Friday, April 13, 2007

Imus in Oblivion

Is this the monkey who insulted the Rutgers women's basketball team?


Oh, sorry. That's insulting to the monkey. Here's the scarecrow in question. Tell me how a man that looks this gross gets away with insulting anybody's looks.

Oh, sorry again. I can tell you: he's in the entertainment industry.

I'm white, so maybe that's why the sexist aspect of Imus's idiotic comments struck me more, but it's also that I spent many years in Hollywood, working in comedy, and what Imus said brought back lots of memories.

In the world of television sitcoms, women are disposable and mostly valued for their looks. Hence, the many years of Imus being an idiot, making all manner of comments about women, people of other races, etc., and his getting away with it. In comedy, anything that makes anyone laugh is fair game and you're not supposed to get all politically correct about it.

Women rarely rose to the top on the shows I worked on. Sitcoms are a male bastion, giving us the finest in fart, dick and boob jokes. I sat through many years of being in the room with the writers working on scripts where wife beating, insults and cries of "lesbian feminist!" anytime you stood up for women were rampant.

It's from this background and the comfort of his fraternity of wealthy entertainment industry a**holes that Imus grew. The thing that struck me most obviously was that these are the kind of comments Imus must make all the time off-microphone for them to have so easily slipped off his disgusting serpent tongue that day.

The lesson here is: all those rich white guys in Hollywood need to get out more and GET FRIENDS OF DIFFERENT RACES. Really, boys, try it sometime. Once you get to know other types of people, you'll find those nasty thoughts don't even pop into your mind and, consequently, don't flow out of your mouth.

The entrenched power of rich white guys in Hollywood is so strong that they're used to getting away with this unquestioned. Imus's look of angry surprise all week was fitting. He's The Man. He's not used to getting slapped down - and I'll admit that it's unfair for him to get this punishment while truly evil people like Rush Limbaugh are still on the air. I hope Rush is right, that "they're coming for me next."

The Rutgers women stood up for themselves and for being judged not by their looks but by their accomplishments - something Hollywood may never learn. Just watching the news media sexism as reporters age is enough to bring this home. The parade of bad facelifts - from Andrea Mitchell to Katie Couric to every other woman on the news - is almost as frightening as Imus's wrinkled face. You can be bald, fat and ugly in both news and TV comedy if you're male - and you still get the pretty skinny women! That's the Hollywood reality.

So I thank those young female stars at Rutgers. They showed guts and class this week to us all.

Now somebody go throw a bucket of water on Imus and melt him, please.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

When Nightmares Come True

I'd post a picture of my dog's ripped up neck, but I don't want to wait to empty my camera of digital space for it. I'd rather just write this out.

I've had a spate in recent years of really bad things happening that were things I'd dreamt of beforehand. Should I chalk it up to some kind of psychic premonition or is it the opposite - imagining the worst and then creating that reality somehow?

I was walking Lucy on a beautiful Friday lunch hour. We approached the blanket of homeless people and their pit bull with caution. Lucy and I had walked past the car the dog was always trapped in (a crowded old Toyota Tercel) many times and the dog had barked crazily at us. This day, it was free. On a leash, but out of the car. I steered Lucy into the street to keep us far from the dog, now non-stop barking. As we narrowed into the sidewalk nearest the dog, Lucy was blissfully sniffing lampposts. I hurried her along (my fatal mistake?) and the dog pulled free and ran towards us.

That's when the nightmare kicked in. After two dog bites in Eugene the month we moved away, I'd had both the prior experience and the writer's imagination to foresee this moment. The pit bull running towards us barking. Me, trying to body block Lucy from the dog while holding her on the leash so she didn't run out into traffic.

Of course the pit bull got around me. Of course it went for her jugular. Minutes stretched like hours as the drunk homeless assholes lumbered over. I screamed like an Irish banshee for someone to come help, to unlatch the steel jaws from my dog's neck. As in previous nightmares, I screamed and no sound seemed to come out. Nobody ran to the rescue.

I ripped at the pit bull's jaws with all my strength to no avail. I pounded with both fists on the dog's head, just like I'd done in my dreams. I kicked it with all my might as I fell to the pavement. I flashed forward in my mind and imagined watching my dog bleed to death in my arms.

The pitbull finally let go and the homeless people yelled at me for yelling at their dog. I screamed my usual ineffectiveness at them: "You shouldn't have a dog like that!!"

Huh?

Then I ran down the street behind Lucy whispering, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

The day went on and the trauma still goes on, though Lucy's alive and sleeping on the sofa as I write this.

But I wonder what the lesson is I'm supposed to learn, to have had several actual nightmares of mine come true in recent years. From the murder of the man I loved to job nightmares to family, I've lived through the scenes I once feared. I suppose there's a strength to knowing you can get through them. That no matter how bad the scene, you're always alive and just dealing with it on the other side.

It's not so uplifting a lesson, I guess. Maybe that's the pity.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Blogging Against Theocracy


I listen to preachers on the radio as I drive the wilds of Oregon. Those are the only stations that never seem to waiver in the woods, which of course, explains a lot.

I grew up with Burt Lancaster as Starbuck, then Elmer Gantry, so I have a place in my brain reserved for bombastic preachers of questionable morality. And I tease myself with listening to today's Elmer Gantrys just to see if I could have that psychotic break so many seem to have while listening to warnings of hellfire and damnation. There have been times when I've wished I could just relax and lose my mind that fully, but it's never happened, even in my lowest moments.

I'm an atheist and proud to be so. I'm blogging about this today to be part of Blogging Against Theocracy and help usher in the Century of Secularism that was being promised by a rabbi on NPR the other day. He said the 20th century had been the Christian century and that he thought we were entering one of secularism. Hallelujah!

I don't know why my "religious choice" seems to scare so many Americans, but I know it does. I don't have the stats available (hence my not putting this on DKos), but I know atheists are reviled and mistrusted in this country.

I'm not sure why people are so uncomfortable with people who don't believe that there's a white man with a long beard sitting by a gate in the clouds to welcome you when you die. The only rational explanation is that the Christian-types haven't thought it out very much.

I remember once when I was in L.A., a friend from college got very heated about this at me and ended up raising her voice as she said, "Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior? Do you??"

When I asked her what that meant, she was flummoxed. She didn't know how to answer. She'd never thought that far. Her husband intervened and explained me to her, which kind of helped. But I couldn't impart to her the fact that no, I didn't believe anybody had died for my sins and that in fact I didn't believe in the concept of SIN to begin with. It's like that ability to roll your tongue, either you have it or you don't. Either you accept the whole meme of religion, sin, guilt and punishment or you have a rational conversation with yourself and come to a more rational conclusion.

For this reason, I can swear that we should not live in a theocracy. We need anyone who wants to be governed by what they "believe" in the dark of night as they cross themselves and whisper sweet nothings to their redeemer to SHUT THE HELL UP. You can have all the weird little speaking in tongues and even cross dressing thing going all you want, but don't inflict it on me. Don't run the country through your Bible. Don't tell our teachers what verse to espouse as scientific truth.

On one of the nutty preacher shows recently, the preacher railed against us atheists. He said without Christ, one couldn't be moral. What utter horseshit. I don't believe in a god, but I believe that there is a right and wrong and I believe most thinking humans know pretty well where those lines fall.

It's time to take morality out of the realm of those who see invisible saints and gods swarming them and put morality back in the hands of each of us and our neighbors. I trust my fellow humans more than I trust some fantasy in the clouds.

Religion = the easy way out of moral choices. Government = the hard way to get anything done. Let's keep them separate so that at least the latter might have hopes of accomplishing something good for all of us. Regardless of which Spaghetti Monster we worship.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Great Writing Returns... Just not from me

I apologize for the long absence. For an extended period of time Blogger was trying to make me set up a new Google account that I didn't have time or patience to do. Now today, once I'd decided to just DO IT, it's letting me post the old way. Hmmmm... We'll see how long I get away with being old-fashioned.

I dust off the blog machine to highlight the work of an old friend (and husband of one of my closest friends), a great writer, Dick Amrhine. He writes at the Fredericksburg (VA) Freelance-Star. Not the most liberal paper in the world. So imagine the guts and commitment it took to write this. (Of course, guts and commitment make him the great husband and father I've seen him be for the past 20 years.)


A war, a dad, and a hero

Photograph provides food for thought on war, and the love between a father and son

RICHARD AMRHINE

(Caption:) Sgt. Calvin Summerville embraces his son Jeffrey, 12, before getting on a charter bus that will take him to Fort Dix, N.J. From there, he will likely go to Iraq. MIKE MORONES/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Date published: 3/18/2007

THE PHOTO ON Page 1 caught my eye and wouldn't let go. It was taken by our photographer Mike Morones, of an Army sergeant from the area preparing to ship out to Iraq. He was hugging his 12-year-old son, who had a tear welling in his eye.

My son is 12, too, I was thinking. I hug him that way nearly every day, and it either gives me a good feeling as I prepare for the day ahead, or reminds me why a tough day at the office was worth it.

I'm not hugging him with the thought that I might never see him again.

I agree with whoever said that each year with your kids is better than the last. I can safely say that has been the case for me so far. At 12, my son has reached the age that he is thinking about and forming opinions about things that truly matter in life.

He's asking questions to which my first reaction is: Whoa--I didn't see that one coming! I try to respond appropriately, whether it's with the best answer I can muster, or perhaps with another question aimed at helping him think it through a bit more for himself.

This is absolutely wonderful stuff, and increasingly it applies as well to my daughter, who is nearly two years younger.

So I am thinking, as I stare at this photograph, how incredibly difficult this moment must have been. Not just the goodbye, not just the anticipation of being separated for a long, long time, but also the unspoken reality that this could be the last moment that this dad and son physically share with one another.

One recent evening I mentioned the photo to my son, remarking on what a tough situation that must have been for the two of them. He nodded, though I wasn't sure whether my point had sunk in.

But as I turned off his light later that night, he told me about a friend in his class, a really good student, by the way, who told him that his dad is eager to get back to Iraq for his next tour. The friend said his dad has a really important job over there, searching for and disarming enemy mines.

Since he's not on the "front lines," his friend thinks his dad might not be as vulnerable as some other soldiers. Sounds pretty dangerous to me.

I got the impression from my son that his friend is hugely proud of his dad, because it's his dad's duty to help limit the dangers his fellow soldiers face.

So now my son has turned the tables, and given me more to think about. While it might have been hard for that dad in the photograph to say goodbye, his emotions might have been mitigated by his sense of duty, the belief that he was leaving not just to serve his country, but to rejoin his outfit, get back to his job doing his part for the war effort.

Whether the war is popular is not his concern. He simply has a job to do.

For the son, his dad's absence is probably tempered by the pride he takes in his dad and the job he is doing.

The fact that his dad is willing to sacrifice this time with his family, and maybe even his life, makes him a hero in his son's eyes no matter what the future brings. The son will be the man of the family for a while, at least--a life lesson in responsibility if there ever was one. Hopefully their relationship is such that it will strengthen despite their time and distance apart.


The fact that I've been against the war from the beginning in no way diminishes my support for the troops serving in Iraq. The initial feelings of many that President Bush was taking us into the war based on faulty intelligence and a personal hatred for Saddam Hussein have been verified over the past three years.

I'm not sure what would be worse--that Bush manipulated information to make his case to the American people, or that he was too stupid or gung-ho to seek out the truth before taking action. I fear it could be a combination of the two. Obviously he declared victory a tad too soon.

The rapid erosion of Americans' support for the war is unprecedented, and mirrors the collapse of the president's popularity over the past two years.

Two presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican and former Vietnam prisoner of war, and Sen. Barrack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, have apologized for saying that lives of 3,100 U.S. troops have been wasted in Iraq. Both later said they meant to say "sacrificed," but Americans will use their own judgment.

For many Americans, a soldier in battle is a soldier in battle, following orders and courageously risking his life. As you stroll through a national cemetery, does it really matter whether the death date on the headstone is 1863, 1917, 1944, 1951, 1968, 1991 or 2007? They served, they died, and they'll be remembered proudly for their roles in U.S. history.

The Vietnam experience left a generation of Americans with an aversion to war. Their willingness to accept the challenge in Iraq was contingent on it not descending into quagmire, which it did some time ago.

Even without weapons of mass destruction, or evidence of any Iraqi role in Sept. 11, Americans mourn the loss of American lives in Iraq, not the waste of lives--even if the terminology does serve as anti-Bush rhetoric.

We understand now how woefully unprepared we were to fight this "new kind of war." And we object to the president's plan to put additional troops in harm's way.

We have been down this road before. We want the dad in the photograph to return home not in a box, but rather to share the future with his son and family.

Perhaps the most shameful element of this war is our failure to prepare suitable living and convalescing conditions for the returning wounded. As with Katrina, we are as ill-prepared for the aftermath as we were for the event itself.

Those who have supported the Bush administration in the past must now acknowledge that it is completely devoid of decency or vision.

Richard Amrhine is a writer and editor with The Free Lance-Star.

e-mail ramrhine@freelancestar.com