Inspired by Professor Lisa Chavez
.
I read about the mayhem that spawned out of a closed minded attempt to limit the freedom of speech and artistic expression of doctor Chavez. I don't know the details, but I myself have been guilty of such close minded thoughts before.
Doctor Chavez chose to moonlight as Mistress Jade, a fantasy phone business unrelated to her profession as an educator. She did nothing unethical or illegal! A normal human condition is to fantasize and use one's imagination. The inhumane purist is all too willing to slander anyone else for any behavior displayed different from their own; even though they themselves are required by human matter of normal function, to fantasize and use their imagination as well. No scientist can invent without an active imagination. No physician can theorize a diagnosis for an undocumented case without an active imagination. While most normal people, humans, have active fantasies about all manner of scenarios.
What thoughts have crossed your minds when a rude person driving a fast car has cut you off in traffic, a person jumps in line ahead of you, a beautiful man or woman gracefully passes before you (regardless of how they are dressed), you gaze upon a picture of a beautiful sea shore... you fantasize about the possibilities. This is human, this is healthy. This is how you determine if a proposed action you are thinking about has any hope of success. In the case of the person that just cut you off with their car, no, ramming them with your car would only make your life more difficult. That is what immagination and fantasy does for us; it is a tool to evaluate consequences and to unburden our emotional states.
However, giving in to purist thought has some dangerous aspects related to attacking our freedoms and even our national security.
As a sailor on the USS Enterprise (Aircraft Carrier) I frequently visited the Phillipines and spent many plutonic days golfing, sailing, and other entertaining things with a lady friend whom I had shared
She offered and I accepted an invitation to spend the weekend with her family. Taking leave, we rode a Jeepnie (Jeep with a section added to it to make a bus) for about 3 hours and she signaled the driver to stop. At least 15 minutes had passed since seeing a hut of any kind; this was during the time when the communists were kidnapping service men. But with faith in her I stepped off and walked with her a 100 feet back down to a foot path that led back into the trees.
After a few hundred feet or more, the tree line opened to display the most beautiful scene I had ever, or since seen. Tierced mountains and rice fields as far as the eye could see. We continued to walk on top of the dikes for about two miles to where her family lived.
Five shacks surrounding a pitcher pump atop a three foot plateau surrounded by rice fields. Shacks built of cardboard, wood skids, and whatever they could find. Two 6' x 8' bedrooms raised off the ground; with a kitchen along the front with a dirt floor.
From the time I arrived her brothers, sister and mother laughed and spoke continually; despite their poverty. My friend was the only one who spoke English, but I was accepted as an honored guest. They did not go out of their way to meet my every need, but I was cared for and comfortable to be with them, and to interact with them; well at least most times!
You see that pitcher pump was their only source of fresh water. As such, all cleaning of a person's body was done at the pump, in plain sight of anyone who cared to look. Always, two people bathed together. One filling the bucket and helping the other soap and wash, dumping the bucket over them to rinse. But not always did they switch duties.
I found this to be an embarrassing situation for me. So I asked my friend, aren't you embarrassed to bath in public, for everyone to see?
She began laughing and told her mother who was nearby and they said a few things in Tagalog. Her response to me shattered and reshaped my then perceived world. To this day it is a lesson I hold dear to me. She said to me, "You Americans, you worry about the most foolish things."
We do, we Americans pay more attention to the media and the antics of celebrities, then we do the actions taken by our local government. More important is it that our violence ridden cable television be on, than it is to help our children with their homework. We slander the character of a person who bares themselves in public, yet blindly vote for public representatives that are responsible for the unjust killing of thousands. We are a sensless peoples.
Later during my visit, I had noticed round marks on all my friends family and neighbors skin. The marks were very much like the Small Pox vacination scars. So I asked; they were cobra snake bites. The cobra live in the rice marsh and when the farmer is walking behind the oxen tending the rice, the cobra gets stepped on by the oxen and comes up biting. The farmer being the victim. She had lost three of her siblings to cobra bites. Everyone in her family had been bitten multiple times. There are no doctors or hospitals, so you live, or y0u die.
But regardless of their harsh realities, they were genuinely loving towards one another. They shared in every burden, and the shared in every frivolity. They were happy, pleasant, wonderful people.
I abhor people who make claim and action to slander and restrain others based upon ignorant premises and fraudulent arguments.
I would rather see sex on television based upon loving interaction, than to see pointless violence in cartoons. I would rather live by the Ten Commandments than corruptly interpret the Bible to support my own agenda. I would rather be empathetic towards everyone in all their beautiful diversity, than persecute people just because they are different than myself.
I would rather be an American that is empathetic to the real life struggles of others; than to act like an American that is emotionally hardened against diversity.
I have asked Professor Chavez, to please continue her struggle to present diverse ideas to the public, so that we do not become the person I once was; emotionally stagnant and overly critical regarding the normal aspects of human life.
