geez louise, an entire week has slipped by me here. despite my best efforts to ignore the holidays, it has been a holiday week and a pleasant one at that. the theme seems to be one of distinguishing the difference between the baby and the bathwater, which might really expand to be the theme for the entirety of my past five years.

This christmas and last found me unenthused, or maybe even negatively enthused, due to the growth in self righteous christian posturing and politicalizing. the christian right, which seems to make up the majority of american christians, strikes me as holding such uncompromisingly unchristian viewpoints that the whole movement has offended me___ especially so, since the advent of the war in iraq. the truth is, that christmas doesn't have to be about the hypocrisy of christian ideologues promoting the dissemination of western corporate commercialization, their fear-based foreign policy, their advocacy of the death penalty, and their bigoted unacceptance of gays, liberals, abortionists, and non-christians. christmas can be a holiday of love and generosity, peace and goodwill, despite the efforts of these self-proclaimed christians to spoil it for the rest of us.

a lot has been written this year (bill reilly, et al) about putting christ back into christmas, blaming the secularization of the holiday on the leftists and the aclu. these writers completely missing the ironic point that the real culprits are the people calling themselves christians, they are the ones who have turned the holiday into one that would cause jesus to spin in his grave, had he not purportedly already vacated it 2000 odd years ago... hmmmm, maybe that's why they figure it's ok to do so.

cmas is over for this year, but next year I encourage everybody to go ahead and celebrate, call the holiday whatever you like, but focus on love, generosity, peace and goodwill. that's what I'm gonna do, because I believe that's the baby. the rest is just bathwater and ought to be thrown out.

that said, I had a lovely day with my friend aliza yesterday, and would not have traded it for all the neato tech gadgets and modern appiances in the world, not even for a supersoft cashmere turtleneck, although one would be nice if I lived where the weather suited it.

this week has been good, michelle's been in denver, but also in touch and it's always good to be in touch, and she's a good phoner. tim had oral surgery and a birthday but bore them both well, I bought myself a 160gb external hard drive and have backed up all my myriad data, the paintings and drawings are coming along well, the postcards for the show have arrived, I ordered spanish language cds in anticipation of my trip to guatemala, denise and sara visited and are doing fine, and the waves have been gigantic and fun to watch, but too dangerous really to play in. and as mentione, I had a nice day with leez. my apartment is a mess, but that's ok.

just back from the coffeeshop. still haven't kicked the reading the paper habit. I stay away from it pretty successfully over the weekend, but more because the weekend crowd at the coffeeshop and the size of the sunday paper are overwhelming, rather than through any sort of abstemious willpower. bush calls for patience and cheney assures the troops that "iraq's looking good" somedays they make it too easy to see what buffoons they are__ or perhaps what a buffoon I am for reading the garbage. is it possible they believe what they say? is it possible others do? I suppose it is...

woke up this morning with thoughts about eve... about what the questions are. I go back and forth on whether to even impose questions or leave it up to the viewer as an open concept. it's impossible not to ask though... it's kind of a game. the first question is from the poem that sarted it all, so that's kinda set. hmmm. I'll finish this later. aliza just called and I'm gonna go over there.

back from that, now where was I? tell me eve, what are good and evil and do they even exist? I like to think that good does... but I don't really believe in evil. I really haven't seen it. the view that I formed a number of years ago was that all that exists is good (beautiful) and that evil (ugliness) is simply good misunderstood. that's the best I've got on that, and it seems to work pretty well, as long as I remember it, but sometimes it's easy to forget and the next thing you know you've forgotten to love (see the beauty, you know) hmmmm.

we're all connected. we're all interconnected. goodness.

thursday's thing at kimmi's was fun. spent most of the time hanging out with grace and ashly, but talked with everybody at least a bit. I felt very loved. I think I stayed in on friday night, oh that's right I did. I called ali and aliza, but neither answered. aliza called me from the bar to see if I wanted to come up, but I guess it musta been while I was out getting some food. I watched mr and mrs smith on dvd, it was ok, but not all that great... mostly just a shoot 'em up, not much of a story. saturday I had coffee in the afternoon with aliza and then I went to pesha's party. that was fun. talked with maggie, anya, helen, ian and rachel, robin, dov and others. michelle's in denver, but we've been keeping in pretty close touch over the phone. went to breakfast with aliza and chris on sunday morning at the 50's cafe and then just back home. watched a movie and worked on tim's birthday present. talked with aliza, ali and michelle on the phone.

woke up early this morning. michelle called around 7:30, I'd already been up for a couple hours. so had she I think, but she's on mountain time. she'd gotten into a fight with her mom, but I'm sure it'll all work out.

had breakfast with denise and sara this morning. they called around 8 and I met them over there (at the brickhouse, of course). good to see them. they're a bit jetlagged and culture shocked, although I'm not sure they noticed. it's really overwhelming to come back and suddenly be in the midst of this world... everything considered, they handled it really well. breakfast was nice and quiet, then we went down to the beach. sarah came and met us and we sat at the juice place on westminster, and ran into more and more people; that's when it started to get socially intense. denise did mention it was a bit much, afterwards. I enjoyed it, although when others are overwhelmed you kinda just have to realize that they're too preoccupied to really pay attention to everything (me), so I just sorta sat back and watched it all.

it's been a pretty quiet week. sunday evening I went to dinner with aliza__ over at her place. after dinner we took photos of each other wearing her underwear and a dog mask. that was fun. monday we went to dinner again, this time to a mexican place on pico... lara's(?). tuesday, tim had plans (oh he's back from guatemala and had a great time bytheway), so we didn't go to figure drawing. I just stayed home and fiddled around making an ostrich rider image (see above, if you didn't figure that one out) on the computer and then reading. yesterday, terrell called to ask if we could put the show off two weeks because he has some people who want to rent his space for all of january. I agreed, and so the show is now rescheduled for feb 11th. went to taco night at don antonio's with michelle and jordana, jordana paid for us as a cmas present, which was very nice of her. michelle had a flat tire, so we put her spare on before driving home. I'm gonna take her to the airport today at five, and then maybe go over to a gathering at kimmi's with school people.

I wrote that letter to the LA Times that I posted here the other day. then yesterday, I wrote another, in appreciation for an article by Tom Hayden called The myth of the super-predator, maybe I'll start writing the LA Times more often... we all need a hobby, right? anyway, here it is:

Thank you Tom Hayden for pointing out that societal factors play a role in
propelling inner-city youth to commit violent crimes. We cannot stop violent
crime until we take steps to understand what factors lead criminals to commit
it. The continued punishment of criminals through incarceration and execution
simply exacerbates the problem while ignoring the cause. Our prisons must focus
on rehabilitation, our schools and communities must focus on prevention, and our
government must work to alleviate the factors that lead our citizens to commit
these desperate and tragic acts of violence and outrage.

Blaming the
criminal for the crime is like blaming the sneeze for the cold. As long as we
continue focusing on the blaming of individuals for societal problems, we will
continue living in a world with violent crime and terrorism. As long as we try
to solve crimes with punishment and execution, and as long as we try to solve
terrorism with assassination and war, we will continue living in an endless
cycle of violence. I thank the LA Times for publishing Mr. Hayden's article and
also for publishing the Tookie Williams timeline (Chronology: The Life of
Stanley Tookie Williams, Dec. 13), the print version of which included a photo
of a ten year old Tookie. Anybody who saw that photo had to consider how
differently things might have turned out for that little boy, had circumstances
been different.

So the thing about writing letter to the editor, one of the things anyway, is that they're supposed to be only 250 words long. so, after writing the really long one I posted the other day, I did my best to shorten it. I was pretty unsuccesful i suppose, but it was good practice. I'll keep workin' on it. here's the shorter one:

I just wrote and sent off a rather lengthy response to Niall Ferguson’s op-ed
piece that appears in today’s (12/12/05) LA Times. Not being familiar with
the preferred limitations on letters to the Times, I didn’t know that the
preferred length is 250 words or less, until I was about to email it (geez, I’m
already at 58!). That first letter went into what was probably longwinded
and unnecessary detail chronicling the inaccuracies, misrepresentations,
fabrications and general failings of Professsor Ferguson’s critique of Harold
Pinter’s Nobel acceptance Speech (91 words, whew!).

I went
back and reread and reread again and then double checked both Pinter’s and
Ferguson’s statements. I did my best to be fair to Ferguson and give him
the doubt’s benefit, but again and again I found him to be twisting words,
taking quotes out of context, and inventing statements and viewpoints, which he
then inaccurately attributed to Pinter. I found this to be horribly
ironic, considering that Pinter’s message was a plea for our “determination, as
citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies.” And
there he was, being misrepresented in an LA Times op-ed piece (195,
uhoh).

Ferguson focuses on Pinter’s examples rather than his
thesis, and at that, he misstates Pinter’s points. He neglects the parts
of Pinter’s speech, that don’t readily support his critique and he alters
Pinter’s statements to suit his needs. In a 250 word letter, there is not
space enough to expose Ferguson as a fraud, but I urge everybody to read
Pinter’s speech, and Ferguson’s response to it, and then question the slippery
nature of Truth and the frightening potential of misinformation. Both are
available online; Pinter at http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture.html
and Ferguson at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ferguson12dec12,0,3865802.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
(darn! 289).

Re: Niall Ferguson - The play's his thing, not history 12/12/05

I've spent the past couple hours writing a response to an op-ed piece that appears in today's LA Times. I usually try to avoid responding to this sort of thing, but maybe that's a mistake, maybe I should express my own opinions more publically. I don't know, I suppose it doesn't really hurt, although there must be other things for me to do with my morning. anyway, the piece in question is Niall Ferguson's criticism of Harold Pinter's Nobel acceptance speech. you can read it here, just in case that link doesn't work, do a search for "Niall Ferguson, The play's his thing, not history". please read pinter's speech, or watch the video version, it's available at http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture.html. I'll paste my response below.

I am torn between exasperation and amusement after reading Niall Ferguson’s
self righteous counter-rant regarding Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize acceptance
speech. Professor Ferguson, amazingly misses the irony of his own
misrepresentation of Pinter’s points, as he zealously strives to refute
them.

He begins with an out of context quote, which is admittedly
confusing to a reader unfamiliar with the original. He then attributes to
Pinter a viewpoint that is simply inaccurate. Ferguson states,

“In the lofty realm of dramatic art, Pinter asserted, there can be
nothing so clear cut as truth. It is, however, a very different matter when it
comes to U.S. foreign policy. There, the distinction between true and false is
as clear as that between day and night. It's simple. Everything the United
States says is false, and everything its critics say is true.”

I’ve reread the speech repeatedly and cannot find anything to support the above
interpretation of Pinter’s remarks. What I do find Pinter saying, are the following:

“Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find
it but the search for it is compulsive.”

“… the real truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.”

“Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.”

Pinter does speak of the continuing pattern of duplicity he perceives in the actions of the United States government since the end of the Second World War. Nowhere however does he state, as Ferguson asserts that, “Everything the United States says is false, and everything its critics say is true.” Perhaps, to give the professor the benefit of the doubt, he meant this as a transparent exaggeration, but that is precisely the kind of misleading statement he seems to be criticizing Pinter for throughout the rest of his comment. The difference however being that Ferguson invented the exaggeration he attributes to Pinter.

Ferguson focuses throughout the remainder of his critique, of Pinter’s speech, on analyzing the accuracy of five of the Nobelist’s charges. He seems to allow that the US did, as Pinter says, play a role in Cold War era crimes and human rights violations, but he takes hearty exception to Pinter’s assertion that “this violence is comparable in scale with that perpetrated by communist regimes at the same time.” Well, I’ve now gone back over and over Pinter’s speech, and I just can’t find where in it, he makes that assertion. It seems to me that Ferguson must be either, a not very attentive reader, or somebody so bent on making a point that he is unhesitatingly willing to intentionally mislead his audience. The irony of this would be amusing were it not so discouraging, given Pinter’s plea for our “unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies.” Which plea is in fact, the seemingly overriding theme in Pinter’s speech.

Rather than arguing that the violent crimes of the United States are “comparable in scale with [those] perpetrated by communist regimes,” Pinter in fact, does something very different. He acknowledges the horrible nature of the actions of Cold War Communist Regimes, but points out that the United States was also guilty of atrocity, but not held significantly, or perhaps appropriately, accountable. Well, I don’t want to paraphrase, here are his words:

"Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified.

"But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now."

By ignoring this essential theme of Pinter’s speech, I believe
Ferguson does a great disservice to his readers. By focusing on fabricated
and falsely attributed statements, Ferguson does a great disservice not only to
his readers, but also to Pinter.

Ferguson washes over Pinter’s comments on the circumstances that led up to the second US invasion of Iraq. Those circumstances are at the heart of Pinter’s speech. The Cold War crimes simply provide historical precedent and perspective. Pinter, in his speech, strives to convey the point that the United States has a history of perfidious subterfuge in its foreign policy, but he does this as a basis for the expression of his fear that, having gone unchecked in the past, the US actions, today and over the course of the past several years, have become more blatant, reckless and arrogant. Ok, I don’t want to put my own interpretive words in anybody’s mouth, here is exactly what he says,

“The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain.”

This worries Pinter and I think is a point well worthy of consideration by us all. Unfortunately it is a point that is missed or neglected by Ferguson. I really want to give Ferguson the benefit of the doubt and interpret his critique as being the result of an advanced case of myopia brought about by academic seclusion. I want to believe that Ferguson is simply so immersed in his own interpretations of 20th century history that he didn’t attend to the more current themes in Pinter’s speech. Unfortunately, living in an era when one must always question the credibility of that which he reads and the integrity and motivation of the writer, of said reading material, I fear that perhaps Ferguson is striving to distract us from Pinter’s intent. And that, I believe, works counter to the dissemination of truth, and counter to the needs of society.

One of the wonderful things about the Nobel Prize is that the rewarding of the prize affords its recipient an opportunity to sound off about whatever topic seems of most concern. I think it’s significant to consider that Mr. Pinter chose the topic he did, and I think it’s worrisome that Professor Ferguson ignored that topic. Harold Pinter is not the only Nobel Laureate to receive the prize with a powerful and relevant speech, many of the Nobel Acceptance speeches are well worth reading and are available at http://nobelprize.org/index.html. Harold Pinter’s speech is available in English, Swedish, French, and German at http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture.html. There is also a video version accessible from that same web page.

I urgently encourage Professor Ferguson to reread Harold Pinter’s speech. I urgently encourage Professor Ferguson’s students to read Harold Pinter’s speech and Ferguson’s response to it, and then to question their instructor as to his interpretation. I urgently encourage everybody else, to read both Pinter’s and Ferguson’s words, and then to consider the slippery nature of Truth.

monday... hmmm, alright. monday was the day that anya called to meet me for coffee. we had a nice time. she knew that I wouldn't be having coffee with her dad because he was still in Guatemala; he gets back today, I think. so that was good. I'm sure I spoke on the phone with michelle and probably with aliza, which is true for most days. tuesday, aliza called, so maybe I hadn't talked to her monday, because she called to meet for coffee and at that point we were catching up on what we'd been up to since sunday's hangover. tuesday was rudnick dinner without tim and robin, it was fun. wednesday was dinner with vic, but she had a school project to work on so we postponed until thursday. I think I just stayed home and worked on terrell's site, which was how I spent most of my week. thursday, vic and I went to dinner, where we pleasantly debated the death penalty. last night, michelle and I went for a beer at the other room. tonight ali and I will go to the group show at terrell's.

The painting has gone well this week, they're just about finished, mostly just signing left to do. a couple still require more, but I think they'll probably be done by the end of this week. I've got to get around to sending the postcards off to the printer. terrell's site is in pretty good shape. he and I will have to meet next week to fine tune, but the hard/time consuming part is over.

I'm kinda anxiously waiting to hear schwartzenegger's decision about tookie williams... probably not as much so, as tookie himself. if nothing else, this has drawn a lot of attention to the death penalty issue. although disappointingly, there still seems to be a strong majority of californians who are in favor of it. I have no doubt that eventually we (not just californians, but everybody) will do away with it, but apparently we've got quite a long way still to go. similarly, issues like gay rights/marriages, racism, poverty/hunger, healthcare, the environment, even the eradication of war are all things that I think will eventually be resolved in ways I will be happy with, but I'm dismayed at how long it will take to bring change about. optimistically dismayed is how I feel about the state of our society. as far as tookie goes, I don't have a guess, what arnold will do. I wonder what the odds makers in vegas are sayin'.

one of the things I've really been having trouble with lately is, the feeling of isolation I'm experiencing, brought about by my inability to communicate what it is that I'm doing with my days, to my friends. I mean I can say I'm painting these pictures and the group of paintings is called 14 questions for eve, but beyond that I'm not sure that I am getting anything across. one side of me wants to throw my hands up in the air and give up without even trying because I tell myself that I can't voice it, and they wouldn't understand if I could. but I don't really think that's fair to them or me.

that said, as I was painting just now... actually as I was standing back looking at the two paintings that I was working on, this statement came into my head; "the battle I'm struggling with is between the mark and the illusion." alright, that doesn't tell much about eve, but there are two sides to painting, if you want to divide it up this way, and the one is the content and the other the method, you don't have to divide them that way and you really need not divide them at all, but sometimes it facillitates communication to do so... I think... maybe. maybe that's one of the reasons I have trouble voicing these things, I tend to be unwilling to simplify in order to communicate... which is silly of course because that is exactly one of my primary concerns with painting, so I ought to feel free to incorporate that into discussion about painting... especially with non painters.

I feel more sad than I ought to. I ought not to feel sad at all. It might be as simple as the time of year, the short days... sunset was 4:44 yesterday afternoon. It might simply be that I'm lingeringly hungover... or maybe lingeringly embarrassed by the extreme drunkeness that led to the aforementioned hangover. It might be that I've grown accustomed to the security and direction of having a normal job, and that now that I'm working exclusively on my own projects, I'm feeling ungrounded. It might be that when I was teaching I would go to school everyday and receive the heartwarming and sincere love of children, given freely as only a child can give... and now I spend my days pretty much alone. It might be that I'm lonely. I like summer better, even though I do live in southern california. summer is way better than fall.

so yesterday I spent the day with aliza. she called first thing in the morning, I went over, stopped at stroh's on the way and bought us coffees, hers was lots of half & half and cinnamon sprinkles, mine was half & half (even though I usually go for the whole milk instead) and three raw sugar packets. we hung out, read the paper, I helped her set up a "my yahoo" portal page, chris stopped over and hung out with us while he fixed her heater. in the afternoon we went to a memorial for her neighbor, michael. I had met him once or twice but didn't really know him, but I knew a lot of people who were there. it was a nice event, he was well liked and clearly his absence is being felt. after that we went to an art opening, and I drank way too much. don't really know how that happened but it did. luckily I had the presence of mind to bail early, I didn't really understand how drunk I was until I got home, but according to aliza it was clear to everybody else... so much for that secret. I don't think I'm very good at concealing my drunkeness from anybody, except maybe myself. I'm gonna have to pay more attention to how much I drink though; I didn't enjoy the hangover.

went to kit's birthday party tonight. it was fun. I didn't know any of the people except kit and yumiko, so it was interesting to meet new people. boy, there are a lot of people... and they all do stuff and have lives and friends and families and dreams... every one of 'em.

it's good to be 42. I don't often feel my age, I think that's partly due to the forties not being what they used to be. "the forties are the new thirties," I've heard said, and there might be something to that. genXers are turning forty and as we all know, the slacker generation are late bloomers... always overshadowed by the baby boomers. I'm (and always have been) pretty much ok with that. there's no hurry.

I recall a sense of urgency from my twenties though. in my twenties, I couldn't imagine long life, everything was so fast and so new, it couldn't last and I felt sure it would end in a fiery crash. I felt that whatever I was going to accomplish in life, I had to do quickly because time was running out. when it didn't... I was as surprised as anyone and I think I spent my thirties trying to make sense of it all.

I've noticed a sense of urgency in some of my older friends. old age, in the sense that death can occur from natural causes, as opposed to dying as the result of violence or physical accident, is a pretty vague area. I mean, anybody who dies in their sixties is generally thought to be too young to have comfortably done so, but may do and some even die of heart attacks or cancer or other ailments in their fifties. so once we enter our sixties, we must realize that there are no assurances that we'll make it through them. man people these days live well into their seventies, eighties and nineties and we, as the first world privileged class seem to be extending our lifespans continually. nevertheless, there's no telling how long our individual bodies can hold out.

but in our forties, we can pretty much ignore that. we've survived long enough to have the security that comes with experience, and yet have not lived so long that our time threatens to run out. it's good to be 42, although I still most often feel 27.

let's see... monday, tuesday and wednesday have slipped by (pretty uneventfully, I think), since my last entry. I've been staying home in the evenings reading sherlock holmes stories. I've been painting and working on the website during the days. I went to figure drawing at the Y on tuesday, but haven't been out much other than that. aliza's back, but I haven't seeen her, just a couple brief phone calls. tim left late last night for ten days in guatemala with robin. michelle's up to the usual, asked me to taco night last night, but I felt like staying home. terrell's coming over today, I think, so we can make some decisions about his website. I photoed some figure drawings yesterday, it's sunny out, so maybe I'll do some more today... oh it's the 1st, I suppose I should pay my rent... probably ought to go up and check on denise's mail too... hmmm, maybe tomorrow.

it's a beautiful day. I think I'll paint for awhile. the pistures, by the way are figure drawings from sometime in october; two tries at the same pose. I kinda like them both.