I got a Kindle for Christmas, generously given by my kids. It was something I asked for, with mixed emotions.
You see, I am a bibliophile. I like having a physical book in my hand...love the smell of a used book store. Love the feel of an old leather-bound book to the touch. I love the excitement of gently cracking the spine of a brand-new book, rather like the excitement of opening a treasure chest. (Well, at least, I assume it is like that feeling, since I've never opened a treasure chest.)
Anthropologists are fond of citing examples of how we differ from the "lower" animals. They talk about speech, and tool making, and sexual mores. How I think we differ from lower animals is that not only do we have speech and tool making but we use tool making to speak to each other, over distance and time. We can speak of philosphy and how-to instructions and stories and political thought and scientific discovery.
I can read, if I so choose, Galileo's treatises. I can look at Da Vinci's notes and drawings on manned flight. I can read the latest novel by a Swedish thriller writer. I can travel in my mind to Hogworts. Or a galaxy far, far away. Or James Bond's British intelligence agency. Or wherever and whenever I darn well please.
Yes, whales and other cetaceans can communicate over long distances. But my guess is they are either saying, "Come on over for a deep sea banquet...food plentiful here." Or "You want to see my etchings?" Or some such. But they can't communicate over time. They can't communicate with Captain Ahab's whale.
That alone is Man's/Woman's abilty.
I like reading books even when I think the author is full of shit. (I've even read Sarah Palin's book.) Even then, I can read a thought espoused by the author and say to myself, "I know better than that...this author doesn't know what s/he is talking about."
So why did I ask for a Kindle? Well, for starters, there are actually many more new books/best sellers available there, for less cost, than I can either find at my local library or at Barnes and Noble. Yes, I'm one of those geeks who is a library patron and I even go there for the books and not for the Internet access. And when I, as an environmentalist, think of how many trees are killed annually to publish all the great books and all the drek, it does make sense to send an author's thoughts through fiberoptic lines rather than Guttenburg's press.
My kids' generation will no doubt see the demise of the printed book and their kids will probably view books as something akin to how we viewed the stereopticans and buggy whips of our grandparents' generation. I tell my kids to hang on to my library after I'm gone until books gain in value as oddities of history and then sell the suckers for beaucoup bucks. It will be their inheritance.
I'm not the most technologically savvy of individuals. Even in my generation, I'm not exactly knowledgeable about all the ins and outs of computers and iPads, iPhones and Blackberries. I don't own a PDA and I don't like being so available to any yahoo who wants to contact me at any time of the day or night in any location.
I have to have my kids explain to me, when I see a device touting "3G" capabilities or gigabytes of this or that, what that all means. Because, honestly, it sounds like Swahili to me. It could be that everything I've ever learned about computers and technology has been on my own, without benefit of instruction. As a matter of fact, I've learned alot about technology by...wait for it...reading real books. Irony, that.
(Irony, according to the Black Adder, is "kinda like goldy or bronzy but made of iron.")
As I have frequently said, I don't have to know how a microwave works to heat food with one. I just need to know which buttons to push.
I worry that my kids' generation will get so used to Facebooking and texting each other that they will forget how to talk face to face, being able to read nuances of face and hands. Body language doesn't digitize very well.
And of course their kids won't have those skills in the first place. They will never know the thrill of browsing a book store or library and happening on to a book that they would never have thought would interest them. Amazon.com requires one to request the title of the book or subject matter or author's name. One can't really browse.
I'm not a Luddite. I do believe in advancing technology and its ability to enhance our lives. I don't want to go back to the good old days, which in matter of fact were the bad old days. When people died of curable diseases and missed Christmas because their horse threw a shoe and became blacksmiths because they couldn't go to college way far away.
So I keep one foot in the 21st century by reading my Kindle, while cherishing my beloved books. When I turned on the Kindle, lo and behold, the "sleep" mode uses an illuminated hand-written text as the screen saver.
Sigh.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
A Christmas Memory
No, this won't be nearly as well written as Truman Capote wrote his Christmas memories. But it is one of the many memories I have where I wish I could say it turned out better.
Years ago, when our children were small, we bundled them up on Christmas Eve and took them out through the snow to the Cathedral, where midnight mass was being held. No, we're not Catholic, but a friend was singing and we thought a celebration of the season was just the thing to put us in the mood for Christmas.
It was. So about 1:30 on Christmas morning, having gotten our sleeping children bedded down for the night and finished last minute wrapping and stocking stuffing, we prepared for bed ourselves. (correction: we assisted Santa in stuffing stockings and wrapping gifts...on account he's so busy, don't you know!)
Just as we were turning out lights, we realized that there was a fire truck just four doors down on our street. This neighborhood was one that city planners like to call "transitional"...that is, it was "transitioning" from crack houses and whore houses to gentrification. The houses in our neighborhood were all architectural masterpieces, with lots of wood carved staircases and mullioned windows. We were part of the gentrification, not a part of the crack houses, just for the record.
So my husband put on boots and tramped through the snow to see what was going on. He discovered a woman and her daughter, both in house slippers and nightgowns, with blankets thrown over their shoulders, standing in the freezing snow. They lived in the apartment next to the fire, but had been evacuated in case the fire spread.
He invited them to come to our house, where at the very least, they could be warm. They came, but the woman insisted on sitting on the boot bench in our front hall, her blanket regally clutched around her shoulders, back ramrod straight.
I offered coffee, hot chocolate, anything warm. She declined, not wanting to "be a bother." From the condition of their clothing and their apartment building, they were obviously not a part of the gentrification of the neighborhood.
I went into the living room and turned the tree lights back on, for the entertainment of the little girl, who couldn't have been more than six. Her eyes twinkled in the tree lights, her mouth forming an "O". "We don't have a tree, 'cause Momma says we can't afford it."
My heart sank. My mind quickly searched the wrapped packages I'd just placed under the tree (correction: Santa had placed), rejecting them all because they were trucks and little boy flannel shirts and army guys. Nothing even remotely appropriate for a girl child.
This woman, asking for nothing but a warm place for her and her child to wait for the Fire Department to complete their work, stayed only an hour or so. She didn't say much, though the child chattered in the way of a child who knows no stranger. I offered more blankets. Declined, with dignity.
The little girl eventually fell asleep on the sofa, tired no doubt by all the excitement of the evening. My husband carefully bundled her up in the thin blanket and carried her home, her mother expressing gratitude just for the warm place to sit on a frigid, snowy Midwestern night. She wouln't take anything else from us.
But til the day I die, I will always regret not having had anything under that tree that a little girl would have liked. I would have told her that Santa, in his infinite wisdom, had dropped off the package for her, knowing that her apartment was filled with smoke and water.
Every year, I donate to Toys for Tots. Let that be my penance.
Years ago, when our children were small, we bundled them up on Christmas Eve and took them out through the snow to the Cathedral, where midnight mass was being held. No, we're not Catholic, but a friend was singing and we thought a celebration of the season was just the thing to put us in the mood for Christmas.
It was. So about 1:30 on Christmas morning, having gotten our sleeping children bedded down for the night and finished last minute wrapping and stocking stuffing, we prepared for bed ourselves. (correction: we assisted Santa in stuffing stockings and wrapping gifts...on account he's so busy, don't you know!)
Just as we were turning out lights, we realized that there was a fire truck just four doors down on our street. This neighborhood was one that city planners like to call "transitional"...that is, it was "transitioning" from crack houses and whore houses to gentrification. The houses in our neighborhood were all architectural masterpieces, with lots of wood carved staircases and mullioned windows. We were part of the gentrification, not a part of the crack houses, just for the record.
So my husband put on boots and tramped through the snow to see what was going on. He discovered a woman and her daughter, both in house slippers and nightgowns, with blankets thrown over their shoulders, standing in the freezing snow. They lived in the apartment next to the fire, but had been evacuated in case the fire spread.
He invited them to come to our house, where at the very least, they could be warm. They came, but the woman insisted on sitting on the boot bench in our front hall, her blanket regally clutched around her shoulders, back ramrod straight.
I offered coffee, hot chocolate, anything warm. She declined, not wanting to "be a bother." From the condition of their clothing and their apartment building, they were obviously not a part of the gentrification of the neighborhood.
I went into the living room and turned the tree lights back on, for the entertainment of the little girl, who couldn't have been more than six. Her eyes twinkled in the tree lights, her mouth forming an "O". "We don't have a tree, 'cause Momma says we can't afford it."
My heart sank. My mind quickly searched the wrapped packages I'd just placed under the tree (correction: Santa had placed), rejecting them all because they were trucks and little boy flannel shirts and army guys. Nothing even remotely appropriate for a girl child.
This woman, asking for nothing but a warm place for her and her child to wait for the Fire Department to complete their work, stayed only an hour or so. She didn't say much, though the child chattered in the way of a child who knows no stranger. I offered more blankets. Declined, with dignity.
The little girl eventually fell asleep on the sofa, tired no doubt by all the excitement of the evening. My husband carefully bundled her up in the thin blanket and carried her home, her mother expressing gratitude just for the warm place to sit on a frigid, snowy Midwestern night. She wouln't take anything else from us.
But til the day I die, I will always regret not having had anything under that tree that a little girl would have liked. I would have told her that Santa, in his infinite wisdom, had dropped off the package for her, knowing that her apartment was filled with smoke and water.
Every year, I donate to Toys for Tots. Let that be my penance.
Constitution/Schmonstitution
I'm deeply amused by the people, mainly Tea Baggers, who claim that the Congress needs to go back to the Constitution and limit its activities to those powers Constitutionally allowed.
Really?
So I guess that means that Congress can't limit drug usage, because I see no authority granted by the Constitution for those august bodies to do so. That would put paid to the illegalization of drugs. Let's all go smoke a bong.
Nor can Congress call baseball players before it to grill them on steroid usage in sports. It isn't in their Powers, as enumerated by our Constitution. I always wondered why, when there are so many really serious problems in our nation they claim not to have time to put to a vote or even to read bills addressing those problems, while they do have time to delve into baseball, our national pasttime.
Witness the new START treaty, which was negotiated April 2010, yet with all the minutes they spend doing their jobs, followed by hours of campaigning, they have been so busy, they can't possibly have read the darn thing. Let me repeat: They haven't had time to read one measly treaty. Since April.
The FCC and the FTC are not mentioned in the Constitution, so let's throw them out. No regulation at all of our airways or our commerce. So what if TV and Radio become all porn all the time, or if any yahoo can start a bank and rip people off. Bernie Madoff, eat your heart out. For that matter, why do we need an Ag Department? So what if the food we eat is contaminated? Congress doesn't have the Constitutional power to regulate that.
They only have to meet once a year, according to the Constitution, so maybe their 120 days of actual work on the business of the nation is sufficient.
The Constitution also states that Congress can't prohibit slavery. You know, where it says that Congress can't prohibit the "Importation" of persons, although it can put a duty on such persons. In other words, you can't pick up a slave in a duty-free shop. African-Americans, beware. Going back to the original powers of Congress means you might be picking cotton in the near future.
These Tea Baggers are very fond of the idea of getting rid of the National Endowment for the Arts, yet that is a Constitutional authority. The framers of the Constitution specifically said that the Congress was to "promote the Progress of Sciences and useful Arts."
In fact, Congress has the authority to make laws in the exercise of these Powers, including laws governing departments or officers of the United States. Which would include the NEA, the Department of Education, the NEH and any number of departments which the Tea Baggers think aren't part of the Constitution.
One could indeed argue that, the power "to provide for the General Welfare" might possibly include education, but evidently the Tea Baggers don't think an education is important to the "General Welfare". I guess they want a populace who is totally ignorant, or am I misreading this?
Oh, and how many Post Roads has Congress built lately? I think they are falling down on the job in that respect. Unless you count a Bridge to Nowhere as a "Post Road". Maybe that's what the Bridge to Nowhere was for.
The Tea Baggers see themselves as Insurrectionists and Revolutionaries, which means that Congress has the right to raise a Militia to suppress their meetings. Wonder what the Tea Baggers would say if the National Guard broke up their demonstrations? Would they still see the need to stick to "Constitutional" powers only?
When Senator John McCain, opposed to "Don't Ask Don't Tell" after he was in favor of it, claimed that "organizing, arming and disciplining" the Armed Services was up to the generals, he evidently hadn't read the Constitution, which provides that power to the Congress.
I'll admit, I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but I can read. Unlike Christine O'Donnell who claimed to have studied the Constitution, yet didn't seem to be aware of the clauses in the Constitution which provide for the separation of church and state.
But I am an intelligent person, capable of Googling "US Constitution" and reading for myself what it says in that document. Which is more than I can say for Rep. Jim Diment, who wants every bill read aloud on the Floor of the House. I guess he's trying to hide the fact that he is illiterate and wants every bill, no matter how lengthy or arcane, turned into "Books on Tape".
The Constitution doesn't provide for electronic voting on bills, and, in fact, insists on voice vote: "votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays." At least that's how I read it. Oh, and they are required to record their vote for posterity, yet aren't requred to put their names on earmarks and amendments.
I am also deeply amused by the fact that members of the most presitious body in the world can throw people in jail for lying to Congress, yet they seem to not follow the same law. They stand in the Well of the House or the Pit of the Senate and lie their asses off, yet never do time.
In the original Constitution, the President was elected by the Congress, not by the Electoral College or popular vote resulting in Electoral College votes. So I guess we've been conducting our elections totally wrong all these years.
Look, you can't have it both ways. Either we indeed go back to yesteryear and adhere strictly to the Powers listed in that document...ALL of them. Or, we recognize that the beauty of our form of government is the fact that we can tweak it, amend it and generally update it to fit our current needs.
I'm for the latter, in case you couldn't tell.
Really?
So I guess that means that Congress can't limit drug usage, because I see no authority granted by the Constitution for those august bodies to do so. That would put paid to the illegalization of drugs. Let's all go smoke a bong.
Nor can Congress call baseball players before it to grill them on steroid usage in sports. It isn't in their Powers, as enumerated by our Constitution. I always wondered why, when there are so many really serious problems in our nation they claim not to have time to put to a vote or even to read bills addressing those problems, while they do have time to delve into baseball, our national pasttime.
Witness the new START treaty, which was negotiated April 2010, yet with all the minutes they spend doing their jobs, followed by hours of campaigning, they have been so busy, they can't possibly have read the darn thing. Let me repeat: They haven't had time to read one measly treaty. Since April.
The FCC and the FTC are not mentioned in the Constitution, so let's throw them out. No regulation at all of our airways or our commerce. So what if TV and Radio become all porn all the time, or if any yahoo can start a bank and rip people off. Bernie Madoff, eat your heart out. For that matter, why do we need an Ag Department? So what if the food we eat is contaminated? Congress doesn't have the Constitutional power to regulate that.
They only have to meet once a year, according to the Constitution, so maybe their 120 days of actual work on the business of the nation is sufficient.
The Constitution also states that Congress can't prohibit slavery. You know, where it says that Congress can't prohibit the "Importation" of persons, although it can put a duty on such persons. In other words, you can't pick up a slave in a duty-free shop. African-Americans, beware. Going back to the original powers of Congress means you might be picking cotton in the near future.
These Tea Baggers are very fond of the idea of getting rid of the National Endowment for the Arts, yet that is a Constitutional authority. The framers of the Constitution specifically said that the Congress was to "promote the Progress of Sciences and useful Arts."
In fact, Congress has the authority to make laws in the exercise of these Powers, including laws governing departments or officers of the United States. Which would include the NEA, the Department of Education, the NEH and any number of departments which the Tea Baggers think aren't part of the Constitution.
One could indeed argue that, the power "to provide for the General Welfare" might possibly include education, but evidently the Tea Baggers don't think an education is important to the "General Welfare". I guess they want a populace who is totally ignorant, or am I misreading this?
Oh, and how many Post Roads has Congress built lately? I think they are falling down on the job in that respect. Unless you count a Bridge to Nowhere as a "Post Road". Maybe that's what the Bridge to Nowhere was for.
The Tea Baggers see themselves as Insurrectionists and Revolutionaries, which means that Congress has the right to raise a Militia to suppress their meetings. Wonder what the Tea Baggers would say if the National Guard broke up their demonstrations? Would they still see the need to stick to "Constitutional" powers only?
When Senator John McCain, opposed to "Don't Ask Don't Tell" after he was in favor of it, claimed that "organizing, arming and disciplining" the Armed Services was up to the generals, he evidently hadn't read the Constitution, which provides that power to the Congress.
I'll admit, I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but I can read. Unlike Christine O'Donnell who claimed to have studied the Constitution, yet didn't seem to be aware of the clauses in the Constitution which provide for the separation of church and state.
But I am an intelligent person, capable of Googling "US Constitution" and reading for myself what it says in that document. Which is more than I can say for Rep. Jim Diment, who wants every bill read aloud on the Floor of the House. I guess he's trying to hide the fact that he is illiterate and wants every bill, no matter how lengthy or arcane, turned into "Books on Tape".
The Constitution doesn't provide for electronic voting on bills, and, in fact, insists on voice vote: "votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays." At least that's how I read it. Oh, and they are required to record their vote for posterity, yet aren't requred to put their names on earmarks and amendments.
I am also deeply amused by the fact that members of the most presitious body in the world can throw people in jail for lying to Congress, yet they seem to not follow the same law. They stand in the Well of the House or the Pit of the Senate and lie their asses off, yet never do time.
In the original Constitution, the President was elected by the Congress, not by the Electoral College or popular vote resulting in Electoral College votes. So I guess we've been conducting our elections totally wrong all these years.
Look, you can't have it both ways. Either we indeed go back to yesteryear and adhere strictly to the Powers listed in that document...ALL of them. Or, we recognize that the beauty of our form of government is the fact that we can tweak it, amend it and generally update it to fit our current needs.
I'm for the latter, in case you couldn't tell.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Redistributing the Wealth
"Socialism is a economic and political theory advocating public or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and the allocation of resources." - Wikipedia
If I hear one more time that Obama is a "socialist", I think I'll puke.
I keep asking the question of some very smart people "if socialism is taking from rich people and giving to the poor, what is it called when we take from the poor and give to the rich?" Is it "redistribution of wealth" or "redistribution of poverty"? I think I have my answer.
It's called being a Conservative.
In the past decade, the number of billionaires (that's with a B) has risen. Case in point: Oprah Winfrey, who used to be the richest woman in the nation, is a paltry 137th in the recent Forbes' list of the top 400 billionaires. 137th! I remember when Forbes' used to track the top 400 millionaires. They don't do that any more because there are too darn many of them. Ah, those were the days.
If those who posit the idea that Obama is a socialist were to truly adhere to a pure capitalist creed, then perhaps we shouldn't have bailed out BP in the recent and ongoing Gulf Oil disaster. We, as pure capitalists, should have told them to sink or swim (especially the swimming part) in the Gulf. We should have said, "Taking from the poor taxpayers in this country is socialism and we are not socialists...we're capitalists. So take your lumps and pay for all the clean-up yourselves."
We are currently enjoying the lowest tax rates in our history. We have cut spending, on Obama's watch, to the lowest in our history. And yet, in spite of the fact that we have more rich people in this country than ever before, and in spite of the fact that the middle class hasn't effectively had a salary increase in 15 years, we've decided that the rich should get even richer and the middle class should pay for everything.
Witness yahoos who call themselves Senators on both sides of the political spectrum saying stupid things like "We should extend the tax cuts for the super wealthy but we have to get a hold of the national debt." Huh? How do they propose to pay for those tax cuts? With more borrowing, that's how.
Witness the bailout of the large financial institutions which began under George's watch, handing out beaucoup bucks to institutions which took huge risks, then came crying to Mama when they lost their shirts. Or, to be more accurate, when they lost other people's shirts. And yet, no limits were placed on the bonuses given to those very same managers who lost other people's shirts. That's capitalism for you.
Witness the bailout of the auto manufacturers, who ran their companies into the ground, then flew to Washington in their private jets to ask for help.
I guess it's "capitalism" if you get to keep the cash when you make profits, but "socialism" if the tax payers have to bail you out when you lose.
The argument seems to be that the tax cuts would help small business and they would start hiring again. Nope, small businesses aren't in the $250K range for the most part. Because, while their gross profits might be above $250K, they also have the ability to deduct business expenses, making their taxable income considerably less than the $250K ceiling. We generally tend to think of Mom and Pop as a "small business" but the Feds define "small business" as any business with under 50 employees. Anyone who has 50 employees could probably afford a dollar or two more in taxes, particularly since they are already getting special tax benefits for hiring new employees.
We had those same arguments during the Reagan years. They called it "Reaganomics" (or in the case of George Bush Sr, "voo doo economics") and the "trickle down" of largesse from the rich to the poor was a different form of "redistribution".
In fact, economists of every stripe pretty much agree that the "trickle down" didn't happen. Give a rich person a tax break and they'll no doubt go to Europe on vacation. Or buy a luxury yacht in Greece. Or buy more stock in AIG. Or give money to some political PAC. Or something. Not ever having been rich, I really have no experience in these matters.
But they won't hire any more people. Know how I know this? Because businesses aren't currently hiring, despite sitting on some pretty large bank accounts. They won't create jobs (except by investing in China, which results in Chinese jobs, I guess.) They won't donate more of their hard-earned cash to Habitat for Humanity or the Red Cross. They'll party hardy.
So, I'm still waiting for the intelligent debate about "socialism" when the Republicans, in charge of the House, the Senate and the White House, managed to turn a surplus into a deficit. They went to war, they handed out tax cuts like Mardi Gras beads, all without paying for any of it.
If Democrats are "tax and spend", then I guess we'll have to call Republicans "party and spend".
A "redistribution of wealth" did happen during the early 2000's...it's just which direction it went that disturbs me. If you don't like Obama, just say so...and find another, more accurate label.
If I hear one more time that Obama is a "socialist", I think I'll puke.
I keep asking the question of some very smart people "if socialism is taking from rich people and giving to the poor, what is it called when we take from the poor and give to the rich?" Is it "redistribution of wealth" or "redistribution of poverty"? I think I have my answer.
It's called being a Conservative.
In the past decade, the number of billionaires (that's with a B) has risen. Case in point: Oprah Winfrey, who used to be the richest woman in the nation, is a paltry 137th in the recent Forbes' list of the top 400 billionaires. 137th! I remember when Forbes' used to track the top 400 millionaires. They don't do that any more because there are too darn many of them. Ah, those were the days.
If those who posit the idea that Obama is a socialist were to truly adhere to a pure capitalist creed, then perhaps we shouldn't have bailed out BP in the recent and ongoing Gulf Oil disaster. We, as pure capitalists, should have told them to sink or swim (especially the swimming part) in the Gulf. We should have said, "Taking from the poor taxpayers in this country is socialism and we are not socialists...we're capitalists. So take your lumps and pay for all the clean-up yourselves."
We are currently enjoying the lowest tax rates in our history. We have cut spending, on Obama's watch, to the lowest in our history. And yet, in spite of the fact that we have more rich people in this country than ever before, and in spite of the fact that the middle class hasn't effectively had a salary increase in 15 years, we've decided that the rich should get even richer and the middle class should pay for everything.
Witness yahoos who call themselves Senators on both sides of the political spectrum saying stupid things like "We should extend the tax cuts for the super wealthy but we have to get a hold of the national debt." Huh? How do they propose to pay for those tax cuts? With more borrowing, that's how.
Witness the bailout of the large financial institutions which began under George's watch, handing out beaucoup bucks to institutions which took huge risks, then came crying to Mama when they lost their shirts. Or, to be more accurate, when they lost other people's shirts. And yet, no limits were placed on the bonuses given to those very same managers who lost other people's shirts. That's capitalism for you.
Witness the bailout of the auto manufacturers, who ran their companies into the ground, then flew to Washington in their private jets to ask for help.
I guess it's "capitalism" if you get to keep the cash when you make profits, but "socialism" if the tax payers have to bail you out when you lose.
The argument seems to be that the tax cuts would help small business and they would start hiring again. Nope, small businesses aren't in the $250K range for the most part. Because, while their gross profits might be above $250K, they also have the ability to deduct business expenses, making their taxable income considerably less than the $250K ceiling. We generally tend to think of Mom and Pop as a "small business" but the Feds define "small business" as any business with under 50 employees. Anyone who has 50 employees could probably afford a dollar or two more in taxes, particularly since they are already getting special tax benefits for hiring new employees.
We had those same arguments during the Reagan years. They called it "Reaganomics" (or in the case of George Bush Sr, "voo doo economics") and the "trickle down" of largesse from the rich to the poor was a different form of "redistribution".
In fact, economists of every stripe pretty much agree that the "trickle down" didn't happen. Give a rich person a tax break and they'll no doubt go to Europe on vacation. Or buy a luxury yacht in Greece. Or buy more stock in AIG. Or give money to some political PAC. Or something. Not ever having been rich, I really have no experience in these matters.
But they won't hire any more people. Know how I know this? Because businesses aren't currently hiring, despite sitting on some pretty large bank accounts. They won't create jobs (except by investing in China, which results in Chinese jobs, I guess.) They won't donate more of their hard-earned cash to Habitat for Humanity or the Red Cross. They'll party hardy.
So, I'm still waiting for the intelligent debate about "socialism" when the Republicans, in charge of the House, the Senate and the White House, managed to turn a surplus into a deficit. They went to war, they handed out tax cuts like Mardi Gras beads, all without paying for any of it.
If Democrats are "tax and spend", then I guess we'll have to call Republicans "party and spend".
A "redistribution of wealth" did happen during the early 2000's...it's just which direction it went that disturbs me. If you don't like Obama, just say so...and find another, more accurate label.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
September 11
On September 11, 2001, I was working for a school district in Missouri. I didn't have a TV in my office, so as soon as I heard the news, I turned on my radio. Our local radio station had Peter Jennings being rebroadcast and I remember his voice most of all.
I liked Peter Jennings...I thought him the consummate journalist, right up there with Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. Just as I was fiddling with the dial to try to get a better signal, the second tower came down. Peter's voice described the scene and then it broke and the journalist in him gave way to his humanity. There was a dead silence on the airwaves and I thought I heard the sound of thousands of agonized voices crying in their death throes. Just my overactive imagination, but I heard thousands of bodies falling to the ground as their souls rose up to heaven.
At the time, we didn't know how many people were in the building, how many had made their escape. There were estimates of 60,000 people who worked in the two buildings. I'd been to those buildings as a tourist...been up on the observation deck of Building #1. I tried unsuccessfully to imagine that space of sky which those towers had occupied suddenly empty. Perhaps because I was forced to listen and not watch, I had no visual...I couldn't imagine the clouds of dust and smoke occupying that empty space, space which we wouldn't really be able to see for weeks.
I drove home to my house near the national forest, worlds away from the pandemonium of the cities of the East. At the end of my country lane, my dog, Sam stood, looking worriedly up the road. Normally, Sam would be hanging out on our broad front deck, rising to come bounding up to my car to signal his joy at my return. But not that day.
That day, Sam knew...he was a remarkable dog and very attuned to human emotions. But how had he gotten the word that the world was turned upside down that day?
I always left the TV on while I was at work. I used to tease Sam that I would leave the channel on Oprah but that he wasn't to get addicted to the soaps, I didn't want his mind to be corrupted. But of course, that day, there was no Oprah. No Family Feud. Just As the World Turns...it turned 180 degrees that day. Just Peter Jenning's voice and images, infinite in their horror, of flames and people screaming and running and the clouds of dust and smoke and human grief roiling up the streets of Manhattan.
So Sam, being attuned to human emotion, had picked up on the horror of that day and stood at the end of the lane, searching for my car. Sam thought I had somehow been injured in that horror. When I stopped to open my car door, he leapt into my car, licking my face and joyous in his knowledge that, whatever bad had happened that day, it hadn't happened to me.
Except that it did happen to me, and to all of us Americans, wherever Americans live around the world. Our world was no longer safe. I cried into Sam's fur and he licked my tears, making me feel at least a little better.
I can't pretend to understand why extremists hate us, hate the glorious ideals on which our country was founded. No, we aren't and have never been perfect. But we try.
We try to perfect our Constitution through legal means. We amend it to include votes for black men and all women. We give of ourselves and our dollars and our lives for poor and misled peoples throughout the world. No other nation has ever given like Americans give.
Our boots were the first on the ground following the tsunami in Southeast Asia. The first to offer aid to earthquake victims in Chile, Haiti, Pakistan. No, sometimes our aid hasn't always been well distributed and sometimes it has been given for political reasons...but it's given.
We try, however imperfectly, to afford all religions freedom to worship, despite those among us who would deny those freedoms to others.
In the days following 9/11, a tribe of aboriginals in New Zealand sent a herd of cattle to the people of New York. Cattle is currency there and those kind-hearted people, having benefitted from aid from America, wanted to give back to America in the only way they could.
One hundred and forty-seven years ago or so, Lincoln talked about a "more-perfect union"...he recognized that, imperfect though America may be, it is the constant struggle to perfect that sets us apart from every other nation on earth. No, we aren't perfect...will never be.
But we try.
I liked Peter Jennings...I thought him the consummate journalist, right up there with Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. Just as I was fiddling with the dial to try to get a better signal, the second tower came down. Peter's voice described the scene and then it broke and the journalist in him gave way to his humanity. There was a dead silence on the airwaves and I thought I heard the sound of thousands of agonized voices crying in their death throes. Just my overactive imagination, but I heard thousands of bodies falling to the ground as their souls rose up to heaven.
At the time, we didn't know how many people were in the building, how many had made their escape. There were estimates of 60,000 people who worked in the two buildings. I'd been to those buildings as a tourist...been up on the observation deck of Building #1. I tried unsuccessfully to imagine that space of sky which those towers had occupied suddenly empty. Perhaps because I was forced to listen and not watch, I had no visual...I couldn't imagine the clouds of dust and smoke occupying that empty space, space which we wouldn't really be able to see for weeks.
I drove home to my house near the national forest, worlds away from the pandemonium of the cities of the East. At the end of my country lane, my dog, Sam stood, looking worriedly up the road. Normally, Sam would be hanging out on our broad front deck, rising to come bounding up to my car to signal his joy at my return. But not that day.
That day, Sam knew...he was a remarkable dog and very attuned to human emotions. But how had he gotten the word that the world was turned upside down that day?
I always left the TV on while I was at work. I used to tease Sam that I would leave the channel on Oprah but that he wasn't to get addicted to the soaps, I didn't want his mind to be corrupted. But of course, that day, there was no Oprah. No Family Feud. Just As the World Turns...it turned 180 degrees that day. Just Peter Jenning's voice and images, infinite in their horror, of flames and people screaming and running and the clouds of dust and smoke and human grief roiling up the streets of Manhattan.
So Sam, being attuned to human emotion, had picked up on the horror of that day and stood at the end of the lane, searching for my car. Sam thought I had somehow been injured in that horror. When I stopped to open my car door, he leapt into my car, licking my face and joyous in his knowledge that, whatever bad had happened that day, it hadn't happened to me.
Except that it did happen to me, and to all of us Americans, wherever Americans live around the world. Our world was no longer safe. I cried into Sam's fur and he licked my tears, making me feel at least a little better.
I can't pretend to understand why extremists hate us, hate the glorious ideals on which our country was founded. No, we aren't and have never been perfect. But we try.
We try to perfect our Constitution through legal means. We amend it to include votes for black men and all women. We give of ourselves and our dollars and our lives for poor and misled peoples throughout the world. No other nation has ever given like Americans give.
Our boots were the first on the ground following the tsunami in Southeast Asia. The first to offer aid to earthquake victims in Chile, Haiti, Pakistan. No, sometimes our aid hasn't always been well distributed and sometimes it has been given for political reasons...but it's given.
We try, however imperfectly, to afford all religions freedom to worship, despite those among us who would deny those freedoms to others.
In the days following 9/11, a tribe of aboriginals in New Zealand sent a herd of cattle to the people of New York. Cattle is currency there and those kind-hearted people, having benefitted from aid from America, wanted to give back to America in the only way they could.
One hundred and forty-seven years ago or so, Lincoln talked about a "more-perfect union"...he recognized that, imperfect though America may be, it is the constant struggle to perfect that sets us apart from every other nation on earth. No, we aren't perfect...will never be.
But we try.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Blood is Thicker Than Water
I've always wondered about the origin of this saying, but this past weekend, I came to understand it a little better.
I just got back from a family reunion, which involved three generations of my dad's family. The term "reunion" comes from the same origin as "reunite" and boy did we reunite! Daddy's sister is the only surviving sibling from his generation and she was so gracious and loving to all her nieces and nephews. She gives a wonderful meaning to the term "matriarch."
I have a theory. You see, those three generations traveled to St. Louis to reune from such far-flung cities as Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Dallas, Texas. From Kansas City, from Little Rock. It took me two days to travel there. I went through parts of seven states. I added two state capitals to the list of state capitals I've visited.
Well, not really. I didn't really visit them. More like waved at the West Virginia dome as I flashed past it at 70 miles an hour. More like used the outer belt around Frankfort, Kentucky. But I'm gonna add them to my list anyway. It's my list and I'll do what I like.
So back to the theory. Since blood has so much iron in it, there must be some magnetic quality to it. There are poles in blood...a north and a south and they draw to each other. I should pose this theory to my cousin who runs a blood center, because she knows more about blood than anyone else, I'll bet.
So the magnetism of blood causes us normally sane individuals to leave jobs and responsibilities at home, drive for hours on end in a record heatwave, spend money at a pricey hotel...all for the sake of seeing relatives we haven't seen for 40 years. I mean, we've gotten along for 40 years without seeing these people. Why should we suddenly decide to get together, just because we share DNA?
Blood, that's why. Not the blood that causes some to be squeamish. But the blood of the tribe, the blood of the clan. We are programmed as humans to reunite with people of our blood. (I've often worried and wondered about foster children who find themselves "aged out" of the foster system. Where do they go to reunite? Where do they go to find blood?)
We found, despite the length of time in between our reunions, we could pick up just where we left off. Oh, sure, we had a few hours of bringing everyone up-to-date on the marriages we've had, the children we've sired or mared (if "sire" is the correct word for fathering a child, then is "mared" the correct word for having borne a child?).
After the catching up, we had a lot of laughs. Stories of remembrances of childhood. "Do you remember the time we came to your house for Christmas and Becky still believed in Santa and we strung her along?" "Do you remember the time Roy fell into the creek?" "I can't believe Paul proposed to you like that."
There were some happy/sad memories as well. Memories of a lost uncle who served in WWII. Memories of a handicapped cousin who died suddenly at the age of 27. Memories of my dad, who died just recently but who was a favorite uncle to my cousins. We even went to the uncle's grave site, as none of us got to attend his services. It was solemn, but not sad.
I just hoped that the spouses of all of the cousins had a good time, too. When you're an "out-law", you don't have the memories that we have. Hopefully, they enjoyed hearing about their spouses' childhoods.
We even had time to videotape an interview with my aunt, talking about her childhood. It was a snapshot of that era, of that place. Even her children learned things about their mother they hadn't known or remembered. If only our ancestors had left us that legacy.
One of my cousins is all into genealogy. He serves as the family historian and I'm hoping that the records and photos and stories we exchanged gave him a glimpse into that generation of our family tree. We have famous people in our lineage. An organist who was a friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The personal physician to William Penn, who sailed with Penn on the "Welcome" and help found Pennsylvania. Well, okay, maybe not famous but friends of famous people at least. Two degrees of separation.
So this magnetic property of blood, heretofore ignored, is very real. Blood draws blood. Down through generations, the family tree ever expanding to include in-laws, out-laws, children and children's children and children's adoptive children. Familial relations include other people's bloodlines but blood related all the same.
My niece, who is adopted, thinks of herself as belonging to our family. I tease her about having inherited our family's clumsiness, our family's craziness. She's known no other family. We are all of the same blood. Blood is indeed thicker than water.
I just got back from a family reunion, which involved three generations of my dad's family. The term "reunion" comes from the same origin as "reunite" and boy did we reunite! Daddy's sister is the only surviving sibling from his generation and she was so gracious and loving to all her nieces and nephews. She gives a wonderful meaning to the term "matriarch."
I have a theory. You see, those three generations traveled to St. Louis to reune from such far-flung cities as Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Dallas, Texas. From Kansas City, from Little Rock. It took me two days to travel there. I went through parts of seven states. I added two state capitals to the list of state capitals I've visited.
Well, not really. I didn't really visit them. More like waved at the West Virginia dome as I flashed past it at 70 miles an hour. More like used the outer belt around Frankfort, Kentucky. But I'm gonna add them to my list anyway. It's my list and I'll do what I like.
So back to the theory. Since blood has so much iron in it, there must be some magnetic quality to it. There are poles in blood...a north and a south and they draw to each other. I should pose this theory to my cousin who runs a blood center, because she knows more about blood than anyone else, I'll bet.
So the magnetism of blood causes us normally sane individuals to leave jobs and responsibilities at home, drive for hours on end in a record heatwave, spend money at a pricey hotel...all for the sake of seeing relatives we haven't seen for 40 years. I mean, we've gotten along for 40 years without seeing these people. Why should we suddenly decide to get together, just because we share DNA?
Blood, that's why. Not the blood that causes some to be squeamish. But the blood of the tribe, the blood of the clan. We are programmed as humans to reunite with people of our blood. (I've often worried and wondered about foster children who find themselves "aged out" of the foster system. Where do they go to reunite? Where do they go to find blood?)
We found, despite the length of time in between our reunions, we could pick up just where we left off. Oh, sure, we had a few hours of bringing everyone up-to-date on the marriages we've had, the children we've sired or mared (if "sire" is the correct word for fathering a child, then is "mared" the correct word for having borne a child?).
After the catching up, we had a lot of laughs. Stories of remembrances of childhood. "Do you remember the time we came to your house for Christmas and Becky still believed in Santa and we strung her along?" "Do you remember the time Roy fell into the creek?" "I can't believe Paul proposed to you like that."
There were some happy/sad memories as well. Memories of a lost uncle who served in WWII. Memories of a handicapped cousin who died suddenly at the age of 27. Memories of my dad, who died just recently but who was a favorite uncle to my cousins. We even went to the uncle's grave site, as none of us got to attend his services. It was solemn, but not sad.
I just hoped that the spouses of all of the cousins had a good time, too. When you're an "out-law", you don't have the memories that we have. Hopefully, they enjoyed hearing about their spouses' childhoods.
We even had time to videotape an interview with my aunt, talking about her childhood. It was a snapshot of that era, of that place. Even her children learned things about their mother they hadn't known or remembered. If only our ancestors had left us that legacy.
One of my cousins is all into genealogy. He serves as the family historian and I'm hoping that the records and photos and stories we exchanged gave him a glimpse into that generation of our family tree. We have famous people in our lineage. An organist who was a friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The personal physician to William Penn, who sailed with Penn on the "Welcome" and help found Pennsylvania. Well, okay, maybe not famous but friends of famous people at least. Two degrees of separation.
So this magnetic property of blood, heretofore ignored, is very real. Blood draws blood. Down through generations, the family tree ever expanding to include in-laws, out-laws, children and children's children and children's adoptive children. Familial relations include other people's bloodlines but blood related all the same.
My niece, who is adopted, thinks of herself as belonging to our family. I tease her about having inherited our family's clumsiness, our family's craziness. She's known no other family. We are all of the same blood. Blood is indeed thicker than water.
Friday, July 9, 2010
You say toe-May-toe, I say toe-Mah-toe
What was I thinking?
Back in April, when I planted 24 (that's 24 with a twenty and a four) tomato plants, I was craving tomatoes. Those purchased in the store have a cardboard taste to me, even those which claim to be "hot house" or "vine ripened." (You know they're lying when the "vine ripened" ones aren't yet ripe and they are clearly off vine.) I also don't know where those store-boughts have been. Who knows what kinds of pesticides and such they've been sprayed with?
I understand wanting a bumper crop of tomatoes back then, when I had cravings, before it was 110 in the shade. But really, Char, TWENTY-FOUR????
Last year, I got on a fresh salsa kick. Practically every tomato to come off the vine (for real vine-ripened) got partnered with some peppers, a little cilantro, a little lime juice. Heaven. I completely lost my taste for El Paso Salsa. Or Frito-Lay. Or even one of those designer labels which makes salsa out of unnatural vegetables and fruits. Peach salsa? Truly unnatural. (Tho' I must confess my son makes a mean pineapple salsa.) Canning the salsa results in the tomatoes being cooked to death which doesn't taste at all like the fresh stuff.
The other Big Mistake I made was to plant mostly Roma tomatoes. For the uninformed, Romas are paste tomatoes. I envisioned making and canning lots of spaghetti sauce and tomato sauce to hold me over this winter. Too late, my elderly neighbor who I consult about all things gardening told me she never, ever planted Romas, on account of they taste like store-bought tomatoes. Mea culpa.
She's right, by the way. Don't ever plant Romas if you want a real tomato. Their only advantage is, they make a pretty dense sauce. But it tastes like you took store-boughts and made a sauce.
I did plant 4 Cherokee Purples which, I'm told, are on the same taste scale as Brandywines. Not only do they taste really good, they turn all shades of pink, red, purple and white. Truly heaven.
I also had some of last year's Brandywines volunteer, so I left them to grow. Or maybe they're German Johnsons. I even had something I call O. Henry tomatoes last year. So called because they were grown from a wonderful tomato I had at that restaurant in Greensboro called O. Henry's. I swiped the seeds off my plate onto a napkin and shoplifted them home, they were that good. They are later bearing than the Romas, so I'm still waiting for that wonderful, acidic taste that belongs to the lowly O. Henry's.
All of the above mentioned tomato varieties are called "heirloom"...that is, they breed true, unlike all those hybridized monstrosities which have bragging, bold names like "Better Boy" and "Big Girl" and "Beefsteak". Nope, these tomatoes keep their marriage vows and don't have red-headed children when their husband is not.
Did you know that, botanically speaking, tomatoes are fruits and not vegetables...that is, they are the product of a flower and a bumblebee? Did you know that the Europeans used to call tomatoes "poison apples"? They truly thought that tomatoes were poisonous, on account of they hadn't discovered them first. Stupid Europeans.
I also don't know so much about those folks who claim that our Universe was created by an Intelligent Designer. I mean, I could design a better world with one hand tied behind my back...particularly a world in which vegetables and fruits would ripen in the winter. That way, canning wouldn't be such a killer. Nothing I like better than to keep all four burners cranking on my stovetop when it's a record-breaking, heat-stroke-inducing day. Not.
I realize now that I should have stuck with last year's number of plants (12) and not bought any more cages. Because next year, I'll no doubt look at all the cages and think I have to plant that many tomatoes.
I further realize that I'm rhapsodizing at length about my tomatoes so I won't have time to go out there, collect all those Romas and make sauce when it's 110 in the shade.
Back in April, when I planted 24 (that's 24 with a twenty and a four) tomato plants, I was craving tomatoes. Those purchased in the store have a cardboard taste to me, even those which claim to be "hot house" or "vine ripened." (You know they're lying when the "vine ripened" ones aren't yet ripe and they are clearly off vine.) I also don't know where those store-boughts have been. Who knows what kinds of pesticides and such they've been sprayed with?
I understand wanting a bumper crop of tomatoes back then, when I had cravings, before it was 110 in the shade. But really, Char, TWENTY-FOUR????
Last year, I got on a fresh salsa kick. Practically every tomato to come off the vine (for real vine-ripened) got partnered with some peppers, a little cilantro, a little lime juice. Heaven. I completely lost my taste for El Paso Salsa. Or Frito-Lay. Or even one of those designer labels which makes salsa out of unnatural vegetables and fruits. Peach salsa? Truly unnatural. (Tho' I must confess my son makes a mean pineapple salsa.) Canning the salsa results in the tomatoes being cooked to death which doesn't taste at all like the fresh stuff.
The other Big Mistake I made was to plant mostly Roma tomatoes. For the uninformed, Romas are paste tomatoes. I envisioned making and canning lots of spaghetti sauce and tomato sauce to hold me over this winter. Too late, my elderly neighbor who I consult about all things gardening told me she never, ever planted Romas, on account of they taste like store-bought tomatoes. Mea culpa.
She's right, by the way. Don't ever plant Romas if you want a real tomato. Their only advantage is, they make a pretty dense sauce. But it tastes like you took store-boughts and made a sauce.
I did plant 4 Cherokee Purples which, I'm told, are on the same taste scale as Brandywines. Not only do they taste really good, they turn all shades of pink, red, purple and white. Truly heaven.
I also had some of last year's Brandywines volunteer, so I left them to grow. Or maybe they're German Johnsons. I even had something I call O. Henry tomatoes last year. So called because they were grown from a wonderful tomato I had at that restaurant in Greensboro called O. Henry's. I swiped the seeds off my plate onto a napkin and shoplifted them home, they were that good. They are later bearing than the Romas, so I'm still waiting for that wonderful, acidic taste that belongs to the lowly O. Henry's.
All of the above mentioned tomato varieties are called "heirloom"...that is, they breed true, unlike all those hybridized monstrosities which have bragging, bold names like "Better Boy" and "Big Girl" and "Beefsteak". Nope, these tomatoes keep their marriage vows and don't have red-headed children when their husband is not.
Did you know that, botanically speaking, tomatoes are fruits and not vegetables...that is, they are the product of a flower and a bumblebee? Did you know that the Europeans used to call tomatoes "poison apples"? They truly thought that tomatoes were poisonous, on account of they hadn't discovered them first. Stupid Europeans.
I also don't know so much about those folks who claim that our Universe was created by an Intelligent Designer. I mean, I could design a better world with one hand tied behind my back...particularly a world in which vegetables and fruits would ripen in the winter. That way, canning wouldn't be such a killer. Nothing I like better than to keep all four burners cranking on my stovetop when it's a record-breaking, heat-stroke-inducing day. Not.
I realize now that I should have stuck with last year's number of plants (12) and not bought any more cages. Because next year, I'll no doubt look at all the cages and think I have to plant that many tomatoes.
I further realize that I'm rhapsodizing at length about my tomatoes so I won't have time to go out there, collect all those Romas and make sauce when it's 110 in the shade.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The Supremes
I am honored and humbled to have been selected to write this blog.
That is, I selected myself and you probably could care less about what I think of the Supreme Court. Fine with me, but I'm gonna blog anyway.
The intro paragraph in this blog is the standard issue response to many a Supreme wannabe after nomination. They all say the same thing...they owe it all to their parents...they are honored and humbled (occasionally they are humbled and honored)...little did they dream, as a frosh at Harvard Law School (occasionally Yale Law School)...blah...blah...blah.
I've heard a great deal about how Elena Kagan is the least qualified of any candidate in our lifetime. Except, of course, for Clarence Thomas, Thurgood Marshall, and nominee Harriet Miers, who nominated herself. You may remember, she was on the search committee, looked around and decided she herself was the only qualified person.
It seems to me, ignorant woman that I am, that the qualifications should at the very least be a knowledge of the Constitution and the Law. Being as how the Supremes are always ruling on the Constitutionality of the cases brought before them and all. Having tried cases, particularly in Federal Court, seems to be of secondary importance. By this token, many law school grads (particularly those who aced Constitutional Law class) might make good Justices. I wonder what Chief Justice Roberts made in Constitutional Law class?
Kagan represents a first for the Court. If approved, she would be the third concurrent woman on the Big Bench. It seems to me that we women should have 5 seats, since women represent 51% of the US population. I think that's a good percentage for every walk of life...women should be 51% of doctors, corporate CEOs, zoo keepers, accountants, Senators, every career. But that's just me.
What concerns me, however, is that if Kagan is approved, Catholics would have 6 of the 9 seats, with the rest being Jewish. Not a Protestant, nor a Muslim, nor a Zorasterian nor a Two-Seed-
in-the-Spirit Predestinarian in sight. I am a lapsed Baptist and Baptists used to be all into separation of Church and State. Not so much now. Catholics have throughout history been all into being really chummy with State.
Roe v. Wade has been in the cross hairs of the extreme Right for many years, but how do you suppose the Catholics on the Big Bench are gonna vote when that landmark decision comes up before the Court. The Pope could excommunicate them if they don't vote his way. Or send them to Purgatory. Or something else equally abhorent. Can you imagine a Court where some guy in white robes in Rome gets to decide on US law?
Harvardians (Harvardites? Harvardists?) have a corner on seats on the Big Bench, with Yalies a distant second. I hear Northwestern has a pretty good law school. So does George Washington. So does Tulane. So why don't we have more representation from other law schools? Seems kinda incestuous to me.
Which brings me to the subject of Court activism. Seems like the Supremes on the Right have been pretty activist, but Republican Senators are all concerned about Kagan (and Sotomayor before her) and their potential for activism. As in ignoring precedent and making law from the Big Bench.
From yesteryear, I remember learning in Civics class in high school that we have three branches of government...the Congress to make the laws, the Supremes to judge the laws and the Executive branch to execute the laws. The Supreme Court doesn't have a Constitutional right to make laws, but tell that to the Court in 2000 when they illegally decided the outcome of a Presidental election.
How would you feel about term limits for the Supremes?
That is, I selected myself and you probably could care less about what I think of the Supreme Court. Fine with me, but I'm gonna blog anyway.
The intro paragraph in this blog is the standard issue response to many a Supreme wannabe after nomination. They all say the same thing...they owe it all to their parents...they are honored and humbled (occasionally they are humbled and honored)...little did they dream, as a frosh at Harvard Law School (occasionally Yale Law School)...blah...blah...blah.
I've heard a great deal about how Elena Kagan is the least qualified of any candidate in our lifetime. Except, of course, for Clarence Thomas, Thurgood Marshall, and nominee Harriet Miers, who nominated herself. You may remember, she was on the search committee, looked around and decided she herself was the only qualified person.
It seems to me, ignorant woman that I am, that the qualifications should at the very least be a knowledge of the Constitution and the Law. Being as how the Supremes are always ruling on the Constitutionality of the cases brought before them and all. Having tried cases, particularly in Federal Court, seems to be of secondary importance. By this token, many law school grads (particularly those who aced Constitutional Law class) might make good Justices. I wonder what Chief Justice Roberts made in Constitutional Law class?
Kagan represents a first for the Court. If approved, she would be the third concurrent woman on the Big Bench. It seems to me that we women should have 5 seats, since women represent 51% of the US population. I think that's a good percentage for every walk of life...women should be 51% of doctors, corporate CEOs, zoo keepers, accountants, Senators, every career. But that's just me.
What concerns me, however, is that if Kagan is approved, Catholics would have 6 of the 9 seats, with the rest being Jewish. Not a Protestant, nor a Muslim, nor a Zorasterian nor a Two-Seed-
in-the-Spirit Predestinarian in sight. I am a lapsed Baptist and Baptists used to be all into separation of Church and State. Not so much now. Catholics have throughout history been all into being really chummy with State.
Roe v. Wade has been in the cross hairs of the extreme Right for many years, but how do you suppose the Catholics on the Big Bench are gonna vote when that landmark decision comes up before the Court. The Pope could excommunicate them if they don't vote his way. Or send them to Purgatory. Or something else equally abhorent. Can you imagine a Court where some guy in white robes in Rome gets to decide on US law?
Harvardians (Harvardites? Harvardists?) have a corner on seats on the Big Bench, with Yalies a distant second. I hear Northwestern has a pretty good law school. So does George Washington. So does Tulane. So why don't we have more representation from other law schools? Seems kinda incestuous to me.
Which brings me to the subject of Court activism. Seems like the Supremes on the Right have been pretty activist, but Republican Senators are all concerned about Kagan (and Sotomayor before her) and their potential for activism. As in ignoring precedent and making law from the Big Bench.
From yesteryear, I remember learning in Civics class in high school that we have three branches of government...the Congress to make the laws, the Supremes to judge the laws and the Executive branch to execute the laws. The Supreme Court doesn't have a Constitutional right to make laws, but tell that to the Court in 2000 when they illegally decided the outcome of a Presidental election.
How would you feel about term limits for the Supremes?
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Food to Gag You
I must admit I watched "Top Chef" for several seasons and I was fascinated with the obsession of creating dishes that had never been thought of before. Sometimes, being unique creates some truly inedible dishes. The reason that dish hasn't ever been served before is because it tastes like crap.
They seemed to go out of their way to find truly exotic ingredients. What's wrong with the lowly green onion? Why do you have to have shallots? Some of the stuff they used I hadn't even heard of. I know some of my chef friends out there are blowing their pot lids and yelling "It tastes different!!" Yeah, but not that different.
The other reason I don't watch "Top Chef" anymore is I got tired of the fake-o dramas, the sabotage, the hissy fits, the cruelty of the judges, who after all, are just people who don't like certain dishes. They've convinced themselves that their palates are all so sophisticated. I bet if you fed those dishes to homeless people, they'd be all "This is the best food I've ever eaten."
I had to use soy milk for several years when my kids were little. I made the poor tykes drink the stuff. Child abuse, pure and simple. I used it in baking and cooking, but I wouldn't drink the stuff myself. Have you ever tasted soy milk? Gag me with a spoon.
Recently, after years of avoiding any soy milk, I was told by one of those granola vegan people that soy milk has improved. "It's really good now. That's all I drink," he said. So I tried it. Almost gagged. Soy milk, for anyone who hasn't tasted it recently, is just as horrible a product as it's always been. Who ever thought that squashing beans would result in a delicious drink?
Same thing with carob. In order to make carob taste a little like chocolate, you have to add a ton of sugar, which sort of defeats the purpose. That, incidentally, is why I don't like soy milk...they add a ton of sugar to cover the really gaggy taste. Don't let anyone tell you any differently.
I also wonder about puffer fish. I mean, how many people died before they discovered exactly how to prepare it so it wouldn't kill you? Why not just stick with catfish? Or salmon? Trout? Why take a poisonous fish and experiment with it? I can imagine the chef who finally achieved making puffer fish edible. He probably had trouble getting people to eat his food as experimental subjects. Imagine his triumph when the meal was completed and everybody was still breathing.
I don't care much for gumbo. Mostly because it gets that slimy texture from okra. I like all the rest of the ingredients but I literally do gag on boiled okra. I love fried okra, which of course isn't as good for you as the boiled stuff, but the boiled stuff has the texture of snot. Okay, I guess I should back off, 'cause I don't want to gag my Reader.
Kids these days are lucky. In the 1950's, when I was growing up, there was a rule. Liver and onions once a week. It was purportedly to build up your blood. You know, a once-a-week shot of iron. I think housewives in those days actually had a weekly menu. Liver on Monday, chicken on Tuesday, pork chops on Wednesday, etc. culminating with pot roast on Sunday, because you could leave the roast in the oven while you went to church.
Mole is another food I'm not sure about. You know, that sauce which appears in Mexican cuisine. It has like a gazillion ingredients including chocolate and can go horribly wrong if you don't know what you are doing. I'll bet it was invented by someone on "Top Chef".
I have many friends who are excellent cooks. They make the darn stuff from scratch. It is evidently very difficult to make, kinda like hollandaise. I make a pretty mean hollandaise, if I do say so myself. Mole is evidently one of those sauces which is street cred for those who really know their South of the Border food. They are kinda like wine snobs.
Why all the drama? Why not just take Hersey's Syrup and pour it on the chicken or whatever? I don't know that I'd try a dish that has chocolate on any entree or veggie dish, much as I love chocolate. I like my chocolate in brownies, cake, on ice cream, in Snickers bars.
Not so much on puffer fish.
They seemed to go out of their way to find truly exotic ingredients. What's wrong with the lowly green onion? Why do you have to have shallots? Some of the stuff they used I hadn't even heard of. I know some of my chef friends out there are blowing their pot lids and yelling "It tastes different!!" Yeah, but not that different.
The other reason I don't watch "Top Chef" anymore is I got tired of the fake-o dramas, the sabotage, the hissy fits, the cruelty of the judges, who after all, are just people who don't like certain dishes. They've convinced themselves that their palates are all so sophisticated. I bet if you fed those dishes to homeless people, they'd be all "This is the best food I've ever eaten."
I had to use soy milk for several years when my kids were little. I made the poor tykes drink the stuff. Child abuse, pure and simple. I used it in baking and cooking, but I wouldn't drink the stuff myself. Have you ever tasted soy milk? Gag me with a spoon.
Recently, after years of avoiding any soy milk, I was told by one of those granola vegan people that soy milk has improved. "It's really good now. That's all I drink," he said. So I tried it. Almost gagged. Soy milk, for anyone who hasn't tasted it recently, is just as horrible a product as it's always been. Who ever thought that squashing beans would result in a delicious drink?
Same thing with carob. In order to make carob taste a little like chocolate, you have to add a ton of sugar, which sort of defeats the purpose. That, incidentally, is why I don't like soy milk...they add a ton of sugar to cover the really gaggy taste. Don't let anyone tell you any differently.
I also wonder about puffer fish. I mean, how many people died before they discovered exactly how to prepare it so it wouldn't kill you? Why not just stick with catfish? Or salmon? Trout? Why take a poisonous fish and experiment with it? I can imagine the chef who finally achieved making puffer fish edible. He probably had trouble getting people to eat his food as experimental subjects. Imagine his triumph when the meal was completed and everybody was still breathing.
I don't care much for gumbo. Mostly because it gets that slimy texture from okra. I like all the rest of the ingredients but I literally do gag on boiled okra. I love fried okra, which of course isn't as good for you as the boiled stuff, but the boiled stuff has the texture of snot. Okay, I guess I should back off, 'cause I don't want to gag my Reader.
Kids these days are lucky. In the 1950's, when I was growing up, there was a rule. Liver and onions once a week. It was purportedly to build up your blood. You know, a once-a-week shot of iron. I think housewives in those days actually had a weekly menu. Liver on Monday, chicken on Tuesday, pork chops on Wednesday, etc. culminating with pot roast on Sunday, because you could leave the roast in the oven while you went to church.
Mole is another food I'm not sure about. You know, that sauce which appears in Mexican cuisine. It has like a gazillion ingredients including chocolate and can go horribly wrong if you don't know what you are doing. I'll bet it was invented by someone on "Top Chef".
I have many friends who are excellent cooks. They make the darn stuff from scratch. It is evidently very difficult to make, kinda like hollandaise. I make a pretty mean hollandaise, if I do say so myself. Mole is evidently one of those sauces which is street cred for those who really know their South of the Border food. They are kinda like wine snobs.
Why all the drama? Why not just take Hersey's Syrup and pour it on the chicken or whatever? I don't know that I'd try a dish that has chocolate on any entree or veggie dish, much as I love chocolate. I like my chocolate in brownies, cake, on ice cream, in Snickers bars.
Not so much on puffer fish.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Antidisestablishmentarianism
I can't even remember what that word means, but it is sufficiently long for me to sound really intelligent. For a while it was the longest word in the English language, until it was deposed by some disease which began with "pneumo-something".
It sounds like something to which I could subscribe. I don't like the bunch of yahoos who are currently in power, but I'm not really wild about the idea of "throwing all the bums out" either. I'm concerned, dear Reader, with the current polilitical scene.
My concern is based on the "anti-establishment/anti-incumbent" mood. How do we know when we throw the bums out of Washington that we aren't electing someone even worse? The phrase "throw the baby out with the bath water" comes to mind.
Like Rand Paul, to hone a fine point. (My deepest gratitude to Dr. Paul for providing me a most excellent example of why a "throw the bums out" mentality is problematic, not to say dangerous.)
He thinks that private establishments need not adhere to the Civil Rights Act or the ADA. It's "Big Government" to pass laws which force private enterprise to open their doors to everyone, including those in wheelchairs or those with colorful skin tones. Dr. Paul evidently hasn't envisioned the possible outcome that, if you are African-American and disabled, there might be no restaurant at which to eat. Let 'em eat cake at home!
Dr. Paul also seems to think that our huge deficit can be fixed without raising taxes. I think he may have failed Math class. If you ever encounter a candidate who admits they may need to raise taxes, vote for them. 'Cause you know they are being honest. Pipe dream time.
Here's a novel thought...why don't we all read the position papers of both candidates and decide whether the devil that we know is preferable to the devil we don't? We've gotten so lazy in this country that we allow the Press to determine how we feel about a position.
I'm not defending the current members. I'm no fan of the current bunch of crooks that are presumably in command in Washington. The lobbyists, the campaign shenanigans, the myriad members who can't seem to keep their members in their pants. Some of them indeed need to be shown the door.
But, surely, there are a paltry few who deserve to be re-elected. I'm thinking the candidates who just two years ago were voted in. Surely they haven't yet had the opportunity to sell us down the river. At least, not yet. Or the Senators who have learned a lot during their tenure and sit on powerful committees. There must be a reason why Ted Kennedy continued to return to the Senate. Maybe he was really good at being a Senator...at least that's what the voters thought.
And where is all the campaign money coming from for the Newbies, the Congressional wanna-bes? Gee, probably from the same lobbyists and special interest groups as the incumbents, don't you think?
So no one is entirely pristinely pure here. Maybe we can actually watch the debates and determine, whether Incumbent or Newbie, which of the candidates most closely reflects the way we would stand if we were the candidate.
Another thing which I think is most important in looking at candidates...their labels vs. their behavior. I don't have much truck for the terms "conservative" or "liberal". Recent history has taught us that the most "conservative" of lawmakers are really mostly "socially conservative"...at least when it comes to how they want everyone else to act.
When it comes to being "fiscally conservative", I don't have to point out that under "liberal" Presidencies we had attained fiscal responsibility, while the so-called "conservative Presidents", going back to Reagan and his Voo-Doo economics, have blown the budget big time.
Is it "conservative" to have an affair and proclaim to the world that you have met your soulmate, while your spouse (patently not your soulmate) has to hold her head high, despite the fact that you just bitch-slapped her on national television? I think not, but then that's just me.
Is it "liberal" to give a standing ovation to the leader of another country (meaning, not our country's leader) who lectures us on our immigration policy? Here's an idea...let's adopt Mexico's immigration policies and see if Calderon likes that.
Come on, people, don't let the electoral buzz make up your mind for you. At the risk of sounding like your mother, do your homework.
It sounds like something to which I could subscribe. I don't like the bunch of yahoos who are currently in power, but I'm not really wild about the idea of "throwing all the bums out" either. I'm concerned, dear Reader, with the current polilitical scene.
My concern is based on the "anti-establishment/anti-incumbent" mood. How do we know when we throw the bums out of Washington that we aren't electing someone even worse? The phrase "throw the baby out with the bath water" comes to mind.
Like Rand Paul, to hone a fine point. (My deepest gratitude to Dr. Paul for providing me a most excellent example of why a "throw the bums out" mentality is problematic, not to say dangerous.)
He thinks that private establishments need not adhere to the Civil Rights Act or the ADA. It's "Big Government" to pass laws which force private enterprise to open their doors to everyone, including those in wheelchairs or those with colorful skin tones. Dr. Paul evidently hasn't envisioned the possible outcome that, if you are African-American and disabled, there might be no restaurant at which to eat. Let 'em eat cake at home!
Dr. Paul also seems to think that our huge deficit can be fixed without raising taxes. I think he may have failed Math class. If you ever encounter a candidate who admits they may need to raise taxes, vote for them. 'Cause you know they are being honest. Pipe dream time.
Here's a novel thought...why don't we all read the position papers of both candidates and decide whether the devil that we know is preferable to the devil we don't? We've gotten so lazy in this country that we allow the Press to determine how we feel about a position.
I'm not defending the current members. I'm no fan of the current bunch of crooks that are presumably in command in Washington. The lobbyists, the campaign shenanigans, the myriad members who can't seem to keep their members in their pants. Some of them indeed need to be shown the door.
But, surely, there are a paltry few who deserve to be re-elected. I'm thinking the candidates who just two years ago were voted in. Surely they haven't yet had the opportunity to sell us down the river. At least, not yet. Or the Senators who have learned a lot during their tenure and sit on powerful committees. There must be a reason why Ted Kennedy continued to return to the Senate. Maybe he was really good at being a Senator...at least that's what the voters thought.
And where is all the campaign money coming from for the Newbies, the Congressional wanna-bes? Gee, probably from the same lobbyists and special interest groups as the incumbents, don't you think?
So no one is entirely pristinely pure here. Maybe we can actually watch the debates and determine, whether Incumbent or Newbie, which of the candidates most closely reflects the way we would stand if we were the candidate.
Another thing which I think is most important in looking at candidates...their labels vs. their behavior. I don't have much truck for the terms "conservative" or "liberal". Recent history has taught us that the most "conservative" of lawmakers are really mostly "socially conservative"...at least when it comes to how they want everyone else to act.
When it comes to being "fiscally conservative", I don't have to point out that under "liberal" Presidencies we had attained fiscal responsibility, while the so-called "conservative Presidents", going back to Reagan and his Voo-Doo economics, have blown the budget big time.
Is it "conservative" to have an affair and proclaim to the world that you have met your soulmate, while your spouse (patently not your soulmate) has to hold her head high, despite the fact that you just bitch-slapped her on national television? I think not, but then that's just me.
Is it "liberal" to give a standing ovation to the leader of another country (meaning, not our country's leader) who lectures us on our immigration policy? Here's an idea...let's adopt Mexico's immigration policies and see if Calderon likes that.
Come on, people, don't let the electoral buzz make up your mind for you. At the risk of sounding like your mother, do your homework.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Lying to Your Children
A couple of days ago, my ex and I were standing in my yard when the ice cream truck went by, jangling out a barely-recognizable "Turkey in the Straw". We simultaneously turned to each other and said, "Ding Ding Truck."
You see, I pulled a fast one on my kids when they were young. When the inevitable ice cream truck roamed our neighborhood, like some bird of prey, ready to swoop down on innocent children with change in their pockets, I told a fib. My kids, barely toddlers, heard the ice cream truck one day and asked me, "What's that?"
I opened my mouth ready to reluctantly admit that that was a refrigerated truck which, for a fee, would give you ice cream bars or orange bomb-pops and most assuredly cavities and ruin your dinner. But what came out of my mouth was "That's the Ding Ding Truck. They know that sometimes people are sad so they drive around with a merry 'ding ding', cheering up sad people wherever they go."
Now here's where it gets really scary...they BOUGHT IT! I just knew when I told this big honkin' lie that they, being very intelligent children, would smell on the air the wafting aromas of refrigerant, cherry blasts and Eskimo pies and know that I had lied to them. But they didn't. THEY BELIEVED ME!
And so, dear Reader, I discovered a sad truth about parenting that had previously escaped me. Parents lie to their children. All the time. And mostly, they get away with it. At least for a few years. Like when you tell your kids about Santa Claus, well no...that's not a good example because it is to the kids' benefit to believe in Santa Claus.
Like about Santa Claus, even tho' it's a nice lie. "This won't hurt a bit" immediately tells the kid that, yes, it's going to hurt a lot. Like what you and Daddy are doing in the bedroom all by yourselves. A mountain of lies builds up by the time they become teenagers, which might explain why they don't have much use for us adults by then.
For almost a year, the "Ding Ding Truck" held sway, plying our neighborhood, bringing joy to sad people. Unfortunately, during the winter months, other children moved in across the street. Their parents hadn't been clued in about the "Ding Ding Truck". The following summer, my kids saw these children (whose parents were obviously NOT good parents) buying ice cream from that darned "Ding Ding Truck". The boys came running into the house, breathless with anticipation and barely able to speak. "Momma, (pant, pant) did you know that the "Ding Ding Truck" sells ice cream?!"
I played dumb. I slapped my hand on my cheek, acting all shocked. "No, I didn't."
"So Momma, can we have some money to go buy some ice cream?" I sighed with regret as I handed them each a dollar bill. Ah, Childhood's end.
You see, I pulled a fast one on my kids when they were young. When the inevitable ice cream truck roamed our neighborhood, like some bird of prey, ready to swoop down on innocent children with change in their pockets, I told a fib. My kids, barely toddlers, heard the ice cream truck one day and asked me, "What's that?"
I opened my mouth ready to reluctantly admit that that was a refrigerated truck which, for a fee, would give you ice cream bars or orange bomb-pops and most assuredly cavities and ruin your dinner. But what came out of my mouth was "That's the Ding Ding Truck. They know that sometimes people are sad so they drive around with a merry 'ding ding', cheering up sad people wherever they go."
Now here's where it gets really scary...they BOUGHT IT! I just knew when I told this big honkin' lie that they, being very intelligent children, would smell on the air the wafting aromas of refrigerant, cherry blasts and Eskimo pies and know that I had lied to them. But they didn't. THEY BELIEVED ME!
And so, dear Reader, I discovered a sad truth about parenting that had previously escaped me. Parents lie to their children. All the time. And mostly, they get away with it. At least for a few years. Like when you tell your kids about Santa Claus, well no...that's not a good example because it is to the kids' benefit to believe in Santa Claus.
Like about Santa Claus, even tho' it's a nice lie. "This won't hurt a bit" immediately tells the kid that, yes, it's going to hurt a lot. Like what you and Daddy are doing in the bedroom all by yourselves. A mountain of lies builds up by the time they become teenagers, which might explain why they don't have much use for us adults by then.
For almost a year, the "Ding Ding Truck" held sway, plying our neighborhood, bringing joy to sad people. Unfortunately, during the winter months, other children moved in across the street. Their parents hadn't been clued in about the "Ding Ding Truck". The following summer, my kids saw these children (whose parents were obviously NOT good parents) buying ice cream from that darned "Ding Ding Truck". The boys came running into the house, breathless with anticipation and barely able to speak. "Momma, (pant, pant) did you know that the "Ding Ding Truck" sells ice cream?!"
I played dumb. I slapped my hand on my cheek, acting all shocked. "No, I didn't."
"So Momma, can we have some money to go buy some ice cream?" I sighed with regret as I handed them each a dollar bill. Ah, Childhood's end.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
On Racism
I substituted Friday in a high school where the approximate racial make-up is 48% Hispanic, 48% Black and 4% White. The last hour of the day, I was called a racist.
The epithet was yelled from a group of students, 10 minutes into the class period. Whoever yelled it didn't have the balls to say it to my face. I hadn't had time to prove either my racism or lack therof, so I wondered where it came from. What did I do? What did I say?
I stayed after school to report this incident to the Assistant Principal who promised he'd try to get to the bottom of it. I was explaining to him how offensive that word is to me. About half way through my report, I suddenly realized that the AP is Black. Shows you how racist and all I am...it took me that long to see his color.
If I hadn't been so insulted, I would have found it funny. You see, one of my best friends in college is Black. We remain FB friends to this day. I demonstrated in college in favor of Civil Rights. I was a member of the Black Student Union. One of my foster brothers is Arabic. Over half my nieces/nephews are either Black, Hispanic, Native American, or a combination of the above. When we all get together, it looks like a session at the UN. The only race not represented in my family is Asian, but that's not for lack of trying.
I enrolled my kids in desegrated schools, because I thought they should be exposed to a wide variety of cultures and races. As president of the PTA, I had particular problems with one of the parents, a Black single mom who seemed to think that my agenda was promoting white students over black. Our sons played on the same YMCA basketball team (my poor kid was the only white student on the team and he was neither the tallest nor the most gifted of players.)
One evening, this mom came rushing into practice late. I commented on how hard it is to get home from work, get dinner on the table and get the kids to practice. Our conversation drifted around that theme...the difficulty of being a single parent. I think she finally saw me as having a great deal in common with her, despite the color of my skin. I never had another problem with her at PTA.
Playing the "racism" card is a weapon. But if it's used too frequently, it begins to have no meaning. If I'm a racist and everyone who didn't vote for Obama is a racist and the Grand Wizard of the KKK is racist, there is no nuance of scale.
Since my ancestors came to this country in the late 19th century, we didn't own slaves. We, some of us, were indentured servants, which in some cases was roughly equivalent to slavery.
I have personally never owned a slave, so I don't know why I should feel guilty. I was taught as a child that being a racist was, at the very most, un-Christian and at the very least, rude. Being non-racist in 1960's Arkansas was a mean feat, but my parents managed it very well, thank you.
That's not to say that I have no biases. I do. Everyone does. My biases tend more to religious, rather than racial, groups. I don't have much truck with religious fanatics of any stripe, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Two-Seed-In-The-Spirit-Predestinarians. (Look it up...there used to be a sect called that. They believed, among other things, that all sex was evil, so it isn't surprising they died out. They seemed to have trouble recruiting people to this idea and Lord knows, they didn't create any kids to bring up in the faith. Unlike the Catholic Church, which uses procreation as a way of filling pews.)
I remember when we first moved to the South, we were touring the Hot Springs National Park. It was a warm day, so the first water fountain I saw I drank from. I heard a gasp from behind me. Looking up, I saw the word "Colored" posted above the water fountain. People were looking at me as if I would drop dead or turn into a toad or turn Black or something. It was the first (but unfortunately, not the last) inkling I had that all was not harmonious between the races in the South.
I wonder if being called a racist isn't a form of racism. Racism, after all, is judging a person by the color of their skin, not the content of their character. Assuming that all white people are racist is ignoring the content of their characters.
I had a Black person tell me once that Black people cannot be racist. Really? It is my understanding that Blacks sometimes judge each other by how "high yeller" they are. And I have occasionally, like on Friday, been judged by the color of my skin. That's racist, isn't it?
I don't suppose that Blacks who lump all of us white people into a single category understand that it does their cause no good to treat us all as if we were in the KKK. Judge me by my actions, by the content of my character, not by the color of my skin.
The epithet was yelled from a group of students, 10 minutes into the class period. Whoever yelled it didn't have the balls to say it to my face. I hadn't had time to prove either my racism or lack therof, so I wondered where it came from. What did I do? What did I say?
I stayed after school to report this incident to the Assistant Principal who promised he'd try to get to the bottom of it. I was explaining to him how offensive that word is to me. About half way through my report, I suddenly realized that the AP is Black. Shows you how racist and all I am...it took me that long to see his color.
If I hadn't been so insulted, I would have found it funny. You see, one of my best friends in college is Black. We remain FB friends to this day. I demonstrated in college in favor of Civil Rights. I was a member of the Black Student Union. One of my foster brothers is Arabic. Over half my nieces/nephews are either Black, Hispanic, Native American, or a combination of the above. When we all get together, it looks like a session at the UN. The only race not represented in my family is Asian, but that's not for lack of trying.
I enrolled my kids in desegrated schools, because I thought they should be exposed to a wide variety of cultures and races. As president of the PTA, I had particular problems with one of the parents, a Black single mom who seemed to think that my agenda was promoting white students over black. Our sons played on the same YMCA basketball team (my poor kid was the only white student on the team and he was neither the tallest nor the most gifted of players.)
One evening, this mom came rushing into practice late. I commented on how hard it is to get home from work, get dinner on the table and get the kids to practice. Our conversation drifted around that theme...the difficulty of being a single parent. I think she finally saw me as having a great deal in common with her, despite the color of my skin. I never had another problem with her at PTA.
Playing the "racism" card is a weapon. But if it's used too frequently, it begins to have no meaning. If I'm a racist and everyone who didn't vote for Obama is a racist and the Grand Wizard of the KKK is racist, there is no nuance of scale.
Since my ancestors came to this country in the late 19th century, we didn't own slaves. We, some of us, were indentured servants, which in some cases was roughly equivalent to slavery.
I have personally never owned a slave, so I don't know why I should feel guilty. I was taught as a child that being a racist was, at the very most, un-Christian and at the very least, rude. Being non-racist in 1960's Arkansas was a mean feat, but my parents managed it very well, thank you.
That's not to say that I have no biases. I do. Everyone does. My biases tend more to religious, rather than racial, groups. I don't have much truck with religious fanatics of any stripe, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Two-Seed-In-The-Spirit-Predestinarians. (Look it up...there used to be a sect called that. They believed, among other things, that all sex was evil, so it isn't surprising they died out. They seemed to have trouble recruiting people to this idea and Lord knows, they didn't create any kids to bring up in the faith. Unlike the Catholic Church, which uses procreation as a way of filling pews.)
I remember when we first moved to the South, we were touring the Hot Springs National Park. It was a warm day, so the first water fountain I saw I drank from. I heard a gasp from behind me. Looking up, I saw the word "Colored" posted above the water fountain. People were looking at me as if I would drop dead or turn into a toad or turn Black or something. It was the first (but unfortunately, not the last) inkling I had that all was not harmonious between the races in the South.
I wonder if being called a racist isn't a form of racism. Racism, after all, is judging a person by the color of their skin, not the content of their character. Assuming that all white people are racist is ignoring the content of their characters.
I had a Black person tell me once that Black people cannot be racist. Really? It is my understanding that Blacks sometimes judge each other by how "high yeller" they are. And I have occasionally, like on Friday, been judged by the color of my skin. That's racist, isn't it?
I don't suppose that Blacks who lump all of us white people into a single category understand that it does their cause no good to treat us all as if we were in the KKK. Judge me by my actions, by the content of my character, not by the color of my skin.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The Other Goodsons
I have four siblings, but, because my parents tended to gather many people to their hearts, I am fortunate to have many other people I call my foster siblings.
When my sister was in high school, her best friend went through a great deal of trauma in her family life. I won't go into detail out of respect for her privacy, but my parents sheltered her (sometimes literally), giving her a place to escape to in our home. She was probably my first foster sister.
Then there were many foreign students whom Daddy brought home for dinner. There are dozens of them, but one from Lebanon in particular holds a special place in our hearts. He has since brought his family here and proudly calls himself an American. Living in a small college town doesn't necessarily give one a view of the wider world. But, through these foreign students, we grew up knowing about other cultures and knowing the other side of the story of world events.
Daddy would cruise the college dorms during Thanksgiving and Christmas break. He knew that the cafeteria was closed and many of the foreign students, unable to afford to go home during the holidays, would cook meals over a hot plate. Most didn't have cars, so they couldn't hang out at the Pizza Hut. He invited them to our home for a hot meal and a glimpse into American family life. In later years, I've come to realize that he did it not only for their sakes but for ours.
Once, when my two middle sisters were in high school, they had friends who were also sisters, Susan and Diane. As a joke, my sisters convinced Susan and Diane that in our family, all of the females' first names were "Mary". Daddy and Tim's first names were "Joseph". This deception went on for several weeks, at the end of which Susan and Diane, wanting to be a part of our family, christened themselves "Mary Susan" and "Mary Diane." They became my foster sisters as well.
Thereafter, when anyone joined our family, we automatically gave them new first names. Brothers-in-law became Joseph Daniel and Joseph Dennis. It came in really handy when my oldest sister, Lynn, married a man named Lynn. He became Joseph Lynn and later, J. Lynn. Very helpful in talking about them so you knew which one was which.
I had what I call "complementary" aunts and uncles...beloved to our family in particular were Aunt Theola and Uncle Don, and Aunt Pat and Uncle Bill. I used to babysit my cousins, Rachel and Gene.
Throughout my childhood, in spite of our rather large family, it was made even larger and more loving. Mom and Daddy open their arms, their hearts, and their home to a mish-mash of people, all needing a large family to be with.
I love this family.
When my sister was in high school, her best friend went through a great deal of trauma in her family life. I won't go into detail out of respect for her privacy, but my parents sheltered her (sometimes literally), giving her a place to escape to in our home. She was probably my first foster sister.
Then there were many foreign students whom Daddy brought home for dinner. There are dozens of them, but one from Lebanon in particular holds a special place in our hearts. He has since brought his family here and proudly calls himself an American. Living in a small college town doesn't necessarily give one a view of the wider world. But, through these foreign students, we grew up knowing about other cultures and knowing the other side of the story of world events.
Daddy would cruise the college dorms during Thanksgiving and Christmas break. He knew that the cafeteria was closed and many of the foreign students, unable to afford to go home during the holidays, would cook meals over a hot plate. Most didn't have cars, so they couldn't hang out at the Pizza Hut. He invited them to our home for a hot meal and a glimpse into American family life. In later years, I've come to realize that he did it not only for their sakes but for ours.
Once, when my two middle sisters were in high school, they had friends who were also sisters, Susan and Diane. As a joke, my sisters convinced Susan and Diane that in our family, all of the females' first names were "Mary". Daddy and Tim's first names were "Joseph". This deception went on for several weeks, at the end of which Susan and Diane, wanting to be a part of our family, christened themselves "Mary Susan" and "Mary Diane." They became my foster sisters as well.
Thereafter, when anyone joined our family, we automatically gave them new first names. Brothers-in-law became Joseph Daniel and Joseph Dennis. It came in really handy when my oldest sister, Lynn, married a man named Lynn. He became Joseph Lynn and later, J. Lynn. Very helpful in talking about them so you knew which one was which.
I had what I call "complementary" aunts and uncles...beloved to our family in particular were Aunt Theola and Uncle Don, and Aunt Pat and Uncle Bill. I used to babysit my cousins, Rachel and Gene.
Throughout my childhood, in spite of our rather large family, it was made even larger and more loving. Mom and Daddy open their arms, their hearts, and their home to a mish-mash of people, all needing a large family to be with.
I love this family.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Daddy's Girl
My father passed away last week. It was St. Paddy's Day and I found it ironic, since my mom is the one who's Irish. Aside from my grandparents, I've never experienced a death in the family and I wondered how I'd do.
Would I embarass the rest of the family by sobbing uncontrollably, drowning out the service? Thankfully, I didn't, though it was a near thing. I'd done my uncontrollable sobbing in private. My family are very private and I'm glad I did them proud.
I mainly kept it together by watching out for my mother, who was so graceful and loving; by watching out for my oldest sister, who has had the bulk of caring for my folks for the past few years; by watching out for my nieces and nephews, who were blessed by having known my dad for so many years, experiencing the first loss in their young lives; by watching out for my son, who had to shoulder the responsibility of watching out for me.
At the service, grandkids read passages from the Bible and sang, a dear foster brother read Alexander Pope, a dear uncle played "Claire de Lune", a favorite of my mother's. All in all, it was a beautiful service.
I had gathered together some photos of my dad...some from his younger years gleaned from my aunt's album, some from my mom's albums, some from my own paltry photography. There are so many of Daddy holding infants and smiling and making funny faces. (What is it about babies that makes us all clowns...grimacing and grinning in turn?) In all those photos, the babies are all grinning and making faces back at him. Then there are the innumerable photos of Daddy reading to grandbabies, usually "T'was the Night Before Christmas", a Christmas Eve tradition.
My dad gloried in babies. Although I don't have a photo of the event, I have a treasured mental image of him making faces and grinning at my son through the nursery window. He just happened to be in town when I went into labor and was there for the first day of my son's life. Daddy had a great grin, especially for grandbabies. Let that be his legacy.
I'm sure that, while my mother might have been slightly disappointed that I wasn't the boy she wanted to give him, my being a girl was just fine with Daddy. In fact, it was more than fine. He saw me as a gift from God and if God seemed to think that Daddy needed another daughter, that was peachy with him.
When I was young, my father "supply" preached at numerous small country churches. Although his main job was educating and inspiring young college students, many of whom went on to preach and do mission work, he wanted to keep his hand in at the pulpit. So he would go preach at churches where the minister was sick or on vacation or called to another church. He frequently was paid in home-canned vegetables and bushels of potatoes. We kept chickens for a while and I think they may have been payment for a Sunday sermon.
His preaching style wasn't pounding-the-pulpit-hellfire-and-brimstone. Instead, he instructed and interpreted. When he died, we found his Bible, open to the last passage he'd studied, on his bedside table. Beside it, we found his Greek New Testament, open to the same passage. Always the scholar. Let that be his legacy.
I watched my mother out of the corner of my eye during the service. At first, she seemed to be not quite there, staring at the floor. Then I realized that she was very much there. She was seeing Infinity, communing with Daddy. She mouthed the words to all the hymns, all the familiar passages being read, knowing deep in her soul all the words.
They were married for almost 66 years and all of us wonder how she could possibly live on without him. They would sometimes embarrass us, being all in love when "old" people aren't supposed to be. Let that be his legacy.
They not only raised all of us (and we all turned out pretty good)...they parented a wide variety of others. The 16-year-old friend of my sister whose own father would call her to come bail him out of jail. The freshmen he counseled in their studies and in their homesickness. The foreign students he invited home to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. The couple from Southern Rhodesia who rocked our church by wanting to join our all-white congregation, becoming regulars at our Sunday table. Let that be his legacy.
Bums and homeless people seemed to read him for a sucker and panhandled him frequently. Daddy used to get a $5 allowance from Mom for his lunch money for the week. If a bum asked for a hand-out, Daddy would steer him to the nearest coffee shop, give the waitress his $5 and tell her that she should serve him whatever he wanted, as much as he wanted. In the 1950's, $5 could buy a feast.
Mother used to say that they couldn't go anywhere in the world without running into a former student and, indeed, they once ran into a former student while walking down a London street. Daddy always said that when he met them, he could look in the grade book of his mind and remember their names, where they sat in class and, most importantly, what their final grade was. Let that be his legacy.
Daddy's favorite writer was C. S. Lewis. He and Lewis both seemed to think that one's faith should be based on study, logic, and intelligent thought. In that respect, he was as much a philosopher as theologian. He introduced one of his students to Lewis in the 1950's and the student showed his gratitude by sending us kids copies of the Chronicles of Narnia, long before they were available in American publishing houses.
In fact, Narnia was my naptime reading. We always lived a block away from campus so Daddy could walk to and from work. He always came home for lunch and after lunch, he would read me to sleep. He'd take a 10-minute nap then. He invented power napping, I think, because he could wake up and be ready for his afternoon classes. He always awoke at 5:30 a.m., without an alarm. He'd make coffee and bring it to my mom in bed. I used to ask her how she'd trained him so well. Let that be his legacy.
Daddy was a wonderful gardener. He used to say that he liked gardening because you could always learn more. He liked learning more than anything. I remember well the first time I learned what a weed was.
I had gotten up early, before the heat of the day, to help him in the garden. I was about 6. He showed me what a carrot plant looks like and told me to pull everything in that row which didn't look like a carrot. ("Which of these things is not like the others? Which of these things is not the same?"...it was Daddy's version of Sesame Street.)
I completed the row and then he showed me a row of green onions and told me to pull everything that didn't look like an onion. About half way down the row, I saw a carrot. I was so scared. I thought he'd be mad because I'd messed up. What if I had pulled the wrong plants in the previous row? He patiently explained to me that a weed is just a plant out of place. He was good at explaining things. Let that be his legacy.
I'm named for both my parents. Carl and Rozelle transmogrified to Charlotte Rose. I'm the third Rose, actually. My Irish grandmother was named Rosanna. Daddy's nickname for me was Rosebud, a bud of his beloved Rozelle.
In later years, although we always saw their abiding love for each other, he seemed to tell her even more frequently that he loved her. And while, as a widow, he was her second husband, she always said that he was never second in her heart. We should all be so lucky to have that kind of love in our lives. Let that be his legacy, that he loved our mother past all understanding.
I used to think that I was Daddy's favorite. Until in my teen years, when I discovered that all my siblings thought they were Daddy's favorite too. In the wisdom of his parenting, he made us all feel special and important to him. Let that be his legacy.
Daddy had a Swiss Army knife, which we found in his room. I think he actually bought it in Switzerland, on one of his many trips. He traveled every continent, except Australia and Antarctica. He loved seeing the world and experiencing new cultures and old ruins. I think if he hadn't been a theological scholar, he would have been a history professor. But always teaching.
I gave my oldest son the Swiss Army knife. He said he remembered Daddy using it to cut flowers, to harvest vegetables. He opened the saw blade and, lo and behold, there was still garden dirt on the blade. Let that be his legacy.
Would I embarass the rest of the family by sobbing uncontrollably, drowning out the service? Thankfully, I didn't, though it was a near thing. I'd done my uncontrollable sobbing in private. My family are very private and I'm glad I did them proud.
I mainly kept it together by watching out for my mother, who was so graceful and loving; by watching out for my oldest sister, who has had the bulk of caring for my folks for the past few years; by watching out for my nieces and nephews, who were blessed by having known my dad for so many years, experiencing the first loss in their young lives; by watching out for my son, who had to shoulder the responsibility of watching out for me.
At the service, grandkids read passages from the Bible and sang, a dear foster brother read Alexander Pope, a dear uncle played "Claire de Lune", a favorite of my mother's. All in all, it was a beautiful service.
I had gathered together some photos of my dad...some from his younger years gleaned from my aunt's album, some from my mom's albums, some from my own paltry photography. There are so many of Daddy holding infants and smiling and making funny faces. (What is it about babies that makes us all clowns...grimacing and grinning in turn?) In all those photos, the babies are all grinning and making faces back at him. Then there are the innumerable photos of Daddy reading to grandbabies, usually "T'was the Night Before Christmas", a Christmas Eve tradition.
My dad gloried in babies. Although I don't have a photo of the event, I have a treasured mental image of him making faces and grinning at my son through the nursery window. He just happened to be in town when I went into labor and was there for the first day of my son's life. Daddy had a great grin, especially for grandbabies. Let that be his legacy.
I'm sure that, while my mother might have been slightly disappointed that I wasn't the boy she wanted to give him, my being a girl was just fine with Daddy. In fact, it was more than fine. He saw me as a gift from God and if God seemed to think that Daddy needed another daughter, that was peachy with him.
When I was young, my father "supply" preached at numerous small country churches. Although his main job was educating and inspiring young college students, many of whom went on to preach and do mission work, he wanted to keep his hand in at the pulpit. So he would go preach at churches where the minister was sick or on vacation or called to another church. He frequently was paid in home-canned vegetables and bushels of potatoes. We kept chickens for a while and I think they may have been payment for a Sunday sermon.
His preaching style wasn't pounding-the-pulpit-hellfire-and-brimstone. Instead, he instructed and interpreted. When he died, we found his Bible, open to the last passage he'd studied, on his bedside table. Beside it, we found his Greek New Testament, open to the same passage. Always the scholar. Let that be his legacy.
I watched my mother out of the corner of my eye during the service. At first, she seemed to be not quite there, staring at the floor. Then I realized that she was very much there. She was seeing Infinity, communing with Daddy. She mouthed the words to all the hymns, all the familiar passages being read, knowing deep in her soul all the words.
They were married for almost 66 years and all of us wonder how she could possibly live on without him. They would sometimes embarrass us, being all in love when "old" people aren't supposed to be. Let that be his legacy.
They not only raised all of us (and we all turned out pretty good)...they parented a wide variety of others. The 16-year-old friend of my sister whose own father would call her to come bail him out of jail. The freshmen he counseled in their studies and in their homesickness. The foreign students he invited home to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. The couple from Southern Rhodesia who rocked our church by wanting to join our all-white congregation, becoming regulars at our Sunday table. Let that be his legacy.
Bums and homeless people seemed to read him for a sucker and panhandled him frequently. Daddy used to get a $5 allowance from Mom for his lunch money for the week. If a bum asked for a hand-out, Daddy would steer him to the nearest coffee shop, give the waitress his $5 and tell her that she should serve him whatever he wanted, as much as he wanted. In the 1950's, $5 could buy a feast.
Mother used to say that they couldn't go anywhere in the world without running into a former student and, indeed, they once ran into a former student while walking down a London street. Daddy always said that when he met them, he could look in the grade book of his mind and remember their names, where they sat in class and, most importantly, what their final grade was. Let that be his legacy.
Daddy's favorite writer was C. S. Lewis. He and Lewis both seemed to think that one's faith should be based on study, logic, and intelligent thought. In that respect, he was as much a philosopher as theologian. He introduced one of his students to Lewis in the 1950's and the student showed his gratitude by sending us kids copies of the Chronicles of Narnia, long before they were available in American publishing houses.
In fact, Narnia was my naptime reading. We always lived a block away from campus so Daddy could walk to and from work. He always came home for lunch and after lunch, he would read me to sleep. He'd take a 10-minute nap then. He invented power napping, I think, because he could wake up and be ready for his afternoon classes. He always awoke at 5:30 a.m., without an alarm. He'd make coffee and bring it to my mom in bed. I used to ask her how she'd trained him so well. Let that be his legacy.
Daddy was a wonderful gardener. He used to say that he liked gardening because you could always learn more. He liked learning more than anything. I remember well the first time I learned what a weed was.
I had gotten up early, before the heat of the day, to help him in the garden. I was about 6. He showed me what a carrot plant looks like and told me to pull everything in that row which didn't look like a carrot. ("Which of these things is not like the others? Which of these things is not the same?"...it was Daddy's version of Sesame Street.)
I completed the row and then he showed me a row of green onions and told me to pull everything that didn't look like an onion. About half way down the row, I saw a carrot. I was so scared. I thought he'd be mad because I'd messed up. What if I had pulled the wrong plants in the previous row? He patiently explained to me that a weed is just a plant out of place. He was good at explaining things. Let that be his legacy.
I'm named for both my parents. Carl and Rozelle transmogrified to Charlotte Rose. I'm the third Rose, actually. My Irish grandmother was named Rosanna. Daddy's nickname for me was Rosebud, a bud of his beloved Rozelle.
In later years, although we always saw their abiding love for each other, he seemed to tell her even more frequently that he loved her. And while, as a widow, he was her second husband, she always said that he was never second in her heart. We should all be so lucky to have that kind of love in our lives. Let that be his legacy, that he loved our mother past all understanding.
I used to think that I was Daddy's favorite. Until in my teen years, when I discovered that all my siblings thought they were Daddy's favorite too. In the wisdom of his parenting, he made us all feel special and important to him. Let that be his legacy.
Daddy had a Swiss Army knife, which we found in his room. I think he actually bought it in Switzerland, on one of his many trips. He traveled every continent, except Australia and Antarctica. He loved seeing the world and experiencing new cultures and old ruins. I think if he hadn't been a theological scholar, he would have been a history professor. But always teaching.
I gave my oldest son the Swiss Army knife. He said he remembered Daddy using it to cut flowers, to harvest vegetables. He opened the saw blade and, lo and behold, there was still garden dirt on the blade. Let that be his legacy.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Broken Government
Sadly, the current debacle in Washington, while serious, is just a symptom of an even larger problem...our totally broken government.
I've written my Congressman and Senators until I'm blue in the face on this issue of raising the debt ceiling and dealing with our deficit, but I'm convinced that their minds are made up and my lone voice won't be heard. I'm just trying to counterbalance all those voices, very vocal, who have spoken out against conpromise. I have no illusions about the votes, however. They are what they are.
Maybe we can come up with a few simple and many complex suggestions for patches to this system...patches allowed by the Founding Fathers in the form of Constitutional amendments. So, here goes (in no particular order):
1) Reduce the deficit with both spending cuts and raising taxes. We just woke up in Vegas and have to go home now, pockets empty. It's time to pay the piper and face up to our profligate ways. It doesn't matter if we agree or disagree with the spending that got us here. It won't be easy. It won't be pretty. But we have to do it.
2) Impose term limits. The President is subject to term limits. Why not Congress? Some of them (Strom Thurman comes to mind) would like to die in their seats, clinging to IV poles. But we can't let them.
3) Lengthen terms for the House to four years and have half of them run every two years. The current two-year terms make it so that they are always in campaign mode. My guess is that new Representatives take a year to find the loo and then they are in campaign mode again. Four-year terms might give them a couple of years to actually work.
4) Get rid of the Electoral College. It might have made some sense in the days of yore, when vote counts had to travel by horseback to Washington. It makes no sense now, when frequently the popular vote is thrown in the toilet and electors can vote any old way they want, regardless of how the citizens of their state voted.
5) Increase the number of members of the House. Someone recently proposed a House of 10,000 members. That's ridiculous, of course, but there surely should be more. I think it was back in the 1930's or some such that the current number of members was set at 435. We have a few more people than we did back then, whenever it was.
6) Make the elementary assumption that a majority is a majority. We don't need a "super" majority of 60 senators. Fifty-one percent of the vote, last time I was in math class, is a majority, as it was at the time of our founding when they invented "majority rule." (see item #4)
7) Return to the idea, as stated in our Constitution, that church and state should be separate. When Catholic bishops "approved" the anti-abortion language in the House version of the health reform bill and no one even blinked, I was appalled. We have gone way too far down that slippery slope.
8) Make voting mandatory. Not how one votes but that one does vote. I have no earthly idea how this could be implemented, but a relative few voters are having a huge impact on our government simply because they show up. All of us should show up.
9) Reform campaign financing. The Supremes just undid decades of campaign financing reform by allowing corporations and unions and foreigners unlimited donations and therefore access to our Senators and Representatives. No one, no one organization or industry, even the Boy Scouts, should have that kind of control.
10) Make it illegal for any of our Congressional delegates to sign "pledges" to any organization right or left. One of the current candidates for President has stated that the only pledge he'll make is the Pledge of Allegiance. One of the reason that compromise has become such a dirty word is that some in Congress have signed pledges to a political PAC that they will, under no circumstances, raise taxes. And they define even tax reform as "raising taxes"! I should send them a Webster's Dictionary.
And so, Dear Reader, these are my ideas, the Dirty Decade of Government Patches, if you will. Some of them appear to be really insane (some of them seem out there even to me!). Some would require Constitutional amendments.
It has been said that we get the government that we deserve. I disagree. I don't think we deserve this mess at all. Let's fix this.
I've written my Congressman and Senators until I'm blue in the face on this issue of raising the debt ceiling and dealing with our deficit, but I'm convinced that their minds are made up and my lone voice won't be heard. I'm just trying to counterbalance all those voices, very vocal, who have spoken out against conpromise. I have no illusions about the votes, however. They are what they are.
Maybe we can come up with a few simple and many complex suggestions for patches to this system...patches allowed by the Founding Fathers in the form of Constitutional amendments. So, here goes (in no particular order):
1) Reduce the deficit with both spending cuts and raising taxes. We just woke up in Vegas and have to go home now, pockets empty. It's time to pay the piper and face up to our profligate ways. It doesn't matter if we agree or disagree with the spending that got us here. It won't be easy. It won't be pretty. But we have to do it.
2) Impose term limits. The President is subject to term limits. Why not Congress? Some of them (Strom Thurman comes to mind) would like to die in their seats, clinging to IV poles. But we can't let them.
3) Lengthen terms for the House to four years and have half of them run every two years. The current two-year terms make it so that they are always in campaign mode. My guess is that new Representatives take a year to find the loo and then they are in campaign mode again. Four-year terms might give them a couple of years to actually work.
4) Get rid of the Electoral College. It might have made some sense in the days of yore, when vote counts had to travel by horseback to Washington. It makes no sense now, when frequently the popular vote is thrown in the toilet and electors can vote any old way they want, regardless of how the citizens of their state voted.
5) Increase the number of members of the House. Someone recently proposed a House of 10,000 members. That's ridiculous, of course, but there surely should be more. I think it was back in the 1930's or some such that the current number of members was set at 435. We have a few more people than we did back then, whenever it was.
6) Make the elementary assumption that a majority is a majority. We don't need a "super" majority of 60 senators. Fifty-one percent of the vote, last time I was in math class, is a majority, as it was at the time of our founding when they invented "majority rule." (see item #4)
7) Return to the idea, as stated in our Constitution, that church and state should be separate. When Catholic bishops "approved" the anti-abortion language in the House version of the health reform bill and no one even blinked, I was appalled. We have gone way too far down that slippery slope.
8) Make voting mandatory. Not how one votes but that one does vote. I have no earthly idea how this could be implemented, but a relative few voters are having a huge impact on our government simply because they show up. All of us should show up.
9) Reform campaign financing. The Supremes just undid decades of campaign financing reform by allowing corporations and unions and foreigners unlimited donations and therefore access to our Senators and Representatives. No one, no one organization or industry, even the Boy Scouts, should have that kind of control.
10) Make it illegal for any of our Congressional delegates to sign "pledges" to any organization right or left. One of the current candidates for President has stated that the only pledge he'll make is the Pledge of Allegiance. One of the reason that compromise has become such a dirty word is that some in Congress have signed pledges to a political PAC that they will, under no circumstances, raise taxes. And they define even tax reform as "raising taxes"! I should send them a Webster's Dictionary.
And so, Dear Reader, these are my ideas, the Dirty Decade of Government Patches, if you will. Some of them appear to be really insane (some of them seem out there even to me!). Some would require Constitutional amendments.
It has been said that we get the government that we deserve. I disagree. I don't think we deserve this mess at all. Let's fix this.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Separate But Not Equal
The past few weeks have seen a slew of female "Firsts".
The US Navy is contemplating putting female sailors on submarines. Female sailors have served with distinction on surface boats (excuse me, ships), just not on submarines. I'm not sure why there is this oddball regulation...I mean, if non-fraternization rules ("Don't Screw Your Fellow Sailor" rules) are already in place, what's the difference? Are female submariners more likely to drive slathering males to acts of drooling, rapacious lust if the vessel they all ride in is beneath the surface of the ocean than female sailors riding the bounding main? So we shall soon see a "First" female submariner.
Then there was the "First" female director to win an Oscar...ironically, for a movie about he-men...big burly bomb squad, tobacco-spittin' Marines in Iraq. Today, it was announced that a woman is actually going to be the "First" female to coach a boys' football team. Oh, the humanity!
The past few decades have seen "First" female astronauts, Speaker of the House, Supreme Court Justices and shoemakers. I remember in the 1970's getting almightily tired of turning on the news, only to be confronted by news items about "First" female factory foremen (forewomen?), plumbers, firefighters, carpenters, college presidents and candlestick makers. I remember chuckling when I heard about the first female chef...women having been doing most of the cooking for the past several millenia, haven't they?
"Backward" countries from India to Chile, from Israel to Pakistan, had their "First" female head of state decades ago. Just goes to show you how advanced a country we live in. Hillary Clinton didn't stand a chance. I remember the tiptoeing that went on around Obama, in order for journalists to not appear to be racist. Too bad they didn't have the same strictures about not appearing sexist.
I remember commenting in the 1970's (aren't you proud that I can remember back that far?) that we as females will know we have really gotten equal status when it will no longer be remarkable or newsworthy that we hold those careers. I mean, it's really not news when we see the 4097th female electrician nor is it earth-shaking when we see the 1112th female surgeon.
Republicans were all hepped up in 2008 when John McCain, one of the more sexist of our Senators, named a woman as his Vice Presidential running mate. He apparently couldn't stand to share the stage with her because she is dumber than a box of rocks, but her whole Mom thing, he thought, looked good. The Dems did that way back when with Geraldine Ferraro, remember?
Sarah Palin reminds me of another thing I said back in the day. I observed (as did not a few of my fellow rabid feminists) that it seemed that sometimes, women who were totally unqualified and incapable were named to posts, so once they totally bombed at the task, the men in charge could say, "See, women aren't capable of performing this job!" A sort of Peterette Principal. I think maybe Palin has risen to the level of her incompetence since she can't seem to remember what newspapers she reads. It was a trick question, right?
A third thing I remember hearing back in the 1970's, when we were struggling to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed, was the number "67". I had a campaign button with that number on it. Sixty-seven was the number of cents on the dollar which women were paid as opposed to their male counterparts performing the exact same task. It was a matter of labels. He was called a "Sanitation Manager", She was called a "maid." We still don't deserve a mention in the Constitution.
My mom once asked the head of her department why she was paid less than male members of the same department. She was told that it was because she wasn't a "head of household" and the men were supporting families, for gosh sakes. The implication was that her salary was pin money, while the men were holding the weight of the world on their shoulders. I wish someone had told me that when I was a single mom, 'cause then I could have required a raise, being a "head of household" supporting a family and all.
Women soldiers in Iraq are not technically in a battle zone. They aren't "allowed" to be involved in combat. Tell that to the women soldier who got her leg blown off in an IED attack. I wonder if she gets battle pay? You know, equal pay for equal risk. Oh, that's right, she isn't in a combat zone.
I don't necessarily call myself a feminist or at least not any more. The rabid feminists kinda ruined it for the rest of us. I just never could get into burning my bra or insisting that a female firefighter weighing 96 pounds soaking wet could carry victims out of burning buildings as well as a 200-pound buff man. I also could never get into hating men, which is apparently a requirement of a feminist now.
But I do call myself a humanist, because I'm just as rabid about things like dads getting a fair shake in custody hearings as I am with demanding that, when the women at my college were locked up at 10 p.m. and the men were allowed free range, perhaps they should have given the men hours as well.
I also never got into the whole title fight. What's in a name, after all? I really don't care if the person sitting on my city council is called a Councilman, Councilwoman, or even the awkward Councilperson. I just want he or she to run my city well and be paid the same salary. It gets really awkward when the municipality calls them "Committeepersons." And it's downright schizophrenic to call the men "Committeemen" and the women "Committeepersons."
In 2009, women finally got an "equal pay for equal work" law, thirty years after the ERA went down in flames. I heard not terribly long ago that we've achieved a 77 cent level...that is, women make 77 cents on the dollar to their male counterparts. In other words, we women got a raise. Whoopee.
We've come a long way, Baby?
The US Navy is contemplating putting female sailors on submarines. Female sailors have served with distinction on surface boats (excuse me, ships), just not on submarines. I'm not sure why there is this oddball regulation...I mean, if non-fraternization rules ("Don't Screw Your Fellow Sailor" rules) are already in place, what's the difference? Are female submariners more likely to drive slathering males to acts of drooling, rapacious lust if the vessel they all ride in is beneath the surface of the ocean than female sailors riding the bounding main? So we shall soon see a "First" female submariner.
Then there was the "First" female director to win an Oscar...ironically, for a movie about he-men...big burly bomb squad, tobacco-spittin' Marines in Iraq. Today, it was announced that a woman is actually going to be the "First" female to coach a boys' football team. Oh, the humanity!
The past few decades have seen "First" female astronauts, Speaker of the House, Supreme Court Justices and shoemakers. I remember in the 1970's getting almightily tired of turning on the news, only to be confronted by news items about "First" female factory foremen (forewomen?), plumbers, firefighters, carpenters, college presidents and candlestick makers. I remember chuckling when I heard about the first female chef...women having been doing most of the cooking for the past several millenia, haven't they?
"Backward" countries from India to Chile, from Israel to Pakistan, had their "First" female head of state decades ago. Just goes to show you how advanced a country we live in. Hillary Clinton didn't stand a chance. I remember the tiptoeing that went on around Obama, in order for journalists to not appear to be racist. Too bad they didn't have the same strictures about not appearing sexist.
I remember commenting in the 1970's (aren't you proud that I can remember back that far?) that we as females will know we have really gotten equal status when it will no longer be remarkable or newsworthy that we hold those careers. I mean, it's really not news when we see the 4097th female electrician nor is it earth-shaking when we see the 1112th female surgeon.
Republicans were all hepped up in 2008 when John McCain, one of the more sexist of our Senators, named a woman as his Vice Presidential running mate. He apparently couldn't stand to share the stage with her because she is dumber than a box of rocks, but her whole Mom thing, he thought, looked good. The Dems did that way back when with Geraldine Ferraro, remember?
Sarah Palin reminds me of another thing I said back in the day. I observed (as did not a few of my fellow rabid feminists) that it seemed that sometimes, women who were totally unqualified and incapable were named to posts, so once they totally bombed at the task, the men in charge could say, "See, women aren't capable of performing this job!" A sort of Peterette Principal. I think maybe Palin has risen to the level of her incompetence since she can't seem to remember what newspapers she reads. It was a trick question, right?
A third thing I remember hearing back in the 1970's, when we were struggling to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed, was the number "67". I had a campaign button with that number on it. Sixty-seven was the number of cents on the dollar which women were paid as opposed to their male counterparts performing the exact same task. It was a matter of labels. He was called a "Sanitation Manager", She was called a "maid." We still don't deserve a mention in the Constitution.
My mom once asked the head of her department why she was paid less than male members of the same department. She was told that it was because she wasn't a "head of household" and the men were supporting families, for gosh sakes. The implication was that her salary was pin money, while the men were holding the weight of the world on their shoulders. I wish someone had told me that when I was a single mom, 'cause then I could have required a raise, being a "head of household" supporting a family and all.
Women soldiers in Iraq are not technically in a battle zone. They aren't "allowed" to be involved in combat. Tell that to the women soldier who got her leg blown off in an IED attack. I wonder if she gets battle pay? You know, equal pay for equal risk. Oh, that's right, she isn't in a combat zone.
I don't necessarily call myself a feminist or at least not any more. The rabid feminists kinda ruined it for the rest of us. I just never could get into burning my bra or insisting that a female firefighter weighing 96 pounds soaking wet could carry victims out of burning buildings as well as a 200-pound buff man. I also could never get into hating men, which is apparently a requirement of a feminist now.
But I do call myself a humanist, because I'm just as rabid about things like dads getting a fair shake in custody hearings as I am with demanding that, when the women at my college were locked up at 10 p.m. and the men were allowed free range, perhaps they should have given the men hours as well.
I also never got into the whole title fight. What's in a name, after all? I really don't care if the person sitting on my city council is called a Councilman, Councilwoman, or even the awkward Councilperson. I just want he or she to run my city well and be paid the same salary. It gets really awkward when the municipality calls them "Committeepersons." And it's downright schizophrenic to call the men "Committeemen" and the women "Committeepersons."
In 2009, women finally got an "equal pay for equal work" law, thirty years after the ERA went down in flames. I heard not terribly long ago that we've achieved a 77 cent level...that is, women make 77 cents on the dollar to their male counterparts. In other words, we women got a raise. Whoopee.
We've come a long way, Baby?
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Church and State
Be afraid. Be very afriad.
I just finished reading Jeff Sharlet's book, The Family. He chronicles the establishment and rise of a fundamentalist organization which has ties to many people in our government and in governments around the world. It seems that the Family doesn't have a theology, more like a love of power. They like being movers and shakers with our Presidents, our Congressional members, and even moving and shaking dictators around the world.
I was raised Baptist. Time was the Baptists were all about the separation of church and state. You know, like in our Constitution. Roger Williams, the Baptists' Founding Father, started the denomination because he didn't like the Puritan theocracies which governed Colonial America. Due to the Family and a certain evangelist named Billy Graham (you have perhaps heard of him?), Baptists nowadays aren't all that particular about a divide between church and state. That is, as long as it's the Baptist/Protestant church being all into state business.
(Billy Graham served as Father Confessor to a number of our Presidents, including Richard Nixon, the crook, who was "forgiven" by Graham for having caused the Constitutional crisis fondly known as Watergate.)
Members of Family prayer cells were instrumental in adding "under God" to our Pledge of Allegiance and the words "in God we trust" to our coinage. I used to think those peculiar phrases were instituted back in the days of our founding. I was surprized to find that it was a Family member of Congress who put those into common usage in the 1950's.
George W. Bush is a member of a Family prayer cell. They have cells, just like Al Quaida, all over the world. They sponsor the National Prayer Breakfast and prayer cells which meet in the halls of the Capitol. Yeah, that self-same Capitol with an O, which was built and is maintained by our government, our tax dollars, is the site of several prayer cells sponsored by the Family.
Bush was all "let's give money for social services to 'faith-based' organizations." Our tax dollars going to church organizations. Now, church organizations already enjoy some federal largesse in the form of tax-exemption. They are 501(c)3 organizations which are precluded from politicking or lobbying. That's news to me, since they appear to lobby all the time.
Planned Parenthood, however, is precluded from receiving federal funding for family planning in poor, third-world countries because PP performs abortions here in the US. Abortions paid for with private funding. Gee, we'd rather some poor woman in Africa have a dozen kids, despite the fact that she can't afford to feed them, than give her proper medical care. Because let's face it, family planning is medical care.
I have a problem with any legislation which denies abortion funding because some tax payers don't want their money going for abortions. Okay, let's use that argument on another line item in our budget. I'm against war and don't want my tax dollars going to pay for war. Why don't I get to make the same argument? Can you name any other line item in our huge budget where some tax payers have veto power because of their religious objections? I can't.
The Mormon church and some megachurches in California spent a bazillion dollars on California's challenge to the legally legislated gay marriage act. So now California has to say that they will honor the marriages that were performed when they were legal, they just won't perform any more. Huh? Sounds like church-based lobbying to me.
Did you catch the small news item about the Catholic bishops being asked to write the anti-abortion language in the House's Health Care Reform bill? What??!! Catholic bishops, being as how they are members of a religious organization, got to write a portion of our legislation. It doesn't matter whether this particular bill passes or not. Religious organizations shouldn't be allowed to write legislation. It's literally un-Constitutional. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Tea Baggers!
Anyway, George II decided to drop his idea about giving faith-based organizations money to provide social services after some Buddhists and some Wicca organizations applied. Better to not give any money out (and therefore deny social services to the needy) than to risk having Buddhists or Wiccans having tax dollars in their coffers. Was he afraid that those organizations might recruit or evangelize the clients they were serving? Was he unaware that Catholic Social Services and soup kitchens based in church basements regularly evangelize the clients they serve? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, or so I'm told.
Several years ago, the Kansas Board of Education decided, under pressure from the Intelligent Design folks, to rewrite our natural history by decreeing that Creationism, not Evolution, would be taught in high school biology classes. I think they had to drop that idea because a) their graduates were being denied entrance into college because they weren't prepared for college biology, and b) they couldn't find any textbooks which were Creationism oriented, and c) they became the laughing stock of the nation.
The lines of separation between church and state have long been blurring, but church-dictated governance has become so commonplace that the church no longer feels the need to hide their presence within our Government.
I don't know about you, but I am very afraid.
I just finished reading Jeff Sharlet's book, The Family. He chronicles the establishment and rise of a fundamentalist organization which has ties to many people in our government and in governments around the world. It seems that the Family doesn't have a theology, more like a love of power. They like being movers and shakers with our Presidents, our Congressional members, and even moving and shaking dictators around the world.
I was raised Baptist. Time was the Baptists were all about the separation of church and state. You know, like in our Constitution. Roger Williams, the Baptists' Founding Father, started the denomination because he didn't like the Puritan theocracies which governed Colonial America. Due to the Family and a certain evangelist named Billy Graham (you have perhaps heard of him?), Baptists nowadays aren't all that particular about a divide between church and state. That is, as long as it's the Baptist/Protestant church being all into state business.
(Billy Graham served as Father Confessor to a number of our Presidents, including Richard Nixon, the crook, who was "forgiven" by Graham for having caused the Constitutional crisis fondly known as Watergate.)
Members of Family prayer cells were instrumental in adding "under God" to our Pledge of Allegiance and the words "in God we trust" to our coinage. I used to think those peculiar phrases were instituted back in the days of our founding. I was surprized to find that it was a Family member of Congress who put those into common usage in the 1950's.
George W. Bush is a member of a Family prayer cell. They have cells, just like Al Quaida, all over the world. They sponsor the National Prayer Breakfast and prayer cells which meet in the halls of the Capitol. Yeah, that self-same Capitol with an O, which was built and is maintained by our government, our tax dollars, is the site of several prayer cells sponsored by the Family.
Bush was all "let's give money for social services to 'faith-based' organizations." Our tax dollars going to church organizations. Now, church organizations already enjoy some federal largesse in the form of tax-exemption. They are 501(c)3 organizations which are precluded from politicking or lobbying. That's news to me, since they appear to lobby all the time.
Planned Parenthood, however, is precluded from receiving federal funding for family planning in poor, third-world countries because PP performs abortions here in the US. Abortions paid for with private funding. Gee, we'd rather some poor woman in Africa have a dozen kids, despite the fact that she can't afford to feed them, than give her proper medical care. Because let's face it, family planning is medical care.
I have a problem with any legislation which denies abortion funding because some tax payers don't want their money going for abortions. Okay, let's use that argument on another line item in our budget. I'm against war and don't want my tax dollars going to pay for war. Why don't I get to make the same argument? Can you name any other line item in our huge budget where some tax payers have veto power because of their religious objections? I can't.
The Mormon church and some megachurches in California spent a bazillion dollars on California's challenge to the legally legislated gay marriage act. So now California has to say that they will honor the marriages that were performed when they were legal, they just won't perform any more. Huh? Sounds like church-based lobbying to me.
Did you catch the small news item about the Catholic bishops being asked to write the anti-abortion language in the House's Health Care Reform bill? What??!! Catholic bishops, being as how they are members of a religious organization, got to write a portion of our legislation. It doesn't matter whether this particular bill passes or not. Religious organizations shouldn't be allowed to write legislation. It's literally un-Constitutional. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Tea Baggers!
Anyway, George II decided to drop his idea about giving faith-based organizations money to provide social services after some Buddhists and some Wicca organizations applied. Better to not give any money out (and therefore deny social services to the needy) than to risk having Buddhists or Wiccans having tax dollars in their coffers. Was he afraid that those organizations might recruit or evangelize the clients they were serving? Was he unaware that Catholic Social Services and soup kitchens based in church basements regularly evangelize the clients they serve? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, or so I'm told.
Several years ago, the Kansas Board of Education decided, under pressure from the Intelligent Design folks, to rewrite our natural history by decreeing that Creationism, not Evolution, would be taught in high school biology classes. I think they had to drop that idea because a) their graduates were being denied entrance into college because they weren't prepared for college biology, and b) they couldn't find any textbooks which were Creationism oriented, and c) they became the laughing stock of the nation.
The lines of separation between church and state have long been blurring, but church-dictated governance has become so commonplace that the church no longer feels the need to hide their presence within our Government.
I don't know about you, but I am very afraid.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Curling
Forgive me for being stupid.
I'm really trying to get into watching the Olympics. I guess I should understand why, in order to watch three figure skaters (my fav), I have to sit through hours of two-man (or -woman) bobsledding and extreme skiing and curling. (I have a hard time discerning the difference between extreme skiing and regular, old, ordinary skiing...I mean, it's a guy or gal pelting down hill at a zillion miles an hour on two skinny boards risking life and limb...how extreme can you get?).
I understand most of the other sports, despite the fact that the racing sports seem to be decided on things like a difference of 1/1000th of a second, or being disqualified for having a coach who is a total dolt.
I'm not getting curling. With all the nonsense the commentators spew (see my blog "On Sports"), you'd think they could perhaps spend some time explaining some of the esoterica of the game. I've heard the announcers say, "the US is down by 1 with the hammer in the 6th end" Huh? What's "the hammer"? Sounds really serious. I don't see any hammers on the court.
The bobsledding announcers are bad enough. Witness: "You do not want deficit air". I would understand "deficit air" if it referred to a diner choking on a bit of steak or a man hanging by the neck until dead or even to an asthmatic. I don't understand "deficit air" when it refers to a bobsled. Bobsleds don't breathe, do they?
I also don't get the colors of the uniforms. Time was a team dressed in its national flag colors. Canada dressed in red and white. Germany dressed in black, gold and red. The US team dressed in red, white and blue. These days, the Germans dress in yellow and fuchia, the Canadians dress in black and red, and the US team dresses in delft blue. Not navy. Not midnight. Delft. No red to be seen. Don't get me started on the Norwegian team and their "argyle" pants. But I digress.
I don't understand curling scoring. It took me several attempts to understand what an "end" was. The "rocks" or "stones" look like tea kettles to me and, at least for the women teams, curling seems to be incredibly sexist. Here these women are, sliding tea kettles and using brooms to madly sweep the court clean. They seem hell-bent on performing housekeeping really, really well. Or is the curling area even called "court"? Must be a very dirty court, or whatever it's called.
It looks a little like shuffleboard on ice. Except there is something called a "T line". I'm assuming that's what crosses the "button" even though it looks more like a + sign. Why can't the announcers explain a little about the scoring? There's a 4-foot circle and and 8-foot circle. That I understand. But I don't understand why the opposing team is able to influence our team's rock by sweeping madly as our rock crosses toward the rear of those circles. Isn't that like receiver interference in football? I don't understand what "frozen" to the other rock means, though I guess it could mean that they are literally frozen, the tea kettles being on ice and all.
And evidently, even if our team gets their tea kettle onto one of the circle thingies, it doesn't count, especially if the other team knocks the tea kettle out of the circle thingy. Does the score not count, even on the button, until the "end" is over? These types of questions keep me up at night, which isn't fair, considering I'm only watching to get eventually to watch figure skating.
Instead of explaining the scoring, the announcers tell us about how rigorous the training is ("they spent 2,214 hours lifting weights" Huh?). It doesn't look very rigorous to me, except for the broom guys. They look like they have spent a great deal of time sweeping madly. I bet you could eat off their kitchen floors.
"He's taken his own stone out of the house" is another statement which makes no sense. "Go ahead and take your two"..."It's important for the rock to stay around". I'll say! There appears to be some sort of strategy involved, though I'll be blessed if I can figure out what it is. The players yell unintelligible things at the stones, or maybe they are yelling at their sweeping teammates which seems incredibly unfair, considering they are the one who threw the stone in the first place. One can't really tell.
Evidently, "icing" isn't about birthday cake, nor is it the same as "icing" in hocky. I really don't know icing at all.
Most inexplicable of all is the fact that there are actually "professional curlers". One thinks the phrase "professional curlers" would be used to described those sausage-shaped items one might encounter in a beauty salon.
So someone explain to this stupid, non-Northern woman, how does one score in curling? By hitting the button? By hitting one of the circle thingies? By hitting the other team's rock out of the circles? Explain to me, who understands the terms "quantum physics" and "opus" as it refers to composers and "dangling participle". I know if someone taps it into my hand, I'll get it.
I'm spending way too many brain cells pondering these mysteries.
I'm really trying to get into watching the Olympics. I guess I should understand why, in order to watch three figure skaters (my fav), I have to sit through hours of two-man (or -woman) bobsledding and extreme skiing and curling. (I have a hard time discerning the difference between extreme skiing and regular, old, ordinary skiing...I mean, it's a guy or gal pelting down hill at a zillion miles an hour on two skinny boards risking life and limb...how extreme can you get?).
I understand most of the other sports, despite the fact that the racing sports seem to be decided on things like a difference of 1/1000th of a second, or being disqualified for having a coach who is a total dolt.
I'm not getting curling. With all the nonsense the commentators spew (see my blog "On Sports"), you'd think they could perhaps spend some time explaining some of the esoterica of the game. I've heard the announcers say, "the US is down by 1 with the hammer in the 6th end" Huh? What's "the hammer"? Sounds really serious. I don't see any hammers on the court.
The bobsledding announcers are bad enough. Witness: "You do not want deficit air". I would understand "deficit air" if it referred to a diner choking on a bit of steak or a man hanging by the neck until dead or even to an asthmatic. I don't understand "deficit air" when it refers to a bobsled. Bobsleds don't breathe, do they?
I also don't get the colors of the uniforms. Time was a team dressed in its national flag colors. Canada dressed in red and white. Germany dressed in black, gold and red. The US team dressed in red, white and blue. These days, the Germans dress in yellow and fuchia, the Canadians dress in black and red, and the US team dresses in delft blue. Not navy. Not midnight. Delft. No red to be seen. Don't get me started on the Norwegian team and their "argyle" pants. But I digress.
I don't understand curling scoring. It took me several attempts to understand what an "end" was. The "rocks" or "stones" look like tea kettles to me and, at least for the women teams, curling seems to be incredibly sexist. Here these women are, sliding tea kettles and using brooms to madly sweep the court clean. They seem hell-bent on performing housekeeping really, really well. Or is the curling area even called "court"? Must be a very dirty court, or whatever it's called.
It looks a little like shuffleboard on ice. Except there is something called a "T line". I'm assuming that's what crosses the "button" even though it looks more like a + sign. Why can't the announcers explain a little about the scoring? There's a 4-foot circle and and 8-foot circle. That I understand. But I don't understand why the opposing team is able to influence our team's rock by sweeping madly as our rock crosses toward the rear of those circles. Isn't that like receiver interference in football? I don't understand what "frozen" to the other rock means, though I guess it could mean that they are literally frozen, the tea kettles being on ice and all.
And evidently, even if our team gets their tea kettle onto one of the circle thingies, it doesn't count, especially if the other team knocks the tea kettle out of the circle thingy. Does the score not count, even on the button, until the "end" is over? These types of questions keep me up at night, which isn't fair, considering I'm only watching to get eventually to watch figure skating.
Instead of explaining the scoring, the announcers tell us about how rigorous the training is ("they spent 2,214 hours lifting weights" Huh?). It doesn't look very rigorous to me, except for the broom guys. They look like they have spent a great deal of time sweeping madly. I bet you could eat off their kitchen floors.
"He's taken his own stone out of the house" is another statement which makes no sense. "Go ahead and take your two"..."It's important for the rock to stay around". I'll say! There appears to be some sort of strategy involved, though I'll be blessed if I can figure out what it is. The players yell unintelligible things at the stones, or maybe they are yelling at their sweeping teammates which seems incredibly unfair, considering they are the one who threw the stone in the first place. One can't really tell.
Evidently, "icing" isn't about birthday cake, nor is it the same as "icing" in hocky. I really don't know icing at all.
Most inexplicable of all is the fact that there are actually "professional curlers". One thinks the phrase "professional curlers" would be used to described those sausage-shaped items one might encounter in a beauty salon.
So someone explain to this stupid, non-Northern woman, how does one score in curling? By hitting the button? By hitting one of the circle thingies? By hitting the other team's rock out of the circles? Explain to me, who understands the terms "quantum physics" and "opus" as it refers to composers and "dangling participle". I know if someone taps it into my hand, I'll get it.
I'm spending way too many brain cells pondering these mysteries.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
On Sports
A sport is commonly defined as an organized, competitive, and skillful physical activity requiring commitment and fair play. - Wikipedia
I admit I'm a fair-weather sports observer. I don't particularly like watching sports on TV but I do occasionally watch, since I only have to watch the Olympics every two years. My two favorite sports to watch are basketball and soccer. All those tight little butts in shorts. Plus, I understand them better. I watched the Super Bowl while reading a book, looking up whenever I heard a shout from the stands, signifying there was something worth watching. Because every play is now instantly replayed from several different angles, you don't miss what the shouting is all about.
In general, I find football boring. Sacrilege, you shout! At least in basketball or soccer, an hour is really an hour, not three. The action in football seems to be 15 seconds of play followed by 2 1/2 minutes of measuring yardage and those black-and-white garbed guys talking to each other. Not my idea of real action.
I'm watching Olympic speed skating as I write this post. Fortunately for the Dutch, a Dutchman named Kramer won the gold, because as the commentators pointed out, ad nauseum, the Dutch would have considered a bronze or silver medal a loss. (They didn't make any literary references to Hans Brinker) How stupid can you get? Last time I checked, a medal means you are the second- or third-best in the world. If I were the second- or third-best reader or knitter or seamstress in the world, I'd feel pretty good about myself.
That may be why I don't watch sports much. The commentators are incredibly inane. I'm a big fan of figure skating, but the commentators make me crazy. "Oh, she really missed that quadruple axle and her timing was off on the landing," some yahoo in a gold blazer says. "Let's see how well YOU perform a quadruple axle," I yell at the TV.
I've watched exactly one hockey game in real life. St. Louis Blues. 1969. Some player got kicked in the head with a skate blade and the blood on the ice was copious. Pretty color, but a little sickening. I did watch the US hocky team win the Olympics way back when, just because they weren't expected to win and they kicked Russia's butt. I have to admit I liked watching Russia's butt get kicked.
Another reason I don't watch sports on TV is that I find it hard to follow the ball, literally. I have a golf-nutty family, who think Sunday afternoons are high holy days for golfers. You see the guy "address" the ball (Hi, ball. How are ya doin'?), then he swings, a swing that looks just like every other swing by every other golfer. (The commentators tell me it's his signature swing, but who can tell?)
The camera follows the ball, or at least I THINK that's what it's doing because I see an expanse of blue sky for several seconds, then the camera comes down on the greeny part. I sometimes wonder if the cameraman isn't having us on...maybe he just swings his camera lens to the sky and the ball isn't really in the frame. He counts to three, then swings his lens to the greeny part, hoping that that's where the ball will come down. 'Cause I sure as heck can't see a golf ball in the frame.
During the Olympics, the commentators are even worse. They have endless details that one doesn't really need to know. Case in point: in the past hour, I have learned the population of a skater's home town, the age of another's daughter, the composition of the special high-tech fabric in their outfits (high-tech fabric????), how they performed at the last Olympics and the fact that the Russians train in Italy, the Ukrainians train in Colorado and the Chinese train in Germany. (Can they honestly represent their country if they need to go somewhere else to train?)
Way too much information. Shut up and let me watch, already.
I enjoyed the parade of First Nations during the opening ceremonies in Vancouver, but am confused about what the First Nations have to do with sports. I enjoyed the dancers way more than I enjoyed the speed skaters. Some guy on skates going around in circles 1/100th of a second faster than some other guy.
Pro sports are the worst. Because, in addition to telling the viewer way too much information about the players' background, stats and personal home life, commentators are also obligated to tell us their legal status, how much bail was and when their court date is. I realize most pro sports figures don't behave badly, but there are enough badly behaving sports stars that the sports portion of the evening news begins to sound a lot like the police blotter. This one had a gun in the locker room, that one beats up his girlfriend for fun, the other one is involved in dog fighting.
I guess the main reason I watch at all is so I'll at least be able to carry on a decent conversation with a sports nut. One feels badly if someone says, "How 'bout that Gretsky?" and one says "What's a Gretsky?" Too bad sports nuts don't have the same level of social responsibility. Can you imagine one of them watching ballet so they can carry on a decent conversation with me?
There's a team here in North Carolina that calls themselves the Tarheels and I find myself pondering what a tarheel is and doesn't it sound derogatory. But at least here in North Carolina, they are REALLY into basketball. All those tight butts in shorts. I'm happy.
I admit I'm a fair-weather sports observer. I don't particularly like watching sports on TV but I do occasionally watch, since I only have to watch the Olympics every two years. My two favorite sports to watch are basketball and soccer. All those tight little butts in shorts. Plus, I understand them better. I watched the Super Bowl while reading a book, looking up whenever I heard a shout from the stands, signifying there was something worth watching. Because every play is now instantly replayed from several different angles, you don't miss what the shouting is all about.
In general, I find football boring. Sacrilege, you shout! At least in basketball or soccer, an hour is really an hour, not three. The action in football seems to be 15 seconds of play followed by 2 1/2 minutes of measuring yardage and those black-and-white garbed guys talking to each other. Not my idea of real action.
I'm watching Olympic speed skating as I write this post. Fortunately for the Dutch, a Dutchman named Kramer won the gold, because as the commentators pointed out, ad nauseum, the Dutch would have considered a bronze or silver medal a loss. (They didn't make any literary references to Hans Brinker) How stupid can you get? Last time I checked, a medal means you are the second- or third-best in the world. If I were the second- or third-best reader or knitter or seamstress in the world, I'd feel pretty good about myself.
That may be why I don't watch sports much. The commentators are incredibly inane. I'm a big fan of figure skating, but the commentators make me crazy. "Oh, she really missed that quadruple axle and her timing was off on the landing," some yahoo in a gold blazer says. "Let's see how well YOU perform a quadruple axle," I yell at the TV.
I've watched exactly one hockey game in real life. St. Louis Blues. 1969. Some player got kicked in the head with a skate blade and the blood on the ice was copious. Pretty color, but a little sickening. I did watch the US hocky team win the Olympics way back when, just because they weren't expected to win and they kicked Russia's butt. I have to admit I liked watching Russia's butt get kicked.
Another reason I don't watch sports on TV is that I find it hard to follow the ball, literally. I have a golf-nutty family, who think Sunday afternoons are high holy days for golfers. You see the guy "address" the ball (Hi, ball. How are ya doin'?), then he swings, a swing that looks just like every other swing by every other golfer. (The commentators tell me it's his signature swing, but who can tell?)
The camera follows the ball, or at least I THINK that's what it's doing because I see an expanse of blue sky for several seconds, then the camera comes down on the greeny part. I sometimes wonder if the cameraman isn't having us on...maybe he just swings his camera lens to the sky and the ball isn't really in the frame. He counts to three, then swings his lens to the greeny part, hoping that that's where the ball will come down. 'Cause I sure as heck can't see a golf ball in the frame.
During the Olympics, the commentators are even worse. They have endless details that one doesn't really need to know. Case in point: in the past hour, I have learned the population of a skater's home town, the age of another's daughter, the composition of the special high-tech fabric in their outfits (high-tech fabric????), how they performed at the last Olympics and the fact that the Russians train in Italy, the Ukrainians train in Colorado and the Chinese train in Germany. (Can they honestly represent their country if they need to go somewhere else to train?)
Way too much information. Shut up and let me watch, already.
I enjoyed the parade of First Nations during the opening ceremonies in Vancouver, but am confused about what the First Nations have to do with sports. I enjoyed the dancers way more than I enjoyed the speed skaters. Some guy on skates going around in circles 1/100th of a second faster than some other guy.
Pro sports are the worst. Because, in addition to telling the viewer way too much information about the players' background, stats and personal home life, commentators are also obligated to tell us their legal status, how much bail was and when their court date is. I realize most pro sports figures don't behave badly, but there are enough badly behaving sports stars that the sports portion of the evening news begins to sound a lot like the police blotter. This one had a gun in the locker room, that one beats up his girlfriend for fun, the other one is involved in dog fighting.
I guess the main reason I watch at all is so I'll at least be able to carry on a decent conversation with a sports nut. One feels badly if someone says, "How 'bout that Gretsky?" and one says "What's a Gretsky?" Too bad sports nuts don't have the same level of social responsibility. Can you imagine one of them watching ballet so they can carry on a decent conversation with me?
There's a team here in North Carolina that calls themselves the Tarheels and I find myself pondering what a tarheel is and doesn't it sound derogatory. But at least here in North Carolina, they are REALLY into basketball. All those tight butts in shorts. I'm happy.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Kids as Hookers
Am I the only person who is having a problem with the poor kid in Brazil who has been chosen the "Queen of Carnival"?
I don't have a problem with the girl, 7 years old, who wants to dance the Samba (her country's national dance) at Carnival (her country's annual pageant...think "Mardi Gras"). What I DO have a problem with is the costume, just as I have a problem with most tyke beauty pageants in this country. Kids in our country dress up like little miniature hookers, complete with dresses cut to the navel and false eyelashes.
There is a big hoopla, both in this country and in Brazil, about the appropriateness of having a 7-year-old dance in a provocative manner, in a provocative costume. So would it be the same if the kid danced in an up-to-the-chin, longed-sleeved, down-to-the-ankles dress? I think not.
My business is making children's clothing, so, despite the fact that I had boys who wouldn't be caught dead within 5 miles of a pageant, I think I have some authority here. I've been on-line for those US pageant web sites and I'm here to tell you, they are a child molester's dream.
Brazil reportedly has a problem with child sexual trafficking. A judge has been determined to be the best arbiter of whether this girl in Brazil can dance at Carnival. (And we've all seen how competent the courts in Brazil are when it comes to "what's best for the child."
It's the Jean-Benet Ramsey syndrome. Dress a young girl up in provocative clothing, make her think that pleasing adults and looking beautiful/sexy are appropriate goals for a young girl and look what happens. Though the Ramsey case has never been solved, it's my humble opinion that her death was, at least indirectly, caused by her participation in these baby hooker pageants.
Just as the parents of Michael Jackson's victims willingly handed over their sons to an almost certain molestation, for the purpose of being able to sue Jackson later, these pageant parents are setting their little darlings up for, at the very least, being ogled at by some very nasty pervs. Who doesn't think that child molesters slather at these photos on-line?
Just to be fair, some pageants (Bumble Bee and others) emphasize the kids being themselves and ban teeth capping, plastic surgery and hair weaves. But many other pageants do not. Children are beautiful all by themselves and they don't need all the add-ons.
I think my main beef is the way the kids are dressed. (Of course, being a children's clothing designer, I have an admitted bias!) There are size 7 jeans at WalMart with "Pussy" emblazoned on the rear! There are young girls performing a strip-tease for their "talent" at pageants! (And no, I'm not referring to a movie. Watch "Toddlers & Tiaras" on TLC sometime.)
I've been accused of being one of those wild-eyed maniacs who secretly have some rather perturbing fantasies. I'm not. I think sex education should be taught in our schools because, in part, it teaches children to protect themselves from child molesters and perverts.
I'm instead one of those people who believes that, at the very least, child molesters should be locked up for life. I believe kids should be kids AND DRESS LIKE KIDS. Is it any wonder, with parents dressing up baby whores, that kids are becoming sexually active at younger and younger ages? The message to the kids is, "It's all right to dress and behave sexually when you are 6", leaving them open to the perverted amongst us.
So for those in the US who are against a mini-Brazilian 7-year-old doing a bump-and-grind, let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
I don't have a problem with the girl, 7 years old, who wants to dance the Samba (her country's national dance) at Carnival (her country's annual pageant...think "Mardi Gras"). What I DO have a problem with is the costume, just as I have a problem with most tyke beauty pageants in this country. Kids in our country dress up like little miniature hookers, complete with dresses cut to the navel and false eyelashes.
There is a big hoopla, both in this country and in Brazil, about the appropriateness of having a 7-year-old dance in a provocative manner, in a provocative costume. So would it be the same if the kid danced in an up-to-the-chin, longed-sleeved, down-to-the-ankles dress? I think not.
My business is making children's clothing, so, despite the fact that I had boys who wouldn't be caught dead within 5 miles of a pageant, I think I have some authority here. I've been on-line for those US pageant web sites and I'm here to tell you, they are a child molester's dream.
Brazil reportedly has a problem with child sexual trafficking. A judge has been determined to be the best arbiter of whether this girl in Brazil can dance at Carnival. (And we've all seen how competent the courts in Brazil are when it comes to "what's best for the child."
It's the Jean-Benet Ramsey syndrome. Dress a young girl up in provocative clothing, make her think that pleasing adults and looking beautiful/sexy are appropriate goals for a young girl and look what happens. Though the Ramsey case has never been solved, it's my humble opinion that her death was, at least indirectly, caused by her participation in these baby hooker pageants.
Just as the parents of Michael Jackson's victims willingly handed over their sons to an almost certain molestation, for the purpose of being able to sue Jackson later, these pageant parents are setting their little darlings up for, at the very least, being ogled at by some very nasty pervs. Who doesn't think that child molesters slather at these photos on-line?
Just to be fair, some pageants (Bumble Bee and others) emphasize the kids being themselves and ban teeth capping, plastic surgery and hair weaves. But many other pageants do not. Children are beautiful all by themselves and they don't need all the add-ons.
I think my main beef is the way the kids are dressed. (Of course, being a children's clothing designer, I have an admitted bias!) There are size 7 jeans at WalMart with "Pussy" emblazoned on the rear! There are young girls performing a strip-tease for their "talent" at pageants! (And no, I'm not referring to a movie. Watch "Toddlers & Tiaras" on TLC sometime.)
I've been accused of being one of those wild-eyed maniacs who secretly have some rather perturbing fantasies. I'm not. I think sex education should be taught in our schools because, in part, it teaches children to protect themselves from child molesters and perverts.
I'm instead one of those people who believes that, at the very least, child molesters should be locked up for life. I believe kids should be kids AND DRESS LIKE KIDS. Is it any wonder, with parents dressing up baby whores, that kids are becoming sexually active at younger and younger ages? The message to the kids is, "It's all right to dress and behave sexually when you are 6", leaving them open to the perverted amongst us.
So for those in the US who are against a mini-Brazilian 7-year-old doing a bump-and-grind, let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
A Question of Priorities
I'm going out on a limb here to describe some of my disquiet about our country's heroic and valiant efforts in Haiti, a country which has always struggled but which recently has been visited by a truly doomsday earthquake.
It is not that I don't care for the suffering of the people of Haiti, nor that I believe they are somehow undeserving of the enormous aid we and other nations of the world have given unstintingly. I believe in nations with more blessings sharing with those who have so little.
My disquiet is illustrated by a piece of irony from a few years ago. There was this joke making the rounds about the difference between a hurricane in Indonesia and a hurricane in New Orleans. The punch line was: If you are in Indonesia, the US government will send aid. (Ba-dum dum)
I understand that in an increasingly global economy, we are all so interconnected. United we stand, divided we fall.
Remember the old adage, "Charity begins at home"? The adage was seldom applied growing up in the deep South. Missionaries from "deepest darkest Africa" (my childish mind always envisioned a place where the sun did not shine, since it was referred to as the "dark" continent) were much lauded. Congregations hung on their every word, gathering clothing and Bibles to fill an overseas container for the "poor heathens across the ocean." While just across town, there were dark-skinned children who lived in shanties, who went to bed hungry and who weren't allowed to attend our schools and churches.
Does anyone else see the utter hypocrisy of a Congress debating whether to fund healthcare and education for US children on the one hand (evidently, we don't have all that much money) and on the other hand sending doctors and food and medicines to Haiti, whose victims are undoubtedly in more dire straits in this current crisis?
Please don't think I am unfeeling or in favor of ignoring Haiti or that I grew horns since my last post. I just wonder where our priorities lie and why.
Several years ago, a good Christian lady whom I admire and respect a great deal made the emphatic statement that we are a society who values children. She practically dropped her dentures when I responded with "No, I don't think we value children."
My argument was this: If you listen to our rhetoric, you could certainly make a case for our society's care and value of children. But if you were to look at our actions, you could equally make a case for us not giving a tinker's damn about children. Or, at least not those who live in the next block.
Our rhetoric says: "Every child deserves to grow up in safety in a loving home, nurtured and educated to achieve their God-given potential."
Our actions say: "Every child doesn't deserve to grow up in a loving home, or even grow up at all. In this country, the world's most wealthy, we have children whose only meal of the day is the one they get at school. If that. Children are regularly given back to parents who have proven to be abusers. Child molesters are released after 4 years on good behavior and our schools have become warehouses or babysitters.
While our schools are daily stressed with funding all the various programs special needs children need (not to mention the untold millions spent on children who do not speak English), our "average" and "gifted" students lanquish in classrooms that are not designed to meet their needs or grow their minds.
Several years ago, I observed that our Alternative Schools have become, by happenstance, our "gifted" program, "No Child Left Behind" having desimated school budgets to fund the convoluted and at times contradictory requirements of that unfunded mandate.
Alternative Schools, to the uninitiated, are set-aside schools whereby the behavior-disordered students are kept away from the "good" students, presumably so the good children won't become infected with whatever the "bad" students have.
When you look at these "disordered and disorderly" students, you realize that, in many instances, they are students who couldn't get the beleagured teachers' attention, so they acted out. They are bored and unchallenged by the dreck that our education systems spew. Teachers are having their feet held to the fire to educate the special needs children, while the average and gifted students are just supposed to get it on their own.
(A teacher friend of mine told me the apocryphal story about her child, then 9-years-old, who said that ADHD Johnny in her class was given a piece of candy every day if he sat quietly for an hour. The child complained that SHE had sat quietly all day, so why didn't she get a piece of candy? Why indeed?)
The founders of a gifted charter school have determined that, for every $10 spent on average students in the US, $100 is spent on special needs children, while $1 is spent on gifted and talented children. From which two groups are we to rebuild our technological research capabilities, to find a cure for cancer, to probe the mysteries of the universe?
Once again, I'm not suggesting that the special needs kids do not deserve the attention and financial emphasis they currently enjoy. They certainly do and in a true "No Child Left Behind" universe, they would certainly be included. But we are "Leaving Behind" the children of average and above average talents and capabilities to cater to those who might never learn enough to make it in the world. Perhaps this is one of the reasons we are trailing the world in education.
Two possible conclusions come to mind and I'm not sure to which I subscribe:
1) That the world (and our country) has the wherewithal to truly take care of ALL children, whether in Haiti or in an inner city school. whether gifted or special needs, and we have chosen NOT to use our resources in that fashion (and therefore do NOT value children) or,
2) That we have limited resources and therefore should be spending those resources on children in our own country who might one day find that cure or make that technological breakthrough. Once those have been served, then we certainly should spread the wealth, but until then, charity begins at home.
Perhaps there are other conclusions, but these are the ones that spring to my admittedly limited mind. Like Jonathan Swift in his satiric "A Modest Proposal", I confess to a smallish world view. This is indeed a "modest proposal" that I would be very surprised to see come to pass whereby we gave all children what they need to become productive adults.
I understand that "poverty" in the United States doesn't look quite the same as "poverty" in a third world country. Our students consider themselves truly poor if they can't afford an iPod or the latest pair of $100 jeans. But we have children who live on the cold streets of Detroit, not on the streets in tropical Haiti. We have young teens who sell their bodies for a warm place to stay and a Big Mac. Does the child who goes to bed hungry in the good ole US of A feel any less hungry than the poor kid in Haiti?
Until we stop slashing school lunch programs, until we keep child molesters permanently behind bars, until we ensure the safety of teen sex slaves, until we make sure every child lives in a warm, safe place, with enough food to eat and access to a quality education, then we are not a society who values children.
It's just rhetoric.
It is not that I don't care for the suffering of the people of Haiti, nor that I believe they are somehow undeserving of the enormous aid we and other nations of the world have given unstintingly. I believe in nations with more blessings sharing with those who have so little.
My disquiet is illustrated by a piece of irony from a few years ago. There was this joke making the rounds about the difference between a hurricane in Indonesia and a hurricane in New Orleans. The punch line was: If you are in Indonesia, the US government will send aid. (Ba-dum dum)
I understand that in an increasingly global economy, we are all so interconnected. United we stand, divided we fall.
Remember the old adage, "Charity begins at home"? The adage was seldom applied growing up in the deep South. Missionaries from "deepest darkest Africa" (my childish mind always envisioned a place where the sun did not shine, since it was referred to as the "dark" continent) were much lauded. Congregations hung on their every word, gathering clothing and Bibles to fill an overseas container for the "poor heathens across the ocean." While just across town, there were dark-skinned children who lived in shanties, who went to bed hungry and who weren't allowed to attend our schools and churches.
Does anyone else see the utter hypocrisy of a Congress debating whether to fund healthcare and education for US children on the one hand (evidently, we don't have all that much money) and on the other hand sending doctors and food and medicines to Haiti, whose victims are undoubtedly in more dire straits in this current crisis?
Please don't think I am unfeeling or in favor of ignoring Haiti or that I grew horns since my last post. I just wonder where our priorities lie and why.
Several years ago, a good Christian lady whom I admire and respect a great deal made the emphatic statement that we are a society who values children. She practically dropped her dentures when I responded with "No, I don't think we value children."
My argument was this: If you listen to our rhetoric, you could certainly make a case for our society's care and value of children. But if you were to look at our actions, you could equally make a case for us not giving a tinker's damn about children. Or, at least not those who live in the next block.
Our rhetoric says: "Every child deserves to grow up in safety in a loving home, nurtured and educated to achieve their God-given potential."
Our actions say: "Every child doesn't deserve to grow up in a loving home, or even grow up at all. In this country, the world's most wealthy, we have children whose only meal of the day is the one they get at school. If that. Children are regularly given back to parents who have proven to be abusers. Child molesters are released after 4 years on good behavior and our schools have become warehouses or babysitters.
While our schools are daily stressed with funding all the various programs special needs children need (not to mention the untold millions spent on children who do not speak English), our "average" and "gifted" students lanquish in classrooms that are not designed to meet their needs or grow their minds.
Several years ago, I observed that our Alternative Schools have become, by happenstance, our "gifted" program, "No Child Left Behind" having desimated school budgets to fund the convoluted and at times contradictory requirements of that unfunded mandate.
Alternative Schools, to the uninitiated, are set-aside schools whereby the behavior-disordered students are kept away from the "good" students, presumably so the good children won't become infected with whatever the "bad" students have.
When you look at these "disordered and disorderly" students, you realize that, in many instances, they are students who couldn't get the beleagured teachers' attention, so they acted out. They are bored and unchallenged by the dreck that our education systems spew. Teachers are having their feet held to the fire to educate the special needs children, while the average and gifted students are just supposed to get it on their own.
(A teacher friend of mine told me the apocryphal story about her child, then 9-years-old, who said that ADHD Johnny in her class was given a piece of candy every day if he sat quietly for an hour. The child complained that SHE had sat quietly all day, so why didn't she get a piece of candy? Why indeed?)
The founders of a gifted charter school have determined that, for every $10 spent on average students in the US, $100 is spent on special needs children, while $1 is spent on gifted and talented children. From which two groups are we to rebuild our technological research capabilities, to find a cure for cancer, to probe the mysteries of the universe?
Once again, I'm not suggesting that the special needs kids do not deserve the attention and financial emphasis they currently enjoy. They certainly do and in a true "No Child Left Behind" universe, they would certainly be included. But we are "Leaving Behind" the children of average and above average talents and capabilities to cater to those who might never learn enough to make it in the world. Perhaps this is one of the reasons we are trailing the world in education.
Two possible conclusions come to mind and I'm not sure to which I subscribe:
1) That the world (and our country) has the wherewithal to truly take care of ALL children, whether in Haiti or in an inner city school. whether gifted or special needs, and we have chosen NOT to use our resources in that fashion (and therefore do NOT value children) or,
2) That we have limited resources and therefore should be spending those resources on children in our own country who might one day find that cure or make that technological breakthrough. Once those have been served, then we certainly should spread the wealth, but until then, charity begins at home.
Perhaps there are other conclusions, but these are the ones that spring to my admittedly limited mind. Like Jonathan Swift in his satiric "A Modest Proposal", I confess to a smallish world view. This is indeed a "modest proposal" that I would be very surprised to see come to pass whereby we gave all children what they need to become productive adults.
I understand that "poverty" in the United States doesn't look quite the same as "poverty" in a third world country. Our students consider themselves truly poor if they can't afford an iPod or the latest pair of $100 jeans. But we have children who live on the cold streets of Detroit, not on the streets in tropical Haiti. We have young teens who sell their bodies for a warm place to stay and a Big Mac. Does the child who goes to bed hungry in the good ole US of A feel any less hungry than the poor kid in Haiti?
Until we stop slashing school lunch programs, until we keep child molesters permanently behind bars, until we ensure the safety of teen sex slaves, until we make sure every child lives in a warm, safe place, with enough food to eat and access to a quality education, then we are not a society who values children.
It's just rhetoric.
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