political underwear

I haven't said anything since the invasion of Iraq started, and that's because I don't really have anything to say that hasn't been said better, elsewhere. That shouldn't be taken to mean that I don't have an opinion, because I do. It just means that there are many other people who are far more articulate and intelligent than I am, people who have thought out their issues and come up with educated, well-reasoned arguments for their positions. I haven't done any of that.

Despite the fact that this is the first war that I'm truly mature enough to understand and take an interest in, my intelligence has dismayed me by failing all its childhood promise. In lieu of serious analysis and informed evaluation, it has descended to rendering complicated issues into third-grade simplicity, at times persuaded of mutually exclusive and unsupportable ideas. Much as I would like to think that I have a mind and a well-rounded education -- presumption on the first part; outright falsehood on the second, because the day you meet a truly conservative classical musician is the day you warp back in time and shake hands with Wagner¹ -- both have utterly failed me. Instead, I'm left with a series of visceral and outright irrational opinions, which I feel obligated to defend but would much rather not have to.

On the other hand, I've opened my reading to a whole, hitherto unexplored section of the web: political weblogs.

My leanings are certainly more to the left than my father's, who was still quietly convinced that the Emperor was holy and Japanese Imperialism (while messy and violent and done in completely the wrong way) would have been a much better thing for all concerned than this bizarre international corruption of mediocrity brought about by Coca-Cola America. Ours was not a house in which political dialogue flourished, partly because my household had a superbly old-world Japanese attitude of 'it can't be helped,' and partly because it's hard to hold a real world political discussion with people who treasure a chart that traces the Japanese Imperial lineage back to God.

"Look!" Dad would say, pointing to one of the indecipherable cartouches on the chart. "You're related to that one, and that one, and that one, and that one, and that one, and there's God, and that's why we shouldn't have to pay sales tax!"

I read John Scalzi on a regular basis, one of the handful of sites I hit to start out my day. I enjoy Scalzi's "Whatever" because it's thought-provoking without being enraging, which could either be a testament to his writing skills, or the affinity of our viewpoints. Lately, his format has changed to include links, which has proved to be an eye-opening experience for me. For all my self-proclaimed openness to new experiences, in practice I've a tendency to make my rut and roll in it, eyeing any new venture with a not entirely irrational apprehension and mistrust. I go to the same restaurants, order the same food, read the same books over and over, and to some extent this extends to web pages. Having established that there are some ten or so web journals (or, in deference to Mr. Scalzi's preference, not-journals) that I like, I revisit them with dogged regularity, feeling disinclined to stray without some critical, trusted web road guide, complete with a Zagat-like classification system of stars.

With the combination of the war, Scalzi's recommendations, and the sneaking suspicion that I was really stretching when I claimed to have a three-digit IQ, I've started doing a little exploring. Get this: it turns out there's a whole world wide web out there. An entire panorama of political discussion has opened up, literally before my eyes. I've gobbled bits and pieces of weblog articles, chewed them up and spit them out: conservative, liberal, pro-war, anti-war. Here and there I'll find someone who says something just right, and I'll pick that up and stuff it into my disorganized brain with the realization that that's exactly why I hold this opinion.

This is what we call the Garanimal² creation of an American. I could conceivably put together my own wardrobe of thought if I actually tried harder, but it's so much easier -- and fun -- to match the little animals on the labels together and emerge with a complete outfit of ideas. Look! I'm a platypus!

My sister is driving back down to California today, having finished all but the last quarter or so of classes. She's promised to bring me mochi, those sweet rice cakes -- wonderful baked over a grill, doused in soy sauce and wrapped with toasted nori (seaweed); better still baked over a grill, then wrapped in a shiso (beefsteak, otherwise known as "perilla") leaf and mentaiko, spicy fish roe, all wrapped in toasted nori -- which I hoard greedily in my freezer and dole out in a miserly fashion as the whim takes me.

"Guess what!" she burbled when her phone call dragged me out of bed this morning. "I got a job in Pomona!"

"Abuwah?" I said blearily. I don't do well in mornings.

"Well, outside of Pomona," she amended. "Forest work. I'm going to break fire lines!"

Well. That was ducky. I woke up in an instant. "You're going to do what?!"

"You know. I'm going to fight wildfires. When a fire is coming, I'm going to tear up brush and stuff so the fire can't go any further."

"Fire breaker," I said flatly. "You're going to be a fire breaker."

"Four days on, three days off."

"They're going to put you up?"

"Well, they'll charge me a dollar a night, but that's because I'll be sleeping in a camp, with a sleeping bag...."

There didn't seem much to say to that. "That sounds horrible."

Enthusiasm bubbled up in her voice again. "Are you kidding? It's going to be fun!"

It's odd how the mind plays tricks on you. I was pretty sure she sounded pleased.

1. Not that this is related to anything, but with all due respect to Lt. Col. United States Marine Corps Gil Ferguson on today's NPR broadcast of Forum, conservative though he might have been, Wagner could've given Clinton lessons on the womanizing. As any woman can tell you, that particular fault seems to exist outside the moral and ideological spectrum, and a conservative can be just as liberal with his pecker as, well, a liberal. It is interesting though to note that while Democratic failings usually happen in the bedroom, Republican failings have more often been in the boardroom. Of the two, I'm inclined to think that the fault of philandering is the more comforting, partly because it's more human. At least you can say with a straight face that you're "in touch with the people." The fifty percent with breasts, anyway.

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2. Garanimals are a phenomenon that I missed out on in my childhood. My family was, after all, quite poor for all their Japanese-ness; during the boom of the 80s when the Japanese were buying Hawaii and pretty much any North American landmark they could lay their hands on, I used to say -- not entirely in jest -- that we were the only poor Japanese people in the entire United States. At any rate, poverty meant that the clothes I wore were hand-me-downs from some other child that might (or more often might not) have been about the same size sometime in the past. Gratitude being a necessary quotient of sanity in the truly poor, my mother delighted over each gift of old outfits and throw it over my head. For all her graceful chic-ness during the 60s and 70s, Mom was utterly oblivious to color or design or fabric when it came to her own children. It wasn't until middle school that we started being in a position where I could have new, store-bought clothes.

From Goodwill. New, see, was relative. What I wouldn't have give for a pair of Wonder Woman underoos.

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