political writing is hard when all you know is that condoleeza needs a facial expression coach.

Damn jack and his essay contest!

Okay, here's the topic: In regard to United States politics, define "right-wing" and name at least two prominent right wing politicians and what makes them "right wing."

Examples? I need to listen to more than "This American Life" to do this! But here's the rough rough draft so far. Someone help me. Any political peeps in the house?



I think no essay should exclude the opinions of the writer first and foremost. Even facts lean toward the bias of the writer. You need only listen to the facts on FOX and then the facts on NPR to see a glaring distinction between a “right fact” and a “left fact.” So here is me. I am an exceptionally left of center atheist. I get most of my politics from “South Park” and whatever my father doesn’t agree with usually sounds pretty good to me. You may want to stop reading right here, but I assure you the ending is not at all what you’d expect.

As you can likely already tell, I am not politically minded, so I had to do some research to find my two right wing political examples. And my bias led me to the strangest places. I discovered the Dutch right wing politician, Pim Fortuyn, who was an openly gay sociology professor. He was accused of being racist and inflammatory and definitely a radical against Holland’s currently liberal government system. If he could have done good for the country and their problems with immigration will never be known as he was assassinated in 2002. So I realized American conservatives were a little different than their foreign counterparts. My initial temptation was to talk about our President and my governor (Schwarzenneger), but then I started to really look into the definition of “right wing” and found myself at a fascinating crossroads in my ideology. Right wing is not at all what I thought.

So here’s the definition I found in the dictionary: a political or theological orientation advocating the preservation of the best in society and opposing radical changes. Okay, from this liberal’s point of view, no conservative is doing the former, and I think putting your boys on the frontline is a radical change. So this definition isn’t going to work.

Then I did what an ignorant person does. I went online. If this research was going to end up anything like that scarlet cake recipe I tried last year, I was in big trouble. But lo and behold, I found a terrific definition from a man who calls himself Beckett on freepublic.com, He says he borrowed from John Kekes' “The Case for Conservatism.” In short, conservatism is based on four components: skepticism, pluralism, traditionalism, and pessimism. Conservatives carry the skepticism that requires proven reasons for action. Conservative pluralism argues that a society cannot maximize all good things all at once. The example after 9/11 would be the trade-off between privacy and security. Conservatives are traditionalists. Not only is the conservative view to stay true to tradition. As Beckett (or maybe Kekes through Beckett) beautifully puts it, “Where the well of tradition runs dry, human impoverishment inexorably follows. What’s the worth of choice if choice is all there is?” The final component of conservative political morality is pessimism in human nature -that with the angel the brute must run beside, and that brute is worthy of close inspection.

With this definition, I was afraid that I had identified myself completely wrong. I am a conservative. I am a skeptic in my views. In fact, I am such a skeptic that the overwhelming proof that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq made me wary of actually watching my country act upon it. Pluralism, well, I think no political ideology, and definitely no debate, can succeed without the reality of pluralism. Even an economist understands that truth. Tradition creates community. I believe without it, we would die in our autonomy. Even hippies had communes. Even hippies incorporated traditions: eastern philosophy, shared role models, drugs. And finally pessimism. Well, I don’t watch “Curb Your Enthusiasm” without some relation to the skeptic. And ask me my views on welfare and you will see Archie Bunker surface. The whole thing is scammers scamming scammers. But that’s a whole other article that I hope to title “How Our Welfare Department Works Like a Strip Club.”

What does this mean? Was it only my interpretation of this definition that made me conservative? Or did I hit upon an amazing discovery? Could it be that our modern day conservatives have strayed from their goals and become themselves, liberals. Our President jumps into a war against the wishes of a large portion of the globe and does it to combat “evil” people and to enlighten a whole other country with our traditions, even if it might squash theirs. Isn’t this government working against the ideology of conservatism by not rewriting (or maybe the better word is tailoring) anti-trust laws? Is it working with our traditions to allow the last decade’s glut of mergers, takeovers and outsourcing to continue on and create such a radical shift in our economy? Most of these actions have worked out terribly. Are we afraid of looking for proven reasons before action? Isn’t it all very much against the tradition of the American Dream and -as any small business owner will attest- against the traditional pursuit of life and property?

So then, with this definition, what is the true right wing platform? Christianity is an American tradition. The nuclear family is an American tradition. Open immigration laws seems like a conservative platform because Lady Liberty said so. I’m going to at least assume it’s been a two century old goal.

Newt Gingrich told NPR in 2004 that this was the most diverse republican party -the broadest coalition - since Teddy Roosevelt. Basically, he was saying that moderation is the new pink for the GOP. If this is so, why is the left up in arms so much about this supposed moderate government group? Where are the moderates? Because as far as I can tell, they are the true conservatives.

Let’s take a look at some people we might see running in 2008 and maybe we'll see this conservative Republican...

Newt? Arnold? Condaleeza? Which ones??

Which God do you believe in? Which God do you want?

god ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gd)n.

God
1. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
2. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
3. A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.
4. An image of a supernatural being; an idol.
5. One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed: Money was their god.
6. A very handsome man.
7. A powerful ruler or despot.

Weekend blog

Someone called me a conservative last night. Because we were debating what "right wing" met.

I'm still reeling.

I'm a hippie!

Alas, I hate change.

This essay is changing my life.

ah love

So I'm thinking I'm all over this Christian God cuz I like unavailable men.

I'd write more about this, but I'm writing for an essay contest about something I know nothing about. It's fun.

Christian Atheism

Okay, I gotta figure this out. I want to be a religious writer and I'm an atheist. Or is it that I want to be a secular writer from a Christian angle and if that's it, why would an atheist do that???

And why Christian? I mean, I'm so obviously better suited to be Buddhist or Jewish. I'm Larry David and the Dalai Lama's love child. Just look at me!

This is in no way implying the Dalai Lama was carnal with Larry David, I'm just saying, "isn't it a little odd that their ages/races/character traits match perfectly to have a child my age/race/character?"

So what do I believe. Do I believe in God? Who cares if one exists or not, and Jesus? A manic at best. I could write an essay on the non-essentialness of any existence of any being on this planet or off. And that the debate of whether a God or messiah or even ourselves exists is already limiting the discussion with our little lizard minds. And I likely will.

But for now, I want to focus on me.

"Just write" you may say. And I do. But I am currently looking for an agent. I gotta show an agent my voice. I have no clue what my voice is.

I should go back to sex comedies.

But I can't. Even the sex comedy I wrote recently has gotten very deep on the psychology of the religious and non-religious.

I don't know. I don't know.

A Journal Entry

I swear this blog is going to be my Artist's Way pages. I hate Artist's Way. I think that book is just one more way to procrastinate. But whatever, look at me finding out that I end up doing all the things I make fun of.

So I have a tendency to wake up in the wee hours with a thought. And I'm not sure if it's because I drink coffee before bed, or maybe I'm just crazy, but the thought always seems EXCEPTIONALLY urgent. This morning, my thought was about money. It's very often about money, but today it was about money and art. So imagine the scene. A woman with big hair has fallen asleep on a bean bag reading a very large brokerage study guide. There are two cats staring at her, wondering if she will ever a) feed them and b) cut her hair. The woman opens her eyes wide, gasps, throws the study guide at a cat, trips over the bean bag, and stumbles with great determination into her easel and canvas.

She is a writer.

I don't paint. I have an easel because, much like TV, the Artist's Way pages, and booze, I like having many distractions. And since I don't own a tv, make fun of the Artist's Way, and booze is saved for 8pm-1am, I have easels, books, an electric piano and a jigsaw puzzle for distractions. The easel has been untouched for about 6 months.

Here's what the thought was. "I am poor. I am a poor writer. Writing makes me poor. I want to have money. But I want to be creative. There must be a lucrative creative career. I hate playing the piano. Technical writer? Ick. Painters make money when they do those rave downtown. I could paint a naked woman at a rave if I were a painter. I hate raves. But I could like raves. Naked women are nice."

Suddenly I was at the easel.

The paints were in the closet. (freudian?)

The walk from the easel to the closet, went like this. "I need coffee. My thyroid will likely implode from all the coffee I drink. Bailey's and coffee. That's an idea. It's 5am. It's 10pm in Tokyo. That's so lame. I say that every time and it's so lame. At least I have a...almond cookie!"

And then I started my day.

Another one from Overflow

Voices. I hear voices. I'm not schizophrenic. I'm not delusional. And they are real. These voices are real people who have said these exact words either enough times, with enough intensity or with the perfect sharpness of tongue to penetrate the innermost part of my brain and stay forever. No matter how much I know better, how much my therapist, my friend, my sponsor, my self help books tell me these voices are wrong, they stay. They stay because there is a nugget of truth. And the nugget is wedged in between my failures and my fear of change.

These voices stop me. They keep me from being happy. I don't belong anywhere because these voices won't let me try. They have been with me since preschool. They have kept me away. Alone. So I binge on my art. That's a romantic way of saying I push people away and while I'm boarding up the windows and doors, I'm creating a story so I don't seem weird. Van Gogh would just be a psycho with one ear if he didn't paint. Even Robert Downey Jr would just be a fairly good looking transient in random people's houses if he didn't glow in front of a camera. But here is where I am mediocre. I have no masterpieces and I have both ears. I am a sucky genius. This is what the voices say. And I could tell you these voices are my mother, my father, the librarian. But that is not who originally said all these things. Every word has been said by one person. One person alone. Every voice I hear is my own. It's me.I feel different. I don't relate. My own parents scratch their heads at what I do. I have friends who love me, but sometimes even they just look at me, hoping I'll explain what I'm doing or what I'm saying. This is what makes me feel crazy. I feel crazy because I'm alone. I feel crazy because so often I think it's just luck that makes me have both ears.

I'm an addict and blogging is my pipe

I had no idea. I'm obsessed. This is the best or worst thing for my writing.

regurgitating: A little on God

Just to see something complete on this blog. This is from the play, Overflow, which is up right now.

I was raised by a non-practicing Shinto Buddhist and, for lack of a better term, a Kansas atheist. My Dad hates Christians because, as Dad puts it, "In Kansas, Christians are real annoying." What’s interesting, is that my Dad is a military man so he believes in discipline. He said that one good thing about Southern Christians is that they believe in discipline, too. So, going on this assumption, for first grade, my parents dropped me into a Christian school. Not knowing there were different kinds of Christians, they just put me in the one with the nicest people.

Something I now truly believe, is that the nicest people are people who think the world is going to end. These people sang songs about people disappearing into thin air, plagues of locusts, monsters in heaven, rivers of blood and how cool all this was going to be. But really, they were really nice.

Here's the kicker. If you’re seven years old and you’ve been told that the Second Coming is right around the corner, likely before your, say, eighth birthday, your goal in life shifts considerably from baseball star or ballerina to the best little soldier for God. And that’s what happened to me. The plan was to spend my youth reading the Bible and avoiding boys. And when the real work of the second coming happened, just after the Rapture, I was going to stay behind and save the unsaved. This, of course, meant practice.

So I started with Mom. I said, “Mom, have you made Jesus your personal Lord and savior?” Mom said, "No. But I can. What should I do?" So we prayed and that was that. I had a gift! I was chosen to witness. I could amass a hoard of followers within days. Was my calling truly to save the world? I had to come to terms with the reality of this. Saving the world is a lot of work. Should I throw away the Barbies and shrinky dinks? There’s no time for easy bake when the world is ravaged by sin.

One thing to know about the Shinto religion is that it is not exclusive. It is a very open religion that, in Japan, when Buddhism moved in, instead of denying it, the Shintoists simply allowed Buddha to be part of its already extensive pantheon. So I had no idea my first project was so easy. Mom wasn’t going to deny the millions of gods she already had, Jesus was just one more little guy to add to her god menagerie.

I thought I had talked Mom into making Jesus her one and only spiritual companion. All she heard was the religious equivalent to “You want fries with that?” I had no clue that she never changed religions until I was well into adulthood. As for me, it was my life and it was monotheistic, exclusive, downright necessary. And on this glorious day, I thought I converted my own mother.

So Dad was next. I started by excitedly telling my father the story I heard in school. King Solomon and the mothers who almost let their baby get cut in half. Dad thought Solomon seemed pretty smart, "We need a man like that to clean up the Welfare department. People coming from Mexico and Africa or wherever come to this country and they..." blah blah. I didn’t know what any of that meant, but it seemed like a great sign, so I asked Dad if he wanted to make Jesus his personal Lord and Savior. "Eh...maybe later, hon."

As if I asked him to play catch with me! This was salvation we were dealing with! My Dad just bought a one way ticket to hell. How could I let that go? I lost sleep. I had panic attacks.

To which, Dad said, "Maybe it’s time for public school."

Day One

This is my first blog on my blogsite and I have nothing to say.