My dad has always been hard to pin down, politically. Mom was, too.

As far as I know, they never picked a party, either of them. They may have registered with one, but they both refused to talk about it. If an election was coming, they would absolutely refuse to say who they intended to vote for, and would add just enough indignation to their non-answer that I'd be sorry I had asked. If you wanted an opinion on an issue, that was fine. But don't ask which candidate. It's none of your business.

The results were threefold. First, political arguments were rare in our household. Fights of every other stripe flourished, but not political ones. Second, I grew up with no artificial loyalties. I didn't, as so many Americans sadly do, ally with a party simply because my parents did and theirs before them. That's fine for football teams, but this is serious. Third, I learned to distinguish an issue from a candidate. These are things to think about, if your children are small yet. My folks did have an occasional good idea, it seems.

Now, from a personal rather than political viewpoint, you'd think you never met a more conservative guy than my dad. He listened to country music in his big car. He had a government job, contracted with the defense department. He did things for them that he still can't talk about, and he retired in 1983!!! He joined the Army at 16 years and was assigned to the 101st Airborne. Look up their last year in action during WWII and you can see how he spent what we now call part of "childhood."

He worked two jobs and saved every penny he could. He wore "Hask" hair oil as long as there was still a hair left to hold some. He never wore anything considered in style past 1955, and didn't see why he should. He watched the Lawrence Welk Show. He did his own car repairs until the computers and shit were added to the mix. His entire life as a parent has been a long example of hard work, husbandry, personal responsibility, and suspicion of popular culture.

The past few times we've spoken, he's wanted to tell me about his new car, and he has done so repeatedly and at great length. I don't mind - he's alone for the first time in his life, and he needs to have targets for his words. It's also important because the last vehicle, the Windstar, was bought specifically for mom's condition, as it had room for the wheelchair and could have the hydraulic seat installed to help get her in and out. This shows that he's moving on a bit.

This car, a Toyota, is the first foriegn car he's ever gotten, although who knows where it's actually made. He loves the gadgets that he's got (the one aspect of pop culture he will eventually embrace is gadgets - we was an electronic engineer, after all. He can be slow to adopt them, but he does eventually.). But what he loves the most is the technological advancement that allows him to get 50 MPG. That just tickles his curlies, and well it should.

Was I surprised to see someone I once considered highly Babbittlike choose such a vehicle? Not at all. Dad isn't cheap, usually (I'll disregard some very specific examples I could give in favor of the bigger picture). He won't assume that higher price is better, either. He is the shoppingest man I have ever known, on everything major. I suspect that I never saw a copy of Consumer Reports in our home because they simply hadn't delved into any product enough to earn dad's respect.

Anyway, he will definitely buy the higher priced item with the proven long-term savings. That's the way it was with the heat pump as well. He sees that the engines have been around long enough to be considered "untested" no longer, got a great warranty, and now watches the gas he isn't buying as carefully as he used to watch the gas he bought. He's loving it, because having grown up in this historical inconvenience called The Great Depression, which no one born since can even begin to relate to, making the most of every resource makes him feel smart. And as usual, he doesn't care what others may do, but he'll make sure his money isn't wasted on the high price of gasoline.

Now, when I said to him "Hey Dad, you're green!", he interpreted "green" with his generation's definition - "naive, unschooled." I quickly told him the modern, "environmentally friendly" definition, and he said "Oh. Yeah. I guess. Anyway, this thing has a really weird key..........."

The environment? Not even an afterthough. He didn't do this for the birdies or the minnows or the polar bears or even his third son who almost died from an asthma attack 30 years ago. He did it for HIMSELF, because it seemed a lot smarter than buying too much gas at too high a price from people - both foriegn and domestic - that he has reason not to trust.

It makes me wonder about what I heard, just a few short months ago, from the so-called "conservatives" in this country when John Edwards suggested that this could be a good decision for more people to make in the future. Oh, the indignity, they cried. Edwards will FORCE us to give up our SUVs!! (He never said anything even suggesting a lack of choice, BTW.) His hairspray is worse than our SUVs! We have the RIGHT to drive what we want! He's a hypocrite because he lives in a big house and has his own SUV! (His is a hybrid.)

And the best - "For my next purchase, I'm going to get an SUV just to spite John Edwards!" And, assumably, your own pocketbook.

Never mind the obvious benefits to those who bother looking at such things as the obvious. To these people, being conservative can mean going out of your way to waste resources. Unlike the conservatives of dad's generation, who shunned Volkswagens and Sonys, these people will line up to give their money to a culture that they also support war against. Well, why not? Isn't it a sign of success that we can not only afford to support our own forces, but the enemy's as well? Hey, it's GOOD to be rich!

And if we were that rich, I'd agree that it would be good, although waste would still be, well, wasteful. We're not, though. Not really.

And what have I heard from the right since Bush's signing into law of a higher fuel efficiency standard for the entire auto industry yesterday? Well, it seems that indignation is a little harder to find now.

But why? Isn't this going to hurt the auto companies? Isn't hurting them the UNION'S job, what with those pesky safety standards, and people's KIDS getting DENTAL?

Isn't this just another unfounded government mandate? Doesn't this fly in the face of the Republican ideal of individual responsibility? Shouldn't it be left to the market to determine what our consumption standards should be? Where is the insistance on personal responsibility which spills out so easily when we talk about social services and mandatory sentancing?

And most of all, where are the folks that are going to hold on to their beloved gas-guzzlers to spite George Bush? Where are the vows to never drive anything that gets more than 15 MPG? Come on, you Proud American Conservatives! Where are your God-given rights to pollute the air and waste your money now?

Or is it that the message is now okay, because the person sending the message is now more acceptable? Perhaps buying less gas isn't such a bad idea when Bush mandates it? That damn Edwards better not suggest that we do it willingly again, though. Commie bastard.

Sad, isn't it? We don't have elections, we have popularity contests. I have to wonder if any of these people can recognize that there was an issue being tossed around at all. I cannot help but think that they honestly can't see that the issue Edwards spoke about was the same one addressed in the freshly signed law. Obviously, their parents did not keep their own council as did mine. I'm sure they heard a lot more about parties than issues as they grew up, as well.

Even sadder, they really can't see how their attitudes, their beliefs, and most of all their rantings don't reflect anything at all of a "conservative" frame of mind, with or without regard for the traditional political meaning of the word as well as the personal meaning I've outlined. They know how to CLAIM to be conservative, but they have no idea how to BE conservative.

I know an old man in Arizona who does. And he'd be MORE than happy to lecture them about it, were their minds conservative enough to want to listen.

As frequently happens, the muse woos as I peruse the news.

It seems that a black newscaster is turning white. Here's a quote.


Lee Thomas' skin is betraying him.

His once brown, even complexion is now mottled with pale patches around his eyes and mouth, along his nose and on his ears; his arms, shoulders and chest are speckled and blotched.

"I'm a black man turning white on television and people can see it," says Thomas, an anchor and entertainment reporter for the local Fox Broadcasting Company affiliate. "If you've watched me over the years, you've seen my hands completely change from brown to white."

Of course, the first thing I thought of was the film Watermelon Man, where a white bigot turned black. What would this guy's movie be? Yankee Pot Roast man? Apple Pie a la Mode Man? Corned Beef and Cabbage Man?

My second thought was "Well, that's what working for Fox will do to you."

Evidently, it's the result of a condition called "vitiligo", which prevents the skin cells from producing pigment. The article says that Michael Jackson had this back when he was black.

The humor drains from the article after that. Thomas goes on to explain how he's been using makeup to cover the condition for years. That seeing it on his hand once frightened a little girl. That people with this condition tend to stay indoors for long periods of time. Why? To avoid stares, ridicule, and rejection - the stigma of turning white.

But why should that be? Isn't being white the key to success and riches in America? Shouldn't he be getting progressively higher pay, quicker promotions, and readier access to voting machines? Perhaps it doesn't work that way as frequently as some would have us believe.

In the end, a once funny thought becomes very sad. It shows once again, just like this did, that we just haven't matured as much as we like to say we have. It highlights the fact that the race issue is far from one-sided, as well. Despite all our talk about leaving racism behind us, and despite our PC hand-wringing and tsk-tsking from all quarters, we as a "diverse society" still let the pigmentation of our skin cells determine a lot of what we think of each other - and of ourselves.

As I'm sure you've all suspected, I just live for creative writing. That's why I haven't done any fiction in over 20 years - I'm saving and internalizing that muse's song, intending to let it explode in an literary storygasm one of these years.

No, not really. Don't have much feel for it at all, in fact.

I've been, however,  tagged and nagged, but at least no one is trying to have my blog shut down over it, so what the hell. This came from here.


I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen. (Splotchy)

"That's strange," I said out loud to no one in particular. My fingers slowly reached towards the jar again. My body experienced a wave of apprehension as weighted blanket covering me as I did so. The jar was completely frozen.

I picked it up and stared at it, my fingers stung with little knives of chill. "What the..." again I spoke aloud. Then I realized what had happened with a shock. Suddenly the jar flew from my hand. It shattered creating a collage-like mixture of frozen applesauce and glass shards on my kitchen floor, the lid lazily rolling to a stop across the room. (FranIam)

I stood for a moment considering what all this meant. Oh, I knew what it meant, I didn't need to waste time thinking about it. He was back. And he was mad.

I ran down the hallway and flung open the door at the end. I was immediately hit with a blast of cold. I took a step back as I tried to catch my breath. I bent over, hands on my knees panting. He always had this remarkable effect on me. After so much time, it no longer scared me, but it was a shock nonetheless……

"You know," I panted, "There's no need to break things to get my attention." (Politits)

I woke up in the same position as in my dream, on my knees. I was sweating even though the room was freezing. (Mathman6293)

I was used to the house being quite cold in the mornings, as the night log usually burns out around one a.m. when I am dreaming cozily under my covers, not normally waking to put a new one on until morning. I was surprised because on the rare occasions that it actually had reached sub-freezing temperatures in the house, I had awakened in the night to restart the fire. I would have been worried about the pipes before P-Day, but there hadn't been running water in two years and that was one of the few advantages to being dependent on rainwater, no pipes. (Freida Bee)

The nightmares began during the following spring. The apple trees came to life in my dreams. At first the trees spoke and I thought they were amusing. That changed when the messages arrived. Lately, their anger was directed at me. (Mathman6293)

There is only one thing to which I can attribute this shift. Since the shock wore off of realizing that Coker's P-Day "festivities" had split me into two identical, morphable beings (what did it take - two, three weeks?), I spend much of my time trying to advance to the simultaneous rather than the sequential. I haven't progressed to an understanding of the chronological differences of the continua, nor am I absolutely sure there are just the two. But from everything he's displayed to this point I know Coker can't be happy that I am making progress, and so it appears that somehow he's broken through and is giving me shit during the only time I can recharge. I've got to find a place where I can focus one hundred percent. This cold weather combined with a slowly increasing Green Time isn't helping.

How many more are there like him? And are all of them as paranoid about their power? Surely there's an individual out there, a collective perhaps, that's hip to newbies and sees spreading the knowledge of the planes as the only way back to sanity, the only way toward the sublime society that Vandreau advocated for so many years before the fucking wheels fell off. (O' Tim)

Perhaps, I thought, I should just kill myself. After all, who can truly say which is better - to escape the pains and heartaches of life, or to fight against them in the slim hope of winning? The Sleep that is Death would be a rest from all the pain that life brings. I could really use a rest like that. But suppose, in this "sleep", I begin to "dream?" That could be a bitch. After all, the sort of "dream" might one expect in the final sleep is a daunting thought to consider. That's what can make a long life such a sad thing. I mean, who would put up with all of life's bullshit - oppression of many sorts, insults, the betrayal of false lovers, slow justice, infuriating politicians, and abuse from people who have no right or call to abuse- when he could just put a dagger in his chest and get away from it all? Who would bear the burdens of this world and sweat and drag himself through life if it weren't for the fact that fear of something that may happen after death, from which no one can return, makes us think twice about trading the problems we have for something potentially worse, like Hell. These second thoughs can make cowards of all of us, turn determination into hestation, and prevent us from attempting something grand.

Oh, look - here comes that hot little bitch, Ophelia. Darlin', I hope you remember me in your prayers.   (Joe the Troll)

Last night, I received this e-mail.