Distress Signals

Mom & Frankie watch the birdies

2006-07-26T16:07:00.000-05:00

Mom & Frankie watch the birdies
Originally uploaded by Critical Mess.

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My heart's just not in it

2005-02-17T22:30:00.000-06:00

You know, I thought we'd sunk to the bottom of the muck when Alberto Gonzales, the architect of the Bush administration's liberal torture policy, was confirmed for Attorney General. Of course, I was wrong. Now, Bush has nominated John Negroponte to serve as the nation's first National Intelligence Director. You probably know Mr. Negroponte from his recent stint as the head U.S. administrator in Iraq, or perhaps from his days as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. But for those of us who cut our political teeth during the long nightmare that was Ronald Reagan's foreign policy in Central America during the 1980's, John Dimitri Negroponte is infamously remembered as the point-man in the covert war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, turning Honduras into a murderous dictatorship in the process. I don't really have the stomach to go into detail, but here's a brief glimpse of the horrors he orchestrated.

I give up. Our nation's top cop advocates the use of torture, and the head of our new centralized intelligence agency ran a covert war that transformed Central America into the western hemisphere's version of the killing fields. Fucking fantastic. There was a time when the folks with these kinds of resumes were too tainted for visible political office. Now they occupy the top spots in the Bush administration. This is grotesque. Absurd and grotesque. And it's leading me to seriously reconsider the utility of venting. It's not making me feel any better, and it's clearly not making a difference. I think my time is better spent hammering out the remains of my dissertation, blogging about the baby, or working on fiction.

Adios.

New Blog!!

2005-02-12T13:31:00.000-06:00

For those of you following along at home, all future baby-related posts can be found at my new blog, Meet the Breeders (http://meetthebreeders.blogspot.com). Follow the trials and tribulations of the reluctantly procreative, and offer your unsolicited-but-much-appreciated wisdom and opinions on parental matters great and small.

sacrifice to fertility god pays off

2005-02-12T09:51:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything, primarily because the past month has been a blur, but also because I didn't think anyone was reading. As it turns out, Anna and Kim aren't the only folks who've taken an interest, so it looks like I'll be resuming transmissions. As for the blur, let me quickly recap the past month:

Shortly after my last blog entry, I decided not to scrap the dissertation, and have instead put the novel I'm working on aside until I'm finished with this damn PhD (special thanks go to Joel and my dad for knocking some sense into me). In between debate tournaments, and during a lull in the diss writing, we painted and remodeled the bathroom, and I added light fixture installation to my growing repertoire of home improvement skills. Feeling ever so domestic, and unwilling to wait another year before our tentatively scheduled wedding qualified me for health insurance through Anna's company (COBRA "benefits" are officially the rake), we decided to secretly wed on Valentine's Day. When we discovered it was too late to get a reservation at a decent restaurant on VDay, we decided to move the secret wedding up a couple of days. Fortunately, secret weddings are much more flexible than the real thing. Besides, what's the use of getting married if you can't celebrate with Crispy Oysters on Yucca Root Chips with Habenero Honey Aioli, Veal Osso Buco, and Rack of Lamb? So, we made our reservations at Jeffrey's, booked an appointment with the Justice of the Peace, and picked up the marriage license when I got back from Chicago on Tuesday. Then things got really interesting.

If you've been following Anna's blog, you know she's been feeling sickly for the past couple of weeks. In addition to lingering flu-like symptoms, she had begun to menstruate for the first time since going off the Pill in late August. After a couple of weeks, the bleeding wasn't letting up, so she decided to see an Ob-Gyn, just to make sure nothing was wrong. We both pretty much figured that years on the Pill had probably wreaked hormonal havoc on her uterus, and that the bleeding was just her body trying to reclaim the now-hostile environment of her would-be womb. Still, I was nervous. I couldn't help thinking about the other, more dire possibilities. I wondered whether I'd ever read anything linking birth control pills to cervical cancer, or if I even knew what the symptoms were. I forced myself to think of less traumatic possibilities - ruptured cysts, benign Fallopian tumors, fibroids or polyps, Menorrhagia - but even these often necessitated extreme treatments, including hysterectomy. Anna and I were still pondering the possibility of having children, and although neither of us felt any biological imperative to reproduce, I was saddened to think it might not even be an option. So, I waited and worried. I think I was working on the dissertation when she came home from the doctor.

"I thought you were going straight back to work? How'd it go?" The fact that she was home made me nervous, but when I walked into the kitchen Anna was smiling, which I immediately took to be a good sign.

"Well, I found out why I've been feeling sick." She handed me a fuzzy black and white photo. The image didn't immediately register. "I'm pregnant." I looked closer, and it suddenly began to make sense: the white teddy bear floating in the center of the dark circle was our child. "Ten weeks." Those four nubs are arms and legs, and the black spot in the center of its torso is a microscopic, beating heart. "I heard its heartbeat."

I don't remember much after that. Anna went back to work, and I sat, staring at the pictures of my unborn child. When my head stopped spinning, I called her. "I just want you to know, I've never been happier."

"a wonderful opportunity"

2005-01-18T17:04:00.000-06:00

"I do agree that the tsunami was a wonderful opportunity to show not just the US government, but the heart of the American people, and I think it has paid great dividends for us."
- Condoleezza Rice

Wow. Just...wow. Who would've thought it possible to descend beyond the depths achieved during the Senate confirmation hearings on Alberto Gonzales' nomination for attorney general? This cabinet is shaping up to be even more criminally appalling than the last. How hard is it to get Canadian citizenship?

Happy Sanctity of Human Life Day!

2005-01-16T09:52:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry I didn't get you a card or anything, but I hope you'll join us for our annual Sanctity of Human Life Day festivities. We'll be cutting the Sanctity of Human Life brisket around noon, then we're marching to the Planned Parenthood clinic to lob Molotov cocktails at the abortion technicians. As usual, Reverend Jim will be leading the Reconciliation of Incompatible Beliefs, focusing this year on the Great Conversion in Iraq and the obvious distinction between "human beings" and Muslims and other terrorists. And you definitely don't want to miss tonight's candlelight vigil as we observe the Lamentation of Murdered Fetuses. There will be much wailing and carrying on, then we're going back to the house for pie.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're probably one of those atheistic Liberals. May God have mercy on your soul, you degenerate, heathen bastard. For the rest of us, today is a day to celebrate the sanctity of life and, in the words of President Bush, to "rededicate ourselves to compassionate service on behalf of the weak and defenseless, and reaffirm our commitment to respect the life and dignity of every human being." Created by Presidential proclamation, Sanctity of Human Life Day was first celebrated on January 20, 2002, just days before the ignominious anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized in utero baby murder. Thankfully, under the moral leadership of President Bush, America is set to usher in a new era, taking another great leap forward in our collective effort to build "a culture of life." And by God, our thirst for justice will not be sated until control of reproductive decision making is wrested from the hands of irresponsible women, and they are driven back into the shadows of the alleys from which they slunk more than three decades ago.

Prince of Fools

2005-01-15T08:37:00.000-06:00

Anna and I are watching the BBC World News over breakfast. The show airs nightly on PBS, and we record it to watch in the morning. We're constantly a day behind, but we don't have cable, and day-old news from the Brits is still better than any of the fresh stuff cooked up by our home networks.

One of the top stories this morning concerns mounting anxiety over the scandalous photo of Prince Harry dressed as a Nazi soldier (a member of General Erwin Rommel's German Afrika Korps, to be precise). When I first read about this a couple of days ago, the reports indicated that Harry was photographed at a "fancy dress party," which is British slang for "costume party." The theme of the party: Colonials and Natives. Apparently, these "bad taste" parties are quite popular among the British elite, so much so that a London costume rental shop manager remarked, "the Nazi uniform is a frequently-requested costume." Of course, there is no mention of this in last night's BBC News report. With the third in line to the British throne squarely in its sights, the BBC joins a host of international critics expressing univocal disapprobation and condemnation of the young prince. Et tu, BBC?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending Harry's costume choice on any abstract grounds. My complaint isn't that BBC News failed to consider the question of Harry's right to free expression, or even more daringly, his right to privacy. Harry's life has been a media spectacle since conception, and I presume he long ago came to grips with the fact that the luxurious trappings of royalty are paid for at the expense of perpetual publicity. That awareness alone makes his choice of costumes injudicious, to say the least. Even the shit this kid does that's in relatively good taste gets scrutinized and criticized by the media. Anything that approaches bad taste is like a bucketful of chum thrown into shark-infested waters. Dressing up as a Nazi demonstrates really poor taste. But then again, isn't that the whole point of a "bad taste" costume party? It just seems to me that young Harry pretty much knocked the ball out of the fucking park as far as bad taste is concerned. The hailstorm of criticism just confirms it was a brilliant choice for the occasion. I'm not saying that I expect BBC News to applaud the choice or pat the kid on the back for his brash, impetuous wit. I just think it's a shame that they're content to take their turn in the feeding frenzy over Harry's indiscretion, chomping on the remains of the prince's bloodied carcass. That's just too easy. A post from the London News Review points out what is glaringly absent from the BBC News report, arguing that Harry shouldn't shoulder the entire burden of this public outrage:

"The theme of the fancy dress party, thrown by famous horseman and friend of Prince Charles, Richarde Meade, was believe it or not Colonials and Natives. Oh lordy. Colonials and Natives? What the **** are these people on? What century are they living in? Colonials and Natives? It beggars belief. Why not Imperialists and Nig Nogs? Or would that have been bad taste? So anyway, a fair share of the blame for Harrys outfit must surely go to the imbecilic Richarde Meade and his appalling choice of party theme."

I mean, we have parties with similarly distasteful and racially insensitive themes on this side of the pond, but we try to keep them contained to the frat houses of our southernmost universities, and a few of the Ivies. According to the folks who run costume shops in and around London, these parties are fairly widespread over there. I think this might be the bigger story BBC News is somehow missing. If only the media sharks would swim away from Harry's meatless torso for a moment, they'd find plumper game bobbing in the waters around them.

Of course, missing the big picture is only the most glaring and significant of the problems with the media coverage/construction of the Harry-as-Nazi fiasco. So many interesting and important aspects of this story have simply been left unexplored. Harry's big brother William came dressed in a skin-tight leopard costume, complete with tail and claws. I don't believe for a second that somebody didn't get a picture of that. As a general rule, if a guy shows up to a party dressed in a full-body leotard, you get pictures. That's seriously effective blackmail material, even if you're not a friggin' prince. Where are these pictures? More importantly, how exactly is a leopard costume appropriate in the context of the Colonials and Natives theme? If this is some kind of half-hearted protest, the symbolism escapes me. If not, the elder prince has some strange ideas about the colonial/native relationship. This seems like at least as significant a costuming concern as Harry's gaffe, given that this guy is second in line for the goddamn British crown. I'm just saying, if I'm BBC News, I'm asking a different set of questions.

so here's some crazy shit

2005-01-13T21:11:00.000-06:00

Anna volunteered for the Board of Directors of the National Abortion Rights Action League of Texas, and at her first meeting tonight, she found out that one of her fellow board members is Mike H________, the guy who interviewed and hired me for the Huston-Tillotson job. Well, supposedly hired me. I've taught two classes, but still haven't heard anything from the college about my appointment. This is really strange.

Should I be concerned...

2005-01-10T23:46:00.000-06:00

that I'm supposed to teach tomorrow afternoon, I'm stuck in Dallas until morning, my syllabus is only about half-finished, and I still haven't heard any official word from Huston-Tillotson about my adjunct appointment? I did get a cryptic email from the guy who interviewed me saying the job is mine and that I should definitely show up for class tomorrow, but somehow I'm not reassured. This is the sketchiest gig ever.

Can't believe I'm looking forward to being in Dallas

2005-01-07T09:00:00.000-06:00

I was sad to leave Grandpa, but he's doing much better. Grandma tagged in at half past 7, and I left shortly thereafter to shower before hitting the road. I'm about to leave for Denton to pick up Loren and the debaters, then heading on to Dallas for the second half of the swing at UTD. My back is killing me, and I'm going to need a quart of coffee to make up for last night's awful sleep, but I'm glad I could do this, and wish I could stay until they let him go home. I imagine my mom stretched between those chairs tonight, and feel slightly guilty about looking forward to the bed awaiting me at the Crowne Plaza.

This broken American family

2005-01-06T23:00:00.000-06:00

Grandma relieved me at noon, and I headed home to shower, shave and catch a nap. We have family all over central Oklahoma, but Grandma and I are working a two-person rotation. I came back just before 6, and she headed home for the night around 7:30. I'm going back to Denton in the morning, and Mom and Dad are driving up from Houston tomorrow to pick up my shifts. I've been feeling guilty about not doing this for my grandparents every time Grandpa's been in the hospital, and I regret that I live far enough from them that I have to put my life on hold just to help out. But I'm also angry. I can't believe that I have cousins, aunts and uncles, on both my mother and father's side of the family, all living within an hour of this hospital. Only my aunt, my Mom's sister, has stopped by for a visit. Once, on her way home from work.

I'm angry because my thoroughly modern, nuclear family has splintered into its molecular components, and we no longer have a functioning support network with the capacity to care for each other without significantly overburdening immediate family. My mother and her sisters and brother each take care of their parents in their own respective ways, but the presence required at times such as this is a sacrifice borne unequally between them. I don't blame this disparity on any sibling in particular, because the fact of the matter is that some of our lives are more malleable than others. Dad is retired, and Mom is just that rare person who puts everything aside at any moment to take care of her family. I've been lucky enough to create a freelance lifestyle that affords me the means and latitude to put everything aside for a couple of days to come up here. Others can't, and it's not their fault. This is a cultural problem, a social illness. This family structure is unsustainable. The intergenerational disconnect that transforms elderly care into a burden is an indication of a profoundly diseased society. This social order is untenable. Congress is debating Social Security reform, focusing on ways that individuals can gain greater control over personal accounts, as if financial concerns alone define the concept of security. I promise you, Melvin could have all the money in the world right now, and he'd trade it for the company of family. We need a collective reconsideration of what we mean when we speak of wealth and poverty.

Morning is a place

2005-01-06T07:00:00.000-06:00

The hospital staff resume their activities at a little past 5 in the morning. A technician rolls in the nebulizer unit for the first of four breathing treatments Grandpa takes each day, everyday, even when he's at home. Someone disappears behind the curtain, and I hear Melvin wake, startled and confused. "Here to take your blood pressure, Mr. H_________," the nurse's aid explains. His voice is either compassionate or condescending. I close my eyes, and when I open them, the room is dark again, and Grandpa and Melvin are snoring contentedly. It's a quarter to 6, and the hallway is now abuzz with nursely doings. In spite of Melvin's best efforts, I have won the battle for control of the thermostat, and the room is cold. I imagine Melvin rolling out of bed, barefoot and wearing only his inadequate smock, and decide to commit a minor act of treason, nudging the thermostat up to 75. Grandpa is still firmly in the grip of the Ambien, and he won't be awake to complain for at least another hour.

At ten past 6, two nurse's aids enter the room, with various monitors and instruments in tow. They each turn on the fluorescent panel above their patient's head, and Grandpa and Melvin are greeted with a synchronous, cheerful, "Good morning, Mr. ___________." It takes Grandpa a good half minute to figure out where he is, and what's going on. I put my hand on his shoulder, look into his eyes, and say Good morning, Grandpa. He smiles up at me, not quite certain of anything, but happy just to see a familiar face. "Good morning, Davey. Did you sleep there all night?"

"Yup, right here. I told you I wasn't going anywhere. The nurse is here to get you all fixed up this morning. Think it'd be OK for me to run down for a cup of coffee and some breakfast?" His eyes have focused, and he is rattling off a list of questions and complaints to the nurse's aid. He doesn't answer me. I pat him on the shoulder again. "I'll be back in a minute Grandpa."

"Well, where ya going? Are you leaving? Where's Ellen?"

"No, Grandpa. I'm not leaving. I'm just getting out of this guy's way so he can take care of you. I'm going down for a coffee. I'll be right back. And Grandma will be here in a couple of hours." He smiles at me, and I'm uncertain whether anything I've said makes sense to him. "I'll be right back, Grandpa."

"OK, Davey."

It's half past 6, and I'm seated in a booth in a diner about two blocks from the hospital. It's 9 degrees outside, and the roads are covered in black patches of ice, invisible in the pre-dawn darkness. I've ordered the Big Boy breakfast - two eggs (over medium), sausage, biscuits and cream gravy - and already finished a second cup of coffee before it arrives. Over the past couple of days I've been working on a syllabus for a public speaking class I begin teaching next Tuesday. At the moment I'm scanning a copy of Malcolm Speaks, the collected speeches of Malcolm X, looking for course material. When the food arrives, I lay the book on the table, cover up, and a bespectacled Malcolm X points a finger up toward the waitress. She stares back, mouth slightly agape, then looks back to me, "Uh, enjoy your breakfast, sir." I get the feeling it could be awhile before I get a refill on the coffee. To my pleasant surprise, it isn't.

I'm sitting in a booth at the front of Friendly's, a diner frozen in the 1970's. The illuminated sign out front advertises this as "The place you want to eat." If you could pick it up and transplant it to Austin, building, menus, waitresses, clientele and all, you'd make a small fortune off the clever and stylish hipster crowd. The decor would be described as kitschy Americana or retro hillbilly chic. The regular patrons, who embrace the place without any sense of ironic detachment, would be regarded with amusement, as if put there merely to add an element of authenticity to the scene. A group of regulars have gathered at two tables in the center of the restaurant, and they are talking loudly, calling the waitresses and busboys by their first names, and greeting everyone who walks in the door. Except for me. They smiled and nodded, and I smiled and nodded back, and that was the extent of our acknowledgments. I have an urge to reassure them that I am not one of those hipster assholes, but I know they don't really care one way or the other.

But I'm not a hipster asshole, I reassure myself. I know this because the sensation I experience here is not ironic amusement but overwhelming nostalgia. This place is a well-preserved slice of Oklahoma City circa 1975, the Oklahoma of my youth. The brown vinyl benches and glittered Formica tabletops could easily be thirty years old, or they could've been installed last month. The wood-paneled walls are decorated with oil paintings in ornate, gilded frames, all depicting various nature scenes - the profile of a stag drinking from a placid mountain stream; a snow-capped mountain glistening in the sunshine; a bass splashing at the end of a taut line. A four-foot wall divides the booths, proudly displayed atop which is a collection of woodcarved roosters, a tin coffee pot, plastic tulips in a crystal vase, and several pairs of ceramic salt-and-pepper shaker figurines - boy and girl skunks; a corncob and an eggplant, both wearing tophats and spats; a hen and a rooster; two sombrero-wearing cacti. This could just as easily be my Grandma Doris's kitchen, and I could be five years old. There is nothing ironic about this place. I feel homesick for a past life.

I shamelessly lifted the title of this post from a Stars of the Lid song. Maybe I'm more of a hipster asshole than I'd like to admit.

The indignity of aging

2005-01-06T02:00:00.000-06:00

It's two in the morning, and I'm having a slumber party in a hospital room with Grandpa and Melvin. I am wedged between Grandpa's bed and the sink, suspended between two chairs made of vinyl, metal and right angles. I have a blanket, but no pillow. I am wearing the same clothes I put on when I woke up this morning, before I knew any of this would be happening. Had I known I'd be sleeping like this, I'd have worn different pants.

If I'd have been around during Grandpa's past hospitalizations, I'd have known this is how I'd end up spending the night. There are no posted visiting hours on this floor, but I assumed I'd head home around 11 or so, after Grandpa takes his last breathing treatment and his sleeping pill kicks in. Grandpa swears by Ambien (Zolpidem), by the way, and not just when he's in the hospital. He made me confirm with the doctor, the nurse and the nurse's aid, who had absolutely no say in the matter, that they were going to let him have his Ambien. When the nurse finally brought it, he hadn't yet received his last breathing treatment, so he told her he'd take it later. She looked at me sideways, remembered my persistent inquiries about the Ambien, then pocketed the pill. "I'll bring this back later, then." Should I be concerned or offended that she thinks I look like the kind of sketchy fuck that would scam medication from his bed-ridden grandfather? At any rate, my plan was to leave when the Ambien tagged in to carry Grandpa through to the morning. At 10pm, when the technician arrived with the nebulizer for his last breathing treatment, I called mom to give her an update, and to tell her I was getting ready to head to Grandma's. She seemed confused. "They're making you leave?"

"Well, I don't know. I assumed so. Aren't there visiting hours?"

"Oh, no. Not usually. They'll usually let you stay as late as you want. I mean, unless you don't want to stay there..." Her voice trailed off, hammering home the point of her disappointment.

"No Mom, of course I'll stay. I just didn't think..."

She cut me off, my concession apparently not convincing enough. "It's just, he'll call Mother if you go home. He gets scared, so he'll call her, and she'll go up there." She was piling it on thick.

"Well, they wouldn't let her stay up here last night, but I'll check."

"They wouldn't let her stay in the room, but she stayed all night in the waiting room." Damn. That's serious dedication. There is no actual waiting room on this floor. A half dozen chairs face each other along the hallway between the elevators and the nurses station. I imagine Grandma slumped in one of these chairs, trying to sleep in spite of the constant hum of nursing activity.

"Of course I'll stay, Mom. I just didn't know."

"Well, it's just that Daddy gets really scared, and he doesn't like to be alone."

Scared doesn't really describe it. Grandpa's longevity defies medical explanation, but I believe it's largely attributable to his profound fear of dying. Grandpa simply refuses to quietly accept his mortality. He will not be going gently into that good night. When his cardiac specialist asks him what he can do for him, Grandpa answers, "I'd like to live to be a hundred and fifty." The specialist tried to explain that some procedures might prolong his life slightly, but at the expense of significant discomfort. He said that sometimes quality of life is more important that quantity. Grandpa stared at him blankly, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. "Shee-it it is."

I've wondered if Grandpa is afraid of dying because he doesn't have the comfort of a religious expectation of an afterlife, or because he does but doesn't like the direction he's headed. Don't get me wrong - Grandpa is a good man, but he's a heathen, like me, at least in the eyes of Christians. He's not a church-going man, and I can't recall him ever talking about his own religious beliefs. He always demonstrated perfunctory respect at weddings, funerals, and the few other religious events he was compelled to attend, but he always made it clear that he was there against his will. I've wondered for a long time whether his discomfort was the result of an absence or excess of faith. If half the stories I've heard about my Grandpa are true, he's an unrepentant sinner by even the most lenient of Southern Baptist standards. If there is a God, and a Heaven, he's got to think he's going straight to Hell. I don't know if Grandpa's afraid of dying because he knows he's damned, or because he knows there's not a goddamn thing after this life is done, and holding on as long as possible is the best you get. Whatever the explanation, Grandpa is afraid of dying, and being in the hospital only exacerbates those fears.

I hang up with Mom and head back to his room. The nurse is delivering the Ambien. She tells Grandpa I can stay in the room, and he beams like a child. I pull up the chairs and she offers to bring a blanket.

"You comfortable, Davey?"

"Oh yeah, Grandpa, this is good."

"Do you need another blanket?"

"No, I'm OK, Grandpa. How about you? Too warm, too cold? You need anything before we turn in?"

"Well, no. I'm alright." He leaned toward me and whispered, "That sonofabitch didn't turn the furnace up again, did he?"

"I'll check, Grandpa."

Melvin and Grandpa have been engaged in a battle over the thermostat for most of the day, although Melvin doesn't know it. Melvin is cold, which makes sense, given that it is 17 degrees outside and the thermostat is set at 70. Grandpa would like it a couple of degrees lower. He says it helps him breathe. He lays in bed, covered in blankets. Melvin is up and around, and his gown offers little warmth and about as much privacy as the curtain room divider. Every half hour, Melvin turns the thermostat up to 75 degrees, and a half hour later, Grandpa asks me to turn it back down to 70. I'm not exactly sure why, but Melvin has decided that the nurses are to blame. He confides in me, "That goddamn nurse keeps turning down the thermostat." I didn't immediately confess, figuring that neither of the roommates was going to be happy with the temperature, and that this little dance probably represented the best we were going to manage by way of compromise. I told Melvin, you gotta watch those nurses.

It's midnite before the technicians and nurses and nurse's aids have finished poking and prodding Grandpa and Melvin. For the past several hours, I have been an uncomfortable witness to various indignities. The nurse's questions are embarrassing. There are persistent inquiries into the frequency, magnitude and consistency of bowel movements. Melvin walks around in a gown that doesn't quite cover his ass. It takes every ounce of energy and concentration for Grandpa to piss into a plastic container. He hasn't been out of the bed since he checked in last night. When things finally quiet down, just as I am beginning to fall asleep, I hear Melvin cussing behind the curtain. I ask him if everything's alright, and he tells me he's fine, and asks me not to come in. More cussing. I hear him fumbling with something in his bed, then his bare feet slapping the cold, tile floor. He's at the sink, and I catch a glimpse of him washing his underwear. He's still cussing under his breath. He is cold, and alone, washing his soiled shorts in a sink. Grandpa is snoring loudly, his body still quietly shaking.

The Lost Art of Bedside Manner

2005-01-05T23:30:00.000-06:00

From what I've been able to gather, Grandpa is going to be fine. The doctors haven't exactly been forthcoming with information. It's no wonder he feels bewildered by the whole experience. The kidney doctor, as he introduced himself to us, asked a question, which Grandpa clearly didn't understand, then furrowed his brow at the awkward, inappropriate response. Instead of rephrasing or attempting to explain himself, the doctor moved on, asking another question, equally perplexing but seemingly unrelated to the first. Grandpa still didn't understand. He tried an answer. The doctor smiled condescendingly, and Grandpa smiled back, thinking he must have gotten it right.

I followed the kidney doctor out of the room. I wanted to know why Grandpa's primary physician had requested he be looked at by a "kidney doctor" (my fingers mimed quotation marks around the patronizing phrase). I wanted to know how the low sodium problem was related to his kidneys. Is this an indication of renal failure? Are we talking about dialysis? Will he have to be anesthetized to put in a catheter? Or is it the other way around - does low sodium damage the kidneys? Are the problems even related? Would he care to venture a guess or even share his general suspicions about why this happened? Can it actually be, as Grandpa keeps insisting, that he just drank too much water, diluting his sodium levels? I launch this tirade of questions at the kidney doctor. He opened Grandpa's chart again, read silently to himself for several moments, then ticked off his responses. "Any other questions?" I think he was actually offended, the smug fuck. I explained it all to Grandpa, and I think he followed me about 80% of the way.

I've listened to Melvin's interactions with his doctors, and it pains me to keep my mouth shut. Melvin's alone. His wife had an accident while visiting family in Ohio, and she wouldn't be back to Oklahoma for another two weeks. His step-daughter and her husband stopped by once in the two days I was there, staying for all of about half an hour. I can't actually see the conversations between Melvin and his doctors, but the thin sheet that divides the room doesn't otherwise afford much privacy. Melvin is slightly hard of hearing, and he speaks in a low rumble with a thick Okie accent. I understand every word he says perfectly, but I've been listening to this dialect since I was born. He catches about every other sentence the first time around, and rarely needs you to repeat one more than once. Still, our conversations require patience. One of Melvin's doctors has a very thick accent, Indian or Pakistani maybe, and very little patience. He tries to explain that Melvin needs a pacemaker.

"You have said you do not wish to have the pacemaker. It is necessary. Your heartbeat is very irregular, and this worries me. The pacemaker is necessary. But you say you do not want it, and if you do not want to reconsider that, then we need to consider other options. But I must tell you Mr. H_______, you really should reconsider."

"I'm in here for my groin," his voice is raised, but matter-of-fact. When rednecks encounter foreign accents, they raise their voices, presuming the volume will help bridge the obvious language gap.

"I understand, Mr. H_________. I am not concerned with your groin. I am a cardiologist. I am your cardiovascular surgeon. I want to talk to you about a pacemaker."

"I was lifting the luggage, but it didn't hurt until later that night. It was cold. I collapsed. My groin." Melvin tries to simplify his story. He is pointing at the soft area above his left hip. He repeats, "It's my groin."

"I understand, Mr. H_________. You should reconsider the pacemaker. You have an irregular heartbeat, and it requires treatment. This is very serious, Mr. H__________. Get some rest now."

This guy didn't understand shit. Melvin had no idea why this guy was talking about a pacemaker, and he certainly didn't want to buy one of those just because he was getting old. As Melvin explained to me later, they try to get you to opt for what they call "election surgery," because the insurance companies were paying for it anyway. But Melvin wasn't going to be having any election surgery. He hadn't needed a pacemaker up to this point in his life, so he really couldn't understand why he should buy one now. This same logic guided Melvin's thinking on diabetes. "They've been telling me I'm a borderline diabetic for forty years, but I haven't been diabetic yet, so how can I be diabetic now, all of a sudden?" In all of the conversations I heard between Melvin and his team of physicians, I never heard one of them provide an adequate refutation of either of these misguided beliefs. I'm glad Melvin and I are going to have some time to talk.

Melvin

2005-01-05T15:00:00.000-06:00

Grandpa introduces me to Melvin, the man behind the curtain divider separating the A and B sections of room 506. Melvin tells me hes in for a pulled groin. Hes in his early seventies, short, with the same sort of hard-worn face all septuagenarians in Oklahoma seem to share. His most distinguishing trait is an ill-behaved shock of red hair. When Melvin's back is turned, Grandpa points to his own head and mouths the word: dyed. Melvin is lonely. After our first half hour of conversation, I could tell you about Melvin's time in the Army during the Korean War (at which time he was stationed in El Paso, Texas, working as a typist), either of his two marriages, including the reasons the first one didnt work out, and the totally legitimate excuses each of his family members gave for not yet visiting him in the hospital. I have also helped him tie his gown, filled his plastic water decanter, and served as an interpreter when his doctor tried to explain the implications of, and potential treatments for, diabetes. Melvin is not shy.

At the hospital

2005-01-05T11:55:00.000-06:00

Its hard seeing my grandpa like this. The invincible giant I remember from my childhood has been gone a while, but this is the first time Ive seen him looking not just old and frail, but scared. The skin hangs from his once powerful arms. Over the last few years, dark patches have slowly spread from the back of his hands, up his forearms, and now theyre crawling around his elbows, heading in the direction of his shoulders. It looks like someone beat him with a hammer. His hands shake uncontrollably, sometimes so severely that he cant hold a fork, much less navigate it into his mouth. He piles blankets on his legs and feet to compensate for poor circulation. The expression on his face oscillates between placid detachment, forced concentration, and panicked confusion. His eyes betray the intensity of his fear.

[This and the next several posts are backdated to reflect the time each was written. No internet access in the hospital, so I jotted down some thoughts while Grandpa slept.]

Unexpected, but unfortunately not a surprise

2005-01-05T08:39:00.000-06:00

If I believe my mom's message, left at 5:23 this morning, the situation is dire. Grandma checked Grandpa into the hospital last night. He was confused, shaking uncontrollably, and having trouble catching his breath. The message said something about a sodium deficiency and pneumonia, but the overall diagnosis was pretty vague. As for the prognosis, her tone of voice suggests things are grim. Then again, I've received messages like this at least half a dozen times. My grandfather's health has been going downhill for at least the past twenty five years, so much so that the family was long ago forced to come to grips with Tuffy's mortality.

That's right - Tuffy. Carl Herschel "Tuffy" Cunningham. How fucking cool is that? What kind of badass must you be to earn a nickname like Tuffy? He was an oil field roughneck when they drilled Oklahoma, a freelance ambulance driver for one or two lawless weeks or months, depending upon who's telling the story, a long-haul trucker for as long as I can remember until his late-fifties, and a wise-ass doorman at his son's beer joints until he just couldn't physically do that anymore, which was a couple of years back. He's as wide as he is tall, with granite arms, and smiling, grandfatherly eyes set deep into his otherwise imposing, world-hardened face. He smoked like a chimney until his mid-fifties, when emphysema got the best of him. He's taken oxygen treatments four times a day ever since. He's had an aortic aneurysm repaired, twice, and had experimental surgery to place stints in his carotid artery, all in the last ten years. Due to complications created by his severely impaired lung capacity, the the odds of him waking up from any surgery are always strongly against him. He has already defied the linemakers a half dozen times, though on every occasion I have believed my mother, and fully accepted that even the best run of longshot wins must come to an end.

When the call comes, I either pack a bag and head to Oklahoma City, or I chastise myself for thinking that whatever I'm doing at the time is more important than being with my grandpa. More often than not, it's been the latter. For one reason or another, I just couldn't get away. I'd cross my fingers and sob my regrets, knowing that I was never going to live down the guilt and shame of my decision. And I never felt relief when he pulled through; instead, I felt an even stronger since of guilt and shame over my failure to take advantage of the second, third, fourth chances I'd been given to spend time with him before...the next time. And the longer you wait, the harder it becomes. Guilt and shame are paralysing forces.

This time, I am in Denton when the call comes, less than three hours from Oklahoma City. I've fulfilled my judging commitment at the tournament, Jenny and Loren can handle the coaching duties, and even the rookies are more or less self-sufficient. They'll survive for a couple of days while I head up to Oklahoma. I'm not saying I believe the situation is as dire as Mom's making it out to be, but I can finally do what I should've done every other time, whatever the prognosis.

An ice storm is blowing in this afternoon, threatening to destroy the interstate between Ardmore and Norman; so, as soon as my cellphone has a little juice, I'm hitting the road for OKC.

New Year's Resolutions

2005-01-03T16:55:00.000-06:00

It's the dawn of a New Year for the Gregorian calendar crowd, a time to doff the rose-colored glasses and take a seriously hard stare at ourselves, confronting the self-destructive tendencies of our baser nature. It's a time for hard-nosed assessments and honest-to-God pledges of abstinence and wholesomeness, a rare opportunity for our self-obsessed society to pause for a collective moment of hopeful introspection and behavioral recalibration.

The celebration of New Year's Eve caps a week of unabashed gluttony and gross over-consumption that officially kicks off on Christmas Eve, the twin events marking the extremes of this binge-and-purge holiday season. The celebration of New Year's Eve is a final chance to revel in our vices and excesses before fulfilling the promise of our respective Resolutions. Well, maybe not the final chance. If New Year's Resolutions really worked, you'd be celebrating very differently New Year's Eve next. Have you really popped your last totally gratuitous champagne cork, knowing you've had more than enough already, and not caring? Think you've wrestled into submission the desire for the occasional illicit cigarette? What exactly do you imagine yourself doing if not reveling in your foolishness and savoring the deliciousness of ill-advised living?

So, it's not with a great amount of confidence that I partake in this ritual cleansing. My life up to this point is not exactly a testament to my resolve. Personal history suggests that this annual attempt to rein in the bad habits I inflict upon myself and others is perhaps futile. I can enlist an army of French philosophers to defend the fortress of my desires, and I am well-versed in the intellectual objections to repression as an instrument of self-discipline. Deep down, however, I realize these are elaborate rationalizations, convenient smokescreens concealing the weakness of my own system of libidinal checks and balances. I suppose that's why I continue to go through the motions of self-assessment and well-intentioned resolution. I hold onto hope, in spite of myself.

Congratulations to Michelle & Nikheel and Russ & Emily

2004-12-31T09:49:00.000-06:00

Taking a couple of days off for the wedding of two very good friends, Michelle & Nikheel, and wishing that cloning technology would advance just a little more rapidly so we could also be at the wedding of our friends Russ & Emily. Congratulations to both couples, and may happiness be your companion as you travel through life.

Fox News Shocker!

2004-12-30T22:36:00.000-06:00

The ever-vigilant newshounds at Fox have sniffed out yet another shocking and scandalous story: property taxes across the country are skyrocketing! After much digging, which basically appears to consist of interviews with a Milwaukee homeowner and representatives of grassroots anti-tax organizations with catchy names like the National Taxpayers Union and Citizens for Responsible Government Network, Fox has learned that "many states are still struggling with the hot-button political issue" (of escalating property taxes). But why? What's driving these tax-happy local governments to place such a burden on property owners? For an answer, they turn to an actual "tax policy specialist" from the National Conference of State Legislatures, who notes that local governments have few options when state funding for local services like schools, police and fire departments dries up. And that's where the story ends.

Here's what Fox missed, and what also seems to escape the grasp of the fine folks at the National Taxpayers Union and Citizens for Responsible Government Network: dwindling state contributions to local governments and rising property taxes are directly and inextricably linked to diminished federal contributions. These morons have yet to figure out that federal decentralization has not only shifted greater responsibilities onto state and local governments, but also greater financial burdens. Take Medicare, for example. States have always contributed a portion of the funding for Medicare services, in spite of the fact that this is a federal program. As the federal government reduces its share of the expenses, states are forced to make up funding shortfalls, or to cut services. Cutting Medicare services is neither politically popular nor particularly feasible from a public health perspective. Accordingly, larger shares of state budgets are dedicated to covering this funding gap, leaving fewer and fewer state dollars to be kicked down to local governments. You see how this works. As Republicans and other not-so-bright folks celebrate federal tax cuts, they fail to realize that they're still paying for it on the back-end through property tax hikes. Why? Because nobody wants to do without things like schools, or police, or fire departments, or sanitation, or public health services. They don't want epidemics breaking out because only the very wealthy can afford private healthcare. They don't want to give up things like public infrastructure and civil services. And yet, they don't want to pay for these things either. So, at the federal level, a Republican President assures them that they can have their cake and eat it too. The federal government passes the burden of paying for these things onto the states, and the states in turn pass it onto local governments. In the end, the bill is the same, and citizens are still the ones paying. Only now, instead of sharing the burden and services more or less equally, those communities with low property values (which, of course, results in lower tax revenues) receive fewer and fewer of the public amenities (like schools, police, fire departments, etc.). This is how social and economic inequality is reinforced and perpetuated.

Needless to say, Fox didn't quite dig down far enough to figure any of this out.

And they call this the ETHICS COMMITTEE

2004-12-29T11:55:00.000-06:00

From today's Washington Post:

"House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is leaning toward removing the House ethics committee chairman, who admonished House Majority Leader Tom DeLay this fall and has said he will treat DeLay like any other member, several Republican aides said yesterday."

Yes, you read that right. Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House, third highest-ranking member of the government, is planning to remove the chairman of the House ethics committee because he has announced his willingness to treat House Majority Leader Tom DeLay like any other member of Congress. Just gnaw on that for a minute. Let the words roll around in your mouth before you try to choke them down. The chairman of the House ethics committee is going to lose his job because he refuses to show favoritism to Tom DeLay. And the source of this flabbergasting revelation? REPUBLICAN aides. This isn't some conspiracy cooked up by Democrats, although, as the Post article points out, these same Republican aides acknowledge that, "the stated reason for Hefley's removal is likely to be that it is time for him to rotate off the committee after serving as chairman since January 2001."

Well, OK. Just for the sake of argument, let's assume that this isn't simply self-serving retribution for chairman Joel Hefley's (R-CO) refusal to handle DeLay with kid gloves. Let's consider the possibility that this isn't a Republican-engineered maneuver designed to maintain DeLay's leadership position in spite of the Texas grand jury indictment hanging over his head. Let's give Hastert the benefit of the doubt, because he's just got to be smart enough to realize that this move smacks of corruption, right? Think again. According to the Post, the likely replacement for Hefley is Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX). Smith is not only a fellow Texan, and therefore part of the DeLay political machine, but he actually made a financial contribution to DeLay's defense fund last year. Moreover, Smith held the ethics committee chairmanship from 1999 to 2001, immediately prior to Hefley's term, throwing the whole time for a rotation justification into serious doubt (one typically thinks of a rotation as involving more than two people). In other words, Hastert isn't even trying to make this move seem like anything other than what it really is: blatant, shameless cronyism. You can pretend otherwise, but you're only fooling yourself if you believe this isn't political chicanery of the worst kind.

The really depressing part of all this is that Republicans are no longer even bothering to conceal their shenanigans. There was a time when self-respecting politicians of all stripes at least tried to maintain the illusion of propriety. Not anymore. Now, it's anything goes, and everything does. How much longer before they're whacking their political enemies mafia-style on the steps of the Capitol building? Tom DeLay is a brute and a thug, Dennis Hastert is his boot-licking toady, and they don't care who knows it. They are definitely men of the times.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!

2004-12-28T23:37:00.000-06:00

I'm stealing this scoop straight off of Anna's blog, but it seems like the kind of thing that ought to be as widely distributed as possible. We all know Ann Coulter is evil, even more so than Peggy Noonan. But this takes the fucking cake. From her website, which I can't believe I'm actually recommending you visit:

To The People Of Islam:
Just think: If we'd invaded your countries, killed your leaders and converted you to Christianity YOU'D ALL BE OPENING CHRISTMAS PRESENTS RIGHT ABOUT NOW!
Merry Christmas

Unfuckingbelievable. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. And if you don't believe me, check it out for yourself. This gal needs to be strung up by the short hairs and beat like a pinata.

Your government at work

2004-12-27T20:46:00.000-06:00

The House ethics committee is set to launch an investigation of Representative Jim McDermott (D-Wash) for alleged ethics violations stemming from the 1997 leak of an illegally recorded cellphone conversation between Congressman John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other House Republicans, including then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, at the time himself the subject of an ethics committee inquiry. Earlier this year, a federal judge ordered McDermott to pay restitution to Boehner for willful and knowing misconduct rising to the level of malice, for an amount estimated to be in the neighborhood of $600,000 ($60,000 in damages, $540,000 in legal expenses). The judge (U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan) rejected McDermott's First Amendment defense, according to which the Congressman argued that he supplied the recording to The New York Times in an effort to uncover Gingrich's attempts to mount a counter-offensive against the ethics committee in order to maintain his position as Speaker of the House.

McDermott, while serving as the ranking Democrat on the House ethics committee, received a tape recording from a Florida couple who intercepted the conversation on their police scanner. The couple later pled guilty to illegally intercepting and recording a telephone conversation; each was fined $500. McDermott admitted in May 2002 to leaking the documents to the Times. According to McDermott's filings in the suit by Boehner, "Congressman McDermott believed that the conversation recorded on the tape, in which the third-highest elected official in the federal government and others were discussing the settlement agreement, the accompanying sanctions and their plans to engage in the type of 'spin campaign' that the settlement was supposed to forbid, was of significant public interest." As such, McDermott has held that his disclosure was protected by the First Amendment. Judge Hogan disagreed.

So, instead of joining the slew of legal investigators looking into the shady financial dealings of Tom DeLay and his cronies, the ethics committee has turned its attention to a well-intentioned lawmaker trying to reveal the even shadier dealings of another high-ranking Republican Congressman. In what universe does this make sense? Oh wait....perhaps there's something more to this case than just a vigilant desire to protect the privacy of law-breaking politicians. You might recall Jim McDermott from his interview with Michael Moore in the film Farenheit 911. McDermott was the only Congressman willing to sit down with Mr. Moore and speak candidly about the fear tactics employed by the Bush administration against the American public. A psychologist by vocation before entering Congress, McDermott didn't pull any punches in his assessment of the Bush II regime's tactics of mass manipulation. Is it any wonder that he has become the target of a Republican-dominated Congress as it visits retribution on its enemies? This is your tax dollar at work. Could you be any prouder?

I got your act of compassion right here...

2004-12-25T13:01:00.000-06:00

In the spirit of the season, and because I've got better things to do today than vent my hostilities by pointing out the obvious, I'm letting this one go. Merry Christmas, Mr. Bush, and may everything you dish out be returned to you ten-fold.

Snowball just leads elves on...elves & Santas

2004-12-24T09:20:00.000-06:00

Nothing so poignantly captures the spirit of the season as David Sedaris' Santaland Diaries. Sometimes you just need a disgruntled department store elf to put things into perspective. And if you haven't heard this before, you seriously need to crawl out of whatever cave you're living in.

"We had to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it."

2004-12-23T10:40:00.000-06:00

Four months after hearing arguments from the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered the release of information concerning allegations of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and other overseas detention facilities. These records suggest a pattern of abuse that is inconsistent with the Bush administration's attempts to dismiss the highly publicized tortures at Abu Ghraib as isolated and aberrant incidents. Moreover, the records indicate that the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID) and other high-ranking military personnel are actively involved in efforts to conceal these wrongdoings. I can't decide which revelation is more disturbing, but I'm not surprised by either.

The War on Terror is fought on many fronts, at home and abroad. Even in the U.S., encroachments upon the civil liberties of U.S. citizens are tolerated in the interest of preserving "national security." It should come as no surprise that more extreme and disturbing violations of human rights are accepted as unavoidable collateral damage in the war abroad. The American military learned in Vietnam that a war against non-traditional combatants necessitates the abandonment of the distinction between enemy soldiers and civilian non-combatants. The hamlets of Vietnam were not populated by families, women and children, fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, but by gooks. The massacre of civilians at My Lai and the destruction of Ben Tre were not examples of a war machine out of control, but the logical and inevitable consequence of the blurring of the line between soldier and civilian. In today's War on Terror, this disturbing logic has transformed the globe into a battlefield, and the systematic dehumanization of Muslim peoples has made possible the sacrifice of entire populations. There is an inextricable link between the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and the prosecution of this war. They are inseparable events, two sides of the same coin, and the resolution of one problem cannot be accomplished without radically altering our beliefs about the other. Unless and until we recognize the madness of our pursuit, incidents like these will proliferate, and our collective security will be further undermined, along with our international credibility, and our very humanity.

And sometimes, there's good news...

2004-12-22T01:37:00.000-06:00

"Bush Monkeys," by Chris Savido (acrylic on canvas)

For those of you who haven't been following this story, here's a quick recap: the manager of the Chelsea Market public space in New York had a conniption fit when he saw this piece by artist Chris Savido - a portrait of Bush II comprised of monkeys swimming in a marsh - part of an installation featuring work from an upcoming issue of Animal Magazine. The offended manager ordered the removal of the entire installation, cancelling the show which was scheduled to stay up for the next month. Fortunately, the rest of New York is not quite as uptight and ill-humored as the aforementioned manager, and now a group of anonymous donors has ponied up the funds to have the work displayed on a giant digital billboard above the entrance of the Holland Tunnel. Thanks to one man's cretinous tirade, 400,000 motorists will see the digitized image every day for the next month. Moreover, Savido is putting the piece up for auction on e-Bay, with a portion of the proceeds going to the parents of soldiers in Iraq who want to equip their sons and daughters with body armor they desperately need (see below). Sometimes, the good guys win.

Only 3 more shopping days til Christmas!

2004-12-21T14:02:00.000-06:00

12.21.04 (AFP) [White House spokesperson Scott] McClellan also downplayed an ABC News/Washington Post poll out Monday that found that more Americans than ever, about 56 percent, say the war in Iraq is not worth fighting.
"The president has never been one to govern based on polls. I mean, polls are snapshots in time, and we are working to continue to build upon the progress being made in Iraq," the spokesman said. [AP photo]

PROGRESS? PROGRESS!? Early reports indicate 24 people died in an insurgent mortar attack on the mess hall at FOB Marez in Mosul on December 21, 2004. Meanwhile, back home in the states, a panicked George Bush realized he still hadn't bought anything for Karl, and he didn't have any idea what to give the man who snatched election victory from the jaws of defeat. "Maybe one of them I-Pods," he thought.

Thankfully, someone was looking out for the animals

2004-12-20T01:56:00.000-06:00

from Yahoo!'s Most Emailed Stories file, 12.20.04:

LONDON: British television watchdogs ruled that a pig which was sexually pleasured on camera by a minor celebrity did not feel degraded by the experience. Dozens of viewers had complained about an episode of a reality television show in which the audience were treated to the sight of Rebecca Loos, the self-proclaimed ex-lover of England football captain David Beckham, stimulating the boar for 10 minutes to produce a flask of semen. An animal charity condemned the scenes as "morbid and sordid" but the broadcasting standards body said the procedure was perfectly normal on a farm. "We don't believe that the scene was degrading or harmful to the boar," they ruled.

Well, thank God the boar wasn't degraded.

Someone needs to muzzle Peggy Noonan

2004-12-19T15:33:00.000-06:00

Special Assistant to President Reagan, chief speechwriter for Bush I during the 1988 Presidential campaign, contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal, conservative lapdog; Peggy Noonan is many things, but she is neither a scholar, nor a particularly insightful social critic (Exhibit A). She has a more impressive resume than most of her slack-jawed, neoconservative colleagues, but her ideas aren't exceptional or original (Exhibit B). Her schtick is Right Wing apologetic, inflected with familiar over-tones of self-righteousness, a misplaced sense of entitlement, and a retrograde cultural sensibility. Think of her as Ann Coulter's older, slightly less obnoxious sister.

Before I say anything else about Peggy, I want it known that I don't actually make a habit of reading her narrow-minded tripe. In spite of the ubiquity of conservative prattle, I generally do a pretty good job of avoiding it. I have somehow managed to expend very little cerebral capacity contemplating the ideas propagated by Ms. Noonan and others of her ilk, and I feel that I am better off because of this. But every so often, she pens something so infuriating that I'm compelled to respond; to wit, Noonan's WSJ op-ed piece from last Thursday.

In "It's Policy, Not Poetry," Ms. Noonan addresses Democrats' vexation over the successful manipulation of symbols (religious imagery, the flag) by Republicans, arguing that the very allegation of symbolic manipulation indicates a "kind of crazy and paranoid way of looking at rhetoric." She asserts that there's no hidden agenda behind Bush II's frequent religious references, and contends that the success of Republican messages isn't due to the secrets encoded therein. As Bush's chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, explains, "the president's references to God are both carefully considered and well within the traditions of presidential rhetoric...they're not code words, they're our culture." Noonan adds that the "real secret" is that "the most successful phrases are not imposed top-down from the candidate to the people; they bubble up and emerge and are used by the candidate." In other words, Republican rhetoric works not because politicians and speechwriters cynically manipulate religious or patriotic images, but because it corresponds to the essential, underlying truth of the world: the American public, that ephemeral, chimeral heart of democracy, is religious and patriotic...and Republican.

Noonan's relevance and reputation are closely tied to the ascendance of conservative cultural and political influence over the past half-century. She excels in her role as a cheerleader for the winning team, primarily because she truly believes in the righteousness of its triumph. Conservative dominance is Just because it accurately reflects the beliefs of the majority of Americans. It is the Public Will. To think otherwise is, in her words, crazy and paranoid. Republican rhetoric works because it coheres with the vision of the world shared by a majority of Americans. As such, Noonan suggests that Democrats are doomed to fail, unless and until they quit worrying about symbolic manipulation and start speaking in terms that resonate with the majority. She concludes her essay with these words of advice for the Democratic Party:

"I know something the Democratic Party can do right now that will improve its standing and increase its popularity. It can be done this week. Its impact will be quick and measurable.

It is this: Stop the war on religious expression in America. Have Terry McAuliffe come forward and announce that the Democratic Party knows that a small group of radicals continue to try to "scrub" such holidays as Christmas from the public square....Have Terry McAuliffe announce that from here on in the Democratic Party is on the side of those who want religion in the public square, and the Ten Commandments on the courthouse wall for that matter. Then he should put up a big sign that says "Merry Christmas" on the sidewalk in front of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters on South Capitol Street. The Democratic Party should put itself on the side of Christmas, and Hanukkah, and the fact of transcendent faith.

This would be taking a stand on an issue that roils a lot of people, and believe me those people don't think conservatives are scrubbing America of Christmas, they think it's liberals; and they don't think it's Republicans, they think it's Democrats. Confound them, Terry! Come forward with a stand. It is the stand that is the salvation, not mysterious words or codes or magic messages.

Do this, Democrats. Announce you will apply pressure to antireligious zealots throughout the country. You have nothing to lose but a silly and culturally unhelpful reputation as the party that is hostile to religious expression. What you could gain is respect and gratitude. Pick up that Christmas tree, Terry, take it outside and put a star on top, stand next to it, yell Merry Christmas and ring a bell. That's a manipulation of symbols that would actually make sense."

There are so many problems with this passage that I'm not even sure where to start. First of all, we already have a party that stands "on the side of those who want religion in the public square," thank you very much. These are the same folks who are working hard to impose their religious perspective on public policy and law in the name of religious freedom. We call them Republicans, and they're the ones we're fighting against.

Secondly, and this always kills me, notice how Noonan tries to minimize her Christian-centric perspective by aligning support for Christmas with "Hanukkah, and the fact of transcendent faith." Classic move, and one that only serves to highlight her obvious bias: she doesn't demand that McAuliffe light a minorah in a window of the DNC headquarters, nor does she even pretend that Jewish religious symbols will ever be on display on the courthouse walls. Religious freedom is convenient cover for the imposition of a Christian theocracy, at the expense of the freedoms of Jews, Muslims and other non-Christians. Again, thanks for the advice, Ms. Noonan, but I think you miss the point.

Finally, this essay exemplifies a fundamental misunderstanding of democratic politics, the glaring lacuna at the heart of conservative ideology: the point of government is not to blindly serve the interests of the majority, but to balance majority desires and the minority interests against which they are often aligned. In Peggy's world, politics is reduced to the blunt force will of the majority, and there is no room for those that refuse to get on board. It's not unusual for Noonan to spew insipid nonsense, but this kind of thinking is downright dangerous. Noonan offers a prescription for politics of the lowest common denominator. This is the strategy employed by Rove, and it is fucking genius - evil genius. Democrats didn't lose the election because the youth vote didn't turn out, or because a majority of Americans think Bush is doing a bang up job. Democrats lost because rednecks, bigots and religious zealots turned out in droves to support state initiatives barring gay marriages. This is the majority Bush taps into every time his rhetoric drifts into the realm of religion, the majority Noonan champions as fundamentally American. And as long as politics is played according to their rules, the meaning of freedom and justice will be narrowly circumscribed to fit their religious beliefs.

Like you've got better things to do...

2004-12-17T13:45:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Distress Signals. These troubled missives are inspired by my daily encounters with the Obscene and the Absurd: Black Republicans, NASCAR fathers, televised competitive surgical body modification, Nicolas Cage's career after Raising Arizona. Considered individually, these are disturbing but innocuous bits of cultural detritus, and nothing more. Taken together, however, they signify a more pervasive rot, a systemic necrosis of the body politic. Sometimes the stench of decay is overwhelming. Or maybe the dogs just need a bath. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I'm not afraid to hazard a guess. In this case, I don't think it's the dogs.

It's hard not to be overwhelmed by the enormity of this collective madness. I've yet to fully wrap my mind around the brutal fact of Bush's re-election, much less the longer-term prospect that this Republican juggernaut could pave the way for Arnold's Presidential run as early as 2008. Something deep inside me knots up when I think about Scalia's imminent promotion to Chief Justice, and it's hard to drag myself out of bed knowing that every day of the next four years will be filled with the self-congratulatory prattle of conservative pundits, drunk on the delusion of righteousness. These are tough times for liberal malcontents, even those of us armed with enough vitriol to keep us warm through several more winters. Hopefully, it will be enough to sustain us through the four lean years ahead.

But if it's as bleak as all this, why write at all? "Fiddling while Rome burns," the activists hiss. Pissing and moaning, my dad would call it. Sure, it's cathartic, but is this going to amount to anything more than a collection of random rants and ramblings? Probably not. But never underestimate the value of catharsis. It's what keeps us going, in spite of it all. If nothing else, consider this an archive of the iniquitous goings on in this modern asylum of a country.