My ex-girlfriends and ex-loves... for the sexiness, for traveling with me, disillusioning me, sharing their families, for letting me in, for their music mixes and weird books, for teaching me to make tamales, dancing at my sister's wedding, for dancing, for trying to love, for walking across mountains together, and crawling through cenotes, and being homeless with me, carving pumpkins, watching anti-war films, being skin-to-skin, thinking about art, letting me freak out and mess up, taking me to strange canal-ridden parks, watching fireworks and shivering in the cold, for having umbrellas in their rafters, cuddling years after, for respecting, being the first, diving in phosphorescence, pushing me and being drunk with me, and opening your eyes in the sunrise, and having buttresses to climb, for being vulnerable and yet gentle with my vulnerabilities, for their stories and sadnesses, for their baggage, for sharing their baggage, for being like lone laughing suns, or wolves howling at a long yellow moon, or actually, some other inexpressible metaphor...

My family... for having seen me at my worst, and climbing trees with me, and gardening, for taking me on river-rafting trips, and letting me crash, and making me dinner, taking care of me, letting me stay because I can't figure out where to go, for watching after my dog, and being weird with me, enjoying sushi with me, letting me do what little I can to repay, telling me incredible stories, stories sometimes of our shared past, for reading what I write, and supporting queer causes, for kicking goals and sitting in boats with me, for teaching, for teaching me so much, for always always always being there for me, even in my most miserable days, for always being there for everyone, for having kindness and wanderlust and dreams, for having their own history and being amazing, for achieving and inspiring, for tagging basking sharks, for letting me love them, and having cool friends, for loving animals, for being so easy to be around...

My friends... you curs, you dirty dogs, you lovely clouds and floating newts coming up for breath. For lasting, above else. And aside from that, for fleeting most splendidly. For being confusing, and tough, and sometimes brutal to hang on to, like the edge of a cliff... when the cliff doesn't crumble. For smoking on balconies, inviting me, having beautiful children for me to love, for loving and raising their beautiful children, for picting, for wine, for peeing in strange places, having odd conversations, bringing me the books they love, sharing the books they love, for forgiving me, letting me forgive them too, for burping on subways, writing coaster poems, swimming naked, camping rough, swimming clothed, walking dogs, watching risque films and howling from the bleachers, becoming family, staying in touch, reaching out after not having stayed in touch, being in touch even when we're not in touch, striving to live, inspiring me even if I'm jealous, knowing I'm so proud, bringing me soup and telling me fishing jokes when I am sick, loving and accepting love... so I know what that means...

The world... for being, for still being, for offering. I really like all the orange leaves, plus the light through the valley on the way to work. The opportunity to still be alive when so many face war, death, other darknesses. For feeling fear, so I can overcome it. For being lonely, so I can feel solitude. For being sad and disillusioned, so I can rebuild truth and discover moments of joy. For the ocean, its tides, animals (in general), frogs leaping across the road, forcing me to stop or swerve. The winds, oh yes the snow, very much the snow, and light of course, rain too. The sound it makes. The possibility of not polluting, not exporting jobs, not destroying environment, exploring alternatives. The fact that dreary dismal rain makes sound. The advent of underwater, the way water breaks upon the face as you rise up. Seaweed, wild grasses, thorns and burrs and blackberries, hawks that swoop down and herons that pass by. Gardens that grow and provide challenges, growth, harvest, smells. Oh, the smells... most recently: hubbard squash freshly cut, apple pie, post-vacuum, sauerkrauet, Herald's snout. Anyhow, this could go on awhile, though sometimes it is so.fucking.hard.

Though, I guess, it really shouldn't be. At all.

Here are some pictures from a very nice hike last weekend:


















Oh, and also because in two weeks I will be writing again.

"war" via dictionary.com:

(1) a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; (2) a state or period of armed hostility or active military operations; (3) a contest carried on by force of arms, as in a series of battles or campaigns; (4) active hostility or contention; conflict; contest: a war of words; (5) aggressive business conflict, as through severe price cutting in the same industry or any other means of undermining competitors.

I must admit: I am utterly sick of War on Drugs, War on Poverty, War on Terrorism, and Class Warfare.

Frankly, I don't count any and all conflict—disagreements, hostility, problems, horrible problems, diseases, addictions, distress, difficulties, active business scuppers, anything with two points of view—as actual war. Wouldn’t it just be more precise to refine the term “war” to the spilling of blood by more than one? I think all the balderdash that surrounds the rhetoric of war necessitates such a refinement in order to promote an exactness of language, a precision in place of a generalization. In a world where “war” is an event with bloodshed, we might instead talk about conflict as conflict, as business infights as business infights, as contests as contests, as addiction as addiction, and struggle as struggle, rather than overly simplifying a language capable of complexity, and thus oversimplifying complex issues.

"War" involves death and murder. War includes bullets and missiles and propaganda and spies and tanks and machine guns and submarines and battleships and jet planes and helicopters with guns mounted on their gunnels. It looks like bombs exploding and people dying and soldiers pushing forward in the dark of night and trenches and caves and clandestine meetings and intelligence reports and guts spewed and torture and imprisonment and Geneva Conventions and genocide and hatred.

War is a tired metaphor within rhetoric, just as metaphors are a tired trope within politics.

What does "class warfare" mean, really? Does it mean bullets and missiles and propaganda and spies and tanks and machine guns and submarines and battleships and jet planes and helicopters with guns mounted on their gunnels? Does it mean bombs exploding and people dying and soldiers pushing forward in the dark of night and trenches and caves and clandestine meetings and intelligence reports and guts spewed and torture and imprisonment and Geneva Conventions and genocide and hatred?

Maybe. But probably not. Yet, if it's so, who is winning the class war? If this is our definition, where are the casualties, who is suffering?

I'm pretty sure I could examine the stats inside and out and find that the wealthy are not the losers on any front of the so-called 'class war'. The wealthy are not the dying, the suffering, the bloody-gutted. And even if they were taxed 50% more than they are, which is not the argument, I'm pretty sure there would be no casualties or intestinal bleeding or dead babies flooding their banks.

By statistics alone, if this were war, the casualties would be entirely on the side of the poor. The lazy minions of capitalism. The do-nots. The fuck-offs. Those without the wherewithal to invest and sharehold. The educators and waitresses, the librarians and farm-workers. The immigrant field-workers, day by day plucking at the strawberry bushes in an effort to relieve them of their excess. The medical workers, sending in their insurance claims for perusal. The factory workers, just hoping for a break between outsourcing and retirement, where they could be called back to work because they are more desirable due to their pension funds being fully paid for, thus no longer a liability. The factory workers, who don't have a job because China is cheaper. Because Chile is cheaper. Because the protection agencies here are more concerned about the future than they are in other countries participating in "equal trade." Because we don't look to see where anything is bought anymore (Just try to buy a child's toy that hasn't been made in China. If you find luck with that, try for a toy Made in America). The transit operators who face de-funding because anything other than concrete and nonrenewable is communist or at best, unfair to gasoline freedom. The small businesses who bare the brunt, especially if they are ethical. The in-between. The grabbing-at-any-work. The innovative who have found no home for their innovation.

I have zero sympathy for the whole "class warfare" debate that argues that the upper class should have access to Bush tax cuts, to corporate personhood, to what I perceive as perpetual exemption from citizenship. And if merely suggesting that the wealthy pay a bit more is “warfare,” then I’m going to start calling my students terrorists when they tell me they missed class due to a death in the family. Because… why not?!! Let’s casually redeploy all language! “Using the telephone” can now be called “consorting with the enemy” and “using the bathroom” might become “poisoning the wells”! I like it! Everyone on guard!

Seriously though… "class warfare" is a joke term, a metaphor that is hyperbolically ironic. There is no war, only conflict. Difference. Difference of perception about what it means to be a part of a society. So be the difference, but don't portray the difference as war. If it were war, I would take my sword and slice off your... big. fucking. dick.

Yeah. So let's not see it as war.

I felt this rant coming on after reading the November 5th-11th issue of The Economist, a journal I respect. I tend to see it as being centrist on the right side of affairs, but genuinely journalistic, factual, interesting, and excellent. But after reading "America’s Missing Middle," and then having an argument with CF about it, I’m still feeling a little pissed at this magazine that CR seems to swallow whole. I don't see the article as being ironic in its use of "Comrade" as an nomer for Obama (15); rather I think the author actually believes that if Obama merely suggests that taxes will have to be raised on those who can afford it, just as programs are cut across the board, that he is suddenly “leftish” enough to be jabbingly compared to a Soviet communist. (And here I was, thinking the cold war was over!) I likewise don't think this article is joshing about Obama "dabbling in class war," about his ‘pivot’ to the left, and “promising his supporters that the budget can be solved by taxing ‘millionaires and billionaires’.” Sorry, guys, I must have missed all that!

I agree with the article that the center is missing in Senate and Congress, but I think these guys are failing to note how Obama's failures (and successes, for that matter) are in large part due to his desire to inhabit centrist politics in an America that rejects centrist politics. Frankly, I voted for Obama not because he was the same as me politically. I am way to the left of him. I voted for him because he was centrist and I hoped he might have a chance in our crazy America. And yes, I do feel that he has been a great big wimp with a pathetic set of old-school stupid cowardly cabinet member nuts/ovaries. Yes, yes, yes. But he is still a centrist old fool, and I am still a leftist. And I still want him to bridge the parties. I still want him to give the the old try, but maybe with a little more cajones, please. However, if he has failed to do this, it is not because he’s Leftist! It’s because he sits in the center and pisses everyone off, tries to gently pull both parties together, when they aren’t even remotely in the gentle mode. He needs to be a bit more of a bully, but I hardly think he can be more centrist.

And for the record: yes, he did suggest taxing the weathly more, but he also suggested this in tandem with cuts to the budget expenditures. And sure, you good folks at The Economist have solidly been pushing “closing the loopholes” in place of raising the tax rates, and surely America is willing to listen to such reasonable solutions, but don’t try forcing your point of view and ideas on me by mocking my own ideas with sloppy metaphorical language such as “class warfare.”

And please, don't even pretend that our mild mannered president is "Comrade" Obama, you A-holes.

I have yet to participate in the Occupy! marches, although I support their actions. But I have not marched because I’m tired of marching… I think we’re going to have to be a little more clever, like leaving banks for credit unions and sending more innovative people to D.C. But maybe I will march… maybe all it will take are a few more bullshit stories about the center actually being the left, and the left being a bunch of implausible comrades.

*

On a completely unrelated note, did you hear about the first-grade teacher who is being prosecuted for saying on FB that she is "warden for future criminals." What teacher hasn't, at some point, been driven by exasperation to say something like this? What... we aren't allowed to vent any longer in America?

no costume, no jack-o-lantern (for the first time ever in my life), no party, no trick or treaters, no events... only a pile of cabbage rolls I made to get rid of some of the masses that are still chugging away in my garden

Actually what I did was teach an evening class, which I let out early so they could go have fun while I went to the Y and worked out. By the way, I'm discovering that a dive class will probably be out of the realm of possibilities for December... my back has been in self-destruct mode and when I went to do laps the last time, I got these massive nerve tweaks that stopped me in my tracks. I had to doggy-paddle to the side and leave after about six or seven laps. Ridiculous. But I'm slowing it down, and still working out... maybe I can't dive, but I sure as shit am going to snorkel.

Anyhow, it was quiet at the Y at nine on Halloween night, and I listened to Nortec Collective, which I pretty much love. And then all night long, I kept waking up with this song running through my mind and dreams of worlds with banned babies and floating cameras.

Maybe I'll carve my pumpkin this weekend?