On raising a family

I belatedly stumbled across this article over at Lance Mannion's blog. My initial thought was to pull a major parenting drive by and rip Lance's parenting technique. Then I thought better of it. I realized that, really, there are a lot of different ways to raise your kids that probably all work relatively well. It's important to realize that what works for my kids (or perhaps, what I think will work for my kids) isn't going to work for everyone else's kids.

So instead I'm going to use Lance's post as a jumping off point. What I'm writing here isn't a critique of Lance, simply my perspective on things.

Lance writes:

One of the things that drives me berserk is listening to people who don't have kids brushing aside the concerns of parents on things like video games, TV shows, pop music, and pop culture in general.

"If you don't like it, turn it off!"

First, you turn it down. Doesn't do me any good to not play certain music in my car if you have your windows down and your CD player cranked up.

Also, you could watch your mouth in public. Sailors, at sea, under enemy fire, curse less.

And what's with the t-shirt? You're a grown person! Dress like one.

That's the problem with the Turn it off/Don't let them watch advice.

That is indeed the problem with the "turn it off" advice. In fact, that's why I think it's important to remember just what it is we're trying to accomplish here: We're trying to raise our kids to eventually live in the real world. If you think about it, it doesn't make much sense to try to censor this stuff from our kids. Or if you prefer, to "protect our children." However you phrase it, it amounts to the same thing: trying to keep our kidsfrom knowing about stuff. I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of this line of reasoning. I'm a little suspicious whenever someone starts implying that knowledge is bad. Knowledge isn't bad. Face it, someday your kids are going to be grown, and when they are, you'll hope they figured this stuff out a long time ago.

Can you think of a better time to teach your kids why you don't approve of a certain kind of music, or use of language, or style of dress? Encountering these things in public shouldn't be viewed as the corruption of youth. Instead, look at it as an educational opportunity. The time to start instilling your values is now.

On the other hand...

... I had always told myself that I wouldn't care what kind of language my kids used. It is a little silly, I maintained, to be offended, for example, by the word "fuck." What is there to be offended about? Mostly we are offended because we have made a collective choice as a society to be offended. In essence, it is a tautology: It is offensive because we are offended; we are offended because it is offensive. It would make a lot more sense if we could all simply agree to stop being offended. And how to do that? By choosing not to be offended yourself. So naturally I won't care if my children swear. And it all sounded very good in my head.

And then I heard my very little son say, "Damn it!" Right at that moment, I knew my quaint little theory wasn't going to mean much to his kindergarden teacher.

So granted, yes, there are good reasons to be concerned about the things Lance mentions. Mostly, though, it isn't because these things are inherently corrupting. It's because society forces our hand to a certain degree. To be successful in our society, or in the very least to avoid being stigmatized, our children must have an understanding of what society disappoves of. It doesn't matter that I'm not offended when my preschooler says fuck. What matters is that he'll still get in trouble at school.

Still, I can't help but think that our society tends to think things are hurting kids when they actually aren't. TV? Comic books? Movies? Rock music? Video games? By and large, these things aren't hurting kids. All too often I see these various mediums stereotyped and demonized, as if the only video game on the market is Grand Theft Auto. Let's remember that there is a large amount of diversity in the video games that are available. The same holds true for movies, and music. And books, for that matter. I suspect that most of our tendancy to demonize these things comes about because we tend to distrust what we don't understand. Our grandparents demonized our parents' rock and roll music. Our parents demonized Dungeons and Dragons. As parents, we distrust the current generation of video games, which are much more realistic than the Pong and Pac Man we were raised on.

I should also reiterate that my personal theory of childraising -- to expose my kids to everything and use the things I disapprove of as a teaching device -- likely wouldn't work for everyone. In fact, I'm lucky to have two kids who happen to respond well to it. I can explain to my son why I don't like something, and he understands, and he's willing to apply his understanding. My daughter doesn't listen quite as well, and is just a tad more willful. Predictably, I've had slightly less success when using this technique on her than I have when using it on my son. Nonetheless, I am fortunate that my preferred childraising method works for my children.

I understand that Lance isn't really criticizing my propensity to use the word "fuck" in spoken language so much as he is venting about the difficulty of raising kids. Likewise, I'm not trying to be critical of the choices he makes, but rather hoping to offer a different perspective on the same topic.

More thoughts on Halloween

As my wife and I were escorting our two young trick-or-treaters home from an hour of societally sanctioned begging that resulted in one full bucket of candy for each child, I began ruminating about the commercialism of the holiday. What does it say about the state of capitalism in our country, I wondered, that we expect random strangers to give our kids candy when we knock on the door? Indeed, what does it say that people who wish to abstain from this corporate holiday are forced to become hostages in their own homes, turning off the lights and sitting in the dark for fear of disappointing the young children who would inevitably come knocking on their door otherwise?

As I listened to our children's buckets of candy drag on the ground, I shared these thoughts with my wife.

          "I suspect I'm going to turn into a crotchety old man as I get older."
          "Why is that?" she asked.
          "Because I'm not sure I like the idea of being forced to give out candy to strange children every year," I replied.
          She snorted. "You have to pay your dues, man. It's just like Social Security, but in reverse. When you were young, people gave you free candy. Now it's time to pony up."

You know, she has a point.

Obligatory scary Halloween post

In 2001, Judge Alito authored a decision in Saxe v. State that declared unconstitutional a public school district policy that prohibited harassment against students because of their sexual orientation or other characteristics.

The policy focused on harassment that had the purpose or effect of interfering with a student's educational performance or creating and intimidating, hostile or offensive environment.

Alito reasoned that the policy was unconstitutional because it could cover what he called "simple acts of teasing and name-calling."

Now that's scary.

Hat tip to Shakespeare's Sister for the link.

Read 'ems: Plenty for everybody

Here are a bunch of links that have been sitting in my inbox. Some of them go all the way back to the beginning of the month, so I'm obviously never going to get around to writing a full post about them. And so, without further adieu, I bring you...

Confining Criminals After Their Sentence Has Been Served. Austin Cline writes about the immorality of confining sex offenders after they have served their sentence.

The Green Knight wants to know whether you have a utopia, and if so what it looks like.

Linnet, one of my co-bloggers at the Big Brass Blog, writes that the antiabortion movement isn't only antiabortion: it's also anti-sex and anti-female.

Here's a disturbing article about a principal of a Catholic school who demanded that all students remove their blogs from the Internet or face expulsion.

Another article on Christan Exodus. I'm very troubled by this group. They're trying to move followers of their fundamentalist sect of Christianity to South Carolina in order to declare it a Christian state. Obviously, they don't represent the mainstream Christian. But if Rosa Parks recent death has reminded us of anything, it is that small groups with very singular goals can accomplish a lot.

An excellent opinion piece in Michagan State University's college newspaper that explains how the concept of an afterlife can actually be harmful to an individual and society.

Just in time for Halloween, Unscrewing The Inscrutable delivers a chilling look at the worst case scenario of the avian flu.

Here's DarkSyde on dkos with an interesting post about the bubonic plague and HIV.

No athiests in fox holes? Au contraire, mon tres bien frere. An editor's mea culpa.

From an LA Times Op-Ed piece by Norm Stamper, the former police chief of the Seattle Police Department, we learn that Stamper favors the legalization of all drugs.

From the Huffington Post comes There is No God (And You Know It).

Fred Clarke at Slacktavist tackles those irritating Support Our Troops ribbon magnets. This is the best word I've seen on this yet.

Make your own Bush speech!

The Camel Toe, which I found most notable for it being an equal opportunity offender.

Harken, O thou incompetent tax-collector, for you will be cast onto a steaming dung-heap! Yes, it's the Biblical Curse Generator.

With friends like that

Although there is no shortage of topics that you might actually care about, instead I'm going to indulge myself and write about my weekend thus far. If Blogger had categories, I'd file this under "My Entirely Unexceptional Personal Life."

I went to a Halloween party last night. It was fun, even though practically everyone else was dressed up and I wasn't. It would be entirely unworthy of mention, except for three things. First and foremost, I had a really good time. I even danced, and as my friends are well aware, that never happens without large quantities of alcohol. By coincidence, that brings us to point number two, which is that I consumed an entire six pack of Boulevard Dry Stout in just under two hours. (Upon finding that link, I realize this isn't really that big of an achievement -- it has a relatively low alcohol content. Nonetheless, there was dancing, so it must have sufficed.) Granted, Boulevard Dry Stout is no Cutthroat Porter, but it'll do in a pinch. And besides, the party was in the opposite direction from the liquor store that carries the imports.

And that brings us to Notable Point Number Three, which is that the party was at Gina's house. Gina is a friend of mine who I met while working at Radioshack. By coincidence, she was also present the last time I ever spent an evening with Matt, who was once a close friend of mine.

At one point in time, Matt and I, along with another friend, Ryan and his wife Amber, were inseparable. We were such good friends that Matt and I even started software development business together, hiring Ryan as our sole employee. Even when the business failed after a year, our friendships managed to survive.

So it came as quite a shock when, a few months after I moved to Omaha, the seemingly rock solid friendships did indeed fail. At first, it didn't seem like the problems could possibly be that big of a deal. Things were rocky, but I was convinced that it wasn't anything we wouldn't get through -- we had already been through so much. I made every effort to patch things up, and in fact, it appeared to be working as first Amber and then Matt took jobs in Omaha. Things were looking up...

Then one night not long after, when my wife was visiting relatives in Kansas, I invited Matt and his wife to join Gina and me at a bar. I don't remember much about the night, except that I started to talk about my recently acquired philosophy of secular humanism, and that I tabled that conversation when Gina arrived. I also remember that I made a special effort to make Gina feel welcome, because nobody likes to feel like the outsider.

After that night, I never heard from Matt or Ryan again. It was only recently that I learned from a mutual friend that Matt had become convinced that night that I was flirting with Gina. He'd concluded that Gina and I were sleeping together.

So how did a formerly great friendship go so wrong? Perhaps a better question is, who cares? With friends like that, so the saying goes, who needs enemas? They had their reasons, I guess. Their reasons were, apparently, completely wrong. But the most important thing that I try to remember is that I don't want friends like that. A real friend, I try to remind myself, wouldn't drop another friend without warning on nothing more than a hunch. A real friend would in the very least confirm his suspicions. And give his friend a very frank talking to, if those suspicions ended up being correct.

Which, of course, they weren't. And in any case, neither Matt nor Ryan tried to have that conversation.

So of course, yes, I know that I don't want people like that as friends. But while it's one thing to know it rationally, it's another thing entirely to understand it emotionally. And there are a lot of things that can and do set me down the path of missing those once deep friendships. Things like seeing the trailer of The Ring Two and remembering inside jokes about the first craptacular movie that only they would understand. Things like going camping without them, and remembering the time we got our cars stuck at Lake Tuttle. Things like pondering which tastes more like chocolate: spinach or lettuce?

And when I start to think of those things, for some reason, the Jim Croce song Photographs & Memories comes into my head. Though it's about lovers, somehow it feels appropriate:

But we sure had a good time
When we started way back when
Morning walks and bedroom talks
Oh how I loved you then

Summer skies and lullabies
Nights we couldn't say good-bye
And of all of the things that we knew
Not a dream survived

Photographs and memories
All the love you gave to me
Somehow it just can't be true
That's all I've left of you

Yesterday, that familiar melancholy mood settled over me. A friend made the trip to Omaha to see us, and after my portion of his visit came to a conclusion, I dropped him off at Ryan's house so he could see them, too*. The projector in my head began playing back the reel of highlights from a past friendship, and as usual Photographs & Memories was the soundtrack.

But it's a funny thing; on my Jim Croce CD, after Photographs & Memories comes Rapid Roy the Stockcar Boy. And just like the CD, the melancholy seemed to lift almost as quickly as it had come, thanks largely to Gina's Halloween party. What poetic justice, that it would be Gina's party that would cheer me up!

So thanks, Gina. My wife and I had a great time. It's good to be reminded of who your friends are.


* Both Matt and Ryan live a few blocks from me. When old friends visit us in Omaha, they have to split their time: first they visit me, and then they visit Matt and Ryan. Isn't that stupid? Unfortunately, it wasn't my choice, so there isn't much I can do about it.

I heart Fitzgerald

I think I really, really like Patrick Fitzgerald. From the transcript of yesterday's press conference:

Let me then ask your next question: Well, why is this a leak investigation that doesn't result in a charge? I've been trying to think about how to explain this, so let me try. I know baseball analogies are the fad these days. Let me try something.

If you saw a baseball game and you saw a pitcher wind up and throw a fastball and hit a batter right smack in the head, and it really, really hurt them, you'd want to know why the pitcher did that. And you'd wonder whether or not the person just reared back and decided, I've got bad blood with this batter. He hit two home runs off me. I'm just going to hit him in the head as hard as I can.

You also might wonder whether or not the pitcher just let go of the ball or his foot slipped, and he had no idea to throw the ball anywhere near the batter's head. And there's lots of shades of gray in between.

You might learn that you wanted to hit the batter in the back and it hit him in the head because he moved. You might want to throw it under his chin, but it ended up hitting him on the head.

And what you'd want to do is have as much information as you could. You'd want to know: What happened in the dugout? Was this guy complaining about the person he threw at? Did he talk to anyone else? What was he thinking? How does he react? All those things you'd want to know.

And then you'd make a decision as to whether this person should be banned from baseball, whether they should be suspended, whether you should do nothing at all and just say, Hey, the person threw a bad pitch. Get over it.

In this case, it's a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn't to one person. It wasn't just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us.

And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?

Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?

And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.

As you sit here now, if you're asking me what his motives were, I can't tell you; we haven't charged it.

So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make.

The man has principles.

Because only whores enjoy sex

Here's a choice quote from Mike Adams writing for Townhall.com. In response to the Orgasm Awareness Festival being held at UNC, Adams wrote this:

Jessica Polka, an executive board member for the co-sponsor of the event, was recently quoted as saying that “We also have the goal of trying to work toward fighting the social stigma against female sexuality.” In other words, she wants college women to become whores without being ostracized.

How exactly did we get from fighting the stigma against female sexuality to accepting money for sex? There is a big difference between prostitution and enjoying sex. (And while I'm on the subject, perhaps someone should tell Adams that *gasp* prostitutes often don't enjoy sex -- it's just a job to them, honey.) In fact, Adams is demonstrating exactly the social stigma that the orgasm festival exists to address.

I admit it: I'm delighted by the irony created in the juxtaposition of these two sentences. If it weren't for diatribes like this one, there would be no need for orgasm festivals. Adams and people like him are what make these events necessary.

A tip of the hat to Lauren at Feministe.

Presidential accountability

Everyone seems to be quoting Ezra Klein's recent article in The American Prospect that explains why George W. Bush can do no wrong in the eyes of so many Americans. But somehow, it the significance of it didn't hit home until I read The Green Knight's take here:

Klein refers to this weird response as an example of the Bush "cult of personality," but that's not quite right. Klein comes closer when he observes that, for people like Lopez,

[T]he belief in George W. Bush is beginning to take on a religious subtext: Even when Big Things go wrong, like floods, plagues, and earthquakes, you can take comfort in knowing that they were temporary detours in a benevolent, carefully examined master plan. This isn't political analysis or pop-psychology, it's theology.

Yes, it is -- but it's a form of redemption theology, and a perverse one. All that you have to do, all that Bush has to do, is wait it out until a mistake is in the past, and presto! not only did the mistake never really happen, but the recovery from the mistake is all the more proof of God's miraculous work.

This is a chilling explanation of exactly why it's so dangerous to mix Church and State. It isn't that Americans don't believe that Bush has made mistakes. It's that they actually see the mistakes as proof that Bush is following God's will. Of course, if you take success as a sign from God, and you also take failure as a sign from God, there isn't anything that will change your mind, is there?

Update: I fixed the spelling on Ezra's name. Ack!

Breaking News

And -- surprise! -- it isn't Karl Rove's indictment. Harriet Miers withdraws her nomination. I can't really say I'm sad to see her go -- she was obviously unqualified. I'm a little nervous about who we're going to get next, though.

Calling myself out

For the record, I just wrote this post once. Then my computer spontaneously rebooted itself before I bothered to, you know, save it. I was about 30 seconds from posting it, and I really liked how it was turning out. So I'm a little irritated right now, and I'm not going to be nearly as detailed as I was. Argh.

A few days back, I pointed out this shirt to Orange. Being a lover of language, I thought she would appreciate the intentional misuse of the word "your" instead of "you're." In fact, I still think that part of the shirt is pretty funny.

But the problem is the full text of the shirt, which reads "Your retarded." She replied that while she is a huge fan of mocking apostrophe misuse, she could do without the word "retarded." I was a little embarrassed, and I agreed that "retarded" only served to detract from the humor. Then I came across this essay by Michael Berube about slurs against the intelligence. And then Orange sent me a link to the same essay, which somehow made me feel like a bigger asshat than I did in the first place.

Because this followed closely on the heels of my recent post calling out Patrick for unintentional sexism, I thought it would be a little hypocritical of me if I didn't point out that I'm guilty of the same kind of behavior. Patrick posted his joke about catfights only after considering the negative connotations it might carry. If I'm being honest, I have to admit that somewhere in the back of my mind, I was aware that the word "retard" was likely to offend some people. But neither Patrick nor I acted on those thoughts.

A single instance of unintentional sexism and/or bigotry probably isn't as important as how a person reacts to having it pointed out to them. I've learned something ugly about myself. I've discovered that I'm not nearly as sensitive to the feelings of the mentally handicapped as I'd like to be. This probably isn't a problem I can solve in a day, but this insight is a good first step toward getting it fixed. A good second step is to become more sensitive about the language I use -- yes, and the language I laugh at.

The ever eloquent Michael Berube says it better than I can, so I'll give him the last word.

After all, dear reader, it’s not as if the English language is hurtin’ for terms of abuse. If you truly believe that someone is acting unwisely or thinking incompetently, you can draw upon thousands of words that speak about performance rather than capacity, which is far more appropriate anyway (as Chris Clarke has eloquently pointed out). That “moron” you revile might just as easily be a jerk, a jerkoff, or a jackass; the “idiot” in the adjacent car or adjacent voting booth might instead be a fool, a wuss, a sap, a chump, a poltroon, a schlemiel, or a patsy. Even as you read these words, thousands of people are just begging to be called scoundrels, prigs, and coxcombs. Why, there’s even an entire Shakespearean Insult Server available online for those of you who want to hurl especially colorful and vivid forms of contempt and contumely upon your adversaries, so there’s really no excuse for failing to take full advantage of the opportunities afforded by this rich and complex language of ours.

Fitzmas Bingo

With Fitzmas just around the corner, it's time to get your Fitzmas Bingo card. Here's mine:



I think I've got a real shot at the bottom row. Too bad there's no Scooter Libby on mine, though. That would be a lock.

Hat tip to Rox Populi

Still fuming over pharmacists

In my last post, I said that there was a lot to get upset about in this story about pharmacists refusing to fill birth control prescriptions. Here's some more odious opining from a representative of the Catholic Church:

"We have all kinds of compassion for a rape victim - in that case, Plan B is OK, the church has no problem with it," said Ron Johnson, with the Arizona Catholic Conference, which supports the right of any health-care worker to refuse to dispense emergency contraception and lobbied hard for passage of the Arizona law to allow it.

Let's see if we can clarify that position a little bit. In Johnson's view, the Catholic Church has no problem with emergency contraception in the case of rape. Presumably, it does have a big problem with EC if the sex was consensual (again, according to Johnson). Essentially, the Church condones the use of EC if it feels sorry for you. But if they think you deserves to be punished for having sex, they have no problem withholding access to EC.*

This is indefensible. Try and tell me this isn't about punishing women for having sex. Go ahead and feed me line about supporting the culture of life. You'll only end up embarrassing yourself.


* Admittedly, this is only Johnson's view. It certainly doesn't represent the view of all Catholics. Nonetheless, I can't help but think that this view of things isn't all that uncommon to Catholics. Or at least among the vocal Catholics.

Another Pharmacy Flare-up

Just about nothing makes me madder than pharmacists who refuse on moral grounds to fill birth control prescriptions. Having said that, I'm going to take a deep breath and try to write calmly. It won't be easy, because there is a lot to get mad about in this article.

*deep breath*

Okay. Let's start here. If you've followed this debate at all, you're probably aware that the compromise championed almost without fail is to allow a troubled pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription as long as the customer is provided another means of obtaining the drugs in question. Normally this means that it will be filled by another pharmacist on duty, or that the prescription will be transferred to another pharmacy.

But as I wrote here, this isn't a valid compromise:

Where does this leave rural areas? Shall we leave out the large percentage of people who live in small towns with only one pharmacy? When there is no competition, the free market is not a viable solution.

Another way of putting this is that it fails Immanuel Kant's first moral imperative: "Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature." In other words, what happens when all the pharmacists refuse to either stock the drugs or fill the prescriptions?

Enter Tucson, AZ.

Although it is safe, effective and legal, emergency contraception - the "morning after" pill - can be hard to find in Tucson.

After a sexual assault one recent weekend, a young Tucson woman spent three frantic days trying to obtain the drug to prevent a pregnancy, knowing that each passing day lowered the chance the drug would work.

While calling dozens of Tucson pharmacies trying to fill a prescription for emergency contraception, she found that most did not stock the drug.

When she finally did find a pharmacy with it, she said she was told the pharmacist on duty would not dispense it because of religious and moral objections.

How many more concrete examples do we need before we wake up and realize that this isn't a viable compromise? In fact, it isn't a compromise at all. Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. A pharmacists right to practice his religion ends where it becomes forcing his belief on me.

Blogrolling

Additions

Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk
Lawyers, Guns and Money
Lowland Seed
Pharyngula
The Rude Pundit
Whiskey Bar

I've been reading every one of these blogs obsessively for quite awhile now. But the best part of getting them on my blogroll is that I can finally let myself forget how to spell "pharyngula."


Regretful Removals

Fifth Decade. Dan hasn't written since April. It is with a heavy heart that I remove him from my blogroll. If you ever come back, Dan, let me know, because I want you on there.

Ten Thirty-One Productions. A fellow Omaha blogger stopped writing, then apparently deleted his blog, and now it's ... that.

Political Animal. This one isn't really that regretful. I haven't really been a huge fan of Kevin Drum for awhile now, and I don't read this blog anymore. I'm sure he'll miss the vast amounts of traffic I send his way, but I really can't help that. Anyway, this delinking isn't intended to be a criticism of Kevin so much as a reflection of the fact that I don't read him anymore.


Corrections

Jonna's Blog. It's my own freaking sister, and the link hasn't worked since I put it up there several months ago. It had an extra http:// thrown in for good measure. Apparently web browsers don't like that. It's an elitist conspiracy, I tell you.

Sis, the link is fixed. Mea culpa.

Sexism Saturday, Part 2

Sexism is the topic of the day, apparently. Patrick from Yelladog is guest posting at Shakespeare's Sister. He wrote a good post on Maureen Dowd's recent OpEd column in the New York Times (no direct NYT link because I'm not a subscriber). Dowd comes down hard on Judy Miller, her editors, and the Times itself. Like Part 1 of Sexism Saturday, my beef with Patrick's post is fairly picky. At the end of his article, Patrick writes:

I have a good friend who is married to a woman who cannot say no to a stray cat. They share a two bedroom apartment with six cats. It's not the happiest situation, not for the people and definitely not for the cats, but these were cats that were going to be put down or were just wandering the streets, so at least they're not dead. However, since cats are territorial, there is some friction, and there is one cat who is The Boss. Every now and then, The Boss has had all he can take, and he goes from room to room finding each of the other cats and smacking them around. My friend described it as "Guess what!?? It's 'Everybody-gets-an-ass-whippin'-day!'"

As I wrote in the comments, I think comparing Maureen Dowd's disagreement with Judy Miller to a catfight only serves to minimize Dowd's opinions. Patrick disagrees. He thinks that had the imagery been that of dueling wombats or tapirs, it would've been equally funny. Patrick says that the description came to mind only because his friend has cats and not wombats.

And that may be the case. Nonetheless, if you saw two monkeys fighting at a zoo and then wrote about how much they reminded you of your two black neighbors, you'd be rightly accused of racism. Likewise, when someone compares disagreement between women to a catfight, don't be surprised when I call you out for sexism. Especially when you acknowledge that the sexist nature of the comparison occurred to you before you posted it.

I have to wonder, would Patrick have used the same analogy if the disagreement had been between Paul Krugman and David Brooks? Though I can't say for sure, I tend to suspect the comparison wouldn't have occurred to him. Regardless, if he knew that his paragraph had an ambiguously sexist connotation, I think he should've changed it instead of risking misinterpretation.

If catfight wasn't widely understood to mean women fighting, then the imagery would've been appropriate. As it is, the word carries a negative connotation. Depicting someone as the winner of a catfight simply isn't normally understood to be a compliment.
Patrick invites me to interpret him any way I like. In fact, I would like to interpret this as a mistake and misunderstanding. But he makes that difficult when he also claims that I have highly tuned sensibilities. By this I understand him to mean that he thinks I'm being overly sensitive to this issue. It is just such an attitude that allows women to continue to be marginalized. Is it any wonder that people keep asking where all the women bloggers are?

Sexism Saturday, Part 1

A few days ago, an online comic strip by Scott Kurtz called PVP ran this cartoon. It is part of a recent story arc involving the character Brent finding out that his girlfriend might be pregnant. Brent falls asleep and begins dreaming that he has a daughter. He and his fictional daughter converse about Brent's fears of being a father. In this cartoon, his daughter tells him this:

You know how to raise a son. Just raise him like your dad raised you. But you have no idea what to do with a girl. A son's love never changes. But one day I'm going to grow up and fall in love with another man and break your heart.

To be fair, I don't think Kurtz is being sexist on purpose. Nonetheless, a hint of sexism has found its way into his cartoon. And it is especially interesting given his blog's admission that the storyline is inspired by his recent reflections on whether or not he would ever make a good father. I have two problems with the quote above. The first is that I don't agree with the idea that a person can know how to raise a boy, but have no idea how to raise a girl. What special considerations exist for one gender that doesn't exist for the other? Though I should probably write more about this, I find the second problem more interesting.

Kurtz says that a son's love will never change, but a daughter's will. This is puzzling when you consider that a son is just as likely to fall in love when he grows up as a daughter is*. So why does he think that his daughter is replacing him, but his son isn't?

This speaks volumes about the sexist assumptions built into our society. As Kurtz unintentionally shows, there is an expectation that it should be harder for men to watch a daughter get married than it is to watch a son. Built into this assumption is the idea that men should be jealous of their daughter's boyfriends. This jealousy mirrors closely the jealousy of monogamy in that it implies that you can only love one person at a time.

It is especially interesting since Kurtz acknowledges later in the story arc that people can, in fact, love more than one person at a time. But he only applies his insight in a limited manner. He points out that parent can love her child without diminishing the love she feels for her spouse. He doesn't seem to realize that the insight applies equally to a daughter's love for her husband and her father.

The whole thing makes me wonder: Does Kurtz think his wife replaced his mother? It's a scary thought, and I certainly hope he doesn't. And if not, then why does he think his daughter's husband would replace him? While it is often hard to watch our kids grow up, most of us agree that we want our children to become self-sufficient adults. We don't want to be acting in the same parenting capacity when our children are 20 as we are when they are 7. Presumably, by the time his daughter is preparing to get married, she will have already grown up and moved out of the house. So how is he being replaced?

In short, he isn't. Such fears are founded on patriarchy, which just goes to show that sexism hurts us all. Even when the sexism is subtle.


* Of course, another assumption is a son will fall in love with a woman, and a daughter will fall in love with a man. Don't even get me started on what happens if the son or daughter ends up being gay. It's just one more reason that gender shouldn't play a large role in how you raise your children.

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So hundreds of players played the Lost numbers in Powerball for the $340 million jackpot. I'm trying to wrap my head around this. Obviously, by playing the lottery at a time when even thousands of people who normally don't buy tickets are playing, they're showing that they do, in fact, believe in luck. But the Lost numbers are supposed to bring bad luck. So by playing the Lost numbers, they're showing ... what? That they don't believe in luck after all? Are they just trying to be ironic?

I don't get it.

A moving essay by PZ Myers

I'm in the middle of writing a post with more substance, but unfortunately it's getting late and words aren't coming to me any longer. In my stead, here's a post from way back in April from a guy who really should be on my blogroll, PZ Myers:

Maybe, though, while we are personally unacknowledged, there will be some trace left in the genes of several times great grandchildren, or in a few words preserved in a library, or in some tiny nudge we've given history. That's all I aim for, that I can sow a seed that will in turn sow a seed that will sow a seed that…and so it goes. That's enough.

Please, read the whole thing. It's moving, and the quote doesn't do it justice.

News from the world of stem cells

This is good news, sort of.

Two new mouse experiments may show how to obtain human embryonic stem cells without ethical hurdles, a step that could allow federal funding for such research, scientists reported Sunday.

But let's not fool ourselves: It isn't great news. Instead of spending their time unlocking the secrets of stem cells, scientists are forced to waste time looking for new sources of the cells. But we already have sources. Plenty of them.

Embryos that are already being legally destroyed are not allowed to be used for scientific research. This really isn't much different than if people were not allowed to donate their organs out of fear that people would then raising children for organ farms. Or if people weren't allowed to do research on cadavers for fear of encouraging people to kill others for a fresh supply. It's like telling people they can't donate their baby's organs* because it might encourage people to kill their babies.

If you think about it, this is a frightening precedent. Logically, a person who wants to prevent frozen embryos from being destroyed likely wants to prevent those embryos from being created in the first place. If this were taken to it's ideological conclusion, it would mean the end of in vitro fertilization as a means to help women stuggling with infertility.

I don't know about you, but that's not a world I'm excited to live in.


* Come to think of it, can a parent donate their deceased baby's organs? I'm actually not sure.

A good way to start the day

I love driving in to work while it is still dark outside. Part of it is the lack of traffic, but mostly it's that I'm much more of a night person than a morning person. Somehow, the darkness fools me into feeling more awake. As I got out of my car upon arriving to work this morning, I looked up to admire the stars, and I was startled to see a small sliver of darkness covering the left hand side of the moon. I knew the moon was supposed to be close to being full, but I honestly wasn't sure how close. But what surprised me was that the shadow didn't look like a normal lunar phase. It looked for all the world like the shadow of a partial lunar eclipse.

Sure enough, that's what it was.

I went out for another look.

Sneering at big families

If you read the same blogs I do, you've probably come across a thing or two about Michelle Duggar, the Arkansas mother who just gave birth to her 16th child.

Over at Shakespeare's Sister, commentors have expressed dismay over the Duggars' decision to have so many children. Responding to a comment that the Duggars' decision is "wildly irresponsible," one commentor said:

I'll second that! I read this story yesterday and it made me want to hurl. No one has any right to bring that many kids into the world, and then just keep having more and more and more. How, I'd like to know, are they going to pay for all these kids to have a decent college education?

I must admit, I'm kind of taken aback by this attitude. Partly it's the expectation that everyone deserves a college education. For some careers, a college degree is indespensible. For others, it's highly advisable to have one. But people can certainly hold down a steady job without going to college. Perhaps I'm biased here -- I have a career in software development, and I have no college degree. I'm certainly not arguing that a degree isn't beneficial. I'm just trying to figure out where the expectation that parents should pay for their children's higher education comes from.

The other thing that confuses me is that we of the liberal persuasion tend to argue just the opposite: that people should have the choice on just exactly how many kids they bring into the world, and at what times. Isn't that the whole point of being pro-choice? Sure, most of the time we are defending a woman's right not to have a baby if she doesn't want to. But choice works both ways. If a woman wants to have an exceptionally large family, and has found the means to pay for it and make it all work out, shouldn't we be defending that choice instead of showing disgust for it?

I should add that I'm a little dubious of this family's rationale to have this many children. To wit:

"We both just love children and we consider each a blessing from the Lord. I have asked Michelle if she wants more and she said yes, if the Lord wants to give us some she will accept them," [Jim Bob Duggar] said in a telephone interview.

But then, I would be dubious: I'm an atheist. Though I'm not personally swayed by their logic, that doesn't mean that I don't support their right to live by their values and have the kind of family they want, regardless of it's size.

So that's my opinion as of right now. What do you think? If you disagree with me, leave me a comment and tell me why.