I first got involved with direct giving to the poor because of the New Futures Orphanage. I was scouring the net, looking for just, real, and direct ways to impact the lives of the poor, with small funds. I came across a [ blog ] kept by an English teacher backpacking through Cambodia.

She’d come upon an orphanage there that needed volunteers to teach some English to the children. Teachers would come through, and some would stay a while and do this, and she was captivated and decided to stay for much longer. I was captivated too, and I looked, and they needed $900 in small gifts – that’s all they were asking for last year, and it was being given in small gifts ($25, $35, $45 at a time) through [ givemeaning.org ] a site that serves as the vehicle for giving directly to such small charities.

They finally met their fundraising goal, which was used to provide some basic things to the orphanage, like cinder block walls and a roof to enclose the toilet. I read the updates from Claire, who was giving her time there. She reported on how the children were doing, their improving skills, what this means for their future. I read what the children thought about their situation, and their hopes for their futures; each one is an individual. I knew I had to help.

The poor are Christ to us. They are the icon, the image. They are the means by which we are saved, by being filled with love. Apart from them, I know I at least cannot be saved. They are the ones of whom Christ said, “inasmuch as you have done with your riches to the least of these, who are my brothers, you have so done to me in my impoverishment”.

Recently, the landlord sold the orphanage and the children had to be taken to a facility that doesn’t have electricity. So they need to raise money to get 12volt battery-powered lighting installed and survive with the soaring food costs. The project has established a funding goal of $1000. I’m asking you to help me help them. Take the cost of a night out, or a new video game, or a month of cable TV, and give directly to them, for this need.

They are [ here ].

Direct Giving defined: Give in reality, not in theory. Give to people, not to ideas.

The “Way too proud of Texas Guy”

You know, if Rumsfeld (of the “Salvadoran Option”) and Cheney and their crew don’t go to Hell, I might have a chance.

Lately, Asher has been helping a friend with his book, doing lots of writing and blogging under various personas, spending a lot of time in the chapel, working in the new construct, strengthening or repairing some relationships, reading, and clarifying his thinking in a number of areas. He’s around, as always, in many places at once – not content to live in one world.

There are 3 kinds of assholes in the world. I, Asher, happen to be all 3 of them.

The word “asshole” is phrase we use of men. We do. The equivalent word for a woman is bitch. This is the prevalent usage. So what is meat of the word asshole, and why is it applied generally to men?

The first kind: The first kind of asshole is a man who doesn’t go along with the basic conventions in the culture. I’m not referring to being a member of some acceptable counter-culture, some approved dissident movement, or practicing some likable personal idiosyncrasies. I mean someone who orders eggs and toast and when the waitress says “No meat?” responds, “Eggs are meat.” Someone who, when returning an item and is tolds “It’s our policy.” responds “Except, I don’t work for you.” An asshole is a man who doesn’t, at the most basic levels of interaction in society, go along.

The second kind: The second kind of asshole is a man who consistently treats falsehoods as what they really are. When you tell or commit a social pretense, he responds to what is really happening or what is really being said, rather than treats the pretense as true. For instance, if you say “We might look into that.” he may respond, “No need. I don’t mind that it doesn’t interest you.” If you say, “I like that person, but I just find some of the things inexplicable.” he may respond, “Well, you can’t like everyone.” Obviously, it depends on the situation, and this man is picking up on the non-explicit cues, like posture, gesture, facial expressions, tone of voice, and so on. Where it really comes to a head is when there’s much more intense pressure to accept the social pretense – high pressure situations, such as when someone popular is making an excuse, or when another man is doing something unethical, and no one wants to confront him. Saying what really is, at such moments, rather than what you’re supposed to say, rather than affecting belief in the pretensions, is the behavior of an “asshole”.

The third kind: The third kind of asshole is a man who consistently – in practice, not just in rhetoric – holds women (remember asshole is a gender-based term) – holds women to the same standards as men. There’s always the pony-tail wearing soft male who claims to do so, but then he spends a lot of time being “nice” to women, and he counts as “mean” (asshole) a man who doesn’t give special treatment. Often the distinctions are subtle. On the whole, men are gentler when arguing with women, they often let personal attacks or despicable behavior pass that would not be tolerable from a man – they make allowances, exceptions. An asshole does not do so – if a woman has been illogical and he’d say it to a man, he says it to the woman. If a woman has shown cowardice or dishonesty, and he would point it out to a man, he points it out to a woman. There’s always some guy present who says, “that guy’s an asshole.” Indeed, proudly so – except that guy is not a guy, he’s a man. Observe and learn – you will see very few of these in your lifetime.

Have you ever had an argument and your opponent brings up your wife? “I wonder what you’re wife would say about that.” “I feel sorry for you wife for having to deal with you.” etc.

Only the lowest, basest coward would try to find a wedge between a man and his family in the course of an argument. Only a coward would, unable to strike effectively at the man, use his family as a weapon.

Often it’s a woman saying such things. Besides the assumption that all women are the same, and all marriages are the same (there’s a female attitude, don’t you know – oh, and a black attitude, and a gay attitude, and so on), it’s an attempt to use gender to shame the man – to use gender as a weapon. It’s the equivalent of patting her on the head, and saying that you don’t expect her to understand – which is an excellent response in these cases. Besides turnabout being fair play, it’s useful to illustrate the offense.

I know that culture often gives the woman a pass for this. I don’t. A coward is a coward.

Very close is the phenomenon wherein any time a man says he’s planning to do something unusual with his life, or that violates the perceived norm – the man-track – like, “I’m going to take a month off and write.” or “I’m going to go hike for a couple of weeks – no, she’s working” – you get the presumptuous response: “What does your wife think about that?”

As though we answer to our wives. As though we have to seek permission. As though a wife is a form of parent. As though marriages are all the same. Most people don’t understand the things they’re presuming when they talk like this. I always just respond, “Why do you ask?” for which they never have an answer. Because they know better, and they know what they’re doing. Or I’ll say, “Oh, why don’t you ask her?” That usually silences them because, again, they know they have no business there.

This culture is a culture of cowards, of subjects, of conventional people in bondage to what they’ve learned from TV, and expect you to serve their conventions too. One can’t cater to them.

Rotating Header Graphics: I’ve put together a selection of 30 or so headers that will change each time you visit the AsherNet. The current one is my favorite – a shot of the Haunt – and will stay up for a little while until people get used to it.

Over the years, I realized, I’ve become what people would dub ‘politically neutral’. It’s not that I have no ideas; it’s that the ideas are on an entirely different ball field; I’m not playing on the presuppositions of the culture; I don’t accept the first premise of it’s debate, so I have no position on it’s opposing teams. Far from being a moderate or a true neutral, I hold ideas that threaten it’s very existence. But relative to its presuppositions, I’m neutral, because for me, within broad strokes, it’s morally arbitrary who is in power. I used to think one group or another was destroying America and the World. I’m still certain of that; it’s just that now I think that *all* the groups are doing it. Not because they’re groups, but because they’re what they are. This arena is one of competing evils. Nor do I find it a morally defensible framework to ‘choose between the lesser of evils’, as though supporting Mussolini is somehow acceptible because I didn’t support Hitler. These are the cowardly ‘moral stands’ of those who have admitted personal defeat but don’t have the courage to admit the true depth of the problem, because – unlike defeat – it would underscore rather than rob them of their responsibility. I cannot say, “I am not responsible, because I voted for Mussolini not Hitler.” I cannot divide life into categories and say, “I did the best I can do, because I supported Communist Guerillas over a Fascist Dictator (or vice versa). America’s hemispheric policies are so illustrative in these areas. No, I understand that either the next Mao or the next Amin or the next Pol Pot may take power, and they are all criminals against man and against the Kingdom of God, and I won’t help any of them take what they are pleased to call power which, if you have to take it, is not power but only violence, or if you must win it, it is not power but a trophy. Do I support anarchy? Only in the sense that I do not accept the false dilemma of the forms of leadership, government, and political debate currently offered, but consider them all perverse and false – illusory forms of politics – themselves therefore anarchistic. In this age, one has to be an anarchist just to have independent thought. But I’m not ready to don a black beret and retreat into coffee house intellectualism. On the contrary, I have no argument, unless I take responsibility. So currently I am with whoever is being killed by those who are doing the killing, whoever is being invaded, not those doing the invading, whoever is being forced into submission, by those doing the forcing. I am not their political ally, but I am with them in this one thing: I reject the claims of others to dominate them, for whatever reason. Even when it is said they must be brought to justice, I am with them in this: I do not recognize the justice to which they are brought as justice. Justice is what we will have when all of these governments are overturned by the one that bears the government upon his shoulders.