Fair and balanced...

For those who think, in light of recent notes, that I'm a racist, here are a few thoughts that might appease your troubled souls.

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice."
In a 1955 response to an accusation that he was "disturbing the peace" by his activism during the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, as quoted in Let the Trumpet Sound : A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr (1982) by Stephen B. Oates.

I recently taught a section on MLK Jr. to my 4th-year Cambodian students. I did so during the holiday. It's good for them to learn about foreign holidays, and it's good for them to learn about other races, because they are inherently a very racist people. We talked about MLK Jr. and what he accomplished - quite amazing, really - and about how he was such a tremendous speaker. I left out all the nasty bits about his shady home life and sexual indiscretions.

It was great to talk to the students about how a subculture in my own nation had overcome adversity. It was also neat to see how that particular situation in America was able to influence them a little. They have many, many obstacles to overcome in their culture: poverty, infringing Asian powers, corruption in the government... We talked about the above quote, one of my favorites. We also talked about this one:

"Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus." "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution", an address at the Episcopal National Cathedral, Washington D.C. (31 March 1968)

What a profound thought. "Molder of consensus..." It's very true that leadership needs to rally consensus and not simply seek it. For one thing , you won't find a consensus in this country today. I'm interested to see what kind of consensus Obama creates. I hope he goes moderate so we don't swing too far left.

"Molder of consensus" also has many negative, Orwellian connotations as well. Some of the greatest molders of consensus were Hitler, Guevara, Lennin, Mao... We all know how badly these ended (or are continuing)... I think we saw a touch, a smidgen of a taste, of Orwellian behavior during the past election. Dear Haters, please don't come back with accusations of me comparing Obama to Hitler or Mao - I'm not. No one can deny, however, the bizarre robot-like ferver with which his empty rhetoric was met.

I mean, I keep saying "pass the soma" until it's become trite (at least to me). If you don't understand this reference, I'm speaking of Aldous Huxley's novel "A Brave New World" in which the people were mandatorily given a mind-altering drug called "soma." They would pop various amounts to wash away the awful cares of the world, i.e. reality. Any malcontent or anxiety or sadness or disappointment could be removed, consequence-free, with the magic little pill. Huxley was your quintessintial, post-modern hippy (hippie?) intellectual who back in the 60's promoted the experimentation of psychadelic drugs to further the evolution of our consciousness as human beings. Anyway, as you read the book you become incensed at how these people are dumbed down by these drugs and how it allows the hidden world power to control the population. Some of the mania surrounding our new president reminded me a little of this. The people crying and chanting at his mediocre, redundant speeches... It was like someone had passed out the soma.

"Don't worry about what he's saying! Just listen to the pretty sounds! Isn't he dynamic? You don't know what 'dynamic' means??? It's not important."

I wonder exactly what MLK Jr. would have to say about it. I'll have to ask Rick Warren to get in touch with the Cloud of Witnesses and get back to me.

Until then....

Bryant

More feedback...

IN RESPONSE TO AN ANONYMOUS COMMENT ON MY FACEBOOK NOTE ABOUT RACE, ABORTION, AND BARRACK OBAMA...

Dear Jane Doe,

You are not out of line and I appreciate the input.

I've gone down the opposite path as you, it seems. I went from championing minority causes in highschool, believing the white man was the source of all evil, to silence in college, and now that I've experienced 20 years worth of the race issue I'm finally coming out of this particular closet. I don't think that capitulation on the part of white people TODAY will do any good. It certainly would have a century ago, but ignorance takes time to disappear. What is needed is responsibility from both sides, and we're just not seeing much from the African American community.

The very fact that a comment about Kwanza decorations in the White House makes you ill bothers me. I think it says something of how we've been conditioned by the media and liberal scholastics to believe that such comements somehow represent racism or lack of taste. Jokes were made when Bush moved into the White House about how he was going to turn it into a red-neck, Texas ranch paradise of sorts with shooting ranges and rodeos and animal heads everywhere and such. No one cared. No one was offended. These were untrue characterizations about our then president. I thought they were kinda funny. Why should characterizations about Obama be any different? Is it because they were African-American themed??? Why then should that be different?

One reason I was so blunt in that note is to prove a point that white people can no longer speak truthfully about their feelings on such issues. Your new-found, East Coast sensibilites may be easily unhinged by such comments, but you should know that for every person like myself who will be open about this issue, there are hundreds upon hundreds more who sit in silent agreement, too afraid to speak out lest they be branded racists and bigots.

I was talking to my friend about this subject today. We were talking about how people will probably react to what I wrote I'm actually not a racist person at all, and I can't stand TRUE racism. I've gotten into fights in gas stations before when illegal immigrants were being berated by stupid red necks behind the service counter. I've been thrown out of a Chevron, of all places, because I felt it necessary to make an issue of defending those poor Mexicans. When I was young, one of my best friends in our apartment complex was Anthony, a black kid. My parents - ignorant, southern rednecks by New Jersey standards - taught me early on that we should treat all people the same no matter what their skin color. One time some kids in our apartment complex started picking on Anthony, calling him the N word. I rushed to his defense at my own expense that day, and I'll never forget being consoled by my parents and having to understand the cold, hard reality of what true ignorance really is. I'm not saying this to toot my own horn, but I will NOT be called a racist, directly or indirectly, by you or anyone else.

For the black community, I would say the people of this nation aren't doing enough to lift them up and promote their well being. I think the worst treatment they receive is from their own leaders who want more hand outs and more special favors for their people than they want real change. It will mean the men of that commnity pulling themselves together and getting to work, figuratively and literally. We'll see what Obama does with this. If he can pull something intelligent and responsible together, I just might get on board because I want to be a part of the change too. Maybe I'll go teach in a inner-city Chicago school when I get home. I was looking at some really cool programs they have there.

As for representing Christ, you're probably right. I always come up short in this department. I'm currently of the opinion, from what I read of Him in Scripture, that he wasn't as sugar-coated as we have made Him out to be. I'll bet he was a pretty tough guy, yet full of grace and truth..... I should probably lean more towards the grace side of things than I do, but sometimes all smiles and handshakes doesn't accomplish much. Hard issues require hard stances, and I'm really worked up about this one.

Was what I said hurtful and alienating? I'm sure it was, because these are hurtful and alienating topics. It's NOT OK for African Americans to get a free pass because of their race. Their behavior during this election has been SOOOO irresponsible it makes me ill. In interviews and through personal interraction I've had with them, they can't really articulate why he'd be a better president or for what they are casting their vote. It's really just because he's a black man. One of my friends was talking to a black coworker who said, "He grew up poor just like us and knows where we come from!" That is a LOAD OF GARBAGE! He grew up more affluent than me and most of the people in my circle of influence. Private schools, Harvard.... His madrasa education in Indonesia wasn't cheap! Poor blacks on the streets in Harlem can't even relate, and they're gonna act like their blood-brother has arisen from firery trials of poverty and racial oppression.... Give me a break.

People need to think, really begin to think about these issues and stop vomiting back Oprah's and Katie Courrick's and Bernard Shaw's latest garbage, because all they're doing is moving the nation's perception of things according to their own, left-wing persuasions.
Anyway, try not to be so sensitive. It's not going to help anyone; it's not proactive enough to make a difference. It only permits the unfairness to continue. What we need is the honesty and fortitude to confront these issues head on. If you disagree with me, feel free to let me have it. I don't mind. That's what makes this country great.


Grace and peace,

Bryant

THIS IS IN RESPONSE TO A COMMENT ON MY LAST POST

Nathan,

I largely agree with what I think are your intentions, but I disagree with some of your reasoning. I’m going to respond to what you said from the bottom up.

To say that the church is too involved in politics makes me wonder if you’ve bought into the lie that church and state should be completely separate in all aspects of American life. This is not so, historically or constitutionally. I also feel, as a Christian, that we should be involved in all aspects of our community, locally and nationally. We must not create a false dichotomy here. Local communities aggregate ultimately to form the nation, so to say we shouldn’t be concerned with national government and only community is, as I said, a false dichotomy. Whatever your political persuasion may be, we must face facts: The nation today is run federally regardless of the founders’ intentions. National decisions pervade even the smallest of American communities. To be concerned with national politics is, in a way, to be concerned with the politics of the community, and I am convinced this is part of the holistic duty of the Christian citizen.

Now, having said that, I agree with you one hundred percent that it must begin in the community. Beyond that, if we are to be biblical, it must begin in the home, with the family – this, and not some backwards, fear-mongered homophobia, is why conservatives should oppose gay marriage and abortion. Community, as you have rightly indicated, should be the daily concern of the church. I think if we focus our gospel living and gospel service in the community the outcome will be far better than trying to legislate morality from the top down. But we must not shirk our responsibility to vote responsibly while waving the community service flag.

Let the above be an umbrella for what I say next. I don’t care if Obama and his family make the Cleavers look like petty thugs. I want a president with family values; I want a leader with a decent home life; I want a Commander in Chief who values community (i.e. what we had in George Bush). I, however, rightly question the man’s values and sense of justice when he consistently stands for the murder of infants. There is something fundamentally skewed within a person who shrugs their shoulders at the idea of hacking an unborn infant to pieces in the womb. That’s what abortion is. It’s not a quiet drifting off to sleep for the baby. The reality is babies are slowly, chemically disintegrated in the womb, or they’re cut up with knives and flushed away, or their skulls are punctured and their brains sucked out. Do a google image search, type in abortion, and you’ll have more than enough proof of the atrocity. Actual, scholarly research on the subject is even more gruesome. Anyone who shrugs their shoulders at such practices has a hideously distorted view of social justice – abortion is the height of INjustice and not the behavior of an enlightened society. Obama is not merely a shoulder-shrugger; he is a proactive, vehement supporter of abortion. His words of reduction policy are empty; his actions speak volumes.

President Obama’s voting record holds many disappointed moments for me, but the two most disturbing are his opposition of the Born Alive Treatment Law (Illinois Senate) – requiring medical attention be given to babies born after failed abortions – and his no vote on a 1997 proposed ban of partial birth abortion in Illinois. Here is what he had to say about it during the debates:

“I think that most Americans recognize that this is a profoundly difficult issue for the women and families who make these decisions. They don't make them casually. And I trust women to make these decisions in conjunction with their doctors and their families and their clergy. And I think that's where most Americans are. Now, when you describe a specific procedure that accounts for less than 1% of the abortions that take place, then naturally, people get concerned, and I think legitimately so. But the broader issue here is: Do women have the right to make these profoundly difficult decisions? And I trust them to do it. There is a broader issue: Can we move past some of the debates around which we disagree and can we start talking about the things we do agree on? Reducing teen pregnancy; making it less likely for women to find themselves in these circumstances.”
Source: 2007 South Carolina Democratic primary debate, on MSNBC Apr 26, 2007

I will never in any way support a man who couches this despicable behavior in terms of “profoundly difficult decisions.” Deciding whether or not to have corrective surgery on your child’s heart condition is a “profoundly difficult decision.” Deciding whether or not to have a doctor puncture your child’s skull and suck the brains out is infanticide.

So he can play with the kiddies at home and remain faithful to his wife and pick up litter in the park and rescue baby seals from oil spills and build homes for Katrina victims and rally the community for better and brighter days, but I feel it’s fundamentally all for naught. Our society cannot continue or progress towards better community and stronger moral fiber if we deny life from conception.

Working my way up to the top of your comment, Nathan, let me say that I believe you’re completely wrong about Sarah Palin. The media tore that woman to shreds, and what a decent woman she is. She didn’t make a mockery of herself; CNN and NBC and CBS did a wonderful enough job. The GOP spent a ridiculous amount of money on her clothing…. Ok…. Michelle Obama spent ridiculous amounts of campaign money on clothes and food, yet because she’s the democrat candidate’s wife she gets the pass. The media quickly recognized Sara Palin’s appeal to middle america and rushed to snuff out that opportunity beforer the McCain campaign could jump ahead in popular opinion. Greta Van Susteren (who usually grates on my last nerve) did a wonderful interview with Palin, post election. You should check the Fox News archives if you ever have that much time to kill. Personally, I don’t think it matters now, anyway. And I think anyone who wished for McCain to die so she could ascend to office is disturbed on many levels.

I want to know why you think it’s interesting that I don’t want to be conservative for the sake of it. All I’m saying is that there’s a time for being what you’re raised to be and then there’s a time to own or disown it, and the latter requires an intellectual journey of sorts where you question your parents and your teachers and your upbringing and you listen to other opinions and wrestle with the big questions. I think this is true politically as well as spiritually. At any rate, we may indeed find ourselves having to abandon the “conservative” label in years to come, but that doesn’t mean you have to get onboard the left-wing agenda either. How about let’s all shoot for sensible, constitutional-driven politics? Let’s shoot for substance, people! All races in America, hand-in-hand, practicing the politics of substance. I’m gonna make some t-shirts.

Having said all of this I’ll close by saying I’m not afraid of the future, even though I believe it bodes ill for we who seek some semblance of morality upheld both locally and nationally. Yet we should all press on joyfully and expectantly for we know Whom we’ve believed, and we’re convinced that He is able… Not Washington, not republicans, not Barrack Obama… (and not even Itzhak Perlhman)

Grace and peace,

Bryant

Goat Thief

Please, please go check out this article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_fe_st/odd_goat_thief

Somebody call an ambulance!

Last night, Ben and I were cooking dinner. It was particularly exciting because we had splurged on some "steaks", and were also gonna do some mashed potatoes and saute'd carrots and onions. Now, when I say "steak" imagine a piece of beef about an inch think and 7 inches long and maybe two inches wide. Normally, such a piece of beef would feed a family of four Cambodians, but we fat, greedy Americans eat about four times that much in a sitting. Ok, so Ben was cooking the $4 beef strips - strips is more accurate - and potatos, and I was taking down the Christmas tree and cleaning the kitchen, when we heard this moaning/crying like a little kid who had his toy stolen. Then...commotion could be heard outside on top of the crying. I waited about three minutes for it to subside and finally realized that it wasn't going away.

I put the broom down and went outside on the walkway. Looking down I saw a crowd of about 40 people gathered very closely around a moto, parked on the sidewalk. On top was a woman who looked about like she was gonna give birth. Two women behind her were holding her, trying to keep her still as she swayed back and forth in pain. One man was holding her right leg up. Women were fanning and patting her face. People in the cirlce were hollaring and laughing and carrying on. Others were running back and forth like something was on fire. I really couldn't figure it out.

I didn't know what to do. I wanted to run down and see what was going on. I mean, I am a teacher here... But sometimes it seems that the Cambodians should be left alone. I mean, they function just fine as a nation without my supervision. I have no first aid here beyond bandaids and ibprofen, so barring a faith-healing I don't have much to offer. I probably should rectify this. Anyway, I didn't see any blood, so I left it alone.

Well, later that night my friend Young Hoon came over to do some language exchange. He was thirty minutes late, he said, because he had been tending to that woman. Young Hoon said she strained her ankle. I think he meant "sprained", but I can't be sure. I went down with him to the bottom floor common area where she was sitting awkwardly on a couch with about 20 people mulling around her and the same two girls holding her from behind. She was sobbing uncontrollably and her right leg was convulsing. It was really weird. I've had sprains before, and they don't make your leg convulse. Anywho, we waded through the crowd - mostly of gawking, slightly amused men - and when I finally looked at her leg/ankle I couldn't see anything. There was no mark, no scrape, no swelling, no redness of any sort. It was strange. Young Hoon said he had given her some "pain killer."

The guys standing around this girl presented one of the goofiest scenes I've ever witnessed. In America, if this happened, guys would be jumping hurdles and lighting fires to make sure this girl was taken care of. They would have carried her on their back to a doctor or built a stretcher or SOMETHING. Not these guys. If I took a snap shot of them standing around this girl and turned it into a Farside cartoon, it would read like this: "Hey Bob! Check this out. Let's poke it with a stick and see what happens..."

Anyway, the women in the crowd collectively decided that she should be brought up to her room on the 4th floor. I start thinking, Ok. I can easily scoop her up in my arms and... Too late... A guy came over, half laughing, and crouched down in front of her. She put her arms around his neck, and in one far-too-swift motion he reached behind and grabbed her under her knees and stood up, she screamed bloody murder, the men all laughed, and the guy took off up the stairs like it was a piggy-back race.

We chased the guy up the stairs to the girl's dorm room, where she was quickly deposited on a mattress on the floor. The 10 or so girls in the room were buzzing around screaming "give her air! turn on the fan! rub her back!" It was sheer madness. A couple guys came up to the door to continue their gawking and snickering. Young Hoon was giving suggestions in Korean, to which the Cambodians were replying in a severly mangled form of his language. Then the girls finally turned on us, demanding we leave. I was more than happy to oblige.

I've never in my life seen anything like it, and I still don't know what happened. I have to revert to my favorite metaphore - Asian circus - to describe the evening. My only conclusion is as follows: I hope I'm never incapacitated in this country while I'm without fellow Americans. I think my friend Maly's family are the only Cambodians here I trust to get me to proper health care. Back in 2002, I passed out once. They were with me and made sure I was ok. Here on campus, I'm not so sure I'd make it out alive.

Son of bitch...

If you have Asian friends trying to learn English, do them - and yourself - a favor and steer them away from movie watching as a learning tool. At the very least, steer them away from movies with bad language.

A Korean friend of mine recently came to me for English help. Two of his questions were, back to back, as follows:

"What does mean, 'son of bitch', and how can use phrase, 'Let's get out of these clothes.'?"


If you're angry at me for repeating his questions, I'd ask you to please be an adult. This is real-life stuff, and I feel like sharing it. He was sincerely and quite innocently asking.

So, how does one begin to answer? I was like, "Uh...Young Hoon...well... The first one is not very nice. You probably shouldn't say it until you understand the language better, and then you still probably shouldn't say it. The second is, well... When you get married you can say that to your wife, but you shouldn't say that to anyone else.................ever."

He looked around, eyes darting back and forth around the room, mouth expressionless... Suddenly he lit up and gave me his usual rapid-fire "ok ok ok!" Which always lets me know that he gets something I'm explaining. Then he grinned and said, "I will say this, and then my wife will take off her clothes and then we will have sex!"

"Uh...yeah, sure Young Hoon, that's the idea. Good job." I'm the best English teacher Asia has EVER seen!

Helmets...

Phnom Penh - all of Cambodia, actually, but mostly just the city - has a new "gotta wear a helmet" law. I think it speaks much of a country when people have been zipping around on motos for decades, and they just passed a law requiring helmets.

But that's neither here nor there.

So, this new law went into effect New Year's Day. I found it amusing to watch the dramatic increase of helmet-usage on January 1st. People previously wouldn't wear them. Heck, there were many times I'd neglect my helmet because it's confining and hot, and if just going down the street why bother??? But seriously, motorists dart all over the place here like flies on a corpse, and they care little about their noggins. It's nothing to see a family of four or five piled on a motor bike, maybe with a toddler between the father's legs and a mother in the back holding an infant and maybe even a young kid straddling the back behind mom, hanging on for dear life - none donning the head gear. It's a pattern of behavior so foreign to me, that I've yet to grasp the implications. I often have trouble driving myself around, much less two people, and certainly giving no thought to the idea of three or more.

So, the past couple days I've been amusing myself by checking out the plethura of helmatage on the road. There're types of helmets, as I've classified them: There's the classic crotch-rocket helmet, looking all sporty and fast. It's kinda funny to see people on what is essentially a glorified moped wearing such speed-sensitive head gear. Then there's the skull-cap, harleyesque helmet. These are the sorts of helmets that should typically be accompanied by a 1200cc engine and leather jacket, even more humorous for the moped driver. Finally, there are what I call moped caps. These are little plastic bowls with a chin strap and dorky plastic visor that looks like something added as an afterthought. It fits the bike, that's for sure.

Then, within these three categories there are options. The sporty, speed-suggestive helmets have an average-Joe variation that most people wear. These have cheap-looking plastic designs that scream 1980's. If Zach Morris wore a helmet in Saved By The Bell, it would look like this. And then are are the cool, sleek black ones that have the mirrored front and fire-truck-red phoenix on the back. If a young man wants to be cool, this is his helmet of choice. I want one. The skull caps range from plain blacks and greys - what you would expect - to Hello Kitty and daisies. You'd be surprised how many men don the latter. These strike me as pointless because a person's entire jaw & chin & face are open to whatever damage results from a collision. The moped cap variety of helmet comes in an assortment of primary colors, and people tend towards little decoration with these. It's like they know they're not cool, and there's no point in pretending.

So now people are buzzing around all protected, or at least trying to be protected. Another bonus-humor of sorts is the police trying to enfore the law. See... The police here are goofballs. I've yet to see them preform any real useful purpose other than to block traffic whenever a "dignitary" drives by. When this occurs entire intersections, major ones at that, are shut down for ten minutes plus while His Excellency So-And-So makes his way through down in a black windowed Lexus or Mercedes. I find it completely inequitable and unnecessary. If His Excellency wants to move quickly through town, try writing some real traffic laws and hiring some civil engineers to design real roadways. Why should I have to stop for ten minutes waiting for the big cheeses of Phnom Penh to make there way through? The people here seem unaffected by it, and they actually take the down-time as a chance to socialize and get to know their fellow motorists.

Ok, so back to the police and helmets...

Police here are not what you're thinking. We think car, blue lights, sirens, side-arms... Get that paradigm out of your head and go for three or more Barney Fife's standing on a street corner with billy clubs. They can't really do anything. Even if they happen to have a motorcycle, which is rare, they won't ever give chase. And they don't even inforce all the laws. I'm baffled by their approach really. What they do is pick a "Law of the Month" (as far as I can tell) and enforce that one. It's like they can't be bothered with remembering them all at once. Last couple months it's been mirrors. They decided that all moto's need mirrors. I'd guess only about 50% of the driving population capitulated to this one. So what you had were cops stopping motorists without mirrors when they'd stop at a red light. They'd stand out in front of the moto and force the driver over the curb where he or she would be fined the standard $1.25 ($2.00 or more for foreigners). I thought for the longest time that mirrors must be really expensive for so many people to avoid getting them. I thought this way until one of mine broke and I had to buy a new pair - $1.75. Price couldn't be the reason, so why not just go buy some??? The enforcement of said mirror law reached an all time high before Christmas to the point that you'd see people doing u-turns before intersections where cops were waiting. I mean, get some dang mirrors...seriously, people.

A really fun law is that your lights can't be on during the day. This, apparently, is a severe hazard to motorists' safety. Let me make clear how insane this is by pointing out that even at night when you've got your engine revved all the way, your moto headlight is about as bright as a small Mag Light. I've been stopped once for this. If you really want some great entertainment, drive out of the house with your headlight on during the day and watch how many motorists almost break their neck trying to tell you your lights on. At least they care...

Now that there is a helmet law, the mirror thing is old news. Today I saw at least a dozen go past cops without mirrors, but by gosh they had helmets. I got a kick out of the men in blue trying to decide which helmet-less victims they'd stop, because at least 3 out of 10 had no helmet. Somtimes you'll see them hurriedly conferencing at a red light. I can just imagine them saying, "He looks like he has money! No, no! That one over there! But I don't think we could take him if he tries to run! Chang, get your club ready!"

So I watch and I laugh, and then today, at a red light, I looked at my reflection in a car window and decided I have the most uncool helmet of them all. It's a monstrosity, about ten-times too big for my head, with this goofy visor guard that sticks out in the front a good 12 inches. I'd never even paid it any attention. It has to go. It doesn't fit any of the three categories. I can just imagine the Cambodians saying, "Hey, get a load of that guy! Americans...."