I've been thinking again
Lefou: A dangerous past time
Gaston: I know |
Lefou: A dangerous past time
Gaston: I know |
Gas Station Angel
Shortly after passing the driver’s test, the first one in my family to do so on the first try, my parents graciously bought a used car for me to drive to school. It was 13 years old and so well loved it could be mistaken as slightly beaten up; in other words, great for a new driver, and I loved it. The 87 Cutlass Cierra had a tan interior that his stains from coffee spills perfectly, and its black paint was faded and patchy, almost like a reverse cow. I called it Elsie. I tried to take car of Elsie as best a new driver could. I never let her get lower than a quarter tank of gas and checked her oil and coolant every time I filled her up. This seems excessive, but she was an old girl, with a dashboard that told me the speed, the rpms, gas level, and maybe the the battery voltage. Her computer was simply told the engine to crank when I turned the key. Other than the check engine light, there were no warnings to tell me my air pressure, oil, or coolant was low. Back in my day, I had to open the hood and open my eyes. During a weekend errand run with my mom, we stopped off for gas at a three way intersection right as the light turned yellow. With any luck, I could fill the tank and be back on the road before it turned green again, and beat the oncoming traffic. Though my mom offered to pump the gas, I hopped out of the driver’s seat before she could unbuckle her seatbelt. I swiped my bank card, selected my octane, twisted off the gas cap and inserted the nozzle into my gas tank. I placed the cap on the trunk lid, and checked the car’s fluids. Elsie was thirstier than usual, giving me time to clean off my windshields. As I sloshed the squeegee back into the bucket full of dirty, blue water, the gas pump signaled my tank was full with a gentle clunk. I returned the nozzle to the pump, closed the gas door, and plopped back into my seat. My mom and I picked up our chatting where we left off as I started the car, and off we went. As I pulled into traffic, we heard an odd scrape and something fall. We looked at each other in surprise. The gas cap! There was no where to pull over, and too much traffic to circle back right away. By the time I could change lanes and make a u-turn several green lights had come and gone, and the poor gas cap was hardly recognizable. At the time, we didn’t know that Elsie would be ok until we could drive to a parts store for a replacement and were worried that she would slosh gas out of her tank. In reality, the gas next is about a foot long, so any sloshing would likely be contained. The little gas that might escape would be in the form of vapor. Still slightly panicked, we ask the gas station attendant if the sell gas caps. They did not. Feeling lost, we head back to the car. Usually, my dad would handle situations like this, but this was before cellphones were ubiquitous. We were debating on whether it was best to head home and try again the next day or to chance losing gas and possibly exploding. We didn’t think that was a probable outcome, but when anxiety takes hold, the worst case scenario is always thought possible. As we reached the car, an older man approached us and asked if we were alight. We were, in the grand scheme of things but currently worried about the gas cap. He told us to wait right there because he might have one that fit our car and disappeared around the side of his big blue work truck piled high with parts and tools. A few moments later, he reappeared with a gas cap that looked just like my destroyed one. Refusing payment for it, he placed it in my hand. It was dirty, of course, and a bit scuffed up, but the threads were intact. I opened my gas door, and gave it a try. It was a perfect fit! We turned to thank the man, but he and his truck were gone. We looked into traffic but didn’t see him, even at the next light in all three directions. Either the universe rewarded his kindness with the good luck of catching multiple green lights in a row, or he was a guardian angel. It’s been 22 years and several cars later, but my mother and I sometimes remember the man’s kindness and marvel at the luck of his having the exact gas cap I needed. He could have simply told us not to worry about it, that we wouldn’t lose gas, that the gas door would prevent any major leaks, but I suspect that he knew most Chevy parts would would on most Chevy cars and simply gave us the gas cap from his own vehicle. Whether my father believes in them or not, he often shares email forwards that involve commentary on the current political landscape. Sometimes they are meant to inform us, but based on previous inflammatory forwards, they are left unread in our mailbox and slowly get buried. This was the destiny for a recent email, but my sister first responded, which made me curious enough to watch the linked video (attached below). My father's email included the message (which may or may not have also been forwarded) that the video by Dinesh D’Souza for PragerU was "interesting" and called them both are "conservative" and then claimed it was "more informative than anything else." The message conceded that D'Souza may have said "outrageous things" in the past but claimed the same was not true of the shared video. The message was almost accurate. It was not "outrageous" in as much as it was jam packed with misinformation and misdirection. My response is after the video. Ugh.
Normally I would respond to this either, but there was so much bullshit I had to. D’Souza and Prager are not just conservative, they are extremist. Tl;dr: D’Souza is a right-wing liar who takes Marcuse’s name in vain. Identity Socialism is not real. It’s a fake marriage of identity politics, which is just like-people working together for like-purposes—something that happens regardless of poli-socio-economics, and socialism. Identity politics is not really a thing. It’s just the far-right complaining that people of specific age, race, ethnicity, gender demanding the rights they are allegedly giving by the constitution, equal rights acts, equal pay acts, etc. These “socialist” groups aren’t asking for anything new, just the same old rights they are still waiting for. It's like being against the BLM movement because it doesn’t include everyone, when the BLM movement exists because America needed to reminded that Black Lives Matter, too. Adding the “too" is not as catchy for a hashtag, and it’s been intentionally misconstrued and set up as less inclusive than the ALM movement. Of course all lives matter, but until Black Lives Matter, all lives don’t matter, which was the point in the first place. I was unfamiliar with who D’Souza is, but after looking him up, I found that he defended southern slave owners, compared the 2016 Democratic platform to the Third Reich of Germany, defended Abu Graib torture and abuse by blaming the Puritanism of America for calling it a scandal, was found guilty of illegal campaign contributions, mocked survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, and is a right wing evangelist. I would not believe a single idea he puts forth; quite the contrary, betting against hims is more likely to hit the truth than looking for information that supports the “outrageous things” he says. The only thing I would credit him is his prolific publication life, but his books are just a grown up version of scandal magazines and promote nothing but conspiracy theories. His video is on Prager University’s website. Prager is less of a University than Trump U was and even says it is not accredited in all capital letters, but first the site-viewer must scroll down to the very bottom of the page. In reality, Prager is a nonprofit organization created to raise money to “Make America Great Again." Then I watched the clip, which is an elaborate logical fallacy of false dichotomy. Simply put, D’Souza make the claim that if x is not true, then y must be. Hc claims Vietnam protesters were not against the war itself, but were supporters of the Vietcong. He claims women were suddenly discontent in the 1960’s despite the fact that women have been demanding equal rights since the initial movements to abolish slavery. The only thing accurate in the clip is that African Americans had plenty of grievances. All of these claims are made in the name of Marcuse, whom I only know by name, so I looked him up as well. He is a 20th century philosopher and social theorist who rejected the idea of class struggle and Marxist labor theory, literally the opposite of what D’Souza says Marcuse believed. D’Souza simply took Marxist ideas and relabeled them as he saw fit, and his use of Marcuse’s name as justification is blasphemous. Marcuse worked on anti-nazi propaganda during WW2 and criticized Soviet Communism as much as Capitalism. His problem was with free market capitalism, and as a result the New Left was born. He is best known for his essay, "Repressive Tolerance," did most of his speaking in the 60's and 70's, and died in 1979. Marcuse's work says nothing of women vs men, gay vs straight, blacks vs white. D’Souza is simply spewing nonsense and liberally and libelously namedropping so people who are ill-informed believe him. Marcuse's "Repressive Tolerance" is part of the book A Critique of Pure Tolerance which view the political impact of tolerance for unjust practices by the masses. He supports the idea that citizens of any free country have the right to subvert said country if it no longer supports the majority. Hmmmm… why does that sound familiar? Oh, right. In Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and The Crisis and Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. Discontent is far from a new concept in the United States. Fact check before sharing. ~ Joules *Notice: Some information was gathered from Wikipedia, but all sources were double checked for accuracy.
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Oh hai there!I claim to be a writer, but I am definitely a professor. I have the tax information to prove it. To be a writer, I must write everyday, even if it's just one line at a time.
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