Soapbox

    I went to Kohls yesterday, because they were having a humongous sale, and I had a 30% off coupon. I was ready to rumble, folks. Felt like the world was my oyster.

I forgot that I hate oysters.

    I started browsing but ran into one of 3 problems at every turn. Either they didn't have my size in the color I wanted, they had the color but not my size (apparently I need a size 4 now, and this Kohls does not appear to stock women's clothes in a size 4) or they had it and I liked it but I just wasn't sure I wouldn't look silly in it. (Translation- am I  too old to wear that?)
    I couldn't even get the underpants I wanted, because they were "buy one, get one half-off" and I didn't need 2 packs of underwear, and I was not going to pay full price for one. I just wasn't. (And yes, I"m aware that it wouldn't be full price because I still had the 30% off coupon, but in spirit, it would be full-price, and I"m all about spirituality)

   So I wandered from department to department, getting more and more frustrated. When I went past the front I saw that it was getting very overcast, but I was determined to find something to use my coupon on, since it expired the next day. I decided to buy a few new bath towels because they were on sale and some of mine are getting pretty raggedy. Then I would at least have something to show for my efforts.
   There was a line to check out, and as I waited I looked out the front doors and say the weather go very quickly from threatening to nasty. We exchanged stories in the queue about where we were last week when the bad weather hit. As I was checking out a woman came in and said that her boyfriend called and told her there was a tornado warning.
    Oh good. And you came to Kohls!

    I asked the clerk for an extra bag for my head, but when I stepped out into the no-man's land between the inner and outer doors I saw that by now the rain was blowing completely horizontally, not so much "coming down" as "going by" and a stop sign at the end of the parking lot was flipping back and forth rapidly, the way signs do in those videos of hurricanes.  Ick.
     I got out my cell phone and tried to call home, in case Steve was wondering where his mother was in all this, but couldn't get a call to go through.
    So I contemplated my situation as a flash of lightning lit the desolate parking lot and decided that I would rather die at home than in a store that didn't carry my size. I took my sandals off and slipped them in my bag, zipped my purse and grabbed my keys with my finger on the "unlock" button. Then I pushed open the door and ran.

    I didn't exactly shout "Cowabunga"… I think I probably yelled "Oh shiiiiittt!" most of the way across the parking lot to the van, but in spirit, I was defying the elements. At the outset at least. By the time I wrenched the door open and thre my self and my bags inside I was screaming "I am insane!!"
    Cars were creeping along Karl Road as close to the center as they could go, since the outside lanes on both sides were significantly underwater. The wipers were going full-speed, as was the dripping from my hair down my face. I remembered that I had brand new bath towels in my bag- serendipity!- but I had tossed the bag into the back.  My dress was twisted akwardly around my wet legs and I could tell I was soaked through to my underpants. But I was on my way home to ride out the rest of the storm there.
   As it happened, I rode out the rest of the storm in my van, since even though it's only about a mile to my house, this storm was one of those cloudbursts that just scream past like a racecar and don't hang around. Another 5 miinutes at Kohls and I would have arrived home considerably drier. Oh well.
    After I stripped out of my wet things I tried to comb my hair. It was tangled into a million knots, even though  I had run a comb through it right before I went into the store. That wind must have been really something!
   I'm glad it did little more than water the grass and encourage the trees to give up some leaves a few days early.  I've had enough of bumpy weather. And shopping is just not worth it. Particularly when nothing is in your size.

     I am so discouraged by the misplaced- and often blatantly false- outrage over the proposal to build what is being (wrongly) called the Ground Zero Mosque. The Cordoba House Mosque and community center would replace a similar, smaller facility that has been in lower Manhattan for some years. It would also be about 2 blocks from  "Ground Zero"… but apparently this whole area is hallowed ground when the wrong people try to go there.

    The politicians and pundits (and assorted other hate pimps and idiots) are taking time out from their socialist witch-hunt and their campaign to dismantle the 14 amendment to launch a mission to convince the average American in Peoria that it will somehow adversely affect their life if Cordoba House is built.
    It's like spitting on the graves of the sacred dead of 9-11 victims!!

    Only it's not. At all. And by the way, where's your ginned-up outrage over the Muslim prayers being said daily at the Pentagon?

    Sara Palin tweets that the mosque "stabs at the hearts" of America. Newt Gingrich says that the president,  who said that people technically have a right to build a house of worship where they choose in the United States of America, is "pandering to radical Islam."  Which is interesting, because you can hardly get less radical than the theology of this mosque or the members' wish to build a larger building… but  pandering is certainly something Newt knows well.

    And I keep reading statements like "They should build their mosque somewhere else, somewhere that it won't bother us. We have a right to object: after all, Muslims killed those people in the twin towers!!!"

    Yeah. You know what? Men killed those people, too. Shall we declare ground zero a "ladies only" zone? No men's bathrooms near Ground Zero! How dare you guys PISS on our hallowed memories??!!!
That makes about as much sense.

    And then there's the old "But why do they have to build it right there?? Couldn't they just show a little consideration for our feelings and go somewhere else"
    So… during desegregation, do you think those black kids should have shown a little consideration for the angry white people and stayed away from that high school in Little Rock? I mean, it's not like there weren't other schools they could have gone to, right? Just because you have the legal right to do something doesn't mean it's the thoughtful thing to do.
   I suppose they could build somewhere else- but why do you want them to?  Muslims have been quietly attending one of the two mosques in the area for years without anybody's sensibilities being harmed- what has changed?  It's not like somebody woke up one day and said "Hmmm…where can we build a mosque that will piss off the most Christians?" They just want to keep doing the same thing in a bigger facility.

   What I think they really feel- but won't yet say- is "keep ground zero for the real Americans." Because as with this 14th amendment garbage and all the "sanctity of marriage" intolerance, it really comes down to  that us verses them paradigm.
"They" should have a little more respect for "Us"!

    Thing is, Muslim americans ARE us, just like gay Americans are us, and hispanic Americans are us and athiests, and  Chinese Americans and Mormons and handicapped people are us.
   The Muslim community in Manhattan shouldn't have to ask permission to live their regular lives from people who treat them… well,  like "them".  Last time I checked, there wasn't a religion test for citizenship (though some congressman from Texas will probably propose one next week!)
    And don't forget there were a number of Muslims killed on 9/11 too. If that doesn't make them part of "us", I don't know what does!
    Look,  I'm sorry about your 9/11 pain, all you people who don't actually know anyone who was killed there and yet are still feeling stabbed almost 10 years later. Has it occurred to you that some of the folks that attend this mosque might have lost friends and family there and have a little pain of their own?? Or does their pain not matter cause they're- you know, Muslim?

    If you know anything about the Imam of this mosque, you know that he has been a rallying point for moderate Islam and a voice against intolerance. Which is what we're all saying we want from "these people", right? Where is peaceful Islam when al Qaida is out to destroy us? 
    Well, folks, they're right here, in lower Manhattan, preaching tolerance…. so we treat them with intolerance, tell them that, because of their religion, they aren't good enough to go places that "real" Americans go.

    Wow. Good idea. Way to act just like the societies we condemn who do not allow freedom of religion.
    These days, we act like "freedom of religion"  just means "freedom for everybody to share MY religion or be quiet!" Sure, you can be Jewish, or Muslim, or Buddhist… but if you don't look like I do, speak like I do, worship like I do, then please have the decency to stay out of sight.

    Finally, I just don't understand why so many otherwise good-hearted people are bothered by this. Why do you think it is your business? Why does it even matter to you? How does this adversely affect your life? No one is asking you to go to Cordoba House.  No one is going to try to convert you as you walk down the street… you know, the way some Christians do, handing out bibles in the park and shouting at you that you're a baby-killer and you're going to hell.

      The Muslim religion did not kill anyone, any more than Christianity killed people at Oklahoma city.  People do all sorts of evil things and make God the scapegoat. It's not God's fault.
     These people did not kill anybody. The members of this mosque were not out cheering in the streets when the towers fell. They're not terrorists- they are cab drivers and doctors and bank tellers. They live here and pay taxes and vote and send their kids to school, and I guarantee you, they were weeping for the hate that fell from the sky on September 11th, just like you were. How can their presence violate your hallowed ground? It's their hallowed ground, too!!

   This is the United States. Sometimes we are asked to tolerate things that make us uncomfortable, because that's who we're supposed to be. Don't turn America into an apartheid state where different people have different rights, subject to the whims of the majority. If that happens, to borrow from that annoying phrase we heard after 9/11– the terrorists have won. Because America won't be the land of the free any more.

     So relax. Un-clench yourselves just a little bit and look around you. The gay people across town have not ruined your life, the brown babies born at the hospital today haven't destroyed America, and the Cordoba House Mosque will only stab at your heart if you let it- if you take a knife and shove it in.

Update: Newt Gingrich says the mosque is a symbol of "Islamic triumphalism." Huh? You mean like those ghastly mega-churches, who call kids "God warriors"? So then Christian triumphalism is ok but not any other kind?
    He also said building the mosque there is "like the Nazi's putting a sign at a concentration camp."
   BZZZZZT!! Oh, gosh, sorry Newt, but thanks anyway for playing "World's Dumbest Analogies"!

   You know what is is like? It's like Japanese living near Pearl Harbor. It's almost exactly like that. The people we're talking about were there before it happened, have been there ever since and they personally had nothing at all to do with the attack. Yet there they are!!! Somebody alert Glen Beck, he'll want to get right on this OUTRAGE!

    They have something new this year: Goat playground. Which consists of some baby goats in a pen with some playground stuff. It was kind of a bust as none of the goats were showing any interest in any of the playground equipment, but should one have been seized by the sudden urge to go down the slide, there it was. Moving on. We saw some lovely dogs but missed the agility demonstrations.  No pig races. Saw some very newborn lambs and a cow that may well have become a mother a few hours later.
    And of course, people. People in all colors, shapes and sizes.  Friendly people, rude people, scary people- just so many people that one becomes concerned that we are breeding like bacteria and will soon kill our host. Or… maybe it’s only me who thinks like that.
    As we walked past the kiddie rides I had a sudden vision of Katie and Stephen on the little dragon rollercoaster, smiling and waving at me as they went by. It was a lovely memory, and  made me feel a little sad, too.
  
   Another tradition is to get a funnel cake and a bag of kettle corn on the way out. I spend the whole time at the fair eyeballing the people with funnel cakes and resisting other temptations so that I can indulge myself. The older I get the less of one I want to actually eat, but I always want one. 
    Time to go home. We held hands and enjoyed the lovely sunset clouds as we walked through the parking lot, waving to the Highway patrol officers busily getting their roadside flares set out. You have NOT been directed in traffic until you've been directed by the Ohio State Highway Patrol. These folks take parking seriously.

    If the state fair wasn’t 15 minutes from our house, now that the kids are grown, we probably wouln’t even go. But as Ted said, it’s a tradition: our late summer date-night. It reminds me of summers gone by: the year we were newlyweds and we bought a print from an artist exhibiting there because it reminded us of our honeymoon. The first year I bought the kids ride bands, and we stayed all day, and I let them go off for short excursions by themselves as long as they stayed together, and they were so excited and happy and thought they were awfully grown up. And the year a bunch of us from Vinton County Camp came to the fair, and Beth and I got stuck on this ride ‘cause the operator forgot to let us out of our car and we were screaming and crying every time we whirled past him  “Please! Let us out!!”.
     And the years when my grandparents had a craft booth at the fair and we would roam the fair on our own, listening to the bands and the choir, drinking A&W rootbeer floats, watching the other crafters and just soaking in those last, bright, frantic days of summer.

     Which is probably why I like the State Fair so much. It's not the quilts or the sky glider or the food or the horse shows- it's the summers of my life, from child to parent to middle age, strolling down the avenue with the smoke from roasting corn and the music of the midway and the laughter of all the people surrounding me. It's where I came from, and where part of me will always be…. sitting there in the arena, waiting for that damn cow show to finish.