Midlife Meditation

More children are dead, and again, it's a boy who killed them. The place was a high school in Santa Fe, Texas. The killer's primary weapon was not, this time, an assault rifle--most likely, I think, because his parents didn't own one. Instead, he took their sawed-off shotgun into the school, and by the time his killing spree was over, ten people were dead, more wounded. That was two Fridays ago. Monday morning, as I was trying to get a rowdy fourth grade class to quiet down long enough for me to introduce the group improvisation activity that would be their lesson, one boy shouted across the room to another, "I'm going to kill you." I sent him straight to the office. He insisted he was joking, but as I explained to the class after he'd left, murder is never a joking matter, particularly in a school where, as happens in schools across the country, we hold lockdown drills to practice what to do if an active shooter ever enters the building. We d...

It seems I'm not the first person to think of this. Just so you know, I think bullfighting is an abomination.  I also think this year's three Presidential "debates" were an abomination. So there's some resonance there. Reading up just now about bullfighting (that's called "research"), I learned that a bullfight is a highly ritualized spectacle, most of which involves goading, torturing, and weakening the bull to render the final, fatal sword thrust more effective. Bulls intended for the ring are raised in conditions that render them more wild than domesticated. The bullfight itself is extremely hazardous, frequently leading to injury and even death for the humans and horses involved in the ritual. Of course, the bull is almost always dead at the end of the show, so maybe there's some justice in that risk. Back to the debates: each reinforced the impression that what I was watching was a ritualized spectacle, a confrontation be...

Not just this guy. Really? This is what it takes? Donald Trump's campaign has been off at least one of its rails as long as it's been running. Trump was never interested in being respectable, civil, eloquent, diplomatic, statesmanlike, or even coherent. He was always a loud, bellicose, attention-demanding incarnation of masculine id, with a dog-and-pony show that was irresistible to a large enough plurality of Republican voters that it overcome all the shallow business-as-usual candidates--as well as a few other wingnuts who lacked his eye-catching vulgar appeal--to bequeath him with a nomination to become the world's most dangerous head of state. His rhetoric was scattershot when it came to positions on any of the issues the serious candidates were debating, but consistent in one regard: he hated the same people as that large plurality of voters, and cared not a farthing for how his targets felt about that hatred. The size of his following, while not large en...

Sure, he wags his finger at everybody. It's the "shushing" that makes it offensive. Dear Bernie Believers, I admire your tenacity, your devotion, your ideological purity, your passion for transforming this gumbo of a nation into something far more just, compassionate, generous, and responsible. I would love nothing more than to wake up tomorrow and find myself living in the America of Bernie Sanders's rhetoric. With that said, some of you folks need to take a chill pill. I primarily encounter your ideas on Facebook, where some of you share prolifically about your favorite Presidential candidate. On any given day, I'll see conspiracy theories about media coverage (Why aren't Sanders rallies making headlines?), denunciations of the Democratic party's primary system (super-delegates will steal the nomination from Bernie!), schemes to get the Democratic convention to overturn the popular vote (let's use super-delegates to steal the nominat...

Shotgun mass wedding? Happy ending? Sexist cliches turned on their heads? It's all this, and more. If you read the screed I posted yesterday about James Bond movies, you may be of the opinion that I've become a humorless political corrector with no tolerance for fantasy, satire, or simple battle-between-the-sexes fun. If you are of that opinion, this post should dispel those concerns. To rehash, briefly: to my dismay, I found when settling down to a classic James Bond film that the blatant sexism and misogyny of the franchise were trumping the fun for me, and had to turn it off. I fumed about it for a day or two, then wrote up all the problems I saw in the disposable "Bond girls" and the hero's nonchalant attitude toward their frequent deaths, and why I have lost my tolerance for such plot devices. "But it's a fantasy!" someone commented, and she's right: it no more depicts the real world of espionage than Star Wars  is an accurate portra...

Is this an action movie, or an excuse for putting scantily clad sexy women in sexy situations while men in tuxedos look on approvingly? I used to love James Bond. I don't remember not knowing about James Bond, or at least about agent 007 and his cool gadgets. I'm not sure how I knew about him, as throughout my childhood my parents were as disapproving of violence as they were of smoking, drinking, and sexual references, so the only movies we went to were either cartoons or musicals. We did watch a lot of TV, and there may well have been ads for James Bond movies, and one of our favorite shows was the Mel Brooks spy spoof, Get Smart , which was as appealing to me for the coolness of the gadgets as the humor, which often went over my head. Whatever the source, by the time I was six I already knew the James Bond theme and knew that 007 was a spy, and was eager to experience some entertainment in that vein. Twelve years later, I finally saw my first Bond movies. ...

I've been putting off writing about the misogynistic motives behind the Isla Vista shootings for a variety of reasons. Slate  magazine, my main source for journalism these days, has covered it well, including the meta-coverage of the hashtag activism growing out of it. Some of the opinions expressed in their many essays and podcasts have caused me both to nod in agreement and squirm with recognition. Writing and publishing my own angle, tiny though my audience may be, has felt like it would be redundant, and might also shift me uncomfortably into a no-win zone I am loath to enter. With all that said, there were two pieces published today that got me thinking I could add a perspective that is, if not unique, at least underrepresented in what I've seen elsewhere. The first, an essay by Christin Scarlett Milloy in Slate 's "Outward" blog, asks the question "Is It Natural to Be Queer? "and comes to the surprising conclusion that it doesn't matter; t...