February 13, 2017

Return to winter, bright and cold. The moon last night was a teetery-tottery egg laid on its unsure edge.

Cantaria, then Doctor Strange at Asheville pizza with DJ and Russell, boys’ night out. Enjoyed the movie, but couldn’t figure out exactly why it was made. Maybe purely to occasion boys’ night out.

Read proposals for the April Undergraduate Research festival. Only one or two out of twenty were what I would call “research,” but, still.

Fed up with what I’m going to call Resentful Activism– supposedly charitable concerns that envy and denigrate all OTHER charitable concerns. Came to mind after the shootings in Orlando, when one of the speakers embarrassed herself and her cause by coming up to the microphone, where everyone else had been expressing their concern and regret, and saying, “Why weren’t there this many people at the Black Lives Matter rally?” The only possible response is to turn away in mortification. The big ones now are: WHY SHOULD WE GIVE IMMIGRANTS JOBS WHEN SO MANY VETERANS ARE OUT OF WORK??   And, WHY SHOULD WE WORRY ABOUT IMMIGRANTS WHEN SO MANY AMERICANS ARE HOMELESS AND INDIGENT? So many things are wrong with these comments it’s difficult to know where to start. Justly or not, one assumes utter hypocrisy, that the speakers or writers don’t give a damn about veterans or the native homeless, that they don’t love anybody but merely want to find a way to settle the hash of those they hate. No one ever said that one thing should be done INSTEAD of the other; one has but taken this moment to advocate the one thing rather than the other. How many of you were really concerned about the veteran until he gave you the chance to vilify the immigrant? I don’t think a person should be criticized for his charities. If you want to help veterans, help veterans. This priority is not furthered by denigrating those who are helping immigrants or lost puppies or opera companies. Conservatism reveals itself at every turn. It cannot even advocate charity without revealing an essential selfish hypocrisy.