A Pilgrim’s Digression

After getting on the bus, I took my book from my bag and began to read; but soon I found something much more interesting to observe. A man and woman boarded the bus, actively having a conversation–or at least it appeared they were having a conversation.

It soon became clear that the conversation was pretty one-sided, with the man doing most of the talking. The woman listens attentively, nods, gives him an “um-hum” occasionally. The two of them sit down across from me. Both are professionally dressed, the woman in a cream and beige skirt/blouse/jacket combo, brown handbag. She’s younger than the man, probably in her thirties. She’s wearing tennis shoes, her work shoes in her handbag, presumably.

The man is middle-aged, dressed in a navy blue suit, French blue shirt, and burgundy tie. His starched cuffs protrude just right from his jacket sleeves as he sits. He carries a black, soft leather briefcase which he placed on the floor between his legs. He also placed his umbrella between his legs, leaning it on one knee and holding it loosely by it’s knobby top with his left hand. His hair is brown with gray flecks; his face is unwrinkled, self-assured; he is handsome enough to be a politician. The woman is quite pretty too, but not striking.

Middle-aged men are so often far from striking that when you see one that is handsome, with good hair, but without a belly, without varicosed legs and a three day growth of beard, he really stands out.

The man was talking about his job at the DOJ, explaining the legal aspects of the legislative process, dropping names left and right. Harry, Tom, Judy, Dick…except for the names, which became like a guessing game for me (”Barbara…is that Boxer or Mulkulski?”) I couldn’t follow the particulars of his conversation. He didn’t sound completely pompous, just confident that the woman must be as interested as himself in his very important work.

Then I heard something, and if I heard it right, it was the mating call of the Man in the Navy Blue Suit. I saw the ritualistic dance, too. He wanted her to know he was a significant person in government, as well as a person of wealth and means. He made a reference to his car, a Mercedes which he needed to get serviced this weekend. And maybe he was thinking of getting something else serviced, too. He rubbed the knob of his umbrella almost rhythmically as he talked.

Did I mention there was a wedding band on his finger?

He was like a male peacock displaying his feathers. And then he made his overture to the female. She had been listening attentively, and now she had to get off. As she stood up, he said, “Here, here’s my business card. Call me or email any time.” She took the card, said “Thank you,” and got off.

As the bus pulled away, the man’s smile faded, feathers drooped. He coughed. His hand slowed it’s stroking of the umbrella handle and then finally came to rest. It was an odd display, that last bit with the business card. Maybe he sensed it was a little off beat, maybe just a little. Maybe just enough.

It’s been a long time since I’ve witnessed the dance first hand, and the dance at 20 is different than the dance at 50. I won’t even begin to make a comparison across the age spectrum, because I never learned the dance to begin with. It didn’t necessarily hold me back, though. I found a good mate anyway who accepted me despite my lack of social skills.

But you can tell when someone is attracted to someone else. It’s always fascinating to see how they disguise it while at the same time, showcasing it. I think the business card was meant to be a final display of confidence. He was following the bad advice of so-called alpha males (otherwise known as jerks) the world over: be the flame, not the moth. Let her chase you. Let her make the phone calls. Call her back…or let her hang a day or two and then call her back.

Somehow I got the impression he’d stumbled there on the last step of the dance, though. Maybe the whole dance was a lost cause from the beginning, though the woman did seem interested in him. Women are inscrutable to men, though. We never know what they really think…unless they tell us, in which case we sometimes rather wish we didn’t know after all.

This was just a short scene I noticed today, subject to my interpretation and maybe even misinterpretation. There is a whole story behind it, however, if some novelist wanted to flesh out the structure. Why was he making this move on this woman who, apparently, was a complete stranger? Or had she perhaps instigated the conversation? Did they work together, passing in the hallway day after day until finally they spoke a few words? What was their private lives like?

All I can say is, there’s a story for a better story-teller than me.

greypilgrim Life as I (don't) understand it

If Andy Warhol were alive today, I have no doubt he’d be an avid social networker. I also believe he’d revise his famous dictum, lowering the estimate from 15 minutes to 15 seconds. Or about the time it takes to write a 140 word Tweet, lose interest, and move on to the next fad.

A Slate article on people who post once to Twitter, then are never heard from again, confers something like poetic status on these brief outbursts into the void of time and space. One can imagine some intrepid graduate student in English literature collecting and publishing them in a book of anonymous “Twoetry,” as a way of paying for the health insurance his University refuses to provide its serfs.

Reading this article about Twitter reminded me of another I read yesterday, Can Once-Cool MySpace Stage a Comeback. I never knew MySpace was imperiled, but apparently its position in the online universe of social networking has been usurped by Facebook.

It wouldn’t surprise me if next year, Facebook is the topic of an article about a decline in users due to new competition from [insert catchy web application name her].

Read more…

greypilgrim Life as I (don't) understand it

I did a stupid thing this weekend. So stupid, I feel embarrassed admitting it.

I left my cellphone in my pants pocket and it went into the washer. It came out pristinely clean and completely destroyed. It wasn’t an expensive phone–it’s the LG enV2 model from Verizon–but since we only have cellphones in our household, no land line, accidentally destroying a cell phone does present some unique challenges.

After debating my options, including whether I could get a new phone by the time I left for Washington last night, I called a friend to whom I’d loaned an old phone of mine and asked for its return. Fortunately, she still had it, and it was not in use.

So after getting this old phone from her, and sighing at how large and clunky it looks after only a few years, I called up Verizon to activate it. Afterwards, I gave the phone to Lynn to talk to the representative about ordering a new one. She gets a kick out of wheeling and dealing with these people to get the best deal she can. I’m not particular about the kind of phone I use, so I’d rather just let her order the phone for me.

The point of this post is that, at one point in the conversation, I heard her ask about the iPhone. Previously I’d mentioned to her this rumor from back in April that Apple and Verizon are in talks over the iPhone, so she knew I wanted one, as long as I don’t have to switch providers. After Lynn got off the phone, I asked her what the rep told her.

He said that although they aren’t supposed to say anything about it, Verizon is getting the iPhone in 2010, once Apple’s contract with AT&T expires. He also said the phone would be red.  My wife told him “Thank you, we’ll just use this old phone until then,” and so he lost a sale.

Do I believe him about the iPhone? On the one hand, it makes no sense for him to lie to people who want the iPhone, since it makes them less likely to buy a phone now.

On the other hand, he’s just a sales rep. What does he know? Probably nothing. Why would Verizon tell its low-level employees a secret so big it would literally make national headlines, if word leaked out?

Still, I want to believe.

Ever since the iPhone debuted, I’ve grumbled about Apple’s exclusive relationhip with AT&T which (from my perspective) makes no sense. Verizon is the largest carrier in the United States. But even if it weren’t the largest, shouldn’t Apple want their product available to as many people as possible? In my opinion, every cell phone company ought to be able to provide the iPhone to their customers, if they want it. I realize business doesn’t often make that much sense, however. Companies sign contracts with each other and have to honor them, for better or worse.

Maybe at the time the AT&T contract was the best Apple could get. It wouldn’t surprise me if they are trying to do better, now. Maybe the whole Apple/Verizon rumor is just a leveraging tactic meant to get a better deal from AT&T, however.

All I know is, having bought an iPod Touch recently, I’ve been given a taste of what the iPhone can do. I want one. I want one very, very much.

greypilgrim iPhone

Yes, I play a video game as a hobby.  Some would say World of Warcraft is a lifestyle choice, not a hobby, since it consumes so much of its players time and lives.  But I still call it a hobby, like playing golf with one’s buddies on a Saturday afternoon…er, playing golf four or five hours a night, five days a week plus weekends.

I am often ashamed to admit to my lifestyle in mixed company.  Saying that one’s hobby is a video game is often, to another man, a signal that he can feel superior to you.  It allows him to say that in his free time he goes to the gym/plays a game of football with his friends/rides a bicycle/runs a marathon/makes love to multiple women at the same time.  Or just watches sports on TV.  Yes, even watching sports on TV trumps video games in manly culture.

Never mind that in his man cave, you will probably find an XBox and a Rockband setup, which he uses to jam to “More than a Feeling” when he’s feeling special.

Read more…

greypilgrim World of Warcraft gnome, goblin, masturbation, Rock Band, video games, World of Warcraft, XBox

My step-sister was married on Saturday, in Charlotte, North Carolina. We drove down on Friday. It was quite an interesting, if exhausting and at times tedious, experience.

The groom was a young man from the Philippines; his family is entirely American-Filipino, and devout Catholics. My step-sister is from one of the coal-mining counties in central West Virginia. She met her husband at UNC-Charlotte and, with trips to the Philippines and a conversion to Roman Catholicism, he has apparently quite altered her horizons.

The wedding ceremony itself was a mixture of Catholic and Filipino traditions. It lasted nearly two hours–which is where the tedium part of the weekend begins to appear–but overall, it was interesting to witness. At the very least, I will never see something of this nature again in my life.  We’re getting to that age now where funerals are becoming more common than weddings anyway.

Since my wife and I were married in an empty court room, with only a handful of her family present and no one from my family, wedding ceremonies fascinate me in a “Why do people do this?” kind of way.

In this particular case, after much of the wedding mass was finished, the Filipino ceremony began and, as I said, it’s unlikely I will ever see anything like it again. It involved rope, a veil for the groom, and plenty of candle lighting.

After exchanging vows and being pronounced man and wife, the bride and groom knelt on a kneeler to one side of the altar. Two family members came forward and tied the two newlyweds’ hands together while reciting some words about the symbolism of the act.

Then two other family members came forward with what looked to me like a double hangman’s noose. One noose was placed around the bride’s neck and the other loop around the groom’s neck. In my opinion, the nooses really weren’t cinched tight enough to symbolize the true bondage of marriage, but apparently no one wanted the two youths to actually suffer. However, considering how long the two of them had to kneel, trussed up like a cow and bull, I imagine they were far from comfortable.

Finally, two more family members came forward with a large veil and draped one end over the bride’s head and the other over the groom’s, pinning it to the shoulder of his tuxedo. Still, the two of them had to kneel while the Priest droned on. More family members came forward and lit candles, other candles were blown out at some point, children grew restless, adults began to mutter under their breath.

Then there was the liturgy of the Eucharist and the Priest had to explain the whole business of who can and cannot receive the Host. The bride and groom received communion, still on their knees, and when the Father put it in her mouth I thought of Paddy Dignam’s funeral, from Ulysses…well, never mind about that.

Somehow I have got to stop associating Christian communion with oral sex. Forgive me, Lord.

Anyway, I was sitting on my family’s side of the church, and no one got up for communion, or the blessing that could be substituted, so I was trapped in my pew. I converted to Catholicism myself in college, but I still could not have taken communion, since it has been years since my last confession. I am not prepared, to use the Priest’s words. Still, I would have gone up for a blessing, if others in my row had done so.

Brendan, who was sitting with the groomsmen, did go up and following their lead held out his hand for a wafer. The Priest knelt down and whispered to him for a moment, then marked his forehead and blessed him and sent him on his way. The ironic thing is that Brendan, too, could have received communion, having been baptized Catholic at birth. We even named him partially after a Catholic saint.

Eventually, the wedding did end. Brendan had to stay at the church for pictures, and Lynn and I headed off to the reception hall to make sure we had good parking. The reception was a typical American affair with plenty of free booze, food that was probably pretty good but which I can’t remember because I was drunk (all I can recall is that the mashed potatoes had skins in them), and lots of noise.

Maybe the noise was heightened by my drunkenness, but it seemed like I could barely hear anything anyone said to me. And I certainly couldn’t hold a conversation with anyone, not that anyone over the age of 21 was fit for conversation.

I’ve always wondered what the servers must think, having to work a party like that where everyone is roaring drunk and generally incoherent. I’ll bet either their tips really suffer, or else they make extra in tips because people are overly generous in their stupor.

Although I wasn’t looking forward to traveling for this wedding, overall it wasn’t a terrible experience. I still wonder why people put themselves through the trouble and expense. I hesitate to say that wedding ceremonies are a whole lot of nonsense. If lighting a candle and blowing it out makes someone feel special, by all means do it. If being tied up with your bride is symbolically important to you, by all means, go right ahead. It might be good practice for later.

However, wedding ceremonies are a whole lot of nonsense. If Lynn had wanted a ceremony, I would have gone through with it to please her, but it’s something I have little appreciation for. Fortunately we are of like minds on that subject.

Like elaborate funerals, weddings are an industry unto themselves, but I am hardly the right person to criticize someone else for spending money to make themselves feel good. It’s one day in a lifetime–one day that costs thousands of dollars, but ultimately it’s one day that some people want to remember forever, or at least until the divorce.

greypilgrim Life as I (don't) understand it catholic church, ceremony, love, marriage

After finishing up with Augie March last week, I began reading another Bellow book, The Victim. Though Bellow wrote it before his purported masterpiece, I actually consider The Victim to be the better book. It has a lot of the qualities I’ve come to value in a novel: conciseness, a realistic portrayal of characters–their language, interactions, psychology–and some philosophical depth, but not an over-powering avant garde flavor.

What it reminds me most of are the short novels of Kafka and Camus, two of my favorite writers. The plot is simple: Leventhal, a copy editor at a small trade magazine in New York, is stalked by a man he barely remembers, but who claims that Leventhal did him some great harm long ago. As the story unfolds, it becomes difficult to say whether the stalker is right or wrong.

Leventhal has his own grievances, not just about the man harassing him, but about the anti-semitism he seems to detect in the people with whom he works and associates himself. Again, it’s difficult to tell to what degree his suspicions are justified. Leventhal himself, whose mother supposedly died in an insane asylum, sometimes wonders if he is not suffering from paranoia.

The novel is wonderfully ambiguous on just about every point. Who is the victim? Is Leventhal going insane? Maybe the “victim,” Allbee, has a point and Leventhal did ruin his life. There is even a certain ambiguity in Leventhal’s personal story. He has always accepted his father’s account of what happened to his mother–that she went insane and had to be committed, and later she died in the hospital. Leventhal’s wife, Mary (who is away visiting family for the entire novel), has suggested to Leventhal that maybe he shouldn’t accept his father’s account of the event at face value.

I think it’s a bit simplistic to take the novel at face value, as well. It isn’t just the story of a man compelled to self-examination by the sudden appearance of someone he wronged long ago. My impression, especially with the anti-semitism angle so prominent, is that Bellow is examining the ways in which every one of us hurt each other, sometimes unconsciously, and the way that hurt gets spread around through our often careless interactions. Not to go all bleeding heart, but in some ways we are all the victim.

greypilgrim Literature anti-semitism, novels, Saul Bellow, Victim

I found this funny article at Slate that extols the virtues of the lazy parent, How to be an idle parent.  At first I thought it was a joke, but now I’m not so sure, and the author has even convinced me that maybe he’s right and parents shouldn’t feel guilty for sleeping late while their little ones have the run of the place.  Here’s a sample quote that I find both hilarious and true:

Children actually have an inbuilt self-protective sense that we destroy by over-cosseting. They become independent not so much by careful training but in part simply as a result of parental laziness. Last Sunday morning, Victoria and I lay in bed till half past 10 with hangovers. What a result! And the more often you do this, the better, because the children’s resourcefulness will improve, resulting in less nagging, less of that awful “Mum-eeeeeeeh” noise they make. They can play and they will play.  So lying in bed for as long as possible is not the act of an irresponsible parent. It is precisely the opposite: It is good to look after yourself, and it is good to teach the children to fend for themselves.

I say, absolutely right!  Let the kids fend for themselves for breakfast.  Let them learn to pour milk over cereal, and maybe while at it, they can make a pot of coffee for Mom and Dad.  Furthermore, the dog needs to go for a walk in the morning–by all means, the child knows where the leash is just as well as Dad.

I am so happy to find a general guide to parenting that, for once, I wholeheartedly endorse.  I only wish I’d found it sooner, when it would have made a difference.  My son is eight and mostly independent, in the mornings, so sleeping late is no longer much of an issue.  If only I’d discovered this philosophy of idleness when he was three, I could have been enjoying these long mornings in bed five years ago.

greypilgrim Life as I (don't) understand it

My reading lately has taken me into some odd places. I’ve been steadfastly working through Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March, despite the distinct feeling I will remember very little about it once I’ve finished it.

It’s a novel from another era, when a writer could pass off yet another bloated tale of a young man’s coming of age as a contender for the GAM (Great American Novel). Yet I still enjoy such novels, if only because I, too, am a young man coming of age. Ahem. Yes, seriously.

But my interest has really been piqued by this old book I discovered in the library, after hearing it mentioned by N., a friend.

The Mask of Sanity, by Hervey Cleckley. N. read the book as part of an introductory psychology course in the sixties, and she has referred often enough to it in conversation that I thought it worth checking out.

I don’t believe there is a more recent edition than 1976, and that edition was a fifth edition, the original having been published around 1940. It should here be noted that Cleckley is also the co-author of The Three Faces of Eve.

What makes The Mask of Sanity interesting is that Cleckley starts from the premise that people who pass as “sane” in our society, but who nonetheless demonstrate non-adaptive and anti-social behavior, are perhaps more interesting than the lunatic. Modern psychiatry knows what to do with a lunatic–permanent hospitalization is in order–but for the sociopath who is otherwise what we would call “high-functioning,” what is to be done?

As always with books on human psychology, the best parts are the case histories. Clekley’s presentation is as interesting for its candor about the subjects’ sexual history as it is humorous–a true rarity among psychologists. Take the following example. Writing of a millionaire who had spent his money irrationally, Cleckley writes:

For months he had maintained 138 bird dogs scattered over the countryside, forty-two horses, and fourteen women, to none of whom he resorted for the several types of pleasure in which such dependents sometimes play a part.

I don’t think Cleckley could have anticipated that far from being considered irrational or a sign of mental defect, in our era, pointless squandering of wealth in conspicuous consumption is actually celebrated.

Take another example of, perhaps in this case, unintentional humor. Describing the aberrant sexual history of a female patient, Cleckley writes:

Occasionally during her early thirties, but also a few times since, Anna had engaged in a pastime know as gangbanging…Usually drinks with five or six men , whom she might pick up in one of the less inviting honky-tonks or frolic spots about town, constituted the first phase. Later the group rode out into the country and all her companions had sexual relations with her, each taking his turn.

“Frolic spot?” The phrase leaves me wondering what he meant. I imagine playful youths celebrating the pleasures of Bacchus in a willow grove. And it was quite gentlemanly of the men to at least take turns, I think.

Anyway, again humor arises from the juxtaposing of low and high–the term “gangbanging” with a more or less clinical description of the act. As a dangerous compulsion (Anna was beaten up and thrown in a river during one of these gangbangs), her behavior is worthy of clinical analysis, but I’m not sure that even today Anna would find any help from a therapist unless she herself asked.

In 1940, it would have been Anna’s parents or husband who sought help for her, usually in the form of involuntary commitment.

Perhaps far more interesting from the modern perspective is that such case histories remove the rose colored glasses with which we often view the past. If asked, most people would probably say the term, if not the concept, of a gangbang, originated in the nineteen-sixties rather than the nineteen-thirties.

I’m of the opinion that whatever depravity we practice today was probably not unknown to our ancestors.

The Mask of Sanity is a fascinating book, and worth a read, if you can find a copy. The essential problem–what can be done to help the neurotic who cannot be committed, but has difficulty functioning within the bounds of society–remains relevant to our time.

greypilgrim Literature cleckley, mask of sanity, neurosis, psychology

I got a phone call yesterday afternoon from my landlady’s daughter, N., telling me that her mother was in the hospital, dying. The call reminded me of my grandma’s death last year, for a number of reasons. Of course there was age, though my grandma was about twenty years younger than A. who was 95.

But then there is also the fact that when N. called, A. wasn’t dead yet (she died later in the day), just dying, and that was my grandma’s condition when I got the phone call about her last Fall. My grandmother actually died while I was on the phone with my stepmother; my stepmother was going back to the hospital room to put the cellphone to grandma’s ear so I could say goodbye to her, but she died before that could happen.

In A.’s case, like my grandma, she was in an induced coma as well. I didn’t ask to say goodbye; it seemed inappropriate.

N. said she had a bad fall early Friday morning as the result of what the doctor called a “catastrophic event,” but she’d managed to drag herself into the bathroom where she pressed her med-alert button and called the ambulance. The first N. knew anything had happened was when the paramedics pounded on the door.

A “catastrophic event” just about describes death perfectly, doesn’t it? Whether we die slowly of cancer, or suddenly of a heart attack, it is catastrophic. The body just suddenly fails.

It seems like these deaths are happening so frequently now, I hardly know what to say anymore. This morning, lying in bed in the gray morning light, I found myself thinking about who might be next. It seems like my grandpa will be around for awhile yet–he’s only 77–but his older brother Jim seems more elderly every time I see him. My Dad’s a smoker, and middle-aged, so he’s racing down heart attack alley without a seatbelt.

Depressing stuff. We should be able to stop time at about age 30, when our parents and grandparents are still reasonably healthy, our children small and lovable, our own lives full and rich.

To live to be 95 seems almost a cruel joke, when you consider what life is like at 95. A. was so frail she often felt like a skeleton with skin stretched over it, when I’d hug her goodbye on Wednesday nights, prior to going up to bed. Her teeth were bad and she could never get false teeth that fit properly. She was vain about her looks, having been quite beautiful in youth, and would never let her picture be taken in old age. There was an oil painting of her in her twenties in the nineteen thirties that hung in an upstairs hall, and indeed she was a blond beauty at one time. The painting did not exaggerate either; her wedding photo that sat on the mantle confirmed the artist’s impression.

She took a battery of pills every day that sometimes seemed to sap her energy and upset her stomach. Her husband, all her friends, and most of her family were dead. She came from a large family of brothers and sisters, and though they all lived to be very old, she outlived every one of them. In the end, she had her three children, one grandchild, three great-grandchildren, and a niece with whom she remained close.

She had me, I guess, too. Although she never let me off the hook for rent (it was a pittance really), she always said she thought of me as family. I lived in her home for over six years, from January 2003 to the present.

When I first moved in, she was 89 and could still go up and down the stairs with some care, so she slept upstairs in her old bedroom. I’d eat dinner with her in what she called “the stone den” because the walls were made of the same stone as the outside of the house; it was like a small sunroom with windows all around. We’d eat dinner, talk, and watch the evening news, and these became our habits throughout the years I lived there.

In a short time, her kids started to worry about her going up and down the stairs, so they moved a small bed into the stone den, and that was where she spent the last years of her life. However, I am pretty sure she defied her kids and went upstairs during the day, because I’d find subtle little things different about my room when I’d come home in the evenings.

N. once told me that when she was a girl, her mother gave her no privacy whatsoever, snooping in her room, her purse, etc. I suspect A.’s visits to my room were to rifle my things for contraband, or perhaps just to snoop, as well; but I never particularly cared. Aside from my clothes and toiletries, laptop and books, there wasn’t much else to find amongst my things.

After she moved into the stone den, I continued to sit with her in the evenings, and we watched the news and talked. Because I once told her that I went to school in Morgantown, West Virginia, she told me at least a dozen times a year the story of Max Morgan, a 2nd lieutenant in the Navy who had boarded with her and her husband during World War II. Max was from Morgantown, and A.’s story always ended with the same question, “Do you think his family founded Morgantown?” To which I’d have to say, “I don’t know.”

Just to keep a record of it, the story went that Max liked to play Pinochle with A. and her husband, and after the war he went into the oil business in Oklahoma and became a millionaire. Apparently Max was also an alcoholic because one time, A. added a detail to the story suggesting he had to be taken out of the home by ambulance for detox.

She loved the Civil War and would read book after book on the subject. Later she became fascinated with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and we’d talk about that for hours. I read some books on the assassination as well, so I’d know where she was coming from. She was convinced Mary Surratt was innocent. I have my doubts about that.

When she was healthy, she had her daughter take her for a drive along Booth’s escape route into Northern Virginia, ending at the spot of the former Garrett farm where he was shot. It’s just an empty field down a dirt road now, with a plaque along the highway marking the spot. But she made the trip and often talked about it. She also made frequent trips to Surratt’s tavern where the assassination was planned; it remains a tourist site and museum.

Gettysburg was another trip she made with her daughter once or twice a year. In fact last week, N. tried to keep A.’s spirits up by promising her a trip to Gettysburg this weekend, if she’d eat a little something and get her strength back.

When I saw her last, on Wednesday night, she seemed almost like her old self. She was sitting up in bed, talking and watching the news, complaining about “that Obama” and looking forward to the visit of her youngest son, who was coming up from Florida. She did get to see him a little, since he arrived late Wednesday night. I don’t know how he felt, since she died so soon after his arrival, but he was likely relieved that at least he got to see her.

I’m glad my last memory of her is a good one, as well. I hugged her goodnight and told her I’d see her next week. She seemed cheerful, and she said “I’ll see you next week” without hesitation. I went upstairs thinking to myself, “Well, she’s pulled through again.”

She always surprised me with her resilience, but I guess this time there was no springing back. The fight was over. Now she’s amongst so many loved ones who went before her, and probably feeling better than she ever did in life.

greypilgrim Life as I (don't) understand it death

There is a contradiction at the heart of American conservatism that I’ve always found fascinating to contemplate.  Even in the days when I considered myself a conservative, I could not help but notice that among the most right-wing of conservatives, there is an almost treasonous dislike of the U.S. government and its representatives, with the exception of the people holding the guns: the military and those involved in law enforcement.  Myself, I’ve never been able to divorce the government from those charged with enforcing its will upon people.

Although I have high regard for individuals who serve in the military or the police, in short, I don’t trust either of  those entities as an indiscriminate unit.  This is especially true for the police.  I’ve always thought the British have a much healthier attitude towards their law enforcement.  Over there, the cops are called “the filth,” as in “the filth took away my license.”  That’s a much more powerful term than even the antiquated Americanism, “pig,” but it conveys (I think) a healthier sense of what the police are capable of.  A policeman can be as filthy as the next person.

I know there has to be someone in a society who holds the gun to our heads, otherwise society as a whole falls into anarchy; however, I don’t like that fact.  I can live my life just fine without either the government or its enforcers, as long as other people leave me be.  Of course we don’t live in that perfect world.  Anyway, all this is leading to a point I want to make.

I love reading news stories about bad cops.  There is something uplifting in a story about the disgrace of someone charged with keeping others in check, to the point that he can even kill us, if he feels it is necessary.

We have a small local newspaper here in town, seperate from the “official” paper that reports on all the light and happy topics in the community.  It’s called The Advocate, and it has a reputation for reporting the stories that the official paper won’t touch.

Our county sherrif’s 18 year-old son and a friend used his Dad’s police band radio to call in a false report of a crime, resulting in officers from all over the county as well as state police being scrambled.  The boy received barely more than a reprimand from the judge.  The Advocate reported on this travesty.   Somehow I think if an ordinary citizen had broken into the Sherrif’s car and used his radio for such a purpose, the punishment would have been pretty severe.

In another story, a deputy lost control of his car on his way to a report of a crime and crashed into a citizen’s house.  The resident was in the shower at the time, and she was injured and transported to the hospital.  The Advocate reported that when the homeowner tried to sue, the judge threw out the case because the county has “absolute immunity” from such lawsuits.  Not only that, but the county’s insurance provider doesn’t have to pay.  I guess this is why we take out homeowner’s insurance–just in case some cop crashes into our house while on duty.

My wife actually had a run-in with the cop in the above story, in a  restaurant here in town, which makes me completely unsympathetic to him.  I wouldn’t feel bad if he lost his job, at the very least because he damaged his patrol car.  Does that make me unpatriotic or unsupportive of “the police” as an entity?  Yeah, it probably does.  However, on the other hand, there are local cops I’ve met and liked; one of them even goes to our church with his family.

In another case I read about in The Advocate just today, a cop on the local drug task force has been suspended because his confidential informant claims to have had an affair with him.  He gave her money to buy meth so that he could arrest her buyer, but apparently something went wrong with the buy and her cover was blown.  When she was arrested on previous charges that were going to be dropped, if she cooperated, she claimed to have had an affair with the officer and that he fathered her child.  The paternity test exonerated the cop, but he failed a lie detector.

I don’t know why I like stories such as this so much.  I think it validates my perception that cops are just human and not to be trusted any more than anyone else.  I feel much the same about military personnel.  I appreciate that someone has to do that job, and it’s not easy.  However, I think it’s absolutely imperative not to be blind to the possibility that those in authority over us can do great harm–whether that person is a President, a congressman, a policeman, or a soldier.

I’d also like to add a bit of a plea here for papers like The Advocate.  It’s a monthly, so I’m sure its circulation is low, but it does a powerful job of exposing those in power in our community.  I’m sure those on the receiving end of its stories call it a “rag” and say that it spreads rumors and gossip, convicting innocent people in the process.  I guess that makes me a gossip-monger, because I truly love it.

greypilgrim Politics as usual advocate, conservatism, corruption, gossip, journalism, newspaper, police