As my thousands--nay, tens of thousands--of loyal readers may know, one of the first things I read each day in the Star Tribune is the obituary column. Yes, I start the day by finding out who has died. Why, you ask? For two main reasons. First, there is a chance that someone I know has died, and from time to time, that truly is the case, and so I need to know. The second reason is a bit more odd, perhaps, and vaguely "philosophical." But it comes down to this: reading the obituaries is my way of celebrating that I am alive for at least another day. It's a recognition that life is transitory, that shit happens, that my shit is waiting as well, but that for now, I need to appreciate that I am still among the living. Any psychologist ought to have a field day with that!
While reading the obits, I also sometimes glance at or pay some attention to the details of some stranger's life. The other day I was reading the notice for a woman named "Patty"--a very nice woman, I'm sure, and her photo revealed a winning smile. But in terms of her existence, the best they could seem to come up with--besides the fact that she "cared for her family, her animals, and the garden"--was that "she enjoyed playing Yahtzee and Scrabble, gardening, decorating, and attending garage sales."
Now, I should tread carefully. One can live a very full and happy life without doing anything "amazing." And one's family, animals, and garden can be a meaningful focal point for a very deep and satisfying existence. Still, I for one would hope that my legacy does not come down to Yahtzee, Scrabble, and garage sales. There's gotta be more to life than that. Although I have many mundane activities that comprise the daily rituals of my life, if anyone is writing a notice for me, please leave out some of the silliest ones! For whatever reason, I don't want to be remembered as "the meanest Scrabble player in town." But then, I can vibrate my uvula, I once memorized the Gettysburg Address, and I enjoy doing the Cryptoquip in the paper each day! Lacking a Nobel Peace Prize, I guess I'll have to live with a smaller legacy. It's just too bad that I'm not an avid Bingo player.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Heil Obama?
As mentioned in some previous posts, I have corresponded quite frequently with a high school friend I have referred to as "Kyle." And Kyle, as you thousands of loyal readers know, is about as far to the political "right" as anyone I know. He's a "birther" who believes that we should eliminate the minimum wage, sees Obamacare as a "power grab" by the feds, and believes that global warming is more than a myth--it's a conspiracy among liberal scientists to obscure the truth. So it should come as no surprise that a fair number of Kyle's posts to me have included references to Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany in the same sentence as Barack Obama. The implicit (and sometimes explicit) claim is that Obama and Hitler and the Nazis have something in common.
I have told Kyle repeatedly that this linkage of Obama to Nazism is at once inaccurate, incorrect, inflammatory, and an exercise in demagoguery. Still, he continues to make such claims, including a tu quoque fallacy--i.e., that those "liberals" have called certain Republicans Nazis, which I guess in his mind makes it OK for him as well to return the favor.
Recent developments make the Nazi analogy even more annoying. Mr. Obama has just announced that he is nominating a Jew for the Supreme Court of the United States--gosh, that's a sure sign of another Hitler! Meanwhile, the Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that our true-blue, all-American governor, Tim Pawlenty, violated the law by deciding on his own to cut various state budgets--something called "unallotment." And indeed, unallotment is the closest thing we have in this nation to a "dictatorship"; what this move involved was for Pawlenty to flat-out ignore what legislation had been passed by elected representatives, and to trim the budgets based on his own whims as a chief executive. So much for democracy.
Anyway, I ended up telling Kyle that I'm done with such rants. I simply won't read anything else he sends along because it is so offensive that it ceases to be civil discourse. Now I haven't heard from Kyle at all in more than a week since I started trashing his messages. And, it's been very liberating--damn, it just feels good to keep toxic waste off of my screen. Until such time as gay people are forced to wear pink triangles and Jews are shipped off to concentration camps, I think that Kyle should stop playing the "Nazi card," which is nothing like a trump card in my deck. It's more like the Joker. Or maybe not even a card at all. It's just stupid.
I have told Kyle repeatedly that this linkage of Obama to Nazism is at once inaccurate, incorrect, inflammatory, and an exercise in demagoguery. Still, he continues to make such claims, including a tu quoque fallacy--i.e., that those "liberals" have called certain Republicans Nazis, which I guess in his mind makes it OK for him as well to return the favor.
Recent developments make the Nazi analogy even more annoying. Mr. Obama has just announced that he is nominating a Jew for the Supreme Court of the United States--gosh, that's a sure sign of another Hitler! Meanwhile, the Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that our true-blue, all-American governor, Tim Pawlenty, violated the law by deciding on his own to cut various state budgets--something called "unallotment." And indeed, unallotment is the closest thing we have in this nation to a "dictatorship"; what this move involved was for Pawlenty to flat-out ignore what legislation had been passed by elected representatives, and to trim the budgets based on his own whims as a chief executive. So much for democracy.
Anyway, I ended up telling Kyle that I'm done with such rants. I simply won't read anything else he sends along because it is so offensive that it ceases to be civil discourse. Now I haven't heard from Kyle at all in more than a week since I started trashing his messages. And, it's been very liberating--damn, it just feels good to keep toxic waste off of my screen. Until such time as gay people are forced to wear pink triangles and Jews are shipped off to concentration camps, I think that Kyle should stop playing the "Nazi card," which is nothing like a trump card in my deck. It's more like the Joker. Or maybe not even a card at all. It's just stupid.
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