* RADIO RANT: Birds as Symbols

I only caught snippets of Michael Savage last night (8/29), but his discussion (or rather, rant, as usual) about the Senator Craig affair had somehow wandered to the bird calling in the background of the Senator's "I am not gay" press conference. Yes, it was a Red-winged Blackbird (its "cong-er-ee" call), as a caller or two told him; but Savage's immediate reaction was so typically Western, and by the way, so typically traditional-lit-crit: he asked, "What does the blackbird symbolize in literature?!" Yikes! The very subject, really, of my book-manuscript-at-the-press. I couldn't handle the ideational pain and fled to sports talk radio.

I suppose that at least one caller fed Savage the standard freshman-in-college answer—"the blackbird stands for death"—and that our good Doctor applied it "cleverly" to the Senator's doomed career. But again, how symptomatic of mainstream anthropocentric culture to see other species as "all about us," as if God had put other species here to remind humans of our own mortality. (Geez, was there ever a real, honest-to-goodness snake in the Garden of Eden?) There was a real, individual Red-winged Blackbird calling there, with as much "reason" and worth to do so as the human fellow frantically trying to save his political ass. A deconstructive reversal of foreground & background might be instructive here: "What's that stupid primate sputtering about while Mr. Blackbird sings his wonderful tune?"

Finally, the old "death" equation hardly works with the red-wing, anyway. The "black birds" traditionally demonized in Western folklore are the crow and raven, not even loosely related to the red-wing. Closer, ornithologically, are Wallace Steven's grackles, sometimes read by critics as symbols of death (though symbols of sheer mundanity, of "reality" itself, works better for me in the context of Stevens' corpus). In contrast, though—if I HAVE to talk "symbolism"—the red-wing has always suggested to me the jouissance of the new spring, a powerfully ebullient paean to (and epitome of) nature's general rejuvenation. But as a poem I wrote as a much younger fellow reminds me, even this is sheer homocentric projection:

        AFTER LORCA   (c. 1986; rev. 1992)

the red-winged blackbird
sings, but not to call his pied-brown mate
or a cattail congerie--
he sings to be singing: he sings

the red-winged blackbird
sings, but not for the ever-returning spring,
or other springs, gone by--
he sings to be singing: he sings

the red-winged blackbird
sings, not to recall in us some preter-
natural nature of things:
he sings

* RADIO RANT: Subduing the Universe

A biblical scholar speaking on the Michael Savage last night (8/28, though apparently it was a "best of" rerun): "God created man to subdue the universe." I'd comment on this powerful notion in some detail, but right now I'm busy planning the subjugation (and ecological rapine) of a 3rd-world island-nation in the South Pacific. . . .

* RADIO RANT: The Savage Within

Michael Savage admonished godless liberals last night (8/27) for not understanding something about good Christian conservatives, shouting, half-apoplectically, "Why do you think people worship God? To control the animal within!" A pretty scary (self-)admission, and a pretty poor reason to believe in a deity.

Ergo—some Quots. of the Day:

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained. . . .
    --William Blake

Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.
    --Nietzsche

The will to overcome an emotion is ultimately only the will of another, or of several other, emotions.
    --Nietzsche

* John & Martha X; Barbaric Discourse

* "DEEP Ecology"

I'm sure all of you got tired of listening to that glib sleazeball capitalist, Utah mine-owner Bob Murray, on the cable news. What an asshole. I guessed immediately that this was Mr. $$ doing a cover-up operation, despite all his cant about his company's great concern for the trapped miners' families, etc. Worst of all—let's blame it on "Mother Nature," Bob says; besides some purported originary "quake" (refuted by real seismologists), it's them damned "NATURAL" movements in the earth, them damned seismic "bumps" that won't let us progress upon our savior mission. Did you ever think—duh, you KNOW you knew, you bastard!—that all that ground activity is BECAUSE of your (questionable) mining practices? I don't even wanna witness all the tracks-covering you'll be performing in the next week or so: think I'll bury myself in my schoolwork.

* SKOOL DAZE BLUZ

(The following effusion was inspired in part by my awareness that I seemed to be "rushing" out blog posts now, knowing that I wouldn't be able to expend nearly as much effort when school started.)

I imagine that damned near EVERYONE who has grown up in a Western nine-month school system has internalized the same seasonal-emotional clock: the clock that says, with the end of summer, something painful comes. Whether your particular school starts in mid/late August or after Labor Day, it's that same archetypal turn towards the "Fall of Man," both a darkening of the seasons and an imprisonment of the soul: i.e., SCHOOL.

And it also really doesn't matter that much if you're a student or teacher, young or old. ALL know that two-weeks-to-go shudder, that beginning-of-the-end-of-pleasure "I-have-to-do-something-now-before-it's-over!" As a child, I knew it, even though I also knew that, as a poor kid whose only love was books, it wasn't that great a loss. As a young man without a job, though, I especially felt it, perhaps, since watching Jerry Lewis & his marathon without having found a real job YET meant true failure, according to the natural order/timeframe of things. (That is, without a job, I should by all rights be in school now, in some fashion or another, doing something!) As a middle-aged curmudgeon with a teaching job, yes, there's the pressure of syllabi and handouts and trying to concentrate the mind beyond the ephemeralia of blogs & "radio rants"—and yet my classes actually do deal with many of the issues that I'm so po'd about in these blog entries.

But still—yes: the body's, and society's, clock says it's the end of summer, a death, a finale, a funeral for the soul. But like that toothache I blogged about before—it's rather a delicious pain at this point in my life, an acknowledged product of the heavy fruits of consciousness. [Geez, I came off sounding older than I am. I hope.]

* RADIO RANT: "Let It Lie!"

The English-teacher schoolmarm in me has a whole list of future-blog bitches regarding English-language usage in the popular media. (One that has especially irked me on sports-talk radio is the ubiquitous dangling modifier, "Having said that.") But one old chestnut has especially struck my Queen's-English-obsessed heart these last few weeks. (I often point out the irony to my Anglo students, that the mixed-blood mutt that I am has HAD to obsess about, CARE about, "their" language, to be "good enough," more than they have.)

Well, the problem is the old "lie" versus "lay" deal. Whether it's Michael Savage or the ESPN-talk-guy-du-jour, it's inevitably, "So then I went to lay down [in bed, on the couch, etc.] . . . ." No, you went to lie down. You lay down, Michael Savage, that copy of Mein Kampf you've been reading so assiduously. [Low blow, admittedly, but he does worse to "my" side. And yes, I know that the past tense of lie is lay.]

Worse yet, these last few weeks, I've heard several examples of characters in sitcoms making the same error. (Characteristic: "I'm going to lay down now.") The writers might easily say, "Well, that's how everyday people talk. Most of us make the same mistake." Well, geez, you can't actually help the "State" (and the state of public education) by some proper modeling/brainwashing here?! A lot of "everyday" people also say "fucking" as a phatic interjection every 3rd or 4th word, but I don't hear that in your "realist" aesthetics. (If that was your rationale. Actually, I wonder if you know the proper usage, either.)

A final objection: Tom, this "rule" is obviously becoming defunct, out of ignorance + usage. Well, maybe. And I could admit defeat more magnanimously if only I hadn't spent my life learning such rules—and, as I said, sucking up to the Great White Ways because I was a bit less than white. (At least I NEVER made my students adhere to that stupid don't-end-your-sentence-with-a-proposition rule; I'm mean, that's so archaic—except in the most formal of rhetorical situations—that I don't have the words that express my disdain for. It.)

[Added 8/21/07:] Again, tonight, on CNN, a fellow speaking about the Utah mining disaster: ". . . leave the bodies where they lay."

* Tom's Garlic Toast

I mentioned in my last recipe that garlic was my "favorite vegetable." In fact, I used to munch on raw cloves, for the sheer rush. In contrast to that namby-pamby store-bought garlic toast (using garlic salt or powder?), here's an "in-your-face" version:
1. Prepare garlic by chopping several garlic cloves (I prefer pretty big pieces, 3-4 per clove).
2. Make 2 pieces of toast.
3. "Butter" toast.
4. Sprinkle chopped garlic over toast, so that each bite will hit a piece of garlic.
5. Do NOT make spaghetti, or whatever. This is a heavenly repast unto itself.

* Lima Bean (& Ham) Soup

I'm making my famous-only-to-me bean soup today, another one of those recipes that sound so boring, but taste so good, and remind me of my childhood, and of the days before Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage! ("Yeh, Hubert Horatio Humphrey is still alive, and the future looks bright, and progressive. Yeh. Good beans, too.")

I use a slow cooker now for this recipe, though like chili, it's hardly required, or even preferable.
Ingredients:
* HALF-bag of dried beans, your choice (recipe originally designed for large lima beans, but baby limas, black beans, even that bag of 13 assorted beans—all fine)
* spices of choice: mine include (lemon) pepper, salt (substitute), (1/2) bay leaf, garlic powder, dry mustard powder, and Tabasco sauce . . . (Yes, I used to SMOKE—and so used/still use lots o' spices so I can taste the food. Also, having recently acquired a love for Asian Indian food, I even added some minced ginger this time.)
* veggies of choice: chopped carrots & celery are bourgeois de rigeur; good, too: several garlic cloves (my favorite vegetable), and (half?) a chopped onion
* [OPTIONAL:] ham product of choice—a hamhock (my traditional way, in the days sans money), or a ham part/steak w/ bone, or that precooked cubed ham, etc. (UNcooked is preferable, if you want those "traditional" fat droplets floatin' atop yr soup.)
* small can of tomato sauce

[Crock-pot cooking time: Low: 6-8 hours; High: 3-4 hours (?—I don't mind my beans & veggies al dente!)]
1. Prepare beans, either by overnight soaking or that "quick-prep" boiling method given on the back of most dry-bean packages (former method preferable).
2. Throw some water into the slow cooker. (Doesn't matter how much—you'll be adding more later.)
3. Add spices & beans.
4. Add "hard" vegetables (carrots, onions, etc.).
5. Add ham, if uncooked. If cooked, you can wait several hours (see #6).
(I like to stagger the steps above by a half-hour or so, just to take a break from the computer. Also, add water as needed at any stage.)
Several hours later/halfway through the process:
6. Add (cooked) ham. Add "soft" vegetables (probably only celery here).
(Half-)hour before serving:
7. Add tomato sauce. (Overcooking tomato sauce makes everything taste "burnt" or "turned," for some reason.)

8. Last, but most importantly: add approx. 1/2 teaspoon of vinegar to that bowl o' beans you just ladled out: mmm, mmm! Serve with hard rolls or other bread of choice (spread w/ "oleo"?—as my mom used to call it), to dip into the soup.

Of course, these crock-pot recipes make a lot more than a person living alone can handle, in one meal, or even one day; for soups or stews like this one, I eat as much as I can (bad advice!), and then freeze the rest in individual microwaveable bowls (covered with aluminum foil), which I can slowly unthaw/reheat in the microwave on a rainy day.

[Added same day:] Oh! The ginger makes it entirely NEW. I added more. . . .

* Subliminal Appeals on Cable News?

Several of the main cable news channels are displaying a visual of Hurricane Dean as a marquee in one corner, as it tears through the Caribbean. But sometimes when I'm channel-surfing and not thinking (happens a lot), I suddenly come upon this visual and see at first—gasp—a BREAST. And the hurricane's eye is the NIPPLE. "I do not know what makes me see these things." (Hey, that was iambic pentameter. Cool.)

* RADIO RANT: Making Mirth w/ Myths

I was car-radio-surfing this Sunday morning, on the drive back to Lincoln from Verminville, when I happened upon a Christian talk-radio station. They were doing an apparently weekly feature for them, a review of the week's new movies, including one called Arctic Tale. The main reviewer fellow was surprisingly positive in general, given my assumption that this film is at least "sort of" a lefty/tree-hugger/eco-nut movie; but things heated up (pun intended) when the other radio personality detected a global warming agenda in the plot. Even here, the reviewer eased all good Christians' fears(?!) by asserting that this message is understated, not blatant. Well, until the ending-credit stuff, that is, where such bogus ideology becomes too overt for these good souls: a few quotes therefrom have both of them guffawing, chortling, snickering . . . at the sheer absurdity of believing in this myth that is global warming. . . . Thank the Good LORD that Christians don't believe in anything nearly as ridiculous.. . . ["Eat this dried-up, tasteless wafer. It's really the body of Jesus of Nazareth, who died circa 33 A.D. Besides that, he's still alive, even as you're munching on him right now." "The hell, yu' say!"]

* RADIO RANT: Shakespeare Savaged

Michael Savage brought out his bag of literary learnèdness again last night (8/15/07), quoting—sort of—Shylock's famous speech beginning "Hath not a Jew eyes . . . ?" (MofV 3.1). But, sputtering on the quotation, he ended with the following edifying advice: "Read your Shakespeare, and you'll get the rest of that particular couplet." Couplet? It's a speech in prose, man; read your prosody handbook, and you'll get why "couplet" in no way applies here. A forgivable error, maybe, if you weren't such a poseur in pedantry. (I think that's called "illiteration"!)

* That's GAY[?!]

THE BILL ENGVALL SHOW [TBS; aired tonight (8/14/07)]:
[At a Parents-Teachers Conference:]
BILL: You didn't like to read Jane Austin as a teen[ager], did yu'?
TEACHER: Yes, I did.
BILL: Well, that's just GAY.
[BIG AUDIENCE LAUGH.]

When I read the transcript above to my wife over the phone, expecting a surprise/outrage that mirrored my own, she said instead, "I'd need to know the full context." HUH? Would she have have had less of an ethical dilemma if Bill had said, "That's so Negro" (the teacher was black, BTW) or "You're such a fag"?

* RADIO RANT: Carrot-&-Stick Ethics

A relatively new commercial on the radio seems innocuous enough: it's for http://www.getgoodkarma.org, and asks one to be "civically active"—to vote, to volunteer, etc. But the "goodkarma" part of the URL is the sticking point for me. Why be civic-minded, ethical—ultimately, GOOD? Well, you'll be rewarded for it, for "stay[ing] on the universe's good side," as the web site tells us. Or punished for being "bad," apparently: "So play nice. You won't like the universe when it's angry." This is merely a New Age/Asian metaphysical version of good-old-fashioned Christian theology, which says to the unwashed masses: "Be good—SO you can get to Heaven. Don't be bad, or you'll earn eternal damnation." I'm against any such carrot-and-stick ethics because it is just a grander displacement of the child's early "ethical" development: be good, and Mommy will hug you! Be bad, and Dad'll beat your ass! This isn't being ethical at all; it's being a pawn of operant conditioning. (Thus Freud saw Western religion itself as part of an earlier, "childish" stage of human evolution.) At least from Kant on, philosophers have spoken of an ethics for its own sake as the real "Good," in contrast to behavior dependent upon an external set of reinforcers. In sum, how is volunteering at the homeless shelter—to guarantee some good karma for yourself—in any way ethical in a fundamental, intrinsic sense?

(An objection: "Maybe the 'karmic' discourse of this whole web site is just good-naturedly tongue-in-cheek, just tryin' to get people more positively involved." Well. Okay. . . . Or IS it okay, to "play" willy-nilly with such serious things as worldviews, as if they were mere Pepsi or Coke t-shirts to be donned and doffed at will in this postmodern era? I don't have a sense of humor in this realm. [Geez, I'm becoming a curmudgeon, as the Minnesota Twins continue their losing ways!])

* RADIO RANT: Women's Rights vs. Animal Rights?

Paul Zeise, a beat writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, has created a new round of controversy in the Michael Vick saga by uttering the following on a Pittsburg talk show: "It's really a sad day in this country when . . . Michael Vick would have been better off raping a woman [rather than running a vicious dog-fighting racket] . . . . Had he done that, he probably would have been suspended for [only] four games [rather than a year] and he'd be back on the field." To me, the meat of this new controversy is that several national sports commentators have come to Zeise's defense (e.g., John Fricke), via at least the implication that the current atmosphere of "political correctness" has led to a privileging of wild animals over our own women.

On one important level, these people are right, of course: Kobe Bryant and the legion of athletes charged with rape and spousal abuse have been getting mere hand-slaps from their leagues & teams, as the patriarchal game of wink-wink continues. They should be getting much more severe penalties. However, this issue is really independent of the Michael Vick episode; and the stance above, in its ostensible attempt to be anti-sexist, reveals once again an utter anthropocentrism: i.e., a human (woman) is more important than another animal. I, for one, believe that being instrumental in the violent deaths of many individuals of another species is a greater crime than the sexual abuse of any single member of our one species (whatever the gender). There, I've said it. Zeise, Fricke, et al. are wrong; it is hardly a "sad day," but a positive evolution in the general consciousness, in my mind. What is sad is that this debate seems to force one to pick & choose between women's rights and animal rights. But again, they're separate issues.

Of course I'm completely wrong in the "separate issue" thing, but this twist of an admission takes the argument to entirely different level. A major tenet of ecofeminism is that what the patriarchy does to women and "animals" (and to Natives and the environment) comes from the same source, an imperialist White male need to identify and ostracize an Other, including a propensity to commit violence against "her"—to maintain at last a master/slave, Self/Other, civilization/nature hierarchal binary, to reassure the Self of its superior status. What is truly surprising, then, is that these commentators are speaking of the two crimes as if they were fundamentally different things!