Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes

Today was super windy, but warmer than it’s been for a long time so I hardly minded the wind.  It’s been howling by my window all day, though, and it’s hard to remind myself its not the howl of a blizzard and that when I go outside it’s actually quite nice, compared to how the winter’s been at least.

I really, really hope things will start getting better for me again.  I’ve had a very hard winter.

Today I got at least a small downpayment on what I hope will be a gradually more positive outlook now the worst of the winter is passing.  I did a good deed!  I did something nice for a stranger and, as often happens, it did me at least as much good as it did the other person.

See, I was walking towards my apartment, turning up a side street offf Mass Ave. and I saw a woman picking up a bunch of papers.  I almost kept on going but I noticed that a few- maybe 5 or so- had blown off down the street and I still probably would have done nothing but it occurred to me that while she picked up the ones closest to her the ones that had begun to blow away might get blown even farther.  So I turned back and grabbed them up before they could cause any more trouble.

I handed them to her, and she said thank you in a lovely African accent, and I said of course, no problem, and she said “Bless you” and I felt such a nice feeling I wanted to say “Thank you” but obviously you don’t say thank you when you’ve been the one doing something nice for someone, so I turned it into “uh, you too” and continued on towards my apartment saying a silent “thank you” to god and the universe and whoever else might be receptive to a silent thank you.

I have a theory, you know, that god is necessary in order for us to have a place to say our thank yous.  Today was the first time in way way too long that I’ve had reason to remember that.

Today is the anniversary of the decision of FDR to order that Japanese Americans during WWII would be sent to camps for the duration.  Internment Day.

More than any other single piece of American history the detention of the Japanese during that war has always nagged at me, pulling at any bits of national pride and patriotism I’ve managed to assemble.  World War II wasn’t so far back that we can sooth ourselves believing that a different standard of morality applies, the way we do to excuse the slaveholders amongst our presidents.  Franklin Roosevelt wasn’t a villian, a terrible despot who did bad things in the name of the good people of America- to the contrary, he was one of our great leaders, a name that stands for New Deals and Public Works and championing the little guy.  And World War II itself is supposed to be the easy war, the good war, the one war we can hold up and say in this case there were good guys and there were bad guys, and we were with the good guys.

Except, what there were in WWII were really really bad guys and everyone else.  Everyone else got to be angels, by default I guess.

It just bothers me, you know?  To think that as we went off to fight the evil Nazis and put an end to their horrific policy of rounding up the Jews and sending them to concentration camps because the logical end result of racism is to try and get rid of everyone who isn’t the same race as you are…  meanwhile…  we were rounding Japanese up and sending them to, er, camps.  And we weren’t rounding up Germans or Italians, so the inescapable conclusion is that we were doing it because of racism.

There are things that the left does that are hard to swallow for the average person.  Arguing for the civil rights of terrorists and child molesters is ugly work.  It’s easy to hate a lawyer who gets a murderer off on a technicality or argues that a member of Al Quaida ought to be released immediately due to lack of evidence.  There’s no real tragedy in not respecting the rights of a pedophile, is there?  Of course there isn’t.  Would anybody really shed a tear if we got Osama Bin Laden and gave him a good waterbording, before putting him on trial and then executing him?

The only reason to fight for the civil rights of bad people is that if you don’t then sooner or later you’ll lose the civil rights of everyone.  The only justification I can think of for taking evil’s side in an argument is to prevent a greater evil.  I wish I could trust that my country would always know where the line is and never stray across it.  Then things would be so much easier!  We could have torture for the pedophiles and cake and cookies for the children, hooray!

But we rounded up the Japanese and locked them in camps at a time when we were supposed to be the good guys.  So I guess it’s no torture for anyone and the cake and cookies will have to be inspected by the Food and Drug Administration.

Well, I’m sure all my tens of readers will be waiting with baited breath to find out what my grade was on my first paper for my writing class.  I got an A!  (minus).  A 93, to be exact.

I’m really glad.  Especially since all the points I lost were in the sort of minor formatting errors I always seem to make on papers.  It’s not that I don’t care about getting the details right in terms of exactly how things are supposed to be formatted, it’s that I’m arrogant.  I do my best to follow the guidelines exactly, but if something is left a little unclear I’ll just assume that either it doesn’t matter or that I’m smart enough to figure out what was meant without asking.

I’ve never been a true perfectionist on grades, and I don’t think I ever could be.  There’s some core of rebellion in me that assumes if I’m doing everything that teacher says I’m compromising some sort of principle.  There’s also this annoying parallel track whereby if I do get a really high grade my opinion of the class and whoever is teaching it is lowered.  Authority figures really can’t win with me.

Anyway, on what I consider the “important” things, the things related to the quality of my thinking and the clarity of my writing, I did pretty near perfectly.  So I’m allowed to live, at least a little longer.

Last but not least (to the 2.1 readers who may still be interested) I’m pretty close to having decided on the major assignment for the class, an 8-18 page short story or novel chapter.  I’m going with the short story, and what I think I’m doing is a story about a boy on vacation in a summer place in Maine not unlike the one my family spent vacations at who finds a dead body which may or may not be that of a mythical creature.  Basically I describe him finding a dead fairy and getting his dad to come and then dad calls the police, etc.  Only afterwards when he mentions it again his dad denies that it was ever a dead fairy, just some guy who probably got drunk and wound up drowing.

I’d love to hear what people think of my idea- in my mind it sort of splits the difference between writing a ‘literary’ story and writing a fantasy or sci-fi story.  I originally was thinking I would go with a dead alien, and I might still, but I thought maybe a dead fairy would be more symbolic of the death of childhood or whatever.  I dunno, ya know?

This is a pretty big tangent, even considering my occasional political ramblings, but I’ve been thinking lately about the Isreali/Palestinian conflict and, specifically, whether or not I believe that there are some things that are true that you still should never admit are true or talk about.

First off, my family came to America from Italy and Ireland.  My grandparents were all born here, but their parents were immigrants.  Suppose for a moment that instead of coming here voluntarily one of my great grandparents had been forcibly evicted from his or her house and made to leave.  Would that give me the right to go back to Italy or Ireland and kill whoever I found living in the house that once belonged to my ancestor?

Of course not.

As far as I’m concerned, this analogy applies equally to both sets of people.  The people living in Isreal right now ought to be allowed to stay there.  Isreal has existed for long enough that the “2 wrongs don’t make a right” rule seems pretty obviously applicable.

However.  Deep down, I believe that Isreal and the western countries that supported its creation were in the wrong to do so.  There were people living there, and no one had any right to carve Isreal out and give it to anyone.  Bible notwithstanding.

The dilemma in my mind, though, isn’t whether I believe that the Palestinian beef with Isreal is pretty much right and that Isreal has a ton to answer for in both its history and its current treatment of the Palistinian people.  The dilemma in my mind is whether people should freely admit this and talk about it openly if they also believe that Isreal should be allowed to continue to exist as a country and as a Jewish homeland.  I’m in favor of Isreal not being wiped out, so does that mean I should avoid admitting that all the arguments against it are pretty much on target?

Here’s another analogy.  Imagine you have a wife or husband, and they are in a dispute with someone you don’t know all that well.  Your wife or husband has told you all sorts of bad things about this person, but you’re a fair minded type and you’ve mostly stayed neutral.  Then one day you’re at a holiday party and the two of them begin to argue, and the other guy brings up some of the biggest flaws your husband or wife has in their character.  They hurl insults at your loved one, they say terrible things, but all the things they say happen to be, ultimately, true.

You worry that coming from you the repetition of these claims against your loved one might destroy them.  You worry about helping the cause of your loved one’s enemy.  You worry that to agree with any of this enemy’s points would make your wife or husband believe you weren’t supportive, didn’t love them, weren’t willing to stand by them.

I think some people would say it’s more important and ultimately more helpful to tell the truth in a loving way.  Other people would say there  are some things it’s better to let go unsaid.  Sometimes hearing a hard truth might be necessary, and from somebody you trust it might be easier to hear it.  But everybody has their flaws, and they know that, and what they really need is for you to have their back when they’re in trouble.

Truth telling is a hard thing to hold sacred.

Well, here’s more griping about my class.  This week one of two stories we had to read was by Flannery O’Connor, called “Good Country People.”  You can find it by following this link but let me be perfectly clear:  I do NOT recommend this story.  In fact, I recommend you avoid reading it if you have any interest in maintaining a positive life outlook.

It’s the worst example of everything I hate about so-called “literary” fiction.  Why write something that tells people to give up all hope, people are evil, life is bleak, you might as well shoot yourself?  Why write something that makes people feel awful.  I call it emotionally manipulative writing and I flat out do not understand what about this sort of writing is considered preferrable to something that makes you think, or makes you go “wow” or makes you laugh.  I’d much rather laigh, personally.

Our weekly creative writing, 40 minutes of it, was based on this horrible story that the professor clearly thinks VERY highly of.  We were asked to put ourselves in the shoes of one of the characters and write from their perspective.

SOOO…  I wrote a happy ending?  hehehe.  I wrote from the woman named Joy and basically had her gaining a new perspective on life from her horrible soul-deadening experience and deciding to be a better person.  Not exactly what the author or my professor had in mind, I’m betting, but fuck it.  We’ll see how it goes over but it sure made me feel better.  Take that Flannery O’Connor, you humourless bitch.  I can make your depressing and awful story upbeat and hopeful.  Hah!

Update:  After looking a tiny bit deeper into Flannery O’Connor I’ve realized that this horrible woman actually may have intended the reader to think that there would be a “happy” ending and that the woman would begin to be a better person.  So, this is pretty funny since when I wrote that as an ending I was trying to imagine the leadt likely development possible.  Which means either that I’m not good at understanding short stories or that I hate Flannery O’Connor all the more after finding that she was a devout Catholic who thought by putting her poor characters in soul-deadening experiences they would repent and find Jesus.  JEEEEE-SUS.

I passed in my first paper for class today.  I got it in early, by more than a full day, even.  It was a pretty short assignment, a 5 paragraph essay, and my mind has been on overdrive about it almost since the moment I read the syllabus.

I want an A.  I want an A in the class and an A on the paper.  For now, that is.  I am perfectly capable of getting an A on the first paper and then blowing the rest of the class off completely.

I just want proof that I deserve to be alive.  Is that asking too much from a grade on a paper for a class that will in no way impact real life at all and makes no difference whatsoever?  My dad (who is paying for the class) sees it as a fun thing, something to occupy my time.  I see it as the one way to judge whether or not I have the right to continue breathing.

See, I haaate myself.  I hate my parasitic existence, the way I don’t do anything, don’t work, don’t have any life at all.  I’m such a useless person.  But if I get an A in this class it’s like a sign, see?  A sign that I really could do something more, that maybe I could eventually come out of this bad patch.

But only if I get an A.  If I get a B, well, obviously I’m completely useless and everything is hopeless and I should never bother trying ever again.

Now, I can totally see how silly this all is.  An A doesn’t mean I have value as a person, and a B or lower doesn’t mean I have no value.  I can see this, rationally.  Emotionally, though, is a different story.  With nothing else to hang my self esteem on it seems I’m hanging it all on this stupid essay about the use of the third person in some lame-ass short story for a class that I’m not thrilled about and a professor I’m still trying to decide if I respect at all or not.

Today my parents came by and we went to see the movie Coraline, which opened today in 3D.  They originally wanted us to see Slumdog Millionaire instead, which I objected to because first off they’d already seen it and far more importantly, it wasn’t a stop-motion animated movie based on a book written by my favorite author in the universe, Neil Gaiman.

I’m sure Slumdog was great but man did I ever make the right decision.  Coraline took my breath away.  It was beautiful and the idea that it was all done with stop-motion figures was amazing.  The 3D was totally perfect- not over-the-top and in your face, but cool and exciting in a way that made the fairy tale world of the story come to life believably.

There’s a great scene with a magical garden, and another with a circus of jumping mice that were my favorites.  The very beginning, before Coraline goes through the door into the sinister magic alternate of her own world I wasn’t quite as crazy about, and I felt even in the book that once she realizes the other world is sinister the pacing goes a little too quickly for my taste.

But mostly, it was perfect.  See it.  SEE IT!  I was so greatful to my parents for going with me.  Even though I’m almost 31 years old my idea of heaven, today at least, was to see an animated movie with my parents.