holidaze

For all the talk about Americans being pro-family, there sure is a lot of animosity among kinfolk during the holiday season.

My immediate family doesn't have too much of this issue, although every year there's a bidding war about who will host turkey day, who is welcome and who is deliberately uninvited. My father likes to ice out my in-laws and make the day just about the Mohseni Clan. That's all good and well but we grow sick of each other in about two hours.

My grandparents are the tribeless lot, each year bounced from one offspring's house to the next. They require extra special care, including being fed and led to their car to drive home before its dark, so very few family want to deal with that. It's been a few years since they've been at my parents and I'm sure others will soon notice.

My good friend hates her step father, so she arrives just a few minutes before the family eats and then makes up a story about not feeling well. I don't know why they haven't caught on that she uses the same excuse every year.

My other friend has to drive 40 minutes to be with her family, then two hours to her husband's family, because the families hate each other. She is emotionally drained for the rest of the week and swears she will never do this again.

So much for being grateful for family...

my mormon dilemma

I just finished watching a harrowing documentary called 8: The Mormon Proposition. It chronicles the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' campaign to ban same-sex marriage in Calif through the passage of Prop 8. I haven't been this pissed off in a looooong time. The film does what any good investigative documentary does (uncovers classified church documents and exposes the church's nefarious attempts to conceal its funding of, and overall involvement, in Prop 8.) but laces it with stories about Mormons who were personally affected by the church's beliefs about gays. Some of them were forced into unconventional therapy, others were shunned by their families. Far too many committed suicide.

There is no love in my heart for the LDS organization or for its members who set out to hurt people who have done nothing to them. Now I'm in a bit of a pickle. I've been asked to work with a colleague on some projects and I found out recently he's a LDS member - the tie-wearing, proselytizing kind. He's getting married in a month at the Mormon temple and he exudes all the creepiness of a mindless religious person - the starry eyes, faux politeness, the kind of Jesus -is-my-auto-pilot sensibility. I don't know much else about him but I loathe him. This is wrong, I know it's wrong, and I'm the first person to preach about the need to be tolerant. But how can I when he belongs to an organization that is deceptive - blatantly lying to cover its tracks - and that has destroyed so many lives in its desire to impose its will upon others?

Gawd help me. (Sarcasm)

california dreamin

It's the day after the election and it's a bit like waking up in an alternative universe. Nationally the GOP trounced Democrats, but California emerged liberal and green. Barbara Boxer will retain her Senate seat, voters shot down Prop 23 and best of all, Jerry Brown walloped Meg Whitman. I couldn't fathom a billionaire businesswoman who didn't register to vote until 2002 and who voiced contempt for the legislature really working on a bipartisan level for the greater good.

Importantly, we don't have to hear those pre-recorded "get out the vote" messages on our answering machines anymore.

It's a good day, Calif!