Why I refuse to celebrate.

"That is a subtle observation on the part of philosophy: you can both love virtue too much and behave with excess in an action which itself is just."

- Michel de Montaigne, On moderation

* * *

 "...but if we choose to enjoy things that are to be used, our advance is impeded and sometimes even diverted, and we are held back, or even put off, from attaining things which are to be enjoyed, because we are hamstrung by our love of lower things."

- St. Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine

* * *

yeah.

I took notes, I sat down, I got tired and frankly lost interest in the whole thing. I was going to compose this long argument about why I think it's wrong to celebrate even a justified death, how it demeans us as a society, how the sudden mainstreaming and approval of our tendency toward ultranationalist necrophilia gives me the creeps, how I don't want to be aligned with people who consider a mosque several blocks away from Ground Zero sacrilege and then go get drunk at Ground Zero and encourage drunken superpatriot college girls to flash their breasts...and so on. But Osama hatefuck fatigue has set in (exacerbated by Obama lovefest fatigue, which in this context is just as irritating), and I think we'd all be better served if I just linked to these remarkably thoughtful pieces by Mona Eltahawy at The Guardian and David Sirota at Salon.com. While you're at it, if you really want to see the depths to which people stoop during a civilization's decline, check this link to a Wonkette article about Osama's Dead merchandise. Maybe you can get your dog a shirt, or treat yourself to a trucker cap.

Or just take a look at the guy in the clip below. And if you don't see layer upon layer of horrifying irony here, may God help you.

You're welcome.

My parents (neither one a native English speaker) don't like saying "you're welcome" because to them it sounds arrogant. That's not to say that they pass such a judgment on anyone who uses the expression, or even to say that they never use it themselves; they just can't bring themselves to say it without some level of discomfort.

Quirky as I initially found this fact, I realized that I don't say it much either. It feels cumbersome compared to "my pleasure" or the entirely informal "no problem," and I always find myself stumbling over the syllables like a shy little boy. Maybe I inherited a dislike of the phrase from my parents. Maybe I just inherited the set of values--or quirks--that make it so awkward for them.

My dad's explanation for his dislike of the phrase in question has to do with humility: by saying "You're welcome," the person receiving thanks acknowledges his/her entitlement to recognition for an act of kindness, and in so doing creates a two-tiered system with the obliged at bottom.

As opposed to the Portuguese/Spanish version my parents are used to ("de nada," which translates roughly into "it's nothing" or "think nothing of it"), "you're welcome" implies a commitment. If one is to "think nothing of it," the transaction is terminated almost as quickly as it began; but to what does the giver "welcome" the recipient? More charity? Whereas "think nothing of it" humbly rejects accolades, the acceptance expressed by "you're welcome" seems self-aggrandizing.

Maybe it's far-fetched to extrapolate from this the notion that a polite idiom would have a sinister effect on the way English speakers give and get thanks, but there's something a little creepy about the self-congratulation involved in some of the louder American efforts to help Haitians, isn't there? In the weeks following the earthquake, every hour on CNN was filled with reports on Haiti that shared time with the network's anchors and correspondents lauding themselves for doing such a great job.

Understand, I don't mean to denigrate the good that people have done, only to comment on what I think is a disturbing undercurrent of charity in general and American charity in particular. CNN's sentimental, self-congratulatory drama annoyed me a bit, but it's a superficial sort of annoyance. Much more disturbing and telling in this regard (as Naomi Klein of course has already pointed out) is that amid all the good deeds and goodwill, the harbingers of disaster capitalism have been licking their chops since day one. And that's not just my opinion. So, you're welcome, Haiti.

"that is where you go to die"

Horace Miner's 1956 essay, "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema,"  satirizes western anthropologists' othering characterizations of "primitive" cultures by painting Americans (the "Nacirema"--sorry, I guess that's a spoiler) as a superstitious people whose cultural practices are based on the belief "that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease." I remember reading this essay in an anthropology course early in my undergraduate studies and finding it wildly amusing. 

Recently I returned to Miner's essay and was reminded that it has this to say about health care among the Nacirema:

The latipso ceremonies are so harsh that it is phenomenal that a fair proportion of the really sick natives who enter the temple ever recover. Small children whose indoctrination is still incomplete have been known to resist attempts to take them to the temple because "that is where you go to die." Despite this fact, sick adults are not only willing but eager to undergo the protracted ritual purification, if they can afford to do so. No matter how ill the supplicant or how grave the emergency, the guardians of many temples will not admit a client if he cannot give a rich gift to the custodian. Even after one has gained and survived the ceremonies, the guardians will not permit the neophyte to leave until he makes still another gift.

 Oh, those Nacirema. Will they ever learn?

Rant.

Jindal channeled Mr. Rogers at the start, and it was downhill from there. Evoking Katrina, bringing up debunked myths on high speed rails, ranting about a volcano safety program. This was not an accident. He was sacrificed by his own party.

But why?

Neoconservatism and neoliberalism have both learned to capitalize on the trend to failure. Why train for the high jump when you can get away with lowering the bar? The Republicans have made nothing but stupid moves since Obama got elected. Rush Limbaugh is now considered a party leader, and was one of the few commentators to defend Jindal's speech.

Why?

They want expectations lowered. Or they're stupid, but for the sake of conversation let's assume that this is a very sophisticated ruse.

The president commits to healthcare and the very next day Democrats turn up on TV remarking that, while universal healthcare is of course the ideal, it's not very likely to happen and, well, we'll take what we can get. The president vows to close Gitmo and end torture, then waits a few weeks before vowing to carry on the War on Terror in a manner disturbingly similar to what we've grown used to (including renewed bombings in Pakistan). This is accompanied by reports of possible court challenges to the closing of Gitmo and even a Democrat now arguing that if we can keep it well-run and respectable, maybe closing Gitmo isn't such a good idea.

Extinguish the light at the end of the tunnel and people will just be happy just to set foot on solid ground.

This is politics. Lowering expectations in these circumstances may not be such a bad idea, but this is more than a plea for level-headedness, it's cynical propaganda, and it works with Jindal's absurd history lesson: America's work is done. Racism's over. Now don't expect too much.

"Where are we going, Walt Whitman?"

I hate Ed Hardy clothing. Tattoos belong on bodies, not on t-shirts. Ninety-dollar price tags don’t belong on t-shirts either, especially ugly ones. And rhinestones don’t belong anywhere. I don’t care what a pioneer Don Ed Hardy is in the tattooing world, the designs that grace Christian Audigier’s Ed Hardy clothing line are co-opted counterculture clichés swallowed and regurgitated in a gaudy attempt to cash in on the fantastically hypothetical intersection of hipsters and ‘roid monkeys. How such a strategy can possibly work is way beyond me; but then again, of late overwhelming confusion has become my standard reaction to the shopping mall anyway.

I had not set foot in an indoor shopping mall in a while, and on my last two or three visits I made a beeline for a specific shop, bought what I needed and got the hell out. I don’t like those places. It just turns out that I had to shop a bit this time around, so I got to take it in and I must admit that—much to my dismay—I had a reaction akin to old men whining about the world going to hell in a handbasket.

Since the last time I spent a significant amount of time in the Cerritos Mall, a shop has sprung up dedicated to rhinestone and sequin-encrusted clothing of the Ed Hardy variety. Along with outlandishly expensive distressed v-necks and ridiculous belt buckles, the place must turn a hefty profit if it sells anything, since there is no way that any product in the store costs more than five bucks to make, despite their astronomical price tags. A few doors down, there is a shop apparently (based on a quick look at the front at least) dedicated solely to Hannah Montana merchandise. There’s a place that sells body creams that reek of hard candy melted onto vinyl car seats and incubated in 110 degree heat. “Young lady” sections at the tops of department store escalators where the “women” sections used to be, kiosks selling belt buckles and enormous sunglasses run by young teenage girls in translucent white shorts so that you can see exactly what their underwear look like, obese kids with obese parents waddling to and from five or six different ice cream shops (mind you, this is not a huge mall), bad music blasting from every glaringly-lit and brightly-colored corner, and suddenly the realization that I’ve done a lap around the entire mall without finding what I want because if it’s there it’s hidden. The mall isn’t mine. Nobody above the age of eighteen appears to even have buying power in this place—I’m in a playground, a cafeteria, a…well, a shopping mall. Of course, the mall has always been for teenagers, and even as a teenager I disliked it. This realization at least serves to disabuse me of the idea that I’ve completely morphed into more of a curmudgeon than I’ve ever been.

Still, there is something different about the mall I saw on this trip. Kids don’t use cash. Very young kids dress as though they’re much older and act as though they’re much younger than they are. They don’t loiter in the public areas of the mall like they used to either—they shop, or at least hang out inside the stores, while adults linger on the benches outside sipping on mocha frappuccinos. And there’s so much more useless shit. The kiosks—my God, the kiosks! Do we need an entire cart dedicated to selling different colored glasses like the ones Kanye West used in the “Stronger” video? Do we really? Lingerie and hair-waxing establishments burst with pre-pubescent girls while video game shops cater almost exclusively to grown men. Where did all these kids get the money and where did all these adults get the time?

At one end of the mall there’s a skylight, under which people lounge on benches encircling some plants. The skylight used to be open, and people used to smoke underneath it. I remember when I was a little kid, there was a distinct mall smell that seemed to come from this very spot. It was a mix of fast food, floor cleaner and cigarette smoke—that was the smell of the mall.

The cigarette smoke disappeared when the California smoking ban took effect in the late eighties or early nineties, right around the time that our school district’s test scores made real estate prices explode in the area formerly known as Dairy Valley, which led to an influx of upper middle-class folks with more expendable income, resulting in the building of more shopping centers that then took over the role of providing places like Ross and Target, allowing the mall to focus on cornering more trendy markets for people with money to spend—money that they’re no longer spending on cigarettes.

Hm…

I guess we’ve got to let our kids get addicted to something, but I wonder if all this crap is any less hazardous than Joe Camel's wares.

Oh, and speaking of expensive trends: don't blame the kids...click.