Alban Arthan 2016

Oh, these dark and dreary days! Is it any wonder we cover the front of our houses with lights and bring trees inside as if to keep them from freezing?

Alban Arthan is upon us.

Alban Arthan is the Welsh name for the winter solstice festival. It's all about the Light -- getting it back and powering up for some big work ahead.

Alban Arthan sometimes relates to King Arthur, who lies asleep in his mountain, waiting for a day when he will be needed again to re-establish peace in a warring kingdom. It also refers to the Great Bear, that constellation that always shows us the North.

This year I'm thinking more about King Arthur. I will call upon him to arise.

Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Either way, I have to be willing to become a keeper of Excalibur myself.

We are entering a period of great national (and by extention, international) peril. Everything we have come to count on is now at risk. Being a woman of a certain age, with grown children who no longer need me for survival, I have to be willing to do my part to fight back against the Darkness.

Are you with me on this?

I don't even know what I will be asked to do in the coming years. I do know it will be uncomfortable, expensive, time-consuming, and perhaps fruitless. Nevertheless, it must be done. This evil man, and the evil men and women he is promoting into power, can only get the momentum to wreak havoc if all the people who oppose and disdain him sit back and watch the train wreck.

So this year, on Alban Arthan, I will heed a call to action. The barbarians are no longer at the gates. They are in the halls of power. I will not bend my knee to them, oh no, not me. Where's my sword?

I Love The Bard!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," serving all bored deities who are lost to the mists of time! Modern isn't always better, you know.

Speaking of modern not being better ... is there anyone more fabulous than Shakespeare? I teach Romeo and Juliet every year, and 400 years down the line, it's still a fan favorite. My students love it.

Shakespeare has power by the hour, but he's also fine with a line. I was looking over some quotes the other day, and I found this one from Measure for Measure:

"But man, proud man,
Dress'd in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep."

By all the bored gods, Willie the Shake is KING. It will probably take me two days to memorize this.

The D Word

There are a few places in America where you inevitably have to go. Everyone has to go, they have no choice in the matter.

One of those places is a court of justice for jury duty. The other is the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The two institutions are tied together, of course. You go to one, you're going to get called to the other.

I've had my share of adventures in both venues. The last time I had jury duty (it's always petit, and it's always Camden) I got called for a murder trial in which the defendant was African American and the victim African American. While on a break outside the selection room, I heard a young white guy in a Budweiser baseball cap say, "I hate n*****. They'll never put me on that jury." At the time I was standing with an African American man in a crisp suit who said, "I work for the government in a classsified manner. I have to be in Tokyo tomorrow morning. They'll never put me on that jury." There was also a creaky old lady I recognized from Snobville standing there with us. She was the one who wound up on the jury.

Have you ever looked around at a jury room or at the DMV? That's where you see the total cross section of America.No one can send someone else to get their driver's license. And so they come, everybody.

These are the people who form our democracy. And now I ask you, why should we even expect it to work? When you see a big room full of Americans of all stripes, it's stupefying.

Yes, yes, I live in a major metropolitan area, Camden County, NJ, which probably has a vastly more differentiated population than, say, Smalltown, Kansas. Still, I imagine everywhere there are educated people and uneducated people, rich and poor people, religious and irreligious people, people who hate minorities, and people who are tolerant, people who are gentle and kind, and people who are flaming assholes with loud voices and ugly opinions.

On any given Election Day, those people go out and vote.

Democracy is a tough enough proposition in countries with much more homogeneous populations. In America, it is bound to crash and burn, especially if it can pick up fuel and oxygen from dirty tricks, fake news, empty promises from second tier celebrities, and dissatisfaction with the trajectory of employment trends.

Bottom line: Even the Founding Fathers worried about all the stupid white men who would queue up to vote. They foresaw issues. They were right. Even when the only voters were white men (a much more homogeneous grouping than today) it didn't go well.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating dictatorship. But if you ask me, looking around the DMV or the jury room, I would have to say that democracy is one shaky motherfucker of a ship, just waiting to be swamped by a dictator, or anarchy, or civil war.

I hope I'm not right about this. I've been wrong about lots of stuff, so there's hope.

It's My Country, and I'll Cry If I Want To

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we prize sanity, not vanity. I'm Anne Johnson, and sometimes things make me cry.

On the morning after Election Day, my school district had a teachers' meeting scheduled. It's a good thing, because so many of us were in tears that I can't imagine how we could have taught anything in the classroom. The most grief-stricken of my colleagues? The history teachers.

You can therefore imagine my dismay and disappointment when one of my friends -- and a good one, a true one, someone I considered "bosom" -- posted on Facebook that all the crying people "ought to go live in China, or Cuba, or Iran, if you really want to cry about something." This post came from an intelligent man.

I've seen quite a few less intelligent individuals expressing the same sentiments. Don't like the fact that an incompetent, fractious, conceited blowhard has been elected to head the Ship of State? Move to China!

There is so much I could say about this, but I'll try to be brief.

First of all, if your candidate won, and you are happy about it, why does it bother you that people -- particularly women -- are crying? Oh! I can answer that! You are just a little bit uncomfortable about this election yourself. You feel in your bones that this won't turn out well. But hey, you are celebrating anyway! And how dare anyone fling a little reality at your glee?

Secondly, do you mind if I ask how you would be responding right now if the polls had been correct, and Mrs. Clinton won? Don't answer that. I know. You'd be out on the range, shooting your AK at human-shaped targets. You'd be standing by your man, who would be DEMANDING a RECOUNT and CRYING FRAUD. Don't tell me you would have bowed to the will of the people, stone-faced and stoic. I'm not buying it.

Thirdly (please give me extra credit for these thoughtful transition words), why move to China, Cuba, or Iran when it's going to be just like China, Cuba, and Iran right here? I don't have the money for a plane ticket. And let's see: Where would I be going if I did have that ticket? To a country ruled by a handful of above-the-law elites who oppress their citizens with low wages, curbs on free speech, and narrow, abusive religious practices codified into law. Why fly, when I can get all those perks right here? It's only a matter of time.

And now, to all of you "Stop Crying and Move to China" white males, I will say this:

Okay, I'll go. Now, here's where you need to go.

You need to hop inside the covers of a Charles Dickens novel. Yes, propel yourself back to Victorian England, where a handful of above-the-law elites oppressed citizens with low wages, curbs on free speech, and narrow, abusive religious practices codified into law! I understand there's a partnership opening at Scrooge and Marley. You're perfect for the job.

Then and Now

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" If you are one of my three readers still looking in to see if I'm here, let it be known ... Anne is back! The stakes are high, and the steaks are dry. Or some such.

Wow. A lot has happened since almost a year ago, when the passing of Decibel the parrot was my last entry. So, what did I do between then and now?

One thing I did, happily and with an abundance of enthusiasm, was attend a Bernie Sanders rally at Temple University on April 6.

Look at Spare and me in this photo! It was freezing cold that day, not a speck of sun and a whipping wind. We got to the Liacouris Center at noon and stood outside until 5:30. Then we went inside. Spare went onto the floor to get as close to Bernie as she could, and I grabbed a seat. The arena slowly filled to capacity, which is 10,000 plus the standing room only on the floor. Bernie began his speech at about 8:30 or 9:00, and when it was over, he shook Spare's hand as he left the stage. When we caught up to each other, we wept tears of joy.

Senator Sanders' message resonated with both of us. We desperately wanted him to be the Democratic nominee for president.

We were deeply disappointed when he lost.

 I personally went to a Bernie rally during the Democratic National Convention (it was 105 in the shade that day), but after marching down Broad Street I had an impromptu conversation with a Jamaican immigrant lady who was furious with the Bernie-or-Bust crowd. When she confronted me, the conversation went kind of like this:

Lady: How can you do this? Don't you see you make it possible for that man, Donald Trump, to win?

Anne: Oh, let me promise you! I will vote for Hillary. I know the stakes are high.

Lady: Because, seriously, I'm afraid I will be sent back to Jamaica if that man Donald Trump gets elected. And I am a citizen of the USA.

Anne: Oh, don't worry about a thing! The American people would never elect such an unprepared and temperamental man to such a serious and demanding position of power!

Lady: We'll see.


That was Then.


This is Now.

On Thursday, November 10, 2016 Spare and I (and our friend Nettle) took part in a hastily-organized protest against Donald Trump. It was a Women's March. Spare made her sign. Again we wept together, this time in the dark and the cold, this time in despair.

Presidential primaries exist for a reason. They serve as platforms for the exchange of ideas. They serve to put as many issues and positions on the table as possible. Bernie Sanders was quite clear and articulate about the issues he saw as important. Hillary Clinton skirted these issues mostly, setting herself up as (a) someone about to make history, and (b) not Donald Trump.

I voted for her. Spare voted for her. So did lots and lots of other people. But the cold, dark times are upon us. The worst possible set of faux Christians has grabbed power-- the very people I used to poke such fun at on this blog.

The bored Gods are appalled. For the love of fruit flies, even Jesus is appalled.

I'm not a terrorist, I'm not being paid by George Soros or anyone else. But I'm going to speak. I'm going to protest. I'm going to cover this apocalypse with my Swiftian blog. I feel that, as a Pagan, I am being called upon to support religious liberty ... not to mention trying to keep Social Security checks rolling in to my ailing mother-in-law. And so much else. I'll cover it all.

I wonder what happened to that Jamaican lady I met in Philly last summer. I guess she's blaming me for this. Well, there's blame aplenty to be assigned. If my support of Bernie Sanders brought Donald Trump to office, then burn me at the stake. You've got to stand for something in this world.