“What a world you must live in.”

Here's the thing: people are like cats. I suspect that's why people hate them so much. People that tend not to like cats say it's because they're dog people (I always imagine McGruff The Crime Dog and some Planet of the Apes scenario.) Some people think cats are just too sneaky. Some think cats are to feminine and flighty – including some newly minted feminists who haven't read or thought about what feminism actually is. But As critters go, human beings are incredibly predictable in at least one way: we tend to like things that mirror the attitudes and attributes we'd rather have, instead of those we actually have. And because there is no yin without a yang, no Starsky without a Hutch, no Cagney without a Lacy, it is also true that if we like the people and places and things that represent what we aspire to, then we hate the people and places and things that remind of who (and what) we really are.

Which is why most people don't like cats. They're too much like we are.

Now, don't get me wrong. We should always aspire to be more, to be better. Of course, we're short of heroic icons in these modern times. Two of my heroes, Utah Phillips and J.L. “Red” Rountree – are both dead and have been for some time. I was introduced to the stories and songs of Utah Phillips in my early 20's, and it was through him that I began to learn about the long memory he sang and talked about – the memory of workers, organizers, unions, anarchists, pacifists, agents of change... and those those who believed in and harnessed the positive power of chaos... such as Albert Parsons, Big Bill Heywood, Joe Hill, and Ammon Hennacy. I chose as my heroes those who embody those ideals I believe are important and that I hope to better exemplify and live by in my own life. Red Rountree was maybe the last of the philosophical bank robbers. He didn't hurt people, and believed in having fun. He also had a deep grudge against banks.

But it's difficult to get around that fact that most people are like cats. Cats are moody, territorial, and dislike having their routine interrupted. I have two cats, and if their daily ritual is maligned in anyway, they simply don't know what to do. And people are the same way. We like our rituals, our patterns, our hegemonic convergence that defines each and every day of our lives. We like it so much that even if we become unhappy, we live with it.

And if we're forced to face the idea that something has to change, we look for a way to change as little as possible, lest we upset our all so sacred routine.

Which is, of course, the problem people have with the Occupy Wall Street Movement. At it's core, it represents the idea that something has be done to change the inequities that most of us life under. This means not just adding new rules. It may mean throwing the old rules out and starting from scratch. Because the problem isn't just that the rules aren't fair. The problem is that in America, the Golden Rule – “He who has the Gold makes the Rules” is the only rule that matters. It is upon that rule that Capitalism is built, and it is for that very reason that Capitalism is a wholesale failure as a social, political, and economic model. We have lived under it so long that people have forgotten that Democracy – the idea that all people are equal and deserve and equal voice – has been consumed by Plutarchy and Capitalism.

Keep in mind, not all #occupywallst folks are anti-capitalists. But they do recognize that something's fucked up. And they're willing to do something about it. It's not a revolution, that's true. But maybe... just maybe... it is a kind of evolution.

Thursday Brain Buffett: The Inheritors

My head was swimming with ideas when I rolled out of bed this morning, and I've been trying to keep a handle on them until I could sit down and get them all out. That happens sometimes. I normally try to compose this blog with a certain continuity with an echo of the long lost and rarely read essay.

This morning, though, I want to hit the highlights, keep it simple, and move on.

First of all, I want to thank Grindbone brother Kaplowitz (iamkap.blogspot.com) for bringing me onto the 2^nd edition of his blogspot radio broadcast. Although the format is uber-brief, we kept it lively and hit a few high water marks. Among them:

• I like offensive people – or, at any rate, smart people who try to offend either to educate or make fun of the unenlightened.
• I would rather be a poor and despised writer than a desperate college instructor.
• Writing cannot be taught, only encouraged.

It's on this last point that I want to riff first, just a bit.

To all my friends who are still ensconced in higher education, and particularly those who take on the largely thankless quest to teach First Year or Basic Writing:

I am not saying that you are, or that I was, irrelevant. So much of what writing teachers do on a daily basis ends up being a drawn out argument to justify their existence... which is part of the larger problem. A good teacher knows when to get out of the way and let the educational moment run on its own momentum; the bad ones think it somehow has something to do with them.

And since I have laboriously and copiously recorded my issues with higher education, I'll just say this: the problem with education at all levels is two-fold:

1. There are too many fucking lackeys and weasels (Please consult your Parsons Dictionary of Often Used Words and Phrases, Desk Reference Edition) micro-managing the educational process, and they are being supported by myopic textbook publishers with a Wal-Mart mentality.
2. The educational process in this country has been derailed by the profit motive – students being corralled into “careers” (aka turning them into trained monkeys who pay taxes so that our corporate overlords don't have to), public schools teaching testing instead of concepts and the foundations of critical thinking, and colleges and universities taking up the for-profit education model pioneered by the University of Phoenix.

The corporate influence on education in this country was unavoidable, however, since our corporate overlords have had their fingers in everything for a very long time. The mistake, often made by people who have been taught a sanitized view of history, is in believing, that the relatively recent incarnation of the multi-national corporation is the culprit.

They aren't. They're merely the inheritors.

Corporate influence on American life and politics reaches much further back. The 1920's, the Robber Barons, and the Wall Street Bankers that brought on the Great Depression? (Hmm....) Sure. But look farther. Post- World War 1 coal companies that used racism divide workers and keep unions from forming? Sure. Look back even further. Railroad Companies? Yep. Keep looking. Civil War munitions manufacturers? Yes. Slavery? Yes.

Get the point? I'm leaving out some important players in the leaching of America, but you're getting the point? I'd be willing to bet that since Adam Smith wrote his Capitalist Treaty, there's been some monger trying to get one over by exploiting the work done by other people.

And before you get all horrified, deified, homogenized, and needlessly terrified, let me point out that large scale Capitalism – the massing of capital by exploiting the labor and resources of others – is not the same thing as someone who owns and operates a business. Entrepreneurs succeed by their own sweat. Capitalists succeed on the sweat of others.

This brings me to recent events – the Occupy Wall Street Movement and it's various echo movements across the country. The problem I have is that I live so far off the beaten track that I have to rely on posted video clips and some eye witness accounts that may or may not be legitimate. Getting news online means dealing with spurious sources, trolls, moles, dunderheads, and those well-intended transmitters of information that get lost in the sea of bullshit.

Not surprisingly, the corporate owned media (Disney owns ABC, GE owns NBC, and CBS is a monster all its own. And don't forget News Corp and Viacom. For a list of who's feeding you your news, see this chart) isn't really covering the movement – and yes, I feel pretty confident in calling it that – even though there's clear evidence of something. But, here in the Big Empty, that grand land called the Midwest, it's easy to ignore the movements that may (or may not) help redefine the future.

All I do know is that from what I can tell, I like it.  

Notes from Bizarro World (Post-Labor Day Post)

The more history I read and the more I consider our present circumstances, the more I think I live in Bizarro World.

For those of you who are not imminently COOL enough to know what I'm talking about, I am referring to the cube shaped planet Htrae, where Superman's block-headed alter opposite Bizarro lives:

(This is also the real  location of Crawford, Texas.)

Because everything on Bizarro World has to be opposite of everything on Earth, this -- again for those of you not comic book inclined -- is a copy of the Bizarro Code:

The implication, of course, is that everything done on our planet is perfect -- or at least, our goal to try and get as close as possible.  And of course, in 1960's comic-speak by PLANET, they mean THE UNITED STATES.

After some deliberation, I've come to the conclusion that if I'm supposed to live in a world where beauty and perfection are the goals, then I'm in the wrong one. As a matter of fact, it seems as if the highest goals and deepest desires of the planet -- and by the planet I mean THE UNITED STATES  -- are the exact OPPOSITE of any attempt to attain beauty, truth, or perfection.

Thus, I can only conclude that I currently reside on Bizarro World.

Because only on a planet such as Bizarro World could Labor Day pass with little or no attention paid to the fact that celebrating Labor -- that is, the Labor Movement -- has more to do with the holiday than fireworks and barbecues. Neither The History Channel, nor The Documentary Channel showed anything about people who work, the history of labor in this country, or the struggle for workers rights and the legalized murder of labor martyrs like Joe Hill and Albert Parsons -- just to name 2; and given the current drive by Tea Baggers, lily-livered Libertarians, GOP'ers, and spineless Democrats to further undercut unions in this country, I sort of thought that maybe one of them might have run something. I don't think PBS even ran anything, either.

The only national news item that ran about Labor was Teamster President James Hoffa calling the Tea Party a bunch of "sons of bitches." Of course, Fox News -- trying, I guess, to distract attention from Der Fuhrer Rupert Murdoch's problems  -- had to give the TB'ers yet another platform by covering the the drippers' condemnation of Hoffa's comments.

On the other hand, I'm not really surprised. Since we are clearly a country of people who have forgotten our history -- accepting, instead, the sanitized, glamorized, homogenized version sold to us in history textbooks -- it's no wonder that we are repeating it.

But since I am clearly on Bizarro World, I should point out one of it's key inhabitants. And no, I don't mean Bizarro Superman, or even Ambush Bug.



The sad part about liking comic books is the realization that in real life there are no super heroes swooping down to save us. Institutions of government and religion and of higher learning have failed us.

That means it's up to us.

Or, you could wait on Ambush Bug.

21 Anno Domini

Ken Parsons, 1955.

The picture I chose of my dad was taken in 1955... 18 years before I was born. Although I have pictures of him from my childhood – the way I remember him – but I like this picture of him more than any of those. This is him in his youth, in his prime. There's a cockiness in his stance that grew into something larger, into a mental and spiritual indefatigably, which lingered, even when his health and his body began to fail him. The stamp on the back of the picture indicates that the picture was taken – or, at any rate, developed – in November of that year in San Antonio, Texas. The only thing I know about my dad being in Texas was that after being in that state with two other friends – he in the Air Force, and one friend each in the Navy and the Army – my dad received a letter from the governor asking him to please never return to the state or risk being incarcerated.

At least, that's the way I remember him telling the story. And while I'm sure that there was probably some exaggeration involved – the men in my family are prone to exaggeration – I have found there's an element of truth in all forms of exaggeration.

Today is the 21^st anniversary of his death. Some years it's easier for me to handle than others. This year seems a bit more difficult than I've experienced in a while. Maybe it's because lately I've been acutely aware of his absence. There are times when I still want to ask his advice, still want him to make everything better. I'd ask him what he thinks about my life. Silly, really. I think maybe the reason I care so little about the opinions of other people is because his opinion was always the one that mattered – and in its absence, there is no one who's opinion can act as a substitute.

That he is gone doesn't mean I don't still learn from him. That I can't remember the sound of his voice doesn't mean he still doesn't speak to me. It is the blessing and the curse of children to carry their parents with them, in their bones and in their hearts. The imprint is a permanent one. I continue to learn from him because the core of what I learned continues to apply to my everyday life. He teaches me that being honest counts for more; that convictions are worth standing up for; that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity until they've proven otherwise. He also teaches me that I am not less deserving of respect than others so long as I remember these three things.

I miss you, Dad. Give'em Hell.

Mick's Rules For Living: Another Revision

I've been working on this list, trying to whittle it down to something simple. The first list was ambitious, and not unlike the inner workings of my brain, a bit abstract. Not that there's anything wrong with abstract thinking. But, abstract ideas only work when they are tied to something concrete... that is, theories that can only remain theories are pointless. 


So, here we are. The updated list.

1. Do No Harm. Ever. I don't know how to simplify this. Violence begats violence and never creates anything lasting or positive. And the use of violence -- either actual or implied -- to force your ideas on other people helps to create stupid people.

2. Wear Clean Socks. I can't recommend this highly enough. If you must wear socks, either because you have a job that requires it or because it's cold, make sure they're clean. You can be a week beyond the need for a good bath, your clothes can be rags, and you could look like an extra from a zombie movie. But if you're wearing clean socks, you just feel like better. Trust me.

3. Read something non-essential everyday. People who read are less likely to develop Alzheimer's later. They're also less likely to be stupid.

4. Don't live any further from a bar than a 20-30 minute walk or 40 minute bus ride, unless you know you have a ride. Seriously. And if all else fails, drink at home. It's cheaper, anyway.


5. Never offend a bartender, secretary, or janitor. They run the world. Deal with it.


6. Be kind to all critters smaller than yourself. 


7. Only apologize when it's sincere, and never subjugate your will to the whims of others. Another consolidation of two previous rules. The only thing a person has in this life that's worth a damn is integrity. Let the bastards take that and nothing else matters.

8. Be honest. Even if it hurts. It often does.

9. You know you had a good day when you can sleep that night. Really. Any other qualification is false advertising.

10. The only thing you have to do in life is die. Everything else is an option. 

The Decay of The Art of Argument

The problem with argument in this Post-American Century America is that no one likes a good argument anymore. We like to fight with words – admittedly, fewer and smaller words than we used to – but it is still considered the intellectual's preference to rocks, sticks, knives, or guns. We stake out our territory and strike out, like our tribal ancestors undoubtedly did, with the sole purpose of mental evisceration. I think of it like the Catholic Church's Crusades of centuries ago – convert or die. This is the approach that most of us take. But these two things are not the same.

Running parallel with that massive chunk of cultural sewage is another crucial piece of infrastructure that keeps the whole mess moving downhill – the dire and politically correct desire to be “polite.” These two things aren't nearly as contrary as people tend to think. Fighting with words accomplishes nothing and no one ever really wins... although everyone tends to walk away feeling like they have.

There are times in the often violent exchange of ideas when being polite is a nice break. A palette cleanser, if you will. Graciousness will take you pretty far in the world... if that happens to be your goal.

But even in a well-reasoned argument, there is often reason NOT to be polite. Conceit, snobbery, bigotry, sexism, and xenophobia can all be thinly disguised with a polite tone and a long knife smile. We talk a lot about compromise in this country... mostly about the lack of it... but the truth is no one really wants to compromise. They want to win while still being able to take umbrage at the fact that the other party didn't simply agree and capitulate.

This is the problem. We've lost the ability to argue in any way that useful, or even entertaining. We like to sit around with people who think like us, who talk like us. We join groups on Facebook so we can dish in publicly private setting. Now we have “circles” on Google + so we can control what we say and show to whom... even though it's possible to do that on Facebook if you spend five minutes looking over your account settings. And really, there's nothing wrong with getting together with other people – either in real time or online – to share similar views. (So that's NOT what I'm saying here, you ninnies who want to throw a Constitutional argument at me. I know all about the First Amendment. It's my bread and butter.) And because we've been taught to actually believe that the hallmark of civilization is our ability to be polite and that America is near the pinnacle of perfect civilizations, we think that the sometimes heated arguments over ideas are unamerican.

First of all, if history, current and past, has, is and should teach us anything, it's that there's very little about civilization that's very civilized. A smile and a polite tone does not make for an intelligent and enlightened individual. In my experience, the biggest, ugliest, stupidest bullies are the ones that smile. We have a history of exclusion and of fighting over who we ought to include: Non-Christians, Blacks, Women, the Irish, The Chinese, The Germans, The Japanese, The Gays, The Arabs, The Mexicans. I'm leaving some out, I know, but the list really is long. We've blacklisted artists, actors, directors, writers, comedians. (And I say WE because anything that's done in our name with our consent is something we bear the responsibility for.) We are nearly as cruel to other humans as we are to the other critters that scramble over the Earth... and the argument could be made that we're even more cruel to our own because we're more apt to take pity on a starving dog or a pitiful looking cat than we are to give a panhandler a buck. (And before you say “Yeah, the panhandler should get a job,” keep in mind that cats are natural scavengers and most dogs are intelligent pack animals. Making assumptions about why someone's homeless, or not working is simply the way we justify our lack of humanity. It's rooted in the idea stated thusly to me during a conversation once at a bar: “If I have to work everyday and hate my job, so does everyone else.” Yep. The If-It's-Good-Enough-For-Me fallacy. Mostly I think people resent the homeless and the unemployed because they know they're a paycheck away from being the same way. Similarity, in addition to making Facebook have a point, also breeds contempt.)

The other thing that history should teach us that for all of our accomplishments, Sweden is more stable democracy.

The overall result? We fight with words instead of argue. We've let the dumb bastards who are in charge – and who are always in charge regardless of what political party has the majority – convince us that arguing is rude and unamerican. Our alternative is that we fight with words... which is petty, pointless, and juvenile. The only real bonus is that it can be mildly entertaining for the first two minutes, or right before the commercial break.

I suspect that down deep, beyond the social programming and the institutionalized cultural miasma that is modern education, the real reason people don't like to argue anymore is because to really and truly argue requires not only the ability to think critically, but a moral and ethical integrity. It's important not to confuse argument with debate. We should never be a society of lawyers. Debate, sometimes referred to as Forensics, – like they sometimes still teach in public schools instead of real history or science – encourages people to learn all about something but be prepared to argue any position. There's no moral or ethical inquiry involved. The Greeks called this Sophistry and it was the Sophists who had Socrates killed. People like this mistake debate for the Art of Argument. The difference is Argument, if it is to be an art, must have some ethical and moral integrity. Art of any kind... painting, sculpture, writing, motorcycle maintenance … must have those same components. It's part – though not all – of what makes Art.

As a result of this curricular and cultural confusion, we've mistaken cleverness for wit, eloquence for intellectual and spiritual depth. We would rather let everyone feel like a winner than consider the possibility that some of our ideas are wrong. The truly critically minded folks out there often reconsider their positions on things. I know I do. And I do change my mind... though not because I'm ever really compelled by word fights that contradict my own experience. I change my mind because it's important to be open-minded.

But that's not the same thing as polite, either... though many do mistake them. Often.