Pro v Pro, and no one's going anywhere

Abortion.  There you go, fair warning.  That’s what I’m (sort of) talking about.

A few weeks ago was the 37th anniversary of that most important, divisive and insanely obvious court decision: Roe v. Wade.  I can’t think of any case that is more famous.  Brown v. Board of Education?  Nah.  Plessy v. Ferguson?  Wha?  George Bush v. Sanity?  Only in my court.

Nope, Roe v. Wade has to be the single most well-known court case of our era (however long that is).

It’s a celebrity more passionately loved and hated than even Brangelina can muster up (I don‘t trust her.  I liked Rachel better.) with just about everyone feeling strongly about it.  That includes me of course, so on a vaguely nice Sunday afternoon I rode my creaky green bicycle to downtown Portland to attend a protest/counter-protest.

It was sunny as I left the house, rained on the way there, and was rainbowlicious when I arrived.  This cycle was repeated throughout the day, as the sky just couldn’t decide whether to rain on our insanity parade or not.  This was actually pretty refreshing, because the weather was the only thing showing any indecision or flexibility that day, everyone else had their mind resolutely made up.

Arriving at Pioneer Square, I went looking for a bike rack (which was a surprisingly difficult task) and about five steps into my search the first plastic bag was thrust at me.  My butt was thoroughly soggy from the ride (I gotta get a fender, man) and I just wanted to lock up somewhere, so I declined the first one.  And the second.  And the thirdfourthfifthsixth ones.

It is a weird and unnerving thing, but I have noticed at the couple (how to say it…) “family values” events I’ve been to, the Right has a habit of using an army of earnest young women to hand out pamphlets.  This is particularly eerie to me at an abortion event.  You have the implicit presence of intercourse lurking in everyone’s mind, and here is this squadron of bright-eyed tweenage girls imploring you.  The entreaties of innocent fecundity.  Sounds like Victorian porn.

I have to say, if I died and received paradise of 40 virgins, and they were like these ones?  I would not be resting in peace.  It’s creepy!

By the seventh heartfelt pamphleteer, I couldn’t just brush past again (they‘re so clever!), so when she reached out her plastic bag to me (I can only imagine the midnight frenzies the night before as all those pamphlets were crammed into plastic bags) I stopped to ask her what it was.

“Information” she said.  Her new-fallen snow innocence made one word sound like a story about baby bunny rabbits.

“Ah.  Um…  For which side?”  I had to ask.

She was trained and ready.  “It’s just the Truth.  Pure Truth.”  You could easily hear the capital T.

“Oh, well I like Truth.”  This sounds snarkier now than it did at the time, I was earnest right back at her.  I of course later wished I’d said something like “whose Truth?  Don‘t we all get to decide that for ourselves?”  But maybe that would have been too preachy anyway.

I took the bag, removed its dry contents and read them over.  It took a few paragraphs to start hearing about how Jesus wants me to have babies.

I politely thanked her and handed it back.  I could immediately see the light in her eyes put on a shroud of mourning as they watched another sinner doom himself to eternal hellfire.  I had to try to perk her up, or explain, or something.

“Thank you…  Isn’t it funny how an issue can seem so obvious to everyone, but on opposite sides of the question?”  (This fact blew my mind after the 2004 presidential election.)

She just kind of blinked at me.  So I fumbled on.  “Everyone seems to have made up their minds so strongly.  I guess it’s no wonder everyone wants to advertise to children, they’re the only ones who maybe haven’t decided everything yet.”  (Thankfully neither of us at the time caught the inherent link to USING children, as well as targeting them.)

She said something like “some things you just know to be True.”  That capital letter was back.

“I agree.  You can only examine your feelings and beliefs and personal experience, and come to a conclusion.”  We just sort of looked at each other for a second.

“Have a nice day.”

“You too.”  She turned and thrust my rejected salvation at another passerby, who brushed past her without answering, lowering a shoulder like he expected her to try and cross-check him into the boards.

I finally found the bike racks.  They were in No Man’s Land, right between the picket lines.  On one side, the Pro-Life people had set up a huge stage and sound system in the square and were taking turns giving strategy speeches.  (I really wish I had written down the word they used for non-pro-lifers.  The Unredeemed?  The Unsaved?  It was something sanctimoniously ominous like that.)

On the other side of the street, on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse was the counter-protest.  (The budding faithful pamphleteers were not on this side of the square.  Just cops.)

The Pro-Choice folks were gathered around.  My People!  Their eyes seemed to shine with less zeal, but more (grim?) resolution.  And they had a bullhorn.  And they were chanting.

My God.  The chanting.  The slogans.  With all due respect…is there anything more useless?  Has anyone’s opinion ever been altered or informed by a chant?  I stood there, amazed, evading skull-crushing irritation by finding the whole thing rather humorous, as the groups on either side of the street peered at each other in a profound lack of conversation.  One side had irresponsible signs, the other had obnoxious chants.  No one was getting any closer to…anything.  Except window-smashing frustration.  “Hey hey, ho ho, this (insert label) has got to go!”
(I always associate that one with the movie PCU.  Remember that one?  Early 90s.  The “Womenists” walk around chanting “hey hey, ho ho, this penis party’s got to go!”  Good movie.)

Occasionally individuals would sling barbs back and forth, although they seemed kind of half-hearted on the soggy cement.  Thank goodness again for Oregon rain.

It was all just so ridiculous.  I was 2% proud and 98% maddened that the most useful and productive interaction I saw all day was when I was talking to Bright-eyes.  I was wishing I’d said more overtly that I respected her opinion.  Although it seems like whenever anyone says something like “I respect your viewpoint…” it is really just a formality before they say the inevitable “BUT…”

Standing at the edge of a puddle of water, watching two puddles of people, I felt like there has to be a better way.  I wanted to step in and negotiate.  “Okay, you put down your giant picture of a bloody baby, that really has nothing to do with the issue anyway and is tremendously unproductive, we’ll put away our bullhorn and stop the maddening chants, and we can all change out of our camou pants and talk.”

Then we would meet in the middle (well not the literal middle, that was an active street) and maybe actually, you know, talk?  Is that too naïve?  Are my eyes shining so much, I really should be passing out pamphlets?  Can anyone really talk about anything anymore?  Can we find something to agree on?  It really shouldn’t be that hard.

Here: we all agree, killing babies is no good.  No one likes abortions.  There is no Pro-Abortion movement.  “What do you have coming up this month?”  “Well, it’s my birthday on the 15th, so on the 16th I’ve planned to treat myself to an abortion, yay!”  It seems obvious to me that the logical next step is to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies.  But we can’t even agree on that!  And why?  Because Jesus hates birth control.  Uh huh.

No birth control, then what?  Abstinence “education.”  Uh huh.  Hard to deal with that one seriously.  It takes me back to the days when people were discussing “the faith-based community” versus “the reality-based community.”  (If you haven’t heard of that stuff and can stomach reading about the Dark Ages of Bush, check out the NY Times article by Ron Suskind here: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html  About 2/3 of the way down he talk about this.)

Okay, my attempts at maturity, even-minded discourse have obviously flickered out.  Right now I just want to smack the Pope upside the miter.  Jesus hates birth control?  Really?  Really?!?

Well, that’s three pages, and gotten precisely nowhere.  Let’s all go get ice cream.

No, okay, there was one good thing: there were people there.  It is depressing to think of all those walking bodies with stationary minds, but that ignores the fact that they wouldn’t be there if they hadn’t already done that introspection (or something like it).  These people were out, in the rain, spending their Sunday afternoon to show support for what they believe in.  That’s gotta be a good thing.  Right?  The Virgin Cadets were out in the real world, away from computers and video games and Us Weekly, interacting with people.

And maybe, just maybe, if we can all stop the iron-clad and generally repellent practices, they can each get the chance to honestly decide how they feel.  We’re never going to get to the point of honest discussion as long as we demonize each other.  (And really, what is more demonic than “baby-killer”?)  For me it comes back to the guy with the sign saying “As long as abortion is legal, I choose to cut down 365 trees a year.”  That is insane.  He is saying “I am so against you, I am against everything you presumably stand for, whether this makes any sense or not.”  He would actively harm to the entire planet in order to show his opposition.

Or the group that so hates Obama, that when he supported Chicago for the Olympics, they formed a group to oppose him.  (Did you see that episode of the Daily Show?)

Actually, you know who said it best?  Exactly the person who should be saying it best.  Can you guess?  Ladies and gentlemen, the star of my optimism: Barack Obama!  http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/obamagopqa/
This is from his Q&A with House Republicans.  The entire thing is worth watching, believe me, but at one part he talk about how the Republican party has demonized him so much, that they have backed themselves into a position where they can’t agree with him or work with him on anything without incurring the ire of their constituents.  And the worst part it…I understand that.  During the reign of BushCo, I was pretty automatically against anyone working with him.  I thought he was that vile.  Man oh man, do we need to get past that type of situation.

Do you know how badly I want to have a real dialogue?  How much I want to respect the Republican platform?  I respect the old Republican party.  The ones who thought government shouldn’t interfere with people’s liberty (wiretaps anyone?), small government (Homeland Security anyone?), and…basically anything besides manipulation of the masses to support the richest 1%.

I find myself somewhat fondly remembering the 90s, when the Dem and Rep candidates were really not that different.  Clinton/Dole?  Really not that scary of a decision.  Of course, I personally think of Clinton as the single best Republican president we’ve ever had, but that’s again, just me.  Anyway, maybe Reagan-Bush was just such a massive swing out to the extreme, that we need a pendulum swing back (God, wouldn’t it be great if we got 5 terms too?) and then we can go back to something resembling the middle ground.

I find it odd that I am saying this, because of course I personally want the country to live way out to the Left.  But the basis of our system is that it stays central.  Nothing too crazy.  Which means no maverick president invading countries for his own business objectives, and means….okay, I can’t think of a parallel for Obama…but nothing too extreme.

That being said I have to declare: Sarah Palin gets elected and I am done with this country.  If we willfully choose ignorance, I am jumping ship.  I’ll save a section on the ark for Reformed members of the Virgin Cadets, and of course you are welcome, but the Tea Party People can sink on their own.

Damn, I’m getting divisive again.  Time for that ice cream.

Let the countdown begin

Happy pre-anniversary! In exactly one month (and it’s February, so it’s a tidy 4 weeks, no less) I will be flying east towards Belgium.

I’m celebrating with a bowl of ice cream and a brownie. Only since life has to be weird, the ice cream is oddly chewy (who knew that brand that starts with D- and ends with -reyers was so crappy?) and the brownie tastes like curry. At least I understand the second part: it tastes like curry because there is curry in it. Yeah, curry brownies. And I’m enjoying it.

That is actually kind of an apt metaphor for how this 4 month phase of life has been: delicious, but kinda weird. I have been living in Portland, Oregon, with a pair of newlyweds, one obese cat, one nearly feral cat, one Chihuahua, three periodically-dying snails, and a couple of basement trolls. (I say trolls with all due respect, but there is something inherently cave trollish about basement studios. Although the current guy is more lanky, so he’s maybe more of a Gollum, only extremely likeable. Nothing against Gollum or anything…okay, I’m getting sidetracked again.)

The other obvious comparison for my last 4 months (besides curry brownies) is hibernation. I have found no work beyond a day here and there, don’t socialize a particularly huge amount, and deliberately do my grocery shopping in small amounts so that it can continue to provide a reason for leaving the house (especially since the rain has set in).

Sounds like both the ideal life of freedom and the nightmarish life of usefulness, doesn’t it? Who knew losers and winners could cohabit the same reality?

Now, to be fair, I have been pretty busy. I have been studying Dutch, taking an online TEFL course (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), writing a book (I know, I know), and studying for the Foreign Service Officer test for the State Department. Oh and I made a blanket. (More on that later. If I remember.)

Basically, I am doing nothing tangible in the moment in order to prepare for possible futures. All of those activities are hopefully laying the groundwork for a future reality, I just have no idea which one(s) are actually possible.

The Foreign Service Officer test is an easy one: it’s hard. I am more unprepared for that test than I have ever been for any test or evaluation of any kind that I have ever taken. It feels kind of…disturbing? My high school government teacher was a great guy, but he belonged at a tailgate party more than in a classroom. In his class I learned how to shuffle properly and got much better at Rummy.

For the FSO test, I basically realized that I have only a tiny chance of getting the job without an advanced degree, and I am honestly not sure I want one anyway, so I relegated that one to a distant fourth place priority.

The book. Yeah. Everyone’s doing it. But it would be so cool! I could do it wherever, whenever, however I wanted! Right? It’s just that easy, right? Well, you are presumably reading this on a blog (if I ever make one and anyone ever reads it) so that may indicate the current status of the book. If you think I should write one, just send me a check for $40,000 and I’ll get right to it. (Would it make you more or less generous if I’d said “I’ll get write to it”? Hopefully less…but be forewarned, these things occur to me and I can‘t always control them.)

The teaching English thing. Another widely-applicable career option that utilizes the one specialty I have to offer an employer: I am a native English speaker. I know, that puts me in a very elite group of millions of people, but hey, I am not going to waste the fact that my Mother Tongue has become the lingua franca for international relations (sorry France, go back and watch some more Olympics. And forgive me China, I was just kidding.).

So I am taking this online course to get a TEFL certificate. It is an entire syllabus dedicated to teaching people how to teach…and they are downright shitty teachers. Most of the stuff is utterly useless (says me with my complete lack of experience I know, but you should see this crap) and the basic structure seems to be to introduce arbitrary language to describe subjective topics, then quiz me on it as though it were inarguable fact. And they make hella typos too. It is so upsetting I just said “hella.” I need to go lie down. (Or is it “lay down”? Crap.)

Then there’s the Dutch. Ah…the Dutch! It bears mentioning that the fundamental cause for all of this activity is a trip I took last year through Europe. Over 9 months and a couple dozen countries I lost a travel towel and gained a girlfriend. Pretty good trade, if I do say so myself. (The towel kinda smelled like rubber and felt like insulation anyway. While the girl’s smell and feel are a substantial improvement. She‘ll blush if she ever reads that. Sorry, honey.)

She lives in Belgium, in the northern, Flemish-speaking region of Flanders. Flemish is basically Dutch, and I live across the street from a library, so I have the majority of the Multnomah County Library system’s materials on the Dutch language.

This seems like the most useful of my endeavors…but it also has the least accountability, so over the last month I have peeped at the book a handful of times. Usually for the duration of my pot of oatmeal.

So that is my life right now. Preparations for various possible life paths, all marinating in a thick sauce of anxiety and nervousness, but I’ll leave that for another time (because I can’t imagine anyone would really want to read that much blog at once, and besides, I want more ice cream.)

Oh! But the blanket thing. I guess I can get that little blurb on here too. (Can I still call it a “blurb” on a blog or have they invented some new term for that too? Blurg?) My initial time in this house had a particular characteristic. It seemed like whenever I did anything, it would go generally well but I’d screw up one detail that would largely invalidate the entire thing. I made a big batch of chili, great fresh vegetables perfectly cooked…but with so much chili powder you couldn’t taste anything but Hades. My bike was all tuned up and ready to go…but I didn’t have enough lights to ride in this most responsible of bicycling towns. And then the blanket. The f-ing blanket.

Now, I normally don’t tell people this until we’ve known each other for awhile…but I’m…not like other guys…no, I don’t turn into fancy-dancing werewolves in red leather, no I don’t have ovaries, and no, I don’t like to dress up like the Philadelphia Phanatic in the bedroom. Much worse. I crochet.

I know, I know, your grandma crochets. I should hang out with her.

But hey man, that shit was invented by pirates! (Seriously, that’s the story I heard, they couldn’t get their nets fixed in normal ports or shops, so they developed crocheting so they could do it themselves in between bouts of pillaging and looting. So maybe there’s something about your grandma you didn’t know, isn’t there Mr. Smartypants. Yeah, that’s right, me and your grandma are going pillaging on Friday night. Jealous much?)

So I decided to make a blanket. I was watching a lot of The Office and 30 Rock, and wanted something relatively “productive” to do in order to justify it. So I bought a bunch of yarn and started a blanket. I made the first row, measured it out to the length of a full sized comforter, and spent hours and hours making it.

I was a good three weeks in before anyone asked to see the whole thing spread out, and you can imagine my consternation when I unfurled the damn thing to find that I had screwed something up, and it was TWICE as long as I had intended. So I am now the confused possessor of the world’s largest blanket. The thing must weigh 25 pounds. Entire farms of sheep are naked and shivering to feed my busywork. And the rub (aye, there’s the Hamlet) is that it is so large as to be basically useless. You have to be willing to wrestle for 5 minutes to get it all sorted out, after which time you are warm enough that you don’t want it anymore.

I am thinking about doubling it over and making it into a peculiar sleeping bag. That might work.

The point is, I was doing stuff, but nothing was working out quite right. I still have that feeling, although thanks to the reliability of cooking lasagnas, it has lessened somewhat.

So anyway, that’s my first blog post. Thank you, it was an absolutely delightful way to procrastinate from my stupid internet course. I’m going to go back to reading endless paragraphs about reconciling main aims, subordinate aims, personal aims, procedures, structures, themes, and all sorts of other blah-blahing about lesson plans now.

Or maybe I should make another cup of tea first….