Tagged: men

American Divorce: The Way I See It

I believe in writing. I have been at this blog for a decade now. In the beginning, I liked encouragement. These days, I couldn’t care less when someone encourages me about my writing. It always has this air of “I wouldn’t have thought you were a good writer…” and that kinda bothers me. Why not? What about me sounds like bad writing? My job? My hobbies? The things I like to talk about? My clothes? Seriously, there is no signal that suggests that I wouldn’t be able to hold my own with a pen/keyboard.

Now-13.5 H- has shared that she reads these posts, and that the result of my “woman hater” (which would be “female hater” if I want to encourage the child to learn reading comprehension–I do–it’s “female hater” and I define “female” in contradistinction to “woman” in the post, H-) post from the other day is that she doesn’t want to see me or talk to me (at least for now). In any case, and this is the point of this opening, with encouragement, with discouragement, I maintain that writing is good. The rest of this post, then, the part that pertains to the title, is Exhibit A.

The last two posts have been on the topic of men and women and our relationships. In the background, many more thoughts and conversations have been taking place because of these posts and the events which inspired them. So again, I want to write, to catalog. I want to think on them.

The most important result of writing about my friend’s looming divorce (in which his wife of twenty years is going to steal his military retirement and hold hostage his two children in Europe, all with the blessing of Missouri and general American Culture), is my own wife and I have come to a shocking realization and subsequent clarity of our perspectives. We laid in bed the other night and bickered about whether I was claiming my friend was ‘perfect’ when I asserted that ‘he did nothing to make her steal from him’. In other words, we realized that even the two of us, husband and wife, see the eternal institutions of marriage and divorce TOTALLY different. (Makes ya wonder what any of us are even doing.)

(You with me thus far?)

I believe this woman–er, this female–, E-, is a terrible creature–less than human–worse than Hitler. I wrote as much a few days back. She is terrible, not for crimes committed, but for crimes she is going to commit until one of them dies. And I further maintain that my friend did not and does not have any influence on E-‘s decision to commit these twin crimes (to keep it simple, we’ll just call stealing his money and stealing his children the only two crimes–but there are more).

My wife hears me say this and responds, “Oh yeah! I’m sure he is perfect. All your friends are perfect!”

(The point of this post is to report to you, dear reader, not the entirety of the conversation, but the fruit.)

With this, I finally saw the stumbling block to my wife and I’s communication.

So I began again, in a new vein, “Do you remember that video of the blacks brawling at Disneyland several years ago?”

“Yes.”

“Remember how the dude just punches his girlfriend in the face? He just turns and punches her. It was horrific. I had never seen anything like that ever. That’s why I showed it to you. Do you remember?”

“Yes, I remember!”

“Okay. Did that woman have anything to do with him punching her? Was there anything she did that caused him to punch her? Were any of his needs not met by her and so he punched her? Is there anything she did that alleviates his punch of its evil?”

“That’s totally-“

“-‘No’. The correct answer is, ‘No. She had nothing to do with him punching her. A man punching a woman is wrong. It is always wrong. It is squarely wrong. It is never her fault. It is never something she caused. It is just wrong.’ And I am saying that, for precisely the same reasons, these women who divorce a man and then proceed to steal from him are likewise wrong. They are likewise committing evil. My friend has no more responsibility for E-‘s evil actions (continual actions keep in mind) than that woman did for her boyfriend’s punch (probably plural). And stop with ‘the Law’. The ‘Law’ has no bearing on my opinion, and, in fact, is the reason I am so adamant about this belief of mine. All these wives hide behind the ‘Law’ and comfort themselves with the thought that they are somehow not accountable for the evil they are committing since it is the ‘Law’. The ‘Law’, in this case, is immoral and needs to adapt to the times. Whatever the reasoning that went into ‘woman gets half the retirement’ was, it is now different. The ‘Law’ needs to change. You can’t take a husband and expect him to somehow ‘prevent’ divorce, when all the while, all that is required for a divorce is the wife saying, ‘I want a divorce.’ The way a wife would prove her innocence, would prove she had endured something terrible, is to not take the money. Just divorce him and move on with your life. ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ What E- and all the wives are doing is morally wrong–evil.”

****

What do you think, dear reader? Think my wife bought my rant? Have I made a dent in your thinking with this analogy, ex-wife collecting retirement as same ‘obvious’ evil as man punching woman? Or do you need it in codified writing? Is it possible for my friend to have been an unqualified good husband and father and this still be the result of his behavior?

Or is the fairer sex just too pure to sow and reap evil? Too feeble to ever work for a living? Too unstable to ever reach old age without the financial backing of a man?

The Coffee Inspires

One more note to share, while on the unending topic of men and women.

“What’s it really like to be married to a woman who barely speaks English (though she doesn’t know it) and hails from one of the least educated countries on the planet?”

In short, if you can imagine how the first conversation with an alien (on his first—and surprise, think emergency landing—visit to the planet) would go, how you would quickly learn that you could assume no shared context or meaning or any easy place to start, then you may have an idea of how every verbal utterance we have plays out.

Don’t believe me? Try this recent experience.

As you know, I value reading and books. I am with TJ when he said, “Books are my friends.” I have tons and tons of books. And I recently got some great bookshelves upon which to display them in the new Colorado house.

Well, anyhow, as we recently were going through the ritual of shopping for home decor, I couldn’t help but notice they had some fake books to purchase. I dryly—too dryly it seems—picked them up and said, “These would be perfect for your new furniture. Ha.”

A week or so passes and then I see her placing a bunch of this nonsense all throughout the room and the fake books are included. When I comment with a hearty, if not literal, “WTF?,” she earnestly rebuts in kind with, “You said you would like them!”

Did I?

Keep in mind this is four years in. And it is not the first time I have pointed out or commented on the concept of fake books when shopping together.

Never assume, I guess.

Quite the life.

Never Incentivize the Female’s Fantasy—Divorce Must Actually Devastate Her

So I just learned of an old friend’s divorce. Like many other friends of mine this man just retired from the military, and only when this was clear did the evil cunt announce her intentions. To make matters worse, their last duty station was in Europe, and for the common, internationally known reasons, this first grade teacher has decided to keep the kids over there with her.

First, don’t even start if you’re going to take one step towards suggesting that anything about the situation is the natural result of their daily, twenty plus year relationship. This move is so low, and happens so frequently to retired military men that there is never anything about the actual personalities involved, no. The only two factors or variables at play are the fact that divorce is incentivized and the female (no “woman” as such would even consider accepting a dime more or a minute more from her ex), the female, as a creature, is the most depressed and despicable entity on the earth. You will never find another—no murderer, no rapist, no genocidal maniac—who can even tread water next to a female.

Unreal and uncouth, one must never incentivize, these, their fantasies. If this time-honored dictum is ignored, then children, men, and eventually a nation will be destroyed. They will all be destroyed because these mentally incapable females possess unbounded imagination. This results in one of two outcomes. The first possible outcome might best be embodied by the legendary George Washington. The second outcome is best embodied by the current population of the American penal system—fatherless males.

The female—as part of her growth into womanhood—must have her imagination bounded. She must have restrictions. Life cannot possibly appear to keep getting better and better and always improve and never disappoint. These fantasies must remain on the pages and stages.

No, the female must have a very concrete and inescapable situation staring at her to perform. This is how to bring her womanly character to the surface. She must see the limits to her life daily and she must, daily, face the fact that without her man, she will certainly face abject poverty and lose her children. This is the only way.

It seems that the male alone, for reasons known only to the LORD God himself, comes into the world designed to absorb the apparently latent happiness available within each breath of air. The female, on the other hand, hates the air, hates the sun—hates the very day. The female, on the other hand, listens to every lie, believes every instinct, and obeys every passion. I write this in the hopes that someday my two daughters read it.

The Special Psychosis Behind AI Fear Mongering

The “threat” of AI is no more and no less than the threat within the act of “texting while driving”.

I mean to apply this analogy in both the case of you texting while you’re driving—a risky endeavor which can end in tragedy for you and a few others if you cause a wreck—and also in the case of you (not texting and driving) being struck by someone else who was texting and driving.

That’s the “threat”—no more, no less.

Everyone calling for concern at the level of atom bombs and armageddon is suffering from a special psychosis.

In other words, ignore them.

Better yet, put down the phone. Focus on the road.

Two Random, Intriguing Thoughts on Friday

I realized this morning while sitting at the hotel breakfast that all the wonky Dr. Seuss characters (the Zeds, Noothgrushs, Tweetle-Beetles etx.) are actually not wonky but exact replications—in 2D—of people.

Secondly, and more importantly if you’re on a quest for meaning like me, I realized an important fact. Those of us with “guardian” personalities—I’m talking military, police, first responders etc—are frustrated and angered as a rule, almost necessarily so, because we see (from our perches as “guardians”) folks wasting our efforts. As in, “In post-armageddon dystopias, where rule-of-law is only foreign scribbles on the pages of unread books, you’d be able to dye your hair blue, but you choose to do that while I’m on shift? And in response to having to eat oatmeal instead of a smoothie for breakfast as a kid? Ahh. What am I even doing here?!”

My Review of Oppenheimer, by Christopher Nolan

I’ve always heard that the newspaper USA Today was written at a third grade reading level. A reading level is an interesting concept. Try this sentence from USA Today’s The Weather Book by Jack Williams, “A fusion reaction fuses atoms together, creating other kinds of atoms and giving off energy.”

No third grader on earth could understand whatever that means. A few savants may sound smart trying, but keep in mind that they would never actually be explaining that sentence to us.

I also remember that in the 1950s children encyclopedia, so-called The Book of Knowledge, the author of the chapter on “atoms” began by having a child imagine cutting up a candle into smaller parts. And then smaller parts. And then smaller parts. Even then, you could still reform the candle parts back into shape. But, the author went on, there are even smaller parts, which when the candle is cut down to these teeny sizes, it wouldn’t matter what happened, they could not reassemble to build a candle.

Can anyone explain that concept? I feel like I get it. But it’s basically saying that there is something besides the obvious ingredients comprising the obvious objects. And that fact is something I can repeat, but I do not understand it.

The problem, so far as I can tell, is essentially one of “barrier to entry”. Atoms and Fusion Reactions require knowledge of such things as very few of us will ever think it worthwhile to learn and master.

Therefore, allow me to state the obvious: if you leave the theater believing that you now know something about atom bombs, you’re fooling yourself.

Mr. Nolan doesn’t abstain from attempting a layman’s explanation, but he also doesn’t belabor the point. Perhaps he doesn’t get it either.

The reason I open the review with this lengthy aside is because I, as I suspect you, had nursed the idea that maybe Nolan could succeed where others failed when I first heard he was making this movie. But he didn’t really even try. And I was a fool for thinking he might. The film is called, “Oppenheimer,” not, “Atom Bomb.”

Moving to my next hope for the movie.

Does Mr. Nolan satisfy my curiosity about the man Oppenheimer, which is bracketed by the following two questions:

1. What exactly was his role in the “invention”?

2. How would some nerdy academic handle being responsible for such death then and forevermore?

Yes. And no.

The way he accomplishes this paradox is by sticking to purely emotional storytelling where paradox is not forbidden. While there are many moments which caused me to wonder, “Did that really happen?,” there were many more which unexpectedly evoked near tears and kept me deep in contemplation about implications of what Nolan seemed to be trying to say rather than poised to fact check every seeming “they must have a record of this” moment.

On the whole, everything about the movie works. The chosen vessel for storytelling works. The casting works. The psycho-sapio sex scene works. The conveyance of palpable stress works. And, most importantly, the a-bomb test works.

Today’s My Birthday

My mother-in-law is currently living with us. Five days in. Hasn’t been terrible. I have chosen the strategy of pointing out every time I do something that husbands/men/fathers typically don’t do. (She doesn’t speak English, so my wife has to translate. It’s fun.)

Just now I started to wash my favorite La Creuset pan, their 11×13 attempt. I told my wife to tell her mom that on my birthday I still do the dishes. My wife responded that she had already told her mom that this was my favorite dish and that’s why she used it to make breakfast.

I said, “Ha. Probably shouldn’t tell her the real truth. The truth that I trust no one with my stuff. The truth that I have been hurt before, and so I wash my own dishes.”

I have been hurt before, and so I wash my own dishes.

Sounds like a pretty great opening line to a novel, if you ask me.

Commentary on the SCOTUS Affirmative Action dissent by Sotomayor

“The result of today’s decision is that a person’s skin color may play a role in assessing individualized suspicion, but it cannot play a role in assessing that person’s individualized contributions to a diverse learning environment. That indefensible reading of the Constitution is not grounded in law and subverts the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection,” dissents Justice Sotomayor (italics mine).

To what is she dissenting?

“In the wake of the Civil War, Congress proposed and the States ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, providing that no State shall ‘deny to any person … the equal protection of the laws.’ Amdt. 14, §1,” as opined by Justice Roberts (the Court).

Can you see the disagreement?

To help, let’s consider another document’s claim regarding race.

St. Paul wrote, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Forget, if you must, that the claim comes from an exclusive Christian teaching. No proselytizing here. But I want you to ask yourself if you can understand how Paul can list sets of two very real groups and then suggest that the very distinctions are abolished/overcome. Can you understand this concept of Paul’s/Christianity’s?

Good.

Justice Sotomayor cannot.

Justice Roberts can. But Justice Sotomayor cannot.

Justice Sotomayor writes over and over that because the constitution and its amendments and other SCOTUS opinions use words like “white” and “Mexican” that the law of the land is “race conscious”. This belief of hers is over and against the concept that the law is colorblind.

But I return again to the question I have posed. Is the simple use of words which delineate some people from others enough to transcend the otherwise transcendent belief that under some higher perspective, the delineations do not exist? Put another way, can the forest be lost for the leaves? Can the bigger point be missed? Or even, should the country have federal laws at all? Or should each dispute be brought before some local judge and the judge decide whatever they please?

The point Justice Sotomayor is pressing isn’t semantic.

When the border patrol is allowed to observe that some man around the border between the US and Mexico is Mexican-looking and subsequently act with suspicion towards him that they wouldn’t use with a “white” man, real people are involved. And when Harvard admissions folks are not allowed to ask, “Brown?”, real people are likewise involved.

The question, then, is are the two situations meaningfully the same situation when viewed from the perspective of “the Law”?

The answer is, “No.”

The reason for “no”, the reason they are distinct (despite both being similar in “gaining entrance” theme) is the constitution applies to US Citizens, not to any person, which is the very question the Border Patrol is tasked with helping to sort out in the first place.

Finally, as probably all of you know, the only question on my mind when I read Justice Sotomayor is, “Is she serious?”

If she were serious (and honest), then her sentences would read, “The result of today’s decision is that [all persons-of-earth-regardless-of-national-citizenship’s] skin color may play a role in assessing individualized suspicion by the US Border Patrol, but it cannot play a role in assessing that person’s individualized contributions to a diverse learning environment. That indefensible reading of the Constitution is not grounded in law and subverts the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection” (italics mine).

For that is her argument. And it is a serious argument, despite being flatly wrong as the 14th Amendment does not apply to every swinging dick which finds itself within the borders of this great country.

Great Comebacks, Too Late

I sometimes come up with amazing comebacks, too late to use. Oh well.

The first that comes to mind was once a scammer left a voicemail about legal action blah blah blah. Since I was divorced and always fearing some new bullshit from my ex, I called the number back. The dude proceeded to deliver the scam flawlessly but something just wasn’t right. Again, since I was divorced, I knew legal things didn’t happen quickly, or need to. So I finally just told him that I didn’t believe him. He seemed to have enjoyed being called out, just concluding, “Okay, Mr. Smart Guy, take your chances,” or some such thing.

Only later did I wish I said, “You sound black.” (He did. And I’m certain he was. But even if I’m wrong, it would’ve been hilarious.)

Tonight, another zinger came to mind only too late.

I have been sharing with folks at work (healthcare) that I am enjoying, if three years after the trend, cold showers. Well, this elicits all sorts of responses, mostly enjoyable to engage. One such response was, “I bet it opens your pores.”

My too little, too late response is, “‘Pores open?’ I was only aware of five senses.”

So funny. Or would’ve been.