oh, for christ's sweet sake

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have you seen this story?

seems our glorious leader has decided--in the interests of avoiding even the merest appearance of impropriety or conflict of interest, you understand--to start charging guests at the white house for their meals.

and i can totally see his point--i mean, you give a few captains of industry some government largesse on the scale of a free chicken sandwich, a glass of iced tea and a cookie stamped with the presidential seal, it could look pretty bad.

[whereas the fact that his re-election committee will no doubt hit those same captains of industry up for thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for his 2012 run--why, there's no conflict of interest there; that's just politics as usual, right?

yeah, right.]

the thing about this small-minded, petty idiocy that bothers me the most (aside from its classless tackiness, of course) is the cynical assumption that the american people are so stupid as to be swayed by such charades as this.

on second thought, that's not the thing that bothers me the most--what really scares me is the thought that this isn't the cynical ploy that it appears, and that barack actually believes his own bullshit.

because that's just what we need right now--another carter.

[note: this was just a little test-rant--you know, see how well i handle indignation sober]

let's call it a trial run

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during the last four or so years, i've spent many weekend nights alone, and a few without the companionship of alcohol. this coming weekend will mark my first conscious attempt at accomplishing both simultaneously.

the whole gay marriage thing (the last part)

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you ever started something and then wished you hadn't, but couldn't just drop it in mid-stream because if you did you'd leave everybody with the impression you were a raving, reactionary loon?


if so, then you know what it feels like to be me right now.

* * * * *

in part two, i talked at some length about what western civilization has lost over the course of the last 50 years as we abandoned the ideals of responsibility and sacrifice that were the norm back then.

this time, i meant to flip the coin--talk about what we've gained as a result of casting off the shame, repression, patriarchy and segregation that were the dark legacy of that "father knows best" era.

and after that, having thus explored the subject from both angles, i was gonna pose the following question: if i, mkf, could snap my fingers and choose for western civilization either (a) the familial and societal stability of yesteryear, or (b) the individual and collective freedoms we enjoy today [because we can't have both, which is the real point of all this], which way would i go?

and then, having made my choice, i was gonna extrapolate the consequences of that choice a couple generations into the future; i.e., show--given the clear-cut evidence that's out there for anybody who chooses to look at it--where we're headed.

but, you know what? i'm not gonna do any of those things tonight, because i've suddenly grown tired of pissing into the wind.

the sad fact is, most people are content to accept whatever's in front of their faces now as proof of what will forever be; it's left to pessimists like me to think three moves ahead--and nobody listens to us anyway.

sober update: hmm, looks like i never made it past stage 4 last night.

if you rss this blog

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you'd do well to refresh before you read, because this shit almost always changes materially and for the better after mkf hits "publish," sees it in that final white-on-black just like everybody else and realizes he's lost his last chance to fix things without anybody noticing, and then does so anyway.

words to the wise, all i'm sayin.

the whole affirmative-action thing

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[i know i still haven't posted part 3 of the whole gay-marriage thing, but tying up all the loose ends in that messy little package is gonna require more alcohol than i can allow myself mid-week.

this one, on the other hand, was quick and easy, so it's going in.]

* * * * *

if you're a good fag who reads all the right blogs, you've already seen the following clip--i'm merely posting it here for reference.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

the point is, after their debate over sonia sotomayor and affirmative action was done, aired and in the can, rachel maddow, in a particularly brilliant and sneaky maneuver, later went back after pat buchanan without allowing him to defend himself, all under the pretext of merely correcting his "factual errors."

in the spirit of fairness, i dashed off the following to her (and--because, what the fuck--cc'd him) tonight:

i think when pat claimed that "white men built america," what he was really trying to say--albeit badly--is that white men were the brains behind the country; he and people who make this argument tend to ignore the contributions of the brawn.

but he's got a point--most of the countries in which american minorities such as blacks, hispanics and middle-easterners natively predominate tend to be of the sort to which no one in his right mind would want to emigrate--hell, they're all dying to come here, and i can hardly blame 'em.

the basic problem with affirmative action (aside from its intrinsic discrimination against merit) is that it requires a dumbing-down of well-established standards and practices in order to accommodate the minorities it seeks to serve.

is this lowering of america's standards to more closely match those of the cultures from which these minorities are trying desperately to escape worth the inevitable trade-off?

seeing as how i'm a middle-aged white american male, i might be the wrong person to ask.

this broke my heart (and yes, i do have one)

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so today i'm trolling the internet and come across the following image of a building i'd never seen before--where and what the hell is it?

turns out it had been right under my nose at one time--the first pasadena state bank building, circa 1962 [this particular pasadena being a suburb of houston--the city in which i'd been living at the time this building came to be--rather than the more well-known pasadena near which i currently reside].

i'm smitten--obviously its author was a wright disciple who knew what the fuck he was doing. i wanna see more, so i google.

here's what comes up next (embiggen if you wanna appreciate the full horror):

all that beauty, forlorn and abandoned.

it's the next image that really gets to me, though--the other, better side of the building (which, through its sad, broken facade, its essential goodness still shines):

i take it all in at a glance--a skilled, passionate architect on a mission who a half-century ago somehow managed to talk a conference room fulla tight-fisted bankers into financing his extravagant vision (because lemme tell ya, this was was not an inexpensive project--each articulation, each projection, each reveal added boucoups of bucks to what a simple square box would've otherwise cost). i see passion and virtuosity in every graceful line of this building.

i mean, even if you're not an architect, you gotta love this detail:


a little research revealed the story--read it if you want.

bottom line: there's no money to fix this. even if the building weren't in a currently economically-depressed area, the cost to remove the goddam asbestos alone would preclude its rehab--cheaper to just tear it down.

hurts me to think about it--easier to just mix another drink.

the whole gay marriage thing (part 2)

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[the typical part 2 post, in which mkf strays from the topic at hand and goes all general (even though everybody knows he'll somehow manage to tie it all up in a nice, neat bow by the time he gets to the end of part 3 like always, right?)

yeah, maybe--we'll see.]

disclaimers:

1. this is one of those "when i was a kid, things were different" posts that people my age tend to write when they get drunk.

2. for those of you who haven't figured this out already, i am judgmental as hell.

3. everything i'm about to say has probably already been said better by smarter, more eloquent and qualified people than me--but they're not here, are they?

4. this is a long one--feel free to skip it if it's not your cup of tea.

* * * * *

i've lived through a very interesting time in western civilization--i was born in america in the repressive nineteen-fifties, grew up in the crazy, emergent flux of the sixties, and came of age in the anything-goes seventies. and now i find myself in the waning days of the first decade of the new millennium, looking around at the smoking wreckage of our culture and trying to figure out what the fuck went wrong.

and while i could go on endlessly about all the myriad ways in which western civilization is falling apart (and often do just that), today i'm gonna confine myself to talking about marriage and family.

i'm one of those people who believes that--all the bells, whistles and ipods aside--we're really not very far evolved from those cavemen huddled around their communal campfires 10,000 years ago, no matter how technologically advanced we've become in the meantime.

my belief is supported by any number of twentieth-century [i.e., the first time in history in which this even became a debatable issue] studies which have shown, time and again, the importance of such contributing factors as family, community and continuity to the overall health and well-being of the individual, not to mention society at large.

and while i can't speak from first-hand experience about what's happened over the majority of recorded civilization, i can sure as hell give you my impressions of how drastically the concepts of family, community and continuity have diminished in the scant 52 years of my lifetime.

let's begin, shall we?

* * * * *

i was twelve before i ever met a kid from a broken home.

today? a kid could easily go twelve years before he met another kid whose parents had not only bothered to get married before he was born, but were actually still together.

i was at least twenty before i came across my first out-of-wedlock kid.

today? taken as an average, a kid's chances are close to 50/50 of being born a bastard in america [but of course we don't use that word anymore, because that would be judgmental]. and if a kid's black? try at least 70% and climbing.

when i was a kid, most families in the neighborhood had at least two kids, and usually more like three or four. and women didn't bitch or complain about how hard it was back then--they just had 'em and raised 'em.

today? if a woman somehow manages to squeeze out one kid (after extensive fertility treatments, more often than not), she then spends the remainder of its childhood whining constantly about how "exhausted" she is all the time--you know, from shuttling its ass back and forth to day care.

when i was a kid, the only mother i knew who opted to work rather than raise her own kids was my aunt anna (which, btw, everyone agreed was best for all concerned).

today? stay-at-home moms are the rare exception, routinely vilified by feminists (and feeling-guilty working moms) as stupid brood cows who've sacrificed their personal development and innate rights as liberated women for something as trivial and menial as childcare--especially since everybody knows day care's just as good.

when i was a kid, most families had small houses with one mortgage, one car (my dad had a company car, thank god), one television, one telephone, small bathrooms, strip closets, and savings in the bank.

i'll let you fill in the "today?" part of this one for yourself.

when i was a kid, when two people came together and made a family, the dad went to work every day even if he hated his job, the mom stayed home and raised her kids even if it bored her, they didn't routinely fuck other people, and they tended to stay together even if they drove each other crazy.

today? none of that's true: marriages tend to splinter apart at the first provocation, with both partners happily heading off to begin new families, oblivious of the damage such action might do to their children.

* * * * *

if i'm in the car when she's on, i'm generally listening to dr. laura.

over the course of the twenty years i've listened to this harsh, brilliant woman, i can't tell you how many of her calls have come from casualties of broken homes.

they all tend to follow predictable patterns: the mothers and fathers recover fairly quickly and move on to their next marriage--their calls tend to be about how they can't understand why their (or their new spouse's) kids can't adjust to the new reality as quickly as they, the grownups, did.

it's the kids that get to me (and her): the boys who lose their fathers to some other woman and then have to live with some clueless stranger-stepfather who's suddenly fucking their mother--and in their impotent, testosterone-fueled reactive rage, fuck up their own lives in often irreversible ways.

or the girls who lose their fathers to a bitchy stepmother who shuts them out of "her" home and forces them to look for fatherly validation in the arms of some guy who knocks 'em up and leaves 'em.

and then there's the calls from the lost ones whose mothers never gave 'em a father in the first place.

* * * * *

when i was a kid, my father killed himself.

as hard as that was on me and everyone else he left behind, you know what would've been worse?

i'll tell you what: if my father had done what most dads do today--i.e., left my mother and gone and married some other woman and raised her kids and/or had new kids with her, and then my mother had married some other guy and had kids with him, and i was shuttled between the two households--a visitor in both, belonging to neither--and they were all too busy working, buying shiny, useless crap and raising their new kids to pay any attention to me.

that would've definitely been worse.

* * * * *

as i look around at all the young, vacant-eyed sociopaths wandering the streets and malls of america today without even the slightest notion of what family, community and continuity mean--you know, the bright, young hopes of our future--i can sorta understand why the muslims hate us.

i can also sorta understand why adulterers were once stoned, bastards were once shunned and women were once subjugated to barefoot-and-pregnant existences--there was totally a method to that old madness.

(that's not too strong, is it?)

[part 3 to come]