The Past Becomes the Future

This is the center of three piers at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Here is where I was introduced to the pleasures of troopship travel.

Prior to arriving, we had spent four hours on a ferry from Camp Stoneman in Pittsburg. When the ferry reached Mason, the tugs parked it on one side of the pier, and we debarked (a new term learned then) and assembled in the shed where we waited until the ferry had been emptied.

Then we were lined up by number and marched aboard a troopship parked on the other side of the pier. The entire process from Stoneman to our bunks in Compartment C and then a walk up a couple of gangways (’nother new term) for an idle stroll around the main deck took about seven hours.

In mid-afternoon, I felt the ship move almost imperceptibly, and then I noticed the gap of water between the side of the ship and the pier widen. Shortly, the tugs began to slide the ship backwards until it cleared the end of the pier. Then just as slowly, the tugs swung the bow of the ship around until it pointed at the Golden Gate Bridge. Soon, the tugs dropped away and the ship was on its own, heading toward the open sea beyond the orange span.

As the ship moved toward the Bridge, I walked along the deck so that I could look up at it as we slid below. And then I walked aft and leaned on the rail, watching the Bridge grow smaller and smaller until at least it disappeared.

I remember clearly at that moment the tears in my eyes and the terrible thought that I would never again see my family. The brains of 18-year old males are at one and the same time adventurous, amorous, and loaded with trepidation and high emotion.

Call it luck or the hand of God as you choose, but two years later I sailed under the bridge, into the bay, and joked over the rail with the tug sailors who shouted up at us that San Francisco women would take our money. “Stay out of the bars,” they said.

Fortunately, I was on my way to a discharge at Parks in Pleasanton and freedom at last. I had no time for an interlude with the San Francisco ladies. The feeling of euphoria is difficult to resurrect now, but suffice to say, I could have walked on water at the thought of relaxing for a few months before deciding on my future.

Mason is still there, much in its original form. It’s been turned over to the city and serves some interesting purposes such as an arena for fashion shows, which are nice if you are into that sort of thing but which serve no useful purpose unless you consider skeletal women in grotesque clothes disjointedly walking to the end of a runway, whirling around, and returning, a valuable purpose.

When I think about inane activities like this, which aren’t restricted to San Francisco, by the way, I am often confounded by the utter self-absorption that has given rise to a culture and an entire economic industry based on a transitory act of physical indulgence. Foreplay by any other name is still foreplay.

But I have more unsettling thoughts. I wonder if my brief time in uniform contributed in any way to the vital national defense of the United States. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t regret my service.

But the nearest I ever came to combat and either heroism or cowardice was sitting in the passenger seat of a car across the street from a bus station in Oakland watching two United States Marines do their level best to beat the living hell out of a single sailor who more than held his own.

Despite my constant calls then for fairness and equity, I Cheneyed out. I deferred to the sailor. I remained in the safety of the car. I rationalized my failure by convincing myself that the sailor could more than take care of himself, and then suddenly, before I could think further, the fight ended and the combatants faded into the darkness.

Someone had called the police, and the fighters hadn’t yet sunk into a state of absolute, unmerciful degradation. They heard the siren. They were after all United States servicemen. They didn’t want to kill each other. Did they?

Today, I still hide the cowardice of that time and place by blathering about fairness and equity. Two on one is patently unfair, I proudly proclaim, as if I would never be a disinterested bystander when someone is in need. Deep inside, though, I know my own reluctance.

I am your classic, patriotic All American, a man without an American flag lapel pin, a condition I justify neatly with a classic degree of political cowardice by pointing out that I do not wear shirts or coats with lapels, and I have no intention of having an American flag tattooed on my forehead.

Besides–and we all know this, right?–a symbol isn’t a gauge of reality. Or, as someone wrote once upon a time, “The map is not the territory.” For those who say they will not vote for Barack because he doesn’t wear an American flag lapel pin, I say fine and dandy. Don’t vote for him. I would hazard a guess that he prefers only intelligent people in the booths on election day anyway.

I wonder if the 4,000 plus American men and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan would be wearing lapel pins if they were alive. My guess is that some would and some would not.

I also wonder if those men and women once believed in fairness and equity. Did they think it unfair for two to pick on one? Did they believe they had an obligation to help those in need?

Would they come to the aid of an abused child or an abused spouse? Or would they, in their sheer elation and euphoria at the joy of life, choose to look another way? To create justifications? To attend fashion shows at Fort Mason where men once sailed off to give their lives so that those very inanities could thrive?

Barack Obama is at this moment like the sailor I witnessed withstanding an almost overwhelming attack by two United States Marines. I have no doubt that he will not fade into the night. He will remain in the arena. He doesn’t need a lapel pin.

It’s all a matter of context

The word is out that 4,000 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the war began. In case you’re interested, that’s equivalent to 133 and a third super-sized airliners each with a capacity of 300 passengers crashing.

Here is a little historical context:

• Civil War. Roughly 618,000 dead Americans
• World War I. Close to 117,000 casualties
• World War II. Another 417,000
• Korea. A paltry 36,000 dead
• Vietnam. Roughly 58,000 combat deaths

Fade to modern era

• Murders. 20-30,000 a year in America
• Suicides. About 20-25,000 a year
• Drunken Driving Deaths. 10-20,000 a year
• Child Abuse Cases. 3,000,000 a year

You know, when you think about it, 4,000 isn’t that bad after all. Think of the odds. You’re safer in a mall in Iraq than you are driving to and from a mall in San Jose.

In fact, Iraq seems like the safest place in the universe. Heck, Hillary sauntered across the tarmac at a Baghdad airport as casually as she would saunter through the Oval Office.

What the hell is everyone bitching about the war for? Let’s all leave on a jet plane for Baghdad.

Hell, let’s send a Real World crew to a villa on the Tigris River.

Or better, film a new reality TV series–Seven Amazing Drunken Blubbering 50-year Old Bobby Soxers with Cellulite Asses Vie for a Sheik’s Love Under Desert Stars. The Bachelor on an Arabian steed.

Or how about Spring Break on the Euphrates? I mean, our kids would be safer there than on South Padre Island.

When you stop to think about it, 4,000 dead Americans doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

I wonder if the survivors of those dead Americans feel as blasé as Dick Cheney?

Cindy Sheehan might have a few words about blasé.

Technorati Tags: Murder,Child Abuse,Drubken Driving Deaths,Cynicism

The Facebook dilemma

Do you like Facebook? I do. For me, it’s a way to gain a sense of how the political winds are blowing among the Facebook generation and the increasing frequency of its use by politicians and political groups of all persuasions.

Barack and Hillary have their supporters and detractors. Jackie Speier has several groups with large numbers of supporters signed in as fans. Even the Republicans can be found among Facebook’s users.

And occasionally I look through its networks, groups, and politically-oriented applications such as US Politics with its polls and debates, goldmines of information about political opinions nationwide.

Then there is the simple matter of looking for individuals with similar interests, like books, movies, television shows, and music. In my own case, romance isn’t in the equation, but almost all of the member profiles I’ve scanned have obviously joined Facebook to look for potential soul mates.

All in all, Facebook is a fine tool for making connections.

But since its inception, Facebook has faced the question of user privacy and the potential misuse of user personal information. For the most part, a user can simply block his or her personal details by restricting the information to trusted friends only. Still, misuse is a strong possibility.

The latest “discovery” is described in The Nation magazine. Author Ari Melber asks “Does Facebook Own You Forever?” According to Ari, it seems so. The money quote is this one:

Even if users terminate their membership, pictures of them posted by others remain online. But users can’t really quit, anyway. Like guests at the Hotel California, people who check out of Facebook have a hard time leaving. Profiles of former members are preserved in case people want to reactivate their accounts. And all users’ digital selves can outlive their creators.

If there is a positive side to escaping the Facebook maze, perhaps it lies in a response from Facebook that follows Ari’s article. I’m not sure the methods described by Facebook adequately address the issue, namely Facebook’s permanent retention of your personal data. Both methods described in the article restrict public access but the second one says:

When a user deletes his or her profile, personal information — such as name and all email addresses associated with the account — is deleted from Facebook servers.

This statement is open to interpretation. The statement doesn’t say “all” servers. Is there one master server somewhere, like the fabled master computer of conspiracy theories where information from secretly-implanted microchips keeps track of us? The conspiracy part is just a little humor, but I continue to wonder about a line from the Kris Kristofferson song Hellacious Acres: admission’s free, you pay to get out.

Beyond the technicalities of removing ourselves from Facebook, however, Emily Morse brings the subject closer to home. In her latest post on 7×7SF, she says Facebook Stalking Alive And Well in SF.

Stalking is a subject that should concern every young woman with personal information on a Facebook page. Yes, women stalk men, too, and Emily gives an example of it. But in the world of large numbers, men stalkers are more numerous than lady stalkers and more prone to persistence and violence.

What can someone do to avoid identity theft or stalking? One answer is simply to steer clear of posting any kind of info that could be used to construct a full identity, info such as your date and place of birth, schools attended, employment history, and email address.

If you must include some personal info, reveal it only to trusted friends by adjusting your Facebook settings. And never reveal your itinerary if you will be traveling. As Emily notes, if you’re heading for Hawaii, don’t announce it with a post on your public wall.

Okay, now that you are properly frightened, enjoy your Facebook experience. I am.

Important Note: I do not read Emily’s blog or listen to her Sex with Emily show. For some reason I cannot fully explain her blogs just keep popping up right in front of my face every time I log in to the internet, and I simply can’t seem to escape them. I’ve tried using the Facebook method of disengagement without success. Has she planted a cookie in my search engine? Is she stalking me?

Pain don’t hurt …

…especially when you inflict it on someone else…

“This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, son.”

Whop! Bam! Bang! Wham! Pow! Awop-bop-a-loo-mop alop bom bom! Tutti Fruitti Aw Ruti!

“I’ll be good, daddy! I’ll be good!”

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson, son.”

“Yes, Daddy, I have learned my lesson. I want to grow up to be just like you. (Sotto Voce: I’m going to beat the crap out if my kid, too).

“That’s a good boy.”

This is a scenario that plays out every day all over America. Little kids have the crap beaten out of them by very large adults. Think of a 180 pound male “spanking” a 40 pound child. The kid doesn’t have a chance.

Check this article on the Contra Costa Times for the views and experiences of Alamo resident Jordan Riak, a retired school teacher, who has waged a 30-year fight against spanking in schools and in homes. His common sense approach: reward acceptable behavior but do not reward unacceptable behavior. Kids are smarter than border collies, but they are also somewhat like Pavlov’s Dog. They learn to associate stimuli with imminent reward fairly quickly through a “conditioned response.”

Sure, I spanked my children. That’s no excuse for me to continue or for anyone to emulate me. But somewhere along the line, perhaps through the invisible hand of common sense, a light bulb went off. I thought about Pavlov and British philosopher Jeremy Bentham who described Britain’s Common Law as Dog Law.

He wrote, “When your dog does anything you want to break him of, you wait till he does it, and then beat him for it.”

He went on, “Under the CL system judges were guided by precedents, but these precedents were collected, at best, in obscure books which were frequently written in Latin and inaccessible to anyone except judges and lawyers…Such a law might be suitable for ‘those who neither know how to write, nor how to speak,’ that is to say ‘for brutes.’ Yet in England it was what passed for the rule of law.”

In other words, the Common Law system was “after the fact,” a system under which citizens did not know and were not informed of the law in advance. The system amounted to “beating the dog after the dog had done something that the master didn’t like.”

Bentham’s words sound like a perfect description of child rearing in America. A two-year old child may have an intelligent look in its eyes. But intelligence isn’t the same as knowledge. It isn’t the same as knowing the difference between right and wrong. And it isn’t the same as knowing in advance how an unpredictable parent will react.

Is spanking a child a form of child abuse? Some say yes, some no. My argument varies somewhat. The real abuse isn’t the pain of spanking but the lessons we teach our kids, the conditioned responses we instill in their immature brains. Violence is okay, son. Stop crying now and be a man.

One result of the lessons we teach is about 3,000,000 reported cases of child abuse every year in the U.S. Another is the uncounted number of times a more powerful spouse or domestic partner beats the weaker partner. Add about 20,000-30,000 murders a year in our country and you might begin to think that violence is the answer to all of our frustrations.

But then again, pain don’t hurt. Patrick Swayze done tole me so.

National Women’s Political Caucus SF

Women’s issues have always been one of our concerns because we are and have been surrounded by females since the earliest memories.

If you are like we are, most likely you were raised by a grandmother, mother, aunts galore, sisters, and several female pets.

In later life came a wife, daughters, a female feline, and a parrot. Each and every one of these has exerted a powerful influence on the lives and attitudes of those around them.

That observation isn’t meant to exclude male relatives. All of them worked industriously and we aspired to become exactly like them. And most of us did, but with an added element, an appreciation for women’s struggles to achieve social and political parity with men.

Perhaps that explains how I stumbled across a website for the National Women’s Political Caucus San Francisco.

The entire website should be of interest to anyone concerned about women’s rights, but one part struck me as particularly interesting.

On the FAQ page, I found this question: Why do we endorse only women?

The answer in part: “…women govern differently than men…elected women, regardless of their party or ideological affiliation, place a higher value and spend more time on issues impacting children and families.”

We’ve argued for years that America is a throw-away society. We discard used goods in a heartbeat, and immediately trade in a perfectly good used car for a new one for no reason other than a desire to show our affiliation with the cool crowd.

We also discard human beings, paramount among them innocent children. Over 3,000,000 cases of child abuse are reported in our country every year. And domestic abuse is pandemic with women as the prime targets in almost all cases. This speaks to an unparalleled degree of personal absorption over defenseless beings.

I find a good deal of humor when I observe politics. But the failure of our political system to assure the safety of our women and children is no laughing matter.

The National Women’s Political Caucus deserves mention for its efforts get our country on the right course.

Observation: In the not too distant past, boys wanted to be like the adult males in their lives. Today, adult males want to be like boys. Maybe this accounts for the explosion of adolescent males running our country.