Imagine Peace

I had some vague plans for today's post, but I forgot about Peace Day. When this day came last year, I had only been blogging for a few months, and it was one of my first glimpses of the blogging community. I was surprised to see that many of my favorite blogs, which were so different from each other, had gathered together to think about peace: how to achieve it, what it meant, how it made them feel, and so on. Later that day, when my new friend CEO sent me my own personalized "Dona Nobis Pacem" banner, I felt the connection of blogging. I was amazed that a stranger, hundreds of miles away, would take the time to make something for me. CEO went from being a stranger to being a friend, and blogging went from being a solitary passtime to a community activity that was never far from my mind.

A lot of bloggers are writing about peace today, and their eloquence is inspiring, but I don't really have anything profound to say. I'm not an optimist about peace. There was a time, years ago, when I thought that humans might, one day, be able to live together. I could imagine a time when there might not be any wars in the world. Right now, though, I find it hard to even imagine a time when the United States won't be shipping its children overseas to kill people.

When I was a teacher, I would often have my students read George Orwell's 1984. One of the hardest things for them to deal with was the idea that "War is Peace," and they tended to dismiss this famous quote as empty rhetoric about totalitarian governments. Looking deeper, though, we noticed that war does, indeed, lead to peace. It inspires cohesion, nationalism, and a setting-aside of all the meaningless little things like free speech and the right to assemble. In fact, one could argue that the shortest route to internal peace and security is external conflict.

I wonder, though, if we could claim the converse of Orwell's statement. If War is Peace, might not Peace be War? Maybe, if we really want peace, we will need to approach it as a real war. It's a battle between those who financially benefit from war and those who physically suffer. It's also a battle between those who believe in America's beautiful rhetoric and ideals and those who can't see past its global primacy. In other words, the search for peace is a conflict between the path that our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence promise and the path that our government has chosen to follow.

The gap between these two extremes is so wide that I wonder if it can ever be bridged. I think that, if we hope to find a way across it, we must begin by abolishing the exceptions that we are so inclined to make. There should be no exceptions to our freedom of speech, or our freedom to assemble. There should be no exceptions to our defense of habeas corpus or our prohibitions against torture. Every exception we make is a deterioration of the very freedoms that we claim to honor and a step away from peace. At the end of the day, we cannot protect who we are by destroying the things that make us unique.

And we can't achieve peace by fomenting war.

Saving It For Daddy

My wife majored in Philosophy, which means that we talk a lot.

Everything in our lives, from toilet paper to food to how we raise George is a major topic for discussion, and we endlessly go over the pros and cons, long-range consequences and short-term benefits of every action. We consider the hidden meanings of our decisions, and the broader relevance of our preferences.

In other words, we talk a lot.

I really like this. My own tendency is toward thoughtfulness and consideration, and I try to live a deliberate life. I don't like to take things for granted, so our endless talks are very important to me.

One of the most important long talks we've had involved planning our wedding. Although we endlessly discussed every aspect of the wedding, one of the biggest sticking points was the engagement ring. On the one hand, I wanted to give her a ring, and she wanted to get a ring. On the other hand, we both recognized that engagement rings are a thinly-disguised business transaction. In short, I was spending money I didn't have on a piece of jewelry with which I was purchasing exclusive drilling rights to my wife's vagina.

Honestly, this grossed us both out. The same went for her wedding escort. While my wife wanted her father to walk her down the aisle, we also recognized that this signified that her father was literally "giving away" control and ownership of his daughter. Given the rocky nature of her relationship with the old man, not to mention our own anti-slavery leanings, the undertone of this tradition was more than a little uncomfortable.

Ultimately, we decided that, given the feminist rejection of these traditions, our decision to embrace them was actually revolutionary. More to the point, she wanted a ring and a part for her father; I wanted to give her a ring and had no real opinion about her father. It was our own damned wedding, Andrea Dworkin wasn't kicking in for the cost, and we were going to do what we wanted to do. Screw the underlying meaning!

Recently, she came across an article in Glamour magazine that reminded us of these discussions. Apparently, so-called "Purity Balls" are becoming an increasingly popular trend among fundamentalist Christians. These events, at which daughters pledge to their fathers that they will preserve their virginity until their wedding night, are sponsored by churches, crisis pregnancy centers, and non-profit groups. The young ladies dress up in prom dresses, and their fathers dress up in tuxedos and suits. At some point in the evening, in the words of Mark Morford of the San Francisco Gate:

The daughter stands up, her pale arms wrapped around her daddy, and reads aloud a formal pledge that she will remain forever pure and virginal and sex-free until she is handed over, by her dad (who is actually called the "high priest" of the home), like some sort of sad hymenic gift, to her husband, who will receive her like the sanitized and overprotected and libidinously inept servant she so very much is. Praise!

The daughter's pledge states, in part:

I pledge to remain sexually pure...until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband...I know that God requires this of me...that he loves me, and that he will reward me for my faithfulness.

The fathers then recite this pledge:

I, (daughter's name)'s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband, and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide, and pray over my daughter and my family as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.

I'm not sure that I can even convey how much this disgusts me. The image of "high priest" fathers "covering" their daughters is creepily incestuous, not to mention very Old Testament. Seriously, haven't these people read the story of Lot's daughters? It's even worse that these pledges occur at "Purity Balls." Why don't they call these events "Purity Dances" or "Purity Retreats" or something? "Purity Balls" sounds like something that dangled off Howard Hughes' overly-sterilized frame.


In Glamour, Jennifer Baumgardner notes that these events encourage the purchase of items like "a $250 14-karat pearl-and-diamond purity ring; for $15, you can buy a red baby-doll T-shirt with I'M WAITING emblazoned on the chest, its snug fit sending a bit of a mixed message." This reminds me of the sexy red chastity league scarf that Julia wears around her waist in 1984. There's something disturbingly cruel about clothes that proclaim chastity while encouraging lewd thoughts. More to the point, why are these fathers fetishizing their daughters' sexuality? Why is it such a huge concern? And why are they buying their daughters slutterwear if they want them to save it for marriage? What's next--shirts that say "my vagina is a temple of the Lord, but my hands are the Devil's playground"? How about "Chastity? You said a mouthful!"?

I understand the desire to protect one's daughter, to shelter her from harm, and to lead her to make the best possible decisions. However, I'd like to think that, when George is in her late thirties, and is ready to lose her virginity, I will be supportive and understanding.


All kidding aside, I've been through this with my little sister. When she lost her virginity, I knew about it. It made me nervous, on a variety of levels, but I had spent a lot of time with the boy that she was dating, and I trusted him. I realized that he would treat her well, and would give her a gentle and respectful introduction to sexuality. I also knew that my sister was intelligent, thoughtful, and capable of making decisions about her life. Ultimately, I realized that I had raised her well; in other words, a large part of my (relative) comfort with this whole situation lay in the fact that I had faith in my sister and my own child-raising abilities.

It seems odd that these people, who base so much of their lives on religion, have so little faith in themselves and their daughters.

My First Tattoo

A little while ago, I was reading a meme on Boondoggled , a blog that I really enjoy. Reading through the list of items, I agreed with most of Just D's responses. However, in one of the categories, "Things I Would Never Do," she wrote that she would never have a tattoo. I was a little surprised, in part because I know so many people with tattoos, but also because I got my first tattoo this year.

For years, I'd thought about getting some skin art. My original idea was to get "Made in Korea" on the back of my calf. My reasons for this were two-fold. First of all, I was, in fact, made in Korea by an American Navy officer and a U.S. staff worker in the embassy. My second reason was that, well, tattoos are cool. And edgy. And I wanted to be cool. And edgy.

Not surprisingly, these reasons weren't enough to get me into a chair, particularly when I realized that the tattoo I had in mind would probably cost about $150. Of course, I always blamed my decision on timing, or poverty, or some other excuse. Deep down inside, though, I knew the true reason: it wasn't the right tattoo.

Almost two years ago, my wife told me that she was pregnant. After I got over my initial terror, we began thinking about names for the little tyke. When we found out that we were going to have a little girl, we decided to name her Georgia. We had three reasons for this. First, my wife is also named after a state, and the whole state thing struck us as a total riot. Second, my wife's father was named George. George was in the process of dying, and we decided that naming his granddaughter after him was a particularly cool way to memorialize him. Finally, between George Trayne (Nancy Drew's best buddy), George Eliot, and George Sands, we had a huge number of great female Georges for our daughter to look up to. Even then, we knew that we were going to call her George.

George was born in October, and her grandfather died in April. In the months in between, she and he were able to meet, and they really hit it off. That summer, as Father's day got nearer, I started thinking about fatherhood, mortality, and being a grown-up. I decided that, at the advanced age of 34, I had reached the point where I probably didn't have to worry about outgrowing my tattoos. I was pretty sure that I would never regret the tattoo I had in mind. Besides, it was something that I really wanted to do. Best of all, between my daughter, my father-in-law, and my favorite writer, I knew exactly what to get on my arm.

George Orwell.

First off, I picked out the perfect picture of Orwell. Half his face was in shadow, giving him an intense, mysterious aura:



My next move was figuring out what I wanted the tattoo to look like. I finally decided on this as a tentative design:


When it came to finding an artist, I didn't want to screw around. After all, I knew that I would be wearing this for the rest of my life. I went to Ancient Art, the best tattoo studio in town. Once I got there, I talked to Richie, one of the artists. We finalized the design and set up an appointment for a few days later. When the day rolled around, I was a little scared, but I decided that I needed to do this because I was scared. I wanted to overcome this one.

Anyway, I went in, sat down and started reading the book that I had brought along. However, I soon found myself getting involved in the tattooing process, discussing details of Orwell's hair and smile, and generally collaborating with Richie. To be honest, the two and a half hours went really quickly. Now, I'm not going to pretend that the tattoo didn't hurt, but it wasn't unbearable. To be precise, it felt like I had skinned my arm and someone was rubbing it with a vibrator. Here's what George looked like when I got out of the parlor:


He was a little too intense at first. However, Richie assured me that George's bright white eyes and demon-red skin tone would fade considerably by the time he healed.

Of course, the healing process was interesting, too. Especially when George scabbed over:


This picture doesn't quite convey the total skin-rot realities of George at this time. To put it bluntly, it looked like I'd gotten the world's most artistic case of leprosy. However, within a month or so, George had healed. This is what he looks like today:


While I'm not totally pleased with the tattoo, I like it a lot. Richie went with a photo-realistic technique that didn't come out perfectly, and I will probably go to a major urban center for my next tattoo, but I'm generally happy with George. As is my daughter, who sometimes talks to him when she thinks I'm not looking.

For my other arm, I'm thinking about Franz Kafka:


No, I'm not naming the next kid "Franz."