Archive for October, 2007
Remember, remember…
Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.
The Narrative Life of…
The year is 1988. A mother and her youngest son find themselves in the same grocery store, on the same day of the week, doing the same routine. It is not shopping. It is the very act of survival. The mother, the granddaughter of Italian immigrants, pushes the cart with one hand and holds a large calculator with the other–a sign of the time, although it performs only basic mathematical functions, its size makes multitasking clumsy and her plight obvious. She directs her son, the spitting image of herself, to grab items off the shelf. She carefully adds each item he grabs on her black plastic calculator.
She is tired, but strong. She sometimes wonders how her life came to this point; however, regret is not within her vocabulary. As a young girl, she often dreamed of marrying a farm boy and moving far away to have boys of her own–two. And here she is, with her youngest son–of two–married to a man whose histories could not be more foreign, yet was everything she wanted.
Her husband, a son of the entirety of Western Europe, grew up on a dairy farm in an abusive home. Alcohol, fear, and tyranny developed his young mind. Coming from a strong religious and cultural lineage, she often wondered if her family truly respected her choice in a life mate. She had not just married a man, but a history. A history he tried so hard to cast away and begin anew.
Her beautiful French name collided harshly with his Welsh surname, but she did not care–she loved him instantly. And here she was, with their youngest son, attempting to make every penny count. They were not on a budget; there was no budget. Her husband worked as a carpenter and line mechanic at a factory during the day and attended college at night–breaking his neck to provide for today and tomorrow.
After calculating tax, she told her son to put one of the cans of tomato paste back on the shelf. They could not afford it.
She pushes her cart towards the check-out line, continually checking her numbers to make sure she would not suffer the embarrassment of going over…again. She thinks of her wonderful husband’s two youngest brothers, who recently moved into their home to escape the violence and fear of their farmhouse. Feeding four mouths was tough; feeding six on one income…how can we make this work?
Her son is restless; something is on his young mind. She has been so engrossed with her black plastic Scarlet Letter that she had not noticed. They arrive at the check-out line and she asks her boy what’s wrong. He is young and selfish. He complains about everything they picked out. Meatloaf. Bland spaghetti. He is young, but he knows what these items will soon combine to make. He crosses his arms and sulks. His tirade strikes her in the heart. She tries to console him, but he looks straight ahead angrily ignoring her.
In front of them, a family is purchasing lobster tails, steaks, and many wondrous foods. He wishes they were his family. He wishes that they didn’t have to eat meatloaf…again. The young boy cannot contain himself–he turns around and tells his mother that he wishes he were with them, that he was tired of putting things back, and tired of her saying no. Her beautiful brown eyes swell with tears. The family in front of them is paying. They hand the cashier a fist of foodstamps, taking their change and adding it to a crisp five dollar bill to purchase a pack of cigarettes separately.
She walks to her son and falls upon one knee, softly gripping his shoulders. She tells him that his father works so very hard for their family. She tells him that everything they have is their own, and that everything they eat is the fruit of their own labor. She looks him deeply in the eyes. She’s crying now. She tells her youngest to never curse their blessings, to never be ungrateful for what they have. The woman then takes her son’s small hand into her own, and kisses his knuckles–telling him that if she could she would buy him whatever he wanted, but she just can’t. The boy melts within his mother’s gaze, feeling selfish and shamed. He hugs her and asks her to not cry.
Years later she would ask her son if he remembered that day at the store. And for the oddest reason, he does. She tells him that which he never understood–the foodstamps, the cigarettes, the shame she felt of once again going over her budget and having to choose between cheese and carrots. And once again the boy felt shamed. He hugged her, his beautiful Italian mother. He hugged her for the longest time.
Mom…Dad…I love and respect you both more than words can describe. Thank you for making me the man I am today.
Devaluing the Democratic Process
Download Link Immortal Technique - The 4th Branch
Tonight I sat in front of the television and went through my usual process of perusing the evening news, switching between the blather on Fox, MSNBC, CNN, and various other networks to see what was important and to whom. And tonight was so very special: the ideological biases and priorities of the newscasters were more obvious and more offensive than any other night in recent memory.
O’Reilly droned on and on about the superiority of “traditional” holidays, while Olbermann and Matthews were comfortably fixed upon Rush Limbaugh and his great “misdeeds” of [ignorant] free speech. Glenn Beck…jesus, just whatever there.
But that’s not what’s important. The thing that bothered me was the obsession of all these different journalists (and I use the term with the loosest of loose generalizations) with a select few candidates for the Presidency. The whole thing brought the concept of “tiered candidates” into the forefront of my mind. And of course, in typical fashion, it was followed by a question: What is a “first” tier or “second” tier candidate? What is this stratification of candidates even based upon?
The answer is pure bullshit, scooped directly off the farm and force-fed into your mouth. The media has narrowly selected the candidates on each side of the isle “worth” talking about and has inflated their campaign for the nation’s highest office through engineered hype. These illustrious idiots, which now comprise what the media has dubbed the”top tier” of prospects, includes the likes of Clinton, Giuliani, Obama, and Romney. There you have it, folks. Your list of the best candidates based solely on what? Nothing. Don’t bother listening to anyone else…they don’t have a chance. I know this because funny men in suits tell me every night at 7p.m.
We are talking about the Presidency of the United States. We are talking about an election that will decide whether the dollar slips further into the swamp, eventually floating nicely beside the pesos. We are talking about an election that will decide whether America will continue to dump dollars and souls into the sands of Iraq. The United States is in crisis, and we as a public have allowed the media to focus our attention on a handful of candidates who do not stand for anything significantly different than what we have.
Why have they done this? Simple: the news industry has become a vortex of political and capital investments. Our media is owned. And in turn they own us. Don’t believe me? How many times have you thought to yourself quietly, or maybe you are brazen and stupid enough to say this aloud, that a person was “throwing their money or vote away” on a “second tier” candidate? On a”loser?”
The media doesn’t want us out of Iraq, they don’t want real change. Why? Because the men with the money don’t want change. So they put men in suits on every night to engineer support for “top tier” candidates. It’s the Presidency of the United States! How can you simply stratify political discourse? You can’t. But they have. And we have allowed them to do so.
Unless we vote to affect change, unless we tell the Owners of this country that we are no longer asleep–lulled and stupidified by that once glorious American Dream–we will not lose an election; we will lose everything.
You like Hillary? You like Romney? Tell me why. Articulate their positions on the war in Iraq, on the declining dollar, on America’s role in the world, on the clusterfuck that is our health care system. You can’t. Not all of them. But you support them regardless, because you are sheep.
The Life of a Salesman
A-I-D-A. Attention. Interest. Decision. Action. Attention: Do I have your attention? Interest: Are you interested? I know you are! ‘Cause its fuck or walk! You close or you hit the bricks! Decision: Have you made your decision for Christ? And action…