Ampersand Gazette #8
From what I see, Ukraine is all about “Us,” while for many Americans it’s all about “Me.”
Bob Bascelli
Seaford, NY
from a Letter to the Editor
in The New York Times
April 6, 2022
Well, doesn’t that just about say it all in one sentence?
I’ve wakened this morning wondering when, where, and how we lost our “We.” And that first “we” can be filled in with all sorts of divisors—class, race, age, gender, hair color, political affiliation, cultural connections—you name it, we’ve let it separate us from one another.
Why is a great wonder. I have a theory about it. Please be advised that I’m testing this out here, not etching it on tablets.
I think Westerners have been poised on the edge between “rugged individualism” and “collective conformity” since the West was won. Those of us with strong enough ego structures to follow our own paths have done so—and created a whole trope of literature in the doing! Those of us without strong enough ego structures to follow our own paths have not done so—and created a hive mind that’s based on fear.
I think our “we” began to fracture with the rise of social media. Why? Because the entirety of it is based on what you think of me—not what I think of me. And, between us, what I think of me is much more important than what you think of me because I live with me every day and you don’t. MYOB might be one of the basic tenets of my philosophy.
So, Beloved, what’ll it be for you? Will you hunker down into the depths of your me so that you become strong enough to reach out and create connections that allow for a we? I hope so.
The awesome thing about Ukraine is that they never even had to ask the question.
&
“The closet is turning into a coffin,” wrote Avram Finkelstein, a hairdresser, “self-described Machiavellian propagandist” and Gran Fury member, in a 1986 journal entry.
from a book review by Alexandra Jacobs of Jack Lowery’s IT WAS VULGAR & IT WAS BEAUTIFUL How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic in The New York Times
April 6, 2022
God help us all, but the closet shouldn’t be a coffin, and yet, given what’s happening in this country around trans issues, I am deeply concerned that it is rapidly becoming one for some of us. I think that’s why Avram Finkelstein’s words from 1986 hit me so hard. His book is about how art changed the world around HIV/AIDS.
Of course it did. That’s what art does.
This is also why I’m going to brag a little here. Did you see my essay in The Huffington Post about another trans issue—far less debilitating, but still painful. You can find it here if you didn’t. The utterly amazing news of this is that this personal story garnered over 564,000 readers from all over the world in just two weeks’ time.
So there are definitely some very difficult things up for the trans community, and I want to remind all of us that acceptance of self and others is part of being a part of this world. Acceptance in all of our glory, yes, but in all of our brokenness, and that of others, too.
&
Word-magic, in a variety of forms, is an ubiquitous phenomenon: Simply uttering a word, we often think, can be an act of summoning. And so verbal taboos, which all communities seem to evolve, apply to both the sacred and the profane. …
But do efforts to make a word unsayable diminish its power or magnify it?
from the answer to the question “Can I Utter a Racial Slur in My Classroom?” by Kwame Anthony Appiah,
the Ethics Columnist for The New York Times
April 6, 2022
Here is a conundrum as far as I’m concerned. We cannot police the great writing of the past. There were misogynists who made great contributions to life on earth, and racists, and classists, and all sorts of others bearing their own viewpoints, ergo their own prejudices. We all have them.
All. Without exception.
Beloved, think. The only point of view you have is your own. That, in itself, is prejudicial based on your life experiences alone.
So let’s simmer down a little. Yes, there are some dreadful words that we have conjured to reject one another for various reasons throughout history. Just because we no longer use them doesn’t mean they don’t have value in their own context.
The next time you get your knickers in a twist because of a language choice someone makes, stop. Look within. Could you have made the same choice, just with a different word? Most of us, when we’re being honest, will have to admit that we could.
Let’s go a little more gently on historical language, Beloved. After all, isn’t it those who refuse to learn history that are doomed to repeat it?
&
“In 1786 Benjamin Franklin wrote to a friend about lead, “You will observe with Concern how long a useful Truth may be known, and exist, before it is generally receiv’d and practis’d on.”
Anita Weinberg
Chicago
from a Letter to the Editor about epidemic lead poisoning
in The New York Times
April 7, 2022
Uh, yeah. About that … you fill in the blank, dear one. Climate change, tax structure, political bashing, Capitol riot, lead poisoning. What is it with Americans? Especially our politicos.
We so often, it seems to me, choose to do something about an issue that doesn’t really touch the actual problem. ObamaCare is a good example. And now don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a good idea, but it doesn’t solve what really needs solving which is a need for universal healthcare.
Track this with me.
1. We in the USofA need healthcare for all.
2. The government creates an insurance program to cover many more of us than before its creation.
3. It still doesn’t touch the need—which is universal healthcare, not health insurance.
4. Not only that, but a whole lot of folks are financially gutted because it’s required.
Whoa, wait. What? Why? Or, no, maybe how is a better question? How in the hell does an insurance program address a dire need for universal healthcare? Can someone please ’splain me this?
No, really, I’m asking.
Dang, Benjamin Franklin was right. In 1786. 1786! Just in case you’re not adept at mental subtraction, and here I got out my trusty calculator, that’s 236 years ago!!! And we’re still doing the same old thing which is: using distraction to pretend to address the real issues while we ignore them. What?
And it will continue in this vein ad infinitum until some of us say, that’s enough. Okay, I’m sayin’ it. That’s enough. Let’s elect people who really want to touch, address, and solve the real problems, shall we?
&
On a lighter note, please howl like I did as writer CD Collins lays it out on lazy speech.
&
maryengelbreit My fiercest wish when I was little was to own a flying carpet. I was horrified to learn there was no such thing. I also thought butter came from tigers running so fast around and around trees that they melted. I was shocked to discover I would not, in fact, be able to marry Perry Como when I grew up because he would be an old man by then. So by the time I was 5 or 6, my life had been a series of crushing disappointments and eye-opening discoveries. Instead of caving into despair over the realization that real life was evidently not going to be remotely like the books I read or the thoughts I had, I decided to draw everything the way I wanted it to be. In fact, I turned that into my life’s work, and here we are. I get my magic carpet and you can get it, too—-on sale on the ol’ website. Link is in my bio👆https://www.instagram.com/p/CSHf59lLkCC/
Mary Engelbreit
on Instagram 8.4.21 with an image of a girl on a flying carpet
Mary Engelbreit is one of my heroes because she “decided to draw everything the way I wanted it to be.” The moment I read those words, my heart beamed with gladness. That is why I write what I write, especially in my fiction.
When I discovered metaphysics lo, those many years ago, I wanted to live as though the principles were true in my life. In fact, that’s exactly how I live now—by applied metaphysics. I use metaphysical ideas every day to bless my own life experience.
So do the characters in my novels. In The Mex Mysteries, my protagonist is an intuitive investigator. She earns her living with her intuition. In The Boots & Boas Romances, there’s a wicked intuitive psychologist named Verity Spencer. In my newest series (I just got the first book, Jezebel Rising, back from my editor!) The Subversive Lovelies, one of the four sisters lives metaphysics, which she learned from her father.
Like Mary Engelbreit, I write the world the way I want it to be.
It’s a world, always, of ampersand—a world of you and me, a world of we, a world that’s ours, a world that includes everyone and everything in it and on it.
I invite you sincerely to look for the first two series wherever ebooks are sold. Boots & Boas are also available in paperback. I’ll keep you posted about Jezebel Rising.
Happily, a friend encouraged me to issue a hardcover version of God’s Dictionary. That’s out now on Amazon.
I’m so happy that the Energy Integrity Workbooks are available on Amazon. Please consider this a standing invitation to jump into the world of managing your own energy through the chakras. You’ll be amazed at the difference the work makes to your everyday experience.
I’m up to my eyeballs in research for the second Subversive Lovelies called Jasmine Increscent, and can’t wait to begin writing.
Until next time, be &,
S.