Barack Obama and the Dumbest Among Us

Let me be clear: I am sick to death of stupid people. I am rotten to the core with loathing for people who have no idea what they are talking about, but insist on talking. I am done with their misinformation and total lack of reason. It pains me that these people are allowed to vote, and that the dumbest among us have kept our current regime in power for the last eight years. Thank gods, thank gods, the tide is turning against them. Thank gods, thank gods they are beginning to see.

Unfortunately, the dumbest among us have new things to be stupid about.

I'm glad that everybody has the right to vote. I encourage everyone to exercise that right; I would die for your right to vote for George W. Bush, or any other fool you choose. However, I have a request: If you know nothing, if you have never read a book or a newspaper (sports page doesn't count), if you believe everything said in an email or on the internet is true, please SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Ladies and gentlemen of the dumbest among us, allow me to introduce you to a few concepts.

Inductive reasoning is the ability to determine the strength or weakness of an argument based on supporting evidence. Look at these arguments and tell me which is stronger:

1. Barack Obama is probably Christian. He was married in a Christian church, by a Christian minister, to a Christian woman. His children are being raised Christians and attend Christian church with him weekly. He himself has declared his faith to be Christian. He observes Christian holidays.

2. Barack Obama is probably Muslim. I read on the internet that he is. I also saw pictures of him wearing an ethnic costume associated with a Muslim country one time. His middle name is Hussein, and I think it's a Muslim name, but I don't know what it means or where it comes from.

I swear to gods, the next person who insists that Obama is a Muslim in my presence is going to get schooled in logic so hard that they may not be able to watch television ever again.

Even if he were a Muslim, would that make him impossible to vote for? Why do you think that he would hide his faith as though it were something to be ashamed of. Not sure? I'll tell you why: it's because you're a bigot. You think that everyone who isn't like you is WRONG.

Ladies and gentlemen of the dumbest among us, no one is trying to hurt you. The brown people aren't after your land, your guns, or your jobs. Muslims are not trying to take over America by getting a Black Christian American man elected president. You don't have to be afraid of people who don't look like you or don't worship your whitewashed version of Jesus. (FYI, Jesus was a dark-skinned middle eastern hippie, not a white blue-eyed Republican with a Pro-Life bumper sticker on his donkey. Thought you should know.)

Barack Hussein Obama is a brilliant, visionary, Christian man who will most likely be the next president of this great and wounded country. You don't have to like my politics and I don't ever expect to like yours, but please, please, PLEASE, for the love of democracy, LEARN ABOUT YOUR CANDIDATES. Please at least TRY to know what you're talking about before you open your mouth or cast your vote. Don't believe everything people tell you. Don't be a tool.

Will the dumbest among us please shut up?

Sunday Morning

Homeric hymns to summer morning
to the cumulonimbus above the mountain
where the dream haunter
calls us back
the staple prayer
of a Sunday morning
ave Dea
gratia plena
mysterium tecum
exploding into genius
true offering
with the opening chords of
Hey Jude
and suddenly
the sign spinner on the corner
is a Sufi poet
whirling into union with God
a hymn to the hills
to the humid sensual stink of the groves
the heady scented memory
of my lust-torn youth

and wasn't this always the way?
stolen snatches
in the middle of everything
not yawning for hours in church
paying lip service to the divine
but the flashing
immediate
suddenly festive moment
when the truth peels open to reveal
the sublime fruit
of spirit

M.L. Elison, 2008

Paper Planes

Oh, my. I never seem to have any time anymore.

I haven't really had a day off in two weeks. My part-time (HA!) job gave me another forty hour week and the fall semester just started. I am going full time and then some, trying to knock out the least fun part on my undergraduate work. My big box stories aren't as fun this week- bad attitudes in hot weather and entitled people working out their issues on the underpayed.

John is still looking for work, at home and abroad. He had an interview in Boulder, CO last week and a call from a firm in Dubai today. Gods, if ANYONE will hire him I will dance a bloody jig.

School isn't too bad, actually. Anything that isn't work is starting to feel like vacation. Beyond that, I have good teachers, a few interesting classmates, and good work for my head to do.

Also, I have awesome friends. My best, most trusted friends are more valuable to me now than ever. What little time I have to spend with them now feels intensified, more condensed and rich.
So, since I have very little time and not much to talk about, here's some music I really love right now.

Big Box Blog #2

So, a group of kids came in to my store the other day with a busted skateboard. They were patient, courteous, and so helpless. One of them had broken a truck and they knew we could fix things and sold stuff to fix things, so they wandered in. They didn't have the .08 to buy the part they needed, but somebody bought it for them. A super-sweet guy sat with them for twenty minutes, completing the repair with a rubber mallet and some advice.

Today, I was glad I was at my Big Box job.

Later, the funny part.

I have a co-worker who has an unfortunate deep-South twang to his voice that makes him sound like a bumpkin during the best of times. I laugh a little when he says "Hay-low." So, when he retreated to an office and started bawling, I could not contain my gale of giggles. Imagine, in a slow stretch of afternoon, from somewhere offstage you hear shouting. "GawdDAMNIT! Who the HAIL put SAWLT in mah DRANKEN WAWTER?!?!? AGAYIN?!?!?

Even now, I can't stop laughing. He still doesn't know who's doing it. (It's not me. This started before I did.)