Looking at the film Love is All You Need? turns the world upside down. It puts gay couples in the majority and heterosexual couples in the minority, showing a modern day America in which gender roles are flipped as well.

 Girls are pressured to play football and theater is considered “just for boys.”

 It makes you question whether love is all you need, or whether it has to be the right kind of love. To meet your needs for acceptance, belonging and self-actualization in this fictional society, the only kind of love you can have is homosexual. The world is depicted as full of hate, hate of equal measure to today’s American brand of religiously fueled hate, but for the exact opposite kind of couple.

  I would love to explore a world in which the majority & minority of any classification of people is flipped, but the hate has dissolved. This could be a more egalitarian world in which there’s a football team for boys and girls, women and men. Feminists have not violently overthrown the patriarchal world to rule it just as violently, as I saw in the short film Oppressed Majority. To explore the What if? question in Love is All You Need? you could easily construct a reality in which gender roles are not as pronounced & expected, everyone is bisexual but the vast majority find themselves in homosexual relationships & households. This would still make a profound impression on viewers, and give us that unnerving feeling that things do not at all have to be the way they’ve been, among modern people.

  The film had to make a point about bullying though. Put the shoe on the other foot and you’ll understand how ridiculous & insulting any hate based on sexual orientation is. ( I’m not sure whether to say sexual orientation or sexual preference. Sexual preference goes along with the phrase ‘gay lifestyle’ and sexuality as a choice. )

  The way that the Bible is quoted is particularly unnerving because the Bible really could be interpreted in a way that hates on heterosexuality except for “breeding,” as it could also be interpreted in a way that hates on homosexual acts. It is so open to interpretation—and so is history—that I think that our society really COULD reflect the one in Love is all you Need? if things had been interpreted just a little differently throughout history.  If everyone had interpreted Aristotle and Shakespeare as homosexual, if this had been normalized & stayed normalized amid all the centuries of interpretation of everything from the Torah to the science of biology—then our biological urge to reproduce would’ve been seen as normal for “breeders” or the “breeding season” and our urges to merge with a partner of the same sex would’ve been seen as normal for a large percentage of people too. 

  Would there have been a sharp distinction between “breeding” in heterosexuality and love & companionship in homosexuality, so that one of these ways to love ended up demonized & oppressed?  I would hope not, but that is the plausible backstory behind the film.

  Many commenters on the YouTube version insist that humans would’ve died out & society wouldn’t exist, if homosexuals had been the majority for an extended period of time. I disagree. People can be methodical about this & achieve a stable population even if their hearts aren’t in it—even if reproduction isn’t the driving force behind most people’s lives. Even if a minority of heterosexual surrogates & sperm donors are depended on by the majority of couples in the world—we are great survivors. I think this would bring about some respect for heterosexuals & not the hate I see in the film.

 It leaves the question of nature versus nurture open-ended. I wish I could answer it here, but I can’t. I’d like to say that everything’s about interpretation & our attractions & our morality are all relative.

 I have met living examples of gay adults who decided to change their ways & be straight—for religious reasons—and I have met real young people who start to act gay (the cultural representation of gay people’s clothes, voice, hair, gossip, attitude, attractions) because this was popular. There are some examples out there of people who choose to stay in relationships where there’s no attraction & find a way to love each other. Haven’t people chosen their sexuality and/or expression of their sexual identity, in these ways?  Whenever someone asks you who is more attractive and there’s only two choices, neither of which jumps out at you, aren’t you choosing your attraction?

  More often than those cases I hear about people who can’t help falling in love with who they do, or who feel helpless & imprisoned in the closet. I know people who’ve interpreted their feelings in a way that leads them away from their truth.

 

  So do we all have the capacity to choose who we’re attracted to? Do the environments we’re forced into shape the attraction that we allow ourselves? An environment full of only violent men will notoriously lead to many homosexual acts, but not many conversions to homosexuality. In sex-starved prisons, often pointed to as an example, most prisoners do not identify as gay. Their environment shapes the attraction they allow themselves as the need for sex persists.

  Allowing yourself to have a new, abnormal attraction sure sounds like a choice.

  But the character in Love is all you Need? seemed to be born hetero, and everyone around her thought they were born homo.

  If the best person you know is of the same sex as you, do you choose to be attracted to that person & pursue him or her? Usually not. Usually people wait for a passionate love that carries them away & makes them feel powerless in its drive.

   It doesn’t have to be that way. Society doesn’t have to be that way.  We do not have to interpret those feelings of helpless passion as love or as anything positive. We COULD interpret love differently & all begin to choose, in a more cold & rational way, who we love.

  I recommend The Birth Order Companion, a book that changed my life. It’s like Eharmony in that it will point you to a match that is good for you & compatible, not just the match that you happen to come across in life who ends up treating you like shit. Christian bias, with both. Still, if you follow the guidelines of The Birth Order Companion, you’ll keep your head above the emotional waters & choose a mate based on what makes sense for your personality & habits, which are products of your family, upbringing, and birth order. Or, if you’re really hurting-- the book points out that damaged goods shouldn’t even have a mate.

   Is this sort of discretion possible? It's what is expected of gay people by the semi-tolerant religions. Gay and lesbian religious followers are more often expected to be eunuchs-- by the Franciscan brothers, for example-- than to be in healthy relationships, out of the closet.

  What if all heterosexuals were acknowledged but expected to choose asexuality, save the 'breeding season'? Pretty unreasonable right?

  Love is All You Need? is a short film that really makes you think.

Photo Expedition into the Coastal Redwoods

Visit Remember the Redwoods and you'll see there are 24 days left in a race to organize a great photo expedition and distribution of self-published photo books.

There are still hundreds of acres of old-growth stands on private lands in California-- many of them were privately purchased by conservationists, but plenty are still threatened by logging.

The Save the Redwoods League has a great map of the historical spread of the Redwoods

and a map of the present-day Redwoods left. 

The scarcity of America's true wild lands brings up the price of hardy, beautiful Redwood --

but how do we want to remember these trees? Do you want to remember them as heavy beams in a cabin, as a shiny table or marbleized wooden bowl?

Or do we want to remember them as the living beings that stand, as they stand today?

The photo products of this  project will help us remember them as they have lived, and inspire action to protect the trees.

Last July I organized a panel discussion about the changes in Minnesota's wildlife, on a one-hour talk radio program on KFAI community radio, called We're Wild About Wildlife.

Deer, bear and bee experts on Wild about Wildlife

This summer I am looking way beyond the decades-long changes of my local ecosystem, towards other important ecosystems like that of the Pacific Northwest.

Thanks for joining me!

Wedding Planning in Metro Minnesota

  {See our wedding planning video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5ZeGBzBUos}
4 months. Two cities. Two hapless beating hearts-- hopeless romantics hoping for their dream wedding to include all their family.
 For 4 months we have searched Twin Cities wedding venues near and far, simple and extravagant, finding the bottom line and the degree of flexibility at each garden, park, community center, and hotel. There's a lot to choose from, but you are very limited if you are:

• on a budget
• handicapped, or expecting handicapped guests
• averse to the tame, gardened landscapes and more comfortable near the woods
• want to dine deliciously outdoors
• seeking an evening wedding
• hoping for a casual gathering 'round a bonfire
• trying to bring in 300 people or more

Some of these little accommodations should be made for me and my groom, and in some places, they really are too much to ask. But why settle?

 This is the question that seems to be on my fiancé's mind. Why wait? is on mine. There are 4 months behind us, and 4 months ahead, before our supposed big day. The availability of lovely ceremony sites and party pavilions is closing up, filling like the Little Black Book app. on a Playbunny's phone. (And how would I know if there is such a thing-- ha!)

 We are DINKs who work full-time and then some-- should we really expect to cram every arrangement into the few months before the wedding? It's all we can do, since we haven't decided on a venue.

•   Camrose Hill Flower Farm: too spendy, too much like a farm, which doesn't suit our interests
•   Dellwood Barn: too spend even as it claims to be the best value for a large outdoor wedding venue
•   Maplewood Historical Society Barn:  too small, residential
•   Carpenter Nature Center pavilion: too strict, no bonfire allowed, requires Rent-A-Cop
•   Afton Apple Orchard: rural, cheap and very flexible, but their kitchen is inside their reception hall and dining would have to be indoors, loud, less classy with the kitchen right in view, tacky on concrete floor
•   Dakota County parks: Like all parks, everyone would have to be out by 10 PM  :(
•   Como Lake Pavillion:  Too spendy, fancy, large, strict
•   Como Zoo & Conservatory:  Too tame, gardened, fancy, predictable, expensive
•   Private land, someone's backyard: too residential, lots of rules to dance around, all the set-up and tear-down would be on us
•   Walker Art Center sculpture garden: Nice idea, but it's in Minneapolis, and we've ruled out every possibility in Minneapolis because of the terrible traffic & parking situations that our family will not deal with

 We are a couple in wedding limbo. It is so much stress that it almost makes you want to give up on the idea.  Leave your ideas in the comments below!

Hidden Meaning behind The Big Lebowski

Jeff Bridges recently visited Jon Stewart on a bridge-themed episode of The Daily Show, promising audiences depth in his new book, The Dude and the Zen Master, which was inspired by a happenchance conversation about Bridges in the 1998 film The Big Lebowski.

The Big Lebowski: crippled, rich, impudent doppelgänger of the main character of the movie.

Less likable than The Dude, the Lebowski-denying, poor Lebowski in the same city (played by some parts of Beverly Hills that seem like a quiet, slow-paced small town).

The little Lebowski: the baby alluded to at the end of the film who will be some confused mesh of the Big Lebowski's genes-- perhaps having the ego of grandfather-- and the Lebowski-denier's genes, probably inheriting lots of laziness. Do you smell the makings of a sequel by the end of the film?

I don't, because of one man:

The narrator: a nearly cartoonish descendent of Yosemite Sam who breaks the fourth wall to tell us that "Sometimes, there's a man, a man who's just right for his time and place. He just fits right in there. Sometimes there's a man… sometimes there's a man…"

You could sit through the whole movie waiting for the narrator to finish his thought, or show us how The Dude exemplified a modern, relevant male of 1991. How did his story fit right into the times, and no other time?

In Bridges' TV interview, he said he was convinced of the Zen of the movie-- many subtle
Kōans directed by the Cohen brothers, that are at once shocking and blasé: "Shut the fuck up, Donny."

Is that it?

No, fans, there's much more, but you might not like to hear it. I see this symbolic story as a comment on the modern emasculation of ordinary men, with more than a few hints at castration.

Castration! If we were watching a different film, one The Dude might enjoy, we might say "Double Castration!"

The two unavailable female characters threaten the men with different, subtle forms of castration. 

Big L.'s daughter, Maude Lebowski, over-the-top feminist, points out the relative poverty  and ineffectiveness of her father's lowly position, tearing away the facade of a rich, smart, older business man who built up his wealth from nothing. She uses the admittedly poor, younger Lebowski in a mildly incestuous plan to conceive and have a baby with someone who shares her father's name, preferring no involvement of a father, cutting off the influence of one parent and cutting ties with the masculine.

 Both rich daughter Ms. Lebowski and gold-digging stepmother Mrs. Lebowski approach The Dude seeking sex-- "I'll suck your cock for a thousand dollars"--  but Ms. Maude is the one always kidnapping and calling him-- she arrives in his bed, but communicates unemotionally and matter-of-factly, tossing about ideas with him but distinctly disapproving of partnership with him.  Meanwhile The Dude chases after Mrs. Bunny Lebowski and never finds her: the willing nymphomaniac driving the chase, perpetually unreachable. As an erotomaniac (diagnosed by Maude), she is emotionally unavailable and uninterested too.

Surely you saw the painting of a big pair of scissors and the color red, as The Dude entered Maude's apartment? The imagery reappears in The Dude's drug-induced vision, when men dressed in red are running with scissors: huge, menacing scissors that threaten to snap up and, dare I say, castrate The Dude.

 You knew there would be hidden, sexual meanings when you saw the "Gutterballs" drug-induced film-within-a-film sequence. And, like the resolution of the hostage mystery, it's kind of anti-climactic: The rich, powerful man is physically, financially, and, within his circles, socially powerless. Impotent.

 (You knew it when Brandt introduced the Big Lebowski's children. The Dude: "Ah. Different mothers." Brandt: "No, no, not literally his children…")

The important main character is unemployed, always suffering hard knocks, lazy, unmotivated, impotent-- reaping such rewards of his glory days of occupying college buildings and resisting the draft, fighting hard for his right not to fight or do anything, much.

The Vietnam veteran, eager sidekick: socially impossible, savage, inept in the face of crisis.

The fake abductors, foreign male threats that demand ransom money (never proffered) for Bunny Lebowski (never abducted): impotent, inept, losing to the one-man fighting machine that is Walter, after wailing that life is unfair, even when they have no moral ground to stand on as branded "nihilists."

The L.A. cops are admittedly, gleefully powerless to help.

The professional PI looking for Bunny Robinson Lebowski: so clueless and clumsy that he looks to The Dude for clues.

The film takes on philosophy more than religion, though you can't help but salivate for some symbolic showdown between the Zen of The Dude and the offensive bowling rival, The Jesus.

"Don't fuck with The Jesus."

The showdown and the the bowling tournament are not part of this story. (Can you believe that by the end I actually care about the bowling tournament?) The initial question, "Where's the money, Lebowski?" is never answered.

This is the story of an unrealistic Stranger who just ambled off his dude ranch, narrating a very realistic middle-aged man in a crazy hostage situation that goes around in circles. Why? 

Because, despite incompetence and other forms of impotence, there is one man in the film who stands out simply because he fits in. He goes with the flow. He doesn't stop when his friend or his car dies. His existence, seemingly shiftless and selfish, is justified by how everything works out around him.

Perhaps the spirit of the times, then, was living in the now and being One with the chaos.

"Sometimes there's a man…."  …who isn't a MAN, he's just a Dude. When you're an emasculated Dude, you get out of the expectations and responsibilities of having to be the Man.

A Prairie Health Companion: Alternative Insurance?

The online Health Care Exchange approaches. What will change? Will you exchange your health insurance?

 Open enrollment for coverage plans is typically in November, and 14 food co-ops in the Twin Cities, 150 Credit Union Co-ops in Minnesota, and over 300 members of Small Business Minnesota are being targeted by a new campaign to switch to a Consumer-Operated and –Oriented Plan for employee health care.

The Pro’s:

• No one can be denied health care coverage for being too fat, too skinny, or sick, per recent federal law
• The Co-Op option being organized in Minneapolis, called A Prairie Health Companion, will be hiring. It’s welcoming new Board members and citizens’ input, as well as new customers and employees

The Con’s:

• Small businesses that never offered employees insurance before will soon meet with the complications of this requirement, amid other changes
• $6 million that would’ve funded start-up loans for health care Co-Ops across the country was cut from the Affordable Care Act when Congress cowered before the fiscal cliff in December
• The new Minneapolis-based Co-Op will be a cheap option, but not so cheap that those receiving state-funded health coverage could switch over to it

 I spoke with someone who’s been educating Minnesotans about co-operative health care pools for years, Joel Albers, Ph.D. of health economics.

He said that Medica, Preferred One, Health Partners and the Blue Cross are using deceptive marketing to make people feel like they have power as individuals, using specific people as an emblem for their product.

One example is the real, down-to-earth smiling face on Medica billboards and bus signage, next to the title “Medica. Changing the Face of Health Care.”

You won’t see CEO David Tilford’s face on these advertisements, because they seem to appeal to Everyman. “That’s not what insurance is about,” Albers told the Daily Planet.

“Choice is a word for ‘We’re going to make this as complicated as possible.’ They don’t want to simplify it.”

 The virtual health care exchange that will open in October 2013 should make enrollment and comparison-shopping simple—for those who are comfortable using the Internet to make that decision. It depends, in part, on the insurance agencies’ communication strategies too. Will Minnesotans see them all at the state fair again, sponsoring tents and booths where everyone lines up for a free flu shot?

What will the established agencies do to fight for your business,  now that at least one start-up co-op or agency  will be competing in the same small virtual arena? Spokespeople for Medica and the Blue Cross of Minnesota declined to comment on their strategies. Preferred One and Health Partners could not be reached for comment.

“90% of the market-share is the Big Four,” explained Albers. He and other concerned citizens in the Universal Health Care Action Network have fought this sort of monopoly over the years, with protests, parades, radical education and advocacy of single-payer health care. Now UH-CAN’s focus is Co-op Care. “We’re building something, that’s our way of fighting. We can depend only on ourselves.”

 It hadn’t worked out to depend on legislative changes at the state level, when, in April 2011, UH-CAN, the Minnesota Nurses’ Association, and the Older Women’s League stood up for state Senator John Marty’s Bill SF 1054. It would’ve compounded the state-funded health programs and replaced $3 Billion in HMO contracts, cutting out the middle-man administrating health care for the poor. A single-payer health care solution had had more momentum between 2008 and 2011 than it had for decades, and a proponent of single-payer health care, Ed Ehlinger, was even instated as the Commissioner of the Department of Health. But Marty’s bill still did not gain traction,  and those receiving state-funded health care stuck with the HMO’s.

 I remember getting big heavy books in the mail detailing different insurance agencies, when I was on Minnesota Care in 2009. The agencies awaited my choice. I went with UCare, glancing through their provider network booklet and HealthPartners’—and not thinking about which would rip off the state more.

Insurance agencies still compete for those customers covered by state funding, though there’s less dental, vision and preventative care covered than before the September 2010 cuts from Minnesota’s money for the poor and sick. The state was trying to balance its budget in 2010 and the General Assistance Medical Care program was cut more than 75%, barely avoiding elimination altogether. GAMC and Minnesota Care used to be good deals for the patient—and the insurance company receiving the state money.

Waste was an issue, and so came the slashes to my pay as a personal care assistant and a reduction of the hours when I could help my clients as a PCA. Instead of consolidating Minnesota Care, Medical Assistance, and the Minnesota Family Planning Program to save money, the state targeted hospitals, nurses and caregivers. Disaster Capitalism as usual steamrolled ahead, and UH-CAN saw single-payer proposals for state programs recede and the ‘public option’ for our country fall away. Let’s not forget these hard lessons.

 Albers points out that 88% of all health care premium revenues in Minnesota flow into the bank accounts of the Big Four insurers. It’s been like this for the last 20 years, as major insurer mergers took place.

 Who benefited? In 2011 Patrick Geraghty, CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Minnesota, was the best-compensated head of any Health Management Organization in Minnesta, taking home $2,647,000, and Medica’s David Tilford took home almost as much. Should the new Co-Op Care mini-agency compensate its board members in the future, how much will they take home?

 The board members I spoke to are not in it for profit. Even business people like Jed Meyer at Affinity Plus Credit Union have stepped up to endorse Co-Op Care, which will likely earn less than the allowed 3% profit from premiums. Albers described credit unions’ approach as similar to his own: “They’re trying to get people out of big banks, we’re trying to get people out of big insurance.” Jed Meyer could not be reached for comment.

See and hear the nuts and bolts for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pgqbi6d0e8

THUNDERSNOW and endless Flurries in April limit Mobility

Snowed In?

-- How do you maneuver through the slippery streets of Minnesota winters?  

If pedestrians had clout, the sidewalks would be clear and dry and the cars, not the people, would have to deal with avalanches of plowed snow from the boulevards. It's hard enough for an able-bodied person to slosh through the thoroughfares of the Twin Cities, with routes reduced by snow piles and narrowed by ice. But what about the rest of us? 

It's time for Minnesota drivers to recognize that road-worthy wheelchairs are not in the way of traffic-- they ARE traffic. If a sidewalk isn't shoveled well, it's safer to drive your wheelchair on the side of the plowed street, with the direction of traffic. Regardless of the frustrated drivers who are confused by seeing wheelchairs on the road, taking the street is often the wiser choice because you don't even know if  a cleared sidewalk will have a clear curb-cut at the end. 

Curb-cuts are the vital little slopes from sidewalk to street that are so easily blockaded whenever the plow pushes snow to the curb. In the summer you have to deal with gawking pedestrians who stand right on the slope you need to drive down, as well as inconsistent curb-cuts-- some sidewalks & bike paths leave you high and dry. In the winter, you can't always tell which sidewalks are accessible because the plow's piles are in the way!The city pays shovelers to do the grunt-work of clearing curb-cuts-- be sure to thank them whenever you see them!

It's unfortunate, however, that the city prioritizes the downtown walkways, considering them the most highly trafficked, without getting to all the curb-cuts we need.

  Without a vehicle, you really could be snowed in this winter, especially if you live in a suburban or rural community.

But going out & visiting friends this holiday season & into the new year is still important & quite possible --our communities don't hibernate & neither do we.

So, as you head out into the wind,

bring a flashlight,

remember to charge up your cell phone & powerchair,

& boldly go where few powerchairs have gone before this season.Someone's gotta make those first tracks in the fresh snow!

  Do you have any other tips for winter mobility?

On My Bookshelf...

How did we get here? Why are we here? Is life fair-- or could it be? How long have humans been asking these questions? If we find answers, how can we relate such ineffable answers to each other?

I turn to books for hope-- hope for the secret curiosities in me that I cannot articulate any longer for their complexity. But some authors, older and younger than I, have found their own ways to explain and test the mysteries of the inner life, the ancient, and the interpersonal ether.

I was thirteen when I found Frank Laubach's Letters by a Modern Mystic in a library basement in Fort Worth, Texas-- and soon, Soul Searching by 16-year-old author Sarah Stillman.

 With acceptance of different mystical paths, I found writing to be part of my path. My goal was to get published by the time I was sixteen.

 Once I had met this goal, the poetry anthology and high school yearbooks that printed my words sat on the bookshelf gathering dust. I continue sharing poetry and local news articles in small publications, for the importance of awareness and the joy of recognition and mutual appreciation. But public expression of my thoughts hasn’t answered any questions—it’s just brought forth new ones.

  Can anything said be original? Are popular printed words adding to the world’s collective knowing—or taking away from the creative possibilities that writers could have, in their future struggles to be original? Why is groupthink considered bad and the collective unconscious considered benign?

 The logical urgency of my conscience compelled me to dive into news, and that's what I read, except in the spare minutes between stresses and sleep when I still reach for the spiritual memoirs and manuals.

 If reading my palm has provided any real insight at all, I know that the spiritual dimension will save my life one day. The hope that glimmers just beyond the next page turn is for more than that-- more than a long, healthy life. There is hope for all the lives past, present and future, united in some elusive way... that only stories can get at. The stories that make you feel, question, remember…

 I believe in planting small, private libraries in unexpected places, ruled by curiosity and the honor system. So my collection of pensive memoirs and helpful how-tos on everything from intuition to ecstasy has dispersed-- it's among the donated books in the Augsburg College Women's Resource Center, the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center, the Germanic-American Institute's little library, a friend's SoulHome lending library, and Little Free Libraries around the city.

  Maybe someone else, thirteen, uncertain and far from home, will stumble upon a new perspective that they've needed.

---

I recommend 

I Love Female Orgasm by Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller

My Life So Far by Jane Fonda

Memoirs of a Spiritual Outsider by Suzanne Clores

The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy by Cyndi Dale

Energy Medicine by Donna Eden