Rant

First, this is my four hundred and fiftieth post to this blogsite. It is also St. Patrick's Day (night, now), which is the one night each year I refuse to go out driving in San Francisco. After all, this is an Irish city, as well as an Italian city, a Mexican city, and a Chinese city. There are now many more of us who do not fit into any of these categories, including Indians, South Pacific Islanders, Jews, Koreans, Hawaiians, Germans, Russians, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Afghans, Pakistanis, Japanese, not to mention Michiganders, Kansans, Texans, and Bostonians. Yes, and so many more.

The fog coated us this morning, chilling this morning's soccer practice at St. Mary's. Can you believe it is spring soccer season already?

But by this afternoon, the sun had returned, at least here in The Mission.

***

I hate "Borat." Why? Because I have lived in Central Asia and known the real people Sasha Whatever Cohen so blithely makes fun of in this very popular movie. His portrayal of a people so imaginably different from his own comfortable existence in England contains so many cheap shots that I felt obliged while watching it last Saturday night in New York with 10-year-old Dylan to object to his blatant negative objectification of people much less privileged than he is.

Which brings me to the cruelty of humor. Yes, I have watched the Aristocrats, and in my opinion it sucks. Of course, humor wells up out of our inner pain. But when the best you can do is make fun of others who are different than you, you are only partway toward the goal of knowledge, and of wisdom.

Think about it. I have traveled in the part of the world "Borat" ridicules. What his portrait misses entirely is the deeply imbedded sense of hospitality that these ancient cultures maintain. If you show up at their door, they will take care of you.

Compare that with the wasted guy under the freeway as you drive by, begging for a quarter.

I know this is not a "cool" post. But I've never aspired to be cool. I am angry, angry at all injustices. You can't just choose your favorites -- the victims of Katrina, the Jews who escaped the Holocaust, the Palestinians, the Native Taiwanese, the African-Americans, or the Disabled.

Nope. All of God's Children deserve your empathy. Borat is a moral failure. May it be consigned to the dustbin of history's errors.

=30-