Tag: me

Political Paralysis of the American Weenie Social Democrat

I feel politically defeated. I’m on the left end of the Democratic party, more of a social democrat type. My adult life began just as we started to lose ground, and my country has gone inexorably to the right since.

When I was younger, I voted and volunteered and protested, and wrote. Now that I am older and more established, I vote and volunteer and protest and write, and contribute. It doesn’t seem like enough.

At this point I consider my country’s government illegitimate and lawless. The opposition, my party my whole life, is both weak and collaborating. There are very few individual legislators who represent anything like my point of view. I wonder what cause my contributions to the party will support, other than the personal careers of some prominent traitors.

Worst of all, the actual opposition seems totally fragmented. There are various small organizations who all want money and support from me and appear to have my values, but they’re tiny and ignored. The radical left has been navel-gazing since 1969 and the more moderate types I resonate with have no voice.

My question for the group mind is: What can I as an individual do that makes the most impact on this situation? I’m horrible at politics and I do so poorly in political organizations that the whole prospect of getting more involved is both frightening and depressing. It’s like church; as soon as you think you agree with your compatriots someone will bring up a divisive issue and the whole thing falls apart.

Is there a single-issue or focused group that deserves my entire financial and personal support, that’s making a big difference? A candidate or politician perhaps not in my locale who deserves that kind of focus? A cause where I can work without being disillusioned in 30 seconds? I invite suggestion and comment.

I am tired of feeling defeated and marginalized. I’d like to take some ground.

Editorial Note: flamewars in the comments will be deleted. so don’t even.

Annals of Family History: Our First War Here

My greatsomething grandfather Jacob arrived in the American colonies from Darmstadt-Hesse, Germany in about 1750 as an indentured servant. His brother Sebastian apparently bugged out and headed home at the end of his service, but Jacob liked it enough to stay in “Pennsylvanian Dutch” country with the other Germans. My family has had a presence in Lancaster County since, and in Ohio.

Family legend was that Jacob served in the Revolutionary War. My brother confirmed this a few years ago doing genealogy. I decided to take it a step further and contacted the National Archives’ Military Records Department. If you’re the relative of a U.S. veteran you can get anything they have, as far back as they have it, at a reasonable price. So, for $17 I requested and got Jacob’s records: the index card in his file and two pay stubs indicating his service and what he got for it. It looks like the pay was a bit late, but he got interest on it. There may have been a land donation, too. And of course, citizenship, since that’s not an issue when you’re on the startup team. Scans are below the cut, or in this flickr set.

cut for size

snarks on a plane

Five years of a blog that runs about 70% snark and grump, maybe more. I complain too much on the Internet, and it’s bad for my writing. Occasionally I catch myself and write a happy piece about kittens or Chinese dumplings or a really stellar masturbation session. But a gloomy Andy Rooney/James Lileks atmosphere threatens. It’s a flaw, and I’m surprised that’s not pointed out more.

Most of the time, though, my small and friendly readership either agrees, suggests a different yet sympathetic angle, or clears the buffer and moves on. I don’t get a lot of “oh hell no” or “you bastard, you pissed on my dream” reactions.

And then there was that time I dissed the Snakes on a Plane astroturf ad campaign, and found out there are still people who care enough to stand up for Jesus calculated viral marketing!

I’ve had a lot of mean in me lately and I ain’t proud.

Fortunately most of it is theoretical and occurs as military exercises rather than actual attacks. But my snark is at a near all-time high.

Example. My brother is in town, and we were talking about scammers and beggars. I related the story of one local addict, the kind of guy who goes from looking pretty much okay because his family has cleaned him up, through increasingly scruffy, to Gone For A While. He has a hunted look and that near-permanent sunburn of the person who has been outside not by choice. Sometimes he just bums cigs, but he usually does the “out of gas” scam, which is a script I have not seen vary in multiple cities and decades:

“Hey, I feel really dumb, can I ask you a question here? I was at a [bachelor party,picnic,church] and didn’t pay attention and I ran out of gas! I have to get back to [suburb about 20 miles away where no poor people live] tonight and I don’t have my wallet on my. So dumb. Do you have a couple bucks?”

The last time our local guy did this my answer was “This is the third variation on that lie you have told just to me. Did you know that?” He looked surprised and said “Sorry! No, I didn’t.” and left. So that was kind of snarky and unnecessarily mean, since the poor fucker is a drug addict and kind of doomed. I got my button pushed by the lie and was nasty.

My brother told me in response that he’d been taken in by a young woman who worked this scam at the college where he works. There had been some kind of kampus kop alert about scammers so he reported his misadventure to the cops in case it was someone they were looking for, etc etc. The young policewoman who took the report mocked him to no end, basically calling in the other cops to say hey look at the dumb professor who fell for the scam haw haw haw, on and on. He was pretty upset. My response was that he should have replied:

“That’s funny all right. Here’s an even better joke. Did you hear the one about the girl who was so dumb she barely made it out of high school and ended up a third-rate rentacop working for the smart people? It’s FUCKING HILARIOUS!”

I think I shocked my brother. I certainly shocked myself! Maybe I need to take up punching clowns or something.

Continuing Education in homph homph homph homph

I’m not a good cook in any complete sense. I’ve never been to a cooking school and there are huge gaps in my skills and knowledge. I’m a dilettante; I learn what interests me and get as good as I can at it. There are some things I wanted to master and I did them over and over and over again and got very good. There are some other really basic things I’m no good at. I check something off when I’m consistently successful at it.

This week I hit the target conclusively on marinara sauce, shellfish cookery, and mesquite-smoked meat cooked on a charcoal grill. Those had all been long journeys of improvement, especially the last one.

I recently hit my groove with omelets so they now come out just about perfect every time. The same is true for stir-fried eggplant. About a year ago I got most fish cookery, at least sautéeing, poaching, and baking, to a routine. I can also roast a chicken and get consistent results.

Two years ago I “arrived” with potato salad, stirfried green beans, cornbread, basic curry sauce, pot roast, ginger/molasses carrots, barbecue type sauces, and a slew of salads mostly with garlic or beets or cabbage or all of those in them.

It’s time to make another list of things to learn.