Into the Twilight

For the past two days, my husband and I have been wrestling with some difficult news. His father has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. This is his fifth bout of cancer in as many years. In fact, it took his doctors a bit of sleuthing to find it. My father-in-law's blood chemistry showed no trace evidence of cancer. His body just wasn't going to fight this one.

To operate, he would have to undergo chemo and radiation. He is choosing not to do either. He feels he has had a good 80-year run at life and it's ok for him leave. He knows about hospice.

So, we'll be flying to Pennsylvania within the next few weeks to say goodbye. I have spoken to the man maybe three times in the two years I have been married to his son. He is a fundamentalist christian. He found jesus and feels that all his sins are forgiven. My husband and his father are not on the best of terms; my FIL spent most of my husband's childhood philandering. To say he was not present as a father, is the understatement of the year. And yet, I am overwhelmed with compassion for him and my husband. I am also filled with hope that perhaps they can reach an understanding. I am hoping there will be acknowledgement and perhaps forgiveness.

We have such precious little time here; I wish we didn't waste it by ignoring one another.

Ahhh... Snopes

I did try to check out Snopes about that MeFi link I posted yesterday, but my search string was off and I didn't get what I was looking for. Well, I found it today.
[Edited to add: the hyperlink doesn't seem to work so cut and paste this into your browser http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/skyterror.asp]

I had just come back from vacation and was dealing with my step-daughter's antics when this whole thing went down. I plead "otherwise occupied."

I googled Flight 327 and came up with a whole bunch of right-leaning blogs, magazines and sites. I'm sad to hear that this whole thing became a political debacle and even more upset to hear that it became a racial profiling issue.

Honestly, I would be nervous if I saw anyone acting like that on an airplane. I visited the UK in '92 during a spate of IRA bombings. I was searched at Heathrow. I guess I looked like a 16 year-old IRA mule... must have been the auburn hair and freckles? Our travel agent told us to watch out for people's body language, to look for suspicious gestures and luggage, etc. So, I don't think Annie Jacobsen was necessarily being racist, though perhaps once the pundits got involved it became a matter of race and racial profiling.

I like Patrick Smith's (of Salon) Hysterical Skies part 1 and part 2.

I think Smith makes an uber salient point when he says that terrorists don't all look like Arab Muslims. Timothy McVeigh, anyone? And it was the tone of "these are people acting strangely" that initially made me nervous. Which is why I posted it in my blog.

In the days after 9/11 I think it's inevitable that we are more aware of our surroundings. I think it's almost an involuntary reaction. Obviously, that does not mean we should indict individuals based on their skin tone or choice of religious expression. Her article resonated with me because it seemed, upon my first read, that she noticed "people acting strangely" not merely Arab men acting like TERRORISTS. I've read it twice more and I can see where her fears took her over the line and where my own thought process colored what she actually wrote.

That said, I am nervous about the violent acts of terrorists. I don't think harassing Muslim individuals who look suspicious is acceptable and I certainly don't think rounding up Muslims living in the US and placing them in detention is acceptable, either. I wish the TSA, Dept. of Homeland Security, the FBI and the Justice Department would understand that it's not about Muslims. It's about destructive US foreign policy in the developing world.

*sigh*

And I have to come to terms with the fact that life does go on, that social injustice happens every day and that my little son has been born into a world where you can be a musician on the way to a gig, and be mistaken for a terrorist.

I can't believe I'm actually quoting American Spectator, here, but I feel I must because the point is valid:

"For those who assume it's paranoid to suppose that a musical group might practice espionage, here's one better: How about an entire film crew? We know it can be done, because we've done it. During the Iranian hostage crisis, a CIA team infiltrated Iran disguised as a Canadian film company."

Here's the CIA's account of what happened: CIA goes Hollywood. And since we taught Osama and his buddies how to be insurgents, it makes chilling sense to me.

We need to keep our eyes open. We need to be aware. And we need to ditch the stereotypes.

So much for that!

Ok, so I had a huge, long blog prepared and ready to send when I accidentally closed the blog window. And I don't have the juice to rewrite the whole darn thing. Besides, it was mostly just my kvetching about work.

In other, more important news, my dear husband is taking Depakote. His shrink is in the process of ruling out bipolar disorder. He's been on Zoloft for several months now. I have to say, the Depakote makes that nice guy I used to meet occasionally come out a lot more often. And that hyperfocus guy, who had to do fifteen things at once, has nearly disappeared. All I can do is wow at it all and be thankful for better life through chemistry.

I got this off of Metafilter. It's probably old news, but it certainly made me nervous. Make sure to check out the updates, too.

Haven't left...

I haven't left. I'm just feeling a little low on the creative juice. Something will strike my fancy, soon enough. Thanks for your patience.

While I'm busy ruminating, check out some sites I find interesting:

Anonymous 4, hanging it up after 17 years. I'll miss them.

One of my favorite shows in childhood, The New Zoo Revue.

And, my favorite place on earth: Yosemite, via webcam.

Witness

Tonight, my husband son and I went shopping at Trader Joe's. After we had packed up the trunk of the car, I went to put the cart away in the the cart corral. I noticed a gentleman and what appeared to be his son (under 10 years of age) walking into the store. The man was well built and dressed in a nice t-shirt and shorts. So was the little boy. I smiled, thinking they were very cute. The image of the little boy holding hands with his brother, uncle, dad, whomever he was, warmed my heart.

My all's-good-with-humanity reverie was shattered when I heard FREEZE! PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOU HEAD! NOW! DROP TO THE GROUND! NOW! I quickly glanced over my right shoulder and saw two cops brandishing their sidearms pointed at the boy and the adult he was with. The man immediately complied. The little boy stood there, dumfounded. Thankfully, the little boy had his back turned when the police were pointing guns at him and his loved one.

My heart was racing, my ears pounding with the shock of the situation and the adrenaline coursing through my veins. All I could see was numb stillness of the little boy. The assault of reality, the reality of being caught shopping while black, striking the little boy with unmerciful force.

Immediately, I was angry. Red faced, clenched fist angry. It's been a couple hours now, and I have accepted the possiblity that there was an APB out, and that perhaps the gentleman who was taken down fit the suspect's description. (I'll talk about racial profiling and appropriate force, a few paragraphs from now.) What I cannot understand, and what I refuse rationalize away is the fact that the police made no attempt to assuage the little boy's fears. THEY DIDN'T EVEN MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH HIM. One of the cops, pulled the little boy behind him, just in case they had to shoot the man on the ground. But at no time, even once the gentleman was completely immobilized, did they speak to the little boy. He stood there, occasionally taking tiny steps toward his loved one when the cops were talking on their radios. Most of the time he just stood there.

I kept thinking, please, please talk to the little boy. Please take him to another part of the parking lot, away from this situation. Explain to him what's going on. But they didn't.

Time is a blur, when I try to remember how long this incident lasted. It probably lasted no longer than ten minutes. I watched the entire thing. I wanted to ask the police officer who was rummaging around his squad car's trunk, if anyone was going to say anything to the little boy. But my instincts told me to be silent and observe. To record eveything in my mind's eye. To remember.

What I find almost more unsettling than the incident, is that as quickly as it began, they took the restraints off the man and he was free to do his Labor Day Weekend shopping like the rest of us. Again, with no word to the little boy.

By this time, the manager of Trader Joe's had come to the doorway. He was smiling nervously at patrons who had to sidestep the, now, three police officers, the gentleman and the little boy. When the man had been excused by the police he simply turned his back on them, took his little boy by the hand and walked into Trader Joe's. The manager gave the man a good-natured pat on shoulder as he entered. And then it was over.

Three things stick out in my mind:
1.) Were those officers of the law good enough shots at a dead run with adrenaline pumping, to hit their suspect's body cavity and miss the little boy's head?

2.) If my husband (a white male) were to have fit the description of an APB suspect, would they have taken him down with sidearms brandished? A large part of me doesn't think so.

3.) I cannot help but fear that the lesson this little boy took away from tonight is that police drew a weapon on his loved one (and him, which I pray he doesn't realize) and that they can stop you and throw you on the ground for anything. Even grocery shopping.

Irony 2, Right Wing Nil

I have been corresponding with one of my former classmates. The one whose christian music career I was wondering about. He's still very christian. He was a traveling praise and worship leader for five years, now he's an engineer/producer in Nashville, in the christian music biz.

He and I always had a very jovial relationship. We constantly teased each other, but we could be very serious and have long heart-to-hearts as well. He joked in his first email to me, saying that my first boyfriend (who was a friend of his) would be at the reunion. I laughed long and hard on that one. You see, this first highschool boyfriend of mine LJBF'd me. That's "Let's Just Be Friends" for those at home. Upon pressing him further, he told me that he felt led to dump me because my body was too great a temptation and distraction for him. My looks began leading him astray from his walk with the lord. I don't need to go into the self-loathing and shame that I felt about what he said. I was deeply hurt and spent a lot of time in prayer trying to figure out why god gave me an hourglass figure only to have boys dump me because of it.

So, you can imagine my surprise when my former friend tells me that my ex-boyfriend denounced his faith completely about six years ago and wants nothing to do with his christian friends, or the town where we grew up! I suddenly find myself scouring the internet trying to find any trace of him. Oddly enough, I emailed him around 1996 or 1997 after I had left the faith. He was very brief with me and essentially asked me not to email him again. I didn't come out to him, then. Now I wish I had. Not that I would have wanted to get together with him, because I wouldn't have. Rather, I would have been interested in learning about his process of losing faith. I would have liked for that door to remain open.

And in other ironic news... Has anyone been listening or watching the Republican National Convention? Well the GOP has purchased boatloads of tickets to broadway shows to entertain its delegates. Yes, you read that right. Broadway, which is quite possibly queer America's holy grail, is alive and well during the Republican National Convention. Broadway, which I would conservatively estimate has at least a 20 percent margine of queer folk in it's employ, is strutting it's stuff in front of right-wing buffoons. I don't fault Broadway... A gig is a gig and everyone's got to eat. But how blind and federal-marriage-ammendment-stupid can these delegates be? Apparently not that dumb. Convention organizers made sure that only appropriate shows would be supported. How do you spell denial? I spell it R-N-C.