Step 9

In AA's 12 Steps, Step 9 states: "Made direct amends to such people [after making a list of those people] except when to do so would injure them or others."

One of the reasons I have departed AA is that AA is made up of laypeople who are not experts at recovery managing the recovery of confused persons who are incredibly emotionally vulnerable.  See this story on the CNN website.  What part of "except when to do so would injure them or others" did this guy's sponsor not get?  How can going to prison help the victim in this case?  By her own admission, no apology could ever have amended the horror of the crime that was perpetrated against her.  Who does this poor sap leave behind?  Children?  Spouse?  Family?  It is unconscionably stupid.

First, the victim states that old wounds were opened by this guy coming forward.  This injured her. 

Second, the anonymity of the 12-stepper was completely blown!  This was alcoholics anonymous--not the catholic church!

Third, it has a negative effect on those who still suffer.  Who in their right minds are going to join AA if it means they might have to eventually go to prison?

For all you 12 steppers out there: do not make an amend that injures the person you are making amends to--or others.  Others includes YOU.  Going to prison for two years is an injury.

Rigorous honesty is a fundamental principle of the program, BUT it only matters between people.  The "system" has no soul.  If making an amend puts you into conflict with the system, or exposes you to its soulless predation--you must keep your trap shut!  If you must, send an anonymous letter.  You can make the amend by donating to battered women's shelters, rape counseling lines, marching in take back the night.  But you don't expose yourself to criminal charges for Christ's sake.

This guy's sponsor should be sued for malpractice.

Tom--Listen to this Pitch!

I have a pitch for Tom Cruise in Paula Wagner of United Artists:

South Beach Dianetics.  A handsome non-gay movie star, on the way to the Scientology HQ in Clearwater, Florida, finds himself stranded in the gay mecca of the Florida coast.  Ultimately, he clears himself of all impulses to be not-non-gay through a blend of positive thinking and denial....  And he slims down in the process by not eating any white food.

Make It STOP!

Once again, what passes for political discourse in this country, as the election date nears, ad-hominem attacks, smears and rancor dominate.  I've already made up my mind.  This administration has been a complete disaster.  They care more about their own power than they do about government.  Soundrels through and through--their motives are to line their own pockets and those of their friends and allies.  Never in my memory has the power and treasure grab been so cynical and so transparent.  However, I'm not sure it would be much different in an administration helmed by Hillary R Clinton or John McCain.  It's lovely to think so.

I want to go to sleep and wake up the Wednesday after next Tuesday.

My mood has been extremely labile lately.  Thoughts of death recently.  This morning I had a second hearing test.  My left ear has a hearing deficit, and when such deficits are asymmetrical, it raises the possibility of a tumor in the ear canal.  My reaction upon hearing this?  Joy.

That's not normal.

I felt better contemplating a plan for the future.  Starting tomorrow I'm going to rise one hour earlier (accounting for the hour that we gained when we switched to daylight savings time) and strive to write an hour a day from 7:20 to 8:20.  No e-mail, no blogging: fiction.  One hour.  It's not so much to ask, is it?

But I've been so terribly blocked the past few months.  I can't seem to summon the motivation to write in the evenings.  So I'm going to try it in the morning, when I'm fresh...

Public and Private Stakes

I want to blog about this today because it's on my mind.  A question came up in class the other night about stakes--how can stakes raise beyond a life and death situation?

In life, that's true.  Survival is the highest stake of all.  But in fiction, everything is written in context.  Thus life and death stakes are only relevant in context with the theme of the novel.  In fiction, life only has relevance in connection with value.  In order for the reader to feel the need for a character to survive, the character must express a value, or values.  In life, life only has meaning to the extent we possess and express our values.   That is also true of fiction, but in fiction it is enhanced.  So, the stakes of a character in a life or death situation can only be felt when living or dying will affect a value.  It is important for the character to survive in order to write a wrong, correct an injustice, make the world safe for democracy, save another character who's in jeopardy, etc.

Thus, the phrase Torture is Bad is true, it speaks to a personal desire to see the practice end, and a public desire to protect America from being devalued by practicing it.  However, it has no relevance to story unless a character who believes that value confronts it.  As the stakes deepen, the character undergoes torture, or is forced to perpetrate it.  Depending upon how the story turns, and what emotion the author intends his audience to experience, the ending of that story will be either cynical (pessimistic) in which the protagonist becomes what he loathes, or idealistic, in which the protagonist manages to escape his predicament, or ironic, in which the protagonist might unwittingly bring about a resolution that supports what he despises.

Thus, strong character value systems translate into strong personal and public stakes.

Let it Be

I'm tired of the Foley scandal already.  Dennis Hastert was elected to be the third most powerful person in the United States, not a babysitter.  He rightly delegated that responsibility to the people in charge.  When confronted with perversity, he said "take care of it."  The indivdual responsible for this debacle is Mark Foley, none other.  And I'm tired of the blatant homophobia on both sides.

Of course it's all politics.  But the democrats' reactions sound increasingly strident and hysterical, aimed to separate the GOP from its evangelical base.  They'll never vote democrat, as long as the democrats remain intractable on a woman's right to choose.  Furthermore, I think they've taken so much abuse from the democrats over the years that even if the party of Jefferson were to repudiate reproductive choice, the evangelical base would still hold them in contempt. 

No, the aim of the democrats is not to attract voters to their side, but simply to cause the evangelicals enough grief and dispair that they'll stay home on election day.  That's cynical and contemptible.  It's Karl Rove lite, and if democrats stoop to such evil, then maybe they'll start to believe, as does the GOP, that the ends do justify the means.  At that point, the soul of America will be lost.

Let the Posturing Begin

Just a week ago the GOP was suffering from the 1-2 punch of Bob Woodward's new book and the Mark Foley Page scandal.  Now, in a move apparently calculated to assist the Republicans in November, Kim Jong Il has detonated a nuclear war head.  Of course it's foolishness to view everything in the world through the lens of partisan politics.  Call me foolish, I guess.

Bob Woodward is a Cliff Note.  The Foley scandal has a little more traction because it's salacious and hypocritical on its face.  The spin has started:  Limbaugh reacted by blaming the page!  The little Lolito brought it on himself.  There you see the opinion and values of the non-Christianist wing of the Republican party regarding sex.  Cherchez la femme inverted.  Cherchez la fag?  The Christianists are, as to be expected, blaming The Gay.  Ecce homo.  The Republican party is riddled with hummasexyools and must be purged.  Look for a Night of Long Knives in the very near future.

Let this be a lesson to the bluenoses and the ethics professors among us--there is no point to accusing the Republicans of hypocrisy.  Like the fact that Macintosh computers are better than Windows-based computers--it simply doesn't matter.  The only thing that matters is what sells.  The Republicans will always have a scapegoat.  And they, because of their conservatism, can rest easy on the point of view that the evil you know is far preferable to the evil you don't know.  Whereas democrats, as progressives, must sell idealism to the masses.  The democrats have a much more difficult task.

Killer Elephants

A quote from Slate magazine, regarding an article in the New York Times Magazine:

A recent spike in elephant attacks on humans in Africa and Southeast Asia can be traced to psychological damage from decades of poaching, a cover story suggests. Scientists have long ascribed pachyderm aggression to high testosterone levels and competition over resources. But now psychologists point to "a kind of species-wide trauma" with many of the same symptoms as post-traumatic stress in humans: "abnormal startle response, unpredictable asocial behavior, inattentive mothering and hyperagression." Rehab centers now use "passive control" therapy to heal dysfunctional elephants. "She's as sweet as can be," says the founder of Elephant Sanctuary about one formerly violent animal. "You'd never know that this elephant killed anybody."

Which life has more value--an elephant's or a human being's?  Do the math.  Human beings outnumber elephants 10,000 to 1.  From a simple statistical standpoint, if rarity has value, the elephant's value is far superior to the humans.  So here's a lesson to the people: if you're anywhere near an elephant--stay out of its way.  Nobody's going to put the animal down for turning your head into jelly.  And that's the way it has to be. 

There are too many people.  Puget Sound is dying.  Underwater gardens that used to provide a burgeoning sea life, clams, crabs, vegetation are barren, littered with cell phones and car batteries.  When the sea dies, the rest of us will follow.  I just hope the Republicans go first.  But elephants have a higher value than donkeys.