Soapbox

Why is it that at 2 o'clock in the morning I can walk through the house
sure-footed in the dark
with no need or impulse to turn on the lights
but at 9 PM on this July evening
at each threshold my hand twitches, frustrated and confused,
toward the wall switch?
Damn.

Rooms seem darker when you know the lights don't work.
An evening house with no power feels empty,
deserted by TV, radio and microwave,
books and crossword puzzles now mysteries unsolveable
since whatever caused this power failure hours ago.

You never realize how much noise the refrigerator, air conditioner
and water heater make until they all stop breathing all at once.
Like a marionette with its strings cut, the house is motionless,
uncirculated air already feeling musty and close.
It feels grief-stricken,
populated by ghosts of so many things once flashing or humming,
now dead.

The only life or light that remains is outside
so I open the door and settle on the front stoop.
Compared to the tomb I left indoors
the air outside is fresh and pulsing with power.
There is a thick greenish glow to the twilght
as if the grass and trees, envigorated by the recent rain
are glowing with chlorophyll delight.
All the houses up and down the street are dark and sleeping,
but the lawns and pavement around them dance with lightning bugs
and glimmer from occasional distant lightning.
The evening is raucus with the ancient lovesongs of crickets and cicadas
and is the rustle of wet leaves in the wind always that loud?

Is it just the approaching night
or the lack of electric competition
that sends the fireflies into such a frenzy,
bouncing off bushes and mailbox,
flashing in double-time?
The absence of a porchlight has not discouraged the mosquitoes either
so as the last glow fades over the rooftops
I go back inside.
I brush my teeth in the dark, and
reminding myself not to reach for the wall switch as I pass,
go to my room, open the window,
sit on the edge of my bed and swing my legs
uncertain what do to next.

We are prisoners of so much conveniences.
bound tightly with all our power cords.
Our great-grandparents were not so encumbered by a lack of canned daylight.
They had gas or oil lamps and simple tasks to do by their dim glow
but mostly, they were prepared to go to sleep when the world got dark
and rise with the returning sun.

We, of the advanced modern age struggle to navigate by the glow
of our rapidly de-poweing cell phones,
stare at our computers and blenders as if they have betrayed us
and cannot think of anything to do that does not
need to light up or speak or move by itself.

Finally I lay back and close my eyes, resign myself to darkness
and the sound of my breathing
when, with a loud click and then a rush 
the power is restored.
In relief- and chagrin
I leap from my bed, hands up to shield my eyes,
and hurry to shut off all the shining, whirring and shouting things in my house
wonder why I'd had so many things turned on at the same time anyway.
I find myself returning the house to the darkness
that so frustrated me a minute before,
consider watching TV for a while
but instead I lay down again,
look out the window and
listen to myself and trees, breathing together
while the crickets sing.
 

Oh the water is gray, and I must not drink;
Arsenic and ash flowing into my sink
Watch Mercury rise- not in the sky
And they just excuse and they justify.

Now the water is orange, but they say that's fine
For the permit says they're within the line
But water don't stay: it runs deep and far
And they just drive away in their fancy car.

Then the governor spoke- and he said "Don't fear!
We'll investigate what has happened here"
But his pockets are full and the circle is drawn
And you can't get back what's dead and gone.

We must feed our kids and wash our hair
With a coal ash soup and  whispered prayer
And they get rich, and we die young
Cause lives don't count on the bottom rung.

They pump it away and consider it gone
But the toxic flume goes on and on
And the poison flows on to the bright blue sea
And the lead runs deep and the fish can't breathe.

They speak of jobs and of progress too
While our bean plants grow from a coal ash stew
And its hard to work when your skin peels red
And the water burns and the river is dead.

    "The world's worst persecution complexes belong to the persecutors"
                                                                                         ~Tweet Of God

I'm so so tired of hearing the same bogus arguments used to justify the awful, backward legislation being proposed all around the country to allow people to discriminate against anyone who doesn't comply with their religious worldview.
    All this pious talk of freedom of religion is of course nothing more than xenophobic entitlement and hate hiding behind a bible, but social conservatives repeat these excuses ad nauseum.
   There are two "go to" accusations used to prop up their oppressive agenda: here is a modest attempt to push back, and unpack the logical fallacy.

#1 Our religious freedom is under attack!

   This is a huge, all-purpose gripe, also used to excuse denying a woman access to insurance coverage for contraception if her bosses religion forbids it, and to let pharmacists refuse to give medication that they find religiously objectionable— to people who do not share their religion.
    From a biblical standpoint it is hogwash, because it implies that your pure faith would somehow be tainted by simply doing business (aka Your damn job!) with someone with different beliefs.
    Have you people ever read that New Testament thing? Because when I read it, Jesus Christ was always running around eating with and talking to and even healing people whom the religious authorities of his time assured him were unclean and unworthy. The Pharisees got offended and said Christ should refuse to 'do his job' with them. He did it anyway and informed them that God his Father was, in fact, just fine with that.
   Ah, but there is so much of the bible that gets abandoned by people using the Bible to justify what they're doing. So lets' move on to the legal/constitutional reason why they are full of hot air and martyr's tears.

Here are things that might happen if religious freedoms were actually under attack:

  * Amish people would be required to buy cars and use electricity.
  * Kids would not be allowed to attend Young Life after school, and parochial schools would be shut down.
  * Divorcees would not be allowed to re-marry.
  * Street preachers would be forbidden from waving their bibles and shouting that we're all going to hell for fornicating or drinking or not being born again.
  * You could get a ticket for believing in Creation or decorating your nursery with Noah's Ark.
  * Your boss could force you to use birth control.
  * You could be denied a job if it was known that you attended a church- or attended the wrong church.
  * Your church would be required to perform same-sex marriages… or interracial marriages, or interfaith marriages, or marriages between divorcees, or whatever type of marriage your church currently has the right to refuse to perform.
  * The entire Westboro Baptist church would be in jail  and you could be punished for standing up and saying that homosexuality is an abomination.

    If and when ANY of those things happen, I personally will be right alongside you protesting, because brothers and sisters, you have the right to believe whatever jack-up s**t you choose to believe, and to make your life choices accordingly. No one can tell you what to believe, or (as long as you aren't hurting others) how you must live.
There is no law against hating people and blaming it on Jesus.

     But simply telling you that you cannot force other people to live as if they follow your religion or punish them (by withholding services you provide to everyone else) if they do not– sorry. That's not an attack on your religion.
      That's called "Living in A Democratic Society".
   See, unless you live in a cabin in the wilderness, we all must make some accommodation to the various people we share this society with. You do not have to live like them or think like they do, or even respect them! But you DO have to treat them the way you treat everyone else.
    I, for example, cannot refuse to do business with a customer who walks in wearing a confederate flag shirt, or one with a threatening NRA slogan, even though my fervently held religious beliefs include peace and equality. That doesn't infringe on my rights: I do not have to be a bigot  or own guns myself, but I must rent those people a hotel room or serve them a meal, just as I do the people with whom I agree.

#2  We have to protect traditional marriage!
 
    Oh Wow- is someone trying to unmarry you and your spouse?
    Seriously- what's going on? To need protection, traditional marriage must be under attack, so… how are you being attacked?
    In states where same-sex marriage is allowed, are heterosexual marriage licenses being rationed now? Are you forced to get married in secret and pretend that you are not a couple,  not allowed to list your husband/wife on your death certificate as your spouse?
     Are you discouraged from getting married, told that yours is not a 'real' marriage? Do people try to talk you into getting therapy to discourage you from joining in such a strange union?
    Or perhaps heterosexual marriage is like Tinkerbell, and the fewer people who believe in it, the weaker it becomes until one day- poof!- straight couples will just wander away from each other forever?
No?
No. Of course not.
    Straight marriage is no more under attack from gay marriage than me eating chocolate ice cream attacks your vanilla cone.
Not taking the same life path as you in NO way blocks or damages your path.

    You folks speak as if there are a limited number of marriages available in the world and the gays are going to hog them all and soon there won't be any left for straight people.  Do you hear how whiney and silly you sound? The gays are coming for my family!! Grow up and stop talking like a 4 year old who needs a nap.

    Marriages are not like cookies. There are plenty to go around for everyone, in all varieties: straight and same-sex marriages, open marriages, inter-racial and interfaith marriages, angry marriages, loving marriages, childless marriages and quiver-full marriages, cathedral marriages and court house marriages, sudden marriages and year-long betrothal marriages. What a wonderful world, huh?

.   I pity you for the weakness of conviction and fear that drives you to try to make the whole world in your image. The world must be a scary place for you, with all us weirdos in it. But people with other beliefs are not attacking you by simply not agreeing with you.
    In fact, by trying to legalize discrimination against those who do not conform to your world view, YOU are the ones doing the attacking! So knock it off.
 

I've been making a mental list today of all the things that will never happen again.

~I won't see him trot down the street in his jaunty red coat.
~I won't enjoy the way the tips of his silky black ears bob up and down when he trots ahead of me.
~I won't ever stroke those silky black ears.
~Rocket won't ever acidentally tumble down the stairs to me while I'm on the laundry room level.
~I won't ever watch with affection as he runs toward the steps or even just a curb, gathers himself for a jump too early, leaps with 4 paws spread… and lands in a sprawl.
~He will never again jump off the deck steps with his coat flapping behind him like a Superman cape.
~I won't have to spend hours in the spring brushing him, marveling at how a small, short-haired dog can have such a dense coat.
~No one will ever quietly but determinedly insert his head under any hand within reach, so insistent on getting you to pet him that we joked his theme song was You Must Love Me.
~When I come home, there won't be two dogs to meet me.

    Rocket was the kind of dog of whom non-dog people would say "I might get myself a dog… if it could be just like Rocket. "

    Quiet and unassertive, small enough to be non-threatening but big enough to hold his own, Rocket came to us one Easter Sunday when the family had gathered in Amesville to say goodbye to Julie and Craig's beloved dog Babes, whose time clearly had come. As she lay exhausted, with adoring children stopping by to pet her and say farwell, a little black and white dog wandered into the yard. Rail thin and covered with fleas and ticks, his bright dark eyes and bobbing ears caught my young daughter's grieving heart and didn't let go.
     I was still in Columbus, about to leave for Amesville when the phone rang.
      "I want to warn you Trace" Julie said "there's this little stray dog here, and Katie is determined that you are going to adopt it."
       "Us? We already have a dog" I insisted.
       "I know. The neighbors say they've seen it wandering about for a while now- it's clearly half-starved, so I let her give it some of Babes' food, and she really, really wants to bring this little guy home. Seems like a sweet tempered dog," she added "and cute. …Looks a little bit like Babes, actually."

    When I arrived in Amesville I took one look at that little cheerful, border collie/terrier-ish face, with the tiny white line up his muzzle, and then at the hopeful face of my daughter and thought Oh crap- I am taking home another dog!
   Rocket and Boomer always got along well. Well, Rocket was so non-dominant that he got on with everyone. Whatever he experienced while on his own left him easily frightened by loud noises or sudden movements and flapping laundry was his particular phobia. But the funniest part was the way he would herd the big herding dog if he knew Boomer was up to no good. 
   Katie decided she would teach him how to roll over. Rocket was so incredibly food motivated that she figured it would be easy. The problem was, he was too food motivated. The thought of the impending treat would get him so excited that sometimes he just couldn't complete the entire maneuver before jumping up Now? treat now? Sometimes he would forget to even lay down first and as soon as she held the treat up he would try to roll- resulting in a spin instead.
   Rocket wouldn't chase balls or frisbees (though he would chase dogs who were chasing toys and bark at them in true border collie fashion) but he loved little soft stuffed things. We called them his Babies and he would carry them round in his mouth for hours, sometimes whining as if he wanted to tell us something about them.
   When Tucker the Destructer came along all the remaining babies were disemboweled and shredded, but by then Rocket didn't really seem to care about them any more.

   As Rocket got on in years he got gray, and his back legs started to shake. Sometimes I worried that he would fall over, they shook so much. Then I started putting fish oil on his food- and the shaking stopped! His hips were awfully weak though, and on a slick surface like the kitchen floor they would sometimes just slide out from under him. Nobody said old age was graceful.
   He became very hard of hearing, and soon it was clear he was getting senile as well. Sometimes we would find him standing and staring into corners. But he was still a sweet old dog, and pretty game, when he had the energy.

    He really wasn't comfortable with stairs, which isolated him on the living room level in the evenings when we were all upstairs. Walking down the hall I would see him standing with his front paws up on the bottom step, looking up to where all the people were. The sight of his wee gray head and slightly confused dark eyes peering up always tugged at my heart, and I would go sit on the bottom step for a minute and stroke his still-soft ears… until he would wander off again.
    Around Christmas, Rocket stopped wanting to eat his kibble and we noticed he wasn't drinking much water. I got some big bones to boil for a thin broth which he liked and started experimenting with cooking his food. Pretty soon I hit on a recipie: brown rice, a chicken breast, sweet potato, carrots, maybe some peas or spinach. Then into the nutri-bullet with a little broth to whiz into a paste that he could lick up. But he wouldn't eat much at a time, so soon I was feeding him 4 or 5 times a day, plus extra fluid offerings. If I didn't keep an eye on him he would sometimes pee in the house, so I had to be careful not to be away from the house for too long, and did a lot of washing of the throw rugs in the kitchen.

    It was a gradual thing, so I hadn't noticed how much of my day was focused on Rocket's care. I made a raised platform for his food bowl, since he had trouble bending his head to the floor. I learned to listen whenever I woke up for the click-click of toenails that told me Rocket was awake, because if he was on the move, I needed to get him out before he made a puddle. Tucker became my helper: when I heard him walk over to the bed, I knew that he had heard Rocket downstairs stirring. I kept boots by the back door so that I could slip my feet in and run out to carry him down the steps when I just couldn't bear the thought of him landing in a sprawled heap.
    Looking back, I had become his hospice nurse.

    Tuesday night Rocket had a small stroke, While he recovered his strength the next day, his already confused mind  lost its grip completely. He had been a wanderer for a while, but this was different. It reminded me of the way a zoo animal paces compulsively, and he seemed unable to stop. For hours he would prowl around and around the house, getting stuck behind chairs and in corners when he would wander back there and seem unable to understand why he couldn't got forward. After a few hours I would finally manage to coax him into laying down and he would sleep for an hour or two, only to lurch to his feet and start walking again.

    At night I gated him into the living and dining rooms, because the carpet there gave him better footing. I moved chairs and boxes to block off  places where he could get stuck and spent the night in the living room chair. Every so often he would wander over and let me pet him. Sometimes the attention seemed to soothe him, other times I wasn't sure he had any idea who I was or what I was doing.
   By Friday morning we were both exhausted, and I knew it was time to set him free. I was sure that it was time… but oh, it hurt.

   Anyone who has ever loved a pet has walked this road. The road starts out so sunny and broad, with lots of running and sniffing, and chasing sticks and good dog treats. Sometimes it ends abruptly, sometimes it slowly stretches into rough terrain and deep shadows.
    I'm not sure how difficult Rocket's road has been the past few years. But one thing is clear: the little dog who started down this road with me left his gray, weak body behind. His spirit had already fled the pains of this earth.  All I could do was walk to the end of the road with what was left of him, as I promised I would do all those years ago when I told Katie we could bring  him home.

    Of course Katie took off work and drove up to help him go, just as she had brought him to us so long ago. At the designated hour, after carrying him over to Tucker to say goodbye, we took him to the vet's office. I left him in his little red coat, because I made it for him, and he looked so jaunty and brave in it. Wrapped in a towel, I held him in my arms and stroked his head while the vet told him what a fine fellow he has been and gave him his injection. And then, just as with Boomer before him, his fine little heart stopped beating there with my arms around him.
    Katie lives in Athens now, so while it broke her heart to say goodbye, hopefully she isn't wounded over and over each day by the hundred little ways in which Rocket is no longer with her. I am. No little black and white form curled, napping on this rug or that. No small food bowl to trip over in the kitchen.  A tuft of dark hair in the vacuum cleaner. Small footprints still frozen in the mud of the back yard.
    A score of times a day I am confronted with the things I will never see or do again because Rocket is no longer with me. Sometimes, they just make me wistful, and sometimes I weep, in a mixture of grief and guilt, and relief. What a hard road it was for both of us those last 2 days.

    But there is, perhaps, one last part to this story. As Rocket was slipping away and we prepared for the end, a new young dog was coming into the circle. Just as Rocket had come while Babes was leaving us, Julie found a dog in need of a home, sweet in temperament, who seems perfect for her family. Nothing is official, but I can't help but wonder if Babes and Rocket aren't both perhaps behind the scenes, arranging things. We'll see.

    As I walked with Rocket to the shadows and he slipped into the darkness without me, I could only hope that the old dog he was will meet the dashing young puppy that he used to be, and the two of them will run on together.

    I had some fun last night making fun of Mike Huckabee's recent statement about women and how the GOP is actually empowering them, fighting a war FOR women not on them, and that liberals only want birth control pills covered by health insurance because they think women 'cannot control their libidos'.
    Right! Whereas Mike and Rick Santorm know that, with the right "empowerment" (which apparently is code for 'Pioneer women didn't need Gal insurance. ladies, and neither do you!") we can stop being sluts who need our daily slut pills from "Uncle Sugar".  Barfity-barf! As one blogger said "The way I control my libido is by thinking about Mike Huckabee".
    But this morning, another phrase he used caught my eye.

    Huckabee said that GOP policy initiatives (like no birth control coverage, closing Planned Parenthood clinics, wanting the IRS to audit your rape and unnecessary transvaginal probes) are unfairly labeled a 'war on women' when in fact, this is how the Republican party helps American women "be something other than victims of their gender".

    Excuse me? A victim of my gender?
    Ex- freakin- SCUSE ME!!????

    Getting affordable women's health care (the way men get their gender-specific health needs covered) makes me a victim of my gender? But needing prostate exams and all the low-T cream and boner pills you guys apparently can't live without doesn't make you victims of your gender?

    Yes, female America: Unplanned Pregnancy is freedom!  The Republican party wants you to know that untreated hormonal imbalance is liberty!!  And letting your rapist stop you from having an abortion is empowerment. You're welcome, girls. Now go make Mike a sandwich.
    And old Huck and the wise all-male committees of the GOP want to magically help me rise ABOVE my nasty, slutty lady parts… by restricting my access to health care. Gosh, instead of fighting it, maybe I should just lay back, close my eyes and enjoy all the power, huh?

    Huckabee wants America to believe that if you take away a low-income woman's access to Pap smears and mammograms, take away her ability to control her hormones and control her fertility (in some way other than by Withholding Sex, guys- think about it!) and saddle her with child after child which she cannot feed– you empower her.

    That is cruel, misogynistic and it's massively, mind-bogglingly Stupid!
     But what can you expect from people that would empower the unemployed- not by helping them find jobs, but by denying assistance, and who think that the way to help hungry people rise above their poverty is by taking away their FOOD!?