2 grad student comments (1 of 2): Frenchman.

The other Monday morning I was walking down the street and I passed my one French colleague, who was heading from the subway to home at like 7:45am, obviously coming back from his boyfriend's house where he had spent the weekend.

So, after saying good morning, I was like, "Enjoying the walk of shame?".

"No," he was like, "I am never ashamed," and he smiled.

...the French always have to be very knowing and worldly in their humor, which usually isn't even really humor, but more witticisms than anything...

Peoples Temple memoir excerpt (3 of 3): Sex with Jim Jones (continued).

After the above, Jim Jones had told her to wait on the bus by pretending to be asleep at the next rest stop, and to slip back into his private compartment at the rear when everyone had deboarded... (p. 73-74):

It seemed like hours as I waited, hunched behind the door in his dark room...  Not sure what to do, I sat at his desk, then nervously perched on the end of his bed.  I was sick with anxiety.  What was I doing here?  Perhaps I had misunderstood him.  I moved again, hunkering down behind his door where I felt safest.  I heard voices as the door opened.  Father was speaking with someone.  His head was turned toward them, but his body quickly entered my space.  I stood before my leader, unsure how to greet him.

“Please unbutton your shirt.”

My head reeled.  I promised myself I wouldn’t have capitalistic thoughts anymore.  I wouldn’t think about leaving.  His hands began to caress me but they didn’t feel soft, like a minister’s hands.  They were less sweet and attentive than my eighteen-year-old boyfriend’s hands had been.  I whimpered.  This wasn’t how God should act.

“You look frightened,” he whispered.  His voice was soft and consoling as he guided me to his bed and pulled off my jeans.  “Please don’t be afraid.  I am doing this for you . . . to help you,” he comforted me.  “You don’t realize what a pretty girl you are.”  He tossed my pants on the floor and unceremoniously unzipped his trousers.  Despereately embarrassed, I looked away.  Had I given Father the idea I wanted him to do this to me?

His hands were now softer, his voice consoling.  Completely clothed, pants open just enough, Father got on top of me, heavy and smelling ghastly.  I felt a searing pain.  Father continued to push against me.  I could no longer decipher his words.  I was suffocating.  There were no kisses.  Just the lonely sound of hot and heavy breathing on my neck.  I descended slowly into paralyzed confusion and further downward into absolute darkness.  Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.  He pushed himself back off me and zipped up his pants.

Ashamed, I whispered, “I’m sorry, Father.”

“Not to worry, my child.  You needed it.  I would never harm you.  This is for your own good.”  He was busy brushing the creases from his shirt.  “When we get to the next rest stop, I’ll empty the bus.  Get out quickly then and don’t let anyone see you.”

“Yes, Father.  Thank you, Father.”  Saddened that he felt he had to do this to me, I pulled on my shirt and tried to push the buttons through the impossibly small holes.  My hands trembled as I pulled my jeans back on, wishing I was invisible, wishing I was who I had been just a few hours ago.  Despite his words, I didn’t feel any prettier.

. . .

Peoples Temple memoir excerpt (2 of 3): Sex with Jim Jones.

Late at night on a bus trip, the author was seduced by Jim Jones (pp. 72-73):

“You skin looks so smooth,” he blew his words into my ear.

Night floated down upon us, the worn and tired travelers fell silent, drifting off into sleep.  Now, as he leaned down, I smelled something foreign on Father’s warm breath – alcohol!  How terribly strange.  It couldn’t be.  Father had taught us that it was bad to drink.  It was capitalistic.  As socialists, we always had to have our wits about us.  His arm brushed my breast as he sank into the cushioned seat next to me.

“I wanted you today, when you came to the podium.”

My stomach began to swirl and churn.  Father released the seat lock and reclined his chair into the row behind us.  He wanted to see if his son Stephan, who was seated behind us with his girlfriend, was already asleep...  Having made sure no one was observing him, Father brought his seat back to the same level as mine.  My head began to throb as he touched my leg, my thigh.  Unable to think, afraid to breathe, I sat very still.  Father’s unsaintly hand began to massage my thigh.

A shudder worked its way up from deep within me while Father’s hand kneaded my flesh.  My mentor’s fingers inched inward.  What was he doing?  I didn’t want this...

As Father’s hands continued his bidding, the shame of his touch uprooted my very foundation.  I was not sure which one of us I hated more.  Perhaps I was being tested.  Yes!  Yes, perhaps this was only a test.  Pushing the metal button on the top of my jeans, Father’s hand then rubbed my stomach softly...

. . .

Peoples Temple memoir excerpt (1 of 3): Mother.

So I finished reading a fourth Peoples Temple memoir, Deborah Layton’s Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor’s Story of Life and Death in the Peoples Temple. 

(I’ve also read the classic biography of Jim Jones, Raven, which isn’t a memoir per se, but you could say I’ve read up five stories of Peoples Temple members.)

The author’s mother was a German Jew who was sent to the U.S. by her family in the late 30s and had survivor’s guilt; eventually, she too joined the Peoples Temple, and she died in Guyana of untreated cancer a few weeks before the mass suicide.

In the memoir, Layton reprints a letter from a friend to her mother in 1939, at a time when her mom was alone in New York and having a difficult time (p. 14):

The memories of the past are there, and you feel that you will rebuild your roots.  If you have a devil within you, don’t hide him but put him in front of your wagon so that he will use up all his energy by pulling you forward.

I find that last sentence very beautiful.

2 resolutions.

1) Read some of the book of Judges every day, to keep up my biblical Hebrew.

2) Learn some conversational Polish, for bar talk...

On Sat. I was at a Polish bar, and this really drunk wizened old man taught me to pronounce "Zbigniew Brzezinksi".

Then, he started speaking to me in Polish, and because of my Russian I could understand him saying something like "I cannot stand Jews" as he made an abacus motion and looked at me and laughed.

Election Addendum.

Like the day after the election, I got this text from a(n older) (white) (female) volunteer I had exchanged numbers with, since we had been talking earlier and she said she'd give me a ride back to the commuter rail station if I couldn't find anyone else -


Can u believe it?  What a disappointment.  Thought wud b closer.  Got the senate back at least.  Betsy.

What a great mass text...

Interestingly, I was texting an organizer who I had RSVPed to, and she said that volunteering is "sort of " down, but she thinks it's just burnout from the yearlong stretch of organizing for the recall.

I really do think that enthusiasm will come back.  People up there know that it's not just one battle, it's a war.

Election Day in Wisconsin (11 of 11): Union messaging problems.

I've been thinking a lot about the problems of union messaging.

First off, unions are *fucked* if it's ever put to the public, whether to keep their benefits or not, since people will always vote to pay less money...

I remember at our school, some administrator sent a survey to students, whether to have one student health insurance plans at slightly higher premiums, which would give much better coverage of prescription meds and continued mental health visits, or 2 separate plans, one that had worse coverage but was cheaper, and one that had better coverage but was much more expensive.  All the students who really didn't need that coverage voted to have the 2 separate plans, and the people who had the bigger needs got screwed.

More importantly, though, I remember a story my dad told me years ago.  There was some local high school teachers union negotiation going on, and the teachers were trying to get more professional days to count towards the "180 day a year minimum amount of time kids had to be in school for the year" requirement or something like that, and when people raised an eyebrow because that lessened instruction time for kids, teachers would start saying how much extra time they put in, how they paid for all their bulletin boards in their rooms, etc.

"You got to remember," my dad told me, "You look around, most of these teachers are taking Florida vacations once a year, and most of the kids in their rooms can't do that."

He wasn't saying they were wrong, but rather that they didn't realize how good they had it, comparatively, and how their complaints came off as privileged people bitching.

Something I noticed in Wisconsin is that some of the union people (esp. teachers) come off the same way.  For example, they were saying that people who worked across the border in Illinois are getting screwed on pensions, and then they would just plunge into this mind-numbing "woe is me" complaints about how they never paid into Social Security, and their 401(k) wouldn't make up the difference, etc., and I didn't even know half the financial stuff they were talking about, since I'm not in that place in life, career-wise.

All in all, it makes you wonder, they try to get public sympathy with that?  That's very silly - no wonder people don't want to support unions.

Second, I noticed that a lot of union bumper stickers take a different tack - e.g. -

THANK UNIONS - THEY GAVE YOU THE WEEKEND

- and what's interesting about that is that instead of framing unions as special interests honing in on tax money and driving your bills up, it points out battles they fought that benefitted everyone.

Which, makes me think that the Wisconsin teachers who taught in Illinois and bitched about their pensions should change their style of bitching, and frame everything in terms of unneeded tax breaks for the wealthy, and say something like, "Oh, for years this has been guaranteed, but because the state government keeps slashing taxes for the really really wealthy, they're cutting corners with this, just like they're not filling in potholes and are closing down schools and stuff."

Bring it back to class warfare, and gain more sympathy, I think.