Civics 101

Pretty Lady is disgusted. She is not disgusted about the self-evident racism embodied in this story; she has made her position on racism, she hopes, extremely clear. What disgusts her is the wilful, mulish, self-aggrandizing stupidity of the police department representative who could make this statement with a straight face:

“Where there are more police, expect more police action,” Major Levins said. “Some people think ‘I can just hang out with this gang member as long as I don’t do any crime.’ Well, expect to be talked to. We can’t ignore them. In fact, we kind of want to figure out the relationship between all these gang members and their associates.”

Let us leave alone the fact that it is difficult to have an open, productive, informative conversation with a person who has just been seized without provocation or warning and is face-down on the pavement with hands cuffed behind his back. This point, Pretty Lady feels, has been made. Not attended to, but made.

Pretty Lady must, however, answer this officer's implied question. Gang members in a community are the community authority. It is as simple, and as obvious, as that. Members of said community must deal with this authority in the exact same way that Pretty Lady must deal with a police officer who pulls her over because she was accelerating the teensiest little bit, not having seen the 'school zone' sign. One must be agreeable, and polite, and apologetic, if one does not wish for trouble. It is a universal paradigm.

A police officer who does not understand the community in which he is policing, enough to acknowledge its obvious structure, can never be the community authority, no matter how many innocent bystanders he throws to the pavement. He is not part of the community. He will not be attended to, he will not be obeyed, he will not be respected. He has no authority.

Duh.

Please Ignore This Woman

Pretty Lady specifically requests that all of her lovely adored readers do nothing at all to help an extremely special friend of hers, who requires a miniscule amount of financial assistance to solve a mimimal blunder that she inadvertantly performed while visiting and caring for a seriously ill friend in need.

No, this lovely lady does not deserve a second thought from any of you. She never thinks of herself; why should you? She is continually preoccupied with appreciating the underappreciated, understanding the misunderstood, defending the helpless and clarifying wrongs, so that they may be righted. These unimportant and self-indulgent activities are clearly deserving of no attention and support from the rest of us.

Although Pretty Lady has inside information which suggests that small contributions, in the two-digit range, from an equally small number of contributors, could completely alleviate the embarassments in which this beloved friend finds herself, she requests that you withhold your assistance. Particularly as making Paypal donations is so simple, rapid and painless.

For what, in the grand scheme of things, does it matter if a loving, generous, selfless, brave, insightful, stoic, kind, wise, brilliant soul loses the precious home for which she has striven a lifetime, for want of a small contribution from you? You will forget about it quickly. It won't bother you at all, after awhile. Go look at videos on YouTube; there! Forgotten already.

See how easy that was?

UPDATE: Not quite so miniscule. You see what Pretty Lady means about the insight.

Come the Stones

Pretty Lady has said it before, but unaccountably, no-one has stoned her. She suspects it is because they didn't believe her; or, more likely, they weren't paying attention. So she will say it again. Pretty Lady is racist. Racist, racist, racist. A veritable bigot. Prejudicial, jingoistic, agoraphobic, narrow-minded, unempathic, and uninterested in the problems of others.

Just so we're clear.

Perhaps the reason that no heavy, jagged objects have yet emerged through Pretty Lady's windows, despite the above confession, is that she lives in New York City. She has often noticed that native New Yorkers, of any color or creed, are up-front about their bigotry. Naive as she is, she had never heard the term 'towel-head,' used to describe a cab driver of Islamic extraction, before moving here. She had not been the subject of open contempt, due to her inferior goy nature, from a gentleman wearing a top hat and side curls. She was unaware that, in certain quarters, the expression 'stoopid f***ing Pollacks' is standard, particularly when referring to the wiring schemata of formerly Pole-occupied apartments.

Despite this pervasive racial pejoration, however, the streets of New York seem remarkably free of riots, marches, sit-ins and Unfortunate Incidents. In fact, in Pretty Lady's psychically sensitive experience, the level of Fraught Tension is considerably lower than her experience of the liberal, progressive, Consciousness Raised Bay Area, where she spent a good many of her formative years.

For in New York City, a group of young black males boarding the train is simply a group of young black males boarding the train. In the Bay Area, a group of young black males boarding the bus is an opportunity for all of us to Remain Calm, Now, and not get all anxious that this group of young men who are not necessarily thugs is about to Cause Trouble, no, we mustn't jump to conclusions, despite their downright aggressive demeanor, and the fact that one of them just swiped your wallet.

Indeed, in the liberal, progressive Bay Area, nobody is racist at all. Everybody has a black friend, an Asian friend, and a Hispanic friend, and they all walk down the street together. Everybody is exactly the same; the same age, the same socioeconomic bracket, with the same interests and pastimes and vegetarian tendencies. Only skin color varies. Everybody is bisexual, too.

(These liberal, progressive, homogeneous Bay Area attitudes are very stringently enforced; anybody who deviates from them by so much as a whisper, however misinterpreted, is universally ostracized without explanation and never mentioned again. Pretty Lady can't fathom how those Rodney King riots ever took place. )

Perhaps the reason that New York retains its veneer of abrasive intolerance is that in New York, there are simply too many races to keep track of. To be properly non-racist in New York, one would have to have an Ethiopian friend, a Nigerian friend, a Hasidic friend, a French friend, an Irish friend, an Orthodox friend, a Polish friend, a Russian friend, a Puerto Rican friend, an Ecuadoran friend, a Syrian friend, an Iranian friend, an Afghani friend, a Slovakian friend, a Cuban friend, a Japanese friend, a Chinese friend, a Filipino friend, a Thai friend, a Hindu friend, and an Indonesian friend. People's schedules are simply too busy for maintaining all these friends, not to mention the cost of all those language classes. It is much easier to remain insular and unenlightened.

Surprisingly, however, everybody gets along, most of the time. Perhaps this is because we all have to work so hard just to pay the rent. Economic desperation transcends mere bigotry; New Yorkers, by and large, are able to say "I don't like your kind, but maybe we can work together."

In fact, it is Pretty Lady's inchoate theory that 1) deep down, we are all racist, for the very good reason that survival of the species demands that we be wary of funny-looking strangers; and 2) racism suppressed does far more damage than racism openly and cheerfully expressed. When a person is busy defending herself against charges of bigotry, however justified, this allows little energy left over for actually getting to know people, in an open, honest, organic way.

Pretty Lady Has a Brilliant Insight

Hello sweeties! How long has it been! Pretty Lady's life is All Chaos, but she is nevertheless bringing order to it, particularly in the corners where the dust bunnies tend to collect. She is proud to report that several areas of Stagnant Energy in her household have been well and truly Cleared, and more shall be forthcoming. She cannot tell you the peace she feels, when walking into the walk-in closet and discovering that this is, in fact, possible.

(Confidentially, she is engaged in this de-stagnification process on account of her Gentleman Friend, who is taking the gargantuan step of Moving In. As she told him, one's own personal chaos may be marginally tolerable, but Chaos Squared is not. So a new era of Orderly Adulthood is dawning in our lives.)

However, Pretty Lady had to take a break from purging closets and packing Christmas ornaments for storage in order to share with you all her groundbreaking, revolutionary, life-changing Insight. This Insight, if properly understood by the majority, could save the world; at the very least it might preserve a number of arcane friendships. Listen closely:

A boundary is not the same thing as a judgment.

Pretty Lady must pause, here, to allow the ramifications of her genius to sink in. Then she must paraphrase herself:

Setting a personal boundary in no way implies that another person is being judged.

It is possible that some few of Pretty Lady's readers may not yet fully understand the wide-ranging implications of her statement. Thus, she must illustrate:

When Pretty Lady declines your very tempting invitation to: engage in a threesome with you and your dear husband; accept you as a full partner in her fledgling business plan; vote the way you do; subscribe to a similar theological philosophy; repeat nonsense syllables over and over in her head because you told her to; or any similar activity--she is wholly and merely declaring that such activities are not for her. She is not, by any stretch of the imagination, stating that you are a Bad Person for being polyamorous, casual with money, politically extremist, theologically rigid, or Buddhist. She is merely claiming personal sovereignty over territories wherein she is the undisputed expert--her own preferences--and leaving the territories of others entirely untouched.

Pretty Lady understands that to the six well-adjusted individuals upon this planet, this statement may come across as a complete tautology. You six were obviously born wise; let Pretty Lady alone to continue enlightening the rest.

There are many well-meaning persons that take the statement, 'Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged' a wee bit Too Far. Pretty Lady has been one of these persons in the past, which is why she knows. These persons can be spotted by their calm, understanding demeanor when their then-lover declares, "I'm going to travel through the world, leaving a trail of bastards behind me." They betray no hint of personal indignation when their desirability as a monogamous, committed mate is thus casually impugned; at least, not until they snap, and end up on the police blotter of the Post.

The trick is that these codependent little ladies are, indeed, judging someone. They are judging themselves. They are judging themselves for, deep down, not particularly liking the idea of casual abandonment by cavalier impregnator. Thus, in remaining silent, in failing to state their preference for a more reliable brand of mate, they are desecrating their own souls in the name of non-judgment.

Similarly, persons of a more rigid bent may choose to follow every Biblical law to the letter, except for the abovementioned exhortation. They, subscribing wholesale to a transcendent Moral Law, feel perfectly comfortable in excoriating others for failing to do the same. That is the definition of 'transcendent,' isn't it? 'Transcendent'='Applies to everyone'?

Pretty Lady's reply: No. Not in that way.

Because in order to transcend the individual self, one must first differentiate. That is, one must set a boundary. 'All is One' does not mean 'We are all the same.' It most particularly does not mean 'We are all the same, and if you are not the same as me, then obviously there is something incorrigibly wrong with you, which must either be immediately altered, or eliminated completely.'

Thus, in order to attain the inner Peace which passeth all understanding, it is first necessary to know oneself, and to be fine with that. Then one may begin to know others, and be fine with them, too.

This is 'Politicians Are Disgusting' Week

Pretty Lady asks you to watch this video.

She then asks: Why was the gentleman arrested before he was asked, courteously and decisively, to be brief?

Why did the arresting officers feel a need to pull a gun on an obviously unarmed gentleman, when he was already outnumbered four to one?

Why does a former Presidential candidate have insufficient presence of mind, ethical clarity and personal charisma to request that the police desist from brutalizing the person with whom he is currently conversing?

Why do some citizens of this country feel that it is Irrational and Out Of Line to resist, when a group of police officers come up out of nowhere and attempt to cart you off to who knows where, for no reason, while in the midst of an interesting and non-violent conversation?

Why do the vast, vast majority of citizens of this country sit passively by while the police randomly brutalize an individual in their midst?

Pretty Lady must repeat herself: icky-poo.

Icky-poo

Pretty Lady has been telling you and telling you. Rudy Giuliani is No Good. Although she perfectly understands the reasons that a Career Politician might forgo the opportunity to inform himself about crucial matters affecting his potential constituency, in order to scoop up a few hundred thousand grand, that doesn't mean she approves of it. But what really chaps her hide is that this person is totally unable to perceive an ethical paradigm which does not include the arbitrary Taking of Sides and doing egoistic battle unto the death to defend them, right or wrong:

When the group's report came out last December, Giuliani offered a different reason why he quit, saying he didn't think it was right for an active presidential candidate to take part in such an "apolitical" panel. Giuliani also took pains at the time to distance himself from some of the group's findings.

In other words, Truth and Justice and Appropriate Action mean nothing to this man; Presidential Candidates, in his stated opinion, must avoid such dangerous things.

Pretty Lady Needs No More Vacation

She has had Plenty. And it has been splendid; the up-close tickets for 'Wicked,' the strolls in the Botanical Garden, the fancy Birthday Party, the trip Up North for the annual Apple Fling. Splendid. Excellently so.

And now Pretty Lady is home, and the bills are overdue, and the landlord cashed the rent check and forgot to write it down, so she has to go through all her bank statements to prove she paid it, and she is facing suspension at the food co-op, and her clients have probably found other bodyworkers by now, and she cannot get into the closet, and the front door lock needs either a locksmith or a good dose of WD-40, and Pretty Lady is so stressed out that she just read every letter to the editor at Salon instead of getting down to work.

Enough vacation is enough. Please kick Pretty Lady in the behind.

Art Blog Update

Pretty Lady, happily accompanied by a Surge of Inspiration, has updated her Art Blog, after an unconscionable silence. She was hoping to be able to unveil her splendid new Website as well, but the Cascading Style Sheet issue has utterly confounded her. So she is giving you darlings a Sneak Preview. Cheerio!

Daniel McGowan Update

Long-time readers of Pretty Lady's may recall that she has expressed concern for a gentleman in her community who was Disappeared for alleged 'eco-terrorism.' Although she is still less than pleased with the method in which his arrest and detention was handled, she is most impressed with the manner in which the gentleman has taken responsibility for his actions:

This plea agreement is very important to me, because it allows me to accept full responsibility for my actions and at the same time remain true to my strongly held beliefs.

I hope that you will see that my actions were not those of terrorist but of a concerned young person who was deeply troubled by the destruction of Oregon's beautiful old-growth forests and the dangers of genetically modified trees. After taking part in these two actions, I realized that burning things down did not fit with my visions or belief about how to create a better world. So I stopped committing these crimes.

This last year has been a very trying time for my family and I would like to extend my deepest love, admiration and appreciation to them for standing by me through a very difficult time. I would also like to apologize to the workers of the companies I targeted. I never intended to hurt people, so when I read about things like family photos being destroyed, I felt great remorse. I am truly sorry for the harm that I caused.

Your Honor, after May of 2001, I put myself back on the path of open and positive activism. Since then I have focused on helping victims of domestic violence, campaigning for the environment, and advocating for prisoners. While my commitment to pursuing a better world has not and will not change, I have changed the way I am pursuing those goals. My agreement with Mr. Paul, Mr. Block and Ms. Zacher to come together and resolve this case by taking responsibility for what we did is an important step in moving forward to have what I hope will be a positive impact on my community.

On the Obsolescence of Religion

Religion, Pretty Lady has it on excellent authority, is Obsolete. All those religious people out there should just stop their silliness, already.

You heard Pretty Lady. Just give it up.

Pretty Lady was terribly relieved to hear this, because now that human society and culture have transcended the need for transcendence, we will all get along just ducky. There will be no more wars, no more Hard Times, and no more disease, death, and devastation. Science, she has been assured, will take care of all that.

Yes, Science, defined as 'a method of empirical research into the qualities and functions of the physical universe, which involves the formulation and testing of falsifiable hypotheses,' has solved every single problem confronting the average human being. Should a benighted human need guidance, consolation, or a bulwark against Despair, this person need merely to apply to the nearest library, where all the information he ever wanted to know regarding quantum physics is readily available.

Of course, there will be no more need for consolation, because nobody ever loses loved ones through death anymore; neither do they fear their own deaths. Science has cured it! Similarly, Science has managed to perfectly balance the global economy, so that not a single person ever goes hungry, unsheltered or unclothed, and is never late on the rent because they own their own homes, free and clear!

And when we get into conflicts with our neighbor, Science comes in and sternly tells us to stop it. There is no reason to complain, because Science has made us all happy, happy, happy.

No, there is no need anymore to maintain a state of mindless Faith that no matter how black things appear, we need not succumb to the paralysis of Despair. Science has answered every hope we could possibly imagine. It has brought peace to our hearts, money to our wallets and love to our homes. It has brought kindness and understanding to the bitterest and most foolish of souls; it has amended inequality everywhere. It has caused complete surcease of sorrow, of pain, of agony.

So, darlings, if any of you has a problem that Science cannot solve, you are merely Delusional. Pretty Lady rather suspects that you are even Not That Bright. She might go so far as to say that you need a remedial course in Basic Logic; at any road, you are not her problem. She has no problems. Science has taken them away.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

Nightmares

Pretty Lady didn't get much sleep last night. The news that the government has taken to stealing babies in the U.K., sometimes even before birth, upset her so profoundly that she flailed around and hallucinated that, in some mysterious way, the mosquito that made it into her bedroom was in some way intimately connected with the rise of totalitarianism in one of her favorite countries. Truly, it is horrible.

Furthermore, she is finding herself confronted, yet again, with the dismal fact that persons in her own field, who should know better, are still subscribing to the hopeless cant of that bastard Karl, in a shallow and self-righteous denial of Obvious Reality. So, wearily, Pretty Lady shall take it on herself to illustrate why religion and opiates have nothing in common, in the light of their relative effects upon the proletariat.

Now. First, a show of hands: how many of you darlings have been close friends with a heroin addict? Please? Pretty Lady does not actively avoid persons who make habitual use of opium-based narcotics, but the trouble is that these individuals are not particularly friendly, in the usual sense of the word. They will engage you in conversation in order to extract money from you, of course, but largely they tend to be Poor Listeners. And their follow-through is nil.

In fact, the singular hallmark of opiate addiction is that the individual concerned progressively jettisons every value apart from his or her relationship with the drug. One friend commented, "N. would never be able to love me back; heroin would always take first place." Persons who lived in Desperate Ghettos would tell stories about junkies so stoned that when apprehended for theft by a man on a bicycle, they would make a dead-eyed grab for the bicycle, while actually in custody. "Man, I need this shit!" was their pathetic cry. Junkies are notorious for child neglect, impotence, and Living in Squalor.

Because heroin, as they say, kills the soul. One may know a true junky by the fact that they have no light in their eyes.

Now, Pretty Lady grants that the more infantile of the religious set can occasionally be annoying. She grants that they may talk a lot, and that they are not always the best of listeners. But she submits to you that this sort of thing is a symptom of immaturity, far more than religiosity; furthermore, that whatever their failings as individuals, these people are engaged. They take their responsibilities seriously, as parents, spouses, providers, and members of the community. The fact that they subscribe to a system of rules governing their relations with others has an expansive affect on the mind, rather than a contractive one.

The fact is, darlings, that the notion that religion, in and of itself, anaesthetizes the mind to the perception of social injustice is a lot of rot. Religion does nothing of the sort. It merely alerts the mind to the fact that materialism is not the be-all and end-all of existence, and thank goodness for that! We are then free to seek increased social justice without the burden of Total Responsibility, for whether or not it is clear to us, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

For it has not escaped Pretty Lady's observation that when society as a whole attempts to equalize itself in a materialistic context, without faith in a Larger Pattern, disaster occurs. Our egoistic selves go into a neurotic panic and start seizing babies, attempting to impose Cosmic Justice from the point of view of an ant.

On a tangential note, an individual from over at Edward's has attempted to challenge Pretty Lady to a debate, in a display of jejune optimism. Pretty Lady must inform this gentleman that the term 'ego,' in a spiritual sense, can be defined as 'the perception of self as separate from the whole'; in this context, transcending the ego, through spiritual discipline, to perceive one's Self as unified with the Whole, is the precise and definitive opposite of 'fetishization of the ego.'

This is elementary.

Do not flee! Pretty Lady Lives!

As is, perhaps, obvious, Pretty Lady has been messing with her template. Through no fault of her own, some of her links got lost, as well as her Finetune playlist and her Rent Fund button; if anyone is heartbroken to discover that their link is not among the rescued, please do not hesitate to sound the alarm. Bear in mind, however, that if your blog has not been updated since May, Pretty Lady axed you of her own accord.

Truthfully, Pretty Lady feels a bit self-conscious in here! She wonders how an absence of cloying pinkness will affect her style.

Note, additionally, that Pretty Lady has found another ad sponsor; one with enough sense and practicality to dispense with Puritanical hypocrisy, and support Pretty Lady uncensored. She hates to be crass about it, but One Must Eat. And one may even get free chips! Enjoy!

The Definition of Community

Pretty Lady had no idea things had gotten so bad. Well, that is disingenuous. She knew things were bad; what she did not know is that they were so bad, people are unaware of just how bad they are.

Pretty Lady is aware that she is not making any sense.

It seems, dear friends, that the social isolation among Americans is now so severe, that ordinary Americans are no longer able to comprehend the term 'social isolation.' Pretty Lady has often noticed the tendency of the mind to enter a self-protective state of Denial under conditions of severe stress; it is though mental parameters are automatically re-arbitrated to accommodate scarcity. Certainly when she addressed the matter, tangentially, in discussion, it seemed to her as though the waves of unwarranted, ignorant abuse which spewed forth in her direction contained more than a note of irrational hysteria.

Now, darlings. Calm down. Do not concern yourselves; Pretty Lady has plenty of friends. Having friends is not what she is talking about, when she uses the term 'community.' Any person who equates 'community' with 'friendship' has obviously never lived in one. Because the definition of 'community,' in realistic terms, is 'living in circumstances where one is physically unable to avoid persons that one absolutely cannot stand.'

It is Small Wonder, then, that hedonistic American society should have evolved in such a manner as to geographically minimize encounters with objects of personal loathing. In the words of one of Pretty Lady's Californian ex-friends, 'we just don't need that.' If someone offends us with their looks, attitude, personality, religion, odor, sense of humor, personal style, social class, or choice of romantic partners, we simply drop the acquaintance. And this is facilitated by an architectural structure which ensures that we need never come face to face with an unapproved specimen of humanity in the entire course of our existence.

Not so, when a person lives in a town which was constructed before the invention of the automobile. Such places dispense with such luxuries as garages, lawns, detached dwellings of all kinds, cubicles, and air-conditioning. They are big on Narrow Alleyways, Communal Plazas, and Rampant Gossip. A person should not attempt to live in such a place unless he or she is prepared to have the most intimate details of his or her private life Bandied About; not only this, but one must be prepared to confront the purveyors of Slanderous Lies about oneself, face to face, when one least expects it.

Oh, the stories Pretty Lady could tell.

One thing she notices, regarding the tragic dearth of true community in the U.S. of A., it that it enables us to remain, mentally and emotionally, in the third grade for the majority of our adult lives. Thus, when such a stunted American is transplanted to an expatriate colony, this person is highly likely to embarrass herself.

Okay, Pretty Lady will tell you a story.

Once upon a time, she was meeting Sophia for lunch. They met in Café Dada, of course. When Pretty Lady arrived, Sophia remarked, "Katia is joining us."

Pretty Lady said, "Hi, Katia!"

Katia said, "I hate you, Pretty Lady."

"Does this mean we're not going to have lunch?" responded Pretty Lady.

"Oh yes," said Katia. "We live in the same town."

(Of course, there was a Backstory to this encounter. There always is. Suffice it to say that when the gentleman with the curly hair and the tuxedo invited Pretty Lady to go biking after the symphony, she had no idea that Katia even knew him, much less that she was nursing an obsessive and unrequited passion for him. And Katia didn't let on either, until, all of a sudden, she snapped.)

And this fracas was the result. "I do not wish to have lunch with someone who hates me," Pretty Lady declared. "That is my boundary."

Katia unleashed a stream of rather horrible invective, which distorted her features alarmingly; Pretty Lady grabbed a quiescent Sophia by the hand and fled. Katia pursued them through several alleyways, like a rabid lapdog, until they finally shook her.

The word on the street was that Pretty Lady must be a lesbian; she was holding hands with Sophia all over town. Also that later that day, Katia accosted the curly-haired gentleman in front of the Teatro Principal and accused him of raping her, two years earlier, more or less.

Such fun!

The moral of this story is this: if we are not confronted with our Nemeses on a daily basis, we do not develop the strength of mind and character to deal with them. We fail to understand exactly how crazy these people are; we continue to attribute a modicum of controlled rationality to their actions, instead of viewing them in all their lunatic glory, year after year.

When a person lives thus cheek-by-jowl with village idiots, however, she learns, gradually, a certain compassion for the Human Condition. She learns that Gretchen will undoubtedly tell the entire town that she is a filthy pig with a kleptomania problem, but that this is okay because the entire town knows that Gretchen is a mendacious, amnesiac narcissist. She learns not to take it personally when Larry yells at her, because everybody knows that Larry has Anger Issues, exacerbated by a glandular disorder. She learns that Joel is an alcoholic, Anna is a misanthrope and that the gentleman with the curly hair is a compulsive womanizer.

And she learns that this is all okay; that people do not have to be Perfect to be integral members of Society. In fact, that there is no such thing as Perfect. And what a relief that is.

Pretty Lady Heartily Concurs

It may surprise the Radical Feminist contingent that Pretty Lady has no quarrel with the actions, or lack thereof, of a feminist lady who declines to participate in Forced Debate:

I was recently informed by a friend, via a note passed to me at a party after I had reacted negatively (or, as he explained, like a chihuahua) to some sexist comment he made, that feminists are “bored and abused” chauvinists who have nothing better to do than to attack men and that I should not let anti-woman words have any kind of power over me. To be offended by misogyny is my choice and to do so makes me weak, apparently. (Now there’s a topic for another day).

And because I did not want to hear the same defensive, woman-hating bullshit that I’ve heard a thousand times by yet another man who claims absolute wisdom and righteousness in all matters human, I stopped reading about halfway through and gave the note back to him. I was then told that, by not being open to his opinions about feminism, I am essentially unwilling to grow and evolve and that I will tragically fail to achieve in my life the full and rich human experience because I refused to give credence to and appreciate his anti-feminist viewpoint.

Pardon Pretty Lady's editing; it seemed that this rightfully angry lady expended excess energy on fundamentally irrelevant topics.

For, whatever one's professed political or ideological affiliations, religion, ethnicity, or sexual preference, the fact remains that a person is never under the obligation to submit to unsolicited insults in a social situation, full stop. The male person in question behaved in a manner which is unquestionably Rude. The rules of polite society do not, and have never, demanded that such a person be treated with patient respect, or accorded an additional jot of one's time after the initial insult has been recorded.

I know I’m supposed to 1) nod thoughtfully as I process your wisdom, asking clarifying questions about your points just in case I don’t immediately understand something you say, and then 2) offer up some powerful and intelligent argument on why feminism is important, and then 3) try to prove my point with examples from women in politics and a few stories about my grandmother, but of course, in the end, 4) concede that yes, you have some very good points that I will certainly think about

Dear feminist lady, this is a lovely description of a most excellent conversation that a person has with a dear friend whom she respects and wishes to understand better, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the two of you do not see eye to eye upon certain issues. A person who passes you an insulting note at a party does not fall into this category. Therefore there is no social code requiring you to engage in such a conversation, and there never has been.

For it never ceases to astonish Pretty Lady, the way persons continually re-invent the wheel of Common Courtesy, complete with excessively self-justifying gyrations, based upon some passionate ideology or other. The rules of etiquette are not there to establish the innate superiority of those who follow them, to disempower others, or deny anyone a voice; they are there solely and entirely to assist radically different persons to coexist without killing one another. And Pretty Lady dismisses out of hand any ideologist who does not subscribe to this fundamental principle.

So, to recapitulate the obvious: Making racist, sexist, or homophobic remarks is Rude. Making derogatory remarks about a person's religion, or lack thereof, is Rude. Making statements which deride the members of any particular political party, as a whole, is Rude. Providing unsolicited advice is Rude.

When a person makes a Rude remark, the only necessary response is a cold, 'I beg your pardon?' accompanied by a steely gaze. If the Rude person in question chooses to acknowledge his offense and apologize, well and good. If not, you may ignore his existence without compuction.

Comparative Religion Pontification

TL has called Pretty Lady on her habit of blithely mixing and matching her spiritual philosophies:

Buddhism has a concept of non-atman, no individual soul.

With the non-atman concept how, who, what re-incarnates and carries Karma?

Chris, of course, spots the Fundamental Flaw in this question:

Karma as you mean it -- probably -- is a Hindu concept, not a Buddhist one. So you're mixing your religions.

Which might very well be the end of the discussion. But you all know Pretty Lady too well to hope that it will be.

For not only is TL mixing religions, this dear befuddled person is conflating the esoteric and the exoteric. Which is an exceptionally dangerous mistake.

(Pretty Lady asks that all you dear people please ignore the Wikipedia entry on the term 'esoteric.' We are, truly, living in degenerate times.)

'Esoteric,' in the context of religion, has to do with inner experience, specifically that of the enlightened mind, trained by extensive spiritual discipline of one type or another. There is nothing 'obscure' about it at all; it is a mere uncovering of the fundamental, unoccluded experiential truth of existence. It cannot be written down, only directly observed.

'Exoteric,' on the other hand, is all about the stories we tell, to attempt to communicate one small part of this experiential truth, rather in the manner of the blind men and the elephant. These stories are usually about exciting and wildly improbable things such as elephants standing on turtles, virgin births, and profligate wastrels sitting under trees. As dear Kenny Wilber says, "Exoteric religions are all different; esoteric religions are essentially the same." Pretty Lady would amend that to state that the myths of each religion are unique, but that the good ones do seem to converge in their abstract principles.

Pretty Lady will leave it in the capable hands of obsessive, fundamentalist fanatics to argue about the literal truth of exoteric mythologies. What concerns her is: are these stories descriptive of some observable truth, on some level? And if so, what is the best way to translate them to one's audience in a way which will be locally understood? For rarely is there a one-to-one correllation of symbols and concepts, when mapping relative world-views.

For example, Pretty Lady was ranting and raving about Karmic Consequences once, while embroiled in a situation involving a young Turk of a landlord and the precipitate eviction of the young family downstairs, on fifteen days' notice, in the middle of winter. Her Brooklynite friend remarked: "You don't talk about 'karma' in Brooklyn. You just tell him, 'What goes around, comes around.'"

Which is, when one thinks about it, obvious.

Thus, in response to TL's question: The concept of 'non-atman' is about as esoteric as one gets. It is an attempt to convey the essential unity of everything, on the level of Spirit, as the Western mind might phrase it. The perceived ability of Spirit to arrange itself into seemingly autonomous clumps of thought, sensation and activity is taken as read; after all, here we are.

Similarly, the concept of 'karma' in no way contradicts this essential unity, when one reflects that if All is One, there is no getting away from oneself. We may, for convenience' sake, choose to claim an isolate autonomy for a period of time, but when what one does unto others is consistently done unto oneself, over a period of millennia, this fiction of autonomy becomes a bit tedious to maintain.

Etiquette question

Pretty Lady has received an etiquette question! She could not be more thrilled. Moreover, it is quite an easy one!

I was pulling in to the local 7-11 when I saw a man sitting in his Mercedes with the window down. I watched as he casually tossed the lid of his ice cream container out the window onto the asphalt.

What should I have done?

In this situation, you of course park, run eagerly up to the gentleman, scoop up the object he has lost, and say, "Excuse me, you dropped something!" You then restore his precious possession with a smile, waving away his thanks.

Very disappointed

Pretty Lady was all prepared to be thrilled and impressed with the evident skills development of certain Nigerian 419 fraudsters--this website seemed to her an absolutely masterful fake. Complete with flawless French language skills (as far as she can tell), sophisticated design, great breadth of scope, and even extensive video coverage! For a moment, she had hope for the eventual gainful employability of our Nigerian brothers and sisters.

Sadly, it seems that our confidence friends have taken the principle of 'work smarter, not harder' to extremes. They have simply co-opted the Fondation de France website, not created it from scratch. Furthermore, their hopeless lack of sophistication is evident in their very grandiosity of vision; Pretty Lady has had enough experience of philanthropic organizations to know that there is no way any one of them will ever offer her a two-and-a-half million dollar grant for any reason, even if she had actually wasted a hundred hours of her life applying for one. Philanthropic organizations take, rather, the role of LeeAnn Flood playing "Mother" in a third-grade game of "Mother May I?":

'Quiet little girl, take one teeny-weeny baby-step forward.'

'Mother may I?'

'No, you may not.'

'Most popular girl in class, take ten giant steps forward.'

'MOTHER MAY I?'

'Yes, you may.'

Pretty Lady is certain that LeeAnn Flood is now firmly ensconced in the Development department of a major cultural organization.

The Soul Continues

Chris re-poses the Ultimate Question:

I may not have sovereignty over my nervous system -- my brain. I may not have control of my thoughts or feelings. This is the case in narcissism or depression or any number of other illnesses.

I may not have sovereignty over my body. This is the case for everyone. You get sick, you age, you die. It's especially pronounced in cases of disease, like cancer, where your own cells rebel and try to kill you.

But, you say, I'm have sovereignty over my soul. What's that? If it's not my body and it's not my nervous system, what is it? What control do I have over it? What can I do with it? How does that help me take responsibility for healing myself if I can't think properly or walk properly?

In short: If depression destroys who I am, how am I to be held responsible for anything? I'm not even there any more.

Now, Chris, you have slacked on your study of Buddhist philosophy. Of course you do not have control over your thoughts or feelings, or body or nervous system. What you do have--and literally thousands of years of study have established this--is the ability to watch them.

Gracious. Have you, Chris, never heard of the basic Vipanassa meditation, "I have a body, but I am not my body"? "I have emotions, but I am not my emotions"? "I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts"? This is elementary!

Your fundamental Zen meditation, moreover, is the question you have just implicitly asked, "Who am I?" If you have the capacity to observe the agitations of your brain, your body, your nervous system, your emotions, then obviously your Self must transcend all of these things.

Now, of course this capacity to observe, like any other skill, must be practiced. The assumption that we are our bodies, that we must completely identify with every passing thought or feeling, takes a good long time to overturn, when we have grown up in a culture which does not question it. Thoughts and feelings are enormously powerful. But they are as waves in the ocean; the ocean itself is another thing entirely.

Lest any of you start ranting and raving about Primitive Superstitions, Godless Barbarians or Alien Mindsets, let Pretty Lady hasten to add that both modern quantum physics and modern neuroscience are beginning to converge upon this viewpoint:

That acts of the mind affect biology is firmly established in research that is still in its early stages, but the research has enormous therapeutic implications. “Most of that work has looked at the immune system and found many positive changes in it,” says Smalley. “We are going to do empirically sound studies that look at how mindfulness causes changes in the brain.”

One of the experts in this field is Jeffrey Schwartz, a research professor at NPI whose work has shown how positive thinking can permanently alter neural pathways. “A change in perspective is a uniquely human capacity, and the regular paying of attention determines not only how the brain works but also how genes express themselves,” he says. This power, adds Schwartz, can be demonstrated by the “Quantum Zeno Effect,” named after the Greek philosopher Zeno and introduced into science by a group of physicists in 1977.

The phenomenon means that a simple act of observation freezes a quantum system — brain activity, for instance — and suppresses certain transitions to other states, including gene expression. “Quantum physics asserts that all causation does not lie in matter,” says Schwartz. “Physics doesn’t integrate this with the brain, but we’re bringing a new form of causation to science. It’s a major paradigm shift of Copernican magnitude.”

So, in answer to your question, "What is the soul?" Pretty Lady hazards the hypothesis that the soul is the part of you which transcends the physical and the temporal; we postulate its existence based upon overwhelming empirical evidence that the mind does not appear to be bound by these things.

In short, to begin the process of healing, the only thing a person must do is to pay attention. Belief is not required; control is not required. You are There, Chris. All that is required is that you notice.

Miracle Burn Cure

Pretty Lady just has to share this with you.

Yesterday, she took it into her head to try the recipe for Italian Peasant Bread, provided by a lovely rural lady who had her to dinner last week. It all went swimmingly, until Pretty Lady thoughtlessly grabbed the lid to the Dutch oven, carefully pre-heated to 450 degrees as per the recipe, with her bare hand.

Her Gentleman Friend, studying in the next room, heard the scream.

Pretty Lady, of course, is not a Wimp or a Whiner, no sirree. But her livelihood depends upon having a set of hands which are intact, capable, and free of running sores. A 450-degree-pot-lid burn upon her index finger and thumb is not a Good Thing, in Pretty Lady's precarious existence.

Fortunately, while running her injured hand under the tap, she remembered the incident of her 10th birthday party, wherein her beloved little sister leaned up against the barbeque and took the skin off her forearm. She commanded her Gentleman Friend, "Fetch me an egg white."

For the next few hours, Pretty Lady soaked her hand in raw organic egg whites, withdrawing it occasionally to wave it around and blow on it, forming an airtight skin of dried egg white over the throbbing weal.

And lo, by the time she and her Gentleman friend departed to view the new Harry Potter movie in IMax 3-D, there was no more throbbing weal; no blister, no redness, no pain, no peeling. Pretty Lady is competent to resume work this morning.

Advertisers Take Offense

Well, Pretty Lady has never experienced such hypocrisy in all her days. Google Ads have taken their marbles and stomped off of Pretty Lady's playground, because her Content offends them. Never mind that Sex Sells; that ads of all stripe may be viewed as blatant softcore pornography in these degenerate days. No, Google Ads is pure as the driven snow, and will not stoop to consort with a lady who gives sensible clean sex tips to good Christian families.

Pretty Lady will not bow down to such tactics; her site will remain true to her principles. She will discuss anything she likes, and will not alter her past pronouncements one jot. So if you like what Pretty Lady has to say, please feel free to hit her Rent Fund button, and/or suggest to her an ad company which is not so finicky.

UPDATE: Really, there is something Extremely Fishy about this. The element of Pretty Lady's site that Google objects to had been in existence for well over a year before they objected; they gave her three days to remove it, or else. Now Pretty Lady hears that this is happening to other sites as well, most notably one which supplies graphs, a more un-sexy topic than which she is hard put to think. And Morris suspects a 'wowser' of reporting her, which is also very, very strange.

Is this--Pretty Lady asks, quite seriously--the beginnings of Stealth Sharia Law?