words. no words. words…
What says the law? You will not kill.
How does it say it? By killing!
~ Victor Hugo
I wanted to write about my birthday tonight. About the beauty of fall and the wonder of balance in the equinox and the joy of having friends in all the hemispheres wishing me well as my day reaches them, well ahead of me.
But, now, I am simply overwhelmed with a dark, despairing sadness, and to speak of birthdays and lovely light, or new years and hope, all seems not only trivial but inappropriate – off color. Disconnected. Shallow.
All just a lot of semi-fancy ways to say sad.
Troy Davis was two years older than me. He had a birthday coming up too – on October 9th he would have been 43. A black man born and raised in South, I can’t say he and I had much more in common. Still, tonight, I am Troy Davis.
In August of 1989 while I was behaving rather badly and not taking care of business getting ready to head back to college for a truly unspectacular sophomore year and looking ahead to my nineteenth birthday, 20-year-old Troy Davis was arrested and charged with killing a police officer in a Burger King parking lot in Savannah, Georgia. He was sentenced to die.
Over the course of his two-decade stay on death row Troy Davis’ case offered up repeated and consistent doubts. No weapon was ever found. Another man, initially a witness for the prosecution, is reported to have admitted to the crime. Since the 1991 conviction, seven out of nine jurors have recanted their sworn statements, saying they were pressured by police officers into giving Davis a guilty verdict. Death penalty supporters have even come out to say, as the Twitter hashtag indicated, there was #toomuchdoubt. Specifically, former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, who served under President George W. Bush, urged the pardons board to grant Davis clemency because “it is clear now that the doubts plaguing his case can never be adequately addressed.” And former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr said in a letter that “even for death penalty supporters such as myself, the level of doubt inherent in this case is troubling.”
I have yet to see a death case among the dozen coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial… People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.
~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
The United States has set itself among distinguished company in the retention of the death penalty. Around the world there are only 58 countries still sentencing people to die. Among these are countries that we share so much with. Like, Afghanistan, Pakistan Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, North Korea, Yemen, the Sudan, China.
In 2010 the top five executioners (in order) were China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen and the US. In the world. Only four other countries executed more people than the United States of America, the beacon of democracy, freedom and justice.
As long as we maintain the death penalty in this country, we are all Troy Davis.
That Mark MacPhail lost his life in line of duty is most certainly tragic. That is undisputable. The facts surrounding this case were disputable, however. And in Troy Davis’ death, the tragedy of Officer MacPhail’s death is not remedied, diminished or even avenged. All we have done is add to the tragedy.
The death penalty categorically and statistically does not deter violent crime. The death penalty is more costly than any other form of punishment in the nation. The implementation of the death penalty only lowers us to the place we reserve for the most barbaric, the most uncivilized, the most reprehensible places on earth. Yet we carry on.
Consider if it is the job of a society to collectively kill in response to the actions of an individual. Perhaps it is time to ask “What would [your own personal] Jesus Do?”
Tonight I go to bed sad. Sad for two men who were victims of violent crime. Sad for a nation that cheers this kind of justice. Sad for a family who in seeking “closure” will find their dreams more like those of Lady MacBeth in the end.
Tomorrow I wake up and listen to my students discuss Hammurabi’s code of law.
- Damn, he killed everybody for everything!
- It this the eye-for-an-eye guy?
- How come his empire didn’t last so long?
That… is a very good question my young friend.
Do you realize??
Do you realize
That you have the most beautiful face?
Do you realize
We’re floating in space?
I couldn’t help looking across the aisle at the two UMs. They were not traveling together, but because they were UMs they were, of course, set right next to each other. I wondered if they were going from one parent to another parent. Or maybe they were going home from their grandparents’ house. I looked at their quiet faces and the big, awkward UM tags the airlines still hang around their necks. It seemed somehow perfect that I was flying from LAX to SFO, still Unattended, though no longer a Minor, going home from my Grandma’s house for the last time.
How many times had I made this flight, back in the day on PSA, with my UM tags? There would be no way to count. Every summer practically from birth I found myself in The Valley with my grandparents. I think I started making the trip on my own when I was five or six. I continued to go throughout my college career and beyond. But this weekend I had not flown down to The Valley, I had gone to Santa Fe. And this was a different kind of visit. I did everything I could to try to get to Santa Fe to see my Grandma Joan. But I was too late. Or maybe I wasn’t. It is so hard to tell sometimes.
Do you realize
That happiness makes you cry?
The entire weekend was temporally elastic, rubbery, vague, anachronistic… much like the entire experience of Alzheimer’s in many ways. Not all bad. But sad. Sitting in the airport in Albuquerque with my Uncle Patrick and my Aunt Kay today we could not even remember what day it was. When had we arrived? When had we heard? How long had we been here? It was all so surreal.
Only January 17. Just seventeen days into the new year and so much has happened.
Fighting Instincts…
Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you.
~ Yoda
Last night I came home after a very long work day, a 25 minute ferry ride and a 15 minute walk to a scene that defies any palatable description. As I unlocked my door I told my parents, who I had been speaking with on the phone, that I would have to call them back, there was something dead on the floor.
Those of you who know me, know that I have two cats and said felines have a rather brutal streak with regard to the flora and fauna of our surrounding environs. I have, on various occasion, had to remove snakes, rats, mice, frogs, toads, giant spiders, birds and geckos to name but a few of the formerly living things that have either met their end in my home or been brought in as a trophy of some sort. It should be said that I have also managed to catch and release a good number of the aforementioned animals as well. In fact, just the night before last I was awakened at 4:00 a.m. by a sound that I could have sworn was a baby, or a mouse, or… a tree frog? Yes, a tree frog that my cats had taken for a bouncy toy. I caught it and put it out, alive and uninjured, it not fully well.
As I walked in my house last night what I saw was horrible, it was the stuff of horror movies. A good-sized bird whose chest had been ripped open, was strewn across the floor. A foot was several inches away, parts were clearly missing and feathers were everywhere. EVERY.WHERE. My female cat was there, watching me take in the scene (they have open access throughout the day and like clockwork they meet me when I come home; the giant, walking, beacon of kibble.) Matilda followed me around as I went to get the vacuum and surveyed what I can only imagine she helped orchestrate. I saw that all the things on my sideboard were upended or on the floor and that feathers were visible on my bedroom floor, bathroom floor… I walked into the room I use as a closet.
And I began to weep.
Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.
~ Yoda
On the throw rug in the middle of the room was another adult bird ripped apart but not necessarily consumed and at least three other smaller, baby birds. All thrashed. And then left behind. An entire family. This was not the remnants of a hunt for food. This was pure carnage and had it come at the hands of a human there would be no way to say it was not a crime of passion – of total rage. It was one of the most horrible things I have ever seen with my own eyes. Writing about it today makes me cry.
I took the rug out, I collected all of the carcasses, and I began to vacuum the feathers: under the bed in the bath tub, in my shoes, in the laundry hamper, under the sofa, under the table… I saw Norman peek in from around the open door. I looked at him and he ran. I had yet to say a word. Matilda sat on the couch grooming.
When I finished I sat on the big wooden chair under my clock and cried. I couldn’t stop and I didn’t understand why. They are just cats. Cats kill birds. Why all of a sudden did I feel like these animals were nothing I would want in my home? I looked at Matilda in awe. She is so small. And funny. Like a sprite or something. I saw Norman again. He skulked in past me, not making eye contact. Did he understand that a line had been crossed? Could he? A stupid cat? I closed the doors and the sat back down unsure of what to do. I did not want to be there – I did not want to be around my pets, often one of my favorite elements of coming home.
Always in motion is the future.
~ Yoda
I called my parents back. “They are cats,” they reminded me. “Predators. It is what they do.” It did not ameliorate the situation in the least. Hadn’t I just spent five days hanging out with them and enjoying their ‘catness’? I recall I even laughed about how cat-cam would be such a stupid idea because my cats were the epitome of hedonist lay-abouts. Perhaps it is time to consider cat-cam redux.
The thing is, it is true, they are predators. They kill. Can I punish a cat for acting on instinct when it may be all they have? Can anything really fight its own instincts to the point that they master and moderate their innate behaviors?
Do we all have issues fighting instincts? Or with the instinct to fight?
I considered some of the things that are instinctive to me. Judgment. Supporting the underdog. Believing in people. Competitiveness. Can I fight them? And then, do I instinctively fight? Fight or flight, they say. I think I may be the worst combination: start a fight then take flight. Perhaps. Or maybe I just feel gloomy today. And what would I have these animals do? Make a carnivorous being go vegan, like my cousin does with his cat? Try to convince myself that I can control cats, or any other being for that matter? How would I feel if I had come home to find the carcass on the floor to be my cat, dead and ripped apart at the hands of my neighbor’s dogs? What would I do?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
~ Yoda
I believe that as humans we strive to control our instincts. I hear it is this ability that separates us from the animal kingdom. I don’t know. It seems like there are a lot more readily available examples of people acting on instinct than behaving rationally. With my limited religious training it seems to me that this is the basis of almost all theological endeavors, or even in more mundane terms: To be the master of your domain. But there is also this idea everyone keeps going on and on about to do with honoring yourself, your spirit, your nature. What then, Yoda? What are we left with?
The cats spent the day inside today. My free-roaming jungle kitties were locked in. Unhappy they will be. But dead things there will not be. Is this an illusion of control? You bet. Is it an attempt to override instinct? I don’t think so, because truth be told, you must take the good with the bad and what I love about cats has much to do with their instincts, their behavior –> their ‘catness.’ I am fighting my own instincts to fight in my own little ways. Maybe they will understand this. No they will not. They are cats. When they see me tonight, they will again see a big, giant, walking bag of kibble.
And I will be totally okay with that.
May the force be with you.
~ Yoda
Fog, Full Moons and Obituaries.
Tonight will be a perigee moon. Perigee means the point in the orbit of a heavenly body, especially the moon, or of an artificial satellite at which it is nearest to the earth. However, it is unlikely I will have a clear view of it because of the fog that has settled over Hong Kong in the past couple of days. I am going to call it fog – though it is far more likely some variant of the pollution that we inhale on a daily basis over here, a nice dose of Nitrogen Dioxide. Yesterday it appeared that the sky had fallen. When I got home I was unable to see the bright lights of CyberPort, or even the ambient light of Hong Kong island, which generally creates my nocturnal backdrop. It was eerie. I could see some of the lights on the loaders and ships that were not too far off the shore , but even those were pretty diffuse, and the fog horns were going all night long – always spooky in spite of being a beacons. It was kinda like this, for real.
This morning when I was walking towards my yogic destination, the sky actually did fall. It wasn’t rain. It was like suspended wet that just sort of enveloped me as I walked towards the tram stop near Times Square. It was dark and quiet and damp. My students are always asking me what exactly “dank” means when they read Donald Justice’s poem, The Tourist From Syracuse. This would be it. Dank.
It is the kind of weather that sort of makes you want to hole up in bed with a good book and something tasty to drink; even if it is pollution and not really weather, it has the semblance of a blustery day. It’s not holing up because you are in a bad mood, but just because it seems more friendly inside. This weather matches the literary news of the last few days. I woke up yesterday to hear that Howard Zinn had died. I have been reading Howard Zinn since the days I was just discovering that I loved history. A People’s History of the United States may be one of the best books I have ever read, any of the editions, and it has always served as one of the best teaching tools for dealing with US History, a class that cannot be effectively broached in a single academic year (Go high school curriculum! Don’t even get me started on the idea of teaching World History in a year… No wonder everyone is bugged by history as adolescents.) It sucks to lose such a voice, but perhaps the irony of [modern?] death will prevail and more people will listen now that he has died.
I contemplated Howard a lot yesterday. I had only one history lesson to teach but was imbued with Theory of Knowledge lessons, which forces one to consider all the aspects of good history/historiography. Not to mention, I am 40 pages away from the conclusion of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 and it is a novel of quite literal epic proportions, which I cannot imagine gleaning much from without some understanding the historical context against which it is set. History matters, and it is relevant in ways that few have been able to articulate as well as Howard Zinn. He always had much to say on how we choose to learn/study/use history, and I know I will be revisiting much of his work again in the near to immediate future.
When I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning the fog had not lifted even a little, in fact was far more substantial as I mentioned above. Walking placidly, if not a bit fuzzily out the door to catch the ferry I read that J.D. Salinger had died. Damn. Not like he made a habit of being around anyhow, but, damn. I will never read The Catcher in the Rye and not think of two of my most favorite humans to have ever walked the earth: Willy Oaks and Jason Baucom. Both of these guys embodied so much of what Holden Caulfield meant to me. I think Willy probably gave me my first copy of the book. And then, it was the reason I developed such a crush on a certain freshman at UCSD; Marshall’s favorite book, so prominently displayed in that charming college freshman way, was, of course, The Catcher in the Rye.
Two days and two big guns – gone. I started to wonder why it seems like certain people go on living forever, ever when we are sure they are going to die any moment. [Or we just want them to.] I have never written an obituary, well, I sort of wrote one once… But in reality, I wouldn’t know how to capture the way I feel when I hear about guys like this passing. It’s like a another little light, somewhere, has gone out. And even if that light is not readily accessible, or even one we need to have access to on a regular basis, we are poorer for having lost the illumination.
I hope I will see the moon tonight, though the fog will be here a little longer I think.
May we all find a beacon in the mist.
“Cats, who’d have ‘em?”
I’ve been thinking about cats a lot lately. Okay, it is not like I don’t think about my cats a lot in general, but lately I have been a little more global in my consideration of cats. I have long worried that I may turn into a “Cat Lady,” and the attendant stigma that goes with that. I am really the perfect candidate: single, approaching middle-age, cat-loving, History/Literature teacher. I mean, they don’t write Cat Ladies better than that. And my cats run me. For instance, right now, I really want to get up and get another cup of coffee but Matilda is on my lap and she is content, and gives me stink-eye when I move, so coffee is more of a contemplation at this point. Eventually, I will get the coffee, but not before considering what a great reason this situation is for having a live-in helper, roommate, even a boyfriend.
When I returned from Bali and I called my parents, I could hear in my mom’s voice right away that something was wrong and there were only a few things that might make her sound this way; as I was okay, it was either going to be gramma or kitteh. It is kitteh. Their 12(?) year old cat is not well, and as is the case with cats, the reasons are ambiguous, but the reality is clear. Taking her to the vet is traumatizing and causes kitteh to really make you feel bad, and so Ella was keeping to the safety of the subregions of the bedroom and not taking food. This cat is Ella Mae, who they adopted, along with another kitty named Callie, from the shelter in their North Idaho town. The adoption of these two cats has a lot of significance to me because I was there and helped my mom pick out the cats. She had been reluctant to get another cat after the death of her most recent furry friend, Celeste. But after enough time had passed she realized that she really missed having cats and had decided to adopt two, so they would have company, and also to select adult cats as everyone always adopts the kittens but the older cats often go overlooked. I happened to be staying with my parents after a very dramatic break up [look at me be understated] with Ex #3. I was not totally myself, but cats always cheer me up. I went to the shelter and we picked out the two (very different) calico kittehs. They were bewildered and everything esle that comes with a total rearrangement of every known detail in ones existence when we brought them back. Callie was the wilder, more adventurous of the two. Smaller and more traditionally calico, she ran around and checked things out. Ella, likely a little older, is a peachy calico – white and grey and peach colored. And she doesn’t like other cats. One night we couldn’t find Callie and every issue that I was dealing with regarding the recent turn of events in my own life totally manifested in a total freak out about her (temporary) disappearance. I totally lost it for a minute.
Then she came back.
Cats.
So, now Ella is getting ready to say her farewells. Callie left them long ago, likely the result of her wandering, she got really sick and gently passed. Ella really came out of her shell at that point and became the Queen of the Manor. And now as she is preparing to go, it is just totally sad all over again.
Metal Lunchboxes and LPs… A measure of my childhood.
Today the King of Pop died. To me… this was a big deal. It really made me stop and remember. Being a kid. Dancing. Singing. Crushing. I still love watching the sidewalk light up in that Billie Jean video and the falsetto screams. And you know, Michael shut down Twitter and YouTube. Amazing. Sad. At the same time Farrah Fawcett lost her battle with cancer. And in reflection, all I could think about was my old light blue, metal Charlie’s Angels lunchbox. It was the shit. Pure and simple.
Michael Jackson was an icon. Far beyond that, really. There was nothing he did that did not garner the highest order of attention. And for better or worse, I figure if people have such vehement emotions about you either way, you must have done something meaningful. Everyone in my age group will remember the hype as we waited for the release of the ‘feature length’ music video for Thriller. And then we also got to learn who the hell Vincent Price was. Material for comics and pundits and zealots and anyone else who wanted to get in on it… whatever. At the end of the day, no one ever danced like Michael. His showmanship is indisputable. Off the Wall was one of my first LP’s and I still love that record. Every song. And I still wish I could move like MJ.
In her way Farrah was an icon too. Everyone remembers this poster, seriously who didn’t consider it’s sexiness? It holds up today… nipples and all, she looks fucking great. Her life got a little soapy down the stretch, but she always kept it interesting. Her hair-do still rocks and where do you think Roller Girl and Drew got their ideas anyhow?
I suppose it is a sign of my age but when I think of these two, I will always think of that brick wall and my light blue lunchbox. Their contributions to my cultural composition is firmly rooted back there in the 1970s. I see no point in extolling the negatives that inevitably crop up when we go through the media version of Kubler-Ross’ model of the five stages of grief. In the public eye these stages seem to translate roughly as follows:
- Denial —> Sensationalism/Shock value (first one to press wins the big $$$)
- Anger —> God, that person was so fucked up – they deserved it. [Think Jimi, Janis, Jim, Jerry, Kurt, Anna Nicole(?), Heath]
- Bargaining —> Well, we won’t print the death photos if we can get the tell all from the maid.
- Depression —> Dammit, we are no longer selling magazines, let’s dig up some more shit…
- Acceptance —> Okay, the scandal doesn’t sell anymore, let’s commodify and franchise – I see potential branding here!
After the predictable bandwagon of shock drove by, I noticed a huge wave of, “Michael Jackson? He was a pedophile! Let’s not forget about that! Just ’cause he could dance? Please! He was a sick pervert!” People mostly left Farrah alone because it is in incredibly poor taste to dole out shit to someone who has died of cancer… but do you remember when she went nuts? Because she did. But I don’t care – she will always, always be Jill Munroe to me. And if you don’t remember bargaining with your girlfriends about who got to be Jill or Kelly or Sabrina, you did not come of age in the 1970s [I will not go into the arguments over which Hardy Boy you got, because I believe some of those arguments are still going on - though Parker Stevenson seems to have won out in the age game, sorry Shaun.]
If you remember MJ for being a pervert you sure missed a lot over the span of some 30 years. And frankly, it’s your loss.
I used to worry that my grandma thought I was going to hell because I was not baptized. My mom assured me that this was not the case, but I wasn’t sure. And I thought a lot about what hell would be like. Now I think I know. Hell is where you are faced with every indiscretion and fuck-up of your entire life, indefinitely. Forever. You look at any mistake you ever made straight in the face without respite. And if you feel pretty good about that right now because you’re thinking you would never ever be so messed up as Michael… I would point to Mark Sanford, the current poster child of the “Glass Houses” phenomenon and tell you to be fucking careful.
Two of my favorite things from childhood. Gone. In a day. And, yeah, both of them had gone a bit wonky in the past decade or two. But I cannot work out how that might matter, even a little bit. Here is to kicking ass in heels and [high-waisted] bell-bottom jeans and living life off the wall.
Don’t stop till you get enough…
My Step-dad would make a good Australian.
While Hong Kong continues to be drenched by rain I have a bright spot in my house as I am hosting my step-dad for a two week sojourn to the Kong. It has been great fun to have him here while I navigate a somewhat precarious transition in the personal realm, with which I will not bore you here. As an O.C.M.P.U. [Only Child, Multiple Parental Units] I have always enjoyed a pretty solid relationship with my P.U.’s, and that remains the case. I have been staying up far too late with him, engaged in conversations and YouTube sessions and cat adoration (okay, this last one is mostly me) and have been learning quite a lot.
My mom and step-dad are both health professionals, and as a side note, are both quite healthy. When my step-dad arrived he was armed with all sorts of goodies, including a new multivitamin that should be taken nine times a day. “Nine times?” “NINE times.” I felt like Mrs. Bueller:
Katie Bueller: Nine times?
Ed Rooney: Nine times.
Katie Bueller: I don’t remember him being sick nine times.
Ed Rooney: That’s probably because he wasn’t sick. He was skipping school. Wake up and smell the coffee, Mrs. Bueller. It’s a fool’s paradise. He is just leading you down the primrose path.
This of course was off-set by two pounds of Hot Tamales™, but brings to bear the point of this post… good health.
Amanda
