Divas and Harlots

So Long for Now

July 3, 2008 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

My Dear Neighbours:

It’s time for me to take a short holiday from blogging. I want to spend a few weeks catching up with everyone in my neighbourhood whose blogs I haven’t had time to read in the past few months, as I’ve been so busy with writing. I feel as though I’ve lost touch with many of my friends,and am missing very important things in their lives, not only here on VOX, but at home, too. Also, my garden is full of weeds and needs tending. I will be back in August. Before I go I want to thank all my neighbours who tagged me for the “Eight Things You Don’t Know About Me” game. I didn’t want to respond to only one person, so I decided this would be a good way to leave off, by responding here. Thanks for the tag, everyone, and… here we go:

Eight Things You Don’t Know About Me:

• When I was twenty, I took classes to learn how to assemble car transmissions just to impress a boy I was in love with, who was an auto mechanic. I put a C-6 transmission together, all by myself. Now I probably couldn’t remember what it looks like.

• I sold my first engagement ring and went on a tour of the European continent with the proceeds. I’m serious- Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, England, Belgium, Amsterdam and more, all for the price of one sparkler, which the man who gave it to me told me he didn’t want back.

• I come from a family of amazingly talented musicians. I, on the other hand, am tone deaf. But God made up for that deficiency by blessing me with the biggest feet you’ve ever seen on a 5’ 2” woman. (Size American 8 Wide – real grape stompers from my Sicilian ancestors.)

• My former business partner and I once took an overnight train from the northern border of Greece back to Athens carrying a satchel stuffed with approximately 4000 USD in cash. (Long story.) The train was filled with derelicts and poor refugees. We were very uncomfortable, to say the least, two women alone, carrying all that money. To top off our discomfort, my business partner got hit on by the station manager. She turned him down, but kept his phone number to show to her husband when we got back home. Bless his heart, I don’t know what upset him more – the fact that we could have gotten mugged, or that a strange man had approached his wife. Once we were home safely, the whole experience seemed a big adventure.

• Several of my pupils at a NYC junior high school were gang members, unfortunately. I truly cared about them all, and worked very hard with them, not only on reading and writing, but on their lives. One of them astounded my colleagues when he got up and read an A.E. Housman poem aloud in our classroom. The next day he was arrested on suspicion of murder. I’ve always wondered what he could have become were his circumstances different.

• I love to read to children. Bernard Evslin or Roald Dahl are my first joys, but I’ll read Eric Carle and Dr Seuss gladly, too.

• In my middle-age I have become a ‘gym rat.’ I work out with heavy weights four times a week. Some of my friends are the male body builders I work out with. I never knew men with muscles so big would have hearts to match. I learned a lot about how men really think from working out with them. They are not at all as I’d imagined when I was young. Apart from the body builders, I am lucky to count as my friends people of both sexes, all careers, sexual persuasions, nationalities, and age ranges from 20’s – 80’s. The world is full of intriguing people wherever one looks.

• I can cook pretty darn well, especially Italian and Greek food. My baklava and tiramisu are legendary. I hope I can prove it to you all some day. And when I divorced my Greek husband, he asked me to leave him my shrimp scampi recipe before I left. I did leave it for him, (and didn’t even leave out any of the ingredients for spite.)

I’ll be seeing you on your blogs. Enjoy July!

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Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Friends and Relationships, Social Networking Tagged With: a.e. housman, baklava, bernard evslin, harlot's sauce, roald dahl. dr. seuss, tiramisus

Anahata

June 20, 2008 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Black tail deer fawn by fuzuoko on Flickr

Sleepy Hollow, Northern California. “What a perfect place for a writer to live,” I thought, when I moved here almost five years ago. And I did get a lot of writing done, when I wasn’t in my garden, that is.

Our house is surrounded by woods and high hills, with a seasonal creek dancing along the right edge of our property, lined by a sentinel of three giant rocks. “We’re butt up against nature here,” is what my husband likes to say.

When I saw it, apart from thinking about the quaint name of the area and of its street names, like “Van Winkle Drive,” and “Ichabod Lane,” I also imagined that I could, at long last, have a garden. Having lived all my life in small flats in a city or by the sea, I’d made do with potted flowers on my windowsills and balconies. Now I had almost a full acre of dirt to plant and I couldn’t wait to get started.

Testing the soil, mapping the sunny and shady areas of the ground, I bought containers and containers of colourful blooms and planted them with enthusiasm and care. I toiled in that garden daily, my nails turning jagged and brown as I dug in eggshells and coffee grinds to fertilize the earth, picked off caterpillars and crinkled dead stems from each plant, watered and weeded carefully and methodically. Week after week, month after month I worked, until my garden was rich and full and I could revel in the vibrancy of it.

Then the deer came. Dozens of them, grown and small, with antlers and without; they came down from the rise of trees behind our house. To someone who’d never seen them up close before, they looked splendid, graceful and gentle. A gift from nature, a blessing, even.

Until I woke up one morning and wandered out into my garden to discover it no longer existed. I could see only the remnants of it left by a savage marauder who thought every blossom, every leaf I’d lovingly attended, was nothing more than dinner salad. The deer had eaten their way through bougainvillea, geraniums, lobelia, impatiens, petunias, pansies, azalea bushes, rose bushes, and when nothing else was left, even ivy vines. I stood in horrified dismay looking down at the concrete and the grass where scattered specks of green, blue, red, pink, purple, and yellow, which had once been my beloved, beautiful flowers, lay strewn and still, as though they’d tried to run and escape from a terrible siege, but had perished in their efforts, anyway.

The deer became my enemy then, and my war with them was on. Armed with powdered blood meal, deer netting, and a foul smelling spray made of garlic and eggs, I attacked. They retreated for a while. Then I woke up one morning again to discover that during the night, the hungry deer had somehow managed to nibbled under the netting. They’d also concluded that both powdered blood meal and rotten egg/garlic spray made delightful salad dressings. My flowers were murdered a second time. Not only did this make me cry, it made me furious.

My husband could not understand my perspective. Growing up on a farm and living in rural areas all his life, he’d shared space with various wild animals since he’d been born. To him, the presence of deer in our garden had the same feeling about it you get when you shrug on an old coat. It wasn’t necessarily attractive, but it felt familiar and comfortable. But in just the way I splashed delightedly into the sea in Greece while he stood there shivering and thinking of sharks; or slid easily between passengers on a New York City subway while he thought of pickpockets, the deer were as alien to me as those experiences were to him. Somehow, he’d missed that.

“Why not just plant things they won’t eat?” he asked pragmatically, not even trying to hide his impatience with me.

“What, you mean lavender?” I replied, sardonically, not even trying to hide my annoyance with him.

To me, just having purple buds in the garden looked dull. Judging by the preponderance of lavender and oleander in the area, everyone else had surrendered to the deer. But I wouldn’t. I didn’t even like oleander, although the fact that it was poisonous and that the deer just might get hungry enough to eat it, was an entertaining thought by that time.

My focus on the deer and their activities in our garden became a bone of contention between my husband and me. Now I’d graduated to running outdoors whenever I saw one, to clap my hands at it and “shoo” it away, spraying them with the hose when I was out watering in my garden, hovering by the windows whenever I heard any suspicious rustling outside, and even throwing small pebbles at their feet so they’d flee. But though they’d scramble away, they’d only come back again when they knew I wasn’t looking. Those devils.

And when I’d complain that they’d managed to foil me again, my husband would say, “It’s not personal, dammit. Stop planting deer food and they won’t come.”

I despised the deer for not being discouraged by my efforts to thwart them, and I was hurt and irritated with my husband for not knowing what was at stake for me.

Then, two years ago, on Father’s Day, I was out in my garden and heard a strange bleating sound, just up the hill behind the house on the other side of the creek. As I began to walk across our lawn towards the creek to investigate, a doe stepped out from behind a tree on the hill where she’d been hiding, and looked down at me in a way I’d never seen a deer look. Her ears and head were actually bent foward in an aggressive position and she was staring directly at me. A head-on stare was an unusual pose for a deer, as they ordinarily looked out at me from the sides of their eyes. Not only that, but she was making a peculiar, snorting sound I’d never heard a deer make, either. It was as though she were growling a warning. I stopped still and looked up at her as the bleating continued, much closer this time. That’s when I realised: She was guarding her fawn. The cry I was hearing was the sound of her newborn. I stepped back and nodded. A mother looking out for her baby. Fair enough. I wasn’t about to chase them, that was for sure.

But as I stepped back, the doe did an odd thing. She began to sway on her feet. Then, in the most ungraceful way I’d ever seen a deer move, she seemed to stagger across the hill, directly across from where I stood on the lawn, and away from her baby. She stumbled dizzily, and then —God help me— her knees gave way and she collapsed. I gasped in shock as she began sliding down the hill towards me, unable to stop her fall. I knew any moment she would come tumbling over the retaining wall and onto the lawn where I stood.

It was a pile of logs gathered at the base of the fence that prevented her complete tumble over the wall. Now, as I watched in horror, she was lying on her side, thrashing, her legs tangled up in logs, desperately trying, but unable to get her footing back on the hill. After a few moments, she sank down and gave up. Laying her head back on the dirt she twisted around, and from her lying position, feebly but determinedly, she lifted her back head up and looked at me.

She wore that startled look one always sees on a deer. The look of prey that knows they are prey. You might think she was fearing for herself in her look, afraid of me, because she knew I’d always chased her kind away.

No. … There was something else… I felt something else in that look. It was the look of one mother to another. It went straight through my heart as surely as if she’d spoken to me. And, as though I were reading that mother’s look from my spirit instead of my brain, I looked back at her, too, directly into her eyes, and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll find your baby. I promise. And I promise she won’t be harmed.”

She held my look as though she were listening and understanding my words, my English words, which I’d said out loud to an animal, a wild creature that couldn’t speak. Then with one weak nod, she lay her head back one final time, looked up at the sky and… I saw her die. Hoping I was wrong in everything I was witnessing, I stayed to see if she might move. But as I stayed and watched her, those brown doe eyes slowly filmed over white. For sure, she was gone.

I turned and ran into the house, calling for my husband. He was on the phone with Tim, one of our sons, who’d called to wish him a “Happy Father’s Day.” He asked Tim to hold on a moment as he listened to my agitated words. Then he said into the phone, “Tim, I’ll have to let you go. We’ve got another deer emergency.”

And with that smart aleck remark, my husband followed me as I pointed out to where the doe lay, and then to where I knew I’d heard her fawn.

That remark to our son about ‘another’ deer emergency hadn’t done it, but what he said next did. “She’s not dead. She’s probably just resting. And I’m fairly certain there is no fawn.”

I turned on him. “I may not have been raised on a farm, but I’m not an idiot, “I snapped. “That deer is as dead as you can get, and her fawn is over there, on the other side of our creek.”

He could tell I meant business then, so with sigh, he climbed up over the retaining wall and gingerly approached that poor doe. Peering at her, he confirmed what I knew. “Yeah. She’s gone, alright.” Then standing he turned to me and asked, “Where did you hear the fawn?” When I pointed in the direction again, he said, “We’ll have to approach very quietly, or we might scare it.”

I followed him across the creek. I couldn’t see anything, but a moment later, he lifted his arm and whispered, “there.”

Sure enough, sitting comfortably in a bed of leaves, her front legs crossed, looking directly at us, with curiosity and no fear whatsoever, was the tiniest fawn I’d ever seen.

My husband’s tone was very different now. “Listen, if that doe died after giving birth, she probably was too old or too sick to survive it. That might mean she wasn’t able to feed this little thing, either. And that’s not good. If Animal Services can’t get any milk into her, she won’t make it.”

I was beside myself at those words. I’d made a promise and I was already trying to figure out, if my husband’s verdict were true, how I, a woman who’d spent the last three years chasing deer from her garden, was going to save this one.

Animal Services estimation was not so bleak, however. It took two of their vans to our home — one for the live animal and one for the dead — but they determined that the fawn would survive. She’d been fed one last time by her mother, and in fact still had a belly full of milk. She’d be cared for, then released when she was able to survive on her own. She’d probably live to eat my flowers another day.

As for her mother, I watched the man from Animal Services gently close her eyes. Then he and my husband wrapped her in a sheet and carried her down the hill into the back of the second waiting transport van. I watched as it drove away.

I am not a Hindu. But, the Anahata is the fourth primary chakra according to Hindi Yogic and Tantric traditions. It symbolises the consciousness of love, empathy, selflessness and devotion. On the psychic level, this centre of force inspires the human being to love, be compassionate, altruistic, devoted and to accept the things that happen in a divine way.

And wouldn’t you know it? The animal it is represented by is the deer.

I am not a Hindu, I’ll say again. But I know what I felt and I know what I experienced. That mother doe and I communicated that day. And by our bond of motherhood, we became more than two different species on opposites sides of an issue. We became more than predator and prey. With her dying breath, she looked at me, her enemy, and saw something in me that was like her. She knew she could ask me for help with the one thing left for her here to take care of, her one last, most precious thing.

I didn’t let her down.

My garden is very different now. I keep one giant pot of red geraniums up high on a porch where no animals can reach, as a reminder that beauty can never excuse arrogance. Now my yard is flooded with lavender.

And you know, it smells wonderful. What’s even more wonderful is seeing the deer there. We’re at peace with each other now.

I wish it were that easy to make peace within our species.

Note: This essay was published in Marin Magazine’s November 2010 issue

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Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Family, Patricia Volonakis Davis' Blog Tagged With: anahata, arrogance, california black tail deer, father’s day, fourth chakra, harlot’s sauce, lavender, marin animal services, Marin Magazine, patricia v. davis, red geraniums

I am Ann Coulter

February 12, 2008 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Today would have been the day I posted the last in my series on men, titled, “In Danger From The Outside World.” But, I’ve had to postpone because several events have occurred in the last two weeks that have prompted me to make this announcement:

I am Ann Coulter.

That’s right. She and I are the same person.

Look – this chart (Chart I) will prove it:

Patricia V. Davis Ann Coulter

age	51	47
height	5 ft. 3 inches	6 ft.
weight	124	unknown
Hair colour	dark brown	blonde
Eye colour	black	blue
Education	Teaching Degree	Law Degree
Residence	California	New York
Self-defence	Can leg press 270 pounds	Owns guns, has body guards

Though this chart does not show much similarity, if you look at our photos, you will see that Ann and I are wearing a similar beige, sleeveless blouse.

IMG_0132

Ann Coulter

Therefore, because we have this one thing in common, Ann and I are identical.

Have I proven that point?

I hope not.

Now look at this chart (Chart II) :

Jesus Christ’s Beliefs Ann Coulter’s Beliefs

Bless those who persecute you! Bless, and do not curse! (Rom 12:14) Repay no one evil for evil! (Rom 12:17) Do not avenge yourselves! (Rom 12:19)	“We need to execute people like John Walker Lindh in order to physically intimidate liberals.”— from a 2002 speech. “The fact of Islamo-Fascism is indisputable, “I find it tedious to detail the savagery of the enemy . . . I want to kill them. Why don’t Democrats? We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. ” in a speech at USC
Let not any filthy word go out of your mouth! But only good, so that it may give grace to the ones hearing! (Eph 4:29) Put off… anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, shameful speech out of your mouth! (Col 3:8	“Liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots.” —from her book, Treason There are a lot of Bad republicans. There are no good Democrats.”—CNN, July 21, 2003
If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. For if he does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? (1 John 4:20)	“I’m a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don’t you ever forget it.” —July 2006 “Press passes can’t be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the President“-Feb 23 “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.” *— New York Observer* interview, 2002**
Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.	“Jesus’ distinctive message was: People are sinful and need to be redeemed, and this is your lucky day because I’m here to redeem you even though you don’t deserve it, and I have to get the crap kicked out of me to do it.” —2004 column

You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also Love your enemies! Bless those who curse you! Do good to those who hate you!…(Matt 5:44). For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?	“I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning. Boom!…They’re a major threat. I just think it would be fun to nuke them…”reported by New York Observer, January 2007

My question is this: If you don’t believe me when I say that Ann Coulter and I are one and the same, because we have beige blouses in common, why do we believe Ann Coulter when she claims to be ‘Christian,’ just because she has one thing in common with real Christians, which is, that she believes Jesus Christ is the Lord? After that, she deviates from Christian doctrine remarkably.

One cannot be a Christian “conservatively.” It’s all or nothing. Either one believes Jesus Christ is the Lord and Saviour and follows His Teachings (see Chart II) or one is not really a Christian.

You might ask, why do people say they’re Christians and try to get us to believe it, when they really aren’t Christians? The answer is the “Playground Principle.”

On a playground, it’s always the weakest kid who gets picked on. In order to protect himself, he has to have a tough, intimidating mouth, or another really big kid on his side.

Well, who’s a bigger kid than God?

The idea that we can annihilate all our enemies by invading their countries and/or taking over their governments is such a weak idea that it needs a big mouth and God backing it up, in an attempt to be impressive. That’s what these so-called “Conservative Christians” – I will coin a new term here and call them “Coulter Christians” because it’s much more appropriate – are attempting to do. By telling us that we are “idiots,” or “sick” or “ridiculous” because we see the weakness behind this methodology and by saying they have ‘God’ on their side, they are trying to intimidate us.

It also serves another purpose. Divisionist tactics and power in numbers. If we take Coulter Christians at their word that they really are Christians, we begin to view Christianity itself with disdain. That disparaging attitude puts true Christians everywhere on the defensive. For an example of this, I invite you to read this heartfelt post.

By deriding all Christians, we’re no better than those who hate all Muslims.

How can we tell the difference between ‘true Christians’ and ‘Coulter Christians?’ To quote Jesus of Nazareth again, “by the fruit they bear.”

Here is an example of the fruit that true Christianity bears:

Irish Lucky Lass

The lovely young woman in this photo is IrishLuckylass, pictured here with her two lucky children. They’re lucky because she is their mother. I read this Lass’s blog almost every day, no matter how busy I get, because it’s an inspiration to me. She doesn’t write about world-shaking events, she writes about her life and how much she appreciates it, her children and how devoted she is to them. She writes about trying in all the ways she knows to be a good mother, a good daughter, a productive, loving human being.

IrishLuckyLass has had more than a fair share of trials in her life. But you might be tempted to dismiss them, because no matter what tragic thing has happened to her, she writes about finding, if not some good in it or some lesson to be learned, then at least some humour in it, as though bad fortune came her way so she could turn it into a good story for us all. Her Christianity has not made her bitter, angry or vengeful. Quite the contrary, the worst thing I’ve ever heard her say in her writings about the man she loved who betrayed her and his two remarkably beautiful children with her, is to call him (and I love this) “ass hat.”

When I asked her once how she managed to survive abandonment by her father, then a rape, followed by the desertion of her husband, (and more), she told me, “It’s my faith.”

Oh, but wait – she sometimes votes Republican!

So what?

Coulter Christians are no more true Republicans than they are true Christians.

Here is an example of the fruit “Synthetic Republican,” “Coulter Christian” mindset bears:

Adolf Hitler

We all know who the man in this photo is. The following are quotes from his speeches and writings and you’ll find them remarkably like Ann Coulter’s and those of some other so-called Christians we know: (Replace the word ‘Jew’ for ‘Arab’ or ‘Muslim’)

1. “I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.” —from John Toland’s Biography, Adolf Hitler

2.“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” —Mein Kampf

3.“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter…..How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.” —Mein Kampf

4. “We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” ( in a speech delivered in Berlin October 24, 1933)

5. Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin the fight for the ‘remaking’ of the Reich.” –Mein Kampf

6.“For this, to be sure, from the child’s primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: ‘Lord, make us free!’ is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: ‘Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!’”—Mein Kampf

Have I made my point?

I hope so.

Because if we can’t see the difference between those who say they’re Christians and those who act like Christians, just because they’re both wearing the same blouse, then I really am Ann Coulter.

And she’s going to be plenty ticked off when my new credit card applications go through.

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Filed Under: Bigotry, Divas and Harlots, Food for Thought, Political Satire, Religion, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: arabs, beige blouse, christianity, coulter, hitler, jews, muslims, patricia v. davis, playground principle

Look Harder

December 12, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

First day of school foversouls on flickr[1]

“Look harder.”

Gee…did I just hear you say that again? You’re an English teacher. Surely you must know that one can’t look “harder” at written words on a page.

One can look “longer,” delve more deeply into the meaning of those words, if one can read them, that is, but one can’t look “harder.”

Yet, at least once a week, with distaste and fury layered through your voice, you say it to one of your first-year (seventh grade) pupils.

A girl today, I see.

A twelve-year old girl, whose life is already a misery. On the edge of puberty, her breasts feel sore all the time and, much to her constant mortification, one is growing faster than the other. No matter what blouse she wears to school, this is noticeable. The boys in her class often point to her chest, whispering and laughing behind her back. She hears them and wants to die. She feels she has nothing to balance this physical “anomaly” because to her mind, the other girls in her class are so pretty and sophisticated compared to her. The other girls in her class know how to flirt, while she just gets tongue-tied. And while the other girls in her class still maintain that smooth, soft complexion of their baby years, her face is already always breaking out.

Apart from her uneven breasts and pimples, her feelings of social ineptitude, she’s “stupid,” she’s been told.

By her older brother, when she can’t read the ingredients on their box of breakfast cereal, or when, in a rush of shyness, she’s struck mute when his friends come over to visit. “Don’t pay any attention to my sister. She’s stupid,” is his way of explaining her silence to them.

Her mother agrees. Oh, not that her mother actually says the word out loud, she just looks at her daughter pityingly when shown her marks. “Well, honey,” mother sighs, “I guess not everybody can be good at school.”

But, this young girl is not “stupid.” She has dyslexia.

When you, her teacher, place this before her:

“…after he was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared…”

This is what she sees:

“…after he saw ushereb otni this worlp of worros and rtoudle, by the barisp noeqrus, ti remaineb a rettam of consiberadle boubt whether eht chilp pluow survive ot dear yna name ta all; in which esac ti si tahwemos more than bropaple taht these sriomem woulp reven have addearep…”

Yet, all throughout her seven years of schooling so far, not one person in her life has noticed. Her brother, being a child, couldn’t notice. Her mother, not having had much education herself, might not notice. But you – her teacher? Why didn’t you notice?

I know why. You really didn’t want to be a teacher, did you? You wanted to be…hmmm…let me guess…a writer? …An actor, maybe?

And because the agents didn’t knock down your door in their enthusiasm, because the studios didn’t shower you with movie contracts, you “fell back” on teaching, didn’t you? Someone, some career counsellor somewhere, or even another teacher perhaps, advised you, “You can use your M.A degree. You just need to take a few education courses. It has great benefits and you get your summers off,” didn’t they?

And you thought about it. You thought that the salary wasn’t too bad, especially for the amount of effort you were planning to put into it. Better than being a waiter, anyway. You also realised that the teaching day, ending at 3 p.m., would give you just enough time to play at your real interests. And on a subconscious level, you knew that if you didn’t succeed at them then, you could always blame it on the fact that you, “had no time, you had to teach.”

Then the years went by, faster than you could have believed. You never got that publishing contract and Johnny Depp got all your good roles. So your disgust with Johnny, with Random House and with yourself, grew.

Eventually that disgust manifested itself into an abiding revulsion for your pupils. In particular, this little girl in front of you now, who is flushed through with agonized humiliation because, on top of everything else she thinks she should be and isn’t, she can’t read Charles Dickens and she knows you loathe her for it.

In your loathing, you’ll go one step further. You will make sure all her classmates detest her for it, too:

“I can’t believe this. Are you just going to sit there? Read it. We’re all waiting for you to say something.”

I understand you believe you should be able to express what you feel, at the very least. At least, here – in a classroom full of twelve-year-olds, you are in charge. You can say whatever you want and no one can stop you, because you have tenure, another job perk of your insufferable ‘career.’ So the worst that can happen is that you’ll get a lecture from the headmaster if any one of your pupils, or their parents has the temerity to complain. Which they hardly ever do.

Last week, it was a boy. You really outdid yourself there. You managed to make him cry. In a room full of other boys his age, he cried, because of you.

And now his life at school is effectively over. He’d already been having trouble. He’s the smallest male in his class and he can’t hit, pitch, kick or dunk a ball. However, he was managing to get through with his wry sense of humour and his ability to run pretty damn fast. Now he’ll never fit in, thanks to your public, verbal flogging.

There’s good news, though. For you, anyway. You know how you so wanted to make a social impact with your literary and/or theatrical endeavours? You have. Your words and your performances will never be forgotten. You are immortalised in the minds of your pupils.

This little girl today, for instance. She’ll will always remember and be affected by you. The first time she meets someone who calls her “friend,” she’ll be so surprised and grateful, that she’ll probably be misused. Her first job promotion, she’ll feel a clenching in her stomach, as she wonders if she’s really capable of handling it. When a man tells her he loves her, there’ll always be doubt whispering in her mind, that he can’t possible mean it. And if she becomes a mother, she’ll worry far more than most, that she’s making a mess of it.

As for that boy, if he has a supportive family, he’ll make it through the next five years of school, though they’ll be hell for him. The girls will always roll their eyes when they see him coming and sidle away. He might come to hate women because of it and himself, too. And if he doesn’t have a loving family, he might decide life is not worth it and take himself out, along with some of his classmates and teachers, probably. Possibly you.

All because you and so many others like you, couldn’t respect yourself, or your pupils or the job you were hired to do. It’s a job you’ll always despise, yet one from which no one will ever be able to pull you away. And every day you’re in it, you make my job harder for me.

Haven’t you figured out who I am?

Well, maybe you should look harder, too.

I’m the English teacher across the hall. And I hear you every day.

——————————————

credits – excerpt from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, photo from ‘foversouls’ on Flickr- “First Day of School”

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Filed Under: Civil Rights, Divas and Harlots, Food for Thought, Social Commentary, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: actor, charles dickens, dyslexia, english teacher, johnny depp, patricia v. davis, random house, seveth grade, stupid, tenure, twelve-year-old girl, waiter, writer

Some of the Little Things

November 16, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Thalia-Muse of Comedy

Even I can’t think about George Bush’s plan to take over the world all the time. Every once in a while, “Aiz got-sta have a leee-tle fun.” And for those of us stateside (United States-states that is,) ‘Turkey Day’ is coming up. Now, ordinarily I don’t like even Turkey Day. In fact, I could scare up a whole other political blog on the propaganda surrounding Turkey Day. Not to mention the excess calories. But not this year. ‘Cause this year, three out of our four surviving sons are coming to our place for Turkey Day and that in itself is enough to be thankful for. So, to hell with diets and politics both. For anyone who’s interested, here are some of the little (and not so little) things, in alphabetical order, that make me smile*:

2. Berries - Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries. Tasting them one by one, or a spoonful with vanilla yoghurt. Nothing else to say except “yum.” Nature is so good to us.

3. Duncan Hines Deluxe Yellow Cake Mix - A very different food than berries, I know, but, come on– how can you not love everything about this stuff? The delicious scent of the powdery fine flour mix. Stirring in eggs, oil, vanilla and water, easy and even more fun than making mud pies when I was a child. Scraping the batter off the bowl. The way the kitchen smells as it bakes. The anticipation as it cools, of frosting the done cake with dark chocolate fudge icing. My husband’s smile when I hand him a slice. The moist, creamy taste when I take a bite. Mmmm. Yeah.

4. Frasier reruns - I’m so glad they’re still on air. Every actor in this sitcom is a super-talent. The writing is really something special and the actors deliver their lines with slapstick, genius timing. Two episodes air back-to-back, five nights a week here and hubs and I try to watch at least two each week. It’s so much fun to sit together, watch the actors do their thing and laugh, laugh, laugh.

5. Justin Oliver’s corny jokes – the reason I get to eat yellow cake (well, sometimes, anyway,) is because I work out with Justin Oliver. Apart from being an excellent trainer, Justin tells really excellent corny jokes. Like, “Hey, you better call a plumber- those pipes look ready to burst!” I love working out with Justin, because he makes me work hard. But he also makes me laugh. Those of us who work out with him can’t decide if we should pay him extra for that, or if he should pay us for all the corn kernels we have to shake out of our gym gear when we get home.

6. Laptop, My - my laptop is the way I make my living, my door to the entire world outside my little spot on earth, a testament to what genius man can create when he’s not busy making war and a great game board for ‘Spider Solitaire.’

7. Morning coffee on my patio – a morning spent on my patio is better than meditating. It’s surrounded by bay trees and oak, but there is one giant liquid amber tree, which every fall, scatters gold and red amongst all the green. There are deer, raccoon, squirrels, birds and other creatures who stop by. The grass around my patio smells sweet and slopes down to meet a creek, which trickles or surges, depending on the season. When I can drink my morning coffee on my patio, sitting there in the quiet of nature’s anticipation, I feel thankful, blessed and awed all at once. And the coffee tastes so much better, too.

8. Music - All kinds, from all countries. One of my VOX neighbours, Snowy, said that “music is the only sound you hear with your emotions rather than your ears.” So right. When I think about what musicians give to the world, I am proud that we have so many in my family.

9. Pete’s kisses - You know, it’s really not polite to boast about such things, but I have to say, I am one lucky woman to be the recipient of Pete’s kisses. Wow. Far better than berries or chocolate-frosted cakes. Perfect, in fact.

10. Red lipstick - Nothing makes me feel more feminine than a tube of red lipstick. Twisting up that sexy red cylinder of colour, slicking its softness over my lips, I feel I’m transformed from ordinary girl to fabulous woman when I’m wearing it. My favourite kind? Max Factor Midnight Red.

11. Sixth Sense – ESP, whatever you want to call it, (Pete calls it “nonsense” but he believes in ‘poker gods’ so he’s not fooling me) I’ve had the ability to sense what most people would say is extraordinary phenomena since I was a child. It only happens sometimes, when I’m not thinking about it, or trying to will it, but when it does, it’s accurate and astonishing. And I like it very much because it convinces me that there’s much more to this world than science or organised religion tells us there is.

12. Sons, mine and Pete’s – when I married Pete, we had five combined. My cousin Jo said, “Do you remember when we were young and you told me you wanted to have five sons someday, just like our grandmother had?” I had forgotten about that. She was right and I couldn’t have picked out five better sons from a line-up, if I’d tried. Each is wonderful in his own way. I’ll keep this simple and just say I love them more than anything. We lost one and he’ll always be missed, but the four who remain, just they alone, truly make life worth living for hubs and me.

13. Toddlers in supermarkets – Gosh, I love watching them. Whilst mum and dad push them in carts, they look around as though they’re in a wonderful, exotic country. Take them through the produce section and their eyes go wide at all the colours and shapes of the hundreds of fruits and vegetables. Seeing a supermarket through the eyes of a toddler makes me realise how remarkable some of the things we take for granted are. But the best part of toddlers in a supermarket, is waiting in the check-out line with one in front of me on the queue. I can make ‘peek-a-boo’ faces at them to pass the time waiting and they almost always smile with delight. To me, coaxing a smile from a toddler in a supermarket, is like winning a prize.

14. VOX neighbours – never in my life has it been this easy to meet so many fantastic human beings all at once. Knowing that I’m communicating with people based everywhere from Bombay to Sidney, male and female, ages 16- 70, who are all so intelligent, kind, funny, and loving, just restores my faith that we will all be all right and so will our planet, eventually.

15. Women in my life. They are strong, brave, loyal, hardworking. They encourage and comfort, they inspire, they have lifted me up when I needed getting off the ground. We share a drink, a story, a smile and our lives. They make the world better just for being in it. They are my friends. I’m proud of them and I would be lost without them. I won’t say I saved the best of this list for last, because it’s a tough call. But if I’ve learned one thing in all my years, it’s that if you’ve got just one truly good friend, you’re blessed with riches beyond counting. You know who you are, ladies.

Do I give thanks for all these things? Hell, yes. Thinking of them reminds me that, apart from every other reason we’re here, we’re here

to LIVE and ENJOY living.

And you? – What are some of your “little” things?

*Inspired by the Muse of Comedy, Thalia, who is shown here painted by the artist Thalia Took

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Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Social Satire Tagged With: coffee, corn, dark chocolate, duncan hines, frasier, friends, liquid amber tree, max factor, muse of comedy, music, panna cotta, patricia v. davis, red lipstick, sixth sense, smile, sons, spiderman, stepsons, thalia tookvox, toddlers, volare

Senators, Thank You for Your Support

November 8, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Our Civil Liberties Beng Waterboarded

Michael Bernard Mukasey is an impressive man. His alma mater is Columbia University and Yale Law School. In 1987, Mukasey was nominated as a federal district judge for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan by President Ronald Reagan. He served in this position for 18 years, including tenure as Chief Judge from March 2000 through July 2006. Mr. Mukasey is also is a teacher. He began teaching at Columbia Law School in the Spring of 1993 and has taught there every Spring semester since. In addition, he is well-connected politically. Mukasey and his son are justice advisers to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign. And, on top of all this, as of yesterday, November 6, 2007, Michael Mukasey has been appointed by our “democratically-led” Congress as 81st United States Attorney General.

For those who are not familiar with the title, The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government.

Quite a notable resume, don’t you think? Yet, despite all of Mr. Mukasey’s accomplishments, you might be surprised to learn that he, The United States’ top law official, doesn’t know how to use the internet. When Mr. Mukasey was asked by Senator Whitehouse, “Is waterboarding constitutional?” Mr. Mukasey replied, “I don’t know what’s involved in the technique. If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional.”

But, he said, “if.” Which means, he can’t be sure.

Mr. Mukasey, I can help. Go to your computer and type in “waterboarding” on any search engine. Here’s what comes up on Wikipedia:

“Waterboarding is a technique that simulates drowning in a controlled environment. It consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face to force the inhalation of water into the lungs. Waterboarding has been used to obtain information, coerce confessions, punish and intimidate. In contrast to merely submerging the head, waterboarding elicits the gag reflex and can make the subject believe death is imminent.

Waterboarding’s use as a method of torture or means to support interrogation is based on its ability to cause extreme mental distress…Although waterboarding in cases can leave no lasting physical damage, it carries the real risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries as a result of struggling against restraints (including broken bones), and even death.”

Wikipedia also states that, “Numerous experts have described this technique as torture.” Funny, but somehow I don’t think it tales an expert to figure that out, which is why I can‘t understand why Mukasey is having so much trouble with it. Some nations have criminally prosecuted individuals for performing waterboarding. In the past, The United States has been one of those nations.

Why am I talking about this? “Waterboarding” – a euphemism that sounds like a fun sport, instead of what it actually is, got renewed attention September 2006, when reports claimed that the Bush administration had authorized the use of waterboarding on extrajudicial prisoners of the United States. ABC News reported that current and former CIA officers stated that, “there is a presidential finding, signed in 2002, by President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft approving the ‘enhanced’ interrogation techniques, including water boarding.”

Waterboarding became an issue in the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey to be the next U.S. Attorney General because of his wishy-washy stance on whether he approved of waterboarding or not. Several Senators indicated that they would not vote for him without a more definitive answer.

Yet, his nomination was confirmed by the Senate yesterday.

My thanks to Wikipedia for providing most of the material for my VOX blog this week. But my biggest thanks goes to The United States Senate for upholding my beloved Constitution.

Good job, people.

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Filed Under: Civil Rights, Divas and Harlots, Politics, Social Commentary, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: constitution of the united states of american, gag reflex, michael mukasey, patricia v. davis, rudy giuliani, senate, vox, waterboarding, wikipedia

Menopause and Melanin

October 25, 2007 By Patricia Volonakis Davis Leave a Comment

Menopause and Melanin

A Scientific Exposition/Rebuttal by Dr. James Dewey Watson,
Nobel Prize Winner 1962, Physiology or Medicine

Ladies and Gentlemen, Esteemed Colleagues, Students of Genetics and Medicine:

As many of you already know, I received the Nobel Prize for my co-discovery of the structure of DNA. I’ve been the chancellor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the United States, where I created a research environment unparalleled in the world of science. There, we prided ourselves for our non-profit research dedicated to exploring biology and genetics, advancing our ability to diagnose and treat cancers, neurological diseases and other causes of human suffering.

But that’s not good enough for some people, is it? Some people have to get their knickers in a twist over the following statements I made recently:

1) I am “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says ‘not really.’”

2) “Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so,” because “”people who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”

In simpler words, what I’m saying is this: people whose ancestors come from Africa are just not as smart as people whose ancestors don’t come from Africa. We have indisputable proof of this, because of their test scores, which are consistently lower than everyone else’s.

Boy, you’d think I’d said something terrible, the way some people are carrying on. I even had to resign my post today as chancellor at CSHL, a centre I helped put on the map, simply by my being on staff there. Those ungrateful weasels.

What’s really got my goat however, are the comments made by two female bloggers. One, a young law pupil, being honoured at Brown University, comes across as intelligent, passionate about social change and dedicated in her quest to lead a purposeful life, but in actuality is a sassy whippersnapper who needs her cute little ‘tushie’ spanked. And I’m just the man to do it.

She called me a “senile old fogey.” And who does she think she is? Does she have a Nobel Prize? (Not yet.)

I do. And would they give a Nobel Prize to someone who doesn’t deserve it? Certainly not.

However, even more irritating than the law student’s remarks, were those made by a former New York City Public school teacher, Patricia Volonakis Davis, the self-proclaimed “doctor of Patrichism,” who stated, “Just ignore him.”

How dare she?

I took care of her, though. I took over her blog today. The second thing I did was ring her up and ask her what-in-the-Sam-Hill did she think she was doing telling people to “ignore” me?

‘Dr.’Davis, in what I can only describe as a diatribe, then said that when she was teaching at an inner city school in New York City, she’d observed the following about standardized tests:

1) The black children who tested poorly on exams were often children who hadn’t eaten breakfast, or had had one consisting of sugary cakes and coffee. This was because their parents had to go out early to work, or worked nights at minimum wage jobs and left the children unsupervised, to get ready for school on their own. Others were simply too poor to eat before they came to school. Some did not have reasonable bedtimes. Lack of sleep, empty stomachs and/or high levels of sugar and caffeine in the bloodstream prevalent in lower-income, unsupervised middle-graders, does not make for controlled test conditions.

2) Black children who had dyslexia also scored low on exams, because their learning differences were purposely misdiagnosed by the school examiners. That was because in New York State at the time, students with certain learning differences, such as dyslexia, could be assisted only by specially-trained ‘outside’ teachers. In order to prevent spending school funds on ‘outside’ teachers and in order for special-ed teachers to maintain the number of pupils required to support the need for their special-ed classes, children who had dyslexia were deliberately placed in with teachers who were not trained to help them improve their scores. ADHD was also not taken into consideration and often left undiagnosed by teachers, as well as by uneducated parents.

3) Testing conditions were chaotic. Tenured teachers showed up late to proctor exams because they knew they couldn’t lose their positions over it and because they believed wholeheartedly that the pupils were bound to do poorly, regardless of test conditions. One example was of a proctor who showed up over ten minutes late to a class that had been painstaking tutored for the test by their classroom teacher. Though they achieved high scores whilst in her classroom environment, the unsupervised pupils grew bored waiting for the proctor and decided that a brilliant way to pass the time would be to pull off all the chewed gum stuck under the desks, roll it into one big ball and hit the blackboard with it. The giant ball of old chewing gum bounced back and one student (black) was hit with it. He had a swollen eye as a result, but was told to take the test anyway. The test started almost twenty minutes late in that particular class (tests are timed and all classes must finish together, by law) and the pupil with the swollen eye who’d scored an 80% in classroom practice tests, got a 49% on the actual exam. The rest of the class lost twenty minutes of time to answer their questions and scored lower than on their practice tests, as well.

4) Extra federal funds (called Chapter 11 funds) were issued proportionately to the schools, based on the number of pupils below the 50 percentile in reading, writing and math. The more pupils per school at these low levels (based on their test scores) the more funds the school was given. There was no way the federal government could ever determine what the funds were actually being spent on, or how the tests had been administered at every public school.

Dr. Davis had a lot more to say than this, including some stuff about parental “modelling,” average parental age and education, as well as the fear some black students admitted to having that if they did well on tests, they’d be mocked by their peers for trying to be “white,” but I say it’s all “poppycock.”

For starters, let’s have a look at this woman:

The perimenopausal Dr. Davis

In her photo, she (a) has crows’ feet, therefore it’s logical to conclude she is (b) not a young woman.

If a, then b.

She (c) is also not smiling.

If we have the above ( a b + c) it’s logical to conclude that she is d) peri-menopausal:

(a b + c) = d

And we all know that peri-menopausal women are unfeminine, infertile, bloated, illogical and unless we feed them volumes of chocolate and apple martinis, downright nasty.

Consequently, Dr. Davis’ conclusions come from nothing more than her being an old, dried-up, smarty-pants bitch.

On the other hand, my conclusions that those of African ancestry are not as smart as everyone else, are based on true scientific methodology. Obviously we couldn’t administer standardised tests to every black on the African continent, because they’re all very busy killing each other in civil wars, recruiting children to become mercenaries, stealing diamonds back and forth and selling them to Americans, Dutch and English merchants and getting AIDS, that they don’t have the time to sit down and learn how to read and write. Especially in English.

However, we did have a control group and in that group, my team of biologists and genetic researchers were able to conclude that the more melanin someone is born with, as evidenced by the presence of darker or lighter “coffee-colour” of the dermal tissue (skin) the less intelligent they are. The pigment directly affects the brain function.

Dr. Ronald E. McNair – Darkest Coffee

Dr. Martin Luther King- Dark Coffee

Dr. Yvonne Cagel- Medium Coffee

Light Coffee- Halle BerryThe following chart will demonstrate that undeniably. I’ve included photos of several African-Americans who have “light- to deep coffee skin tone,” STRICTLY for reference in correlating the test scores to the skin colour:

Test Scores in Reading, Writing and Intelligence:

Darkest Coffee- 59% below average. Many of those in this colour group could not spell the words, “astronaut” or “Challenger hero.”

Dark Coffee - 49% below average. Those in this group had trouble writing out the “I Have a Dream,” speech.

Medium-Coffee - 40 % below average. Could identify and write the “I Have a Dream Speech” but had trouble with the definition of “empowered female.”

Light Coffee- 20% below average. Knew all of the above, but had some trouble remembering the name of the character, Cliff Huxtable, played by Bill Cosby on The Bill Cosby Show.

As you can see, the lighter the skin, the higher the test score. Therefore we can conclude quite plausibly that those with no skin pigment whatsoever, would be the smartest people on earth.

And so as I go out on my own, after my fifty years at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, I would like to introduce to you my new partner in genetic research, Edgar Winter:

Edgar Winter -The Most Intelligent Human Being

Edgar, who has albinism, did not go into the sciences as a young man. He was in the arts, a “blues and metal musician.” But it was evident even in this field, that he was brilliant and well-read, because the title of his hit album, They Only Come Out at Night, is in perfect verb agreement and his most popular tune, Frankenstein, was named for Mary Shelley’s classic work of literature.

Further, those with the most intelligence will see, quite clearly, really, that my original hypotheses and eventual conclusions were brought about by well-conducted and sound research.

Skeptics be damned.

James D. Watson

On my retirement, October 25, 2007

James D Watson

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Filed Under: Bigotry, Civil Rights, Divas and Harlots, Satire and Humor, Social Satire Tagged With: biology, cold spring harbor laboratory, female empowerment, genetics, halle berry, james watson, martin luther king, patricia v. davis, perimenopause, reading percentile, ronald mcnair, standardized tests

On Organised Religion (to SNOWY)

October 16, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

I’ve been having some very interesting philosophical, social and religious discussions with some of my new “netpals” from Australia. Their perspectives got me thinking about something I wrote in my memoir, Harlot’s Sauce, which has just been completed and which is being shopped around to publishers as we speak. So for this week’s blog I’m taking an excerpt on religion from that memoir and dedicated it to my new Aussie friends, most especially to one very deep thinker, Snowy.

I expect an extra drink from that still of yours for this one, Snowy.

; )

On Organised Religion

I was raised Catholic, as were many people I knew growing up. But, I had a few friends who were Protestant and then there was my friend, Margie, who was Jewish. When we were in high school, just for fun, we’d tag along to each other’s worship services occasionally. Even though Margie married a Catholic later on, (another intriguing story, that) she was overwhelmed when she first walked into my Catholic church as a teenager. The depiction of Jesus nailed to a Cross terrified her and the smell of the benediction incense nearly gave her an asthma attack.

Despite that, Margie wasn’t as affected by Catholic services as much as I was affected the first time I attended Protestant services. Having attending Catholic services all my life, the Protestant Church seemed too… well…comfy. The service too upbeat and brief, there was nothing daunting about the altar and there was no forbidding priest looking down from a godly height.

In fact, the officiator, who was actually smiling from the ground-level pulpit at the people attending worship, was allowed to be black or even female, I was told. I also thought the parishioners’ role was too easy. They didn’t have to kiss the hands of priests, nor kneel in supplication when he started his wailing. (Which in this church, he never did.) After all this cheerfulness in church, I just didn’t feel browbeaten, as I was supposed to, after I’d left. Therefore, Protestant church couldn’t truly be church…could it? Not to me, at least. I was a “first-generation American” and our priests were from the ‘old school.’

If you don’t know what it means to be a “first-generation American,” you’ll probably never understand the wide gap there was between those of us whose parents or grandparents had immigrated from other countries and those whose ancestors had been in the United States since the Constitution was signed. There are many differences between us, believe me, but they’re especially evident in our religions. Things might be different today, but when I was growing up, we first-generation ethnic groups had much more grinding religions than our more assimilated counterparts. As children, these religions kept us awake nights, terrified, our thoughts circling furiously. As adults, some of us became crushed followers or bitter atheists. Others tried intensive psychotherapy, but it didn’t help. Our spiritual educations were like deep moles in our skin. They were impossible to remove and could go bad at any moment.
Don’t misunderstand. I believe all religions based on the teachings of Abraham, Mohammed, Christ, or whomever else you’re partial to, started out as marvellous ideas. But here’s what I think happened:

One fateful day, Satan said to his followers, “I’ve just had a thought that might make this religion stuff work for me.”

With that, he went out and hired:
Tony Blair’s tailor

Sylvio Berlusconi’s plastic surgeon

The British Council

The U.S. Senate

The O.J. Simpson trial jury

Michael Moore’s film editors

Three tenured high school teachers

Six class valedictorians

Nine widowed old ladies who’d never had orgasms

Twelve zealots in pursuit of a cause, but who wanted to wear fur and eat meat and hadn’t read Orwell

He hit the jackpot when he signed on these last three:

Rupert Murdoch, Karl Rove and Bud Selig

Together, these dynamic disciples, whom I’ll name, “The Revelation Delegation,” brainstormed a business plan, which re-scripted all the religions of the globe. Somehow, (here my theory needs more research,) they sold us the revised versions, through which we learned:

a) to memorize lists of sins, degrees of sin and the punishments for them.

b) which foods are “clean” and which foods are “dirty.”

c) that our babies are born permeated with vice and in order to purge them, we must pierce, peel, oil, splash, dunk, paint, decorate or bind them.

d) anything that’s too much fun or feels too good will send us to hell. (“Bingo Night” is okay, though.)

e) if we don’t do what they tell us with our hair, beards and head gear, our souls will stay soiled forever.

f) that shame, remorse, hunger, pain, abstention, untreated illness and Irritable Bowel Syndrome, are all virtues.

g) Good people follow our religion. Bad people don’t. We should try to change the bad people’s minds and make them be good, but if we can’t, it’s better for them if we torment or kill them.

h) Last and most essential, that when all benevolent religious leaders of the world stated, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” they did not mean, to quote from Bill and Ted, “Be excellent to each other” and “party on, dudes.” What they actually meant was, “Do It unto others before they Do It unto you.”

—————
And, that’s just a portion of what I’ve learned about organised religion. If you’d like to read more about this, go to www.patriciaVdavis.com and click on the Writings Excerpts Page. There you can read all about another aspect of certain religions, a thing some of us have never even heard of, but many of us know know well. It’s called, “The Evil Eye.”

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Filed Under: Bigotry, Civil Rights, Divas and Harlots, Political Satire, Religion Tagged With: australia, bad people, british council, bud selig, good people, harlot’s sauce, harlot’s sauce:a memoir, karl rove, memoir, michael moore, o.j. simpson, patricia v. davis, philosophy, religion, rupert murdoch, satan, satire, vice

Oops, I Have a Conspiracy Theory (A Political Satire)

October 9, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

The Bush Administration has a Secret Weapon against free thought of the masses and towards eventual world domination. It’s Britney Spears.

Britney Spears-Secret Weapon

Think I’m a madwoman? Let’s just look at the facts, shall we?

In 1998, a group called Project for the New American Century (http://www.newamericancentury.org ) sent a letter to President Clinton which I’ve excerpted here:

“Dear Mr. President:

We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any since the end of the Cold War. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.

…if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction…the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard.

The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action…In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy. Although we are fully aware of the difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.

If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country.”

And this letter was signed by the members of the group, some names of whom are easily recognisable:

Elliott Abrams   Richard L. Armitage   William J. Bennett
John Bolton Dick Cheney Paula Dobriansky
Francis Fukuyama   Zalmay Khalilzad Richard Perle
Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr.   Vin Weber
Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey

So, three years before the World Trade Centre was attacked, with Clinton still president, this group already held the position to wage war on Iraq.

Why didn’t the people of the United States know about this? Simple – the same year, 1998, Britney Spears hit the pop scene. At barely legal age, Britney became an instant international success because the music video accompanying her hit song, ”Baby One More Time,” featured a Lolita-like Spears wearing a girl’s Catholic school uniform, that made grown men drool and grown women speculate whether they could duplicate the look without appearing pathetic. Britney-mania was launched.

How could we think about foreign policy when we all so enthralled by Britney? She performed and we debated, “Is she really a virgin?” “Has she had her breasts ‘done’?” We remained focused on Britney for two solid years. We opened a newspaper; there she was- Britney, Britney, Britney. Is it any wonder we had no clue that an invasion on Iraq was already in the making?

But there was a blip in our national concentration on Britney Spears in the year 2000, when Al Gore protested the results of his presidential run against George W. Bush. There were some strange goings on, weren’t there? Ballots marked incorrectly and unaccounted for, Democrats in Florida, where Jeb Bush, George’s brother was governor, prevented going to the voting polls by state police, dead still on the registries ‘materialising’ to vote Republican, all added up to a suspiciously close margin.

But then, Britney’s new single, “Oops, I Did It Again,” debuted, breaking the record for highest sales in its first week by any solo artist. And while some protested the inauguration of George Bush by holding up placards that read, “Hail to the Thief,” this became a tempest in a teapot when Britney, at the MTV Music Video Awards, ripped off a black suit, revealing a provocative flesh-coloured, crystal outfit. Well, who could pay attention to what George and Al were up to after that? With “Oops, I Did It Again,” Britney ensnared our attention…again. The new administration was off the hook.

However, not even Britney could distract us when the towers fell in September of 2001. We were as transfixed by that as we’d been transfixed by our young diva. We even asked questions, though not enough of the important ones. It looked like the Bush Administration might need more spin control than distraction to mollify the nation. An ingenious propaganda campaign was launched and we were on our way to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Was it a coincidence that Britney announced she was taking a six-month career break that same year? No more than this little gal is an unwitting pawn in the Bush Administration’s agenda.

Though we had plenty of evidence to support the fact that the US invasion on Iraq was a personal vendetta and money-making strategy for them, none of us wanted to believe our eyes and ears. We saw that there were no weapons of mass destruction to be found, despite the claims. We heard Bush when he said about Saddam, “Don’t forget, this is the man who once tried to kill my Daddy.” We read in every newspaper that Halliburton, the Texas company which was awarded the Pentagon’s post-war construction contracts at outrageously high bids, was still making annual payments to its former CEO, the vice-president Dick Cheney. (The payments appeared on Cheney’s 2001 financial disclosure statement in the form of “deferred compensation” of up to $1m yearly.) Then there were the horrific photographs that came out of Abu Gharib and the soldiers’ testimony that the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, knew and approved of the illegal tortures there. But we still couldn’t accept that a presidential administration would resort to Machiavellian schemes to get us to invade a country that was really no threat to us. Then.

Instead, we chose to listen to Britney, our ‘nymphette,’ when in 2003, she told us, “Honestly, I think we should…trust our president in every decision he makes… just support that, you know…be faithful…” The same year, she exchanged a steamy kiss with Madonna (self-proclaimed “spokesperson for Judaism,” for which every practicing Jew is thankful, I’m sure) and mesmerised us…“once more time.” The war in Iraq raged, we now had “Homeland Security and colour-coded terror alerts, but we were back to being captivated by Britney.

Britney and Spokeperson for Judaism

Still not convinced that Britney is working undercover? There’s more.

By 2004, the death toll in Iraq was equivalent to Vietnam in 1966.Our soldiers faced combat zones every bit as deadly as the ones their fathers had faced in Southeast Asia. But Iraq wasn’t like Vietnam, we rationalised. These soldiers wanted to be there, so we shouldn’t worry about whether we’d sent them to die or be maimed for no good reason. Instead, we worried about why Britney would marry a back-up dancer who was only after money and fame, clearly. “And what was she thinking with no pre-nup?” We fretted over her marriage far more than we ever thought about the marriages of our soldiers coming home in the boxes we weren’t permitted to see on nightly newscasts. But Britney married her dancer and that’s what we remember of 2004.

In August 2005, came Hurricane Katrina. Once again, the Bush Administration was under fire. In an attempt to correct the half-assed job of disaster readiness and rescue by FEMA, the government spent over three million in tax dollars per citizen of New Orleans. Nobody knows who got that money, but one thing is certain – it didn’t go to the citizens of New Orleans. Two years later, New Orleans is still a bloody mess and even the most ardent Bush supporter was embarrassed. For a while, New Orleans supplanted Britney in the news. It was entertaining to see every government official pointing fingers. But not as entertaining as Britney becoming a mother. By giving birth through scheduled caesarean section, she came to the administration’s rescue again. . Was there a medical reason that the c-section of a first child was scheduled only one month after the hurricane hit? Hardly. This was just another way to divert the American public’s attention. And it worked. New Orleans hasn’t been in the news since.

Now, we’re back to “all Britney, all the time” reports. Britney dumping her loser husband, Britney running wild with Paris Hilton (another cunning, bottle-blonde agent for this regime,) Britney without her knickers, Britney without her hair, Britney without her children. On any server’s home page, on any television news station, Britney is inescapable.

She got her divorce less than one month after George Bush signed the Military Commissions Act, an act so reprehensible that it’s being protested by every civil rights group. But he got away with it, because most Americans don’t even know what it is, how it will effect them and thousands of other innocent people throughout world. Nor do they know it was developed in order to legalise other unlawful acts for which the Bush administration was already being legally challenged. We couldn’t know, because we’ve been hypnotised by Britney Spears.

And when the Blackwater atrocities came to light recently, people didn’t know about that either, because we weren’t thinking “Blackwater,” we were thinking “black bikini.” Britney’s black bikini, worn during her “comeback performance.” (The term, “comeback” a misnomer, for the reason that, unfortunately, she’s never been gone.) The whole nation, most loudly Simon Cowell, (a former spy for Tony Blair’s Administration) gave their opinion on whether or not she should be wearing it. The slaughter of civilians in Iraq by a firm of private mercenaries paid by the United States government, went unnoticed by most. (These same mercenaries, by the way, were first on the scene in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Blackwater Logo

But what finally convinced me of my “conspiracy theory” was last month’s YouTube video. You have to know the one I mean, because I never look for this stuff, but it finds me, anyway, since the CIA planted it everywhere and we all had to see it. In it, a young man, Chris Crock-of-sh**, cries into the camera to all of us, “Leave Britney alone!”

I have to digress here to say that if this young man were my son, NOT because he’s gay and NOT because his eye liner‘s overdone, but because he has such a pathetic self-image that he CRAVES this kind of attention from strangers, I’d find the nearest surgeon and say:

“Cut out my eyes and give them to a blind child. Take every one of my vital organs and distribute them to people who deserve them more than I.”

And the surgeon would say, “Legally, we can’t take your organs until you’re dead.”

Then I’d say, “But I’m the mother of the boy in the Britney YouTube video.”

Then the surgeon would say, “I’ll go get my scalpel. Do you want anaesthesia or can I do it without?”

Nonetheless, this vid has received over 2 million hits. The perpetrator was eventually offered his own television show. And when did he post this video? You guessed it- September 11, 2007. Six years to the day after the towers fell, when the number of American casualties in the Gulf, as confirmed by DoDs, is nearing 4000 and 29,000 wounded, the number of Iraqis killed over one million and US. tax dollars spent nearing 460 billion.

Simultaneously, Britney’s “comeback single” is number one on the charts. She calls it …“Gimme More.”

So, is ‘Spears Craze’ the result of a media that’s now heavily censored, a nation tragically obsessed with fame and youth, or is she a “Mata Hari archtype” engineered by some zealously nationalistic ‘techie’ with a laboratory hidden in the bowels of the Pentagon? What do you think?

Though the country’s fascination with Britney clearly hasn’t waned, The Bush Administration has another secret weapon standing by, in order to insure the American public’s support. Believe it or not, it’s another bleached blonde – Hillary Clinton.
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Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Political Satire Tagged With: “gimme more” “oops, abu gahrib, blackwater, britney spears, bush administration, chris crocker, conspiracy theory, dick cheney, dods, donald rumsfeld, fascist, harlot’s sauce, hurricane katrina, i did it again”, military commissions act, patricia v. davis, pentagon, Satire “baby one more time”, The Diva Doctrine, youtube

How to Flirt with Your Wife

September 21, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Patricia Pondering

Last week, we flirted with our husbands. With luck, they’ll return the favour this week. I don’t know if I’m speaking for every woman with the ideas I list here, but I did gather them from a hefty sample of females in long-term relationships. I welcome comments or suggestions and mention that I’ve already heard two important ones:

Bob Godley said, “I wouldn’t want to be in love with a woman who wasn’t in love with me.”

That’s so true. Unrequited love is only ‘romantic’ in novels, not in real-life partnerships. If the person you’re married to, or in a long-term relationship with, doesn’t appreciate you and/or is with you for some self-seeking reason of his or her own, I’ll tell you from personal experience, this will only lead to heartache. The love you feel for your partner, will not make your partner love you back.

In addition, as another wise blogger, Ilias K., pointed out, “flirting techniques” are only joyfully effective, if the person you’re flirting with fancies you as much as you fancy him/her.

Bearing this in mind, here’s the list I’ve compiled:

1) The average male (in the western world) has the following grooming products: soap, water, shampoo, razor or beard trimmer, toothbrush and toothpaste and nail clippers. His “extra special” grooming preparations might include, mouth rinse, cologne, and running a comb through his wet hair, so it will dry in place. (I could be wrong, but I don’t think men use hair dryers anymore.)

The average female in the western world uses the following grooming products: tooth brush and tooth paste – the special kind that ‘whitens’ teeth, soap – the special kind with moisturizers in it, water, shampoo – the special kind for her hair type, which includes, curly hair, straight hair, frizzy hair, damaged hair, or hair that’s been coloured and/or ‘permed’ and hair conditioner for same ‘hair types.’ After shower, grooming products include skin moisturizer, special shave cream for sensitive skin and special razors or cream hair removers designed for women’s ‘tender’ skin. We might also use daily, something to darken and lengthen our eyelashes, something to redden our lips and cheeks. The more creative or vain among us (take your choice of adjective there) use something to even out the skin tone on our faces, something to enhance the arch of our eyebrows and make our eyes ‘stand out.’ We can’t just run a comb through our hair – we have to blow dry it, or curl it, or gel it, or mousse it, or clip it up, or pull it back, or ’tease’ it a bit. Our “extra-special” grooming preparations might include, getting our faces squeezed, pinched, steamed and scrubbed in something called a ‘facial.’ And having hot wax smeared on our private parts, then covered with linen, which is stuck to the wax (on purpose) and then pulled off, taking any ‘stray hairs’ with it, in something called a ‘bikini wax.’ Then, we might sit in one position, not moving our limbs for a half an hour or more, so our manicures and pedicures can dry without smearing.

This is a glamorising process (and I’ve only given you the abridged version of what we can and do do to ourselves) that can take anywhere from one-three hours out of our lives daily, depending on how thorough or speedy we want to be. But when it’s complete, we’re “nice and girly” – soft, smooth, polished, silky and ‘glowy.’

You like us that way. And you know it.

So my first suggestion on how to flirt with your wife/long-time lover is this: When she gets out of the bath, or the bedroom, or wherever she conducts this grooming process, handbag in hand, dressed and smiling, set for the evening, do not look at her distractedly, or worse, click your tongue impatiently and ask, “Are you ready to go?”

Instead, say, “Wow.” Or, “You look great.”

She did it for you, you dolt. She wants you to think she looks attractive. She wants to see that light in your eyes, the one you’d get when you’d first go out on dates together. And she was willing to spend one-three hours of her day to achieve this. An hour or three that she could have spent otherwise, doing perhaps what you were doing, while you were waiting for her to finish the tedious grooming process she conducts for you. Instead of pulling out hairs, or dabbing on zit cream, or separating clumps of mascara from out of her eyelashes, she could’ve have been reading the paper, catching up on the sports news, or playing computer games. She gave up all that fun so she could look pretty – for you. So indicate that you noticed this and that you appreciate it. Even if this ‘dolling up’ doesn’t matter to you, it matters to her.

Think of the different start, the different ambience there’ll be to the evening out, if you say, “Wow” (or whatever the equivalent is in your neck of the woods) to your wife, instead of, “Are you ready?”

Every time a woman’s efforts to be attractive to her man are ignored or go unobserved by him, a tiny bit of her femininity dies. She may not ever complain about it, or even act like she notices, but each time it happens, it chips away at her. Until the day comes she gives up caring to make you notice. Or worse, some other man notices what you had under your hands to touch, taste and enjoy all this time, which you took for granted.

2) You don’t like to talk about your deepest fears, worries or insecurities, but she can’t NOT talk about hers. Women’s whole operating system runs on different juice. Visualise the talking we do about our “feelings” as ‘hard drive de-fragmentation.’ When you are de-fragmenting the hard drive on your computer, there’s nothing you can do but sit there while it does its work. You don’t have to give it directions, it knows what it needs to do and it will get on with it. It just takes a while. We can ‘de-fragment’ on our own (or with a group of girlfriends over ‘peach bellinis’) but we want you. Girlfriends are great, but every once in a while when life gets really “shite” and we want to vent, we want our other half to listen. We trust you even more than we trust our girlfriends. You are the one we share our lives and bodies with, so we want to share our feelings with you, too. We don’t need advice, we’re not teenage girls, we’re strong women who just want – need – to talk to our man, so we can re-group and get on with what ever has to be done. All you have to do if you want to help us with this process is understand that we only need empathy. Not advice. If we want advice, we’ll actually ASK for it. If we just need to talk, that’s what we’ll do.

Your part is easier than you make it. Say, “Uh-huh, uh-huh – I see what you’re saying.” “She said, that, huh?” “What did you say?” “Boy, that’s too bad, hon. You must have felt terrible.”

If we cry, hold our hand. Give us a hug. Offer us tea or wine. (Or whatever works at your house.) Be prepared that you may need to do this more than once, until we resolve whatever it is. That’s all you need to do to be a prince in our eyes.

3) Approach sex the way you would building a house. One brick at a time until the whole thing is laid. (Hee hee)

For most women, foreplay starts with that, “You look great,” or sours with, “Are you finally ready?” If you spend a few moments during the day/evening when there is no possibility that you can have sex at that particular moment, looking at your woman as though there’s nothing else you want to do but look at her, she will feel desired, not devoured. When you are making love, talk to her. Not as in, “a funny thing happened to me today,” but as in, “I’ve always thought you have the most beautiful skin…” Yes, it’s strategy of a sorts, only it’s not a takeover you’re trying to stage, but a fulfilment… for both of you.

4) Do one thing that you really and truly do not want to do, but you know she would love. I’m not talking about disowning your irritating mother. (If in fact, you have an irritating mother. Your wife hasn’t said anything to me, I promise.) It should be something that won’t harm you, but just isn’t in your realm of desires. If you know she’d like you to cook for her and you’re a lousy cook and hate the idea, do it anyway. Just once. If it’s dancing, go. Make it clear that this is a gift, a one-off thing that will not be repeated just because you did it once. (Gosh- I hope you’re not married to someone like that, who’d turn a gesture of generosity into a point of argument, as in, “if you did it once, why can’t you do it again?”) If your spouse can be trusted to understand this thing that you are doing is like climbing a mountain for your love, think of one or two things that she’d love, but you’d ordinarily hate and do them. Just for her.

As I read over this list, I realise it’s really not about how to flirt, is it? It’s more about how to love. Have I covered everything? Probably not, but it’s good for a start, I hope.

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