Quick Lost Bloggity

[EDITED: SORRY, ROGER, SPOILER ALERT]

Here's what makes me INSANE about this show.

Sayid: For nine months I lived with my wife. The happiest nine months of my life.
Locke: Where is she now?
Sayid: She was murdered.
ANY NORMAL PERSON IN THE WORLD WHO DOES NOT EXIST IN THE LOST WORLD: My god! What happened? Who killed her?
Locke: I'm so sorry. If you need to find me, I'll be at this hotel in L.A.
Megbon: DAMMITOHELL!!!! IF JUST ONE OF THESE LOSTAWAYS WOULD LEARN TO ASK A FUCKING QUESTION THIS SHOW COULD BE WRAPPED UP IN TWO SEASONS!!!!

I May Get in Trouble for This

[Jesus] also preached ''teach them how to fish, don't give them a fish. You don't work you don't eat."
-Mary Matalin on The Colbert Report

I think it's just good form for secular me to avoid in general telling Christians what they should believe about the Bible. For example, I think the hypocrisy of using Leviticus to preach against homosexuality if they eat shellfish is self-evident. But if I don't accept the Bible as an authority, then I don't think I get to use it to prove my own points.

That said, I have a little biblical game. I did, after all, attend Catholic schools from the age of 8 to the age of 27. OK, so we weren't doing a whole lot of mandatory religion classes in college and graduate school. But I know that not only did Jesus never say anything close to that (her sources are Lao Tze and the evil sheriff in Cool Hand Luke), but it's pretty much antithetical to everything that Jesus DID say. He said, instead: "whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me."

I don't believe in God, and I don't accept Christ as an authority. But I do believe that we have a responsibility to the least among us. And I believe that society structured with that in mind has the happy result of being not only ethical and easy to live in, but also strong and self-sustaining.

I think this is all strategy for the most corrupted wing of the conservative movement: give cover to a primary goal of restructuring wealth in a way that favors the super richity rich. And they do this by saying over and over again that if you are rich, it's because God favors you and if you're poor, it's because you're lazy and have pissed off Cool Hand Luke Prison Guard Jesus. And this seems to be working on a whole host of people who won't benefit at all from this wealth restructuring. Mary Matalin is no dope. She knows Jesus didn't say "poor people can starve." She does knows that if she can get people all pissed off about welfare queens and Acorn, then they won't notice when the banksters siphon all their money away to already fabulously wealthy people.

I remember well when Islamic fundamentalists first started calling for Jihad against that Dutch cartoonist. A boatload of self-professed Christians demanded to know why moderate Muslim leadership hadn't spoken up to decry this perversion of their faith. They had a point and then they ruined it by almost immediately citing the failure of Muslim moderate leadership to speak out against jihad as proof that Islam was invested in a religious war against Christianity. Sigh.

Still and all, it seems to me like the modern Christian leadership has an obligation to speak to their followers in just the same way. I might not be a Christian, but I think I still get to say that.

Random Thoughts on My Girl

Laney got straight A's on her report card today. I'd love to be the kind of person who doesn't get excited about things like that, but I confess I'm a total Lisa Simpson when it comes to that kind of thing. I was talking with a friend a while back about how we'd both love to have the money to be professional students and a big part of that is grading. I wish I could be graded now. I'd love to get a Mommy report card and a writer report card and a software support report card where some knowledgeable and impartial third party grades me based on a set of previously determined standards. But life isn't like that and so, I guess I'll have to live vicariously through Laney's grades.

I'm an accidental Montessori parent but have over the last four years become quite the evangelist for it. In Laney's homework packet for the week, part of her reading comprehension was to write "thick" and "thin" questions about a story. I'm going to quote directly from the packet:

"A thick question is one that addresses large, universal concepts and often begins with why? how come? I wonder? The answers to these questions are often long and involved. Thin questions are asked to clarify confusion or to understand words. They can usually be answered with yes or no.

Laney is in first grade. This is a quality, thoughtful education she's getting. And for free! Well, as free as things are in this world. As a DFH, I don't beef too much about paying taxes.

But beyond the learnin', Montessori just really seems great for kids who march to the beat of a different drummer. There's a great deal of focus on individuality and respect. And my girl is kind of a goofball. She's a hilarious, smart, lovely, kind goofball. But she is a goofball. She would describe herself as a Knucklehead McSantaClaus (this goofball moniker brought to you courtesy the good people at SpongeBob Squarepants - and I personally find it oddly evocative). She will not pose adorably when you point a camera at her. When she's got your attention she's going to use it to waggle her tongue and cross her eyes and break out into some contortive dance.

The Knucklehead McSantaClaus's are the ones, I am convinced, who end up setting the world afire. But in a primary school world, kids can be jerks to each other. Laney's been called weird and a baby and ugly. But, she's in an environment where that kind of stuff is dealt with. Where there's the bandwidth and will from the staff to deal with it. And so, she's a happy girl when I pick her up. A grinning goofball ready to regale me with stories from her day and to ask me a "thick" question or tell me that 158 rounds to 160. Brainiac.

She calls me Mrs. Bighead. Which tickles me, because when I was in first grade the kids called me "bighead" and it was not a compliment. It's not a compliment from Laney, but it is a direct statement about the size of my head vis a vis hers. And, as such, that's cool.

Oh, you guys, she's such a great kid. My little Goofy Goober.

Homeless People and Catholicism

(it's late and I don't know if this makes sense)

A while back my friend Jessica (who, by the way, is the number one example of people I know named Jessica who are awesome - I have never met a Jessica who wasn't awesome. If you're thinking of baby names for a girl, I suggest you bear this in mind) asked me a question. She was wondering if Laney had ever had an uncomfortable run in with a homeless person. I was chewing that over for a while and remembered one.

When Laney was about three or so, we were in the Wicker Park post office doing something. Don and I were at the counter and Laney was kind of wandering around, being three. It was around Christmastime. This crazy old bag lady came up to her and asked her if she knew that Christmas was about Jesus and not Santa. I sort of steered her away and when the woman approached me I just said "no" and shook my head. Then she followed us around telling Laney that if she couldn't get away from us, she'd go to hell. She kept telling me that I was damning my baby to hell.

I was filled with a mix of pity and rage. Laney wanted to play with the stamp machine.

And then I remembered something that If I live to be a million I'll never forget. Way back in December of 1977 or 78, Fr. Stritch told a church full of kids that we were all going to go to hell if we didn't settle down and listen to the service instead of getting all excited about the promisingly heavy snow outside. In Memphis! On a school day! That mean old fart actually told eight year olds they were going to hell. Almost ruined our snow day. Asshole.

I still remember that mean old priest. I don't think Laney will remember the crazy old homeless lady. I was older, sure. But I think it's important to note that unlike the crazy old post office lady, Fr. Stritch was in a position of unquestionable authority.

I'm not sure that one has anything to do with the other. And I also seriously doubt there are any priests left who roll that way. I imagine that if you wandered into any Catholic church and told the pastor that story, he'd be appropriately appalled and would talk to you about Jesus' love for children. I also think there are few (if any) parents left who'd be at all leery of questioning the authority of a priest who said such a horrible thing to their kids. And questioning it with choice words, no less.

People will say shitty things to kids and from our position as adults, we'll have a hard time discerning how much that will scare the kid in question. But, we hope that we can raise our kids so that they know they can come to us with their fears and that we will do everything in our power to make sure they know they're safe. My own personal opinion is that I think it helps when you run your household with Mom and Dad as unquestionable authorities instead of the near-retirement priest at the failing grade school. But I'm sure there are people out there who disagree.

More to the point, and in keeping with my last post, I'm hoping that when moments happen with crazy homeless people, I can use that as (and I'm so sorry for using this hackneyed phrase) a teachable moment. To tell her that people on the streets are often people who are sick in their mind, either from disease or addiction, and that they deserve our kindness and not our judgement. I often remember this thing I heard about Jane Addams: she'd never judge a person for what they'd become because she knew what life could do to people.

And, you know as I ponder it from my vantage point all these years later, I think I could afford some posthumous kindness for Fr. Stritch too. In his own way, he was a victim of what his life did to him. Although, the word "asshole" still echoes through my brain.

It's a process, I guess.

Commute Conversations

I picked Laney up at around 6:00. We chat a little through the first half of the commute, but by the second half of Lake Shore Drive onto Sheridan Road, we've fallen into a companionable silence, listening to Chicago Day on WXRT, when Laney breaks the silence:

Laney: Good job, Mom
Me: What?
Laney: I've said enough.

Ah, the deep abiding mysteries of mothering a kid like Laney.

Living in the City

I love living in the city. I still, even after all these years, get such a gas out of the skyline, the bustle, the people, and extreme civic pride we have in Chicago. I might disparage American Exceptionalism, but I have no doubt that Chicago is, indeed, the Greatest City in the World.

But it ain't easy raising a kid in the city. And you miss some pretty great stuff. Laney won't know the singular, kidly joy of riding her bike to a friend's house, hanging out in the back yard, playing with her friends outside until it's dark on a summer night. It's not safe for her to do that here. And this makes me sad, because I have such fond memories from my own childhood of that.

But, she does have something I didn't have, and it is priceless and wonderful: Laney has immediate, every day experience rubbing elbows with people who aren't like her. She is surrounded by different races, different religions, different socioeconomic classes, different sexual orientation. I tell her all the time that the world is a big place and there's room for all kinds of different people, and my great hope is that by raising her in this little townhouse on the far north side of Chicago and by sending her to public school on the west side of Chicago, that she'll get that at a molecular level.

Lately, we seem to be very eager to define America with a series of Us vs. Them. We are Democrats, They are Republicans. We are Christians, They are Muslims. We are Good. They are Terrorists. We are "Real Americans." They are Dirty Fucking Hippies. I don't think I'm wrong about this; slowly America seems to be dividing itself up on a vast, Manichean fault line, and it scares me a little.

My hope for Laney's childhood is that she'll end up finding this Us and Themism alien and disgusting.

*Note - this isn't a city vs. suburbs polemic. There are plenty of places outside the city limits that offer the kind of rich diversity that we get in Chicago. But the buildings aren't as awesome.

What? But... why? Really?

Have you guys seen this ad?



It's for a no touch handsoap dispenser. Because people with gross, germy hands are putting them all over the handsoap pump. Ew.

Then again, presumably, the action that immediately follows the handsoap pump is, you know, a handwash. It's hard to fathom another reason why you'd be pumping handsoap.

This is the thing you buy right before you wrap all your furniture in plastic, right? This is like something that Howard Hughes would have installed in his private suite on the Spruce Goose? Are we really living in a time when people are worried about getting their hands dirty immediately prior to washing them?

This baffles me as much as those bathtub Cialis ads. I just ... what?