The Average Blogger

Outrage: Easier than Actual Change

The Confederate flag has many—nay, even mostly—negative connotations.  Absolutely.  You fly it in your front yard, you are opening yourself up to all kinds of judgment. I’ve seen people compare it to the swastika. Fair enough; that's someone's opinion. I think it may be a bit of an exaggeration, but that’s only my own opinion. Odds of either party altering their opinion? Slim. 

People are pointing out that the Confederate flag is a symbol of hate, of treason, of oppression. Are they right? Of course.  But is that all there is to this discussion? I would say no.

Let’s ask the eighteenth-century British how they felt about the U.S. flag as a symbol of treason. Should we ban it, too? (I hope you said no.)  But we won that fight, you say. That gives us the right to have that flag, however treasonous its origins. OK.  Should we change the names of most of the states on the Eastern Seaboard, from New York through Virginia to Georgia, because they originate from names of the losing side? (I hope you said no to this, as well.)

Let’s ask the Lakota how they feel about the U.S. flag as a symbol of oppression. The Indians lost that struggle. And yet, debates rage about the propriety of the name of the D.C. football team. 

Let’s check in with Northern Ireland and India and see how they feel about the British flag as a symbol of oppression. (And yet we Americans use that flag and the British crown as a fashion statement, with numerous “Keep Calm and Insert Platitudes Here” statements.)

Clearly, then, this is not about who wins and who loses at pivotal moments in history. This is about the prevailing attitude of any given people at any given point in time. 

With that in mind, let’s ask Dylann Roof how much the flag, by itself, influenced his actions.  I am willing to bet that the flag, in and of itself, influenced him about as much as it influenced James Holmes and Adam Lanza. The same flag that played virtually no role in the events of Ferguson or Baltimore, which are much graver representations of the real problem than any flag, ever.

Flags are totems. They are powerful symbols. But the Confederate flag does not stand alone as a symbol of treason/oppression/etc. You show me a flag, I’ll show you a symbol of hate and oppression to some population, somewhere.

Does the Confederate flag need to be addressed as a symbol of hate and racism? Absolutely.

Will its removal from from the war memorial on the South Carolina state capital grounds make some people—I would imagine a majority of people—feel better? Absolutely. And that shared sense of relief at doing what a majority (myself included) considers the right move at this point in time is part of what makes society great.

But will removing it stop racism? Absolutely not. What do you think is going to happen with the segment of the population that resents this removal and takes it very much to heart? Do you think they are going to just roll over and say, “YOU WERE SO RIGHT AND I WAS SO WRONG”?  Of course not.

And that, right there? THAT is the conversation we should be having.

The flag, powerful as it may be, is not the correct conversation topic; it is a distraction. It is an easy target and one you don't need to think about too deeply to form an opinion that puts you on the side of moral justice. Its removal is a step in the right overall direction.

But a flag—present or absent—is merely a symbol of the problem—or problems—we should really be talking about and trying to solve. 

Some would focus on the issue of gun control as a solution. I don’t think it is, personally. In much the same way that we as a nation are highly unlikely to ban all forms of abortion, it is equally unlikely we are going to eliminate all firearms.  The genie is out of the bottle, and there’s little chance of stuffing him back in there. We need to stop having that conversation in lieu of real change.  In much the same way that removing our shoes at the airport is not going to stop people who want to blow up airplanes, passing more laws about guns is not going to stop people who want to open fire in a crowded area.

Plenty of people now are creating friction on the issue of “privilege.” Is this a useful dialog? I don’t know. I tend to bristle when I hear that word, and the last thing I want to do is back down when confronted with what (to me) smacks of sanctimony. I resent people telling me I should be trying to make amends for the good things I lucked into. I resent the implication that someone else deserves them more than I do. I’m not sorry I won the birth lottery. If that makes me racist/sexist/hateist, so be it.

I have several identifying labels. I’m white, upper-middle-class, exurban, married, a mother of one. I have many, many advantages. This puts me in a position where any dissenting comment on my part is immediately open to all sorts of Privileged criticism, and there need not be any factual basis in said criticism. And all it takes is one accusation of racism or sexism or conservatism or any other “ism” to render any and all arguments on my part completely invalid. And I resent that. I resent it when I read articles informing me that I should not read to my child because that gives him unfair advantages over other kids whose parents don’t. I find it especially distasteful when it is clear that the people telling me I am overprivileged are clearly not counting their own blessings or thanking their own ancestors for all the advantages THEY have received. I suspect I am not alone in feeling this way. I suspect this sort of finger-wagging does little to improve anything the finger-waggers wish it would.

The role privilege plays in your life (as I impart to the Young Prince more often than he cares to hear) is what you do with it. I try to take what Abigail Adams wrote to John Quincy Adams as my guiding principle: "You came into life with advantages which will disgrace you if your success is mediocre." She went on to add that, "if you do not rise to the head of your country, it will be owing to your own laziness and slovenliness." I am, admittedly, terribly lazy and slovenly, and have no desire to be the head of my country. But I do not take my advantages lightly—nor do I take for granted the people who worked so hard to give them to me, and I try not to let my son get away with it either. Would that more people had more Abigail in them with which to screw up their children.  

Others are concerned with the issue of mental illness. Whether you find this a construct of the white media or not, it is a way of approaching the discussion. But it’s probably not the right one, any more than blaming the flag. It might be true in some cases, but probably not as many as we would like to think. And I suppose the argument could be made that you must have a screw loose to want to gun down a room full of people.  But I don’t buy into the mentally ill argument. I think that’s a dangerous argument to use in situations like this. I don’t think Dylann Roof is crazy. He knew what he was doing. And what he was doing was not an act of insanity, it was a calculated act of hate and aggression. Most mass killers are completely coginizant of their actions. Calling them crazy and seeking to get them help is not a solution. It’s not even a Band-aid. It's an approach that diminishes the atrocity of the act, and we should not be doing that. It's an approach that is an insult to truly crazy people who really do need help but don't go around killing others. 

Personally, I think the issue we need to be tackling is one of civility. I think we, as a nation, have ventured entirely too far down the road of “I want,” “I deserve,” “I am a speshul snowflake,” and “ANYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH WHAT I THINK IS WRONG AND THEY ARE AUTOMATICALLY SOME KIND OF HATEFUL SOMETHING–IST WHO DOESN’T MERIT CIVILITY.”

Speshul snowflakes melt, y’all.  Let’s start working harder on the Golden and Silver Rules.

Think about it for a second.  Isn’t that really what we object to in racism?  “I’m polka-dotted, you’re not. That somehow means I’m superior to you and don't have to treat you the way I wish to be treated.” Isn’t that what we object to in sexism—on both sides of the argument? “As a man, I'm superior and deserve to talk over women.” “As a woman, it is my right to wear hooker boots to my job at a construction site, never mind if it’s an OSHA hazard or puts others at risk. And don’t you dare look at me funny for wearing something so clearly impractical, because that means you are objectifying me.”  

Maybe we need to work harder on, 'Hey, we all work in this office building, let's all try to avoid stopping up the toilets and flooding the bathrooms." Maybe we need to give more credence to the code of behavior that stipulates,  "you kiss who you want, and I will at least pretend not to notice—positively or negatively—and you  do the same for me." 

And as long as I’m on this soapbox, I might as well point out that I also object to the term “hate crime” on these grounds. This term is divisive and only further contributes to atmospheres of entitlement and resentment. Why is the motive behind a crime somehow more relevant than the crime itself? Shooting a church full of people who are the same color as you is not a “love crime.” Shooting a church full of people should be a crime, no modifier, period. Pure and simple. Do the families of the Emanuel victims somehow have a monopoly on grief not claimable by the families of the Sandy Hook victims? I certainly hope we don't think that. Murder is murder, no matter who is slain and regardless of the thought process that went into the commission of the act. Why do they get separate labels?

I read a thing recently about a woman who decided she was going to stop moving aside in hallways for men and see how many slammed into her. She did not say what she was doing when on a collision path with other women. I find myself torn on this. Yes, people should try to get out of each other’s way. But isn’t it sexist to just expect men to get out of your way? I have seen women take offense at men who open doors or who step aside. I am pretty sure a memo went out that there would be no more letting women stuck in the back go first when exiting elevators or sinking ships.

Why not treat all people equally and address each situation as it comes? If the person walking toward you has their nose buried in a book or an animated conversation, and you see this, isn’t it on you to get out of their way? If you are laden down with bags and boxes and hauling a dolly and the person coming toward you willfully stands their ground, of course you are in bounds to plow over them. But if it’s simply an equal-footing game of chicken, I daresay that lowering your head like a bull charging a toreador will be taken as a challenge.

I understand that change doesn’t come about without a certain amount of anger and resistance. But, like privilege, it’s what we do with the anger that matters.

Martin Luther King or Malcolm X? (Again, a matter of perspective. And perhaps it is racist white America that gave King a memorial in Washington, D.C., and relegated Malcolm X to Washington Heights—but even so, I’d still pose the question about whose approach a majority of all modern Americans considers more effective.) 

Sheryl Sandberg or women who Tweet #killallmen? (Every time I see that—and as the daughter, wife, mother, niece, cousin, and friend of males, I see it WAY more than I’d like to—I wonder where the #killallwomen response is, and how that would be received by the general public.)

I realize this next statement will come off as ridiculous, but what if we start giving others the benefit of the doubt in daily discourse? (I’m not talking about giving Dylann Roof a fair shake. I’m talking about putting Dylann Roof and Jeb Bush in the same cubbyhole because the latter wasn't emphatic enough in his assessment of the events that transpired.)

How about we stop insisting that everyone who is Other is automatically Enemy? And how about we start self-monitoring whether our rhetoric is going to advance discussion or insult and alienate and put on the defensive those who might otherwise respectfully disagree? Plenty of us feel outrage and anger. Few of us express that by going to such lengths as advocating  genocide or perpetrating mass murder. Those who do should be subjected to the full force of a disapproving society (In my opinion, up to and including physical punishment). But those who merely express a tentative idea, or a preference to reserve judgment, or a hesitant suggestion that perhaps the other side might have some scintilla of a point—those people don't deserve to have their heads figuratively smacked. 

The problem, of course, is that nobody wants to stand down and be the first one to listen—really listen, not just sit there waiting til the other party is done talking and creates an opening for lashing out with one's own passionate attack. How about we stop running to Facebook and branding as racist anyone who ever read a book by Shelby Foote? How about we start examining our history, applying the lessons that worked, and finding new things to try, instead of incessantly bitching about all the places where we have come up short?

I’ve always liked the idea of judging others by the content of their characters. The problem is that in today’s society, it’s really, really hard to divine that content in the amount of time we are willing to spend examining someone else’s character. It’s much easier to see one Tweet, snap out a judgment about that person’s entire life history and ethos, and move on in your bubble, cleaving only to those whose bubbles are on the same wind current as your own. To hit the “like” button without reading past the headline. To pick a fight online with someone who likes blueberry more than strawberry, because you don’t have to look that person in the eye like you would if you were defending your pro-strawberry stance in person.

And we wonder why Congress can’t get anything done. At least in Congress, they all have to be in the same room once in a while. Maybe we should give that a try, too. 

Heal Thyself

I don't know if it's because it is Hearts and Flowers month, or Rand Paul/Bill Clinton, or maybe it's a steady stream and I'm just happening to notice it more, but it seems like an awful lot of rhetoric has hit my radar lately about Men.  Men Who Cheat, Men Who Leave, Men Who Need to Be Nicer, Men Who Should Be Better Daddies to Their Daughters.  

It's a real thing. Real things need to be said, and disseminated, and shared, and absorbed. Things should be better, and vocalizing might get a point across. I get it. 

But I also think that maybe, possibly, there might be a different point to make in tandem with this. Or maybe a way to make the same point, but in a different way.  

One of the best pieces of relationship advice I ever got was this:  "People are hard-wired a certain way. You can nudge the needle a bit, but at rock bottom, people are who they are, and you need to figure out if Who You Are can possibly work with Who They Are, and then decide just how much both your needles can nudge to find a common ground."

This is about nudging the needle, people.  You want effective results, you can't go in and issue a list of demands; unless the result you're going for is to alienate the person you're making demands of.  You can't stomp your foot and rage and expect people to think you are a rational creature to be taken seriously.  And, at rock bottom, you can't change how a person is hard wired. In a civilized society, the only person you can truly force to do anything is yourself, and the only person you can rely on to do what you say is yourself.  

So, what you can do is make good choices, and set good examples.

I was in line to buy lunch today, and I was seventh in line. Three women picked up their bags of food and flounced off without even LOOKING at the server.  One man and one woman said "thank you" when they got their food, but their bodies were already half-turned to leave as the words left their mouth. The man directly in front of me?  He said, "Thank you very much, ma'am," and smiled when he said it.  

You know what that did to me? It made me happy, and it reminded me that everyone deserves to be called ma'am. 

My husband?  He's a saint.  I'll tell you this now, and I admit it freely: I'm fatter than I should be, and I do dumb things on occasion.  But my husband never, ever calls me fat or stupid, no matter how much I have it coming. The farthest those conversations ever go is, "Hey, let's go for a walk,"  and "So, what were you trying to do there?"

And here's the thing: I try to reciprocate.  I think it can be objectively stated that my husband is not fat and is not stupid, and there is no reason I would ever call him either of those things.  But he does do things on occasion that make no sense to me, and the law of averages guarantees he does things that make me mad. But I've learned, mostly by his example, not to call him nasty names. The farthest I ever go is, "UGH, you are making me crazy with that." That's not to say we don't fight, but when we do fight, we both make a point of trying to stick to facts and trying to solve the problem. 

We do this for two reasons.  One, we love each other, and that means that we don't see each other as punching bags or objects of derision.  Two, we love our kid, and are doing our best to show him the right way to treat other people, how to be decent, how to be kind.  

Do men need to try to be better people? Absolutely.  

Are men the ONLY gender with this burden to shoulder? Gimme a break.

There was a thing in the Huffington Post about "what little girls wish their daddies knew." It was a nice bit of sentiment. (I daresay the men who would read such a thing are probably already doing everything on the list, but we'll let that go.) 

My problem with it was, most of the stuff on that list could be tweaked and turned around "what little boys wish their mommies understood," or even, "what little kids wish their parents knew." 

(Specifically? "I learn how I should be treated by how you treat my [other parent], whether you are married to [them] or not." I think this item should have included a second sentence: "I also learn how to treat men/women by how you treat my  mom/dad" -- and yes, that goes for how women treat men as well as how men treat women. What you say about your ex-husband is every bit as important/damaging/constructive as what he says about you.) Also: "How you treat our dog when you think I'm not watching tells me more about you than does just about anything else.")

Girls do not have the monopoly on needing good parents.  Girls generally don't hear their dads say "I'm glad I'm raising girls, because God knows we need more decent women in this world,"  and yet, nobody batted an eye when a woman wrote this about raising her three sons.  I don't hear "They don't really make women like that anymore,"  nearly as much as I hear "Men like that don't exist anymore." There are no songs about "where have all the fairy princesses gone."   

So, in the interest of equal time, I'm going to urge all you ladies to think on these things: 

1: Do you go around calling men in your sphere of influence (your boss, your husband, your ex, your neighbor) things like dogs, scum, what have you?  Because if you do, that's what they'll live down to. And that's what your sons will believe they are. (This was pretty much the only thing I liked about the movie Jerry Maguire -- the scene where Dorothy saved her little boy from hearing what all those Angry Divorced Women had to say about men deserving to be in cages. It was a bit over the top, and I suppose Cameron Crowe is a big sexist pig for portraying women that way -- except he isn't, and I've known those women, and I've been terrified of what they will do to my own little boy -- not to mention the little girls my little boy will be coming in contact with.) 

2: Does your son or daughter hear you saying nasty things about men generally? (Or women? Or ethnic minorities? Or Republicans?) Because that is the view they will internalize.  My family has a saying about this -- "Boys are dumb. Girls are crazy."  But you never hear us say one without the other.  The point is, everyone's got something wrong with them, and you might as well figure out how to deal with the baggage on both sides of the equation. Let's be honest: There is no gender monopoly on being a rotten person. 

3: Do you do fangirl crushes? Do you plaster your social media spots with photos of (fill in the blank) and label them "yummy" and the like? Good for you; it's healthy and everyone deserves a little fantasy and eye candy.  But be honest: This is objectification, and I'm reasonably sure that pretty men find it every bit as embarrassing and annoying as pretty women. (Also note: If you do this, you really look like a hypocrite if you complain when men do it.) 

4: Do you praise people in your life, as well as call them out for bad things?  This is one where I fall down -- a lot. My kid just turned 11 last week, and he is a great kid who is growing up into a human being with much to admire.  He doesn't hear that enough from me, because I expect him to be great, and when he is, that just means he's doing what he is supposed to do, it's not cause for adulation. It's when he comes up short that he hears about it.  While this is effective in keeping him from making the same mistakes twice, it isn't necessarily the best way to make sure he keeps doing the good things. And it certainly isn't the way to show him the person I want him to be -- nor, more importantly, is it the person I ought to be for him.  

The same goes for all of us.  Would you rather have a boss who thanks you for small things that you know you're just supposed to do as part of your job, or would you rather have a boss who only pops his head in to tell you what you're doing wrong? 

Really, it all comes down to the golden rule, doesn't it?  Call a man sir, and he might call you ma'am. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Screw the French, Screw the Author, and Screw You if You Are A Sanctimonious Twit

There's something I want to get off my chest.  I've seen several links on Facebook to this article about how the French are doing such a fantastic job of parenting/eating/generally existing on this planet and how THEIR children don't have ADHD, and blah, blah, blah. 

Well, allow me to retort. 

I don't know the first thing about France. I'm sure their culture is perfect; their food is impeccably organic and there are no McDonald's anywhere; all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average; and everything is a throwback to whatever idyllic Middle Ages paradise these people want to believe existed, but with less plague and the best health care system on the planet.  And more power to them. My argument isn't with the French people, per se.  If they've figured out a way to beat their kids without social services intervening and how to have better dinnertime conversation as a result, far out for them. 

My problem with this article is that its assessment of American practices does not comport with one goddamn thing in my paradigm. I'm not going to link to it, because it pisses me off so much I don't want to drive any traffic that way, not even the four people who might read this. It's not hard to find if you want to go looking. Suffice to say, my experiences were all the polar opposite of what is described there. 

The author, Marilyn Wedge, cites some statistics: 9 percent of American kids are medicated, while less than 0.5 percent of French kids are. She then states that "the preferred [U.S.] treatment is ... psycho stimulant medications such as Ritalin and Adderall."

Really? Could she please tell that to the three different specialists I took the Young Prince to see over the course of three years who looked at him for 15 minutes on a good day and decided there was nothing wrong with him that social and behavioral training wouldn't fix? Would she please tell that to the social therapy program I took him to for an entire summer, at the end of which absolutely nothing had changed?

This Wedge person then goes on to attack the American medical classification system as "over pathologizing." Maybe she's right, but the YP had to be in terrible shape (with possibly irreparable damage to his outlook on school and social activities) before anyone in an official position would agree he was anything more concrete than "Possibly on the Spectrum" and that he needed something more than increased rituals and lists and breathing exercises and 500 variations in his diet. 

Diet is where Wedge goes next.  Artificial colors are bad! Preservatives are bad! Allergens are bad!  Well, sure, allergens are bad by definition. I suppose there are drawbacks to colors and preservatives. But you know what? We eliminated next to everything. The YP is a terribly picky eater to begin with (something else I'm sure the French and all other perfect parents out there have no problems with, because they are, after all, perfect, and strict disciplinarians and their children are perfect and eat everything put in front of them with no protest whatsoever and in fact turn up their noses at French fries and ice cream). Guess what! He was just as nuts on Pop Rocks and Diet Coke as he was on organic chicken and water. 

And then she goes after the parenting. Strict frameworks. No snacking. Crying it out. Consistently enforced limits. Saying no. Early and frequent experience with self-discipline. 

I'm not going to say I was 100 percent successful in my efforts to enforce all this. I'm willing to bet no parent would say that, not even the French ones. But I think I did at least as well as other parents of the YP's peers. 

It's funny that everyone I know who has linked to that article has fixated on one small aspect -- vaccinations, food chemicals, spankings, whatever.  And the times I got worked up enough to respond in person, the responses amounted to, "Oh, well, you are different!"  

(Would you say that to any minority friend of yours? "Asian people don't know how to drive -- oh, except YOU. You're different!" "Black people don't work hard -- oh, except YOU." "Kids with ADHD is a myth and can be fixed by eating better -- oh, except YOU.") 

Funny, I don't think I'm different.  I think I'm pretty much smack-dab center-stage indicative of people who struggle with this. The majority of parents I know? Their kids don't act like mine. Their kids are doing fine. The parents I know who are going through what I am? Well, I assure you, not a single one of them ran for the pharmacy as their first choice in dealing with this. 

Frankly, this article is much closer to my experience.      

And honestly, that woman's point -- think about what you don't know --  is a lot closer to how I'd like to see the world operate than some absurd cultural comparison holding up the French as a model when there are about a kerjillion variables that couldn't all possibly be accounted for. 

And until you've walked a mile in these shoes, you'd best step off, because odds are you don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. Let me put it this way: If your kid is four feet tall and 200 lbs, I'm not going to swoop in and tell you that all your kid needs is more exercise, or to eat better, or that you're a shitty parent with no control over the situation. I have no experience with raising a fat kid, I have nothing to add to that conversation, I'm not going to assume I know what you're going through.  If your kid is missing a limb? Same rule applies. No experience, no insight, no clue what you're going through. I'll listen, and if you ask me, I'll offer my own conclusions based on what you've said, but I'm not going to insist you're doing it wrong. Your kid can't spell or has a lisp, that's your problem to address, not mine. So do me a favor and return the courtesy.

So Many Stories, So Little Time

I could write about the day last week that began with the dog dropping a dead mouse on my bare foot and ended with me dropping a butter churn on the same spot. But I won't. Suffice to say much shrieking resulted from both events, albeit for very different reasons.

I could share the anecdote about the jackass driver who tried to pass me at 85mph when the lanes converged and nearly killed the Young Prince, then got mad when I flipped him off, then acted shocked when I yelled louder after he STOPPED HIS CAR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD to get out and yell at me.  The YP was hilarious. 

"I was afraid he was going to punch you."
"What do you think I would have done if he had punched me?"
"Probably rammed his car with ours."
"That's a good guess.  Were you scared when I yelled back?"
"No, then I felt bad for him. I know how it feels to get yelled at like that by you."

I could speculate on the assorted oddities that gravitate to community theater, from the morbidly obese and mentally ill to the perenially tone-deaf and perpetually overenthused. Present company included in that spectrum, natch.

I could write about the YP's slacking off in class and the teacher sending his work home -- and the YP chucking it in the trash because he didn't feel like doing it and thought he wouldn't get caught. I could write about the stricken look on his face when I told him that if he didn't shape up, he'd spend six weeks in Math Camp this summer because if he won't do the work when he's supposed to, he'll do the work when he would otherwise be allowed to do something fun.

Or, I could muse on the fact that as part of our Math Is Everywhere Adventure, the YP and I made cookies last night, except I wound up adding too much flour and somehow that gave the things an oatmeal appearance and a brickbat texture.  30 seconds in the microwave cures all ills, however.

But having given you this series of vignettes, I think I'll go back to reading my book. 

Just Because I Don't Care Doesn't Mean I Don't Understand

I was talking with a friend yesterday while our kids were in drama class. She's one of these health and fitness types; very foreign to me.  Her kid gets fruit for his sugar intake, no white processed stuff. They eat all organic, they exercise every day, she spends hours at the gym.  So she was talking about how her PTO asked her to head up a doughnut-sale fundraiser, and how she told them that she absolutely would not because it flew in the face of everything she believes -- and then she went and organized a tulip bulb sale instead and raised thousands of dollars.

This is why she is so cool. She doesn't particularly care if the PTO shops an unhealthy idea; she just doesn't climb aboard with it.  And even better, she will then go the extra mile and find an alternative -- and execute it.

I, of course, cheered her for the tulips, and then laughed at her about the doughnuts. "You know the kid and I go to McDonald's for dinner after every drama class, right?"

And she laughed right back and said, "Yeah, I know."

This is the great thing about her and me.  We don't care.

The art of Not Caring is apparently dying out. Someone tells me how they voted, who they slept with, what they bought with their last paycheck -- and honestly, I would say 80 percent of the time I do not care.

But I can't just tell them that. I have to engage. I have to enthuse. I have to endorse. Anything less and I'm a meanie sister. Anything less means I disapprove.

Why is this the case? Frankly, I'm starting to resent it. Why can't I just say, "Huh. OK." and go on my way? Why do I have to gush and ask questions and feign interest?

Obviously, this isn't ALWAYS the case. If I ask about your weekend, I want to hear about it. That goes double if you went skydiving with the president and chief justice. But even if you just spent your time sitting around watching movies, I asked and that means I want to know. If you've got a big fat problem and need help, yeah, I'll try to offer it. If you've got something tremendously exciting going on and just need a release valve, I'll offer myself up.

But I might not hang around for long as that valve, since your tremendous excitement might strike me as tremendously dull. And even more, when it comes to the day-in-day-out general existence blather, I should be allowed a way to bow out.

And if I'm reading a book and minding my own business, I can tell you right now that unless you are a member of my extremely small circle of Actual Friends, I am not interested in you barging in and spewing your family issues all over the area so I'll have to wade through them just to reach the door. Unless your personal probs are going to affect me in some way, (you're my employee and need HR help, you perform a service for me and won't be available, you live next door and I need to be on alert to call the cops -- or not, depending,) I'd just as soon not know your business. 
 
The social contract goes both ways. You approach, I engage, all is well.  But if you approach and I politely smile and nod and start looking at the door or my desk, you need to disengage. And you need to NOT take it personally.

The idea that the personal is political carries some weight, but jeezopete.  You want to paint yourself blue and dance naked under the moon? Go ahead. I. Don't. Care. This doesn't mean I reject your notion of communing with nature, it just means I don't give a shit that you're doing it. As long as you stay off my lawn.

I don't care.  This doesn't mean I actively disapprove. Words have meaning, and these different words have different meanings. Actions have meaning. If I actively disagreed or disapproved, I would give some indication, like, 'Wow, I think that is a terrifically bad idea and you should not do that,' or I would wave my arms wildy and shriek "STOP STOP STOP!" I wouldn't shrug and say, 'Huh. Whatevs.'

Yet somehow, that shrug, by virtue of not being a big bearhug and broad smile, has come to mean I'm a hater and I'm insensitive and I don't know what all. 

Nope. Not a hater. Just too busy doing my thing to give a damn about yours.

And frankly? I'd be eternally grateful if you'd get up and be too busy doing your thing to be bothered about my reactions.

So Many Straw Men, So Little Time

I think I have been in my current job too long.  I used to love debating politics and political issues. I used to think it was possible to have rational, reasoned -- if heated -- discussions about such things where both sides had a valid and well-supported point to make. I never really believed either party would be swayed in the end, but the hashing out of issues used to be a satisfying way to kill an hour or two.

Now, just about any time someone on the Interwebz starts nattering on about just about anything remotely related to Washington, I wince and click away.

Federal spending is bad. Federal spending is good. Well, it might be either, depending on what you're talking about and where you fall on the issue. How much money are we talking about? Is federal funding the ONLY way your program will get paid for? Or are there state/local/foundation funds to be had? Have you done your research and studied up on your program's rates of waste/fraud/abuse? (Real research, not propaganda the program's various blogmachines give you to regurgitate.)

Tell you what. You got a pet program? Write a letter to your congressman about it, then write a check to the program.  See which gets a faster reaction and serves a better purpose.

Gas prices are too high, boo. Gas prices are so high we'll start respecting the environment more, yay.  Gas prices are ... rarely affected very much by anything the government does to affect them.

Don't even start on foreign policy.  People who couldn't find Libya on a map two weeks ago now fancy themselves right up there with Gene Cretz.  Never heard of Cretz? Maybe you need to read a bit more before you break out your Libya pundit credentials, and you might want to brush up on your Wikileaks gossip, too.

It isn't that I am so much smarter or better informed than the people doing the talking. I'm not, most of the time. But I know enough to realize that there's almost always more to the story than the headline, and that decisions almost never really boil down to a choice like soldiers vs. space travel, or health care vs. environmental protection. Really? Those are the ONLY flexible budget items? Of course not. But people buy into that argument because they don't stop to think about it.

I know enough to realize there's a lot I don't know, and that I should find out more before I go shooting my mouth off.

Now you'll have to excuse me. I have to go find out what my county's school board is up to.

Blah, Blah, It's Been Said Better Elsewhere

But that doesn't stop me.

I may have mentioned before that I run a department at my place of employ.  One of the perquisites of this vaunted position is that when stuff happens on a weekend, I get to fill in as muscle and tissue on our otherwise skeleton crew. This basically means that from about 5 p.m. Saturday until 5 p.m. Sunday, I was immersed in the news out of Arizona, reading file after file about what it meant for various pieces of legislation, what it meant for Congress, what it meant for ... well, just about everyone except, you know, the people who actually suffered in the event.

 And the theme that kept coming back, over and over -- we should not be surprised that this wackjob opened fire in a grocery store parking lot. Why not? Well, because of the inflamed level of political rhetoric.

 Of course. How foolish of me not to realize.

 Because, see, to me that's about as silly as blaming his parents for bad genetics. Or blaming Giffords for not voting the way he thought she should. Or blaming that 9-year-old girl for being in a bad place at a bad time.

 Don't get me wrong, I do think political discourse has reached some ridiculous extremes. I think the anonymity of the Internet isn't always a good thing. Second only to religion, politics is a case where it is really sickening to read what people will post when they aren't worried about the consequences.

 And I suppose if there is a way to make some good come of this horrific event, this is as acceptable an avenue as any. I'm a big fan of anything that goads our generally savage natures into being a little more civilized and polite. I think we all -- and I do mean all: politicians, my colleagues in the media, and most of all the Great Unwashed Commenting Public -- would get a lot farther in getting things done if we could just say, "Hm. You know, from where I'm sitting that argument doesn't really hang together, and here is why, let's figure out how to fix it," than when we do things like, say, compare our opponents to Hitler, or throw bricks through their windows, or start talking about how such and such a policy is the worst thing since forever and we are all going to die.

 But that's sort of the point. Most people don't throw bricks. Most people don't buy a Glock and rip into a crowd of bystanders. In a face-to-face exchange, only those brimming with vitriol who have zero interest in results bother to bring up Hitler.

 My husband is fond of saying that we don't write highway laws based solely on the way Gary Busey rides a motorcycle. I'm pretty sure we should not rewrite our mores based solely on the way Jared Loughner might have interpreted something someone said some time.

 Everything I've read about Loughner pretty much tells me that he was every bit as likely to have looked at his bowl of Cheerios that morning and seen dozens of cross hair symbols floating in the milk. 

 Or, you know, maybe the neighbor's dog gave him a gentle nudge toward the Safeway.

 So if you are one of those people who thinks that this shooting never would have happened if Sarah Palin had just left those dang cross hairs off her campaign site, I'm sorry, you are simply part of the problem, looking for a way to advance your own agenda on the back of a terrible situation.

 If you are one of the people who thinks this is what Giffords gets for voting against Pelosi as minority leader, I find you genuinely disturbing.

But if you are someone who thinks this was a terrible thing and that perhaps the blame lies somewhere other than Mean Words, that perhaps we should be trying to figure out how this looly got himself a gun and that we should maybe be a little more cognizent of the general mental state of those around us, well, you're the person I want next to me on the bus.

If you are a rational human being, one of the Rest of Us, someone who thinks the Internet is awesome as long as you don't read any of the comments under the news stories, who always -- always, no matter what is going on -- wants to see this country trying harder to do better than it already is, who chooses to believe that most people in public office aren't in it as some kind of malicious plot to bring down the other side, who cares about your family and who aches when things like this happen, you are the person I want to know. You are the person I want to vote for.  

Do Your *&@$% Job!

Last night I watched one of the worst calls ever made in baseball.

It would be an interesting side note to explore the "bad news travels fast" angle -- and how much faster bad news travels in the era of Facebook and Twitter. Ten, fifteen years ago, you might have found some instant company and commiseration in chat rooms or on the phone, but you wouldn't have seen an extended network of bloggers and tweeters and duffers instantly weighing in.

But that isn't the story.

The story also isn't about the instant replay and whether it should be introduced as an aspect of baseball.

And no matter what the media would have you believe, the story DEFINITELY isn't about some guy making a mistake and then admitting it and telling everyone, "gee, I feel really bad about it, folks."

"Nobody feels worse about this than Jim Joyce."  How many times did that sentence get repeated last night?

Know what? That's good. That's right. That's how it's supposed to be. Nobody SHOULD feel worse about it than Jim Joyce.

And frankly, doing the right thing when you finally realize you've done something wrong does not balance out the original infraction. It just means you aren't a total fuckup.

Because that's what this story IS about. This is about a guy who fucked up. Big time. A guy who didn't do his job when his job mattered most. And then, then! After he didn't do his job, he continued to not do his job by arguing about it with Miguel Cabrera. If Joyce had done his job right in the first place, he wouldn't have had to argue. If Joyce had done his job right in the second place, he would have shut Cabrera down with, "I'm not discussing this with you," and then shut his trap no matter what else Cabrera said. I'm surprised Joyce had time to call the next guy out, with all the time he spent not doing his job.

He did. Not. Do. His. Job. And if you ask me, he shouldn't be allowed to keep doing this job having botched it this badly. If you run a company and the company goes bust, you are out of a job. If you are a priest and you get caught boning the altar boys, you're out of the club. If you are an umpire and you blow a call that matters this much, you ought to be forced to consider a job that doesn't require keen focus and keener vision.

Bad calls are part of baseball. I get that. But integrity should be a part of the game, too. And while admitting wrongdoing and apologizing is a start, I'd call it a pale reflection against the error committed. (Not least of all because there's no real way to determine how Joyce would have reacted if there weren't photographic evidence proving him wrong.) 

But, of course, he is sorry, and everyone feels bad for him, and nothing truly damaging will happen to him, and this whole argument will redirect into Instant Replay Land and "why not use the technology available" and blah, blah. And the MLB will continue to fight instant replay while also continuing to allow sloppy umpiring without moving to rectify the problem on either side. And the players will continue to suffer for it.

At least the fans will have something to blog about. 

If It's Too Whiny, You're Too Old

A few weeks ago, my friend Owl and I were talking about music, and he brought up Tracy Chapman.  I was a little surprised by this, given that I know Owl is not by any stretch what you'd call a touchy-feely PC Socially Conscious type, and said as much. He admitted he didn't remember much of her music, but that a couple of her songs had really grabbed him.

Personally, I've intentionally avoided listening to a lot of that stuff as my patience and tolerance dwindled for passionate yet muddled thinking, abdication of responsibility, insistence that the System, Government or Man should do something, etc.

Tracy Chapman, Suzanne Vega, 10,000 Maniacs -- I must have driven my parents up a fricking tree.

And it's a bit insidious, how the folkies play it. Some songs are flat-out fantastic. Some of the messages are fairly hard to argue with.  Unrequited love? Yeah, been there.  Man done ya wrong? Come wallow in my slough of despond.  Child Abuse Is Bad! So Is Illiteracy! No kiddin'!

But even when I was 17 I remember listening to the line "why are the missiles called peacekeepers when they're aimed to kill" and thinking, "Well, that's marginally clever wordplay, but does anyone really not understand the concept of Enforcing the Peace? Do people really listen to this and turn activist? How 'bout we just call the missiles 'death dispatchers', will that make you happy? Of course not. Now stop it," and hitting the fast forward button.

You can see that at 17 my snark was unrefined and unrestrained -- and that I have not changed much.

But at 17, I also liked some of those songs. And while I knew they were more manipulative than a John Irving novel, I kind of enjoyed the soaring melodies and overwrought lyrics contrived to get people fired up and inspired. I wasn't about to run off and hoist a picket sign, but I was OK with singing along with some of the tunes while driving on the interstate.

I hadn't really listened to the album since then. So I wondered if, at my advanced age, the same things would still make me cringe or sing along.

Turns out I haven't changed VERY much in 22 years.

The album basically breaks down as an almost perfect bell curve: Three great songs, two I find jaw-clenchingly irritating cos of the lyrics and six that fall in the general "well, I probably wouldn't change the station but they range from Eh to Ew."

Unsurprisingly, the ones that hold up are the love songs. "Baby Can I Hold You," "If Not Now..." and "For You" are soulful evocative pieces that get you Right There.

And then there are the baddies. Le sigh.

The first time I heard the first chords of "Talkin' Bout a Revolution" I thought it had promise.  Then she hit the chorus:

Don't you know you better run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run
Oh I said you better run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run

And I just burst out laughing. Oh, Tracy. I hope you paid that word time and a half for all the overtime you made it work. Then I listened to the rest of the lyrics and while I suppose my white guilt was supposed to kick in, my white hostility did and I hit the fast forward button every time after that.

It's only gotten worse as I got older.

Don't you know you're talking about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Don't you know they're talking about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper

This song came out in 1988. I'm not really sure what revolution she was talking about -- it's not like there was a big change in the political structure; George Bush won the presidency, the Democrats were already in charge of Congress, so whatever she was talking about didn't get much louder than a whisper.

While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

See, it's lines like these that piss me off.  What the fuck good would a revolution do someone who's getting welfare? What do you think that revolution is gonna do to your gravy train? Ditto unemployment benefits. And hey, maybe if you were busting your ass instead of sitting on it, you'd actually get that promotion.

Poor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what's theirs

Well, poor people don't have much, taking what's theirs shouldn't be too much of a hassle. But we all know what this really means is they're not going to take what's THEIRS, they're going to take what's MINE and say it's theirs.  Good luck with that, kids.

Finally the tables are starting to turn
Talking about a revolution

I can't figure out what sociopolitical/cultural uprising she was referencing here. Again, nothing "turned" the year she wrote that song. But I bet she was really disappointed with those turning tables in 1994.

"Why?" is the second-worst song on the album, with the aforementioned Peacekeeper lyrics.

Why do the babies starve
When there's enough food to feed the world

Hi. Try the class down the hall, Macroeconomics 101.

Why when there're so many of us
Are there people still alone

Choice, man!

Why are the missiles called peace keepers
When they're aimed to kill

Yeeeah, covered this one already.

Why is a woman still not safe
When she's in her home

Cos she doesn't own a gun?

Love is hate
War is peace
No is yes
And we're all free

And this is where I turn the song off, lest my head explode and make a big mess inside my car or on my couch.

The rest of the songs are the big fat middle of the bell curve. "Fast Car" is the song everyone knows by her and it's interesting to me that this would be the next track after the commie Revolution screed, because this one totally halted my knee-jerk "Oh, Shut. Up." reaction. I mean, "Fast Car" is all about busting your ass to do better and get farther, and figuring out -- perhaps belatedly -- that you've got to kick that draggy no-'count man to the curb -- or I guess, to his car, while you wave from the curb -- if you want to get anywhere. Now, I'm probably ignoring the deeper meaning here, which seems to be that attempting improvement is pointless, because even if you do drag yourself up, something will always drag you down. Yeah, fuck that noise.  Let me persist in my delusion.

"Across the Lines" and "Behind the Wall" are the kinds of obvious causehead songs I was talking about above. Racial strife is bad!  Plenty of blame for both sides! Domestic abuse is bad! Police who won't help are baaaaad! Well, duh.

Frankly, if the little black girl and the screaming Wife had scrounged up guns somewhere, these songs would have very different endings. Of course, they'd also probably be sung by Miranda Lambert.

"Mountains o' Things" starts out as a universally sympathetic middle-class song.

The life I've always wanted
I guess I'll never have
I'll be working for somebody else
Until I'm in my grave
I'll be dreaming of a live of ease
And mountains
Oh mountains o' things

Hey! I'll never own my own business either! And I want stuff!

Sweet lazy life
Champagne and caviar
I hope you'll come and find me
Cause you know who we are
Those who deserve the best in life
And know what money's worth
And those whose sole misfortune
Was having mountains o' nothing at birth

Whoops, I guess you weren't singing the suburban middle-class white chick blues after all, were you?

Oh they tell me
There's still time to save my soul
They tell me
Renounce all
Renounce all those material things you gained by
Exploiting other human beings

Soooo ... does this mean all those poor people I see shopping at WalMart have to return those flip-flops and beach towels and whatnot? Or is it only people like me who should be shopping elsewhere?

Consume more than you need
This is the dream
Make you pauper
Or make you queen
I won't die lonely
I'll have it all prearranged
A grave that's deep and wide enough
For me and all my mountains o' things

Well, that's just silly.  You should put it in a trust. You never know when you might get resurrected or zombified.

Mostly I feel lonely
Good good people are
Good people are only
My stepping stones
It's gonna take all my mountains o' things
To surround me
Keep all my enemies away
Keep my sadness and loneliness at bay

Hmf. Seems to me if they're amenable to being stepping stones, they can't be THAT good. Unless it is working out OK for them too, in which case, hey! What's the big loss? Faulty argument, Chapman. And if you want to keep enemies at bay, well, again -- guess what! WalMart sells guns!

Finally, "She's Got Her Ticket" and "For My Lover" are the ones that just don't hold up with time. "Ticket" is a nice little anthem encouraging and espousing the idea of dropping out of one's existence in search of a better one.  I think I was OK with this at one point -- before I realized that many of the folks who do that end up like the ones hollering for a revolution. 

As for "For My Lover" -- assuming I understand this song correctly -- it's basically some chick doing time so her man could get off scot-free. (There isn't really any indication of his guilt or innocence that I could divine.) At 17, yes, yes, I knew that depth of feeling and strength of character and anything-for-you passion. Now? Yeah, not so much.  First off, jail? Moi? Srsly? Secondly ... I don't think even my husband is worth taking a fall for -- and the point there is, my husband would never let me take the fall for him.  Any guy who would? DEFINITELY not worth it. "Hey, honey, I killed six people, and I'm sure to go to jail. Why don't you tell them YOU did it??"  Mmmm, naaah.

I guess this comes off as old and angry and out of touch.  Which is fine. Oftentimes I am old and angry and out of touch.  But most of the time I like to think of it as smarter, less enabling and ... well, actually, I'm OK with being out of touch. That part suits me fine.

One. More. Month.

(Way, way long. And way ranty. Just skip past this on your reader and only come back when you're waiting for some paint to dry. No, really. This is more for my own outrage and the kid's future therapy sessions.)

I feel for teachers. Really, I do. Next to "health care professional" and maybe "bus driver", I think "teacher" ranks right up there among the most awful and thankless jobs on earth. Exhausting, exasperating, some other ex word I can't think of.

I am pretty sure I got more than my fair share of good ones, and I had a pretty large sample group. Private school, public school, 3 states. It wasn't even like the ratio of great teachers to sucky ones was better at private schools -- the one bonus to private school was the classes were smaller so the suckjob teachers had an easier time not losing complete control of the asylum.

The good: I had a math teacher who refused to back down and resulted in my mom kicking me out of a drama production when I made a 79 instead of an 80 on a quiz. I wound up with an A in the class, because he kicked my ass around the block and made me work harder.  I had a grudging respect for him while taking the class, and wound up really liking him after my fate was out of his hands.

Conversely, I had a history teacher who pronounced "Hammurabi" as "Hamambari," and who one day made my entire sophomore class write essays on "why I will not talk in class." I wrote the snarkiest, rudest, most insulting essay imaginable -- as I recall, part of it said: "Talking in class shows disrespect. I'm not sure that rule applies here, as I'm not sure a teacher deserves my respect if she can't make the class shut up."  (Yes, I wrote this.  I guess I stupidly assumed she would just throw them out and not read them. It hadn't occurred to me that there might be a humor factor in reading them. Hey, I was a sophomore. I only THOUGHT that I knew everything.) Next day, she handed it back to me, and I was sure I was expelled. But no, at the bottom was a note from her all about how she was very sorry and she hoped to earn my respect and blah blah.  OMFG. Yeah, she pretty much tanked in the pantheon of teachers for that wuss move. 

So as I've said before, I am resigned to the fact that most of the Young Prince's academic rigor will probably come from home.  Right now he is reading Roald Dahl's stuff at bedtime.  I think that's pretty good for kindergarten. We're on top of the math and science stuff.

I am still disappointed that he hasn't learned a damn thing in kindergarten. Every handout he brings home is a repeat of something he did last year because he had a great, fantastic, over-the-moon pair of preschool teachers who didn't take any guff and who pushed him because they knew he'd respond.  

So, yes. Disappointed, but resigned. I had sighed and shrugged and decided to defer expectations until first grade. And in recent months, I have even slacked off on pushing him at home.

Well, this week burst that little bubble. Dear lord.

There are two "co-teachers" who run the class. There is a "Lead Teacher" and she has what I think they call an "assistant."  Well, Assistant is way more on the ball than Lead.  I knew this, and I sort of hoped Assistant did most of the dealing with kids while Lead dealt with paperwork and so on.

So far this year, Lead has:
-- Told the kid that "your mommy is wrong, Band-Aids do so make boo-boos stop hurting."  (God love him, he came home and told me this, and asked me, "What's a ... boo?boo?" When I said, "She means your cut finger," he said, "Well, that's wrong. It still hurts.")
-- Told the kid that caterpillars are ugly, and butterflies are beautiful.  (I told him he should go back and tell her that All God's Creatures Are Beautiful, which led NYAB to snark, "well, except her. Have you SEEN her?" I'm pretty sure the YP did not do as I suggested.)
-- Sent home repeated nigh-incomprehensible e-mail about his various bad behaviors to the point where I was close to hysterical about his delinquency. Finally I decided that if he acted like that around her, it was going to have to be her problem, since he rarely does anything at home like she was describing.

This week, the YP brought home these two pieces of schoolwork:

Now, I looked at these.  On the first one, I was all, "Well, duh, F = football helmet. And on the second, I admit that I'm a complete ditz, because I looked at it for 0.4 seconds and thought, "huh? H is for heel, isn't it? So E is for ... enkle?"

Well, yes, if you look more closely, E is clearly for elbow. And A is for ass, which I am.

But then I asked the YP, "So, what were you doing here?"

On the first one, "F is for facemask." (NYAB kvelled.)

On the second one, "E is for eggs, and H is for .... heel? No, no, no. H is for hem."

I realize, all this really demonstrates is a little bit of inflexibility on the teacher's part. I'm OK with that, I guess, though I think it is a little unfair.  I can already tell this kid will overthink and suck air on standardized tests.Woe, gloom.

(OK. If you're still reading, this is where it gets really good. Or bad, I guess.)

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from a room mother. Here it is, in full:

Teacher appreciation week is May 4 – 8th.  I thought it would be nice to do something “special” for Lead and Assistant so I asked them some questions about things they like.  Their responses are below. 

I am going to send in a little gift basket w/some of the items they mentioned.  If you have any ideas, let me know! 

I do not have the email addresses for all of the students so please forward to anyone you know that is not on the list.

1. What is your favorite food?
2. What is your favorite beverage at Starbucks?
3. What is your favorite soft drink?
4. What is your favorite snack?
5. What is your favorite candy?
6. What is your favorite color?
7. What type of music do you listen to?
8. What are your hobbies?
9. What do you like to do in your free time?
10. Any other facts we should know about you?

Assistant:
1: If it's food I love it ;)
2: coffee or tea
3:I don't drink sodas, but love flavored sparkling water
4: Natural almonds
5: Anything chocolate :)
6: green
7: When I'm not listening to a kids sound track CD, I love Oldies but goodies :)
8: Beading, reading, and music
9: Going out to dinner, going to movies with friends, gardening, and shopping :)
10: Nothing that I can think of off hand.  Thanks for asking. :)

(So far, so good, right? Appropriate, friendly, logical. Read on.)

Lead:
That's a lot of question.  I am diabetic but I can some small portion of stuff.  Drinks are usually decaffeinated, diet, no caffeine drinks. Food can be anything, I am not picky. Color is burgundy or red. Candy is chocolates but I am not suppose to have them. I wish I had some free time, but I like shopping, or listening to music such as R&B, reggae, oldies '80s & '90s. I am having a baby boy on June 2nd.  Just got the confirmation yesterday at Fair Oaks Hospital at 6 in the morning.  I am still asleep at that time.  I guess these question are pertaining to teacher appreciation week.  I am registered at Target or Baby'r'us to make it easier for you.  I am really not suppose to eat junk, but I would love some fruits.

Ooookaaaaay. This is raw copy, y'all. I didn't do a thing to it to make it worse or better.

This is a teacher, y'all. Molding young minds for America's future.

I am sure you can imagine how violently my head exploded. I'm sure you can also guess just how on board I am with "appreciating" Lead. I've already sniffed to several friends that perhaps my token of appreciation should be some farkin' grammar lessons, FFS.

I'm really hoping that baby doesn't come late, because the sooner that woman is out of the picture, the happier I am. 

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that "I would love some fruits" is going to become a family code phrase that will endure for years.