This day in history!

Some things that happened on 19 May throughout history:

In 804, Alcuin of York, mentor of Charlemagne, died.
In 1536, Anne Boleyn died, rather messily.
In 1588, the Spanish Armada set sail.
In 1848, Mexico gave Texas to the United States.
In 1864, Nathaniel Hawthorne died.
In 1890, Ho Chi Minh was born.
In 1898, William Gladstone died.
In 1910, Cy Young won his 500th game.
In 1915, Pol Pot was born (boo!).
In 1925, Malcolm X was born.
In 1945, Pete Townshend was born.
In 1948, Grace Jones was born.
In 1959, Nicole Brown Simpson (R.I.P.) was born.
In 1967, the United States bombed Hanoi.
In 1974, the Philadelphia Flyers won the Stanley Cup!
In 1976, Kevin Garnett was born.
In 1992, Amy Fisher shot Mary Jo Buttafuoco.
In 1994, Jackie O died.

And, of course, in 1971, your future dictator of the world was born! Oh, frabjous day! When I rule the world, this will of couse be a holiday. Who wouldn't want the day off to celebrate the birth of their benevolent leader?

Idiots rule the world!

Today the family went to see a ballet of Peter Pan. Krys thought it would be fun for the kids, and it was, for the most part. We're not sure if Mia really got the whole thing or not, but she seemed to enjoy it. Norah liked saying things like "They flying!" when Peter, Tinkerbell, and Wendy rose off the stage (they were attached to wires), so we had to tell her to hush. She sat on Krys the entire time because she couldn't see over the seats in front. But that's not important right now!

The ballet wasn't great. It was fine, but not great. But at the end, two things happened that annoys me about the theater. First, most of the theater gave the cast a standing ovation. Standing ovations have become pretty standard with theater productions, and it pisses me off. There's nothing really wrong with it (I did not participate), but it's kind of a symptom of what Americans have become - always praising everything to the extreme, no matter the quality of it. I appreciated the ballet company, but I didn't think the dancers deserved a standing ovation. It's kind of annoying.

The second thing that happened was even worse. While the applause was going on, and while the dancers were still bowing, people were leaving. Krys and I noticed this years ago in Portland. The worse time was when we went to the opera, where you would expect people to have a bit more class, and people left. This was the first time we had been to a theater in a while, and apparently this trend is still a trend. I loathe this trend. This is such an insult to the people who perform. I think giving a standing ovation is overpraising, but I certainly don't believe in insulting people who work hard to put on a nice show. There's no excuse for this kind of behavior. I don't care if you have small children - I have a two-year-old, and she didn't need to run out of there! People like this need to be beaten within an inch of their lives. People wonder why Americans have a reputation for being rude. This is one small reason why.

Won't it be nicer when I'm dictator and we can send people who leave theater productions before the bows are finished to the camps?

Someone else who better hope I never become dictator!

Unlike the woman from last week, this is a somewhat benign story, but these people still better watch out when I take over:

A thirteen-year-old girl is the U. S. text messaging champion. Read that headline again: text messaging champion!!!!

Now, this wouldn't be so bad - it's harmless, right? She won $25,000. TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!! Not to get into my own personal financial horrors, but that's more than we have in our savings account. And she won it for being able to text message.

I'd quote from the article, but it's far more fun to read it. I will quote the second-place finisher, a 23-year-old "man," who, when asked if he was disappointed, replied, "I just got beaten by a teenage girl, but you know." Uh, sir - if that's the reason you're disappointed, might I suggest a bigger reason is that you're competing in a text messaging competition and you're 23? Jesus.

Again, I don't blame the contestants, although if my child were texting 8,000 times a month, like little Morgan Pozgar (who was on ESPN yesterday morning for her triumph in this "sport"), it might be time to have a little chat with her. I blame the people who decided to give money to people for doing this. In fact, I'm going to start my own competition: sitting on my ass. Oh wait: there's probably already a Couch Potato International.

Jesus. And people wonder why the world is going in the crapper. When I'm dictator, these kinds of competitions will be banned and the people who want to join them will be forced to make those little carriages that go inside Fabergé eggs. You know, so they can do something useful with their hands!

Worst news story ever

Krys saw this story in the Monday (2 April) edition of the Arizona Republic. It's just one of those news briefs, so I can't link to it, but I'll reproduce it in its entirety. Prepare to be disturbed.

A 33-year-old woman was arraigned Sunday on charges alleging she offered to let an undercover investigator take pornographic photos of her 7-year-old daughter and have sex with the girl, authorities said.

The woman was arrested Friday after taking the girl to a hotel in Romulus, near Detroit Metropolitan Airport, where she had agreed to meet the investigator, the Wayne County sheriff's department said.

A not guilty plea was entered on behalf of the woman, who wasn't represented by a lawyer at the arraignment, department spokesman John Roach said. She was held in lieu of $1 million bail, and a preliminary examination was scheduled for April 12.

"She offered to let an undercover investigator take pornographic photos of her 7-year-old daughter and have sex with the girl." If they find out that this woman isn't completely divorced from reality through some sort of supreme fucked-up wiring of her brain and she's guilty, they need to shoot her through the brain in a public square. This is just horrible.

Can I buy my own island and move there? That has to be an option, right?

Yet another reason why I don't read the newspaper

From the Arizona Republic, Thursday, 8 February 2007:

As many as three eighth-grade boys accused of sexually abusing female classmates at Desert Arroyo Middle School committed sexually graphic acts in class, according to a police report released Wednesday.

Victims told police that the 13-year-olds grabbed girls' breasts and told them to touch the boys' genitals during a social studies class, according to Scottsdale police sex-crimes investigators.

...

The boys face criminal charges that range from indecent exposure to sexual abuse. Several students reported that the boys repeatedly groped 13-year-old girls and tried to solicit sex acts in class.

...

Several students told Scottsdale sex-crimes detectives they saw the boys expose their genitals and inappropriately touch girls during teacher Craig Bragg's social studies classes.

Bragg, who remains on paid administrative leave, denied witnessing any misconduct. He told police that students would have to be "sneaky" if they didn't catch his attention.

"I feel bad. I don't feel negligent," Bragg told detectives. "I keep a good rein on the kids. There is not a lot of bad behavior in my class."

...

Incidents reported by students in Bragg's class include:

• One boy exposing his genitals to classmates "at least 10 times" over several weeks, including five times in one class.

• One of the boys putting his pubic hairs on a girl's pen, which she inadvertently put in her mouth.

• During a movie in class, one of the boys masturbated in front of classmates.

According to the report, one girl told investigators that one of the boys put his hand up her pants and groped her during a Spanish class the previous school year. The boy often slapped her rear end and touched her in other inappropriate ways, but she was scared to tell anyone because even though he was a "pervert," he was popular and physically larger than her.

Sigh. Is it any wonder those home-schoolers have the right idea? This is just disgusting on so many levels, and sadly, the boys in the class aren't the most disgusting of the bunch. I hate to say this, but for 13-year-olds boys, a "boys will be boys" mentality prevails. I'm certainly not excusing these kids and if one of my daughters ever told me a boy did this to her, I would hunt that child down and make him suffer (and I don't care if I'm bigger than they are). But a lot of these hijinks, I suspect, were things the boys did because they didn't think there was anything wrong with it. Sure, they knew it would piss the girls off and that they would get in trouble if they were caught, but I wonder if they thought it was any different than tugging on a girl's ponytail or flicking boogers at a girl. Gross and mean, but not psychologically damaging. Maybe they did and didn't care. I'm not sure. The kids I taught, who were a few years older, weren't all that sophisticated when it came to sex (despite the children they bore), so these kids might not have known how awful they were. Again, that's not an excuse.

The people who really piss me off in this situation are the parents and the teacher. First, the parents. Where do you think these kids get their ideas about abusing girls? Sure, they get it from popular culture, but that's filtered through their parents. If these kids hear people in pop culture calling women "bitches" and "whores" and their parents don't say anything about how awful it is, even if it's not to them specifically, then they'll think it's okay. Of course, a lot of these parents call women "bitches" and "whores," which might be even worse. I don't know how we're going to do as the kids get older and get exposed to more of this stuff. We will try to let them know what's right and wrong, though.

The teacher also is to blame for a lot of this. I just can't believe it went on without him catching on, especially the extent of it. Yes, the girls might have been embarrassed to say anything, because the boys were popular and bigger than they were and because they had a male teacher. But how, exactly, does a kid masturbate in your class in front of other kids? I used to show movies occasionally, and there were some dark corners of the room where this kind of thing could have happened, I suppose. I could even believe a kid jerking off without anyone knowing about it. But in front of classmates? Wouldn't that be hard to miss? As for a lot of the other stuff, maybe the girls didn't want to say anything for any number of reasons (although, again, it comes back to parenting, and we're going to try to raise the girls to be the kind of people who would not only report this, but kick the boy's ass in the process), but if a boy whipped his dick out in front of a girl in the class, there would be a reaction - either loud cries of how gross it is or even giggles. Either way, it's something the teacher should have heard and investigated, even if he wasn't sure what was happening. There's a difference between normal goofiness that goes on in class and something like this, which would definitely draw a different reaction by the victims.

I hate to get all conservative, but modern society makes me sick sometimes. What a horrible story. Yet all anyone in the big-time media wants to talk about is the death of a woman who once took her clothes off for money. But that's a whole different post!

Some good reasons why I don't want to go back into education

You know, I enjoy being a stay-at-home dad. It's neat. But sometimes I think I should go back into the job market and start teaching again. The world thirsts for my knowledge and what I can bring to them!!!! And then I read shit like this:

Embraced by PE programs sport stacking combines concentration, dexterity. That's "sport stacking" as in stacking cups. Very quickly.

I'm not going to linger on this story very long, because once cup stacking becomes a "sport," can thumb twiddling be far behind? Read the article. I saw a few kids stacking cups on ESPN a few months ago. Yes, they're fast. Yes, it might improve dexterity. But why don't these PE teachers teach the kids how to tie their shoelaces? I used to teach plenty of kids who didn't know how to tell time, and the day is coming - mock at your peril! - when high school kids won't know how to tie their shoelaces. Mia's speech therapist told me she hated PE, because she was lousy at it and the teacher - the teacher! - would laugh at her. Instead of making the kids who are lousy at sports stack cups, wouldn't it be better if PE teachers taught them some, you know, physical activity? How is cup stacking going to solve the obesity problem in our country? I'm just asking.

Anyway, that's a minor annoyance compared to this story. Schools in Arizona are beginning to offer a teaching model used around the world that "pushes students to become proficient in two languages, think critically instead of regurgitating memorized answers and learn from a global perspective by studying other cultures." So far, there are 11 such schools in Arizona. Beyond this, elementary students are awarded for picking up litter at a school near the Grand Canyon, community service is required for older students, teachers receive extensive training from the International Baccalaureate organization, from which the program is devised, with common planning periods. The IB organization, which is based in Geneva, started in 1968 for the children of diplomats, and they built a curriculum that would be accepted by universities worldwide.

Sounds groovy, doesn't it? Children should learn more than their native language, and they shouldn't have to simply memorize things by rote. When I taught World History, I told the students that I wouldn't make them memorize dates, because you can always look dates up. I wanted them to understand the forces that shape history and why groups act like they do. I did want them to have a general understanding of when things happened, but if they knew that the Hundred Years' War was fought in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, did I really care if they knew that the Battle of Agincourt was in 1415? I did not. As for other languages, that's just common sense. Spanish is the most obvious important one for people here in the Southwest, but any number of European languages are important, as is Arabic, as is Chinese. So it's all good, right?

Well, shit, of course not. Can anyone guess why someone would be opposed to this kind of teaching? If you said "isolationist, xenophobic bullshit," step to the head of the line! Parents and lawmakers are apparently troubled that a Swiss organization is influencing good old-fashioned American education. In the Upper St. Clair School District in Pennsylvania, the board voted to remove the program from schools, which prompted a backlash from parents and students. Students! Gee, who knew students could be passionate about learning when they weren't just sitting around listening to boring lectures? One board member reportedly said the program went against "Judeo-Christian values." WTF? Since when are schools where we learn Judeo-Christian values? Isn't that what church is for? Jesus Christ, I hate being an American sometimes. In Texas, the Texas Eagle Forum, a conservative group organized by Phyllis Schlafly (yes, it's a Phyllis Schlafly mention!) warned legislators that the program has an international focus and philosophy.

Jesus Christ again. It's shit like this that make me glad I'm not in education currently. If my daughter came home and told me that they were stacking cups in PE, I'd go to school and tell them I would much rather she do something that, you know, raises her heart rate. If my daughter came home and told me that they were stopping her language program and going back to memorizing a long list of U.S. presidents instead of, you know, learning anything about those presidents, I'd be pretty pissed. I do like how American education is in the toilet, but anything that might get it out that has a hint of "internationalism" has to be strangled at birth. Why won't these mouth-breathers die off and let someone else try something? If you want your child to be Bible-thumping, narrow-minded, English-only-speaking, foreigner-hating, jingoistic Bush-lovers, then just home school them. Pump into them whatever ideology you want and leave the rest of us alone. Jesus.

Sorry, I get a little bitter when I think about the state of education in this country. And then I think that the only ones I have to care about now are Mia and Norah. So that makes it a little better.

When I'm dictator, Entertainment and Sports Programming Networks will have to shape up!

First, a reason to pay your bills online: a few minutes ago I was paying our electric bill (over 300 dollars - thank you, Arizona summer!). So I put the receipt in the envelope and sealed it. Then I looked over at the check, you know, with the actual payment, still lying on the kitchen counter. A quick re-opening before my saliva bonded completely with the gum and some Scotch tape solved the problem, but it does make a strong case for doing this online. I'm too old-fashioned for that, however.

Meanwhile, dictatoring never gets any easier, especially when I have to keep a long list of people who better hope I never become one. Gordon smartly knows how to suck up, and he will be remembered by the future regime, but others just don't get it. A certain sports network better get its act in gear, because they're on the list!

This morning I was watching Cold Pizza, as I have mentioned before is my morning viewing, and they were talking to a reporter from Arizona's own East Valley Tribune about the signing of Matt Leinart, who was the last first-round draft pick without a contract before finally getting a deal done last night. They asked him about the effect Leinart's hold-out will have on his status and development. Fine and dandy. However, the graphic on the screen read "Affect the hold out will have on Leinart," to paraphrase a bit. The thing I am not paraphrasing is the first word: Affect. Affect. Affect!!!!

Jesus H., if the editors at ESPN can't get easy shit like that right, then they all better look out when I rule the world. The camps will not be kind to people without a basic grasp of English!¹

¹ Yes, I know I may be a bit harsh here. But this is ridiculous. There are rules in English, you know, and although all language is fluid and changes, to blatantly flout those rules through ignorance is egregious. I shan't have it!

More people who really better hope I never become dictator

I mentioned last week that one of the kids at Mia's school is named Anakin. In the same pre-school class there is also a Takoda (I assume that's how it's spelled, but I can't be sure) and just the other day a new kid joined: Dakota (again, I hope that's how it's spelled). When did "Dakota" become the chic state name to call your child? Why not Minnesota? Or Delaware? Anyway, in Mia's pre-school: Anakin, Takoda, and Dakota. Arrrggggghhhh!

But those people may escape my wrath when I become dictator. After all, the kids have suffered enough punishment with those names, so why punish the parents? However, in yesterday's newspaper, this story made me want to march on Washington and seize power right now, just so I can throw these people in the concentration camps. Go on and read it and see if you don't agree with me.

There's so much in that story that makes me want to scream I don't know where to start. This 16-year-old has two cars, her parents paid $50,000 to rent a house for her 16th birthday party (which was broadcast on MTV's horror show, My Super Sweet 16, which will make your head explode if you watch more than three minutes of it - I push the envelope and watch two-and-a-half!), her party dress cost $5,000, her second car is "for the weekends" - it just goes on and on. You can visit her web site, too - but be warned: when you go there, her crappy demo song plays. Your ears may bleed.

It's not that I loathe Marissa for all this - she is caught up in this culture that claims you're only worth something if you're on television - but I do blame the parents, who know that she's spoiled, but they hope, as her mom says, that it's a "grounded spoiled." How the hell can it be? She hasn't earned any of this. Sure, she's been acting since she was seven, but there's a big difference between playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz for the Scottsdale Community Theater and actually having talent. Hell, I played Mayor George Shinn in our high school's production of The Music Man ("like a new Pacino" said our local newspaper), but you don't see me demanding that my parents fly me to Hollywood for auditions.

It's easy to blame the kids in this situation, and I certainly blame Marissa for her horrible singing (seriously - go check out her web site!) and the fact that, according to the episode guide for her 16th birthday party on MTV.com, some of the "non-popular" kids at her school were so desperate to be invited to her AdoreMarissa-a-thon that they had a "dance-off" to impress her and "earn" their way in. WTF? But, as usual, it's parents trying to buy their kids' love that's the real issue. I really hope I can resist, especially because the issue seems to be with daughters - I guess all sons desire are esoteric things like beating up nerds and scoring with skanky girls, so you can't really buy their love. I'd like to say it's not going to be a problem, but we'll see. I certainly won't be able to spend $150,000 on their 16th birthday parties, because I don't have that kind of money. Phew!

My nemesis, T., has some good thoughts on this, too. Yes, I'm agreeing with T. That strange sight you see out your window is blood falling from the sky and monkeys flying out of somebody's butt. However, T. didn't find the excellent story of Marissa. I think his head might have exploded if he did.

When I'm dictator, this kind of thing won't be happening, you can believe it. Marissa's parents will be thrown in the camps and dear sweet Marissa will have to get a job at Wendy's just like everyone else her age.

The Peter Pan-ification of America

I was reading a very interesting article by Adam Sternbergh in New York magazine. Actually, I was reading it in a magazine we get that summarizes all the big news stories of the previous week, but it originally appeared in New York, so let's give credit where it's due.

The article is very long. If you want to read it, start here and go from there. It's about, well, the lack of growing up in America these days. It's something that has bothered me for a long time. But I'm not a hoity-toity writer for New York magazine, so nobody cares what I think!

It's a very funny article. Sternbergh wants to know why people in their 30s and 40s refuse to grow up. They're listening to Death Cab For Cutie; they're wearing New Balance sneakers; they're forcing their kids to wear Misfits T-shirts; they're buying pre-ripped jeans for $400; they're reading books like Neal Pollack's Alternadad: The True Story of One Family's Struggles to Raise a Cool Kid in America. I know very little about Pollack, but what I do know suggests to me that he is, indeed, a tool.

Sternbergh makes an interesting point, one that I have noticed for a long time: music no longer defines the generation gap. He writes:

Once upon a time, pop culture, and in particular pop music, followed a certain reliable pattern: People listened to bands, like the Doobie Brothers or Cream or Steely Dan, that their Frank Sinatra-loving parents absolutely despised. Then these people had kids, and their kids became teens, and they started listening to bands, like the Clash or Elvis Costello or Joy Division, that their Cream-loving parents absolutely despised. And, lo, the Lord looked down and saw that it was good, and on the eighth day, He created the generation gap.

Now, he says, the parents who liked Joy Division think Interpol is totally awesome because the two bands sound alike (I've never heard Interpol and hate Joy Division, so I don't care). This is a very cogent point. When I taught, I listened to as much of the music that the kids did as not, and it was weird having conversations with them about bands that we both knew and liked. There is no longer much in terms of music that can be done, admittedly, and even hard core rap, stuff you might think parents today would object to, is passé. Can parents today really be offended by 50 Cent when they still have their copies of Fuck Tha Police? Sternbergh even quotes a guy - the creator of Love Monkey, the canceled television show - who mentions this phenomenon and can't decide if it's scarier for the kids or for him. I blame the kids. Get your own damned music!

The issue isn't just the music that has "collapsed" in on itself, but culture in general. Everyone looks the same - there are no markers for how old someone is or what kind of job they have. The only thing everyone agrees on is that suits are uncool. We are pursuing the aesthetic - "cool" - to the detriment of everything else. This also means that we are pursuing nostalgia to the detriment of everything else. As Sternbergh points out, new music sounds like music of twenty years ago, vintage rock T-shirts and ripped jeans are hot - and not rock T-shirts that you bought at a concert twenty years ago, but one you got on the Internet for $60.

Sternbergh mentions the work ethic of the Grups, as he calls them, and it's rather fascinating: they are much more interested in doing what makes them happy than doing what makes them rich. This is a great idea, and something everyone should pursue. He mentions that a recent survey showed 54% of people wouldn't want their boss's job no matter how much money you paid them. This is a complete reversal from the way the corporate world used to be structured, and speaks volumes about how companies use, abuse, and throw away their workers these days. I don't have a problem with people wanting to work for themselves, but in his interviews, it's amazing how many of these people want to do one thing: work in entertainment or sports. They want to be famous or near famous people. Fame has replaced riches in the hierarchy of what we want in America. I would love to see a survey about which people would choose if they could only choose one.

There's nothing inherently wrong with all of this. It strikes me as pathetic, but maybe I'm a Grup (Sternbergh's term) myself and don't know it. The problem with this is in child-rearing. As Sternbergh points out:

Here's the bad news about kids: They're not cool. Especially little kids. Like, 2-year-olds? Forget it. Left to their own devices, they don't dress well, they have no sense of style, and frankly, their musical taste sucks.

Here's the good news about kids: They're defenseless. So if you want to put a Ramones T-shirt on your 2-year-old, you don't need his permission. All you need is for someone to have the great idea to make a 2-year-old-size Ramones T-shirt. (And trust me - someone's had that idea.) And if you want to play the Strokes for your 4-year-old son, what's he going to do? I'll tell you what - he's going to learn to love the Strokes.

The aforementioned tool, Neal Pollack, says his son like the Hives. Well, duh! Pollack probably plays them 24-7, which is a crime against nature (the Hives aren't very good). Good job, Neal!

But one wonders if this is - wait for it - good for the children! Won't someone think of the children???? I will admit, I listen to my own music around the kids. When we're in the car or occasionally while I'm feeding them, I'll put in something of mine and we'll all rock out. But a lot of people these days are trying to specifically turn their children into little versions of themselves - because, let's face it, they're so very cool, and nobody wants their kids to be uncool. And the parents run the risk of becoming uncool themselves.

Pollack again:

"You have to have a little bit of Dora the Explorer in your life," he says. "But you can do what you can to mute its influence." Okay. "And there's no shame, when your kid's watching a show, and you don't like it, in telling him it sucks." Yeah! There's no - wait. What? "If you start telling him it sucks, maybe he might develop an aesthetic."

Can you imagine telling your son or daughter to stop watching the Wiggles because they suck? What the hell is wrong with these people?

Sternbergh does interview some parents who are slightly less insane, but they still have this idea about raising kids that doesn't seem to be about raising children and more about raising cool people. He asked one of them what her worst fear was and she said that her kids become Republican. Consider that for a moment. "Republican" obviously means "uncool." I hope she was being facetious, because if my daughters become Republican but have successful lives without being raped, killed, turned onto drugs or alcohol, or abused in a relationship, I'll be a happy goddamned parent.

The problem with this is the kind of people our children will become. The lack of delineation between the generations breeds a lack of respect for the older generation. I'm certainly not the kind of person who thinks that everyone older is deserving of our respect, but what I'm talking about is a general lack of respect for anything that has come before. It is something that is infecting, for lack of a better word, our entire culture. These Grups are a product of the baby-boomers, who thought they could do everything - have a high-stress job that demanded long hours but paid well AND be a full-time parent. They grew up in a system that demanded more maturity from them when they were young, so they therefore rejected that when they reached a point when they were expected to be mature. This leads to a breakdown in respect, as I pointed out. Why should kids respect "adults" who go to the same clubs as they do? More importantly, why should kids listen to those same adults when they tell the kids what not to do? That would be "uncool." It stems from a desire by these parents to be cool, which translates into a desire to be liked by their kids. These people (yes, I'm generalizing, but bear with me) were denied a close relationship with their parents, because their parents were adults and were more concerned with providing a stable life for their kids then bonding with them. There's absolutely nothing wrong with bonding with your kids, but it seems like the people in this article have swung the pendulum completely the other way. It's stuff like this that leads to the parents of Ned Flanders telling the child psychologist about disciplining young Ned: "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas." Kids don't need their parents to be cool - they might want it, but kids want to stuff themselves full of marshmallows a lot, too - that doesn't mean we should let them. This also leads to another phenomenon we see all too often in society today - a lack of taking things seriously. I've mentioned this before - we don't take the war in Iraq seriously, for instance - but it's worth pointing out that we have become much more casual about things, and I'm not totally convinced this is a good thing. I'm as casual as anyone - I don't like wearing suits and I dig jeans. But some things I think we do need to take seriously in our lives. Graduations, weddings, and funerals, for instance. It drives me crazy when people act like children at these things. At parties afterward, act however the hell you want. But during the ceremonies, take them seriously. This bothers me because we as a culture are slowly learning that everything is casual, and when something serious comes up, we don't know how to handle it. We're passing this on to our children.

This trend bugs me because I'm in the age group that Sternbergh describes. I don't know what's cool. Am I cool because I bought the new, stripped-down Neil Diamond album? Is that cool? Am I cool because I read comics, or does that make me a geek? Am I cool because I listen to the White Stripes and wear Teva sandals? Beats me. Personally, I don't give a shit. I'm sure these people aren't evil, but when your cultural pursuits override your commitment to your children, we have a problem. Kids like the Wiggles. Deal with it. When you have kids, you might have to skip going out to trendy restaurants and seeing Brokeback Mountain. You might have to miss that Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert occasionally. Your kids are moldable, as Pollack points out during his interview, but that doesn't mean you should force them to like something just because you do. I hope my kids like comics, but I'm not going to tear my hair out if they don't. I hope my kids like me, but I hope more that they respect me and listen to me, because I like to think I've had more experience than they have.

Anyway, the last word in Sternbergh's article goes to an unnamed musician who thinks all of these people are ridiculous. He said in the article, "And you know what? Giving your kid a mohawk is fucked up, too." This is funny because the parents of one of the kids at Mia's school, who may be Grups (or they may be in their early 20s, of course, in which case their behavior is forgivable), named their kid Anakin and gave him, yes, a mohawk. Today his head was shaved, so perhaps they realized how stupid he looked. Three-year-olds should not be deliberately made stupid-looking by their parents. That's just cruel.

Or am I guilty of taking this all too seriously?

Odd flotsam and jetsam

In the absence of links this week, I'd like to offer up some strange things from around my world. Because I can!

A guy sent me an e-mail asking me to promote his blog. He was doing it because he reads Comics Should Be Good, but I thought I'd promote it here, as well. It's actually pretty funny: Marmaduke Can Vote, a blog at which he rewrites Marmaduke comic panels to make them political. Go check it out if you have the time.

I also got an e-mail from a Burgas in England who Googled his name and found my blog. Hi, Richard. "Burgas" is a somewhat unusual name, so it's interesting to hear from one that is probably not related to me, except perhaps in some vague tangential sense (I don't know - maybe we're closely related!).

I was out and about yesterday and saw this car in a parking lot. If your eyes bleed, remember, I saw it live:

The front license plate read "Because I'm a Princess, that's why". Sigh. Just another person who will be put in the camps when I'm dictator.

This past week we had a new sink installed. Behold its excellence!


Smokey saw the sink and proclaimed it good.

And then, because he drank the forbidden water, he was possessed by Satan!


Strange things are afoot right outside our door, as well. The wind has been swirling the leaves into very cool fractal-type patterns:


I was cleaning the litter boxes, and I went around to the side of the house to wash them out with the hose. Inexplicably, someone had left a bicycle propped up against my house:

I have no idea what to do with it. I suppose I could ask a few neighbors if they know whose it is, but other than that, I have no idea. I'm still mulling it over. Anyone want a bike? You'll have to pay for shipping, but otherwise, it's free!

My cousin Kim has been doing some modeling, apparently. She's been in at least two different magazines. In these first two, I love how bored she looks. It's like she's been a supermodel for years!



I don't know what they did to her eyelashes in the last one but you can find it here, along with some other models. I'm just glad they didn't put her in the clothes the first model on the page is wearing, because you shouldn't see your cousin dressed like that! It's icky. Good for you, Kim, if you're reading.

I got a pretty good fortune the last time we got Chinese food:

I hope you can read it, because it's my kind of fortune! It's not the best one I ever got, which was, and I'm not kidding, "You are going to get some new clothes." I loved that fortune. Concise, to the point, realistic. I kept it for years but lost it somewhere. Oh well.

Finally, I found my favorite business card not long ago. I had lost it for a while. I can't even remember where I got it, but it's brilliant. When I am important enough to have a business card, it will look something like this:

Now that's the kind of guy you want at your next party!

I'll try to provide many and sundry links next weekend. We'll see how the week goes and how busy I am. As the kids get bigger and less inclined to lie still while I surf the 'net (that Norah - growing up like that!), I can't do it as often because I need to keep an eye on them. Darned kids!