Another Mystery Model

Friday, October 14, 2016

More Political Witchhunts

Well, count me in as one more observer not surprised at Donald Trump's sexual abuse news stories.  But, as Donald T. himself remarks, this stuff is just a distraction; it is not the main reason I would not vote for him.  Some years ago, I too was appalled at what was considered major misbehavior by Bill Clinton in the White House.  It was even more appalling to have special prosecutors appointed to try to impeach him.  It was clear to everyone that the GOP wanted Clinton out of the White House for one reason only: the economy was thriving, and Clinton was immensely popular.  The perceived sullying of the sacred precincts of the White House was just an excuse.  To this day, Republicans will never concede that this is so.  They have begun to confuse their political rhetoric with absolute facts.  So now, the Democrats are also jumping into this desperate strategy of moral assassination, as if we didn't know that Donald Trump was just an overgrown fraternity boy, able to buy his way into women's dressing-rooms backstage at beauty pageants!  All this indignation is just a little obviously put on.  Getting on our moral high horses this close to the elections simply escalates the ongoing tendency to attack the opposing party's candidate on grounds that have little to do with political capability.

The Democrats have expended all their political ammunition already, and by every estimate, they should have had a lock on the elections by now.  But some Democrat amateurs are in a panic, on the off-chance that the GOP just might win the election.  In my opinion, what they have to lose is any hope of cooperation once their woman is elected President.  Do they think that all they need is to have Hillary Clinton in the White House, to have all their problems solved?  At this point, it is quite possible to have the first woman President in the USA sworn into office, only to have four miserable years of absolutely no progress, and go down in history as a total failure.  Successful politics is not about just winning elections.

The Democrats could win the White House, Congress, and a super-majority in the Senate, and still have four years at which they will look back in horror.  The country must not be further polarized, the extremists must not be encouraged to greater efforts, the name-calling has to slow down, any political gains made by the Obama administration must be consolidated, and conservatives of all sorts must be allowed to become comfortable with the fact that what the Democrats have done in the last eight years has not destroyed the country.  Gays and Lesbians did not fight for certain rights in order to crow at the rest of the country, or thumb their noses at straight folk, or humiliate Christians, or force homophobes into keeping their children home, while gays and lesbians indulge in furious public displays of affection on the streets.  As a private citizen sympathetic to the needs of homosexuals, I deplore thumbing the nose at those who consider that they have lost the battle against holding back LGB rights.  They have lost the battle.  But they need not be humiliated, despite the centuries of suffering the LGB community has endured.

Some of the resentment of the conservative rank and file is undoubtedly the fact that the African American community has advanced to the point of having one of theirs elected to the Presidency.  It should have been unthinkable for anyone to say: I hate the Democrats for electing a Black man to the White House.  But people are saying it.  Democrats and Republicans are jointly responsible for this state of affairs.

Democrats and other Liberals have long thought that they had succeeded in rooting out racism and prejudice, and sexism and xenophobia.  But they only succeeded in repressing it, and driving it underground.  It cannot be forced out of existence.  Only time, and generally improved standards of living can moderate this situation.  Let me repeat: racism and xenophobia and sexism will only go away if the standard of living of the general population improves across the land.  This is why there was a generally liberal atmosphere in the sixties, because people were not so impoverished that they had to make scapegoats of blacks and women and minorities.  Over the last forty years, the economic elite has skillfully drawn back to themselves the wealth of the country, and now the people are looking at blacks, minorities, women, immigrants, and more recently gays, lesbians and bisexuals as the cause of all their misfortunes.  To those who have abandoned all logic, it would naturally seem clear that Barack Obama is the last straw that has broken their financial backs.  Simply winning an election cannot put this right.

Finally, though the media is labeled by the Right as a tool of the liberals, certain conservative news sources have become propaganda machines for not just conservatives but ultra-conservatives, who view practically everything as a secret weapon deployed by Liberals.  So if and when the lives of ordinary people begin to improve under a Democratic administration, the conservative media has to be fought carefully and effectively and without letting up.  We must once again make space for facts rather than rhetoric and propaganda.  I think it's going to be a slow, grueling crawl back to sanity.  Vilifying Donald Trump at the eleventh hour will not advance the interests of those who want this, even if it will gain Hillary Clinton a number of votes from women.  We must not rely on the votes of women who have been bludgeoned into reluctantly voting in their own interests; they're going to change their minds very quickly, to yearn for the good old days when they used to enjoy being slapped by their menfolk.  Reasonable women have already made up their minds to try to prevent a Trump presidency.  All this indignation in the media and the Internet will only get in the way of fruitful cooperation in the next few years.

Kay Hemlock Brown

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Greetings and Updates

I can easily imagine that the synopsis of the Jana story is not up to my reader's standards of excitement, but believe me when I say that it was probably the most action-filled story I have ever managed to write!  I love the character of the tempestuous Inanna; I only regret that I can't remember the name I had given her originally.  It was much more mellifluous than "Inanna".

This sort of detail doesn't come through in a very brief synopsis, but I had portrayed Inanna and her parents as people of limited means, but enormous dignity and pride.  Despite the young woman's unconfessed infatuation with the young Rider Captain, she tries her hardest to keep their relationship formal.  In the inn of the village at which they anticipate a midnight raid, they occupy separate rooms, and the girl is on the brink of hysteria, wanting to maintain her respectability before the Captain, of whom she is in awe, but also afraid to spend the night alone, for fear that if there is a disturbance in the night, that she would be left behind while "he" runs into the fight.

The plan that she has hatched is to pose as a prostitute across the river, in order to gather information.  Having been raped, she figures, she no longer needs to protect her virtue, and wants to sort of burn herself out in service to the Horse People.  Jana keeps insisting that it isn't necessary, but she finally gets the Rider Captain (Jana) to agree to sleep with her, so that at least one time she can have sex with someone she respects, before she submits to rape.  It is then that she discovers that Jana is a woman, and both Jana and she lie in the darkness, utterly shocked and embarrassed, and uncertain.  I simply have to discover the original manuscript, so that I can give you this chapter, and the few succeeding ones, with which I remember being very pleased at the time.

Let's change the subject.

This is one of the most satisfying times of my life, in no little part because of the pets of one of my friends, with whose family I spend many weekends.  I described earlier my interaction with one of the youngest of them, the little kitten who visits me early in the mornings, and marches up and down my chest!  There are a couple more of them, about whom I will say no more, except that if you have not experienced the affection of pets, you are in for a very pleasant surprise.

At work, and with my few friends, and with my widely scattered family, I am becoming very aware of how fortunate I have been, even if someone else in my circumstances might feel resentful.  I am not a particularly religious person, but at times like this I begin to understand why people are so certain that some higher power is watching over them.  I almost know there is no such higher power, but perhaps my own attitudes and values work together to keep me in this blessed state.  There is so much to deplore: the uncertain state of the electoral process this year, the silliness of so many of our fellow-countrymen whose foolishness had remained hidden thus far, but has now burst out into the open, various men both in uniform and civilians, who have given themselves new license to act on their prejudices and their fear; so many educated people, well off and well established, who have cast off the pretense of public-spiritedness, and have begun to act in a blatantly anti-social way; all these things should conspire to depress me utterly.

But I find inspiration in the kindness I observe in unexpected places, the sweetness of pets who have no axes to grind, the smiles on the faces of students who are simply in a good mood, for a change!  The humor of colleagues; the unexpected rediscovery of a forgotten, excellent activity for the classroom.  I often smirked skeptically when I read of some individuals who experienced what they called inner peace in the storm, but that's exactly what this feels like.  I don't think I need to believe in a supernatural power to explain this; I think the thought-habits of a mostly happy childhood, and the example of mostly well-adjusted parents, all work together to bring this feeling about.  I try not to be heavy-handed in whatever moral values I may put in my writing, but I think it is important to remind ourselves of the goodness of people, even if our experience for a time seems to indicate that good people might be the exception than the rule.  Remember that good people don't often make a big noise.  If you go on noise level alone, you will be misled.

Kay