Stray commenting…

Got an anonymous comment yesterday concerning the original case. I guess I like it when people tread through the archives because it means that all of that word processor time did not go completely to waste. Of course though the commenter decided to be protivni- to be an antagonist. I guess I am not opposed to opposition. This is freedom of speech after all, right? By the way, did you know that I am coming up on my 500th post? I am. I believe this one is number 491.

Anyway, this comment was posted on Friday, July 23, 2004's blog about going back to work at blogging about being hit by a car in Poland. In that post, which was from really early on, I took a stab at talking again about the Polish traffic incident, rehashing the moment when he hit me and using some foul language and some rather lofty metaphors:

The guys name by the way was Tomas Zaremba by the way and may Satan spend a thousand years redefining the size of his rear aperture.

But the comment I got was sort of interesting. Whoever it was who wrote in, and I would bet dollars to doughnuts he was from California, decided that after all that has been said and written here, after all whatever number of words, that the most important aspect of the whole incident was that I hit the man with my fists. His suggestion (constructive criticism?) was that the moment would have been better represented with my showing the man the bird rather than hitting him.

C'mon dude, you really had no reason to punch the guy. I think in this case you could have made a better decision. The finger would have done just fine.

So what can I say to this? Obviously I am being bated, right? And for sure I should not take comments like these seriously and should remain mature and above all of this. But the truth is that I am getting a little tired. This blog business can get pretty burdensom at times and especially when you don't get too many chances to write about what you would like. I mean, I do write a lot about Belarus and this is ok except for how little good I can say about The Life these days. I understand that most of my bitching is about money but still, this was my choise so I am ok with the situation. But I don't ever get to write about baseball or biking and this wears me down. I don't get enough opertunities to write about other places in Belarus which is one thing I had hoped this new website would allow for. And also I guess I am a bit weary because I don't get to tell too many "good stories"; stories of hope or courage or human perciverence ending happily.

But still I have been here and I have been typo-ing away and to have done these 490-odd posts and the 242 newsapers and all of those gapingly stupid Polish scandal stories, I guess I really just don't want anyone just up and coming to me and saying that I should have simply given the guy the finger instead of hitting him. What did I say in the comment?

Don't hit him? Dude, I can just see him at home later talking to his wife, his head in his hands and tears in his eyes:

"Honey, I tried to run down this biker today and when I missed him and he lived, he gave me the finger. I don't think I can live with the image of that yet-still-alive bicyclist showing his disdain for me and my irresponsible driving habits by raising his middle finger. I am a bad person and forever will change my ways…"

Get real. I should have hit him harder.

***

Another guy who has taken offence recently is Mr. Robert LaPorte who I am mentioning again today. LaPort sent me a reply about what I wrote concerning his story. He was upset that I missed that his story was actually the U-tube on his arts2-win site. This is what he said:

The story is my ex has waited 4 and a half year to bring me to court to get alimony checks on a 50-50 time share of our 5 yr old kid.

If you analyze the video it clearly explain the problem.

The 26 of September 2007 is the day in court where a judge will say I owe hundreds $ a month for a unfair child law on 50-50.

Since I will not pay because the law is badly made I will be seized on my salary so I will quit my job so they cant take my money.

After that they will take my kid away because of that. Some might say just pay the dame alimony checks. But acting in such a way it is with out a spine in an unfair un just and lying law.

Woman can do the same just like men in raising money and reducing expenses etc... So there is no way it is a good law to steel from men to give to woman.

I'd take my kid all the time and pay everything but she s out for my money. Money I don't care but the fact that other good dads get unjustly stole their money for a woman who just don't want to make sacrifices that bothers me it is on that I protest plus more details.

Ask a French person to translate word for word and try to analyze the intention behind it!

So this is what is really going on with Robert LaPort.

***

Misogyny?

After I ran the Yuri Star piece I got a letter from a female friend accusing me and the post of being inherently misogonist. Her point was that by identifying the issues of the women's seeming misbehavior without accounting for the problems of the living situation or specifically the behavior of the males involved, I had allowed an attitude of hatred towards women to become the main part of the article. She also suggested that a woman was inherently free to make choises regarding herself and her relationships and had just as much say as the male half of the relationship as to whether or not she is happy.

I myself do not nessasarily agree with this. Male female relationships are the essence of humanity- the real reason d'être. And basically as these interactions are what make more people, there should be more respect given. I think it is a really big deal when marital relationships start to come unglued and there are children involved. Unless there is serious and genuine abuse, removing the male/female dynamic is probably very harmful. Yes, children are resilient and yes, it is more than possible for a child to grow up with only one parent. But the point is that it is better with two and it is best when both of those two concentrate their efforts into actually doing the job of raising the kids rather than fighter over them or demanding to make singular decisions regarding their futures.

Almost all of the commentators have had breakups or intrigues in their relationships and as we can see with Mr. Laport's u-tube, the results of these intrigues can be enough to drive a person bananas.

And of course we all know what a minefield this subject can be. As a for instance, over the last few weeks I have been trying to find myself some work teaching English here and the going has been very difficult and at one juncture I even had a female bureaucrat throw the misogyny argument in my face. The situation she was referring to was that I had become angry after I had been given one director's word that there would be employment but then his replacement, who happened to be a woman, refused to acknowledge his promise. This second director, who was also a woman, tried to tell me that the reason I did not get the job is that I showed disdain for the director's power and authority and implied that the reason for this was because she was a woman.

Now what this second director failed to understand is that I have contemptuous disdain for empty-shirt bureaucrats of any sex. For sure though what this was all about was simply power. This is Belarus and we have a president for life and so this means that this is how business is done throughout the country. In this case, it means that if a person should happen to take over a job with any level of authority to it, the first thing one needs to do is to make sure of it that you kiss their ass with alacrity; this is what is expected. That I am simply no good at this in general probably never occurred to them. Or, as I am American, they probably just decided to take a little pleasure out of it for themselves. Obviously everyone here has seen the Godfather.

So what is the answer here?

To me, I think the necessary word here is friendship. I like friendship a lot more than I like marriage; It is much more a mutual and living word. I think in fact the idea of marriage was from a time when the world was much closer and communities and family ties were a much stronger bond. Our world is far too mobile and fleeting and there needs to be more breathing space available. Maybe if we went back to being primarily agrarian or if the basic premise of mankind was performing manual tasks rather than trying to grind out a personal fortune through high electronics (like this) then we would be able to say that tying a couple together with nuptial bonds, an act that simulates a people's tie to their land, would have a calming and reaffirming affect on the community. In such a case a marriage contract could perhaps even be respected and honored both within the marriage and without. Or, as an old feminist friend of mine once pointed out, maybe all marriage was simply a contract for property rights. Again, who knows? .

But for sure these last few posts were not misogyny and saying that they were just because they represented a male perspective was as unfair as what happened to a lot of our commentors. It was just a couple of stories about a group of guys trying to find some peace in the world so they could do what has been asked of them by nature, by G-d, by providence or even by the women they took up with. I think the only real problem here was that while the female side of the argument was screaming freedom and money and power, this male part of the contract was not thought of as being worthy enough of respect to even be considdered.

Note: Bob Dowlut has sent over the text of the US law which concerns abduction of underage citizens. The text has been added to the comments section of that blog.

Title 18, United States Code, Section 1204, makes it an offense to remove a child who has been in the United States from the United States with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights. Such an offense is punishable by a fine under Title 18, imprisonment for not more than three years, or both. States have similar laws...

-For the complete text and to view all of the comments for that blog, click here. Or to comment on this post, click the link below...


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