Blog

Verse versus vision


I repeat the words carefully, trying to match the timing and intonation of a cathedral full of people who clearly know the routine, have said these words before, and could probably recite them in their sleep. I am the stranger, I am the interloper, the lapsed Protestant in a Catholic church, trying to mimic the rituals well enough to blend into the background. The rituals are familiar, yet different. The prayers are similar, but they leave off the endings, and I continue alone, speaking into the reflective silence that sits over the congregants. I am feeling out of sync, out of place, and alone.

It strikes me that we are all ultimately alone in our lives. It is not an original thought, nor is this the first time I’ve had it. We can never know what goes on in another’s mind, and we can never fully share any experience, not completely. We can rely on others to buoy our spirits, but it is always up to us to make of our own lives what we will. Happiness is an internal factor, not external. Growth is always from within.

This month’s issue begins with Elsie Sze’s piece Belgrade: city of monuments, which explores a few of the Serbian city’s monuments from an outsider’s perspective. Jaya Padmanabhan explores the intersection of art and intellect in Idol nerd. Kate Hassett shows us a summer passing in a few moments in Shoots and leaves, and Patricia Hawkenson shares a few summer reflections in her collection of poems titled Hooks, knives, and slivers of smoke. Finally, Sarah Seltzer takes a look at two books about Pat Tillman in her review One soldier, many stories.

While we will all face death alone, and while all of our triumphs and despairs along the way will be uniquely ours and ours alone, it would be foolish to then stipulate that there is no need for others. Joy might be a flame that burns from within, but others may be the catalyst, the spark that ignites the blaze of happiness. However weak we may be as individuals, together we will always be strong.

I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

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Photo Essays

Shoots and leaves

Thursday garden project.


 In April of 2009, when it seemed as though summer would never arrive in midcoast Maine, I began photographing my perennial garden every Thursday (my favorite day of the week) to more closely observe and record the changes; to remind myself, through the seasons, of both the growth and death that takes place outside my door.

[Click here to view video.]

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Fiction & Poetry

Hooks, knives, and slivers of smoke

Verses reflecting defining moments and leaps in maturity.


Hook, line, and sinker

Summer Saturdays
were spent in the garage
sanding down fiberglass
smooth as tanning butter
until my arms were tired
and my legs were red
from itching the dust
off my winter white skin.

I didn’t complain
because soon the sun
and the boat would be ready
to slip on an early morning
onto the cool waters of Long Lake
where Daddy would show me
a secret place that only he knew
where the fish were jumping wild.

I learned real quick
to keep a poker face
as we put the barbed hooks
through the worm’s inner tunnels
and I knew they didn’t mind
’cause I never heard ’em scream.

The day was all
that a child could dream
quiet as the water
and as slow as the sun
as it slipped through the ripples
the bobber leisurely rode
as the line dragged out
behind our boat.

But all good things must come to an end
’cause the beer ran out
before I knew my dad
and I felt the slap
burning through my cheek
as I bailed water
from the hole in the boat
but he knew I didn’t mind
’cause he never heard me scream.

Before we made crust

Without the scent of cinnamon
you wouldn’t know Saturday from Sunday.

Today, Sunday, pie day
Momma turned her head away from me
when I asked for the scraps of dough
for crust cookies.

No. She wasn’t done peeling apples.
Couldn’t I see that?

Then her knife began slicing
with an urgency that I didn’t recognize.

Peelings piled in curls
that on any other day
could spell out the first letter
of my future husband’s name.

Today they lay limp.
I was afraid to reach for another one
after the first stinging slap
afraid to not watch the pile grow.

I don’t think she should have peeled
one whole bag
but I wasn’t going to tell her so.
I am not an expert pie maker
like Momma.

Twenty-six naked apples
had rolled to their flat side on the table.
She stood there
tears splattering down
until Daddy came home
and took the knife from her hand.

Together
without the oven even on
we watched her apples brown.

Apples and cancer
bake a bitter pie.

Leaving Laos

My calves ached
with the knowledge
that hunger shouldn’t forget
the need to hide.
My sliver of smoke
was all that they needed
to set our feet on the trail.

He taught me well
with stripes of red
dripping down my ankles
yet I followed Uncle’s heels
leading out of the jungle.
We ran.

How fast can I run?
Surely as fast as Uncle.
If I had time to be proud
I would tell him so
but the path
tight and dark
and unforgiving
left no room
for bragging.

His leaves slapped me
but I understood his lack of manners.
No time for courtesy
the holding back of branches.
We ran.

Then the sound
cut through the bushes
faster than my fear.
“Run, little one,”
his panting breath urged me on.
“You are the smoke now.”

I left him there
like half-cooked chicken.
No time for tears
or wishes I could lift him
giving him the courtesy
of a decent burial.

Not smoke, but fog
low to the ground
whipped by a mighty wind
I ran.

Read more of Patricia Hawkenson’s poetry at Expressive Domain.

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Reviews

One Soldier, Many Stories

Best of In The Fray 2009. A look at two books written about one man: Mary Tillman’s Boots on the Ground by Dusk and Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman.


The life and death of Pat Tillman has a symbolic resonance that continues to echo far and wide. In a country rife with anxious masculinity, he was a powerful example of a certain American ideal: a strong, independent-minded man with both brawn and shrewd intellect, a taste for challenge, and a compassionate, questioning soul.

Tillman — an NFL player, amateur philosopher, volunteer soldier, and freethinker who believed the Iraq War was wrong — was killed accidentally by his fellow soldiers in Afghanistan. Because he died during a war-mongering era that represented the worst aspects of American masculinity — and because his friendly-fire death in April, 2004, was subsequently packaged by the Bush administration as a heroic death in combat — the public hasn’t lost interest in his story. He’s been the subject of countless articles and TV news specials, and his mother Mary wrote a memoir, Boots on the Ground by Dusk, about him and her family’s search for the truth about his death. Now journalist Jon Krakauer, author of the best-selling adventure yarns Into Thin Air and Into the Wild, has added to the body of knowledge with his book Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman.

Both books portray Tillman as a young man whose joie de vivre and need to delve further into life was insatiable — and led to his fateful army enlistment. His mother writes about him repeatedly hurling himself out of the crib as a baby, while Krakauer describes him leaping over and over again from a cliff to a tree branch as a young man.

Mary Tillman writes in straightforward prose, a mixture of present and past tense, telling an agonizing, step-by-step story of her journey from grieving mom to crusader for the truth, intertwined with memories of her son. Boots on the Ground is filled with tiny, tangible moments that carry personal weight: “I looked up at the eucalyptus tree where Pat would so often sit when he was young. The light shining through the leaves and shredded bark was so bright, my vision blurred and I diverted my eyes,” she writes of a day when people had come to pay respects to her deceased son.

“We all look around uncomfortably at each other. Something isn’t right about this,” she says when describing her family’s meeting with an army official. “At the close of the meeting we agree to disagree, but I promise them we are not going away,” she says of the end of another unsatisfying summit.

But while Mary Tillman’s story is of a family driven nearly mad by the army’s lack of empathy for its pain, Krakauer has a different purpose. Where Men Win Glory depicts a government driven senseless by the need to justify its aggression. War is an inherently dark and messy thing, he reminds us in a book that ranges from intimate personal excerpts taken from Pat Tillman’s diary to a history of foreign engagement in Afghanistan. What made the wars of the Bush administration so singular — and senseless — was a culture in which the appearance of “mission accomplished” mattered more than the reality.

As Krakauer shows, Tillman didn’t die simply because a group of soliders fired wildly and indiscriminately at its own comrades. It was also because, in order to make it seem as though they were getting something done in the “War on Terror,” desk commanders insisted on splitting Tillman’s unit up, disregarding the ground officers’ orders, and on rushing the soldiers through a dangerous area during the daytime when they were vulnerable to insurgents. The desk commanders wanted, quite simply, “boots on the ground by dusk.”

Perhaps even more chillingly, the effort to keep up the appearance of success by masking the ugly truth of Tillman’s death from the public and his family went far up the chain of command. The evidence, says Krakauer, indicates that Tillman’s regiment “engaged in an elaborate conspiracy to deliberately mislead the family, and high-ranking officials at the White House and the Pentagon abetted the deception.”

Where Men Win Glory is also an interesting counterpoint to The Terror Dream, in which author Susan Faludi focuses on the story of Jessica Lynch, who was “rescued” from a hospital in Iraq and, like Tillman, falsely branded as a hero to boost wartime propaganda. Krakauer notes the similarities between the two cases — as did the congressional hearings that examined both of them.

Ultimately, the Tillman books complement each other: Mary Tillman’s is personal and detailed, Krakauer’s is tightly written with a wide scope. The story is so compelling that many will want to read both, although those with no previous knowledge will find Krakauer provides the clearer introduction to the story.

 

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Commentary

Belgrade: city of monuments

Finding closure and sobering lessons.


 

The Menorah in Flames sat on the bank of the Danube, in a district called Dor_ol in Belgrade. I walked on Jevrejska Street toward the river in search of it. The Danube was soothing and peaceful here: Boats were moored on the opposite bank, and a well-paved bicycle path ran parallel to the river. Midmorning traffic was made up of young women pushing baby buggies, old men taking leisurely strolls, and an occasional cyclist. And then there was me, a traveler from Canada, roaming the city while my husband worked as a foreign consultant.

Belgrade had to be one of the cities in the world with the most monuments. Busts, whole statues, fountains, pillars, plaques. Big ones, small ones. Marble, stone, bronze. In parks, on quiet streets, in public squares. On pedestals, in niches, on columns. Everywhere.

But where was the Menorah in Flames? In the guidebook, it looked like a tree without leaves, a trunk with brown and bare upturned branches. It was put up half a century late —1995 — in memory of Belgrade Jews who died following Hitler’s invasion of Yugoslavia in the Second World War. I came upon it sooner than expected. It was about 10 feet high and 10 feet across at its widest, cast in bronze, and situated on a quiet lawn not far from a modest apartment complex. I walked up the granite steps to its marble base. The monument was deserted except for a young boy jumping on the steps, making a game of it, while his mother watched with an air of nonchalance. I was within touching distance of the monument. Then I saw objects protruding from the flames — human heads with faces contorted in agony, skeletal arms with clenched fists, feet attached to scrawny segments of lower legs. I circled the monument; every angle depicted the same disturbing protrusions of horror. Body parts in flames, a tree of death.

Popular memorials
 
Disconcerted, I made my way back to the old city, following the bicycle path that wound along the promontory where the Sava met the Danube. Looking away from the river, I saw the Kalemegdan Fortress, rising up above me, multi-tiered and beautiful, cross-sections of its ruined ancient Roman buttresses exposed. Dominating the fortress on the edge of its western corner was the Messenger of Victory, dubbed “The Victor” by Belgrade residents. It was erected in honor of the liberation of Belgrade in 1918 from Austria-Hungary. The Victor was a statue of a naked man, his right hand holding a sword, a bird on his left palm. He stood on a tall stone column, rising to a height of over 300 feet. He had the taut physique of an Apollo, his brawny muscles in full view, as was his unmistakable manhood.
 
Two middle-aged women passed me as I was taking a zoomed-in picture of Victor in all his naked glory.

“Nice. Tourists always take picture,” one of the women said, her eyes following my camera.

“It commemorates Serbia’s liberation at the end of the First World War.” I tried to sound knowledgeable.

The woman pursed her lips, shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe. It’s there long, long time. It’s there when I was small girl. Enjoy Belgrade. Beautiful city.”

Hidden finds

Ascending a huge flight of steps, I emerged onto a quiet cobbled street in old Belgrade, Kosančićev venac. A bust of a soldier in a helmet and armor ensconced in an arch-shaped niche adorned the front façade of an old house — another important find from my guidebook! It was the bust of Ivan Kosančić , a 14th-century hero killed in 1389 in the Battle of Kosovo, in defense of Serbia against the advancing Turks. Here he was, a symbol of heroism and patriotism, tucked away in an unfrequented and humble street, neglected by local residents, yet posing proudly for an occasional tourist like myself.
 
I soon came to a wider and busier street where the Orthodox Cathedral stood, its steeple towering over the surrounding 19th-century buildings. Across the cathedral was a rustic white two-story house with black window frames and a slanted red-tiled roof. An old gas lampshade bearing a big question mark on each of its four opaque glass panels was perched on a swirled wrought iron support, which protruded above the humble wooden front door. Tourists called the place the Question Mark Café. It was the oldest café in Belgrade, built in 1823.

Some monuments were not intended to be
 
The interior of the café, or kafana, resembled a 17th-century Dutch painting. Daylight streaked in through dark tinted glass-paned windows to give it a grey and gloomy atmosphere. A couple of dim lamps with milky-white glass shades hung from the wood-beamed ceiling over low, rugged wooden tables and matching stools.
 
I sat down at a table and ordered tea. Two men sat not far from me, talking in English. The younger one sounded North American, possibly Canadian. His companion looked 50-ish and had a distinct accent. I shot a glance at the two fellows. The one who was possibly Canadian looked over.
 
“Where’re you from?” he asked pleasantly.

“Toronto.”

“A fellow Canuck! I’m from Calgary. Care to join us?” He made a motion with his hand at the extra stool at their table.
 
I got up from my seat and walked over to them. 
 
“I’m Terry, and my friend’s Zarko. He’s from here. So, what brings you to Belgrade?”
 
“I’m Louise. My husband’s here on business. I’m making use of the chance to do some sightseeing. Actually, I’m taking a walking tour of the monuments in Belgrade, with the help of my guidebook.”

“This café is a real monument,” said Zarko. “The Serbian Prince Milo_ had it built in the nineteenth century. The church officials from the cathedral across the street objected to its name, The Cathedral Café, so the owner put up a question sign until he could find another name. He never gave it another name. The question mark became the café’s name. I tell you, this café has survived numerous wars and atrocities. If it could speak, it would tell terror tales of foreign dominations and domestic unrest. It’s a testament to Balkan history of the last two centuries. To me, this is a monument in the truest sense.”

“It sure is. And it’s still serving its original purpose after all these years,” I said. “I’m on this monument walk because I want to have a feeling for the place and learn about its history and its people. But I’m afraid these days, local people don’t always know why a certain monument’s there or what it commemorates.” I was wondering just how many local residents knew of the reason behind the Menorah in Flames, or The Victor, or the bust of Ivan Kosančić.
 
“No matter what, monuments are here to stay. I wish you luck in your walk,” Zarko said. “And remember, some unforgettable monuments were not intended to be.”
 
“Like this kafana,” I said.

“Like this kafana,” echoed Zarko, nodding. 

An undeniable, assertive presence

I soon continued my way and combed the main streets of Belgrade. Kralja Petra, with its Renaissance-styled architecture, was the scene of 19th-century elegance. It ran into the busy pedestrian street Knez Mihailova, lined with turn-of-the-century buildings, many of which housed shops selling designer merchandise. The street was crowded with serious and window shoppers alike, as well as tourists heading briskly toward Kalemegdan Park and Fortress at its north end. Lucky for me, Belgrade was a city easily accessible by foot. I became a part of the city crowd, but what distinguished me was that I walked at a much slower pace than most. I soon learned that the only way to survive crossing one of the city’s wide streets was to take a subterranean walkway, usually lined with stalls selling sundry merchandise, and re-emerge on the opposite side. Yet even in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Belgrade’s administrative and commercial hub, the monuments remained an undeniable, assertive presence.
 
I balked at the sight of a little dog desecrating the Monument of Gratitude to France — a bronze female figure in a flowing robe, brandishing a sword, situated on a high pedestal at the entrance to Kalemegdan Park. It symbolized France rushing to the aid of Serbia in the First World War. I cringed in disgust at the garbage and litter stuffed into the hollow center of a life-sized bronze figure of Serbian Romantic writer Djura Jak_i_, seated in a leisurely pose in front of his house in the pretty Bohemian district of old Belgrade. And what about the bronze statue of Vasa Čarapić, a hero and martyr of the First Serbian Uprising against the Turks? One of the statue’s pointed peasant shoes had become a convenient hanger for a road worker’s jacket.

Sobering reminders, new beginnings

Finally, I was ready to call it a day. As I headed toward our apartment, I chanced to pass what was left of the transmission center of the Belgrade Television complex. Its bombed-out ruins showed a cross-section of the floors, loose bricks, twisted metal, exposed pipes, torn roofing, caved-in walls, shards of building materials, and possibly human ashes.
 
“NATO did it,” a local passerby said to me as I took aim with my camera. “Bombed so many places.” He was referring to the NATO bombings of Belgrade and other cities in Serbia in 1999, over ethnic issues in Kosovo.
 
Regardless of the who, to whom, and why, the ruined transmission center was itself a monument too disturbing to ignore. The ruins, left as they were the day after the bombing, was not a monument erected long after the event. Rather, it was a real, sad, and sobering reminder of the casualties of war. Some unforgettable monuments were not intended to be.

And my mind returned to the Menorah in Flames, whose image was too painful to recall, too mind-shattering to forget, whose poignant message not only chronicled one of Belgrade’s darkest hours, but also touched the very soul of humanity.
  
Do monuments, whether unintended or purposely erected, signify closure of events past, be they glorious or infamous, uplifting or horrifying? Or do they serve as proud and sometimes cruel testaments of what has gone before? Lessons that can be learned? If so, monuments are not the end, but simply the beginning of a new chapter. 

     

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News

Idol nerd

On the stage, it’s stereotyping that wins.


 

 “You look like you came from a meeting with Bill Gates!” announced Simon Cowell, American Idol’s irascible judge, when the clean-cut contestant Anoop Desai appeared at the Season 8 auditions dressed in shorts, flip-flops, and a button-down plaid shirt with rolled-up sleeves. Throughout the season, it seemed as though Desai’s competitive edge was underscored by Cowell’s perception of his squareness.

While it was not actually uttered, the word “nerd” hung there suspended and then descended to fit squarely around Desai. The world Twittered about the racial stereotypes embedded in that remark. “Call him ‘Kumar’ and be done with it,” said one Internet wit. To my mind, the remark raised a whole range of issues, not the least being racial.

The original “nerd”

Dr. Seuss’ 1950 book If I Ran the Zoo first introduced the word “nerd” as a longhaired, unkempt crosspatch with a mouth that held still and straight, with no indication of laughter: “And then, just to show them, I’ll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an IT-KUTCH a PREEP and a PROO a NERKLE a NERD and a SEERSUCKER, too!”

 

In the mid-50s and ’60s, the term morphed into meaning a “square” or a “drip,” a connotation that has persisted till today, and is used with much derisive inflection around middle and high school lockers.

A hair’s-breadth difference between nerds and geeks does exist, and New York Times columnist David Brooks explains the difference: “At first, a nerd was a geek with better grades.” In casual parlance, however, both terms are sometimes used interchangeably, with the established understanding that a nerd is a grade-getter and most probably athletically challenged, and a geek is, generally speaking, obsessed with an obscure passion.

The ascendancy of nerds can be closely tied to the rise of Silicon Valley. Considered the intellectual capital spreading out of and from Stanford, the Valley produced and fostered the modern-day renaissance nerd: inventors, entrepreneurs, innovators, researchers, and investors. As companies like Intel, Cisco, and Sun grew in size and profitability, the population of nerds exploded in the Valley. Then came the age of startups, whence Valley entrepreneurs began to attract media coverage and wealth — considerable wealth. Bill Gates became the richest man in the world, and Silicon Valley became the mecca of success, prompting Robert Metcalfe’s comment, “Silicon Valley is the only place on earth not trying to figure out how to become Silicon Valley.” The outsource era spotlighted India, and global Indian companies like Wipro, Infosys, and TCS entered the world stage.

Changing perceptions on “nerdiness”

The likes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Biz Stone, and Nandan Nilekani, among others, changed putative standards of nerd perceptions. What was reviled and shunned yesterday became sought after and acclaimed today. Forbes’ “Big B” list has more than a few of the names listed above. A meeting with any one of these nerd luminaries could be part of a utopian dream.

With the election of Barack Obama, a paradigmatic nerd as head of the country, the nerd-acceptability factor grew even more significantly. No quibbling about Obama’s nerdiness, for even Michelle Obama once remarked about her meeting Barack for the first time, “I had already sort of created an image of this very intellectual nerd. And I was prepared to be polite and all that.” More recently, Ms. Obama has dismissed the perceived negativity associated with nerds and exhorted students to work hard and get good grades, habits that typify being studious and square.

It used to be that the nerd of the ’50s and ’60s typically wore jeans, a T-shirt, and scruffy shoes, and was possibly tall and lanky with greasy hair and thick black-rimmed spectacles. He slouched when out in the sun and spoke with an intensity that was disconcerting. The image today is of someone who is given to tucking shirts into the waistband of trousers, jeans, or shorts and has acquired the rudiments of social polish, yet still speaks with unnerving authority on subjects. To all who judge by outward appearances, the look of a shirt hanging outside trousers can dispel long-held notions of a dorkish appearance. But, Anoop Desai was dressed in shorts and a shirt that hung loose and long. So why then Cowell’s remark?

What does intelligence look like?

In a 2002 study of perceived intelligence and facial attractiveness, Looking Smart and Looking Good: Facial Cues to Intelligence and Their Origins, conducted by Leslie A. Zebrowitz, Judith A. Hall, Nora A. Murphy, and Gillian Rhodes, the researchers concluded that “attractiveness was correlated with perceived intelligence at all ages.” For sure, Desai’s regular facial fairness falls under the rubric of “attractive.” Then, does it stand to reason that Idol judge Cowell made the subliminal connection between the symmetry of Desai’s face and his intellect? Does it also stand to reason that in the vocal talent world, intelligence is misplaced?

Now, let’s approach the racial elements of Cowell’s remark. Self-effacing Indians who win spelling bees and man technology desks are not typically seen on strobe-lit stages. Once before did a Louisiana governor attempt to combat perceptions of his nerdiness with a staged speech. The result was a disastrous reinforcement of social awkwardness, his political brilliance now dubiously regarded.

According to Benjamin Nugent, author of American Nerd: The Story of My People, one form of racism is stereotyping an ethnicity. The stereotype can be seemingly positive, but with costly side effects. Take Stacey J. Lee’s study, chronicled in her book Unraveling the ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype: Listening to Asian American Youth. Asian American high school students were asked to respond to several questions, one of which was, “How did the model minority stereotype influence Asian American student identity?” Not surprisingly, perhaps, Lee found that even model minority stereotypes establish blueprints for behavior, and those that do not achieve model minority success can end up with low self-esteem and “silence” their own non-model minority experiences.

Brains and talent a poor marriage

The concept of nerdism is inherently built into the minority Indian model. So, as Anoop Desai stood before the four Idol judges and as the words issued forth from Simon Cowell, the stereotype was being ground into the American consciousness. An Indian, dressed like a nerd, or not, was quintessentially a nerd and had no reason to believe he could be successful on the Idol stage where the bikini-clad had possibly more right. A meeting with Bill Gates, the dream of millions, was to be disdained and had no relevance to the drama of reality television. A marriage of intellect and artistic talent makes for a pretty poor match.

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Calls for Submissions

Call for submissions: November 2009: Chorus

And so here were are again, in the fading months of the year. Here in the northern hemisphere, the land is going dormant, the sun rises later and sets earlier each day, and bears are adding a final layer of fat in preparation for the long winter that lies ahead. It is a cycle that … Continue reading Call for submissions: November 2009: Chorus →


And so here were are again, in the fading months of the year. Here in the northern hemisphere, the land is going dormant, the sun rises later and sets earlier each day, and bears are adding a final layer of fat in preparation for the long winter that lies ahead. It is a cycle that repeats, like a chant or a mantra, om mani padme om, into perpetuity.

The power of repetition cannot be overstated. A child learns to speak through repetition. It is endless repetition of a strand of DNA, with minor genetic changes, that produced every creature on this planet. Like the chorus of a song, repeating themes echo through much of our lives on earth. Repetition is routine, and routine can be comfort. In our November issue, InTheFray magazine would like to explore some of the repetition that can be found all around us, and what happens when we break those repeating patterns. Think broadly about the idea, examine it from all angles, and pitch us a story.

Contributors interested in pitching relevant news features, poetry/fiction, cultural criticism, commentary pieces, personal essays, visual essays, travel stories, or book reviews should e-mail us at chorus-at-inthefray-dot-org. Send us a well-developed, one-paragraph pitch for your proposed piece NO LATER THAN OCTOBER 15, 2009. First-time contributors are urged to review our submissions guidelines at http://inthefray.org/submit and review recent pieces published in InTheFray Magazine at http://inthefray.org.

I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also:
 
Blog

Brother, can you spare a swipe?


In the year 10 BDC (Before Debit Cards) I had visited a friend in the Midwest. I was living in Atlanta and decided that, rather than paying to park at Hartsfield Airport, I could stretch my meager budget by taking the oft-laughed-at MARTA train. (Motto: "Ride MARTA, it's SMARTA." Laugh all you want, MARTA drops you off inside the airport terminal, unlike NYC, where none of the three airports can say that.)

I'd lived large on the small amount I brought, so large in fact, that I didn't realize I had only 60 cents left. And I still had to buy a token for the train ride home. I opened and reopened every pocket in my purse, every zipper in my wallet in that frantic way when you come to the understanding that, since you don't have magic ruby slippers, you will be stuck in the airport forever like a bad Tom Hanks movie and you don't even have a Russian accent.

MARTA was cash-only, and since this was also the year 5 BCP (Before Cell Phones), my options were limited. I could call a friend collect, but it was late and I already felt lame enough. Since the currency exchange accepted credit cards, I gave serious thought to converting 20 dollars into Japanese yen and then converting it back to dollars to get the cash. (Ingenious, no?) But soon after, a grandfatherly gentleman in a business suit asked if I could use some help and I poured out my pitiful story. He gave me the change and I never forgot his kindness.

It was just last week a woman at Grand Army Plaza had the same anxious and pathetic look on her face. In lieu of ruby slippers, she needed a swipe, but she was going about it all wrong.

Those of us who ride the subway frequently have an unlimited Metrocard. For one monthly fee, you can ride as often as you like. The catch is that you can only swipe your Metrocard once every 15 minutes or so. As with the rules of any program, people quickly learn the loopholes — things not possible with the old token system. Let's say you're an entrepreneur (e.g., you sell batteries in the subway cars). If you pay two dollars to get on the train, you'd probably have to sell five batteries just to break even. Now if you ask someone coming through the turnstiles for a swipe of his unlimited Metrocard, no skin off his back and you're making a profit from battery number one.

But the tired woman standing outside the Grand Army Plaza turnstiles was clearly new at the game, asking people who were on their way to the platform, instead of people on their way out. She said, "Excuse me. Could you…"

Before I realized she was talking to me, I'd already swiped my card and was through the turnstile. No going back then. Waiting 15 minutes to swipe again for her is really beyond my rush-hour benevolence. I looked at her drooping face and did what I thought would help. I pointed to the Chinese lady with the batteries who, speaking no English, had just finagled a swipe from a black teenage girl coming out. The woman nodded, now on the right track.

Moral of the story: Since you don't have ruby slippers, always buy your ticket home before you leave.

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Healthcare reform debate: A scam


 

According to a Thomson Reuters survey, most Americans are willing to pay for healthcare reform.

"The telephone survey of 3,003 U.S. adults conducted by Thomson Reuters (TRI.N) (TRI.TO) found 63 percent willing to pay for healthcare reform, though most also said they are happy with their own doctors, insurance plans and out-of-pocket costs."

But the conservatives have been saying the opposite all along — that people are okay with the present system and don't want it fixed. They are lying.

And how about the loonies who are comparing healthcare reform to a way to have "death panels" and "rationed care"? The crazy one up in Alaska uttered some sentences on her Facebook page and the lunatics accepted as fact. What is even more baffling is that some people are comparing the proposed reform to the Nazis.

Here is Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission:

"I want to put it to you bluntly. What they are attempting to do in healthcare, particularly in treating the elderly, is not something like what the Nazis did. It is precisely what the Nazis did."

And this man leads a group on ethics and liberty? He is better suited to be the Alaskan crazy one's propaganda director. Since he knows the Nazis so well, he is suited to do the job.

The way people like Land, Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Steele have polluted the healthcare reform debate, "scam" is a light word to describe it. I prefer to use another word; it starts with a "t" and rhymes with "reason."

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Race-baiter-in-chief: Rush Limbaugh


 

 According to the The Huffington Post:

"Rush Limbaugh couldn't resist trying to connect the brutal beating of one student by another on a school bus to President Obama, using it as an example of how Obama is somehow causing racism throughout the U.S."

Only in Lambaugh's stinky books is it racism when students fight on seating choice. Local police clearly say that the fight was not racially motivated, but our dear one is not going to believe the police. He sees a white boy getting beaten up and he sees Obama's hand behind the incident.

I am not saying that the incident should not receive any attention. I am a parent, and to hear the kids are getting into serious fights in a school bus is scary, but let us keep things in perspective. Rush Limbaugh is a nut.It is funny to see how low can this man go. There is no bottom to this pit; it keeps expanding like his gut.

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RNC chairman Michael Steele: Arrogant and outrageously foolish


 

Why would he not support a public option that will allow millions to have access to health care? What does Michael Steele have against a plan that will give the poor and the needy a chance for a healthier life? I know why — because he and his party and those blue dog Democrats have sold their souls to the devil named "insurance industry."

They do not want a sensible healthcare reform bill. All they want is to kill any prospect for reform so that their masters in the insurance industry will continue to fund their campaigns.

It is clear: the GOP deserves to be lead by an incredily arrogant man. After all, the party itself is so out of touch with reality on healthcare crises.

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Sarah Palin has become the crazy lady


Since her unfortunate introduction to the rest of the country last summer (thanks a lot, McCain!), Sarah Palin has proven herself to be many things: corrupt, incapable of debate, completely ignorant of foreign affairs,  hypocrite (charging that Obama "palled around with terrorists while she and her husband belonged to a political group that once asked Iran for help in seceding from the U.S.), a liar (by claiming that her husband had never been an AIP member when he was — even McCain staff knew that), unwilling to take advice, and unable to either form or convey a simple thought. After reading her editorial in The Wall Street Journal today, I'm convinced that she has just plain lost her mind. In this embarrassing opinion piece (opinion indeed), she writes:

…is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats' proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by — dare I say it — death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans.

Let me explain that last sentence — even though legal and media fact checkers (and anyone who has ever read the healthcare bill) have repeatedly shown that death panels were a myth, a blatant lie, Palin doesn't need those pesky facts to get in her way. She said it, Republicans regurgitated it, and fear-ridden, ill-informed Americans believed it. Hence, it must be true! 
She just can't let it go. The term "death panels" must play in her mind like a loop. She must cling to it, mentally, like a reassuring mantra.

Or maybe it makes her feel special. Much like when she told the McCain staff that she loved saying "palling around with terrorists," she just loves saying "death panels." Because when she does, people pay attention to her. Like they did when she was Miss Wasilla. Like they did when she was a fancy tee-vee sports reporter. Like the salespeople at Nordstrom did when she had $180,000 to spend.

But why is anyone listening anymore? And, more importantly, the part that scares me — what future vicious, damaging fabrications will her followers believe?

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