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.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
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.
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