My fake college syllabus

My fake college syllabus

Are We Suffering Enough, Fools?

Are We Suffering Enough Fools?

America speaks and debates through mass media—but it’s a shouting match.  John Stewart and Bill O’Reilly gust their speech on the Internet and television loudly. But do we Americans really want all their noise? We should want it. The wings of America’s eagle, the national bird, flap with mass media real news network access and privilege. 

Those wings sounds like flapping gums behind megaphones, calling out corporation privilege.  The town crier?  No, the country cries in the public, for justice, and a redress of grievances to its government (Bill of Rights, Amendment 1).

I think mass media’s free speech and the public outcry are the last of the American  exports.  Forget about making some other country safe for democracy.  F*&k that. Let those overseas hear how we soar in our speech, in our words.  Let them hear us flap.  Let them decide for themselves if they want free speech “amid the noise and haste” (Desiderata) of their own cultures, their own homes, their own heads.

Instead, we need to make sure we make America safe for democracy.  Lest we forget that free speech bears responsibility on the speaker, and grievances demand response from the governing.  You don’t like O’Reilly?  Me neither.  You like Stewart? Me too. But I’m glad O’Reilly’s around. I’m glad his right to shout on the airwaves equals our rights to holler in the town square, or on the streets of New York’s financial districts.

Maybe we aren’t suffering enough, enough to let our cries be heard; or maybe Carlin was right when he said that Americans are too fat and happy. We have cell phones that will make us pancakes and rub our balls (It’s Bad for Ya).  Sure, I’m willing to bitch at my phone company for charging me for an extra 20 bucks when I shouldn’t have to pay it; but am I bitching enough about paying taxes while not having universal health care?  We with voices speak for those without voices, whether we like it, or not.  When we speak, do we really express our grief and grievances for others, for the inadequacies of our government? Not usually.  But Stewart and O’Reilly do.  Maybe once we cop to our own struggles, or count our blessings and achievements, or look to help others with their trials, then we could avail ourselves the true power the First Amendment grants us: the power to keep America safe for democracy.

"Sermons" on the Dismount

Introduction

My deconversion from theism (Christianity and less specific beliefs in a higher power) motivates this series of writings I've titled "Sermons" on the Dismount.  The title operates as an ironic misnomer.  I only want to write about my experience, not preach on the advantages of having a naturalistic view of the universe, nature, and phenomenon; that's why I put the word sermons in quotes.  But like a sermon, I will write what I feel and how I slowly dismounted from the belief in a God, or gods, the supernatural, and other religious and mythical explanations for the world. 

These "sermons" operate within and from a naturalistic point of view.  In other words, I subscribe to the theories of evolution, the big expansion, and abiogenesis.  To me, science explains how the world (and all of its phenomenon-natural or otherwise) works.  I state this at the outset of this series for one reason.  I hypothesize that many readers, sympathetic and empathetic to the theistic vantage; will attempt to debate my point of view.  I realize that this series invites debate and emotional responses. Despite that, I am still going to post this set of writings, and I will decide who I debate to whom I respond. 

My Slow and Certain Deconversion (part 1)

After my second divorce, I moved in with my parents.  Two years prior to my divorce I went to church twice a week: on Mondays to rehearse my bass playing and harmonies with the church band and on Sundays to play in the contemporary service.   Once I recovered from the initial shock of the breakup, I began working a minimum of forty hours a week.  Inevitably I worked on Sundays--particularly when I was a team leader at AWS. None of the personal assistants working under me willingly worked on Sundays.  If going to church and playing in the its band really meant so much to me, I would have tried much harder to get one of my subordinates to cover my Sunday shift. 

I still believed in the Christian God and prayed in the morning, in the evening, and whenever I felt uneasy or anxious. Not going to church and band practice (which included a prayer group before we began to practice) gave me a chance to start questioning organized religion and theology in general.  Though I had read about evolution in college, on my own, and believed it to be a plausible, I started seeing that evolution couldn't be reconciled with the Genesis account.  With more and more space between the Lutheran church, and myself I began forging my own relationship with God, as I understood him. 

This personal relationship focused on a god I could talk to and his name was not Jesus. Another newer feature of this personal relationship included getting to know myself better: what I thought and felt without the filter of Christianity.  In other words, instead of praying away my doubts about religion, myself, and praying away my problems, I began to see myself as an individual who could solve my own problems, or go to someone else--whether they were believers or not.  Case in point, I began talking to an old friend of mine on a regular basis who was (and is) not affiliated with any organized religion. 

As I started to find my own way, he had found his.  He lived (and lives) by his own spiritual principles, many of which he formulated after reading myriad books and contemplating those principles for many years.  Similarly I began listening to his experiences and how he applied his principles to those experiences.  At first I adopted some of his viewpoints and applied them to my own life and "spiritual journey". I started drinking kumbucha and green tea, eating better (high diary fats, olives, leafy greens), weaning myself off of psych meds, and following a more predictable sleep routine.  I was still doing God-centered twelve-step work; but all the while I questioned if there was an actual higher power.  I questioned it because I believed I was doing the spiritual recovery, not some bigger, immaterial and invisible force.

Beyond the Raven Veil

(I found this image on Google)

Ravens rage into a scatter,

cawing in the dwindles of twilight,

the ocean: her playful field.

She hangs behind the black,

invisible swell.

Sand blows into my eyes.

My center pulsates and fuses.

With a black-hole knife

I’ll blade-fuck the moon

out of the sky,

finally felling Diana.

From the series, A Funeral Fer Yer Demons

© 2011

Tornados

The bump
in the lines
run different lengths
sounds don't rhyme
but taste good together.
your tongue caresses
and how the 'Or' feels
louder than it says.

suddenly you see a curve
a hip--------a sway
the motion kicks up the page
her hands knock through
the center of the door.

wearing a barely-there dress
and smiles your bowtie off;



the sky drips its fingers
down the down stalks
words gale with force
and soften the edge of your ear.


No one understands
what’s she whispered;
only zippers open their mouths
after that.

You’re Zeus Nicholson,
She’s Susan Herandon
your Buddha eyes meet
spent and laughing.
Period.


Copyright 2009

An "autobiography".

I started a prison sentence when I was five..........................................
:-(................................................................Rx............................
..............XX....................Rx.....................................................XX
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..............................................................................!%^&*..............
Rx........... ...............XX........

.............Rx.....................................................XX............Rx..........
....................XX................................................and it turned
into a poem
when I was 35.

Copyright 2009

C U-Flame-Go

Beauty is the beast that my caught eyes by the tail. Wet fireflies cover land
and glint their glass lights.

my vision-rhythms
sharpen—burns her
orange with knife shadows—

Feel the Bengal strobe.

Midnight spreads
its body out soaking
in the jungle’s steam; laying root,
v
i
n
e
s
grow to taste
the blossomed peach.

Dawn heals shadows enough
to mute
her flight
in amber
camouflage.