Blogging the Book: Al Gore’s "The Assault on Reason," Pt. II

Well, I reached the end and, no surprise here, Al thinks the Internet will set us free. I was also relieved to find that he did include extensive notes in the back of the book, but because he didn’t footnote as he went along, a reader would have exercise real patience and tenacity to source everything. Footnotes, Al, footnotes.

Over all, Al was preaching to the choir about the abuses of power by the Bush Administration. I don’t suppose too many conservatives would be willing to read a book by Al Gore regardless, but a bit more mea culpa about the flaws of the Clinton Administration might have widened the audience more. Still, Al does a darn good and convincing job of explaining that uncomfortable feeling that something’s gone wrong with our democracy. It’s a book that should be reaching a broad audience, especially among those who believe that whether they vote or who they vote for doesn’t matter because Washington will continue to ignore them. However, it’s exactly on that point that Al is weakest.

While he addresses how the disconnect between the will of the people and the actions of the government leads to detachment and disinterest, I wanted to see more about how to combat that, more about how to bring the disillusioned back to the conversation. It isn’t enough to say the Internet is out there; go forth and use it. To bring about real change, to bring vibrancy back to our democracy in America and work to repair our damaged reputation in the international community, we need to reach that 50% of the public that isn’t even registered to vote and the 50% of registered voters who regularly don’t vote. Democracy does not thrive when elections are determined by a vote that is absent 75% of the eligible voting population. A strategy to engage that 75% is as important to the marketplace of ideas as continued access to a neutral and unfettered Internet. When we have 75% of the people voting and participating, then we’ll have regained our democracy.

Someone inferred recently that, because the stock market is up and unemployment is down, we shouldn’t be concerned that our President believes he is beyond the rule of law; that provided the US is still an economic powerhouse, we should turn a deaf ear to our global neighbors concerned about the hubris and arrogance of our foreign policy; and that because we live in a post-9/11 world, we cannot expect to protect the same rights and freedoms that have been the hallmarks of our country for more than 200 years. I would argue that we need to ensure the strength of our democracy when we are fat, so that it will survive when we are thin; that it is difficult to business with countries alienated by misguided policy; and that our Constitution is not worth the parchment it was written on if we can only safeguard individual liberties in times of peace and security.

“These are the times that try men's souls… Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”

-- Thomas Paine

Why I Won't Vote for Democrats, Pt. II

Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:
Get us out of Iraq.
Yet after six months of preparation and execution—half a year gathering the strands of public support; translating into action, the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies, the Democrats have managed only this:
The Democratic leadership has surrendered to a president—if not the worst president, then easily the most selfish, in our history—who happily blackmails his own people, and uses his own military personnel as hostages to his asinine demand, that the Democrats “give the troops their money”;
The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans;
The Democratic leadership has given Mr. Bush all that he wanted, with the only caveat being, not merely meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government, but optional meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the Administration, in which the only things truly compromised, are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.

So says Keith Olberman of MSNBC. Please read his entire commentary about the Democrat's lack of testicular fortitude. The only thing I don't understand is why Mr. Olberman is surprised by this. Ditto Jon Stewart at The Daily Show http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=87456&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_gateway_id=&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=%2Fshows%2Fthe_daily_show%2Fvideos%2Fmost_recent%2Findex.jhtml&ml_playlist=&lnk=&is_large=true and Stephen Colbert at The Colbert Report http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_colbert_report/index.jhtml and Taylor Marsh at The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/taylor-marsh/bloody-tuesday-on-capitol_b_49182.html.

The Democrats continue to allow Bush to frame the dialogue. They continue to use his language and imagery. They continue to underestimate the public's disgust with "do-nothing" politicians. The people sent them to Washington to do one thing: end this war. They shouldn't be allowed to ask men and women to fight the battle "over there" if they don't have the courage to fight in the corridors of the Capital.

UPDATE: Add Harry Shearer to the shocked and outraged punditocracy of the left. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-shearer/the-congressional-democra_b_49201.html

Blogging the Book - Al Gore's "The Assault on Reason" Pt. I

Oh, Al, you disappoint me so! Having read the first half of "The Assault on Reason" and your concerns about media ownership being consolidated and how the marketplace of ideas has suffered accordingly, paired with your deliciously detailed, yet unfortunately unfoot-noted, accounting of the sins of the Bush Administration. Yet, conveniently, you skip how the Clinton Administration, for which you served as Vice President, passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, allowing for that very same consolidation of media ownership you now say is such a bad idea. In fact, you have said very little (so far) about any Democratic flaws or faults.

On the other hand, Mr. Gore, you've got a lot to say about how the marketplace of ideas is suffering because of the one-sided, high gloss, high spin approach to discourse, and I see already where you are going. Television is, for now, the medium of politics. It is not interactive, it's easily manipulated, and it's very expensive. The internet, on the other hand, is very interactive, much more accessible, and, like the printing press, is based on literacy not pretty pictures. I see you already building the case for a hi-tech restoration of the democracy on which this country was founded. However, I look forward to reading how you think it can be any less manipulated than television.

For the rest of us, of course, the question remains "Will Al Gore Run?" and is there anything in "The Assault on Reason" that can be read like teas leaves to answer that question. Sorry, all you Draft Gore guys and gals. One hundred and forty-five pages in and this does not sound like a man running for president. It does read, however, like a man who is trying from the outside to shape the dialogue of the 2008 campaign. It does read like a man very much connected to the process of presidential elections. If he weren't so soft on the Dems, one could imagine Mr. Gore talking third parties (I'm only half-way through, he might yet). There is, out there in cyberland, already the Unity '08 group, with it's proposal to have an internet-based convention. Their gimmick, whoever is selected as their nominee must agree to a running-mate from an opposing party. Hmmm.....Gore/Bloomberg '08?

To be continued...

On Another Year Passing

In a few days I'll once again be having a birthday (didn't I just have one?), so this weekend I was marking the event with my annual trip to the five-and-dime to see what they have to offer to stave off the never-ending signs of old age. This has become a tradition in the last few years. All year long, when I sit at the receptionist's desk to cover the phones while she goes to lunch, I read the "women's" magazines she keeps there. The ones telling 20-year-olds that they need two tons of special products to maintain "youthful-looking" skin. Right. They're 20. They have youthful-looking skin until that start dumping that crap on it. But us ladies on the wrong side of 40? We really should start looking at surgical enhancements or life may not be worth living much longer.

So after a year of absorbing the helpful hints brought to me by Maybelline, L'Oreal, Max Factor, and the like, I look in the mirror at the wrong side of 40 and wonder if there isn't something I can do. Hair color, but that goes without saying, I've been a bottle blonde since the 80s. A bath scrubber with a micro-abrasion attachment to peel away the dead skin, and a facial mask to moisturize and smooth out my "rough, uneven skin" (that still breaks out regularly -- wrinkles and zits: life is unfair). Of course, I have no faith in these things, but every year about this time, as I notice the popping joints pop louder in the morning and the backache takes a little longer to work itself out after getting out of bed and I'm covering more gray than brunette and I can't read the paper before 8:30 because even with glasses I can't see, I figure I owe it to myself to try something to make the years less noticeable. Come May 24th, I won't care again for another year. On May 24th, I'll still be me, same as May 22nd. I still won't be able to see, my ankles will still pop in the morning, and all the rest, but I'll have to get the child up for school and get myself off to the office and...really, it won't matter at all.


But this weekend, like so many pre-birthday weekends before, I'll take stock of all the signs of age that weren't there a year ago: How I can never find my sunglasses, how my hands are begining to resemble my grandmother's, what clothes I now look ridiculous wearing, how I can ride the train unmolested and flirtation-free. The rest of the year, these things won't matter. I don't know why they matter now.


As for the facial mask, except for a little redness, my face looks the same as it did an hour ago, worn out and a little crinkly at the edges. In 25 minutes, I'll be blonde again, for another six weeks at least. My "micro-abrasing" shower-scrubber hasn't erased a line, eased the pain in my back or stop my joints popping in the morning. Onions still give me unforgiving gas and indigestion, my hips are still be too big and too saggy, and I don't even want to think about my boobs. But life will go on, creaking and sagging, puffing and drooping.

And my daughter will continue to grow more beautiful every day. My to-be-read list will continue to grow, I'll keep discovering new music, new paintings, new parts of the world to visit. On Saturday, my daughter will take me on a picnic in the park (shhhh! It's a surprise, I'm not supposed to know), the sun's "harmful UV rays" will have another go at my skin, and I won't care a bit because I'll be too busy living life with my beautiful little girl to notice. And next week, we are off for our very first cruise (*insert mini-lecture on how people shouldn't wait until their 40s for their first trip on a ship), where there will be "damaging" sun and salt air and fun and grand adventure and I'll eat too much, but I won't care because I'll be too busy living life with my beautiful little girl to notice. So the summer will go, and fall and winter until that weekend before the next 23rd of May gets me wondering how I got so much older in just one year. And I'll look in the "women's" magazines and see promises of youthful skin, firmer breasts, instant weight loss and the rest, make a trip to the five-and-dime, make my annual concession to old-age, then get back to living life with my beautiful daughter. But who knows? Maybe next year the "women's" magazines will surprise me. Instead of telling me I'm fat, wrinkled, old and unattractive, they'll tell me to get out in those harmful UV rays, let my graying hair down, and go live life with my beautiful little girl.

*Mini-lecture on how people shouldn't wait until their 40s for their first trip on a ship (or plane bound for Paris or train to Istanbul or anything else): Lesson learned the hard and really stupid way is to make up your mind you're going, give it the same priority to give all the rest of your bills, surf the web of a killer deal, and go. The hardest part: making up your mind you're going. So what are you waiting for? GO!

One step further or just another drop in the sea?

Last month Mother wrote a post about an article from The Guardian called “Fascist America, in 10 easy steps”. The idea that America should somehow become a fascist regime seems far-fetched, but as the article goes through the steps it becomes clear that it’s in fact very realistic. I’m not an American, so this will be an outsiders perspective. I’m not fond of America either, but I’ll try to keep that out of this as best I can.

One of the steps is about establishing the notion that dissent equals treason. This is dealt with in a documentary Mother linked to earlier where they show exactly what this notion can lead to, and today we are still fighting in Iraq with no end in sight. The reasons given for the war was brought to people so convincingly that there are people today who still believe them, despite those who presented them have back-tracked.

Michael Moore has recently made a movie where he looks into the American health care system. As part of the movie he traveled to Cuba, to see if it was possible to get better treatment there. According to this article, Michael Moore is now being investigated by the US treasury department for unlicensed travel to Cuba and according to Harvey Weinstein, the man behind the company behind the movie; the treasury wants to impound the negative. This can of course be viewed as an act of dissent, and Weinstein argues that there is a political agenda behind the investigation. Weinstein is of course biased, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be some truth to it. Weinstein has hired a lawyer and is not trying to get to the source of the investigation to see who pressed for it. Now you might argue that this can’t be seen as a true step since it’s being fought, but not everybody is like “Team Moore”, not everybody would fight back or be able too. Get enough of these cases; even if only some are successful there will still be a message sent that the US don’t tolerate dissent within.

So how might Moore’s new movie be viewed as something promoting dissent? Like Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, the new movie challenges the view that the US is the greatest at everything; a view I’ve encountered from many Americans on many different Internet fora. What is even worse in this case is that Moore is comparing the US to Cuba, the enemy in the backyard. It seems that even the two previous movies spawned a lot of hate towards Moore, but this is the first that has these kinds of consequences. Clearly something has changed since Fahrenheit 9/11 and I’ll leave it to wiser people to tell what. In essence Moore challenges one of the core things that seem to unite a lot of America; patriotism. If the average American comes to believe that their system isn’t the best, then they might want to change something; and change, it seems, isn’t something politicians in power want.

It’s also possible to look at this as another step towards fascism, the one the article calls “Targeting Key Individuals, and this is pretty straightforward, if someone doesn’t get in line, punish them. Moore is no doubt an outspoken individual against some things in America, and he makes no effort to hide his bias. He takes things to extremes to get his point across and lose some people in doing so, and gain others. He wants people to look at things beyond abortion, gay marriage, Idol and the like. But a thinking population can be dangerous thing to the people in power. They might have to take responsibility for their actions.

Why does someone who’s never been to America care what goes on there? Because it’s the most powerful nation in the world. What happens there effect everyone and should America become a dictatorship, then the world has a new problem on their hands. It won’t happen overnight but even if it’s not the intent of the people in power, then the first steps have already been taken and someday someone who is willing will come into power, and that’ll be it for the land of the free and home of the brave.

The Devil is Always in the Details

Thursday, May 10th was a whirlwind day on the political frontlines in the
War on the Middle Class, as a handful of senior congressional Democrats and the
White House - cheered on by K Street lobbyists - joined forces today to announce
a “deal” on a package of trade agreements that could impact millions of American workers and potentially calls into question the entire election mandate of 2006 (I say potentially because the full details are still being concealed by both Democrats
and the White House). You’ll notice the irony of the deal with just a glance at
the front of the New York Times business section (screen captured above) - the deal was agreed to (though its details have still not been made public) on the very same day the U.S. government reported another widening of America’s job-destroying trade deficit.

Because so much has transpired in the last 6 hours, I’m going to summarize it here chronologically in bullet points to make it easier to digest.
I’ve been covering it live all day, but figured for brevity it would be best to put it in one place. For context, remember that, as Public Citizen has documented and as business publications like Forbes Magazine has confirmed, Democrats won their congressional majority in 2006 thanks to scores of challenger candidates specifically running against lobbyist-written trade policy. This 2006 lesson is particularly important to Democrats who, in the early 1990s experienced their own President campaign for office opposing unfair trade deals, then ram NAFTA through Congress “over the dead bodies” of workers, then watch the Democratic majority get decimated in the following election. I want to stress, we still don’t know the details of the deal, but we do have some critically important information to analyze.

This is one of those long, complicated, you have to be paying attention issues which Americans usually tune out in favor of "American Idol." The important facts here:

• No actual legislative language has been forthcoming on this series of trade agreements.
• The media is trumpeting it as a great thing for our country and the partner countries involved, without having seen anything more than summaries.
• Lobbyists claim they are getting assurances that any requirements about environmental concerns or the rights of workers in other
  countries will be essentially unenforceable.
• The Administration and a handful of Democrats are doing
  everything in their power to push this deal through with the least amount of scrutiny possible.
• This is all after the American public swept a slate of new representation into Washington who vowed to put an end to lobbyist-written legislation, reduce the influence of lobbyists, clean-up the culture of corruption, and put an end to "business as usual."

Al Gore May be the Most Dangerous Man in America

...Byrd invited a specific version of the same general question millions of
us have been asking: "Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply
diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions?" The
persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of policy, even
in the face of massive and well-understood evidence to the contrary, seems
to many Americans to have reached levels that were previously unimaginable.

A large and growing number of Americans are asking out loud: "What has
happened to our country?" People are trying to figure out what has gone
wrong in our democracy, and how we can fix it.

To take another example, for the first time in American history, the Executive Branch of our government has not only condoned but actively promoted the treatment of captives in wartime that clearly involves torture, thus overturning a
prohibition established by General George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

It is too easy—and too partisan—to simply place the blame on the policies of President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes. We have a Congress. We have an independent judiciary. We have checks and balances. We are a nation of laws. We have free speech. We have a free press. Have they all failed us? Why has America's public discourse become less focused and clear, less reasoned? Faith in the power of reason—the belief that free citizens can govern
themselves wisely and fairly by resorting to logical debate on the basis of the best
evidence available, instead of raw power—remains the central premise of American
democracy. This premise is now under assault.

This is from Al Gore's new book "Assault on Reason." I can't wait to read it. It sounds like someone is finally connecting the dots. The excerpt, along with a profile on Al and how he is not running for President, can be found at: www.time.com

On Love

Love (part 1)

- the question we seek an answer for.

In general we grow up with a family, showing us affection and love, trying to teach us the world is held together by the inter-human connections and relations. Now this is from the point of view, where the family teaching us these values, have had years of experience and time. Time to think through the experiences of the past, the interactions with people and the emotions connected. Both our own and the effect we have on the people in our close vicinity.

The parents have a tendency to neglect the difficulties of love, the consequences of the choices that are made along the way. They do not want us to grow up thinking love is an impossibility beforehand. Even if they end up not being able to maintain the appearance themselves, they still tell us the same story. Perhaps in the hope of giving us the chance to live out the dream and succeeding where they failed.

Then we get older, and start to find our own in this world. We try the first teenage-crush, we get burned for the first time. We make our own conclusions and form our own view of the world of love. In the process, we grow up. The experiences we make in the early years, form the view of how we see the world. Even if we do not acknowledge the fact, we still judge people by how they act, based on what we feel.

In the same way, we make choices based on our feelings. These are bound to our emotions, even if we try to distance ourselves from them, and pretend to make judgments and choices based on what we see and hear. We pretend to be objective, but a complete distance is not possible. Deceiving ourselves however, is.

Love (part 2)

- Habit vs. Love vs. Security

No matter what we have been through regarding relationships, one-sided or two-sided emotions, every relationship we have will start out with strong emotions. These may be based on physical attraction, friendship or, to some extent, both.

Regardless the starting point of the relationship, for it to be long lasting (this on a relative scale) both friendship, trust, physical attraction and mental attraction must be present. These factors grow in the relationship and are the basis, when the initial attraction fades. In the beginning the flaws of the other are ignored and later these are to be seen as charms and speciallities of the individual. We come to love each other.

In time, two people get to know one another, and if trust and honesty is present they become each others trustee. But what about doubt? At some point, be that after 6 years or 6 months, doubt will appear. This may be nothing, but as we are dealing with humans and their emotions it all comes down to how the handling is done. Doubt comes in many forms; insecurity regarding yourself, insecurity regarding your partner, fears about the future, loss of freedom, jealousy (substantiated or not) or maybe just the change in individuals over time. The only way to deal with doubt is in coorporation with you partner. If the relationship is truly based on trust and friendship, this will solve the issues if love is still there. If the love between the two has dissipated over time, the friendship will still have a chance.

The biggest issue comes if people stop asking themselves; "Why am I here, do I still love?".

Do the two people in a relationship notice the change from "decisive choice" to "habit"? Given enough time each relationship develops its own habits and routines, based on the interactions of the people involved. This also enables the relationship to change away from each choosing to be with the other, but making it more "the easy thing" to do. This is not something that is noticed, but merely a thing happening over time. It may not be a bad thing, as all individuals function better with a certain set of routines, but in these the love may fade into the shadows. It is important to question one self about the feelings that are the basis of the relationship, and whether or not they are there or if they have changed for better or worse.

The aspect of security is a large part of relationships. This, in itself, is not bad, as people feel more secure based on having the trust and support from their partner. But given enough time it becomes the main basis for the two persons involved. Then it poses a threat to the individual, as there is no longer substantial belief in one self to be alone. One side of the relationship may be in doubt as to the basis of the two, but lacking belief in one self makes the choice to end it and move on even harder.

In this there is also the responsibility to the people close, be that the partner or possible children. The choice to leave a relationship or to stay in one, has an impact on others, no matter which way the decision goes. If no children are in the picture, then the decision should be personal and thereby favor ones own happiness. If children are present, then the welfare of these should be considered also, but to what degree? Are the children better off having a set of parents living together but not enjoying it, or the other way around?

Only the two people in a given relationship can make the decisions, and they need to have the courage to do so. But it also takes two people to have a relationship, whereas it only takes one to end it. The important lesson is to have the courage to make a reality-check once in a while. And let the other one know the outcome – a “good” one will help the relationship grow, a “bad” one will help the individuals grow.

On Art: An Introduction

This piece is the introduction to a series of essays on art. I started writing a single commentary and realized there was far too much ground to cover, that I would have to break it down into smaller segments. In subsequent essays, I’ll attempt to address the questions raised here as well as some other thoughts that have come up over time. I want to publicly acknowledge “me, your god” for his invaluable assistance and inspiration. Thank you "me." You are one of kind.

Before what was left of her mind was gone, my grandmother, suffering from Alzheimer’s and a lifetime of too much drinking, went through a phase of compulsively writing. She’d write the same notes to herself, over and over again. She’d forget she’d written one the moment it was completed and so she would begin again. She’d scribble on every scrap of paper she could find, these reminders to herself that made no difference because her brain was no longer capable of remembering. But the act of writing gave her some comfort. I think there was something reassuring in the words forming on the paper. I think it was proof of her own existence, of being alive from one moment to the next. I live with the fear that one day my brain will remember what gene pool spawned it and begin its steady and inevitable decline until I can no longer write.

Maybe that’s all art is: proof to ourselves of our own existence. Frida Kahlo painted more than 100 self-portraits. Anais Nin kept two sets of diaries, the way some accountants keep two sets of books, keeping her best writing locked away for fear of discovery, but compelled to write just the same. In “Quiet Days in Clichy” Henry Miller writes about “Carl” but everyone seems to know “Carl” was Henry. Not every artist is intent on self-replication, but putting pen to paper or paint to canvas or creating sound waves from an instrument that carry out into the world tells someone we exist, even it is just us. At its most basic, art is the action of creating, unblurred by commerce, by higher purpose, by even the perception of audience.

But from the time the first men where drawing on the walls of a cave on the left bank of a swamp that became Paris (trust me, it had to be Paris), and another caveman came along and decided there was something about Caveman A’s drawing that Caveman B’s lacked, there has been art and Art. A select handful of critics, gallery owners, curators, and other artists usually make the call. That would seem a considerable power to be wielded by so few, if that power really matters. It does, or at least it should. That it may no longer be the case troubles me.

My daughter is upset about the paucity of art offerings at her school. I tried to explain to her that, yes, there is too little art and too little music being taught in schools these days, brought on by this hysteria over increasing test scores at all costs. She says to me, “What’s wrong with them?!? Don’t they want to see the next Picasso? The next Monet?” She was passionate. To her, this defies all logic and straddles the border between crazy and travesty of justice. I wonder how alone she is in this passion. Do parents care so long as test scores go up? Maybe they are willing to forego that next Picasso if it means higher SAT scores for their kids. Dan Brown sits on the bestsellers lists for months on end. Does the world need another James Joyce if people are content with the ill-spun yarns of a hack who makes them feel intellectual without having to put any work on it?

And what happens -- what society do we build -- if these things no longer matter? Is there a price to be paid? Are we already paying it? I think it means something that those cavemen were drawing on the walls way back when; it says something about humanity and maybe we are losing that. What do we become if we lose the urge to create, to seek out others’ perceptions of the world, to shout at the universe that we exist?

The day came when my grandmother stopped scribbling her notes. She lost her battle with that clinging fog inside her mind. The veil closed over her thoughts, over her memories, over her identity. It took a painfully long time from that day until the day her physical form could no longer function and so stopped and breathed its last. But the truth is that everything that was my grandmother died the day she stopped writing. Everything she was, everything that made her uniquely human, no longer existed. I think about the genetic time bomb that is very likely ticking inside my head and I write. Je me crée donc suis.



Woman with a Guitar by Pablo Picasso, 1913, from the Norton Simon Museum of Art website: www.nortonsimon.org

A blogalicous update

A few things going on that I thought I should acknowledge and/or announce:

First, welcome to White Smurf and (eventually, I’m sure) Ritalin Kid. There’s an awful lot of testosterone in the room now, so any time one of you ladies wants to help balance things out, let me know. Meanwhile gentlemen, get posting!

Second, while I haven’t been posting too much original stuff the past week, I have been hard at work. The results will start making their way here soon. I ask for everyone’s patience in the short-term. I will try to at least keep doing short posts on stuff I come across on the web, just so everyone knows I haven’t fallen off the cyber earth. Feel free to discuss and offer opinions.

Finally, the good folks at Blogger are offering some updates that will allow for further customization of TCK the Blog. This is wonderful news because I’ve never been happy with this layout, color scheme, font or anything else. I utilized it because it was the least of all evils at the time. The downside is we may lose some of our set-up in the short-term while I transfer everything to a new template and finish tweaking it. I think this will make everything more readable and I’m hoping it will give us more options. This fun and games will probably occur over the weekend. Fellow bloggers, if you have ideas or input on this, let me know.

The Toughest Job You'll Never be Prepared for

I’ve been up half the night and my mind is 22 miles northeast of my present physical location. I’m not sure I’m all here. This is a story of parents, which means it is an imperfect story about imperfect people whose purpose in life may at first appear to be to make as many mistakes as possible in 18 years. I’m writing this because I recently overheard a conversation between an estranged parent and adult child that was heartbreaking. The occasion was the revelation that said adult child is pregnant. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s about to discover what an imperfect person she is. The sad part is, by the time she discovers this, it might be too late for her to tell her father that perhaps, just maybe, she was a bit harsh in her judgment.

None of us should be allowed to be parents, and yet most of us are. There are no more harsher critics of our parenting than our own parents and our own children. I was surfing through some children’s health websites today and so many questions pertained to new parents having different opinions from the new grandparents: when to potty-train, when to wean, whether to allow a pacifier, the child’s too fat, too thin, to aggressive, doesn’t stand up for himself… right up until, about age 13 when suddenly the questions became “why won’t my mom let me get my tongue pierced, date, become a vegetarian..”

In some ways I suppose I was lucky in that my parents had both passed on before I had my child. I had enough doubts in my head. I certainly didn’t need my father’s second-guessing as well. It doesn’t change the fact that parenting is a losing proposition. Someone is always going to think you’ve done something wrong, even if you have a perfectly healthy child in every respect, there’ll be someone to tell you he should have started walking sooner, was weaned too soon, and heaven forbid if you didn’t breastfeed! I have this awful feeling that all those Mother Superiors (not the Catholic kind, the other kind) are planning to buy Gitmo from Bush and his friends once they are done with it. It will still be a gulag, but it will be there exclusively for women who don’t breastfeed their children. Trust me formula moms, they’ll be coming for you next.

So once your own parents have told you what a bad parent you are, and society has chimed in about what a bad parent you are -- and pity anyone whose child is less than perfect, because all of society knows, deep down, medical research, mapping of the human genome, heredity be damned, any flaw in your child from a strawberry birthmark on the cheek to an extra toe to anything in between is the fault of the parent, especially, the Mom – little junior or Suzy gets old enough to tell you what a bad job you are doing and how you are ruining the best years of his/her life.

But louder than any of those voices is that voice in your head that keeps you up at night…what did I do? What mistake did I make today and how bad was it? When did I do too much and when did I not do enough? That cup of coffee I had when I was six months pregnant, how damaging was that and when is it going to come back to haunt me? Am I helping my child build self-esteem or am I spoiling her? Should junior be playing with Rainbow Fairy Barbie or should I take that away and give him a pro-wrestling “action figure” instead?

And then, no matter how careful you are, no matter how many books you’ve read, no matter what expert advice you’ve listened to, something goes wrong. Maybe it’s choking on a coco puff or falling off a swing or tripping over a sprinkler. Maybe it’s a signal you missed that said, silently but clearly, “Mom, we need to talk” or “things aren’t going so well at school.” And you realize you’ve made a mistake. You weren’t watching. You weren’t attentive enough. You lost patience. You failed to anticipate. You got careless. You didn’t think. There’s no worse feeling in the world. Then you have to measure the magnitude of your blunder and figure out what damage control can be done. After you’ve patch things up as best you can, you do it all again until the next time you make a mistake, and there always seems to be a next time. That any of us make it to adulthood is a credit to the survivability of our species. That we then manage to raise another generation is nothing short of incredible. Some blunders you never fully recover from, some turn into opportunities in the most unexpected ways, the best ones are the ones you get to look back and laugh at a few years later.

I’ve stayed up half the night with contemporaries telling the tales of all the unmitigated errors our parents made in raising us. Now, some of my contemporaries are hearing from their own children how badly they botched the job. We all fail. The best of us attempt to inflict the least amount of damage possible. But how would the most perfect parent prepare a child for the knocks and bumps of the real world if they always did and said the right thing?

With all that in mind, I propose the following thought experiment. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, forgive your parents just one thing today. And while you are at, forgive yourself for one as well.