PERSONAL OBSERVATION ON A PERSONAL MATTER.

　

Tobacco being an expense and not having gotten any unemployment for the last five weeks.

This morning I was reduced to digging out a relic, my dad’s pipe and a bag of tobacco.

Fortunate for me my son-in-law has better taste in pipe tobacco then dad did and the bag was left by my son-in-law.

The pipe really is a relic, twenty years ago my dad had broken his pipe and I was smoking a pipe then.

So I had given him one of mine, since I had about ten different pipes I was really into smoking a pipe!

Well this morning I load the pipe and started to light it when I noticed I was having trouble.

The bowl seemed out of line and turning away from me.

I finally took it from my mouth and looked it over, dad had done his remodel on it!

He liked straight stem and I like to have a downward bend, he had done some craving and then taped it to suit him. The problem was he was right handed and I am left handed.

Being in my right mind often sets me at the mirror image of how everyone else does things.

Left justified instead of right justified, once I moved the pipe to the other side of my mouth everything seem to line up just fine.

Does that ever happen to you, something that once belonged to a parent and it was passed down.

But it brings out a difference between you and them?

Saturday, 7/31/10, Public Square

Be who you are and say what you feel,

because those who mind don’t matter

and those who matter don’t mind.

— Dr. Seuss

“I’m in love with her and I feel fine!”

“I’m so glad, that she’s my little girl!

She’s so glad, she’s telling all the world.

That her baby buys her things, you know.

He buys her diamond rings, you know.

She said so!

I’m in love with her and I feel fine!”

The Beatles – “I feel fine” – 1964 – Lennon/McCartney

What could be better than cruisin’ down the road in the summertime, windows down and the wind blowin’ back your hair (if you have any left) and the radio cranked up to blast out one of your favorite tunes.

When you hear one of those songs that you instantly recognize from the opening riff and you just have to reach over and turn up the sound, you just know that a little part of your youth has come back to life.

For me, “I feel fine!” is a song that I know the moment that I hear John Lennon’s familiar feedback guitar. It is a signature riff – the first recorded use of feedback on a record. The song is credited to “Lennon/McCartney” but it was written by John. With Beatles songs, you can pretty much tell who wrote it by who sings lead vocals.

The Beatles are gone. John and George are dead, Ringo recently turned Seventy and Sir Paul buys “Just for Men” in 55 gallon drums. The music that they left us, however, will live on forever.

And so life goes on. As each day passes, we creep a moment closer to our date with fate. Life goes on, with you or without you. No matter how hard we mash our foot on the brake pedal of life, we cannot slow down or turn back time.

But we can turn up the radio for our  old favorite songs and blast out the tunes that helped define our lives.

When I am feeling down, nothing brings my mood back faster than listening to that good old rock ‘n’ roll music that I loved in days gone by. It truly doesn’t matter what it is – Stones, Beatles, Detroit rock music, the British Invasion or Motown – my blood flows again with renewed vigor and my foot starts tapping out the beat.

For each of us, there is that song, one that brings back memories of the “good old days” or that lost love.

What is yours?

William Stephenson Clark

Friday, 7/30/10, Public Square

Think the people in this household agree on who to vote for in next week's primary?

Annie, get your gun!

So, what to do? You’re at a BBQ with a mixed bag of friends, some liberal, others conservative, and the conversations are beginning to drag. What to do? Well, you could suggest a game of “pictionary” or some lawn bowling. Or you could just stand in the middle of the patio and loudly make this statement:

“I am a Democrat and I believe in gun control!”

Suddenly, your dull, lifeless BBQ will come to life! Maybe not in a good way, but it will be much more lively.

I am a confirmed liberal Democrat and I earned my bona fides long ago. That having been said, I am a firm defender of the Second Amendment. There are several reasons for this.

One, is that I support the Constitution of the United States. We are to be a “nation of laws” and the COTUS is the supreme law of the land. There are reasons that it is so difficult to amend the Constitution.

Two, virtually every legal gun owner is a law abiding citizen that respects firearms and uses them properly.

Three, gun control laws do little or nothing to reduce gun violence. In some studies, the legal carrying of a firearm has been shown to actually reduce some crimes.

I am a legal gun owner and a legal carrier of a firearm, even though I choose not to carry most of the time.

Truthfully, guns are not the cause of violent crime in America. The high murder rate is due to a “culture of violence” not the “gun culture.”

Guns are tools, examples of fine craftsmanship and even works of art. They are only dangerous when used in an improper manner. Responsible gun owners keep their weapons from the reach of children and teach their children gun safety.

The focus on reducing gun violence should not be on the gun it’s self, but on the culture that breeds gun violence. Gangs, drug trafficking and poverty are the reasons for gun injuries and deaths, for the most part.

Gun control laws generally just become a nuisance to law abiding gun owners. Certainly I am for background checks, but much beyond that, gun control laws are mostly “feel good” laws that do little to achieve their well intentioned objectives.

Cain killed Abel with a club. Today, perhaps he would have capped him with a 9mm. Regardless, he would still be dead. Throughout history, be it a club, spear, sword or a gun, man has figured out a way to kill his fellow man.

Banning guns will do nothing to change that.

Now, the patio is open for discussion………………………………….

William Stephenson Clark

Thursday, 7/29/10, Public Square

Homosexuality Part III

I am a straight white man, so my view of discrimination is only what I can observe or read about. The closest that I have come to experiencing discrimination was in my “Hippie” years, when my long hair prompted an increase in attention from the local gendarmerie.

Perhaps it is because of that, or maybe in spite of that, I have little understanding of the thought process that leads to discrimination. I don’t think that I am in the minority, yet I see anti-gay marriage constitutional amendments regularly passed by seventy percent margins.

Truthfully, I do not understand that level of bigotry in a country that makes a claim of being “a beacon of freedom in the world.” Perhaps most hypocritical to me is DADT.

“You can fight and perhaps die for our freedom but you just sure as Hell can’t have any of it for yourself?”

It has been often said that discrimination against gays is the last acceptable form of bigotry. That is pretty close to the truth. Anti-gay rights people and politicians have a host of excuses for their bigotry that they can hide behind.

“The Bible says being gay is an abomination!”

“I am not anti-gay, I am just for traditional marriage!”

“Gay sex is so disgusting!”

Well, gay sex may be disgusting to you, but it is not to those that practice it, and, by the way no one asked you to join in. The Bible, Leviticus in particular, makes a lot of rules that are not regularly followed. When was the last time you heard about someone being stoned to death for working on the Sabbath? When is the last time you read about a man selling his daughter into slavery?

Leviticus is the often quoted passage for being anti-gay rights, but choosing that verse and ignoring the others is strictly hypocritical. So is quoting  Corinthians, written by the so-called St. Paul, who many biblical historians think was gay himself.

Using the Bible to justify discrimination is a direct contradiction of the words of Jesus who said:

“Love your neighbor as you love yourself”

Does that not mean, also, extending to your neighbor the same rights that you too enjoy?

Ironic, that a 33 year old never married man, that traveled the country with twelve also single males and a female prostitute, would most likely be considered by today’s Christians to be gay.

Hypocrites, one and all.

Thoughts?

William Stephenson Clark

Wednesday, 7/28/10, Public Square

Homosexuality Part II

Mention “Gay Rights” in virtually any group of people and be prepared for a “spirited” debate. In those exchanges, I am regularly “accused” of being gay since “you must be gay to support those perverts.”

Well, I’m not gay, but I know plenty of folks that are and I want them to have the same rights that I do.

The laws regarding homosexual behavior are as varied as could possibly be. Even within the United States, sodomy was illegal until very recently, 2003, and even then it was a 6-3 vote by the Supreme Court. In 1986, the Court upheld the constitutionality of sodomy laws.

Homosexual acts are still punishable by prison sentences and even the Death Penalty in some countries. What is truly bizarre is the number of countries where male homosexual acts are illegal, but female homosexual acts are not.

The strangest of all is the law in Guyana where male homosexuality is punishable by life in prison, but female homosexuality is legal.

Go figure. They must have watched “The Hunger” one too many times.

Despite a lot of efforts, Gay Rights are still few and far between. The “Defense of Marriage Act” allows states to refuse to recognize marriages that are legal in neighboring states.  The military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy still allows otherwise patriotic and valuable soldiers to be discharged for being gay.

Even normally liberal leaning California recently voted for a constitutional ban on Gay Marriage. The Texas Republican Party 2010 platform calls for the “criminalization” of Gay Marriage and a return to the sodomy laws that were overturned by the Supreme Court. Until 2006, there was an effort in the Senate to establish a United States constitutional ban on Gay Marriage.

The thread photo captures the irrational fear of homosexuality that marks much of the anti-gay debate. If what James and Aaron do in their bedroom is a threat to national security, then our national security system is sorely lacking.

There is no doubt that the battle for equality for gays and lesbians is an uphill struggle. Changes in attitudes and biases don’t come easily.

Thoughts?

(Part III tomorrow.)

William Stephenson Clark

Tuesday, 7/27/10, Public Square

Look who is in bed together

RNC Chairman Michael Steele and conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart

The Republican National Committee has invited Andrew Breitbart, who was just caught last week disseminating the highly misleading footage of Shirley Sherrod that cost her her job, to a fundraising event in August. He’s not just any old guest, either: He and RNC Chairman Michael Steele are co-hosting the welcoming reception on August 12. The RNC confirmed to Talking Points Memo that the event is going on, but refused to comment on the guest list.

Read more here.

Homosexuality Part I

(In the interest of full disclosure, your not so humble columnist is a heterosexual man and therefore is less than qualified to write on this subject, but I am the only one here, so somebody has to do it.)

In researching for these columns, I came across a staggering array of statistics, many at odds with one another. In just merely looking for a base number of the percentage of homosexuals within the population, I found a range of two percent to six percent, with claims that from twenty to forty-five percent of people have had homosexual experiences. Recent polling in the United States (2004 and 2008) indicates a gay population of about four percent.

It is no wonder that the subject has so many varying points of view if researchers cannot even agree on how many people are actually homosexual.

Numbers aside, homosexuality has had a varied history, as well. Until 1973, the American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as a disorder. In Ancient Rome, however, all the emperors, save one, took male lovers.  In some societies, male relationships with adolescent youths were encouraged and even celebrated. Artwork, throughout history, depicts both gays and lesbians in a positive light. Even in the Middle East, Persians had “wine boys” serve them in the taverns of the day.

So, how is a homosexual “born?”

Well, even that question is debated among professionals.

While the general consensus among most is that homosexuals are “born that way,” the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2004 stated:

“Sexual orientation probably is not determined by any one factor but by a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences.”

Interesting. What “environmental influences” would cause someone to “choose” or “become” gay?

(Since I am trying to treat a serious subject with respect, I will refrain from any jokes about Tele Tubbies, Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood or Bert and Ernie.)

The Religious Right and even some moderates and liberals claim that homosexuality is a choice. There are varying reasons behind their claims, but in my view, those claims are just a feeble attempt at justifying that last acceptable form of bigotry.

Thoughts?

(Part II of III tomorrow.)

William Stephenson Clark

Monday, 7/26/10, Public Square

WHITE PRIVILEGE

Take some time and think back over your personal life, list the times that the color of your skin has been a personal privilege? And the times the color of your skin has been a personal disadvantage?  Not another persons privilege or disadvantage, not some story you have heard of others.  Yours personally, some you may qualify as a guess or perhaps a could have been so.

But seldom does anyone actually have someone else say I am giving you privilege or disadvantage because of the color of your skin!  You can state that you could not see it, you were one out of a hundred people that applied for the same job. You did not see the other 99 so you have no idea who they were or the color of their skin. You might have got the job, but would have been the only white out of the hundred meaning the other 99 was a minority.

So, that means you should feel guilty of being the beneficiary of racism right?  You should be recognizing that there is white privilege and that is a point made by a guest on the Dillon Ratigan show.  Now since looking back, you personally, of all you have or had was it in your mind because of the color of your skin or because of your efforts?

On a personal level, I can not imagine anyone actually saying that the car in the drive or the roof over your head was because you are white. There is the problem that Torne said is the stumbling block to an understanding between the races.  The refusal of the whites to acknowledge on a personal level that they benefit from ‘White Privilege.’  But like the guy who asked me if I felt guilty for what my people did to his people? When everything he could list is something I had not done and knew no one who had.

One of my best friends grew up in a family of five children, where each day one member had to not eat a meal and their mother only ate once a day because there was not enough food for everyone to eat.  Over the years they lived in houses that were not much better then what people house their chickens in or store the mower in the winter.  It is vulgar, but is the truest example of how poor this family was:  “My friend’s family was so poor when he was growing up that if he did not wake up with a hard-on, he had nothing to play with the rest of the day!”  For his third birthday, his mother gave him a broken alarm clock as his birthday gift.  The rest of the story and one that is true of the rest of his life.  He took it apart and made it work!  And the alarm clock is an example of everything that life has given him.  Whenever life has given him a broken alarm clock he has taken it apart and made it work.

Therein lies the problem, few if any of us can look back and point to any time that white privilege has worked in our favor. We have seen the story of our life from the inside out not the other way around.  To tell my friend that because of being born with the color of his skin he has he was privileged. You would be expecting him to believe something that is invisible to him.

The same problem a Christian would have with a non-believer.  Without an example in his life to point to, you can not convince him that he should recognize it being there!

The same goes with me, never have I ever felt like because of the color of my skin that I have been privileged.  It was not until KAKE TV said it that I knew I lived in a “Socially-Economically depressed neighborhood”.  Only on  rare occasions did I ever feel like the color of my skin has been a disadvantage. In a life time everyone can and will feel that as an explanation for the outcome.

That your age was a matter, the color of someone else’s skin was a deciding factor, the gender you are was the matter.  Sadly like the stories you hear of, it is the truth.  Defecation occurs and life, people and society is far from perfect.

And like history, it can not be charged once written only the blank page of the future is write-able.

Sunday, 7/25/10, Public Square