some time ago i read an essay that purports multiculturalism has been the downfall of all empires and that is the fate that awaits the US.
it`s an interesting idea, but i think it`s completely off base. the fundamental flaw i believe that exists in this argument is the US is the only empire that`s been built on immigration. historically empires were built on colonisation and eventually collapsed under the weight of greed, bureaucracy and the hyper-extension of resources.
the last major empire was the British and for nearly 400 years they were masters of the planet and by the end of the second world war there was very little left, not because of multiculturalism, but because of imperialism and greed. the first to go nearly 230 years ago was the US, why, because of greed. you know, no taxation without representation, remember that? and then at the beginning of the last century things really started to sour for the British as various countries in Africa tired of the yoke colonial greed and mismanagement also rebelled and then India and by the end of the second world war, the British were hard pressed to take care of themselves much a bunch of countries that were out of sight and therefore out of mind so it became easier to just let these countries have self governance than continue to be responsible for them.
the US empire is built on a dream that wave after wave of immigrants have flocked here to fulfil. this is an empire of hope and promise and if you work hard enough you can have your own piece of the empire. you can co-exist with every religion, every nationality because at the end of the day, you’re all chasing the same dream. but that’s all it’s ever been, a dream as each generation’s success puts them a step higher on the ladder, then they look down with disdain at the next wave of immigrants forgetting that’s where they started.
the pilgrims arrived here first to escape religious persecution, the next wave were the indentured servants, who for the most part were either guilty of being poor or the effects of being poor, then they were replaced by the slaves and then another generation of European poor trying to escape famine along with Chinese immigrant labour, then the people trying to escape the People’s revolution in Russia, then the Jews and people whose lives were destroyed by WWII, then people from the Caribbean, then Koreans after the war, the Vietnamese after the war, the Africans, the Arabs and the people keep coming, wave after wave of them.
Driven out of their countries by war or famine or politics or the need to be able to provide for their families, all wind up here do whatever it takes to survive. multiculturalism isn’t going to destroy this empire, monoculturalism is. this isn’t an argument about cultural identity it’s a class argument, it’s not new. it’s been going on as each successive wave of immigrants arrived and and became the lowest group on the ladder. those high enough up to forget when they were at the bottom want to believe that they can exist without them and those close enough to the bottom are afraid that they’ll be leapfrogged by the new group.
this country, this empire would not be what it is without being built of the backs of multiple cultures that came here voluntarily or involuntarily in search of betterment.
Common Sense and Personal Responsibility were slain today after a prolonged fight with the authorities.
The duo finally fell after multi-pronged attack by Legislation and Litigation supported the forces of Greed, Ignorance and Stupidity.
Spokespersons for Legislation and Litigation said they were serving Justice and trying to protect the general public. “They were troublemakers and we will not stop until they and their ilk are completely eradicated. We have the power and all who oppose us will feel our might. Those that question us will be viewed as supporters of the enemy and pay the price.”
Friends and supporters of Common Sense and Personal Responsibility — Intelligence, Integrity, Wits, Ingenuity and Free Will — have vowed to continue the fight, regardless of the cost.
it’s interesting that this came up, considering i got my personality test results back this week.
my support system is a small handful people, all of them close friends that i can rely on for unfiltered and completely honest opinions and if i need help of some sort they`ll be there for me.
growing up it was just my mother and myself and for most of my childhood, i was a latch key child and when i was out with my mother i was with adults of the `children should be seen and not heard` school and that was fine by me, i sat quietly and observed and read. and i came away with some warped life lessons, most of them having to do with the unreliable nature of people in general and only relying on yourself to get stuff done properly.
as an adult i applied that to my working life, so much that for a long time i ended up doing more work than i needed to and got a reputation as a control freak. in my personal life i was the person that couldn`t say no and tried to please everybody and took on more than i could handle because i didn`t trust people to do what i asked, no matter how clear my instructions were. it`s kind of hard to build a support system with that kind of attitude.
about the same time i was suffering from insomnia and realising that i could possibly spend the rest of my life alone, i was figuring out that having people i could rely on would not necessarily a bad thing. it`s a work in progress. i`m still incredibly self reliant and i`ll still bend over backwards to help people, but i am mastering the art of saying no and if i need help i`m learning to ask for it.
THREE NAMES I GO BY
keifel
k
pig
THREE JOBS I HAVE HAD IN MY LIFE
bag boy
printer’s apprentice
internet support tech
THREE PLACES I HAVE LIVED
london
naples, fl
woodbrook
THREE TV SHOWS THAT I WATCH
dollhouse
top gear
leverage
THREE PLACES I HAVE BEEN
dortmund, germany
Macinack Island, MI
kingston, jamaica
THREE PLACES I WANT TO GO
japan
australia
south africa
THREE OF MY FAVORITE FOODS
spicy duck
roti
ribs
THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO
going to trinidad
the weekend
seeing the girls
THREE PETS THAT YOU HAVE OWNED
cleopatra: a calico minx that we had growing up
jiffy: an orange tabby i got my mother
orion: our current orange tabby
THREE FRIENDS WHO WILL REPLY
not sure based on this format
THREE FAVORITE BANDS/RECORDING ARTISTS
metallica
mos def
george carlin
THREE FAVORITE THINGS TO WATCH
movies
the cats
people
THREE FAVORITE DRINKS
water
coke (original sugar formula)
jack & coke
THREE THINGS YOU JUST DON’T GET
dirty hippies
deliberately ignorant people
recreational drug use
THREE JOBS YOU’D LIKE
house painter
sound engineer
travel writer
YES OR NO
The Rules
1. You can only answer yes or no
2. You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone messages or comments you and Asks!
Now, here’s what you’re supposed to do… And please do not spoil the Fun. Copy and paste this into your notes, delete my answers and type in your answers. Then see what happens.
Been arrested? no
Have you ever gambled with cards? yes
Have you ever played spin the bottle? yes
Kissed someone you didn’t like? yes
Slept in until 5 PM? no
Has your name ever been on the papers? yes
Fallen asleep at work/school? yes
Held a snake? yes
Have you ever had your heart broken? yes
Have you ever broken someone’s heart? yes
Have you ever flirted with someone you do not like? no
Have you ever been to another country? yes
Can you swim? yes
Ran a red light? yes
Have you ever smoked weed? yes
Been suspended from school? yes
Totaled your car/motorbike in an accident? yes
Been fired from a job? yes
Have you ever liked someone and never told them? yes
Sang karaoke? yes
Have you ever cheated on someone? yes
Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t? yes
Laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? yes
Caught a snowflake on your tongue? yes
Have you ever rejected someone? yes
Sang in the shower? yes
Sat on a rooftop? yes
Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes? yes
Have you ever liked one of your relatives? yes
Broken a bone? no
Shaved your head? yes
Blacked out from drinking? no
Played a prank on someone? yes
Felt like killing someone? yes
Have you ever made someone bleed in a fight? yes
Have you ever been expelled from a school? no
Have you ever met a celebrity? yes
Have you ever been to a fete? yes
Made your girlfriend/boyfriend cry? yes
Been in a band? no
Shot a gun? yes
Donated Blood? yes
Eaten alligator meat? yes
Has your best friend ever stolen one of your boy/girlfriend? no
Have you ever stolen one of your best friend boy/girlfriends? no
Eaten cheesecake? yes
Still love someone you shouldn’t? no
Think about the future? yes
Believe in Love? yes
Sleep on a certain side of the bed? yes
Gave your all to someone? yes
Can you play a musical instrument? no
Ever drag raced? yes
Want to kiss one of your facebook friends? yes
Will you redo this and re post this? yes
in a sentence, i met vic nine years ago in the personals section of nerve.com. but that sentence doesn`t begin to do us any justice.
nine years ago i was in London working on a project, plagued by insomnia. when you`re only sleeping an average of three hours a night, you find yourself thinking of a lot of things. i realised that on the verge of turning 29, i was divorced, with two children i didn`t see enough of, i had ruined three good relationships and was lucky not to take the friendships down with them too, i wasn`t a prize catch and i was probably going to be alone for the rest of my life. i accepted that and decided it wasn`t something that should depress me, i should just work on fixing me and making myself happy.
i had never been a big fan of personals websites, but the project photographer came back from LA with a copy from the short-lived nerve print magazine and during one of my sleepless nights, i read the magazine and then interest piqued, i went to the website. the personal section was funny and irreverent and featured areas you had to fill out like, best and worse lie you ever told and blank is sexy but blank is sexier. it was fun and it didn`t have to be a meat market if you didn`t want it too. i wasn`t looking for a relationship and that was cool, there were other people on nerve that were looking email/im buddies as well.
i think you have two options when you meet someone online, you could lie like hell and soon or later, you`ll get caught or you can be brutally honest about yourself, flaws and foibles writ large and if they can`t accept that then all you`ve done is displace a few electrons.
each profile on nerve, had a two mandatories, a username and what amounted to a tagline. mine was a Raoul Duke classic “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro” and vic`s lured me in from the word go; “curiosity? poor cat.” i was hooked, i messaged her immediately with my email address and less than a day later we`d exchanged im addresses. for the next six weeks we im`d all day and at least two hours a night, talking about anything and everything. basically becoming friends.
about a week before the 2000 Olympic Games were scheduled to begin i was on a plane heading to Miami with a plan to rent a car, meet vic and another person i`d been chatting with from nerve and go see a long time friend in MS. i got to miami and couldn`t rent a car without a credit card, so i decided to continue my adventure by greyhound. i spent 22 hours on that bus endured strange people playing in my hair as i tried to sleep and arrived in Knoxville road weary and unwashed and wondered if this woman would take one look at me at the bus station and drive away, abandoning me to a strange city. vic didn`t she got out the car and smiled at me. if there was ever a moment when i fell completely and totally in love with victoria, that was it.
i was supposed to stay four days, i ended up staying almost two weeks. the following January i drove 11 hours to propose and we were married a year later, almost to the day.
this is a work in progress, so bear with me.
i`m not a physically violent person, i may look like a huge, intimidating man, but if you get to know me i`m a teddy bear, well at least with the people i love and even then, there are some that would question that.
i discovered very early on that words have power.
“sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”
bullshit, i`m still carrying the scars of my first three years of high school. i`ve moved on, i may be a better person now, but they`re there and it`s the reason i worry about my children`s popularity.
i was the short, fat, non-physical-sport playing, sensitive child in an all boys` high school. in any herd, i was the one most likely to get singled out and devoured by the predators and it took four years, a growth spurt and an incredibly violent outburst to break the predators of the concept of me as easy prey. it didn`t stop completely but i was no longer the most helpless. during those `formative` years i learned to bottle my anger and hurt and disappointment and channel its release in the most powerful weapon i know; words.
i`ve always been an avid reader, books were and still are a form of escape for me. the first book i ever owned was Tootles the Taxi. i devoured it, literally, i was old enough to read and when i was finished i ate from hard back cover to hard back cover. i don`t know if it`s because i`m listening to American Gods now or if it`s something i`ve read somewhere but it seems somewhat mythical and powerful. my mother is still an avid reader and encouraged my reading by allowing me to read the paper every morning with a dictionary at my side; i can`t remember a time when i`ve never owned a dictionary; and by buying me a book a month on the anniversary of my birthday. even that wasn`t enough, i joined the children`s section of the public library at 6, and by the time i`d finished my primary education at 10, i`d read everything they had. i knew all the librarians by name and they got me a dispensation to join the adult library at 11. words brought me comfort and joy and there was a time when i wouldn`t leave home with something to read, my mother would take me on her jaunts and as long as i had a book, i would just completely zone the adults out. my books didn`t defend me in high school but the provided a temporary reprieve.
as i got older, i hid my hurtful words behind the guise of absolute truth if you were a friend, if you weren`t a friend then there was no hiding, i was just nasty and cruel. my barbs were calculated to cause the most harm. with family and friends, it was easier because i knew the weaknesses and had bottled hurts real and imagined and distilled into something truly venomous. one of the reasons my ex-wife and i are such good friends now is that we`ve said every hurtful thing two people can say to each other. i`ve always said if they verbal arguments we had in the last two months of our marriage had been physical neither of us would be here today. everything we said to each other at that time was meant to cut to the quick and simultaneously salt the wound while we were at it. and in retrospect, she was just reacting to me, i started it, i was pushing her buttons and she responded.
i still have pretty sharp tongue but i don`t bottle, well not as much and i`ve learned temperance. this isn`t where i`d intended to go with this, but i`m pretty happy with it anyway.
i am highly sexual in nature. i make no bones about it, i think it`s natural and fun and am willing to try almost anything once; children, the dead, animals and faecal play being the exceptions; and all the things i am interested in i believe i`ve tried.
there are things i`ve done and forgotten, there are things remain with me and there are things i`m enjoying discovering. i started my sexual adventures early in life and at this point i can say i`ve been having sex more than half my life but it`s not about quantity, it`s about quality. the best sex in my life has been with long term partners as we got to know each other better and with vic, each time is better and better.
i`m very opened minded about sexuality and spend a lot of time reading about the subject, partially for my own edification and partially because i enjoy reading about sex. growing up my sexual fantasies were fuelled visually but by images i`d built in my head from stuff i`d read. even now, porn mostly bores me. i`m not saying there isn`t stuff that excites me, it`s just that`s not how i`m stimulated.
part of my fascination with sexuality is how people react to practices and people that are outside their norms. sexual mores like sexuality itself evolves and it`s fascinating to be able to read about whether the female orgasm is an evolutionary by-product, when as recently as 40 years ago, the female orgasm wasn`t even being acknowledged.
i worry however about the misinformation and in some cases the complete lack of information that young people are getting these days. there seems to be no middle ground for information these days the places where one can find clear, unbiased, truthful information about sexuality are sorely outnumbered. it`s mostly either misguided or deliberately misleading abstinence education or equally misleading pornography.
