Stones From a Zen Garden

Try saying some words of hope

What color is your country's future?

Tide of Hope

Mom used to say, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." While it was meant to muzzle childish snipes and complaining, she was more correct than not. I wish for a world where the bile, venom and vitriol already rising around this week's election could be stanched for a period of grace. So insults like mulatto, fervent threats like "hope he gets shot before inauguration" and "as a country we're screwed" didn't get a shot at shattering the hope of us all working together.

I know, if hope is shattered that easily, then it still isn''t strong enough to endure. But I read those things yesterday from college-educated, otherwise sensible adult males about my age (50 or so). This crew already hates how things turned out Tuesday. Whether we can accept it easily or not, the voting was about our tomorrows and how we might make them better. Mulatto, cracker, these kind of words and spirits just keep us locked up in the past. Our election was about a path into the future. To be honest, there's a lot less of that future that we fellas of 50-plus will live through than the next generation, like my kids of ages 25 through their 30s. They've got to live in this world that's been broken much longer than I do. Do we all have to holler like Mr. Wilson? "You kids get off my lawn!"

Barack Obama carried young voters by a margin of 2:1. If it's not a crime to wish the President-elect gets shot, it's at least an anarchist slur. If our country made a habit of killing off politicians who faced opposition, we could have a government on par with Uganda or Somalia. Wishing death on somebody that you disagree with is a dark, sad, hopeless and desperate place to live in. We're better than that, or we can be. Yes, you can live in a place of hope.

"Our mullatto president" was offered up as cynicism. That phrase goes beyond just that. Being a fellow who works words, I'm always looking at my dictionary, although I think I understand what using that word intends, even while you  argue what the word "cynic" means. Mulatto means that racism isn't dead yet — nobody ever claimed it was yesterday — and there's going to be just a blink of a honeymoon for our new President. In the end, the biggest barriers we must climb are the ones that make us feel different on the basis of appearance: gender and race. Women didn't vote in a majority for Sarah Palin. Whites voted in a majority for Obama. Maybe we're taking some steps toward respect.

If you want cynicism of a professional style, rent Bullworth. In this arch satire on American politics, Warren Beatty plays an incumbent Senator whose re-election campaign has gone rogue: He's had an epiphany that everyone should be represented, not just the biggest contributors to a campaign. Jada Pinkett Smith plays a major role in the movie, and at one point Bullworth offers a solution to embracing race. Loving, he says, or more specifically, "We should all just keep f---ing each each other until we're all the same shade."

Can we put away the paper bag skin color tests and grow up? Stop taking that pound of flesh? Maybe mom would be prouder, whether she's white or not. Bless us all, even when we disagree. We need strong unity to get through the hard times at hand.

First, a word about that shirt

As it turns out, sporting my Obama t-shirt at the early voting booth was illegal. In Texas it's a misdemeanor to wear campaign clothing in the polling area. It took my friend and fellow workshop member Cindy Morgan to set me straight:

I worked as a Democratic election judge for several years and that jerk at your polling place was right.  We were specifically told to not allow into the polling place any signs, t-shirts, buttons, etc. that indicated voter preference.  As much as I love Obama, too, you committed a Class C Misdemeanor by wearing your Obama t-shirt to the polls.  Statute below.

ELECTION CODE   
TITLE 6. CONDUCT OF ELECTIONS   
CHAPTER 61. CONDUCT OF VOTING GENERALLY      

Sec. 61.010.  WEARING NAME TAG OR BADGE IN POLLING PLACE.  (a)  Except as provided by Subsection (b), a person may not wear a badge, insignia, emblem, or other similar communicative device relating to a candidate, measure, or political party appearing on the ballot, or to the conduct of the election, in the polling place or within 100 feet of any outside door through which a voter may enter the building in which the polling place is located.
   
(b)  An election judge, an election clerk, a state or federal election inspector, a certified peace officer, or a special peace officer appointed for the polling place by the presiding judge shall wear while on duty in the area described by Subsection (a) a tag or official badge that indicates the person's name and title or position.   

(c)  A person commits an offense if the person violates Subsection (a). An offense under this subsection is a Class C misdemeanor.

Patriotic Partisan Attire

See how easy that was? Admitting that you have been incorrect doesn't hurt. It is a way to practice awareness. Besides, I have a much more partisan shirt I wore all the time over the last 72 hours of the campaign. It exhorts you to vote. Pretty important, considering that getting to 60 million votes is important to winning the Presidency.  

Making fun of making fun

Finesse for real

I always thought, after years of performing it, and attempting to write it, and laughing at it, that humor was too personal to get empirical about. My friend Guy Smith recently posted on his blog that "Doonesbury is doomed." Guy went on to praise one of his favorite cartoonists as exhibiting more finesse. Well, doom is a big concept, and stretches out a long way into the future. Both of these cartoonists will have their audience until they tire of the work. Happened for Watterston, (Calvin and Hobbes) for Larson (Far Side), for Breathed (Opus). They quit, not got dumped by readers or marginalized.

Question: What is the common thread between Jackass, Married With Children, 30 Rock and The Critic? To somebody, each of them is funny. Comics strive to make us laugh, and think, too. They take a lot of different points of view.

Guy also had gripes with the Mainstream Media, or as some denigrate it, MSM. In an era where election coverage is dominated by the Internet, I agree that mainstream doesn't mean much anymore. So why rail against it? 30 Rock wins the Emmy for Best Comedy. Mad Men wins the Emmy for Best Drama. Few viewers watch either program. One airs on a broadcast network, the other on basic cable. Not even mainstream awards like Emmys make a difference. Any afternoon of Oprah probably outdrew both shows put together. Oprah's MSM, political, too. People poke fun at her, but she draws attention. And not a comic at all. Instead, she advises couples to start each day with a 10-second kiss. Effective for remembering love.

Media had a chance to be mainstream before the Internet. Now everybody pretty much believes what they want to believe, until personal experience teaches them something new. How broken is healthcare? Have your spouse's hip replaced. How worthless is Wall Street? See 100 grand of your retirement vanish in a week. I saw them both this month, from my family to a good friend from the 3000 world. These things are broken, from my experience. I don't need to read a comic anyplace to learn different.

Finesse is French for "smoothness." Doesn't mean subtlety, or something clever. Burrs under the saddle don't include just "elite." They run to "liberal" and "left" too. This name-calling has us looking pretty immature. The us vs. them sing-songs are what's got our country at a standstill, bleeding its potential from millions of little cuts at one another, falling out when we could be walking tall.

I wish Joe the Plumber luck. I started a business in flush times, the early 1990s, during the brief era of one-party rule. I've persevered through a more lengthy era of one-party rule, but the business trend has been downward since 2001. The fault? It lies not in the star cartoonists, but in ourselves. And so we can rally ourselves and laugh at ourselves. And work together with people who after all, are just like us in some way.