Poetry Time

A Haiku

By Marion Berry

No, officer, no!

Don't use your handcuffs on me!

Bitch done set me up!

Invictus

Another weekend in Fayetteville. Recorded an episode of "Doctor Who" off of SciFi/SyFy in HD, ate at Mellow Mushroom with the parents, and did nothing, more or less.

Oh, yeah. There was that whole pull-my-hair-out-because-of-my-lost-history-seminar-paper-which-might-be-the-fulcrum-of-my-admission-to-a-reputable-graduate-school-and-whatever-hair-isn't-out-goes-gray scenario. Nothing big.

I've already been accepted to Australian National University's Master of Diplomacy. It's good, it's credible around the world, and its alumni seem to really go places. Double masters in one and a half years in Canberra, ACT, Australia. Every alumni I've talked to has had no problem coming to the States, finding prestigious jobs, and moving up in life. The very things I want, dammit. For some reason I can't explain why I'm still fighting tooth and nail to get into Melbourne's history program. My referees (as in, a letter of referral) want me to stay away on the basis of the quagmire that was their report, some ANU alum have told me to pick ANU over UMelb (not like they would have a bias), and even the Aussie I work with has told me that the only perk UMelb has over ANU is that Melbourne > Canberra in terms of sights and events.

Yet, here I am. Staying up late, editing drafts of my horrible Honors thesis, writing 2500-word research proposals until 2 am, and more or less groveling via email with my prospective thesis advisor to the point I know the time difference by heart. Part of me wants to just say that it's because I actually had to PAY to have my application considered there. Another part of me says that it's that obstinate, stubborn sunnuvabitch in me that keeps dragging this out until it's finished.

Then, there's ego. A part of me wants to go ahead and have two different schools offer me admission. Sure, it won't be a fight or a beauty contest or anything (That much is for sure). But there is a part of me that yearns for every bit of acceptance, every bit of recognition and merit that I can freaking reach for. The last two years have been like Viet Nam for my heart and mind, and I honestly feel like I am finally due some kind of return. Post-London Little Rock, wandering and working in a post-traumatic daze with a roommate who let his idiot wife run the show once she moved in. There was unemployment, and before that the horrible job. There are money issues. There are banks and credit cards out to screw over every living human being. There's the job that, no matter how much I love it, I feel like I can't leave at 5 pm. I'm so on edge as of late that the littlest thing will set me off, in a big way. And on top of it all, I'm sick now.

God, I hate being sick. I am never as much of a baby as I am when I get ill.

I'm not the kind of person who has ever, not even once, believed that "it will all get better." That kind of fatalism is reserved for the weak-willed and the unimaginative. It doesn't just magically get better, ever. It takes work, initiative, a plan. Gather information. Talk to people. Get insight. Triage. Don't just sit back, let life steamroll you, and when you're so numb from the darts life has put in you suddenly decide to declare life is all better.

Maybe that's why I keep fighting for Melbourne. Maybe that is my way of trying to make it better, as symbolic as it might be.

Missy Gee, I am nowhere near the writer you are.

Pattern Recognition (By Koestler, not Gibson)

Humans are naturally prone to make reductionistic statements about elements of this world. I don't hold it against us, we're wired to think that way. Pattern recognition and grouping is one of the key elements to our survival thus far. An example? A bear mauls a man and kills him. Another man sees it. In his mind, a bear becomes synonymous with death. Therefore, men become careful around bears. It's a built-in defense, one that focuses on doing what is safe rather than what is unnecessarily risky.

Unfortunately, this extends to other men, too. Pattern recognition and grouping is the basis of racism, sexism, most -isms and stereotypes. What once served as a conservative and reactionary approach to life that was better safe than sorry has now turned into a major constraint on society. It's something that we should rise above, but is, admittedly, harder for some than others.

Some of the ways this arises from time to time is surprising though. I've noticed it a lot recently when it comes to politics. A good case of this is a friend of mine who has been living in Sacramento, CA for a while now. She made a remark a couple of months back about how much it astounded her that there were conservatives there! In California! Of all places, why there! I didn't want to sound like a total historian prick, so I didn't tell her that California was the home state of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, two men not exactly known for their liberal tendencies. Also, I didn't want to say "Oh, dear L. California is a state of 36,756,666 people. There are bound to be differing opinions within a population that vast!"

Either way, it stuck with me. The health care hullabaloo (debate is too kind a word to describe this mess) has made it all the more noticeable. There is a certain comfort that comes marching in lockstep with your comrades, but there's much more danger to be had in doing so. Both sides of the aisle need to learn to look past their ideological nose.

The right has certainly had more airtime and focus with the sheer madness they've come to embody in the last few weeks. Swastikas, hung effigies, and "death panels" have become so commonplace that they're no longer as shocking as they once were. Townhalls, instead of becoming forums, have become shouting matches. It's as if the United States has suddenly found its own form of football hooliganism.

First, let me make one thing clear to these people. You are all tools. The people leading you are using your passion, your ferocity to do nothing more than further their own careers. Look at the people whipping you up. A governor who resigned in the face of ethics violations and an inefficiently-run state. A former representative, former Speaker of the House, who resigned after facing insurrection by the pragmatic wing of his own party. A pill-popping, illegal-immigrant-hiring radio talk show host. The only group of people who are more washed out than this are the people spearheading the Birther movement! Why, you raucous group of activists, would you let yourself be led by people with no political capital, no contacts, and no appeal beyond a condescending smirk from primetime news anchors? These people offer you no hope and no true direction. They simply show up, make ill-founded inflammatory speeches, and then shove their hands up your asses like the puppets you are.

Change your tactics. If you want there to be change, then do so legitimately. Don't feed your kids lines to spout off at townhall meetings. Don't scream and shout at townhalls. Call your Senators or Representatives, write them letters, email them. Your posturing and tactics are nothing short of childish, something that doesn't belong in the Capitol. Not contacting your officials through the accepted, legitimate means is essentially trying to bargain from a position of weakness. You've doomed yourself to failure from the very beginning! Don't be surprised if it turns your representatives are snickering at you behind closed doors, I know I do so openly.

As for the left, you're becoming more and more akin to the GOP of 2000 than you would ever care to admit. You've come to penalize voices of dissension within your own party, and cast ever-incriminating blanket statements over any opposition. Sure, a good bit of this is politics-as-usual, it's the name of the game. But it's time for you all to realize that the more you drive out those voices that are not in complete harmony with yours, the more you hamstring yourself. When there is complete, total monotony on ideas and process you get the PATRIOT Act. You get Gulf of Tonkin resolutions. You get genuinely bad ideas with worse long-term consequences simply because you allowed yourself to turn into ignorant-minded sheep.

The Blue Dogs have come under a lot of attack from these Democrats as of late. Sure, point out that they receive huge sums of cash from pharmaceutical companies. While we're doing that, let's also look at what these men have done with their lives. Mike Ross ran a series of rural pharmacies, and is well aware of the unique nature of rural medicine. Vic Snyder, while not a Blue Dog per se, was a family practice physcian for years before entering the General Assembly. Raise cynical objections about their past and their careers all you want, but these are the kinds of men the Democrats need to be bringing to the forefront of this debate, not trying to push aside. Right now, you need legitimacy, expertise, and a bit of Capitol Hill bargaining. Who better to do it than men within the Democrats, yet moderate enough to reach out to the Republicans? Failure to embrace this sort of mentality will lead you to an unimpressive 2010, and perhaps a shocking 2012. God knows the Dems already have a reputation for pulling defeat from the jaws of victory as is.

The timbre and cadence of politics in the United States is honestly starting to frighten me the more I think about this. I may just up and move somewhere else to escape all this. Australia looks good...

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