Stormy Eyes

And Windy has stormy eyes
That flash at the sound of lies

~~ "Windy" by The Association

What an exhausting week. 

It's not that I've been physically stressed, or sick, or partying every night, or anything like that. I'm exhausted by the news cycle. While I'm heartened by the sight of hundreds of thousands of young people marching to protest gun violence (and look forward to marching with them on March 24th), I find myself tired of the constant drama coming from the White House. 

I miss No Drama Obama. So much. 

So I feel absolutely zero guilt in finding a sort of disgusted glee in the story of the "President" and the Porn Star, and I am cheering on Stormy Daniels every step of the way.



A few things:

1. I'm no fan of the porn industry and I think it demeans women and causes a skewed concept of sexuality that often genuinely harms women. But I'm not going to be super judgmental about it because whatever floats people's boats is okay with me, as long as it doesn't harm others. I don't think that is the case with the porn industry and I do think that it causes harm to others, but that is an ongoing debate and I'm not going to try to hash it out here. 

2. Having said that, I like what I hear from Ms. Daniels. She knows who she is, she is comfortable with herself, she has a thick skin, and she is not taking crap from anybody. I don't know what her game is, whether she is looking to cash in, or what, but I say more power to her. She has been quite successful in her chosen field, and while it's not one that I would wish on any woman, it seems that she is a savvy businesswoman and I admire that. Kudos to her and her lawyer for keeping this story in the news. A masterclass in media manipulation.

3. I don't give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut if the "president" has had affairs in the past. It is common knowledge that he has. It's not the most admirable trait in the world, but that's between him and his wife. What I DO care about is that he and his flunkies have actively worked to pay off, cover up, and sweep this under the rug. Such activities have left him open to extortion and blackmail, and I suspect that is what is behind much of the weirdness about Russia's influence. 

Finally, I care about the complete and utter hypocrisy of those people who said that Bill Clinton was incapable of doing a decent job because of his affairs. I was no fan of all of that but at least he was competent at what he did and he had the intellectual capacity to learn about what he didn't know. 

I am disgusted by those evangelicals who have embraced this "president" and give him a pass for this stuff. I dealt with years of guilt because of things I was taught to believe would send me on a one-way ticket to hell. Lying, cheating, cussing, drinking, stealing, smoking, dancing, premarital sex, gambling, listening to rock and roll...every freakin' thing that is halfway fun, and it was all hell-worthy. And here comes this happy asshole with his affairs and bankruptcies and shittiness towards POWs and the disabled and his cussing and they're like, "Oh, we LOVE you!" 

[flipping table over]

It kind of makes me crazy. Hypocrites make me crazy. 

All I can say is, go Team Mueller and go Team Stormy! 

No surprise to me

What's that I hear, you wanna go for a ride?

Oh, don't be afraid boy, to come inside

I got the thing that you want, the fix that you need

Chase this with a little lust and greed

I'll be the devil on your shoulder saying "Hey boy, come over"

My black heart beats crimson and clovers

So operator, operator, patch my boy in

This is Nightlife and I'll get under your skin

~~ “Nightlife” by Green Day

I guess there is a story out there about Mike Pence’s dining habits:

As part of his faith, Pence won’t eat alone with other women or attend events that serve alcohol without his wife. Within the faith, the practice of not being alone with a woman has been called “the Billy Graham rule,” after the famed evangelist preacher who encouraged it to avoid even the appearance of infidelity. (from Motto dot Time dot com)

I never knew it had a name, but I have experienced this firsthand. I chalked it up to a generational difference. I see now that there was more to it than that.

I’ve had conversations in the past with an older relative that gave me an idea of this whole weird concept of Pence’s. I happened to mention that Ken was in New York City and was planning on getting together with a good friend of ours, and I mentioned her name. This relative said, “Is she married?” I said, “No, why?” My relative said, “Oh. Well, I’m not sure it’s right for an unmarried woman to get together with a married man.” (Or words to that effect.) Never mind the fact that I have been friends with this person for something like twenty years. Or that she sent flowers to my father’s funeral. Or that I trust her implicitly and know that she would never do that to me. Or that Ken is a good man who would never do that to me. Or even that people actually can control their libidos and make a conscious decision not to act upon things.

But the real disapproval was saved for me. I mentioned that I had lunch with my friend Jim. This relative said, “Did Ken go along?” I said, “No, he was at work.” They said, “Oh. Well, I would never think of going to a lunch alone with a man other than my husband.” I swear, I could have cut the disapproval and judgment with a knife! Again, never mind that I worked with Jim at the lab for ten years and helped train him when he started out, and that we have also been friends for going on twenty years. Or that he told me all about how proud he was of his infant son, or when his second son came along a few years later. Or that he was a steadfast friend who helped me through some rough times and was so happy for me when I got together with Ken. Or that I met his wife, tried to be a friend to him when they hit hard times, and tried to offer as much support as I could when they split up and then when he found a new love, I was as happy for him as he was for me and Ken.

No, the main thing is that it didn’t “look good” for me to be out having lunch with a man who wasn’t my husband. Because someone “might get the wrong idea.”

Hmm, I guess I should never have lunch with Cousin Shane again, or heavens to Betsy, Shane AND Matt! That is downright scandalous!

I can’t really be super angry about it. I just think it’s silly and it still is very much a generational thing. It is predicated on the idea that men and women can’t be friends without losing their damn minds, and I completely reject that premise. I have had many male friends over the years and they were platonic relationships. Is there occasionally an awkward moment or some sort of tension? Well, sure. But civilized people understand that you can make a choice on whether or not to act on something.

And as far as “people getting the wrong idea,” fuck that noise. People can think what they want to think. It’s none of their damn business. Sitting across a table from someone having a beer and eating lunch does not mean that there are shenanigans going on. Jeez.

So it was a little weird for me today to see this revelation about Pence and learn that it has its roots in the evangelical faith. Although as I said, it should come as no surprise. There are some weird ideas there about temptations like alcohol, rock music, and dancing. I’m guessing you won’t see Mike and Karen Pence clubbing anytime soon!

Beth’s Books: The Unlikely Disciple

I can’t remember where I first heard about this, but it’s been on my wish list for a while. What an intriguing premise: a kid raised in a Quaker home and attending the “liberal elite” Brown University, spends a semester attending the über-religious Liberty University. You know...the one started by Jerry Falwell. So when I saw a good price on Amazon, I grabbed it.

The student/author, Kevin Roose, didn’t go into this with a mean-spirited motive. This was no scathing exposé of abuses at Liberty, or an effort to write a book about how everyone going there is a foaming-at-the-mouth fundamentalist. He approached it as a genuine learning experience and decided to make the most of his time there by seeing how religious conservatives live and act. He also learned quite a bit about biblical history while he was at it.

He found out quickly that his hallmates were pretty much like any other student at a secular college, except they didn’t act out on their urges as much as those kids. They didn’t really have much opportunity to, but they also didn’t really want to (for the most part), and some of them even appreciated the strict rules, because it took temptation out of their way. Although he often felt bad about his duplicity (he was posing as a born-again Christian, remember), he came to genuinely like many of the guys in his hall. He found them bright, fun, and overall pretty decent guys. (Except for one virulent homophobe, who happened to be one of his roommates.)

A few things were genuinely jarring and upsetting for him, though. The casual use of using the words “faggot” and “queer” as insults were hard for him to reconcile. Falwell supposedly mellowed in his hateful rhetoric in his later years, but the culture of homophobia remains strong at the college, at least from Roose’s experience. His hope was that when some of these guys get out into the real world and begin to interact with openly gay people, they will realize that they’re not scary, awful people who are going to burn in hell. I hope that for them, too.

What was hardest for him to reconcile was some of the things that were taught. In a couple of mandatory classes for freshmen, young earth creationism was taught, with the professor flat-out saying that evolution was wrong and the Bible was right. It all happened in six days, six thousand years ago. The professor wore a white lab coat and frequently reminded the students that he was a “real scientist.” Perhaps a little too much reminding?

As the end of the semester approached, many of his fellow students expressed concern about the “summer slide.” Away from the strict rules of Liberty, they feared that they would give into temptation and do things forbidden on campus, like drinking and even having sex. Many of these students seemed genuinely fearful of the prospect. So much fear! When the death of Falwell happens a few days before commencement, it sounds like there was almost mass hysteria on campus. It struck me as a bit of false idolatry, the way Falwell was almost worshiped on campus, although many of the students realized that he definitely had his faults. Roose was able to interview him about a week before Falwell’s death, and he found him to be a kind man who seemed to be sincere in his faith and desire to save others from eternal damnation. I’m sure that this was a foreign concept to Roose (raised a Quaker, as I mentioned), but as someone who grew up in an evangelical family, I can testify to the fact that people genuinely want to ensure your salvation. Roose still had a problem justifying Falwell’s extreme homophobic stance, and simply couldn’t do it. That is nothing unusual about evangelicals, though. It’s the “love the sinner, hate the sin” thing.

What really chilled me was his quote from one of the campus pastors to the students towards the end of classes: “My biggest worry about you...is that you’ll become educated beyond your obedience.” In other words, don’t get too educated, because it might make you question your religion. After writing that he’s impressed at the intelligence of many of his classmates as well as their intellectual engagement, Roose put it this way:

[Liberty is] a place where academic rigor is sacrificed on the altar of uninterrupted piety, where the skills of exploration, deconstruction, and doubt—all of which should be present at an institution that bills itself as a liberal arts college—are systematically silenced in favor of presenting a clear, unambiguous political and spiritual agenda.

Roose found that sad, and so do I. The purpose of an education—especially by the time you get to college—is to get you to question and think in a critical manner. If you want to reconcile your beliefs with scientific fact and with what you are taught, you can work around that in whatever way you can. But discouraging kids from questioning because it might shake their faith is just reprehensible in a college atmosphere, in my opinion. That’s not a university...that’s a seminary.

It’s not all sadness, though. When Roose wrote about the anti-masturbation support group one of his advisors asked him to go to, he had me laughing out loud. The name of the group was Every Man’s Battle, and if that isn’t funny enough, they had to talk about their successes and failures of the past week, as well as strategies to keep them from straying. Roose was highly uncomfortable, and when it was his turn to speak, he said something like, “Well, it’s getting warm outside, so girls are wearing less clothing…” and all of the guys groan and agree that they hate this time of year, and one says, “Spring is my Achilles heel.” I just wanted to hug each one of them and say, “Guys, it’s okay. You’re young men, and you aren’t going to hell because you crank one out once in a while...or even a lot. You’re healthy and it’s okay.” But then I guess giving them hugs would have been counterproductive to the purpose of the group, eh? Poor guys.

I liked this book so much that I gave it five stars on Shelfari and found the author’s website and sent him an email to tell him how much I enjoyed it. He went into this project with a kind heart and a willingness to learn about something that was very alien to him, and I think that is admirable. He was able to get by the initial strangeness of the situation and enjoy himself in many ways, and ended up making some very good friends. He kept in touch with many of them, and about a year after he went back to Brown, he confessed to them what he had been up to...that it was an experiment that he was going to write a book about. To his surprise, no one reacted with anger, and they still wanted his friendship. I got the impression that he felt he learned a lot about tolerance and trying to understand others’ viewpoints and beliefs. Even if you don’t agree with them, it’s not really fair to vilify them, unless they are harming others by what they say and do.

Unfortunately, I feel that Jerry Falwell did just that. Because he became so politically active, his beliefs were pervasive in Republican politics, and they continue to this day among a significant faction of the party. I respect your beliefs up until you are doing everything you can to suppress the rights of others based on your version of religion and on your holy book. THEN we’ve got a problem. We don’t base our laws on any religious book, contrary to what some misguided individuals believe; we base them on our Constitution.

I recommend this book very highly. It was a fascinating read.