Tolerance?

Today I saw a post by the vibrant and witty Chelsea of Chelsea Talks Smack that really summarized the attitudes of most (or at least many) "twenty-somethings" toward Catholicism. I'd encourage you to read it; it gives a good sense of the overwhelming mindset of our demographic - how we relate to orthodoxy, and what we mean by tolerance.

Liberal-minded young people take great satisfaction in the virtue of their own tolerance: they accept anyone and everyone for who they are, no matter what they do, accept an infinite plurality of separate but equal truths, and in short, strive to annihilate a system of values which could hurt someone's feelings - which could, God forbid, judge someone. Whether this is primarily a self-defense mechanism, to protect themselves from judgment, especially self-judgment, is a good question for another time.

Instead, I'd like to focus on the prevalent attitude among these twenty-something liberals toward those people who disagree, those people who subscribe to (the liberals would say manufacture) the system of absolute values. Like Catholics.

Chelsea mocked the Catholic practice of praying for God's mercy on the soul of the deceased at a funeral.

Now let's forget the question of whether they're right - we'd be here all day. Instead let's just imagine that some people, doddering old fools though they may be, believe in praying for God's mercy - believe all the Catholic hocus-pocus and mumbo jumbo. Let's imagine they believe that God is all-powerful and all-loving, and that one's relationship with him is all that matters. Won't those poor old fools want to pray to him? Want to pray for his mercy, and pray that their recently deceased loved one can enjoy the glory of his presence forever?

And won't an open-minded, tolerant, compassionate soul, even one who knows the old farts are way off-base, allow them the measure of comfort they gain from their silly rituals? Won't the tolerant, fresh-faced, future of America allow them unbegrudgingly the practice of their separate but equal beliefs?

Because if the young liberal refuses such magnanimity, which I find to be the case more often than not, he or she should take a closer look at the mantle of all-inclusive pan-religious tolerant peaceability he or she is wearing. And he or she might find that it's actually a mask and cape of militant atheism.

In which case, the escape from self-judgment has led to self-delusion, and the courage to face down tradition has led to cowardice which perverts good, tolerant intentions against themselves.

25 Things

1. When this note-writing frenzy started two weeks ago, I thought it was stupid and lame with a capital A. But then no one tagged me. And no one continued to tag me. And I started thinking... "anybody?" It was like sour grapes in reverse.

2. I think chick music can be angry sometimes, like Kelly Clarkson or Alanis Morissette, and it's just kinda cute, like "ooh, you're angry, arentcha? grrrr!" and you kind of pat their head and laugh and then dance your butt off. But when guys sing angry music, it inevitably comes off whiny. Even when they think it's shouty, it's still actually whiny.

3. I used to hate Brussels sprouts, asparagus, wine and spaghetti, but now I love them. I used to hate eggplant too, but I don't know if I like it, because who ever eats eggplant?

4. Studying many diverse subjects in college helped my Trivial Pursuit game.

5. After my baseball coach caught me climbing from balcony to balcony outside the third floor of our hotel rooms in California at 3:00 am in my underwear, he still let me pitch the next day.

6. When I was three years old or so, I sometimes ate sticks of butter, and once, confused, I took a bite of a bar of soap.

7. When I started school, I prided myself on knowing every single swear word. I guess the soap didn't take.

8. Books are good, except Pulitzer prize winners, which suck a surprising amount of the time - like that "Guns, Germs and Steel" book: utter hogwash.

9. I haven't thrown up from the flu since I was five.

10. I was 5'6" as a freshman in high school, and made money by betting several classmates (who were all of 5'10") that I would be taller by graduation. I grew a foot, cashed in, and then tried the same thing in college, except I bet that I would have more chest hair than my opponents by graduation. No one ever tells you this, but chest hair takes a looooong time to grow.

11. When someone tells me, "space and time are the same thing," or "God is three persons in one being," and I say, "oh, ok, yeah I can kinda see how that makes sense," am I faking it? Those things are supposed to be impossible to understand, so I guess I must be. Then again, if someone told me, "the square root of epic poetry is a bologna sandwich," I wouldn't say "yeah, that makes sense to me." Or I would, but I would say it while I was slowly backing away.

12. I think people take themselves too seriously. Like me, when I pester Ed, "should I shave my goatee or keep it? What do you think? Shave it or keep it? Do you think it makes me look older?" What a queer.

13. My mom and sister Cathy still like the show, "The Biggest Loser," but by means of constant subliminal repetition, we have trained them to call it "The Biggest Fattest" like the rest of us.

14. Whenever someone mentions the drink named a "hairy navel," I am quietly amused. And when someone mentions a "buttery nipple," I am quietly uncomfortable.

15. I am glad that the phrase "anal-retentive" can be shortened to "anal," with no loss of meaning, but sometimes it makes me think that "penal" is a dirty word, too. Like "fiduciary," and Uncle Joe's favorite swear, "Shih Tzu."

16. You know how a human being would explode in the vacuum of space because of the body's internal pressure? What if a human just pooped into space? Would it explode? No one can answer this to my satisfaction, and my mom won't let me poop in the vacuum cleaner to test my theory. I guess it's just one of life's mysteries, like why people like Shia LaBeouf.

17. Little Jackie "The Stoop" is my new favorite song. Or something. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpmlDhIDkqA

18. My sister Julie was surprised that I could make gravy, and I was like bitch please, this is child's play and then my dad told me to watch my mouth and that only part of this story was true.

19. I can sympathize with masochism when I'm on the toilet. Anyone? Anyone? No?

20. Call me crazy, but I believe it is possible to love an ugly person. It requires intense concentration, and can only be achieved for brief intervals, but it is possible. But that's just my opinion. You could be right.

21. I think Ryan Seacrest, while a shade on the smarmy side, is vastly underrated and unappreciated. Boy can host a damn show.

22. Always remember that you are unique. Just like everybody else.

23. I could write in cursive when I was four years old. Or at least I used to think that I remembered that. I used to say I remembered being in the womb, too, but so many people have told me that's impossible that I don't know if I really remember it, or if it's a fake memory I've fabricated. They ask me what it was like and I say, "Umm... warm... dark," and I think I must be making it up. But then later, I remember that the most noticeable thing about it was there was no sense of up and down, or any direction, and hardly any sense of space at all. But then I don't know if I just made that up too.

24. I love chocolate milk and I love alcohol, but my attempts at a chocolate milk drink have invariably been disappointing. I guess a White Russian is as close as the human race can come to that particular perfection.

25. I don't know what to put for 25. Something about how I love my family because they're the best and pizza is my favorite food and baseball is the best sport and I get a kick out of you.

I believe that the second syllable of "buttock" should rhyme with "luck" not "lock"

"We live in uncertain times," I said to my brother tonight, and I think it's true enough as far as it goes. Barack Obama is our president, which some students of history are calling another step in the slide toward socialism. (As a quick aside, did you know that Obama's tax cut plan calls for more than 50% of the populace to pay no taxes (or less). Do you know what that means? That means that beginning with the advent of graduated income tax (thanks to the Progressive movement of the early 20th Century), and through the governmental gluttony of Wilson, FDR and LBJ, we have now created a voting majority who pay no taxes. Or are on welfare. Guess whether those folks are going to vote for Obama, who pays their bills (with our money), or some Republican. It's easy to say, "stick it to the fat cats," but what we're talking about here is the brink of class warfare, when the many can become a mob and take from the few... and, call me George Orwell, totalitarianism.

Yes, it's years away, certainly. But it's over 200 years closer than when Tocqueville saw the same thing coming.

I'm afraid that was a bit of a tangent, when I promised you a brief aside. These are uncertain times. I'm in a bit of a maelstrom myself, and a few of the people around me are paddling gamely through their own, and sometimes it seems like the Bermuda triangle because it's so marvelous.

How fast can you run?

How well can you spell?

If the meteor hits tomorrow, whose bra will you grab?

Do you know how to dance?

Can you explain how calculus curves define the economic balance of the last thirty years?

Those are the questions that I'm interested in. And none of them are easier to answer than the next.

30-second video spot

If you've got the time, I'd love to hear what you think of this. Love it? Hate it? Disrespectful? Ingenious? Misleading?

Don't be afraid to ruffle feathers.

A post about OpenOffice in which I devolve into griping, as usual these days

I'm writing this post in OpenOffice.org Writer instead of Word. I switched recently, partly because my free trial version of Microsoft Word was expiring, but also because I think the idea of OpenOffice is just so cool. “Open source programming”? Where anyone who wants just chips in like Wikipedia to write a program, and it works just as well? That's such a cool idea to me that when I heard it, I knew I had to have it. I'm like that sometimes: anyone who has a cool idea, a product I think is “neat” or an innovative sales pitch, I fall in love with immediately. Multiple times before I've bought something I didn't need just because I thought the salesman really did a heck of a job. It's not a good philosophy, it's poor business sense, but I just can't shake the habit.

I'm also compelled to respect OpenOffice because I don't understand it. I thought I did, of course, but then my mom asked me to explain it, and I found myself completely unable to do so. The same thing happened with the whole idea of social networking (and blogging, for that matter), which I was at a loss to explain to my mom too. But the most ingenious solution is usually the easiest, isn't it? So I just did what I always do when someone older than I am doesn't understand anything remotely technological: I laughed a little and then shook my head as if to say, “oh, you'll never get it – you're so cute and fuddy-duddy.”

That approach always made me feel much better about myself until the other day when my high-school-age cousin tried unsuccessfully to explain to me why he couldn't go with Hayden and Alice and Fiona all together to the Christmas dance as a double date, and then gave me the exact same look after he finished explaining and I said “huh?” At that exact moment, I realized that my parents probably think I'm a jackass and that their feelings toward me lean less toward envy of my tech savvy than toward simple, mild contempt.

It's snowing like balls outside right now. Started at noon or so and supposed to last all night. Winter is depressing, but snow makes it a lot better. It's awful pretty. But emphasis on the awful there.

But at least Obama's our President-elect, right? Oh wait, that guy sucks. Since the election, he has backed off his “out-of-Iraq-now” pose, deferring to “the judgment of commanders on the ground,” and has in fact promised to deploy active military within the United States – 20,000 by 2009 (wtf?). He's ramped up the bailout package too, now tossing in bones for the Big Three (which should just go bankrupt already) and pushing the total to over a trillion dollars. And he's announced a gigantic public works program. Oh yeah, and he's promised that his first act as president will be to sign FOCA, which aside from its murderous character, is also a decimation of states' rights. With the shit he's announced, bigger military than he promised, huge government intervention everywhere else across the board, forget about calling him as bad as FDR; the closest twentieth century leader to Barack Obama is Joseph Stalin. I'm so not even kidding. But we elected him fair and square, and all I can say is we got what we deserved. It's going to be a godawful ride.

Umm, so, cheers! Have a great day anyway, what the hell.

Part Three - Chapter One

It all started so innocuously, the way the worst things always do, when Jenny fed too many scallion tails down the disposal drain. When you chop scallions, Jenny said, you clip off the squidian roots with the long green tails and only use the middle. The ends, short and white or long and green, you toss aside into the garbage. Or the disposal – which of course is anything but.

Another labor-saving device, the disposal never lived up to the spirit of the automatic bread-slicer in purely literal terms. A bread slicer sliced bread like the best thing since... whenever – and the disposal only disposed of mushy leftovers and baby food... maybe every once in a while something as strong as a carrot, but certainly never anything as strong as these scallion tails.

Once Jenny had heard of using a food processor to chop the most stubborn leftovers and then flipping them to the disposal. Saves your disposal, saves your garbage-hauling costs, saves everything. Except that twenty seconds of sanity that you save by chucking the damn things into the garbage can, and sometimes that's worth a lot more to you than a green world forever. If it came to going green, sometimes Jenny felt fine to peppering the garbage can with scallions.

Except this one time, she decided not to decorate the Glad bag with a garnish of green; she put her environmentalist hat on and threw the long strands down the drain. The environmentalist hat, Jenny always said, was too small for her, so small that it cramped her brain. An environmentalist hat would stop anyone from thinking, Jenny said.

I never understood that about her, her heartless conservatism, but there was a lot about her that I didn't understand, starting with everything. Starting with everything, culminating in something, and coming to a head with scallion tails dropped down the disposal.

Like a shot I was over there when she called me, because that's what good boyfriends do, right?

It was 8:30 in the morning. Who cooks scallions at 8:30 in the morning? I wondered. So I asked her when I arrived at her apartment, “who cooks scallions at 8:30 in the morning?”

“I was making an omelette,” she growled at me. She pointed to a tin bowl full of eggs, mixed, next to neat piles of shredded cheddar cheese, crumbled sausage, green pepper and yes, green onions.

Her hair wasn’t done for the day, and she was wearing big gray sweatpants and a plain white t-shirt. Her face was flushed with anger, the pink settling high on her cheeks, near her cheekbones. Her eyes, that opaque blue, tried to flash with fury, but only twinkled. She looked gorgeous.

I’ve heard a lot of people say it before, that some girl or other looks her best when she’s steaming mad. But for Jenny it was really true. I just wanted to smile and hold her as close as I could and make her laugh or love me. The only time she looked as good as when she was mad was when she was sharing an inside joke, across the table or across the room, when anyone else might see it but no one did.

Suddenly I realized that I was just standing there in front of her sink with a half-smile on my face, thinking about her while she was three feet away, staring at me and waiting. So I stuck my hand into the drain and started groping around.

I’d never fixed a disposal before; I’d never even tried. So I just made exploratory humming noises for a while, hoping to feel something inside the sink’s throat, or better yet, hoping the thing might magically fix itself. After about a minute and a half, almost enough time for her to realize that I was clueless, I pulled out my hand, rinsed it and shook tiny water droplets that spattered into the sink. “Feels jammed,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” she said, with surprising patience. “Can you unjam it?”

I indicated her chair and white-formica-topped table next to the window. “Why don’t you sit down,” I said, “and tell me where I can find a screwdriver. Or maybe a pair of tongs.”

She reached up over my shoulder and grabbed tongs from where they hung on the wall above the stove. I took them with nodded thanks and ushered her out of the kitchen, the full twenty-five feet to the opposite end of her apartment to have a seat so I could concentrate on my work... or at least on figuring out what the hell my work was.

The apartment was almost as wide as it was long, almost twenty feet by twenty-five, but still, obviously, a very small place. The kitchen occupied one half of one of the short walls, separated by a wall from the entryway that took up the other half of the short wall. On the other short wall were her bed, opposite the kitchen, and her table, opposite the front door.

The front door, Jenny always called it the front door, although there was no back door or side door anywhere in the apartment. But she had a habit of domesticizing; her aparment was her home, and that door was the front door. I loved it about her – the habit of making things comfortable, not the door; there was nothing really special about the door. Not that it was a bad door or anything, I’d just never–

I saw her still staring at me from the table, so I hefted the tongs in a silent toast to her and poked them into the drain. For all her tendency to make things comfortable, she could still make people uncomfortable with almost no effort. It was funny when she did it to someone else.

After a minute or so of wiggling, I said, “Aha!” and removed the tongs from the drain. There was a smallish piece of scallion-tail clutched between the fingers. I raised my eyebrows in what I estimated to be a confident glance, paused for a dramatic moment, and then reached for what I thought was the disposal power switch. The light above the sink went on, then off again. Then on.

I cleared my throat. “Can see better now,” I said, and peered into the sink. I couldn’t see shit. Jenny reached over to the shelf at her shoulder, pulled out a book, and opened to the first page.

Well

Hi. I guess it's been a while. I have no idea how many Google Readers this is going to show up in. Maybe what we had wasn't as great as I thought it was... then again - what do we have to lose, you and I.

My name is Joe White.

Hi.