Self-Righteousness, Resentment, Anger...and the Girl Scouts

As I type this post, my door is open, and I can hear doves cooing, the kwirrr of a red-bellied woodpecker, and the rising "turreee" of towhees. It's a warm January day in south Louisiana. When I went outside to fill the bird feeder, I saw a black swallowtail butterfly fluttering around the yard. The peacefulness of this place provides for me such sharp contrast to what I hear and read about the political culture at large. Every day I thank whatever higher power there is--if she cares--for this respite from the anger, self-righteousness, and resentment that I confront in the news every day. There seems to be little room for grace and mercy these days--except for those who helped muster in this sad state of affairs. Somehow,  folks who loudly, vocally (and often aggressively) identify as Christian are ready to vote for a man who helped create the poisonous political culture we now live in and are ready to pronounce him "redeemed" from his sin of adultery.

Well, I don't care if he married three women, but I do think that how he treated those first two women says something about his character, and I also believe that how he condescends to others says something about his character, as well as his readiness to make those nasty connections to racial resentment and hatred: Obama is the "food stamp" president;  to Juan Williams work is a "strange concept." And anyone who isn't "you" is "elitist." Come on. We know exactly to what prejudices those comments pander.

But I'm not here today to talk about the Newt, really. What really bothers me is how self-righteousness, resentment, anger and pitiless judgment affect those of us who can't afford a half-a-million dollar credit at Tiffany's to help us cope with life's little meannesses.

Take the Girl Scouts, for example. Who cannot like the Girl Scouts? Well, those folks who think Girl Scouts shouldn't have reproductive counseling and sex education or allow transgendered children within their ranks. The Girl Scouts are very "pro-girl," in that they have from the inception of the program provided girls with the power to become whatever they can be in a changing culture. Some folks want those girls back in the kitchen making the cookies and not in the boardroom managing the marketing of those cookies.

Oh, and if you are transgendered, the Girl Scouts East Louisiana troop doesn't want you. In fact, some parents are so afraid of the POSSIBILITY of getting cooties from a transgendered child that they will take their kids out of the local troop even when that troop publicly announces it will not accept transgendered children and no transgendered children have even applied to join the troop. No, the refusal was just not "fast enough" for those folks:

But Susan Cramond, a troop leader who had two children in the group that met at Northlake Christian School in Covington, said she and other like-minded parents felt Louisiana Scouting policy-makers should never have had to discuss the transgender issue in the first place. Cramond said when she first contacted Louisiana’s Scouting leaders to ask whether a transgendered child could be accepted into a local troop, she didn’t get the quick and unequivocal “no” she was hoping for.

So Cramond and fellow troop leader Susan Bryant-Snure, a Lacombe doctor, informed other parents. She said they collectively decided to abandon the Girl Scouts and seek affiliation with American Heritage Girls, a similar organization that describes itself as a “Christ-centered leadership and character development ministry.”

Bryant-Snure said by banning transgendered children, the Louisiana board eventually made the “right decision; they just made it in a way that made us nervous.”

[Bruce Nolan, "Transgendered Girl Scout in Colorado Causes Stir in St. Tammany," The Times-Picayune, 22 January 2012.]

I guess the American Heritage Girls are sweating in the kitchen baking those cookies they hope they can sell more quickly now that so many like-minded folks are boycotting Girl Scout cookies.

Yep, this is where we live now....in a state of mind so rigid that just the possibility of otherness causes panic. Think I'll sit here and listen to the doves.


h/t: Mary Elizabeth Williams, "The Right's Latest Target: Girl Scout Cookies," posted in Salon, 23 January 2012.

A New Year...New Projects

About mid-December, I became so disheartened with politics that I quit blogging. Now that corporations are people and vast amounts of corporate money can be slathered on politicians and wannabe politicians of choice, what possible impact can one small voice in the wilderness of the GOP-dominated South have? Not much, I thought--and think. When I began this blog, I was really thinking of my children, of being for them a role model of writing, thinking, and engagement with the world around us, especially since we had just up-ended our comfortable life by moving to another state and a huge urban area. Now the kids are off on their own (mostly; we continue to support them. I hope to God they can support themselves in the near future), and their own pursuits engage their time and energy: university studies and research, part-time jobs (volunteer and paid), activities with friends. Also, well-known bloggers who are also reporters are writing about issues with far more skill and knowledge than I have. Let them carry on, and I'll read and ponder, keeping my thoughts to myself.

But here's another reason for me to blog: keeping my thoughts to  myself too often results in those thoughts spinning around in a kaleidoscope of ideas that never coalesce coherently. Writing helps me to think. And writing publicly (even though the real public of one's blog may be one or two people) encourages me to choose my words more skillfully and think through my ideas a little more carefully. That discipline is worthwhile to me.  Also, online blogging provides me with tools I wouldn't have in personal journalling. I can insert a photo in seconds or a link to something I've read--or get a quick bit of information with a Google search. So I've decided to maintain this blog for a while longer, but I may not write regularly and I may, despite my best intentions, just pass on what I've read, what I think is worth reading, with little original comment.

However, here at home, I have started a journalling project which I hope to carry throughout the year for my own enjoyment. I am creating an altered-book art journal, which will combine craft, art, and writing. I saved my husband's huge Organic Chemistry textbook and am altering it into a personal journal in which I will practice my art skills (minimal at this point) and writing. The photo at the beginning of this entry is of the altered cover of that book. I am now beginning on the opening pages. Here are photos of the book before and as I began altering it into a journal:

And here is a photo of the inside-cover spread which I am working on now:

 

As  you can see, it's a collage of images from other sources: a print of a painting that friends of mine bought in China years ago while teaching there; a cut-out from a copy of a larger geometric ink drawing of one of my husband's great-aunts, words cut from magazines and journals, photos of flowers cut from gardening catalogs, a couple of line drawings from a dictionary--nothing original to me except the juxtaposition of these various cut-outs on this inside cover and some daubing on of alcohol inks and matte gel medium. The drawing of the shovel and hoe on the front cover IS my original art, very elementary. But over time and with practice, perhaps my art will improve. Certainly, I am learning already how to use media that I've never used before in my art and craft projects.  

And I continue with my ongoing projects of gardening and making things: 

Some things remain the same from year to year, some of which constancy is heartening, and some of which is disheartening--like the continuing spiraling downward of our political discourse and democratic process. Making things and growing things will help keep me positive in the long election year ahead of us.