I’m not feeling so hopey-changey right now. It’s not really Obama’s fault, right now, though.
First, I gotta vent. I had to run a quick errand. I was listening to NPR, and they had on the BBC, who were reporting on MJ’s memorial at the LA Staples Center. There’s some kind of bidding going on for tickets, and the bidding starts at $5,000. WTF? Seriously? And, there will be souvenir sellers outside as well.
There is something fucking perverted about paying five large to see anyone’s corpse, let alone someone you don’t know. I don’t give a flying flip how famous he was/is or what he meant to pop or to people personally. Let’s get away from the fact that that kind of money means that ordinary fans have no chance of buying them (though, something about a lottery or something, I try not to know, may help them out); let’s not dwell on the morbidity of profiting off a dead man; let’s try to ignore what a sad spectacle of a man MJ had grown to be in the adult stages of his life. Let’s put all that aside and focus on the sheer idiocy of paying five thousand dollars to see a dead celebrity’s body.
Is that what we’ve come to? Really?
Do y’all remember right after 9/11? The pundits all sat around with solemn faces saying that life as we know it has changed. We, Americans, had been irrevocably altered, forever and ever until the end of time. Even then, I had my doubts about how permanent a change our culture would sustain over the long run, but even I was stunned at how quickly our society fell back into our usual ways. National jingoism, prolifigate spending, rapacious interest in celebrities and ‘reality’ television, etc.
By the way, I had no idea who the fuck Kate and Jon were until the ‘fallout’ of his ‘cheating’ on her, or what the fuckever. I feel slimy that I know even that much about them. The idea that they had a camera in their house for all their children’s lives is despicable. Oh, and don’t get me started on Octopussy getting her own ‘reality’ television show.
Anyway. That wasn’t really a digression because both those story support my belief that we, as a society, haven’t fucking changed at all. Steve McNair, a favorite football player of mine, was found murdered, alongside a twenty-year old woman who was apparently his secret girlfriend. It appears to be a murder-suicide (with him being murdered), but there is speculation that an ex of the woman may have shot both. At any rate, while I am saddened by his death, I’m a little bugged out at the fact that he had a girlfriend that young while he was married and the father of four. Over at BJ, a commenter made the same remark much more forcefully, and he got ripped apart. Someone as wealthy and famous as McNair is practically supposed to have a really young girlfriend, and it’s prudish morality to say otherwise. Now, I realize that the Democratic Party is full of hedonists and whatever, but when did it become wrong to say, “Look, the guy is married with four kids, and he cheated on his wife with a much younger woman. That’s just not right.”? I’m not saying he or she deserved to die because no, they fucking did not, but at the same time, I am not comfortable just shrugging my shoulders and saying, “Boys will be boys.” I’m not disputing it happens; I just refuse to say it’s ok. If that makes me a moralist prude, then so be it.
Despite my licentiousness, I do have a strong streak of morality that says, “Hey, you fucking made a commitment. Honor it.” It’s one reason I have no desire to get married–I don’t think I could or would want to make that commitment to one person. Otherwise, why the fuck is marriage such a goddamn sacred word that cannot be sullied by teh gayz? Either it means something, or it doesn’t.
Since I’m dumping, let me add, this is one of the reasons I think Sarah Palin is not completely out of the running for 2012. Never underestimate the stupidity of the masses or how short-lived our attention is (not to mention the media’s attention. Like a gnat, that). Steve Benen wrote an excellent blog entry about it (read Palin’s Perilous Prospects?). He says much about how I feel about Palin. If she doesn’t go to jail (and it doesn’t seem like she will), all she has to do is be visible, wink and smile a lot, and Rich Lowry and his ilk will be seeing starbursts again. Do I think she’d win the presidency? Not really. Am I as certain as I’d like to be? No. You know why? Because for all the idiocy McCain was spouting and no matter how poorly he handled his campaign, he actually had a chance of winning.
Granted, the issue is complex. I don’t think Obama would have been elected if W. hadn’t fuck things up so royally. However, McCain got nearly 60M people to vote for him. Seriously! Obama got nearly 67M people to vote for him. Yes, it’s a lot, but it’s not that much, not when you consider what a joke McCain was.
Oh, speaking of McCain. Can I tell my lefty kin to politely STFU when they wonder if things would have been any worse under McCain? Really, no, seriously, STFU. I can understand being dissatisfied with certain aspects of Obama’s performance, but to say that he’s no better than John McCain is just stupid. Besides the fact that McCain is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, bleating that we should stand with the Iranian protesters, whatever that means, that we are being tooo nice to our enemies, that we should just bomb the fuck out of ’em, consequences be damned, he fucking chose Sarah Palin as his VP running mate. If that doesn’t instantly disqualify him, then I don’t know what does. So, please, my fellow DFH, let’s not be such drama queens about it, ok? We don’t have to drink the Obama Koolaid, but we also don’t have to be PUMAs, either. Sheesh.
Ahem. So I look around me, and I don’t see much change in our society. I have to admit that I drank the Koolaid a wee bit during Obama’s campaign, and now, reality has set in. We still have a government that is in the pockets of various lobbies. It still takes gobs of money (yes, that’s a technical term. Look it up) to run for office. Yes, things still tilt heavily towards the status quo. I believe that President Obama really does want to enact change with an abundance of hope, but he’s just one man. In addition, he’s a politician. It would be stupid of me to expect sweeping changes, either from government or from the people around me. Again, It’s all about the baby steps.
I was listening to NPR, and they had on the BBC
I wonder if NPR even realizes how much it makes their own news suck by comparison when they do that.
There is something fucking perverted about paying five large to see anyone’s corpse, let alone someone you don’t know.
Two words: Dick Cheney. (Memo to FBI: I kid! I kid!)
But you’re right: this Michael Jackson stuff has gone beyond ghoulish. I’m really sorry the guy’s dead and all, but it’s becoming obvious that drugs killed him. Let’s face it: The man released two amazing albums back in the 1980s and hasn’t done jack since except become a media freak show. I keep hearing how sad his death was coming on the eve of a world tour, but it’s beyond obvious that he was only doing that tour to pay some bills. It’s sad that a man of his talent disliked performing as much as he clearly did, and I blame his monster of a father for that more than him, but the man gave up his King of Pop crown ages ago, and like Sarah Palin he just walked away from it.
Meanwhile, poor Farrah Fawcett, who by all accounts faced a nasty death from cancer with dignity and courage, is all but forgotten. Feh.
I had no idea who the fuck Kate and Jon were until the ‘fallout’ of his ‘cheating’ on her, or what the fuckever. I feel slimy that I know even that much about them.
Word. But I’d feel much worse if I gave the smallest amount of a damn.
McNair’s situation is tragic, in the sense that a situation he created obviously spiraled so badly out of control. I certainly don’t think a mistress is something anyone’s entitled to, especially for the dubious virtue of being rich, famous or powerful.
I’m going to respectfully disagree with you somewhat on the marriage issue. Even with the recent prominent Republican affairs, my beef hasn’t been so much by the affair as by the hypocrisy you point out. I really don’t think human beings are wired to be monogamous, and while we can certainly choose to be so, I think one of the failings of so-called traditional marriage is that it isn’t very realistic about dealing with these impulses, whether one acts on them or not. Even though I was single for a long time before I got married, and truly wanted to, I should have expected that I wouldn’t cease feeling any desire for anyone else, and been better prepared to deal with it without unproductive guilt and irritation at how inconvenient it all is. The bottom line is that commitment is easier said than done — not that it can’t be done or shouldn’t be done — and I don’t think we deal at all well as a society with that fact. I agree with you about commitment, but I think the important commitment is to be with someone one’s whole life and to love and respect one’s partner. I believe monogamy tends to spring from that attitude, but I’m not ready to throw stones simply because someone has another relationship on the side; it depends on the situation.
Now, leaving one’s wife and kids for that someone is another matter entirely, of course. But just as with philandering Republicans, it’s ultimately between the spouses and the paramour, and none of my business, as long as they aren’t campaigning on public morality into the bargain.
Inasmuch as I have a problem with McNair, it’s how young his girlfriend was. Back in college, if I knew someone who dated high school girls — and let’s fact it, the age difference can’t be all that great there — I figured it was because they needed someone who was less mature than them to be more impressed and less of a threat. I don’t see how it’s any different when you’re older.
Can I tell my lefty kin to politely STFU when they wonder if things would have been any worse under McCain?
I’m still fairly inclined to cut Obama some slack, even though I’m disappointed in him in several areas, but really, this attitude is baffling. McCain’s clownishness over the Iranian situation alone made me thankful that jackass isn’t in office, to say nothing of the fact that Sarah Palin is right now surrendering an obscure governorship rather than sitting a feeble heartbeat away from the Presidency. Come on, now, really.
An aside on my disappointment in Obama: I think we’ve discussed how disappointing he has been on gay issues, especially DADT. I think one of Obama’s few mistakes has been to draw the wrong lesson from Clinton’s being distracted by this flap earlier in his presidency. Far from being the radical socialist the loony right portrays him as, Obama’s a cautious centrist, but I think the really has underestimated how much the nation has shifted on this issue, at least as far as DADT is concerned, if not gay marriage.
So I look around me, and I don’t see much change in our society.
Of course not. Change is incremental — you’re right to point out that not even 9/11 was enough to make major changes to society, though there are numerous small changes — taking of your shoes before boarding an airplane, for example — that seem to have taken root. And society has certain tendencies — the corruption of money and politics — that haven’t changed much throughout all of recorded history. Which is why, like DADT and health care reform, I’m not looking for Major Earth Shattering Changes so much as for halfway decent legislation that makes people’s lives better *right now,* and I still think that by and large the Democrats have the right instincts on that issue. I’ll take that and let the societal change take care of itself. We just had the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, and look how far — if not far enough — gay rights have come since then; the Overton window has certainly shifted and continues to do.
You sound like me.*sarcasm alert* Are you OTR too or do you just hate the troops?
Sorry, sillywhabbit, me or Minna?
Sorry Gregory, you must not know chick lingo….I don’t think you can be OTR. It involves the need for sanitary products, pain pills and chocolate. I was referring to Minna.
And Minna, I know what you did. I love it! It is so beautifully sweet and you personally crawled in my head and my heart and found the words. It is a nice feeling to know A) someone cares and B)Understands.
Thanks for being you and my symbiotic something.
Ahhhhhhhhhh…I get it now. Silly me.
Greg, yeah, I’m not happy with NPR. I only listen because it’s better than the other shit on the radio. However, the BBC wasn’t much better in that MJ segment–except, of course, they say it with posh accents that make everything sound classy.
Marriage: My beef is that the ideal is held triumphantly aloft in this country as if it’s the prize above all prizes. In addition, no one talks about how difficult marriage is. No, it’s all happily ever after. I agree that if a couple has an open marriage, no harm no foul (I would bet that McNair didn’t, though). I would also agree that the commitment is hard. However, I’m more strident when it comes to the follow through.
I think part of my revulsion for the, “Eh, it happens” mentality is because I see a double standard. After Sanford admitted to hiking the Appalachian Trail, I tried to think of what would happen if Nancy Pelosi had pulled a similar stunt. I can just imagine the scorn and derision, not just because she’s a Dem (though there is that, too), but because she is an older woman.
I hate the, “Boys will be boys, but women are sluts” mentality. I really do.
And, given how hets have fucked up marriage, it seems awfully churlish for them to say that queers can’t have it because they (the queers) will defile marriage.
Bah. I’m grumpy.
whabs, I am not OTR; I am just hatin’ on the troops and America. Also. I am just fed up. That’s all. P.S. I’m glad you got it, and I’m glad it brightened your day.
Too much internet Minna! Too much introspection! Too much analysis!
I was sooooo in the depths of despair in the run-up to the election of Obama. Alaska was a seething cesspool of hate & anger & vitriol, stoked by that bitch Palin, and I found it unbearable, had to step back, took an internet hiatus after the election was over.
I totally agree with Greg that rather than submitting to monogamy within a relationship, monogamy is a product of love & respect felt for a partner. My experience: long term relationship without love & respect = not setting &/or adhering to those monogamous boundaries. I appreciate handsome men just as much as I ever have, but looking is good, don’t feel compelled to touch, and don’t have that huge hole in my self-esteem that, in previous relationships, necessitated assuring myself that I was “attractive” and “wanted” and “desirable” and all that other crap by reeling in other men…
Which reminds me: today I found the CD of the NPR show that I was on about cheating. Serendipity!~ I will send it to you in the mail. After I listen to it. I’ve not listened to it since it was aired…
Anyway, about the Michael Jackson, Jon & Kate and their poor children, and all of the other crap — just tune it out! We get hundreds of cable channels and I have managed not to watch any of it except what I catch as I change channels to avoid it. Don’t listen to the radio in the car. Etc etc. Right now I am trying to wean myself from the Palin-mania. I want substantive discussions about the poison of her policy decisions as Gov of Alaska, and I am not getting it, it’s all speculation & gossip & other shit, and it is pissing me off! Where’s the beef? Must. stop. reading. shite. about. bible spice.
It really did. I needed a sweet gesture in the world and your timing was perfect. Thanks.
And my sarcasm was just that. Why do you hate the troops is sort of my patented doe in the headlights remark when I remember what it was like to voice dissent in this country. You were given a flag to perform fellatio on, or wave madly and if you didn’t, you were a troop hater.
The best thing I ever did was delete FAUX from my TV. I KNOW I am supposed to stay informed on what the other side says, but that’s not a side. That pure right wing propaganda bullshit and a mouthpiece for W (and his ilk)
Personally I think your letdown is normal and on par. Maybe that’s because I started my cycle of let down earlier as well.
I think part of my revulsion for the, “Eh, it happens” mentality is because I see a double standard. … I hate the, “Boys will be boys, but women are sluts” mentality. I really do.
I hear you, but please understand that I wasn’t expressing a double standard, extramarital-affairs-for-me-but-not-for-thee attitude. In fact, I’d give less of a damn if Pelosi had an affair because she’s not all waving membership in the Promise Keepers in my face.
And, given how hets have fucked up marriage, it seems awfully churlish for them to say that queers can’t have it because they (the queers) will defile marriage.
I agree. Extramarital affairs have been going on since recorded history (which really ought to give us some kind of a clue, don’t you think?) and, unless the other person is of the same gender, it has nothing to do with Teh Ghey at all.
And anyway, I believe the emphasis on monogamy — especially for women — and virginity — again, especially for women — to be the product of patriarchal attempts to control and ensure that the man’s baby is definitely *his*. Whereas all I have to do is look at my daughters to know it.
Full disclosure: My old man left my mother for a younger woman (and they’ve been married ever since, so go figure), so my stock in the whole fidelity thing took a big hit. As a longtime adherent of the consenting-adults-as-long-as-no-one-gets-hurt theory, I’m pretty much an anything goes kind of guy — I’ve said this before, but it just isn’t my place to tell anyone else how to run their relationships.
Extramarital affairs are risky. Obviously, not being monogamous introduces the risk of STDs, not to mention accidental pregnancy. Not to mention the risk of the hurt if and when it’s discovered. And on top of that, there’s the risk that one would leave one’s committed partner for the other. Let’s not forget that Sanford was in Argentina with his paramour on Father’s Day, and I don’t like to think about what his boys are going through, or what they’ll go through as they form relationships with women (or men) in the future. And then you have extreme cases like McNair, where the scuttlebutt is that she killed him and then herself, possibly because he tried to break it off. I doubt anyone will ever know. Then again I’ve known women who preferred married men precisely because they got certain benefits of a relationship without worrying about others. (Talk about your happily ever after, that’s a situation high school dating doesn’t prepare you for.) On top of all that, as SMR pointed out, it won’t cure the conflicts created by self esteem issues.
I just don’t watch TV at all. We even dropped basic cable and just get broadcast piped through the cable system. (My lovely wife and I never watched it, and we decided we didn’t want The Girls watching youth-aimed cable like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, although that decision failed, as the broadcast TV package for some reason includes Disney Channel for some reason. Though I can live with that.) But having kids really broke us of the TV habit; there was just no way we could commit to watching a certain show at a certain time. And freeing ourselves from scheduling our lives around the TV was liberating. I know I’m missing some good stuff, but that’s what DVDs are for.
Greg, oh, I wasn’t talking about what you said. I hope you know that. It’s just a feeling in general that a woman in a position such as Sanford’s or McNair’s (not that there could be given the salary difference between female athletes and male athletes) would have been ripped to shreds. Did you see that Sanford is not going to be asked to resign? I knew it!
Anyway, I don’t think humans are naturally monogamous. I, too, am a do your own thing kinda person–unless your own thing hurts other people. I, too, had a father who had a wandering eye (and other parts). He was notorious in the Taiwanese church community for his behavior, as a matter of fact. He always had a special female friend, and we all knew it. Yet, my parents are still together. I do not look kindly upon flagrant philandering.
Sorry that my thoughts are so disjointed on this subject.
I don’t watch TV, either, except for cooking shows, sports, Numb3rs, and Masterpiece Theatre Mystery!. I have no cable, and I watch any cable show online.
As I said in the other thread, IOKIYAR. The hypocrisy is nothing short of disgusting. It’s not so much that I especially want Sanford — or Ensign, or Vitter, and so on — to resign as the double standard that applies to Democrats. I think it *shouldn’t* be a qualification for pubic office to pose as a moral paragon — if memory serves me right, Mitterand had both his wife and his mistress at his funeral, and they both seemed OK with it into the bargain — but it’s baffling that the party that makes so much hay our of doing just that so often gets a free pass when it’s revealed, yet again, to be the bunk.
Since you know I feel that way, I know you weren’t talking about a double standard on my part. It’s cool.
I do not look kindly upon flagrant philandering.
Well, flagrant philandering is kind of insulting to one’s significant other, isn’t it? On a much smaller scale, I think we’ve discussed that it’s one thing to be a flirt, and it’s another thing to neglect one’s SO while ostentatiously flirting with every other skirt in the room. (Sadly, I’ve been enough of an ass to have done just that, when I was younger and stupider.)
Then again, if your parents are still together, who am I to judge the choices they’ve both made? At the end of the day one balances what one loves about someone with what one doesn’t love but can accept, or not.
It probably won’t surprise you much, and I really hope it doesn’t sound like I’m bragging here, but even when I had a relationship back in my 20s, monogamy was never a priority for me. At least, in general, I tried to make that clear. But as far as I know, no one ever *knew* or even suspected if I was having sex with another woman. If you’re going to do that kind of thing, you should at least be subtle about it, for crying out loud, either that or just agree to an open relationship. (I’ve had a couple of girlfriends like that, I think and it’d never bother me — it didn’t bother me, particularly, if a girlfriend had a fling, as long as she was careful about STDs and all.) And part of that was that while I had no problem with being extracirricular, I didn’t feel it was right to neglect my girlfriend or give her any less attention, of any kind, than she wanted and was used to.
All that rationalization, you can tell I was raised Catholic, can’t you?
But again that comes down to public attitudes. Why *should* it be embarrassing if a husband or wife enjoys the company of others, if it’s basically okay with the spouse? It’s the product, I think, of a fairly unrealistic societal convention that, again, I think is derived from attempts to control women’s reproduction (which is, I think the root of all that double standard).
As for TV, I have so many DVDs I want to watch, who has time? Though I do miss the Food Network.
Greg, you were raised Catholic? Actually, I wouldn’t have guessed it.
I am not at all rational when it comes to monogamy, cheating, and other such things, for personal reasons. I have no problems with open relationships, and I’ve helped a few partners cheat (though I’ve never cheated myself. I was SERIOUSLY tempted to once, and I should have, but that’s neither here nor there), but because of what my mother endured while I was growing up, cheating is not something I personally would tolerate in a partner. Or, to be more realistic, I might tolerate it, but I would have a hard time trusting the person again. I don’t particularly care if my partner has sex with someone else, but I would have a more difficult time with an emotional attachment. Again, it’s an ego thing. I don’t play second fiddle very well at all. I can be possessive and aloof at the same time.
I don’t have the monogamy thing figured out past the point that I know I’m not strictly monogamous. Honestly, at this time in my life, it really doesn’t matter. If I am ever in a relationship again, then it will.
TV–I don’t like most of the shows either on network or on cable, so I just stick to Netflix. Oh, I do watch Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune on a daily basis, but I have to watch the latter with the sound off because I can’t stand Pat Sajak or the contestants.