Happy wishes for the holiday, and two other points

Here's a big Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate it. And even if you don't, I hope you have a great day. I'm remote blogging from my mom's house in Topeka, KS, where I'll be until Saturday-ish. (We haven't completely nailed down our plans; it could be Sunday before we return.)

In the mean time, there are two points of interest that I'd like to mention. First, I'm reasonably certain that I did not have any conversations with Bob Woodward regarding Valerie Plame's status as a CIA agent.* In fact, I'm fairly sure I have never had any conversation with Bob Woodward whatsoever. I must admit that given recent events, I'm not regretting that in the least.

Second, I saw via Orange Tangerine and Welcome To The Nuthouse that December 1st is Blog Against Racism Day. As fate would have it, I was already planning on writing a post about racism anyway, so I already have a topic in mind. So really, this special day for racism blogging allows me to feel like I'm participating in something important while simultaneously practicing a favorite hobby of mine: procrastination.

I know I said there were only two points, but I do appreciate your willingness to indulge me in one more: Sunday is my birthday. I'll be 27. (And you know what they say about 27, right? Eight nine thirty.) I mention it only as an explanation for why I won't be posting until Monday. But I do promise to come back with something substantial next week.

So until Monday, please have a wonderful and safe weekend.


* I know I'm late to this party. But allow a poor blogger to indulge himself, won't you?

They say it's cathartic

Shakespeare's Sister asks, do you have an unkindness that you regret? Oh boy, do I ever. I have several; and perhaps that's normal. Her story was from high school about a boy named Charles. For some reason, it reminded me of a story of my own.

I wasn't very popular in gradeschool. In fact, it isn't an exaggeration to say I had no friends. Looking back, I'm pretty sure I know why that was. It's complicated and I probably wouldn't be able to get it to come across right, but suffice it to say that for all I was acutely aware of what the other kids thought about me, I wasn't at all aware of how I was coming across to them. I'm sure there are similiar kids in every school. I was the one who nobody was playing with on the playground.

Well, not the only one. There was this other kid named Robbie, and if such a thing were possible, he was actually less popular than I was. He got all kinds of crap from just about everyone. The other kids liked to say that Robbie smelled. As far as I could ever tell, he didn't, but I suppose that doesn't stop little kids. Robbie and I hung out sometimes, because I was desparate to play with somebody, but most of the time I shunned him like everyone else did. I was afraid that being seen with him would hurt my already low chances of befriending the other kids.

Sometime in 3rd grade, Robbie moved away, and it was no big deal. Honestly, I don't even think I noticed he was gone until one day in 4rd grade, our teacher announced that we'd be getting a new student. But the student wasn't new. It was Robbie. You could feel the ripple of revulsion and excitement ripple down the room. The next day, Robbie started.

I don't know where he'd been for a year, but that boy had changed. He smiled a knowing smile at me, and I could see in his eyes that whereever he'd been, something had happened. He'd found a respect for himself he didn't have before. He had a certain confidence about him. He was cool, and he knew it.

But apparently the other kids didn't, because the teasing resumed immediately, and it was worse than it had ever been before. Maybe the kids had just taken the intervening year to learn how to become all the more vicious. Or maybe they thought they had to punish him for daring to find self respect. Whatever the case, it seemed Robbie attracted the ire of everyone.

And a weird thing happened: people started treating me nicer. Instead of laughing at me, they would laugh with me. It seemed to me that with all of their hatred directed at Robbie, they had none left over for me.

I'd love to say that I didn't realize what was happening, but I did. And I'd love to say that I realized that people like that aren't worth having as friends; that Robbie was the one who deserved my friendship. But I didn't. What happened instead was that I continued trying to convince the other kids that I wasn't like him. I remember when a rumor went around that Robbie had a crush on one particular girl, I agreed with her that he was pretty gross. If it seems like such minor shit now, try to remember back to gradeschool and how we lived and died by that kind of thing. You know that old saying, Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me? It isn't true.

He didn't finish fourth grade with us. In just a couple of months, the teacher was telling us that he wasn't coming back. She didn't say where he was going, and I didn't care. In fact, I remember feeling a sense of panic: without Robbie to act as the target of everyone's ire, would they all turn on me again?

And they did. Just as I had feared, the other kids were free to attack me instead. Things settled back to the normal routine.

Which I guess I deserved. That summer my mom told me that Robbie'd had to leave school because of a mental breakdown. Sorry, Rob. You deserved better, and I should've been there for you.

Cross posted in the comments at Shakespeare's Sister

Kids in public

So Shakespeare's Sister wrote a post about kids in public. I don't disagree with her often, but when I do, I go big. And I don't think I could object more strenuously this post:

It’s not that I don’t like kids, it’s just that if I wanted to be around them 24/7, I’d be a parent myself.

...

You know what I’d love? For people who have children to stop drudging up the old “people who don’t have children always think they’re experts on childrearing” canard every single time a childless person has an opinion on anything remotely related to children or parenting. When a dosey old spinster aunt looks down her patrician nose and sniffs, “If I had a child, he wouldn’t ever behave like that,” as the kid wails after conking his head on her glass coffee table, it’s a fair thing to say.

However, when someone suggests that a screeching two-year-old, whether screeching from pain or pleasure, doesn’t belong in a café, it’s not a fair thing to say. It implies that the childless are so bereft of the requisite knowledge to parent that we don’t even know that the volume of children’s voices can’t be controlled every minute of the day. Of course we know that. It may, in fact, be one of the primary reasons we don’t have children. The thing is, I think most parents who launch that condescending attempt at opinion-trumping know that we’re not dumb enough to believe their kids are squealing because of bad parenting. It’s just easier to hide behind that deliberate misconstruence than address what we’re really saying—that their kids are squealing in a café because their parents are bloody selfish.

As I said, I disagree with this post and almost everyone who has commented on it. The tone of the post (and most of the comments) says that children are not valuable members of our society. One person went so far as to specifically state that people have a right to be away from children while in public.

And to those people, I say this: In fact, you do have the right to be away from children. You have that right in your own home. But you don't have that right in public, because children are not "squawk-boxes" -- they're human beings. They are people. People who have not yet mastered the skills necessary to be quiet at all times, yes, but people nonetheless. They have as much right to be in a public space as you do.

Speaking of canards, you know what I'd love? I'd love for people who have chosen not to have kids to stop pretending that hearing a kid throw a temper tantrum one time is the same as being "around them 24/7." It isn't. If you encounter a kid at a cafe, you sure as hell aren't around them 24/7. You're around them for an hour or two, tops. Considering the fact that you will go home and spend the rest of your day sans children, I don't see why you're complaining. You seem to think that kids shouldn't have meltdowns around you, and that you shouldn't have to deal with them even for a moment because it is unpleasant.

Adults who take their children into public aren't being irresponsible. There is no right that says that public spaces should be free of people who annoy you. It happens all the time with adults, and you don't seriously argue that there should be "no asshole zones." A lot of people don't like to see the disabled, but if someone argued that disabled people shouldn't be allowed in certain areas of public because their mere presence causes people discomfort, you'd rightly decry it. It's pretty much the same thing with kids.

Bond ... James Bond

Sometimes it's hard to work up the energy to be outraged over everything that deserves that kind of attention. Alito, the ongoing prison scandal (with secret prisons this time!), and almost every other aspect of the Bush presidency... I don't have the energy tonight.

So instead, I took a cue from Shakespeare's Sister. Earlier this week she said she needed to see things get blown up, so she went and saw a movie. That sounded about right to me too, so tonight it was James Bond in For Your Eyes Only.

My son summed it up thusly:

"Daddy, I liked that movie. All the boys have guns, some of the girls have guns, there are good guys, and bad guys, and good girls."

I guess if you've seen one, you've seen them all.