Daddy on the Edge of Giving

I'm here today to talk about giving.


And Tim Minchin.

Minchin first.

Tim Minchin wrote a Christmas song.  Well, no - Tim Minchin wrote a song about happenings occurring during the Christmas season, and clinically dissected the actual holiday and it's religious counterparts in his own Minchinesque fashion.  Minchin doesn't speak of Jesus as the miracle baby away in a manger; he does instead refer to him as "a dead Palestinian press-ganged into selling Playstations and beer"...

It's one of my favorite Christmas songs.

Not because it bashes organized religion, but because, once you get past all that, the song reminds us that - dogma and commercialization aside - the holiday season is really about two things -  love and family.

I was gonna start sermonizing here, but I'm stopping myself.  That's not my place (although Daddy is an ordained Minister. Just throwing that out there; y'know, in case anyone reading this wants to be married by a blogger).  Daddy's trying to remember that he too is a flawed human being and that his horse is not, and should not be, any higher than anyone else's.

But I've gotta say; as the holiday season approaches, I'm more than a little depressed and just a little bit pissed at some of the things I see on my screen lately.  We're getting ready to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, who taught us in countless Bible verses and parables to love one another and to help the less fortunate among us.

So, what better way to ring in the holiday than by busting a Priest, a Minister and a Samaritan for feeding the homeless?

But yeah - that's what happened.  The City Commission of Ft. Lauderdale (henceforth known as "The Dickhead Squad"), passed an ordinance in October making it actually very difficult for Mark Sims (the Priest), Dwayne Black (the Pastor) and 90 year old Arnold Abbott (the Samaritan) to feed the homeless without getting arrested.


So they did it anyway.

And they got arrested.

Okay - they weren't actually taken to jail - they were cited and ordered to court.  If they don't show, then they'll be taken to jail.  If they do show, I imagine they'll be fined.  'Cuz you don't want to encourage this whole helping those less fortunate, right?  Gotta shut that right down - after all, this is 2014 Ft. Lauderdale, not 33 AD Jerusalem - got it??

Damn - Who Would Jesus Call a Weenie?

Sitting in church as a kid, this is what I was taught - you help those less fortunate than you, you stand up for injustice, you are your brother's keeper -

You. Do. What's. Right.

These men were feeding hungry people.  What could be more right?  Feeding the hungry - that was in Jesus' Top Ten!  Calling this a crime stuns and saddens me - and saying that feeding someone who is hungry helps "keep them in that cycle of homelessness" (as Ft. Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler said) is horseshit of the highest order.  Of course, the idea behind such thinking is that if you stop feeding them, they'll go away, which is just Pez-head logic.  Here's a crazy idea - maybe, instead of arresting the Samaritans trying to help the hungry, maybe the local government could try to help the hungry as well.  Maybe, instead of passing new laws to make life tougher on people that are already living on the fucking streets, the community can try to think outside the box, and search for solutions to help people up instead of knocking them further down.

Maybe they could stop giving out tickets and start giving a shit about their fellow man.

Damn.  I preached anyway, didn't I?  Yeah, sorry - now meekly climbing off of my high horse (which is only slightly higher because we climbed up on my soap box) and getting back to the original point -

Tim Minchin wrote a Christmas song.  And, if you buy this song from iTunes from November to January, all proceeds will go to The National Autistic Society, which provides support, information and services for people with autism and their families and campaigns for "a better world for people with autism".

So, you can help some people and not get arrested.  And you can hear what is really quite a beautiful song.  Click here to see the many ways you can purchase the tune.  Also, if  you would like to support the work of 90 year old Samaritan Arnold Abbott, you can click on the following link and contribute to Love Thy Neighbor.

And one more thing - I'd like to ask a favor.  In the spirit of the season, I'd love for you to give me your favorite quotes on the subject of giving.  Just googling "quotes on giving" provides tons of resources to some really wonderful quotes - please post your fav in the comments section.  Here's one that I really liked -

“Giving does not only precede receiving; it is the reason for it. It is in giving that we receive.” 
― Israelmore Ayivor

And now, without further ado, I give you Tim Minchin...




 Thank you so much, 

 Daddy

Daddy on the Edge of F*cking Feminism

As a Daddy of two daughters, I've got a thing or two to say about gender inequality - 

Thing One - The only workplace where having a penis should factor into salary negotiations is in a male whorehouse.

Thing Two - See Thing One.

Seriously, there's a ton more that I could say on the subject, and one day I will - but there's a video going around that states it so perfectly that I'm just gonna let it speak for itself.

I do have to prepare you though - this video was produced by FCKH8.com.  Daddy featured a video of theirs in a previous blog post, "Daddy on the Edge of Promoting the Gay Agenda" and I offered the same warning as I do now;


Here's the Daddy on the Edge warning -

If the word Fuck bothers you, then you probably shouldn't watch this Fucking video. There's a Fucking cleaned up version of it, but that, to Daddy, is like low fat Fucking cheesecake - what's the Fucking point? You want to say Fuck in your video? Say Fuck in your video. So here's the Fucking video. I hope you Fucking enjoy it as much as I Fucking did.



 

Fuck yeah, 

Daddy

Daddy on the Edge of The Common Core

Full Disclosure - I wrote most of this post in May, and I didn't publish it...because I thought it might be too crazy.  

Sometimes, even Daddy has an edit button - it's hard to see, and is oft forgotten in favor of the much larger, more used  "What's the Worst That Could Happen???" button, the "Fuck 'em if They Can't Take a Joke!!" button and the "Perhaps I should sober up a bit first...NAH!!!!" button, but it does exist, and sometimes I blow the dust off and ever so gently engage it's function, turning off my own mic, as it were.

So why publish now?  Because apparently, I am not alone in my theory.  Crazy loves company, but then again - so does sanity.  And the difference between sanity and insanity usually comes down to opinion.  so, you tell me - am I crazy?

Oh, and one more thing - WARNING:  This is probably the wordiest, most statistic filled Daddy on the Edge post you will ever see.  Sorry - it couldn't be helped.  There are lots of moving parts to this story, and I felt like the whole thing needed to be put out there. I'll make it up to you in the next post, I promise.  So, now that you have been aptly warned, 


Here we go....

Daddy on the Edge of The Common Core

Who doesn't like a good conspiracy theory?  They make you think.  They make you wonder.  They make you question.  Daddy loves 'em - the door to creativity opens with the key of "What If...?" and that is how every good conspiracy theory begins.

What if Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't the lone gunman? The grand-daddy of them all.  And No.  No, he wasn't.

What if the government is manipulating the weather using HAARP technology? Do we microwave the atmosphere? Hmmmm....

What if Congress is trying to force the Post Office to go broke?  I know - why would they do something like that?  Why?  Because Money, that's why.  Lobbyists from Fed Ex and UPS shelled out a whole bunch of money to Congressional leaders, and as a result, they passed a statute in 2006 that required of the US Post Office the early payment of 75 years of retirement benefits within ten years. I know, right?


Well here's Daddy's very own conspiracy theory - stop me if you've heard this one before...

What if Common Core Curriculum was implemented expressly to cause public school children to fail?

I know - that doesn't make sense.  But it does.  Why?  Because Money, that's why.

Money - really, really big money isn't made overnight.  To make "fat stacks", the smart money is on The Long Game.  When Warren Buffett talks about investments and anticipated future performance, he talks in centuries.  The game I describe isn't quite that long - this game starts to build steam in 2001.

In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act was passed.  The thinking behind NCLB was, I think, in the right place - schools had to do well to receive funding.  If a school didn't do well, steps were taken to improve it.  Consistently poor scores met with increasingly harsher penalties and remedies.  If a school was marked "in need of improvement" for two consecutive years, parents had the option of relocating their child to a private or charter school.  Six straight years of school failure meant possible school closing, conversion to a charter school, hiring a private company to run the school, or asking the state office of education to run the school directly.  So basically, "Teach your children well, or go through hell, and kiss your school good-bye" (apologies to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young).  We know the upshot to this - teachers began "teaching to the test"- training their students to become proficient at exactly what was going to be on the exams, but not a whole lot more.  The other unintended effect was...well, lying.  They didn't call it that, of course - they called it "creative reclassification".  For instance, at Houston's Sharpstown High School, 463 of it's 1,700 students left during the 2001-2002 school year, but not one was reported as a dropout, which makes Houston's dropout rate somewhere between 33 and 50 percent rather than the reported 1.5 percent.

Why do I bring this up?  Charter Schools.  From 1999-2000 to 2010-2011, the number of students enrolled in public charter schools increased from 0.3 million to 1.8 million students.  During this period, the percentage of all public schools that were public charter schools, based on schools that reported enrollment, increased from 2 to 5 percent, comprising 5,300 schools in 2010-2011.  As of September 2013, the number of charter schools in the US has grown to over 6,000, educating 2.3 million children.  They might have gone up more than that, if not for the individual states placing limits or caps on the number of charter schools that were allowed to exist in each state.

But let's rewind a little bit to 2009.  In 2009, Arnie Duncan (a big fan of charter schools when he ran the Chicago Public Schools) released the Obama Administration's "Race to the Top" initiative, handing out $4.4 billion in federal money to the states.  But "handing out $4.4 billion" isn't exactly correct - Race to the Top was not a law or a mandated federal program - it was a contest.  Schools had to do certain things to gain points - gain enough points, and you were eligible for the green.  Here's a quickie Wiki sample of the points system -

State applications for funding were scored on selection criteria worth a total of 500 points. In order of weight, the criteria were:^[1]

• Great Teachers and Leaders (138 total points)
  • Improving teacher and principal effectiveness based on performance (58 points)
  • Ensuring equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals (25 points)
  • Providing high-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals (21 points)
  • Providing effective support to teachers and principals (20 points)
  • Improving the effectiveness of teacher and principal preparation programs (14 points)
• State Success Factors (125 total points)
  • Articulating State's education reform agenda and LEAs' participation in it (65 points)
  • Building strong statewide capacity to implement, scale up, and sustain proposed plans (30 points)
  • Demonstrating significant progress in raising achievement and closing gaps (30 points)
• Standards and Assessments (70 total points)
  • Developing and adopting common standards (from the Common Core State Standards Initiative) (40 points)
  • Supporting the transition to enhanced standards and high-quality assessments (20 points)
  • Developing and implementing common, high-quality assessments (10 points)
• General Selection Criteria (55 total points)
  • Ensuring successful conditions for high-performing charters and other innovative schools (40 points)
  • Making education funding a priority (10 points)
  • Demonstrating other significant reform conditions (5 points)
• Turning Around the Lowest-Achieving Schools (50 total points)
  • Turning around the lowest-achieving schools (40 points)
  • Intervening in the lowest-achieving schools and LEAs (10 points)
• Data Systems to Support Instruction (47 total points)
  • Fully implementing a statewide longitudinal data system (24 points)
  • Using data to improve instruction (18 points)
  • Accessing and using State data (5 points)

In addition to the 485 possible points from the criteria above, the prioritization of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education is worth another fifteen points for a possible total of 500.^[1]

So, as you can see, instituting Common Core Standards got you some points.  Another stipulation not mentioned here was that for a state to be eligible,  they had to lift their caps on the number of charter schools.  So certain states are gonna get massive moolah.  But they're not the only ones.

Fast forward to May, 2012.  President Obama grants eight states, including New York, waivers from the NCLB education mandates, bringing the total of states with waivers in 2012 to nineteen.  Waivers were needed because Congress wouldn't fix the law, and it was pretty clear by now that the 100% mandated success rate just wasn't going to happen.  But there was a catch - again, probably a well meaning one in some respect, but a catch none the less.  In exchange for the NCLB waiver, the states had to promise to implement "common core standards" for students.  Between the waivers and Race to the Top, we were sure gonna need a heckuva lot of new common core textbooks, huh?

Cha-Ching.

It is estimated that national cost for compliance with common core will be between $1 billion to $8 billion and the profits will go almost directly to publishers.  Pearson Education is one of the big winners in this whole thing.

But that's not even where the real money is.  The real money - the truly fat stacks - they come if the scenario I am about to paint becomes fully realized.  What am I talking about?  I am talking about a perceived systematic failure of our entire public school system  - a ranking of "piss poor" due to the fact that our children will have lost the ability to do simple addition and subtraction - not because they are lacking in intelligence, not because teachers are not skilled in educating, but because the Common Core that was introduced was intended not to educate, but to confuse both children and parents alike.  Why?  Oh, come on - say it with me -

'Cuz Money, That's Why.

Here's a glimpse at what's already happening in our society as a result of the already existing charter schools (and remember, the more public schools fail, the more charter schools are "needed") -

Alan Singer,  a social studies educator in the Department of Teaching, Literacy and Leadership at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, and the editor of Social Science Docket (a joint publication of the New York and New Jersey Councils for Social Studies) has taught at a number of secondary schools in New York City, including Franklin K. Lane High School and Edward R. Murrow High School. He is also the author of several books.  This appeared on his Huffington Post blog.

By Alan Singer

"Obscure laws can have a very big impact on social policy, including obscure changes in the United States federal tax code. The 2001 Consolidated Appropriations Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President  Clinton, included provisions from the Community Renewal Tax Relief Act of 2000. The law provided tax incentives for seven years to businesses that locate and hire residents in economically depressed urban and rural areas. The tax credits were reauthorized for 2008-2009, 2010-2011, and 2012-2013.

As a result of this change to the tax code, banks and equity funds that invest in charter schools in underserved areas can take advantage of a very generous tax credit. They are permitted to combine this tax credit with other tax breaks while they also collect interest on any money they lend out. According to one analyst, the credit allows them to double the money they invested in seven years. Another interesting side note is that foreign investors who put a minimum of $500,000 in charter school companies are eligible to purchase immigration visas for themselves and family members under a federal program called EB-5.

The tax credit may also explain why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerbergpartnered with the former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, to promote charter schools; donated a half a million dollars worth of stock to organizations that distribute charter school funding; and opened his own foundation, Startup: Education, to build new charter schools.

The real estate industry, which already receives huge tax breaks as it gentrifies communities, also stands to benefit by promoting charter schools and helping them buy up property, or rent, in inner city communities. One real estate company, Eminent Properties Trust, boasts on its website:

"Our investment portfolio of nearly $3 billion includes megaplex movie theatres and adjacent retail, public charter schools, and other destination recreational and specialty investments.  This portfolio includes over 160 locations spread across 34 states with over 200 tenants."

The Charter management group Charter Schools USA recommends that rental costs should not exceed 20 percent of a school’s budget. However theMiami Herald reported that in 2011, 19 charter schools in Miami-Dade and Broward exceeded this figure and one in Miami Gardens paid 43 percent. The Herald called south Florida charter schools a “$400-million-a-year powerhouse backed by real-estate developers and promoted by politicians, but with little oversight.” Its report found charters paying exorbitant fees to management companies and that many of the highest rents were paid to landlords with ties to the management companies running the schools.

According to The New York Times, the 10 highest-paid hedge fund operators with close ties to charter schools also includes David Tepper (No. 1 at $3.5 billion in 2013), founder of founder of Appaloosa Management and New Jersey based “Better Education for Kids”; Steven A. Cohen (No. 2 at $2.4 billion) of SAC Capital Advisors, which was forced to pay a $1.2 billion dollar penalty for insider trading, who has given over $10 million to the Achievement First charter school network; and Paul Tudor Jones II(tied for tenth at $600 million), founder of the Tudor Investment Corporation who has supported charter schools through his Robin Hood Foundation."

That last mention kills me - dude calls his scam, "The Robin Hood Foundation".  Is it still robbing from the rich and giving to the poor if the rich first stole from the poor, only to profit from their altruism when they return a bit of their ill-gotten gains?  You can't conspire to destroy public education in the United States for another few zeros at the end of your bank balance and call yourself Robin Hood, dude.  Honestly, I don't know how you do that and call yourself a person.

In the name of Capitalism, we have gone to war where we didn't belong, we have watched banks ruin the economy and be rewarded for it in bailouts, we have mortally wounded our planet.  In the name of Capitalism, we have vilified the poor and needy, malnourished the least and the youngest of us, we have practically forced many of our number into lives of crime, so that they might be locked away...in for-profit prisons.

In the name of Capitalism have all these things been done, and now they have come for education.  Common core is not a solution - it was never intended to be a solution.  It is a virus, poisoning the Public School system until there is no alternative but to quarantine and kill it.

Does the US education system need re-vamping?  Yes, of course it does.  In the most recent analysis, the US ranks 36th in the world in education.  And before anyone spews all that crap about Asian countries working their kids to death to be number 1, let me just say that countries like Canada are also kicking our asses.  Canada.  Let that sink in for a minute.

So yeah - there need to be real, dynamic paradigm shifts in our educational process, but in a positive direction.  Common Core was never the answer to our education problem.  It was the answer to a profit and loss statement - and it's time that Wall Street's profits stopped coming from our children's losses.

I was gonna wrap this up with the 1984 music video, "What People Do For Money" by Divine Sounds, because it's "old school"  (see the hook?) and, well...'cuz money, that's why.

But in my YouTube voyaging, I encountered a paradigm shift of my own when I came across the spoken word of one Suli Breaks.  Check it -




So what do you think?  Do you think I'm crazy?

Daddy

Daddy on the Edge of Fashion

You've seen this one before, but watch it again...

How much awesomeness is that, huh?  I think this speech should be required viewing by all Liberals - we need to watch this once a month just to remind ourselves that we are not any of the ridiculous, hateful things that the Right Wing paint us as being. That we are so much better than how they see us.  We need constant reminders that we should not be ashamed, but rather proud of the fact that we are Liberals.

And that's why I made a t-shirt.

Is creating a t-shirt a huge political publicity stunt?  Nope.  An earth shattering outcry against the Right Wing?  No, Sir.  Will this action forever alter the political landscape and, consequently, life as we know it in this country????

Hardly.

It's just a t-shirt.  It's got some names on it - names of other liberals.  Liberals who have changed the world for the better.  The Right Wing mercilessly tears at the word Liberal - it's a sneer and a punchline when they say it - but Galileo was a liberal.  Ghandi was a liberal.  John Lennon and Einstein and yes - despite the Tea Party rhetoric - Jesus Christ was a liberal.

Here's a picture of the shirt - what I hope will be the first of the Daddy on the Edge line of clothing for fashion forward forward thinkers.

If you click the pic, it will take you to the link http://teespring.com/LiberalT where you can purchase the shirt.  This is a limited run - it's a test balloon, so we've set our goal at selling 25 shirts.  There's also a limited time that you can purchase - we began a 25 day campaign last night, so we have 24 days to sell 25 shirts.  Teespring, the company we're using, requires that you meet your sales goal before they print any shirts.  If you don't meet the goal, anyone who's ordered the shirt will receive a refund.

I like the shirt.  It's a conversation starter, it's a history lesson - it's a way of saying, pretty boldly, that the wearer refuses to buy into the hype and be ashamed of  what we are - what all of these people are; 

People that have tried to make this world a much better place, not just for a select few, but for all of us.

I'd like for us to meet our sales goal, but more importantly, I'd like to spread this message. The Right Wing has been pounding their messages pretty hard over the last few years - I think it's time we stood up and reminded them of who we are, echoing the voices of those that came before us.  

If you believe in the spirit of this shirt, I hope you'll purchase it.  I'll leave you with the words of John F. Kennedy - 

"What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the word “Liberal”?  If by liberal, they mean - as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government and who is unconcerned with the tax payers dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrates that we are not that kind of liberal.  But if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead, and not behind; someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions; someone who cares about the welfare of the people – their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties; someone who believes that we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad – if that is what they mean by a liberal, then I’m proud to say that I’m a Liberal."

Stand Proud, 

Daddy

Daddy on the Edge of Using Your Words

Watch:



Everlast - "What It's Like".  Pretty moving song. Of course, this is the first time I've actually heard it all the way through without half of the words squelched out (squelching is my word for what we used to call bleeping, or censoring - they mask the lyric with a rap record "scratching" sound).  Some of the words they squelch are predictable - "fuckin'" and "shit" are still pretty de riguer in radio land.  They censor the word "balls" (as in testicles), but I think that's only because the lyric refers to cutting them off.  The word "whore" is censored from this song on many radio stations, but to my knowledge, has not been removed from any printings of The Holy Bible. Come to think of it, the Bible also mentions eunuchs a couple of times, which are guys that operate sans balls.  There's even talk that marijuana (or "green") is mentioned in the Old and New Testaments - (you can click over to here to read about that.)  Pretty funny that American radio's standards of decency are more stringent than...well...God's.  But then, America and God haven't always been in perfect harmony on everything - America gets their panties all up in a wad because someone says "shit", but they let a lot of things slide - often going out of their way to broadcast and re-broadcast them in a 24 hour news cycle - yet I'm pretty sure that God would never approve of backwoods, hee-haw, hatespeak shit like this:

"God hates fags."           "Thank God for dead soldiers."
               "Italy is a nation of mobster-breeding perverts."

            "It's a sin to pray for America."

 "A  fag is a Jew, pretty much."           "Santa is a fag."

"This is the hypocritical, fag-infested, fag-run United States of America and we're supposed to respect that fag rag flag?"

"If you would STOP worshiping false gods, 
being a fag would not be a complex matter."

I don't even pretend to understand that last one.  But yeah...in case you haven't guessed by now, Daddy's

talkin' about the Douchebag du jour, The Reverend Fred Phelps.  He's said far worse than this, but even Daddy's got standards, and frankly, the only reason that I'm even talking about this whack-a-mole is because I'm growing exceedingly pissed off with America's double standard when it comes to what can and cannot be said in our country, and Freddy is a real popular poster boy right now.

In Fred's world, God hates me.  God hates you, too.  According to Fred, God hates pretty much everyone who isn't Fred or Fred's family.  But do you wanna hear something funny?  The Westboro Baptist Church, which Fred Phelps founded and which is made up mostly of Phelps' extended family...excommunicated him.

Yeah...they kicked his ass out last summer.  You may think that God hates us Fred, but we've got some pretty strong evidence that your family, your church - hell, pretty much your entire world - isn't too crazy about you, either. 

That's not to say that you haven't done some good in this world, Reverend.  Your vile, disrespectful behavior toward your fellow men has inspired a Federal law and laws in numerous states limiting picketing at funerals.  Granted, I don't think we ever needed such laws before you came along, but I imagine they're good to have now that you've made picketing the dead so hip.  On the other hand, the Supreme Court did rule that your church and it's members couldn't be sued for monetary damages for inflicting pain on grieving families under the first amendment.

Dude can't sing about ganja but a hate group can purposely make grieving families suffer even more than they already were, ridiculing their fallen family members as a part of some macabre, hillbilly circus - without fear of litigation. What a frigging First Amendment triumph.

It seems like the role of censorship is to shield the innocents (read children) from things that may be harmful to them.  Well, it may make me a bad parent, but Daddy's kids have heard some four letter words in this house. They will also learn about drugs - what they are and what they can do - because knowledge is power.  Hearing these words, knowing about these things isn't harmful.  Hate speak is harmful.  Fanning the flames of hate is harmful.  Hate has done more evil, has destroyed more lives than the word Fuck or Shit or any other "profanity" ever possibly could.  And, in this case, Phelps and his flock have named The Creator as an accomplice to their Hate.  You wanna talk about using God's name in vain?  Censor That.

We're hearing now that the Reverend may not be long for this world, and Daddy's been trying to put himself in a right way about that.  If Fred Phelps has taught me anything, he has taught me that it is not right to express joy at a death.  I am not happy that this man is dying. I also hope that no one decides to picket his funeral - poetic justice aside, it is (as we know all too well) a disrespectful act, but more importantly - it would only serve to give this man the attention that he has so desperately craved throughout his existence on this planet.  Denying him that is the true Justice.  Let us leave him alone - completely, totally, utterly alone - and pray that, when he does leave this plane, that some of the hate that he has fostered over the years leaves with him.  We have had quite enough of it.

As I mentioned at the start of this piece, the Everlast song is highly squelched, because the lead singer cursed and talked about drugs.  And yet, there's a song that came decades before - a song who's poetic turn of a phrase managed to rarely get censored, despite the fact that it talks about transsexuality, drugs, male prostitution and oral sex.  I can think of no better farewell  to Reverend Fred Phelps than to dedicate this other First Amendment triumph to him. 

Freddy baby, this one's for you...



God doesn't hate gay people.  God doesn't hate soldiers, or Italians, or Jews; God doesn't hate the liberal media or the conservative media or America or Santa.  God Loves Us All.  Even you, Fred Phelps.  Even You.

God Bless, 

Daddy

Daddy on the Edge of The Fence

A friend of mine asked me not too long ago how I choose the subjects that I write about here.  I was quick to say, "I write about things that piss me off", which is pretty much true.  But then I thought about all the things that aggravate Daddy on a daily basis, and realized that if being pissed were the only litmus test, then I would never stop writing in this place.  Turns out there are two criteria; subjects have to piss me off, and I still have to be pissed about them weeks later.  If they're still bugging me, I'll write about them.  Sometimes Daddy has a hard time letting go, but I'm in good company - watch:




Now, let me just say right here that I have no desire to force anyone to eat their own face meat whilst family looks on - that is not my intent.  But I do have to cry fowl on occasion when I hear or read something that paints me or mine in a negative light.

"Me and mine", in this case, refers to Men.

I was reading an article by a friend of mine - the subject was sex.  My friend likes to talk about sex.  A lot. I haven't quite figured out if it's because she has an over-active libido or if because talking about sex gets more clicks on your articles, but I try not to think about it at all.  In the past, every time I have mentioned that she looked good in a picture, she has said "awwww" and told me to give my wife and kids a big hug (a subtle reminder that I'm married and shouldn't be noticing that she is attractive, even if it's meant in the most platonic sense).  So, I don't tell her she looks good anymore.  Goofy I know, but it's just not worth the grief of always feeling like I'm some kind of lech when I know I'm not.  And I already hug my wife and kids plenty, thanks.  

So, if I'm not even looking at pictures of a person with their clothes on, the last thing I want to do is read about them describing sexual acts.  But there it was - the article was about sex - mind blowing, "f*ck your brains out"  sex, but quickly denigrated into the mind aching, time honored tradition of reinforcing the archaic differences between Men and Women.  Men were described as emotionless.  Lacking intuition.  Solid and Unchanging.  Possessing No Desire.  Oh, and we're good at Penetrating.  Penetrating seems to be our best thing.

At best, based on this description, Man is this:

But we can't all be Khal Drogo from "Game of Thrones", so on average, we'd be more like this...

But really, when you boil the text down to it's simplest form and look at the adjectives -  Solid, emotionless, unchanging, devoid of desire, used for penetrating, then it becomes clear that this is what we are really seen as...

Now originally I thought that's what had upset me - I was having an emotional response to the importance of my gender being minimized to it's basest, most...dildo-ish form - but then I remembered that men don't experience emotion, so I looked deeper.

And that's when I realized the trap that I had fallen into.  Us vs.Them.  Male vs.Female.  Black vs.White. Zero vs. One...

The Binary.

Binary technically means "composed of two parts", so it's basically the understanding that there is only one or the other - in this case Men or Women.  The Binary is a dynamite sales and marketing tool - as is stated in the article I reference, John Gray made multi millions of dollars in personal wealth with his "Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus" series of books.  Did it do much for people that didn't relate to being from Mars or Venus, other than making it more obvious that they didn't fit into that "norm"?  Maybe not, but who cares, right?? - it spent 121 weeks on the best seller list!  Yup...more clicks for the same old schtick.

Trouble is, the schtick isn't real.  

Do you have any idea exactly how many people feel like they don't fit into the standard Male/Female role? How many gay, lesbian, bisexual, panssexual, transgender, transsexual, intersex, hermaphrodite, asexual, eunich, androgyne, bigender, genderqueer and questioning people there are in the world? If you said yes, then you're lying.  The truth is that, while there are millions of people that come out and live their lives as who they truly feel they are, there are vast multitudes of people who know that they're "different", yet are afraid to admit it - they find the idea of being their true selves terrifying.  Why?  Because so much of our world hates them (and not like you hate the Red Sox kind of hate - like slit their throat and leave their body in a ditch kind of hate).  Why?  Because they're "not normal".  Why do we think they're not normal?  See "The Binary".

"Hetero-normative", "gender conformist", "heterocentric" - different words with a similar message - that the heterosexual lifestyle is the one fully accepted, practiced, "normal" way to be.  Unfortunately, the flip side of that acceptance and embracing of heterosexuality...is homophobia.  Why?  Us or Them, baby.  Black or White.  The Binary.

And it doesn't have to be the outside world hating on them - a lifetime of the world telling a kid that what they are is wrong - yeah, that shit can turn inward - can turn into self loathing; a vicious, violent denial of who and what a person is - a painful internal battle that they have to fight and hopefully win before they even have a prayer of taking on the rest of the world.  It takes an awesomely brave, incredibly strong individual to come out as anything that deviates from the  "norm" - in large part because of the subtle, constant reinforcement of the binary, and that anything not "this" or "that" must be "wrong".

Constant, relentless repetition that outdated gender stereotypes have any place in any kind of enlightened discussion may be good for some page clicks, but it has real, life and death implications for those outside the binary - for those people not so specifically, entirely, absolutely Male or Female.  Words are a powerful flame - they can light the way, or they can scorch the earth.  The choice is yours.

I thought I was pissed about being called a dick.  Turns out it was something bigger than that.  I had originally titled this piece "Daddy on the Edge of Tired Ass, Supermarket Checkout Aisle Rationalizations, Generalizations and the Compulsive Need for Clicks, Licks and The Same Old Schtick (ADULT)".  Instead, I'm going to call it, "Daddy on the Edge of The Fence".  Why?  Watch the vid.

Opened with Minchin...closing with Minchin.  Tell the folks what I've been trying to say, Timmy...

It's not that simple.

Daddy

Daddy on the Edge of a Happy Birthday

Go Daddy!  It's your birthday!

We gonna party like it's your birthday!
We gonna drink Bacardi like it's your birthday!

Feh.  Daddy don't like Bacardi (however, Daddy is a fan of fine tequila, so if my name comes up on your Secret Santa list...).  The lyrics above are from a 50 Cent song called "In Da Club" - the song has absolutely nothing to do with birthdays, despite the misleading opening - but it is my birthday, and it's a fun little open, and it's about as close as an old white guy like Daddy gets to singing rap, so there it is.

Number one question on your birthday?  "How do you still look sooo incredibly sexy at your age?"  Oops; my bad - that's the number one question I wish I would hear on my birthday (as opposed to the oft heard, "You're how old?  Damn, I really thought you were older.").  No, the number one question is "What do you want for your birthday?"  And it never ceases to frustrate my wife, because there is quite honestly very little that I want, at least in terms of material possessions.  I used to want things - lots of things - and I bought a lot of them, often using credit cards and ringing up my average share of the average American debt.  So, what do I want now?

I want money to be no object.

What do I desire? It's different than "what do I want?".  Desire burns, it comes from deep inside and it is rarely fully quenched.  Want is fleeting, and usually does not stand the test of time.  Right now, go into your closet and take a long hard look at those things that you haven't worn since the Clinton Administration.  There was a time when you wanted every one of those things - the fuscia Le Tigre dinner jacket, the dayglow leotards which you wore with the Flashdance legwarmers.  We had to have that stuff (and yes, during Daddy's performing arts career, even I wore legwarmers) so we bought it.  We bought it all, and if we couldn't pay for it, we put it on credit.  And God almighty, would you look what's happened since - 

From nerd wallet finance - 

American Household Credit Card Debt Statistics: 2013

by TIM

The average US household credit card debt stands at $15,112, the result of a small number of deeply indebted households forcing up the numbers. Based on an analysis of Federal Reserve statistics and other government data, the average household owes  $7,050 on their cards; looking only at indebted households, the average outstanding balance rises to $15,112. Here are statistics, trends, studies and methodology behind the average U.S. household debt.

Current as of November 2013

U.S. household consumer debt profile:

• Average credit card debt: $15,112
• Average mortgage debt: $146,215
• Average student loan debt: $31,240

In total, American consumers owe:

• $11.08 trillion in debt
  • A decrease of 3.2% from last year
• $846.9 billion in credit card debt
• $7.75 trillion in mortgages
• $1,002.0 billion in student loans
• An increase of 10.9% from last year

Did'ja get that?  In 2013, American consumers owe $11.08 trillion dollars in debt!  That's a lot of leg warmers.  And it's not just the price of the leg warmers; it's the interest.  The national average interest on credit cards is currently 14.95 percent.  Our interest payments alone could buy a small country.  And of course, these are just averages.  Many of us, in terms of the amount of debt we've been able to amass and the interest that we pay, are quite above average.  Some of us are just frigging exceptional.  There are many reasons for debt.  Medical issues, school loans, divorce, death - a myriad of perfectly valid, sometimes heart wrenching reasons to have gotten into the hole...

and they don't mean squat.  

That's not meant to be insensitive; it is only meant to say that what's past is past, and there is no reason (aside from a legally binding contractual agreement that we and our credit card companies entered into) that we should keep spending our present and future days financing the past.  We are spending too many of our tomorrows on our yesterdays.  And society has been built up around it.

Debt has become a way of life; both for those that pay for it, and those that charge for it.  What would the world economy look like if all that debt were to suddenly disappear?  Can you imagine what kind of world it would be if people could no longer profit from debt?  Can you imagine what life would be like if we didn't embody the bumper sticker sentiment, "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go!"?

Can you imagine what would happen...if we all just stopped making the payments?

Well, that's what I'm suggesting.  Not defaulting - not unless you absolutely, positively have to.  But instead, by working as hard as we possibly can - harder than we work at our regular jobs, harder than we work on winning a Facebook debate, harder than we work to get to the next level of Candy Crush - to pay off every single bloodsucking, life altering, time wasting, dream killing debt that we have (and we have 11.08 trillion of them - that's a lot of dreams being killed.)

Alan Watts asks in the video above, "What would you do if money were no object?"  The way some of us live with our debt, that's like asking a burning man, "What would you do if you weren't on fire?"  We can't think about that; we can't think about anything at all - except the fire and the fact that we are being burned alive.  And yet, we continue to feed the very fire that destroys us.

It's time to stop the fire.  Proverbs 22:7 says, "Just as the rich rule the poor, so the borrower is servant to the lender".  As far as the Bible is concerned, we are slaves to our credit cards, to our mortgage companies, to our leasing companies - time to stop that, too.

In the United States, we talk a lot about "Freedom".  No, that's not right - the word "Freedom" is said often, usually by politicians telling you that other politicians are trying to take it away (your freedom, that is - to practice your religion, to carry a weapon, to say "Merry Christmas" - whatever "Freedom du jour" will best serve the purpose for the point being made), but if we think about it, we can hardly call ourselves free if we are carrying the weighted chains of debt.  We're just deluded slaves.

I don't want to be a slave anymore.  I desire to be free.  I'd like to walk in the sun and ask myself what I would do if money were no object, and know that I have the luxury of time to think about it, and to come to a real and fulfilling answer, because money will be no object.  That's what I desire -  for me, and for you, and for every one in the whole frigging world.

I want us all to be truly "Free".  That's all I want for my birthday.

That, and the tequila...

You could get me the tequila if you really wanted to...

But pay cash.

Daddy