Anthonym

I recently read and sincerely recommend a short story by Sherman Alexie that was published in BASS 2004.  I met, spoke and marched with Alexie in a pre-war demonstration in downtown Seattle in February of 2003, and he was the keynote speaker at my graduation from Evergreen in 1996 where he made some pointed and mildly controversial comments about the misappropriation of native-American culture and spirituality.  Alexie told white students to explore the spirituality of their own ancestors before examining and exploiting that of native-Americans.  After touring the school's then newly-constructed and inauthentically built-to-code  "longhouse" building,  Alexie compared it to a "casino" in which he was graciously offered champagne by the school's president. 

I am taking some time to go back through the BASS series to discover some contemporary short fiction I missed.  One such is a somewhat bitter-sweet Alexie piece called "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," originally published in the New Yorker.  I am attracted to the story, once again, because it speaks to the experience of uneasy mixings of disparate cultures and attitudes. 

The story takes place in Seattle, where I lived for seven years.  There is a reference to Real Change, the homeless newspaper--almost a plug from the author, who has an association--as well as references to familiar landmarks and locations which gives the story a feeling of fresh versimilitude for me.  In my time in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood, I more than once encountered the same intoxicated native-American man pretending to sell Real Change for some beer money, with a single copy of the paper and a much younger man's photo ID in hand (this is not an activity sanctioned by the publication).  

I am related to some part native-Alaskan people--Inuits, not Aleuts as portrayed in Alexie's piece--who are first cousins, some of whom have been severely affected by alcoholism, for which they have a great predisposition, and who have recently gotten their lives back on track.  I think of them when we played together at my family's home in the country in the mid 1970s, and also of the challenges of their being bi-racial children in a small and often small-minded rural community.

For these reasons this story resonates. 

One day you have a home and the next you don’t, but I’m not going to tell you my particular reasons for being homeless, because it’s my secret story, and Indians have to work hard to keep secrets from hungry white folks. 

Read the rest of the piece here.

From the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq's 2006 Human Rights Report:

"UNAMI HRO has received several reports indicating that, since 2005, homosexuals have been increasingly threatened and extra-judicially executed by militias and death squads because of their sexual orientation. It is believed that such incidents are underreported, because families are unwilling to admit that targeted members were homosexual for fear of further abuse. It has been difficult to independently verify the information received due to the fact that members of this group maintain a low profile, preferring instead to go into hiding or leave the country.

From October 2005 to 30 June 2006 at least twelve homosexuals were reportedly killed in targeted attacks. Militias are reportedly threatening families of men believed to be homosexual, stating that they will begin killing family members unless the men are handed over or killed by the family. In March 2006, a 29-year-old man was kidnapped in Baghdad and his family threatened for allowing him to lead a homosexual lifestyle. The family paid a ransom for the mans release but the mutilated body of the kidnapped victim was instead found dead a few days later. In another case it was reported a homosexual man was allegedly the victim of an honour crime. It was reported in the press that the man's father was released without trial once he explained that he had hanged his son after discovering that he was homosexual."

See the full report here.

This post is of a recent letter (never published) to a local newspaper's "Saturday Soapbox" section (a rant page to which people can submit letters that are not necessarily related to the paper's published content).  Note that congressional Republicans, still wanting to have their way on a major tax cut yet bending to criticism, have since passed a reduction in the estate tax with an attached minor increase in the federal minimum wage.  It will fail in the Senate.  It's like Scrooge giving Bob Cratchit a crust of his bread.  Its intent, other than placing the interests of the poor in the same bill that promotes a giveaway for the rich, is to place Senate Democrats in a position where they can be said to have voted against a minimum wage increase by people who would never have genuinely supported one in the first place.

If the tax were eliminated, it would mean the loss of trillions of dollars in revenue over the next two decades. Lowering the tax only benefits less than 1% of taxpayers, many of whom are already receiving the "gifts" of deregulation, massive tax cuts, outsourcing, a disintegrated labor movement, and no-bid contracts. In the present neocon game of socialism for the rich, the wealthy collect the spoils of an increasingly profitable enterprise: Bush and Company, a limited liability concern, while the middle and working classes make financial and blood sacrifices (for God, flag and country) and vote perpetually against their own interests. It's a winning game for corporations and the investor class, but not so good for the rest of us. 

It would be refreshing and shocking to see an honest national discussion in which politicians and corporations did not obfuscate the realities of common citizens' lives, prey on their anxieties, or manipulate their emotions in order to exploit them. The media and the loyal opposition would have to do their jobs, fearlessly. In this new game, words like "values," "morality" and "responsibility" would mean that the wealthiest assume the greater cost of our follies abroad, from which they profit, and ensure a more civilized society at home--one in which terms like "working poor" and "homeless veteran" would be unthinkable. 

Michael Dean Anthony


Here is a copy of the last of my letters published in Soapbox about the supposed "persecution" of evangelical Christians.  One man wrote to admonish me insisting that indeed certain evangelical Christians had their civil rights denied and were persecuted because they were also black.  However, I did write that evangelicals were not so persecuted in U.S. history solely on the basis of their religious beliefs.   Another man wrote to say that not all Chrisitans or even evangelicals shared the view they were being persecuted, though I referred specifically to a group of conservative evangelicals in my letter.  

The examples of persecution I used, thinking of my audience of rural and small town denizens of a red zone in the Pacific Northwest, we're the most obvious examples I could imagine of persecutory behavior in American history, some that I hoped would be easily recalled by anyone with at least some high school education.  

The letter was barely edited, except for the addition of unecessary commas and two or three sentences that were removed, I suppose for reasons of space, though one part may have been locally controversial and considered invective.  I commented on the incredible prosperity of His Place, a local church located on the grounds of a former auto-wrecking business and whose original minister was the former auto-wrecker (Jesus makes for much better business).  The church, which has about 1,000 parishioners in attendance on Sundays, is non-denominational though once a "four-square" affair.  It is locally known for its children's church in the shape of Noah's ark which is covered in thousands of lights every Christmas. I mentioned that the church was prosperous in the midst of a thriving secular economy busy building its neighboring box stores, shopping malls and tree-less boulevards (a reference to Burlington Boulevard, so named only for the effect of alliteration, as there is no exceptional landscaping to speak of).  I guess that was too much.  In any event, I had to edit out some of the comma happy editor's inserted punctuation for a more readable posting here.


Persecuted Christians? Don't think so 
[their title, not mine]

Persecuted? A prominent evangelical says "secularists" are trying to take God out of every aspect of society (except, of course, from churches, major publishers and booksellers, major newspapers and media, private schools, fraternal organizations, and the private dwellings of every single Christian citizen in the United States of America). Their misleading, hyperbolic rhetoric proves that, given their present state of influence, evangelical conservatives will never be truly happy until they can fully infringe upon the rights of others.

It isn't about money or freedom,  the "persecution" nonsense originates from the widely held but false belief that the country is Christian in origin and that Christianity and its attendant charms should permeate the public sphere — a dubious assertion made magically true because it is repeated. 

Historically, the evangelicals' quibble is the equivalent of a broken fingernail. At no time in the United States have they been detained for their beliefs, had their property seized, been forced onto reservations, been intentionally infected with small-pox or denied a seat at the lunch counter. They have not been shot, gassed, lynched or electrocuted.  What they have been given is essentially the greatest tax-shelter ever exploited.

There is no credible movement in this country to inhibit the free practice of their religion, the organization of their churches or their right to political action. There is no effort to infringe upon the right of their individual members to vote nor any action by any political party to suppress their vote. There is no movement to restrict their ownership of property and certainly none to prohibit their accumulation of wealth! What evangelicals experience in this country, including doses of healthy criticism, looks suspiciously like freedom to me.

Michael Dean Anthony

This letter was actually in response to a huge piece in the paper's religion section (for which countless trees went to heaven), but was diverted by the editor who seems to be unaware of the content of his newspaper.

Funny that LJ spell check doesn't recognize the words "blog" and "blogging" and offers words like "blag" and "slog" instead:

blog:

bog, log, blag, bloc, biog, bldg, blow, blob, blot, clog, flog, slog

blogging:

blagging, bogging, logging, clogging, flogging, slogging, blocking, bulging, boggling, belonging, bagging, begging, bugging, lagging, legging, lugging


blag·ging:
n. Caribbean
Informal talk, usually among men, occurring in a public place: “the street corner, the rum shop, the crossroads, wherever hanging out, or... blagging, takes place” (Roger D. Abrahams).

[From French blaguer, to talk through one's hat, from blague, bladder, pouch, of Germanic origin, ultimately from Latin bulga, leather bag. See bulge.]




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