Nowhere in the United States is the struggle between progress and tradition as pronounced as in The South. Despite some successful efforts to stubbornly hold to the old, southern culture is changing. As any nationally relevant group of people move through a given timeline they take with them the input of generations past while accepting influences of today. What results is a richer, and infinitely more complex, society.
This is the evolution of a culture; a sort of evolution one may or may not be able to discuss in the local public schools today.
For many who do not live here, this region is a stereotype of its past. Limited exposure has led them to assumptions of ignorance, racism, and resistance to outsiders. Undeniably, the history of The South does offer some evidence for all these inferences. But this is a very superficial view of yesterday, and an ignorance of the area today.
Acknowledgement of Southern disqualification
My personal history is one of bouncing throughout the United States.
Most recently, I’ve spent six consecutive years in the south. I’ve lived in a few different zip codes, and travelled significantly through what is called “Dixie.”
In a region that still labels non-natives “Yankees,” I will never be completely accepted. Never mind the fact that my home state was an uninvolved western territory during that “war of northern aggression.” In reality, North Dakota saved almost all of its brutality for the Sioux. My ancestors gave little consideration to securing cotton or abolishing slavery. Still, I understand I’m a Yankee if I didn’t pick up the drawl prior to grade school.
Yankee or not, I am one of a growing number of transplants in the old home of the Confederacy.
My nomadic history provides me with a unique foundation to observe the peculiarities of this corner, and grounds for well-informed contrasts with other randomly drawn boxes on the map.
I’ll likely piss someone off. Southerners can be a sensitive lot. Just keep in mind, this column is my point of view. You are always welcome to correct, chastise, or thrash me in the comments section below.
Where does it end?
The greater country often views The South as a cohesive group of Republican evangelicals united against the Yankees’ intrusive science and gay. There is little recognition of the conflicts within this region. In fact, people here can’t even agree on where the hell The South is.
There is often a reference to the Mason-Dixon line. That is hardly an accurate measurement today. This marker is typically cited in the context of the Civil War and slave holdings, but was actually established prior to the Declaration of Independence. It follows the southern border of Pennyslvania and ends near the state’s western line. It officially ceases to the east of most southern states, including Tennessee.
This line puts Maryland and D.C. in the south. If drawn out further west, it would give us parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. It really doesn’t seem relevant to today’s South.
Without a recognized geographic reference, our borders become subjective.
I briefly dated a woman from Huntsville, AL. She insisted Tennessee had no legitimate claim to membership in The South. She went farther and denied the entrance into the club to anything above the Alabama border. If a state did not touch the gulf, it was not southern.
Yeah, she was kind of a crazy chick. And she had herpes.
But her concept of southern borders was not unique. It seems many residents do not consider anything geographically north of their upbringing the true south.
Several Nashville natives don’t give Kentucky credit, even though it's right fuckin’ there!
South Carolinans are skeptical of North Carolinans.
Missouri occasionally tries to tack itself onto The South, but very few will allow anything above the bottom slice in, and most southerners aren’t even that generous. It’s better off kind of with the Midwest.
Arkansas is debatable. Not only does it seem a bit north for some, it also is too far west for many. Never mind that its western border draws a line about 1,600 miles off the nearest Pacific beach.
But it’s just not where the state plops itself onto the land. Inclusion in The South often depends less on maps and more on cultural differences.
Florida hangs out there like America’s flaccid dick at the bottom of the states. Still, it is seldom given consideration. Sure, that panhandle is all about southern living. There lies the home of Skynyrd, after all. But the penisular (not a typo) parts are too old, or Jewish, or Cuban, or touristy, or swing too much during presidential elections. Very few will grant the entire state entrance into Dixie.
Many journalists and commentators like to give the Bushes credit as Southerners. Texas truly is not the south. It is its own region, bumping up against the south but not entering it. It is simply too different than…well, everywhere else.
The Bushes other home, Maine, is definitely not the south.
Oklahomans will occasionally attempt to put themselves into the south. But, come on, Oklahoma is really just more north Texas.
West Virginia gets the southern label now and then. Any mistaking West Virginia as southern is simple bullshit. It has an impoverished bluegrass heritage, and it does currently compete with southern states in obesity and poor education. But it’s nestled amongst too much of the north to be given real consideration. Do we not get a buffer between New England and The South?
Virginia is also popping up out the geographic and cultural boundaries of The South. Could the Bible Belt truly accept its most esteemed son, Thomas Jefferson, and all of his anti-Christian perceptions as their own? Probably not. Still, Virginia’s heritage does give it a reasonable argument for inclusion. Its current status as a major D.C. suburb works against it, however.
To gather data and make comparisons, I had to define my own idea of today’s south. Numbers are not often drawn down to the county level, so I had to grant inclusion to full states. If a state—through culture or geography—was not primarily southern, it got the ax.
My determinations, made with a reasonable amount of deliberation, left me with the following nine states:
Alabama (of course)
Arkansas (give ‘em a break)
Georgia (even Atlanta and Athens)
Kentucky (being a little generous, but most of the state is pretty damn southern)
Louisiana (I don’t care what you think of Cajun culture)
Mississippi (undeniably)
North Carolina (growing controversy on this one)
South Carolina (it says so right in the name)
Tennessee (you knew it had to make it)
Let me know where you would draw the borders, or give your perspective on any other element of the south in the comments section below. Then check back on the Last Tuesday in July, when the humidity is so high you can swim through the air, for some real observances on the state of southern culture.
The people who write the law books in Tennessee seldom are seldom considered intellectuals. They may (or may not) be smart, knowledgeable individuals, but it is difficult for us citizens to see them as such. Our legislators just don't do a lot to lead us towards a perception of them as logical, intelligent beings.
In fact, they usually act to the contrary.
Recently we saw our potential to buy a nice Pinot in Kroger fade away—at least for now. I suspect this had a lot more to do with the lobbying of liquor stores than any well-reasoned decision.
A sealed bottle of Merlot cannot safely share a shelf with a loaf of bread, but a poured glass is perfectly accompanied by a Glock.
Of course, I am referring to the still very alive proposal to allow firearms into bars.
I own guns. I enjoy shooting targets. I like the big boom my Magnum makes. I shot my first rifle somewhere around second grade. I do not favor turning my firearms over to any government official.
I've also had a great deal—I mean a lot—of experience with the effects of alcohol. I have too many stories about its impact on judgment. I know all about reduced inhibitions and heightened emotions as the result of a few pints. These effects are enough to anchor a strong argument against guns in bars. But when you add in the impact alcohol has on accuracy, it makes the proposal seem simply ludicrous.
I don't see any good reason to introduce guns and ammo into a beer soaked crowd.
I'm not certain why Tennessee state politicians feel we need to open up the bar to guns. Is there a great deal of game hiding somewhere amongst the stools and kegs? Is the bouncer allowing so many rapists and muggers in that we need to arm ourselves against them?
It's a stupid, stupid idea.
Can't we maintain the tradition of barroom brawls to prove our drunken manhood? Now any little pussy can just plug a cap in your ass if you bump him off his stool or check out his girlfriend's rack.
But Tennessee has a well-established history of passing stupid laws. Many of these are still on the books—the electronic books I have access to at my new bullshit bureaucrat job.
For instance, engaging in any of the following activities could get you into trouble with the state of Tennessee. These are the abbreviated wordings of laws available this Tuesday to the State Board of Probation and Parole:
• Defrauding an innkeeper.
• Mayhem.
• Selling children.
• Crime against nature.
• Homosexual-Male.
• Homosexual-Female.
• Homosexual acts.
• Taking female from parents.
• Creating a false impression of death.
• Desecration of a venerated object.
• Taking fish caught by another.
• Failure to disqualify a horse during a horse show.
• Handling snake as to endanger life.
• Failure to provide separate toilets for women.
• Charge for the use of a public toilet facility.
• Failure to observe standard time.
• Depriving civil rights to a person born out of wedlock.
• Violation of marketing of pecans.
• Failure to confine proud bitch.
• Fishing with explosives.
It seems we really shouldn't expect much from the state legislature. Not only have they put the aforementioned laws in place for us all to follow; they tell us that allowing patrons to smoke in a bar is a danger to our health, but a drunk with a .45 is not really any threat at all.
“You a paper pusher now, baby.”
Jasmine has occupied her cubicle in the state office building for more than five years. I have been in mine less than three months. I still require her daily guidance. She is helping me read legal jargon, navigate the TOMIS computer program, and accept my new position in the world.
My alarm clock goes off with millions of alarm clocks across the time zone. We are all on the 8:00 to 4:30 — give or take thirty minutes — Monday through Friday schedule. I sleep a bit later than most. My body has yet to adopt this sleep pattern.
All of us then put on the uniform of the powerless, the khakis of button pushers, the knee length skirts of lower to middle management, the oxfords of bureaucrats. Our wardrobe is from JCPenney, or Target, some of it may even come off the Walmart rack. We’re not paid enough to dress really well, but we are required to look pretentiously important with something called business casual. If we really were important, we’d wear quality suits or other expensive fashions. If we were really honest with ourselves, our clients, and our co-workers, we’d wear jeans, or short skirts, or flip flops, or a whole assortment of other items that expressed our true selves.
Permitting such apparent personality would not suit the business environment.
Breakfast is often taken while in traffic. All these other people commuting, on this road not by choice but by the necessary pursuit of the next direct deposit.
Finally, after walking through the usual quiet, insincere “good mornings,” we reach our cubicles. We’ve tried to personalize the cold atmosphere with photos, maybe a stuffed animal, a Titans poster. Nothing too controversial, nothing too revealing, nothing too interesting. Boring gray three-quarter walls dressed up with decorations only moderately less colorless.
Most of us have no windows through which to acknowledge the outside. Better to not remind us there is a whole world going on out there, passing us by while we stare into a flat screen.
For most of us, we start our morning with a quick email check, then open Firefox and discreetly surf through the sites IT hasn’t blocked. Facebook, ESPN for some scores, CNN for the news, Gmail, and — hopefully — the Nashville Feed. But we can’t dawdle long anywhere. Cubicles offer little protection from the vigilant supervisor. Open up a document, do some real work that means nothing, check the clock. Still four hours to lunch.
Our supervisors, the ones in the offices with windows facing our carpeted outer walls, may have convinced themselves of their own false importance by now. They have been doing the same inconsequential tasks long enough to earn a position where they can oversee the inconsequential tasks of others. A title and a little extra recognition on the biweekly check might have persuaded them they have some form of power.
But, in reality, there are no alphas in the cubicle environment. All true leaders have pushed up into a world where they can dress themselves, whether it is in expensive suits or Steve Jobs-ish jeans. They have shown authentic independent thinking and rejected cubicled employment. The alphas don’t tolerate the pointlessly rigid structures of today’s offices long.
Your boss is not an alpha. He is only in charge if everyone buys into the system someone well above his pay grade set in place generations ago. If we accept this is all there is, our supervisor can go on deluding himself.
At midday we are granted recess. One hour to seek out fast food, maybe TGI’s if the day is special enough, but usually we are in the cold break room with a few sporadic co-workers. They sit quietly across from each other, reading the paper while barely acknowledging the Lean Cuisine they are picking at with a plastic fork. A crossword puzzle might provide them with an excuse not to make conversation and the only sense of accomplishment they feel that day.
I prefer to sit alone and read. A good story distracts me from the recognition that I am becoming as mundane as my surroundings. I’m already beginning to blend in with the stainless steel microwave, the diet colas, and the insulated lunch bags. I read about interesting people rather than becoming one.
Many will try to find satisfaction and purpose outside of the work week. Make some babies. Buy a new truck. Add on a family room. Build up enough debt to lock themselves inside their cubicle until retirement.
After a short lunch we get back to that file, to that desktop, to that clock with petrified hands. In another four long hours we will be back on an overcrowded road. And we’re looking forward to it.
This is recession era employment. When, no matter how sucky our lives may be five days a week, we are still “grateful to have a job.”
I cannot say I am grateful. I am tolerant of this job. I half-ass my way through it for little appreciation and a mediocre paycheck. I’ve done the math. Just five more checks and I can jump back into the real world with a stringy safety net. It won’t last long, but I’ve got to get out before I start to accept this world as normal. These Dockers™ are squeezing the life out of me.
Leaving this job during a heavy recession is not taking a risk. Staying here is the bigger risk.
What better time to re-claim ourselves. We have little to lose, except for maybe a red stapler.
Kick over your cubicle and join me back in a world where eight hours each day you have an opportunity for personal satisfaction. Pursue what will bring some sort of fulfillment to you. Claim a bit of control over your own existence.
Do something that actually puts your name on the world. Something where you can say “I did this…because I wanted to.” No other explanation should be required.
mDave jumped out of the corporate world and now works for himself in the relaxed morning office of Edgehill Studios Café. That’s what a little scrote might get you.
I will soon hook a Uhaul trailer to my car, point the hood west, and drive until I find somewhere that can hold my interest. There, I will live and work (outside of a cubicle).
What are you going to do?
The economy is really sucky right now. The evidence and reports are all around us. It all might make you want to run away for a couple days. A quick little vacation. Change the scenery. Have some fun. Forget about the real world of pink slips, diminished returns, and East Nashville bar closures.
But no one wants to spend a lot of emergency funds on luxury vacations. A getaway is still possible on the cheap, however. One must only lower her expectations. Set the bar lower. Be satisfied with less. Much less.
May I suggest Memphis?
Memphis is an easy three-hour drive down I40. Not even a full evening’s travel. And, while many Memphites relish their holidays in Nashville, Nashvillains rarely visit that bottom corner of their own state. Perhaps it is time for the villains of Nash to become acquainted with their bigger, blacker cousin.
While those in the state capital might easily forget about Memphis, many publications have recognized the city. It is a favorite of Forbes. That one magazine has recognized it as holding the title for both America’s most obese and sedentary cities. It also takes Forbes’ blue ribbon for rate of property crimes, easily beating out such serious contenders as San Antonio and Chicago. Memphis only narrowly surrendered the gold to Stockton, CA when the magazine ranked “The Most Miserable Cities in America."
The city’s recognition is not limited to Forbes. Many others have taken notice of Memphis. The FBI knows it as the second most violent city in the country. Combined with those aforementioned property crimes, it achieves an intimidating number eight spot on Infoplease’s list of the most dangerous places to live in this great nation.
Memphis is also a leader in infant mortality. The rate at which babies are dying in Memphis is more comparable to developing nations than any industrialized country. Of 1,000 live births in this city, 15 babies will die before age one. Countries such as Guam and Croatia have infant mortality rates at less than half that rate.
Safe Kids Worldwide regards Memphis as the most dangerous city in the country for pedestrians under age 14.
Bicycling magazine honors it as one of the three worst cities in the United States for biking.
Memphis has also been seen on the worst ten lists for those with asthma, and fall allergies, for raising a family, and for both men and women in all around living.
With all of this national attention, how can it be that Nashville residents have ignored Memphis for so long? Perhaps it is time to change that willful neglect.
Memphis is an inexpensive place to visit. It has to be cheap to make it affordable for the people who live here. The U.S. Census Bureau has Memphis on its list of the top ten most impoverished cities. The necessarily low cost of living also makes it an affordable destination for out of towners.
As with any city, hotels in downtown Memphis are spendy. They begin at $125 a night.
The Peabody Hotel offers the novelty of live ducks in their indoor water fountain. If sleeping in the same building as waterfowl is truly valuable to you, you’ll find the $200 room fee worthwhile. Others should just sneak into the lobby to see the birds. Or maybe you can just spy some wild ducks outside.
You’re better off saving a bunch of money by getting a hotel not far out of downtown for under $100. There are chains such as Red Roof Inn and Motel 6 along Interstate 240 and the locally owned Artisan in Midtown.
It’s an easy to drive into downtown from these locations. A $1.50 trolley runs north and south on Main and along the riverfront, and another line reaches east for a few blocks on Madison Avenue. But, overall, the public transportation is not an efficient way to get around Memphis, particularly on weekends.
The Trolley will take you to the Civil Rights Museum and South Main’s arts district, both worthwhile visits. The downtown area also offers a few parks to entertain with a touch of schadenfreude.
Riverfront Park runs along the Mississippi. It offers postcard perfect views of the river, the Interstate bridge and the now dark Pyramid. The city still owes millions on this now vacant stadium. Today it does nothing more than add an attractive shape to your photographs. Make the useless new building a geometric element in your shots. Give it something to do, for christ’s sake!
Standing over the Riverfront—up on the bluff of The Bluff City—is Confederate Park. Vietnam era small artillery anachronistically poke through the walls of this site dedicated to Civil War heroes. The guns are pointed over the river, defending our state from the ever-present threat of Arkansas. Most of the cannons are incapable of even protecting us from the trailer parks of West Memphis. Many of the big guns sit on flat tires and have been left to rust.
A little farther east, along Union Avenue, is Nathan Bedford Forrest Park. This little patch of government real estate honors the Civil War general with a statue and his gravesite. It is particularly unusual for a city with a black mayor, a majority black city council, and a population that is 62 percent black to demonstrate such reverence for a slave trader and founding member of the Ku Klux Klan.
The city parks department can be forgiven for much when one considers the relative cleanliness of their personnel. Nearly every level of the local government has experienced federal scrutiny for corruption, from county clerks, to police officers, to the mayor himself.
Thus far, no evidence has been found against the members of Park Services.
But most people do not come to Memphis for the parks, no matter how untarnished the staff may be.
Some people prefer dead rock stars.
Graceland is an overpriced attraction by any standards, but it looks even more outlandish when surrounded by the poverty of south Memphis. Unless you have an unusually high appreciation for safari print furniture and rhinestoned outfits, you are better off dodging the inflated entrance fee. You can still find fun there, though. Hang outside and people watch. Check out the mix of oddly obsessed fans lining up for the mansion shuttle. Ask to see their gift shop purchases, take photographs and share the pictures with your friends. Whoever has the shot of the cheesiest merchandise wins. The losers must buy the victor Elvis press on nails.
Beale Street is the other requisite visit in Memphis. Think of it as New Orleans’ Bourbon Street without the crowds, or nakedness, or liveliness.
Sports fans know Memphis as the home to Tennessee’s only NBA franchise. They also know it as the home of the NBA franchise most likely to lose a game.
If you’re into basketball teams who might win, come during the college season and check out the University of Memphis Tigers. They put on a much better show and represent well throughout March.
Unbeknownst to many, Memphis hosts St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. But kids with leukemia aren’t really a tourist attraction.
Most Nashvillains acknowledge that everyone hates tourists. You may want to find some of the locals’ haunts to get a better feel of the culture. This will likely take you into Midtown. From downtown, I recommend driving east on Madison.
On the north side of the street you’ll find a peppering of welcoming little pubs, restaurants, and dive bars. On the south side you’ll find a lot of boarded up buildings. Anything on your left is routinely filled with regulars. The P and H, Zinnie’s, Bar-B-Q Shop, Molly’s La Casita, The Bayou Bar and Grill, Yosemite Sam’s. And the original Boscos brewery. It really isn’t much different from the Hillsboro Village location, just a little more uptight due to the frequent presence of the chain’s owners.
Across the street are the Memphis Pizza Café, a great little bike shop, a good Indian restaurant, and a huge vacant building. The French Quarter Inn on the corner once provided convenient lodging for the area, but it now sits unused and chained against squatters.
Malco’s Studio on the Square shares a parking lot behind Boscos. It’s the closest movie theatre to the river. A 22 screen Muvico venue once occupied much of downtown’s Peabody Mall, but it recently closed up and now just takes up a bunch of dead space.
Studio on the Square isn’t quite cool enough to be considered arthouse, but it does show preference for critics’ favorites. It also serves beer and wine to make viewing even the worst piece of Michael Bay crap enjoyable.
Just beyond Boscos take a right and head south on Cooper. You’ll pass the abandoned BP, a jewelry store still crowned with a long ago torched top floor, a vacated bar at the corner of Peabody, a pleasant but empty rust shaded structure at Central, and finally get into the hip Cooper Young area. You’ll know it by the railroad trestle.
Here you will find a variety of restaurants. Sushi, Mexican, seafood, Thai, Mediterranean, pizza, upscale, and the standard fried bar cuisine. Sweet specializes in martinis and almost orgasmic desserts. There’s an Irish pub favored by white douche bags. A perfectly hippy independent coffee shop. A record shop that still sells real records. A head shop for all of the pipes and bongs you can’t find in Nashville. A used bookstore. A hostel for those who want to really cut the cost of their trip. A restaurant that goes gay late at night. A petting zoo and adoption center for needy felines. An independent video store that encourages you to grab a spot on the couch and watch a movie for free. Oh, and several more unoccupied storefronts.
My Cooper Young favorite is the Young Avenue Deli, affectionately known to locals as simply the Deli. The Deli offers a respectable beer selection, a good juke box, pool tables, an Elvis pinball machine, occasional live music, tattooed servers, and a nice sampling of Memphis diversity. Knock back ten craft brews and earn a free T-shirt.
Go enjoy all this, just be careful not to get memphis’ed.
For those not familiar with the local jargon, memphis’ed is not something you do. Rather, it is something that is done to you. It describes an unfortunate event affecting an outsider which can be attributed at least abstractly to his or her presence in the city of Memphis.
For instance, I knew I had been in Memphis a little too long when my Mustang was attacked and the CD player torn from its console. I got memphis’ed. This could have happened anywhere, but given the prevalence of property crime in this particular city, it is more likely to happen in Memphis.
Say an athlete in peak physical condition moves to Memphis. Within a year, due to a culture of fatty foods and sedate lifestyles, this athlete is not merely overweight but pushing obesity. He got memphis’ed.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. really got memphis’ed. Jeff Buckley? Memphis’ed. All those infants who don’t make it to their first birthday? Memphis’ed.
If you’re feeling luckier than they were, you should check out Memphis for a weekend.
Rick Warren is—at this point—just a symbol. And America is all into symbols, less so into substance. On a substantive level, Warren is little more than a fortunate fat guy. But that matters little, as long as he provides us a symbol to argue over.
We are enraged at the suggestion a fellow citizen might touch a Zippo to his own flag. This is so offensive, we would alter our Constitution—the one that guarantees freedom of speech—to make such expression a crime. The Constitution is not a symbol. It is the base of our liberties and is employed every minute of every day. The flag is merely a representation of the society founded on these established rules. Still, we would protect what is just a colorful symbol of our freedoms at the expense of the document with the actual authority to guard those supposed freedoms.
The Supreme Court has never cited a flag when upholding your rights.
Some citizens push references to the Christian god into any public venue or media that will allow it. For a group that claims all they need is their own faith, they certainly seem to require a lot of reminders that they are still recognized as in charge of the government. They fight to keep their ten commandments in courthouses and schools. We’ve already determined their presence is merely symbolic , but it’s somehow still worth all the legal battles. Our children must acknowledge their deity whenever they pledge allegiance to the good ol’ U. S. of A. If any citizen is able to escape all of this, they will still be reminded of Yahweh whenever they collect or spend a bill. This does not make us a Christian nation, it only makes a nation in love with references to the Jesus.
All these symbols must be quite reassuring to the Christians, but they still want more. They want our political leaders, particularly the president, to mention the Christian god in each speech.
Our leaders and representatives take the oath of office on a Bible, although the oath they take mentions nothing of that particular religious text but is all about the United States constitution. John Quincy Adams is the only president to recognize the absurdity of using a Christian symbol to validate his promise to protect the First Amendment (and all the others). He was sworn in on a stack of law texts.
Families of fallen soldiers must fight the country they gave their lives for, just so that a different white grave marker might stick out of the ground in a military cemetery. Yes, there are atheists in foxholes. And wiccans. And pagans. And a bunch of others without use for a crucifix. To many marines, sailors, airmen, and soldiers, a cross only has meaning if it is red and means help is on the way.
Marriage has recently come to symbolize the intertwining of religion with our legal system. To move marriage away from the traditional definition would be a powerful message of declining Christian influence on government, although nothing would actually change in the day to day lives of heterosexual Americans.
Americans engage in heated battles over these symbols. A simple emblem has the power to divide the population like little else.
Rick Warren is the latest representation to upset the masses. The honor of praying to a Christian god before the inaugural crowd brought us quickly to figurative arms against our fellow Americans.
Sure, Reverend Warren is more than just a symbol. Every individual is. But many have reduced him to a simple representation either for or against a primary belief.
For the GLBT crowd Warren is just another mark of the hateful Christianity that delights in attacking their rights and promises them nothing more than a bunch of hell, literally.
For the pro-choicers, he is a symbol that an ancient book should have more authority over a woman’s body than she has herself. That book never mentions abortion. But, it has somehow become a symbol for life on the other side of the vagina.
For all the wacky American Christians, Warren’s inaugural prayer gives them yet another reassurance that they remain in control of this country.
For those hard core conservative evangelists, Warren’s rise seems to suggest their philosophy has been polluted by hippy liberal causes like the environment and AIDS.
For the many Americans who just are not into Jesus H., Warren reminds them that despite a promise of change, they probably will be locked out of influence in the new administration.
But, thus far, Warren and all his words for the Christian god are just symbolism. We have not seen any signs he will have any real power within Obama’s administration. The president went so far as to recognize non-believers in his inauguration, amongst several references to that popular deity. Sure, this acknowledgement means nothing and is just one more symbol. But—when combined with his list of a few other common American belief systems—it may signal a limiting of the evangelist influence.
To hold the presidency (and almost any other office) in this democracy, one must throw the proverbial bone to the Jesus flock now and then. An occasional symbol is usually enough to pacify them. So, in a country built upon a constitutional separation of church and state, we must have some yahoo throwing words skyward to the popular god at each inauguration.
The pinheads need their superstitions and symbols. The rest of us…well, we place more value on evidence and substance. And we have work to do. Hopefully, Obama and his people will spend their time solving real problems rather than addressing the latest offense some overvalued gesture or emblem has caused.
Most of us who label ourselves Americans are not cool with change. We wage some sort of bloodless war on those who replace “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays.” We refuse to allow marriage to go through another evolution. We get all pissy when astronomers stop calling Pluto a planet.
We hold tight to our traditions, as if a new perspective will rob us of all our fondest memories.
We can be made okay with change, but only if we are properly prepped. We did just vote in a new president primarily because he promised change. As of yet, he hasn’t changed shit. Even after he drops the “elect” from his title, he is unlikely to dramatically alter the country. His promise was probably too dramatic. A campaign of subtle shift would have been more accurate. But even Obama’s proposed adjustments require he prepare the masses for some differences. This is the requisite transition period. He must ease us—gradually, with smiles and reassurances—into something a bit new.
December is a good time to do it. In this month, so much of our media is preparing us to switch into a new year. Through the final month we have a million voices attempting to rush nostalgia. They all help us recognize everything that occurred in 2008 as the past so we can welcome a fresh 2009.
Soon we are overwhelmed with lists, an unavoidable result of media’s over-enthusiasm to close out another year. On any given day we expect VH1 to give us countdowns and best 100, 50, 25, whatever of a recent decade, genre, or other category of pop culture trivia. We accept that these shows are primarily there to give Michael Ian Black an opportunity to say something snarky about Debbie Gibson and fill time between the Rock of Love and Rock of Love Charm School. But through the last couple weeks of December, everyone gets into lists. No American can avoid some sort of published retrospective on the past 11 and a half months.
Most of these lists don’t really mean anything. They are just a way to help us look back so we can prepare to move on. We don’t even know what criteria were used to decide upon finalists for a vast majority of these yearly inventories. There is some random panel of unnamed judges, or possibly just one geek with a computer and too much time, determining what was important in 2008. For instance, InTouch Weekly gave Jessica Simpson the award for Best Breasts of 2008? It was apparently based on a poll. Of who, I do not know. Are her funbags really better this year than they were last year? Did she become pregnant, get implants, or have a cist removed? Barring those alterations, can her sweater meat really change that much in a year?
Listaholic gives Jennifer Love Hewitt the top slot in their 50 hottest celebrity boobs, but she doesn’t even appear on InTouch weekly’s top 10. How can that be possible?
Scarlett Johannson places high in both lists. No list could establish credibility without recognition of young Scarlett’s cha-chas. Alternative Reel puts her in number two amongst a group that acknowledges the great historical baloobas on Raquel Welch, Jane Russell, and Adrienne Barbeau. But they also snuck Jessica Alba into that ten. Jessica’s admittedly sweet dumplings do not get her onto the InTouch Weekly list and only up to 37 on the Listaholic rundown. And Listaholic’s number one (Hewitt) does not make Alternative Reel’s preferred sweater junk at all.
If these self appointed experts can’t agree on fleshy cantaloupes, we really can’t trust any supposed authority to rate a topic open to even a little bit of subjectivity.
Parade magazine lists off their worst dictators. Really. That colorful little rag stuffed into Sunday newspapers to bring Americans gossip and feel good celebrity stories somehow finds themselves qualified to take on Mugabe.
With a great deal of arrogance, Time appoints themselves the authorities on everything. They have published their top ten of everything of 2008. Well, it’s not everything. They make absolutely no mention of tits or dictators.
We are too diverse of a people to simply accept as fact what InTouch Weekly says about juggy pillows, what Parade says about bad guys, or what Time says about everything. We have our own perspectives and can make up our own minds on this stuff.
Still, the lists are fun in that they allow us to reminisce, agree/dispute the “experts,” or just spy some cleavage. With the idea of just having some similar, unauthoratative end of year fun, I have come up with my own list. A list of lists.
Unlike most year-end accounts by undeserving authorities, there is no theme running through my list. I am not John Cusack in High Fidelity (still one of Jack Black’s 10 best performances), breaking my whole life into clear categories that are easily summed up with lists. I enjoy randomness too much. These completely unrelated sites made me laugh, a bunch. So here are 10 lists to shock, entertain, and end your year with a good cleansing crack up.
Number 10: Something to look forward to New Year’s Day.
Number 9: Tattoos last forever. Think about that.
Number 8: With the proliferation of pornography on the Internet, we often forget that it is truly about the cinematic experience.
Number 7: I piss on your art. And, in Florida, so does she.
Number 6: A reading list for the New Year.
Number 5: I have not yet surrendered my war on Christmas.
Number 4: Children are just disgusting little creatures.
Number 3: Many laws were made to be broken, but probably not the law prohibiting intercourse with porcupines.
Number 2: Today, a company’s URL is often its first introduction to a potential customer.
Number 1: America truly needs to re-invest in science education. After all, these children are our future.
Now go out and do something this year—something so noteworthy it will get you on someone’s list for something at the close of 2009.
With each election, we see a new crop of states change their constitution to forbid people with the same parts in their pants from marrying. No one was surprised when Tennessee did it. More recently, the more progressive constituencies in California, Florida, and Arizona kept any serious perusing of Bride magazine for chicks pledging devotion to dicks.
But we Americans are a short-sighted bunch. All this anti-gay marriage amending is actually quickening the approaching death of traditional marriage.
The biggest spoon to recently stir the gay marriage pot was Proposition 8 in California. The Mormon church deserves a great deal of credit—or blame—for its passing, the Catholics did their part, Evangelicals were likely involved, black Obama supporters helped, and that plumber from Toledo probably contributed indirectly in some way. They all seem like a bunch of people who probably want their grandchildren to enjoy an old-fashioned hetero legal love commitment just like the one they had. But if they’d held their finger up to the wind prior to stepping into the polling station, they would have voted to just let the queers have their ceremonies already.
Marriage is declining throughout the country. It has been sliding for some time, long before there was any public consideration of His and His towel sets.
Out of wedlock cohabitation has become quite popular from Generation Xers down. Maybe all of the divorces we witnessed as children showed us marriage is little more than a cheap show leading to expensive legal commitment. Maybe it was feminism telling women they didn’t have to be owned to have children. Maybe it was just finally time for the society to move forward. It was probably some of all of this, plus a few other factors, that moved the newer people away from matrimony.
A 2004 Rutgers University study found 56 percent of both teen boys and girls saw bearing and raising a child out of wedlock as a worthwhile lifestyle. Compare this to the numbers for the same question from 1980, when only 41 percent of boys and 33 percent of girls viewed the practice as cool. Less than half of the high school seniors in the study saw getting hitched as contributing to their long term satisfaction. They also want to try shacking up before committing on paper. In 2001-2002, almost 65 percent of boys and 55 percent of girls thought it was a good idea to share a lease and some household chores prior to marriage.
A 1999 University of Chicago (pdf) study found only one quarter of American households lived up to the ideal of a traditional family: husband, wife, and children.
Want more numbers on the declining value of old school marriage? Get a bunch of stats in favor of my argument at unmarried.org.
The gay issue did not start this ride, but it is certainly pushing on the accelerator. And it’s not because they are getting married. It is because we won’t let them.
Beyond the harm inflicted on marriage, prohibition of gay nuptials has a negative impact on the society banning their espousal. In particular, it threatens a local economy.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is some kind of funny Republican, cited economic reasons for his opposition to Proposition 8. In his books, The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent, economist Richard Florida stresses the fiscal benefits of attracting and keeping homosexuals in a community.
Many corporations, whose primary interest is making bank rather than fighting culture wars, have recognized this. According to a 2006 study by the Human Rights Campaign, 78 percent of Fortune 100 and 49 percent of Fortune 500 companies offered domestic partner health insurance to their employees. This number is only going to increase. Disney showed us boycotts from the moral police are unlikely to alter company policy. In order to remain competitive for talent, businesses will move towards similar benefit packages. Domestic partner benefits are on their way to becoming the norm.
Our elected officials, frequently fearful of the holier than thou crowd, have no control over the human resources of a private corporation. But even political figures are reducing incentives for traditional marriage. Calls for civil unions, with all the legal rights and responsibilities of marriage, are being heard at every level of government. Three states already allow them. More are likely on the way, with the Obama administration offering support at the federal level.
Two gay prostitutes may never have the thrill of gathering together before someone’s god in Ted Haggard’s church for a Christian wedding. But with all the legal protections and employee benefits already in hand, is there any reason to complicate things with the old fashioned sacrament? We have the wonderful tenet of church/state separation. This means Reverend Jeremiah Wright will never have to oversee the commitment ceremony of two hot lesbians no matter how the law reads. But it also means no American has to seek the approval of any religion for a relationship.
Slowly bleeding out marriage is about all we are accomplishing with anti-gay betrothal legislation. As we provide more options short of marriage for homosexual couples, heteros will be taking advantage of those same alternatives. Permitting gay marriage could slow the progress by quieting the call for civil unions and restoring the exclusive employee benefits.
With the next generations of adults increasingly accepting of unwed couplings and the practical motivations for matrimony no longer relevant, we are likely to see a sharpening decrease in traditional marriage.
But this trend works completely in my favor. As a straight man, I should support ballot measures like Proposition 8 in order to move the country away from marriage.
I have been with my girlfriend for over four years. We’ve lived together for the past two and a half. We plan to move to a new city together soon. We have every intention of spending several more years together, if not our entire lives. We both agree that marriage is not for us. The only thing that would push us towards it is a desire for the legal rights and a sweet insurance plan. In a few years, as domestic partnerships are more commonly afforded these benefits, we will have no reason at all to book a ceremony.
I should be absolutely supportive of bullshit regulations like Proposition 8. It is the quickest path to increasing my benefits as an unmarried partner. Still, I just can’t do it.
What kind of asshole takes away the rights of others just to make himself a little more comfortable?
