People will Surprise You

Well, I had a lovely Thanksgiving. I hope you all had the same good time (xootie, I hope your little one is feeling better.) It's funny, you spend so much time with your family over the years, but very little of it is on a day-to-day basis. Turns out, I don't know these folks nearly as well as I thought I did. For example, I was talking about my blog, and my aunt and my cousin told me to send them the link. I asked my cousin, who is a few years younger than I am, if she had seen the "Palin Oval Office" (http://www.palinaspresident.us/never/index.html ). She said she hadn't, and my aunt said she might not enjoy it. Until that moment, I had no idea my cousin was a Republican. Turns out it's her husbands influence - which isn't all that surprising - but that he voted for Obama! Well, we ended up in a kind of heated discussion about the Occupation of Iraq, and how it needed to end, with my cousin going on about the war on terror, which I reminded her had FUCK ALL to do with Iraq...but, in a much nicer manner, of course.

Then, after dinner back at my aunt & uncle's house, my aunt and I started discussing Prop. 8. Now, I hadn't really thought about how my aunt might vote on that one - she's a very devout Catholic, but she also had a brother who was gay, and died all too young from AIDS. Turns out, she was conflicted, but voted 'no'. The best part was her reasoning - she didn't think it was right for minority rights to be left up to majority rule! Even though she believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman, she doesn't believe civil rights are something that we vote on. She remembers when whites and blacks weren't allowed to marry each other, and that it was the courts - not the public - that decided the issue, and feels that is how this needs to be decided.

So, did anyone surprise you this holiday? Or, did you surprise anyone who thought they knew you a little better than they did?

An Attitude of Gratitude

At the risk of inviting derision, I am going to indulge myself and talk about Thanksgiving, or more appropriately, giving thanks.

I find the ability to find something to be grateful for to be a blessing in itself. When life sucks, there got to be something - anything, really - that makes life just a little bit better. So, I'm going to list some things for which I am grateful today, and invite you all to do the same. (I reserve the right to expand this list as things occur to me, so check back often!)

1. I am grateful for the health of my family...blah, blah, blah. (I mean that sincerely, but come on - it's a total no-brainer!)

2. I am grateful that the world is full of so much absurdity that I can have a hearty belly laugh at least once a day. (A special shout-out to 'the powers that be' for Sarah Palin.)

3. I am grateful that I was fortunate enough to be born in such a prosperous country. For all of our faults, I have been able to enjoy a standard of living that too many people don't even dare dream of.

4. I am grateful that democracy was invented.

5. I am grateful that anybody even reads my blog, let alone comments on it.

To the members of the Brushfires family, please have a happy and safe holiday. Enjoy - or endure - the time with your families, and be grateful for just one thing and I bet you'll have a good day.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

I'm too tired to post tonight, but you HAVE GOT TO SEE THIS!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYxn2vlhtWo

"Drinking the Kool-Aid"

A while ago, I created a bit of a stir on Mick LaSalle's Blog, because I said I wished people wouldn't use that expression. Some people got a little pissed, saying that I was trying to tell them what they could - or couldn't - say. But, it was my hope that once I explained the origin of that saying, maybe people would understand why I found it so offensive. (And, believe me, I am not easily offended.)

Thirty years ago, I was a teenager in the suburbs. Other than raging hormones, my life was pretty normal: school, homework, smoking pot, and obsessing over boys. We were all living under the vague Cold War era threat of nuclear annihilation. When I let my mind linger on it too long, it was actually quite terrifying, but fear was kept at bay by the belief/hope that the leaders of the nuclear powers would use logic, acknowledging that there was no 'winning' a nuclear war.

However, madness - on a scale that I had never imagined - was about to make itself known to me. The news stories started coming fast and furious, headlines bigger and louder - 300, 500, now 900 dead in a mass suicide in Jonestown. Being located between a former church in Mendo County and his last church in the Bay Area, the story seemed to have a special relevance for us here in Northern California. And it went on, and on - more graphic photos and horrifying details with every passing day. As the story grew, it became even more incomprehensible to my fourteen year-old mind. 900 people - 900 men, women, and children in a mass suicide (some were murdered, as was later discovered) - lined up and drank poison. Cyanide laced fruit punch...

And, somehow, over the years this horrific episode in the history of religious extremism - and mass hysteria - has been trivialized to the point of becoming short-hand for blind obedience. You hear people on tv, news commentators and pundits, saying that so-and-so 'drank the kool-aid' because they agreed with a politician in the opposition party. Every time I hear that, I feel a knife twisting in the hearts of the loved ones of those 900 people. People who survived - parents, spouses, siblings, children - hearing people turn the horror and tragedy of that day, 30 years ago, into a colloquialism. I didn't know any of the victims of Jonestown, or even anyone who did, but that event had a deep and lasting impact on my life and I feel that those people, whose journey started out in love and hope, deserve better than to have their deaths become a joke.

Sorry for the lecture, I hate to sound so preachy. It's just that, as someone who has an interest in the origins of expressions, sometimes I've found out some troubling facts about 'harmless' sayings I've been using for years. And, when I learn those facts, I try not to use the sayings anymore, because of the hurt that is associated with the past, and may be caused by it's usage in the present. Words do matter. Especially when you don't know who might be listening...

(Here's a Chronicle article from 1998: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/e/a/1998/11/08/NEWS4041.dtl)

Let's Pretend

If you had the ear of President-Elect Obama, what would you say to him? Would you offer congratulations, ask for a job, give advice? Would you recommend people for cabinet positions or a family-friendly, hypo-allergenic breed of dog?

You tell me your 'hot topic' of discussion with P.E. O, and I'll tell you mine...



I just thought this was great, and wanted to share it with as many people as possible:

Woo-Hoo!!!!!

Is this the dawning of a new day for our Republic? Will it be enough? I can only HOPE...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXywSZ-Zdmg

I Confess, I'm Afeared!!!

Paranoid loon, thy name is ferret. I have this horrible sense of foreboding. After 2000, and then 2004, it's hard to have faith in our elections. Vote switching, and suppression - here we go again. When you see people waiting 7 hours to early vote - what is this, some banana republic?!?!? I fear that tomorrow is going to be a cluster f**k for the ages!!! People shouldn't have to miss work, risk wages or even their jobs to vote. Is it as Rachel Maddow says, the new poll tax?

We need election day to be a national holiday. Or, is the solution to have mandatory vote by mail, like they do in Oregon? Move it to the first Saturday?

So, if you haven't already - VOTE! I'll check in before I lose consciousness after a 15-hour day at the polls...ain't democracy grand?

And now, for your (immature) viewing pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX1ZGhaGjMo