The Love of Family Sunday, Mar 30 2008

29^th of March 2008

 

The Love of Family

 

Today on my way home, I went by to see one of my Grandmothers (Della).  Della is a nice woman that I’ve written about before.  Della lives with my Aunt Jeannie in an apartment that was prepared when the house was built.  I’m not close with Della and don’t see her as often as I should given that she is within distance, however, I see her more than I see the remainder of my immediate family.

 

Terrell was with me today and it was the first time he met Della.  It is funny because we come in to this world knowing only one thing…how to love.  What isn’t funny is the ones we love have the rights to return that love or to choose not to return that love.  I am constantly reminded that family is not always the ones we were born with, but those people whom we choose and who choose to love us are as much if not more family as the ones we joined this world along side.

 

Every other week I rest assured with my choices in this life.  I am at peace knowing that while my family ostracizes me, I will be there if and when they ever care to open that door again.  It hurts when you find deception in any situation, but the pain is far greater when treachery is delivered on the cold wind from those you choose to love.  During my visit with Della, she tells of a small family reunion that took place over the Easter holiday.  I was neither told of this event nor invited, which was a purposeful deliverance by those in my family.  The pains of Love are the ones that hurt the most as well as the deepest.

 

My family has purchased one hundred percent into allowing the hate filling their heart.  They revulsion for my writing is epoch.  They odium is that I share such sensitive family secrets with the world at large.  It does not matter how by sharing the past and present with you, how it has helped me come to terms with myself.  It does not matter that by helping the many kids, teens and adults with the varied subjects I write about has continued helping me come to a place of peace while it has also allowed me to learn how to love myself again.

 

My given family has cut me out of their lives with the skill and precision of a surgeon and the ease of a scalpel slicing through warm butter.  They made their choices without thought to the consequences of their actions to either themselves or to me.  This battle has been fought since I joined this family and if there is any reason I was placed with this group of human beings it is to somehow remind them what true, unconditional love is all about.

 

During the procession of the family reunion; I was told how my older sister – Kimmy became enraged when the notion that our father hates his own children was denounced by our Aunt Tricia, who is my fathers twin.  Tricia and my father have a love/hate relationship, but I have witnessed on several occasion the bond that is shared between them.  I personally feel twins do share a bond that a brother or sister cannot understand.  To share the same egg and cell that started their existence says everything about the fact that their hearts beat in a synchronized manner.  With this understanding, it is very perceptive that if anyone might know how our father thinks and feels, his twin would be that person.

 

Tricia argued this statement ardently, which enraged Kimmy and led to her early departure.  I can see both sides and why any of his children might believe he has neither love in his heart for those he birthed or desires any of us in his life.  He has not made any efforts to have a relationship with any of us and when faced with the few opportunities he receives to assist any of his children, he denies those advancements unless doing so gives him something over their lives.

 

I can also know that out of any of my aunts and uncles, Tricia would be the one sibling to distinguish what is truly inside our father’s heart.  No, I don’t believe that my father (Kenneth or Ken) hates his children.  Just as I don’t believe he would ever go out of his way to do something for us either.  We all make choices in our lives and my father made one when he married his second wife (Cheryl).  Cheryl first came across as someone who wanted to help bring about a relationship between Ken and his children.  As with many southern women, they wear masks that enable them to slip in and out of characters depending on the people they are confronted with.  Cheryl is precisely that type of southern women taking off one mask and putting on another as people enter and leave her presence.  She will always come across as the gentile southern woman, but turn your back and the mask of spite, hate, control and dishonesty will show as the true face she presents to all.  It is through means of control that Cheryl has removed Ken’s children from his life and has wedged us apart with great success.

 

I understand and agree with how Kimmy and all of my siblings can know that our father has forsaken each and every one of us.  He has never been a party to our lives.  It has always been our mother each and every step of the way…even today.  Our mother has done her very best to be there for us and it breaks her heart to know that the man who planted a seed turning into his sons and daughters, did so by nature, but without any heart or with the lack of conscience that would at some time during our lives might bring him to us ready, willing and able to show love and interest.  The balance that must be maintained in the daily life for my father denies his ability to recognize his children.

 

Ken knows exactly what she has done with not only acceptance, but reverence as long as Cheryl allows his liaisons while remaining married to each other.  In doing so he willingly pays the price for his acts of sexual prowess by the removal of his children from their lives.  The choices we make will eventually show the price we pay and the equally harsh one paid by those who suffer.  I will probably not hear by Cheryl when Ken dies just as I question if my immediate siblings would let me know as well.  This is where the pains of love cut deeply and are far more difficult to heal…much less ignored.

 

The fear that my family would do something to cause extreme pain to me solely because they loath my new gift of writing and the fact that they are sometimes the subject of my text seems to have an easy remedy.  These thoughts weight heavy on my heart due to the fact that my Grandma Scott, Della and Ken are all in poor health.  Grandma Scott will pass soon and I am beholden to my siblings and mother to notify me when she passes to a place with such immense love.  Likewise, I will be dependant on my family to let me know when Ken or Della passes from this earth.  I hope personal vengeance is set aside when these times come just as I hope that love will eventually win and family becomes more a focus rather than the in fighting that seems to be happening.

 

So, when does family mean that the blood pumping through your veins is more than a liquid maintaining your life?  When does love equate to family and the two are so interchangeable, it is difficult to tell them apart?

 

Your humble servant – Todd M. Dobson

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The Woes of the US Economy & Our Political Strife Friday, Mar 28 2008

28^th March 2008

 

The Woes of the US Economy & Our Political Strife

 

While I am disillusioned by the strife that seems to be gripping our country as Presidential election seemingly has stalled.  We hear an enormous amount of rhetoric, great sound bites, but very little substance behind the words.  This pattern seems to be draining the American people’s faith in our political system.

The only thing flowing in Washington seems to be corruption – with inside deals, big corporations buying and using our politicians like pez candy extracted from a pez dispenser while the only money that flows fluidly are the payoffs made to political pundants for sale to the highest bidder.  The cash pouring out of our pockets to the gas companies trying to raise the price of fuel as high as they possibly can get it before President Bush leaves office.  There is nothing rosy about this picture no matter how you look at it.

I am disillusioned with our political process when two candidates can’t stop fighting over who will win the nomination from their party and the only other aspirant is a bigoted, racist man who can’t spell the word constitution, much less defend the one he swore to do for all citizens.  The only thing I know to be truthful in this election is that I won’t ever vote for a man who can’t pretend that all of the populace within our boarders matter to him (Senator John McCain) and the wrangling between our other two candidates has me thinking we would do better if all three were somehow removed from the race.  The only thought worst than John McCain winning the Presidency is if George W. Bush remained in office one day longer than he is suppose too.  I for one want the American people to write in ratifying an Amendment during the November electoral process removing the delegate and superdelegate system that is simply a means to buy votes.  This failed structure that was meant as a means when the popular vote is too close to secure a rightful winning, yet has become the means of election.  Former President George Bush Senior showed us just how compromising the delegate system is when he bought his son’s way into the Presidency the first time.  How our voting abilities was stripped away from us, I will never know; however the American populace has seen one of its most cherished rights atrociously removed by the very government it elected.  The authors who crafted such a sham eliminating our right to elect the leader of the free world should be imprisoned for eradicating one of the main reasons our forefathers struggled to settle this great nation.

Somewhere in the process we the people of the United States of America lost our rights to vote in a Presidential election as proven by the last two elections.  In the first election it became obvious we had no say as the popular vote gave the job to Al Gore, however, the Superdelegate and Delegate votes ushered in one of history’s worst Presidents ever, George W. Bush.  Twice we’ve witnessed how we the people were stripped of a fundamental right…the right to vote for our President!

I cannot weight in with who I will vote for in our November elections because both choices have done and said some ridiculously scary things over the past year.  However, I heard one of the most impressive statements come from Mr. Obama in a speech he gave Thursday on the shape of the economy and his ideals for correcting the downward spiral our wonderful President has put us in.  Obama said “aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight” as he was indicating the housing debacle that we are in the midst of is self induced.  This wasn’t a finger point stances across political lines, Obama acknowledges that it was agreed upon by both parties for all of the wrong reasons – GREED & CORRUPTION.  Our current situation was bought and paid for by big business paying off politicians.

Our country is being torn apart by Corporate America in its thirst for greed and dominance.  Our politicians are as Machiavellian said a means to an end.  When companies like UPS buy million dollar properties close to the White House and Senate chambers for the sole function of sponsoring fund raisers to support politicians that should easily be considered on the company’s payroll.

More political leaders need to be rebuking big business contributions, standing up for the people and pointing out the corruption that flows like the undercurrent of Washington as Obama did in this speech.  If the race stays the same, this one statement may be what decides my vote, but I don’t think my vote or even your vote will matter, because the race isn’t for who we consider a truly viable candidate, it is who the delegates and superdelegates are paid to vote for.  Washington is a city that is bought and paid for with you and me trying to act as the police catching the johns who solicit favors for money from the whores (our politicians who refuse to vote in campaign reform measures that eliminate pac money, soft money, corporate sponsorship and lobbying efforts) in other words, the pimps of our political process selling their wares to the highest bidders regardless of the debaselist act that must be performed.

Washington cheapens the oldest profession in the world by giving the word whore a bad name.  Obama – good job and we need to hear more on how you plan to refuse the corruption of this office bringing true HONOR back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

 These are the expressed opinions only of your humble servant – Todd M. Dobson

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John McCain Should Never Be President of The United States Saturday, Mar 22 2008

21^st of March 2008

 

To the Readers of Advocate and Mr. Kirchick;

 

http://advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid52837.asp

 

I find Mr. Kirchick’s arguments shallow, baseless and devoid of merit worthy of consideration for a position that deserves far better than another Bush-like corny.

Senator John McCain neither deserves the contemplation of the gay populace nor does he merit that of the straight voter either. I do agree with only one point in this article that states Mr. McCain will not be pushed around by any group that has not paid for the privilege. He wants to continue both the economic and international policies designed by the failing Bush administration.

The American people (gay and straight) deserve far better than what we currently receive from our President’s office. We deserve true leadership with a focus on changing away from the bought and paid for politic machine residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. McCain will not improve our standing in the Middle East. He will not increase our GDP or GNP to matching levels of pre-9-11. Mr. McCain cannot solidify our international image when he wishes to continue failed policy from a Presidential administration that is so widely loathed that its continuation is a disappointment within itself.

President Bush tarnished the once respected name “United States of America” in the process delivering to our next candidate an enormous hardship in their attempts to polish the American seal with only spit and a polish rag. It would be an arduous task with a sandblaster in the right hands, but McCain has neither the spit nor the elbow action required to bring about a shine on the now corroded emblem – The Home of the Brave, the Land of the Free.

These are the praises I have for the McCain presidential candidate, but now let us discuss the fact that this man, who wishes to be the leader of the free world, supports a ban on homosexuals from receiving the very rights and privileges that our fore father’s already granted us. Our next President needs to be a true leader that supports the Constitution of the United States. In doing so, standing firm against any group that wishes to deny the very freedoms others would like to strip away. The leaders who have the courage and fortitude to stand firm against special interest groups like the Christian Coalition who wish to circumvent the foundation of this great nation with odium and loathing deserve to find a deaf ear in Washington. Hate has no place in the new America deserving to be led by a person with a true conscience.

Senator McCain has proven that he is not the man for this job with the very facts mentioned in this article. He does not garner the support from gay Americans as much as he does not deserve sponsorship from straight America. Mr. McCain’s espoused beliefs directly appose to the Constitution of the United States by assisting in the passage of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as well as with the active participation in support of DOMA for any state. In doing so he refused to acknowledge that gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender people are granted the same rights as every man, woman and child holding citizenship to this great country. Every resident of this nation deserve no less than what is innately given by the very documents that liberated us from a tyrant who denied our ancestors that which they desired the most – FREEDOM FROM OPPRESSION! Mr. McCain cannot grant what he does not believe in himself.

Because of these truths, Mr. McCain should never be supported for the President of the United States. I am not advocating either Democratic candidates, but given our choices, they stand much closer to supporting the true meaning of the Constitution than Mr. McCain could ever image doing. A vote for any other aspirant gives us a change from the Washington that has plummeted this great nation into debt, an unconscionable war with no hopes of eliminating terrorism and a disintegrating reputation.

When you show me a politician that denounces special interest, corporate sponsorship while standing firm with their support for the Constitution; then I will gladly stand on every corner advocating their candidacy for office.

Your humble servant – Todd M. Dobson

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What IF Sunday, Mar 16 2008

15^th March 2008

What IF?

Over the past several years my soul has been searching for truth.  In my quest I have been faced with many questions and while I’ve written about some of those questions, many of you have acknowledged the odd manner I’ve brought them for your consideration.  It doesn’t matter if you agree with my questions, my answers or the manner in which I disseminate them to you, just as long as you think about them for yourself.

My truth does not necessitate the same troths for you.  In fact, I can guarantee they will differ just as our hearts beat to different rhythms.  Does that mean I’m wrong or that you are wrong; no, it just means that my deep, sultry brown eyes see the world differently.  Understanding that neither of us is wrong and we are both entitled to our own perspectives on life; so let us contemplate a couple of higher-than-the heaven type of ideals.

What IF:
What if there is no GOD?  There is no deity that created this magnificent world, universe and we have just evolved?  Would we be better to one another if we had no religion in this world?  Would our beliefs have suffered or could they have evolved just as we have?  If that were true and no GOD, no Bible and no similarly named entity had ever been spoken of by prophets or misconstrued by religion conforming to a singular way of existence; could we have made this place a better more loving and caring world?  Who says that God has cornered the market on Love, because since we have had one true name for our creator, there has been killing in that name?  Hate is perpetuated because of him and as I say that, I mean that because of his name, his existence and his so called truth; people have found it easier to hate rather than to love.  Isn’t that the essence of what God really wanted was for us to learn how to Love, Honor and Respect our fellow human beings?  So, if due to his desires the average person has found it easier to do the opposite, why can’t we eliminate him and will we gravitate without his existence towards the Love we all deserve?

What IF:
What if people like John Edwards (not former Senator) and the vast numbers of others who have abilities beyond the average person’s comprehensions are right and there is an existence after we die?  What if the people we love as our lives evolve in physical form are the same souls we see as the physical changes to energy and our souls lift above this means?  What if we can watch and interact with those we love after we leave this place called earth only to continue being a party to their lives as they continue forward?

 
Would we have the courage then to do the things we could not seem to do while we coveted those physical forms?  Could we tell them we love them, redirect their suffering as we play guardian directing them away from harm?  Would we apologize for the wrongs we perpetuated on them and would we have the courage to love unconditionally as we might not have been able too as we stepped through this lifetime?

 
What IF:
What if there were no words of hate and loathing and without the words we could not have the feelings.  Leaving us with only a choice of Love or ambivalence?  Would this world be filled with Love or would we all be neutered not knowing why we lack everything that is good about ourselves, but never knowing the opposite extremes?  Would the world be better or would a world unable to feel be far more attractive then where we live right now?

What IF:
What if there was no sex or sexuality and we simply walked around poking an instrument called outy into a receptacle called an inny?  There was no male and no female with any distinction for beauty or ugliness?  We simply walked from being to being and instead of shaking hands as we met each other, we poked our outies into their innies and waited for their exchange?  What would happen with all the energy spent hating others that are dissimilar than ourselves?  We were all exactly the same size, shape and color and everything was exactly the same for everyone else.  Would we be happier and would we know the difference between happiness and sadness or would life just exist?

My points may be obvious to you and they may escape you’re focus, but I like to think that it takes a balance to know when anything is right or wrong, good or bad and especially when we know we are happy or sad.  We need vanilla to balance chocolate while that balance seems easy to grasp, can we ever really truly understand our opposites?  Due to those things which make us different, we know fear and isn’t it that what drives our negative sides like hate, loathing and misery.  Without our opposites we will never understand the dichotomy between bitter darkness of cold and the blessed, bright light of heat.  One by itself is neither good nor bad, but in contrast from each other, the light of the sun will bring about positive ness while the darkness of the night will bring about negativity.

As hard as it is to understand, I am grateful for the one truth that I’ve known and that is that I am so abundantly thankful for the harshness of my childhood with the many challenges I faced as I evolved into the man I am today.  Only understanding the heartache I felt growing up can I appreciate the Love in my heart that I have for myself…and for each person claiming to be my family.  It is our differences that should excite us…not invoke fear within us.  Love, Honor and Respect all of those surrounding you as you learn to trust and accept that which makes us different.

Your humble servant – Todd M. Dobson

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Why HATE Saturday, Mar 1 2008

24^th of February 2008

Why Hate

Why must hate proliferate throughout this world?  Why must the thing driving you be a fire that burns inside of you like the molten lava running deep inside the cavernous hallows of a volcano.  Waiting to erupt and blow high into the sky as it eviscerates everything in its wake.

The under-current of hate emulates that river of lava moving slowly and deadly deep within the bowels of the mountain waiting for the right moment to erupted bursting forth and blowing ash saturated with molten rock hurling through the serene blue sky; hate erupts flowing as it destroys the lives of so many.

I keep coming back to this subject because it doesn’t seem to leave the headlines long enough to become a bi-line.  Reading the six to eight news papers daily that I do only exacerbates the subject matter.  From the centuries of fighting between Jerusalem and Palestine where a day doesn’t escape our focus without hearing of military incursions into Palestine or the un-occupied West Bank.  Both sides pointing fingers at the other saying they started it – but who cares who began when both sides are deeply entrenched in the loathing hate for the other.  Rockets shot from the same Palestinian territories shattering countless innocent Israeli lives only to cry foul the very next night when soldiers encroach into Palestine to revenge its dead citizens…it doesn’t matter who started it when the streets on both sides flow red with Hate!

To read in the papers how hecklers were aloud to ridicule a woman running for our presidential office.  Their taunting words were filled with hate and meant to chastise the candidate solely because she’s not masculine like them.  Who is to say her balls are not bigger than theirs?  She has acquired a position suitable to running for the highest job in the United States of America; so I would say the balls she pulls out of her purse are larger and more solid then anything those hate mongering men could ever muster within their feeble forms.

I was in the dressing room of my new gym Wednesday morning when suddenly the music stopped playing only to be replaced with the cry of a monkey, baboon or some primate and the music starts again.  As I dressed that morning, I listened as five men the next row of lockers over from me, contemplated the women that they allowed to take advantage of them.  According to the tales these hate filled men spun, women would trick them into falling in love with them.  Then these conniving women would divorce these unsuspecting men as they were stripped of their hard earned money and possessions.  This distasteful perspective was interrupted by the primate’s call echoing throughout the locker room.  Needless to say, you could hear a pin drop during its echoed sounds as the silence turned in to an eruption of laughter.

Those same uber masculine men regailing those who listened of their shared sorrows could not recognize that they are the only reasons their brides left them.  I am sure that after putting up with their narrow-mindedness for years justified every cent they received as well as the houses, the cars and anything else they could obtain from their once beloved husbands.  These men started talking about “how they thought someone let loose…you know….one of those kinds of guys in here”.  The conversation descended with every syllable spoken by men without honor.

The hate spewing forth from the five conversing as they dressed was disgusting and harmful hearing such loathsome comments.  To know these men were not alone in their thoughts; however, they were the only ones verbalizing their small minded thoughts.

I left the gym irritated at what they said, but shortly after I was upset at my silence and thereby acceptance of the hate flowing deep from within the bowels of these men.

So why with my faith in humanity and struggle to obliterate such oppressive ideology was I not able to confront those who decidedly feel satisfaction in proliferating hate?  That brought me back to the headlines where a Palestinian man was photographed holding his dead son as he and his wife clung to the life they jointly brought into this world.  Their flesh and blood died due to a revenge mortar shell shot from Israel back at the locations where Palestinian missiles were hurled at Israel.  When do each and every Palestinian and Israeli citizen’s stand up to the small number of fanatical people who have risen to power controlling the bombs and military?  The people of both nations suffer while a few who can’t get enough hate flowing through their veins perpetuate death because with each breath flows the stench from within them.  It has already consumed their lives, but they aren’t happy until every street, every river and even the Dead Sea flows red with innocent blood.

I can’t seem to grasp why so many would rather drowned themselves in the filth and scum of hate.  The burden of carrying such weighted baggage should tire a person, but the hate flowing within them like the lava deep within the volcano seems to energize them, propelling them forward.  It is not just the endless conflict between Israel and Palestine, but also between the Serbs and Bosnians, North and South Korea and competing War Lords throughout Africa.  None of whom care about the innocent lives as long as the outcome of their hate is a so called victory.

In almost all cases each side claims God, Allah or some deity supports their hate and the killing of innocent people.  We have long since surpassed who started what and have moved directly to oppression and hate.  So how can we put an end to it?  How do we stop something that has been entrenched for thousands of years?

I only know how each person can do his part in the elimination of hate.  Next time I will stop those speaking so despairingly of any innocent group of persons.  I will stop the hate from spewing out of their lips as thought the conversation was cherished rather than disdainful.  I will explain how the words flowing from their lips no longer belong in society today because hate has no place among us.

The Palestinian citizens who want to stop the killing of their innocent sons, daughters, husbands, wives and family members must start by informing the proper authorities when fanatical extremist setup a rocket launcher lobbing bombs at innocent Israeli citizens.  The Israeli people must equally stop the military incursions into territories blindly seeking those same militants that killed and ravaged the peace that never had a chance to thrive when the blood flows freely on both sides of the boarders.

It takes great faith within you to stand against the bullies of this world.  Those filled with hate are the school yard bullies.  They use tactics design to scare people into silence while maintaining control through force.  Fear to live ones true life is the precipitous to hate.  If you wish to break free and live in peace, you must stand against the fear.  Once you face that fear and stand firm to those who once were oppressed will you eliminate hate and oppression.

I promise to face my fear by challenging the locker room bullies.  Each of us must do our part and while you might feel that one person cannot change thousands of years of hate; one person can start a revolution that ends hate, oppression and tyranny.

Are you strong enough to accept the challenge or will fear eventually take your life?

Your Humble Servant – Todd M. Dobson

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