Things that make you go HMMMMM..... (8-20)

Bumper sticker observed on Florida's Turnpike (forget the Ronald Reagan Turnpike bit boys, Ronnie Raygun did nothing for Florida):

"5 out of 4 people have problems with fractions."

Indeed.

Hmmmmm.

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The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.

Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
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This is how homophobia works

Recently I posted a discussion of heterosexism, an unconscious set of presumptions about the world that begins with the presumption that everyone is either heterosexual or ought to be. In many ways, because heterosexism is more subtle and tends to be invisible (much like “race” or “ethnic” always means other than WASP) it is harder to get at than the more blatant kinds of irrational prejudices we would identify in folks like Fred Phelps and his travelling Theatre of the Absurd family troupe out of Topeka, KS.

But the scale from a normative, presumptive heterosexism to blatant, misanthropic homophobia has a lot of gradations along the way. Here’s one that caught my eye this week.

The story involves a quarterback out of Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Riley Skinner is about as cute as they come (one friend responded to his photos with “How does anyone get so beautiful?”) and apparently not bad as a football player. He comes from a preppie WASP background in Jacksonville, FL, having attended an academically well regarded private academy also known for its football prowess. The son and nephew of southern college football players, Riley would seem to have everything going for him. Until now.

Apparently Mr. Skinner had someone take a photo of himself out of uniform – completely out of uniform. The nude photo of this southern jock Adonis quickly went viral on the web. Not surprisingly, the assessment of Riley’s sexuality was almost immediately the subject of web chatter.

One of the more interesting comments on this matter comes from the website Fratdog Sports Blog whose motto is “Sports journalism for the arrogant.” Apparently the pathology in the blogger’s thinking doesn’t end at arrogance. Having heard about the Skinner scandal, the blogger provides a picture of Skinner (from the waist up) and the following entry on Feb. 4, 2008.

Entitled “Riley Skinner Smokes Noles Poles,” the blogger begins, “ I am extremely uncomfortable reporting this. “ No doubt. Of course, the obvious response would be “And why would that be?” but I suspect this is not a man (and I am presuming this writer is male given what follows) prone to much critical reflection. He continues: “Fair warning - this is very, very, legitimately gay. Riley Skinner has apparently taken a nude picture of himself or [Wake Forest University head coach] Jim Grobe has has (sic) this picture under his pillow since 2005. No joke, that link will ruin your f***ing day. We are unbelieveably (sic) rattled over here.”

Clearly this frat boy has missed more than a few English grammar and comp classes and he apparently has not figured out how to run the spell check. And the childish play on the abbreviation for Seminoles to create a homophobic slur is pretty much par for the course for many frat boys (and middle school kids). Beer tainted functioning tends to do that. (yes, speaking from experience both as frat boy and being beer tainted). The result is a blog entry that suggests the frat boy’s problem is either stupidity or immaturity (perhaps both) rather than arrogance.

But what’s interesting about this blog is his presumption that this exhibitionist jock is gay. Ultimately, the self-revealing statements that the blogger is “extremely uncomfortable” and “unbelieveably rattled” say much more about him than the handsome narcissist he would malign. Indeed, the study out of the University of Georgia on homophobic responses might suggest that the young man “doth protest too much.” Highly homophobic responses can readily be unconscious responses to fear of homoerotic feelings in oneself, according to the study.

The apparent truth about poor ole Riley (this from a friend of the family in Jacksonville) is much more complicated (and amusing) than the simplistic presumption of the poor beer addled frat boy. Apparently, Riley was fooling around with another girl while going with his girlfriend. When she found out about it, she broke up with him and Riley began seeing the other girl. Deciding to impress his new love object, he had the photo made and sent it to her as an email attachment. He thought. In fact, he mistakenly sent it to the ex-girlfriend who quickly distributed the photo to the web including a number of gay porn sites. As Shakespeare observed, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Riley had been hoist on his own petard (mightily resisting the temptation to make the obvious salacious comment here, having seen the photo - you can find it in an images search if you must see).

I doubt it would do much good to actually send this observation to the purveyor of the fratdog sports blog (indeed, what am *I* presuming about the right to do so?). If his own obvious homophobia is rooted in a fear of homoerotic feelings in himself, he would not be able to hear it. And given the general tenor of his postings, it’s rather unlikely he would be able or willing to check his irrational presumptions.

That, folks, is precisely how homophobia works and why we have such an uphill battle in overcoming this virulent social disease.


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The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.

Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
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Things That Make You Go Hmmm………(8-19)

March 20, 2003 - Shock and Awe......

Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, officials in the United States armed forces described their plan as employing shock and awe…

Limited bombing began on 19 March 2003 as United States forces unsuccessfully attempted to kill Saddam Hussein. Attacks continued against a small number of targets until 21 March 2003, when at 1700 UTC the main bombing campaign of the US and their allies began. Its forces launched approximately 1700 air sorties (504 using cruise missiles).[12] Coalition ground forces had begun a "running start" offensive towards Baghdad on the previous day. Coalition ground forces seized Baghdad on 5 April, and the United States declared victory on 14 April.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_awe

Jan 20, 2004, State of the Union Address –

“All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you. Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country.”

These are the words of President Bush in his inaugural address on 20 January. Bringing freedom and democracy to the world, beginning with the Arab world, is now apparently the primary focus of US foreign policy.

http://www.david-morrison.org.uk/iraq/freedom-american-style.htm

Meanwhile, back in America.....

Nov. 4. 2008 - Anti-marriage constitutional amendments

Anti-marriage amendments were on the ballot in Arizona, Florida and California this election, and passed in Arizona and Florida. In California, as of 3 p.m. (EST) on Nov. 5, Prop. 8 had a margin of 52 percent in favor and 48 percent opposing it, with 95 percent of the precincts reporting. Voters in Arizona approved Prop.102 by a 56-44 percent margin, banning legal marriage for same-sex couples. In Florida, voters passed Amendment 2, which would not only ban marriage rights for same-sex couples, but would also limit any partner recognition rights to unmarried heterosexual and same-sex couples.

http://www.thetaskforce.org/press/releases/prAF_110508

Aug. 15, 2009 – 'Don't ask, don't tell': Retreating from a mistake – LA Times Editorial

'Don't ask, don't tell," the policy delusion that acknowledges that gays and lesbians serve in the military but pretends they aren't there, is in its final days. Sooner rather than later, this discriminatory law is going to be overturned…Nearly 13,000 servicemen and servicewomen have been discharged under the policy -- 287 since President Obama took office. The armed forces have spent more than $1.3 billion to kick them out and to pay for the investigations that justify their expulsions. Among those who have been discharged are almost 60 Arabic linguists, weakening our national security in order to pursue a policy of exclusion.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-dontask15-2009aug15,0,5507360.story

Aug. 18, 2009 - Anchorage Mayor Vetoes Anti-Discrimination Ordinance –

The city’s Assembly approved it; the local newspaper applauded it; GLBT residents testified as to its need. But newly elected Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan vetoed it, killing an anti-discrimination bill….Anti-gay Baptist pastor Jerry Prevo has fought against GLBT equality since the first attempts by the Assembly to provide for gay and lesbian residents, the article said, and he expressed approval that Dan Sullivan had followed in his father’s footsteps in vetoing the measure.

http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=95185

Aug. 18, 2009 – "A Spreading Campaign of Torture and Murder" Against Gay Iraqis

Human Rights Watch has released a report confirming what Care2 members have been aware of for some time: Iraqi militias are "carrying out a spreading campaign of torture and murder against men suspected of homosexual conduct" in Iraq.

Released Monday, the 67 page report confirms many of our worst fears as to the situation for gay Iraqis after the fall of Saddam. The report documents 2009's "extrajudicial executions", kidnappings and the horrific anal glue torture gay men have been subjected to and, as we reported quite some time ago, points the finger at Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, a group aligned to a particularly vehement anti-gay cleric.

http://www.care2.com/causes/human-rights/blog/-a-spreading-campaign-of-torture-and-murder-against-iraqi-gays/

It would appear that Mr. Bush did have at least one success in his administration. He managed to export the US version of “democracy” – with liberty and justice for some – to Iraq. The Iraqis have learned to preach democracy and practice a deadly form of homophobia with impunity. Looks like George Bush’s Great American Adventure will leave quite a legacy in our world.

Hmmmmm……..

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The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.

Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
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Of democracy, drivel, demagoguery and demonization

The current orgy of demagoguery surrounding Mr. Obama’s attempts to insure that all Americans actually have health care is troubling to say the least. On the one hand, the willingness of so many no doubt decent Americans to buy into mindless drivel about death panels and socialism readily provided by insurance corporations and talk show hosts is disturbing. I find myself saying aloud “What are these people thinking?” when in reality it’s pretty clear they aren’t thinking much at all. They are driven by fear readily whipped up by demagogues only too willing to provide a stimulus for that fear even if it is imaginary.

Frankly, the tenor of these disruptions of public meetings and the vapid celebration of them on the airwaves has me doubting one of my long held values – democracy. A true democracy relies upon a free press to inform a responsible people. But our media today clearly exists to sell consumers products they don’t need by creating false senses of need while entertaining them rather than informing them so they don’t think too long about their mindless consumerism. Democracy in its highest forms is based in notions of the common good, “liberty and justice for all,” not the egocentric “What’s in it for me?” mantra or the tribal rhetoric about deserving v. undeserving patients, a thinly veiled reference to class and ultimately to race.

In the past week I’ve encountered two scholars who have offered me even more to trouble my soul as I watch this travesty unfold in town meetings and frenzied media sound bite fests. Robert Paxton of Columbia University wrote a paper in March 1998 detailing “The Five Stages of Fascism” published in The Journal of Modern History. (Vol. 70, pp. 1-23) Paxton notes that fascist reactions almost always come in the wake of any real expansion of democracy such as the massive increase in voter rolls in the 2008 election resulting in the election of America’s first African-American president and the conservatives’ loss of Congress as well. Among the aspects of the 20th Century’s fascist movements Paxton identifies that are currently observable are “obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood…cults of unity, energy and purity…chauvinist demagogue[s] haranguing an ecstatic crowd…” It’s a fairly good description of the childish, mean-spirited and irrational eruptions of vitriol we’ve seen the past couple of weeks.

But Paxton’s research contains an observation that ought to concern thoughtful people. So long as the eruptions remain in the realm of the media circus, they are relatively harmless. It is when the conservatives who have formerly held power and sense they may be displaced from power for an extended period that they make the devil’s bargain with the fascist mentality to regain power. The conditions for such a move almost always come in a context of polarization within civil society, disorder, decline and a political deadlock resulting from the refusal of the right to work with the left to resolve the nation-state’s problems. When we see former governors and current members of the House of Representatives pandering to crowds of tea-baggers and birthers talking about “death panels,” it ought to make us wonder if the devil’s bargain is not being struck.

On Friday as I drove down to Vero Beach for a weekend getaway, I heard Princeton scholar Melissa Harris-Lacewell talk about the racist and class-based undertones of the current debate on NPR’s All Things Considered. The rhetoric of individual responsibility v. the nanny state surrounding welfare and other public programs has often had a wealth of unspoken assumptions attached to it. As Harris-Lacewell noted, while welfare recipients have been cast as immature and childlike in their response to the world, in fact many “carry even greater responsibility than middle class folks who have lots of opportunities around them that kind of shore up their reality.” Try juggling family responsibilities plus work without healthcare and manage all of that while relying on public transportation. As the Princeton professor noted, “[W]hat we know over the past 25 years is that language of personal responsibility is often a code language used against poor and minority communities.”

Clearly that line of reasoning struck a chord with my friend in West Palm and his wife with whom I had lunch Saturday. Over our salad and pizza he observed: “Of course they don’t want public health care. They’d have to use their money to help blacks. Of course they don’t want public transportation. They’d have to transport blacks. Of course they don’t want public schools. It means black kids might get educated and compete with their kids.” And, no, for the record, my friend is not black. He was raised in a fairly exclusive white neighborhood of Chicago.

The personal responsibility rhetoric is insidious in form and presentation. It appeals to the Protestant work ethic which generally translates for most Americans today as slavish drivenness in their work just to keep their heads above water. It also allows for the demonization of the other, demonization that historically has followed the well worn ruts in the American imagination of class and race.

In a desperate attempt to escape the wasteland of hotel TV Saturday night, I watched an episode of Bill Maher’s Real Time. While I generally agree with Bill, I do find his smugness and cynicism wearing in fairly short order. One of his guests was Ashton Kutcher. On the subject of health care, Kutcher opined that he shouldn’t have to pay for other people’s bad habits and eating patterns. He went on a tear about junk food and fast food joints. Of course, a multimillionaire star with personal trainers has little insight into the life of the working class. Junk food, while loaded with fat and sugar, is also cheap, available in neighborhoods where fresh produce often is not, and provides quick energy for people who often make their living actually working their bodies rather than merely showing them off. Kutcher embodies the cluelessness of many Americans regarding class. And one hears no small hint of Ronnie Raygun’s “welfare queen” and her Cadillac rumbling around in the background.

In Paxton’s article, he begins with an observation about universal suffrage. Noting that Friedrich Engels presumed that “widening the vote would inevitably benefit democracy and socialism,” Engels and his compatriot Marx completely missed the possibility that self-interest, tribalism and nationalism might come to mark the new democratic enterprise, not a commonwealth, much less a communist utopia where the state would ultimately simply wither away. Paxton insists that “fascism is, after all, an authentic mass popular enthusiasm and not merely clever manipulation of populist emotions by the reactionary Right or by capitalism in crisis.” Frankly, I am not so sure about the manipulation part given the large role of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries in generating the current spate of tantrums at town meetings. But I am sure that the visionaries of the late 19th CE simply missed the possibilities that the successor to a democratic capitalism in crisis might well not be socialism but rather a fascist entity focused on a return to golden day glory by identifying and destroying all perceived enemies contributing to its current lassitude.

There are days that I have to wonder if Plato is not chuckling to himself as he watches the current devolution of democracy in America into sectarian consumerist chaos. As I watch the circus on the cable purveyors of entertainment called the news, the rule of the philosopher-king based in reason looks better every day.

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The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.

Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
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THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMM….

We’re travelling westbound on Curry Ford Road, a four lane east/west major thoroughfare in south Orlando, when we are passed by an aging clunker with a full queen size bed mattress and frame tied on top of the roof. They pass us going 45 mph.

The passenger is holding one side of the bed. The driver is holding the other. With his free hand, he is holding a cell phone into which he is engaged in an animated discussion.

I hope his knee was good with the steering wheel.

Hmmmmm……….

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The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.

Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Of Medical Care, Middle Class Moralism and the Failure of Mass Media

A few months ago at the height of the Mexican swine flu outbreak, the Washington Post ran a story on the epidemic on its front page. Among the statistics and quotes from various public officials, the reporters offered a number of explanations of the reason so few Mexicans were being treated. One of the comments from Mexico City doctor Angel Flores read like this:

"In Mexico, we are very unaccustomed to going to the hospital. Here, if someone has a cold or anything else, they buy something in the pharmacy, or they leave it be," Flores said. "This is why Mexicans are dying. Because we are very indecisive about going to a hospital until it's too late."

Further down the page was this quote from Emelia Segura Vázquez, a homemaker who sought a consult with the on-site doctor at the Christ Medical Pharmacy in Iztapalapa (an impoverished Mexico City neighborhood) for her 6-year-old son, Omar Israel, who had diarrhea:

"People prefer to come here because it is cheaper."

Of course, the Post ate it up. Why are the Mexicans dying from this epidemic? Stupid habits, primitive customs and, of course, consumerist preferences. They don’t go to hospitals with their dying family members because they’re not in the habit of doing so. They prefer to go to a pharmacist with their possibly dying child rather than a medical doctor simply because it’s cheaper.

As I noted atop the article I sent out to a number of people this was

"clearly spun from a capitalist, first world perspective. It’s not that Mexicans are unaccustomed to going to hospitals or prefer pharmacies because they are cheaper. About 45% of the country lives below the destitution poverty line ($2/day). Much of the poor work in the informal economy primarily as street vendors. As usual, the presumption is that people are sick – and poor – because they somehow choose to be.

What a bunch of nonsense. “

In all fairness, the story did offer a glimpse of reality:

"Delaying medical care is a characteristic of poverty. For people living close to the edge, taking off a day to visit a doctor or staying home sick is literally taking food out of their mouths," said Paul J. Gertler, a professor of economics at the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley, who has worked in Mexico.

And, in truth, this is probably the only explanation that makes a lot of sense in a country where 45% of the population lives below the UN’s standard of extreme poverty, less than $2/day. It has little to do with customs, lack of education and certainly not consumer choice, the mantra of America’s middle class. Indeed, it’s ultimately about a lack of choices and desperation. I know. I’ve been there and I’ve seen it.

The notion that somehow the poor are responsible for their own misery is a persistent and obviously a comforting myth pattern for the beneficiaries of a soulless consumerist capitalist system. And perhaps there is no better example of it than the current debates over health care in America.

In the current edition of Time there is a very insightful graphic comparing how President Obama’s Health Care Reform program would affect various groups of people categorized by current medical care, the description of the “current situation” of the Uninsured (which includes 15% of all Americans) reads as follows:

“People without insurance typically put off basic medical care and end up in emergency rooms when they get sick. They are often less healthy and more likely to develop chronic diseases, the costs of which must be absorbed by the entire health care system.”

Again, note the same victim-blaming tactics: the uninsured “put off basic medical care.” Clearly they are lazy, irresponsible and negligent regarding their basic medical care which every responsible middle class American would attend to with regularity. And because of their moral failings, the whole system ends up being burdened. So why should taxpayers pay for the irresponsibility of such slackers?

Speaking of irresponsible, how do such unsupportable assertions get by copy editors of magazines like Time? And how do such blatantly political statements somehow become the stuff of news reporting?

If you ever had any doubts that our news media have failed us, the current corporate campaign to defeat any kind of medical coverage for all Americans being waged on the pages and airwaves of their corporate media minions ought to be decisive. The days when Americans could plausibly tell themselves that they could become informed by consulting once venerable journals such as the Washington Post and Time Magazine are clearly over. Like the alcoholic waking up the night after driving home and not remembering the drive, the loss of the luxury of naivete is always painful.

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The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.

Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Things that make you go HMMMM…….

I recently saw one of those bumper stickers that I’ve seen for years and always wondered what kind of person would put it on their car, or in this case on their pick’em up truck. The sticker reads:

If you ain’t country, you ain’t shit.

I suppose it would be rather English teacherly of me to point out that a double negative results in a positive. Thus the translation: If you identify yourself as “country” you are telling the world that you are fecal matter. Somehow I’m guessing that’s not what the driver intended to convey.

It reminds me of the rather ironic essay opening I got from one of my students recently. It was an essay on the medieval universitas and how it has devolved in post-modernity into a provider of consumer goods and services in the minds of many today. The student began his essay response to a series of readings on this topic with the following:

Education is a term we here daily and come in to contact constantly, but the term is beginning to lose it’s true meaning.

As I said in the post in which I sent this out to my colleagues, fortunately, this one is still a freshman. But the irony of a statement which embodies the very truth it is decrying was, no doubt, lost on its author. Of course, that presumes that the author actually knows what irony is.

HMMMMM…..

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The Rev. Harry Scott Coverston, J.D., Ph.D.
Member, Florida Bar (inactive status)
Priest, Episcopal Church (Dio. of El Camino Real, CA)
Instructor: Humanities, Religion, Philosophy of Law
University of Central Florida, Orlando
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~ncoverst/
frharry@cfl.rr.com

If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.

Most things of value do not lend themselves to production in sound bytes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++