Thar She Blows

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?

—Job 38:1-2

This season my daughter was transformed into a hurricane. Rude and abusive things were said about her: “despite becoming a monster [a monster?], she will not pose any danger to land.”

Of course not. She’s always been a good girl.

As a hurricane, my daughter blew with winds of about 125 mph. Seems a fair breeze. I presume that all water creatures—birds, fish, boat-people—had sense enough to steer clear, as she churned through the Atlantic.

Because I live in the age of Science Men, I know that wind is a meteorological phenomenon. The flow of gases on a large scale. Movement of air in bulk. Generated by pressure dif-ferentials. Deflected by the Coriolis effect. Etc.

I know that wind no longer has anything to do with bumptious folk like Boreas, or Njord, or Fujin, the venerable Japanese deity who let the winds out of his magic bag in order to clear the primordial world of mist. I know that Stribog may be the Slavic grandfather “of the winds of the eight directions,” but the guy was placed in a Home, long ago, and no one really pays attention to him anymore. These days it’s all about specific heat, equations of motion, anemometers, and the Magnus effect.

But you know: why not both? Why can’t a hurricane be both an area of low atmospheric pressure, driven by the release of large amounts of latent heat of condensation, and also a pissed-off dude with a hundred hands and fifty heads, whipped into the world from the stormy pit of Tartaros? Or my daughter, turning over in her sleep, in dreams venting spleen at the hoary-handed robber barons of Kaiser?

“Big, Black, And Could Be Trouble”

Former professional basketball player John Amaechi was denied entrance to a Manchester, England gay bar when the doorman determined he was “big, black, and could be trouble.”

Amaechi is himself gay.

Two members of Amaechi’s party were allowed into club Crunch before Amaechi himself was barred; after Amaechi was turned away, the doorman granted passage to “an inebriated Batman (complete with cowl) and a group of five men and women dressed as escaped convicts and absolutely blasted out of their minds[.]“

According to Amaechi:

I was told I was being barred because Crunch is a “private members bar” at first, not because I had been previously aggressive.

Only when I made it clear I knew Crunch was NOT a private bar, did the doorman tap his radio to say they had been told “I was a problem.”

I stated that I knew I was being rejected for how I looked and what they assumed about me—I said because “I am big and black,” they said ” . . . big and black and trouble.”

When my friends told the doorman that I was a Patron of Pride, and gay—he laughed and turned his back.

In a pathetic attempt at damage control, Crunch spokespeaks claimed that the bar had received a radio message that a group matching the description of Amaechi & Co. had been “argumentative and aggressive” with another venue’s door staff. This lie was demolished when personnel at the two Manchester clubs Amaechi visited before he was barred from Crunch confirmed that they were not even linked via radio with Crunch. A representative of one of the clubs, VIA, told Pink News that in his establishment, on that night, Amaechi was, “as always, very pleasant.” This man also left the following message on Facebook:

Just wanted to add a point from VIA—John and his group were in our venue and were as always polite respectful. I do not know John personally but i have a great respect for the amount he does for OUR community. I was on the nitenet system all night as well as my head doorman and i do not remember any messages that were connected to Johns party . Tony -Via

Seems clear that the Crunch bunch, like George Bush and the racists at Daily Kos, just don’t like black people.