20 Questions with Alan

[sam]

Standard question, really: if you had a time machine back through your life is there anything you'd do differently?

[Marty McFly]

The spontaneous response on first reading the prompt was, "Dad implored me to be an accountant. I probably should've listened to him." Having lived a life of unconventional adventure, global travel, spontaneity, philosophical curiosity, and gotten to know a lot of fascinating people I never would otherwise have met, I am beginning to arrive at the conclusion that lives of dull predictability ain't actually so bad. Updike wasn't completely off the mark.

Of course there has been occasional ruminating about what if I could go back to, let us say age twelve, the cusp of sexuality, with the proviso of knowing what I know NOW. Which entails certain assumptions: a preadolescent brain actually CAN hold mental configurations of a man in his sixties, we actually can keep a clear mature head when all kinds of hormones are flowing out of a spigot of desire, and early childhood fears and have dissipated, rather than just found a way to linger beneath the surface. Not to mention, if one is going to turn left where they once turned right and take off when they once stayed put... would that not effectively erase relations with the people we have come to know and love (and perhaps have conceived and brought into this world) later in life? As the Grim Reaper gets nearer and nearer to the point where he is beginning to have discernible features, I think leaving behind something positive with those we love is the only important thing, and I sure hope I've done so in some little way.

That realization has hindered me from dipping too deeply into the realm of What If?. I suspect that even if I had found a more lucrative career choice, or ended up teaching Drama Lit or theology at a small private university, I would always be haunted by a vague sense of discontent, that something else should have been explored.  I used to think it was caused by circumstances but now I realize it is pretty much in my nature. My bete noire, my dark passenger. The realization is a bit of an antidote, along with a stronger sense of the Eternal Something or Other.

Whatever path, I would do my best not to hurt as many people as I have done, and been more sensitive where I was self-involved. I wouldn't have said the terrible things I said to my Dad, I would have avoided carbs and ice-cream, and I absolutely would have taken up Gigi Toobin on her offer at Glenn Schickman's overnight Bar-Mitzvah in 1976. And held on to my original pressing of the first KISS album, which I had signed by Ace Frehley.

For the moment, by hook or by crook, I seem to have found my level. And I'm living it.

[sam]

MPs back proposals to legalise assisted dying

In the first Commons vote on the issue in nearly a decade, MPs supported a bill which would allow terminally ill adults expected to die within six months to seek help to end their own life by 330 to 275, a majority of 55.

It followed an emotional debate in the chamber, where MPs from both sides shared personal stories which had informed their decisions.

The bill will now face many more months of debate and scrutiny by MPs and peers, who could choose to amend it, with the approval of both Houses of Parliament required before it becomes law.

If you were a member of parliament, how would you vote?

[Alan Handman]

Hopefully those in favor are not using the method as way to deal with low survival rates for potentially terminal illnesses, which I hear is a bit of a weak spot over there.

True to my libertarian leanings, I think people should be allowed to do whatever the heck it is they want to do with their lives, including end them if such be the case. I realize that may have implications for those suffering with mental illness, depression and so forth. Not saying there shouldn't be some kind of screening process, or whatever. I don't even see why terminal illness should be a factor. There are plenty of reasons a person might not want to go on, factors that have nothing to do with illness or physical suffering. One that I have never particularly understood was people who kill themselves over lost or unrequited love. "I will show you how much I love you by killing myself!" Take a moment to parse out that one.

With that being said, because one could end their life does not necessarily mean they should. It seems to be the majority testimony of all the world's great faith systems, along with mystics of all stripes and those who claim insight to the Great Beyond, that suicide does not end one's suffering, and quite possibly makes it all the worse. This would need to be mitigated by various factors, such as giving one's life for the benefit of others, or perhaps to avoid a long path of otherwise needless pain.  For those who check out from depression or anger, there are a host of dismal proposed fates, ranging from the hellscapes of the Catholics to the burdens of negative karma. Theosophists have a theory that for those who take their own lives out of depression or anguish. what awaits is a period where the soul remains earthbound until the time they would have died of natural causes, but without the comfort of the body for cushioning the pain (think of drinking or binge eating or whatever); only the raw emotion remains.

Well, who knows? Whatever the case, it shouldn't be a decision made lightly. Bureaucracies have a tendency to be rather ham-handed on negotiating the subtleties involved. At the end of the day, we are the keepers of our own souls, but let whatever decision ends up being made hopefully be an informed one.

[sam]

I'll let The Guardian ask this one: Why aren’t more politicians condemning Nancy Mace’s vicious anti-trans stunts?

So as to avoid contaminating your opinion with mine, best not click this.

this

(First: archive link for those who are squeamish about The Guardian appearing in their search history.)

In Montgomery, Alabama, 100 miles south-east of where Wallace made his infamous Stand in the Schoolhouse Door...

Trans rights activists reach a new low in their desperation to attach themselves to a genuine civil rights movement.

To take just one sentence:

Lawmakers should raise their voices in dissent when their colleagues unabashedly attack us with slurs,^[1] misgender us,^[2] slander those we love^[3] and incite violence by dishonoring our dignity.^[4]

1. https://terfisaslur.com
2. Correctly sex you, rather than be cowed into a lie.
3. https://terfisaslur.com/2-abuse-harassment-and-dehumanizing-language/
4. i.e., get trans identifying men so angry they use violent rhetoric and worse.

As for the question in The Guardian's headline, Louise Perry took a shot at it last month:

When The New York Times published this sympathetic piece about the Cass Review in May of this year – roughly the same time that AOC changed her Twitter bio – it became clear to me, and to many other people, that the progressive elites were starting the process of disassociating themselves from a movement that had become a political liability.

Their embrace of transgenderism was never going to last. The ideology always leant too heavily on obviously false ideas, demanding that adherents reject the truth of their own eyes. And the movement itself was made up of a combination of fetishists and the mentally ill, which doesn’t make for a happy political coalition. In the early days, it was edgy and cool, and seemed to fit with some bigger political ideas about freedom and anti-traditionalism, which made it appealing to progressives. But, in the end, it was the equivalent of a brief and embarrassing fashion trend – the sort that makes early adopters cringe at old photos of ourselves.

[close]

[Alliyanna Handman]

Seasons Greetings and Merry (I guess it's "Happy" in Old Blighty) Christmas!

Not long ago I was listening to a seventy-plus year old icon of the transgender community, apparently one of the first for medical sexual reassignment back in the day, being interviewed on NPR.  Once "he" now "she" lamented that many in the current progressive movement tend to voice sentiments such as: we just need to wait for enough conservatives to pass away, and all this policy will change on its own. "That is erroneous thinking," she continued. "Conservatism always reasserts itself."

I thought, "How aptly put. Conservatism always reasserts itself because...wait for it...REALITY always reasserts itself."

Since at least the days of Elizabethan Theater, and probably a whole lot longer, men dressing up as ladies has been a reality for a small segment of society. I've heard that to this day asking a bunch of blokes to get up in drag and head down to the pub doesn't need a second prompt. As far as I'm concerned, it's all theater.

Which does not mean that (out of the need to at least try to be a civil person) I won't call someone by their chosen pronoun, or agree to at least try to see them as they want to be seen, provided there be no harm in doing so. A trans-boxer identifying as a woman easily breaking the jaw of a cis-gendered woman, for example, might give me pause. As do athletes who in male form rank about 78th suddenly go to the top spot on realizing they belong on the girls' team. All this with amazingly little pushback from female teammates. Beyond that, I will play the game.

But in any other neutral discussion I will call such folk exactly what I think they are: Gender Impersonators. Granted, since Shakespeare's time there have been a lot of technological advancements. Beyond make-up, long hair and push up bras we now have all kinds of hormones, invasive surgeries, things lobbed off and things grafted on. But, as Billy Joel might say, it's still drag theater to me. What would get me to acknowledge their chosen gender as a reality? Well, if we ever get to the day when XX chromosomes can be made XY and vice-versa, I will not hesitate to say, "By George(etta), you did it!"

Although, come to think of it, even then we'd have to acknowledge that so much of what forms gender identity and roles takes place early in life, and therefore the woman" who has never had a first period or walked quickly across a parking lot fearing an attacker might still have trouble relating to one who has. Presumably the trans woman doesn't go to a gynecologist to see if her testicles might have ovarian cancer.

As I think I wrote elsewhere, that old Voltarian saw about "if they can make you believe absurdities, they can make you commit atrocities" holds a lot of veracity. There is a whole lotta absurdity going on with this hot button issue.

Okay, I'm gonna head out to see the new Bob Dylan biopic and see if I can rock my fishnets and mini-skirt. Stay tuned.

[sam]

One of these days I really have to read Shakespeare. Do you have any authors you keep putting off?

[Alan Handman]

For Shakes, I'd recommend starting with the smaller, earlier ones like Two Gentlemen of Verona, Taming of the Shrew or even the comically bloody Titus Andronicus. His later plays, like Antony and Cleopatra and Cymbeline, tend to get increasingly verbose and belabored with very strange syntax ,even for Bill. Read all in an annotated edition if possible, some of those words can be tricky. It's not so much that Shakes uses words we've never heard, as much as words we are familiar with used in very different ways.

Macbeth (although a later play) is a personal fave, again on the shorter side, and can be seen in some pretty decent film adaptations like that one from Polanski shortly after the Tate murders. Patrick Stewart was in a good one as well.

Books I'm waiting till retirement for include Ulysses, Don Quixote in it's entirety, Les Miserables and Homer. Just don't have the time right now to give those the kind of sustained concentration needed, plus I have other interests to squeeze in during the few reading hours I have left in a given week. For contemporary reading, I'm enjoying Michel Houellebecq at the moment. He has an keen eye for the morally adrift middle-aged male in a postmodern world.

[sam]

Any new year's resolutions you plan on breaking?

[Nero Newsom]

I guess I don’t have much of an answer for that one since I don’t bother making them anymore. Must be something with my psychology, but when I make vows that must begin at a fixed place and time, I cannot seem to control the situation. Such is life. My hopes are the usual suspects, better diet and exercise, get my spending under control, learn something noble like sign language, etc and so forth. Meanwhile, l’ll just have to fiddle while L.A. burns.