Terror and Grief

Have been thinking a lot lately about the recent attacks on Paris and the way people from all around the world have responded to it. Watching social media feeds, listening to people talk, following the news coverage, responses have ranged from a violent backlash against the Syrian refugees and Muslims in general, to a redoubled determination to reach out to and provide aid for those same people.

What struck me hardest was the hate. In the days following the attack, and even now over a week later, the degree of hate being spewed across my Facebook page rattled me. The hate--hate directed not at Islamic radicals, but at all Muslims and particularly those fleeing the same types of radicals who orchestrated the attack in Paris--shook me even deeper than the attacks themselves. Because what we should be fearing isn't refugees, or Muslims, or terrorists. What we (humanity) should fear is extreme hatred, no matter what form it takes, or who it's directed at. Responding to an act of extreme hatred with extreme hatred is self-defeating. Hate begets hate. And that's not just some hippy-dippy love-your-fellow-man theory--that's something that has been demonstrated in history again and again.

In trying to understand this outpouring of (in many cases misdirected) hate I am now framing peoples' reactions to the horrifying attack within the context of grief. When faced with a tragedy, it is natural to grieve, and when grieving, it is natural to go through the five stages of shock and denial, anger, depression and detachment, dialogue and bargaining, and acceptance. What I would like to think is that at least some of what I was seeing drift across my newsfeeds was not hate for the sake of hate, but a natural phase in the cycle of grief--the shock, denial, and anger that one goes through when grappling with the loss of life.  I would like to think that a portion of these expressions of hate were expressions of the anger of grief, and therefore a necessary part of the process in moving towards acceptance, and something more positive.

Of course, the question then becomes is it possible to authentically grieve for people you did not know? Can you grieve when the loss is not personally your own? Does the cycle of grief still apply? I think so, though my feeling is that that cycle is significantly abbreviated for those of us not directly touched by a tragedy.

In the end, I suppose it might not matter whether the hateful words people speak and the actions they commit in the wake of November 13ths attacks stem from a place of grief, or from a place of actual hatred. The damage done is the same. But for me--grief, I can understand. I can forgive things said and done in grief. I cannot find it in me, however, to forgive anything stemming from pure unthinking hate.

To leave on a note of hope, and healing:

Another prairie sunset

Brutalizing paper with crayon this time:

Takakkaw Falls

Felt like brutalizing a piece of paper with a pencil this evening:

Not really meant to be an accurate representation, but I used the image on the right as inspiration 

The Barrel Organ

We all have peripheral images left over from childhood storybooks of monkeys turning cranks on boxes from which cheerful organ music piped. One type of organ operated in this way was the barrel organ, which consisted of bellows and one or more tiers of pipes housed in a (usually highly ornamented) box. The music was created by the turning of wood "barrels" or cylinders which were encoded with music using an array of pins and staples.

("Detail of barrel organ (1)" by Chmee2, Wikimedia Commons)

Amazing what you can make music out of, isn't it? While the playing of this device doesn't require great musical talent--just a steady arm, the composing of music on one of these barrels is quite complex, so hats off to those who did and still do create their own barrels.

But, on to what I really wanted to share:

 First, this guy, because he's awesome

And second some historic images of barrel organs and their grinders. I find these fascinating, as they show a type of street performing you would be hard-pressed to find anywhere in the world today (though organ grinder hobbyists do still exist, as is evidenced by the awesome dude above). These images show a quirky array of people, many of them seeming a bit rough around the edges, which really makes you wonder about their stories. How did they come by their barrel organs? Were they all hand-made, or inherited? If not, what sort of a business investment is a barrel organ? How much would that have set you back in the early 1900's? Were these people wacky free-spirits, or hard-working individuals desperate for a few coins in an over-saturated job market? Literature from the time depicts them as almost exclusively as vagabond extortionists, however as with any profession, I'd imagine the personal histories of those involved were as varied and colorful as the instruments they played. 

Organ Grinder, 1922. Toronto Public Library X 65-211

Eugene Atget's Organ Grinder

Children with Organ Grinder in New York

The scene with the organ grinder and the Gypsy girl 

Organ Grinder With Monkey, Ohio County Public Library, W.C. Brown Photo 83

"An organ grinder at Mtskheta" by N_Creatures, Wikipedia Commons

Pro-life vs. Pro-choice : Perspective

Long time no blog, dawg. Not gonna make excuses, except that Christmas happened, and appraisal season is coming up, and I've been battling off the winter blues, and and and. . .

Ahem

So, today's rumination of choice is on the pro-life versus pro-choice debate. Typically, I have avoided getting into discussions about this topic, as everyone and their dog seems to have very strong opinions, and will fight tooth and claw for one side or the other.

The truth is, I don't really have a strong opinion. If it came down to it, I would fall on the "pro-choice" side of the spectrum, as I believe ultimately what a woman does with her body should be her own to decide. But I don't feel the need to back that belief up with philosophy, constitutional babble, feminist rage, or the typical series of "what if's " (what if she was raped? what if giving birth would kill the mother? what if she cannot afford to raise the child?).

It is not that there is no validity in these arguments -- there is. However, from my perspective, these discussions tend to take away from the reality of the choice in pro-choice.

By turning the topic into a matter of philosophy or politics, putting it in the drawing room or on the political platform, the emotional impact of the choice is drained away, and you might as well be discussing taxation or smoking pipes and rambling abstractly about ethics.

"Pro-choice" is often used in feminist hands as a sort of weapon, another blade from the armory. Again this distracts from the reality of the choice -- "pro-choice" becomes more of a tagline or a battlecry, than something centered on a real decision to be made.

As to the "what ifs", I find them irrelevant. Certainly, they play a role in how the choice might come to be made, but they make weak pillars when upholding the right to make that choice, because they take something that is very real, and throw it into the realm of the hypothetical.

What I'm trying to get at here is that it is easy to lose track of the choice in pro-choice when everyone gets caught up in picking sides and debating themselves blue in the face.

Yes, I believe every woman should have the right to choose. I am happy to live in a country where abortion is legally an option for me. But if it came right down to it, and I found myself with an unwanted pregnancy, would I choose abortion?

 I honestly don't know.

If I were thinking just in terms of philosophy, politics, or what I believe about women's rights, I'd go for it in an instant. But when faced with such a choice, none of that really matters, does it?

And, for that matter, the choice of whether to bring a life into the world, or hold it back, is one that exists independently of the law. Abortions were performed before safe medical procedures were ever invented, and abortions would continue even without governmental approval and proper medical support.

Strip away the philosophy and the politics, the question of a woman's rights and the "what ifs", and you are left with a choice, the same choice women have been making for centuries.

And it is, and always will be the most difficult--and most important--decision a woman can make.

Dress up time?

About once a year I feel the need to color myself stupidly and take pictures in some sort of costume. This day does not necessarily need to fall on Halloween. This year I was only off by a couple weeks. So like a reasonable adult, I indulged myself and played dressup, and then dicked around with the pictures to make them look more frightening than I look already. And that's saying something. This is what happens when I marathon watch American Horror Story.

BDSM PSA

So, by now, most of us who are interested have heard that the CBC's Jian Ghomeshi has been fired over his sexual practices, which seem to be centered around the BDSM culture. For those of you unfamiliar, BDSM is defined as "erotic practices involving dominance and submission, roleplay and restraint".

He is suing the CBC for $50 million (taxpayer dollars), claiming both defamation, and an unjust termination based on his sexual preferences. And if they were firing him just because he was involved in BDSM, this would most certainly be the case. It would be the equivalent of firing someone because of their sexual orientation, or because they have tattoos. Not fair.

However, what seems to be missing for many people in the discussion of whether or not the CBC ought to have terminated his employment is the fact that three women have come forward with claims of sexual abuse. Ghomeshi has countered this, saying that he has never engaged in sex with a non-consenting partner, and that the claims of abuse are most likely lies planted by a crazy ex-girlfriend.

I can't speak to his crazy ex-girlfriends, but I can talk a bit about BDSM culture and abuse. BDSM can be violent--it is frequently centered around seeking pleasure in pain. To someone unfamiliar with the culture, it might seem like anyone engaging in this sort of sexual practice deserves whatever abuse they get. But this is not the case. Making this assumption is, in fact, the same thing as saying that a woman in slutty clothes deserves to be raped.

The reason? There is something of a golden rule in BDSM culture that REAL and FINAL power lies in the hands of the submissive. This means if at any point the submissive gets uncomfortable and says "Stop" or some other safeword, it is the dominant's responsibility to do as he or she is told. If the dominant (in this case Ghomeshi) were to ignore this rule, he would no longer be engaged in the same sexual act the submissive originally consented to. In BDSM, an act morphs from consensual sex to sexual abuse the moment final power is wrested from the hands of the submissive.

Now, I'm not saying that this is absolutely the case with Ghomeshi. I don't know, I wasn't there. But I feel like if this is a case of Ghomeshi repeatedly breaking the golden rule BDSM and hurting women who didn't know what they were getting into, the CBC is most certainly right in terminating his employment, because what we are dealing with is an illegal act of sexual abuse. Too often in our culture we are willing to write off the words of a woman claiming sexual abuse as just that -- a groundless claim. I for one am glad that the CBC is taking these allegations seriously, and I hope that there is a full and fair investigation.

It is also my hope that people won't lose sight of the three women who came forward. This isn't a question of whether a person should be fired for engaging in BDSM culture--the answer to that is a simple "absolutely not." The question here is, should a person be fired for perpetrating sexual abuse to which the answer, in my book, is yes.