Liberals, Bigots and Hate in General.

Fort Myers Beach looks like this most every night in the summertime. This photo is from last night. 

The Gulf is five miles from where I live. I head out around 7:30 p.m. and park for free under the bridge. I walk up to Times Square, remove the flip flops and sink into the warm sand with the joy of a 12-year-old.

If I turn right, it's a 30 minute walk to Bowditch Park, the north end of Estero Island. I can see Bunche Beach from that vantage - it's near my condo. One day I'll kayak across from Bunche, but not alone.

I'm doing this walk almost every night lately, it's combination exercise program and walking meditation. Who couldn't use a little more peace, a little more calm?

Thursday night there were dolphins. Last night the colors were incredible. The sun will set and THEN the colors EXPLODE from every direction. Pinks and purples - last night the bridge to Sanibel looked like it was on fire.

The surf was warm as bathwater.

It was a Friday. It's party night. The beach is alive - they say we're getting the tourism New Orleans lost to the oil spill. Good for us, bad for them.

I decided to walk past SOB's - the Steaming Oyster Brewery. It's a local favorite. The breeze roars through three open sides like nobody's business and the live entertainment is usually excellent. One guy, one guitar, one appreciative audience.

I spotted one of the few people in this area who's always a pleasure to hang out with and before I knew it there was a cold Coors Light on the bar and an empty stool with my name on it. Forget that I was hot, sweaty and sandy - everyone else was too. Well, hot and sweaty anyway.

My good friend was sitting to my left with his new girlfriend. On my right was an old drunk cracker with bright blue bloodshot eyes and long blonde oily hair.

A cracker is a Florida native. I believe the term came from whip cracking because many of the original Floridians had ranches with cattle. (See "The Land Remembered" - an excellent history of this area. I live near Punta Rassa, where cattle were herded for shipment to Cuba.)
Understand also, that being a cracker does not automatically mean you're a bigot. I know some awesome crackers.

When you live down here you don't necessarily want to know where people stand politically. 
You just want to like everybody. They're usually easy to like.

So the cracker leans forward over my right hooter to talk to my friend. He buys my friend and his girlfriend a beer. My friend asks him how he's doing and the old guy starts talking about how much life sucks.

"My father would roll over in his grave if he knew there was a nigger in the white house."

Gasp.

What is this 1950s Macon Georgia??? Where are the white fountains?

I didn't say anything. I don't know what to say any more. If I see bigotry online on FB or something, I'll say something; but not when I'm out alone, in a place where I could get my tires knifed.

I ignored it.

Then he sez. "Yeah man, FUCK those assholes who voted for the nigger."
I quietly raised my right hand as I lowered my head to sip my my beer.

And as drunk as he was, he totally changed his tune. He apologized and was sweet as pie.


It's hard to know when to shut up and when to step up.
A few weeks ago I defused a situation on FB. I stopped a conservative friend in her tracks by saying "Love you, hate Palin. That's just how it is." She was so flattered by the "love you" that she just laughed it off.


I try not to talk about who I hate any more because there's too much of it. I've decided to stop hating Palin. I'll diminish my opinion to "that phony bitch who creeps me out." I'll reserve real hate for people who harm animals and kids and old people and the environment.

But then there are a few people on FB who will not leave me alone. As if putting "liberal" on your profile is some invitation to bang sticks on your cage. Or maybe it's just the challenge they like. Maybe I look soft and indecisive.

A week ago I "shared" the president's birthday on FB and a "friend" posted "your president doesn't even have an American birth certificate." I wrote back "Believe what you want." 

Another guy convinced me to friend him. I don't know him. Facebook thought we had mutual friends or something. Turns out he's a smart guy, a good photographer, a solid writer. A cracker, a Vietnam vet.

He said he was a redneck and I told him I didn't think we'd get along. He persuaded me to try. He said "we probably have more in common than you think."

It's that curse everyone from Michigan seems to have: POLITE.

That's what being so close to Canada'll get ya.

In five days he has worked his way up the political-emotional chain of what I can handle one aggravating link at a time. Each email gets more and more upsetting.

People like him almost make me wish there would be another civil war so they could just blow each other to bits. Running out of stuff to say - and being steadfastly polite in replying at ALL - I wrote back suggesting that violence may have more to do with gender than race. It's MEN of ALL races who enjoy violence.

Today I woke up to five paragraphs on why blacks are naturally inferior.

I wrote back "stop".

He wrote back "You liberals CAUSE our problems with niggers by ..."

I wrote back "FUCK OFF."

And I unfriended him. It feels icky to unfriend someone at first, but then it feels pretty damned good.

There are a few more people like him lying in the weeds. I'm tired of waiting for the next attack.

And I'm tired of liberal friends who keep trying to drag me back into the fray. 

Fried Squirrel, Taters & Haters

I think I'd only been here a few months when this gray squirrel decided to use my ornamental hanging for a pinata. The glare gives you some sense for the incredible heat we get and you can also get a sense for where I live, a small complex of townhouse condos on stilts. Which is cool.

Well, I didn't think so at first - not until my first summer of hurricane warnings. Then I was happy for 'em. Storm surge? Bring it on.

We've had heavy rains. As I write this, a Muscogee Duck and her babies are hanging out in a pool of water under my living area.

It has been so hot this week that - at 8 p.m. at night mind you - the short walk up six steps from my air conditioned car to my front door steamed my lenses to the point I couldn't see to put my key in the lock.

Yeah, my sentences are going to run on endlessly in this blog, I don't have the time to cut and polish like I'd like to.

My talking about the weather can only mean one thing; most of the interesting stuff has been happening to my friends - the Connies to be specific. Canadian Connie and Goose Connie. Well, Canadian Connie - RN? - packed up and moved to Washington for a great job. She called a few days ago to see if I knew how to milk a prostate. I thought all RNs learned that in school. Apparently I was mistaken. (Don't worry Canadian Connie, hardly anyone you know reads this.)

Goose Connie was originally an award-winning landscape architect in Chicago before she got sick and lost everything and wound up moving to Missouri to take care of her dying mom.

There she was on all those acres and damned if she didn't use the time to be constructive; she has turned it into a goose farm. Did all the research, from what types of geese she should have to what she should feed them and what type of dogs should herd/protect them. She did most of the physical labor, gets her chicks in the spring, feeds and cares for them all summer and ... well, we won't talk about fall. She always bonds to a few. I wouldn't be able to do what she has to do. She says many farmers "drink heavily at that time of the year."

But gourmet restaurants are beginning to request her geese and I have faith she'll do fine. People who can build a self-sufficient business from an idea and God's rolling acres blow me away.

Connie is juggling her second season of farming (in a farming community that still isn't none too sure about the strong-willed, opinionated city chick), her geese, her beloved pack of herding dogs (including a blind dog she adopted, who she says has taught her more about love than any other living creature) ... her mother's healthcare issues, hospice visits and the crushing burden of responsibility for that place and all those souls.

At forty something, her own health isn't the greatest either. She hides canes in nooks and crannies for those times she can no longer walk without assistance.

One day an acquaintance (Connie's like me - she has many acquaintances but very few real friends) asked her flat out "what will you do when your mom dies." That sent her tumbling into an emotional abyss.

When you're doing the right thing, the universe sends you what you need. Well, the universe sent Connie a big strapping fireman who gives a shit about her and her mother. On one of his first visits, he brought them home-made lasagna. When her mom said her favorite wild meal was squirrel, he came back with his gun and shot her some.

Imagine Connie's discomfort at having squirrels in the freezer. I asked if the bushy tails popped out when she reached in for cubes for evening cocktails and she said no, they were perfectly cleaned.

They fried 'em all up for her mom last Wednesday, complete with mashed potatoes with squirrel gravy and home-made pineapple upside down cake.

The biggest problem was what do you serve WITH squirrel - white wine or red? Turns out beer works best.

She posted lovely photos of this truly luscious looking spread on a totally country red and white checkered tablecloth - on Facebook. A few of her friends commented "yes, squirrel DOES taste like chicken. "

...

When I started typing today's blog I wasn't sure I knew how to spell pinata. I don't have the symbol for it and - being a Virgo - I needed to get it right. Stores around here have the real deal, but my old Oxford dictionary (1980) doesn't even have the word.

I'm still cooking from my 1968 Betty Crocker cookbook I received as a gift for my first wedding. (Yeah, laugh - bite me.) Old cookbooks are great, but old dictionaries ... you can see the evolution of social change with the addition of words from various ethnicities.

This awkward culture shift makes it difficult for people like me & Goose Connie; we're both outspoken liberal females in redneck conservative areas. She's actually related to Obama on his mom's side.

We share the despair. We talk about the hatred and bigotry. We both know of people who belong to (mostly Baptist) churches that advocate ... I can't even say the word. Well, it starts with "ass" and anyone who uses the word is one.

For about a week there we dumped our pain and sorrow out in emails and IMs. Most of it came out of discussions about healthcare. A few people implied (to Connie) that it might be better if her mother would just hurry up and die. (I posted her response below. If you are offended by rage and profanity, don't read it. If you want to see what life is like for someone caring for a dying parent in this country right now, DO read it.)

Some old cracker told me he didn't want some commie health plan where he couldn't choose his doctors. And I told him I'd be happy to be able to be able to see any doctor at all.

Connie and I have decided that if we weren't where we are, the only opinions most people would hear would be voices of hate. She told me of a brave 70 year old nun who stood up in a room full of haters and told her truth.

What an inspiration. So we're going to stick it out. I think we all need to. We don't want to get sucked into the cycle of hate, but we do need to speak the truth.

If the haters spoke the truth, maybe they wouldn't need to yell.

My neighbor reminded me when the snowbirds come back, we'll feel less alone in Bigotville.

CONNIE'S POST FROM FACEBOOK - MAJOR PROFANITY ALERT

To all the assholes who think its ok that my mom dies~ ie against health care reform

Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 12:25am

Well let's see, it's 10:30 at night and I have read yet another "assholian" comment about health care reform from one of my "friends". yeah- she's going to get unfriended too. Im at one a week now.... How can your sarcastic and mean and hatefilled comments be your argument againsthealth care REFORM.

Do you realize that you are against REFORM? Do you know what REFORM is? Please go look up that word so you understand what you are against. And be ashamed.

My Mom Patty is a fact of life.Age 85. Diagnosed with lung cancer and Alzheimers, Dementia, COPD, high blood pressure, blood clots, osteo arthritis, macular degeneration. Her out of pocket expsenses ....( Oh dont get all fucking GLASSY EYED NOW...WAKE THE HELL UP!) ...are over $1,400.00 per month for prescriptions. That's after Medicare and supplimental health insurance.

It goes to about $2,000.00 a month when she hits "the Doughnut Hole". (Oh shut up and go look that up too, you stupid fuckers)

Her Social Security check is $1,100.00 per month. Now, as smart as all you assholes think you are, you do the fucking math. And you come up with a health care solution for my mother that doesnt end with "ah...hmmm. well, just let her die". You fuckers.

How about all you people (Christians my ass.... Christ would be appalled by you and the sad thing is that you know that in your hearts and ignore it) who dont want health care reform walk a mile in my shoes.... or better yet, walk 2 or 3 or (God willing) 4 years in my shoes as I care for my mom. I stay here, at our farm in order to care for my mom.

Even if we (the family) believed in nursing homes as a place to park our elderly til they die, it is less expensive to have me here. I am one of the three statistics of what you fuckernut, right wing Christian lunatics think is good health care.

Statistic #1. The sister who thankfully married well and who's husband deposits $1,200.00 per month into a shared bank account with me so I can pay for food and gas. He also pays for her supplimental insurance. My sister comes down four times a year ( she has two kids of her own to care for on top of a mother and caregiver sister) in order to buy me luxuries like gluten free foods because I have a compromised immune system (which isnt covered by my insurance btw) and new glasses so I can read.

After food and gas and bills, there is nothing left over of the $1,200.00 they can allot me, as the caregiver. There is a negative amount that my brother picks up then.

Statistic #2. The brother, a self made man of some wealth. Who is able to pay for emergencies like my truck breaking down, the electric bills of 500.00 per month, the feed for the animals, my mom's emergency dental surgeries (once you hit her age, and I SO hope you do, you will find out that tooth roots no longer are alive. You die from the inside out).

All while paying for his two daughters educations and helping them thru life as well.

3. ME! You mother fuckers........ and isnt that a great term to use for this tirade about you-who think it is OK for my mom to just die? Im some sort of bizarre ultimate Christian/Buddhist/Animist who actually believes that it is my responsibility to be there as my mom dies. No matter how long it takes and no matter how horrible and ugly it is to witness.

Death by old age smells bad.... it looks bad.... it hurts me to witness it in ways that I hope you never have to experience yourself. And remember, I hate you... and STILL dont want you to go thru this. I have no problem hating you. At all. I hate you until I have other more important things to do, like love my Mom and love my friends and family for every kindness and every ounce of humanity they show me.

I am here to walk with my mom to Death's door and hold her hand and let her know that she is not alone in her journey. No one wnats to die alone. We all want someone to be there with us at the end.

Who will be there for you? Who will hold on to your hand as you die? (not me!...bwahahaha!!)

So my question to you is: Why is MY mother expendable in your eyes? I just want to know that. THAT'S ALL.

Why is it OK that my Mom has to lose everything she ever worked for in her life (the farm) and that my siblings and I have to be bled dry of all financial and emptional security in order to give her a dignified ending to her life? What the fuck is wrong with your hearts and brains?!

Yeah- thats the question:"WHAT DISEASED YOUR HEARTS, SOULS AND MINDS SO BADLY??!"

I go to sleep at night, hoping that I see my mom in the morning again. I tell her, "I love you, good night, I'll see you tomorrow". And I will stay here until the fight is over.This is about just one little stupid person's life being impacted by our country not having a health care plan for it's citizens.

One small scream fest of "fuck you!" to those who just dont care and cant see past their selfish selves.

Shame on you.

HATE BASED CHRISTIAN GROUPS

How ironic, there is a typo in this cartoon. Well, I'm too tired and cranky to replace it with one that doesn't.

It has been a great 32 hours, I was looking forward to coming in here and having some fun. Then I checked my emails.

There were two racist jokes (from an unhappy McCain suporter) and one right wing rant about some Muslim stamp.

I told the McCain supporter he's just going to have to try to make under a quarter million next year. In his case I ignored the jokes, he was trying to bait me and I chose not to bite.

As for the Muslim rant ... that was just too much. I "replied all" and said PLEASE take me off these hate based Christian emails; Jesus didn't attack people who weren't like him. What gives you the right?" (I know my Bible! Don't they?)

The ignorance in this country is MIND BOGGLING. To say all Muslims are bad is the same as saying all Christians are bad. There are zealots in both groups.

Zealots come from factions that break into cults. I know, I was in one. I was raised Jehovah's Witness from the tender age of TWO. I can remember being too little to reach doorbells, so I had to knock. Yes, I went door to door. No holidays, no birthdays, no standing to salute the flag, no standing for the national anthem, no "worldly" (non-JW) friends.

It's hard enough being a kid, imagine being raised to be like that. When you're a kid you don't have a choice.

When you grow towards adulthood you start noticing things. Like they said "the true religion doesn't contradict itself." They said Armageddon was coming but "no man knows the day or the hour". Then they said it would come by 1975 and all who were not Witnesses would be destroyed.

Note to self ... this all contradicts.

As a teenager, dating was discouraged. Girls were encouraged to hook up with honorable JW guys. I was only 15 when I met mine. His father and grandfather were elders. We were married three years later, both virgins on our wedding night.

When I got pregnant his family was upset because "the end was coming". Their exact words were, "Well, suppose there's nothing you can do about it, is there?" (Note subtle reference to abortion??)

I was terrified to be pregnant because blood transfusions were against our religion."The life is in the blood" they said. (Well, then, what good is the blood without the life??)

I knew one woman who bled out and died during delivery. I knew JW mothers who were willing to let their children die.

I knew one personally - her son was burned severely in a fire and she was ready to let him go. This is so weird, I can picture her face. It was bony and pinched and she wore wigs. She was a tragic figure.

Hospital officials had to get a court order to save the child's life. I was just a kid when that went down. 19 in 1970 was a lot younger than 20 today; especially when you grow up in a cult. You are naive beyond belief. ("Big Love" gives me shudders and flashbacks.)

When I got pregnant my husband's family was dismayed that we were so stupid. "The end was coming."

I found one of the few doctors in the area who specialized in JWs. He respected our wishes. When I was on the operating table having my son by c-section I heard him say "she has rH negative blood." Drugged as I was, I knew there was no question I would do anything he recommended for my baby if there was a problem. Anything else was insanity.

That was my epiphany.

I won't even go into what came after that. Let me just say I have survived many horrible times in my life, but that took the cake. At 24 I bailed, quit the religion and quit the marriage. Today my son is grown and happily married with two children of his own.

A cult is a cult. If you suspect there is something wrong with your religion, LOOK CLOSELY.

There is SOMETHING WRONG when you are discouraged from having friends outside of the group.

There is SOMETHING WRONG when women are treated like second class citizens.

There is SOMETHING WRONG when people are measured by the color of their skin.

There is SOMETHING HORRIBLY WRONG when your pastor preaches hate from the podium.

Now I have gone all ape-shit angry on Christine for her zealotry and hatred of Barack, but it grieves me because I know there is good in her. I apologize for my rage, but I will no longer sit silent in the face of bigotry. I will not be part of the hate.

I try to be a good Buddhist and part of that is to SPEAK MY TRUTH.

I WILL call people on their despicable, divisive behaviors.

If we quietly accept the racial slur or joke, we are condoning. If we remain silent when we get hate emails, we are guilty. Like they say, if we're not part of the solution, WE ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Please speak out.

If more good people speak out, maybe we can force some change.