Throughout this year my husband has been getting slammed by spam of the right-wing nut-job variety: how Obama is a Muslin terrist and a mixed-race guy (aka nigger). I'm not the recipient of this rancid brand of spam. My own (un)funny spam tends to be of the NPR variety and takes as its subject self-denigrating topics like (ho-ho) how funny it is to be an ageing woman (the humor of menopause, forgetting stuff etc.) and how funny Sara "Barbie" Palin is (photoshopped pix of Sarah as a pig wearing lipstick, photos of pigs smeared with lipstick etc.). And, while my spam doesn't rocket up my blood pressure, it's just as tiresome.
Yesterday my husband wrote his spammers a supremely eloquent email asking to be taken off their email lists. He'd had it, he told me, with being pelted by winger-lies from people whose minds would never be changed by the truth. At the time, I confess, my mind was on cleaning out the refrigerator, so I just made a mooing noise of agreement. But today, in the cold thin light of late-morning, I feel both a swell of love and pride for him, and an uncomfortable sense of shame myself.
Sometimes I refer to our generation, my husband's and mine, as "the last good kids".
By that, I mean we were the generation who beavered away at school and extra-curricular activities, applied to Ivy League schools, wanted to be doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs, picked our dating partners with the knowledge they might be our spouses, and in short, were the very models of good post-Eisenhower-post-nuclear war teens.
Later we would enjoy many brands of muddled thought, brought on by drugs and oddball spiritual quests. We would live together in muddy communes and get vitamin deficiencies. We would shack up with crazy people and marry them outdoors, wilting wild-flowers decorating our long shaggy hair. But underneath the alarming clothes, pharmaceuticals, and cursing remained the kids who turned in their homework on time and who were imprinted by their mothers' counsel to Be nice.
This blog is about words and language, but it's also, I see, about good manners, which are deeply ingrained in me. Often, I become confused, thinking that civil behavior and Be nice are the same. They are not. Manners are as intensely concerned with how to say No! as they are with Why don't you? and How nice. Polite behavior doesn't mean putting up with hate-filled verbiage from fools, and my husband's actions yesterday are a stark reminder of that. In fact, the origin of what we know as civilization rests on manners, specifically The Courts of Love, founded by Eleanor of Aquitaine. She became understandably sick of testosterone-fueled knights wandering around the countryside raping and pillaging anyone in their paths. The Courts of Love established civilized conduct for warriors, using (what else?) sex.
But that part is another story entirely. Still, I cannot leave Eleanor, though, without dropping this odd factoid, courtesy of Wikipedia: John McCain is her direct descendant.
I am too prone to hippie tolerance, courtesy of Fritz Perls: You go your way, and I go my way. If we meet, it's beautiful, if not, it can't be helped. But the real world and common courtesy both tell me it's not always beautiful, and something should be said about that. Loudly. For the past eight years, I have tolerated vile abuse directed at all the values I hold dear, by people who wish me (and most of the planet) no good. With Be nice firmly canceling out all thought-processes, I've ignored much of it. But I don't think that's such a great idea. Not now.
It's bullshit, and it's bad for ya. Bad for me too.
Yesterday my husband wrote his spammers a supremely eloquent email asking to be taken off their email lists. He'd had it, he told me, with being pelted by winger-lies from people whose minds would never be changed by the truth. At the time, I confess, my mind was on cleaning out the refrigerator, so I just made a mooing noise of agreement. But today, in the cold thin light of late-morning, I feel both a swell of love and pride for him, and an uncomfortable sense of shame myself.
Sometimes I refer to our generation, my husband's and mine, as "the last good kids".
By that, I mean we were the generation who beavered away at school and extra-curricular activities, applied to Ivy League schools, wanted to be doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs, picked our dating partners with the knowledge they might be our spouses, and in short, were the very models of good post-Eisenhower-post-nuclear war teens.
Later we would enjoy many brands of muddled thought, brought on by drugs and oddball spiritual quests. We would live together in muddy communes and get vitamin deficiencies. We would shack up with crazy people and marry them outdoors, wilting wild-flowers decorating our long shaggy hair. But underneath the alarming clothes, pharmaceuticals, and cursing remained the kids who turned in their homework on time and who were imprinted by their mothers' counsel to Be nice.
This blog is about words and language, but it's also, I see, about good manners, which are deeply ingrained in me. Often, I become confused, thinking that civil behavior and Be nice are the same. They are not. Manners are as intensely concerned with how to say No! as they are with Why don't you? and How nice. Polite behavior doesn't mean putting up with hate-filled verbiage from fools, and my husband's actions yesterday are a stark reminder of that. In fact, the origin of what we know as civilization rests on manners, specifically The Courts of Love, founded by Eleanor of Aquitaine. She became understandably sick of testosterone-fueled knights wandering around the countryside raping and pillaging anyone in their paths. The Courts of Love established civilized conduct for warriors, using (what else?) sex.
But that part is another story entirely. Still, I cannot leave Eleanor, though, without dropping this odd factoid, courtesy of Wikipedia: John McCain is her direct descendant.
I am too prone to hippie tolerance, courtesy of Fritz Perls: You go your way, and I go my way. If we meet, it's beautiful, if not, it can't be helped. But the real world and common courtesy both tell me it's not always beautiful, and something should be said about that. Loudly. For the past eight years, I have tolerated vile abuse directed at all the values I hold dear, by people who wish me (and most of the planet) no good. With Be nice firmly canceling out all thought-processes, I've ignored much of it. But I don't think that's such a great idea. Not now.
It's bullshit, and it's bad for ya. Bad for me too.
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