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When we investigated the noise, it was Love at First Sight.
“Mine,” I said quickly, before the others had a chance to focus on it. They were still bleary from just having waked up, and I was alert, having been sitting at my computer adding esoteric cuts to my iTunes library during a bout of my regularly scheduled insomnia.
Des and Rich looked at each other. Rich shrugged. Des sighed and turned back toward bed, remembering to tug Richard along with her almost as an afterthought. “It’ll be hard to find the parts,” George commented. Then he scratched and yawned and followed them.
The next morning it was still Love. It was an ancient school bus, the humorously short variety, so old that it was barely still yellow. The trip over the ridge hadn’t hurt it much. It had landed on its side, but a little maneuvering with a chain and Rich’s wrecker and it was upright. It was a little lopsided, maybe, but it was upright. It was also off the Chrysler it had landed on.
Probably the best thing about operating a graveyard for cars was the fact that as soon as someone gave us their castoff, it became part of our inventory. The customary way for us to add to our collection was for someone to call us to haul away their heap of a wreck because it wouldn’t run and repairing it wasn’t worth it. We had to pay them a token amount for the value of the scrap metal, but we deducted the price of Rich towing it away.
Occasionally, though, someone just pushed the offending thing off the cliff on the north side of the car yard. However we acquired the inventory, it was ours to do with as we pleased. Normally Des would list each part still attached to the vehicle and enter it into the computer. There were special exceptions, though. George would pull some of the parts that were in high demand, but mostly just harvested bits and pieces for his garage and body shop. Some inventory was sold for the scrap metal.
The demand for parts from a 40-something year old school bus had to be practically nonexistent. As long as it could be made to run – and I had the utmost confidence in my brothers’ ability to make anything run that was motorized – this would be a free ride. Insuring it and fueling it would be the only cost to me.
Within a couple of months, the guys had it running and Des and I had it decorated. Richard had offered to paint it inside and out, but I liked the spotty yellowish shade the bus had become over its years. He covered the metal shell of the interior in a gleaming off-white that coordinated well with the latter-day hippie-type tapestry fabric I used to upholster the seats. Desiree and I carpeted the floors in a tasteful off-brown. George had made some of his creative modifications to the engine, which was now more fuel-efficient and quieter than when it had first been built. The automobile industry could learn a lot from my taciturn brother about mechanical improvements.
My one concession to interior modification was to remove the original student seats and install sleeper benches gleaned from a couple of RVs and a custom van. Oh, and the refrigerator, which George kindly hardwired into the modified electrical system. After all, what’s a road trip without liquid refreshment?
Next installment… Where shall we go?
Hate Mail, Anyone?
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Recently I was asked to write about internet harassment and threats from my professional perspective. The friend who asked this of me is on the receiving end of some nasty communications from someone who evidently doesn’t realize that criminal conduct can very easily take place at a computer keyboard, and is punishable as a crime by imprisonment and a fine.
The federal government regulates interstate and international communication pursuant to the Commerce Clause. That clause is found Article I, Section 8(3) of the U.S. Constitution. Not surprisingly, Congress has enacted a specific statute addressing harassing communications. All states have their own laws regarding harassing communications which are enforced within the state. When the people involved in the communication are in different states or different countries, or when at least one of them is in the District of Columbia, the federal law applies.
The current federal law, 47 U.S.C. Sec. 223, addressing harassing communications was first passed June 19, 1934. Yes, even that soon into the advent of private interstate telecommunication there were harassment problems. Some things just appear to be human nature.
I hope that I can cut through the legalese and give you an ordinary person’s “translation” of what the law says. The law mostly addresses telephone calls, but because of the nature of the world wide web, which is accessed through telecommunication, the law applies to users of the internet as well.
I’m not addressing commercial communications, which is what “SPAM” mostly is. This blog is intended to address only personal communications.
These are the actions that can get a person fined and a prison sentence of up to two years, whether the accused person does it or if he simply allows someone else to use his telephone or telecommunications device to do it:
1) Knowingly make, create, or solicit and then transmit obscene communications or child pornography under the following circumstances:
a) with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person; or
b) to a person under the age of 18;
2) Anonymous telephone calls or the anonymous use of a telecommunications device, including a computer, whether or not conversation or communication actually happens, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number or who receives the communications;
3) Repeatedly making a telephone call or using a telecommunications device, whether or not conversation or communication actually happens, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number or who receives the communications; or
4) Causing the telephone of another person to ring repeatedly or continuously, with intent to harass any person at the called number.
There are a couple of important things to note.
First, there doesn’t actually have to be communication. That is, the person receiving the communication doesn’t have to open the email and read it for it to constitute harassment under this law. If the sender is stuffing the recipient’s inbox with unwanted emails or sending lots of unwanted text messages to the person’s cell phone, harassment is obvious. If you go to your inbox and see 47 messages from one person in a the space of a couple of days, you know that harassment anticipated by this federal statute is taking place. People just don’t do that innocently.
Second, there has to be some evil intent on the part of the person sending the communication, except in the case of porn being transmitted to a person under the age of 18. In other words, if someone is just smitten with you, and emails you fawning poetry and love notes several times a day, they aren’t in violation of this law unless they really mean to bug the crap out of you. (Yes, in this situation “bug the crap out of you” can be a legal standard.)
So that’s the law in a nutshell, explained in ordinary language. I’m sure there are questions that you might have with specific scenarios. I’ll do my best to respond to them if you put them in your comments.
Disclaimer: I cannot give advice as to state law other than that of the State of Arkansas. This blog and the comments to it are not a substitute for a consultation with a legal professional in your jurisdiction about the specific facts affecting you. No attorney-client relationship is established by this blog and the comments to it.
Sports Topics
I just HAVE to maintain some semblance of intelligence, no matter what the conversational topic.
I don’t do sports. I think the whole thing is silly in the extreme – from the rabid behavior of fans to the outrageous salaries to the ridiculous amount of press professional (and notorious college) athletes get.
In fact, I SO don’t do sports that I was completely lost in conversations around the dinner table of my former in-laws. Out of desperation, as a young bride, I asked Skip’s best friend, Rory, for something – anything – universally intelligent and acceptable to say to appear as though I could hold my own in any conversation about sports.
“Laimbeer sucks,” he said.
Armed with this new knowledge, I went to the next dinner at my in-laws’ home. Inevitably, the topic turned to sports.
“Laimbeer sucks,” I offered in a lull in the conversation.
Mom-in-law spewed her wine across the table. Dad-in-law guffawed. Skip looked at me admiringly. I preened.
My stock phrase became the stuff of family legend.
Now, this was about 20 years ago, and I understand that “Laimbeer” has long since retired. So my question to you is, what do I now say when I want to look intelligent during sports conversations?
Meganeura Monyi
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The story you are about to read is the second in a series I’ve written and told to children all over the Little Rock area. Jack and I started creating this series more than ten years ago – when he was in preschool. When he was little I would bring his dinosaur figures to the schools and teach the children a little about dinosaurs, fossils, paleontology, and (dare I say it?) evolution. I have about 30 of these stories.
Read Tony the Good T. Rex first if you missed when I posted it. You will then understand who Tony is and why he lives with plant eaters.
Meganeura Monyi
Tony the Good T. Rex settled comfortably into his life in the plant-eater part of the dinosaur jungle. He spent his days playing with his new best friend, Pete the Iguanodon. Pete introduced Tony to other dinosaurs who lived in the peaceful jungle.
The other dinosaurs soon learned that Tony was a helpful dinosaur to have in the peaceful jungle. Whenever a meat-eating dinosaur stumbled into the plant-eaters’ part of the jungle, Tony would politely tell it to go away. If the meat-eater didn’t leave, then Tony would tell it to go away in a way that was not so polite. Tony was very popular among the dinosaurs of the jungle.
But the plant eaters always hid when they saw Tony. Unless Pete or one of Tony’s other friends was with him, the plant eaters couldn’t tell if the T. Rex walking down the path was their friend or an enemy. Tony was sad that his new friends would hide from him, but he understood. He didn’t want one of them to greet a T. Rex and get eaten accidentally.
One day when Tony and Pete were lying in a field watching the clouds, a huge dragonfly flew overhead. The dragonfly flew back and forth looking for a place to land. Like the animals of the days of dinosaurs, the bugs back then were really big, too. This dragonfly was huge.
Tony sat up to get a better look at the colorful creature.
The dragonfly landed on Tony’s big head. Tony shook his head to make the dragonfly fly away, but the huge bug wouldn’t leave.
“Hey!” complained Tony. “Don’t block my eyes! I can’t see!”
“Oops. Sorry about that,” said the dragonfly. She crawled a step or two higher on Tony’s forehead. “Is that better?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Tony. He stopped shaking his head so hard.
“You look like you are wearing a dragonfly hat,” Pete told Tony, laughing.
Tony just grinned his big T. Rex grin.
“Why are you sitting on Tony’s head?” asked Pete. He was a curious little Iguanodon.
“I’m tired,” the dragonfly explained. “I have been flying all day and I need to rest.” She settled himself more comfortably on Tony’s head.
“My name is Pete, and the dinosaur who head you’re sitting on is Tony the Good T. Rex,” said Pete. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Meganeura Monyi,” said the dragonfly. “Call me Meg. It’s easier to say.”
“Meg, will you do me a favor?” Tony asked the big dragonfly.
“If I can, I will,” said the giant bug.
“Can you scratch right above my left eye? I’ve had a terrible itch there for quite some time but I can’t reach it with these short little arms of mine.”
“Sure!” said Meg, and scratched Tony’s eyebrow.
“Ahhh, that’s feels great!” Tony sighed. “You are very helpful.”
Just then a group of Hypsilophodons wandered into the field of flowers looking for good things to eat. They say the big T. Rex across the field and waved at him cheerfully. “Hello, Tony!” they called, and came toward him.
Pete was surprised and sat up quickly.
“How did you know he was Tony and not a meat-eater?” he asked the little Hypsilophodons when they came closer.
One of the little dinosaurs laughed. “A meat-eating T. Rex would never allow a giant dragonfly to sit on his head like that!”
Pete looked thoughtfully at Tony and the dragonfly hat. “If you could wear a dragonfly hat all the time, no one would ever think you were a bad T. Rex,” he said.
“You’re right!” Tony exclaimed.
“I could use a place to rest,” said Meg.
“Would you like to always be able to rest on my head?” asked Tony.
“Sure!” Meg exclaimed. “Your head is a nice resting place.”
From that day forward, there was never any question that Tony was the T. Rex walking through the peaceful jungle. No meat-eating T. Rex would wear a dragonfly for a hat.
Catholicism – WOW!
Jack, my 15 year old son, and I were watching Dogma the other day. You know, the Kevin Smith classic where George Carlin, as Cardinal Glick, rolls out a kinder, gentler Catholicism and its new front man, “Buddy Christ.” Naturally it made me think about other changes the Catholic Church has made recently. I initiated yet another theological conversation with my favorite Scion.
“Did you hear, Jack? Limbo’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone? What happened to it?”
“The Vatican abolished it.”
“Abolished it? Just like that? How? I mean, I thought it was, like, dogma!”
“It says in this article that ‘Limbo has never been defined as church dogma and is not mentioned in the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states simply that unbaptized infants are entrusted to God’s mercy.’ So I guess Limbo was just policy.”
“So how does the Church have the authority to abolish Limbo? That would seem to be under the jurisdiction of God to do.”
“Well, according to the articles I read, it seems that the Church was really just wrong about Limbo existing in the first place. It never really was there.”
“I thought the Church was infallible.”
“The Pope is infallible. The Church, well, like the Muse and the Apostle say here in Dogma, there was the silent consent to the slave trade, and the Church’s platform of non-involvement during the Holocaust. Protestants were condemned to Hell until the 1960’s when the Church made an exception to heresy. And there’s the whole usury thing, too. Mistakes have been made.”
“Other than the unbaptized babies, who was in Limbo?”
“Um, I think anyone who would have gone to Heaven but wasn’t baptized. You know, the people who qualified except for the technicalities. Pre-Christian Jews. Pagans. Good Buddhists.”
“Does that mean that if I live a good life and do right, but don’t go to Church or anything, that I still go to Heaven?”
I rolled my eyes. “The notion was that only those who didn’t get the chance to know about Christianity would go to Limbo. It wasn’t fair to send them to Hell since they didn’t know, but they can’t get to Heaven except through Christian beliefs. So you have to toe the line.”
“Okay, so, now that Limbo doesn’t exist, and apparently never did, what happened to the souls the Chruch thought were warehoused there?”
I checked the article I had seen on the internet. “Hmmm. I’m not sure, and evidently the Church isn’t, either. It says here that ‘the carefully worded document from the Vatican’s International Theological Commission stops short of certainty in this regard, arguing only that there are “serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope,” rather than “sure knowledge.”‘ That really doesn’t say much, now does it?”
“So what about all the souls in Limbo?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they can go to Heaven now. And the good news is that from now on there’s no waiting. Unbaptized babies who die can go straight to heaven.”
“Man, I bet the people who had to spend all that time there are pissed about that.”
“Why?”
“It’s like doing time. Paying dues. They had to do their time in Limbo with no hope of ever getting out, and now the new guys get to go straight to Heaven. They get a free ride, without the Guantanamo-like experience the old guys had.”
“Guantanamo?”
“Yeah. You know, those guys in Guantanamo have no idea when or if they’ll ever get out. So if we have another war and suddenly they are freed and the new POWs we get are repatriated without the wait as soon as the President announces ‘Mission Accomplished’ – and are designated POWs without the ‘enemy combatant’ BS – the Guantanamo guys will be pissed off.”
“I hadn’t thought about it in quite those terms.”
“And Mom, what if the Church is wrong about this, too? They abolish Limbo but God still won’t let the innocents into Heaven since they weren’t baptized? I mean, what if the policy really isn’t changed and the Church didn’t get the right memo?”
“Well, son, I guess those souls will have to go somewhere. I just don’t know where.”
“You know, the government still has a lot of empty FEMA trailers… I bet souls don’t take up too much room.”
“How many souls do you think would fit in a single trailer?”
“I don’t know. Is it anything like how many angels fit on the head of a pin? I mean, they aren’t, like, substantial or anything.”
“Hmmm. And I suppose they won’t exactly eat a lot, either. Jack, I think you’re on to something.”
The Little Cheetah (Don’t Run Away From Mommy at Wal-Mart)
The Little Cheetah lived in Africa with his family. He had a Mommy Cheetah, a Daddy Cheetah, a Brother Cheetah, and a Sister Cheetah.
Little Cheetah loved his home in the wild flat Serengeti Plain. He loved the tall, tall grass, the giant baobab and thorny acacia trees, and the endless sunshine. He loved his family. But most of all, he loved antelope!
He loved to nibble and growl at the meat of the antelope. But most of all, he loved to chase the antelopes!
Cheetahs are the fastest animals on land. The Mommy and Daddy Cheetahs could almost always catch the antelopes they chased. The Sister and Brother Cheetahs sometimes caught the antelope they chased. Little Cheetah wasn’t yet fast enough to catch the antelope, but he loved to chase them.
One hot afternoon in the Serengeti the Little Cheetah played near his sister, who was gnawing on a bone. To his sudden delight, he saw a herd of antelope bounding through the tall, tall grass nearby. Little Cheetah was so excited!
The antelope were so graceful as they leaped through the tall grass! Little Cheetah leaped, too!
The antelope were so beautiful as they ran through the tall, tall grass! Little Cheetah ran, too!
Little Cheetah chased the beautiful antelope through the tall, tall grass of the Serengeti. He chased them as they leaped this way and that, and chased them as they bounded through the tall, tall grass.
Little Cheetah became tired, though, because his legs were not as long as the legs of the pretty antelope. He lay down in the tall, tall grass and went to sleep.
He woke up when his tummy growled. Chasing the antelope through the tall, tall grass of the Serengeti had made little Cheetah hungry. He decided to see what Mommy had for him to eat. He took a step, but was not sure if he should go that way. Which way was home? He looked all around and all he could see was the tall, tall grass of the Serengeti. He could not see his family.
He looked to the north. All he could see was tall, tall grass.
He looked to the east. All he could see was tall, tall grass.
He looked to the south. All he could see was tall, tall grass.
He looked to the west, and saw the tall, tall grass and a rhinoceros! He looked at the rhinoceros and the rhinoceros looked at him. He looked back at the rhinoceros and the rhinoceros looked back at him! He looked at the rhinoceros and squealed and the rhinoceros turned and ran away!
Little Cheetah was scared and lonely. He wanted his Mommy. He sat down in the tall, tall grass and began to cry.
Mommy Cheetah knew it was time for Little Cheetah to eat. She had food for him, but he did not come when she called. Mommy saw Sister Cheetah and Brother Cheetah, but the Little Cheetah was not with them. She and Daddy began hunting for Little Cheetah. Sister Cheetah remembered seeing a herd of antelope bounding by through the tall, tall grass and Mommy and Daddy thought they knew what had happened to Little Cheetah. They began walking through the tall, tall grass of the Serengeti looking for their Little Cheetah.
They could see that the antelope had leaped this way and that through the tall, tall grass. They could see that the antelope had run a long way.
They came upon a family of lions. The lions had not seen Little Cheetah, so the Mommy and Daddy Cheetah continued to search.
They came upon a family of giraffes. The giraffes had not seen Little Cheetah, so the Mommy and Daddy Cheetah continued to look.
They came upon a family of hippopotamuses. The hippos had not seen Little Cheetah, so the Mommy and Daddy Cheetah continued to look.
They came upon a family of rhinoceroses. The rhinos had not seen Little Cheetah, so the Mommy and Daddy Cheetah turned away to continue to look. Suddenly, a little rhino remembered he had seen a little cheetah! He told the Mommy and Daddy Cheetah which way to go, and the Mommy and Daddy Cheetah went back into the tall, tall grass.
They found Little Cheetah very quickly because they could hear him crying as they came closer. The Mommy scolded Little Cheetah for running away, but she and Daddy Cheetah were very happy to have their baby back.
Little Cheetah ate a good meal when he was back home. He knew his Mommy loved him.
Kidnapped
There are a young husband and wife who are British doctors. The wife is a GP, the husband is a cardiologist. They have three children. The twins are two years old and their older daughter, Madeleine, was three when the family went on a beach vacation to Portugal a couple of weeks ago.
The parents left their three sleeping toddlers in their ground-floor resort apartment and went to dinner at the restaurant next door. The parents decided against a babysitter for their three children. The children could have been taken to a drop-in service or an individual could have come to their room. Either service was free. The parents were only going next door, after all, and could take turns leaving their dinner to check on the children periodically. They faithfully checked on the children every half hour, according to a family friend.
At her 10:00 p.m. check, however, the mother discovered that the eldest child was gone. A bedroom window was open. The three year old girl had vanished at night in a foreign country. A guest at the resort said, “The parents left the door ajar so they could keep going over and looking at [the children].” A second family friend remarked that the medical couple “are fantastic parents and could see the bedroom from the hotel restaurant.”
Fantastic parents? Do fantastic parents leave toddlers alone in a different building for half an hour at a time? Do fantastic parents leave their tiny children in a hotel room with the door ajar? Do fantastic parents ignore their children’s security so they can enjoy a meal?
I realize that the focus needs to be on finding this little girl. After nearly 20 years working in the field of child abuse and neglect, however, I cannot believe that the two year old twins have not been removed from their parents’ custody yet. These parents have demonstrated their unfitness to have the care of children with very public repercussions.
Parents who disregard the safety of their children deserve to lose them. Period.
Someone on another site I frequent was commenting on this situation and brought up the question of class. A poor or working class (blue collar) family would have had criminal charges brought and the other children removed for fear of additional harm. Because these were middle class, more affluent people, they were free to criticize the efforts of the Portuguese law enforcement officials who unsuccessfully searched for the child.
Regardless of socioeconomic status, these children were toddlers left alone. Protection of children is common sense, not a class issue. It infuriates me that money and status protect negligence of this nature.
Had the children been alone and asleep when a fire broke out, would have been criminal charges brought against the parents for their deaths? It only takes a moment for a child to be electrocuted, to drown, to be burned, to fall and be seriously injured.
Someone in that other forum pointed out that even if the parents had been in the apartment, a kidnapper could have broken in and taken the little girl. This fact is no excuse. Presumably had the parents been there, the door would not have been ajar and the cries of the child as she was being abducted could have been heard. Their very presence would have been a deterrent to this unthinkable act.
The cold, hard fact is that these parents, who probably see abused and neglected children in their medical practices, neglected to supervise their children adequately.
I am concerned for the missing girl. I am just as concerned for her younger siblings who are still in the custody and care of these thoughtless parents. My concern is for the children. I have very little sympathy for the mother and father, whose selfish, lazy decision not to get a free babysitter increased the likelihood that something of this nature would happen.
Have these parents been punished enough for their negligence? I would say they’ve been punished in the most horrific, unforgettable manner possible. When and if their daughter’s abused corpse if located, they will never be able to forgive themselves.
Nevertheless, the notion that their socioeconomic status protects them from the legal repercussions a less affluent couple would face is wrong. Either this couple needs to be prosecuted, or the less affluent parents who allow something like this to happen should not be. Our society needs to choose.
Dinner Party
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Longer ago than is comfortable, a friend asked me who I’d invite to the ultimate dinner party. I could have five people from any point in history to my ideal gathering. I apologize for the delay in answering. I’ve had to really think on this one, though.
Questions like these are so “Miss America” at first blush. “Oh, well, I’d invite Hillary Clinton because she’s going to be the first female president, and Oprah, because she’s just so clever, and Fabio, because he’s so hot, and Martha Stewart so she could give me decorating tips and, um, Bob Barker because he has so much history with the pageant!” (Insert high-pitched giggle here.)
I thought I’d be able to dash off this list with no problem. But then I started thinking about it. Five people, from any point in time, could be sitting around my dining room table. Presumably, I wouldn’t have a migraine. Presumably, I could also have it catered so I would be free to talk uninterrupted with my guests. Presumably, everyone would play nice no matter their opinions on matters so we could have discussions and not shouting matches. Who would be really interesting? Most importantly, who would be engaging as well as interesting?
I kept thinking of people and eliminating them for various reasons.
Eleanor of Aquitaine sprang to mind immediately. What an absolutely fascinating woman! Wife of two kings and mother of three, this woman wielded more relative power in her day than Hillary Clinton can dream of. Eleanor went on a Crusade! Granted, she bungled it, but she went. She spent years in prison because her second husband, Henry II of England, discovered that she was plotting against him with their sons Henry, Geoffrey, and Richard. Her youngest son, who became King John when Richard the Lion-Hearted succumbed to his excesses, is probably the most vilified king in English history, yet she supported him with the steadfastness only a mother could have mustered – even when he murdered her grandchildren to secure his claim to the throne. She would literally stop at nothing to get her way. But I don’t tend to like ruthless bitches. Scratch Eleanor from the guest list.
Saint Peter and his buddy Saint Paul. I hold them personally responsible for screwing up a peaceful message of acceptance preached by an itinerant rabbi a couple of thousand years ago, not to mention ultimately igniting one of the worse holocausts of the mind as reason took a back seat to blind faith under the guise of a religion. I have some hard questions for both of them. Frankly, though, the discussion would ruin my appetite as Peter tried to justify forming a church where there was not meant to be one, and as Paul tried to justify just about everything he ever wrote. The saints are therefore uninvited to dinner. Ditto Constantine the Great, who, although not a Christian himself made sure the message was further screwed up. Uh-oh. I’m sensing a soapbox under my feet. I had better step down before I start something that will take eons to finish. Next subject, please.
I have some famous ancestors and relatives. The aforementioned Constantine is one of them. Another is Anne Marbury Hutchinson, a dissident preacher in Boston Colony in the mid-1600s. After a notorious trial at which the governor of the colony, John Winthrop, was pretty much the prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner, he banished her from the colony entirely. Since she was pregnant, he magnanimously allowed her to remain through the winter and give birth before departing. She was basically run out of Providence, too – a colony her sister helped start – and was eventually killed by natives at her home on Long Island. She was a woman of passion, intellect, and courage. But she was a fanatic. Fanatics tend to upset my digestion. Nope, Anne is off the guest list.
Well, they are five who would be fascinating but not at dinner. Maybe I’ll have them for cocktails on the deck and send them home before the shouting starts.
Who would I want to share a meal with?
My dad, who I miss more than any person I’ve ever lost. My paternal grandparents, who died before I could know them as an adult. My Italian immigrant great-grandfather, who braved a new world in the days of steamers and gas lights. My Irish immigrant 3rd great-grandmother, the illegitimate child of a prominent family of Kerry, who as a single woman made her way across the ocean to settle in Chicago during the famine. These are the people who I love and who I have heard stories of my whole life. Two of them told me most of those stories.
My grandfather is the reason I went to college where I did. When the school went co-ed in the early 70s “Big John” was delighted. “Now you can go to Colgate as something other than the team mascot!” he told me. Big John was All-American at Colgate and my junior year he was posthumously inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. After his own graduation he coached football at Colgate, then after World War II scouted for the Philadelphia Eagles. I inherited not a single one of his athletic genes. On the wall of his office, he hung pictures of himself with people like John Wayne, OJ Simpson (long before the trial of the century), and Connie Mack. He was my favorite grandparent by far. He died when I was 16 so there’s a lot I never had the opportunity to talk about with him. He was the son of Italian immigrants, and the stories of his family that I have been told by cousins and by my dad are absolutely fascinating. We have a lot of unfinished business, Big John and me.
Big John’s first wife, Betty, is also on the guest list. She died when my dad was a teenager. I look like her. In fact, her mother, who lived to be 104, believed I was Betty from the time I was about 10. I know very little about Betty, but the few photos I have of her are like looking in the mirror and seeing myself without a widow’s peak. The generation that knew her was gone before I had enough sense to ask questions. Yes, I very much want to meet this woman.
And Dad himself… My dad died very suddenly four years ago. I would want him at the dinner with his parents for several reasons. First, because I miss him more than I ever dreamed I could miss anyone, and I would give just about anything to sit at the table with him one more time with an endless supply of wine, and an infinite amount of time just to talk. I loved talking with my dad at the dinner table. He and I would talk for hours after the table was cleared, pouring glass after glass, getting more and more sloshed, solving all the problems of the world. I wonder if we’d dare drink that much if his mother was there. I know his father would keep up with us, glass for glass and bottle for bottle until the sun rose and set and rose again. I’m getting a horrific hangover just thinking about it.
I’d also want Dad there because I would give more than just about anything to see him reunited with his mother. She died when he was 15 and he never stopped missing her or grieving for her. He adored her. The third reason for Dad to be there is because I always loved hearing him reminisce about the aunts and uncles, especially the Italian ones. If his parents were there they’d have so many of these family stories to relate! It would be a dinner party that would last an entire weekend at least.
And that’s why I’d want the immigrant grandparents. My Italian great-grandfather, Attilio, was a businessman. He was the youngest son of an affluent wine-making family in Northern Italy and came to America to scout the market for wine. He and another brother, Gaetano, established a winery in New York. When Prohibition hit, they stayed afloat for a while selling to the Catholic Church, but sips of communion wine weren’t enough to keep the family winery in business. The wines they had been importing from the family’s Italian operation couldn’t come into the country at all. My grandfather was a teenager when the winery went bust, and I haven’t heard enough of the stories of how the family survived. I want to learn more.
And then there’s the Irish great-grandmother, Betty’s great-grandmother. She was barely out of her teens when she came to America with her brother. They settled in Chicago in a large Irish expatriate community. She had married a man who was from the same county in Ireland. Unlike the more affluent Italians, my Irish ancestors came with little more than the clothes on their backs. Tracing her father’s side of the family has been almost impossible, even with several of us making trips to Ireland to look at parish records. I want her to fill in the missing blanks in the genealogy, and I want to hear her story of immigration and survival.
Yes, I want to have my family to dinner. And I want the Italians to bring plenty of the fermented juice of the vine so we can get completely sauced while we laugh and talk. I want that meal to last a week.
The problem is that I want to have the family members to dinner on a different night than I have the historical people over for drinks. The conversations would be completely different. I wouldn’t want to interrupt the family tales for the adventure stories, nor would I want to interrupt the adventure stories to hear family memories. I definitely want to hear them both, but the family is for dinner and the others are for cocktails.
So, I’m having two parties. You’re welcome to attend, but I’ll have to insist you be a fly on the wall at the family reunion. You won’t mind terribly, will you?
Ishmael, Part II
I appreciate the comments on the first installment of my blog on Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. The second installment on this book is the more interesting, in my opinion. Why? Because it explains part of the mythology of our culture by retelling two important stories we all know. Both are stories from the Book of Genesis.
Although I may draw the ire of Bible literalists when I say this, I think the explanations Quinn gives of the Fall of Man (Adam’s banishment from Eden) and of the story of Cain and Abel make supreme allegorical sense. The explanations opened doors in my mind.
All of us are familiar with the story of the Fall. God tells Adam that he can eat from any tree in Eden except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam eats from it so God banishes him from the Garden. (I am deliberately leaving out Eve and her role because the word “Adam” means “mankind, ” and mankind is what Ishmael is concerned with.) Most of us are taught that this act of disobedience was something God could not tolerate. When Adam ate the fruit of the tree he realized he was naked and was ashamed. Hello, instantaneous cultural mores!
Ishmael explains the story from a slightly different perspective: that of the gods. The fruit of the tree gave knowledge of good and evil, but it did not impart the wisdom of how to use that knowledge in the long term. Knowing that something is good in the moment does not mean that that same thing will be good in the future. Also, what is good for one may be evil for another. Mankind is too selfish to make that distinction: if something is good for Man now, then that is Man’s choice. If it results in later harm, well, Man will choose to deal with the consequences later. Just like someone commented on yesterday’s blog, humans want instant gratification.
The example Ishmael gives is of predator and prey. If the lion kills the gazelle, it is good for the lion and the lion lives to hunt another day but it is bad for the gazelle, which dies. If the lion misses the kill, it is bad for the lion because the lion starves to death, but it is good for the gazelle which lives for another day. By controlling his ecology and his world, Man has assumed the mantle of choosing which lives and which dies in this scenario. Although man has the gods’ knowledge of good and evil, Man does not have the gods’ wisdom to choose correctly every time. Man’s poor choices result in an ecological imbalance.
The knowledge of good and evil is therefore something entirely situational for Man. Man only chooses what is good for him at the time. Man does not choose what is good for the world at all times. He cannot. Man’s arrogance and his mistaken belief that he has both the power and the wisdom of the gods is his own undoing. It will cause his own destruction.
The second Genesis tale Ishmael relates is what we know as the First Murder. The sons of Adam, Cain, a farmer, and Abel, a herder, both make sacrifices to their god. Cain is jealous because the god prefers Abel’s sacrifice, and kills him. Cain is banished from society as a result and carries a mark that identifies him as evil.
Ishmael tells the man that although the Hebrews preserved the story of the brothers, it was a Semite story to begin with. The Semites were a culture that predated the Hebrews and the Arabs. The Semites lived on the Arabian peninsula and in the fertile crescent of the Tigris-Euphrates valley. As Leavers, they took only what they needed and left the rest alone. The were hunter-gatherers and later nomadic herders. In years of plenty, humans and other animal and plant species flourished. In years of famine, the numbers of all species diminished. They would flourish again when food became plentiful.
Agriculture is believed to have begun in the Fertile Crescent. When Man began farming, animals were no longer allowed to graze on farmland. The farmers produced much more food than they needed, and times of famine became less frequent. The species that had lived where the farmers were cultivating land moved elsewhere. As more land was put under cultivation, the farmers, now a Taker society reshaping the world to suit themselves, pushed the nomadic Leavers from their lands. The story of Cain murdering Abel is the story of the northern Taker Semitic tribes murdering the southern nomadic Semitic Leaver tribes to make room for more agriculture. It is a story of war.
The gods prefer Abel’s way of life, which allows all living things to flourish in good times and which means all living things suffer equally during lean times. Cain is banished from living in the hands of the gods because he has assumed the mantle of the gods by reforming the world to his own purposes. The mark that identifies him as evil is his arrogance and continuing destruction of the very planet he needs to maintain in order to survive.
Basically, Ishmael explains, Takers believe that the world belongs to Man, whereas Leavers believe that Man belongs to the world. Takers see themselves as running the world. Leavers allow the gods to run the world. The gods, of course, prefer Leavers, and Leavers are sustainable. Takers are not, and will eventually destroy themselves along with their world in contradiction to the gods’ intentions.
In his final lesson with Ishmael, the man asks for a program to save the world. Ishmael tells him,
“The story of Genesis must be undone. First, Cain must stop murdering Abel. This is essential if you’re to survive. The Leavers are the endangered species most critical to the world- not because they’re humans but because they alone can show the destroyers of the world that there is no one right way to live. And then, of course, you must spit out the fruit of the forbidden tree. You must absolutely and forever relinquish the idea that you know who should live and who should die on this planet.”
“Yes, I see all that, but that’s a program for mankind to follow, that’s not a program for me. What do I do?”
“What you do is to teach a hundred what I’ve taught you, and inspire each of them to teach a hundred. That’s how it’s always done.”
“Yes, but . . . is it enough?”
Ishmael frowned. “Of course it’s not enough. But if you begin anywhere else, there’s no hope at all. You can’t say, ‘We’re going to change the way people behave toward the world, but we’re not going to change the way they think about the world or the way they think about divine intentions in the world or the was they think about the destiny of man.’ As long as the people of your culture are convinced that the world belongs to them and that their divinely-appointed destiny is to conquer and rule it, then they are of course going to go on acting the way they’ve been acting for the past ten thousand years. They’re going to go on treating the world as if it were a piece of human property and they’re going to go on conquering it as if it were an adversary. You can’t change these things with laws. You must change people’s minds. And you can’t just root out a harmful complex of ideas and leave a void behind; you have to give people something that is as meaningful as what they’ve lost – something that makes better sense than the old horror of Man Supreme, wiping out everything on this planet that doesn’t serve his needs directly or indirectly.”
I shook my head. “What you’re saying is that someone has to stand up and become to the world today what Saint Paul was to the Roman Empire.”
“Yes, basically. Is that so daunting?”
I laughed. “Daunting isn’t nearly strong enough. To call it daunting is like calling the Atlantic damp.”
“Is it really so impossible in an age when a stand-up comic on television reaches more people than Paul did in his entire lifetime?”
The above quotation is taken from Daniel Quinn: Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (Bantam, NY (1992)), pp 248-249.
Ishmael – Part I
Yesterday’s Earth Day post drew some interesting comments and left a burning question in my mind. If “going green” isn’t enough to slow the global climate change and stave off the apocalypse, what can we do?
I want to tell you about a novel I read recently. Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, explains why human beings are such poor stewards of our planet. We have destroyed our world because we believe ourselves to be gods. We change our surroundings to suit us and we kill anything that gets in our way.
Quinn is a radical Neo-Tribalist, and he lays out the philosophy and the reasons for Neo-Tribalism in a Socratic dialogue between a telepathic gorilla and a man. Neo-Tribalism is a theory based on the writings of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (the “Noble Savage” guy) and anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss (the god of structural anthropology), among others. The idea is that modern culture will result in the annihilation of the human race. Overpopulation and abuse of resources, coupled with the idea that mankind has a right to use up the planet as it sees fit is what modern man does, and is it not sustainable. We will survive only if as a species we return to a hunter-gatherer existence, living in harmony with the planet and the other species on it.
Quinn’s novel Ishmael contains more than ecological philosophy, though. It is a dialogue between man and ape. It is social philosophy. It is religion. It is profound. It shifts paradigms. It moves the cheese. This book has changed lives.
The human protagonist in Ishmael responds to a newspaper ad: “Teacher Seeks Pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in Person.” When he applies for the pupil position, the man must grapple with the surreal discovery that the teacher is a telepathic silver-back gorilla who calls himself Ishmael.
Finally, in answer to Ishmael’s question of why he seeks a teacher, the man admits that he wants to understand “how things came to be this way.” The man feels that something is wrong with the world, that there is a Great Lie being told, but he can neither identify what is wrong nor identify the lie.
Ishmael begins teaching the man about his own species and his own cultural biases. First, the man must understand that many of the things he believes to be true are part of a mythology. The most important myth to recognize is the myth that the world was made for Man to do with as he pleases.
Ishmael divides mankind generally into two groups: Takers and Leavers. Takers are those who take from the world and from the other creatures around them. Takers take all they want, which is more than what they need. They believe the myth that the world exists for their kind, and they brook no argument otherwise. We are Takers.
Leavers are the people we call primitive. They do not farm, they do not take more from the world than they need to survive. They are hunters and gatherers. Very few Leavers continue to exist, because the Takers plant the Myth wherever they go and convert the Leavers to Takers.
Once the man understands that the notion that humans are the pinnacle of creation is a myth, he is better equipped to understand “how things came to be this way.”The great lie is that man can do as he pleases to change the earth. The lie is based on the myth.
Ishmael’s student comes to understand that Man, in his guise of Taker, is the only creature on the planet to believe the myth and the lie. Other species compete within the ecosystem; man changes the ecosystem to suit himself without regard to the consequences for other creatures or even, ultimately, for himself. Leavers and the rest of the species on the planet compete for survival, but they do not “wage war” against the planet or other species to do so. Takers wage constant war against the earth and against the species Takers perceive to be competition. The competition may be the way a river flows, the existence of an insect, or plants Takers consider to be weeds in their gardens.
To live sustainably, Quinn argues, “you may not hunt down competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food.” By killing our competition (the pests that invade our crops, the wolves that hunt our sheep, the swamps where we want to build our cities, the Leavers whose way of life is alien to ours) we Takers wage war against the world.
Think about this. Tomorrow I’ll tell you more about this amazing book and its philosophy.