krishanna.com :: as the crow flies

What About Free Speech & Responsibility?

Okay, people. Can we please ease up on the political correctness here?

First, there was the outcry this week over Don Imus again:

I noticed it this week only because hearing about it vaguely annoyed me. But I was pre-occupied with more pressing matters so I didn't linger on it.

This morning, I checked my morning e-mail and found an e-mail asking me to sign a petition to let Kathy Lee Gifford her latest dumb ass crap had pissed off a bunch of pagans.

Oy Vai.

Here's what Kathy Lee Gifford did and said:

Now, because I identify as a pagan, I am automatically supposed to get my bloomers bunched up over this?

FIRST:  I say bullshit. So you don't like what Kathy Lee Gifford said. Big deal. That doesn't mean you get to shut her up. Sorry. You can bitch about she said. You can start petitions to make her apologize for what she says. But that doesn't mean she will shut up or her employers will censor her or force her to apologize.

Last time I checked, I live in America and you know what? I can say whatever the hell I want about anyone I want because we have a little thing here called Free Speech. I may not like what people say but they have the right to say them without fear of losing their jobs or harassment or censorship.

SECOND: So Kathy Lee referred to pagans as "bad and nasty". Does anyone in this country not know what an ignorant, vapid, dunder-headed ancient bag of dusty wind Kathy Lee Gifford actually is? Hello? Is KATHY LEE GIFFORD'S  uneducated, narrow-minded stupid ass OPINION really that big of a deal?

THIRD: As a pagan-type person, I want to  know who the bad guys are.  I want to know who doesn't like me. I don't want them hiding off in the shadows making idiotic, insipid dumbass comments where I can't see or hear them.  I want them front and center for all the world to see.

"Well", said someone today as we were discussing this, "with that logic I guess it would be fine with you if a pedophile moved into your neighborhood because they have a right to live, right?"

Would I be "fine" with it? No. I wouldn't care to have a pedo in my neighborhood, especially if I had kids. BUT, the pedo has a right to live anywhere he wants as long as he follows the rules, goes to therapy AND DOESN'T DO ANY KID TOUCHING OR RAPING OF ANY KIND. We live in a free society and because it's free, all kinds of people get to live wherever they want.

What about what happened to that guy in California, recently? He only said he was obsessed with kids and thought about touching them and they ran him out of the fucking state. True enough, he was wacko- certifiable. True enough, he got put in the pokey because he wouldn't keep away from the grade school after the court order forbid him to be within 400 yards or something of it. But chasing him out of his home because of what he might do? That was wrong. Better safe than sorry you might think but I think we tread on dangerous ground when we begin participating in mob mentality. Very dangerous ground.

So I may not like it and it may worry me but the pedo still has the right to live wherever he wants to live. Once he violates the rules and touches ANY kid, I'll sign every damn petition that comes down the pike and do whatever I can to get him and keep him out of my neighborhood. Get the fuck out and don't come back. Have a terrific, incarcerated life, you piece of shit rat bastard.

"You'd feel differently if you had kids. You'd want to know your kids are safe".

Uhm, wouldn't that be my responsibility? As a parent it'd be up to me to protect my kid, right? I'll tell you, I'd have ZERO FUCKING PROBLEM telling my kid:

"See that person who lives in the green house on the corner"?

"Yes, Mommy."

"Well, stay way from them. You have my permission to ignore that person. You don't have to say hello or be polite to them. If they touch you or come near you, scream your head off and run away from them as fast as you can. That's a bad, sick person and they hurt children so stay away from them".

And if they didn't stay away from the weirdo on the corner, we'd be having some chats and some grounding going on at my house.  Sometimes, a little healthy fear is good for a kid.

So, do I like what Don Imus or Kathy Lee said? Not particularly. I also consider the source. Kathy Lee Gifford is an ignorant sack of aging wind and Don Imus is a dinosaur. I'd tell my kid to run away from them screaming too.

What about you?

Identity Crisis

This blog, like its owner, has been undergoing an identity crisis. Well, sort of.

Not long ago, I whined about my boring life. About the same time, give or take a week, I wrote about "being gloomy and  in a weird place" in an online women's spirituality discussion group I belong to. The feedback I received included some terrific suggestions. One insightful woman reminded me to quit worrying about the seeming lack of inspiration; that even the Goddess must rest and kickback. Another wise woman suggested that I needed some fire to get things moving. Neither one of them were wrong and I was impressed with their suggestions but this didn't feel like I needed to do anything   about it but sit with it and get comfortable with being uncomfortable for awhile.

After all I wasn't exactly unhappy, but I wasn't happy either. I wasn't exactly depressed but I wasn't not depressed either. I didn't find much encouraging around me but I wasn't completely discouraged with everything. I was not quiet and watchful because something was wrong because clearly nothing beyond the daily mild annoyances and frustrations with life was happening. I was the same and yet I was different. It was a great puzzle to me.

My thoughts kept drifting back to a a strange thing that happened just as Winter was drawing to a close and Spring was just on the horizon. I was talking online with fellow list member about the Morrigan when I was startled by something thudding against my front door... HARD. It was so loud, it made Manthing emerge from his computer room and check things out.  There was nothing outside. There was no wind. There were no feral neighborhood cats about to swat at the moths who were congregating at the porch light. There was not even the hint of anything unordinary outside our front door.

The next morning as I opened the door to get on the sCare van to go to the gallery, 3 of the biggest crows I have ever seen were hanging out in my front yard. For the record, crows just don't hang out in my neighborhood, though I'd like them to. Crows were a regular  as I was growing up and I talked to them often. Here, we've got plenty of hawks, buzzards, a few owls, blue jays, robins, mourning doves, a pair of cardinals, sparrows, chickadees and the occasional hummingbird but never crows. The crows sort of looked at me, cawed and then flew away as I approached the walkway leading to the driveway as if to say, "Hey, dolt- didja get it yet?"

On one of the first warm spring days we had, I was puttering around the house when I became aware of a lot of bird noise outside and my small pride of cats were all at the window, pulling the slats of the blinds  down so they could see what was going on. When I opened the door, the magnolia tree that stands like a sentinel in front of house, the lawn and the chain link fence that dives our property from our neighbor's was littered with a flock small to medium sized black birds, making a racket. I've not been able to figure out what kind of birds they were because they flew off when I opened the door to get a closer look.

When I mentioned these events to Manthing, he cocked an eyebrow and told me he didn't think it was anything more than the arrival of Spring. Because I had no better answers or explanations, I noted the events, filed them away, and kept putting one foot in front of the other.

So, as I was looking through my photos for a new image for this blog, I ran across the one above. It was taken at my mother's apartment in California. I was visited awakened by this crow cawing at me incessantly every morning. It cawed at me and I answered it. I was able to snap the photo on my last morning there. The photo inspired me and as I was working on the new design, I realized the pieces have begun to fit better and I have not been happier or more comfortable with a design for krishanna [dot] com in a very long time.

What do you think?

:: to be continued ::

Is There A "Miniweeiner" In The House?

This arrived in our snail mailbox recently.*

I think I shall return it marked "Return to sender. No Miniweeiners at this address".

See what happens when you whine about your boring life? You get junk mail for Thom Miniweeiner.

And we don't even have a deck here...

 

*As usual, click on the image to see a larger version.

My Boring Life

Much has happened since I last checked in with you. Or it at least seems that way.

    I am preparing for another show opening next month. Sort of.

    I've had another birthday.

    I took a 7-day jaunt to California to see my mother and my sister for the aforementioned event. See yesterday's post.

    I've had my locks cut and coiffed and colored, California style. I've got an Electra thing going on. See yesterday's post.

    Our last ferret died, an hour before my flight touched down the day I arrived home. She was over 7 years old and had cancer. Still tough.Still sucks.

I often don't blog about the mundane day to day crap in my life because I am certain if it bores me, it will surely bore the shit out of you. However, as a friend points out, many people enjoy reading the mundane, everyday events of some else's life because it can remind them they are not alone and what I consider to be mundane and boring may indeed entertain, inspire and invigorate someone else.

Take today, for instance. I got up, got ready to go to the gallery. Waited for the sCARE van to collect me and carry me to the gallery. On the van, I was duly grunted at by the driver as I handed over my ticket and eyed carefully as I dug around in my bag for my MP3 player so I could listen to my daily dose of KATG.

Once at the gallery, I fired up my laptop, turned on lights, got my daily fix of Diet Coke and checked e-mail, fixed a few blurps on the gallery blog and website, researched blog stores and eCommerce through blogging (John Unger's got a terrific eCommerce Guide over on his Typepad Hacks site. It's chockfull of eCommerce information that is useful for anyone who blogs.) I did some online marketing and promotion for the gallery site and blog . I am now writing the post you are now reading and once done with that I will peruse Popscribe and the KATG Forums or maybe read my feeds for the remaining 30 or so minutes until closing and then wait for sCARE to again collect me and carry me back home.

Once home, we might go out and grab a bite or I might toss some leftovers in  microwave and call it dinner before I settle in for an evening of TV and stitching or maybe a little artmaking on the off chance I feel inspired.

My life is so exciting and glamorous. Can you stand it?

Actually there is probably some truth to the whole what's boring to me might not be boring to someone else. I keep up with many of my favorite blogs daily because I care about what is happening to their owners, boring or not. We all have our off periods. It's the loyal friends and readers who get through with you that are so endearing.

So much of what NATUI, BLC, Eden, Asshole,and Attila write these days is not only interesting, entertaining and thoughtful if not thought-provoking, their words resonate with me because our experiences and outlooks on life are often very similar. In reading their words, I find a certain comfortable camaraderie and rapport with them while vaguely saddened that so many of these cool, interesting and intelligent women live so far flung in distance from me.  Of course, if we were to ever meet, I am not sure what I would do. I think my head would explode or I would embarrass myself in a fit of geekiness.

I am afterall, despite outward appearances, rather anti-social and reclusive with a healthy pinch of misanthrope thrown in for a pinch of spice.

Can you believe it?

I had just about gotten over pneumonia and boom... coughing, sneezing and snorting. AGAIN.

I have cold or a sinus infection or some kind of upper respiratory gunk.

Well, at least I am not wheezing and hacking up a lung.

I am so over this.

P.S. There's an entry over on my writing blog about creativity and time. Let me know what you think, if you get a moment!

Yay me.

I'm still reading and still around but may not feel up to posting long just yet.

I was feeling kind of yucky last week.. you know depressed and down.. low energy.. that kinda stuff and I just pawned it off on my usual cycles with depression. Manthing was out of town on business, I didn't get as much cleaning done as I wanted and I just felt like yuck.

After much chiding and hairy eyeball looks from Manthing,  we went to the doctor yesterday  for what I thought was a bad cold complicated by asthma only to discover I am actually dreadfully ill.

I am the lucky recipient of pneumonia and as an added special bonus, I also have the new strain of the flu which I probably got from the fucking para-transit van, I ride to and from work.

Go me.

Not.

Understanding

I have come to understand I will never climb a pyramid in Egypt or visit Antarctica.

I may never be the woman I once dreamed I would become or even the kind, bohemian old lady who lives down the street.

I may never write the best selling book that will touch millions.

I will never be a saint.

But I will always be a good listener, a faithful friend, one who speaks straight and true, one whose word can be trusted, and one who never truly loses faith or abandons hope entirely.

I will always stand for the weak, speak for those who have no voice, work to protect the innocent.

And I will always be a person filled conflicting and sometimes contradictory characteristics, a person prone to deep solitudes, tinged with sadness, a person whose life is filled with moments of gorgeous brilliance and moments of impenetrable, inconsolable darkness.

I am more than I ever hoped to become but less than I have dreamed.

Troubling

In between collages, soldering pendants and altering cabinet cards, I have been chewing on something.  I had a difficult time figuring out how to tell you the story without betraying confidences and telling tales out of school so to speak. But friends advise to stay close to my experience and I was reminded the other day of the value of using *I* statements when communicating with others. I learned how to do that when I got sober two decades ago and I'd like to think it has morphed into part of my life. I could be rusty though.

Anyway, it started innocently enough a few months ago.

I periodically feel a certain pull to connect to other women "of-a-like-mind" online because I have so few around me offline. While Manthing is easily my best friend and soft place to fall and M, my good male friend and colleague are awesome, they aren't women.

I decided it was time to delurk in some online women's groups I've belonged to forever and become more active online. It seemed it was time to do this. Nothing in particular precipitated it. Sometimes, it's just time to do something. More active meant doing more than just blogging here every so often and staying cloistered in my own little slice of internet heaven. It meant  talking and interacting with others beyond the frequent blog comments and e-mails.

Anyway, because I belong to a majority of women's spirituality groups online, there's a fair amount of political and feminist discussion that goes on.  My attitudes about things are pretty moderate. I accept most ways of thinking and lifestyles and the choices people make for themselves.

Happily,  I can say I have met some exemplary women of a like mind with whom I can correspond and collaborate with. They make me wonder why we are all spread out over the country and wish we were closer in distance.

But recently I ran into something that was intriguing at first and then troubling. I was wondering how to write about it without betraying confidences. Yesterday I received this link as part of a writing exercise for a writing group I participate and then I see BLC posted it a few days ago in her blog. So it seemed time to address it and I have worked on this for a few days and think I have succeeded maintaining anonymity for the people involved.

I have no problem with transgender people. But most of the transgender people I know are out about it. They have no problem with the world knowing about it.  The situation I find troubling is when there is someone who is a male to female transexual on feminist and women's spirituality lists and they will not disclose that information to the women participating in the groups with them.  I feel it is disingenuous at best and downright lying at worst, especially in online women's groups that are supposed to be a safe, and secure space for women of a like mind. In person, you can clearly see what's going on. Over the Internet, not so much.

Aside from other issues that seem to exist for this person, when I read the article I realized there was nothing any of her friends could do for her because she is in hiding. Only a few know and I know only because I figured it out from hearing scuttlebutt and seeing a photograph. At first I didn't have trouble with it until I realized that she is not open about it.

I certainly understand the fear of rejection but I would be pissed off  and hurt if I had forged a friendship with her, only to discover later that she had omitted a huge part of her life. She lives in constant fear that those who do know about her will tell everyone they know, even to the point of kicking people out of her life before they can kick her out of theirs.

I have no problem that she is transgender. I have no problem that she is a transgender woman participating in women's groups.  I have a problem that she is not being honest and open with others around her who may choose to confide in her. She is building friendships and associations based on false pretenses and it seems to me you stand a lot more to lose if you willingly omit important information; not to mention the hurt and damage you could cause by lying. It is very self-serving and thoughtless.

Clearly, it's not up to me to out her the people she forges friendships with but it sure seems dishonest not only to the people around you but to oneself. I also know how difficult it can to be vastly different from everyone yet she is also the first to slap a label on someone who doesn't agree with her view on things, condemn them, resort to name calling and insist that anyone who doesn't see things her way is against her.

I don't get it.  Do you?

Kik Your Ass

Okay, so there I was- my grouchy self- innocently re-writing some content for a potential job when my fiend friend Morgaine sent me this:

I haven't laughed like that in a week! Which reminds me, I have been remiss in thanking all you for you kind and understanding word these past days.  Your  notes and words of encouragement have helped me get through the rough spots and have meant so much. Thank you.

NaBloPoMo #30 :: I'm Frightened or Just Old

We went to Beast Buy last night  because I wanted to pick up a copy of MuteMath. Yeah, I'm hip, and cool like that; keeping up with the sound of today. No, it doesn't make a bit of difference that about the only way I am introduced to new bands and new music artists is because I watch late night talk shows- sometimes. No. It doesn't. And it makes even less difference that they are often repeats. It DOESN'T matter. It doesn't.

So as I am in the music area, I browse- checking out who has officially become a geezer and just how large the gold necklaces are getting to be on the rap guys. Because it's beginning to look a lot like that time of the year,  Mariah Carey was screeching  some sort of Christmas standards that I couldn't recognize. I've never seen the draw with that broad. If she isn't screeching , she sounds as though she's getting goosed- repeatedly.

Anyway I was bored.  I had what I came for in my hot, little paw and  I was ready to go. Manthing however was not. I looked over at gaming and there he was, in Manthing heaven. He usually finds me when he's ready so I browsed some more.

In looking at the Christmas music, I considered A Rat Pack Christmas but I already drive everyone batshit with my 1940's & 1950's non-Christmas music collection. Besides, I wasn't really sure I was up for 3 drunks singing "Frosty the Snowman".

Then I saw this. I could not believe my eyes.  I took my glasses off and rubbed my eyes. It was still there and I was askeered.

Now, really some things should just never come to pass.  He looks like some sort of deranged  lounge singer at the Has-Been Lounge. You know those fine establishments that smell of cheap perfume and cigars, Old Milwaukee, and Pine-Sol. They've got him posed like Bing fucking Crosby! For Hellsakes. Some things are just plain wrong like whiny, skinny women in fat suits and Billy Idol being all warm and homey, like Pop in at piano in front of the hearth just doesn't work.

Nor can I picture Billy Idol singing the Christmas Song, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town or Frosty the Snowman, even though I know he can sing when he puts his mind to it.

Just wrong.

At the cash register we encountered 2 young cashier chickies who were engaged in an animated conversation about the Christmas music playing in the store.

Chick 1: "They are really hitting the Christmas music hard tonight, aren't they?"

Chick 2: "Well, they have to you know".

Chick 1: "Well yeah. Makes the customers buy more".

Chick 2: "Really? That'll be 25.11 ma'm".

As I swiped my card I said, "Well as long as they don't play that Billy Idol holiday CD you'll be ok".

Chick 1: "I don't even know who Billy Idol is".

CHick 2: "He's some old singer from the 80's".

Uhm.

Yikes.