Time in our hands

Saturday night was the start of Daylight Savings Time. This meant that we set our clocks forward an hour, which meant we lost an hour, an hour of sleep. I’ve always hated this, and every year I gripe and say I look forward to getting my hour back in the Fall. I even went to bed an hour early on Saturday night, but I still ended up groggy.

I remember one year the beginning of Daylight Savings Time fell on Easter, and I wondered with amusement about all those people who found themselves getting up even earlier - an hour earlier - for sunrise services.

This year, I had at least one more question than usual about this annual time-changing. Why was it on the second Sunday of the month this time? This seemed so random. And who picked it? For as long as I can remember, Daylight Savings Time has started or ended - I get my blessed hour back! - on the first or last Sunday of a month. This any-Sunday stuff really has me going!

Last year, I was away for the first weekend of March, and I completely forgot about Daylight Savings Time starting. If it was not for my friend’s iPhone making a big scene, I would probably have missed meeting on Sunday morning. Someone always forget about the time-change, and this will no doubt happen even more with random Sundays.

Another weird thing is that I seem to be the only person I know who likes Standard Time more than Daylight Savings Time. And, no, this isn’t about the lost hour of sleep. Everyone says they like it when it when it stays light in the evening, that they get depressed when "it gets dark so early." But I like it when it gets dark around dinnertime, like it’s supposed to, although it was a bit much when I lived in London for a year, and it got dark around 4 in the winter.

I think this is really about the weather. I don’t like the long, very hot summer here, and the start of Daylight Savings Time means that it is coming, and the end of Daylight Savings Time means that cool weather is here. Indeed, this week, the temperature has suddenly gone way up, and, although I’ve been enjoying these warm days with clear blue skies, bright green grass and snow-capped mountains not far off, I know that it will get much hotter before long.

Then there’s the whole thing about messing around with time. It has always freaked me out a bit that we can change the universe just by changing our clocks. Is time really that much of a man-made construct? Also, I used to try to get a picture of how all this works, of how changing the clock makes it get dark later or not changing the clock makes me late. And what about states, like Arizona, that don’t change their clocks? Are they off, or are we?

Finally, if the purpose of Daylight Savings Time is to save energy by having it light in the evening, and if we need to save energy so badly, why not have Daylight Savings Time all the time - and stop fooling around with it? Time, that is.

The more they know

Yes, as we have been reminded of this week in California, there are gay legislators who push for anti-gay laws, and there are those like Pete Knight, who wrote Proposition 22, banning same-sex marriage, despite having a gay son. However, I do think that it is correct that more people support gay rights, because more people know GLBT people.

I see this all the time when it comes to disability - people tuning into disability issues and rights when they know someone who is disabled or when they become disabled - and it is more often than not dramatic and moving. Take what happened when I was at the Post Office yesterday.

I was buying stamps, and the clerk who helped me was a guy who has been there for years. He has always been nice enough but a bit brusque. Just doing his job. Dealing with people, including people like me.

As he was assisting me with getting out my cash, he asked me if I know what Bell’s Palsy is.

I said I did, wondering what was up. Did he think I have Bell’s Palsy instead of Cerebral Palsy?

"I was out with it for three months last year." He must have seen that I was still looking for a point, because he quickly added, "The point is that I really admire you, John. I got a tiny idea of what you go through every day."

Sure, maybe he was being patronizing, but I think - or like to think - he was too much of a man changed for that. He did say that he had only a "tiny idea."

I’m thinking we might get somewhere if everyone was disabled or gay or something for three months.

Time to stop hiding behind the signs

My Quaker meeting marching in a gay pride parade. Imagine that.

This was, literally, the challenge given when a friend of mine, a gay man who attends another meeting not too far away and who is very active in the unprogrammed Quaker community, gave a presentation at my meeting last Sunday. I had asked him to speak on GLBT issues and Quakers just over a year ago when we attended a national gathering of queer Quakers.

He didn’t give the talk I had in mind, but it was the richer and more powerful. He spoke of accompanying someone through a hard or challenging time and how it can be both very difficult and very rewarding. He spoke of helping friends and his sister as they went through the process of dying, and he spoke of assisting me several years ago to get to a gathering in a rural area in another state.

My friend pointed out that it is important to be open to the other’s experiences and feelings and not to presume to know what s/he is going through. Also important is being patient with the other’s anger and frustrated and not to take it personally.

What my friend did so marvelously was to relate all this to how Quakers can embrace GBLT people. He talked about not only supporting but being an ally to queer friends in their struggle for validation and equal rights. He mentioned that, as in many cases of accompanying, this involves recognizing privilege and moving beyond it. For example, it is important to see that, in sharp contrast to a common argument, a straight couple’s marriage is devalued when a gay couple isn’t allowed to marry.

My friend stressed that it isn’t enough for Quakers to say, as my meeting does in minutes deep in our files, that GLBT people are equal and that they can marry. He said that Quakers need to "hang out there" with queer folks.

As in a gay pride parade. And not as individuals but as a meeting. And with a sign proclaiming our name. (My friend mentioned that this would be ten times more powerful than a gay church, like the Metropolitan Community Church, being in the parade.)

I’ve been saying something like this for a while. The way I put it is that Quakers have been hiding behind their "No on Proposition 8" signs (referring to California’s initiative banning same-sex marriage) and behind their minutes. It’s time for Quakers to stop hiding and to come out.

Giving into the T.V

Last night, I recorded a television program. Not only that, I was able to watch another program at the same time.

To say the least, I am thrilled. Even as I am grumbling - if not kicking and screaming.

Faithful readers know that I haven’t been able to do this for about nine months. It would have been a year, except that the government delayed the switch to digital T.V from February to June when so many people had trouble with it. They also know I haven’t been able to record at all since September when I bought a digital television after going through two converter boxes with which my ability to record was severely limited, and I certainly couldn’t record a program while watching another. What’s more, I haven’t even been about to watch D.V.D’s and videos, because I wasn’t getting sound with my V.C.R.

Yes, faithful readers know all about my railing. I proclaimed that it’s totally unfair that the powers-that-be took away my ability to do something. At least for free. Indeed, after months of looking, asking people, paying for advice, thinking, whining and even making a misguided purchase and returning it, I realized that if I want to record, I have to pay. At the very least, I needed a D.V.R (about $375 - more than what I paid for the T.V), plus a monthly service. I also griped about not wanting hundreds of channels, sports, movies and whatever.

This weekend, I stopped whining and had DirecTV installed. I got the cheapest package, and I think it’s a good deal. After paying $20 for the professional installation (the guy also fixed the wiring on my V.C.R, so I can now watch D.V.Ds and videos with sound), I’m paying about $41 a month, and it includes a D.V.R. I need to call, as I was instructed by the very nice, understanding and helpful man who took my order, and cancel Showtime, the one cable channel in the package, before the free three months expire.

What’s more, I really like the features. Not just that I can record, including while I watch another program. It lists the actual T.V programs, and I just click on a program to record it. No more time-setting, etc. Pretty cool. And no doubt there’s more cool stuff that I may or may not discover or use.

But, as happy as I am with what I got, I still, in addition to wondering if I’ll be able to afford this, as good as the deal is, feel like I’ve sold out, given in. I’m still pissed off that I now have to pay to be able something that I used to be able to do for free. I still say that this is terribly unfair, and I wonder if other low-income people are stuck with regular T.V and no recording.

And here’s another thing I can bitch about now: I’ll be spending more time watching T.V!

Going back to take back Jesus

"Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning
Our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!"

Hearing this song - let alone singing it - took me way back. I’m talking way, way back. They didn’t even sing "Holy, Holy, Holy" in the Catholic church when I was a young teenager. They sang it there when I was a little boy, when my parents felt I was old enough to take to Mass. I’m talking my Grandma’s Catholic church.

And this was the second time in recent months that the song was being sung. It was quite a jolt for me, after years of being at home in a silent, universalistic, unprogrammed Quaker meeting and even with me being as Christo-centric as I tend to be.

What was even more jolting was that the song was being sung, full-throated and whole-heartedly, by a room full of GLBTQ folks. Make that a church full of GLBTQ folks. Lead by a very out and very strong lesbian pastor.

I have been visiting - "sojourning," as I announced to my meeting - at a Metropolitan Community Church, and it has been quite eye-opening, to say the very least.

Moving is more like it - powerfully so. I have written several posts here about Jesus and his message of radical love and inclusiveness, of loving the other and even one’s enemies, have been hijacked and distorted by Christian conservatives and fundamentalists to, among other things, oppress the queer community. The M.C.C, a Christian church founded by a gay man to minister to the GLBTQ community, boldly reclaims Jesus and points out his true, original message of love for and to all. Although I see Jesus more as a teacher and model than as a virgin-born, resurrected savior, as posited by the M.C.C, I am deeply inspired by how the church not only takes back the Christ-centered language as its own but also so plainly illustrates how it also specifically affirms same-sex love.

Even so, I wasn’t prepared for the next song on the recent Sunday morning:

"Jesus loves me, this I know,
Though my hair is white as snow.
Though my sight is growing dim,
Still He bids me trust in Him.
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me,
For the Bible tells me so!"

Wow! A bunch of gay men and lesbians singing that the Bible tells them that, yes, Jesus loves them. A bunch of queer folks singing "Yes, Jesus Loves Me," which I always thought of as a conservative, Southern Baptist, that-old-time-religion song (we didn’t even sing it at Mass). That’s some powerful stuff. Not only that - it’s power.

Clearing the air

The Los Angeles City Council has recently passed an ordinance limiting the number and location of medicinal marijuana dispensaries. This happened after two or three years of the council dithering and bickering over the issue, during which time - and despite a moratorium - something like 700 dispensaries opened, turning L.A into a pot - er, medicinal marijuana - mecca. A fair number of people, concerned about crime, etc., were not, to say the least, getting a good buzz from this.

I have to say that this mess was caused by Proposition 215, the passage of which made California the first state to legalize medicinal marijuana despite the federal ban. I voted for Prop. 215 and am still all for it in principle. I very much believe that people who are ill, in pain, can’t hold down food, etc. should have easy access to the soothing herb and not fear getting arrested. The problem is that it was written so sloppily, leaving everyone confused if not dazed.

Now, the L.A ordinance is being called one of the toughest, and the med-pot advocates are now the ones grumbling. Among other things, the ordinance dictates
...that there be no more than 70 dispensaries (actually about 150 with the old ones that can stay).
...that a dispensary can’t be within 1,000 feet of a school, park, library, place of worship and other such "sensitive" sites.
...that the dispensaries have to close at 8 p.m, and that the cannabis can’t be consumed on the premises.

What I’m wondering is, what’s so wrong with there being strict regulations?

Yes, some of the restrictions are a bit too strict and unfair - like the one prohibiting a dispensary from operating across the street or an alley from residential properties. This will make it far more difficult to find a location. But, for the most part, the restrictions make perfect sense.

For example, why would someone who is ill or in pain want to go out and get medicine at 11 at night? It is better to go in the daytime, when it is easier to get around and more help is available.
And why shouldn’t the dispensaries be prohibited, as I believe they will be under the new law, from having names such as "Temple 420" and being decorated with big, neon pot leaves and red, yellow, green and black paint jobs?

Such displays, as well as being open late at night and other things, feeds the argument that medicinal marijuana is being used as a way to get pot for recreational use. Don’t get me started on those doctors in Hawaiian print shirts who sit in empty offices and hand out prescriptions for marijuana to anyone who claims to have a headache or writer’s cramp.

Giving relief to those who are sick or in pain is a very legitimate, very serious business, and it should be seen and done as such. Otherwise, medicinal marijuana will be another Cheech and Chong comedy, and that would be a tragedy.

I have long argued that Claremont should have a medicinal marijuana dispensary. With all its professors and strong community activists, Claremont can show how to do it in the right, serious, caring way. Very sadly, after a smart aleck opened a dispensary without a permit from the city, the City Council, after voting to allow dispensaries, took the opposite tack, reversed its earlier decision and banned dispensaries in Claremont.

Too P.C or not too P.C?

For about a year now, I’ve been puzzling over the case of Matthew Kim, a teacher who a judge just recently ordered the Los Angeles Unified School District to fire.

I first learned of Matthew Kim when he was featured in a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times about how hard it is to fire teachers. According to what the Times found, the teacher unions have been so careful to ensure that tenured teachers aren’t fired arbitrarily or without sound cause that the appeals process can take years. Mr. Kim was one of dozens of teachers being "housed" during this appeals process, meaning that they can’t work in the classroom but have to show up at an office or perhaps call in from home while still being paid their salary.

As odd as this is, I find the facts in Mr. Kim’s case even odder. One fact is that the primary reason why Mr. Kim was dismissed is that he allegedly touched some of his female students in "inappropriate" ways. The other fact is that Mr. Kim is disabled - he has Cerebral Palsy, uses a wheelchair and has impaired speech - and claims that his movements were involuntary when he touched the girls.

Excuse me, but am I the only one who finds this whole thing ridiculous and downright silly? Or am I being totally uncool and not politically correct bringing this up at all?

For one thing, it is certainly curious that Mr. Kim had involuntary movements only around girls and not around boys.

What I find most puzzling, though - and here I venture deep into political incorrectness - is that the school district had someone this disabled teaching in a grade school classroom.

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s fantastic and cool for kids to have a disabled teacher. (Think of all the prejudice it would eliminate.) And I’m all for making accommodations and being P.C. But, even if Mr. Kim had a bunch of aids, isn’t this stretching it a bit too far?

There are certain thing the disabled can’t do. At least, the disability and its severity should be seriously considered. It is a bit like me wanting to be a fireman.

Am just I being un-P.C, or was the school district too P.C?