Apples and Trees

Several media outlets recently reported that the teenage son of Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, whose given name is Tanner, used the screen name “n1ggerkiller” in an online game; he also posted YouTube comments using the word “nigger” and calling Mexicans “the scum of the Earth.” His Twitter account was littered with the word faggot, and he called a friend a “Jew” for stealing a joke.

According to a story in Slate, Nevada Rep. Joe Heck’s son Joey “posted equally stomach-turning comments to his Twitter account. In addition to his repeated use of “faggot” and “nigga,” he made anti-gay and anti-Mexican remarks, saying NFL quarterback “[Mark] Sanchez can hop the border faster than he can throw the ball” and retweeted “There are gays everywhere. Maybe that’s gods way of thinning out the population because faggots can’t have babies.” Being a politically minded young lad, he also commented that ABC’s Martha Raddatz should not have been a presidential debate moderator because she’s a woman and that Mitt Romney made Barack Obama his “slave” in a presidential debate. Heck also said that Obama’s main accomplishments as president were promoting the sports of “spear chucking and rock skipping. The sports they do in his home country…”

Both politicians were quick to disavow the posts, offering weak “boys will be boys” explanations, but as the article detailed, both Flake and Heck come from the fever swamp precincts of the GOP.

The apples, as we used to say, don’t fall far from the tree. Those of us who are parents are aware–often painfully aware–of the myriad ways in which our attitudes and language shape our children.

As the old song from South Pacific put it, “You have to be taught to hate.”

We all know that there are people like Flake and Heck, filled with animus, and twisted in ways that are hard to fathom. There have always been such people, and I assume there always will be. The more troubling question is: how do they get elected? Are the donors and voters who support them oblivious to these attitudes? Or do they share them?

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No Lessons Learned from Litebox

Remember the embarrassing Litebox episode? The City and State were offering incentives to “entrepreneurs” who turned out to be little more than con men. The President had a string of liens and unpaid bills, and people knowledgable about the industry said the business plan displayed a lack of understanding of the manufacturing process.

At the time the Lightbox fiasco was uncovered, critics noted that a cursory Google search would have uncovered the problems.

Fast forward to Cricket.

Mayor Ballard is obviously enamored with the idea that Indianapolis will be a Cricket venue–so enamored, in fact, that he prefers to fund Cricket fields rather than the additional police the city so desperately needs. He has ignored bipartisan concerns of the City-County Council, and is moving forward, with an announcement that Indianapolis will host the next three national Cricket Championships.

So what does a cursory Google search tell us about the USA Cricket Association and support for cricket generally? Well, the USACA has no scheduled domestic tournaments for 2013 and has not held a 50-over national championship since 2010. Despite Ballard’s rosy predictions of large turnouts,

“Poor spectator turnout for domestic events has been a routine problem for tournaments staged in Lauderhill, Florida at the $70 million Central Broward Regional Park. After opening in 2008, USACA held their Men’s 50-over National Championship at the 5000 seat stadium in Florida in 2009 and 2010, during which not more than a few dozen people attended. Roughly the same amount of spectators turned out this March for the 2013 ICC Americas Division One Twenty20 tournament, which USA won 8-0 to clinch a spot at the 2013 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier. None of the matches were broadcast on TV or radio.

“Not one of those events puts anybody in the stands,” said Lauderhill Mayor Richard J Kaplan in an interview with ESPNcricinfo in April. “It doesn’t sell one ticket. I don’t need a multi-million dollar stadium with 5000 permanent seats to sit there with nobody using it.”

Other information readily available through a Google search includes lawsuits against the USACA by California and other regional members, and sanctions from the International body.

Now, maybe all of these problems have been resolved. Maybe they haven’t. I’d feel a whole lot better if I thought anyone in the Administration had taken the time to investigate.

Or even just Google.

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Who Are We?

Today is Sunday. And Father’s Day.

Believers who celebrate Sabbath on Sunday will go to church and hear exhortations about living a good and moral life.  Depending upon the denomination, the focus will be on love and compassion, charity and social justice.

In most families, Fathers will receive sentimental greeting cards from their children thanking them for their patience and love and support. Some will get sweaters or ties or sporting gear; others will have a family dinner.

These Norman Rockwell experiences make us feel good about ourselves. We’re good people, family people, caring citizens.

So here is my question: how many Americans will go to work tomorrow for an employer who has cut his or her hours in order to avoid paying for health insurance? If we are to believe the media reports, it’s not an insignificant number.

At Indiana University, where I teach, there’s a new rule that Graduate Assistants–already poorly paid–cannot work more than 29 hours a week, because then they would be eligible for health insurance. The Indianapolis Star recently reported that several Indiana school districts were planning to cut back hours for many staff positions, so that they could avoid insuring the people in those positions. Private employers, of course, have been engaging in such practices for years, in order to avoid compliance with a number of regulations that apply only when employees work a certain number of hours.

This response to an effort–however flawed–to extend basic health services to people who currently can’t afford those services tells us something about our culture. And what it tells us isn’t consistent with that Norman Rockwell version of ourselves.

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Quick–More Lipstick!

As Mike Pence has doggedly pursued his “Look, Ma…I’m really a moderate!” remake, I’ve heard several people describe the effort with that old saying about putting lipstick on a pig.

Problem is, no matter how much Revlon you slather on that porker, it’s still a pig.

During a meeting attended by a variety of health agencies last week, when the subject of health outreach at Black Expo came up, attendees were told of a new directive issued by the Governor’s office. No agency receiving state funds may distribute condoms. That prohibition includes–but, as we lawyer-types like to say, is not limited to–Black Expo.

According to the Staff person delivering this news, this edict was justified by the fact that “only married people should have sex.” (And I guess they’ll have to buy their own condoms.) Evidently, no one in attendance suggested an obvious fix–that anyone receiving a condom be made to submit an affidavit to the effect that 1)he is married; and 2) he will use it only when having sex with his wife.

Pence is obviously unaware of a 1972 Supreme Court case (Eisenstadt v. Baird for my fellow nerds) directly on point. The Court said unmarried people have the same right to possess contraception as married ones. But then, our Governor is still insisting that Marbury v. Madison, the case that established judicial review, was wrongly decided.

Of course, Pence doesn’t look to the law for guidance anyway. He looks to his bible and like Micah Clark, he reads it literally.

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Fortunately, Most Christians Aren’t Like Micah Clark

The Boy Scouts did (half of) the right thing a couple of weeks ago, and triggered another of Micah Clark’s (tiresome and predicitble) rants.

Some of his bizarre assertions: the Indianapolis Star is “one of the largest homosexual advocacy organizations.” The Boy Scouts “decided to abandon their moral principles in favor of keeping pro-homosexual corporate donors’ money.” The Greenwood Church that withdrew from sponsorship of a cub scout pack is “one of the finest churches in the Greenwood area.” Gays make up “only 3% of the US population but are responsible for a third of all child molestations.” The Scouts’ decision is yet more evidence that “true manhood is under attack.”

Needless to say, Clark plucks his “facts” from thin air–or perhaps from the same “researchers” who broke the news that Sponge Bob Squarepants is recruiting for the armies of homosexual activists that Clark sees everywhere. (Which does lead me to wonder how a mere 3% of the population can be everywhere Clark sees them…)

I would ignore this latest roar of wounded indignation, but a friend sent it to me not an hour after I had spoken to a sizable group of Christian senior citizens about same-sex marriage. The average age of the audience was probably 80+. They all belonged to Christian denominations. All but one of them was white. (The common stereotype of such older white Christians, of course, is that they are the bulk of the nation’s culture warriors.)

Since Micah clearly believes that he speaks for all “true” Christians, this gathering must have been composed of “fake” Christians. Not only did they reject the sort of hateful homophobic characterizations and falsehoods that Micah and his ilk constantly spew, not only did they applaud the Boy Scouts’ decision, they were strongly supportive of marriage equality.

In fact, these senior-citizen Christians must be Micah’s worst nightmare.

Micah Clark and those like him can turn blue insisting that neutral reporting turns the daily newspaper into an advocacy organization. They can excoriate “liberals” like yours truly, and dismiss our positions out of hand. They can invent statistics and “facts” and insist that theirs is the proper “moral” standard. But all of that is window dressing. Their position rests, ultimately, on their conviction that they speak for the angry God of their version of Christianity.

But just as they stereotype GLBT folks, they stereotype their fellow Christians.

For every literalist, fundamentalist church that defines itself in contrast to sinful “others,” there is a Christian denomination that takes seriously the obligation to love one’s fellow-man.

For every angry, judgmental, morally-constipated “Christian” I’ve met, I can point to three or four others who see their faith as a prescription for love and understanding and who shrink from the very real transgressions of arrogance and self-righteousness.

I am neither a Christian nor a theologian, but I know the difference between people who are at peace with themselves and people who–for whatever reason–need to blame someone else for the demons that beset them.

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