Yes, this is yet another entry for the Ungeziefer file…
One where scholar and author Rebecca Schuman, who is obviously highly intelligent and supremely credible as evidenced by her skepticism (likeminded with yours truly of course) of Michael Hoffman translating Kafka’s Ungezeifer as a cockroach, as discussed in her 2017 Literary Hub article I Made a Mistake in My Book and the Internet Went Nuts.
Cockroach is, some might say, a bold choice. Others might, uncharitably, call it a mistake, and a big, significant one, one that would signify Hofmann’s grasp of the field he dominates as tenuous. But as vehemently as I disagree with cockroach—I prefer Susan Bernofsky’s some sort of monstrous insect—I’m not saying that Hofmann’s a hack, not entirely.
But this entry is a bit more than just a validation my point.
It is also one where with Schuman’s willingness to take on the odd word choice, which some might call a regretful miscalculation, of a renowned scholar such as Hoffman is, isn’t just an example of her intellectual rigor and toughness, it is also yet another example of the disparities between females and males in a professional setting, the setting here being in the arena of German language author-ity and scholarship.
The disparities this time being exhibited in the differences in the reception between a female scholar’s oversight versus a male scholar’s, where Schuman’s oversight of screwing up her German skulls almost lost her her career (and maybe even her mind) and Hoffman’s oversight of calling Gregor Samsa a cockroach was mostly viewed as harmless scholarly license.
It was true. I had fucked up my skulls. Given: It’s hardly a rousing soliloquy claiming Goethe’s finest work is Macbeth. But still.
Here’s how it happened. The chapter now marred by Schädel-gate is called Liebeskummer, a word for heartbreak that literally translates to “love grief.” I wrote it, in its entirety, with a newborn baby, a feat comparable to climbing the sheer face of a cliff using only one’s teeth. It’s a goddamned wonder I could remember Goethe’s name. However, I’m loath to share this fact; offering, as an excuse, my attempt at multitasking the impossible reveals me as a woman—and, therefore, someone whose expertise is brought into question by default.
Obviously, these disparities in reception has much to do stereotype incongruencies, you know, kind of how people get weirded out by male nurses.
The details suggest that while the military put strict rules in place to protect civilians, the Special Operations task force repeatedly used other rules to skirt them. The military teams counting casualties rarely had the time, resources or incentive to do accurate work. And troops rarely faced repercussions when they caused civilian deaths, [such as the deaths of 80 Syrian women and children].
I mean, that there is the stuff of Clausewitz, you know, the famed military strategist also known as the God of War…
In his masterpiece, On War (1832), Clausewitz had warned against the “kind-hearted” fiction that a nation could wage a war “without too much bloodshed.” Not only was it useless, but morally reforming war could exacerbate its evil. “Mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.” Treating the carnage in war as a sin for which to atone or—worse—a blemish on the most beautiful activity in life was something like a moral error. “It would be futile—even wrong—to try to shut one’s eyes to what war really is from sheer distress at its brutality,” Clausewitz explained. Concerns about how gory and gruesome the commitments to intensity could become were petty. “The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously,” he allowed, “but not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity.” As he observed, “Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms.”
Maybe such violence and callousness in the U. S. military is because its 1.3 million or so members are influenced by the violent and callous rhetoric and examples of our societal leaders just as much as anyone else…
But if we are going to lay blame on our political leaders for our violent and callous national temperament, then we must hold our cultural leaders equally accountable…
Certainly, these are issues for consideration when considering the cause behind such violent and callous behavior by all spectrums of our prism-like society, but so are the violent movies and video games we watch and play, not to mention the violent books we read…
But if we are going to blame external violent and callous influences, which I’m not sure I agree we should be doing, for our violent and callous societal behavior, then where does the excuse of influence end and the responsibility for personal behavior begin?
I don’t know the answer to that, except in my mind it should begin as soon as is viably possible, focusing more on the external influences during the early development years, particularly the influences that poverty, crime, and mental health issues have on childhood development.
Nothing new there. And even if we were to raise all today’s children to be compassionate and ethical, we’re still left with the violent and callous reality of now.
When dealing with such abnormal and illegal misanthropic behavior, it’s obvious to me that our societal organizations that hold the legal monopoly on violence — our military and police forces, for example — should be held to a much higher standard of ethical behavior and face a much stiffer penalty when unethical behavior is committed.
I sure would like to take a look at what our military and police cadets are being taught today at their service schools regarding ethics and codes of conduct.
I have some idea, but it’s almost been 20 years since I was on active duty so I’m sure times have changed.
But while education in ethics and codes of conduct for our magistrates of violence is surely important and must continue, nothing in my mind is as important as the education and examples one receives in the formative childhood years.
For it is then our brains get stuffed with the stuff we base our lives on for the rest of our lives…
Such stuff as our prejudices and stereotypes and how to love and how to hate…
You know, the near indelible and indestructible stuff that one university freshman course in ethics can ne’er overcome.
Sadly, for reasons yet unknown to me, Amazon has decided to eliminate its entire catalog of short films, films which includes Leave and which happens to be an awesome film with an awesome director and an awesome cast and crew and which yours truly wrote and executive produced and which premiered at the awesome LA Femme International Film Festival in 2018.
Yeah, exactly…
Dubya. Tee. Eff., Bezos?
Anyway…
So, now I need to find a new home for Leave. A home which is hopefully a little more respectful of the value short films bring to the world.
Any ideas?
Tell you what, while we ponder over where best to host the flick, how ’bout for the next couple days, let’s say until 2359 Sunday, March 14, 2021, to be exact, I will unlock it at Vimeo for all to see and enjoy?
Sounds like a solid plan, eh.
Also, if you’re interested in watching the short documentary I produced about the making of Leave, you can check that out at leavethemovie.wordpress.com. While there, you can also learn more about the cast and crew.
Of course, you can watch the doc at Vimeo as well.
There’s a rather talkative pigheaded brute of a character in my WIP whose name is Rick, Happy, Henderson. Happy loves to philosophize and pontificate to…at?… his work partner about whatever the latest topic is he’s studying during night school as if he’s now a subject matter expert. He’s not of course and he always manages to maneuver whatever it is he’s rambling on about toward a general diatribe of how the weak with their Rule of Law and “societal norms” have managed to upend the universal natural order of might makes right, which, in the end, as he sees it, limits his ability to pick up chicks.
Even though I grew up a comic book nerd, I’m pretty much over all the Marvel/DC Comics superhero movies. I used to watch them religiously at the movie theater – because if one must watch a big budgeted bloated bonanza of bombastic visual proportions, then it must be watched while on the big screen – however, I’m trying very hard to wean myself off of them. Key word: trying.
Despite the fact that I know without a doubt I’m going to be hugely disappointed at the movie’s end, I still find it hard to resist them. For instance, the buzz around the Black Panther movie is phenomenal so chances are pretty good I’ll make the trek to my local Frank’s Theatre and hope for the best… while still expecting the worst.
Fortunately, thanks to the likes of HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and the… like, the superhero genre has not been left behind during this amazing renaissance of television we’re happily going through.
As for there being any good content on broadcast television, I wouldn’t know. I haven’t watched anything on any of the broadcast channels, other than sports, since Happy Days went off the air… what has it been? a year or two ago?
Except for one broadcast show, that is.
Gotham.
I am off on a hardcore wide-eyed binge on that show, which should tell you that I don’t actually watch it when it’s broadcasted on Fox. No way. Never again will I be a slave to a network time slot.
I watch Gotham as any discerning 21st Century viewer would, at my leisure on that amazing little channel of an app called Netflix.
With all its dark, demented, hyper-violence, let me tell ya… Gotham is good. Real good. It actually feels like a comic book has been brought to life, making it exactly what a discerning 21st Century television viewer like yours truly wants…
And deserves.
Anyway, onward to the point of this overly prolific post…
I mean, life’s a bitch and all but come on Gen Xers, don’t let all that depressing music from the Nineties go to your head…
Or your heart.
Man**…
I tell ya, last year we lost such notable Gen Xers as Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell*** and, before them, Scott Weiland a couple years ago, not to mention all those Gen Xer stars we lost early in their prime: Kurt Cobain, Tupac, Biggie, Layne Staley, Shannon Hoon, Bradley Nowell, and god knows how many others I’ve failed to mention.
And now this year we continue the tragic Gen X endings with the tragic death of Dolores O’Riordan.
By the time my generation gets in its natural zone of death, it seems all the stars from it will be long gone with no big names left for me to pay tribute.
But, as is evident by Delores’ recent passing, it’s painfully obvious the premature dying off of famous Gen Xers will continue unabated and I sincerely would like to pay a heartfelt tribute to the life of Dolores, for hers was a unique and beautiful voice that defined my generation*.
Sadly, like the death of Scott Weiland, I kind of saw it coming…
The most common type of gun confiscated by police and traced by the ATF are .38 special revolvers, such as this Smith & Wesson Model 60 .38 Special revolver with a 3-inch barrel. (“S&W 60 3in“. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.)
First off, I’m not anti-Second Amendment (if you’re an American (of the U.S. persuasion) and you don’t know what the Second Amendment is then that’s a problem)…
See, I live out in the sticks and I had to call 911 once because I thought there was a gas leak somewhere in my house and all I got to say about that experience is that our military overran countries faster than it took the emergency responders to get to my house.
It’s not their fault – I just live out in the sticks.
Heck, I found out then that I can’t even call my 911 operator direct. My 911 call goes to somewhere across the border and that operator has to re-direct it back into my state to a different operator.
I can only wonder what would have happened if that 911 call wasn’t for a gas leak (a false alarm, fortunately) but for a home invasion instead?!
You can feel me, right?
So yeah, I’m all about owning a gun as a means of protection of last resort.
But then again, I’m a nice guy.
I can be trusted with a gun.
When I say I am a not a gun-slingin’, trigger-happy nutjob with “adequacy issues” you can take my word for it…
But as for the rest of you all…
I’m beginning to wonder.
What the heck is going on out there?
Unfortunately, it has become my unfortunate belief that we, as a nation, are now just too mean and too rude and too disrespectful and, most dangerously, too short-tempered (what’s up with all the road rage?) to have so many guns – both legal and illegal – locked and loaded and at the ready out there, just itchin’ to mediate our every issue and altercation, however slight.
Something has got to change.
I mean, come on… There were over 11,000 murders committed with a gun in 2013 (according to the Centers for Disease Control (via Wikipedia)).
That’s a lot of humans made dead from mean assholes with guns.
So if we, as a citizenry, are so danged mean and so danged armed, just think what it must be like to have to try to police all of us in an effort to maintain good order and discipline in a society where that kind of anachronistic, Mayberry-like behavior is now shat upon.
Nowadays, it must be pretty darned scary to be a cop.
No wonder they all jack themselves up like Special Forces operators gone wild.
Have you seen some of these Rambo cops?
In-f’n-tense, they are…
It’s hard to believe – and even sadder – that it takes so much firepower to patrol our streets.
Seriously, we have an Intra-Arms Race going on between we angry civilians and the feeling-threatened-and-under-fire Po po, you know, the overly-aggressive-stoppin’-and-friskin’, tank-drivin’ Five-Oh.
Geez…
And then when you throw race into the mix of a messy situation where the police are a majority of the time of a majority skin tone and the citizenry they are bringing their good order and discipline to are of a minority skin tone…
These days someone usually ends up shot.
Just like last night at the protests in response to the first anniversary of the Michael Brown killing.
Look, I’ve written about these things here before and, like then, I don’t have any answers.
But when it comes to race and racism, I do know, despite what my Merriam-Webster dictionary app says, racism is all about power and who has it.
And the fact is, White male Anglo-Saxon Protestants have and, for the foreseeable future, will continue to have the power in this country.
For the record, here is what my app says racism is:
1: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2: racial prejudice or discrimination
Now, I don’t disagree with what the app says, but in the national grand scheme of things, whose racism is going to hurt more – a WASPy dude’s* or a Black female’s?
Sure it may hurt our WASPy dude feelings that others not like us don’t like us just because they don’t look like us because they are racists of the first or second order, or both. But overall that’s all their racism will do to us – hurt our Privileged and Guilt-ridden White feelings.
Unlike our racism, theirs won’t keep us out of a job.
Or out of a loan.
Or out of a home…
Their racism just doesn’t have the power to do all that harm like ours does.
And sorry to burst your bubbles white racist females, you may think you’re superior to others because of your skin tone, but thanks to our historically patriarchal and sexist society (a subject worthy of a post of its own), you just don’t have as much “clout” to harm as we WASPy dudes have.
Man**, this is depressing.
What is most depressing about it all is how it all feeds off of each other…
The racism increases anger.
The anger increases violence.
The violence increases fear.
The fear increases gun sales.
The gun sales increase death rates.
The increasing death rates increase police presence.
And on and on…
Like I said, I have no answers.
But I do have a voice…
And, for what it’s worth, here I am using it to, if not provide solutions, at least discuss the problems.
Anyway…
This entire unfortunate, depressing post reminds me of that intense scene from the movie Grand Canyon, starring Danny Glover and Kevin Kline, where Glover’s character, a tow truck driver, comes to the aid of…
Ah, what am I trying to explain it for? Just go ahead and watch it…
Peace, y’all…
And remember, Being Nice is a skill that, to be effectively employed, must be continually practiced.
I am very honored and excited to share our very first submission to the new Relating to Humans feature.
Before we get to the submission, however, I would like to say a few words by way of introduction.
You know, I am a writer, which means…I’m insecure. I am. Every time I hit the “Publish” button to release my stuff out into this wild world, I get more than a little apprehensive wondering if it’s going to be well received, or not. Such was the case when I put this new Relating to Humans feature out there. I was a little nervous, wondering if anyone would take it seriously; if anyone would care to participate.
Which is why I am so honored and excited to be introducing you to the poetry of becausethisishowisaythings. She, with her one submission, helped to validate what this new feature is all about.
Becausethisishowisaythings is a fearless twenty-year old (fearless as is evident by her willingness to participate in this new venture of ours), and her poem is an honest expression of how she feels about being a woman.
So please, take the time to read her poem, and, if you are so moved, maybe leave her a comment and visit with her and support her efforts at her own website becausethisishowisaythings.wordpress.com
Who I am
I am confused.
I am a woman, a girl, a female…but I am not very feminine.
My mother tells me to wear prettier clothes. My sister asks if I’m a lesbian.
If I’m a girl, does that mean I have to wear pink, do I have to wear flowers in my hair and make-up on my face, all to convince you that I’m a girl, that I’m a woman?
Do I have to wear revealing clothes and get drunk on vodka to attract a man,
a boy, a male?
Do I have to feel afraid of sex?
Should I feel guilty for being honest, and not a bitch?
I am a woman, I know this, but it seems other people aren’t so sure.
I don’t know if I’m a feminist, but I know what I want to be.
I want to be strong, to be attractive, to be sensitive, to be accepted, to be understood.
I want to be a good person.
A person. Not a label.
I am a woman, I am a girl, a female…but don’t try to label me with these things.
