collect baseball cards, movies like Cloverfield and The Day After Tomorrow were a form of immersion therapy for me, putting me face to face with my worst, most irrational fears about the rational order of the city turned completely on its head.

2012 continues in this grand tradition, except instead of leveling a city, or even a region, it does us a chronic worriers a courtesy by destroying the entire world. Currently hovering at about 37% on the freshness meter at Rotten Tomatoes, 2012 has been blasted by critics for being schmaltzy, too long, and unrealistic. Still, in its own peculiar way, 2012 has an undercurrent of emotional realism that has been completely overlooked by critics.

The story is about as intelligible as one would expect from an end of the world movie: the sun has begun emitting a new form of neutrino which is rapidly heating up the Earth’s core (for some reason). With a heated core, all the world’s tectonic plates now move freely about the surface of the earth, causing the types of catastrophes that can only be rendered in  CGI. The movie follows Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) a failed novelist, as he tries to save his family by getting them one of several “arks” located in the Himalayas, built by a consortium of G8 countries and private investors.

To be sure, the movie is far from flawless, and the set pieces (and there are plenty) in 2012 is ludicrous. Curtis escapes with his family from Los Angeles in a limousine that handles like a Jaguar, while the San Andreas is opening on their tail, dragging the entire city into the abyss. The escape includes driving through the window and across the floor of a crumbling high-rise, launching over gaps, and skating just under a collapsing overpass. They eventually make it to a tiny propeller plane, getting into the air just as the runway falls away behind them. This narrow escape is repeated not once, but twice, making it off of the tarmac just as it falls away into the fissures enveloping the earth. Ideally, if you’re going to see this movie, or if you know anything about Roland Emmerich’s body of work, you should be expecting this. While the “taking off as the earth gives way” shtick gets a little tired by the third time, it’s still got some climactic scenes on par with those of other classic Emmerich movies like Independence day.

But when it comes down to it, Jackson Curtis is only the protagonist of the movie because he is the main character, not because of any particularly noble or even redeeming personality traits. He’s a taciturn, unfriendly, neglectful father, who is pretty much a failure in all social situations, and solely through an endless string of unfortunate coincidences is he able to see his family, and his family alone, at the neglect of all else, through this end of days scenario. One of the running themes of the movie, brought up by both Curtis and several other characters is people banding together to overcome impossible odds, but the sentiment is oddly undercut by the actions of the characters. Jackson Curtis is only concerned about saving his family, and even though he eventually teams up with a ragtag gang of survivors, they only do so because each holds information that is essential to the others for survival.

There are also some particularly macabre shots of spectacular deaths, people plunging off the side of precipices, and a couple of senior citizens that drive headlong into a wall, that are closely followed up by shots of Curtis’ children staring, tear-streaked and horrified, at the carnage. There are several scenarios in which people could be saved but are left to die, and the featured cast looks on as they die. This story, supposedly about unity triumphing over adversity has a strong undercurrent of individualism in the moment.

Which, honestly, was part of what made it so entertaining to me. Beneath the Vaseline lensed soliloquys about giving people the chance to fight for their lives is a darkly cynical movie about completely unlikable people lucky enough to survive. And if that’s not enough of a draw for you (spoiler alert), they almost crash one of the arks straight into Mt. Everest!

Putnam’s “Brain in the Vat” (BIV) argument is introduced in the first chapter of Reason, Truth and History.  Putnam devotes the first two chapters of his book to “intentionality” and the misconceptions concerning “reference”. The nature of “reference”, which Putnam defines as the “relation between a word (or other sort of sign, symbol or representation) and something that actually exists”[1], and it’s supposed dependence on “intentionality” leads Putnam to introduce the BIV example as a refutation of “intentionality”.  Putnam argues that philosophers who hold that ““intentionality” is necessary for “reference”” posit irreducible conclusions that logically imply the mind is something non-physical.  “Magical Theories of Reference” are unacceptable to Putnam, and those who endorse “intentionality” as integral to “reference” must eventually accept “magical theories of reference”.

Putnam claims that pictures have no necessary connection with their referent; the relationship is non-necessary and contingent. He quickly dismisses this claim as common sense, but the focus of the chapters is that “mental representations” are as contingent and non-necessary as “physical images”.   Putnam uses an anecdote about an ant randomly leaving a path in the sand that happens to be a remarkable caricature of Winston Churchill.  The ant obviously has no idea or concept that the line it is tracing resembles a caricature of Churchill. Actually the ant does not even comprehend that it is tracing a line in the sand; it is just walking, or scurrying, or crawling; whatever method ants use to move. But, to a person who is familiar with Churchill, the ant’s path suddenly seems to refer to the actual Churchill. The person does not even have to be familiar with Churchill; the image will still be recognized as the shape of a human head.  The meaning or interpretation of the presentation is determined mentally; we are naturally anthropomorphic.  The caricature “Churchill” DOES NOT refer to Winston Churchill, the ant has no knowledge of Churchill and the accidental “Churchill” created by his trek for food does not depict Churchill.  In the highly improbable situation that the ant is familiar with Churchill, then the “Churchill” image in the sand could possibly refer to Churchill, if the ant intended to do so (I am assuming that the ant possess “intentionality”).

Putnam proposes (although his proposition is meant to advance a reductio argument) that thoughts must have “intentionality” in order to refer. “Intentionality” is the property that some philosophers claim as the salient characteristic that distinguishes between “physical objects” and “thoughts”.   Initially, “intentionality” is a plausible explanation for the ability of thoughts to refer, but if one holds that thoughts must necessarily have “intentionality”, it follows that there is an irreducible non-physical characteristic of the mind. Because physical objects do not necessarily refer, but thoughts in the mind DO refer there must be a quality that mentalities have, that physical objects lack. Putnam, correctly, will not accept the conclusion that there is an irreducible aspect to thoughts based on their ability to refer and their “intentionality”.

Putnam invites us to imagine a scenario in which an evil scientist removes your brain from your body, puts it in a vat filled with nutrient fluid and connects electrodes that perfectly mimic the reality from which you have just been extracted.  The scientist makes you forget the operation, and for you, the “external world” is now only an image created by electrical stimuli within your brain. The Brain-in-the-Vat (BIV) argument, Putnam writes, is typically used in Epistemology to raises questions about skepticism and knowledge.  But Putnam’s argument does not directly concern epistemology; he is interested in metaphysics.

However, Putnam updates the scenario because he realizes a potential issue concerning causality and Kripke’s “Causal Chain”.  If the BIV was previously in the actual world, there is a causal chain that grounds the reference between her thoughts and physical objects.  If the BIV sees a “dog” in the illusory world there is a causal chain between her illusory experience of a “dog” and an actual dog.  A causal chain between the “vat” illusory world and the actual world refutes Putnam’s BIV argument.  There are actually two causal chains in Putnam’s initial example, the causal chain leading from the evil-scientist to the actual world, and a causal chain from the BIV to the actual world.  If the BIV had always been a BIV, there would exist no direct causal chain from the BIV to the actual world.  But, if the evil scientist created the illusory world as an analogue to the actual world, the “dog” in the illusory world is connected to an actual dog through a causal chain via the evil scientist. The BIV was once a physiologically normal woman, and though she does not realize that she is a BIV, when she refers in the “vat world”, the illusory physical objects have a causal chain that lead to the real world.  Mindful of the potential causal chain leading back to an actual world, Putnam quickly annihilates the mad scientist, proposes a collective imaginary reality for all sentient beings (who are all BIVs), and decides that the machinery controlling and the BIVs themselves arose by chance.  Putnam’s argument against the possibility of BIVs requires that the machinery and BIVs have arisen by chance; it will not work if a causal chain exists.  Putnam claims that the idea of BIV’s is metaphysically incomprehensible (however, the entire argument is based on the physical possibility of the  situation); we cannot possibly be BIVs, and in the illusory world the BIVs cannot think or say  “we are in fact BIVs”.  Reference and the ability to refer are what make thinking “I am a BIV” in the illusory world false and incoherent.

He introduces the Turing test to clarify the methodology that he will use to prove the claim.  If a machine has been engineered so that it can pass the Turing test, although it can carry on a conversation and answer questions in a manner that is indistinguishable from a human, it still does not refer in the same way as humans.  The machine can talk of “apples”, but it does not refer to them, its knowledge of “apples” is only the result of its programming, compliments of its programmer who undeniably has had experience in the external world with “apples”.  Since the BIV and machinery arose by chance, there is no causal chain leading from the experiences of the BIVs in the “image” to an external world.  The possibility does not exist in the BIV’s image that they can refer to the “vat” in which they are housed.  Their reality or experiences have been generated within the parameters of the machinery governing the “vats”.  The BIVs can refer to “vats” using their own language, but only “vats” that exist in their world.  There is no logical possibility that the BIVs can ask if they are “BIVs” because they cannot refer to the “vat” where they are housed; it is impossible to refer to the “brains” or “vats”, as it is impossible for the ant to intend that the “Churchill caricature” refers to Churchill.

What is Putnam arguing?  He claims at the end of the first chapter that “Contrary to the accepted doctrine that has been with us since the seventeenth century, meanings just aren’t in the head.[2]”  Putnam’s powerful conclusion to the argument is that the understanding of our own thoughts is not an inherent quality; we have the ability to understand our own thoughts, and it is possible that a person lacks that ability. Putnam creates another science fiction parable to demonstrate this possibility. He introduces the idea that a man has been taught to go through the process of “thinking” in Japanese.  He is not actually “thinking”, “thoughts” in the Japanese language are going through his brain.  The man does not know what he is “thinking”; yet his Japanese thoughts are of such a high quality that he can fool a Japanese telepath. It is possible, Putnam argues, to have the occurrence of language mentally, but to lack the ability to understand it. Putnam also uses an example of the contrary: a man who has no mental occurrence of understanding, but when he speaks aloud, he understands everything that he says though he is lacking the first person internal narrative that philosophers attribute to mentalities and concepts.

It is unclear if Putnam is endorsing any specific theses in the first two chapters of the book, however it is very clear that he is arguing against intentionality and magical theories of reference.  Later in the book, Putnam uses his refutation of intentionality to explore the mind/body problem from various other  philosophical perspectives.  Though he does not explicitly refer to the denial of intentionality in all of his later arguments, the consequences of the refutation of intentionality are the foundation of the philosophy explored and promoted in Reason, Truth and History.

[2] Putnam, p 19

In an interview with Cassandra Csencsitzi of American Theatre, Conor McPherson states: “You have to concentrate on things in yourself that are essentially human.  You have to go inside yourself.  What is the actual feeling of being alive, beyond language?  It’s very complicated, but it’s very simple, too.” (4).  In The Weir, the question of human nature and the self is obscured, and sequentially discovered throughout the course of an evening of ghost story-telling.  Each story is significant in that it reveals a fictionalized history pertaining to the plot and the small community setting, and simultaneously something deeply personal about the character from whom it is being told.  Both the setting and the characters are imitative of country life and evident of the social and economical decline in the West of Ireland.  As each character becomes less inhibited by excessive drinking, repressed memories emerge subconsciously.  The loss of self-control in each character due to the consumption of alcohol allows the audience a glimpse into the past and the present personal lives of the characters who have tragically suffered irreparable losses.  The struggle to cope, along with the attempt to understand how these losses have impacted their lives, becomes a source of personal healing and bonding with one another.  This ontological process develops especially in the tragic figure, Valerie, who establishes pity and fear through a vivid account of her daughter’s death and visitation in spiritual form.  Throughout the course of mourning, she is caught in a state of what Freud calls melancholia where she can no longer decipher reality from the fabrication of events in her own mind.  However, with alcohol as the enabler that allows Valerie to reconcile with an account of her daughter’s tragic death, she comes to recognize the loss she has suffered and thus the reason for her mourning, which allows her then to decipher reality from hallucinations.   

In “Late Nights and Proclamations”, McPherson reminisces on the beginning stages of how The Weir came to life on stage.  When the play was commissioned by the Royal Court, McPherson, along with the English director and set designer, Ian Rickson and Rae Smith, set out to Leitrim County to “do a tour of pubs in the countryside”.  During this period of research and exploration of the rural Jamestown, McPherson remembers a time as a child sitting with his grandfather, Jack, watching him tip his burning ash into the fire while he sipped on a bottle of Irish stout.  He describes this time as “a world of lost afternoons in suburban and rural bars”.   McPherson admits apprehension, basing a fictional story in a real community when he asks “what gave me the right to situate a piece of fiction so firmly in a real place” (45)?  However, as a tragedy based on fictional historical events through story-telling, it was inevitable that McPherson would employ imitation as a device that would capture the audience by establishing pity and fear.  In George Whalley’s translation of Aristotle’s Poetics, tragedy is defined as:

a mimesis of an action – that is, it is [morally] serious and purposeful, having magnitude; uttered in heightened language and [using] each of its resources [i.e. dialogue and song] separately in the various sections [of the play], [the action presented] by the people acting rather than by narration; <bringing about through [a process of] pity and fear [in the events enacted] the purification of those destructive or painful acts.  (67, 69)

This classification of  tragedy clarifies McPherson’s decision to use a real place for the setting of the play because in order for the audience to establish an intimate connection to the characters, producing pity and fear, a link between fiction and a real history must be possible.  It was necessary that McPherson experience a moment of nostalgia in order to believe in the life of the play and to create realistic representations in support of the development of fictional characters.  Establishing this link is essential in tragedy, but also, inevitable of human nature in general.  In Bernard F. Dukore’s essay on Aristotle, he asserts the concept that imitation is an essential part of human nature and that it is an unavoidable process of development that requires the satiation of intellectual stimulation and the pleasure received from a stronger moral inclination.  He suggests that “the instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures; and through imitation he learns his earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated” (33).  Therefore, for a tragedy to be successful, making an audience empathetic there must be a realistic explanation for the loss that is suffered and a plausible turning point at which the tragic figure is redeemed from the experienced loss. 

The imitation of reality is represented in McPherson’s setting of a rural bar and how the characters portray themselves in relation to one another in a drinking establishment.  In an interview with Nicholas Grene, McPherson recalls a memory of his grandfather, again, who “lived on his own on a country road in a small house beside the Shannon.  I remember him telling me once that it was very important to have the radio on because it gave him the illusion of company.  We’d have a drink and sit by the fire.  And he’d tell me stories” (302).  This memory is evident of the loss of something valuable and the bonding between lonely men searching for meaning and comfort from eachother where alcohol serves as the enabler that allows this bonding to occur.  Additionally, the resurfacing of this memory implies that the manifestation of the fictional Jack embodies characteristics of McPherson’s grandfather who was a necessary figure present in the play in order to simulate reality.  Hugh Brody discusses the depression associated with the loss of strong social and economical communities in the West of Ireland and the expressed need between men for companionship who absorb their sorrows by engaging in heavy drinking together:

A drunken man in winter leans more heavily on the bar.  He often seeks to draw another drinker or two to his side.  Such a group creates a tight circle of privacy around itself – a privacy physically expressed by the arms they lay across one another’s shoulders.  Then, with faces almost touching, they appear to join closely in evident despair.  (33)

In The Weir, the setting and the four male characters reproduce almost an exact replica of the scene that Brody describes above.  Three of these characters, Jack, Brendan, and Jim, are lonely bachelors, who work financially challenging and physically arduous jobs, and whose lack of female companionship becomes evident through the reliance on eachother to relieve loneliness.  The benevolent companionship that exists between them, however, remains in tact through the dependency on alcohol – and Brendan’s need to sell it as a means to his livelihood.  In retrospect, the dependency on alcohol suppresses the motivation to leave their roots behind and explore life’s possibilities outside of the rural community.  While loneliness and financial distress allow bonding to occur, simultaneously created is a distance between these three characters, and Finbar, the fourth character who, at a younger age, ventured out from the grips of desolation and found his fortune and a female companion.  Finbar’s financial success and the obtainment of a wife create tension between him and the other characters.  This comes out in the form of bitterness and jealousy.  Both Jack and Brendan display these feelings when they disclose discomfort that Finbar has been escorting a young, attractive new female tenant, Valerie, around the neighbourhood:

JACK.   …And Finbar’s going bananas with the great fella that he is. Patting

himself on the back, goodo, and talking about the new resident. Who, he says, is a fine girl. Single. Down from Dublin and all this.  And Finbar’s nearly leaving the wife just to have a chance with this one. Only messing, like. But he’s bringing her in here tonight, the nearest place. To old … Maura’s. Bringing her in for a drink. Introduce her to the natives.

BRENDAN.   The dirty bastard. I don’t want him using in here for that sort of carry on. A married man like him.  (8)

Thick tension here can almost be cut with Jack’s reference to Finbar as “the great fella that he is” who is “Patting himself on the back”.  This is marked by Jack’s sharp disapproval of Finbar who appears to be gallivanting around the town with a young city woman who showed up out of nowhere to rent his house that has been vacant for years.  Jack is mistrustful and exaggerates the notion that Finbar is “nearly leaving the wife just to have a chance with this one”.  Simultaneously, he resents Finbar bringing the woman down to introduce “her to the natives”, as it denotes a certain classification that denies any hope of ever leaving.  Brandon responds with certainty in what Jack relays with the accusation that Finbar is committing adultery by “using in here for that sort of carry on”. 

This conversation can be interpreted in two ways:  First, it points to Finbar’s status as an outsider within this group of characters because he has achieved more than what the others have in the way of financial success and female companionship which has created jealousy in the others who have not acquired these achievements.  Where Finbar has acquired more materialistically places him on a level of social status that is beyond his ability to identify, and therefore, coexist with the others on an equal level of companionship.  The second interpretation highlights the insecurity felt by the others who have not obtained wealth and marriage and therefore feel intimidated next to Finbar and embittered by their inadequacy and supposed failure.

In Kevin Kerrane’s article “The Structural Elegance of Conor McPherson’s The Weir”, he emphasizes that “drink fuels the evening’s successive revelations, and the particular choices.  Guinness versus Harp, Irish whiskey, white wine, or glasses of brandy – can serve to mark the characters’ individuality, and sometimes to establish commonality” (106).  This implies that selections of alcoholic beverages correspond to and reveal personality traits in each character.  This is evident in the case of Jack – the first to appear – when he walks into the bar and gets himself a drink.  Jack’s initial attempt is to get a pint of Guinness from the tap, however, much to his dismay, the tap is broken and he has to settle for a bottle that has been left on the shelf.  When Brendan comes in, Jack addresses the problem immediately:

JACK.   Brendan. (Lifting the glass) What’s with the Guinness?

BRENDAN.   (Putting peat in the stove) I don’t know.  It’s the power in the tap.  It’s a new barrel and everything.

JACK.   Is the Harp one okay?

BRENDAN.   Yeah.

JACK.   Well, would you not switch them around and let a man have a pint of stout, no?

BRENDAN.   What about the Harp drinkers?

JACK.   (Derision) “The Harp drinkers.” (6)

Here the emphasis of one type of drink preferred over another indicates more than just a preference of taste.  The mere mentioning of Jack’s discontent over what he has to settle for in lieu of what he prefers is contingent with how he is represented.   The choice of words here are not reflexive, but objective with the use of the indefinite article “a” in conjunction with the reference to himself as “man”.  This indicates a declaration that Jack as “a man” should be recognized as such through his personal beverage selection, and that simultaneously, this choice is representative of any person who identifies himself by this description.  Therefore, his choice – a Guiness-  is a representation of who he is, as who he has always been, and is reflected by his slight contempt with the alternative and the opposing “Harp drinkers” made evident in McPherson’s stage direction note “(Derision)”.  The tone here indicates a belittling of any one who prefers Harp over Guinness, which suggests how personality traits are linked to beverage selection as connotation of who is “a man” and who is not.  The audience here sees how Jack’s opinion holds his opinion of what kind of man may choose to drink Harp over a pint of Guinness.  The likeness to a drink and its connection to personality traits of an individual are seen upon the entrance of each of McPherson’s characters.  The contrast in personality and the built up tension between Jack and Finbar is emphasized once Finbar enters and orders a drink:

FINBAR.   Oh now, ha ha. Eh, I’ll have a pint then, what? , says you, if it’s going, ha? Eh Harp please Brendan. (Jack looks at Finbar. Finbar nods at him.) Jack.

JACK.   Finbar.

The stage direction here denotes Jack’s contempt for Finbar, a Harp drinker, who, without hesitation, ordered Harp.  Finbar “nods”, while Jack just “looks”.  It seems apparent that Jack holds hostility toward Finbar, thus indicating a longer history of competition between Jack and Finbar.  Reichman Ravit claims that “property animates a much wider range of emotions and that the drive to own something can tell a story of dispossession and grief, indebtedness and guilt, giving rise to unlikely imagined communities that invite us to redefine the relations between a people and their nation” (434).   For Jack, the beer represents a possession that Finbar could acquire with ease.  It symbolizes Finbar’s refined taste, and his ability to acquire more possessions and/or property of higher value in contrast with Jack, who could never measure up.  With this inability to acquire property in equal proportion to Finbar, Jack projects hostility and anger toward Finbar, as he challenges Jack’s status as “a man”. 

Christina Chisholm discusses the particulars of Freud’s melancholia as a disease of “the self” where the person mourning the loss of someone or something becomes lost in themselves.  She describes melancholia as “a failure of self-projection” (123) and that the melancholic “will overrule his or her libidinal attachment to the lost love object and will dissolve “hallucinatory wishful psychosis” that could compensate for the loss of satisfaction” (124).  This “hallucinatory wishful psychosis” can be seen as developed in the three primary male characters in that the losses defined are the personal inadequacies felt from failure to achieve financial stature and a marriage.  The self-absorption and the disease is evident in the addiction and dependency on alcohol in order to feel worthy within an environment that is lacking the opportunity to acquire female companionship. 

Brody furthers his discussion about the losses incurred due to the decline of parishes in western Ireland noting that sexual isolation becomes chronic as a result of dying communities.  He states that “isolation is chronic where there is no possibility of the household expanding – of coming to include a new generation.  Similarly, a rough criterion of sexual isolation can be that a person has no sexual or marital partner in the house or in the neighbourhood.  And this is chronic where there is no realistic hope of the person ever finding such a partner” (87).  When Finbar brings Valerie into the bar it complicates the relationship between the men because of the infrequency in which they engage with women who are potential partners.  Valerie’s presence is intimidating for them, especially while in the company of Finbar, because it reminds them of their commitment to desolation and dissociation with the outside world.  Simultaneously, as the only female character, she becomes an object of desire before she has even entered the room, creating more tension between the men who see her as a possible means to escape from a life of loneliness.   

McPherson makes this evident upon Valerie’s entrance with the brief introductions all around that turns immediately to drinking.  Valerie’s presence as the only female character confirms the insecurities and the need for the men to perform competitively.  This competitiveness is confirmed when Valerie asks for a glass of white wine, as Jack points out, is not a regular request in a country bar.  Brendan’s reply is that he has to “run in the house” to get it because the only bottle he’s got is stored in his refrigerator.  Finbar then takes the opportunity to criticize Brendan, and the country bar that seems so out of touch with anything civilized when he says:

FINBAR.   He probably has a bottle of the old vino from feckin’

 …Christmas, ha?

JACK.   It’s not too often the … … wine does be flowing in here.

VALERIE.  I’m all embarrassed now.

FINBAR.   Don’t be silly. Sit up there now, and don’t mind us.  Don’t mind these country fellas. (15)

The tension is built up immediately between the men because Finbar emphasizes both that the bar is unequipped to fulfill requests for anything but the usual orders of beer made by the local male patrons.  Additionally, it suggests Valerie’s naivety, and that as a city woman and a newcomer to a small town, she is out of her element in the country where it may not be possible for her to have what she wishes upon demand.  The men cope with the competition and, simultaneously, attempt to win the affection of Valerie by quite-ing eachother in story telling.  However, as they tell their stores, they subconsciously reveal personal suffering as a result of the isolation and loss of social and economical strength within the community that previously, had only been indirectly acknowledged.  This becomes increasingly apparent with Jim’s story that begins with a memory of a job he had digging graves in the next town.  He recalls the memory of the ghost of a local child molester who appeared to him in attempt to have his grave put next to a little girl who was murdered. 

JIM   …The fella who’d died had had a bit of a reputation of em… being a pervert. And he wanted to go down in the grave with the …little girl. Even after they were gone. It didn’t bear… thinking about.  It came back when you said about Declan’s girl. Yeah. (Pause.) (37)   

 This precedes Finbar’s story about “Declan’s girl” a woman who used to live in the town, but who left it to get married – yet another reminder of the depletion of the female population and the loss of another family in the community.  The tragedy shown here connects with the loss of strength and family, death, and community upheaval.  Jim had repressed this memory long ago because of the encounter he had experienced with the supernatural and the unexplained.  However the hallucinatory factor suggests self-doubt, as Jim’s ability to express this memory comes after a heavy dose of Irish whiskeys and several pints of beer.  At this point, Valerie interjects, by asking Jim if he thought “it was a, an hallucination”.  Her willingness to be involved in the subject at hand allows her to become more intimately acquainted with the men, and thus demonstrates her interest and need for companionship. The problem with “unacknowledged loss” or melancholia in Greek Tragedy comes down to the misconception of the identification of the self.  Olga Taxidou claims that because relationships in Greek Tragedy are primarily homosocial and homosexual, it is the female character that suffers the loss of identification in which she is denied the opportunity to grieve.  Taxidou asserts that the “issue of primary loss as central to the creation of the self will be read in conjunction with the political and civic function of mourning.  This is done in a gesture that tries to read mourning not necessarily as part and parcel of the quasi-existentialist and metaphysical reception of tragedy” (160). 

Through the course of the evening’s storytelling, Valerie learns the source of her loss, as her status with the men becomes equalized and unified through compassion and empathy with suffering.  Where each man tells a story about ghosts, and sincerely expresses an experience with the supernatural, something unexplained, Valerie sees the genuineness in their afflictions.  She realizes the melancholic state that had trapped her before she left Dublin, and recognizes that for her to heal, it is necessary for her to grieve.

VALERIE.   …But I was, you know, I was more, just I didn’t really know what I was doing. Just walking around, wanting to …Sitting in the house, with Daniel’s mother,

Fussing around the place.

Just, months of this. Not really talking about it, like. (Pause.)

She is then able to recount the story of the death of her daughter because she has learned from the men that by repressing the issue she has more to lose than she does to gain.  Taxidou asserts that “the body of the mourner imbibes the body of the grieved object of desire” (91), and this is unveiled in Valerie’s recount of the story.  However, she becomes revived of this after having explained her position to the men who listen attentively in awe.  Valerie represents the female tragic hero because through the account of her daughter’s death, she becomes purified by the acknowledgement that her daughter’s spiritual appearance was not hallucinatory.  She expresses her gratitude when she says “And it’s nice just to be here and … hear what you were saying. I know I’m not crazy” (46).  Through this statement, she achieves a revelation of her experiences, and thus, establishes unity and new companionship with a group of strange men in a country bar. 

Works Cited

Brody, Hugh. Inishkillane: Change and Decline in the West of Ireland. Harmondsworth:  Penguin, 1974.

Chisholm, Dianne. H.D.’s Freudian Poetics: Psychoanalysis in Translation. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992.            

Csencsitz, Cassandra. “Conor McPherson Lifts The Veil”. American Theatre. 2007 Dec; 24 (10),36-83.  Dukore, Bernard (Ed.). Dramatic Theory and Criticism: Greeks to Grotowski.  New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974.  

Grene, Nicholas. “Ireland in Two Minds: Martin McDonagh and Conor McPherson”. Yearbook of English Studies, 2005; 35, 298-311.

Kerrane, Kevin. “The Structural Elegance of Conor McPherson’s The Weir”. New Hibernia Review/Iris Eireannach Nua: A Quaterly Record of Irish Studies, 2006 Winter; 10.(4), 105-21

McPherson, Conor. “Late Nights and Proclamations”.  American Theatre, 1999 Apr; 16 (4), 45- 46.                 

Ravit, Reichman.  “Mourning, Owning, Owing” American Imago: Psychoanalysis and The Human. 2007 Fall; 64 (3) 433-439.                       

Taxidou, Olga. Tragedy, Modernity and Mourning. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UniversityPress, 2004.

Whalley, George (trans). Ed. John Baxter and Patrick Atherton Poetics. Aristotle’s Poetics. Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997.

Bored? Check out new(ish) WordPress blog Bored Bookseller Musings. Good writing on books, bookstores, rude customers, and other literary(ish) matters. In a recent(ish) post, the Bored Bookseller pointed our direction to a new(ish) essay by Zadie Smith, where the White Teeth author discusses “novel-nausea.” (Smith’s essay is really just a ploy to promote her new book of essays, Changing My Mind).

The meme’s headquarters is over at Well-Read Reviews–thank you! To quote: “The first line can make or break a reader’s interest. Just how well did the author pull you in to the story with their first sentence? To participate in this weekly book meme is extremely easy. [1] Grab the book you are currently reading and open to the first page. [2] Write down the first sentence in the first paragraph. [3] Create a blog post with this information. (Make sure to include the title & author of the book you are using. Even an ISBN helps!) [4] Did this first sentence help draw you into the story? Why or why not?”

[1] The Shape of a Pocket, by John Berger. I got this book in the mail about two weeks ago. I read it about a year ago, but really quickly and hurriedly—the professor was carrying this around during one poetry class, and I was very, very intrigued. I wanted to return to this book, and spend more time with it. Essays on art, life, philosophy, and all-around awesomesauce. The first line goes:

The ceiling of the bedroom is painted a faded sky blue.

Now, that doesn’t really say much, but, well, let me cheat a little and point you to a statement a couple of paragraphs down, one that has stuck with me all this time:

At the same time, there is an expectancy which I have not experienced since childhood, since I talked to dogs, listened to their secrets and kept them to myself.

I have always been a shamelessnutfan about the fluidity of images, and how language manages to leave you breathless for a couple of moments.

[2] Captive of Sin, by Anna Campbell. Some authors know all the usual tricks that guarantee an instant hook, because I couldn’t really stop at just this line now, huh? I mean, I have to know what the hell happens next!

“Good God, what have we here?”

First page’s fraught with feril! :}

[3] What the Duke Desires, by Jenna Petersen. This was a line that had me going, “Come again?” And that’s always a good thing, innit? Here, Simon (the hero)’s telling us about this haunting woman in a recurring dream, and, well, good job, Miss Petersen, because I really want to know more about Simon now.

She had never had a face.

*

PS: As soon as I read the Campbell and Petersen books, well, I’m giving a copy each away! Thing is, I happen to have two brandspankingnew copies for each book, and I just want to spread the love. (Or the horror?) Haha, stay tuned, because the moment I rest that book, it’s going to be happygiveawaytimez. Yep, two crisp books to be given away! At the soonest!

က်ေနာ္တေလာက ေတာင္ၾကီး-ဟုိပုံး ခရီးတေခါက္ သြားခဲ့တယ္ဗ် ။ အလုပ္ကိစၥနဲ႔ ပဲ သြားျဖစ္တာပါ…..။ ဟုိမွာက အေဖ့အလုပ္ကိစၥ ဖြင့္ပြဲရယ္ ၊ က်ေနာ့္ အလုပ္ကိစၥေလးရယ္ ႏွစ္ခု တုိက္ဆုိင္သြားေတာ့ အေဖနဲ႔ပဲ တူတူသြားျဖစ္ခဲ့ပါတယ္ ။ မသြားခင္တရက္အလိုေလာက္ကတည္းက အျပည့္အစုံ အကုန္စီစဥ္ပီးသား ။ သြားမဲ့မနက္ေရာက္ေတာ့ ခ်စ္သူကို သတင္းပို႕ သူငယ္ခ်င္းႏွစ္ေယာက္နဲ႔ ထမင္းစားပီး အိမ္က ကားနဲ႔ပဲ ထြက္ခဲ့ပါတယ္ . . .။

က်ေနာ္ရယ္ အေဖရယ္ ၊ အေဖ့တပည့္ ၃ေယာက္ရယ္ ေပါင္း ၅ေယာက္ကို Hilux ကားေလးနဲ႔ ထြက္ခဲ့ၾကပါတယ္ ။ ေက်ာက္ဆည္ျမိဳ႕ ပတ္လမ္းကေန ျမိဳ႕ၾကီး လမ္း အတုိင္း လာခဲ့ပါတယ္ . . . ။ ျမိဳ႕ၾကီးကေန ရြာငံ လမ္းပုိင္းမွာ လမ္းက ေတာ္ေတာ္ၾကီးကို ဆိုးပါတယ္ ။ ဒါေပမယ့္ မိထီၳလာသြားတဲ့ လမ္းထက္ေတာ့ မိုင္တုိင္ပိုေလွ်ာ့ပါတယ္ ။ တစ္ေတာင္တတ္ တစ္ေတာင္ဆင္း ၊ ဘယ္ေကြ႕႔လုိက္ ညာေကြ႕ လိုက္နဲ႔ ကားေမာင္းရတာလဲ ေတာ္ေတာ္ေလး ပင္ပန္းပါရဲ႕ ။ ေန႕လည္ ၂ နာရီေလာက္က ထြက္လာလိုက္တာ ။ ကေလာျမိဳ႕ ကို ေရာက္ေတာ့ ထမင္းစားနား အဲ့ဒီေတာ့ ညေန၆ နာရီ ေလာက္ရွိပီ ။ ရြာငံဘက္က ထြက္လာတဲ့ လမ္းက ကားၾကီးေတြ ကုန္ကားၾကီးေတြ အမ်ားေသာအားျဖင့္သြားၾကတာဆုိေတာ့ လမ္းက မေကာင္းပါ ။ ေအာင္ပန္းျမိဳ႕ကို ျဖတ္ပီး ေတာင္ၾကီးျမိဳ႕ ထဲ၀င္ခါနီးေတာ့ မွဳန္မွဳန္ကေလး တုိက္ခတ္လာတဲ့ေလေအးနဲ႔ အတူ Cheery FM က ေစာင့္လို႔ ၾကိဳဆုိေနပါတယ္ ။ ေတာင္ၾကီးျမိဳ႕မွာ ခဏနားၾကပီး ဟိုပုံးျမိဳ႕ကို ဆက္လက္ ခ်ီတက္ၾကပါတယ္ ။

ဟုိပုံးျမိဳ႕ထဲေရာက္ေတာ့ ည ၉ နာရီခြဲေလာက္ ရွိေနပါပီ ။ က်ေနာ့္ အလုပ္ကိစၥက ေတာင္ၾကီးျမိဳ႕ အထြက္ေလာက္နားက ဆုိဒ္တခုပါ ။ အေဖ့ အလုပ္ကေတာ့ ဟိုပုံးျမိဳ႕ ျမိဳ႕ေတာ္ခန္းမ ထဲမွာပါ။ ေရာက္သြားေတာ့ အိပ္စရာေနရာအရင္ ရွာရပါတယ္ ။ တခါမွမေရာက္ဖူးတဲ့ေနရာျဖစ္ေနေတာ့ ဘယ္မွာမွ ရွာလို႔မေတြ႕ဘူးျဖစ္ေနတယ္။ ေနာက္ေတာ့ ျမိဳ႕ေတာ္ခန္းမထဲမွာ ကားထားပီး ကားေပၚတင္ အိပ္ၾကပါတယ္ ။ ႏွင္းေတြကလဲ တဖြဲဖြဲ က်ေနတာ မိုးစက္ပြင့္မ်ား ရီးေလးခိုဆင္း သက္လာေလသလား မွတ္ရရဲ႕ ။ အေအးဓါတ္က သိသာလာတယ္ ။ အေႏြးထည္ တထည္တည္းယူခဲ့မိတာကို ပထမဆုံးအၾကိမ္ ေနာင္တရမိေလရဲ႕ ။ ေနာက္ဆုံးဘယ္လိုမွ မခံႏုိင္တဲ့အဆုံး တကိုယ္လုံးကို ပါလာတဲ့ ေစာင္နဲ႔ ပတ္ထားရေလရဲ႕ ။ ဘာပဲျဖစ္ျဖစ္ မနက္ေရာက္မွ လုပ္စရာရွိတာ လုပ္ေတာ့မယ္ဆုိပီး အိပ္ေပ်ာ္ေအာင္ အိပ္လိုက္ရပါတယ္ ။

မနက္ ၆ နာရီ ထုိးျပီ ။ အျပင္ဖက္ၾကည့္လုိက္ေတာ့ ဟိုတစ၊ ဒီတစ ျမိဳ႕ခံလူေတြ လွဳပ္ရွားေနၾကပါပီ ။ အားလုံးကို ႏိုးျပီး လွ်ပ္စစ္ရုံး (EI) ကို ခ်ီတတ္ပီး အလုပ္ကိစၥ စကားနည္းနည္းေျပာရပါတယ္ ။ အဲ့ဒါေတြ ပီးေတာ့ မနက္စာစားဖို႔ ခ်ီတက္ရပါတယ္။ သူငယ္ခ်င္းတစ္ေယာက္အေျပာအရ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံ တျမိဳ႕လုံးမွာ ဟိုပုံးျမိဳ႕ ေရာက္ပီး ဟိုပုံးျမိဳ႕က တို႕ဟူးကို မစားဘူးရင္ မတန္ဘူးလို႔ ေျပာလို႔ ျမိဳ႕မခန္းမ နားက ညီအစ္မ ႏွစ္ေယာက္ ေရာင္းတဲ့ တို႔ဟူးေၾကာ္ ၊ ေကာက္ညွင္းေပါင္း ၊ အေၾကာ္စုံ ဆုိင္မွာ ၀င္ပီး စားျဖစ္ပါတယ္ ။ သူငယ္ခ်င္းေျပာတာ မွန္တယ္လို႔ေတာ့ ထင္မိရဲ႕ ။ ေရေႏြးၾကမ္းနဲ႔ ေကာက္ညွင္းေပါင္းရယ္ တို႔ဟူးေၾကာ္ေလးရယ္ က ႏွင္းေတြ ေ၀ေနနဲ႔ ဟုိပုံးျမိဳ႕ေလးကို ပိုပီးအမွတ္ရေစမယ္ထင္ပါရဲ႕ ။ မနက္စာ ၀မ္းစာျငိမ္းသြားေတာ့ . . . အလုပ္ကိစၥအတြက္ ေတာင္ၾကီးျမိဳ႕အထြက္ကို ေျပးရပါတယ္ ။ အေဖကေတာ့ ဟိုပုံးျမိဳ႕က ဖြင့္ပြဲအတြက္ ေနခဲ့ေလရဲ႕။

အလုပ္လုပ္မဲ့ ဆိုဒ္ထဲေရာက္ေတာ့ ေပ ၂၀ ေလာက္အျမင့္ရွိတဲ့ တုိင္ေပၚတက္ပီး အလုပ္လုပ္ရပါတယ္ ။ အေအးဒါဏ္ရယ္ ၊ ေလႏုေအးရယ္ ေပါင္းပီးလူကို အသည္းခိုက္ေအာင္ ခ်မ္းေစတယ္ ။ အလုပ္ကိစၥေတြ အားလုံးျပီးသြားေတာ့ ဟုိပုံးျမိဳ႕႔ထဲျပန္လာ ၊ ေမြးသဖခင္ကို ေရာက္ရွိေၾကာင္း သတင္းပို႕ ျပီးေတာ့ ေဒသၱရ ဗဟုသုတ အလို႔ငွာ ဟိုသြားဒီလာႏွင့္ စတင္ စပ္စုပါသည္။ ဟုိပုံးေရာက္တာ ၈လ ေလာက္ရွိပီျဖစ္တဲ့ သူငယ္ခ်င္း ဟုိပုံးမင္းသားၾကီး ကိုေဇာ္ခိုင္အား ဆက္သြယ္ျပီး ႏွိပ္စက္လိုက္ရပါတယ္ ။ ဟိုပုံးျမိဳ႕ အထြက္ ၂မုိင္မွာေနတဲ့ သူ႕ဆုိဒ္ထဲကေန က်ေတာ္တုိ႔ စေတးခ်ေနတဲ့ ခန္းမ အထိေအာင္ ဆုိင္ကယ္နဲ႔ လာေရာက္ပီး ကူညီေပးခဲ့ပါရဲ႕။ သူနဲ႕ အတူတူ လက္ဖက္ရည္ဆုိင္ထုိင္ပီး ဘယ္ေနရာေတြ လည္လို႔ပတ္လို႔ေကာင္းတယ္၊ ဘယ္ေနရာေတြက အထင္ကရ ရွိတယ္ ဆုိတာ ေမးရျမန္းရပါတယ္ ။ ဟိုပုံးျမိဳ႕မွာ ျမိဳ႕မဆည္ ဆိုတဲ့ဆည္က သြားလည္လို႔ ေကာင္းတယ္ တဲ့ ။ ပုံမွန္ရက္ေတြဆုိရင္ လူသိပ္မစည္ေပမယ့္ အခါၾကီးရက္ၾကီး ပြဲေတာ္ေန႔မ်ိဳးဆုိ လူစည္တတ္တယ္ ။ အဲ့ဒီဆည္က ဟိုပုံးျမိဳ႕ထဲကေန ၁မုိင္ေက်ာ္ေက်ာ္ေလာက္ အထဲကိုသြားရအုံးမယ္ဆုိေတာ့ အခ်ိန္မရတာေၾကာင့္ မသြားျဖစ္ခဲ့ပါဘူး ။ သူငယ္ခ်င္းနဲ႔ လမ္းခြဲခဲ့ပီးေတာ့ ခန္းမထဲကို ျပန္သြား အေဖ့အလုပ္ေလးဘာေလး နည္းနည္းပါးပါးကူျပီး အေဖ့အသိ ရွမ္းမၾကီး ၂ ေယာက္ ေရာက္လာပါတယ္ ။ သူတုိ႔က ဟိုပုံးမွာ ကိုရင္ေလးေက်ာင္းဆုိတာ ရွိေၾကာင္း ၊ တန္ခိုးေတာ္ေတာ္ၾကီးေၾကာင္း ၊ ဖြင့္တာ သိပ္မၾကာေသးတဲ့ ထန္စန္႔ဂူ (သဘာ၀ လိွဳင္ဂူ) လည္းရွိေၾကာင္း ေျပာျပပါသည္ ။ ကိုရင္ေလးက ငယ္ငယ္ကတည္း အဓိဌာန္ကာ ကိုယ့္လက္ကို ျဖတ္ကာ ဋာပနာထားလုိက္ရာ လက္အသစ္ျပန္ထြက္လာေသာေၾကာင့္ ပိုသတင္းၾကီးေၾကာင္း ေျပာျပပါသည္။ သဘာ၀လွိဳင္ဂူ (ထန္စန္႔) မွာ ထုံးေက်ာက္လွိဳဏ္ဂူျဖစ္ျပီး အရင္အစိုးရႏွင့္ ‘၀’ တုိင္းရင္းသားမ်ား အလင္းမ၀င္မွီ လက္နက္သိုေလွာင္ရာ ေနရာအျဖစ္အသုံးျပဳခဲ့သည္ဟု သိခဲ့ရတယ္ ။ အခုေလာေလာဆယ္ ဂူထဲကို ၀င္ၾကည့္ေတာ့ ထုံးေက်ာက္ပန္းဆြဲမ်ား အျပင္ ဘုရားဆင္းတုမ်ား တည္ထားဆဲ ရွိသည္ကို ေတြ႕ခဲ့ရတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ေဆာက္လုပ္ဆဲလုပ္ငန္းခြင္ကို ေဒသခံမ်ားက ေစတနာျဖင့္ လုပ္အားဒါန ပါ၀င္ေနၾကတာကို ေတြ႔ခဲ့ရတယ္။ ေဆာက္လက္စ လုပ္ငန္းခြင္ျဖစ္တဲ့အတြက္ ထုံးေက်ာက္ပန္းဆြဲမ်ားကို လြန္ပူနဲ႔ ထြင္းကာ ပုံေဖာ္ ၊ ဘုရားဆင္းတုမ်ား ထု နဲ႔ ျပင္ဆင္ေနတဲ့အတြက္ ထုံးေက်ာက္မွဳန္မ်ားနဲ႔ လႊမ္းေနတဲ့အတြက္ အထဲ ဆုံးတဲ့အထိ မသြားႏုိင္ခဲ့ပါဘူး ။ ျပင္ဦးလြင္ က ပိတ္ခ်င္းေျမွာင္ လိွဳဏ္ဂူ လိုမ်ိဳးပါဘဲ ။ ပင္းတယ က လွိဳဏ္ဂူကေတာ့ ပုဂံအထိ ေပါက္တယ္လို႔ေျပာၾကပါရဲ႕ ။ ဒီ ထန္စန္႕ ဂူကိုေတာ့ ‘၀’ ေတြ ဘယ္အထိေဖာက္ထားလဲဆုိတာေတာ့ မသိခဲ့ရပါဘူး ။

အဲ့ဒီက အျပန္မွာ ဟိုပုံးေရထြက္လို႔ ေခၚတဲ့ စမ္းေခ်ာင္းမွာ ေရအတင္းခ်ိဳးခိုင္းလို႔ ခိုက္ခိုက္တုန္ခ်မ္းေနတာေတာင္ ေရခ်ိဳးဘူးတယ္ရွိေအာင္ ခ်ိဳးခဲ့ပါတယ္ ။ အဲ့ဒီေနာက္မွာ ျမိဳ႕မခန္းမ အနီးနားက ေမြေတာ္ဘုရား ကို သြားခဲ့ေသးတယ္။ မန္းေလးမွာေတြ႕ဖူးေနၾက ေစတီပုံစံမ်ိဳးေတြနဲ႔ နည္းနည္းကြဲျပားမယ္ထင္တယ္ ။ ၾကာေမွာက္၊ ၾကာလွန္ေနရာမွာ နည္းနည္း ရွည္သြားေၾကာင္းကိုေတာ့ သတိထားမိခဲ့တယ္။

ဟုိပုံးမွာ ေတာင္ေပၚသား ကေလးငယ္မ်ားမွာ အေႏြးထည္ေလးမ်ားနဲ႔ ရိုးရာ ရိုးဂုဏ္ကို ဆင္ျမန္းထားတဲ့ သူတို႔ေလးေတြရဲ႕ မ်က္ႏွာမွာ အထင္သားတပ္ဆင္ပီး ေတာ္ေတာ္ခ်စ္စရာေကာင္းေနတယ္ ။ ပအို႕ ၊ ပေလာင္ ၊ ဓႏု ၊ ရွမ္း စတဲ့ လူမ်ိဳးစုေတြနဲ႔ ေပါင္းစပ္ထားတဲ့ ျမိဳ႕ေလးကေတာ္ေတာ္ အမွတ္ရစရာေကာင္းေနပါတယ္ ။

တခါတခါ အရမ္းညီးေငြ႕စရာေတြၾကံဴလာတဲ့အခါ ၊ ထြက္ေပါက္ရွာတဲ့အေနနဲ႔ ခရီးတေခါက္ တေထာက္ေလာက္ ထြက္ေပးရင္ ေတာ္ေတာ္ေလး အဆင္ေျပေစတာကို ေတြ႕ရတယ္။ ေနာက္ရက္ မနက္၉နာရီေလာက္ က်ေတာ့ ေတာင္ၾကီးျမိဳ႕က အသိတစ္ေယာက္ဆီမွာ ရွမ္းမုန္႕တီ ဆုိတာ သြားစားခဲ့ပါေသးတယ္ ။ ေကာက္ညွင္းရယ္ လက္ပံပြင့္ေျခာက္ရယ္ ေရာစားရတဲ့ မုန္႔တီက စားေနၾကပုံစံမ်ိဳးမဟုတ္တဲ့ အတြက္အရသာ တမ်ိဳးကို ဆန္းသစ္ေစပါတယ္ ။ အဲ့ဒီေနာက္မွာေတာ့ မန္းေလးအျပန္ခရီးကို စတင္ခဲ့ပါတယ္ ။

These Are A Few of My Favorite Things

(sung to The Sound of Music ’s My Favorite Things)

Raindrops on roses and clippers for pruning

Bright colored tulips and treating as annuals

Brown paper lunch bags filled up with my seeds

These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored patios and green garden settees

Mail box and lamp post and vines for cover

Wildlife that fly with the moon on their wing

These are a few of my favorite things

Cherries in pink with weeping long branches

Hostas that stay from the deers hungry noshes

Green grass in winter that doesn’t need mowing

These are a few of my favorite things

When the black spots

When the bee stings

When I’m feeling mad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don’t feel so sad

]]> http://demonkitti.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/malicious-intent/ Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:33:03 +0000 DemonKitti http://demonkitti.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/malicious-intent/

I stayed behind after school today because of the UBC info session. (At lunch, there was also a McGill session, and I’ll definitely be applying there, too.) I could’ve gone home and come back, but I didn’t feel like walking the 20 min trip and then back again. Yicheng and Conrad stayed behind as well, so between 3:30 and 6:30, I was able to spend the three hours somewhat productively.

We listened to loud Asian music on Conrad’s cell phone while I reorganized my folder. (It had gotten so full these days that I couldn’t even close it. T_T) Then, I studied chem and managed to work through half the review package. Yay. Yicheng frequently interjected with questions about Macbeth and Paradise Lost, and I was able to explain a lot of interpretations to him. That helped all three of us, because Yicheng now understand the passages, I was able to practice talking as though it was an IOC, and even Conrad claims that he was listening and therefore acquired some insight. I guess I should feel proud of myself that I was able to sort of “teach”. To be honest, I’m really glad people are asking me questions about random passages. This is definitely the best way for me to practice for my IOC.
Btw, I’ll be going FIRST out of the whole class next Tuesday. Hooboy. X_X Dueck told me aside that he was making me go first because he knew I’d “be able to handle it” (that is, the stress of going first). I think what he means is that he hopes I’ll be able to not fail, and then I’ll come out of the oral NOT freaking out, which he hopes will make the other IB kids less stressed out when they see me. :\ I wonder how well that plan will work. T_T It all banks on how well I do on my IOC. And I guess it makes sense — if I freak out, that’s likely to affect the other kids, too.

Anyways. The UBC info session. The presenter, Yusuf, kept picking on me (and I him) and it turned into a humoured battle. I was feeling really guilty about it (and kept trying to assure him that I wasn’t trying to be hard on him out of a malicious intent), but at the very end he actually thanked me and told me that my casual way of teasing him and making conversation made him feel comfortable presenting to our group. Supposedly, this was one of the easiest presentations he’s ever given. Yay? That’s good news. Often I accidentally give off a cold demeanor and make people feel UNcomfortable.

I don’t think I want to talk about the math or physics tests today. T_T Let’s just say they didn’t go so well. On the other hand, I have three more tests tomorrow: math paper 2, chem topic 5 unit test, and an in-class essay in English on Hell in Milton vs. in Dante.
I also stupidly REQUESTED another test from Mr. Flink. -_-;; A month ago we did a test on math topic 1, and while I did fairly well in the sequences section, my logs failed. So lately I’ve been going through the textbook and relearning all the logs and lns — and I guess I wanted to prove myself to him or something, because I asked for another “assessment” … aka a test. We scheduled it to next Tuesday… and then I looked at my agenda. Tuesday is my IOC. GREAT. GENIUS, Anne. What a genius. >_>

Finally, he approached me a couple of times today. I think he’s made his decision. But everytime, I was in conversation with another guy about something completely unrelated, and he ended up not saying anything. But his mood seemed like he was getting ready to deliver bad news, so… I’m worried. I don’t think this will end well.

On another note, I’m preparing a song with Jireh for the Christmas banquet. I’m surprised that it’s a bit high for him, but it’s fine. We can transpose. Which is what I did earlier today on Kevin’s piano. Writing out sheet music by hand is HARD, though. >_< Hopefully I’ve brought it down enough for him… if we go any lower, it’ll be too low for my range! XD He’s saying he wants to do the song with a full band — as in, drums, guitar, piano. Whoa. O_O That was unexpected. I was thinking acapella… drums, max. Guess we’ll need to find some musicians ASAP.

P.S. Happy 44th birthday, mother.

Everyone knows the scenario.  Guy loves girl.  Girl loves guy.  Guy takes girl to an incredibly romantic spot.  Say a mountaintop or the restaurant where they had their first date (guys with foresight made it somewhere special).  There they have a wonderful evening with chocolate and wine (or sparkling grape juice), and then it happens.  The guy gets down on one knee, pulls out the ring that is way too expensive for him to afford, and then says the words every girl wants to her:  “Will you enter into a legally binding but stable relationship?”

“Yes!” the girl replies, “Yes, I want to take your last name and some tax breaks with it!”

Ok, that is not exactly how it goes, but it might as well.  Nowadays, “marriage” is little more than that.  Rarely in the United States are there marriages for property, and few people are really that desperately worried about their family name living on.  The best reason to get married, outside of tax breaks, seems to be to provide a stable environment for raising children.  But modern day couples are even challenging that reasoning, preferring to have kids before or without marriage.

This article is about gay marriage.  The Church is in an uproar about gay marriage.  A lot of people are not even that upset with gay people in general, but they just do not like gay people being married.  They can live together and act like they are married, but the word, “marriage,” is reserved for heterosexual couples.  That seems to be their only requirement.

I am tempted to give up the fight and support gay marriage.  Part of me wants to say, “Let them get married.  After all, if it acts like a duck, talks like a duck, gets tax breaks like a duck, we shouldn’t call it a goose.”  That reasoning is due, in most part, to the definition of marriage nowadays.

If people who only go to church on Easter and Christmas get married, no one cares.  If people who are clearly living in sexual sin get married, the Church still allows it.  If adamant atheists get married, nobody bats an eyelash.  Now, I am not saying we judge everyone to the point where we make decisions for them, but should not the Church have some responsibility in who gets married?  When we baptize people, we ask them questions, get their testimony, and make sure they are ready to get dunked. Why do we not do this with marriage?  The Church is ashamed of statistics that record how many baptized believers fall away, but it looks at the divorce rate as proof of the corruption of the world, not as something for which the Church is in any way responsible.  Guess what?  Most people get married in a church, and get married by an ordained preacher.  The Church approved most of these marriages that ended in divorce.

The Church is all in an uproar about the sanctity of marriage, and how the Bible defines marriage, yet how true is that?  I do not mean to say that the Bible does not say that a man and a woman should be the ones to get married, but the Church has not been the one defining marriage for quite some time.  The Church gave that responsibility to the State, and the State has defined it as has been culturally acceptable.  The majority of people in the United States are Christian, and it has been that way for some time, but that majority is shrinking.  It is now becoming more and more culturally acceptable to be homosexual*, and thus the State is considering changing the definition of marriage to fit the culture’s definition of marriage.  In this sense, the Bible only has influence as much as it can influence the culture.

The problem is that we gave the State the ability to define what we recognize in our religion.  Consider it like this:  the body of the Church is a group of baptized believers.  Once you believe, you can become baptized.  Without believing, you cannot become baptized.  Believing is a personal choice, but the Church evaluates your heart and decides if they want to be responsible for you, or if they feel that you are not ready.  Say getting baptized was a cultural phenomenon that everyone wanted to do because everyone did it.  Say if you did not do it and continued to live your life you would be looked down upon.  Then, say that in order to get baptized you needed a license from the State and had to meet requirements set by the State.  Then, say you got tax breaks for doing so.

Do you see the problem here?  The State is supposed to treat everyone equally regardless of race, religion, gender, and (in many cases) sexuality.  What they offer one group of people they cannot deny the others.  Is this how it always works?  No, of course not, but this is the goal that the State tries to head toward.  This is the ideal that they are working for.  In the above example and in an ideal State, atheists would be able to get baptized with little resistance.  The State cannot discriminate, and it can only prevent social sins and does not concern itself with sins of the mind or heart. The State, in its inherent nature, has to ignore sins of the mind or heart that may have no consequence on Earth but will in Heaven.  This is a good thing, because the State is man-made and will only exist on Earth (The Kingdom of Heaven is unlike any government on Earth).

I digress.  The point is, we have given a heavenly and religious matter to a being that exists completely in the world and is supposed to treat all religious ideas the same.  As such, I do not see gay marriage as something we can fight against.  I see it as an inevitable outcome based on a mistake the Church made a long time ago.  The sanctity of marriage has already been breached.  It has been breached by hypocritical Christians.  It has been breached by apathetic Christians.  It has been breached by adamant atheists.  In a way, homosexuals are actually late to the party.

So this is a problem, then.  What do we do?  Practically, there are not many choices.  The problem with the word, “marriage,” is that there are so many people who have such a strong connection to it without any of the religious implications.  Rather, it is the cultural implications that drive them.  So, in order to restrict the word, “marriage,” back to the religious point-of-view, one would have to anger a lot of people.  Gay marriage is, after all, not about the tax benefits, but the titles.  The word, “marriage,” is what this whole debate is about, and it is a debate that the Church is losing.

There is the “abandon ship” method that so many Christians like.  We should just abandon the nomenclature and replace it with something else.  The connotations for that word are too strong to change, so we just make a new word that has better connotations.  Already, many Christians do this.

“I don’t believe in dating.  I believe in courtship,” because using an older word for “dating” completely changes the definition.

“It’s against my relationship to have a religion.”  That does not even make sense.  Look up the word, “religion.”  See if Jesus ever prohibited that.

The worst, in my opinion (and many will disagree with me), is when people refuse to call themselves Christian and instead say something like, “Jesus is my homeboy” (Muhammad also thought highly of Jesus).

So let’s go ahead and get on this bandwagon.  I suggest abandoning the word, “marriage,” as anything but tax breaks, and instead using words like “Holy Union,” or “Matchmaking done by Jesus.”  Or we could translate something from Greek.  Us Christians love to have stuff in Greek.  It sounds legit.

Some of these ideas came from the following article:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1885190,00.html

*I wish to take a note and say that it is not bad that homosexual people are open about their sexual preferences.  I do think it is a sin, but homosexual people are sinners just like the rest of us.  I would rather them be honest and open than put up a façade (that is usually caused by fear of the response rather than shame of the sin).

I Am The One Called

“My heart in hiding stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!” Gerard Manley Hopkins penned his exultative prayer in a poem, “The Windhover, To Christ Our Lord.” His words come to mind because my own heart has been stirred by “daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon,” – or, in my case, day-dimmed-descended Hawk.

Late yesterday afternoon, nearly home from an appointment, I turned the corner onto my street and saw, belly up in the grass next to the road, a hawk. I kept driving for a moment until the full realization of what my eyes had seen registered in my heart. A dead hawk was lying under a telephone pole on my street. Of course it hadn’t registered; hawks don’t die in neighborhoods beside telephone poles. Nevertheless, this one had.

I backed up the car and got out to stand beside the body of what had been a great, glorious bird of prey. She could not have been lifeless long, as her eyes weren’t yet cloudy and her yellow-ochre talons and “gold-vermillion” feathers were still pure in their radiance. Standing beside her, looking down, suspended between thought-question-feeling, I experienced an odd sensation of hovering outside time (not something I am used to). Then my own descent began:  Shouldn’t there be an acknowledgment of this hawk’s life and death, some marking of the passage? Doesn’t anyone know? Should I call someone?

It was only this morning during my early dawn, after-the-eclipse journaling that I was given the hawk-eye vantage point: I am the one acknowledging her life and death; I am the one marking this passage; I am the one knowing; I am the one called. I Am.

Not knowing whether the great Bird cum Spirit would still be where I’d last seen her, I went to the kitchen and pulled out a white, plastic bag and two vinyl gloves, then got into the car. I could see, four houses away, what I was certain was her body as I pulled from the driveway, and I felt both relief and sorrow – relief that I would be the one to take her away from a street where no one but me seemed to have noticed (wouldn’t someone have done something? I was back to being other-identified), sorrow that no one else had, in fact, done something (I was back, too, to the incredulity I’d felt that her body’s final days would be beneath a telephone pole and not in the fields or forests of her hunting).

Remarkably pliant, she was easily lifted, and I placed her on her belly in the bag. It was then that I saw her “gold-vermillion” tail feathers (the words Hopkins used in his poem to represent Christ’s blood) and wondered if this was a red-tailed hawk.

I knew where I was going – back to the OK Joy Farm, back to where I’d watched the moon disappear this morning, back to where I’d seen hawks circling, maybe even this one, above fertile and fallow fields. I laid her face-down, the overgrowth her sepulchre, hopefully too close to the fence for a tractor to find, but just right for the vultures, which I also see there nearly every day.

After placing the body, I took a few steps back and spoke aloud, acknowledging her life and death, marking her passage. I thanked her Spirit for calling me, as Hawk has called me many times before. In this calling, I knew I was being asked to honor the wisdom, the “medicine” of Hawk, not just for myself, but for all of us: trust the Circle of Life; welcome the higher view by willingly moving along the unseen currents, trusting they are present; allow receipt of messages carried on the winds of Heaven, then come back to our earthly fears with guidance on how to move through them.

I know the hawk neither minded where it died nor that it died. A telephone pole was as perfect a sentry as any to guard her passage to the spirit realm. It was I who was discontented, I who needed reminding that I am still quite attached to being a body. This has been the lesson of the summer, as physical heart concerns have led me to look even more deeply at my fears, including that death can be close by, not far away.

And so Hawk medicine has come to instruct me yet again, asking me to free myself of limiting thoughts and beliefs that keep me from a greater perspective. I am grateful for this hawk’s soul having chosen to lay her body down right where I would see it. Grateful, too, that long before this day “my heart in hiding stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!”

The Windhover (To Christ Our Lord)

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

I caught this morning morning’s minion,

Kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

© Amy Pierce and EnTheos, 2007-2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Amy Pierce and EnTheos with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.