Some Obama-Hater Keeps Daring Me to ...What?

Today on twitter, I saw someone post a link to a letter that was supposedly by Clint Eastwood. The letter immediately seemed fishy due to the last paragraph which is just a litany of childish name-calling that I found to be beneath Mr. Eastwood. I don't know the guy personally, but Eastwood has always struck me as someone who is intelligent and thoughtful, not foolish or childish. So I took the two seconds necessary to find out that the letter is a fake. Big deal, right? Someone posted something that was false on the internet. Let it go. But I freely admit that I've made that mistake before (more than once), and I genuinely appreciated it when friends poited out that the attributions were incorrect, so I thought maybe I would be doing this person a favor by letting him know. If not, who cares? He gets to hold on to his belief that it's the real deal, and I move on with my life unscathed.  

So I let him know. I was pleased that the gentlemen didn't try to persevere in the illusion that the letter was actually written by Eastwood. But he held on to the sentiment of the letter. Again, that's fine. When I've been duped by a false meme, I did so because I agreed with the quote and was flattered by the false notion that some person I respect had voiced the opinion. When I was shown I was wrong about the attribution, I was disappointed, but it didn't alter my admiration for the sentiment. I just felt like a boob for being too lazy to double check the attribution.

Here's where it gets weird and noteworthy, though. The poster didn't just double-down on his agreement with the sentiment expressed in the string of vitriol. He continued to tweet at me, challenging me to "address the argument." "Lemme know when you work up the nerve to address the argument," he tweeted. And, "It's still a devastating argument the Constitution haters won't like. Or dare address." And, "You didn't dare address it. " Are you sensing a theme?

I feel a bit like Marty McFly taking the bait because he keeps calling me "chicken," but the fact is I CAN'T address the argument because there isn't one. It’s not an argument that can be refuted because it’s not an argument at all. It’s barely a series of assertions.

The letter is structured like a joke. There’s a set-up in which this not-really-Clint-Eastwood writer starts with some heartwarming pablum about facing your mortality and caring for your family, and then there’s a pivot about doing your friends and family a favor by letting them know where you stand, and then a punchline:

“So, just in case I'm gone tomorrow, please know this ...

“I voted against that incompetent, lying, flip-flopping, insincere, double-talking, radical socialist, terrorist excusing, bleeding heart, narcissistic, scientific and economic moron currently in the White House!”

Ha! So funny! See? You didn’t think it would go there, and then it did. It’s a riot.

But it’s not an argument any more than your average “Your mama is so fat” joke. Demanding a rational response is like saying, “Nanny nanny boo boo, stick your head in doo doo. Now I dare you to address that!” Address what? It’s just name calling.

I’m guessing the guy posting to my twitter feed wants me to take on the names one by one (or else I’m a “Constitution hater”). Sorry, buddy. I don’t owe you that. I think the charges are wrong, but so what? The President is the President. This tweeter can think the President is all those things and a lot worse, and, if he is a Constitution lover instead of a Constitution hater, then he knows he has the right to voice his opinion, and that’s about it. The President will still be the President. The tweeter can follow the letter’s advice and let his friends know where he stands, but then he’ll just be another guy who doesn’t like a particular politician. Big whoop.

I’ve repeatedly asked, honestly and openly, for an explanation for the level of vitriol this President receives from his critics. I received explanations ranging from a faux-Presidential seal some supporter made that was somehow proof of the President’s arrogance, to that misguided sting operation that allowed some guns to get into the hands of Mexican drug dealers (an operation conceived and carried out by some low-level DEA agents, not by some nefarious Presidential plan), to a ham-fisted PR spin on an terrorist attack in Benghazi. Oh, and President Obama uses executive orders when Congress won’t do its job, though about half as many as Bush and Reagan. And he pushed people into the private, capitalist insurance markets in order to get healthcare to some 15 million uninsured people, and that somehow makes him a socialist because, I guess, socialists now make people participate in capitalism rather than waiting to go to emergency rooms and not paying for it. That’s what socialism has come to; paying private companies for goods and services. Obama is also the “Confiscator-in-Chief” because ...well, he hasn’t confiscated a single gun from a law-abiding gun owner, but some folks are damned sure he’d gonna at some point. He’s letting in all the illegal immigrants ...except that the number of illegal immigrants living in the US is actually going down. He’s ruining our economy and giving all our economic power to China ...except that we’ve had nearly continuous growth during his presidency while China’s economy is currently tanking. He did give a speech in Egypt where he admitted that the US government hasn’t always done the right things. That was called an apology tour because ...what? Because he’s supposed to bolster our image by lying and claiming the US government has never done anything wrong? I guess only conservatives are allowed to badmouth the federal government. When a liberal does it, it suddenly becomes unpatriotic.

I still haven’t heard a satisfactory explanation for the degree of hatred. I’m still trying to figure out a way to explain it that doesn’t involve dismissing the President’s most vitriolic critics as racists or tribalists who see the very same thing done by a white, professed conservative and a black, professed liberal and freak out about one and not the other. Some DEA agents give a few guns to Mexican drug dealers and it’s proof that the President is incompetent. Reagan’s administration gave and/or sold weapons to Iran, Iraq, and the Taliban. Many of those same guns were later turned on our own soldiers. But Operation Fast and Furios is the bigger outrage? Benghazi was insufficiently defended and the administration tried to blame the attack on a video before they knew the real cause. Our own homeland was insufficiently defended on 9/11, and the Bush administration tried to blame it on the wrong country long after they knew better, causing an unnecessary war and thousands of American deaths, but Benghazi is the scandal that we’re supposed to be worried about?

I just don’t get it. I know. I know. “Lib-tard.” “Drinking the Kool-Aid.” I’ve heard all that before. What I haven’t heard is an explanation that has much more substance than this supposed argument penned by not-Clint-Eastwood. I have more specific criticisms of this President than my conservative friends do ( 1. The ACA isn’t socialist enough. 2. “Race to the Top has been terrible for public schools. 3. Not prosecuting Wall Street crooks was a mistake, and 4. So was not going after the people who ordered illegal torture after 9/11), but I’m not the one screaming online about how the President is ruining the country.

So, to my new twitter friend, I will dare to address your argument as soon as you dare to make one. Use a specific example. Cite a source. But if your “argument” is that President Obama is a secret Kenyan, secret Muslim, secret atheist, secret Black Nationalist, secret communist, secret alien, secret lizard-person, secret head of the Illuminati, secret anti-Christ, will you please keep your theory a secret? You are not-so-secretly revealing a lot more about yourself than about the President of the United States.

Help Me Plan my 39th Year!

[Editor's Note, 1/7/2016: As pointed out by keen-eyed Craig Hirt, Benjamin Gorman turned 39 and therefore can't plan his 39th year. Years don't work that way. His 39th year is done. He needs help planning his 40th year leading up to his 40th birthday. So thanks a freakin' lot for pointing that one out, Craig!]

First, I'd like to thank you for the birthday well-wishes:

So I'm turning 39. I'm not sure how I feel about that. My thirties have been pretty cool, over all, but there have been a few hiccups, so it's entirely possible my forties will be even better. As I wrap up my thirties, I'd like to get some help from you, my friends, regarding how best to finish out this decade and start the next. So, in the comments section below, if you are fewer than 39 years old, please write something you would like to accomplish before you turn 40. If you are more than 40 years old, please write something you wish you'd done in your thirties. Regardless of your age, write down your idea for the ideal fortieth birthday party (I have a year to plan it!).  Let the fun begin! 

Vote for the New Cover of Corporate High School

As described here previously, Not a Pipe Publishing has been holding a contest for the cover art of the forthcoming second edition of Corporate High School.  We've been accepting submissions since August and have even extended the deadline (accidentally), so the period of public voting will begin on New Year's Day and continue until midnight on Friday, January 15th.  You may vote once a day for only one of the cover designs (as there can be only one winner), but please feel free to chime in in the comments section below if you have ideas about how the different artists' work might be mixed or modified in some way. Before the votes are even cast, I want to thank all the folks who submitted. Here are the finalists:

Anna Martin's submission: 

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Brittney Nikkole Bettles' submission:

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Sannel Larson's submission:

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Get your copy of the first edition of Corporate High School on Amazon here.

A Bit of Arithmetic for Gentiles

2016 is almost upon us. Or most of us. Most of you, anyway.

I've always measured my life by the Gregorian calendar like just about everyone else I know. However, over the course the last few months of 2015 (mid-5776) I've been learning a bit about my Jewish heritage. I'm a quarter Jewish. My (obviously also quarter Jewish) brother's (100%) gentile wife got excited about helping my nieces learn about their father's heritage, and her enthusiasm has been infectious in that it got me curious, too. (I think my brother has remained largely immune.) So, as we come up on the Gregorian New Year, I'm looking at it in a new way. 

I'm only 25% God's Chosen. That's something I have to live with. But when it comes to the year, I think it means I am celebrating a new year differently than most people.  

2016 times .75 =  1512

5776 times .25 = 1444

That's right, my 100% goy friends. Tomorrow I'll be celebrating the beginning of the year 2956.

To my brother, Happy 2956, Joe! Unless our cousin, Rachel, is part Jewish on her mom's side, Happy 2956 to Rachel, too! 

As I mentioned, my sister-in-law, Patti, just gets plain old 2016. My sister, Jill, and my wife, Paige, are both adopted, so they get to celebrate 2016x, with x being the variable quantity of Jewish/Islamic/Chinese/Japanese/Old Icelandic/Hindu/Coptic/Zoroastrian they might be able to claim. 

My dad and my uncles get to celebrate a different year.

2016 times .5 = 1008

5776 times .5 = 2888

Happy 3896 to Steve, Doug, and Jeff! Cheers/Lechaim!

Now, I understand that, for this to mean anything, it has to have real world consequences. So, I pledge to only drink 75% as much as your average gentile on Gregorian New Year's Eve. And then, at sundown on October 2nd of 2016, I'll only drink 25% as much as much as your average Jew for Rosh Hashanah as I ring in the year 2956.25! 

 Do Jews drink at all at Rosh Hashanah? I clearly have a lot more to learn. 

4 1/2 Star Review

I always aim for 5, but I can't argue with this one: 

Poem: The Permitted Relationship

After listening to this week's Double X Podcast, I was inspired to write a poem for my wife, Paige. I posted it to her FB page with her permission, but it lost the formatting (curses, FB! Grr!) so here's the poem the way it's supposed to look.

The Permitted Relationship

    by Benjamin Gorman

    for Paige

Imagine them

 Two hands

    Clasped underneath

    The tablecloth

    Under the table of the outdoor restaurant

    Barely invisible to traffic

         Secret so close to being discovered

One hand is defiant black skin

 The other trembling white

Or they are both smooth female hands

 Nails polished and scratching gently

Or both men's hands

 Thicker, squeezing

Or one has a wedding ring

 Its pair far away

Or one is soft paper

 With more wrinkles than the other

These pairs

 Of hands, holding on out of sight

The romance of the forbidden

They hold in the face of fear

    Of reprobation, law, hatred,

    Or just frowns, sneers, scorn

    Or the breaking of hearts of those not present

         not understanding.

But the hands are admired

 Because they hold.

   Because they defy.

So romantic

    We cover one hand in werewolf fur

    Cold marble vampire skin

    Subterranean alien scales

To call it love.

Our hands

 Are on top of the table

    A man's

    A woman's

    Skin the same color and age.

Or they are under the heavy blankets

    Of our soft, bourgeoisie bed

      Permitted.

But we hold in the face of fear

    Of monotony, complacency, apathy

    Or just forgetfulness, age, comfort

    Or the loss we cannot contemplate

         cannot fathom.

Our hands are admirable, too.

 I hold for you.

   For you

     I defy.

 

Submissions Are Starting to Come In!

Back in August I announced two contests that Not a Pipe Publishing is running through the end of this calendar year. The first is a contest open to current high school students who are interested in making a video trailer for Corporate High School (info here). The second is open to anyone; entrants can submit a design for a new cover for the book's second edition (details here). Those submissions are starting to come in now, and I wanted to share them to give everybody an idea of the kinds of great work people are submitting. Here are just a few, but you can see that they're very cool. In January we'll vote on the favorite of the finalists. If you are interested in submitting, send your submission to NotAPipePublishing@gmail.com. 

From graphic artist Anna Martin:

And from photographer Brittney Nikkole Bettles:

...and...

 ...and...

And from Sannel Larson: 

And...

You can find more of Sannel's work here: http://fineartamerica.com/artists/sannel+larson
and follow Sannel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sannellarson

These artists are still working on polishing their submissions, so if you have suggestions for them or want to tell them what elements you like the best, feel free to leave those ideas in the comments section below!

Why I'm giving my Movember donation to Planned Parenthood

Hi, I’m Benjamin Gorman, a public school teacher and an author. I decided to participate in Movember this year because I think it’s a simple, fun way to raise support for cancer research and cancer screenings. But instead of giving money to the Movember Foundation, an excellent, A rated charity that’s doing good work, I’ve decided to give my money to another A rated charity that does cancer screenings, Planned Parenthood. I think it’s great that groups like the Movember Foundation are working to bring awareness to men’s health issues, but let’s face it: nobody out there is trying to prevent men from getting cancer screenings. On the other hand, there are some people who are actively working to close down the facilities where lots of women get their cancer screenings just because they want to prevent women from making certain personal health decisions they disagree with. This shows a remarkable disrespect to women. It presumes that women aren’t reasonable enough to understand the argument anti-abortion activists want to make, so these anti-abortion activists threaten all the other health services offered by Planned Parenthood. No one is doing that to men. No one says that if men choose to get this health procedure or that health procedure, we’ll take away your access to screenings for testicular cancer. If people think abortion is wrong, that’s fine. Respect women enough to make your case and trust them to make ethical decisions. But don’t hold their healthcare hostage.

If you agree, please consider donating to this GoFundMe. 100% of all the money donated will be given to Planned Parenthood. If you disagree, show your disagreement by going to the website of the Movemeber Foundation and donating there. Then, post how much you gave them in the comments section below to show how much you didn't like this idea. That will really teach me a lesson. Either way, share this and let’s try to get everyone the access to cancer screenings that they deserve.

Thanks!

7 Characteristics of a Good Citizen

One of my former students asked me to help him out on a college assignment. He wants a list of seven or eight characteristics of a good citizen. Here's my first crack at it (but I'd love to hear your additions/amendments):

1) Care. Citizens should be concerned about the good of their fellow citizens. "Empathy" is a bad word in some political circles because it's associated with advocating for big government solutions to social problems, but caring can manifest in a lot of different ways. It could be private acts of caring, collaborative work through religious institutions, civic groups, or labor unions, actions by private companies, or government activity. Regardless of the mechanism, good citizens care for one another.

2) Be involved. If a democracy is going to function, we have to remember that it's a country run by We the People. If we choose to sit on the sidelines and complain about "the government," we turn the control over to the people who are motivated to be engaged in the governing process, and their interests might not be all of ours. In fact, the fewer people who are engaged in the political process, the more those few people have an incentive to look out for themselves, since they are not checked by the broader population.  At the very least, a good citizen should vote. 

3) Be informed. A good citizen has an obligation to understand what is going on and how it affects her/his fellow citizens. This isn't an easy task. In our age of abundant information and even more abundant opinion, it can be difficult to wade through it all and figure out what is true and what is relevant. Sources like TV and twitter are good for up-to-the-minute facts, but twitter is also loaded with opinion and misinformation. Television, even when it isn't attempting to project a particular partisan spin, is inherently prone to emotional manipulation because it pairs information with evocative imagery. To really be informed, read books. Read long form journalism. Read newspapers from other countries to see how we can sometimes be blinded by cultural assumptions. Talk with people who have different perspectives on issues. This part of good citizenship is hard, but it's very important.

4) Be educated. This is not quite the same thing as being informed. A computer can be loaded up with all kinds of information. That doesn't give it the ability to know what to do with that information. Education involves acquiring analytical skills, philosophical understanding of one's self, and moral grounding which will allow a good citizen to use information to make decisions that benefit other citizens.

5) Disagree. This can be very difficult, especially when we have disagreements with people we care about deeply, but it's an essential part of good citizenship. We have to be willing to stand up for positions that are unpopular if the country will ever improve. We should also learn how to disagree in a way that's respectful and constructive. And we should have the humility to recognize that we might be wrong. 

6) Belong without assimilating. This is difficult, too. It can be tempting to change one's self to be as much like the herd as possible. It's even easier to reject the whole group. What's hardest is to claim a position within a group while maintaining one's unique identity. Finding that balance is a lifetime's work. It's also a part of good citizenship.

7) Give back. No one enjoys paying taxes, but it's far more bearable when you remember that you are investing in roads, in libraries, in the firefighters and police officers who protect your home and loved ones, in the research that invented the internet I'm using to send this right now, and in the research that will one day produce the medicine that may save your life. Of course, some of those taxes (maybe even most of them) might go to things you don't agree with. Pay them anyway, and get involved to change where your taxes go. But don't stop investing your money, your time, and your energy into making this country a better place, or you can't call yourself a good citizen. 

Interview on NWP Radio

Last week I was interviewed by Tanya Baker for the National Writing Project's radio show, NWP Radio. My segment is from 21:41 to 39:30, but if you have more than 18 minutes to spare, the interviews with Renee Watson, author of This Side of Home, and Heather Mackey, author of Dreamwood, are so good I have to buy copies of those two books post-haste! 

Take a listen here and let me know what you think!

#whyiwrite: Get Ready for the

NWP radio

Oh, and if you'd like to read the George Orwell essay "Why I Write" that I talked about in the interview, it's here. 

The interview with Salman Rushdie that I referenced is here.