Tues Ten 061609: Iran

Sorry folks, the Ten Tuesday Tickles in the way of GREAT design and style blogs I’ve been obsessed with this month will have to wait.  Holy Revolutionbrew, Twatman! I’m just too astounded by the situation in Iran and the amazing power of Twitter. My social media guru followees have been trying to get us to buy in, and until now I’ve just seen Twitter as a gigantic cocktail party in which I’m an eavesdropping wallflower. But, the events of the last two days have convinced me that this formidable outlet for citizen media has real power beyond “I just downed another cup of coffee” and “Here, read my latest blog post”.

10 amazing things/events/whatever about revolutions/free speech/life learned from Iran and Twitter:

1. Twitter postponed a scheduled maintenance shutdown because of the vital role the service was playing in accessing information in and out of Iran. They embrace their own potential. (Can’t see FB doing that, honestly)

2. The Iranian government disallowed any foreign journalists from reporting events outside their offices and from providing video footage. Censorship is alive and well, and used as a real weapon for oppression.

3. People on the ground in Tehran were actually working to confirm or deny reports that were coming out. I saw multiple tweets from freedom supporters disavowing incorrect reports of army activities, etc.

4. There are actually some hard-to-believe realities and guidelines about using something like Twitter to support global activities. See this link.

5. Get to know the cyber ins and outs because oppressors and dictators do. I “reTweeted” (twat?) the above link from it’s original site and 10 minutes later the web page had been pulled and an “account suspended” notice posted. Later it was posted again on the site listed. Can’t promise it will remain there.

6. Unlike the comfort of my upstairs office, some of the people tweeting from Iran are in REAL, not imagined danger. They might not be here tomorrow. Yes, we still live in that world.

7. ABC’s morph into Presidential TV on July 24 for a sell-job on healthcare reform is looking a little Ahmadinejad-ish.

8. Are there actual people out there who really don’t understand that David Letterman was talking about Bristol Palin and not her 14-year-old sister? Inappropriate bad joke in poor taste aside, do we really need to manufacture an “outrage” when there’s one staring us right in the face?

9. People everywhere just wanna be free. (Thank you, Rascals) You can’t get a good freedom movement down. It’s why totalitarian regimes don’t work in the end.

10. Words have power, and it’s my right and privilege to use them. Own it. Take responsibility for it. Make it count.

Tardy Flag Day

Yesterday I intended to celebrate Flag Day by sharing some great old poster images I found at the virtual Library of Congress, each bearing images of the stars and stripes. But, I was behind, as is so often the case, and I wanted to get another post off my chest. In light of that MIPOTW post, however, I thought these images were still appropo. Most are from war eras back when patriotism was cool, and you know how I love the old illustration styles. (Details are at the end.)

I’m reminded of a quote from the fictional president, Andrew Shepherd in Aaron Sorkin’s 1995 movie, The American President:

“America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the ‘land of the free’.”

Yep, America isn’t easy. That’s for sure. Our ten core enumerated rights mean that dissenting speech, even hate speech often has a place on the podium alongside everyone else. This whole shebang was founded on the principle that everyone doesn’t have to believe the same thing. In fact, long before 1776 the continent was invaded by Europeans willing to stake their life on that principle–at least the principle that MY way of thinking has the right to exist. It’s always easy to demand the right to my own way of life.  The inevitable fruit of that freedom, however, is differing opinions, each vehemently promoting action.

It was interesting to me to note that last Friday was the anniversary of the 1967 Loving vs. Virginia U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the right to interracial marriage–6 years AFTER our President was born into one such marriage. It’s an issue the vast majority of Americans now see as obsolete, even ridiculous. Sadly, Wednesday’s Holocaust Memorial shooter probably didn’t agree. America isn’t easy. For those coming late to the party, speech has power. It inspires laws and defiance of laws. It motivates action (at times horrifying) and thus bears a responsibility, making it all the more important for me to step to the mic. If I’m to wave the flag, I want to take full advantage of it–not while away the voice I have the privilege of raising.

The images:
1. “Our Flags Beat Germany” showing U.S. and Allied flags, 1918
Adolf Treidler, artist

2. “Teamwork Wins”, 1917
Hibberd V. B. Kline, artist

3. “Elmhurst Flag Day,” 1939
WPA Federal Art Project
Library of Congress Works Progress Administration Poster Collection

4. “140th Flag Day”, 1917

5. WAC poster, 1943
Bradshaw Crandall, artist

6. “Forward America!”, 1917
Carroll Kelly, artist

7. “The Spirit of America” Red Cross poster, 1919
Howard Chandler Christy, artist

8. “Fight or Buy Bonds”, 1917
Howard Chandler Christy, artist

MIPOTW: Hate

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity”

It’s a phrase from a poem called “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats, and it could easily be my Most Interesting Phrase of the Week. Except, it’s a mere fragment eclipsed by my more aptly acronymed Most Inspiring Post of the Week–MIPOTW nonetheless. It wasn’t inspiring in the warm, fuzzy, chocolate-covered, rainbow sort of way (although, yeah, rainbow is somewhat applicable). It was inspiring in the “please don’t let me be lumped in with the best who lack all conviction” kind of way. Let me join the extraordinary in matching word for word, passion for passion the intensity of the worst.

The post was written by my friend, Polly, author of Lesbian Dad. (Although we probably don’t actually know one another well enough to be more than acquaintances, I’m hedging my bet on friends.) Prompted by the hate-fueled shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum this week, the piece chronicles some of the recent hate crimes and acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated by the “extreme right wing” that may or may not have graced the 6 o’clock news. It offered, in particular, a very moving story and comments about the nature of hate — a story ironically set in my own home state where those supposedly of my own faith played an infamous role.

Polly wrote of a visit she and her wife made to Mississippi in 1995 to visit and interview two women (lesbians) who founded a “folk school and retreat center” in the southern part of the state. The story of Wanda and Brenda Hensen and the sheer harassment they endured stopped me in my tracks. Stopped me because I was not reading a history or social studies textbook about the 1950s and 60s. I was reading a testimony not even 15 years old. Sadly, I can read (as Polly did) the same testimonies, the same stories on every news website I encounter. The names are different, some of the issues are different, but the hate is the same.

Polly rendered this account of her visit to Mississippi:

Of that afternoon, two things stay with me most. First: these women were the embodiment of lives lived in absolute, direct contact with everything they believed in, and it was inspirational. Second: Wanda told of an incident in nearby Hattiesburg. They were well-known in the area, and when one particularly vitriolic man recognized her on the sidewalk, he wanted to spew an epithet at her, but was at a loss as to what to call a white lesbian.  ”You– you– you damned faggot!” he told her. “You damned n****r!”  Tough as nails, she wasn’t fazed. But she was bemused by what happened in his mind. And careful to point out that he went to the place where all his hate resided.  It mattered not that she wasn’t a gay man, or that she was white.  His hate, in that moment, felt all the same to him.

I was struck by the profound, but simple notion that hate is all about the hater. The object really doesn’t matter–doesn’t matter in the sense that it’s interchangeable. John Bradford’s phrase, “there but for the grace of God” go I, comes to mind. As LD so movingly reminded me, none of us are immune to the hater’s short view:

Our multiplicity, the utterly inextricable, tight weave of the various parts of our selves ramifies in every direction. We are able-bodied until we are disabled; we are young until we are old; we are free of tragedy and hardship until we are struck with them.

A shift in economic position, a religious conviction, a post written, a person befriended, a left turn into a different state, a marriage or divorce, the simple act of existence–any of these or countless other facts may now or might one day draw the ire of the hater. For surely, a hater seeking something to hate will always find it.

Describing the end of her visit, Polly wrote:

The beloved and I stayed hours later than we planned, talking to the Hensens past sundown.  And as we drove back to our friends in New Orleans that night, in our city-slicker Honda with the out-of-state license plates and the rainbow sticker, we looked at each pair of headlights in the rear view mirror with a keen attentiveness.  Scared, because of stories we’d just heard (particularly of rage at the “element” from outside the area that Camp Sister Spirit had drawn).  But also grateful, frankly, for the lives of ease we were driving back to.

Yes, all lives of ease are easy right up until they come into the headlights of hate. As I wrote to Polly, reading this post partly made me want to phone up and personally apologize to countless folks who’ve been the recipients of fellow “believers” and countrymen gone awry. No, gone awry doesn’t really cover it. I suppose I truly mean those who’ve made me cringe, who I think have misrepresented the Jesus I follow, those who have done wrong in the name of right. But, I must admit that desire at it’s core is self-centered. It seeks to distance myself for the sake of myself, which is probably ok on some level, but, frankly is too small a viewpoint. It’s a viewpoint I’m not sure we can afford in this world of passionate intensity. While it may surpass the lack of conviction of the “best”, it doesn’t reach the extraordinary requirements of matching hate with equal love and a little more love to tip the balance. I’m working on that.

Please read the post in its entirety: “The worst are full of passionate intensity” I’m not doing it justice.

MIPOTW: Conversation

This installment of the ever-acronymed Most Interesting Phrase of the Week comes from the post Dana Rudolph wrote over at Mombian.com about my piece for “Blogging for LGBT Families Day.” I’ve already extoled the joys of the experience, but this quote from her article seems particularly on-target well beyond gay marriage and LGBT issues.

It is easy, in these days of rallies and ranting, to get the impression that change happens for those who shout the loudest. That sometimes works, but more often, I think, change happens in these quiet conversations.

Deep-rooted change happens through conversation–equal opportunity conversations with those near and far. There is a lot of shouting in our culture, a lot of shouting in our media, in our politics, in our social debate, in our entertainment. Sometimes, there’s a lot of shouting in our workplaces and homes. Shouting is most often about being heard, not about hearing. It has the illusion of talking to, but is really talking at. Conversation can’t exist without hearing. When you remove listening from the equation, conversation turns into monologue. Get enough monologues going on at the same time and each one starts to out-volume the other in competition for the final word. Yes, there’s a lot of shouting in our culture, and not nearly enough quiet conversation. In the quietness is where we find God and where we find each other. I’m ready to start looking.

Career Plans at Fire Station No. 3

Yesterday marked our local mayoral and alderman elections in Starkville. Primaries and run-offs passed a few weeks ago, so Tuesday’s ballot was the final determination for our community’s leaders for the next four years.

Hub and I caravaned to Fire Station No. 3 after the daily daycare pickup event at 6pm. I kept the Fire Station No. 3 bit under wraps since I know from experience that they have the fire trucks squirreled away behind big metal doors when the station is employed as a polling station. If word got out in the back seat that a Fire Station was involved, we would have had to page some Fire Chief around town to pull one of those shiny suckers out of hiding to avoid an election day mutiny.

Any time we do something a little out of the norm, especially on the way home, the conversation with my gifts is always pretty interesting.  This one went something like this:

Squiggle: “Long way, Mommy”

Mommy: “Well, today we are going to vote, so we can’t go the long way.”

Little Drummer Boy: “Boat?”

Baby Girl: “uh Da Da Da Da Daaah”

Mommy: “No, vote. Mommy and Daddy are going to vote before we go home.”

Squig: “Is waaaay”

Mommy: “No, sweetie, we have to go this way to vote.”

LDB: “Why we have to vote before we go home?”

Mommy: “You know how you like to watch the Charlie Brown Election movie where Linus runs for class president and all his friends get to vote for him? Well, today is our election to decide who will be the leader of our city. So Mommy and Daddy are going to vote.”

Squig: “Trees!”

LDB: “Well, I think I can be the leader.”

Mommy: (with stifled giggle) “You do? So you can be the leader?”

BG: “Aaaah Ma Ma Ma”

Squig: “Whass At, Mommy?”

This question came up quite often referring to any number of random objects hanging out around Fire Station No. 3. I tried my best to answer, but I must confess I didn’t have an adequate response for the stray fire hydrant. But, then after Daddy finished his turn voting…

LDB: “I’m gonna be the leader of our town.”

Mommy: “Ok, that sounds good. I would vote for you every time, sweetie.”

LDB: “Good.”

Starkville residents seem to have been more involved (and invested) in this local election season as evidenced my much public debate, twittering of election night results and waving signs on street corners. That’s good to see. The younger citizenry seems to have been more interested this year in who would be the leaders of our town, possibly because we had quite a few younger candidates seeking service. For the first time in my voting life, we actually put a few yard signs for favorite candidates in our front yard.

I’d like to commend my friends Mike and Rachel Allen for Mike’s decision to run for Ward 4 Alderman. It was a great commitment for their family, and I admire their willingness to make it. Although Mike didn’t win, his desire to participate in the process is the same desire that spurred the creation of this country and the enumeration of the rights we hold dear.  Mike finished his thank you letter to voters with this statement,

“Again, as a candidate, I thank you for the chance to participate in the political process. As Americans, let us never forget that blessing or take it for granted.”

Indeed. The opportunity to participate, whether by voting, by running for office, by writing a letter in support of a bill or by standing in protest of a constitutional amendment or judge’s ruling is every American’s right and privilege.

Little Drummer Boy may never actually be the leader of our town. But the promise of tomorrow is that, without fear, he can choose to try.