The blog entry I hesitated to post

I hesitated to post this entry, because it’s about a controversial person and a controversial book. I worried that if I wrote what I felt, some people would think that I supported terrorism. The attitude of Elizabeth Taylor (see last post) is poking me in the back of my head, telling me to damn the torpedoes of criticism. So, here goes.

Earlier this year, I read the book Fugitive Days by Bill Ayers. (Interestingly enough, I bought it on September 11 at Small World Books in Venice, CA. Every time I go into Small World, I buy something. You should, too – it’s one of the best independent bookstores in Los Angeles County. And it’s near the beach!)

It’s the story about how a typical middle-class kid from Illinois became liberalized, and then radicalized, simply by paying attention to the world around him. In the 1960s and 1970s, Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, who reacted to the atrocity of the Vietnam War by attempting to “bring the war home” – giving America a taste of the agony it was inflicting on the Vietnamese. The WU claimed credit for about 25 bombings overall in the U.S., including one at the Pentagon in 1970 – though the only people ever killed with WU bombs were three members of the WU itself, while they were handling explosives at a Greenwich Village brownstone. Bill Ayers and his fellow WU members spent most of the 1970s as fugitives, but when he turned himself in, the charges against him didn’t stand because of illegal surveillance on the part of the FBI.

Fugitive Days forced me to ask myself questions – how far am I willing to go to fight injustice? What is the proper response when your government is the criminal? Does answering violence with violence work in the long run?

It’s hard not to cheer a group of ordinary people wanting an end to war, racism, sexism, and other steamrollers that crush the human spirit. It’s hard not to cheer when this group strikes back against a monolithic, heartless war machine.

On the other hand…

The WU and other radical groups could be just as dogmatic, rigid, and tunnel-visioned as their enemies – a fact that Ayers makes painfully clear.

And then, there’s the bombs.

What, empirically speaking, is the difference between the Weathermen who plant bombs in the Pentagon and the anti-abortion activists who plant bombs in Planned Parenthood offices? Had the WU had made good on its threat to “bring the war home,” people who didn’t cause, affect, or even approve of the Vietnamese conflict would have died.

Uncritical approval carries with it moral risk. Bombs, no matter who throws or plants them, tear people apart – figuratively as well as literally.

Bill Ayers and the other WU members who stayed on the right side of the law since 1980 have enjoyed peaceful and productive lives since then. I have no problem with that. When certain members of the right wing tried to smear then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama because Ayers hosted a campaign event for Obama back in 1995, I rolled my eyes. (Most other voters did, too.)

Fugitive Days is a harrowing story of people who tested the limits of their values. I recommend it no matter your place in the political spectrum. If it makes you think that planting bombs is a great idea, you didn't read it close enough.

How to be a movie star (or at least think like one)

I just read a book called How To Be A Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood by William J. Mann. This was not the first book I’ve read about this subject – for an escape-starved girl, Ms. Taylor’s saga of movies, marriages, and money was one of the greatest ever told. This new book, however, is not the conventional Hollywood bio.

It’s the story of how Ms. Taylor (and the entourage around her) grew, nurtured, and fought for that invisible but knockout-punch-powerful quality called stardom – fighting (and winning!) against the patriarchal studio system, vindictive gossip columnists, and the suffocating moral conservatism of Middle America.

I have new admiration for Ms. Taylor after reading Mr. Mann’s book. Of course, my fantasies have evolved over the years – I don’t want eight husbands, diamonds the size of golf balls, or cigarette holders that go with my dress and my tablecloth. (But I would be happy to take two candlelit baths a day.)

The greatest legacy of Ms. Taylor is her “fuck-you” attitude towards the obstacles of life. I, too, seek greater independence in my work life, being able to pick and choose worthy projects instead of being tied down to the rules and needs of just one company. I want to no longer care about pleasing people who wouldn’t extend the same toward me. I want to say, “This is what I’m going to do, and you’re just going to have to wait.” I want to be strong without degenerating into bitchiness. (I don’t care what anybody says – “bitch” is not a good thing to be.) I want to enjoy life without reservations.

Read the book, and learn more than you ever imagined.

(P.S. From this post on, I’m only going to capitalize the first word of a blog entry, unless there are given names involved. It got too tiresome to figure out which short words to capitalize or not. As much as I am a stickler for grammar, I’d rather concentrate on expressing my thoughts than worrying about capitalization minutae!)

Question: "Do Two Rudes Make a Polite?" Answer: No.

This morning, I came upon this two-week-old article in the New York Times: As the Rudes Get Ruder, the Scolds Get Scoldier.

It's about so-called "etiquette vigilantes" who think that the best way to deal with rude (or at least what they think is rude) behavior from other people is an equally strong counter-offense. One Amy Alkon, self-described "manners psycho" (isn't that an oxymoron?), after overhearing a cell phone conversation at Starbucks, wrote down his cell phone number, called him, and said, "Just calling to let you know, Barry, that if you’d like your private life to remain private, you might want to be a little more considerate next time."

That is:

a. Creepy,
b. Creepy,
and c. Just as rude.

Since when is it okay to fight rudeness with rudeness? I thought that politeness was an act of kindness to your fellow beings. You hold the door open for other people because it's nice, not because you expect to be thanked every time. If someone is rude to you or behaves rude in front of you, rise above it, and maintain your high standards anyway. Don't get down and dirty to their level.

Speaking of rudeness, I don't see nearly as much of it as these "etiquette vigilantes" (another oxymoron) and the complaining commenter class does. (Hey, I just created a new term! "Complaining commenter class" means the people who post negative, soul-sapping comments after Internet news articles.)

I have never been bothered by public cell phone conversations. They are no more loud than public conversations between two people standing or sitting in front of each other. At the movie theater, I have never heard a conversation (cell or person-to-person) loud enough to distract me from the movie. And where are all these beastly, running-amok children that Ms. Alkon and others say are ruining restaurants, stores, and other public spaces? When I see children in public, 99.9% of the time they are acting okay. When you form opinions, it's best to base them on what you see than on what "they" say.

People aren't that rude these days. It's just that complainers have gotten noisier, and have more outlets to do so. It's unfortunately easier to whine about what others do than to watch what we do. I say, watch yourselves first and foremost.

And While I'm Thinking About Holidays...

Here is a list of places where you can buy non-commercial toys for your kids (or yourself!) for Christmas, including web links:

Chinaberry
The Vermont Country Store
HearthSong
Back to Basics Toys
Cricket
MindWare
Museum Tour

If I had kids, I'd definitely stick to these merchants. Not a Spongebob, Dora, Transformer, or Barbie to be found -- just hands-on, evergreen toys that help kids think and dream.

Jerk the Turkey (From Your Thanksgiving Table)?

Quick, what are you going to have on your Thanksgiving table a week from now? If I could stand on top of my roof and see your thought bubbles, I’d probably see acres and acres of turkeys, golden brown and resting on oval plates.

Where is the law that requires you to drop a ten-to-twenty-pound bird on your table every Thanksgiving? No matter how many variations the food magazines throw at us – no matter if you bake, grill, fry, butterfly, chop it up into pieces or roll it up around stuffing, no matter if you coat it with sage butter, fennel and coriander, clementine peel, apple-cranberry glaze, paprika, rosemary and garlic, or plain salt and pepper, turkey carries with it two inconvenient truths:

1. Its meat is bland and dull, and
2. Unless you have a shipload of guests, the leftovers are going to linger longer than Sarah Palin.

Think about all the Thanksgiving dinners you have experienced. Was the turkey ever the most delicious item on the table? Turkey is just not a feast-worthy bird. Really.

What is? I would suggest duck, for starters. I’ve heard good tidings about goose, though I have never tried it myself. Cornish hens are an alternative that was on the table when Two Dogs and I had our first Thanksgiving together (actually, he is philosophically opposed to the holiday, but that’s a story for another time). Even a good-sized chicken or two will give you more flavor per pound.

Then again, why does it have to be a bird? Why not a flat-iron steak, or a pork tenderloin, a whole salmon, or lasagna? Even a stuffing casserole with butternut squash and cranberries sounds great, whether or not you’re a vegetarian.

Even if you are dead-set on turkey, why roast the whole big bird? Why not buy it in pieces? I got this idea while looking at turkey legs at Sprouts market. A single turkey breast can feed three, perhaps four people.

In the big picture, though, it really doesn’t matter what is on the table. What matters is the thanks giving– thinking about and discussing all you have to be grateful for. But it certainly does help when you have a feast that is delicious, not just abundant.

Why I Won’t Go See Precious

Tomorrow, the movie Precious will be released in certain cities across America. It is based on the 1996 novel “Push” by Sapphire (the title was changed due to another movie called “Push” released earlier this year). It is the story of a sixteen-year-old girl in Harlem who is the victim of horrific abuse from both her mother and her father. Eventually, she learns to read and write at a special school, and finally learns to use her (figurative) voice. It may be the best movie of 2009 that many people are not going to see. Including me.



As a writer and an artist, I am very nearly a First Amendment absolutist when it comes to content. Nothing should be off-limits when it comes to telling a story. Violence, rape, mental illness and degradation are all legitimate (and sometimes necessary) subjects. But a writer/artist’s right to expression is not mirrored with an audience’s obligation to read or view.

What good will it do me – or anyone else – to watch a girl being abused on an 80-x-30-foot screen? Yes, I know there’s uplift at the end, but it’s like walking on a path of nails, all points up, to get to a bowl of ice cream. The suffering/reward ratio is overloaded on the wrong end.

I would go so far to say that instead of going to see the movie, you can better help girls like Precious by donating to inner-city tutoring programs and rape education programs (which must speak to potential perpetrators as well as victims), being watchful for signs of abuse in your neighborhood, and raising the level of dignity and culture in your world (starting with you as a good example). Illiteracy is not a permanent condition, poverty does not excuse degeneracy, and even when we live in an ugly world we do not have to become one with it.

As I wrote before in an earlier post (“Why I Don’t Volunteer”, August 31), I absorb negative energy way too easily. Avoiding movies like Precious, while remaining aware of the issues behind them, is part of the self-defense I must do in order to be at my best. Don’t feel like you’re shallow or insensitive if you would rather see, say, The Men Who Stare at Goats this weekend. Only you can decide what you can take.

Buying Local and Natural – One Small Step at a Time

Like most of you reading this blog (I hope!) I strive to buy local and natural as often as I can. Two Dogs and I do most of our shopping within a five-mile radius of our home. We either go to several supermarkets, two within walking distance, or we go to our weekly farmer’s market. I am becoming more aware of ingredients, too, and I try to avoid unnecessary chemicals in my cleaning and grooming products. I recently made some homemade glass cleaner with water and vinegar, and eventually I’ll be making more homemade cleaning products as we need them.

One product I like very much that is both local and natural is Sturley’s Organic Soap. As of today, it sells four different scents: Café Brulot (made with coffee, cocoa and cinnamon), Naked Aloe (a aloe-based, almost scentless soap), Sweet Lavee (with lavender and orange oils) and pure Lavender. They also sell bath salts, bath bombs, chapstick, and soap-making tools. I think the next one I want to try is the Café Brulot -- it sounds like a great wake-up soap!

Sturley’s Organic Soap costs $6.99 a bar at the website. The company is based in the San Diego area.

If those pastel-colored, overly perfumed blocks you find at the supermarket give you an uneasy feeling, move on up to Sturley’s and get back to nature!